Mistress of My Fate (50 page)

On the fourth night—the eve of my departure—I was too preoccupied to do even that. I had strategized my every movement like a general preparing for battle, and now the time had arrived to execute my plans.

My first concern was Quindell. It was necessary that he should be kept as far from Clarges Street as possible, so that the enormous undertaking of packing my belongings and loading my coach could be performed undetected. That afternoon, I had taken care to send him a note claiming that I was “inconvenienced with a female complaint” and begged that he would not call upon me until the following afternoon. Once that had been dispatched, Lucy set to work, emptying my presses and drawers and filling my boxes for travel.

I had my windows shuttered and the drapery pulled as soon as darkness fell, but the candles continued to burn late into the night. I stood over Lucy, pacing and chattering anxiously. I had no wish to rest or even to stand still, and rebuffed the beckoning advances of my bed, whose coverlet I refused to touch.

I cannot say what time it was when I heard a loud commotion at the door downstairs. My belongings were packed and Lucy had just embarked upon sewing my most precious jewels into the hem of the riding habit I was to wear. The noise startled me, and I crept from my dressing room on to the darkened landing to listen. It was then I heard Quindell’s unmistakable voice rise from below.

“Dear God!” I breathed to Lucy. “Mr. Quindell is here!”

Terror spread across her face like cracks upon a sheet of ice.

I took the key from the door and locked her in, and then went sailing down the stairs.

“Philly!” I cried to him as he gazed up at me from the hall. There was no need to feign illness, for my face was pallid from shock. “Whatever is the matter?”

But Quindell’s bright expression did not burn out upon meeting with my cold one.

“Hetty! Oh dearest Hetty!” he sang out. “I have such thrilling news to relay, I could not bear to keep it from you for one moment longer!”

I stopped still where I stood, a false smile twitching upon my lips.

“What? What might that be, dear one?” I enquired, a sense of dread rising within me.

“Mr. Sheridan has agreed for you to play Maria in
The School for Scandal
!”

I continued to regard him, unmoved. His words made no sense to me.

“Miss Bates was thrown from her horse this morning and Sheridan was all at sea as to what to do—until I proposed you as her replacement! I say, it was a stroke of genius on my part… I know not why it never occurred to me before to do such a thing… Why, I had him right beside me at the faro table. I turned to the devil and offered him £500 to engage you in the role, and by Jove, he agreed!”

I could do nothing but stare at Quindell. My ears had not yet conveyed to my mind all that he said, or the implications of it. My mouth parted, and somehow, I began to speak.

“I do not wish to go upon the stage,” I stated numbly.

Quindell then bounded up the steps and took hold of me.

“But
I
wish you to! Oh my dear Thalia, my muse of comedy, you shall be celebrated by all of London! They shall all hail the name of Quindell for having found you! You shall be another Mrs. Farren, another Mrs. Siddons! They shall cry your name as I escort you from the green room, they shall throw roses at your feet wherever we walk!”

“But—”

“Darling goddess,” he said, going down upon his knees. “You,
you
are to play opposite Mrs. Jordan,
the
indomitable Mrs. Jordan as Lady Teazle, and the great Kemble himself as Sir Peter!” he exclaimed, dizzy with drink and high spirits. “I have dreamed of this moment, when I should be the adoring swain of an actress who is fêted by all society! And, dear girl, you need not fret, for I shall be there beside you, to
help you to learn your lines, to keep watch over Mr. Kemble and his direction…”

He reached into his coat pocket and handed me a book. It bore the gilt words
The School for Scandal
upon it.

“Rehearsals have already begun, but I dare say you, my clever muse, shall require scarcely any time to commit Maria’s part to memory,” he beamed. “You begin tomorrow, dear goddess, and make your début next month. Oh, come, sweet morning! Tomorrow begins your triumph upon the stage! And I shall be there. I shall wake at your side and deliver you to Drury Lane myself, where I shall sit and observe my Thalia perform!”

Perhaps it was the exhaustion, or the thunderous shock of it all, but I sensed my lower lip begin to tremble. Then my chin followed suit, and my eyes grew sore and wet. Soon, fat tears were streaming across my cheeks. I could say nothing, I could do nothing, but stretch my mouth into an odd, fixed grin. It was, dear reader, my first attempt at acting.

Chapter 38

There are two things I recall most about that morning. The first is the rain, for it came in torrents. It hammered upon the roofs and streamed down from the eaves, until the streets flowed with mud. It coated the windows of Quindell’s coach in a silty wash of taupe grey, a hue that matched the colour of the sky. As I sat within this viewless carriage, Philly pressing my hand, I felt as if I was travelling to the theatre in a tightly locked box. I remember, too, my thoughts: how I wished to tear at the door and flee, how I chanted to myself all the while,
I cannot stay, I cannot remain here. I shall take my leave tonight… or tomorrow. I need only an hour or so to make my escape
. My heart continued to urge me forward with the determination of a cavalry commander, but my head, I fear, was not entirely inclined to obey its orders. Doubt had begun to creep upon me and weigh me down, long before I had lifted my head from my pillow.

Philly had risen before me and ordered his valet to fetch his finest suit of deep-blue silk and his gold waistcoat from St. James’s Square, so he might be suitably dressed to accompany me to Drury Lane. To be sure, his mind was so preoccupied with his plan for me that even my packed boxes and the empty tables of my dressing room failed to arouse his notice. He was entirely blind to my reluctance, to my stooped shoulders and slow, heavy gait. Instead he fairly danced with joy and preened himself like a peacock in all the looking glasses.

Upon our arrival, we were shown along a network of stairs and corridors
to the rooms of Mr. John Philip Kemble, who was, as you might remember, not only a heralded presence upon the stage, second only to the late Mr. Garrick, but, like the former, also the manager of the Drury Lane theatre. Before we had so much as approached this man’s door, I had some idea of what I was to find behind it. There came from down the corridor such a blaze of high-pitched shrieking that I feared someone to be in distress. I looked with trepidation at Quindell and then at the theatre’s liveried servant, who seemed completely unmoved by the sounds. He stopped and rapped at the door, whereupon the cries were suddenly silenced.

“Come!” instructed a deep voice.

The door opened to reveal a scene which at first I believed to be a rehearsal for a farce, for before me stood the great Kemble, his hands upon his hips, opposed by two ladies: one, the tiny Mrs. Kemble, in hysterics, a sodden handkerchief in her hand; the other, the resplendent Mrs. Jordan, her mane of curly brown locks crowning her proudly held head. Our arrival brought an abrupt end to their theatrical disagreement.

“Mr. Quindell, sir…” announced the servant, “and…”

“Yes, I know,” Kemble interrupted, his face taut with irritation. “And this is the Maria thrust upon me by our dear proprietor. Dear, dear Mr. Sheridan, so concerned about the fortunes of this theatre that for a price he will put the mistress of any man in London upon its stage.”

Mrs. Kemble’s swollen eyes fixed on me, unrelenting and furious. I could not imagine what I had done to so immediately raise this woman’s ire, but I would soon learn.

“Your name, madam?” asked the manager.

“Miss Henrietta Lightfoot,” said Quindell with pride.

At that, Kemble’s stormy features suddenly rearranged themselves.

“
Miss
Lightfoot?” he asked, intrigued. “Miss?” Then he released a whirlwind of laughter.

His wife looked away with a smirk.

“Why, the last I read of you was in the
Morning Herald
. Mr. John St. John was parading you about London, holding you aloft like a Papist’s Madonna for all the world to bear witness to your immaculate conception. You bore him a son, did you not? A bouncing addition to the house of St. John?” He rolled his eyes and sighed. “That man and his pen. He is a plague, I tell you. Not one word of worthy drama has ever dripped from it.” He turned to Quindell. “She is yours now?”

“My devoted Thalia, yes,” he gushed, his eyes affixed on Mrs. Jordan. Indeed, I, too, was dazzled to be standing so near to this celebrated player. Her very presence overawed me. Certainly, I could not possibly appear upon the stage beside this lady. Why, I possessed no talent for acting. I would be humiliated, to be sure. The very notion of this turned my stomach.

“Mr. Quindell, sir, with all due respect to you, I cannot in good faith bill her as
Miss
Lightfoot.”

Quindell furrowed his brow. “Why ever not?”

“Because, sir, due to the efforts of your predecessor, the entire world knows she is no
Miss
! I should be pelted in the street, laughed off the stage and lampooned in the engravers’ shop windows—as should your fair Thalia, sir.” He drew an exasperated breath and lamented, “Yet again I have been sent another Maria who is as much a virgin as Messalina.”

“Heaven forbid, another Mrs. Jordan,” his wife simpered, examining her rival from the corner of her eye.

“No, sir, in my house she shall be billed as Mrs. Lightfoot, to spare her blushes.”

And that, dear reader, is how, just shy of my nineteenth birthday, I acquired the name which has followed me ever since.

From that, the day of our meeting, I did not much care for Mr. Kemble, and he, resentful at having a wealthy rake’s mistress thrust upon him in the interests of Mr. Sheridan’s pocket, found me especially
disagreeable. Indeed, within just a few days I came to dread him, to fear his dark, rumbling appearance, and the manner in which he charged at me with his sharp, lance-like scolds. With the wisdom of age, I have now found it in my heart to forgive the man. I cannot blame him for his frustrations, for I was a hopeless performer and entirely unsuited to appear in a work of comedy. Undoubtedly, Kemble sensed this from the outset. What promise of success could a young lady with a drooping head and a downturned mouth have offered him?

Nonetheless, as a manager he understood perfectly who paid his wages and, in truth, had no more say about my appearance in this production than did I. After a great deal of scowling and huffing, he dispatched me to the stage, along with Mrs. Kemble, who was to play the part of Lady Sneerwell, the lanky Mr. Preston, in the role of Snake, and several other members of the company, so we might read through the first act. Timidly, I crept behind the troop of experienced players as they jested and jigged their way backstage, knocking the wigs from one another’s heads and laughing at each other’s antics like schoolboys. Hesitantly creeping out upon the boards, I caught sight of Quindell in his fine laces and silks, perched like a monkey in his box, his face the only thing aglow in the empty house. It was as if this entire performance had been arranged for his delight alone, which, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it had been. He had paid £500 for the privilege.

And so, dear friends, I stood upon the stage at Drury Lane, that very place at which I had gazed countless times, surrounded by the illustrious personages whose talents I had so admired, and was so overcome with trembling that I could hardly hold my volume of
The School for Scandal
. Oh, so many would have exchanged places with me in a heartbeat! So many young ladies dream of such a début, and yet at that moment I would have bartered with the devil not to have been there, but upon the potholed road to Paris instead, or tossed upon the sea in a packet ship bound for France.

Carefully, I followed the reading, as Mrs. Kemble, Mr. Preston and
Mr. Fallon, in the role of Joseph Surface, volleyed their lines between them in a spirited fashion. Then came my turn. I attempted to swallow the lump lodged in my throat, but failed.

“ ‘O there’s that disagreeable lover of mine, Sir Benjamin Backbite, has just called at my guardian’s, with his odious—’ ”

“Mrs. Lightfoot! If you will speak up!” boomed Kemble from the left of me.

I stopped, too terrified even to offer a nod. I began once more.

“ ‘O there’s that disagreeable lover of mine, Sir Benjamin Backbite—’ ”

“Damn you, girl! I will have no mice upon my stage! Speak up!”

Mrs. Kemble pricked me with her needle-like eyes before snorting with disgust.

Now I was truly beside myself, the distress upon my face plain for all the company to view. I drew a deep breath and belted my line: “ ‘… with his odious uncle, Crabtree, so I slipt out, and ran hither to avoid them.’ ”

There was a pause as the actors and actresses awaited my further chastisement. None came, and so we continued.

With every turn of the page my terror renewed itself, as the name Maria appeared in bold, once, twice, thrice—so many lines! Each opening of my mouth brought further disapproval.

“Mrs. Lightfoot, if you are to act in my theatre, you must use your lungs! Zounds, girl! Pretend for once that you are not reading at the bedside of your elderly aunt!”

“Are you made of wood, girl? Where is your sensibility, madam?”

So it proceeded, until all the company came to rolling their eyes, or sighing or sniggering at each of my attempts. When at last we arrived at the end, I thought I was certain to collapse from the strain of it. I had never known such mortification, and I nibbled at my lower lip in the thin hope that I should succeed in pressing back my tears.

Kemble threw up his arms and exhaled in that dramatic manner
which actors are known to assume behind as well as in front of the curtain.