THAT journey home, in spite of all the splendours which his own and Emma’s renown and the Queen’s company occasioned, was a nightmare to Nelson. He was utterly besotted on her; he could neither escape from her enchantments nor will to, but as yet his conscience was not wholly silenced, nor the orientation of a lifetime completely changed. The process of deterioration, which could never touch either his genius or his patriotism, had begun in other and subtler nerves of his character but the disease had not as yet sufficiently spread to numb his recognition of what was due to his wife, and she had become an agony to him. How to meet her, what to hope, he could not tell. He who had been able some years before to say, fearless of contradiction, “There is not one action in my life but what is honourable”, could say it no longer. Glory must cover the loss of honour; a tinsel covering to a man’s own inner judgment. Others might make excuses, but he knew very well that when evil and good lay before him he had chosen evilly and must pay the price of that choice. Not indeed in losses that the world could appraise, but in things sacred, secret, on which he must be dumb for ever. What he could not know was that slowly but steadily his perception of what was noble and generous would dim and fail under this creeping paralysis of the soul and that the day was near when he was to treat his wife with such a cruelty as would have filled him with indignant shame if he had heard of it in any other case than his own.
Slowly and steadily the toils strengthened about him. From the day that Emma, pale and weeping, told him the secret that must ruin them both with their home ties and with the world if it could not be hidden, he surrendered all hope of retreat for either of them, and clung to her as one lost soul may cling to another in hell.
That mood passed, and he defied his own convictions. Love was not hell—it was Heaven. It was of God, and here was the proof. His wife had never given him a child. His home was barren of that visible blessing of Heaven. This woman whom he loved, was, in sorrow, fear and secrecy, to fill that cruel emptiness with the sound of a child’s voice, the light of its eyes. What did he not owe her for the agony endured for his sake, and what is a child but God’s blessing visible to man? Surely to such a passion as his it was the sign of approval, the recognition of a marriage sacred beyond all the laws of man. Such love made its own laws, and Heaven recognized them if man ignored them.
It was not that he ever sat down to analyze his problems. That was not Nelson’s way. He saw them in flashes of insight and took them as revelations, and shaped his life and his words in accordance with them. It followed from these that Emma should be perfect to be worthy of the Divine approval on their union. Therefore she was perfect. That his own services to his country were so great that they lifted him above the common judgments of right and wrong. Therefore he might safely despise them. Yet he was miserable—miserable.
But as he grew more and more confident of his own deserts he deteriorated, exactly in the same measure as Emma under the same strain, only he had more to lose and farther to fall than she. He became vainer, more boastful, impatient of anything that could be construed as less than fulsome admiration, suspicious of his old comrades. The word glory was sweeter to him than the word honour. It is significant of much that when he quotes Shakespeare’s noble lines that if it be a sin to covet honour “I am the most offending soul alive,” he substitutes the word glory for Shakespeare’s “honour,” apparently unconsciously. Yet glory is the world’s voice, and honour the man’s own secret and inestimable riches in the sight of the Eternal.
And Emma too fell. From the day of her marriage she had resolved to put certain things behind her forever. She had received a trust. She would justify it with every effort of mind and body. She would crown her husband’s choice with glory. Glory again! And where had it led her? Into a slough deeper and more miry than any she had known in the evil experiences of her young life. Unable to face the truth, she too hardened her heart against all the world.
Many records survive of that journey back through a flattering Europe to the England where they hoped and believed that glory would cover all shortcomings. She grew more and more flamboyant and boastful. Even the Queen, Marie Caroline, began to feel that one might pay too dear for help from a woman of the people, and the comments of some of the Austrian nobles and of her own family in Vienna were like a breath of cold outer air upon a hothouse friendship. She rewarded Emma with recognition, with splendid gifts, with a latest diamond necklace wrought in ciphers of all the Royal children and locks of their hair. She offered her a pension of a £1000 a year, she made protestations of warmest and eternal gratitude. Could a queen do more?
“She adores me!” Emma protested to Nelson and Sir William. “There is nothing she would not do for me. I am the sister of her soul. Neither time nor distance can part us.”
“No doubt, my love,” Sir William answered. “She owes everything to your generous exertions, but our dear Nelson will agree with me that a former Ambassadress of England can accept no pension from a foreign court.”
“Impossible, and Emma would be the last to wish it,” Nelson agreed. Emma, who had not seen this objection perhaps with the same finality, agreed in haste also. There were many things she could not see and therefore blinded Nelson to—for instance, that this blaring, flaring journey across Europe in one party was sheer madness for their hopes in England.
If there is one thing valued in England it is a decent reserve in speech and action—an almost stoic restraint. There are very few sins unpardonable if introduced by perfect good taste, and there the Nelson party sinned daily and flagrantly. Nelson touched the imagination still, but with pity. Hear Lady Minto, writing from Vienna:
“I don’t think him altered in the least. He has the same shock head and the same honest simple manners; but he is devoted to ‘Emma’; he thinks her quite an angel and talks of her as such to her face and behind her back, and she leads him about like a keeper with a bear. She must sit by him at dinner to cut his meat, and he carries her pocket-handkerchief. He is a gig from ribands, orders, and stars, but just the same with us as ever he was.”
They were sorry—that was the truth of it. But none could deliver him from himself, and Emma triumphed exceedingly. It is interesting to wonder what she would have done could she have known the opinion of the world. Probably nothing otherwise than she did in her immense self-glorification. She, a Lady of the Grand Cross of Malta, given her, alone of Englishwomen, by His Majesty, the Great White Czar!
Lord Fitzharris wrote to his father:
“Lord Nelson and the Hamiltons dined here the other day. It is really disgusting to see her with him. Lady Hamilton is without exception the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman I ever met with. The Princess [Esterhazy] had with great kindness got a number of musicians and the famous Haydn to play, knowing Lady H. was fond of music. Instead of attending to them she sat down to the faro table and played Nelson’s cards for him and won between £300 and £400. In short, I could not disguise my feelings and joined in the general abuse of her.”
Indeed, it was difficult for any Englishman to forgive what he conceived to be the public degradation of the national hero. Greville would have understood perfectly, would have said he had predicted all this years ago if Emma were not held strictly in hand. He had, on one occasion now long, long past, said to Sir William, shaping his fine lips delicately in the utterance of an unpleasant word: “It is impossible, my dear Hamilton, to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” He would have reiterated this with his own small smile if he had seen the incidents of that journey.
Yet Emma, with her secret at her heart, wished to conciliate women’s opinion as far as possible, if she had but known how to deal with English women of birth and breeding. She did her best; she thrust her friendship on Mrs. St. George, a lady of quality, who pushed it coolly back upon her. She also viewed the party with the contempt that was a foreshadowing of the English attitude. She set down her reflections in her diary:
“Sir William is old and infirm, all admiration of his wife and never spoke to-day but to applaud her. Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided flatterer of the Two and never opens her mouth but to show forth their praise, and Mrs. Cadogan is—what one might expect. After dinner, we had several songs in honour of Lord Nelson, written by Miss Knight and sung by Lady H. She puffs the incense full in his face but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially. She loads me with all the marks of friendship at first sight. Still she does not gain upon me. Mr. Elliott says, ‘She will captivate the Prince of Wales, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a great part in England.’ ”—A judgment at one time likely enough to be verified.
Yet behind all this glare and glitter what would the commentators have said if they could have seen into the minds of the two chief actors?
There were moments when Emma trembled for her empire over Nelson in thinking of the wife reinforced by English opinion. Nothing but her beautiful face in the glass, and her enormous courage sustained her. If she could but have taken the Queen to England in her train! What suspicions could resist the countenance of a queen? The austere Charlotte herself must surrender before such a battle array. But alas, that was impossible. The tearful farewell must be said in Vienna and Marie Caroline be left to the support of her daughter, the Empress. But it was much on her mind. She felt her way cautiously with Mrs. St. George.
“One takes it for granted that presentation at a court like that of Naples, and my intimate friendship with the Queen will ensure my being received at Windsor,” she said, one day in Dresden.
Instantly the young and charming widow was bristling with carefully concealed caution.
“Why, madam, an ex-ambassadress is generally certain of that on the merits of her position.”
Lady Hamilton hesitated a little. So much was known that she could not afford to ignore the difficulties altogether.
“Oh, but, my dearest madam, your friendship emboldens me to ask your opinion, and I know well that none is better, moving in the high circles you are accustomed to. What is expected? Have you heard anything one way or another?”
Mrs. St. George, none too pleased with this attribution of friendship and thinking the question in the worst possible taste, drew herself up perceptibly.
“Indeed, madam, I have heard nothing. These matters which affect Her Majesty’s good pleasure are not discussed in society. I really can offer no opinion.”
But still Emma persisted: “Indeed, I think ’tis impossible Queen Charlotte should refuse an honour bestowed daily by a queen so much her superior in birth and—”
“I fear, madam, I must insist that the Queen of England has no superior—indeed, no equal,” says the fair Mrs. St. George, slightly tossing her pretty head. “I must only attribute it to your long absence from England that you should think otherwise.”
“No equal!” cries Emma, flushing over neck and bosom. “The daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa, the mother of the present Empress, the wife—”
“Madam, you and I are English subjects,” says the young lady with an air of finality.
“But Sir William is the foster brother of King George. His great services—my own—”
“Indeed, I can’t doubt,” interrupts the pretty widow again, “that their Majesties are perfectly capable of noticing and rewarding any service. Her Majesty is known all the world over for her propriety of judgment.”
Emma bursts into a laugh a little too loud and forced for the occasion.
“Well, for my part, I hear the Court is as dull as ditch-water! I care little if she receives me or no. I had much sooner she would settle half Sir William’s pension on me. Fair words butter no parsnips.”
If it be permissible to say of a lady of birth that she slightly sniffed, it may be said of Mrs. St. George. Her disgust was almost visible. She certainly has left it on record.
Yet one may pity the poor woman who had all at stake. Sir William was not in the position of the ordinary husband. He knew her past, and if he should know her present what had she to expect? And Greville, the cool, sardonic Greville, was waiting their arrival in England, and certainly it could not be his interest that all should be confidence and security between her and his uncle.
When she was alone with Nelson, she dwelt on that. It haunted her.
“My own, own Nelson, I wish, I often wish, we had all never resolved to return to England,” she said one day in the hotel at Hamburg, with the English problems looming nearer and nearer. “We were safer there. ’Tis impossible I should say how I dread Greville. I have been honest with you, honest as the day, and you know ’tis his interest to make mischief between me and Sir William. And if he suspects—”
She looked up at him with trembling lips. She had been honest up to a certain point, but not entirely. There had been no mention of “the little Emma.” Nelson’s rapture of fatherhood, his belief that this marvellous experience to be was as new to her as to him, had shut her lips there, and unspeakably she dreaded Greville on that score also. She had always feared him even when she loved him. She feared him doubly now.
“My own dear angel, you shall not, must not fear,” said Nelson tenderly. “Our blessed happy secret shall be our secret always. Yet supposing the very worst—supposing Sir William divorced you—if I found you alone and deserted under a hedge it would be my pride to marry you. You should be my own Duchess of Bronte, and a fig for them all!”
“Your wife?” she reminded him, her head lying wearily back on her chair. But it was not that which made a divorce seem to her the most impossible of things. It was the terrible fear of her own past and Greville’s intimate knowledge of it. He would be a witness. She could hear his cold voice with its perfect enunciation disclosing secret after secret she trembled to think of now. There were things which in spite of Nelson’s infatuation might well give pause to his judgment. She dared not even consider such a possibility.
“Would I ruin you in the eyes of the world, my hero? Not for the sake of all the agony your poor Emma must suffer. No—I will fight it through as I have fought through many a difficulty. With your love to help me, I don’t fear. If that failed me—”
She made an expressive pause, her beautiful mouth quivering. He knelt and put his arm about her, resting his head on her bosom.
“The sun can as soon fall from the sky. Every day you are more and more to me. I glory in it. I thank God for it. My wife wrote to me desiring to meet me on landing, and I wrote to her that I judged it would be best to meet in London. I did this, for your sake, my own heart’s beloved, for I thought it would be easier for you to meet her there in some way yourself can choose. But rest assured that in that matter, as in all else, your own dear Nelson lives but to do your will. You are the best, noblest, most beautiful woman in all the world. You have no equal—you never have had—and all shall be as you will.”
She caressed his hair tenderly with her soft hand. Indeed, she was touched.
“Then I want my Nelson, the dear husband of my heart, to be very, very wise for both our sakes. You must not quarrel with your wife. However malicious and angry she may be, we must not let her put us in the wrong. Remember all I have to hide, and help me, help me. I want to win her friendship—that will be the greatest safety I can have, at all events until this is over. I will do anything in the world to please her—swallow any insult.”
“You shall swallow none!” says Nelson, with his grand air. “If she dares insult you—”
She put her hand on his mouth.
“No, no. You must be patient for my sake. Think of all we have at stake. I would crawl to her feet to carry things off. And you must not be too much with us at first. No, you must not. We must deny ourselves. Remember you are the world’s hero as well as your Emma’s and every eye will be upon you. Of course I know that will carry us through in the end for a man who has served his country like you may do what he will. I am not afraid of our reception in England. It is only your wife. If we can win her, all is won and safe. And Greville. I must please him every way I can, and he must never suspect anything.”
But for all her exhortations she dreaded Nelson’s impetuosity. She would willingly have had him on a foreign station until the crisis was over, much as she needed his help. There were points where she feared that she herself could not restrain him, and one of them was his wife. What was that cold, unknown woman doing—what thinking? She was measuring herself this time against a force she had never fought before. She could glean really nothing of her from Nelson. Men cannot describe women to each other—the equation of sex forbids it. Fanny remained a silent sphinx.
They embarked at Hamburg in a storm which might have prefigured much if they had taken it as an omen. Sir William, terribly shaken and suffering, could only groan aloud that he wished they had never left Naples. This cursed war and its consequences were ruining him in purse and health alike. Emma left his groanings to seek shelter by Nelson, for it seemed at one time as if all her doubts and fears might be settled in a way that would make no appeal to human judgment needful. She found him pale and serious in the little cabin, a letter in his hand, his mind evidently abstracted from the yelling wind and rolling waves. She came and caught his arm for safety, flung against him by the rolling of the ship, and he drew her down beside him.
“It reminds me of the Vanguard and the voyage to Palermo!” he said. “But what does that matter? Storms blow themselves out but there are things—”
He stopped, and put the letter in her hand. She knew the writing—Fanny’s. She read it eagerly: “I have this instant received a note from Admiral Young, who tells me if I can send him a letter for you in an hour he will send it, therefore I have only time to say I have had the pleasure of receiving two letters from you. I can with safety put my hand on my heart and say it has been my study to please and make you happy, and I still flatter myself we shall meet before very long. I feel most sensibly all your kindnesses to my dear son, and I hope he will add much to our comfort. Our good father has been in good spirits ever since we heard from you; indeed my spirits were quite worn out, the time had been so long. I thank God for the preservation of my dear husband, and your recent success at Malta. The taking of the Généreux seems to give great spirits to all. God bless you, my dear husband, and grant us a happy meeting.” So, with an affectionate prefix and ending, the letter stood.
“It is the answer to mine forbidding her to join me in Palermo,” he said, and there was something in his voice that shot a pang of dread to her heart. That quiet reference to his capturing the French ship—what man of sense could compare it with her own violent outpourings of delight at his successes, she thought. And yet—there was a calm tone of settled, steadfast affection, of wifely ownership, of the family ties—“our good father”—that wounded Emma at every syllable and woke the worst in her. It seemed to rise superior above all she could say or do; the wife, the happy wife who had no secrets, whose position all must do reverence to, while she—she was nothing but a hindrance, a hidden shame, the blot on an honour that nothing else could have spotted. It seemed to set Lady Nelson apart and beyond her. She handed it coldly back.
“A wife who can take your glories so coldly is what I can’t understand. I should have thought—but no matter! If it moves you—if you think she is worthy of your greatness—”
He understood the note of pain in her voice, and clasped her hand in his. She could feel its feverish heat; the nervous thrill in it.
“She is my wife no longer. It is you—my own Emma, the mother of my child. But you have a generous soul, you must know from that letter she has heard the base stories that were scattered from Palermo, and she wants to assure me that neither those nor my refusing to let her come out have made any difference. She is a woman I must respect to my last day for I have never known a spot in her—no, not one. If I could keep her as a friend I would, but the world is so impossible—impossible to what it can’t understand or value. Still, would my Emma value her Nelson, if he could cast such a woman off without a pang? God knows I dread that meeting in London, and to wound her tender heart!”
“Tender?” she cried. “I should have said not tender—hard. See that cold, cold letter, and you coming home with such honours as was never seen in the world. No—don’t mistake her. She will value the world’s good opinion. She won’t throw away all for you, as I’ve done with all the dangers and ruin likely before me. The one is love; the other—I don’t know what to call it.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he said, his nervous face quivering and lips twitching. “If you asked me I would never see her again. I am all yours—body and soul until death us do part. But—she is a good woman.”
“And I am not good? Oh, Nelson, is this the reward of such love as was never known?”
“You are my saint, my guardian angel. There is not a thought of my heart inconstant to you. She is nothing—nothing! See!”
He tore the letter into tiny fragments, unclosed the porthole by an inch, and as the wind screamed in at it, he pushed his fingers through, and sent the fragments flying on the gale. He closed it again and returned to his seat by Emma.
“That for her!” he said. Even to Emma in her triumph there was something shocking in the incident. Love! To what could it drive a man? Yet she was glad at heart.
They landed in a storm so terrible that only Nelson’s advice and entreaties compelled the pilot to bow to his better judgment, and surely the sight of the English welcome was reassuring, for all Yarmouth had turned out to meet the returning hero. Emma too was not forgotten. Amid the music and rejoicings a ring of fine topaz set in brilliants was bestowed upon her by the enthusiastic welcomers. Sir William was quietly in the background, used indeed by this time to that effacement. Speeches, sentiments, toasts, abounded. Her smiles, bows, exuberance, fanned the popular welcome into roaring flame. Never was such a scene.
“And London will beat it!” she said, triumphant, as they entered the coach for the journey. “We are safe, safe in England. It will be Naples, Palermo, only more, because it’s our own dear country.”
But Nelson was silent. His fears were greater than his hopes. Yet Emma was always right and surely her charms would conquer England as they had done Italy. On her he relied. But that welcome was unfortunate for it made her more self-confident, less inclined to be conciliatory than ever before. She was certain they could have it all their own way.