Sir William

by David Stacton

  “He has his moods, but it looks to me like an extra round of rum, though who Thompson is, I’m damned if I know.”

  For the Vice-Admiral of the Blue was dancing a lopsided jig before a portrait on the cabin wall and singing himself hoarse with:

  “Mr. Thompson had a child,

  ee-aye-ee-aye-oh.

  And to this child he gave estates,

  ee-aye-ee-aye-oh.

  Which put him in mind at once of cryptograms, anagrams and peacock pie.

  Its name will be Horatia, daughter of Johem and Morata Etnorb [he scribbled]. If you read the surname backward and take the letters of the other names, it will make, very extraordinary, the names of your real and affectionate friends, Lady Hamilton and myself. Give the nurse an extra guinea, and Mrs. Cadogan shall have a small pension, but my man of business says you are grown thinner.

  By eight and a half pounds.

  A child. A child. “Oh, you are kind and good to an old friend with one arm, a broken head and no teeth,” he said. Since Horatia could not be recognized as his in England, she should have the revenues of Bronte instead, if not—in time—somehow, the title too. She had been begotten in the South. Bronte was hers by natural right.

  *

  “Never before,” said Sir William, encountering Emma and Mrs. Cadogan on the stairs, “have I known you to return a bonnet.” For Mrs. Cadogan had by the strap a brown leather traveling hatbox, bearing the Hamilton crest, and punched on the lid, oddly enough, with a series of small holes.

  “Never before,” said Emma, “have I been put to the necessity of doing so,” and out she swept into the snow, toward a town hack which had been summoned for her, apparently.

  Sir William was relieved. He had had no desire to add a Hamiltonian to the Harleian miscellany, and applauded the discretion, while deploring the need for it.

  *

  “They say,” said Greville, “that the King is about to go to the Pagoda again.”

  In his set, the King’s infirmity was referred to in this way, its being well known, though never to be publicly mentioned, that when George III was about to go mad, the Chinese Pagoda at Kew fascinated him so much that he was apt to behave in such unseemly ways—from the ground floor to the top, and in the sight of all—that the doors had to be barred against him.

  “They have been locked,” said Greville, “for a week.” Sir William, who had once diverted the Society of Dilettantes with a description of Priapian worship fifty miles from Naples, was prudent not to draw a parallel.

  “If the Prince of Wales is made Regent, perhaps he can be persuaded to do something about Milford Haven,” Greville persisted. “And since he likes his women plump, and Emma is now plump, why should he not be charmed into it?”

  It was worth considering.

  When Sir William got home, he found Emma just returned, with the hatbox open beside her, trying on a bonnet before the mirror.

  “There,” she said. “Is that not much better?”

  “I cannot judge. I do not know for what it is a substitute,” said Sir William, and in passing, got a whiff either of starched muslin, newly ironed, or of baby, the two smells being similar. “I wonder if we could not have the Prince of Wales to dine, for he has always wanted to hear you sing duets with the Banti creature.”

  Emma gave him what is commonly called a long look, but since it is well known that the best way a woman may put a devoted lover at his ease is to make him jealous, wrote off to Nelson at once, to announce the event.

  “Sir William,” came the answer right back, “should say to the Prince, that situated as you are, it would be highly improper for you to admit H.R.H. I know his aim is to have you for a mistress. The thought so agitates me that I cannot write.” Which is what we always say when we are about to write ten pages.

  A thoroughly accomplished woman, Emma went on to the next reassuring gesture, which is to accuse the dotard of infidelity.

  “Suppose I did say,” he snarled back, “that the West Country women wore black stockings, what is it more than if you was to say what puppies all the present young men are? Sir William ought to know his views are dishonorable.” He longed for the day when, her “uncle” dead, he and Emma might retire to Bronte. “My longings for you, both person and conversation, you may readily imagine. What must be my sensations at the idea of sleeping with you.”

  In the next day’s post, he felt horrible.

  “All your pictures are before me [they had a low cunning dishonest look]. What will Mrs. Denis say, and what will she sing [the Banti had not been available, Mrs. Denis was the next best thing]—Be calm, be Gentle, the Wind has changed? Do you go to the opera tonight? They tell me he sings well.” He threatened to drop her unless she dropped H.R.H.

  Well, that had gone exceedingly well, thought Emma, and as the third step is reassurance by indirection, wrote off to Mrs. William Nelson to say she was so ill that she could not have His Royal Highness to dinner on Sunday, which would not vex her.

  “I glory in your conduct,” said Nelson. “As to letting him hear you sing, I only hope he will be struck deaf and you dumb, sooner than such a thing should happen.” He made two enclosures, the one the draft of his will, providing handsomely for Horatia (it was a second draft); the other the news that “that person has her separate maintenance, let us be happy, that is in our power; for mine is a heart susceptible and true.”

  All of which was all very well, but as everyone knows, even the most susceptible heart has to be tuned occasionally; to screw it up to concert pitch requires some effort, and an aptitude for female arts was never known to work any woman ill.

  “My God,” thought Emma, with that emotion unique to the born artist who finds that something he has done easily for the first time has at the same time been done exceeding well, “I am professional.” She might now look out upon the female creation with a scorn that hitherto had been limited to their lips, not hers. “I may do what I will.”

  Alas, money was still a problem, for the fine never pay so well as the fashionable arts, which in their turn are the more expensive. But never mind, she was a woman, and if getting and spending, we lay waste our powers, why then it was only just that the labor should be evenly divided—the one half to the one sex, the other to the other. And any woman who has just lost eight and a half pounds, why of course she must have new dresses; it is a saving really, for they cost only a little more new than the price of altering the old ones. Frills, furbelows and bows do more to rock the human heart than vases.

  Vases, however, steady it.

  Sir William wrote:

  I have represented the injustice of that, after my having had the King’s promise of not being removed from Naples but at my own request and having only empowered Lord Grenville to remove me on securing to me a net income of £2,000 per annum. I have fully demonstrated to Lord Grenville and Treasury that £8,000 is absolutely necessary for the clearing off my unfunded debt without making up my losses. Upon the whole then I do not expect to get more than the net annuity above mentioned and the £8,000; but unless that is granted, I shall indeed have been very ill used. But I hope in my next to be able to inform your Lordship that all has been finally settled. I am busy putting in order the remains of my vases and pictures that you so kindly saved for me on board the Foudroyant and the sale of them will enable me to go on more at my ease and not leave a debt unpaid—but unfortunately there have been too many picture sales this year and mine will come late.

  The first-floor library was a litter of bits and pieces ripped from the walls of the Palazzo Sesso, and vases everywhere, a few fresh barnacled, that Greville had managed to salvage from the wreck in the Scilly Roads, so it was only civil not to notice in Greville’s bedroom a small, late-Roman bronze that had been packed, he was sure, in the Colossus cargo. Just as civilly, Greville did not mention it either. However, better there than gathering water weeds in twenty fathoms, and he had been honest about the vases, anyhow. Not one of a wet provenance had come recently upon th
e market.

  One was only in England temporarily, to visit friends, but all the same, Sir William was aware that that walk through the weeds at Segesta had been the last one, though there were signs of hope, for the snow in Green Park was thawing into slush, and the sun did not set now until as late as 4:30 in the afternoon.

  On a vase the color of chicken bone, a piper played pan pipes, a woman danced, and in an invisible meadow, flowers bloomed.

  *

  Nelson arrived suddenly, on leave of absence. He wanted to see the child.

  “But it is quite safe. It is with a wet nurse in Marylebone,” said Emma, puzzled. “And since you have only three days …”

  “I wish to go there now.”

  “But I can’t go now. Sir William will need me when he comes in.”

  “Damn Sir William. What is the woman’s name?”

  “Gibson,” said Emma. “Oh how my heart cries out to see it! But as you see, I cannot come.” And she began to do her hair.

  *

  It was a small, mean, respectable house with a worn scrap of drugget on the parlor floor. He would sit on the floor and play with the child by the hour, or rather, since the toys he had bought were too big for it, he would play with the toys while he watched the child. When it began to howl, he was dismayed.

  “You must forgive me,” he said. “I have never before been alone with a baby.”

  “And what is the mother like?”

  “The mother like?” He blinked. “Oh, Mrs. Thompson. She is dead, poor lady. She died of joy.”

  Mrs. Gibson accepted this without a quiver. “Well, I’ll say this for the dead, they do pay regular,” she said. “And Mr. Thompson?”

  “Oh he’s a shabby fellow,” said Nelson happily, experimenting with small fingers soft as seed pearls.

  Mrs. Gibson, who had been found by Mrs. Cadogan, liked no-nonsense better than fine words, and tips on top of salary best of all, but now she had seen both bottles, so to speak, curiosity was gratified; she was willing to keep mum.

  “It is such a pretty child,” said Nelson, utterly confounded.

  It was in truth a healthy, tugging, fat-rolled, simpering brat, a little solemn and given to crying, But then, we always enjoy the sound of children crying, so long as they don’t keep it up long enough to annoy; their grief, though genuine, is transient and therefore meaningless. We like to hear that grief is so.

  Mrs. Gibson picked it up fondly. It was worth three guineas a week to her.

  *

  It was worth a good deal more than that to him.

  And as Emma Hamilton, the wife of the right Honorable Sir William Hamilton, K.B. has been the great cause of my performing those services which have gained me honours and rewards, I give unto her in case of the failure of male heirs, as directed by my will, the entire rental of the Bronte estate for her particular use and benefit, and in case of her death before she may come into the possession of the estate of Bronte she is to have the full power of naming any child she may have in or out of wedlock or any child male or female which she, the said Emma Hamilton … may choose to adopt and call her child … diamonds … snuffbox … sword to be delivered on her coming to the estate … and as Emma Hamilton is the only person who knows the parents of this female child … and to this female child I give and bequeath all the money I shall be worth above the sum of twenty thousand pounds, the interest of it to be received by Lady Hamilton for the maintenance and education of this female child …

  “I shall now begin and save a fortune for the little one …”

  *

  Love letters, even from our lovers, do not make agreeable reading. The emotion imbalances the understanding, so that we cannot describe, we can merely show, our symptoms. Such letters may be scanned to make a prognosis, that is all. Whereas, in his better moods, he was not only capable of an amusing turn of phrase, but also made sound sense. Only think, all that just for a child.

  “Josiah is to have another ship and go abroad if the Thalia cannot soon be got ready.” “Lady Nelson is to be allowed £2,000 a year subject to the income tax, which I will pay.” “Lord Nelson gives Lady Nelson the principal of the £4,000 mentioned above to be at her disposal by will [it was her dowry].” When the followers of Mahomet put off a wife for barrenness, the dowry is returned.

  “We must manage till we can quit this country or your uncle dies.” “Now, my own dear wife, for such you are in my eyes and in the face of Heaven, I can give full scope to my feelings. We are one heart in three bodies.”

  *

  “I suppose they share it around,” said Captain Hardy, an honorable man, but a partisan of Lady Nelson and so an indefatigable reader of blotting paper, “when they feel the need of one. I wonder who has it now?”

  On March 4th, Nelson wrote his letter of dismissal to his wife. “My only wish is to be left to myself, and wishing you every happiness, believe I am your affectionate, Nelson and Bronte.” A draft was sent to Emma.

  She had won.

  *

  “Well, William?” asked Mrs. William Nelson, having shown him the following note:

  I wish you would take a post chaise and go to London and be near and as much as possible with our dear Lady Hamilton, who loves and esteems you very much. I will tell my brother that you are gone, therefore he shall either meet you in London or go round by Hillborough and arrange his church duty.

  In doing this favour you shall be at no expense, and you will most truly oblige your sincere and affectionate friend,

  NELSON AND BRONTE.

  Brother William, slipping into the better of his two public roles, gave a clerical cough.

  “Well, which way does the cat jump?” demanded Mrs. William, who, as a future Countess, deferred in everything to her husband, the future Earl.

  William gazed at the ceiling for guidance, but saw only the lath distinctly showing through the plaster, like ribs.

  “I do not propose to go mousing for the pleasure of it,” said Mrs. William. “Where is duty?”

  Abandoning the Cloth as inappropriate, William descended to his other role, that of doting brother.

  “I think, considering the circumstances—and I have considered them—that I must enjoin you to comply with my dear brother’s wishes. He has always been a kind and generous friend, within his limited comprehension of those terms, and although, even indeed because, his conduct is beyond human understanding, we must ever strive to be humane. Though not quite a lady, she is none the less bereft. It is our Christian duty to console.” And with a bland, forgiving, understanding smile (Nelson had warned him not to see the Hamiltons too often himself, as they found him a bore), all glow and no heat, he added: “At least she is not an uppity woman. Lady Nelson was. If we cannot condone irregularity, it is our duty to overlook it. All the same we must not lend it color, so I shall leave my clerical collar at home.”

  Indeed not: they had no color to spare. But it had been a moral struggle, which is always a physical strain, so William looked extremely pale.

  *

  On the 12th of March, Nelson sailed for Denmark under the command of Sir Hyde Parker, to blockade Copenhagen.

  “It is your sex that makes us go forth; and seems to tell us—‘None but the brave deserve the fair’! And, if we fall, we still live in the hearts of those females who are dear to us. It is your sex that rewards us; it is your sex who cherish our memories.”

  Which was only true. There was not a woman in England who would not wave her husband good-bye, to see her nation defended, though when it came to sons, the matter was more serious. After that, war was a simple matter of waiting to Applaud the Hero and Hail the Conquering Brave. We are not amazons, but parades are exciting. A woman likes things uniform.

  “I feel sorry for Sir Hyde,” said Lady Malmesbury, “but no wise man would ever have gone with Nelson, or over him, as he was sure to be in the background in every case.”

  “Sir Hyde Parker had run his pen through all that could do me credit or give me support; bu
t never mind, Nelson will be first if he lives, and you shall partake of all his glory. I hate your pen-and-ink men: a fleet of British ships of war are the best negotiators in Europe,” wrote Nelson to Emma.

  *

  Greville, whose life had been ho-hum and chagrin, had quite by chance stumbled upon ah-ha and laughter, for he had bought for a penny Gillray’s new cartoon of “Dido in Despair.” On a window seat lay open Academic Attitudes and a dirty stocking. On the floor lay a ribbon and a book of antiquities. On the dressing table, a pincushion and a bottle of Geneva. In the middle sat an Emma with elephantiasis, roaring pudgy with despair, and through the window the British Fleet could be seen retreating.

  Ah where & ah where is my gallant Sailor Gone?

  He’s gone to Fight the Frenchman for George upon the Throne.

  He’s gone to fight ye French, an, t’loose t’other Arm & Eye …

  “And left me with the old Antique to lay me down and Cry,” he read, memorized it—which was not difficult—and then, being an unselfish man, decided to share his pleasure in the work of so eminent an English draftsman by the common device of mailing Emma a copy of it, in a wrapper, plain.

  *

  “Whether Emma will be able to write to you today or not is a question, as she has got one of her terrible sick headaches,” wrote Sir William.

  But Greville was in a whistling mood, for if you cannot pay the piper just yet, you can at least hum the tune.

  *

  Not all the family followed Brother William over to the winning side at once. “I hope in God one day I shall have the pleasure of seeing you together as happy as ever. He certainly, as far as I hear, is not a happy man,” wrote Sister Bolton to Lady Nelson. And the Reverend Edmund asked if he could contribute anything to the further increase of her comfort.

  On April 2nd, Nelson won the battle of Copenhagen, as usual, by disobeying orders, since battles are as often won that way as lost. News of the victory reached England on the 15th.