Life Mask (45 page)

I am somewhat of a freak to these people,
she told Mary,

an English Miladi with no husband or family, often forgetting to wear her mantilla, driving through the wilderness for no good reason at all! I feel young all over again. I'm surprised to find that I can put up with more discomfort than I'd ever bear at
home in Mayfair, & gratified to think of the two of us travelling simultaneously, tho' through different parts of the Continent—both at the mercy of the next angry storm or pestilent, damp-sheeted inn. It's almost like being together.

Once settled in Seville, I mean to begin the small self-portrait in terracotta you ashed for in your last. Why should you call it a favour, my dear M., with the original at your entire disposal?

The last stretch across the Santa Morena was so rough that Anne thought the carriage might crack apart. Bet and Sam chose to stay inside and take their chances, but Anne put on her veil and trudged alongside the gasping mules. To distract herself from the grit in her boots she kept her eyes on the mountaintops. She spoke to Mary in her head, preparing that night's letter.

It's here, drinking in Nature's most grand & awful draughts, that I breathe more freely than lever have. Painful recollections fall away & the World is nothing to me; the things & persons I love, everything.

She was worn to the bone, but by twilight there was the silver Guadalquivir and Seville, with its Gothic buttresses, twelve-sided citadel and minaret, standing up against the purple sky.

A
PRIL 1791

Anne sensed the difference as soon as she crossed the Pyrenees: France had become a country where travellers had to justify their presence. In Bayonne she was called on by a ridiculous frog-voiced mayor who wanted to present her with a tricolour cockade. She pinned it on her hat promptly; she needed to please him to get French money, a
passeport,
fresh horses and permission to leave town. He apologised for not having any
ponche,
the English favourite; she assured him she never drank punch and would be glad of some tea instead.

In Paris, glittering in a superbly hot spring, the blue, white and red rosette was everywhere—on buildings, in gentlemen's lapels, on ladies' bonnets; even the Queen's Easter gown, ordered from Madame Bertin as always, was garnished with tricolour ribbon. Fashionable women were wearing the most extraordinary costume: a thin chemise gown of a startling simplicity, in white muslin, worn without stays: long unadorned sleeves, a drawstring neck without ruffles, a high waist just under the bosom and a skirt hanging straight down with no padding at all. Why, even Anne's nightgowns were of a more complicated design! The delicate, almost transparent drapery was a kind of legitimated nakedness. It was if Grecian statues had come to life and were drifting through the streets of Paris. Some ladies wore their hair caught back in loose, unpowdered waves, and others had taken the boldest step of all and cut it short, letting it curl round their faces. Anne had never seen women with cropped hair before, but the effect enchanted her; they looked like playful boys.

The Champs-Elysées were full of strolling couples; the Bois de Boulogne was thronged with horse riders taking their exercise
à l'Anglaise.
There were no less than twelve theatres open every evening. Anne went to a rather silly piece about a nobleman who'd spent the Revolution in a coma; now convalescent, he was shocked to find his servants out of livery, addressing him as plain
Monsieur
and his creditors banging on the door with presumptuous demands for him to pay his debts. He reached the nadir of gloom when he discovered that a bourgeois was trying to marry his daughter, and that he could no longer procure a royal
lettre de cachet
to imprison the upstart in the Bastille; that was a very amusing scene. But the lord-turned-citizen was finally educated and enlightened, of course, and it all ended happily. The audience seemed very merry and between the acts they clapped and sang '
Ça ira';
Anne thought one of the lines referred to hanging aristocrats, but she assumed it wasn't to be taken literally.

She'd come prepared to pay her obligatory calls, but the Parisian manservant she'd hired returned to say that almost everyone she'd known was gone, many of them to London, where little colonies of émigrés were forming in Richmond and Belgravia. There were lots of English visitors in Paris, including Romney, the once-fashionable painter, and the notorious William Beckford. Anne did call on Madame de Staël, who was at her toilette with a host of visitors and her delightful baby. Everything was perfectly quiet at present, the
salonnière
assured her English friend, 'except for some demonstrations and effigy burnings, and we've learned not to mind them. How do you like our new fashions?'

'Very much,' Anne told her. 'So simple and natural!'

'Yes.' Madame de Staël laughed. 'Though ruinously expensive. We have to send our muslins back to Santa Domingo to be laundered, you see; that dazzling whiteness can only be restored by the tropical sun. Now I must carry you to the Assembly tomorrow,
ma chère,
as I know you're a political animal; you'll find it most stimulating. Shabby coats, but great flourishes. Though you've missed your chance to hear our great Comte de Mirabeau,' she said, her face sobering; Tie's just died of a putrid fever.'

Anne was shocked by that bit of news. That afternoon at the Louvre, the best thing she saw was a vast canvas by the celebrated Monsieur David, representing three young brothers of Ancient Rome pledging their lives in combat. It was of a pristine simplicity, almost brutal in its effect. The men swore on their bunched swords, the womenfolk and children sank down in grief, and behind were only two primitive columns and a yawning space, representing the abyss of history into which the Horatii meant to throw their lives. It was like marble sculpture, but on a canvas.

The next morning she was still in her dressing gown, having her hair put in loose curls in the Antique style—since she couldn't bring herself to cut it—when she heard vociferous voices and bustle in the ante-room. Bet came in, red in the face, and said it was a mob of women and she couldn't understand them, except that they were insisting on seeing Miladi Damer, whether she was dressed or not.

'What kind of women?' asked Anne.

'I'm sure I don't know, a low sort,' said Bet, looking over her shoulder as if the strangers might understand her English.

'Ce sont les Poissardes,'
murmured Anne's hairdresser into his collar.

Sure enough, the miscellaneous reek when they swarmed in confirmed to Anne that these were half a dozen of the famous fishwives and street traders of Paris, the ones who'd forced the royal family to march back from Versailles with them. A few had marvellous features that Anne would have liked to model—broad cheekbones, strong jaws. One of them marched up and presented her with a bouquet of white lilac. The exquisite scent startled Anne. What had she done, what did her name mean to these women that they should bring her flowers?

They stared back at her, as if waiting for something. Ah, they wanted more than thanks. In a murmur, Anne consulted the hairdresser, who suggested she should offer some francs, as nobody cared for the new worthless
assignats.

'Merci, merci, jolie Citoyenne'
they chorused.

Citizeness,
she translated mentally; what an odd form of address! Of course, all tides had been abolished, she kept forgetting.

The leader emptied the six francs into her pocket and held her hand out again with a rather sinister smile.
'Merci, merci, s'il vous plaît.'

Anne bit her lip. Really, she couldn't be dictated to by this odorous gang. But Sam was out at the market, buying wine with the hired manservant, and the hairdresser didn't seem inclined to offer any protection. And from the sounds of it, there was a larger body of women in the court below. Anne took another six francs from her purse and dropped it into the outstretched hand.
'C'est tout,'
she said with all the British firmness she could muster.

This seemed to cheer them up; they spoke of the Citizeness's
amabilité
and her
bonté,
and one of the women seized her in a violent embrace. Anne smelt sweat and fish and something else she didn't recognise. She kept her spine rigid and waited to be released.
'Vive la nation!'
one of them roared.

'Vive la nation
,' Anne repeated and another woman kissed her on the cheek with a wet smack.
Oh, God,
she thought,
must I run the gauntlet and be caressed by them all?
But at this point they trooped off downstairs.

Anne sank back into her chair. She would have to have these night clothes washed before she left Paris. In the mirror her hair, half curled, looked a shambles. The hairdresser set to work again, tutting about the interruption. No one dared to stop the
Poissardes
from marching around with their bouquets, extorting money, he told her; next time she could save herself time and inconvenience by sending cash down as soon as they knocked on the door.'
Visiter la Revolution
he teased her,
'fa coute cher!'

VI. Tool Marks

Marks left on a surface by the sculptor's tools,
often best preserved in hidden areas.

T
HERE
is a curious aspect of the British character, not often remarked on,
viz.
a positive fascination with the French. If the Emperor of China were to change magically into a Woman, or if the Russian serfs were to take to walking backwards, it would merit only a paragraph in a London newspaper. But when it comes to matters Gallic, no investigation is sufficiently exhaustive, no report long enough, to please the English.

In the days of the
Ancien Régime,
when the French lived in subjection to their Monarch, our preoccupation with them was mostly a matter of High Life. Given the close bonds of friendship and even sometimes kinship between the British aristocracy and the French, it is not surprising that this publication's readers have always taken an interest in the goings-on of the Comte de Poo, the Princesse de Pshaw, their furniture, amusements and
cuisine.
A certain
on ne sais quoi
in the atmosphere of Paris lends an air of chic to every bodice or jacket cut out in that city. Since the Revolution, the styles have altered radically, and cropped heads and transparent dresses are all the rage. Nonetheless we continue in our slavish imitation—and not only in matters of Fashion but in Politics, too.

Many Englishmen have taken to crying like jealous children for Liberty, merely because the French have it, and to demanding a further dangerous toy, Equality, of which their Grandsirfes never dreamed. But others take Mr B—ke's tack and abuse France as a sort of volcano, which spews out Anarchy in all directions. This disagreement between this esteemed Hibernian and his colleague Mr Sh-r—n threatens to cause a Schism in a certain parliamentary Party. But both sides err in granting one nation such pre-eminence. As our Prime Minister recently put it, France should be considered neither as Heaven nor Hell, but as a country in a state of some Chaos, which should be left to its own devices.

—B
EAU
M
ONDE
I
NQUIRER,
May 1791

ELIZA LOOKED OUT PAST THE KNOT OF ACTORS ON THE
stage, past the proscenium, to the ranks of stalls and boxes. When it was empty, Wren's theatre looked like such a strange thing, she thought; the dried-out inside of a honeycomb.

'So tell us, Manager, how's the Old Dame to be primped and patched?' It was Jack Palmer who threw out the question. Eliza smiled at her old friend, leaning stoop-shouldered against a flat. He was wearing a large grubby bandage, because in last night's
Siege of Belgrade
he'd sung his way through a scimitar fight with Michael Kelly and managed to thrust his forehead so violently against Kelly's wooden blade that blood had spurted all over the stage.

Kemble's hands were pressed together in front of his face, in a priestly way. When he spoke it was in his quoting voice.
'And behold, the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
If you'll excuse the blasphemy,' he added.

Eliza stared at him and then at Mrs Siddons, who looked as bewildered as anyone; clearly he hadn't told his sister what was coming.

'Come now—' began the elder Bannister.

'For some time you have all have been aware that this celebrated theatre is in a parlous state.'

'Shabby and in need of repairs, but hardly
parlous,
surely,' protested Mrs Hopkins.

'Am I ever imprecise?' he asked his mother-in-law. She didn't answer.

'But she's stood up all right since the reign of merry King Charles,' protested Dora Jordan, still wearing her bright smile as she jogged her pudding-faced baby on her hip.

'In the opinion of all the architects Sheridan has consulted,' Kemble told them, 'this venerable edifice, this oft-patched, much-renovated monument to British genius—'

'All right, we're with you,' Palmer interrupted, helping himself to a finger of snuff from his Bastille souvenir box. 'When's she coming down?'

'Our last performance between these hallowed walls will be June the fourth, the King's birthday. Complete demolition will follow.'

It seemed like a nasty joke. Eliza met the pouched, sad eyes of Tom King, their former manager.
'Our revels now are ended...
' he quoted glumly,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve...

Eliza waited for him to trail off. 'But Kemble,' she asked, 'can it be rebuilt by September?'

Kemble shook his heavy head. 'Perspicacious as always, Miss Farren. It's not a question of mere rebuilding. The new Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, will rise lofty and awful, like some phoenix, full twice the size of its extinguished parent.'

There were murmurs of shock. 'What the hell's Sheridan up to this time?' asked young Bannister.

Jack Palmer straightened up and grinned, showing his stained teeth. 'Sherry's got a nose for the future, you must grant him that.'

Eliza turned on him. 'What do you mean?'

'Giant playhouses. The city's bulging and it's mad for entertainment. Why, look at the crowds turned away from our doors on a Siddons night—or a Jordan, or a Farren,' he added quickly with a sweeping bow that took in the three ladies.

Smooth,
she thought.

'I wonder is it true,' asked Pop Kemble timidly, 'that Covent Garden's expanding too?'

So the manager didn't even confide in his own wife, it seemed. That wasn't Eliza's idea of a real marriage.

Kemble nodded. 'Mr Holland is supervising the remodelling of the rival theatre as well—but for us he will be creating something entirely new and magnificent.'

'How?' asked Eliza too sharply. Henry Holland usually worked for great lords like the Prince of Wales. 'Has Sheridan found a backer with a bottomless purse?'

Dora Jordan raised one saucy eyebrow and Eliza felt a flush on her throat. It couldn't be—surely—Derby wouldn't be fool enough to let Sheridan wind him into his schemes?

'The whole is to be achieved by public subscription,' Kemble explained. 'Debentures will be issued—'

'Deben whats?' asked Roaring Bob Bensley from the papier mâché stump he was sitting on.

Mrs Siddons spoke up. 'The vital question, as it seems to me, brother, is wherever shall we play in the meantime?'

'We have been offered a temporary home for next season at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket,' said Kemble.

Eliza had heard enough; she muttered her excuses and walked into the wings. The King's was a vast barn of a place, used for operas and ballets, all wrong as a
temporary home
for spoken drama. She'd worked at Drury Lane for thirteen years and the thought of its walls being pounded into dust was more than disconcerting.

Alone in the dressing room, she reread the invitation she'd received that morning.
Come, o Thalia, I beg of you a boon,
it read in Horace Walpole's spidery hand,
lend your sparkling presence to a little gathering at Strawberry Hill next Wednesday, to celebrate our dear Mrs Darner's return from Iberian wastes. Dinner at four,
it ended more practically.

Her mother popped her mob cap in the door. 'Are you at home, my dear?'
Fully dressed,
she meant.

Our dear Mrs Darner.
Eliza would have to send a polite refusal. Could the whimsical antiquary really not know that she and his cousin hadn't been on speaking terms for more than a year? 'What is it, Mother?' she asked without turning her head.

'Lord Derby begs the favour of being perhaps permitted to pay his compliments.'

Sometimes Margaret Farren's borrowed speech set her daughter's teeth on edge. 'By all means.'

Derby picked his way past the open costume trunks to take a seat in the corner; there was no room for his footman, who waited in the corridor. Mrs Farren took her usual stool and picked up the stocking she was darning. (Years ago Eliza had tried to make her resign these duties to the dressers, but the only concession her mother had made was to swap her darning for a more genteel knotting bag when they were out in company.) Derby had come straight from the Commons and he seemed very agitated about a showdown over the French question, which had concluded with Burke denouncing his former protégé Sheridan as
a gull of the Jacobins.
'They're two of our strongest pillars,' he groaned. 'This could very well split the Party.'

'Surely not,' murmured Eliza, her mind still on Walpole's invitation.

Derby leaned his chin on the knob of his cane. 'When the Bastille fell, I never anticipated it would cause such aftershocks in this country. Oh, I passed Citizen Stanhope's carriage on the Strand,' he added more cheerfully after a pause.

'I thought he didn't keep one?'

'Well, that's the joke of the thing; the radical Earl still won't answer to
Your Lordship,
but he evidently found he couldn't manage without a carriage—so the compromise he's hit on is the coat of arms has been painted over, like in France!'

Eliza laughed, but her eyes were on Walpole's invitation. She moved to fold it up.

'Ah, yes,' said Derby, recognising it, 'this Strawberry Hill dinner sounds rather fun, doesn't it? I haven't been rowed up to Twickenham in years.'

'I don't believe ... I may not be free on Wednesday.'

The Earl sighed. 'Your objection is to Mrs D., I assume?'

Eliza stiffened.

'I must confess—I didn't mean to pry—I asked her about the puzzling breach in your friendship.'

Her voice came out like a bullet. 'When?'

'Oh, before her departure for Lisbon. She said little, but she seemed mortified.'

'Yes,' said Eliza, very low.

'Ah, so she does have something to reproach herself with, then!' Derby sounded as if he'd solved a puzzle. 'It's a shame; during our wonderful theatricals at Richmond House Mrs Damer seemed to like you so much—took to you like a long-lost sister, in fact—and I'm sadly disappointed that she let some old scruple of birth or rank get in the way in the end.'

Eliza winced.

'Why, she talks so Whiggishly, parading her liberal views—'

'You misunderstand, My Lord,' she said.
Oh, God, will this subject never stay buried?
What if he accosted Anne Damer about her snobbish views on Wednesday? 'It wasn't she but circumstances that curtailed our friendship.' Eliza flicked a look at her mother, who was examining her needle as if she were alone in the dressing room. She felt a weary impulse to get this over with, since Derby, for once, was refusing to drop the subject. 'There was ... well, a scandal. This is really very painful for me to speak of, particularly to you.'

Margaret Farren's head had shot up; it was the first she'd heard of any scandal. She met Eliza's eyes in the mirror for a moment, then dipped to her darning again.

Eliza cleared her throat, the way inexperienced actresses did. 'Almost two years ago I was told—I was made to understand—that Mrs Damer's ... amiability, her warmth of friendship, was being looked askance at in some quarters. Sneered at, maligned, you know. Libelled.' She could feel the blood creeping up her neck. She decided not to mention the fact that she herself had been named; that would only distress the Earl further. 'I was shown a lewd verse about Mrs Damer—'

Derby's face cleared. 'Oh, not that old Sapphist stuff.'

Eliza stared at him. It wasn't relief that she felt; she wanted to slap him.

'Forgive my flippancy, my dear. It's only, don't you know,
that
silly story must date back a dozen years or more.'

'I am aware of that,' she said, almost growling.

He was wearing a broad smile. 'And none of us—no one with any sense—credited it then, nor wouldn't now either. Less, in fact, since the lady in question is now past forty! Why, the very idea that a scholarly widow would indulge in such Oriental vices...' He let out a yelp of laughter.

Put like that, it did sound ridiculous. Eliza stared at her buffed fingernails.

'It's tommyrot, if you'll forgive the pun,' Derby went on, not even lowering his voice. 'The pamphleteers say the same thing of the poor Queen of France and half her friends, just for fantastical malice. I probably shouldn't mention this in female company,' he added, 'but I met a real Sapphist once, a German countess. She was an extraordinary creature—leering at all the maids and mannish in the extreme, with a hairy mole on her chin.'

She felt dizzy with embarrassment. 'These indecencies may be funny to you, My Lord—'

'Oh, come now, Miss Farren,' said Derby, rushing over to seize her hand in his, 'I didn't mean to offend your sensibilities. I do apologise. I've been rather a boor.'

Margaret Farren was staring at their joined fingers as if an alarm were going off in her head. Eliza took back her hand, but traded a small tight smile for it.

'I simply can't bear that two delightful ladies like you and Mrs Damer should be alienated from each other by such nonsense.'

'I never said I believed it,' said Eliza incoherently. 'I knew there couldn't be any truth in it. Not that I know anything about these things, but Mrs Damer isn't a bit like ... the female you describe.'

'Well, then,' said Derby, resuming his seat.

'It's not as simple as that,' she said through her teeth. 'Oh, no doubt it's different for men of the World, at Newmarket, or in the dining room at Brooks's; the Prince has some intimates with the most appalling reputations. But men seem to have a firm foothold on the height where they stand, whereas we women—how we totter and wobble, and the least tug at our skirts can bring us crashing down!'