Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (cheapest way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

Hart was not content to remain the "perfect Bacchante." New abilities and powers were making themselves felt through all ! her gaieties and love of admiration, new ambitions were stirring in her. She had conquered one position, she had become indispensable to Sir William Hamilton, who had told his remonstrating niece, Mrs. Dickenson, that Emma " was necessary to his happiness," as well as "the handsomest, loveliest, cleverest, and best creature in the world." But if she had conquered Sir William's heart it was by the warmth of her own, not by any calculating scheme of self-advantage, for she wrote in 1791 with her usual ardour of conviction, " I confess ... I doat on him. Nor I never can love any other person but him." Her affections pointed the same way as her dawning ambitions. She had not pressed the point, she had waited through several years, but she had never abandoned her intention to fulfil the statement she made to Greville in 1786, " I will make him marry me."

CHAPTER VI

MARRIAGE

WHEN the charming and gracious Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Argyll, died at the end of 1790, Emma had many reasons for sadness. She wrote to Greville, " You may think of my afflictions, when I heard of the Duchess of Argyll's death. I never had such a friend as her, and that you will know, when I see you and recount to you all the acts of kindness she shewd to me; for they where too good and numerous to describe in a letter. Think then to a heart of sensibility and gratitude, what it must suffer."

By her first marriage the Duchess was related to Sir William Hamilton, and when she came to Naples for her health in 1789, she met Emma, and took an immediate liking to her. She threw the whole weight of her great social influence into the scales on Emma's side, and by so doing easily made Emma's detractors—who were not so conspicuous for virtue as for small-mindedness and backbiting—of very little account. Emma was naturally grateful to the great lady and generous woman who had understood that though

unwedded she was not an abandoned creature— the more grateful as it was no condescending patronage the Duchess of Argyll gave her, but a genuine and affectionate friendship.

The countenance and support of the lovely and irreproachable Duchess were of immense | help to Emma at one of the crises of her existence. Sir William Hamilton had not yet come to share ler wishes about marriage. " I fear/' he wrote,

I that her views are beyond what I can bring myself :o execute, and that when her hopes on this point ire over she will make herself and me unhappy." But he admitted at the same time that " hitherto ler conduct is irreproachable."

Still, in spite of her admirable conduct, there vas a considerable gulf between Emma's wishes ind Sir William's intentions. This gulf the Duchess of Argyll set herself to bridge on Emma's >ehalf. She urged him to do the right thing .nd make the woman who had adorned his house Dr three years his wife. How far she prevailed nd turned his mind in the desired direction is hown by a letter written to Greville from Naples i March, 1791, by a certain worldly-wise friend f his named Heneage Legge : —

"Her [Emma's] influence over him exceeds

II belief. . . . The language of both parties, ho always spoke in the plural number—we, us, id ours—stagger'd me at first, but soon made ic determined to speak openly to him on the

84 NELSON'S LADY HAMILTON

subject, when he assur'd me, what I confess I was most happy to hear, that he was not married ; but flung out some hints of doing justice to her good behaviour, if his public situation did not forbid him to consider himself an independant man. . . . She gives everybody to understand that he is now going to England to solicit the K.'s consent to marry her. ... I am confident she will gain her point, against which it is the duty of every friend to strengthen his mind as much as possible; and she will be satisfied with no argument but the King's absolute refusal of his approbation.Her talents and powers of I amusing are very wonderful.Her voice is very fine, but she does not sing with great taste, and Aprili says she has not a good ear; her Attitudes are beyond description beautiful and striking, and I think you will find her figure much improved since you last saw her. They say they shall be in London by the latter end of May, that theirs stay in England will be as short as possible, and that, having settled his affairs, he is determined) never to return.She is much visited here byj ladies of the highest rank, and many of the corp& diplomatique ; does the honours of his house with great attention and desire to please, but wants 1 ! a little refinement of manners."

Some parts of this epistle could not hav* been pleasant reading to the Honourable Charle.'i Greville. In a letter she wrote him about th<

London visit a month or two earlier, Emma had not let him into the secret of her hopes of at last obtaining an assured position; she had merely said—

" You need not be affraid for me in England. We come for a short time, and that time must be occupied in business, and to take our last leave. I don't wish to attract notice. I wish