The Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List (6 page)

At around the age of twenty-two, in 1746, Samuel Derrick undertook one of his first exploratory journeys to London. Although he would have left port with a consignment of linen, his thoughts probably did not dwell long upon its sale. Instead, his mind was occupied with the poetry he hoped to publish and the friendships he sought to renew among the travelling actors he had met in Dublin. Those he intended to visit included Francis Gentleman, now a lieutenant in His Majesty’s Army. Like Derrick, Gentleman was also passing frustrated days in his appointed profession, waiting for deliverance in the form of an inheritance which might allow him to pursue his ambitions upon the stage. Having only recently completed his apprenticeship, Sam was elated at the prospect of his newly acquired freedom and the liberties his presence in London might allow him.
En route
to the capital, he composed a stream of verses addressed to ‘dear Frank’, his ‘first among friends’, which lyricised his choppy sea passage and the lameness of his hired horse. Upon his arrival in London, Derrick promised Gentleman that they would enjoy ‘the gay pleasures of the town’ together but, unwilling to abstain entirely from those joys for which he already seems to have gained a taste, Derrick broke his southward journey at the Falcon Tavern. There, he not only ‘sup’d and drank some claret’, but partook of the favours offered by Miss Kenea, a ‘fair lady’ whose ‘hand extends to ev’ry customer’, before returning to the road.

At about the time Sam’s hired mount ambled into London, the city was home to roughly 650,000 people. Although Dublin bustled with a
population
near 150,000, nothing could match the breadth or confusion of the scene that awaited him. By comparison to the city of his birth, London’s streets and neighbourhoods sprawled in all directions. Its length ran to the banks of the Thames and then exceeded it, splashing into Southwark and Lambeth. It stretched backwards, pushing its expanding districts of Marylebone, Bloomsbury and Islington further north. The ferocious scent and roar of London would have met him before he so much as laid foot upon its cobbles. The traffic of those entering its limits – foot passengers, coaches, herders with flocks, carts packed with saleable goods – congested its inward-bound arteries. Once Sam had found his way into the centre of town, he would have been overwhelmed by the mêlée of faces and accents, the noise and the spectacle. The theatricality of the capital was something he would never cease to find inspirational. Dublin, George Faulkner had warned him, was a place unappreciative of either authors or actors; London, by contrast, was saturated with men of talent.

Like Sam, men and women who believed in their abilities to perform or create arrived through London’s gateways regularly. Although he possessed the advantage of Faulkner’s letters of introduction, whatever assistance they were able to provide was likely to have been superseded by several evenings spent in lively Covent Garden conversation. While Fleet Street, the hub of London’s publishing enterprise, had its own share of convivial taverns and coffee houses, some of the more intellectual haunts were based in the nearby Piazza. Here, at the Bedford Coffee House and the Shakespear’s Head, gathered a complete cross section of noted authors, old hacks, affluent publishers and small-time booksellers. As the Piazza was also, by proximity, the principal turf of actors, theatrical managers and a variety of professions linked to the playhouses from set painters to musicians, the resulting social scene was one of the most stimulating in all of London. It was also prime hunting ground for patrons. After a night at the theatre, wealthy landowning gentleman could be found in abundance, attracted by the Garden’s bacchanalian delights and the lures of the gaming tables. The area’s watering holes also played host to a range of smaller, but equally desirable, catches. The ears of moneyed city bankers, merchants, important visitors, as well as established personalities such as David Garrick, Dr Johnson, and Samuel
Foote,
were all available for the cost of a mere tankard of ale or glass of claret. Covent Garden was a networker’s dream, a honeypot of promise for those hoping to earn distinction by their art. Not surprisingly, it was on the itinerary of every literary visitor to town; it was the first stop of the dramatist or the poet who had leapt off the London-bound wagon.

When not tending to the business of linen trading, Sam Derrick was passing most of his time in the Piazza. Increasingly, over the course of his visits, the time devoted to spending his living began to outweigh the hours dedicated to earning it. A good deal of Sam’s days and nights were passed at the Bedford Coffee House, brushing elbows with the literati and the leading lights of the London stage. At the Bedford, wrote the
Connoisseur
magazine, ‘Almost everyone you meet is a polite scholar and a wit. Jokes and
bon mots
are echoed from box to box; every branch of literature is critically examined, and the merits of every production of the press or performance of the theatres weighed and determined’. Even more so than at the Shakespear’s Head, those who filled the rooms at the Bedford represented a type of London ‘in-crowd’, by whose glamour Sam was entirely seduced. The excitement that he found in such an environment could not have been matched by anything comparable in Dublin. With its lively characters, spirited discussion and easy morals, Covent Garden was his ideal spiritual home, and the longer he remained there, the less likely his return to Dublin became.

It has been suggested that Sam’s ultimate decision to abandon his trade was taken when he was offered a role in a play. While succeeding as a poet had always been his primary objective, the possibility of treading the boards was an interest that had grown from his fascination with the theatre. Since many playwrights gained experience as actors before creating their dramatic works, this opportunity would have been accepted with gusto. It did, however, present a number of obstacles.

Until this period in his life, his aunt believed him to be devoted to the linen trade. While she may have tolerated his interest in poetry, provided it did not detract from his abilities to earn an honest living, she would have never countenanced Sam’s desire to act. In spite revelling in theatrical entertainment and even following the lives and loves of the players when off-stage, in the eyes of reputable society the playhouse was a seat of moral degradation. No self-respecting gentleman or lady
would
be seen exhibiting themselves so brazenly in public. Actors and actresses compromised their virtue; the very fact that they were willing to assume the roles of vulgar characters, reciting lewd lines and spewing curses, was unconscionable. Theirs was a profession where every concept of decency was flaunted, particularly by actresses who displayed a complete disregard for modesty, willing to appear in men’s clothing on the stage, and partially clothed off it. In addition to being noted for their violent tempers, actors were renowned for their marital infidelity and their sexual rapacity. One moralist wrote in 1757 that:

Play-actors are the most profligate wretches, and the vilest vermine, that hell ever vomited out; … they are the filth and garbage of the earth, the scum and stain of human nature, the excrements and refuse of all mankind, the pests and plagues of human society, the debauchees of men’s minds and morals.

Under such a hail of condemnation, an appearance on stage would have marked one’s official exit from an acceptable life.

Far removed from the gossipy circles that dominated Dublin’s drawing rooms, Derrick must have believed that news of his decision to accept the part of the Duke of Gloucester, in a performance of Nicholas Rowe’s
Jane Shore
, would never reach Ireland. As long as Mrs Creagh knew nothing of his activities in London, the inheritance upon which he staked his future happiness would be safe. This might have been a difficult charade to maintain if through a stroke of good fortune Derrick’s debut had been triumphant but, mercifully, this wasn’t to be the case. Sam’s days of performing were to be short-lived, although his reputation as an actor would endure. Years later, when Sam wore the hat of the Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, he was approached by a gentleman who had experienced the misfortune of sitting in the audience when Derrick had graced the stage. ‘As a player’, Sam was told, ‘he might justly be called an original, for any other man might labour all of his life, and, at last not get into so bad a method of playing’. Although his experiment with the theatre had proven disastrous, the playhouse continued to possess a certain magnetism that drew him back. Failure never deterred him from making further attempts as an actor, or even as a playwright, a critic or a dramatic coach.

For some time Sam maintained a double life, balanced precariously between two cities. When he could escape to London, he was the author and actor he had always hoped to become. He knew Dr Johnson, Davy Garrick and others of consequence in the literary and dramatic world. When in Dublin, he was simply Sam Derrick, merchant of linen. To George Faulkner and his other friends he would have expressed his growing dissatisfaction and his impatience. In 1751, when he could tolerate it no longer, Sam, with enough money reserved from his trade, resolved to set himself up in London on a more permanent basis. For the meantime, Elizabeth Creagh would know nothing of this scheme, but how long he could maintain the deception, how many lie-soaked letters he would have to concoct in order to placate her, would prove to be the real challenge.

By the early 1750s, with the friendship of numerous London personalities to bolster his ego, Sam was more convinced than ever of his ability to become ‘a poet of the first rank’. Inspired by the sight of Dublin, perhaps on the occasion of one of his final voyages between England and Ireland before settling permanently in Covent Garden, he poured out his sentimental hopes for immortality:

Eblana! Much lov’d city, hail!

Where first I saw the light of day,

Soon as declining life shall fail,

To thee shall I resign my clay.

Muses, who saw me first your care;

Ye trees, that fostering shelter spred;

The fate of man you shall see me share;

Soon number’d with forgotten dead.

Unless my lines protract my fame,

And those who chance to read them, cry

I knew him! Derrick was his name,

In yonder tomb his ashes lie.

Of course Derrick would be remembered in death, but not for his verses.

4

THE BIRTH
OF A
Venus

IT IS A
rare occasion when men who have gorged themselves on carnal pleasures, who have moved between the silk-lined walls of courtesans’ boudoirs and the underskirts of streetwalkers, can single out one particular Impure to hold so universally in high regard. Even in her old age, when the final traces of beauty had left her weathered face, gentlemen of noble birth and influence gathered around her. They called her ‘inimitable’ and ‘respectable’, words that are not usually squandered in descriptions of elderly brothel-keepers. What they saw in her, the manifestations of a pure heart, generosity, warmth and an unaffected honesty, had gripped all who came into her presence, from her earliest years in the trade until the last days of her life. But this was only a part of Charlotte Hayes, and a fanciful one at that. The truth, that which they would never know, she hid behind a fluttering fan of deception bequeathed to her from the day of her birth.

That specific day, like the occasion of her death, has since slipped into the recesses of history; only the year, 1725, and the location are known. It was in the Italian port of Genoa that an Englishwoman brought her baby girl into the world. Her father, a wealthy English gentleman, had through the folly of his own lust made his mistress pregnant and his life
far
more complicated. The precise circumstances of the delivery are not recorded, but it is curious to consider how the child’s mother, a Londoner by the name of Elizabeth Ward, arrived in her situation. Abandoned with a rapidly rounding belly, did she attempt the journey over the Alps to find the father? Or, young and impassioned, did he defiantly bring his inamorata on a foreign posting, or in the entourage of his grand tour? The truth will never be known. What is certain, however, is that shortly after the birth, the young mother and the infant she named Charlotte Ward soon found themselves on a homeward-bound ship, packed off by a man eager to dispose of his mistress and the embarrassment of an illegitimate child. Before her departure, the self-styled ‘Mrs Ward’ was paid a handsome settlement to ensure that all future connections were to be severed, that a degree of discretion was to be maintained and that the child, should it live to adulthood, would not come in search of paternal favours. As far as Charlotte Ward was concerned, she only ever had one parent and one guide in the ways of the world.

Wherever Mrs Ward’s origins lay before her Italian interlude, whether she had been plucked from a brothel or an apple seller’s cart, once she had returned to the capital she had no intention of suffering a demotion in her status. Having gained worldly wisdom and contacts among the more affluent element of society, she turned her hand, and what remained of her lover’s allowance, to the opening of a brothel. Moving from the denomination of prostitute to procuress, once one’s physical charms had begun to flicker out, was a marked promotion of rank: a retreat from the immediate dangers of the front line of active sexual service and into the protection of the background. Those women who, from a young age, had sold their services to a nation of men could in future look forward to utilising the charms of others in order to reap their livelihood. Whether or not she herself had at one point worked from the confines of a brothel, Elizabeth Ward had observed the trade closely enough to determine how she would conduct her own business. London’s streets were lined with ramshackle examples of filthy, poorly run brothels where barely-lucid, diseased girls received their beau’s three pennies in a drafty garret. ‘Mother’ Ward had no interest in operating such a disreputable enterprise. The type of clientele she sought were more discerning in their tastes and considerably more particular when it
came
to their venereal well-being. Equally, she was not interested in competing with the large emporiums of flesh based in Covent Garden; instead it was her plan to find a select niche in a burgeoning area of the west end.