Authors: David Donachie
‘The lying-in?’
Those forehead lines were back, proof that he was worried about complications. ‘Went as smooth as silk, Mr Greville, as I believe my Emma imparted in her letters. She delivered in the hour after her waters broke, and was back on her feet in a day or two.’
‘And how does she appear?’
‘In full bloom, sir. You know a child brings colour to a woman’s cheeks. If anything, though I claim a leaning, Emma is more beautiful than ever.’
She hid her amusement, seeing the hope and doubt that she was telling the truth cross his face. But Mary Cadogan had to pinch herself mentally; she must stop thinking of this man as the callow youth she recalled from Arlington Street. He was to be her benefactor too. The obvious affection in which her daughter held him was welcome, but for her irrelevant. She had her duties as part of the compact. He would need to be made as happy in the parlour as he would in the bedchamber. That was her task.
‘I take it, sir, I am free to engage the rest of the servants?’
‘You are, Mrs Cadogan, within the proviso of my approval.’
‘Why of course, your honour.’
‘No one loud or indecorous, is my main concern.’
‘Quiet souls, sir, that is what I will seek, who can hold their tongues as well as they can hold their places.’
‘We must to work then, madam. Your daughter will be here within the week. I would want all found and in harmony when dear Emma arrives.’
He called regularly over the next few days, eager to check on things and near to dying for the presence of his mistress. For a dispassionate creature, which by his written words he most certainly was, Greville had trouble in containing himself. Try as he might he couldn’t keep his excitement from the surface, which pleased his new housekeeper since it hinted at a long-term occupation of Edgware Road. He was present when Emma arrived. She had taken her mother’s advice and stopped at the last post-house on the journey, so the woman who emerged from the chaise sent to fetch her had spent only a short time in travel, and a long time at that morning’s toilette.
Under a muslin shawl Emma’s hair, brushed a thousand times before a mirror glass, shone in all its auburn glory. Her mother had the right of it about her features: having a child had enhanced the colouring of her cheeks while an added year had helped to remove the excess flesh of the young girl from her chin. But her body had blossomed and she was now a full woman, beautiful and glorious enough to make staid Greville catch his breath and dash to hand her down.
‘Welcome, Emma, to your new home. Allow me to present you to those who will care for you.’
Being introduced to the servants was odd, especially since the premier servitor was her own mother. That occasioned a spontaneity typical of Emma, as she leaned forward to kiss the cheek of her ‘dear Mama’. It helped, too, in easing her own awkwardness at having presented to her people of a station that she had occupied herself not too many years ago.
‘Pray come indoors, Emma. The parlour awaits you, with a splendid feast prepared by these good people. I admit to being made near ravenous by the mere sight of it.’
‘I will see to the dunnage, your honour.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Cadogan,’ he replied, a hoarse note in his voice.
She did too, harrying the men to get Emma’s chest into the bedroom and depart, leaving it in a corner. Then she shooed the rest of the servants back to their places of rest, with a repeat of her instructions to stay out of sight. She guessed that food would not occupy Greville for long, that the bedchamber would be his priority, not his stomach. Mary Cadogan was determined to do as much as she could to ensure that engagement went smoothly. So much depended on it.
Since reaching post rank Horatio Nelson had had gifted ample time to reflect on the constraints placed on him by a captain’s role. As a midshipman he had had his ups and downs in the berth, yet set against that was a degree of comradeship and devilment as compensation. The wardroom was a more formal, less boisterous place – lieutenants seemed to shed their sense of frolic as soon as they were commissioned. But promotion brought a welcome private space, screened off by canvas, servants and civilised eating. To be promoted from there altered everything.
A captain occupied an area equal to that of every other officer on the ship, and he occupied it alone. He had a day cabin opening on to a dining cabin, the pair easily combined for formal entertaining. His sleeping cabin, with his cot slung above a stern chaser cannon, lay to starboard while on the opposite side he had an equal sized coach available for any use he chose. In front, between him and the ship’s company, lived Lepée, his pantry to one side of the passage, sleeping quarters to the other. At the end of that passage stood at all times a marine sentry. Nelson had craved the rank and space only to find that his elevation imposed distinct disadvantages.
The bulkheads that stood between him and the rest of the ship sometimes seemed like prison bars, so much did he miss the easy comradeship he had enjoyed before promotion. Strive as he might, he could not break down the invisible barrier that existed between himself and his officers, which was multiplied a hundredfold when it came to the crew. On Sundays he often felt like an impostor when, before divine service, he would tour the ship, unable to put out of his mind the artifice he had employed in the past to fool those who been in command.
He knew the formality of the officers was essential, but it seemed to him too unbending, and the looks of the faces of the men in each division left him convinced, after every inspection, that they saw him as a gullible fool. Certainly the man closest to him, his servant, saw him like that; at least Frank Lepée had no desire to disguise it, especially when, as seemed to happen more and more frequently, he over-indulged in drink.
The vision he had had of a great and glorious destiny, as
Albemarle
ploughed through the icy waters off New England, seemed to mock him. He
was immodest enough to think himself a good seaman, but honest enough to wonder if his dislike of flogging did him any good either with those he led or with his naval superiors. Certainly he had few warm relations on the St Lawrence station. The Commodore was cold towards him, and it seemed his fellow captains took their cue from that source. There were invitations to other ships to dine, hospitality that he returned in full measure, but he couldn’t recall one single occasion when he had felt either wholly happy or relaxed.
In entertaining his own officers, despite every attempt made to put them at their ease, he had hardly dented the rigid naval convention that no inferior should speak until spoken to. The only time he succeeded was with his midshipmen, whose natural lack of restraint led them occasionally to treat him as a human being instead of some kind of god. The crew either declined to look in his direction or favoured him with a disquieting grin and a touch of the forelock, and when he spoke to them he was sure he could see in their eyes a mixture of amusement mixed with sympathy.
Only ashore had he felt fully the advantages of his position. A naval captain was a person of some worth in the world, more so in a place like Québec, cut off by three thousand miles of ocean from Europe, the seat of everything fashionable. Among the people he had met and become friendly with, Alexander Davidson stood out. A Northumbrian, Davidson was a merchant adventurer who had taken advantage of the American war to amass a sizeable fortune. He had a comfortable house, and, when in harbour Nelson, tired of on-board isolation had accepted his invitation to share it.
It was a busy household and Nelson had enjoyed meeting many of the leading men of Québec, all of whom were, at the very least, frank in their acknowledgement of his place in the order of things. That despite his youthful appearance the rank he held, allied to skills he possessed, made him a man of parts. When he spoke, they listened, but as equals not subordinates; Army officers, fellow traders like Davidson or civilian officials, they liked to drink, eat and talk, as well as put to rights what they saw as an imperfect world.
Nelson had visited the Plains of Abraham often in this last year. Overlooking Québec City, this was where his hero, General James Wolfe, had fallen in the battle that had secured Canada for the British Crown. The emotions he felt there varied from envy to wonder; a tinge of jealousy at the almost mystical power of Wolfe’s fame, the same feeling he had
experienced
before the memorial in Westminster Abbey; awe at his achievement mixed with doubt as to his own ability to accomplish anything of a similar stature.
Now he stood below the cliffs Wolfe had scaled to outflank the French. It had been the Anse de Foulon then, now it was Wolfe’s Cove. In the background lay the mighty St Lawrence, a mass of moving water a mile wide, dark grey and brooding even on this clear frosty morning. Looking up at those sheer cliffs between the river and the battlefield he wondered at the
strength of leadership that had taken ill-equipped British soldiers from one level to the other, then inspired them to mount a stout defence, that followed by an attack that had overwhelmed their enemies.
Alexander Davidson stood a few feet away, his hat in his hand, his dark reddish hair exposed. Slim, tall and handsome, with graceful manners, Davidson knew that the friend who had shared his house was troubled, and his own concern that this should be so showed in the worried creases round his narrowed eyes.
‘Wolfe humbugged the French here, Davidson. Is that what I have been reduced to, a humbug?’
‘Foolish, Nelson, perhaps,’ Davidson said, with a sad smile, a dismissive wave of his hand and an arching of his prominent eyebrows. His voice, light and slightly affected took the sting out of the accusation. ‘But your overzealous spirit will surely guarantee that if you persist, that will be your fate.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Nelson demanded.
‘I know this place better than you.’
‘And the lady in question?’
‘Is part of a society that is strange to an occasional visitor.’
Davidson paused, searching his mind for the right words, those that would impart an unpalatable truth without inflicting too deep a wound. In the short period that they had known each other he had come to love Nelson for himself, and to esteem him highly for his professional ability. Then there was his manner; nonjudgemental, always willing to see the best in people, never wishing to enquire beyond what he needed to know for friendship. If he had a fault it was an endearing one; that once he had set his mind on a project, however inappropriate, he went at it with every fibre of his being. Davidson was convinced it was that which had led to this present situation, and not, as some might suspect, an almost blind naivety.
He was wrong in that assumption, but Horatio Nelson would never tell him so. He would never mention the night at sea, months before, when Frank Lepée had been so drunk that he had let his tongue run away with him, and bandied about his erroneous accusations about Davidson, not forgetting to include his captain, in his slurred and incoherent speech. Nor on how such an association reflected on Lepée himself and the whole ship.
Not only was Nelson ‘mewed up with a Jenny Jessamy and his sodomical ilk, setting every tongue ashore wagging, but he would never be off taking one of the ship’s youngsters with him wherever he went, an’ though that was his way and had ever been thus it looked odd nonetheless’.
What had followed was a poor imitation, albeit recognisable, of
Davidson’s
singular manner of speech. Horatio Nelson had sat in shocked silence, listening to Lepée clattering about in his pantry, knocking things about, berating the bulkheads. He was accustomed to his servant’s drinking and his way of carping loudly and inappropriately, even when he had guests, but nothing like this had ever assailed his ears. It was equally shocking to hear Lepée traduce him by saying that as a commander he was ‘too soft by half’.
His fellow captains, according to his servant’s ramblings, laughed up their sleeves at his lenient ways and his kindness to ‘cheeky able seamen, upstart enough to talk to him unbidden, and jumped up mids who he was forever touching, which just goes to show there might be something in this Davidson lark after all’.
Nelson rarely raised his voice, but he did so that night, commanding his servant to ‘Stop your gob and get to your hammock’. Lepée, bleary eyed and swaying, obeyed, staggering to his berth, still mumbling imprecations against ‘sodomites, pansies, goat-shaggers and the like’.
They were the ramblings of a drunk for certain, and a man who cared more for being damned by association than he cared for much else. Certainly Davidson had an effeminacy of manner and quick mobile hands, allied to a high tone of voice. But Nelson, though he had no clear idea of his friend’s sexual orientation, knew him to be kind and considerate, too generous by nature certainly, and as honest and upright a fellow as he had ever met.
It was a poor specimen who served Captain Nelson his breakfast the following morning, a man whose hand shook so badly he had trouble placing the plates and pouring the coffee. A pointed enquiry established that Lepée couldn’t remember a single thing about the previous night. Not the dinner for his officers that his captain had hosted, nor the uncut rum he had consumed, nor the stolen wine that had followed it, nor his tirade in the pantry, once everyone had departed.
Lepée stood, head bowed, as Nelson told him, in his customary gentle voice, how intolerable his behaviour had been. He listened, without looking his master in the eye, to the threat that one more occasion like that would see him dismissed. It wasn’t the first time he had heard it and Lepée reckoned it wouldn’t be the last, but there was little fear that the threat would be carried out. He might not be the best servant in the world but he tended to a captain who was too soft a soul ever to send a man like him back to serve before the mast.
What Lepée couldn’t know was the effect that his words had on his master. If, over the next two months, the Captain seemed to brood, when not doing the hundred and one things that fell on his shoulders, that wasn’t unusual. The log was still written daily, the sheaves of papers regarding the state of the ship, from the sail maker, the carpenters, the gunner, as well as all the other warrant officers, arrived and were despatched speedily. Every few days there was a ritual argument with the purser, regarding what was due to the men in terms of rations. He still invited his mids and officers to dine with him and if he was a trifle more taciturn on this voyage than previously that was his right.
But at the back of Nelson’s mind, gnawing at him, was the notion that there might be some germ of truth in Lepée’s opinions. In the years since his experience in Calcutta there had been no women in his life apart from a Caribbean servant and the wives of fellow officers who had nursed him as
he lay under the blight of his fever. Certainly there had been no romantic attachments. As for the use of the brothel, his own early experiences with Amos Cavell and John Judd, plus the evidence of his own eyes in observing his less virtuous fellow officers, had convinced him that he had been lucky in the Orient. Only disease and eternal damnation would follow from indulgence in that quarter.
Recollection went back to his schooldays, that foolishness aboard
Raisonable
and a dozen other events or relationships that dredged
themselves
up for examination. Certainty of intention tended to become blurred when sleep became impossible, imbuing innocent acts and gestures with a more sinister overtone. He had worked alongside men he knew to be attracted to their own sex, had laughed with them, joked, drunk and danced hornpipes with them, shared endless banter and thought nothing of it.
He knew himself to be tolerant of what many of his peers saw as a mortal sin, his blind eye turned through benevolence rather than the necessities imposed by the running of the ship. Called upon to comment on the love of one man for another, he would damn as sin the physical expression of such regard, but he was inclined to accept that it was capable of being based on nobility, the same as any other, more natural relationship. He would not tolerate that such things should be too overt, or that any unwelcome attentions be paid, just as he came down hard on bullying.
As for himself, a life constrained by his rank would have been wholly intolerable if he could not take pleasure in what companionship was available. At sea that was wholly male. Even ashore the preponderance of males to females, in a colonial outpost like Québec, ensured that most social gatherings were single sex. There were balls and parties, of course, but opportunities for dalliance were rare, men being protective of their wives, fathers of their sought-after daughters. As for Davidson, he had never, by deed or gesture, given indication that their relationship was based on anything other than mutual esteem, which allowed him to banish Lepée’s ramblings.
But what really troubled Nelson, alone, lacking anyone to converse with, was the notion that if Lepée had thoughts of that nature, so might others. Was that the reason for his cool relations with the Commodore and his fellow captains? Did the society of Québec look at the domestic
arrangements
he had with Davidson, wonder at their relationship, and put on it a damning interpretation?
Before they berthed again, Nelson had made a decision. Marriage had always been something to which he had aspired, and only a lack of the means to support a wife had constrained him. Gradually he deduced that he must find a wife, so by the time he came ashore again he was afire with passion. Money be damned! Marriage was an estate he should join sooner rather than later. The trouble was that in embarking on this course, he had made, according to Davidson, a complete mess of things.