England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [45]
Greville went on to explain to Emma how he expected her to "preserve" him. She must give up Harry and her other lovers and see only him. "I would not be troubled with your connexions (excepting your mother) and with Sir H.'s friends for the universe." If she pursued Sir Harry again or chose to "hunt after a new connexion, or try to regain the old ones you gave up as lost," then the deal would be off, for "it would be ridiculous in me to take care of his girl." However, he added, if "you mean to have my protection, I must first know from you that you are clear of every connexion, & that you will never take them again without my consent." Emma would be required to sever all contacts, not only with Sir Harry and old paramours but also with friends, fellow courtesans, and her entire family other than her mother. She would have to come to town "free from all engagements" and "live very retired." Even her maid, Sophy, would have to go (he promised the girl money and a "good many kisses"). Presumably a Londoner, poor Sophy was stranded in Chester because Greville could not bear Emma to have a servant who had worked for her when she was companion to many men. Emma was not even allowed to keep her old name. "You should part with your maid and take another name…. I will get you a new set of acquaintances, & by keeping your own secret, & nobody about you having it in their power to betray you, I may expect to see you respected and admired."5 She had no choice but to accept his terms. The bargain was agreed.
Deeply relieved to have a protector, Emma spent the following days staying with friends and then family in the Chester area, who were all smiles now that Greville was sending her money. Then she set off back to London, in a little more comfort than she had experienced when she was twelve. Greville had warned her to ensure that she should not "be on the road without some money to spare, in case you should be fatigued and wish to take your time," so she was able to take perhaps a week, allowing herself to stop at inns and eat properly. When she arrived, exhausted and disoriented, Greville was probably not there to meet her (escorting on journeys was usually the job of a servant, and moreover, Greville was paranoid that anyone might see him with the famous Miss Lyon, mistress of Sir Harry). Instead, his servant took her to a lying-in house for the final weeks of her pregnancy, probably in the City or East End, where they were most common. There, attended by the landlady and an occasional midwife (doctors were expensive and called only in emergencies), she waited to give birth. Greville probably did not visit, for he would have been nervous about his coach being spotted outside a lying-in house. In her January letter to Greville begging for help, Emma added, "Don't tell my mother what distress I am in" (he must have met Mary the previous summer when he entertained Emma in London) but it seems he did tell her, and perhaps Mary visited Emma at the lying-in house.
As many as one in ten eighteenth-century women died in childbirth, or within a few days of delivery, and even mature matrons dreaded giving birth. Many wrote letters to their unborn child in case they died. Only seventeen, Emma was terrified. She was weakened by bloodletting, a practice fashionable in lying-in houses. When the time came, she would have lain on her left side, with the knees bent up and drawn to the abdomen, a position recommended in lying-in houses because it allowed the patient to preserve her modesty and avoid looking at the doctor if he was needed. Wearing a shift tucked up under the arms, she gave birth to her baby. There was no anesthesia, and cesareans were carried out only if the mother died in labor and the child was still alive. Emma had no drugs or alcohol to dull the pain (lying-in houses tended to forbid them). She had to give birth by herself, for the alternatives were terrible. If a woman could not eject the baby, then she died undelivered (the option for poor women) or the doctor began a horrific operation