Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (surface ebook reader txt) 📕

to Lady Hamilton, on the 2Oth of October, " the Admiralty could, with any conscience, keep me here; not that I think they have had any conscience. I dare say, Master Troubridge is grown fat. I know I am grown lean with my complaint, which, but for their indifference about my health, would never have happened ; or, at least, I should have got well long ago in a warm room, with a good fire, and sincere friends." He might well pine for a fire, for he suffered greatly from the bitter weather, and wrote to Emma on the very day before he left his flagship : " I am literally starving with cold; but my heart is warm."

This time when he went ashore it was not to the Hamiltons' house in Piccadilly, but to a home of his own. Even before the Battle of the Baltic he had been discussing with Emma the possibility and the advantages of such a project, and it was in Emmas hands that he left the whole business; she was to find a house for him, buy it, and furnish it to their joint liking. This she did with all the capability she displayed in the practical affairs of life. Merton Place, in Surrey, was the house chosen, and for the few years that remained to him on earth, " dear, dear 1 Merton" was to Nelson the centre of his happiness, the ideal country home for which the heart of a sea-sick sailor was always longing.

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Almost all that made Merton has now vanished—swallowed up by the bricks and mortar of encroaching London. But when Nelson bought it, the place was in the midst of green fields and pleasant woods ; a stream ran through the grounds which he and Emma christened "The Nile." The house itself was spacious, comfortable, plain. The grounds were extensive and stocked with all sorts of farm creatures by Emma. " I expect, that all animals will increase where you are/' Nelson told her in one of his letters, "for I never expect that you will suffer any to be killed." In another letter he declares, " I am sure, you have as fine a taste in laying out the land, as you have in music." In his eyes Emma could do everything—and nothing ill.

Sir William Hamilton was inclined to joke the admiral about his implicit faith in Emma.

" We have now inhabited your Lordship's premises for some days/' he wrote, "and I can now speak with some certainty. I have lived with our dear Emma several years, I know her merit, have a great opinion of the head and heart God Almighty has been pleased to give her, but a seaman alone could have given a fine woman full power to choose and fit up a residence for him, without seeing it himself. You are in luck, for on my conscience, I verily believe that a place so suitable to your views could not have been found and at so cheap a rate. For, if you

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stay away three days longer, I do not think you can have any wish but you will find compleated here. And then the bargain was fortunately struck three days before an idea of peace got about. Now, every estate in this neighbourhood has increased in value, ... I never saw so many conveniences united in so small a compass. You have nothing but to come and to enjoy immediately. You have a good mile of pleasant dry walk around your farm. It would make you laugh to see Emma and her mother fitting up pigstyes and hencoops, and already the Canal is enlivened with ducks, and the cock is strutting with his hen about the walks."

Even before he had seen the home that Emma had chosen and arranged for him, Nelson's thoughts were constantly occupied in picturing it and the woman who was its presiding genius : " I assure you, my dear friend, that I had rather read and hear all your little story of a white hen getting into a tree, an anecdote of Fatima, or hear you call—' Cupidy ! Cupidy !' than any speech I shall hear in parliament; because I know, although you can adapt your language and manners to a child, yet that you can also thunder forth such a torrent of eloquence, that corruption and infamy would sink before your voice, in however exalted a situation it might be placed,"—another allusion to the Prince of Wales episode which had made such a deep impression

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on Nelson's mind. He told her that she was to be " Lady Paramount of all the territories and waters of Merton."

At Merton, Nelson meant to begin a new and happier life with his beloved Emma and with Sir William Hamilton, though the old diplomat was only a figure in the background; indispensable, in a way, because he gave the curious household a veneer of propriety; cherished aftet a fashion and affectionately regarded by the twc who had so seriously wronged him, but a negli gible quantity in the thoughts of his wife anc of Nelson, and never seriously considered in their scheme of things. This came naturally enough to P Emma, who, all her life, had defiec ordinary standards of conduct; but Nelson was the son of a clergyman, and had been brought up in a different atmosphere. So in his nev home—the first real home he had ever had on English soil—he wished that everything should be good and seemly. The essential blot, the real wrong, he could not or would not