“I must take my fate like another man!” he answered, with a voice that shook a little. His eyes fell on his hands; beautifully shaped but veined and wrinkled.
“We can’t escape Fate,” says the Duchess, “but we can evade her for a while.”
They looked at each other. “And what would you do?” he asked, turning his eyes away last.
“Marry her!” said the Duchess. Then, hastily, “My friend, it is not my business. I intrude. My Lady Diana, are you for cards?”
CHAPTER XV
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.