England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [159]
Soon the "favourite Sultana" had the answer to her prayers. On March 25, 1802, France and Britain agreed to the Treaty of Amiens. The war was over.
CHAPTER 43
Keeping Nelson
The new peace released Nelson from service, and he contentedly settled at Paradise Merton. Although he was on half pay, for he was no longer on active service, he wanted to keep his newfound position in society by maintaining an aura of incredible wealth. "Nelson cannot be like others," the hero insisted. "Everybody knows that Lord Nelson is amazingly rich." Emma had to be the proof: fashionable, glamorous, and dripping with expensive jewels, a generous hostess to his relations, his friends, his captains, and the aristocrats he needed to cultivate, as well as being a doyenne of the arts, a charitable patroness, his tireless domestic manager, and a doting mother. In the four years after he bought Merton, Emma worked hard to live up to his dream.
"I am as much amused by pigs and hens as I was at the Court of Naples," wrote Emma with flourish to a friend. Nelson, she declared, "seldom goes to town and for that reason is much desired and sought for. ‘Keeping men off as you keep them on’ will do for men as well as women."∗1 Emma splurged attention on her lover. As Lord Minto sneered, she was always "cramming Nelson with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes on taking as quietly as a child does pap." She invited writers and social commentators to report on their home, adorned with images of their love. Denied a lush wedding or an appearance at court on his arm, she staged extravagant entertainments. The newspapers reported her every move. She, rather than Lady Nelson, received all the requests for patronage, favor, and money that streamed toward the great Nile hero. Minto, now a frequent visitor, thought she wanted a reward for her exertions. "She looks ultimately towards marriage," he decided.
∗ Emma quotes a famous description of the techniques of coquettish Polly Peachum from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.
At the end of April 1802, Nelson heard that his father was seriously ill. Edmund wrote to his son he hoped to recover and visit him to "smell a Merton rose in June." But he grew sicker, and by April 24 it was clear he was dying. Nelson did not visit him. Although Fanny was not nursing Edmund, for relations between them had cooled, Nelson dreaded encountering her if she returned to the deathbed. He was suffering from stomach pain and worried that the coach journey might make it worse. He stayed at Merton to celebrate Emma's thirty-seventh birthday. To distract him from his worry, Emma threw a big party, and they gave themselves even more of an excuse for a celebration by christening Emma's Sudanese maid. Fatima Emma Charlotte Nelson Hamilton was recorded in the parish register as "a negress, about 20 years of age."2 On the same day, Edmund Nelson's fragile grip on life loosened and he died at Bath. Many men tried to avoid deathbed scenes (it was seen as women's work), but Nelson declined even to attend the funeral. Distressed that Nelson's behavior might be considered callous, Emma publicly excused him by declaring that his stomach was causing him such pain that he might need a surgical operation.
Meanwhile, Sir William was making plans to visit his Welsh estates. Emma decided to turn his summer business trip into a triumphal tour for Nelson. Tours were the business of royals, and the idea that a mere admiral might saunter around the country charming the ordinary people was unprecedented. Emma's plan was shrewd: the king hated traveling and visited only the west country for holidays, and his provincial subjects were starved of glamour and celebrity. In planning their tour to cities that never saw anyone from London but merchants, she was determined to capitalize on public affection for Nelson and make herself as famous as Queen Charlotte.
Emma invited the William