Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; (40 page)

EMMA, LADY HAMILTON '347

her enhancements. " Thank God," he wrote at the beginning of February, " you want not the society of princes or dukes. If you happened to fall down and break your nose or knock out your eyes, you might go to the devil for what they care, but it is your good heart that attaches to you, your faithful and affectionate Nelson." x

About January 29, in a week of storm, Horatia was born. Within the week Emma, unattended, had taken the baby by night in a hackney coach to the nurse, Mrs. Gibson, of Little Titchfield Street. Within a fortnight, " thinner . . . but handsomer than ever," she could play hostess at her husband's table; in three weeks she was importuned by, though she refused to entertain, royalty. From first to last, she wrote daily to Nelson, and she was active in concealment. Her force of will and endurance at this juncture pass comprehension. She behaved as if nothing had happened, though she must seriously have deranged her health.

" I believe," wrote the transported father so soon as her glad tidings reached him, " I believe dear Mrs. Thomson's friend will go mad with joy. He cries, prays, and performs all tricks, yet dares not show all or any of his feelings, but he has only me to consult with. He swears he will drink your health this day in a bumper, and damn me if I don't join him in spite of all the doctors in Europe, for none regard you with truer affection than myself. You are a dear good creature, and your kindness and attention to poor Mrs. T. stamps you higher than ever in my mind. I cannot write, I am so agitated by this young man at my elbow. I believe he is foolish, he does nothing but rave about you and her. I own I participate in his joy and cannot write anything."

It is noteworthy that the eccentric demeanour of 1 Letter of February i, 1801.

" dear Mrs. Thomson's friend " accords with what was evidently a trait in the Nelson family; for Sir William, describing to Nelson the joy of his brother " the reverend doctor," on hearing the first intelligence of Copenhagen while dining with him in Piccadilly, says: " Your brother was more extraordinary than ever. He would get up suddenly and cut a caper; rubbing his hands every time that the thought of your fresh laurels came into his head."

The day after the " young man " at Nelson's elbow had been thus disporting himself, Nelson again addressed Lady Hamilton. He had cut out two lines from her letter with which, he declares, he will never part. He had exceeded his promise of the clay before, and had drained two bumpers to the health of Mrs. Thomson and her child in the company of Troubridge, Hardy, Parker, and his brother, till the latter said he would " hurt " himself: " that friend of our dear Mrs. T. is a good soul and full of feeling," he wrote; " he wishes much to see her and her little one. If possible I will get him leave for two or three days when I go to Portsmouth, and you will see his gratitude to you." Next morning he communicates with her indirectly as " Mrs. Thomson." Her " good and dear friend does not think it proper at present to write with his own hand," but he " hopes the day may not be far distant when he may be united for ever to the object of his wishes, his only, only love. He swears before heaven that he will marry her as soon as possible, which he fervently prays may be soon. Nelson is charged " to say how dear you are to him, and that you must [at] every opportunity kiss and bless for him his dear little girl, which he wishes to be called Emma, out of gratitude to our dear, good Lady Hamilton, but in either [case?] its [name?], [whether?] from Lord N., he says, or Lady H., he leaves to your judgment and

choice." He has " given poor Thomson a hundred pounds this morning for which he will give Lady H. an order on his agents "; and he begs her to " distribute it amongst those who have been useful to you on the late occasion; and your friend, my dear Mrs. Thomson," he adds, " may be sure of my care of him and his interest, which I consider as dearly as my own. . . ."

But perhaps the least guarded of this long series is a fragment to be found in the old volume of Nelson Letters, though Pettigrew's transcripts and the Morrison- original do not comprise it. It bears date February 16. " I sit down, my dear Mrs. T.," it runs, " by desire of poor Thomson, to write you a line: not to assure you of his eternal love and affection for you and his dear child, but only to say that he is well and as happy as he can be, separated from all which he holds dear in this world. He has no thoughts separated from your love and your interest. They are united with his; one fate, one destiny, he assures me, awaits you both. What can I say more? Only to kiss his child for him: and love him as truly, sincerely, and faithfully as he does you; which is from the bottom of his soul. He desires that you will more and more attach yourself to dear Lady Hamilton." Only a week earlier he had addressed to her that stirring passage which told her that it was she who urged him forth to glory, that he had been the whole world round, and had never yet seen " her equal, or even one who could be put in comparison."

Every night he and his " band of brothers " continue to raise the glass to the toast of Emma. Letter succeeds to letter, affection to impatience, and impatience to ecstasy. He makes a new will, bequeathing her, besides other jewelled presentations, the portrait which Maria Carolina had given him of herself at part-

ing; charging, too, in her favour the rental of Bronte, but on this occasion only in the case of the failure of its male heirs; creating, above all, a trust for the child, of whom " Emma Hamilton alone knows the parents," of whom too she is besought to act as guardian, and by her honour and integrity to " shield it from want and disgrace." He would " steal white bread rather than that the child should want." He and she are to be and be known as godparents of an infant in whom they take a " very particular interest," and he especially requests that it may be brought up as " the child of her dear friend Nelson and Bronte." He discusses the name; Emma had evidently begged that it might be his, nor hers as originally proposed. Let it be christened " Horatia" and be registered, anagramatically, as " daughter of Johem and Morata Etnorb." 1 As for the date of baptism, he leaves it entirely to his Emma's discretion, but, on the whole, after some hesitation he favours its postponement, since a clergyman might ask inconvenient questions. He rejoices to hear that the baby is handsome, for then it must be like his dear " Lady Hamilton," between whom and Mrs. Thomson there is said to be a striking resemblance. After all, there is no immediate hurry to settle these trifles. He must soon rejoin her, if only for a day. Till March he would still be kept off the English coasts, near and yet far from Emma; he chafes at a division uncaused by duty or by distance. He will run up so soon as " Mr. Thomson " can get leave, and propitiate that watch-dragon, Troubridge.

Emma's correspondence with Mrs. William Nelson from the latter end of February shows how and when he appeared in London. But before he hastened to her side, a curious and undetailed episode, mixing a drop of bitter disquiet with his draught of rapture, will **'. e. Horatio and Emma Bronte.

be followed with interest. It exhibits Emma's constancy and fortitude under a temptation which surprised her, and anguished her fretting lover. Her firmness in overcoming it and, with it, his jealousy, riveted him, if possible, more closely than ever. It pervades every one of Nelson's letters, from the February of this year to the end of March, and many long afterwards.

While, strained and nervous beyond measure, she now awaited Horatia's birth, she was annoyed and alarmed, though probably flattered also, by a message from the Prince of Wales—eager to bridge over the dull interval till Parliament might pronounce his father imbecile and himself Regent. He politely commanded Sir William to invite him to dinner on a Sunday evening. It was his desire to hear Lady Hamilton sing, together with La Banti, who was now in London, and whose son Nelson actually placed in the navy together with Emma's cousin, Charles Connor. Sir William was anxious to obtain from the Government not only his full pension, but also a liberal reward for the heavy losses which Jacobinism had inflicted on his property. Moreover, he hoped, though in vain, for a new appointment—the governorship of Malta. The Prince's aid was all-important for the ex-Ambassador. He had been more than civil during the short visit of 1791, when he had commissioned portraits of the fair Ambassadress; and, though an ill-natured world might put the worst construction on his presence in Piccadilly, Sir William trusted to Emma's prudence and his own interest. 1 The fiery Nelson, however, infuriated,

1 Cf. his letter to Nelson of Feb. n, Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 200. "... She has got one of her terrible sick headaches. Among other things that vex her is—that we have been drawn in to be under the absolute necessity of giving a dinner to the P. of Wales on Sunday next. He asked it himself, having expressed a strong desire of hearing Banti's and Emma's voices

even demented, at the bare suspicion, ascribed the whole manoeuvre to the bad offices and influence of Lady Abercorn, Mrs. Walpole, and a " Mrs. Nisbet," who had been heard publicly to assert that Lady Hamilton had " hit " the Prince's " fancy." Sir William, however, was now once more under Greville's thumb, and it is likely that the mild Mephistopheles of King's Mews had his finger in this pie. At a moment so awkward, Emma certainly disbelieved that her husband ever did more than countenance the affair. She was proud of her talent, and pleased at the sensation it created in the Duke of Queensberry's circle. But the attentions of such a charmer as the First Gentleman in Europe were doubtless of design; and she was on her guard at the outset, though in after years she cultivated the new friendship of the Prince, together with the long-standing one of his admiring brothers. Her child had half-hallowed in her eyes the sin that sacrifice had endeared, and she resented the buzz of the scandalmongers. She welcomed, indeed invited, Nelson's plan of bringing up his sister-in-law to the rescue.

Sir William's intention that the royal visit should be en famille, and its projected secrecy, worked up Nelson's feelings to their highest pitch: better by far, if it had to be, a big reception. In the end, however, no party took place, still less was there any eclat. The Prince was baffled, despite Sir William. Emma

together. I am well aware of the dangers, etc. ... As this dinner must be, or he would be offended, I shall keep strictly to the musical part, invite only Banti, her husband, and Taylor; and as I wish to show a civility to Davison, I have sent him an invitation. In short, we will get rid of it as well as we can, and guard against its producing more meetings of the same sort. Emma would really have gone any lengths to have avoided Sunday's dinner. But / thought it would not be prudent to break with the P. of Wales, etc. ... I have been thus explicit as I know well your Lordship's way of thinking, and your very kind attachment to us and to everything that concerns us."

showed that she could renounce vanity for love, and that she dared to rebuff importunity in high places. Nelson's mountain brought forth a mouse, nor did he ever cease to commemorate his appreciation of Emma's firmness—" firm as a rock/' he said of his trust in her afterwards.

Nelson was really on the rack. His distracted letters of more than a fortnight—until his apprehensions of the main danger had been calmed—present a striking self-revelation, and are doubly interesting because Emma's own letters to Mrs. William Nelson supplement them. It is only through his own words that we can realise his feelings. His overwrought nature magnified every shadow, and overbore his strong common sense. He was morbid, and conjured up suspicions and anticipations alike unworthy of him. Throughout his life his geese were too often swans, and his betes noires, even oftener, demons. His Jeremiads sound a monotone. He tears his passion to tatters in a crescendo of self-torture. The man whose bracing and unblenching nerves were iron in action, who was shortly to urge " these are not times for nervous systems," grew unstrung and abased when his immense love lost its foothold for a moment. At first he could scarcely believe that " Sir William should have a wish for the Prince of Wales to come under your roof"; no good could come from it, but every harm. " You are too beautiful not to have enemies, and even one visit will stamp you. . . . We know that he is without one spark of honour in these respects and would leave you to bewail your folly. But, my dear friend, I know you too well not to be convinced you cannot be seduced by any prince in Europe. You are, in my opinion, the pattern of perfection." " Sir William should say to the Prince that, situated as you are, it would be highly improper for you to admit H.R.H.

That the Prince should wish it, I am not surprised at. . . . Sir William should speak out, and if the Prince is a man of honour, he will quit the pursuit of you. . . . The thought so agitates me that I cannot write. I had wrote a few lines last night but I am in tears, I cannot bear it." " I own I sometimes fear that you will not be so true to me as I am to you, yet I cannot, will not believe, you can be false. No! I judge you by myself. I hope to be dead before that should happen, but it will not. Forgive me, Emma, oh, forgive your own dear, disinterested Nelson. Tell Davison how sensible I am of his goodness. He knows my attachment to you. . . . May God send . . . happiness! I have a letter from Sir William; he speaks of the Regency as certain; and then probably he thinks you will sell better—horrid thought!" "Your dear friend, my dear and truly beloved Mr. T., is almost distracted; he wishes there was peace, or if your uncle would die, he would instantly then come and marry you, for he doats on nothing but you and his child. . . . He has implicit faith in your fidelity, even in conversation with those he dislikes, and that you will be faithful in greater things he has no doubt." When Emma scolded, and sought to pique him by a piece of jesting jealousy into reason, he reassured both her 1 and himself for a few days; but on February n, addressing her as " My dear Lady," he tells her that " it is very easy to find a stick to beat your Dog," and to find a pretext for blaming one " who will never forget you, but to the last moment of his existence, pray to God to give you happiness and to remove from this ungrateful world your old friend." Three days later,