Life Mask (36 page)

'I know, it's a shocking business,' the Italian assured her, 'but nothing can be done until the catalogue goes to be reprinted. Ah, here's the lady herself,' he said, smiling past Anne's head.

She turned and there was Eliza, dressed to echo her portrait; the same gloves, the same dress and a lighter summer version of the same fur-edged pelisse. There was a little storm of applause; the actress scattered smiles and curtsies in all directions. Beside her, dwarfed by her as always but holding his right arm high to support her hand, walked Derby. His face was inscrutable, but Anne could read its private pride.

She couldn't bear it, couldn't steel herself to go and greet the happy pair as if she were yet another acquaintance. They were hemmed in by admirers and she was bone-tired. She slipped off to the little sculpture room, which held only a few stragglers, and they soon drifted off without paying much attention to the
Marble Bust of the Countess of Ailesbury.
Anne stood looking at her mother's severely handsome features; she clasped her hands and tried to calm herself. She fingered the little chip of stone from the Bastille that, she wore on a chain round her neck under her fichu.

'My dear!'

She spun round. Eliza, with her doll smile painted on.
She didn't know I would be here so early in the day,
Anne thought.
She doesn't know what to call me.
'Why do you say that?' she asked in a low voice.

The actress blinked.

'Does that word
dear
signify anything to you? Do I? If not, why say it?'

Eliza had her hand against her mouth. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'You know too well.' Anne's voice surprised her by its rage. 'I no longer claim any right to your company, or your affection, God knows'—she swallowed a sob—'but it's the inconsistency that I find outrageous. You spurn my invitations, leave my letters unanswered, cut me in the street—and then sidle up and call me
dear!'

The younger woman's cheeks were scarlet. 'Must I remind you we're in a public place?'

'I'd have been glad to speak in private,' snarled Anne, 'but I haven't seen you in months.'

Someone came into the room, then, and both women froze. Anne turned her head and pretended to be examining a wax relief of a baby. When the intruder had gone and the room was silent again, she spoke as calmly as she could. All I need, all I demand to know, is what came between us?'

There was no answer from Eliza and Anne felt a moment's relief. Instead of protests and denials, was the young woman going to tell her the truth at last? What unspoken quarrel, what stupid misunderstanding had come between them? Could Eliza bring herself to open her heart to Anne and treat her as a true friend again? Perhaps she was crying.
Oh, the darling girl—

But when Anne spun round, she found herself alone.

V. Multiple View

A term applied to a sculpture that is meant to
be seen from various points; the viewer must
walk round it to appreciate its meaning or beauty.

O
NE
subject, it seems, of which our readers can never have enough to sate them is Travel. Curiosity about the manners and
moeurs
of other lands is combined with a relish for the surprising accidental events that befall the traveller.

Nor is mere reading of these adventures enough to please the World. Every day the packet boats from Dover or Falmouth are heavy with eager voyagers and their trunks and carriages. An Englishman's house may be his castle, but he is just as happy in some foreign inn, cabin, or even tent. In high life it is not done to profess oneself content to linger on one's estate all summer; instead, one visits friends in the Highlands, calls in on acquaintances in Vienna or Cologne, takes the waters at Spa or climbs the rumbling slopes of Etna. The peripatetic life is the only truly fashionable one these days. And one must not come back, empty-handed; it's as necessary to display a vase unearthed from Pompeii or a new dress from Madame Bertin in Paris as to litter one's speech with
carissima mia
and
enchanté.

So far from last year's Gallic metamorphoses having put off English visitors, they have only whetted curiosity. Even as the French increase their fleet to be ready to offer aid to their ally Spain against us if the Nootka Sound dispute provokes a war, it remains a curious fact that one of the most a la mode activities for English travellers is to visit the Revolution.

—B
EAU
M
ONDE
I
NQUIRER,
July 1790

THE STONE WAS PASSED UP THE LONG TABLE. IT WAS AN
ordinary-looking lump of grey granite, but on all sides men pressed nearer to touch it. Sheridan, sitting across from Derby, grinned and tossed it high in the air. It very nearly fell into a silver platter of greasy bones; Derby snatched at it, stinging his fingers. The stone was heavier than it looked. He relished the heft of it in his palm. A piece of the Bastille!

He passed it up the line to Earl Stanhope, chairman of this anniversary banquet. The size of tonight's crowd was astonishing, considering it was July; the members of the World, like Derby, must have come up to town specially for it. He hadn't seen most of his friends since the depressing election, when despite their most passionate efforts—Georgiana had paid fifty calls a day—the Whigs had lost a further three seats to the Tories.

There were calls for a hush. Stanhope rose to his full height, his balding head shining like a billiard ball. 'Men of Britain,' he roared.

It was a rather odd opening, Derby thought. Perhaps the Earl didn't want to address the crowd as
gentlemen
in the usual way? Derby supposed there were men of trade and business among the throng of about 700, as well as the Dissenting Ministers who were the mainstay of the Reform movement; certainly there was a lot of bad tailoring, and some greasy old wigs and tricorne hats. Stanhope himself wore his hair lank and uncombed, and his cravat was askew, as if to show that his mind was on higher things than elegance. How mortified William Pitt must feel, Derby thought pleasurably, that his own brother-in-law was turning into such a firebrand, more Whiggish than the Whigs; the latest story was that Stanhope had even renounced his carriage, among other trappings of aristocratic privilege! Derby was all for liberating and bettering the lot of the people himself, but he didn't see why that meant he had to walk through streets as filthy as London's.

Stanhope banged his glass on the table for silence. 'I welcome all you friends of liberty to this most noble Crown and Anchor tavern—particularly the many parliamentary Members I see and even some of my colleagues from the Lords—' a warm nod each to Derby, Lauderdale and Bedford. 'Despite our differences, we're gathered here tonight to celebrate the fact that one year ago, by the honest hands of the people of Paris, was levelled the most iniquitous of dungeons, a symbol of stifling secrecy and oppression!'

'Huzza! Huzza!' Clapping and whistling.

It saddened Derby that Fox had decided it would be more politic to stay with his lovely Liz in St Anne's Hill tonight, so as not to be named in the papers as an uncritical admirer of all the startling changes France had seen over the past year; he knew the leader had to bear the nagging of colleagues like Portland who'd become persuaded by Burke's dire views on the subject.

'We lay down this Bastille stone'—Stanhope set it on the cleared tablecloth—'to invoke the Supreme Being and the spirit of Liberty. The French Revolution is complete,' he proclaimed. 'Let us drink to its high, hard-won achievements.'

The men, all 700 or so, drained their glasses; it produced a curious gurgling sound, thought Derby, like the noise a school of fish might make underwater.

'In every land,' Stanhope was intoning, 'men are turning to their neighbours and asking,
Where is Justice? What has happened to the universal', eternal Rights of Man?
Here in Britain, we lovers of Reform sense that the hopeful hour is at hand. It is time to light the fire of burning patriotism in every breast—to prune and renew our moribund government. Lo, the millennium approaches,' Stanhope sang out, 'and all things will be made new!'

There was a thunder of applause.

'He sounds like he's escaped from Bedlam,' Derby mouthed at Sheridan over the table.

Sheridan grinned. 'But there's no better stirrer-up. If young Willie Cherry-Pitt could hear this crowd he'd choke on his own tongue!' As soon as the clapping had subsided Sheridan was on his feet, his voice effortlessly carrying across the huge saloon. 'My Lords, gentlemen, I believe I speak for many in proposing the following resolution:
That this meeting does most cordially rejoice in the establishment of liberty in France.
All those in favour?'

'Aye,'
came a ragged chorus.

'Anyone against?' Sheridan asked, scanning the crowd. Only a few voices muttered
'No'.
'Then I'll send the news to my correspondents in Paris tonight.'

' Derby, watching this piece of showmanship, felt slightly uneasy.

'May I add,' said Stanhope, 'that I'm sure our resolution will be read to the Assembly as evidence that Englishmen will soon follow the French example and love each other as equals, friends, brothers and free men!'

'Derby.' The veteran Reformer, Home Tooke, was tugging on his sleeve while scribbling on the margin of a letter with his other hand. 'We can't let the papers mistake our zeal for sedition. If I come up with something tactful, will you back me?'

'Very well,' he said, amused at the novelty of the Reverend being tactful.

'While sharing fully in my friends' fervour,' said Home Tooke loudly, rising to his feet, 'might I propose a clarification, vis-à-vis our own country, as follows?
That we feel satisfaction that the subjects of England have not so arduous a task to perform as the French; but have only to maintain and improve our excellent Constitution.'

Sheridan rolled his eyes and Stanhope frowned. There were loud hisses from several parts of the room, which caused Derby a spasm of irritation; really, some self-styled advocates of freedom didn't extend it to anyone who disagreed with them. 'I'd like to second the motion, if I may,' he said, only half rising from his seat.

Hours later, the vast crowd was dispersing, and he and Sheridan were having a last bottle in a corner, as the menservants cleared away the ruins of the banquet bit by bit, like ants. 'Oh, come on,' Derby protested, 'I had to back Tooke or the papers would call us revolutionaries and tear us to rags.'

'What do you care what's printed about you?' barked Sheridan. 'You'd still hold your seat in the Lords if you were proved to have cooked and eaten your own children.'

With his friend in such a wild mood, Derby knew it was time to change the subject. 'So how have you been amusing yourself this summer?'

'I've been trapped in the city by business,' said Sheridan. 'But I went to the trial of the Monster last week—you know, the dancing master who slashes skirts? Claimed to be mad but couldn't prove it, so they gave him six years.'

'That's rather mild,' said Derby, 'considering mere children hang for the theft of a spool of thread.'

Sheridan shrugged. 'Six years in Newgate, that's as good as a death sentence. Oh, another piquant detail: he's a member of one of those sods' clubs, where they drink tea and call each other
Molly,
that kind of thing.'

'Well, I suppose it makes sense that someone who stabs women in the thighs would be a woman hater,' murmured Derby.

'If his tastes were more in the regular line, he'd have used his own tool.' Sheridan cackled.

'Ugh! What strange times we live in.'

'Though I wouldn't hang sods myself, if I were in charge,' remarked Sheridan. 'Take my countryman, Bickerstaffe. One of Garrick's best writers—but our theatre lost him overnight when he fled to France for fear of his life, and all for poking a soldier.'

'I'd keep your voice down if I were you,' Derby told him. 'Look what trouble Burke got into for arguing against the pillory for sods. You don't want to be tarred with that brush.'

'Unlike Burke'—Sheridan grinned—'I've fucked enough women to safeguard my honour!' Now he was scanning the emptying room restlessly. 'There are faces that should have been here tonight that weren't and I don't just mean Fox's.'

'I sometimes think it must be very difficult for men who aren't rich to maintain their freedom of thought,' mused Derby. 'After all, they're constantly looking out for patronage or preferment; they depend so much on the goodwill of their superiors.'

Sheridan was wearing an odd smirk. 'Whereas an earl, for example, is above all influence?'

'Well, I suppose so. After all, he's nothing to fear, nothing he needs from anyone,' said Derby, rather regretting having brought this up.

'But mightn't his thoughts be limited to the traditional thoughts of earls?' suggested Sheridan. 'Mightn't he seek protection for his whole class and fear any attack on its position?'

Derby didn't know what to say.

'In my view the best guarantee of freedom of thought isn't wealth,' said Sheridan flatly, 'it's having known what it is to be poor and consequently being unafraid of it. Oh, good night, Bedford,' he called, waving to the young Duke, who'd contributed a staggering £3000 to their election fund, for all the good it had done them.

'Did you hear he won the Oaks for the fourth time?' asked Derby. 'It put me in the blue devils, rather, as the race is one of my own inventions, after all, and named for my villa at Epsom. Of course, Sam Chifney was Bedford's rider; I'd hire the genius myself if Prinny hadn't just put him on a retainer.'

'Surely you of all men could afford to outbid him.'

Derby snorted. 'If I wanted to alienate someone who's going to be my king any year now!'

'Listen to us.
Any year now,'
repeated Sheridan gloomily. 'We've been saying that ever since Pitt came to power. And at the rate Prinny stuffs and soaks himself, he'll drop dead long before his father.'

Derby took out his snuffbox—painted with a miniature of Sir Peter Teazle winning the Derby—and put a good pinch on the back of his hand. Sheridan took some, without a word, and gave a convulsive sneeze.

'Say, who brought the Bastille stone, I wonder?' Derby sniffed, enjoying the tingle in his nose; his eyes watered. 'I know Mrs Damer has a little fragment she wears on a silver chain—several of the ladies do—but I didn't think there were any more complete stones to be had.'

Sheridan snorted. 'You're very gullible, old sport.'

'You mean—'

'I picked it up in my back yard this morning. Thought it would go down well.'

'It's not real?' Derby feared that his face looked like a tricked child's.

Sheridan shrugged. 'It's a prop; the sentiments it inspired tonight are quite real. That's what matters, not the provenance of some lump of rock.'

'Well, if it comes to that, Britain itself is a lump of rock, and one to which I and my ancestors have been rather attached,' said Derby drily.

Sheridan rolled his eyes. 'You peers of the realm. You're so
literaV

A
UGUST 1790

Anne had made the necessary changes. In her bedroom at no. 8 Grosvenor Square, for instance, there was a round mark on the leaf-green paper, which was slightly less faded by the sun that crept through the curtains. The life mask was in a box, in a trunk, in the back of Anne's workshop, along with other discarded studies.

These days she avoided Drury Lane, unless it was a tragedy with the incomparable Siddons in it. Sometimes if Anne glimpsed Miss Farren at an assembly she went home early, pleading a headache. If she managed to find out in advance that Miss Farren was on the invitation list she simply sent her excuses. She took a certain pride in not stooping to say a word against the actress; Walpole was the only friend in whom she'd let herself confide. When others asked,
Weren't you and she once rather great confidantes ?
Anne shrugged and said that the friendship had faded,
as often happens between persons of different position, don't you find?

Once, glimpsing the Farrens descending from the Derby carriage on Green Street, Anne went rigid with rage. Why had she ever risked befriending a young woman whose birth, education and principles were so utterly unlike her own? Above all, in what reckless moment had she encouraged that person and her gargoyle of a mother to move to Mayfair, and set up house around the corner?