Breaking the Line (29 page)

By the time he reached Gloucester, Nelson had honed his speech, always made from some hotel balcony, and in it he praised his countrymen, male and female, and told them that they, of all the races in God’s earthly kingdom, had the hand of the Lord on their side.

The only cloud on the horizon was Sir William, who appeared to be fading before the eyes of both his wife and his best friend. He seemed thinner week by week, his mind began to wander and he was wont to talk of things that had happened years before as if they were
happening now, while he found it increasingly difficult to remember what had happened an hour before.

By the time the party had returned to Merton, what Nelson had thought would happen came to pass. Bonaparte was being bellicose again and the peace was threatened. Nelson’s services were required and, as always, he was available.

Yet war was avoided, to many minds more by pusillanimous Britain than by French reticence. As he waited, the points of reference in Nelson’s life acquired regularity. Naturally he called at the Admiralty, where St Vincent and Troubridge had assured him of the Mediterranean should war break out. Both, simultaneously, accepted invitations to Merton that neither had any intention of fulfilling. He spoke in the House of Lords, initial shyness giving way to an ease of speech and a command of subject that made him a draw. He had a list of friends and officers he felt duty bound to call on. Last, but far from least, he would call at Mrs Gibson to visit Horatia, often stopping at a toyshop on the way.

Horatia enchanted him; the way she smiled, watched his face, held his finger. She liked movement and noises, the most successful present being a watch with a tick so loud it could be heard on the other side of a door. This, waved before her on a chain, brought forth gales of childish laughter. On the rare occasions when Mrs Gibson entered her drawing room while the Admiral was present she would either find the pair surrounded by toys, playing happily on the carpet, or Lord Nelson sitting with his eyes closed, looking serene, with Horatia asleep on his breast.

It troubled him that Emma never called at Mrs Gibson’s. She saw Horatia only when the child was brought to her, usually when the other children in the family were present. As a party-lover Emma always felt happier when a number of people were around, with her at the centre, planning games and outings, supervising races and contests, engaging Nelson with several children instead of just his own. But then she had other concerns; running and improving Merton, and looking after a husband who was wandering inexorably into his dotage.

Sir William made one more royal levee, determined to face his childhood friend, not sure what he would say, but certain that for Farmer George it would be uncomfortable.

‘The country in which I grew to manhood is no more.’ His servant realised that Sir William was talking to himself and did not respond. His job was to get the old man to Windsor and back again. If his
charge rambled, which he was prone to do, that was none of his concern. ‘Closed minds and closed legs surround the King, though that dull queen of his must have opened them often enough. After all, she has produced a string of fat idiots and twittering harpies.’

He was like that all the way, criticising his king and queen, the Prince of Wales and the dukes of York, Clarence, Kent, Sussex, and the princesses who were said to be too stupid to find themselves husbands. He made the levee, entering on the arms of old and trusted friends, and he mouthed words of reprimand to the man with whom he had shared a nursery. But he did not say them loud enough to be heard, his entire complaint taking place more in his head than his mouth. But when he returned to Piccadilly he was vehement about the manner in which he had told off his sovereign.

He was also feverish. Emma insisted he go to bed, and sent a message to Nelson to join her, since her husband’s ramblings seemed to get worse, with an undertone of accusation.

‘Greville dunned us both, Emma – and he will get everything. How are you going to live? You spend too much and save nothing. Nelson has no money, pray for war eh! What has it come to when we wish for that? You treated me shabbily Emma. I tried to hate you, and him, but every time I felt jealous I felt angry – with you, no, with myself.’

‘My dear friend,’ said Nelson, coming to the bedside.

‘Nelson.’

‘Yes.’ Nelson took his hand.

‘My true friend.’ Sir William summoned the strength to squeeze, and Emma, who had moved to the other side of the bed, took his free hand.

‘I hope so,’ whispered Nelson.

Sir William gathered strength enough to pull. ‘
A
tria,
uno
in
juncto
,’
he said.

He repeated it over several days as he sunk towards death, only to come round again. He spoke of things in delirium that many would not have wanted to hear, of his hatred of the Church – all churches not just the papist one. Of the things he had seen on the walls of Pompeii and his certainty that the cult of Priapus was still practised by the superstitious peasantry of Calabria. Sir William fought to hang on to life with a naked tenacity the like of which he had never shown when up and doing. As his skin fell away from his face he came to look like some biblical prophet, foretelling a world where pagan gods would rule. The time came when his most frequent mantra was whispered not spoken, so that Nelson and Emma had to lean close to hear, ‘A
tria
uno
in
juncto
’.

‘Always that,’ said Emma, with a sob, as the blue eyes lost their sparkle and both she and Nelson began to pray for the soul of Sir William Hamilton. They were beside him for most of the night, not always praying or weeping, but discussing the practical matters attendant upon getting the body to Pembrokeshire, so that Sir William’s wish to be buried beside his first wife, Catherine, could be fulfilled.

Before dawn Nelson left, and walked for an hour before taking lodgings a few streets away. He wrote to his sister-in-law Sarah to ask that she come and support Emma at this time of sorrow, heading the letter with the address of his lodgings. No longer could he write from twenty-three Piccadilly, the home of a friend happy to accommodate him. Emma was now a widow, which meant he could only cross her threshold when she had other guests.

Without the assistance Sir William had provided Nelson was forced to take a close look at his finances, and what he saw did little to lift his spirits. All the bills for Merton would now come to him, he had his brother Maurice’s ‘widow’ to maintain, he had fees to pay for young Horatio at Eton, plus any number of requests from acquaintances and strangers who assumed that because he was successful he was rich. The opposite was the case; while not in penury he was hovering on the edge of discomfort, which could only get worse if he did not curtail the way Emma spent money on Merton, both the fabric of the place and the entertainment.

Emma saw debt as natural, he did not. Trades people had to be paid. As a young man he had lived too close to them to ever keep them waiting for their money. His father had dinned into him that to be in debt was a sin, but when he tried to discuss this with Emma she laughed at his fears.

Emma had lived so long with extravagance it had become a habit. Even, perhaps especially, the strictures of her mother were laughed off. Her debts had been paid by Sir William’s legacy, and she had an annuity, albeit a small one, to sustain her. Everything would be fine, and to cap it all Emma was sure she was pregnant again.

Tom Allen shuffled as he spoke in a way that he had not for years, looking for all the world like a man in his first day of service. Nelson wondered where the fellow had gone who admonished him if he ate too little or drank too much, who insisted that instead of sitting at the dinner table yarning all night to his fellow officers he should take himself off to his bed?

Tom Allen wasn’t hopeless as a servant, but on more than one
occasion Nelson had wondered if he was suitable to serve an admiral who often had in his cabin dignitaries and officers of other nations. What did they make of less than sleek Tom? He did not blunder about, but he was far from polished in the way he attended to his duties. When it came to Nelson’s captains, who entertained him as much as he did them, he could not help but observe that they were better attended to than he.

Ever since he inherited Frank Lepée Nelson had known that he was not good with servants, inclined to let them tell him what he should do rather than the other way round. But he reckoned his needs were simple; honesty, discretion and no airs or graces. When it came to the last, Tom Allen was highly qualified: he had never lost the sound and manner of what he was, a Norfolk labourer. But he was familiar, a fixture in the day, and what was making him nervous was the fact that he wished this to be his last.

‘Seems to me, your honour, that if’n I wait till war starts, then me getting out will be dependent on another peace.’

‘There will be one, Tom, of that I am certain.’

Bonaparte had used the peace well; he had quelled his political troubles at home, managed to make his office of First Consul hereditary, reorganised the laws and customs of a country still stuck in the ways of the old regime, and reformed his army so that when it came to invasion he was an even more formidable foe than he had been eighteen months before. Only at sea would Nelson find if those improvements extended to his navy.

‘Aye, but how long will it take? Eight years we’ve fought them buggers already, beggin’ your pardon, an’ who’s to say it won’t take as long again?’

‘Is anything else prompting this Tom?’

There was a lot Tom might have said then, for he had little love of the set-up at Merton. Never as happy on land as he was at sea, he disliked Surrey even more than Naples or Palermo. He felt that what his master was about was sinful and that the gloss had long since been chipped off his lady. But all that would have sounded daft, given that his master was about to go aboard ship once more.

‘There be a lady, a good girl, who lives not too far from Burnham. And I reckon with what you ’ave got saved for me, there be enough to make to her a proposal she might fancy.’

Nelson had his account book open in front of him, and he glanced at it, although he knew the figure he was about to quote, the sum in pay that Tom had never needed because practically everything he wanted was paid for.

‘Ninety-six pounds Tom, which is not a fortune but a tidy sum none the less.’

‘It would give me a start, and the lass I have my eye on is not without prospects.’

‘Then so be it, Tom. I shall see you discharged and send you on your way with an addition to your pay.’

It stung Nelson that his sailor servant left that same day, in what looked like unseemly haste, but Tom knew that if he hung about, delaying his departure, he would see too much of the sadness his decision had caused. His determination might weaken and he would end up with another ten years of war. It was certain that whatever was happening his master would be in the thick of it, he always was. Yet it was hard for anyone to be in the company of Horatio Nelson and not want to stay.

Davidson found Nelson a replacement, a man named Chevalier who was a trained servant and knew how to serve at table and keep his masters’ goods and chattels in proper order.

‘For all love, have you found me a Frenchman?’ Nelson asked anxiously.

‘What I have found you, Nelson,’ Davidson protested, ‘is a
gentleman’s
gentleman. It is to be hoped that exposure to him will make something of a gentleman of you.’

‘A waste, Davidson,’ said Nelson, taking his arm and walking him along the bank of his own little river Nile. ‘I was ruined for that when I joined the Navy.’

Chevalier was a bit frightening, a tall lugubrious fellow, solemn in everything he did. He was so refined that Nelson was left to wonder if he could live up to his servant’s high standards.

Everyone he needed was in place when the call came, a despatch from the Admiralty appointing him to immediate command in the Mediterranean. He had his new secretary called Scott, with Hardy as his flag captain, and he knew that when he went aboard his new flagship he would see before the mast many familiar faces.

The farewell to Emma had been tender and tearful, yet as they were in London he had had to leave her without spending the night. He rose at dawn in his own bed, and scribbled a hasty note to tell her not to fear for either his life or his love.

Portsmouth was all bustle, full of blue officer’s coats, while the streets were a mass of carts, marching bands leading soldiers to their ships, whores offering a last chance to dip for men who might be going away to die. There was the usual street entertainment, fiddlers
who would play an air of choice, jugglers looking for a penny, girls with trays of sweetmeats, peddlers with everything a tar might need on service, from ribbons to wedding rings that glistened enough, it was said, to fool some foreign troll. There were cattle and sheep on the hoof, chickens flapping in baskets, carts loaded with supplies for ship’s captains containing wines, hams, cheeses, butter, plates to eat them off and cutlery to carve them.

And there were drunks too, many of them young men who, if they lived, would become captains themselves, the junior lieutenants and midshipmen. Now they were just boisterous youths, imbibing to excess, rollicking and joking, teasing the more sober citizens and
eyeing
the ladies for a last carnal fling.

Chevalier struggled to accumulate all the things his new master needed, then to get them on to the right ship, a mammoth task which he carried out with quiet efficiency that never once interfered with his regular duties. Nelson was shaved, dressed, and sent on time to dine with other senior officers, and was woken at the right hour to go aboard his new flagship.

As they rowed out to the Spithead anchorage she stood out,
high-sided
and majestic, even among the rest of the three-deckers. Nelson had seen her many times since that first day in Chatham when, as a new midshipman, Lieutenant Frears had pointed her out. Expertly his barge crew took him alongside to the ladder that led up to the entry port. A hand was ready to ensure that he did not slip on the wet wood that was dipping in and out of the water, and that he had hold of the rope banister that would see him safe aboard.