Time dragged. Cabins of a sort had been found for Sir John Acton, for the Hamiltons, and the Russian and Austrian ambassadors. The royal children were settling down at last; even the Queen had consented to go to bed, and the Princess Royal had stopped crying to sip the hot milk and dash of navy rum that Mrs. Cadogan had found for her.
And still the Alcmene’s boat had not returned. Helen sat listlessly on her cot in the tiny cabin she was to share with two of the royal maids—and Ricky? She could hardly bring herself to look at his small pallet on the floor in the corner. “There you are.” Lord Merritt looked in at the door. “Hope you’re satisfied. No sign of the boat. Probably all had their throats cut by the lazzaroni. Too much to hope three boatloads would get away.”
She had thought of this too, and raised heavy eyes to his. “If they don’t come,” she said, “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Much use that will be.”
It was midnight, and cold. Somewhere, the ship’s bell struck, and Helen, listening, wondered if it was tolling for Ricky’s death. There was nothing more to do now but sit and wait, and hate herself. How could she have abandoned Ricky as she had? But had she not failed him even before that, when she left him in charge of the servants and threw her whole heart into nursing Charles Scroope? If the two of them were dead now, it would be no more than she deserved.
“Here they come, love.” Lady Hamilton stood in the doorway, and for the second time in her life Helen thought her an angel.
“You’re sure?”
“It’s the boat all right. Can’t see who’s in it, of course, but they’ve got a full load. You can see how low she lies in the water. Come up on deck? Here—” Emma Hamilton had brought a warm boat cloak and wrapped it round Helen’s shoulders. “I knew you’d want to come.”
Impossible to make out faces in the boat that looked so small and tossed so restlessly as it came alongside in the dank darkness. The bosun’s chair was swinging down. Helen found she was holding Lady Hamilton’s hand, tight. The chair came up with the King’s major domo, sweating with fright, shaking uncontrollably as he was deposited on the deck.
“Wait here, love. I’ll ask.” Lady Hamilton loosed Helen’s hand gently and went over to speak to the man in her fluent Italian. Returning, “All’s well,” she said. “Your Ricky’s down there having the time of his life. A proper young devil, the man says. But something must have gone wrong. Captain Scroope’s wounded.”
“Badly?” If so, all her fault.
“He didn’t know. Hold on, love. You can’t faint here.”
“I suppose not.” With an effort she pulled herself together. “No time for that anyway. Lady Hamilton, I do thank you . . .”
The beauty laughed. “Am I your angel again, then? And, look, here comes your young devil. Scoot, love.”
Ricky, released from the bosun’s chair onto the deck, was in a seventh heaven of excitement. “Oh, Mamma!” He was touchingly glad to have her for audience. “I had an adventure.” And then, thinking about it, “Captain Scroope and I. A real adventure. Captain Scroope said I was a very brave boy. I held the lantern while he fought Price. Just think: a real fight, and I held the lantern.”
“Who won?” Lord Merritt had been close by, invisible in the darkness, waiting too.
“Captain Scroope, of course. The good man always wins. He told me so. And Price was very bad.”
“Was?” Helen had not thought her husband’s voice could contain such naked feeling. If only she could warn Ricky, but the child’s voice was already tumbling on.
“I think Captain Scroope killed him,” he said. “He had his sword on. Price said, ‘Stop,’ and he said, ‘Why,’ and Price said, ‘I’ll show you,’ and then I took the lantern and they fought. Look,” he held his hand proudly to the light. “I’m all over blood from where I gave the lantern back.”
“Boasting, Ricky?” said a new voice, Charles Scroope’s. “All’s well, Lady Merritt. We had a little trouble, but all’s well.”
“Well?” Lord Merritt’s voice grated from the shadow. “Where’s my man? Where’s Price?”
“Dead, I hope,” said Charles Scroope.
“Ooh,” said Ricky. “I thought he was dead.”
“Young devil!” Lord Merritt emerged from the shadows to strike him a ringing blow on the head. “Say that about my friend!”
“Price?” the question came simultaneously from Charles Scroope and, through surprised sobs, from Ricky.
“Price. My only friend.” He turned on Helen. “Warned you. Watch yourself, that’s all. Just watch yourself. I’ll get even.” He turned and vanished into the crowded darkness of the deck.
“I’m sorry.” Scroope took Helen’s arm to guide her below-decks. “There was no help for it. Price had had a very good idea.” He switched from English to his fluent French. “He was going to keep the child as hostage for your cooperation.”
“Oh, my God.”
“What are you saying?” Ricky let go of his mother’s hand and stopped crying to look up impatiently. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m telling your mother about our adventure and how brave you were.”
“But you’re wounded.” Helen had actually forgotten it in the scene with her husband.
“It’s nothing. A scratch on the arm. Price was no swordsman, and I no hero. I’ll have it seen to when you are safe below.”
“Much better let me bandage it.”
“No thank you, Lady Merritt.” His tone was cold again. Had he had enough of her nursing?
It blew and rained all night, and in the morning the exhausted passengers of the Vanguard found themselves still at harbour in the storm-tossed bay. And Naples woke to find its King gone, and the royal standard flying from the British flagship in the harbour. All day boats plied to and fro with messages, petitions, prayers, but only Cardinal Zurlo, the Archbishop of Naples, was allowed aboard, and he got little satisfaction from the King, who merely told him that he would return when he saw that his subjects did their duty.
Watching from the deck, Helen and Ricky saw the mole and quays thronged with thousands of would-be refugees bargaining frantically for passage on one or other of the merchantmen in the bay. Two Neapolitan warships were also making ready to sail, but half their crews had deserted in order to stay and protect their families, and Lord Nelson had to lend them British sailors. “The only reliable men in the world,” said Lady Hamilton.
“Just the same,” said Helen doubtfully, “I would have thought it would have been more tactful if the royal family had sailed with Prince Caracciolo in the Samnite.”
“Impossible,” said the patroness of the British navy. “How could they have trusted that wretched lot of deserters?” And then, “What’s the matter with Lord Merritt, by the way? He looks sick as a dog. And the way he’s treating you . . . !”
“He’s angry about his man Price,” Helen explained reluctantly.
“No need to take it out on you,” said Lady Hamilton. “Shall I have a word with him? Or ask the Admiral to?”
“Good God, no. Thank you very much. It will pass. I hope.” Helen had also hoped that everyone would be too busy to notice how her husband behaved to her when she was so unlucky as to meet him, but she might have known that this was just the kind of thing that Lady Hamilton did notice. “If only we would sail!” It was a cry echoed by every one of the passengers. Now that the first urgency of the escape was over, they were beginning to feel the full discomfort of their crowded condition.
They did sail at last next day, December the twenty-third, but Helen was puzzled to see that the two Neapolitan ships were not accompanying them. “I wonder why not.”
“Cowardice, I expect,” said Emma Hamilton.
That night they learned that Prince Caracciolo knew his weather. The wind rose to gale force; the sails split, and sailors stood ready, axe in hand, to cut away the mainmast if it should fall. Below-decks, conditions, bad before, were now as near intolerable as made no difference. Suffering already fro
m fatigue and nervous strain, the royal party were now prostrate with seasickness. Servants were in as bad case as their masters, and only Lady Hamilton, Mrs. Cadogan, Helen and Angelina kept their feet.
Helen had her hands full with Ricky, who was suffering from the inevitable aftermath of his adventures, but as soon as she had got him off into a restless sleep, she joined the other two women in providing what comfort they could for the occupants of the crowded, stinking royal cabins. To get up to the heads was to risk death. It was no wonder if the below-decks smelled.
“How is Sir William?” Helen met Lady Hamilton, basin in hands.
“In his cabin.” Emma Hamilton’s voice was scornful. “With a pistol in each hand. He says he will shoot himself if we sink. He won’t die with the ‘guggle—guggle—guggle’ of salt water in his throat. Much use he is.” She summed it up once and for all. “Oh.” A happier thought. “My hero has invited you and Captain Scroope to join us for Christmas dinner. I said your husband was too ill.”
“It’s true, thank God,” said Helen. She had tried to minister to her husband but had been turned out of his cabin with a volley of helpless curses. Of Charles Scroope there had been no sign. Doubtless he was up on deck, helping the Admiral’s depleted crew to fight the storm. “I wonder where Prince Caracciolo is,” the question rose naturally from her thoughts.
“Lucky if he’s not drowned,” said Lady Hamilton.
The wind eased a little on the night of the twenty-fourth, and by Christmas day they were merely encountering the rough aftermath of the storm. The royal family were still prostrate with sickness, but Ricky was sleeping more naturally, and Helen felt it safe to leave him and join the Hamiltons at Christmas dinner with the Admiral. It was a strange enough occasion. Sir William had changed from an elderly, upright man to a shuffling, shaking, old one, and his wife seemed to have stopped noticing him. All her attention was for the man she now called “my” rather than “our” hero, and all his for her. Sitting side by side, they might just as well, Helen thought, have been alone in the crowded cabin. Sir William, drowsily drinking port, apparently noticed nothing, but Helen caught Charles Scroope’s eye across the table and knew that his anxious thoughts ran parallel to hers. There was something at once touching, and, alas, ridiculous about the two of them as they sat there, aware of nothing but each other. They might have been a boy and girl in the throes of first love, and the world well lost. But they were not. It was an elderly, crippled Admiral who flushed like a boy at the touch of the buxom charmer by his side. They could hardly have made their situation more obvious, Helen thought, if they had written “We Are Lovers” on one of those bits of ribbon Lady Hamilton was so fond of.
Horrible. And Sir William sitting there, sipping away at his port, apparently oblivious. Charles Scroope caught her eye again, and this time she read his message clearly, and obeyed it. “Forgive me.” She rose with a flood of apologies and thanks, the gist of the matter her anxiety for Ricky. It effectively broke up the party, and she was more relieved than she cared to admit at the sight of Lord Nelson tearing himself away from his enchantress to go up on deck.
They sighted land at last at three o’clock that Christmas afternoon, but there was no chance of going ashore until next morning. And that night little Prince Albert died of exhaustion in Lady Hamilton’s motherly arms.
It was selfish, after watching Maria Carolina mourn the death of her son, to feel such joy at Ricky’s recovery. Their two cabin mates were better too, and had tottered out to minister to their unhappy mistress. Helen was alone with Ricky when Lord Merritt appeared, white, exhausted, and shaking. “You.” He leant against the open cabin door. “Want to talk to you. Killed my friend Price. Go your own way. Don’t want to hang for you. So: go your own way. I’ve done with you.”
“You can’t . . .” But he had gone, and she faced the fact that he could. There was nothing to stop him leaving her penniless in the strange city of Palermo. So much, she thought bitterly, for Aunt Helen Stott and the independence of women.
“What’s the matter, Mamma?” Ricky was pulling at her skirts. “Why’s he so cross?”
“It’s nothing, dear.” Helen had noticed long before that Ricky never referred to Lord Merritt as “Papa.” “We’re all tired, that’s all,” she said. “It will pass.” Would it?
“I’d rather live with you,” said Ricky. “Oh good.” The door had opened again to reveal Charles Scroope. “Now we’Il be all right and tight. Mamma is crying,” he said, as if it explained everything.
“Helen.” Charles looked round the empty cabin, came in and closed the door. “I won’t apologise. I was outside. I heard what Lord Merritt said, l’d been wondering what to say; what to do. About you—about us. Now I know. You can’t go on like this, if he’d let you. With him. Bullying you; swearing at you; threatening you for what I did. For Price! And not fit to be in the same room . . . Now he’s settled it. He’s freed you. You’re free, Helen. In the eyes of God.”
She looked up at him, eyes dull with shock. “I don’t believe in God.”
“So much the simpler. You must come away with me. You and Ricky. I’ll send in my papers. I’ll take you”—he stopped for a moment, thinking it over—“to America. I’ve friends there.”
“And they’d welcome your mistress?” She rounded on him, savage with the pain of it. “And her child.” She had nearly said bastard. “It’s mighty kind of you, Charles Scroope, when you don’t even like me.”
“Like? Who said anything about liking? Helen, you know I’ve always loved you. I can’t help myself. God knows I’ve tried.”
“Thank you. I’ve noticed. I’ve seen, too, how ready you are to believe the worst of me.” It was a relief to have it out at last. “Everything that wretch Trenche told you. I suppose this flattering offer of yours follows naturally enough. Why should I not be your mistress, since I was Trenche’s?”
“So you admit it.”
“I do not!” She spat at him, then remembered the child who was standing between them casting puzzled, anxious glances from one to the other. “But this is not the time, still less the place to be talking of such things. Not that there is anything more to say. I thank you a thousand times, Captain Scroope, for your most flattering offer, which I must decline.”
“But, Helen, what will you do?”
“Anything but that,” she said. “You were there, at dinner. Did not the very sight of them make you sick? As if no one else was in the room with them. Doting . . . and Sir William there . . . and poor Lady Nelson at home in England . . .” She had not quite known until now, when she found herself so unexpectedly speaking of it, how much she had minded that scene. “I thought her an angel,” she said now. “She’s only the shadow of one.”
“Or fallen. Like Lucifer.”
“Twice. She had made such a recovery. That’s why it’s so sad. It is so sad, Charles.” How had it happened that she, who a moment before had been so furious, was now appealing to him like this for comfort? And yet, how natural.
And, equally natural, he did his best to give her the comfort she needed. “Nothing’s happened,” he said, and then spoiled it by adding, “yet.”
“But it will.”
“I’m afraid so. God knows what will come of it.”
“ ‘Afraid.’ Charles, there’s your answer. What won’t do for them, will do still less for us. But—” she smiled up at him through a dazzle of tears—“thank you, Charles. Oh . . .”
He, too, had heard voices outside and had turned quickly to tell a puzzled Ricky that he could not take him up on deck just now. If Helen’s two cabinmates thought it odd to find her entertaining a naval gentleman with no better chaperon than Ricky, they kept their thoughts to themselves, and soon forgot them in the excitement of preparing to go ashore. Nobody slept much that night, since everyone knew that in the course of it, the Vanguard would make her battered way into Palermo harbour. Helen had finally fallen into a light doze when Ricky woke her. “Mamma, I think we’re there!”
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Listening to the familiar sounds above-decks, she knew at once that he was right. There was the anchor cable roaring out. The horrible voyage was over. And a bustle outside the cabin told her that her fellow passengers knew it too. Now a knock on the door was followed by a low-voiced summons to the Queen’s two maids. “Her Majesty goes ashore at once,” said the anonymous voice.
“It’s the middle of the night!” Ricky was amazed and delighted. “Mamma, do let’s go and watch them! Or are we going too?”
“I don’t think so.” What should she do? There had been no chance to discuss her plight with Lady Hamilton, and even if there had been, she did not think she would have done so. She would never forget that scene over dinner the day before, the overblown beauty and the shrivelled little Admiral sitting there and languishing at each other. And now, inevitably, she remembered other scenes. She had not been present when Lady Hamilton had fainted into Lord Nelson’s arms on his own quarter-deck, but she had heard about it often enough. And then there had been that extravagant, vulgar birthday party, when Lady Hamilton had been in such an exalted state, and Nelson’s stepson had made a scene. At the time, Helen had blamed Josiah Nisbet; now she felt only sympathy for him. He had been right, and she wrong. The gallant friendship she had admired had carried the seeds of disaster, and now they were ripe for the sowing.
She wanted no part of it. Lord Nelson, she knew, intended to share a house with the Hamiltons in Palermo. If she went to Lady Hamilton with the news that her husband was abandoning her, she would undoubtedly be invited to join them. She could not bear it. But why? What had happened to her? She was Helen Telfair, who had so often shocked Miss Tillingdon by preaching the liberation of women and the equality of the sexes. And here she was, behaving, or planning to behave, exactly as Miss Tillingdon would. Dearly though she loved him, she would not live, unmarried, with Charles Scroope, and neither would she expose Ricky (or herself) to the kind of affair that was so evidently coming into rank blossom between the Admiral and the lady. She was just a prude, after all.
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