Life Mask (42 page)

'Friendship isn't always a hardy plant. But there are no hard feelings,' she added after a second, 'at least on my side.'

'Excellent,' he said foolishly.

'I really do appreciate your visit, Derby,' said Anne, getting to her feet, which told him it was over.

F
EBRUARY 1791

Eliza was in the dressing room, eating a hot veal pie her mother had brought in and glancing through her lines for
The Country Wife.
Sarah Siddons entered and sank into a chair. 'How was your tour?' asked Eliza politely.

'It is not for nothing,' said Mrs Siddons sepulchrally, 'that Leeds is known as the actor's Botany Bay.'

She was still looking pale and swollen after her long absence from Drury Lane. According to Mrs Piozzi—whom Eliza continued to see from time to time, but without enthusiasm—the horrid husband had infected Mrs Siddons with an unmentionable disease and the cure was almost worse; the actress's mouth was one mass of sores. But last night as Isabella in
The Fatal Marriage
—a favourite part she'd refused to play again till Sheridan handed over her arrears—she'd moved Eliza, and several thousand other Londoners, to tears.

'Didn't the Northerners like the Scottish play, then?' Eliza wasn't superstitious herself, but she knew what a fuss it would cause to say the word
Macbeth
within these walls.

The tragedienne laid the back of her hand against her forehead. 'The theatre was so crammed and overheated, Miss Farren, I began to suffer from a dreadful thirst, and between the third and fourth acts I entreated my dresser to send a boy in haste to fetch me some beer.'

It was remarkable, thought Eliza, how grandiloquently the Kemble family could pronounce a word like
beer.

'The fellow failed to return before I had gone on stage again. It was the celebrated sleepwalking scene; I was, as always, so immersed, so caught up, so transported by my role, that I knew not who I was if I were not Lady—' She stopped herself. 'I need not say the ill-omened name.'

Eliza repressed a sigh of impatience and set down the remains of her pie.

'Well. As I thrust out my hands before me, straining to scrub from them all trace of murderous gore, on comes the creature.'

'No!'

Mrs Siddons nodded. 'He may have been slow-witted; his instructions had been to deliver the drink to me and he followed them to the letter. He trotted up and offered me the foaming mug. At first the audience were confused and thought it an addition to the play. Grandly and darkly—in the very manner of the Scottish usurpress herself—I waved him away, as if to signify that I was so steeped in crime that no mere human beverage could pass my lips.'

Eliza started giggling; she could just see it.

'Thrice the lad offered the mug and thrice I waved him away, till the whole house was hooting with laughter.' Mrs Siddons's neck was flushed with remembered shame. 'Finally I roared, "
Leave my presence, churl
" whereupon the demon ran off, slopping beer on the stage. And that,' she concluded, 'is why I will never, never, never return to Leeds.'

'Well. At least,' Eliza told her, 'you can be sure that your career has passed its nadir.'

'Somehow, I don't feel consoled.' After a moment Mrs Siddons added, 'What about you, my dear Miss Farren, have you experienced a performance of which you can say
this is the worst of my life?

A boy ran in then, to tell Eliza she was wanted for a words-and-business rehearsal of
The Rivals
on stage.

'No,' she said drily, getting up, 'I suspect my darkest hour is yet to come.'

Mrs Siddons gave her a meaningful, sympathetic nod.

Dora Jordan too had bounded back to Drury Lane this week, after giving Mr Ford a third bastard. She seemed bolder as well as fatter; she'd somehow talked Kemble into taking on her useless brother to play Sebastian to her Viola and by waving a rival offer from Covent Garden, it was said, she'd forced Sheridan to raise her salary to an undisclosed but much guessed-at sum. All this Eliza could have borne if the management had followed the usual practice of casting the two Queens of Comedy in different plays, so each could shine alone. But Sheridan had decided to get up his old comedy
The Rivals
again, as a sure-fire earner that would keep his creditors at bay—and he insisted that Eliza play the elegant, drooping Julia opposite Dora Jordan's scatterbrained Lydia.

Considering that the action of the play covered only five hours in Bath, this rehearsal of the first scene felt as if it was lasting for ever, mosdy due to Kemble's fusses over pronunciation and gesture. Eliza finally made her Scene Two entrance and Mrs Jordan rushed at her.
'How unexpected was this happiness!'
she cried, engulfing Eliza.

'If Julia could respond to her cousin a little more warmly?' suggested Kemble.

'She would, sir, if I had any room,' Eliza said sharply. 'Mrs Jordan so smothers me in her fichu...'

'I beg your pardon, Miss Farren, I'm sure,' said Mrs Jordan, now holding Eliza by the shoulders as one would a naughty child. '
How unexpected was this happiness!'
she repeated with a look of shock.

'True, Lydia—and our pleasure is the greater
Eliza smiled past her glassily.

She knew they were being ridiculous, and predictable. Sheridan was already capitalising on their mutual dislike; paragraphs in his trademark style had started to appear in the more vulgar newspapers, announcing a deadly feud between two actresses known only as
the Rivals.
Eliza would have liked to confound his off-stage choreography by maintaining the most amicable relations with Mrs Jordan—but the woman's vulgarity made that impossible.

The role of Julia, to make matters worse, was the only unfunny one in the play; Eliza had to keep coming on in anxiety, suffering in silence through painful misunderstandings with her fiancé, then exiting in tears. And as for the dress—

'My costume's so
démodé
, they'll howl with laughter,' she told Kemble in his office.

'You exaggerate, Miss Farren.'

'I don't. When you began your tenure as manager of this theatre two years ago you vowed to improve the stock.'

'Great strides have been made—'

'Oh, yes, I've noticed some marvellous new things,' Eliza said furiously. 'Mrs Jordan, as Lydia Languish, will be gorgeous in a white satin wrapping gown caught up with pink bows, while I as Julia must drag myself across the stage in a hooped sack-gown with filthy grey ribbons from the play's first production sixteen years ago—an
eternity
in fashion.'

Kemble chewed his thumb. 'It could be worn without a hoop, perhaps, like a chemise gown?'

She gave a sharp sigh to let him know how little he understood female underclothes. 'That would look even worse.'

'It's more silver than grey, I believe,' he offered. 'You look delightful in it.'

'If so,' she barked, 'then the credit is all mine, because it's a rag! A scullery maid wouldn't use it to scrub a floor.'

'Perhaps one of the dressmakers could freshen it up for you.'

'That would be to throw good thread after bad.'

'Mr Sheridan has vetoed all additional expense,' said Kemble grimly. 'The whole point of this production is to earn money, not spend it.'

'So he'd have us make an omelette without breaking eggs?'

The manager's eyes lit up. 'Perhaps you'd like to choose something of your own?' he suggested. 'You're widely celebrated for your fashionable wardrobe...'

'I don't wear my own clothes on the public stage,' she told him coldly. Some actresses liked to receive an allowance as part of their salary and buy their own costumes, but to Eliza that seemed unprofessional; it smacked of the days of Nelly Gwyn, when women turned to the stage to display their wares to the highest bidder.

'What's the matter, dear?' asked Mrs Farren as the carriage bumped and skidded through the icy ruts on Long Acre.

'I fought with Kemble over my costume,' said Eliza through her teeth. 'I'm not going to give in, not this time. I've had enough of being treated like the dirt under Dora Jordan's heels.'

'Oh, I know, I know. But—'

'It's the only thing for it. I'll announce I've been taken ill.'

Mrs Farren made a little sound of shock and covered her smile so her missing tooth wouldn't show.

My dear Miss Farren,
came Kemble's civil reply the next afternoon,

I am so sorry you feel indisposed. No doubt it will take an effort of heroic proportions for you to be at the theatre at six o'clock to play your part, but given the importance of the occasion, & the full house we expect, I am sure you'll feel amply rewarded, not least by the gratitude of

your humble servant,
J. P. Kemble

She consulted her mother on the wording of the reply. 'Should I tell him I've discovered from Jack Palmer that Jordan now gets a full £5 a week more than I do?'

'No, no, don't muddy the issue with money,' said her mother. 'But dear, now you've given Kemble a fright, don't you think you'd better play tonight after all? He does speak of his
gratitude;
he'll owe you a favour.'

'He owes me a new dress.'

Her mother was nibbling a thumbnail. 'It's always risky to defy management.'

Risky for a fourth-tier actress like you were,
Eliza was tempted to say,
but for a self-respecting Queen of Comedy, it's sometimes the only thing to do.

She got her mother to take down the next letter.

My dear Mr Kemble,

Would that it were, indeed, possible for me to struggle up from my sickbed & take part in tonight's performance! Left to myself, I would make that extraordinary effort, no matter how injurious the consequences to my constitution, for the sake of the Theatre—but my physician forbids it & my dear mother (who is writing this note at my dictation) prevents it.

Yours sorrowfully,
E. Farren

Kemble's reply came back at ten past five.

Miss Farren,
I have announced The
Rivals
on today's playbills & it's too late to change. If I may say so, your sickness bears all the hallmarks of whim & spleen. I won't be dictated to any further: forgive the unaccustomed coarseness if I say that you'll act Julia in your shift, if you don't like your gown, & I won't hear another word on the subject.

Your Manager,
J. P. K.

'You'll have to go in now,' said Mrs Farren, tutting over the scribbled lines. 'Shall I have the manservant call a hackney?'

Eliza shook her head and took another slice of cold beef. 'Kemble's borrowed Sheridan's tough talk, but he doesn't have the charm to pull it off. If he thinks to achieve by thuggishness what he failed to do with flattery and whining—'

'Oh, but Betsy!'

Eliza ignored the old name. 'This is no time for capitulation, Mother. I must hold to my dignity.' She chewed the beef, though it was hard to swallow.

She barely slept that night. As she lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, she wondered what the next morning would bring. A note from Sheridan, telling her that her services were no longer required at Drury Lane? Well, then, she could drive over to Covent Garden and tell Harris it was his lucky day. This fight was worth it, Eliza told herself. If one let people walk all over one—

And suddenly, oddly, she found herself missing Anne Darner. Mrs Farren was a stout ally, but she still thought like a provincial small-timer; the height of her ambition was for her daughter to please everyone. This was the kind of crisis that had to be mulled over with a friend and what real friends did Eliza have these days? Her colleagues were too involved themselves; they might consider that on £18 a week she'd no reason to complain. As for Derby, she couldn't talk about the crises of her profession to him because he'd wax gallant and lose his temper. He might threaten to call on Kemble himself as her agent—which could end up with Sheridan challenging the Peer to a duel in Hyde Park. Or, almost worse, Derby might tell her it was beneath her dignity to work for such masters and offer to pay her a yearly stipend himself. Yes, what Eliza needed was an intelligent woman friend, who knew the pros and cons of wrath and civility—but somehow her life didn't include any. There was something about being a famously beautiful actress that discouraged female friendship. Were all women rivals, then, in the end?

The next morning brought a brief note from Palmer—
Cheeky lass! We had to do
The Beggar's Opera
instead and I fluffed my lines in the last act
—and another with the Derby crest on it that asked for assurance that she was not seriously ill. There was also a surprisingly mollifying note from Kemble, with a parcel that turned out to con- ' tain a new dress. He must have bought it ready made. It was blue lustring, cut in the latest slim style with quite a high waist, a white sash tied in a bow behind, and an overskirt of spangled gauze.

Miss Farren,

I trust you'vefully recovered from your indisposition & that it's not a lingering or recurring disease? I enclose your new costume & hope to see you in it tonight.

With respect,
J. P. Kemble