Wicked Company (95 page)

The audience was still clapping and shouting its approval when the final curtain closed, but Sophie took no comfort from such an outpouring of enthusiasm. Capell leapt from his seat, exited the gallery door, and within moments, was storming backstage and into the Greenroom, where Richard Sheridan, his partners, and some of the principal players were awaiting well wishers from the audience. Sophie edged into the room, wondering what further disaster could befall her.

“Act One!” brayed Capell, as he pointed a shaking finger at a passage boldly crossed out in his censored manuscript. “I marked these two lines
out
and you have restored them!”

Sheridan merely stared at the enraged functionary while sipping yet another glass of brandy. His fellow manager, Dr. Ford, and Roderick Darnly leaned against the opposite wall, watching in silence.

“Act Two!” Capell snapped. “An entire scene I ordered omitted is back
in
the work! Furthermore,” he continued, seething with indignation, “I specifically demanded that you replace the words
damn stuff
to
hang snuff.
I shall
not
allow you to use such blasphemy upon the king’s stage!”

“Have you discussed this hair splitting with my Lord Hertford, the Lord Chamberlain?” Sheridan challenged rudely.

Capell’s eyes
glittered dangerously, and he closed his copy of
Battle Royal
with an angry snap.

“You, Mr. Sheridan, may possess the requisite connections to persuade the Lord Chamberlain to overrule my judgment regarding your own work,” he said in a menacing voice, “but this Sydney Ganwick, whoever he is, certainly does
not!”

“David Garrick has forever been Ganwick’s champion,” Sheridan said mildly. “Has that no weight with you, sir? After all, our former manager has been generous regarding the use of his library for your work on restoring Shakespeare’s texts. What if Sydney Ganwick turns out to be a mere pen name for your benefactor? Wouldn’t that be a rip?”

For a moment, Capell’s steely expression wavered. Then he shook his head, scowling.

“Ganwick is no Garrick,” he declared stoutly. “There’s a rebellious edge to this man’s work I find offensive, even if he
is
a clever chap.” He glanced around the Greenroom, suddenly aware that an audience larger than simply Drury Lane’s managers was hanging on his every word. “You are fortunate that I shall not order you closed down, but each and every word excised by me is to be eliminated before the next performance, is that
understood?”

Richard Sheridan stared insolently at Capell, refusing him the courtesy of a civil answer. The Deputy Examiner of Plays flushed so deeply at this insult, his blotchy complexion took on the hue of rotting eggplant.

“Furthermore,” he added in a menacing voice, “there were
additional
passages in the piece tonight that I also found objectionable, now that I see the way in which the players gesture on stage. I shall order further cuts. Good night, Mr. Sheridan.”

The Lord Chamberlain’s deputy rose to his fullest height and departed with as much dignity as he could muster, leaving absolute silence in his wake.

Thirty-Six

The newly ordered cuts to Battle Royal eviscerated the piece to such an extent that it lasted only three nights and played to poor houses.

“After all the tumult, how much did the piece gain us?” Hunter asked despondently when Sophie called at Newgate to recount the latest developments at Drury Lane.

“Forty-two pounds,” she admitted reluctantly.

“I’ve been in this dungeon
two years
and we’ve earned
forty-two pounds?”
he exploded. “’Tis barely enough to keep you and Rory from being tossed out on Half Moon Passage next winter. Oh, God, Sophie! ’Tis hopeless!”

“No ’tis not!” she replied fiercely, throwing her arms around his broad shoulders and pulling him against her smaller frame.

Hunter held himself stiffly, unresponsive to her entreaties to be of good cheer.

“This is no life,” he said in a low voice. “Because of me, you’ve lived in a kind of suspended animation for years now. I can’t let you do this to yourself or Rory any longer.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Sophie snapped. “So what that
Battle Royal
was turned into mincemeat by that idiot Capell. So… we’ll write something else! We can use
another
pseudonym. We can’t let them win!”

“They
have
won,” Hunter replied dully. “I’d rather die than stay cooped up in this rat hole… or see you running yourself ragged—a woman trying to earn the impossible sum of seven hundred pounds.”

“The School for Scandal
earned thousands! Why do you doubt the two of us can do as well?” Sophie demanded.

“Because the world at large finds it…
unsuitable
for women to write for the public’s amusement!” he said angrily. “Why fight it, Sophie? Why fight any of it?”

He stared out his window, his face suddenly expressionless. His shoulders sagged and his hands reached up to his face and covered his eyes. Long minutes of silence
widened the emotional gulf between them.

“I hope you will understand,” he said at length. “I would appreciate it if you left me now… I mean no offense, but I wish to be alone.”

Sophie stared at him, a feeling of helplessness invading her every fiber. It almost seemed as if Hunter’s spirit had departed the stone chamber which imprisoned him, and only his physical shell remained, indifferent even to her. She called softly for the turnkey to release her from the cell and slowly walked home.

***

As the weeks dragged on following the failure of
Battle Royal,
Hunter remained polite but distant during Sophie’s visits. Often he informed the warden that he wished to see no one, including her.

“You’re not to blame for this predicament we’re in!” she exclaimed one day in frustration, having stooped to bribing the turnkey to gain access to Hunter’s cell. “I willingly sought your bed! I willingly had your son! I shall put every ounce of strength I own toward writing a play that will earn us your freedom! Hunter! Are you listening to me?” she pleaded, banging her fists on the small table. But he merely stared listlessly out his barred window and did not respond to her entreaties.

It was soon after this encounter that Sophie determined to seek the only remedy left to her, that of pleading with her estranged husband to withdraw the charges against Hunter.

***

“God’s bones, Sophie,” Mary Ann Skene exclaimed, observing her flat mate applying paint to her face as if she were an actress—or a whore. “Don’t tell me things go so ill for you, you’re joining
my
ranks tonight?”

“No…” Sophie replied grimly. “But I wish people to
think
I am. I must find Peter. I
must!”

“Why in the world would you want to find that wastrel? Seems to me he’s the
last
person to help you and that Hunter fellow.”

“I’m sure that’s what it seems,” Sophie agreed, tight-lipped, applying more rouge to highlight her cheeks.

Within a few minutes, Mary Ann departed for her nightly chores at the bagnio run by the infamous Mother Griffith. Assured by Rory’s steady breathing that he was fast asleep, Sophie threw a shawl over her provocative gown and slipped down the outside stairs, remaining close to the buildings that paralleled Bedford Street. Turning right on King Street, she paused at entrances along the road, inquiring if anyone had encountered the dark-haired Peter Lindsay of late.

“Saw him face down in Martlet Court, less than a fortnight ago, lovey,” one blowsy whore cackled, revealing black gaps between her rotted teeth. “I wouldn’t count on him for a tumble in the feathers or even a tippling of ale, if I were you.”

“Thank you,” Sophie murmured, moving on.

The Great Piazza was bathed with the golden light of a harvest moon as she crossed the square, looking for Peter at the most likely places. She studiously ignored the rude remarks from sedan chair bearers and the invitations from young bucks emerging from Mother Douglas’s house of illicit pleasure. Turning left on Russell Street and left again on Bow Street, she soon arrived at the narrow lane called Martlet Court.

“Hello, sweetheart,” a hawk-nosed man called to her from the entrance to the Turk’s Head on the corner. “You’re a lovely little pigeon, aren’t you, dearie? Want a soft bed to ply your trade? Come love… we’ll split our winnings and—”

“Sod off!” Sophie snarled in her best imitation of Mary Ann Skene when in high dungeon.

She peered down Martlet Court and proceeded cautiously along the darkened alley, praying that it led to Drury Lane, as she expected it should. She could just discern the silhouettes of men pressing their attentions on whores who dispensed their favors standing upright. The twosomes glanced furtively at her, but none turned out to be Peter Lindsay. Shaken by the sight of such loathsome coupling, Sophie ran breathlessly past the Drury Lane Theater itself, and across Tavistock Street, near Mr. Jackson’s costume shop. By traversing through several back alleys where rats and stray dogs were burrowing in the garbage, she emerged into Henrietta Street, the road that ran next to St. Paul’s Churchyard.

“Another night of this?” she muttered to herself, still shivering from her glimpse of the underbelly of Covent Garden. ’Tis nothing but a wild-goose chase, she thought.

She paused to catch her breath, leaning against the wrought iron fence that sheltered the churchyard from the road. Moonlight illuminated the familiar sight of her daughter’s headstone, one of many standing as mute testimony to the trials of this world. Then, Sophie clutched at the cold metal bars. A sound like that of a rustling animal drew her glance to a rounded shape crumpled beside Danielle’s grave.

A feeling of dread crept over her, prompting her to retrace her steps. She passed through the high black gate that led to the churchyard itself, feeling her shoes sink into the soft grassy area stippled with the grave markers. She cautiously approached a figure curled up against the small granite tomb stone that read:

Danielle McGann Lindsay

3 mos. died 1766

“Peter?” she murmured, staring down on a bruised and battered face bathed in moonlight. “Oh, God… Peter!”

The husband she had married thirteen years earlier gazed at her with unseeing eyes, dried blood congealed on his forehead.

“Sophie?” he whispered hoarsely, startling her. She thought him already dead.

“Yes,” she cried as she sank to her knees and attempted to cradle his head in her lap. “Jesu… Peter? What has happened? Did you fall?”

“Hit… hit head…” he murmured. “Everything’s dark…”

“Hit? How?” she demanded. “Where were you?”

“Coming out of the White…”

His words trailed off and his breathing became labored. Sophie frantically glanced at her surroundings. A hundred feet beyond the gateway to the cemetery she could see candles still flickering inside the White Horse Tavern, a rough public house situated across from Southampton Street where the Garricks had once lived.

“Were you in a fight?” she asked, feeling a rising wave of panic. “In the tavern? Who
did
this to you?’’

“Don’t know… hit… came here…our daughter…”

She stared down in horror at his swollen face and matted black hair.

“You were hit with something slender?” she repeated, perplexed by a deep but narrow indentation on the side of Peter’s head. She glanced at Danielle’s narrow headstone. “Did you fall against the stone marker… Peter, what
happened?”

The once-handsome countenance was twisted with pain, distorting his features into a grotesque mask. A low moan escaped his lips. Then, his breathing simply stopped.

Peter Lindsay had died a dog’s death.

***

Sophie persuaded Mrs. Phillips to convince Bob Derry at the Cider House to report to the authorities that a corpse lay atop the grass in St. Paul’s Churchyard. With all the troubles besetting her, the last thing she needed was to be accused of murdering the very husband who had caused her such grief. She learned from Derry that Peter would find what peace was to be had in a pauper’s grave. His demise had been duly registered as having been caused by falling drunk against a gravestone and hitting his head.

With the death certificate in hand, she then petitioned to have the prisoner released from Newgate, citing the fact that the man to whom he owed seven hundred pounds had recently expired.

“I’m afraid nothing can be done,” Mr. Lasley announced in his law chambers one chilly October afternoon, “that is, until ’tis been duly proved Peter Lindsay had no heirs who would claim title to such a debt. ’Tis a matter for the courts.”