THE BEGINNING
THAT dinner party was the opening of her triumph. The guests spread her
fame abroad, her beauty, modesty, fresh spontaneous charm, and above
all, her exquisite singing. Not that the modesty was likely to blind the
keen-sighted, laughing Neapolitans to her ambiguous position in the
Ambassador’s house. Sir William’s amatory character was far too well
established, but nothing could have mattered less in that land of easy
pleasure, and neither she nor Sir William were thought a whit the worse
in a city where every attractive woman had at least one _cavaliere
servente_, in addition to a husband in attendance on some other lady.
The Italian ladies made polite overtures. The Queen herself, as
easy-moralled as any of them, expressed her curiosity and interest in
the new enchantress at the Embassy, and though no definite Royal
approach could possibly be made, Sir William knew that he had a
successor in the Queen’s intimacy and there would be no anger, no
unpleasant representations made through diplomatic channels to the
English Court, where Queen Charlotte, who took an extremely Puritan view
of such amusements, might very well prejudice him with his royal foster
brother, King George.
Sir William trod on roses. His sails were filled by softest breezes from
Parthenope. He had never been so happy in his life. All that could
interest and delight him was centred in his own house, and all Naples
was on tiptoe to see and envy him the possession of this new and
miraculous beauty. Her history was, of course, unknown. Any vulgarities
of English speech were drowned in her musical broken Italian, of which,
indeed, she gathered up the fragments every day, for her quick
intelligence told her that it must be the foundation stone of her
success. Every day found her chattering Italian, writing it, reading at
the neighbouring convent of Santa Romita. A whole romance, not
unflavoured with irony, might be written of Emma among the nuns, but she
never had the perception of incongruity and was absolutely at home
there. Daily she practised her music, and laboured at her Attitudes, for
Sir William foresaw a great future for them in her personal triumph. The
homely Signora Madre was provided with a wardrobe of sober elegance and
figured at the Embassy entertainments also, a respectable foil to her
brilliant daughter. Fortunately ignorance of Italian closed her mouth on
the vulgarisms and provincialisms that would have been Greville’s
despair in London if he had not kept the kitchen door resolutely closed
when he was in the house, and seated on a sofa with kindly smiles and
nods to all the presentations, her elderly comeliness did quite as well
as could be expected and lent a false air of chaperonage to the
proceedings. Emma’s good-nature would never fail her mother. She
rejoiced to see her in such magnificence, felt that her own life must
have really been praiseworthy to have achieved it and could have bathed
in a sea of bliss but that—Greville never wrote.
She wrote more passionately by every mail, terribly uneasy, and for more
reasons than one. Greville was hers, hers; neither fate nor any other
woman should rob her of him. Habit, gratitude, every emotion bad and
good in her emotional being, held her to him. She would not, could not
lose him. And then also, all this glittering new life had been planned
by him, based on his care for her. Suppose he did not come in the
autumn, might it not all fall and vanish like the fairy gold which
changes into withered leaves?
“Greville, my dear Greville, wright some comfort to me. Only remember
your promise of October.”
That was her cry. Until October—for she clung to October now—was
safely come and gone she could feel no security.
While all was well on the surface there were signs and omens. The
English women who lived in Naples were holding sternly aloof,
influenced, very naturally, by Mrs. Dickenson. That frightened her when
she had a moment to think. Mrs. Dickenson would write to the family, the
mighty Hamiltons, and who could tell that a detachment might not raid
Naples and carry off either Sir William or herself to respectability or
ignominy if Greville were not there to protect her? Without him it could
not last. Sensible and foolish fears alike pressed her, and Greville the
only cure.
It is true that the men were ready enough to join in the delightful
gaieties of the charming young hostess, and as to the Neapolitans and
the visitors of every land, they flocked to the Palazzo Sessa, which so
far was reassuring. To be invited was the last touch of fashion in
Naples. Indeed, it was not surprising. Sir William had always been a
cosmopolitan host, with all the ease and gaiety of manner to win the
Southern heart, and she seconded him to a miracle. No one could resist
her sweet frank manners, the untutored kindliness of her beautiful eyes.
They did much mischief, whether willingly or unwillingly who shall say?
But triumph after triumph crowned her. Even the King—the dissipated
King, between whom and his Queen was no bond of fidelity on either
side—fixed his fickle fancy for a moment on Emma, lovely in the blue
hat she had entreated Greville to send her. Could she doubt
it?—especially on that evening when Hamilton took her to dine with a
gay party at his new Villa Emma at Posilippo; her own villa it might be
called since it carried her name. And lo, in the twinkling lights
outside and the golden moonlight, a boat creeps up to the casements,
shadowy, silent, and an ugly attractive face looks in. What! The King!
Hamilton springs to his feet. The King? Will he come in? No, it is time
to go. Half a dozen men rush to fetch Emma’s _cachemire_ and dispute as
to who shall put it about her shoulders, and as they leave the door and
emerge into the moonlight that spiritualizes her beauty with something
unearthly fine and fair, they find the royal boat drawn up beside the
Ambassador’s, and the “music” stationed in the bows strikes up a soft
serenade to the English beauty—“eyes of light, smile of dawn” and so
forth, a delightful flattery indeed. Royalty must be thanked. Sir
William delays the plunge of his oars, and she is presented to His
Majesty who bows, hand on heart, and laments that he cannot speak
English. Emma, trembling with awe and pleasure, utters a few words of
Italian—“Not so bad as might have been expected”—and the King receives
them as the music of the youngest of the angels, and again the French
horns salute the conquering smile, and the boats move off together,
keeping time with oars whence fall the dripping moonlight diamonds, and
so they drift softly back to Naples on a sea that is more of heaven than
of earth, and the King’s hand touching Emma’s as it rests on the
gunwale, speaks a language which she knows very well how to decipher.
A few days later she writes again to Greville:
“The king as eyes, he as a heart, and I have made an impression upon it.
But I told the prince [Dietrichstein] that Hamilton is my friend and she
belongs to his nephew. For all our friends know it.”
Loyalty thus expresses itself in grammar that will appal Greville on its
reception and yet give him a warning that beauty he neglected can yet
enthral others; and those others not to be lightly spoken of even by a
Greville! There was a note of sombre triumph in that sentence which he
understood. He sent the letter at once to Hamilton. Everything which
could show Emma alive to the attentions of other men would convince
Hamilton of the truth of Greville’s statement that the semblance of
virtue without its reality is utterly untrustworthy. He was the more
eager about this because there was a tone of consideration, of—could it
be?—_respect_ for the girl in Hamilton’s letters which frightened him.
Mrs. Dickenson’s report, also, was not calming.
Meanwhile, in the warm languor of the south and with this heavy anxiety
upon her, she nagged a little, visibly. She was exercising her brain as
it had never been exercised in her life; knowledge, experience,
accomplishments, all crowding in upon her. She who had been a despised
nobody, subsisting on Greville’s cold favours, had now not only Sir
William’s scarcely hidden adoration, but the King perpetually in her
train, eager for a word, a look; letters, gifts, offers, rained in upon
her. For a while she swam exultingly on the blue wave of success; then,
physically wearied, it threatened to drown her. How could she wear her
laughing mask always—she, so little to the manner born, and with this
gnawing anxiety at her heart?
She sat one morning by the great casement looking out into the soft
haze, all opalescent and pearl grey that veiled Posilippo and made Capri
dim as a dream of heaven. The sea was breathless—still: its bosom
scarcely heaved. A warm enervating languor enfolded the world and
imposed its own quiet. She had just finished a letter to Greville and
sent it off, for she wrote generally in the early morning, and now her
drawing lay before her and her listless hand on that, wearied with
pleasure and anxiety. For still Greville had not written—no, not a
word, and it was now July. The hat she asked for had come, but as an
order might be fulfilled by a stranger. Was he ill, estranged, mad? For
he had not written even to Hamilton, as she was told, yet scarcely could
believe. So she wrote again:
“My ever dearest Greville, I am now onely writing to beg you for
God’s sake to send me one letter if it is onely a farewell. Sure
I have deserved this for the sake of the love you once had for
me. Think, Greville, of our former connexion and don’t despise
me. I have not used you ill in any one thing. I have been from
you going of six months. So pray let me beg of you, my much
loved Greville, only one line from your dear, dear hands. For if
you knew the misery I feel, oh, your heart would not be intirely
shut up against me for I love you with the truest affection.
Don’t let anybody sett you against me. Greville, you will never
meet with anybody that has a truer affection for you than I
have. As soon as I know your determination I will take my own
measures. If I don’t hear from you and that you are coming I
shall be in England at Christmass at farthest. I will see you
once more for the last time. Oh, my heart is entirely broke.
Then for God’s sake, my ever dear Greville, do write me some
comfort. I have a language-master, a singing-master, musick,
etc., but what is it for? If it was to amuse you I should be
happy. I am poor, helpless and forlorn.”
She had paused there. Could it be he feared that her new experiences had
spoilt her, made her expensive and covetous? She snatched her pen again;
she implored him to let her come, to give her only a “guiney” a week for
all expenses and she would be satisfied so long as she could be with
him, and so sent the letter off, and relaxed with a long sigh.
The door, the soft tap she knew so well, and Sir William entering,
healthy and well preserved after his morning swim in the tepid water;
eager to see his flower, grown so lovely now and still so unattainable
that he was compelled to assure himself every now and then she was still
there, even as a miser counts his gold.
“And how does my Emma this morning? Tired after last night’s excitement?
Prince Dietrichstein told me two things which will interest you. First,
that in Vienna where, as you know, all the great singers come and go, he
had never heard anything that moved him so much as your singing of ‘Per
pieta’; second, that the Queen has heard so much of your beauty and
talents that she means to be in the gardens on Thursday to study you for
herself. What does my little Emma say to those two pieces of news?”
He put a caressing hand on the hand with its fine cameo ring which lay
on the drawing. She sighed softly and did not draw it away.
“Wonderful. What don’t I owe to you and Greville’s goodness! Are you
satisfied with me, my kind, kind friend?”
It would not be Emma if she did not put forth every lure to win every
heart, Greville or no Greville. She swayed towards him as naturally as a
blossoming bough on a breeze.
“I’m tired; languid. I suppose it’s the warm damp heat,” she said, “and,
oh, Sir William, the anxiety. Why, why doesn’t he write? You and he have
many friends in England. Do they say anything of him?”
“Emma, my dear, why will you ask what pains me to tell and you to hear?
I entreat you to keep silence on that point. You ask if I am satisfied.
I am satisfied even to adoration. To have you with me, to surround you
with all in my power to give you, is to me a heaven on earth.”
“You are good, you are dear. Then why shall I not love you?” she
murmured, pressing closer against his side. “But Greville? I beseech you
tell me what you hear of him. My mind would be more settled. I could
bear it better. Tell me the truth.” Her breath caressed him.
He hesitated, then resolved.
“Emma, is mine the hand that ought to wound you? You force it on me. But
since you will have it, I hear of his attentions to a young lady of
fortune in London.”
Dead silence. Only a trembling against his side. He tried to see her
face but could not, for it was buried upon his shoulder. She had turned
into his arms to meet the blow. That touched him to delight. A minute
went by slowly. Then, in a choked whisper:
“But he is coming in October. If I see him again—”
“Coming in October?” Sir William’s voice had the ring of genuine
astonishment. “He has never said so to me. There was some light talk in
April of his coming out later, but I never heard a word more. Do you
know that for certain? Has he said so?”
Dead silence again. Then, at long last, a muttered “No.”
“Then what do you build on, my child?”
“Nothing.” The one word had the ring of despair. The air was hot and
heavy, the hidden sun burning behind leaden clouds that promised
thunder. They sat silent, he holding her and seeing nothing but her
bowed bright head.
“Emma,” he said tenderly, “I think you deceive yourself about Greville.
Not that I blame him, nor, I am sure, will you. He is a poor man,
heavily dipped. What is he to do; how can he support you?”
“I would live on a crust with him!” the muffled voice interrupted.
“Yes. But men don’t accept such sacrifices from women. And if he
marries—have you thought of that? And have you thought, dearest angel,
my most lovely, that if he does you are not alone? That there is a man
who loves you, who would give all he has for your smiles, who will
cherish you in his bosom while life is left to him! Emma, Emma!”
She drew herself slowly away with her hands against his breast and
stared at him in mute horror and amazement. More moved than he could
have believed possible, he caught her repelling hands and held them
clasped in his.
“My adored Emma, I have grown to love you more passionately and tenderly
than ever Greville did or can. You are the sunshine of my life and here
I swear never to fail or forsake you. Can you not forget Greville’s
coldness and his faithless heart and trust yourself to me—me only?”
Her eyes never wavered, her hands never shook. They stiffened, as if to
hold him at arm’s length—a lovely pose of fear and grief, her head
thrown back, as if half swooning.
“And your kindness, your marvellous goodness, was all for this!” she
said at last. “What shall I say? Oh, miserable, unhappy Emma! Oh, cruel
Greville! Leave me, I entreat you, or I shall go mad.”
She hid her face in her arms and flung herself on her knees before her
chair as if to bury herself from the sight of man, shuddering in every
limb. He tried to lift her face towards his but could not. Instinct
warned him that he had better leave her to herself for a while, and
after hovering over her vainly, almost inarticulate with anxiety, he
went very softly out of the room. She lay a few minutes, then sprang up
and dashed off a few words to Greville.
“I will come to England. I have had a conversation with Sir
William this morning that has made me mad. He speaks—no, I do
not know what to make of it! But Greville, my dear Greville,
pray, for God’s sake, wright to me and come to me for Sir
William shall not be anything to me but your friend.”
She sent that also. It would go with the other, and then, her head
aching, her whole being in disorder, for she was a spendthrift of her
emotions down the whole range from triumph to despair, she sent word to
Sir William that she could not appear all day.
He had turned the matter carefully over in a swiftly dividing mind and,
after long reflection, knowing women in general and Emma in particular,
sent her a message to say that the world-famous German poet, Goethe—he
who was as great a thinker as a poet; he, the impassioned lover, the
final arbiter of taste in the artistic glories of Greece and Rome; and
himself an Olympian in face and form—had promised to spend the evening
at the Embassy that he might meet the fairest of modern antiques, the
living statue, Sir William’s _protégée_.
“And while I entreat you, my Emma, to rest if rest is vital to
your looks and health, the disappointment will be irreparable if
the only man in the world fit to sing your charms in immortal
verse is so unhappy as not to see them. But do as you think
best. What desire have I but that?”
She read the note thoughtfully, and sat up on the long settee in her
bedroom where she had thrown herself down to mourn in a thin white
wrapper. She rose and looked at her face in the long glass which had
made so many charming and changing reflections of her various moods.
Certainly it would be cruel to such a great man to allow him to come all
the way from the North to Italy in search of beauty, and then to
disappoint him of seeing the loveliest thing in Naples. Her Attitudes
recurred to her mind. It would be interesting to note the effect on such
a man. He would leave some record of it; he would write—yes, after all,
her headache was not so very bad. And her sorrow did not live on warming
and cherishing. It was a part of herself that could never, never change
no matter how splendid or flattering her surroundings. And Greville—he
should hear what one of the greatest men in the world thought of her.
Why should she shut herself up and freeze the warm sunny world to which
her smiles meant so much? There would not be thunder, the sun was coming
out, and was shining a little in her heart also.
She wrote a line to Sir William.
“My head is verey, verey bad, but I am sensible I was hasty. I
will come down this evening. I will obey your wish, my kind
friend. Will you prepare the large chest rimmed with gold, in
case you would wish me to perform for this gentleman? And if you
will have your viola ready to accompany me I will sing if my
head permits.”
Sir William smiled, a smile of mingled amusement and triumph. He took a
leisure half hour to write to Greville and detail what he thought proper
of the scene, adding that the time had come and Greville would now do
well to write and give Emma his final orders as to their separation and
her attitude towards himself. The triumph, the excitement, the soft
languor of the Neapolitan summer, were all aiding his steadfast purpose.
As he wrote, Emma, in her luxurious room, was driving Teresa almost wild
with her requisitions and restlessness. The thunder had cleared away but
Vesuvius was terribly in eruption that night; wild forked flames burning
to the zenith. Teresa could not think of the white robe or the flower
for the hair. She dropped on her knees by the window to invoke her
saints—“O San Antonio mio! O San Filippo!”—and Emma, half frantic with
excitement, fell on her knees beside her, laughing, mocking: “O Santa
Loola mia; O Santa Loola! Get up, Teresa! The gentlemen will be here.
What does it matter? Don’t be a fool!” And Teresa, wide-eyed with
horror, “Does the Eccellenza doubt the holy saints?”
“No, but you will do quite as well if you pray to my Santa Loola! She’s
as good as any of them! Try!”
It was as if she were drunk; drunk with excitement that strange night.
Teresa half shrank away, and Emma pulled her to her knees again, and
then sprang up.
“My hair. It’s getting late. Do it in a great knot at the back like the
marble goddess in the museum. Come, be quick! The mountain can’t hurt
you here! I was only joking, Teresina mia. It’s all nonsense. Come
quick, we must hurry!”
She dressed with burning eyes and cheeks, listening to the voice in her
heart which assured her that Sir William was hers, wholly hers, let
Greville do what he would. Ah, she had a weapon now! She could threaten
him with undreamed of possibilities. She stood before the glass again,
and poor Teresa said, timidly:
“The Eccellenza is beautiful as a divine creature. Does not God favour
you more than us?”
“No, why should He?” says Emma, trying the set of an auburn curl a
little more veiling the white brow.
“O God! the Eccellenza is very ungrateful! He has been so good as to
make your face the same as the Blessed Virgin’s and you don’t esteem it
a favour?”
“Why, did you ever see the Virgin?” Emma was mocking again.
“Oh, yes. You are like every picture there is of her, and you know the
people at Ischia fell down on their knees to you and begged you to grant
them favours in her name. Oh, how beautiful you are!”
Emma told this little scene, laughing, to Sir William when she went
down. The volcano, the girl’s admiration, Sir William’s eyes full of
meanings that his tongue dared not as yet express; all, all, intoxicated
her. She looked and moved a goddess that night, a supremely beautiful
woman.
What the Immortal thought he has left on record, and who will may read
it in his “Italienische Reise.” Even Emma’s excitement was stilled with
a kind of awe when he entered the great room of the Palazzo Sessa where
Sir William stood to greet him with a deference far more real and deep
than he accorded to the King of the Two Sicilies. The poet appeared in a
black satin coat and knee-breeches slightly embroidered with steel—a
grave and dignified dress suited to his austere beauty—and attended
like a monarch by his court, the two well-known artists Tischbein and
Andreas. He took his stand by one of the long windows with the Vesuvius
glow lighting up the sky behind him, and Emma was immediately presented,
followed by the other guests, to all of whom he bowed in silence and in
stiff German fashion from the waist. Instinctively the occasion was felt
to be a great one, and all were a little awed at first. Emma drew back
to watch the great man on whose verdict she felt much depended for her
ambitions, for well she knew Sir William’s opinion of his judgment in
matters of art and beauty.
That he himself was beautiful none could doubt. That alone would have
distinguished him in any company. She said afterwards to Sir William
that he fulfilled completely her ideal of a king, which had perhaps
suffered somewhat at the hands of Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies. Sift or
separate his features she could not; they impressed and influenced her
as the serene mellowing glow of a calm sunset sky irradiates all beneath
it. Yet he should be described, for never in all her strange life before
or after was she within the sphere of such serene intellectual
magnificence, and, ignorant girl as she was, it impressed her like great
organ music or the silent majesty of still gods met in the silence of
the Palazzo Filangieri; or, even more, like the calm of the moonlighted
sea from the Marina, where all the stars reflect themselves and are lost
in unsounded deeps.
His face was nobly shaped, nobly carried on the column of a fine throat,
his mouth firm, yet cut with sensuous beauty of curved lips and chin.
His eyes were dominating; keen, calm, and clear. They turned
meditatively on Emma herself until she shrank a little from a look which
pierced deeper than she could afford to endure, and then he saw her
perturbation and, smiling with distant kindness, turned to Sir William
again and said something in French which she could not decipher. It
reassured her, but she whispered apart to the Ambassador that she could
never, never perform before so great a man.
“What are kings and princes to him,” she said impulsively, “when he
looks as if everything that ever was or will be is just nothing to him.
He’s like the statues in the museum and if they talked he would listen,
but what does he care what little people like us say? I should feel like
a doll.”
And she was right; that mouth was made for the large utterance of the
early gods, those ears to catch it.
Yet, after dinner, she was persuaded, commanded. The other guests
crowded about her. Sir William himself put in his word. And still she
refused. Then, coming forward slowly, the Olympian bowed before her, Sir
William acting as interpreter.
“Gracious lady, you have given me so much already that it emboldens me
to ask for more, since generosity is its own tax. You have afforded me
the sight of such beauty as I believed dead with the glories of Greece
and Rome. Now I entreat you to revive the poses of their glyptic art
that I may carry away from Italy the most beautiful memory of all.”
She could not have refused if she would. The only question in her mind
was whether she should soar to undreamed of triumphs or fail
ignominiously and for ever. For if the latter, never, never again would
she perform.
Let Goethe himself tell the sight which met his eyes.
“The Chevalier Hamilton so long resident here as English Ambassador, so
long, too, connoisseur and student of Art and Nature, has found their
counterpart and acme with exquisite delight in a lovely girl—English
and some twenty years of age. She is exceedingly beautiful and finely
made. She wears a Greek garb becoming her to perfection. She then merely
loosens her hair, takes a pair of shawls, and effects changes of
posture, moods, gestures, mien and appearance that really make one feel
as if one were in some dream. Here is visible, complete and bodied forth
in movements of surprising variety, all that so many artists have sought
in vain to fix and render. Successively standing, kneeling, seated,
reclining, grave, sad, sportive, teasing, abandoned, penitent, alluring,
threatening, agonized, one follows the other and grows out of it. She
knows how to choose and shift the simple folds of her single kerchief
for every expression and to adjust it into a hundred kinds of headgear.
Her elderly knight holds the torches for her and is absorbed in his
soul’s desire. In her he finds the charm of all antiques, the fair
profiles on Sicilian coins, the Apollo Belvedere himself. Early
to-morrow Tischbein paints her.”
Indeed, he was enraptured. He pleaded to see the lovely show again and
received her promise, for Emma knew that she had never so exceeded
herself, that she had caught fire at the sun and rained his glories as
well as her own on the startled audience. That was her art—her true
art, the deep, intense receptivity which Greville had aimed to express
and could not. Goethe saw deeper. Even that enchantment could not blind
his intensity of percipience. Wonderful, yes, he thought—but yet, was
she more than a fair picture, a lovely reflection, a living image? What
of soul was there behind it to live on when the sweet face was dust? Too
much to ask of a woman perhaps, but this one gave so much that always
one wanted, hoped for more. “Geistlos?” Was she? Even he could not tell,
and where Goethe was baffled the world must wonder in vain. Soulless?
Ah, who shall say?
The last time he saw her she stood in her Pompeian coffin—a long chest,
placed upright, and framed with bright gold. She was within it, a lovely
Death in bright robes undimmed by the dust of centuries, or so it
seemed. A strange fancy. Sir William had protested. Something in the
exhibition chilled him. Would she look like that when her eyes were
closed for ever and she as much a part of the past as the dead Pompeians
themselves? But she would have it, and so in the twilight she stood
there, still as death with dreaming lashes on quiet cheek, a faint
exquisite smile on locked lips, and hands hanging empty beside her.
There was dead silence at first when she dissolved again into motion.
The impression was too strong. A shadow filled the room and made its own
silence. Then she sprang from the tomb; roseate, smiling, expectant.
“It was not good, I could do it better another time, but I was so
frightened.”
That was the wrong note. It jarred on Goethe’s stretched nerves. It was
perhaps the reason why he felt her to be “geistlos.” She should have
disappeared quietly and have been seen no more that night. But though it
repelled him as an artist, as a man it warmed him, and turning to
Hamilton he echoed his own word.
“Perfection! She is a masterpiece of the Arch Artist”—and so it stands
recorded until art itself shall be forgotten.
That evening made Emma’s beauty and her Attitudes a matter of European
fame. Those words were repeated until they spread through the capitals
of the world. Even the English in Naples were forced to pride in their
amazing countrywoman, though they would have none of her individually.
Such artists as Lady Diana Beauclerck and Mrs. Damer came to Naples
simply to study her. The great Italian ladies began to make overtures.
“Morals, yes; but such an unusual case! Such talents! If Goethe had so
expressed himself, what person of any consequence could be left out of
such a refined, an artistic society!”
So the loud world goes on its way and licks the feet of its masters.