England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [22]
Young people grew up fast. Emma's path through life was so far very typical, and so we might hazard that, like most girls of her age and position, she lost her virginity at twelve (there was no legal age of consent), most likely during the holiday periods of Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, or the Bartholomew fortnight. Fairs were an opportunity for the young to enjoy themselves, and pregnancy was often the consequence. Emma was enjoying herself, but Mrs. Budd was growing increasingly concerned about her behavior. The final straw came when Jane and Emma stayed out all night. Since it appears to have been in early autumn, they had probably been at Bartholomew Fair, enjoying the quacks, laughing at the puppet shows, and flirting with apprentices. When they returned, Mrs. Budd was waiting for them. What she had to say was short: Emma was fired. Something must have made the doctor's wife very angry, for she didn't dismiss Jane, and Emma, although not very industrious, was young, strong, and cheap. Mistresses had a perennial dilemma: if they gave notice to one girl, would the next be any better? Emma may have answered back, or perhaps Mrs. Budd suspected a pregnancy. Either way, her mind was made up, and Emma was turned out and sent straight to the streets.
Nearly a quarter of servants in Emma's time left their position within a week to three months. Servants could be sacked for the slightest mistake or sign of illness, or simply because the family needed to save money or was leaving town. One magistrate estimated that around the time of Emma's arrival in the capital, there were more than ten thousand domestic servants without a position. There was no unemployment insurance, and even if she had been a good worker, there was no guarantee of a reference. Without a recommendation or the money to return home, the single female servant had no choice but to head for the areas where the poor lived and try to avoid falling into prostitution or crime.
Thirteen-year-old Emma already had the energy, beauty, and self-confidence that would carry her far, but such qualities had a darker underside—an addiction to glamour, a hot temper, and a desire to please by winning attention. There was no way that her life of drudgery could continue: she was too pretty and ambitious. On leaving the Budds, equipped only with a few dresses and one or two trinkets from admirers, Emma headed straight for the Drury Lane theater in Covent Garden, the most sensational spectacle in London.
CHAPTER 8
Powder and Paint
Emma, as a squire later described her, was “designed by Dame Nature for the Stage.”1 First, however, she had to find somewhere to live. She fled to her mother, who lived in the St. Giles area, near modern-day Oxford Street, right in the middle of the city2 Paying up to threepence a night, London's new workers slept sometimes twenty to a room and between three to eight to a bed in windowless, rat-infested cellars and garrets. Every drafty crevice was stuffed with paper or rags, and the rooms were pitch dark, even at midday. Going out was as risky as staying in, since ragged, cunning humans awaited in every corner, looking for something to steal, and even a clean dress on a woman would do. Dozens died every week, too poor to do anything more than buy a few drops of gin and sprinkle them on a rag to suck, while stray dogs and rats picked at the sewage around them. Emma was living in squalor, gathering flea bites on her shins, and she had no plans to hang around. She was soon trying for a job at the oldest and most prestigious theater in London.
Her chances of becoming an actress were slim. Hundreds of girls queued at the stage door every month, but few were allowed to audition. Many actresses came from