“I shall hope to manage all to our satisfaction, for I so long foresaw that a moment of separation must arrive that I never kept the connexion but on a footing of perfect liberty to her. Its commencement was not of my seeking. In her heart she cannot reproach me of having acted otherwise than a kind attentive friend. But you have now rendered it possible for her to be respected and comfortable and, if she has not talked herself out of the true view of her situation, she will retain the protection and affection of us both (!). For after all, consider what a charming creature she would have been if she had been blessed with the advantage of an early education, and had it not been spoilt by the indulgence of every caprice! I never was irritated by her momentary passions, and yet it is true that when her pride is hurt by neglect or anxiety for the future, the frequent repetition of her passion balances the beauty of her smiles. Knowing all this, infinite have been my pains to make her respect herself and I had always proposed to remain her friend altho’ the connexion ceased. If Mrs. Wells had quarrell’d with Admiral Keppell she would never have been respected as she now is.”
Mrs. Wells hovered as so fair a dream before the eyes of Greville’s morality that one might well desire the acquaintance of that paragon. But since she has not survived in history save as a possible example to Emma, and Emma herself made history, it may be granted that the two ladies had perhaps very little in common and that Emma could not have been a Wells with all her efforts. She did, at one time, try her best and failed. It is also an odd reflection that Greville himself, the great, the highly descended, remains in human memory solely because Emma once dwelt in his house in Edgware Row on her way to more celestial spheres. So incredible to Greville-minds are the impish freaks and caprices of that Muse of History whom the besotted ancients treated with as much veneration as if she had been a sensible woman!
Sir William put this clever letter smilingly aside, as I have said. Greville’s motives and contradictions were perfectly clear to him, and the more confirmed his belief that Emma was a soul unspoilt. He accordingly proceeded to do his best to spoil her. Every day was devoted to her interest and amusement.
“You cannot add perfume to a rose, but you can add lustre to a diamond by cutting, polishing, setting, and my diamond [‘Greville’s!’ she interjected] shall have every chance to glitter with the best.” So he told her, and catching the interjection, added, “And now when Greville comes he shall stare in amazement to see the improvement in what most men would think could not be improved.” That last sentence was sufficient for her. She outran Sir William in her diligence from that moment.
Galluci came every morning and the house was like a nest of larks for two hours. The wondering Neapolitan noblemen who visited him were convinced Sir William’s new mistress, for such was her reputation, must be an established prima donna and looked through the journals daily to see what star had shot from its firmament to temporary obscurity for his sweet sake. Indeed, her progress confounded Sir William and Galluci who were both of them inclined to set nature at nought and lean wholly on art. The eighteenth century, like Greville, was unkind to nature. Even a simple shepherdess must be hooped and garlanded and become a Phyllis or a Chloe before she could be agreeable in eyes polite.
The dancing-master followed Galluci daily, and Sir William would look into the room to see Emma at her dancing and deportment. Daily she gained in suave dignity. She could enter a room with the best in a fortnight, make the whole range of curtseys from the deep reverential which one day might be useful at court, to the slight supercilious warranted to kill impertinence on the spot. She walked stately in the minuet—but why catalogue? Because it was Emma, she must needs learn the country dances; indeed, she picked these up from the maids, and very soon excelled in the tarantella and other such joys of the people, rendering them with an added grace which made Sir William’s guests marvel why they had never thought them worth notice before.
Sir William’s guests? What had Emma, or her like, to do with them? Much. Mrs. Dickenson was vanquished. From her charming house in Naples whence she had issued to do the honours when Sir William received, she heard of the new arrival, and in no uncertain terms. Her history, losing nothing in the telling, was spread before Mrs. Dickenson’s chaste eyes and almost scorched them. It had been carefully concealed from the ladies of the family that Greville had made a home in Edgware Row and though no one expected him to be more austere than other young men of the period it was felt that he offered an example which seniors and juniors would alike do well to follow. There was therefore nothing to connect him with the idea of Emma, though, as regards her past, Gavin Hamilton, delicately threshed with feminine flail and fan in Naples, yielded some precious grains of information which sprang up green and full-eared in Neapolitan conversations, and did not even know that he had done it.
Sir William—the astute, the worldly wise!—was he deceived or deceiving? Mrs. Dickenson bided her time. It came inevitably with the expected request that she should take the head of his table on the occasion of a large dinner party with music to follow.
Music! Mrs. Dickenson pricked up her ears. Those lark-like trillings had already reached them in rumour. She answered that it would be best if Sir William would call and discuss the arrangements with her.
Unthinking man, he went! Conscious of innocence and of a heart—but that at least should not concern Mrs. Dickenson in his opinion—he went.