Life Mask (64 page)

Below her, above her, the hissing of snakes. 'Filthy Sapphists!' Now the crowd was laughing as if at some particularly clever couplet. Anne looked into a boiling cauldron of faces. The stage was empty; Eliza must have run off. Anne lurched from her seat like a wounded hare; but her bad leg kept shaking, refusing to bear her weight. Such laughter, such yowls, such terrible hissing. She wrenched the door open and fell into the corridor.

In the carriage she stared up at the black silk roof.
This can't be happening.

At home in her library, Anne kept a tight grip on her feelings. She wouldn't give way, not yet. She busied herself writing notes. The first was to Derby House, just round the corner.

I don't know where to turn. I didn't see you at the Haymarket tonight, but you may have heard by now from Miss F. herself of what happened there. My spirits are entirely bewildered. As my old Friend, and one so interested in all that concerns Miss E, I wonder might I ask you to investigate this outbreak of libellous Malice?

The second was to Mary, in Yorkshire.

I need you. Some disaster has come upon me, connected to my dreadful subject. Do, I pray you, ask leave of your family to come down to me at Park Place where I'll go tomorrow or the day after.

She thought of writing to Eliza, but didn't know what to say, not yet. She took some drops, but they didn't help her sleep, not peacefully at least; bad dreams kept her tossing all night.

The dawn came pale and yellow over the rooftops of Mayfair. Anne woke up with the sensation of having her head encased in lead. She took no breakfast. She waited for an answer from Derby, but it didn't come. She asked Sam if the Earl had been away when he'd delivered her note last night; was he up in Knowsley, perhaps?

'No, madam, he was at home, but you said not to stay for a reply as it was late.'

That's right, she'd forgotten that. 'Well, go over there now and ask.'

Five minutes later the footman was back. 'They say there's no reply.'

'No reply?' She stared at Sam stupidly. How could Derby have said
No reply
? Then she looked away. It suddenly occurred to her to wonder what Sam knew. If things were being shouted aloud about his employer in a public theatre, if she was being called
Filthy Sapphism
how could he not hear of it? Her cheeks were burning. It had never really troubled her what her staff might think of her before. 'That'll do,' she said and didn't look back till the footman had gone.

Anne cried a little, then. But self-pity would get her nowhere; she needed information. She rang for Sam again and told him to drive to Twickenham with a note for Walpole.

His reply came back before noon.

My dear child, my poor darling!

Sinee you ask for it (for on no other account would I show you such a vile thing) I enclose a broadside entitled The
Whig Club
published I believe on Monday last, in which among others you & Miss Farren are calumniated. My sources tell me it was written by one Pigott, a radical. Do you know the name?

Anne fumbled for a chair and let herself down on to it. Her heart was a hard knot.
So I did it,
she thought.
I brought this on myself. I picked up my reckless pen and I wrote to Pigott.
A desperate man, in gaol; she'd threatened him with all the haughtiness of her rank. And he'd hit back. Was there any weapon in England more powerful than a pen?

She made herself flick through the limp, inky pages of the pamphlet Walpole had sent, till she found the relevant section. It began with speculation about how soon Lady Derby would die, freeing her husband to propose to
a well-known fashionable Actress.

But though the Actress's Vanity must be interested in the event, her amorous Passions are far from being awakened by the idea.
Superior to the influence of Men, she is supposed to feel more exquisite Delight from the touch of the cheek of Mrs D—r, than from the fancy of any Novelties which the wedding night can promise with such a partner as His Lordship.

Reading the words, Anne thought she might faint. She forced herself to go on. The actress was also entangled, claimed Pigott, with a certain
Lady M
—
r,
the cold wife of a drunken husband and
a formidable rival to Mrs D—rfor the affections of Miss F
—
n.
Anne blinked rapidly. Lady Milner, that was the only name she knew that fitted. But the Milners weren't real intimates of Elizas at all, were they? Only friends with whom she occasionally stayed when in Yorkshire. Where in all the hells had Pigott got this story? Did these evil-minded scribblers pluck names at random out of the ether?

There was a loud knock on the door.
Mary,
she thought with dizzying gratitude, before she remembered that it couldn't be, not so soon.

W
HAT FILLED
Eliza with dread was that her mother hadn't said anything yet. She'd packed up Eliza's things in the dressing room without a murmur and, when they'd reached Green Street—three hours earlier than usual, with the sun still shining—all she'd done was lay out some cold beef and greens. Eliza had thought of broaching the topic—
Mother, I don't know why, I've no idea what could possibly have brought on this storm
—but her nerve failed her; she'd never been so tired in her life. After two bites of beef she'd gone to bed, though evening light pricked through the shutters.

This morning silence had filled up the narrow house on Green Street like dirty water. Something occurred to Eliza:
our contract is broken.
She'd nothing to confess, God knew, but that she'd kept her mother at a distance, failed to confide. She'd let another friendship supplant the oldest one and look what disaster had come of it.

Over the breakfast table she listened to the sound of toast crunching in their jaws. Across the parlour the impossibly perfect face of
Thalia
watched over them; Eliza avoided its blank eyes. Mrs Farren suddenly said something about a
crudité.

Eliza stared. 'I beg your pardon?'

'A
coup d'état,
they call it,' her mother pronounced awkwardly.

'In France, don't you know.'

'Oh.'

'Some moderates have upped and toppled the awful rulers—executed Robespierre and all—and they're letting the prisoners out.'

Eliza put down her piece of toast. The bite in her mouth tasted like wood, she could feel its hard, tooth-marked edges. She chewed twice and forced it down. She didn't care about the good news from France, that was the strange thing; today it really made no difference to her one way or another.

Mrs Farren carried on in the same cool, conversational tone. 'You should go and speak to her.'

'Her?'

A jerk of the head in the vague direction of Grosvenor Square. Like pointing at something filthy.

Mother "won't say her name,
Eliza realised. 'I ... I hardly know what to tell her.'

Mrs Farren leaned across the table. 'Oh, I think you do.'

Eliza felt trapped. There was a hair on her mother's chin she'd never noticed before. 'I'm sure she's as distraught as I am, after last night.'

The older woman's arms folded up like penknives. 'That's neither here nor there. Madam can wall herself up like an empress if she pleases. You're the one whose prospects hang by a thread.'

Eliza could hardly breathe. Did her mother mean her career, or Derby, or both? Last night's crowd hissed in her ears like a vast kettle. 'But Anne's done nothing—'

'It's not what she's done, is it? It's what she is.'

Wordless, Eliza lurched up from the table.

She sat in her room for hours, preparing. It was like the time Dora Jordan had gone into early labour and Eliza had had to learn the part of Claramintha in a single day to replace her.

When she came down the stairs her mother was standing in the hall. Had she been there all morning, like a statue of Cerberus? 'His Lordship's carriage isn't out there,' Mrs Farren remarked accusingly. Eliza ignored that. She let her mother help her on with her summer cloak. 'Put this on.' It was a narrow hat with a thick veil.

Eliza flinched, but she knew it was a good idea; there might be journalists lurking about. Mrs Farren had always had the knack of rising to a crisis; that was what came of being married to a drunkard.

It was only a matter of walking round the corner to no. 8 Grosvenor Square. How closely she and Anne lived; it made her shake. She wondered how many passers-by could recognise her through her veil. She was too tall, too slim to be anyone else. Suddenly celebrity seemed a frightening thing.

In Anne's parlour Eliza paused with her hand on the back of a chair. 'Can you trust your servants?'

Anne cleared her throat. 'I believe so.'

Eliza opened the door again to check no one was listening, then shut it and sat, without waiting to be asked. She began her speech. 'I've no intention of discussing the events of yesterday evening.'

'My dear, such a nightmare! How persecution swoops on the innocent like an eagle on young lambs!' Anne produced a miserable half-smile. 'Have you heard from Derby yet? He didn't answer my note. I've been longing to write to you—to come to you—'

Eliza shook her head.

'Mine is perhaps the only heart in England that can understand what mortification yours is suffering.'

This was too much. 'Your
understanding
helps me not at all,' said Eliza through her teeth. 'What I require is an explanation of the facts.'

'Oh, yes. Have you seen this thing called
The Whig Club?'
Anne shuffled through her pocketbook and held up a small pamphlet.

'No.' Eliza's stomach sank at the sight. Not just the buzzing gossip of a theatre audience, then, but cold print.

'Well, I'll lend it to you and then we can plan our campaign,' said Anne, pressing it into her hand. 'Without going into horrid detail—'

'I don't want details, I want an answer,' Eliza interrupted, as she stuffed the thing into her cotton reticule without looking. 'What is it about you?'

'Wait one moment—'

'I've waited five years already.'

Anne stared at her, suddenly every inch the Honourable Mrs Damer.

She's not my better,
said Eliza in her head.
I'm entitled to an answer.
She tried to speak slowly and clearly, like a lady. 'Why does this particular rumour, out of all possible slurs, keep resurfacing and clinging to your skirts?'

'I've no idea.' The tone was cool.

'Oh, come on,' Eliza roared. 'People don't make these things up for no reason at all. I've repeatedly given you the benefit of the doubt, but I'm beginning to wonder. Is it true you've turned down several good proposals?'

'Where did you hear that?' Anne's eyes were blazing. 'And what if I have? I've been married once already, unlike you; I've nothing to prove.'

'But it's not me who attracts these rumours,' snarled Eliza. 'I'm only smeared when I associate with you. Something must have happened long ago, before ever you met me; something must have set off this whole foul mudslide.'

She noticed a tiny change in the angular features. She leaned closer. 'What? What is it?'

'Nothing.'

'Don't lie to me. Faces are my trade.'

Anne took a ragged breath. 'I admit I was once foolish,' she said, very low, 'but I've never been criminal.'

Yes.
'Tell me.'

'I was in Italy, in mourning for my husband. It was such a small thing—so random, so unlikely. I met this girl,' said Anne, barely audible.

'An Italian girl?'

A nod. The words came out like a sigh. 'There was a kiss.'

At last.
Eliza felt a surge of something like relief. 'Where?'

'In Italy, as I said. Under a lemon tree.'

'No, where was the kiss? On the lips?'

Anne gave her a peculiarly disdainful look. Eliza flushed at the vulgarity of her own question, but she needed to know. A kiss on the cheek was not a kiss on the lips; a touching of the mouth to the back of the fingers was not the same as a kiss pressed to the throat. Female friends kissed each other all the time, but Anne's tone had suggested that this kiss was something more. Longer, more passionate, more lingering? Eliza needed to weigh up the evidence. This woman was accused of wanting terrible things. Well, how could desires be weighed but by the actions they led to?

'It was just a kiss.'

'Were you kissed? Or did you kiss?'

'I can't recall. I've spent so long trying to forget it ever happened. It's ludicrous, the skinny little root of all my troubles. A terrible accident of timing.'

'It doesn't sound like an accident,' said Eliza.

'Not the kiss, perhaps, but the fact that it happened to be glimpsed by an English party. I knew none of them and I thought they knew nothing of me, but the English abroad club together so; they must have gossiped until they discovered that I was that young sculptress whose husband had shot himself in a tavern. Well, such a combination of notorious circumstances must have been irresistible,' she added scornfully, 'and the story raced its way back to Grub Street.'

Eliza sat back as far as her chair would allow her. 'So,' she said almost cheerfully, 'it's true.'

Anne's eyes were burning.

'After all your professions of innocence, of bewilderment, it turns out the scribblers had you in a nutshell!'

'Eliza—'

Her name sounded like an indecent endearment. 'If you weren't a Sapphist—a
filthy Tommy
—whyever would you have kissed this Italian, or let her kiss you?'