All for love, p.1
All for Love, page 1
PRAISE FOR
TOO GREAT A LADY
“A thoughtful retelling of the life of a common-born beauty and her infamous love affair with Admiral Lord Nelson.”
—Susan Holloway Scott, author of Royal Harlot
“An energetic portrait of a unique historical figure.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] sweeping, emotionally intense portrait of…one of the most famous romantic couples from history…. Emma Hamilton is a historical novelist’s dream subject, and her fictional voice is as entertaining as it is convincing. Elyot is a rising star in the realm of biographical fiction.”
—The Historical Novels Review
“The author is seemingly a master at anything! Too Great a Lady is a truly an exceptional novel. Emma is bold, courageous, and yet her innocence is also well portrayed. The characters are sublime and the plot is delightful. Amanda Elyot turns out historicals that are unlike anything you have experienced—they’re that good!”
—Round Table Reviews
“An interesting historical ‘autobiography’ of Lady Emma Hamilton…the most notorious kept woman of the era.”
—The Best Reviews
PRAISE FOR THE OTHER NOVELS OF
AMANDA ELYOT
“Divinely conceived…white-hot passion…engrossing.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Blending mythology with history…[an] unforgettable journey.”
—Booklist
“Elyot keeps the action moving with lots of exciting drama…[a] fresh take on a legendary woman.”
—Library Journal
“Teeming with period detail…a sly peek into Austen’s England.”
—Lauren Willig, author of The Masque of the Black Tulip and
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
“Richly textured…[a] fresh and wickedly clever tale.”
—New York Times Bestselling Author Mary Jo Putney
All FOR Love
THE SCANDALOUS LIFE AND TIMES OF ROYAL MISTRESS MARY ROBINSON
AMANDA ELYOT
New American Library
Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Leslie Sara Carroll, 2008
Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 2008
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Elyot, Amanda.
All for love: the scandalous life and times of royal mistress Mary Robinson/Amanda Elyot.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-1150-2
1. Robinson, Mary, 1758–1800—Fiction. 2. George IV, King of Great Britain, 1762–1830—Relations with women—Fiction. 3. Actresses—Fiction. 4. Mistresses—Fiction. 5. Authors, English—18th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.A77458A79 2007
813'.6—dc22 2007024752
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For my aunt, Gloria Goldsmith,
a redheaded writer who has allowed
neither adversity nor infirmity
to silence her pen
THERE IS NOT A WOMAN IN ENGLAND SO MUCH TALKED OF AND SO LITTLE KNOWN AS MRS. ROBINSON.
—MORNING HERALD, APRIL 23, 1784
I HAVE EVER BEEN DISPOSED TO SPEAK MY SENTIMENTS TOO FREELY. WHAT I DISLIKE, I CONDEMN; WHAT I LOVE, I IDOLIZE…I WRITE WHAT MY HEART PROMPTS. PERHAPS IMPRUDENTLY; CERTAINLY UNARTIFICIALLY.
—MARY ROBINSON
LETTER TO WILLIAM GODWIN, 1800
Contents
Act OneMy Father Had a Daughter…
Prologue
OneMore Sensibility Than Sense
TwoThe Mistress and the Mentor
ThreeA First Proposal and a Last Good-Bye
FourPapa Returns
FiveEnter Garrick
SixBig Plans
SevenMr. Robinson
Act TwoMarriage Vows as False as Dicers’ Oaths
EightCaught Out
NineTregunter
TenMaking an Entrance
ElevenTwo Startling Confrontations
TwelveFlight!
ThirteenThe Fleet!
Act ThreeAll the World’s a Stage
FourteenA Second Chance
FifteenMarked Attentions
SixteenEnter Prince Florizel, Stage Left
SeventeenRoyal Flush
EighteenThe Prince’s Mistress
NineteenRiding High
TwentyDashed from My Lofty Perch
Act FourPassion’s Slave
Twenty-oneLeader of the Cyprian Corps
Twenty-twoMy Heart Dragooned
Twenty-threeMisfortune’s Mistress
Twenty-fourVotes for Kisses
Twenty-fiveA Woman Made of Words
Twenty-sixCourting Trouble
Twenty-sevenNobody
Act FiveIn Polish’d Form of Well-Ref ined Pen
Twenty-eightMightier Than the Sword
Twenty-nineBrandishing the Banner of Women’s Rights
Afterword
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Act One
My Father Had a Daughter…
Prologue
Imagine a meteor. Perhaps it will work better if you close your eyes. From the soft darkness that lies behind your shuttered lids you can picture it more clearly. You cannot hear its progress as it whooshes through the sky. The only aural proof of its passing is your own voice exclaiming “Aah!” in wonderment, if you can discern your expression of astonishment from the chorus of equally infatuated voices beside you. But you can see the meteor, can’t you? Blazing through the night? Is it any wonder that we never think of meteors illuminating our days, daring to compete with the sun?
No, in our minds meteors are creatures of the night, which makes them even more alluring, even more a subject of fascination. Like actresses, and courtesans. Like me.
That’s what they called me in my days of triumph. A meteor. A comet, too, on occasion. An atmospheric phenomenon observable by its incandescence as it streaks across the sky. From the Middle English comete, which derives from the Old English cometa, which springs from Latin, which comes from the Greek kometes—literally, long-haired. A long-haired celestial body with a highly eccentric orbit. Like a young girl from the rising middle class who becomes a wife and mother while still in the bloom of adolescence; then an actress and courtesan, a lover, a poetess, and a champion of the rights of women. Of course, there were other women of my age whose accomplishments won them the same journalistic epithet: other celebrated actresses; other royal mistresses and notorious courtesans—my greatest rival in that sphere, Dally the Tall, comes to mind—others made famous for their novels, plays, and poetry; and others—such as Mary Wollstonecraft—who brandished the banner of equality in their sisters’ names. Yet I own it’s worth a mention that not a single one of them, save myself, was all of those things. The press were wrong, you see. I was not merely a comet, or even a meteor. I was an entire shower of them.
One
More Sensibility Than Sense
One night in 1765…my eighth year
“Dream well, my rosebud,” my handsome father whispered. As Papa bent down to kiss me good night, his olive-tinted skin smelled comfortingly of bay rum and tobacco. I cherished the low rumble of his voice; when it was the very last sound I heard at bedtime, I knew the next day would be a lucky one. In the half-light, for then I feared to fall asleep in total darkne ss, I could still make out his striped waistcoat with its shiny brass buttons. Even as he tucked me into bed he looked like he was preparing to head off to the exchange.
But in the middle of that night I was shaken awake by the sound of raised voices. My parents rarely quarreled, so deep was the affection that ran between them. Mother saw Papa as I did: strong, kind, and generous.
“Their schooling, Nicholas. What do you expect me to do? Surely you do not expect proper English children to grow up like savages in the wilderness? Mary is the darling of the Miss Mores. And when Miss Hannah took her girls to see Mr. Powell in King Lear at the Theatre Royal, Mary was in raptures for weeks, eager herself to tread the boards. Miss Hannah even wrote a special part for her in one of her dramatic parables.”
“I merely thought, my dear, since you can scarcely bear to spend a moment apart from any of the children, that it would be more amenable to you to take them with us. If their education concerns you more than their companionship, perhaps it would be better to leave them here.”
“And board them somewhere? With strangers? I don’t even board Mary at the Miss Mores’.”
“I am endeavoring to please you, Hester. It is only because of my esteem for you that I leave this decision in your hands, rather than ordering you to do your duty as my wife in whichever manner I see fit.”
“And I thank you for that, my love. But each prospect seems so terrible to me. It is not just the health of their minds that I fear. Illness, dampness, droughts, disease. Before we even reach Greenland’s shores—not halfway to our destination—we shall be compelled to endure weeks of being tossed to and fro in the middle of the sea like so many crates of tea, with no one to hear our cries should we become imperiled. My stomach turns at the merest thought of our accommodations.”
My father grew testy. “Hester, I expect to be abroad for two years, perhaps longer. I should not ask you to join me on this venture were I not keenly aware of its dangers and equally certain of your safety and of the children’s. You must think me a monster to believe that I would ever willingly put my family at such risk.”
“How can it not be a risk?”
“Are you refusing to accompany me?”
The saddest and most plaintive moan escaped my mother’s anguished lips. “Nicholas…I dared not breathe a word of this to you, certain you would find it silly…I have such a horror of the ocean that it mortifies me to confess it. And I fear that even for your own dear sake, such dread is not to be borne, much less overcome.”
Her words might as well have been made of iron, forming the nails for her coffin. Mother spoke her mind, revealing her darkest fears to the man she loved with every fiber of her being, and was to pay a horrible price for it.
In my early years growing up in Bristol, though I had three brothers, I was still my father’s favorite. I was the one who’d replaced their little Elizabeth—the pink angel they lost to the pox before she reached the age of three. We were cosseted, petted, and spoil’d as rotten as week-old cabbage, given the finest of everything, as befitted the children of a successful—though often absent—British merchant and his doting wife.
I never was permitted to board at school, nor to pass a night of separation from the fondest of mothers. Mother adored her handsome husband and he delighted in her sweet and open nature. I recall caresses, even kisses, exchanged in front of my brothers and me, and gifts were bestowed in abundance. Mother’s jewels were enviable, for my father possessed exquisite taste and the money to put it to good use.
I slept on crimson damask sheets in a bed fit for a princess. My dresses were ordered from London. We dined on the very best china and plate. And during the summer months we were sent to Clifton Hill for the advantages of a purer air. Mother was the kindest of women; if she had any faults, it was her too tender care that she lavish’d upon my brothers and me.
My father was a North American born of black Irish stock, a man of strong mind, high spirit, and personal intrepidity, and it was all three of those noble qualities that removed him from his family on more than one occasion. But from the moment of that midnight quarrel, my life’s course took its first shattering turn, for Papa had devised an eccentric scheme as wild and romantic as it was perilous to hazard—and it would take him away from us forever.
In my romantic girlish mind my thoughts of him would fluctuate as if riding astride a pendulum. In one instant he was the American seafarer, off on another exotic venture to a faraway and savage land; but in the next moment Papa was the British merchant who would desert the family he adored when, surely, closer to hand there were equally prosperous projects to be explored. Caught between worshipping him and being cross with him for leaving all of us to fend as we might in his absence, I was as quick to defend him as I was to condemn. He broke my heart as often as he mended it.
After many dreams of success and many conflicts betwixt prudence and ambition, when I was but seven years old Papa departed for Labrador to establish a whale fishery amongst the Esquimaux Indians there, believing he could civilize them and teach them the necessary skills that would eventually make British America’s whaling industry topple that of Greenland’s, its greatest rival. It turned out to be a double farewell, for my elder brother, John, was sent off to Italy at the same time, apprenticed to a mercantile house in Leghorn.
My parents corresponded as frequently as practicable. At first, their letters were full of fondness, even ardor, for each other, as well as Mother’s fears for Papa’s health and safety, and his repeated tender assurances that all was well and that he missed his adoring family dreadfully. He would return to England even wealthier, as triumphant for himself as for the economy of king and country, and every day would be a holiday under the Darby roof. But gradually, the tone of his letters began to change. Warm affection was supplanted by a civil cordiality, as if he now wrote from duty rather than desire. My mother felt the change, and her affliction was infinite.
“Why did I not conquer my fears?” she lamented to me, as she pressed my auburn curls to her bosom. “Why did I let my own timidity divide me from the very man to whom I pledged myself, body and soul, and consigned my fortunes?”
At length, a total silence of several months awoke my mother’s mind to the sorrows of neglect, the torture of compunction. “Has he forsaken us for my trepidation?” she would worry aloud.
And then, one horrible day, the penny dropped.
Two
The Mistress and the Mentor
1766…age eight
“I have heard something from Lord Chatham,” Mother wrote to my father, “which has been the cause of the greatest consternation; I beg of you to break the truth to me.”
Lord Chatham, the elder Pitt, had been one of my father’s sponsors, financing, along with others, a portion of Papa’s commercial exploration in Labrador. His lordship would never have been indiscreet enough to speak of another’s affairs, but one unguarded remark with regard to her husband’s domestic arrangements put my mother into a dizzying panic.
At long last, a letter arrived from Labrador. There was a woman named Elenor, an attachment whose resisting nerves could brave the stormy ocean, and who had consented to remain two years with him in the frozen wilds of North America.
This intelligence nearly annihilated my mother. “When had she appeared?” Mother demanded to know. “How long have you been deceiving me that our home was a happy one, one to which you truly yearned to return? When did your letters first ring with falsehoods?”
