Life Mask (51 page)

She waited for a smart answer, but Mrs Farren only pursed her lips.

In the carriage Eliza sank back against the plump upholstery, enveloped in her fur pelisse. 'A long day, my dear?' asked Derby.

'Too long,' she said. Really, the Earl was like an ideal husband: all the compliments and none of the demands; all the solicitude and none of the orders. 'And you?'

He gave a concise and witty report on the company at Melbourne House; since poor Georgianas hasty departure Lady Melbourne had become the reigning Foxite hostess. There'd been hosts of émigrés, of course, the royalists glaring furiously at the more recently expelled moderates like Madame de Genlis and a 'rather striking' protégée of hers who went by the name of Pamela Egalité.

Could Derby possibly be trying to arouse her jealousy by mentioning this girl? Eliza wondered.

The carriage had slowed to a crawl. Derby rapped on the ceiling and his coachman's head appeared, dangling sideways in the window. 'Sorry about this, M'Lord. There's a fire on Whitehall. They say it might be Richmond House.'

Eliza had clutched Derby's arm before she knew it. She took her hand away again before her mother noticed.

'Bring us there, and quickly,' he called.

'But it's such a crush—'

'Take the side streets. Use your whip.'

'Make way!' Eliza heard the man roar, overhead. 'Earl of Derby's carriage, make way!' The whip cracked. A wagon lurched out of the way. Mrs Farren was craning out of the window. Eliza shut her eyes; she felt slightly sick.

'My dear ladies,' said Derby, 'I'll jump out at the corner of Whitehall and the driver can bring you straight home to Green Street.'

'I wouldn't dream of it,' said Eliza, injured. Sometimes the man could be
too
uxorious.

'Hm, well, I suppose if you stay well back—'

'Mother,' she said, 'you go on home; I'll come after you in a hackney.'

'If you promise to be careful,' said Margaret Farren dubiously.

It appeared to be snowing, but it was ash, falling heavy through the winter air. Richmond House had curtains of flame and it was sending up a black tongue of smoke. Oh, the crackle and the terrible howl of it!

By the time the driver helped Eliza down from the carriage, Derby had flung off his jacket and sprinted over to the burning building. Eliza felt unaccountably angry. What did he think he was playing at? The Sun Fire Insurance Company wagons were here already and the watermen were passing buckets from hand to hand. Three of them were trying to throw a hose in one window, while another three worked the handpump.

'Miss Farren! Eliza!'

She spun round, and there was Anne, with her sister, waving from the other side of the road. She ran to meet them. Anne's eyes were red from the smoke. 'Oh, Lady Mary, I'm so terribly sorry,' said Eliza. 'Has anyone—' She broke off, uncertain how to frame the dreadful question.

'We're all out, safe and sound,' said the Duchess of Richmond, calm as ever.

'That looks very like the Duke of York,' said Eliza, staring at the knot of men across the road. It was strange to see them in their shirtsleeves, especially in the middle of winter; indecent, almost. The backs of their waistcoats were much plainer and shorter than the fronts.

'Mm,' said Lady Mary, 'York's been marvellous, I must say; he brought his regiment in to help with the engines and keep back the crowd. And the Duke of Clarence has been up to his knees in water!'

'Well, that's a comfort,' said Anne wryly, 'to have two Princes of the Blood acting as your watermen. By the way, I heard York's to get another £18,000 a year on his wedding.'

'Yes, Derby says Prinny's sick with envy,' confided Eliza. 'Envy only of the money a legitimate marriage brings, of course—not the plain Prussian bride!'

'Was that Derby I saw plunging into the fray?' Anne asked.

Eliza nodded. 'He's covered in soot already. Look, he and Bunbury seem to be carrying statues out.'

'They're the antique casts from his sculpture academy, remember?' said Anne.

'Oh, yes,' said Eliza, suddenly taken back to that day in Richmond House; that foolish mistake she'd made, thinking all the statues thousands of years old. 'But isn't that one of yours?' she asked, shading her eyes.

'So it is! A pair of puppies, the first I ever carved,' said Anne, looking relieved.

'Luckily the fire started slowly,' said Lady Mary, 'so we were able to get the real valuables out hours ago.' She seemed unconscious of the insult to her sister. 'I have my jewels and most of my clothes. The high point of the drama was when Henriette spotted Délice at the window. My husband offered a reward of ro guineas to whoever could rescue her and a fellow passing in the street lashed three ladders together, climbed up and brought the spaniel down!'

'Yes, and she bit his arm for his pains,' said Anne.

'Who's that young man?' asked Eliza, tucking her hands into her fox muff to warm them.

'Oh, Charles Lennox, our nephew,' answered Lady Mary, 'and heir, of course.'

Eliza's eyes met Anne's briefly. How strange to know that, because of your barrenness, your husband would have to leave everything to a relation.

Just then there was a crash and the gentlemen leapt back; something in the great house must have crumbled. 'Oh, our little theatre,' she said, startled by the memory.

'Charred beams by now.' Anne sounded so bleak that Eliza slid her hand into the crook of her elbow. Anne glanced at her with a ghost of a smile. It was rare for them to be seen to touch, since their renewal of friendship. 'Well, young Lennox's inheritance won't include Richmond House, not unless the insurance pays enough to rebuild it.'

'I'm afraid there's no question of insurance,' murmured the Duchess.

'Mary! What do you mean? To let it lapse—'

'Goodwood's cost such a great deal; we were cutting our expenses, or trying to,' said the Duchess, tight-lipped.

'But the risk of fires in London—' protested her sister.

'Oh, it was a gamble, that's all there is to say. At one time or another we all risk more than we should.' Lady Mary wiped ash out of her eyelashes.

Derby came over, his white shirt daubed with black. His ugliness had taken on a certain grandeur, Eliza thought, like a goblin of the underworld. 'Ladies. Do stand back a little, won't you?'

'Don't worry about us,' Anne told him. 'I've been thinking of Praxiteles, when he was told his house was on fire.'

He laughed. 'Trust you to come up with a relevant classical allusion.' A servant brought him a tumbler of beer and he raised it. 'To the passing of the Richmond House Theatre,' he said. 'What times we had!'

'Almost five years go,' Eliza murmured. Her throat was itching from the fire. She thought she might cry.

'It feels much longer,' said Anne, her eyes on the burning shell of the house.

'The scenery was carried out safely, you know,' Lady Mary pointed out.

'Was it?' said the Earl. 'Well, perhaps we should put on another play, but at Derby House.' Eliza gave him a radiant smile. He seized her and Anne by the hands. 'What do you say, my lovely leading ladies? Shakespeare, perhaps?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.
When shall we thespians meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?'

They were laughing, now, though the air was bitter with smoke.

A
NNE AND
M
ARY
were reading in the tiny, plain-panelled library at North Audley Street. They liked to sit opposite each other, so that either of them could look up at any time and tell the other some stray thought. Anne's eyes were resting on Mary, who glanced up. Her hand went to the bridge of her nose. 'Is it very red, today?'

'Not at all, it's fading,' Anne assured her. 'But all damage leaves its tool mark.'

'Like a chisel?'

'Exactly! Time's signature,' Anne suggested. They grinned at each other. 'By the way, I got four subscriptions for myself and you Berrys for the Haydn concerts.'

Mary clasped her hands in excitement. 'You shouldn't have. Oh, but I can't wait. To hear the great man conducting his own new symphonies—'

'Where's Agnes this morning?' Anne asked.

'Father took her shopping on Mount Street. She fancies a turban for evening wear, with one of those aigrettes with paste jewels bobbing on tiny wires.'

'Since your tour I believe I notice in your sister a desire to shine.'

Mary nodded, smiling. 'At Pisa she was quite the queen of our little circle—especially when I smashed my nose—and she discovered she rather liked it.'

'Don't we all? According to my father, even Walpole primped and preened in the glass in his day. By the way, I believe you've persuaded him to start writing his memoirs?'

'Well, only by demanding tales of bygone days, till he decided it would be easier to write them down. He has some notion of making me his literary executrix,' Mary mentioned.

'He couldn't choose better,' said Anne, feeling only a slight pang of jealousy. 'You're a discerning, diligent, literary lady: you'll be his ambassador to posterity.'

'Oh, tush. I may do it, but behind the cover of my father's name.'

Anne frowned; she didn't approve of women hiding their lights under bushels. 'I called at Berkeley Square this morning, but I was refused. Walpole had shut himself up in his study with the post and told his footmen he wasn't to be disturbed. No doubt he's getting into one of his grand fusses.'

'Over what?'

'Who knows? When you were away, I noticed a rather comical peculiarity in him,' said Anne.

'Only one?'

She chuckled at that. 'He was always perfectly communicative with regard to your letters, or Agnes's—he'd read me parts of them, or let me read them myself—and he'd boast, with the insolence of a lover, of having received three letters in as many days. But if ever I tried to tell him anything you'd written to me he turned deaf—despised any information I had to offer—could never suppose I might know your date of return before he did, for instance.'

'How diverting,' said Mary a little uneasily.

'Isn't it? The child has a tendency to being fretful when you're not here to keep him in order...'

The library door flew open and they jumped. There stood Walpole, his face a mask of tragedy.

'What is it, sir?' Mary rushed to take his arm. 'No one came to announce you.'

'You mustn't call me that. It's no longer my name.'

She glanced at Anne, her eyes wide.

Was he losing his wits, all at once, as the King did? 'What is it, coz?' asked Anne soothingly.

'From plain Mister,' he said, 'I am elevated to
His Lordship.'

They blinked at him. 'Your nephew?' said Anne.

'The poor young lunatic has died,' he spelled out, 'and I stand before you now, fourth Earl of Orford.'

Anne couldn't help giggling.

'It's hardly a laughing matter,' he protested, while she and Mary were leading him over to the comfortable chair by the fire and lifting his bad foot on to a stool. 'I'll be the poorest earl in England; Houghton Hall brings nothing but debts and draughts.'

'Congratulations,' said Mary, with a little curtsy, 'and commiserations too, if you like, Your Lordship.' Then even Walpole cracked a mournful smile.

A
NNE AND
E
LIZA
were at the nuts-and-oranges stage of a post-theatre supper at Green Street. The parlour was freshly hung with a stylish striped paper, Anne noticed; the actress had an eye for these details. It amused her to note all the differences between this smart town house and the plainer, calmer décor of the Berrys round the corner on North Audley Street. A nagging thought struck her: her two closest female friends hadn't met yet. She hadn't deliberately kept them apart, but nor had she brought them together since the Berrys' return. The occasion had to be right; she feared they mightn't take to each other at once.

'My
Thalia
looks very well in her new position,' she remarked, gesturing at the bust on the column in the corner.

'Doesn't she?' said Eliza, grinning back at her.

'I'm worried about my cousin Walpole,' said Anne, cracking a hazelnut, 'his new earldom's proving nothing but grief to him.'

'I've noticed you don't call him
Orford!

'Oh, it would seem unnatural. He complains it's the worst of times to come into a tide; breeding's all gone out since the French had their Revolution and nobody asks
Who are his people ?
any more but,
What is he worth?

Eliza laughed at the exaggeration.

'Also, after twenty years away from Parliament, he hasn't the slightest desire to take his seat in the Lords. Though he tells me that some of his bluestocking ladies are pleading with him to sponsor a bill to put down faro and roulette!'

'That would never pass,' said Eliza.

'Really, the thing's destroyed the tranquillity of his old age; he has packets of papers to read and answer every morning, consultations with lawyers and creditors, threatening letters from envious relations...'

'Tom Paine says aristocracy is intrinsically absurd,' said the actress.

'However can he claim that?' Anne asked. She hadn't yet nerved herself to buy the American author's
Rights of Man
, which Walpole kept denouncing as the most seditious of all the pamphlets published to rebut Burke's
Reflections.

Eliza shrugged prettily. 'Well, he begins by asserting that all men were created equal and free when Adam and Eve walked in the Garden. He says tides are only meaningless nicknames, worn like shiny ribbons. Being born an aristocrat is no achievement or guarantee of merit; after all, haven't we all met wicked marquesses and stupid dukes? To see the silliness of choosing our lawmakers by their surnames we've only to imagine selecting authors, artists or actors the same way.'

Anne was taken aback. This philosophy was unsettlingly extreme. 'But history—the weight of tradition—'

'Paine says we should shake it
off.
The living matter more than the dead; every generation, every nation should be allowed to choose for itself.'

'Eliza, can you really believe all this?'