Mare si lucido,Lido si caro,Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!
Mare si lucido,Lido si caro,Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!
Mare si lucido,
Lido si caro,
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!
The famous song of Naples.
“This is heaven,” says she, when the voice was silent, “and you and your Emma trouble yourselves about the weary world! Oh, fools, fools! Forgive me, my good cousin!”
Indeed, it was with a beating heart that Emma prepared for that introduction. Not even to Sir William would she admit how much it signified to her. He viewed it but as the caprice of a lady too great to be crossed. She, as the golden key which might possibly unlock another of the endless gates which stayed her progress. Yet she betrayed no eagerness, no agitation, though it awakened every intelligence to its work. “What would I not do for any relative of my own Sir William’s,” was all she said when it was laid before her.
But her preparations! She had resolved that she would wear the dress in which the Attitudes should be performed, and indeed it served her well. Had she known her business completely she would never have been seen in anything else.
Behold, then, the Duchess of Argyll’s salon in the Villa Columbaia, high, cool and beautiful with the grace of Italian and the comfort of English furnishings. A naked girl in marble, carved by a famous Italian, poised life-size by the windows, running; caught in the flush of her speed with a butterfly perched on her finger.
The Duchess herself sat in a noble chair carved long ago by English workmen, and above her head was a picture of her sister, the dead Lady Coventry, seductive, entrancing, with her long languid eyes. She herself, in an Italian evening gown of purple lustring trimmed with silver gauze, harmonized the incongruities with an odd but delightful unity. There was beside her a great stand of tall and shaded wax candles which shed the most flattering light known to the imagination on her beautiful worn face, and the great bowl of luscious roses at her elbow.
There was only a small party in attendance (for all present had the air of attending her Grace): three or four men, the Lady Diana Beauclerck, the Duke and Duchess de St. Maître and a few more; Lady Diana, sketchbook in hand, for she would never lose the chance of some new and surprising pose of Emma’s.
To these, talking and laughing, the lacquey makes his unashamed announcement.
“His Excellency the Ambassador and Mrs. Hart.” And the Duchess beholds framed in the tall dim doorway—what? A statue from the Museo come to pay her respects? No, a somewhat tall young woman robed in pure white of some subtly soft material which drapes like Greek marble, and falls in long slender folds to chastely hidden but sandalled feet. Chastely hidden the beautiful bosom also, rounding softly through the veil, but the noble throat, a pillar of ivory, rears itself proudly from the uncovered chest as strongly and finely modelled as that of Diana’s swiftest nymph, with room and to spare for ample lungs and untroubled breath. The sleeve is looped to the shoulder on one side, and falls in long drapery on the other. Her face, a little pale with controlled agitation, is serenely sweet and modest. A magnificent young animal in rejoicing health, if no more, thinks the Duchess as Sir William leads the beauty forward and she makes her reverence before the thronelike chair. Her Grace may then remark the masses of gold-touched bronze hair pressed and calmed down upon the small head that its luxuriance may be controlled into reason, and the rose-red lips above the perfect chin. The eyes are not on show. Mrs. Hart veils them chastely with long lashes. She showed like a lovely survival of the lost glory of Greece among these fashionably dressed ladies—and knew it. The Duchess received her graciously and motioned that a chair be set beside her. Sir William should have nothing to complain of and, indeed, she was curious herself.
“I take it very kind, madam, that you visit me this evening,” says she with gentle dignity. “But Sir William has no doubt made my excuses and told you that my physicians forbid any fatigue. Therefore I am compelled to ask my friends to be charitable and favour me with their company when they will be so good.”
“Oh, madam, what could I think it but an honour to visit your Grace,” says the sweet statue, carefully tutored in her forms of address by the best tutor of the polite world, and then relapses into a graceful silence with bows and smiles to such of the company as she knows; Lady Diana especially warm in her greeting, for there was never an artist heart could hold away from its spiritual kin in Emma.
“And did he tell you that I entreated as a special favour that I might hear what I am told is one of the finest voices of our day?” the Duchess continues.
“Indeed, madam, yes. He told me your Grace would find San Carlo too fatiguing.”
“And those famous poses of which I understand the great Goethe has written in terms of such delight?”
“All is at your service, madam. I have come dressed in the antique taste for the purpose. I only beg one favour; that if you find themennuyanteyou will stop me.”
“I promise!” says the Duchess, with a smile which disarms her words.
There was more talk, and refreshments were served, however, before she would put the statue in motion. Mrs. Hart was not to feel she was bidden merely as a raree-show for fashionable folks. Indeed, Lady Diana exhibited first her portfolio of new drawings done for the decoration of one of Mr. Horace Walpole’s rooms at his gimcrack castle of Strawberry Hill, and one of the gentlemen, the Duke de San Maître, favoured them with a song, “Napoli bella” and so forth, which Emma applauded with more smiling warmth than any of the party, the Duchess watching her well pleased.
It was her turn next—the poses which gained her the nickname of The Gallery of Statues from the said Mr. Horace Walpole. I will not, I must not particularize, though on such beauty one would linger if possible, but as she melted from one loveliness to another, the Duchess’s eyes followed and could not be satisfied. She laughed with the laughing comedy, held her breath while the ruined Cassandra, pointing to the violating Sun, seemed to hurl forth the dreadful prophecies that none regarded, smiled for pure pleasure at the nymph with a tambourine, and so forth through every act of the lovely show—so lovely that even the girl’s enemies could not withhold their reluctant praises.
When it was over, she clapped her hands.
“Wonderful, marvellous—I could see it forever and ever! It is a new art. It is painting and poetry and sculpture and the theatre all expressed in one,” cried she. “My dear, you have genius. I never saw anything remotely like it. And now—can it be possible that with all these perfections you also have a voice worth hearing? If so, I declare it unjust, preposterous. The most of us have no gifts at all. The few have one, but you—”
“I have called her Pandora, for indeed she has them all,” says Sir William, and the gentlemen who understood the classical allusion applauded. And Emma sang. She put her heart into it. She gave them her famous “Luce bella” with ornaments of diamond and crystal clearness that the Banti herself could not have excelled. Her voice sparkled and glittered; nothing more brilliant could be imagined. And then when she had driven them all into the realms of soulless admiration—for what is such art but an exquisite gymnastic?—she led them back into the forests of true romance with a simple ballad from Scotland, in homage to the Duchess whose soft eyes filled with tears in listening.
They have slain the Earl o’ MorayAnd laid him on the green.—
They have slain the Earl o’ MorayAnd laid him on the green.—
They have slain the Earl o’ Moray
And laid him on the green.—
The cry of it! The tears in her soft voice!
Oh, the bonny Earl o’ MorayHe was the Queen’s love.And lang, lang may his ladyLook o’er the Castle doun,Ere she see the Earl o’ MorayCome sounding through the toun.
Oh, the bonny Earl o’ MorayHe was the Queen’s love.And lang, lang may his ladyLook o’er the Castle doun,Ere she see the Earl o’ MorayCome sounding through the toun.
Oh, the bonny Earl o’ Moray
He was the Queen’s love.
And lang, lang may his lady
Look o’er the Castle doun,
Ere she see the Earl o’ Moray
Come sounding through the toun.
So she ended in a dying sweetness with notes as deep as doom, and would sing no more, and the silence that followed was better than all words. The Duchess drew her near and kissed her cheek without any.
Indeed, Emma spoke little that night. She was conscious herself, to a certain extent, that she was on her promotion. Conscious, too, that there were faults of speech which great ladies might view with scorn unsoftened by the bright beauty which made even these a naïve enchantment to men. She was therefore at her best, nothing breaking out of control; pliable, gentle, unassuming; in all things obedient and attentive to Sir William.
He drew near the Duchess while Emma at Lady Diana’s request poised her tambourine for a rapid sketch in Mr. Walpole’s interest. The others had gathered about the pretty sight.
“Your opinion, madam?”
“I am charmed, dazzled. She is a revelation of the most exquisite beauty. There is genius, Sir William. I never saw her like.”
“Then you don’t condemn me, madam? You don’t think me the infatuated fool I am called in some circles?”
“I think you have shown yourself a man of supreme taste. That girl—take care she does not leave you some day and take Europe as a lover instead! Every great capital would be at her feet.”
“You forget she loves me. She will not leave me,” he said complacently. The Duchess looked at him with pitying eyes.
“You forget, my friend, I fear, that you are sixty, and she—” She pointed with her fan at the radiant figure, incarnate youth, and the men crowding about her to admire. It struck like the chill of death, as a truth known with secret fear to ourselves will do when repeated from other lips.
“I must take my fate like another man!” he answered, with a voice that shook a little. His eyes fell on his hands; beautifully shaped but veined and wrinkled.
“We can’t escape Fate,” says the Duchess, “but we can evade her for a while.”
They looked at each other. “And what would you do?” he asked, turning his eyes away last.
“Marry her!” said the Duchess. Then, hastily, “My friend, it is not my business. I intrude. My Lady Diana, are you for cards?”
CHAPTER XVACHIEVEMENT
Afterthis Emma saw the Duchess constantly. She became, indeed, her chief interest in Naples. The girl was so bright andsimpatica(to use the more expressive Italian) that her Grace could not do without this charming new toy. It may well be imagined the difference this made in her position. No breath had ever sullied the bright mirror of the Duchess’s reputation. If it was whispered that the King of England himself had been one of her adorers it was instantly added by the most scandalous that her Grace of Argyll had given him no encouragement. Why should she? A king could offer nothing that she had not, and as for love, she loved her handsome Highlandman, her John of Argyll, quite well enough to be marble to other wooing. Therefore, in all the world Emma could have found no better sponsor. With one or two unbending exceptions all the ladies, English and otherwise, were on her list at last and indemnified her for past insolences by present attentions. She visited the past on none, bore no grudges, received all who came with the same warm-hearted geniality. Sir William observed it with delight and felt his debt to the duchess increase daily.
And still Emma, under all her smiles, was restless and unhappy. There was no security but one for her, and that she could not have, for he made no motion in that direction. And the worst was, she must not tease him.
“It’s as much as my place is worth!” said she to herself, recurring to the old kitchen talk of the first days in London. Perhaps it was a relief to unbend sometimes, when alone, from the high ambrosial elegances of the Olympian heights she had now scaled hand in hand with the duchess.
High indeed, for one day, driving out by special invitation to the Villa Columbaia she found assembled in the garden, beneath the palms and roses, four ladies she knew very well, but one, by sight only—the great, the illustrious Marie Caroline, daughter of emperors, sister of the lovely Marie Antoinette of France, mother of sovereigns to be, Queen of the Two Sicilies. And, as she was ushered trembling along the velvet lawns and beheld Her Majesty, Emma knew very well this was no accident, but a Royal command draped in the casual that it might raise no comment.
“Another door opened!” she thought, as she trod with light, shy feet upon the living velvet. And even if it were alarming, the daughter of the people, the discarded of Up Park, did not flinch as she swept her profound curtsey and rose to attention and received the Royal compliment. Why should she? She knew very well she had gratified the Queen in her rejection of the King’s addresses as she had probably never been gratified before in her life in that particular way. She sat beside the Queen and the Duchess with the two ladies in waiting behind Her Majesty’s chair and ate herdolciin company with them and drank her iced lemonade with perfect but modest composure. The Duchess was proud of herprotégée. Nothing could be simpler than her dress of India muslin and lavender sash. Not for nothing had Sir William instructed her that the simpler the setting, the more her beauty must shine.
“Una donna rara!” whispered the Queen to the Duchess while Emma exchanged a few words with the Marchesa of San Marco. “Bellissima creatura!” and she overheard and treasured the words for Hamilton, who was almost surfeited with the sugar-plums rained from augustest heights nowadays.
Little did she think, in looking on the handsome, dark-browed woman faded as with excess of life and nervous energy, of the part they two would play together in days not now so very far distant. She saw in “le roi Caroline,” as the diplomats called her, only another key to the security she plotted for—so blind are we to Fate laughing in her sleeve beside us.
But the Queen saw and intended very much more. She had her informants and knew more of Emma’s history than did the Duchess. She knew her unequalled influence with the English Ambassador. Had not Acton assured her that he was wax in the hands of his fascinating mistress? And is not an ambassador a tool in the hands of intrigue if deftly used? She knew something also of Emma’s discretion, from long observation and from her conduct with the King. In the great game of intrigue which was the life of Marie Caroline, Emma was a pawn not to be despised. What! neglect the smallest consideration with revolution darkening like a storm-cloud over Europe, about to burst in thunder in France, with frightful reverberations along the Mediterranean? Not she indeed! The true daughter of the great Maria Theresa knew better than that. She was graciousness itself to Emma, seasoned, of course, with the condescension which gave it value. To the Duchess she chatted coolly apart when Emma was engaged with the other ladies; words apparently lightly said, but intended to be remembered and repeated.
“I never saw so lovely a being. Does not your Grace agree with me?”
“I never saw but one!” said the faithful Duchess, “And she is in heaven.”
The Queen accorded a sigh to beauty so unsympathetically situated, and went on.
“Your Ambassador is devoted to her, I understand, and who can wonder!”
“Certainly, madam, it can surprise no one. Her talents surpass her beauty, if possible. Has Your Majesty heard her sing?”
“No. You will understand, madam, that that was impossible in the circumstances, though I have heard from the King and many more of the delight it is. There is only one thing which surprises me in the whole matter.”
“And that?”
“That your distinguished countryman does not marry her. Where else could he hope to find such devotion mingled with everything that can charm? I may say I have watched her behaviour for several years, for a girl in her position must be under the public eye, and her discretion cannot be too highly praised. She seems to have an astonishing natural sense of what is due to herself and others. My only and deep regret is that she is not in the position to which her merits entitle her. No one would receive her more joyfully than I.”
“Your Majesty astonishes me!” the Duchess said slowly. She was weighing this utterance with her own, repeated more than once to Hamilton. Naturally it could only appear to her that the Queen’s words were prompted by pure admiration of great qualities. The Duchess was no stateswoman and in such matters saw no further than her own charming nose. The Queen drew back a little.
“Oh, madam, I beg ten thousand pardons! I had forgotten that the Ambassador has the happiness to be your Grace’s cousin. Let us say no more.”
“Pray do not misunderstand me, madam. I have no objection to the thought. I feel, as no doubt Your Majesty does, all the objections which can be made to a man’s marrying his openly acknowledged mistress. Still, this is a most exceptional case. My cousin is ageing. It would be almost impossible to find any one so adapted to his life and tastes. I have come to an age myself when I consider the world’s opinion much less than the essentials. I believe Your Majesty’s suggestion to be a valuable one.”
The Queen disclaimed this praise with pretty gestures of head and hands. She blew it off lightly as a soap-bubble. No responsibility in such a case for a daughter of the Cæsars!
“Oh, madam, you misunderstand. It is not for me to offer a suggestion. The saints forbid. This is but my opinion as a private woman. As Queen—you see my position. There must be many great English ladies whom we should welcome here as Ambassadress. Only—I cannot do wrong in expressing the hope that when the chosen comes she may equal the fair Emma in tact and talent, for there are dark days at hand in Europe, and if I mistake not the Mediterranean will be the scene of great events. The Queen of France, my sister, writes to me—no, I dare not repeat her words. But if any one imagines that this raging fire of revolution can be shut up in France and spread no further he is heavily mistaken.”
Her eyes darkened and she looked away through the flowers. The Duchess, with no more imagination than the rest of her countrymen and the conviction that because things were well enough already with England they would so remain, passed this off with an indifferent remark on the growing infidelity of France and the danger of unsettling religion, and in a moment the Queen had drawn the mask over her face again and was talking of the new excavations at Pompeii.
But the conversation dwelt in the Duchess’s mind. Every day convinced her more strongly that Hamilton doted upon the wonder-girl. Why should he not be happy in his own way? A little courage and the thing was done. There was no doubt whatever in her mind that it would very much ease his own public position as well as Emma’s. The Queen’s words left little anxiety on that point. She resolved to speak yet more plainly.
When Emma returned to her Hamilton praise of the Queen was loud on her lips. She was not yet a stateswoman and saw in all that had passed merely a tribute to her own graces, and wrote to that effect to Greville in her next news-letter. It pleased her easy-going good-humour to write to him from time to time and relate these triumphs. Like many women of her type, past was past with her, and unpleasant associations soon dwindled in a comfortable haze of indifference. He really did not matter particularly to her now, but it was agreeable to feel that he knew how highly placed people considered what he had rejected.
This letter gave Greville a vague uneasiness to which he had long been a stranger, the more so because it also sounded the loud trumpet about the Duchess of Argyll’s condescension. The Duchess! Emma was climbing indeed!
But to Hamilton her report gave food for deep reflection. He knew Marie Caroline very well. Never a word of hers but was uttered with purpose and tended to some clearly seen end of her own. He listened, reflected, and went off in a day or two to the Villa Columbaia to see the Duchess.
She was lying in the languor of weak health on a long chair in the glorious gardens, shaded from the heat of the sun but rejoicing in the sun-warmed airs that breathed about her. One of her women had been reading aloud to her and Sir William picked up the book when she was dismissed: “Clarissa, The History of a Young Lady of Quality,” by Samuel Richardson.
“It is somewhat of an old-fashioned book now,” said the Duchess, “but choicely good, as I think, and in my busy life I never had time for it before. Do you know it?”
“Certainly, but I was always inclined to think it over-strained and impossible. How does your Grace to-day?”
“Well, but no better. I think I never shall be better. We Gunnings are not a long-lived race—think of my sister’s twenty-seven years. Indeed, I have exceeded my span, but if I fade as gently as I do now in this sweet land, I need not complain.”
He responded with real feeling. She charmed him as beautiful things never failed to do, and the pathos of her fading loveliness was poignant.
They talked for a while of family matters very well known to them both, she slowly and steadily leading the way to the subject on her mind. It was the more interesting to her because Emma had devoted the whole of the day before to her service, as she often did now, and there was gratitude mixed with many other considerations.
“Mrs. Hart met the Queen here a few days since,” she said at last, playing with her black fan. “I rejoiced to see the favourable impression she made. Her manner was perfect. It never would surprise me to learn she had good blood in her veins.”
“I doubt if your Grace would be so confident of that if you knew the worthy Mrs. Cadogan intimately,” Sir William replied, with a smile of memory at some of La Signora Madre’s oddities.
“There is always the father!” said the Duchess, smiling in her turn.
“Always—but I suspect him of nothing worse than of being an equally worthy blacksmith.”
“Who can tell? In any case, the Queen spoke in a way which—”
“May I hear what she said?”
She related it plainly and simply, not emphasizing a word, adding as she finished:
“My impression is that it would be a relief at the Court here if your relations with Emma were on a more regular footing. No, cousin—don’t throw your head up! Don’t be angry! No one has the right to interfere with your private life or prescribe, yet it must be owned that it is a delicate matter for the Queen and that an Ambassadress at the Palazzo Sessa would make matters easier in many directions.”
“You cannot possibly advise me to marry a woman of her birth, however good and charming, madam? Your kind heart surely misleads you there. The Queen would never receive her;couldnever do so.”
“There you are mistaken.” The Duchess again repeated the Queen’s words, and went on, “I dare not advise you. Who could, in such a matter? But I will ask you a question. Do you believe your Emma to be a bad woman?”
All the gentleman, all the lover in Hamilton spoke in his resolute “No! I believe her to be a good woman, and who should know better than I? But there are reasons—”
They were naturally not perceptible to the Duchess and she went on quietly with her argument.
“Then, if I take your own word for it, here is a good woman, fallen by pressure of circumstances into a great misfortune. In what does she differ from the charming Clarissa of Richardson’s imagination, cruelly ruined but pure in heart? And if this is so, should there not be some reparation?”
Her long soft eyes dwelt kindly, languidly upon him. His mind hovered a moment over the question: from which of many men would that reparation be due? Even between Greville and himself it might be hard to judge! The Duchess knew absolutely nothing of the real facts and her opinion was so much thistledown blown on an idle breeze; yet it pleased and touched him where it eddied towards his own wishes. Still, he held out.
“I am no ruffian violator like Lovelace, madam, and with all her generous qualities Emma is no saint like Clarissa.”
“Certainly. She is merely a good and trustworthy young woman, kind-hearted and liberal to a fault. She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld—but one. Her gifts are surpassing. Taken together they cannot be equalled, and I say so who have seen the world’s best for more years than I care to count. So let that slip—but I go too far, my good Sir William. We will not speak of it more.”
And though he would willingly have discussed it, for the subject interested him more than anything on earth, her Grace held discreetly away, and her talk was of roses and of scenic, not living beauties, for the rest of the visit.
Get away from it, however, he could not. Emma said nothing, sighed but hinted nothing, and this forbearance piqued him as well as pleased him. Was she drifting into indifference at long last? He looked in the glass. The lines were deepening in his face. His eyes were haggard when he sat up o’ nights. He found those madcap excursions to Capri and Ischia less and less pleasant. When they visited Vesuvius and Emma’s quick feet sped nymphlike up the steep ways he was compelled to linger behind worn-out and panting. She bloomed into a more luxuriant beauty as he waned. Suppose she wearied of her old lover? Offers from the greatest and wealthiest men of Europe were hers for the taking—would she refuse them forever? And if she went—oh, cold hearth and creeping age, and loneliness, loneliness forever!
He could not escape his problem. It confronted him at the Palace, when the Queen, business done—for the King was too idle to hear the word, much less endure the thing—asked after the health of the beautiful Mrs. Hart and commented on the Duchess’s unfeigned admiration for her.
“And who can marvel? Never was a creature so gifted. I had myself the pleasure to meet her at the Villa Columbaia and was ravished indeed. Her beauty is the least of her recommendations. Her talent, manners, tact!—” She made an eloquent gesture with her quick hands. “Your taste is immaculate!” she added.
“It was so once, madam!” he said with a meaning before which she smiled and blushed a little. It recalled—but royal memories are secret.
“It is so still,” she said, and there was a pause, while she trifled with the imperially beautiful roses he had brought her, all curled and pearled with dew.
Sir William considered. He knew the Queen well. Never a word but covered a motive. What was the motive here? Better be frank than fence in vain. She could beat any man at that game.
“Will Your Majesty permit me a question?”
“Certainly, Eccellenza. You can ask nothing but what is proper.”
A quick smile flashed and was decorously concealed by Sir William’s bow.
“Then, madam, what is Your Majesty’s motive in this graciousness to Mrs. Hart and your humble servant?”
That question could never have been asked nor answered but for past relations—long past, but impossible to be entirely forgotten. The Queen toyed with the heavy paperweight of the bronze Caligula upon her table before she answered, and Hamilton, noting the worn lines in her face, the falsely black tresses which he had once thought so beautiful, remembered Greville’s maxim: “Nothing is so dead as a dead passion.” How could he ever have cared to waken a gleam in the heavy eyes or the tremble of a kiss on the Hapsburg lips which set that family apart from lesser men.
“I will be frank,” she said at last. “Why should I not with one of the men who must be the King’s right hand in the days I see coming as plainly as I see your face? Your liaison with Mrs. Hart has made difficulties on which I would not dwell, for I would not embarrass my friend by so much as a look. But they are real, and will become more pressing in the days I foresee. I am ignorant whether you know that much mischief has been made for you in high places in England, but in any case you cannot know that, I, through channels of my own, have done my best to protect your interests.”
No, that had not occurred to Sir William. He listened with the closest attention. No explanation was needed. As if he had been present he could hear Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, the prim Germanhausfrau, discussing the matter with her circle, could see the plain, honest King’s disapprobation of his representative’s action in flouting public opinion publicly. Naples was not so far from England but that all its scandals would echo in London. Marie Caroline noted his expression and continued.
“It is an ever-present terror in my mind that you might some day be superseded here by some younger man higher in the favour of certain influential persons, and I will frankly own that my interest is deeply concerned, for when the trouble is upon us if I have no true friend at the English Embassy, where am I to look for help? You see? It needs no labouring.”
“I see, Madam, and words fail me to express my sense of Your Majesty’s confidence in me.”
He knew that was true. What he did not guess was that behind her words the Queen’s swift brain was shaping the thought that if a weak, pleasure-loving man, old and completely in the hands of a fascinating woman likely to be amenable to her own condescensions were removed, she might be checkmated at every turn and England’s selfish policy ignore the pressing needs of the Two Sicilies, and her personal ambitions. Her half-frankness served her well. One does not see oneself as others see one—at least of all the Hamiltons of the earth. He thought a moment and added:
“But Mrs. Hart?”
“Mrs. Hart is a woman capable of great things. You cannot suppose I have not made myself acquainted with all her qualities of head and disposition. I have often most deeply and sincerely wished she could be the channel of communications with you which will become invaluable as the revolution darkens down upon us. She is capable of it in every way if I could receive her as a friend—but you know I cannot.”
“Let us be plain,” said Sir William. “Does Your Majesty mean you could receive the humbly born Emma Hart as a friend if her position were legalized?”
“I could certainly receive the Ambassadress as a friend. What should stop me? In fact, what else could I do? You would naturally have your King’s permission for such a marriage. I have reason to believe it would ease your own position. But this is intruding impertinently on your private life, Eccellenza, and I fear my deep anxiety for the interests of my own kingdom has led me into an impertinence for which I ask your pardon.”
It was beautifully said. If Marie Caroline had professed enthusiasm either for beauty or virtue Hamilton would not have believed a word she said. What she put forward he knew to be true, and he could appreciate its weight. Every day, every hour had taught him also that an English-Sicilian alliance would soon be vital to the life of Europe.
He went away with much to consider, to the delightful companionship in which Emma never failed him. Her sweetness was the very sunshine of his age. The mere fear of losing it made the air chill about him.
Another circumstance drove him in the direction where the Queen and the Duchess of Argyll were steadily pointing. Some connections of his, the Heneage Legges, had come to Naples, partly in the train of the Duchess, partly with some discreet curiosity on Mr. Heneage Legge’s part as to theménageof the Palazzo Sessa. He had visited in Edgware Row in the Greville days: he possessed his own knowledge and his own views as to the present experiment. Naturally, when he paid his respects to the Ambassador, Mrs. Heneage Legge did not accompany him.
“She would have been delighted to visit you, Sir William, and renew a pleasant acquaintance but my wife’s health at present forbids her visiting as largely as she could wish. And you are aware there are also difficulties into which I need not enter.”
There was no more to be said. When a lady’s health blocks the way a gentleman must stand aside, but Sir William drew his lips tighter, and thought the freedoms of relationship detestable. The laxity of Naples; the Duchess’s, the Queen’s, consideration had spoiled his sense of the fitness of things. He thought his Emma’s company certainly good enough for a Mrs. Heneage Legge, who would probably soon be taught better by the attention paid to the Lady of the Embassy by persons much higher in rank than herself.
And then Emma’s good nature precipitated the mischief. She met the lady at the Villa Columbaia and, undaunted by a cold curtsey, must needs volunteer through a lady in waiting of the Queen’s to visit and befriend Mrs. Heneage Legge when she was seized by the languorous malaria of the autumn. She sincerely felt for her, but apart from that, anything that could consolidate her position with the English, was valuable.
Mrs. Heneage Legge, with her husband’s support, instantly and coolly declined the visit of Hamilton’s unwedded wife, the gentleman explaining with painful candour that Emma’s “former line of life” made her kind intentions impossible of acceptance.
Emma, as spoilt as Hamilton himself by Neapolitan attentions, was furious, but had the tact to keep her temper to herself. Pale and in tears, her kindness flung back upon her, despised and scorned, she touched every chivalrous string of Hamilton’s heart. It was vain to rage against Heneage Legge, who certainly had the right to choose his wife’s acquaintances, but Sir William felt the position was rapidly becoming unendurable, and his alternatives shrinking to the choice between parting with Emma forever and making her Lady Hamilton. For a month more, he vacillated pitiably, and still Emma’s new wisdom kept silence. Palely and quietly she accepted the insult as he could not, and shutting herself up would go nowhere. How could she face the cruel world? Heneage Legge meanwhile sounded his note of warning in a hasty letter to Greville.
“Her influence over him exceeds all belief. The language of both parties, who always spoke in the plural number—we, us, and ours—staggered me at first, but soon made me determined to speak to him on the subject, when he assured 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 independent man. 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 Attitudes are beyond description beautiful and striking and I think you will find her figure much improved since last you saw her.“They say they shall be in London by the latter end of May, that their stay in England shall be as short as possible, and that having settled his affairs he is determined never to return. She is much visited here by ladies of the highest rank and many of thecorps diplomatique.”
“Her influence over him exceeds all belief. The language of both parties, who always spoke in the plural number—we, us, and ours—staggered me at first, but soon made me determined to speak to him on the subject, when he assured 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 independent man. 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 Attitudes are beyond description beautiful and striking and I think you will find her figure much improved since last you saw her.
“They say they shall be in London by the latter end of May, that their stay in England shall be as short as possible, and that having settled his affairs he is determined never to return. She is much visited here by ladies of the highest rank and many of thecorps diplomatique.”
Across that letter the nearly frantic Greville might have scrawled the wordsToo latewhen he received it. The whole thing was his own doing, his mistaken kindness to Emma and Sir William, and he was now hoist with his own petard. Had ever a man been so betrayed by his own virtues?
For a few days after Heneage Legge’s letter reached him, Sir William, coming in at sunset from the Villa Columbaia, found Emma in the room of the mirrors, leaning her chin on her hand, her arm on the window-sill commanding the noble view of sea and islands—Vesuvius fluttering a pennon of smoke into the blue. Her face was still and quiet, a melancholy resignation shadowed it—the look of one who relinquishes something infinitely precious and turns with patience to sadder duties. He came and sat beside her, and together they looked out at the evening star swimming in rosy vapours.
Presently, and very gently, he spoke.
“Emma, this cannot last. I have seen your grief and felt it most sensibly in my own heart. For years now you have been my true and faithful wife in all but name—”
She looked up in mute terror.
“Would it make you happier if the bond were broken? You can never be dearer to me than you are at this moment, for I love and trust you beyond all words. But, if it be your wish toleaveme—”
Still she looked at him in strained, terrified expectation, her lips apart, white with fear. He turned his face from her and, with infinite hesitation and reluctance, said, slowly:
“I see that cannot be. We cannot part. We have grown too close together. Therefore I ask you to be my wife, if that is your desire. I will not fail you; neither, I think, will you fail me.”
She fell upon her knees, sobbing hysterically, and hid her face against him.
CHAPTER XVITRIUMPH
Londonand triumph—so dizzy and dazzling that Emma might have almost repeated her favourite saying that she did not know whether she was on her head or her heels. Almost, only, for success had given her a confidence so robust that she foresaw none but glittering vistas. “Alone I did it!” was her pride. Not to Greville, not to Hamilton, but to her own conquering personality was the victory due, and looking about her she saw none to rival her and therefore none to fear. There might be one or two women as beautiful in the eyes of men whose taste was on a lower plane than Sir William’s, she thought, but that was beauty only expressing itself in feature, whereas in herself it overflowed into such song, such pose, that Gallini, the famous impresario, offered her £2000 a year and two benefits if she would engage with him, whereupon Sir William gaily retorted that he had engaged her for life. Was it wonderful that she should see herself laurel-crowned, almost divine?
For life! and Greville had to bear this amazing result of his plot with what fortitude he could muster. The shock was so great that it was really not fortitude but the stoicism of good breeding which alone carried him through. Could he ever forget that first meeting with the lovers at Sir William’s hotel? Even his frosted heart beat a little quicker as he climbed the broad shallow stairs. He could not for the life of him tell what Emma would be at when the door opened. Would she have changed, grown distant and formidable, less or more beautiful? Would she triumph vulgarly? (He could imagine that very well.) Would all the plotting facility which had placed her where she was be turned mercilessly against his interests henceforward! And would his dear Hamilton look the fool which in every fibre Greville felt him to be? The contradictions so confused him that at last he could only say within himself—“Emma! Good God!”—almost stupefied at the work of his own hand, and abandon himself to fate.
The door opened. Hamilton was in an armchair reading a letter to her, she perched on the arm like a child, one hand about his neck. Greville bowed at the door and advanced with cordial haste.
“My dear Emma, my dear Hamilton!” unpleasantly conscious of a flush which seemed to pervade his whole being and not his face alone.
She ran forward with the prettiest grace imaginable and caught his outstretched hand, looking back for Hamilton as he came up behind her.
“Oh, Greville, and do we see you once more? Sir William and me was longing for this hour. Take his other hand, Sir William, and then it will be the three of us again.”
She put his hand in his uncle’s, and beamed upon both as gay and innocent as a lamb in a May meadow. There was no speck of cloud in the untroubled deeps of the eyes he remembered so well, nothing but happiness. He took the hand and kissed it.
“What am I to call your Lady Hamilton?” said he, smiling at his uncle.
“Emma—what else? She is not changed in heart, Greville. But look at her and see what Italy has done!”
“Whatyouhave done!” she corrected gravely, and stood with dropped hands at attention to be viewed.
But Greville’s keen eyes had already drawn their conclusion. “More beautiful,” they told him, “more womanly; dignity and elegance at her command to be used like hercachemirewhen necessary, and laid aside for the old free-and-easy when she relaxed. Younger looking than even her four and twenty years—the bud unfolded into perfect beauty, the blossomed rose.”
Sir William looked much older. The journey had wearied him and the wild round of gaiety in London teased him. He wanted respite and could not get it, for every fashionable in the town was wild to see the coming Ambassadress, and it is possible that even Emma herself might have been daunted if she could have guessed the stories with which the blank if not the virgin pages of her early life were adorned. Hamilton knew them. Despairing friends plucked at the skirts of his garment at the last moment, with these legends, to save him from a fate impossible for an ambassador. He sickened of London and longed for Naples and the sunshine.
“You have seen the King?” Greville asked, when they had talked a while.
“Certainly. He was most gracious. I am given a privy councillorship. Emma, my love, have you forgot your appointment with Romney?”
She hesitated a second, invisibly, to all but Greville’s keenness, then stooped and kissed Sir William’s cheek.
“Why, of course! I was so glad to see Greville I had all but forgot poor Romney. Only two hours, and then when I come back we dress for the Duke of Queensberry’s reception. The Prince of Wales will be there.”
She challenged Greville, with her bright bold smile, to injure her! Fear to leave him alone with Sir William? Not she! and so presently tripped out of the room in her big hat all plumes and the white silk cloak about her shoulders. Greville attended her to the carriage, and stood bareheaded, reminiscent of many past hackney coaches on the same errand, as it bore her away to Romney’s studio. She had forgotten to ask concerning little Emma, now a fine buxom girl of nine, whose last school bill lay receipted in his pocket. He turned and went slowly up the stair, reflecting.
“And what do you think of her?” was the first eager question. It seemed that Hamilton could think of nothing else. He looked even older now she was gone; it was as when the sun dies off a landscape.
“Most beautiful,” Greville answered with his carefully regulated enthusiasm. “Immensely, unspeakably improved.”
“Worth a little sacrifice, eh?”
“Certainly. If worth a great one no one but yourself can tell. I suppose you had great difficulties with the King about his consent?”
“On the whole, not so bad as I expected. I won’t hide from you, who have all my confidence, that he was extremely reluctant. I could see the Queen had primed him. He leaned chiefly on difficulties with the Neapolitan Court and I could honestly reassure him there. Indeed, I was able to show him a letter that Marie Caroline wrote me before leaving, expressing her warm interest and kindness for Emma. It went a long way. He agreed finally, and offered the privy councillorship.”
Greville reflected.
“A great honour. Did you see the Queen?”
“No. But I have no doubt that Emma will win her way when we are married. No one can resist her. I may say her life is one triumphal progress.”
“It promised to be long since,” said Greville politely. “Has she acquired more placidity of temper than we used to remark in her?”
“Undoubtedly. Sometimes I have seen the little struggle, for she is naturally impetuous, but it is instantly suppressed. She owes much to your instruction, my dear Greville.”
“You are too partial. Tell me—does she cherish any resentment against me? Be candid. Women are unreasonable, and though it has crowned her happiness and yours, still she may be sore on that point—you understand?”
“Perfectly. But no, not in the least. She speaks of you with just the calm affection I desire. One of her chief pleasures in looking forward was to see you. I believe I express the truth in saying she mourned sincerely over Miss Middleton’s folly and would do all in her power to aid you in any way.”
Of that Greville believed what he pleased, but when he and Sir William proceeded arm in arm to the club he was at least assured that for the present the sword was sheathed.
The truth was, she was in such an Elysium that she thought little of him and was as ready to be cordial to overflowing as she would have been with Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh or any other reminder of a past which might never have existed as far as she was concerned. Incapable of bearing ill-will to any man, and to few women, she credited all the world with as happy-go-lucky a forgetfulness as her own. Reserve and delicacy were qualities unknown to her except as Attitudes, and they troubled none of her relations with Greville in the new rôle of aunt and nephew.
But Romney! He had seen in theGazettethat Sir William had arrived, but knew not the great tidings as yet not publicly announced. How should he? He had shrunk into his shell more than ever and except for his art the world went its way and left him stranded on the beach. Would she send for him? Come? A little shiver like the turn of the sap in spring in the cold veins of trees seemed to stir feebly about his heart because she was near.
A little tap at his door. It opened very slowly. The white fold of a woman’s dress fluttered in like a butterfly on the breeze from the opened door without. He saw the gleam and swung his chair right about. The door was pushed back, and, framed in the darkness behind, he saw her.
Yes, but he could not move. He could not speak. He stared at her, hollow-eyed. Was it real? So often in dream and waking vision that door had stirred and she had stood, still, smiling, exactly as she stood now, living, with glowing lips and cheeks, sweet, sweet, inexpressibly, and yet had melted away into emptiness and distance as he looked. It would be that and no more this time also. He looked down with a long sigh on his knotted empty hands, and dreaded to be cheated into joy.
She could not bear it a moment longer. Her warm heart overflowed, and quick as a sunbeam she danced along the floor and caught him about the neck, forcing his face upwards.
“Mr. Romney—oh, Mr. Romney, I’ve come back to you. Are you glad? I’m so glad I don’t know what to do. Look up, or I’ll run away again!”
He felt the loving living arms about him. In no dream had he heard her voice—that voice of heart’s music—no dream had kissed his cheek with rose-warm lips.
“Emma? Emma?”—he said at last, in a thick muffled voice that made its way through a long-heaped silence; and then the life she brought with her flowed quicker through his blood and woke him to her sunshine.
“Is it true?” he asked at last, and she, her heart almost overflowing at her eyes, assured him it was Emma—“the same, same Emma that can never change to you. No, not if she lives to be a hundred.”
She calmed him after that. She had two hours—two whole golden hours! And see! They would have their meal together, just the same as in the old dear days. Was there a loaf in the cupboard; and eggs?
No, not one. Then what did he mean? Was he going to starve? No, wait, wait! She had her plan.
She caught up her old basket in a dusty corner, itself all dusty and cobwebbed, but still preserved, and down the stair with her, and off to the nearest shop she could find; and that was near for she had not forgotten a step of the way. And presently she returned, with her little parcels, to find him at the front door staring bewildered lest she should be flown off to Naples like a witch on a broomstick; and so up the stairs, and to the little stove where he had his lonely kettle a-boil and all his rusty, dusty materials for tea; and tucked up her sleeves and made her buttered toast and fried her sausages and sat him down to eat with her while she ate also with her hearty young appetite and talked with a full mouth and a fuller heart of the Neapolitan triumphs.
That was Emma at her best and loveliest. It is arguable, nor can I refute it, that let who will possess her, Romney had the most of her after all. He drew some divine essence from her that the others could not—no, not even Nelson, though he came nearest. He saw the soul in her freed from all contradictions and flaws—pure essence, spiritual beauty. And whether he was wrong or immortally right, God only knows, who made her so beautiful.
So he listened, elbows propped on the table, and greedy eyes devouring every play of light and dark across her face—worshipping once more at the altar of the Divine Lady.
But now she must come near the central truth of her strange, eventful history—her marriage. And that would wing a dart, she knew full well, for what have poor painters to do with ambassadresses rising in apotheosis into rosy clouds of flattery and grandeur?
“Sir William loves me beyond all you could imagine, Mr. Romney”—she said, delaying a little.
“What else could he do? What else can any of ’em do? Tell me news, Emma. Tell me he stays in England now he’s here.”
“Alas, no, my dear, dear friend. His duties take him back to Naples.”
“And you with him?”
“And I with him. As his wife.”
She sat half frightened, half triumphant, with the man looking at her open-mouthed, fixed. She answered the beseeching in his face.
“Yes, it’s true. His wife.”
“But not yet—not yet?”
“In a few days. But then we stop here awhile. Oh, Mr. Romney, you shall paint me on my wedding day.”
“Your wedding day. No. He’ll want you with him.”
“Then he shan’t have me; but he’s good, he’ll understand. Would I not be with my friend that happy day? Dear sir, you shall paint the Ambassadress, and it shall be—oh, better than Circe, than Cassandra, than them all!”
She caught him up in her own joy and whirled him away, leaving not a moment for thought or grief. All centred on the picture. And so it remains—immortal, for he threw his great heart, his great brain into it, and the colours were mingled with his life-blood in that most noble portrait. She sits, little hands with the new wedding ring clasped upon the arm of her chair. Some one has disturbed her meditation—her Excellency the Ambassadress is needed; she turns her face, the lovely oval chin and curved lips upon the happy beholder. The eyes under the long arched brows are full of gentle reserves and soft dignity. Not any Circe nor Cassandra now, but Emma Hamilton, herself at last. We may believe that Hamilton loved that picture, for it represented her as all he wished and believed her—worthy indeed of the great gifts he had given.
But the world went on its way, and from that day onward the fribbles of fashion crowded about her. She swept them away also in the strong current of her marvellous vitality. Mr. Horace Walpole wrote wittily enough that the Nymph of the Attitudes had conquered—“Sir William Hamilton’s pantomime mistress, who acts all the antique statues in an Indian shawl.” So he said, burning to see the sight like the rest of them. He favoured the Duke of Queensberry’s reception that night at Richmond with a chosen few that he might see her with Sir William glowing with pride to display his conquering Beauty. Let us hear the Arbiter of Fashion and of Taste.