The Divine Lady: A Romance of Nelson and Emma Hamilton

by L. Adams Beck

“No, no. These things are spoiled if told, but I shall throw them together with all the art I can muster.”

“What her Grace decrees is done!” Mr. Greville said, bowing gallantly. “My uncle will be infinitely indebted.”

He waited until the ladies graciously dismissed him, and then betook himself to his club, so lost in thought that Emma’s letter lay totally forgotten in his pocket.

Sir William coming home! Certainly he would be glad personally, but yet the thought was full of unpleasant possibilities. He sat down in a quiet corner as far removed from acquaintances as possible, and classified his thoughts in his own methodic manner.

Lady Hamilton, his aunt, was now two years dead, and in one sense Greville had never since known a perfectly unanxious moment. A saint, as the Duchess said so lightly, she had much to complain of in her gay husband’s gaieties, yet never had complained but bore all with an undeviating sweetness. But he was not the man to be spurred to any emulation by sainthood and in his own heart half blamed her piety for forcing him to seek outside recreation.

It was even more easily found in Naples than elsewhere and especially in a political backwater, as it was at that time, which left even an Ambassador of Great Britain much at a loss to fill up the lazy delicious days of sweet do-nothingness. But there were plenty to help him; a charming and artistic English society; wandering sirens (like my Lady Craven, the delight and ridicule of Horace Walpole) too numerous and worthless to be listed. Nay, it was whispered that the Queen herself, Marie Caroline, sister of the unhappy Marie Antoinette of France, had found Sir William more agreeable than even ambassadors are wont to be to the sovereigns to whom they are accredited.

And this state of affairs suited Greville excellently well. He was attached to his uncle and wished him amusement in all sincerity. His own position was secure in Sir William’s marriage, for it was childless, and Lady Hamilton, his aunt, so deeply attached to himself that with Sir William’s own affection his certainty of heirship to all the couple had to leave was complete. Indeed, Sir William spoke of it openly and gave Greville leave to mention it as a settled fact to any careful father whose heiress he might ask in marriage. And then Lady Hamilton died.

It was a disagreeable shock to Greville in more ways than one. Sir William, little over fifty, handsome, pleasing in the highest degree, hospitable, open-handed, was once more in the market—but there needs no expatiation. The case speaks for itself. And now he was returning to London, the high position of an ambassadress in his hand to offer, the loveliest land on earth as a home, and the rumour of a queen’s love to intensify his fascinations. Why, what young fellow in London could stand against him and his court favour? He would be married and done for, and a little heir next year and more to follow, and he, Greville, would sink into a young-elderly neglected man about town, too poor to keep up with the great steeplechase of fashion, unless—

Unless? Two things. A rich marriage for himself, and decorous or indecorous widowerhood for Sir William. He knew the town quite well enough to know that his chances of the first were diminished instantly an inclination of his uncle’s to marriage became known. Then what and where was the solution of the difficulty? Miss Middleton? That subject next passed in review. He knew that his advances had not been too warmly received, and though it was incredible that any rumour of the Edgware Row establishment could disturb Lord Middleton’s mind, women took fanciful views and a whisper in Lady or Miss Middleton’s ear might have done much harm there. He began to feel very strongly that Emma was a disadvantage, that he had been drifting, that if he desired a wealthy marriage he must return to a handsome house in London and bury himself and his advantages no longer in obscurity. In short, that he must make a complete change in his life. To this must be added the fact that he felt he had amply redeemed his pledges to Emma, and that, though she had become a delightful household companion in many ways, her temper was still troublesome; her tastes, through all the veneer, still apt to be unexpectedly coarse in grain here and there; and last, but far from least, that even such beauty may pall, and that he began to be somewhat tired of her.

Of course there would be difficulties with Emma, serious ones, but here he by no means despaired. His own calm good sense and Sir William’s counsel would carry him through and dispose of her comfortably. All justice should be done her short of the unreason of injuring his own career.