He called her ‘the divine Irenide’, a teasing reference to the woman she might become in ‘his’ South America. Miranda may have been a daredevil and a dreamer, but his dreams had real substance. He inspired Hester to think that life could be different and better. Miranda’s belief that men and women should be equal in society, and that women should be admitted to higher education and free to direct their talents where they saw fit, was probably for Hester a revolutionary idea (and to her far sweeter on Miranda’s lips than the same notions already expressed by Mary Wollstonecraft). In his new South America, there would be no limit to human achievement; the new Venezuela would be the most enticing of all future meritocracies, set against marvels of natural beauty and without the weight of the old, exhausted, and over-refined cultures of England and Europe. Certainly, he caused Hester to rethink much of what she believed about a great many things; and once Miranda had begun opening doors in her mind, it was hard for her to shut them.
As summer drew to an end, Hester packed up once more. Like anyone who moves around a great deal, she seems to have felt a certain fatigue towards her belongings. She left behind two of her prized possessions, large paintings of Pitt and the Duke of York.12 She also planted an orange blossom tree – the ancient symbol of marriage and fertility – at the foot of the farmhouse garden.13 Perhaps this was a gesture towards what she felt had been taken away from her, or an expression of hope that her chances were not all over – or perhaps there was something that had been precious to her that she wanted to bury underneath it.
When Charles Meryon stepped through the door of Hester’s temporary lodgings at Green Street, he was surprised to be met not by a footman or maid, but by a foreign-looking gentleman who introduced himself as General Miranda.14 Meryon, who was still only partially qualified, was completing his medical studies at St Thomas’s. Nonetheless, ‘Dr Meryon’ was ushered directly into the dining room to sit at a table, which was scattered with maps and books.
The man whose future would for ever be entangled with Hester’s was tall and slender, with pleasant, somewhat deferential features, and a mouth that had a tendency to curve upwards into a smile no matter what his mood. His chestnut hair was fashionably close-cropped, and he often blinked his long sand-coloured lashes. He had pink-rimmed eyes. Unknown to Hester, his eyes were raw from crying. Four days earlier, a nineteen-year-old girl with whom he had been conducting an affair had died as she gave birth to their daughter. By cruel coincidence the day of her funeral – Tuesday, 9 January 1810 – was the same day he had received a note from Hester summoning him. One of Meryon’s friends was the son of Dr Cline, under whom he studied, and his name had been put forward.
By the time Meryon left that night, he had accepted all Hester’s terms. They were to spend a year or more in Sicily. He had to be ready to leave immediately. She asked him about his family at Rye, and about his travels to France. He was startled when she suddenly changed the subject and told him that she hoped she could rely on his discretion. She related an anecdote about a certain doctor employed by someone she knew, and whose name was also familiar to Meryon, who lost his practice after saying of a patient after her death that she ‘was one of the most beautiful corpses he had ever seen, and that he had stood contemplating her for a quarter of an hour’. This woman had been ‘a person of rank’, like herself, Hester warned, and that doctor’s ‘comment, made in an unguarded moment to a friend, ruined him’.
Certainly, as he mulled over the meeting that night, Meryon must have wondered at what an extraordinary turn his life had just taken.
Around three in the morning on 13 January 1810 Hester closed the door of 14 Green Street for the last time. James and his army friend Nassau Sutton were already in Portsmouth, as was Meryon; she had also sent her servants Elizabeth Williams and Ann Fry ahead of her. There were no witnesses to her sudden mood of agitation. By the time she reached Portsmouth late that evening, a steady icy rain assaulted the carriage windows. Instead of feeling tired, when she settled into her room at the George Inn on the High Street, Hester’s mind was racing.15
Indecision plagued her. The previous week, she had sent a flurry of letters to Miranda; she had requested immediate replies, indeed she called for a ‘verbal answer’. Miranda dined with her twice that week. Something was discussed between them, something so important to Hester that it could not be written down. When her emotions were engaged, Hester often acted precipitously. That week, it seems that without too much discretion, Hester put out her own feelers on Miranda’s behalf. She approached Lord Mulgrave, an old Pitt loyalist, to see whether the Admiralty might offer Miranda passage at least part of the way to Caracas.
Perhaps she misunderstood one of Miranda’s throwaway comments: that he would go away with her if he could, if they were on their way to South America. Judging by her actions in the week before her departure, whatever he said was strong enough for her to consider changing her own plans. He seems to have told her to await word from him, while he toyed with the possibility that he might join her in Portsmouth, either to bid her farewell, or even – and he may not have expected her to truly believe this – to board a frigate together.
On 15 January, having not heard from him but expecting him to materialize at any moment, Hester could bear the uncertainty no longer. That afternoon, around four o’clock, she wrote a long letter – insistent and urgent – to Miranda:
As I cannot guess what you have done, I can only advise in case you have done nothing adverse to what I propose. The wind is foul & has every chance of remaining so. I should at all events leave town on Wednesday morning & go with Seymour, with his present convoy, if we cannot manage what I now recommend. There are 3 convoys here, one for the West Indies, which runs for the South, one for the Straits & one for Lisbon, the latter of which the Manilla [sic] belongs to. There are no less than 12 frigates exclusive of Line of Battle attached to these convoys & certainly the Manilla [sic] might well be spared – Seymour has no objection whatever (& he mentioned even solicited) to take you all the way though he fears you will be uncomfortable … I should at any rate go with Seymour if you can leave town Wednesday & Doctor Maryan [sic] on Thursday night by mail or Thursday morning in a chaise, we shall be able to embark this Friday … The town is quite full but I will get you lodgings in time for you if you write tomorrow night – I am quite well … I entreat you, come off on Wednesday, if the wind is the same. Do not be deceived about it – there is a fine weather cock on Chesterfield House. If the wind remains from the South, to West & North West, they cannot sail. God bless you …16
The letter details preparations Captain Seymour is ready to make on his behalf:
Seymour has a fire, is putting up bulkheads, will accommodate your maids on sophas [sic] in your own cabin & will manage the baggage as well as he can – and insists that once they have set off he will be duty-bound to carry his passengers all the way – They cannot refuse you his ship to go on with from Lisbon.17
She apologizes for sending the express so that the letter would reach him by one o’clock that night, a service which cost a shilling per mile. In order to receive the letter, Miranda would have had to pay almost £4, an astronomical sum.18