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By Root 1380 0

and it seems more likely that she set up as an independent companion for men, contacting old friends and visiting parties. She hoped that Sir Harry might change his mind. The money required to keep her child for a year was a trifle for a man of his wealth, no more than the cost of an evening's gambling. Eighteenth-century society looked forgivingly on the offspring of aristocratic men. Many supported their children or persuaded their wives to bring them up along with the legitimate offspring. Sir Harry was less amenable. He was horrified at the thought of a baby and disgusted at Emma for becoming pregnant.

Sir Harry ignored Emma all winter and left London to join a hunting party in Leicestershire. Once there, he refused to answer any of her letters. She begged Charles Greville for help, but he encouraged her to keep writing to Sir Harry. Many girls in her position used an abortionist, such as the Fleet Street doctor advertising as a "gentleman of eminence in the profession whose honour and secrecy may be depended on," able to ensure that "every vestige of pregnancy is obliterated."3 But Emma wanted to keep her child.

By early January, she was six months pregnant and very afraid. Sir Harry was showing no sign of relenting. She traveled to Chester to stay with some friends of her grandmother. All the while, she corresponded with Greville, who was considering taking her as a mistress. He had asked to see her birth certificate in December (Kelly had presumably instructed her to knock a few years off her age and pretend she was under sixteen). Few men arranged to take on a mistress when she was swollen with another man's child, and Greville exploited his powerful position. Emma, he knew, would have to make all the promises. He did not have to make the contract typical in such negotiations, in which the man offered to supply the woman he chose as a mistress with money, accommodation, clothes, and a carriage. Rather than offer his protection immediately, he waited. In January, she wrote him a desperate, begging letter.

O G what Shall I Dow, what Shall I Dow… O G that I was in your Possession, as I was in Sir H. What a happy Girl would I have been, girl in-dead, or what else am I but a Girl in Distress, in Reall Distress, for God's sake G. write the Minet you get this and only tell me what I ham to Dow, derect me some way, I am almost Mad. O for Gods sake tell me what is to become of me.4

Emma's letter expresses her heartfelt distress, but it is not entirely naive. She borrows her hysterical language from plays about tragic heroines, and also the tales of seduced girls the courtesans acted out in Kelly's parlor. By repeating "what shall I do," she succeeded in communicating her distress without promising that she would not return to Sir Harry or indeed seek another man. Greville seized his moment. He puffed himself up and pronounced, "Nothing but your letter & your distres could incline me to alter my system." Gratified to see the glamour girl of Uppark plead, he was determined never again to see her choose other men over him. On the day he received her letter, he sent a money order and a set of stipulations.

He admonished her that "it was your duty to deserve good treatment" from Sir Harry, criticized her for being "imprudent" the "first time you came to G. [i.e., Greville] from the country," and complained that "the same conduct was repeated when you was last in town." We can deduce that she came to see him from Uppark but then refused to sleep with him or perhaps met with another gentleman friend. Enjoying his revenge, he hectored, "To prove to you that I do not accuse you falsely I only mention 5 guineas, & half a guinea for coach." He had given her money to visit him, and she had not behaved as he wished. Greville pressed home his point:

As you seem quite miserable now, I do not mean to cause you uneasiness, but comfort, & tell you that I will forget your faults & bad conduct to Sir H. & to myself & will not repent my good humour, if I shall find that you have learnt by experience to value yourself & endeavour to preserve