Life Mask (7 page)

S
NOW WAS
beginning to fall that afternoon, as if the mildness of March had shrunk backwards into winter. The Derby coach turned on to Grosvenor Square, the largest and most impressive of the three squares in Mayfair. It was more like a parade ground than a place to live, Eliza always thought, but it was popular; she'd once heard Derby mention that more than half its residents were tided. The oval park was thick with trees; the iron railings had a fresh coat of black paint, she noticed, and the statue of George I as a Roman emperor had been regilded.

'Are you sure it's wise to follow Mrs Darner?' Mrs Farren was clutching her workbag. 'His Lordship himself said it was none of your fault, the little upset.'

'You go on home, Mother, I won't be long,' said Eliza instead of answering.

'Well. If you're sure. I suppose it gives you an excuse to pay a call and get on visiting terms,' she added, brightening.

Eliza suppressed her irritation. Everything was policy for Margaret Farren; every step was an inch further up the ladder.

As they passed the irregular roof line of the north side she rapped on the ceiling, but the driver didn't rein in till fifty yards on, where the imposing arches and half-columns of Derby House stood out from the terrace.

'It was number 8 I wanted,' she said, as he opened the door and unfurled a large canvas umbrella.

'Number 8?' He repeated it as if it were a vastly inferior address. 'Ah, Mrs Damer's. Very good, madam.'

It nettled Eliza, somehow, to have him guess the name of the person she was visiting, but on the other hand what use was a coachman who didn't know where everybody lived? 'It's all right,' said Eliza, stepping down, 'I'll walk from here.'

'M'Lord wouldn't like that, not in this weather,' said the coachman, so she sighed and climbed back in. He cracked the whip and turned the horses round; this was the only square where there was enough room for such a manoeuvre without tangling the traces. They were a splendid pair of bays, highly trained as well as handsome, she could tell that much; Derby always had the best carriage horses money and sense could buy.

'Could you please bring my mother home to Great Queen Street?'

'Certainly, madam. And I'll be back here whenever you need me,' he said indulgently.

Mrs Farren stuck her head out of the window as Eliza got down. 'Shall I wait dinner?'

'No, no.'

'I'll keep something warm at least,' she cried as the carriage pulled away. The coat of arms, with the motto in Gothic lettering,
Sans changer,
had already grown a faint mould of snow.

Eliza's stomach was tight with tension as she rapped on the door of no. 8, a narrow four-storey house in red brick with stone facings and a patterned fanlight. A black footman ushered her into the reception room and took her wraps, which were sprinkled with wet flakes. It was all much smaller than Derby House, of course—just two rooms deep. The furniture was mostly satinwood, with slim legs and an airy, modern feel, and there were shiny brass knobs on all the doors. Eliza noted a marble chimney piece and curtains of striped linen on the tall windows; she relished the crisp feel of the stuff between finger and thumb. 'Excuse me, madam.' Eliza spun round to see a flat-faced woman who had to be the housekeeper. 'Mrs Damer is in her workshop and can't leave off; would you care to come through?'

Eliza felt oddly honoured. She followed the housekeeper through the wainscoted dining room, which was fitted with Turkish carpet and had the inevitable flattering portrait of Charles James Fox in oils. Eliza was very fond of Fox, whom she'd met even before she'd known Derby, but she couldn't share in the general Whig adulation of their leader. Though he was a marvellous speaker, wasn't his Party still languishing in opposition? Eliza couldn't help but pick up bits and scraps of political information from Derby, but it struck her as being as peculiar and closed a world as his horse racing or cockfighting.

Without a word the housekeeper opened a door to show a close-stool and Eliza went in to use it; she actually preferred close-stools to the new water closets at Derby House, with their cold marble seats and unpredictable flushes.

Out she went into the small wet yard and the workshop beyond. It was as plain and crude as any shed, but it glowed with warmth from a stove. Anne Damer stood beside a large angry bird in damp clay. Eliza barely recognised her: gone were the curls, the elegant rings, the sweeping muslin skirts of an hour ago. It was a working woman who looked up, with filthy cuffs, a muddy apron with pockets full of dangerous-looking tools and her head swathed in a sort of bag. There was a smear of something white on the bridge of the long nose. 'Miss Farren! You'll excuse my not shaking hands, won't you, as I'm all over clay?'

Eliza's prepared words were forgotten. The workshop, the clothes, were wrong for an exquisitely tactful speech meant to be delivered in a pale-blue reception room over Meissen teacups. 'Oh, Mrs Damer,' she said, walking up to her, 'it's you who must excuse me for distressing you so at our rehearsal. I had no idea—so stupidly ill-informed—'

The sharp face wore a curious expression.

'At Drury Lane we're accustomed to making a glib show of every human emotion,' Eliza babbled. 'When I think of the number of times I've played an unhappy wife—'

The sculptor had taken Eliza's hands between her own. 'Calm yourself, my dear girl. You've done no harm.'

Eliza held on to them as if she were drowning. They were such lean, powerful hands; that must come from the sculpting. 'But you ran from the room—'

Mrs Damer smiled awkwardly. 'It was a shocking demonstration, wasn't it, in front of my fellow Players?'

'Not at all, they know your situation. They're old friends.'

'Well, Derby is; the rest are acquaintances, really.'

Eliza persisted. 'They must think me a tactless and ignorant stranger who broke in upon your most painful memories.'

'Hardly a stranger,' said Mrs Damer, smiling. She looked down. 'I've muddied you with my dreadful paws.'

'It doesn't matter.'

The sculptor spread her bony fingers in front of her. 'Even when they're clean, how they age me! Chicken claws, Mr Darner used to call them.'

'Did he?' asked Eliza, a little fierce. 'They may not be smooth, or plump, but they're most expressive.'

'Oh, excuse me while I moisten my osprey.' Mrs Damer stepped over to the clay model and dabbed it with a sponge from a bucket. 'My work's been so interrupted by our rehearsals—not that I'm complaining.'

Eliza recognised a change of subject. 'I've never seen a statue of a bird before,' she said, walking round it.

'Oh, hardly a statue yet,' the sculptor answered ruefully. 'It's a fishing eagle I'm modelling in terracotta for my cousin Walpole, to go with his ancient Roman one. Terracotta's not as noble as marble, of course, but he dotes on the stuff. It has a quickness and verisimilitude about it that's hard to match in stone.'

Eliza drew closer, inhaling the cool earthiness of the clay. 'Do you always work with your fingers?'

'And with anything that comes to hand. Knives, spoons, gouges and wires ... This, for instance,' said Mrs Damer, holding up what looked like a thin embroidery hook. 'I filched from my mother.'

'Lady Ailesbury's famed for her needlework, isn't she?' Eliza was fumbling for details.

Mrs Damer made a little face. 'Pictures in worsted. She enjoys it vastly. But our work has little in common; my mother makes copies of Van Dycks and Rubenses, while I try to create an original image which will live longer than the creature that inspired it.
Actum ne agas,
as Terence puts it.'

Eliza nodded as if she'd caught the allusion and looked the bird in its roughly formed eye. 'You must have studied an eagle close to.'

Mrs Damer stood beside her, arms crossed. 'It was before Christmas, at my friend Lady Melbourne's seat in Hertfordshire. The gamekeeper was a fool; almost cut the magnificent creature's wing off as he netted it and pulled it down.'

'Was it in pain, then?'

'Yes, but I don't want to focus on its helplessness,' Mrs Damer told her, a line of concentration appearing between her eyebrows. 'What I'm trying to capture is rage, I suppose. Or outrage.'

'It's not a bit like your carvings of women, which are so very smooth and Grecian,' said Eliza. She felt the need to prove her knowledge of Mrs Darner's work.

'Ah, yes, I aim for the true ancient style when I sculpt the human face, a beauty that will stand for all time. But animals'—Mrs Damer smiled at the rough clay bird as if it were a pet of hers—'they seem to demand a more everyday look. When I model my dog Fidelle, for instance—Fidelle? Where've you gone?—I often find her curled up like a hedgehog; Italian greyhounds are great nesters, especially the bitches.' She walked through the workshop and pulled aside some sacking. 'Aha! Fidelle, come out and make your obeisance to the Queen of Comedy.' The miniature dog streaked out and ran in circles, chasing her own tail, barking shrilly. 'She's just nervous of strangers.'

'What a little beauty,' said Eliza, watching the loop of smooth silvery flesh and hoping it wouldn't attack her shoes.

'What dogs have you, Miss Farren?'

'None.'

The brown eyes went wide. 'Are your cats afraid of them?'

'I've no cats either, I must confess.'

'Aren't you fond of the brute creation, then?'

Eliza decided to be frank. 'I can appreciate their beauty—in a case like your darling Fidelle's,' she said, aiming her sweetest smile at the dog who was now on two legs, scraping at Eliza's skirts and whimpering. 'But I confess I'm perfectly indifferent to them as beings.'

'Stop that,' scolded Mrs Damer, scooping the greyhound up in her arms and rubbing its head.

'I imagine pet keeping is a taste one must acquire in childhood.'

'You surprise me; I'd always assumed it came naturally.'

Perhaps you've never known anyone who didn't grow up with lap
dogs,
thought Eliza sardonically. 'No, I won't even have a canary in my dressing room at Drury Lane. Lord Derby despairs of this lack of sensibility, he says I have a very hard heart.'

Mrs Damer gave her a peculiar smile.

Why had she brought that up? Eliza wondered. Of course, Derby had other good reasons for thinking her cold; didn't the nastier papers call her an
icy prude?
She turned towards the clay eagle, now, to hide her face. 'This bird has nothing in common with a tiny greyhound; you must have a great talent for entering into their different natures.'

Mrs Damer smiled at the compliment. 'The ancients would have shown the osprey at his noble best, of course—wings spread, eyes on the horizon.' She spoke as if her visitor only needed reminding. 'But this one is captured, with a smashed wing. I want to seize him in the moment—to make the moment of his fury last for ever. I've shaped his beak very hooked, see? I've taken for my inspiration Giambologna's marvellous turkey-cock in the Grand Duke's Uffizi Gallery—like a shaken bag of feathers—you must know it.'

Eliza nodded vaguely, not wanting to admit that she'd never been any further from England than a visit to her father's relatives in Cork. An odd pause came between them and Eliza couldn't think how to fill it. Mrs Damer picked up a large damp cloth and draped it over the bird. Eliza wondered whether she should take her leave.

'Have a seat, Miss Farren,' said the sculptor, pulling a shabby chair away from the wall and dusting it off. 'I'll be perfectly frank with you, as if I've known you ten years instead of a few weeks. Shall I?'

Eliza had a slightly giddy sensation, as if she was high on a ladder. 'Please do,' she said, sitting down.

'I fled the rehearsal today because I was in danger of laughter.'

'Laughter?' It came out almost as a squeak.

'Yes,' said Mrs Damer, her mouth twisted. 'I wasn't
sad
when I was talking about unworthy husbands and how little good it does to waste all one's womanly wiles on them, but caught up in angry memories. Then, when I saw the ring of concerned faces around me, all thinking I was grieving for John Damer, I felt bubbling up in my throat a sort of dreadful giggle.'

'Oh.' Eliza felt very naïve.

'That's why I had to clap my hand over my mouth and make a run for it,' Mrs Damer told her. 'Though people think me eccentric already, they'd be far more shocked if I were to burst out laughing at the memory of my
dear departed.
Even to admit I had the impulse sounds shocking, though we're in private here and you've such a sympathetic eye. You aren't shocked?'—and Mrs Damer glanced sideways at her guest.

'No.' The dog had tucked herself between Eliza's hip pad and the edge of the chair; she wasn't so much of a nuisance when she'd quietened down. Eliza added, more as a statement than a question, 'You don't miss him, then.'

'Not for a moment,' said Mrs Damer and went on picking some dried mud off her sculpting hook.

Eliza felt oddly comfortable in the workshop, despite the draughts and dirt. She put one hand on Fidelle's warm neck. 'Tell me more, if you don't mind? Your parents made the match?'

'Well, yes, but that's only to be expected among people of birth. You, Miss Farren, for instance, would be so much freer to pick and choose.' A pause. 'You're not offended by the observation?'

'No, no,' said Eliza. She never forgot her low origins, of course, but these days it was rare for anyone to remind her of them so baldly.

'Your life is your own, that's all I mean. Whether and whom to marry is no one's decision but yours.'

Eliza felt doubtful on this point. 'I consult my mother on all important points. And it sometimes seems to me as if I have two thousand parents.'

'Your audience.'

Mrs Damer was quick, thought Eliza. 'Two thousand fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters...'

'Lovers.'

'Well, suitors, perhaps,' said Eliza. 'All interested in my actions, all concerned about my reputation, all waiting to see what I'll do next.'

'I never thought of it that way/ said Mrs Darner. 'I suppose we do make a claim on you, when we sit there in our boxes night after night, raising our spyglasses ... But at least you have intelligence and experience, to chart your own course,' she added, suddenly sweeping the leftover scraps of clay into a bucket and turning a winch to lower the work table the eagle stood on. 'At eighteen I had neither. Perhaps I'd read too much Rousseau; I was more interested in tenderness and sensibility than in per cent per annum. And, unfortunately, whereas my elder sister got Richmond, with all his sterling qualities, the boy my mother chose for me proved a dunderhead, a wastrel and a philistine.'