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Title: Patriotic Lady Author: Marjorie Bowen * A Project Gutenberg Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0800711h.html Language: English Date first posted: July 2008 Date most recently updated: July 2008 Project Gutenberg Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
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It has been impossible to write this study of Emma, Lady Hamilton, without touching upon subjects which are extremely controversial. It is not within the scope of this book, however, to attempt to revive disputes and arguments which have long since been worn threadbare, and which concern not so much matters of fact as matters of opinion. Many writers who have dealt with the career of Emma, Lady Hamilton, have set themselves the task, not of discovering the truth, but of making out a case according to personal prejudice. The works given in the bibliography at the end of this volume cover the whole range of opinions held, and judgments given, by Italian, French, Austrian and English writers on the end of the Revolution in Naples in 1799. Any reader who doubts the accuracy or fairness of the present writer's version of this event is referred to the works of these authorities, all of which are easily procurable.
It must be added, however, that these writers differ considerably in their points of view and their knowledge, are often confused by passion, or are deliberately inaccurate through prejudice; therefore all, or nearly all, the evidence must be read, if an impartial judgment is to be formed on matters that have caused such bitter emotions and such fierce differences of opinion.
It is useless, for instance, to read Nelson and the Neapolitan Jacobins by H. C. Gutheridge, without reading Lady Hamilton et la Révolution de Naples by Joseph Turquan and Jules d'Auriac, in which the English author's points are carefully dealt with, and his arguments often refuted. Further, it is impossible to understand the situation and sentiments of the Patriots of Naples and the Italian point of view without being acquainted with the Jacobins' own statements and the opinions of Italian historians, which may be found embodied in the writings of Vincenzo Cuoco, Francesco Lomanaco, Carlo Botta, P. Colletta, and G. M. Arrighi, and in those of two modern Italian scholars of the first rank, who have made impartial and patient researches into the history of the Novantanove; Benedetto Croce and Pasquale Villari. The latter, in his Nelson, Caracciolo, la Rivoluzione di Napoli, published in Discussioni critiche Discorsi, gives a masterly summing up of the whole controversy and of the works of all the writers who have discussed the questions raised by the part played by the English in the Bourbon reaction.
Another cool and detached account of the affair is given by Professor Huefer in his article La fin de la Republique Napolitaine, published in Nos. 83-84 of La Revue Historique de Paris, and a useful book is that published under the same title as Professor Villari's essay, by F. Lemmi, Florence, 1898.
Mr. David Hannay, in his edition of Southey's Life of Nelson, is conspicuous for his fairness in dealing with the Neapolitan episode, while the chapter on Caracciolo, in J. Cordy Jeafferson's Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson, may be cited as an example of the kind of writing that has too often misled the English reader as to the characters and events of Naples in 1799.
In conclusion, some words of personal explanation may be added. As very little is known of Emma Hamilton before 1782, this account of her life begins in that year, and references to her early youth are given as rumours or gossip only. It is most likely that there was much truth in these tales--some such life as they indicate Amy Lyon must have led--but the evidence for this part of her career is flimsy and contradictory and many of the well-known anecdotes of her early life rest on very doubtful authority.
For the same reason several often-repeated stories relating to Lady Hamilton have been omitted from the later part of the book, but there is sufficient authentic material available from which to construct a portrait of this woman, remarkable in herself and extraordinary in her life and adventures.
M. BOWEN.
16, QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, LONDON, S.W.
July, 1935.
CONTENTS: FOREWORD I - HERO'S REWARD 1. THE MAKING OF A BEAUTY 2. THE MAKING OF A GREAT LADY II - RULE BRITANNIA 1. THE VICTORS 2. THE PATRIOTS III - HERO'S LEGACY 1. THE SAILOR'S RETURN 2. MORALIZING STARS AND PREACHING TOMBS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX [Not included in this ebook]
It has been said that Cupid writes his epistles on the leaves of a ledger; at any rate this quarrel was about money.
The great difference between the lovers was that, whereas Sir Harry could pay for at least some of his pleasures, Amy was penniless. So, when the final quarrel came, the girl, who had only her personal charms, was utterly defeated by the young man who had birth, a title, relations, friends and property.
The easy-going rake, who knew the ways of his world, certainly expected to have to pay in cash for five months of amorous felicity with t he pretty creature who had such a lively tongue and such gay romping ways. But the bills were too high and came in far too frequently. Five guineas for coach hire! This was a piece of insolence not to be endured; and there were the milliners, dressmakers, haberdashers, all clamorous for their dues, and the house-keeping had reached t hose crazy figures which are only possible when a fashionable young bachelor entertains boon companions and ladies of the town.
Sir Harry protested sharply that he was ruined and that the fault lay with his wild, giddy mistress. She retorted insolently with t he assurance of the petted toy whose impertinent follies had always been applauded.
But Sir Harry was in no mood to laugh at her flounces and grimaces; with the revulsion following infatuation he felt that the girl was not worth what she was costing him; even if he could afford so extravagant a companion, would it be worth while to empty his purse to pay the expenses of a creature whose favours he must share with all his friends?
In his opinion Amy had behaved exactly like the flower of the gutter she was, and to the gutter she might return.
He was, besides, tired of her, sick of the long debauch of which Up Park had been the scene during the autumn and winter, jaded with the drink, the gambling, the din of the disorderly women, the tipsy men, the confusion arising from bad service, the nagging visits from duns, the insolence of unpaid servants.
Amy played into his hands by losing her temper, by tossing her head and answering him in the rustic Welsh accent of which he was tired; he replied brutally, and they shouted, one at the other, amid the litter of the fashionable room in the smart mansion which occupied a hollow of the South Downs.
Bottles, decanters and glasses cumbered the sideboards, packs of fingered cards piled the small tables, wheezing lap-dogs sat on soiled lace caps and kerchiefs, flung over satin chairs; dirty clay pipes, tobacco-pouches, snuff-boxes, crowded the coquettish ornaments on the mantel shelf; there were fowling-pieces in one corner, whips in another, a basket of pups under the desk, a gross dog, smelling of the stable, before the log fire--and everywhere a confusion of unpaid bills--un odor di femina.
Amy, in stiff silks overtrimmed and gaudy, with stale powder dotted in her heavy hair, holes in her stockings and kicked-out shoes, with unpaid-for lace across her bosom, and a black velvet patch to show off a complexion not well cared for, held her own with coarse words, with violent gestures, maintaining her right as a young, seductive female, to spend what she pleased, to do as she pleased.
"Not at my expense," was the burden of Sir Harry's reply, as he lounged sulkily beneath pictures discreetly curtained even in that establishment, against the case of books the indecencies of which had long been staled by thumbings over.
The baronet's polished exterior had once seemed very attractive to Amy; he had all the easy airs of his class and could be elegant when with ladies, but he took a gentleman's privilege and was crude enough with females who lived--as the term went--under his protection. When Amy, in a passion at his refusal to submit to her tantrums, screamed out that she would fling out of his house--he said that she not only might, but must, go.
She could be packed off more easily than could a maidservant as she was without the written law. The right of appeal to the unwritten law she had, in her lover's opinion, forfeited, when, in return for her keep and her amusements, she had not given even a brief fidelity.
With such a mood on either side the scene could have but one ending; the pretty young girl tossed out of the dishevelled mansion which had been, for nearly half a year, a slut's paradise, and her whilom lover warned her not to return. In the brutal phrase of the time, she was turned out of keeping.
Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh saw her departure with relief. She was noisy, she was common, she was expensive, she was losing her figure and he was weary of her bright, pretty face, her cheerful ignorance, and the quick insolence with which she picked up the vices and the airs that belonged properly to gentlefolk.
Amy's temper soon cooled when she found herself shut out of Up Park; she was good-humoured and had meant no harm by the outburst of rage that had cost her so dear. Once the gates of that dishevelled mansion were closed on her, she realized that she had forfeited an existence perfectly agreeable to her tastes.
What could have been pleasanter than that slipshod life where dozens of wax-candles guttered over the baize cloth, where guineas glittered and cards were piled in the evening, where satin curtains kept out the daylight in the morning while a lazy girl lay cosy in cambric and down! A life where there were gentlemen to kiss, to jest with, to banter and flatter; raised pies and spiced jellies to eat, champagne and fine red wine to drink! A life where, at the cost of a few tears, a few caresses, a pout, a jest, a girl might have shawls, gauzes, feathers and frocks. Yes, a poor girl who knew all about poverty and hard work, who had been a servant on a Welsh farm, who had toiled in a London basement, might, at Up Park, enjoy all that ever gilded a kitchen-maid's dreams, just in return for being pleasant to the gentlemen. Amy began to see that she had been very wrong; she was quite ashamed of herself as she trudged to the turn in the bleak road where she must meet and stop the London coach.
It was the dead time of year, when English scenery is veiled and forbidding, when English towns are grey and chill, when a poor girl wants to be cherished indoors, in a warm bed, close to a roaring fire, with good food, glasses of wine, songs and games in the evenings and milliners' boxes in the mornings.
No doubt there were other gallants besides Sir Harry, who would offer consolation to Amy Lyon, but there was a good reason why she should not engage in active adventure; for a few months at least she needed shelter and a quiet life.
She possessed only the clothes she stood up in and a few pounds, won at cards the night before, in her pocket; she thought of her mother, the comfortable widow, discreet and obliging, who was always able to earn her keep, if not much beside, with her excellent cooking; but Amy did not want to appeal to Mrs. Lyon, who had only a servant's wages to dispose of and could do nothing; besides had not the good mother given her some hints on how to handle gentlemen? How disappointed she would be to hear of her daughter's mistake! Amy was very fond of her mother and did not want her to know the failure she had made of her splendid chance at Up Park. One other resource remained to the distracted damsel, the old grandmother who, in her mud-and-wattle cottage set in the dull street of the Flintshire village, had once before proved a friend to a girl in distress.
Amy was already, at nineteen years of age, used to ups and downs, and had developed the simple philosophy of enjoying the former to the full and making the best of the latter. So she paid out her remaining stock of money for coach fare to Hawarden, where Dame Kidd looked after a dark little girl whose origin was a matter for gossip among the neighbours.
Amy knew and detested that Welsh village; she had been born at Neston in Cheshire and when she was three years old her mother, widow of Henry Lyon, blacksmith, had come to Hawarden to share the poverty of Dame Kidd's white-washed cottage, where the continuous mists from the gaunt moorlands soaked the thatch and stained the plaster, and the frequent rains spluttered on the one fire and slashed at the dirty panes of the windows shadowed by the eaves.
To this miserable refuge the downcast girl returned because there was nowhere else to go and her grandmother knew it; they kissed and cried together; there was no need to ask for explanations, the case was obvious. Amy Lyon sat down in her draggled silks and wondered what she should do, while the dark-eyed toddling child in the red shawls eyed her curiously.
Dame Kidd regretted the fallen fortunes of her pretty grandchild who did not seem to know how to make the most of her opportunities, but she uttered no reproaches; the three women had lived together good-humouredly in the lazy squalor of a Welsh peasant's life until Mrs. Lyon had gone to London to better herself, and Amy had followed soon after, seeking the fabled glories of the capital with the high heart of ignorant youth.
And here she was, returned for the second time without a penny in her soiled pockets and with tears in her handsome eyes. What was to be done?
The old woman and the girl faced one another in some dismay in the flicker of the scanty, cherished fire.
Amy could not be considered to have made a wise investment of her charms; on her previous visit to Flintshire she had borne the swarthy child who now clung to her silk skirts and clutched at her fingers. She was evasive about the father of this uninteresting infant. Dame Kidd understood that he had been a sailor on a pressgang ship at the Tower Wharf in London, the captain, Amy had hinted--but what did it matter? He had sailed away without leaving Amy a farthing and was quite outside the present calculations, which centred round the fact that in two months' time Amy would again be the mother of an unwanted child; nor was the delicate question of the paternity of the coming infant likely to be settled to the satisfaction of Amy, who, with tears, regrets, and a few outbursts against her ill luck, confessed to Dame Kidd that she had been so very wild and giddy at Up Park, had so romped and gambolled, been so anxious to please all the gentlemen that it was useless to expect any one of them to assume the responsibility for her trouble.
The poor cottage, the long, narrow, village street, with the squalid inn, the forge, the tiny post office, the wide moors beyond, the scattered farms, the straggling flocks of fat-tailed, silly-faced sheep, all blurred and sodden in the wet grey winter weather, depressed Amy's spirits to a melancholy most unusual to her cheerful temperament; she felt as desperate as if she had been thrown into a lazar-house or Cold Bath Fields Prison. She wept for all she had so suddenly left, the warmth, the food, the drink, the games and caresses, the lazy ease of hours spent before a mirror, lolling on a sofa or flinging cards on the table where the rouleaux of guineas were piled.
Dame Kidd had no consolation to offer; she knew that Amy's plight was a common case. In the better farms hung series of cheap prints that told a story with a moral. One of these might have been Amy's story--at least in the first stages. There was a harsh title to these pictures, the first of which showed the fresh, smiling country-girl descending from the coach that had arrived in London from the provinces, looking about her on the bustle of London, all agog for fun and soft living and a fine young man to praise her and pay her bills. Even so had Amy at sixteen years of age tripped for the first time through the dubious London streets, nosing after pleasure.
Very quickly, both in Amy's case, and in that of the pictured belle, was the rich protector found--such fresh charms are easily marketed. There, in the print, she might be seen behaving as Amy had behaved at Up Park, fashionably dressed, pampered, petulant, kicking over the tea-table in a tantrum under her lover's nose.
If Amy were not very careful, she might fulfil the destiny so graphically depicted in the first episodes of this savage warning to jolly country-girls eager for town delights, she too might come to beat hemp in Bridewell, to lie in a pauper's coffin with "anno vicesimo tertio aetatis suae" on the cheap lid.
The way of virtue was not only closed to her but exceedingly distasteful; she knew what it was to be a nursemaid in a Welsh farm, in the house of a fashionable London doctor, in decent establishments, where mistresses were careful of their maids' reputation; it would be quite impossible for her to return to so odious an existence--a scrubbing-brush would be no more incongruous in the hands of a nymph of Paphos than a serving-wench's cap on the well-set head of Amy Lyon.
Nor did it seem as if she would be welcomed back to the path of discretion and peace; Dame Kidd's neighbours looked askance at the returned prodigal; the girls who in homespun shawls had once herded sheep with her on the moors, sneered at the town finery that had so soon become soiled, that looked so foolish in the wattled cottage; married women who kept their own daughters respectable, wanted to know who was the teasing baby who ran after Dame Kidd and who was sometimes kissed and sometimes slapped by the despondent Amy.
Only one thing seemed possible in such a plight, an appeal to the late protector, who might surely be won round from his ill-humour by cajolery, by entreaties, as he had been won before.
Amy had learned, when in London, to read a little, to spell a little, and she sat down in despair and wrote to Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh seven letters, one after another; the gossips lounging at the village post office grinned when they read the superscription and sniggered as the days went by without a reply. In the seven unanswered letters was all her story.
Amy Lyon had learned some other things besides how to misspell a love-letter; she had gathered a miscellaneous knowledge of the ways of the world from the city streets, and at Up Park she had found she had a good seat in the saddle, a quick hand with the cards, a ready tongue to answer impudent gentlemen in their cups and the insolence to order servants about as she had once been ordered. There she had learned to like champagne, dainty food, silk next to her skin and luxurious beds, to replace the slang of the kitchen by the slang of the aristocrat, the jargon of the tavern by the jargon of the stable, and the gambling-room; she had learned the intimate details of the private lives of English gentlemen taking their ease. There, too, she had learned that these same gentlemen, however spendthrift and gay they might be, however reckless with their bets, their stakes, however extravagant in self-indulgence, yet objected strangely when the bills came in and were not prepared to ruin their fortunes for the sake even of the prettiest and most harming dears.
Amy, in the gloom of the Hawarden cottage, where a farthing dip was the only light in the winter evenings, and a child and an old woman her sole company, bitterly repented of her mistake. The seven letters were full of humility, of pleas for pardon, of promises for the future; never, oh! never, would she be wild and giddy again, never do anything so outrageous as run up a bill of five guineas for carriage hire. But the letters remained unanswered and Amy thought of one of the other gentlemen who had shared those pleasant parties at Up Park--one a little stiff and proud--who had never been really jolly nor roaring drunk, nor had joined in the most reckless amusements, but who had, nevertheless, shown himself susceptible to her enticements, her whims and ways.
She considered him more than a little formidable with his cold face and precise air and his hint of a sneer at the coarse frivolity of his friends, but for these very reasons she respected him--besides she knew that he had his yielding moments--if only he would deign to remember now how she had sometimes, when Sir Harry's luck was turned, known how to please him when he was a guest at Up Park. He had given her a franked envelope addressed to himself; there was hope in that. In her distress, struggling with poor scholarship, she wrote a letter, put it in the envelope addressed to the Hon. Charles Greville at Portman Square, London. It was answered with non-committal kindness and Amy wrote again in the last days of the year. She signed this frantic appeal with the romantic version of Amy which she had picked up in her adventures--Emily, the favourite name of circulating-library heroines, and Hart, a tender allusion to the warm emotions she felt and aroused.
This letter was undated, but endorsed with:
"Recd. Jan. 10, '82."
"My Dear Grevell,
"Yesterday did I receive your kind letter. It put me in some spirits; for, believe me, I am allmost distrackted. I have never hard from Sir H., and he is not at...now, I am sure. What shall I dow? Good God! What shall I dow? I have wrote 7 letters, and no answer. I can't come to town caus I (am) out of money. I have not a farthing to bless my self with, and I think my friends looks cooly on me. I think so. O Grevell, what shall I dow? what shall I dow? O how your letter affected me, when you wished me happiness. O G, that I was in your posesion as I was in Sr H--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 sake, (Grevell) write the minet you get this, and only tell me what I am to dow...I am allmos mad. O, for God's sake, tell me what is to become on me. O dear Grevell, write to me. Grevell adue, and believe (me) yours for ever--Emly Hart.
"Don't tell my mother what distress I am in, and dow aford me some comfort."
Mr. Charles Greville was gratified to receive this letter; he had not forgotten Emily Hart; he had often congratulated himself on the knowledge and cleverness that had, on so many occasions, enabled him to secure a treasure cheaply. He was used to bargaining for his pleasures, for he was a poor man of elegant tastes, a collector of objets d'art, a Maecaenas with a flat purse.
It had amused him to notice Sir Harry's blunder about Amy Lyon; the stupid young baronet had picked her up and turned her off, just as if she had been a mere good-for-nothing off the streets, and Mr. Greville knew that she was a great deal more than that. Sir Harry and the crew at Up Park had thought Amy merely pretty--like any other girl who could be had for the asking. And so perhaps she was in the silly finery that she did not know how to wear, with her hair stuck with pomade, rouge and white on her face, her rustic accent and loud voice; but Mr. Greville was an expert, he could detect a masterpiece even under a smear of thick disfiguring varnish, he could recognize the gem even before it was cut and polished.
He laughed in his sleeve at Sir Harry and answered the letter of the girl in distress, not, however, impetuously, nor with the least touch of impudence, nor with any disloyalty to his sex or his class. Amy had behaved badly, even though he had received some benefit from her naughtiness, and must be scolded. Sir Harry had been injured in a way he could not be expected to overlook--infidelity and extravagance, insolence and ingratitude! Amy had much to learn and Mr. Greville was quite willing to teach her; he believed she would be docile; he smiled over the sentence: "O. G. that I was in your posesion as I was in Sr. H. what a happy girl would I have been."
Well, he was willing to see what he could make of Amy Lyon, but there must be reform, a proper bargain; he loathed establishments like those of Up Park and liked every penny of his income accounted for; he wrote to Amy in a tone of gentle reprimand; nothing must be expected from Sir Harry, least of all an acknowledgment of the unlucky child--but, if she were patient, penitent and promised good behaviour for the future, he, Charles Greville, would generously assist a naughty girl in distress.
Amy accepted the gracious offer with passionate gratitude--she would have accepted something much less inviting in order to escape from the monotony, the poverty, the hostility of Hawarden; her spirits soared at the prospect of London again; she was ready to promise anything.
Two months after her hasty retreat to Dame Kidd's cottage, Amy's second child was born without drawing breath; no one had wanted it to live, least of all the mother who found her little girl a sufficiently difficult problem; but Greville was equal to that difficulty--let the child remain with Dame Kidd, who should receive a small allowance for her keep.
Charles Greville was the second son of the Earl of Warwick; his party being in power, a small post had been found for him in the Foreign Office. It was not quite good enough for a second son of an earl, who was always on the look out for a plump sinecure--since it was a mere £500 a year; but better things might be looked for; if Mr. Greville's Government friends were not able to find him something more worthy of his merits, he had two pleasant prospects; his uncle Sir William Hamilton, a rich and childless widower, had taken him under his wing and had half promised to make him his heir. Then, whenever he chose, Mr. Greville, elegant, personable, well connected, could follow this same uncle's example and marry a woman with a comfortable income.
In the meanwhile he arranged his life with fastidious selfishness, so as to obtain the utmost satisfaction for himself out of his means and opportunities. He had remarked Amy Lyon among the disorders of Up Park and had had the curiosity to acquaint himself with her circumstances, but he did not know much of how she had spent the time since she had come to London; rumour credited her with many adventures and Mr. Greville was surprised that she could have found time for such varied experiences; she seemed so young. He wrote to her for a copy of the entry of the record of her birth, and received that of her baptism.
"Amy, daughter of Henry Lyon, blacksmith, of Neston, by Mary his wife, May 12th, 1765."
There were two crosses, one for the father, one for the mother. Flow old had Amy been when she was baptized? Mr. Greville did not pursue his enquiries further--it was sufficient that Amy was very young--say, nineteen years old.
Nor was he much interested in learning of her adventures; she had been a nursemaid with a Mrs. Thomas in Hawarden, a servant in the employ of the fashionable and successful Dr. Budd, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in the well-kept establishment his wife ran in Blackfriars--what then?
Employment in a tavern, in a shop, a brief sojourn with a lady of the half-world, adorning a shoddy salon, an even briefer episode as the companion of a sailor on leave, a mother at seventeen or less, an exhibit in the Temple of Hymen run by Dr. Graham in the Adelphi and Holborn.
Mr. Greville was not sure if the lovely Vestina, standing in a glass case feeding a serpent from a cup, had really been Amy Lyon; was she the fair female who had advertised the properties of the beautifying mudbath, by sitting in it up to her shoulders, her smiling face surrounded by a structure of powdered curls, braids of false pearls, rose feathers and velvet flowers?
Had the Welsh servant-girl played Hebe Vestina in this dubious temple where the virtues of the Electrical Throne and the Celestial Bed were demonstrated--in the words of the charlatan's advertisement--to the "Amateurs des délices exquises de Venus"? If she had assisted at these catch-penny shows where quackery and science were impudently mingled, it was odd that she had not secured a more useful admirer than the commonplace Sussex baronet from the crowd of leering spectators.
Mr. Greville did not trouble to investigate further his charmer's past--it was her future that was to be his concern. With a delibration that was almost solemn Amy Lyon was installed in Edgeware Row, there to live under the protection of the Hon. Charles Greville--upon terms which he sternly dictated and she humbly accepted.
There was to be no more wildness and giddiness, no more tempers and whims, above all, no extravagance. Amy must forget her common ways, her coarse language, she must lower her voice, restrain her gestures, drop any vulgar acquaintances who might claim her from the past, she must be very careful, very quiet, faithful and docile.
Amy promised everything; she was anxious to put herself in the hands of this kind master; she arrived from Hawarden rosy with retrieved health and brilliant with good resolutions.
The austere country life, the pure moorland air had renewed the charms that had been slightly tarnished in the close atmosphere of Up Park; far from modish shops Amy had not been able to purchase tinsel or patches, gewgaws or pomade; the finery for which Sir Harry had paid, had been shorn of tattered trimmings and turned about into a neat, plain garment; Mr. Greville was pleased with his blooming prize when she stood modestly before him in the neat house off Paddington Green.
This was no little bounding rustic agape for crude adventure, but rather a tender dryad fresh from the woodlands; she had an air of candour that Mr. Greville found as gratifying as astonishing--with a little more training she might be made to appear positively virginal. Mr. Greville, most suave of dilettantes, looked Amy up and down through his quizzing glass.
The expert was pleased with his purchase, lucky as he was, never had he made such a good bargain.
It was decided that Amy Lyon should be forgotten and that Emma Hart should take her place--a new name for a new part and a blotting out of a past that it might not be convenient to recall. Emma, then, to Mr. Greville, and Miss Hart to whatever world there might be for the mistress of an aristocratic civil servant to move in.
Alexander Pope wrote--"out of a handmaiden we must make a Helen" and Charles Greville set himself zealously to make a Beauty out of a pretty Welsh peasant somewhat blown upon by town airs.
First, he set his house in order; he could not afford a mistress and a housekeeper, and Amy was impossible for the latter role, so, by a stroke of careful art, Mr. Greville added Mary Lyon to the establishment, a trained manager of genteel households, an excellent cook, a duenna whose personal interest would be in guarding her charge, a factotum who would be economical and grateful.
She came eagerly, humble and thankful, dropping her curtsey, promising obedience to Mr. Greville, a strict watch over Amy, a stern eye to the pence; since there must be no connection with any little errors that might be associated with the name of Lyon, Amy's facile parent was re-named Mrs. Cadogan; two maidservants were engaged, one at nine pounds, and one at eight pounds a year, and the elegant faux ménage was complete.
Mr. Greville moved from Portman Square and rented a modest brick house, which stood in Paddington near the spot where the rich outlines of the baroque church showed attractively incongruous on the prim sweep of the village-green; it had a neat secluded garden, looked on trees back and front; the neighbours were quiet, genteel, and not too close, the tradesmen conveniently at hand and obsequious, as befitted those who served an Earl's son who paid cash--at least for his smaller needs.
The interior of the house was well kept and contained some treasures, the result of Mr. Greville's fine taste and careful buying. The panelled walls were dark and the furniture had a masculine severity, walnut and mahogany without cushions or fripperies, but in the parlour was a Correggio where the tones of the hyacinth and the violet, the May rose and the Italian skies melted on the canvas in voluptuous harmony. This was balanced by a modern masterpiece that Mr. Greville had obtained cheaply, a work by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of the Royal Academy, of which a story was told to set the gossips sniggering.
Emily Bertie had engaged the fashionable artist, whose prices had lately risen, to paint her portrait, had paid half the fee--seventy-eight guineas--in advance and given Sir Joshua several sittings when some crisis in her domestic affairs caused the lady to change her plans abruptly, and her portrait remained unfinished in the studio. Such was too often the end of the paintings of frail beauties, who lost their protectors before their features could be completely transferred to canvas. Sir Joshua, irritated by the unfinished bargain, and by hearing that Miss Bertie was sitting for George Romney, had completed the picture and sent it to the Royal Academy under the unkind title of Thais Setting Light to the Temple of Chastity at Persepolis. This direct allusion to Miss Bertie's profession amused the critics, but was considered a piece of unnecessary spite on the part of a rich man towards a fine girl who had paid him nearly a hundred guineas for which she had had no return.
Mr. Greville had enjoyed the scandal, admired the picture, asked Sir Joshua to retouch it here and there, according to his own ideals of beauty and had bought it cheaply.
Besides the Correggio and the Reynolds there were other treasures for Emma to admire, a cabinet of coins and medals, where the flattened, polished profiles of Kings, Queens, Popes and worthies gleamed in gold and silver from their padded drawers, a case of sparkling mineral specimens, that Mr. Greville valued very highly, some spoils from the vineyards of Tuscany in the shape of urns and vases, some curios from the sulphurous earth of Sicily and the lava of Vesuvius. Emma was not impressed when Mr. Greville tried to refine and widen her mind by showing her the lovely curve of an Etruscan vase, the delicate modelling of a royal medallion, or the manner in which Sir Joshua had handled his flesh tints, but when he told her that she herself might become a work of art, she began to be extremely interested, her vanity, hitherto that of any pretty wench, took a higher turn, and she saw herself, through Mr. Greville's eyes, as a potential beauty.
With gratifying intelligence she grasped the ideal he set before her, and what she must do to achieve it; her behaviour became exemplary, she watched Charles Greville with the pathetic keenness of the dancing-dog balancing on a pole and eyeing the master who has the sugar and the stick. All that Mr. Greville said was law to Emma; her quick docility gave him much pleasure and he was patient at his task, though he did not forgo long lectures, which Emma only half understood, on propriety, decorum, genteel behaviour, good taste, what was and what was not done in polished circles and by the mistresses of well-bred men.
Emma was taught to disdain finery; no tawdry ornaments, cheap showy dresses, no fard, patches, curls stretched over pads or frames, no beads nor posies; Mr. Greville chose her dresses himself, found her a dressmaker and did not allow her a single flower for her bosom or hair. He engaged masters to teach her singing, playing on the harpsichord, deportment and dancing; he encouraged her to read refined and moral books, he taught her how a gentlewoman entered a room, how she poured out tea, how she listened to the conversation of gentlemen. There were no more rich dishes nor glasses of champagne, Emma might have one half-pint of beer daily, and that was all; she must take frequent exercise, go to bed early, rise early, she must, above all, learn to consider money with respect, to lay out every farthing to the best advantage. Mrs. Cadogan helped her there with the anxiety of a woman who knew that her livelihood depended on her zeal, neither mother nor daughter ever forgot that they might be turned off at a moment's notice; Mrs. Cadogan had only to think of the kitchen basements from which she had been rescued, and Emma of that odious cottage at Hawarden, for them to redouble their efforts to please kind Mr. Greville.
No marriage could have been quite so dull in its setting; Emma saw no one outside the house beyond the tradespeople, the milliner and the dressmaker; when she went for her dutiful walks, either her mother or her lover accompanied her, when she was at home she must read an improving book or study her music, or listen to Charles Greville's discourses on manners and refinement, or admire the treasures of virtu that she did not understand.
Further, she had to keep her accounts very carefully indeed; she had an allowance of £20 a year, for her mother and herself and every item of expenditure had to be noted down; she did this dutifully, "a mangle 5d., poor man ½d., cotton and needles 9d., apples 2d."
This was all a vast change from life at Up Park, from anything that life had meant to her before; but she was not dull; she had two objects with which to fill her days, Charles Greville, the god of her little secluded universe, and the pursuit of beauty.
Her mirror assured her that she had improved under her lover's handling; her teachers assured her that she might be not only a beauty, but an accomplished beauty; she had a strong voice, sweet and powerful, she sang with an emotional stress on moods and melody that disguised the deficiency of her ear, her fingers learned to trip over the keys as quickly as they learned to move among the tea equipage of egg-shell china, beaten silver and lacquered caddy. She could strike an attitude with rather more than the usual zest and grace of the servant girl portraying a romantic heroine in a cracked mirror. Mr. Greville noticed her poses and quietly encouraged her; he bought her a plain robe, made her knot up her hair and asked her to stand in the position of one of the figurines on the orange-ochre antique vases. He was astonished at the ease and elegance with which she assumed the classic pose; he began to think that Emma Hart was even a greater bargain than he had at first supposed; surely no man had ever achieved material comfort and ecstatic delight, gratification of body and mind, at a cheaper rate. Mrs. Cadogan's exquisite little dinners were as perfect in their way as Emma's caresses--and the whole establishment including the fees of the teachers of accomplishments, cost no more than £300 a year.
Emma was touchingly happy in the charming little house, she was fonder of Charles Greville than she had been of Sir Harry, he was so much kinder, such a superior being to the sporting baronet with his low tastes; she believed her master to be vastly superior to herself, and she thought all his priggish airs and cold moralizings proofs of his wisdom and goodness. She learned from him to talk of Virtue--she did not know quite what this wonderful quality was, but she was sure that Charles Greville had it in abundance.
She had neither opportunity nor temptation to be unfaithful to her lover, but she did not wish to be; he was young, personable, flattered while he taught, caressed while he admonished, and raised her self-esteem. He had, also, with his aristocratic good looks, his charming manners, his fastidious habits captured her senses, she was as much in love with him as her nature would permit, more in love with him than his nature could understand.
By midsummer Mr. Greville had given his Emma, rescued from the scrap-heap, at least a superficial polish, and he wished to have his good taste and his labour applauded; he was in every thing a man of his world and he followed the fashionable course of taking his mistress to the studio of a popular painter in order that her charms might be immortalized in some modish guise.
So Emma, one blowing blue day, tripped along gaily to No. 32, Cavendish Square, where the formidable-looking mansions surrounded the plot of grass and gravel where coaches and link men waited and loungers gossiped by the pavement posts; Mr. Greville accompanied her and preceded her up the wide stair to the studio that had for long been the scene of the successful career of Francis Cotes, the charming portraitist and had for eight years been the workshop of George Romney.
Emma was carefully dressed, according to Mr. Greville's direction, in a long plain gown of white cambric, fastened under the bosom with a wide blue ribbon, with a low bodice and short sleeves; the line of the shoulders and bust was broken only by a light scarf, the girl's hair hung in ringlets round her neck and a wide Leghorn straw-hat, with a low crown shaded her face.
The painter was instantly and for ever enthralled by what nature and Charles Greville had made of Amy Lyon, who, under the pretty name of Emma Hart stood meekly in the large studio at Cavendish Square.
George Romney was a melancholy man gnawed by the bitter dissatisfaction of the artist who had given up everything for art and did not find it sufficient to fill his life. When Emma was brought into his presence by her complacent protector, the painter was forty-eight years of age, dark, stooping, with blunt features, and a manner shy to uncouthness.
His birth was little higher than that of the blacksmith's daughter; both were close to the English peasantry; they came, on the male side, from the same part of the country; George Romney's father had been a small statesman of Walton-in-Furness, Lancashire, who worked at cabinet-making and knew something of architecture; the painter's childhood had been passed in the North, his youth in severe study of his chosen art. He felt keenly that his lack of education, his limited social opportunities had handicapped him as both man and artist; he had married early in life a faithful woman who had borne him two children, and whom he had left behind in the North when he started out to seek his fortune in the city; that had been twenty years ago and it was fifteen years since he had revisited Mary Romney, who remained silent, with an odd patience, in the Cumberland farm that seemed so far from London.
George Romney had been successful; even when working in competition with the fashionable, genial and magnificent Sir Joshua Reynolds, he had earned enough by his portraits to enable him to travel in Italy, where he had studied his art with exhausting concentration.
The patronage of the Duke of Richmond and of Charles Greville's brother, the Earl of Warwick, had enabled him, on his return to London, to set up in the studio of Francis Cotes, and to become, with great rapidity, one of the most sought-after portraitists of the day. His life remained gloomy; apart from a few friends such as William Hayley, who flattered, pestered and bored him, and Richard Cumberland, who admired and encouraged him, he had no intimates, and he avoided acquaintances, diversions and distractions with a nervous dislike of his fellow-men and a gloomy mistrust of himself that were fast developing into hypochondria. He had toiled for years at the development of his art with a passionate, impatient industry that had brought about the achievement of a perfect, if limited technique.
Enraptured by the genius of Raphael and Titian, he remained for ever dissatisfied with his own efforts, and the studio, where Emma entered like a goddess, was littered by portfolios bulging with unfinished sketches, jottings for pictures never begun, while the walls were encumbered with incomplete canvases; some laid aside because a sitter had failed or a model not been procurable, some abandoned in mere impatience while the painter made another effort with equally short-lived enthusiasm.
He made more than a handsome income by his portraits, but the money brought him little pleasure; he was open-handed and had generously supported a talented wastrel of a brother until death had relieved him of that burden, and it concerned him little whether his portraits were paid for promptly or indeed paid for at all; and his prices never rose to more than half the fees demanded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, President of the Royal Academy, from which George Romney stood nervously aloof.
When Charles Greville took Emma to the studio in Cavendish Square, he brought much happiness to the painter and conferred a very great benefit on posterity. The Grevilles had always admired and patronized Romney who, in his Italian travels, had carried about with him a letter of introduction to Sir William Hamilton, the British Minister at Naples, written by Charles Greville but never presented by the painter, who did not go so far south; the frigid dilettante had a genuine liking for the uncouth artist with his gipsy blood, his gloomy face and his incomparable talent for depicting the robust beauty of English women and children.
Greville, who always closely supervised Emma's wardrobe, had taught her to dress in the style in which Romney painted his sitters, so that everything about his patron's mistress enchanted the artist--the girl herself and the taste with which she was set off.
George Romney fell in love with Emma, with all that Emma symbolized; he had painted many fair and charming women, but so strong was his sense of an ideal beauty that he had, perhaps, unconsciously, made these sitters look much the same when he put them on canvas.
In the case of Emma there was no need of this infidelity to nature that was fidelity to an inner vision, the girl was what all painters long to find, the ideal woman in human flesh and blood.
When Emma stepped on the model's block and under the careful directions of Charles Greville assumed her classic poses, Romney knew that he had met the creature necessary for the fullest expression of his art; she excited him as had Titian's canvases which he had seen in Venice, the Raphael masterpiece he had copied in Rome; she was at once a stimulus, an inspiration, a seal of his achievement--she would take his art as far as it could go. And Emma, reading the plain, sad man's honest rapturous delight in her charms as she posed in the becoming studio light, found herself exalted, lifted out of herself, never more to be a pretty girl, a naughty girl, a girl in distress, but for ever--a beauty.
Mr. Greville was well pleased with the success of his experiment; the enthusiasm of George Romney confirmed his own judgment, rewarded his labour, his expense; he was gratified to find himself the possessor of a Thais in the flesh who far outshone the pictured charmer whom he had been so proud to have on his walls.
Emma was more beautiful than Emily Bertie, more beautiful than any woman in town. Romney proclaimed this truth in canvas after canvas, in hundreds of sketches and drawings.
For the first time in his sombre, lop-sided life the painter was happy, for the first time in a vagrant existence the model felt self-justification, self-respect; they combined to produce works of art that were, within definite limits, flawless.
Emma embodied Romney's faults as well as his merits; she was well within his powers of achievement; she had no charm that it was not within his perception to seize on and within his skill to reproduce. He was lucky to find a model that not only inspired but flattered his art, and she was lucky to find a painter who could celebrate her beauty with complete acquiescence in its perfection.
Emma Hart, as set out by Charles Greville and painted by George Romney, was, perhaps, as completely beautiful as any woman who has ever filled a painter's imagination, and it was a beauty for every eye. She was not the woodland lily visited by moonlight loveliness of Simonetta Vespucci, celebrated by Sandro Botticelli, that some people might have found fantastic and wan, nor the high-bred grace of the Lombard ladies with the smile of the Grecian Hermes that soothed, if it did not satisfy, the yearnings of Leonardo da Vinci.
Emma's charms neither raised nor solved any problem; she was neither wistful, tormented, nor aspiring, her fine features did not hint at any world of the spirit or at any whimsy of dreams. There was nothing of an enigma in her smooth contours, no question in her eyes, no puzzle on her lips, no subtlety in anything she did or was. Therefore she was completely within the range of George Romney, who had his yearnings after poetry and fancy, after "subject" pictures and illustrations of Shakespeare and Milton, but who never was completely successful save when dealing with the obvious graces of wholesome human nature.
Emma was the type to which he had already made some of his sitters conform; an oval face, small features in exact proportion, large dark eyes under sweeping brows, a fully curved mouth, a warm complexion richly flushed with rose, a profusion of red-brown hair, falling in heavy tresses. To these rare beauties Emma added a tall, finely shaped figure with a generously rounded bust and shoulders and swift, lovely movements.
Her defects were slight; extremely young as she was, she had more the solidity of a statue than the fragility of a flower; she was large-boned and her feet were clumsy; the face was slightly too broad, the neck slightly too long.
George Romney presented her under many names but with the fewest possible accessories, a classic robe, a muslin frock, or chemise, a sash, a Leghorn hat, a scrap of cambric to embroider, a spinning-wheel by which to sit; he painted her direct from life, taking three or four sittings of an hour or so each and finishing robes, hands and details from a professional model. He never allowed his work to be touched by pupils, and worked with great rapidity, often leaving one portrait unfinished, in his haste to begin the next. In these beloved studies his painfully acquired technique was never pushed beyond its limits; in painting Emma he was always well within the bounds of what he could do, not only easily, but almost unconsciously.
Mr. Greville was highly pleased that his mistress should be painted by so admirable and fashionable an artist, and disdained any jealousy of George Romney's open infatuation for the Emma who was partly his own creation. Her lover often accompanied her to Cavendish Square, and helped to swathe the gauze round her face, to dispose the ribbons round her waist, to tilt the broad-brimmed hat over her face; often he advised this pose or that, until Emma, under his guidance and that of the painter, could herself take a pose to admiration, simulating by the position of her limbs, the turn of her head, characters she never understood, emotions she was never to experience. When Mr. Greville was occupied with his affairs or wished for the company of his social equals, Mrs. Cadogan played the duenna and accompanied her daughter, who had suddenly become so important and so precious, from Paddington to Cavendish Square; it was all very decorous, the neat civil servant liked his Thais to have the outward gloss of an English gentlewoman; there was no touch of Sal Brazen or Moll Tawdry about Emma now.
Yet, for all that, the gossips had their say; the painter was obviously in love, the profession of the model was to be pleased with those whom she pleased--by this alone she lived, and the mother who was the servant in the establishment where her daughter was the kept woman could not be supposed to be a very vigilant guardian of female fidelity or honour.
Romney, too, passed for a morose queer fellow, with a forsaken wife, whom no one had seen, who led a secretive life, who was not a gentleman nor bound by any social conventions, and who, well out of all ordinary restrictions or obligations, might do as he pleased.
Nor need Mr. Greville, who was a gentleman and had his own code, trouble himself if Emma's old giddy wildness flared up in the presence of this new admirer, a man of her own class, of something of her own experience, yet rich and famous. Think what you will, this is what the town thought, and with no peculiar cynicism--that when Emma went from Mr. Greville's house to that of George Romney, she went from one lover to another.
Why should she be more faithful to Mr. Greville than to any of her former lovers, and why should George Romney resist the charms that had never been resisted before? There might be reasons but they were not on the surface and the question was one of little matter; what was important was that a beauty had been created and endowed with as much immortality as ever falls to the lot of mortals.
While Emma, who continued to behave herself to her master's liking, to study music and water-colour drawing, to keep her accounts, and to lead a very modest life in Edgeware Row, Romney painted her in at least thirty completed canvases. To these he gave haphazard titles; classicism was the fashion, and Emma's features were superbly classic, so Romney, with a little smattering of knowledge, named the poses Cassandra, Bacchante, Diana, Euphrosyne, Alope or Ariadne. She was Sensibility; she was painted as the Spinstress and The Seamstress, and knew how to imitate the modesty she had never known and the industry she detested. She was painted as a Wood-nymph, as Saint Cecilia, as The Comic Muse, as Nature, with a dog, with a goat, with a gazelle, in the Welsh hat of her mother's country-women, and simply as Emma. This last is the just title of all her portraits; the fancy labels make little difference, it was always Emma, in one of her poses, whom Romney painted.
Much was made of Emma's marvellous change of expression, which her admirers so extolled, but neither Romney nor any other painter ever put on canvas Emma's features distorted or transfigured by real emotion; portrait after portrait shows the same smooth regular face undisturbed by any feeling, the eyes sometimes open wide, sometimes cast down, the lips sometimes parted, sometimes closed, now a look of gravity, now a smile, but never anything but the most superficial change on the flawless unlined countenance, which never showed either the dreadful grandeur of a Cassandra, or the lofty exaltation of a Joan of Arc, but a certain mildness, shallow loveliness that might pass for virginal candour.
Romney's technique was devoid of tricks; he made no dangerous experiments, as did Sir Joshua, his downright style was suited to the obvious beauty of his model, with clear steady sweeps of his facile brush, with an expert curve of a limited palette, he placed on his canvas the madders and umbers, the crimson lakes and siennas of his home-ground paints and reproduced with them the firm, rosy flesh tints, the lustrous blue-brown eyes, the auburn locks of Emma.
This method suited his talent, his highly finished work was inclined to be hard, lacking in atmosphere and rather like a painting on porcelain; but in these rapid studies there was breadth and freedom, and they satisfy the eye even when they are unfinished.
In common with the portraitists of his day Romney painted his sitters in a steady studio light that cast only a pale shadow on the face and with imaginary backgrounds, like drop-cloths, that had no relation to the subjects of the picture, but which were hastily roughed in to throw up the figures to advantage. In his ardent studies of Emma, Romney kept to the Titian-like colourings of which he was fond, solid, rich, a golden cream, a rosy white in the carnation, fresh crimson lips, and hair varying according to the scheme of the picture, but always warm in tone, even too hot in the shadows.
Sometimes the Emma pictures were clumsy in finish, the face appearing like a mask, the arms and hands boneless, the figure without structure, the drapery wooden, but this body of work represented a definite achievement in art, which must be credited to both painter and model.
Possibly the most beautiful of all these portraits of Emma is the Ariadne, an exquisite, tender painting where the simple, downcast girl in her plain English attire is as delicate as a rose-petal blown on the canvas. Romney admired what he considered a natural beauty; he disliked the great ladies of Francois Boucher, product of the dressmaker and the dancing master, the grisettes and villagers of Greuze, product of the theatre and the circulating-library novel, and he painted his Emma without frippery or adornment.
Her loveliness was indeed natural, that of the moorland, not the Court, the dairy, not the drawing-room, and even those who found it lacking in breeding, subtlety or refinement had to admit that it owed nothing to the cosmetic box, the hairdresser, the jeweller, or the costumier; Emma's beauty shone most triumphantly in a gown cut like that of a servant-maid with a yard of gauze for a scarf or a milkmaid's straw for a hat.
Romney, himself a peasant, saw no defect that needed softening in the robust and lustrous Emma, when during four years she made his life happy by posing to him, but it is possible that Charles Greville, looking at her with the critical eye of familiarity, and the detached appraisal of the expert, began to perceive the coarseness of the country-girl beneath the glow of the Hebe, the vulgarity of the servant beneath the rich outlines of the goddess; certain it is that after two years' possession of this treasure, he began to scheme how he might be rid of her with full advantage to himself.
Yet Mr. Greville believed that his Emma loved him; she had so dutifully kept the promises she had made when he had rescued her from the squalor of Hawarden; she had never even asked for anything more than the one or two "creditable companions" he had been induced to allow her; she had worked so hard at her music, her poses, her pencil, she had jotted down so anxiously all her little items of expense. When she had had a little rash on her elbows he had sent her to the seaside with her mother, directing that her child was to accompany her; he thought that maternal emotion might give another turn to her charms; if the child was pretty what a subject for Romney! Emma and her offspring as Motherhood or Venus and Cupid!
Emma went dutifully and reluctantly from Paddington to Park-gate, trying to amuse herself with little Emma as the child was named, but all the while yearning to be home again with an impatience very gratifying to her lover.
The distant coast was dull indeed after the cosy life in London; and the contrast was the sharper as a new and delightful companion had lately enlivened the neat establishment at Edgeware Row; one who amused and flattered Emma and admired her with open, if respectful, rapture. Mr. Greville's wealthy and famous uncle, Sir William Hamilton, was on leave from his post at Naples and a frequent visitor at Paddington, he had been very flattering to "the fair tea-maker" as Mr. Greville named his mistress and she had found him delightfully kind and entertaining.
Sir William Hamilton's sister had been the late Countess of Warwick, Mr. Greville's mother; Sir William was descended from two branches of the noble and ancient family whose name he bore, but had not inherited any great wealth. Pursuing fortune on the field of glory, he had served in the Foot Guards under Prince Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, until delayed promotion caused him to resign his commission in disgust. At the age of twenty-eight, it seemed prudent to him to marry an heiress, though this was, in his own words, "something against his inclination." A Miss Barlow with a Welsh estate worth £5,000 a year was secured, and in 1782 this lady put her husband under a further obligation by dying and leaving him completely free; the only child of the marriage was dead and Sir William at fifty-five (but looking, as he hoped, only forty) had nothing to consider but his own pleasure, if indeed he had ever considered anything else.
Mr. Greville, who had for some years been tacitly regarded as his uncle's heir, was disturbed by the persistent rumours that Sir William, with his tidy little fortune, his elegant sinecure at Naples, his fine manners and well-preserved charms, would soon contract a second marriage.
This growing anxiety was hidden under the cold serenity of the young man, when he sent Emma off to cure the rash on her elbows in her native air and doubtless absorbed him so much that he was not able to answer her loving letters with the promptitude their devotion deserved, though the post was something to blame for the delays that distracted Emma.
The truth was, that, despite his removal to Paddington from Portman Square, despite Emma's care with the pence and Mrs. Cadogan's kitchen economies, Mr. Charles Greville was in money difficulties. What was £500 a year to a collector of brie-à-brae, a man of fine taste, however careful? And there was no sign that the long-promised Government sinecure was coming his way. Marriage with an heiress was the obvious solution to this difficulty, but nothing less than a fortune of £20,000 to £30,000 would do, and this was not so easily to be found.
Mr. Greville accompanied his uncle on visits to the great houses where these gentlemen were welcome guests and confided to him his situation--his inevitable debts, the inevitable crisis ahead--a state of affairs by no means his own fault since he had lived so prudently, indulging even his antiquarian tastes very cheaply.
With these same tastes Sir William had every sympathy; he was himself a most distinguished virtuoso with a taste for the more sensational aspects of science; he had ascended Vesuvius twenty-four times, visited Etna and written a book on volcanoes and in 1767 he had presented to the British Museum a collection of volcanic earths and minerals. Foster-brother of George III and an intimate of the Royal Family, Sir William Hamilton had used his influence with the Prince of Wales to obtain a pension of £100 a year for a certain Father Antonio Piaggi; this he had increased by the same amount from his own pocket and had employed the learned monk to work on the Herculaneum papyri. Taking advantage of his comfortable income, his fine taste, his position as British Minister at Naples, Sir William had enriched his country with the Porticinari collection of Greek vases, which he had purchased in 1766, added to, and sold at a handsome profit for over £8,000 to the British Museum. He was at present engaged in forming another collection of vases found in Sicilian tombs, which he hoped to dispose of for a handsome sum to the King of Prussia.
Sir William possessed, not merely an eye for a bargain, but an eye for beauty, grace and fitness, and he had added to his enthusiasm a careful knowledge; his high position among the cognoscenti of his day had been recognized by an appreciative Government; the Star and Ribbon of the Order of the Bath had brought him his title and the most fastidious of learned English societies had been honoured to receive him as a member; he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of the Dilettante; a man of the world, well-bred, tactful, amiable and used to making himself acceptable to the frivolous and the ignorant. Sir William was nothing of a pedant, and had indeed trained his monkey to quizz through a glass at a statue or a coin in mockery of the dry antiquaries who wearied with their inelegant jargon.
Beauty was Sir William's idol, that beauty which, as Leonardo da Vinci wrote, passes nature and becomes art; he received the most exquisite pleasure from painting, sculpture, music, fine scenery, poetry and all objects of virtu; in particular he was enamoured of the rich grace and vivid colourings of the mural designs being brought to light as the once gay city of Pompeii was excavated from the lava of centuries, and of the voluptuous shapes and precise features of the statues being discovered in distracting profusion on the sites of ancient cities and patrician villas in Italy.
Sir William, who had already resided twenty years at Naples, was Italianate to the core, and his antiquarian researches had produced in him the same kind of renaissance as the discovery of classic treasures had created in the refined minds of the fifteenth century; everything with him, in order to be tolerated, must be antique, and he was as much at home with the dancing-girls and nymphs of the Pompeian frescoes as with the tight-laced, powdered ladies of his own world.
For the rest, he was a Sybarite, with no strong feelings, who had never experienced a powerful emotion, bon viveur, an expert in fastidious pleasures, alive to all the tricks and tones of an idle aristocratic society, inoffensive, never meaning any harm, loyal to a gentleman's indefinable code of honour, and perfectly satisfied with the golden sinecure his embassy represented.
His modest ambitions had all been fulfilled; he was not vexed that he had been passed over when important posts were being assigned to likely diplomats, nor stung by the fact that, had his talents been brighter, or his zeal more striking, he would not have been left so long at a Court which was off the political map.
Indeed, the elegant Scotsman was only too happy to be left in his brilliant backwater; he was credited with the saying: "My country is anywhere that I am comfortable," and he had made himself comfortable, in the highest sense of the word, at Naples.
In appearance he was tall, well made, with features like those of his nephew, Charles Greville, neat and ordinary, but set off by powder, curls, ribbons and smiles, to appear quite distinguished. His manners were lively, racy with the gentlemen, arch with the ladies, and flattering to everyone. He did not deceive himself when he glanced in his mirror and thought that he appeared no more than in the prime of life. He had always tried to balance self-indulgence with prudence whenever prudence was not too galling; in his military youth, his elegant debauchery had gone with a healthy devotion to athletics; he was a good horseman, a graceful dancer, and when in Naples obtained exercise by slaughtering animals in the great battues in the royal parks.
In brief, Sir William Hamilton put up a very fine appearance indeed, was a vast credit to his class, his country, his family, fulfilled strictly all the obligations the world required of a fine gentleman, and was everywhere admired.
But the brilliancy, both of appearance and of attainments, was only superficial; behind that smooth façade of wit and taste, there was fast setting in a rapid decay of a feeble character; behind that air of vigour were many symptoms of encroaching ill-health. Sir William, who appeared so jocund, so youthful at fifty-five, was in reality fast approaching premature senility.
Emma had enraptured her lover's uncle; he had rather enviously congratulated Mr. Greville on the possession of a real treasure; Charles simpering a little over his good taste had declared: "She is as good as anything in nature."
But Sir William's praise went higher--"She is better than anything in nature, she is as good as anything to be found in antique art."
He gazed enthralled as this Pompeian nymph in flesh and blood posed for him in the attitudes which Mr. Greville and George Romney had taught her--a shawl, a tambourine, a tossing of a fleece of rich curls, a downward or an upward glance, and the enraptured connoisseur gazed at one of his favourite statues come to life, with as much enthusiasm as ever Pygmalion watched his Galatea throb from alabaster into flesh.
In the studio in Cavendish Square he admired the brilliant canvases on which the gloomy painter had cast the radiance of glowing young womanhood. The ageing gentleman was in every way pleased, in his artistic taste, in his classical knowledge, in his old man's relish for a bouncing merry wench; why this was Ariadne, Cassandra, Diana, Alope, the Comic Muse!
As blind as Romney in his infatuation, he did not see that this was Emma, always and nothing but Emma, and that the famous expressions that fleeted across her smooth face disturbed it no more than a breath ruffles a placid lake.
Then her singing!
Sir William was amazed at her full ringing notes, at the drama she put into her songs, at the bravura with which she shook out her reckless trills. If her ear was slightly defective, that was hardly noticeable and might soon be remedied--she was worthy of the most careful training--in the opera house she would be an object of public admiration!
Emma responded gratefully to all this sincere flattery, and put Sir William second only in her affection to Mr. Greville, he was so kind--he was rich, too, and influential, he might be so useful; her lover had told her what a very important person Sir William was, and as she tried to pass the dull time at Parkgate, she thought of the wealthy uncle almost as much as she thought of the beloved nephew.
Sir William was so very civil, he never scolded or admonished as Mr. Greville did, no, he treated her just as if she were a great lady, he was courteous and respectful, as if he were always at her feet. He did not know what a romp she had been, nor anything of her past life, nor of the existence of little Emma, of the nasty plight from which Mr. Greville had so generously rescued her, nor of the squalid little cottage in Hawarden.
When she was with Sir William she was always careful to remember all that Mr. Greville had taught her--the moods and gestures she must not use, the references she must not make; a little gaminerie suited her style of beauty, a touch of Flintshire accent was not displeasing, but Mr. Greville had always been as strict about vulgarity as he had about economy.
The manner that Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh had approved had to be left behind with the cards and wine-glasses, the oaths and indecencies of Up Park. Emma, dutifully curing her marred knees and elbows with medicine and sea bathing, was pleased to think how well she had behaved to Sir William, what a good impression she had made on him with her demure tea-table ways and her filial kisses when her fresh mouth--unique, Sir William had declared, in its classic curve--had touched so lovingly the powdered yellowing cheek of the old virtuoso.
Despite his careful dressing, Emma had taken Sir William for an old gentleman when she had first seen him, but Mr. Greville had, with unusual emotion, corrected her opinion, and Emma, always quick to take a hint, never again referred to age and Sir William in the same breath; indeed, when she came to know him better, she declared he was "the most juvenile gentleman she had ever met," so coy, so arch, so lively, with such spritely ways!
He had told her to call him Pliny the elder, who was, he said, a philosopher, and also not unknown to the slopes of Vesuvius, though he had never, like the industrious Sir William, written a book about the volcano. Emma, to whom one name was as good as another, dutifully called the brilliant gentleman Pliny, while Charles Greville was Pliny the younger; so an air of classicism was cast over Paddington Green. If the wit ran a little thin, Emma did not perceive it. As she moped in her hired lodging, bored with the teasing child, loathing the seaside, missing the poses, the visits to Cavendish Square, the music lessons, the flatteries of Sir William, the company of her lover, she poured out her anxieties on paper.
She was worried about money; Mr. Greville had told her to be careful, and Pliny had hinted in his kind fatherly way, that dear Charles was really in rather a tight corner from which it would take a good deal of skill to extricate him; then there was the anxiety as to where Mr. Greville was and what he was doing; supposing that, in that great world to which she had no entry, he met someone who would induce him to forget poor Emma?
In a torment she rushed her feelings on to paper; she wrote better now than when she had penned her seven unanswered epistles to Sir Harry, she had picked up too, from reading fashionable fiction, from listening to fashionable talk, some of the jargon of the moment, the language of melting sensibility that disguised grossness, the high-flown phrases that were such a specious form of hypocrisy. Emma's profession was to flatter gentlemen; she knew Mr. Greville's weakness for being thought a Mentor, the wise man who had made a good girl out of poor, wild, giddy Amy Lyon. She paid him this homage readily and not entirely out of self-interest; the man was attractive and her lover. It was not an unskilful letter that Emma wrote from the boredom of Parkgate.
"Parkgate, June the 15th, 1784
"My Dear Greville,
"You see by the date where I am gott and likely to be; and yett it is not through any neglect of seeking after other places. As to Abbergely it is 40 miles, and so dear that I could not with my mother and me and the child have been there under 2 guines and a half a-week. It is grown such a fashionable place. And High Lake as 3 houses in it, and not one of them as is fit for a Christian. The best is a publick-house for the sailers of such ships as is oblidged to put in there, so you see there is no possibility of going to either of those places. Has to where I am, I find it very comfortable, considering I am from you. I am in the house of a Laidy, whoes husband is at sea. She and her grammother live to-gether, and we board with her at present, till I hear from you. The price is high, but they don't lodge anybody without boarding; and as it is comfortable, decent, and quiet, I thought it would not ruin us, till I could have your oppionon, which I hope to have freely and without restraint, as, believe me, you will give it to one, who will allways be happy to follow it, lett it be what it will. As I am sure you would not lead me wrong, and though my little temper may have been sometimes high, believe me, I have allways thought you in the right in the end, when I have come to reason. I bathe, and find the water very soult. Here is a great many ladys bathing, but I have no society with them, as it is best not. So pray, my dearest Greville, write soon and tell me what to do, as I will do just what you think proper; and tell me what to do with the child. For she is a great romp, and I can hardly master her. I don't think she is ugly, but I think her greatly improved. She is tall (has) good eyes and brows, and as to lashes she will be passible; but she has over-grown all her cloaths. I am makeing and mending all as I can for her. Pray, my dear Greville, do lett me come home as soon as you can; for I am all most broken-hearted being from you. Indeed I have no pleasure nor happiness. I wish I could not think of you; but, if I was the greatest laidy in the world, I should not be happy from you. So don't lett me stay long. Tell Sir William everything you can, and tell him I am sorry our situation prevented (me) from giving him a kiss, but my heart was ready to break. But I will give it him, and entreat if he will axcept it. Ask him how I looked, and lett him say something kind to me when you write. Indeed, my dear Greville, you don't know how much I love you. And your behaviour to me, wen we parted, was so kind, Greville, I don't know what to do; but I will make you a mends by my kind behaviour to you. For I have grattitude, and I will show it you all I can. So don't think of my faults, Greville. Think of all my good, and blot out all my bad: for it is all gone and berried, never to come again. So, good-by, dear Greville. Think of nobody but me, for I have not a thought but of you. God bless you and believe me,
"Your Truly and Affectionately
"Emma H--t."
"P.S.--Poor Emma gives her duty to you. I bathe her. The people is very civil to ous. I give a guinea and half a-week for ous all together, but you will tell me what to do. God bless you, my dear Greville. I long to see you, for endead I am not happy from you, tho' will stay if you like till a week before you go home, but I must go first. I hav had no letter from you, and you promised to write to me before I left home. It made me unhappy, but I thought you might (have no) time. God bless you once more, dear Greville. Direct for me at Mrs. Darnwood's, Parkgate near Chest-ter, and write directly."
In seven days she had not heard from Mr. Greville, the monotony of the bland June season became unsupportable; she wrote again and on a more emphatic note, giving Charles Greville just the stuff she thought he would like; if the incense was rather thick and luscious, well Emma knew that gentlemen liked it so, especially gentlemen like Mr. Greville who had no sense of fun and were such superior beings. She began the long epistle in the hope of having one to answer before it was finished, but no! And so the letter was lengthened from the Wednesday to the Sunday morning when at last Dame Kidd forwarded a letter that had wasted a fortnight in Hawarden.
"Parkgate: June the 22nd, 1784.
"My Ever Dear Greville,
"How tedious does the time pass awhay tell I hear from you. I think it ages since I saw you--years since I heard from you. Endead I should be miserable, if I did not recollect in what happy terms we parted--parted but to meet again with tenfould happiness. Oh, Greville, when I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of grattitude, that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in vew, which I am determined to practice, and that is eveness of temper and steadiness of mind. 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, manage myself, and try to be like Greville. Endead, I can never be like him. But I will do all I can towards it, and I am sure you will not desire more. I think, if the time would come over again, I would be different. But it does not matter. There is nothing like buying experience. I may be happier for it hereafter, and I will think of the time coming and not the time past, except to make comparrasone, to show you what alterations there is for the best. So, my dearest Greville, don't think on my past follies; think on my good--little as it has been. And I will make you amends by my kind behaviour; you shall never repent your partiality. If you had not behaved with such angel-like goodness to me at parting, it would not have had such effect on me. I have done nothing but think of you since. And, oh, Greville, did you but know, when I so think, what thoughts--what tender thoughts (I have), you would say 'Good God!' and can Emma have such feeling sensibility? No, I never could 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 disapointed. I will be everything you can wish. But mind you, Greville, your own great goodness has brought this about. You don't know what I am. Would you think it, Greville?--Emmathe wild unthinking Emma is a grave thoughtful phylosopher. Tis true, Greville, and I will convince you I am, 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? She is as wild and as thoughtless as somebody, when she was a little girl; so you may gess how that is. Whether she will like it or no, there is no telling. But one comfort is (that she is) a little afraid on me. Would you believe, on Satturday whe had a little quarel. I mean Emma and me; 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. Now do you blame me or not? Pray tell me. Oh, Greville, you don't know how I love her. Endead I do. When she comes and looks in my face and calls me 'mother,' endead I then truly am a mother; for all the mother's feelings rise at once, and tells (me) I am and ought to be a mother. For she has a wright to my protection, and she shall have it as long as I can, and I will do all I can to prevent her falling into the error her poor once miserable mother fell into.
"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? Does not he protect me? Does not he provide for me? Is not he a father to my child? Why do I call myself miserable? No, it whas a mistake, and I will be happy, chearful and kind, and do all my poor abbility will lett me, to return the fatherly goodness and prottection he has shewn (me). Again, my dear Greville, the recollection of past scenes brings tears in my eyes. But they are tears of happiness. To think of your goodness is too much. But, once for all, Greville, I will be good to you.
"It is near bathing time, and I must lay down my pen. I wont finish till I see when the post comes, whether there is a letter. He comes in abbout one a clock. I hope to have a letter so to-day.
"I must not forgett to tell you my knees is well, as I may say. There is hardly a mark, and my elbows is much better. I eat my vittuels very well, and I am quite strong and feel hearty, and I am in hopes I shall be very well. You can't think how soult the watter is. And there is a many laidys bathing here. But, Greville, I am oblidged to give a shilling a day for the bathing horse and whoman, and twopence a day for the dress. It is a great expense, and it fretts me now I think of it. But when I think how well I am, and my elbows likely to gett well, it makes me quite happy. For at any rate it is better than paying the doctor. But wright your oppinion truly and tell me what to do. Emma is crying because I wont come and bathe. So, Greville, adue tell after I have dipt. May God bless you, my dearest Greville, and believe me faithfully, affectionately and truly yours only--Emma H.
"Thursday Morning.
"And no letter from my dear Greville. Why, my dearest Greville, what is the reason you don't wright? If you knew my uneasyness, you would. You promised to write before I left Howeden, and I was much disapointed you did not, but thought you might have a opportunity being at Wandower (? Wendover) Hill. I have sent 2 letters to Haverford West, and has never had no answer to them, and it is now 3 weeks since I saw you. Pray, my dearest Greville, wright to me and make me happy; for I am not so att present, though my arm is quite well.
"I think if I could but hear from you, I should be happy. So make (me) happy, do, pray. Give my dear kind love and compliments to Pliney, and tell him I put you under his care, and he must be answerable for you to me, when I see him. I hope he has (not) fell in love with any rawboned Scotchwoman, whose fortune would make up for the want of beauty, and then he may soon through her (die) in a decline--Mum! For he is fond of portraits in that whay, and then he must be fond of orriginals, and it will answer every purpose. But don't put him in mind of it, for fear--But offer and say everything you can to him for me, and tell him I shall allways think on him with gratitude and remember him with pleasure, and allways regret laeving is (leaving his) good company. Tell him I wish him every happiness this world can afford him, that I will pray for him, and bless him as long as I live. I am wrighting, 'tis true, but I don't know when you will ever gett it. For I can't send itt, till I hear from you, and the Post wont be in tell to morro. Pray, my dear Greville, lett me go home soon. I have been 3 weeks, and if I stay a fortnight longer, that will be 5 weeks, you know; and then the expense is above 2 guineas a week, with washing and bathing whoman and everything; and I think a fortnight or three weeks longer I shall not have a spot."
"Friday morning: 12 o'clock (25th June).
"With impatienc do I sett down to wright tell I see the postman. But sure I shall have a letter to-day. Can you, my dear Greville--no, you can't--have forgot your poor Emma allready. Tho' I am but for a few weeks absent from you, my heart will not one moment leave you. I am allways thinking of you, and could almost fancy I hear you, see you; and think, Greville, what a disapointment when I find myself deceived, and ever nor never heard from you. But my heart wont lett me scold you. Endead, it thinks on you with too much tenderness. So do wright, my dear Greville. Don't you remember how you promised? Don't you recollect what you said at parting?--how you should be happy to see me again? O Greville, think on me with kindness! Think how many happy days weeks and years--I hope--we may yet pass. And think out of some that is past, there (h)as been some little pleasure as well as pain; and endead, did you but know how much I love you, you would freily forgive me any passed quarels. For I now suffer for them, and one line from you would make me happy. So pray do wright, and tell me when you will be returning, as I shall be happy to see you again. For whilst Emma lives, she must be gratefully and ever affectionately.
"Your Emma Hart."
"P.S.--This shall not go tell I have a letter from you, which I hope to have in half an hour. Adue, my dear kind Greville."
"Sunday Morning (27th June).
"My Dear Greville, I had a letter on Friday from my Gran-mother, and she sent me one from you, that had been there a fortnight. I am much oblidged to you for all the kind things you say to me, and tell Sir William I am much oblidged to him for saying I looked well. I hope he will always think so; for I am proud of (his) good word, and I hope I shall never forfeit it. I will at least study to deserve it. I am in hopes (to) have a letter from you, for it is a great comfort to me to hear from you. My dear Greville, it is now going on for a month since I saw you. But I think how happy I shall be to see you again, to thank you for your kindness to my poor Emma and me. She shall thank you, Greville, she shall be gratefull, she shall be good, and make you amends for all the trouble her mother has caused you. But how am I to make you amends? God knows. I shall never have it in my power. But, Greville, you shall have no cause to complain. I will try. I will do my utmost--and I can only regrett that fortune will not put it in my power to make a return for all the kindness and goodness you have showed me. Good-by. My dearest Greville...Emma is much oblidged to you for remembering her, and she hopes you will give her a oppertunity of thanking you personally for your goodness to her. I think you wont be disapointed in her; though mothers (Lord bless me, what a word for the gay wild Emma to say!) should not commend, but leave that for other people to do."
There was one more letter written from Parkgate on July 3rd; it was on the same note. Mr. Greville had suggested that little Emma should be brought to London and sent to school, and the young mother was submissively grateful--and wrote all the conventional things, hopes that Emma would become good, mild and attentive--that she would not turn out as her mother had--but then, if poor Emma the first had had the luck to have such a fine early start--"what a woman she would have been!"
Here Emma wrote not from her feelings, but from her situation; every Magdalen embarrassed by chance maternity has voiced these correct sentiments.
Leaving the subject of the child, Emma again flattered her lover; how she was longing to see him, to give him a thousand kisses--"My happiness now is Greville."
She wrote truly; she had not much in the world besides her dear Charles; but there was the rich, amiable uncle to please also. "Dear Sir William. Give my kind love to him. Tell him (that) next to you I love him above any body and that I wish I was with him to give him a kiss...My mother gives her compts. to you and Sir W. Say everything that is kind and well render me dear to him."
When Emma read over this letter she was not satisfied that she had expressed all that she felt and she added a pretty postscript.
"P.S.--Good by, my dear Greville. I hope we shall meet soon, happy and well. Adue! I bathe Emma and she is very well and grows. Her hair will grow very well on her forhead, and I don't think her nose will be very snub. Her eye is blue and pretty. She don't speak through her nose but she speaks countrified. We squabble sometimes; still she is fond of me, and indead I love her. For she is sensible. So much for Beauty. I long to see you."
By August the impatient girl was back in Paddington, though Mr. Greville and his uncle were still visiting in Scotland; a slight attack of measles sent her to bed, but she soon recovered and was writing eagerly to her lover.
"Edgware Row, Tuesday, August 10th, 1784.
"I must now inform you abbout my illness. My dear Greville, I had arash out all over me and a fevour, and I should have been worse, if I had not had the rash out. But I think I am better for it now; for I look fair and seem better in health than I was before. I dare say I should have been very dangerously ill, iff it had not come out. Pray, my dearest Greville, do come to see me, as soon as ever you come to town, for I do so long to see you. You don't know how it will make me to be happy--I mean if you should come before diner. Do come (to dinner), because I know you will come at night. I have a deal to say to you when I see you. Oh, Greville, to think it is nine weeks since I saw you. I think I shall die with the pleasure of seeing you. Indeed, my dearest Greville, if you knew how much I think of you, you would love (me) for it, for I am all ways thinking on you, of your goodness. In short, Greville, I truly love you, and the thought of your coming home so soon makes me so happy, I don't know what to do.
"Good-by, my ever dearest Greville. May God preserve you and bless you, for ever prays your ever affectionately and sincerely...Emma.
"My kind love to Sr William; and tell him if he will come soon, I will give him a thousand kisses. For I do love him a little."
While Emma, secured from mischief by the presence of her mother and her child, was living in such respectable fidelity at Parkgate, Sir William and his nephew were, in the intervals of their social duties, talking business.
The Knight had never been overreached in a bargain yet and Mr. Greville was shrewd and careful, so it was in an atmosphere of even-tempered prudence that they discussed their affairs, in which the uncle's appetite and the nephew's pocket were concerned, but not the heart or the sentiments of either.
The Hon. Charles civilly urged his uncle to take Emma off his hands with the same ease as an Emir might have urged a neighbouring potentate to accept a favourite odalisque.
She was, as Sir William could judge for himself, a gem of the purest lustre; her beauty, her singing, her attitudes!
To increase her value, Mr. Greville vouched for other good qualities possessed by Emma; she was nice-mannered, faithful, truthful, quick at learning, obedient and docile; she was economical, always good-humoured and lively. Then there was her mother, maid, duenna, cook in one, cheap and efficient. How much better for Sir William to match his pleasant leisure with a lovely, well-trained girl like Emma, than hamper himself with a wife.
All the members of the family advised such an arrangement, the Rev. Frederick Hamilton, Sir William's sole surviving brother, declared that "to buy love ready made" was the best thing the gay widower could do.
As for himself, Mr. Greville simply could not afford such a luxury as the keeping of the rare treasure he was passing on to his dear uncle.
Was it fair to keep Emma pinching and scraping in Edgeware Row when she was fitted to adorn a Court? He could not afford the expensive tutors her talents deserved, the carriage and pair she ought to have, the fine clothes that were her right.
Besides, he had himself to think of; the Romney pictures had made Emma quite famous, and everyone knew who her protector was. It was useless for him to offer himself to an heiress until his charmer was dismissed; he had thought of Lord Middleton's daughter, who had £20,000, but how could he come forward as a suitor for the chaste Henrietta with Emma on his hands? Another point, he wanted to see Emma well established; she deserved a fair settlement, say a £100 a year from Sir William, which he, Charles Greville, would try to add to by selling a few pictures, even sacrificing the Correggio or the Thais for so laudable an end.
All this seemed very reasonable to Sir William; the complete absence of romance or sentimentality pleased him; Charles Greville had always been a man after his own heart,--but there were objections to the tempting offer. "Naples is like a village for gossip, the thing can't be hidden. Besides I don't want to be the wittol of every young rake being bear-led through Italy."
Mr. Greville was sure that Sir William's tact would be able to deal with the Neapolitan gossips--Emma would be studying music, and the mother would surely confuse, if not silence, the prudish. As for Emma's flirting with the tourists the Minister had to entertain, Mr. Greville could answer for her good behaviour--why the difficulty was that she was too faithful; Mr. Greville showed the Parkgate letters: "The girl's in love with me, and won't be got rid of so easily!" And he mentioned that she had received several fine offers from wealthy men that she had indignantly refused--nay, Emma might even have married quite respectably had she not been so tenaciously fond of her Greville.
All this clinging fidelity might be transferred, the Hon. Charles was sure, with time and tact to Sir William, who had the leisure, the person, the means to lay siege even to the most difficult female heart.
How far from difficult of assault was Emma's heart, Mr. Greville did not mention; he glossed over the girl's past with which Sir William, a stranger to London, was not familiar and he said nothing of little Emma now comfortably boarded out with a Mrs. Blackburn and her husband at £60 a year; in short, he did the best that he could both for himself and for the poor girl in distress, to whom he had been so kind.
Sir William accepted the offer; he was to have Emma as soon as a decorous occasion for the transfer presented itself; both the girl and society had to be considered, she could not jump from one man's arms into those of another without some little delay and tact; but that she should as soon as possible pass into Sir William's possession was agreed between the two gentlemen before the Minister departed for Naples.
Something else had been agreed to also; of course, Mr. Greville could not sell his mistress, no such thing was to be thought of, but it just happened, while the delicate Emma-negotiations were going on, that Sir William was able to let his nephew know that he would be able to help him pay his debts and to assist him in obtaining a wealthy wife.
Mr. Greville owed about £6,000, not much more than a year's revenue from the Welsh estates of the late Lady Hamilton, and Sir William was so obliging as to enter into a bond whereby the creditors were satisfied by money raised on the estate to which Mr. Greville was made heir in tail. Not only by assisting him in keeping his creditors quiet did the uncle oblige the nephew, he gave him a letter written so as to be shown to a third party, wherein he declared dear Charles to be his heir--it was hoped that this epistle would help Mr. Greville in securing an heiress.
The will, leaving to Charles Greville not only the Barlow, but other estates, was duly drawn up and Charles himself left sole executor. Sir William promised to use his considerable influence at Westminster to secure his nephew some honourable and lucrative sinecure.
Of course, all these benefits were conferred on Mr. Greville out of the pure goodness of Sir William's heart and had nothing whatever to do with the secret understanding that Emma should come out to Naples as soon as possible.
All these arrangements having been carefully made, His Britannic Majesty's Minister returned to his post at the Court of Naples, and Emma took up again her modest life at Paddington, going to and from Cavendish Square to console the moody gloom of George Romney with her bright looks, amusing Mr. Greville with her poses, her songs and her lively chatter.
By the end of 1785 there came a letter from Pliny, written within sight of Vesuvius, begging the fair Emma to come to Naples as his guest, there to perfect herself in music and painting.
As dear Charles was busily setting his affairs in order, and thought of taking a course of chemistry under Professor Black in Edinburgh, he would not be able to accompany her, but in six months' time, or sooner, he would go out to Italy and bring her home--meantime comfort and decorum would be assured by the presence of Mrs. Cadogan. Emma was a little bewildered, a little saddened; she did not want the Paddington idyll to end, she did not want to leave the lover of whom she had grown so fond--the painter who worshipped her charms.
But Mr. Greville was firm, even stern; he had a great deal of business on hand, Emma would only be in the way; it was her plain duty to go to Naples, there to learn to finish her music and painting--and also by her pretty, graceful ways to keep the wealthy, useful uncle in a good humour towards the absent Charles.
Emma consented; if she wept at the prospect of leaving Mr. Greville, there was comfort in the thought of seeing foreign lands, perhaps a foreign Court, of being admired and flattered once more by kind old Pliny.
On March 4th, 1786, Emma and Mrs. Cadogan were entrusted to the escort of Gavin Hamilton, one of Sir William's artist friends, and started for Naples, where they arrived nearly six weeks later in the full flush of the South Italian spring.
Emma, then twenty-three years old, was also in the full flush of her ripening charms. Mr. Hamilton had admitted that he "had never seen anything quite like her"--she fitted into the opulent landscape as a picture into a frame and took possession of her apartments in the Palazzo Sessa, the British Embassy in Naples, with the air of Venus returning to Paphos.
Mr. Greville remained alone, but not forlorn, in Paddington; he certainly did not intend to think of Emma again, to see her, or write to her, unless absolutely forced to do so. He had seen the last of her without regret, and proceeded to put his affairs methodically in order, selling a few treasures, paying some debts, compounding others, closing the Paddington establishment, at least for the present, while he freed himself of business annoyances and kept his shrewd eyes wide open for a rich wife.
He regarded himself as Emma's benefactor, and the harmless deception whereby he had passed her on to his uncle under the false promise of rejoining her later did not trouble him at all. There was no managing women by any other means than such tricks as these, and one day Emma, cosily installed as Sir William's belle amie, would be very grateful to dear Charles for so thoughtfully providing for her future.
Emma did indeed owe Mr. Greville a heavy debt; he had rescued her from squalid misery, restored her self-respect, taught her many things useful for an adventuress to know, changed her from a pert, bouncing wench into a rare beauty, brought out her talents for music, for poses, instilled into her the wisdom of keeping her temper and her accounts, and pointed out the advantages of Mrs. Cadogan's attendance. He had given her some flavour of the great world, some inkling of taste and beauty--above all, he had introduced her to Sir William Hamilton and to George Romney.
But for himself he had obtained a fair and amorous mistress very cheaply, and he had entangled his uncle in a connection likely to prevent that second marriage that he, the heir-at-law, so dreaded.
So, twice over, Emma had repaid her obligations to her friend, who had never pretended to love her, and who had certainly kept his promise to help a girl in distress.
Emma felt a little forlorn, frightened and homesick, when she first arrived at Naples, and she wrote by the first post to Mr. Greville, urging him to redeem his promise and come out to her as soon as possible. It was all very splendid in the Palazzo Sessa--but what could compare with the delights of love--"not fine horses, nor a fine coach, nor a pack of servants."
Sir William was much more than kind--"he loves me, Greville...but he can never be my lover."
She related to the absent Charles in much detail all the attentions shown her by one whom she wished to regard merely as a kind sincere friend, she ran over all the novelties of her position, she expressed herself with an emphasis learned from the theatrical attitudes, the dramatic singing, the false tone of the time, but which was touched by a sincere emotion; it was not agreeable for the healthy young woman to have exchanged the attentions of the young beau for those of the old rake. Death, poverty, hunger, would Emma face to return to her dear Charles, she would walk "bare foot to Scotland" where perhaps he was listening to Professor Black's lectures on chemistry--"if my fatal ruin depends on seeing you and I will and must (see you) in the end of the summer."
Then she scribbled on about Sir William's infatuation, his gifts, his love for dear Charles to whom he had left everything in his will, the success of her English gowns--"but the blue hat, Greville, pleases most."
Did Greville need money, well, Sir William might send some, "the tears came into his eyes and he loves us boath dearly." But her hope, her happiness was all with Greville and, after she had poured out her rigmarole, she added the postscript:
"Pray, for God's sake, wright to me and come to me, for Sir William shall not be anything to me but your friend."
This letter despatched and a few tears shed for the amorous joys of Edgeware Row, Emma began to look about her on the novel scene.
Naples was as different from Paddington as one place could be from another; Emma was lodged in a palace, waited on by servants, while His Britannic Majesty's Minister hardly disguised a boundless infatuation, within the radiance of a Court, almost in touch with a King and a Queen, with Princes and great ladies. In a flash Emma had achieved the wildest day-dreams of every poor girl who had taken her charms to market. She had pleased a rich man, a powerful man, a man who could give her everything a woman like herself admired and envied. Why, she really had to pinch herself to make sure she was awake; her mother's approving smile hinted at her luck; Sir William's adoration had that touch of senility that promised everything.
He raved, he cut capers, she could not move a limb but he loudly praised it; she was used to being admired to her face, Mr. Greville had often pointed out her charms to his friends, but with a detached enthusiasm. Mr. Romney had been deeply moved by her graces, but his homage had been awkward, shy, until it was expressed on canvas. But Sir William revealed himself in a rhapsody that would have seemed tiresome and foolish to a well-bred woman, but which Emma enjoyed very much; amusing the old fellow with good-humoured pleasantries, she kept him off while she waited for Mr. Greville and looked about her on the strange city.
The Kingdom of Naples spread over half the map of Italy, reaching to the frontier of the Papal States, the very gates of Rome, it also comprised the rich, fantastic Island of Sicily.
For long a Spanish province under a Viceroy, Naples had been given a King in the person of Ferdinand IV, third son of Carlos III of Spain. Ferdinand, when a child eight years old, had been installed in Naples under the tutelage of a Tuscan Minister, Bernardo Tanucci, who worked wholly under the directions of the Spanish Cabinet.
This state of affairs came to an end with the King's marriage to a daughter of Maria Theresa and Francis of Lorraine, who speedily broke off connections with her father-in-law and gathered all the business of the Kingdom into her own nervous hands; by a clause of her marriage contract she was to have a seat in the Cabinet on the birth of a Prince, and the heir had duly appeared.
To assist her in this responsibility Queen Maria Carolina had introduced a foreign favourite into her Council, an Englishman of good birth, one John Acton, who had been employed at her brother's Tuscan capital, and who fitted very cleverly into the part of adviser of the passionate Queen who ruled the foolish King. Acton had no idea in his handsome head save that of personal aggrandisement and it mattered little to him how the Kingdom was run, as long as he had money and power and Maria Carolina was pleased.
Under these three, the lazy ignorant King, touched with hereditary imbecility, the ambitious, superstitious, violent Queen and the incapable, greedy, unscrupulous favourite, Naples was as badly governed as a country could be. A system already out-of-date was eaten into by every manner of corruption and abuse; the King regarded his position as a vulgar joke, the Queen hers as a chance to enrich and advance her brood of sickly children, Acton his as a piece of luck to be exploited to the utmost.
To anyone of sense, who looked beneath the surface, it would have been obvious that South Italy was in the state of the seething pot that so nearly boils over, that bubbles already gather at the brim.
But this surface was very brilliant, and no one about the Court did look beneath it. What did obsolete laws, a crazy system of finance, an impoverished country, the discontent of the intellectuals matter, as long as the sun shone and there was money for games and festivals, for hunts and concerts?
Sir William had never looked below the glittering crust on which he had sported so long and so gaily. While he had been going into raptures over the discoveries at Pompeii he had never concerned himself with the conditions of the country where he had resided for twenty years; while he had been quizzing at his vases, or prying into the volcanic earths of Vesuvius, he had not noticed other fires as dangerous as those of the great mountain smouldering beneath the sparkling life of Naples.
The upper- and middle-class Neapolitans were proud, patriotic, intelligent and cultured; in their ranks were many brilliant men and women, philosophers, scholars, poets, writers, scientists, medical men, highly educated, lofty-minded gentlewomen, ardent, brave, ambitious youths. These people loathed the reckless, heartless tyranny under which they lived, detested the alien Bourbon rule, the meddling Austrian Queen, the sly, stupid English adventurer, and in their clubs, societies, academies, drawing-rooms and cabinets, they absorbed and discussed the highest culture of the day and ventured to dream of plans for the reform of a country beloved and oppressed.
What did Sir William Hamilton know of this? Even if he knew, why should he care? What did it matter to Emma, who had never minded anything but her own affairs; she had lived in London through the war with the American Colonies, the war with France, the trial of Warren Hastings, the rise of Pitt, but if she had been stirred to a cheer at the victories of Hood and Rodney, that was as far as her concern in the fortunes of her country had gone. All she was ever to know of Italy she knew at once; the superficial glance was always enough for Emma.
The celebrated beauty of the city of Naples lies in its situation and colouring; on a closer view, the narrow streets, the huddled houses, the featureless architecture are not of any peculiar distinction, but viewed from the magnificent bay the design is splendid, a fitting setting for a baroque fairy-tale. The flat facades of peach and cream-coloured plaster rising in terraces, the stately bulk of the royal palace to the left, the sweep out to the lighthouse on the mole to the right, the Castel dell'Ovo supposed to have been built on a magic egg provided by the wizard Vergil, to the left jutting out darkly into the bay, the majestic lines of the Castel Nuovo in the centre of the city, while on the heights behind rises the massive fort, the Castel Sant' Elmo, flanked by the long lines of the Certosa di San Martino.
And over all, when Emma first stepped into her luxurious apartments, the steady wash of sunshine, the azure sky reflected in the azure-violet waters of the huge bay, bright light gilding the crowded shipping in the harbour, flashing amid the stiff-leaved palm-trees, the black cypress-boughs, the grey twisted olives on the slopes above the town; in the drowsy gardens the dark green leaves and thick white stars of the myrtle, the vivid purity of orange blossoms, the profusion of the fragrant petals of roses, syringa and oleander, flowers Emma had never seen even in dreams.
On gilded balconies stood pots of fringed pinks, of plumy basil, of scented rosemary, while from behind the slats of green shutters came the tinkle of mandolines and guitars, the lilt of amorous voices; in the evening when the breeze blew cool from the purple sea, smart carriages with liveried lackeys rattled to the flamboyant Opera House, to luxurious balls, to concerts, or departed for delicious drives along the coast, ending in suppers beneath the soft lamps that glowed amid the tamarisk groves and citron glades of Caserta or Posilippo.
Over all the varied splendour of the surface-scene, consistent as the sunshine, as brilliant as universal, were the menace and pomp of a powerful religion sunk into gross superstitions that were shared alike by Queen and beggars, pervading every corner of life, processions and parades of monks, nuns, priests, banners, filth and ignorance. The "religious" swarmed as thick as the flies in Naples, and the focus of their gorgeous mummery was the grandiose Duomo, where, amid scenes of frantic excitement, the Archbishop showed to the hysterical mob the phial in which the blood of the patron saint of Naples, San Gennaro, changed from a solidified drop into fresh-flowing crimson liquid.
On the surface the life of Naples was not only smooth but sparkling, at once elegant and informal; society had become both gay and cultured under the influence of the Austrian Queen, who, ignorant herself, liked to be a patroness of the arts, of learning and philosophy.
The fashions of Paris and Vienna enlivened the vast city; the melodies of Mozart and Haydn mingled with those of Gluck and Piccini, the nobles swung along the streets in coaches as brilliant as those which filled the court of honour at Versailles. Velvets from Genoa, laces from Venice, silks from Lyons crushed gowns from the Palais Royal, and hats designed by Marie Antoinette's milliners crowned fantastic, powdered locks that framed vivacious southern faces. Young patricians black-eyed, with dark curls heavily pomaded and coats sewn with tinsel and sequins rode their blood horses along the winding, dusty roads above the city, while their lackeys struck out of their way with canes the cringing, grinning peasants. Before smooth palaces of dusty stone hung ornate coats of arms, heavy amid the masks and wreaths cut between balconies and latticed windows. Through the gilt trellis of high gates could be glimpsed court-yards where fountains flashed in marble basins and marble Tritons blew conchs of glittering metal. In the shade of arcades pots of camellias, red white and striped, stood beside statues of ancient gods, lately raised from the rich soil, or smooth blocks of lava of the surrounding campagna. In cool, tiled salons philosophy was discussed, and songs sung to harp, guitar or spinet; in the evening the fireflies danced over the moonbeam walls that shaded strolling lovers, and the lanterns of pleasure-boats glittered beyond the shipping in the bay.
Nature, too, kept up this show, this holiday, with glitter of steady sunshine for weeks together, with lavish flowers and fruit, from the first clusters of large, scentless violets to the last golden orange, the last basket of dusky grapes, with the changing waters of the bay, jade green, azure, purple, and lilac, melting to an horizon where sea and sky were one radiance blurring the island. Nature provided a luxurious background, the sloping hills where the convents and forts blazed white beneath their belfries and flags, where the pines were black in the luminous air, and beyond the vineyards and cornfields the sombre splendour of Vesuvius rising from fields of lava and ashes to cones that cast up fire and vapours.
Along the crowded quays the fisher-folk lounged, gossiped, and chaffered over their wares; their striped trousers and short jackets, their red caps and earrings were declared to be by all foreigners--"picturesque"; it was quite fashionable to leave a wax-lit Salon where an Italian melody had been sung by a trained singer, to loiter down to the fisher-folk's quarters to hear their nasal voices raised in "Santa Lucia" or "Stella Maris." Fireworks were a popular diversion; from the gardens, from the royal palace at Caserta, from the terraces of the noble villas at Posilippo, at Castellamare often rose the mock fires of human artifice that fell in fountains of fiery blooms before the brilliant stars, then disappeared into the purple darkness of the bay where the sea-foam curled along the indented rocks.
Naples indeed provided every device that could render life exciting and agreeable; here was for sale every possible pleasure, from the grossest to the most refined, and here, for ten months of the year, were a climate and a scene that might be likened to those of a fabled paradise. Moreover, to a casual eye the city seemed as happy as it was splendid, as gay as it was luxurious. Priests, monks, nuns, beggars alike, appeared light-hearted and indulgent towards their fellow-men and towards the saints whose worship was so easy and whose benefits were so lavish; the nobles seemed carefree with nothing to do but to spend their handsome fortunes on amusements, and the middle classes disclosed to none what was in their minds.
The British Embassy was housed in two floors of the Palazzo Sessa, which Sir William Hamilton rented in Naples; these magnificent and sumptuously handsome apartments looked out upon the glitter of the bay.
A suite of four fine rooms was given to Emma and her mother; the rooms had been newly decorated by the British Minister for his dazzling treasure; he had exhausted his taste, if not his purse, in preparing a background worthy of so beautiful an occupant; couches of Pompeian shape with gilt claw-legs and curved backs had their classic rigidity broken by tasselled' cushions of brocade. The walls, exquisitely painted with light arabesques, were kept to those melting hues of cream, amber and ivory which best set off the vivid hues of Emma's carnation and the glint of her opulent tresses. Here and there was a sculptured vase that would in time come to be priceless, here and there a picture which represented the climax of some master's art. Sir William searched through the garnered hoard of a lifetime to find out the choicest pieces for the adornment of Emma's sun-bathed chambers.
She had little appreciation of all this, but she could delight in the soft canopied bed with the pale silk curtains, the carved wardrobe full of handsome clothes, the toilet-tables lavishly plenished, the rich draperies which kept off the heat, the dainty food, and the obsequious service.
She had done her best to please Charles Greville by being economical and prudent, when she had lived in Edgeware Row, but it was a relief no longer to have to count the pence, to content herself with one glass of beer, and to sigh for frocks which she could not afford. Compared to the maids at a few pounds a year who had been her sole servants at Paddington, the troop of Neapolitan attendants were as amiable and skilful as a host of genii.
Emma, like the princess in an Eastern tale, could have her every wish anticipated; she might have fine wines to drink, rich food to eat. Sir William never scolded, nor lectured, nor asked her to consider the cost. Every kind of pleasure that it was possible for her to imagine was offered her with humble delight in her acceptance. It was not possible for Emma to do otherwise than bloom with an even brighter lustre than she had worn at Paddington or in Romney's studio, to glow and smile and give out a delicious radiancy of youth and joy.
The peasant girl who had passed her childhood on the misty moors of Flintshire seemed to belong easily, as if by right, to this gorgeous background; Sir William became every day more and more infatuated, more and more excited over his good luck.
"Who was she?" Naples asked, between a smile and a shrug; and he, a man of easy tact, had his answer ready--a young protégée who had come to Italy to learn music and was resting awhile under his roof with her good mother.
Meanwhile, with that bad taste which infatuation will produce, even in people of high breeding, he presented Emma with some of his wife's clothes and toilet articles, a satin gown with Indian paintings on it, for which he had given twenty-five guineas, and for the hot weather loose muslin dresses something like those she had worn when sitting for Romney, with sleeves tied back with ribbons and plain knotted sashes. He told Emma that she might command anything, and she was grateful and wrote again to Charles Greville in the last week of July: why should not the fairy prince come to add the last touch of enchantment to this fairyland?
Why must she, when everything else was perfect, be content with an old lover? When she took up her pen she began to write in a facile, sentimental, emotional style, which was not wholly hypocritical:
"For God's sake send me one letter, if it be only a farewell. Think, Greville, of our former connection, and don't despise me."
If he did not come to her, she must go to him; she would be in London at Christmas at the latest, life was insupportable without him and her heart was entirely broken. What were the language masters, the singing masters, the music masters, without Greville? Why, nothing. She would return to live with him if he would allow her but one guinea a week for everything. Then she went on with an account of all that was happening to her, full of pride and pleasure in her triumph, informing her beloved Greville that she had no more eruptions on elbows or knees, and was become so fair that the Italians declared she must use rouge and white. She had been to Pompeii and the islands and there had been a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning; she ran on with this and all the other chatter that came into her mind. She was progressing with her Italian--she would write to him in that language soon. "But Grevell, of fleas and lice, there is millions." Then at the end a flourish of good-humoured tenderness: "Pray, write to yours ever. With the truest and dearest affection. God bless you. Write me, my dear, dear Greville. Emma."
Swift and dreadful storms, alternating with hot tempests marred that resplendent summer. The heat was suffocating, and streams of lava began to pour slowly from the fearful cone of Vesuvius, while plumes of smoke hung stagnant in the heavy sky; there were rumblings of earthquake and showers of ashes. All this to Emma was but an added excitement. It was scarcely possible for her to grasp anything beside the fact of the great success of her beauty.
When she went abroad, the cheerful, insolent lazzaroni and the idle, jolly, picturesque crew of beggars, fishermen, small tradespeople, and loungers, who formed such a large part of the population of Naples, followed her with cries of pleasure, delighting in her noble beauty, which to them was of so uncommon a type; they praised the mass of rich chestnut hair, her simple white gowns in the English or Turkish fashion, the plain straw or the famous blue hat which Greville had sent from London, and which cast such exquisite shadows over the entrancing face.
The Neapolitan aristocracy viewed, perhaps with a touch of irony, the old man's darling who had so suddenly and so dramatically appeared to take his dead wife's place in the Palazzo Sessa, but neither Sir William nor Emma perceived the hint of subtle mockery in the homage the easy Southerners paid to this fresh and uncommon charmer. The Queen was no prude; she has been described by one who knew her, as a woman "whose manners were so loose that it was possible to suspect her of every excess," and it was commonly believed that she had countered the incessant infidelity of the King with more than a few amours of her own, and that the handsome and elegant John Acton had been for years more to her than a friend. Whether the Queen was maligned or not, at least she showed herself generous towards the girl who appeared in such an equivocal position in the British Minister's house. Her Majesty did not herself receive Emma, but she made no objection to her courtiers' doing so.
The Italian gentlemen, in their tinsel and pomade, their pearls and their diamonds, sauntered laughing after Emma, when Sir William proudly paraded her in the trim walks of the gardens of the Villa Reale. A sparkling Viennese Prince was there; Emma could not spell his name, but he could speak her language and they got on very well together. He entitled himself her "cavaliere servente"; though the expression was new to her she soon grew to understand what it meant. The elegant admirer often dined at the Palazzo Sessa, and demanded a picture of the exquisite Emma while he smiled at her over the wine-gla