Life Mask (71 page)

Derby shrugged.
'Bella, horrida bella,
as Virgil says of horrid wars. There's Prinny,' he added, waiting for the royal eye to fall on him before he made his bow.

Eliza dipped into a curtsy. 'He hasn't brought his wife.'

'Oh, they see nothing of each other since he managed to make her
enceinte
on the first night,' Derby assured her. 'The verdict's in: Caroline's incorrigibly vulgar as well as dirty, and barely speaks English.'

Eliza had heard worse: that on the wedding night in question the Princess's manners had not been those of a novice. But that might only be a rumour spread by the machinating Lady Jersey, royal lady-in-waiting, who boasted of having picked a bride Prinny would loathe so that disgust for the wife would ensure constancy to the mistress. Did the Prince regret his bargain? Eliza wondered. Was it true that he'd wept for his betrayal of his Mrs Fitz, his true wife, all the way to his wedding? That lady had gone abroad, they said.

Eliza had no right to judge the Prince harshly; she knew all too well that to survive one would trample anyone underfoot. He was being punished already and not just by the flaws of his wife. Though he'd done his duty, the Commons had proved so resistant to the idea of paying off all his debts again that Pitt had been forced to reduce the Prince's income to less than it had been before the marriage.

'Look, there's Lawrence,' she said, nudging Derby. 'He hasn't really lived up to his youthful promise, has he?'

Tom Lawrence, his face toughened into adulthood, nodded at her and Derby as they approached. Eliza wondered whether he was thinking of the day in his studio, the day he'd molested her. These events loomed large in a woman's life, but often they meant little to men; he might have had scores of sluts since then. 'Mr Lawrence,' she said with a bright smile, 'I saw an interesting advertisement in the
Oracle
the other day, claiming that you're the best painter in England.'

The line had a most satisfying effect; the young man went the purple of dried meat. 'I hope I need not assure you, Miss Farren, that it was none of my doing.'

'Some rash but well-intentioned friend?' asked Derby.

'My father,' said Lawrence, very low. 'He'd formed a notion that I was unfairly neglected by this Academy and by the public at large.'

Lawrence Senior was a publican, Eliza remembered. How mortifying! For all the private battles she and her mother had had over the years—and the last had been the worst—Eliza knew she could trust her absolutely.

When Derby excused himself for a few minutes, to have a word with a fellow horsebreeder, Eliza let herself wander into the small sculpture and prints room. She'd intended to avoid it, but it drew her like an itch.

There, not an arm's length away from her, was Anne Damer, deep in conversation with a small lady with dark hair. Eliza froze. The room was crowded; there was no space to escape at her back. The piece which stood in front of her she recognised now; it was the young lady, Miss Berry. A superb piece in terracotta, Eliza could see that; the lines were quiet and strong.

It wasn't the sculptor who felt her gaze and looked up, it was Miss Berry. 'Miss Farren, I believe?'

Eliza nodded once. It was so rare in the World to be accosted by someone to whom one hadn't been introduced—yet she couldn't accuse this woman of vulgar forwardness. Miss Berry had the air of some fierce bird, rather. And after all, they knew enough of each other not to behave like strangers. 'I recognise you by your portrait,' said Eliza with automatic sweetness, gesturing at the bust.

Anne Damer stood there like a statue. Her eyes moved between them, but she made no attempt to speak.
Oh, come, let's have a civil greeting, since we must,
thought Eliza. But no; the older woman's dignity was absolute.
She won't say a word to me.

The alarming Miss Berry was making some pertinent remarks on the art of sculpture as practised by the ancients. Eliza managed to contribute something about the Gallic virtuosity of Roubiliac. No doubt she'd picked that up from Anne, she thought with a stab of unease. But the sculptor continued to listen to the whole conversation as if it were taking place on the other side of a window and the rules of the game seemed to require that neither Eliza nor Mary Berry refer to her.

Miss Berry had moved on now to the experience of being sculpted; its many pleasures and its uncomfortable qualities.

'You mean the plaster?'

A look of incomprehension.

Eliza saw she'd made a mistake. 'I only meant ... I believe it's sometimes a practice, of ... it can happen that a sculptor begins by pasting a thin layer of plaster all over the subject's face.' She soldiered on, aware she was blushing, and hoped the face powder would hide it. As she described the technique she remembered from seven years ago, it sounded mildly obscene. 'Pastes it on so as to form a sort of mask, don't you know.'

'Oh?'

'I believe it's called a life mask,' stammered Eliza. 'To distinguish it from—'

'A death mask. Yes,' said Miss Berry.

Eliza felt extremely stupid.

'But of course, Miss Farren, you've had the experience of sitting for your portrait on many occasions. Do you enjoy it? The being looked at, studied, interrogated, as it were?'

'I ... That depends.'

'Do you own any of your portraits?'

Eliza thought of the bust called
Thalia
that was now in a trunk in the garret at Green Street, wrapped in an old sheet. 'One or two,' she said as coolly as she could.

'And do you find them true to life?'

She didn't know how to answer these unsettling questions. 'Less so, as the years go by,' she quipped, 'the marble lasts, but the face ages.'

'On the contrary, I believe that in a portrait like this one'—and Miss Berry suddenly turned to contemplate her own bust—'something is captured, the very essence of the woman, the soul. A part of her that becomes clearer, perhaps, as the charms of girlhood fall away. When I look at this I'll always recognise myself till the day I die.'

'How nice for you,' said Eliza faintly.

Miss Berry gave her a long look before Eliza muttered a farewell and turned to fight her way back into the great saloon. It wasn't a withering glare, Eliza thought, there was more to it than that. There was scorn in it and perhaps a hint of jealousy—but something else as well. Could it be pity?

J
ULY 1795

Anne ran across the hall at Park Place and Lady Ailesbury fell against her. They were both thickly swaddled in black lustring; it was like a battle of crows. 'Oh, Mother.'

Only sobs for an answer. Anne glanced over her shoulder; Mary was directing the servants about the baggage.

'Dearest Mother. How are you bearing up?'

'Oh, Anne. Such a saint I've lost! I tell you, living and dying he thought only of me!'

Something about the Countess's remark set her daughter's teeth on edge. Field Marshal Conway hadn't been a saint, but a decent man who cared for many things: his wife, yes, but also his daughter, his dogs, his estate, his country and his dinner.

Lady Ailesbury's whole weight lay across Anne's collarbone. Anne staggered slightly and helped her mother into a chair, which one of the men had pulled out for her. She looked up to thank him. The face had more lines in it, but its broad contours were the same. 'O'Hara!'

The General smiled, then remembered the occasion and sobered again. 'I'm here to pay my respects.'

'Oh, but I'd no idea—I thought you were still in France—' And at the image Anne began to cry. She hadn't wept last night when the news of her father's death had come; she'd only felt a dull ache in her chest and an unreasonable irritation with him for sitting around in wet clothes, at seventy-five, and catching a chill. But now the thought of Charles O'Hara shackled in a French gaol for all this time—with his friends sparing him only the occasional thought—made her sob like a child. She was gripping his hand like a rope that could save her. Even when he sat her down on a chair beside her mother she didn't let go. She heard him talking to the servants, giving firm instructions. And here's the. lovely Miss Berry,' he remarked, 'who's changed not a whit in the ten or more years since we met in Italy. Do you by any chance recall my face?'

'Of course,' Anne heard Mary say distractedly, 'of course, General; ten years isn't long enough to forget.'

Walpole, who hadn't felt up to visiting Park Place in such a long time, had managed it today. His valet Philip carried him in from the Richmonds' coach, wrapped in a blanket. 'I'm afraid we're a party of invalids,' muttered Lady Mary to her sister, 'with our pills and potions and foot warmers...' Richmond and Walpole were both suffering from gout, and Lady Mary from some of her vague and mysterious ailments; she looked sallow about the eyes.

After the funeral service in the chapel, and the burial, they all drove back to Park Place. The Duchess of Richmond escorted her mother straight to her room. Anne hoped Lady Ailesbury wouldn't take too many drops of laudanum.

She sat downstairs with the few guests who were staying at Park Place. She felt more tired than anything else. Mary's anxious dark eyes sought her out and Anne gave her a small smile. Whatever would she have done without her friend's support and decisiveness, ever since she'd got the news?

Charles O'Hara was looking no less handsome for all his sufferings; he joked about having strained the hospitality of the French nation by eating twice a day at their expense for a year and a half till his gaolers finally tired of him and exchanged him for General Rochambeau. Anne felt a pang of relief that she'd never told anyone about his hinted proposal to her, back in the summer of '91. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been to sit beside him here at Park Place in front of people who
knew.

Walpole, looking more pink-cheeked after an unaccustomed glass of wine, was bringing the General up to date on British politics. 'Ireland's said to be on the brink of eruption,' he said with melancholy relish.

Richmond broke in. 'My sister Louisa complains that her lifetime of kindness to the local Catholics has been rewarded with the basest ingratitude—they join secret societies behind her back, and she and my other sisters Emily and Sarah have taken to sleeping with pistols under their beds.'

'Even here in England,' Anne told O'Hara, 'there've been bread riots all this summer—attacks on grain carts, burning of flour mills—and one Reform meeting in London is said to have attracted a crowd of 100,000!'

'I heard they gave out biscuits,' mentioned Mary.

'Biscuits?' asked the General.

'Yes, with anti-war slogans printed on them,' she told him. 'I suppose it was thought the poor would pay more attention to a message if it were edible.'

He let out a booming laugh, then stopped himself, glancing upwards.

'Don't worry,' said Anne, 'my mother's room is in the west wing and she'll be asleep by now.' She smiled at him. Somehow, meeting again under these peculiar circumstances had freed her from any trace of awkwardness with O'Hara; they were the old friends they'd always been.

Richmond, loosened by brandy, told the humiliating story of his dismissal after more than a decade of tireless service. 'That's Pitt's whole first Cabinet purged in a mere six years. Clearly there's not a single ally he wouldn't sink a knife into,' he concluded bitterly.

The Duchess patted his arm like a mother. 'To be honest, O'Hara,' Richmond went on, 'I dream of retiring altogether, just hunting and sailing my sloop and messing about on the farm. II
faut cultiver notre jardin,
as Diderot put it.'

Voltaire,
Anne silently corrected him.

Walpole spoke shakily about the glorious military career of 'Harry Conway, the dearest friend I ever had. His favourite medicine was magnesia, you know, to purify the blood; you should all try it. I take it every morning.'

Anne mentioned that he'd left a tiny Temple of Harmony unfinished, on the hill; that wouldn't please him. 'I wish you'd had the chance to know my father better,' she told Mary, wiping her eyes.

'One had only to meet Conway once or twice,' said O'Hara in his deep growl, 'to know him for a sweet, good man.'

The remark filled her with a wave of gratitude. 'How long can you stay with us, General?'

He made polite noises.

'Oh, now you're here, do grant us a fortnight or more.'

'But you and your family—'

'Believe me, company is just the cordial for our spirits,' she said. 'Miss Berry will be staying a while, won't you?'

'As long as you need me,' said Mary, pressing her shoulder.

Much later Anne and Walpole were the only ones left by the fire. 'I shouldn't keep you from your slumbers,' he said. 'I'm a terrible one for sitting up late.'

'That's all right,' she said, staring into the flames. She didn't like the thought of going into her bedroom and shutting the door. She was one step nearer to death now; the firm barricade of her father had been knocked down.

When Walpole broke the silence his tone was curiously tentative. 'Harry and I had some trouble, once.'

'You quarrelled?' Anne wasn't sure she wanted to hear this, not tonight.

'Oh, no, not trouble between us, no; never that. Fuss with the press, I mean. A trouble shared, a trouble halved, or perhaps doubled, that sort of thing.'

Anne's pulse began to hammer. Could he be tipsy?
What fuss with the press?

'It was political, of course, these things usually are.'

'What happened?' She sounded too accusatory.

'Oh, the pamphlets, mm,' said Walpole, his gaze inward. 'I'd written an address in defence of your dear father, you see, when he was unjustly dismissed from Lord Grenville's government for opposing some measures of the King's. This was '64, if memory serves—what an eternity ago!—and Harry was one of the first Whigs brave enough to stand up against the encroachments of royal power. I had these
visions
—Walpole produced the word mockingly—'of your father and me leading a truly just government, if we ever got the chance. At any rate my defence of my dear cousin prompted a wave of vileness from Grub Street. One pamphlet called me
hermaphroditical,'
he said with a tiny laugh, 'said our alliance was an
affaire de coeur.'