by Amanda Elyot
All through the Christmas holiday I was beside myself with every anxiety, lonely and unattended, drinking a bumper in the parlor with the landlady and her pustule-faced son to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. I remained terrified to confess my distress to Mam, whom I had not seen in months.
Through one of his manservants, Sir Harry eventually sent me a guinea wrapped in a scrap of paper without so much as a word scrawled upon it to ease my heart. It was scarcely enough to get myself from London to Chester. I arrived at the Steps looking as though I had swallowed a pumpkin of prodigious girth, and soaked to the skin to boot, for Sir Harry had not given me enough to ride inside the coach.
Weeping, I fell into Gammer’s sturdy arms.
“Just look at you, gal! What the devil ’ave you gone and done?” I felt Gammer shake her head as she pressed me to her bosom. “Do you know who the father is, then? Does ’e know you’ve gone off? Will ’e at least give you a few bob to care for the babe once it makes its way into the world? It won’t be too long now, y’nau? A guess is as good as a promise and I’d say the little one’ll be poking ’is head into ’Is Majesty’s realm by March at the latest, mark my words on’t. But first off,” she added, unseating my uncle William so I could avail myself of the best chair in the cottage, “you’ll ’ave to fill that big belly of yours with a good meal. We anna any meat, but I’ve a pot of one of your favorites, Emy, gal: a bit of ponsh meip.” Gammer ladled a generous helping of mashed potatoes and turnips into a trencher.
Over the mash and a glass of porter I told her all about Uppark Harry.
“And you say ’e’s answered not a one of your letters to ’im?” I shook my head. “O, ’e’s got me chawin’ the fat now,” she grumbled. Thinking on it further, Gammer stamped her foot in disgust. “ ’E’s got me tampin’! If ’e weren’t gentry, I’d take my ’orsewhip to ’is stubborn ’ide.”
“Don’t be making it any worse for me than it already is,” I moaned, hungrily shoveling in the last mouthful of potatoes.
Gammer fetched a stool and a cushion and raised my feet before the fire. “Y’aven’t gone and blarted out your business with this Greville fellow, ’ave you?” she asked anxiously. “Could be the reason why your dear ’Arry’s not of a mind to see to his responsibilities. Though even if ’e didn’t suspect you’d been ponshyn on the sly wi’another, ’e wouldn’t be the first and Lord knows ’e won’t be the last to leave a girl in distress once ’e’d gotten ’er in a family way.” Gammer knelt beside me and looked deep into my eyes. “Do y’love ’im, Emy?”
My tears began to drench my cheeks. “Which one?”
“The one as got all them fields and ’orses.”
“Sir ’Arry Fetherstonhaugh. No, Gammer, I don’t love ’im, though I was fond of ’im when we was good together. Yet I’d still go back to Uppark in an instant if ’e’d ’ave me.”
“And what about t’other gent? Charlie?”
“The Honorable Charles Greville. Yes, I could love ’im. Very much. ’E’s a gentleman through and through—not like Sir ’Arry—and Greville would sooner lose ’is right arm than see me and a babe left to rot in the gutter.”
“Are you certain of that, Emy, girl?” Gammer smoothed her callused palm over my brow, wiping away the trickles of perspiration.
“I want so much to believe so,” I replied, biting my lip in hesitation. “And, any rate, right now ’e’s my only hope.”
Toward the beginning of the year, full of anguish, I penned a frantic note to Greville, in response to a sympathetic letter I had received from him the previous day. Would he be willing to become my protector? After enumerating an elaborate set of conditions, first among which was the procurement of a true copy of my baptismal certificate, for he wish’d to be certain that I was of the age I had warranted, Greville indicated to me that he might be persuaded to entertain the prospect.
10th Jan. 1782
My dear Emily,
If you should come to town free of all engagements & take my advice, you will live very retired, till you are brought to bed. You should part with your maid, & take another name, by degrees I would get you a new set of acquaintance, & by keeping your own secret, & nobody about you having it in their power to betray you, I may expect to see you respected and admired. Thus far relates to yourself. As to the child, its mother shall obtain it kindness from me & it shall never want.
I inclose you some money, do not throw it away, you may send some presents when you arrive in Town, but do not be on the road without some money to spare, in case you should be fatigued and wish to take your time: God bless you my dearest lovely girl, take your determination soon & let me hear from you. Once more Adieu my Emily.
Gammer looked thoughtful. “You could do worse than to follow everything ’e says in that letter you’re ’olding. It’s not too late to mend your ways, Emy gal, and let the gentleman turn you into a fine young lady, fit to mingle with the cream of the crop . . . though I don’t know for the life of me what you’ll change your name to, as ’e’s asking you, y’nau? With a little one in the oven, you should call yourself a ‘Mrs.’—of that much I’m certain. Y’can always be a widow, and there’s none that’ll question it. Or a sailor’s wife. They’s always at sea for so many months—years, even—that they don’t even know they got a babe back home. And they get all kind of disease on them ships. . . .”
I stopped hearing Gammer’s words when I thought of poor Samuel Linley, pale and sickly from the fever, plans for our blissful marriage the last words on his parched lips.
“Like I said, you could do worse than put yourself under this Greville’s protection. I ’ear you’ve been calling yourself Emily Hart these past months. So, with a ‘Mrs. Emily—’ ”
“Not Emily. ‘Emily’ is a silly girl, and I’m leaving ’er on the shelf. Gammer, if I’m to begin a new life as a respectable young lady, fit to be the companion for the likes of a man such as the Honorable Charles Greville, my new name must be dignified as well. I’m meaning to become Emma. Mrs. Emma Hart.”
Nine
Edgware Road
In early 1782, dusty Edgware Road on the outskirts of London was nearly as rural as Chester, for all its countrified rustication. Situated at the edge of Paddington Green was a row of modest houses, newly built, and it was at Paddington Road, No. 14 Oxford Street, where Greville ensconced me and my mam, now calling herself Mary Cadogan.
Mam told me that she fancied the name after learning that her employer, the Earl of Warwick, favored the powdered wig with clubbed curls nicknamed the “Cadogan wig” after the lordly gentleman who first sported the fashion. The name Cadogan sounded terribly upper crust to her, so she adopted it for her own. Mam was to be my chaperone as well as the housekeeper of the establishment, seeing to the cooking and the accounts, and supervising the servants that Greville would engage after I gave birth.
Greville still dwelt in the King’s Mews. Our arrangement was such that he could come to stay with us as whim and leisure directed. In keeping with his “system,” he had his own set of rooms apart from ours, which were sacrosanct and not to be entered whilst he was in residence unless we had received permission to disturb him. Another element of Greville’s plan was that in order to curb my wild ways and learn responsibility, I should study to keep the household ledger, even in my advanced condition, as he thought it would distract my mind from my physical discomfort and distress. By degrees Greville undertook to educate me, teaching me the properties of arithmetic, as well as correcting my faults in grammar, orthography, and speech. My Flintshire accent appeared to trouble him no end, for he was forever lamenting my pronunciation.
“Emma, one takes a bahth,” he would scold, emphasizing the broad A that proper ladies and gentlemen employ—the A that sounds like one is opening one’s mouth wide enough to insert an object of sizable girth. “And stop dropping your aitches like a country bumpkin or a Whitechapel costermonger. It’s him, not ’im; has, not ’as. You are the loveliest girl in the world—until you o
pen your mouth and mar the celestial image with your mangled speech.”
Though I was proud of my origins, he was absolutely right, of course, and thus I would try my level best to mend my faults as much to improve myself as to please him. If I could only adhere to Greville’s system in all things, I would be fit to mingle in society—except that my new and adored protector forbade me to do so. No more heavy brocaded frocks, nor powder in my hair, nor paint on my face. For a time I felt miserably unfashionable in simple muslin gowns, fretting my lot to Mam, who reminded me that there was no one but the serving girls to see me, and that Greville himself extolled my fresh, natural beauty, even in its first flush of feminine ripeness.
In any event, despite all the exuberance of youth and my new station, my condition soon rendered it difficult for me to go about. I was not long at Edgware Road before my lying-in commenced. Shortly before St. Valentine’s Day in the year of our Lord 1782, the pains began to come, and with all the skill of a practiced midwife Mam made the necessary preparations. Stretched out along my hip, I lay on my bed crying for mercy whilst Mam rested my raised right leg upon her shoulder; and in what seemed like an eternity— though Mam swore up and down it was naught but a few hours—she delivered me of a rosy baby girl.
“Lud, but she’s a beauty, y’nau,” Mam said, placing the babe at my swollen breast.
“She is indeed,” I whispered.
“And look at that ’ead of ’air. That way, she do take after her mam. What ’ave you a mind to name ’er?”
“I suppose—look ’ow she’s latched on; there, now, that reminds me of her papa—I reckon I could call ’er ’Arriet, but I never fancied the name.”
Mam smiled at us. “Course you could always call ’er Charlotte.”
“Greville would bost ’is seams! ’Sides which, memory serving and all things considered, I’m almost certain she would ’ave been an ’Arriet sooner than a Charlotte.” I kissed the reddish down that covered my babe’s soft pink crown. “Emma. She’s little Emma. Aren’t you, my pet?” And don’t you know, just as if she knew what I was saying, she cooed a soft assent that set me weeping?
“Do you think—now that she’s come—that Greville will let me keep ’er ’ere?”
“You know ’im better than I, girl. Now quit frowning, or it will affect your milk.”
Youth is nothing if not elastic. By the end of February, not only was I on my feet and looking as fit as if I had never given birth, but I was taking little Emma, swaddled in woolens, for walks under the elms at the edge of Paddington Green or in the quaint little churchyard abutting the green itself, where my mam loved to stroll; and as spring whispered its annual promise into the brisk air, I sat with my little one in our charming garden, where Greville grew and nurtured the myriad specimens of flora that he assiduously shared with his precious London Horticultural Society.
Although grateful that I’d come through childbirth as healthy as a horse, Greville had studied to avoid our cottage since little Emma’s birth, and I missed him dreadfully. My figure was as handsome as ever, and I was eager to welcome him back to our bed; besides, Edgware Road never quite felt like home unless we was all together under the same roof.
In early March, my adored Greville surprised us with a visit, announcing that he had arranged for me to sit to the celebrated portraitist George Romney. On the twelfth of the month, he brought me in his coach to Romney’s studio in Cavendish Square, an easy distance from our cottage in Edgware Row. I can still recall the odors of turpentine and linseed oil that assailed our nostrils as we entered the high-ceilinged room. Unfinished canvases lay everywhere: portraits of women and children, women and dogs, children and dogs, and each of them radiantly depicted in lush colors against a muted sky that emphasized the subject as a setting does a jewel. Many of the portraits, tacked to their stretcher bars, were haphazardly stacked three or four deep against one another along the floor moldings, whilst a half dozen or so rested on wooden easels as if anticipating the next brushstroke. Languishing along an entire wall, a large canvas bore the rudiments of a rugged landscape and, only partially realized, a castle in flames.
I thought at first that the studio was curiously empty, save for Greville and myself, but in response to a “Halloo, there!” from my protector, a stocky man of middling years with a kindly countenance presently appeared from behind a vast canvas.
“Greetings, patron,” Romney said gloomily. “Forgive me, Greville, for my lack of good cheer this morning. Just one of my usual bouts, nothing more.”
Despite the painter’s morosity, I felt immediately at home, for Romney’s Lancashire accent, not too dissimilar to my own speech, was as pronounced as though he had never left his birthplace. My protector made the introductions.
“Such a pleasure, Greville! Your servant, Mrs. Hart.” Romney inclined his head in a subtle show of courtesy. With a newfound glee he examined every detail of my face and figure as if he were to paint me on the spot.
“Did I not tell you she was as unspoilt as the first flowers of May?”
“Exquisite. Simply exquisite. Such a shame that you have been keeping the bloom all to yourself, Charles.”
“I mean to remedy that; in fact, such is the purpose of my visit this morning. I intend, George, to commission you to paint Emma as you see fit, to display her beauty to its best advantage, and to effect the sale of such portraits to your other patrons. Although propriety dictates that under my protection Mrs. Hart should live as retired a life as I think meet, I raise no objection to her likeness gracing the drawing rooms that her person may not enter.”
“A pity, that,” replied Romney, “for she would eclipse ’em all, mark my words on’t.”
Greville glanced at me before addressing the artist. “The arrangement is a mutually beneficial one, my dear Romney.” And lowering his voice, though not enough for me to avoid hearing, he added, “If only I could do something about that accent.”
“Though it’s true I don’t care to go about much, I can’t say as country vowels ’ave done me much ’arm in the world.” Romney smiled, and I thought in that instant that if my father had lived, I would have liked him to be just like this gentle man from Lancashire.
Romney circled me the way Uppark Harry used to inspect his fighting cocks. “I think I should like to begin just the way Emma looks today: in all the bloom of youth without the affectations of artifice.”
“Egad, we are of a mind!” exclaimed Greville. “Emma is at her best just as you see her, all sweetness of feature. And you, my good man, will be a pioneer of portraiture indeed, for I have yet to see, even from my dear old friend Reynolds, a young woman of Emma’s stamp—or even a woman of quality—depicted without the good offices of her hairdresser and the prodigious application of lip rouge.”
A bargain was then struck between the two gentlemen. I was to sit regularly to Romney, in the company of my mother for propriety’s sake, while Greville would give us a shilling each for the hackney coach from Paddington Green to Cavendish Square.
But Greville’s “dear old friend” Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had painted my old soul of a protector when Greville was but a boy of thirteen, was not to lose out entirely on the opportunity to enrich both himself and Greville by turning portraits of Mrs. Emma Hart into guineas. We called upon the great painter at his celebrated studio in Leicester Fields, an exceedingly fashionable salon as different from Romney’s messy and haphazard premises as Greville’s Portman Square town house was from our modest arrangement in Edgware Row. “Remember what I told you in the carriage,” Greville cautioned. I nodded my head in assent. “Which was . . . ?”
“Don’t gawk.”
“Even if you were not born with breeding, I am convinced it is not too late to instill it in you, Emma. You’re a quick study, my dear. You soak up knowledge like a dry field after the first spring rain—when you put your mind to it.”
“Thank you, my love!” I beamed, squeezing Greville’s arm.
“And don’t hang upon me so.�
�
“I’ll save it, then, till we’re back at ’ome. But just one kiss,” I insisted, stopping him long enough to press my lips to his. “Oh, Greville, I am the ’appiest woman in London! In all of England, even.”
“And why is that, my dear?”
“Because I think you love me.”
The corridor echoed with the footsteps of our host, a short, barrelchested man. Under hooded lids, his small dark eyes missed nothing. His burgundy coat and white neckcloth were immaculate, his breeches of fawn-colored silk as exquisite as those worn by his wealthy patrons in their portraits.
Over tea it was determined that Sir Joshua would depict me as a Madonna, a radical departure from his customary compositions, not merely in subject, but in appearance. Greville’s eyes nearly popped, but he was too much the gentleman to otherwise indicate his astonishment at such an ironic twist.
“I’ve got my very own babe!” I blarted before Greville’s warning glance could stop my mouth. “Please, Sir Joshua, paint me with my daughter. She’s scarce more than a month in this world, and it would mean everything to me if I could sit to you with my own little Emma in my arms.”
With worldly aplomb, the artist did not so much as raise an eyebrow. “Well, at least the bond will appear quite natural,” he muttered. “Charles, is this child under your roof?”
