Читать книгу Patriotic Lady - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 19

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Yet Mr. Greville believed that his Emma loved him; she had so dutifully kept the promises she had made when he had rescued her from the squalor of Hawarden; she had never even asked for anything more than the one or two "creditable companions" he had been induced to allow her; she had worked so hard at her music, her poses, her pencil, she had jotted down so anxiously all her little items of expense. When she had had a little rash on her elbows he had sent her to the seaside with her mother, directing that her child was to accompany her; he thought that maternal emotion might give another turn to her charms; if the child was pretty what a subject for Romney! Emma and her offspring as Motherhood or Venus and Cupid!

Emma went dutifully and reluctantly from Paddington to Park-gate, trying to amuse herself with little Emma as the child was named, but all the while yearning to be home again with an impatience very gratifying to her lover.

The distant coast was dull indeed after the cosy life in London; and the contrast was the sharper as a new and delightful companion had lately enlivened the neat establishment at Edgeware Row; one who amused and flattered Emma and admired her with open, if respectful, rapture. Mr. Greville's wealthy and famous uncle, Sir William Hamilton, was on leave from his post at Naples and a frequent visitor at Paddington, he had been very flattering to "the fair tea-maker" as Mr. Greville named his mistress and she had found him delightfully kind and entertaining.

Sir William Hamilton's sister had been the late Countess of Warwick, Mr. Greville's mother; Sir William was descended from two branches of the noble and ancient family whose name he bore, but had not inherited any great wealth. Pursuing fortune on the field of glory, he had served in the Foot Guards under Prince Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, until delayed promotion caused him to resign his commission in disgust. At the age of twenty-eight, it seemed prudent to him to marry an heiress, though this was, in his own words, "something against his inclination." A Miss Barlow with a Welsh estate worth #5,000 a year was secured, and in 1782 this lady put her husband under a further obligation by dying and leaving him completely free; the only child of the marriage was dead and Sir William at fifty-five (but looking, as he hoped, only forty) had nothing to consider but his own pleasure, if indeed he had ever considered anything else.

Mr. Greville, who had for some years been tacitly regarded as his uncle's heir, was disturbed by the persistent rumours that Sir William, with his tidy little fortune, his elegant sinecure at Naples, his fine manners and well-preserved charms, would soon contract a second marriage.

This growing anxiety was hidden under the cold serenity of the young man, when he sent Emma off to cure the rash on her elbows in her native air and doubtless absorbed him so much that he was not able to answer her loving letters with the promptitude their devotion deserved, though the post was something to blame for the delays that distracted Emma.

The truth was, that, despite his removal to Paddington from Portman Square, despite Emma's care with the pence and Mrs. Cadogan's kitchen economies, Mr. Charles Greville was in money difficulties. What was #500 a year to a collector of brie-`-brae, a man of fine taste, however careful? And there was no sign that the long-promised Government sinecure was coming his way. Marriage with an heiress was the obvious solution to this difficulty, but nothing less than a fortune of #20,000 to #30,000 would do, and this was not so easily to be found.

Mr. Greville accompanied his uncle on visits to the great houses where these gentlemen were welcome guests and confided to him his situation—his inevitable debts, the inevitable crisis ahead—a state of affairs by no means his own fault since he had lived so prudently, indulging even his antiquarian tastes very cheaply.

With these same tastes Sir William had every sympathy; he was himself a most distinguished virtuoso with a taste for the more sensational aspects of science; he had ascended Vesuvius twenty-four times, visited Etna and written a book on volcanoes and in 1767 he had presented to the British Museum a collection of volcanic earths and minerals. Foster-brother of George III and an intimate of the Royal Family, Sir William Hamilton had used his influence with the Prince of Wales to obtain a pension of #100 a year for a certain Father Antonio Piaggi; this he had increased by the same amount from his own pocket and had employed the learned monk to work on the Herculaneum papyri. Taking advantage of his comfortable income, his fine taste, his position as British Minister at Naples, Sir William had enriched his country with the Porticinari collection of Greek vases, which he had purchased in 1766, added to, and sold at a handsome profit for over #8,000 to the British Museum. He was at present engaged in forming another collection of vases found in Sicilian tombs, which he hoped to dispose of for a handsome sum to the King of Prussia.

Sir William possessed, not merely an eye for a bargain, but an eye for beauty, grace and fitness, and he had added to his enthusiasm a careful knowledge; his high position among the cognoscenti of his day had been recognized by an appreciative Government; the Star and Ribbon of the Order of the Bath had brought him his title and the most fastidious of learned English societies had been honoured to receive him as a member; he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of the Dilettante; a man of the world, well-bred, tactful, amiable and used to making himself acceptable to the frivolous and the ignorant. Sir William was nothing of a pedant, and had indeed trained his monkey to quizz through a glass at a statue or a coin in mockery of the dry antiquaries who wearied with their inelegant jargon.

Beauty was Sir William's idol, that beauty which, as Leonardo da Vinci wrote, passes nature and becomes art; he received the most exquisite pleasure from painting, sculpture, music, fine scenery, poetry and all objects of virtu; in particular he was enamoured of the rich grace and vivid colourings of the mural designs being brought to light as the once gay city of Pompeii was excavated from the lava of centuries, and of the voluptuous shapes and precise features of the statues being discovered in distracting profusion on the sites of ancient cities and patrician villas in Italy.

Sir William, who had already resided twenty years at Naples, was Italianate to the core, and his antiquarian researches had produced in him the same kind of renaissance as the discovery of classic treasures had created in the refined minds of the fifteenth century; everything with him, in order to be tolerated, must be antique, and he was as much at home with the dancing-girls and nymphs of the Pompeian frescoes as with the tight-laced, powdered ladies of his own world.

For the rest, he was a Sybarite, with no strong feelings, who had never experienced a powerful emotion, bon viveur, an expert in fastidious pleasures, alive to all the tricks and tones of an idle aristocratic society, inoffensive, never meaning any harm, loyal to a gentleman's indefinable code of honour, and perfectly satisfied with the golden sinecure his embassy represented.

His modest ambitions had all been fulfilled; he was not vexed that he had been passed over when important posts were being assigned to likely diplomats, nor stung by the fact that, had his talents been brighter, or his zeal more striking, he would not have been left so long at a Court which was off the political map.

Indeed, the elegant Scotsman was only too happy to be left in his brilliant backwater; he was credited with the saying: "My country is anywhere that I am comfortable," and he had made himself comfortable, in the highest sense of the word, at Naples.

In appearance he was tall, well made, with features like those of his nephew, Charles Greville, neat and ordinary, but set off by powder, curls, ribbons and smiles, to appear quite distinguished. His manners were lively, racy with the gentlemen, arch with the ladies, and flattering to everyone. He did not deceive himself when he glanced in his mirror and thought that he appeared no more than in the prime of life. He had always tried to balance self-indulgence with prudence whenever prudence was not too galling; in his military youth, his elegant debauchery had gone with a healthy devotion to athletics; he was a good horseman, a graceful dancer, and when in Naples obtained exercise by slaughtering animals in the great battues in the royal parks.

In brief, Sir William Hamilton put up a very fine appearance indeed, was a vast credit to his class, his country, his family, fulfilled strictly all the obligations the world required of a fine gentleman, and was everywhere admired.

But the brilliancy, both of appearance and of attainments, was only superficial; behind that smooth fagade of wit and taste, there was fast setting in a rapid decay of a feeble character; behind that air of vigour were many symptoms of encroaching ill-health. Sir William, who appeared so jocund, so youthful at fifty-five, was in reality fast approaching premature senility.