Life Mask (32 page)

'He must have had a tireless arm,' said Eliza. She was remembering one of the few times her father had ever beaten her, when she'd left a wagon of cardboard props out in the rain.

'Many of us ran away. I sold my watch and caught a coach to Liverpool,' said Derby, reminiscent. 'When I turned up at Knowsley my father and grandfather had already had a letter from the Master.'

'What did they say?'

'They didn't need to say anything. They took it in turns to flog me, then they sent me back to school.'

'My dear!'

Eliza jumped away from the hands on her shoulders.

'Oh, I gave you a fright, I'm so sorry.' Anne, a tall Diana in tunic and sandals, pulled the ribbons of her mask loose. Eliza threw herself into the embrace, but kept her mask on; she kissed the air beside her friend's hot cheeks.

'Did you have prior knowledge of Miss Farren's Turkish disguise?' asked the Earl.

'Derby! Is that really you behind that frightening moustache? No, I didn't know what our friend would be wearing,' said Anne, curling up beside Eliza on the sofa, 'but I recognised the line of that throat at a glance, even though we haven't met in the flesh all summer.'

The Mandarin mask nodded benignly. 'The artist's eye. Myself, I mistook her for a man.'

Anne carolled with laughter at the idea.

Stop looking at me,
Eliza thought,
stop speaking about me.

Anne leaned so close her breath stirred Eliza's ear. 'I've sent something to your house—something long overdue.'

She was grateful for the mask that covered her burning face.

When the Farrens got home to Green Street, in the colourless dawn light, they found a large packing case in the hall. Her mother, who'd had too much champagne, grinned from ear to ear. 'May I? May I?'

'If you like,' said Eliza exhaustedly. 'But the manservant could do it in the morning—'

The wood squealed and nails popped as Mrs Farren wrenched back the lid, and there was the face. Soft, creamy, female beauty turned to stone:
Thalia.
Eliza thought she might burst into tears.

'How vastly kind of Mrs Damer to make you a present of it!'

'Yes.' Eliza's voice was almost inaudible.

'We might put it on the sideboard in the dining room, where it'll catch the light. Or. perhaps in the window, so it can be glimpsed from outside? I always say there's nothing more
tonish
than a piece of original statuary.'

'D'you know, Mother, I've got a splitting headache,' she said, lurching towards the stairs.

Eliza stripped off her turban and robes, leaving them on the floor like some rich lady with a dozen servants. She lay awake, listening to the early traffic.

She was nine-tenths sure the old rumours weren't true: Anne had never once laid a hand on her in an improper way. When the sculptor looked at Eliza it was warmly, but without any peculiar insinuation. It wasn't how a man looked when he desired a woman; surely, Eliza thought, a Sapphist would ogle the way a man would, or worse?

But to say the rumours were lies was no comfort. Eliza still strained over every scribbled note, flinched when she heard the name of Mrs Damer and tonight she'd recoiled from her touch.

There'd be no point in embarking on a mortifying confrontation. (
Did you—are you—I know you're not, but they say
—) What mattered was the story. Perhaps only some people had heard it, but it'd circulated, it would no doubt continue to circulate, in conversation and in print; it had the slippery longevity of all good scandals. What if a guest saw the
Thalia
in Eliza's house and sneered knowingly? What if she walked into the Green Room at Drury Lane and heard giggles die away at her entrance? Why, what if she were on stage some night and a wit in the pit sang out that damned epigram? Her face went fiery at the thought.

Her little stock of private fame
will fall a wreck to public clamour
If Farren leagues with one whose name—

The hard fact was that Eliza couldn't afford this friendship. It was all right for the Honourable Mrs Damer, who'd survive any amount of petty malice; she had the inextinguishable confidence of the gentry, as well as her own money, her own house, her own work; she didn't rely on the favour of the public. Whereas Eliza couldn't risk spitting in the face of the wind. To end her days on the provincial circuit, dragging her reproachful mother behind her, fleeing rumours of
unnatural vice...

She lay very still and waited till her breath was steady again. She formed her policy. She'd tuck the bust into that dark niche on the third-floor stairs, where no guests would ever see it. There'd be no sudden noticeable breach between the two women; that would draw down too much attention. (It might even be interpreted as a lovers' tiff, it occurred to her with horror.) But Eliza was going gradually, smoothly, firmly to end the friendship.

Oh, God, how cold I am.
But what else was she to do?

Eliza sat up, slightly dizzy, and tugged at her little gold ring, but it resisted; her fingers were still swollen from the warmth of the dancing. Oh, well, she might as well leave that on, to spare Anne's feelings; the woman had never meant her any harm. Besides, no one else knew what it meant, that unblinking little ivory eye.

F
EBRUARY
1790

Outside the windows of Brooks's a rocket went off with an enormous bang and Derby twitched slightly. It was after midnight on the anniversary of the King's recovery. He and Fox were doing their best to ignore the occasion and chasing their umpteenth bottle of sherry with some fine brandy. 'My dear friend,' said Derby, his arm slung round Fox's shoulders, 'has anyone ever remarked on the fact that you stink?'

Fox let out a giggle and a small fart. 'Funnily enough, Your Lordship, the matter has come up once or twice, over the years.'

'Is it a kind of hydrophobia, d'you think? D'you fear that, on the application of water, your coating of black fur will peel away?'

Fox coughed with laughter. 'I do realise, believe me, I am quite cognis—cog—cognisant of the fact that for a dapper beau such as yourself, Derby, to embrace me is to run a risk hardly less than if you were to walk along the Cheapside gutter. And I'm grateful, I assure you—fervently, aromatically grateful.'

'The funny thing is, I remember you as quite the sleek dandy, in the '70s.'

Fox grinned. 'And I remember you, in the same period, as quite the Tory.'

'You put me to the blush,' said Derby, covering his face stagily. 'I don't know what I was thinking. But I wasn't a Crown supporter for long, not once my uncle Burgoyne came back from defeat at Saratoga and persuaded me that peace with America was the only just solution.'

'Justice be damned,' crowed Fox. 'It was me who flipped you. You became my friend first and then joined my Party!'

Well, that was probably true, Derby thought ruefully. His life had experienced a sort of earthquake in the year 1778, when he'd become a fervent Foxite and lost his wife. It was hard to disentangle principles from personalities and God knew, he loved this sweaty, black-nailed fellow.

'And just as it took you a while to find the right Party, I discovered only gradually that I don't give a damn about being elegant, or clean for that matter,' said Fox. 'It's a matter of finding one's true nature,' he said, only slurring a little.

'But I should logically have stayed a Tory, considering how cruel to me you were at Eton.'

'Come now, hardly cruel,' protested Fox. 'We seniors always despised you runtish little fags, by tradition.'

'You weren't just any senior, you were the star in our firmament—six languages and all that. I'll never forget the first thing you said to me,' said Derby. 'You were lounging around arm in arm with Lords Carlisle and Fitzwilliam. "Come here, ugly boy," you said, beckoning with one finger. "Fellows, I do believe this is the ugliest little boy in Christendom.'"

Fox let out a whoop. 'Did I? I'm sure I was drunk; the remark has an alcoholic timbre to it. Did it crush you?'

'I'm still a broken man today.' Derby pretended to wipe his eye.

'You can blame my father for my insolence; he raised me on the principle that discipline stifles genius, so it never occurred to me not to say what came to mind.'

'Oh, I've heard the stories,' Derby assured him. 'The infant Fox smashing Papa's watch to see how it worked, demanding to paddle in the cream tureen, pissing on the roast pig...'

'Cease, for shame!'

'Considering your eccentric upbringing, you've turned out quite a decent fellow,' said Derby, squeezing his shoulder.

'Well, still, I heartily apologise for calling you
ugly boy.'

He shrugged. 'It was true.'

'I was no Adonis myself/ said Fox, 'and my ugliness caught up with yours about five years ago by my reckoning and overtook it! Lucky for us it turns out that men don't need beauty to get on in life and women don't require it of us.'

Derby grinned back at him.

Sheridan and their old friend Dick Fitzpatrick came over with full bottles of sherry, and soon after that Derby spotted Bunbury and waved him over to join them. 'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' Derby remarked, moving his finger between Fox and Sheridan, 'Mrs Damer says Lord Bristol's looking for a sculptor to take on a colossal
Hercules Slaying the Hydra
; Hercules will be modelled on Pitt, and the monster a triple-headed likeness of you two and Burke.'

Sheridan snorted. 'That won't please Grey.'

'No,' Fox agreed, 'the lad hates to be left out of anything.'

The Club quietened down as members drifted off and most of the waiters went to bed. Alone by the dying fire, Derby and his friends started playing a favourite drinking game, Connection. 'We'll commence with my lovely Mrs A.,' said Fox, 'so there need be no beating about the bush in deference to my feelings. We've none of us any secrets here. To the beauteous Liz Armistead and long may she bless me with her presence!'

They drank deep.

'Who connects to the Right Honourable Member C. J. Fox,' said Bunbury.

'A masterly statement of the obvious from the sporting Baronet. Now it's your go, Dick,' said Sheridan.

The handsome Colonel pulled at his moustache. 'Our foxy friend connects to ... the enigmatic former actress, Mrs Robinson.'

'Mm, yes,' said Fox, reminiscent.

'Who, before that, granted free ingress, egress and regress to her Privy Chamber to ... the Prince of Wales,' Derby put in.

'Now that really is too obvious,' Fitzpatrick protested with a belch.

'Ah, but we couldn't leave out such a famous intrigue,' said Derby. 'Now Prinny connects to ... Sherry?'

'He does not,' protested Sheridan. 'Slippery devil I may be, but no bumboy.' They fell about laughing. 'No, I leave such obscure pursuits to our beardless Prime Minister to investigate,' he said virtuously.

'Sh,' howled Bunbury. 'That's a foul libel.'

'Forgive me, Sherry, I only meant it was your go,' Derby told him, sniggering. 'Prinny connects to...'

'Oh, gad, how to choose?' Sheridan groaned. 'The field's too wide. Let's plump for the plump-bosomed Lady Melbourne.'

'Interesting choice,' said Fox, nodding like a judge, 'and a great supporter of our Party. Really, women of a certain age, women of experience, have so much more to offer than green girls.'

'You don't fancy virgins, then?' asked Sheridan.

'I had one once, for the novelty,' Bunbury put in.

'I like them, myself,' said Sheridan, 'but I like them all the more ten minutes later, when they're not virgins any more!'

This discussion was making Derby uneasy, in case Sheridan might be on the brink of making some crack about Eliza Farren.

'But we're wandering from the game,' Fitpatrick objected.

Sheridan said, 'The invaluable Viscountess Melbourne connects us to ... Lord Egremont.'

'Whoa, it's my go,' said Fox. 'You took two.'

Sheridan slapped his forehead. 'May the gods strike me dead for it. Go on, then.'

Fox brooded for a long moment. He cleared his throat and hawked into the fire. 'You rascal, Sherry! You knew I'd get stuck on Egremont.'

'What, can't you think of a single name?' asked Fitzpatrick.

Fox chewed his lip. 'Well, till Bedford ousted him, Egremont was devoted to the Viscountess for so many years—what about that niece of Walpole's he nearly married, till Lady M. put a stop to it, does she count?'

'Only unless they're generally agreed to have achieved
connection,'
said Sheridan, legalistic.

'I can think of three or four of Egremont's previous dalliances,' said Fitzpatrick and winked at Derby.

'By Jove, yes, five or six,' said Derby, to torture Fox.

'Twenty or thirty,' yelped Bunbury and Derby winced; Bunbury sometimes ruined a joke by pushing it.

'No, my mind's a blank, I forfeit,' said Fox. 'Give me the bottle.' As was his duty, he drained it, choking a little on the final inch.

'Good man.' Derby thumped him on the back. 'Now you have to start again, with the lovely Mrs A.'

'Who connects to...' began Fox blearily. 'You, Derby!'

Derby held up his glass. 'Happy memories, though brief.'

'Gad, you fellows spread your nets wide in your youth,' grumbled Bunbury. 'My name never comes up in this game. All right, Derby here connects to...' He wrinkled his brows. There was a long moment.

'Go on. Wives can count at a pinch, as well as mistresses,' Derby told him drily.

'Lady Derby, then,' said Bunbury.

'Who connects to Lord Dorset,' said Fitzpatrick, unembarrassed, 'who connects to...'

'Hm. All roads lead back to the lovely Mrs A.,' said Derby, remembering that strange year in which Dorset had taken Derby's wife from him and he himself had taken up with Dorset's mistress, Liz Armistead. 'But no, I'll choose another name. Dorset leads to ... Georgiana, for one.'

'I've never understood the fellow's pull,' groaned Fitzpatrick. 'Your go, Sherry.'

'As I took an extra turn before, I'm willing to surrender mine to Fox now,' said Sheridan, innocent.