Winds of Folly (19 page)

‘I suppose I had better make myself presentable,' Nathan sighed, for he was dressed in his shabbiest uniform and there were various formalities to be observed as the representative of King George.

Indeed, the approaching launch brought an officer of the Neapolitan Navy with the compliments of Admiral Caracciolo and an invitation for the
Unicorn
to moor in the lee of the flagship and for her Captain to come aboard. The occasion was more pleasurable than not, however, for the Admiral proved to be a hearty but courteous host who had fought for the British during the American Independence War and spoke enough English for them to converse amiably over a full-bodied wine from the Campania. He was eager for news of the war in the north – he had only lately heard of the French invasion of Tuscany – and Nathan did his best to present as agreeable a picture as was possible from the British point of view. He was not entirely sure if he had succeeded in this – it was not an easy task – but he was sent on his way with the Admiral's blessing
and an escort of Neapolitan Marines to conduct him to the residence of the British Envoy, a former monastery known as Palazzo Sussa, on the fashionable hillside of Pizzofalcone high above the port. They also found him a sedan chair and four stout chairmen to carry him there, for it would be hard going, the Admiral warned him, in a full-dress uniform, and he would be importuned by every beggar and
lazzaroni
in Naples, of which there were not a few.

This opinion was confirmed by the view Nathan was permitted from the windows of his new conveyance as it bore him through the streets of the city. For here was a vastly different perspective from that provided from the quarterdeck of the
Unicorn
. It was as if he had turned over a stone to find the cavity beneath teeming with secret life.

Pitiful figures, barefoot and in rags, sprawled in the shadows, many of them blind or crippled, exhibiting the most alarming sores and deformities, and exerting themselves only to extend a scrawny hand towards the passing vehicle; and even those who were not obviously beggars looked desperately in need of alms. Nathan had never seen such poverty, not even in some of the more degraded areas of London or Paris or even the ports of the Caribbean. And the buildings, he saw, were in as parlous a state as the people, with crumbling façades and grim shuttered windows and the occasional line of washing hanging across some dingy courtyard. The bright colours – and the large frescos of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory which decorated many of the walls – could not disguise a uniform squalor, the tenements rising up so high above the streets that no sunlight penetrated the gloomy canyons between, and only the pigs that rooted among the filth provided evidence of gainful employment.

Then, as Nathan proceeded up the hillside, he observed a distinct improvement. There was still not much sign of life,
but the streets became broader and cleaner, the tenements gave way to elegant villas in luxuriant gardens – and the beggars vanished, as if they were swept up regularly and deposited with the rubbish on the meaner streets below. The higher they climbed, the more substantial were the buildings, until at length they reached the official residence of the British Envoy: the Palazzo Sussa, a substantial three-storey mansion set in a grove of myrtle trees just below the walls of Castel Sant'Elmo.

Nathan was deposited at the gate where he was greeted by the Envoy's secretary, Mr Smith. Sir William was expecting him, he said, having observed the arrival of the
Unicorn
from his study. He led Nathan through a surprisingly crowded antechamber – ‘people trying to sell things,' he murmured mysteriously in Nathan's ear – and up a flight of stairs to a more elegant reception room on the first floor where the Minister was waiting to receive him.

Sir William Hamilton, His Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, was a tall, thin, rather frail-looking gentleman in his mid-sixties whose air of studious repose put Nathan somewhat disturbingly in mind of a stick insect or a praying mantis – an impression enhanced by his long aquiline nose and a pair of deep-set eyes that subjected Nathan to a keen regard from beneath craggy brows. He even moved like a mantis, Nathan thought: stiffly and with creaking limbs, but with a peculiar grace, as if in time to a very slow drumbeat.

‘Welcome to Naples, Captain,' he greeted Nathan, with an elegant bow and an ironic eye, as if mocking both the place and his own pretensions. But it became clear in the course of the conversation that whatever he thought of his position, he was entirely in love with the place, and the air of parody was something of a shield against those who might not share his enthusiasm.

They sat at a table in the enormous bow window with its astonishing view of the bay – ‘though one cannot see Vesuvius very well,' Sir William complained, ‘unless one ventures on to the balcony.'

Nathan made the appropriate remarks, but his attention was primarily directed to the room they were in, for it contained an astonishing number and variety of objects. Sir William, it transpired, was a devoted, even obsessive, collector. His particular interest was in Etruscan vases, he explained in answer to Nathan's query, but he also purchased paintings and artefacts, curios and antiquities – virtually anything, indeed, that caught his acquisitive eye. Even the volcano itself, whilst it could not be carted away wholesale, appeared to have been broken into small pieces for transfer into the rooms of the Palazzo. Glass cabinets displayed pieces of lava and pumice that Sir William had personally gathered from sixty-five visits to the volcano – he provided the number with a zeal for exactitude that was something between that of the scholar and the schoolboy – and bottled samples of salts and sulphurs he had harvested from the smoking crevices inside the crater itself.

‘The last major eruption was, as you probably know, in ninety-four,' he told Nathan, ‘and it has been bubbling and simmering like a witch's cauldron ever since – at times somewhat alarmingly, though I confess I am more charmed than distressed by the display.'

He was, alas, too old to continue these visits, he regretted, and could now only observe the volcano from a safe distance: ‘But there is an excellent view from the observatory I have built on the second floor. I would show you myself, but I fear I must devote some time to the study of these documents you have brought me from His Excellency, for we may have need to discuss some of the intelligence he has sent me. However, my wife will be very pleased to entertain you while I am away.'

With this, he led Nathan through the house, pausing frequently to deliver a brief history of some object or painting he had acquired, until they came at length to the room in which he had installed the pride of his collection – and from Nathan's point of view the most extraordinary of all.

He had not supposed her ladyship to be an exact female replica of the Minister Plenipotentiary, but he was prepared for a woman of a certain age and station – something between a duchess and a clergyman's wife, perhaps – and had braced himself accordingly. But this wind was from an entirely different quarter and of a freshness and vigour that quite took his breath away. He was confronted by a vision of loveliness in white muslin and lace with a wide blue sash beneath her bosom and a velvet choker about her throat; heart-shaped features framed by a mass of chestnut to auburn curls, blue eyes that flashed with lively interest, and a perfect mouth formed in a brilliant smile of welcome as she rose from the couch on which she had been residing. She was no more than half Sir William's age.

‘This is Captain Peake, m'dear,' announced her indulgent spouse. ‘Commander of the frigate
Unicorn
.'

‘Never!' declared the vision forcibly.

Sir William regarded his visitor with concern as if a recent acquisition had suddenly been exposed as a fake, but before Nathan could think of a convincing proof of his identity, her ladyship issued a gurgling noise which he took for laughter and exclaimed: ‘Pray do not take offence, Captain! I only mean that you looks so young, don't 'e, Sir William?'

‘General Wolfe was but twenty-four when he fell at Quebec, my dear,' the Ambassador pointed out tolerantly.

‘Oh Captain, what must you think of me?' enquired Lady Emma with another giggle. She sat down again and patted the cushion beside her. ‘Come and sit yourself down. You must
'ave 'ad a weary time of it, climbing up that 'ill in all that gear.'

Nathan confessed with a faint blush that he had been carried.

‘Well there now,' Sir William declared with a smile, as if the question had been resolved to everyone's satisfaction. ‘I will leave you to become better acquainted.'

This was a prospect which Nathan found by no means repugnant, for his hostess had the face of an angel and the body of a Venus, but her speech and manner was as startling as her appearance. She spoke in a mysterious brew of accents in which he detected both the North Country and the Cockney, and a variation of the genteel that appeared to be entirely of her own invention; all of which was expressed with a theatricality that exceeded anything he had witnessed upon the stage, and with frequent references to the Neapolitan Royal Family and other notables with whom she claimed to be intimate.

‘Oh Cap'n, you must hexcuse me for I am all of a dither,' she assured him at the commencement of their discourse, ‘only I'm just this minute back from attendin' upon 'er Royal 'ighness at Caserta, an' when I 'ears the guns I rushes in to Sir William screamin' that the French 'as landed.' She gave howl of mirth at her own folly. ‘An' 'e's at the winder with 'is telescope and says as 'ow I'm not to be afeared for 'tis our gallant boys in blue what 'as come to bring us cheer and I'd best get meself ready to receive 'em, for they'll be up 'ere in two shakes of a dog's tail.' She gave out another alarming shriek. ‘But what am I thinkin' on! You must be dyin' o' thirst – 'ow about a cup o' tea?'

She was so desperate to impress, her affectation so preposterous, Nathan found it difficult to feel at ease. Gradually, however, he began to unwind, for behind the gushing pretence was a genuine warmth and friendliness – and a desire to be
liked – that could not but move him to sympathy. And as he relaxed, so did she. She insisted he call her Emma, as did all her intimates, and as their conversation progressed from the trivial to the more substantial, she revealed herself to be a shrewd judge of character and of politics, so that after an hour in her company, he felt he had learned more of Naples and the ruling House of Bourbon than if he had been briefed by the most eloquent of diplomats. She also talked, when prompted, about herself.

She had been born and raised in the North Country, in a small village in the Wirral, just a few miles from the port of Liverpool, but had moved to London in her teens, she informed him, working in a variety of households – she did not say in what capacity – but also as an artist's model. Nathan expressed genuine interest in this, for Sara, too, had posed as a model in Paris, and he found the prospect both titillating and alarming. It was mostly boring, Lady Hamilton confided, and imposed such a strain upon the body, ‘keeping still so long and twisted about like the Scavenger's Daughter, not even the 'ores would do it.' But she had become the model for George Romney, whose fame as a painter was then growing and whose portraits of her had been so widely admired they had brought her to the attention of some of the most discerning collectors and connoisseurs in London – Sir William, Nathan assumed, being among them. And now here she was, she declared, with another giggle as if it was the greatest joke in Creation.

She was still prevailed upon to pose at times, she told him, and there were several of her portraits about the house, if he would care to see them. Nathan was nothing averse and though – rather to his disappointment – they were all clothed, they were so enchanting and revealed her in so many different moods and situations, he was persuaded that she would be remembered as one of the great beauties of the age.

At the completion of this tour they found Sir William awaiting them with one of the despatches Nathan had brought from Corsica.

‘The Viceroy informs me that you are to proceed to Venice to communicate with Admiral Dandolo,' he began, somewhat to Nathan's consternation, for this was not information, he would have thought, to be shared with the Minister's wife. Possibly something in his expression indicated this for Sir William assured him, with his thin smile, that he might speak quite freely in front of her ladyship. ‘Indeed, it was she who brought me the sad news, did you not, my dear, for she had it direct from Her Majesty who had it from her agents in Venice. I regret to have to inform you that Admiral Dandolo is dead.'

‘Murdered!' exclaimed her ladyship in dramatic tones. ‘Stabbed to death on the steps of the cathedral.'

‘A convent, I believe you said it was, my dear,' Sir William corrected her mildly. And then to Nathan, who had been absorbing this exchange with difficulty: ‘I was about to send to the Viceroy informing him of the event. I fear your mission is severely compromised, sir. More than that, it is very likely at an end.'