Too Great a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  In the library sat Sir William’s two British secretaries, Mr. Smith and Mr. Oliver, who greeted us with a curt nod of their heads as if to say that unlike their employer, they were busy, busy men. It was here that Sir William met with those on official business—where lengthy discussions of moment on matters of great import took place. This room, too, boasted a prodigious number of paintings, and leather-bound volumes lined shelf after shelf.

  Thus far, each of the rooms offered a spectacular view of the Bay of Naples. In the distance was the island of Capri, rising like a knuckle from the Mediterranean. “I think if I was Mr. Oliver or Mr. Smith, I should never get a lick of work done, with such a vista to behold at every moment,” I murmured.

  We stepped out of the library into a corridor, where Sir William proudly pointed out the water closet. The plumbing in the Palazzo Sessa was the most advanced to be had, and owing to his studies of the sciences and the elements, he had also caused a lightning rod to be installed on the roof. “Ladies, it gives me pleasure to say that you will be residing in the safest house in Naples.”

  Sir William opened a door onto another suite of rooms, where the two Italian maids were hard at work unpacking our baggage and airing our gowns, stopping only to drop a curtsy. So much for Greville’s intention that Sir William relegate us to some remote outpost. There was a large sitting room, painted white, with a ceiling fresco of gold wreaths and stars—a hero’s room, I thought—and two smaller rooms, one of which was to serve as Mam’s bedroom. My favorite was the last chamber, with its generous fireplace and ceiling of robin’s-egg blue. This delightful boudoir boasted a sumptuous bed fitted up with a demicanopy of cream-colored silk.

  And with two windows, what a view! “You are looking out upon the Chiaia quarter, one of the most beautiful and verdant spots in Naples,” Sir William explained. From the second window one could admire the water lying at the foot of the hill below us, where it forked into two gulfs, separated by one of three great Neapolitan fortresses, the Castel dell’Ovo, which jutted out into the sea. “The Neapolitans are a very superstitious people, as you will soon discover for yourself. For example, the Castel dell’Ovo got its name because the locals believe that it was built on an egg provided by a magician named Vergil.”

  We passed the strange Mrs. Damer and her servants on the staircase leading to the upper rooms. She paused to gaze at me, studying my countenance with a good deal of intensity before continuing on her way without so much as a how-de-do to Sir William. Greville would have been mortified if I’d asked his uncle about her, so I bit my tongue.

  On the upper floor, in addition to Sir William’s bedroom and sitting room and those belonging to his late wife, were the enormous dining room, the salon, and the ballroom—where up to three hundred guests could wear out their slippers dancing away the night. Here Sir William did his private entertaining, presenting his frequent musical assemblies. The ambassador employed his own quartet of chamber musicians, and he was himself an accomplished cellist.

  “And here,” Sir William said as he left the salon, “despite my passion for virtu, is my favorite room of all: the entire observation tower was just recently added to the palazzo at my own instigation and expense.”

  It offered a grand semicircular view of the Bay of Naples, the mirrored interior walls creating the illusion of being surrounded on all sides by the glistening sea. In the late-afternoon light, the water looked violet; and as the sun began to set, the sky turned from rose and gold to vermilion to lavender and indigo. “What a paradise!” I exclaimed, taking care not to stumble over the telescope perched upon its tripod.

  “I sit here as often as I can,” replied Sir William. “Nothing can compare to the enjoyment of a good book in so enchanting an atmosphere. There is Capri, opposite us; to the left, the seacoast from Sorrento to Cape Minerva, named for the Roman goddess of wisdom; to the right, Mount Posillipo, where I have a pretty little summer villa right on the sea. Closer to hand you can see the Villa Reale. Imagine Hyde Park at five p.m., Mrs. Hart, as one grand stretch of roadway where every Friday night all the fashionable men and women parade about in their fine carriages just to see and be seen. Tomorrow evening, we will join the promenade and you will get a taste of life among il meglio del raccolto—the cream of the crop—of Neapolitan society.”

  Seated together on the curving upholstered banquette, we watched the light change. “If you find the vista to your liking at present, it is pure magic at night,” assured Sir William. “The bay by starlight is breathtaking, one of life’s most agreeable pleasures. On some evenings the moon appears to be rising right from the mouth of Vesuvius.”

  My romantic heart was full. “If only Greville could be ’ere to see it!” I sighed.

  A silence settled over the room. “Yes. Well.” Sir William crossed his hands behind his back. “Shall we dine?”

  Fifteen

  Settling In

  I could not wait to compose a letter to my beloved Charles, but the post for England was not scheduled until the first of May. Certain that Sir William would be compelled to spend the better part of his days engaged in weighty affairs of state, I would have felt honored should he have been able to take supper with me on any single occasion, but to my astonishment, he joined me at every meal. He did not even breakfast in his beloved study.

  It was impossible not to notice how besotted he appeared. I could not stir a hand or a leg or a foot but he was marking it as graceful and fine. This I could not wait to impart with some pride to Greville, as well as the way the Neapolitan people praised my beauty when, on my second night in Naples, we rode in Sir William’s carriage along the crowded Villa Reale, an avenue so crammed with coaches carrying the local nabobs that it took hours to traverse its length. I hoped to be able to hold my own amid these exotic and extravagantly attired foreigners who chattered like magpies at breakneck speed, in a language I did not know, emphasizing their words with wild gesticulations of their hands.

  We strolled amid the lush gardens of the Chiaia, admiring the classical statues lining the graveled walkways. Everywhere I looked there was color and fragrance so heady it whispered of lust, of illicit assignations among the boughs of white-starred myrtle and black cypress, between the stiff-leafed palms, or amid the nearby citron, bergamot, and tamarisk groves. What need was there to wear scent when the very air carried the aromas of roses and orange blossoms? Syringa and oleander bloomed everywhere. The gilded balconies of the houses near the bay were dressed in bright shades of pink, purple, and yellow; passing beneath the pots of herbs nestled among the planted blooms, one could catch a savory whiff of basil or rosemary.

  It was as if every day were a feast day. Music was everywhere—not just at the Teatro San Carlo, the grand opera house, where the most celebrated prima donna of the age, Brigitta Giorgi Banti, reigned supreme. Sweet strains sifted through slatted shutters, and musical Romeos serenaded their balconied Juliets with guitars and mandolins. Sometimes the evening breeze would carry their voices as far as the Palazzo Sessa.

  However, it was not long before I learned that lurking beneath this shimmering surface, where the music of Mozart and Haydn was heard nightly in salons such as Sir William’s, and where the nobility clad themselves in Venise lace, Lyonnaise silks, and Genoese velvets, there was something more sinister. While the lazzaroni seemed as carefree as the nobles and the priests, in truth they were a filthy mass of miserable-looking humanity, begging when they wanted to, stealing when they needed to, no better off than any of the wretches who lived on the streets of London.

  On my third day in Naples, Sir William took me down to the quay. Inhaling the briny air, we picked our way among the dozens of fishmongers counting their catch, hawking their wares, gossiping with one another, or merely lazing about. In their picturesque red caps, striped trousers, short jackets, and gold earrings, they resembled a band of pirates in a panto at Drury Lane. One of them, a remarkably ugly man—an inch or two shorter than I, and not old by any means, but with a protruding belly, a
sallow pallor, a thatch of dull, coffee-colored hair, and an enormous hooked nose— grinned at Sir William and tossed me a cockleshell, smelling his hands after releasing it. Laughing, he rubbed his crotch and gestured lewdly at us. I had to stare at him, for his looks were so striking. His prodigious nose began all the way at his forehead, gradually swelling into a straight line until it nearly hit his large mouth with its jutting lower lip. His brow was low; his eyes small and piggy; his cheeks lacking in the delineation marked by a prominent bone structure; and his neck, without a stock or cravat to blur the line between collarbone and chin, was uncommonly long.

  “Lud, Sir Willum, what a crude man! And so hideous!” I was less insulted than nonplussed by his antics.

  “Lower your voice, Mrs. Hart. Remember that man’s face, and in future, keep your thoughts about him to yourself.”

  “But why?”

  “He’s the king.”

  Only thirty-five years old, King Ferdinand IV of Naples was the third son of King Carlo VII of Spain and one of the only siblings not to be declared a congenital idiot. In fact, even this was up for dispute, Sir William added, as he commenced my education in Neapolitan affairs. “Later nicknamed Il Re Nasone—‘King Nose’—as well as Il Re Lazzarone after his affinity for the underclass, he was placed on the throne of the Two Sicilies when he was all of eight years old, with a regent, the Duca di San Nicardo, who was told that too much education would damage the lad. Thus, given only a bowing acquaintance with breviary, he learned to hunt and to fornicate, and those remain his greatest passions,” sighed Sir William. “He fancies himself a practical joker, putting marmalade in people’s hats, forcing his servants to swallow live frogs—and then there was the occasion when he cut up a live pregnant deer to see what her young looked like—of course, that was when he was a boy. But the people love him, chiefly the lazzaroni. And like the lazzaroni, Ferdinand is terribly superstitious. In order to ward off evil elements, he wears all manner of talismans pinned to his undergarments. He only speaks the Neapolitan dialect, would fuck a chambermaid as soon as he’d bed a noblewoman—and has—and adores juvenile humor, the more scatological, the better. I doubt that there is an ambassador plenipotentiary to any other court in Europe who is commanded by the king to keep him company because His Majesty gets lonely during his after-dinner shits.”

  “No! But you’re pulling my leg, Sir William! I admit to ’ave seen quite a bit in my past, but even the rowdiest of my former acquaintance were never so uncouth.”

  Sir William chuckled. “Welcome to Naples.”

  I was treated, if one could possibly use that word to describe such a spectacle, to another of His Sicilian Majesty’s customary antics when Sir William first took me to the opera. The Teatro San Carlo, built by King Ferdinand as a tribute to his father, was an impressive edifice with a glorious rococo interior of red and gold. I noticed that the heavily jeweled, rouged, and powdered patrons spent as much time using their quizzing glasses to pick out friends or enemies as they did in watching the performance—when they weren’t talking or eating during the arias. But their manners were nothing to their sovereign’s. Supping in his seat, with stains on his brocaded waistcoat, and his brown hair unpowdered, he plunged his lace-cuffed hands up to the wrist into a silver bowl of steaming macaroni smothered in a gravy redolent of cheese and garlic, and gleefully tossed handfuls of it onto their heads. His hapless victims then turned around to face the royal box, and, cheering loudly, did applaud him! I had never been so astonished by a thing in my life! And Greville had found me too boisterous at the theatre! What would he have made of this?

  When he was not desecrating the coiffures of the first families of Naples, King Ferdinand’s eye strayed to my person. Every night we were in attendance at the opera, I caught his gaze. “La più bella inglese,” he called me, in good enough Italian to make himself clearly understood.

  All this and more I longed to share with Greville. My first letter to him, completed on April 30, was filled with expressions of homesickness for him, details of the sights I had enjoyed thus far, my reactions to the colorful Neapolitans, and reports of their high opinion of me. And I did not neglect to mention his uncle’s generosity:I have a carridge of Sr. W’s, & new liverys & new coach man, foot man & the same as Mrs. Damer had. If I was going abbout in ’is carridge they would say I was either ’is wife or mistress.

  I know you will be pleased to hear that he as given me a beautiful goun, cost 25 guineas, India painting on wite satin & several little things of Lady Hamiltons & is going to by me some muslin dresses loose to tye with a sash for the hot weather, made like the turkey dresses, the sleeves tyed in fowlds with ribban & trimmed with lace, in short he is all ways contriving what he shall get for me.

  I had more good news to impart: Sir William had made his will and named my beloved Greville his heir. How delighted I was that he no longer needed to fret about a future income. Yet Sir William claimed to know nothing about Greville’s plans to come for me in October. I was gobsmacked, for this was the original arrangement, agreed upon to the letter by all of us! Sir William was far too young for a lapse of senility. From his expression I could tell that something was afoot, though he was loath to reveal it. He came and stood beside me and made a move as though he wanted to stroke my hair, but thought better of it and restrained his impulse.

  “Mrs. Hart, your tears wound me to the core of my being. I would give anything in the world to relieve you of your unhappiness and distress. Forgive me for what may seem a cold comfort at the moment, but in time the pain will ease until you have transcended it entirely.” Puzzled, I gazed at his placid countenance. “Mrs. Hart—Emma—I beg you to accept the circumstances. I am not such an ogre; indeed I flatter myself to think that you may even love me a little.”

  “As an uncle, Sir William. Never as anything more than that!” I felt my heart rise into my throat. “You mistake my character if you think me light or inconstant and do me an injury to believe so. If not for the ‘love’ you bear for me, such as you may term it, then for the love you bear to Greville, I beg you to never speak of such a subject again!”

  Hysterical, I fled from his study and locked myself in my boudoir, closing the heavy draperies. I did not even wish to see the bay. Full of panic and confusion, I penned a coda to Greville’s letter, gasping for breath as if someone had placed his hands upon my throat and begun to strangle me.

  I have had a conversation this morning with Sr Wm. that has made me mad. He speaks half I do not know what to make of it, but Greville, my dear Greville, wright some comfort to me, pray do, if you love me, but onely remember you will never be loved by any body like your affectionate & sencere

  Emma

  Sixteen

  Betrayed

  Over the next three months I wrote fourteen more letters to my beloved Greville. None were answered. “Remember Uppark ’Arry,” cautioned Mam grimly, but I would hear not a word of detraction. Convincing myself that he must be traveling, I tried to maintain as cheerful a manner as possible, so as not to insult Sir William’s hospitality. He feared to broach anew the subject of his attraction to me, as well as his suggestion, however couched, that he was now my protector in every way.

  I admit that Sir William never asked me to account for every penny I spent, nor carped, nor scolded, nor criticized. He spared no expense in clothing me and making me presents of no end of pretty trinkets such as brooches and hatpins and gloves. I felt guilty accepting the gift of the twenty-five-guinea gown, for here I was wearing such an extravagance for just a few hours, when that kind of money would have enabled Gammer and the Kidd family to live tolerably well for several months. But I had neither requested nor coveted these fine things. He took me to the opera several nights a week, and when we entertained at home, he encouraged me to sing for his guests. Sir William paid for so many lessons I thought I was at an academy. I found that drawing came to me as easy as ABC and when I made a little sketch of his beloved Vesuvius, he was enraptured. To my own astonishment, my prog
ress was just as swift in my Italian and French lessons. Within weeks I was practicing my French with Sir William and conversing in Italian with the servants, who agreed that my ear was so fine, I spoke like a native. Sir William praised my French as well, amused at the perfection of my accent when I still sounded like a country wench in my own tongue! I expect I could have gentrified my speech if I’d set my cap at it, but the truth of the thing is that I was proud of my Flintshire roots—fiercely so—and it would have been a slap in the face of my dear gammer as raised me, to admit that a Hawarden accent wouldn’t do among the so-called upper crust.

  At Sir William’s expense, my dear, dear Romney came all the way to Naples to paint me, but still no word from Greville. What a marvelous reunion we had, Romney and I, and it delighted me beyond measure to see him in such excellent spirits. In short order it became the rage for artists visiting Naples to pay a call upon Sir William in the hopes of gaining a commission to paint (or sculpt, or sketch) his English protégée.

  “As an artist myself, I can explain the attraction,” Romney told me. “You are uncommon tall and long-limbed, and the proportions of your figure the beau ideal. From a purely aesthetic vantage, your features are perfectly symmetrical, their size and shape considered perfection. Your hair is extraordinary, not just for its length and texture, but for its color. Find me, Emma, another beauty of the day whose tresses are completely natural and the color of flame mahogany. Find me another whose eyes can appear to be anything from brownish to indigo violet, depending on her mood.”