Tested by Fate (4 page)

“You only see Emma, Uncle, as she is now. You do not see the wild, untamed creature she once was. Keeping that which has been achieved intact is paramount.”

“If what you say is true, that is so.”

“Yet you admire her.”

“It would be hard not to, Charles. She is, even you admit, a
rare creature. Were she not under your protection I doubt I could be saved from a foolish attempt at dalliance.”

“Hardly foolish, sir, and do not fear that any attentions you paid to Emma would evoke a jealous reaction in me.”

Sir William looked sideways at his nephew’s profile, the set of the jaw, the look into the far distance meant to convey sincerity. Perhaps he did mean what he said, but his uncle had seen him react to the presence of other men around Emma Hart, and nothing he had observed had led him to believe that he took kindly any form of attention to her.

“The foolishness would stem from my age. Besides, it would scarce be fitting. Suffice to say, Charles, that I consider the obligation of family.”

Greville tried to suppress the combination of anxiety and excitement in his voice. “Do you truly think of me as family, Uncle?”

“How can you doubt it, since you’re my blood nephew and I consider you my heir?”

That was an amusing moment for Sir William, who was too wise and urbane ever to be fooled by his nephew. He didn’t dislike Charles, quite the reverse, but there were traits in his character, the most notable his endless calculation, which he found reprehensible. As a younger son himself he knew what it was to lack an inheritance. And there was the clear memory of his own marriage which, while founded on a degree of regard, had had as much, if not more, to do with the stipend produced by the very estates they were now inspecting, property that had come to him through his late wife.

Charles worried that he would not succeed to the income. He knew that his mother had been Sir William’s favourite sister, and that once she had realised her brother was childless, she had pleaded eloquently on behalf of her younger son. Sir William had been happy to oblige, with the caveat that should he predecease his wife the estates would not be in his gift. He considered it a point of honour that, having made that promise and having survived Lady Catherine Hamilton, he could not go back on it.

Yet he couldn’t help teasing his too-serious nephew with hints
that he might remarry. Such talk, though Greville tried to disguise it, threw the young man into a frenzy of doubt. With a shaky concept of honour himself, he could not ascribe unselfish motives to others, and constantly saw barriers to his inheritance where none existed.

“There is some pity in the fact of our blood ties,” said Greville, holding up his hand to feel for the first spots of rain.

“In what way?” Sir William had already turned towards the house, thinking that the rain, a cause for some celebration in Naples because of its rarity, was all too commonplace here.

“I speak of Emma, of course. She is, I must tell you, the sweetest bedfellow a man could crave, as capable of gentility as she is of abandon. Had you been afforded a chance to discover her charms, I assure you, no barrier of age would have ruined your pleasure.”

Hurrying for shelter now, Sir William noted the words but not the expression that accompanied them.

However, over the next week, as the subject of Emma and her obliging nature came up again and again, it was not difficult to see which way his nephew’s mind was moving. Sir William was unsure whether to be offended or pleased, to anticipate delight or ridicule, to agree to what was being hinted at or scoff at it: the proposition that a man of his age should investigate the possibility of housing, and quite possibly bedding, a lively creature considerably less than half his age.

Trained as he was in diplomacy, Sir William did nothing to commit himself to any course of action. But he was not immune to imagination, and he had to admit that though the thought didn’t entirely please him, it didn’t appal him either.

A month with Little Emma had not only affected the child, it had had a deep impact on her mother as well. There were tantrums, of course, times when Emma’s patience was sorely tested, such as when she encountered her daughter’s reluctance to put more than one foot out of the bathing machine and into the sea, or to go to bed when the appropriate hour had struck. Hunger made the child
fractious,
as did tiredness, and it was plain that Grandma Kidd had overindulged her. But on the whole she was a joy to be with, a source of endless wonder with her chatter and her childish view of events and objects.

There were moments that would live with Emma for ever: the first voluntary taking of her hand, the morning when a sunny smile greeted her, the look in those green eyes, so like her own, when she read her daughter a story, the peals of laughter that accompanied a session on a swing. But, most of all, she loved that moment when Little Emma, tired after a day on the beach collecting shells or searching for crabs, fell sound asleep on her mother’s breast, the gentle pounding of her own heartbeat timed exactly to coincide with that of the child.

In Southport Emma was anonymous, just a mother with her child, a Mrs Hart whom everyone assumed had a Mr Hart in the background. Hints of a man serving at sea were accepted without question by the lady owners of the lodging house, who were too polite to enquire after an excess of detail. She was nodded to by strangers as a decent woman, and eventually engaged in conversation about matters domestic that had her falling back on her years in service. It was so long since Emma had experienced respectability that she was disinclined to give it up.

Against that she missed Greville, even his moods. She had sense to see that this seaside interlude was just that: a short break from the life she had chosen; a chance to play the part that might have been hers, had she not allowed her life to take the course it had. Having corresponded with her lover before, she knew better than to look for affection from his pen, but the coldness of his writing, especially on the subject of her daughter and Edgware, still wounded.

That absence of emotion served to rekindle her natural spirit, the need to challenge, rather than just accede to the wishes of others. Her growing attachment to Little Emma made the thought of giving up her daughter more and more difficult to bear. Emma swung between confidence in her own ideas and a fear of the reaction they would provoke, but finally, with no one present to
check her, she determined to act as her conscience dictated. The first thing to do was to get both of them to London and installed before Greville returned.

“If she is already here, then it would be a stone heart that had the inclination to turn her out.”

Mary Cadogan watched her granddaughter playing on the floor with the same affection Emma had experienced at the Steps. It wasn’t just the blood tie either: the child had a winning way as well as an open, trusting gaze and ready smile that was heart-melting. The surprise of the child’s arrival had faded in her, but not the notion that Greville would ever stand for it. He was a man who liked the house tidy. You only had to look at his choice of furnishings, which inclined towards the dainty rather than the robust, and to observe how he checked them continually for position and cleanliness to understand how finicky he was.

Greville liked things just so, and however sweet Little Emma was, she was still a child, prone to speak when not asked, cry when hurt, demand attention when inappropriate and leave her playthings wherever they fell when she tired of them. Though Mary suppressed these thoughts in order not to spoil a happy interlude, she had good reason to feel vindicated when the master returned.

“If anything, Emma, I am more vexed now than I was when I read your letter.”

Greville was pacing back and forth, hands behind his back, in the master-of-the-house pose that had become an increasing feature of his behaviour since he had moved in. Emma sat, head down, careful to avoid adding an eye challenge to a domestic one.

“Did you tell your uncle?”

“How could I not when you’d engaged him as advocate on your behalf?”

“I believe he shared my view that it would do no harm.”

“A stand of which I would take more cognisance if he would be obliged to suffer the consequences of such an arrangement.”

“Suffer, Charles? She’s only a child.”

“The only is singular, Emma, given that her being an infant is the whole point of my objections. The household is simply not suitable …”

“She has her own room, and both my mother’s and mine when matters permit. She need never come downstairs at all when you are about. You won’t even know she’s with us.”

“Nonsense,” he replied, impatiently, his voice rising as he spoke. “And what I do and do not know is hardly the point. Do not tell me that in some crisis you will not put her needs as paramount. Do not tell me that when I have friends in my own house some act of the child will not be noticed.”

“Who can object to the sound of a child?”

“I can!”

Mary Cadogan was listening behind the door, and when she heard Emma reply to that, she noted there was real steel in her daughter’s voice. It wasn’t anger but determination, and for once her mother, who feared to be cast out on the street more than any other fate, was with her.

“I require you to indulge me in this, Charles.”

“Require? Am I to be required of?”

The answer to that was no. Pleading, tears, tentative
intercessions
from an uncle who knew the bounds placed on interference had had no effect. Charles Greville ordered his life just so, and would not stand to see it altered.

Returning Little Emma to Grandma Kidd was heart-wrenching for Emma and ultimately sad, too, for the old lady, given that Greville had decided that the child must be placed with some respectable family to secure her future. That his notion had wisdom attached did not detract from the melancholy such a suggestion provoked. If the child stayed at the Steps, she would grow up in the same manner as her mother and grandmother before her. Who was to say that she would not turn out to follow the same occupation? It was a notion that Greville, for very good reasons, could not countenance.

“The choice will be yours, Grandma,” said Emma, the
offending
letter in her hand, her eyes, like those of her grandmother, red with tears, “though Mr Greville’s approval will be most essential.”

“It should fall to you, Emma, not me,” croaked Grandma Kidd.

“I would not pick someone close by. You will, so that at least you can see her when you want. It sounds cruel I know, but I
cannot
abide the way I feel. I would send her to a family so far away that even should I come to visit you I would not have the chance to see Little Emma.”

“I never thought you’d turn your back on your own child.”

“I do it for her,” Emma sobbed, her eyes turning to the curtain behind which her daughter slept, “so that she will not see tears every time she beholds her mother’s face. Let her grow up thinking someone else her true parent.”

Grandma Kidd stood up, if her bent frame could qualify for such a description, and both her face and the tone of her voice showed her anger. “I was never one for falsehood, Emma, and I reckoned you the same. But all this ‘doing it for the little ’un’ is stuff and nonsense. You’se doing it like this for your own ends. It’s your heart that is uppermost, not the bairn’s.”

“I—”

“Say no more, Emma. Go to the Post House, where you took care to leave your possessions, and wait for your coach to London.”

“You speak as though I have a choice.”

“You do, child,” Grandma Kidd replied wearily. “You could stay put and raise your own. But you’re too like your own mother, always looking for others to fend for you.”

Emma tried to embrace her grandmother, but was foiled as she moved away. “I’d like to part in harmony.”

“You could stay in that, Emma, but as to parting I can’t see how. Tell your man to write his conditions for the child. Rest easy that I will place her where she will be happy.”

A
LIVELY SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD
, Miss Parry Herbert, daughter of the Governor of Barbados, was enthralled by the approach to the island of Nevis, St Kitts just visible beyond it, beautiful
Montserrat
over the stern. Conical in the clear blue sky and water, with the tip of the old volcano topped by a ring of mist, the high cirrus clouds of a Caribbean dawn formed a perfect backdrop. Whatever doubts she had had about taking passage from Antigua on HMS
Boreas
had long since evaporated. She had discovered very quickly that the supposed ogre, Captain Horatio Nelson, who was standing with her now, was nothing of the sort. He was a kind, considerate man who ran a ship that defied everything she had ever heard about naval service: it was clean, free of fear, and crewed by men who treated her as if she were a princess.

It was hard to credit that this man who never raised his voice was, according to his servant, a real Tartar when it came to a scrap; that he was so in love with trouble that if it didn’t present itself he went out of his way to find it. Frank Lepée was often a trifle
inebriated
when imparting this information, indiscreet in the way he talked about his master and the troubles he brought on his own head, both with the ladies and authority.

Not long after arriving on the station Captain Nelson had fallen out with his commanding officer, Admiral Hughes, though some put that down to his relationship with Lady Hughes. Then there had been his unfortunate association with the wife of a fellow naval officer, which had set tongues wagging all over the region. Captain Moutray, retired from the active list and in some ill health, was married to a woman twenty years his junior. Mother of two children, she was reputed to be a beauty, though of a rather faded kind.

Gossip had it that Mary Moutray was a flirt, always keen to ensnare any passing young officer in the web of her vanity, managing to keep several gullible swains on tenterhooks at any one time. At worst, Nelson had been a fool among many, perhaps a greater one for the depth of his attraction and the directness of his method. He had made matters worse by entering into a dispute with the lady’s husband to do with the prerogatives of serving officers as compared to those afforded to a man who’d retired, some nonsense about a commodore’s pennant, which many ascribed to jealousy more than professional pride.

It was all stuff to a girl of her age, and that included the most boring subject of all: Navigation Acts. Nelson had set the sugar islands on their ears by insisting on an adherence to the laws, which obliged British subjects to buy British goods solely from goods shipped in British-owned bottoms. Anything brought in by foreign ships, especially Americans, might be cheaper but, in the eyes of the law he represented, it was contraband and would be seized as such.

Nelson watched her face, noting the excitement, responding as she pointed out some feature of the island that had caught her attention. Miss Parry Herbert was an engaging creature, full of the enthusiasm of youth that Nelson so admired yet could not but feel had long departed from him. For Nelson the Caribbean was a sea of troubles. Mary Moutray had gone home to England a few months before, leaving an aching void. With her corn-coloured hair, flawless skin, deep blue eyes, and winsome manner, she had led him to believe that all was possible, then broken his heart.

Frank Lepée reckoned he had been a fool, and in his drunken ramblings told him unwelcome truths: that the barbed remarks from his commanding officer about Nelson’s responsibilities, the gentle nudges of friends, and the warnings to desist, had sprung from genuine concern, and not, as he had supposed, from envy. Now, in his prayers, he begged forgiveness for having conjured up a base vision of Mary Moutray as a widow, her sick husband dead, and himself inheriting both her and the couple’s two young children.

Heartbreak was not his only trouble: having risen to become
second-in-command on the station, he was at loggerheads with his admiral, one-eyed Sir Richard Hughes, who would not support him in obliging the island traders to abide by the law. He claimed that if Nelson persisted, he would ruin the economy of the islands. Nelson had been forced to go over his head and appeal for support from the Admiralty, which had soured relations even more and did nothing to ease his present difficulties: they could not respond from London in less than three months. Nearly everyone in the islands cursed him as an infernal nuisance, and that included many of his fellow officers. But he had right on his side, and he was determined to prevail.

A puff of white smoke emerged from the bastion covering the anchorage, followed by the first of several booms from
Boreas
’s
signal
cannon. Nelson insisted to Miss Herbert that the courtesies exchanged between the shore batteries and his frigate were a salute to her, not him. That had pleased her mightily, and underlined to her how wrong she had been to listen to those who had advised her against requesting this passage. How could this gentle fellow, with his shy manner, threaten the very fabric of society?

She did not know that she herself had been a boon to the ship’s captain: her lively nature and genuine interest in all things nautical served to keep his mind off the worries that assailed him.

“Mr Berry, my barge,” he said, “and Mr Hardy to join me ashore when he has completed his lessons.”

Martha Herbert, daughter of the household and a year older than her cousin, was on the porch to greet them. There was a moment of appraisal between the two girls, who were strangers to each other: Miss Parry was fair-haired, bright-eyed, and pretty, while Martha, no beauty with her pinched face, had hair that was near black and contrasting almost translucent pale skin. Nelson observed them, and could see that while Miss Parry was happy to be visiting, her cousin was not so outgoing. Beside Martha stood the youngest member of the household, Josiah Nisbet, and Nelson’s glance in his direction broke the contact between the cousins.

“This, Miss Herbert,” said Martha, stepping to one side, “is Master Josiah Nisbet, son of Mrs Fanny Nisbet, your cousin, whom I’m sure you know is held in high esteem by my father.”

The boy didn’t move, but concentrated on not meeting her eye. Miss Parry Herbert moved forward and held out her hand. “Captain Nelson has mentioned your mother many times since we left Barbados.”

“Have I?” asked Nelson. He was as surprised by this as Martha Herbert, who raised a quizzical eyebrow.

Miss Parry continued, “All praise, sir, I do assure you. I believe you even went so far as to advise me to model myself on the lady in my relations with my uncle.”

“Wise advice, cousin,” said Martha, rather formally. “Mrs Nisbet runs Montpelier on my father’s behalf, removing the care of domesticity from his shoulders, allowing him ample freedom to attend to his more pressing affairs. Is that not correct, Josiah?”

The reply was halfway between a grunt and a hiss. Josiah was clearly determined to give away nothing in front of this strange girl. Nelson, though smiling at the boy, was thinking about those “pressing affairs.” John Richardson Herbert, president of the Island Council, was the wealthiest man on the island, so rich that half of the other planters annually mortgaged their property to him. Certainly he behaved with great generosity, scattering gifts with little regard to depth of acquaintance or cost. He carried himself well, as befitted the grandson of the Earl of Pembroke, and this house, Montpelier, white and imposing, stood as testimony to his taste.

The floor of fine English oak was highly polished and all about them in the hallway was evidence of a high appreciation of fine objects and furniture. At night, when the chandeliers were ablaze, they combined with the decoration to create an almost magical effect, which was enhanced by a steady stream of visitors whom Herbert seated, dined, and entertained, his only complaint being that the business of playing host fatigued him.

Martha, having informed the visitors that her father was still at his toilet, offered to take her cousin to her room. As they
disappeared
up the grand open staircase, Nelson turned to the boy, whose mood had changed abruptly: with the females gone he was looking at Nelson with open affection, which was not reciprocated.

“I have to say to you, Josh, that you did not acquit yourself well with your cousin.” The boy’s eyes dropped, and Nelson felt a bit of a scrub, especially since the child was not his to chastise. “But she is near enough in age to you to understand, so no harm will be done.”

“Thank you, sir,” Josiah said, abashed.

Nelson could never be stern with a youngster for more than a few seconds, so he adopted a pleasanter tone. “You look a bit peaked. How have you occupied yourself since I was last here?”

The boy gave an exaggerated sigh. “At my books, sir, which is tedious, though Uncle Herbert has promised me that I shall have a pony if I do well.”

“You must do well, Josh,” Nelson insisted, “otherwise I will not be able to ride out with you when I next sail this way.”

“
Will
you ride out with me?” Josiah Nisbet asked eagerly, taking Nelson’s hand.

“Most assuredly, young sir. It will be a pleasure.”

The tug to demand attention was unnecessary, since Nelson was looking right into the boy’s eyes, and smiling. “Can I come aboard your ship again?”

“If time and your mother permit. Indeed, when you are a little older, perhaps you may spend a spell with us, take a trip around the islands as my guest, as your cousin Miss Parry has done.”

“Why sir, that would be splendid.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Off the island, sir, at present, visiting on Montserrat.”

“That is a great pity,” Nelson replied, his smile evaporating.

“She will be back before nightfall, Captain Nelson. It will please her that you have called. I know for certain that she esteems you.”

That made Nelson smile again. “Does she, Josh?”

“Highly, sir.”

“Then that is gratifying to know.”

“Will you play with me?” the boy asked, tugging again.

“How can I refuse, when there is nothing to distract me?”

“If you run down the stairs, sir, the floor here provides the most satisfying slide.” Seeing the raised eyebrows, Josiah added, “That is, if you can be brought to remove your footwear.”

“It’s a good notion, but I fear for my stockings.”

“Tear them, if you must, sir. Uncle Herbert has pairs by the hundred.”

They were under one of the hall tables, quite oblivious to his presence when John Herbert appeared. He was a small round man, balding, with tidy features who cultivated his movements in the same way that he carefully modulated his voice. Fastidious of dress and behaviour, he had been caught out by the sudden arrival of his niece, forced to make a hastier than usual toilet. What he saw before him did little to restore his equanimity.

Josiah Nisbet was squealing mightily, emitting almost endlessly a high-pitched, childish yell. Nelson manoeuvred through the table legs, growling like some great jungle beast, grabbing him and snarling then letting the boy’s foot slip through his fingers. The queue that tied back the Captain’s hair had come loose, and so had his stock. But that was not what alarmed John Herbert most.

“Captain Nelson, sir. Do I find you my guest and in disarray?”

Their sudden awareness of the owner of the house had a great effect on both man and child. Josiah Nisbet scurried away, looking for a place to hide, while Nelson, caught only half dressed, sought to rise and fetched his head up hard against the top of the table with an audible thud.

“Mr Herbert,” he said. He crawled out, pulled himself to his feet and straightened his coat, stock, and hair. “Forgive my appearance. I could not refuse a request to play from a youngster. He is a sprightly fellow, as I’m sure you know.”

Herbert was looking at his feet, at the stockings that now had holes at the toes. He could scarcely credit the dishevelled apparition before him: this man sent shafts of fear running through all of the islands, with his accursed enforcement of the Navigation Acts
threatening ruin to many. Herbert’s fat face was a mask of
controlled
anger. “The boy can be a damned nuisance, sir. I have often had occasion to remind my niece that, if she is absent, there is no one here at Montpelier to hold him in check.”

“He is no pest to me, sir,” Nelson responded. “Indeed, being a hearty young fellow I enjoy his company. He reminds me of my midshipmen.”

That brought a frown to Herbert’s face, as though what Nelson had said edged the bounds of good manners. “You enjoy the company of the young, I perceive.”

Nelson looked hard at Herbert, before deciding to treat his remark as an innocent one. “Of course.”

“That, sir, is singular. I find children a bore. Those misguided modern nostrums as to their care are all stuff and nonsense. I was wet nursed, fostered, and left to the care of my father’s black servants and it has done me naught but good.” He continued to look at Nelson as, voice raised, he said, “Josiah, if you have not breakfasted, do so. If you have, go to the schoolroom and await your tutor there. And do so in silence.”

He looked Nelson up and down once more. “As for you, Captain, I think you need some privacy to compose yourself. That, and a new pair of stockings.”

“They have suffered, sir, but in a good cause.”

“The room you occupied on your last visit is empty. Might I recommend that? I will send someone to you with the means to effect a toilet.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He was moving away before another thought struck him. “How did you find Miss Parry? Her parents tell me she is a joy, which I hope to establish as being true. I am, as you know, Nelson, plagued by female relations as it is. It would grieve me if she were to prove tiresome.”

“My acquaintance is of short duration, but I certainly found her an entertaining companion.”

The look on his host’s face told Nelson that someone he found
good company would not necessarily find the same favour with Herbert.