When the day of their final separation came, this was Nelson’s last farewell to his wife: “I call God to witness there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise.” Let that be set against the bitternesses with which the other influence inspired his generous heart.
I stood by her tomb in Littleham Churchyard, Devon, not many years ago and read its proud legend: “Frances, Viscountess Nelson, Duchess of Bronte.” So she bore his name unsullied to the grave. She lived her days in peace in the family of her son, tenderly cared for by those who loved her. Here is her portrait by one who knew her well: “If mildness, forbearance and indulgence to the weaknesses of human nature could have availed her, her fate might have been very different. No reproach ever passed her lips. You should know the worth of her who has been so often misrepresented from the wish of many to cast the blame anywhere but on him who was so deservedly dear to the nation.”
Deservedly dear indeed, and most dear to her also. Many waters cannot quench love. Her grandchild remembered and recorded how she would take her husband’s miniature from a preciously treasured casket and kiss it and lay it back, and how in her low voice she would say: “You too, little Fan, may one day know what it is to have a broken heart,” with the gentle sweetness of nature that lived in the child’s memory. This lady, too, had had her battle and had conquered.
What room is there for judgment? These things are beyond us. There was gold in Emma also, with all her evil. Her devotion to her poor lowly-born old mother, unfaltering in riches and poverty, is a flower that time cannot wither, and there was the quick passion for courage and high deeds, and the generous hand in giving. England owes her a debt for the beacon fire of sympathy which lit Nelson’s way across stormy seas—a debt she never paid, but should not forget. There is a sullied splendour about the woman which makes her rememberable where women greater and better are forgotten, a warm humanity, which pleads for her eternally and must until Nelson’s own name is drifted over with the remorseless sands of time.
If it is possible to imagine some world where love in pure essence seeking its source immortal is one, it may be believed that the love of these two women, so strangely different in character and circumstances, may, at last united, heal his wounds and draw him forever to the heart of the Beautiful made manifest in each of them. For Love is eternal, and who shall judge his way in the deep waters?
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.