Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; (47 page)

All this while the correspondence of the Boltons and Matchams, both young and old, with Lady Hamilton, breathes affectionate regard, unfeigned admiration, and real respect. She is the best of friends; her coming is eagerly awaited, her going keenly deplored. Eliza and Anne Bolton find in her a confidante, a trusted and trustworthy counsellor, the acme of the accomplishments that she knows how to impart to them. With the William Nelsons it was the same, though here, perhaps, the motives were less disinterested. Charlotte adores her benefactress and educatress. As for the Navy, Louis and others, in their letters, look up to her almost with veneration. If Emma had the power of offending, that also of conciliating was hers. These are facts which cannot be wholly ascribed to the exaggerations of homely admirers, or to the self-interest of office-seekers. These people seem, none of them, ever to have relinquished their fondness.

Nothing can exceed the variety of contrasts in a nature to which it lends fascination. Emma's tissue is spangled homespun, but the spangles mainly overlie it. Let us examine it on both sides.

We watch her throughout these letters, on the one hand, simple, homely, sympathetic, with no good or humble office beneath her, working in and for her house and her friends; a Lady Bountiful dignifying the trivial round, and generous not only with her purse but with her time, her praise, and her exertions— a true *Cf. chapter xi.

Penelope by her spinning-wheel. And yet, on the other hand, we view her inhaling the fumes of homage, whether from the suitors or the crowd. We see her courting the flutter of Bohemia, while she cherishes her household gods, and hugging flattery though she has a keen scent for the flatterer. In like manner she borrows with far less consideration than she gives; nor does debt cause her a pang until its consequences are in sight. To the end she remains far more lavish to her lowliest kinsfolk and associates than to herself, while she conceals her unsparing generosity quite as much as her waste. So far from " affecting to be unaffected " —that " sham simplicity which is a refined imposture " —she rather affects affectation, whether from whim or in self-defence. Devoid of the petty vanities of fashion, she is vain of her power. Tender in excess to her friends, to her foes she can be overbearing. Enjoying the recognition of rank, of her own kindred she is proud; and if she is not gentle, she is never genteel, though in her flush of pride at the royal licence to wear her Maltese honours, she can stoop to bid Heralds' College invent the " arms of Lyons." Lyon's arms, forsooth! Had her blacksmith father but known of this, surely he would have thrown up his own brawny arms in astonishment. Compassionate and sensitive, to such as thwart or suspect her she can be coarse and obdurate. Natural and outspoken to a fault, she is unscrupulous wherever her connection with Nelson is concerned, in double-speaking and double-dealing. Piquing flirtation, to Nelson she abides steadfast as a rock. When least virtuous, she never loses a sense of and reverence for virtue. A tender, if unwise, mother, her moods drive her into outbursts with the child she adores. Big schemes of expenditure always allure her; to little economies she attends, and she will squander by mismanagement in the mass what her man-

agement saves in detail. Constantly ailing, she is always energetic, but though never idle, she is often indolent. Passionate and even stormy, she battles hard with a temperament which repeatedly masters her. She is at once home-loving and pleasure-loving, careful and careless, sensible and silly, kind and cruel, modest and unblushing, calm and petulant, natural and artificial; and through all these phases runs the thread of individuality, of self-consciousness, of independence, of insurgent and infectious courage and enthusiasm.

The letters speak for themselves. Little Miss Matcham, at " Pappa's " request, indited a prim little note to her dearest Lady Hamilton. Miss Anne Bol-ton, often at loggerheads with her morbid sister Eliza, wrote to her at Ramsgate, where she was recruiting her health with Charlotte and Mrs. William Nelson:—

" I would have thanked you sooner for the few affectionate lines you sent me by Bowen, tho' indeed the life we lead is so uniformly quiet, that tho' we are perfectly happy and comfortable, it is very unfavourable to letter writing. ... It gives me much pleasure to find that Miss Connor is not to come into Norfolk, till you go. I should not know what to do without her. She is so companionable to me, who, you know, would have none without her, for Eliza, when most agreeable, I consider as nothing, and my father is very much in town. She is so good, she seems quite contented with the very retired life we lead. We have got our instrument, which, with books and work, form our whole amusement. Sometimes, by way of variety, we have the old woman come down, who behaves extremely well and is become quite attached to Miss Connor. Sometimes we sing to her till the poor thing sheds tears, and we are obliged to leave off. I am glad I have got over the horror I once felt in her presence, because it is in my power, the short time I am here, to contribute a

little to her comfort. We have beautiful walks in this neighbourhood, which Miss Connor and I enjoy, and you, dearest Lady Hamilton, are often the subject of our conversation. I live in the pleasing hope of seeing you once more, before we begin our journey, which will not be till the 22nd of August. But possibly, as you are so well and happy, you may prolong your stay at Ramsgate. I was delighted at the account Bowen gave me of you. I made him talk for an hour about you, and, indeed, to do him justice, he seemed as fond of the subject as myself. And thank you for the darling pin-cushion, which is treasured up, and only taken out occasionally to be kissed. A few nights ago I had an alarming attack of the same complaint which was very near killing me a year and a half ago. I fainted away and terrified them all. Eliza declares she began to consider what she could do without me. Thank God, and my father's skill, I am again well. Pray write to me; if it is but such a little scrap as I have hitherto had from you, I shall be content. How often we long to have a peep at you. . . . Miss Connor and Eliza desire their best love to you, as would daddy, were he at home. God bless you, most dear Lady Hamilton. . . ." Eliza Bolton, who at Merton had learned music from Emma and Mrs. Billington, also reports her own progress.

Nor, meanwhile, in Clarges Street, did Emma neglect the interests of the Boltons. For Tom, she solicited Nelson's cautious and official friend George Rose, already busied over her own suit with the new Ministry:—" It will make Nelson happy," she tells him; " I hope you will call on me when you come to town, and I promise you not to bore you with my own claims, for if those that have power will not do me justice, I must be quiet. And in revenge to them, I can say, if ever I am a Minister's wife again with the

power I had then, why, I will again do the same for my country as I did before. And I did more than any Ambassador ever did, though their pockets were filled with secret service money, and poor Sir William and myself never got even a pat on the back. But indeed the cold-hearted Grenville was in then." She adds that Pitt would do her justice if he could hear her story: she calls him " the Nelson of Ministers."

When Emma proposed spending the ist of August with the Nelsons at Canterbury, Nelson, during a fresh scare of French invasion, evinced playful anxiety at her neighbourhood to the French coast. But the ist of August was always her fete. She begged her constant and learned ally, Dr. Fisher, to join their " turtle and venison." " I wish," she concludes, " you would give heed unto us, and hear us, and let our prayers prevail." Doubtless the long, thin beakers and pink champagne of our ancestors were brought out at Canterbury to celebrate the anniversary of the Nile, while " Reverend Doctor " bowed his best, and Emma raised the glass with a tirade in honour of the distant hero. It was not the French fleet that interrupted this festivity : a worse epidemic than invasion was abroad—that of smallpox. Poor little Horatia caught the disease, though lightly, and Emma was in great distress. Nelson's anxiety was as keen:—" My beloved," he wrote, " how I feel for your situation and that of our dear Horatia, our dear child. Unexampled love never, I trust, to be diminished, never: no, even death with all his terrors would be jubilant compared even to the thought. I wish I had all the small-pox for her, but I know the fever is a natural consequence. Give Mrs. Gibson a guinea for me, and I will repay you. Dear wife, good, adorable friend, how I love you, and what would I not give to be with you at this moment, for I am for ever all yours." Relieved by better ac-

counts, he sighed for long years of undivided union —" the thought of such bliss delights me "—" we shall not want with prudence."

Horatia could at last be " fixed " at Merton, to his intense delight, though she was not definitely installed there till about May of the next year. Nelson now despatched to Emma a strange announcement, evidently designed as a circular note of explanation for the enlightenment of over-curious acquaintances. It bears date Victory, August 13, 1804:—" I am now going to state a thing to you, and to request your kind assistance, which, from my dear Emma's goodness of heart, I am sure of her acquiescence in. Before we left Italy, I told you of the extraordinary circumstance of a child being left to my care and protection. On your first coming to England, I presented you the child, dear Horatia. You became, to my comfort, attached to it, so did Sir William, thinking her the finest child he had ever seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to remove her from a mere nurse, and to think of educating her. Horatia is by no means destitute of a fortune. My earnest wish is that you would take her to Merton, and if Miss Connor will become her tutoress under your eye, I shall be made happy. I will allow Miss Connor any salary you may think proper. I know Charlotte loves the child, and therefore at Merton she will imbibe nothing but virtue, goodness, and elegance of manners, with a good education to fit her to move in that sphere of life which she is destined to move in." Not long afterwards he added that his dearest wish was that Horatio Nelson when he grew up, " if he behaves," should wed Horatia, and thus establish his posterity on Emma's foundation as well as his brother's, and this wish he embodied in one of his numerous wills.

In these mysteries of melodrama it is impossible not

to discern Emma's handiwork. As a girl she had devoured romances and been thrilled by the strokes and stratagems of the theatre. The same leaning that had prompted the secret passage episode at Naples, prompted this also; and from her Nelson caught the pleasures of mystification. Nor can impartiality acquit her of planting some of her relatives on Nelson's bounty. Sarah Connor's salary is one instance; Charles Connor's naval cadetship is another. At this very time the youth, who was to end in madness, was discoursing to " her Ladyship" of Nelson's " unbounded kindness." It is true that the unworthier members of this family, especially Charles and Cecilia, took advantage of Emma to the close, and that she had to support all of them, including their parents; but it is also true that Nelson's charities temporarily lightened her burdens.

Nelson was now nearing the end of his Mediterranean vigil. The King and Queen of Naples despaired at his departure. Acton, in disgrace, had thoughts of taking his new wife to England. Nelson had tarried long enough in the scenes of his memories. " Nothing, indeed," he tells his " dearest Emma," " can be more miserable and unhappy than her poor Nelson." From February 19, 1805, he had been " beating " from Malta to off Palma, where he was now anchored. He could not help himself; none in the fleet could " feel " what he did; and, " to mend his fate," since the close of November all his letters had gone astray, and he was without even the solace of news.

And yet his energy was never more indispensable than at this moment. The French strained every nerve to meet the renewed vigour which characterised Pitt's brief and final accession to power. Directing their fleet to the West Indies, they hoped to strike Britain where she was most vulnerable, her colonies. Eight

months' strenuous activity dejected but could not subjugate Nelson. " I never did," he assured Davison, " or ever shall desert the service of my country, but what can I do more than swim till I drop? If I take some little care of myself, I may yet live fit for some good service." He was dying to catch Villeneuve. Irritated at the command of Sir John Orde, destitute of " any prize-money worthy of the name," he could still waft his thoughts and wishes beyond the waves. It was not only each movement at Merton that he followed ; he cared for poor blind " Mrs. Nelson," while he sat beside the sick-bed of many a man in his own fleet. Nor did his vigilance concerning each veriest trifle that might profit his country ever diminish. Scott's descendants still cherish the two black-leathered and pocketed armchairs, ensconced in which, night by night, Nelson and his secretary waded through the polyglot correspondence, and those " interminable papers " which engrossed him. " His own quickness," writes one of the latter's grandsons, " in detecting the drift of an author was perfectly marvellous. Two or three pages of a pamphlet were generally sufficient to put him in complete possession of the writer's object, and nothing was too trivial for the attention of this great man's mind when there existed a possibility of its being the means of obtaining information." Nelson insisted on examining every document seized in prize-ships, and so tiring proved the process that " these chairs, with an ottoman that fits between them, formed, when lashed together, a couch on which the hero often slept those brief slumbers for which he was remarkable." At the end of March he heard that the French were safe in port. Within three days his fleet was equipped and refreshed. He scoured every quarter, ransacked every corner, to sight the enemy—in vain. Villeneuve had left Toulon to form his junction with

the Spaniards and effect his great design; Orde retired from Cadiz, where the junction was effected. Nelson ground his teeth and cursed his luck. By mid-April the French were reported as having passed Gibraltar with their colours flying. Nelson chased them once again, foul winds and heavy swells hampering his course. " Nothing," he wrote, " can be more unfortunate than we are in our winds. But God's will be done! I submit. Human exertions are absolutely unavailing. What man can do, I have done." Orde's remissness in taking no measures for ascertaining their course over-exasperated Nelson. At last he heard of their East Indiaward direction. Though they outnumbered him greatly in ships, and entirely in men, he swore that he would track them " even to the Antipodes." Though, by the opening of May, the elements still defied him off Gibraltar, and the linen had been actually sent on shore to be washed, while the officers and men had landed, their observant commander perceived some indication of an east wind within twenty-four hours. Without hesitation he took the risk of his weatherwise observation. " Off went a gun from the Victory, and up went the Blue-peter." The crew was recalled, " the fleet cleared the gut of Gibraltar, and away they steered for the West Indies." He hurried with unexampled expedition to Martinique and Bar-badoes—thus revisiting, in the last year of his life, the two scenes associated respectively with his love and his marriage. By the West Indies he was hailed as a deliverer, and it was their joy that first warned the French of the approach of the sole commander whom they dreaded. Nelson did not stay even to water his ships. The shrewd Villeneuve, who had once escaped from Egypt, hastened to escape once more, and his superior force fled like a hare from Nelson's fury. And Emma, meanwhile, was in an agony of sus-