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By Root 1509 0

he hurried to London for his final sailing orders, and then they had the day to themselves. After dinner, the post chaise arrived to whisk him away. He whispered a prayer beside the bed of the sleeping Horatia. Then he said his good-byes to Emma: he promised to be true, to always love her, and never to sleep off ship, and he encouraged her to rally her spirits. Then he left. She could only weep hopelessly. "I am again broken hearted," she mourned. "It seems as though I have had a fortnight's dream, and am awoke to the misery of this cruel separation. But what can I do? His powerful arm is of so much consequence to his country." After not even twenty-five days with Nelson, she was alone again.

Nelson wrote in his diary on the road, "Friday night, at half-past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all I hold dear to this world, to go to serve my king and country." He arrived at Portsmouth at 6 a.m. and scribbled a quick line to Emma. On board the Victory, he dined with George Rose, vice president to the Board of Trade, soon to be treasurer of the navy, and pressed him to pursue the issue of a pension for his beloved. "I love you beyond any Woman in this World and next our dear Ha," he promised. "How I long to settle what I intend upon her and not leave her to the Mercy of any one or even to any foolish thing I may do in my old age."7 While he was home, however, he did not get around to arranging a settlement, and Emma did not push him. Nelson believed himself invincible, and she was confident he would return. "Cheer up," he wrote to her from the ship, "and we will look forward to many, many happy years, and be surrounded by our children's children."

CHAPTER 48

Trafalgar

After Nelson's departure, Emma traveled to Canterbury with the William Nelsons. On October 4, she wrote to him praising Horaria, and forwarding a letter from Cecilia Connor who, with Mrs. Cado-gan, was caring for her at Merton. Cecilia had taken Horatia to London to buy shoes, stockings, and a hat for her new doll and helped the little girl to make her doll a sumptuous bed with pillows and a mattress.1 "What a blessing for her parents to have such a child, so sweet, altho' so young, so amiable!" exulted Emma. Mrs. Cadogan, she reported, "doats on her, she says she could not live without her."2 Nelson wanted Horatia to be good at languages, like her mother, and Emma reported she was already picking up French and Italian.

My heart cannot bear to be without her. You will be even fonder of her when you return. She says, "I love my dear, dear godpapa, but Mrs Gibson told me he kill'd all the people, and I was afraid." Dearest angel she is! Oh, Nelson, how I love her, but how I do idolize you—the dearest husband of my heart, you are all in this world to your Emma. May God send you victory, and home to your Emma, Horatia, and paradise Merton for when you are there it will be paradise.3

Emma begged for details about life at sea, for "the smallest trifle that concerns you is so very interesting." After passing on tidbits of local news and Lord Douglas's request for some Turkish tobacco, she confessed she "had begun to fret at not having letters from you."

By far the hardest role for a navy wife or mistress was the waiting. Women scoured the newspapers and chased their friends for scraps of news in order to guess the whereabouts of the fleet, and relied on the other navy wives for emotional support. Authorities in port towns were constantly battling to suppress fortune-tellers, card readers, and white witches, for sailors' wives flocked to them, desperate for any reassurance they could find. Many sailors married other seamen's daughters, girls schooled in the self-discipline needed to wait out long periods without news. Emma was not used to being left alone, and as she did not socialize with the wives of Nelson's captains, she was unable to draw on the friendship of other women waiting for their men. By mid-October, she was back at Merton, trying to keep herself busy by overseeing the renovations to the house. Little Horada, she wrote sadly,