England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [88]
In August, Sir William, Emma, and Mrs. Cadogan visited Sir William's niece Mary Dickenson and her husband in Derbyshire, then traveled to visit his friend and relation, William Beckford, England's richest man and biggest hedonist, at his eccentric mansion, Fonthill Abbey, near Bath. Fonthill cost the extortionate sum of £250,000. Covered with oriental trappings, it was staffed by a pet dwarf and—gossips claimed—slaves. Very few were allowed to enter its opulent doors. The visit was a great success. Beckford wrote to Sir William, "The only glorious object I have set my eyes upon since my arrival in this foggy island is the Breathing Statue you have brought over."7
The party traveled on to Bath. Emma met Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was holidaying in the town with her sister, Lady Harriet Duncannon, and Lady Elizabeth (Bess) Foster, sometime mistress to the Duke of Devonshire, along with their children and Bess's daughter by the duke. The usually sparkling Devonshire set was in anxious disarray. Lady Harriet was suffering, reviled by society after an affair with Emma's old manager, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The Duke of Devonshire was so furious with his wife about her debts that he had stayed away, and Georgiana was reeling from her discovery that she was four months pregnant by the young Whig politician Charles Grey.
The duchess aimed to cultivate the future wife of the envoy to Naples, for she thought she might have to flee to Italy with her illegitimate child. She believed Emma's claim that she had been married to Sir William for two years, and sympathized with her that she had not been invited to meet the Queen of England. Bess jealously decided that the "celebrated Mrs Hart" was "a very handsome Woman" but "vulgar." The word vulgar had a particular meaning: a social arriviste who behaved above her station and was insufficiently humble. Like most of those who met Emma, Bess praised her Attitudes wildly but slyly referred to her past: "as an excuse for that vulgarity and as a further proof of the superiority of her talents that have burst forth in spite of these disadvantages, that Mrs Hart was born and lived in the lowest situation till the age of 19, and since that in no higher one than the mistress of Sir W Hamilton."8
Emma did not dare visit her daughter. She could not risk the press discovering the existence of the little girl, and she knew that Sir William wanted her by his side. So Mrs. Cadogan, possibly accompanied some of the way by Greville, traveled to Manchester. Nine-year-old Emma had heard that Mrs. Hart and her husband-to-be were in England and hoped they might visit her, even take her away with them. Eager to show she was an accomplished young lady, she had spent days ornamenting a box with filigree. A complex and time-consuming task, especially for a child, filigree involved rolling up strips of colored paper into tight curls and sticking them over the box to create an overall picture of flowers. Her effortful display of her industry, patience, and feminine skills went to waste. When Mrs. Cadogan arrived alone, little Emma was deeply disappointed and blamed herself. After a difficult visit, Mrs. Cadogan battled the heat and traveled on to Hawarden. Emma's grandmother was seventy-six and wanted to see her daughter before she died.
Emma returned to London from Bath on August 22 after what one friend described as a "frenzy" for her, with people going "mad about her wonderful expression."9 "She is the talk of the whole town," Romney declared:
she really surpasses everything both in singing and acting,