England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [142]
Emma also planted stories in the newspapers and encouraged her friends to do the same. The Morning Post reported, "Lady Hamilton is fitting up a room for the purpose of displaying her attitudes and in a short time she will give large attitude parties. Attitudes, it is thought, will be much more in vogue this winter than shape" (a reference to Emma's lost figure).7 The Times predicted she would be received at court on November 18, and reminded its readers that the Queen of Naples had written to Queen Charlotte praising Emma, adding it was thanks to Emma's "exertions" that Nelson's fleet was victualed and thus able to win at the Battle of the Nile.8
Nelson bought a black terrier dog from a shop in Holborn, adorned with a silver collar, called him Nileus, and gave him to Emma. Emma patched up her old disagreement with Anne Darner and commissioned her to sculpt a huge marble bust of Nelson. The Morning Post joked about his flirtatious sittings for the "fair artist" and compared the nose of the statue to Nelson's manhood.
When he was without Emma, Nelson behaved cruelly to his wife. At a dinner with Lady Spencer, wife of the Lord of the Admiralty, who he thought took Fanny's side, Nelson was sullen. When Fanny offered him a walnut she had shelled for him, he refused it so roughly that it flew across the room and smashed a glass. Fanny fled and wept outside the door. Only Emma was allowed to prepare his food for him, to love him. He no longer cared who knew it.
CHAPTER 38
Show Time
On November 24, the Hamiltons and the Nelsons arranged to see Richard Sheridan's version of Pizarro, a play by the popular German playwright August von Kotzebue. A tragic drama of love and revenge, Pizarro had become inordinately popular during the conflict between England and France. The audience cheered any possible allusion to fighting the good fight, the players delivered their speeches as pro-war tirades, and the actor playing Pizarro hammed up comparisons of the heroic main character to Nelson by wearing Nile dress and swashbuckling around the stage. Announcements that Nelson had ordered a box caused a huge crush for tickets, even on a Monday night. The house was crowded in every part by a “splendid assemblage of beauty and fashion,” trilled the Morning Herald. The excitable crowds burst into applause when Nelson arrived, and did so repeatedly throughout the play1 Fanny attempted to concentrate on the stage as Nelson and Emma whispered together and petted. She was miserable and longed to be back at 17 Dover Street—but there was much worse to come.
Jane Powell, Emma's old friend, starred as Elvira, and Pizarro was John Kemble, whom Emma had already met and charmed.∗ Like Emma, Jane had come far since the days of scrubbing at Dr. Budd's, and she was now an accomplished tragedienne, second only to the great Sarah Siddons. It was a setup—either Emma had met Jane a few days before and plotted with her, or Jane had guessed at the way to please Nelson's mistress and gain herself some notoriety into the bargain. The high point in the play came when the actress playing Elvira threatened vengeful Pizarro that she would defeat him if he attacked her. The audience was expectant. Jane waited for a degree of quiet, and then delivered the killer line. She taunted Pizarro to “wave thy glittering sword”; then, to the amazement of the crowd, she paused and turned to look straight at Lady Nelson before crying, “And meet and survive—an injured woman's fury.”
∗ Emma knew well in advance that Jane had taken the lead role, since it would have been advertised.
Fanny let out a scream of shock. She had been demeaned repeatedly, and now an actress was dubbing her an “injured woman” in front of everybody. The theater dissolved in uproar. Fanny fainted. Nelson refused to leave the box, and Fanny suffered the indignity of being carried out by their servants. Nelson was infuriated with