Sir William

by David Stacton

  That was perhaps true, yet for a brief moment fifteen years ago she had given promise of becoming somebody else. It seemed to him curious that Nelson should like her for what he thought to be her polish, whereas he—who had supplied the polish—had liked her best for something polish can never give.

  If only it were not for the noise, thought Sir William, who was beginning to find the bosom of a family as bumpy as that of Diana of Ephesus (whom, indeed, in other ways, Emma was coming to resemble).

  It was spring. Charlotte came and went, an adolescent timeserver, like her father. The apple trees were in early bloom and there was now a beehive. Emma turned around and around in the kitchen garden, like an old winklewoman, to choose an icebox lettuce which, since there was still frost at night, had the feel of a pickled brain in an anatomy school. Charlotte, all ink and vivacity, was translating one of Madame Sevigné’s letters, not well. The Reverend Edmund was to arrive and would be company, or at any rate, a coeval.

  Sir William, who could not bear it, went up to town. When he returned, it was to find still another child there. Horatia was now over two.

  “She is the daughter of one of my cadets, a man named Thompson,” said Nelson. “I propose to adopt her, and Emma has kindly offered to assist.”

  A great deal of his time was spent sitting on the grass with the child. Emma, in her best little-girl manner, also played with it. It was a docile child. Sir William had no complaints to make of it, but the whole household now seemed organized around it. You caught glimpses of it being dandled somewhat every time you went for a walk or tried to use the library. Even Mrs. Cadogan had taken to hovering.

  The apple blossoms came wandering down, cast loose by an afternoon shower.

  “And the dish,” said Emma, with a glance at Nelson, “ran away with the spoon,” playing with Horatia’s toes.

  “Fork,” said Nelson.

  “Not in this case.” Emma gave him one of her more dazzling smiles. It was their love pledge, was it not?

  Sir William, who had gone to the orchard for a stroll, turned back and did not know why he was so angry, except that the child so clearly had the Nelson nose.

  Was Greville to be disinherited to the benefit of that? He was not ravished by the appearance of little Miss Thompson. And if he wished to take the carriage to town, why should he not do so? It was his carriage.

  I have passed the last 40 years of my life in the hurry and bustle that must necessarily be attendant on a public character [he wrote angrily]. I am arrived at the age when some repose is really necessary, and I promise myself a quiet home, and altho’ I was sensible, and said so when I married, that I shou’d be superannuated when my wife wou’d be in her full beauty and vigour of youth. That time is arrived, and we must make the best of it for the comfort of both parties. Unfortunately our tastes as to the manner of living are very different. I by no means wish to live in solitary retreat, but to have seldom less than 12 or 14 at table, and those varying continually, is coming back to what was become so irksome to me in Italy during the latter years of my residence in that country. I have no connections out of my family. I have no complaint to make, but I feel that the whole attention of my wife is given to Ld. N. and his interest at Merton. I well know the purity of Ld. N.’s friendship for Emma and me, and I know how very uncomfortable it wou’d make his Lp., our best friend, if a separation shou’d take place, and am therefore determined to do all in my power to prevent such an extremity, which wou’d be essentially detrimental to all parties, but wou’d be more sensibly felt by our dear friend than us. Provided that our expences in housekeeping do not encrease beyond measure (of which I must own I see some danger), I am willing to go on upon our present footing; but as I cannot expect to live many years, every moment to me is precious, and I hope I may be allow’d sometimes to be my own master, and pass my time according to my own inclination, either by my fishing parties on the Thames or by going to London to attend the Museum, R. Society, the Tuesday Club, and Auctions of pictures. I mean to have a light chariot or post chaise by the month, that I may make use of it in London and run backwards and forwards to Merton or to Shepperton, etc. This is my plan, and we might go on very well, but I am fully determined not to have more of the very silly altercations that happen but too often between us and embitter the present moments exceedingly. If really one cannot live comfortably together, a wise and well concerted separation is preferable; but I think, considering the probability of my not troubling any party long in this world, the best for us all wou’d be to bear those ills we have rather than flie to those we know not of. I have fairly stated what I have on my mind. There is no time for nonsense or trifling. I know and admire your talents and many excellent qualities; but I am not blind to your defects, and confess having many myself; therefore let us bear and forbear for God’s sake.

  If it was querulous, he could not help it. Rage without either the will or power to punish is always querulous.

  *

  Of this even-tempered epistle, Emma caught only the next to last phrase.

  “Horatio, he knows about the child!” she yowled. She was both indignant and frightened.

  Nelson took the letter, read it, and became solemn. He did not reassure her.

  “It is his way to hint. He says he is not blind to my defects.” She could think of no others.

  “He is right. There is no call to shout at him. He is not in his grave yet, you know,” said Nelson soberly.

  “I shout at Sir William?” She was outraged.

  “Up and down the stairs again.”

  “But he’s so difficult sometimes.”

  “He is an old man. And though you are not, thank goodness, his wife, he is your husband. And for mention of that, I do not like these incessant dinner parties either.”

  “I only ask your friends.”

  “What friends? Does Troubridge come? Does Hardy come?”

  “But we cannot afford two carriages, and the one is always in use. Charlotte uses it. Your brother William uses it. All the Nelsons use it. And something must be available if Horatia is to be fetched. Besides, it is not my fault. They have been asked.”

  “Let the old man have his chariot,” said Nelson. “And let him also have his evening quietly till it be out.”

  She did not understand. She was deeply hurt. He did not seem to sympathize.

  *

  With Mrs. Cadogan she fared no better.

  “But why? Indeed I am not conscious of any fault. What have I done?” she demanded, and threw a scene and roared like a lion, who in times past would have shivered like a mouse.

  Mrs. Cadogan folded her hands. “You’ve been yourself and it won’t do,” she said. “If you tumble him down, you will tumble right after him. Sir William means exactly what he says.”

  Emma pouted, a thing she had never done when young, when misfortune had slimmed her down and made her acceptable. But being at bottom a good-tempered creature with no malice in her—only a little necessary tendency to plot—she said,

  “Very well, he shall have his chariot if he wants one. I suppose we can economize somewhere.”

  And off she went to Sir William’s room, to say she was sorry; and sat on the floor and rested her head against the arm of his chair and confessed that, yes, she had been bad, though this twenty years later, she did not cry, but watched a branch sway outside the window instead.

  “Oh, William, do forgive me, do,” she said. “It is all so difficult to manage.”

  “It is too late in the evening for Greek Attitudes,” said Sir William. “It is not a matter of forgiving or forgetting either. It is simply a matter of learning how to control yourself. Now go to bed. I am tired.”

  So Emma gave him a filial kiss on the forehead, and since contrition had made her hungry, went downstairs and ate two slices off a saddle of mutton in the larder, and a bunch of haws; puzzled, while cracking them, with the feeling that she had done all this before.

  But she would try. If he wanted to go up to town, ve
ry well, they would all go up. It was some time since they had had a week in town.

  *

  In April, Nelson’s father died at Bath, on the 26th, which was Emma’s birthday. Nelson was himself too ill to attend the funeral.

  “My poor, poor Horatio,” said Emma, compassionately. She was still his little wife. But Nelson had had a wife before.

  “I should like to sit a while with Sir William,” he said. “Alone.”

  Emma went off, just as relieved as not. She did not understand silent grief. In Cheshire, one held a wake and beat the walls. She could remember that from childhood. For one must do something, and there is nothing to say. They are just dead, that’s all.

  Whereas as far as she could overhear, Nelson and Sir William sat in the library and said nothing whatsoever; she was relieved when at last she heard the stopper to a tantalus chink.

  Nelson was standing at the window, looking out at a gray day.

  “I tried to make her sensible,” he said, “that she must modify her ways, since she cannot mend them. She has a loving heart. It is merely that it takes these overexuberant forms.”

  Sir William said nothing. There was nothing to be said. If they could not share the same wife in the same ways, it was nonetheless evident that they had come to share the same burden.

  “She has many virtues,” said Nelson doggedly.

  “Yes, many,” said Sir William, also loyal.

  The devil of it was, they were both fond of her.

  “I am glad you are here,” said Nelson. “Which is odd, for I have been jealous sometimes.”

  Sir William refilled their glasses. “Strong brandy never did any man ill,” he said. “And you, too, I think, feel often much alone.”

  “He was a nice old man toward the end. He did his best, according to his lights.”

  “Yes, he was,” agreed Sir William. But the property should go to Greville, all the same.

  *

  “The dear Queen has returned to Naples,” said Emma, reading The Morning Herald. “I wonder why she does not write.”

  “Ah yes,” said Sir William equanimously. “I wonder.”

  “And she pledged eternal friendship,” said Emma scornfully.

  “And so did you, my dear,” said Sir William, who had heard that Maria Carolina now made much of a Countess Razoumovski, a perfect unique friend, and like the Russian lady on the boat, no doubt all sensibility.

  “Well, I can’t write letters to everyone,” said Emma, but she looked put out, all the same. However, that was in the past, and as for the present, they were off for a journey to Wales tomorrow and she was looking forward to that, for things had been dull at Merton recently, with so few guests; she had felt constrained.

  *

  The trip was a triumph, barring a temper tantrum and an incident along the way.

  Oxford bestowed its freedom on Nelson and made both him and Sir William Honorary Doctors at Civil Law. From there they went to Woodstock Manor and up to Blenheim, a damp and soggy pile, admirable for the connoisseur of pictures, since the landscape combined Salvator’s wildness, Claude’s enlivening grace, and cascades and lakes as good as anything in Ruisdael.

  Unfortunately the Duke would not receive them, though they might survey the grounds if they so wished.

  “Nelson,” shouted Emma, as they left, “shall have a monument to which Blenheim shall be but a pigsty!” She was outraged.

  At Gloucester, they met the tailor and ate the cheese while the crowd cheered and church bells rang, which was more as things should be. And at Tenby, their reception was equally exhilarating.

  “I was yesterday witness to an exhibition which, though greatly ridiculous, was not wholly so, for it was likewise pitiable, and this was in the persons of two individuals who have lately occupied much public attention,” said Mr. Gore of that town to his family. “I mean the Duke of Bronte, Lord Nelson, and Emma, Lady Hamilton. The whole town was at their heels as they walked together. The lady is grown immensely fat and equally coarse, while her ‘companion in arms’ has taken to the other extreme—thin, shrunken, and to my impression, in bad health. They were evidently vain of each other, as though the one would have said ‘This is Horatio of the Nile,’ and the other, ‘This is the Emma of Sir William.’ Poor Sir William, wretched but not abashed, he followed at a short distance, bearing in his arms a cucciolo and other emblems of combined folly.”

  The cucciolo was a recent acquisition. It was a little dog, the progress from overeating to dramming to little dogs being not unknown among women bigger than they used to be.

  The small company went up the street and Mr. Gore went home, not unsympathetically, for since Sir William was an old man—among a people noted for their almost Chinese reverence for age per se—public censure had decided merely to pity him; to feel for Nelson (he was a Hero but had been much abroad where life was notoriously unhealthy, so no doubt he had caught the Passion there. But then, our health is not our own fault); and to loathe her.

  The fourth anniversary of the Battle of the Nile was spent with Greville at Milford Haven. There was a Welsh fair, a rowing match, a cattle show and a banquet. Nelson, struck by the possibilities of the harbor, recommended to the Admiralty that a dockyard be established there. So, thought Greville, he is a fine fellow led by the nose, that’s all.

  At Hereford, the Duke of Norfolk bestowed the city’s freedom in an applewood box and afterward gave them cider. Unfortunately Sir William insisted she smile at the crowds when they laughed at her and that he be allowed to fish, when what she wanted was that he come with her, to lend her support. Afraid to speak out in her own defense, she left a note on his pillow instead and retired to her room with audible groans.

  As I see it is a pain to you to remain here, let me beg of you to fix your time for going. Weather I dye in Piccadilly or any other spot in England, ’tis the same to me; but I remember the time when you wish’d for tranquility, but now all visiting and bustle is your liking. However, I will do what you please, being ever your affectionate and obedient, E.H.

  “Emma,” said Sir William, “get up.”

  “I will not attend the dinner. I have one of my sick headaches.”

  “If you persist in parading about like small German royalty, you must learn the discipline and smile until they stop booing,” said Sir William. “Now come along and do not spoil our banquet. As for my desire to fish, it is an excellent stream, I shall not see it again, and I propose therefore to fish it.”

  “Fish and be damned. I will not go.”

  He fished, and what was more, presented the catch to the innkeeper, who served up a small fry for dinner, with a most excellent salmon as the centerpiece.

  Bah.

  *

  But on a good day she was still agreeable, and at Downton, where Richard Payne Knight entertained them, consented to impersonate a few antique coins—in short, more Attitudes, but this time from the neck up only.

  At Worcester, the freedom of the city came in a porcelain vase rather than an applewood box, and Nelson ordered a dessert service with his arms all over it. At Birmingham, fittingly enough, there was a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor. At Warwick, as usual, the Earl talked too much, and at Althorp, they stayed with Lord and Lady Spencer.

  *

  “It still goes on,” said Lady Spencer.

  “Most clocks do until they run down,” said Lord Spencer, who had been shocked by Nelson’s appearance. “We must get him to sea again. I do hope war breaks out before it is too late. If not, some other pretext must serve.”

  Fortunately war, like Emma’s elbows, was always breaking out, and if she found sea bathing efficacious, so would the fleet, no doubt. It was only a matter of time. All that was necessary, was that Bonaparte go first, to break the ice. This time, however, Bonaparte seemed a little slow to commence, sensing it, perhaps, to be thin.

  *

  By September, they were back at Merton. “We have had a most charming tour which will Burst some of THEM,” sai
d Emma. “So let all enemies of the GREATEST man alive perish. And bless his friends.”

  In November, Romney died. “Why fancy that!” said Emma. “I wondered what had become of him. And I was going to write a letter to him, too.” Which was true enough. She had been meaning to write it now for the past ten years. And looking at “The Ambassadress” with a wistful expression, she added, “Poor George.”

  And then it was winter again.

  *

  Once more Sir William looked out into the garden at that parterre of snowdrops—lovely, nodding, insubstantial things which the Reverend Nelson had not lived to see again, but had admired. He looked at them from a rapidly increasing distance. He had tired of life, as one does of everything in time, unless it tire of us first. It is but civil to make the first move. One must put the world at its ease. But the snowdrops merely nodded good-bye affably, or else they were shaky on their pale green sappy stalks. Like them, he had pulled through, and yet it could not be too long now. For though the snows had half melted and the woods were full of floral processions—all moving off, all circling back, all fugitive, all part of faërie—it was time for him also to say good-bye.

  He turned to the fire in the grate, and watched water bubbles hiss at the end of a log, with the peristaltic movement of a centipede.

  Well, what have I done? he thought. I have published some excellent engravings after the antique. I have detected Vesuvius in an eruption. I have forced the British Museum to pay handsomely—a thing not easily done. I have finally unloaded a spurious Correggio; and I have undergone Emma.

  I shall be remembered, I suppose, for that. Alas, I can deal only with the esthetic; the inesthetic is beyond me. So since there is nothing I can do about it, all I can do is to sit still in the midst of it, looking at an old volume of landfalls, of almost identical coasts, wistfully. Indeed it is a blessing to be a little deaf.

  “Nuncle,” said Horatia, who had been brought in to visit him.

  “No,” said Sir William; but yes, she was a docile creature, and it was not Nelson’s fault.