Life Mask

  'Mm?'

  'I turn forty in a fortnight.'

  It sounded terribly old; Anne seemed nothing like a widow of forty. But Eliza could say nothing, only sit frozen, eyes pressed shut, waiting.

  'You've been very patient,' said Anne at last, 'and now the mask is quite dry.' She started prising it off.

  At first it felt horrible, as if part of Eliza's face were being wrenched away, but then the mask popped free. Eliza blinked, rubbed crumbs from her eyelashes. She found herself looking into a white hollow shape, held in Anne's hands. It made no sense to her. Then she turned her head a little and all of a sudden she saw it: herself. Or rather, the ghost of herself, the space where she'd been a moment ago. Not a flat image, like a mirror, but the exact shape of the air around her face. 'It's me,' she whispered.

  Anne smiled at her, then looked back at the image—no, stared into it as if it were a pool or a cloud. 'I thought you told me that you were used to seeing yourself—that the sight could never surprise?'

  'But this is like a skin I've shed,' said Eliza, 'myself turned inside out.'

  AS USUAL Derby had joined his Whig friends at Holkham, Thomas Coke's Norfolk estate, for the autumn shoot. They always tried to stay off Party matters; instead they joked about women and compared fowling pieces. After five days the bag was pretty good: 835 pheasants, 645 hares, 59 rabbits, 10 partridges and 4 woodchucks. Derby had come back to Knowsley with so much game that he'd had to present most of it to his neighbours before it could rot.

  This was his last moment of peace before the two-day journey down to London for the Session. His agent had come in this morning while Derby was having his nails cut, to give a full report on how well his stocks and holdings in land, canals, mines and mills were doing. Derby's money gave him a feeling of great solidity, as if he stood on a mountain high above the scrabbling crowds of ordinary men. He'd been rather a frantic spender in his youth, but since he'd come under Eliza's influence he'd reformed and now he husbanded the Derby fortune to pass on to his son's sons, so the Smith-Stanley name would never tarnish. He couldn't help feeling a little smug that, almost alone among his peers, he hadn't loaded his estate with debts and never had to refuse a friend who asked for money.

  His cocks and horses cost a lot, of course, but they won a good deal of it back. Every day he spent at Knowsley he went riding with his dogs and there was nothing he enjoyed as much as stepping into his cock sheds, despite the acrid air. This afternoon Busley, his chief feeder, was showing him a one-year-old with a rich-red back, deep-orange feathers on his hackle and saddle, maroon wings and an iron-black breast and tail. 'He's of the true Knowsley strain of Black-Breasted Reds all right, M'Lord. We should put the hen to her sire again this year.'

  Derby had once made the faux pas of giving a detailed answer to a marchioness who'd expressed curiosity about the line breeding of pedigree game fowl. Before that he'd never considered that mating cocks with their own dams or daughters was an indelicate idea; after all, it was the only way to keep the blood really pure, to fix and preserve good qualities from generation to generation.

  The cockerel lay tensely in the old man's hand; his neck was long and flexible, his wary eyes wide awake. 'Such strong feet,' marvelled Derby, fingering their rough surface. 'I'd almost be tempted to break my own rule and let him have a trial before he's two.'

  'Ah, now, mustn't hurry them,' said Busley. 'It's all in the thighs; no point flashing your spurs and crowing up a tempest if your legs aren't thick enough to hold you right through the fight.'

  'Well, that's true. Fools rush in, eh?' Derby twisted the bird's head, checking the shape of the comb, the delicate frilled wattles. He'd always liked the look of young cocks, whole in all their parts, the natural princes of the barnyard; it was a shame that, to fit them for the pit, they had to be cropped and clipped, whittled down. 'This one reminds me of that game warrior we had a few years back, with the white feather on his throat.'

  Busley smiled, hard and reminiscent. 'He was perfect otherwise, but that spray of white on his breast stood out like the mark of Cain, so I had to bring him home for the pot. The missus was grateful.'

  'I sometimes regretted not even giving him a trial.'

  The feeder frowned. 'Ah, come now, M'Lord. Breed's all in the colour. Why else would folk say that a coward shows the white feather?'

  'Sheer superstition and dyed-in-the-wool ignorance, that's why, man. This is the era of scientific advancement, haven't you heard?'

  Busley dumped the bird back in the pen—sliding the slatted front down after it—and folded his arms. 'Now you're only trying to rile me.'

  'What about Sir Francis Boynton's champion Dun?'

  'That was a fluke. Markam says the grey, the yellow and the red fight best, and dun is even worse than pied or white.'

  'Markham's been dead since Queen Anne's day.'

  Busley sniffed, whether disputing this fact, or simply loyal to his favourite authority on game fowl, Derby couldn't tell. The Earl was always amazed by the firm prejudices of the lower orders.

  'The darks may be hardier and more tenacious,' he told the Feeder, 'but you must grant that some pale cocks are intelligent players and deadly with their heels. I like a bird that has some subtlety to it and knows how to play the waiting game, instead of just wading in and kicking his rival to pieces.'

  'Subtlety'll get you nowhere unless you can kick too.'

  Derby let out a chuckle. 'I'll repeat that epigram to my friend Walpole and he'll put it down in a book.'

  'Who's that? I never heard of him.'

  'Ah, no, I fear Walpole's extensive erudition doesn't stretch to fowl.'

  'Well, then, I'll never buy his book,' said the feeder. 'I've only three books and they're all about cocking.'

  'I envy you, Busley.' Derby sighed. 'I have upwards of 10,000 volumes and I'll never have time to read them all if I live to be a hundred.'

  The feeder rolled his eyes, whether at the thought of such an overwhelming library, or the dubious likelihood of the twelfth Earl holding the tide that long, Derby couldn't tell.

  'Good morning, Father,' came a chorus.

  Derby jumped slightly and turned to see Lord Edward Smith-Stanley, slim-legged in long pantaloons and a short jacket. He thanked the gods, and not for the first time, that the children had all taken after their handsome mother rather than their father. Edward's fringe had a charming natural curl to it this morning; his serious face gave Derby a rush of paternal sentiment. The boy was shadowed by his sister Lady Charlotte in a white muslin sashed gown. 'My dear children. Did you sleep well?'

  Yes, Father.' Their voices chimed together; Edward's hadn't shown any signs of dropping yet.

  Derby clapped his son on his narrow back. 'You know, since you're here, Edward, it's high time I introduced you to the mysteries of cocking.'

  Charlotte was wrinkling up her aquiline nose. 'Pugh, what a stench.'

  'Good healthy bird smell, that,' Busley rebuked her.

  'Where's your sister Elizabeth?' Derby asked her.

  She shrugged.

  'You two mustn't leave her alone all day.'

  'Yes, Father.'

  'Off you go and play a game with her, Charlotte.'

  At twelve, she had an almost womanly hauteur; her protruding bottom lip suddenly reminded him of her mother's. 'Neddy,' she hissed at her brother, 'are you coming?'

  'In a minute.'

  Derby gave the boy a tour of the vast sheds, pointing out the famous Black-Breasted Reds, the White-Legged Duckwings and the Lancashire Piles. 'This fellow here,' said Derby, pointing through the wooden bars at a bristling bird, 'he's a tip-top specimen.'

  'We've received no less than thirty applications for breeding him,' Busley mentioned. 'Sketchley at Loughborough just wrote to say would M'Lord put his cock to Sketchley's hen and M'Lord could name his price!'

  Edward's small forehead was furrowed. 'But Father, why do you need to charge for it?'

  Derby smiled thinly. 'There won't be much wealth by the
time you succeed me if I start giving everything away for free. Besides, Sketchley's not a gentleman, he's in trade; that sort would rather keep it businesslike.'

  'What about this cock here, is he valuable?' asked Edward, peering through the bars at a straw-coloured bird with a bright yellow hackle.

  'Yes, she is,' said Derby, laughing. 'Though the hens never leave the yard, they're just as important. This one's bred three marvellous fighters. I must take you to a main some time, come to think of it; thirteen's quite old enough. That would be splendid fun.' Derby often found himself adopting a falsely jovial tone with his children. He'd never puzzled out quite how to play the role of father without a mother at his side. They could hardly be missing Lady Derby; he doubted they remembered her face. But Derby didn't feel like a widower, that was the thing; to be honest, he felt more like a bachelor. His long and chaste courtship of the actress kept him yearning, ever young.

  'We Smith-Stanleys are heirs to a glorious tradition,' he said now, too bombastic. 'The Knowsley Black-Breasted Reds are known the length and breadth of this island. How would you like to grow up to be a famous cock master like your father and his forefathers before him?'

  The boy's face was shut up like a book. 'I don't know, Father. Why—'

  'Yes? Speak up, boy.'

  'When I grow up,' Edward confided, 'I should very much like to have a menagerie here, with creatures from the four corners of the globe.'

  It gave Derby an odd shiver to think of himself in the tomb and his son as master of Knowsley, playing with tiger cubs and parrots.

  'But I was wondering, why must you make the cocks fight?'

  Derby let out a stunned laugh. 'Fighting's the whole point, Edward. Don't you understand that much? Why else would I spend thousands a year on the biggest breeding yards in England if I wasn't going to make most of it back in prize bags?'

  'But surely the birds would rather just ... live.'

  Derby rubbed his forehead hard. What were they teaching them at Eton these days? Rousseau's softening influence had clearly gone too far. 'On the contrary. They love to fight,' he said heavily. 'They live to fight. It's natural to males. If you'd ever spent a morning in the farmyard—' He decided not to explain about winning a harem of females. 'Why, in the menagerie of your dreams, when I'm dead and gone,' he said cuttingly, 'would the animals all be wrapped up in cotton?'

  'No, Father.'

  'Well, then. They'd have to do something; they couldn't just sleep all day.'

  'I expect not.'

  'Though I dare say you'd like that, given how late you come down to breakfast!'

  Edward gave a small, obedient laugh and Derby was plunged into gloom. For some reason he found himself thinking back to August and that fight between Tyne and Earl he'd attended with Prinny down in Brighton. The two men fought bare-knuckled (because mufflers spoiled the fun), their fists weighted with lead, and a blow to the kidney had felled Earl, who'd died that night. Of course it had been a sad accident, but Prinny had gone into fits, called in Dr Warren to bleed him and sworn that was the last prizefight he'd organise or attend. Some sportsmen had weak stomachs, Derby concluded, and it looked like his son was going to be one of them.

  NOVEMBER 1788

  'Derby! You've missed half the banquet.'

  'Traffic on the Strand.' He sighed, with his hand in Fox's sticky grip. 'But it's not midnight yet—still the glorious fifth of November.' The Crown and Anchor's enormous ballroom was packed with tables and men. 'Have I missed your speech?'

  'No such luck.' Fox chuckled. 'There might even be some turtle soup left; two tons of the beasts were boiled up this morning.' He pulled Derby down to whisper in his ear with brandy breath, 'You know my terrible creditors?'

  Derby nodded. Was he going to be fleeced indecorously before he'd even sat down?

  'Well, good old Coutts has offered to pay them off with annuities to the tune of £10,000,' hissed Fox.

  Derby grinned and rubbed his friend's shoulder. He took it as a good sign of the Party's prospects if Coutts, a notorious social climber and a banker to much of the government and the royal family, was willing to take such a gamble on Charles James Fox's future.

  He squeezed on to a bench—'Evening, Devonshire. Windham, how d'you do?' He noticed that young Charles Grey was gazing at the Duchess of Devonshire with worshipful, melancholy eyes. Some of the old Whigs called Grey a brash hothead, too eager for the spotlight to serve his political apprenticeship like the rest of them, but Derby was rather impressed by such vaulting ambition.

  He helped himself to a glass of cold hock and his eyes slid back to Georgiana's plumped-up, pigeony gauze bosom. 'Your wife's looking particularly lovely in honour of the great centenary,' he remarked to Devonshire.

  'Mm,' said Devonshire through a faceful of lobster.

  Derby wondered if the oblivious Duke knew how many men here envied his situation, even if they disapproved of it. To live like the sultan of some seraglio, with one's beautiful tall wife and her petitely ravishing friend (Lady Bess had recently returned from a discreet six months in France, slim-waisted again); to have a choice of company in bed (or even, rumour had it, both ladies at once, tangled up in the sheets...). That was one solution to the problem of marital disharmony—invite a newcomer in!

  He felt a stirring in his groin and tried to concentrate on the dish in front of him, which appeared to be stewed tongue. He called down the table for a soup tureen to be passed, but he couldn't make himself heard. Some men had two women and some men had one, or none, that was how it was. And it wasn't as if anything was forcing Derby to sleep alone. He was one of the richest men in England, for God's sake; what woman couldn't he tackle if he pleased, by one means or another? If he lay awake at night in the cold state bed at Derby House, whose perverse choice, whose fault was that but his own?

  Across the table the Duke of Portland pushed his little spectacles on to the dome of his forehead and asked Derby how he did.

  'Excellently, Your Grace, and you?'

  Portland put his. glasses back on his nose and looked at his fingernails, and up and down the table, before replying, A little liverish, I believe, as a consequence of yesterdays dinner.' He'd hosted Derby, Burke and that brilliant American, Paine, whose pamphlet had done so much to inspire the colonists to throw off Old George's yoke. 'But on the whole, well.'

  Derby had to repress a smile. Portland couldn't give a quick answer if a highwayman were holding a pistol to his head. The Duke's defenders said he was marvellously diligent, tactful, prudent, took the long view; the youngsters called him a feeble ditherer. Portland held the strange position of nominal head of the Whigs, since—as Fox put it cheerfully—a party founded by great families could hardly be led by a plain Mr, a second son. But Fox was their real leader, primus inter pares. Portland was devoted to him, of course; sometimes Derby thought their whole Party was held together not by a set of principles but by love of one man. And, obviously—he thought of the frigid face of young Pitt—hatred of another.

  The clamorous chatter was dying down; there were cries of 'Hush'.

  Fox was on his feet with a skewed flourish, leaning his belly on the table. 'My Lords, gentlemen, friends all,' he began, 'we are gathered here to celebrate the birthday of King William of Orange and of England, and the centenary of our most Glorious and Bloodless Revolution of 1688.'

  Wild cheers all round, a few beaver hats and canes shot into the air. One of them landed on the table and broke a china dish, which caused much hilarity.

  'Our grandsires' grandsires, and I mean that quite literally'—Fox nodded at representatives of the great Whig families who'd taken part in that coup—'they did a greater thing than they knew when they cast out one corrupt absolute monarch and replaced him with two excellent constitutional ones, William and Mary. They established the principle that the people of England should have some say in who's to rule them.'

  'Huzza!'

  'Three cheers!'

  It was a stirring speech, on the need to renew
the independence of Parliament, the Bill of Rights and the spirit of liberty and Re-form, but Derby had heard it all before, so he happened to notice a boy pushing his way through the crowd to put a paper into Fox's hand. The leader scanned it and his sentence trailed off.

  'Lost his thread, has he?' wondered Devonshire. 'Pass the hock, Derby.'

  Fox looked up and thumped the table with his glass till the base broke off. The laughter and chatter died away. 'This statement is to be made to the Cabinet tomorrow,' he said in a shaking voice. He read the note: 'His Royal Majesty George III is gravely ill and his doctors fear for his life.'

  And in the silence, which was more potent, more prickling, more thrilling than any huzza, Derby thought: This is it. Our cue.

  SEVEN OF them met the next morning at Devonshire House on Piccadilly: Fox, Portland, Sheridan, Derby, Grey, their eminent attorney the Earl of Loughborough and, of course, Georgiana, very crisp in blue and white stripes. Once her footmen had served strong coffee and tea, as well as steaming cups of sassafras saloop for those still poisoned with brandy, Georgiana gave orders that they weren't to be disturbed till she rang.

  Fox mimed the tolling of a bell. 'Out with the old, in with the new!'

  'It's hardly come to that yet,' protested Portland.

  Sheridan ignored the Duke. 'Here's a plan of action,' he began, taking a page out of his pocketbook.

  'I beg your pardon, Sherry?' said Fox pleasantly. 'At what meeting was this plan drawn up?'

  'I saw Prinny earlier at Carlton House.'

  Derby could see the tension flickering across faces. They all knew Sheridan had taken advantage of Fox's damaged friendship with the royal heir to strengthen his own position as intimate adviser to the Great Whale. Now he'd evidently begun private negotiations. 'Earlier than this?' Derby put in, trying to ease the atmosphere. 'Gad, I didn't know you were capable of such feats of early rising.'

  Sheridan shook his head. 'I never went to bed.'

  This raised a laugh. Sheridan grinned, scratching a red patch on his nose.