A Royal Likeness (30 page)

“You mistake my meaning. A drowning was too good for such a scoundrel. If he’d been on a ship of mine, he’d have been flogged round the fleet then hung from the yardarm.”

Marguerite smiled wanly at his gentlemanly outrage, even if he probably did not mean it. “You are kinder, sir, than I deserve for my cork-brained actions.”

He sat back in his seat across from her, pensive. “It does present us with a problem, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean, Lieutenant?”

“Well, you are no longer Mrs. Ashby, but should I really insult you by calling you Mrs. Philipsthal?”

She laughed despite her wretchedness over the situation. “You make an excellent point, Lieutenant Hastings. For your compassion
when you could have been cruel, I give you leave to call me Marguerite in private. I prefer to remain Mrs. Ashby in public so I can forget the whole unhappy episode.”

He leaned forward and took her hand. “And it would give me the greatest pleasure if you called me Darden.”

But by the time her visit to Merton Place was complete, Marguerite was left wondering if that pleasant interchange had ever actually taken place. Hastings returned to his stern, prim self before his superior, making as little conversation as possible with her following his introductions of the estate and its residents.

Merton was a country home that could only be described as vividly alive and effervescent. This home that Nelson shared with his mistress, Emma Hamilton, had been a small, dilapidated farm. Emma had single-handedly overseen the transformation of the existing grounds and added acreage to turn it into an estate befitting one of England’s great naval officers.

The grounds themselves were a veritable wonderland of imagination, with a wide lake christened the Nile after Nelson’s successful campaign there, a quaint Italianate bridge, sheep grazing in a pasture, and a profusely blooming rose garden that permeated the air with its sweet fragrance. All of this was a prelude to a charming house that was obviously fresh from renovation.

Inside, the house was cheerfully noisy with children, dogs, guests, and music. Marguerite was reminded of nothing less than the fair in Leadenhall that she used to attend with her mother. The bright colors, gaiety, and hubbub of those events always made her clap with delight. She was tempted to do so again here.

One of the house servants escorted them into a small dining room, where Marguerite recognized Nelson at once, seated among the chattering guests. He was remarkably slight for a man known to have single-handedly destroyed a large part of the French fleet. But the giveaway was his unfilled right sleeve, pinned across his chest and secured to a button by a small loop. Darden had told her during their sea voyage that Nelson had lost his arm after his elbow was shattered by a musket ball in a battle against Spain in 1797 at Santa Cruz, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.

Less startling, but equally intriguing to her waxworking senses,
was his right eye, which was milky and unseeing, and was accompanied by a rather nasty scar above it, which had nearly obliterated his eyebrow. This eye was lost earlier than his arm, in 1794 at the siege of Calvi in Corsica, according to Darden. Nelson was ironically injured not by a direct hit in the eye, but from a stone flung up by a cannonball, grazing him. In her mind she was already figuring out how to order the glass for making each unique eye.

The servant announced them and Nelson stood up, smiling in what seemed a genuine pleasure to see his officer.

“My lord, may I present to you Mrs. Marguerite Ashby, a waxworker from Madame Tussaud’s, here to take measurements and castings for your wax portrait.”

Marguerite performed a slight curtsy. They did not seem to stand much on formality here at Merton from what she could see.

Nelson frowned at her with his one capable eyebrow. “Why is Madame Tussaud herself not here?” he asked Hastings.

The woman seated to Nelson’s left gave him a friendly push followed by a kiss on his good arm. “Nelson, she’s standing right here, y’nau? She seems a well-bred lady, not one of your powder monkeys to dismiss with a wave of your hand.”

“My dear, I am not dismissive of any of the men under my command, from the lowest powder monkey to the highest ranking of my officers.”

Emma rolled her eyes out of Nelson’s view. Then she stood and came over to Marguerite, shaking her hand and kissing her cheek in an overly friendly way.

“Mrs. Ashby, I’m Lady Hamilton, Lord Nelson’s best supporter and a frequent guest here at Merton. I heard a wax figger was to be made of our dear Nelson and I’ve been nearly bosting at the sides waiting for you.”

Marguerite felt Darden stiffen. She considered the overly enthusiastic, albeit charming lady before her. Reported to have been a great beauty in her youth, Emma Hamilton was now in her early forties and had largely gone over to fat. According to Darden, she had spent many years in Naples as the wife of the British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and had grown excessively fond of
the food there. However, there was no denying her exquisite complexion and beautiful mass of hair, accented by a wide, guileless smile that showed off her lovely teeth. Her gown was a clever one, stylish yet loose fitting below the bodice, so that it gave every advantage to her flourishing figure.

It was in Naples that Lord and Lady Hamilton first greeted Nelson when he came ashore as part of an envoy to discuss the Anglo-Neapolitan treaty in 1793. He and Emma were smitten with one another, and although it had taken them six years to actually enter into an affair, they had burned brightly together ever since. Sir William had even turned a blind eye to it until his death over a year ago, so great was his admiration for the naval hero.

Although Darden had expressed an immense admiration for Nelson, it had not extended to condoning the admiral’s affair, which he considered an insult to Nelson’s long-suffering wife, Fanny. Marguerite glanced over and saw the pained expression in his eyes. Emma was oblivious.

“Y’nau, they made wax figgers of me, Sir Willum, and Lord Nelson here, when we was in Naples, to celebrate the first anniversary of the Nile victory. They was on top of tall Roman columns, though, so I couldn’t see them none too well. That’s why I’m fair happy to see you, and I told Nelson, too, that he should be glad for it and not as fretful as he was when Pitt commanded it.”

“I shall do my best to make figures that please you, Lady Hamilton.”

Emma Hamilton’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, but I know you’ll make just fine effigies. I’m just bosting to see you get started. Nelson, can’t we show Mrs. Ashby to the room we set up so she can get to work on redoing your fine visage?”

Nelson, still smitten with Emma after so long, rose immediately to do her bidding, giving a hasty good-bye to his dining companions and urging them to remain and spend the day at cards or sailing on the Nile.

Emma left the dining room on Nelson’s arm, with Marguerite right behind them. Darden followed at a respectful distance. Merton was a rabbit’s warren of interconnected small rooms surging
with activity. In one parlor an older woman thumped away on a pianoforte that badly needed tuning. “That’s me mam,” said Emma proudly as they passed through.

In the next room a young child babbled along to the music floating in the air, making up her own words.

Emma stopped to pick up the girl and kiss her. With his good arm Nelson stroked the youngster’s hair.

“And that’s Horatia, Nelson’s child with Lady Hamilton.” Darden’s quiet voice next to her ear startled her.

“Did Sir William treat the child as his own?” she whispered back.

“He was tolerant of the child’s real parentage.”

Other people—friends, family, Nelson’s cronies—packed every available space of Merton, laughing, gaming, and supping. They finally reached their destination, a sparsely furnished room at the rear of the house. Marguerite was glad to see that it contained several chairs and a rectangular table sufficient for her work. Her two carrying cases had already been brought in here. Lieutenant Hastings had thought of everything.

Emma Hamilton fluttered around excitedly as Marguerite set up her tools, and even went personally to fetch the water Marguerite needed to mix the plaster compound. While she was off on that errand, Marguerite used her various calipers to measure Lord Nelson, and wrote these important figures down in her notebook. Unlike most subjects, Nelson was completely unperturbed by the sight of the calipers, even when she timidly used them to measure the circumference of his “fin,” which was how he referred to the remaining stump of his right arm.

Emma returned with the water, which Marguerite added to her plaster mix. Marguerite then invited Lord Nelson to sit in a chair she had pulled up next to the worktable, and told him the steps she would take to create his life mask. Hastings sat in a corner of the room and watched her work intently, nodding as if in approval. Marguerite felt a peculiar sense of pride in having his esteem. Strange how he could be such a sullen man at times, yet such a silent reassurance at others. It was difficult to understand Lieutenant Darden Hastings.

With Emma chattering excitedly nearby as the admiral was draped, his hair oiled, and breathing pipes gently inserted in his nostrils, Marguerite was ready to begin applying the wet plaster to his face.

She said to her subject as Marie had taught her, “Lord Nelson, please do not be afraid by what I am about to do.”

“Afraid?” Nelson wheezed past the paper tubes in his nose. “My dear, I have faced cannon-shot, malaria, an amputation, and near blindness. What do you think you can do that would cause me to be fearful?”

Marguerite dropped her ladle back into her mixing bowl as she laughed unintentionally at a memory that popped into her head.

Nelson wheezed again. “Hastings, is this woman daft?”

Marguerite covered her mouth with her hand to control her amusement, then went back to mixing the plaster one final time to ensure it was of proper consistency.

“My apologies, sir, it’s just that you reminded me of something Madame Tussaud once told me. About Bonaparte.”

“Bonaparte! How in the name of all of the saints could that rascal remind you of
me?”
In his indignation, he accidentally blew out one of his breathing tubes, which Emma picked up and lovingly placed back in his nostril before planting a light kiss on top of his oiled head.

“When she still had an exhibition in France after the Revolution, she came under the patronage of Empress Josephine.”

“Empress! Emperor! Self-styled titles, born of the little Corsican’s great ego.” Nelson was getting agitated. Emma knelt next to his chair, cooing in his ear.

“Yes, sir, of course. But after Josephine had her figure cast, she decided she wanted Bonaparte to do the same. He had no great desire to do so, but invited Madame Tussaud to the Tuileries to do his mask in order to please his wife.

“She performed the same preparations as I have done today, and said as I just did, ‘Please do not be afraid.’ His reaction was so similar to yours that I could not help my amusement. Please forgive me.”

As she lifted the ladle to finally apply the plaster, Nelson’s eyes
flew open and he reached out and grabbed her arm with his left hand. “Well?” he demanded. “What did that popinjay say?”

And so once again the ladle went back in the bowl. “Oh, well, after Madame told him not to be afraid, he said, ‘Madame, I should not be afraid if you were to surround my head with loaded pistols.’”

Emma burst into gales of laughter. To Marguerite’s relief, Nelson also seemed to find it immensely humorous, and joined in with Emma’s hearty barking. Even Darden was shaking silently from his seat.

“Bonaparte is a braggart, that is true, but I hope to be able to put at least a dozen pistols around his head one day to see what his real reaction would be. I intend to annihilate that braggart, and, praise God, I hope it to be soon. Please continue with your work, Mrs. Ashby.” Nelson finally settled back with his eyes closed.

Marguerite worked as rapidly as she could to smooth the plaster all over Nelson’s head, face, and neck. When she was finished and told him that he must wait patiently for the plaster to dry, she sat and thought about his fin. Should she model him exactly as he was now or, out of respect for his stature in the eyes of the British people, model him as he was before the Battle of Santa Cruz?

She knew what Marie would say. Cast him as he is. Visitors want to see figures as exact replicas of the people they represent.

As she sat with an elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, contemplating the making of Nelson’s figure to the exclusion of noticing what else was happening around her, the same servant who had shown them into the house now rushed into the room.

“Lord Nelson!” the man panted. At the sight of Nelson’s head sheathed in a hardening casing with two small tubes of paper protruding from his nose, the servant started violently. However, as a good member of the staff, he quickly recovered himself and looked to Emma. “Lady Hamilton, Mr. Pitt is here. He just came up the drive. What shall I do with him?”

From underneath his plaster Nelson emitted a rumbling growl, a noise Marguerite had become accustomed to from her life-mask subjects. He began waving in a way that was senseless to Marguerite, but Emma and Darden seemed to understand him. Darden strode from the room while Emma arranged Nelson’s draping
more elegantly around him. As elegantly as could be had for someone who is forced to remain motionless lest his face break.

Darden returned minutes later with Mr. Pitt. The prime minister looked worn and haggard. At age twenty-four, he had been the youngest man ever to take the office in 1783, when Marguerite was merely six years old. He held this post consistently for eighteen years until surrendering it to Henry Addington, but had recently regained office through a coalition of himself, Charles James Fox, and William Grenville. Now aged forty-four, he had the look of a man well beyond his years. His face was gray and gaunt, and pronounced loudly that he was not well. The shadows under his eyes indicated a man who worried about an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte even more than the admiral did.