Goddess of the Green Room: (Georgian Series) (8 page)

If I were going to be asked, she thought, I should have been by now.

It was some time before she noticed that George’s visits to the lodgings were less frequent. She saw him often in the theatre as a matter of course, but he did not seem to be waiting for her when she came off to give her the usual congratulations.

Grace invited him to supper and he accepted with pleasure; and during that evening Dorothy realized what his devotion had been worth, for he talked of the precarious existence of stage folk, who could never be sure of financial security. He hinted that he believed it would be folly for impecunious actors and actresses to marry. How could they be sure when their playing would not separate them? But chiefly how could they be sure that they would keep a roof over their heads? It did not seem to him wise to bring children into such an uneasy existence.

Dorothy understood.

He was telling her that while he had considered marrying an actress who had a chance of a London success, he did not want to unite himself with one who was a provincial player.

When he had gone she gave vent to her temper.

‘That is an end of Mr George Inchbald!’ she cried. ‘Reliable… oh, very! Reliable in his desire for a wife who can bring home a good salary. Serious in his intentions! Oh, yes. In his intentions to marry a woman with money! Men!’ she went on: ‘They are all alike. I have not linked myself with one so far. That has been wise of me. I shall go on in that way.’

And she was not sorry, for she had never had more than an affection for him.

‘I shall have to be besottedly in love,’ she told Grace, ‘before I consider sharing my life with a man.’

It was Grace who was heart-broken. The longing to see Dorothy respectably married was the dearest wish of her life.

The next three years passed quickly. Dorothy devoted herself absolutely to the theatre, Cornelius Swan coached her and she was never too sure of her own ability not to learn from others. Her spontaneous generosity brought her the friendship of beginners; her talents brought her the envy of her rivals; she was careless of their enmity and devoted herself to her family.

Then one day the letter arrived. Dorothy could scarcely believe that she was being offered a chance to go to London and appear at Drury Lane that autumn.

She called to her mother and Hester. ‘Read this,’ she cried. ‘Read this. Tell me that I’m not dreaming.’

Grace snatched the letter from Hester; they read it, their cheeks flushed, their eyes round.

At last – the great chance. Gentleman Smith had not failed them.

The news spread rapidly through the theatre. Dorothy Jordan is going to Drury Lane. Those jealous actresses, Mrs Smith and Robinson, ground their teeth in fury, but there was nothing they could do about it. They were sure Mr Sheridan would be unmoved if they tried to pass on to him news of Dorothy’s scandalous life. What scandals could a provincial actress hope to create to compare with those which circulated about him? Dorothy was going. In spite of them she was the one who had been given the great chance. She was to act in the same theatre as the great Sarah Siddons.

It was unfair; it was favouritism; it was intolerable; but there was nothing they could do about it.

Tate Wilkinson grumbled. ‘No sooner do I train an actress and make her of some use to me than I lose her.’

Grace tried to put a sympathetic façade over her elation.

‘She’ll never forget what you did for her,’ she soothed. She believed that Tate Wilkinson’s reward would be posterity’s gratitude to the man who had helped Dorothy Jordan when she most needed it.

Dorothy could think of nothing but her London début; she played indifferently; she even forgot her lines.

‘My God,’ cried Mrs Smith. ‘Is this our London actress?’

George Inchbald came to offer his congratulations, his eyes alight with speculation. Dorothy received him coldly. ‘When I’m in London, George,’ she said, ‘I shall think of you playing in Leeds and Hull and York.’

He flinched; but he told himself an offer to play in London did not necessarily mean an actress’s fortune was made.

Dorothy dismissed him from her mind. She could not wait for the summer to be over.

She was in her dressing room preparing to play Patrick in
The Poor Soldier
when Tate Wilkinson came in.

‘There’s a distinguished visitor in the theatre tonight,’ he told her,

‘Oh?’

‘The great Siddons herself.’

Dorothy felt as she had never felt in the theatre before: nervous. The great Sarah had surely come to see her because she would know that in a short time they would be playing together in Drury Lane. It couldn’t be that Sarah would regard her as a rival – scarcely that – but all actresses were uneasy when someone younger and reputed to be very talented was about to share their audiences.

‘You’ll be all right,’ said Wilkinson.

When he left her she studied her reflection in the glass. She looked really scared. She
would
be all right once she trod the boards. She was actress enough for that.

But she could not forget that everything depended on what happened at Drury Lane. And Sarah Siddons, at this moment,
was seated regally in her balcony box over the stage, come to pass judgement.

Dorothy played for the statuesque woman in the box which was poised above the stage – a place of honour for Sarah – but it was not one of her best performances. It was not the way to play. One did not act to impress. One forgot an audience when on the stage; one became the part which was the only way to play it. But who could forget Sarah? Sarah herself had no intention that anyone should.

The eldest daughter of Robert Kemble had acting in her blood. She was the Queen of the Drama and she intended to keep the crown until she died.

She was some thirty years old and had appeared at Drury Lane when she was seventeen and David Garrick had been the actor-manager, so she was not going to be easily impressed by the performance of a provincial player. And she made it quite clear that she was not.

When the performance was over she was escorted back-stage with the ceremony of royalty – for the part she played off-stage was that of a queen – and asked for her opinion of Mrs Jordan’s performance.

‘Since it is asked,’ said Mrs Siddons, pronouncing her words clearly as though to reach the back of the house, and striking the pose of a seer, ‘I will give my considered opinion.’ She never used one word when six would fit the same purpose. ‘I have come to a conclusion while watching this performance and it is this: Mrs Jordan would be well advised to remain in the provinces rather than to venture on to the London stage at Drury Lane.’

It was what Dorothy’s enemies had wanted to hear.

Dorothy herself laughed. Nothing Mrs Siddons could say could stop her. She was under contract now. It had been signed by Richard Brinsley Sheridan himself together with his business partners Thomas Linley and Dr James Ford. With such a contract in her pocket should she care for the attempts of any actress – even Sarah Siddons herself – to undermine her?

‘The woman’s jealous!’ declared Grace.

And although it seemed incredible that the Queen of Drury Lane could be envious of a little provincial actress as yet untried,
Dorothy liked to believe this was so. After all she was some seven or eight years younger than the great tragedienne; and although Sarah was one of the most handsome women she had ever seen there was something forbidding about her.

In any case, what was the use of brooding?

She was going to Drury Lane to seek her fortune.

And that September she left the North for London, taking with her her mother, Hester, her daughter Frances and brother Francis. The rest of the children went to Aunt Blanche in Wales; but Dorothy would support the whole family on the wages she was to receive in her new position.

Début at Drury Lane

LONDON DELIGHTED AND
fascinated. Dorothy knew as soon as she set eyes on it that it was here she wanted to stay. The bustling streets with their noisy people who shouted and laughed and seemed bent on enjoyment were full of life; and the carriages, the sedans with their exquisitely dressed occupants, powdered and patched, their faces made charming and sometimes grotesque with rouge and white lead were in great contrast to the beggars who whined in the alleys and the street traders calling their wares. Here was the lavender seller thrusting the sweet-smelling branches under the noses of passers by; the piemen offering to toss for a pie; the shoe black; the ballad sellers singing their latest offerings often to thin reedy voices; the crossing sweepers ready for a penny to run under the horses to sweep a passage across the muddy roads. It was life as she had never seen it before.

Dorothy was determined that she had come to stay.

They took lodgings in Henrietta Street, which was not very grand, for Dorothy was going to have many calls on her purse; but the whole family was enchanted with London and to be in those streets, Grace declared, just did you good. You knew that this was the only place worth being in.

The theatre was different from anything Dorothy had played in before. Royalty came here quite often, she understood. The Prince of Wales was a frequent visitor and came with his friends, his brothers and his uncles. Sometimes the King and Queen came; then of course it had to be a most moral play. They accepted Shakespeare because everybody accepted Shakespeare, although the King did not think much of it and had been known to refer to it as ‘sad stuff’, but the people expected the King and Queen to see Shakespeare so they saw it.

It was different with the Princes – those gay young men – who were always satisfied by the appearance of pretty actresses, especially in breeches parts.

Then every actor and actress must be thrilled to meet Richard Brinsley Sheridan, for the author of
The School for Scandal, The Rivals
and
The Duenna,
the notorious wit and friend of the Prince of Wales was the biggest name in the theatre. And now that he was going into politics and had become Secretary to the Treasury in the Coalition Government and had allied himself with that great statesman Charles James Fox, one could not even compare him with managers like Daly and Wilkinson. Sheridan was as different from them as London was from the provinces.

No sooner had Dorothy arrived in London than she was completely convinced that this was the great opportunity and that she needed all her special gifts, everything she had learned since she had begun, to hold her place there.

She talked over her affairs with Grace and Hester. Her great anxiety was Sarah Siddons.

‘I think I know,’ she said, ‘why they have brought me here. They want a rival for Sarah Siddons, and what worries me is that I can never be that.’

‘Why not?’ demanded Grace indignantly.

‘Because we are not the same type. She has all that dignity; and you must agree, Mamma, that my dignity is more often off-stage than on. She wrings their hearts: I make them laugh. She’s Lady Macbeth; I’m the Romp. There’s room for us both, I’m sure, but I have to make them see this.’

‘You are going to make
Mr Sheridan
see?’

‘I have to, Mamma. I can never rival Sarah. How could I!
She’s already there. They accept her. She’s the Queen of tragedy and nobody is going to jostle her off her throne. As well try to take the King’s crown from him. I’m not going to let them put me into tragedy. I’m going to insist that I choose the play for my début – and it’s going to be comedy.’

Hester said: ‘She’s right, Mamma. Absolutely right.’

‘Do you think they’ll allow you to choose?’ asked Grace fearfully.

‘Surely it’s the right of any actress to choose her first play.’ Dorothy laughed. ‘Don’t be frightened, Mamma. Leave it to me. I’ll make them understand. There’s one thing I’m determined on. This is the great opportunity. It may come only once in a lifetime. I’m not going to miss it.’

It was easier to persuade Mr Sheridan than she had anticipated. With his manager, Tom King, he received her in his office and listened courteously to what she had to say. She was earnest and very appealing, he thought, and he was quick to recognize that quality in her which was rare and yet so essential to an actress. It was not beauty – in fact when she was not animated she was not even pretty – but when her face lit up and that inner vitality was visible she had a fascination which he guessed would be irresistible to an audience.

‘You see, Mr Sheridan,’ she said, ‘it is no use my trying to rival Mrs Siddons. The public has made her its Tragedy Queen. They’d accept no other, however good. Miss Elizabeth Farren plays like a perfect lady and the public accept her for that. I have to be different. They love Mrs Siddons for her dignity, Miss Farren for her elegance; I have to win them through laughter. I
must
play comedy, Mr Sheridan. It’s necessary if I am going to succeed.’

She was vehement. Sheridan looked at Tom King and knew what he was thinking. An actress must have the chance of choosing how she would make her début. And she was right when she said she could not take over Siddons’ role. It was hardly likely that she could out-tragedy the Tragedy Queen and if she did there would be trouble.

‘All right,’ said Sheridan. ‘Comedy. What do you say to
The Country Girl
?’

She smiled delightedly. ‘I’d say yes please.’

‘Good.
The Country Girl
it is.’

‘Well, Tom,’ said Sheridan when she had left them. ‘What do you think of our actress?’

‘I’ll reserve my judgement till after the play.’

‘Coward. I wasn’t asking for the judgement of the audience. I was asking but yours.’

‘I don’t know. She’s small.’

‘You’re thinking in terms of Siddons. We don’t want another Juno striding across the boards.’

‘Her voice is good but it doesn’t boom…’

‘Like Sarah’s. I tell you this, Tom: One Siddons is enough in any company.’

‘I thought you were looking for another Siddons.’

‘Then you haven’t been thinking enough. Consider all we suffer from our divine Sarah. Do you think I want to double trouble. Do you?’