Frankenstein privately raised an eyebrow at Ada. They were flattered indeed. That was the Latin tag Nelson had coined to cover his curious ménage with Sir William and Emma Hamilton. Classical wrapping round a major social scandal of the day.
What did it matter now? All three of that torrid trio were dead (if not gone): all passion spent. Their little sins of the flesh were surely forgiven, because if not it suggested the Almighty was more merciless than man, His creation. Which was saying something…
‘The motto of the Order of the Bath, I believe,’ said Lady Lovelace.
‘What?’ said Nelson, recalled from reverie.
‘Tria juncta in uno, Admiral. ‘The motto of the Order of the Bath. Which you had the honour of owning, I believe.’
She could well believe it because Nelson actually wore its gaudy golden starburst on his breast along with a Christmas tree of other decorations. Although smeared with bandit blood it remained unmistakable.
‘S’right,’ said the Admiral. ‘Yes indeed.’
Frankenstein realised she’d spoken out of kindness. Ada had acted out of kindness! She’d wanted to spare the Admiral any embarrassment. Astounding!
‘The highest of honours,’ she added. ‘Dearly bought no doubt.’
England’s finest Revivalists might have been able to give Nelson back the semblance of life, but a new arm wasn’t included. Limbs lost pre-mortem couldn’t be regrown, and at the time it wasn’t thought politic to stitch another man’s arm on.
‘Very dearly…,’ Nelson agreed, and the residue of his lost right arm, his ‘flipper’ as he called it, stirred. But it was more likely he was thinking of all the bliss with Emma that duty had deprived him of.
Inspired by Ada, Julius joined in the mercy mission.
‘You were saying,’ he prompted, to get him back. ‘About the three of us…’
‘What? Oh yes: you three. Well, apparently you’re special. Very special…’
He appraised Julius and Ada head to toe.
‘For some reason… That’s why I came in person. To have a look. And because I felt like it, of course. It seemed a challenge to get you back alive, never mind orders. Half of Europe mobilised against you poor three. Nelson knows an underdog when he sees one. I recognised a job calling for my supreme talents. Plus a holiday: the opportunity to do a little hunting…’
He held up the dripping sack. Julius and Ada shrank back.
‘Horatia, my daughter, has a birthday coming up. So I’ve got her a present. I think it’s a parent’s duty to see their children get ahead, don’t you? Get-a-head. Get it?’
Nelson’s laugh was like dead trees creaking against each other in the wind.
‘Terrible!’ said Ada—and meant it. Fortunately, she was either unheard or ignored.
‘Anyhow,’ Nelson continued, dropping the trophy bag to foul a different bit of upholstery, ‘me being here, me saving you, has nothing to do with monsewer Talleyrand’s command! Neo-Nelson doesn’t dance to his tune! Quite the opposite in fact. He’s a Frenchman. ‘You should hate a Frenchman as you would the Devil’: that’s what I always told my new midshipmen. Because that’s what my mother taught me…’
He’d lost her early: a life-time—and afterlife-time—ago now. Thought of the loss made the Admiral raise his remaining arm to wipe away a manly tear. Except that Lazarans were unable to weep.
‘Would have said no in usual circumstances…’
His expression had changed and hardened. They got to see the face of ‘Dark Nelson.’
‘No, in normal circumstances he—and you —could bloody well go hang…’
Frankenstein overlooked that. Nelson wasn’t himself—and never would be again.
‘‘Normal circumstances’?’ he enquired.
‘S’right. Proves what rot all this ‘Dark Nelson’ nonsense is. I still have a soft heart, more fool me…’
Then he realised he’d lost them and kindly backtracked.
‘You don’t know? About Talleyrand? I assumed you would. The Hell-bound old scoundrel is dying.’
Chapter 11: WHEN FELLATIO FAILS
‘02/02/1837: Eighty-three years gone by! I do not know that I am satisfied when I consider how so many years have passed, how I have filled them. What useless agitations, what fruitless endeavours! Tiresome complications, exaggerated emotions, spent efforts, wasted gifts, hatreds aroused, sense of proportion lost, illusions destroyed, tastes exhausted! What result in the end? Mortal and physical weariness, complete discouragement and profound disgust with the past. There are a crowd of people who have the gift or the drawback of never properly understanding themselves. I possess only too much the opposite disadvantage or superiority; it increases with the gravity of old age.’
Insomnia and early hours ennui are not conducive to cheerful journal writing. Talleyrand set down his pen, fatigued by so much intense integrity but still not sleepy. He re-read what he had written and sighed.
Unbeknownst to each other, two trusted retainers had been separately tasked with the destruction of his journal immediately after his death. Meanwhile, within its pages at least, he could be honest with himself.
Yet an act maintained for so long becomes reality. Since gaining the age of reason Talleyrand had cultivated a butterfly spirit, flitting lightly over humanity, laughing at himself and it. That stance now reasserted itself, soaring above so much dull-dog earnestness. He was glad the journal would one day be committed to the flames and thus rid the world of all its cant.
Meanwhile, he knew of some sovereign remedies for spiritual slumps.
Talleyrand reached for the bellrope and rang for champagne! And a strumpet!
When even champagne and fellatio failed Talleyrand he knew he was dying. Or should die: which amounted to the same thing.
He set his barely sipped glass aside. Treacherous taste-buds made it taste acid.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said to the shape under the covers. ‘But that will be all.’
When she emerged blinking, the lovely Loseley milkmaid was worried she was in trouble. The Prince went to great pains to reassure her.
‘The fault is all mine,’ he said, feigning the sweetest of smiles. ‘You are entirely exquisite but I am old and failing. My time is done and therefore so is yours. Thank you for all the delectable awakenings. Thank your brother too. Now you should be on your way: morning milking awaits to judge by all the mooing from outside. Be sure to tell my chamberlain I said you should have an extra shilling today.’
Which contented her, if not him, and she left, closing the bedroom door and a whole colourful chapter of his life.
It was indeed early, an uncivilised hour, when he’d summoned her, preceding even her main (respectable) duties of the day. Talleyrand was sleeping worse and worse of late, and some nights were interminable.
In fact, the more he thought of it and faced the cold facts, all manner of things were closing in on him now, all manner of minor aches and pains adding up to something significant.
And now this culminating failure. Talleyrand had been many—indeed, most—things in his long life, but never impotent, not in any sense. That was the final straw. Or a straw in the wind, to continue the metaphor. Or the—limp—straw that broke the camel’s back.
It had been a broad back in its time, a strong one as well that had borne up many things, many burdens, for all his outward appearance of a foppish cripple. Now its work was done. Time to rest. Time to go.
Talleyrand released a long breath and switched off. Off! The mighty survival mechanism, the gleaming machine that had powered him so long, faltered for the first time in nine decades.