England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [158]
Nelson anointed Emma "Lady Paramount of all the territories and waters of Merton, and we are all to be your guests, and to obey all lawful commands." Her frantic efforts won her his total loyalty. It appears that she finally felt sufficiently secure to tell him about Emma Carew. She found she had been worrying for nothing: Nelson seems to have been unruffled by the secret. Emma invited little Emma for a visit, but her husband worried about gossip if she stayed at 23 Piccadilly. As Nelson wrote to Emma, "if your relative cannot stay in your house in town, surely Sir William can have no objection to your taking [her] to the farm." Emma's female relations, such as Mrs. Cadogan's sister Connor and her children, tended to visit in groups: this sole relation, unwanted by Sir William, was most likely Miss Carew.
Fanny heard the news that her husband had set up home in Merton. She made a last-ditch attempt to regain her position. "Do my dear husband, let us live together," she wrote. "I can never be happy till such an event takes place.” Alexander Davison returned it to her and curtly inscribed on the back, “Opened by mistake by Lord Nelson, but not read,”14 without adding another word of comfort. Nelson never wrote to Fanny again.
Emma planned an elaborate first family Christmas. On December 14, Emma sent an urgent message to Mrs. Gibson demanding that she bring Horatia to Merton in a post chaise on the following day. “Do not fail,” she begged.15 Painstaking preparation went into her dramatic extravaganzas. To perform her piece “The Favourite Sultana,” Emma planned every detail of the opulent dress for herself and the company. She left extensive wardrobe notes on her own outfit and those of her attendants. She left her hair loose (and she had a turban behind the scenes, ready to whip on at any moment) and braided with strings of pearls, with two long locks of hair curling on the breast. A circlet of diamonds sparkled on her forehead, and draped over her head was a fine crêpe or muslin shawl so long that it reached the floor. Her pantaloons were twilled silk in bright colors—blue or green suited her—and she wore embroidered square-toed Turkish slippers and gold ankle bracelets. Over her pantaloons, she wore a colored shift and tied the ends of the wide gauze sleeves behind her back. The outer gown was half one color and half another, perhaps pink and red, and her jacket was a rich satin. Her arms glittered with dozens of bracelets, thick gold rings adorned her fingers, and her necklace was a long gold chain bearing a small perfume flask. The effect was truly spectacular.
Emma gave intricate commands to her assistants. Nelson's two little nieces, Kitty and Lizzy Matcham, as Moorish ladies, wore long pantaloons, gowns striped in two colors, embroidered slippers, and veils over their heads. Even dowdy Mrs. Cadogan became a Grecian lady, attired in a long white gown with wide embroidered sleeves and a short bolero-type jacket, and she wore her hair in small curls pinned under a cap. A “Miss K,” perhaps Emma Carew or the daughter of a neighbor, played a Negro sultana, dressed in a “negro mask,” a black dress, gold sandals, a colored turban with a long veil, gold girdle, and jewelry, and a rainbow train. The men had roles too: a Major Magra and Nelson's secretary, Mr. Tyson, were “as magnificent as they can dress themselves; whiskers and no beards,” the neighbors Messrs. Blow, Cumyng, and Jefferson were “Moors of Quality,” and the artist Thomas Baxter and any other spare gentlemen played slaves, wearing Negro masks, long, wide sleeves, shawls, and “long pipes and bags.”16 After a sumptuous dinner, the lights were turned down, the candles were lit against the glittering glass windows, and Emma