Life Mask Read online

  'Oh, but that's Court dress; he'll have been with His Majesty at St James's this morning.'

  Was it impossible for Eliza to spend more than five minutes in Mrs Damer's company without exhibiting her ignorance?

  Now the young widow was bowing to friends at the other end of the Gallery: Lady Melbourne (vastly pregnant), the Devonshire House set, the Richmonds. Eliza felt a prickle of embarrassment. It was a fact that she and Mrs Damer were becoming friends—somehow, despite the disparities between them—so why did Eliza feel such a fraud, sitting here by her side?

  'Why is it that you almost never speak in the Lords, Derby?' Mrs Damer was asking. 'You're proving such a splendid Lovemore—'

  'Oh, it's easy among friends, when the lines are in my hand,' he said ruefully. 'No, my job is to canvass for Foxite votes behind the scenes. Quiet influence, civil manners, a word in the right ear at the right moment, that's the thing.'

  Eliza smiled, wondering if this was something Derby regretted slightly.

  'I suppose, considering the eloquence of Fox and Sheridan and Burke, our Party hardly needs another orator,' said Mrs Damer. 'The vast majority of Members and peers are as mute as slugs,' she told Eliza. 'They come—if they bother to come at all—to vote as their leaders, or the King, or whim directs them.'

  It sounded to Eliza as if the two Houses were much like the two patent theatres: a handful of stirring speakers and a sea of listeners.

  'Do you ever wish you'd been a second son,' Mrs Damer asked Derby, 'so you could have sat in the Commons instead of the Lords?'

  'Oh, this is a more exciting arena,' he admitted with a smile. 'In the Upper House we only tinker and polish. Fox lives in dread of his nephew dying young, which would foist a barony on him and bump him upstairs! But you know, we peers have an immense influence; the Commons is foil of our sons and brothers and chosen candidates,' he said, encompassing the benches with a wave of his finger. 'A good half of these seats are under patronage.'

  'Owned, you mean,' said Mrs Damer sternly. 'I do hope Re-form will do away with many of the pocket boroughs.'

  'Well, yes, of course, that's a laudable aim,' he said rather defensively. 'But till that time, I can assure you I put in two good men in Lancashire.'

  Interesting, thought Eliza, she seems even more of a Whig in her principles than Derby is.

  A stir in the House; Sheridan had risen to his feet. Derby craned to one side to see past the ranks of visitors. Elegant in a brown jacket, Sheridan looked strong in the shoulders; he pushed his notes aside and didn't give them another glance. Beside him sat Fox, and that brilliant boy Windham, and Burke, the thin, sad-mouthed sage of the Whig cause in his tiny spectacles. Funny, Eliza thought, how two Dublin nobodies like Burke and Sheridan had come to such prominence in a Party of English aristocrats. Personally, she'd always found it best to downplay her Hibernian connections, especially since her father had lived up to the joke by dying of drink.

  The speech began, and Eliza soon had to admit that it was gripping. Sheridan surveyed the twenty-two high crimes and misdemeanours with which Warren Hastings was charged as former Governor-General of India, then he focused on the most serious. The Begums of Oudh were the venerable princesses of a noble family of Indian Muslims whose treasures had been seized by Hastings on the false pretext that the ladies had been fomenting rebellion. As Sheridan warmed to his theme, he shaped the mass of petty details into a grand drama. His eyes were brilliant; they transformed his face, so you barely noticed that patch of itchy red on his nose and cheeks that the government papers called his mark of Cain and attributed to brandy. He spoke fluently, Eliza observed, never rushing, never forgetting to face the Speaker; every figure and date came as if it had been burnt on to his memory. His voice was lulling and smooth—no trace of a brogue—but his words were fiery.

  She had to grant him this: Sheridan might be an appalling proprietor of Drury Lane—the stack of new plays he left unread was known as the Funeral Pile and it was clear he was really only in it for the cash nowadays, to fund his elections—but he was a masterful politician. And something else, which she respected rather more: a self-made gentleman. He'd started out in life no higher than Eliza—his father an Irish actor like hers—and look at him now. Without benefit of tide, wealth, foreign travel or distinguished connections, he'd crafted himself into a man of the World. He moved, dressed, rode and spoke better than his tided colleagues (well, she supposed he had to); he'd even fought two duels over his beautiful wife. And recently he'd yoked his fortune to the highest star by joining Fox in playing mentor and bottle friend to the Prince of Wales—though Eliza sometimes wondered how they could bear the whims of such a petulant young lord.

  Some ladies to her right let out faint moans and Eliza paid attention to the speech again. Sheridan was describing the violation of the sanctity of the Zenana, where the Begums had lived in female seclusion. Hastings's men, he revealed, had kidnapped and tortured the family's loyal eunuchs to reveal the whereabouts of the treasure. Really, the thing was like some fantastical Oriental burletta; Eliza was on the verge of a giggle when she caught Mrs Darner's eye and straightened her face.

  'The attack on the Begums stands for a whole shameful history of corruption,' said Sheridan. 'It exemplifies all that is rotten at the heart of the British Empire.'

  'Strong meat,' murmured Mrs Damer.

  'Are the people of far-flung lands to be herded and trampled like beasts to fill the pockets of idle nabobs?' he demanded, glancing up at the corner of the End Gallery where a knot of flashily dressed East India Company men sat, scowling over their canes. 'Man,' he declaimed, 'was never meant to be the property of man.'

  Mrs Damer seized Eliza's hand. 'That's one in the eye for the slavers!'

  As the afternoon wore on, the audience stirred and shifted, and some pushed their way out—Eliza was in a slightly desperate condition herself and wishing she hadn't drunk coffee this morning—but the crowd never lessened. Derby's footman shuffled along the row with a hamper of bread and cold meat for him and the ladies. 'Gad,' Eliza whispered, 'it's nearly six o'clock. The fellow has stamina. I'll never call him a layabout again.'

  'And in all this time he's never once lost his memory, nor his temper,' marvelled Derby. 'Sherry's the best speaker we have.'

  Finally, standing tall and very still, Sheridan urged the House to impeach Hastings as a way of ensuring such barbarities would never be committed in King George Ill's name again. 'Would not the omnipotence of Britain be demonstrated to the wonder of nations by stretching its mighty arm across the deep'—here his arm shot out to its full reach—'and saving, by its fiat, millions from destruction?'

  And Eliza, tired and uncomfortable, caught the fervour; she could almost see it, justice gliding across the surface of the earth like a dazzling white hand, transforming all it touched. Sheridan fell into his seat and mopped his face with a handkerchief. Burke crushed him in his arms; Fox ran over to kiss him and Windham patted his thigh. The House erupted like a firework display. Cheers rang out, howls and frantic applause. Men were on their feet, tears streaming down their faces; women flapped their fans like the wings of desperate birds. Down in the chamber the stiff-legged Members surged on to the floor. Anne Darner's eyes were glittering with tears. Derby was shouting in Eliza's ear, 'I've never seen anything like it.'

  No, it was gone now; she felt flat again.

  Pitt was consulting with Dundas; he stood up to announce that he'd support the Honourable Member's motion after all. This caused a hum of surprise. 'What, is he convinced?' Eliza asked.

  'Not a bit, but he can read the mood of the House,' Derby told her. 'The ayes will have it!'

  For the vote, the End Gallery was cleared. 'Thank God that's over,' said Mrs Damer as they emerged from Westminster Palace. 'I don't know about you, Miss Farren, but my nerves couldn't take much more.'

  'Nonsense,' said Derby, 'a stronger-nerved pair of ladies I've never known.'

  They laughed like children, blinking in the orange sunset.r />
  'He should publish today's speech,' remarked Mrs Damer, 'that would relieve some of his terrible debts, surely?'

  'Ah, but Sherry can't abide publication; he claims the words wilt on the page.'

  'Ironic, for such a magnificent writer,' complained Eliza.

  'The way he put it to me once,' said Derby, beckoning to his driver and steering them towards the carriage, 'he said—if you'll pardon the language—he said, "History won't give a damn what we've said, only what we've done.'"

  APRIL 1787

  Their beautiful little theatre at the side of Richmond House was finally ready. It made all the difference, gave all their movements more dignity; instead of edging from side to side of a reception room, they entered and exited like proper players at last. The scheme was blue and gold, borrowed from the Queen of France's stage in the Petit Trianon, according to Lady Mary, and there were comfortable chairs in raked rows, instead of the usual benches. Right now the only audience was Mrs Farren, embroidering E.F. on a handkerchief in the third row from the back.

  'Act One, Scene One, ladies and gentlemen, from the top, William and Sideboard playing cards,' repeated Eliza, not letting her voice carry a trace of irritation. 'And Sir Harry, do remember, it's "Aplague go with it!"' she enunciated.

  'That's what I say, isn't it?'

  'Yes, but it comes out rather like A play go with it. You must pronounce the two gs quite distinctly.'

  A sigh from the Baronet as he took up his pose.

  'I'm sorry to be such a tyrant about this,' Eliza said charmingly, 'but it's the very first line of the play; we don't want the audience muttering to each other, "What did he say?", "What's the fellow on about?'"

  The Players all tittered at her imitation of a crabby dowager.

  Eliza suppressed a yawn; her jaw barely moved. She was always running these days: a hackney to Drury Lane for morning rehearsals (she'd slept through two, and had to pay a steep fine of ios. 6d each time), stewed beef brought in from a tavern (Mrs Farren prided herself on never letting her daughter go without a hot dinner), a change into a better dress, the Derby carriage to Richmond House to oversee rehearsals, then home to Great Queen Street for an hour with her script for next month's new play, before Derby was at the door to take her to Drury Lane for that night's performance of whatever it was, in the hopes of making 2000 people laugh.

  Muslin the saucy maid scattered the pack of cards. 'Ah, Mrs Bruce,' murmured Eliza, 'if you remember, it was decided that in rehearsal you should only pretend to throw the cards about, because they take so long to pick up again...'

  'Oh, a thousand excuses, Miss Farren,' said Mrs Bruce, 'I was so busy thinking of my lines, the thing went right out of my head!'

  They all waited, frozen in position, as the Richmonds' housemaid ran in to collect the cards, far more deftly than Mrs Bruce as the maid in the play could have done.

  Sir Harry Englefield was relaxing into the kissing scene now, Eliza was glad to see. Where once he and Mrs Bruce had pecked the air stiffly, begging each other's pardon, now they were going at it like veterans, smacking each other on the lips between every line. With an odd pang, Eliza remembered herself at thirteen in Liverpool, nerving herself for her first stage kiss with a stubbled actor—and finding out that it was no more intimate than any other bit of business.

  Dick Edgcumbe had got the knack of doing asides at last and the others were remembering not to look at him. 'By all that's soft, she listens to me!' he hissed and leered.

  'Splendid,' Eliza said, then wished she hadn't, because he dropped his part, the pages coming loose from their string. Would he never have his lines off by heart?

  Derby, watching her, counted the twelve days they had left before the first performance of The Way to Keep Him. He would happily go on rehearsing under Eliza's direction for the next ten years. It was the perfect excuse to spend the day with her, drinking in the elegant lines of her neck, the light in her aquamarine eyes, the angle of her fingertips when she held her fan. The repetitiousness of rehearsals never bored him; he was beginning for the first time to understand the alchemy his beloved worked on the stage at Drury Lane, night after night.

  'Now, enter the Widow Bellmour, reading—'

  Mrs Hobart ran on, holding her book, then bent her face to it.

  'Walk on while reading,' Eliza reminded her gently, 'as if lost in thought.'

  Derby caught Mrs Darner's eye; they shared a little grimace of exasperation. How was a careless rake like Lovemore supposed to be passionately enamoured of a widow played by the stout, clumsy Albinia Hobart?

  'The fault I mean' she boomed, 'is the want of due attention to the art of pleasing ... To win a heart is easy; to keep it the difficulty'

  'I do wish our manager could have played the Widow Bellmour herself,' he breathed in Mrs Darner's ear.

  'Richmond asked her, you know.'

  Derby hadn't.

  'But she rejected the very idea of mixing amateurs with professionals.'

  'She'd have made a great Lovemore, even,' he said, rueful, 'if she hadn't sworn off breeches parts years ago.'

  Mrs Damer nodded. 'We'll never be ready in a fortnight,' she said grimly. 'We badly need a burnishing.'

  A polish?'

  'Yes, but done with a certain violence,' she told him. 'When the clay's dried, one rubs it very hard all over with a smooth tool.'

  Derby's mouth curled up in amusement.

  'My Lord?' Eliza was crooking her finger; he'd missed his cue. Her tone was a little chilly. He never quite knew where he was with her these days. Sometimes she greeted him in the hall of Richmond House, her eyes sparkling, but other days he moved to greet her and she looked at him with the polite disdain of a stranger. He rushed to lounge on for his wooing of the bulky Widow, calling her 'a palace in need of a tenant'.

  Mrs Hobart answered with a ghastly girlishness: 'I will let it to none but a single gentleman ... and it must be a lease for life.'

  Eliza corrected him again. 'When the lady says "Heavens! what a dying swain you are" it will be more plausible if we've seen you act the dying swain.'

  'Ah. I thought I was to seem rakish?'

  'Well, yes,' she told him, 'but with a touch of the desperate Romeo too.'

  Was that what he was to the actress? Derby wondered suddenly. A desperate Romeo? Over the six years of their intimacy he'd tried to maintain a relaxed, aristocratic demeanour—but he knew that the dying swain popped out sometimes. Yes, perhaps that was it; the real reason Eliza had refused to play opposite him on the Richmond House stage was because it was all too exposing, too much like real life.

  'That's right, cold and sprightly,' she was urging Mrs Hobart, 'toss your head.'

  It occurred to Derby that Eliza was only following the advice of every comedy she had ever starred in: Variety's the spice of love. Did she turn brisk and distant in order to make him pursue her all the more doggishly? Or perhaps—this struck him like a, light blow in the chest—perhaps her moods and megrims were nothing to do with him at all. She could have preoccupations he knew nothing of. For all that he and this woman moved through London society like an accredited couple, he'd never addressed her by her first name.

  Richmond and Lady Mary popped into the theatre to say good afternoon to the company. Mrs Hobart happened to mention that a cousin of hers at Slough had written objecting in the strongest terms to her participation in these theatrical experiments.

  'Whyever so?' asked Lady Mary. 'They're all the rage these days.'

  'Among people of quality, yes,' said Mrs Hobart with a gratified inclusiveness, 'but the cousin in question has married a merchant, don't you know, and turned very evangelical.'

  Nods all round. There was an epidemic of piety sweeping the middling orders.

  'Richmond,' asked Derby, 'when you took part in your first play at Goodwood, did you find it a corrupting business?'

  'Well, no,' said the Duke, deadpan, 'but then I was only five at the time and my leading lady was my sister Louisa, a circumstance which
is generally not conducive to passion.'

  This prompted gales of laughter. 'Though it has been known...' Dick Edgcumbe whispered in Derby's ear, too loudly.

  'Acting's a more innocent amusement than gaming our fortunes away at any rate,' Sir Harry put in.

  Mrs Hobart, known for her faro table, stiffened.

  'More than all that,' said Mrs Damer hotly, 'it does us good. I consider it enlarging, elevating. To discover in oneself seeds of qualities that one never knew one had—to take on new qualities, speak in a different voice—it thrills me.'

  Eliza turned and gave her a magnificent smile.

  The arrival of Mrs Siddons, who was to advise on costumes, caused a stir among the company. Eliza went to greet her at the door of the theatre and Derby followed. 'My dear Miss Farren,' her colleague declaimed, 'I speak, I believe, for all your fellow players when I lament that we have seen too little of you this spring, but it is a willing sacrifice that Drury Lane pays to Richmond House.'

  Derby hid a smile; the Empress of Tragedy had always been incapable of everyday speech. Her famous nose was looking longer than ever, despite the mass of soft curls.

  Richmond had given Mrs Siddons carte blanche with a Parisian modiste on Mount Street and a gentleman's tailor round the corner. She prescribed four changes for Derby: a chintz night-gown, a brown morning frock coat, a dauphin jacket and a rich vest with a light-mushroom coat. 'What a relief,' he told her.

  'A relief, My Lord?'

  'I was afraid you'd put me in crimson and silver, like Edgcumbe. I mean to say,' he pushed on, 'I'm no treat for the eyes as it is.'

  Mrs Siddons didn't flatter him by denying it; instead, she inclined her head like a nun. 'I have always thought the importance of personal appearance exaggerated,' she told him. 'What matters is to live the role, not to resemble it.'

  The ladies were to wear their own jewels, which Eliza clearly thought rather odd, since at Drury Lane the pearls were always made of wax and the diamonds of glass. 'Paste might look the same.' Mrs Hobart sighed happily. 'But we'd know the difference.'