“I can’t sleep in that catafalque!” he said. “I want fresh air. Make them put me up a camp bed near the door, or better still in the room adjoining, for I am often disturbed at night, and you look as if you needed your sleep. Better give the order now.”
She rang the bell and gave it, and his “traps,” as he called them, were put in the room which opened, hotel-fashion, into hers. For the first time she recovered herself a little and carried her head higher. That insult, for so she took it, fired even her gentleness. He left the door open between them and talked while she changed her dress for dinner.
Indeed she had little to change it to. She had supposed it would be as usual but a day or two in London, and had not made very extensive preparations. But she had a black satin with lace and a bandeau of rows of seed-pearl for her hair, and a chain set with small pearls which had been a gift from his prize money. She dressed herself to the best advantage and looked in the muslin-draped glass and thought she would pass. More she could not feel; and after all, what use to compete with a beauty of European notoriety? She did not ask his opinion when her toilette was finished as she had been accustomed to do.
They went together into the sitting-room when they were ready. It was now brilliant with lights, and a well-spread table, and old Mr. Nelson in the ceremonious evening dress of a clergyman of the old school, and Nelson in silk stockings and orders, and obsequious waiters hovering about and making conversation impossible.
It seemed to Fanny that she could not collect her thoughts—it was dream-like, she had not a word to say.
And now the door opened with a flourish—“Sir William and Lady Hamilton. Miss Knight.”
Habit and breeding will pull a woman together when nothing else will, and Fanny in her desperate need moved forward composedly, with her quiet curtsey to either lady.
Emma trailed in in the gorgeous gold gown of Palermo, too splendid by far for so simple an occasion, girdled below her full bosom with a girdle in the Directory fashion, set with diamonds.
The bandeau which bound her luxuriant curls was of diamonds also, and about her neck the magnificent diamond necklace lately presented by Marie Caroline with the ciphers of the Royal children. Even a plain woman must have glowed in such a dress set off with such a galaxy of jewels but with her velvet skin of lilies and roses, her bright hair, and the crimson bow of her lips she was a figure of dazzling beauty to strike the coldest into amazement. It was a theatrical entry, theatrically contrived with all her dramatic instinct brought to bear, and for the moment it succeeded. Fanny’s heart sank like lead. What hope, what help against such charms? She was an illumination in the room—the very light all gathered about her, and seemed to be reflected in her. Miss Cornelia Knight was an agreeable, brown-complexioned woman in purple—a well-chosen foil for the other’s brilliance. Indeed, Emma’s heart exulted as she greeted with all her exuberance the quiet Fanny in her “dowdy” dress, for so she classed it. If that was what she had been dreading!—one may finish the sentence on a note of triumph. She took possession of the party. She showered offers of attention on Fanny. Had she been presented yet on the peerage? No? Then she herself would undertake the presentation after her own. She quite expected that one of Sir William’s Hamilton cousins would present her. And nothing would be easier to arrange.
Dinner. Oh, might she show her Ladyship exactly how Lord Nelson liked his meat cut up? She had done it all the way back from Palermo but naturally must now surrender the pleasure to his good wife. Funny, on the contrary, surrendered it to her—it was so obviously the wish—and her own place was at the head of the table with Sir William in attendance.