England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [137]
Melesina was in love with Elliot and painfully jealous of Emma's electrifying effect on him, resenting her flamboyant behavior and her efforts to steal the limelight by flattering her lover. "It is plain that Lord Nelson thinks of nothing but Lady Hamilton, who is totally occupied with the same object," declaring him "a willing captive, the most submissive and devoted I have seen." Emma, she mocked, "puffs the incense full in his face; but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially." Sir William was dismissed as "old, infirm, all admiration of his wife," and Mrs. Cadogan was a trial: "Lady Hamilton's mother, is what one might expect from the purlieu's of Dr Giles's whence she really comes"—an accusation so shocking that it was cut from the version of her journal later published by her son, but remains in the original manuscript in Hampshire Record Office.
Melesina wished she had Hugh Elliot and his malleable wife to herself, but she could not deny Emma's beauty. “She resembles the bust of Ariadne, the shape of all her features is as fine as her head, and particularly her ears,” and even the brown spot in one light blue eye “takes nothing away from her beauty of expression.” The pregnancy was now obvious: her feet were heavy and swollen and she was “exceedingly embonpoint,” or bosomy, a phrase used to signal pregnancy. Although she admitted that Emma was entertaining and that she “did not seek to win hearts, for everyone's lay at her feet,” she complained she was more “stamped with the manners of her first situation than one would suppose, after having represented Majesty and lived in good company, for fifteen years.”
Melesina was, however, won over by her Attitudes, for which Emma cunningly made them wait five days.
Several Indian shawls, a chair, some antique vases, a wreath of roses, a tambourine, and a few children are her whole apparatus. She stands at one end of the room with a strong light to her left, and every other window closed… her gown a simple calico chemise, very easy with loose sleeves to the wrist. She disposes the shawls as to form Grecian, Turkish and other drapery, as well as a variety of turbans. Her arrangement of the turbans is absolute sleight-of-hand, she does it so quickly, so easily, and so well…. Each representation lasts about ten minutes. It is remarkable that, though coarse and ungraceful in common life, she becomes highly graceful, and even beautiful during this performance.7
In the cold light of morning, Melesina judged her dress “vulgar, loaded, and unbecoming.” Emma preferred an obvious look—bright colors, cleavage, heavy jewelry, and tight drapes—but there were few men who were not attracted by it. Melesina's scornful remarks are often quoted, but she was acerbic about everybody she met (apart from Hugh Elliot). And Melesina's pen did not reflect her behavior to her visitor's face: she was a frequent visitor to Emma's homes after both had returned to England. While Emma flattered Hugh Elliot, Nelson ordered Dresden porcelain in his honor and arranged for Saxony's foremost artist, Johann Schmidt, to paint him and his Emma. He was determined to have his own set of portraits of her in which she was herself, not a model playing glamorous roles, tainted by the paw marks of William or Greville.
On October 10, Nelson and the Hamiltons caught a barge along the Elbe. Spectators crowded along the bridge and the shore, and the crushes when the party disembarked were so intense that those at the front almost fell into the river. When they disembarked at Magdeburg, farther