The story of Lady Hamilton (10 page)

LORD NELSON'S EMMA HAMILTON

Even before he went to the Baltic he had been discussing with Emma the advantages of such a plan. No doubt she would enter enthusiastically into his scheme, and in her hands he left the buying and furnishing of such a place. The power to spend was one Emma always enjoyed using, and Nelson had given herboth the power and the money. She chose Merton Place in Surrey—" A seaman alone," wrote Sir William to the Admiral," would have given a fine woman full power to choose and fit up a residence for him, without seeing it himself. You are in luck, for on my conscience, I verily believe that a place so suitable to your views could not have been found and at so cheap a rate. ... I never saw so many conveniences united in so small a compass. You have nothing but to come and to enjoy immediately. You have a good mile of pleasant dry walk around your farm. It would make you laugh to see Emma and her mother fitting up pigstyes and hen-coopes, and already the canal is enlivened 119

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with ducks, and the cock is strutting with his hen about the walks."

Before Nelson was able to come ashore and see the " Dear, dear Merton" he was to love so much, he delighted in every detail Emma sent him. " I assure you, my dear friend," he wrote, "that I had ratherread and hear all your little story of a white hen getting into a tree, an anecdote of Fatima" [pet namefor the little Horatia], "or hearyoucall —'Cupidy! Cupidy!' than any speech I shall hear in Parliament." He told her, " I expect that all animals will increase where you are, for I never expect that you will suffer any to be killed." Again, she was to be " Lady Paramount of all the territories and waters of Merton." Then there came the curious touch, " Have we a nice Church at Merton ? We will set an example of goodness to the under parishioners."

AtlasthereachedMertonand found itallhis hopeshad pictured. In aletter to Mrs William Nelson Emma gives a pretty little picture of the war-worn Admiral's country place :—

QUAM VETERES GRAII PULCHRAM ESFINXERE

THALIAM ESFICTA EST NOSTRO PULCHRIOR

IN LATIO

LORD NELSON'S EMMA HAMILTON

" He has been very, very happy since he arrived, and Charlotte "[Nelson's niece]" has been very attentive to him. Indeed we all make it our constant business to make him happy. Sir William is fonder than ever, and we manage very well in regard to our establishment, pay share and share alike, so it comes easy to both partys. . . . We were all at church, and Charlotte turned over the prayers for her uncle. As to Sir William,

they are the greatest friends in the world

Sir William and Charlotte caught 3 large pike. She helps him and milord with their great coats on; so now I have nothing to do."

Merton Place, under Emma's hospitable and lavish rule, became a centre for all Nelson's relations, who flocked there when they pleased, as did many friends and acquaintances who had but the slightest claim to entertainment. When Nelson bought Merton it was with a wish for " retirement" and peace, but the views of the " Lady Paramount" were different, and as usual he 121

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gave her the way that pleased her. Emma, apparently, could not be happy without a large and admiring circle round her. Sir William, growing old and feeble, longed for a quieter life, and finding speech of no avail wrote his wife a long and very temperately expressed protest against her extravagant and restless mode of living. But it was in vain—his wishes were of very little importance. Emma was still fond of him in a tolerant way, but her attitude was that he mustn't be tiresome and interfere. In the early spring of 1803 he died, and Emma, whohad not regarded him very much in those last years, was immediately plunged into grief. " Unhappy day for the forlorn Emma," she wrote, "Ten minutes past ten dear blessed Sir William left me." Nelson at the same time said, "Our dear Sir William died at ten minutes past ten this morning in Lady Hamilton's and my arms without a sigh or a struggle. Poor Lady H. is, as you may expect, desolate."

Captain Thomas Hardy's curt comment

LORD NELSON'S EMMA HAMILTON

expressed theopinion of the world in general: "Sir William Hamiltondied on Sunday afternoon, and was quitesensible to the last. How her Ladyship willmanagetolive with the Hero of the Nile now, I am at a loss to know, at least in an honourable way."

This problem probably did not disturb them as much as it did other people. Lady Hamilton was quite accustomed to defying public opinion, and there was a simplicity and intensity of conviction about Nelson that lifted him beyond ordinary gossip and criticism. But war broke out again with France and Nelson was called to sea, away from the home and the woman he loved. Little was left to him of home life—for two years from that time he never set foot outside his flagship, the Victory of imperishable memory. " I have not a thought except on you and the French fleet," he told Emma, " all my thoughts, plans, and toils tend to those two objects. Don't laugh at my putting you and the French fleet together, but you cannot be separated." 123

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Emma, left at Merton, continued to live in her old lavish, expansive way. She entertained and celebrated the anniversaries of Nelson's victories with feasting and songs, and as aconsequence of this manner of living she got deeply into debt,in spite of her handsome income. But Nelson never realised her extravagance—"we shall not want with prudence," he told her—or if he did he realised it only as a virtue: " Your purse, my dear Emma, will always be empty ; your heart is generous beyond your means." How generous he was himself to her is shown not only by the large sums of money he gave her, but by the many beautiful and costly objects he bestowed upon her. When he was at sea he lamented, " I go nowhere to get anything pretty; therefore do not think me neglectful." But he was as jealous as he was generous, Mr Scott, his secretary, had received from Venice " two very handsome Venetian chains," which he wished to present to Lady Hamilton, but the Admiral forbade it. " I allow no one to make my own Emma pre-124

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sents but her Nelson "—a sentiment Emma would quite fail to appreciate.

The long separation from the woman who was dearest to him in the world was only rendered bearable to Nelson by Emma's detailed letters. " All your letters, my dear letters ! " he tells her, " are so entertaining ! and which paint so clearly what you are after that they give me either the greatest pleasure or pain. It is the next best thing to being with you."

On his last birthday but one he wrote to her, " This day, my dearest Emma, which gave me birth, I consider as more fortunate than common days: as by my coming into this world, it has brought me so intimately acquainted with you, who my soul holds most dear. I well know that you will keep it and have my dear Horatia to drink my health. Forty-six years of toil and trouble! How few more the common lot of mankind leads us to expect: and,therefore,itisalmost time to think of spending the last few years in peace and quietness." 125

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But Nelson's last years were spent at sea in anxiety and turmoil of spirit about the French fleet which he chased to the West Indies and back. With one little interval there was no more peace for him—only a great battle, a great victory, and a glorious death. Close on two months before the date of the battleof Trafalgar, he returned to Mer-ton for the last time. There Emma greeted him and that little dark-eyed child he loved so passionately, Horatia. He snatched a few brief days to rejoice in his well-loved home, but the shadow of an unfulfilled destiny lay over him and the summonsof England came soon. Nelson had little need of urging to finish his colossal task, even at the sacrifice of his happiness and his life, but it is characteristic of Emma that she claimed the part of promptress. " Did I not share in his glory ?" she said after the battle. "Even this last fatal victory, it was I bid him go forth. Did he not pat me on the back, call me brave Emma,and said, 'If therewere more Emmas there would be more Nelsons' ?"

LORD NELSON'S EMMA HAMILTON

After he had set forth on his last journey Emma wrote to tell him of the doings that were dear to him, but some of these later letters he never lived to read, and one of the letters he never read contained this little story of Horatia:—

" You will be even fonder of her when you return. She says,' I love my dear, dear God-papa, but Mrs Gibson told me he killed all the people, and I was afraid.' Dearest angel she is! Oh! Nelson,how I love her, but how do I idolise you—the dearest husband of my heart, you are all in this world toyour Emma. May God send you victory,and home to your Emma, Horatia, and paradise Merton, for when you are there it will be paradise. My own Nelson may God preserve you."

The foreboding fear of her words was answered by the event. On Nelson's desk, after he had fallen in the hour of victory, a letter to Emma was found open and unfinished, " And as my last writing before the Battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the Battle," 127

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he had written. In his dying hours his last thoughts had been for her. " Pray let my dear Lady Hamilton have myhair,and allot-her things belonging to me." " What would become of poor Lady Hamilton, if she knew of my situation ?" To Hardy he said, "Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy. Take care of poor Lady Hamilton." And to his chaplain, Dr Scott, in a lowbut emphatic voice," Remember, that I leave Lady Hamilton and my Daughter Horatia as a legacy to my Country; never forget Horatia." His last unfinished letter was brought back to the woman he had loved and so idealised, and on the back of it she wrote in a trembling hand, " Oh, miserable, wretched Emma! Oh, glorious and happy Nelson!"

Emma Hamilton lived nearly ten years after the death of Nelson—dying in the culminating year of Waterloo. It was a sorry ten years, full of extravagance, debt, difficul ties, and endless petitions and memorials to public personages. In a tender little phrase

HORATIA, NELSON'S DAUGHTER BY LADY HAMILTON

Miniature by Sir W. C. Ross, K.A.

LORD NELSON'S EMMA HAMILTON

she had called Nelson her "all of good," and how truly he was so is shown by the way she went to pieces after his upholding hand was gone, after the stimulus of his faith and devout admiration was withdrawn.

It is a sad spectacle, the rapid decline of Emma's fortunes, and all the sadder because it was so largely due to her own faults and weaknesses. Beauty, wealth,and friends, all grad ually left her—though N elson's favou rite sister, Mrs Matcham, and other members of his family did their best to aid and support her. But she was difficult to help, "wild and unthinking" to the last, extravagant and unreasonable to the end. Her gay and coloured House of Life, which she had reared with such ready skill upon her early obscurity, had nofirm foundations,and at theend came shattering to ruin about her once lovely head. She had to fly to France to escape her pressing creditors, and there she died and was buried.

But it is not the unhappy, violent, debt-ridden woman of the last poor years who lives 129 I

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to memory—instead it is the radiant creature, expressive of all the joysof life,painted by Romney, a " Bacchante," an " Ariadne," or Nelson's " Guardian Angel." Out of all the vicissitudes of her extraordinary life she snatched one lasting triumph—her name spells beauty.

LORD NELSON'S LAST LETTER TO LADY HAMILTON, WRITTEN ON THE EVE OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR

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QUEENS OF BEAUTY AND ROMANCE

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