Wicked Company (42 page)

Roderick Darnly bowed to both of them but remained silent. Sophie allowed her escort to lead her from the chamber and down the stairs to the elaborately decorated reception foyer. Highly rouged young women were leading their male guests up the staircase and disappearing into rooms off the landing. It struck Sophie suddenly that she and Mary Ann had been entertained in nothing so grand as a high-class bawdy house.

“Good evening, Sir Peter,” a heavily painted woman said as they awaited two servants who fetched their cloaks. “We’re pleased to have you and Mr. Darnly with us this evening.” The woman cast a speculative eye in Sophie’s direction. “Mary Ann and I hope you’ll grace us with your presence again soon.”

“Ah… yes… thank you,” Peter said brightly, assisting Sophie down the stairs in the direction of the waiting coach. A hint of autumn was in the air and the cool breeze that ruffled her cloak cleared Sophie’s head a bit. “Cleveland Row, please, Charles,” Peter directed the driver.

“Half Moon Passage first,” Sophie called up to the coachman who struggled to keep Darnly’s four-in-hand steady.

Before Peter could protest, she climbed in the carriage unaided. He settled himself next to her and they rode in silence for several minutes. Their faces remained in shadow as the vehicle turned down a lane leading from the Blue Periwig, to Covent Garden.

“Sophie—” Peter began, drawing her into his arms.

“F-forgive me,” she insisted shakily, pushing her hands against his chest, “but I think it best if we keep our association strictly professional.”

“But I kissed you and you—”

“I know… ’twas quite pleasant,” she replied, regaining her composure, “but I believe ’tis better the way I suggest.”

Peter sighed and took her hand, caressing it gently before he kissed it.

“As I say, such a scold,” he murmured against her flesh, “but so utterly charming.”

***

Three days after the season’s opening at Drury Lane, Sophie stood in front of St. James’s Palace staring at the shining black enamel door with the brass plaque that read “Lord Chamberlain.” The palace itself was only three stories high with white framed windows. To the right stood the gate to the palace itself flanked by red-coated guards standing at strict attention. Inhaling deeply, Sophie reached for the knob and entered the outer office, just as she had been instructed by George Colman earlier in the day. A harried young man looked up from his desk with an inquiring glance.

“I’ve been asked to see about a license for a Drury Lane production,
The Footmen’s Conspiracy,”
she said, struggling to remain calm.

“The author?” the clerk demanded peremptorily.

“Ah… Lindsay-Hoyt… Sir P-Peter Lindsay-Hoyt,” Sophie replied unsteadily.

“Humm,” the beleaguered young man temporized, shuffling several piles of paper around on his desk. “Ah… yes… here is the copy with deletions noted,” he added, pointing to the title page where the words
Licensed for Acting
were scrawled.

“So, Mr. Capell has granted the play a license?” Sophie breathed.

“With
deletions noted,”
the clerk said irritably. “Anything with an
X
may not be spoken on stage. Surely you know that!”

Sophie began to flip through several pages of her manuscript and noted with a sinking heart that entire speeches had been crossed out and many lines of dialogue obliterated by strokes of dark black ink. As she surveyed the rest of her work she nearly choked with outrage.

“May I see Mr. Capell, himself?” she asked in a low voice.

“That would be impossible,” the clerk snapped. “He’s extremely busy and so am I—”

Suddenly an angry voice shouted from the doorway of the inner chamber.

“Confound it, Grieves, you’ve neglected to sharpen my quills properly!”

“Mr. Capell!” Sophie exclaimed, whirling to face the deputy examiner of plays.

“Yes?” Capell replied with obvious annoyance.

“I am Sophie McGann… we met at David Garrick’s some time ago… the day you were examining his new Shakespeare Folio.”

“Oh, quite,” said the fifty-one-year-old civil servant who on that day had demonstrated his obsession with white-colored food. Sure enough, his face was still livid with the red blotches and unsightly eruptions. Sophie was certain he had no memory of her whatsoever.

“I’ve just come to fetch
The Footmen’s Conspiracy
for George Colman at Drury Lane. He’ll be ever so pleased to see you’ve granted it a license, but may I tell him, sir… pray, why is this amusing exchange in Act One not acceptable? I, myself, heard Mr. Colman near split his sides, he found it so comical.”

Edward Capell, his scaly skin flushing scarlet, stared at her disdainfully.

“Then, Mr. Colman is more a lover of tawdry farce than I thought,” he snapped. “But I have no need to speak of such things to a mere chit!” he added with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Tell Colman he performs this, word-for-word, as I have licensed it, or I’ll send the King’s Men to shut him down. Now leave me!”

With that, the malevolent little man turned toward his cowering clerk.

“Grieves… come in here at once and bring a penknife. I want these quills sharp as a scabbard, you fool!”

Sophie could feel her body trembling with fury as she emerged from the Lord Chamberlain’s office into Pall Mall. Ignoring the bustling afternoon traffic, she whirled on her heel and strode angrily toward Cleveland Row. Barging past Mrs. Hood at Peter’s front door, she stormed into his sitting room where she found her collaborator and Roderick Darnly engaged in a game of cards.

Pointing to Capell’s blackened deletions in the manuscript, she denounced the heavy-handed cuts. For his part, Peter appeared more upset about Roderick beating him at cards.

“What care we what exact words are spoken on the stage?” Peter shrugged, squinting at the cards in his hands. “As long as Colman pays for the Author’s Third Night Benefit, I am content.”

Sophie stared at him, dumbfounded. Roderick rose and placed a sympathetic arm around Sophie’s small shoulders.

“Ah… my dear Sophie,” he chided gently. “To Capell, nothing will compare with the Almighty Bard. ’Tis typical of the minion’s sensibilities. But at least the work will see the stage. ’Tis more than most dramatists achieve, I assure you. Take heart, my dear girl.”

“But that little nobody has changed the timing and the cadences of speeches that I’d toiled over for hours upon hours!” she protested. “I was striving for a certain effect and now the piece is
ruined!”

“’Tis not ruined,” Peter soothed, tossing down his cards to offer her some reassurance. “He’s snipped a few words here and there… just as you have!”

“He’s made minced meat of the
entire
play!” Sophie shouted, her anger at Capell and the situation itself coming to a boil. “Perhaps ’tis just as well you have thus far relegated me to an anonymous scribe!” she cried, striding furiously toward the sitting room door. “If the audience should damn this piece because of these foul deletions, no one shall know I ever had a hand in it!”

And without a word, she flung herself past the startled housekeeper and yanked open Peter’s front door. She stormed past a pair of alarmed pedestrians out for a stroll along Pall Mall. As she stalked down the road, she was assaulted by a disturbing memory of black-cassocked clergymen carelessly slinging her father’s precious volumes onto the floor of McGann’s Printers and Booksellers.

Seventeen

J
ANUARY 1765

Sophie leaned against the back stage wall for support, staring anxiously through the wings at the players reciting their lines in front of the restive audience. She barely noticed the pungent odor wafting from the stage candles glowing against their tin reflectors. After a few minutes, Peter drifted toward the Greenroom in search of more amusing company while Sophie continued to watch the debacle unfolding on stage.

From her side vantage point, she could see part of the pit and a slice of the first and second tier of boxes. The theater patrons were chatting, making private jokes, and generally ignoring Elizabeth Griffith’s
The Platonic Wife,
a play that agitated for better treatment of married women. What, Sophie despaired, would be the fate of
The Footmen’s Conspiracy
in the face of such an indifferent crowd? Her play was scheduled to be presented after the main selection.

Downstage, the actors soldiered on despite the swelling boos and catcalls. In the face of the audience’s obvious displeasure, they gave their best effort to the overlong speeches.

“The gentlemen out front do not like a woman who converts her husband to her own point of view!” Kitty Clive whispered loudly in Sophie’s ear. The actress had emerged from the women’s tiring-room dressed as Lady Fanshaw and wore a grim look. “Poor Elizabeth,” she said, referring to the dramatist who had retired to the Greenroom to avoid hearing her work vilified.

“Well, at least Colman has given her this chance,” Sophie whispered back. “I thought he had no use for women scribes.”

Kitty reacted with a puzzled look. In the next instant, however, the incomparable actress turned her attention to the stage and made an amusing entrance that, mercifully, provoked a delighted response from the fickle audience.

By the third act, the goodwill generated by Mrs. Clive’s appearance had worn off. And when the curtains finally closed, the applause was painfully sparse. Soon, the Drury Lane patrons were drifting into the foyer, intent on using the interval either to secure refreshments, repair to the outdoor privy, or merely seek a breath of fresh air.

By this time, Sophie’s stomach was churning at the thought of how this unpredictable audience might react to Peter’s and her work. However, she was diverted by the sight of Elizabeth Griffith, emerging from the Greenroom, wringing her handkerchief and babbling to anyone who would listen.

“Surely, the audience response wasn’t against the
play?”
she insisted to Sophie, who stood in the shadows backstage. “The actors did their parts poorly, don’t you think? ’Tis certainly no crime of
mine!
Oh, if only David Garrick had been here to advise in rewriting and casting… all would have been quite different!”

Sophie silently agreed that Elizabeth Griffith’s lackluster piece needed Garrick’s sensibility and sharp quill, but she soon found herself unable to keep up with the distracted woman’s conversation. As the playwright drifted off to seek solace somewhere else, Peter and Roderick Darnly appeared in the dimly lit wings.

“’Tis certainly ladies’ night at Drury Lane,” Roderick noted dryly, as soon as Mrs. Griffith was out of earshot. “George Colman can’t be criticized for not giving female wits their due… then again, he doesn’t realize he has
two
presentations tonight by petticoat authors.”

Just then, Mrs. Clive brushed past, dressed now as the Head Cook in
The Footmen’s Conspiracy.
Within minutes, the curtains parted, triggering a series of speedy exits and entrances in the country kitchen on stage. When the first spontaneous laugh erupted from the auditorium, Sophie clutched Peter’s arm to brace herself. Another chortle was heard from the audience, and then another, as the comical events of the plot unfolded. Sophie bit her lip and glanced over at Roderick Darnly, who gazed back at her with an amused smile. Despite Capell’s heavy-handed cuts, the ironic humor she had woven into the story was apparently intact and the audience was responding.

“’Pon my word, they
like
it!” Peter whispered, incredulous as another burst of merriment rolled back stage across the smoking foot candles. He delightedly clapped Sophie on the back. Sophie, however, remained rooted to the spot, amazed whenever a line she had toiled over produced a chuckle or burst of laughter. When the curtain on the two-act farce finally closed, the assembly out front took up the chant “Author! Author! Author!”

At the sound of the cheering, Peter sauntered out from the wings, his chest puffed with pride. Sophie watched as he walked to the fore stage and gravely accepted the accolades from the throng.

“The rabble approves of your first effort, it seems… especially compared with Mrs. Griffith’s lamentable dirge,” Roderick commented over the noisy adulation.

Sophie merely stared, torn between delirium and despair.

Afterward, George Colman thumped Peter on the back as he invited his newfound protégé into the Greenroom.

“My faith in your play was completely justified, old boy,” he said with some relief, pouring Sir Peter a glass of port. “In fact, I hope ’twill carry the Griffith piece at least to the Author’s Third Night Benefit,” he added, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard by the unfortunate writer. “I’m just sorry it took three months to get a version of Griffith’s work past that damnable censor,” the manager sighed. “We should have put yours on earlier in the season, but that’s life upon the wicked stage!” Colman laughed. Leaning in toward the baronet, he added conspiratorially, “I liked your notion about the aging actress. Let me see a draft of it as soon as you can!”