The Duchess of Drury Lane (29 page)

But however inconvenient for me, to Sheridan it was a disaster of mammoth proportions. He and I had often been at odds during the twenty-four years I’d worked for him, but I felt nothing but sympathy for him now.

‘We have at least managed to salvage the theatre’s charter,’ I said, striving to offer some sort of consolation.

‘But not much else. And I doubt I can recoup my losses this time.’

‘The company will be able to “borrow” other theatres, so surely you can continue? You have rebuilt before, why not again?’

‘I need backers, Dora, and so far there is little sign of my ever finding one.’

He was not the man he had been, certainly no longer the clever wit who had written those two marvellous plays.

I threw myself into performing in several benefits to support stage hands who had lost their jobs. But then the Duke, for reasons best known to himself, again requested that I withdraw from the stage.

This time I was prepared. Remembering how he’d used the words ‘more fitting’ were I not to appear, as if the King or Queen objected to seeing my handbills all over town, I tactfully put my suggestion to him.

‘Would it perhaps be more appropriate if I were not to appear on the
London
stage? Would you prefer it if I were to confine myself to touring?’

His face seemed to light up with relief. ‘Ah, what a very sensitive and understanding person you are, Little Pickle. That is a splendid notion. Yes, let us agree that you will take no more engagements in London, but simply tour.’

The prospect of spending my entire time on tour filled me with dismay: the cold, flea-bitten lodgings, the dreadful food, the endless travelling, being constantly beset by people from dawn to dusk, with twenty hands to help me out of my carriage. And very often the most amusing entertainment to be found to fill the long hours when I was not on stage was only to read, read, read. But touring was better than nothing, and allowed me to continue earning.

And if I were never seen in London the royal family would not be constantly reminded of my presence, I thought, although I refrained from saying as much.

And so I returned to endlessly touring the provinces. It might be Margate and Canterbury, then there was the northern circuit from York as far as Edinburgh, and on occasion Manchester or Birmingham, neither of which town I cared much for, although the houses were always good, and the people most respectful and friendly. The West Country was ever my favourite. I rather think that if I did not have Bushy I could live in Bath. It is a most delightful town.

But my next engagement was in Ireland. What on earth had possessed me to agree to go there?

The sea was rougher than I remembered, but then I had only ever done this crossing once in my life before when I was running away from Daly, so how was I to judge? The Irish Sea is well known for strong currents that pull you this way and that. As we heaved and tossed in our misery, the prospect of returning to my native land depressing me even more than the weather, I couldn’t help but think of young William, his dear life cut short in such a terrible way. His death made me fear for my own sons: George in Corunna caught up in the war, Henry still somewhere in the Baltic. I worried about them constantly and was a constant correspondent to both my boys. As was their father, advising them against gambling and drink, and not to waste money.

While we were in Bath on this current tour, we all walked to the stagecoach and expressed universal joy to find letters from dear George. In my reply I urged him to write often, and to use a dictionary for his spelling which was quite atrocious.

I also gave my eldest son advice on how to address the Duke.

‘. . . as you are now a Lieutenant and employed on actual service it would be more appropriate if in future when you mention the Duke, that you should say my father, or the Duke. It may prevent any little ridicule that might be excited by your saying Papa.’

It was, I believe, important to do what I could to protect my children from the derision I had suffered in the past for my own lack of legitimacy. Sophy too was causing concern as she frequently refused to stir from her bedroom.

‘What is wrong with the girl?’ her father would fret, and I would offer what reassurance I could.

‘She is but suffering from a headache as her constitution will shortly undergo a change. She is fourteen, and we must be as understanding as we can.’

But I think the problem was more troubling than simple biology. Both my older daughters had recently married: Fanny to Thomas Alsop, a young clerk from the ordnance office, whose temper I feared very much. Dear quiet Dodee had wed his friend, Frederick March, also a clerk, only two months ago. I believed the pair to be very happy, a complete Darby and Joan. He too was illegitimate and I provided both girls with a substantial dowry of £2,000, of which in Dodee’s case I paid half up front. The Duke had agreed to pay the rest as interest on several loans I’d made him over the years. I also agreed to provide an allowance of £200 per year.

How I longed for a respectable happy marriage for each of my younger daughters. But is that possible with me for a mother?

‘Will this journey never end?’ poor dear Lucy moaned as she retched into the bowl I held for her. She had been a welcome companion throughout this most successful tour, although by now she might well be regretting having offered to come at all.

It certainly seemed a lifetime since we had left Holyhead. Even our beds were soaking wet and there was no comfort to be found anywhere. We were all mightily relieved when, after ten long hours at sea, the ship finally docked and I could see the customs house at last. We were taken straight to our lodgings in St James’s Street.

I saw at once that they were not so clean as the ones we had in Bath, although at least they were not devoured by bugs as were the beds at the Bush Inn at Bristol. And the weather had improved, the June day warm and pleasant, most welcome after the cold spring we’d endured with snow as late as April, and a sea of mud and water all around Bath.

‘The managers, Mr Crampton and Mr Atkinson, have called to see you, Mama,’ Lucy said, her own pallor as white as the sheets – whiter perhaps, looking at this particular linen.

‘Tell them I am too much fatigued and unwell to see anybody.’

Had I nursed the hope that a good dinner would restore me, I was soon disenchanted. When the food finally appeared at eight o’clock it was quite inedible. We were obliged to eat some cold soup that we’d brought with us.

‘Do I not deserve every penny of the money I earn, with what I have to suffer?’ I asked of my daughter.

‘Indeed you do,’ she agreed. ‘And the first thing we must do is to clean up our quarters.’

‘If we can do so with tact. The Irish easily take offence from the interfering English.’

After a moderately comfortable night in which the bed was at least dry and did not rock from side to side, we were woken early by a noisy commotion downstairs. I sent Thomas to investigate and he returned within minutes with disturbing news.

‘The place is heaving with people anxious to see you. They have brought you fish and fowl, flowers and sweetmeats, gifts galore to lay at your feet.’

My heart sank, as of all things I do like to guard my privacy. I had learned that in my particular station of life it was wise to keep one’s head down and avoid company. Had I not suffered enough from the scandalmongers? ‘Pray thank them kindly, Thomas, and explain that I never go out when from home.’

‘Very good, madam.’

He had, of course, delivered this message countless times before on any number of occasions. Apart from any other consideration, I’d learned to my cost that if I was not careful I could find myself on public view from the moment I breakfasted to long after the fall of the curtain at midnight.

Lucy returned from a trip to the bakery to purchase bread with sorrier news. ‘It seems that we have arrived far too soon and you will not be needed for several days yet. Kemble has still not completed his own engagement, and is in a rage at your even being here, his wife claiming you did it deliberately in order to injure him.’

I was utterly devastated, and rightly angry. ‘Goodness gracious, the fault was not mine, more likely a piece of bad management.’ I found it quite distressing to think of the extra time I could have enjoyed at home had I known. Lucy slumped in misery on the bed and I wrapped my arms about her as my mother had used to do with me.

‘I assure you, dearest, we are not staying here. I would pay ten guineas to be allowed to quit this place.’

I sent Thomas to fetch us dinner from a local tavern that night, and the next day, having no wish to go out, I returned the hired carriage as I regretted the expense. We did not find better quarters but at least employed a cook, although I was startled when she served us in her bare feet.

‘I beg you to put on your shoes and stockings,’ I said, but she only laughed at my fussing.

‘Sure and I can’t be bothered with them. I think meself much cleaner without them. It’s a nadeless custom, to sure,’ she concluded, as if that settled the matter.

‘Well, I suppose you will not be dressing the dinner with your toes, so I must endeavour to be content,’ I replied with a sigh of resignation. There really is no telling the Irish anything.

‘Mr Jones, the proprietor, has invited you to dinner on Friday,’ Lucy informed me later that day.

‘Then you must politely decline. Say that I am unwell.’

She looked alarmed. ‘But he may cancel your engagement, Mama, if he thinks you ill.’ She was such a gentle, unassuming child, I thought.

‘Then ask him to postpone the occasion until I am fully recovered from the journey.’

As it turned out we dined instead that Friday with an old friend, Mrs Lefanu, Sheridan’s sister, a
huge
woman, and no wonder judging by the lavish hospitality she offered. I swear I have never seen so much food, nor a salmon so large. Its tail rested on my plate and the head almost in the lap of my neighbour opposite, an Englishman who was, I believe, as astonished as myself.

‘Would you take a little salmon?’ he was asked.

‘I think I have quite enough on my plate already,’ he drily remarked, and I dared not catch his eye for fear of laughing out loud.

Both Lucy and I ate our fill, but declined a sip of the very large cup of porter that was passed around. The prospect of putting my mouth to the same place as others, even if the cup was silver, made my stomach heave even more than the rough crossing.

‘I always hated my native land, if that is what it is, but now I detest it,’ I told my daughter on our journey back to our lodgings in the chair we had hired in place of the carriage. And that night I dreamed of everyone at Bushy, my heart crying out to be home.

I hated to be absent for too long. The King could not maintain his fragile state of health for ever, and with only the Princess Charlotte as heir following the Prince of Wales, pressure would surely be brought to bear upon the other brothers to marry. Aware as I was of this risk, I could not bear to think of it. As I tossed and turned in yet another strange bed, I brought to mind a comment of the Duke’s in a recent letter to me in Bath, where he said that I had been more punctual this time. He appeared just to have found out that we ‘go on together very well’.

In my reply I wrote, ‘It was fortunate that you concluded the sentence with the hope that it would never be otherwise.
You
may have your doubts about it, I have none. Mind, I only answer for myself.’

I spoke in jest, as is my wont, yet I was beginning to worry, very slightly, that he was perhaps growing accustomed to my absences. Did he need me as much as he used to?

‘I have read somewhere of a man that was very much in love, who left his mistress for the sake of receiving letters from her. This was great refinement certainly,’ I wrote. ‘For my part I like a little personal intercourse a great deal better . . .’

Not something that can be enjoyed when there is the cold Irish Sea dividing us.

Twenty-Five

‘I really feel myself lost when in the world, and not fit to live out of my own family’

Kemble was gone and rehearsals began at last, for which I was truly thankful. We worked for some hours, then as we took a welcome break Atkinson brought forward an old man whom I’d seen watching from the wings.

‘Do you remember me, I wonder?’ he asked. ‘I was the one who dragged you on stage that first night when you ran away to hide in the dressing room.’

I stared at him in amazement. ‘Ryder? Can it really be you?’

‘It is to be sure. I’m astonished myself that I’m still alive, but filled with pride that I was the one to have instigated your career, Dolly. May I call you Dolly? I shall always think of you as such.’

‘Oh, Mr Ryder, what a pleasure it is to meet you again after all this time,’ I said, hugging the old man tight. ‘And to say thank you, for had you not dragged me back by force, who knows what would have happened to me.’ I smiled at him, feeling a rush of gratitude at this rare meeting. ‘You offered me a kindness I did not find at . . .’ I paused, not wishing to dwell on what happened to me at Smock Alley. ‘I did not find the like again until I reached Yorkshire.’

He gave me a knowing look. ‘I can well believe it. My grandchildren are tired of my bragging about how I discovered the famous Mrs Jordan,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘But you’ve changed beyond recognition since those early days, Dolly, a fine lady now indeed. The theatre, you’ll see, hasn’t changed at all.’ And we both laughed at that.

Echoes of my past came before me in a less pleasant manner when I was presented with bills amounting to £394 for debts contracted by two of my brothers! I examined them in dismay but agreed to give the matter all due consideration, dismissing the fellow who brought them as politely as I could.

‘I know the law and am not responsible for their debts,’ I vigorously protested to Lucy. ‘No one can force me to pay them.’

‘Yet it places you in a most awkward position, Mama, if you do not,’ she very sensibly pointed out.