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

had written him seven letters without receiving a word in answer or even a contemptuous guinea to lessen her pressing poverty, that Emily Hart gave up hope of being restored to favour.

She was in a very desperate situation; she had no money to support herself, let alone the coming child, and her kind old grandmother could not afford to keep her indefinitely. In her shame and distress she turned to the one man among her Up Park acquaintances, who had been something

LADY HAMILTON AS "BACCHANTE"

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

more than a rake or a rowdy young sportsman, to the man who had given her a glimpse of something better—for it was characteristic of Emma, in spite of her numerous stumblings and mistakes, that she was always attracted to what she regarded as noble and exalted; it was her nature to idolize and glorify those she loved. The Honourable Charles Greville was the best type of man she had yet known. That he was innately selfish and cold-hearted she was not to learn for several years to come.

So she wrote to him, telling him of her sad situation, and he appears to have replied pretty promptly. The pitiful eagerness with which she seized upon the first kind hand held out to her is revealed by the following almost panic-stricken letter, still breathing in every one of its ill-spelled sentences the anguish of her mind:—

"My DEAR GREVELL, —Yesterday did I re-ceve your kind letter. It put me in some spirits, for, believe me, I am allmost distracktid. I have never hard from Sir H., and he is not at Lechster now, I am sure. I have wrote 7 letters, and no anser. What shall I dow ? Good God, what shall I dow ? I can't come to town for want of money. I have not a farthing to bless my self with, and I think my frends looks cooly on me. I think so. O, G., what shall I dow? What shall I dow ? O how your letter affected me

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when you wished me happiness. O, G., that I was in your posesion or in Sir H. what a happy girl would I have been ! Girl indeed! What else am I but a girl in distress—in reall distress ? For God's sake, G., write the minet you get this, and only tell me what I am to dow. Direct some whay. I am allmos mad. O for God's sake tell me what is to become on me. O dear Grevell, write to me. Write to me. G., adue, and believe yours for ever. EMLY HART

" Don't tel my mother what distres I am in, and dow afford me some comfort."

Greville would have been indeed hardhearted if he could have read this " distracktid " epistle without being moved, though the way it was written, the servant-girl spelling and handwriting, must have seriously offended his fastidious taste. But such beauty as the erring Emma's covers a multitude of sins. Greville knew her to be tractable and warm-hearted, as well as beautiful. She seemed to him a promising subject for his training, so he wrote her the following curious medley of reproof, comforting assurances, and worldly wisdom :—

" MY DEAR EMILY, —I do not make apologies for Sir H.'s behaviour to you, and altho' I advised you to deserve his esteem by your good conduct,

I own I never expected better from him. It was your duty to deserve good treatment, and it gave me great concern to see you imprudent the first time you came to G., from the country, as the same conduct was repeated when you was last in town, I began to despair of your happiness. To prove to you that I do not accuse you falsely, I only mention five guineas and half a guinea for a coach. But, my dear Emily, as you seem quite miserable now, I do not mean to give you uneasiness, but comfort, and tell you that I will forget your faults and bad conduct to Sir H. and myself, and will not repent my good humour if I find that you have learned by experience to value yourself, and endeavour to preserve your friends by good conduct and affection. I will now answer your last letter. You tell me you think your friends look cooly on you, it is therefore time to leave them: but it is necessary for you to decide some points before you come to town. You are sensible that for the next three months your situation will not admit of a giddy life, if you wished it. ... After you have told me that Sir H. gave you barely money to get to your friends, and has never answered one letter since, and neither provides for you nor takes any notice of you, it might appear laughing at you to advise you to make Sir H. more kind and attentive. I do not think a great deal of time should be lost, for I have never seen a

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woman clever enough to keep a man who was tired of her. But it is a great deal more for me to advise you never to see him again, and to write only to inform him of your determination. You must, however, do either the one or the other. . . . You may easily see, my dearest Emily, why it is absolutely necessary for this point to be completely settled before I can move