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

one step. If you love Sir H. you should not give him up. . . . My advice then is to take a steady resolution. ... I shall then be free to dry up the tears of my lovely Emily and to give her comfort. If you do not forfeit my esteem perhaps my Emily may be happy. You know I have been so by avoiding the vexation which frequently arises from ingratitude and caprice. Nothing but your letter and your distress could incline me to alter my system, but remember I never will give up my place, or continue my connexion one moment after my confidence is betray'd. . , . By degrees I would get you a new set of acquaintances, and by keeping your own secret, and no one about you having it in their power to betray you, I may expect to see you respected and admired. Thus far as relates to yourself. As to the child ... its mother shall obtain it kindness from me, and it shall never want. I enclose you some money; do not throw it away. You may send some presents when you arrive in town, but do not be on the road without some money to spare in case

you should be fatigued and wish to take your time. . . . God bless you, my dearest lovely girl; take your determination and let me hear from you once more. Adieu, my dear Emily."

This letter is fully as characteristic of Greville as the preceding impetuous outburst is of Emma. In it may be seen his temperament and outlook nicely sketched by his own hand. His standard of happiness is "avoiding vexation " — and avoiding also, it may be said, anything that jarred on his taste or injured his material prospects. His willingness to alter his " system " and admit this impulsive girl, of whom he was by no means certain, into his carefully ordered existence, is explained by two things: first, her classical beauty and charm of colouring, which pleased his critical eye at every point; and, second, a marked strain of the pedant in himself, which made attractive the thought of having this delicious young thing to mould according to his own ideas. "If you do not forfeit my esteem/' as this admirable mentor told her, "perhaps my Emily may be happy/'

But it is easy to wax over-sarcastic towards Greville. He has been somewhat severely treated by several of the beauty's later champions, whose chivalry has carried them to the point of seeing him almost as an unnatural monster. He was really the saving of Emily Hart at a time

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when she was hovering on the verge of a very dark abyss, and though his motives do not stand close inspection, it is probable that he really pitied and liked the girl. It is obvious that his proposals to her are entirely lacking in any moral feeling; but it must be remembered that he belonged to a worldly and cynical age as regards women, also he knew very well that Emily Hart was not an innocent untempted girl, but one whose " reall distres " and lack of protection was in danger of pushing her down past the chance of recovery. Indeed, it might have been expected that a girl who had already tripped and fallen several times would have finally gone under and been no more seen. But Emma had a really marvellous power of recovery and a sort of ineradicable innocence—or, if that word is barely applicable, a kind of freshness like that of running water, for ever moving eagerly forward and for ever obliterating the traces of the past. She had something of Nature's own quality, turning one season's soilure and despair to " the music and the bloom and all the mighty ravishment of spring." Her terrified question, " Good God, what shall I dow ?" was not so much a voice from the depths, as the cry of a child in the dark—a child who is ready to smile again the instant the light returns, though the tears are yet wet on her lashes.

Greville's patronizing, kindly, immoral letter

was the light in the night of her distress. She came up to London from Flintshire as he advised her, and early in the spring of 1782 Greville had settled her and himself in a quiet little house in Edgware Row, with Emma's mother, now calling herself Mrs. Cadogan, to look after them generally. Mrs. Cadogan was an excellent woman, in spite of the complacent way in which she joined her daughter's different establishments when she was living first with Mr. Greville and afterwards with his uncle, as the wife of neither. She was a first-rate housekeeper and cook; Greville, as usual, knew what he was about when he told "his Emily" that "I would not be troubled with your connexions (excepting your mother) for the universe."

Edgware Row calls up an unattractive vision at the present day, but one hundred and twenty-five years ago it was quite a pretty country neighbourhood, close to Paddington Green—a region of " fresh woods and pastures new " to Emma, who spent some of the happiest, simplest, and most care-free years of her life there. The house was small and unassuming. Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson describes its interior minutely :—

" To visit this house, at any time of its tenancy by Mr. Greville, was to see he was a connoisseur. Together with fine examples of the Dutch school, the collector's choicest treasures comprised a few works by the best English

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