Said with a wry tone it was Barclay’s turn to be offended. Even if he was far from a partisan of Black Dick Howe – in fact the very reverse was true – he felt the need to defend him against what was a scurrilous opinion.
‘Whom I was privileged to serve under on the Glorious First, Sir William!’
‘Were you, by damn.’
‘Perhaps,’ Emma Hamilton interjected, ‘you will relate to us the events of that over dinner for it is bound to be an enthralling tale. Now, enough of this talk of ships and battles, sir, you are fresh from home, I believe, and you will thus be aware of the talk of the ton. We’re in receipt of news out here but gossip, the true story of what is happening, does not often come this way.’
Ralph Barclay was only misled by that for a moment; he soon realised what he suspected to be the truth. Emma Hamilton was uncomfortable in conversation of which she was not the centre.
‘Then I will make for a poor fountain of news. I rarely mix with the people who engage in tittle-tattle, milady.’
It was incumbent on the ambassador and his wife to be good hosts and they were, but without what Barclay called tittle-tattle it soon became a struggle as the subjects on which they could converse began to dry up. Despite what their visitor thought, Emma Hamilton let the men talk; she was too occupied in assessing the man before her and for the life of her she could not fathom how a striking and sweet-natured creature like Emily could have ever become involved with him.
She was prepared to acknowledge that questions of the same nature circled around her marriage but a mere look satisfied those. Even with his greater years her husband was a man of the world, urbane and witty, well read and still studious. And he was yet handsome, tall and slim. He kept a good figure by his activities, overseeing digs in search of ancient artefacts as well as regular swims, while his mind was kept alert through the complexities of his mission to the Kingdom of Naples.
Ralph Barclay looked coarse and was, as her husband had said, that very thing. His face was red from being at sea, but under that it had a saturnine quality that went with the stiff and dark hair, peppered with a touch of grey. And he was bad at eye contact, which laid a suspicion of a manner less than entirely honest. Certainly Barclay was being polite, but since he was not looking at her Emma could see the effort he put into appearing polished.
If he sought not to reveal his thoughts, Barclay failed under such an acute examination. He was a man who found it hard not to show his true opinions on his features, despite rapid attempts at disguise. Mention of Lord Hood clouded his face as did the frequent mention her husband made of Horatio Nelson. Hotham got equal approbation and his praise of the man bordered on outright sycophancy.
Hints from Emily Barclay told of a conjugal tyrant and his hostess was sure she could observe he would lack gentility. She also opined that he had courted and married his young wife not from any deep love but because it made him appear good; in short Emily was like a medal to be worn to demonstrate prowess. She finally decided he was both a trimmer and a self-serving climber long before a servant appeared to announce that his clerk was at the door.
‘The sun is dipping, Captain Barclay,’ the Chevalier said. ‘You will wish to prepare for dinner and so must we, while I dare say you would want to converse with your man in private.’
‘I would indeed, sir.’
‘Then we will go about our occasions and a servant will call you in an hour or so.’
The two men raised themselves as Emma Hamilton stood, aiming a smile at Barclay and wondering if he noted the lack of depth within it. The couple were inside and parted from their guest before she spoke again.
‘You were right, Husband. I cannot say I like your Captain Barclay.’
‘Quite apart from the fact, my dear, that he is decidedly not my Captain Barclay, I rather fear dinner, which was going to be trying anyway, might be much worse than that.’
‘His clerk?’
‘Can only have come here because he has information to impart. Mrs Barclay has hardly been a discreet presence in Naples and being seen with you would make her doubly remarked upon.’
The Chevalier was correct. Gherson had the very news that his employer wanted, but in receipt of it he was far from content. As usual he took his ire out on the nearest target, for Gherson had the smell of wine on his breath and it took no great leap of imagination to suppose that had been the least of his indulgences. Having vented his spleen he finally came round to the true culprits of his anger: the Hamiltons.
‘Give me a plain-speaking sailor every time, Gherson, to these hair-splitters who call themselves diplomats. And his wife, well, falsifiers would be a better tag!’
Kettles, pots and black bottoms came to Gherson’s mind but only as a somewhat slimy smile. He was in a state of utter bliss, his belly full and having spent the afternoon with a pair of truly athletic whores, beautiful women and fully Latin in every way.
‘Well, if they think I am going to be their guest they can kiss my arse.’
‘Do not be hasty, sir.’
‘Hasty,’ Barclay growled, and not in a soft way, with his clerk putting a finger at his lips and casting an eye towards the closed door. ‘I’ve half a mind to slap Hamilton’s cheek, and as for his trollop of a wife she is fit for a pigsty not a palazzo.’
Gherson was wondering, for what had to be the hundredth time, how the man he worked for could be so stupid. It was also the case that explaining to him what he should do was far from easy, given his irascible nature and dislike of being counselled, which he took as being condescended to.
‘What if the Hamiltons know why you are here?’
‘How could they?’
‘Would it be beyond the bounds of possibility that your wife might have told them?’
‘I dislike your tone, Gherson.’
‘I merely wish you to consider that if she has, they have set out to protect her. There is no doubt, given what I have been told, that she is here in this very place or was until news of your arrival was brought to her. It is common knowledge in Naples that she is their guest. I observed Lady Hamilton—’
‘She is no damn lady!’
‘I beg you to be calm, circumspect and quiet, sir.’
That got Gherson a ‘damn you’ look, which he ignored, being too accustomed to pay it heed.
‘As soon as she heard your name she whispered in her husband’s ear. He then took you off on a diversion to those churches. Why? To give Lady Hamilton time to get your wife out of the ambassadorial residence and away to somewhere else.’
‘But where?’ Barclay wailed, throwing his arms wide to indicate either the density of Naples or the size of Italy.
‘That has to be established, but until it is you must play a long game.’ Barclay threw himself into a chair with a look of near despair. ‘It is the only way, sir.’
‘I cannot dine with them.’
‘On the contrary, sir, you must.’ Seeing the objection rising in a breath-filling chest Gherson was quick to continue. ‘You need to convince them that your sole object is to talk with your wife and seek to persuade her of the falsity of her position.’
‘Falsity you call it. Cuckoldry, I say. Sitting with your so-called Lady Hamilton I would be bound to wonder who offends most in that area, she or Emily?’
‘If I could advise you of the tone to adopt?’
The cheeks blew out to be followed by a long exhale. ‘Go on.’
‘You must admit to past errors and be open as to why you are in Naples.’
‘What!’
‘Captain, keep your voice down, I beg you. You must create in their mind a genuine desire for reconciliation as well as a sense of your contrition for past mistakes.’ Seeing another explosion coming, Gherson had to speak quickly to cut it off. ‘They have Mrs Barclay’s side of the story, not yours. But if you can counter that by being reasonable then …’
‘I do not like this.’
‘You will like it more, sir, than if, by belligerence, you underline t
o them what they may have been told about you. Better to imply you have been misunderstood. Play the man wounded as much by his own actions as hers. You have been at sea since you were a mere child, a life that ill prepared you for marriage to such a gentle creature.’
‘She is far from that, Gherson. Little did I know I wed a vixen.’
‘I agree. Messalina would be shamed in her company.’
‘Who in the name of the Lord is Messalina?’
God these tars were so ignorant. ‘A Roman empress, much given to wickedness.’ A fulsome nod was the response to that. ‘You must say that you seek to make amends, to act in the future with more consideration.’
‘So she can deceive me again?’
‘So they will produce her, and if not, time will be granted to us. First ask to meet with her, to be given a chance to make your case and, it is hoped, amends. To that they might agree and while they are considering I will seek the required information.’
‘While taking your pleasures in the process?’
‘I know it will try your justified anger, but it forms a wise way to proceed, for if you accuse the ambassador of what he has plainly become engaged in he will only defend Mrs Barclay’s right to choose for herself where she resides and who she lives with.’
‘Exactly? What about Pearce? If she is here they likely know of him too.’
‘I would reckon the less said about that swine the better.’
Gherson, who hated Pearce as much as his employer but for different reasons, wondered why Barclay smiled then. Even more curious was that it had that quality of a man trying to convey to his clerk that he did not know everything.
‘If there is something pertaining to Pearce which impinges on what I’m suggesting, sir, it would be best I know.’
‘No, Gherson. Suffice to say he may no longer be a factor in this. By the way, where’s Devenow?’
‘Back aboard ship, sir. I feared to leave him loose in Naples.’
‘Wise, very wise.’
John Pearce was toiling like a navvy, in his shirt sleeves, helping Agamemnon to get in her stores, exhorting the men on the derricks to haul away in a manner that got him black looks, even darker when he tugged personally on a rope. His offer was taken as a kindness by the ship’s officers, for they were under pressure to load and get back to sea. As Nelson had insisted when they took dinner together, there was scant profit to be found sitting in a harbour.
It was the very opposite of kindness: with HMS Semele at sea he had to get back to Naples and he reckoned there was no point in that lest he had a direct command from Hotham that Barclay should return to the fleet and at no time while under his command should he accommodate his wife on board. The notion of making an immediate return journey had been considered and put aside. Barclay commanded a ship of the line and a crew numbered in the hundreds who would do his bidding, even in ignorance of his true purpose.
If he was engaged in skulduggery, and that was his way of behaving, then he and the Pelicans lacked the means to stop him. The order he wanted would tell Barclay that whatever schemes he was engaged in would not remain hidden and he was prepared to accuse Hotham of conspiracy on his own quarterdeck to get what he needed.
He could not harbour any doubt that Naples would be Barclay’s first port of call. Gnawing at him as he worked was the knowledge of those last words he had exchanged with Emily. The mere arrival of her husband might fix her intention to return to him and that brought on feelings of near despair.
He was a tired man when darkness brought the work to an end and even if not in the mood to take a supper of dried ham and fruit in the wardroom he felt obliged to do so, though he welcomed the crisp white wine that had been chilled with Apennine ice. Nelson had obliged Pearce by sending Mr Hoste ashore to fetch his dunnage from the pensione in which it had been left so he was able to change into decent clothes.
Dick Farmiloe was present and if the first exchanges were guarded the fourth lieutenant knew Pearce to be non-judgemental regarding his part in the act of pressing men from the Liberties of the Savoy and he soon relaxed in what were convivial surroundings.
They had sailed to the Bay of Biscay and back together, a curious combination until, on their return to Toulon, Pearce had found out why; like himself, Farmiloe had been got out of the way while Hotham arranged to get Barclay off the hook. Even sharing an anchorage they had not met to talk since, this far from avoidance but due to mere circumstance.
‘I wonder, Mr Farmiloe, if you would take a turn round the deck with me?’
That raised eyebrows around the wardroom table and did not sit too comfortably with the person at which it was aimed. Yet that left Farmiloe in a bind for a refusal would require an explanation, if not now then on some future occasion, and given he had a good idea what it was about might lead to embarrassing disclosures.
At anchor and on a cool night, with Leghorn well lit on the shoreline and lanterns rigged above their heads, they had the deck to themselves and Pearce started to reminisce about that voyage to Biscay and the result. Farmiloe was not a brusque young man, far from it, but he was having nothing of what he clearly saw as a softening up.
‘I replied to the letter from London, John, if I may avoid formality.’
‘I am grateful you address me so.’
‘“Sir” seems inappropriate, given our history. As to rank, we are not that far apart in seniority and besides I am as amazed at my own elevation as yours.’
‘I daresay there are those in your wardroom not best pleased if my name is mentioned, let alone tolerating my presence.’
‘If they are they say nothing to me for I have told them I know and esteem you. Besides, they take their cue from our captain and there is no man less given to harsh judgement than Nelson.’
‘I also have to thank you for your honesty, Dick. My lawyer told me of it.’
‘What other way could I behave?’
‘Would it were enough.’
Even in the glim Pearce could see the slight surprise on Farmiloe’s face, which forced explanation regarding the necessity of having several witnesses, adding that the Pelicans were too close to him personally to carry much weight, that compounded by what would be a disinclination to believe men from the lower deck.
‘So it requires men who are not that. Digby hedged for the sake of his career but I am happy to say may now repudiate his earlier communication.’
‘But surely you have Toby Burns?’
Now it was Pearce’s turn to show surprise. ‘He wrote, if not a pack of lies, then a set of circumstances very close to it, or that is how it reads to me and I must say my lawyer felt the same.’
‘I advised him to tell the truth, John, and he assured me he would, on the good grounds that only by doing so could he save himself from condemnation.’
‘If the matter ever came before a judge, that is?’
‘He was coerced into his lies, he came close to admitting as much. That places the blame squarely on the shoulders of Barclay. I know Toby to be weak but even he saw the sense of what I was saying.’
‘Whatever he told you he would do was not what turned up at my lawyer’s chambers. If I had the letter with me I would show you and perhaps you would see that which occurred both to myself and Henry Digby. It seemed too competently composed for someone of his age.’
‘Do you suspect someone dictated to him what he should say?’
‘A likely scenario and the mind does not have to search too far for whom that might be.’
‘Not Ralph Barclay, he was fighting with Lord Howe.’
John Pearce stopped suddenly and looked into the invisible rigging. Forced to do likewise Farmiloe was looking at him, his expression full of curiosity, waiting for his companion to speak.
‘I owe you a great deal, Dick, for I think you have just seen through a mist that I should have penetrated a long time past.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For Ralph Barclay the dinner with the Hamiltons was torture; typically he never consid
ered that they equally took little pleasure in the occasion. Also, being obsessed with his own explanations he did not once observe that his mea culpas regarding the state of his marriage were being taken with large doses of salt which had surfaced from his early admission of why he had come to Naples.
‘I have sound reasons to believe she may be here; indeed I must be open and admit that I know it to be the case.’
The name of her lover hung in the air but if it was not politic for Barclay to mention it the stricture applied equally to the Hamiltons. Waiting for them to be forthcoming with the truth, their silence forced Barclay to continue.
‘I cannot begin to explain to you the depth of regard I have for my wife. All I can hope for is that it is evident by my being here at your table and in receipt of your kindness.’
‘That, sir, is both an obligation and a pleasure,’ the Chevalier replied, his well-honed urbanity hiding a patent falsehood.
‘My information tells me that you extended the same to her. It has been made known to me that Emily has been your guest.’
‘Indeed she was, Captain,’ Emma replied. ‘It could hardly be otherwise, a woman on her own in such a place, which for all its beauty can be unsafe.’
‘That renders me doubly in your debt. I can appreciate your desire to protect her, for I would want to do that myself.’
‘My duty as an ambassador obliges me to care for the needs of my fellow countrymen and women who find themselves in distress. Your wife needed a safe place to lay her head, we provided it here.’
‘And I would go so far,’ Emma Hamilton responded, ‘to say it had been no burden. Your wife has become my friend.’
‘It pleases me that you no longer hide her residence under your roof.’
The Chevalier was quick to jump on that, though he evinced no anger. ‘Had you asked, Captain Barclay, I do assure you we would have been open on the matter. It is not in our nature to indulge in fabrications.’
The word ‘liar’ was on Barclay’s tongue but that was where it stayed. He steadied his thoughts with the notion that if he could deal with admirals like Hotham, Hood and Howe, he could also deal with William Hamilton. It was an absurd aside to conjure up at that moment a singular fact and one never before registered: they all had the same letter at the beginning of their surname.
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