Wicked Company (64 page)

She heaved a sigh, struggling to put out of her mind both the vision of Roderick carrying his brother’s battered body out of the Darnly mine, and her memory of the forlorn bouquet of violets strewn on her daughters burial plot by Hunter on the eve of his angry departure from London in 1766. These dual recollections invariably haunted her whenever she visited this quiet spot sequestered from the normal bustle of the Covent Garden district.

Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death.

Would she ever be forgiven Hunter’s stinging condemnation?

Suddenly, Sophie was startled by the touch of a hand on her shoulder.

“Hello, my dear,” a familiar voice said gently. “How good it is to see you this fine spring day.” She turned with a start and found herself looking up into the penetrating gaze of David Garrick.

“H-hello,” she stammered, unnerved at meeting Garrick in the churchyard where her daughter was buried. She had been too embarrassed by her long silence these last years to call on him when she returned from Wales. Also, she wondered what the Drury Lane impresario would think of her having traveled to Swansea with Roderick Darnly? She’d been back in London more than seven months now, yet she’d once again become a recluse, declining, out of some numbing inertia, to renew old ties.

“I’m just on my way to the theater,” Garrick informed her with a smile “and I saw you through the iron fence. Kitty Clive is bidding adieu to the theatrical profession in her farewell performance tonight—making her exit before the cheering stops, she says. Intelligent of her, don’t you think?”

Sophie merely nodded, unable to speak. A further assault of memories had rendered her tongue-tied.

“’Tis been too long, Sophie,” Garrick volunteered quietly as he took a seat beside her on the churchyard bench. “We’ve all missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too…” she replied, looking down so Garrick wouldn’t see the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.

It was strange. Except for the terrible day she had found Hunter’s note, she had hardly shed a tear since Danielle had been laid in the ground not ten feet from where they sat. Yet seeing Garrick again after so long an interval made her feel as if she wanted to weep like a child.

“Have you been writing any plays in that garret of yours?” he asked, nodding in the direction of her lodgings.

Sophie blinked and swallowed hard. Garrick’s kindness never failed to touch her. Despite the man’s strongly held views regarding proper decorum inside the theater itself, David Garrick had never seemed to judge her harshly—despite her ill-fated marriage and estrangement from Peter. And he always appeared interested in her play-writing efforts.

Suddenly, she felt ashamed of the way in which she had retreated from many such friendly overtures during the last three years. Worst of all, Sophie had simply allowed former confidantes, like Garrick and her friend Lorna Blount, to drift out of her life.

“I’ve done very little writing…” she acknowledged slowly, thinking back to her one-act comedy that had been performed at Evansmor with such disastrous consequences. Roderick Darnly had been so distracted in the aftermath of his twin brother’s death and his father’s virtual incapacitation, that he had seemed relieved by her request to travel to London on her own. Disclosing he would remain in Wales indefinitely to see to his family estate, he had generously provided the funds for her return trip—and then some. She had been anxious to escape a place so abruptly plunged into mourning, but found, once back in London, that she simply hadn’t the heart to pick up her pen and enlarge on the few dusty pages of
The Bogus Baronet
lying in a drawer in her desk upstairs. “Ever since Hunter—since Danielle died,” she finally managed to tell Garrick, “I-I’ve had difficulty… especially with comedy…” she confessed with a rueful smile. What she didn’t tell her old friend was that simply returning to the capital had stirred up too many unhappy memories.

Garrick leaned toward her on the stone bench.

“To any other woman, the death of a child or the loss of a love is dreadfully sad, but… to a writer, ’tis also the
stuff
of tragedy. Why not put those feelings—that heartbreak I know pains you so deeply—into a play you
believe
in?”

Sophie felt a kind of inward tumult.

Dissect Danielle’s death and its circumstances in order to present it as a play? Tell the world Hunter considered her a murderess? Dear God, she’d kill herself first!

“I-I couldn’t!” she cried.

“Perhaps not yet,” he said, “but trust me. These trials that life provides are, in the end, a source of inspiration for the artist. Don’t squander them.”

Despite her efforts at self-control, Sophie again felt tears begin to fill her eyes.

“Forgive me,” she said in a tight voice. “’Tis just…”

“I know, Sophie… I know,” he assured her softly.

“Excuse me, sir,” she replied tersely, “but you
cannot
know.”

“About that talented young man, Hunter Robertson, and how his abrupt departure wounded you so?” he asked sharply. “Of course I know. Melodramatic gestures such as leaving quotes at grave sites are the grist of gossip in our tightly knit theatrical community. I also know ’twas no one’s fault your babe expired, except perhaps that drunkard husband of yours—the so-called baronet. That Phillips woman told the entire neighborhood how that blackguard arrived at your doorstep without an invitation and spreading a terrible ague in your chambers that he’d no doubt contracted at the Blue Periwig.”

“But Hunter thought I had reconciled with—”

“I’m sure he did, the young peacock!” Garrick snapped. Then he smiled and said in a gentler voice. “I observed long before your marriage to Peter Lindsay that there was a genuine rapport between you and young Robertson. Can’t you and he untangle this misunderstanding?”

“I fear ’tis gone on too long to be a mere misunderstanding,” Sophie sighed. “’Tis not jealousy on Hunter’s part… ’tis something to do with Danielle’s death, I think. Something that runs deep… deep in his own childhood.”

“I think someday soon he’ll come to see that he’s grievously misjudged your conduct,” Garrick said reassuringly. “Meanwhile, I hear the lad is cutting quite a swath with audiences in Bath.”

“He’s in
Bath?”
Sophie blurted. “You’ve seen him?”

“Yes… when I was taking the waters there for the gout this spring. I discovered he’d come there after a year in nearby Bristol. He’s taken on some of the managerial duties at the Orchard Street Theater as well as mounting musical afterpieces.”

“You saw him… you actually saw him perform?” she said faintly, his words triggering vivid recollections of the spa town.

“I delivered him my personal congratulations back stage,” Garrick replied. “He’ll soon smooth his feathers and return to London. Perhaps next season. At least that’s what I
hope
he’ll do. I suggested that he come see me before summer’s end and he said he would consider it.” Sophie felt her spirits uncharacteristically lighten. Then she frowned. Hunter’s returning to London was no guarantee he would ever understand what had happened about Danielle, or truly forgive her for her role in the child’s death.

“Now… may I tell you a little secret?” Garrick asked with a twinkle in his expressive eyes.

“What?” Sophie replied.

“Soon, I am to be made a Freeman of the City of Stratford-upon-Avon and given a medal! In return, the city fathers wish me to provide—at my own expense, naturally—a statue of William Shakespeare destined for the new town hall, along with a portrait of myself.”

“How wonderful!” Sophie enthused, happy to change the subject. “But they should do more than simply hang a medal around your neck, sir, for all you’ve done to revive interest in Shakespeare’s plays. They should name the
building
after you!”

Garrick looked at her mischievously.

“I think so too!” he laughed. “Matter of fact, when they present the actual medal to me on the eighth of May, I have decided to propose a jubilee be held in late summer in Stratford itself. ’Twill honor the two hundredth birthday of the Bard, give or take a few years, plus laud the city from whence he sprang—not to mention—” Garrick put his hand over his heart and bent at the waist in a mock bow, “…it will also pay homage to your faithful servant, who believes that a celebration of Shakespeare’s birth is just the thing to launch the ’69–’70 theatrical season at Old Drury. What think you, lass?”

Sophie clapped her hands and laughed delightedly.

Garrick looked at her narrowly. “How would you like to be part of the preparations?” he said. “I could use a good scribe, someone with general skills who could tackle everything from getting orders printed up when we needed them, to dealing with the details I won’t have time for.”

“It sounds wonderful, but I—”

“You must help me coax those balky actors into trekking to Stratford at their own expense. I plan to stage a grand costume parade of Shakespeare’s characters,” he announced, “right in the streets of Stratford itself! I’ll use players from
all
the theaters—Old Drury, Covent Garden, Edinburgh, Bristol…
Bath,”
he added with a sly smile. “They’ll all want to be part of it, if we can just make them think ’twill be good for their careers. I expect
you
to help me make actors like Hunter Robertson see it that way.”

Garrick’s eyes
were shining and Sophie knew the great showman was already visualizing the details of his festival.

Sophie hesitated, wondering if she could afford to volunteer her time, despite the worthiness of the project.

“I shall make you a paid member of my staff, of course,” he assured her. “Since you’ve given up the book shop, I would hope you could come to Stratford with my brother, George, and me to survey the site of the festivities. Perhaps you two could remain there to oversee things until I am able to rejoin you late in the summer. Do I have your support?”

Sophie was touched both by Garrick’s boyish enthusiasm and his generous desire to include her in his fanciful plans.

“Of course I’ll help you, sir,” she said finally.

“Splendid!” he crowed, “and now I must be off… curtain time approaches, you know.”

She offered him the bouquet of daffodils she was holding in her hand.

“Perhaps you’d deliver these to Kitty Clive this evening,” she asked solemnly. “Please extend my heartiest congratulations for her extraordinary career as an actress—
and
a playwright.”

“Why not come with me now and deliver them yourself?” he replied with a smile. “She’s often asked after you.”

***

Throughout the summer
of 1769, Sophie never ceased speculating whether Hunter Robertson would heed Garrick’s call for “Actors of Merit” to come to Stratford-upon-Avon and participate in the very first Shakespeare Jubilee.

Nearly five months to the day after her encounter with David Garrick in St. Paul’s churchyard, she stared apprehensively out a window of Stratford’s White Lion Inn, her home during the period of feverish preparations.

“Oh no! Not more rain!” she groaned, eyeing the dark. foreboding clouds that blanketed the skies overhead, threatening yet another round of thundershowers. Except for a few pleasant days in July, the festival planners had been confronted with months of appallingly damp weather.

On this Saturday morning, the second of September—four days before the official opening of the Jubilee—Sophie sat sipping black coffee with Mr. Latimore, designer of the Rotunda, an octagon-shaped, fifteen-hundred-seat wooden structure where many of the Jubilee activities would be held. Through the diamond panes in the large window illuminating the inn’s coffee room, they watched scores of newly arrived waiters, hairdressers, itinerate tradesmen, and as expected, prostitutes bustling down Stratford’s narrow streets. One heavily painted tart had already staked out territory on Henley Street and was busy soliciting customers in front of William Shakespeare’s birthplace.

Suddenly, two runaway horses thundered by a few feet from the leaded window where Sophie and Latimore were sitting. Wild-eyed and nostrils flaring, the fugitive steeds frantically sought an escape from the tumult in the streets.

“Someone’s bound to be run down!” Sophie worried aloud.
“
And
where
will all these people find shelter, especially if it rains again?” she demanded of her colleague. For weeks now, the drenching weather had delayed preparations for nearly every aspect of the Jubilee.

“They’ll sleep in their coaches, if need be,” Latimore sighed.

“If they
have
coaches,” Sophie rejoined. “A journalist from London told me last evening that people were paying a fortune for beds in henhouses and alms tenements—in spite of all those bedsteads we’ve imported from London,” she complained.

She looked for some further reassurance from Latimore, but the beleaguered architect merely sipped the last of his Turkish brew. Obviously, the poor man was bracing himself for his return to the Rotunda to supervise the finishing touches on his temporary masterpiece.