• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1345 0

from Pompeii, and musicians poured through the doors, along with dozens of English visitors who treated their envoy's house as a tourist office, restaurant, and private club. Warned by Greville that "Emma's passion is admiration," Sir William invited his friends to praise his guest. Mrs. Damer found herself suddenly excluded from Sir William's attentions. There was no point in fighting—he was utterly wrapped up in his darling new visitor. He was, as Emma wrote, "doing everything he can to make me happy, he as never dined out since I came hear, & endead to spake the truth, he is never out of my sight, he breakfastes, dines, supes, & is constantly by me." Mrs. Cado-gan was left alone to sort out Emma's clothes and battle against the "fleas and lice" of which Emma complained "their is millions" infesting their first-floor rooms. Only in her early forties, a little older than Mrs. Damer, and fifteen years younger than Sir William, Mrs. Cadogan was firmly demoted. Like Greville, Sir William needed to separate Emma from her background, and he did so by treating her mother as a domestic servant.

Emma was being treated like a princess, but she still yearned for Greville: "I am sure to cry the moment I think of you." No coach rides, plays or operas "can make me happy, it is you that as it in your power." Anxious that Sir William was becoming overly attentive, she begged her lover, "For my sake, try all you can to come here as soon as possible." Sir William's flirtations were much more intense than they had been in Edgware Row, for he was always "looking into my face, I cant stir a hand, a legg, or foot, but what he is marking as graceful & fine." She worried that he was angling for sexual favors and made it clear she would ignore him. "I can be civil, oblidging, & I do try to make my self as agreeable as I can to him, but I belong to you, Greville, & to you only." Everything, she wrote, "depends on seeing you" at the end of the summer. "How happy shall I be when I can once more see you, my dear, dear Greville."

Sir William had admitted to Greville "some anxious thoughts on the prudent management of this business," but he was dismayed to find Emma ignorant of what he expected of her. When she begged him to send Greville money so he could travel over to collect her, he realized that it was time to tell her the truth. Overwrought at his revelation that Greville was not coming for her, Emma rushed to her writing desk. "I have had a conversation with Sir Wm. that has made me mad. He speaks half I do not know what to make of it." She could not believe what she had heard.

I hope happier times will soon restore you to me for endead I would rather be with you starving, than from you in the greatest splender in the world…. I will not venture myself now to wright any more for my mind & heart is so torn by different passions that I shall go mad, onely Greville, remember your promise, October. Sir Wm. says you never mentioned to him abbout coming to Naples at all…. I live but in the hope of seeing you & if you do not come to hear, lett what will be the consequence, I will come to England… Greville, my dear Greville, wright some comfort to me, pray do if you love me.

Believing she would be gone for just a few months, Emma had arrived in Naples with only a handful of holiday clothes and without having wished good-bye to her child. Now Sir William had informed her she had no lover and no home. She shut herself in her room, wept for days, and scrawled in desperation to Greville.

Sir William read her miserable letters.3 Shocked by her reaction and angry that Greville had lied to him and her, he eased off on the sexual advances. He accepted that he was not going to succeed (or at least not immediately) at making her his temporary mistress, and focused on enjoying her company and showing her the city he loved. He dreaded her return to England. As he wrote to his niece, Mary Hamilton, congratulating her on her recent marriage to Mr. Dickenson, "it is most terrible to live chiefly alone." Although he teased that he had a "female visiter from England,"