Goddess of the Green Room: (Georgian Series) (41 page)

It was all very unpleasant but the press could not let such an opportunity pass.

One blessing was that Dorothy did not have to provide the dowry; but she very much wanted the girls to marry. Like her mother she was becoming obsessed by the idea of marriage. She felt it was the only secure and respectable way of life.

There were also Dodee and Lucy to be considered.

The theatre world was startled into incredulity by the sudden appearance in its midst of a boy of about thirteen to fourteen years who after playing briefly in the provinces came to London and took over many of the tragic roles. He was hailed as a genius and people flocked to see him.

Dorothy first met him when he was brought to her dressing room by his father. She was immediately struck by his unusual good looks and charm of manner; he had a certain diffidence about his abilities and seemed not greatly impressed by all the clamour which his acting aroused.

His name was William Henry West Betty known generally as Master Betty, the young Roscius; and no other actor nor actress on the stage was in such demand as he was.

The whole theatre-going world seemed to dote on him. When he began playing Kemble’s Shakespearean roles, Kemble was furious. No one wanted to see Kemble any more; they preferred Master Betty in his roles. When Kemble attempted to speak a prologue he was hooted off the stage with cries of ‘We want Betty’. Kemble retired temporarily on a plea of ill health; it was beyond his dignity to stay and be looked upon as inferior to a mere boy. The dignity of Sarah Siddons was also impaired. A pleasant state of affairs, she grumbled, when a mere boy came in and all the years of service were forgotten.

Dorothy was the only leading actress who was not affected. Comedy roles were not for Master Betty.

He might enchant all with his Hamlet but he could not play Peggy in
The Country Girl
nor Nell in
The Devil to Pay,
and the public continued to want these parts.

But when Betty played the streets were filled with people trying to get into the theatre; many people fainted and inside the theatre there was chaos. People paid for boxes and when they arrived found that others who had paid pit prices had climbed into them and taken possession. There was pandemonium throughout the theatre.

Sheridan was delighted, for Betty had saved him from ruin. In the month the boy played at Drury Lane he brought in more than seventeen thousand pounds.

The public was mad for Betty. Everything he did was wildly applauded. His father managed his affairs and demanded high prices for him which were readily paid. There was no actor or actress in London who could fill a house like this wonder boy.

William went to see him and was enchanted by his acting like everyone else. Dorothy sat with him in his box and was not so sure of young Betty. It was true that he had passion for acting; he lived the part, but her professional eye could detect faults and she doubted whether when he lost his youth he would seem so wonderful. It was in fact his youth which made him a phenomenon. He could not play Hamlet as Kemble could. His tragedy could not be compared with that of Sarah Siddons. The public were in fact worshipping youth and the ability of a boy so young to act as he did – which Dorothy was prepared to admit was remarkable. But William declared the boy to have genius and Dorothy, not wishing to be accused of professional jealousy, did not protest. William sent for him to come to the Green Room and then invited him to St James’s Palace. Such genius must not be set aside, he declared to Sheridan, who listened sardonically.

Really, Clarence was an old fool, he thought. Just because he lived with a famous actress he thought he had a place in the dramatic world. And he was deluded like the rest. Let him be. The more young Betty was feted the better for Drury Lane; and Sheridan had no illusions at all – he had lost them all twenty years before. He saw quite clearly that what Master Betty had which greater actors lacked was that most desirable and transient gift of Youth.

‘We will have young Betty’s portrait painted,’ declared William.

‘He must be painted as he is now… at this stage. I will arrange it.’

And he did and even went to James Northcote’s studio to watch him at work.

For the whole of that winter season there were few the public wanted to see but Master Betty.

But the next year when he came back the play-goers had lost interest. Master Betty was a little older; he was no longer a novelty.

They preferred Kemble. They no longer crowded the streets to get in to see Betty. They were critical of him.

Betty was wise. He had made a fortune. He retired to obscurity to enjoy it; and that was the end of the nine days’ wonder of the young Roscius.

Bliss at Bushy

WILLIAM HAD FOLLOWED
the course of the war against France with great interest and as great a resentment. Through the years he had kept up a friendship with Nelson and he followed the latter’s exploits with admiration and delight.

‘I should have been a Nelson,’ he told Dorothy, ‘if they had not stopped me.’

William, Dorothy admitted to herself, was inclined to see himself rather larger than life. In the Lords he believed himself to be a Chatham when in fact his verbose speeches were yawned over by his fellow peers and ridiculed in the press. But he was never meant to be a politician. It might have well been that he would have been a great Admiral.

When Nelson was wounded and lost an eye and arm William had mourned with him; and he had been the first to congratulate him when he came to England and insisted on his visiting Bushy that William might fight over his battles with him in his imagination while Nelson drew plans and explained how everything had taken place.

William would rage and storm after Nelson went because he was not going to sea with him. He was rather difficult to live with
at such times; particularly when he suffered from one of his gouty turns.

When he heard that Nelson had fallen at Trafalgar his joy in the great sea victory was diminished by his grief. He came to Bushy to be comforted by Dorothy. He took Frederick on his knee and George and Henry stood beside him while he talked of the glorious sea battle which crippled the wicked Napoleon’s power and how Admiral Lord Nelson had saved England from the tyrant. He told of how he himself had served under the great man and that if he had not been his father’s son and been held back from following his career he would have been with Nelson on that great day.

The boys listened bright-eyed. They had all decided they would be sailors or soldiers.

Dorothy, watching and thinking of Lord Nelson dying in Hardy’s arms on the flagship
Victory
, rejoiced that they were so young. The war would be over before they were of an age to fight.

William asked that the bullet which had killed Lord Nelson be given to him; it was brought to him by Nelson’s surgeon and he declared he would treasure it for ever. He had a bust made of the great sailor and kept it in his study at Bushy House.

He was sad for a long time and talked to Dorothy of Nelson and how he had been present at his marriage to Mrs Nisbet, that marriage which had not made Nelson a happy man for the rest of his life, as he had thought it would. But then he had not known he was to meet Lady Hamilton.

But the battle of Trafalgar which was so important to the country brought relief to William in his pecuniary difficulties.

The King sent for four of his sons and when they arrived at St James’s he received them all together.

William thought how feeble the old man was getting, and his speech was becoming even more rapid and incoherent. He glared at his sons with those wild protuberant eyes of his and watching him William could not help wondering whether the madness still lurked in him.

The two elder sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York had not been summoned. The King was going to speak of their debts and those of the two elder brothers were so vast that this matter could bring but little relief to them.

William’s three brothers, who had joined the group, were the Dukes of Kent, Cumberland and Sussex.

The King glared at them. ‘I’ve had reports,’ he said, ‘reports I don’t like. Debts! Why are there these debts? Why can’t you live within your income, eh, what? Every one of you… Scribblers… lampoons. Criticism. It’s not good for the family. Don’t you understand that, eh, what?’

None of them spoke. They knew that the King’s questions were merely rhetorical. He would probably go through a list of their sins. They all led irregular lives, it seemed, except Cumberland. William could not remember any scandal about Cumberland. Perhaps he had not been discovered. But Kent had been living with Madame de St Laurent for years in much the same state of respectability as he himself maintained at Bushy; and Sussex had married without the King’s consent when he was about twenty and there had actually been a court case to prove that he was not married at all even though he had gone through the ceremony, because a marriage of a royal person under twenty-five without the King’s consent was no marriage in the eyes of the State no matter if it might be in those of the Church.

The King thought of them all and particularly William with that nice actress and all those children. Why did his sons have to be perverse? Why couldn’t the Prince of Wales be the father of a brood like that… a legitimate brood.

‘Too much talk about your extravagance,’ he said. ‘The people don’t like it. People can turn… against royalty. Look at France! What if it happened here, eh, what? It would be the fault of libertines and spendthrifts. You… all of you. With your debts and your women. What have you got to say to that, eh, what?’

Sussex began to protest that he had wanted to live respectably but the King said: ‘Don’t interrupt me. I’ve brought you here to tell you these debts must be settled… without delay… and then there must be no more. Now at Trafalgar we captured several ships and these have yielded us a certain sum of money. I have £80,000 which I am going to distribute among you four and it is for one purpose, understand me, eh, what? It is to pay off your debts, you understand? Not to be used for jewels and women… or banquets and drink and gambling. No, nothing like that. Those debts are to be paid. Understand, eh, what?’

They did understand. They would be delighted. It would not settle everything, of course, thought William, but creditors were satisfied with a little to go on with if it came from a royal duke.

He went down to Bushy in an excellent frame of mind. £20,000 to settle some of his debts. Moreover, recently Parliament had voted him an extra £6,000 on his income. He was better off than he had been for some time.

When he reached Bushy it was to find Dorothy there. He had not expected her so soon and when he discovered the reason he was alarmed.

She had felt too ill to go on playing and had decided she must have a short rest. The pain in her chest which recurred when she was tired had been worse than usual. And when she coughed there was a little blood on her handkerchief.

William was all concern.

‘You’re going to retire,’ he said. ‘We’re going to settle down, both of us. We’ll live quietly at Bushy. I have this extra income and I have to tell you why the King sent for me.’

Listening to the good news Dorothy felt better.

This was her dream come true. She would retire and devote herself entirely to the family.

Retirement was all that she had dreamed it would be.

Each morning she awoke to a sense of freedom; no more rehearsals, no more rivalries; no more long and tiring ‘cruises’, no more sighing as she forced herself into Miss Hoyden’s costume and worried whether she had put on more inches about the waist. Now she could grow fat at her ease. She was pleasantly plump, she decided; plump and motherly; and after all that was what she was now: a mother.

They had started a farm on the estate and William enjoyed it as much as his father would have done. The boys liked to make the hay and ride the horses round the fields, even milk the cows. They played games in which William joined – usually of a nautical character; though George who was all for the Army introduced a military note. Fanny, Dodee and Lucy came often to Bushy and were now beginning to regard it as one of their homes. William tolerated Fanny but was quite fond of Dodee and Lucy; and
Dorothy was delighted to see how the two families mixed and behaved towards each other as brothers and sisters.

Fanny’s inability to find a husband still worried her; she had taken a house in Golden Square where the two younger girls lived with Hester still and she often made the journey there and stayed with them so that they should not feel that that was not her home too.

But it was Bushy she loved – Bushy with its gracious rooms and its lovely gardens and its noisy military and nautical FitzClarences. Even little Molpuss had decided on his career and toddled about in the sailor’s hat which William had bought for him.

William announced that on his forty-first birthday they would have an elaborate party.

It was a sunny day. William and Dorothy were awakened early by the young children coming into their bedroom, headed by Elizabeth.

‘Happy birthday, Papa.’

Molpuss, wearing his sailor’s hat, scrambled on to the bed and saluted his father. Dorothy lifted up little Augustus and they were all chattering excitedly about Papa’s birthday and the party.

‘You cannot have your presents yet, Papa,’ said Molpuss sternly. ‘George said we were all to wait until breakfast.’

William pretended to look disappointed which made Molpuss shriek with laughter; but Augustus put her arm round his neck and whispered: ‘Shall I go and get mine so that you can have it now?’

William whispered back that he thought he would wait for fear of offending George.

Dorothy, lying back with little Augustus in the crook of her arm, thought: This is perfect happiness.

They were up early to make sure that everything was in order by the time the guests arrived. William had spent a great deal on having new bronze pilasters fitted up in the hall and new lamps which hung from an eagle fixed to the ceiling. Several new adornments had been added to the dining room, including some beautiful lamps at the doors, of which he was very proud. ‘George will be interested in these,’ he said. ‘Not that we can compete with
Carlton House or the Pavilion, but I think he’ll be impressed. The servants look magnificent in their new liveries.’