The Divine Lady: A Romance of Nelson and Emma Hamilton by L. A. Beck - HTML preview

CHAPTER IV
 PEACE AND CATSPAWS

A MORE modest, decorous life than that in Edgware Row could scarcely be, setting aside the initial impropriety. The past fell away from her like a nightmare that daylight effaces and a young wife nestling in her husband’s shelter could scarcely be more domestic than Emma. True, there came the reports of the little Emma from Hawarden and there were her small bills to be paid as a reminder, but Greville did this without comment, and who, thought her mother, could feel the existence of that pretty little innocent to be criminal, look at it how you would! That was hardly Greville’s point of view. He was apt to consider any allusion to the child a lapse of taste and to repel it.

And certainly there was plenty else to occupy her thoughts. Emma kept the accounts, for a curry and a soup were more good Mrs. Cadogan’s accomplishment than writing and ciphering. The accounts were perhaps not on the most scientific principle, but they served and were duly laid before the master every Monday. Here we have the day account for 29th October, 1784:

Wherefrom we can deduce no guilty splendours, but a healthy appetite for bread and butter, and a promise kept to Greville to be straitened in that fairest virtue, charity. The gloves too, even multiplying the sums somewhat in view of the value of money a hundred and forty years gone by; such gloves would scarcely have pleased the consummate Mrs. Wells or her sisterhood. One must own to a slight disproportion in her milliner’s bill, for “Mrs. Hackwood, £4—12—6” stares us in the face. Yet let the censorious remember it was the end of October, winter approaching, and velvet more suitable than straw, and ask himself what he supposes the hats that adorn the brow of beauty to-day cost their happy possessors. No, Greville had nothing to complain of on the score of extravagance. It is said the household expenses did not amount to more than £100 a year or thereabouts, and that Emma received but £30 a year for all her adornments.

He had certainly reason to thank his cook and housekeeper alike. It enabled him to take her education in hand more seriously than he had at first intended, and as it proceeded his interest grew. His love also? That must be judged on the consequences.

“It is time for us to start for Cavendish Square, Emma, and the hackney coach waits,” says Greville, alert and clean-shaven, one bright May morning. “Romney is to study you for Circe to-day. Bring the white robe he desired.”

A fair dishevelled head looks round the door with dismay in its eyes.

“What, not ready yet? ’Tis most inconsiderate in you, especially when you are aware the coachman charges for his time. I hate unpunctuality.”

“Oh, but I was doing the flowers, Greville. You said you liked a vase on the dining-table. You don’t suppose I can be in two places at once.”

She has got the word vase correctly now, but it does not mollify her lord.

“Leave those flowers instantly. How long will you take to arrange your hair and make yourself suitable?”

“Twenty minutes; I can’t do it under. And what’s more, I won’t try.”

“Twenty minutes! Do you consider no one’s time of value but your own?”

The head retreats, and steps are heard on the stairs and a clear impertinent voice chanting:

Should he upbraid I’ll own that he prevail,

And sing as sweetly as the nightingale.

No simple ballad now, but trills and shakes in the purest soprano imaginable; art decorating nature. And every trill and roulade, as he reflects indignantly, she owes to Charles Greville and to him alone. It was like a handful of bright spring water flung in his distinguished face.

Greville never acted hurriedly. He wrote a few words, folded and sealed them, went out to the hackney coachman and, desiring him to take the note to Mr. Romney in Cavendish Square, paid and dismissed him. The coach rolled slowly away and Greville sat down to read his magazine. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes passed; twenty-five. There was a noise of hurrying footsteps overhead, the opening and shutting of drawers, the click of the wardrobe door he knew so well, Mrs. Cadogan’s heavy weight pounding up the stair to the rescue. He turned another leaf and made a few notes. Half an hour.

Presently a rush downstairs; a flying figure in white with straw hat and ribbons, May herself in colour and bloom bursting impetuous into the room.

“Oh, it shall never happen again, Greville. Never, I swear.”

“It certainly never shall!” said he, placing his marker in the page and laying it down.

“Good Lord! What’s gone with the coach?” cried Emma, running to the window.

“The coach is nearing Cavendish Square with an intimation to Romney that the sitting won’t take place. And, though I did not mention it to Romney, no further sittings will take place unless I meet with a humble apology and very different conduct. What! is his valuable time to be wasted and mine also for your insufferable impertinence? Fie, Emma!”

She grew pale with angry emotion. Never was a face that more faithfully reflected her moods. She could not hide them if she would.

“What! you’ve sent the coach away for a few dirty minutes like that? You’re a cruel man, so you are! And me that loves sitting for my pictures. I was doing the flowers to please you and this is my thanks. I’ll have you know I’m not a slave if I am an unhappy girl that has to endure every kind of hard usage. You’re a grand gentleman and I’m nothing, but I wouldn’t treat you like that. I’ll not see you again this day!”

She tore off her hat, her lawn cloak, and flung them on the floor. She dashed into the next room and tearing the flowers out of the vase flung them into the garden. Finally, upstairs with her like a whirlwind and Circe is heard to bang her door and lock it.

Greville, with the bell, serenely summons Mrs. Cadogan, curtseying and affrighted.

“Have the goodness to inform Mrs. Hart that I go to London and stay this night and possibly longer with her Grace the Duchess of Argyll. I shall need no dinner until further notice.”

He collects such possessions as he needs and departs with more than usual stateliness, and Mrs. Cadogan pounds upstairs the moment the door closes after him and rattles the handle of Circe’s retreat.

“Let me in, Emy. ’Tis me, no one else. He’s gone, more like an ice stature than a man. Oh, Emy, you’ll pull down the house over our heads with your rages and follies. Let me in, I tell you. What man d’ye suppose will stand such tantrums, and you that owe him the very bread we eat. And little Emma the same!”

Silence. Mrs. Cadogan waxes eloquent at the key-hole.

“He’s off to London to stay with his duchesses and the like and he’ll want no dinner until he orders it again, and for all you know he’ll never come back!”

“Let him stay away then!” says a muffled tragic voice, evidently from the depths of the pillow. “You won’t need to fry the fish for dinner. That’s all the difference.”

“You fool, you!” says the pursy old lady outside and begins slowly to retreat to the stair-head, making her departure as noisy as possible that she may be recalled.

In a moment the door was open and Emma in crumpled white gown and loosened hair framed in it, a hand on either jamb.

“Where did he say he was going?”

“To some duchess. I don’t know who. Yes, Gargyle, or something.”

“Then I’m going out too. I shall go to Romney’s. Give me the basket.”

With furiously flushed cheeks, she began smoothing her hair and the rumples from her dress, a bitter sense of slighting contempt spurring her to defiance. She would not eat, would not delay, would have a hackney coach, and so off with her to Cavendish Square and Romney.

You are to imagine her entering that home of her delight with a softly falling footstep, for it came upon her always with the calm experienced in leaving busy streets behind and breathing the dim quiet of a church with shapes of silent beauty in jewelled window and faint gold, illuminated only by steadfast altar lights. This was her paradise, her church, for this girl of the people was a true believer of the religion of beauty; its priestess also, for she protested its creed in every lovely movement, in delicious voice and melting attitudes, and often winged hearts higher than they knew as they watched her. She was no priestess like the heavy-lidded women who served dark goddesses in Assyrian or Egyptian temples to snare men’s souls in the bird-lime of the pit; yet, for all this, she brought men infallibly to her level when they loved her; dyed them, all but Greville, of her own colour, and whether that level was in the heights or the depths, let the reader judge as this history unrolls. Certainly, two, the greatest, thanked God they had known her, whatever the loud-mouthed world might say. And of these, one was Romney.

The studio was large, and full of light as clear and thin as water from the tall north window. He sat bending over a table with his back to her, as though making some sketch-note that had suddenly struck his fancy. He did not hear the door open, but when her foot touched the bare floor, he said without moving, “Emma! Come in, child,” and went quietly on with his work.

She set down the little basket which carried cakes of her own making and butter and fresh eggs from the farm beyond the Green, and, coming up behind him, put her hand on his shoulder to see his dream shape itself on paper, until her hair brushed his ear. She knew well that as you never wake a child suddenly from sleep, so it must also be with such as Romney.

He took no heed of her—so deep was their harmony—but with the hand on his shoulder, worked peacefully on.

It was herself, of course; for all that time, submerged in the loveliness and charm of her, he scarcely had another thought. He was making a study in wash for the Circe—the cave, the rocks, a hint of the gracious figure emerging like light from the womb of darkness; the chaotic beginning of the lovely world to be.

Not a word between them. The big old clock in the corner ticked solemnly, the silent figures on the easels pursued their dreams, the noise of traffic outside had sunk into a lulling murmur, and though she could no more have worded it than have flown, the eternal peace of Art stole into her heart and made her quarrel with Greville a transient impertinence. “You were born for better things than that,” an inward voice said, coming from the quiet, and her very soul assented.

After awhile he pushed the paper away and looked up at her, his glance still dull with abstraction. A plain rugged face of strongly marked features and powerful jaw; the extinguished-looking eyes heavy with the melancholy that was to drown him later, and the mouth of the dreamer—whether in tone or colour—passionately sensitive as her own. Their eyes beheld each other a moment, and then hers dropped as she fell on her knees beside him, and put her head on his knee.

“Dear Mr. Romney, I’m ashamed of myself. I am, indeed. You make me what I should be, all beauty and wonder, scarce treading the earth, and I so far below it. Only this very morning I wasted your precious time and didn’t come because of a miserable quarrel with Greville. You painted me as Serena, and I’m all tumult and folly; not worth your notice.”

“Why, what’s o’clock?” he asked, feeling for his big repeater. His dialect matched her own, for Romney too was a child of the people. “I didn’t know, child; the time went. Two hours late! Well, well, not wasted anyhow. It’s shaping, it’s shaping. Just stand there in front a minute, and put up your left arm—so!—arresting, commanding. You’re a witch, reversing the spell that turned men into beasts. The other arm hangs down. Take my mahl-stick in your hand for a rod, pointing downwards, the magic gone out of it.”

He looked at her a moment as she melted slowly into the attitude he desired. Instinctively she poised herself on the ball of the left foot, a pose of wonderful strength and lightness, the lifted hand arresting the pressing beasts.

“You lovely creature!” he said softly, with a kind of tender awe. Then, thinking aloud, went on, “No, but the face! Not right. Depress the chin a little; the eyes level and strong; but—no—I’ll tell you the story. The woman in the goddess betrays her because her lover leaves her. She’s frightened, for her own power means nothing to her beside him. He has conquered her, for all she’s a goddess. The heavenly thing obeys the earthly, but with majesty. Can you do it?”

“I know,” she cried, “I know!” and steadied like marble on the instant, her features composing themselves into calm. No sorrow, a solemn awe, a noble shame, a deep immortal regret that darkened the eyes and locked the lips in eternal silence; and so stood Divinity by the waters of oblivion she may not stoop to drink forever.

He looked at her, rapt, his hands idle on the table, absorbing her passionately. Not an eyelash flickered until he released her with a long sigh, and then, as it were, floated up to the surface of common things once more.

“There was never any one like you, never will be!” he said slowly. “You know, you feel without telling. You’re the thing you seem. Who told a girl like you how goddesses look when they have lit on earth and find themselves betrayed?”

She smiled and shook her head. That was a secret to herself, but she knew her nature responsive as Æolian strings to a breeze; never a vibration passed over her from man or thing but waked its sister-echo in her heart.

“I think often you’d have been a great actress,” he said in his slow way, as she got the papers off the table, laying them neatly on the ground to be replaced exactly in the same order. She went to the corner cupboard where he kept his loaf, set the kettle on the shabby little stove, and while it heated, fixed the saucepan beside it and got out her eggs and butter and cakes, and, full of deft housewifely cares, spread his scanty cups and spoons on the table, and made ready the little meal for two; and put the teapot on and the steaming eggs, and so set him down and herself beside him and was ready for talk.

He watched her, fascinated. Those studio meals were not infrequent and always they were his delight. He was to remember them with an ache nothing could cure when she had taken her beauty and kindness to a land strange and far, where she was the adored of many but to none the star of hope, the golden Dawn she had become to him. But to-day was to-day, and the future veiled, and he smiled as she pulled up the cracked chair, too uncertain for his weight, and perched herself on the edge.

“Two eggs for each of us!” says she. “And those cakes, Mr. Romney, they’re fine! We got the recipe, mother and me, from an old Scotchie that came from Edinburgh. They just melt in your mouth as crisp as fritters. And then I’ll mend that hole in your sleeve if you’ll slip off your coat. And I’ll tell you my troubles.”

The soothing sunshine of her presence! He ate mechanically at first and then with keen enjoyment. Indeed, the little saucepan went on again, but this time for scrambled eggs with a flick of the sauce he kept to season his daily mutton chop when time failed him for the chophouse.

“Food for the gods!” he called it, and left the plate so clean that she declared she might almost spare herself the trouble to wash it up. And then she whipped off his coat and set to with her needle.

“There’s never a thing you do but what makes a picture!” he said with eyes that could not be satisfied. “Now—the way you sit, the light falling on the curls above your ear—ah, well! The troubles, child, the troubles. What are they?”

“My temper, as usual,” says she, stitching for dear life. “Mr. Romney, I can scarce look you in the face for fear you’ll despise the fool that can govern herself no more than a child. I do improve—God knows I try hard enough—but still ’twill out when Greville or another vexes me, even though I know I pull down my shelter with my own hands. And for nothing that matters a brass farthing! To-day I was late and he flung it in my face, any man would, and I must needs answer back, and off he went to his grand friends.”

Watching, he saw a tear splash on the brass button of his coat, but said nothing. He let her unpack her heart.

“I often fear it won’t last forever.” Her voice was quivering now. “For it’s three years, and that’s a long time for a man’s heart though but a day to a woman’s. He said, when we began, that he never knew a woman clever enough to keep a man that was tired of her. Mr. Romney, is he tired of me?”

Down went the coat on her knee, and two swimming eyes invited his judgment as that of heaven, two trembling hands extended to receive sentence.

“Child, how can I tell?” the Mentor answered tenderly. “To me it seems that your infinite variety mocks the very word tire, but indeed I know not these men of fashion who love themselves so well that there’s but little room for a woman’s face in their heart. But you should not vex him without cause. Greville loves his ease. Even my bat’s eyes can see that far. But that he can throw such a jewel away I’ll never credit till I see it.”

She shook her head disconsolate.

“I’m the most ungrateful girl on earth. I know it. Sure he sent me to the sea and I ill, when he was off to his uncle’s new estates at Milford. And he let me have little Emma with me, and not a grumble out of him over my bills, which was wonderful indeed, though heaven knows I kept them as low as low! And yet in spite of it, I can’t always hold my miserable tongue, though I love him with all my heart and soul and shall forever.”

“And you that I thought was modelling yourself on Serena in the poem!” said Romney, with the ghost of a smile. “I don’t think you’ll ever rival that lady, somehow, and for my part I don’t wholly wish you should. But Greville likes ease, and to see his pupil do him honour. Teaching and lecturing’s his master passion and every time you kick over the traces you disparage his own method to him. That’s more than half the trouble.”

“I know, I know! And, sure, to please God and Greville is my only aim. Oh, Mr. Romney, if we could see a little ahead, if we could know what’s coming! He’ll turn his poor Emma off one day, and then—”

“Then she’ll know there’s a man smudges paint on canvas would rather starve than she should want! But I think better of Greville’s discrimination. You sit down here presently and write him a pretty letter, and I’ll send it to the big house he’s at, and it will bring him back to-morrow. But don’t anger him again. What is it but to stick a knife in your own breast?”

She told him he was right, and resumed her stitching, and he watched her with his heart in his eyes—his divine lady, his child, his muse; all and one, and more that he could never put in words. If Laura possesses Petrarch, and Dante, Beatrice, to the end of time, so most surely does Emma possess the man who will not let her die, who with strong magic caught and fixed ghost after ghost of her beauty upon canvas to make the world eternally her lover.

When he resumed the coat and she had gravely considered the effect, head on one side appraising, she got his pen and paper, and sat down to her task. She wrote with ease now, and though the spelling was still deplorable the hand was no worse than many a woman of quality’s.

She had been strongly moved that day, always indeed strongly moved herself with the picture of her griefs, and as she wrote the tears were so thick in her eyes that the letters swam before them.

“O my dearest Greville, don’t think on my past follies, think on my good, little as it has been. O Greville, when I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of gratitude that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in view, which I am determined to practice, and that is evenness of temper. For endead I have thought so much of your amiable goodness when you have been tried to the utmost that I will, endead I will manege myself and try to be like Greville. There is nothing like bying expearance. O Greville, think on me with kindness. Think on how many happy days weeks and years—I hope—we may yett pass. And endead, did you know how much I love you, you woud freely forgive me any passed quarrels. I have done nothing but think of you since, and O Greville, did you but know when I so think, what thoughts, what tender thoughts, you would say ‘Good God, and can Emma have such feeling sensibility? No, I never coud think it. But now I may hope to bring her to conviction, and she may prove a valluable and amiable whoman!’ True, Greville, and you shall not be disappointed. I will be everything you can wish.”

Her own pathos had moved her to such a pitch by this time that she could write no more and was forced to borrow Romney’s handkerchief to dry her streaming eyes before she could sign and fold the letter.

“It’s all true, every word of it, and I don’t expect ever to be happy more, but, oh, Mr. Romney, did you but know how good I feel at this moment!” said she, when the missive was despatched. “Never, never can I so burst out again. ’Tis the blessed quiet in this dear place that aids me, and your friendly presence. And now I must go. Wish me forgiven, for without his love life is death to me and I would not ask to draw another breath.”

She meant it to the full and her sweet face was like Congreve’s “Mourning Bride,” until by good fortune, as Romney took her to the door to call a coach for her, a Punch and Judy show came along the square, and she must needs delay to see the antics, and very shortly was crying for laughter as whole-heartedly as she had cried upstairs for sorrow.

The little crowd laughed with her, she leading with abandon that would have driven Greville mad had he seen it, and Romney laughing behind her with joy to see her cheered. Those two children of the people were much at home with each other and with the people. Punch never held a merrier assembly. As she turned finally to go Romney called her back a moment.

“Gavin Hamilton was here this morning and told me he hears Sir William’s coming back from Naples to see to the estates his wife left him. You may as well tell Greville, in case it’s news to him.”

She assented lightly, never guessing that Destiny, with the smile ironic masked in triviality, was at her heels again, and went off to Edgware Row at last gay as a lark and confident of forgiveness; sure in this happy world all must be well; and Greville would be pleased to know his uncle was coming. No censorious uncle he, but a sympathetic friend and with an eye for beauty keen as Greville’s own. She promised herself an unbending elderly admirer. Romney remained alone to think of her angelic kindness and dear ways, and to touch and retouch his sketch while the light lasted. He went forth then to his solitary chophouse. As for herself, Greville was still sternly absent on her return, but her good consoling mother had made a comfortable little roast of lamb for supper and jam tarts to follow, and if the evening was not perfect bliss, at least it was mighty endurable, and the jam tarts excellent to the appetite of twenty healthy years.