His eyes flickered past her to where Charlotte was standing, but she could not let him go yet. “You look worn out.” Surely, as an old friend she had the right to say it.
“It’s nothing.” Almost the same phrase as before. “The refit. And of course the Neapolitan ships have first call on supplies.”
“Yes.” She remembered what had been puzzling her when she first saw him. Here, surely, was a safe, neutral topic of conversation. “Have you noticed,” she asked, “that there are no young people here?”
He looked quickly round, as if to make sure that they were near enough to the musicians, who were in full fling with an air of Mr. Haydn’s, so that they could not possibly be overheard. “You have not perhaps heard the rumours, Lady Merritt?”
“Rumours?” She hated having him use her title. “No.”
“I thought not.” His glance took in the splendidly furnished rooms. “I think you should know that there is talk of a Jacobin conspiracy among the young aristocrats here.”
“Oh,” she said. “That. Yes, Sir William did say something, but I did not think he meant it seriously.”
“I have a great respect for Sir William,” said Captain Scroope. “But do you not find that it is sometimes hard to be sure whether he is serious or not?” At last he was talking to her almost like the friend he had once been.
Friend? She bit back tears, but kept her voice casual. “And you think this serious?”
“Serious enough so that the young Neapolitans do not come to Lady Hamilton’s parties. They are doubtless at the French Ambassador’s at this moment. You did not know?”
“Know?”
“That he is giving an impromptu party today.”
“And very ill-attended it will be.” A tall, strongly built man in a mask had come up behind Scroope as he spoke, and now interrupted him in rather broad Italian. “We’re much better here, with the divine Emma and our new star.” Here a curious bob of a bow for Helen. “As beautiful as I had heard,” he said, eyes behind the mask making an obvious inventory of Helen’s white dress and crimson sash. “You wear red?” The question had more overtones than Helen liked, and it was a relief when Charles Scroope took it up.
“Crimson, sire.” His Italian was surprisingly good. “No intelligent person wears any other red these days.”
“No,” grunted the mask, “but then there are so many fools.”
That was Helen’s first encounter with King Ferdinand of Naples, the eccentric monarch whose subjects called him either Il Re Nasone because of his enormous Bourbon nose, or, affectionately, the King of the Lazzaroni, who adored him. It was far from being her last. King Ferdinand, who had succeeded to the throne at the ripe age of eight, had had about as little education as her own husband, and it proved an immediate bond between them. The fact that Ferdinand’s English was as bad as Merritt’s Italian merely seemed to constitute an additional tie, and, in fact, as Ferdinand had proved by his disconcerting interruption at the party, he could understand more English than he spoke. Most important of all, they shared a passion for hunting, in which Ferdinand spent the greater part of his time, leaving the conduct of his kingdom to his wife, and their first minister, General Acton. Even now, with Naples abuzz with rumours of Jacobin meetings, of Freemasons who swore strange oaths in secret, and of French agents who had been smuggled back with the evacuated royalists from Toulon, Ferdinand spent his time as he always had, at one or other of his country houses, slaughtering great battues of driven game, with Lord Merritt now as his constant companion.
“Odd kind of fellow,” Merritt confided to his wife, after one of these excursions. “Cuts them up himself. Like a butcher.”
Helen shuddered. “Horrible. No wonder Sir William is glad to have you take his place.” For Sir William, who had achieved early and lasting popularity with the King by joining him in these bloody outings, had made it tactfully clear that he was more than pleased to surrender the doubtful privilege to Lord Merritt.
It suited Helen too. It was late in March, and the sun was wanner every day. She felt progressively better every day and was beginning to enjoy the social life of Naples, quieter than usual because of Lent and the general mourning, but still absorbing enough to a girl who had not been to a real party for four years. She had her own box now at the San Carlo Opera, and had learned that ladies entertained in their boxes, as in a salon, providing refreshments on certain nights for the gentlemen who wandered freely from box to box. The only thing that maddened her was that the audience, respectfully quiet during the ballet, always burst into vigorous conversation when the opera began. And the occasion, on Shrove Tuesday, when the King made one of his infrequent appearances and threw macaroni to the delighted mob in the pit, shocked her to the core. The Queen, she noticed, stayed well out of the way at the back of the royal box until the orgy was over.
Emma Hamilton’s angelic queen was an impressive figure, if she could never have been a beautiful one, like her dead sister, Marie Antoinette. Presented to her, Helen had been aware of sharp, cold eyes in the high-complexioned face. “You’re very young,” Her Majesty had said. “I think I should warn you, Lady Merritt, that youth here in Naples is not always a guarantee of respectability.”
Helen remembered these rather chilling words on Shrove Tuesday, aware of a subdued titter among the young people who seemed to gravitate naturally to her box. This was very pleasant for Charlotte, whose Italian was improving by leaps and bounds, but just the same, Helen found herself increasingly wondering whether it was wise to encourage them. Besides, she had noticed something else about them. They often arrived late, or left early, or even disappeared for a whole act of the opera, returning in the highest possible spirits, rather like schoolboys back from a successful bit of mischief. She began to wonder if she and Charlotte might be being used as cover for some sinister activity.
It was hard to believe it of these charming, intelligent young men, who were so invariably courteous and such a pleasure to entertain, but then, what did she know of the realities of life here in Naples? And where could she turn for advice? Her husband was a cipher, she distrusted Trenche from the bottom of her heart, and Lady Hamilton, who might have seemed the obvious choice, was so closely in touch with the Queen that Helen feared the consequences to her group of young friends if she were to breathe a word of her doubts about them in that quarter. They might so easily be entirely innocent, merely up to the kind of mischief young men do indulge in, and she had been in Naples long enough now to know that the threat of the secret police and the great prison fortresses that loomed even more menacing than Vesuvius over the city was a real one. She refused to listen to the rumours that the Queen actually interviewed secret agents herself in a secret room—the sala oscura at the palace, but on the other hand she found she could not entirely disbelieve them.
And could you blame the Queen? She had seen the fate of her sister and brother-in-law in France. There was no doubt that liberal, or even revolutionary feeling was strong in Naples. A few years before, when a detachment of the French fleet had sailed aggressively into the harbour, a group of rash young men had gone on board wearing the cap of liberty and drunk, Helen had heard, a series of foolhardy toasts. As the Court had had to yield to all the French commander, La Touche Treville’s, demands, the occasion had inevitably rankled and had probably had a good deal to do with the treaty that Naples had finally signed with England. Queen Maria Carolina had realised, if her husband had not, that a country as exposed as theirs must have an ally with a fleet to protect it.
Helen was sitting in her sweet-scented garden, brooding anxiously about all this, when one of the servants appeared to announce Captain Scroope. Her heart leapt at the name. He had been away in Sicily, choosing timbers for the refit of the Gannet, since the supplies in Naples had been exhausted by the Toulon disaster, and, inevitably, the needs of the battered Neapolitan ships came first. Making herself greet him with formal casualness, she thought he looked brown and well and anxious.
“No, th
ank you.” He refused her offer of refreshment. “May we stay out here? I had been hoping for a word alone with you.”
“Oh?” What in the world could he have to say to her? She felt herself blushing uncontrollably, and turned away, inwardly raging, to hide it. “Yes, Lady Merritt”—he paused, momentarily at a loss—“you must forgive me, if you think me presuming on our old acquaintanceship . . .”
“Friendship.” She could not help saying it.
“Thank you. That makes it easier.” Suddenly, delightfully, he laughed, the young man’s laugh that she had thought lost in the captain’s dignity. “Do you remember that time you recognised Lady Hamilton’s picture, and what a dust your aunt kicked up?”
“Do I not! Nor how grateful I was to you for the way you helped me out of the scrape.”
“Does she know?”
“Lady Hamilton? No; I thought it perhaps best forgotten.”
“Like many things.” And then, on the same grave note, he said, “But I hope you will bear with me, if I give you what you may think a foolish warning.”
“A warning?” This was not at all what she had expected. But then, what on earth had she expected?
“Yes. I got back to town last night to find it alive with rumours. Much worse than when we last talked.”
“I know,” she said helpfully. “There’s all kinds of gossip. One can’t help hearing it. But you don’t think there’s any truth in it, do you?”
“I wish I was sure. It may all be just young men’s nonsense.” And then, aware of her quick smile: “No, of course, I’m not so old myself, but I hope I have more sense than to go round talking of France and liberty here in Naples. The trouble is, even if it is nonsense, it may not be taken as such. There are spies everywhere. I know de Medici, the chief of police, seems the mildest of men——”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “And, besides, do you know two of the leading revolutionaries—which I honestly do not believe they are—actually live in his house.”
“The Giordano brothers. But don’t you see, you can look even at that more ways than one. They may be fooling him, or he may be fooling them, or there may really be nothing to it. But, Lady Merritt, what I came to say was that I have heard your box at the opera mentioned oftener than I like in connection with that group of young madcaps.”
“Not the Giordano brothers.”
“No, they are hardly of a class to appear there. But they are in constant association with men like Vincenzo Vitaliani and Emmanuele de Deo, and that poetess, what’s her name? Pimentel.”
“But she’s charming! Charlotte and I like her best of all the Neapolitan ladies we have met. And surely she wrote an ode or something in honour of the Queen not long ago.”
“Long enough to have changed her mind since. So it’s true that there’s a constant coming and going of these young lunatics between her box and yours?”
“Well, yes.” Here, surely, was the adviser she had wanted. “To tell you the truth, I have been a little worried myself.”
“A little worried! Helen, I beg you, don’t forget you’re not in England now. There’s no presumption of innocence here.”
“Well,” she said reasonably, “there’s not all that much there. Think of Wilkes.”
“He survived,” said Scroope grimly. “If there really is a plot afoot and the Queen were to think you implicated, you might just disappear, and neither nationality nor title would avail you much when no one knew where you were.”
Helen shivered. “You think it as bad as that?”
“It’s happened before,” he said. “Two years ago, after the visit the French squadron paid here. Some of the young men who visited the French admiral on his flagship and toasted ‘Liberty’ in red caps just vanished afterwards and have not been heard of since.”
“I didn’t know.” She was appalled.
“Of course not. Their families have more sense than to mention them. But I have no doubt that every time there is a royal fête, an occasion for clemency, one of those constant childbearings of the Queen’s, there are families all over Naples saying secret prayers for the life of a beloved son. They don’t even know whether they are alive or dead you see. Once you’re in the cells below Sant’ Elmo, you might as well be dead.”
“It’s horrible.”
“You’re beginning to understand. Lady Merritt”—had they either of them noticed that he had called her “Helen” before?—“I do seriously beg you to think of a pretext not to attend the opera tonight, and then to find some means of changing your company.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know.” Impatiently. “But you’ll think of something.”
“If you really think it necessary.”
He was, incredibly, on the verge of losing his temper with her. “It depends whether you value your life—and that of Miss Standish, who is inevitably involved. Lord Merritt, I know, is on such good terms with the King that he would probably get off scot-free, but whether he would be able to save you is another question.” His dry tone suggested that he doubted her husband’s capability in every sense of the word.
“You’re right, of course.” It was a relief to admit it. “Tonight, in fact, I have to go. It’s Charlotte’s birthday and we have invited several people.”
“Plead illness.”
It was the last thing she wanted to do, and almost a relief when the appearance of Trenche on the terrace put an end to the conversation. Scroope had never tried to conceal his dislike of Trenche, and now took his leave, pressing Helen’s hand, hard, once, and urging her to think over what he had said.
“Secrets?” asked Trenche, with an attempt at roguishness that she found repellent.
“Just some good advice from an old friend.” She made her tone as quelling as possible, and wished Charlotte would join them.
“What a coincidence. Good advice was precisely what I had come to give—and to ask.”
“Oh?” She turned negligently half away from him, and bent to pick herself a fragrant cluster of violets.
She was standing, and was therefore surprised to see Trenche seat himself negligently on the arm of one of the terrace’s marble benches. “Just so,” he said, “advice from an old”—he had the grace to hesitate—“friend. Do you think it wise, circumstanced as you are, to give tête-à-tête interviews to single gentlemen?”
“What in the world do you mean?” But she was horribly afraid that she knew.
“Lady Merritt, I’m not quite a fool. I was puzzled, at first, as anyone might have been, over that sudden marriage of yours. I have thought you many things, but never mercenary.”
“Thank you.” Her mouth was dry. The less she said, the better.
“So, of course, I have watched you,” he went on blandly. “Oh, my congratulations. You have been superb. No one without cause to suspect would have done so. But I—had cause. What do you plan? A fright of some kind? A premature birth? Even Lord Merritt can count, you know.”
The scorn in his voice when he spoke of her husband put angry heart into her. And, besides, here was a tiny scruple of hope. He might know of her condition, but he had not guessed that Lord Merritt did. “How dare you speak of your employer in that tone?” She asked it angrily, giving herself a breathing space to think, to try frantically to plan.
“Oh, Helen, between ourselves? With so much already between us? You must allow me the privilege of an old friend, at least.” And, when she turned away from him, too angry for words: “Besides, I have come to offer my help. I don’t want to stand in my child’s way. Or in yours. I have too much to gain as things stand. Nearer the time, I am sure we can think of something, between us. But, in the meanwhile, there are a couple of small favours you can do me.”
Here it came, the inevitable blackmail. “Yes?” She had swiftly decided that to deny his allegations would be worse than useless. Once he had suspected, the facts would speak all too clearly for themselves.
“You have been leaving me out of your parties, when Lord Merritt
is away. I should like to be included. For instance, you and Miss Standish go to the San Carlo tonight. Surely I am as respectable a cicisbeo—I believe that is the correct term?” Again that intolerable note of mockery in his voice. “Surely a safer cicisbeo,” he reiterated the insulting word with obvious pleasure, “than these young Neapolitan fire-eaters of yours. Besides,” now he was coming to the heart of the matter, “I rely on your influence with the divine Charlotte.”
“With Miss Standish?” Could she understand him correctly?
“Yes. I won’t say I hadn’t hoped for better things, but needs must, you know . . . I have the strangest feeling that now he has you to do his thinking for him, Lord Merritt may decide, after a while, to dispense with my invaluable services, and, in that case, what can I do but marry money? Oh, I know”—he raised a hand to silence her—“Miss Standish has nothing much, and that mother of hers won’t be best pleased, but, when you come to think of it, what could be more suitable? Secretary marries housekeeper. What I can’t decide—the point upon which I need your advice, and, indeed, your help, is whether it would be best to play the honourable man, and face all the delay that involves, or to compromise the girl and let the old harridan make the best bargain she can.”
“I find you absolutely intolerable.” She spat it at him.
“Oh, that’s of course.” He would not be ruffled. “Forgive me; I have pushed you, perhaps, a little far for a first interview, but when you have thought a little, I am sure you will see the advantages of an alliance with me. I can help you immensely. Or I can ruin you. Suppose I were to write to Lord Merritt’s uncle?”
“You would ruin yourself.” But the threat went home.
“It might even be worth it.” His tone told her how much he hated her. “But, in the meantime, Lady Merritt.” He rose, his voice a mockery of respect: “I beg you will do me the honour of allowing me to escort you to the opera tonight.”
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