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By Root 1472 0

go better with you into company if she was?"10 Emma could not present Charlotte at court, since she had never attended, and her friends were apparently unable to help. Sarah deluged Emma with letters, encouraging her to turn awkward, ill-educated Charlotte into a "Girl of Fashion, what pleasure she would have, when she walk'd across the room, to hear people say, what an elegant young woman that is… perseverance shall do it." Although Nelson was often dubious about his family's greed, Sarah had hectored Emma into believing that helping her family would win his esteem: "How often have I with pleasure seen him delighted with you & hope I shall do again."

All the while, Emma grew more desperate for her lover's homecoming. The death of little Emma weighed on her mind, and by mid-August, Nelson was so worried by her letters that he asked to return to England at the end of the year. He pressed her to keep Horatia at Merton, proposing that the country was the ideal place for their daughter to learn "virtue, goodness, and elegance of manners… to fit her to move in that sphere of life she is destined to move in." His was an impossible dream: the building work had made the house uninhabitable, covered in dust and overrun with workmen. When his return seemed imminent in the winter of 1804, Emma dropped everything and devoted herself to completing the most urgent renovations at Merton. In late December, she spent hundreds on rugs and mirrors from one shop alone. Nelson remained at sea, and she was left with the dozens of guests she had invited to give him a family Christmas, all of them happily eating up the lavish dinners she had ordered for him. In January 1805, again anticipating Nelson's arrival, she ran up even more bills. She bought two long mahogany chests of drawers for £7 each, five cushion covers and six chair covers for £10, a bed filled with the finest feathers for £16, and down pillows for £3, paying extra for transport. By early 1805, her debts were around £7,000, and most had been amassed since Sir William's death two years previously.

Nelson expected to soon be free to "fly to dear Merton where all in this world which is dear to me resides." "I shall lose no time in coming to your dear, dear embraces," he wrote happily. But his homecoming was continually cancelled.11 Emma consoled herself by writing poems to him, dismissing them with ladylike modesty as "bad Verses on my Soul's Idol."

I think, I have not lost my heart

Since I, with truth, can swear,

At every moment of my life

I feel my Nelson there!

If, from thine Emma's brest, her heart

Were stolen or flown away;

Where! where! should she my Nelson's love

Record each happy day?

When Emma was not writing to Nelson, she was shopping. In summer 1805, she spent over £30 storing and transferring her existing furniture and musical instruments between Clarges Street, Brewer Street, and Mer-ton and buying new items. Moving the pianofortes alone cost 14 guineas.12 She bought the finest furniture: a mahogany cabriol chair with upholstered arms and seat, six scarlet and green ottomans, more mahogany chests of drawers, a mahogany coffee table, a Kidderminster carpet at £14 for the master bedroom, and more for chandeliers. She then paid £15 to move the furniture out so that the house could be whitewashed.

To enable Horatia to live at Merton, Nelson wrote a letter for Emma to show to curious visitors in which he explained that the child was an orphan "left to his care and protection" in Naples. Although Nelson had found a position in the navy for Charles Connor, the son of Emma's aunt, her other Connor cousins were always demanding money. Nelson decided that the eldest girl, Cecilia, should become Horatia's governess at "any salary you think proper."13 Emma paid Miss Connor a substantial wage, and later also appointed her sister Sarah as governess. Emma Carew also visited Merton. Nelson was sorry to miss her. As he wrote, "I would not have my Emma's relative go without seeing her."

Merton was beginning to correspond to Nelson's dream: a grand, spacious house, full