Too Great a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  “Well, of course we are! Only I ’ope I never ’ave to answer too many questions. My ’eart won’t be able to stand up to it, y’nau?”

  I had lived the lie for so many years, I was surprised to find that it was not as difficult to maintain as I had expected, or rather dreaded, it would be. Little Emma was everything her own mam was not: grave where I was enthusiastic, well-bred—which I had never been—and properly educated, where I’d got what learning I had, piecemeal, as an adult. I admit it was quite pleasant having the dear girl under my roof, though maintaining the fiction prevented me from gushing with pride at the sweet creature she had become. Overwhelmed with regrets, I did not deserve to admit to her that she was my daughter.

  On August 18, we was all thrown into a state at the news that Nelson was home! He had written from Spithead to say he expected to be released from quarantine the following day and would fly back to Merton! It had been two years and three months since we had parted. How my heart rejoiced! I ached to show him every devotion that my soul and body could devise.

  Immediately, I dashed off letters to the William Nelsons, the Boltons, and the Matchams, and drove posthaste back to town to claim Horatia from Mrs. Gibson. I owed her thirty pounds for back care, and I gave her an additional twenty on Nelson’s behalf, representing the annuity he had promised her for releasing his “adopted” daughter into my care, that I might be her guardian from now on. Mrs. Gibson agreed to the terms, acknowledging in writing that she would have nothing more to do with Horatia.

  What scurrying I did to be sure that everything was in order against Nelson’s arrival. My heart had begun pounding wildly in my chest from the moment I read his letter. To embrace him again! To feel his skin against mine, to bury my face in his scent! His room was to be a shrine to our love. A fine new Kidderminster carpet covered his bedroom floor. Laid upon his mattress were the enormous goose-down feather bed and bolsters he had requested me to purchase on his behalf from the London upholsterer Mr. Peddison—who also happened to be an undertaker, and who, at present, was in possession of the coffin Captain Hallowell had made from L’Orient’s mainmast.

  Nelson arrived at Merton on August 20. His entire family was there to welcome him home. Such laughter and tears spilled forth that day; as for myself, I could scarce leave off kissing him. I had to escort him on a private tour of all the improvements I had made to Merton in his absence, in order that we might steal a few moments together.

  “I’m sure you’ve already noticed that the naked statues that was in the gardens last time are gone. Because they so offended you, I gave ’em all away, every last one of them! And there,” I said, pointing to the charming new summerhouse, “is your ‘poop deck.’ But, come, you must first see what we’ve done with the Nile!” I exclaimed, leading him down to the tributary. It had been filled in on two sides, allowing for better access to all the new meandering gravel walks about the property. The grounds had been landscaped with gentle grassy slopes and planted with plenty of shade trees. It was a lovers’ paradise. “Wait till you see all this in the fall,” I said, gesturing toward our arboretum. “Imagine it in russet and gold and every color in between.”

  He’d slipped my arm through his, then held my hand as we sat on the bankside. I drank in every inch of him, noticing that his dear hair had grown quite gray over the past three years. “You are the most beautiful, wonderful, magnificent woman in the world,” he whispered. “My dearest, beloved Emma. Was there ever man on earth as fortunate as I, to be loved by Emma Hamilton?”

  Our lips met. Neither of us cared who might have been watching. For a long time we just tasted each other, simultaneously reconnecting and exploring. “ ‘Love’ is too small a word. I don’t believe there exists one weighty enough to bear my feelings. Right now I should be ’appy to say that I should never want you to quit my sight. You ’ave been gone from my arms for so long that if you was to step into the kitchen garden, it would be a world away.”

  He rested his head on my shoulder, and together we gazed at the water and just allowed ourselves to be for a while, listening to the whispers of the elements. “Look!” Nelson chuckled, pointing to the pond. “Look at those pikes!”

  The fish were opening and shutting their enormous mouths as if to gobble up anything that came within reach. “ ’Ow do you reckon we’ve got the Nile to stay so clean? I think of ’em as aquatic goats!”

  “Life is not worth preserving without happiness. I love everything today!” Nelson sighed, “Even your silly lapdog, but if he comes near my ankles again, I may not be responsible for my actions. The Forest of Arden could not have been a more perfect idyll than this. I do believe I could safely say that there is not a dearer place on earth, nor a dearer soul to me, than Merton Farm and Lady Hamilton. And I wish never to quit ’em both.”

  I brought my lips to his. “Then don’t, my love. Then don’t.”

  We spent much of every day within the scope of each other’s gaze. At night we held each other and made love, finding delight in every kiss and caress. The mornings came too soon. The house was filled to bosting with Nelson’s family, and we had all his friends to dinner: Captains Hardy, Ball, and Fremantle, and so many others! Such conviviality! Four-and-a-half-year-old Horatia adored the funny one-armed man who bought her an enormous rocking horse, and a little silver cup from Salters’ with her name engraved upon it, and the words To my much loved Horatia with the date, 21 August 1805, and below it an engraved facsimile of his signature of Nelson & Bronte. Nelson sat her upon his knee and finally told her that he was her real papa, though I was still to be called Lady Hamilton and was her guardian, just as if I was her mother. I had introduced Emma Carew to my lover as a “distant cousin,” and as there was so little resemblance between us, he never thought to question it—though it should be said that Nelson never thought to question any thing I told him.

  On September 1, a Sunday, we drove into London, for Nelson wished to discuss Britain’s and the enemy’s naval strategy with the prime minister and the First Lord of the Admiralty. Pitt, always a sympathetic ear where Nelson was concerned, listened attentively and promised to give the matter serious attention. On the following day, Nelson sat down with a number of other prominent men to share his convictions (both intuited and reasoned) regarding the combined fleet’s future movements.

  After his meeting, Nelson and I took a stroll together, finding ourselves utterly mobbed as we walked in Piccadilly. His name was cheered with each step we took. Nelson grew a bit red-faced from all the attention.

  “Why, you like to be applauded; you can’t deny it!” I quizzed. “Look ’ow they all love you! And what else do you notice about ’em?”

  “Many of ’em could do with a good wash?”

  “Now I know you’re teasing me, for there’s several that look quite well turned out to me. Think on’t! Not a one of ’em ’as ’ad an unkind word for Lady Hamilton walking by your side. They’ve read the newspapers; they’ve seen the caricatures; it’s not as if they ’aven’t heard the rumors that you and I might as well be one. But they don’t seem to give a gray rat’s arse about it. Which makes them plenty better bred than those ’Anovers up at Windsor.”

  “You’re still smarting about not being permitted to be presented at court.”

  “You bet I am!”

  “If it’s any consolation to you, my love, I am, too.”

  The household was awakened the following morning at five thirty by Captain Henry Blackwood, a pleasant-looking man of thirty-five, bearing news that the French fleet had been sighted off Cádiz. Just three hours earlier, in the dead of night, Blackwood had delivered this intelligence to the Admiralty, which had immediately dispatched him to Merton. Not only had Nelson been right about the enemy; he had been anticipating such news.

  After Blackwood’s departure, I found a pensive Nelson pacing his “quarterdeck” in the crisp dawn air. I laid my hand upon his arm. “What’s troubling you, my love?”

  “I wouldn’t give sixpence to call the king
my uncle,” he cryptically replied. “You heard enough of what Blackwood said to have sussed out the situation.”

  I tried to swallow the lump that had risen in my throat. “If the nation needs you, you must go.”

  “I am torn—beyond torn! I feel my body stretched upon the rack. For here we have the most perfect domestic felicity that ever man could imagine. And how could I ever be compelled to quit your side again, but for my duty to my country? Whatever may be my fate, I have no doubt in my own mind but that my conduct will be such as will not bring a blush on the face of my friends. The lives of all are in the hands of Him who knows best whether to preserve it or no, and to His will do I resign myself. My character and good name is in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied, and if anything happens to me, recollect, my dear Emma, that death is a debt we must all pay, and whether now or in a few years hence can be but of little consequence.”

  “It’s a very pretty speech,” I sniffled. “You can employ it to rouse your men, like Henry V. But it is of great consequence to me when you pay that inevitable debt.” I placed my hands on his shoulders and faced him squarely. “Nelson, if you’re planning on dying this time, then I’m not letting you go!”

  He pressed on in the same morbid vein, as though he were insensible of my tender feelings. Was he trying to prepare me, no matter how resistant I wished to remain? “There is a song you always sang on the Foudroyant. You used to accompany yourself on the Irish harp.” He began to sing it softly.

  Fly not yet! ’Tis now the hour

  When Beauty reigns with her magic power

  Then stay! Oh Stay! Hours like this so seldom reign

  This hour we never can regain

  Oh, wherefore go we hence?

  “My voice is dreadful, I fear. I sound like a tree frog. Emma, my love . . . I wish the sheet music to be placed in my coffin and for you to sing that for me at my funeral.”

  I nearly became sick. “No!”

  He was all confusion. “No? You most angelic perfect creature, who refuses me nothing in life, will not sing my favorite melody at my memorial service?”

  “Do you really think I should be able to speak, let alone sing, at such a miserable occasion? I ’ope to ’eaven that such event never arises during my lifetime, for I should wish to be struck dead immediately if you go before me.” I blinked back tears. “Now, husht thee naise. There’ll be no more talk of death. I forbid it.”

  Nelson’s departure was both unavoidable and imminent. One morning I wept into my breakfast, while Susannah Bolton tried to comfort me. “You poor, sweet pet. I wish I could offer words of comfort, but you know as well as I that we can say ‘Do not worry; all will be well,’ but in truth we know nothing of the kind.”

  I pushed my coffee away. “It seems as though I ’ave ’ad a fortnight’s dream and am awoke to all the misery of this cruel separation. But what can I do? ’Is powerful arm is of so much consequence to ’is country.” I rose from the table, my appetite entirely vanished. “But I cannot say more. My ’eart is broken.”

  So much had to be prepared against Nelson’s leaving. He went up to London to see Peddison, paid him the thirty-two pounds he owed for the feather bed and bolsters, and asked that his name be engraved on the Orient coffin lid, grimly adding that he thought it highly probable he would require it on his return from Cádiz. He picked up a new pair of spectacles from Mr. Dolland, and called upon Barrett, Corney & Corney, lace makers and embroiderers to Their Majesties, commissioning from them five sets of silver embroidered stars of the Orders of St. Ferdinand, the Crescent, St. Joachim, and the Bath. Mam and I spent the evening stitching a full set of stars onto each of Nelson’s five coats.

  There were rounds of parties and invitations, for everyone was anxious to have the opportunity to say good-bye. Even Greville thought to host a dinner in Nelson’s honor, but as Nelson’s time had grown so limited, he was genuinely sorry to have to decline. An entire wagon bound for the Victory was packed with food and drink: bottles of wine and double brown stout, twenty hams, kegs of tripe and pickles, sauces, mustard, pepper, and other condiments. When it set out for Portsmouth, I could not hide my tears, for his own departure was that much closer.

  “I can’t bear it,” I told Nelson. “Every hour I find myself thinking that there will be one less of them until you are torn from my sight.”

  “Let’s go to the church,” he told me. “You are already my wife in the eyes of God, and before I leave, I don’t think it would go amiss to remind Him of it.”

  The Dowager Lady Spencer was down at Merton when we chose to visit the church. She attended the service alongside us, and was our witness when, after receiving the host, Nelson took my hand and, facing the priest, said loud enough for the dowager countess to hear without her ear trumpet, “Emma, I have taken the Sacrament with you this day, to prove to the world that our friendship is most pure and innocent, and of this I call God to witness.”

  I believe God then witnessed, tho’ the Dowager Lady Spencer did not, our surreptitious exchanging of fede rings: identical gold bands resembling a pair of clasped hands.

  Nelson’s departure was set for the night of Friday, September 13. The Victory had been all fitted up and was waiting for him at Portsmouth. That afternoon, we dined en famille with the entire Nelson-Bolton-Matcham broods, as well as with Lord Minto and the editor of the Morning Chronicle, my old friend James Perry. The family was courteous in retiring early, but Perry and Minto kept Nelson talking past sunset. I could not wait for them to quit the house!

  Finally, they made for home, and Nelson and I made love for the last time before our parting. I was more sensible than ever to the pressure of his lips on mine, to the taste of him, to the sensation of my bare skin against his, to the way my eager body received the gift of his own. I must have kissed and caressed and honored every pore of his dear anatomy.

  The tears coursed down my cheeks, bedewing his chest with salt water. My face was an honest picture of the sufferings of my heart. “God knows when we next shall see one another.”

  He reached up to stroke my cheek, catching the falling drops with his knuckles. “Brave Emma,” he murmured.

  “But I’m not. I’m not the slightest bit brave, and you know it.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, forcing a chuckle. “I daresay you’re the bravest woman in England. If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons.”

  With great reluctance I helped him dress. We tiptoed into Horatia’s room, where she slept the sleep of the innocent, her chubby arm embracing a fluffy toy bunny. Ever so gently, Nelson kissed her, then knelt and prayed beside her bed.

  We exchanged the most tearful of farewells, and Nelson dashed off to his waiting chaise. But scarce had he got through the front door when he turned and ran back to me, drawing me so close to his bosom that I could feel the impression of his embroidered orders against my bodice. We held each other wordlessly, for we were too emotional to utter any. Then Nelson forced himself to break away from me, and once more made for his carriage. Again, he returned to my arms, and after resolving to leave in earnest, he got no farther than three feet from the house before he came back to me for a fourth time.

  “There is no one on earth I love so well as you,” he murmured. His own face was stained with tears. He knelt at my feet, raised his hand to God, and asked Him to bless me. “Amen” was the last word he spoke. Then he turned and strode resolutely toward the open door. This time he made it to the chaise without even looking back; I heard the thumpf of the closing carriage door, the turning of the latch, and the crack of the whip. The gravel crunched as the horses clip-clopped down the drive. It was ten thirty in the evening on Friday, September 13, 1805.

  I never went to sleep that night. My mind was haunted by an anecdote Nelson had once told me. Many years previous, Nelson, superstitious as all sailors tended to be, permitted a Gypsy woman to tell his fortune. The scryer foretold, year by year, Nelson’s losses as well as his triumphs, bu
t when she reached 1805, she exclaimed that the crystal ball had suddenly gone dark. “I can see no farther,” she had said.

  Forty-three

  Nelson Lost

  At sea, Nelson would be in command of twenty-seven ships of the line as well as a handful of frigates, sloops, and other smaller vessels. He had 2,148 guns at his disposal, and all told, 17,000 souls sailed for Cádiz. Thomas Masterman Hardy was to be his flag captain aboard the Victory, with 820 men under his aegis, in addition to dozens of officers and midshipmen, and 31 boys. The entire fleet had painted their ships alla Nelson: with yellow horizontal stripes on the lines of the gunports, and the ports themselves painted black, the hulls resembled floating checkerboards.

  The night before he sailed from Portsmouth, Nelson hosted a dinner on board the Victory for his friend George Rose from the Treasury, and Canning, the Treasurer of the Navy, during which he made Rose swear to interest Pitt in my claims to a pension. Even with the combined fleet of the enemy on his horizon, my beloved was ever my champion.

  On the day after Nelson’s departure I wrote to his secretary, John Scott, confiding my despair: All these three short weeks of happiness seems like a dream—in short I am all most disturbed. . . . Poor little Horatia cryed out at breakfast for good papa, but I cannot describe to you—you can imagine all our wretchedness. I could not bear to be too long alone in his absence, so I traveled to Canterbury to visit the William Nelsons for a few weeks, leaving Horatia under the tutelage of Cecilia Connor, who was proving to be a capable governess. Despite the odd display of temperament now and again, Horatia was quite the apt little pupil, already reading, with still three months to go before she saw her actual fifth birthday. The child possessed Nelson’s sense of duty, which was already serving her well. I confess that her temper, and the rashes on her knees and elbows, were among the few things she had inherited from me.