Life Mask Read online

  'Eliza,' Mrs Farren corrected herself. 'I do try, really; I never call you the old name in company at least.'

  'Thank heaven for that! Betsy Farren sounds like the kind of jolly hoyden Mrs Jordan might play, who pops into breeches for Act Three to play a trick on her lover; I don't know how I bore it so long.'

  'I rather favour what we christened you: Elizabeth; you can't go wrong with a good old saint's name.'

  Eliza's mouth set; she thought she'd won this skirmish years ago. 'Eliza's vastly more elegant. Your chin, Mother—'

  Mrs Farren snatched up her napkin to wipe away a trace of ragout.

  Eliza did feel slightly guilty for her impatience with her mother. After all, should she—as a public figure—not be considered a sort of business, a joint enterprise in which Mrs Margaret Farren, no less than her eldest daughter, had sunk all her energies and resources? Hadn't the woman invested in Eliza's rise all the pragmatic cunning gained in a long hard career as an untalented actress in a barnstorming troupe and wife to its drunkard manager—and now this new business was so flourishing, wasn't she even to be consulted about the name under which it traded? The two partners might disagree on small points, but they had a common goal: the fame and lasting fortune of Miss Farren of Drury Lane.

  'Don't you like em, then, the tides and Honourables at Richmond House?' asked her mother, mopping her plate with a crust.

  Eliza hesitated. 'The Richmonds are very kind and Mrs Darner's delightfully enthusiastic; she's the only one who's learned most of her lines. But all in all ... I don't know, Mother, it's like a tasty dish that's hard on the stomach.'

  'Ah.' Mrs Farren nodded in sympathy.

  'And how tiring! These soi-disant Players know nothing, they can't tell Prompt Side from Opposite Side and Sir Harry's mispronounced the opening line of the play a dozen times now. They've never done a day's work in their lives—well, except for Mrs Damer, I think she's learned discipline from her sculpting. But the fact remains I can't click my fingers or lose my temper with them as if they were apprentices at Drury Lane; I have to hint and request and if it wouldn't be too much trouble, sir and madam, might I suggest? And Mrs Hobart's always asking for "a brief respite", and then Dick Edgcumbe suggests she might feel the better for "some restorative cordial", meaning port all round at two in the afternoon!'

  'They're charming people, though,' said Mrs Farren with a foolish smile. 'How they dress and deport themselves, and how they converse...'

  'And how they drink and gluttonise, and gamble their fortunes away,' added Eliza, grinning despite herself. 'But seriously, I admit all the charms of the well-born. Isn't it odd, though, with what relish they take the lowest roles?'

  'That's right,' said her mother. 'Who'd have thought that stiff Mrs Bruce could stoop to play a saucy maid like Muslin?'

  'She adores it! Whereas I've always played higher than myself at Drury Lane and even now I dread making an uncouth gesture or a slip of the tongue. Do you remember that cruel critic who said my laugh still smacked of the barnyard?'

  'Oh, my sweet, that must be seven years back, now,' protested her mother.

  'I remember, I practised in the parlour,' said Eliza, 'laughing as musically as I could.'

  'Until I begged you to stop, in case the neighbours thought we had a madwoman locked up in the house!'

  Eliza let out a small sigh. 'I don't dislike the Richmond House Players, but I'm not at ease among them. Being their manager is the hardest part I've ever taken on and I'm not getting a shilling for it.'

  'Ah, but it's sure to pay off in the long run,' said her mother with a wink that screwed up half her face.

  Eliza wished she wouldn't do that; it was like something out of a burletta or pantomime. 'You mean that with these new connections I'm on the brink of entering the World?'

  'I mean, my dear child, that you're on the brink of becoming the next Countess of Derby!'

  'Mother,' said Eliza, 'you mean to annoy me.'

  'I don't—'

  'We've agreed, haven't we, that such speculations are both pointless and tasteless as long as the person in question has a wife still living?'

  Mrs Farren's mouth was sulky. 'She's said to be in very poor health. I see a lot, during rehearsals, over my sewing; his Lordship's showing you off to his old friends and they couldn't be more enchanted.'

  Eliza got to her feet.

  'Oh, won't you take some more ragout? Or a custard? Some nuts, to finish? You'll need your strength tonight for your Ben. You never seem to keep any fat on,' fretted her mother.

  'I'm perfectly well,' said Eliza, giving her an exasperated half-smile.

  DERBY HAD been obliged to spend the afternoon in his study on Lord-Lieutenant of Lancashire business; although the position would really only become important if Britain were at war, he made a point of answering all correspondence by return of post. Above his Queen Anne desk in heavily carved mahogany a marble life mask of his grandfather looked down. An only child, left motherless at seven, Derby had been raised by and among sporting men. His father had been a bad-tempered fellow who'd married a fortune—hence the adding of his wife's name Smith to Stanley—and died of apoplexy in his fifties without ever succeeding to the Derby tide. By far the strongest influence was the boy's grandfather, the eleventh Earl, who'd combined in one plain but aristocratic face all the serene strengths of manhood, until his death at the great age of eighty-seven. Every milestone in Derby's youth—Preston Grammar School, Eton, Cambridge, election to Commons and marriage at twenty-two—had earned his grandfather's nod and the strangest thing about inheriting,the tide, at twenty-three, was that the old man had not been there to approve.

  The traffic was like treacle; it seemed half the evening was gone when Derby's carriage finally crawled up Drury Lane, but it was only half past seven. Under the scented wax, he could still smell singed hair from the Parisian coiffeur's tongs; how ironic that wearing one's natural hair took so much more work than wigs used to do. He shifted his left shoulder a little in his tight brown frock coat; it got harder to breathe in these things every year. Clothes might be simpler these days than they used to be—which suited an ugly man better—but they were so much tighter that once a fellow was in full evening wear, he was good for nothing but conversation. If Derby tried to climb a hill in these sleek breeches, for instance, he'd geld himself.

  Glancing out of the window on to Drury Lane, his attention was caught by a crudely painted message: DAMN THE DUKE OF RICHMOND. Such wall scrawling was becoming rather common, now that more of the lower orders could read and write—but Derby'd had no idea the patron of their private theatricals was so widely hated. Of course, the Foxite newspapers had been stirring things up against Cabinet Ministers recently, he remembered with a twinge of guilt—pointing out to their readers, for instance, that Charles II had granted the first Duke of Richmond a perpetual duty on Newcastle coal, which meant that every time they bought a hod the tax went straight into the Master-General of the Ordnance's personal purse. Still, that was a fact—not the kind of low abuse of Fox and Sheridan with which Pitt's hacks filled the government-funded papers.

  The carriage turned into Russell Street, where the sight of the tall, slim theatre always lifted his spirits; it had been remodelled by Mr Adam, who'd done such a marvellous job on Derby House. For the past six years, ever since he'd met Eliza Farren, Derby had subscribed to the same box, no. 3. Tonight, when he walked down the corridor to the little partition door—his footman rushing to hold it open, with the Earl's greatcoat, gloves, hat and cane under one arm—Derby's eyes took a moment to adjust to the dazzle of hundreds of candles from the chandeliers that hung low over the auditorium. This was probably the brightest space in London. The house was almost full tonight; at least 1800 heads, he estimated. He looked up to the lower gallery, where tradesmen and out-of-towners sat peeling oranges or reading a printed sheet of the story of the play—though Derby couldn't imagine how they could be ignorant of such a famous plot as Sheridan's School for Scandal. Near the ceil
ing, in the upper gallery, sat the real troublemakers, in his view—labourers and servants, who thought paying their shilling entitled them to shout out for music or repetition of speeches at any point.

  Fox popped his bushy head into the box. 'How's England's pre-eminent sportsman?'

  'Sit down, man. You're looking well.' Derby meant healthy rather than handsome. Fox had a face like a mountain, jowls flowing into his collar, with an absurd dimpled chin. Wings of hair hung out of his wide-topped black hat and his eyebrows were like furze bushes. As he fell into a chair, his old-fashioned long waistcoat gaped where a button had popped and his shirt gave off a whiff of sweat. Derby saw his friend for a moment as if for the first time. And here, he marvelled, is our Party's leader, the Champion of the People, chief mentor to the Prince of Wales; this grubby fellow is the great liberal thinker of our age and future saviour of our country ... A surge of fondness went through him. In the long years of committee meetings and frustrating campaigns, as the Foxites chafed out their time on the Opposition benches while George III and his pet minister Pitt ruled on implacably, nothing had shaken Derby's loyalty to this man—and it seemed unlikely that anything ever would.

  'How's the lovely Mrs A.?'

  'In the pink,' Fox assured him with a grin. 'It was hard to tear myself away from the rural delights of St Anne's Hill for dear Miss Farren's Benefit Night, but as a former thespian herself, dear Liz quite understood.'

  'I must pay you another visit when the weather warms up.'

  'Do, do! The house may be poky but somehow we can always cram in enough beds for our friends. Our crocuses are up in the beech wood and daffodils too.'

  'So you've been gardening?'

  'Yes, and reading Ariosto,' said Fox, 'and looking into the origins of Whiggery; I've started drafting an account of the reign of James II and the Glorious Revolution.'

  'Splendid; I've always thought you a scholar manqué.'

  'Really'—he sighed—'I couldn't ask more of life than fine weather and the company of a lady I love more and more every year.'

  Derby was pricked by envy. After his own marriage had broken apart he'd had the good fortune to meet Liz Armistead. She'd already withdrawn from the stage to be the most expensive courtesan in London, but she was worth every guinea; she had a good heart that her new profession had done nothing to coarsen. Derby had set her up in a villa in Hampstead and insisted she learn to ride, which she grumbled about at the time but was glad of later. At the end of the summer Mrs A. had moved on to another keeper, with no sore feelings on either side.

  It was when she'd taken up with Fox that she'd retired from being a courtesan; they were a love match (well, he'd never had the funds for it to be any other way). For years, now, she'd looked after the great man with a passionate fidelity that few wives could match and his friends were all grateful to her. Derby sometimes found himself wishing the impossible, that he could introduce Liz Armistead to Eliza Farren as a living proof that to give in to the pleasures of the flesh was not to become disgusting. But ladies never met Mrs A.; she was a gentleman's woman, having been passed between princes and lords and Honourables for so long like a cup of good cheer.

  'I see the afterpiece is about ballooning,' said Fox, glancing up from the playbill. 'D'you recall, a few years ago, when they were all the rage? I wagered you I'd fuck a woman in a balloon 1000 feet above the earth.'

  'I never forget a bet,' said Derby with a grin. 'Two guineas to 500, I believe. Why, have you done it?' he asked, pretending to beckon to his footman for his pocketbook. 'Simply produce your witness.'

  'Ha ha!' Fox's drooping hazel eyes were as warm as a dog's. 'I don't think m'dear Liz would be on for it nowadays; it's a bit draughty in the clouds, don't you know.'

  Derby savoured a brief, discreet memory of Mrs A.'s warm thighs. A knock at the door. 'That'll be Mrs Damer,' said Derby, and Fox jumped up and tried to straighten his waistcoat.

  One thing Derby liked about Anne Damer was that there was never any awkward consciousness of sex between them; he wasn't constantly reminded that she was a woman. Not that she was some old dowdy; she dressed well and Derby had a bias towards slimness, even if curves were more fashionable nowadays. Mrs Damer was looking very tall and handsome tonight, with her aristocratic nose and her dark hair powdered white to match the voluminous fichu that filled the neck of her bodice.

  'Lo, the Muse of Sculpture.' Fox kissed her hand three times.

  She smiled at him. 'How very good to see you.' Mrs Damer was devoted to Fox, Derby knew; her feelings seemed rather like the Magdalene's for Christ, if that wasn't too blasphemous a comparison. If she'd had the luck to be born as a son to Field Marshal Conway instead of a daughter, it occurred to Derby now, she might very well have ended up an MP in the Foxite camp. The thought was slightly disconcerting.

  'We've seen nothing of either of you since Christmas,' Fox was complaining to his friends, 'and Georgiana's vewy cwoss about it.'

  Derby was never quite sure whether Fox, like many of the Duchess of Devonshire's intimates, had picked up her baby talk, or was gently parodying her.

  'Miss Farren's working us like mules at Richmond House,' Derby explained.

  'Oo, yes, I can't wait to see The Way to Keep Him. Might I spy on a rehearsal?'

  'You might not,' said Derby.

  'The presence of the Champion of the People would throw us off entirely,' Mrs Damer told Fox with a hint of mockery. 'Now, you must report to Georgiana that I'm wearing this wide red sash she gave me. I never need to waste my time reading fashion magazines, I just follow the Devonshire party line.'

  'Yes, she's a marvellous whip when it comes to style, no less than politics.' Fox laughed.

  The prompter's bell rang three times and the orchestra struck up; Fox rushed off to the Devonshire box. A moment later Horace Walpole let himself in the door, tall but stooped in an old-fashioned black silk coat with skirts down to his knees. He always tiptoed, as if afraid of a wet floor, Derby thought.

  'Coz, I feared you were laid low with gout in your toe again,' said Mrs Damer, kissing his cheek.

  'Not a bit of it,' said Walpole, struggling with a chair. The footman glided forward to move it for him. 'I was paying calls on my friends in the other boxes.'

  'Heavens, that could have gone on all night,' remarked Derby.

  'Well, indeed, I'm rich in that respect,' Walpole murmured as he settled his narrow frame on the chair, 'but I tore myself away, for fear I'd lose dear Miss Farren's opening lines.'

  'She'll be so grateful for your support,' Derby told him. He knew the two cousins would be sure to send the actress at least 5 guineas each and the house was sprinkled with the other Richmond House Players who'd received his reminder notes. Subtracting house expenses of, say, £140, Eliza might hope to clear £400 from tonight's Ben. Absurd, the devices Derby had to use to help the woman he loved earn what he considered a meagre living.

  Now there was a stir in the house. Out came Bannister the Younger to speak the prologue, with its satire of a tea-sipping gossip slavering over the morning papers.

  A School for Scandal! tell me, I beseech you,

  Needs there a school this modish art to teach you?

  At last the green baize curtain twitched and began to rise. Behind the arch, flats showed Lady Sneerwell's dressing room. The oil lamps in the wings, lighting up the actors, couldn't compete with the glare of hot light on the audience's faces.

  Lady Sneerwell was a snide, indiscreet version of Viscountess Melbourne, Derby remembered, and Snake the creeping journalist was thought to be Sheridan's caricature of himself. The funniest role—written for, and based on, Jack Palmer—was that of Joseph Surface, the wicked brother who wore a mask of piety. The tall, bow-legged fellow's winking asides to the audience made Derby weep with laughter. Tom King was making quite a good job of Sir Peter Teazle, the cross old husband whose bride had thrown off her innocent country ways and turned worldly within months of the wedding. King was once known as the Monarch of Comedy, Derby rememb
ered, but these days his forces were rather faded; being manager of Drury Lane under Sheridan's rule seemed to be wearing him out.

  Eliza came on at the top of Act Two, in a stylish blue redingote with big red buttons, and to Derby it seemed as if the whole audience sat up a little straighten He joined in the cheer. 'Authority/' she repeated pertly to her husband.

  No, to be sure:—if you wanted authority over me, you should have adopted me, and not married me: I am sure you were old enough.

  Derby let out an enormous laugh and Eliza glanced up at him with a flick of the eyelashes that made his heart thump.

  Lady Teazle, with her flower-filled rooms and new hats, her quick repartee and giddy goodwill, was really the most charming of the woman-of-fashion roles that were Eliza Farren's forte. (No wonder Georgiana had been flattered when Sheridan had based the role on her.) Derby could easily imagine being Sir Peter, who tried to hide how much he doted on his bride:' With what a charming air she contradicts everything I say? He realised he was falling into a fantasy of being married to Eliza; he shook himself. If he didn't pay attention he'd miss the best jokes. 'She has a charming fresh colour;' remarked Mrs Candour. 'Yes,' replied Lady Teazle, letting the pause stretch, making the crowd wait for it...' when it is fresh put on!'

  Between the second and third acts there was an entr'acte, with a comic dance; Derby had his footman fetch some bowls of lemon ice. 'There's no one like Miss Farren,' said Mrs Damer. 'How she sparkles and glints, and mints every line anew! Isn't it strange, though, how different one feels about someone's performance when one knows her, even a little?'

  Walpole was considering her with a slight squint. 'You mean you enjoy it more?'

  'Not quite,' she said, wrinkling her high forehead. 'The pleasure's no longer unmixed with anxiety.'

  'But she's never given a bad performance,' Derby couldn't help saying.