Tested by Fate (14 page)

“How can you say that after last year’s alarm?”

“You would do yourself a kindness not to mention that!”

He might not mention the Spanish Armament, but he thought often of that brief period when his hopes soared with the news of two English ships seized by the Spaniards off Vancouver Island, the crews confined in Mexico. The revolutionary government in France made ready fourteen sail-of-the-line, war was in the air and
employment
with it. High hopes had been raised, only to be dashed when the Spanish, once the proudest nation on earth, meekly caved in to all Britannia’s demands.

“Things have moved on, Fanny. This time it is France. Their king I feel sorry for. But what is more important is that the
revolutionaries
have gone to war with their neighbours and they are beating them soundly. Britain cannot stand aside and see Europe engulfed.”

“Why do you talk to me so, Nelson?” she whined. “Like some Westminster candidate trawling for votes. I cannot abide it.”

His reply was designed to mollify her. “I merely seek to advise you, my dear, that matters move our way. War will see the fleet expanded, and I flatter myself that my character is such that they will never refuse me employment.”

“They have managed to do so for five years.”

“Davidson suggests it would be wise to be in London, that a call on Lord Chatham might serve best.”

“Then I hope he has enclosed the coach fare, for if he has not you must needs spend a week out in that wilderness shooting enough food to fill the larder.”

He smiled. “I am reliably informed that I’d more likely shoot myself.”

Nelson bent down, pulling at the shawl enough to reveal the red end of Fanny’s nose. He recalled those pale cheeks in sunshine, where they had been fetching. Now they were pinched and chapped, the lips that had smiled so sweetly likewise. “Are there no words I can say that will bring you cheer?”

A mittened hand emerged to take hold of his. The voice ceased to whine, and instead seemed crestfallen. “Forgive me, husband. The cold shrivels regard as quickly as it does the skin.”

“Not in my breast, Fanny.”

“Do I deserve such a sentiment?”

“You always will, my dear.”

“Little enough have I done to earn it.”

Nelson put a hand to her cheek, his fingertips welcome, being
warm from the fire. “If I repeat myself, forgive me, but I see all this as a trial from God, a test of my regard for my country. Can I let them treat me so ill and still retain the golden glow of my
patriotism
?”

“Can you, Nelson?”

“With you by my side, yes.”

“All I do is fail you.”

“I will not let you think that,” he insisted. “You were raised to better things. I met you in sunshine and plenty, and have brought you to this. It is I who have failed you. But believe in my destiny as I do, Fanny. And know that there is a future day when this will be a humorous memory, a tale to tell your grandchildren that they will never understand, being surrounded as they are by everything material a man, a woman, or a child could desire.”

She dropped her head to kiss his fingers. “If God rewards a
forgiving
nature he will surely reward you.”

“He has done that already, Fanny, by bringing you to my side.”

“Go to London, Horatio. See Chatham, if you can, though don’t ask me to hold out much hope, given the way he has abused your requests these last five years. I have seen his letters, don’t
forget
, and read the sentiments that can only be described as cold rejection.”

Chatham had never mentioned the King, and neither had he to his wife. He was in bad odour at court, and while the Sovereign had no veto over naval appointments it would be a brave First Lord of the Admiralty who would gainsay his wishes. Lord Chatham seemed far from that. The trouble was that such an attitude denied him the chance to redress the low opinion in which he was held. An annual levee, which was his right as a post captain to attend, did nothing to thaw relations. No chattering king now, instead a mumbled “How d’ye do?” from a cold and distant monarch.

“And,” she continued, “I cannot fathom how you can even begin to tolerate the name of Admiral Hood, who does not even deign to reply when you write to him.”

Hood had wounded Nelson by his indifference, but he had his
own problems with royalty. “Do not castigate a good man damned by politics,” he said.

“Is there anyone you will not absolve?”

“My God would scarcely forgive me if I did not. And I know how deeply my father would chastise me for that sin. I think now, if we pray hard enough, God may answer our submissions.”

“The Rector’s on his way,” shouted Lepée, “looking as cold as charity too.”

Nelson stuck the poker in the fire, trying not to think of Frank Lepée, who could scarce be brought to lift a finger to undertake duties he saw as domestic. Five years on the beach had not tamed the sailor in him, just as it hadn’t tamed his love of drink, his
ability
to relate a tall tale, or his less than respectful relations with his master.

“I will fetch my father a posset to heat his bones, and add some brandy to it.”

Fanny smiled, though not much, since to do so fully hurt her lips. “You’d best not tell him, husband.”

“No. He would see it as a waste of a gift from God.”

She clasped his hand. “I’m sorry, husband. I promise, when the sun comes out from behind those infernal clouds, to be a better wife to you.”

“I cannot, my dear, see how that is possible.” He stood up as the Rector entered, his tall frame shivering with cold. “Good news, Papa. Davidson has written to me to tell me there must be a war.”

“With France?”

“Who else?”

“Then God be praised,” said Edmund Nelson, raising the Bible in his gloved hand to point at heaven. “The Antichrist will at last be slain.”

The sentiment and the way it was expressed made his son shiver.

He had no sooner arrived at Davidson’s lodging than he was whipped off to a grand dinner at Hanover Square, home of the Duke of Grafton. Davidson had sent them a note to say he was bringing
Nelson along. The welcome he was afforded did not extend to
seating
him close to his friend. Indeed, he was so far below the salt that he could barely see the carroty top of Davidson’s head. The huge room was noisy with the buzz of a hundred conversations, and
introductions
were so garbled that he was unsure of the identity of his dining companions.

Nelson was seated between two women, both in their middle years. A fat fellow called Padborne, to whom Davidson had
introduced
him, sat opposite, so enamoured of gluttony that, once the soup was served, his head hardly lifted from the plate laid before him. When he did look up, his eyes, set deep in folds of flesh, cast a jaundiced eye at other portions, as if he were intent on
consuming
those too.

“Please, sir,” Nelson said, having taken just a few sips, “my appetite is small. If you feel that you can manage it, have what I cannot eat.”

That earned him a loud sniff of disapproval from his left. The suggestion had come from five years in Norfolk, five years of care in the avoidance of waste. Nelson had forgotten where he was.
Wearing
his most pleasant smile, he turned to mollify the offended lady with an appropriate excuse. “Short commons are such a regular
feature
of naval life, madam, that waste in any form is anathema. Why, if I had any midshipmen here they’d sweep the board like a biblical plague.”

“Who would invite a midshipman to an occasion like this, sir?”

“You would be surprised,” he replied, still smiling, though
curious
as to where he had seen her before. “Some of the mites are well connected.”

“Obliged, sir,” said his fat dining companion, who clearly had no more manners than Nelson. He looked at his naval dining
companion
quizzically.

Nelson reminded him of his name, and added, “Davidson
introduced
us.”

“Nelson?” said the same lady. “Are you any relation to the Reverend Edmund?”

“Yes, madam. He’s my father.”

“Then we have met before, sir,” she trilled, “in the Pump Room at Bath. I scarce recognise you, sir. You were a skeleton when I last clapped eyes on you, with your dear father, who was quite fatigued by the care he administered. Did I not tell you, Padborne, about that naval officer at death’s door after that foolish expedition on the San Juan river?”

The fat head lifted from Nelson’s plate for a second. “I cannot recall it, Mrs Padborne.”

“His mind extends no further than his last meal, sir,” she
confided
, in a voice that could be heard ten feet away. “Your recovery is remarkable, sir. I take it the Bath waters provided an efficacious contribution.”

“That and Norfolk, where I now reside with my wife.”

“You were not married on our first meeting. You made a good match, I trust?”

He bridled at the question, but fought to keep his temper at this woman’s impertinence. “An excellent one.”

He had to look her right in the eye then, because in the sense that Mrs Padborne meant it his marriage had been far from a good one. Herbert had been parsimonious indeed when it came to
granting
any money to the newlyweds. Talk of a substantial legacy had been just that. Herbert had passed away and only a small bequest had materialised from his estate.

“A woman of means, then?” Nelson was just about to slap her down, to tell her that Fanny had few means, yet was blessed with a good heart, but he didn’t get the chance. “The Rector is still with us, I trust?”

“In such rude good health that it puts mine to shame.”

“Would I know the lady who is now your wife?”

“Do you have connections in the sugar islands?”

“Never in life, sir.” She waved a fan at her fat-faced husband, head still in his soup plate. “Padborne there would speculate in that pit of thieves if I was not there to stop him, sir. But, by God’s good grace, I am.”

“I was about to add that my wife is the niece of the late
president
of Nevis, who was himself grandson to the Duke of Pembroke.”

“An excellent connection, sir,” she replied with insufferable
arrogance
. “‘I’m sure you have made a proper match.”

There was a snap in his voice when he responded: “I did not wed the lady for either her dowry or her bloodline. I married her for herself.”

That earned him another sharp wave of the fan. “How
singular
, sir.”

“I married her,” Nelson insisted, “because I esteem both her person and her accomplishments. I must tell you that there is no finer companion for a man’s heart than my dear wife. I cannot praise her enough. She is kind, good-natured in the matter of my
manifest
faults, a rock upon which my house can withstand whichever storm fate throws to test us.”

He carried on, all the time knowing in his own mind he was lying because, in truth, Fanny had been a sad disappointment to him. He tried to suppress his train of thought, but it would not go away. Where was the warm anticipation he had anticipated at Montpelier; where were the children he had written of in his Caribbean letters? His longing for physical contact had been broken on the granite of her coldness. What satisfaction was there in sex without even a pretence at emotion; what point if the prospect of procreation was greeted with horror?

“It was a great shock to me, Davidson,” he confided later, when they were back in front of his friend’s hearth, “as deep as any I have ever experienced. The sudden knowledge of my own unhappiness.”

Davidson leant forward to tap him on the thigh. “You will have a ship soon. That will lift your spirits.”

“I don’t love her, Davidson,” he said, pulling himself from his chair to lean on the mantel, his voice choked with emotion. “And when I look backwards I cannot be sure I ever did.”

Davidson put his arm around Nelson’s shoulders. “You need sleep, my dear friend.”

“I feel I’ve been asleep for five years.”

He was just that when Davidson entered his bedroom, to stand and look over a man he admired more than anyone in the world. Certainly Nelson could be trying when he spoke of the follies of other naval officers or the certainty of his own destiny, but though he was full of confidence, he was a mass of inner tribulations—in his relations with his officers and men, his standing
vis
à
vis
his
superiors
, and most of all in anything to do with the heart.

In repose, his hair tousled, his face relaxed, those full lips slightly open, Nelson looked so young, still like a boy at thirty-five. He would find out tomorrow what Davidson already knew but was sworn not to reveal. That Nelson would have his ship and the gloom under which he laboured now would be lifted.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Nelson arrived at the Admiralty still a
half-pay
captain. He departed after an interview with Lord Chatham as the commander of HMS
Agamemnon,
a 64-gun ship-of-the-line. Had the First Lord discerned his reasons for turning down a larger ship? Nelson knew that
Agamemnon
was faster than most 74s by several knots, the kind of vessel likely to be sent on detached
service
rather than tied to purely fleet duties, a ship in which he could individually distinguish himself. She was berthed at the Nore, but there was much to do before he could journey to Sheerness to join her. The next two weeks were all activity as he fired off and replied to endless letters.

Lepée was detached from his celebratory bottle and sent back to Burnham Thorpe, Fanny requested to keep him sober and
oversee
the way that his servant packed Nelson’s sea chest. He added a detailed list of what it should contain. Josiah had to be alerted to join his stepfather as a midshipman aboard his new command. Another letter went off to his brother-in-law, George Bolton, to tell him that if he still wanted his boy, George Junior, to be a sailor, then the time had arrived for him to take up his duties.

Using Davidson’s credit he could gather the personal stores
necessary
to stock his own larder with the wines and combustibles he would need to maintain his station among his peers. He had
officers
to alert, to take up their duties, from Edward Berry, who would be his premier, to his fourth lieutenant, the faithful Bromwich, made up at last and sent to Norfolk to recruit men around his own
locality
, using the Nelson name. The parents and relatives of a stream of midshipmen were another group with whom he had to correspond, some to accept, many more to turn away. William Hoste, the son of the Reverend Mr Hoste of Inglethorpe, in Norfolk, he would gladly accept since he knew the boy, and thought his shyness and
reserve would disappear once he was serving in a mess. But Mrs Darby’s son Henry, despite a connection to his Walpole relations at Wolterton, was, he regretted to say, too young.

There was a stream of missives to the warrant officers, boatswain, gunner, carpenter, armourer, and purser, to report to the premier the state of the ship and stores. When it came to crew, sailors had a
communication
system that seemed to defy time and distance. They knew before the King’s ministers that war was certain, knew before the Admiralty secretaries which captain had been appointed to which
vessel
. Anyone who had served on a man-o’-war wanted the familiar face at the helm, the face of a man they knew they could trust. Nelson hoped he could look forward to seeing a host of old acquaintances.

He would still be short-handed, even with his strong Norfolk contingent, but at the start of a war that would be made up easily from volunteers. On arrival at Sheerness he put up at the Three Tuns, known to all serving officers as the worst inn in the world. William Locker, who commanded at the Nore, joined him for
dinner
, as hearty as ever and remarkably well informed, eager to advise Nelson to plump for the Mediterranean fleet, since Hood would command there and not the Channel.

“Forget his cold behaviour, Nelson. Hood was frightened to upset the King, who blames you for his son’s failures in the West Indies. He might be devious but Hood esteems you as an
enterprising
officer. The Channel goes to Admiral Lord Howe. He has his own list of deserving captains whom he will favour, and you ain’t among them. And there’s more chance of independent action away from the home shore for a ship-of-the-line, a chance perhaps to distinguish yourself.”

Locker didn’t know he was preaching to the converted. Nelson wanted nothing more than to get away from the shores of England. He was still confused about many things, especially his relationship with Fanny. He felt he needed to be at sea, surrounded by familiar sights, sounds, and faces, to put the last five years of inactivity into some kind of perspective. He couldn’t wait to get away to sort out his life.

When the time came to go aboard George Andrews was at the quayside, just as he had been when Nelson took command of
Boreas.
There was no hesitation in Andrews now, a young man of nearly twenty years and
Agamemnon
’s
third lieutenant. His orders were crisp and loud, and Giddings, who had arrived to take up his
previous
station without any form of communication from his captain, carried them out in his usual competent fashion.

“How fare you, Mr Andrews?” asked Nelson, looking up at the young man whose fair hair and blue eyes could still conjure up a disturbing image of the sister who had once been the single object of his captain’s affections.

“Very well, sir, very well indeed. All the better for being in your ship.”

The sight of his first ship-of-the-line lying at anchor, rising and falling on the slight swell, lifted his heart.
Agamemnon
displaced thirteen hundred tons, carried a crew of five hundred and twenty men and sixty-four main-and lower-deck cannon. Built at Buckler’s Hard in 1781, she was as handsome a vessel as he had ever clapped eyes on. The deck was certainly prepared, with every sign of the mess created by a vessel taking on stores hidden for the new
commander’s
eye. Berry knew just what to clear away and what could be let pass. Captain Nelson was not the man to go prying for faults below decks or on the companionways as soon as he came aboard. He would settle for what he could see between the entry port and his cabin door, between the great cabin and the poop where he would read out his commission. And what he saw pleased him.

Then he set to work, to get ready for sea and, Nelson hoped, glory.

“Are you familiar with the expression ‘see Naples and die,’ Josh?”

“I believe you did say it to me the other day, sir,” his stepson replied, without much spirit. “When we first got our orders.”

Midshipman Josiah Nisbet was in titular charge of the Captain’s barge, though he would in all respects defer to Giddings as coxswain. Such a duty was part of his training, which after four months at sea was moving along tolerably well. He had been seasick in the Thames estuary, for which Nelson, who was prone himself, could not fault him. He attended to both his duties and his lessons, and had
progressed
well in all departments. Yet Nelson was concerned for the boy, who did not share with the other mids a seeming delight in their station. It was as though he had come to sea to please his
stepfather
, not because he himself desired it. Even the sweep of the Bay of Naples, as noble an aspect as nature had ever created, failed to move him.

The six-week voyage to the Mediterranean had done Nelson a power of good. He had spent the time in working up both crew and ship so that whenever the Admiral called for any manoeuvre it was carried out swiftly and with grace. With Berry he tinkered with each watch to balance them out in efficiency. His cannon, eighteen and twenty-four pounders, had been run in and out so frequently that Nelson knew in a fight he would get at least two broadsides a minute from his gunners, a rate of fire that no Frenchman could match. Activity, distance, and the companionship of sailors had eased his troubled mind, and allowed him to conclude that his difficulties with Fanny were more his fault than hers. A sailor, who by his very nature must hanker after the sea, must be a hard companion with
whom to spend your life; a poor and frustrated one denied a ship so much worse.

Looking at Josiah, the thought did occur to Nelson that he was in such a buoyant mood that anyone else might appear glum. Since joining up with Lord Hood off Cadiz he had enjoyed an excellent rapport with the Admiral. Hood liked enterprising officers, and being back at sea had cleansed him of politicking. The kindred spirit who was prepared to stretch rules to gain a positive conclusion, the
officer
who talked about destroying the enemy not merely engaging them, was one that the admiral valued highly.

Hence this vital mission to Naples. The great French naval port of Toulon had surrendered to the British fleet, but Hood lacked the means to hold it against the revolutionary armies marching from Marseilles to recapture it. Nelson’s mission, to him, implied that he had his admiral’s trust, and it had also given
Agamemnon
the chance to snap up a prize on the way, a fully laden Levant merchant vessel, which Nelson had valued provisionally as worth at least ten
thousand
pounds. Three-eighths would be his share, less commission to Davidson, who was acting as his prize agent. Letters had already gone off to him and to Fanny, to tell her of the increase in their wealth.

And here in Naples he was going ashore as a man of substance, Hood’s representative, to treat with a king and his ministers on behalf of his own sovereign. With his signal gun he had saluted the kingdom, and Naples had replied most handsomely. His launch was surrounded by boats of all shapes and sizes, some with fishermen, others carrying people of obvious quality come to greet a British man-o’-war.

They were not the only eyes on the barge. From one of the higher chambers of the Castel Nuovo, Maria Carolina, using a
telescope
on a tripod, had both launch and occupants in view. Emma Hamilton was trying to focus on the same with the naked eye, but the distance was too great. The Queen was calmer now than she had been at first light, when she had been alerted to strange
topsails
on the horizon. Like most of her wealthy subjects, she stood
in terror of the arrival of the French who, having chopped off the head of King Louis, would bring with them the seeds of revolution and murder.

That had occasioned panic in her husband and most of her courtiers, to the point where many had a coach and four laden with their possessions ready to flee. The Queen’s nerve had held firm enough to stop Ferdinand from leading a Gadarene rush to safety, which was singular given that her own sister Marie Antoinette was in grave danger of following her husband to the guillotine. There were enough elements in Naples, vocal ones these last months, who would gladly deliver her to the same fate.

As a witness to the earlier reaction of the nobility, Emma was somewhat amused at everyone’s behaviour since the vessel had been positively identified as British. Inclined to boast without cause
anyway
, the Neapolitans she met now swaggered in a parody of bravery, and told her how they had spent the time since dawn loading guns, sharpening swords, preparing to repulse the French invader.

“Your British captain is not very imposing, Emma.”

“Might I be allowed a look, Your Majesty?”

Maria Carolina stood back from the spyglass and Emma peered through, adjusting the lens to get a clearer view. She homed in on the dark blue naval coat, but could see little of the face, obscured as it was by the crowd in front. The man was not tall, but that was commonplace. Few naval officers were, it being so uncomfortable to have too much height in a ship. Emma swung instead to look at the warship in the bay, twin rows of ports open to let in air, though with no guns run out. The sails were furled now, tight against the yards, but the vessel was still a hive of activity, ant-like creatures running through the rigging and traversing the decks. The tide had turned her near bow on to the shore, showing her as broad at the base and much narrower at the level of the deck, the figurehead a proud bust, coloured gold and carmine, with the royal arms at the base. Her pennants fluttered in the breeze and the boats that had gone out to her, to sell their wares and women, stood a way off, awaiting permission to come close enough to trade.

“It is the ship that matters, Your Majesty,” Emma said, as she swung the glass to the quay, fixing her gaze on her husband’s back. “That, I swear, is imposing enough.”

The reception committee on the public quay was numerous, led by the man Nelson must see first, the Ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, whose bearing identified him easily as an English
grand
seigneur.
Nelson examined him carefully: tall, once handsome, now showing the lined face and prominent bones of his age. Nelson knew that Hamilton had been in his post for thirty years, and had become famous not only for his length of service but as a collector. There was also the matter of his marriage, which had occasioned a minor scandal, the ripples of which had reached Norfolk. The bride was thirty years his junior and a lady with a colourful past.

After weeks or months at sea, great self-control is required by a sailor to maintain his dignity when stepping ashore. Motionless dry land can easily make a man whose legs are in tune with the waves appear an idiot. Was Hamilton aware of this? Nelson didn’t know, but the Ambassador aided him by grasping his hand so firmly that his natural inclination to sway was choked off. Indeed, Hamilton held him in such a strong grip that Nelson felt he was keeping him upright while they exchanged names and courtesies.

“Captain Nelson, you have no notion what it does to my
spirits
in these troubled times to see a British man-o’-war anchored off Naples.”

Though not yet steady, Nelson had achieved some sense of
balance
, enough at least to carry off the rest of the introductions without support. In between the exchange of names, speaking rapidly, he brought Hamilton up to date with events: what had
happened
in Marseilles, which had tried to surrender to Hood only to face the Red Terror. Men, women, and children, whose only crime was gentility, had been murdered in cold blood on a guillotine set up in the main square. The citizens of Toulon, frightened by this, had surrendered their town to the British, along with the best part of the French Mediterranean fleet.