'The Two and Nelson'

A violent scene is sad to have occurred between the two women.—SICHEL.

A FEW years ago I wandered through a little country churchyard in Devon, far away across the sea. It was an afternoon of golden silence, a very small breeze bringing the scents of clover and buttercups from the meadows about the ancient church, to lay them before the dim altar. So still it was, that life might well be in love with death and envy the dream of those quiet sleepers. And, even as I thought this, I saw a tomb beneath the trees, where the grass grew rank and luxuriant — a tomb old and forgotten, the lettering half filled with the closecoined gold of a little lichen, the shadows of the elmboughs coming and going upon it very softly. And this was the inscription: —

FRANCES, VISCOUNTESS NELSON DUCHESS OF BRONTË

As I read, the deathless thunder of the guns of Trafalgar broke upon me in those thunderous names, and I beheld ships locked in death grips on the far-off coast of Spain, and a dying man, already more spirit, than body, who whispered in agony to his friend: —

‘Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton.’ And again: ‘I leave her as a legacy to my country.’

But never a word of the woman who lay at my feet. And through the tolling of the great guns in my ears, I thought this: —

‘In life this woman was scarcely less silent than in death; and because she would not speak, the world has called her harsh and cold; and as in life her lovely rival flung her from the throne, so it is also in death; and the fair face that wins all hearts from the canvas of Romney shows like a strong sun, in whose rays the wan moon of this woman’s memory perishes. Her silence is eternal.’

The peace of the quiet grave-place was broken. I sat by the grave, dreaming less of great empires and dynasties than of one woman; and the shadows moved and lengthened, and the thoughts sealed within her buried breast thrilled in my own, and I heard —through the muffled thunder of the guns — I heard!

Now this is what I ponder night and day, the reason why I was not only cast off, — for that is a common lot of women, — but why, being cast off, I might not suffer in peace and with the decency of pity, but all tongues must call me harsh and cold, that they may find excuse for a great man and a worthless woman. She put it about that he never loved me, and all the ardors of his soul and body were sealed until she came from the hands of many men to his; and at first this so stung my wounds that night after night I sat in the dark, my mind, like a wave that returns to break itself on a rock, resolving to overwhelm her with my wrongs, and again failing from the resolve, because I must needs hold him up with her to shame, and I would not. And a voice said in my heart: —

‘The time will come. Profligate and coarse in grain, she has but her beauty; and when that is gone, the world will see what it cannot now see, for dazzle. I have beheld the wicked flourish like a green bay tree, and I passed by — ’ And so it was; but, with it all, the world had no pity for me.

But he loved me — I swear it. Why not? Nelson’s heart was easy won. He would have left the service and all for Molly Simpson at Quebec. Did not his uncle, Sir William Suckling, tell me he was ever in love, and his father say that he was ever open to the assaults of the tender passions? Then why not for the woman he made his wife? My misfortune was that I supposed marriage would fix his heart. A common mistake, but folly, not crime. But all was objected to me later — even that I was a young widow with a child. He felt it no objection then; but all I did and was must ever be in the wrong now.

I collected that the world entire, led by this woman, accused me that I did not take a wife’s part in his glory, nor rejoice in it as I should. I have searched my heart and memory, nor can find this is so. If true, I might, I own, deserve what befell; but the truth is far other. It is this.

My Nelson, for once he was all mine, was fire, whether for the woman he loved, or the country he loved better again; but — was there ever a human nature perfect? I was of that disposition that where I loved I saw the faults more plainly than where they concerned me not. It is so with many mothers; and God knows that, though several years his junior, I was always a mother to him, as a wife must with some men be to the end. For he who conquered the world at sea, was at home a very simple person, easy beguiled and accessible to flattery. Though I loved him none the less for this, I knew it, and ’t was needful I should act answerably.

Flattery. Now here I touch a sore place — and one I know helped to sever us. She who would hold Nelson must choose to speak none but soft things to him. His genius fed, as it were, on honey; it would only expand its wings in a caressive sunshine. It will then be said: What is a wife’s part if not to provide this, especially if mated with a Nelson?

The matter is not so plain. I knew he had in him that spirit, and courage to carry him to any point; but knew also there was in him a love of flattery to be traded on by the cunning. To myself I must add, a boastfulness also in word at times, that set him at a disadvantage with men unworthy so much as to follow where he led. It is true that I have felt my face redden when he would unloose himself in speech, and tell of his great deeds. If I had not a value for him above all earthly, would this have troubled me? And his glory needed no words — none. They could but lessen it. And I would see other men wink aside and draw him on; and I own that, when I had tried in vain to turn the talk, I would shed tears over this in secret. I would not say this but to my heart. I knew — I knew it was, more than half of it, eagerness and the other half simplicity; but I thought it must increase as years came, and be unlovely. I broke it a little to him with delicacy that other captains did not so vaunt.

‘Let them do the like deeds,’was his answer.

An unpersuadable point. Whenever I touched him upon it, I had anger. Now, should I have encouraged this and fed it, as the woman did later?

It sickens me to remember that I was grateful for her obliging attentions to my husband and my boy when first they were at Naples. Josiah writ warmly of her; and Nelson, that she was a young woman of amiable manners that did honour to the station she was raised to. Then they left Naples, and for five years I heard no more of her than the talk of her influence over the Queen of the Two Sicilies, and her fine looks, and the power she had in that Court, and how she put forward to be noticed. Much of the talk displeasing to a modest woman.

Then came the victory of the Nile, and his sore wound, and his return to Naples; and again I must be grateful that these Hamiltons took him to their house to nurse — so frail and worn with wounds and hard service, and I so far away. Must not such a thing touch a wife’s sensibility? But, on reaching Naples, he sent me a copy of the letter she wrote to him upon the victory, and ’t was when I first read this my heart was heavy as lead. I saw she had fathomed his weakness, and I could not flatter against a practised hand like hers. She claimed her share also in the victory, making him credit (and I know not if true or false) that she was the sole means of forcing the Sicilian sovereigns to water and feed his fleet. True or no, he believed it and all else she said; and there was I — only his loving, far-away wife, no more, and there was she with him for a constancy, the foremost figure, swelling with her own importance, beguiling and flattering him as I think no man was ever beguiled before.

From that time the tide of rumours flowed into a torrent. What could I do? I knew every word I wrote —and indeed I wrote feelingly as a wife should — must seem cold water beside this bubble of intoxicating champagne. She had all the begudements of the kept woman; I, nothing but honesty and love.

And this was how first he wrote of her when he returned to Naples, and the last letter that carried me anything of his heart. I never had another that did. I may well prize that.

I must endeavour to convey to you something of what passed; but if it were affecting to those only united to me by the bonds of friendship, what must it be to my dearest wife, my friend, my everything that is most dear to me in the world? Sir William and Lady Hamilton came out to sea. . . . They, my most respectable friends, had really been laid up and seriously ill, first from anxiety and then joy. It (the victory) was imprudently told to Lady H. in a moment, and the effect was like a shot; she fell apparently dead. . . . Alongside came my honoured friends; the scene in the boat was terribly affecting. Up flew her Ladyship and exclaiming, ‘O God, is it possible!' she fell into my arms more dead than alive. . . . I hope some day to have the pleasure of introducing you to Lady H. She is one of the best women in the world. She is an honour to her sex. Lady H. intends writing to you.

I saw her drift in a minute, coupling it with what was talked of. Modest Englishwomen do not so behave in public. But I saw also that this was the sure way to her hand on the helm with him. On that, letter I might now endorse, ‘Here died all my hopes, and I looked for no resurrection of the dead.’ It undid the work of years, to say no more than that. It showed me that she would hold him by a handle I scorned to touch — his weakness, not his strength.

Can I express the agonies I suffered from 1798 onward! From his letters, from every word that reached me, — and many, many did so, — I knew his whole soul was now possessed by that bad woman. My son was blamed for speaking his mind when, on one occasion, her behaviour passed bounds in public, and because it was the Queen’s and the Admiral’s favourite he affronted, they put about the story he was in liquor — he, that saved Nelson’s life at Teneriffe, that would have cheerfully laid down his life for him at any hazard, until he saw his mother insulted and neglected! I think a son is scarce to be blamed that he takes his mother’s part, even if not so wisely as more years than he had might have taught him. A boy is not wise when he is angry, and he was little more than a boy.

So, as the news came pouring in (and for all I heard I knew fifty times more was kept back by Nelson’s friends and mine), the long and the short was that I resolved I would know what her true self might be behind the masking beauty; and to that end I set myself to find out what was known of her life — work very little fit for a virtuous woman, but needful. My God, what a blackness met me! There was no vile experience unknown to her. From hand to hand she had gone, until the nephew Greville passed her to the uncle Hamilton, as a pawn for the payment of his debts; and because the dotard wedded her, she was now to be received like an honest woman and put where, by the aid of the profligate Queen of the Two Sicilies, she could flaunt herself in a court and draw more men into her net. A man of the world might laugh and leave her, but my Nelson was never that — he believed like a boy; where he trusted, he trusted entirely. She would play on him as she did on her harp. Indeed, I was horribly afraid, and it made me the sterner, as they temper hot steel with water to make it hard.

I visited the studio of Mr. Romney, and saw her face on many a canvas, the man ranting of her beauty and inspiration, and already unsound in brain as any calm observer might take notice. But, except from him I never heard a good word of her; and once, in company with Mr. Charles Greville, though he spoke not with me, I heard her name mentioned and saw the summing-up smile he gave to her; and had I known no more than that, it had been sufficient and too much. Finally, when I had gained all I needed, with testimony that fixed it for true, I writ thus to Nelson: —

You commend constantly to my gratitude Lady Hamilton and her husband, and I am in a difficulty, because what service is there done to you that I must not acknowledge with gratitude? But, as you know of old, I am not quick to make friends, though, I hope, faithful when made. I have made enquiry what like is this woman that I must take to my heart, and this is what I learn.

I then plainly set forth her history; for what less was my duty, seeing what I knew, and being informed that Lord St. Vincent and many more were passing jests on his infatuation, though of this I did not speak as yet. I put the truth, however, before him, and ended thus: —

Such a woman you would have forbid me in the old days to take by the hand. Who so strong as yourself condemned the women who make light of light behaviour in their acquaintance? My own Nelson, I entreat you that you would not lay such a command upon me. It is more than flesh and blood, can bear and you yourself would regret it later. You was never wont to encourage such persons about our house and table. I hear great talk and rumours I won’t inflict, but believe me I don’t write without warrant.

And so concluded with fond talk of home and meeting, and words of his good old father, that trembled only less than me at what reached him of the doings at Naples. More especially the high play. Great God, what I suffered!

I had the misfortune to visit a friend of my Lady Minto’s, and thus to hear what her Ladyship writ in a letter from Palermo, where the Royals and the Hamiltons were now fled from the Revolution in Naples, with Nelson. She writ that Nelson and the Hamiltons lived together in a house he paid for — the money running like water, and the gaming like a gaming-house, and my poor Admiral sitting half-asleep, with heaps of gold before him, and that harpy dipping her hands in the gold without counting, and playing to the tune of five hundred pounds a night, she having the Neapolitan rage for play.

And this I might not have credited, indeed scarcely could, but that the dear Troubridge, his faithful friend, writ a letter to him remonstrating (this I had, with the very words, from a relative of Troubridge’s), and my heart was cold as death as I heard.

Pardon me, my Lord; it is my sincere esteem for you that makes me mention it. I know you can have no pleasure in sitting up all night at cards; why then sacrifice your health, your comfort, purse, ease, everything? . . . Your Lordship is a

stranger to half that happens or the talk it occasions. I beseech your Lordship to leave off. I wish my pen could tell you my feelings. I am sure you would oblige me. Lady Hamilton’s character will suffer. Nothing can prevent people talking.

Lady H.’s character! That could not suffer. It was too sunk already. But Nelson’s! I suppose there is not one that reads but would call Troubridge a faithful friend for his pains; but if the miserable wife made any objection, or ventured on warning, — she to whom it was her all, and her utter ruin involved, — then she was cold and harsh to a promising passion that she should take easy and no harm meant! O pitiless world to me and mine!

I saw where I should be, and writ instantly to my husband that I desired of all things to come out and join him — seeing we had been too long apart. Indeed, for many days I had neither oat nor slept for terror, while half the world envied my Lady Nelson, wife of the greatest man alive. And he was that — and I knew it, and I a poor trembling creature that saw her all slipping from her.

He answered me thus — and I don’t doubt she leaned over his shoulder to bring the matter to bear according to her liking: —

You would by February have seen how unpleasant it would have been, had you followed any advice which carried you from England to a wandering sailor. I could, if you had come, only have struck my flag and carried you back again; for it would have been impossible to keep up an establishment either at Naples or Palermo.

So I was successless and dare say no more on that head, but asked when I might hope to see him. He writ: —

If I have the happiness to see their Sicilian Majesties safe on the throne again, it is probable I shall still be home in the summer. Good Sir William, Lady H., and myself are the mainsprings of the machine which manages what is going on in this country. We are all bound for England when we can quit our posts with propriety.

Good Heavens! — what had he to do with their Sicilian Majesties and their affairs? ’T was a question many asked besides myself. And ‘we’! I was too sick at heart with dreadful alarms to say more, but could only think that opinion at home might reach and move him; for I knew through naval friends to us both that there was anger at the Admiralty that Nelson should so tie himself to a foreign king, more buffoon than king, and a queen who deserved rather a prison than a throne. But what opinion can help a forsaken wife?

’T was about now his father came to me, very sunk in spirits, and to say he understood that publick and private affairs fretted his son, and his letters revealed his disturbance. I was shook to the heart by the lowness he could not conceal.

‘Fanny, my dear,’he said, ‘I do not like what I hear. You are aware that Horatio’s heart is susceptible, and ever will be, to the tender passions. It will become you then to receive him with a cordiality that shall evidence his wife’s heart is unalterably his own; and I am much mistook if that will not bind and seal his affections where only they should be fixed.’

I promised with all love and duty, and he continued: —

’Horatio is still a comparatively young man and you five years younger, and long life and honours lie before you both if you behave at this juncture with conciliatory wisdom. If you consider, my daughter, that you have a right to complain in some points, yet do not exercise it. View your own knowledge of your husband and you will admit me in the right.’

I knew it. Indeed, Nelson could be cruel to those that opposed him. Go with him, and all was sunshine. Go against him, and fierce anger broke out; easy bent, but impossible to break. I resolved to act conformably, bridling and hiding my terrors.

I sent to the Admiralty, to learn at what date and where I should expect him, and prepared to meet him and make a last struggle for him as well as myself, knowing well how deep his reputation was now involved with the loose-behaved wife and the doting husband.

Then came the news that, after all my agonies, all the long waiting, he was decided to make a tour across Europe by Vienna, dragged in their train. I had thought that even for decency he would take the straightest way. But no. And then came word that he enjoined me not to meet him, but to wait his return in London. Could he not be cruel — if to none other, to his wife? Let the world own there may be spots in the sun.

And still I thought, ‘When I see him

when we are alone! ’ Hope dies hard, it would seem. Mine should have been dead and buried by then.

The time came. I saw him. We were alone; and I, who had been used to the volcanic warmth of his affection, was now to know my day done. All his talk was of Lady H.

She was the dearest, most beautiful of women, the most devoted of friends! A queen had sanctified her position abroad; all London would repeat the homage of Naples. Surely I could never have the foolish, ingratful heart to repel one to whom he owed his life and also the glory of the Nile, for ’t was she had procured the ships to be fed and watered, and thus made the battle possible! I would see how the good Queen Charlotte would honour and reward such merits! The country also.

His thin face, all worn with the sea, was flushed and strained as he poured out his story. It was a bitter taste in my mouth then that I had wrote to Yarmouth a polite billet, saying I hoped at some future date to see thorn at Round Wood. I knew not at that time how utterly I was supplanted. He should not have permitted me to do this.

Good God, what was I to do? I would have fled from the room if possible; but his father’s words rang in my ears, and I resolved to still constrain myself to silence. I believe I am blamed that I could not receive this with enthusiasm, and partake in the acclamation of a woman who had robbed me of my all and made him a jest for the vulgar. I think the wisdom of Solomon had scarcely carried me through.

My nature is a silent one, to my misfortune, and I was silent. At last, I said with gravity that it would not become me wholly to neglect his recommendation of Lady H., and I would therefore meet her and form my own judgment of whether there was like to be mutual politeness betwixt her and me; and meanwhile, I begged not to be hurried, but to wait on events.

He shut his lips and his heart, and made his disappointment very manifest, but presently said the Hamiltons would wait on me next day. Was not this to hurry me? But still I said nothing. I only signified I would await them; and then, having no strength for more, I fell a-trembling with such a seizure of pain about the heart as I was forced to call my maid and go to my bed, and there trembled all night, distracted to think what was best to be done.

When I heard their step on the stair next day I thought I must have dropt — what wonder she could spread to all her party that I was stiff and ill at ease in manners? I own it. The very skin of my face tingled. Is there anything so disconcerting to a wife as to be in company, and know there is a secret understanding betwixt her husband and another? What shall she do?

She was a fine woman, I admit, but inelegant in her address, and full-blown as if with too generous feeding and drinking, which was indeed the case; her colour high but clear, her eyes blue, and auburn hair. But going off. Two years younger than me, but I knew I wore better. Her manners overblown like her figure. Her hands and feet large and coarse.

She stood a breath at the door, in her handsome pelisse, and then ran forward, both hands extended, very red in the face. Frightened, yet bold.

‘ Do I at last have the felicity to see my dear Lady Nelson — the lady of our friend of friends. We were Three joined in One, but henceforth it will be Four. Four hearts united to perfection.’

I drew back and curtseyed. I could not do more — I felt it disgustingly repulsive. I believe I smiled, however. I saw Nelson’s angry eye, but Sir W. H. came forward.

I shall never comprehend — ’t is impossible I should — how a man of breeding could endure the woman. She said ‘’as’ when she meant ‘has,’ and her voice corresponded to the spelling of the letters she favoured me with from Naples. A Wapping Wench’s spelling.

I beheld Sir William — a clean-faced old man of aristocratic features and marvelled. How shall a woman ever comprehend? ’T is to be understood men would have such a woman serve them a dram at the tavern, and chuck her under the chin for her good looks. But marriage — or love! Yet I was in presence of both. Her proper sphere was in my kitchen; but here she sat, and Nelson had no eyes but for her, and Sir William the air of expecting my compliments on such beauty and accomplishments. A virtuous woman can’t understand such things in men; but the Moll Flanders that was Lady H. — she knows and plays on them like a musician on the forte-piano!

It is very true I showed to little advantage, and so made my own case worse. ’T is the wife’s fate in such cases. I must be conscious he compared the mistress to the wife without pity, yet think he should have made allowance for the agitating meeting that all but overcame me. Still, I designed to do all in my power, and sat to listen while, in her loud voice, she flattered my husband to his face and mine in such a manner as I could have wept for rage and shame. ‘Great Jove,’ she called him, explaining obligingly that his title of Brontë signified thunder in Latin —Sir W. mildly correcting her to Greek. She told of the fetes celebrating his victories at Naples, —

‘And ’t was I myself in effigy crowned our hero’s waxen effigy with laurels, my dearest Lady Nelson, in the presence of their Majesties and all the people. The only miss to our immortal triumph was your Ladyship’s absence. ’T was not, for it could not be, worthy of the greatest of men, for never was such a saviour in the world. Her Majesty, Maria Carolina, said to me with her own royal lips, “What can we offer, Emma, that’s not dust beneath his feet? Alexander, Cæsar—what are they beside him? And I vow I don’t think the upstart Corsican worth a snap of my fingers when I think of the immortal Nelson! ” Indeed, your Ladyship, her swollen heart would scarce admit her to speak. She ’as a noble sensibility, though it don’t surpass my own and Sir William’s.’

’T was a dose that had been too strong for my husband a few years since. Now he sat all ears and eyes, feasting on every word she spoke. I knew not which way to look. Surely, I thought, Sir William must check her. He sat leaning his chin on his cane, and not a word but this: —

‘Indeed, Lady Hamilton does not overrate the occasion, Madam. It was beyond expression splendid, though far below our invaluable friend’s deserts. I can show your Ladyship an elegant print of Lady Hamilton as Victory. The classical robe was judged to become her. It is the general opinion that she appears to greatest advantage in the dress of Greece or Rome. I have called her my Modern Cameo, and the name is not misjudged, as you’ll allow when you behold her famous Attitudes.’

‘The robe was white and I held a wreath of laurels in my hand,’ she interrupted. ‘The laurels was decorated with dymonds, with which His Majesty later crowned our glorious hero. He also placed laurel wreaths on Sir William’s head and mine, and we all wore them during the entertainment. Your Ladyship can’t conceive anything more splendid and heart-raising. Was you to have been there you must have died of joy.’

‘Then it is possibly fortunate I was not present ’ — The words came before I could restrain them; but indeed I was near dying of shame to see her so puff the incense in his face and he accept it. Can even such glory as his — and there is none, none like it! — be made to appear foolish? I could picture Sir William and the woman flaunting in their laurels, but not him — not my husband. Indeed, I thought us all mad together, so were things reversed from the right. She it was that owned and showed him off to his wife, and me that was but a listener on her suffrance. And to all this Sir W. and Nelson subscribed. I know not which or what bewildered me most. ’T was like seeing things upside down in a looking-glass, enough to make a woman giddy. I felt I could not bear it longer, and should not be present, and half rose.

Sir W., mistaking me, rose also, politely.

‘Pray do not fatigue yourself to rise, your Ladyship. I will bring the print to you.’

And did, laying it in my hand, while she stared, all uneasy smiles. ’T was as he said — a wax effigy of Nelson on a plinth, and she, in a Grecian habit, extending a wreath over his head. The artist had softened the outlines and gracefulised the big hands and feet I noted ere she was five minutes in the room, so that I admit it beautiful. But, oh, when I saw the drawn cheeks, the worn face — the tears blinded me that they should so strip him of dignity. A woman of bad life to crown him — she the cast-off of many men! And he what he is.

What I experienced then was not selfish; my own soul knows it, if no other. ’T was the passionate desire to rid him of these sponging parasites, even were I never again to see him — that he might stand alone, great and simple as he truly was. But I constrained my lips.

‘Indeed, a graceful picture, and the robe becomes her Ladyship—’

‘Graceful! Becomes!’ cried Nelson. ‘These are cold expressions, and worthy only of woman’s envy. It’s divinely beautiful, and to be crowned by that hand greater honour than the King’s crowning. I should have supposed,’ he added with bitterness, ‘that my wife would be grateful for the distinction. But I was mistook, it seems.’

Indeed I almost despaired. How could anyone compete against her floods of honey. She had spoiled his palate for simple fare. She spoke apart with him while Sir W. addressed me; and his brow then cleared — at her bidding, not for me.

‘I must not be hasty, Fanny,’ he said. ‘It’s not every woman has Lady Hamilton’s political genius, nor comprehends what my victory of the Nile has accomplished for the world. I am aware I am undervalued in my own country and ’t is not singular a woman should share this ignorance—’

I protested, with beating pulses, but he went on, —

‘The saviour of Europe is better treated anywhere than in his native land. I could wish never to have set foot — ’

She leaned towards him.

‘Indeed, you say true, Nelson. Your statue in pure gold should be in every part of London, had I my way, and the Admiralty compelled to salute it, and the niggardly politicians to lick its feet.

Never was so great a soul as yours; and if they don’t know it, we’ll despise them together — we three.’

By this time the room was going round with me, and I did half believe I must sink where I sat, so much was I made an intruder. I knew not where to look, while she overwhelmed me with loud professions of regard and service. Luckily, the carriage was shortly spoke for, and they went, and he with them.

So of all our meetings — need I record them to myself? At dinner, it was she who helped him, saying she must do it, ‘until your Ladyship shall learn his likings’; and in all things, little and great, I was supplanted. Will it be believed that he spent his Christmas with them at Mr. Beckford’s palace of Fonthill Abbey, and I left to my melancholy thoughts? And so in everything. When the world blames me as harsh and cold — I ask, was it in my power to seem free and content, and cannot tell. Let the world judge honestly, as it has not yet done of the sad case of an openly forsaken wife.

I had also to endure that my husband’s family, his brother, his sisters, betwixt whom and myself there had been kindness, went over to her party in a body, and paid their court in the face of day. They knew how to keep well with the risen sun, and that they might lack their share of his bounties if this was omitted. Only his old father showed me kindness. She and the others nicknamed me and mocked my sorrow. He remained kind.

The night my eyes were finally opened, and that ended all, was at the theatre. My husband had commanded me to be present in publick with the Hamiltons, and I sat, enduring the stares of the fine company. There happened an allusion in the play to a secret birth; and as it was spoke, I saw her redden up and go dead white.

Nelson leaped up, and Sir W., for she swayed aside, and her head fell on the arm of Sir W.’s chair, and she fainted. The two helped her out of the box, and I sat dead still. He did not return, nor did I expect it. I knew now. I understood. After a decent interval I left the play and went home.

I won’t recall my feelings that night, tossed on a sea of despair. What profit to dwell on my sorrow and shame that I had given him no child. That was the hidden sore that had bit into my soul before she came. There are some men — I think not many — that desire a child with as strong a longing as any lonesome woman, and he was so. I would see his eye soften when it fell on the boys of twelve aboard his ship, so proud and strutting with their dirks and gold buttons; and I knew too well why. Never a harsh word to me of it. And he was kind to my boy. He was never harsh until she stole him; but it came out in a thousand ways I could but feel in the inmost veins of my heart. It possessed his spirit and mine, and once I thought to speak of an adoptive child, and dared not raise the sleeping grief.

And now this was upon me! It would make bonds unbreakable betwixt them. I knew it imaginable ’t was not his, for with such a woman what cheat might not be possible; but the thunder of God would be powerless to oppose her if she so told him. One who knew her well said later; —

‘Nelson was infatuated. She could make him believe anything.’

No. I pass over that night.

Next day, I sitting alone, the door opened, and she came in unannounced, as she had done of late. Unbearable, but I had bore it as best I could with much else unbearable.

I rose instantly. Her colour was high and fixed. She had the appearance of having slept ill, which I could credit.

Now I saw her with open eyes, I marvelled I had been so blind.

‘Your Ladyship gives me no invitation to sit,’ she said boldly. ‘If my visit is inconvenient, I’ll do myself the favour later. I come to enquire of your health after the alarm I gave you last night.’

‘Your visit,’ I said, cold as death, ‘is and will be unwelcome. It is what your own conscience should forbid you to inflict upon me.’

We looked at one another a minute. Finally she spoke as a woman of her class must do.

‘If your Ladyship means any slur on me that have been the companion of your betters, speak it out,’ she cried. ‘I don’t know what you hint, but I don’t fear to face it, whatever it is. The bosom friend of a Queen, and an Ambassadress myself, I need n’t shun to look any woman in the face, even if she does wear titles she never did a hand’s turn to earn.’

As she spoke, I hardened and took courage. I believe I now dreaded only that Nelson, that Hamilton, should come in before I could speak once for all. It was the locked-up things that ached in me, and I yearned for delivery like a woman in travail.

And first I turned the key in the lock and pocketed it, and she looked at me, furious and trapped. Then I stood with the table betwixt us.

‘Lady Hamilton, before ever my husband returned to England, I knew your character. Did you credit that, because the profligate Queen and Court at Naples did honour to a woman of their own kind, that it would be the same in England, where the decencies are still respected? You are much mistook.’

She choked with rage, interrupting:—

‘What — my Queen. The daughter of emperors! And you dare — a miserable doctor’s widow that Nelson stooped to — to belittle Her Majesty and her condescension to me. If I was good enough for her, I’m good enough and too good for you.’

‘Madam, apart from my own cruel wrongs, one who is not good enough for my virtuous Queen Charlotte is not worthy of my own reception. I decline your acquaintance. She whom my Queen refuses is no fit company for the matronage of England. She sets an example in all things to be followed.’

For it was now known that Sir W. was forced to go to Court alone, the Queen entirely refusing to receive the woman. Indeed, she was livid with passion, to hear this on my lips.

‘You had best heed what you say,’ she cried, losing all restraint. ‘I have it in my power to make Nelson kick you from the house, without a penny but your hoardings to keep you. And I promise you I will, if you insult a woman that saved the fleet for the Nile, and helped your glorious husband to his glory, as he owns daily. You miserable upstart — that dares — ’

‘Madam, it does not need your admission that, apart from the Service, you rule my husband. That unhappily is known. But you do not rule me.’

‘I’ll make you crawl to my feet for pardon. I’ll have you stript of all but the name he gave you, and with good luck I’ll strip you of that, too. You don’t know — a dull fool like you — what is the due of one that acts on a great stage with queens and kings and great men. There’s nothing between him and me that all the world may n’t know, and I glory in. You could not hold him, for you never knew what he was. Don’t blame me if you’ve lost his heart and know its worth too late.’

I grew colder as she hotter. ’T is the effect rage has on me always — it had served me better with him could I have wept and pled.

‘ I know your secret. I am well aware you’ll turn it into a weapon for cutting the last bond betwixt my husband and me.’

‘ What secret? ’

‘One I disgrace not myself to say. Let me be plain with you. I know not only this, but a former secret of the like sort that I had from a cousin of Captain Willet-Payne’s.’

She shrieked at the name. ‘It’s a lie — a lie!’

I closed the window quietly, that her violence be not heard in the street. She made at me like a wild cat — then drew back, glaring, her breath coming and going quick. So we stood what seemed like minutes, and then she fell back into the sopha.

‘Go on. I’d best know what you mean. I won’t part with him — if that’s your price. I’m an innocent woman, but there’s a few of us can stand mud-throwing at us without some sticking. What do you want? ’

‘Only that I may never see you again. And one thing more.’

‘I’m sure I have no hankering to see you again; but if you want to see Nelson you’ll have to take me along with him, for he’ll have no scandal and won’t break a friendship as does us both honour. But I don’t desire you should carry your tales to him, though he won’t so much as hear them if I give the word.’

I said nothing awhile, and she sat there, big, sullen, handsome, with dangerous eyes, but did not frighten me any more. Oh what a fate was mine! A man may face the guns and all applaud his courage; but who values a woman fighting against all odds, desolate, no refuge, her own hearth shut against her. I tried to gather a final strength to end it all and face Nelson’s wrath after.

I sat, as I think it must have been, a few minutes, for I had need of silence to recollect myself, for I had still a thing to say and I conceived there could be no woman so vile but she must hear. She now was as if revolving some hidden thing in her mind — as turning it over and over. And I feared her once more, — I could not say why, — she sat so brooding, and a hid thing in her eyes. Presently she spoke again.

‘For my part, I don’t see why all this fighting and abusing is needful. There’s better ways by far. His Lordship praised you as a wise woman when first I met with him. “A very valuable woman,” was his words. Why not be friends? And if not friends, see we have a mutual interest. The way you’re going, you’ll ruin yourself and drag him in. Why not have a little sense. I’m apt to blow out in a temper, but I cool as quick, and a thought comes in my mind that we’re better friends than enemies. I’ll not be wanting to my part if you won’t neither.

‘You’re right about my secret, and I can tell you as much as that I’ll guard it safe from the world. No fear of that. I now desire your opinion whether you won’t do wiser to meet what can’t now be helped and turn it to your advantage. If you was to act the part of a friend and acknowledge the child for your own, you would give him a child he loves with passion already, and take his undying love and gratitude, and my faithful service to my life’s end. There’s no heir to his glorious honours, and ’t would give him his heart’s desire. Consider of it. Here’s your way straight back to your husband’s heart, and not a soul the wiser.’

I sat still, listening. Her hands spread out, she continued, as eager as if the first part of our interview had not been.

‘Here is us two women that have cause to think of him before ourselves; for look at it as you will, he’s the world’s hero. This notion of mine will give him comfort and quiet, and he’ll never think of you but to bless you when he sees his own flesh and blood grow up under his own roof. And if you ’ll come so far to meet me, I’ll swear that for the future I’ll be no more to him but an honest friend. You won’t grudge that much? And indeed this was a thing entirely unforeseen, and —’

She went on, but now I did not hear. Was it a temptation? Could I endure such a situation, if it gave me back his love and confidence? If I be thought even baser than she, I own for the moment it tempted me. My soul had ached for a child, but fate denied it and flung him into another’s arms. Should I hate it for her sake, or love it for his? She said true. I knew he would worship that child — and a child is sweet even if found in the gutter. She saw and spoke with frantic eagerness, while the two passions fought in me of love and hatred. She continued, her face working with eagerness; —

‘Forget our hatred, and give him the child he’ll bless you for with all his heart. If you did this — ’t is but to affect a friendship (that we may feel one day if this should be), and you and I go off later to Italy or elsewhere, and the thing is done. Oh, if a son, he’ll worship you, or a girl cling close about his heart; and then, with his soul at rest and seeing the babe in your bosom, who’s to say he won’t forget me except as a friend, and I’ll help him to it. And Nelson yours once more and a babe in the house, my dear Ladyship, I’ll give you leave to forget the unhappy mother while you go on your way attended by the respect of all. Don’t value me in the matter, but think of his Lordship and yourself. Surely Sarah and Rebecca did the like, and took the children of their husbands for their own. Consider of it, I beseech you.’

Much more she said. I was like a woman drugged. Through her talk I could see my husband — I could hear him: ‘Fanny, my angel of forgiveness, my child’s more than mother.’ I could see a hearth, with a man, a woman, and his child beside it in great contentment.

Then sudden, like the sun bursting from a cloud, the truth. He knew nothing of it. This was a trap — another of her Attitudes — a plot to save herself and lower me to a baseness that, if I accepted, neither he nor any decent person could look upon me more. Why, what should I be? — and if he choose such an offering, what would he be? She had dragged him down in all she could touch, though the spirit in him escaped her and will for ever; but this, if done, would complete her triumph, and never again could he hold up his head with the rest. And if he refused, — and he would, — I had flung myself in the mud in vain, and then indeed he might say, ‘Let me be rid of this plotting woman.’ No, better loneliness and misery than crime. The secret ways of vice were familiar to her, but I had never trod in them, nor would. Better he should hate and honour me, than love me with a shameful secret for bond betwixt us.

‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I refuse your offer. But not with the rage and scorn I felt awhile ago. It would be impossible to explain to you why this is so, and how you have opened my eyes to another view than my own wretchedness; but so it is. Your proposal, however, leads me up to the last words I shall ever utter to you.'

‘Your Ladyship needs but time to consider,’ she exclaimed, evidently believing she had made an impression that might be turned to account later.

But I continued calmly: —

‘I comprehend your motives, and refuse. But to the mother of Nelson’s child, I say one word. His name is, as you justly say, very glorious. You proclaim aloud that you value his glory — '

‘As you with your blood of ice can’t never know. He and I are fire, and you freeze him at every turn.’

‘If this intrigue continues, you will cling to him in life and death —’

‘In life and death.’ she repeated proudly.

— ‘as a deadly shame and disgrace. When men speak of his glory, they must remember it clouded. A man can’t cut his private life from his publick, and he least of all who is so open to slights and griefs. Oh, set him free — have pity on him. Set him free, — not to come back to me: I see that’s done for ever, — but to a loneliness that’s honourable, and where he can devote his undistracted heart to a love that’s more to him than you, or any woman. You know what it is. If you do indeed love him, spare him.’

It had all turned so different from what I meant at the outset. I pleading to her, and after a shocking insult! Oh, what are we but the thistledown blown in the wind and dropt, we know not where — but in strange, strange places. She did not, however, understand me — not at all.

‘Is it your meaning,’ she said at last, ‘that you would have done with him if I promise the same?’

‘It is my meaning.'

‘My poor Nelson is certainly unfortunate in a wife that loves him so little as she can offer to part with him to gratify her spite, and sever him from one that loves every hair of his head and that he adores. No, Madam, you can’t part us at that rate, nor at any other. I was a fool to make the offer I did. You have it not in you to love any man, nor make any sacrifice for him. You’ll respect my secret, for you can’t ruin your own husband, and it’s as much as your position’s worth to offend him. Let me tell you you’ve lost a chance to show yourself a true woman and wife, and now you can do your worst. I told my poor hero long since that his cold wife did n’t know what love is, and I don’t need to tell him again what all the world sees now. You think of yourself only. I that you scorn have risked all for him, and you not so much as your little finger. Take your own way, alone in life and death. My generous heart gave you your chance, you cold coward!’

She said much more, but I did not hear. I took the key from my pocket at last. She stretched her hand for it and, unlocking the door, went out without farewell. I sat down and hid my face, weeping for the temptation I had resisted, yet knowing I had with me the right. Does this console a woman?

I tell my story as lame as I lived it. But I have suffered. God knows it!

The passionate voice in my heart had ceased. The shadows were long and cool. Even the breeze had nearly dropped asleep in the evening calm. I sat musing.

There, by her tomb, in the sunset and its golden calm, it may well seem that, in the cloudland of all the faiths, where the guns of Trafalgar are forgotten and glory is an outworn toy, a very wearied man may dream that all love is reconciled in a divine unity.

And, as I rose to go, the breathing air gathered the faint sweetness of the meadows and laid it upon the unseen Altar.