Sir William

by David Stacton

  It was beautiful escutcheon. Looking out the window the next morning, he was pleased to see a peasant kneeling before it in the street. One had only to show the ignorant the image of enlightenment and they revised their ways at once.

  “Bring that man to me,” he said.

  The man, picturesque as a sans culotte but a lot cleaner, was hustled upstairs. He seemed frightened, or perhaps what he felt was awe—for the two are similar—and having heard of awe only by hearsay, Hugou de Bassville could not be accurate in his diagnosis.

  “Ask him if he knows the name of the goddess he is worshiping,” he told the interpreter.

  “He says, ‘Why were you down on your knees down there?’” explained the interpreter.

  “It was such a beautiful madonna,” said the lazzarone. “Such a pretty hat.”

  “Madre mia!” said the interpreter.

  “Minerva, by whom we mean Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom, was the daughter of Zeus, by whom we mean Jupiter. She had no children,” said Bassville, struck by the implications of what he had just said, but only lightly, as in passing.

  “The French are very funny,” said the lazzarone. “The Virgin Mary was the daughter of St. Anne, everybody knows that.”

  “Do you mean to tell me,” roared Bassville, who had begun to catch the drift of this, “that the man thought he was worshiping the Madonna? What ignorance. What impiety.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said the interpreter, “but, sir, I couldn’t think of anything.”

  “Throw them out,” said Bassville. It was a thankless task. You asked for a stone, and they gave you bread. So often the downtrodden could be liberated only by calling in reinforcements. It would mean war.

  Everything means war, but for the moment there were no reinforcements, so Bassville went on to Rome and the more congenial boyish task of burning the Pope in effigy.

  The King buried the silver and gave up three hundred and ninety-two of his dogs. He had the menagerie killed. He had the chandeliers taken down. If the Queen wished to scribble, she could do so by the light of a storm lantern. He had made his preparations and went off to hunt and fish with his customary courage. Acton could take care of the rest.

  Lady Elizabeth Foster arrived.

  “Lady Elizabeth has expressed an interest in Vesuvius,” said Sir William.

  “Oh the good kind lady,” said Emma, whose temper was not always quite perfect. There were many English ladies to present to the Queen these days. Had Emma not been of so forgiving a disposition, this duty would have given her a singular and exquisite pleasure. Here she was their only entry, whereas in England they would not have let her in at all. She was beginning to discover the joys of being affable from a superior position. Her standards were improving. She began to hold opinions, a task not difficult, for they weighed light and were soon gotten rid of. One had merely to pass them on.

  In August, the King of France was executed. This made the King of Naples conciliatory. He agreed to receive the French delegates.

  “To avoid war, we caress the serpent which will poison us,” said Maria Carolina, returning, unopened, the gift of a basket of fruit.

  “He would have danced a minuet upon the mole, had the French requested it,” said Acton.

  Apart from that, the sun shone and there was nothing wrong. Nonetheless, into each life a little rain must fall, though not much.

  *

  “His Britannic Majesty’s government,” said Sir William, “has been pleased to declare war against France.” His face, which was generally marble, was for the moment blancmange.

  “I suppose that means we may not travel, that the mails will be delayed, and that the Bishop of Derry may not come out to us,” said Emma, grasping the consequences with her usual sagacity.

  “Not even as Lord Bristol. They have pulled down the pillars of society. They respect neither the Ermine nor the Cloth. So it would not be safe.”

  “Still, we need not delay this Thursday’s dinner, need we?”

  “I fear it is too late now to delay anything.”

  Greville, too, had sent stirring news. With his customary pertinacity and financial flair, he had managed to cut the revenue of the Welsh estates by half.

  They both considered this. It could not be denied: Greville was a remarkable man, astute, perspicacious and easily defeated. There are times when even banter fails.

  “Truly they are vile creatures,” said Sir William.

  “The French?”

  “Estate managers of all sorts,” said Sir William. “You had better dress. The Queen has sent for us.”

  *

  As so she had. She was a commanding woman, restless, peremptory and prompt. Though she abhorred to meddle, when there was a decision to be made, she made it. This habit of mind showed in her face, for had she not been a Queen and therefore a beauty, people would have found her jolie laide. Her religious beliefs never wavered, her convictions were firm: the former, that the survival of herself, the House of Hapsburg and the Neapolitan Throne were essential to Him; the second, that this could be done. A scale model of decorum, but able in everything, she believed in enlightened self-interest, employed her own spies, and literate to a fault, had read both the “Social Contract” and the Manual of Arms. Though not a snob, she insisted on her own precedence as a matter of principle, and in any other time or place would either have implemented a new age or have been struck down by it. Her husband, who had begun by loving her, would nowadays as soon accost the Sphinx.

  “I have had shocking news. Truly shocking news. I have only just learned,” she said, “that my sister has had her head chopped off.” The light was merciless. She blinked.

  Sir William could think of nothing to say, or rather, since as a diplomat he was full of little nothings, could not bring himself to say it, for it would be improper to condole upon an event so novel. The mind cannot grasp it, so the heart has no response. The shock is too great.

  The Queen spread her muscled arms in a gesture more suitable to Madame Georges than to royalty.

  “Oh where is there a roomy hell big enough to hold the French!” she cried. “She was my sister. How dare they?”

  She was in that rarest of states, a royal rage—not a tantrum, which is common enough, but a rage—authentic, vulnerable and dangerous.

  It made her movements jerky. Sir William was unpleasantly reminded of a clock he had once seen somewhere in Germany, on which the monarchs of the hours, life size, had each come out on their hour, brandished their weapons, and when their hour had struck had departed just as jerkily. It had not before occurred to him that the world he had known for a lifetime was a transitory phenomenon, for he had loved it almost entirely because it was there.

  “They shall not cut off mine,” said the Queen, in her incisive way. “I shall have theirs.”

  Emma’s eyes sparkled, as they always did at the theatre, with an emphatic radiance. Looking beyond the Queen’s shoulder, Sir William found himself face to face with a herm of the god Terminus.

  “Si Son Altesse Royale,” began the Marchesi Solari soothingly.

  “Never speak to me in that tongue again,” said Maria Carolina magnificently. “It is the language of the criminous. Je poursuiverai ma vengeance jusqu’au tombeau.” She had lost her head. “Address me in Italian or German, if you please.”

  In December, she gave birth prematurely to a new princess. “May God,” she said when they brought it to her, “chastise the French.” It was on her mind. “If he won’t, I will.” God, in these matters, was much like the King. He might mean well, but He needed prodding.

  It was a period of indecision and unrest, the King devoting himself to the former, his subjects to the latter. A manifesto was found placarded up in the streets. WE PREFER DEATH TO THE FALSE FRIENDSHIP OF A NATION WHICH IS ONLY PROUD BECAUSE OF THE WEAK RESISTANCE IT HAS ENCOUNTERED SO FAR, it read. However, when it came to recruiting, enthusiasm, if it did not disappear, at least dodged nimbly out of sight.

  Sir William was h
ard-worked. True, the work was cut out for him, but still, tailoring it together into reports was skilled labor—no easy task for a man new come to it. He would rather have cut them from the whole cloth. Politics, though a parallel study, has not the charm of volcanology, nor the aesthetic satisfaction of an antique vase. Even the most vivid of police reports lack the immediacy of portraiture, and political attitudinizing had none of the vivacity of Emma’s Attitudes.

  In July, he and Acton signed a secret treaty of alliance between England and Naples, for with so much Liberté, Égalité, and Fraternité abroad in the world, and most of it preparing to march South, the King of the Two Sicilies did not feel at liberty to act openly. An advance contingent of the English fleet arrived the 11th of September.

  *

  “My dear,” said Sir William, “I have met the most extraordinary young man. He has come to ask for two thousand Neapolitan troops to help defend Toulon, and what is more, he has gotten them. I think one day he will astonish the world. So though it is not my policy to allow officers in the house, I have asked him to stay with us. Tell Mrs. Cadogan to have Prince Augustus’ old room made ready.”

  “As astonishing as that?” asked Emma. When she met him, she saw only a tired man of thirty-five, not handsome and in no way astonishing. What is more, he had brought his stepson, a priggish young gentleman. Sir William’s preferences were sometimes devious to identify. Captain Nelson did not look the man to have an interest in either bibelots or botany.

  “I am to take him off to the King’s banquet,” said Sir William. “We must dazzle him a little, and since he has had no experience of royalty as yet, perhaps that will do it. Will you amuse the son?”

  Young Josiah Nisbet was unamusable. He did not sing. He would not dance. He watched. He was a proper little sneak. He looked out the window, saw the view was not English, and never looked again. His opinion of himself was high, and apparently he saw no reason to alter a judgment so painfully formed, to such universal satisfaction. He drank too much.

  “My stepgrandfather,” he said, “is a clergyman. You must excuse me if I cannot admire your Attitudes. My tastes have been formed in another school.”

  “In a jelly mold, more likely,” said Mrs. Cadogan when she heard of it.

  Nor was he any more obliging about the evening concert.

  “Is not the song, at least, lovely?” asked Emma. She was old enough to be his mother, and very glad she wasn’t.

  “I cannot judge. I am no connoisseur. Besides, it is an Italian song, is it not?”

  “The father is better,” said Emma.

  “Ummmmm,” said Mrs. Cadogan, like a short, companionable Norn.

  “I am now only a captain; but I will, if I live, be at the top of the tree. I was not born to blow birds’ eggs and dig in a garden,” said Nelson to Sir William, with a burst of irritation, for these blood sports were those his wife found seemly and she knew no others. “Lady Hamilton has been most good to young Nisbet. It cannot be easy.”

  This touch was one that always made Sir William purr. In any conversation what he admired best were the sparks.

  “Just so,” he said.

  *

  “What do you think of my captain?” asked Sir William.

  “I like him well enough,” said Emma, who was always cautious to praise no man other than Sir William much, unless she truly did not like him.

  Sir William laughed. “You will like him better as an admiral, I expect.”

  “Is he to be an admiral?”

  “I should imagine so. A war brings men of ability to the top, out of the general drowning. If they know how to stay afloat, we haul them aboard from the shipwreck and give them a title. If they do not know how to stay afloat, they sink, and so need bother us no more.”

  Emma decided to show her charm. Say what you will, a uniform, unless bloodstained, is most flattering. With a uniform beside you, you do not have to worry about the color of your dress or what waistcoat it will go with.

  *

  “Lady Hamilton,” Nelson wrote home, “has been wonderfully kind and good to Josiah. She is a young woman of amiable manners, and who does honor to the station to which she is raised.”

  He had sailed.

  “What do you mean, gone?” asked Emma. “We were to have luncheon with him aboard the Agamemnon.”

  “He heard of a French corvette worth capturing, so he went to capture it. One cannot blame him. He is not rich and must live off prize money.”

  “But he has taken our best butter dish,” wailed Emma, as indeed he had. The Agamemnon lacked a butter dish, so he had borrowed one. “I hope he sends it back, for we have not another so commodious.”

  He sent it back. They did not see him again for five years. But since he was so clearly a coming man, it did no harm to correspond.

  *

  As usual, there were other guests to entertain. Lady Webster was an exacting one, for boredom demands to be fed.

  “I hope you will find everything quite comfortable,” said Emma, surveying with pride the large, ample bedroom.

  “Quite, thank you,” said Lady Webster, and as soon as the trull was gone, made a dart for the writing desk, as for a planchette, though from the other side of silence.

  “The Hamiltons are as tiresome as ever; he as amorous, she as vulgar,” she wrote, and went to bed satisfied. In proper circles, malice is always an acceptable substitute for wit, and in general regarded as superior to it. She had a reputation to maintain.

  Lady Webster was succeeded by William Beckford, the wealthy cause célèbre, and a Hamilton cousin. He had, they understood, been staying with some footmen in Portugal, but it could not be denied he did know how to praise a lady.

  “The poor old woman who mistook you at dawn for a statue of the Holy Virgin need not have been ashamed to have renewed her homage in open daylight,” he said, and quite made Emma blush, not for herself alone.

  *

  “There is a letter from Nelson,” said Sir William happily. “I must say he is very civil.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Why nothing,” said Sir William, interrupted in the midst of a fond but purely private approval. “As I told you, he writes an excellent note.”

  She had a rival. When men grow old and are childless, it sometimes happens so. Willy-nilly, they search out a son.

  *

  In February, the Neapolitan fleet arrived back from Toulon, its only trophies some four hundred French refugees, its only victory that it was still afloat. Nelson’s news continued good, however. He had lost an eye in Corsica. Sir William seemed deeply affected.

  “Let us hope that, like Odin, he exchanged it for wisdom,” he said, forgetting Ragnarök. We have surrogate families and surrogate sons, and are ourselves leading surrogate lives, though whether we are delegated or relegated to lead them, and by Him or whom, is open to question.

  But taking her cue, Emma admired him loudly. That Greville had been made Vice-Chamberlain to the King seemed to impress Sir William less. He had other interests now.

  In Naples, there was a Jacobin plot against the Queen, nurtured until it budded, and then nipped. Politics was like gardening, really: you cut them back to get a bigger bush and more flowers.

  “I go nowhere without wondering if I shall return alive,” said Maria Carolina, who slept in a different bedroom every night and sometimes did not sleep at all. She spoke much of death, to Sir William’s annoyance, for though he believed in nothing too much, he was just as firm a devotee of nothing final.

  However, survival is like any other game: with skill, aptitude and concentration, we may do much. It resembles maneuvers. So long as we hang back and never surrender, we cannot be wounded or captured. Only a coward goes over to the other side. Discretion, proper diet, an astute choice of winter quarters and a little looting may be depended upon to pull us through. As a Scotsman, Sir William took pride in hanging on. He was sixty-four and ill in bed.

  Vesuvius soon brought him around. There was an er
uption preceded by an earthquake. The earthquake was so violent that, at Caserta, all the servants’ bells began to ring of their own accord. The palace was surrounded by armed bands, the citizens thinking the grinding of the earth an attack by the French, cannonading from the sea.

  Sir William got out of bed and soon had watch, telescope, thermometer, pencil and notebook ready. As he watched, there was a loud report, a canopy of black smoke, and a fountain of fire. He moved his household to Posilipo and went to investigate. It was her thirty-third eruption. She was, as usual, diligent in the production of antiques, good wine, rich soil and the best spectacle.

  The summit of the peak was invisible, but there was lightning aplenty, fireballs floated about like bright incandescent cabbages, the air was sulphurous, the electric fire resembled serpents, and the sound reminded him that he had once made a tour of the Carron iron foundry in Scotland.

  Lava poured down Torre del Greco to the sea and there turned to steam, its thirst slaked. The countryside was covered with wet ash. A gentleman at the English factory filled a plate with ashes, popped in a few peas, and on the third day they came up and put forth leaves. Not even a war can halt, though sometimes it may occasion, the forced marches of science.

  “Aimez-vous donc les beautés de la nature?” demanded a Frenchman with a smudged face, standing hot-footed beside Sir William. “Pour moi, je les abhorre!”

  Sir William ignored him and decided to take a boat to Torre del Greco. The eruption was great good luck. He was already drafting a possible report to the Royal Society. He saw his career crowned, as he would wish it to be, by Minerva, the Goddess of Tact.

  But at Torre del Greco, when he put his hand in to test the water, it was scalding hot, and the pitch between the planks of the boat began to dissolve, so he turned back, having no desire to be a boiled ambassador.

  The air began to clear. He could see that the old crater had fallen in, and determined to climb the peak, which he did, taking his usual guide, Bartolomeo Pumo. It was his sixty-eighth climb.

  Someone had gone before them. They could see the footprints in the hot ash. A fox, some lizards and some insects had also been there. They could not get to the top. Metallic deposits made the lava resemble a field of irises growing in a desert. There were seven new craters and two whirlwinds. It was most stimulating. He went back.