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 darkness, 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
