ACHIEVEMENT
AFTER this Emma saw the Duchess constantly. She became, indeed, her
chief interest in Naples. The girl was so bright and _simpatica_ (to use
the more expressive Italian) that her Grace could not do without this
charming new toy. It may well be imagined the difference this made in
her position. No breath had ever sullied the bright mirror of the
Duchess’s reputation. If it was whispered that the King of England
himself had been one of her adorers it was instantly added by the most
scandalous that her Grace of Argyll had given him no encouragement. Why
should she? A king could offer nothing that she had not, and as for
love, she loved her handsome Highlandman, her John of Argyll, quite well
enough to be marble to other wooing. Therefore, in all the world Emma
could have found no better sponsor. With one or two unbending exceptions
all the ladies, English and otherwise, were on her list at last and
indemnified her for past insolences by present attentions. She visited
the past on none, bore no grudges, received all who came with the same
warm-hearted geniality. Sir William observed it with delight and felt
his debt to the duchess increase daily.
And still Emma, under all her smiles, was restless and unhappy. There
was no security but one for her, and that she could not have, for he
made no motion in that direction. And the worst was, she must not tease
him.
“It’s as much as my place is worth!” said she to herself, recurring to
the old kitchen talk of the first days in London. Perhaps it was a
relief to unbend sometimes, when alone, from the high ambrosial
elegances of the Olympian heights she had now scaled hand in hand with
the duchess.
High indeed, for one day, driving out by special invitation to the Villa
Columbaia she found assembled in the garden, beneath the palms and
roses, four ladies she knew very well, but one, by sight only—the
great, the illustrious Marie Caroline, daughter of emperors, sister of
the lovely Marie Antoinette of France, mother of sovereigns to be, Queen
of the Two Sicilies. And, as she was ushered trembling along the velvet
lawns and beheld Her Majesty, Emma knew very well this was no accident,
but a Royal command draped in the casual that it might raise no comment.
“Another door opened!” she thought, as she trod with light, shy feet
upon the living velvet. And even if it were alarming, the daughter of
the people, the discarded of Up Park, did not flinch as she swept her
profound curtsey and rose to attention and received the Royal
compliment. Why should she? She knew very well she had gratified the
Queen in her rejection of the King’s addresses as she had probably never
been gratified before in her life in that particular way. She sat beside
the Queen and the Duchess with the two ladies in waiting behind Her
Majesty’s chair and ate her _dolci_ in company with them and drank her
iced lemonade with perfect but modest composure. The Duchess was proud
of her _protégée_. Nothing could be simpler than her dress of India
muslin and lavender sash. Not for nothing had Sir William instructed her
that the simpler the setting, the more her beauty must shine.
“Una donna rara!” whispered the Queen to the Duchess while Emma
exchanged a few words with the Marchesa of San Marco. “Bellissima
creatura!” and she overheard and treasured the words for Hamilton, who
was almost surfeited with the sugar-plums rained from augustest heights
nowadays.
Little did she think, in looking on the handsome, dark-browed woman
faded as with excess of life and nervous energy, of the part they two
would play together in days not now so very far distant. She saw in “le
roi Caroline,” as the diplomats called her, only another key to the
security she plotted for—so blind are we to Fate laughing in her sleeve
beside us.
But the Queen saw and intended very much more. She had her informants
and knew more of Emma’s history than did the Duchess. She knew her
unequalled influence with the English Ambassador. Had not Acton assured
her that he was wax in the hands of his fascinating mistress? And is not
an ambassador a tool in the hands of intrigue if deftly used? She knew
something also of Emma’s discretion, from long observation and from her
conduct with the King. In the great game of intrigue which was the life
of Marie Caroline, Emma was a pawn not to be despised. What! neglect the
smallest consideration with revolution darkening like a storm-cloud over
Europe, about to burst in thunder in France, with frightful
reverberations along the Mediterranean? Not she indeed! The true
daughter of the great Maria Theresa knew better than that. She was
graciousness itself to Emma, seasoned, of course, with the condescension
which gave it value. To the Duchess she chatted coolly apart when Emma
was engaged with the other ladies; words apparently lightly said, but
intended to be remembered and repeated.
“I never saw so lovely a being. Does not your Grace agree with me?”
“I never saw but one!” said the faithful Duchess, “And she is in
heaven.”
The Queen accorded a sigh to beauty so unsympathetically situated, and
went on.
“Your Ambassador is devoted to her, I understand, and who can wonder!”
“Certainly, madam, it can surprise no one. Her talents surpass her
beauty, if possible. Has Your Majesty heard her sing?”
“No. You will understand, madam, that that was impossible in the
circumstances, though I have heard from the King and many more of the
delight it is. There is only one thing which surprises me in the whole
matter.”
“And that?”
“That your distinguished countryman does not marry her. Where else could
he hope to find such devotion mingled with everything that can charm? I
may say I have watched her behaviour for several years, for a girl in
her position must be under the public eye, and her discretion cannot be
too highly praised. She seems to have an astonishing natural sense of
what is due to herself and others. My only and deep regret is that she
is not in the position to which her merits entitle her. No one would
receive her more joyfully than I.”
“Your Majesty astonishes me!” the Duchess said slowly. She was weighing
this utterance with her own, repeated more than once to Hamilton.
Naturally it could only appear to her that the Queen’s words were
prompted by pure admiration of great qualities. The Duchess was no
stateswoman and in such matters saw no further than her own charming
nose. The Queen drew back a little.
“Oh, madam, I beg ten thousand pardons! I had forgotten that the
Ambassador has the happiness to be your Grace’s cousin. Let us say no
more.”
“Pray do not misunderstand me, madam. I have no objection to the
thought. I feel, as no doubt Your Majesty does, all the objections which
can be made to a man’s marrying his openly acknowledged mistress. Still,
this is a most exceptional case. My cousin is ageing. It would be almost
impossible to find any one so adapted to his life and tastes. I have
come to an age myself when I consider the world’s opinion much less than
the essentials. I believe Your Majesty’s suggestion to be a valuable
one.”
The Queen disclaimed this praise with pretty gestures of head and hands.
She blew it off lightly as a soap-bubble. No responsibility in such a
case for a daughter of the Cæsars!
“Oh, madam, you misunderstand. It is not for me to offer a suggestion.
The saints forbid. This is but my opinion as a private woman. As
Queen—you see my position. There must be many great English ladies whom
we should welcome here as Ambassadress. Only—I cannot do wrong in
expressing the hope that when the chosen comes she may equal the fair
Emma in tact and talent, for there are dark days at hand in Europe, and
if I mistake not the Mediterranean will be the scene of great events.
The Queen of France, my sister, writes to me—no, I dare not repeat her
words. But if any one imagines that this raging fire of revolution can
be shut up in France and spread no further he is heavily mistaken.”
Her eyes darkened and she looked away through the flowers. The Duchess,
with no more imagination than the rest of her countrymen and the
conviction that because things were well enough already with England
they would so remain, passed this off with an indifferent remark on the
growing infidelity of France and the danger of unsettling religion, and
in a moment the Queen had drawn the mask over her face again and was
talking of the new excavations at Pompeii.
But the conversation dwelt in the Duchess’s mind. Every day convinced
her more strongly that Hamilton doted upon the wonder-girl. Why should
he not be happy in his own way? A little courage and the thing was done.
There was no doubt whatever in her mind that it would very much ease his
own public position as well as Emma’s. The Queen’s words left little
anxiety on that point. She resolved to speak yet more plainly.
When Emma returned to her Hamilton praise of the Queen was loud on her
lips. She was not yet a stateswoman and saw in all that had passed
merely a tribute to her own graces, and wrote to that effect to Greville
in her next news-letter. It pleased her easy-going good-humour to write
to him from time to time and relate these triumphs. Like many women of
her type, past was past with her, and unpleasant associations soon
dwindled in a comfortable haze of indifference. He really did not matter
particularly to her now, but it was agreeable to feel that he knew how
highly placed people considered what he had rejected.
This letter gave Greville a vague uneasiness to which he had long been a
stranger, the more so because it also sounded the loud trumpet about the
Duchess of Argyll’s condescension. The Duchess! Emma was climbing
indeed!
But to Hamilton her report gave food for deep reflection. He knew Marie
Caroline very well. Never a word of hers but was uttered with purpose
and tended to some clearly seen end of her own. He listened, reflected,
and went off in a day or two to the Villa Columbaia to see the Duchess.
She was lying in the languor of weak health on a long chair in the
glorious gardens, shaded from the heat of the sun but rejoicing in the
sun-warmed airs that breathed about her. One of her women had been
reading aloud to her and Sir William picked up the book when she was
dismissed: “Clarissa, The History of a Young Lady of Quality,” by Samuel
Richardson.
“It is somewhat of an old-fashioned book now,” said the Duchess, “but
choicely good, as I think, and in my busy life I never had time for it
before. Do you know it?”
“Certainly, but I was always inclined to think it over-strained and
impossible. How does your Grace to-day?”
“Well, but no better. I think I never shall be better. We Gunnings are
not a long-lived race—think of my sister’s twenty-seven years. Indeed,
I have exceeded my span, but if I fade as gently as I do now in this
sweet land, I need not complain.”
He responded with real feeling. She charmed him as beautiful things
never failed to do, and the pathos of her fading loveliness was
poignant.
They talked for a while of family matters very well known to them both,
she slowly and steadily leading the way to the subject on her mind. It
was the more interesting to her because Emma had devoted the whole of
the day before to her service, as she often did now, and there was
gratitude mixed with many other considerations.
“Mrs. Hart met the Queen here a few days since,” she said at last,
playing with her black fan. “I rejoiced to see the favourable impression
she made. Her manner was perfect. It never would surprise me to learn
she had good blood in her veins.”
“I doubt if your Grace would be so confident of that if you knew the
worthy Mrs. Cadogan intimately,” Sir William replied, with a smile of
memory at some of La Signora Madre’s oddities.
“There is always the father!” said the Duchess, smiling in her turn.
“Always—but I suspect him of nothing worse than of being an equally
worthy blacksmith.”
“Who can tell? In any case, the Queen spoke in a way which—”
“May I hear what she said?”
She related it plainly and simply, not emphasizing a word, adding as she
finished:
“My impression is that it would be a relief at the Court here if your
relations with Emma were on a more regular footing. No, cousin—don’t
throw your head up! Don’t be angry! No one has the right to interfere
with your private life or prescribe, yet it must be owned that it is a
delicate matter for the Queen and that an Ambassadress at the Palazzo
Sessa would make matters easier in many directions.”
“You cannot possibly advise me to marry a woman of her birth, however
good and charming, madam? Your kind heart surely misleads you there. The
Queen would never receive her; _could_ never do so.”
“There you are mistaken.” The Duchess again repeated the Queen’s words,
and went on, “I dare not advise you. Who could, in such a matter? But I
will ask you a question. Do you believe your Emma to be a bad woman?”
All the gentleman, all the lover in Hamilton spoke in his resolute “No!
I believe her to be a good woman, and who should know better than I? But
there are reasons—”
They were naturally not perceptible to the Duchess and she went on
quietly with her argument.
“Then, if I take your own word for it, here is a good woman, fallen by
pressure of circumstances into a great misfortune. In what does she
differ from the charming Clarissa of Richardson’s imagination, cruelly
ruined but pure in heart? And if this is so, should there not be some
reparation?”
Her long soft eyes dwelt kindly, languidly upon him. His mind hovered a
moment over the question: from which of many men would that reparation
be due? Even between Greville and himself it might be hard to judge! The
Duchess knew absolutely nothing of the real facts and her opinion was so
much thistledown blown on an idle breeze; yet it pleased and touched him
where it eddied towards his own wishes. Still, he held out.
“I am no ruffian violator like Lovelace, madam, and with all her
generous qualities Emma is no saint like Clarissa.”
“Certainly. She is merely a good and trustworthy young woman,
kind-hearted and liberal to a fault. She is the most beautiful creature
I ever beheld—but one. Her gifts are surpassing. Taken together they
cannot be equalled, and I say so who have seen the world’s best for more
years than I care to count. So let that slip—but I go too far, my good
Sir William. We will not speak of it more.”
And though he would willingly have discussed it, for the subject
interested him more than anything on earth, her Grace held discreetly
away, and her talk was of roses and of scenic, not living beauties, for
the rest of the visit.
Get away from it, however, he could not. Emma said nothing, sighed but
hinted nothing, and this forbearance piqued him as well as pleased him.
Was she drifting into indifference at long last? He looked in the glass.
The lines were deepening in his face. His eyes were haggard when he sat
up o’ nights. He found those madcap excursions to Capri and Ischia less
and less pleasant. When they visited Vesuvius and Emma’s quick feet sped
nymphlike up the steep ways he was compelled to linger behind worn-out
and panting. She bloomed into a more luxuriant beauty as he waned.
Suppose she wearied of her old lover? Offers from the greatest and
wealthiest men of Europe were hers for the taking—would she refuse them
forever? And if she went—oh, cold hearth and creeping age, and
loneliness, loneliness forever!
He could not escape his problem. It confronted him at the Palace, when
the Queen, business done—for the King was too idle to hear the word,
much less endure the thing—asked after the health of the beautiful Mrs.
Hart and commented on the Duchess’s unfeigned admiration for her.
“And who can marvel? Never was a creature so gifted. I had myself the
pleasure to meet her at the Villa Columbaia and was ravished indeed. Her
beauty is the least of her recommendations. Her talent, manners,
tact!—” She made an eloquent gesture with her quick hands. “Your taste
is immaculate!” she added.
“It was so once, madam!” he said with a meaning before which she smiled
and blushed a little. It recalled—but royal memories are secret.
“It is so still,” she said, and there was a pause, while she trifled
with the imperially beautiful roses he had brought her, all curled and
pearled with dew.
Sir William considered. He knew the Queen well. Never a word but covered
a motive. What was the motive here? Better be frank than fence in vain.
She could beat any man at that game.
“Will Your Majesty permit me a question?”
“Certainly, Eccellenza. You can ask nothing but what is proper.”
A quick smile flashed and was decorously concealed by Sir William’s bow.
“Then, madam, what is Your Majesty’s motive in this graciousness to Mrs.
Hart and your humble servant?”
That question could never have been asked nor answered but for past
relations—long past, but impossible to be entirely forgotten. The Queen
toyed with the heavy paperweight of the bronze Caligula upon her table
before she answered, and Hamilton, noting the worn lines in her face,
the falsely black tresses which he had once thought so beautiful,
remembered Greville’s maxim: “Nothing is so dead as a dead passion.” How
could he ever have cared to waken a gleam in the heavy eyes or the
tremble of a kiss on the Hapsburg lips which set that family apart from
lesser men.
“I will be frank,” she said at last. “Why should I not with one of the
men who must be the King’s right hand in the days I see coming as
plainly as I see your face? Your liaison with Mrs. Hart has made
difficulties on which I would not dwell, for I would not embarrass my
friend by so much as a look. But they are real, and will become more
pressing in the days I foresee. I am ignorant whether you know that much
mischief has been made for you in high places in England, but in any
case you cannot know that, I, through channels of my own, have done my
best to protect your interests.”
No, that had not occurred to Sir William. He listened with the closest
attention. No explanation was needed. As if he had been present he could
hear Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, the prim German _hausfrau_, discussing
the matter with her circle, could see the plain, honest King’s
disapprobation of his representative’s action in flouting public opinion
publicly. Naples was not so far from England but that all its scandals
would echo in London. Marie Caroline noted his expression and continued.
“It is an ever-present terror in my mind that you might some day be
superseded here by some younger man higher in the favour of certain
influential persons, and I will frankly own that my interest is deeply
concerned, for when the trouble is upon us if I have no true friend at
the English Embassy, where am I to look for help? You see? It needs no
labouring.”
“I see, Madam, and words fail me to express my sense of Your Majesty’s
confidence in me.”
He knew that was true. What he did not guess was that behind her words
the Queen’s swift brain was shaping the thought that if a weak,
pleasure-loving man, old and completely in the hands of a fascinating
woman likely to be amenable to her own condescensions were removed, she
might be checkmated at every turn and England’s selfish policy ignore
the pressing needs of the Two Sicilies, and her personal ambitions. Her
half-frankness served her well. One does not see oneself as others see
one—at least of all the Hamiltons of the earth. He thought a moment and
added:
“But Mrs. Hart?”
“Mrs. Hart is a woman capable of great things. You cannot suppose I have
not made myself acquainted with all her qualities of head and
disposition. I have often most deeply and sincerely wished she could be
the channel of communications with you which will become invaluable as
the revolution darkens down upon us. She is capable of it in every way
if I could receive her as a friend—but you know I cannot.”
“Let us be plain,” said Sir William. “Does Your Majesty mean you could
receive the humbly born Emma Hart as a friend if her position were
legalized?”
“I could certainly receive the Ambassadress as a friend. What should
stop me? In fact, what else could I do? You would naturally have your
King’s permission for such a marriage. I have reason to believe it would
ease your own position. But this is intruding impertinently on your
private life, Eccellenza, and I fear my deep anxiety for the interests
of my own kingdom has led me into an impertinence for which I ask your
pardon.”
It was beautifully said. If Marie Caroline had professed enthusiasm
either for beauty or virtue Hamilton would not have believed a word she
said. What she put forward he knew to be true, and he could appreciate
its weight. Every day, every hour had taught him also that an
English-Sicilian alliance would soon be vital to the life of Europe.
He went away with much to consider, to the delightful companionship in
which Emma never failed him. Her sweetness was the very sunshine of his
age. The mere fear of losing it made the air chill about him.
Another circumstance drove him in the direction where the Queen and the
Duchess of Argyll were steadily pointing. Some connections of his, the
Heneage Legges, had come to Naples, partly in the train of the Duchess,
partly with some discreet curiosity on Mr. Heneage Legge’s part as to
the _ménage_ of the Palazzo Sessa. He had visited in Edgware Row in the
Greville days: he possessed his own knowledge and his own views as to
the present experiment. Naturally, when he paid his respects to the
Ambassador, Mrs. Heneage Legge did not accompany him.
“She would have been delighted to visit you, Sir William, and renew a
pleasant acquaintance but my wife’s health at present forbids her
visiting as largely as she could wish. And you are aware there are also
difficulties into which I need not enter.”
There was no more to be said. When a lady’s health blocks the way a
gentleman must stand aside, but Sir William drew his lips tighter, and
thought the freedoms of relationship detestable. The laxity of Naples;
the Duchess’s, the Queen’s, consideration had spoiled his sense of the
fitness of things. He thought his Emma’s company certainly good enough
for a Mrs. Heneage Legge, who would probably soon be taught better by
the attention paid to the Lady of the Embassy by persons much higher in
rank than herself.
And then Emma’s good nature precipitated the mischief. She met the lady
at the Villa Columbaia and, undaunted by a cold curtsey, must needs
volunteer through a lady in waiting of the Queen’s to visit and befriend
Mrs. Heneage Legge when she was seized by the languorous malaria of the
autumn. She sincerely felt for her, but apart from that, anything that
could consolidate her position with the English, was valuable.
Mrs. Heneage Legge, with her husband’s support, instantly and coolly
declined the visit of Hamilton’s unwedded wife, the gentleman explaining
with painful candour that Emma’s “former line of life” made her kind
intentions impossible of acceptance.
Emma, as spoilt as Hamilton himself by Neapolitan attentions, was
furious, but had the tact to keep her temper to herself. Pale and in
tears, her kindness flung back upon her, despised and scorned, she
touched every chivalrous string of Hamilton’s heart. It was vain to rage
against Heneage Legge, who certainly had the right to choose his wife’s
acquaintances, but Sir William felt the position was rapidly becoming
unendurable, and his alternatives shrinking to the choice between
parting with Emma forever and making her Lady Hamilton. For a month
more, he vacillated pitiably, and still Emma’s new wisdom kept silence.
Palely and quietly she accepted the insult as he could not, and shutting
herself up would go nowhere. How could she face the cruel world? Heneage
Legge meanwhile sounded his note of warning in a hasty letter to
Greville.
“Her influence over him exceeds all belief. The language of both
parties, who always spoke in the plural number—we, us, and
ours—staggered me at first, but soon made me determined to
speak to him on the subject, when he assured me, what I confess
I was most happy to hear, that he was not married, but flung out
some hints of doing justice to her good behaviour, if his public
situation did not forbid him to consider himself an independent
man. I am confident she will gain her point, against which it is
the duty of every friend to strengthen his mind as much as
possible. And she will be satisfied with no argument but the
King’s absolute refusal of his approbation.
“Her Attitudes are beyond description beautiful and striking and
I think you will find her figure much improved since last you
saw her.
“They say they shall be in London by the latter end of May, that
their stay in England shall be as short as possible, and that
having settled his affairs he is determined never to return. She
is much visited here by ladies of the highest rank and many of
the _corps diplomatique_.”
Across that letter the nearly frantic Greville might have scrawled the
words _Too late_ when he received it. The whole thing was his own doing,
his mistaken kindness to Emma and Sir William, and he was now hoist with
his own petard. Had ever a man been so betrayed by his own virtues?
For a few days after Heneage Legge’s letter reached him, Sir William,
coming in at sunset from the Villa Columbaia, found Emma in the room of
the mirrors, leaning her chin on her hand, her arm on the window-sill
commanding the noble view of sea and islands—Vesuvius fluttering a
pennon of smoke into the blue. Her face was still and quiet, a
melancholy resignation shadowed it—the look of one who relinquishes
something infinitely precious and turns with patience to sadder duties.
He came and sat beside her, and together they looked out at the evening
star swimming in rosy vapours.
Presently, and very gently, he spoke.
“Emma, this cannot last. I have seen your grief and felt it most
sensibly in my own heart. For years now you have been my true and
faithful wife in all but name—”
She looked up in mute terror.
“Would it make you happier if the bond were broken? You can never be
dearer to me than you are at this moment, for I love and trust you
beyond all words. But, if it be your wish to _leave_ me—”
Still she looked at him in strained, terrified expectation, her lips
apart, white with fear. He turned his face from her and, with infinite
hesitation and reluctance, said, slowly:
“I see that cannot be. We cannot part. We have grown too close together.
Therefore I ask you to be my wife, if that is your desire. I will not
fail you; neither, I think, will you fail me.”
She fell upon her knees, sobbing hysterically, and hid her face against
him.