[Illustration: LADY HAMILTON AS CIRCE
 _From the painting by G. Romney_]




                                 T H E
                         D I V I N E   L A D Y

                 A Romance of Nelson and Emma Hamilton

                                   BY
                             E. BARRINGTON
             AUTHOR OF “THE LADIES” AND “THE CHASTE DIANA”


                             [Illustration]


                                NEW YORK
                         DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
                                  1924




                            COPYRIGHT, 1924
                    BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

                      Published, June, 1924
                   Second Printing, June, 1924
                   Third Printing, July, 1924
                   Fourth Printing, July, 1924
                   Fifth Printing, August, 1924
                   Sixth Printing, August, 1924
                   Seventh Printing, September, 1924
                   Eighth Printing, October, 1924
                   Ninth Printing, November, 1924
                   Tenth Printing, December, 1924
                   Eleventh Printing, January, 1925
                   Twelfth Printing, February, 1925

                       PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
                      =The Quinn & Boden Company=
                  B O O K   M A N U F A C T U R E R S
                  R A H W A Y      N E W   J E R S E Y




                                PREFACE

As I sat, years ago, in the Admiral’s cabin of Nelson’s flag-ship, the
_Foudroyant_, the thought of this romance came to me, for this ship was
the sea-shrine of that great but errant passion. She is a wreck now, her
stranded ribs are green with weed, her bones are broken in the wash of
the tide. A grave at sea amidst the answering thunder and flash of guns
would have been a nobler ending.

But the story, with all its love, cruelty and heroism, remains alike
beyond oblivion, condemnation or pardon. It is. It has its niche beside
the other great passions which have moulded the world’s history. For if
Nelson knew himself when he declared that Emma was part and parcel of
the fire breaking out of him, without her inspiration Trafalgar might
not have been.

I have treated it imaginatively, yet have not, as I think, departed from
the essential truth which I have sought in many famous biographies such
as Mahan’s, Sichel’s, Laughton’s and others.

Yet the best biographies of Emma are the lovely portraits Romney left of
his Divine Lady, and of Nelson the best is the sea-cathedral, the
_Victory_, at rest in the last home port he sailed from to his splendid
doom. From these all the rest of the story might well be reconstructed.

                                                          E. BARRINGTON
                                                                Canada




                                CONTENTS

                                  PART I

          I HOW GREVILLE MET HER                                   3
         II THE ACQUAINTANCE RIPENS                               22
        III THE EXPLOSION                                         36
         IV PEACE AND CATSPAWS                                    49
          V THE RIFT                                              63
         VI THE FAIR TEA MAKER                                    77
        VII DISCUSSION                                            88
       VIII THE BARGAIN                                           99

                                 PART II

         IX THE BARGAIN CONCLUDED                                115
          X THE GREAT ADVENTURE                                  128
         XI ADVANCE AND RETREAT                                  140
        XII THE BEGINNING                                        153
       XIII THE PROCESS                                          170
        XIV THE WAY TO TRIUMPH                                   185
         XV ACHIEVEMENT                                          203
        XVI TRIUMPH                                              219

                                 PART III

       XVII NELSON (1793)                                        235
      XVIII THE NEAPOLITAN COURT                                 245
        XIX DIPLOMACY                                            261
         XX THE NILE                                             280
        XXI THE GARDEN OF ARMIDA                                 295

                                 PART IV

       XXII THE MERIDIAN                                         315
      XXIII CIRCE                                                331
       XXIV DESCENT                                              352
        XXV FANNY                                                366
       XXVI PARTING                                              386
      XXVII SUNSET                                               406




                                 PART I




                            The Divine Lady




                               CHAPTER I
                          HOW GREVILLE MET HER


SHE sat by the window and sang, and as she sang the children on the
green outside clustered under the elms in little groups to listen to the
delicious voice, for she sang carelessly glad, like a thrush alone in a
leafy bower. Clear resonant notes pouring from a pillared throat
magnificently strung for its work and behind it a passionate vitality
that sent the crystal stream welling from the hidden springs of the
heart.

              Should he upbraid
              I’ll own that he prevail,
              And sing as sweetly as the nightingale.
              Say that he frown, I’ll say his looks I view
              As morning roses newly dipped in dew.

She trilled and rippled, and put her head aside to see the hat she was
trimming with flowers, and paused to consider, and trilled again, and
looped the chain of notes in the purest soprano half unconsciously, more
occupied with the hat than with the song, and stopped—the hat became
engrossing. A little head appeared at the window.

“Do it again, lady. ’Tis so pretty!”

Even that audience was not despicable. She put the hat down, leaned her
bare arms on the sill and put her heart into the singing. The woman in
the next house thrust a sour face out at the window.

“You run along to your play, you brats! Wasting time listening to the
like of that!” Then, as they helter-skeltered off, to herself: “That
Mrs. Hart; any one to look at her can see what _she_ is!”—and flung the
window to. The song stopped abruptly. She turned in a fury as if to
fling back defiance, then stopped, flushing scarlet, and stood stiff in
the middle of the floor; the hat at her feet, the day spoilt for good
and all.

“’Tis a pitiful, wicked, brutal shame,” she cried, “that do what I will,
go where I will, I can never get rid of it. And ’tisn’t as if ’twas my
fault. If those misses yonder had had my upbringing, had lived as I did,
slept where I did, they’d have done the same, I warrant, for all they
step along so cool and genteel now.” She flung out a tragic arm toward
the window. Two young ladies, full-skirted, large-hatted, with muslin
fichus, crossed discreetly over chaste bosoms in the mode of 1782, were
pacing sedately over the pleasant green common, past the wall of the
churchyard. Lest they should need a more stringent guard than their own
modesty, a well-fed footman with full-blossomed calves followed them,
his gilt-headed staff and the gold lace on his livery gleaming in June
sunshine, his high-fed face turned with a furtive air towards the
curtains that hid the fair fury. The young ladies themselves shot a
veiled glance apiece under drooping brims in that direction, for there
was much healthy curiosity afloat on and about Paddington Green
concerning that modest establishment.

Who could be surprised there should be? Take a placid suburb near to and
yet remote from the scandals of London, place about its drowsy green the
small respectable houses of Edgware Row chiefly inhabited by faded
spinsters and decorous widows living out their declining days under the
guidance of the church bells, and in the one vacant house of this Row
set suddenly a handsome youngish man whose studied simplicity of dress
cannot hide his fashion and consequence, and a young girl so beautiful
that in a country where beauty itself partakes of the nature of sin, she
must at once be found guilty until proved innocent—and mark what
happens.

Of course it happened. Emma made a few timid advances when first she was
set up as housekeeper. She spoke to the next door Mrs. Armitage across
the paling of the little garden, and offered a loaf of bread when that
lady was loudly regretting that the baker had forgotten his call. It was
refused with a thorny precision which conveyed that bread from such
hands was poison. When little Jemmy Barrett fell and grazed his knees,
she stanched the wounds, filled his hands with sugar biscuits and led
the howling culprit tenderly to the Barrett home among its syringa
bushes across the Green. The first suspicious glance of Mrs. Barrett
supposed her guilty of the howls, and explanation only produced a
frosty, “Very obliging in you, I’m sure. Jemmy, if you don’t stop that
noise—” and Emma, eyeing the child wistfully (for reasons), turned and
walked away, followed by looks of greedy curiosity that drew heads from
several windows. The clergyman’s wife called, but did not repeat the
visit. “My dear, I have discovered that the servant, the cook, is her
own mother,” cried the lady in the study of that divine, “and sure one
knows what to think in such cases. Do pray make enquiry about Mr.
Greville. ’Tis a name that bespeaks nobility, and the girl, for all her
looks—”

Her looks! Here comes the difficulty, for how describe, how convey in
any words, the beauty that nature bestows but once or twice in a
century. There was not a great artist but later tried to give it living
and glowing on his canvas, and not one of them but would own that, his
best done, there was still the Unattainable laughing or sighing forever
beyond his reach. Perhaps that most unbishop-like prelate, the Bishop of
Derry, summed her up best when he cried, “God was in a glorious mood
when he made Emma”—and yet that too needs detail if you are at all to
picture her fascinations. Item: two lips indifferent red, in
Shakespeare’s fashion? No, no, that may do for an Olivia but will not
serve such a paragon as Emma. Let us essay the impossible and at least
fall in good company, for all tried, and every man of them failed.

She was the perfect height, long-limbed, full-bosomed for a girl of her
age, the hands and feet not delicate, and conveying the notion of
physical strength and power as did also the fine throat and marble
moulded arms. For her figure alone she was noticeable—it was to be seen
slender, melting, flowing within her draperies, and every movement as
full of ease as a cat’s that need never stop to consider its swiftness
or slow subsidence into a luxurious coil for sleep or blinking at the
fire. Coming up behind this girl, you must needs take note of her grace,
the slow turn of the head on the long throat, the rhythm of curving arms
and pleading hands (for she had many and uncommon gestures), the lovely
length from hip to heel. Her body spoke for her and promised abundantly
for her face.

Indeed, she was a wave of the ocean of beauty tossed by the breeze of
youth. Should she be described? See how Romney has given her as a
Bacchante, arch chin turned over her shoulder, eyes and mirthful mouth
laughing deliciously to each other and to the happy fauns supposed out
of sight. She will lead the dance in the woods, and sit beneath the
black shade dappled with moonlight, wooing and wooed, in the clasp of
strong arms with a hot cheek pressed to hers. Yet again—Circe, grave
with a ruined passion, standing in noble height with down-pointing rod
of enchantments, reversing her spell on her man-souled beasts; or a
reading Magdalen, pensive, robed from head to knee in streaming auburn
hair curling into gold at the tendrilled ends. Ah, but such hair as
that, though it may be for Magdalens, is not for such as retire to caves
and bury themselves in theology! Far otherwise.

Yet no picture of them all was as lovely as herself. The large limpid
eyes of violet-grey might be hinted on canvas, no more, and what artist
could give that signature of a freakish planet—a brown spot swimming in
the liquid deeps of one. She owned that she herself considered it an
absurdity, but, veiled in delicious lashes, or flashed at you in
glittering laughter, it won hearts. Her mouth was divine—the sweet
upward curves, the full lower lip with its twin cherries—and even that
was not its charm of charms, for the changing expressiveness of it was
beauty’s self, and after that point no man could any more inventorize,
but was tangled hand and foot in the blue glance that netted him, the
sweet smile that completed his ruin.

And hers—for what should be the fate of a girl like this born to a
village blacksmith in an English village where dull days repeated dull
days in everlasting sequence? Surely nature was ironic in locking such a
bird in such a cage—a bird made for the wild woods and wild mating—a
star dancing in the laughing dark. London beckoned the country lass
along a road paved with hope and ignorance, and dropped her like ripe
fruit hung on a stem too slender, into the mud, where the flies crowd
and buzz over the crushed and muddied sweetness. For after a few
half-hearted attempts at domestic service comes a darkness. Ugly rumours
hang about it. Its implications were not perhaps quite clear to
herself—but be it as it may, a girl of fifteen may plead for pity. Let
us take her own account of it to Romney, who befriended as well as
immortalized her: “Oh, my dear friend, for a time I own, through
distress, my virtue was vanquished, but my sense of virtue was not
overcome.”

Let us leave the darkness then and make no attempt to turn light upon
the obscene figures that move through it about this child. She must have
yearned, did yearn, for some position where the day could bring security
and not violent and terrible change. Could one hope to find it in the
arms of a King’s officer of the Navy, a light-hearted fool who is the
first clear figure in the patchwork pictures of her life?—a man, it
must be said, with no eye for the amazing woman hid in the immature girl
as the conquering Aphrodite sleeps in the rough block of marble. He saw
her beautiful, as many Susans and Pollys please a sailor’s fancy;
snatched at the beauty and bruised it in the snatching, and passed on.
So a black hoof may bruise the meadow-sweet, and tramp on knowing
nothing. He found no more in this wonder than two months would exhaust,
and sailed away to his destiny, leaving the way dimly open through many
turns and obstacles to a mightier sailor than he who was to call the
castaway “the most precious jewel that God ever sent on earth.”

But the man bruised her—broke some sincerity, some wide-eyed trust in
her soul that life could never restore. And again she was flung on her
pitiful resources and again comes a hiatus which there is no accurate
knowledge to fill.

Again she struggled for some security. Could it be found this time with
a gay, fox-hunting, rollicking young squire of Sussex, easy alike in his
cups and amours, Sir Harry Fetherstonchaugh?—“Fetherstone,” his
cup-companions called him. He needed a pretty “whoman,” as poor Emma
spelt it, to sit at his table when the company was not too drunk to
appreciate feminine charm—and was proud of her astonishing beauty much
after the manner of King Ahasuerus, who also hoped to dazzle his
sycophants and create envy by disclosing the charms of Queen Vashti at
his banquets.

But Vashti proudly declined to be an exhibit, and so did not Emma. She
did her best to please. She smiled, and could not tell for the life of
her how to hit the mean between friendly reception and familiarity with
these men who were equally ready to tally-ho with Sir Harry in the
field, and make love to his lovely mistress after dinner. She shared
their sport, riding with the best of them, wild bright hair streaming
from her velvet cap as she galloped furiously over the swelling Sussex
Downs with the blue sea below. Never a man could outride her; and not
one of them but wondered at the brilliant beauty, the brilliant cheeks
and eyes, the rushing vitality of this lovely creature Sir Harry had
picked up, God knows where, to be the envy of half a county. She sat
behind her tray of tea in the old drawing-room, where the ghostly
crucifix is reflected from nowhere in a great mirror and none can tell
how, and tried to put on the modest graces of a Lady Fetherstonehaugh
when some bold arm was thrust about her waist, and must for all her
efforts subside into the kitchen giggle and the scuffle and escape.

She did not, however, always escape, for Destiny, whom beauty must draw
like a lover, was at her heels again with the ironic smile that is no
lover’s, God knows!

The Honourable Charles Greville, younger son of the Earl of Warwick,
conferred his honourable company upon Sir Harry, merely for a shooting
party—no long visit, for the brainlessness of these masculine
gatherings had no attraction for him. One went, because in his world men
shot or hunted and could not take their proper place in it if they did
not, but it was impossible that a man of real attainments could please
himself long in the company of a mere man of sport and fashion and his
boon companions crowding foolishly about him.

Mr. Greville did not drink, save in a gentlemanly moderation. He shot in
moderation; in moderation he hunted; and the amours of an uncelibate
life were also in moderation, governed by a due regard to expenditure.
But he was an amateur, a dilettante of beauty, for all that—beauty in
woman, but still more in chaste Greek statuary, in noble Etruscan vases
with figures dancing upon them in a long-dead joy; in strange crystals,
coins, and all the fascinating stuff that Time picks up on the seashore
of Eternity and drops from his pack as he goes on to the next adventure,
forgetting the last. And not only for himself must he collect (and
indeed could do little enough because of this limited income), but also
for his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who was Ambassador in Naples; a
very distinguished virtuoso indeed and all but final authority on the
art of Greece and Rome.

So, armed with all his well-born graces and a prudence beyond his years,
Mr. Greville came down to Up Park, his latest sacrifice on the altar of
fashion. There might be a pretty maid-servant to chuck under the chin;
there would certainly be the glorious champagne of the air on the wild
Downs, not to mention Sir Harry’s cellars, and—Lord, he had forgotten
that!—there would be Sir Harry’s new mistress to ridicule when he
returned to the clubs. The last had been a common enough little slut;
indeed, a man of birth might well wonder how another might amuse himself
with such poor company when ladies of family were by no means
unapproachable and less costly in more ways than one if discreetly
wooed.

Mr. Greville was never to forget, however, in the course of a long and
virtuous life, how he first saw the new charmer.

When he arrived at Up Park, it was a gay autumn afternoon, a light air
crisping the dry leaves of the great copper beeches ere it tossed them
to the earth, the late dahlias flaunting in the gardens, and the
chrysanthemums in rows. Sir Harry was at the great hall-door with two
grooms, both doing their utmost to control as magnificent a horse as
Greville had ever clapt eyes on, a great bony bay thoroughbred, plunging
and trembling, mad with nerves and spirits, quivering and sweating. A
lady’s saddle was on his back, and a girl in riding dress and feathered
hat stood on the steps of the portico, watching him so keenly that she
never noted Greville winding up the garden from the park. Sir Harry was
swearing like a trooper. I spare my readers the greater part of his
oaths, since they are out of fashion and therefore useless. One rests
familiar, however.

“I tell you, Emily, you shall not. And what’s more, I’m damned if I
don’t flog you instead of the horse if you attempt it. That beast must
be broken—if they break every bone of him, before man or woman can
master him. How dare you order him round, you damned hussy!—”

And so forth, and so forth, the grooms with an eye apiece on the horse
and another on the lady. Greville stopped to watch the contest. Her face
he could not see for she was sideways on to him, but the figure in her
habit was pleasing.

Not a word did she say. She stood leaning against a pillar, watching.

“Take him away!” shouts Sir Harry, “and if you, damned etc., sons of
etc., bring him round again before I tell you myself, I’ll,” again etc.

A flute-like voice from the lady: “Suppose you’d permitted me, Sir
Harry, what would you have betted I couldn’t master him?”

“Suppose I’d been fool enough to permit it, I’d have bet you fifty
guineas you’d be a broken heap of bones in five minutes, and serve you
right!” growls Sir Harry, turning to lounge in. The grooms turned also,
she still watching—a statue in marble repose. Then, a most astonishing
thing. While they were yet but a few steps away, she flew down the steps
like a lapwing, and, with the horse held as it was on either side, she
got one hand on a groom’s shoulder, the other on the pommel, made a wild
scramble for the stirrup and was on his back before you could say Knife.
She could not get her leg over the pommel in the hurry, but had her wits
about her, her foot fast in the stirrup and a smart cut with her whip
for either groom that sent them back smarting and swearing, and so off
and away like a whirlwind—her right leg settled into safety at last,
and Sir Harry stamping and screaming in the portico.

“Lord save us!” says Greville, and stopped dead to see the end of it.

She could not control the beast at first, and they tore madly over the
flower-beds, cutting down the dahlias and wreaking ruin among the
rose-bushes. The grass flew behind the pounding hoofs, the wild eyes
shot flame, and the raging north wind might have been his sire, as he
tossed the girl on his mighty back.

“The nymph and the centaur!” says Greville, watching coolly. “I’ll back
the nymph, however!”

He did right, though it was even betting as yet, and Sir Harry made
matters the worse for her by running yelling down the wide path, the
pale grooms at his heels. She did a little more work in the garden for
which the gardeners would bless her next day and then she lifted him
magnificently over against the great laurel hedge at the bottom. Would
he give in to her? Not he, if he knew it! He swerved sharp, and all but
tossed her into the green level on the top, then up the garden again.
Greville caught Sir Harry’s arm: “You fool, you! Be still, or you’ll
kill the woman.”

Down the garden they thundered once more, she riding gloriously, teeth
clenched and wild hair flying, and put him at it again, and over, over
like a bird in flight, not brushing the topmost leaf with flying hoof.

“Stand clear! I’ve got him!” she screamed, and so off and away in the
park, where if she could stick on she could ride him silly, and so they
lost sight of her, riding hell for leather.

The two gentlemen met in a condition that forbade formal welcome between
host and guest.

“Did you see that—madwoman?” cries Sir Harry, his eyes glaring over
purple cheeks.

“By the Lord, yes!” says Greville, even his cool blood beating fast.
“And a finer sight I never saw—woman and horse alike.”

“You’ll see her brought home on a shutter as sure as I stand here. Go
down the park, Bates, and be ready.”

“I back the lady!” Greville turned and ran sharp for the paling above
the ha-ha that commanded the park, Sir Harry pounding in the rear. “I
back the horse!” he got out between his gasps, and fixed the bet at
fifty guineas with what breath was left. Greville took him.

She grazed a chestnut and stooped her head on the beast’s neck to avoid
the sweeping branches, and Greville quaked for his guineas. They swept
round the lake, and now she got her whip ready and cut him mercilessly
till he went like the devil. She put him at the long steep slope and
flogged him up it, and, to make a long story short, wit conquered wind
and it was not too long before he knew he was beat. And still she did
not spare him. Down the slope, but turned and up again, until he stopped
dead, dropping his ears, running with sweat, a conquered brute.

So she let him stand awhile, herself now drooping on the saddle, languid
from the fierce struggle, and there they stood like weariness itself on
the green sward with the trees above him. At last, she turned him
towards home and walked him very slowly back to where the two men were
waiting.

It may be supposed Sir Harry was not in the best of tempers—a hundred
guineas to pay for an afternoon’s contradiction sweetens no man’s
blood—but he had found time to say the needful about Greville’s visit
before the wearied pair came up to them, and Greville time to think
himself lucky his excitement had stood him fifty guineas to the good. He
was curious to see the girl’s face. Of course Sir Harry’s oaths and the
general course of events had taught him the lady’s situation.

“Mrs. Hart, I conclude?” he questioned.

“The same, and a man deserves what he gets for saddling himself with
a—. If he spent his whole substance on a jilt like that, he’d get
nothing for his pains but ingratitude and worry to drive him mad.”

“My dear sir, let us at least thank her for an exhibition of the finest
tussle I ever saw between man and brute. You certainly have picked up a
very uncommon companion, and I’m told all the world envies you her
beauty.”

That struck the right note. The cloud thinned somewhat on the
proprietor’s brow.

“Why, as to that, the girl’s well enough,” says Sir Harry grudgingly,
“and I know a beauty as well as another. But I give you my word, sir,
that that horse is manageable—I’ll swear he is!—compared to Mrs. Hart.
She’ll have her way, she will, if she dies for it, and kicks up the
devil’s dust if she doesn’t. A wife itself couldn’t be more of a
termagant. The least we may expect from a woman like that is submission,
and I dare assure you—”

But here the culprit came up, slowly undulating with the horse’s tired
walk, and looked Mr. Greville over, but took no heed of him.

The feathered hat was somewhere in the park; the sleeve of her habit
torn half away by a ripping branch, and a breadth of the skirt hung like
a lowered flag. But there was no flag lowered in her eyes, or the lift
of her head, though her voice was as wooing as a ring dove’s—soft,
fluty, a most remarkable voice, as indeed everything about this young
woman was remarkable.

“Oh, Sir Harry, forgive me, I entreat you. I believe ’twas the devil
possessed me, but when I saw him going off I must needs tear after him
if it cost me my soul alive. ’Tisn’t the guineas. I wouldn’t accept one
of them if you threw them at me, but I had to win the bet. Oh, Sir
Harry, don’t be hard on me—you that’s the finest horseman yourself in
Sussex. You know what it is!”

She drooped toward him sweetly, her eyes caressing him.

“You wouldn’t wish me to be a coward!” she said.

Her hair hung almost to the horse’s fetlock as she stooped, all gold and
gloss in the smooth auburn curves. Greville had never seen so long. She
might ride like Godiva and be decent. Her eyes—were they violet, blue,
or deepest grey? Her beauty amazed the man. It stung like strong drink.

“I’m so tired!” she said with a child’s pout on exquisite lips. “Oh,
help me down, Sir Harry.”

“You got up, you can get down!” says Sir Harry, and slouched up the
step, calling to Bates over his shoulder to take the brute round.

She looked at Greville, releasing her leg for the slide. He came forward
without a word, but smiling, and she slid into his arms—a good weight
he felt her—and so stood beside him on the steps.

“He’s awful angry with me, isn’t he?” she said with a dipping sparkle in
her eye and a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder. Her accent was
village—he placed it somewhere Chester-way—but not unpleasing, as,
indeed, what could be unpleasing in that voice? Her h’s uncertain—that
was the flaw. Short of Venus Aphrodite even divinest beauty must have
its vulnerable spot, and the great ladies were to jeer at her for this
later. But she dazzled the man for all the dropped letters.

“Awful!” he said, “yet I don’t blame him, madam. You ran the risk of
smashing the most beautiful thing in the world, and that thing his own
peculiar treasure. For I imagine I address Mrs. Hart? The gentleman left
us to our own introductions.”

“The same!” says she, dropping a curtsey. “Well, but, sir, you saw
yourself how ’twas! Now, the man I could admire would have took me in
his arms and said, ‘Emily, that was a sight and a fight I won’t forget,
and I wished all Sussex here to see it and cry Bravo!’”

“Madam, exactly what I myself felt!” says Mr. Greville sedately. “Shall
I carry out the scene as you sketch it?”—and extended his arms.

She laughed like a very minx from between her hair, and ran up the
steps. At the top her whole expression changed and, putting back her
hair with her hands, she stood there tall in the long folds of cloth,
and with a certain dignity about her.

“Sir, I would not have you suppose me always like this, and since I am
hostess here, I ask your name and welcome you to Up Park.”

He bowed profoundly to fall in with this new mood.

“Madam, your most obedient. My name is Greville, Charles Greville, a
long-standing acquaintance of Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh.”

She curtseyed with propriety.

“Sir, the housekeeper will show you your usual chamber. Will you please
enter?”

He did so, and saw the shining locks dim in the dark old hall; and there
the servants took possession of him, and she went winding slowly up the
stair. His curiosity was riveted on her.

She appeared at the table for dinner, evidently forgiven, very plainly
dressed in a clear white dimity with blue ribbons, her hair turned back
from the forehead, disclosing the loveliest white brow, the undergrowth
of auburn advancing upon it in ripples, as when the tide comes in
softly. The mass was supported with a white fillet bound about the head
Greek fashion; and yet what could such a girl know of the goddesses who
in marble or more perishable clay kept the connoisseur company in his
London abode? He, however, recognized the touch and marvelled.

She looked down the table at Greville and smiled discreetly, but perhaps
saw more than the quick glance indicated. A handsome man with cold,
neatly-chiselled features, we have him still to the life in fine
mezzotint, the eyes somewhat too deep and eager to convince the
beholder, and a little of his scrutinizing, valuing air about it for
all; the hair clubbed and powdered—a man of noble breeding impossible
to pass for plebeian in a revolution if it were to save his life. A
self-possessed and dignified young man of thirty. Four other men were
present, including Sir Harry, and certainly this was the pick of the
basket. Fair Emma knew it, as women know all such lore, instinctively,
although for certain her life had not been passed with Grevilles.

“He looks like a great lord!” she thinks, trying to recall how fish
should be eaten in elegant company. “No knife—a fork and a crust?—yes,
that’s it.”

She talked little at dinner, smiling slightly when addressed, and eating
little also. The ladies of Mr. Greville’s society would trifle with
their food, and push it aside with hand disdainful. She had fortified
herself for this display by a huge hunch of cake upstairs and a bowl of
creamy milk, for those roses and lilies were not nurtured on air.

When the covers were removed, Sir Harry, now warm and generous with
wine, gave the gentlemen a running account of the tussle, and demanded
of Greville to bear witness whether Mrs. Hart hadn’t rode like a damned
jockey, and whether a man could keep up anger against a girl that showed
such spunk, for all she was a disobedient little vixen that might think
herself lucky she had a whole bone in her skin that night.

Greville assented—the finest sight he had seen, says he, and with Sir
Harry’s pardon might he propose they drink Mrs. Hart’s very good health
on it?—which they accordingly did with three times three, and the
heroine modestly retired to make tea in the drawing-room with Mrs.
Apton, the housekeeper, for company until the men lurched in, and Mrs.
Apton scuttled off.

Lurched, all but Greville. He was as cool as a cucumber, for the
situation was too good to be misted with the fumes of wine. Moreover, he
was never one to heat his brain for nothing though he could take his
glass like a gentleman. He placed himself opposite Emma, across the
broad hearth, that he might study her on the sly. Sir Harry called on
her for a song, and the dilettante in Greville prepared to be displeased
with all but the sight of those beautiful lips opening their portals to
melody. What could be expected?—the peacock, the pheasant, have voices
worse than the scritch of the jay, and beauty is too often
peacock-toned. She sang without accompaniment, if it be not Sir Harry’s
snores half way through, a ballad such as village pedlars will not have
forgotten, but the words pleasing, the tune simple and striking; “The
Raggle-taggle Gipsies, O!” and gave it with a fine dash and spirit.

              Last night I lay in a goose-feather bed
              With my good lord beside me, O,
              To-night I’ll lie in a tenant’s barn
              Whatever may betide me, O.

And so forth; the Countess tripping down the stair with all her maids
about her to meet the black fire of the gipsy lover’s eyes and her fate.

But the song itself slid off Greville, his taste was more on the
Italian, the “Luce bella” order, with quirks and trills and brilliant
fioriture, and the girl knew nothing of that. Yet she held him
fixed—the voice was glorious, strong and clear and true on the notes; a
noble instrument for passion, and nobly used, for her bosom expanded,
her throat pulsed like a bird’s and she poured it forth till the high
ceiling rang again. And not only so, but the drama! The first verse, she
sang sitting demurely, the great lady tripping down the stair with a
thought for the velvet of her robes, the set of the pearl chains in her
hair. Then rose, and the voice quickened, and at the last she flung her
arms abroad and drew the wild air of the moors into her lungs. Freedom,
freedom!—the pearl chains torn away and the barefoot woman following
her man to hell if he called her. Wild fire shone in her eyes to answer
the gipsy flame.

“I’m off with the raggle-taggle gipsy, O!” and stopped breathless, white
arms gleaming above her head; then dropped them, and sat down demurely,
the life fading from her face.

“Brava, brava!” cries Greville, applauding with ringing hands. For what
was he an amateur of gem and crystal if he did not know a jewel when he
saw it, and this, by all the Olympians, was a jewel! Sir Harry never
budged in his sleep, the others listened warm and drowsy.

“Sing again, Mrs. Hart,” says one, and again she sang, but what did not
stir so much this time; a rose and nightingale business, a little
mawkish, and yet with high notes touched most wonderfully.

“A prima donna if trained!” thinks Greville. “And that face! Lord help
us! The luck of that fool!” and cast the tail of his eye contemptuously
on the unconscious Sir Harry.

“Have you seen any good acting, Madam?” Greville came across to the
chair beside her, while the other men drowsed or talked foxes.

“Why, I’ve been to the play a few times, sir, here and there, not to say
I know anything about it. I saw Mrs. Siddons play Lady Macbeth. Lord,
how awful! My flesh did creep on my bones when she came in with the
candle, gliding like a ghost all in white. Like so!”

She caught up a vase for the candle and moved slowly toward him with
dead eyes turned inward on some horror, the head thrown back, mouth
open, jaw a little dropped, clenched hands drawn back, a ghastly terror
creeping about her. He stared spellbound. Wonderful—not sleep, but Fear
incarnate, frozen in the bonds of sleep. She passed Sir Harry and
tripped against his extended foot, and all but fell, recovering herself
with a laugh.

“I near broke the vase that time!” says she laughing, and called it
“vawse.” “I declare, Sir Harry, if I had, ’twas your fault. Why don’t
you go to bed if you must stretch out like that!”

It waked them up, and presently Sir Harry began to troll a hunting
chorus, and the men bore him company, and she took herself off laughing
still and waving her hand at the door.

But when Greville sat in his room by the fine bursting flaming fire of
beech logs he could think of nothing else. Her beauty; that was enough
alone. Her voice, her posturing! Dim thoughts rolled and shaped in his
mind.

“I wonder what Hamilton would think of her!” (For so he called his
twenty-year older uncle. They were friends more than uncle and nephew
from the beginning.) “All the Aphrodites come to life with a touch of
the Medusa, and a strong dash of Euphrosyne. And what else, I wonder!”

He could not settle it and went to sleep on that.




                               CHAPTER II
                        THE ACQUAINTANCE RIPENS


DURING the next few days Greville watched her with ever-growing
interest, and diagnosed her with the cool precision but discriminating
admiration which he brought to his cabinets of rarities. It was easy to
understand why and how Sir Harry had picked her up and easy also to
judge that her lease of his affections (if they could be so called)
would be brief and terminable on the resolve of the principal party. Sir
Harry would have the submission of a whipped dog, and try as she would
(and she tried her best by fits and starts) the girl could not crawl to
his feet. She was too full of abounding animal energy, not to speak of
force of character, to be tame, and, like most women of the uneducated
classes, saw no reason for controlling her tongue. Out it all came with
a burst when she was moved either to anger or pleasure.

“Fetherstone can’t control her, for her awe must be founded on respect
and she has no respect for him. He is too much a man of her own class in
essentials. She fathoms him through and through and don’t see anything
superior to herself. If she met her superior, and he with a firm hand
over her, she could be modelled into something to astonish the
world—the only world she can ever move in.”

So thinks Greville and in the reflections which occupied him believed he
knew where that superior could be found. She was meanwhile a fascinating
study. Not by any means the woman of pleasure, so he decided—not
mercenary, far more impassioned on the heart than the physical side;
candid to danger-point when moved; defiant to her own hurt. Rather, she
impressed him as one snared far less through temperament than by
circumstance and the fact of her astonishing beauty. Such a girl would
be attempted, persecuted, bribed wherever she went, and not only so but
condemned to something very like starvation if she refused. For
instance, what wise woman would take such a Helen into her service; and
if she did, how otherwise than as the merest drudge, for the girl was
nearly as ignorant and untaught as the wild rabbits in the park. He
ascertained that she could read and, after a fashion, write, but no
more. Then what choice had she? Who could blame this poor butterfly
blown down a chill wind out to sea? All her glorious gifts were natural.
It would be a pursuit as interesting as any collecting to pass them in
review, catalogue them, and see what they were worth in the market—a
better market than the mere sale of her body to the first comer. She was
capable of other reaches of beauty than this, he believed. He watched
her always.

She came out with the guns sometimes, a thing no lady of breeding would
have done, and tramped the deep fallows along with them, and through the
copses and spinneys and the dry fern where Sir Harry’s tall deer showed
branching antlers. And the hard exercise that would have made a fine
lady swoon did but bring the divinest flush to the cheeks of this
daughter of the hedgerows, and brightened her great limpid eyes until
they beamed like stars. Greville would have given much to know what she
herself made of her life, what her hopes were. The best he could see was
the chance that one of Sir Harry’s boon companions might take a liking
for her when the Up Park episode should finish and so start another
connection. Meanwhile he was witness to the queerest scenes, in which he
tried to comprehend the girl’s personality and found it baffling.

There was the evening when Squire Weldon of Harting—more than a little
overseas—declared and swore he believed that no woman could own such
sheaves of hair and he would wager the half of it was false.

“And for why I think so,” says he, with drunken cunning. “I observe you
wear always that kind of ribbon bandage to hold it up and hide where the
true joins the false—a neat little trick and becoming. Now I knew a
woman in Bedford and her hair was to her knees—” and so forth,
maundering on, the girl with a book of pictures on her knee pretending
not to notice him.

“Emily!” commanded Sir Harry, rousing himself in his chair. “You show
that gentleman he’s mistook, for I won’t have my belongings disparaged.
I say you’re a perfect beauty, and if any one denies it I’ll prove him
in the wrong. Take that ribbon off your head and let them see, one and
all!”

He carried so much wine that Greville reflected with an inward laugh
’twas lucky he stopped at the ribbon. Would she refuse? He would like
her the better if she did, and he had seen her thwart her master on a
lesser matter. She might yet be a Vashti.

The men sat staring and laughing. Did she refuse? Not she! A glow
coloured her face—not anger, but pleasure and pride. Her eyes
glittered.

“If any one says it isn’t my own I’ll show him what God gave me!” cries
she, and began unknotting her ribbon.

We all know that fillet binding her glorious auburn waves. Romney
painted it, lingered over it, loved it. It was true Greece, though she
never guessed it; the Bacchante’s wear when with girt-up robe she runs
through the woods, shouting her wild fellows from their lairs to follow
Him of the leopard skin and the thyrsus. We see it to-day in her
pictures that cannot die while beauty lives.

A few swift dexterous turns of the hand and she flung down the ribbon at
her feet, and pulling out a few pins stuck them in her mouth like a
maid-servant, and then shook her head. Down rolled the torrent, a royal
mantle, chestnut woven with gold, and so veiled her near to the ankles.
She turned herself about to show the smooth undulations feathering into
pure gold at the tips.

“There’s for you!” cries Sir Harry. “Has any of you a girl to match
that? You may pull it if you will, Weldon, to see if it isn’t tight
where it grows. Hold it out, Emily.”

She held it out like wings shining to either side, the men marvelling.
There was enough and to spare of the praise and comment that fed her
vanity then. But Greville said nothing, though her seeking eye turned in
his direction, and presently the cards were got out and the heroine
knotted the locks up with simulated carelessness and so went off to the
upper end of the room with her book, forgotten in the gamble.

He stood out and followed her after a while, sitting near her out of
ear-range but well within eye-shot of Sir Harry. No risks for Greville.

He asked her what pictures amused her, and to his surprise she turned
the book and showed him a fine set of Flaxman’s illustrations to the
Iliad and Odyssey; figures beautiful, severe, dignified; the pure and
perfect line that in so much resembled her own surpassing grace. On the
open page the goddess Calypso, loose robe flowing in noble folds,
directed the shipwright labours of Ulysses, clear-featured, akin to
heaven but bound to earth by love.

“Where on earth did you get this?” says he in astonishment.

“In the liberary,” replied Mrs. Hart, struggling with the redundant
syllable.

“And do you like it? Do you understand it?”

“Not a word. But it pleases me. The women are fine to look at. I dress
as near that as I can. What are they?”

“Goddesses,” condescended Mr. Greville, smiling superior.

“What’s a goddess?” was the next question.

He explained as best he could, and, unwilling to lose the opportunity
for a lesson, finished with some emphasis by saying that they knew their
own worth and were above the mean vanities and tempers of common women.
Therefore were they loved and respected.

“You mean,” says she, as sharp as a needle, “that I shouldn’t rage the
way I’m apt. I know you saw me smack Betty’s face t’other day when she
let fall the tea on my muslin gownd. Well, I wouldn’t have done it if
I’d known you was coming. I know, too, I anger Sir Harry, answering
back, and that’ll be the worse for me. But what am I to do if I feel
that way? I’m fit to burst my girdle sometimes. Things do so anger me.”

“You make a great mistake in such behaviour, since you invite my
opinion.” His very voice awed her, with the clear-cut vowels and
consonants and the cool distinction of phrase and manner. Sir Harry
spoke like a Sussex gentleman, but Greville like a prince, she thought;
there was a serene remoteness about him, as from the height of a throne,
which was sufficiently alarming, but attracting also.

She was woman enough to sense his contempt of Sir Harry, and that in
itself set him high. Suddenly her eyes gloomed. She grew reckless.

“And what does it matter what I do? Here to-day and gone to-morrow as
the saying is? The likes of me end in a ditch mostly. A short life and a
merry one, say I! I’ll go my own way, and let them that don’t like me
leave me!”

Greville was in no way stirred. He turned a leaf or two and considered
the illustrations. Then, with studied politeness:

“You mistake very much, madam, if you consider your career so hopeless.
You have gifts that might be improved and win you a secure position. At
present you throw them away—if you will allow me to be frank—in
vulgar”—he hesitated delicately at the word—“tantrums that bring you
to a lower level than you merit. ’Tis a great pity.”

Her mood changed again instantly.

“Oh, sir, I beseech you not call me madam. I’m but a poor country girl,
and it confuses me that I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.
Call me Emily, and for God’s sake advise me, for I don’t see no end to
all this, but slipping back in the mud. You must know Sir Harry’s temper
is violent. Look here, bend this way. He won’t see.”

She lifted the muslin sleeve, lightly tied with ribbon, doing this with
a wary eye on the other end of the room, and disclosed an arm like
country cream but disfigured with black bruises above the elbow. The
print showed the grip of a man’s powerful hand on the softness.

“No doubt you vexed him, yet it should not be.” Greville motioned her to
pull down the sleeve. “But I would have you know, Emily—since that name
is your wish—that life is a thing to be made much as we would have it.
You have good looks, a voice that if trained would bring you notice, and
I should not despair of an actress’s career if you was taught, but if
you can’t govern yourself and take pains there’s no hope, for you can
never be respected.”

He harped on this string, you observe. It was perhaps not difficult to
see how she coveted applause and the general good opinion. But respect!

“Oh, sir, who could respect a girl like me?”

The beautiful forlorn grey eyes were so appealing that Greville, having
carefully noted that she sat with her back to the card players, crossed
his silk-clad legs indolently and unbent a little.

“There’s no position where respect can’t be won. I am acquainted with
Mrs. Wells—a lady whose is the very position you hold here—and so far
as she is known she is universally respected. Does she flame and quarrel
with those about her? No. Does she overstrain sentiment and imagination
and always consider herself slighted unless every eye is upon her? Not
she! Does she make foolish and vulgar exhibitions of her charms for the
pleasure of other men besides him to whom she owes her home? No, indeed.
She is well-governed, discreetly alluring, diffuses a charming serenity,
and has the pleasing art to retain a lover as a friend when she passes
on to the next happy possessor.”

The wisdom of the Serpent, and Eve listening fascinated. Though a little
beyond her in some respects, Greville’s calm enthusiasm aroused her own.

“That’s a real lady!” she said, looking down pensively, “but I fear ’tis
beyond me.” Then, flashing suddenly into the personal. “How do you know
her so well, sir? No, I don’t like the woman! I’ll not imitate her.”

Greville withdrew his chair by an inch. He uncrossed his legs and was
dignified.

“If this were not the speech of a pettish child, I should rebuke it
severely! How I knew Mrs. Wells is not of importance. But to illustrate
what I wished to mark, the lady has been and is under the protection of
men of the highest birth and breeding. From them she has studied good
manners and—”

“Oh, Mr. Greville, answer me this only: Is she with you?”

The face was so eager and troubled that he again relaxed a little.

“Certainly not, but I have the satisfaction to meet so agreeable a
person at a friend’s house occasionally and think her an excellent
example for a young woman like yourself. A man must always respect
discretion in a woman and if—”

Again interruption, the words bubbling out unrestrained:

“Oh, I’ll learn of her, indeed I will. She wouldn’t have pulled down her
hair to let the men see. Couldn’t I tell the dislike in your eye! But
why _didn’t_ you approve? Tell me and I’ll do my best to comprehend you.
Oh, what a friend I might have in you could I deserve it! No one in this
world ever spoke to me before, nor cared a straw but to make me pass the
time for ’em.”

Mr. Greville assumed his best didactic style; the one that angered many
men, but, expressed in his beautiful enunciation, impressed women from
duchesses downward to the mesdames Wells of his acquaintance.

“No, I could not approve. Sure you can see it is to make your favours
cheap, and what is cheap is scorned. Men other than the one who protects
you should be treated with a perfectly agreeable good humour, but a
decent reserve, and of all things you should avoid to anger the man on
whose bounties you depend.”

“Bounties!” cried the fair listener, and instantly controlled herself,
with heaving bosom.

“Bounties!” repeated the instructor firmly. “He takes you to decorate
his home and enhance his comforts, and though Sir Harry had not the
breeding to object to that particular display you often cross him more
than is proper. I don’t myself approve of his method. Were a girl of
your abilities in my possession I should have her educated. I believe
you might repay it.”

There was a pause. A long one. Then, softly clasping her hands and
regarding him with dewy eyes, the pupil said in a whisper:

“Oh, would that I was! Would that I was!”

That ended the conversation at the moment, for Greville rose
immediately, and with a light remark began studying the pictures on the
wall, walking slowly round the room, his arms behind him, until he
joined the card players again, and complimented Sir Harry on his
possessions, when the game ended. He did not, however, allude to the
most surprising of them and was guarded afterwards in his approaches to
it. Yet the conversation was renewed from time to time and always on the
same lines, her possibilities, faults, conduct, and the hope which might
tinge the future should she deserve better.

There was a sheltered spot in an angle of the house where she sat when
the sun shone, and here he would surprise her sometimes with her
book—trying to master what the author would be at. Once, with writing
materials, improving her writing. It was touching and the eyes looking
up beneath her gipsy hat, soft in its shadow, were more touching still.

“I do my best, Mr. Greville—a poor best!” said she, raising the
ill-formed characters to his notice. “Ah, if I’d but been educated, what
a girl I might have been! There’s no chance without it.”

She was as pat as his echo. That was her way, though he did not
understand it. She took her colour _chameleon_ fashion from the leaf
that sheltered her, and was boisterous and hoyden with Sir Harry, quiet
and engaging with him, and had a hundred other qualities behind ready to
match those she came across. Was there any real fixed personality under
it all? God knows! Her moods were as volatile as they were passionate at
the moment.

Now and always, she was the pupil to Greville’s condescension. It served
her as usefully as it did him later. They fitted like a mosaic.

He looked down at the straggling letters, the blot at the top, the
spelling.

“Indeed you advance, Emily, and when I leave I have no objection if you
write me your news once or twice. ’Tis possible I may be here in
February and renew the acquaintance.”

“Acquaintance!” she cried with warmth. “No—I don’t understand that
word, Mr. Greville. You’ve given me the wish to improve, and I count you
for a friend indeed. I’ll study two hours each day faithfully until I
have the happiness to see you once more.”

She meant it probably at the moment, yet most certainly would not fulfil
the promise with the master’s eye removed to London, but this did not
occur to Greville’s estimate of his influence.

“You do yourself justice, my dear Emily. I have a sincere wish to see
you improve and—”

She caught one word and caressed it with lingering sweetness.

“Your dear Emily! Can the poor unhappy girl be Greville’s dear Emily?
Oh, how happy for me could that be possible, but no, it never, never
will be. And do you go soon?”

“In four days, but you will not pass wholly from my mind. I shall wonder
occasionally if Emily is studious and loves her work.”

“She will, she shall!” cries the pupil softly, “and when you come again
you shall say, ‘Mrs. Wells is admirable, but Emily too improves and
behaves as I would have her.’ Oh, Greville, Sir Harry yesterday flung
his boot after me because I wouldn’t bring him t’other and Hawkins was
downstairs, and indeed my temptation was to fly upon him and drive the
boot at his head. But not me. I recalled your words and advanced and
fetched it. ‘Sir,’ says I, politely, ‘I won’t imitate your bad manners.
Here’s your boot, and I’ll desire Hawkins to come to you when I go
down!’ Was that well?”

“Excellent—on the whole!” says Greville, qualifying, “but you might
have left out the bad manners. Men don’t love to be reproached. A gentle
endearing sweetness would have served your turn better. Again, don’t
suppose I defend Sir Harry, but it is the woman to bend and adapt
herself suavely to the man’s requirements.”

With tear-filled eyes she owned him in the right and promised to repay
his interest by gratefully doing as he bid her.

Her docility delighted him. He knew it sincere, as indeed it was, and
supposed it not so much a mere vein of gold as the basis of her nature.
What he could not estimate was that the violent scenes with Sir Harry,
the rollicking songs and jests with his companions, were equally natural
and a part of her many-coloured temperament. She was exactly what her
surroundings might be. Life, for her, was a drama and she played the
part the moment allotted, boldly adapting herself to her fellow actors.
She reflected their own personalities in increased vividness, eager only
to catch and retain the part of prima donna, be it what it would. This
was instinctive. She was ignorant that she caught Greville by his desire
to instruct and prose, to express his store of maxims where they would
be heard with reverence and exalt him by displaying a masterpiece of his
own discovery, whether woman or crystal. Yet she did it, and had she
held a chart of his mental windings, could not have done it better.

Is this the secret of the immortal siren who flashes out on us from so
many conquering faces down the pages of history—to catch and repeat a
lover, but with the added passion of sex and temperament on honeyed lips
ripe for kisses? The Greeks, it may be, aimed at this truth in declaring
that in the Trojan Helen every man beheld his heart’s delight in the
form he best loved; which, we may believe, will mostly be the reflection
of himself. It was no nymph, but the boy Narcissus, who fell in love
with his own image in the pool, and does this eternally.

He had several brief passages with her before the four days passed, and
each time she grew on him surprisingly. It was against his code to
meddle with another man’s mistress, and entirely against his inclination
to incur the complications it would ensure. Sir Harry would resent with
loud complaint and oath any such poaching and the clubs would ring with
his honest indignation. Greville, be sure, had no intention of upsetting
his own quiet comfort and running the risk of making himself ridiculous
for a woman of Emily Hart’s character, but was equally determined that
he would not lose sight of her.

Their real parting took place the day before he left and it was in the
park, where he met her returning from an errand of mercy to some old
goody in the village, her basket swinging in her hand, and a furred
cloak about her that made her bloom most exquisitely soft and fair. He
commended her kind heart, which indeed was no more than justice, and did
not mention that he had seen her from his window and had hastened down
by the short cut through the garden for a last word. This would have
made her too confident.

“We are to part to-morrow, Emily,” says he with a certain solemnity,
“and since I cannot repeat it in public, let me hope my words will not
be forgotten, for all your future must now depend on your conduct. You
are not seventeen, and prosperity and security may yet be yours if you
are discreet and govern your impulses. _There_ is the whole secret.
Impulse has been and will be your ruin unless controlled.”

It must certainly appear that this young man as he walked discoursing
beside her was a finished prig, the born preacher of an immoral
morality. Nature was a force he dreaded and despised, and he had
carefully pruned and grafted it in his own case so that no rebellious
shoots and tendrils should trouble his peace. In spite of all his wise
saws and modern instances, it was in this girl to burst into a tropic
luxuriance of blossom that must wreathe her with crowns undreamed of in
his arid philosophy, and make the world itself marvel. Had she pruned
and trimmed and clipped as she tried her best to do for his sake, that
strange and brilliant future had never been.

She promised, however, passionately, and with a warmth he thought
excessive, adding:

“And may I write to you, Greville, and will you despise my poor letters,
and will you still interest yourself for my good and write to tell me
so?”

“You may certainly write to me if the need arises, my dear Emily, for
your attention to all I say convinces me you have good qualities.
Naturally I cannot write to you. This would be to treat Sir Harry in a
way I neither can nor will, and might have unpleasant consequences. Let
me know if anything should occur to part you from him, and when that day
comes I believe you may find he will make a provision for you that shall
mark his esteem for your conduct.”

Provision was not in her view; the fact that Greville was passing out of
her life, possibly for ever, drowned that and all else. She caught his
hand, and looked at him with quivering lips.

“Oh, how shall I thank you for your divine goodness to a poor girl like
me? Oh, Greville, Greville, don’t forget me! But you won’t for all
you’re such a great gentleman and makes Sir Harry and all the rest look
like Sussex boors. And your knowledge—What is there you don’t know?
Things I never even heard tell of and can’t never hope for. Oh, if I
never see you again—and Heaven forbid it, for you _must_ come in
February—I’ll remember you till my dying day, and say ‘Greville didn’t
despise the poor Emily. He knew she had a heart to feel his words that
he honoured her with—and to love him! To love him!’”

She was sobbing now hysterically. He looked around with swift caution
and drew her into the shade of a copse of evergreens uncommanded by the
windows of the house, for this emotion must not be seen. Here he
exhorted her to compose herself, and in vain.

It was inevitable, since she could not, that he should put his arms
about the lovely mourner. Her cheek rested against his, their lips met,
the basket lay forgotten at their feet.

She was obliged to remain a while in the shade to wipe the tears from
her face when he strode off to join the other gentlemen coming back from
their shooting. He never looked back.

Next day in the hall, Mrs. Hart curtseyed charmingly to Mr. Greville’s
bow as he said farewell, half deafened by Sir Harry’s ringing
exhortations to return in February.




                              CHAPTER III
                             THE EXPLOSION


GREVILLE did not return in February. He had other and more important
invitations and time a little dulled the strong impression Emily Hart
had made upon him. She had written more than once, dutiful ill-spelt
letters, monuments of labour—love’s labour, and not wholly lost.

He had also seen her twice, for she insisted with Sir Harry on coming up
to London to visit her mother, a simple, good-natured old body, now
decorated with the remarkable name of Mrs. Cadogan (Heavens knows why!)
and, through Greville’s own influence, serving as cook in the family of
one of the numerous Hamilton and Greville connections. He had not wholly
approved of the step of coming to London. Her enthusiasm and energy, far
from warming his tepid blood, rather alarmed him than otherwise. He
declined to see her but in Mrs. Cadogan’s presence and, though
condescending and encouraging on the moral-immoral lines, was guarded.
That anxiety for her mother’s company might mislead Sir Harry but could
not himself. Months passed after the last visit with a letter or two,
and then a silence. It certainly did not flatter him to believe he might
be forgotten and that she was adjusting herself so comfortably to Sir
Harry that outside interests were fading. Yet it might be so. The brief
letters certainly showed no sign of study or improvement—she must
therefore value his exhortations more lightly. That irked him somehow.
It touched both curiosity and vanity, and breaking his almost invariable
rule he wrote her a few friendly lines—no more.

He sat one morning in his London house in his embroidered Turkish
dressing-gown, arranging a small cabinet of gems and intaglios belonging
to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, for which he had made himself
responsible on their arrival in London. His letter acknowledging them
lay on the table beside him.

“My dear Hamilton,” it began, for so he always called this almost
brother-uncle, “I never saw anything more beautiful than this Medusa on
agate. Your usual good fortune always attends you—” and so forth. His
whole mind was on this as he moved and replaced the beautiful fossils of
antique art with delicate fingers. He wished, indeed, at least a part of
them were his own, for a schedule of expenses had given him some
discomfort the night before, and it was clearly a choice between cutting
down certain luxuries and selling one or two treasures to make both ends
meet. A younger son of a great family is often face to face with these
little difficulties. It is hard to be the same flesh and blood as the
elder brother and see all the money, land, and nearly all the
consideration flow in that channel, leaving the younger dry.

“A rich wife? True—but then—”

The gems occupied him now. He was bending over the cabinet in deep
attention when his man brought in a post letter, ill-scrawled and
sealed, with drops of wax about it as if the sender had suffered from
extreme haste and agitation.

It fell into that calm, retired atmosphere of extreme culture and quiet
like a meteor from another and more volcanic world of upheavals, but it
did not hurry Charles Greville though he knew the hand. He still
continued his delicate work until all were neatly sorted, the cabinet
locked and the key in his pocket. And not till then did he slit the
paper with a silver knife, and spread the big sheet open before him. The
postmark was Chester, which somewhat surprised him.

Good Lord!—that brutal beast Sir Harry! He was turning her loose on the
world, an expectant mother and without a guinea—a girl of seventeen!
Yet even before he read the rest his prudence had suggested the thought
that as likely as not she had brought it on herself by some unpardonable
levity. Caution—caution! That was the basis of all his thoughts as he
read. It went on like the cry of a tortured, unreasoning animal, a hare
caught in a gin awaiting its murderer. That would not have moved him,
but this stirred him somewhat.

“Yesterday did I receve your kind letter. It put me in some spirits for
believe me I am allmost distrackdid. I have never hard from Sir H and he
is not at Lechster now, I am sure. I have wrote 7 letters and no anser.
What shall I dow? Good God, what shall I dow? I can’t come to town for
want of mony. I have not a farthing to bless myself with and I think my
friends looks cooly on me. I think so. O. G. what shall I dow? Oh how
your letter affected me when you wished me happiness. O. G. that I was
in your possession or in Sir H’s what a happy girl would I have been!
Girl indeed! What else am I but a girl in distres—in reall distres. For
God’s sak, G. write the minet you get this, and only tell me what I am
to dow. Direct same whay. I am allmos mad. Oh for God’s sake tell me
what is to become on me. O dear Greville write to me. Write to me. G.
adieu and believe yours for ever, Emily Hart. Don’t tell my mother what
distres I am in, and do afford me some comfort.”

A strange letter for a man of his age to be faced with since it did not
concern him personally. He sat staring at it with distaste, seasoned
with pity. Girls must expect to suffer who have no safeguards in a world
made for and by men, but after all she was very young, and Sir Harry,
with his abounding plenty, a brute. He sat long, for there was much to
consider—even more for himself than for her. He drew up two mental
columns for and against what she was obviously praying for. He liked the
girl after a fashion; her docility pleased him; her passionate and
submissive adoration of his own greatness won him; her beauty stirred
him more than any he had ever beheld. Here he paused for a swift review
of the past and deciding that so it certainly was, passed on to the next
consideration. Now if he were to take a little home for her in the
suburbs and make it his headquarters he might well sell or let this
great mansion in Portman Square and thus pass the time in modest
retrenchment until he could find the exactly suitable heiress who must
ultimately become the Honourable Mrs. Charles Greville and provide him
with unlimited means for the purchase of articles of _virtu_. This
economy might be a most valuable matter to him at the present moment.
And lastly, there was pity. Greville’s heart was not as mineralogical as
his collections. It must be a petrifaction through and through if he
were not stirred to compassion by this hopeless plight of despairing
youth. It was not that. He remembered the great impassioned eyes, dewy
with tears, looking into his own in the evergreen copse. He remembered
the long embrace. He remembered her almost frantic joy when she stepped
from the coach in London from those visits to her mother, the so-called
Mrs. Cadogan, and found him waiting for her with his superfine air of a
great gentleman who dropped these favours as trifles from chilly
altitudes. How lovely she had been, all sparkling, smiling, trembling,
gay as a daffodil tossing on a spring breeze. And he remembered, for in
this gentleman prudence was his foremost virtue, that the fact of Mrs.
Cadogan’s presence in London would relieve him from much responsibility
should he decide to be gracious, and furthermore that he had heard she
was an unsurpassable cook. She would naturally follow her daughter’s
fortunes if needful and be a faithful steward of her interests.

Yet on the other side must be set the uncertainties of such a
connection. Naturally it would not reflect on his own character, but he
knew Emily’s temper uncertain, and her conduct to himself while in Sir
Harry’s possession certainly suggested possible levities which he would
not for one moment endure. Yet again, why should he? A very modest
provision would always free him, especially with Mrs. Cadogan in the
background.

And though he had no money to fling about idly he had quite sufficient
for discreetly conducted pleasures. Above all, he hoped and expected
everything from Emily’s obedience and the amazed gratitude which any
condescension now would rivet to him unmovably. He could imagine her
saving every expense, waiting in tender submission on his every look,
lovely, worshipping—a sweeter Eve enclosed in a Paradise no other man
should enter. Would he expose her to the attentions of a set of
roisterers like Sir Harry’s companions? Never!

But the final thought that clinched his resolves was that never man
could own a more wonderful pupil. The more he reviewed and dissected,
the more certain he became that here was an uncut jewel of many carats
and facets. To cut, to polish, to make her a lady, a woman of demirep
fashion, a brilliant Aspasia, singing, posing, acting, the desired of
all desires—this would be fame and envy in his world, and contempt for
the boor who had tossed her away like a common pebble.

At last he saw his path. He drew the paper to him, read it once more and
set himself to the answer. In short, he had decided he could rule her.

    “My dear Emily, I do not make apologies for Sir H.’s behaviour
    to you, and altho’ I advised you to deserve his esteem by your
    good conduct, I own I never expected better from him. It was
    your duty to deserve good treatment from him, and it gave me
    great concern to see you imprudent the first time you came from
    the country, as the same conduct was repeated when you was last
    in town, I began to despair of your happiness. To prove to you
    that I do not accuse you falsely I only mention five guineas and
    half a guinea for coach. But, my dear Emily, as you seem quite
    miserable now I do not mean to give you uneasiness but comfort,
    and tell you I will forget your bad conduct to Sir H. and
    myself, and will not repent my good humour if I find you have
    learned by experience to value yourself and preserve your
    friends by good conduct and affection.

    I will now answer your letter.

    You tell me your friends look coolly on you; it is therefore
    time to leave them; but it is necessary for you to decide some
    points before you come to town. You are sensible that for the
    next three months your situation will not admit a giddy life if
    you wished it. After you have told me Sir H. neither provides
    for you nor takes any notice of your letters, it might appear
    laughing at you to advise you to make Sir H. more kind and
    attentive. I do not think a great deal of time should be lost,
    for I have never seen a woman clever enough to keep a man who is
    tired of her. But it is a great deal more for me to _advise you
    never_ to see him again and write only to inform him of your
    determination. You must, however, do either the one or the
    other. You may easily see, my dear Emily, why it is absolutely
    necessary for this point to be settled before I can move one
    step. If you love Sir H. you should not give him up.

    But besides this, my Emily, I would not be troubled with your
    connections (excepting your mother) and with Sir H.’s friends
    for the universe. My advice is then to take a steady resolution.

    I shall then be free to dry up the tears of my lovely Emily and
    give her comfort. If you do not forfeit my esteem perhaps my
    Emily may be happy. You know I have been so by avoiding the
    vexation which frequently arises from ingratitude and caprice.

    Nothing but your letter and your distress could incline me to
    alter my system, but remember I never will give up my peace or
    continue my connection one moment after my confidence is
    betrayed. If you should come to town and take my advice you
    should take another name. By degrees I would get you a new set
    of acquaintances, and by keeping your own secret I may expect to
    see you respected and admired. Thus far as relates to yourself.
    As to the child, its mother shall obtain its kindness from me
    and it shall never want. I enclose you some money: do not throw
    it away. God bless you, my dearest lovely girl, take your
    determination and let me hear from you once more. Adieu, my dear
    Emily.”

He read this epistle through twice (with certain passages omitted here),
then folded and sealed it with his usual impeccable care. He knew it
must shine like a rainbow in blackest clouds through the rain-wet eyes
that would read it.

“I have three safeguards,” he reflected, as he impressed it with his
seal of a flying Eros in cornelian, “money—she has none, nor prospects.
The child, for who else will spend a doit on it? And gratitude—unless
the old lady, her mother, urges her on to make a better market of such
beauty.”

It will be observed that Greville put gratitude last. He prided himself
on his knowledge of the human and especially the feminine heart. So he
finally despatched his letter.

Next day he wrote to his dear Hamilton, between whom and himself ran a
pleasant link of exchanged piccadilloes as well as of articles of
_virtu_. He was wont to dissect the immoral in his reflections to
Hamilton as well as in his own heart, and he did it now, dwelling
slightly on the arrangement he contemplated and fully on his reasons for
making it. He did not spare his Emily’s past. An immaculate one would
have appeared as absurd in Sir William’s eyes as his own in such
circumstances, and there was no thought of concealment. But it afforded
an opening for the reflections on women which he privately judged worthy
to be classed with the epigrams of the mighty, and, indeed, they were
pretty well for a man of thirty odd. Thus he wrote of the weaker vessel.

“With women I observe they have only resource in art, and there is to
them no interval between plain ground and the precipice, and the springs
of action are so much in the extreme of the sublime and the low that no
absolute dependence can be given by men—” and so forth—Rochefoucauld
and water, but very impressive to Sir William Hamilton, who, though the
elder, was deeply influenced by his handsome nephew’s worldly skill and
finesse. Greville, at all events, did justice to Emily’s beauty, or as
he now insisted on calling her, “Emma’s,” that name being in vogue as a
romantic variant, and as such gladly adopted in the change he suggested.

“Emma,” he wrote, “is the most amazing beauty that ever my eyes lit on.
I long, my dear Hamilton, for your opinion to support mine that on the
whole she is quite unequalled in either of our memories. Contemplating
her from the point of view of a student of the perfect standard of the
antique I know no alteration I could have recommended either in face or
figure unless it were possibly a little more delicacy of the hands and
feet. Her masses of hair spring from a brow as low and broad as the
Clytie’s, the length and roundness of her throat suggest our Roman
Venus, the moulding of back and bosom the Stooping Venus, and—”

But why continue? All that he and Sir William had ever passed in
delighted review in Italy was summoned to draw the fairest picture in
the elder man’s mind that words could frame or memory paint. “And even
this falls short of the reality,” ended the letter. “Could you imagine a
man being such a ruffianly fool as to fling away such a jewel—the
perfectest modern-antique that ever human eye beheld? I hope to make her
a really economic housekeeper, for you know my needs are urgent and the
house in Portman Square a terrible drain on my resources. I shall now
proceed to let it.”

Sir William in reply expressed himself as passionately desirous to see
the Renaissance beauty, as he termed her. “Your Emma reads like one of
the sumptuous Venetian beauties whose calm and noble lines recall the
antique dignity of the great Roman families. May it not be long ere I
feast my eyes upon your choice.”

Greville could not acquiesce in the epithet, “calm.” He had met Emma at
the office of the Cheshire coach a few days before and had much ado to
prevent her flinging her arms about him in public in her glowing delight
and enthusiasm. He warded this off, however, until they were in the
hackney coach, and there, do what he would, she fell upon his shoulder
sobbing and laughing in a breath.

“I knew—I knew at Up Park that something was to come of it. Oh,
Greville, I knew you could not be so kind to me for nothing. Sure I was
made to serve and love you, and is it really, really true I am to be
with you and keep your house? Oh, indeed, you shall never have to
complain of me. Every word I speak shall be considered, every action—”

He tried in vain to stem the outflow and finding that impossible
submitted with patience for the length of a street and then turned the
subject to her journey. Had he sent her an ample supply of money? She
felt in her pocket beneath her long cloak and displayed a little, shabby
purse with a half guinea and some loose shillings.

“Did I calculate so near as that? I would have sent you more had I
known.” He spoke with compunction, looking at the remainder.

“Oh, Greville, you sent nobly; but there was a poor old woman in the
coach, going to see her sick son at Greenwich, and a sailor too, and I
couldn’t see her want for a meal and a drop of something warm to comfort
her poor old heart, and I gave her—”

Greville’s cold eye arrested her. She looked up almost trembling.

“You gave her _my_ money!”—with an awful pause between each word. “A
guinea? Emma, you are hopeless. Indeed, I have no hopes of you. A
heedless, wasteful girl! _When_ will you consider?”

A pause, her head hanging down like a flower in the rain. Not a word to
say for herself.

He relented presently and she revived as quickly as a dog beaten and
then received into favour. Eagerly she promised amendment.

“I must give, Greville. I can’t say no somehow, but I promise and
declare to you it shall never be more than a halfpenny at one time. Will
you allow that? Just one halfpenny.”

Even Greville was wrung into a smile. No, he would not mind that. It was
agreed.

He left her with Mrs. Cadogan, beheld the meeting—a little awed by his
stately presence—viewed with condescension the two rooms chosen at his
expense, and then departed. He did not intend to see either again until
the house at Edgware Row, Paddington Green should be ready for
occupation, and its new mistress ready to take up her duties.

Her situation repelled his fastidiousness, though she carried it with
the physical indifference and health of the peasant to whom such matters
are a trifle in nature’s way, and her cloak was womanly draped about
her.

By a coincidence he met Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh two nights later at
Almack’s and was obliged to submit to a greeting he would have avoided
if he could.

“Why, how was it you never came down this winter? I don’t know as I ever
saw the birds stronger on the wing. I had the old set down and plenty
good sport.”

“And hunting?” asked Greville.

“Good, take it for all. No long hard frosts. Oh!—you heard the little
girl I had down there has left me, did you? Emily Hart.”

“I think I did, now you mention it.” Greville was idly looking at the
dancers in the room beyond. Sir Harry could not flatter himself he was
interesting his audience.

“Yes, and if you hear it spread about I was harsh with her, I beg you’d
contradict it. I hear as how Weldon should say he’d have given her a
home had he known the facts. Well, sir, the facts were these: That girl,
she’d kick up the very devil’s own dust if you crossed her in anything,
and I ask your reason, is a man to expect this from a mere slut? And
then, she didn’t know how to behave to the men I brought down. Either
held herself away and wouldn’t look at ’em if they didn’t please her, or
was too friendly if they did. Mind, I don’t mean to accuse her of more
than a hail fellow well met, but who, I ask you, was madam to indulge
herself in her whims when all she was to think of was how to please
_me_?”

Greville responded in an indistinct murmur. He was undoubtedly relieved
to find the indictment no heavier. It might have been one to give a blow
to his dreams of quiet settlement.

“So I just upped and said we must part, and, had she shown a spark of
good nature, even then might have relented—”

“Excuse me, I see a man I must speak with—urgent business. Return
soon!” Greville shot out, and so away with him and left the baronet
staring. The more so as he joined no man, but an extremely dignified and
beautiful lady of middle age, the famous Duchess of Argyll, formerly
Duchess of Hamilton and cousin of Greville’s uncle, Sir William
Hamilton. Stars of such magnitude scarcely shone in Sir Harry’s personal
heaven, and he looked on a little sourly while Greville, perfectly at
his ease, squired the great lady into the dancing room, laughing and
talking.

“I wonder now did I make any mess of what I was saying about that little
spitfire!” he thought to himself. “I wouldn’t lose Greville’s good word,
so I wouldn’t. But I’m glad to be rid of her for all! A man wants a new
face about him and must be master and more.”

As I dismiss Sir Harry here, his future fate may be given. A pretty and
virtuous girl, the daughter of one of his village labourers, caught his
roving fancy next and would have none of his secret approaches. It is
possible that Mrs. Hart’s adventures, well known in the village, served
as a beacon in dangerous seas. She rebuffed him quietly but firmly, and
the more he floundered, the deeper the hook pierced his gills. He was a
man who could not endure defeat, but must have the victory however
ruinous the cost. His friends watched the struggle with an interest
chiefly expressed in heavy wagers, yet even this circumstance, though
perfectly well known to him, could not save him from a much happier fate
than he deserved. For the girl married him and made him an excellent
wife and Lady Fetherstonehaugh, and a sensible, well-conducted mistress
of his great house, in breeding and temper matching him far better than
a lady of quality. A man who has erred less has often been less happily
suited than this gentleman who did not get his deserts.

Greville, however, never used her ladyship as an example of instruction
for his Emma, considering that this amazing circumstance might excite
hopes of an order the very last he wished to enter her mind, and it was
not till many years later she knew the fate of her ancient admirer. She
could laugh at it then for reasons Greville could never in his wildest
dreams have anticipated.

So events drew on. The “little Emma” was born and despatched to her
mother’s distant village of Hawarden for tending, and that her
neighbourhood might not inconvenience her young mother’s protector.

And thus Mrs. Hart became Greville’s housekeeper in Edgware Row, with
Mrs. Cadogan’s invaluable aid in the background.




                               CHAPTER IV
                           PEACE AND CATSPAWS


A MORE modest, decorous life than that in Edgware Row could scarcely be,
setting aside the initial impropriety. The past fell away from her like
a nightmare that daylight effaces and a young wife nestling in her
husband’s shelter could scarcely be more domestic than Emma. True, there
came the reports of the little Emma from Hawarden and there were her
small bills to be paid as a reminder, but Greville did this without
comment, and who, thought her mother, could feel the existence of that
pretty little innocent to be criminal, look at it how you would! That
was hardly Greville’s point of view. He was apt to consider any allusion
to the child a lapse of taste and to repel it.

And certainly there was plenty else to occupy her thoughts. Emma kept
the accounts, for a curry and a soup were more good Mrs. Cadogan’s
accomplishment than writing and ciphering. The accounts were perhaps not
on the most scientific principle, but they served and were duly laid
before the master every Monday. Here we have the day account for 29th
October, 1784:

               Baker’s bill, one week       £0 — 4 — 11
               Butter bill, one week             5 —  1
               Butcher                           7 —  8½
               Gloves                            1 —  6
               Coach                             1 —  0
               Poor man                            —   ½
               Apples                              —  2½

Wherefrom we can deduce no guilty splendours, but a healthy appetite for
bread and butter, and a promise kept to Greville to be straitened in
that fairest virtue, charity. The gloves too, even multiplying the sums
somewhat in view of the value of money a hundred and forty years gone
by; such gloves would scarcely have pleased the consummate Mrs. Wells or
her sisterhood. One must own to a slight disproportion in her milliner’s
bill, for “Mrs. Hackwood, £4—12—6” stares us in the face. Yet let the
censorious remember it was the end of October, winter approaching, and
velvet more suitable than straw, and ask himself what he supposes the
hats that adorn the brow of beauty to-day cost their happy possessors.
No, Greville had nothing to complain of on the score of extravagance. It
is said the household expenses did not amount to more than £100 a year
or thereabouts, and that Emma received but £30 a year for all her
adornments.

He had certainly reason to thank his cook and housekeeper alike. It
enabled him to take her education in hand more seriously than he had at
first intended, and as it proceeded his interest grew. His love also?
That must be judged on the consequences.

“It is time for us to start for Cavendish Square, Emma, and the hackney
coach waits,” says Greville, alert and clean-shaven, one bright May
morning. “Romney is to study you for Circe to-day. Bring the white robe
he desired.”

A fair dishevelled head looks round the door with dismay in its eyes.

“What, not ready yet? ’Tis most inconsiderate in you, especially when
you are aware the coachman charges for his time. I hate unpunctuality.”

“Oh, but I was doing the flowers, Greville. You said you liked a vase on
the dining-table. You don’t suppose I can be in two places at once.”

She has got the word _vase_ correctly now, but it does not mollify her
lord.

“Leave those flowers instantly. How long will you take to arrange your
hair and make yourself suitable?”

“Twenty minutes; I can’t do it under. And what’s more, I won’t try.”

“Twenty minutes! Do you consider no one’s time of value but your own?”

The head retreats, and steps are heard on the stairs and a clear
impertinent voice chanting:

            Should he upbraid I’ll own that he prevail,
            And sing as sweetly as the nightingale.

No simple ballad now, but trills and shakes in the purest soprano
imaginable; art decorating nature. And every trill and roulade, as he
reflects indignantly, she owes to Charles Greville and to him alone. It
was like a handful of bright spring water flung in his distinguished
face.

Greville never acted hurriedly. He wrote a few words, folded and sealed
them, went out to the hackney coachman and, desiring him to take the
note to Mr. Romney in Cavendish Square, paid and dismissed him. The
coach rolled slowly away and Greville sat down to read his magazine. He
looked at his watch. Twenty minutes passed; twenty-five. There was a
noise of hurrying footsteps overhead, the opening and shutting of
drawers, the click of the wardrobe door he knew so well, Mrs. Cadogan’s
heavy weight pounding up the stair to the rescue. He turned another leaf
and made a few notes. Half an hour.

Presently a rush downstairs; a flying figure in white with straw hat and
ribbons, May herself in colour and bloom bursting impetuous into the
room.

“Oh, it shall never happen again, Greville. Never, I swear.”

“It certainly never shall!” said he, placing his marker in the page and
laying it down.

“Good Lord! What’s gone with the coach?” cried Emma, running to the
window.

“The coach is nearing Cavendish Square with an intimation to Romney that
the sitting won’t take place. And, though I did not mention it to
Romney, no further sittings will take place unless I meet with a humble
apology and very different conduct. What! is his valuable time to be
wasted and mine also for your insufferable impertinence? Fie, Emma!”

She grew pale with angry emotion. Never was a face that more faithfully
reflected her moods. She could not hide them if she would.

“What! you’ve sent the coach away for a few dirty minutes like that?
You’re a cruel man, so you are! And me that loves sitting for my
pictures. I was doing the flowers to please you and this is my thanks.
I’ll have you know I’m not a slave if I _am_ an unhappy girl that has to
endure every kind of hard usage. You’re a grand gentleman and I’m
nothing, but I wouldn’t treat you like that. I’ll not see you again this
day!”

She tore off her hat, her lawn cloak, and flung them on the floor. She
dashed into the next room and tearing the flowers out of the vase flung
them into the garden. Finally, upstairs with her like a whirlwind and
Circe is heard to bang her door and lock it.

Greville, with the bell, serenely summons Mrs. Cadogan, curtseying and
affrighted.

“Have the goodness to inform Mrs. Hart that I go to London and stay this
night and possibly longer with her Grace the Duchess of Argyll. I shall
need no dinner until further notice.”

He collects such possessions as he needs and departs with more than
usual stateliness, and Mrs. Cadogan pounds upstairs the moment the door
closes after him and rattles the handle of Circe’s retreat.

“Let me in, Emy. ’Tis me, no one else. He’s gone, more like an ice
stature than a man. Oh, Emy, you’ll pull down the house over our heads
with your rages and follies. Let me in, I tell you. What man d’ye
suppose will stand such tantrums, and you that owe him the very bread we
eat. And little Emma the same!”

Silence. Mrs. Cadogan waxes eloquent at the key-hole.

“He’s off to London to stay with his duchesses and the like and he’ll
want no dinner until he orders it again, and for all you know he’ll
never come back!”

“Let him stay away then!” says a muffled tragic voice, evidently from
the depths of the pillow. “You won’t need to fry the fish for dinner.
That’s all the difference.”

“You fool, you!” says the pursy old lady outside and begins slowly to
retreat to the stair-head, making her departure as noisy as possible
that she may be recalled.

In a moment the door was open and Emma in crumpled white gown and
loosened hair framed in it, a hand on either jamb.

“Where did he say he was going?”

“To some duchess. I don’t know who. Yes, Gargyle, or something.”

“Then I’m going out too. I shall go to Romney’s. Give me the basket.”

With furiously flushed cheeks, she began smoothing her hair and the
rumples from her dress, a bitter sense of slighting contempt spurring
her to defiance. She would not eat, would not delay, would have a
hackney coach, and so off with her to Cavendish Square and Romney.

You are to imagine her entering that home of her delight with a softly
falling footstep, for it came upon her always with the calm experienced
in leaving busy streets behind and breathing the dim quiet of a church
with shapes of silent beauty in jewelled window and faint gold,
illuminated only by steadfast altar lights. This was her paradise, her
church, for this girl of the people was a true believer of the religion
of beauty; its priestess also, for she protested its creed in every
lovely movement, in delicious voice and melting attitudes, and often
winged hearts higher than they knew as they watched her. She was no
priestess like the heavy-lidded women who served dark goddesses in
Assyrian or Egyptian temples to snare men’s souls in the bird-lime of
the pit; yet, for all this, she brought men infallibly to her level when
they loved her; dyed them, all but Greville, of her own colour, and
whether that level was in the heights or the depths, let the reader
judge as this history unrolls. Certainly, two, the greatest, thanked God
they had known her, whatever the loud-mouthed world might say. And of
these, one was Romney.

The studio was large, and full of light as clear and thin as water from
the tall north window. He sat bending over a table with his back to her,
as though making some sketch-note that had suddenly struck his fancy. He
did not hear the door open, but when her foot touched the bare floor, he
said without moving, “Emma! Come in, child,” and went quietly on with
his work.

She set down the little basket which carried cakes of her own making and
butter and fresh eggs from the farm beyond the Green, and, coming up
behind him, put her hand on his shoulder to see his dream shape itself
on paper, until her hair brushed his ear. She knew well that as you
never wake a child suddenly from sleep, so it must also be with such as
Romney.

He took no heed of her—so deep was their harmony—but with the hand on
his shoulder, worked peacefully on.

It was herself, of course; for all that time, submerged in the
loveliness and charm of her, he scarcely had another thought. He was
making a study in wash for the Circe—the cave, the rocks, a hint of the
gracious figure emerging like light from the womb of darkness; the
chaotic beginning of the lovely world to be.

Not a word between them. The big old clock in the corner ticked
solemnly, the silent figures on the easels pursued their dreams, the
noise of traffic outside had sunk into a lulling murmur, and though she
could no more have worded it than have flown, the eternal peace of Art
stole into her heart and made her quarrel with Greville a transient
impertinence. “You were born for better things than that,” an inward
voice said, coming from the quiet, and her very soul assented.

After awhile he pushed the paper away and looked up at her, his glance
still dull with abstraction. A plain rugged face of strongly marked
features and powerful jaw; the extinguished-looking eyes heavy with the
melancholy that was to drown him later, and the mouth of the
dreamer—whether in tone or colour—passionately sensitive as her own.
Their eyes beheld each other a moment, and then hers dropped as she fell
on her knees beside him, and put her head on his knee.

“Dear Mr. Romney, I’m ashamed of myself. I am, indeed. You make me what
I should be, all beauty and wonder, scarce treading the earth, and I so
far below it. Only this very morning I wasted your precious time and
didn’t come because of a miserable quarrel with Greville. You painted me
as Serena, and I’m all tumult and folly; not worth your notice.”

“Why, what’s o’clock?” he asked, feeling for his big repeater. His
dialect matched her own, for Romney too was a child of the people. “I
didn’t know, child; the time went. Two hours late! Well, well, not
wasted anyhow. It’s shaping, it’s shaping. Just stand there in front a
minute, and put up your left arm—so!—arresting, commanding. You’re a
witch, reversing the spell that turned men into beasts. The other arm
hangs down. Take my mahl-stick in your hand for a rod, pointing
downwards, the magic gone out of it.”

He looked at her a moment as she melted slowly into the attitude he
desired. Instinctively she poised herself on the ball of the left foot,
a pose of wonderful strength and lightness, the lifted hand arresting
the pressing beasts.

“You lovely creature!” he said softly, with a kind of tender awe. Then,
thinking aloud, went on, “No, but the face! Not right. Depress the chin
a little; the eyes level and strong; but—no—I’ll tell you the story.
The woman in the goddess betrays her because her lover leaves her. She’s
frightened, for her own power means nothing to her beside him. He has
conquered her, for all she’s a goddess. The heavenly thing obeys the
earthly, but with majesty. Can you do it?”

“I know,” she cried, “I know!” and steadied like marble on the instant,
her features composing themselves into calm. No sorrow, a solemn awe, a
noble shame, a deep immortal regret that darkened the eyes and locked
the lips in eternal silence; and so stood Divinity by the waters of
oblivion she may not stoop to drink forever.

He looked at her, rapt, his hands idle on the table, absorbing her
passionately. Not an eyelash flickered until he released her with a long
sigh, and then, as it were, floated up to the surface of common things
once more.

“There was never any one like you, never will be!” he said slowly. “You
know, you feel without telling. You’re the thing you seem. Who told a
girl like you how goddesses look when they have lit on earth and find
themselves betrayed?”

She smiled and shook her head. That was a secret to herself, but she
knew her nature responsive as Æolian strings to a breeze; never a
vibration passed over her from man or thing but waked its sister-echo in
her heart.

“I think often you’d have been a great actress,” he said in his slow
way, as she got the papers off the table, laying them neatly on the
ground to be replaced exactly in the same order. She went to the corner
cupboard where he kept his loaf, set the kettle on the shabby little
stove, and while it heated, fixed the saucepan beside it and got out her
eggs and butter and cakes, and, full of deft housewifely cares, spread
his scanty cups and spoons on the table, and made ready the little meal
for two; and put the teapot on and the steaming eggs, and so set him
down and herself beside him and was ready for talk.

He watched her, fascinated. Those studio meals were not infrequent and
always they were his delight. He was to remember them with an ache
nothing could cure when she had taken her beauty and kindness to a land
strange and far, where she was the adored of many but to none the star
of hope, the golden Dawn she had become to him. But to-day was to-day,
and the future veiled, and he smiled as she pulled up the cracked chair,
too uncertain for his weight, and perched herself on the edge.

“Two eggs for each of us!” says she. “And those cakes, Mr. Romney,
they’re fine! We got the recipe, mother and me, from an old Scotchie
that came from Edinburgh. They just melt in your mouth as crisp as
fritters. And then I’ll mend that hole in your sleeve if you’ll slip off
your coat. And I’ll tell you my troubles.”

The soothing sunshine of her presence! He ate mechanically at first and
then with keen enjoyment. Indeed, the little saucepan went on again, but
this time for scrambled eggs with a flick of the sauce he kept to season
his daily mutton chop when time failed him for the chophouse.

“Food for the gods!” he called it, and left the plate so clean that she
declared she might almost spare herself the trouble to wash it up. And
then she whipped off his coat and set to with her needle.

“There’s never a thing you do but what makes a picture!” he said with
eyes that could not be satisfied. “Now—the way you sit, the light
falling on the curls above your ear—ah, well! The troubles, child, the
troubles. What are they?”

“My temper, as usual,” says she, stitching for dear life. “Mr. Romney, I
can scarce look you in the face for fear you’ll despise the fool that
can govern herself no more than a child. I do improve—God knows I try
hard enough—but still ’twill out when Greville or another vexes me,
even though I know I pull down my shelter with my own hands. And for
nothing that matters a brass farthing! To-day I was late and he flung it
in my face, any man would, and I must needs answer back, and off he went
to his grand friends.”

Watching, he saw a tear splash on the brass button of his coat, but said
nothing. He let her unpack her heart.

“I often fear it won’t last forever.” Her voice was quivering now. “For
it’s three years, and that’s a long time for a man’s heart though but a
day to a woman’s. He said, when we began, that he never knew a woman
clever enough to keep a man that was tired of her. Mr. Romney, is he
tired of me?”

Down went the coat on her knee, and two swimming eyes invited his
judgment as that of heaven, two trembling hands extended to receive
sentence.

“Child, how can I tell?” the Mentor answered tenderly. “To me it seems
that your infinite variety mocks the very word _tire_, but indeed I know
not these men of fashion who love themselves so well that there’s but
little room for a woman’s face in their heart. But you should not vex
him without cause. Greville loves his ease. Even my bat’s eyes can see
that far. But that he can throw such a jewel away I’ll never credit till
I see it.”

She shook her head disconsolate.

“I’m the most ungrateful girl on earth. I know it. Sure he sent me to
the sea and I ill, when he was off to his uncle’s new estates at
Milford. And he let me have little Emma with me, and not a grumble out
of him over my bills, which was wonderful indeed, though heaven knows I
kept them as low as low! And yet in spite of it, I can’t always hold my
miserable tongue, though I love him with all my heart and soul and shall
forever.”

“And you that I thought was modelling yourself on Serena in the poem!”
said Romney, with the ghost of a smile. “I don’t think you’ll ever rival
that lady, somehow, and for my part I don’t wholly wish you should. But
Greville likes ease, and to see his pupil do him honour. Teaching and
lecturing’s his master passion and every time you kick over the traces
you disparage his own method to him. That’s more than half the trouble.”

“I know, I know! And, sure, to please God and Greville is my only aim.
Oh, Mr. Romney, if we could see a little ahead, if we could know what’s
coming! He’ll turn his poor Emma off one day, and then—”

“Then she’ll know there’s a man smudges paint on canvas would rather
starve than she should want! But I think better of Greville’s
discrimination. You sit down here presently and write him a pretty
letter, and I’ll send it to the big house he’s at, and it will bring him
back to-morrow. But don’t anger him again. What is it but to stick a
knife in your own breast?”

She told him he was right, and resumed her stitching, and he watched her
with his heart in his eyes—his divine lady, his child, his muse; all
and one, and more that he could never put in words. If Laura possesses
Petrarch, and Dante, Beatrice, to the end of time, so most surely does
Emma possess the man who will not let her die, who with strong magic
caught and fixed ghost after ghost of her beauty upon canvas to make the
world eternally her lover.

When he resumed the coat and she had gravely considered the effect, head
on one side appraising, she got his pen and paper, and sat down to her
task. She wrote with ease now, and though the spelling was still
deplorable the hand was no worse than many a woman of quality’s.

She had been strongly moved that day, always indeed strongly moved
herself with the picture of her griefs, and as she wrote the tears were
so thick in her eyes that the letters swam before them.

    “O my dearest Greville, don’t think on my past follies, think on
    my good, little as it has been. O Greville, when I think on your
    goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of gratitude
    that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in
    view, which I am determined to practice, and that is evenness of
    temper. For endead I have thought so much of your amiable
    goodness when you have been tried to the utmost that I will,
    endead I will manege myself and try to be like Greville. There
    is nothing like bying expearance. O Greville, think on me with
    kindness. Think on how many happy days weeks and years—I
    hope—we may yett pass. And endead, did you know how much I love
    you, you woud freely forgive me any passed quarrels. I have done
    nothing but think of you since, and O Greville, did you but know
    when I so think, what thoughts, what tender thoughts, you would
    say ‘Good God, and can Emma have such feeling sensibility? No, I
    never coud think it. But now I may hope to bring her to
    conviction, and she may prove a valluable and amiable whoman!’
    True, Greville, and you shall not be disappointed. I will be
    everything you can wish.”

Her own pathos had moved her to such a pitch by this time that she could
write no more and was forced to borrow Romney’s handkerchief to dry her
streaming eyes before she could sign and fold the letter.

“It’s all true, every word of it, and I don’t expect ever to be happy
more, but, oh, Mr. Romney, did you but know how _good_ I feel at this
moment!” said she, when the missive was despatched. “Never, never can I
so burst out again. ’Tis the blessed quiet in this dear place that aids
me, and your friendly presence. And now I must go. Wish me forgiven, for
without his love life is death to me and I would not ask to draw another
breath.”

She meant it to the full and her sweet face was like Congreve’s
“Mourning Bride,” until by good fortune, as Romney took her to the door
to call a coach for her, a Punch and Judy show came along the square,
and she must needs delay to see the antics, and very shortly was crying
for laughter as whole-heartedly as she had cried upstairs for sorrow.

The little crowd laughed with her, she leading with abandon that would
have driven Greville mad had he seen it, and Romney laughing behind her
with joy to see her cheered. Those two children of the people were much
at home with each other and with the people. Punch never held a merrier
assembly. As she turned finally to go Romney called her back a moment.

“Gavin Hamilton was here this morning and told me he hears Sir William’s
coming back from Naples to see to the estates his wife left him. You may
as well tell Greville, in case it’s news to him.”

She assented lightly, never guessing that Destiny, with the smile ironic
masked in triviality, was at her heels again, and went off to Edgware
Row at last gay as a lark and confident of forgiveness; sure in this
happy world all must be well; and Greville would be pleased to know his
uncle was coming. No censorious uncle he, but a sympathetic friend and
with an eye for beauty keen as Greville’s own. She promised herself an
unbending elderly admirer. Romney remained alone to think of her angelic
kindness and dear ways, and to touch and retouch his sketch while the
light lasted. He went forth then to his solitary chophouse. As for
herself, Greville was still sternly absent on her return, but her good
consoling mother had made a comfortable little roast of lamb for supper
and jam tarts to follow, and if the evening was not perfect bliss, at
least it was mighty endurable, and the jam tarts excellent to the
appetite of twenty healthy years.




                               CHAPTER V
                                THE RIFT


THE letter reached Greville at the stately house of her Grace the
Duchess of Argyll and was delivered into his hand as he sat with two
ladies so beautiful at their different ages that Paris might sooner have
devoured his apple, gold though it was, than run the risk of mistake in
awarding it to one or the other.

And lest it be believed that the romancer dresses all his ladies in
rainbow glories, I point out that the elder was the famous Elizabeth
Gunning—the double Duchess, as they called her—who had risen from
direst poverty by the victorious attack of her loveliness on the
embattled world, to be successively Duchess of Hamilton and Duchess of
Argyll, and the younger was Mrs. Crewe, that most fashionable of all
beauties, of whom it was said (in a world which knew not Emma!) that she
alone equalled or excelled the perfections of Elizabeth Gunning in the
days when she took the town by storm; a sweet, sleepy-eyed beauty,
gentle persuasion in every look, and a little delicate malice to season
the honey with ginger.

The ladies were dressed for a Court and were splendid in satins and
jewels. Greville, very much at home in that house, was festooning a
chain of diamonds to better advantage about Mrs. Crewe’s shoulders when
the letter made its appearance, the Duchess commenting on his fine
taste.

“There’s no man I know like you for taste, Greville,” says her gracious
Grace. “The Hamiltons are like that. How is it you pick up all these
notions? No wonder you’re fastidious.”

He put the letter carefully in his pocket with a spasm of anger that she
should dare pursue him there, and stood back to view his work.

“Mrs. Crewe sets it off even better than she did the other fashion. As
to my taste, ’tis formed on the antique, and what I’ve done is by no
means original. Thus the Roman Empress Faustina disposed her jewels to
catch the eyes of her gladiator lovers when she wearied of her
philosophic husband! Ah, madam, are not women the same in all ages?”

“They suit themselves to the men, who also don’t change, for all I see.
And if the Emperor was as dull as our philosophers to-day, I excuse her
Majesty.” Thus the Duchess.

“One may be dull without the excuse of philosophy to advertise it,”
replied Mrs. Crewe at the mirror, looking at her long swan’s throat,
glorious with diamonds. “Do but think of the Duke of Devonshire. It
gives me an indigestion to look at him. It runs in families. ’Tis
because Mr. Greville is half Hamilton that he’s such highly instructive
company.”

She shot a little ironic glance at him from under long lashes. The lady
knew very well that here was one who “could gaze without madness on
Amoret’s eyes”—eyes which had settled the fate of not lovers only but
of more than one contested election, for she had but to smile upon the
happy voters and they were won. Greville hated political women, and she
knew it. Hence the little scratch, a pat with velvet paw. But he was
stirred to discomfort nevertheless, for Mrs. Crewe was a thermometer for
measuring the liking of society, and had a smile graduated to its exact
temperature. Could it be possible the great world began to find him a
little tedious, a little _arrièré_? He was born older than any of them
to begin with and had relished a fossil when others were gambling,
tripping and soaking, and it was not always easy to conceal that their
amusements palled on him. And for the last three years he had permitted
himself to drop rather more into obscurity with his delightful pupil
than his reason could approve. She was troublesome sometimes, but yet
her amazing progress in the graces and accomplishments she owed him and
the masters he provided was a daily amusement and interest. And the
little house in Edgware Row was absolute comfort. The dish, chosen by
himself, and cooked perfectly to his taste, suited his liking and health
better than the sumptuous banquets of the great houses, and Emma’s
company, which required no tip-toe courtesy or courting, allowed him to
stand at ease in a way impossible with the fashionable ladies who
welcomed him, perhaps a shade more coldly than formerly. But—if he were
dropping out? To be forgotten is a much less easy process than
forgetting, and Mr. Greville must be received with acclaim wherever he
deigned to show himself. Was his season slipping by? He winced. She was
not worth it. No! not a day, not an hour should she stand in his light
if he were once persuaded of that. And economize as she would, still his
taste for the antique led him into irretrievable expense. That matter,
too, was becoming urgent.

He must control his tendency to pontificate. Sir William had warned him
of it once half jesting—Sir William, who was twenty years younger for
all the remorseless parish register.

He broke up his collegiate calm into smiles on the very fear of
disapproval, and executed a little adoration of Mrs. Crewe, yet not
enough to compel the Duchess to recall her own age. They discussed the
company to appear at the Court, and Mrs. Crewe flung another softly
feathered dart.

“Miss Middleton will be there,” says she. “I met Lady Middleton this
afternoon—a woman I swallow with difficulty. She detained me a whole
ten minutes to hear the story of the latest heart Miss Middleton has
strung with the other scalps at her girdle. ‘A most desirable prospect,
my dear’—she mimicked the proud mother—‘wealth, devotion; everything
but family. The father is Wade, the successful Irish merchant.’ Lord!
says I, what signifies family nowadays? If money is not worth a little
wading in the mud, what is?”

Greville laughed to hide discomfort. He knew perfectly well what was in
the air. He, the fastidious, the condescending, had distinguished Miss
Middleton with languid attentions. Of all the heiresses he had scanned
during the past three years, she appeared the most desirable, and
marriage with her the least unpleasant alternative. And the so-called
friends of his circle knew this perfectly and waited expectant, though
it would be decidedly more amusing (they owned) to see the gold cup slip
from his lip and my fastidious gentleman left in the lurch, if the luck
should turn that way.

“I dine there to-morrow and shall hear the news,” he said easily. “Lord,
how well you mimic Lady Middleton, madam! Had she no more news for you?”

“Not that will interest you, sir. Why, yes, now I think of it! I had
forgot, but no doubt you know it. She said she had met Gavin Hamilton,
suddenly back from Italy, and he told her Sir William will be returning
shortly. His wife’s death two years ago has given him things to look
into here. But no doubt you know this.”

“I shall by next mail, madam, but not yet. Very likely Gavin has a
letter in hand for me.”

“’Twill be agreeable to see Sir William again,” said the Duchess. “I
ever liked him best of my Hamilton relations. He will be well received
at Court too. The King never forgets his foster brother.”

She alluded to the fact that Lady Archibald Hamilton, Sir William’s
mother, had been _maîtresse en titre_ to Frederick, Prince of Wales,
George III’s father, a circumstance which had much advantaged Sir
William in life.

“I know no one with more agreeable manners,” she added. “In society he
has all the graces of a young man, and yet the savants are at home with
him. I hope with all my heart he finds a charming wife awaiting him in
England. He wants an Ambassadress in that big villa in Naples, and I
know no man who could make a more agreeable husband to a sensible woman.
He can’t expect to find a saint like your late aunt, Greville, but not
many women would refuse a man of his temper. Indeed, I have one in my
mind—”

Greville, quivering with uneasiness, begged to hear the name, but she
shook her head, laughing.

“No, no. These things are spoiled if told, but I shall throw them
together with all the art I can muster.”

“What her Grace decrees is done!” Mr. Greville said, bowing gallantly.
“My uncle will be infinitely indebted.”

He waited until the ladies graciously dismissed him, and then betook
himself to his club, so lost in thought that Emma’s letter lay totally
forgotten in his pocket.

Sir William coming home! Certainly he would be glad personally, but yet
the thought was full of unpleasant possibilities. He sat down in a quiet
corner as far removed from acquaintances as possible, and classified his
thoughts in his own methodic manner.

Lady Hamilton, his aunt, was now two years dead, and in one sense
Greville had never since known a perfectly unanxious moment. A saint, as
the Duchess said so lightly, she had much to complain of in her gay
husband’s gaieties, yet never had complained but bore all with an
undeviating sweetness. But he was not the man to be spurred to any
emulation by sainthood and in his own heart half blamed her piety for
forcing him to seek outside recreation.

It was even more easily found in Naples than elsewhere and especially in
a political backwater, as it was at that time, which left even an
Ambassador of Great Britain much at a loss to fill up the lazy delicious
days of sweet do-nothingness. But there were plenty to help him; a
charming and artistic English society; wandering sirens (like my Lady
Craven, the delight and ridicule of Horace Walpole) too numerous and
worthless to be listed. Nay, it was whispered that the Queen herself,
Marie Caroline, sister of the unhappy Marie Antoinette of France, had
found Sir William more agreeable than even ambassadors are wont to be to
the sovereigns to whom they are accredited.

And this state of affairs suited Greville excellently well. He was
attached to his uncle and wished him amusement in all sincerity. His own
position was secure in Sir William’s marriage, for it was childless, and
Lady Hamilton, his aunt, so deeply attached to himself that with Sir
William’s own affection his certainty of heirship to all the couple had
to leave was complete. Indeed, Sir William spoke of it openly and gave
Greville leave to mention it as a settled fact to any careful father
whose heiress he might ask in marriage. And then Lady Hamilton died.

It was a disagreeable shock to Greville in more ways than one. Sir
William, little over fifty, handsome, pleasing in the highest degree,
hospitable, open-handed, was once more in the market—but there needs no
expatiation. The case speaks for itself. And now he was returning to
London, the high position of an ambassadress in his hand to offer, the
loveliest land on earth as a home, and the rumour of a queen’s love to
intensify his fascinations. Why, what young fellow in London could stand
against him and his court favour? He would be married and done for, and
a little heir next year and more to follow, and he, Greville, would sink
into a young-elderly neglected man about town, too poor to keep up with
the great steeplechase of fashion, unless—

Unless? Two things. A rich marriage for himself, and decorous or
indecorous widowerhood for Sir William. He knew the town quite well
enough to know that his chances of the first were diminished instantly
an inclination of his uncle’s to marriage became known. Then what and
where was the solution of the difficulty? Miss Middleton? That subject
next passed in review. He knew that his advances had not been too warmly
received, and though it was incredible that any rumour of the Edgware
Row establishment could disturb Lord Middleton’s mind, women took
fanciful views and a whisper in Lady or Miss Middleton’s ear might have
done much harm there. He began to feel very strongly that Emma was a
disadvantage, that he had been drifting, that if he desired a wealthy
marriage he must return to a handsome house in London and bury himself
and his advantages no longer in obscurity. In short, that he must make a
complete change in his life. To this must be added the fact that he felt
he had amply redeemed his pledges to Emma, and that, though she had
become a delightful household companion in many ways, her temper was
still troublesome; her tastes, through all the veneer, still apt to be
unexpectedly coarse in grain here and there; and last, but far from
least, that even such beauty may pall, and that he began to be somewhat
tired of her.

Of course there would be difficulties with Emma, serious ones, but here
he by no means despaired. His own calm good sense and Sir William’s
counsel would carry him through and dispose of her comfortably. All
justice should be done her short of the unreason of injuring his own
career.

This was a matter which he could discuss freely with Sir William and
there could be no doubt what his advice would be. The means were the
only difficult question, and those could be arranged if two men of
experience put their heads together.

All this dismissed, he took out her letter and read it carefully. It did
not move him. He thought her bursts of repentance as facile as her
tempers. The fact was, and he often reproached her for it, she had too
much imagination, and, to Greville, imagination was the last folly,
almost the last crime. It meant the unpleasant faculty of seeing things
as they are not, of exaggerating every emotion, of leaving the straight
highway of fact for endless and perplexing aerial flights that ended in
cloud-land and involved unpleasant drops to earth, and bruised every
relation in life hopelessly. If she had but plodding good sense Emma
would be irresistible. Alas, no!—she would not be Emma.

He tore the letter into small bits for the waste-paper basket, disposed
of it, and entered into easy talk with an acquaintance. He would not go
home. She needed a lesson and should have it.

As a matter of fact, he neither returned nor wrote for a week, and Emma
was seriously frightened. The excuse was simple enough, a letter from
Sir William announcing his return and asking Greville to attend to some
business connected with his Welsh estates. It could have been done as
well from Edgware Row, but for the need of administering a sound lesson,
but Greville always pursued his settled way without flinching. Also,
there was a dinner at the Middletons.

She was in a state of abject submission when he got back, pale with
watching. Indeed, but for Romney’s upholding and the certainty which he
gained for her that Greville was still in town, she would have been
inclined to tear through the streets to find him anywhere, anyhow, and
it took all Romney’s persuasion to induce her to wait quietly.

She sank into a chair pale and sighing, as he entreated her—a deep
patient sigh. She was A Forsaken Lady in Dejection at the moment, with
drooped head and hanging hands.

“Ah, Mr. Romney, this is the reward for a most tender and passionate
love. You know how I have given my whole heart, my whole life; and no
woman ever did this but met her reward in cruelty.”

“I thought,” says Romney, blundering, “that you owed him much kindness.
Could you not, my dear, fix your mind on that rather than on anger which
you yourself owned deserved t’other day, and which I am certain will
soon pass?”

“Kindness!” she cried, the blood flowing crimson into lips and cheeks
with a sudden return to energy. “Kindness? That’s the way a huckster
would calculate it. Food, clothes, and lessons—lessons that I might
sing and draw for his diversion. That’s his kindness! And I’ve given him
in return beauty not thought despicable, and the love and tender
devotion of a true heart. When he had an oppression on the chest, didn’t
I poultice him and sit up near a week till I looked like a hag of
thirty? Didn’t I cook his broths with my own hands and wouldn’t let my
mother touch ’em; didn’t I run his errands and fetch and carry and sweep
his room and—”

She flung up her arms with an inspired gesture as she poured on and
became a denouncing goddess. Romney stared at her all unconscious of the
words, seeing only the Juno look, the offended majesty of the noble
attitude. What did it matter what she said so long as she could look
like that? He snatched charcoal and paper, and began with swift lines to
perpetuate the pose.

Enraged, she darted on the helpless man and seized the paper and tore it
across, glaring at him, a beautiful Fury.

“You too!” she cried. “Where’s your sympathy? I that have sat for you
hundreds of times and you never asked if I was weary, not so much as
once. Men are all the same; a woman’s not flesh and blood to feel and
suffer, she’s but a pastime or a slave; or a dog to be driven from the
door. Oh, the cruel, hateful world! Some day I’ll stick a knife into my
heart and make an end of it.”

Here a sob sent her back to the first pose because she could no longer
orate comfortably. She sank again into her chair, and Romney, all
trembling sympathetic fear, put out his delicate fibrous hand and
clutched hers softly yet strongly, and yearned over her and consoled her
with clumsy tenderness and bid her take courage, for though Greville
could never, never love her as he loved his child, his inspiration, yet
no man having tasted her beauty could ever cast his eye on another. She
herself was her security.

“But go back,” he entreated, “and vex him no more, my beloved lady. For
sure it only recoils on yourself. For my part, I can love Greville
because he brought you to me and so flooded my life with sunshine. ’Tis
my belief that one day he’ll marry you if you do but govern yourself.
Now be good and go home to be there when he comes, as I swear he will
and must.”

So he coaxed and wheedled her and got her back to the normal and into a
hackney coach, and so saw her depart; and not an hour too soon, for
Greville came back that day, and if all had not been ready for him it
would have been a coolness to start with.

But all was in apple-pie order, and she so sweetly humble, with her
white dress and soft submissive eyes, that what could he do but open his
arms and forgive her, and the more readily because the room was perfumed
with flowers, a _blanquette_ of veal done to perfection for his dinner,
with a morsel of fine old cheese to follow and a glass of Sir William’s
fine sparkling Burgundy to finish with the biscuits. And Mrs. Cadogan
had been at her polishing, and the silver on the table (for Mr. Greville
could eat in nothing meaner) was black velvet in the bowls of the spoons
and curves of the dish, and the glass sparkled like frost crystals to
the summer sunshine outside; and when Emma had cleared the table,
mellowed with comfort, he cried.

“I’ll take you to Ranelagh for an evening’s enjoyment. Put on your
prettiest gown and your blue hat, and my girl shall see the world and
the world see her.”

She flew upstairs, when the time came, all fire and joy, for this was a
rare treat and proved her fully restored to favour. It was the golden
sceptre extended to the fainting Esther. It cannot be said she made
herself beautiful, for God had done that for her once and for all, but
Greville exclaimed at her charming air as she came downstairs in a
considered hat that made her eyes look dark azure and her cheeks pink
carnations. Mrs. Cadogan, too, clasped her hands in delight and, being
accommodated with a glass of port, watched them smiling out of sight.

Yet it had been better if that enchanting pleasure had never been
embarked on, for look what happened!

Ranelagh, dim and beautiful save where earthly lights matched their rose
and golden jewels against the silver flood of moonlight; Ranelagh, with
shy secret walks where beauties far from shy might wander with happy
lovers and exchange a perilous kiss ere they came upon another pair
similarly engaged round the corner; Ranelagh, with gay little tables set
in open boxes so brilliantly lit that here the moonlight was vanquished
and a torrent of rainbow light poured upon the handsomest toilettes
available and the bright eyes and laughing lips of the London ladies.

They toured the gardens with all the discretion of a long married couple
observing the indiscretions of less fortunate people, and Greville
turned a neat point or two for her consideration as to the good breeding
of reserve in public, and then having engaged a box for supper, left
her, thinking he caught sight of the artist Gavin Hamilton and resolved
to introduce him to the Secret Beauty and have the usual congratulations
on his good fortune. Who but Emma! Giddy with the lights and music, the
just finished song of the prima donna of the evening, the softly muted
notes of the string orchestra, she sat well forward in the box to survey
the passing crowd in its gay kaleidoscope of colour. She leaned her arms
on the edge, she turned her face this way and that, looking for
Greville, wondering what kept him, and fully conscious that many faces
turned in her direction, and men and women alike looked up at the lovely
stranger—alone, equivocal, surely approachable! At least it could be
hoped so. The orchestra struck up again, this time in the gay strain
“Batti, batti,” her last lesson, her latest triumph. Heavens, what a
coincidence! Irresistible! Leaning out still, she began to sing, softly
at first, terrified at her own daring and the listening faces, then
louder, clearer, clearer, as the conductor caught the bright soprano
and, beckoning the orchestra with his stick, sent them back to the
accompaniment. Instantly she saw his intention and sprang to her feet on
the impulse, ardent and flushed. She that had never sung with an
orchestra before! She whose sole audience had been Greville, Romney, her
master, or a chance friend. And now, now, London was listening, or so it
seemed to her excited fancy. She could hear her own voice mounting,
soaring divinely in the delicious music. Louder, louder, clearer,
clearer, sure that silver note touched the very stars, and the people
were still as death to hear this new nightingale and the orchestra
softened and softened to give her room, and—Greville returned.

On the last phrase, and as the listeners broke out in thunders of
clapping, he returned, little guessing what voice embroidered the night
with silver. And as he looked at the box it was Emma, crimsoning to the
plaudits, bowing as though to the manner born, her fair hands crossed on
her heart.

In a pale fury that subdued him to the utmost deliberation he walked
into the box and beckoned her to come to the back.

“Let us instantly go away,” said he.

Conscious of her enormities, she faltered.

“Did I do wrong, Greville? I didn’t know. I thought to see you pleased
with my success.”

“Pleased!” Not another word did he utter. Supper was served and he cast
not a glance upon it, but paid the bill and walked out with Emma
trembling at his heels, leaving who would to eat it.

It was a descent from such Olympian dignity that later he must needs
explain how she had erred, for it was impossible for her to see it
without assistance. To her it was as natural to break into song as it is
to a bird, and enchanting to enchant others. What? Surely God made
beautiful voices and beautiful faces for the common joy. “And I knew I
could do it better than Ceritelli!” she added, quaking.

“You acted with your usual want of consideration—your usual lack of
taste and breeding.” His words were drops of sleet on a hot cheek. “It
convinces me, what I have long since thought, that there is not nor ever
can be any community of feeling between us. I have trained you now for
near four years, and yet the moment I leave you you can expose yourself
to the public view in a place where any woman with a rag of decency left
must be circumspect. And there you draw every eye upon you and make
yourself a spectacle for every coarse fellow or bad woman that cares to
look and listen. If your own good feeling don’t show you the horror of
such a proceeding I may talk for ever in vain. So I shall say no more. I
despair of you.”

Later, when cowed, she besought his forgiveness, he accorded it
dangerously.

“I forgive you because you are so coarse in fibre that you can never
learn. I do but waste breath. It is not your fault; after a fashion.
Yes. I forgive you. But to say that I can forget is impossible. These
things shape my view of your character, in which I own myself mistaken
from the beginning.”

She dared say no more, and the episode passed into silence, but it is
not too much to say that from that hour Emma’s fate was fixed, though
her lord and master would take his own time to announce his decision.
And as little did she think as he that Sir William Hamilton, whose
coming now drew near, was to be the very arbiter of that fate.




                               CHAPTER VI
                           THE FAIR TEA MAKER


EMMA had cause to realize how deeply she had offended, during the next
few days, for Greville assumed what she called his touch-me-not manner
and was coldly polite and distant. She dreaded that attitude with all
her soul for she knew neither what alienation it covered nor how to meet
it. In the class from which she sprang politeness is not uncommonly the
herald of fury, and she was always in expectation of a devastating
hurricane which never had come as yet but was surely due one day if she
could not control herself, and control herself she could not. It was
impossible for her to understand why the kiss-and-be-friends
reconciliation should not immediately follow a quarrel, for she “bore no
malice” herself, and could not imagine why any one else should do so.
She had no way of understanding the cleavage, the deep settled distaste
and alienation which her outbreaks produced in a man like Greville. To
him vulgarity and want of taste were more unpardonable than the fracture
of any commandment of the ten, and in his cool review of Emma the fact
that she had so much taste, and all of it so bad, set them universes
apart.

Beauty, economy, an oddly consorted pair, pleaded alike for Emma in the
calm rationalism of Greville’s mind. He knew very well he would not meet
that impassioned loveliness elsewhere—loveliness that might so easily
walk in satin and jewels, but for his sake contented itself with dimity
and a little gold chain stringing a miniature of himself. And he knew
also that never, never again would his needs be met with such
comfortable economy, and never again a cook like Mrs. Cadogan be at his
service without a salary that must bulk largely in his carefully kept
accounts. And yet, he was certain he was nearing the end of his tether
and could not endure the connection much longer.

Emma loved him passionately, tenderly, and that was but an aggravation
of the offense, for if a man cares no longer for a woman her love is the
last unbearable burden. _She_ cannot realize her love as any other than
a precious gift which common gratitude must repay with tenderness; she
will not, cannot understand that it has in it a touch of the revolting
to the man who desires her no longer. The immortal Don Juan seeking the
rainbow beauty always in the next field or on the dim horizon, confident
of finding her sooner or later, whispers in every man’s ear to have done
with this threadbare passion and find happiness in the next soft bosom
that the Eternal Feminine eternally offers—a field away, no more.

And at this time Miss Middleton’s quiet coldness and perfect restraint
of manner were contrasting almost daily with Emma’s floridity of speech
and over-emphasis of every gesture and attitude; or so it seemed to him.
For Greville possessed even to an extreme that fastidiousness which is a
kind of austerity in men who, having no austerity in morals, stress it
the more in taste. He required that women should be virginal in allure
though not in physical response, that they should be shy, cool, with a
frozen delicate sweetness to be melted difficultly by the most polished
approaches, and then enfolding the white snowdrop blossom in green
leaves even from a favoured lover or husband. Such was Miss Middleton as
far as he could judge. But Emma, all tropical perfumed luxuriance,
expanding a warm bosom to lavish sunlight, repelled him. He was
incapable of responding to such advances even in the first gust of
possession. There was far too much nature in her, whereas he wanted a
woman drilled by careful mother, school-mistress and dancing-master to
the last perfection of self-restraint for the sake of the adored; a
dainty figure of hoops and brocade in the costliest porcelain, and as
cold. Nature itself must be hooped, stay-laced, and set on high heels
before he could at all respect such an earth-smelling goddess.

Therefore Emma’s advances for pardon and love did but increase his
discontent. What he really would have chosen would be to retain the
invaluable Mrs. Cadogan and let the divine lady go, so oddly are some of
us constituted. But as the way to this was not clear at present he
merely chilled Emma with coldest reserve and waited on events.

“Can you _never_ forgive me, Greville?” she said wistfully one morning,
leaning over his chair after clearing away the breakfast china, and
setting a bowl of red roses at his elbow, as he read a catalogue of
antiques. He wore a dressing-gown of lavender silk with faint French
flowering and looked unapproachably aloof and distinguished in his great
chair. He turned a leaf calmly. As Romney had remarked with much
shrewdness, the most unforgivable offense was that Emma had now lived
with him for more than three years and yet had absorbed so little of his
teaching and the high example he set her of nature discouraged with cool
forms and ceremonies. The very word _nature_ was disagreeable to
Greville and the thing itself, exemplified under his nose every moment,
was rapidly becoming unbearable.

“Forgiveness is scarcely the word,” he answered without raising his
eyes. “I am not in the least angry with you, if that is your meaning. I
merely feel that your and my dispositions are worlds apart. Exhibitions
which give you pleasure to me appear odious, vulgar, revolting. Would
you have the kindness to draw the curtain a little over the right
window? The breeze comes in too strongly.”

She obeyed, lingering.

“Greville, do you think you see _no_ improvement in me to repay you for
all the trouble you’ve taken?”

Now he laid down his paper, leaned his head back and surveyed her.

“No, I should not say that. You were uneducated and ignorant three years
ago. You could sing a ballad with the vigour that nature gives—a poor
allowance, by the way. Now your voice is trained in the Italian style,
and, though you have hard work before you still, you can please the
connoisseur. Your drawing-master speaks well of you, and Romney
commended the landscapes you have lately attempted. You read
expressively, if the subject is not beyond you. I have been pleased to
see you reading Hayley’s “Triumphs of Temper,” from which you can
certainly take a needful lesson. Your manners are excessively improved.
You have laid aside the romping hoyden. I have seen you enter a room
like a lady. You have certainly a taste for simple becoming dress,
and—”

The praise was too much, too unexpected. She was at his knees in an
instant.

“Then you’re pleased! Oh, dear, dear Greville! Then you love me? You
know I tried to please my own Greville? Your poor Emma has not failed?”

Her sparkling, glowing face adored him. He continued with discouraging
serenity.

“In these respects, though you still need much tuition, you have not
failed. But what I aimed at, beyond all, was character. I wished to make
you valued and respected. And _there_ there is no improvement. You are
utterly unrestrained, and so far as I am a judge will never have the
secure future I hope for you.”

“What, Greville, not with you, who know, who pity me? Think what I was.
Oh, consider! A poor village girl, and London, and men—oh, consider, I
beseech you, what chance had I? Sure the faults in me were as little to
be helped as my want of book-learning. And I will cure them! Don’t you
_see_ me try?”

She caught his hand and fondled it passionately against her panting
bosom. He drew it away with reserve.

“This is exactly what I complain of. Always in extremes, making scenes,
overstraining feelings, raving, an exaggerated sensibility. If you could
but know its indecency, how it repels! But you cannot know. You never
will. I abandon the thankless task. One question: Have I not told you
_never_ to refer to that abominable past? Who ever heard Mrs. Wells drag
these unpleasant subjects into the light of day?”

“Mrs. Wells,” repeated Emma, and was hopelessly silent. Then, with the
utter want of tact she showed with Greville, must needs pester him
further, though timidly.

“But if you taught me all these things, Greville, was I not to make use
of them? Where was I to display them? Sure the time has come that you
will wish me to show off some of what I have learnt and—”

“Show off!” he echoed, with a scorn to which words are inadequate. She
still knelt, baffled.

“Pray get up and sit down, and let us change the subject. You have good
sense of a sort, Emma, when it serves your own turn. I expect Sir
William Hamilton here this afternoon, and I do most earnestly hope that
for the credit of my taste there may be no outbursts in his presence.
His good opinion is of consequence to me and I would not have him think
I have wasted three years on one I assured him I had such high hopes
of.”

The poor Emma was humbled to the earth by this time. Her terror of Sir
William combined with her love for Greville made her an easy victim.

“I promise,” she said in the measured tones which she knew he approved.
“I will try to get a victory over myself and seem to be happy though
miserable, for miserable I must be, Greville, if your heart does not
approve me.”

He uttered a word of encouragement and returned into his paper.

Behold the parlour prepared for the great, the expected guest at the
hour for tea; the neatly curtained windows open to admit a scented
breeze from the garden; Emma’s bowl of roses on the centre table; the
precious silhouette of Greville in its black frame on the mantelpiece;
Romney’s fine drawing of Emma in sepia and wash as a wistful-eyed
“Solitude” exploring far horizons, above it; the chairs plump and
cushioned for respected backs; the carpet soft and harmoniously
coloured; and a charming table of Sheraton workmanship spread with
finest damask and thin glittering silver beside the cups of egg-shell
porcelain. A delightful room though small, for everything about Greville
must be delicate and elegant, be it where it would. He had gone into
London to fetch Hamilton, and Emma, afraid to move so much as a chair
after the arrangements had met his approval, hovered between kitchen and
parlour to annoy Mrs. Cadogan with fears and comments. Had Watts sent
the fresh butter? The cream?

“You’d have heard of it if he hadn’t, girl, since ’twas you ordered it.
Here it is, yellow as buttercups and sweeter. Put it in yon big silver
milk jug, Emma. And look, here’s the strawberries, beauties, right
British Queens if I know anything. Carry in the dish. Here, girl, stop.
Put them leaves about them so they’ll peep out between with their fat
red cheeks. Now, ain’t that pretty? And now the bread and butter.”

“The cake, mother. Is it good?”

“Good? You just smell to it. A pound of everything, and as rich as rich.
And look at the Lisbon biscuits. You could all but blow them away. And I
made a few ham sandwiches in case his Lordship was hungry after the ride
out. Look, Emma, as pink as a dog’s tongue, and never a better ham was
cut. I think it’s as well to have the orange cordial I made the winter
before. Put it in a corner handy with the glasses. And now run up and
dress yourself real pretty.”

She did her utmost before the looking-glass bunched with muslin and pink
ribbons, and then went slowly down for her mother’s verdict.

“Will I do?”

“Do?” Mrs. Cadogan stood with arms akimbo on comfortable haunches and
took a liberal survey. “Why, yes. Your hair’s beautiful. I don’t know as
I ever saw you do it better. My, what a wheat stack of it you’ve got! I
like that blue ribbon tied above your ear. ’Tis uncommon. White musling
always suits you. Now turn about and I’ll pull out the bows of your
sash. There, that’s it. Now you go in and sit down quiet, and be
pretty-behaved to His Lordship, and may be he’ll leave Greville his
fortune and then he’ll marry you and I’ll see you a lady yet.”

These were comfortable prophecies and always tilted Emma’s spirits, for
she shared her mother’s easy-going optimism. But now she went slowly
into the parlour, and stood on a chair to have a last look in the fine
oval mirror Greville had set so tantalizingly high, then rearranged the
tea-table and finally sat down by the window. Hope was not kind to her
to-day. She was really dreadfully uneasy. Greville’s manner of late had
much undermined her confidence, and supposing Sir William should share
his disapproval—supposing Greville on the way out should “set him
against” her—what was to become of her?

She could hear the rattle of wheels far down the road, and her heart
beat violently. She started to the window. No, only old Dr. Whyte of the
Manor returning from the Bank. Lord, what a fright for nothing! Wheels
again, a fresh alarm, and Emma behind the curtain, fixed, scarcely
breathing. Yes, yes, at last. The coach came on, bearing her fate unseen
within it, and pulled up with a flourish at the door. One second she
watched to see Greville leap out, followed by a tall man of slight,
extremely elegant figure, and then, with a rush she was back in her
chair again with the book on her lap. No—no, that was too studied, that
would never do. They _must_ know she had heard them coming. She rose,
considered, shook out her skirts, and advanced with sedate sweetness to
the little hall and as Greville opened the door she stood there modestly
and gravely composed to welcome them. Instinct had served her rightly.
It was perfection’s self.

Sir William followed and through the open door the daylight came with
him and the summer scents of the garden. He saw before him a quiet girl
in white and blue ribbons with a pink rose stuck in the fichu that
crossed her bosom. Extremely young, fair and fresh as a posy of
primroses she seemed in the half light of the hall. That was the first
impression—innocence, youthful grace, a shy gentleness which could be
easily daunted and needed encouragement. She advanced with veiled eyes,
and Greville took her hand and led her up to him.

“Emma,” he said, smiling, and put the hand in Sir William’s.

Still she did not raise the eyes, the colour rose slightly to her cheek
from the quickly beating heart, and the more so when Sir William stooped
and kindly kissed the velvet flush. He retained her hand and she led him
into the parlour, and to the chair she had so softly cushioned in
expectation of an aged and honoured guest, for, do what Greville would
he could not persuade her otherwise than that his “dear Hamilton” being
over fifty must hover on senility. “Poor old gentleman!” she had said
with hearty sympathy. “We’ll make him comfortable, so we will! Does he
like a footstool, Greville?” And even Greville had seen the humour of
the situation and had left the reality to take care of itself.

For now, Emma’s exploring eyes penetrated their shield of auburn lashes,
and she beheld as handsome a man as ever she had seen in her life. He
could not be more distinguished than Greville, for that was impossible,
but he equalled him there, and surpassed him in a more good-humoured
disdain of the persons not similarly favoured by circumstances.
Greville’s disdain was conscious; Sir William’s perfectly unstudied and
natural, not known to himself as disdain, and therefore infinitely more
impressive. Such an obvious matter required no insistence. He never gave
it a thought, any more than his breathing or his heart-beat. A Hamilton
of the princely Scottish house, a _habitué_ of courts all the days of
his life, porphyrogenitus—born in the purple, so to speak—what could
the average citizen appear in those genial indifferent eyes but a
necessary incumbrance in the life of the Great? And there was more;
educated, cultivated to the highest point, an arbiter of taste, an
infallible judge in matters of accomplishment, happy in his _bonnes
fortunes_ with women, an indolently skilful diplomatist in a court of
indolent pleasures—what was lacking to make Sir William charming?

Nothing, nothing! Even Greville looked a little starched, a little
pinched beside him, too decided, too—yes, he became angular in that
calm, worldly-wise company. Sir William sat himself in the armchair,
laughing, rejected the cushions and fixed an eye keen under all its
sunshine upon Emma as she glided to her place behind the tea-tray, and
stilled the hissing urn.

That eye which had ranged over the beauties of Greece and Rome, fair in
imperishable bronze and marble, which had surveyed the loveliest of the
modern world and taken their measure and appraised each charm, now
rested on Emma.

She poured his tea and offered the sandwiches, thankful to see by
Greville’s expression that the provision pleased him. She picked with
rosy fingers the green cups from the strawberries and prepared the
mounded deliciousness with sugar, and poured the wrinkling cream, but in
a calm silence. She felt, she knew she was doing the right thing in
perfection, yet had no notion that Nature forced her daughter
consummately to play her part. She thought it her own cleverness, while
she could have done no other had she tried with all her strength, and
humbly hoped it would please the great man.

It pleased him. He watched her steadily, once or twice missed what
Greville said, once or twice forgot what he himself was saying and
caught it by the tail as it vanished. Greville, at first a little huffed
by this absence of mind, at last saw its point and triumphed silently.
Emma understood fully.

Tea finished, she rose and stood beside Greville.

“I’ll take the tea out and wash up the cups. It will help mother, and
these are our most precious teacups, Sir William. May I go, Greville?”

“Certainly, provided you come back then.”

Greville was gracious but did not rise to open the door though she moved
towards it with the teapot. Sir William’s haste rebuked him, for he
sprang, light as a boy, from the chair and held the door open with a
smile at her.

“What, the fair tea-maker supposes that I shall do nothing in return for
the delicious meal she has given me? A thousand times no! Greville, the
tray is heavy for her.”

The two between them piled the tray and finally dismissed her through
the door with one on either side like heraldic supporters. It closed on
her.

“Now we can talk!” said Greville, and drew his chair up to his
kinsman’s.




                              CHAPTER VII
                               DISCUSSION


THE first word he said was “Well?” with a keen glance at Sir William,
lying back, luxurious, in his chair. There was still a scent of
strawberries in the room and the faint perfume of a woman’s dress.
Outside the Green was very quiet in the sinking sunlight.

Sir William was deliberate.

“In my whole life I never saw a woman so beautiful. The face, figure,
colouring—perfection. The manner adorable. You prepared me for
something unusual, but I never dreamt of anything like this. Lord, what
a waste! In any other position she must have been a European beauty.”

“But, my dear Hamilton, you must understand she was not like this when I
took her. That she was beautiful, I allow, but it was an untaught,
somewhat noisy hoyden with Fetherstonehaugh. I found her quarrelling
with him on the smallest provocation, ready to rollick like a
good-humoured boy with the men he had down, inclined to rely too much on
her good looks without attending to them; indeed, I have noticed her
very nails in need of attention. But I felt the waste exactly as you now
feel it, and you see the result of four years’ careful education; I
might almost say _creation_.”

“If creation, I can only say you rank with Phidias. Indeed, your
_chef-d’œuvre_ surpasses his. A more complete beauty I never beheld. But
while I don’t disparage your powers, I must say, my dear Greville, that
the girl must have extraordinary ones herself. And can the story you
told me of her antecedents be true? I never saw attractive modesty more
expressed in any face.”

Greville applied himself to dissection.

“Absolutely true. Probably, since she confided in me herself I don’t
even know the whole of her adventures though I verified her tale with
inquiries. But the point with Emma is this: she is everything by turns;
everything she chooses or the circumstances suggest. She sees
instinctively the part which will please and plays it to admiration and
thus is always at the top of her audience. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly. You convey that whoever creates the picture she is always in
it.”

“Exactly. In my belief that must have been the secret of all the great
actresses of history, not to mention the great courtesans. Be sure
Aspasia convinced her lover that she was a deep stateswoman as well as
highly gifted in poetry, music and art.”

“And she was so.”

“Not she!” says Greville, with his cool contempt for women. “She merely
caught his ray as a mirror catches the sun and flashed it back upon him
blindingly. Combine that power with sex and beauty and you have a
dazzled world.”

“Yet you are not dazzled?”

“I have lived with her for four years. I know how the springs work,”
says Greville sententiously. “All the same, she is remarkable. I believe
there is nothing beyond her, given the opportunity. Nothing, that is,
which moves her. She could have been a great actress, so expressive is
she. Talk to her of the Siddons, and in a moment she will out-Siddons
the woman herself in pose; a ghastly Lady Macbeth creeping to the
murder. Remind her of Mrs. Jordan and she is comedy incarnate, all
roguish laughter.”

Sir William reflected, gazing at the chair Comedy had lately occupied
and at her wistful-eyed portrait over the mantelpiece.

“It appears to me,” he said at length, “that having lived with her so
long you have perhaps become so used to these qualities that it has a
little dulled your perception of what they really signify. For since
woman is always more or less of a parasite [Here the eighteenth century
was vocal on the good man’s lips!] we must not expect more from them
than is possible. But when carried to the height you describe, it
becomes what, for a woman, is genius. And, with beauty as a pedestal,
you get the woman that the world remembers.”

“Her antecedents forbid that,” says Greville with his cool certainty.
“Aspasias exist no longer. There is no place for them in society. You
have the Pompadours whose only skill is to traffic in places, the
political beauties like the Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. Crewe, and
the detestable blue-stocking. And a certain amount of decency is
required before a woman can be taken at all seriously.”

“Of decency a very little will go a long way if combined with beauty,”
said Sir William, with the edge of a cynical smile touching his lips. If
the Spirit of Comedy were perched on the chair Emma so lately had
occupied, she also must have smiled, one imagines, to see these two
grave gentlemen discussing the destiny of the woman who was to settle
theirs. Indeed, the Spirit of Tragedy might almost have joined the party
and animated the sad and far-seeing eyes of the portrait above the
mantel.

“Her past and present, of course, shut dignified doors to her,” he
continued, “but plenty of others are open and she may yet attain a kind
of private influence which may be of help to you, if you give her the
right setting.”

“Not to me. My circumstances forbid it, and the very thing I want to
consult you on, my dear Hamilton, is how to part with her with the least
pain to her, and the best provision I can afford to make, which will be
little indeed, I regret to say.”

Sir William looked at him in the utmost astonishment.

“What, a man in his thirties, and part with a siren like that? You
hinted at it, but now I have seen her I find it incredible. Are you on
the hunt for Venus herself? Or does she care for you no longer?”

“Care?” Greville was piqued. “I don’t overstate if I say she loves me
passionately. She has a quick little temper, but I might almost say she
crawls to my feet for forgiveness if she offends. A more docile, pliable
pupil, too, never existed. No, no. The trouble does not lie there. My
debts ruffle me seriously. I have no choice. Marry I must, and I have
fixed upon a lady suitable in every respect. But I need not tell you
that in the town where everything is known I must part with Emma before
I make my formal offer. I would willingly let things continue as they
are. But you see?”

“I see,” said Hamilton, “a nice dilemma. But if you do part with her,
let it be final. I have always been averse from the idea of these
relationships continuing after marriage. Very few wives can be brought
to take such a matter with indifference and where a husband is largely
dependent on a wife’s fortune and settlements are strict—well, it needs
no detailing for a man who desires peace.”

“I fully agree. No, the parting shall be final.”

“I conclude it is one of the Middleton daughters. I heard something to
that effect from the Duchess of Argyll yesterday.”

“Gossip!” Greville shrugged his shoulders. “But, yes, I have no
concealments from you. It is the second daughter. I think it will be
brought to bear, with your countenance.”

“You will certainly have that!” Sir William said with warm cordiality.
“And you have my free leave to assure Lord Middleton that you are my
heir.”

Greville wrung his hand with real gratitude.

“But marriage, my dear Hamilton? You are still a young attractive man
and I hope, I sincerely hope, to see you yet settled in a happy home of
your own.”

“I shall never remarry,” Sir William said gravely and sadly. “You know
as well as I the devotion and piety of your aunt. She was a saint on
earth and an example of all that is loveliest in woman’s character. It
would be impossible to replace her and I shall not try. No, tell Lord
Middleton my mind is resolved. As to the debts—but we will consider
that later. What are your views for Emma?”

Greville reflected. He really had not yet formulated them even to
himself. The concert-room, the opera, the stage, all these ideas had
jostled one another in his head, but there was not one that did not call
for a training he could not afford. And furthermore, he was very far
from willing (in the Middleton interest) to superintend her affairs in
any way or seem to preserve the slightest thread of attachment between
them. He put this matter to his uncle and they discussed it for a while
as a difficulty.

“An Italian training for her voice is what she needs,” said Greville.
“It has that kind of pure light brilliance which corresponds exactly to
the Italian idea. That would be a settled career for her. But we must
not go too fast. You must hear her. You are a far more finished
connoisseur in music than I, and perhaps I may overstate her powers. I
will have her singing-master here to-morrow and you shall judge. Let me
call her back. She has invented a pretty little amusement you will
approve, I am sure. She throws herself into uncommon attitudes and thus
makes quite elegant little sculpturesques of herself. Whether it could
be developed as a paying entertainment—but you shall see.”

Sir William, deeply interested, assented and Emma was recalled from the
tinkle of china audible in the distance. She came tripping in, her
little dog running after her, the ideal young married niece and elderly
uncle’s delight, for that was how she saw herself at the moment. That
impression was also instantly conveyed to Sir William. She pulled a low
seat beside him and began to talk with those fluty low notes which
captivated the listener quite apart from any nonsense or sense she chose
to utter. She must hear about Naples, about his great house there, and
did he really ever see the Queen? Was she beautiful? Did she wear her
crown often? Was Naples as lovely as in Greville’s book of pictures?
And, oh, if she could but ever, ever see it!

Sir William was enchanted. He saw no reason why his niece Emma—for so
he really must call her—should not come out some day and taste the
beauties of that land of the orange and myrtle. He knew not whether she
would be the more admired or admiring, probably the former. “For,” said
he, “lovely as the Italian women are there is a sameness. The same
glorious black eyes flash on you from every countenance. The same
rippled raven hair crowns every brow; I may almost say the same finely
chiselled features are the rule, so that each must depend for
distinction upon her expression and manner. Now you, my dear Emma, have
the beauty of their most famous antiques, but the glory of your warm
auburn colouring and violet eyes, for so they appear at this moment,
must single you out instantly. Added to this, Greville has been dwelling
on your accomplishments to me, and these are rare among the Italian
belles, who are foolish enough to believe beauty alone can enchain a man
for ever and ever.”

“It could only hold a fool,” says she, catching responsive fire from the
idea. “Men of culture and learning like you and Greville would demand
much, much more. Oh, Sir William, I have tried indeed, but I will try
harder still to deserve your approval as well as Greville’s and make
myself an accomplished woman.”

So it went on, and Greville sitting a little in the background, watched
them. And as he did so, and saw those liquid eyes beaming confidence and
affection to his uncle, and Sir William’s elderly orbs lost in their
pellucid depths, a thought flashed across his mind so rapid, so
overwhelming in its lucidity that he caught his breath audibly, and
marvelled he had never considered it before.

Sir William must not marry, for that would be the ruin of his own plans.
But Sir William must run the gauntlet of a thousand temptations to the
wedding ring. One had but to look at him for that assurance.
Furthermore, women’s society was a necessity of his life. The widower of
the Palazzo Sessa was certainly not its hermit; no man living more loved
gaiety, amusement with thronging interests of every description. And
Emma—the exquisite modern-antique—a Pompeian dancer floating up from
dark dead ages to charm a modern world; Emma, with her maddening beauty,
her poses and attitudes which repeated at command all the statues and
pictures which were the delight of Sir William; Emma, with her voice of
crystal to enchant him with the _bel canto_ he loved so passionately;
and above all, Emma, with her shameful story which set marriage once and
for ever out of the question—there was the perfect solution! An
unrivalled companion for Sir William’s loneliness, the position for Emma
of an old man’s darling on whom every cost, every accomplishment, would
be lavished; and for himself freedom—freedom, and the graceful attitude
of having conferred a heavy obligation on an attached relative! He sank
into deep thought as they murmured on, lost in the interest of this
meeting.

Does there seem an unpardonable obliquity in the mind that admits such a
consideration? The recorder of the manners and morals of another age
does not pretend to compare them with this, nor the materialism of the
eighteenth century with the pure idealism and lofty standards of conduct
in such matters of the twentieth. Yet Greville had his standard of
conscience also, such as it was. It stood aside from the pleasures a
gentleman might choose to indulge himself in, but in revenge insisted on
certain points to be observed in the way they were transacted. Sir Harry
Fetherstonehaugh’s behaviour to Emma was odious in Greville’s eyes.
Brutality, coarseness, open infidelity even to a mistress, were things
his code could not for a moment admit. Infidelity to a wife—whose cause
the world would countenance—was a far lesser matter, though one he
would reasonably hope to avoid, provided she pleased him. He had also
observed a kindly and correct demeanour toward the little Emma, who was
certainly no rightful concern of his. The baby school-bills were
regularly settled, nor had he any thought of retreating from that
obligation. And lastly, nothing would induce him to abandon Emma without
a proper provision for her needs.

If materialism disguised in the wig and spectacles of the ancient maiden
Prudence pointed out how much simpler it would be should another, on
whose kindness he could rely, undertake her maintenance, was the thought
so very unnatural as to warrant any censor arising and calling him the
reversed of blessed?

Be that as it may it must be owned that it came as a solvent of all his
difficulties, could Emma be brought to view the matter sensibly. The
utmost, the most delicate caution, would however be necessary before
that could become possible.

Having reached that point—and the two others the degree of confidence
when Emma rested her hand timidly on the Ambassador’s knee, drinking in
his every word—Greville with his usual method docketed his
illumination, parcelled up its brilliance, and placed it in a mental
pigeon-hole for easy reference, drew an agreeable smile over his
anxieties and asked Sir William if he would like to see the attitudes
which Emma had invented one day in Romney’s studio to that master’s
entrancement. She ran gaily upstairs to bring her little apparatus.

“She is perfectly fascinating!” Sir William said, with enthusiasm rare
in such a finished man of the world. “A most adorable companion.
Intelligent, receptive, a perfect listener—”

“Didn’t I tell you?” says Greville with his slow smile. “But don’t spoil
her, my dear Hamilton, I entreat. She is the most unspoilt spontaneous
creature in the world at present, and I have never given her an
indigestion of sugar-plums. Make her self-conscious and the dew is off
the rose.”

“Very true, but who can look at her and be wise? With all my soul I pity
you, if you must let her go. And for Miss Middleton—a cold,
correctly-featured girl with no fire, no sparkle!”

“My poverty and not my will consents,” quoted Greville with a shrug, as
Emma came in dressed in a white robe simply caught at the waist and
falling in the long straight folds dear to the heart of that lover of
the classical, Sir William. The sleeves were short, disclosing a pair of
rounded arms; on one was slung a wreath of artificial roses, in one hand
a tambourine.

“The perfect Greek! Stand, stand there, just at the door, for a moment!”
cried the enraptured connoisseur. “Good God, what an attitude!”

She froze herself instantly into immobility, framed in the doorway, the
long folds falling solemnly about her, the face calm as death, a
breathing statue. And, as he watched, a faintly dawning smile touched
the corners of her perfect lips and spread upwards like light until it
reached her eyes, and then, with a sweet cry, she sprang forward, and
dropping the roses at her feet flung the arm upward with the tambourine
until it rang again and so stood all life and radiance caught on the
wave of a dance, each light limb expressing its perfect movement though
struck into marble for the instant—a Pompeian dancer, the flower of
love’s insolence, the living blossom of a dead civilization.

“I got the pose from the vase the Duchess of Portland bought from you a
while ago, and I called it ‘The Pompeian Dancer,’ as there is a certain
amount of interest taken in the excavations now. You like it?” says
Greville, lowering his voice.

“Divine!” whispered Sir William briefly, impatient of the words and
concentrating every sense on the vision.

“Then what would you think if you could but see it as it should be done!
Romney has contrived a light in the studio, a strong light that falls on
the left, and she stands in an immense picture frame and—”

He saw Sir William was not listening and stopped. His soul was in his
eyes. Presently she drooped aside and slid on to the floor and so sat,
with chin cupped in soft hand and one long bright lock falling beside
her throat, her pensive eyes, lakes of sorrow, following a far, far ship
receding in dimmest distance—Ariadne watching the departing Theseus who
carried all her joys with him. Was she thinking of her long-ago sailor?
Did she catch up past experiences and mould them into present beauty, or
was it drawn from some deep well of ancient mysterious pre-natal
experience beyond all guessing of herself or others? No one ever knew.
She never knew herself. It _was_; as inevitably as the trees repeat
their ancient symphony of bloom, and joy returns from the past with each
revolving year.

This was but the beginning of those famous Attitudes which were later to
hold the world. But such as they were they struck the gazer dumb. He
came to them fresh and saw them complete, unlike Greville who had known
the inception and quarrelled with Romney and Emma alike over the set of
a fold, the poise of a wrist and so forth. To him it appeared a miracle
of finished beauty. He said as much when she had presented the four
poses which were all she had as yet designed and, taking her hand,
kissed her again on the cheek and thanked her for an afternoon of such
pleasure as he had rarely experienced. Greville also thanked her with a
cordiality she had missed of late and the returning warmth cheered her
like the glow of sunshine. He forgave—he loved her. The way back to his
heart was to please this charming uncle who meant ease, freedom from
anxiety and all else to her Greville. Indeed it should not be difficult.
She would do her utmost, joyfullest best.

They took her to the play that night, and Sir William and she laughed at
the comedy of the frolicsome Mrs. Jordan together, while the smiling
Greville sat beside them in the box and loaded her with every attention
she had missed. He was resolved Sir William should be well aware of the
value of this treasure.

Emma slept that night satiate with happiness.




                              CHAPTER VIII
                              THE BARGAIN


THE friendship between Emma and the Ambassador strengthened every day,
and to Greville’s secret amusement and satisfaction, he was continually
in Edgware Row. London, apart from the antiquarian interests in which he
met congenial spirits, was tame and dull in comparison with the delight
of sitting with “the fair tea-maker” as he called her, listening to the
wonderful voice, suggesting yet more wonderful Attitudes, lounging for
hours in Romney’s studio where he made his unwearied studies of Emma in
every character that literature or her own marvellous versatility could
suggest. He gave an order to Romney for her portrait as a Bacchante that
he might not be parted (so he said) from so much beauty when he was
compelled to return to Naples.

“Oh, but don’t talk of return, my kind dear friend, I beseech you! What
shall we do, Greville and me, when you go? You take the sunlight with
you!” said Emma with an expression of pain and fear in those
irresistible eyes. “If you did but know, but you can’t, what happiness
you have brought with you! All my Greville’s anxieties seem to have
vanished away, and we live as care-free as the birds yonder. What don’t
I owe you! If I could repay it—ah, if I could!”

“To look at you and enjoy your presence is to be repaid with interest!”
said the Ambassador, and meant it from the bottom of his heart. He was
approaching the age when it is easier to find pleasures at home than to
go abroad to seek them, and there was a warm atmosphere of comfort, of
woman’s sweet serviceable ways about him there in which he was apt to
purr like a contented cat. She knew his liking by instinct, divined a
wish before he uttered it, and with Greville’s guiding taste the
surroundings in Edgware Row could not offend even the Hamilton
fastidiousness. The little maid-servant, added to the establishment in
honour of his frequent coming, would rush radiant to “Mrs. Hart” when
his step was in the garden, and well she might, for Sir William’s
generous hand was often in his pocket even for the humble Molly Dring,
while, as to Emma, she was the shrine of many and costly offerings, and
he seldom came without a parcel to be opened with pretty cries of
delight, and little shrieks to Greville to come and see what “our dear,
dear uncle” has brought. She had offered to be either his “obliged
humble servant or his affectionate niece,” and he voted for the niece.

Those were halcyon days for Emma. She had never been so happy. She
believed the cause to be that Greville was more contented than she had
seen him for many a long day; kinder, less critical, more indulgent. The
narrow limit of expense was enlarged for Sir William, the expeditions to
the gaieties of London were more frequent, Sir William’s calm
good-nature was a mellowing sunshine on all the little asperities which
disturbed her. Privately, deep in the recesses of her own heart, she
encouraged dreams that Sir William’s affection for her might lead to her
marriage with Greville. If _he_ approved, insisted, made the way easy
from the money side of affairs, she felt she could not doubt what the
end would be. She redoubled every attention to both her men. Every
impulse to quick temper was ruled and governed. The sweet eyes which
welcomed Sir William or smiled on Greville were dove’s eyes for
softness, and to crown all, she topped the part of the perfect housewife
with the brilliant accomplishments which astonished Sir William beyond
the very bounds of prudence.

Gavin Hamilton, the cousin artist, came often to study and sketch the
wonder. He, too, succumbed to her fascinations. She was “a Roman beauty,
opulent, luxuriant, dominating, the perfect classic re-animated for the
rapture of the eighteenth century,” and his admiration fanned Sir
William’s into flame, while Greville watched with silent pleasure,
permitting the matter now to take its own safe course, and Emma expanded
daily in the atmosphere of warm caressing admiration which was her
soul’s delight. She grew more beautiful, more brilliant, every day in
that delicious sunshine; responsive as a flower. Endless were her
dreams. If Greville married her, why then she might hope he would admit
the little Emma as one of the circle. Why not? It could not be spoken,
not hinted as yet; but once married, domestic pressure is slow but sure
and she could imagine a future when Sir William might invite his nephew
and niece with the small adopted daughter to do the honours for him at
the Palazzo Sessa whilst he sank gently more and more into the interests
of his antiquities and left the world to them. On _that_ stage Emma was
certain she could dazzle. The Honourable Mrs. Charles Greville could
have no uncertainties she thought, so, when he spoke of going she took
his hand and squeezed it nervously with wet eyes and implored him to
delay. Indeed, the vast villa with its troops of gabbling servants
seemed dull enough after the amenities of Edgware Row. He was in no
hurry.

Greville wanted, however, to get him to himself and that seemed
impossible with all the interests of Paddington Green.

“I think, my dear Hamilton, it is really time you should see with your
own eyes the developments of the Milford estates. As you know, I have
been there constantly, but the master’s eye—I think I must have your
instructions on the spot. Time flies and you will be off to Naples again
before long.”

“Exactly. You’re perfectly in the right. But presently will do. I have
told San Severino that he must hear Emma sing and he can’t come until
next week. He will be perfectly infatuated. If she should ever visit
Naples that will be an unrivalled introduction.”

And when that week was done and Greville again protested gently.

“Yes, my dear boy, certainly. You are wisdom and goodness itself but the
Principe di Barberini swears he will not leave England until he has seen
her Attitudes, and I am training her for the Proserpina on the plain of
Enna. After that—”

After that Greville would take no denial. He must, he would prepare the
way still further for the Great Plan, though much was to be entrusted to
letters when Sir William was gone. Letters can be considered, slips
carefully avoided. Greville much preferred letters.

Sir William would not hear of Emma’s being left alone in Edgware Row
while they went down to Wales. Could she not come with them? No,
Greville was certain that could not be. They would be moving too quickly
for her, would be engrossed with business at Milford.

“And besides, do you not think, my dear Hamilton, that she has looked a
little pale of late? Sea bathing acts like a charm with her. I think of
Parkgate. You will see her return in even greater beauty; Aphrodite
rising from the sea. And I _did_ think, unless you disapprove, of
letting her have her little Emma as a companion. One would not be
inhuman, and certainly it would give her a very natural pleasure.”

Sir William demurred a little, a very little on that motion. “Whether it
were well to strengthen that connection—” he hesitated. “There might in
the future be difficulties, if the child—but after all, poor lovely
girl, what more natural? Yes, Greville, I approve. You have a kindly
heart.”

“Indeed, I would not fail where Emma is concerned,” Greville replied
gravely. “I have respect for her innumerable good qualities as well as a
strong affection. I am sincerely glad you approve.”

All this was broached to Emma in the most agreeable way. One and all
would feel the break-up of the little household, but the Milford
business was imperative, and she needed the sea air and there would be
letters, constant letters.

She did not dare to kiss Sir William at parting—so she said in a pretty
letter to Greville later—but tendered a velvet cheek and received his
salute with shy lashes dropped.

Yet, once away, fears returned. The actual distance magnified the class
distance between her and the two men. Tall, distinguished, accomplished,
moving in a world of which the gates had never opened, could never open
to her, it seemed they might at any time be absorbed into their own
Paradise never to return. Could they have sent her away as the beginning
of the end? Oh, surely no!—and yet—Somehow, Heaven knows how, a waft
of Miss Middleton’s name had reached her—the Honourable Miss Middleton!
Nothing certain, but disquieting. She grew nervous, self-distrustful.
There was no one at Parkgate to give the necessary tribute of admiration
to singing and Attitudes, and little Emma, though a charming blue-eyed
creature, got on her nerves a little also.

Her letters reflected these moods.

    “I am in the house of a laidy whose husband is at sea. The price
    is high but they don’t lodge anybody without boarding, and I
    thought it would not ruin us till I could have your oppinion
    which I hope to have freely as you will give it to one who will
    always be happy to follow it, lett it be what it will. And
    though my little temper may have been sometimes high, believe me
    I have always thought you right in the end when I have come to
    reason. I bathe and find the water very soult. Pray, my dearest
    Greville, write soon and tell me what to do with the child. For
    she is a great romp and I can hardly master her. She is tall,
    has good eys and brows, and as to lashes she will be passible. I
    am makeing and mending all I can for her. Do lett me come home
    as soon as you can for I am allmost broken-hearted being from
    you. You don’t know how much I love you and your behaiver to me
    when we parted was so kind. Greville, I don’t know what to do.
    How teadous does the time pass awhay until I hear from you.
    Endead I should be miserable if I did not recollect upon what
    happy terms we parted—parted, yess, but to meet again with
    tenfould happiness.”

There was sharp anxiety in her mind as she wrote protesting these poor
certainties. She could not enjoy the child’s company with a care-free
heart. As in an eclipse the lurid shadow slowly invades the rim of the
sun and sheds a livid light that slowly darkens all, so a fear
intangible, nothing to fight directly and therefore the more alarming,
invaded her little world of content. Suppose Sir William should take
Greville with him to Naples? Suppose—a hundred supposes!

She wrote again. He did not.

    “Would you think it, Greville? Emma, the wild unthinking Emma,
    is a grave thoughtful phylosopher. [He would like that—it would
    please him.] ’Tis true, Greville, and I will convince you it is
    when I see you. But how I am running on. I say nothing about
    this giddy wild girl of mine. What shall we do with her,
    Greville? Would you believe on Sattarday we had a little quarel,
    and I did slap her on her hands and when she came to kiss me and
    make it up, I took her on my lap and cried. Pray do you blame me
    or not? Pray tell me. O Greville, you don’t know how I love her.
    When she comes and looks in my face and calls me mother endead I
    then truly am a mother, and the mother’s feelings rise at once
    and tels me I am or ought to be a mother for she has a wright to
    my protection and I will do all in my power to prevent her
    falling into the error her poor miserable mother fell into.”

She paused and read this over with a deep sense of its pathos. But would
it touch or anger Greville? Who could tell? No, he must not think her
unhappy—it might appear to refer to past differences, to upbraid him.
She wrote on hurriedly.

    “But why do I say miserable? Am I not happy abbove any of my
    sex?—at least in my situation. Does not Greville love me, or at
    least like me. Is he not a father to my child? Why do I call
    myself miserable? No, it was a mistake, and I will be happy,
    chearful and kind. Again, my dear Greville, the recollection of
    past scenes brings tears to my eys, but they are tears of
    happiness, Greville. I am obliged to give a shilling a day for
    the bathing house and whoman and two pence for the dress. It is
    a great expense and it fretts me when I think of it. No letter
    from my dear Greville. Why, my dearest Greville, what is the
    reason you don’t write. Give my dear kind love and compliments
    to Pliney [Pliny, Sir William’s nickname] and tell him I put you
    under his care and he must be answereble for you to me wen I see
    him.”

So Emma, fluttering, perturbed, fighting the darkening shadows. And
again:

    “Pray, my dear Greville, lett me come home soon. I have been 3
    weeks and if I stay a fortnight longer that will be five weeks,
    you know, and then the expense is above 2 guineas a week with
    washing. Sure I shall have a letter to-day. Can you,
    Greville—no, you can’t have forgot your poor Emma allready.
    Though I am but a few weeks absent my heart will not one moment
    leave you. Don’t you recollect what you said at parting? How you
    should be happy to see me again?”

But Greville had no intention of writing until just before her return.
The last thing he desired was to feed the flame of her passion for him,
and the thing he most desired was to loosen the bond gently, insensibly,
and with as much certainty and as little cruelty as possible. And the
pleading in her letters could not obliterate in the tranquil coldness of
his mind the scenes and tempers which had disturbed him, nor, even if he
could have forgiven those, could he forget for one moment the money
necessities of his position.

The hint about the little Emma also was irritating and she had repeated
it more plainly since. He must have encouraged Emma far beyond what was
sensible if she could make so cool a proposition as to bring the child
back with her. Very few men would have undertaken the schooling, and
proper gratitude for that boon should have silenced her.

He and Sir William had returned to London when that letter reached him
and was followed by another, which ended:

    “My dear Greville, don’t be angry, but I gave my grandmother
    five guineas, for she had laid some money out on Emma, that I
    would not take her awhay shabbily. But Emma shall pay you. My
    dear Greville, I wish I was with you.”

He foresaw himself eternally the prey of needy vulgar relations, with
Emma growing older, more violent-tempered, more of a burden daily. It
hardened his resolution, and after writing a brief letter entirely
forbidding the Emma project and speaking of his desire for greater
freedom and more solitude when she returned home, he opened the matter
resolutely with Sir William that night. It had become really necessary
from his point of view, for the Ambassador was returning to Naples in
August, and there must be a sufficient understanding for letters to
proceed on. There was no difficulty in opening the subject, for Miss
Middleton had been seen and approved, and Sir William’s mind was full of
her.

“There should be no hesitation, no delay!” he said, taking out his
precious snuff-box set with a fine cameo of Phaëton driving the Horses
of the Sun. “She is a young woman of amiable manners and if not a
finished beauty there is perhaps less chance of quiet with a woman whom
all the town runs after. Write me word very soon that all is settled,
and you shall not be forgotten in a gift, nor your bride either.”

“You are all goodness and wisdom. Of course you are perfectly right. Not
only will her money set me on my feet again, but the connection is good,
and her parents’ house will always be open to us. But Emma, my dear
Hamilton, Emma! You understand the position thoroughly now you know her.
Is she a woman to throw on the town? Would it be common mercy? The
child, I shall of course keep at school. Any other project would be
madness. But again I say—Emma?”

“Emma, indeed!” repeated Sir William and looked meditatively at his
boot. Then—“Has any definite idea occurred to you, Charles?”

“Undoubtedly one has occurred, but whether your wisdom would approve it,
I can’t tell. But first—you really can scarcely understand the shock it
will be to me to part with her. She is the sweetest companion. I have
been so candid with regard to her little quick spurts of temper that you
will believe me when I say this.”

“It needs very little telling to realize that she is one that would be
missed severely. I pity your necessity, Charles, more than I can say.
Gavin Hamilton agrees with me that he has never seen her like all the
world over.”

“Exactly. But I have no alternative. Still, it would add to my grief if
I had to think of her fallen in other hands doubtfully kind, accepting
her as the mere common woman of pleasure. She is far from that.”

“Far.” Hamilton’s very tone was conviction.

“Indeed, yes. My plan is this, then—but much depends on your
co-operation. Her voice—well, you know it. Might it be in any way
possible to send her to Naples for singing lessons which could be
continued under your supervision, and could your influence then be
exerted to procure her an opening in opera either at Naples or
preferably at Milan? Given but chance, I believe she might attain
European celebrity.”

“I believe so too,” said Hamilton, and fell into thought. He coloured
slightly; his eyes narrowed as he looked down. Greville knew what was in
his mind as clearly as if he had spoken aloud. The seed was set, though
apparently unconsciously on Greville’s side. He had been perfectly
adroit. He smiled a little to himself as he pursued his quiet way.

“My plan was that her mother should accompany her. She needs a
companion. Then, of course, arises the question of money. The mother is
an excellent cook, as you know, and housekeeper. If she could get a
position in one of the English families, she could pay a little towards
Emma’s expenses, and the slender help I could give would not be
lacking.”

“This certainly is the germ of an idea,” said Hamilton in meditation. “I
will consider all you say most carefully. I am interested in Emma’s
wonderful qualities. I would willingly aid where I can. I am at one with
you in the notion that we could not cast her off without assistance. It
would be unworthy. But, come!—be frank with me, Charles. Is there any
difficulty in her disposition that I don’t comprehend? These tempers?
And is she vain? Frivolous? Mercenary?”

For an answer Greville drew her last letter from his pocket and laid it
in Sir William’s hands.

    “I received your kind letter last night, and, my dearest
    Greville, I want words to express how happy it made me. For I
    thought I was like a lost sheep and every one had forsook me. I
    was eight days very ill, but am a great deal better for your
    kind instructing letter and I own the justice of your remarks.
    You shall have your appartment to yourself. You shall read,
    wright, or sett still, just as you pleas, for I shall think
    myself happy to be under the same roof with Greville and do all
    I can to make it agreable without disturbing him in any
    pursuits. For your absence has taught me that I ought to think
    myself happy if I was within a mile of you. You shall find me
    good, kind, gentle, affectionate and everything you wish me to
    do I will do. O Greville, to think it is nine weeks since I saw
    you. I think I shall die with the pleasure of seeing you. Oh,
    how I long to see you.”

“Is this a spoilt, capricious beauty?” says he, when Sir William had
finished it.

“No, a tender, womanly, submissive charmer. But it frightens me another
way. Greville, she will never leave you.”

“She will, if we can impress upon her that it is to _my_ advantage. She
never will for herself. Poor soul!—moving, I own!”

Greville touched one of the fundamentals in this remark and did not know
it. Sir William’s warmer heart appreciated it.

“We must make it as easy for her as we can. Certainly I should have no
objection to her being under my protection—”

Something in the phrase made him uncomfortable. He stopped with a shade
of embarrassment, then continued, “I mean I will willingly oversee the
question of putting the mother out and of lending my influence to
advance Emma’s music and its results. On these points I shall write more
fully when I have considered, and meanwhile I advise you wean her
gradually. Separate slowly, imperceptibly.”

“I have begun. I conditioned strictly for the parlour for my own use. I
shall sleep frequently in town. Depend upon my showing every
consideration. You can count on that. Do not be uneasy.”

It was strange, but extremely adroit, the manner in which Sir William
was put in the position of the person whose feelings were the most to be
considered with regard to Emma. She might have been far more of a charge
upon his conscience than on Greville’s. Little more was said. Neither
could be more particular, for there was now an unspoken matter between
them which outweighed all words uttered. Their eyes did not meet when
Greville, gazing out at the twinkling lights, said:

“I will keep you fully acquainted, my dear Hamilton, and will rely on
your kind-hearted assistance in a matter so delicate.”

And Sir William, equally attentive to the rising moon dimming the
flickering oil lamps in the streets, replied.

“Certainly. And to revert to your own business; you have fully
understood, Charles, that I am prepared to stand security if you think
well to borrow for your debts? I have no hesitation about that.”

Greville’s gratitude knew no bounds and, with his satisfaction, was
perfectly sincere. It convinced him that there was a clear
understanding, that the bargain was absolutely completed and Emma’s
affection was the only remaining difficulty. His heart beat high for so
well-conducted a heart. His burden was loosening and life before him.

                 *        *        *        *        *

So Emma returned to a home no longer hers, to a gradually deepening
isolation from the man she loved, and to a constant recitation of the
difficulties he had to face. It seemed as if Sir William had taken the
sunshine with him.

And far off in the West Indies a young sea captain of twenty-five,
Captain Horatio Nelson, was going about his business, asserting the
honour of his country with his own, as great English admirals have done
from time immemorial. Slight, quiet, self-contained, he was pronounced
“an interesting young man” by those who knew him best; an aggressive
young man by those who crossed his bows in the way of his duty. The
French officers forgot to hoist the colours at Fort Royal, Martinique,
when H.M.S. _Boreas_ did them the honour to call, and though, unlike the
famous Admiral Hawkins, Captain Nelson did not send a shot to enforce
sea courtesy, he had the offender arrested, and accepted an apology with
haughtiness and difficulty. Again, when he had favoured the governor of
some of the West Indian islands with suggestions for the better
discharge of mutual duties, and the irate official replied that “old
generals were not in the habit of taking advice from young gentlemen,”
that particular young gentleman replied:

“I have the honour, sir, of being as old as the Prime Minister of
England [Pitt] and think myself as capable of commanding one of His
Majesty’s ships as that minister is of governing the State.”

Neat and conclusive. On that station it was considered that on the whole
Captain Nelson was a promising young officer and likely to be heard of
later. He was to meet his fate in marriage next year, and nothing
pointing to converging lines could be observed either in his prospects
or Emma’s.

Yet every day, every hour was steadily preparing that meeting.




                                PART II




                               CHAPTER IX
                         THE BARGAIN CONCLUDED


THE letters on which Greville counted set in between him and his uncle
directly Hamilton was re-established in the Palazzo Sessa. The
complaisant uncle wrote also to Emma, dwelling much on the charms of
Naples and its society and on its extraordinary advantages for the
pursuit of accomplishments never to be attained in England. Even in the
midst of growing uneasiness Emma was flattered by those letters, for he
wrote not as to the ignorant, unthinking girl whom she felt herself
daily with Greville, but rather as to the “phylosopher” she fondly hoped
to make herself. Was it the Emma of Up Park and of a still darker past
who could receive such letters as this from the great Hamilton, the
celebrated Ambassador? She felt it a great, an amazing promotion.

“The whole art is, really, to live all the _days_ of our life: and not
with anxious care disturb the sweetest hour that life affords—which is
the present. Admire the Creator, and all His works to us
incomprehensible: and do all the good you can upon earth, and take the
chance of eternity without dismay.”

She was charmed with this easy good-humoured rationalism. It fell in
with her own to perfection. To be allowed to enjoy the present was all
she ever asked. To admire a Creator who was responsible for her own
embellishments and had made them the means of attracting Greville was
pleasant so long as He asked no more, and to be charitable was always a
delight to her good nature if she had the chance of going beyond the
halfpenny limit which Greville had enjoined. She wrote back to the
genial preacher with a docile enthusiasm which delighted him. Greville
wrote also, every word considered.

    “Emma is very grateful for your remembrance. Her picture shall
    be sent by the first ship. She certainly is much improved since
    she has been with me. She has none of the bad habits which
    giddiness and inexperience encouraged. I am sure she is attached
    to me or she would not have refused the offers which I know to
    have been great, and such is her spirit that on the least slight
    or expression of my being tired or burdened by her, I am sure
    she would not only give up the connexion but would not accept a
    farthing for future assistance.”

Greville knew while he wrote these words that they were not wholly true.
Emma had endured many slights and reproofs and had mounted upon no
outraged dignity. As to help, in her forlorn condition, passionately
attached to himself, she would accept it if only for the sake of the
bond it implied. But it _might_ be so, it read well, and would impress
Hamilton.

It decidedly impressed Hamilton. A good-natured cynic, knowing his world
thoroughly, he began to believe that here was the blue rose of all
sexual dreams. He had not the faintest objection to Emma’s past if it
had not degraded her mind, and if he could trust the close observer
Greville and his own knowledge it certainly had not done that. And in
her company he would be absolutely secure because every kindness must be
received as a benefit and it was impossible that the question of
marriage should ever arise and disappoint her.

He wrote more and more eagerly to Greville and the shabby plot developed
apace; but it never occurred to either that it was shabby. On the
contrary, the girl was so ignorant of the world and so helpless as
regards her future that to plot her a happy and secure one was a
kindness to deserve eternal gratitude. If, incidentally, it suited both
of them also, why, so much the better!

Greville at last, however, felt the time had come to be outspoken for it
was clearly his rôle to lead the way and Sir William was warily silent.
He spoke at full length of the happiness of the experiment he had made,
which must now, alas! come to an end through poverty, and added:

“If you did not choose a wife, I wish the tea-maker of Edgware Row was
yours. I do not know how to part with what I am not tired with. I do not
know how to go on, and I give her every merit of prudence and moderation
and affection. She shall never want. I should not write to you thus if I
did not think _you_ seemed as partial as I am to her. She would not hear
at once of any change, and from no one that was not liked by her. I
think I could secure her near £100 a year. With parting with part of my
_virtu_ I can secure it to her. If I could go on I would never make this
arrangement. And as she is too young and handsome to retire into a
convent or the country, and is honourable and honest and can be trusted,
after reconciling myself to the necessity I consider where she could be
happy. I know you thought me jealous of your attention to her. Judge
then, as you know my satisfaction in looking on a modern piece of
_virtu_, if I do not think you a second self.”

Sir William, reading this by a window looking on the blue bay glittering
in Italian sunshine, smiled to himself, a smile of mixed ingredients. He
saw most of Greville’s reasons for this affair as plainly as the writer
himself. He was perfectly aware of the position opened up for Greville
if he should remarry. He was perfectly clear as to the advantages to
Greville of a connection which would entangle his feet in roses and keep
him away from the prosaic paths of married security and a possible and
inconvenient family. But all this appeared to him entirely natural, even
commendable. How could Charles be expected to reason otherwise? And for
his own part he had no temptations to marriage. At his age he had no
desire to set up a family which he could never hope to see grow up.
There would be much more to spend on the collection of _virtu_ and other
amusements if he had not a wife to support in the state of an
ambassador. Emma was the most fascinating woman he had ever beheld, and
for Greville he had the habit of an affection which, if not warm, was
sincere.

He wrote a letter of guarded encouragement and asked if there were any
definite plan to be put before him.

The one question which might have cried a halt had never occurred to his
mind. Was Greville tired of her, and if so why? No, that point had been
too carefully guarded. He really sympathized with poor Charles’
self-sacrifice. He wrote with extreme caution a half assent, and left
the formal proposal to Greville. The letter came speedily in answer.

    “If you could form a plan by which you could have a trial, and
    could invite her and tell her I ought not to leave England and
    state it as a kindness to me if she would accept your invitation
    she would go with pleasure. And if you could write an answer to
    this and inclose a letter to her I could manage it and either by
    land, by the coach to Geneva, and from thence by _Vetturino_
    forward her, or else by sea. After a month and absent from me
    she would consider the whole more calmly. If there was in the
    world a person she loved so well as yourself after me, I could
    not arrange with so much _sang-froid_ and I am sure I would not
    let her go to you if any risque of the usual coquetry of the sex
    were likely to give uneasiness.”

This was accepted.

So it was settled, and now remained Emma, the essential part of the
delightful plan. He was not in the least alarmed. A charming settlement
in charming rooms in charming Naples and under the august protection of
the British Ambassador—Good God! what a fortune, what promotion for a
woman in Emma’s position! She might thank her stars for such immense
good luck. And her mother with her—her old cook of a mother to be
honoured in only a lesser degree! Indeed, Greville, sitting in the
solitude of the parlour of Edgware Row, could not but contrast his own
action very handsomely with the code of most of the men he knew with
regard to mistresses who had ceased to please. A letter for her was
enclosed, as he had desired. He heard her running down the stair and
called her in.

She hurried, obedient, and pulled her low stool to his feet.

“Do you know, Greville, I was just longing to come in. I’ve had a letter
about the little Emma. Oh, such a darling she’s getting. She’s very well
and the mistress says the hair is growing so pretty on her forehead, and
her nose isn’t near so snub as when I saw her. Her eyes are real blue
and very pretty, and the mistress says she don’t speak near so
countrified as she did. Won’t it be lovely if she grows up a pretty
girl? Greville, don’t you think you would like to see her in the
holidays? Don’t you? She’s so sensible!”

She turned herself against him like a caressing animal, softly winding
about him until she got her head on his shoulder, and from that vantage
point looked up.

If anything had been wanting to harden Greville it was that reference,
that pretty plea. It foreshadowed most of what he had come to dread, and
besides appeared a most unwarrantable piece of selfishness. He need
indeed have very little consideration for any one who could show so
little for him! And at a moment when he was exerting every power in her
favour. But nothing of this escaped him.

“I have a letter from Pliny, Emma, and here’s one for you. He has
thought of the most agreeable, the most useful plan for us, and how to
be sufficiently grateful I am sure I don’t know. I’ll tell you first and
then you shall read your letter.”

She subsided onto her stool, that she might look up with breathless
interest.

“Do you remember when he was here how you said you longed to see
Naples?”

“Don’t I! There’s hardly a day but I’ve thought of it!”

“Then here’s your invitation!” he held it, triumphant, just above her
reach, smiling himself with pleasure.

“Oh, Greville—no! I can’t believe it!”

“Yes; and offers you the finest singing and drawing lessons in the
world. I did not judge it wise to make you too vain, but he said before
he left, ‘Emma’s voice, if cultivated, may put her in the front rank of
European singers.’”

She clasped her hands in speechless joy, looking at him with eyes so
beautiful, so charged with rapture, that he kissed her on the spot.
Indeed she deserved it. She was falling admirably into his plan.

“The _angel_!” says Emma, relaxing at that into vocal bliss. “Was there
ever such a man? Oh, Greville, I love him, I love him with my very
soul!”

“You ought, you must, if gratitude has any meaning for you.”

“And when do we go?”

“We—No, you are aware I must remain here for some months. It would be a
poor return to my uncle if I were to neglect his Milford interests
because he is so amazingly generous to you. Why, he invites your mother
to go with you. If you were a Duchess there could not be more
consideration.”

“But what is anything, _anything_ to me if you are not there? Do you
_choose_ to leave me?”

Doubt clouded the beams of her eyes, the sparkle was quenched. He felt
instinctively she was searching for hidden meanings. The woman who has
not the security of the wife must be ever and always on guard. He forgot
that; why should she not wholly trust him? He found it irritating, and
drew slightly away.

“It is not a question of choosing. I can only say Sir William’s
suggestion comes like a sunburst on my difficulties. I have told you
often of late that I cannot meet my expenses—”

“And haven’t I tried to save and—”

“Certainly, but a few pence saved on the butcher’s bill or the
milliner’s don’t touch the difficulty. The house, the living—”

“But I would live in a hovel; I would eat bread and water—”

“I wouldn’t,” said he, with perfect decision. “And no more would you
when it came to the point. Pray, Emma, be sensible. Don’t you remember
that though I have complained of my expenses for some considerable time
you have never ceased to hint and even to press for my having little
Emma as an additional burden? I own I felt it inconsiderate.”

She was all humility and repentance; kissed his hands, would have kissed
his feet if permitted.

“Wicked selfish girl I am! But it was only heedlessness, indeed. I have
quite come into your way of thinking that she’s best at school. She
can’t miss what she never has, and they’ll train her better than me.
But, oh, Greville, I’ll write and tell Pliny I can’t leave you. No, I’ll
tell you, I’ll take a servant’s place to be near you, or let me be
_your_ servant and I won’t envy the Queen on her throne. That way I’ll
cost you nothing, but I’ll see you and that’s my sunshine.”

The words poured out, imploring, pleading, as if for dear life. He saw
his way in that last speech.

“Emma, if you would but reflect. Has it not occurred to you that if you
could become a great European singer and give me the opportunity to
improve my position, money would no longer be our difficulty? Why will
you not be calm and consider? Is all my teaching thrown away?”

It is cold fact that Greville’s conscience no more pinched him in
holding out that rainbow hope than in any other part of the proceedings.
If a child won’t take a necessary pill you smother it in jam and mislead
it for its own good. That was the point of view from which he could not
waver.

He had touched her there. Visionary, quick, eager. She saw herself a
dispenser of riches, surrounding Greville with luxuries and splendours.

“You mean—Greville, _could_ I? Does Pliny and you believe I could make
my fortune? Then why, why, can’t I sing here and make our home together?
I could sing at Vauxhall at Ranelagh. Why—that night—!” But his slight
frown warned her that episode must be forgotten.

“There are two excellent reasons against that plan. In the first place
it would be madness to appear in public before you are sufficiently
trained. In the next, I cannot be in London. I am obliged to be at least
six months in Scotland and Milford, and it is impossible _you_ should be
with me.” He reckoned on his fingers and added:

“Six months; that would bring us to November, if you left in March.
Should you dislike a winter in Italy with me?”

The inflammable nature of her! Instantly the outlook changed. A winter
in Italy with Greville! Oh, joy of joys! But would he really come?
Swear? She did not want Pliny. She wanted to be alone with her mother
and work night and day at her singing until she could lavish riches on
their joint life.

“I trust my Emma will see that to offend Sir William would be a very
poor return to me!” he said gravely.

“So it would indeed,” cries she, swinging round instantly. “No; I will
be a most dutiful niece to him. Trust me, Greville. But sure you’re not
angry because I can’t bear to leave my dearest? How could I be otherwise
and have a heart? Oh, tell me the time will be long to you too, and then
I’ll go rejoicing!”

“How like a woman!” says Greville, with his small fine smile. “Directly
you are sure I shall be perfectly miserable you can be happy. Well, I am
thankful my affection is not so selfish. I shall hope you will enjoy
every moment in Naples, and will improve every moment also, not only in
singing but in good sense. And now had you not better read your letter?”

She opened it with listless fingers. That last speech chilled her. Of
course he was right—why should she wish him to be miserable? And
yet—one might understand lovers living apart in hopeless longing, but
sure if they began to enjoy themselves with others they ceased to be
lovers. That was the dilemma.

“It’s very kind. He’s a kind, good man!”—laying it on Greville’s knee.
“He says he knows of rooms for mother and me near his house. But
somehow—well, I wish he hadn’t thought of it. No, forgive me, Greville.
I know I shall be wiser when I’ve had time to think. I shall have time
to think in six months away from my own, own Greville. Six months! It
seems like forever and ever.”

She rose and went heavily out of the room. It was Greville’s perfect
equanimity that wounded her most deeply. It would have served his turn
better if he had lamented a hard necessity with her. He saw that
directly, and when they met again, took her in his arms and said, with
deep-toned tenderness:

“And can my Emma who has been all but my wife for near on four years
suppose that _I_ have no regrets? Because I endeavour to support herself
and me with courage does she think that my own heart is not torn?”

She caught him wildly round the neck.

“Oh, Greville, if you suffer, if you love me I can do anything, go
anywhere! Could I delay one moment if it helps you! Oh, my dear,
November will not be long in coming round and I will work so hard that
the minutes will fly, and all will be for my Greville. Give me a pen
now, and I’ll write to Pliny and tell him I’ll go and I’ll never forget
all his goodness to you. For what am I? All he does is for you and no
wonder.”

She sat down and wrote eagerly—acceptance. It was done. Weeks had yet
to go by, even months, for letters took long to come and go between
Italy and England. But it was done and he could begin the gradual
severance of all the threads of their interwoven lives.

The little house was put up for sale. Mrs. Cadogan in dire dismay at the
prospect of “foreigneering” as she called it, but still faithful to
Emma, was bid to prepare herself for voyaging on strange seas.

Next to the parting with Greville what most wrung Emma’s feeling was the
good-bye to Romney. She could never forget his pale fixed look the day
she broke it to him, with far more than her usual consideration and
care.

“How long will it be?” he asked after a pause that seemed endless.

“Why, only till November, Mr. Romney, that’s all. You’ll be so busy the
time will go quick. And I’ll write, indeed I will.”

“Only till November? But didn’t you say Greville joins you there? He
won’t leave Italy at once. Emma, you deceive me. Tell me the truth. The
truth is the best kindness.”

“When he comes out, I don’t know what he’ll choose to do, Mr. Romney.
Perhaps it might be a year. But then—”

“It might be ten, twenty!” he cried, with bitter anger. “It might be my
sun setting and all my life in darkness once more. You have never known
what you are to me. Other men love you and covet your beautiful face,
your beautiful body, and they can get no more from you than that. But
you were my life and my soul—not as they understand it, but more, far
more. You were not a woman; you were Beauty. You taught me my art. When
you came divine things came with you that you never even guessed
yourself. And now you’re going, and everything goes with you. Never in
this world will you give any man what you’ve given me, for he can’t take
it. Oh, my heart, my heart! I should have known it could not last. What
good thing has ever lasted for me!”

She tried to console him but he pushed her away. Romney had moods when
all the world seemed a conspiracy of oppression. At last, she got his
hand and then little by little wooed him into a greater patience and
more tenderness of farewell.

“For you must not come again before you go. Can’t you see it breaks me?”
he said, regarding her with hollow eyes of misery. Then slowly:

“And what is the good of a hasty minute. No, no, this is the last, the
last!”

He put his hand over his face as if the last farewell had been uttered.

She declared she would not have it so and soon would be returning to him
again, more beautiful, more helpful; and so talked until the inexorable
clock hand warned her that Greville would be waiting, and then rose to
go, afraid as one who has committed a crime.

The grief on his face reflected itself in her own, for she too had her
burden to bear. She burst into sobs.

“Oh, Mr. Romney, I’m frightened. I don’t want to go. Oh, what, what will
it bring to me? I’m losing Greville. I’m losing you. Oh, comfort me or I
shall die with terror.”

That pulled him into manliness. He steadied and furbished up a pale
smile and held himself together until he had calmed her a little. So
they parted, she clinging to his hand to the last, and then he stooped
and kissed her cheek, and holding the door open saw her go with stooped
head and eyes that did not dare to seek him again, while his followed
her until the last flutter of her dress was gone round the corner. And
then he went back and shut himself in with solitude.

And Greville, too, had his blow a few days before she started. For Sir
William wrote to say that on consideration he had allotted a suite of
rooms in the Palazzo Sessa to Emma and her mother. They were to be the
guests of the Embassy! Greville was frantic with fear and anger. Had the
time not been so near, he would have broken up the arrangement
altogether sooner than run such a risk. Emma in Sir William’s home—her
caressing ways forever about him—not put away in a corner like a crime,
but openly acknowledged! Good God, the folly of old men! A madder, more
improper arrangement was never suggested. His whole being was unnerved.
She would marry some gay young diplomatist, for in the Embassy it would
be impossible to keep her away from the society of the many men who were
perpetually about, and who could resist such beauty under such auspices?
Sir William would be left unguarded to all the matrimonial assaults he
dreaded. While, as to Emma, it would turn her head once and for all and
make her absolutely insupportable. He genuinely regretted that he had
ever entered upon the plan at all; a plan so kindly meant both for Emma
and his uncle. He was deeply injured.

He wrote instantly to Hamilton. He warned Emma that she must protest
against such a _faux pas_ directly she arrived, but, when all was said
and done, she would be there almost as soon as the letter, and was far
too sunk in grief to consider anything but the separation from Greville.
He could make no impression on her with it. She clung to him and fed her
eyes on his face, and heard not his words, but the beloved voice that
uttered them. What did Sir William’s plans matter to her?

And the last Greville saw was that fair face, dumb with sorrow, wild and
white, looking at him, suffering, suffering, as the distance widened
between them, and the past was past.

He waved a spotless cambric handkerchief. “Poor girl! Poor Emma!” he
said compassionately, and then, “If I had guessed that Hamilton would be
such a fool—” He was seriously alarmed, indeed.




                               CHAPTER X
                          THE GREAT ADVENTURE


SPRING comes slowly in England; winter entrenched and relaxing his
dominion inch by inch, fighting as he goes with bitter blasts of snowy
winds, sharp rains, and cruel seas beating on iron coasts.

Emma had always half loved, half dreaded the spring. Her nature had the
glow of ripening suns and mellow harvests, light and warmth shone from
her eyes. And this was the climate she needed also for the expansion of
every gift and grace. Cold winds froze her loveliness. Cold faces
chilled her blood. It is certain that in Greville’s temperature, which
often fell to zero and never rose above temperate, she could not have
blossomed and fruited as she was to do in the South and under adoring
eyes. She half loved, half feared him, and believing in her ignorance
and dark experience that fear is a necessary part of love had conformed
painfully to his strange inverted austerity; and knowing no life outside
the small restrictions of Edgware Row dreaded to leave it with the
feelings of a child lost in crowded streets. For she was one of those
women in whom memory is ill developed and lost in the interests of the
present. Sixteen years old when she came to Greville, the recollection
of her life at Up Park, of Willett-Payne the faithless sailor, of the
darker shadows of London, had long since faded away into happy
forgetfulness in the atmosphere of ease and comfort which gradually came
to appear the reward of unmerited sufferings. That dawning bliss
vanquished all the shadows of the past until they grew dream-like and
scarcely ever disturbed her and when they did could be repelled with
indifference. They had been; they had ceased to be; and certainly had
left no mark, she thought, except indeed little Emma, and even her
origin had grown vague and inconsiderable in the child-mother’s eyes.
She existed, a charming blue-eyed baby; what need was there to remember
more?

And now this easy, half pagan, half material Emma was transplanted to
one of the most voluptuously enervating climates of all the wide
world—a place where all English standards and values seemed harsh,
unreasonable, Puritanical; where Greville’s squeamish maxims of
propriety were absurd and life flung its passions to the surface much as
Etna and Vesuvius pour forth their lava; where the grapes so soon again
ripen to vintage and the earth repairs her wrong with swift and more
luxuriant blossom. What strange or evil impulses would be released in
her nature?

But of all that future she guessed nothing and no up-rooted plant with
wounded fibres quivering in cold air could be more drooping and fearful
than Emma when she reached the Palazzo Sessa under Gavin Hamilton’s
escort and with her mother almost as frightened as herself. Gavin had
done his best to awaken her interest in the new sights they passed
through and the deepening warmth and sunshine as they journeyed south,
but in vain. She could scarcely speak. She sat, eating little, dull,
heavy, with great unseeing eyes fixed on some inward sight of grief and
Gavin, amazed at the small response from a temperament which he had
known so vivid, was inclined to think the experiment was likely to fail.

“Master Charles will have her back on his hands in three months if it
goes on,” he thought. “Hamilton will never endure it if she sits hunched
up like this and makes no exertion to please him. Calypso doesn’t appear
in the least inclined to console herself, and if I know anything of
Hamilton he will very soon weary of the task. Besides, there is always
the respectable Mrs. Dickenson.”

There was indeed!—Sir William’s niece who had acted as hostess at the
Embassy since the death of Lady Hamilton. What, what would be her
respectable feelings at the irruption of this surprising stranger, and
which would conquer, respectability or delight? Delight had certainly
the stronger backing in Naples, but yet Gavin could not in his heart do
otherwise than accord the final victory to respectability. Sir William
was English, all said and done, and must know the girl unworthy of any
real sacrifice. He could not himself take her seriously.

But perhaps Gavin knew much less both of Emma and Hamilton than he
supposed. For one thing, he under-valued her devotion to Greville. Much
of the time when she sat staring dully at the passing show, she was
really thinking how she could best forward his interests with his uncle
that their reunion might be hastened. At her passionate entreaty he had
now named October instead of November, and all her thoughts centred
about the autumn. It was selfish, of course, after a fashion, for she
was always in the foreground of her own picture, but it was really
Greville round whom every idea revolved.

And in his turn Sir William had more tenderness and understanding for
her than Gavin or any of his friends. He was thoroughly prepared to find
her lonely and unhappy and to endure it until the emptiness was filled
with the new joys. He made this very clear in the anxious letter he
wrote to Greville a day or two before her arrival. He knew, he said,
what must be expected:

“However, I will do as well as I can, and hobble in and out of this
pleasant scrape as decently as I can. You may be assured I will comfort
her for the loss of you as well as I am able, but I know that I shall
have at times many tears to wipe from those charming eyes.”

It was her birthday when the long journey was finished and the imposing
Palazzo, about to become her home, loomed before her. No, loomed is the
wrong word for the white, light brilliance rising beside a blue sea of
dipping sparkles and splendours. In England, in April, the daffodils
would be blowing in cold showers, the leaves would be tiny on the hedges
about Paddington Green. Here summer blazed in what seemed perennial
beauty and even her wearied eyes lifted in amazement at a world as new
as heaven.

Sir William resolved to meet her in his own house, and this for two
reasons. He knew Emma’s sensibility, as he called it, and feared some
public outburst which should attract attention very unwelcome in their
position. Also, he believed that the sight of the preparations made for
her would be the first step to her liking, the first assault on the
memory of Greville. That could not begin too soon, and he must see it.

Accordingly the visitors, who included Gavin Hamilton, were received at
the great entry by the majordomo with what appeared to her an endless
train of men and women servants, eager to receive and do homage to those
whom the Ambassador delighted to honour.

Her first impulse was something very like terror as she stood in the
great sun-dimmed Palazzo with vast chambers stretching away in endless
glimpses on either hand. The whole of the Edgware Row house might have
been stowed away in the long high-ceiled hall where she stood; a hackney
coach might have been driven up the wide shallow stairs. A regiment of
soldiers could have been accommodated in the mysterious rooms that
spread away to right, to left, above, below. Oh, for the little parlour
with Greville’s dear figure in sight, and her mother calling from the
kitchen and the friendly faces of baker and milkman arriving on their
morning rounds, and the little smiling Molly Dring with her carefully
tutored “Madam, breakfast waits.” The flashing dark eyes and quick
gestures bewildered her horribly, and Mrs. Cadogan was half stupefied
beside her; and Gavin Hamilton had been spirited away to some distant
apartment of his own; and it was her birthday, her miserable
twenty-first birthday, a lost stranger in a foreign land!

A girl called Teresa curtseys before her. Will the Eccellenza ascend to
her suite? And she follows, dumb with fear, up those alarming stairs,
giving her arm to her mother who stumbles up beside her—two mere
English village folk in an Italian palace and as much at home there as
cattle.

A door opens, a curtain is raised. Light, warm golden sunlight, softest
air, rushes to meet them from wide windows framing the perfect sea,
sweet islands swimming on its bosom and, pillaring the sky, a mountain
with a hint of terror in the banner of smoke above it, drowsing to-day
in bluest vapours.

But the rooms!—beautiful with a perfection she cannot as yet
comprehend. Every detail of luxury planned for her service by one of the
most cultivated tastes in Europe. Has a magician waved his wand and will
it all dissolve like a dream when she wakes in the morning in that large
cool bedroom with its blue hangings, great mirrors to reflect triumphant
beauty, and marble, marble everywhere and whispering corridors and doors
that dwarf the entrant?

She is to bathe in a Roman marble bath after the long journey, and this
strangely beautiful bathroom (the first she has seen) adjoins La Signora
Madre’s—for to that imposing title has poor Mrs. Cadogan attained! And
His Excellency is away on business but will return before long.

And Emma, with a faint thrill of returning life, bathes in luxuriously
warmed water, and rises fresh as a swan new-laved, and braids the
wonderful hair and beholds—Lord! what a sight!—hanging in a vast
closet dresses of exquisite fineness; “muslin loose to tye with a sash
for the hot weather, made like the turkey dresses, the sleeves tyed in
foulds with ribbon and trimmed with lace.” Such lace, too! Fine as
cobwebs and floriated with exquisite stitchery. Even the ribbons were
not forgotten, nor the sashes, the very blue that turned her eyes
violet, the faint rose that matched her own roses, the delicate Parma
violet that she chose on days when her eyes must match the mauve hat
which Greville gave her the birthday before this. Oh, goodness and
kindness unparalleled! But how had he known her height, her waist? Ah,
that was Greville! He—he had written, so that nothing might be wanting.
It was always his goodness. He had devised this Paradise for her that
she might not be forlorn while he—her dear lonely Greville—must be
hard at work in Scotland and Wales, retrenching, saving for their happy
meeting. Then what could she do but her utmost to reward the kind Sir
William for having fallen into Greville’s views? No, she would not cry.
She would show that she too had courage and could endure for his sake as
Greville was enduring for hers. She dashed the fresh cold water against
her tired eyes until her cheeks bloomed again. She tied her favourite
blue ribbon through the matchless auburn hair at which the servants had
stared in a delighted surprise that made itself felt. She boldly chose
the foamiest dress of all, and a long sash of softest silken blue, and
when Teresa knocked at the door, instead of hiding her head ashamed and
vanquished she bade her enter in good stout English, and stood to have
her sash tied on, and the cloudy folds of muslin shaken out, and then
posed radiant before the mirror prepared to go forth and conquer in
Greville’s cause.

La Signora Madre was put safely to bed, too bewildered for any refuge
but the laced pillows, and terrified even of those. A village
blacksmith’s wife and come to this! What it is to be the mother of a
beauty! A black-browed Giulia held her in awe and arrested her
temptation to cling to Emma and beseech to be taken home on the earliest
opportunity, and at last she sank into a wearied sleep which carried her
back on the swifter wings of dream to the little kitchen in Edgware Row.

Emma went out into the spacious room where the casements commanded one
of the rememberable views of Europe—sea and land bathing in glory that
uplifted earth to heaven and made them one, blue Capri beyond her, the
noble curve of the coast from Sorrento onward.

And this was the world, and this was life for the rich and great; and
she herself a part of it. Oh, if he had been there her soul would have
escaped into the radiance like a bird floating in serene joy on deeps of
azure air, half sleeping, half waking in a sunny ecstasy.

That mood passed and she looked down and marvelled at the gaily
chattering streets crowded with many-coloured people in dresses that
reminded her of a masquerade once seen at Vauxhall. Could those women be
living their actual life in brilliant short bodices bright with gold,
and full skirts black-banded with velvet that showed smart ankles and
white stockings? No, surely. The conductor would raise his stick and the
band strike up and away they would all go with a “Tra la la,” and
linking hands and dancing feet to the strain of a merry measure. The
drop scene suggested it—the sea. Vesuvius. Yes, and the men matched the
women, as noisy and gay, as absurdly brilliant in ribbons and splashes
of colour.

She was amusing herself idly with all this, and thinking it the
strangest birthday that had ever befallen any girl, when there came a
soft little tap at the door; a friendly, hesitating tap. She turned and,
catching her breath, halted a second, irresolute, and then ran to the
door, the white soft muslin billowing out about her like a blossoming
flower. It opened almost timidly as she came, and a very well-known
voice said through the opening, “Emma, child! May I come in?”

It opened wide and Sir William stood on the threshold, then closed it
quietly after him. One instant she stood, doubting the manner of
reception, turning her head half away from him with an indescribable
feeling. Did instinct whisper a warning? If so, it was silent next
minute, and she sprang to him all gratitude and affection.

“Dear, dear Sir William, I’ve been waiting, longing for you to come that
the poor Emma might thank you for all this wonderful goodness. Don’t I
know it isn’t for my sake but for Greville’s, and don’t I love you the
more for that! Oh, if I must be away from him where could I wish to be
but in your house and sharing your fatherly goodness? My more than
father, I thank you with all my heart and soul.”

And with a daring that surprised herself she put up her face and timidly
offered a niecely kiss.

If Sir William winced at the “fatherly” he did not show it nor belie the
ascription. Holding her hand he led her to a chair and took another
beside her, and drew the talk dexterously away from moving subjects.

And there on the right was Posilippo. Was it not a dream of beauty? And
turn this way: Villa Reale; that is the Royal Palace where the King and
Queen live—the Queen, daughter to the great Empress Maria Theresa. And
see how we are guarded: Uovo and Nuovo, the great fort-dragons to
protect the Sleeping Beauty, Naples! And that is San Elmo beyond. Yes,
and Emma shall be taken in our own boat to enjoy the shining city from
the shining sea. Will she enjoy it? Will she be content and happy?

“I will, I will indeed!” cries Emma stoutly, and straight-way bursts
into tears.

“For it’s my birthday,” she sobs, “and I’m very low away from him. Oh,
Sir William, he would always stay at home that day and smile on me, and
be so good. Oh, to think that _this_ day I should be so far from him. I
don’t see as how I can live till October, for October it must be, if not
September. My birthday! and no word from him.”

She looked up terrified, drowned in tears, lest she should have done
some harm to Greville with these lamentations—and the rudeness too,
when so much trouble had been taken for her!

“Forgive me!” she said, panting still with sobs, and leaning
instinctively towards him for support and help.

“Forgive you, my dear Emma, when you yourself know the bond between your
Greville and me! Could I respect you as I do if you could leave him
without a regret? But your birthday is not forgotten, never shall be
while you grace my roof. Look here!”

He dried the tears with the little cobweb of a handkerchief on her knee,
and put a wet curl tenderly back behind her ear; even stooped and kissed
the soft wet lashes as if she had been a child.

“Look now, do you see anything in the room that doesn’t belong to it;
that isn’t furniture, that isn’t ornament, that isn’t beautiful in
itself, but may hold something charming for all that? Look well and be
sure!”

She brightened like a doubtful moon in clouds, and looked about her
still holding his hand. She was a little young daughter now with a kind
indulgent father. That was what she felt herself in every fibre, and
played the part to admiration. A box, long and shallow, with the fold of
a silk curtain lying across it as if partly to hide it. That was the
intruder. She pointed with the disengaged hand as if it were part of a
charming game and drew him towards it.

“I can’t wait! What is it?” she said in a whisper.

“Guess!” he said in a whisper that matched hers. It was as if the two
were baffling, tantalizing each other.

“You shan’t see until you pay me!”

An answering sparkle dipped in her eyes.

“Oh, but, Sir William, you don’t approve paying until I’ve seen it’s
worth payment? No, I will, I _must_ see first!”

“Will you swear to be honest and pay afterwards?”

“Not if I don’t like it. Will you swear I shall?”

“I swear on my honour. I’ll throw it out of window if you don’t, and ask
for nothing.”

It was a delightful moment. She looked up at the tall handsome man, his
hair scarcely grey beneath the powder, the star of the Order of the Bath
shining on his left breast, for he had been at the Palace, and it was
absolute enchantment to find she could thus hold and charm him. Walking
almost on tiptoe she approached the box.

The strings had been undone, the cover was ready for the lifting. She
raised it and only a thin sheet of paper lay between her and a
revelation. Looking archly back at him she lifted that also, and then
clasped her hands with a little scream of delight.

A gown—a beautiful, a wonderful gown, such as she had never seen in all
her life—a gown of ivory-white satin, pure as the petals of a water
lily, and painted by hand with garlands and groups of flowers most
cunningly disposed to set off girlish curves and flushes. A wonderful
piece of art in her eyes, a wonderful enhancement to beautifullest
beauty, a sheer delight.

“It is Indian work!” said Sir William, and was not even heard, she so
gloated on it, delicately raising a fold, touching the ruffled sleeve
with awe and fairy fingers that scarcely brushed it. He repeated his
words.

“Indian!” she said at last in a low breathless voice, and again was
silent. Then turned with her soul in her eyes.

“I choke when I would thank you. What words can I find? Oh, you good
kind friend! Indeed I will love and serve you all my days. And this is
for Greville’s sake, for what have I ever done or could do to deserve
it? Pay you—indeed I will, and gladly!”

And flung her arms about his neck and bestowed a little shower of hearty
kisses on his elderly cheek. Sweet it might be and was, but scarcely
complimentary in the deeper sense, for Greville was in every kiss. Still
it was a good beginning and all that could be expected. And then she
must know the price and quake when she was reluctantly told twenty-five
guineas, which, indeed, was a high price for that time and place. And
then the talk slid into glowing descriptions of the future and how
Galluci, the world-famed singing-master, was to come next day to begin
tuition, and how he had promised the King—the King, mark you!—that he
should see her Attitudes when a few more had been planned for which Sir
William had ideas which he was burning to discuss with her. And how—

But this can be imagined, and how the warm cordiality, the generous
kindness and admiration touched her heart. If one considers it, this
Emma had been rifled but never wooed. Willett-Payne, Fetherstonehaugh,
had plundered her and with the roughness of freebooters. She had flung
herself on Greville’s half-reluctant compassion and such wooing as had
passed between them was on her aide, and coldly accepted often enough.
He was Olympian, remote, at best. But this great gentleman wooed her; at
first, she believed, as a frightened child is wooed by a kind guardian,
but certainly with passionate admiration of charms which if Greville had
noticed he never dwelt on; and every grace responded as snow-drenched
flowers lift their heads to the sun. He had the gift, practised on so
many women, to make her feel herself enchanting, and the more she felt
it the more she charmed and captured him.

But, for all, when he went away to send a word to England of her coming,
even with her eyes on the white satin gown, that kind voice in her ear,
she sat and sighed for the lost lover and would have given all for one
sight of his cold smile, one touch of his reluctant hand.




                               CHAPTER XI
                          ADVANCE AND RETREAT


SIR WILLIAM for the first time in his life fell in love. Her smile
curled about his heart, her maidenly advances and retreats enchanted
him. In vain Greville, not daring to write his indignation at the
Embassy arrangement, shot little shafts of caution and warning. They
were unheeded. Lalage, sweetly laughing, sweetly speaking, was beside
him and letters were trifles. He persuaded himself that Greville had
never understood her and that he did; mere conjectures then might be put
smilingly aside.

In careful French, lest it should by any chance come under her prying
eyes, Greville wrote to the rash man, as he considered him:

“If one admits the tone of virtue without its reality one is simply
duped, and I naturally see everything in its true light as I have always
done.” Sir William thought, but did not retort, that Greville’s utter
lack of idealism entirely unfitted him for judging an inspiration like
Emma’s; that—oh, fallacy of lovers!—the body might be debauched and
dragged through the mire and the white maiden soul sit smiling secure in
its fastness. That is, of course, in _Emma’s_ case, hers only. At such a
possibility for any other woman he himself would have laughed with
Greville. His replies evaded those points that were full of real anxiety
as to her happiness. Did Greville believe her faithful heart could ever
change from its devotion to him? What could be done to wean her from
that hopeless passion? It was clear there could be no hope for any other
man unless it disappeared, and he was sure that the shock when she knew
the facts would be dreadful. Greville, horrified at her being so
seriously taken, wrote back under the difficulty that his praises of
Emma now recoiled on himself. If he had dwelt on her absence of
coquetry, her freedom from giddiness, her strong good sense, how was he
now to convey the caution that she was merely a woman of easy virtue and
the more dangerous because of her extraordinary attractions? He felt
himself involved in contradictions, but did his best. And first he
reassured Sir William.

“I shall hope to manage all to our satisfaction, for I so long foresaw
that a moment of separation must arrive that I never kept the connexion
but on a footing of perfect liberty to her. Its commencement was not of
my seeking. In her heart she cannot reproach me of having acted
otherwise than a kind attentive friend. But you have now rendered it
possible for her to be respected and comfortable and, if she has not
talked herself out of the true view of her situation, she will retain
the protection and affection of us both (!). For after all, consider
what a charming creature she would have been if she had been blessed
with the advantage of an early education, and had it not been spoilt by
the indulgence of every caprice! I never was irritated by her momentary
passions, and yet it is true that when her pride is hurt by neglect or
anxiety for the future, the frequent repetition of her passion balances
the beauty of her smiles. Knowing all this, infinite have been my pains
to make her respect herself and I had always proposed to remain her
friend altho’ the connexion ceased. If Mrs. Wells had quarrell’d with
Admiral Keppell she would never have been respected as she now is.”

Mrs. Wells hovered as so fair a dream before the eyes of Greville’s
morality that one might well desire the acquaintance of that paragon.
But since she has not survived in history save as a possible example to
Emma, and Emma herself made history, it may be granted that the two
ladies had perhaps very little in common and that Emma could not have
been a Wells with all her efforts. She did, at one time, try her best
and failed. It is also an odd reflection that Greville himself, the
great, the highly descended, remains in human memory solely because Emma
once dwelt in his house in Edgware Row on her way to more celestial
spheres. So incredible to Greville-minds are the impish freaks and
caprices of that Muse of History whom the besotted ancients treated with
as much veneration as if she had been a sensible woman!

Sir William put this clever letter smilingly aside, as I have said.
Greville’s motives and contradictions were perfectly clear to him, and
the more confirmed his belief that Emma was a soul unspoilt. He
accordingly proceeded to do his best to spoil her. Every day was devoted
to her interest and amusement.

“You cannot add perfume to a rose, but you can add lustre to a diamond
by cutting, polishing, setting, and my diamond [‘Greville’s!’ she
interjected] shall have every chance to glitter with the best.” So he
told her, and catching the interjection, added, “And now when Greville
comes he shall stare in amazement to see the improvement in what most
men would think could not be improved.” That last sentence was
sufficient for her. She outran Sir William in her diligence from that
moment.

Galluci came every morning and the house was like a nest of larks for
two hours. The wondering Neapolitan noblemen who visited him were
convinced Sir William’s new mistress, for such was her reputation, must
be an established prima donna and looked through the journals daily to
see what star had shot from its firmament to temporary obscurity for his
sweet sake. Indeed, her progress confounded Sir William and Galluci who
were both of them inclined to set nature at nought and lean wholly on
art. The eighteenth century, like Greville, was unkind to nature. Even a
simple shepherdess must be hooped and garlanded and become a Phyllis or
a Chloe before she could be agreeable in eyes polite.

The dancing-master followed Galluci daily, and Sir William would look
into the room to see Emma at her dancing and deportment. Daily she
gained in suave dignity. She could enter a room with the best in a
fortnight, make the whole range of curtseys from the deep reverential
which one day might be useful at court, to the slight supercilious
warranted to kill impertinence on the spot. She walked stately in the
minuet—but why catalogue? Because it was Emma, she must needs learn the
country dances; indeed, she picked these up from the maids, and very
soon excelled in the tarantella and other such joys of the people,
rendering them with an added grace which made Sir William’s guests
marvel why they had never thought them worth notice before.

Sir William’s guests? What had Emma, or her like, to do with them? Much.
Mrs. Dickenson was vanquished. From her charming house in Naples whence
she had issued to do the honours when Sir William received, she heard of
the new arrival, and in no uncertain terms. Her history, losing nothing
in the telling, was spread before Mrs. Dickenson’s chaste eyes and
almost scorched them. It had been carefully concealed from the ladies of
the family that Greville had made a home in Edgware Row and though no
one expected him to be more austere than other young men of the period
it was felt that he offered an example which seniors and juniors would
alike do well to follow. There was therefore nothing to connect him with
the idea of Emma, though, as regards her past, Gavin Hamilton,
delicately threshed with feminine flail and fan in Naples, yielded some
precious grains of information which sprang up green and full-eared in
Neapolitan conversations, and did not even know that he had done it.

Sir William—the astute, the worldly wise!—was he deceived or
deceiving? Mrs. Dickenson bided her time. It came inevitably with the
expected request that she should take the head of his table on the
occasion of a large dinner party with music to follow.

Music! Mrs. Dickenson pricked up her ears. Those lark-like trillings had
already reached them in rumour. She answered that it would be best if
Sir William would call and discuss the arrangements with her.

Unthinking man, he went! Conscious of innocence and of a heart—but that
at least should not concern Mrs. Dickenson in his opinion—he went.

She received him with the duty of a niece who had grown up more or less
in his shadow and who could appreciate the dignity of an ambassador in
the family, and made the suitable beginning in enquiries after his
health and the news by mail, and finishing with the weather launched
discreetly into the subject of the dinner.

“I thank you very sincerely, my dear uncle, for your wish that I should
do the honours as usual. Nothing could give me more pleasure.”

“Then it is settled, my dear,” he said briskly, “the hour is as usual.
The guests—”

“But—” said Mrs. Dickenson with emphasis, and that awful syllable, the
grave of so many reputations, fell chill on his ear. He rose hurriedly.

“I see you have a cold. Indeed, I would not be inconsiderate. I know you
have often helped me at great inconvenience to yourself.”

“And would again and evermore,” said Mrs. Dickenson in her deep
contralto. “But—” Again a pause.

“Pray speak plainly. What is it?”

His face was a mask of genial innocence, calm as if all the Christian
virtues shed their benignant sunshine through his eyes. It was Mrs.
Dickenson who looked uncomfortably conscious.

“Well, my dear uncle, I will perform a duty which I find most painful.
How can I with any self-respect enter the Palazzo Sessa when I am told
there is a young girl there unconnected with the family, extremely young
and beautiful, with the manners of an actress, and who has been
presented only to your _male_ friends? Pray view my position candidly.”

The hot sun beat on the jalousies and filtered through the blinds. The
room was, however, dim and cool with shade and the rich perfume of
flowers, and there was no external cause for the little elderly flush
which coloured Sir William’s cheeks. She observed it and drew her own
conclusions. However, he did not hesitate, though his countenance fell.

“You and I should be used to the virulent gossip of Naples by this time.
There is nothing to hide, and you are at liberty to hear the
circumstances and judge for yourself. Mrs. Hart is a young woman of the
utmost merit and talents. She is in poor circumstances and has been
recommended to me by a friend that she may study singing with Galluci
and fit herself for the operatic stage. It could not be done to the same
advantage in England. You know that as well as I. And therefore I
extended hospitality to her and to her mother; a most worthy, excellent
woman. Of course I knew that my motives would be misrepresented. When is
it ever otherwise? But you are now acquainted with all the facts, and in
case you have a very natural delicacy in asking the question, I will
tell you once and for all, there is nothing whatever between me and Mrs.
Hart.”

“What are her antecedents?” asked Mrs. Dickenson, coldly overlooking
this assurance. Sir William’s mental vision swiftly embraced Up Park,
Edgware Row, and a few more memories before he answered firmly:

“A quiet respectable home in London with her mother. This is the chance
of her life. But come and judge yourself of her uncommon talents. With
your love of music I am certain they will delight you, and your
countenance would be invaluable for her.”

There was a pause while Mrs. Dickenson marshalled her words and ideas.

“My dear uncle, it is impossible you should realize the scandal that is
going about. If you did, how can I doubt that you would make some other
arrangement for the young woman? In a dissolute court like this you will
hear no objection from the Royalties or nobility, but there are worthy
English people here who will undoubtedly report the matter in London—”

“Damn them and their officiousness!”

“—and it may have very unpleasant results,” proceeded Mrs. Dickenson
calmly, “so that I feel I cannot, in view of my daughters, in any way
encourage what may be very harmful to you and all the family. I don’t
speak of higher motives but they exist in all their fulness.”

Perhaps there is nothing more irritating to the average man than a
highly moral attack descending like a flail on a harmless pleasure.
Whatever were his hopes for the future the situation was still innocent,
and it was nothing less than maddening to have Emma at home, bathed in
tears and writing passionate love letters to Greville, and Mrs.
Dickenson here upbraiding him with illicit relations which would have
filled Emma with as much disgust as herself. He lost his temper between
the pair of them.

“Commend me to the really pure-minded female for licentious
suggestions,” he said, rising with sarcastic decision. “I had thought
better of your good sense. If an elderly man cannot show compassion to a
girl young enough to be his granddaughter without these unpleasant
insinuations he had better not lay himself open to such attacks. I wish
you a very good morning.”

Mrs. Dickenson started towards him with a cry. The word “marriage” was
tolling in her ear, and she the sole family representative to arrest
this fatal folly! Oh, if Greville, the cool, the worldly-wise, the
influential with his uncle, were but here! That was her thought.

“Oh, uncle, did you but know what is flying about, and how it may be
represented in England! You despise me as a woman. Consult Greville, I
entreat you, before it goes farther. You know his calm good sense. Write
by the mail that leaves to-day. He will tell you—”

“Damn Greville!” cries Sir William, now exasperated in the highest
degree. “And damn all who interfere in matters which do not concern them
and never will! I free you, madam, henceforward from the unpleasant duty
of assisting my hospitalities, and have nothing further to beg of you
but that our meetings may be as infrequent as you please.”

He stalked out and left Mrs. Dickenson weeping on the settee. The poor
lady had but done her duty, and here was the reward.

He went straight up to Emma’s apartments, where she sat, industriously
sketching by the great window overlooking the bay. He stood a moment by
the door and watched her, and though she was conscious of it she never
stirred but went quietly on with her work.

All in her favorite white, young, lovely, sweet, she looked like a wood
nymph compared with Mrs. Dickenson’s stout and unattractive British
maternity. She rose before him florid and suspicious, the stiff silk
gown crackling about her stout person, a cap all loops and frills and
ribbon, with rolled curls to front her unattractive coiffure. A thievish
sunbeam had made its way through a half-closed jalousie and was playing
hide and seek in the auburn gold of Emma’s curls. It touched the
mother-of-pearl of a little ear, listening, though he never guessed it,
for the quick breath due to such industrious loveliness. It rushed on
him then—Why not make Emma the lady of the Palazzo, the dispenser of
his hospitalities? Why not as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb? They
could not say worse than they were saying; then let them talk as they
would and he would go his own way. Where in the broad earth could he
find such another hostess? The charm of his parties would echo through
Italy, and London was far away. These thoughts and many more all
crystallizing into resolution stirred in him as he stood and watched
that sunbeam touch the warm rose of her cheek and quiver about her lips.
Suddenly she turned, smiled, and said sweetly:

“I felt you were there. It’s like sunshine in the room when you come.
Tell me if this is any better?”

She held up the sketching block, and he sat down beside her commenting
and commending. Then, resolutely:

“Emma, I have a dinner party to-night. I wish you to appear.”

“Me? Oh, Sir William!” she looked at him in dismay. “Ladies? But I’ve
never dined with ladies in my life, and I don’t know how to act.”

“You can’t do anything but gracefully. There are only two Italian
ladies, from Rome. The rest are men. Twelve in all. I wish you to
receive them.”

“But I can’t talk Italian yet. Though I’m getting on.”

“Perhaps that may be all the better for a beginning and till you grow
more accustomed. I’ll make your excuses. And you shall sing after
dinner.”

Her face went pale and red.

“Sir William, you believe in me too much. I shall disgrace you.”

“Not you. You’ll rise to the occasion and cover us with glory. You have
the courage of six. Now that’s fixed. Come down simply, quietly,
naturally, and I won’t say look pretty, because you can’t help that. But
be just the simple natural Emma, and all will go well.”

“But, what shall I wear? Oh, I want to be beautiful to do you credit.”

As it was not possible for Sir William to explain that that was the high
road to discredit for him, he fell in with her view and after awhile the
white satin was chosen. She had never worn it yet, and that was in
itself an event to move her. At the end, she hesitated a little.

“Is Mrs. Dickenson ill?” she asked simply, for she knew from him that
his real niece had always done the honours. Sir William’s lips
tightened.

“Not at all. But I choose that in future my dear Emma shall be hostess
at the Palazzo Sessa.”

No more was said. She could not tell whether she were more frightened or
glad. Perhaps he meant it as a part of the great campaign of improvement
now proceeding. She was to be given the manners of a lady in high
society in addition to all else. Wonderful, wonderful! For what dim
illustrious future was all this preparation? Surely, surely he must have
her marriage to Greville in view. Nothing else could possibly explain
it. Then what effort or gratitude could be too much for such amazing
generosity? When he was gone she caught up her pen and wrote to
Greville. All centred about that.

    “I try to appear as cheerful before Sir William as I can, but I
    am sure to cry the moment I think of you. For I feel more and
    more unhappy at being separated from you, and if my fatal ruin
    depends on seeing you, I will and _must_ at the end of the
    summer. For to live without you is impossible. I love you to
    that degree that at this time there is not a hardship upon earth
    either of poverty, cold, death, or even to walk barefooted to
    Scotland to see you but what I would undergo. Therefore my dear,
    dear Greville, if you do love me, for my sake, try all you can
    to come here as soon as possible. You have a true friend in Sir
    William and he will be happy to see you. I find it is not either
    a fine horse or a fine coach or a pack of servants or plays or
    operas can make me happy. It is _you_ that has it in your power
    either to make me very happy or very miserable.”

She paused here, recalled a something in Sir William’s eyes that had
startled her. To him she could not say a word, not a word. She might,
_must_ be utterly mistaken, and doing him a frightful injustice. But to
Greville she could open her whole heart. With desperate courage she
snatched up the pen again.

    “I respect Sir William. I have a great regard for him, as the
    uncle and friend of you, and he loves me, Greville. But he can
    never be anything nearer to me than your uncle and my sincere
    friend. He never can be my lover. You do not know how good Sir
    William is to me. He is doing everything he can to make me
    happy.”

She sealed and bound that letter with extraordinary care. Little could
she think or guess that it would be returned after careful consideration
from Greville for Sir William’s consideration also. Her motive in
writing it was perfectly clear. Greville must know and rejoice in the
thought that neither temptation, pleasures, or love could shake her
perfect fidelity to him. He had come to her rescue in need, they had
lived together in wifely submission and love on her side for years. She
considered herself his wife in truth and hoped that the future would
make her so in the world’s eyes. For that she was toiling now; that he
might never have cause to blush for her bearing and accomplishments.
Poor Emma! it was perhaps natural that she should put the shameful past
out of sight. It had not hurt her, she thought, or Sir William could not
respect her as he did. And if she could forget it, why not Greville?
Only he must be certain that she was true as the needle to the North
even if the incredible were to happen and Sir William to tempt her.

She pushed the sealed letter aside, then sent it to the mail and sat
awhile thinking. Sir William saw her enter the room before his guests
arrived, divinely lovely in the shimmering white satin and a little rope
of knotted seed pearls about her round throat. With all the delight of a
proud proprietor he watched the eyes of the men who entered and were
ceremoniously presented. He saw the two olive-skinned Italian ladies
thrown into the shade by that immaculate fairness. Her manners were the
perfection of a young girl’s modesty, and her ignorance of Italian kept
her in a graceful quiet of smiles and shyness. It was in the evening her
triumph came when Galluci appeared with his music and Emma placed
herself beside him too shy even for apologies and excuses. She sang
Paisiello brilliantly. She fired off ascending rockets of silver stars
that fluttered to earth again as silvery. The applause of the
inflammable Italians was frantic, and her pretty bow and smile completed
the picture.

Directly the two ladies rose she attended them to the door and vanished
discreetly with them.

“Perfection!” said Sir William in his heart. “Thank goodness I acted as
I did to-day.”

But what would Greville have said? It was Emma who asked that question
in her own heart. Sir William evaded it in his.




                              CHAPTER XII
                             THE BEGINNING


THAT dinner party was the opening of her triumph. The guests spread her
fame abroad, her beauty, modesty, fresh spontaneous charm, and above
all, her exquisite singing. Not that the modesty was likely to blind the
keen-sighted, laughing Neapolitans to her ambiguous position in the
Ambassador’s house. Sir William’s amatory character was far too well
established, but nothing could have mattered less in that land of easy
pleasure, and neither she nor Sir William were thought a whit the worse
in a city where every attractive woman had at least one _cavaliere
servente_, in addition to a husband in attendance on some other lady.
The Italian ladies made polite overtures. The Queen herself, as
easy-moralled as any of them, expressed her curiosity and interest in
the new enchantress at the Embassy, and though no definite Royal
approach could possibly be made, Sir William knew that he had a
successor in the Queen’s intimacy and there would be no anger, no
unpleasant representations made through diplomatic channels to the
English Court, where Queen Charlotte, who took an extremely Puritan view
of such amusements, might very well prejudice him with his royal foster
brother, King George.

Sir William trod on roses. His sails were filled by softest breezes from
Parthenope. He had never been so happy in his life. All that could
interest and delight him was centred in his own house, and all Naples
was on tiptoe to see and envy him the possession of this new and
miraculous beauty. Her history was, of course, unknown. Any vulgarities
of English speech were drowned in her musical broken Italian, of which,
indeed, she gathered up the fragments every day, for her quick
intelligence told her that it must be the foundation stone of her
success. Every day found her chattering Italian, writing it, reading at
the neighbouring convent of Santa Romita. A whole romance, not
unflavoured with irony, might be written of Emma among the nuns, but she
never had the perception of incongruity and was absolutely at home
there. Daily she practised her music, and laboured at her Attitudes, for
Sir William foresaw a great future for them in her personal triumph. The
homely Signora Madre was provided with a wardrobe of sober elegance and
figured at the Embassy entertainments also, a respectable foil to her
brilliant daughter. Fortunately ignorance of Italian closed her mouth on
the vulgarisms and provincialisms that would have been Greville’s
despair in London if he had not kept the kitchen door resolutely closed
when he was in the house, and seated on a sofa with kindly smiles and
nods to all the presentations, her elderly comeliness did quite as well
as could be expected and lent a false air of chaperonage to the
proceedings. Emma’s good-nature would never fail her mother. She
rejoiced to see her in such magnificence, felt that her own life must
have really been praiseworthy to have achieved it and could have bathed
in a sea of bliss but that—Greville never wrote.

She wrote more passionately by every mail, terribly uneasy, and for more
reasons than one. Greville was hers, hers; neither fate nor any other
woman should rob her of him. Habit, gratitude, every emotion bad and
good in her emotional being, held her to him. She would not, could not
lose him. And then also, all this glittering new life had been planned
by him, based on his care for her. Suppose he did not come in the
autumn, might it not all fall and vanish like the fairy gold which
changes into withered leaves?

“Greville, my dear Greville, wright some comfort to me. Only remember
your promise of October.”

That was her cry. Until October—for she clung to October now—was
safely come and gone she could feel no security.

While all was well on the surface there were signs and omens. The
English women who lived in Naples were holding sternly aloof,
influenced, very naturally, by Mrs. Dickenson. That frightened her when
she had a moment to think. Mrs. Dickenson would write to the family, the
mighty Hamiltons, and who could tell that a detachment might not raid
Naples and carry off either Sir William or herself to respectability or
ignominy if Greville were not there to protect her? Without him it could
not last. Sensible and foolish fears alike pressed her, and Greville the
only cure.

It is true that the men were ready enough to join in the delightful
gaieties of the charming young hostess, and as to the Neapolitans and
the visitors of every land, they flocked to the Palazzo Sessa, which so
far was reassuring. To be invited was the last touch of fashion in
Naples. Indeed, it was not surprising. Sir William had always been a
cosmopolitan host, with all the ease and gaiety of manner to win the
Southern heart, and she seconded him to a miracle. No one could resist
her sweet frank manners, the untutored kindliness of her beautiful eyes.
They did much mischief, whether willingly or unwillingly who shall say?

But triumph after triumph crowned her. Even the King—the dissipated
King, between whom and his Queen was no bond of fidelity on either
side—fixed his fickle fancy for a moment on Emma, lovely in the blue
hat she had entreated Greville to send her. Could she doubt
it?—especially on that evening when Hamilton took her to dine with a
gay party at his new Villa Emma at Posilippo; her own villa it might be
called since it carried her name. And lo, in the twinkling lights
outside and the golden moonlight, a boat creeps up to the casements,
shadowy, silent, and an ugly attractive face looks in. What! The King!
Hamilton springs to his feet. The King? Will he come in? No, it is time
to go. Half a dozen men rush to fetch Emma’s _cachemire_ and dispute as
to who shall put it about her shoulders, and as they leave the door and
emerge into the moonlight that spiritualizes her beauty with something
unearthly fine and fair, they find the royal boat drawn up beside the
Ambassador’s, and the “music” stationed in the bows strikes up a soft
serenade to the English beauty—“eyes of light, smile of dawn” and so
forth, a delightful flattery indeed. Royalty must be thanked. Sir
William delays the plunge of his oars, and she is presented to His
Majesty who bows, hand on heart, and laments that he cannot speak
English. Emma, trembling with awe and pleasure, utters a few words of
Italian—“Not so bad as might have been expected”—and the King receives
them as the music of the youngest of the angels, and again the French
horns salute the conquering smile, and the boats move off together,
keeping time with oars whence fall the dripping moonlight diamonds, and
so they drift softly back to Naples on a sea that is more of heaven than
of earth, and the King’s hand touching Emma’s as it rests on the
gunwale, speaks a language which she knows very well how to decipher.

A few days later she writes again to Greville:

“The king as eyes, he as a heart, and I have made an impression upon it.
But I told the prince [Dietrichstein] that Hamilton is my friend and she
belongs to his nephew. For all our friends know it.”

Loyalty thus expresses itself in grammar that will appal Greville on its
reception and yet give him a warning that beauty he neglected can yet
enthral others; and those others not to be lightly spoken of even by a
Greville! There was a note of sombre triumph in that sentence which he
understood. He sent the letter at once to Hamilton. Everything which
could show Emma alive to the attentions of other men would convince
Hamilton of the truth of Greville’s statement that the semblance of
virtue without its reality is utterly untrustworthy. He was the more
eager about this because there was a tone of consideration, of—could it
be?—_respect_ for the girl in Hamilton’s letters which frightened him.
Mrs. Dickenson’s report, also, was not calming.

Meanwhile, in the warm languor of the south and with this heavy anxiety
upon her, she nagged a little, visibly. She was exercising her brain as
it had never been exercised in her life; knowledge, experience,
accomplishments, all crowding in upon her. She who had been a despised
nobody, subsisting on Greville’s cold favours, had now not only Sir
William’s scarcely hidden adoration, but the King perpetually in her
train, eager for a word, a look; letters, gifts, offers, rained in upon
her. For a while she swam exultingly on the blue wave of success; then,
physically wearied, it threatened to drown her. How could she wear her
laughing mask always—she, so little to the manner born, and with this
gnawing anxiety at her heart?

She sat one morning by the great casement looking out into the soft
haze, all opalescent and pearl grey that veiled Posilippo and made Capri
dim as a dream of heaven. The sea was breathless—still: its bosom
scarcely heaved. A warm enervating languor enfolded the world and
imposed its own quiet. She had just finished a letter to Greville and
sent it off, for she wrote generally in the early morning, and now her
drawing lay before her and her listless hand on that, wearied with
pleasure and anxiety. For still Greville had not written—no, not a
word, and it was now July. The hat she asked for had come, but as an
order might be fulfilled by a stranger. Was he ill, estranged, mad? For
he had not written even to Hamilton, as she was told, yet scarcely could
believe. So she wrote again:

    “My ever dearest Greville, I am now onely writing to beg you for
    God’s sake to send me one letter if it is onely a farewell. Sure
    I have deserved this for the sake of the love you once had for
    me. Think, Greville, of our former connexion and don’t despise
    me. I have not used you ill in any one thing. I have been from
    you going of six months. So pray let me beg of you, my much
    loved Greville, only one line from your dear, dear hands. For if
    you knew the misery I feel, oh, your heart would not be intirely
    shut up against me for I love you with the truest affection.
    Don’t let anybody sett you against me. Greville, you will never
    meet with anybody that has a truer affection for you than I
    have. As soon as I know your determination I will take my own
    measures. If I don’t hear from you and that you are coming I
    shall be in England at Christmass at farthest. I will see you
    once more for the last time. Oh, my heart is entirely broke.
    Then for God’s sake, my ever dear Greville, do write me some
    comfort. I have a language-master, a singing-master, musick,
    etc., but what is it for? If it was to amuse you I should be
    happy. I am poor, helpless and forlorn.”

She had paused there. Could it be he feared that her new experiences had
spoilt her, made her expensive and covetous? She snatched her pen again;
she implored him to let her come, to give her only a “guiney” a week for
all expenses and she would be satisfied so long as she could be with
him, and so sent the letter off, and relaxed with a long sigh.

The door, the soft tap she knew so well, and Sir William entering,
healthy and well preserved after his morning swim in the tepid water;
eager to see his flower, grown so lovely now and still so unattainable
that he was compelled to assure himself every now and then she was still
there, even as a miser counts his gold.

“And how does my Emma this morning? Tired after last night’s excitement?
Prince Dietrichstein told me two things which will interest you. First,
that in Vienna where, as you know, all the great singers come and go, he
had never heard anything that moved him so much as your singing of ‘Per
pieta’; second, that the Queen has heard so much of your beauty and
talents that she means to be in the gardens on Thursday to study you for
herself. What does my little Emma say to those two pieces of news?”

He put a caressing hand on the hand with its fine cameo ring which lay
on the drawing. She sighed softly and did not draw it away.

“Wonderful. What don’t I owe to you and Greville’s goodness! Are you
satisfied with me, my kind, kind friend?”

It would not be Emma if she did not put forth every lure to win every
heart, Greville or no Greville. She swayed towards him as naturally as a
blossoming bough on a breeze.

“I’m tired; languid. I suppose it’s the warm damp heat,” she said, “and,
oh, Sir William, the anxiety. Why, why doesn’t he write? You and he have
many friends in England. Do they say anything of him?”

“Emma, my dear, why will you ask what pains me to tell and you to hear?
I entreat you to keep silence on that point. You ask if I am satisfied.
I am satisfied even to adoration. To have you with me, to surround you
with all in my power to give you, is to me a heaven on earth.”

“You are good, you are dear. Then why shall I not love you?” she
murmured, pressing closer against his side. “But Greville? I beseech you
tell me what you hear of him. My mind would be more settled. I could
bear it better. Tell me the truth.” Her breath caressed him.

He hesitated, then resolved.

“Emma, is mine the hand that ought to wound you? You force it on me. But
since you will have it, I hear of his attentions to a young lady of
fortune in London.”

Dead silence. Only a trembling against his side. He tried to see her
face but could not, for it was buried upon his shoulder. She had turned
into his arms to meet the blow. That touched him to delight. A minute
went by slowly. Then, in a choked whisper:

“But he is coming in October. If I see him again—”

“Coming in October?” Sir William’s voice had the ring of genuine
astonishment. “He has never said so to me. There was some light talk in
April of his coming out later, but I never heard a word more. Do you
know that for certain? Has he said so?”

Dead silence again. Then, at long last, a muttered “No.”

“Then what do you build on, my child?”

“Nothing.” The one word had the ring of despair. The air was hot and
heavy, the hidden sun burning behind leaden clouds that promised
thunder. They sat silent, he holding her and seeing nothing but her
bowed bright head.

“Emma,” he said tenderly, “I think you deceive yourself about Greville.
Not that I blame him, nor, I am sure, will you. He is a poor man,
heavily dipped. What is he to do; how can he support you?”

“I would live on a crust with him!” the muffled voice interrupted.

“Yes. But men don’t accept such sacrifices from women. And if he
marries—have you thought of that? And have you thought, dearest angel,
my most lovely, that if he does you are not alone? That there is a man
who loves you, who would give all he has for your smiles, who will
cherish you in his bosom while life is left to him! Emma, Emma!”

She drew herself slowly away with her hands against his breast and
stared at him in mute horror and amazement. More moved than he could
have believed possible, he caught her repelling hands and held them
clasped in his.

“My adored Emma, I have grown to love you more passionately and tenderly
than ever Greville did or can. You are the sunshine of my life and here
I swear never to fail or forsake you. Can you not forget Greville’s
coldness and his faithless heart and trust yourself to me—me only?”

Her eyes never wavered, her hands never shook. They stiffened, as if to
hold him at arm’s length—a lovely pose of fear and grief, her head
thrown back, as if half swooning.

“And your kindness, your marvellous goodness, was all for this!” she
said at last. “What shall I say? Oh, miserable, unhappy Emma! Oh, cruel
Greville! Leave me, I entreat you, or I shall go mad.”

She hid her face in her arms and flung herself on her knees before her
chair as if to bury herself from the sight of man, shuddering in every
limb. He tried to lift her face towards his but could not. Instinct
warned him that he had better leave her to herself for a while, and
after hovering over her vainly, almost inarticulate with anxiety, he
went very softly out of the room. She lay a few minutes, then sprang up
and dashed off a few words to Greville.

    “I will come to England. I have had a conversation with Sir
    William this morning that has made me mad. He speaks—no, I do
    not know what to make of it! But Greville, my dear Greville,
    pray, for God’s sake, wright to me and come to me for Sir
    William shall not be anything to me but your friend.”

She sent that also. It would go with the other, and then, her head
aching, her whole being in disorder, for she was a spendthrift of her
emotions down the whole range from triumph to despair, she sent word to
Sir William that she could not appear all day.

He had turned the matter carefully over in a swiftly dividing mind and,
after long reflection, knowing women in general and Emma in particular,
sent her a message to say that the world-famous German poet, Goethe—he
who was as great a thinker as a poet; he, the impassioned lover, the
final arbiter of taste in the artistic glories of Greece and Rome; and
himself an Olympian in face and form—had promised to spend the evening
at the Embassy that he might meet the fairest of modern antiques, the
living statue, Sir William’s _protégée_.

    “And while I entreat you, my Emma, to rest if rest is vital to
    your looks and health, the disappointment will be irreparable if
    the only man in the world fit to sing your charms in immortal
    verse is so unhappy as not to see them. But do as you think
    best. What desire have I but that?”

She read the note thoughtfully, and sat up on the long settee in her
bedroom where she had thrown herself down to mourn in a thin white
wrapper. She rose and looked at her face in the long glass which had
made so many charming and changing reflections of her various moods.
Certainly it would be cruel to such a great man to allow him to come all
the way from the North to Italy in search of beauty, and then to
disappoint him of seeing the loveliest thing in Naples. Her Attitudes
recurred to her mind. It would be interesting to note the effect on such
a man. He would leave some record of it; he would write—yes, after all,
her headache was not so very bad. And her sorrow did not live on warming
and cherishing. It was a part of herself that could never, never change
no matter how splendid or flattering her surroundings. And Greville—he
should hear what one of the greatest men in the world thought of her.
Why should she shut herself up and freeze the warm sunny world to which
her smiles meant so much? There would not be thunder, the sun was coming
out, and was shining a little in her heart also.

She wrote a line to Sir William.

    “My head is verey, verey bad, but I am sensible I was hasty. I
    will come down this evening. I will obey your wish, my kind
    friend. Will you prepare the large chest rimmed with gold, in
    case you would wish me to perform for this gentleman? And if you
    will have your viola ready to accompany me I will sing if my
    head permits.”

Sir William smiled, a smile of mingled amusement and triumph. He took a
leisure half hour to write to Greville and detail what he thought proper
of the scene, adding that the time had come and Greville would now do
well to write and give Emma his final orders as to their separation and
her attitude towards himself. The triumph, the excitement, the soft
languor of the Neapolitan summer, were all aiding his steadfast purpose.

As he wrote, Emma, in her luxurious room, was driving Teresa almost wild
with her requisitions and restlessness. The thunder had cleared away but
Vesuvius was terribly in eruption that night; wild forked flames burning
to the zenith. Teresa could not think of the white robe or the flower
for the hair. She dropped on her knees by the window to invoke her
saints—“O San Antonio mio! O San Filippo!”—and Emma, half frantic with
excitement, fell on her knees beside her, laughing, mocking: “O Santa
Loola mia; O Santa Loola! Get up, Teresa! The gentlemen will be here.
What does it matter? Don’t be a fool!” And Teresa, wide-eyed with
horror, “Does the Eccellenza doubt the holy saints?”

“No, but you will do quite as well if you pray to my Santa Loola! She’s
as good as any of them! Try!”

It was as if she were drunk; drunk with excitement that strange night.
Teresa half shrank away, and Emma pulled her to her knees again, and
then sprang up.

“My hair. It’s getting late. Do it in a great knot at the back like the
marble goddess in the museum. Come, be quick! The mountain can’t hurt
you here! I was only joking, Teresina mia. It’s all nonsense. Come
quick, we must hurry!”

She dressed with burning eyes and cheeks, listening to the voice in her
heart which assured her that Sir William was hers, wholly hers, let
Greville do what he would. Ah, she had a weapon now! She could threaten
him with undreamed of possibilities. She stood before the glass again,
and poor Teresa said, timidly:

“The Eccellenza is beautiful as a divine creature. Does not God favour
you more than us?”

“No, why should He?” says Emma, trying the set of an auburn curl a
little more veiling the white brow.

“O God! the Eccellenza is very ungrateful! He has been so good as to
make your face the same as the Blessed Virgin’s and you don’t esteem it
a favour?”

“Why, did you ever see the Virgin?” Emma was mocking again.

“Oh, yes. You are like every picture there is of her, and you know the
people at Ischia fell down on their knees to you and begged you to grant
them favours in her name. Oh, how beautiful you are!”

Emma told this little scene, laughing, to Sir William when she went
down. The volcano, the girl’s admiration, Sir William’s eyes full of
meanings that his tongue dared not as yet express; all, all, intoxicated
her. She looked and moved a goddess that night, a supremely beautiful
woman.

What the Immortal thought he has left on record, and who will may read
it in his “Italienische Reise.” Even Emma’s excitement was stilled with
a kind of awe when he entered the great room of the Palazzo Sessa where
Sir William stood to greet him with a deference far more real and deep
than he accorded to the King of the Two Sicilies. The poet appeared in a
black satin coat and knee-breeches slightly embroidered with steel—a
grave and dignified dress suited to his austere beauty—and attended
like a monarch by his court, the two well-known artists Tischbein and
Andreas. He took his stand by one of the long windows with the Vesuvius
glow lighting up the sky behind him, and Emma was immediately presented,
followed by the other guests, to all of whom he bowed in silence and in
stiff German fashion from the waist. Instinctively the occasion was felt
to be a great one, and all were a little awed at first. Emma drew back
to watch the great man on whose verdict she felt much depended for her
ambitions, for well she knew Sir William’s opinion of his judgment in
matters of art and beauty.

That he himself was beautiful none could doubt. That alone would have
distinguished him in any company. She said afterwards to Sir William
that he fulfilled completely her ideal of a king, which had perhaps
suffered somewhat at the hands of Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies. Sift or
separate his features she could not; they impressed and influenced her
as the serene mellowing glow of a calm sunset sky irradiates all beneath
it. Yet he should be described, for never in all her strange life before
or after was she within the sphere of such serene intellectual
magnificence, and, ignorant girl as she was, it impressed her like great
organ music or the silent majesty of still gods met in the silence of
the Palazzo Filangieri; or, even more, like the calm of the moonlighted
sea from the Marina, where all the stars reflect themselves and are lost
in unsounded deeps.

His face was nobly shaped, nobly carried on the column of a fine throat,
his mouth firm, yet cut with sensuous beauty of curved lips and chin.
His eyes were dominating; keen, calm, and clear. They turned
meditatively on Emma herself until she shrank a little from a look which
pierced deeper than she could afford to endure, and then he saw her
perturbation and, smiling with distant kindness, turned to Sir William
again and said something in French which she could not decipher. It
reassured her, but she whispered apart to the Ambassador that she could
never, never perform before so great a man.

“What are kings and princes to him,” she said impulsively, “when he
looks as if everything that ever was or will be is just nothing to him.
He’s like the statues in the museum and if they talked he would listen,
but what does he care what little people like us say? I should feel like
a doll.”

And she was right; that mouth was made for the large utterance of the
early gods, those ears to catch it.

Yet, after dinner, she was persuaded, commanded. The other guests
crowded about her. Sir William himself put in his word. And still she
refused. Then, coming forward slowly, the Olympian bowed before her, Sir
William acting as interpreter.

“Gracious lady, you have given me so much already that it emboldens me
to ask for more, since generosity is its own tax. You have afforded me
the sight of such beauty as I believed dead with the glories of Greece
and Rome. Now I entreat you to revive the poses of their glyptic art
that I may carry away from Italy the most beautiful memory of all.”

She could not have refused if she would. The only question in her mind
was whether she should soar to undreamed of triumphs or fail
ignominiously and for ever. For if the latter, never, never again would
she perform.

Let Goethe himself tell the sight which met his eyes.

“The Chevalier Hamilton so long resident here as English Ambassador, so
long, too, connoisseur and student of Art and Nature, has found their
counterpart and acme with exquisite delight in a lovely girl—English
and some twenty years of age. She is exceedingly beautiful and finely
made. She wears a Greek garb becoming her to perfection. She then merely
loosens her hair, takes a pair of shawls, and effects changes of
posture, moods, gestures, mien and appearance that really make one feel
as if one were in some dream. Here is visible, complete and bodied forth
in movements of surprising variety, all that so many artists have sought
in vain to fix and render. Successively standing, kneeling, seated,
reclining, grave, sad, sportive, teasing, abandoned, penitent, alluring,
threatening, agonized, one follows the other and grows out of it. She
knows how to choose and shift the simple folds of her single kerchief
for every expression and to adjust it into a hundred kinds of headgear.
Her elderly knight holds the torches for her and is absorbed in his
soul’s desire. In her he finds the charm of all antiques, the fair
profiles on Sicilian coins, the Apollo Belvedere himself. Early
to-morrow Tischbein paints her.”

Indeed, he was enraptured. He pleaded to see the lovely show again and
received her promise, for Emma knew that she had never so exceeded
herself, that she had caught fire at the sun and rained his glories as
well as her own on the startled audience. That was her art—her true
art, the deep, intense receptivity which Greville had aimed to express
and could not. Goethe saw deeper. Even that enchantment could not blind
his intensity of percipience. Wonderful, yes, he thought—but yet, was
she more than a fair picture, a lovely reflection, a living image? What
of soul was there behind it to live on when the sweet face was dust? Too
much to ask of a woman perhaps, but this one gave so much that always
one wanted, hoped for more. “Geistlos?” Was she? Even he could not tell,
and where Goethe was baffled the world must wonder in vain. Soulless?
Ah, who shall say?

The last time he saw her she stood in her Pompeian coffin—a long chest,
placed upright, and framed with bright gold. She was within it, a lovely
Death in bright robes undimmed by the dust of centuries, or so it
seemed. A strange fancy. Sir William had protested. Something in the
exhibition chilled him. Would she look like that when her eyes were
closed for ever and she as much a part of the past as the dead Pompeians
themselves? But she would have it, and so in the twilight she stood
there, still as death with dreaming lashes on quiet cheek, a faint
exquisite smile on locked lips, and hands hanging empty beside her.

There was dead silence at first when she dissolved again into motion.
The impression was too strong. A shadow filled the room and made its own
silence. Then she sprang from the tomb; roseate, smiling, expectant.

“It was not good, I could do it better another time, but I was so
frightened.”

That was the wrong note. It jarred on Goethe’s stretched nerves. It was
perhaps the reason why he felt her to be “geistlos.” She should have
disappeared quietly and have been seen no more that night. But though it
repelled him as an artist, as a man it warmed him, and turning to
Hamilton he echoed his own word.

“Perfection! She is a masterpiece of the Arch Artist”—and so it stands
recorded until art itself shall be forgotten.

That evening made Emma’s beauty and her Attitudes a matter of European
fame. Those words were repeated until they spread through the capitals
of the world. Even the English in Naples were forced to pride in their
amazing countrywoman, though they would have none of her individually.

Such artists as Lady Diana Beauclerck and Mrs. Damer came to Naples
simply to study her. The great Italian ladies began to make overtures.
“Morals, yes; but such an unusual case! Such talents! If Goethe had so
expressed himself, what person of any consequence could be left out of
such a refined, an artistic society!”

So the loud world goes on its way and licks the feet of its masters.




                              CHAPTER XIII
                              THE PROCESS


BUT while those letters were speeding to Greville, Sir William, not
unobservant that absence appeared to make the heart grow fonder,
resolved to try the same prescription on his own account.

A visit to Rome was desirable and necessary in diplomatic interests, and
a little diplomatic reflection might not be amiss for Emma. He had come
to be so necessary a part of her daily life that it would be as well she
should realize how much she owed to his presence—an experiment he would
not have ventured earlier but felt might be well essayed now. He had
proved on that celebrated evening that chaste indignation might be
surmounted by the wish to shine, and it emboldened him.

They met a day or two later in the beautiful boudoir he had lately
fitted for her with great mirrors entirely covering the wall opposite
the Chinese-fashion semi-circular window to reflect and repeat the
glorious sea and sky beyond. It might indeed have been a palace beneath
the sea for light and shimmer, and she delighted to watch the lovely
progress of the day from dawn to sunsetting and twilight and moonlight.
She had caught the moon and every star in her own chamber, she would
say, laughing.

“See; here is Venus!” pointing to her mirrors, “and I can swim along
that moon-path to heaven.”

It was a room sacred to their meetings. The written sheets of the first
part of his book on Etruscan urns lay on the table and Emma—Emma!—was
reading them with him and learning every day to be more and more his
companion.

Now he came in quietly, with a certain gravity, very different from his
usual delight in that morning entry.

“I have a piece of news for you, Emma. I am going away for some weeks.”

The pencil slipped from her fingers. She looked up startled.

“Away!”

“Yes. It is necessary, but even if it had not been necessary I should
have gone. I think you understand the reason very well.”

“You are angry with me?” The quick breath caught on the words.

“No. It is rather you who are angry with me.”

It faced her with a dilemma. She looked down, and her cheeks crimsoned.

“I read your silence very well,” he went on calmly. “Your heart is not
ungrateful but your modesty was alarmed. You consider yourself
Greville’s wife in all but name. Am I wrong?”

She moved her head slightly, but said nothing.

“Well, that matter is for you and Greville to settle, and since we both
have written, for I wrote and conclude you have done the same, we shall
soon know his mind. Meanwhile I wish to assure you that you have no
occasion for alarm. I shall not offend in that respect again. You are
perfectly safe.”

Terror seized her. What was there in Greville to count on? What would be
her fate if Sir William were offended beyond hope? How could she convey
to him that her prayer had really been, “O Lord, protect me, but do not
protect me too much!” How could she make him understand her doubts and
fears? Impossible! Therefore she took refuge in a quiet grief which must
touch and plead for her.

“You are angry with me,” she repeated sorrowfully, “and what can I say?
Oh, if you could but see the warm true affection in my heart you would
not be so cruel to your unhappy Emma. Once you said I was your friend—”

“You are my dear friend. I shall never call you otherwise.”

She turned with eyes swimming in sudden tears.

“Do you call me your dear friend? Ah, what a happy creature is your
Emma—me that had no friend, no protector, nobody that I could trust,
and now to be the friend, the Emma of Sir William Hamilton!”

He was literally obliged to look away from her. How otherwise could he
persist in his purpose of leaving her to the cruel reflection that she
had wounded him. And yet it was necessary that he should go. He knew it.
Still, he trifled with temptation.

“And yet, though you feel this, you were shocked at the thought of being
wholly mine, Emma; bound to me by the tenderest ties?”

She looked down and muttered the one word, “Greville.”

“Yes, you are right. That brings us back to where we started. We have
written to Greville. I shall go away and leave you to reflection which
will deeply affect us both. There is no more to be said at present.”

“Oh, don’t go!” It came like an involuntary cry. “Won’t you miss me?
Won’t you miss accompanying my songs with your viola; and how can I sing
if you are gone? And the book”—she laid her hand on the sheets—“and
the garden? If you go I will go nowhere until you come back. It’s all
nothing to me unless you’re here.”

He wanted to improve on that admission but held himself strongly back.

“My dear Emma, I have called you my friend. I wish this matter settled
with reason and good sense, and to that end we must separate a while
that we may both reflect. I have my thinking to do as well as you yours.
This pleasant delightful life has drifted us into a situation which may
hold its difficulties for me as well as for you if I am not careful. It
will really be best we should meet no more until you have heard from
Greville. Let us postpone any discussion until then.”

It terrified her, but what could she say? Her mind was a tossing sea.
She wished to keep them both—the one as a lover, the other as an
indulgent friend—and it looked most alarmingly as if neither could be
trained into the position she wished him to fill.

“May I write to you?” she faltered.

“Certainly. And pray write fully to Greville. Your mind and his will be
the easier for it. The position cannot be made too clear. Now, we will
not meet except in public until I return.”

He got himself out of the room somehow, out of range of those imploring
eyes. And yet what they implored she knew no more than he. And though he
took her to Sorrento where she was the hostess at an informal
entertainment, the centre of all thoughts and admiration, she could not
catch a single responsive look from his eyes. His private band was there
and accompanied her in her latest, most brilliant song. The applause was
deafening, but he was talking to my Lady Diana Beauclerck before it
ceased and she could not see a single motion of his hands to swell the
uproar. She sang again some of the Piedigrotta songs—redolent of the
country and the people—this time in costume and with her tambourine,
and yet could extract nothing but the placid smile of general
benevolence with which he regarded all the company. Her fears grew
steadily, and by the time he departed before she was up, she was on
tenter-hooks.

She went and shut herself that evening into the room of the mirrors and
did the serious thinking he recommended, with a little note of farewell
from him in her hand. He was hurt and she had hurt him. How far had she
hurt herself in doing it? Could it be possible that she had been
foolishly, madly mistaken in her course throughout; that if she had
written to Greville rather on her triumphs than her sorrows, he might
have valued her more highly? Men did not like perpetual moaning and
whining, and Greville of all men would not bear it. Could that be the
reason why he had not troubled to answer her letters? If so—oh, if she
could but recall the last two she had written! And as to Sir
William—had she not deafened and besieged him with her Greville
lamentations and was not that madness also? What could have possessed
her to weary them both with such folly? Surely the merest beginner
should have known better; and she—the beauty, the genius whom all her
world applauded, who could not only delight but fascinate every man who
looked into her eyes—_she_ to behave like a love-sick country girl!

She would write to Sir William—yes, but letters that should neither
lament nor weary him. She would write to Greville—yes, but it should be
a song of triumph. Not a minute would she lose! Sir William first. He
should find the letter waiting his arrival. What could she tell him he
did not know? The convent—that would amuse him. She would prattle on
paper as she talked when she drew up her stool beside his chair and told
him the day’s adventures. And first, she began with his health and
happiness and comfort, leaning on them, but not too strongly—no
sentiment—and then passed on.

    “I had hardly time to thank you for your kind letter of this
    morning as I was busy preparing for to go on my visit to the
    convent of Santa Romita and endead I am glad I went but
    to-morrow I dine with them in full assembly. I am quite charmed
    with Beatrice Acquaviva. Such is the name of the charming whoman
    I saw to-day. O Sir William, she is a pretty whoman! She is 29
    years old. She took the veil at 20 and does not repent to this
    day, though if I am a judge of physiognomy her eyes does not
    look like the eyes of a nun. They are always laughing and
    something in them vastly alluring, and I wonder the men of
    Naples woud suffer the onely pretty whoman who is realy pretty
    to be shut in a convent. But it is like the mean-spirited ill
    taste of the Neapolitans. I told her I wondered how she woud be
    lett to hide herself from the world, and I daresay thousands of
    tears was shed the day she deprived Naples of one of its
    greatest ornaments. She answered with a sigh, that endead
    numbers of tears was shed and once or twice her resolution was
    allmost shook. And since that time one of her sisters had
    followed her example. But I think Beatrice is charming and I
    realy feil for her an affection. Her eyes, Sir William, is I
    don’t know how to describe them. I stopt one hour with them and
    I had all the good things to eat and I promise you they don’t
    starve themselves, but their dress is very becoming, and she
    told me she was allowed to wear rings and mufs and any little
    thing she liked and endead she displayed to-day a great deal of
    finery, for she had four or five dimond rings on her fingers and
    seemed fond of her muff. She has excellent teeth and shows them
    for she is always laughing. She kissed my lips, cheeks and
    forehead and every moment exclaimed ‘Charming fine creature,’
    admired my dress, said I looked like an angel, for I was in
    clear white dimity and a blue sash. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘it would
    be worth while to live for such a one as you. Your good heart
    would melt at any trouble that befel me and partake of one’s
    greef or be equaly happy at one’s good fortune.’ In short I sat
    and listened to her and the tears stood in my eyes and I loved
    her at that moment. Did she not speak very pretty? But not one
    word of religion. There is sixty whomen and all well-looking but
    not like the fair Beatrice. ‘O Emma,’ she says to me, ‘they
    brought here the Viene minister’s wife but I did not like the
    looks of her at first. She was little, short, pinched face and I
    received her cooly. How different from you. We may read your
    heart in your countenance, your complexion, in short your figure
    and your features is rare, for you are like the marble statues I
    saw when I was in the world.’ I think she flattered me up but I
    was pleased.”

So was Sir William. He laughed to his heart’s content over this
effusion—Emma among the nuns! Certainly she would be a disintegrating
influence. He wrote back, encouraging her to go there as often as she
could, to go everywhere and send him these naïve descriptions—a calm,
friendly letter. Indeed, it ended, “Kindest regards to my dear friend
Emma, from,” etc. She wrote back that in his absence convent society was
the gayest she could endure—nothing where he could have been and was
not was pleasant without him. And then, “Do you call me your dear
friend? Oh, if I could express myself! If I had words to thank you that
I may not be choaked with meanings for which I can find no utterance.”

She found utterance, however, for many gay little descriptions, many
memories of the quiet happy evenings they had had, winged with music and
pleasant talk—evenings when her education was being carried on
delightfully, insensibly, by one of the most cultivated minds in Europe.
That, she knew, was his favourite pursuit now; the pleasure he would
choose in preference to any other. She remembered what he had told her
with such pride as the saying of his intimate friend, the great and
scientific Sir Joseph Banks: “I rejoice to hear she proceeds with
success in her improvement. Her beauty will, I hope, last as long as she
can wish; but her mind, once stored with instruction, will certainly
last as long as she stays this side of heaven.” Could it be wondered
that her head was a little giddy with such notices from such men? After
all, as she herself said: “I am a pretty woman and one cannot be
everything at once.”

Perhaps in any case the forcing process had been a little too rapid for
slow-footed common sense to keep up with it. The environment, too,
carried its own dangers. Not for nothing did Goethe note before quitting
those enchanted shores that “Naples is a paradise. Every one lives,
after his kind, intoxicated with self-forgetfulness. It is the same with
me. I scarcely recognize myself. Yesterday I thought ‘Either you were or
_are_ mad.’”

Emma, after a very different fashion, was in the same case. The general
adoration had, as Greville foresaw, gone to her brain; indeed, it was a
heady draught. She had tasted pleasures she could never now forego.
Greville—of course she loved him—but whereas the alternative had been
Greville or despair, it was now becoming clear to her that the chance
which gave her not only Greville but Hamilton was unique. It could never
recur. If she lost them both her life would run the ordinary course of
such lives as hers; another, other protectors; waning beauty; desertion.
She might, of course, make a marriage, even a wealthy one, but there
again Greville and Hamilton—her twin stars—had spoiled her for the
company of the average man of pleasure, the only type which would
consider her either as a mistress or wife. It is the truth of this
strangely mixed Emma that she loved to learn many things worth learning,
and with very little delicacy of her own she loved to be with those who
naturally owned it and to reflect it until she could half deceive
herself as well as them into the belief that she shared it.

Every day in Sir William’s absence she would order the boat at her
disposal and float about the _cuvette bleue_ of the bay, thinking,
dreaming in a sort of languor that threatened to overwhelm her now. It
was a respite, a lull before she was compelled to make that alarming
definite choice which must sever her from Greville and the past for
ever, for the alternative now was not Greville or despair; it was
Greville or Sir William.

A slow seductive enervation was in the very air. She wandered in the
famous gardens with only a staid old woman as attendant, who followed
decorously a little behind, and scarcely saw how many eyes sought the
lovely Englishwoman; and there one day the King himself met her, and,
overjoyed at the chance of her _cavaliere servente’s_ absence, ventured
to join her among the flowers. A warm languid day, the sun drowsing
among the blossoms and the swaying palms, what could be a more charming
occupation than to see how her Italian had improved since their last
meeting? Emma was all discretion, the monarch all ardour, and old
women—in Italy only, let us believe—not inaccessible to Royal bribes
which ensure their absence at needed moments.

The pair sat among the rosy oleanders, with the melting sapphire of the
sea in glimpses through divinest blossomed boughs where all the ancient
gods of Italy might have dreamed away the long warm hours. And Ferdinand
urged his love for the exquisite foreigner, and she parried and fenced,
and dared neither wholly discourage the Royal advances nor wholly smile
upon them, and so sat for an hour, basking in the miraculous truth that
she, the once forlorn and forsaken, had it in her power to captivate a
king. He followed her when she arose, beseeching, entreating, she
looking over her shoulder with the look we know so well in the
“Bacchante,” where for Romney’s inspiration she had assumed the arch
repelling-inviting smile that was to catch the King in its golden net.
But when she left the gardens she knew he did not interest her. It would
be useful for writing to Greville. It would convince Hamilton of her
pure fidelity when he returned. That was all the use of it. She
dismissed the Royal wooer with the final wave of her hand, and fell into
heavy thought again.

But she wrote of it to Greville; no tearful plaintive letter this time,
but rather a sinister triumph meant to warn him that longer delay and
hovering about a cold English bride would mean a loss that possibly
nothing could ever replace. Kings would not dispute Miss Middleton with
him. Royal dukes, like His Highness of Gloucester, would not creep to
_her_ feet for an introduction. He would have a commonplace dowdy wife,
no more; and even as regards fortune: If one can sing like an angel,
dance, pose, draw not only men’s but women’s frantic admiration, be a
European celebrity, may not money also fall in golden showers? She
believed it might. Consequently, we boast! We tell Greville sufficient
to let him imagine even greater splendours than as yet have transpired!

At Sorrento they were all “in ecstasies of adoration” when she
entertained there. “I left some dying, some crying and all in despair.
Mind you, this was all nobility and as proud as the devil. _We_ humbled
them! But what astonished them was that I should speak such good
Italian. For I paid them, I spared none of them, though I was civil and
obliging. One asked me if I left a love at Naples that I left them so
soon. I pulled my lip at him, to say ‘I pray, do you take me for an
Italian? Look, sir, I am English. I have one _cavaliere servente_ and I
have brought him with me.’ The house is full of painters painting me. He
[Sir William] has now got nine pictures of me and two a-painting.
Marchant is cutting my head in stone, that is in cameo for a ring. There
is another man modeling me in wax, and another in clay. All the artists
is come from Rome to study from me. Galucci played some of my solfegos
and you woud have thought he woud have gone mad. He never saw or heard
of such a whoman before. He says when he first came in I frightened him
with a Majesty and Juno look that I received him with. Then he says that
whent off on being more acquainted and I enchanted him by my politeness
and the manner in which I did the honors, and then I almost made him cry
with Handels, and with the comick he could not contain himself for he
says he never saw the tragick and comick muse blended so happily
together.”

Yes, Greville shall know, even if she gives the impression that wide
Italy is emptied of artists who have poured into Naples with no other
occupation than to stare at her! It is the last attempt to bring him to
her feet. He shall know that, before Sir William went, she—she, the
rejected—was the guest of honour on board a foreign man-of-war. No
less!

“We sett down thirty to dine, me at the head of the tables, mistress of
the feast, drest all in virgin white and my hair all in ringlets
reaching allmost to my heals. I assure you it is so long that I realy
lookd and moved amongst it. Sir William said so.”

If that does not move him, nothing will and if he thinks those silken
auburn locks have grown miraculously from knee to heel during that year
in Italy, then let him! Perhaps he has forgotten that little fact with
so much else.

That letter despatched, she turns again to write to Hamilton. When will
he come back?

    “One hour’s absence is a year. My friend, my All, my earthly
    good, my Kind home in one, you are to me eating, drinking and
    cloathing, my comforter in distress. Then why shall I not love
    you? Endead I must and ought whilst life is left in me or reason
    to think on you.”

Certainly Emma can write with energy and spirit when she will; all the
warmth of a graphic pen, of a warm heart, is hers when she chooses to
express it. Sir William, reading the last, surprises himself by laying
it against his cheek, and murmuring, “Dear child; my beloved Emma!”
hoping and believing that this absence is teaching her some of the
secrets of her own shy heart.

And Greville? Greville receiving his, studies it with care, makes a
pencil note or two of the contents in his useful pocketbook,
and—re-encloses it to Sir William with an admonitory message. “Go on
circumventing Emma. She will surrender at last. It is not in the power
of woman to stand so prolonged a siege.”

And now, the time come, he prepares himself to write to Emma, with the
goal in sight. The message must be brief and vague, but must show her
clearly once and for all that it is finished between them. Miss
Middleton is half wooed, half won, he hopes. There can be no delay. He
writes back tersely, that she is “to oblige Sir William.”

She read this paper in the solitude of that lovely room which had
brought the sea, the blue air, indoors, to keep her company with the
sunshine, and in a frantic passion, half fury, half raging love, she
spat upon it, stamped her foot upon it, spurned it, a girl of the
people, all the veneer gone and rage blazing uncontrolled. She could not
write for a while, her hands shook so violently, every fibre of her body
quivering under the shameful blow. She swallowed a glass of water, her
teeth chattering against the rim. She lay long, half torpid, to compose
herself and could not—a strong and righteous anger at the mean trick
she had never suspected drove her like a ship before a gale. But she
would, she must write if she died for it, and then at long last, as it
seemed, she wrote.

    “Nothing can express my rage. Greville, to advise me! You that
    used to envy my smiles. How with cool indifference to advise me!
    Oh, that is the worst of all. But I will not, no, I will not
    rage. If I was with you I would murder you and myself boath. I
    will go to London, go into every excess of vice till I dye, a
    miserable broken-hearted wretch, and leave my fate as a warning
    to young whomen never to be too good, for now you have made me
    good you have abandoned me, and some violent end shall finish
    our connexion if it is to finish.”

A long pause, and tenderer thoughts stole over her. Her hand delayed.
Must the last words be all cruel poisoned darts? Ah, no. She wrote again
slower, the tears this time falling in large drops like blood upon the
letter.

    “It is enough. I have paper that Greville wrote on. He has
    folded it up. He wet the wafer. How I envy thee the place of
    Emma’s lips that woud give worlds, had she them, to kiss those
    lips. I onely wish a wafer was my onely rival. But I submit to
    what God and Greville pleases.”

God and Greville! She laid down the pen.

It is not too much to say that with that letter died the last remnant of
virginity in Emma’s heart. It had survived much, but that mean treachery
slaughtered it. It is another and a worse, though never a wholly bad
woman, who survives—a woman dangerously scorned who will dangerously
repay it to Greville and others. She wrote once more before Sir William
returned.

“Pray write, for nothing will make me so angry, and it is not to your
_interest_ to disoblige me, for you don’t know the power I have here. If
you affront me I will make him marry me. God bless you forever.”

A different woman, as may well be seen, but Greville did not realize it.
It must be owned he played his cards from this time clumsily both with
the girl and Sir William. He sent that wild threat to his uncle because
it would set him on his guard. He wrote with a cool superior friendship
to Emma, and quick as lightning she caught his tone, seeing all lost,
and replied in kind. Every nerve, every sense, was on guard now. She
would not injure herself by trying to make trouble between Sir William
and his favourite friend. No, though her girdle should burst, to use her
own graphic phrase, she would keep her temper, play her game and
win—and win. And Greville should see it and suffer! He had more cause
for annoyance than she knew. Miss Middleton refused him, an expected
post slipped through his fingers, and it was all in all to him to be
well with Sir William.

She helped him in her own way and for her own ends. Not a word of
complaint—a summer calm, kindly references to Greville, awaited the
uneasy Sir William when he returned to the Palazzo Sessa. And when they
were alone she pulled her little stool beside him, and looking up with a
smile half sad, half arch, said softly:

“I have my wisdom teeth at last, Sir William. You have seen the last of
the silly impatient Emma. She spread her wings and flew away far beyond
Capri while you were gone. It is a happy grateful girl now who will love
you forever and ever, who did not even know until your dear beloved face
was out of sight how little she could do without you.”

He stooped forward and looked into her face, scarcely believing:

“Emma, dearest and sweetest, do you mean it?”

“And more,” she said, “much more! My eyes are opened.”

He put his arms about her, dazzled, overcome, now that the moment of
surrender was upon him. Her glowing beauty bathed him, the loveliest
lips on earth were pressed to his, the curtain of silken hair fell about
them.

Let a man beware of the hour which fulfils all his wishes.




                              CHAPTER XIV
                           THE WAY TO TRIUMPH


EMMA, laughing, singing, not a care in her sea-blue eyes four years
later. Emma, the sunlight of the Palazzo Sessa, sweet as a summer dawn
to Hamilton and to all the world. Greville, forgotten as a lover,
preserved as a friend—after a fashion! We write to him, we enter
sympathetically into his concerns. He is still unmarried. We do not tell
him we rejoice in Miss Middleton’s refusal, for that would be unkind,
injudicious. We say she is a foolish girl who will have cause to regret
her folly. Naturally we dwell on the domestic peace and happiness of the
Palazzo Sessa, and the charm of days that drift like flower petals on a
breeze. We threaten no more—that was but a wild outburst of passion at
a very irritating moment, and much better forgotten. Greville has no
cause for uneasiness. Emma is pleasantly provided for. Sir William is
furnished with a mistress so charming that no anxiety about marriage can
possibly arise, and he may rise up and call himself blessed, for his
plan has been a success from beginning to end. He certainly had not the
smallest fear that his uncle would make himself ridiculous, and what
could be more ridiculous than to marry a woman whom all Europe knew as
his _belle amie_. Besides he himself had already given the elderly lover
his views as to the proper provision to be made for Emma when this last
bond should wear thin. That suggestion would probably bring forth an
enlightening answer. It brought forth a very comfortable one; the more
so because so evidently sincere.

“I fear,” Sir William wrote, “that her views are beyond what I can bring
myself to execute, and that when her hopes on this point are over she
will make herself and me unhappy.”

So all was well to the last point. Sir William duly on his guard and
Emma’s impetuosity, as usual, hurrying her into mistakes. Greville laid
that letter beside a friendly one from Emma, with a contented sigh and
pursued his irreproachable way in peace.

So also did Emma, though not by any means in inward quiet. The more
dazzling, the more delightful her triumphs, the more she felt the
insecurity of the foundation. Sir William was her slave, but not her
legalized slave, and though she had no fears for the present it must be
her certain doom to be dismissed with a slender “provision” when he grew
older and his family reclaimed him as it does all old and wealthy men.
Day by day she made herself dearer and more necessary to him but never a
day seemed to bring that goal nearer. She would hint, sigh, glance
gently near the target, but never an arrow found the bull’s eye. He
would do anything, everything for her—excepting the one thing that
mattered more than all the wealth of the world, and yet she could not
teach herself to think it impossible. Sometimes, the inward storm broke
in nervous irritations in which he must have guessed the truth, and then
she would be terrified and redouble her wifely submissions. Suppose he
should think, as Greville had thought, that she had an ungoverned
temper; then all hope would be over. He certainly was keenly on the
watch—and why, why, if he thought the thing impossible?

Her circumspection was almost perfect. She solved the nearly impossible
problem of being passionately admired, the dancing star of gaiety, the
sighed for of all the distinguished and attractive men who came and went
in their society, and yet of preserving a reputation of unsullied
fidelity to her Ambassador. No other man had so much as a look to boast
of. They called her the lovely ice-image. Sir William knew better and
was radiant. But never a word of the only reward she craved, and she
could see only a future in which Greville and the family would consult
coldly on an adequate pension in return for her services.

And yet, the Queen had seen her immaculate propriety of behaviour with
admiration, and had even pointed her out as an example to the giddy
ladies who formed the Royal circle. “If a young woman in _her_ position
can so conduct herself, what ought,” etc. The rest of the little sermon
may be imagined, and might have been more effective but for the Royal
preacher’s own intimacy with the cool, handsome Irishman Acton who was
the Neapolitan Minister of Marine, whom the wits of Naples coupled with
King and Queen in the assertion that the three were _hic, haec, hoc_,
and the King the last of them. But what did Emma care? Royalty is
royalty, amuse itself how it will, and every word that fell from Marie
Caroline’s lips was treasured and laid before Hamilton. She had chilled
the King off effectually and the lovers laughed together over that
thwarted gallantry. He was lost in admiration of the tender affection
which nothing could swerve. Emma, who desired the Queen’s attentions
very much more eagerly than the King’s, knew well of Her Majesty’s
highly unreasonable jealousy of her consort’s diversions, and trimmed
her sails accordingly. Not that they were any temptation to her. She was
firmly if temperately attached to Hamilton, was less physically than
intellectually sensuous, and had, moreover, a clear end before her and a
tangled way to it which absorbed all her deeper interests. And as yet no
prospect of success. He was wary beyond all her skill. A plotter, an
adventuress she may be called by the too righteous, but would not any
woman have done the same? And her heart was sincere if her brain was
tortuous. She cared for her man; was grateful for benefits received
although she hoped for more.

Sir William came in one day a little disquieted.

“News, my dearest child, news from England. A relation of mine, a very
important relation coming out. I would have had her here in the house
but—no, no, my Emma, my dear, don’t look sad. Don’t hide your face.
What is she or any one compared to my beauty? You never thought I meant
that. Come here!”

He drew her to his knee and she drooped her head on his shoulder.

“But, Sir William, the foreign ladies here don’t mind me. Indeed they
don’t! See how they come to our evenings! And when we entertain at the
Villa Emma, or anywhere, they don’t hold away. They have no objections.”

“My angel, yes.” He smoothed her hair tenderly. Never once did he fail
in the gentlest kindness and even respect. “But English women,
particularly English women about Queen Charlotte, have to be careful.
Absurd, ridiculous, when every one knows what goes on, and when some of
the women they pass by are a million times better and more beautiful
than themselves! But this is a very great lady and was in attendance on
the Queen for a considerable time. It is the Duchess of Argyll, my
cousin by marriage. Her first husband was Duke of Hamilton. You can
imagine I would give anything that she should know my jewel and see it
sparkle, but ’tis impossible. She will hear your praises all over
Naples—that’s my consolation—your kind heart not the least. But I
wanted to prepare you for this, for I would not have it hurt you when
she comes.”

“It won’t, it shan’t hurt me!” she said, smiling courageously into his
eyes. “No one can have everything and I’d like to know where is the
woman that has so much as me! Duchess as she is I daresay she hasn’t the
quarter! No, my own Sir William, you shall go see her and then come back
to our home, and I believe you’ll own there’s no place so happy for us
both. What do I want with duchesses? Is she very proud?”

“As proud as a gorgeous peacock. Didn’t Bozzy, old Dr. Johnson’s
Boswell, say she chilled him nearly into marble with her majesty? But,
for all that, he ended by allowing there was something pleasant
too—‘better be strangled by a silk rope than a hempen,’—I forget the
exact words. But she’s all the prouder because she began life so poor
that she and her beautiful sister, Maria, had to borrow dresses from a
saucy actress before they could make any appearance in the world. Well
born, all the same, granddaughters of Lord Mayo’s. Gunning was their
name.”

“Oh, tell me more!” cried Emma, sparkling with interest. “I’ve heard
Greville speak of the beautiful Gunnings. Were they as beautiful—as
me?”

She pouted those incomparable lips into a kiss that ensured his denial.

“Of course not. Whoever was or will be? But Maria—she married Lord
Coventry—came as near you as mortal woman could, for all she was a
lovely doll with not a gleam of your good sense and talents. Elizabeth,
the double Duchess, had more brains, and a great deal more dignity, and
an amazing beauty. Her smile—”

“I want to see her. I want to see her!” Emma clapped her hands and sent
the rays flashing from two rings of great diamonds. She might have been
a graven image hung with jewels if she would, but refused extravagance
of that order and commanded Sir William to save every stray penny for
his Etruscan urns. What wonder she wore his heart instead of his
fripperies? As a matter of fact, these rings were his dead wife’s. Even
his good taste was not flawless.

“You _shall_ see her, I promise, and she shall see you. But remember she
is fifty now, and her health not strong. I like her. There’s a kind of
courage in her that matches your own. If things had been different you
might have been friends.”

Emma sighed, a soft little sigh, no more. But it said, and he heard
it—“If things were different! Ah, and they might be. Have I not
deserved it?” Much may be said in a sigh.

The Duchess came, her fame preceding her, with a little attendant court
of her own, and all Naples thrilled to receive the greatest of the great
English ladies. However she had begun in life she had since acquired a
most majestic dignity, and the English women who had held coldly aloof
from Emma were now certain of a leader who would open the way to victory
and the public rout of the fair sinner.

Sir William waited upon her directly she arrived. He felt it was best to
place the matter on a footing of perfect frankness at once, and was
eager to find her alone; an impossibility, as it seemed, for all the gay
world of Naples was perpetually in her salon.

At last he secured her, and by the merest chance, for they met in the
same rose-hung gardens where Emma had repelled the King’s advances,
beneath a long trellised pergola with a delicate sea-breeze wandering
like a bee drunken with perfume and colour among the roses. She sat,
leaning back in the chair her footman had set beneath the delicious
shadow, half smiling with delight at the beauty about her.

“What a place! What a scene!” she said softly. “My dear Sir William,
though you have written to Charlotte more than once, and even when you
came to England last, you never expressed the half of it. ’Tis
surprising to me that we endure the English climate who could be here.
’Tis to share the very youth of the world.”

“Many things conspire to make it fascinating. When on a moonlit night on
the Marina I hear the soft thrum of guitars, the singing voices and
subdued laughter I often wonder whether I can bear the chill of the
foggy North any more,” he said. “It is home in a sense but—well, I left
it a long time ago. My notions are Italian—lax, some would call them.
And yet, call them what you will, they are the same all the world over,
at bottom.”

“For my part the English air wearies me,” says her Grace, wielding a
black fan, her large calm eyes studying him above its rim. “I was always
happier in Scotland than at Court. Hamilton Palace was my heaven; and
later, Inverary. I suppose ’twas the Irish blood in me, my father’s
blood, that couldn’t content itself with beef and pudding and solid
worth; that was better pleased with the haunted castles and purple
heather of the North. Yes, even in the winter and the grey rain that
falls and falls! I remember Oban in a smurr of sea fog”—she looked
across the sapphire sea and sighed—“I wonder shall I ever see it more!”

“Why, madam, yes! Your Grace will reign queen of the Highland hearts for
many a long day yet.”

“No, no, my good Sir William, when beauty goes, hearts follow her like
her own doves. I was a queen once. I am an elderly duchess now.”

She turned her sweet face upon him smiling, sweet like a half-faded rose
that hangs a little wearily on its stem, but perfumed and lovely still
with a pathetic loveliness. Her voice was soft as the breeze. That had
been always a part of the Gunning charm. To him who could remember when
she and her dead sister had set London in a ferment, twin stars rising
with mutual rays, the very sight of her must always recall the time when
he too was young and a worshipper at the little feet which earned their
shoemaker half a fortune when he exhibited the beauties’ shoes at so
much a head to the crowd. Only Sir William had never been certain which
of the two possessed his heart. Was it Elizabeth, was it Maria? How
could any poor devil tell? Dear dead frivolities, how they warmed him!
He laughed a little at the memory and they talked together over places
and people well known to both; the perfect free masonry of caste. A
pleasant hour.

“I saw Greville before I left London. He does not improve on me in spite
of his cleverness and excellent fine manners. A selfish young man, as I
think, and cold. I was not surprised Miss Middleton refused him. A
warm-hearted girl.”

“A better, more well-conducted, sensible man does not exist, your
Grace!” Sir William was eager in the defence. “I know no one whose
advice I would sooner take.”

“Yes, on a Greek urn or a question of worldly wisdom or good taste,”
says her Grace with her soft, imperial air. “But not on a matter of the
heart or of kindness or—what shall I say?—heart’s honour. No, Sir
William; indeed, believe me, women are the best judges of such matters,
and _there_ I pronounce Greville outside the pale.”

“Madam, I protest!”

“No, you agree! you always agreed with me. You remember when Hamilton
laughed at my Irish brogue you would say it was the music of the
spheres.”

“And it was and always will be!”

“No—I am always contradicting my kind cousin—I have forgotten my Irish
days and Irish ways, I am only a dull old duchess now. But I love beauty
though I don’t see any to match—”

“Your own!” he interrupted.

“No, my poor sister’s. Heavens, how lovely she was! Do you remember—but
who’s that?”

She pointed covertly with her fan at a girl pacing absently down the
pergola with an elderly woman handsomely dressed leaning on her arm. She
herself was dressed in white, with a large straw hat trimmed with blue
ribbons shading her face, and carried a basket of roses in the other
hand. A little black and white silken spaniel trotted after her.

She was looking gravely down on the path as she walked, lost in thought,
and evidently knew nothing of who sat among the roses. The pair stopped
a little way off and there she stood in perfect quiet, looking far away
to the sea. A lovely tranquillity was on her face and the gently relaxed
figure. It was as though some vaguely pleasant thought possessed her,
all sunshine and roses.

“That girl,” said the Duchess softly, lest she should be overheard, “is
the greatest beauty I have seen since my sister died. I should say a
perfect beauty if I did not remember Maria. I can think no one else
equals _her_. What is your judgment?”

“You must not ask my judgment here!” he whispered, and as Emma and her
mother moved towards them again in passing, he rose and bowed with the
most punctilious courtesy, Emma flushing brightly as they curtseyed in
answer and passed on. She could guess very well who the noble-looking
woman must be who sat so much at ease with Sir William. She could not
hurry her mother, however, and so they went slowly out of sight.

“Who is she?” the Duchess demanded.

He looked her straight in the face.

“As I remember you, madam, your Grace was bound by no conventions. You
were not held by other people’s approvals and disapprovals. You judged
for yourself and imposed your own will on others. If so great a lady
cannot, who can? That was your attitude. Is it so still?”

“Certainly, so far as I know. Who is she? An unmentionable?”

“No, an extremely mentionable, mentioned indeed by all here who can
admire beauty, genius, and the warmest heart in the world.”

“There spoke a lover!” says the Duchess, fixing him with her clear eyes.
“I know who she is now. She is the lady of the Embassy. Oh, I have heard
all about her. Well, cousin, I like you for bowing to her while you sat
with me. You _could_ have made as though you did not see her. It was
like you. I think all the Hamiltons are gentlemen.”

“Madam, not even for your Grace’s good opinion would I slight the woman
I love best in the world. Yet I am thankful it approves mine.”

“Tell me about her. I have heard so many scandals since I came that the
truth would be of interest. Is she of the common sort—or what?”

Let Sir William’s speech be imagined rather than related. He painted her
for the Duchess as no other voice, not even Romney’s nor yet his brush,
could have painted her. Her heart, her purity, her intellect, her
extraordinary accomplishments (indeed the Duchess had heard much of the
latter), all were passed in review with a lover’s fondness.

She listened without a frown. In that perfumed languid air it was
perhaps more irksome to sit in judgment than in the grey chills of
England, but in any case she considered her station too high to be bound
by any other opinion than her own. Her Grace was accustomed to say that
the working class and the aristocratic are a law unto themselves in
matters of morals and that it is but the middle class who skulk and
hypocritize. It may be observed that she coined her words as well as her
views and was more likely to be friendly with the farmer’s wife than the
lawyer’s lady.

Therefore she brought an unprejudiced mind to hear on Sir William’s
story, which included neither Up Park nor Edgware Row nor the
appurtenances thereof. The picture presented to her mind was that of a
young and pure-minded woman submerged by cruel fate and gifted with
beauty and genius worthy of the highest, the widest opportunity. Let the
reader judge how far she was deceived.

When Sir William had finished, she, noting meanwhile with some
compassion how the clear sunlight emphasized the lines of sixty years in
his face, answered kindly enough.

“I see how your interest is engaged, and indeed the story is a very
singular one. I see also that you would willingly engage my sympathy for
the young person, and ’tis so easily engaged where courage and beauty
are concerned that I must needs say I prefer to give my judgment a
little play also. What is her position in the society of Naples?”

“Why, madam, the Queen is much interested and has said often to me that
she would willingly make her acquaintance, but you are aware ’tis
impossible she should be received at Court. The King used to call at the
Palazzo Sessa to sing duos with her—ill enough for a King!—but, as you
know his reputation with women, Emma in her discretion judged it best to
stop that diversion of His Majesty’s, which much gratified the Queen,
and made her favour secure in that quarter. The Neapolitan ladies treat
her with every courtesy, and God knows ’twere ridiculous otherwise, as
not one is without her lover. As for the English ladies, some visiting
here, of high birth, like my Lady Diana Beauclerck and the artist Mrs.
Darner, have not disdained her, but they are more or less ladies errant
in the eyes of the English resident here, and I must own the residents
defy the Embassy and all its works. They will not see that such genius
as Emma’s makes its own laws—”

“But they can be scarcely expected to see it should make theirs!”
interrupted the Duchess with a hidden smile in her eyes. It was somewhat
absurd to hear a man who knew the world present his case in this way.

“True, madam. Well, I will trouble your Grace no more. Mrs. Hart has a
large society—if it could content her—and the admiration of every man
of judgment who ever beheld her.”

“She appears then like the man in the fairy tale who having got the moon
wanted the sun also.”

“Are not your sex ever so, madam?”

“May be, may be not. Well, my good Sir William, I desire to see your
paragon at closer quarters. Would she consent, do you think, to come
quietly to my salon one evening and sing for an old lady who finds San
Carlo somewhat fatiguing? May I see those poses of which all the world
talks? Whatever the lady be she won’t hurt either my morals or my
manners!” She laughed softly, and Sir William grew hot in his reply.

“She will hurt no one’s, your Grace. Rather others may learn from her.
But, indeed, if it gives you pleasure she will do her best to please you
from her good heart, which shows equal kindness to the beggars on the
quay as to the greatest duchess in England.”

“And very commendable!” says her Grace, slowly furling her fan. “Then do
me the favour to bring her on the evening of Thursday and then, if you
would have a candid opinion, it is yours.”

They talked a little longer of other matters; indeed, the Duchess
lingered until the sun was low and the shadows long. A man dark-browed
and swarthily beautiful, lying against the pedestal of the marble faun
near at hand, took up his guitar, and sang low and sweet in a mellow
tenor while she beat time gently with a jewelled hand on her knee.

                     Mare si lucido,
                     Lido si caro,
                     Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

The famous song of Naples.

“This is heaven,” says she, when the voice was silent, “and you and your
Emma trouble yourselves about the weary world! Oh, fools, fools! Forgive
me, my good cousin!”

Indeed, it was with a beating heart that Emma prepared for that
introduction. Not even to Sir William would she admit how much it
signified to her. He viewed it but as the caprice of a lady too great to
be crossed. She, as the golden key which might possibly unlock another
of the endless gates which stayed her progress. Yet she betrayed no
eagerness, no agitation, though it awakened every intelligence to its
work. “What would I not do for any relative of my own Sir William’s,”
was all she said when it was laid before her.

But her preparations! She had resolved that she would wear the dress in
which the Attitudes should be performed, and indeed it served her well.
Had she known her business completely she would never have been seen in
anything else.

Behold, then, the Duchess of Argyll’s salon in the Villa Columbaia,
high, cool and beautiful with the grace of Italian and the comfort of
English furnishings. A naked girl in marble, carved by a famous Italian,
poised life-size by the windows, running; caught in the flush of her
speed with a butterfly perched on her finger.

The Duchess herself sat in a noble chair carved long ago by English
workmen, and above her head was a picture of her sister, the dead Lady
Coventry, seductive, entrancing, with her long languid eyes. She
herself, in an Italian evening gown of purple lustring trimmed with
silver gauze, harmonized the incongruities with an odd but delightful
unity. There was beside her a great stand of tall and shaded wax candles
which shed the most flattering light known to the imagination on her
beautiful worn face, and the great bowl of luscious roses at her elbow.

There was only a small party in attendance (for all present had the air
of attending her Grace): three or four men, the Lady Diana Beauclerck,
the Duke and Duchess de St. Maître and a few more; Lady Diana,
sketchbook in hand, for she would never lose the chance of some new and
surprising pose of Emma’s.

To these, talking and laughing, the lacquey makes his unashamed
announcement.

“His Excellency the Ambassador and Mrs. Hart.” And the Duchess beholds
framed in the tall dim doorway—what? A statue from the Museo come to
pay her respects? No, a somewhat tall young woman robed in pure white of
some subtly soft material which drapes like Greek marble, and falls in
long slender folds to chastely hidden but sandalled feet. Chastely
hidden the beautiful bosom also, rounding softly through the veil, but
the noble throat, a pillar of ivory, rears itself proudly from the
uncovered chest as strongly and finely modelled as that of Diana’s
swiftest nymph, with room and to spare for ample lungs and untroubled
breath. The sleeve is looped to the shoulder on one side, and falls in
long drapery on the other. Her face, a little pale with controlled
agitation, is serenely sweet and modest. A magnificent young animal in
rejoicing health, if no more, thinks the Duchess as Sir William leads
the beauty forward and she makes her reverence before the thronelike
chair. Her Grace may then remark the masses of gold-touched bronze hair
pressed and calmed down upon the small head that its luxuriance may be
controlled into reason, and the rose-red lips above the perfect chin.
The eyes are not on show. Mrs. Hart veils them chastely with long
lashes. She showed like a lovely survival of the lost glory of Greece
among these fashionably dressed ladies—and knew it. The Duchess
received her graciously and motioned that a chair be set beside her. Sir
William should have nothing to complain of and, indeed, she was curious
herself.

“I take it very kind, madam, that you visit me this evening,” says she
with gentle dignity. “But Sir William has no doubt made my excuses and
told you that my physicians forbid any fatigue. Therefore I am compelled
to ask my friends to be charitable and favour me with their company when
they will be so good.”

“Oh, madam, what could I think it but an honour to visit your Grace,”
says the sweet statue, carefully tutored in her forms of address by the
best tutor of the polite world, and then relapses into a graceful
silence with bows and smiles to such of the company as she knows; Lady
Diana especially warm in her greeting, for there was never an artist
heart could hold away from its spiritual kin in Emma.

“And did he tell you that I entreated as a special favour that I might
hear what I am told is one of the finest voices of our day?” the Duchess
continues.

“Indeed, madam, yes. He told me your Grace would find San Carlo too
fatiguing.”

“And those famous poses of which I understand the great Goethe has
written in terms of such delight?”

“All is at your service, madam. I have come dressed in the antique taste
for the purpose. I only beg one favour; that if you find them
_ennuyante_ you will stop me.”

“I promise!” says the Duchess, with a smile which disarms her words.

There was more talk, and refreshments were served, however, before she
would put the statue in motion. Mrs. Hart was not to feel she was bidden
merely as a raree-show for fashionable folks. Indeed, Lady Diana
exhibited first her portfolio of new drawings done for the decoration of
one of Mr. Horace Walpole’s rooms at his gimcrack castle of Strawberry
Hill, and one of the gentlemen, the Duke de San Maître, favoured them
with a song, “Napoli bella” and so forth, which Emma applauded with more
smiling warmth than any of the party, the Duchess watching her well
pleased.

It was her turn next—the poses which gained her the nickname of The
Gallery of Statues from the said Mr. Horace Walpole. I will not, I must
not particularize, though on such beauty one would linger if possible,
but as she melted from one loveliness to another, the Duchess’s eyes
followed and could not be satisfied. She laughed with the laughing
comedy, held her breath while the ruined Cassandra, pointing to the
violating Sun, seemed to hurl forth the dreadful prophecies that none
regarded, smiled for pure pleasure at the nymph with a tambourine, and
so forth through every act of the lovely show—so lovely that even the
girl’s enemies could not withhold their reluctant praises.

When it was over, she clapped her hands.

“Wonderful, marvellous—I could see it forever and ever! It is a new
art. It is painting and poetry and sculpture and the theatre all
expressed in one,” cried she. “My dear, you have genius. I never saw
anything remotely like it. And now—can it be possible that with all
these perfections you also have a voice worth hearing? If so, I declare
it unjust, preposterous. The most of us have no gifts at all. The few
have one, but you—”

“I have called her Pandora, for indeed she has them all,” says Sir
William, and the gentlemen who understood the classical allusion
applauded. And Emma sang. She put her heart into it. She gave them her
famous “Luce bella” with ornaments of diamond and crystal clearness that
the Banti herself could not have excelled. Her voice sparkled and
glittered; nothing more brilliant could be imagined. And then when she
had driven them all into the realms of soulless admiration—for what is
such art but an exquisite gymnastic?—she led them back into the forests
of true romance with a simple ballad from Scotland, in homage to the
Duchess whose soft eyes filled with tears in listening.

                  They have slain the Earl o’ Moray
                  And laid him on the green.—

The cry of it! The tears in her soft voice!

                     Oh, the bonny Earl o’ Moray
                     He was the Queen’s love.

                   And lang, lang may his lady
                   Look o’er the Castle doun,
                   Ere she see the Earl o’ Moray
                   Come sounding through the toun.

So she ended in a dying sweetness with notes as deep as doom, and would
sing no more, and the silence that followed was better than all words.
The Duchess drew her near and kissed her cheek without any.

Indeed, Emma spoke little that night. She was conscious herself, to a
certain extent, that she was on her promotion. Conscious, too, that
there were faults of speech which great ladies might view with scorn
unsoftened by the bright beauty which made even these a naïve
enchantment to men. She was therefore at her best, nothing breaking out
of control; pliable, gentle, unassuming; in all things obedient and
attentive to Sir William.

He drew near the Duchess while Emma at Lady Diana’s request poised her
tambourine for a rapid sketch in Mr. Walpole’s interest. The others had
gathered about the pretty sight.

“Your opinion, madam?”

“I am charmed, dazzled. She is a revelation of the most exquisite
beauty. There is genius, Sir William. I never saw her like.”

“Then you don’t condemn me, madam? You don’t think me the infatuated
fool I am called in some circles?”

“I think you have shown yourself a man of supreme taste. That girl—take
care she does not leave you some day and take Europe as a lover instead!
Every great capital would be at her feet.”

“You forget she loves me. She will not leave me,” he said complacently.
The Duchess looked at him with pitying eyes.

“You forget, my friend, I fear, that you are sixty, and she—” She
pointed with her fan at the radiant figure, incarnate youth, and the men
crowding about her to admire. It struck like the chill of death, as a
truth known with secret fear to ourselves will do when repeated from
other lips.

“I must take my fate like another man!” he answered, with a voice that
shook a little. His eyes fell on his hands; beautifully shaped but
veined and wrinkled.

“We can’t escape Fate,” says the Duchess, “but we can evade her for a
while.”

They looked at each other. “And what would you do?” he asked, turning
his eyes away last.

“Marry her!” said the Duchess. Then, hastily, “My friend, it is not my
business. I intrude. My Lady Diana, are you for cards?”




                               CHAPTER XV
                              ACHIEVEMENT


AFTER this Emma saw the Duchess constantly. She became, indeed, her
chief interest in Naples. The girl was so bright and _simpatica_ (to use
the more expressive Italian) that her Grace could not do without this
charming new toy. It may well be imagined the difference this made in
her position. No breath had ever sullied the bright mirror of the
Duchess’s reputation. If it was whispered that the King of England
himself had been one of her adorers it was instantly added by the most
scandalous that her Grace of Argyll had given him no encouragement. Why
should she? A king could offer nothing that she had not, and as for
love, she loved her handsome Highlandman, her John of Argyll, quite well
enough to be marble to other wooing. Therefore, in all the world Emma
could have found no better sponsor. With one or two unbending exceptions
all the ladies, English and otherwise, were on her list at last and
indemnified her for past insolences by present attentions. She visited
the past on none, bore no grudges, received all who came with the same
warm-hearted geniality. Sir William observed it with delight and felt
his debt to the duchess increase daily.

And still Emma, under all her smiles, was restless and unhappy. There
was no security but one for her, and that she could not have, for he
made no motion in that direction. And the worst was, she must not tease
him.

“It’s as much as my place is worth!” said she to herself, recurring to
the old kitchen talk of the first days in London. Perhaps it was a
relief to unbend sometimes, when alone, from the high ambrosial
elegances of the Olympian heights she had now scaled hand in hand with
the duchess.

High indeed, for one day, driving out by special invitation to the Villa
Columbaia she found assembled in the garden, beneath the palms and
roses, four ladies she knew very well, but one, by sight only—the
great, the illustrious Marie Caroline, daughter of emperors, sister of
the lovely Marie Antoinette of France, mother of sovereigns to be, Queen
of the Two Sicilies. And, as she was ushered trembling along the velvet
lawns and beheld Her Majesty, Emma knew very well this was no accident,
but a Royal command draped in the casual that it might raise no comment.

“Another door opened!” she thought, as she trod with light, shy feet
upon the living velvet. And even if it were alarming, the daughter of
the people, the discarded of Up Park, did not flinch as she swept her
profound curtsey and rose to attention and received the Royal
compliment. Why should she? She knew very well she had gratified the
Queen in her rejection of the King’s addresses as she had probably never
been gratified before in her life in that particular way. She sat beside
the Queen and the Duchess with the two ladies in waiting behind Her
Majesty’s chair and ate her _dolci_ in company with them and drank her
iced lemonade with perfect but modest composure. The Duchess was proud
of her _protégée_. Nothing could be simpler than her dress of India
muslin and lavender sash. Not for nothing had Sir William instructed her
that the simpler the setting, the more her beauty must shine.

“Una donna rara!” whispered the Queen to the Duchess while Emma
exchanged a few words with the Marchesa of San Marco. “Bellissima
creatura!” and she overheard and treasured the words for Hamilton, who
was almost surfeited with the sugar-plums rained from augustest heights
nowadays.

Little did she think, in looking on the handsome, dark-browed woman
faded as with excess of life and nervous energy, of the part they two
would play together in days not now so very far distant. She saw in “le
roi Caroline,” as the diplomats called her, only another key to the
security she plotted for—so blind are we to Fate laughing in her sleeve
beside us.

But the Queen saw and intended very much more. She had her informants
and knew more of Emma’s history than did the Duchess. She knew her
unequalled influence with the English Ambassador. Had not Acton assured
her that he was wax in the hands of his fascinating mistress? And is not
an ambassador a tool in the hands of intrigue if deftly used? She knew
something also of Emma’s discretion, from long observation and from her
conduct with the King. In the great game of intrigue which was the life
of Marie Caroline, Emma was a pawn not to be despised. What! neglect the
smallest consideration with revolution darkening like a storm-cloud over
Europe, about to burst in thunder in France, with frightful
reverberations along the Mediterranean? Not she indeed! The true
daughter of the great Maria Theresa knew better than that. She was
graciousness itself to Emma, seasoned, of course, with the condescension
which gave it value. To the Duchess she chatted coolly apart when Emma
was engaged with the other ladies; words apparently lightly said, but
intended to be remembered and repeated.

“I never saw so lovely a being. Does not your Grace agree with me?”

“I never saw but one!” said the faithful Duchess, “And she is in
heaven.”

The Queen accorded a sigh to beauty so unsympathetically situated, and
went on.

“Your Ambassador is devoted to her, I understand, and who can wonder!”

“Certainly, madam, it can surprise no one. Her talents surpass her
beauty, if possible. Has Your Majesty heard her sing?”

“No. You will understand, madam, that that was impossible in the
circumstances, though I have heard from the King and many more of the
delight it is. There is only one thing which surprises me in the whole
matter.”

“And that?”

“That your distinguished countryman does not marry her. Where else could
he hope to find such devotion mingled with everything that can charm? I
may say I have watched her behaviour for several years, for a girl in
her position must be under the public eye, and her discretion cannot be
too highly praised. She seems to have an astonishing natural sense of
what is due to herself and others. My only and deep regret is that she
is not in the position to which her merits entitle her. No one would
receive her more joyfully than I.”

“Your Majesty astonishes me!” the Duchess said slowly. She was weighing
this utterance with her own, repeated more than once to Hamilton.
Naturally it could only appear to her that the Queen’s words were
prompted by pure admiration of great qualities. The Duchess was no
stateswoman and in such matters saw no further than her own charming
nose. The Queen drew back a little.

“Oh, madam, I beg ten thousand pardons! I had forgotten that the
Ambassador has the happiness to be your Grace’s cousin. Let us say no
more.”

“Pray do not misunderstand me, madam. I have no objection to the
thought. I feel, as no doubt Your Majesty does, all the objections which
can be made to a man’s marrying his openly acknowledged mistress. Still,
this is a most exceptional case. My cousin is ageing. It would be almost
impossible to find any one so adapted to his life and tastes. I have
come to an age myself when I consider the world’s opinion much less than
the essentials. I believe Your Majesty’s suggestion to be a valuable
one.”

The Queen disclaimed this praise with pretty gestures of head and hands.
She blew it off lightly as a soap-bubble. No responsibility in such a
case for a daughter of the Cæsars!

“Oh, madam, you misunderstand. It is not for me to offer a suggestion.
The saints forbid. This is but my opinion as a private woman. As
Queen—you see my position. There must be many great English ladies whom
we should welcome here as Ambassadress. Only—I cannot do wrong in
expressing the hope that when the chosen comes she may equal the fair
Emma in tact and talent, for there are dark days at hand in Europe, and
if I mistake not the Mediterranean will be the scene of great events.
The Queen of France, my sister, writes to me—no, I dare not repeat her
words. But if any one imagines that this raging fire of revolution can
be shut up in France and spread no further he is heavily mistaken.”

Her eyes darkened and she looked away through the flowers. The Duchess,
with no more imagination than the rest of her countrymen and the
conviction that because things were well enough already with England
they would so remain, passed this off with an indifferent remark on the
growing infidelity of France and the danger of unsettling religion, and
in a moment the Queen had drawn the mask over her face again and was
talking of the new excavations at Pompeii.

But the conversation dwelt in the Duchess’s mind. Every day convinced
her more strongly that Hamilton doted upon the wonder-girl. Why should
he not be happy in his own way? A little courage and the thing was done.
There was no doubt whatever in her mind that it would very much ease his
own public position as well as Emma’s. The Queen’s words left little
anxiety on that point. She resolved to speak yet more plainly.

When Emma returned to her Hamilton praise of the Queen was loud on her
lips. She was not yet a stateswoman and saw in all that had passed
merely a tribute to her own graces, and wrote to that effect to Greville
in her next news-letter. It pleased her easy-going good-humour to write
to him from time to time and relate these triumphs. Like many women of
her type, past was past with her, and unpleasant associations soon
dwindled in a comfortable haze of indifference. He really did not matter
particularly to her now, but it was agreeable to feel that he knew how
highly placed people considered what he had rejected.

This letter gave Greville a vague uneasiness to which he had long been a
stranger, the more so because it also sounded the loud trumpet about the
Duchess of Argyll’s condescension. The Duchess! Emma was climbing
indeed!

But to Hamilton her report gave food for deep reflection. He knew Marie
Caroline very well. Never a word of hers but was uttered with purpose
and tended to some clearly seen end of her own. He listened, reflected,
and went off in a day or two to the Villa Columbaia to see the Duchess.

She was lying in the languor of weak health on a long chair in the
glorious gardens, shaded from the heat of the sun but rejoicing in the
sun-warmed airs that breathed about her. One of her women had been
reading aloud to her and Sir William picked up the book when she was
dismissed: “Clarissa, The History of a Young Lady of Quality,” by Samuel
Richardson.

“It is somewhat of an old-fashioned book now,” said the Duchess, “but
choicely good, as I think, and in my busy life I never had time for it
before. Do you know it?”

“Certainly, but I was always inclined to think it over-strained and
impossible. How does your Grace to-day?”

“Well, but no better. I think I never shall be better. We Gunnings are
not a long-lived race—think of my sister’s twenty-seven years. Indeed,
I have exceeded my span, but if I fade as gently as I do now in this
sweet land, I need not complain.”

He responded with real feeling. She charmed him as beautiful things
never failed to do, and the pathos of her fading loveliness was
poignant.

They talked for a while of family matters very well known to them both,
she slowly and steadily leading the way to the subject on her mind. It
was the more interesting to her because Emma had devoted the whole of
the day before to her service, as she often did now, and there was
gratitude mixed with many other considerations.

“Mrs. Hart met the Queen here a few days since,” she said at last,
playing with her black fan. “I rejoiced to see the favourable impression
she made. Her manner was perfect. It never would surprise me to learn
she had good blood in her veins.”

“I doubt if your Grace would be so confident of that if you knew the
worthy Mrs. Cadogan intimately,” Sir William replied, with a smile of
memory at some of La Signora Madre’s oddities.

“There is always the father!” said the Duchess, smiling in her turn.

“Always—but I suspect him of nothing worse than of being an equally
worthy blacksmith.”

“Who can tell? In any case, the Queen spoke in a way which—”

“May I hear what she said?”

She related it plainly and simply, not emphasizing a word, adding as she
finished:

“My impression is that it would be a relief at the Court here if your
relations with Emma were on a more regular footing. No, cousin—don’t
throw your head up! Don’t be angry! No one has the right to interfere
with your private life or prescribe, yet it must be owned that it is a
delicate matter for the Queen and that an Ambassadress at the Palazzo
Sessa would make matters easier in many directions.”

“You cannot possibly advise me to marry a woman of her birth, however
good and charming, madam? Your kind heart surely misleads you there. The
Queen would never receive her; _could_ never do so.”

“There you are mistaken.” The Duchess again repeated the Queen’s words,
and went on, “I dare not advise you. Who could, in such a matter? But I
will ask you a question. Do you believe your Emma to be a bad woman?”

All the gentleman, all the lover in Hamilton spoke in his resolute “No!
I believe her to be a good woman, and who should know better than I? But
there are reasons—”

They were naturally not perceptible to the Duchess and she went on
quietly with her argument.

“Then, if I take your own word for it, here is a good woman, fallen by
pressure of circumstances into a great misfortune. In what does she
differ from the charming Clarissa of Richardson’s imagination, cruelly
ruined but pure in heart? And if this is so, should there not be some
reparation?”

Her long soft eyes dwelt kindly, languidly upon him. His mind hovered a
moment over the question: from which of many men would that reparation
be due? Even between Greville and himself it might be hard to judge! The
Duchess knew absolutely nothing of the real facts and her opinion was so
much thistledown blown on an idle breeze; yet it pleased and touched him
where it eddied towards his own wishes. Still, he held out.

“I am no ruffian violator like Lovelace, madam, and with all her
generous qualities Emma is no saint like Clarissa.”

“Certainly. She is merely a good and trustworthy young woman,
kind-hearted and liberal to a fault. She is the most beautiful creature
I ever beheld—but one. Her gifts are surpassing. Taken together they
cannot be equalled, and I say so who have seen the world’s best for more
years than I care to count. So let that slip—but I go too far, my good
Sir William. We will not speak of it more.”

And though he would willingly have discussed it, for the subject
interested him more than anything on earth, her Grace held discreetly
away, and her talk was of roses and of scenic, not living beauties, for
the rest of the visit.

Get away from it, however, he could not. Emma said nothing, sighed but
hinted nothing, and this forbearance piqued him as well as pleased him.
Was she drifting into indifference at long last? He looked in the glass.
The lines were deepening in his face. His eyes were haggard when he sat
up o’ nights. He found those madcap excursions to Capri and Ischia less
and less pleasant. When they visited Vesuvius and Emma’s quick feet sped
nymphlike up the steep ways he was compelled to linger behind worn-out
and panting. She bloomed into a more luxuriant beauty as he waned.
Suppose she wearied of her old lover? Offers from the greatest and
wealthiest men of Europe were hers for the taking—would she refuse them
forever? And if she went—oh, cold hearth and creeping age, and
loneliness, loneliness forever!

He could not escape his problem. It confronted him at the Palace, when
the Queen, business done—for the King was too idle to hear the word,
much less endure the thing—asked after the health of the beautiful Mrs.
Hart and commented on the Duchess’s unfeigned admiration for her.

“And who can marvel? Never was a creature so gifted. I had myself the
pleasure to meet her at the Villa Columbaia and was ravished indeed. Her
beauty is the least of her recommendations. Her talent, manners,
tact!—” She made an eloquent gesture with her quick hands. “Your taste
is immaculate!” she added.

“It was so once, madam!” he said with a meaning before which she smiled
and blushed a little. It recalled—but royal memories are secret.

“It is so still,” she said, and there was a pause, while she trifled
with the imperially beautiful roses he had brought her, all curled and
pearled with dew.

Sir William considered. He knew the Queen well. Never a word but covered
a motive. What was the motive here? Better be frank than fence in vain.
She could beat any man at that game.

“Will Your Majesty permit me a question?”

“Certainly, Eccellenza. You can ask nothing but what is proper.”

A quick smile flashed and was decorously concealed by Sir William’s bow.

“Then, madam, what is Your Majesty’s motive in this graciousness to Mrs.
Hart and your humble servant?”

That question could never have been asked nor answered but for past
relations—long past, but impossible to be entirely forgotten. The Queen
toyed with the heavy paperweight of the bronze Caligula upon her table
before she answered, and Hamilton, noting the worn lines in her face,
the falsely black tresses which he had once thought so beautiful,
remembered Greville’s maxim: “Nothing is so dead as a dead passion.” How
could he ever have cared to waken a gleam in the heavy eyes or the
tremble of a kiss on the Hapsburg lips which set that family apart from
lesser men.

“I will be frank,” she said at last. “Why should I not with one of the
men who must be the King’s right hand in the days I see coming as
plainly as I see your face? Your liaison with Mrs. Hart has made
difficulties on which I would not dwell, for I would not embarrass my
friend by so much as a look. But they are real, and will become more
pressing in the days I foresee. I am ignorant whether you know that much
mischief has been made for you in high places in England, but in any
case you cannot know that, I, through channels of my own, have done my
best to protect your interests.”

No, that had not occurred to Sir William. He listened with the closest
attention. No explanation was needed. As if he had been present he could
hear Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, the prim German _hausfrau_, discussing
the matter with her circle, could see the plain, honest King’s
disapprobation of his representative’s action in flouting public opinion
publicly. Naples was not so far from England but that all its scandals
would echo in London. Marie Caroline noted his expression and continued.

“It is an ever-present terror in my mind that you might some day be
superseded here by some younger man higher in the favour of certain
influential persons, and I will frankly own that my interest is deeply
concerned, for when the trouble is upon us if I have no true friend at
the English Embassy, where am I to look for help? You see? It needs no
labouring.”

“I see, Madam, and words fail me to express my sense of Your Majesty’s
confidence in me.”

He knew that was true. What he did not guess was that behind her words
the Queen’s swift brain was shaping the thought that if a weak,
pleasure-loving man, old and completely in the hands of a fascinating
woman likely to be amenable to her own condescensions were removed, she
might be checkmated at every turn and England’s selfish policy ignore
the pressing needs of the Two Sicilies, and her personal ambitions. Her
half-frankness served her well. One does not see oneself as others see
one—at least of all the Hamiltons of the earth. He thought a moment and
added:

“But Mrs. Hart?”

“Mrs. Hart is a woman capable of great things. You cannot suppose I have
not made myself acquainted with all her qualities of head and
disposition. I have often most deeply and sincerely wished she could be
the channel of communications with you which will become invaluable as
the revolution darkens down upon us. She is capable of it in every way
if I could receive her as a friend—but you know I cannot.”

“Let us be plain,” said Sir William. “Does Your Majesty mean you could
receive the humbly born Emma Hart as a friend if her position were
legalized?”

“I could certainly receive the Ambassadress as a friend. What should
stop me? In fact, what else could I do? You would naturally have your
King’s permission for such a marriage. I have reason to believe it would
ease your own position. But this is intruding impertinently on your
private life, Eccellenza, and I fear my deep anxiety for the interests
of my own kingdom has led me into an impertinence for which I ask your
pardon.”

It was beautifully said. If Marie Caroline had professed enthusiasm
either for beauty or virtue Hamilton would not have believed a word she
said. What she put forward he knew to be true, and he could appreciate
its weight. Every day, every hour had taught him also that an
English-Sicilian alliance would soon be vital to the life of Europe.

He went away with much to consider, to the delightful companionship in
which Emma never failed him. Her sweetness was the very sunshine of his
age. The mere fear of losing it made the air chill about him.

Another circumstance drove him in the direction where the Queen and the
Duchess of Argyll were steadily pointing. Some connections of his, the
Heneage Legges, had come to Naples, partly in the train of the Duchess,
partly with some discreet curiosity on Mr. Heneage Legge’s part as to
the _ménage_ of the Palazzo Sessa. He had visited in Edgware Row in the
Greville days: he possessed his own knowledge and his own views as to
the present experiment. Naturally, when he paid his respects to the
Ambassador, Mrs. Heneage Legge did not accompany him.

“She would have been delighted to visit you, Sir William, and renew a
pleasant acquaintance but my wife’s health at present forbids her
visiting as largely as she could wish. And you are aware there are also
difficulties into which I need not enter.”

There was no more to be said. When a lady’s health blocks the way a
gentleman must stand aside, but Sir William drew his lips tighter, and
thought the freedoms of relationship detestable. The laxity of Naples;
the Duchess’s, the Queen’s, consideration had spoiled his sense of the
fitness of things. He thought his Emma’s company certainly good enough
for a Mrs. Heneage Legge, who would probably soon be taught better by
the attention paid to the Lady of the Embassy by persons much higher in
rank than herself.

And then Emma’s good nature precipitated the mischief. She met the lady
at the Villa Columbaia and, undaunted by a cold curtsey, must needs
volunteer through a lady in waiting of the Queen’s to visit and befriend
Mrs. Heneage Legge when she was seized by the languorous malaria of the
autumn. She sincerely felt for her, but apart from that, anything that
could consolidate her position with the English, was valuable.

Mrs. Heneage Legge, with her husband’s support, instantly and coolly
declined the visit of Hamilton’s unwedded wife, the gentleman explaining
with painful candour that Emma’s “former line of life” made her kind
intentions impossible of acceptance.

Emma, as spoilt as Hamilton himself by Neapolitan attentions, was
furious, but had the tact to keep her temper to herself. Pale and in
tears, her kindness flung back upon her, despised and scorned, she
touched every chivalrous string of Hamilton’s heart. It was vain to rage
against Heneage Legge, who certainly had the right to choose his wife’s
acquaintances, but Sir William felt the position was rapidly becoming
unendurable, and his alternatives shrinking to the choice between
parting with Emma forever and making her Lady Hamilton. For a month
more, he vacillated pitiably, and still Emma’s new wisdom kept silence.
Palely and quietly she accepted the insult as he could not, and shutting
herself up would go nowhere. How could she face the cruel world? Heneage
Legge meanwhile sounded his note of warning in a hasty letter to
Greville.

    “Her influence over him exceeds all belief. The language of both
    parties, who always spoke in the plural number—we, us, and
    ours—staggered me at first, but soon made me determined to
    speak to him on the subject, when he assured me, what I confess
    I was most happy to hear, that he was not married, but flung out
    some hints of doing justice to her good behaviour, if his public
    situation did not forbid him to consider himself an independent
    man. I am confident she will gain her point, against which it is
    the duty of every friend to strengthen his mind as much as
    possible. And she will be satisfied with no argument but the
    King’s absolute refusal of his approbation.

    “Her Attitudes are beyond description beautiful and striking and
    I think you will find her figure much improved since last you
    saw her.

    “They say they shall be in London by the latter end of May, that
    their stay in England shall be as short as possible, and that
    having settled his affairs he is determined never to return. She
    is much visited here by ladies of the highest rank and many of
    the _corps diplomatique_.”

Across that letter the nearly frantic Greville might have scrawled the
words _Too late_ when he received it. The whole thing was his own doing,
his mistaken kindness to Emma and Sir William, and he was now hoist with
his own petard. Had ever a man been so betrayed by his own virtues?

For a few days after Heneage Legge’s letter reached him, Sir William,
coming in at sunset from the Villa Columbaia, found Emma in the room of
the mirrors, leaning her chin on her hand, her arm on the window-sill
commanding the noble view of sea and islands—Vesuvius fluttering a
pennon of smoke into the blue. Her face was still and quiet, a
melancholy resignation shadowed it—the look of one who relinquishes
something infinitely precious and turns with patience to sadder duties.
He came and sat beside her, and together they looked out at the evening
star swimming in rosy vapours.

Presently, and very gently, he spoke.

“Emma, this cannot last. I have seen your grief and felt it most
sensibly in my own heart. For years now you have been my true and
faithful wife in all but name—”

She looked up in mute terror.

“Would it make you happier if the bond were broken? You can never be
dearer to me than you are at this moment, for I love and trust you
beyond all words. But, if it be your wish to _leave_ me—”

Still she looked at him in strained, terrified expectation, her lips
apart, white with fear. He turned his face from her and, with infinite
hesitation and reluctance, said, slowly:

“I see that cannot be. We cannot part. We have grown too close together.
Therefore I ask you to be my wife, if that is your desire. I will not
fail you; neither, I think, will you fail me.”

She fell upon her knees, sobbing hysterically, and hid her face against
him.




                              CHAPTER XVI
                                TRIUMPH


LONDON and triumph—so dizzy and dazzling that Emma might have almost
repeated her favourite saying that she did not know whether she was on
her head or her heels. Almost, only, for success had given her a
confidence so robust that she foresaw none but glittering vistas. “Alone
I did it!” was her pride. Not to Greville, not to Hamilton, but to her
own conquering personality was the victory due, and looking about her
she saw none to rival her and therefore none to fear. There might be one
or two women as beautiful in the eyes of men whose taste was on a lower
plane than Sir William’s, she thought, but that was beauty only
expressing itself in feature, whereas in herself it overflowed into such
song, such pose, that Gallini, the famous impresario, offered her £2000
a year and two benefits if she would engage with him, whereupon Sir
William gaily retorted that he had engaged her for life. Was it
wonderful that she should see herself laurel-crowned, almost divine?

For life! and Greville had to bear this amazing result of his plot with
what fortitude he could muster. The shock was so great that it was
really not fortitude but the stoicism of good breeding which alone
carried him through. Could he ever forget that first meeting with the
lovers at Sir William’s hotel? Even his frosted heart beat a little
quicker as he climbed the broad shallow stairs. He could not for the
life of him tell what Emma would be at when the door opened. Would she
have changed, grown distant and formidable, less or more beautiful?
Would she triumph vulgarly? (He could imagine that very well.) Would all
the plotting facility which had placed her where she was be turned
mercilessly against his interests henceforward! And would his dear
Hamilton look the fool which in every fibre Greville felt him to be? The
contradictions so confused him that at last he could only say within
himself—“Emma! Good God!”—almost stupefied at the work of his own
hand, and abandon himself to fate.

The door opened. Hamilton was in an armchair reading a letter to her,
she perched on the arm like a child, one hand about his neck. Greville
bowed at the door and advanced with cordial haste.

“My dear Emma, my dear Hamilton!” unpleasantly conscious of a flush
which seemed to pervade his whole being and not his face alone.

She ran forward with the prettiest grace imaginable and caught his
outstretched hand, looking back for Hamilton as he came up behind her.

“Oh, Greville, and do we see you once more? Sir William and me was
longing for this hour. Take his other hand, Sir William, and then it
will be the three of us again.”

She put his hand in his uncle’s, and beamed upon both as gay and
innocent as a lamb in a May meadow. There was no speck of cloud in the
untroubled deeps of the eyes he remembered so well, nothing but
happiness. He took the hand and kissed it.

“What am I to call your Lady Hamilton?” said he, smiling at his uncle.

“Emma—what else? She is not changed in heart, Greville. But look at her
and see what Italy has done!”

“What _you_ have done!” she corrected gravely, and stood with dropped
hands at attention to be viewed.

But Greville’s keen eyes had already drawn their conclusion. “More
beautiful,” they told him, “more womanly; dignity and elegance at her
command to be used like her _cachemire_ when necessary, and laid aside
for the old free-and-easy when she relaxed. Younger looking than even
her four and twenty years—the bud unfolded into perfect beauty, the
blossomed rose.”

Sir William looked much older. The journey had wearied him and the wild
round of gaiety in London teased him. He wanted respite and could not
get it, for every fashionable in the town was wild to see the coming
Ambassadress, and it is possible that even Emma herself might have been
daunted if she could have guessed the stories with which the blank if
not the virgin pages of her early life were adorned. Hamilton knew them.
Despairing friends plucked at the skirts of his garment at the last
moment, with these legends, to save him from a fate impossible for an
ambassador. He sickened of London and longed for Naples and the
sunshine.

“You have seen the King?” Greville asked, when they had talked a while.

“Certainly. He was most gracious. I am given a privy councillorship.
Emma, my love, have you forgot your appointment with Romney?”

She hesitated a second, invisibly, to all but Greville’s keenness, then
stooped and kissed Sir William’s cheek.

“Why, of course! I was so glad to see Greville I had all but forgot poor
Romney. Only two hours, and then when I come back we dress for the Duke
of Queensberry’s reception. The Prince of Wales will be there.”

She challenged Greville, with her bright bold smile, to injure her! Fear
to leave him alone with Sir William? Not she! and so presently tripped
out of the room in her big hat all plumes and the white silk cloak about
her shoulders. Greville attended her to the carriage, and stood
bareheaded, reminiscent of many past hackney coaches on the same errand,
as it bore her away to Romney’s studio. She had forgotten to ask
concerning little Emma, now a fine buxom girl of nine, whose last school
bill lay receipted in his pocket. He turned and went slowly up the
stair, reflecting.

“And what do you think of her?” was the first eager question. It seemed
that Hamilton could think of nothing else. He looked even older now she
was gone; it was as when the sun dies off a landscape.

“Most beautiful,” Greville answered with his carefully regulated
enthusiasm. “Immensely, unspeakably improved.”

“Worth a little sacrifice, eh?”

“Certainly. If worth a great one no one but yourself can tell. I suppose
you had great difficulties with the King about his consent?”

“On the whole, not so bad as I expected. I won’t hide from you, who have
all my confidence, that he was extremely reluctant. I could see the
Queen had primed him. He leaned chiefly on difficulties with the
Neapolitan Court and I could honestly reassure him there. Indeed, I was
able to show him a letter that Marie Caroline wrote me before leaving,
expressing her warm interest and kindness for Emma. It went a long way.
He agreed finally, and offered the privy councillorship.”

Greville reflected.

“A great honour. Did you see the Queen?”

“No. But I have no doubt that Emma will win her way when we are married.
No one can resist her. I may say her life is one triumphal progress.”

“It promised to be long since,” said Greville politely. “Has she
acquired more placidity of temper than we used to remark in her?”

“Undoubtedly. Sometimes I have seen the little struggle, for she is
naturally impetuous, but it is instantly suppressed. She owes much to
your instruction, my dear Greville.”

“You are too partial. Tell me—does she cherish any resentment against
me? Be candid. Women are unreasonable, and though it has crowned her
happiness and yours, still she may be sore on that point—you
understand?”

“Perfectly. But no, not in the least. She speaks of you with just the
calm affection I desire. One of her chief pleasures in looking forward
was to see you. I believe I express the truth in saying she mourned
sincerely over Miss Middleton’s folly and would do all in her power to
aid you in any way.”

Of that Greville believed what he pleased, but when he and Sir William
proceeded arm in arm to the club he was at least assured that for the
present the sword was sheathed.

The truth was, she was in such an Elysium that she thought little of him
and was as ready to be cordial to overflowing as she would have been
with Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh or any other reminder of a past which
might never have existed as far as she was concerned. Incapable of
bearing ill-will to any man, and to few women, she credited all the
world with as happy-go-lucky a forgetfulness as her own. Reserve and
delicacy were qualities unknown to her except as Attitudes, and they
troubled none of her relations with Greville in the new rôle of aunt and
nephew.

But Romney! He had seen in the _Gazette_ that Sir William had arrived,
but knew not the great tidings as yet not publicly announced. How should
he? He had shrunk into his shell more than ever and except for his art
the world went its way and left him stranded on the beach. Would she
send for him? Come? A little shiver like the turn of the sap in spring
in the cold veins of trees seemed to stir feebly about his heart because
she was near.

A little tap at his door. It opened very slowly. The white fold of a
woman’s dress fluttered in like a butterfly on the breeze from the
opened door without. He saw the gleam and swung his chair right about.
The door was pushed back, and, framed in the darkness behind, he saw
her.

Yes, but he could not move. He could not speak. He stared at her,
hollow-eyed. Was it real? So often in dream and waking vision that door
had stirred and she had stood, still, smiling, exactly as she stood now,
living, with glowing lips and cheeks, sweet, sweet, inexpressibly, and
yet had melted away into emptiness and distance as he looked. It would
be that and no more this time also. He looked down with a long sigh on
his knotted empty hands, and dreaded to be cheated into joy.

She could not bear it a moment longer. Her warm heart overflowed, and
quick as a sunbeam she danced along the floor and caught him about the
neck, forcing his face upwards.

“Mr. Romney—oh, Mr. Romney, I’ve come back to you. Are you glad? I’m so
glad I don’t know what to do. Look up, or I’ll run away again!”

He felt the loving living arms about him. In no dream had he heard her
voice—that voice of heart’s music—no dream had kissed his cheek with
rose-warm lips.

“Emma? Emma?”—he said at last, in a thick muffled voice that made its
way through a long-heaped silence; and then the life she brought with
her flowed quicker through his blood and woke him to her sunshine.

“Is it true?” he asked at last, and she, her heart almost overflowing at
her eyes, assured him it was Emma—“the same, same Emma that can never
change to you. No, not if she lives to be a hundred.”

She calmed him after that. She had two hours—two whole golden hours!
And see! They would have their meal together, just the same as in the
old dear days. Was there a loaf in the cupboard; and eggs?

No, not one. Then what did he mean? Was he going to starve? No, wait,
wait! She had her plan.

She caught up her old basket in a dusty corner, itself all dusty and
cobwebbed, but still preserved, and down the stair with her, and off to
the nearest shop she could find; and that was near for she had not
forgotten a step of the way. And presently she returned, with her little
parcels, to find him at the front door staring bewildered lest she
should be flown off to Naples like a witch on a broomstick; and so up
the stairs, and to the little stove where he had his lonely kettle
a-boil and all his rusty, dusty materials for tea; and tucked up her
sleeves and made her buttered toast and fried her sausages and sat him
down to eat with her while she ate also with her hearty young appetite
and talked with a full mouth and a fuller heart of the Neapolitan
triumphs.

That was Emma at her best and loveliest. It is arguable, nor can I
refute it, that let who will possess her, Romney had the most of her
after all. He drew some divine essence from her that the others could
not—no, not even Nelson, though he came nearest. He saw the soul in her
freed from all contradictions and flaws—pure essence, spiritual beauty.
And whether he was wrong or immortally right, God only knows, who made
her so beautiful.

So he listened, elbows propped on the table, and greedy eyes devouring
every play of light and dark across her face—worshipping once more at
the altar of the Divine Lady.

But now she must come near the central truth of her strange, eventful
history—her marriage. And that would wing a dart, she knew full well,
for what have poor painters to do with ambassadresses rising in
apotheosis into rosy clouds of flattery and grandeur?

“Sir William loves me beyond all you could imagine, Mr. Romney”—she
said, delaying a little.

“What else could he do? What else can any of ’em do? Tell me news, Emma.
Tell me he stays in England now he’s here.”

“Alas, no, my dear, dear friend. His duties take him back to Naples.”

“And you with him?”

“And I with him. As his wife.”

She sat half frightened, half triumphant, with the man looking at her
open-mouthed, fixed. She answered the beseeching in his face.

“Yes, it’s true. His wife.”

“But not yet—not yet?”

“In a few days. But then we stop here awhile. Oh, Mr. Romney, you shall
paint me on my wedding day.”

“Your wedding day. No. He’ll want you with him.”

“Then he shan’t have me; but he’s good, he’ll understand. Would I not be
with my friend that happy day? Dear sir, you shall paint the
Ambassadress, and it shall be—oh, better than Circe, than Cassandra,
than them all!”

She caught him up in her own joy and whirled him away, leaving not a
moment for thought or grief. All centred on the picture. And so it
remains—immortal, for he threw his great heart, his great brain into
it, and the colours were mingled with his life-blood in that most noble
portrait. She sits, little hands with the new wedding ring clasped upon
the arm of her chair. Some one has disturbed her meditation—her
Excellency the Ambassadress is needed; she turns her face, the lovely
oval chin and curved lips upon the happy beholder. The eyes under the
long arched brows are full of gentle reserves and soft dignity. Not any
Circe nor Cassandra now, but Emma Hamilton, herself at last. We may
believe that Hamilton loved that picture, for it represented her as all
he wished and believed her—worthy indeed of the great gifts he had
given.

But the world went on its way, and from that day onward the fribbles of
fashion crowded about her. She swept them away also in the strong
current of her marvellous vitality. Mr. Horace Walpole wrote wittily
enough that the Nymph of the Attitudes had conquered—“Sir William
Hamilton’s pantomime mistress, who acts all the antique statues in an
Indian shawl.” So he said, burning to see the sight like the rest of
them. He favoured the Duke of Queensberry’s reception that night at
Richmond with a chosen few that he might see her with Sir William
glowing with pride to display his conquering Beauty. Let us hear the
Arbiter of Fashion and of Taste.

    “On Saturday evening I was at the Duke of Queensberry’s (at
    Richmond _s’entend_) with a small company, and there were Sir W.
    Hamilton and Mrs. Hart, who on the 3rd of next month, previous
    to their departure, is to be made _Madame l’Envoyeé à Naples_,
    the Neapolitan Queen having promised to receive her in that
    quality. _Here_ she cannot be presented, where only such
    over-virtuous wives as the Duchess of Kingston and Mrs.
    Hastings, who could go with a husband in each hand, are
    admitted. I had only heard of her Attitudes, and those, in dumb
    show, I have not yet seen. Oh, but she sings admirably; has a
    very fine strong voice; is an excellent buffa and an astonishing
    tragedian. She sung ‘Nina’ in the highest perfection, and there
    her attitudes were a whole theatre of grace and various
    expressions.”

So Mr. Walpole’s world was conquered (with reservations) and she thought
it conquered wholly.

They were married at Marylebone church on the 6th September, 1790, in
the twenty-fifth year of her age, and the witnesses were my Lord
Abercorn, Sir William’s cousin, and Mr. Dutens, and fashion laughed at
Sir William as it had never laughed yet. Indeed, it had believed he
might escape the adventuress at the last moment—the dotard! And Mr.
Walpole wrote again to his Miss Berrys that “_Apropos_, Sir W. Hamilton
has married his Gallery of Statues, and they are set out on their return
to Naples.”

And Emma spent that eventful day with her friend and gave him the last
sitting of so many; the last forever.

That friendship and Sir William’s true affection stand out as the sole
and touching realities of the unreal froth and laughter and slighting
jest with Mr. Walpole’s aged cynicism leading the rabble rout. He may
have been right in his valuation—he would have declared that after
years proved him immaculately so, had he lived to jest when that time
came—but his light cruelties hover, a malarial glitter of corruption,
above the Lethe where all dead things roll to their doom in the sullen
flood; and Romney’s adoration and her husband’s fidelity shine like
fixed stars in every memory of her fair face, and will illuminate her
with tenderness until her beauty is forgotten.

Her gratitude to her husband! She could never make him amends for his
goodness. What did it matter that the cold Queen of England refused to
receive her? He had restored her to all a woman could value. She wrote
to her faithful Romney:

    “I am the happiest woman in the world. Sir William is fonder of
    me every day, and I hope he will have no corse to repent of his
    goodness to me. But why do I tell you this? You know me enough.
    You was the first dear friend I opened my heart to. You ought to
    know me, for you have seen and discoursed with me in my poorer
    days. How grateful then do I feel to my dear, dear husband, that
    as restored peace to my mind, that as given me honours, rank,
    and what is more, innocence and happiness. Rejoice with me, my
    dear sir, my friend, my more than father. Believe me, I am still
    that same Emma you knew me. Tell Hayley I am always reading his
    ‘Triumphs of Temper,’ it was that that made me Lady H. for God
    knows I had for five years enough to try my temper and I am
    afraid if it had not been for the good example Serena taught me,
    my girdle would have burst, and if it had I had been undone for
    Sir W. minds more temper than beauty. He therefore wishes Mr.
    Hayley would come that he might thank him for his sweet-tempered
    wife. I swear to you I have never once been out of humour since
    the 6th of last September. God bless you.”

Her dear warm heart! He kissed that letter as he laid it aside, and
dreamed of a visit to Naples to bask in her sunshine, a dream that
melted into nothing.

So they set out to Naples, Ambassador and Ambassadress of England,
visiting on the way the sad, foreboding Marie Antoinette of France, and
bearing with them in Emma’s bosom her last letter to her sister Marie
Caroline of the Two Sicilies. To such honour is the once forlorn Emma
come! It would have been much to witness the meeting of those two
beautiful creatures, on whom the hand of Destiny was so strangely laid.

And they returned to the Palazzo Sessa. To live happy ever after? At
least it began with all due splendour. Marie Caroline redeemed her
promise and broke, in Lady Hamilton’s favour, the rule which forbids any
sovereign to receive a woman who cannot be presented at her native
Court. Not only so—Mrs. Hart was forgotten. That lady had, for social
purposes, never existed, and the daughter of the Hapsburgs took the
daughter of the blacksmith to her bosom on the footing of closest, most
intimate friendship. Her keen eyes were fixed steadily on the storm
blackening in France, rolling up the sky and slowly extinguishing the
sun. Let who would doubt its coming, she would be prepared. She could
not do enough for the representatives of England, and all the world
followed her example. Surely the past was buried under the radiant
present as the drowned corpses lie beneath the blue Mediterranean, and
if a memory, like a white face, ever floated up to the sparkling
surface, it was easy for Emma Hamilton to forget it when the next ripple
carried it out to sea. All the English ladies, even their young
daughters, were at her feet now. Perhaps she did not quite realize that
the English in foreign countries live by a different code from the
English in England. She was to understand that later.

It was for the first time worth Hamilton’s while to train her in
politics, for the quick wit that aided him at every turn could be made
useful in his diplomatic work also. It grew more irksome as he grew
older, and as France, sinister, menacing as Vesuvius itself, threatened
to break forth in ruining flames and lava. Emma could spare him a little
here and there on the lighter side, he thought. Certainly she could and
did copy and rewrite some of his despatches and was developing into a
capable secretary.

It puzzled her, wearied her a little at first, but when she understood
that it helped him, that even the Queen’s chance words to her repeated
to him (but were they ever chance?) were of interest and value, she
caught up that rôle of stateswoman, and played it as she did all the
others. After all, an ambassadress should be in the secrets of her
trade. _She_ would show them that there too she was at home. Not for
nothing had Greville written to Sir William in the early days of the
plot against her, “Emma’s passion is admiration, and it is capable of
aspiring to any line which will be celebrated, and it would be
indifferent when on that key whether she was Lucretia or Sappho or
Scævola or Regulus, anything grand, whether masculine or feminine she
could take up.”

She could, indeed. She would show them now, King, Queen, Hamilton,
Greville, the World, that there was nothing beyond her, and the more
difficult the better. She would win the Royal admiration, and with it
under the Queen’s and Hamilton’s tuition she studied her new rôle—the
politics of Europe. There, too, she would be prima donna, and Marie
Caroline, used to the choice of instruments, tested this one in little
things, and her heart rejoiced within her. For the day of great things
was drawing on.




                                PART III




                              CHAPTER XVII
                                 NELSON
                                  1793


THE terror and chaos which dominated the France of the Revolution had at
last overflowed her coasts, and the vision of Marie Caroline was
realized before the eyes of all the world. Driven by fear and hatred and
a nascent sense of power, the young tiger that had tasted blood and
mastery was not only standing at bay as formerly, but now making
alarming springs on neighbouring territory. Here and there his swift paw
struck and left its bleeding scores. What hope was there for Europe but
a coalition, not only against the armed forces of France but also
against her new and frightful gospel of Death to Despotism, to the
Aristocrats, to the Kings? Death also to God—no peace until the last
king had been strangled in the bowels of the last priest. One after
another, silently, tremblingly, rallying, led by Austria whose royal
daughter was in the hands of the murderers, the European nations herded
together as frightened cattle herd when the howl of the wolf is heard at
midnight.

It is easy now for armchair philosophers to trace the features of
liberty behind the mask of the Medusa and to hold to the belief that the
root of democracy was watered by the blood that drenched the soil of
France—not only royal blood, be it remembered, but the blood of the
people also. It was more difficult at the end of the eighteenth century
when, to most sober men, France had become a madness drunk with
abominations, wild with bloody and sexual license, a shame to look upon,
the enemy of God and man.

The Queen of the Two Sicilies certainly made that view her religion and
conscience. It was not wonderful. Every fragment of her mother’s, the
great Empress Maria Theresa’s, policy, was being trampled to pieces by
the French republicans before her eyes. Her doomed sister was in their
hands, tortured daily and nightly with every fiendish cruelty the mind
of man and woman could conceive—widowed by the guillotine, discrowned,
and drawing daily nearer to the same fate. For, as Danton cried in his
tremendous image: “The coalized kings threaten us; we hurl at their
feet, as gage of battle, the head of a king.”

And the reply of the kings and peoples was to ring the French about with
fire as enemies of all the harvest that painful ages have brought to
mankind. They had sown the tares, they should reap them. And it may be
that the historian of the twentieth century may write that that sowing
and reaping are not even yet finished for the world.

And besides all these universal concerns, Marie Caroline, as Queen of
the Two Sicilies (for her husband counts for nothing save as the sand in
the machinery of her rule), had her own cruel anxieties. She doubted the
strength of Austria and the policy of her brother the Emperor, she was
aware that her husband’s brother, the miserable King of Spain, was
angling for French favour at the instance of a wife who would have sold
Spain’s honour in exchange for the crown of the Two Sicilies for her
son. She looked out into the world with almost hopeless eyes, and saw
but one star of hope—England.

Could England unmoved behold Italy and Sicily in French hands, coldly
withdrawing herself from European intrigues and bloodshed? If she could
do this, all was over.

England, as usual, hesitated and temporized. The quality of swift
decision has never been national, though many a great Englishman has
flashed it out in emergency. She acted with a caution so cold that to
many English hearts it appeared weakness. Advice was sent from the
English Cabinet to the Queen to make peace while yet she could with
France—the rising star of war. She could not if she would. Daily the
position grew worse as the doctrines of mob-anarchy filtered along the
Mediterranean coasts and among their inflammable southern peoples. The
inaction of England drove her almost frantic. What! England, Mistress of
the seas, Ruler of India, was it possible for her to behold unmoved the
Mediterranean become a French lake, and Antichrist enthroned in every
European capital but London? And yet it seemed that this very thing
might be.

And then the last weight was thrown into the peace scale of English
patience and it dropped. Marie Antoinette was guillotined, and even in
Marie Caroline’s anguish she realized that her sister had not died in
vain. That event touched the conscience of Europe with horror—that and
all the cruel circumstances involved. By itself alone it could not have
effected it, but as the last snowflake fluttering on the massed snow
tilts its equilibrium until it rushes down in roar and ruin, so that
horror, perhaps no worse than many precedent, called England to arms.
War was declared, and the great arsenal of Toulon seized by the British
Admiral Lord Hood. The day that news reached the Queen her wearied eyes
flashed dominant once more. “We have them!” she said.

But not yet. There was much, much yet to be done before the guns of
Trafalgar should open a conquering road for those of Waterloo, and with
the grim dogged patience of her ancestry Marie Caroline settled down to
the long struggle. Who could hope that the interests of a little kingdom
like the Two Sicilies should loom large in the councils of a power like
England? What would the English care if the Bourbon Royalties were
driven from Naples? They were but a name to the islanders.

With trembling but resolute care she surveyed her hopes and weapons,
Acton was a clear-headed man, but somewhat of a lath painted to look
like iron. No one knew that better than the Queen now, whatever had been
her opinion at first. Still, though an Irishman, he was strongly
pro-British and imbued with the necessary hatred of the French and all
their works, Hamilton was old—too much of the dilettante, his interest
keener in an unearthed statue, a strayed gem from the Medici
collections, than in all the protocols of Europe—clear-headed
certainly, life-practised in the tortuous ways of diplomacy; but old;
lacking in zest and fire. Yet, considering all this with the frigid
judgment of a statesman, Marie Caroline felt his value still. He
belonged to one of the ruling families of England, he was connected with
the King by ties which had not broken even in the strain of his marriage
with Emma, and was universally respected as a man of high character—the
English type of the great gentleman, self-possessed and cool in
dangerous times. Nor had his marriage injured him except with a few
scandalous old women of both sexes. Emma, supported by the Queen, had
worn her honours excellently, without either flaunting or shame. Quick
as lightning to assimilate even the unspoken hint, and to take colour
from the society about her, she filled her post to perfection. The Queen
and Hamilton between them modelled and drilled her into the Ambassadress
and by 1793 the work was finished. The born great lady, cold and
dignified, could never have suited the Neapolitans from the Queen
downward so well as this warm-hearted, kindly, eager, beautiful creature
who yet could dazzle the world with her graces and again chill it, if
necessary, with the “Majesty and Juno air,” of which she had written to
Greville years before. And in this emergency it was to Emma the Queen’s
mind chiefly turned.

To Emma! Amazing stroke of fate! Emma herself might have hesitated to
believe it possible in spite of all her self-confidence, if it had not
come so gradually.

First, the Queen’s exceeding graciousness, the private receptions, the
long intimate talks ranging from embroidery silks to English manners and
customs, to the talk of the Lazzaroni—that curious population peculiar
to Naples—basking about the piers in sunshine. Then the open
favour—the Royal horses at Emma’s disposal, the Royal grooms to attend
her when her Excellency the Ambassadress rode abroad; not now madcap and
gay as on the Sussex Downs, but sedately as becomes a great lady. A very
great lady, worthy to be courted by the others of the kind who
frequented Naples.

“Emma,” wrote Hamilton to Greville, “has had a difficult part to act,
and has succeeded wonderfully, having gained by having no pretensions,
the thorough approbation of all the English ladies. She goes on
improving daily. She is really an extraordinary being.”

Did not the quick Queen know that even better than Hamilton? She had
seen it years before. Very gradually, and without any very clear
understanding on her part, Emma was pushed into the centre of an English
party at the Court of Naples. What more natural and proper in her
position? And so where neither the Queen nor her influence could appear,
Emma could, and openly.

It became Marie Caroline’s amiable custom to send little messages to the
English Ambassador through his charming wife, whom she saw almost daily.
Acton, too, was often of the party, and the Queen and he would discuss
political matters before Emma; matters in which her interest soon
awakened and which she could discuss intelligently. She had always
responded to education from the Greville days onward, and the Queen and
Acton were educating her carefully now for a rôle she little suspected.
It amused and pleased Hamilton, who did his share of the work at home.

But it was not her advice they wanted at first. It was the co-operation
of an unsuspected intermediary, ardent, devoted, full of boundless
energy. And they secured it. Tact also. There, too, the Queen could
trust her Emma. See how she writes to the friendly Greville, who is
rigidly all that is courteous and kind to his uncle’s childless wife:

    “I have no pretensions nor do I abuse Her Majesty’s goodness, as
    she observed at Court at Naples (when) we had a drawing-room in
    honner of the Empress having brought a son. I had been with the
    Queen the night before alone, _en famille_, laughing, singing,
    etc., etc., but at the drawing-room I kept my distance and payd
    the Queen as much respect as tho’ I had never seen her before,
    which pleased her very much. She showed me great distinction
    that night and told me several times how much she admired my
    good conduct. You may imagine how happy my dear, dear Sir
    William is. We live more like lovers than husband and wife, as
    husbands and wives go nowadays. Lord deliver me! and the English
    are as bad as the Italians some few excepted.”

Greville smiled his little bitter smile which aged more quickly than he
did, as he read Emma’s moralities. Women! He wondered whether a sense of
humour would save Emma from her absurdities. And to him!—to him, of all
men! But like many beauties she never had a sense of humour, scarcely
even of fun. She had many other gifts, however, and used them.

Certainly Sir William was satisfied, and with reason. It was Emma now
for the exact degree of attention to be shown to a Princess travelling
_incognita_, the exact degree of discouragement to ladies whose rank was
impeccable but reputations a little too damaged even for Neapolitan
easiness. Emma withdraws herself with dignity from revels which are
over-rompish for her newly-refined taste, and Sir William applauds.

“Let them all roll on the carpet—provided you are not of the party. My
trust is in you,” he writes.

And safely. Emma, the Ambassadress, is more inclined to magnify her
office than to roll on the carpet with it. Great ladies, the truly
great, do not commit such _faux pas_. She mused often over the unspoken
lessons in demeanour of the sweet Gunning Duchess, now gone to rejoin
her lost and lovely sister. Emma had studied that soft dignity to some
purpose, and if the original Eve broke forth sometimes primitive and
unashamed, who can blame her?

She sat one day in her room of the mirrors dressed in her white morning
negligée and looked out upon the blue bay, with many thoughts of public
anxiety. It was dawn, and a golden calm subdued the water into a peace
so exquisite that it quieted her into a serene delight. They were to
spend the day alone, and she was glad; a little tired of unceasing
anxiety and the long uneasy talks with the Queen and Acton. The air was
full of trouble; she hankered sometimes for the good old days when all
was gaiety and gladness by the blue sea that has seen so many revellers
come and flit away into the darkness for ever. And as she leaned and
watched in pleasant idleness, a ship hove in sight, far-off but drawing
in slowly and steadily with white sails set to catch every drift of the
faint morning breeze—a great ship with yawning ports along her
chequered sides, with the English ensign flying; English, therefore, and
certainly a news-bearer.

She started up and caught at Sir William’s glass, steadying it against a
flower-stand and kneeling while she looked. Yes—English.

Good God! Sir William must know.

He was not in his room and she sent Teresa flying all over the house to
search for him. No—His Excellency was out. He had dressed and gone
hastily down to the water’s edge. Then he knew—he had known before she
did. She knelt down and resumed her glass. Presently, their own boat
pulling off from the pier. That would be Sir William in the stern and
one of the secretaries. Which, she could not be sure. Now they were
nearing the big ship as she turned, rounded broadside on to the windows,
and Emma, through the slid-back panes, could hear the great rattle when
the mighty anchor loosed from the catheads sent blue water flying as it
sought its home below. And then the thunder of the Royal salute to the
flag of the Two Sicilies flying on Uovo and Nuovo. Twenty-one guns. She
put her hands to her ears, laughing for pride and pleasure as the roar
of the Lion sent the wild echoes flying. These Neapolitans—they should
see the might of her own people at last; the floating battlements which
alone stood between them and the French devils. She clapped her hands
when gun after gun thundered along the Bay, and Uovo and Nuovo responded
with feebler, crackling honours.

What! The Royal Barge putting out to the ship, and at this early hour!
And that was the King in the stern if ever she saw him. Then that was
Marie Caroline’s doing; a special honour to the ship representing the
friend of the Two Sicilies. She saw her husband’s boat draw back
politely, and the Royal barge gained the rope ladder first with Sir
William’s hovering attendant, and the boatswain’s shrill pipe cut the
morning air, and the officers gathered at the gangway, and she could see
the King laboriously ascending the rope ladder, Sir William following,
and a bright bugle call was heard, and then, for watchers ashore, the
scene was closing unless one cared to watch the boats making off
hot-foot from the shore with cargoes of fruit and vegetables very
acceptable to men so long afloat as the bluejackets of the English
Fleet.

Emma did not. With Teresa she made such a careful toilette as a
beautiful young woman of twenty-seven would naturally achieve with
hospitalities of importance to come. The Captain and all the officers on
leave would be entertained at the Embassy. Indeed, the Queen might send
for her any moment to discuss the news, whatever it might be. Word had
already reached the Embassy that the ship was the _Agamemnon_—detached
from the English fleet blockading Toulon. Good God! What was the news?
But no one was sure, though wild rumours were flying about and nearly
all the population on the quays. She lived at the window that morning,
and watched the Royal barge return with all the honours, and received a
messenger who came from Sir William with news that preparation must be
made for the guests she expected. She was half frantic with suspense.

An hour went by. Evidently long private discussions between the
Ambassador and the Captain. Good Heavens! Why couldn’t they talk as well
ashore? And then again the boatswain’s piercing call, and the Embassy
boat at the ladder, and Sir William clambering down slowly hand under
hand, and a slight man in uniform taking the descent as to the manner
born. She had heard, but could not for the life of her remember, who
commanded the _Agamemnon_.

She hurried into the great reception room where the morning sun was
darting bright rays through the jalousies, and lighting up the low broad
settees, the polished tables with Sir William’s articles of _virtu_
displayed upon them, the glassed cabinets where yet more precious
treasures lurked, and the huge pottery bowls full of the glorious
flowers which poured into the house summer and winter alike. A gracious
setting for any woman.

Steps. Voices—Sir William’s a little excited; she knew that note! A
strange voice answering. A group of uniformed men at the door, the
Ambassador leading and waving the Captain to precede him.

“Emma, my love. Captain Horatio Nelson of the _Agamemnon_. Lady
Hamilton, sir. He brings the news that Toulon is in our hands.”

She had started to her feet to curtsey ceremoniously, when the last
words caught her ear, and then, radiant, rejoicing, the Ambassadress
caught his hand in both her own.

“Toulon ours? Oh, sir, you are God’s messenger as well as our King’s.
Thank God. Thank God.”




                             CHAPTER XVIII
                          THE NEAPOLITAN COURT


CAPTAIN HORATIO NELSON was at this time thirty-four years old, and far
from despicable in person. He was slender almost to a fault and so
small-boned that most observers classed him as a little man, which was
far from true, since he touched middle height, and bore himself well and
serenely except when suddenly agitated; and then his nervous temperament
sparkled in his eyes and twitched his mobile lips. His brows were arched
and gave a clear lift to the penetrating eye beneath; his forehead lofty
and commanding. Yet it is possible these characteristics might be read
into the face by later knowledge rather than by present observation, and
to Emma, not so quick to read character as to feel and humour it
insensibly, he appeared at first sight an ordinary sea captain in the
ordinary plain uniform (devoid even of epaulettes) of the time. His
consequence lay in the news he brought, and his interest to her
personally in the fact that he had a petition from his Admiral, my Lord
Hood, to be preferred at the Neapolitan Court, which she might raise her
own consequence by aiding.

When they were alone, Sir William gave her the necessary outlines.

“I am impressed with the air of this young man, my love. He met the King
with the utmost composure and appeared so full of business as to have
room for nothing else. Important business indeed. Toulon is in our
hands, but troops, troops are of all things needful and Lord Hood has
sent the _Agamemnon_ to beg for them. I know what the Queen’s mind will
be, but the King’s jaw dropped. He is willing enough to take his subsidy
from England, but not to spend a penny of it but on his own fancies.
Work for my Emma!”

She opened the subject again with Nelson, whom she found in the
reception room, turning over the ornaments on the tables with fingers
curiously delicate for a man and of his profession. He had a tall,
good-looking boy in attendance in midshipman’s uniform, dirk and all
complete, whom he presented as his stepson Josiah Nisbet, and to whom
Lady Hamilton overflowed with cordiality. Boys were her delight, she
protested. No, of course he should not live aboard. The poor little
fellow (who blushed to be so named) must need a change after that cruel
cruising for weeks and months! Sir William’s Italian secretary should
take him to see the sights, and she would talk with Captain Nelson.

Nisbet despatched, there was much to tell and hear. The long and weary
blockade of Toulon.

“We got honour and salt beef, madam, not much else!” says he, leaning
back on the fine silk of the settee as if a little wearied. “My good
fellows have not had a morsel of fresh meat or vegetables for nineteen
weeks and though I did my best to keep them amused and distracted, Your
Ladyship will judge there was much sickness aboard. I have been luckier
than some captains, but—”

“Hold! Not a word more.”

Up goes a fair commanding hand, loaded with sparkling rings, and the
other touches the silver bell at her elbow. The lacquey outside comes
hurrying at the quick tinkle.

“Tell Ferrari to have six boatloads of fruit and vegetables sent off to
the _Agamemnon_ in my name. The best in the market. And let it be done
_now_.”

“Indeed, madam, words fail me to express my sense of your
consideration!” the young Captain cries with warmth. “Your Ladyship
shows a sensibility I can never forget. The world that hankers for
victories ignores the poor fellows that win it for them. I thank you in
their name. That fruit will be the sweeter to them coming from our
Ambassadress.”

Indeed, it won his heart, which was at that time centred in his men.
Never a commander more zealous for their good with all in his power. She
touched the right string there.

“Indeed, sir, you have but to speak and have in Naples,” says she
earnestly. “If you could but guess the terror and agony of the Queen’s
mind with her sister in the hands of those French monsters, and
Jacobinism rolling like the lava from Vesuvius ever nearer and nearer,
you would comprehend your consequence here. Her only hope is England.”

“You don’t mention the King, madam?” says Nelson in some surprise.

“I don’t mention him because he has not even the merit of being neutral
to his wise Queen’s English policy, but is forever angling after his
brother on the throne of Spain, who is in the pay of the French
Jacobins, so sure as I sit here.”

“Then, Your Ladyship, was I amiss in mentioning first to the King my
Admiral’s need of troops? Good God, how is a plain sailor-man to see his
way through such a maze! Surely the Ambassador would have checked me if
I mistook.”

“No, sir. It is true it would be well if the King could be dropped out
of any negotiations, but being King ’tis not possible. I shall see Her
Majesty this afternoon after the King and she have received you, and
will lay before her any private particulars you may have reserved for
Sir William. He will give you my character for good sense and secrecy.
Confer with him and let me know the result. And leaving you to this I
will put on my hat and take your little Nisbet for a drive along the
sea-road from Naples to Posilippo. I see him in the loggia. You can rely
on my taking care of him.”

Captain Nelson sat alone in the cool and beautiful room considering the
events of the morning with that swift mind of his, and of these his
beautiful hostess came last in interest. Could he have made a mistake in
opening the Admiral’s request for troops to the King? That was a vital
matter for the Fleet and, not only that, but would affect his own
professional reputation according to success or failure. But then, if
so, Sir William should have given him a check somehow. He rose and took
a turn about the room, considering, and touched the bell and with what
many young captains would have considered consummate impudence requested
he might have the honour of a few words with His Excellency before
starting for the Royal audience. “Certainly,” was the answer, “if
Captain Nelson would kindly follow the messenger.”

He rose at once, seeing Lady Hamilton through one of the windows,
standing with Nisbet in the loggia. Her hand was on his shoulder, near
as high as her own, and she was pointing to the sea, her face in the
shadow of a great straw hat. He lingered an imperceptible moment, for
the attitude, her womanly figure in its flowing white, and the sweet
laughing face brought his home so tenderly and touchingly before him
after the weary storm-tossed months before Toulon, the solitary years at
sea, that his throat constricted and in his quick emotional way a
moisture clouded his eyes. He saw his wife, his Fanny, fluttering her
handkerchief as he drove off to join his ship at Portsmouth, his old
father standing at her shoulder. For a moment, this stranger woman was
Home to him, after all the sea loneliness.

What had he heard of her? He tried to remember, as he followed to Sir
William’s study. Of course the Fleet gossiped on all the Mediterranean
doings when the captains assembled at one another’s or the Admiral’s
table for business as much as for pleasure. He remembered Lord Hood’s
speaking of Sir William Hamilton.

“A gentleman, if ever there was one, grandson of the Duke of Hamilton,
but should be attending to the Jacobins in Naples sooner than collecting
old vases. A hobby well enough for a man in Pall Mall, but, by the Lord,
sir, Naples is a perfect hotbed of vice; the very soil for the seeds of
Jacobinism to fester in! The King of the Two Sicilies will be a broken
reed to lean on when we come to close grips with the Mounseers.”

And then one of the captains, laughing, “A man of taste other ways than
in vases, my Lord. He married his mistress, the famous Mrs. Hart. They
say he fell in love with her because there wasn’t one of his ancient
statues she could not represent with a white cloth about her.”

And another: “I saw her in London, my Lord, at the opera when we were
refitting at Portsmouth. A wonder—a regular blue-eyed English beauty.
For my part, I can’t blame His Excellency. ’Tis the only way to secure a
mistress’s fidelity.”

And Lord Hood with his long, lean face, summing up: “Why, sir, ’tis the
worst of all ways for a man for it gives a bad woman security to befool
him. And I would have you all to warn your officers if duty should call
them to Naples that it has the name of being a sink of iniquity—every
woman a wanton” (but His Lordship used a Biblical term) “and every man a
fiddler or a fool, and act accordingly in the giving of leave in the
ward-room and gun-room. All the same, be she what she will, Lady
Hamilton is Ambassadress and said to be as thick as thieves with the
Queen of Naples—a bird of the same feather if all tales be true. And
now, gentlemen, to business!”

And then the thing passed from his mind like breath from a looking
glass. He had no reason to expect a visit to Naples for himself. But,
with the surrender of Toulon, it came, for the _Agamemnon_ was a fast
sailer and speed the essential. No thought of the story revived in him,
thronged with great events and anxieties, until that moment.

Sir William was sitting at his bureau with a list before him which
looked much more like a catalogue of _objets d’art_ than a summary of
the Neapolitan forces—but let that pass. Captain Nelson knew quite as
little of the former as Sir William of the latter, and might be
mistaken. He was as formal as his youth and subordination demanded.

“Your Excellency, I have made bold to ask a private word, for I
understand we go to the Palace shortly.”

“Certainly, sir. I was about to send for you. Her Excellency came in a
moment since to say she had warned you that all real business is
transacted with the Queen. I would have given you that hint this morning
but ’twas impossible.”

“I thank Your Excellency. But surely there could be no movement of
troops without His Majesty’s sanction?”

“Naturally, sir, but you shall understand in strict privacy that His
Majesty is much under the influence of his brother, the King of Spain,
who is in league with the French Jacobins. Consequently all news is
obliged to go first, as it were, to the Queen and General Acton (a
right-hand man of ours) who then do what they can with His Majesty.”

Captain Nelson considered a swift instant. Thought might be seen
quivering over his plain nervous face and in his keen eyes, so much were
the inward and outward man at one. He was got into the land of intrigue,
for certain, and what was a sailor-man to do with it? No laying his ship
broadside on to the King, and seeing his flag come slowly down the mast
in answer to the guns. No cutlass out and boarding with women and their
petty intrigues and tempers and secrets. Better be plain with the
Ambassador at the start. He misliked his job.

“Your Excellency, I am no diplomatist, but a sailor. My errand is to get
the troops for my Admiral, else the last state of Toulon will be the
worst. What then is my shortest road to this end?”

Sir William took a pinch of snuff and surveyed the eager war-worn young
man with good-humour.

“Sir, your shortest way is the Queen, and your shortest road to her
through my Lady Hamilton.”

“I guessed as much from Her Excellency’s condescension but—”

“There is really no ‘but,’ Captain Nelson. I might have said it is the
_only_ way. The Queen herself will be anxious, even jealous, about
despatching troops in the present state of Sicily. My Lady Hamilton,
however, has unbounded influence with her and deserves it.”

“Does Your Excellency convey that I am to discuss the matter with Her
Ladyship?”

Captain Nelson looked grave, disturbed. For such counsels of war the
Fleet was no training.

Sir William saw the look and smiled in his easy heart-hiding way.

“My dear sir, in diplomacy we fire no broadsides, we utter no defiances.
We glide, insinuate, compliment, and thwart—all with delicacy. And you
will thus find the ladies invaluable in my profession. Her Excellency,
though I say it of my wife, has the brain and energy of a man; coupled
with the finesse and patience of a woman. You and I will now go and pay
our formal visit at the Palace. If you follow my advice you will confine
yourself to presenting the Admiral’s letter with compliments alike to
King and Queen—more especially the former. At two o’clock Her Ladyship
will meet you with me, and if you will then be plain with us as to the
situation of the Fleet, I will engage for it that she shall see the
Queen. The matter of the transport of the troops you will arrange later
with General Acton.”

To say that Captain Nelson was astonished is to say little. Yet what to
do but submit to the man on the spot—the British Ambassador? He bowed
and signified obedience and the two set off, properly attended, amid the
cheers of the crowding populace, for the news of Toulon had fled through
the city, and rainbows of bunting were a-flutter from every stick and
height.

The _Agamemnon_ lay ringed about by the bringers of Her Excellency’s
bounty. He mentioned this with gratitude to Sir William.

“She has a passion for the glory of England, and therefore for the Fleet
that is its instrument,” says the Ambassador, “and an excellent heart
behind it. I have seen her so worked up in these French horrors, and our
action against them, that ’tis not too much to say I believe she would
sell the gown off her back to provide for the meanest Jack ashore if he
came to her.”

It sank in, but on the whole Captain Nelson was occupied with his
presentations to Royalty of the foreign order, and how best to carry
himself in honour of the Flag. True he had a Royal friend of his own,
His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, but he was a sailor like
himself, a rough and tough take-it-or-leave-it Jack afloat—by no means
a guide to Queens and their fripperies.

Yet she was not affrighting after all. The presentation to the pantaloon
King was brief. He shook the Captain by the hand, introduced him himself
to Acton, and commended the Toulon work and the speed of the _Agamemnon_
for the benefit of the quick-eyed Neapolitan grandees who stood about
him. They affected Captain Nelson unpleasantly—grimacing, gesticulating
foreigners. Was this the stuff the Admiral counted on for Toulon? Give
him a thousand bull-headed big-lunged Norfolk men for choice to take his
chance with, sooner than a million like these monkeys. And then the King
himself conducted him to the Queen, with her ladies in waiting.

Here, too, he was unfavourably impressed. Handsome, no doubt, but lined,
haggard, with too-bright eyes, worn to fiddle-strings with her political
and private anxieties. He noted the fine diamonds about her throat and
swinging beside her sallow cheeks—that brooch would buy half Norfolk.
He must tell his Fanny these fine doings; she would like to hear. But
her grimace was surface, he believed—what was in her shifty foreign
heart?

The Austrian Hen, as her husband politely called her behind her elegant
back, was formally gracious, no more. It was unfortunate that she could
not express herself in English, and to use French, the language of the
Ghouls, was impossible in present circumstances, not to mention that
Captain Nelson’s French was the last of his achievements. Therefore Sir
William interpreted in mellifluous Italian.

“I congratulate our noble ally His Majesty the King of England and our
fortunate selves on this great and auspicious victory!” said the Queen.
“It may be hoped it will be a mortal blow to these scourges of humanity.
And the King through me begs Captain Nelson to understand that no mark
of gratitude will be lacking to him and to his gallant officers and men.
A gala performance at San Carlo has to-day been ordered in their honour
and a banquet will be given to-night by the King and myself to the
distinguished Captain and officers—” and so forth—Nelson bowing and
bowing, and listening with all his ignorant ears to catch the word
_troops_. When would the flummery stop and these people get to business?

She presented him with a snuff-box, a pretty sparkler enough, her own
flattered face set in small brilliants; and so they got out into the
cheering streets again.

“And now for food and Her Ladyship!” says the Ambassador.

All his life long, Nelson was to remember that charming meal in the
large cool room with the assiduous lacqueys, and the splendours, for so
they seemed to his simple taste, of silver and glass and delicious foods
most delicately served; for Sir William, like Greville and all his clan,
would have things handsome about him, and Emma was something of a
Sybarite. Almost it seemed a dream and that he must awake to the
tumbling of billows outside, the grey leagues of sea, and the swaying
tables galleried to catch the sliding china. It was a family party,
himself and Nisbet the only guests, and Nisbet sat beside the lovely
lady in white and looked up to her in a kind of cubbish awe, for already
Nelson had had reason to note that Josiah lacked manners. Beautiful
indeed, he thought, but even less so in features, could that be
possible, than in expression. Life, eagerness, quick-thoughted
graciousness, all sparkled in her face and winged every swift gesture.
Nothing could be done by halves. She heaped Nisbet’s plate with
_dolci_—“Boys worth their weight in mud like a good tuck-in with
sweets!” says she, laughing kindly. “Don’t I love them myself too?”

And then Josiah must needs have two plates of fruit overflowed with
cream by the same fair hand, and two glasses of Sir William’s champagne,
and then another, till his very eyes bulged and Nelson put out a
restraining hand. It was the same with himself. All her best she gave
and only grieved it was not more. Never so cordial a welcome! It was
like a cheering Christmas fire, spreading its warmth and gladding flame
through the great Norfolk manor-houses at home. It dimmed the languid
Neapolitan sunshine.

But all this despatched, and the three of them closeted in Sir William’s
study, what a different woman she became! Indeed, she bewildered him
with the changeableness of her. It was a grave earnest face beside Sir
William’s, he himself facing the pair.

Sir William briefly recounted the events of the morning and invited her
opinion of the Queen’s action.

“You, my love, know her as none else.”

Indeed, Nelson thought it the strangest council at which he had ever
assisted—a tale for the Admiral when he got back.

“Why, she will fear the troops going, no doubt of that. She is one that
likes to hold the power in her own hand; and the King will of course be
averse, because he has a notion, which God knows he has no brains to
carry out, to assist the Spanish interest some day with them. He would
be well with England and with France too and balance betwixt them like a
merry-andrew. The Queen must be convinced and then ’tis done. Will
Captain Nelson allow us to see his private instructions from the
Admiral?”

Thus this astonishing young woman. It all but petrified him. He
hesitated coldly.

“Madam, I can mean no discourtesy, but they are for the eye of the
_Ambassador_.”

“And the Ambassador,” replies Sir William gravely, “can do nothing with
the Queen but through the Ambassadress. You must find Her Ladyship in
arguments, Captain Nelson, though she has plenty of her own.”

He obeyed on Sir William’s assurance and the bright quick eye of the
lady. She appeared to master all he said with precision, wasted not a
moment, rehearsed his points, and rising, looked at the watch at her
girdle and prepared to depart for her fixed audience with the Queen.

“It takes the form of a friendly visit with talk and refreshments,” says
she, “but I shall bring back news for all that. Will you not take
Captain Nelson for a drive, Sir William? The more the people see and
applaud him the better for our ends.”

She left the room, with his astonished eyes following her.

“Her Ladyship is the key of the situation in Naples,” says Sir William
easily. “Shall we drive?”

They found her waiting in the reception room when they returned,
entertaining a party of the Agamemnons with the most delicious singing,
not a care on her bright brow as she warbled. She enticed the first
lieutenant into attempting a duo with her, and the astonished Nelson,
who had never heard his voice uplifted but in an order or to outshout
the storm, discovered that he possessed a tenor of excellence in his
third in command. Lord, how she drew them out! The young men were
standing about her, talking, laughing, telling Her Ladyship
confidentially of adventures Nelson had never heard of though he kept
his subordinates at no awful distance and believed he knew their hearts.

“And since I am certain you are all in rags after this long cruising,
for what are men’s fingers!” says she with a fine scorn, “I insist that
all you gentlemen send your wardrobes ashore and I and my women will
send you back refitted—is not that the sea word?—to the Admiral. We
won’t beat the French with a ragged regiment, so we won’t!”

They thanked her cordially—who could refuse such a warm heart? She
constituted herself their she-admiral and commanded that the little sick
midshipman Bowen should be sent ashore for her own and her mother’s
nursing—for good Mrs. Cadogan was enthroned on a settee in purple and
fine linen, listening to the Ambassadress’s sallies. And then, when she
had them all laughing and talking, she glided up against Captain Nelson
with lowered secret eyes.

“’Tis all right about the troops. The thing is done. Acton will call
to-night on the King’s behalf and offer you six thousand. And now,
dismiss care, and hail pleasure and a much needed rest!”

Sir William told him later that she had conquered the Queen completely,
had had Acton in, and between them the three concerted the measures and
convinced the King he dare no more offend Great Britain than spit in the
face of the Pope.

“A wonderful woman!” said Nelson, musing.

And Sir William: “You say very right, sir.”

But her wonders grew on him during that week of sore-needed rest. The
beauty of her, the kindness, the flaming womanly one-sided, one-ideal
patriotism that could see never a share of so much as grey in a foe’s
midnight blackness. He had thought himself keen against the French,
but—Lord save us!—my lady was burning ahead while he laboured after.
So he thought, but the truth was he kindled her as much as she him. Sir
William was old and cool-blooded. He had seen these national feuds come
and go and knew a people might be your deadly enemy to-day, and the
sword in your hand to-morrow. Not so, these two. It was God’s cause as
well as man’s they plotted and worked in, and black was black and white
was white and a Frenchman the devil, and an Englishman, especially a
sailor, St. Michael and St. George sent for his ruin. They talked the
night out and the day in on this, and the Agamemnons hailed her as the
Patroness of the Navy—a name she was to earn more greatly in days to
come.

Furthermore, he had Romney’s taste for her sweetness. She would talk
with lowered voice of his old father, and the wife who must suffer such
agonies and he at sea in storms of shot and shell. He caught himself
describing his Fanny; her quiet grace—“Not beautiful like you, your
Ladyship, but restful to a tossed-about sailor, like the twilight
settling down over the Norfolk Broads. I could wish you knew her—a good
woman.”

How could he know that Emma’s gentle acquiescent sigh was modelled on
her dear dead Duchess—studied from the life of her gracious sympathy?
For him it was all nature. Indeed it was—at the moment.

And so the week went by in triumph almost as wearying as toils, but for
the quiet hour he got with her now and again and those twilight talks.
She warmed Sir William into cordiality also. He knew well enough what
the Fleet must mean to the world now and onward, and liked this worn
young sailor with his lined face and sensitive mouth. And so the troops
were embarked and the last day came, and my lady had played her part
gallantly.

It was the 24th September, and in the cloudless heat the _Agamemnon_ had
sloped awnings for a gala of her own to return the plenteous royal
hospitalities. She lay swinging at her anchor, formidable but
good-humoured, a drowsy giant rocking on blue waters of peace. All the
gay folk were bidden for luncheon aboard and the lovely Ambassadress
would do the honours of His Britannic Majesty’s ship. The flags were
flying in rainbow strings, the guns dispossessed—security and gaiety
fluttered in the light voices from the ports, and all were waiting the
royalties, Emma beside the Captain.

Good God! Word from the Prime Minister! For Nelson! What, what had
happened! The crowding, the silence to hear, and the boatswain just
piping the King up the side!

A French man of war with three attendant vessels off Sardinia.
_Agamemnon_ to give chase!

Away with the guests, the awnings, the King, the Ambassador, the
frippery!

The giant is awake—awake in earnest. The pipe whistled another tune
indeed.

Like frightened birds the guests dispersed, boats crowding about to
receive their huddling fineries. Down with the awnings—away with every
sign of peace. It is war.

The Captain is at his post, but steps aside for one word with the
departing Ambassador and his lady.

“A thousand, thousand thanks, my dear friends. What words have I for so
much goodness? None, none! But I will return some day with trophies that
pay you in the only way to stir your patriotic hearts. Good-bye, your
dear Ladyship, you have bound me to the service of your Queen. You have
served our country indeed and the Admiral shall know to whom he owes
it.”

Hands are wrung. She looks in his face with her own peculiar glow.

“I would give this hand to be sailing with you if but as a
powder-monkey, to fight these devils! I envy you—I envy you, Captain!”

The white teeth grit on the words. She means them. What a woman! he
thinks, with a last wave of his hand as he sees her kiss young Nisbet
and promise to write of him to his mother. Yes, her kindly heart forgets
nothing—nothing!

But good-bye to the image of her, he has other thoughts and cares. The
great anchor is hauled up from depths where the Roman galleys have
anchored, the Greek triremes. Slowly it comes to the catheads, dripping
its diamonds. Slowly the sails fill to a soft breeze—would to God it
were a gale!—and the _Agamemnon_, awake and wary, glides along the bay,
saluting the royalty of the Two Sicilies with the finality of her sea
courtesies as she goes and sinks at last, a sea-wraith faint and far
into the distance.

Emma goes back to the room of the mirrors, almost collapsed with
evaporated excitement. She has strung herself high these days and pays
for it now in a kind of nervous exhaustion.

But she and the Queen agree that Captain Nelson is a fit representative
of England’s sea honour. They hope if need be that he may be the
messenger again, Sir William nodding assent, as he goes quietly back to
his vases.

And Nelson writes to his calm sweet wife in the Norfolk parsonage that
in her is all his joy, none separated from her. And she, his other self,
must hear of the Neapolitan glories. And the astonishing ambassadress is
not forgotten.

“Lady Hamilton has been wonderfully good and kind to Josiah. She is a
young woman of amiable manners and who does honour to the station to
which she is raised.”

He paused as he wrote it, reflecting how little that cool sentence
conveyed all the emotions through which she had drawn him. But what
matter? They might never meet again.

A true courageous Englishwoman. That was his last thought. But Fanny
represented better the passive sweetness of ideal wifehood.

The ship ploughed through moonlit seas, with a faint star or two over
sleeping Naples.




                              CHAPTER XIX
                               DIPLOMACY


A TROUBLOUS year, but it brought a new part to Emma. Nelson had carried
back to Lord Hood an account of the excellent dispositions of the
Ambassadress toward the Fleet; the junior officers were full of her
praises also. They had a friend at court in the truest sense of the
word, and that grim Fleet, tossing about the Mediterranean in storm and
sunshine, harassing the French in their every plan, seldom seeing land
save as a danger, had need of many things; the officers were certain now
that what she could do in their favour she would.

Nelson, who wrote often and warmly to the Hamiltons, though never nearer
to them than Leghorn, had passed the knowledge of her warm heart and
indefatigable spirit on to Sir John Jervis, now his commander in chief,
and urged him to write to the English Embassy for all he needed for his
bluejackets.

They were assailing Corsica now—that stronghold of French power in the
Mediterranean—and their needs, in the cruel distance from England, were
insistent. It seemed absurd to suppose a woman could help them, yet
Nelson, his right hand, thought it worth the trial, and Sir John Jervis
wrote, full of apologies and suppressed eagerness, direct to the lady
herself. Letters to the Ambassador were certainly supervised in the
King’s interest. To her they would be empty compliment and pass safely
enough. It may give some notion of their straits if we glimpse into
Nelson’s letter to my Lord Hood, a little before.

“We are really without firing, wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost
without water. Not a rope, canvas, nail or twine in the ship. The ship
is so light she cannot hold her side to the wind. We are certainly in a
bad plight at present.”

And yet with all these shortcomings, the stronghold of Corsica, Bastia,
must be attacked—the more desperately needful because Toulon was again
in French hands through the machinations of a little Corsican artillery
officer to be known in future as Buonaparte. Strange that two such stars
as Nelson and Buonaparte should rush so swiftly to the same zenith in
the same years.

Often enough Nelson wished, pacing the quarterdeck in those days, that
he could see, instead of the highlands of Corsica, Uovo and Nuovo
rounding softly from blue seas, and hear the ringing cordial welcome of
the Lady of the Embassy.

“She’s more man than any of them,” he brooded. “I warrant we should not
lack for stores if _she_ had her word in it!”

He remembered the promptitude that had supplied the troops for Toulon.
She seemed a fair guardian spirit, but alas, too far away. He would have
liked her sympathy also in all his new honours, bought by the loss of an
eye—yet not too dearly.

Still, he wrote; Sir John Jervis wrote; and she responded eagerly. Ships
came tossing down to Corsica, safeguarded by English frigates, loaded
gunwale deep with necessities. She bought with extraordinary acumen. One
would say she had a seaman’s instinct. They had but to hint and it was
done. Amazing part for Emma of Edgware Row! She spent her own money when
the Queen’s ran short. The two women had a Neapolitan agent secret as
death, who bought for them, chartered the little coasting vessels, and
while the two played cards and laughed at the ceremonious Courts and the
idle Neapolitan women, sent their bounty Corsica-way and made his own
comfortable commission. It was exceedingly well managed.

As for Nelson, beef and pork, rope and flour, were more to him than
diamonds to a court beauty, and in his soul he loved her with a generous
comrade-love for the help she gave them. Never a light story of her in
the Fleet now, if he were present.

“That woman,” he would cry, his face flashing with energy, “is an honour
to the name of Englishwoman. She has the Fleet on her heart night and
day, and the wit of a man to carry out the needful. Here’s a health to
the Patroness of the Fleet!”

And they would drink it standing, in the wine of the country she sent
them and with the “Hip, hip, hurra!” Nelson had taught her at Naples.

Her help, any help, was urgent, for that year darkened down from the
high hopes of Toulon into grave alarms. The French developed a force
more terrible than any discovery of gun or bomb—a man, Napoleon, with
all his mighty brain turned upon the destruction of England, and all his
devastating energy centred on the means to be adopted—and excepting
Nelson, it may well be that there was no Englishman of the day who
realized that the Mediterranean was the keystone of the bridge over
which he must pass either to world dominion or to ruin.

For Emma, it possessed her. Forgotten were all the Attitudes, the
gaieties, the little schemes for pomp and pleasure. She lived but for
news of the Fleet; a letter to Sir William from Nelson, or a less
guarded one to herself, since that was the safer channel, made up her
day’s excitement, and her interviews with the Queen her daily bread.
Excitement had always been her native atmosphere. It wearied and aged
Sir William; she throve luxuriant. As to the Queen, she could not do
without her. Emma was her “chère amie,” “Emma carissima,” and her warmth
was repaid in kind.

“My charming Queen!” she wrote to Greville. “Everything one can wish,
the best mother, wife, and friend in the world. I live constantly with
her and have done so intimately for two years, and if you hear any lyes
about her, contradict them, and if you should see a cursed book written
by a vile French dog with her character in it, don’t believe one word.
No person can be as charming as the Queen. If I was her daughter she
could not be kinder to me and I love her as my own soul.”

That was Emma all over—the passionate partisanship which saw nothing
but divinity in a friend, nothing but devilry in a foe. And if with all
this, there mingled a little feudal romance in favour of the daughter,
mother and wife of sovereigns, can the child of the people, herself all
romance, be blamed very severely?

Sir William overflowed with these praises in private and, smiling a
little at certain reminiscences of his own, would beseech Emma to
believe the Queen a little lower than the angels, and besought in vain,
and then reflecting philosophically that this was at all events a
driving force which spared him much trouble and probably would do more
good than harm, betook himself to his vases and gems once more. Emma
could have trounced him sometimes but for her affection. His coolness
almost drove her mad. But she nursed him tenderly through an anxious
illness, and that more than once.

And things grew steadily worse. Napoleon was proving himself statesman
as well as warrior, and a terrible fear gained ground that the
mean-minded King of Spain would finally throw in his lot with the French
Jacobins.

He had excuse for all about him the coalition of kings was breaking up
and dissolving into the republics of a day. Austria trembled, Prussia
fell off; even the steadfast England wavered.

There was a rumour of orders to evacuate the Mediterranean which caused
the Queen and Emma to look at each other in silent despair. If _that_
order were fulfilled, alas for the Two Sicilies! The Little Englanders
of the day were slowly dominating the home situation and Nelson, chafing
in the Mediterranean, wrote:

“Till this minute it has been usual for the allies of England to fall
from her, but till now she never was known to desert her friends whilst
she had the power of supporting them.”

And Buonaparte stormed Italy. Northern Italy lay at his feet, conquered,
bound, plundered of her ancient glories of statues, pictures, the jewels
that most adorned her, and he returned to the Directory in France the
most famous general of modern times. They talked of Cæsar, Hannibal,
cast in the shade for ever. And so the years went by.

But Spain? Spain was the cruellest anxiety for England—Spain with her
harbours, her throne at the Gut of the Mediterranean, her fleet. If she
could but know the true intentions of Spain! But how? There the English
Cabinet was baffled.

The Queen of the Two Sicilies and Emma had met for an afternoon’s
singing. Her Majesty was fond to passion of music, and the
Ambassadress’s singing was not “reasonable good” for a great lady, but
famous throughout Europe. Who could deny a harassed queen her daily
refreshment of sweet song, with talk and refreshments to follow?
Princess Belmonte, wife of the Neapolitan Ambassador to the Court of
Spain, was with them that day, and full of charming chatter of the
Spanish Court, His Neapolitan Majesty’s gracious brother, the King; and
so forth; and the Queen, Emma seconding, led her out beyond the caution
of an ambassadress in case some grains of information could be picked
up.

But the lady, though open as a _costume de bal_, was also guarded with
steel and buckram beneath. She favoured them with such gossip as please
ladies, no more, and when she spoke to a lady in waiting at the window,
the Queen’s burning eye caught Emma’s.

“Would you not sing for us, chère Miladi? The Princess has not heard you
of late. (She has brought a letter for the King!) I beseech you to
favour us. (My spies know of a cipher letter.) If I might choose it
should be the ‘Guardami.’”

“Madam, can I refuse Your Majesty anything? I am scarcely in voice
to-day. I have been sitting up all night with my husband, who is
extremely unwell. (Will the King show it to Acton?) but if it please
you! Would you not prefer the ‘Stella mia’?”

“Oh, madam, what you please. (Certainly he will not. Only the Foreign
Minister will know.) Then may I beg it now?”

Emma sent for her music, so tremulous that she doubted if she could sing
at all. If this was as the Queen suspected, Spain had succumbed to the
successes of Napoleon and—what would Nelson, what would all her friends
of the Fleet say? She felt it in her to take this laughing young woman
by the throat and drag the paper from her bosom. Instead of which the
accompanist opened the music, and she sang with her thoughts far
otherwhere, but with more brilliancy than usual if with less feeling.

Compliments, smiles, from the Princess Belmonte, and the other ladies;
gracious approval from the Queen; Emma’s sweeping obeisance at the door.
She trails down the long corridor, and enters her carriage, marvelling
what will be the next turn of this strange wheel.

A ragged urchin with impish smile and the long agate eyes of the south
offers a bouquet at the window.

“Buy it, Excellency. Buy it, O loveliest. Flowers, flowers, plucked this
morning with the dew on them. O Lady, I have eaten nothing to-day. For
the pity of the Virgin and Saint Anna, buy, I beseech you.”

Emma’s heart was never inaccessible to pity and she had long outsoared
the Greville limit of a farthing. Ambassadresses must give generously.
She pushed a large silver coin into the olive paw, and let the flowers
fall carelessly on her lap.

The Princess, the letter—the Queen would not have said that without
knowing! That, too, was why she had not been asked to delay after the
others. The Queen would risk no suspicion of plotting at this point.
Clear as noonday, but then, how could they meet? She moved impatiently,
and the bouquet rolled from her lap to the floor and a little grimy
paper folded like a quill fell out of it.

English—then Acton was at the back of this also! She read eagerly.

“It is here, but I know not how to obtain it. Suggest.”

That was all, but Emma’s quick wits raced swift as thought. She was in
the Queen’s skin. What would she herself do provided Sir William had a
secret she wished to master? If the King were so great a fool as to plot
behind the Queen’s and Acton’s backs and ruin his country in so doing,
what terms could be kept with him? She had her plan clear as noonday in
five minutes. If the Queen had her courage it was done. But had she?

She put her head out of the window and ordered her carriage to return to
the Palace, and unfastening her glove, took off a small diamond ring,
and clasped it in a shut hand with the flowers. It was not long before
she was curtseying at the door of the Royal salon again, all smiles and
apologies.

“Oh, madam, my carelessness! Will Your Majesty pardon? I have dropped a
little ring, not of much value, but to me invaluable as His Excellency’s
gift. Have I your permission to search?”

The Queen’s eye had caught the flowers. She was all graciousness. She
moved her Royal skirts aside, the other ladies hovered about the floor
looking for the sparkle under chairs, in the corner, Emma hunting with
the best of them.

Triumph! A little cry! She held it up, laughing. “Under the pedal of the
forte-piano. Why hadn’t I the sense to look there at first? Ladies, with
Her Majesty’s permission, I must tell you the story of that ring.”

Permission charmingly given, all the ladies a-tiptoe to hear, the
Princess Belmonte fanning herself prettily behind the Queen’s chair.

“Your Majesty, His Excellency had promised me a ring if I studied my
solfeggi as I ought. I laboured for hours daily. The ring was bought—I
knew that—but I was not to see it until my birthday. And then a
terrible thing happened. In arranging the flowers I knocked down his
famous Pompeian figurino and broke it!”

Dramatic pause. Cries of sympathy and horror from the ladies. Her
Majesty laughing at Emma’s tragic face.

“My good husband was furious. My birthday should not be kept. I should
have no ring. Was it fair, Your Majesty, Ladies? I decided it was not.”

“No, not fair!” they chorused. “A bargain is a bargain!”

“So I thought. And the night before my birthday, while my husband slept
I turned out his pockets! Ladies, behold a brigand! I found the case. I
put on the ring, and in the morning I wished myself many happy returns
in his presence and flourished the ring in his face!”

Loud applause. Cries of “Were you forgiven?”

“Ladies, need you ask? What husband does not forgive his wife if she
plays her game rightly? Next day he asked _my_ forgiveness. But the ring
is useful as a reminder.”

She asked a thousand pardons of Her Majesty and made her gay curtsey and
went off again, and kneeling close, with her mouth at his ear, told the
story, trembling, to Sir William. He approved warmly.

“Splendid—done as it was on the spur of the moment! She will get that
paper to-night if it exists. Oh, Emma, I am but a burden on you, ill and
in pain as I am, and this may be vital.”

“I can manage it,” she said, and fell into deepest thought.

It was next evening towards dusk that a boy with a basket of flowers
approached her again, leaning against the balustrade of the garden and
humming a song of the people to himself in a sweet low murmur.

“Flowers, Excellenza, flowers. For the pity of God!” She bought at once.
That was no novelty. The Neapolitans knew that the Lady of the Embassy
rejected no appeal for mercy. She flew to her own room. A paper in
cipher, with no covering letter. A great glow overspread her face. Her
knees knocked together, so that she could scarcely make her way to
Hamilton’s room, where he sat, his foot swathed up against the gout;
old, ill, querulous.

But all that dropped aside as he saw the cipher. He said, “This may be
of the very first importance. We must do it alone.”

She touched the bell quietly, trembling with eagerness, and listened
while he gave his order for the Embassy ciphers to Trevylyan, the young
secretary chosen for him by the Hamilton interest. Not even he must see
the result. Patiently they sat up half the night decoding the brief
letter, for brief it mercifully was. Spain was definitely to leave the
Alliance and cast in her lot with France. In future the French and
Spanish fleets would sail together.

It was reciphered into the English cipher, and Emma put the original in
her bosom. By heaven’s own luck the courier was, in any case, to start
that night with despatches, and it was nothing to include this among
them.

Sir William signed it; she sealed and despatched it. He looked her in
the face when it was done.

“Emma, my love, you have deserved well of your country. The party at
home for evacuating the Mediterranean will look small enough when this
is known. Now set your bright wits to work to restore the original to
the Queen. I will write myself to King George.”

He did so with the proud realization that Emma, could all the story be
told, had become a trustworthy and successful diplomatic agent. It could
not be told in fulness, for the Queen’s name must be hidden. But from
his heart he admired Emma’s coolness and address. She visited the Palace
next day with drawings by Gavin Hamilton of the Villa Favourita, the
Queen’s favourite summer villa, and it was easy in the give and take of
papers to pass the cipher. The King never knew he had been robbed, but
the English Cabinet made use of its knowledge.

There was no more talk of evacuating the Mediterranean, and the bond
between the two women was strong as steel. The whole episode advanced
Sir William at home. He grew daily in importance.

Her life became one of passionate interest. She corresponded not
infrequently with Nelson, for that again might pass as friendship. The
secrets for co-operation of the French and Spanish fleets filtered
amazingly to England, and back to the English Admirals, and none could
lay their finger on the source. King Ferdinand could scarcely suspect
the Queen for he kept her in utter ignorance. And Emma—Emma was the
soul of the whole conspiracy, the invaluable servant of England, of her
Queen, and her husband.

Well might she say, “My position in this Court is now very
extraordinary”—there was little vanity in that statement. My Lady
Hamilton was a prima donna in earnest. And her stage was Europe.

And the years darkened slowly down, as the rising comet of Napoleon
swept into the established systems, dragging half the heavens in his
train.

The English Fleet, most absolutely for the whole world, for its last
hope of freedom, all, all depended on those silent admirals, those
wearied captains at watch in the Mediterranean. Since the visit of the
_Agamemnon_ Emma had never seen Nelson, yet she had not forgotten him,
nor the sense of something dynamic, unforeseeable, with which he had
inspired her. He was hawking all over the Mediterranean since Corsica
was taken. He had lost an eye. He had lost an arm. He was Sir Horatio
now. Items reached her, but little more. And the thought haunted her
that her work was what he would applaud if he could know it. She was
Patroness of the Navy to some purpose, if she could only boast herself
as she dared not.

The Two Sicilies were forced to a hateful compact with France. They
dared not break it; if they did, the kingdom, trembling to a republic
under French domination, must fall.

Oh, for an English Fleet! That was the prayer of Emma and of Marie
Caroline day by day. They appealed to Sir John Jervis, now Lord St.
Vincent, commanding in the Mediterranean, for help, help, at any cost.

And then a great, a terrible portent broke upon the world, holding its
breath in terror. Napoleon, not yet thirty years old, who had been
making great and secret preparations, had launched a mighty expedition
on Egypt, resolving to catch England by the throat where she might be
easiest strangled and shaken from her domination in India. Nelson knew,
the world knew, of preparations at Toulon, but not a soul where the blow
would fall until the fox had slipped cover and it was too late. He was
doubling down the Mediterranean eastward, confusing the scent by every
means in his power. And Nelson was pursuing him, hampered by
misinformation, by the lack of frigates, scouts of the Fleet, but
steadfastly pursuing.

And on that pursuit the fate of Europe hung. It is easy even now to
picture the fever of hope and fear in Naples and in Sir William’s and
Emma’s hearts. They knew, none better, that the British Fleet would need
the sinews of war, food and water. Ships, like armies, fight on their
bellies. But yet the compact with the French hindered the necessary aid
from the Sicilian King. Further, it forbade the Sicilian kingdom to
receive at any time more than four frigates at once into any of the
King’s harbours.

Napoleon was taking no risks. He had burned the prairie behind him.

True, Nelson had his secret instructions to seize food and water by
force of arms if no better could be, but that was doubtful, was an
insult to the Sicilian King, and therefore playing into Napoleon’s
hands, and must be his last and dangerous resort.

But what was to be done? Food and water refused, Gibraltar, far off
Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean, was Nelson’s nearest port
of help, and with that throwing back on his trail Egypt lay free before
Napoleon.

Nelson had been in frequent correspondence with the Hamiltons though he
had never seen them since the _Agamemnon_ up-anchored in the Bay of
Naples. His mind reverted often to his friend Emma; for friend every
officer in that ship had felt her to be, and Nelson most of all. But
still more it hovered about her influence with the Queen. That Ferdinand
in his purblind folly had been playing fast and loose with France and
Spain, all knew. But the Queen? She at all events had the wit to defend
her dynasty by truth to England. Or so he believed. Could she be
trusted?

He wrote to Emma, interweaving his stern meaning with compliments,
allusions to the charming Queen and so forth, and waited for her answer
eagerly. She would understand—trust her for knowing what her country
needed!

Her answer returned. The Queen was staunch. Her own influence with her
had grown and strengthened. What could she do to help? Let him but be
frank and he would find her with Sir William at his back. He kissed that
letter, not for love’s sake, not a breath of it, unless the true flash
from comrade to comrade be called love—as indeed it should until we
find as many words as the Greeks for that most under-labelled passion.

From that moment his mind was steadfastly made up for Naples, though to
no one but his commander in chief did he break his secret.

It was a lovely day in June, the water calm as a blue pearl, when
Hamilton, in the room of the mirrors with Emma writing to his dictation
at his elbow, sighted fore-running ships coming up from the westward to
Ischia and so on to Capri. He started up. The pen fell from her hand and
they stood together at the window fixed in suspense.

“Good God!” said she at last. “What will the King say? He leans on
Austria now that Spain has broken under him. This is St. Vincent’s
doing—but sure he knows the ships are forbid to enter.”

For, recognized almost publicly now as the Patroness of the Fleet,
Admiral Lord St. Vincent had written to her that much depended on her
communications with him. She warmed even the cool St. Vincent with her
fire, as she did all who came near her.

“The picture you draw of the lovely Queen of Naples and the Royal Family
would rouse the indignation of the most unfeeling. I am bound by my oath
of chivalry to protect all who are persecuted and distressed.”

Sir William had laughed a little over that letter. It would have been
long indeed before St. Vincent would have unbent to write it to him.
Well, if women imported the element of romance into diplomacy, and it
stirred men into action, so much the better. He was proud of his Emma.

“It’s St. Vincent’s doing!” she repeated, leaning on Hamilton’s arm.
“Now who will be in command? I wish it might be Nelson.”

“My love,” replied Sir William sententiously, “such is your luck that I
believe it will be whoever you have set your heart on. And, if it is
not, that a frigate despatched by you to St. Vincent will bring your
choice instantly. See—only two vessels are making into the bay. The
bulk of the fleet is evidently to lie off Capri. Don’t I see boats
lowering? Come down.”

They waited below and before an hour was over two post captains, brushed
up and strictly on service, demanded a conference with the
Ambassador—Captains Troubridge and Hardy, right-hand men of Admiral
Nelson’s as the Embassy pair knew full well.

“Sir Horatio in command?” was Hamilton’s first question.

“Certainly.” Lord Hood had detached him to ask food and water for his
own squadron in chase of the French. That was their errand. The Admiral
would not land, for time pressed. What could be done with the Royalties?
Emma was not present ostensibly. She did not know these men. But, by Sir
William’s desire, she was stationed in the deep alcove where she could
hear every word. It might well be vital she should.

The old difficulty, he told them. The King opposed, dallying weakly with
Austria’s uncertain aid and hoping to keep well with France. The Queen,
all British in sympathy, eager to help, and alas! the Fleet suspended
between these two irreconcilables.

“What use to ask the King?” said Hamilton. “He will shift, temporise,
play to gain time. Gentlemen, I regret to say it, but I have tried every
avenue already to break that most infamous pact forbidding our ships to
enter Sicilian ports freely. There is unfortunately a French busybody
here, a regicide named Garat, a born spy, and everything that takes
place is magnified out of all knowledge and packed off straight to
France. Still, I can only suggest application to the King.”

An anxious wrinkle formed itself on Troubridge’s forehead: “But that
will mean endless delay and the French may be anywhere. They will spin
it out and time is diamonds. No other hope?”

“None, sir, I regret to say. You must have a ministerial order for food
and water.”

“Again that means delay,” said Hardy at Troubridge’s shoulder, shifting
nervously from one foot to the other. His face showed that suspense
galled him cruelly. “Not only so, your Excellency, but we need frigates
like water in the desert. We are frigate-starved. We meant to ask for
the Sicilian frigates.”

“They’ll never do that,” Sir William said decidedly. “Put it out of your
head, my good sir. It would be an act of war on France. Leave it to me,
and I’ll do what I can to get you a Royal order for victualling and
water.”

The captains stood there dogged and disconsolate. Bad news to take back
to Nelson and he fuming and raging as it was. Emma marked all from her
retirement. Sir William left the room to make himself ready and still
the two men waited there, not exchanging a word, evidently on
tenter-hooks.

Presently back came the Ambassador, and away they went. She could hear
the carriage rolling down the street. She slipped from her hiding place
and stood a minute to think, then flew upstairs, light as the Emma of Up
Park, and into the stately plumed hat and long silk cloak, and ordered
her own carriage. The Queen should know the rights of this business. It
was two o’clock when the men got back from the audience and Troubridge
carried a paper in his hand and a frowning dissatisfied face above it. A
ministerial order written under the King’s eye, hedged with conditions,
barbed with restrictions, to the governors of the Sicilian ports,
permitting the wounded to be taken ashore, and victualling and water to
be accorded under certain circumstances, in case of need.

“And I’m a Dutchman,” said Hamilton, flinging himself exhausted into a
chair, “if you get anything out of that damned order. For why? Isn’t it
obvious it can be twisted any way, and, if convenient, the King can send
a hint to throw every damned difficulty in your way?”

Troubridge also swore quietly as he sat and looked at the paper. It was
better than nothing and that was all. A diplomatic shift to fob them off
and please the French. Indeed, it might prove worse than nothing and a
mere loss of time. The two sat silent, thinking dangerous thoughts. If
it came to forcing the Sicilian King, as it very well might, why,
then—neither of them cared to consider the consequences.

And as they sat, her Excellency entered, still plumed and cloaked, pale
with some feeling she did not disclose, but greeting them warmly and
kindly.

“Sir William, I would give much to see our old friend the Admiral before
he puts to sea. Would there be any objection on the part of these
officers if we ordered our own yacht and went back with them to Capua?”

Her eye warned him; he was cordial at once. “Why, certainly, it would be
a pleasure to see Sir Horatio and I might well be able to give him some
hints that would be useful with the governors whom I know. Would a lady
be in the way, Captain Troubridge? And how is the wind?”

“Fair.” No difficulty about that, but every moment was precious. Could
her Excellency hasten?

“I am ready now,” said Emma. “Let us go.”

She spoke scarcely a word while the swift yacht cut the water to Capri
but sat, wrapped, as it were, in her own thoughts. The two captains had
so much to discuss with Sir William that they were well content that it
should be so. It was no time for small talk with even the most charming
of women. What Nelson would say to bringing her aboard they could not
tell. Sir William must answer for that.

It was dusk when they boarded the _Vanguard_, her riding light lit, and
her huge bulk dim and mysterious in the twilight. Blue Peter already
flying, the yacht had, of course, been sighted and Nelson was at the
gangway, eager to see the Ambassador, who might have news of the first
consequence, and unconscious of the slight figure that crouched abaft.
He started back in surprise when he saw her. Only the rope ladder for
the men was available but he had a chair rigged up instantly and had her
hoisted on deck. She stood there silent for a minute and motioned to her
husband.

“I have a word for you, Admiral,” he said easily, “and her Excellency
wished to bid you Godspeed on your errand. Can we be private?”

Without a word, Nelson led the way to his cabin. His mind was so pressed
with anxieties that his only thought was of the result of Troubridge’s
errand ashore.

“Have they got the order?” he asked.

“After a fashion, yes. But I fear not one that will serve your purpose,
sir,” said Hamilton. “You know the King of old, and this time he
shelters himself behind his Minister. We must hope for the best, unless
indeed—”

He looked at Emma. His hope was that the Queen might have sent some
offer to deal with the King. Her silence promised, not fulfilment, but
possibility.

“Sir Horatio, I rejoice to see you,” said the soft fluty notes he
remembered so well. “And how is Josiah?”

He made some hurried answer, and looked at Sir William. What were they
there for?

“I want you to look at this paper,” she said, her voice shaking. “’Tis
known to my husband, if not to you, that the Queen, in virtue of having
brought an heir to the throne, has the right to a seat on the Council
and a voice in all decisions. I urged Her Majesty but now to use her
power. She feared to do so for fear of complications, not only with the
King, but with the French. I urged her on my knees and with tears for
the sake of all her hopes, her kingdom, her children—” Her voice broke
with excitement and the throbbing of her heart. Nelson’s face fixed on
her, though as yet he could not comprehend. He was white as death. If he
must return to Gibraltar for victualling, good-bye to the French and all
his hopes. His thin hand shook on the table. Sir William took a paper
from her hand and read it to himself, while the two looked at each other
in silence.

“Sir,” he said, extending it, “I offer you from my Lady Hamilton a Royal
order for provisioning and watering the Fleet where you will.” He spoke
with the rigid composure of his caste and rank. Emma, near breaking
down, all sparkling, glowing, trembling at last, stared at Nelson. He
mastered himself by an effort that for a minute seemed beyond him and
took the paper and read it. Then laid it on the table and stood as if
before his King.

“Madam,” he said with solemnity, “you have saved your country. God send
the Fleet may be worthy of your courage and wisdom.”

She sank into the chair behind her and covered her face with her hands,
while he went to the door and gave the order to make sail instantly.




                               CHAPTER XX
                                THE NILE


AS Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson sailed for Syracuse, many thoughts kept
him company in striding up and down his quarterdeck. He loved his wife
with a calm affection which recognized to the full her tender claim upon
him, her duty, devotion and wifely submission. To him, his Fanny
appeared the ideal wife. One classified women only as good and bad. The
first were those who were obedient to all household duties and created
the soft and infinitely restful home atmosphere to which a wearied man
returned from his labours for rest and refreshment infinitely soothing
after the harsh contact with men and affairs. Here one could unburden
one’s soul of likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, and be certain of a
kind inevitable echo to all. What he thought, his Fanny would think. Her
small pleasures and angers would follow his as certainly as little pet
dogs running at his heels. She had never stood in the way of any of his
duties though undoubtedly she felt the long separations. She wept a few
gentle tears on parting and applied herself wholly to the care of the
person he loved best in the world next to herself, his old father. Those
two represented home to him and often in the mirages of the tossing
spray he beheld that little room in the Norfolk parsonage, and his
father’s big winged chair drawn up beside the fire, and Fanny reading
the last long letter to him in her mild monotone, and the serene pride
of the two in his achievements. Poor little Fanny, she had had many
anxieties with her husband and son in the same danger, and yet never
said a word to hinder him—no, not one. Stop!—when he had got his flag
and the Cross of the Bath after the glorious battle of St. Vincent she
had tenderly implored him henceforward to leave boarding to captains.
Dear little Fanny!—he smiled over that bit of pride in the new
Admiral’s lady: knew too how much it summed up of past suffering in the
glorious escapades (for so common sense must class them) of Teneriffe
and St. Vincent. He had had the glory; she the suffering.

Pious, too, after his own manner of decent Church of England piety: God
and the King!—the King not so very far behind. There too he could open
his inmost heart to her and be sure of her prayers commingled with his
own. Naturally there were professional matters one could not tell even
the most valuable wife. Not for women the anxieties and responsibilities
of such a career as his. Their timidity could not support it. In that
department a woman had neither help nor counsel to offer—nothing but
her prayers, and her joy when all was safely accomplished. But that was
much—much! It filled his soul with calm security and gratitude. For
there were the bad women. He knew very well the type of captain’s wife
who spent his hard-won prize money on her own flaunting vanity, and
coquetted with other men while he upheld the honour of England on
distant seas. No, thank God, his Fanny was none of those tawdry jilts.
She was a true good woman—“All that is valuable in a wife”—so he
assured her and others.

Yet nothing can be perfect. The other captains, when they went home
rejoicing on leave, were surrounded by flocks of apple-cheeked
youngsters, something to fight for, to leave your honours to when a
hammock with round shot at head and heels was the last bed for a sailor.
But he did not trouble her with that want though it was a dull empty
ache when he looked at his medals, just because he knew how deeply it
rankled in her own heart. There was Josiah, and to him she was a devoted
mother, but Josiah meant little enough to the Admiral though he did his
best for him afloat and ashore, and she felt it—she felt it, poor girl!

No casual mistress, but a wife was Fanny. It would have seemed almost
indecent, even had it been possible, to surround her with worship and
homage, and draw a passionate inspiration from her kind frank
countenance. She could never understand romance. And yet Nelson was not
without his starry lady whose glove he wore on his helmet, whose beauty
he protested with sword and word in all companies, for whose least
favour he would have died a thousand deaths. Such a man must kneel on
his heart’s knees to some fair figure who shall crown him as he crowns
her his Inspiration and All. And his was Glory, summed up in the name of
England. So ride the knights of the Holy Ghost, the men whose eyes
dazzle on a beauty unseen, yet most intimately known to them, each
perceiving for himself that figure flitting ever on before with white
feet that touch not the earth pollute, and hands that beckon to the goal
that cannot be uttered: whose they are to serve eternally.

And now in his very worship came the turning point of Nelson’s life, for
woe be to the man who attempts to embrace her not by raising of the
womanhood into God, but sinking of the Godhead into woman.

His physical and spiritual nerves were shocked, as it were, into
profound amaze by the wonder of this woman, this Emma. For, where his
Fanny stood earthbound she soared glorious. Fanny had never hindered
him, but this one helped him as no other had ever done. Wordless, she
understood. What mattered her beauty? Had she been the sorriest wench
that ever smutted her face in a kitchen, and yet had done what she did,
he could have worshipped at her feet—as a true acolyte of his goddess
Glory. She knew. With his own fierce energy, she flung herself into the
fight: she won the troops for Toulon, the chance of victory for his
fleet. That white soft hand had dealt out ruin to Napoleon, and he,
Nelson himself, was but her sword.

Exaggerated? No doubt, but men of his type exaggerate gloriously, and in
that is their strength. As he sailed down the Mediterranean to Syracuse,
armed with her order, far beyond reach of the foolish King’s forbidding,
her face fled before him encircled with rays that mingled her with
England and made them one. He had not a sexual thought concerning her.
So much a part of his inward aspiration had she become that sometimes he
almost doubted her real, but rather a part of the dreams of moonlight
nights and long calms on swaying seas.

But one thing grew in his soul to a most fiery purpose. She had not
failed him. He would return her full measure pressed down and running
over. To his simple and pious soul she became the Will of God—His
justice upon the evil deeds of France—and possibility of failure passed
as utterly from his mind as though the deed were done already, and the
Frenchmen scattered with their ruined dream of power, mere wreckage of
the English seas. But for all that it was a bitter and wearing chase,
and though he dreamed of her the suspense left cruel marks.

For want of English frigates, the scouts of the Fleet, the French ships
had slipped past and down the Mediterranean as fast as wind could carry
them. Nelson’s necessities had given them the heels of him and where to
find them he could not tell. Later he wrote to Hamilton: “Having gone a
round of six hundred leagues at this season of the year, here am I, as
ignorant of the situation of the enemy as I was twenty-seven days ago.”
And again, “If I were now to die, the word _frigates_ would be found
written on my heart.” Maddening, if he had not been up-borne by the
inner certitude that England and Emma gave him for an inward peace in
the midst of turmoil.

He made for Syracuse for the food and water he owed to her—her only.
And thence he wrote to her and to her husband, exulting. Guarded, for
neither the Queen nor Emma must appear; but yet exultant.

“My dear friends, thanks to your exertions we have victualled and
watered, and surely, watering at the fountain of Arethusa, we must have
victory. We shall sail with the first breeze, and be assured I will
return either crowned with laurel or covered with cypress.”

And now begins the great epic of the Nile.

Casting his mind over all the sea, Nelson was inclined to believe the
French destination was Alexandria, yet could not be certain, and mistake
was ruin. He summoned aboard his flagship the four captains in whom he
placed his utmost confidence: Saumarez, Troubridge, Ball and Darby. One
may picture the conference in the Admiral’s cabin of the _Vanguard_—the
awful issues hanging upon decision, and Nelson’s worn face flame-white
at the end of the table. He believed in his own heart that he might have
broken down physically but for that inner certitude. “On the 18th I had
near died with the swelling of the vessels of the heart.” And he held
grimly on.

The little council of war had decided for Alexandria, and so with a
favouring wind away goes the Fleet down the Mediterranean, not only
Nelson’s own reputation at stake, but England—all—if he has erred. A
terrible cast of the dice for a young admiral, not even a commander in
chief. But he never feared responsibility.

And in the afternoon of the 1st August, 1798, the masthead lookout of
the _Zealous_ changed the course of the world’s history by announcing
the enemy, lying in Aboukir Bay, fifteen miles east of Alexandria. The
chase is ended.

Since that great battle of the Nile has been told in poetry and in the
cool precision of naval historians, shall a mere romancer attempt the
middle, the impossible course? Better leave it immense, vague, majestic,
half hidden in the smoke of guns and drowned in their uproar. It is a
battle of the Titans, the foes of centuries at death-grips for the
mastery of the world: the old and new worlds tremble in the balance; the
American continent, the ancient glories of the Moguls in India, are all
at stake in Aboukir Bay; and while the ships lock together in a horrible
bridal flash and roar in groups, in duel, and solitary terrible combat,
no man yet can say which way the inevitable scale will turn. No man but
one. He knows. He has read the purpose of Heaven in Naples, in Syracuse,
and he cannot doubt. Wounded in the head, believing death at hand, still
he clings to his certitude, giving his orders now from the cabin where
the surgeons have in vain implored him to lie down and take what rest is
possible in the seaquake and thunder shaking the ship.

And then Captain Berry rushes below with great, yet terrible news. The
mighty _Orient_, the French flagship, boastfully named for her errand,
is on fire, and the British Captains are directing their guns on the
flames, friendly to them, that none may dare to extinguish them. Wound
or no wound Nelson is on deck next moment, to see the ships, friend and
foe, alike veering or slipping their cables lest the frightful
catastrophe should involve them also in ruin; one English ship, the
_Alexander_, clinging bulldog-like to her prey until all but aflame,
then sullenly withdrawing. The gallant French gunners below are still
firing—they do not know the hell on deck—and Nelson, white, bloody,
clinging to a stay for support with his one arm, gives orders that his
only boat still serviceable be launched to help the survivors in the
immense catastrophe that all now see at hand and draw back to watch in a
mute horror. The great flames soar up to zenith. It is hell, hell,
before their eyes; and slowly, sullenly, one by one her guns cease
firing. They are done, their gunners dead and dying beside them; and at
last there is silence but for the crackling and singing of flame, and
then with a roar that storms heaven itself, the mighty ship blows up,
and a deadly quiet settles on the sea beneath the calm incurious eyes of
the Egyptian stars looking down on floating and human wreckage.

    “Almighty God having blessed His Majesty’s arms with victory,
    the Admiral intends returning public Thanksgiving for the same
    at two o’clock this day; and he recommends every ship doing the
    same as soon as convenient.

    “_Vanguard._ Off the Mouth of the Nile. 2nd, August, 1798.”

It is done. The Mediterranean is English once more and Napoleon’s dream
of French domination in Egypt broken. _Non nobis Domine_ is the cry on
Nelson’s lips—Not unto us, O Lord; not unto us.

But she was His instrument; without her, it could not have been done. He
knows it. She shall have the earliest news if it be at all in his power.
She, who struck with him in every blow, to whom every man in the Fleet
owes his devotion; Saint Emma, as he was to call her later.

Captain Hoste should carry his news, the Admiralty despatches should go
through Naples, but nothing in heaven or earth should keep himself from
Naples, that he might thank, praise, bless her, who had made all things
possible to him and to England. Europe lifted her head and rejoiced with
exceeding great joy; India also, for he sent a messenger speeding to
Bombay by Aleppo and Baghdad to announce that the menace was crushed,
and Clive’s work perpetuated forever.

She was in the room of mirrors watching as she watched now daily, for
news from the Fleet. Her life was almost unbearably anxious. Sir
William, torn from the peaceful pursuits of years of dilettantism and
converted in spite of his aversion into a serious diplomat, was gravely
ill more than once from the strain.

It could not be otherwise, for he was hard upon sixty-eight, and the
whole world-struggle was centring in the Mediterranean so that Naples,
which had been the appointment _par excellence_ for idle delights,
became the most strenuous point of the pitched battle with the French by
sword and pen. The Queen was aged and querulous with unceasing cares and
the misery of a foolish husband undermining her at every turn. She made
her own mistakes, too, in plenty; of cruel harshness in dealing with the
incipient revolutionaries of Naples and Palermo, and foolish efforts
which weakened her cause. And every day she leaned more heavily on Emma,
and every day Emma responded with more feverish zeal. Mistaken also,
often enough, but with the clear purpose of breaking the revolution, and
aiding Nelson and England, and the Two Sicilies through them.

So she watched at her window, with Sir William, ill and a little
querulous also beside her, and saw a ship coming up the bay. The Queen
was at her Palace at Caserta; the city lay sweltering under the August
heat. She herself was enervated and half exhausted, suffering the
reaction of a fierce excitement and prolonged suspense.

Guns—the salute to the Royal flag at San Elmo, the forts replying. She
hurried out breathless. A ship that had the air of a battered sea-bird,
making harbour after long gales and struggles. A small ship—the
_Mutine_. She delayed neither at Capri nor Ischia, she came steadily on
and dropped anchor as near shore as possible.

Emma did not awake the sleeping old man, since the guns had failed to do
it. After all, it might be nothing, a trifle, and he needed rest; but
again and very quietly, she took his glass and watched proceedings with
a pitying glance first at the wrinkled face and dropped jaw beside her.
A boat putting off from the ship. How often now she had watched those
boats and tried to guess their errands!

She arranged her hair and went quietly to the reception room. It
probably would mean that Nelson had news of the French Fleet and a
battle was imminent. Still—still suspense!

Time is long when one waits, however one may control oneself, and though
she sat at first resolutely, presently she was pacing up and down,
quicker and quicker as the pulses beat faster in her brain.

What was that! A cheer in the distance!—the screeching foreign cheer
she had ridiculed with Nelson. It came nearer; it gained volume. Yes,
the people were screaming like mad. Naples was yelling for joy. For
what? For what?

She rushed to the windows. Two uniformed young men were walking,
swiftly, steadily to the Embassy, looking neither to the right nor left.
Whatever the cheers came from it was not from any words of theirs. They
spoke neither to each other nor to any one else, and still the crowd ran
after them, yelling, cheering.

She could bear it no longer. She flew to the entrance where many of the
Embassy servants, men and women, had assembled. And as the officers
neared it, she stood there, white and strained to receive them, both
hands clasped upon her fluttering heart.

“What is it?” she shaped with her pale lips but could get out no word.

They knew her. Hoste and Capel had both shared her hospitalities. They
waved back the crowd at the gates, and came running lightly up the
approach.

“Madam, a great, a glorious victory. The French Fleet annihilated.”

And as the words left Hoste’s lips, some strain seemed to snap in her.
She flung up her arms and fainted dead away, falling cruelly on the
marble steps before them.

They thought they had killed her. They carried her between them into the
long cool room of so many agitations and Sir William was awaked and came
down; trembling, incredulous. “Thank God!” he said, when they told him,
and even then could scarcely take it in. He ran and announced it from
the steps of the Embassy while Emma still lay in her death-like swoon,
and the populace dispersed, running also shouting to carry the news all
over the city. Then and then only, he devoted himself to her, and saw
her faint eyelids flutter, and the pale rose dawn again in lip and
cheek.

She was badly bruised from the fall. But what of that? Joy is a great
physician, and presently she was sitting up, propped on cushions with
the two eager young men raining their story upon her in reply to her
passionate questions. Oh, joy of joys, glory of glories! Could she write
to Nelson? Yes—for they must stay three days and then rejoin him with
the utmost speed. But she must take them out to Caserta—the Queen must
hear. Ill? Faint? she repelled the thought with indignation. Not an
hour, not a minute must be lost. “My cloak—my hat! Order the carriage!”

They could not stay her, a whirlwind would not have done that, and
English flags were ordered for the carriage, and a garland for each
horse’s neck, and she and Sir William with the two young men got into it
and were driven through the raving streets, she bowing, smiling,
pointing to them with gestures of Roman pride: a younger Volumnia, drunk
with joy, scarcely herself knowing what she said and did.

She has been censured for this. Persons of superior breeding have called
it “bad taste” and certainly it was exuberant and unrestrained. But
there are moments in life when taste does not appear the one thing
necessary to salvation. Naples must know its saviour. It must know that
the slight, pale sailor of their memories had met that Apocalyptic power
of Napoleon undismayed and had conquered. Rome might be in the hands of
the French, but Naples was free.

So they came to Caserta and the vast Palace, Emma leading her three men,
proud as an Empress, through the immense marble halls, and up the broad,
lion-guarded staircase. They were English. She was English. She would
speak for them. Italy might flaunt with her marble palaces, but England
was her protector.

The Queen stood in the great cool salon, the dim sun-shiny air sweet
with flowers. Two ladies stood behind her. Her face was worn almost to
attenuation with gnawing care and bitter angers. She had not seen Emma
for some days. There had been a lull since the visit of Nelson, and she
had had her own sore troubles with the King over the victualling
business.

Now Emma approached, walking magnificently; an almost visible light
encircling her.

“Madam, I bring Your Majesty great news, glad news! Your enemies are
crushed. The immortal Nelson has destroyed the French Fleet at Aboukir.”
Her voice never shook. She was in complete control of herself. “And
lives,” she added, “for fresh and greater victories, if they are
needed.”

Marie Caroline stared at her, as if unbelieving.

“Send for the King,” she gasped, and one of the ladies ran, almost
tripping over her long skirt at the door. He came hurrying, shambling
in, his large mouth open foolishly, his big hands shaking.

“News? What is it?”

The Queen motioned with dry lips to Emma.

“Nelson has destroyed the French Fleet at Aboukir. Thanks be to God
Almighty. Their day is done.”

The Queen broke down into wild sobbing, her ladies clustering about her.
The King, with a false joy illuminating his face, sprang forward and
clasped the hands of Hoste and Capel.

“And the Admiral? Is he well—the dear and great man?”

The whole room seemed to dissolve into a mere clamour of congratulation,
question and answer. The Queen clasped Emma about the shoulders and
kissed her cheek passionately, and Emma, radiant, laughing, rejoicing,
cried aloud her English “Hip, hip, hurra!” and every soul present joined
in it as best they might.

“Take me back,” she gasped to Sir William, at length, “that I may write
to our immortal Nelson.”

How she wrote the world knows. It was her victory as well as his. He
owned it, the Fleet owned it. What should she write, what words could
ever hold her swelling pride and triumph? Even yet, a century and more
away, they pulse and throb with a burning life-blood.

He had written to her too in that great hour. She held his letter in her
hand.

“Emma, for God’s sake, rest,” Sir William entreated when they got home.
How could she? She brushed him aside, and got her pen and wrote with a
hand that stumbled at her racing thoughts. She could not. She was forced
to lay it aside a day or two, by mere physical weakness.

                                              “September 8th, 1798.

    “MY DEAR, DEAR SIR,

    “How shall I begin! What shall I say to you. ’Tis impossible I
    can write for I have a fevour caused by agitation and pleasure.
    God, what a victory! Never, has there been anything half so
    glorious, so compleat. I fainted when I heard the joyfull news
    and fell on my side and am hurt. I should feil it a glory to die
    in such a cause. No, I would not like to die until I see and
    embrace the Victor of the Nile. How shall I describe to you the
    transports of Maria Carolina. She fainted and kissed her
    husband, her children, walked about the room, cried, kissed,
    embraced every person near her, exclaiming, ‘Oh, brave Nelson.
    Oh, God bless and protect our brave deliverer. Oh, Nelson,
    Nelson, what do we not owe to you. Oh that my swolen heart coud
    now tell him personally what we owe to him.’ You may judge, my
    dear sir, of the rest. The Neapolitans are mad with joy, and if
    you was here now you woud be killed with kindness. Not a French
    dog dare show his face. How I glory in the honner of my country
    and my countryman. I walk and tread in air with pride, feeling I
    was born in the same land with Nelson and his gallant band.
    Little dear Captain Hoste will tell you the rest. He dines with
    us in the day for he will not sleep out of his ship. He is a
    fine good lad. If he is only half a Nelson he will be superior
    to all others. I send you two letters from my adorable Queen. We
    are preparing your apartment against you come. I wish you coud
    have seen our house the three nights of illumination. ’Tis,
    ’twas covered with your glorious name. Their were 3 thousand
    lamps and their shoud have been 3 millions if we had had time.
    For God’s sake come to Naples soon. I woud have been rather an
    English powder-monkey or a swab in that great victory than an
    Emperor out of it.

    “The Queen as this moment sent a Dymond ring to Captain Hoste,
    six buts of wine and every man on board a guinea each.

    “My dress from head to foot is _alla_ Nelson. Ask Hoste. Even my
    earrings are Nelson’s anchors; in short, we are be-Nelsoned all
    over. I send you some sonets, but must have taken a ship on
    purpose to send you all written on you. My mother desires her
    love to you.”

Nelson read that letter; his heart throbbing as he read. Who can
understand as she could—none, none, in all the wide world, for she was
a part of it. Dear Fanny! She will write fondly, and with a natural
pride, but this one—Emma!—why a man may see her heart is almost
bursting for triumphant tumultuous joy. She alone feels as he does.
Their hearts beat together. The beautiful exultant creature! Yes, Fanny
will write, but it will not be like this. Oh, to see her, to hear her
voice repeating his own transports. Every word of Hoste’s feeds his
flame of gratitude.

“By God, sir, she’s the loveliest, most wonderful woman in all the
world! She so touched off your doings that I declare I realized them
afresh in her words. Capel can talk of nothing else. She dazzled him.”

Indeed, Nelson himself was dazzled. He had never drunk so sparkling, so
maddening a draught, with all his triumphs. Europe poured her gratitude
at his feet. Her saviour! A peerage from his own England, with a pension
of £2000 a year and a gift of £10,000 from the Great East India Company
whose dominions and commerce he saved, an autograph letter and diamonds
from the Czar, a diamond feather from the Grand Turk with a sable
pelisse also from “that good Turban soul,” as Emma called him—but why
enumerate all the gifts and glories, indeed beyond enumeration? There
was one he coveted more than any—the look in those eyes that saw into
his own soul with perfect sympathy; the sound of that voice which for
him bore the sweetness of fame, the thrill of glory.

On the 22nd September he came to Naples in his battered _Vanguard_ and
no warning breathed from blue air and bluer seas. All was gladness.

Yet there a greater danger than any from any enemy awaited him. His own
heart. And hers.




                              CHAPTER XXI
                          THE GARDEN OF ARMIDA


IN those days every interest of Naples centred on the sea and the news
it might bring. The French were still occupying the republic they had
made of Rome and Roman territory and therefore the menace, broken on the
sea, was still very near them by land. But what did that count in the
whirlwind of praise and admiration they were preparing for the coming of
Nelson? He who had performed miracles could perform yet another.

Emma fanned the flame with all her power, and her power was not small.
Sir William was ill and tired with anxiety. He could rise to the
occasion on an emergency, but more and more the reins of power dropped
from aging hands and as they dropped she gathered them up, silently,
skilfully, and Nelson knew—and not Nelson only—that she was virtually
the British Ambassador in Naples. An amazing position for a beautiful
woman of thirty-three even if her antecedents had been those of one of
the English governing families, but almost terrifying when her life and
misfortunes are considered. And the more so because the French Jacobins
were interested in discovering any blot on the scutcheon of their
inveterate enemy. Their agents in London searched out every detail of
her life. Nothing was unknown to them, and then they set to work to
embellish what needed no embellishment. “The Neapolitan Messalina” they
called her and defeated their own object except in France, for even the
most censorious knew that she had been a stainless wife to Sir William;
never a breath to the contrary had sullied her. Indeed, her faith to
him, her deep enthralling gratitude for the great gifts he had given,
became her conscience, and not Lucretia herself was more circumspect
than Emma.

Perhaps she was not very severely tempted. There is a modern writer who
holds that there is no such thing as temptation in the usual sense of
the word, that when two alternatives are presented the mental struggle
is merely one of discrimination on grounds low or high according to the
mental status of the man, and that invariably he succumbs to the delight
that draws him most strongly, and can do no otherwise. St. Augustine,
skilled in the windings of the human heart, declares that “we needs must
follow what most delights us.” It may be a fatal passion wrestling with
the longing for the pure heart, the position that cannot be impugned,
the answer of what is called a clear conscience, but that the line of
least resistance must and will be followed is as certain as that night
follows day.

To Emma, besieged by many lovers, vain and light-hearted, in love with
success and admiration, there had been many so-called temptations since
the happy day which made her Lady Hamilton. She trifled with them,
laughed and passed on, for she discriminated. It might be pleasant to
have princes sighing at her feet, but she had tasted the insecurities of
vice and was far more passionately tempted by her great position and the
power, the enlarged stage it gave her. She had but to remember how
easily the bonds of mere passion are broken and the woman always the
scapegoat, to cling with all the rigidity of virtue to her honours.

And there was gratitude to Sir William, truly and deeply felt, to set
side by side with the knowledge that no other man in the world could
give her what he gave—the chance to distinguish herself in the theatre
of Europe. In other words, she had never as yet been tempted. She had
never seen anything she could for one moment weigh against all she held
in the hollow of her hand.

As to Nelson, commingled with his burning gratitude for her help, and
the strange and shining glamour that surrounded her in his soul, his
heart was faithful to his Fanny. He was the child of the parsonage,
trained to habits of prayer and reference of his daily concerns to
God—except, indeed, when matters went very contrary with him, and a
good round oath or two would speed the business; but then God would not
be hard upon a sorely tried seaman who admitted with contrition that he
was in the wrong, and who did his utmost for a country whose cause was
God’s.

Bad men were faithless to their wives. He had kept his eyes open in
foreign ports and knew, and he was aware that this was a subtle poison
which sapped the character in subtle ways. He was not analytic by any
means, and could have given no reason for it, but knew very well he
would sooner have his clean-living Troubridge or Collingwood beside him
when the French were in the offing than a ladies’ man like _X_ or _Y_
with a wife in every port. The two kinds of stability went together and
he could not tell why. He despised the lax livers. And since his country
and the service came first with him, he also had had no difficulty in
discrimination between idle passion and duty.

So with blare of trumpet and beat of drum and flutter of flags against
blue skies, the battered, victorious Fleet came slowly up by Capri on a
cloudless September day, and Emma, conscious of personal glories past
and to be which fused and melted in the rays of Nelson’s halo, prepared
herself for the greatest day of her experience. The Queen was ill, worn
out with joy and grief, and the Ambassadress would be the chief lady,
even surpassing in interest the Crown Princess Clementine. The
long-suffering Teresa was wild with excitement. Excellenza must shine,
must eclipse all others on this day when the Great Admiral, the saviour
of Italy, was coming to receive her homage. A dress had been specially
prepared; white, of course; with the pale blue sash which Emma still
preferred to all else, and across the shoulder and breast a broad ribbon
like that of the Bath with the words “Nelson of the Nile” embroidered in
bullion. Red, white and blue, the onlookers shall observe! About her
neck hung his miniature set in small pearls and painted by the artistic
Miss Cornelia Knight, acting at this time almost as her informal
secretary. She was “alla Nelson” as she phrased it, from head to
rosetted shoes.

When she descended to the carriage that was to take them to the Royal
yacht, Sir William looked at her with pride and pleasure. His fondness
was taking on the tone of a father to a favourite daughter as he aged
and she blossomed.

“I never saw you look better, Emma mia. Now spare yourself a little, I
entreat you. It will be a day of great emotions, and you know how these
excitements try you.”

He might well say that. A more highly strung, emotional woman never
breathed, and her nights had been restless and disturbed for weeks owing
to the troubles brewing in the city and fomented by the French Jacobins
who came and went. The Queen also lingered during the hot weather at her
Palace of Caserta and it was a long and weary way for the necessary
conferences. She promised, to quiet the kind old man, and they drove
down to the sea.

The King was waiting to hand the Ambassadress to the yacht. It was her
day, every one admitted that, and by a graceful waiving of precedence
she was led on board even before the young wife of the Heir Apparent,
the Princess Clementine, who drew back and refused to stir a step until
Emma had been escorted. It never even flashed across her mind how
strange are the turns of Fortune’s wheel, as curtseying she obeyed the
very great young lady. Yet it might have done, for that very morning’s
mail had brought her a pompous, somewhat too respectful letter
from—whom?—Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh of Up Park, congratulating her
as the wife of England’s representative on “the glorious victory of our
immortal Nelson” and her share in it, which had flown, magnified by
millions of tongues, back to England.

It was in bad taste in spite of all its homage, and a more sensitive
woman would have winced under it, but not Emma. It enchanted her that he
should know her triumph, should know he had cast her out not to infamy
and poverty, but to glory and honour beyond all his imaginings. He, a
man, with money and position, had made nothing of his life (she knew of
his marriage from Greville), he was one of the mere public. She, a woman
and cruelly handicapped, sat in the seats of the mighty, and at the helm
of great events. She showed it to Sir William, from whom she had no
secrets, and told him she had half a mind to answer it. He drily
recommended her to throw it in the fire and think of it no more.

Privately, she laughed to herself at the King’s forced gaiety as he led
her on board. He tried for a holiday face and with poor success for he
was still in the hands of the Anglophobe party and she knew it, and he
knew she did. But the day was glorious, the bunting a-flutter and the
eyes of Europe on Naples. What did it matter?

Emblems of victory flew from each mast of the Royal yacht; the awnings
glittered like Cleopatra’s barge. Lady Hamilton, reclining in the stern,
might have passed for the lovely Egyptian about to meet Mark Antony.
Music winged their way, triumphal odes composed by Cimarosa—every boat
that followed was vocal. Naples afloat to greet her Liberator.

And thus they approached the Fleet—dark, war-worn, huge—lying at
anchor off Capri. Even the music and shouting were stilled for a moment
as they drew near that tremendous spectacle and saw the wounds that war
had made in those stern sides. France had left her mark deep on them:
shot-marked, splintered, jury masts rigged where the others had fallen,
they clustered together, formidable still, but wearied, wearied. There
is no creation of man which so shares and reflects his emotions as a
ship, and these were neither rejoicing nor triumphant with flag and
music, but dumb, suffering, implacable. The flagship, “the poor wretched
_Vanguard_,” as Nelson called her, seemed almost to mock the mirth of
the Royal yacht by her dumb endurance.

But the yacht came alongside, and above them frowned the yawning ports
with their hidden hell of guns. The whole scene and its cruel contrasts
struck hot on Emma’s emotions. She stayed neither for King nor Princess,
she cared not what eyes were on her, what tales malice might spread. She
ran up the ladder, tripping on her dress, caring nothing, feeling
nothing, till she knew her foot on English soil once more (for every
English battleship is England) and there was Nelson waiting with his
group of officers, collected from all the ships, his face white and
nerve-shaken. She ran to him wildly, pale, transported with a like
emotion, and so, sobbing out half senseless words—“Is it possible? O
God, is it possible!” fell half fainting against him and could say no
more, shaking from head to foot, and clinging to him lest she should
fall at his feet. It was the last entry she would have chosen to make,
but she was blown in the wind of feeling beyond her control.

With Troubridge’s help, who stood near him, he supported her with his
one arm, and all the warriors closed round the Patroness of the Navy,
forgetting for an instant the slowly following King, and more alarmed by
this feminine weakness than by the French guns bellowing about them at
Aboukir; and quickly her colourless cheek regained its colour and she
blushed to find herself the centre of so much attention and begged them
to neglect her, and was the more assiduously waited on.

“I have not slept of late. It is that!” says she, looking apologetically
in Troubridge’s face. “I felt it as every Englishwoman must do.”

“Of course, madam, of course. What else? God knows I can sympathize. Not
a man in the Fleet but has slept the uneasier for the Admiral’s wound.
Look at him!”

She looked and again the colour ebbed from her lips. He was dead white.
Every little bone stood out in his face, and a fever-spot burned on
either cheek that made the hollow beneath cruel. His hair was combed low
on his forehead to hide the raking tear made by the piece of iron that
had struck his head at Aboukir and so stunned him that for weeks after
he declared he was scarce answerable for what he wrote.

If his ship was battered, so too was he. She had not known nor guessed
how sorely. There was not much of the man left to give for England
now—his arm, his eye, this wound! A pain like a mother’s woke in her
heart to see it, while Troubridge continued:

“The day we sent off Captain Hoste with despatches he was taken with a
fever, Your Excellency, that had very near done his business. Indeed,
for eighteen hours we gave him up. I wish to God he could have quiet and
nursing better than we can give him. For, though every heart in the
Fleet loves him, men are unhandy nurses, your Ladyship knows.”

She listened, trembling. The King was talking—talking—would he never
cease? Could he not see the exhaustion in the man’s face before him? The
Princess now. Good God, when would they have done? She edged up to her
husband as soon as she got a moment and repeated Troubridge’s words.

“Sir William dear, we must have him ashore. We must nurse him at the
Embassy.”

He was as eager as she. When did Sir William ever turn his back on a
friend? They took their chance when the captains were crowding about the
King, and then it was broached.

“Oh, God!” he cried. “If you did but know how it sounds to me! An
English bed, and quiet, and to be away from the sea noises and the
trampling, and the dashing of waters. My friends, ’tis half a health to
me to see your kind faces. It would be a whole health to have rest.”

She noticed him more nervous, more emotional than he had been. A blow on
the head—well, not surprising—but she would nurse him.

“I have letters from my wife that I must answer,” he said later. “No, my
dear lady, no use to beseech me not to write awhile. I know it tries my
head; indeed the ache when I write is almost unbearable, but she must
hear if I drop.”

Emma would have given much to see those letters and know if the unseen
Fanny rejoiced as she rejoiced. She did not as yet realize her
sufficiently to bear her any enmity. Why should she? A tame English wife
far, far away in a dull English village! Indeed, she seemed to have
little to do with their great concerns.

She got him on shore that evening after a day of excitement to wear down
a man all beef and sinew instead of the worn-out invalid she saw him. A
perfect bedroom was appointed to his service away from the hot September
sun and full of cool and healing glooms. His sitting-room was adjoining
where he could lie and watch at a safe distance the work in hand
repairing the wounds of the ships. Troubridge’s _Culloden_ was barely
afloat; his own _Vanguard_—her masts, by good fixing, might or might
not hold out until he could get her to Gibraltar to refit. In short, at
Naples he must stay awhile whether he would or not.

Officers came and went, but Emma shielded him where she could. He called
her his guardian angel. One or two of his Fanny’s letters he showed to
her and Sir William with pride. They should see how elegantly she
expressed herself, how firm her trust in the Providence which had
preserved and would preserve him yet. Indeed, those innocent wifely
letters might have been published to the Fleet, so universal were they
in the expression of a wife’s calm pride and joy in great achievements.
She thanked him also very gratefully and touchingly for her share in his
honours. “Baroness Nelson of the Nile”—had she ever thought she would
live to see herself so uplifted? She must tell him, too, of the village
rejoicings in his greatness. He would not despise these amid the
applauses of Europe. The dear old farmer by the parsonage had said so
and so. Old Goody Twoshoes had clasped her hands—he would remember! He
did, and it touched him like a far, faint echo from days in another
lifetime. For here was Emma beside him, cooling his temples with her
fan, her lavender essence, her sweet care that shaded the windows to
perfection yet admitted the soft Parthenopean breeze. Her voice
rehearsed the honours and gifts awaiting him in Naples.

“Oh, my friend, your glory!” she said, leaning her head back in the
armchair beside his sofa, a wandering sunbeam caught in her hair and
eyes. “We have just had another letter. No, you shall not read it; it
wearies your brain. Listen to me. The Grand Turk has written to King
George to beg you may wear the diamond feather he took from his own
turban to decorate you! Did ever any one hear of such a thing! I declare
I could turn Turk for love of the dear old gentleman. I believe it’s the
sign of sovereignty in Turkland. ‘Viva il Turco!’ says Emma.”

She cried it, clapping her hands for joy, and must needs twist up a
scarf into a turban and parade the room, pretending herself a favourite
sultana, and so lovely that had the Grand Turk seen her he must have
offered Sir William millions of piastres on the spot to buy her for the
Light of the Hareem, as Nelson declared.

“But I wouldn’t go!” cries she, sitting down, still in the turban. “I
had rather be the glorious Nelson’s nurse than mistress of the world.
Pray, pray, my Lord, if he sends the Turkish frigate here to
congratulate you in all the forms, send the commander to me that I may
entertain the good Turban soul.”

“Why, what would you do with him?” says Nelson, enjoying the little
comedy.

“Why, I would heap him with honours and kindness and send him home
convinced that an Englishwoman at all events has a soul. They say theirs
haven’t, so I’m told, but God knows I have, and I love him for the
honour his master has done to the friend of our hearts. So I do.”

“You wonderful woman—who ever doubted you had a soul!” He was looking
at her with all his heart in his face. “Why, it overflows in every word
you say and look you look. ’Tis easy to forget you have a body at all
for all it’s so beautiful, and think you an angel just touching the
earth and to fly away again from men not worthy of you.”

“Flatterer, flatterer!—and I that thought Nelson all truth and
simplicity.” She put her finger on his lip to silence him and he kissed
it. “But indeed, Nelson, I grudge at the poor beggarly honours from
England. They have not done for you what they did for St. Vincent—St.
Vincent!—a rush light to a star! Now listen! If I was King of England
I’d have made you, with one stroke of my pen, Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile,
Earl Aboukir, Viscount Pyramid, Baron Crocodile, and Prince Victory!—so
that all the world might stare when you was announced. Now—what do you
say!”

He laughed and laughed. She never tired him and her happy laughter was
his lullaby. Baron Crocodile, she often called him after that. When she
was not with him, she was planning the glorification for his birthday
which the Royal Family and all Naples would have whether he would or
not.

He snatched his minutes from these enchantments to write to Fanny and to
exalt the Hamiltons as indeed bare gratitude demanded. Their goodness no
tongue could tell, and if he was proud of late events his chief pride
lay in the fact that he was his father’s son, her husband, and the
friend of the Hamiltons. So he wrote.

Emma wrote also—a wife would naturally wish to hear from her husband’s
friend.

But she wrote without her wonted exuberance. Those _bourgeoise_ women
locked in their dull villages—what could they know of the great world
and its doings? And the little she had heard of Fanny convinced her that
she would be of the Queen Charlotte type of woman; prim, prudish,
inclined to consider that all freedoms partake of the nature of sin. She
wrote, therefore, warmly but guardedly and submitted the letter to
Nelson, who, quite unskilled in women’s instincts, was certain it must
give my lady the utmost pleasure.

Doubtless it ought. But Fanny, too, had cares mingled in her triumphs.
Many of the Jacobin stories of Emma’s past came to London and some blew
like thistledown to Norfolk, where they seeded. All her British
instincts protested against the Scarlet Woman enthroned in high places.
It was like the vile looseness of these foreigners. Sir William Hamilton
should be made aware of his country’s displeasure! And then came
Nelson’s first letter from Naples.

“She does honour to the station to which she is raised!”—Fanny’s eyes
grew hard as she read those foolish words. So like Horatio! So like all
men, dazzled by a pretty face, and forgetful of every essential! It
would have taken very much more than Emma’s warm but circumspect letters
to convince her that there was no danger in the Embassy and its
kindnesses. And Josiah’s descriptions—now a young man of nineteen—were
not reassuring.

“Lady H. is a beautiful woman, but not like you, mother. She is too
friendly, too noisy. I describe very ill, but I find no one can look at
anything else when she is there. Sir Horatio she has always in tow.”

That sufficed. In a flash Fanny’s opinion was formed. Had Emma written
with an inspired pen she could not have pleased her. What did _she_ want
thrusting herself in and complaining of the British Government’s
inadequate reward to her husband? “Hang them, _I_ say!” she had ended.
Vulgar!—was Lady Nelson’s comment—what one would expect. Unseen, the
two women were in opposition.

The galas at the Embassy would have infuriated her could she have seen
them. My Lady Ambassadress received every one of note with a lavish and
splendid hospitality which left Sir William looking ruefully at his
accounts when they came in. Indeed, Emma’s gorgeous notions of their
position began to embarrass him in any case. He feared the Etruscan
vases must suffer.

But the rapture, the glorious delight in her face, swept both him and
Nelson away. Indeed, within the limits due to an invalid, nothing was
left undone to do him honour and Emma with him. Sir William was
relegated to the background, a mere shadow of an ambassador, all his
authority merged in his triumphant wife. Emma’s best friend, not to
mention Lady Nelson, might have thought she exceeded the bounds of good
taste here. It was like the blaring of brass and scarlet and had
Nelson’s vanity not been nurtured gradually on a stronger and stronger
diet of her praises it must have spoilt his stomach. Let the truth be
told. Emma must have a master and a strong one to do herself justice.
She had had it more or less in the boor, Sir Harry; she had had it
certainly in the cool dominant Greville; and for years in her fear of
Sir William’s superiority. Now, the rein was slipping from Sir William’s
enfeebling hand. His age and her own marvellous achievement gave her a
loose. She had the bit between her teeth, and Heaven knows where it
would lead her. She flared like a bonfire in the pride of the Battle of
the Nile, and indeed more leaked out of her services, though vague and
indistinct, than was at all wise for the King’s ears, the Queen’s
safety, or the credit that should only have crowned Sir William. She was
overfamiliar with all.

As for Nelson, he was worn out and disgusted with all the fiddling and
braying; with all but her, his twin soul; but slowly, under her proud
care, the asses’ milk prescribed in the fashion of the day, and a quiet
sunshiny visit with her to Castellamare, he regained his strength,
though never perhaps the equanimity of the days before that dangerous
blow on the head.

It was night and they sat together in the room of the mirrors looking
out into the quiet dark. The lights of the ships were twinkling far off,
and a broad moonlight floated translucent on the bay. She wore her
evening dress and jewels, with a bandeau about her beautiful brow,
rimmed with pearls and inscribed with his name. Sir William had fallen
asleep for sheer exhaustion in his study, and Nelson’s face was haggard
with fatigue. Some officers were still in the next room discussing the
events of Naples and the near sailing of the Fleet.

“A wonderful, wonderful time it has been,” she said, leaning on the
window-sill, the moonlight and the low lamplight fighting for her
loveliness. “Oh, Nelson, it was the greatest time of my life. There can
never be such another.”

“And it was all Emma’s doings!” he said, looking into her eyes. He had
taken to calling her by her name as Sir William always did in speaking
of her to him. It had come to be an openly acknowledged friendliness.

“My doing? No. The world’s doing. You have the world at your feet. It
rings with your honoured name.”

“You put it there!” he said, and clasped her hand. “We can’t tell it
wholly as yet for the Queen’s sake, but whether I live or die, the world
shall know one day that the Nile was Emma’s battle. Not a gun would have
been fired but for my friend.”

“Ah, you say that now”—her eyes were like moonlight themselves,
moonlight-brimmed, soft, mysterious—“but you leave in a few days, and
you will forget. You will go back to Norfolk and be so happy with your
wife that all these days together will seem like a dream.”

“I shall never forget,” he said steadily. “There is not a thought I can
think in future but is inspired by you, bound up with you. You are the
most wonderful woman I ever met.”

“Your wife?”

“My wife is all that is valuable. I honour the ground she walks on. She
is a wife to make a fireside home. But you—God knows what you are—you
dazzle me. Honour. That is you. Courage. You again. Wisdom, daring—all,
all are you. I can’t tell you from England in my thoughts. You inspire
me.”

She turned and looked at him with moonlight eyes.

“You love England.”

“I love you,” he said hoarsely, the very veins in his wounded temple
throbbing.

“You love your wife,” she insisted softly.

“I love you—you!” A pause, and the moonlight flooding the room—it
bathed it, reflected from the great mirrors that brought the sea and sky
about them.

She took his hand in hers and they looked at each other. Not a word,
scarcely a breath. Slowly, slowly her eyes drew his—their faces were
close, her breath was warm on his lips, her lips warmer. They kissed.

Shattering noise in the room. A chair knocked rudely over. Josiah
Nisbet, wild with wine.

“Sir, you’re my commanding officer, and I know I lay myself open to
court martial, but you’re my mother’s husband, and I swear I’ll die
sooner than you shall carry on like this with another woman in her
absence, be she who she may. Madam, you should be ashamed for yourself.”

The shouting, the noise, horrible! Emma shrank back against the window
wordless—the drunken cub! Nelson caught him with his one arm as he
advanced roughly on her.

“Josiah, you’re drunk, give over, or I’ll send you on board under
arrest!”

But still he stormed on, shouting, raving, the suspicions of days taking
head in mad insults to his stepfather and the Ambassadress.

The faithful Troubridge heard it from the next room and dashed in.

“Nisbet, good God!—come away! My Lord! Madam! Take no notice! He is mad
drunk. Nisbet, if you don’t come away, I’ll knock you down.”

Still foaming out insults, Troubridge got him to the ground, and roughly
secured his arms behind his back. Gag him he could not, and still the
hoarse shouting continued. Emma, on a signal from Nelson, had slipped
out of the room, and Troubridge shouted for Capel and they dashed cold
water over his head and got him away in a half comic, half tragic frenzy
to the waterside and to a boat and so out of sight and hearing. A
burlesque in a way. Men laughed in the wardrooms of the ships when they
heard it, and not one but said the cub should be turned adrift after all
his stepfather’s goodness to him and endurance of his fat-head follies.

Yet also, there was not an eye but watched the beauty and the Admiral
the closer when they were together, not an ear but was lengthened to
catch the drift of gossip from that day on.

Josiah called next day and made his humble apology. He had been
overtaken by drink in honour of the great victory and could not recall a
single word he had said. Inexcusable, yet would the good Angel of the
Fleet forgive the unforgivable? With forced kindliness that covered a
pale rage and shame she forgave him for fear of worse, even wrote
friendly-fashion of him in a letter to his mother a few days later,
dreading what he might have said in that quarter. Nelson refused to see
him. The insult to his commanding officer covered that.

But what, what had he seen, was her question to herself. That could
neither be guessed nor opened up, and it left her face to face with her
own judgment. Believe it or not who will, that kiss burnt on Emma’s lips
more scorching than to the chastest wife in England, for it opened up
all the gulfs of memory. She _knew_. As a wretch, climbed from the
quicksands dimpling and quivering beneath him, knows their horrors,
their slow unfolding of the doomed man body and soul, where another who
has never struggled in them sees but the glassy pools on the surface and
fears to wet his feet, so it was with Emma. A kiss! A word! She knew
what dumb horrors might lie beneath a light approach, and trembled. But
it could not help her. When the quicksands have the man by the foot, and
a kiss a woman by the heart, what safety?

The day before the Fleet left, the lovers, for so indeed they were, met
alone in the room of mirrors.

“Will you remember me? Will you write?” he asked, dry-lipped.

“Yes, yes,” she whispered, and half choked on the thought of his going.

“We must write!” he said as if in half excuse. “There will be sharp work
at Naples yet, and only you to guide it and protect the Royals.”

“But I have you to help me,” she insisted, clinging to his hand as if
for life. A pause—then very slowly:

“Emma, did that cub sicken you at me, or reveal your heart to you? Have
you avoided me the last few days for love’s sake or fear?”

“Was I ever afraid?”

“Then it was love? You feared your own heart.”

Suddenly she flamed out glorious.

“I don’t fear my own heart. I love it because it loves my Nelson. No,
how can we love each other too much? We love the same thing, glory and
great deeds. We must love each other. But we will be true. I would not
wrong my dear Sir William for all the wide world—no, not even for you
that’s more to me than any world.”

“Good God—you’re right!” he cried. “We can love each other and let it
drive us on to deeds that will make the world look and worship. Inspire
me, for you’re mine, mine! But I will be true to my wife, and you to
your good husband, and we’ll set an example of duty as well as of honour
for all to see. My own, own Emma!”

He clasped her to his breast and drowned her in kisses—such kisses as
had never yet touched her lips, and she should be a judge. His heart,
his soul, his fiery honour, burnt in every one. And behind them stood
Fate, and laughed cruelly in her sleeve at the old, impossible attempt
to square the circle.

“We will make a compact,” he said solemnly at length. “To love each
other till death, yet never to step an inch beyond the line we draw now.
To aid each other in our war against these French devils, as comrades,
not as lovers, but as man and woman who love honour better than their
own sufferings. Swear it, my Emma; my own heart’s love.”

“I swear it,” she said, looking not at him but at the ground—and they
sealed their compact with a last kiss that melted their souls in one. Or
so it seemed to him.

And so the Fleet sailed from Naples.




                                PART IV




                              CHAPTER XXII
                              THE MERIDIAN


IT appeared to Nelson in the anxious days coming on that Heaven itself
had sent him the destined helper in his war against French domination.
Two things were clear as noonday to the perception of his military
genius: that Buonaparte if unchecked must rule the world, and that the
theatre of Armageddon would be in the Mediterranean and lands adjacent.

And presently there was a fresh and cruel anxiety about Malta. And to
all these matters, the miserable intriguing kingdom of the Two Sicilies
was the key from its natural position and its harbours. Then to whom
could he turn but to the marvellous woman who divined his thoughts even
as he thought them, who used her unique position in the Court solely to
aid his views, and who so believed in him, inspired him, that he could
not say where the one blended with the other nor whether a thing was his
own doing or hers?

It is easy to believe what falls in with one’s own hopes and wishes, and
it became a creed with the lovers that the interests of England and the
Two Sicilies were one and that together they must stand and fall. If
that were so then duty, honour, alike bound him to the service of that
puny court and people. For him, Europe stood or fell with Mediterranean
policy, and Emma, quick as intuition and quicker, saw it with him, and
undertook to imbue the Queen with the Nelsonic doctrine.

He wrote perpetually to her and to Sir William. He drew up a paper
outlining his policy, which she must study. Can the imagination at all
paint what it must have been to Emma—the Emma of the ghastly
memories—to find herself the trusted counsellor of such a man, at such
a time? It flattered her pride and ambition as they had never been
flattered yet. She saw herself the very arbitress of Europe, and in
those days, nothing, nothing seemed impossible to her powers. She flung
all her exuberant energies into his service, for what they dreamed
together he could execute, and who was to set a bound to their
achievement?

And some day—here the baser elements stirred in her—some day—well,
Sir William was old, ageing daily. There might be a future, splendid
beyond all hopes—no, no, gratitude, everything, forbade her even to
imagine such a thing. The present was enough. She had never known such a
man—how could she? And he not only loved her but saw in her his guiding
star, the inspiration deprived of which his own ardours must flag.

Sir William also fanned her flame. His long and hereditary experience of
diplomacy had given him a remarkable insight and he saw the European
problem as Nelson saw it. Every word he wrote to England played Nelson’s
game and emphasized the strategic consequence of the Two Sicilies. If
Revolution raised its head there, good-bye to hope for Europe. Sir
William indeed so devoted himself to the single task of rousing
intelligence at home that Emma may be said to have presided at the
Embassy.

It was well enough known along the Mediterranean coasts. The French
intelligencers wrote to their home government that unless “Hamilton’s
wife” was removed, there was little hope of gaining Naples. They were
right. “Le roi Caroline” was the true ruler, and she was Emma’s
mouthpiece. Day in, day out, Emma’s mouth was opened to show forth
Nelson’s praise, and the echo of the guns of Aboukir thundered Amen.

She wrote long diary letters to her hero setting forth all their hopes
and fears and lulling him and herself with references to Lady Nelson.
That was a part of the compact. Truth to their respective bonds, and
outside that, perfect comradeship.

She wrote: “The Queen yesterday said to me, ‘The more I think on it, the
greater I find it. My respect is such that I could fall at his honoured
feet and kiss them.’ You that know us both and how alike we are in many
things, that is, I as Emma Hamilton, she as Queen of Naples, imagine us
both speaking of you! I told Her Majesty we only wanted Lady Nelson to
be the female _tria juncta in uno_ for we all love you, and yet all
three differently, and yet all equally, if you can make that out.”

So she protested her loyalty to herself and him. She wrote to Lady
Nelson again, congratulating her on Nelson’s recovery, and his great
deeds. In part, the common desire of the woman who is stealing the
husband’s allegiance, to stand well with the wife, to spare her any
cruelty but the one; in part, surely, a nobler aim. If Lady Nelson would
but respond, would enlist Emma’s warm heart on her own behalf as well as
his! That would be a safeguard—if they could be friends. But no; Fanny
had heard the stories that were flying across the sea. She believed that
a more dangerous than Circe herself lurked in her den strewn with men’s
bones in Naples.

She replied coldly, briefly, and Emma knew that the watch-dog Suspicion
was guarding that gate with wary eye. It was not wonderful. Fanny knew
well there was a change in Nelson’s letters. She could set down
something to work, to wounds, and the presence of anxieties. But yet—he
had been in danger and anxiety many a day and oft, and there had been
time for tender protestations. There were none now. She began to
perceive what had never been pressed in upon her before, the grievous
danger of the long separation of husband and wife. Hitherto it had made
him cling more fondly to the thought of home. Now—she doubted—doubted.

She might well doubt. Every day of absence from Emma endeared her to
Nelson. It was home now where she was; not only the actual walls and
sweetness of daily intercourse, but heart’s home, where every word and
look was understood and re-echoed. He missed her horribly at every turn.
His very genius seemed to dwindle in her absence.

And in Naples things grew steadily worse. The French had been busy
sowers and their grain was ripening for harvest. It became gradually
clear to Emma and therefore to the Queen that the horrors of France
might very well repeat themselves for the Royal Family. Always the face
of her doomed sister Marie Antoinette hung before Marie Caroline, the
piteous decapitated head, grey and discrowned, with deep tear-channels
worn down the hollow cheeks. Neither royalty nor beauty, nor all the
kings of all the world had availed to save her from that fate. And could
Marie Caroline look at her own children, happy, unconscious, in the
gardens of Caserta without remembering the sin crying aloud to God and
man of the torture and degradation of soul and body deliberately
inflicted on her nephew, the Royal child of France, the Dauphin, by the
French Republicans? It is no wonder that even her courageous spirit
darkened into ashes sometimes and might have been quenched but for
Emma’s confident energy and the white overshadowing wings of Nelson’s
Fleet.

For in November he returned to Naples. He could make the excuse that his
orders were to protect the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but though he
stifled his knowledge as far as possible, he knew in his own soul what
influence drew him. What was a foreign queen to an English Admiral? Yet
he wrote: “I am, I fear, drawn into a promise that Naples Bay shall
never be left without an English man-of-war. I never intended leaving
the coast of Naples without one; but if I had, who could resist the
request of such a queen?”

He was perpetually with the Hamiltons during that visit, and every
impulse drew Emma to conquer his whole heart—if any of it were left
unconquered. He still confused his passion for her with his passion for
glory and that was her most powerful aid. It reacted in every way. It
made her private interests one with the politics of the Two Sicilies. It
made her indispensable to him at every turn of events.

There were the strangest moments of confidence between them in the half
hours they could snatch together in the room of the mirrors when
Hamilton was toiling in his office downstairs—moments of self-deception
on Nelson’s part which Emma half prayed might always continue, half
longed to break into reality as her life had taught it to her.

“My Emma, my own true comrade, never was such a friendship as ours in
all the world. We will prove that a man and woman may be friends, with
the deepest love to bind them and yet loyal as brother and sister to
every obligation of honour.”

And this with her warm hand clasped in his, her violet-grey eyes glowing
on him! She smiled, responsive.

“Yes, yes, it is true. We are not made of common clay, Nelson, you and
me. What others cannot do, we can. See, I kiss your dear eyes with never
a thought that your wife would scorn if she could know. I wish with all
my soul she were here that I might serve her and show her that Emma’s
heart is true as steel to her and hers. You know it is true. I would
have her know it also. What does she say of me in her letters?”

“She writes calmly but kindly. It is not her way like yours, my beloved,
to expend her heart in writing or speaking, but indeed she is a good,
good woman, and may Heaven desert me the day I cause her a pang that
could be spared.”

“Would she comprehend our friendship, do you think? Does she understand
how great and commanding is your genius? Would she despise your poor
Emma for her adoration of the gifts that have brought the world to your
feet?”

“I have never known Fanny despise a living soul. She is all that is
humble and kind,” Nelson said gravely, “and I hope beyond expression
that in days to come you and she may be friends and live in harmony
which will make us indeed _tria juncta in uno_, to use your own dear
words.”

“She answered my letters coldly,” says Emma with a moisture on her
flower-soft lashes. “It cut me to the heart. Oh, if she could but know
my heart’s true friendship.”

“She will. She shall. I have assured her of it in letter after letter.
But let us talk of the Queen.”

The subject was painful to him, until Fanny should indeed be brought to
comprehend all his motives. But Nelson’s simplicity blinded him to much
he had better have realized. Those who knew him best knew it and feared.
A vague rumour of what was called “the flirtation” spread along the
Mediterranean and reached old St. Vincent. He, knowing Nelson, dismissed
it with a shrug of his shoulders and the dictum that Nelson and Emma
were a couple of silly sentimental fools, no worse, but he began to be
on the alert nevertheless concerning the _Vanguard’s_ visits to Naples,
to be impatient of the Sicilian imbroglio and to wish that Nelson would
put the matter in Troubridge’s or some other such man’s capable hands
and there leave it. Nelson and Emma were born romantics, he thought.
They fed each other’s flame foolishly. It was all very well for himself,
old and seasoned, to write to her that he was her knight errant. It was
a very different and more dangerous matter for Nelson to play the part
in earnest. He wished Lady Nelson would come out and look after him.

Lady Nelson wished it very much more eagerly herself. She scented
danger—danger. She wrote and proposed it in tenderest wifely terms.
They had been so long apart. She craved to see him. He answered
hurriedly—impossible. She little realized the state of affairs out
here, or she could never make such a proposal. The only result was to
strengthen her suspicions of Emma and all her works.

The night before he sailed again, recalled by the commander in chief, he
told Emma this episode, conscious himself of a half disloyalty in the
very telling.

“She could not have come!” he said wistfully. “It was impossible. Yet
how natural to wish it. It touched me.”

“No woman who really considered your immense anxieties should wish to
hamper you for one instant. Oh, my Nelson, what is the gratification of
being together compared to doing your glorious duty? It half breaks my
heart to part with my soul’s friend. Yet I bid you go. I urge you. I
would not keep you with me if even my life depended on it, for what is
life without glory to souls like yours and mine? You have taught me
this. I owe it to you, and I won’t fail. I’ll never fail.”

He put his arm about her, so that her head rested quietly on his
shoulder.

“Brave Emma! Good Emma! My friend of friends. The only one in the world
that understands me. My soul is too great for them. They wound and
bruise it because they cannot understand. I should be given a free hand
in the Mediterranean to do what I would, and here am I kept in leading
strings like a sucking captain. Your Nelson has that in him that should
make the world crawl before him, if it could find vent.”

“And it shall—it will!” she whispered. “And I’ll help. They should make
you head of the Navy and put up a statue of pure gold to you in London
if I had _my_ way. Ignorant fools! They are not worthy of you. Who is?”

“Nor of you, nor of you!” he answered fondly.

Lovers’ bombast, but the worst thing in the world for a man of his
temperament and a woman of hers.

They could not do without the atmosphere of adulation that each provided
for the other. They both grew more impatient, irritable, tyrannous, to
all outside that enchanted ring. The Queen’s rank protected her, but Sir
William often had reason to remember Greville’s dicta concerning Emma’s
“little spurts of temper,” and Nelson on board his _Vanguard_ was more
impatient of the contradictions of events, more captious than his
officers had ever known him. It might be that terrible blow on the head
at the battle of the Nile, they thought, but certainly it made
difficulties. It was unlucky, too, that St. Vincent, who knew him
through and through, was already talking of relinquishing the command
and returning to England, and of Lord Keith succeeding him; a man of
colder, dryer nature; a martinet; the last man, in any case, to
understand Nelson’s complexities and give him rein where needful.

So the _Vanguard_ sailed from Naples, and Nelson felt the world cold and
inhospitable without her sweet flatteries and clinging yet inspiring
adoration. He wrote more and more briefly to Fanny. The wound on his
head, the pressure of business, were natural excuses. He felt himself in
a maze of thoughts and feelings she could never understand. Poor Fanny!

But he wrote incessantly to Emma after leaving, letters which contained
a meaning between the lines which only she could read; the stain of
kisses the sweeter because secret. No violent scandal had as yet arisen,
for half the Fleet was in love with her courage, gaiety, and the gallant
spirit enshrined in the fairest face that ever dazzled a sailor’s eyes.
She was the comrade of all; at their beck for any service she could
render; and from Lord St. Vincent down to the midshipmen, they swore by
her. It was still easy for men to believe that Nelson thought as they
did and no more.

But Emma knew better. She who, in Greville’s words, had always needed a
master and must have the bit in her charming mouth and the bridle and
whip to direct her, had now found a slave, and a slave who had conquered
the coming master of Europe. She knew it as every woman knows her power,
and her head swam with the knowledge. Good God! what should she do with
him? The wrong thing—inevitably the wrong thing.

Nelson’s judgment in naval matters was infallible, but set him on shore
and he was a man like another; and the more fallible because his
prejudices were so strong and the self-esteem the world and Emma
combined to flatter was stronger daily. How could he ever think himself
in the wrong? He and Emma knew the inmost facts of the situation. Who
should contradict them? They went their own way.

They flung the Two Sicilies into helpless war with France in the Roman
territory, and when the Army and the miserable King fled routed, there
was nothing for it but a flight for the Royal Family to Palermo.

She lived a romance in those days and throve exceedingly on the sparkle
and bubble of it. One may see her at the Royal Palace, daily with the
Queen, exhorting, almost commanding. Nelson had advised her of
Buonaparte’s design on the Two Sicilies. In Austria was no help; no, not
even though Marie Caroline’s daughter was Empress-Consort in Vienna.
Palermo, Palermo and patience, had become the only hope for Neapolitan
Royalty in these hard times.

“But I cannot, I cannot!” the pale Queen protested. “My dear friend, you
may see for yourself that a King who flees is lost. Never again shall we
regain our throne and Buonaparte has already a creature of his own to
occupy it. I will die here. I will face my sister’s fate from the
Jacobins.”

“If you die at your post, madam, I will remain and die with you,” cried
the impassioned Emma. “But Nelson advises flight, and did you ever know
the saviour of Europe wrong?”

“But how, how can it be done if I assent—which I will not do unless
compelled? You know, my beloved, my only friend, that we are watched
night and day. We cannot fly without our jewels, treasures, necessaries.
It cannot be done.”

Emma, who knew from the Queen’s lips all the particulars of the flight
of the unhappy King and Queen of France to Varennes and its miserable
failure, recalled here how all was near lost by Marie Antoinette’s
insistence that Royalty could not flee without little queenly furnitures
which attracted suspicion. But _she_ was not there to arrange it! That
and all else if one were Emma. Her magnificent self-confidence carried
her forward.

“Remember Varennes!” the Queen added sadly, her face sinking into utter
lassitude as she looked out on the bright Palace gardens.

“Remember, madam, that Her Majesty of France had no Nelson—and may I
add, no Emma.”

The Queen clasped her hand silently. There was a long pause.

“Madam, Your Majesty has not heard our plans. We hear almost daily from
Nelson. Can you suppose that he cannot carry all the treasures and all
the needs of Your Majesty and the Royal Family?”

“If he were at our disposal, yes!” said the Queen languidly. “But why
discuss the impossible, chère Miladi? Imagine our possessions conveyed
through the Jacobin mob? Imagine ourselves—no, no, we should be torn to
pieces. If I could risk it for myself, how could I risk it for my
children?”

Emma drew nearer, her quick eyes surveyed the room, the doors, for
listeners. The Queen sat by the window, leaning her elbow on it and her
chin on her hand; an attitude of utter dejection.

“We have no star. All fails with us,” she said. Emma stood, leaning
slightly against the window and as if idly gathering a rosebud or two
from the lavish growth outside. Her voice was so lowered that it carried
to the Queen’s ear, and no farther.

“Let us suppose, madam, when we recall the history of your sainted
sister the Queen, that Paris had been on the sea. That an English Fleet
could have come and gone at its will. That the Admiral had been devoted
to Her Majesty’s service. That he had had a friend in the Queen’s
confidence and his own who could act as intelligencer between them. Does
Your Majesty think the flight could have succeeded then?”

“Not even then,” said the Queen wearily. “The true difficulty lies in
conveying so many people, so many possessions between the Palace and the
ship. Do you suppose the Jacobin watch sleeps at night?”

“Suppose there had been a secret passage between the Palace and the sea,
madam, known only to those who could be trusted. What would Your Majesty
say then?”

The Queen fixed her bright haggard eyes on her.

“Is it true?”

Emma nodded, and gathered another rose or two and flung them down to the
Royal children below, calling to them and laughing, until the women in
attendance looked up at her bright face. Then she resumed, still
leaning, so that those below could see her careless attitude. She and
the Queen might be discussing the last news of the ballet at San Carlo.

“Madam, the great Nelson would never suggest a plan of which he could
not foresee the end. This secret passage exists. It leads from below the
Royal apartments to the Molesiglio, the small pier where boats can wait.
And Nelson will have his flagship, the _Vanguard_, in waiting, and
another vessel, the _Alcmene_ for stores. On my knees I assure Your
Majesty that there is no danger, if you will leave it fearlessly to him
and to me. And from their capital of Palermo, guarded by the British
Fleet, the King and Queen can dictate terms to the Jacobins in Naples.”

Another long silence. Then the Queen broke into a thunderstorm of tears
and sobs.

“I am the most unfortunate of queens, mothers and women. I have nothing
left in the world. All has failed.”

Emma knelt beside her and ventured to clasp the hand which lay helpless
on her knee.

“Madam, you have not lost all. You have life. You have power, and
Nelson—who cannot fail you. There was a queen more unfortunate by
far—your beloved, unhappy sister of France. Oh, my adorable, unhappy
Queen, act while there is yet time, lest your name should be added to
hers—as most miserable.”

The Queen agreed faintly, exhausted with grief, and the next day
retracted her promises. So it went on for days, with Nelson urging and
Emma pleading—pleading with reinforcement from Acton—until at last,
when Emma was almost worn out herself, the Queen consented to the
gradual removal of the Royal treasures and jewels as a beginning.
Possibly, she said, if they were removed out of danger she herself would
face the storm in Naples.

Even that was something gained, and Nelson wrote that the logic of
events would convince the Queen, for the French power in Italy was
gradually drawing southward.

On the fifth of December he returned with the _Vanguard_ and _Alcmene_
and the great event was at hand. And at last the Queen realized that the
time for decision was upon her.

Every day Emma was with her at the Palace. Every day priceless jewels,
part of the old heritage of Austria, the new glories of the Neapolitan
kingdom, were carefully inventoried, and carried off in her bosom, or
the innocent bag she wore in the prevalent fashion secured to her wrist
with a slender golden chain. She was perfectly fearless and it is
probable she had never enjoyed her position so much in her life. Every
day made her of more consequence. She was the pivot on which turned the
whole conspiracy of flight.

It must be here owned that the English daughter of the people had the
true English adoration of rank and consequence, and that her own
experiences had steadily convinced her that rank and power are the
indispensables of life. Who had cared for Emma Hart with all her beauty
and gifts? Who did not care for my Lady Hamilton, her Excellency, the
adored friend of the daughter and mother of sovereigns? The queendom of
the Queen became an obsession with her.

She began to believe that the English Fleet, England itself, should
pause from all other concerns to safeguard this princess whose favour
meant everything to the Ambassadress. The contact vulgarized her mind
daily. All was subordinated to the Queen—who in turn was to be guided
entirely by her.

The work of packing proceeded in secrecy and haste, and Nelson might
have been alarmed if he had seen the mountainous cargo being prepared
for his ships. Valuable works of art, treasures small and great, were
secured in chests and conveyed into the subterranean passage for
embarkation. During the seven nights between the fourteenth and
twenty-first, of December, under Emma’s own supervision, treasures of
almost inestimable value in more than money were carried off. Nelson
himself wrote to his commander in chief, Lord St. Vincent:

“Lady Hamilton from this time to the twenty-first, every night received
the jewels of the Royal Family, etc., etc., and such clothes as might be
necessary for the very large party to embark, to the amount, I am
confident, of full two millions, five hundred thousand pounds sterling.”
There should be no booty left for the Jacobins.

She had, on Nelson’s instructions, also warned all the British merchants
in Naples that there was a refuge for them on board any of the ships of
the Fleet now in the Bay of Naples.

But all was conducted in perfect security, owing to the advantages of
the secret passage, and only the vaguest rumours got abroad. Day by day
the King and Queen showed themselves on the balcony of the Palace,
bowing to the people, calm, smiling, happy. And the mobs dispersed
content, and the preparations went on steadily.

The great night came, and still Emma supported the Queen’s resolution.
Surely a more extraordinary page in history scarcely exists.

It was the twenty-first of December, the _Alcmene_ loaded with treasure,
waiting off Posilippo; the _Vanguard_ prepared for the Royal Family and
their crowding attendants, Sir William half frantic at the prospect of
abandoning the Palazzo Sessa and the Villa Emma to the plundering of the
Jacobins, and Emma heedless of that and all else in her preoccupation
with Nelson and the Queen.

She had vouchsafed a little consideration with Nelson to Sir William’s
art treasures, the collection of a lifetime, and a part had been
embarked on board the _Colossus_, but that was all the thought she could
spare from her more pressing duties.

It was a night of storm and rain, possibly the safer on that account,
but infinitely terrifying to fair-weather travellers. Marie Caroline had
written her last farewell letter from the Palace, to her daughter, the
Empress of Austria. “Once on board, God help us!” she wrote, “Saved, but
ruined and dishonoured.”

Yet no way out, for every hour Naples grew more dangerous. Afterwards
she wrote again to the Empress:

“We descended, ten in number, with the utmost secrecy in the dark,
without our ladies in waiting, or other attendants. Nelson was our
guide.”

But even the Empress was not told all the particulars. Emma wrote them
to Greville, and it is permissible to imagine the feeling with which the
cool, the sedate Greville would read the heights to which his heroine
had soared. Emma—Good God!

    “On the twenty-first, at ten at night, Lord Nelson, Sir William,
    mother and self went out to pay a visit, sent all our servants
    away and ordered supper at home. When they were gone, we set
    off, walked to our boat, and after two hours went to the
    _Vanguard_. Lord Nelson then went with armed boats to a secret
    passage adjoining to the palace, got up the dark staircase that
    goes into the Queen’s room and with a dark lantern, cutlasses,
    pistols, etc., brought off every soul, ten in number to the
    _Vanguard_ at ten o’clock. If we had remained to the next day we
    should all have been imprisoned.”

It was done, and as the last boat reached the _Vanguard_, and the Royal
fugitives ascended from the tossing waves, pale, terrified, rain-wet and
wind-blown, Emma, leaning over the side, to watch their reception, felt
her heart beat high with pride and triumph. Glory, even more glorious
than her imaginations, was gained. She had saved a King and in so doing
had proved her own courage and address to all the world.

The famous flight to Varennes of the unhappy Marie Antoinette and the
King of France had failed for want of courage and address like her own.
She had not failed. She had triumphantly rescued them and not only
themselves but all their family and treasures. No half successes for
her. It _could_ not have been better accomplished. Nelson had been her
instrument; without him it could not have been done; but she had been
the brain, the soul of the enterprise. She triumphed, triumphed, as the
Queen clasped her in her arms, seasick already, half fainting, and the
terrified Royal children clung to her skirts. She led them to their
cabins; she provided for every want.

She bestowed Sir William in such comfort as was possible, and had then
one word with Nelson on the heaving rain-swept deck.

“Emma, my angel, my wonder; there is none like you—none. Thank God for
your courage and wisdom.”

She clasped his hand, and he saw her face white and beautiful in the
tossing light of a lantern. Then she sped away to her duties, and he to
his. But together they had done it—a world’s wonder.




                             CHAPTER XXIII
                                 CIRCE


THERE comes a moment in the fully unfolded maturity of beauty when any
change must be for the worse. There is a portrait of Emma about the time
of the flight to Palermo which exemplifies this in perfection. It was
found in the Palazzo Sessa and represents her seated in a large chair,
hands clasped, one of her husband’s treasured vases on a table behind
her. The beautiful hair is massed and falls in softest tendrils to her
brows, there is no smile on the lips and the eyes are half-closed as
though she were lost in a voluptuous dream—a dream of full summer with
the languor of autumn in the air. One sees very clearly in viewing the
lovely face why Greville called her his modern-antique and Sir William
his Grecian, for there is something of the imperial air which reflects
no soul in its beauty. So a Roman lady might sit, indolently watching
the sufferings of the amphitheatre, basking in the beams of her own
beauty.

This picture may be typical of much that followed the strain and stress
of the flight to Palermo. It was a time of experiences which would have
broken down any but Emma’s happy peasant robustness of health and
muscular strength. Such weather fell on the _Vanguard_ as even Nelson
declared he had never before beheld at sea—a furious and awful gale. Of
the refugees, every one was ill, and helpless—the Queen in complete
prostration, Royal children, attendants, all alike in miseries of fear
and illness. They had no beds, but what Emma’s forethought had provided.
But let her describe the scene herself to the astounded Greville, for
none can do it better.

    “We arrived on Christmas Day at night, after having been near
    lost, a tempest that Lord Nelson had never seen for thirty years
    he has been at sea, the like; all our sails torn to pieces, and
    all the men ready with their axes to cut away the masts. And
    poor I to attend and keep up the spirits of the Queen, the
    Princess Royal, three young princesses, a baby six weeks’ old,
    and two young princes, Leopold and Albert; the last, six years
    old, my favourite, taken with convulsion in the midst of the
    storm and at seven in the evening of Christmas Day expired in my
    arms, not a soul to help me, as the few women Her Majesty
    brought on board were incapable to helping her or the poor Royal
    children, all their attendants being so frightened and on their
    knees praying. The King says my mother is an angel. I have been
    for twelve nights now without closing my eyes. We have left
    everything at Naples but the vases and best pictures, three
    houses elegantly furnished, all our horses and our six or seven
    carriages, I think is enough for the vile French, for we could
    not get our things off not to betray the Royal family. Nothing
    can equal the manner we have been received here [Palermo] but
    _dear, dear_ Naples we cannot show our love of, for this country
    is jellous of the other. Sir William and the King are
    philosophers; nothing affects them, thank God, and we are
    scolded even for showing proper sensibility. God bless you, my
    dear sir. Excuse this scrawl.”

No doubt Greville hastened to the clubs with his exclusive information
for, for many reasons, the world was agog to hear the news from Naples.

It adds a touch of humour to the above that the first of the
philosophers was found by Emma during the dreadful voyage shut up in his
cabin and calmly holding a loaded pistol in each hand. “Good God!” said
she. “What are you doing, Sir William!”

“I am resolved, my dear, not to die with the guggle-guggle-guggle of
salt water in my throat, and therefore directly I feel the ship sinking
I am prepared to shoot myself,” was Sir William’s serene reply.

One may picture the astonished Emma’s countenance as she hurried off on
her thousand errands.

Palermo shone like the Heavenly Land after all these tragic excitements,
and the calm within the shelter of Monte Pellegrino promised in the
happy promontory the rest so sorely needed after the desperate voyage
across the Tyrrhenian sea. Shaded in its orange groves, with a winter so
mild that year that less happy lands might well call it summer, it
received the fugitives with a dreamy enervating warmth. In the garden of
the house engaged for the Hamiltons was a tangle of flowers wild and
cultivated such as even Naples could scarcely equal. Beds of wild mint
to yield its aromatic scent when trodden, the rosy wild gladiolus, thyme
and asphodel, were everywhere in glorious luxuriance, and by the tiny
stream that rippled down to the Fountain of the Sea Nymph, as they
called it, the wild oleanders waited with the wild anemones to give
their bloom in season. There was an oriental lavishness in the air and
the sub-tropical vegetation which corresponded with the Arabic form of
the name “Balarmuh” or Palermo. Emma, eager for change, delighted in the
strange new scene presented by the town and the lovely Conca d’Oro—the
plain of the Golden Shell, with its magnificent fertility. Her mercurial
spirits flew up as she stood by the gate with Nelson to watch the
Palermitan hawkers with their strange merchandise and bright dark eyes
fixed on the lovely Excellenza and the famous English Admiral. The
water-seller with his painted table and syrups stopped to look at her;
the sponge-seller, all draped in bobbing sponges, lurked near for an
order. But the two were engrossed with their own affairs, and the charm
of Sicily, except its flowers and balmy air, passed them by.

They turned into a secluded path, her hand on his arm. He looked
inexpressibly worn and wearied. Not even her voice could light the
depression that weighed him down, though none but she could understand
the reasons public and private that caused it.

“I must have rest or go down,” he said in response to her anxious look.
“If you did but know the troubles that crowd upon me. St. Vincent
returns to England and Keith, who will be my superior, is an arrogant
cold-hearted man as dry as dust who may be counted on to misunderstand
every one of the reasons that moves you and me. I have written to St.
Vincent entreating him to postpone his decision, but the die is cast.
Keith will never realize the consequence of our King and Queen to the
struggle with the French.”

“He must; he shall!” she said in the clear voice that always stirred his
blood. “We have never failed yet, and we won’t. You mark me! But,
Nelson, I have this to say: you are worn out and no wonder. Come and
share this house. Live on shore. You can do all that is necessary from
here, and then—then we shall be together always.”

He knew it was unwise, he knew that in another man he would have
condemned it utterly, but the soft air, the dewy eyes mined his
resolution and left him weak as water in her hands.

“But Sir William?”

She knew the battle won in his question.

“I will tell you the whole truth,” she said seriously. “All the troubles
in Naples, the constant entertainments and hospitality, have given Sir
William great anxiety about money. He is in debt. We cannot live here as
his position obliges us without heavy expense.”

He broke in eager as a boy.

“If he would let me halve the expense of the housekeeping—why, Emma, it
would be a Godsend to me. Not only the rest and the being with my own
heart’s friend, but it would save me expense and give me such a home as
God knows I never dreamt of. Is it possible that I could have such good
fortune? Oh, to hear your voice, to see you moving about the rooms, to
have your good old mother’s kindliness instead of men, men, men about me
always.”

She was sure Sir William would agree, she said. He came out presently,
walking a little lame with the gout and leaning on his stick, and was at
once adopted into the council of three. Why, of course, a most sensible
plan, but all “our dear Emma’s” suggestions were sensible. It would
indeed be a desirable easement to him in money matters. Nelson could
very well imagine what both his expenses and losses had been in Naples.
It was agreed, and Nelson could scarcely face his own heart’s joy
coupled with the physical prostration which conspired with it to deliver
him into her hands. The least agitation still brought on the cruel pain
in his head from the Aboukir wound, and the very sight of the large
quiet rooms filled with sweet wandering garden scents was irresistible.

That very day his possessions were moved on shore. The grass never grew
under Emma’s feet when she was determined, nor under his either, for
that matter, and lapped in the security of their compact it never
occurred to Nelson how the Nisbet scene would rise before the minds of
his officers who knew the facts, and of many more.

It certainly occurred to Emma, but she had her securities and feared
nothing. Ignorant of any public opinion but the Neapolitan, which took
such arrangements as a matter of course, and confident in the Queen’s
support, it never occurred to her that Royal approval might not carry
the same face value all over the world as it did in Naples and Palermo.
Her Queen was daughter to the greatest empress of history, Maria
Theresa; her Queen’s daughter was herself Empress of Austria—no
statelier lineage in all the world. What woman would not be safe who
could call herself the adored friend of such a sovereign? What was a
mere Queen Charlotte of England, a petty Mecklenburgher princess by
birth, compared to Marie Caroline of Hapsburg? She was to learn the
answer to that question very painfully later on.

In connection with it, she forgot also that there were several English
ladies in Palermo, great ladies, still swayed by English public opinion,
and inclined to look down upon a fugitive queen and her dissolute court,
with very different feelings from the reverence with which Emma looked
up to the throne. For the first time she was about to pass under the
sharp criticism of women.

It was her own fault. Had she been content to remain in the shade all
might have been well, but with Nelson living in her house, the Fleet at
her command, the officers perpetually coming and going in her
hospitalities, and Josiah Nisbet giving his verdict more cautiously but
still in no uncertain terms, it was very unlikely that either the
compact or the Queen would bear Emma scatheless through the scandals
that arose.

And yet again it was her own fault. Where she had been modest, gentle,
retiring, now that prosperity and fame had come upon her, she thrust
herself forward. She vaunted Nelson’s glories and her own and made them
inseparable. She sounded the loud timbrel like Miriam after the passage
of the Red Sea, and it was “I” and “he” perpetually. Her songs, chiefly
composed by Miss Cornelia Knight and herself, proclaimed his triumphs in
clearest soprano for all the world to hear, and Nelson would sit by, his
pale face fixed on her in quiet ecstasy, absorbing it all with a kind of
quaint innocence which those who understood him, like his faithful
Troubridge, pitied, and those who did not, ridiculed.

A pathetic, almost a horrible sight, if she could have been made to see
it, but, as Greville had said long ago, Emma had so much taste and all
of it so bad, that it was simply impossible to hold her in check unless
one mastered the beautiful foolish creature with bit and bridle, and of
that art Nelson knew nothing. He believed in her utterly and adored at
the feet of his Santa Emma.

Meanwhile the fame of the escape carried her name over all Europe,
conjoined with his. Indeed, it deserved renown. Energetic, courageous,
she was a shining figure for the popular admiration and certainly the
story lost nothing in her telling, or Nelson’s or Sir William’s.

Congratulations rained in upon them all, from the highest sources.
Europe was tired of the massacre of kings and princes, and Emma
Hamilton’s courageous action was set off by the dark shadows of failure
in France and elsewhere. She sunned herself like a tropically splendid
blossom palpitating in the ardent sun, and daily her opinion of her own
perfections strengthened, fed by the Queen’s adulation and gratitude.

Yet all was not peace in the house of the Hamiltons. The strain had told
upon Sir William. His talk almost night and day was of his precious
treasures of vase and sculpture lost in Naples and in the wreck of the
_Colossus_. His day was virtually done. He told Emma certain home truths
which drove her still more ardently into the arms of her worshipper.

“Emma, I am very uneasy at the expense we incur daily. I would have you
understand, my love, that it is beyond my means. Ready money is now my
need, and the vases I would have sold in England, and on which I counted
for a price to set me straight with the world again are lost in the
_Colossus_. O God, for the peaceful days before this abominable war set
all Europe by the ears! There are times when I would I were done with it
all and forever.”

“But, Sir William, my good, my excellent friend,” says Nelson,
intervening, “while I have you cannot and shall not be in any
difficulty. What don’t I owe to you and her Ladyship that no money can
repay? Name your sum and become my debtor, and be very sure you will
never be pressed either for interest or principal.”

There were the usual protestations, but Nelson, infatuated as he now
was, and truly owing the Hamiltons a debt beyond money, insisted, and
lent Sir William several thousands, besides paying the cost of upkeep
which, when it was inconvenient for Emma, fell wholly on him. This
scandal got wind also, and flew over Palermo, disseminating itself
throughout the Fleet to Lord Keith, and through and beyond him to
England.

Sir William earned the unpleasing name of _le mari complaisant_, and
rumour grew more and more venomous daily. Greville was a powerful factor
in restraining the worst reports and in propagating others. He had with
cool placidity accepted Sir William as a fool from the day he took Emma
into the Embassy, and could at least reflect with satisfaction that he
had warned him. But he never thought worse of his uncle than this, and
defended him in all companies on more grounds than one.

“His kind heart can entertain no suspicions, and amiable as Lady
Hamilton undoubtedly is, her laxity of good nature and all her
circumstances rendered her very unfit to take the lead as she is doing
with my Lord Nelson’s aid,” he said coolly to all who discussed the
matter with him. “She is—well, what you might expect! And I understand
that Nelson is the simplest of men apart from his profession and
entirely in her hands. By the way, my Lord, I hear from Palermo that
very high play is indulged in there as a variation to other amusements,
and that many of the chief houses are merely gambling resorts.”

“Does Her Ladyship play high?” asks the delighted listener.

“Why, I am told she has a perfect passion for faro and such games.
Certainly my uncle’s fortune cannot support high play and therefore I
cannot suppose high play. But fair ladies have means of supplying
themselves with the sinews of war.” So Greville, most skilful to hint a
fault and hesitate dislike. He dared no more.

It will easily be seen that no bed of roses was preparing in England for
the Hamiltons and Nelson when the time should come for return to the
north.

Meanwhile the voluptuous south lapped them in its enervating delights.
Nelson loathed, yet clung to it, for her sake. He hated the laxities of
the Court. They appeared to reflect their own black shadow on his love
for Emma, and make all of an equal turpitude. These dissolute men and
wanton women were hateful in his eyes. He would not have her near them
if he could keep her away from the pollution. And the gaming—the
wasteful senseless gaming; the loud empty laughter. His heart was heavy
within him, though for love’s sake he followed where she led. Had he
been a classical scholar he might have remembered that Sicily was the
fabled land of many of the perils of Ulysses. Near here the
much-enduring man had escaped from the devouring Cyclops, and in the
soft azure of the sea might still be seen the rocks the monster flung
after him in vain. Here the sea-nymph Galatea melted crystalline into
the arms of Acis; here Dis ravished Persephone from her disconsolate
mother to reign with him as Queen of Shadows and Darkness.

Many warnings were about him, but all unheeded, for Emma filled his
soul, and through Emma’s bewitchments, her Queen, until the sovereignty
of Naples became a clog on the honour of England and day by day he sank
deeper into his dream. It narcotized him. The ships came and went: ships
that formerly could never have raised anchor but he would have been on
the quarterdeck alert and keen; but now they sailed away on their
fateful errands and he remained in Palermo.

Napoleon slipped back through the English guard from Egypt and landed in
France to pursue his meteoric mischiefs, and still Nelson lingered. Men
talked of the Garden of Armida and the enchantress who held him there,
but none as yet had the boldness to bring him face to face with the
truth.

At last, Lady Nelson, trembling, miserable, noting the change and
briefness of his letters, unbelieving his excuse of weariness and want
of time—for when had he ever failed her before?—summoned up courage to
write once more with the definite proposal that she should join him in
Palermo. Every day reports reached her affecting his honour, and blaming
herself bitterly for long-delayed action she wrote, tenderly as a wife
should write and made her proposition. For when husband and wife are
apart time and distance and all the dividing influences of humanity
creep in between them, and the stream, narrow at first, widens into a
river and then into the boundless sea. The sweet, intoxicating spring
had come in Palermo when that letter reached him and rudely recalled him
to the realities of life. His coxswain brought it with a bundle of
correspondence less interesting, and when he saw the well-known writing
which had once been such a joy in lonely sea-watchings, his heart beat
with a cruel quickness—as it had done ever since the long chase to
Aboukir.

“Fanny!” he thought, and then, with a quick pang, half anger, half fear.
“What does she want?”

He read it, half lying on a long chair in the Sicilian moonlight, by the
light of many wax candles which streamed from the gaily lit windows of
the house. Inside were green cloth card tables and about them a rabble
of officers and the splendidly dressed bare-necked light women of the
Neapolitan Court, women whose histories he knew very well from the not
too squeamish lip of Emma. Beautiful, but none so beautiful as the
queen-rose who sat facing him, with a heap of gold before her and her
brilliant loveliness lit by the soft splendour of the wax lights. She
wore a dress of cloth of gold falling in supple splendour about her
imperial figure and diamonds in her hair and about her neck—the
diamonds the lavish queen had heaped upon her to the tune of £30,000; so
gossip said, and Nelson knew. She was not looking at him, nor thinking
of him at the moment. Her bright eyes were shining with eagerness; she
was laughing, talking loudly with the people about her as she plunged
her hand into the heap of gold and pushed her stake forward.

His gold! Well, thank God he had it to give her—who could wish to
restrict her little harmless excitements; she who could give herself so
generously when any great cause called upon her!

He read Fanny’s letter again. Fanny in that scene of riot and laughter!
Fanny, fresh from the quiet of Round Wood and her English simplicities.
Fanny in her silk gown, and the lace folded across her breast, and the
serene candour of her dark eyes. Impossible. Did she recur to him
tenderly? Ah, no—as something far, far away, known and loved in another
life, another and very different experience; a wandering ghost in this;
alien, unwelcome.

He folded the letter and put it in his pocket and watched the scene
through the window with absent eyes, almost feeling himself a ghost, as
a man does who watches from the night the glow within that takes no heed
of him.

How beautiful she was! How beautiful! So she would look if he were dead,
the waves tossing over his bones, the sea-wind singing its lonely dirge.
No—dear heart!—he did her an injustice, for all her heart was his—his
only. He looked where Sir William sat in a corner, half asleep in his
chair, the discontented lines stressed about his mouth, and a pang of
pity cramped him. Old Mrs. Cadogan had gone off to bed long, long ago.
It was near three in the morning. Presently she rose, in her long gold
gown, girdled about the bosom in the fashion of the day.

“I’ve lost. I can’t lose any more. That makes five hundred pounds. You
go on if you will. Where’s his Lordship? I shall go look for him.” She
pushed her chair aside and the others closed up as eager as ever, and
she came out through the long hall, in her satin shoes, and so along the
warm dry grass to where he sat under the orange boughs.

Oh, the scent, the scent of the gardens, mingled with the scent of her
hair. People must close their windows later in the year lest they die
swooning from the overpowering fragrance of blossoms, and that night in
the moonlight it was sweet as Eden and sweeter. He himself was a little
dazed by it—he remembered that later.

A dead silence outside. It was like looking upon a wild picture of
half-drunken riot to see the sight within—the hot eager faces, the
bare-bosomed women clutching at the gold.

“Did we look like that?” she said in a kind of astonishment. “It’s
better out here. It was hot, hot, in there. I wanted to come out and get
cool. It smelt of wine. This smells of flowers. Nelson—how pale you
are! What is it? Come out of this glare!”

She gave him her hand, and drew him up, and they wandered from the lurid
patch of light flung by the windows out under the cool green boughs,
moonlight-silvered, with gulfs of dark and light beneath them along the
garden paths, and the first faint rustle of a bird disturbed in the
boughs by their passage. Quiet, cool quiet and a great peace, and
sweetness like the breath of a goddess about them in dark night. Before
very long it would be dawn and the wan edge of light surrender the
secret of Mongibello, dreaming in the warm darkness.

“You’re disturbed and I know it,” she said very softly at last. “There’s
nothing passes in your mind but I read it like a book. What is it? A
letter from Keith?”

“No, not Keith. At least I have only read one letter. It’s from her,
Emma.”

“Her?” He could hear the quick-taken breath, the apprehension in her
voice. Surely that should have revealed their own danger to them. There
was no longer talk of the feminine _tria juncta in uno_—three joined in
one—where Lady Nelson was concerned. Emma had grown to hate her very
name. She was a malignant presence lurking in the dark ready to strike.
And who was she after all? There was nothing in Emma’s past to imbue her
with any respect for a mere church ceremony, except in her own case and
Sir William’s, which naturally did not affect any other.

“What does she want?” she asked at length, as a low hanging bough shook
a little spray of scented dew into her fair bosom. Nelson gathered the
offending blossom and laid it there all fresh and cool, against the
glowing warmth.

“She wants to join me here or at Naples.”

“Do you want her?” The voice was cold and distant—with suppressed pain,
he thought.

“You know,” he said, and that was all. She turned upon him passionately
in the scented dark.

“Nelson, if she came I should die—I should die. She would never
understand. How could she? She would come between us. You would never
love me any more.”

“I shall love you until I die. You are my breath, my life, my soul to
me. My own heart’s angel.”

“But you love her best.”

“Don’t ask me—I don’t know what I do,” he said hoarsely. “There are
things best left unsaid. I love you. I never knew what love was until I
saw you—until this minute, I think.”

They had drawn near the fountain of the sea nymph, half buried in
maidenhair and violets. Its soft warble was like the voice of quiet. A
few crystal moonlight drops fell from the jar she held in her cold
marble hand. How many lovers had her down-dropped eyes seen by her
waters in the warm Sicilian nights? But never a pair like these—never
before and never again. It was too much for him. Everything in nature
conspired to help her, and fought against his resolution. The world
faded before him, and only her face remained star-sweet against the
dark.

Perhaps he would never get home, never again see his offended Fanny? Had
he not done enough, toiled enough by land and sea to earn his reward?
Peace and love. He asked no more; and both, both were passionately
within reach at the moment. Better forget it all and dream away their
lives in some such paradise as this forgotten and forgetting. He put his
arm about her, and hid his face on the warm whiteness of her breast. Her
own face, lovely and indistinct in moonlight and shadow, blotted out
Heaven and earth for him and left only its own intolerable sweetness. He
ached for her. The cruel, the unslaked thirst was upon him.

The marble nymph was silent in her green gloom, only the water dripping,
dripping eternally from her jar, and a white cloud veiling the moon.

He that is without sin among you—

They were together until the faint gold rim showed beyond the sea and
the mountain rose coldly white against the dawn. The revellers were
still pushing the money frantically about when they returned, but Sir
William had vanished, exhausted, and the air of the great room was foul
and close.

Next day Nelson wrote to Fanny:

    “You would by February have seen how unpleasant it would have
    been had you followed any advice which carried you from England
    to a wandering sailor. I could, if you had come, only have
    struck my flag and carried you back again, for it would have
    been impossible to set up an establishment at either Naples or
    Palermo.”

The die was cast. He had chosen with Faust: “Evil be thou my good.” God
and Emma was his heart’s cry, against Fanny and the man-made laws that
love mocks at. But here again he salved his conscience. Fanny should
have all but love, every respect, every honour due from man to wife
should be hers. All but the one thing she craved. Yet Nelson might have
been moved had he seen the tears falling like rain over that letter.
Even Emma might have pitied.

His other letters afforded him small comfort also. Troubridge, his
honest true-hearted friend, his right-hand captain, had also gathered up
his courage to write.

    “Pardon me, my Lord. It is my sincere esteem for you that makes
    me mention it. I know you can have no pleasure sitting up all
    night at cards; why, then, sacrifice your health, comfort,
    purse, ease, everything, to the customs of a country where your
    stay cannot be long? Your Lordship is a stranger to half that
    happens, or the talk it occasions; if you knew what your friends
    feel for you, I am sure you would cut all the nocturnal parties.
    The gambling of the people of Palermo is openly talked of
    everywhere. I beseech your Lordship leave off. I wish my pen
    could tell you my feelings. Lady H—’s character will suffer,
    nothing can prevent people from talking. A gambling woman in the
    eye of an Englishman is lost. You will be surprised when I tell
    you I hear in all companies the sums won and lost on a card in
    Sir William’s house. It furnishes matter for a letter constantly
    both to Minorca, Naples, Messina, etc., and finally England. I
    trust your Lordship will pardon me; it is the sincere esteem I
    have for you that makes me risk your displeasure.”

But Nelson could not pardon in the cold searching dawn after that
enchanted night. Something sickened and revolted within him—that others
should watch, should guess. He flung it furiously down and would not
answer it. His feeling to Troubridge was never the same again.

The Admiralty in London also was growing uneasily suspicious. They much
misliked his journey in the _Foudroyant_ with the Hamiltons to Naples to
punish the Neapolitan King’s rebels and pave the way for setting him on
his throne again. They could not be made to sympathize with Nelson’s
execution of Caracciolo, the traitor Neapolitan Admiral; with Emma, the
Queen’s emissary, in the background suspiciously all the time. They
could not be made to comprehend that it was a British Admiral’s business
to punish a foreign king’s traitors for him. They could not be made to
comprehend the advantages of a beautiful ambassadress’s presence on
board a British man-of-war in war-time, more especially as the scandal
concerning her grew in volume daily.

Nor could the unsympathetic Admiralty be made to comprehend why in such
stirring times it was necessary that Nelson should linger at Palermo.
And furthermore, the Foreign Office began to bestir itself and ominous
rumblings were heard. Their Ambassador appeared to be devoting himself
far more to Neapolitan interests than to British. If Sir William
Hamilton had grown so old that he was in the hands of his wife—and such
a wife!—it was certainly time that inquiry should be made in that
little paradise of Palermo.

Nelson sank lower and lower into depression of mind and body. The joyous
wellspring of energy was dried up in him. He was ill—ill at ease. He
drew up a codicil to his will that should tell all the world, if he
fell, how he idealized this woman who was the world’s butt.

    “I give and bequeath to my dear friend Emma Hamilton, wife of
    the Right Hon. Sir William Hamilton, a nearly round box set with
    diamonds said to have been sent me by the mother of the Grand
    Signior, which I request she will accept and never part from as
    a token of regard and respect for her very eminent virtues (for
    she, the said Emma Hamilton, possesses them all to such a degree
    that it would be doing her injustice was any particular one to
    be mentioned) from her faithful and affectionate friend.”

No, he would not be ashamed. He would glory in their love. And she fed
every flame with the oil of her own passionate nature. He detested the
French, therefore she must loathe them more. He saw her kiss a Turkish
sword encrusted with valiant French blood, and did not rebuke her. She
urged him on in what she believed to be the cause of God and her Queen,
in that vindictive hatred of the enemy which, with herself, is the only
accusation that malice itself dare hurl against Nelson.

Greville’s cold insight would have understood what Nelson’s could not;
that, unrestrained, flattered, adored, the baser elements of her
character were coming inevitably into play and that she would most
certainly injure not only herself but all who trusted her unless rudely
and violently checked as he had checked her often. But then Greville
knew her past utterly; Nelson only what she chose to tell him and with
her own extenuations. Greville knew the plebeian ignorance which
underlay all her experience. He would have used her but never trusted
her: Nelson trusted her and was used by her, blinded by the kind heart,
the gallant courage, which never failed her at the worst. Greville had
made her. Nelson was to unmake her and reduce her to her original
elements again—the wild uneducated hoyden of Up Park, with a
difference. She was like a vine, trained, pruned, fruit-bearing, in
Greville’s prudent hands. She was the same plant, untrained, untended in
Nelson’s, bearing bitter, unripened, wild grapes only.

Lord Keith wrote coldly to him, commanding his presence at the final
destruction of the French-Egyptian Fleet. He ordered that Palermo no
longer should be the rendezvous of the British Fleet, and that Syracuse
should be substituted. Nelson received it furiously as censure on his
lingering at Palermo. He sent his _Foudroyant_ to help in the blockade
of Malta, but himself he would not go. He would stay; he was in weak
health; he would return to England.

Troubridge once more wrote passionately:

    “Will your Lordship come and hoist your flag in the _Culloden_?
    Rely on everything I can do to make it pleasant. Your friends
    absolutely, so far as they dare, insist on your staying to sign
    the capitulation. Be on your guard. I see a change in language
    since Lord Keith was here.”

And yet, to the grief of all his friends, the last surviving of the
French Fleet in Aboukir Bay surrendered to Nelson’s ship, but with
Nelson himself in the Garden of Armida. Troubridge had entreated in
vain.

Nelson was so angry with himself that his anger overflowed on others. He
wrote passionately to Lord Spencer at the Admiralty that his spirit was
broken by the indignities inflicted on him and he must have rest, and
orders were sent to Lord Keith that if Nelson’s health rendered him
unfit for duty he must return to England. Lord Spencer wrote again
coldly and sensibly to Nelson:

    “It is by no means my wish or intention to call you away from
    service, but having observed that you have been under the
    necessity of quitting the blockade of Malta on account of your
    health, it appears to me much more advisable for you to come
    home than to be obliged to remain inactive at Palermo. I believe
    I am joined in this opinion by all your friends here that you
    will be more likely to recover your health and strength in
    England than in an inactive situation at a foreign court,
    however pleasing the respect and gratitude shown to you for your
    services may be. I trust you will take in good part what I have
    taken the liberty to write to you as a friend.”

The hint was terribly plain and could not be less, for the scandal of
Palermo was raging in England now. Nelson was furious; Emma’s rage
unrestrained. Their noble services to be so misunderstood, so
under-valued. Good God, what ingratitude? That was her daily cry, and
every evening she fled to the arms of her Queen, and they wept together
over the black hearts of men.

Lord Minto, who knew and understood Nelson better than most, wrote in
extenuation of the infatuation that all the world now ridiculed. The
pitiable side of it was that Emma’s past, and indeed her present, made
it far more a subject of ridicule than of anything else. A mere light
woman! A woman who had—and then followed the black catalogue. That
Nelson should trifle with his honour for such as she! But Minto wrote
more wisely, more kindly.

    “I have letters from Nelson and Lady Hamilton. It does not seem
    clear whether he will go home. He will, at least, I hope, take
    Malta first. He does not seem at all conscious of the sort of
    discredit he has fallen into or the cause of it, for he still
    writes, not wisely, about Lady Hamilton and all that. But it is
    hard to condemn and ill-use a hero, as he is in his own element,
    for being foolish about a woman who has art enough to make fools
    of many wiser than an admiral.”

True enough, and “the woman” meanwhile was planning on her own account
to meet these strokes of fate. Nelson should linger until she was sure
of Sir William’s position with the English Government. Sir William
should apply for leave. Then, at least, they could return with Nelson,
and he would not be exposed to the artifices of a wife most anxious to
regain his love. None knew better than Emma that a wife with the world
behind her and the sympathy of high and low is a dangerous antagonist
for even the most heart-holding mistress.

Sir William, good easy man, needing rest, was glad enough that his
restless Emma felt the need of it also, and gladly applied for leave,
but was startled indeed to find when it was courteously granted that the
Foreign Office had decided he should not return and had swiftly
appointed his successor, one who would not be so malleable to the
blandishments of the Neapolitan Queen. The world was wearied of the
Palermitan celebrations, orgies, and mutual-admiration societies and a
sterner régime was to be inaugurated.

The indignant Keith would not even grant a battleship to convey the
party, accompanied by Her Majesty of the Two Sicilies, to England. The
play was played out. Lady Hamilton had had command of the Fleet long
enough, said Keith with dry sarcasm. She must be contented with the
_Foudroyant_ to take her as far as Leghorn. The rest of the journey to
England must be done by land. Her reign was over.

So ended the Neapolitan chapter of Emma’s life and she must needs put it
behind her and continue her journey home with a secret in her bosom not
long to be hidden, and the meeting with Lady Nelson ahead like a fear
made visible. She had reached her zenith in Naples. In Palermo the sun
had begun to slope westward and the shadows to lengthen.

As for Nelson, he left it loaded with favours from the Neapolitan King,
Duke of Bronte in Sicily, but sore, sore at heart.




                              CHAPTER XXIV
                                DESCENT


THAT journey home, in spite of all the splendours which his own and
Emma’s renown and the Queen’s company occasioned, was a nightmare to
Nelson. He was utterly besotted on her; he could neither escape from her
enchantments nor will to, but as yet his conscience was not wholly
silenced, nor the orientation of a lifetime completely changed. The
process of deterioration, which could never touch either his genius or
his patriotism, had begun in other and subtler nerves of his character
but the disease had not as yet sufficiently spread to numb his
recognition of what was due to his wife, and she had become an agony to
him. How to meet her, what to hope, he could not tell. He who had been
able some years before to say, fearless of contradiction, “There is not
one action in my life but what is honourable”, could say it no longer.
Glory must cover the loss of honour; a tinsel covering to a man’s own
inner judgment. Others might make excuses, but he knew very well that
when evil and good lay before him he had chosen evilly and must pay the
price of that choice. Not indeed in losses that the world could
appraise, but in things sacred, secret, on which he must be dumb for
ever. What he could not know was that slowly but steadily his perception
of what was noble and generous would dim and fail under this creeping
paralysis of the soul and that the day was near when he was to treat his
wife with such a cruelty as would have filled him with indignant shame
if he had heard of it in any other case than his own.

Slowly and steadily the toils strengthened about him. From the day that
Emma, pale and weeping, told him the secret that must ruin them both
with their home ties and with the world if it could not be hidden, he
surrendered all hope of retreat for either of them, and clung to her as
one lost soul may cling to another in hell.

That mood passed, and he defied his own convictions. Love was not
hell—it was Heaven. It was of God, and here was the proof. His wife had
never given him a child. His home was barren of that visible blessing of
Heaven. This woman whom he loved, was, in sorrow, fear and secrecy, to
fill that cruel emptiness with the sound of a child’s voice, the light
of its eyes. What did he not owe her for the agony endured for his sake,
and what is a child but God’s blessing visible to man? Surely to such a
passion as his it was the sign of approval, the recognition of a
marriage sacred beyond all the laws of man. Such love made its own laws,
and Heaven recognized them if man ignored them.

It was not that he ever sat down to analyze his problems. That was not
Nelson’s way. He saw them in flashes of insight and took them as
revelations, and shaped his life and his words in accordance with them.
It followed from these that Emma should be perfect to be worthy of the
Divine approval on their union. Therefore she was perfect. That his own
services to his country were so great that they lifted him above the
common judgments of right and wrong. Therefore he might safely despise
them. Yet he was miserable—miserable.

But as he grew more and more confident of his own deserts he
deteriorated, exactly in the same measure as Emma under the same strain,
only he had more to lose and farther to fall than she. He became vainer,
more boastful, impatient of anything that could be construed as less
than fulsome admiration, suspicious of his old comrades. The word glory
was sweeter to him than the word honour. It is significant of much that
when he quotes Shakespeare’s noble lines that if it be a sin to covet
honour “I am the most offending soul alive,” he substitutes the word
glory for Shakespeare’s “honour,” apparently unconsciously. Yet glory is
the world’s voice, and honour the man’s own secret and inestimable
riches in the sight of the Eternal.

And Emma too fell. From the day of her marriage she had resolved to put
certain things behind her forever. She had received a trust. She would
justify it with every effort of mind and body. She would crown her
husband’s choice with glory. Glory again! And where had it led her? Into
a slough deeper and more miry than any she had known in the evil
experiences of her young life. Unable to face the truth, she too
hardened her heart against all the world.

Many records survive of that journey back through a flattering Europe to
the England where they hoped and believed that glory would cover all
shortcomings. She grew more and more flamboyant and boastful. Even the
Queen, Marie Caroline, began to feel that one might pay too dear for
help from a woman of the people, and the comments of some of the
Austrian nobles and of her own family in Vienna were like a breath of
cold outer air upon a hothouse friendship. She rewarded Emma with
recognition, with splendid gifts, with a latest diamond necklace wrought
in ciphers of all the Royal children and locks of their hair. She
offered her a pension of a £1000 a year, she made protestations of
warmest and eternal gratitude. Could a queen do more?

“She adores me!” Emma protested to Nelson and Sir William. “There is
nothing she would not do for me. I am the sister of her soul. Neither
time nor distance can part us.”

“No doubt, my love,” Sir William answered. “She owes everything to your
generous exertions, but our dear Nelson will agree with me that a former
Ambassadress of England can accept no pension from a foreign court.”

“Impossible, and Emma would be the last to wish it,” Nelson agreed.
Emma, who had not seen this objection perhaps with the same finality,
agreed in haste also. There were many things she could not see and
therefore blinded Nelson to—for instance, that this blaring, flaring
journey across Europe in one party was sheer madness for their hopes in
England.

If there is one thing valued in England it is a decent reserve in speech
and action—an almost stoic restraint. There are very few sins
unpardonable if introduced by perfect good taste, and there the Nelson
party sinned daily and flagrantly. Nelson touched the imagination still,
but with pity. Hear Lady Minto, writing from Vienna:

    “I don’t think him altered in the least. He has the same shock
    head and the same honest simple manners; but he is devoted to
    ‘Emma’; he thinks her quite an angel and talks of her as such to
    her face and behind her back, and she leads him about like a
    keeper with a bear. She must sit by him at dinner to cut his
    meat, and he carries her pocket-handkerchief. He is a gig from
    ribands, orders, and stars, but just the same with us as ever he
    was.”

They were sorry—that was the truth of it. But none could deliver him
from himself, and Emma triumphed exceedingly. It is interesting to
wonder what she would have done could she have known the opinion of the
world. Probably nothing otherwise than she did in her immense
self-glorification. She, a Lady of the Grand Cross of Malta, given her,
alone of Englishwomen, by His Majesty, the Great White Czar!

Lord Fitzharris wrote to his father:

    “Lord Nelson and the Hamiltons dined here the other day. It is
    really disgusting to see her with him. Lady Hamilton is without
    exception the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman I
    ever met with. The Princess [Esterhazy] had with great kindness
    got a number of musicians and the famous Haydn to play, knowing
    Lady H. was fond of music. Instead of attending to them she sat
    down to the faro table and played Nelson’s cards for him and won
    between £300 and £400. In short, I could not disguise my
    feelings and joined in the general abuse of her.”

Indeed, it was difficult for any Englishman to forgive what he conceived
to be the public degradation of the national hero. Greville would have
understood perfectly, would have said he had predicted all this years
ago if Emma were not held strictly in hand. He had, on one occasion now
long, long past, said to Sir William, shaping his fine lips delicately
in the utterance of an unpleasant word: “It is impossible, my dear
Hamilton, to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” He would have
reiterated this with his own small smile if he had seen the incidents of
that journey.

Yet Emma, with her secret at her heart, wished to conciliate women’s
opinion as far as possible, if she had but known how to deal with
English women of birth and breeding. She did her best; she thrust her
friendship on Mrs. St. George, a lady of quality, who pushed it coolly
back upon her. She also viewed the party with the contempt that was a
foreshadowing of the English attitude. She set down her reflections in
her diary:

“Sir William is old and infirm, all admiration of his wife and never
spoke to-day but to applaud her. Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided
flatterer of the Two and never opens her mouth but to show forth their
praise, and Mrs. Cadogan is—what one might expect. After dinner, we had
several songs in honour of Lord Nelson, written by Miss Knight and sung
by Lady H. She puffs the incense full in his face but he receives it
with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially. She loads me with all
the marks of friendship at first sight. Still she does not gain upon me.
Mr. Elliott says, ‘She will captivate the Prince of Wales, whose mind is
as vulgar as her own, and play a great part in England.’”—A judgment at
one time likely enough to be verified.

Yet behind all this glare and glitter what would the commentators have
said if they could have seen into the minds of the two chief actors?

There were moments when Emma trembled for her empire over Nelson in
thinking of the wife reinforced by English opinion. Nothing but her
beautiful face in the glass, and her enormous courage sustained her. If
she could but have taken the Queen to England in her train! What
suspicions could resist the countenance of a queen? The austere
Charlotte herself must surrender before such a battle array. But alas,
that was impossible. The tearful farewell must be said in Vienna and
Marie Caroline be left to the support of her daughter, the Empress. But
it was much on her mind. She felt her way cautiously with Mrs. St.
George.

“One takes it for granted that presentation at a court like that of
Naples, and my intimate friendship with the Queen will ensure my being
received at Windsor,” she said, one day in Dresden.

Instantly the young and charming widow was bristling with carefully
concealed caution.

“Why, madam, an ex-ambassadress is generally certain of that on the
merits of her position.”

Lady Hamilton hesitated a little. So much was known that she could not
afford to ignore the difficulties altogether.

“Oh, but, my dearest madam, your friendship emboldens me to ask your
opinion, and I know well that none is better, moving in the high circles
you are accustomed to. What is expected? Have you heard anything one way
or another?”

Mrs. St. George, none too pleased with this attribution of friendship
and thinking the question in the worst possible taste, drew herself up
perceptibly.

“Indeed, madam, I have heard nothing. These matters which affect Her
Majesty’s good pleasure are not discussed in society. I really can offer
no opinion.”

But still Emma persisted: “Indeed, I think ’tis impossible Queen
Charlotte should refuse an honour bestowed daily by a queen so much her
superior in birth and—”

“I fear, madam, I must insist that the Queen of England has no
superior—indeed, no equal,” says the fair Mrs. St. George, slightly
tossing her pretty head. “I must only attribute it to your long absence
from England that you should think otherwise.”

“No equal!” cries Emma, flushing over neck and bosom. “The daughter of
the Empress Maria Theresa, the mother of the present Empress, the
wife—”

“Madam, you and I are English subjects,” says the young lady with an air
of finality.

“But Sir William is the foster brother of King George. His great
services—my own—”

“Indeed, I can’t doubt,” interrupts the pretty widow again, “that their
Majesties are perfectly capable of noticing and rewarding any service.
Her Majesty is known all the world over for her propriety of judgment.”

Emma bursts into a laugh a little too loud and forced for the occasion.

“Well, for my part, I hear the Court is as dull as ditch-water! I care
little if she receives me or no. I had much sooner she would settle half
Sir William’s pension on me. Fair words butter no parsnips.”

If it be permissible to say of a lady of birth that she slightly
sniffed, it may be said of Mrs. St. George. Her disgust was almost
visible. She certainly has left it on record.

Yet one may pity the poor woman who had all at stake. Sir William was
not in the position of the ordinary husband. He knew her past, and if he
should know her present what had she to expect? And Greville, the cool,
sardonic Greville, was waiting their arrival in England, and certainly
it could not be his interest that all should be confidence and security
between her and his uncle.

When she was alone with Nelson, she dwelt on that. It haunted her.

“My own, own Nelson, I wish, I often wish, we had all never resolved to
return to England,” she said one day in the hotel at Hamburg, with the
English problems looming nearer and nearer. “We were safer there. ’Tis
impossible I should say how I dread Greville. I have been honest with
you, honest as the day, and you know ’tis his interest to make mischief
between me and Sir William. And if he suspects—”

She looked up at him with trembling lips. She had been honest up to a
certain point, but not entirely. There had been no mention of “the
little Emma.” Nelson’s rapture of fatherhood, his belief that this
marvellous experience to be was as new to her as to him, had shut her
lips there, and unspeakably she dreaded Greville on that score also. She
had always feared him even when she loved him. She feared him doubly
now.

“My own dear angel, you shall not, must not fear,” said Nelson tenderly.
“Our blessed happy secret shall be our secret always. Yet supposing the
very worst—supposing Sir William divorced you—if I found you alone and
deserted under a hedge it would be my pride to marry you. You should be
my own Duchess of Bronte, and a fig for them all!”

“Your wife?” she reminded him, her head lying wearily back on her chair.
But it was not that which made a divorce seem to her the most impossible
of things. It was the terrible fear of her own past and Greville’s
intimate knowledge of it. He would be a witness. She could hear his cold
voice with its perfect enunciation disclosing secret after secret she
trembled to think of now. There were things which in spite of Nelson’s
infatuation might well give pause to his judgment. She dared not even
consider such a possibility.

“Would I ruin you in the eyes of the world, my hero? Not for the sake of
all the agony your poor Emma must suffer. No—I will fight it through as
I have fought through many a difficulty. With your love to help me, I
don’t fear. If that failed me—”

She made an expressive pause, her beautiful mouth quivering. He knelt
and put his arm about her, resting his head on her bosom.

“The sun can as soon fall from the sky. Every day you are more and more
to me. I glory in it. I thank God for it. My wife wrote to me desiring
to meet me on landing, and I wrote to her that I judged it would be best
to meet in London. I did this, for your sake, my own heart’s beloved,
for I thought it would be easier for you to meet her there in some way
yourself can choose. But rest assured that in that matter, as in all
else, your own dear Nelson lives but to do your will. You are the best,
noblest, most beautiful woman in all the world. You have no equal—you
never have had—and all shall be as you will.”

She caressed his hair tenderly with her soft hand. Indeed, she was
touched.

“Then I want my Nelson, the dear husband of my heart, to be very, very
wise for both our sakes. You must not quarrel with your wife. However
malicious and angry she may be, we must not let her put us in the wrong.
Remember all I have to hide, and help me, help me. I want to win her
friendship—that will be the greatest safety I can have, at all events
until this is over. I will do anything in the world to please
her—swallow any insult.”

“You shall swallow none!” says Nelson, with his grand air. “If she dares
insult you—”

She put her hand on his mouth.

“No, no. You must be patient for my sake. Think of all we have at stake.
I would crawl to her feet to carry things off. And you must not be too
much with us at first. No, you must not. We must deny ourselves.
Remember you are the world’s hero as well as your Emma’s and every eye
will be upon you. Of course I know that will carry us through in the end
for a man who has served his country like you may do what he will. I am
not afraid of our reception in England. It is only your wife. If we can
win her, all is won and safe. And Greville. I must please him every way
I can, and he must never suspect anything.”

But for all her exhortations she dreaded Nelson’s impetuosity. She would
willingly have had him on a foreign station until the crisis was over,
much as she needed his help. There were points where she feared that she
herself could not restrain him, and one of them was his wife. What was
that cold, unknown woman doing—what thinking? She was measuring herself
this time against a force she had never fought before. She could glean
really nothing of her from Nelson. Men cannot describe women to each
other—the equation of sex forbids it. Fanny remained a silent sphinx.

They embarked at Hamburg in a storm which might have prefigured much if
they had taken it as an omen. Sir William, terribly shaken and
suffering, could only groan aloud that he wished they had never left
Naples. This cursed war and its consequences were ruining him in purse
and health alike. Emma left his groanings to seek shelter by Nelson, for
it seemed at one time as if all her doubts and fears might be settled in
a way that would make no appeal to human judgment needful. She found him
pale and serious in the little cabin, a letter in his hand, his mind
evidently abstracted from the yelling wind and rolling waves. She came
and caught his arm for safety, flung against him by the rolling of the
ship, and he drew her down beside him.

“It reminds me of the _Vanguard_ and the voyage to Palermo!” he said.
“But what does that matter? Storms blow themselves out but there are
things—”

He stopped, and put the letter in her hand. She knew the
writing—Fanny’s. She read it eagerly: “I have this instant received a
note from Admiral Young, who tells me if I can send him a letter for you
in an hour he will send it, therefore I have only time to say I have had
the pleasure of receiving two letters from you. I can with safety put my
hand on my heart and say it has been my study to please and make you
happy, and I still flatter myself we shall meet before very long. I feel
most sensibly all your kindnesses to my dear son, and I hope he will add
much to our comfort. Our good father has been in good spirits ever since
we heard from you; indeed my spirits were quite worn out, the time had
been so long. I thank God for the preservation of my dear husband, and
your recent success at Malta. The taking of the _Généreux_ seems to give
great spirits to all. God bless you, my dear husband, and grant us a
happy meeting.” So, with an affectionate prefix and ending, the letter
stood.

“It is the answer to mine forbidding her to join me in Palermo,” he
said, and there was something in his voice that shot a pang of dread to
her heart. That quiet reference to his capturing the French ship—what
man of sense could compare it with her own violent outpourings of
delight at his successes, she thought. And yet—there was a calm tone of
settled, steadfast affection, of wifely ownership, of the family
ties—“our good father”—that wounded Emma at every syllable and woke
the worst in her. It seemed to rise superior above all she could say or
do; the wife, the happy wife who had no secrets, whose position all must
do reverence to, while she—she was nothing but a hindrance, a hidden
shame, the blot on an honour that nothing else could have spotted. It
seemed to set Lady Nelson apart and beyond her. She handed it coldly
back.

“A wife who can take your glories so coldly is what I can’t understand.
I should have thought—but no matter! If it moves you—if you think she
is worthy of your greatness—”

He understood the note of pain in her voice, and clasped her hand in
his. She could feel its feverish heat; the nervous thrill in it.

“She is my wife no longer. It is you—my own Emma, the mother of my
child. But you have a generous soul, you must know from that letter she
has heard the base stories that were scattered from Palermo, and she
wants to assure me that neither those nor my refusing to let her come
out have made any difference. She is a woman I must respect to my last
day for I have never known a spot in her—no, not one. If I could keep
her as a friend I would, but the world is so impossible—impossible to
what it can’t understand or value. Still, would my Emma value her
Nelson, if he could cast such a woman off without a pang? God knows I
dread that meeting in London, and to wound her tender heart!”

“Tender?” she cried. “I should have said _not_ tender—hard. See that
cold, cold letter, and you coming home with such honours as was never
seen in the world. No—don’t mistake her. She will value the world’s
good opinion. She won’t throw away all for you, as I’ve done with all
the dangers and ruin likely before me. The one is love; the other—I
don’t know what to call it.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” he said, his nervous face quivering
and lips twitching. “If you asked me I would never see her again. I am
all yours—body and soul until death us do part. But—she is a good
woman.”

“And I am not good? Oh, Nelson, is this the reward of such love as was
never known?”

“You are my saint, my guardian angel. There is not a thought of my heart
inconstant to you. She is nothing—nothing! See!”

He tore the letter into tiny fragments, unclosed the porthole by an
inch, and as the wind screamed in at it, he pushed his fingers through,
and sent the fragments flying on the gale. He closed it again and
returned to his seat by Emma.

“_That_ for her!” he said. Even to Emma in her triumph there was
something shocking in the incident. Love! To what could it drive a man?
Yet she was glad at heart.

They landed in a storm so terrible that only Nelson’s advice and
entreaties compelled the pilot to bow to his better judgment, and surely
the sight of the English welcome was reassuring, for all Yarmouth had
turned out to meet the returning hero. Emma too was not forgotten. Amid
the music and rejoicings a ring of fine topaz set in brilliants was
bestowed upon her by the enthusiastic welcomers. Sir William was quietly
in the background, used indeed by this time to that effacement.
Speeches, sentiments, toasts, abounded. Her smiles, bows, exuberance,
fanned the popular welcome into roaring flame. Never was such a scene.

“And London will beat it!” she said, triumphant, as they entered the
coach for the journey. “We are safe, safe in England. It will be Naples,
Palermo, only more, because it’s our own dear country.”

But Nelson was silent. His fears were greater than his hopes. Yet Emma
was always right and surely her charms would conquer England as they had
done Italy. On her he relied. But that welcome was unfortunate for it
made her more self-confident, less inclined to be conciliatory than ever
before. She was certain they could have it all their own way.




                              CHAPTER XXV
                                 FANNY


IT was a still Sunday afternoon with a November mist clinging like a
cold breath to London, daylight still but the lights showing little
starry points in the streets below when Fanny and his old father waited
for Nelson at Nerot’s Hotel in St. James’s.

She was a young woman of thirty-six, “not beautiful but eminently
pleasing,” as a friend described her, with clear hazel eyes matching
abundant hair arranged low over her forehead, almost hiding the brown,
finely-marked eyebrows. The charm of her face was the mouth, set in with
the pressure of a hinted dimple at each corner and very ready to break
into a smile to match the latent smile in her eyes. Her figure was
slight and well-formed, under a plain dress of brown satin a little
staid in its design for her years, especially with the broad falling
collar of Maltese lace and sleeves to match, which Nelson had sent her
from the Mediterranean, and which certainly would be more suitable ten
years hence. The sleeves half hid really beautiful little hands with a
quick nervous gesture about them when she was eager, which the Nelson
daughters considered foreign and affected.

But Frances Nelson cared very little about things of that order. She had
never gone much into society, was rather alarmed than otherwise by the
daring, low-bosomed fashions of the day, imported from the license of
France, and was better pleased to escape notice than to attract it.
Besides, except for Nelson’s visits to England, her life had been mostly
passed in the village of Burnham Thorpe, as the companion of Nelson’s
old father: a dull life for a young woman, and one which his daughters,
Mrs. Matcham and Mrs. Bolton, were very well pleased to commit to the
daughter-in-law.

She really had very little in common with the Nelsons. She had been
married extremely young to her first husband, Dr. Nisbet, and was left a
widow next year with a child—Josiah. But her life in the Leeward
Islands and her few travels with Nelson had given her at least a glimpse
of the world outside England, and she was apt to think the family narrow
and ignorant. She thought them also excitable and exaggerated in their
emotions, which was true enough in its way, and they returned the
compliment by styling her cold, reserved, uninteresting. They could not
imagine what Horatio had seen in a widow, who had only £4000 “to her
fortune” when all was said and done.

Still, it was owned that Fanny was sensible and useful. She had not the
sensibility they could admire, was not liable like themselves to
interesting heart spasms on the slightest excitement, took things
quietly and composedly, and might even be suspected of airs of
superiority to those who had sensitive feelings and displayed them. Yet
their father would have been a problem without her and certainly none of
the sons or their wives coveted his company. Perhaps it was on the whole
better she was so staid and quiet. A livelier young woman might have
been urgent for more amusement, and old Mr. Nelson was attached to her.

She was certainly reserved. It was extraordinarily difficult for her to
express what she felt, and in that respect she was a contrast indeed to
her husband, whose emotions, like his family’s, were always more or less
in the extreme. For the rest, she seemed to have little initiative,
agreed with his opinions gently, and was compliant almost to a fault.
His father was exceedingly fond of her and thought her the ideal wife
for Horatio, who had agreed in that opinion formerly. In short, a woman
of whom it would be difficult to predict her action in really disturbing
circumstances.

It was characteristic of her reserve that while all the family were
whispering together with clustered heads of the stories which had come
in from Naples and Palermo she never uttered a word on the subject. Mrs.
Bolton, Mrs. Matcham, both sailed as near the wind as they dared when
they visited their father, but Fanny was silent. Not meaningly and
bodingly silent, but calmly. It was as if she had heard nothing. For the
life of them the two bustling women could not make her out, and went
away, discussing the “hussy” at Naples, and lamenting Fanny’s stupidity,
who, if she had written “strongly” to Horatio would only have been doing
her duty as a wife and might have made some impression. In reality, the
quiet woman whose hazel eyes were so reticent had heard more than any of
them and lived in an agony of fear and jealous pain. A Nelson would have
stormed about the room, stormed in speech and on paper and decreased the
pressure somehow by this kind of exhalation. She could not. She endured.
She made little tentatives, small hints, in her letters to him which she
prayed he might take advantage of for explanation and, when he never
did, was helpless and could say no more. She crimsoned even when alone
at the mere thought of upbraiding her husband with any liking for
another woman.

But she watched his letters, lynx-eyed for any signs of change, and
found plenty. “My dearest Fanny,” “My beloved wife,” became “My dear
Fanny,” and her “most loving and affectionate husband,” became
“affectionate” and from that zero, as it seemed to her, the thermometer
never rose again.

And now at last, after long years, they were to meet, and in spite of
her calm exterior she was trembling in every limb as if with ague, and
could hardly answer the old man’s restless questions for the dryness in
her throat.

“I wonder what he’ll look like, Fanny. I wonder if there will be much
change in him.”

“Much change, I should think, sir. Time does not stand still.”

“But his true heart can never change. He was always the best of sons.”

“The very best, father. You could not have desired a better.”

“No, and that’s the index of a man’s character—Does he consider his
parents? If that’s right, all the rest follows. Ah, you’re a fortunate
woman, Fanny. He has given you a great position. What, did I hear a
coach down below?”

“No, father, don’t move. I will warn you in time. Stay, let me arrange
your hair. I want him to see you at your best.”

She produced a little pocket-comb, and put back the long white locks on
his forehead.

“How cold your hands are. Make up the fire. The room is cheerless
compared to my study at home,” he said, shivering.

It was cheerless and full of fog. The heavy red damask curtains were
looped up in formal folds, the chairs set in line against the
flock-papered walls, a stiff armchair on either side of the smouldering
fire. The frost seemed to have entered into her soul. Her teeth were
almost chattering with cold and fear.

Hark! Far off a cheer! The cheering of a crowd—London shouting its
welcome to an honoured guest. She went quietly to the window and looked
out on the waiting, silent crowds beneath.

“It might be—no, nothing yet. I’ll watch.”

She stood leaning there while the old man warmed his hands over the now
flaming fire.

The cheering grew and grew. It swelled louder, louder. It was as though
all the lesser voices of London were drowned in that one unloosing of
the heart of a nation. It was grand, terrifying, like the roar of a lion
in his deserts. Her face grew deadly pale as she listened.

And now, suddenly and as if at a signal, the crowds beneath broke forth
into cheering also. The room vibrated to it, the very air shook forth
with the sound of men’s voices mingled with the shriller cries of women.
She turned, wordless, and beckoned to his father, who joined her at the
window.

The crowd, denser now, had parted and made a narrow lane through the
midst. They stood packed on either side, cheering, fluttering
handkerchiefs and scarfs—anything!—and turning the corner, came a
carriage, with four horses—open.

In the back seat was her husband in full uniform, with a constellation
of stars and gold medals on his breast. Beside him, a beautiful woman in
plumed hat and furred pelisse, bowing, smiling right and left. In the
seat before them a thin distinguished old man taking no active part, but
looking on with a kind of detached amusement and pleasure.

The carriage moved very slowly. She could see it all in lamplight and
daylight, like a bright picture.

“Does he look well, Fanny? Can you see him? My eyes are dim.”

“Very well, sir. He is in uniform. He has friends with him.”

Her voice was as quiet as when she read aloud in the parsonage study.
Her heart seemed to have ceased beating.

Now the carriage was drawing up at the hotel door. The manager, the
staff, were waiting on the steps as if for Royalty. Sir William
descended first, then Nelson, and together they aided Lady Hamilton’s
graceful descent, the magnificent folds of fur falling about her. Fanny
drew back from the window and stood by the fire.

Five, ten minutes passed. Of course there would be greetings downstairs,
questions, answers. Then feet in the passage outside; a voice—“This
way, my Lord,” and the door opened. He came in—if her life depended
upon it she could not have moved a limb. Her very agitation froze her,
and it was the old man who got at him first and clasped his hand, and
put a feeble arm about his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. He did
not even see her in the darkening shadows of the room.

“My dear, dear father!” he said. Oh, well-remembered voice! Oh, pain and
joy unspeakable! “It’s home to see you again. Is Fanny at Burnham
Thorpe?”

She heard the quick startle in his tone, and then she moved into the
firelight at last.

“I’m here, my dear husband.”

That was all. There were a million things she wanted to say, pleadings,
loving words, passionate entreaties. But how could she? His father was
there. They should have met alone, it was cruel, cruel that they had
not, and yet even if they had, what could she have said? Nothing,
nothing. When the heart is too full it chokes on its own utterances.

He took her hand and kissed her cheek. It was a moment of agonizing
embarrassment to her. His father grasped his shoulder and led him to a
chair by the fire and poured out all the questions she would have asked
if she had dared. But, indeed, her heart was near to bursting. She had
been forbidden to meet him, but that bold beautiful woman had shared all
the honours of his return and was in London also now, waiting her time.
All the Palermitan stories crowded on her mind. Would not one think that
a wife who had never offended had more claim than that cold kiss?

She asked him in her soft voice whether he was well; whether he had any
pain in what was left of his arm?—the pathetic empty sleeve wrung her
heart. She had gathered up the little scraps of family news to tell him;
the Boltons, the Matchams, his brothers, William and Maurice, would be
coming up next day. Yes, they were all well, all full of eagerness to
see him. She did her best, God knows, but what can a woman do so cruelly
hampered? It all sounded stiff and unnatural. He took it for anger and
answered with cold punctuality.

The lights must be lit; he wished to see how his father looked; and
presently there was the mild illumination of wax candles. She felt
rather than saw him stealing a furtive glance at her.

“You look paler and thinner. I trust I see you in good health,” he said.

She hurriedly reassured him. “And you too?” she added wistfully.

“My constitution is never a strong one and I have had many cares and
anxieties, not to mention dangers, of late years. The Aboukir wound
gives me trouble still at times. But I owe everything to the unwearied
goodness of my friends, Sir William and Lady Hamilton. But for them I
should not be alive to greet you and my father, and whatever you feel
for me you should certainly repay in gratitude to them. They have put up
at this hotel until they can secure a house, and as I shall be much
engaged at the Admiralty, it is my hope that you will show Lady Hamilton
every attention possible. I shall take it as a kindness to myself. You
owe her much for her goodness to Josiah also.”

“I will do my best,” her pale lips shaped. Josiah! His letters and angry
comments on the intimacy which all the world talked of had been a sword
in her heart. If Nelson did but know!—but she could not tell him.

“I wrote at your wish and invited them to stay at Round Wood. I hope the
letter met you at Yarmouth,” she said timidly.

“Certainly, and I thought it very proper. I handed it to Lady Hamilton.
I have asked them to dine with us presently. You and my father cannot
too soon meet friends to whom I owe so much.”

Soon indeed! Then even the first meeting was to be broken in upon with
suffering! She recalled other returns while he and his father talked on.
How eagerly he had clasped her in his arms; how much there had been to
hear and tell; what sympathy, eager understanding in it all—and the
dear, dear nights when they had been alone; and she lay in his arms and
could not sleep for joy to hear his quiet breathing again. But no one
could have guessed these thoughts from her quiet face fixed on the fire
as she sat listening and very silent now. Of course he thought her angry
and sullen; of course he fiercely resented it. She looked older, too,
her face seemed dimmed and dull after the brilliant roseate beauty his
eyes had feasted on, his lips had tasted.

“Well, we must prepare for dinner!” he said at last, getting up. “I
trust my dear father will enjoy meeting two of the most eminent men and
women in the world. I ordered dinner as I came up, Fanny. Which is my
room?”

“My—” She moved forward silently and led the way to a large and
London-dingy bedroom adjoining the sitting-room. He looked with
disfavour at the great draped four-poster with its drab curtains and
tester.

“I can’t sleep in that catafalque!” he said. “I want fresh air. Make
them put me up a camp bed near the door, or better still in the room
adjoining, for I am often disturbed at night, and you look as if you
needed your sleep. Better give the order now.”

She rang the bell and gave it, and his “traps,” as he called them, were
put in the room which opened, hotel-fashion, into hers. For the first
time she recovered herself a little and carried her head higher. That
insult, for so she took it, fired even her gentleness. He left the door
open between them and talked while she changed her dress for dinner.

Indeed she had little to change it to. She had supposed it would be as
usual but a day or two in London, and had not made very extensive
preparations. But she had a black satin with lace and a bandeau of rows
of seed-pearl for her hair, and a chain set with small pearls which had
been a gift from his prize money. She dressed herself to the best
advantage and looked in the muslin-draped glass and thought she would
pass. More she could not feel; and after all, what use to compete with a
beauty of European notoriety? She did not ask his opinion when her
toilette was finished as she had been accustomed to do.

They went together into the sitting-room when they were ready. It was
now brilliant with lights, and a well-spread table, and old Mr. Nelson
in the ceremonious evening dress of a clergyman of the old school, and
Nelson in silk stockings and orders, and obsequious waiters hovering
about and making conversation impossible.

It seemed to Fanny that she could not collect her thoughts—it was
dream-like, she had not a word to say.

And now the door opened with a flourish—“Sir William and Lady Hamilton.
Miss Knight.”

Habit and breeding will pull a woman together when nothing else will,
and Fanny in her desperate need moved forward composedly, with her quiet
curtsey to either lady.

Emma trailed in in the gorgeous gold gown of Palermo, too splendid by
far for so simple an occasion, girdled below her full bosom with a
girdle in the Directory fashion, set with diamonds.

The bandeau which bound her luxuriant curls was of diamonds also, and
about her neck the magnificent diamond necklace lately presented by
Marie Caroline with the ciphers of the Royal children. Even a plain
woman must have glowed in such a dress set off with such a galaxy of
jewels but with her velvet skin of lilies and roses, her bright hair,
and the crimson bow of her lips she was a figure of dazzling beauty to
strike the coldest into amazement. It was a theatrical entry,
theatrically contrived with all her dramatic instinct brought to bear,
and for the moment it succeeded. Fanny’s heart sank like lead. What
hope, what help against such charms? She was an illumination in the
room—the very light all gathered about her, and seemed to be reflected
in her. Miss Cornelia Knight was an agreeable, brown-complexioned woman
in purple—a well-chosen foil for the other’s brilliance. Indeed, Emma’s
heart exulted as she greeted with all her exuberance the quiet Fanny in
her “dowdy” dress, for so she classed it. If _that_ was what she had
been dreading!—one may finish the sentence on a note of triumph. She
took possession of the party. She showered offers of attention on Fanny.
Had she been presented yet on the peerage? No? Then she herself would
undertake the presentation after her own. She quite expected that one of
Sir William’s Hamilton cousins would present her. And nothing would be
easier to arrange.

Dinner. Oh, might she show her Ladyship exactly how Lord Nelson liked
his meat cut up? She had done it all the way back from Palermo but
naturally must now surrender the pleasure to his good wife. Funny, on
the contrary, surrendered it to her—it was so obviously the wish—and
her own place was at the head of the table with Sir William in
attendance.

He revolted her, though after a very different fashion. His manners were
perfect, polished, easy, even her inexperience could tell that, but his
stories of the Neapolitan Court! His smiling references to the Queen’s
amours as something quite in the order of things and to be expected! His
hints of French corruption and the manners of the now celebrated
Josephine, the wife of the Corsican adventurer! Good heavens, what
people had Nelson fallen amongst? What a society was it where such
subjects could be discussed! She did her best to reply with courtesy,
and Sir William found her a dull young woman and betook himself to the
conversation between Miss Knight and Mr. Nelson, throwing in comments on
her spirited story of the flight to Palermo, and the still more
marvellous history of the return of the _Foudroyant_ to Naples, and the
avenging of the King of the Two Sicilies on his rebels, including the
hanging of his traitor Admiral Caracciolo, as Miss Knight called him.

“The treacherous animal, he well deserved his fate!” said Sir William,
enjoying his glass of the fashionable pink champagne. “And it is not the
least of the glories of your glorious husband, madam, that he had the
pleasure of ordering his ignominious death. He desired to be shot like a
gentleman but my Lord ordered him hanged as the dog he was.”

Again Fanny was silent. She had heard through naval friends in London of
the strong censure expressed at the Admiralty, and indeed at Court, on
Nelson’s action in thus condemning a foreign admiral. The rights of it
she could not know and dared not judge, but it appeared in any case no
subject for exultation. Emma’s keen eye and ear were on the talk at that
end of the table, and she intervened.

“Indeed, I am certain her Ladyship must have rejoiced with the rest of
us when she heard that such a traitor had met with his reward. Oh,
madam, did you but know my adorable Queen you would share in the joy
that filled us when those rebels were punished by your husband’s noble
courage. There is not one admiral in a thousand would have took it in
his hands like him.”

Fanny could not but reply: “I am sure my husband did all he thought just
and proper.”

She got that out, flushing, and how cold and inadequate it sounded! But
she was not the woman to rejoice over corpses dangling at the yard-arm
even if she had understood the subject better than she did. Her answer
fell into a silence, and then Miss Knight resumed her praises and Sir
William commented, and the hostess sat isolated, outshone and forgotten.

Emma was in her most aggressive mood of boastful praise of Nelson’s and
her own doings. She had meant to be entirely conciliatory to Lady
Nelson, and only achieved condescension. An unreasonable anger possessed
her, as if the woman had no business to exist. Certainly she feared her
no more. She could understand her at a glance and foresee her rôle. She
would raise no objection to the friendship; she would be tame, obedient,
easily hoodwinked; a convenient shield until happier days should come.
No, all was well. Really, almost a negligible quantity. She thanked her
graciously for her invitation to Round Wood. Later on, she quite hoped
it might be possible to accept, but at present she and Sir William were
so overwhelmed with invitations from Royalty downwards that dear Lady
Nelson would understand it was not possible, and so forth.

But Fanny’s quiet eyes were noting everything. Emma was not behind Sir
William and far beyond Nelson in the refilling of her glass with the
pink champagne which Fanny ignored. Her large commanding figure promised
corpulence later on. She spoke too loudly, laughed too often, her speech
had no refinement—could not have. What can eradicate origins? She
puffed the incense full in Nelson’s face, as another observer had said,
and Fanny’s heart saddened, for he had always had too much of the Nelson
exaggeration in speech and feeling himself to satisfy her wholly. Even
before this she would have prayed him to leave boasting as well as
boarding to others if she had dared, and now his loud voice and
over-emphasis frightened her.

That dinner was Purgatory to her. It was full of interest to Mr. Nelson,
who found all the enthusiasm and excitements highly to his taste, and so
expressed himself when the guests had departed with loud hopes of a
speedy reunion.

“Indeed, we have had a breath of the great world to-night!” says he,
rubbing his hands. “I declare, Horatio, I know not when I have been so
interested. Sir William is indeed a man of the first fashion, and her
Ladyship a woman of unsurpassable beauty. What did my quiet Fanny think?
Her opinion is always valuable.”

She saw Nelson’s eye furtively on her while she answered.

“No one can dispute her beauty, sir. It exceeds the pictures of her I
have seen exhibited. But, if my opinion is asked, I think they are
personages who move in a very different world from the simple one to
which we are accustomed.”

“They move in _my_ world,” Nelson interrupted angrily. “And as I have
raised you to that world by my successes I shall hope you will do me no
discredit with my friends. Much of what you rejoice in now you owe to
the Hamiltons, for without them it could not have been accomplished.”

“I hope indeed we shall both of us have cause to rejoice!” she said,
strangling a sob in her throat. “You must pardon me if as yet I am a
little strange to such society and such stories as Sir William Hamilton
gave me of Naples.”

He turned away, then coldly: “I’m dead tired after the journey, and
to-morrow will be a busy day.”

He kissed her in the great dingy bedroom and she saw him no more that
night. Not only that day but the next were busy beyond all words. He
must visit the Admiralty, and returned chagrined by his reception. The
truth was the Palermitan stories had poisoned all authoritative sources
in England, and his arrival with the Hamiltons, following on the
ill-judged journey across Europe, had disgusted many. Public opinion was
slowly but surely ranking itself on Fanny’s side, and she, poor
bewildered woman, did not know what to do with it.

Nelson had returned all-glorious, but the air was chill after the
tropical praise of the Mediterranean. Lord Spencer of the Admiralty had
been his friend, but now—he came back furious and flung himself into a
chair, before Fanny, who was quietly knitting.

“The Lady of the Admiralty was as cool as ice to me,” he said, with
sarcasm that ill hid his annoyance. “Lady Spencer, forsooth! I care
little enough for it. Let them get another admiral to fight their
battles when they want one! Yet she wrote to me after the Nile a letter
that almost overwhelmed me with praise. Women—women!—the most
changeable frivolous creatures on all God’s earth. I know but one who
never changes; whose warm candid soul is always the same. Oh, if all
were like that, what a world it would be! Do you drive out with Lady
Hamilton to-day?”

“Certainly, if you wish it!” she said, with her eyes on her knitting.
She, who knew the stories afloat, thought their association ill-judged,
but what could she say?

“Naturally I wish it, while gratitude is of any consequence, and Heaven
knows that you and all the world might learn from her kind heart and
accomplishments which I have never seen equalled.”

Silence.

“I go to Court to-morrow,” he said after a while, “and in the evening
the Hamiltons dine with us again.”

He went and returned indignant at his reception by the King. Fanny asked
him kindly if all had satisfied him, and had a short “No” for her pains
and then a diatribe against Royal ingratitude as contrasted with the
Neapolitan condescensions. She heard later that day from a source she
could trust that His Majesty merely asked after Nelson’s health, and
without waiting for an answer turned away and talked with another
officer in great good humour. It wrung her heart, and the more so
because she knew the cause but too well. It had been very different with
the King formerly. She could remember hearing from the faithful Davison
how His Majesty had spoken of her husband “with the tenderness of a
father,” and now, now, crowned with the glories of Teneriffe, St.
Vincent, the Nile, and so much more, he was coldly put aside, and—good
God!—for what a woman! She revolved her duty in an agony—to speak or
not to speak? To refuse to be seen with her, or go meekly on according
to Nelson’s orders? She could not yet decide.

The town rang with stories of the pair. Nelson and Lady Hamilton had
been unable to believe that the adulation of Naples and Palermo would
not cover everything. They could not be made to realize that it made
their case worse.

The sincere Troubridge visited Miss Cornelia Knight and warned her of
the storm about to break. She had taken refuge with Mrs. Cadogan but he
assured her that was not sufficient.

“I assure you, madam, that no lady who wishes to escape general censure
will associate herself with any connection of Lady Hamilton. I owe your
mother a kindness which I must repay in this fashion. Lord Nelson’s
noble character and glorious career may bear him scatheless, and I trust
it will, but I understand the word has gone forth against Lady
Hamilton.”

Miss Knight packed up her goods incontinent and fled the same day to
shelter under the wing of Mrs. Nepean, wife of the secretary of the
Admiralty. Emma tossed her head and grew even louder and more scornful
of such fair-weather friends.

Indeed, the poor woman had her own terrible battle to fight, and though
she feared Lady Nelson no more, she might well fear her own courage. She
dared not leave London, for every eye would fasten on her every
movement. She dared not leave Sir William, for that she had never done
since their marriage and it must provoke his inevitable suspicion. Her
battle must be fought with only her mother’s help, under the roof of the
house they had now taken in Piccadilly, and in horrible secrecy and
dread—a desperate throw for safety.

Let the initial error be granted, and much that appears detestable in
her conduct becomes comprehensible. How could she give her cause away
without ruining Nelson? How could she hide her secret but by clinging to
Lady Nelson, to every person or thing which could help her to the
assumption of innocence? And that she hurt her cause by her loud
boastings and triumphings and public protestations of the innocence of
her friendship for Nelson, and the bond between her and his wife, her
breeding made her as incapable of understanding as though she belonged
to another planet.

She grew more blatant and preposterous daily in her frantic efforts to
conquer opinion, and little knew how Lady Nelson’s mute face of sorrow,
dragged in her wake, spoke against her trumpet-tongued with all who had
hearts to feel. As for Nelson, Beckford summed it up in a phrase: “She
can make him believe anything she chooses.” She could—and did.

It was one evening when she was out, dazzling in her diamonds at the
opera and Sir William was at home with a cold, that Greville came to pay
one of his quiet visits to his uncle. He was still a bachelor. His ill
success with Miss Middleton had disinclined him to expose himself to any
more rebuffs, and a comfortable minor Court appointment really suited
him far better than a wife. Especially with his views on the succession
to Sir William’s property. He found him lying by the fire on a couch
drawn up and comfortably screened against draughts, a catalogue in his
hand.

“Rejoice with me, my dear Greville. The very best of good news! I have
heard to-day that many of my precious cases were saved from the wreck of
the _Colossus_—some of the vases and pictures I most prized.”

Greville was sincerely warm in his congratulations. That, indeed, was a
recovery that appealed both to his taste and his sense of money value.

“Yes, and it is my intention to have a sale of some of the objects. Not
enough to crowd the market—something very choice and select. I know
Beckford and others will be keen to purchase.”

“Certainly. But can you bring yourself to part with them, my dear
Hamilton?”

“Must. I need the money. I am £2000 in debt to Nelson for expenses at
Palermo, not to mention other and heavier debts. I am sorry to say—for
I can be frank with you—that a spirit of extravagance possesses Emma
which alarms me very much. And then there were our fearful losses in the
Jacobin riot in Naples for which the Government ought certainly to
compensate me. And my pension is not satisfactorily settled by any
means.”

“True,” said Greville thoughtfully. “Still, it is a painful necessity.
And the pictures?”

“I shall sell three portraits of Emma. I have so many, and they are
attractive enough to fetch a large price.”

“No doubt.” Greville’s mind was turning to the Edgware Row days and
Emma’s tearful anxiety if the stipulated allowance was exceeded by a
shilling. She had certainly changed since then.

“I sometimes think you have never understood her,” he said. “Controlled,
she has a fine character. Uncontrolled, a danger to herself and others.”

“True, but you are aware that as a man grows to my age his only desire
is for peace. It is worth giving way in trifles to secure it.”

“In trifles, yes. But what are trifles?”

“Most things,” says Sir William with his little cynical smile. “Nothing
really matters so much as we are apt to suppose.”

There was a pause. Greville could not echo that sentiment. There were
things which mattered much to him personally which were bound up with
Hamilton’s affairs.

“I have sometimes wondered,” he said slowly, “whether you are aware of
the talk flying round the town about Emma’s intimacy with Nelson? It is
accusing her in no way to allude to it, for we both know what talk is
worth. Still, it is there.”

Sir William’s smile did not relax.

“Jacobin rumours from Naples and Palermo. Nelson is all that is
honourable.”

“No doubt. But I assure you the scandal has reached an alarming height,
and she is not meeting it wisely. This constant persecution of Lady
Nelson—for so it is called—sets all sympathy against her.”

“Emma must pursue her own methods,” Sir William said coolly. “I have
long ceased to be responsible for her actions. If I were to check her it
would make storms in the house to which I am quite unequal. You remember
her temper of old, Greville.”

“The devil of a temper, but I broke it.”

“I cannot, and I assure you it has gained strength with years. No—I am
not for opposing Emma.”

“But, my dear Hamilton, do I understand that these rumours give you no
pain? I do but my duty in telling you that you are represented as
completely hoodwinked and under hers and Nelson’s influence. Heaven
forbid I should say it is true, but that is the notion freely
expressed.”

“And how many men in London are ridiculed in the same way?”

He reckoned off on his delicate fingers a score of names in the highest
positions, which the present recorder, for the peace of great families,
reserves in his own discretion.

“I am really content to suffer in such good company,” he concluded
placidly. “There is an ignorance, my dear Greville, which is as
protective as the shell of the tortoise. I have full confidence in
Emma’s high principles and the extraordinary discretion of Nelson. And
if I had not, I should act just the same. For God’s sake, imagine me as
the wronged hero of a trial for crim. con. What have I ever done to
deserve the suspicion of being such a fool as to incur it, and after
such a marriage as mine? Consider my marriage, and say no more. I repeat
that I have the usual confidence in my wife and my friend.”

Greville understood him perfectly. Indeed, all the old man said was
true, and it jumped entirely with Greville’s own convictions. These
things happened, and one met them in the way which gave one least
trouble. There was no more to be said. Yet he asked one question.

“My dear Hamilton, our friendship is of so many years’ standing that I
venture to ask: Do these rumours trouble you? Are you discomposed or
annoyed?”

“Never less!” said Sir William, laying the delicate veined hand on his
catalogue. “_These_ are the matters which really interest me. The world
is receding—I never minded its opinion very greatly; I mind it not at
all now. I should like to see you and a few other congenial friends
frequently, and I have no objection to telling you that my will is made,
and I have taken what I conceive to be the proper attitude toward my
poor Emma’s extravagance. I have no doubt that her friendship with
Nelson will have pecuniary results. Nor can I object to telling you that
you are not only my executor but my residuary legatee.”

Greville’s thanks were warm and heart-felt. He took his cue perfectly
from that moment. Certainly Sir William should be troubled with no
rumours and no scandals from him. He should have the classic peace he
desired.

Emma would have rejoiced in her safety from one of her blackest dreads.
Yet even she might have thought the price of safety high. She certainly
had reason to do so later.

The gods sell everything at a fair price.




                              CHAPTER XXVI
                                PARTING


THERE is a most absolute and splendid justice in the remorseless
sequence of cause and effect, and those who play at dice with angry gods
cannot win.

Nelson had cause to know that truth in the days that followed. He was
losing, losing steadily. There were moments of frantic joy buried like
jewels in a rubble of fears, anxieties and disappointments. It would
always be right next day, but never was. Emma and he would always find
perfect bliss—to-morrow. But that to-morrow was the rainbow in the
field beyond and to-day he was face to face with Emma’s troubles and
Fanny’s tragedy.

He knew it was a tragedy and denied it fiercely to himself and to Emma.
She was cold, dull, heartless. She did not care a rap. What comfort
could a man find in a pale, silent creature like that? He wanted warmth
and colour; he wanted tender flattery. Was it his fault if she had
changed in his last absence? He wanted to be friends provided she would
fall in joyfully with all his views regarding Emma, and she would not.
She obeyed his wishes like a slave. They were seldom alone; he contrived
that; but when they were, little was said and less answered.

But—there is justice. Though Lady Nelson made no plea for herself, the
world made it for her. There was deep indignation against the treatment
she was receiving. Queen Charlotte entirely refused to recognize Emma,
and this although Sir William made his best interest with the King, his
foster brother. The third George could be a veritable farmer George for
bluffness when he so pleased, and he told Sir William to his face that
he might very well remember how much he had disapproved the marriage,
how he had assured him at the time that whatever the Neapolitan Court
might do, the English Court would hold to its rules; though he himself
would be always welcome. And to Emma’s rage and Nelson’s infinite
disgust, Sir William serenely attended the next Court.

“It would make a talk if I did not, and at my age I cannot be troubled,”
he said, with a smile which had a family resemblance to Greville’s.

“It would trouble _me_ to attend without my wife,” Nelson said, a little
too bluntly.

“Yet I have not seen you take her,” Sir William rejoined with the same
fine smile, and the conversation dropped.

And the more public opinion set against him, the more defiant Nelson
grew. In his own words, he was fixed as Fate, and daily more bound to
the woman whose ordeal was drawing nearer.

“It is not,” said Sir William Hotham, a typical man about town
discoursing at his club, “that London has turned suddenly moral or that
any sensible person cares a damn about Nelson’s chastity. It’s his
confounded vanity that leads him to brandish himself and the woman in
the face of society and think every one is to swallow it because he is
the great Lord Nelson. And such a woman! As for that poor wife of
his—the least a man can do is to hide that sort of weakness. It’s
damned unjustifiable to wound her feelings publicly as he does, when
there isn’t a man or woman alive but knows she’s one of the best good
women that ever stepped. Look at him now, going off to Fonthill with the
Hamiltons for Christmas and leaving her alone here in town, and he only
lately home from sea! I declare I can barely stand it, though God knows
it’s no concern of mine.”

“The mischief is,” said another man, in the little group at the club,
“that Nelson is no rake. If he were, he would manage his affairs with
much better breeding and a deal more consideration for that poor wife of
his. He’s as infatuated as a fool about the Hamilton woman as if he were
a boy of sixteen in love for the first time—which is exactly the case.
It’s his damned innocence that’s more than half the trouble.”

But pity or no pity, the climax was nearly upon Fanny now. Nothing could
stave it off. She spent her solitary Christmas sitting at the window of
their lodgings in Arlington Street and wondering whether in all broad
London there was any heart so heavy as hers. Not in London perhaps, but
certainly in the midst of all the gaiety at Beckford’s palace of
Fonthill. Nelson was sick in spirit—and the more mortally offended with
his wife because he knew that in ways he could not explain to himself
she was the cause of his unrest—even in Emma’s company and the noisy
gaieties of Beckford’s meretricious Fonthill; all of which suited her
Ladyship exceedingly well.

They returned to London, and Fanny had her orders to attend the
Hamiltons to the opera and show herself in the box with them. Emma made
a point of that, for the time was not now far distant when Lady Nelson’s
countenance might be vital to her in Sir William’s and the world’s eyes.
Fanny pleaded fatigue, but soon saw there was no alternative. She put on
her quiet black satin and sat in the box a little behind the beautiful
glittering Emma in her purple spangled satin with the _cachemire_
draping her fair shoulders. There were very few eyes in the house which
were not turned upon that box, with their owners speculating on the
drama it held. Nelson sat in front, brilliant in stars and orders as
Emma in jewels. Sir William went placidly to sleep.

Half-way through the performance, in the very midst of the great soprano
aria, “Non dirmi addio,” where the prima donna swoons into the arms of
the distracted tenor, Emma followed her example and fainted quietly
away. Nelson and her husband sprang together to her assistance. Fanny
sat death-still, not moving a finger. It was as if something had snapped
in her brain with the result of an extraordinary lucidity in all her
perceptions. She saw, she understood, and her own hitherto obtuseness
filled her with shame and self-disgust. No wonder that Nelson, that
every one despised her. She had carried obedience into caricature and
made a show of herself for all London. She rose and walked out of the
box without a look in Emma’s direction.

Presently the two men followed, supporting Emma between them. She was
recovering but still pale as death, her eyes showing but as a blue line
under heavy lids. They had dragged some cushions out of the box and made
a kind of couch for her in the passage, which was quite empty.

“Have you no smelling salts?” Nelson said imperiously. He was stooping
over the sufferer with Sir William. There was no direct answer.

“I am going home,” Fanny said. She pulled her cloak about her and turned
her back on the group without another word. She walked swiftly along the
passage.

“My dear Nelson, pray attend to your wife. I will see to Emma. See, she
is recovering quickly. Lady Nelson cannot return alone.” So said Sir
William, realizing the potentialities of the situation and anxious to
avoid them. An attendant came hurrying up with salts, and Nelson strode
away after his wife with a heart full of anger which was but pain
reversed.

He overtook her half-way down the stairs, and calling a carriage, put
her in in dead silence, and followed her. Not a word was said on the way
to Arlington Street, the wheels jolting over the cobbles, and the dim
lamps shining and darkening as they passed. Fanny opened her own door at
the end, and got out and went upstairs. She knew she must face it now,
and a kind of desperate resolution came to her. Things could not last
like this. A change there must be and who could tell it might not be for
the better? Certainly nothing could be worse.

Nelson followed her and shut the door of the sitting-room. He looked ill
and pale in his fine coat with its stars; even less fit to face the
ordeal than she. But he moved straight up to the attack and laid his
ship alongside the enemy, as he always did at sea. She sat down, quite
unable to stand.

“I wish to know why you publicly insulted Lady Hamilton? Why, when she
fainted, did you not show her the common humanity of help as one woman
to another? Why did you turn your back on her and walk out of the box?”

Her teeth were chattering with terror. She could hardly control her
voice. There could be only one thing more dreadful than this scene—to
endure as she had been enduring. But she got some words out at last.

“If you ask me that question I must answer. But you had better not.”

His tone was like tempered steel: “I ask it.”

She raised herself in her chair, supporting her two hands on the arms,
and looked into his eyes.

“It is terrible to me to say it, but I cannot screen your mistress and
the mother to be of your child.”

There was an awful silence. His face was livid. Every particle of colour
had fallen away even from his lips. So they faced each other, the ruins
of their life between them. For a minute or more neither spoke—nor
could. Then he rallied.

“How you dare make that base and foul attack on a woman better than
yourself, God only knows. I can only suppose your mind is poisoned
through and through by the Jacobin lies. Never while I live will I
forgive you. And this to the husband to whom you owe everything!”

A sudden courage fired her at this most unjust speech.

“When my husband withdraws his love and gives it to another, what else
he has given me is worthless in my eyes. And as to stories—I go by your
own conduct. Have I had a kind word from you since you returned? Have we
lived as husband and wife? Have I not been dragged about with a woman
whose shameful past made her an unfit companion for me in any case?”

“Be silent,” he said, with low concentrated fury.

“I cannot be silent. I have always obeyed you and my one prayer is to do
so again and forever. Oh, my husband, my dear, dear husband; we were
happy once. I implore and entreat you let us be happy again. Put her
away and come back to me. She is ruining you in the eyes of men. On all
sides are stories of her worthlessness and your misplaced belief in her.
That is the cause of all the coldness that wounds you. I love you. Come
back to me and forget this most miserable thing and let us be happy
again.”

She spread her hands out in the quick gesture he knew so well. The tears
were thick in her eyes but did not overflow. Even then her reserve stood
in her way. Even to herself she seemed strained and cold. She wanted to
kneel before him and cling about him and tell him all her love, but
could not. Oh, for a word, a sign of love from him and then the frost
would break up and dissolve in a rain of passionate tears and kisses.

He turned to the window for a minute and stood looking out on the dim
lights as if taking a moment to think, and then turned back again.

“I won’t insult the woman you speak of by defending her from your vile
attacks. She is utterly beyond your malice; the truest, bravest heart in
the world. If you wanted love from me you should have met my friend as
your friend and taken her to your heart as I have. She was willing to
love you, as she wrote you more than once, but you would have nothing
but your own poor jealousy. Well, have it! Keep it! I tell you here and
now that you have so acted that one hair of her head is more to me than
all you have and are, and that though most unfortunately I must live
with you for her sake, it shall never again be as husband and wife. And
if you injure her in word or deed it shall be at your peril.”

She got up from her chair steadied by these dreadful words and stood
holding by it for a moment. Then she spoke in a choking whisper.

“What must the passion be that can make a man like you speak so to the
wife he has loved and trusted? I have no more to say. God judge between
us.”

She went quietly to the door that led to her bedroom and passed through
and he heard the key turn. If even then she had faltered and shown some
sign of weakness he might have—no, not relented, for Emma possessed him
too strongly for that!—but have thought of her more tenderly. But her
reserve stood her in ill stead, and moreover he knew he was in the
wrong, and he who has done the wrong never pardons. He would have left
the house forever then but for the injury to Emma’s reputation at that
crisis.

He sat down by the table and buried his face in his arm and thought of
Emma and yearned for her and for the comfort she only could give him.
Indeed, his love for her, misplaced, guilty, is none the less one of the
rememberable passions of the world, incalculable to himself and in its
results.

When he had a little recovered, he went out into the street and to
Piccadilly that he might judge by the light in her window whether she
had returned and was still suffering or could sleep. Up and down in the
cold rain he walked, his eyes fixed on that square of light, and at last
was rewarded more than once by seeing her figure flit across it with
long dishevelled hair, and Mrs. Cadogan evidently in attendance. That
was the best he could hope, and then he went back and crept into his
small bedroom and never closed his eyes any more than did his wife; and
so those two miserable hearts were side by side, united yet apart in a
very different suffering, for the few last nights left them.

They were not to be many. In his tactlessness and cruel persistence,
hardened by the slights shown almost everywhere to Emma, he scarcely
opened his mouth at home but to praise her. He had a faint hope of
convincing Fanny that all was innocent between them, and that therefore
the subject was not one he need avoid, but still greater was the desire
to insist on the virtues and greatness of soul which all the world must
realize. His brother Maurice came up to London and, shocked at the state
of affairs and the talk which greeted him on every side, implored Nelson
to be reconciled with his wife, even if it were only for the sake of
Lady Hamilton’s reputation, which he himself privately considered past
praying for. Nelson’s answer was an ultimatum.

“I am willing to live on friendly terms with Fanny but will never desert
a woman to whom I owe so much and insult her by what my desertion would
imply. Fanny must accept her as an honoured friend.”

And Fanny could only reply that there might be some hope if she could be
allowed to ignore the woman. That surely was not too much to ask. It was
much too much, as it proved. There was a deadlock.

It added to her agony that Nelson’s sisters, Mrs. Bolton and Mrs.
Matcham, had struck up the most cordial friendship with the woman whose
hand, as they well perceived, could dispense all the favours they could
hope from their famous brother, and the elder brother William, the needy
clergyman, was not long in imitating them. His letters to Emma,
sickening with adulation, often contained such gentle reminders as the
following:

“I am told there are two or three very old lives, prebends of
Canterbury, in the Minister’s gift, near £600 a year, and good houses.”
And then she would set Nelson, much against his taste, to beg the
authorities for favours which he hated to ask.

She was flattered in the extreme by this family recognition and too free
and easy to care to trace its wellspring very closely—all was
confidence and sympathy on that side.

The situation was impossible and the end came quickly. They were
breakfasting in Arlington Street, a friend, Nelson’s solicitor
Hazlewood, with them, and Nelson, as usual, was showing forth the
praises of “dear Lady Hamilton.” The breaking-point of Fanny’s long
suffering was reached, as often happens, by a thing she had silently
borne hundreds of times before. She rose at last and said passionately:

“I am sick, sick, of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton. Indeed you must
choose between us. I can endure no more.”

Nelson was shocked from the family vehemence into calm, for there was
finality in her face.

“Take care what you say. I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my
obligations to Lady Hamilton or speak of her otherwise than with
affection and admiration.”

There was a dead pause, the guest staring in embarrassment at the
tablecloth, afraid to look at either.

The poor woman who had reason enough to estimate that love at its true
value, tried to speak and could not—her mind was made up, and that was
all. She tried to utter it and failed. She crept from the room and left
the house, hoping against hope, praying that the terrible break would
stir him to shame and repentance. It never did.

He went off in ghastly anxiety to Emma, afraid lest he had ruined all
their plans. But she received the news with her gayest courage.

“After all, what does it matter? I can be seen about with your sisters
now, and that’s really better in some ways for they don’t love your wife
and they’ll be furious at her walking off like that. Trust them to talk!
Besides, as my own Nelson is going afloat so soon to fight in the Baltic
’twill appear the more heartless in her. She has served our turn well
with her malicious temper. Don’t you go near her, my own dear love. I
know your kind heart, but she’s gone too far this time.”

“You think I was right?” he asked wistfully. He was wholly in her hands
now for good or ill.

“Right? What else could you do? What can any man do dealing with a nasty
evil-thinking temper like that? If a woman can’t be kind-hearted and
pleasant she deserves what she gets. Many would be jealous of her, but I
never was. I was as eager to make friends as if I had never a grudge
against her. But she never gave you a child—how can she understand? Her
love and her child were another man’s not yours!”

That went home, and then there were the fond rhapsodies without which he
could not now exist. And in the dear intimate talk of all their plans
and hopes there was not much room for thought of Fanny.

He hoisted his flag in the _San Josef_ and prepared to leave England
with an aching heart, for Emma’s hour was at hand. And here he shines
with the lustre that nothing earthly can dim. Every thought, love,
feeling of his heart was centred in that house in Piccadilly and the
event to take place there, but even that could not weigh in the scale
against his country’s need.

With Emma he concerted a plan of correspondence which might yet have
mystified the world if she had not insanely kept his letters. There was
to be a Thomson aboard his ship, a young man concerned about his wife’s
confinement in which Lady Hamilton’s goodness of heart had led her to
interest herself. She would send news to Nelson for Thomson. Nelson
would forward Thomson’s hopes and fears to her.

So, with this great fear at his heart, he sailed to fresh triumphs—the
great victory of Copenhagen—and to what might very likely be death. He
made a generous provision for Fanny and cut the bond between them,
writing with cold precision:

    “I have done all in my power for you, and if I died, you will
    find I have done the same. Therefore my only wish is to be left
    to myself and wishing you every happiness, believe that I am
    your affectionate Nelson and Bronte.”

She endorsed it:

    “This is my Lord Nelson’s letter of dismissal which so
    astonished me that I immediately sent it to Mr. Maurice Nelson,
    who was sincerely attached to me, for his advice. He desired me
    not to take the least notice of it, as his brother seemed to
    have forgotten himself.”

Yet she still waited on in hope never to be fulfilled. To Emma he wrote
passionately, in almost frenzied anxiety for her health, but in their
secret code.

    “Pray tell Mrs. Thomson her kind friend is very uneasy about her
    and prays most fervently for her safety, and he says he can only
    depend on your goodness. May the Heavens bless and protect my
    dearest friend and give her every comfort this world can afford
    is the sincerest prayer of your faithful and affectionate Nelson
    and Bronte.”

On the twenty-ninth of January his daughter Horatia was born, incredibly
under the roof of Sir William in Piccadilly. With Mrs. Cadogan’s
connivance all was kept secret, though it would be difficult to guess
how far Sir William himself was blinded or preferred to be. Within a
week the child was at nurse in a somewhat obscure London street and in
another fortnight, Emma, “recovered from one of her old Neapolitan
attacks,” was shining in society again—such society as accepted her.

As for Nelson; the family excitability combined with his own feelings
drove him almost insane. “I believe,” he wrote to Emma, “that dear Mrs.
Thomson’s friend will go mad with joy. He cries, prays, and performs all
sorts of tricks, yet dare not show all or any of his feelings, but he
has only me to consult with. He swears he will drink your health this
day in a bumper, and damn me if I don’t join him. I cannot write, I am
so agitated by this young man at my elbow. I believe he is foolish. He
does nothing but rave about you and her. I own I participate in his joy
and cannot write anything.”

Ah, what chance had Fanny against that new passion of fatherhood! None.
If he could ever have forgotten Emma there was now this living bond
between them, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. She must be
christened Horatia. She must be provided for, loved, guarded. Nothing
was too much for this treasure, and the greater treasure to whom he owed
her. It is incredible—the passion of this man for such a woman. Not
sensual passion only, though that had its share, but an idealization
which almost makes one doubt between the woman as he saw her and the
woman she really was. And yet—only the Power to whom the secrets of all
hearts are known can say which is the right estimate, the lover’s or the
world’s.

Not even the famous letters of his great antagonist—Napoleon’s to
Josephine—can equal the outpourings of Nelson, held at sea by his equal
devotion to England, but tortured by Emma’s beauty and the fear (which
it is instructive to note) of her least infidelity.

The dissolute Prince of Wales invited himself to Sir William’s house to
hear the enchanting Emma sing with the famous Banti, and Sir William,
with an eye on the governorship of Malta, was most anxious to oblige
him. Nelson was driven almost mad at the bare thought of it. A shrieking
self-torture runs through every word he wrote:

    “Do not sit long at table. Good God! He will be next you and
    telling you soft things. If he does, tell it out at table and
    turn him out of the house. O God, that I was dead. I am gone
    almost mad, but you cannot help it. His words are so charming
    that I am told no person can withstand them. If I had been worth
    ten millions I would have betted every farthing that you would
    not have gone into the house knowing he was there, and if you
    did, which I would not have believed, that you would have sent
    him a proper message by Sir William and sent him to hell. Hush,
    hush, my poor heart, keep in my breast. Emma is true. They say
    he sings well. I have eat nothing but a little rice and drank
    water. But forgive me. I know my Emma, and don’t forget you had
    once a Nelson, a friend, a dear friend, but alas! he has his
    misfortunes. He has lost the best, his only friend, his only
    love. Don’t forget him, poor fellow. He is honest. Oh, I could
    thunder and strike dead with my lightning. I dreamt it last
    night, my Emma.”

And so on through many pages—a cruel heart-piercing mixture of Lear and
Ophelia and as mad as either.

    “Do not let him come downstairs with you, or hand you up!
    Perhaps my head was a little affected. No wonder, it was such an
    unexpected, such a knock-down blow, such a death.”

Was this happiness? Was it ever happiness? That question may well be
asked but hardly answered. He trembled always on the edge of terrors of
one sort or another. His own child he could but see by stealth, his
“wife in the eyes of God” was the wife of another—a man bound to him by
closest, most trusting ties of friendship. He was reduced to counting on
that man’s death and hoping for it—“When your uncle [Sir William]
dies”—then all would be well. And yet not even then. There was his
wife, and she in her dumb suffering must be vilified as a hard
self-seeking woman that the beloved Emma might be justified, and his
passion for her. And when all this failed to convince his own unhappy
soul, then God must be called to justify him—God in whose eyes love is
all. He must pity and understand what to human eyes must appear hideous.
He threw himself on the Divine sympathy, knowing there could be none on
earth for a fall so complicated.

But amid all these griefs there stood out starry clear one joy unmixed
and perfect—England. He had served her as none other, and the time was
not past. He could serve her again—his frail breast her bulwark in the
terrible days he foresaw—and before God and man that duty should be
flawlessly done. There was his reparation, if such were needed. That
should uplift his name to the snowy heights of honour and Emma’s shine
with it as his inspiration. He fought for her and for himself in every
blow he struck for the country he loved as well as he loved her—or
better.

So he sailed sorrowful, but with a great hope before him, to the north.
And Frances Nelson made once more a simple dignified appeal for
reconciliation; but Emma was omnipotent. It was not even answered. At
all events, all hope was over when he returned from Copenhagen, for
Emma, with his commission, had bought the charming house of Merton Place
in Surrey which he was henceforth to share by a most extraordinary
arrangement with the Hamiltons.

Emma’s way was growing clear before her, and in her own mind there was
now no doubt as to the future. Sir William’s life could not be long. He
had told her so himself and the doctors confirmed it, and the duty, fast
growing irksome, of pretending to place his interests before Nelson
could not trouble her much longer. She would do her utmost for him while
he lasted. Her natural good-nature prompted her there and was backed by
the motive of self-interest, if it needed backing, for on his will much
might depend. Nelson was far from rich and the allowance he felt
compelled to make his wife, sorely and openly grudged by Emma, made her
the more anxious about her own resources. With two incomes at her
disposal and her own bent that way, she had grown terribly extravagant.
Though Merton might please Nelson and Sir William, London pleased her,
and not for a moment would she hear of surrendering the house in
Piccadilly and its gaieties. Both there and at Merton she was surrounded
by the Bohemian and masculine society which was nearly all that her
reputation left her with the exception of Nelson’s sisters and their
families; and in such an environment all that Greville had checked in
her character reappeared now and with the added force of long
repression. Her easy manner was now familiarity, her outbursts of temper
were almost unbearable, her very kindness affronted. She prejudiced
Nelson at every turn against his wife—“Tom Tit,” as she nicknamed
her—and she tossed over the poor woman’s wardrobe which Nelson had
commissioned her (of all people!) to pack and return. She never wearied
of cruel jokes about her with his sisters, who flattered her by joining
in her humour. She wrote to one of them:

    “Tom Tit is at Brighton. She did not come nor did he go. Jove
    [Nelson], for he is quite a Jove, knows better than that! It is
    such a pain to part with dear friends and you and I liked each
    other from the moment we met; our souls were congenial. Not so
    with Tom Tit, for _there_ was an antipathy not to be described!
    Tom Tit does not come to town. She offered to go down but was
    refused, she only wanted to go to do mischief to all the great
    Jove’s relations. ’Tis now shown, all her ill treatment and bad
    heart. Jove has found it out.”

And the _cara amica_ wrote back:

    “I saw Tom Tit yesterday in her carriage at the next door come
    to take Lady Charlotte Drummond out with her. Had I only seen
    her hands spreading about I should have known her.”

Yes; it was not only Emma who had so much taste and all of it so bad.
With the exception of his old father most of the Nelsons might have come
under that superlative Grevillian censure so far as their treatment of
Frances Nelson was concerned. Yet humanity is a mixed warp and woof, and
in many ways Emma kept her kind heart. Do we ever change from our birth
endowments, and as life wanes is it not a progressive dissolution into
the original elements? The fine lady of Naples was rapidly degenerating
into the hoyden of Up Park, only coarser, more florid, more spendthrift
in money as well as emotions. But Nelson could not see it. She was his
Divine Lady to the last, as she was Romney’s.

Romney! She made the pilgrimage to Hampstead to see him. A sad
pilgrimage. She missed the old studio in Cavendish Square. It was a
villa-looking house with a neglected garden about it, a few sodden
lilacs and grass-grown flower-beds, and when she entered unannounced
they stared at each other for a moment in silence. He was stooped and
old and dejected. A fog of melancholia clung about him, which was never
to lift again. He looked at her with dull eyes as she unloosed her
costly pelisse and sat down beside him and took his hands, all
cordiality.

“You were once Emma,” he muttered, “once Emma! My God, how beautiful you
were! I shall never paint you more. No—no. It’s all over.”

“But, my dear sir, you remember me. You don’t think me changed!” she
pleaded. Indeed she knew herself she was changed. Her glass told her
that if Nelson did not. Something of the young glow was gone with youth.
But he only shook his head.

“You were once Emma. It’s all, all over,” he replied, and she could get
no more than that. She left him, herself half bewildered with the
passing of things. Her only remedy for care was gaiety, incessant noisy
gaiety. Let their old acquaintance, Lord Minto, describe the life at
Merton when Nelson returned:

“The whole establishment and way of life is such as to make one angry as
well as melancholy. I do not think myself obliged to quarrel with him
for his weakness, though nothing shall ever induce me to give the
smallest countenance to Lady Hamilton. She looks eventually to the
chance of marriage. She is in high looks, but more immense than ever.
She goes on cramming Nelson with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes
on taking quietly as a child does pap. The love she makes to him is not
only ridiculous but disgusting. Not only the rooms, but the whole house,
staircase and all, are covered with pictures of her and him, and
representations of his naval actions—an excess of vanity which
counteracts its own subject. Braham, the celebrated Jew singer,
performed with Lady H. She is horrid, but he entertained me.”

Sir William was worn out with the riot. He took an opportunity to
complain to the cool Greville on meeting him in London.

“I do assure you it is wearing me to the grave,” he sighed, in reply to
Greville’s look of concern. “It is really but reasonable to hope for
peace, having fagged all my life, but never a chance of it do I get.”

“But surely, my dear Hamilton, you can point this out, you can insist!”

“With Emma? Indeed if you will recall the past you will know better. My
interests are always postponed to His Lordship’s. Not that I think he
likes it any better than myself, but he is subservient to all her whims.
Little could I foresee all this the day he first visited us in Naples!
If the house were my own I might make some stand. As it is, it is not
mine, and I do assure you, money flows away like water.”

Greville’s face was grave indeed at this admission. He had guessed it
must be so, but to hear the fact was a serious matter. That ill-advised
recommendation of Emma to his uncle was coming home to him now in ways
he had little dreamt of in the happy freedom of getting rid of her
without cost so long ago.

“I think you should remonstrate. I do indeed. It pains me, my dear
Hamilton, it pains me seriously to see you treated so unwarrantably. I
am all for a remonstrance.”

“Will you believe it, Greville,” says Sir William, weakly querulous,
“that she laid a paper from her banker Coutts on my table yesterday,
intimating that Her Ladyship’s balance was now twelve shillings!”

“It cannot be borne. It cannot indeed!” cries Greville, stirred into
real warmth. “You must speak strongly, finally. You will be ruined, my
dear Hamilton, unless you do.”

“I can’t speak and I won’t,” says Sir William. “Her temper—you knew it
of old.”

“Then you shall write to her. Indeed you must.”

That too appeared an insuperable difficulty until Greville offered his
assistance in composing a letter.

With their heads together they compounded it, Greville’s mind returning
by devious ways to Up Park and the misfortune of ever showing compassion
to undeserving strangers, especially young women of uncertain character.
It was strongly borne in upon him now.

    “I by no means wish to live in solitary retreat [it ran] but to
    have seldom less than twelve or fourteen at table, and those
    varying continually, is coming back to what was become so
    irksome to me in Italy during the latter years. I have no
    complaint to make, but I feel that the whole attention of my
    wife is given to Lord N. and his interest at Merton. I well know
    the purity of Lord N.’s friendship, and I know how very
    uncomfortable it would make his Lordship if a separation should
    take place and am therefore determined to do all in my power to
    prevent such an extremity” [“That will alarm her!” said
    Greville, pausing. “We can scarcely put that too strongly.”]
    “which [he continued] would be detrimental to all parties but
    would be more sensibly felt by our dear friend than by us.
    Provided our expenses in housekeeping do not increase beyond
    measure I am willing to go on upon our present footing. But I am
    fully determined not to have more of the very silly altercations
    that happen but too often between us and embitter the present
    moments. If really one cannot live comfortably together a wise
    and well-concerted separation is preferable, but I think,
    considering the probability of my not troubling any party long
    in this world, the best for us all would be to bear those ills
    we know of.”

This also was Emma’s opinion on receiving the letter and discussing it
with Nelson, and a little more peace was accorded the old man now so
near his end. He died in April, 1803, in the presence of Emma and
Nelson, and she immediately made the sacrifice of cutting off her
beautiful hair and wearing it à la Titus in the fashionable mourning
style of the period draped with a huge black veil which served a few
months later for the renewed Attitudes.

In so far as the black veil represented mourning there was still more
occasion for it when Sir William’s will was read, and her attitude then
might very naturally be one of dejection. Greville had conquered. An
annuity of £800 a year, to include provision for her mother, was all
that was left for his “dear wife Emma.” An enamel of Emma to Nelson, and
Greville as residuary legatee. And eight hundred pounds a year to Emma
now was less than eight hundred pence would have been in the days of
Edgware Row.




                             CHAPTER XXVII
                                 SUNSET


THE Immortals, the lesser gods, watch their prey at leisure and, one
would say, with ironic amusement. The angels may weep but it is certain
they laugh.

Emma’s plans were nearing fruition, and, again granting the initial
error, were they so unnatural? Her husband was gone; that chapter
finally closed; and every hope for the future grew nearer and more
dazzling. If any untoward fate were to remove Tom Tit, she herself would
succeed her and life at Merton and in London be all her heart’s desire
with Nelson and the little “adopted” Horatia, and, if Lady Nelson
unkindly persisted in living, there was at the worst the sunny dukedom
of Bronte in lovely Sicily; and there she knew it had long been Nelson’s
wish to retire and live in peace among his own vineyards with his Santa
Emma and his Horatia. The simple kindly people there would take them
unquestioning. Marie Caroline could not do less than spread a protecting
wing over them and life might drift away like a dream and Nelson be
blessed as he never had been blessed yet. Of course, London would be her
choice, with the opera singers coming and going, and the gay old Duke of
Queensberry who was so much attached to her that she had even visions of
a legacy there also if the friendship continued. But after all, the old
Castello of Maniace in Bronte could be filled with guests, and Italy had
its pleasures and—many dimly agreeable things ran through her brain in
those days of freedom. She was really not pinched for money at the
moment. Nelson allowed her £100 a month for the housekeeping at Merton,
and with that and Sir William’s annuity she might have managed well but
for—a large but—her own incorrigible extravagance and incapacity for
saying no either to herself or to any one else. How could she do without
a little house in London?—and there was a charming one in a charming
neighbourhood, Clarges Street, out of Piccadilly. She must have that.
And the expenses would be smaller at Merton because the French were at
their old game and Nelson was again ordered to sea—to the
Mediterranean, to Naples, where he would see her adored Marie Caroline
and remind her of her Emma; for indeed it appeared as if that ungrateful
Majesty were forgetting her steadily but surely. Possibly the Queen felt
that her friend’s services had been well paid with £30,000 worth of
diamonds and other Royal gifts and such Royal condescensions as fall to
the lot of few blacksmiths’ daughters.

Yes, it all promised exceedingly well, and Emma found her widow’s cap,
if so the black veil could be described, “le vrai bonnet de la liberté.”

Greville was troublesome certainly. He was cold and sharp. He no longer
cared to hide his dislike and he hurried her out of the Piccadilly house
in a way which any self-respecting widow would resent. Still, she
remembered the past with a certain tenderness, and he had had his uses.
The “little Emma,” now a young woman, had been edged off to a situation
abroad without any certain knowledge as to her parentage, and was heard
of no more. He might be useful also in her endless petitions to the
Government for a pension as a reward for her own services in the matter
of victualling the British Fleet before the Battle of the Nile. But that
unfortunately fell flat. There was a prejudice against her in high
places which she could never understand. Against Nelson also, though he
was the darling of the people—who had alas! no pensions to bestow. But
he would win fresh honours, prize money, rewards, in this commission and
then all would be well.

His love letters were always as passionate as the first he had ever
written her. He would scarcely allow himself any recreation ashore in
the lovely Mediterranean lands lest she should be jealous of the
dark-eyed signoras. She had no anxieties there. Indeed, she might enjoy
herself in perfect security in London with old Q. (as they called him)
and his revellers, and Emma was the first and gayest of them all. She
had her admirers, and Nelson wrote, with a jest which stings a little:

    “Never mind the great Bashaw at the Priory. He be damned! If he
    was single and had a mind to marry you he could only make you a
    Marchioness but, as he is situated and I situated, I can make
    you a Duchess, and, if it pleases God, that time may
    arrive—Amen, Amen!”

An odd invocation, but cheering to Emma.

In the January of that year Nelson’s second daughter was born—another
“little Emma,” for, all unknowing of the first, that name commended
itself to him. Her life, however, was brief, and the charming mother
resumed her gaieties untrammelled. With this, and the threatening of
blindness, he had enough to trouble him on his apparently hopeless quest
of the French Fleet, and never was his triumphant greatness in public
affairs better shown than in that long and dogged patience. He never
went ashore from June, 1803, until July, 1805. All his thoughts were
concentrated on Emma and on the French Fleet, and in truth they meant
the same thing for without the conquest of the one he could not hope to
see the other, so firmly were the country’s eyes fixed on him. It is a
relief to turn from that hectic life of Emma’s, with its noisy
assumption and petty cruelties to the deserted wife, to the pure
austerity of his life on the high seas. Gradually, the man was escaping
from her clutch, resolving, as a cloud does in approaching the sun, into
pure glory. There is a clear wind blowing now, the wind of the great
oceans and the noble deeds of men. Who can read the account of that long
passionate hope-deferred chase without a pang of sympathy? Let us turn
to it.

I who write have heard the tale of it as a child from an old, old man of
my own blood, who was serving as a young midshipman in the gallant
Captain Parker’s _Amazon_—Parker, a nephew of the great Lord St.
Vincent, Nelson’s teacher and friend. Who could forget that gallant
story who has heard it from the lips of one who shared it all? Nelson,
misled by a false report that Villeneuve, the French Admiral, was about
to attack the West Indies, made what speed he might for the Gulf of
Para. Ten sail of the line pursuing eighteen. At Barbados he was
reinforced by two line of battleships, and thence made what speed he
could for Trinidad.

Reaching the Gulf of Para, he summoned his captains on board the
_Victory_, and my relative accompanied Captain Parker as midshipman of
his boat, carrying some official papers with them with which he followed
him to the poop. The officers gathered about Nelson, and pointing in the
direction of the island, he said:

    “The French Fleet is probably there. They have eighteen sail of
    the line. The _Victory_ will take three. _Canopus_, _Spartiate_
    and _Belleisle_ will take two each, and the rest of you, one
    apiece. Now, gentlemen, the fleets are equal.”

Yet this was no foolhardiness in spite of its gallantry, for, ship for
ship, Nelson’s fleet was more equal to Villeneuve’s than the one which
he commanded at the Nile had been to that of Bruey’s. There was the
flash in Nelson, but there was also the thunder to back it. That must
never be forgotten.

And later, off Toulon, came the same Parker’s famous dash for Lisbon in
the _Amazon_, under Nelson’s orders to avoid Sir John Orde, the Admiral,
who, according to the Nelsonic notion, was robbing him of his frigates
and too jealously guarding the bounds of his own station to the west.
Parker was to avoid his ships like the devil!

“And if it comes to a court martial,” says Nelson with humour in his
face, “you shall not be broke though Sir John Orde is my senior officer.
I will stand by you. Take your orders and good-bye. And remember,
Parker, if you can’t weather that fellow, I shall think you have not a
drop of your old uncle’s blood in your veins!”

Off and away went Parker burning with zeal, and as he passed Spartel, lo
and behold Sir John Orde’s squadron taking it easy in the moonlight!
Parker might have slipped past, but, alas, an outlying frigate,
lynx-eyed, commanded by “little good Captain Hoste,” who had borne
Nelson’s despatches to Naples after the Battle of the Nile, caught sight
of the _Amazon_ lying low and gave chase and had the heels of her.
Aboard came Hoste, brimming with Orde’s jealous orders that no ship
should proceed to the westward. Parker buttonholed him in his cabin.

    “Captain Hoste, I believe you owe all your advancement in the
    service to my uncle Lord St. Vincent and to Lord Nelson. I am
    avoiding Sir John Orde’s squadron by desire of Lord Nelson. I
    must go on.”

Hoste stood dumb and doubting. Parker, being his senior, he could not
delay him on his own authority, and with Nelson behind him—! Parker saw
the doubt and continued: “After all, would it not be better if you were
not to meet the _Amazon_ to-night, Captain Hoste?” Silence. Hoste went
quietly over the side and back to his own ship in the moonlight. He had
not met the _Amazon_. Mahan tells this story finely, but it is something
to have heard of the Villeneuve chase from a man who took part in it.

It would be a gallant tale to write the incidents of that long cruise
with its seemingly unsuccessful ending. Yet not unsuccessful, for it
prepared and paved the way for the struggle of giants to follow, and the
English people knew it and hailed him as the conqueror he was when he
returned for his brief three weeks’ respite to England before the last
and greatest struggle of Trafalgar.

Portsmouth, London, surged about him. What did Lady Hamilton or anything
matter where their hero, their darling, was concerned?

“I met Nelson in a mob at Piccadilly!” said Minto, “and got hold of his
arm, so that I was mobbed too. It is really quite affecting to see the
wonder and admiration and love and respect of the whole world. It is
beyond anything represented in a play or in a poem of fame.”

Beyond everything. The instinct was true, was right. Because he had not
the evil skill to hide that one fall in his great life as a wickeder man
would have done with easy hypocrisy, was he—their Nelson—to be
scorned? God forbid, they thought and said. But, oh—but, oh, that it
had been for a worthier woman! The inadequacy of the divinity to the
sacrifice is what breaks the heart in this story. Yet be she what she
might, one is glad to remember that those three weeks at Merton were
happy. His old father had gone to his reward, but the rest of the family
clustered about him, his little Horatia there and Emma radiating
sunshine. Even Minto, who could not abide her, owns that. “She is a
clever being after all; the passion is as hot as ever.” Yes, and a
driving force that neither Minto nor any other could estimate—a passion
to be justified before earth and Heaven.

He knew that any moment might part them—he savoured every instant as
its sweetness touched his lips. And yet, almost before it seemed
possible, the call came. Could he, the beloved and trusted of the whole
nation, hesitate, when it was known that the French Fleet had been seen
off Cadiz? Not he. Emma was swooning and weeping all over the dinner
table, according to Minto. Nelson’s passion was burning in a clear white
flame that admitted of no outward expression of emotion. His farewell to
her no human eye saw, but by the little Horatia’s bed he knelt and
prayed while she slept. She it was who sanctified that bond to
him—God’s blessing made visible in a little child.

Death was approaching and he knew it, and in the solemn twilight of that
great presence all his feelings took on a majesty far removed from the
tumult of days not long gone by. He wrote in his intimate journal:

    “At 10.30 drove from dear, dear Merton where I left all which I
    hold dear in this world to go and serve my King and country. May
    the great God whom I adore enable me to fulfil the expectations
    of my country; and if it is His good pleasure that I should
    return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the
    Throne of His Mercy. If it is His good Providence to cut short
    my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying
    that Pie will protect those so dear to me that I may leave
    behind. His will be done.” He closed with a triple Amen.

So Emma, leaning from the window, choked with sobs, saw the night enfold
him in its darkness. He was but forty-seven—so much before him yet! So
much to hope and to do. In that moment surely nothing was left of her
but what was purely womanly, though her easy tears dried soon.

He joined the _Victory_ elate but calm. The Admiralty, realizing the
battle of the giants to be, had invited him to name his own officers.
What! And cast a slur on those he might not choose? That would not be
Nelson? He replied:

“Choose yourselves, my Lords. The same spirit actuates the whole
profession. You cannot choose wrong.” Nor could they. He and the nation
alike owned it. The Fleet owned it. They knew who led them, and when the
signal flew from masthead to masthead from the watchful inshore frigates
to Nelson fifty miles at sea off Spartel, “The enemy are coming out of
port,” there was not a heart but beat steadily with a calm confidence in
the man set over them not only by the Admiralty but by the Almighty.

Once more and for the last time Nelson confronted Napoleon in the person
of his combined fleets of France and Spain.

The story of Trafalgar is not one for the pen of a romancer, for the
more simply the stern and glorious truth is told, the more it raises the
human imagination to its own great heights. Yet certain pictures arise
and wring the soul with their humanity. And these may be spoken of, for
the feet of the true Romance tread near indeed to God.

Nelson, writing the famous codicil to his will in which he committed
Emma and his child as a sacred trust to the nation, causing its
attestation by the signatures of his two old friends Blackwood and
Hardy, and setting beneath this the solemn sentence, “In sight of the
combined fleets of France and Spain, distant about ten miles.”

Nelson watching the removal of the bulkheads of his cabin for action
and, as they displaced her picture, bidding them: “Take care of my
guardian angel.”

An officer, hastening to speak to him with a petition for a post of
danger and glory, but halting, seeing the Admiral on his knees in the
dismantled cabin, writing—his last words, his last prayer—and
withdrawing in a reverence that would not break his solemn communion.

    “May the great God whom I worship grant to my country and for
    the benefit of Europe in general a great and glorious victory
    and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it, and may humanity
    after victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet.
    For myself individually I commit my life to Him who made me, and
    may His blessing light on my endeavours for serving my country
    faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is
    entrusted to me to defend.”

And again the triple Amen. And so he went on deck.

The glorious signal of England’s certain expectation from her sons, the
stately advance of the fleets into action, Collingwood’s _Royal
Sovereign_ leading, as all the ships of the three nations to be engaged
chivalrously and by one impulse hoisted their flags in haughty and
dignified salute. What a sight to linger forever in the world’s memory!

Then Nelson flew the signal for close action and turned to
Blackwood—“Now I can do no more. We must trust to the great Disposer of
Events.” Blackwood, returning to his ship, took his hand. “God bless
you, Blackwood,” he said, “I shall never speak to you again.” And even
as Blackwood left the _Victory_ the first shot tore through her
maintopgallant sail, and the battle was begun.

These are the pictures that rise amid the hell of flame and smoke. So,
in great moments when the littleness of the vanishing world is apparent,
men fling themselves on the Unseen, the Mighty, surrounding us as the
unplumbed sea girdles the earth. And through these, at last, when he
lay, wounded to death, Nelson attained to look upon the beginnings of
peace.

War thundered about him—“Oh, Victory, Victory, how you distract my poor
brain”—and yet, through the roar of the guns, a stealing quiet can be
discerned.

It was Victory in another sense also—triumph that he must carry with
him for he could not live to taste it. Hardy, now in command, hurrying
from the bloody deck, gave him the glad news of victory almost beyond
hope, eventual ruin to Napoleon and safety to England. He heard it and
rejoiced; then, gasping:

“Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy. Take care of poor Lady
Hamilton.”

And then, in the strange loneliness of death, like a child, the great
Admiral said: “Kiss me, Hardy”—the last token of human love, vanishing,
vanishing in the Eternal. And Hardy stooped and kissed him and once more
took his station on deck, never again to meet his friend in life.

He was sinking rapidly now. To the chaplain: “I have _not_ been a
_great_ sinner—” and after a short pause, “_Remember._ I leave Lady
Hamilton and my daughter as a legacy to my country. Never forget
Horatia.”

Nearer, nearer, came the end, and at last even those beloved names faded
and passed from the mirror of his mind and were gone, and only the two
which were one remained, and the man, bending above him to lose nothing,
heard only “God and my Country,” as he passed away into the inmost of
his country’s love and remembrance, and higher—higher.

After that scene and when the threads must be gathered up, it is surely
impossible to write anything condemnatory or slighting of the beautiful
woman whom such a man had loved. With him her romance ended, and she
became a tragic triviality. Let others follow her sinking star through
all its sorrowful clouding—I cannot.

For Nelson, Trafalgar was the crowning mercy, the glorious reward of a
life of self-devotion scarcely to be paralleled. Had he lived, it is
said that blindness must have been his fate, and perhaps a yet more
cruel clear-sightedness where he might well have prayed to be blind
forever, for she had been tested by her attitude to his wife and had
failed—a tragic failure that must have marred all their future. But he
died with his faith unbroken.

Surely his great belief uplifts her and, washing all the stains away,
leaves her fair face pure beauty in our memory, as Romney, who also
loved her, has given it to us forever. To whom little is given, of them
shall little be required, and she had little enough in her young days
when character is unalterably moulded for life.

As for judgment on him—Heaven forbid! The cruelty to his wife is
patent, but not the circumstances which led up to it. Nor her
compensations. It was not all loss. If she had ever envied Emma her
great husband’s love, Emma had cause to envy her also.

When the day of their final separation came, this was Nelson’s last
farewell to his wife: “I call God to witness there is nothing in you or
your conduct I wish otherwise.” Let that be set against the bitternesses
with which the other influence inspired his generous heart.

I stood by her tomb in Littleham Churchyard, Devon, not many years ago
and read its proud legend: “Frances, Viscountess Nelson, Duchess of
Bronte.” So she bore his name unsullied to the grave. She lived her days
in peace in the family of her son, tenderly cared for by those who loved
her. Here is her portrait by one who knew her well: “If mildness,
forbearance and indulgence to the weaknesses of human nature could have
availed her, her fate might have been very different. No reproach ever
passed her lips. You should know the worth of her who has been so often
misrepresented from the wish of many to cast the blame anywhere but on
him who was so deservedly dear to the nation.”

Deservedly dear indeed, and most dear to her also. Many waters cannot
quench love. Her grandchild remembered and recorded how she would take
her husband’s miniature from a preciously treasured casket and kiss it
and lay it back, and how in her low voice she would say: “You too,
little Fan, may one day know what it is to have a broken heart,” with
the gentle sweetness of nature that lived in the child’s memory. This
lady, too, had had her battle and had conquered.

What room is there for judgment? These things are beyond us. There was
gold in Emma also, with all her evil. Her devotion to her poor
lowly-born old mother, unfaltering in riches and poverty, is a flower
that time cannot wither, and there was the quick passion for courage and
high deeds, and the generous hand in giving. England owes her a debt for
the beacon fire of sympathy which lit Nelson’s way across stormy seas—a
debt she never paid, but should not forget. There is a sullied splendour
about the woman which makes her rememberable where women greater and
better are forgotten, a warm humanity, which pleads for her eternally
and must until Nelson’s own name is drifted over with the remorseless
sands of time.

If it is possible to imagine some world where love in pure essence
seeking its source immortal is one, it may be believed that the love of
these two women, so strangely different in character and circumstances,
may, at last united, heal his wounds and draw him forever to the heart
of the Beautiful made manifest in each of them. For Love is eternal, and
who shall judge his way in the deep waters?

                                THE END




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES

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