Life Mask (84 page)

Fox chuckled. 'Perhaps she'll pine more passionately for me if I walk away. Sherry's not coming, though.'

'Oh, I sympathise and I'll envy your retirement,' Sheridan assured him. 'This old manor house I've bought, Polesden Lacey—I dream of retreating there with Hecca and little Charlie.'

The new baby—a compensation for the last Mrs Sheridan's baby daughter, who hadn't long outlived her mother—had been named for his two godfathers, Fox and Grey. Despite all their combats over the years, Derby thought, this shrunken Party was held together by love.

'But secession's not in my nature. There's still the mutineering sailors to be defended and my poor Ireland...'

Fox patted Sheridan on the back. 'You're tireless. Whereas I wouldn't care if I were condemned never to stir a mile beyond St Anne's Hill for the rest of my days. I'm going to read Liz all the great epics, from the
Iliad
through to
Paradise Lost.'

Is this the end of the story ?
Derby wondered.
Has Pitt won our war?
But the Eunuch couldn't last for ever, surely. 'Rest while you can, old Fox,' he said, 'because it won't be for ever. I intend to see you Prime Minister before I die.' It came out so sternly that they all started laughing.

T
HE CORRIDORS
of Derby House were dim; the lamp on the wall outside Derby's bedroom had burnt down.' In his nightshirt, cap and slippers, he fumbled his way down four doors and tapped on the wood, praying he'd got the right room. Under his nightshirt he was almost painfully erect. For some reason he found himself remembering a tactless remark of Busley's, the other day in the cock sheds:
You shouldn't breed from old stock, it stands to reason.

The tapping was meant to warn his bride of his arrival, but it had a tentative timbre to it. No answer. Hadn't Eliza heard his knock? He found himself thinking of the motto over the gateway at Knowsley:
Bring good news and knock boldly.
He turned the handle and went in.

The Etruscan room had been Robert Adam's initial try at that style for the first Lady Derby; she'd hated it. It was painted all over •with Etruscan motifs, like one great Wedgwood plate. Eliza was sitting up, very still, in his mother's bed. Only her head was showing, high on the pillows; her fair hair was down, spilling round her face. She smiled at him and lifted her sleeves out of the sheets. He thought he might burst with excitement at the sight of her. 'Are you cold?' he asked. 'Eliza,' he added, daring himself to use the long-forbidden name.

'No, no, I'm perfectly well.'

Derby went up the steps and crawled into the high bed. He wondered whether to snuff the candle, but it was on her side; he would have had to lean across her to do it. This was ridiculous, he was as timid as a boy. How many women had he had? he asked himself. Dozens; a dozen at least. Though more in the early part of his life than in. the past ten years but never mind that now, never mind. What was he afraid of? Eliza was dazzling, as beautiful as she'd always been, perfect in all her lines,
age has not withered her,
he quoted in his head. It was just so strange to be here with her, alone in a room, allowed. He undid the ribbons at her bosom and she didn't lift her hands to stop him, made no objection, said not a single cold word, that was the really strange thing. It occurred to Derby that it would be easier to be bold if she fought him off a little. A gulp of laughter rose up in his throat.

'What is it?'

'Nothing,' Derby said and kissed her. That went well; her lips were as firm as an apple. He and she slid down in the bed and it creaked reassuringly. Eliza's bosom was startlingly soft, warm as a spaniel's mane. He was on top of her now. His toes touched her shins and he remembered how much shorter he was. Ugly, unworthy in every way. He told himself it didn't matter; none of that had ever mattered. He kissed her again and bruised his lip against her tooth.
This is it,
he told himself, spurring himself on,
this is the moment I've waited for, panted for.
He thought of the times he'd lain alone in his bed four rooms away and the thought of merely glimpsing Eliza's ankle had made his prick spring up hard as metal in his own fist. Would she be shocked if she knew that, or would she expect no better? She was worldly wise and a virgin; she was an actress who'd lived like a nun. He was bewildered, flustered, aroused and deflated.
Damn, damn, damn, damn your eye
s, he told himself.

After a while Derby moved away from her. She lay still, but he could hear her breathing. Was she excited or distressed? Against the light of the candle her face was shadowed black; he couldn't tell what she thought of him.

'You need your rest,' he said, his voice hoarse with the hypocrisy of it, and slid from the bed.

T
HE JOURNEY
to Knowsley took two days, as the roads weren't as bad in summer. Mrs Farren was brimming over with excitement; she'd even adopted the irritating habit of calling Eliza
Your Ladyship.
Derby was civil but abstracted; he read a book the Duke of Bedford had given him on agricultural improvement and looked out of the window for hours on end, as if he'd never seen the English countryside before. Eliza ransacked her mind for the right thing to say. If only she could be frank and tell him not to worry about last night. It hadn't much alarmed her; it was only a kind of stage fright, surely? The two of them had to break the long habit of prohibition, that was all. It stood to reason that a new life took practice.

Outside Stoke, on the second day, Eliza found herself thinking of all the worldly, sophisticated characters she'd played, "Lady Who and Mrs Whatsit, who never saw their husbands from breakfast till night. She remarked, 'I don't want to be a city countess.'

Derby and her mother both looked at her in puzzlement.

'Flirting and shopping and going to the play, I mean.'

'I thought you liked London,' he said.

'I did once, but this will be a new life, with a new name and a transformed circle of acquaintance. A fresh start is what I need,' she reassured him. 'I've seen enough and had enough of the World.'

Derby nodded in agreement. 'Happy he who retires from business to till the fields that were his father's, as Horace puts it.'

'Besides,' Eliza added, 'I expect I'll have new duties to keep me at home.' She was trying for a coy tone, with this hint at children, but it came out stiff.

The Earl shut his eyes and leaned back against the cushions.
Wonderful\
Eliza congratulated herself,
now you've really made him feel impotent.
Nearly thirty-five wasn't too old for her to begin breeding, surely? But Derby probably had no clear idea what age she was, she remembered; he'd taken her in marriage without any guarantees on that score. He was the best of men and she wanted to be the best of wives to him, but it was all going wrong.

T
HAT NIGHT
in the strange, grand bedroom at Knowsley, scented by a bowl of early roses, she unpinned her hair, and glanced through a letter from Wales. Mrs Piozzi, after all this time.

May I offer my most humble congratulations? All the poor of Knowsley will be as much in love with you as the Earl has been for ten years past. Having come through all trials of delay &
calumny, you must be the happiest woman in the world—unless
your mother is. I hope your good reception at Court will make an
aristocrate
of your husband!

Eliza couldn't read any more; she let the letter drop and stared at her face in the mirror. She couldn't bear to get into bed and wait for a re-enactment of last night. Or worse, what if Derby didn't come to her room at all? How could they climb out of the awful abyss?

Decisive, she picked up her candle and opened the door. In the corridor her feet stung with cold. She couldn't remember which door was Derby's. This was ludicrous. What if she walked in on her mother, or young Lord Edward?

She stole from door to door, listening, peering through the keyhole for a light.
There.
Derby at his desk in his shirtsleeves, looking through some papers. How strange to see him through a keyhole, quite oblivious of her; how mysterious the little man looked. She turned the handle and went in before she could lose her nerve.

He looked up, owlish. 'My dear!'

'I know this isn't customary,' Eliza told him in a whisper, as she advanced across the Turkish carpet. She almost said
My Lord,
as usual. 'I'm sorry to invade your chamber,' she added, very pert, coming close to him on the excuse of setting down her candlestick. It was time to play the strumpet.

'You're quite welcome.' Derby's hand found the small of her back.

'I simply wanted to say that I like it here.'

'At Knowsley?'

'Yes. And here.' She let herself down till she was sitting in his lap.

His arms were firm round her and his mouth was on her collarbone; his breath scalded her.

'I think I'll be happy. Very happy,' Eliza said a little desperately. Was this working? She couldn't tell. How little she knew of this sealed world to which she was a latecomer; how ignorant she was for a woman of her age. Derby moved as if to get up and she thought she might be hurting him; she leapt to her feet.

'Come,' he said, his eyes peculiarly shining, and he tugged her to the bed. There was no time to pull back the covers. He was heavy on top of her and fumbling with his breeches. It was all going to fall apart again, any minute now, she knew it. 'My Lord,' she said, then bit her lip.

He froze. 'What is it?'

She would deliver this line as teasingly, as sweetly as she knew how. 'You've courted me for sixteen years,' she said. 'Why the rush?'

He stared at her and for a moment she thought she'd offended him. Then he broke into a laugh. She let herself join in. Their laughter rippled; she was sure it could be heard all through the house. What an absurd pair they were.
Darby and Joan Go to It, or, The Follies of a Night.
They clung together and giggled like children. She'd known him so long. His ear was against her bare breast, his hand had a grip on her hip. 'I'm yours,' she said into his thinning hair, 'and you're mine.'

'Mm.'

'Sweet Ned,' she improvised. 'Come here to me, Ned, come under the covers.'

Derby was still laughing under his breath, but she could feel his prick against her now, a hard-nosed, eager snake. She found herself clamping her legs shut, by an old instinct, but then she told herself to loosen them. There was no need for waiting, refusing, holding at bay any more. The man who was her husband was lifting her night-gown an inch at a time, he was kissing her knees. He knew what to do and no doubt she would learn. Eliza felt a peculiar sort of nostalgia in advance. It was going to happen at last, it was happening. Any minute now she'd no longer be a virgin, and then who would she be?

Dear A.,
I look round this blank World
[the letter said],
full of duties, embarrassments & disappointments, & see not a single being but you on whom I can depend for strength & comfort. What home on earth has my heart but yours? We've both been dogged
by more than our share of misfortune, but I think the luck of happening upon each other in this wide world must make up for all we've suffered. At last I understand Plato's notion of souls being created in pairs but axed apart & sent spinning into the world, & only those blessed enough to meet with their tally again can ever know true happiness.

In the jolting phaeton Anne copied it into the tiny notebook. She'd recently taken to transcribing her favourite passages from Mary's letters, with any names, places and compromising details removed.

She'd also made her Will; the complicated duties involved in being Walpole's executrix had made her aware of how important it was to be ready. (His finances were a mess; his legacies had been calculated before the stocks had started plummeting, and unless the war ended and the market revived within the year they'd all have to be reduced.) Not that Anne had any plans to die for another thirty years at least, but when it came she meant to make a tidy and discreet end. Her Will specified that her chisels, hammer and the little japanned box of Fidelle's ashes were to be put in her coffin with her. It was a pagan touch, perhaps, but she liked the thought of going equipped with her tools. All her papers were to be burnt—except for these little black notebooks. Somehow she couldn't bear them to go on the bonfire. Perhaps Mary would want them as a memento.

'We're almost there,' remarked Lady Ailesbury, angling her parasol to keep the sun off her face. 'Really, when the road's free of mud, Twickenham's a bare forty-five minutes from Mayfair.'

'You're right,' said Anne, tidying away her portable writing desk.

When Anne had first learned of her extraordinary inheritance she'd thought—
well, admit it, hoped
—that her mother might resist the move to Strawberry Hill. Why shouldn't Lady Ailesbury stay in Grosvenor Square all year round and Anne could join her there on visits to London? But no; the company of her remaining daughter was clearly more necessary to Lady Ailesbury than the bustle of the city. And quite apart from filial duty, Anne thought, she could probably do with her mother's company in her new home, which was several times the size of the house in Grosvenor Square. So here they were, the two of them, in a rented phaeton with the breeze in their hair and a weighed-down carriage full of trunks coming along behind.

As they drove into the courtyard Anne looked up and saw the Latin motto.
The skies above the traveller change
, she translated,
but not the traveller.
It seemed so wrong to enter this house in the absence of its master. But she mustn't go into her new home in tears.

Mrs Margaret Young, the long-faced housekeeper, walked them through the rooms, and Anne and her mother made suggestions as to what might be moved or needed refurbishing. Lady Ailesbury was touched to see one of her own worsted pictures in the refectory; Anne, knowing how much Walpole had disliked it, came very close to hysterical laughter.