Sir William trod on roses. His sails were filled by softest breezes from Parthenope. He had never been so happy in his life. All that could interest and delight him was centred in his own house, and all Naples was on tiptoe to see and envy him the possession of this new and miraculous beauty. Her history was, of course, unknown. Any vulgarities of English speech were drowned in her musical broken Italian, of which, indeed, she gathered up the fragments every day, for her quick intelligence told her that it must be the foundation stone of her success. Every day found her chattering Italian, writing it, reading at the neighbouring convent of Santa Romita. A whole romance, not unflavoured with irony, might be written of Emma among the nuns, but she never had the perception of incongruity and was absolutely at home there. Daily she practised her music, and laboured at her Attitudes, for Sir William foresaw a great future for them in her personal triumph. The homely Signora Madre was provided with a wardrobe of sober elegance and figured at the Embassy entertainments also, a respectable foil to her brilliant daughter. Fortunately ignorance of Italian closed her mouth on the vulgarisms and provincialisms that would have been Greville’s despair in London if he had not kept the kitchen door resolutely closed when he was in the house, and seated on a sofa with kindly smiles and nods to all the presentations, her elderly comeliness did quite as well as could be expected and lent a false air of chaperonage to the proceedings. Emma’s good-nature would never fail her mother. She rejoiced to see her in such magnificence, felt that her own life must have really been praiseworthy to have achieved it and could have bathed in a sea of bliss but that—Greville never wrote.
She wrote more passionately by every mail, terribly uneasy, and for more reasons than one. Greville was hers, hers; neither fate nor any other woman should rob her of him. Habit, gratitude, every emotion bad and good in her emotional being, held her to him. She would not, could not lose him. And then also, all this glittering new life had been planned by him, based on his care for her. Suppose he did not come in the autumn, might it not all fall and vanish like the fairy gold which changes into withered leaves?
“Greville, my dear Greville, wright some comfort to me. Only remember your promise of October.”
That was her cry. Until October—for she clung to October now—was safely come and gone she could feel no security.
While all was well on the surface there were signs and omens. The English women who lived in Naples were holding sternly aloof, influenced, very naturally, by Mrs. Dickenson. That frightened her when she had a moment to think. Mrs. Dickenson would write to the family, the mighty Hamiltons, and who could tell that a detachment might not raid Naples and carry off either Sir William or herself to respectability or ignominy if Greville were not there to protect her? Without him it could not last. Sensible and foolish fears alike pressed her, and Greville the only cure.
It is true that the men were ready enough to join in the delightful gaieties of the charming young hostess, and as to the Neapolitans and the visitors of every land, they flocked to the Palazzo Sessa, which so far was reassuring. To be invited was the last touch of fashion in Naples. Indeed, it was not surprising. Sir William had always been a cosmopolitan host, with all the ease and gaiety of manner to win the Southern heart, and she seconded him to a miracle. No one could resist her sweet frank manners, the untutored kindliness of her beautiful eyes. They did much mischief, whether willingly or unwillingly who shall say?
But triumph after triumph crowned her. Even the King—the dissipated King, between whom and his Queen was no bond of fidelity on either side—fixed his fickle fancy for a moment on Emma, lovely in the blue hat she had entreated Greville to send her. Could she doubt it?—especially on that evening when Hamilton took her to dine with a gay party at his new Villa Emma at Posilippo; her own villa it might be called since it carried her name. And lo, in the twinkling lights outside and the golden moonlight, a boat creeps up to the casements, shadowy, silent, and an ugly attractive face looks in. What! The King! Hamilton springs to his feet. The King? Will he come in? No, it is time to go. Half a dozen men rush to fetch Emma’s cachemire and dispute as to who shall put it about her shoulders, and as they leave the door and emerge into the moonlight that spiritualizes her beauty with something unearthly fine and fair, they find the royal boat drawn up beside the Ambassador’s, and the “music” stationed in the bows strikes up a soft serenade to the English beauty—“eyes of light, smile of dawn” and so forth, a delightful flattery indeed. Royalty must be thanked. Sir William delays the plunge of his oars, and she is presented to His Majesty who bows, hand on heart, and laments that he cannot speak English. Emma, trembling with awe and pleasure, utters a few words of Italian—“Not so bad as might have been expected”—and the King receives them as the music of the youngest of the angels, and again the French horns salute the conquering smile, and the boats move off together, keeping time with oars whence fall the dripping moonlight diamonds, and so they drift softly back to Naples on a sea that is more of heaven than of earth, and the King’s hand touching Emma’s as it rests on the gunwale, speaks a language which she knows very well how to decipher.
A few days later she writes again to Greville:
“The king as eyes, he as a heart, and I have made an impression upon it. But I told the prince [Dietrichstein] that Hamilton is my friend and she belongs to his nephew. For all our friends know it.”
Loyalty thus expresses itself in grammar that will appal Greville on its reception and yet give him a warning that beauty he neglected can yet enthral others; and those others not to be lightly spoken of even by a Greville! There was a note of sombre triumph in that sentence which he understood. He sent the letter at once to Hamilton. Everything which could show Emma alive to the attentions of other men would convince Hamilton of the truth of Greville’s statement that the semblance of virtue without its reality is utterly untrustworthy. He was the more eager about this because there was a tone of consideration, of—could it be?—respect for the girl in Hamilton’s letters which frightened him. Mrs. Dickenson’s report, also, was not calming.