And Emma too fell. From the day of her marriage she had resolved to put certain things behind her forever. She had received a trust. She would justify it with every effort of mind and body. She would crown her husband’s choice with glory. Glory again! And where had it led her? Into a slough deeper and more miry than any she had known in the evil experiences of her young life. Unable to face the truth, she too hardened her heart against all the world.
Many records survive of that journey back through a flattering Europe to the England where they hoped and believed that glory would cover all shortcomings. She grew more and more flamboyant and boastful. Even the Queen, Marie Caroline, began to feel that one might pay too dear for help from a woman of the people, and the comments of some of the Austrian nobles and of her own family in Vienna were like a breath of cold outer air upon a hothouse friendship. She rewarded Emma with recognition, with splendid gifts, with a latest diamond necklace wrought in ciphers of all the Royal children and locks of their hair. She offered her a pension of a £1000 a year, she made protestations of warmest and eternal gratitude. Could a queen do more?
“She adores me!” Emma protested to Nelson and Sir William. “There is nothing she would not do for me. I am the sister of her soul. Neither time nor distance can part us.”
“No doubt, my love,” Sir William answered. “She owes everything to your generous exertions, but our dear Nelson will agree with me that a former Ambassadress of England can accept no pension from a foreign court.”
“Impossible, and Emma would be the last to wish it,” Nelson agreed. Emma, who had not seen this objection perhaps with the same finality, agreed in haste also. There were many things she could not see and therefore blinded Nelson to—for instance, that this blaring, flaring journey across Europe in one party was sheer madness for their hopes in England.
If there is one thing valued in England it is a decent reserve in speech and action—an almost stoic restraint. There are very few sins unpardonable if introduced by perfect good taste, and there the Nelson party sinned daily and flagrantly. Nelson touched the imagination still, but with pity. Hear Lady Minto, writing from Vienna:
“I don’t think him altered in the least. He has the same shock head and the same honest simple manners; but he is devoted to ‘Emma’; he thinks her quite an angel and talks of her as such to her face and behind her back, and she leads him about like a keeper with a bear. She must sit by him at dinner to cut his meat, and he carries her pocket-handkerchief. He is a gig from ribands, orders, and stars, but just the same with us as ever he was.”
They were sorry—that was the truth of it. But none could deliver him from himself, and Emma triumphed exceedingly. It is interesting to wonder what she would have done could she have known the opinion of the world. Probably nothing otherwise than she did in her immense self-glorification. She, a Lady of the Grand Cross of Malta, given her, alone of Englishwomen, by His Majesty, the Great White Czar!
Lord Fitzharris wrote to his father:
“Lord Nelson and the Hamiltons dined here the other day. It is really disgusting to see her with him. Lady Hamilton is without exception the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman I ever met with. The Princess [Esterhazy] had with great kindness got a number of musicians and the famous Haydn to play, knowing Lady H. was fond of music. Instead of attending to them she sat down to the faro table and played Nelson’s cards for him and won between £300 and £400. In short, I could not disguise my feelings and joined in the general abuse of her.”