Tested by Fate (3 page)

Uncle William was an easy man to be with, and the occasional gallantry did not seem amiss from a man who still had his good looks. It was rare for Greville to leave Emma alone with any man, but he seemed to have no fear of his relative. Though in his mid-fifties, the Ambassador looked younger, which, when she remarked upon it, he ascribed to his love of walking.

“And you shall walk with me, Emma, should you and Charles come to Naples. I’ll take you to Pompeii and Herculaneum, and show you what beauty lies under the mountain of ash that Vesuvius spewed forth to cover them.”

Seeing her confusion, he smiled. “These names mean nothing to you?”

“No, Uncle William, they do not.”

His patient explanation was similar to that undertaken by Greville when he had first made her acquaintance. He described the volcano and the destruction it had caused, spoke of how he and others initiated digs to extract objects of great beauty and antiquity that had been wholly preserved by the ash.

“There’s a fine collection of such virtu, many of the pieces acquired by me, in the house of a friend. Should you desire it, I will take you to his gallery for a private viewing.”

“I’d like that very much, Uncle, though if this volcano is still a danger, a visit to Naples is something I might not greet with the same joy.”

“I would never say not to fear it, but it can be approached as easily as I approach you, my dear. And the effect is somewhat similar. I got so close to the summit one day that I singed the soles of my boots.”

“Then for all you’re a clever fellow, Uncle William, you have a streak of foolishness.”

Sir William was as good as his word: he took her not only to his friend’s gallery but to any place she chose to visit. He escorted her to the Pantheon in Oxford Street, where society gathered in the daylight hours to gossip, exchange pleasantries, and indulge in attempts at seduction. Sir William Hamilton commanded attention in his own right, but he clearly enjoyed the extra consideration he received with a beautiful woman on his arm. And Emma responded by behaving with becoming grace, commanded by Greville to be on her best behaviour, determined not to let down either him or the uncle they both admired.

There was a changed feeling in the household with Hamilton a frequent visitor. He came for tea most days and supper many nights, either at Edgware Road or at the house of a friend, singing round the harpsichord, games of Blind Man’s Buff, and the like. Life was once more the charmed existence Emma had enjoyed on first arrival. The Chevalier, as Greville called him, made no secret of his admiration for Emma, but never once did he overstep the bounds of good taste.

Occasionally, Greville would look at her with that hunger she knew so well, which never failed to produce a corresponding response in her breast. In the bedroom, he seemed restored, more relaxed, the Charles Greville she had known from her days at Uppark. He laughed more, his sallies lost their cruelty and Emma’s love for him deepened accordingly, while gratitude was boundless to Sir William, who had brought this transformation.

There were worries, she knew, to do with Sir William’s estates
and what would happen to them after his death, undercurrents of anxiety that still troubled Greville. He greeted his uncle’s suggestion that he and Emma visit Naples enthusiastically one day, with a frown the next. And Emma nursed her own hope to use this new household mood: she wished to advance the notion that her child, now three years old, should be brought to London. Greville wouldn’t hear of it, but Sir William, when she mentioned it privately, saw no objection, and undertook to broach the subject with his nephew at an appropriate moment.

“Perhaps he will be more amenable when we are on our travels.”

“Travels?” Emma asked.

“You go to Chester, I believe?”

Sir William saw the confusion on Emma’s face, and had the good grace to show embarrassment. “Charles has not told you?”

“He hinted,” she lied, to recover her poise.

“We go to Wales on Friday, my dear, to look over my estates, while you journey to see your relations in Chester, including your child. You will travel with us as far as Cheltenham. I suggest the timing for what you desire could not be more appropriate, you with the child, me nudging Charles to agree.”

Emma was still confused, and her response showed it clearly. “How long are we to be away?”

“A month.”

The last time Emma had seen her daughter she had been in swaddling clothes. To gaze on her now, a child of three years, induced the most unwelcome sensations. The large eyes held her smile in place for a lot longer than she had intended, but there was no change in the little one’s expression when Emma spoke her name, nor when she held out her arms to enfold her.

“Say a welcome to your mother, Little Emma,” encouraged Grandma Kidd. The old lady was now so bent that her head was almost at the same level as that of the suspicious child. But there was no doubting the deep affection in the look, even if it was from a face lined like tree bark. Her smile exposed that what few teeth
she had had left were now gone. “She’s come all the way from London Town just to see you.”

It required a gentle push to get Little Emma any closer and a tug from her mother to make enough contact to complete the hug. But the ice of greeting had been broken and the little girl, a lively child, soon began to chatter, first to her great grandmother, then slowly including this stranger called mother. Emma found the transition harder than her daughter, and constantly referred to her grandmother for clarification of the child’s unformed speech.

“You’ll get used to it, girl. She’s a rare one when it comes to tattle, bit like you was when you were a bairn.”

That induced a rare silence in Emma. Grandma Kidd was one of the few people who could mention her past and evoke unpleasant thoughts. Her life had not turned out in a way that anyone in the family wanted. Her grandmother was an upright, honest woman, though not a hypocrite when it came to accepting money help from whichever source provided it.

Yet the old lady must have been saddened to see the way her brood had gone, first her daughter, Mary, then her granddaughter, not settled but living off the good grace of men who thought them too lowly to marry. The way she was looking at the child now, as she played with and talked to her doll, carried with it some of that sadness, as though she was seeing Little Emma grown and in the same predicament.

“How do you cope with the burden?”

“Bairns ain’t no burden, Emma. They is a joy, least at that age.”

“It may be that the child can come and reside with me.”

“In London?”

“Yes. With my mother as well, a proper family.”

“That would be good,” Grandma Kidd said, without conviction.

Emma imbued her voice with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. “I have engaged in this the good offices of Mr Greville’s uncle, the one I wrote to you about.”

“Old Tom Fort reads for me. He says it be called Napoli where
this uncle comes from, not Naples as you wrote, and with him being an old sailor, well, happen he knows.”

The way it was said implied some lack of honesty in the man who had lived there, though Emma struggled to find what difference it made.

“Old Tom Fort is just showing away ’cause he’s been there. I’ve yet to meet a sailor who don’t boast. Stands to reason the locals term it different to we English.” That earned a loud sniff, as if the matter was to be considered but not too readily accepted. “Tom would have doffed his hat soon enough to our uncle William.”

“He ain’t your blood.”

“It is a liberty he allows, in fact positively encourages. He is, Grandma, the most gracious of men, with a smile that would have you over in no time.”

“Wed? Only you didn’t mention.”

“Widowed, with a heart still bruised from the loss. Not that it depresses his spirits. He loves to be gay and has a ready wit as well as stories you would scarce believe about the scrapes some of our English folk get up to abroad.”

“There’s not a lot he could tell me about folks, and that’s without ever leaving my own parish.”

Grandma Kidd was disposed not to like Sir William Hamilton, that was clear, but then she had not much good to say for Charles Greville either, even if he did foot the bills for Little Emma. To the old woman they were cut from the same cloth: the kind that had exploited the girls she had raised.

“Uncle Hamilton has undertaken to seek permission for Little Emma to move to Edgware.” Hearing her name, the child stopped talking to her doll, and raised a pair of large green eyes to stare at her mother. Emma addressed her directly. “You would like it there I am sure, for Mr Greville is a kinder person than he will at times let show. I’m sure a few of your smiles would melt his heart just as quick as they have mine.”

“Whatever’s best for the child,” said Grandma Kidd. “That’s all I care for. That’s all I ever cared for.”

Charles Greville was reading, silently, Emma’s first letter since their parting, as usual half amused, half despairing of the breathless way in which it had been composed. But the “Damn!” he hissed was loud enough to make Sir William Hamilton look up from his labours.

“She has given that old woman, her grandmother, near a full fifth of the money I allowed her for the month.”

“That is bad?” Sir William’s reply was halfway between a statement and a question. Greville was clearly displeased, but that didn’t signify since his nephew was prone to disapproval of many things, something he found trying at times.

“Apparently Mrs Kidd bought the child a coat she couldn’t afford.” He spoke brightly now, because he had read the words that followed. “Emma promises to make good the loss. She tells me she has taken cheaper seaside lodgings and is eating frugally.”

“Does she mention her health?” asked Sir William.

“Blooming, Uncle, as is that of the child.”

“Then that at least is good news.”

“Sea bathing, both of them,” Greville added, tossing the letter aside. He went back to his own set of books, the accounts for the present year that would have to be checked before being passed to his uncle. Greville was the man responsible for the stewardship of these Welsh estates, an obligation to which he devoted considerable time. “Do you really believe such immersion can be efficacious?”

“Not in these northern waters. But I have a small villa at
Posillipo
in the Bay of Naples. In summer, when the sea is warm and the body is robust enough to withstand the power of the waves, it does wonders for the ague.”

The voice drifted into silence, and the older man had a wistful look in his eyes. It was hard to compare in any favourable way this house, this dark, oak-panelled room and its musty, unoccupied smell with either Posillipo or his apartments in the Palazzo Sessa and the freshness of the Mediterranean sea breeze that wafted through them. Nor could he conjure up much affection for the green Pembrokeshire countryside that rolled away from the windows. He
yearned for the warmth of the sun, and the smell of lemons and abundant flora that filled his rooms, for the sight of his collections, and the excitement of a dig when the first sign of some artefact emerged from the ash.

Absence kept him from recalling the smell of the city when the wind blew from the east, the beggars and the light-fingered, noisy inhabitants—the court, too, which was full of intrigues that seemed so petty they might be amusing, had they not been so deadly. Neapolitans loved to sing and dance the
saltarella.
They loved food, wine, and blatant carnality. But, most of all, they loved to hate. There were family feuds, political enmity, and a visceral hatred of all other nationalities: Spanish the most, Austrians the next. His duty was to ensure that Britannia retained if not affection at least no increase in animosity.

He had a duty here too: to pass the accounts with which Greville had presented him, books that covered the years he had been away. These showed he had well-managed assets that yielded him an income, without any effort on his part, of some five thousand pounds per annum. Not that he was unaware of the profit: spending it wisely was a major concern.

“I cannot bring myself to decide whether to be pleased or angry with Emma.” Sir William looked at the bent head, knowing that the face he could not see wore a frown. “I suppose I should be sanguine about the way she has behaved. I have to tell you, Uncle, there was a time, and not so very long ago, when she would not have shown the sense necessary to make good the loss.”

“Hardly a loss, Charles. It went to the child.”

“I make provision enough for the child. Little Emma wants for nothing.”

Sir William forbore to say that his nephew was clearly wrong, since the purchase of a coat, in a Cheshire winter, would be a necessity. “There is the matter of parental affection.”

That made Greville look up. “I didn’t have you as a lover of Rousseau.”

“The fact that I do not have children of my own …” His uncle
had to pause and look away to avoid the avarice in Charles Greville’s eyes. “It does not mean that I do not ponder on the proper course of raising and educating them.”

“And?”

“I look to my own past. I was put out to a wet-nurse on the very day of my birth.”

“With a king for a companion on the other teat.”

“A prince then. But that is to digress. What I mean is that Rousseau has identified this as an unsatisfactory way of rearing infants. And it is not just he. The Duchess of Leinster I consider a friend, and she in her letters cannot be brought to think of child rearing in any other way than by the natural mother.”

Greville favoured him with a thin smile. “I sense a reason for the route of this conversation, Uncle William.”

“I doubt it is a secret to you that Emma herself inclines that way.”

“The books bore you, I fear.”

“They do, nephew, they do. You have carried out your
stewardship
in a splendid fashion. Were it not that you insist, I could scarce be brought to check the figures you produce.”

“A turn round the garden?”

There had been a shower earlier, so although the grass was damp, the air had a clear odour to it that was pleasing. Less engaging was the turn the conversation had taken, with Greville’s point blank refusal to consider that Little Emma should live with her mother. His reasons, though they sounded practical, were based on selfish motives. He was a fastidious man, a lover of order who would find the accommodation of a child’s needs, the sheer disruption, impossible to cope with.