The Volcano Lover (52 page)

It went on with the admiral, he was a man who didn't change. I never saw one worship a woman as he did, he still couldn't take his eyes off her. And his face lit up when she came into a room even if she left it a moment before, but it was just the way I felt when she came into a room all my life. But I was her mother. There's no love like what a mother with no husband has for her only child. No man feels that for a woman, no woman for a man. But I have to say that the admiral came close to what this old mother felt. But then we both loved the same person, who was the finest woman in the world. And I had the joy of knowing her all her life, and he only knew her for seven years.

It was sad when the old husband died, even though they had been expecting it and hoping for it, that was natural, because then they could have their child with them, and we could be a proper family, if only the admiral's wife would die too or let him divorce her. The old man didn't suffer too much, he just stopped fishing, that was the first sign. And then he didn't talk much, and then he took to his bed in February and at the end when it got worse asked to be taken back to the house in London, which was a fine house, full of rich furniture paid for by my darling selling all her jewels. I did most of the nursing. He trusted me because I was old like him, though not as old, and I still was full of spirit. I rubbed his feet. And he died there in April very peaceful, with my darling and the admiral right there on both sides of the bed holding him.

I got a shock when the will was read. It was a heartless mean will. But my darling said it didn't matter, that she always knew Charles was his heir, already when she was with Charles, before she ever met him. But think of all that happened after that, I said. Shh, shh, she said. She wouldn't let me talk of it. And Charles put us out of the house a month later. But we found another though it was small, and that should have been the beginning of a new life, but then the war started again and my darling's love had to go back to sea and he stayed away a year and a half! They were desperate. He was sent all over chasing Boney, to the West Indies and in the Mediterranean again, he even stopped at Naples. It seems, my darling told me he wrote her this, our old house there was now a hotel, and not a very clean hotel either. We were glad the old ambassador didn't live to hear that, for it would have cast him down, but it didn't bother us too much, at least not me. You have to know when to let the old life go, and go on and not look back and have regrets, I always say. Otherwise you will always be sad, because you are always losing something. That's the way life is, if you let misfortunes strike you too hard, you won't see the new chance coming. If I didn't know this I would not have had such a
GOOD LIFE
. And the same for my darling, because on this point she had the same opinion as me.

So we remained hopeful, and the following year her beloved came home and—

But it didn't come true as we hoped. My poor, poor darling. They only had eighteen days together, and the house the whole time was full of his officers and people from the Admiralty.

I kept telling her all would be well, he had come back each time, he would come back again. But this time, she said, there will be a great battle. That's why he goes. I told her he was better than the French, that she was born under a charitable star, that everything had always turned out, but it didn't this once.

And after he died, Captain Hardy told her with her name on his lips, everybody turned their back on us except the creditors. The old man had left her something a year and three hundred pounds to pay debts, but she had many more than that. And we moved to a smaller house, and then still smaller, we had the child with us now who had his name, but there was nothing from the crown, no pension as she was supposed to have, even to bring
HIS
child up properly. She had to be generous, and have some pleasures, which make more debts, and servants and a governess for the child, and be drinking a bit too much but so was I, what else was there to do when everybody becomes so cruel. But I said to her, you'll see things will not always be thus, we have each other, and some man will help you. And there was a neighbor in the country who sent us money, a kind man, I think he had sympathy for us because folk scoffed him too. And I said what about Mr. Goldsmid, and she laughed, but now her laugh was bitter, and said Abraham Goldsmid is quite happy with the wife and the fine family he has. And I reminded her that no man could resist her, no matter how fine his wife, but she made me promise never to speak more of my notion about her and Mr. Goldsmid, and so nothing came of that. But the good man did send us some money from time to time, and I hope he will be let into heaven for it.

So in the end it was not to be better. For everyone deserted her, even the one she loved most, though he did not mean to die, but why go about the boat in his admiral's frock coat and his stars so a French sharpshooter could find him easy and kill him, if he wanted to stay alive to come back to her. Men are so foolish. Women may be vain, but when a man is vain it is beyond believing, for a man is willing to die for his vanity. Everyone deserted my poor darling, even I deserted her four years after when the little admiral was killed, and I wanted so much to be with her and take care, she needed caring so, and she could count on me. I do not want to tell what happened to her after. My daughter was very unhappy when I died.

3

There was some magic about me. I knew it from the way others responded, had always responded to me, as if I were larger than life. Then there are all the stories told about me, some false, most of them true.

Only thus can I explain why I was once so praised, why so many doors were opened to me. I was very talented, as a performer. But it could not have been only my talents. I was intelligent, curious, quick, and though men do not expect a woman to be intelligent, they often enjoy it when she is, especially when she applies her mind to what is of interest to them. But there are many intelligent women. And do not suppose I underestimate the power of beauty—how could I, since I was so scorned when I lost it. But there are many beautiful women and why, I ask, is one, even for a time, named the most beautiful. Even that part of my reputation, my celebrated beauty, testifies to something I had that was more inclusive, that compelled attention, like a ring of light.

I can describe what it sometimes made me do. I recall myself when still a small child lingering on the road in my village one winter day, lingering, looking about me, and feeling the look flowing out of my eyes. It took in this one, and that one, all shivering and sour-faced in their toil and their idleness. I already felt myself to be different, and it came to me that I could warm them with my look. So I started walking along the road, warming them, drawing them to turn toward me. It was a foolish child's fancy, to be sure, and I soon put it behind me. But when I was grown, whenever I walked on the street or entered rooms or gazed out of the windows of houses and carriages, I still felt: I must find with my look as many as I can.

Wherever I went, I felt chosen. I do not know from where I drew such confidence. I could not have been
that
extraordinary, and yet I was. The others appeared so easily satisfied, or resigned. I wanted to awaken them and make them see how glorious this existence was. The others were usually trying to be calm. I wanted them to appreciate themselves. I wanted them to love what they loved.

It was better when they were obsessed. I was not obsessed, but I was always eager. Even when beautiful, I was never elegant. I never withheld. I was not snobbish. I was effusive. I craved the exaltation of fervent affection. I didn't have to embrace. Bodies didn't have to rub and sweat together. I loved to pierce and be pierced with a look.

I heard the sound of my own voice. It embraced the others, it encouraged them. But I was even more skilled at listening. There is a moment when one must be silent. That is the moment when you touch the other's soul. Someone who is pouring out feeling—whom you have helped bring to that point, perhaps by the display of your own feeling. And then you look deeply into the other's eyes. You make a little mmmm or ahhh, an encouraging, sympathetic sound. For now, you just listen, really listen, and show that you take what you are hearing into your heart. Hardly anyone does this.

It is true that I labored without stint to become what I could become, but I also had the impression that success was easy, prodigiously easy. Within a year after I was given my first singing lessons in Naples, with the allowance given to my mother and me for all our expenses set at one hundred and fifty pounds a year, the Italian opera in Madrid wanted to make me its prima donna at six thousand pounds for three years. And there were several such offers of contracts from European opera houses, all of which I refused without regret.

If I wanted to sing, I could sing well. When I needed to be brave, it was easy for me to be brave.

Whatever I did not do well, I had not tried to do well—sometimes because I had understood that a higher attainment would have obliged me to alter my character and contain its overflow. Thus, I was adept at the piano, but I never played as Catherine did, I am sure. I lacked the necessary melancholy, the inwardness. But I could represent emotions with my body, with my face. Everyone marveled at my Attitudes.

I could not help it if I had an actress's talent. If I liked to please. What could I do if I understood so quickly what others desire. And who would have protected me if I had not schooled myself to triumph over my temper. But I used my heart to draw others to me. More than once I saw the Queen, in order to get her way with the King on some matter of state, take herself into his presence and then smooth a pair of long white gloves over her arms. The King loved women's arms and their gloves. I didn't use tricks like that. I had no need. It is really very easy to please. It is no different from learning. In the world which scrutinized me, my accent was noted with disapproval, as well as my spelling, which I did improve. But had I not loved my mother so much, I do not doubt I would have shed all traces of my rustic origins, and spoken an English pure as moonlight. As I said, for a long time I could always do what I really wanted to do.

It was said I flattered everyone shamelessly—my husband, and then the Queen, and other people who could be useful to me in Naples, and finally my beloved. I flattered, yes. But I
was
flattered. Mr. Romney told me that I was a genius, a divinity, that I had only to pose and the painting was done; the rest was mere transcription. My husband thought I was all his vases and statues, all the beauty he admired, come to life. My beloved sincerely thought me superior to all womankind. He called me a saint, and told everyone I was his religion. My mother always told me I was the finest woman in the world. And I was regarded as the greatest beauty of the age.

This could not have been good for my character. But it is not my fault such things were said.

Even when I was thought the most beautiful I did have one defect, or was it my beauty that had the defect: my small receding chin. Then, while still young, my body thickened. I drank, not to counter lowness of spirits but because I was sometimes angry and knew I would be rebuked, perhaps abandoned, were I to show it. I was often hungry. I saw my chin become heavy. One sultry night as I turned in my bed, I felt my belly, and I thought, something has happened to my waist, my body is changing. Without my beauty, my shield, everyone could mock me.

Everyone said how coarse and monstrous I had become. It was always thought that I talked too much. I own that I always had something to say. My life had great velocity. Then it was spent. My detractors would no doubt be pleased to know I was quite silent at the end.

I do not have as much to say now as you might suppose.

Had he lived, I would have been happy. But he died, winning the great victory expected of him. He died with my name on his lips and in his will left his daughter and me as his bequest to his king and country. I received no pension. I and his child were not even invited to the funeral, the most glorious ever staged in England. The whole nation was in tears. But I can't help thinking some were relieved that he died at the summit of his destiny, that he did not survive to live as an ordinary man, having an ordinary life, with me, in my arms, with our child, and more children. For I would have gone on having children, as many as I could, his gifts of love to me and mine to him.

I did not beg and plead and complain until after my beloved died. Then I discovered that no one would help me—that my destiny was to be an embarrassment, an encumbrance to everyone.

After my beloved left my arms to go to Trafalgar, I never embraced another man again. How my detractors must regret being unable to charge me with lustfulness. Nor were there grounds for describing me as mercenary, though they would have liked to spread that calumny, too. I never cared about money, except to spend it or buy presents. My affections were never guided by the desire to lead an easeful life: I would have been content to live in modest circumstances or even in poverty with the one I loved. Sometimes I think of a quite different life that might have been mine. I would not have minded being less beautiful, as long as I was not plain. I would not have minded being a fat old woman hobbling up the church steps at the end of a life that was not so sad.

People will be very sorry they spoke so cruelly of me. One day they will see that they were abusing a tragic figure.

What am I charged with? Drunkenness, debts, vulgarity, unattractiveness, a siren's lures. Oh yes, and complicity in murder.

I will mention one of the stories told about me which is not true. I am said to have felt guilty afterward for not intervening to save Doctor Cirillo, and to have known at the time that innocent blood was being shed at Naples. It was told that I had nightmares until the end of my life and, on some nights, like Lady Macbeth I would walk in my sleep and cry out and raise my hands to look for the blood. I do not believe I felt guilty. What was I supposed to feel guilty for?