Nelson's Lady Hamilton (2 page)

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generous impulse, coupled with her ignorance and easy temper, was the cause of her undoing.

It was her first step down "the primrose path of dalliance," and by no means the last. The sailor left her after a few months, and went away to sea, and the unhappy girl was cast out upon the world, friendless and scorned. That she had strivings of heart, and struggled to maintain her foothold on the slippery ground she stood upon, is shown by a pathetic and sincere little passage in a letter she wrote to Romney many years later, when she had just become Lady Hamilton. " You have seen and discoursed with me in my poorer days," she reminds him, "you have known me in my poverty and prosperity, and I had no occasion to have lived for years in poverty and distress, if I had not felt something of virtue in my mind. Oh, my dear friend, for a time I own through distress my virtue was vanquished, but my sense of virtue was not overcome."

Young as she was, she early learned that a girl so beautiful as herself had " no occasion " to live in poverty and distress; so that in spite of the struggles she may have made after an honest living, she was again soon placed in easy, if insecure, circumstances. Exactly how and when she came across the next man 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

A DAUGHTER OF THE PEOPLE 11

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 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 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/'