Tested by Fate (2 page)

She didn’t flinch, being of the type who didn’t require her husband’s position to provide a defence. Lady Hughes was formidable in her own right, quite strong enough to examine Nelson with open curiosity, as if seeking to determine whether his words were true. He, on the other hand, could not respond in kind: he was well aware of the flaws in his forthright rejoinder and he was obliged to concentrate on his plate to hide his thoughts. He was contemplating putting the Admiral’s family ashore, with a “goddamn” to the professional consequences.

When he looked up again Lady Hughes had turned away. Her eyes were roaming the table and when she spoke Nelson knew that, despite his clear injunction against it, her attention had shifted to a new target.

“Lieutenant Millar, I’ve scarce been afforded a chance to make a proper acquaintance.” Nelson’s premier bowed his head in acknowledgement. “I am sure your duties have precluded it. You’re from the Americas, I’m informed, that melancholy country. My boy tells me you keep them to their tasks. Rest assured that my husband will be made aware of your zealous endeavour.”

“You are most gracious, milady.”

“Did you know that my husband once had this ship?”

His reply, when he took in the look on his captain’s face, was nervous: “No, madam, I did not.”

“And very fond of her we were. To me she will always be dear
Boreas.
Why, I felt as though I was stepping aboard a private yacht when I came on to the deck.” The hiss beside her, from the present commander, did nothing to deflect her. “Perhaps, Mr Millar, with your captain’s permission, you will escort me in a turn around the deck after dinner.”

Millar could not refuse: to a man of his rank the lady’s expressed wish was as good as a command. And his captain could not intercede for the sake of good manners. But it was gratifying to him, at least, to see Rosy Hughes drop her head into her napkin in a vain attempt to hide the embarrassment. At that moment Lepée, leaning close to whisper in his ear, distracted him.

“Mr Berry’s compliments, your honour. The Port Admiral has made our number and sent us a signal to weigh.”

“Mr Millar will be relieved when he hears that,” replied Nelson softly.

The forward half of Nelson’s cabin was partitioned so that he occupied his own sleeping and working quarters. The Hughes family had the day cabin as theirs, though they were obliged to shift to the coach during daylight hours. Despite his respect for Lady Hughes’s position, Nelson did not set aside the midshipmen’s lessons to accommodate her presence. A class of twenty-five, of whom all but five would shift to different ships when they raised Barbados, required space to learn their lessons. In truth, when it came to the majority their education was none of his concern, but if anything cheered him it was imparting knowledge to youngsters. To him, Edward Hughes was no different from the rest, and suffered not one jot from his mother’s poor relations with the Captain.

Nelson was also on deck at midday to oversee the noon observation, where the young men would learn to use their quadrants. They studied mathematics, trigonometry, and navigation with the master. At night they were lectured on the stars, so that they could read their way around the world by merely looking aloft. Then there were their duties as young gentlemen.

Though not commissioned, they were officers as far as the ship was concerned. Fencing lessons would be given daily. There was gunnery and sail drill; how to recognise which knot to use and when, then instructions in the actual tying. In calm weather, each mid in turn would be given command of a ship’s boat, with Giddings and an experienced master’s mate on board for company, their primary task to sail in strict station on the mother ship.

This manoeuvre called for seamanship. The run of the sea and the play of the wind on the frigate’s larger area of sail ensured different rates of progress. In time they would be ordered away to identify some imaginary sail on the horizon, with a rendezvous provided for the following day. These orders would be delivered by an officer standing on the poop, speaking trumpet in hand, yelling a stream of instructions, none repeated, which the candidate had to memorise without benefit of pen or paper.

Nelson’s greatest concern was for the youngest of his charges, an eleven-year-old child whose small build exaggerated his lack of years. Called Henry Blackwood, he was under four foot tall and so scrawny he looked like an eight-year-old. Nelson had paid particular attention to him from the first day, knowing that his appearance would leave him open to abuse from his fellows. Words with the gunner’s wife had him removed from the mid’s berth after dark, to be accommodated in the gunner’s own quarters, as Nelson had once been.

But that only protected the lad at night. During the day he was exposed to all the perils of his peers. The Navy required each young gentleman to progress at the same pace, and being the runt of the litter afforded the boy no special privilege. The first time he was ordered to go to the masthead nearly proved his undoing.
Boreas
was making around six knots, pitching and rolling evenly on what, for the coast of Brittany, was a calm sea. Nelson, pacing the windward side of the quarterdeck, well away from Lady Hughes taking the air on the poop, was watching the noisy group of mids out of the corner of his eye.

Each in turn was required to climb to the tops. He observed
the way little Blackwood eased himself back into the crowd, hoping that Berry would fail to notice him. But the second lieutenant knew his duty. He had 25 mids to send aloft, and only 24 had performed the task. When he enquired as to who had ducked their duty, every eye turned to the stripling boy, and a path was cleared between him and Berry, leaving the miscreant nowhere to hide.

“Mr Blackwood, you are required to proceed in a like manner to your fellows, that is, to the masthead.” The boy, who had never been further than the main cap, began to shake from head to foot, the image of terrified reluctance, which made Berry snarl, “It is your duty, young man!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” he piped, though his feet remained rooted to the spot.

“Then proceed.”

“With respect, sir, I can’t.”

Berry’s already swarthy face went two shades darker as he shouted his response, a bark that stopped Lady Hughes in her tracks. “Can’t, sir? You are in receipt of a direct order. You must and will obey.”

One foot moved but not the other. Blackwood, looking aloft to a point one hundred and twenty feet in the air, tried to suppress a sob, but it came out nevertheless. Nelson stepped forward on to the gangway, which immediately brought the entire party to attention. Berry whipped off his hat in a respectful salute, but his expression showed his true feelings: this was a situation in which his captain had no right to interfere.

Nelson couldn’t fault him: he had every right to require obedience to his orders. But this child was so small, and clearly so frightened, that he was in mortal danger. He would go aloft eventually. Berry, and the fear of derision from his peers, would ensure that. But would he reach his destination? In his terror he might slip. Luck, if it could be termed that, would take him overboard, to the chancy hazard of a difficult rescue from the cold sea, but if he mistimed his fall, he would land on the deck. That would see him entered in the ship’s log as “discharged, dead in the execution of his duties.”

“Mr Blackwood,” Nelson said, moving forward.

“Sir,” the boy squeaked, spinning to look at the Captain.

“I am about to go aloft myself. I’d be obliged if you would join me.”

With that Nelson stepped on to a barrel to aid his ascent to the bulwarks. He turned and smiled at Blackwood. “As you will observe, I am not as nimble as you. Why, I daresay you could leap to my side without the aid of that cask.”

The eye-contact produced the desired result. Blackwood’s expression changed from fear to something akin to trust. He did as he was bidden, and jumped up on to the bulwark, grabbing at the shrouds to steady himself.

“I see I shall need to be quick, Mr Blackwood. You’re even more lively than I supposed.”

He started to climb, slowly at first, but with increasing speed as he sensed the boy following. The shrouds stretched like a long rope-ladder all the way to a point just below the mainmast cap, every movement of both ship and climber combining to alter the shape. After some forty feet the shrouds presented two avenues. One took the climber on, through the lubbers’ hole, on to the spacious platform of the mainmast cap. The others rose vertically, skirting the rim to rise even higher. Nelson had no need to hesitate. He increased his pace, arching backwards as he gripped the ropes. He slipped past the edge with ease, leaning forward again to ascend this narrower set of shrouds.

Up he went, fifty, sixty, seventy feet from the deck. Out again, this time as
Boreas
dipped into a trough, which left his back in line with the sea below. The slim strip of ropes led on past the tops. He knew Blackwood was with him; not close but there, his eyes fixed on the Captain before him, rather than the frightening panorama below. Once at the crosstrees, Nelson threw his leg over on to the yard, easing his back till it rested against the upper mast.

“Come along, Mr Blackwood,” he called. “There’s no need for you to favour an old man in this fashion.” As the boy’s head came level he held out his hand to help him up. “Mind, respect to the Captain is a very necessary notion, I suppose. It would never do to show me up. Bad for discipline, eh! Now, young sir, clap on hard
to this rope and sit yourself down. Then we will have the leisure to look about us, and the chance to talk for a while.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” gasped Blackwood.

“Is it not a fine place to be?” Nelson saw the boy’s face pale as he looked down towards the deck, where the assembled mids now looked like a colony of ants. “I remember when I was a shaver, just like you, an old tar, who had sailed with Anson, brought me up here. I remember him saying that once you was above ten feet, it don’t signify. As long as you clapped on in a like manner.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Now, Mr Blackwood, being a captain has its advantages. But one of the drawbacks is this, sir. You rarely get a chance to be alone with anyone. Now that we’re up here, just the two of us, it will give you a chance to tell me all about yourself.”

The boy’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came. Nelson had to prompt him with a direct question. The tale the boy told was a depressingly familiar one. As the younger son to a middling family there had been little prospect that he would receive a decent education. Nor did the Army, with its bought commissions, present a realistic prospect of advancement. The family had few connections and, lacking interest as well as money, could not place their son in any milieu other than the King’s Navy. But as the story emerged, Nelson couldn’t help but wonder, for the hundredth time, whether some sort of age limit should not be placed on entry, so that boys like Blackwood were not exposed too early to the rigours of life afloat.

Nelson felt like a youngster again as he grabbed for the
backstay
and slid down to the deck, wondering halfway if his dignity as a captain would be impaired by such behaviour. But it had the desired effect, Blackwood following him down in a heartening sailorly fashion, to be greeted by a grinning Nelson.

The arch look Nelson received from Lady Hughes, still on the poop as he turned to return to the quarterdeck, made his blood boil: it was nothing less than a repetition of her insinuation that his interest in youngsters was at best misplaced, at worst impure.

T
HIS MORNING
, Emma felt she was at loggerheads with everyone, not least George Romney, who was sketching her for yet another portrait, this time in the pose of wild-eyed Medea, classical slayer of children. The clothes she wore were tattered and revealing, her hair teased out wildly with twigs, face streaked with dark lines of heavy makeup. It was her eyes he needed most, that look of near madness he had struggled hard to create, which Emma kept discarding.

Old Romney, with his lined, walnut-coloured face and unruly grey hair looked up from the pad on his lap and glared. They had already had words about her inability to sit still, Romney pretending he had no idea of what triggered her fidgety behaviour. Yet he had seen Greville’s face that morning, when he had delivered her to the studio: the black looks and stiff bearing that had characterised their exchanges, he all formality, Emma all meekness, until Greville departed.

Emma had spent the last half-hour locked in an internal argument in which she naturally cast herself as the aggrieved party. Playing both roles, her face was animated by point and counterpoint. She was winning of course, an imagined Charles Greville being easier to deal with than the real person, especially as she was of the opinion that the previous night’s behaviour had been due to nothing more than high spirits. How dare Greville insist that if she couldn’t learn to contain herself he would never take her out again!

As ever, when he was working, Romney’s grey hair stood on his head, giving him the appearance of an elderly monkey, the impression heightened by his large, dark brown eyes. The old man was kindness itself, and Greville’s black mood of this morning was no fault of his, so Emma worked to put the mad stare back in place. Romney nodded and went back to his frenzied sketching.

She should be angry with her lover about this too, being sold
like a carcass. Greville had an arrangement with the artist: he provided the model, Romney provided the oils and the talent; the money from the sale of the resulting portrait was split between them, Greville’s portion to set off the cost of keeping her. Romney had painted her a dozen times now; every picture had found an eager buyer.

Romney’s eyes darted back and forth, boring into her. Did he, with his artist’s insight, see how she felt? She loved Charles with a passion that had grown deeper through three years of attachment, and enjoyed their domestic harmony. Yet certain losses rankled, like the social life she had enjoyed on first arriving at Edgware Road, which had been slowly choked off. Her life now seemed sober and confined. After a year, Greville had moved into Edgware Road permanently, imposing his fussy bachelor habits on what had been an easy-going household; he had let the townhouse he had built in Portman Square to ease his debts. However, it had obviously not eased them enough: only the week before he had scolded her for giving a halfpenny to a beggar.

Excursions from the house had been rare of late. She could never be brought to the notion that her own natural vivacity was in part responsible for this. Was it her fault that when they went to a ball or a rout nearly every man in the room sought to engage her attention? Was she to blame if powerful and well-connected men cared not a whit if their outrageous gallantries offended her lover? It was not her fault that Greville was so jealous and insecure, unable to accept her repeated assurances that he had no cause for concern.

He had insisted that she had made an exhibition of herself the previous night. To Emma, singing and dancing were the stuff of life, and a glass or two of champagne encouraged her. She knew that Greville had cause to celebrate. As a collector he acquired only to sell, and was careful in the way he built up collections to make sure that the whole was always vastly superior to the sum of its parts. Many a time quick disposal had saved him from ruin. He had been corresponding with his uncle in Naples, using his good offices to amass a set of Roman and Etruscan artefacts that he had already
sold at a substantial profit. The news that his virtu, in the company of his uncle, had arrived in England had sent him into raptures of delight, and loosened his normally tight purse strings to such a degree that he had insisted on taking Emma to the Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens.

Could Greville not see the joy she felt in wearing a fine dress, having her hair tended for a night of entertainment, and crossing the portal for pleasure not duty? This was the first time in an age that Greville had offered to take her out to somewhere fashionable.

“Rumour has it,” Romney said, “that you were the
belle
amuse
ment
at last night’s rout.”

“I greatly enjoyed myself, I admit,” she replied defiantly, wondering how he knew.

“More than you have on previous visits?”

“Who said I have visited the Ranelagh before?” Emma demanded.

Her mother had told her she had a duty to deny her previous existence, even to those who must know it well. She was the semi-respectable Mrs Hart now, not the wild, promiscuous person of her former incarnation.

The old man grinned, laid aside his pad and ran a hand though his spiky grey hair. “The two different faces of the gardens have always fascinated me, Emma—the decorum of the early evening contrasted with the riot of the later night. It seems that two different worlds occupy the same space. Reynolds captures the first, Hogarth the second.”

“With some men in both,” Emma replied firmly. Having been lectured by Greville she was in no mood to take the same from Romney.

But it was true what he said, just as it was true that she had misread the place, never having been there at what Romney called the Reynolds time. Then the prostitutes who plied for trade were still outside the gates. The gardens in the early evening were
patronised
by respectable London, who admired the carefully arranged plants, listened to good music and short, amusing dramas. They
were not a scene of riot, with couples cavorting in the bushes, lewd songs, and risque plays, all aided by the consumption of vast amounts of wine.

“All I did was stand to sing,” she insisted.

“With a much admired voice, I’m sure.” Emma blushed and dropped her head. “Take the compliment, my dear. You do have a sweet voice and the lessons Greville arranged for you have made it sweeter yet.”

“If I’d seen his face I would have stopped.”

He might have been scandalised, but others weren’t. Compliments and drinks arrived before her in equal measure and she knew she had become drunk on both, the depth of her inebriation only serving to deepen her lover’s disgust. She had seen that go skywards when she had got up, acceding to a request to dance. He demanded that they leave and the atmosphere on the way home had been icy. Once inside his own house Greville blew up like the volcanoes he was fond of describing.

Her mother, roused by the clamour, had advised Emma to apologise, grovel a bit if necessary to appease the man who kept them. Emma had taken a great deal of persuading, especially when Mary Cadogan had insisted she change into a drab grey dress to indicate penitence. It had been in vain. Her lover had even refused to share her bed, retiring to his study for the night, and in the morning, still under the burden of his anger, he had delivered, her to this studio.

“I begged him to forgive me, even changed out of my finery to do so. You should have seen me, Romney, in that drab outfit, on my knees weeping in despair.”

“Show me the pose you adopted.”

Emma sank to her knees, her hands joined in supplication. The old man gazed on her shaking his head. “Too biblical for my taste. I prefer the Greeks, though it would be a charming notion to paint you in a more modern pose.”

“But would that sell?” she asked sarcastically.

“An artist does not always toil for money.”

Their shared look was proof enough that such a sentiment did
not apply to Greville. “The mood you saw him in this morning was evidence that I am still not forgiven,” she said.

“You shall be, Emma, never fear.”

“How can you be so certain?”

The large brown eyes, normally so expressive, took on a certain blandness. The truth was that she was a beautiful bargain, a woman who might have commanded a much more puissant lover if she had so decided, might have moved in the grandest circles with a little education. There was a touch of love in Romney, old as he was, for the best model he had ever had. Greville kept her out of sight as much for fear of loss as he did to save coin. He had seethed with anger when the Prince of Wales had waxed lyrical on Emma’s beauty, since his admiration was bound to be followed by an attempt at seduction. What Greville could never accept was that while male attention flattered her, and she responded, Emma wasn’t interested.

“Greville will forgive you because he is so very fond of you, Emma.”

“Is he, Romney?” she whispered.

“Most decidedly so. He values you so very highly.”

Visitors to Romney’s studio were frequent, and people who might become clients took a chair to watch the artist at work. His ever-attentive son, who was also the person charged with encouraging commissions, served refreshments. Emma had witnessed much of this, and was normally unconcerned by others’ presence. But this day she was less than happy, given the pose she had been asked to adopt. It wasn’t Greville who bothered her, it was the person she suspected to be his uncle William, as she reprised her wide-eyed and unattractive pose.

Greville had seen her in such a state of
dé
shabillé,
wrapped in their shared bed sheets, but for a total stranger to see her so was a different matter, especially one whom he esteemed so much. As soon as Romney declared the session closed Emma dashed to a private room to repair her appearance, then emerged with her hair brushed, face clean, and properly dressed.

“Allow me, Emma, to name my uncle William,” Greville said. “He is, as you know, His Majesty King George’s ambassador and minister plenipotentiary at the court of Naples.”

“How you load me with honours, Charles.”

“They are yours by right, sir. Or should I say Chevalier?”

“But they are also much less impressive than they sound. Mere trifles, I would say, of some use in the Two Sicilies but of small account in a London full of grand titles.”

Charles had been talking about his uncle for days, with an increasing excitement that was hard to fathom in one so naturally reserved, yet nothing in either voice now suggested the kind of blood tie that would hint at an emotional attachment. Certainly the uncle was a kindly looking soul, soft voiced with an ease of manner that came from having mixed from birth with the cream of society. Greville had told her more than once of his connections, of the fact that, as a child, he had been a playmate of King George.

“I confess, my dear, to being quite startled when I entered. The face you presented to the world then was frightening in the extreme. Now I find myself gazing at untrammelled beauty.”

Emma smiled sweetly but without sincerity, recognising in the voice the muted tone of dalliance with which, in the past, she had been so familiar. Compliments would come easily to Sir William Hamilton, as would the desire to seduce her should the chance present itself. His manner stayed in that vein on their return to Edgware Road, to a supper prepared for them by Emma’s mother, who was introduced and treated to as fine a piece of noblesse as Emma could remember. While they ate, Sir William and his nephew talked of family, politics, land, inheritances, and the older man’s recent widowhood.

It was in the latter that he showed real emotion, his sadness at the loss of his late wife, who had been for many years an invalid. But, for all that, the conversation carried little resonance for Emma.

Greville’s hint that she should retire and leave them to talk was made abruptly enough to stir her rebellious spirit, but only in her breast: she had enough sense with Uncle William in attendance to
suppress comment. To answer back would have made her Ranelagh misdemeanours look tame. But at least the Ambassador knew his manners. When she rose he leapt to his feet and came to hold her hand.

“Mrs Hart, I cannot say how much I have enjoyed the pleasure of your company.” The eyes that held hers were blue, steady, slightly watery, and benign. “I intend to presume upon my nephew’s good graces to see you again—that is, if the prospect of such does not repel you.”

“How could it, sir?” Emma replied, in a lilting voice of which her singing teacher would have approved heartily. “I revel in good company.”

“Revel?”

Sir William rolled the word around in his mouth, as if it was a sweetmeat he had never tasted. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Greville watching this exchange, a slight smile playing on his lips. When other men had tried the same, he had been furious.

“My nephew tells me you like to sing.”

“I do.”

“Then may I be permitted to visit when you are in a mood to do so?”

“Of course, Uncle,” Greville barked. “You must come and see Emma at any time of your choosing. I’m sure she will enrapture you.”

“My dear Charles, she has done that already.”

“Good night, sir,” Emma said, curtsying.

Sir William kissed her hand and then she left. Greville’s words followed her, and as she closed the door, she pressed her ear to the panel.

“I see that you approve of her.”

“That is understatement, Charles. Were she not in your care I swear that, old as I am, I would set my cap in her direction. She is a rare creature, and her manners are of the highest.”

“She’s decorous now, I grant you, sir. But you have no idea how many rough elements had to be polished to produce the diamond you now observe.”

“Emerald, Charles! With such eyes she can be nothing less than that.”

“Then it is, no doubt, with some reluctance, Uncle, that you must once more turn your mind to Wales.”

After that first visit Sir William came often, accepting with pleasure the way that Emma called him uncle. He called her “the fair tea-maker of Edgware Row,” alluding without the least trace of restraint to his appreciation of her beauty. She returned his affection in full measure, happy to spend time with a man so congenial, who was not just urbane but could take and give a quip in equal measure. In that he showed up his nephew, who was wont to examine raillery aimed at him for an insult, and to include in his own attempted witticisms a degree of cruelty that robbed them of their humour.