New Albion (14 page)

“No, sir,” I said, “I fear not.”

After a few moments more of prolonged guttural laughter, Mr. Wilton produced a handkerchief from his greatcoat and proceeded to dab his eyes. “Oh dear, Phillips,” he said, at last, still shaking with the aftershocks of laughter, “what are we going to do for a Christmas pantomime?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I’m still waiting for a miracle to happen.”

* Chapter Nine *

Monday, 25 November 1850

A miracle!
Mr. Farquhar Pratt has returned. He walks with a cane now, and his massive greatcoat hangs from his narrow shoulders like a Red Indian wigwam. His face is drawn and gray, and he is continually out of breath, even from the merest exertion. But the human spirit is an amazing force, and he has returned.

I must say that it did my heart good to see the reception he got after he’d made his way up the stairs, one step at a time, to the Green Room. Gone were the old animosities. The entire company, Mrs. Wilton and all, gathered round him and spoke with prolixity about how he had been missed, how he was one of the greatest living British playwrights, how our humble theatrical family had been poorer in his absence. Mr. Wilton came in late, and the look of delight on his face at seeing Farquhar Pratt was unmitigated. For my part, I found seeing Pratty again brightened my spirits; I think I developed a special liking for the old man when I visited him at his sick bed.

After the initial pleasantries, Pratty stood leaning on a chair in the centre of the room and began to apologize. “You’ve all been very understanding,” he said, “but I feel that I must say something about my rude behavior in the recent past.” He paused and inhaled two or three breaths before continuing. The mellifluous voice of one who had perhaps understudied Kean was still among Pratty’s attributes, but his lips seemed thin and bloodless and the skin on his face was yellow and taut as parchment. “My behavior has been inexcusable. I can only beg for your indulgence in forgiving me. The surgeon tells me that I have a condition which puts pressure against my brain and that I must relinquish my existence in this earthly life ere long.”

Cries of “No need to apologize, Mr. Farquhar Pratt!” and “No, no, I’m sure you’ll live forever!” filled the Green Room.

Pratty took another breath and held up his hand to quell the tumult. “Especially from you, Mrs. Wilton, whom I hold in the highest regard as an actress and as a human being, and from you, Mr. Wilton, who has given the gifts of your wisdom and
your fine head for business to the British theatre, I beg forgiveness
for my past indiscretions.” Mr. Farquhar Pratt spoke haltingly and punctuated his sentences with many shallow breaths, like a man who had run a marathon carrying a weighted knapsack upon his back. “And I promise each and every one of you, here,
that I will do all that is in my power to better the lot of this the
atre in the future.”

At this, Mrs. Wilton fairly danced across the room and administered an embrace of such ferocity upon Pratty’s person that it took the last of his breath well and truly out of him. Mr. Wilton likewise shook his hand and held Pratty’s arm aloft in a gesture of inordinate jubilation. “But you mustn’t exert yourself, Mr. Farquhar Pratt,” said Mr. Wilton. “The British theatre will have need of your services for many years to come.”

“I have not got years to give to the theatre,” said Mr. Farquhar Pratt. “Only perhaps months.” He was not playing for sympathy, or if he was, his acting was incomparable. His eyes reddened, like burning coals set deep in his skull.

“Years! Decades!” was the cry from the assembled company.

“But down to business,” said Pratty with subdued grace. He reached into his satchel and produced a ream of yellowed paper. I could see from where I was standing, across the room, that his scribblings had been those of a man who was deathly ill. The scrawl was faint, and the pen strokes seemed to descend at the end of each line as though the life was ebbing out of the man with every phrase that had been set down on the page. “I have completed the first act of the pantomime. Herewith.” He held the pages out in front of him, and his hands trembled, as though he were giving his last sacrifice to Apollo. “And I pledge solemnly to complete an act each week until the play is finished. You have my word.”

“There is no need,” Mr. Wilton interjected, “unless you are certain that you have the fortitude to do it.” I knew how badly Mr. Wilton wanted to see the script of the pantomime in a state of completion, and it was a testament to his own humanity that he did not press the issue with Mr. Farquhar Pratt. Courageous men are rarely cruel, and Mr. Wilton is a courageous man. He placed his hand on Pratty’s slender shoulder and smiled at him genially.

“I am certain,” said Farquhar Pratt, setting his jowls against any possibility of failure, “and I will do it. I will not let you down.”

After Pratty had picked his way down the corridor and outside through the stage door, I heard young Tyrone berating Mr. Wilton. They were standing at the top of the stair, near Mr. Wilton’s office. “So I take it then, sar, that you’re not going to produce my wark?”

Mr. Wilton replied that Mr. Tyrone’s “wark” showed promise but that he wanted to give the young man the benefit of Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s tutelage a while longer.

“Well then,” said Tyrone, “my labours have been all for naught.”

Tuesday, 26 November 1850

Tragedy has struck in the theatre today. Young Miss Wilton, Eliza, who had foolishly taken Mrs. Toffat’s advice and gone to see an “apothecary”, was taken ill at suppertime. She lies very near death at the moment of this writing.

Much rumor and innuendo has surrounded the incident, but I have managed to glean a few of the pertinent details from Mrs. Hayes, who was a firsthand witness and who was also privy to a conversation between Fanny Hardwick and Mr. Simpson.

Having learned from Mrs. Toffat the name and address of a reliable man in Parker Street, Miss Wilton proceeded to his place of residence at the appointed hour, which was nine o’clock yesterday morning. She was apparently transported by means of a hansom cab, which departed from Liverpool Street. Neither her father nor her mother were aware that Miss Wilton had been contemplating this action. The young lady wore a hat and veil, which partially covered her face and which prevented her being recognized when she exited the cab and removed to the subterranean office of her quack doctor.

Apparently, the man has been in the business of terminating unwanted conceptions for at least twenty years. Mrs. Toffat maintained that she could personally vouch for the reliability of the treatment, but she did not provide specific information about her own past dealings with the apothecary. The image I have in my mind is of a well-intentioned elderly man who is forced by law to provide his service to womankind in a squalid Holborn apartment.

My own squeamishness prevents me from imagining the actual treatment. Suffice it to say that the poor child was penetrated with a sharp instrument of some sort, rudely and haphazardly administered in the hopes of quickly terminating the life within her. When the bleeding did not stop after some time, the amateur apothecary improvised some sort of sponge, smothered in antiseptic, at the end of another probing instrument. This latter treatment apparently quelled the bleeding, and as soon as the poor child was able to walk, she was given an elixir of unknown composition to drink. Said elixir, she was told, would have the effect of deadening the senses until the most painful postoperative hours had passed. After a fee of twenty-five pounds had been collected – so exorbitant apparently because the operation had not gone as planned and had
required more of the apothecary’s attentions than originally
predicted – the dear girl was sent out of doors to fend for herself.

I can but imagine the unhappy circumstance that followed. Drugged to the point of confusion, Miss Wilton wandered the maze of streets near St. Giles for the better part of the morning. It is amazing, really, that she did not come to some violent end at the hands of some local sharper. Whether brought on by the
agitation of her perambulations or whether it had not been
adequately staunched in the first instance, Miss Wilton’s bleeding
again resumed. When she was discovered in Covent Garden by Mrs. Hayes, who had very fortunately been involved in her weekly foray to Regent Street for textiles, she was as white as the chalk caves of Chiselhurst and a profusion of blood intermingled with rain splashing off the cobblestones had rendered her stockings a horrible crimson. Not having enough money to hire a hansom cab for the return trip to Varden Street, where Mr. and Mrs. Wilton keep their residence, Mrs. Hayes was forced to drag the dazed girl through the uneven cobblestone streets and crowded sidewalks. Together they trudged to Varden
Street, Miss Wilton almost fainting several times due to exhaus
tion and loss of blood.

With her listless daughter at last in her own home and able to rest, Mrs. Wilton summoned a doctor, who arrived before dinnertime last evening. The doctor, a young man, expressed horror at Miss Wilton’s condition and, while he was unable to do much for the poor unfortunate, requested the name and address of the man who had committed this botched procedure. Mrs. Wilton replied that she did not know the name and address of the apothecary and that her daughter was in no condition to answer the doctor’s questions at the moment. The young doctor prescribed rest for the patient but did not bear much hope for her recovery. Mrs. Wilton escorted him to the door and exhorted the young man to maintain the utmost confidentiality in the aftermath of this unhappy incident. The reputation of a young woman of quality, she said, was at stake.

Miss Wilton’s condition deteriorated overnight. She had become fevered and nauseous by this morning, probably as a result of septic shock. She has been unable to assimilate food since breakfast time.

While Mrs. Wilton has stayed at her residence to tend to her daughter for the entire day, Mr. Wilton did make a brief appearance at his office in order to respond to the Lord Chamberlain’s refusal to allow
The Female Matricide of Paris
to play in our theatre. I had difficulty trying to decide the best method of broaching the subject of his daughter’s condition with him. Standing in the doorway to his office and tugging at the few remaining hairs on my head, I said, “Forgive me for bringing this up, Mr. Wilton, but I have heard some news of your daughter from various persons in the theatre.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Mr. Wilton grumbled. “This place is a viper pit of commentary and rumour.” He looked crumpled and defeated in his huge leather armchair, and I have not heard such a cynical statement issuing from him during my entire tenure as Stage Manager of this theatre.

“I’m sure the actors and the technical personnel of the theatre are only concerned for the well-being of the poor girl,” I said.

“Yes, yes,” the miserable man uttered hastily. “What is it you want to say, Phillips?” His eyes peered through me, not at me.

I am unused to this kind of dismissive attitude, even from Mr. Wilton, and I am ashamed to say that I could not prevent a certain amount of churlish pique from creeping into my voice. “I only wanted to recommend, sir, that the theatre be dark for one night while the young lady recovers.”

Mr. Wilton’s eyes teared up, and for an instant I saw the soft heart which has been usually covered by the gruff demeanor of the ex-military man. “You are a gentleman, Mr. Phillips,” he said, at last. “I apologize for my lack of consideration. But the theatre will not be closed on this night or any night. The show must go on. Isn’t that what the actors are fond of saying?” He attempted a wistful smile.

“Very well,” I said. I could hardly contain my admiration for the man, a stalwart soldier in the face of adversity. “We will replace
The Female Matricide of Paris
with
Fortune’s Fool
tonight and for the next few evenings. And the dance will be cut from
The Vicissitudes of A Servant Girl
.”

Wednesday, 27 November 1850

Miss Wilton has survived the night, nursed by her doting mother. As dawn approached, the poor darling began to murmur erratically to the vacant air. Her face, I am told, was as emaciated as any pensioner’s in the Veteran’s Home. “Heathcliffe!” she whispered. “Come for me, Heathcliffe, across the moors!” The child was an avid reader of novels, and I fear that has been her undoing. Our pitiable lives will eventually conform to that which is in our minds. I fear Miss Wilton will not outlive this day.

I met with Mr. Borrow alone at the Lord Chamberlain’s office this afternoon. Acerbic as usual, he apprised me of his objections to
The Female Matricide of Paris
, a melodrama penned by Mr. Farquhar Pratt some time ago and which has not been brought forth until the present. Mr. Borrow stood with his back to me, examining the rain-drenched street outside his window, and said, “It is highly desirable, as you know Mr. Phillips, to direct one’s exertions towards the moral improvement of those theatre-goers who frequent such establishments as the New Albion.” I could tell, by his inflections, that Mr. Borrow equated the New Albion
Theatre with a booth at the Richmond Fair or with any number of Penny Gaffs found in the vicinity of Saint Pancras. “I have read Mr. Wilton’s communiqué,” he added. “As a humble representative of Her Majesty, I have an obligation to tell you that I see nothing in this Parisian spectacle which could be said to affirm the righteousness of Providence.” Mr. Borrow has always been meticulously dressed whenever I have met him – which has been quite often of late – and his short hair is parted crisply down the middle.