Tested by Fate

by David Donachie

  “I got my feather bed, right enough,” said Emma, more to herself than her mother, to whom she had never mentioned her visit to Lady Glynne’s bedroom.

  “What are you on about, girl?”

  Emma just shook her head. Being mistress to Sir William Hamilton now had all the familiarity of habit. It was hard to remember a time when it hadn’t been so. Only at such moments could Emma be brought to a position of deep introspection. The benefits she enjoyed far outweighed the sorrows. Half of Naples thought them husband and wife, joined in secret ceremony, though her letters from home told her that others were not fooled. In every respect, she was the lady of the house, acknowledged to be so by everyone who lived within or visited. The list of guests who’d enjoyed her company included the cream of society, aristocrats, painters, writers, thinkers; English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish fought with French, Germans, Austrians, and the ubiquitous Italians for a moment of her attention.

  She had achieved a social pinnacle that would have been denied her anywhere in England. But it wasn’t the men who mattered when granting her that—they would have paid court to her for her looks alone. It was their wives. Quite apart from those she counted as close friends, the drawers of her escritoire were filled with letters from women whose station was of the highest, each one committing to paper kind sentiments and flattering references to some or several of what they considered her attributes.

  Nor was she merely decorative. Her lover was besotted with her, and included her as much as he could in what he called his “toils.” Every discussion with the court was reprised inside the Palazzo Sessa. Emma knew as much about affairs of state as Sir William, and was invited to comment and proffer advice, the sole caveat being that the Ambassador was allowed to ignore it if he chose. In the process she learnt a great deal about politics, not only in Naples, and her conversation, if she chose, rose well above the level of mere chat or gossip. She could now converse in French and Italian as well as in her native tongue. Gone were the days when every meeting had been a trial, where one or two words missed ruined a whole raft of talk. Now Emma could engage in an exchange of ideas, hunt down an allusion, and exercise her wit with whoever came to visit.

  When Emma sighed that she was, truly, far from content, her mother said, “Strikes me you’ve got more’n enough to be going on with. Where does the Chevalier go that he don’t take you along?”

  “Court,” snapped Emma.

  That was a constant bone of contention. She had met both the King and the Queen informally, the latter on dozens of occasions. On their first meeting Maria Carolina had been stiff, which befitted their respective stations, but the Austrian-born queen, who surrounded herself in her private life with forty servants from Vienna, was delighted to find that Emma spoke enough German to converse with her haltingly.

  Two things grew from that: Emma applied herself to learning the Teutonic tongue and the Queen relaxed the rules of protocol that debarred her from receiving Mrs Hart on unofficial occasions. Lacking colourful people in her life, as well as those who had no thought for personal advantage, the Queen warmed to Emma and the two women became companions. As their friendship deepened, a daily visit to the Palazzo Reale when in Naples, or the Royal Palace when they were in Caserta, formed part of Emma’s day. There she would sit with Maria Carolina and engage in gossip, or play with and assist in the English lessons of the numerous brood of royal children.

  Sir William, taking both note and advantage of this, began by entrusting messages for Maria Carolina to his young mistress, then sought her help in nudging and persuading the Queen to adopt some particular policy. Because Emma was careful never to carry to her anything too radical, or to protest too loudly in support of any plan hatched in the Palazzo Sessa or the small seaside villa at Posillipo, the attachment had grown to a point where Maria Carolina acknowledged Emma as a confidante.

  That made it doubly galling not to be officially received. Every formal court function, from the daily levee to the endless state balls, masques, and entertainments, was barred to her. Emma could engage in games with royal children, sing to them, dance with them, and squeal with them. She could have them as guests at the Palazzo Sessa. But she could not be seen on the arm of Sir William on any official occasion.

  “If you’re still fretting on that, girl, you’re soft in the head. What will be will be, the locals say, and they have the right of it. And it won’t do to be miserable, especially not this night.”

  An anniversary party at the Palazzo Sessa, the cream of Naples in attendance; music, dancing, and an opportunity for her to do what she loved most, to perform. Yet Emma wanted more. Did she really want to be Sir William’s wife? It would damn Greville, impress her mother, and she would have official recognition in society. But though she was fond of him, and much as she appreciated the attentions he paid her, it would not be something she would undertake for love.

  Her elderly paramour had taught her patience. As a diplomat, especially in such a febrile posting as Naples, he insisted it was a trait required by the ton. Many times Emma had seen him receive what appeared to be terrible news and admired the way he never allowed it to prey on his mind. Equally, when requested by the court to pass on to his own government some stinging rebuke, he would pocket the missive for several days, then quietly dispose of it when the Neapolitan government, alarmed that it might have gone too far, added a conciliatory codicil.

  But her patience was on the way to becoming frustration. All that held her back from the inevitable explosion was the simple truth: there were no more options to pursue and no Greville waiting in the wings to carry her back—the only thing that would bring her to break her commitment to Sir William. Was it just as her mother said, “That she always wanted to be on a coach to someplace else”? Was it fear that her lover, now approaching the age of sixty, might die and leave her in limbo? Certainly he was less sprightly, but not much so. He still walked, still climbed Vesuvius, still scrabbled away at his excavations. But there were her looks, which would fade as she aged.

  “Aged?” Mary Cadogan said, her voice full of reassurance. “Name of God, child, you’re not yet thirty.”

  “I don’t know why I tell you what I’m thinking. All you ever do is tell me to rest content.”

  “There’ll be no rest now,” Mary Cadogan replied, ignoring the true import of what her daughter was saying. “There be near two hundred folk out there, as grand as you like, all waiting for you, Emma Hart.”

  The shouts from the assembled guests were enough to banish Emma’s earlier melancholy. Using no more than a pair of shawls and a Greek shield, the pose she struck was immediately recognisable, to an audience with a classical turn of mind, as Andromache mourning the death of Hector. Candles combined with cleverly placed mirrors ensured that light and shade added to the effect. Her mother used a thick black curtain at each change of scene, servants moving lights and mirrors, this accompanied by a clash of cymbals as the curtain was pulled back. Emma had rearranged her clothes to appear in another guise, that of the bronze statue of a dancer, recently excavated from the ruins of Herculaneum. The transformation was so swift and accurate that it drew forth gasps of amazement and a round of applause.

  Behind her lay the Bay of Naples, moonlight playing on the water, with the occasional scudding cloud adding a dramatic backdrop to her pose. A trio of musicians played suitable airs, a dirge for Aphrodite, a minuet for the bronze dancer, something light-hearted and gay when she became the Comic Muse.

  Abandoning her shawls, and with the use of a staff, Emma changed her attitude to that of the Goddess Circe, daughter of the Sun. A sorceress, she was leaning forward, arm outstretched, her garment low cut and tantalising to lure Odysseus, sailing home from the sack of Troy, on to the rocks of her island.

  Emma loved to perform, to enthrall her audience with these Attitudes, and in fact this was an extension of her personality: every move she made in company had a tinge of theatricality. She had rehearsed every gesture, every facial expression, many time
s in her mirror glass. She had an interior and an exterior disposition, the latter a critical eye that judged each act, each phrase and each movement against the aspirations she worked so hard to perfect. That watchful spirit was most active in performance. She could pose in any one of fifty guises, sing in four languages and loved to dance: sometimes stately gavottes, at other times, in the right company, the wild peasant saltarella of southern Italy.

  She performed other Attitudes and executed dances more pagan in origin, embodying notions that Sir William had brought back from his excavations. Since these included the exposure of a great degree of flesh they were reserved for his eyes only. Much of his virtu—lewd vases, cups, and statuary—carried graphic images. In addition Sir William had copies of frescos and drawings from the walls of the ruined houses of Pompeii, all of which Emma was invited to emulate.

  Some of that art could not be reproduced, not even by her talent, so scandalous was the nature of the images portrayed. Humans in every kind of sexual congress; women with one man or several; old men with young boys; representations of Sapphic poses, painted lovingly before being sealed by disaster, to survive the passage of near eighteen hundred years thanks to the harsh hot ash of Vesuvius.

  Sir William enjoyed these as much as he delighted in Emma’s private performances. Early on in their relationship he had openly confessed to being a lover of licentiousness, even to being a great masturbator. He had not only his art, but books as well. Without Latin, Emma could not read them but she barely needed to given that he was only too eager to act as her muse, sure she gained as much gratification as he did from the retelling of these obscene stories.

  Sir William Hamilton had grown up in a world in which the acquisition of sexual accomplishments was as much a requirement of his position in society as his undoubtedly polished manners. He had had a dozen mistresses before his marriage, and several after, and when young had been no stranger to the better class of bagnio. Courteous, kind, sometimes fatherly, behind his bedroom door he revelled in vulgarity. The carefully modulated manner, the pose of the diplomat deserted him, to be replaced by a mode of speech that owed much to the whorehouse. A loud fart would reduce him to uncontrollable giggles, and he was even more amused if he was not the perpetrator. Everything he had learnt from experience and his reading he passed on to Emma, happy to find himself attached to a companion who loved ribaldry and physicality as much as he did.

  Quite prepared to acknowledge his age and the constraints it placed on his abilities, Sir William more than made up for his waning sexual powers with the sheer variety of his endeavours. He saw innovation as a challenge, and the presence of an uninhibited creature like Emma Hart as a licence to push back the boundaries of his own skills, and to lift to increasing heights the pleasures she should enjoy in his company.

  And he continued to fill the house with visitors, determined that either during the daylight hours, or when the sun had faded, Emma should never feel any hankering to return to London.

  Mary Cadogan observed them with a judicious eye, keeping her place, never presuming, notching up each point at which the relationship progressed, where it stumbled. She was always there to reassure Emma that what she had now was better than what she had left behind. She had a clear idea of what went on behind the closed door of the bedchamber. No man can keep a secret from his servants, least of all his valet, so Sir William’s tastes were well known below stairs.

  Only Emma knew the depth of her frustration, only her mother knew it existed. If Sir William guessed she was not unreservedly happy, then he had the good sense to keep it to himself.

  Chapter Ten

  A DOZEN CHARACTERS LATER Emma rejoined the party to partake of supper, more music, and cards, accepting the compliments thrown in her direction. General Acton was there, the elderly Englishman who was minister to King Ferdinand, but was even closer to the Queen. She engaged pleasantries with the German poet and diplomat Goethe, who would amuse Emma by rustling up a flattering couplet in four languages with consummate ease. The Duchess of Argyll, her good friend, had her usual place by the door. Angelica Kaufmann, the most celebrated artist in Naples, had painted her several times already, yet was still sketching in the background.

  There were half a dozen wealthy rakes on the last part of their Grand Tour, all of whom, during the evening, would seek to seduce Emma away from her older lover. They would not succeed, however handsome or well connected. This pleased Sir William mightily: although rumours abounded about his Emma, she showed him nothing but fidelity.

  Sir William swore that this endless caravanserai fatigued him and kept him away from his five true loves: Emma Hart, the sea bathing villa at Posillipo, the hot lava flows of Vesuvius, his archaeological digging, and the English garden he had crafted for King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina at Caserta.

  While Emma flatly refused to go near it in winter, Sir William’s hunting “cottage” provided an oasis of peace in the summer. The air there was clear and cool compared to that of the city, the smell of flowers and cut grass so much more pleasant than the rank odour of the open sewers that ran through the alleyways of Naples into the bay. The draughts that came through the gaps in the doors and windows were welcome, and with the mountains so close, and a great cascade coming straight off the glaciers, chilled water was always available to drink, or to dab on a heated brow.

  Even if he wasn’t much given to lifting spade or hoe, Sir William sweated as he ordered his gardeners about. They weeded and clipped, trying to keep alive plants accustomed to cooler climes and to check those that would run riot in the sunshine. Even though he spoke the language his minions took pleasure in misunderstanding every word he said to them and it was the frustration of that which brought on the perspiration. Disinclined to interfere, Emma wandered off to find a shady spot where she could sit with sketchbook and charcoal and entertain herself by drawing Vesuvius, smoking away in the distance. A liveried attendant fell in behind her, so that should she require anything, he would be on hand to fetch it.

  Sir William had worked hard for over twenty years on his garden and much of it was now mature, small copses and flower-beds, bushes and hedgerows, cut by winding paths. It was a place of peace, a gift to the court of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina, a sanctuary to ease the burdens of statehood. It was pleasant to proceed slowly, to gaze upon the carefully arranged beds, then kneel to sniff the pungent scents that rose from a disturbed flower.

  “Buon giorno, Signorina.”

  The voice made her stand up abruptly. It came from within the small grove of trees, was a deep basso profundo, suited to the man who emerged, blinking like some wild animal suddenly exposed to the light. The King of Naples was tall, dark-skinned, and a trifle unkempt, with food stains on his black coat. The hair, jet black and unbrushed, was sticking out in a dozen different directions from under his hat and in his blood-streaked hand he carried two dead rabbits.

  Emma was unsure how to react. Incognito, Ferdinand had attended many a ball at the Palazzo Sessa, had watched her perform her Attitudes with alarming concentration. In complimenting her on her singing, he had even gone so far as to say that she sang like a king. This, she found out later, was a reference to his known love of his own voice, and in his mind was the highest compliment he could pay her.

  The disguise was slight, but respected as far as possible by all those present. Even as a known glutton he never stayed to consume any food or drink, which underlined the fact that he had come to see her. Should she recognise him now, a man who plainly sought to avoid that at other times?

  “Signore.” That made him grin, and Emma had the relief of knowing she’d chosen the right course. “Do I perceive that you have been hunting?” she asked in Italian.

  “I’m still hunting,” he replied.

  “Is the garden not too cultivated for hunting?”

  “There is sport all round for he who’s determined enough to pursue it.”

  It wasn’t hard to get the drift of these exchanges. The King was known t
o lack education, but Emma knew from Sir William that when it came to pursuit of the ladies he was as direct as any hot-blood in Naples. A man who grew tongue tied and bored over affairs of state had great clarity of speech, and no subtlety whatsoever, when it came to fornication. Judging by the bulge in his breeches, which he was making no attempt to hide, that was his aim now. But knowing what he was after did not supply the answer as to how she should react. How do you say no to a king?

  “I have admired you often, Signorina Hart,” he said.

  A maidenly hand went to her mouth, to indicate surprise as well as to cover the incipient smile that threatened to break on her lips. “You know my name?”

  “Everybody in my kingdom does,” he replied gruffly, completely demolishing the pretence that followed with a look of confusion. Emma curtsied, not the full depth due to a monarch, but certainly enough for a gallant prepared to flatter her.

  “I’ve seen you make magic with just a shawl. There’s not a man in the room does not yearn to see what is under so flimsy a garment. I want to see.”

  “It would scarce do for me to reveal what it is in public, Signore.”

  “Then let’s go somewhere private.” He jerked his thumb over his head. “These bushes will do.”

  “I was in search of some shade, sir,” Emma said, thinking, but that bush is not what I had in mind.

  “Shade?” he demanded.

  “I was heading for the bower at the end of the lane.”

  “Then I shall join you.”

  Emma advanced down the path, hearing behind her a whispered exchange, which obliged her to stop and peer. She saw the servant palm a coin, which denoted a bargain struck. But she was on her way again before Ferdinand looked round, forcing His Neapolitan Majesty to scurry so that he could catch up. The bower was close, and within a minute they were under an overgrowing wisteria. Emma sat down without asking, which caused the King a split second of annoyance. Then he joined her, occupying the other end of a rough-hewn bench, his eyes boring into hers. Unable to return that look, Emma laid her parasol across the bench as a not very effective defensive barrier.