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

who took her up does not greatly matter. Sir Harry Fether-stonehaugh, the sporting young squire, who installed her as the temporary mistress of his town

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house and of Up Park, in Sussex, does not play a large or important part in Emma's career. While at Up Park, from the high Sussex Downs, she could see in the far distance Portsmouth, then, as now, the centre of naval activity—Portsmouth which was to be so much in her thoughts in later years.

During the time she lived with Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh she was undoubtedly very giddy and reckless—probably because she was really unhappy and wretched at the thought of her position with a man who had not roused any real affection in her. The rowdy young men, who formed her only circle at this period, did not tend to encourage the finer accomplishments in a woman ; but she learned to sit a horse with grace and daring; she hunted, and she spent Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh's money with such freedom that he became sick of her, and in a singularly heartless manner turned her adrift a few months before she expected to become a mother.

It may seem strange to say that the man who was the father of her first child played no large part in Emma's life ; but such was the fact, and Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh had little influence upon her career and character. She passed through the experience of motherhood with very little change in her irresponsible outlook. Even the child, to which she was fondly attached in its

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early years, and faithfully looked after, was no vital influence, but merely a pathetic, dim figure in the background of its mother's later brilliant fortunes. The little girl, who was named Emma, grew up to womanhood, was well educated and cared for, but—except for a short time when a small child—by others than her mother. She did not even know with certainty that Lady Hamilton was her mother, though it seems she must have had strong suspicions, as is shown by the only letter of hers extant, written by this unacknowledged daughter to Lady Hamilton in 1810.

" It might have been happy for me to have forgotten the past," she says, "and to have begun a new life with new ideas; but for my misfortune, my memory traces back circumstances which have taught me too much, yet not quite all I could have wished to have known. With you that resides, and ample reasons, no doubt, you have for not imparting them to me. Had you felt yourself at liberty so to have done, I might have become reconciled to my former situation, and have been relieved from the painful employment I now pursue. It was necessary as I then stood, for I had nothing to support me but the affection I bore you. On the other hand, doubts and fears by turns oppressed me, and I determined to rely on my own efforts, rather than submit to abject dependence, without a permanent

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name or acknowledged parents. That I should have taken such a step shows, at least, that I have a mind misfortune has not subdued. That I should persevere in it is what I owe to myself and to you, for it shall never be said that I avail myself of your partiality, or my own inclination, unless I learn my claim on you is greater than you have hitherto acknowledged. But the time may come when the same reasons may cease to operate, and then, with a heart filled with tenderness and affection, will I show you both my duty and attachment."

There is a tone of sincerity and self-reliance in that letter which wins respect, but there is no record that the sad, inquiring voice was ever answered.

CHAPTER II

GREVILLE'S TRAINING

r "T'HE really important thing that happened to 1 Emily Hart (as she now called herself) while at Up Park under the dubious protection of Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh was that there, in all probability, she first met the Honourable Charles Greville—the man who was to influence her more vitally than any other save Nelson.

Greville was the second son of the Earl of Warwick, a collector of rare and beautiful things, and the holder of a post at the Board of Admiralty. He was comparatively poor for a man of his position—so poor in his own eyes that marriage with an heiress was an absolute necessity if he was to take and maintain that place in the world to which his talents entitled him and his ambition pointed. When he first came across Emma, he was a year or two over thirty—young, good looking, and extremely well connected. Romney painted his portrait, and the face is distinctly attractive—large eyes, well set in the head, with an eager, searching look about

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them, a long, well-shaped nose, a somewhat feminine chin, but the effect of the whole refined and distinguished, a man who might well appeal to a much more cultivated and critical girl than Emily Hart.

It is evident, from the tone of her first letters to him, that Greville must have taken some special notice of the wild and charming girl at Up Park, if that was where he first met her. When she was sent from Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh in disgrace, with the terror of coming motherhood hanging over her head, Greville must have indicated to her that she might write to him in certain circumstances. But at first Emily Hart clung to the hope—poor and shameful hope though it was—that the Sussex baronet would take her back. From Hawarden—for she had returned to her grandmother's thatched cottage in her trouble—she wrote repeatedly to Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh, and it was not till she