*
“I told you in my letter of thanks for the signed bond, that sealing and signing was nothing without a witness’s name; you will, therefore, be so good as to send it back with that addition,” wrote Greville, but raised the figures on the bond. Emma’s traveling expenses would be thirty guineas, payable in advance, and “If Lord Middleton was made sure that I was your heir, then my proposal for his daughter might meet with more favourable a reception than,” concluded Greville lamely, “if not.”
*
“Very well, have done with it,” snapped Sir William, and sent fifty pounds and signed the bond as well. Greville was too particular in his terms, as well as stingy.
*
“You must tell her,” said Greville to Mrs. Cadogan, “that all she is asked to do is to spend six months with my uncle, with yourself as chaperone.” And went to the country for the weekend. He hated scenes.
*
“George, I am to be sent to Italy for six months. It is a holiday. And Greville is to join us later.”
George broke his brush. He would have believed it if she had not said it all at once, but a woman with a joyous secret is a cautious animal and only shows you a bit of it at a time, hints at it, nags at it, brings it into the conversation, and drives you crazy until at last she consents to wear the new dress and show it to you. He heard the spinning wheel.
“We shall come back very different, I expect,” she said, with a slight quaver at the mouth.
George did not look at her, but at his easel. That was how she had looked six weeks ago.
“You have been to Italy,” she said.
“To Rome. You will see Raphael. He is a very great painter, Raphael.”
“And he will paint me too?”
“He is dead.”
“I am sorry. I forgot. There is so much to remember.” She could not sit still. “Oh, George, I am distracted. Please hold on to me.”
He held on to her.
*
Towneley stretched lazily his immaculate and silken legs, and his eyes were soft with a kind but contemptuous glow.
“You have brought it off,” he said, as though to say, Now you are locked in with me.
With a glance at the door, which was open to an empty room beyond, Greville reached for the decanter, which was half full.
*
George sat alone and wrote:
SIR, that portrait which you commissioned, of Emma Hart, as a Spinstress, has now long been finished and dry. It has recently been seen by a Mr. Christian Curwen, who has shown great interest in it. I remain, sir, yours respectfully,
GEORGE ROMNEY
Certainly Greville did not want it; as certainly, he did not wish to let it go. It was the same with everything. He replied:
There are circumstances which force the natural bias of character and render it prudent to change the scene of action to train them to the necessary sacrifices. The separation from the original of the Spinstress has not been indifferent to me [on the contrary, it had forced him to go away for the weekend], and I am but just reconciled to it [it was now Tuesday] from knowing that the beneficial consequences of acquirements will be obtained, and that the aberration from the plan I intended will be for her benefit. I therefore can have no reason to value the Spinstress less than I have done, on the contrary the just estimation of its merits is ascertained by the offer from a person who does not know the original [though our conduct needs no justification, the world is unjust, so it behooves us not only to cover our tracks, but to explain: it was his apologia], yet I find myself daily so much poorer, that I do not foresee when I can pay for it, and I am already too much obliged to you to avail myself in any degree of your kindness to me—perhaps Mr. Christian might accept my resignation of it and pay for it, and give me the option of repurchasing if the improbable event of my increase of means [a most improbable event, for though he had quite civilly informed Lord Middleton that he thought the family amiable and the daughter interesting, his politeness had not been returned] shall enable me to recover what I now lose with regret [and so on] … I shall thus multiply the objects of expectation from better times by keeping hold of the Spinstress without postponing the payment.
As indeed he had.
But then, if we are not so fortunate as to be born of tempered steel, why then we must do the next best thing and temporize.
Indubitably he would die a bachelor.
*
They were upon the Continent. Emma had been at her most superbly theatrical. If the heart stops, beat the breast and it will soon start up again, like a turnip watch. They sat in a coach with Gavin Hamilton, the painter, a connection of Sir William’s, up on the box for company as far as Rome, though so far they were only in Dijon, opposite a charcuterie.
“Just look at the lovely sausages!” cried Mrs. Cadogan. “Pray stop.”
“My heart is broken. How can you be so cruel? I am oblivious to scenery. I am indifferent to the picturesque.”
“Ah, ducks, how can you say so?” asked Mrs. Cadogan, leering out the window with the pursy eyelids of a born cook, and she banged on the roof until the coach stopped, and then scuttled into the charcuterie, though she was back soon enough, empty-handed.
“An écu for a Polish sausage,” she said indignantly. “It is not to be borne. It is too much.”
Gavin Hamilton leaned down obligingly from the box. “Indeed, madam, it is,” he said. “Nothing is cheap in France except the people.”
So on they drove, past Avignon, past Arles, past Marseilles, Nice, Savoy, Milan, and finally Rome, where Hamilton left them and they were turned over to a Mr. Graffer, who had been sent out to Naples to install an English garden there. But he was delayed, so they continued alone until at dusk they reached Gaeta, where the air shimmers and is all overture until the babble and chatter cease, and the first arioso is there to be listened to.
It was a simple lesson in pedagogy: if the child cannot learn the lesson, supply it with an easier, more agreeable one, and thus—learning that learning is not to be feared—it may be guided through the most intricate curriculum, insulated by its ignorance, and so escape unscathed, not having learned a thing at all.
But before that it must sleep while its elders make the classroom agreeable by erasing traces of imminent toil, removing advanced pieces from the piano, and pinning funny animals on the walls.
It is the gateway to Naples, Gaeta.
III
ADAGIO, sings one of the competing singers in Mozart’s Impresario, and makes something quite pretty out of it, too. But then the Impresario is a very wise man.
From nowhere, but they have an incipiently Italian look, cherubim assemble in vast quantity—for the plush folds of night are rich and heavy—to kick themselves into position with pink rudder toes; the orchestra of dawn chirps up again, now a rooster, now a flute; and with a flumpy heave, aside the curtains go upon the loveliest of painted scenes. The dawn floods up like a chorus from Glück, and there it is, the harmony of the world, wet and dripping, in a tonal net. And there is the great globe itself, the loveliest piece in the Cosmic Opera House, for if it does not contain everything, everything may be seen from there, or from the boxes.
Signor Pomposo, otherwise Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies, enters on a white horse. No matter what the opera, it is always written into his contract that he be allowed to do this. Nobody knows why. Signora del Largo, Maria Carolina herself, in other words the Queen, but no match for the castrati, putters about and beats the scenery. The arrangement is frontal, after Metastasio. Demofoönte steps forward and accosts the Principessa Arethusa, who should be in Syracuse where she belongs, but of that no matter. She is a short, Levantine, bad-tempered creature.
“Who is this woman?”
“I do not know. Perhaps she is hors de Syrie,” replied Sir William, with full orchestra; he never stoops to a pun, but he cannot resist this one.
It is a comedy by Paisiello. It is called Timante, or The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It is not one
of the maestro’s better efforts, but it cannot be denied the scenery is superb. Hackert, the King’s painter, always puts in a lot of sky, but then, at Naples there always is a lot of sky, all of it blue, and every shade of blue, for it shifts, it alters, it rustles like a peacock’s tail; at night it has a thousand eyes. The sea, which has no tide to be taken at the flood, though sometimes it turns stormy, is green to purple at the deeps, and celadon elsewhere. It is layered with minnows, though farther out there are San Pietro and even pike, all beautiful, though the taste is muddy.
“Lady Hamilton has been laid up with a fever, and I was obliged to undertake her cure, which I completed in five days,” wrote Sir William once. “Luckily there was a lake close by and I amused myself with catching pike.” The Bay of Naples is very like a lake, and Sir William likes very much to fish. He is, after all, a diplomat. So does the King. He is a glutton.
Sir William has decided that Emma, who has learned manners, must now learn that quite different subject, the manners of the world. That should keep her occupied for some time, since the manners of the world are not seen through in a day.
He has been up since dawn, and is at the moment eating breakfast on his terrace and admiring the view, an unnecessary but pleasant occupation, since the view is already admirable. Dawn, in his case, is an event put ahead to eight o’clock, for though he rises earlier, his time until then is taken up by such chthonic exercises as answering dispatches and dispatching answers, so that he may have the day free for such diplomatic chores as hunting with the King and dining with him afterward; which is something like hunting with the hounds and running with the fox, but necessary. Today, however, is to be different. Today Graffer is to arrive, at last, with plants selected by Sir Joseph. And so is Emma.
*
Graffer has been delayed. To Sir William’s left, Vesuvius rocks like a moored ship, its funnel smoking, a visible symbol of latent industry.
Who could not be happy here?
The answer is, Emma. She has been here four days, and all she does is write to Greville.
I try to appear chearful before Sir William as I could, but am sure to cry the moment I think of you. For I feel more and more unhappy at being separated from you, and, if my fatal ruin depends on seeing you, I will and must at the end of summer….
That is when he said he would come out.
I find it is not either a fine horse, or a fine coach, or a pack of servants, or plays, or operas can make me happy. Sir William … can never be anything nearer to me than your uncle and my sincere friend.
Nonetheless, she was to have them all. Unlike his nephew, Sir William did not find generosity incompatible with thrift, and to do him justice, was exactly the same, even when he had less money.
“I know, from the small specimen during your absence from London, that I shall have at times many tears to wipe from those charming eyes,” he told Greville. Graffer had arrived. If he had not Emma, he had at least the English garden to divert him.
“I have a very good apartment of 4 rooms, very pleasant-looking to the sea,” wrote Emma. Why would he not answer?
He had not the time. He had turned to commerce and was busy with a scheme to settle a colony of American fishermen at Milford, to carry the whale fishery from thence to the South of Falkland Islands. Americans in those days being a practical people, the fishermen had gone to the Falkland Islands direct, but the scheme was none the worse for that, so it engrossed him and he engrossed it. Let her wait.
*
Emma opened the Triumphs of Temper. A leaf fell out. She had picked it that last afternoon at Edgware Row, but now it was dead. Also, this far south, the Triumphs of Temper did not read well, so she put both away.
It was the fifth day.
I have had a conversation this morning with Sir Wm. which has made me mad. He speaks half I do not know what to make of it.
On the contrary, she knew exactly what to make of it. It was a siege.
“Mother, help me,” she demanded.
“Daughter, help yourself,” said Mrs. Cadogan, who liked the look and scale of things here, had never liked Greville, and certainly did not care to see her daughter behaving like a willful fool.
“There seems a great deal,” she added kindly, “to help yourself to.” She had two cooks, a housekeeper, three housemaids, an equerry, a butler, a coachman and six tweenies under her already, and since they did not understand her and she could not understand them, the household was functioning smoothly. So long as she kept them down, she might pilfer from the household accounts as she liked.
You do not know how good Sr. Wm. is to me, he is doing everything he can to make me happy, he as never dined out since I came hear & endead to spake the truth he is never out of my sight, he breakfastes, dines, and supes, & is constantly by me, looking in my face [Emma wrote] & I do try to make myself as agreable as I can to him, but I belong to you, Greville & to you onely will I belong & nobody shall be your heir apearant.
By God, he was the “heir apearant,” not she. Would she ruin everything?
You do not know how glad I was to arrive the day I did, as it was my Birthday & I was very low spirited. Oh God, that day that you used to smile on me & stay at home & be kind to me, that that day I should be at such a distance, but my comfort is I rely on your promise & September or October I shall see you, but I am quite unhappy at not hearing from you, no letter for me yet Greville, but I must wait with patience.
The thoughts of children on their birthdays are sometimes bitter ones, but at least there were gifts: a carriage fresh-painted, a coachman, a footman, a boat and sea bathing from it, a cashmere shawl, some of Lady Hamilton’s summer jewelry, new muslin dresses and Alençon lace to trim them with. There were concerts at home, and for the first time in two years Sir William had accompaniment for his flute. There were walks in the insect clatter of the Via Reale at night.
… and I have generally two princes, two or 3 nobles, the English minister & the King, with a crowd behind us. He [the King] as eyes, he as a heart, & I have made an impression on his heart.
The Queen she had not met. No matter what their own morals, queens are not permitted to receive kept women.
There was even a visit to Pompeii.
“Shovel some pretty little trinket in,” said Sir William, “so the girl can grub it out. I want to please her.”
But though he pleased her, he was not Greville. Why did she take that attitude? Did she want to ruin him? Did she not realize she was a gift, a premium upon a signed bond, an anything, but most assuredly not his?
“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” said Emma.
“You have a true friend in Sir William,” wrote Greville, months away. “Go to bed.”
“The girl is pretty, stubborn, foolish and desperate,” advised Sir William. “She proposes to return to England to persuade you, and I have thought it best to say that in that event I would pay her passage there.” And in that event …
Onely I never will be his mistress. If you affront me, I will make him marry me.
An inoperative threat, for who was she to make any man marry her? Greville did not reply.
If she behaves herself, we may be friends, but she may not return here [he wrote Sir William]. Without any other plan, she must wait events, and the difficulty will be to reject improper offers; and if a journey homewards should give a favourable one, it should not be lost; but, at any rate, she will have the good sense not to expose herself with any boy of family, she must look to from 25 to 35, and one who is his own master.
Since he wished not love but complicity, and so was no rival for her affections, Sir William merely handed this epistle to Emma and went to Caserta to inspect the beginnings of the English garden. He now knew the outcome he might expect, but though he had broken horses in his time, this had taken longer and was more difficult and left him as sad.
For the afternoon, he diverted himself with Graffer’s gardening plans; as one passion begins to fail, it is necessary to form another, since th
e whole art of going through life tolerably is to keep eager about something. The moment one is indifferent, on s’ennuie.
This evening, perhaps.
“Why should I not, if so I choose,
Amend my morals to my views,
As Nature herself, the wench, imbues her lips with coral?
And looks at the world in stark amaze,
Her victory won, her brow a maze of bayes and laurel …”
sang Emma, banging away at that latest thing, a pianoforte, which having a hard touch, could most satisfactorily be banged.
“What is that caterwauling?” demanded Mrs. Cadogan, who had heard it three rooms—and what was worse, four servants—away, and did not care for the sound of it.
“It is not caterwauling. It is an impromptu,” said Emma. “I have reached a decision: I have given in.”
It had not been so bad. Besides, afterward he had soothed her when despite herself she had burst into tears. He was almost as good as George. Poor George; these last few months life had been so disturbed, she had not thought to write to him.
“Apart from that, I do not care a fig for Greville!” she shouted.
Mrs. Cadogan had never before seen her in this mood. It was a new mood. She had changed in the night. She was not what formerly she had been. She would now impersonate herself and ape sincerity. From now on not even her mother should know some things.
Undressed, Sir William had looked like a badly peeled banana.
“I shall marry Sir William. Wait and see. I shall be safe. I shall be secure. I shall be untouchable. And I shall have a nephew.”
Mrs. Cadogan, though not regular in her attendance at church, recognized sacrilege when she saw it. “Well, I never,” she snapped. “What an idea!”
“It is not an idea. It is a plan. It is le plan Hamilton!” shouted Emma. “Since it is all he cares about, I shall disinherit him.”
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