Mrs Piozzi squinted slightly. Eliza regretted the remark; her friend was very sensitive on the subject of her husband's nationality, for which she'd endured so much censure. 'I only mean the two traits are entirely unconnected,' she stumbled on.
A nod. 'Now, I have a very good bookseller I go to off the Strand who supplies me with anything I need, he's a gem,' said Mrs Piozzi, as if changing the subject. 'I was sure I remembered hearing about some old broadsides about Mrs Damer and it took him a week or two, but he found them.'
Them?
'They all came out after she was widowed in '77 or '78—that's just before you came to London, I believe? Vulgar, disgusting stuff, of course—I can let you study the publications at your leisure, I have them locked up in my drawer here.' Already Mrs Piozzi was fiddling with the key of her cherry secrétaire. Now she had the things in her hand; thin paper, yellowing with age.
Eliza found herself rising to her feet. Old lies, she thought, stupid, cruel old lies.
'The worst of them's called "A Sapphick Epistle",' said Mrs Piozzi with relish, 'it's addressed to Mrs D—dash—r, well who else can that signify? It says she was delighted when her husband killed himself, because she was already a man-hating Tommy.'
Eliza was at the door. 'I'm afraid I have a rehearsal.'
'Won't you see for yourself?' asked the older woman. 'I warn you, there's one very obscene line about her relations with Italian girls—'
'No. That won't be necessary.'
'Well. You did say you wanted proof,' said Mrs Piozzi, her voice a little hurt. 'Not that such scurrilous stuff proves anything for a certainty, of course, and it was more than ten years ago, but one does have to wonder—no smoke without fire, as they say—'
'I've heard enough,' said Eliza. 'Thank you,' she added, delivering it like an insult.
'You know where they are, if you want them,' said Mrs Piozzi, locking the drawer again and patting the high polish of the desk. 'I had my suspicions about a friend of mine, a Miss Weston, until she overcame her reluctance to marry,' she confided, turning. 'The vice is on the rise, I do believe; Bath is said to be a cage of unclean birds.' Her voice had gone down to a hiss. 'Every week I hear some new evidence that we're living in the End Times...'
As the hackney took Eliza out of Streatham, through the villages of Brixton, Stockwell and Kennington, she breathed in fresh air. She must have been delirious these last few weeks. Clearly Anne was the victim of a tasteless hoax that had begun ten years ago as a way of cutting an independent, artistic widow down to size. Eliza didn't need to read the pamphlets; they looked so flimsy and greasy, with their curling edges, so much like every bit of journalistic trash she'd ever flicked through to find out what was being said of Miss Tittup and Lord Doodle. Who knew better than she did that nine-tenths of what was committed to print was lies, damnable lies? Didn't she know from bitter experience that a woman of distinction had a million enemies; that the men of the press hated no one more than a famous woman with an income of her own? And if a feeble wit like William Siddons could hit two targets with the same poisoned arrow, by linking Damer to Farren in a punning epigram, then all it meant was that this was a wicked little world.
Eliza resolved to trust her senses, and her instincts, and the best friend she'd ever had.
SEPTEMBER 1789
The schedule at Goodwood was sensibly early, in Anne's view, but Richmond invited his guests to join him in so many activities—badminton, boating, chemistry demonstrations and riding over the South Downs—that she had little time to herself, whether for writing or taking solitary walks in the woods.
When she and Lady Melbourne were sitting up to their chins in cold water in the bathhouse, she remembered to ask, 'How's Lord Egremont?'
'Oh, perfectly well.' Lady Melbourne yawned. 'He popped in just the other day and sported delightfully with little Emily on the rug. But we don't see so very much of His Lordship these days, as it happens.'
The we was a fiction, Anne knew; if the Viscount ever met his wife's guests in the hall or on the stairs, all he did was smile in his vacant way and shake their hands. Did this mean the long Egremont affair was over? She watched her friend's blue-tipped nose. 'I hope there's been no ... falling-out?'
The Viscountess laughed as if Anne had said something silly. 'It's just that we're so busy. I do envy you the untrammelled simplicity of a single life!'
Anne splashed her face to hide her irritation.
'But as it happens we have been seeing rather a lot of newer friends, since the regency hoo-ha, especially those whose views chime with our own,' Lady Melbourne murmured.
Anne felt weary, almost repelled. How many intrigues could one woman fit into a lifetime? It had to be one of the Foxite hotheads. 'There are so many of the younger members of the Opposition whom I barely know,' she ventured.
Lady Melbourne rewarded her guess with a smile. 'The Duke of Bedford calls, for one.'
That strange, long-haired grandee who dressed like a clerk? The Viscountess was old enough to be his mother.
'Bedford's awkward, but vastly eager and ardent,' murmured the Viscountess, 'when it comes to the cause of Reform. And he shares my passion for irrigation and enclosure, sheep breeding, that sort of thing. I've persuaded him to invest in the new chaff cutter we've been using at Brocket Hall.'
'Fascinating,' said Anne, standing up in the bath and waving her arms to increase the flow of blood. She'd had enough of coded confidences. 'I always enjoy my visits to Goodwood, don't you? My sister invited Miss Farren, but they're such tyrants, her managers, they'll work her into an early grave.'
A shrug. 'Oh, the girl seems tough enough to me. It's her job and she's well paid for it, I understand. Besides, she's so pampered by her well-born friends.'
'Pampered?' Anne repeated, sinking back into the cold water.
Lady Melbourne climbed up to sit on the edge of the bath. 'To be perfectly honest, my dear, I've never understood this sentimental friendship of yours.'
'What is there to understand?' asked Anne, the consonants hard in her mouth. Surely she couldn't mean what Anne feared she meant?
The Viscountess shrugged and the soaked canvas clung to her bony shoulders; water ran off it in glacial streams. 'She's an actress.'
'Miss Farren has genius—she's earned herself a place in the World—'
'But she'll never be of it, not if she'd sprung from the loins of Jupiter himself,' said Lady Melbourne. 'For all her fine dresses and matching manners, she's the child of a strolling troupe and she works for her. bread. You might as well have picked a grocer's wife for a pet, or started doting on my milliner.'
A pet; the phrase choked Anne, who reared up in the icy water with a great splash. 'You astonish me,' she said. 'My sister, my mother, Georgiana, Lady Bess, Walpole—they all adore her.'
One wet aristocratic eyebrow went up. 'Tolerate, rather; they invite her to parties, yes; she's a colourful adornment and popular with the Whig men. But only you, my dear, exchange loving notes with the girl twice a day. Only you go to Drury Lane every night she plays, and drag her into every conversation, and spend the best part of a year sculpting her nose.'
Anne clambered out of the bath. 'Do I understand you?' she asked, shaking. 'Do you dare to throw in my face—'
'I never said anything before,' the Viscountess interrupted, 'because I assumed this little misbegotten intimacy would run its course. But really, Anne, to see you at the Exhibition, proclaiming to the world your attachment to that sly little arriviste—'
'I don't remember asking you for your opinion of Miss Farren—a young lady, may I add, of unimpeachable virtue.'
The Viscountess folded her clammy arms. 'Oh, don't say you've been taken in on that score? Prig and prude the girl may be, but not virgin.'
'You filthy liar!' The walls of the bathhouse rang. 'How dare you drag her down to your own level? Not every woman counts her lovers on two hands and bears a bastard to each of them. Not every woman lets a new keeper buy her from the last for 13,000 guineas!'
&
nbsp; And at that moment, seeing Lady Melbourne's pupils contract to tiny black points, Anne knew the friendship was broken; she could almost hear it, like the tinkle of glass.
OCTOBER 1789
To launch the Season the Earl had decided to hold a masquerade. Though public masquerades at Ranelagh or Vauxhall were frowned on these days for their improper mixing, a select gathering was quite a different matter. After long deliberations Derby had chosen the authentic, imported costume of a Chinese mandarin; he could have rented it, but he liked the heavy silk sleeves so much that he bought it outright. It spoke of power and ceremony, and it suited a short man, too. The mask came with a long moustache of real hair.
Derby House was looking magnificent. Robert Adam had designed the set of rooms for just such an occasion; the contrasting geometric shapes of hall, ante-room, parlour, dining room and library formed a delightfully surprising sequence. Derby ordered every alcove and cubicle lit up with wax candles, he didn't mind what the evening cost. The great staircase was hung with red, white and blue silk banners as an homage to the brave French, and in its dome hung coloured glass lanterns. In the hall a little band in uniforms and feathered caps played serpents and clarinets. There was a supper—including a roast swan—laid out in the rectangular dining room that looked oval because of the plaster curves on the walls. Upstairs the vast saloon, with its fantastically stuccoed vaulted ceiling and its mythological panels by Madame Kauffmann, had been emptied for dancing. (The room was really too big, he knew, ever since he'd impulsively ordered a wall ripped down to make space for a bigger orchestra. That was in his wild and high-living days, before he'd come under Miss Farren's influence.) The chimney pieces were draped in red, white and blue velvet, and candles in gilt vases stood between tall arbours of flowers. Derby had rented most of the orange trees in London for the night, as well as some huge mirrors to supplement his own; dancers loved to watch themselves. He'd banned card tables—the enemies of conversation—but in the other drawing rooms there were sofas and teams of maids dressed as Vestals to brew constant supplies of tea. As a finishing touch he'd ordered boxes of Wedgwood's new cameos—France holding hands with Athene, goddess of wisdom—to present to all the ladies.
When the masquerade was in full swing, Derby stood by the door of the saloon and watched through the slits in his Chinaman mask. The orchestra looked splendid in their red robes. He saw a fat nun talking to a tiny Spanish Maja whose seams were laced together with ribbons—Lady Bess Foster?—and here came the Duke of Bedford, who'd made no further effort than to tie a black eye mask over his lank long hair; a splendid shephertless on his arm was surely his new déesse, Lady Melbourne. Derby bowed warmly to a tall Diana in a white and gold tunic and sandals, with a chaplet of flowers, who had to be Mrs Damer, but he wasn't sure she recognised him. He counted three Quakers, another Chinese mandarin in vastly inferior robes, a pirate, several pairs of Rubens and Rubens's Wife (the mid-seventeenth-century look was still unaccountably popular), a Turkish sultan with a female attendant muffled in black, a Good Queen Bess and various vaguely pastoral costumes. The question was, where was Eliza? Derby couldn't believe that any mask could hide her from his eyes. He examined the pairs walking through a minuet: no, none of the women was tall enough to be the actress. It was getting late; surely she'd have sent him word if something had prevented her from coming?
The Turk was at his side. Derby didn't recognise the fellow under that long flowing caftan with the ermine trim—unless it was Windham, who was tall enough. He turned and raised his glass. 'Your health, o great Sultan. How do these maidens compare with those in your harem?'
The tinkling laugh gave her away. Beside her, her mother in black wrappings gave a curtsy.
'Miss Farren!' He seized her by one gloved hand.
'You mistake my name and my sex, o mysterious Mandarin,' she reproved him huskily, adjusting her turban. 'I have come with a message for you from your restless peasants. Let there be no more tedious quadrilles, minuets and gavottes. The people demand country dances!'
Derby made what he hoped was a Far Eastern obeisance. 'I submit to the Majesty of the People.' He beckoned to the master of the orchestra.
When he and Eliza were opposite each other, hand in hand, in the long double line of men and women, he whispered in her ear, 'I thought you vowed after your first year at Drury Lane that you'd never wear men's clothes again?' The critics had humiliated her by calling her skinny and complaining that you'd hardly know her for a woman.
Her eyes were on the first quartet as they led off with a skip. 'I believe my words were, no breeches parts. I hope I can point out, without immodesty, that these aren't breeches.'
Her caftan was kilted up by a jewelled girdle, showing loose red silk pantaloons, gathered above her shoes, which had curled-up points. Derby was about to make some flirtatious response when the hussar in tasselled boots ahead of him, with the bulk and flowery scent of the Prince of Wales, leaned back and said, 'Splendid party, mine host.'
'Thanks—' Derby stopped himself from saying Your Royal Highness just in time. If the Prince couldn't taste anonymity at a masquerade, when could he? Suddenly it was their turn and Derby was off, whirling in and out, tripping on the hem of his robe.
On a sofa, he and Eliza shared a pear ice, with her mother opposite them on a stool. He feasted his eyes on the glimpse of his beloved's cheekbone between mask and jewelled turban. 'I've been tormenting myself,' he remarked, 'by wondering, if I were a French aristocrate, in Paris on that night in August, would I too have stood up to renounce my ancient feudal privileges, asking no compensation?' Some said the comtes and marquises had been afraid of the mob's noose, but Derby could well believe that they'd acted in a spirit of grand enthusiasm.
'I doubt it,' Eliza teased him. She couldn't see his expression behind his moustachioed mask. It occurred to her that he might be asking himself whether she only tolerated him for his tide and estates—for her hopes of one day sharing them. She dropped the flippancy from her tone. 'But there'd be no need for such a sacrifice, as the British nobility has always had its country's welfare at heart,' she said, laying it on thick. 'Those cottages you've built at Knowsley, for instance,' she added, scrambling for examples. 'Whereas the French system was so oppressive, with all those fees and the free labour the lords extracted from the peasants, it needed to be demolished.'
'I was a rebel once,' said Derby fondly.
Mrs Farren stared at him. Eliza savoured the melting ice in her mouth.
'It was at school, in my second-last year. Now I never resented being punished if I deserved it—Grandfather was scrupulously fair—but the Master of Eton, in those years, was addicted to the whip. What happened was a Praeposter—that's a sort of prefect—was pursuing some youngsters who were out of bounds and so happened to be caught out of bounds himself. The Master wouldn't listen to the boy's arguments; he flogged half the skin off his back.'
Eliza flinched.
'Well, we older boys got all fired up about it, we'd never heard of such flagrant injustice!' Derby's voice came mockingly from behind his Chinese mask. 'I think it was the first time we realised what authority is, when it drops all disguises: a master doesn't have to obey the rules, it's as simple as that. Well, we burst out of the gates, about ten dozen of us, and marched off to Maidenhead. We demanded wine and punch at an inn called Marsh's, and there were so many of us they didn't dare refuse. Oh, it was glorious fun! I'd had beer before, but never been truly drunk. The next day we woke up all over the floor, feeling vile, of course.'
Eliza laughed at the image. 'What did you do?'
'Drifted back to Eton en masse, hoping to negotiate terms. But the Master said the only terms were unconditional capitulation and a dozen of the best all round.'
'He must have had a tireless arm,' said Eliza. She was remembering one of the few times her father had ever beaten her, when she'd left a wagon of cardboard props out in the rain.
'Many of us ran away. I sold my watch and caught a coach to Liverpool,' s
aid Derby, reminiscent. 'When I turned up at Knowsley my father and grandfather had already had a letter from the Master.'
'What did they say?'
'They didn't need to say anything. They took it in turns to flog me, then they sent me back to school.'
'My dear!'
Eliza jumped away from the hands on her shoulders.
'Oh, I gave you a fright, I'm so sorry.' Anne, a tall Diana in tunic and sandals, pulled the ribbons of her mask loose. Eliza threw herself into the embrace, but kept her mask on; she kissed the air beside her friend's hot cheeks.
'Did you have prior knowledge of Miss Farren's Turkish disguise?' asked the Earl.
'Derby! Is that really you behind that frightening moustache? No, I didn't know what our friend would be wearing,' said Anne, curling up beside Eliza on the sofa, 'but I recognised the line of that throat at a glance, even though we haven't met in the flesh all summer.'
The Mandarin mask nodded benignly. 'The artist's eye. Myself, I mistook her for a man.'
Anne carolled with laughter at the idea.
Stop looking at me, Eliza thought, stop speaking about me.
Anne leaned so close her breath stirred Eliza's ear. 'I've sent something to your house—something long overdue.'
She was grateful for the mask that covered her burning face.
When the Farrens got home to Green Street, in the colourless dawn light, they found a large packing case in the hall. Her mother, who'd had too much champagne, grinned from ear to ear. 'May I? May I?'
'If you like,' said Eliza exhaustedly. 'But the manservant could do it in the morning—'
The wood squealed and nails popped as Mrs Farren wrenched back the lid, and there was the face. Soft, creamy, female beauty turned to stone: Thalia. Eliza thought she might burst into tears.
'How vastly kind of Mrs Damer to make you a present of it!'
'Yes.' Eliza's voice was almost inaudible.
'We might put it on the sideboard in the dining room, where it'll catch the light. Or. perhaps in the window, so it can be glimpsed from outside? I always say there's nothing more tonish than a piece of original statuary.'