by Unknown
Fanny did just as any other canny eighteenth-century woman would: she ensured that Nelson and all his friends knew he had no grounds to divorce her. She pursued a careful strategy by emphasizing to everyone how she was the perfect wife: “faithful, affectionate, desirous to do everything I could to please him.“3 Divorce was difficult and costly. A husband could divorce his wife for adultery, but a wife could cite only non-consummation and cruelty. Fanny’s letters made it clear: the marriage was “affectionate” and consummated, and she had been entirely faithful and always his deeply loving wife. She also stressed that she wished the marriage to continue: even if Nelson chose to present himself as cruel, she would refuse to divorce him on such a basis. Her status, her social preeminence, and the respect she gained from her peers were contingent on being Nelson’s wife, and if she lost him, she lost everything. Fanny stepped up the public relations war against Emma by stressing her excellence to anyone she could find. But she dared not go too far: she wanted to keep Nelson’s generous allowance to her. Incensed, Nelson instructed Davison, “Before I arrive in England, signify to L[ad]y N that I expect, and for which I have made such a very liberal allowance to her, to be left to myself, and without any enquiries from her.”
Although Horatia had secured her position in Nelson’s heart, Emma felt vulnerable. Her lover hated to hear even the mention of his wife’s name, so she kept her jealousy secret and plunged her energies into trying to fulfill his dream of a home filled with his family and friends. She infuriated Fanny by attempting to employ Nelson’s French butler from Roundwood, and trying to win over his siblings. Nelson’s clergyman brother William wrote to Emma unctuously, “Your image and voice are constantly before my imagination, and I can think of nothing else…. It is no wonder that my good, my great, my virtuous, my beloved brother should be so attached to your ladyship.” Nelson’s family had read the news (William had seen it for himself) about Emma’s pregnancy and they knew it meant he had transferred his loyalties for good, and they were fully prepared to follow.
Emma’s lifestyle was ruinously expensive. She and Sir William had chosen one of London’s premium rental properties. The lease for a year cost £1,000, and Emma had spent over £2,000 furnishing the house, including £300 on repairing the coach, £300 on wine and coal, and £28 on employing an exquisitely fashionable French cook. The named staff included Oliver, Emma’s maids Fatima, Julia, and Marianne, a valet and butler, coachmen, footmen and housemaids, scullery maids, and kitchen maids. Hiring singers and musicians for evening parties sent costs soaring. Emma opened a bank account with Thomas Coutts, a social climber, known for his generous terms to the Prince of Wales and the aristocracy, although he would not give her a loan. Believing he would soon return to Naples, Sir William was still renting the Palazzo Sessa and the Villa Emma, and paying his staff. He owed more than £6,000 to his bankers there. He also had belongings and a coach waiting for him in Palermo. At the end of 1800, no longer able to hide from his debts, he instructed his agent in Naples to give notice on the lease for the Posillipo house and to sell the furniture and effects from the Palazzo Sessa.
Sir William still hoped for compensation from the British government for his losses at Naples, estimated at around £13,000. Beckford instructed Emma to “pursue your object with those omnipotent looks, words and gestures with which Heaven has gifted you. By such persevering Efforts, and by such alone, we shall obtain justice.“4 Emma’s flirtatious smiles were hardly going to sway the Foreign Office, however, and they resolutely refused to pay out. The bills for setting up 23 Piccadilly had to be paid, and so Emma agreed to sell most of her diamonds, beginning probably with those Maria Carolina had given her in Naples. She rewarded her husband for his supportive behavior over the birth of Horatia with jewels they believed were worth £30,000, and in return Sir William allowed her to bring Horatia to Piccadilly for a visit. The press were always watching the house, and Emma warned Mrs. Gibson to ensure Horatia was “well covered getting in and out of the coach.“5 In the event, the diamonds were sold for only £2,500 (presumably they were not quite as precious as Maria Carolina had implied), and the Hamiltons soon fell into debt again. Sir William heard that the coach he had bought just before they fled Naples was “so heavy no tolerable offer was ever made for it,” and the furniture from the Palazzo Sessa was equally unsaleable.6 They hoped Nelson would capture enemy ships in the North Sea and return with prize money, but in the meantime Sir William was forced to take drastic measures. He advertised an auction of his belongings at Christie’s. Aiming to generate huge publicity, he made it known that he would be selling most of his portraits of Emma.
“I see clearly, my dearest friend, you are on SALE,” Nelson agonized to Emma. “I am almost mad to think of the iniquity of wanting you to associate with a set of whores, bawds, & unprincipled lyars.” He was wretched at the thought of his darling exposed to the crowds at Christie’s. “I am really miserable, I look at all your pictures, at your dear hair, I am ready to cry.” He begged Davison to remove one portrait from the auction, the notorious Bacchante by Vigée-Lebrun, in which Emma reclines on a leopard-skin rug. Vigée-Lebrun’s works sold for spectacular prices, particularly because she had painted few English subjects. Christie’s demanded £300, but Nelson would have paid any sum. Exhilarated by his catch, Nelson wrote to Emma that if it “had cost me 300 drops of blood I would have given it with pleasure.” “If you was single and I found you under a hedge, I would instantly marry you. Sir Wm has a treasure, and does he want to throw it away? That other chap [Greville] did throw away the most precious jewel that God Almighty ever set on this earth.” The sudden disappearance of one of the most celebrated paintings set tongues wagging— and made Emma even more notorious. While Nelson was away, she cut her hair to match the latest Paris fashion for short hair. When she revealed her new look, a boyish cut curling around the ears that left the neck enticingly bare, women dashed to hairdressers to follow her lead.
A visit to 23 Piccadilly was the hottest ticket in town, particularly thanks to the patronage of the royal brothers and the Whig circle of the Duchess of Devonshire. Everyone expected luxurious entertainment from Britain’s biggest celebrity. Nelson was gratified she was courting London’s fashionable set and welcoming his family and friends, but he had no clue about the costs of being a grand hostess. Emma was borrowing heavily, but this time she was doing so against the prospect of Nelson’s next win, receiving credit by presenting herself as his mistress.
On March 12, Nelson departed for the Baltic. As the Morning Herald joked, “A celebrntedfemale attitudinarian ever since our Northern Squadron has put to sea has thrown aside all the lighter airs, and positions of gaiety, confining her imitative talents to those of a graver cast. Cleopatra arrayed in mournful graces is now the model that she daily copies.“7
“I burn all your dear letters because it is right for your sake,” Nelson hinted to Emma. “I wish you would burn all mine. They can do no good and will do us both harm if any seizure of them, or the dropping even one of them would fill the mouths of the world.“8 But Emma kept every letter, lovingly dwelling on his every word, although perhaps not when he wrote to her that he saw her crying, dressed in black, and then “I dreamt last night that I beat you with a stick on account of that fellow [the Prince of Wales] and then attempted to throw over your head a tub of Boiling hot water, you may believe I awoke in agony”9
The jealous hero soon had fighting to distract him. The government suspected the Danes might ally with the Tsar of Russia and the French, and sent Nelson to Copenhagen to look threatening and do some saber rattling. He ended up engaged in a fullscale attack on a country with which England was not officially at war. The Battle of Copenhagen was an equivocal victory and a public relations disaster. Nelson’s enemies claimed he had proposed a truce because he could no longer fight and that he had in fact capitulated. Three hundred and fifty of his men were killed and a thousand injured. The English government advised citizens to spend their money not on celebratory fl
ags but on donations to the many widows and orphans of the dead seamen.
Emma heard the news on April 15 and celebrated with a dinner party for a Neapolitan duke, the actor John Kemble, and various socialites. She entertained the guests by performing a tarantella with her glamorous Sudanese maid, Fatima. Writer-about-town Nathaniel Wraxall felt rather faint watching her perform a scene about a nymph and satyr or bacchante and faun (a pose in which Emma had modeled for Romney). He decided it “certainly not of a nature to be performed except before a select company, from the screams, attitudes, starts, and embraces with which it was intermingled.“10 Now that Emma was no longer pregnant, the Attitudes became risque once more.
Nelson wrote to Emma after his victory at Copenhagen, “very tired after a hard won battle,” and sent her a few sweet lines of poetry, addressing her as “Lord Nelson’s Guardian Angel.” “I leave my anchor in my Angel’s heart,” he continued, and reminisced how “this day twelve months we sailed from Palermo on our tour to Malta. Ah! those were happy times, days of ease and nights of pleasure.” Three days after the victory, he gave a party on his ship to celebrate Emma’s birthday and had his mates and superior officer, Sir Hyde Parker, raise champagne toasts to “the Birthday of Santa Emma.” Convinced she brought him good luck, he heaped her with compliments: “There is certainly more of the angel than the human being about you.“11
CHAPTER 42
Paradise Merton
No detail was too insignificant for Nelson’s passionate letters to A Emma. He even described how he had not cut his nails since February, for “I should have thought it a treason to have them cut, as long as there was a possibility of my returning for my old dear friend to do the job for me.” He was nervous, suffering from palpitations, and “more emaciated than you can conceive.“1 Eager to spend every possible minute on his return with Emma, he was tired of snatching time with her in Sir William’s house and hotels. He wanted Emma to find him a home.
Even though she had Horatia, Emma’s position was not secure. Crowds of starstruck girls, powerful aristocrats, respectable wives, and fine ladies were desperate for a piece of England’s hero. Nelson, always a social climber, was most attracted by the aristocrats. Emma knew from her own experience his fondness for kissing hands, bowing, flattering, and making lecherous comments, and she had to ensure that no rival stole his heart, as she had done. She felt stronger on her own territory, and she knew that sharing a house with Nelson would confirm her as his mistress, controller of his patronage, and head of his domestic life.
Sir William continued to take on the cost of caring for Emma Carew while Nelson remained unaware of her existence. In April, taking advantage of Nelson’s absence, Emma paid for her ever-reliable mother to visit the Kidds in Hawarden and then Manchester, to see Emma, now nearly twenty. It would seem that she had been unhappy as a governess or had retired because of ill health, for she was living back with Mrs. Blackburn and no longer working. There were still no precise plans for her future.
When the hero of Copenhagen arrived in England on June 30, he immediately hired a decorated post chaise drawn by six fine stallions, rattling to 23 Piccadilly, where the lovers were reunited. Emma planned a holiday (along with her husband) at Box Hill in Surrey, where, Nelson wrote, “we are all very happy.” The party then set off for a fishing holiday on the Thames along with William Nelson and his wife and daughter, two of Nelson’s officers, and Captain Edward Parker, Nelson’s latest protege. They spent a fortnight soaking up the sun, staying at the Bush Inn in Staines. Sir William fished contentedly while the lovers boated and walked, joining up with the rest of the party for raucous dinners at the inn. The paparazzi were always peering over the wall and hiring boats to go alongside them, but they were all growing more practiced at ignoring them. The holiday came to an abrupt end with the news that Napoleon was preparing to invade England. Nelson was called to Whitehall and sent to protect the south coast between Orfordness and Beachy Head. There he waited dolefully, obsessed with his desire for a home.
Nelson wanted a palatial mansion and grounds in which he could play at being a country squire. It also had to be comfortably furnished, situated on a good road to London, and not too expensive. “I am very anxious for a house and I have nobody to do any business for me but you, my dear friend,” he chivvied. Emma was enthused by the responsibility of choosing a house, and by August 1 he authorized her to buy one she had seen at Turnham Green. The newspapers followed her efforts—the Times reported that during an outing to Harrow with Sir William’s relation, the Marquis of Abercorn, the horses tipped Emma and the Machioness into a hedge.2 On the fifteenth, she was considering another property in Chiswick. At the same time, Nelson led an attack on Boulogne that ended in disaster: no French boats were taken and 44 English sailors were left dead, with 128 wounded. Although Nelson had brushed off criticism of the Battle of Copenhagen, he knew that his attack on Boulogne had been a terrible failure. He sailed back to Deal, on the Kent coast, deeply depressed, begging his friends to come and comfort him.
Emma had good news for him. She had spotted what she thought could be their dream home in the village of Merton in Surrey, southwest of London, now a suburb of Wimbledon. Inhabited by an elderly lady for years, Merton Place had fallen into terrible disrepair. All the rooms needed modernizing, the land was uncultivated, and there was no stabling or coach house. The horrified surveyor judged it “the worst place under all its circumstances that I ever saw pretending to suit a Gentleman’s family.” When his solicitor advised him to demand a discount on the price, Nelson exploded with frustration against equivocating lawyers and their “hard bargains.”3 Claiming to admire the man who could make a decision on the spot, he commanded, “I cannot afford a fine house and grounds therefore I wish for Merton as it is.”4 Desperate to live with Emma, he refused to be delayed by petty disagreements.
So that Emma could visit Nelson without any impropriety in the eyes of society, Sir William rushed down from a business trip in Wales to be her chaperone. Nelson tried to brush off his gloom by focusing on his idea of a perfect life together in a gorgeous house. They took suites in a luxury hotel along with Nelson’s brother’s wife, Sarah. Emma had been busily winning the affections of Sarah and her two children, Horace and Charlotte. Bowled over by Emma’s connections and riches, Sarah leapt to take advantage of an all-expenses-paid trip to the sea. Despite their efforts to cheer him, Nelson was still despairing. Young Captain Parker was dying from a wound he had received at Boulogne, and his state was a daily reminder to Nelson of the failure there. After her morning bathing, Emma rushed to tend Parker’s brow with soothing milks and warm poultices, but there was little she and Sarah could do for the little “Nelsonite,” as she called him.
When she set off back north in her carriage after over a fortnight with Nelson, Emma was determined to win him his house. On September 18, Nelson acquired Merton Place for £9,000, borrowing money from his friend Davison, with the expectation of moving in on October 10. “I hope you will always love Merton,” he wrote excitedly to Emma.5 Her first task was to find his belongings at Dod’s warehouse and separate them from Fanny’s. Nelson had been infuriated by Fanny’s habit of asking for his help and advice about the tiniest decision: Emma resolved to manage alone. He ordered her to spend freely on furniture and supplies without bothering him with the details, instructing, “I entreat I may never hear about the expenses again… at Merton I must keep a table.”
Mrs. Greaves, the former owner of the house, had discovered that the buyer was none other than the great Lord Nelson, and she was dying to meet him. She tried everything to remain in the house. Dreading Nelson’s fury at finding an elderly lady beckoning him through the door, offering tea and cakes, Emma demanded her lawyers force her to depart. Furniture was arriving from Portsmouth, trees and shrubs were about to be delivered, and the painters were ready to start work. After some tense arguments, Mrs. Greaves finally agreed to move. Emma and Sir William rattled down in their carriages a few days later. He was
looking forward to relaxing in the country; she was ready to start work.
“I am in silent distraction,” wrote Nelson to Emma at the end of September, looking despondently around his cabin. “The four pictures of Lady Hn are hung up, but alas! I have lost the original…. How can I bear our separation?“6 His mood was so fragile after the debacle at Boulogne that Emma worried that he might be disappointed. Sir William aimed to buoy her confidence and wrote to Nelson to extol Merton as a superb bargain: “perfect retirement” only an hour from Hyde Park, requiring only cosmetic improvements and full of excellent furniture. “I never saw so many conveniences united in so small a compass.” He promised Nelson he would “enjoy immediately.” If all this was not enough, since the purchase, it had become public knowledge that Napoleon was unlikely to invade, so the house had increased in value by at least £1,000. With Sir William’s help, Emma promoted herself to Nelson as the antithesis of Fanny: efficient, shrewd, and indomitable. “Well done farmer’s wife!” the hero bubbled. “You will make us rich with your economy.” Nelson the publicity lover paid her his ultimate compliment: he imagined her turned into a caricature to be sold in the print shops. He decided “the Beautiful Emma rowing the one-armed Admiral in a boat” around the grounds “should certainly be caricatured.” But Emma would need all her energy to turn ramshackle Merton into a home for a hero.
Merton Place was built around the beginning of the eighteenth century. A heavy, symmetrical Queen Anne-style square, it was rather like a smaller, much cheaper version of Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh’s Uppark. Similar homes dotted all of Britain, but Nelson’s was bigger and far more chaotic. Off the large entrance hall, there was a dining room to the left and a drawing room to the right. Behind the drawing room were a breakfast room and a ramshackle room that Emma would transform into a library, then pantries and servants’ quarters.7 Upstairs was the main drawing room, five large bedrooms, and a sizeable attic space. Divided by a road that is now Merton High Street were seventy acres of overgrown land. The offshoot of the River Wandle running through the grounds was, according to the anguished surveyor, a “broad ditch, which keeps the whole place damp.”