England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [138]
On October 21, they finally reached Hamburg. The frigate that Nelson had requested the Admiralty send to transport them home was nowhere to be seen, and they had to buy places on a ship transporting mail. Amongst the dignitaries they met in the ten days they waited to depart was the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Utterly charmed by Lady Hamilton, the elderly intellectual would not let her out of his sight. He enjoyed a private performance of the Attitudes and wrote to a friend that she had given him a kiss.
The English in Hamburg put on a play depicting the Battle of Aboukir and then threw a party in Nelson's honor for over a thousand guests, including a twelve-year-old Arthur Schopenhauer, already showing hints of the genius that would make him the age's most respected philosopher. Nelson was so carried away by the riotous celebrations that he lost a giant yellow diamond from the sword that Ferdinand had only recently given him. Just before they embarked on the King George on October 31, the hung-over hero sheepishly bought his wife a black lace cloak and a package of fine lace to decorate a court dress. None of the fashion reports ever noted that Fanny wore it.
They arrived home on November 6. The triumphal journey was only a trial run. Emma was about to become the most famous woman in England.
Scandal and Stardom
CHAPTER 37
Cleopatra Arrives
The whole of East Anglia seemed to have arrived at Yarmouth, on England's eastern coast, to welcome the hero of the Nile and his friends. It was Emma's first glimpse of her home country in nearly ten years. Boats flying every color came out to meet them, and excited crowds teemed on the shore. When they landed, burly men removed the horses from Nelson's carriage and dragged it to the inn themselves. There, to the delight of the crowd, Nelson and Emma waved from the balcony as the local infantry struck up a congratulatory march. No representative from the Admiralty was present to greet the hero, but the mayor of Yarmouth staged a lavish banquet in their honor and offered Nelson the freedom of the city.
Despite the raw November chill, crowds in Nelson hats and badges thronged their route to Norfolk, waving flags, singing, and weeping with joy. Though Emma delighted in the adulation, she dreaded meeting Fanny. Nelson vowed that he adored Emma because she was so different from his wife, but she was anxious that he might feel a twinge of guilt when he saw Fanny again. She was nervous that Nelson at heart was too conventional to abandon his marriage.
Nelson had written to Fanny telling her to anticipate them for dinner on Saturday. He expected her to put the servants to work and welcome him and his friends with a sumptuous meal. But Fanny had not received the letter. Unsure of what to do, she had hurried to London with Nelson's father to wait for him. The homecoming hero's party reached Round-wood to find only a few servants in the kitchen, little food, no fires, and hardly any candles. Nelson flew off the handle, suspecting his wife had left his home cold and empty to humiliate him.
After a dismal and anticlimactic evening, the party set off for London the next morning, narrowly avoiding the worst storm since 1703, in which trees were torn out of the ground, signs flew off shops, and houses collapsed. They arrived in London by early afternoon, and Nelson, Emma, and Sir William took suites at Nerot's Hotel in St. James. Mrs. Cadogan and the others went to a cheaper lodging house nearby. Admirers surrounded the hotel and cheered through the rain to see the hero of the Nile and the Cleopatra who had won his heart and, some said, directed the English fleet. Gossip columnists and reporters skulked at the back doors, recording their every move. After lightning visits from the Duke