Silence.
“I go to Court to-morrow,” he said after a while, “and in the evening the Hamiltons dine with us again.”
He went and returned indignant at his reception by the King. Fanny asked him kindly if all had satisfied him, and had a short “No” for her pains and then a diatribe against Royal ingratitude as contrasted with the Neapolitan condescensions. She heard later that day from a source she could trust that His Majesty merely asked after Nelson’s health, and without waiting for an answer turned away and talked with another officer in great good humour. It wrung her heart, and the more so because she knew the cause but too well. It had been very different with the King formerly. She could remember hearing from the faithful Davison how His Majesty had spoken of her husband “with the tenderness of a father,” and now, now, crowned with the glories of Teneriffe, St. Vincent, the Nile, and so much more, he was coldly put aside, and—good God!—for what a woman! She revolved her duty in an agony—to speak or not to speak? To refuse to be seen with her, or go meekly on according to Nelson’s orders? She could not yet decide.
The town rang with stories of the pair. Nelson and Lady Hamilton had been unable to believe that the adulation of Naples and Palermo would not cover everything. They could not be made to realize that it made their case worse.
The sincere Troubridge visited Miss Cornelia Knight and warned her of the storm about to break. She had taken refuge with Mrs. Cadogan but he assured her that was not sufficient.
“I assure you, madam, that no lady who wishes to escape general censure will associate herself with any connection of Lady Hamilton. I owe your mother a kindness which I must repay in this fashion. Lord Nelson’s noble character and glorious career may bear him scatheless, and I trust it will, but I understand the word has gone forth against Lady Hamilton.”
Miss Knight packed up her goods incontinent and fled the same day to shelter under the wing of Mrs. Nepean, wife of the secretary of the Admiralty. Emma tossed her head and grew even louder and more scornful of such fair-weather friends.
Indeed, the poor woman had her own terrible battle to fight, and though she feared Lady Nelson no more, she might well fear her own courage. She dared not leave London, for every eye would fasten on her every movement. She dared not leave Sir William, for that she had never done since their marriage and it must provoke his inevitable suspicion. Her battle must be fought with only her mother’s help, under the roof of the house they had now taken in Piccadilly, and in horrible secrecy and dread—a desperate throw for safety.
Let the initial error be granted, and much that appears detestable in her conduct becomes comprehensible. How could she give her cause away without ruining Nelson? How could she hide her secret but by clinging to Lady Nelson, to every person or thing which could help her to the assumption of innocence? And that she hurt her cause by her loud boastings and triumphings and public protestations of the innocence of her friendship for Nelson, and the bond between her and his wife, her breeding made her as incapable of understanding as though she belonged to another planet.
She grew more blatant and preposterous daily in her frantic efforts to conquer opinion, and little knew how Lady Nelson’s mute face of sorrow, dragged in her wake, spoke against her trumpet-tongued with all who had hearts to feel. As for Nelson, Beckford summed it up in a phrase: “She can make him believe anything she chooses.” She could—and did.