Ramage At Trafalgar by Dudley Pope Read Free Book Online

front door, which was suddenly and unexpectedly opened by a small figure in plain uniform, one empty sleeve pinned across his breast, a green shade over his left eye.
    “Welcome, Ramages! I heard the carriage and guessed it was you,” he explained to Sarah, taking her parasol and putting it in the stand just inside the door. “Follow me, I am the major domo and butler. Lady Hamilton is waiting upstairs with Horatia.”
    It was the same rather high-pitched and nasal voice with the flat Norfolk accent: the curly hair was greyer. The face was tanned and thinner, too – no doubt about that, but it only emphasized the strong bone structure. The single good eye sharp, the small body (he was shorter than Sarah) as erect as ever, the single hand gesticulating. In a moment, in a brief phrase, he had both welcomed them and set the tone of the meeting with Lady Hamilton and his young daughter: now there would be no uncomfortable pauses, searching for the right word or phrase: here was the same Nelson he had met years ago: a coiled spring. One knew it was under control, but at the same time had no doubts about its latent power.
    The drawing room upstairs was large, high-ceilinged and furnished with considerable taste. Sarah, at first not seeing Lady Hamilton, paused at the doorway, intrigued by a pair of urns – urns? No, they were amphorae, and surely that was coral growing on them? Recovered from the sea?
    Nelson stopped when he noticed her interest. “Some of the late Sir William’s treasures, which he left to me. We have the finest ones down at Merton: perhaps we can lure you and your husband there one day and show them off. Ah, there is Lady Hamilton!”
    Sarah saw a small, beautiful and graceful woman rising from a chair in an alcove. Brown and curling hair, a body perhaps now a little plump, a friendly face also now plump, but with the fullness of happiness and contentment.
    Nelson introduced them and she said with unfeigned pleasure: “At last, Captain Ramage! Horatio did not tell me you were so handsome. And you have a lovely wife!”
    Before Ramage could answer, Lady Hamilton looked down. A vivacious little girl was tugging shyly at her skirt. “Yes, yes. This is the Captain Ramage who wrote all those exciting letters in the Gazette , and this lady is his beautiful wife. May I introduce Horatia?”
    It was all done so naturally that Sarah took an instant liking to the woman. Warm, doting on Nelson and their child, well informed apparently, taking an interest in everything that went on round her and – if this room was anything to go by, and it was her house – a woman of refined tastes.
    Oh yes, there were stories about Emma Hart (passed on to Sir William by his nephew) who became Nelson’s mistress, but Sarah could understand and forgive Nelson’s infatuation.
    Sarah had twice met his wife, Lady Nelson, and the former Mrs Nesbit (widowed in the West Indies when her Army major husband died of one of those vile tropical diseases) was by comparison a cold and shrivelled person: Sarah could imagine that the warm and spontaneous Nelson would find her chilly, not unresponsive but instead – well, just plain and dull.
    He should never have married her, Sarah thought; but from what Nicholas said the young Nelson had fallen in love with a married woman in Antigua – wife of the commissioner at English Harbour, she remembered – and when the couple were sent back to England, a broken-hearted Nelson had then met the young widow Fanny Nesbit on one of the nearby islands. Wasn’t she staying with her uncle, who owned a large plantation on Nevis? Sarah had a picture of interfering female cousins plotting to marry Fanny off to the young frigate captain…and this was how it all ended up.
    Nelson made her comfortable in a chair close to Lady Hamilton, and Sarah found herself talking to an excited Horatia, anxious to display her new pink dress and shoes. Nelson waited until Horatia stopped for a moment (she was explaining that