Life Mask (83 page)

Her tone was just as plain: 'I will.'

A
PRIL 1797

The softly handsome Lord Edward Smith-Stanley drove her to the theatre. His father had asked the young MP to be Miss Farren's escort this month, to save the couple some embarrassment until the first month of mourning was over. 'What do you think of these peace talks between France and Austria, Miss Farren?' he asked. 'I very much wish that
our
government hadn't missed its moment to make peace with France, too.'

'So do I,' she assured him, speaking very clearly because of his bad hearing. He was a sweet fellow and she'd be glad to be his stepmother, absurd though that sounded. All that worried Eliza was a paragraph in one of the newspapers about young Lord Stanley's
aspirations to supplant his Father in a certain Actress's heart...

She managed to catch Sheridan in the corridor and ask for a few moments in his office. 'I'm to marry Lord Derby on the first of May.'

'Felicitations,' he said blandly.

She was glad the date was soon; the situation was so awkward—almost farcical, with Derby having to go about in mourning clothes over his blithe heart—that she wanted it to be over.

'Now some claimed the Derby stallion would shy at the final ditch,' remarked Sheridan, 'but I always said there'd be no stopping him. The betting was high at Brooks's on this point, I can tell you—and I'll have heavy pockets tonight.'

'I've no idea what you mean,' said Eliza with a wintry smile.

'Well, you must admit it's not a very common event, is it?—an actress catching such a plum? In the whole annals of the theatre,' said Sheridan, looking almost fondly around him, 'I can't think of more than one or two examples.'

'I intend to retire after my performance next week,' she told him.

'Ah, yes,' he said with a sigh. 'When I married the first Mrs Sheridan we could have done with her earnings, but I wouldn't have dreamed of being disgraced by having my wife perform for hire. She got £100 by her last concert, but I made her lay it in the plate at church.'

'What a gracious gesture,' said Eliza sardonically.
He thinks we theatre folk are all whores,
she realised.
Himself included.

'Well, we'll miss you, Miss Farren, I must say,' said Sheridan. 'You're a perverse nymph and you've given me a few grey hairs over the years, but you can certainly act. You'll need all your talent where you're going. I dare say you'll find Knowsley like one long elegant comedy—though short on jokes. Luxurious costumes, superb scenery, but never a moment to step out of role and take a breather.'

Eliza hated him at that moment. She and Sheridan had never sat down and had a conversation in their lives—but he knew her well. 'Now, about my arrears,' she said with a sharp smile. 'The debt still amounts to more than £800. If you prefer, you can take the matter up with Derby; I know you're more used to talking of money with
him.'

That dart seemed to bounce off Sheridan. 'Now, this is too bad,' he teased, 'the richest lord in England means to rob us of our brightest star and then quarrel with us for a little dust she leaves sprinkled behind her.'

'Gold dust,' she said.

'Dust all the same.'

But she found herself grinning unwillingly. Sheridan had won this final round.

T
HE EVENING
before her last performance Eliza sat at her
secré- taire,
studying the latest prints. A crude one called
The Dance of Death
showed herself and Derby dancing round Lady Derby in her coffin. (Perhaps the Earl was right when he'd speculated the other day that satire released tension; perhaps because the British upper ranks had submitted to the vicious engraving knives of Rowlandson, Gillray and their ilk, they'd avoided the literal Guillotine. So far, at least.) Here was another called
Contemplations upon a Coronet
that showed Eliza at her dressing table in an ecstasy:

—hey for my Lady Niminy-Piminy—O, Gemini!—no more straw beds in Barns—no more scowling Managers!—& curtsying to a dirty Public!—but a Coronet up on my coach—dashing at the opera!—shining at the Court!—oh, dear! dear! what shall I come to!

That one almost made her laugh. It had been such a long time since
straw beds in barns.
She thought back and tried to remember how that had felt: the scratchiness of old straw under sacking. No, the memory was out of reach now; that was little Betsy who'd slept on straw, not Miss Eliza Farren.

Well, tomorrow she'd be saying farewell to
scowling Managers
and making her last curtsy to the
dirty Public.
She was to give them Lady Teazle in the
School for Scandal
—not so much her favourite as theirs. As she lay awake in the dark night, her mind was clogged with the names of all the women she'd played over the years.
Lady Fanciful, Lady Modish, Lady Paragon, Lady Plotwell, Lady Rustic, Lady Sadlife, Lady Townly, Lady Trifle:
they lined up like some ghost battalion in old-fashioned hoops and lace ruffles.
Mrs Sullen,
Mrs Simper, Mrs Freelove;, Miss Loveless, Miss Lovely, Miss Languish. Alcmena, Alinda, Almeida,
she thought, starting to work her way through the alphabet in the hopes that it would send her to sleep;
several Belindas, Berinthia, Bisarre,
and the
Baroness of Bruchsal.

She yawned, the following evening, as she pulled on the turban and plumes that she'd worn for Teazle ever since big hats went out of fashion. She darkened her eyebrows and shaded the lids with blue; used a dab of rouge to enlarge her lower lip, which had always been a trifle too thin.

There was nothing about her retirement on the playbills, but all London knew. Jack Palmer, in his Joseph Surface costume, popped his head in to say that the crowd was the biggest for years; the doorkeepers had never taken in so high a sum on a non-Ben night. Several carriages had collided outside and three people had been hurt while attempting to squeeze into their boxes.

'Not badly?' Eliza stared at him, thinking of the terrible night at the Haymarket when a dozen people had been trampled to death.

'Nothing to worry about. And your Earl appeared in his box at the end of my scene and got a big cheer,' he assured her.

'Jack?' she said as he was going.

He cocked an eyebrow.

'Thanks.'

'For what?'

'For twenty years.'

He sketched a mocking bow and the boy came to say that Act Two was about to begin.

Eliza tripped on stage as young Lady Teazle, to scoff at her grouchy old husband, played by Tom King. He attempted to answer—but they were silenced by a deafening hail of applause. She stood there, smiling and curtsying. The clapping only got louder; the crowd wouldn't let her begin. She felt a tightness in her throat. This was the same audience who'd hissed her when she missed performances, howled with laughter when she'd been called a
Tommy.
Was it her departure that was making them so fond, or her story, the fairy tale of a poor girl lifted to a glittering rank?

She found the Derby box and gave him a private smile. The Richmond box was usually empty these days; tonight it was occupied by Anne Damer. Eliza stared at her; her heart appeared to squeeze shut for a moment, before it beat again.

'Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I'll not bear it,'
began Tom King, shaking his head.

'Sir Peter, Sir Peter, you may bear it or not, as you please,'
she cried merrily, '
but I ought to have my own way in everything, and what's more, I will too!

After her first few scenes had passed Eliza found that the familiar lines—not just hers, but her fellow actors' too—were playing rather strangely. The sparkling wit was still there, but also other tones. It was tragic, really, that Sir Peter loved his wife but couldn't tell her so for fear she'd laugh at him; awful, the way these gossips tore apart their so-called friends.

By the end of the play Eliza's throat had a swollen feeling, as if she'd been speaking for days on end. When she came out to take her bows she saw that Anne Damer had already gone. This gave her a peculiar pang:
She might at least have stayed to the end.

Lady Teazle's epilogue was an old piece, by Colman, but Sheridan thought it suited Eliza's present circumstances perfectly.
T, who was late so volatile and gay!
she began,

Like a trade wind must now blow all one way,
Bend all my cares, my studies, and my vows,
To one dull rusty weathercock—my spouse!

Here she bobbed a sulky curtsy in the direction of the Derby box, which won her a great laugh. And now she began a mime of rural boredom.

In a lone rustic hall for ever pounded,
With dogs, cats, rats and squalling brats surrounded...

'Lots of little Derbys!' crowed a Cockney in the pit. Eliza ignored that, but it caused great hilarity.

Farewell all quality of high renown,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious town!
Farewell! your revels I partake no more,
And Lady Teazle's occupation's o'er...
No more in vice or error to engage,
Or play the fool at large on life's great stage.

Now at last it was over. She curtsied to left and right and centre, left and right and centre again, as she'd been taught by her mother before she'd stepped on her very first ramshackle provincial stage. But Eliza had never heard such deafening cheers in her life. Women fluttered their fans overhead; men tossed their hats and ' handkerchiefs in the air. Tulips and violets flew on to the stage. When she left this stage, Eliza realised with wet eyes, she'd be losing a self. She'd never be Lady Teazle again, nor any of the rustling silken crew.

M
AY 1797

The wedding day went by in rather a blur for Derby. The Reverend Hornby had come up from Knowsley to conduct the service in the smallest drawing room at Derby House. It was a quiet ceremony; Derby wanted nothing to remind him of the vainglorious
fête champêtre
with which he'd celebrated his first wedding. He thought of his younger self, dressed up as Rubens; what a nincompoop!

Today he was still in light mourning, as a concession to the World; his coat was silver grey with bands of black. After they'd gone through the marriage articles with the lawyer in an ante-room it was time for him to walk into the drawing room with Eliza's hand light as snow on his arm. She was wearing white and silver, something quite simple with long sleeves. 'First it was ordained for the procreation of children,' the vicar intoned.

Derby glanced at his grown-up son and two daughters, sitting together to his left. Did they find it strange to witness their old father going through these promises again at forty-five?

'Secondly it was ordained for a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication.'

Well, he and Eliza had certainly avoided fornication all these years, he thought with dark amusement.

'Thirdly it was ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have for the other.'

He stole a quick look; Eliza was staring straight ahead. How well she carried herself always, Derby thought; nothing seemed to fluster her.

His cue, all of a sudden: 'I will,' he said hoarsely. He slid the Derby wedding ring on to her slim finger. His mother had worn it till she'd died when he was seven. The first Lady Derby should really have sent it back to him when they'd separated, but her executors had delivered it to him only last week. The blessing came next, then the prayers. They signed the register; she wrote
Eliza Smith-Stanley, Countess of Derby
and the words gave him an unspeakable thrill. Mrs Farren, sniffling as tradition demanded, was the witness.
I must see about settling an annuity on her,
he thought. He'd ordered suites of rooms to be refurbished for his mother-in-law, both at Derby House and at Knowsley; he'd spent enough evenings with Margaret Farren over the years to long for a bit of privacy at last.

The whole ceremony had gone by so fast, that Derby didn't have time to feel like the happiest man in the world. If anything, his state was a little flat. What was that
pensée
of Pascal's about preferring the hunt to the capture, the contest to the victory?

Afterwards, when the bride was resting in her room, Bunbury popped into Derby House to offer his warmest congratulations. 'A prime filly, to my eye, and good breeding stock too. Has she begun her visits?'

'No, she's sent her excuses till we come back from Knowsley.' Derby wished Eliza could be spared that, but it was impossible. A new bride had to call on every person of note in London and spend at least a quarter of an hour with each; Georgiana reckoned she'd done twenty-eight a day for three weeks.

After Bunbury had gone, Fox came by with Sheridan. He had an excited, guilty expression. 'I'm going to do it, old chap. I'm going to secede.'

Taken aback, Derby simply stared.

'When Grey's motion for Reform is defeated next month, I shall stand up and announce that to persevere in Opposition is to contribute to the hoodwinking of the people by maintaining the imposture that this government is a free and representative one. Then Grey and I will lead our remaining followers from the House.'

Disappointment mingled with a sort of relief. Another curtain falling. 'Well. If that's what you think right—I can't blame you,' Derby told him.

'Georgiana says Parliament's like an abused wife,' drawled Sheridan, 'with Pitt as the brutal husband who cows her. She clings to him only because she's given up all her jointure and even pin money into his hands, and the divorce would ruin her. Foxy here is the lover, d'you see, who has Dame Parliament's secret sympathies.'