England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [189]
Horatia was now nearly nine. Although she had lost her home at Mer-ton and many of her playmates as their parents severed links with Emma, she remained an outgoing and sweet-natured child. She had proved an attentive pupil of singing and music under Mrs. Billington and, proud of how the little girl lived up to Nelson's name, Emma immediately spent some of the money advanced to her by her city friends on appointing her an expensive French governess. She retained Sarah and Cecilia Connor, Horatia's nursery governesses, even though they were no longer of practical use.
The artist David Wilkie was excited to meet the "too celebrated Lady Hamilton" but was disappointed to find that although "lusty and tall, and of fascinating manners," all her attention was focused on her little daughter, a "creature of great sweetness." Emma made it clear that the child was Nelson's. Referring to her daughter as Miss Nelson, as the will had commanded, was simply too daring for some gatherings, and so Emma introduced her as Horatia Hamilton.
Lady Hamilton, knowing me by name, called me and said that her daughter had the finest taste imaginable, and that she excelled in graceful attitudes. She then made her stand in the middle of the room with a piece of drapery, and put herself into a number of those elegant postures for which her Ladyship in her prime was so distinguished. She afterwards told me of all else her daughter could do, and concluded by asking me if I did not think her very like her father.2
Emma was socializing with City gentlemen, sure that the government could not ignore their pleas on her behalf. To repay Abraham Goldsmid for his generosity, she persuaded the Dukes of Clarence, Sussex, and Cumberland to stay with him in town and accompany him to a concert at a synagogue, to the horror of the conservative press. Meanwhile, the "friends of Lady Hamilton" were failing to fix her financial affairs. Germain Lavie wrote to George Rose that he had an "excellent" paper from her in which she listed her services, but he was unsure if anyone in government had ever seen it and where to take it. "I believe I could get half the City of London to sign a commendatory Paper if it would be any help," he added.3 But the government continued to ignore her.
Addicted to spending as a way of dulling the loss of Nelson and all her other ordeals, Emma was too proud to admit to herself that she could not afford to party with London's glitterati. She also had a genius for acquiring some of England's most useless servants. The few she did manage to lose wanted money. Sir William's old secretary, Francis Oliver, upset all his successive employers and resorted to "threatening to publish" secrets about her. One of his disgruntled ex-employers suggested she issue him with an "action for defamation, which would fully put a stop to his nonsense." But he knew too much about her, for Nelson had trusted him to carry some of his most sexually explicit letters to her. As he had written before a torrent of risque comments, "I can give full Scope to my feelings for I dare say Oliver will faithfully deliver this letter."4 Oliver joined a growing list of blackmailers, many of them discharged servants, who had seen everything and were as interested as her creditors in the windfall from her "Citty friends." Her family were equally eager to share her good fortune. Thanks to them, Emma's ruin was ensured.
CHAPTER 53
Trouble with the Relations
I am sorry to hear that you have so much trouble with your relace tions," Mrs. Marie Thomas sympathized. "It is a pity that your great generosity towards them shou'd be so ill-placed." Emma had asked her old employer to settle her troubled uncle, William Kidd, in Hawarden and to send her