Life Mask

I hate to impart such news, but I must. Toulon not having received the Allied reinforcements it asked for, has been besieged by French artillery encamped on the surrounding hills, & our old friend General O'Hara is reported to have been wounded & captured in a gallant attack on a battery. The enemy forces by the guile of an officer called Bonaparte have seized the fort & Admiral Hood has withdrawn the fleet—which leaves O'Hara in the brute claws of the French without hope of ransom or rescue.

  Anne stopped reading at that point. She had a choking feeling. Strange how horror wasn't quite real until it happened to someone one knew well. How was the General hurt, she wondered, and how badly? His legs, his chest, his massive shoulders or black-bristled face? Would his captors even bandage him, let alone find him a doctor? More traditional armies made prompt exchanges of prisoners; the raw volunteers of the Republic scorned the practice.

  Anne remembered O'Hara in her parlour upstairs three summers ago, so warm and vigorous, pulling open his shirt to show her his old bullet hole. Wish for another war, that was what he'd joked, it came back to her now; wish for another war, with another wound to make me famous. He'd been on the point of a generous proposal, and Anne had turned chilly and spinsterish, pretended not to understand him. And now the man was face down in the fetid straw of a French gaol, bleeding his life away, or in a wagon on his way to the Guillotine.

  She must have reached out blindly, or stepped the wrong way, because suddenly she was slipping through space. She grabbed a pole of the scaffold, she swung heavily and felt a terrible jolt. She was on the floor in a heap, but she couldn't remember exactly how she'd got there. When she tried to stand up her right leg wouldn't support her. She sat very still for a few minutes, breathing in the dust that covered the floor. It seemed as if death was in the room with her. She found herself thinking of a distant cousin who'd somehow got a splinter in his hand while foxhunting; the wound had festered and he'd died of it.

  This was ludicrous. Anne gave a heave and clambered to her feet. Everything seemed to work. She was only bruised and shaken. She wiped her mouth with her hand. She tried walking round the workshop; she brushed herself down as she went.

  Voices in the yard; the door swung open. 'I assure you,' her mother was saying, 'visitors delight Mrs Damer, she works even better with the eager eyes of posterity upon her! Isn't that so, my dear?' Lady Ailesbury bestowed a kiss on her daughter, who tried to smile. 'This is Madame Duvalle, of whose exquisite beadwork you've heard me speak.'

  Anne knew she must look appallingly dishevelled. She shook hands with the bony, nervous Frenchwoman and found her voice, offering her visitors a seat.

  'Are you granting yourself a little respite from your labours, dear?' asked Lady Ailesbury.

  Anne nodded. Her right leg was throbbing so loudly she could hear it. 'I think perhaps—' She backed away unevenly.

  'Darling girl, are you ill? You look shocking ill.'

  She mustn't admit to the fall. 'Just a little faint.'

  Lady Ailesbury had already picked up the bell and was clanging it. 'You must go upstairs directly and take some hartshorn and water. Or James's Powders—isn't Walpole always raving about James's Powders? Where are those idle servants of yours? They really do take advantage.'

  Sam came into the workshop, slightly out of breath.

  'If you could fetch Mrs Moll—' began Anne.

  'Your mistress is ill,' butted in the Countess, 'you must carry her upstairs, and ask the housekeeper for a good big glass of hartshorn and water.'

  NOVEMBER 1793

  Anne's thigh swelled up like a balloon. There was a navy-blue bruise the size of a fist that turned purple, green and dirty yellow. Doctor Fordyce thought it might be nothing worse than an inflamed tendon. When he felt the leg for splinters of bone, she didn't weep but she bit her lip hard. He bled her, a procedure that had always filled her with ridiculous dread; although she knew it was for her good, she couldn't stand the sensation of her life draining away into a basin.

  Only alone at night did she let herself cry. The poultice on her leg smelt foul and her whole body seemed to pulse with pain. She thought of gangrene. A female sculptor was freakish enough; imagine how the caricaturists would go to town on a one-legged female sculptor!

  Now, now, there was no excuse for such morbid thoughts. Anne had to rest, that was all; she had to take a break from her marble King and recuperate in peace. Except that she wasn't in peace, she was tormented. A lifetime of riding and she'd never fallen off a horse. What a fool she'd been to lose her balance on that wretched scaffold. Was this how an independent life drew to an end—with one episode of low comedy? Was she always to be a feeble widow from now on, hobbling on a stick, or wheeled in a Bath chair, even?

  Mary Berry came round from North Audley Street every morning and sat like a small forest creature beside the bed. Instead of calling in Bet, she changed Anne's poultice herself with light hands. 'You're such a comfort,' Anne said. 'I can't tell you how much.'

  'No need,' said Mary. 'I must confess I'm taking a sort of pleasure from looking after you. Not that I like to see you in pain—but it thrills me to be useful, especially to one I owe so much.'

  'It's quite the other way round,' said Anne, her eyes welling.

  'Now, now. Don't fall prey to sentiment or I will too.' Mary's finger was held up like a teacher's. 'Shall we take up where we left off yesterday?' she asked, flicking through Herodotus.

  Eliza, still unemployed in the absence of a theatre, dropped in some afternoons to entertain and amuse. They stayed well away from political controversy, except for one afternoon when Eliza produced a print from her pocketbook and laid it on the blanket that covered Anne's leg. 'You know you complain half your friends now call you a Tory? Well, I picked this up at Ackermann's.' It was a gaudily tinted caricature that showed a fallen sculptress abased at the feet of her unfinished marble monarch: Behold Whiggery laid low, it said.

  Startled laughter pealed from Anne's mouth.

  'I wasn't sure whether you'd laugh or fume. That's a very good sign,' said Eliza, smiling at her.

  When Walpole dropped in he was naturally understanding of an invalid state, but his fretfulness tired Anne. 'Oh, such a shocking accident, it makes me shiver just to think of it. That damnable scaffold, pardon my language! And this, on top of the lacerating news of O'Hara's capture—oh, the cruel twists and turns of Fate. Are you in shocking pain, my dear?'

  It wasn't so much the pain, Anne realised. It wasn't even fear of a crippled future—a fear which receded as the swelling on her leg went down. It was a kind of humiliation. She'd always prided herself on her vigour: walks, rides, carving marble, these weren't just ways of passing the time but aspects of herself. Means of escape from the corsetted etiquette of the World.

  The eighth of November was her forty-fifth birthday. Mary came round with a carved ivory fan. 'Oh, my dear, I was sure I'd passed my prime, as nobody's given me a fan for more than a year; I thought I'd have to stoop to buying one myself,' Anne joked.

  'Not while I've breath in my body,' said Mary, bending to kiss her forehead.

  The next morning William Fawkener was announced. Anne thought of sending down her apologies—but it happened that Mary had been kept at home by one of her sister's weepy fits and Anne was desperate for some conversation. She had Bet wrap her up well, and Sam carried her down to the parlour and laid her out on a chaise longue, with rolled blankets supporting her leg.

  'My dear Mrs Damer,' said the diplomat, more hawkish than ever in a fashionably high-cut coat, sitting down and resting his chin on the ivory ball of his cane. His tone had a curious warmth to it.

  'I hope to be on my feet again in a fortnight,' she told him.

  Fawkener shook his head. 'This won't do, it really won't.'

  'What won't do?'

  His hand circled elegantly, as if conjuring up the words. 'This ... this life of yours. So solitary and independent. So dedicated and stern.'

  'I wouldn't say stern—'

  'I've admired yo
u vastly for it,' he butted in, 'but really, you must begin to consider your friends. What are we to think', he asked, pacing the room, 'when we see you laid out like this, a broken victim of art?'

  Anne laughed shortly at the hyperbole. 'Nothing's broken, only bruised.'

  'Toppling from such a height—you might have died! Forgive my solicitude,' he added, 'but you've been very much on my mind.'

  This was really very curious, she thought. The Privy Council couldn't be keeping its Clerk very busy these days if he had time to brood over the health of every lady he knew.

  Fawkener suddenly sat down again, three chairs nearer. 'Mrs Damer, I believe you know in what exceedingly high estimation—'

  'No compliments, I beg you,' she interrupted.

  'Very well, then. I'll be quite frank and hope you take that as a compliment in itself.'

  She stared at him. Surely—

  'I wish to remarry.'

  The words seemed to expand; they filled up the room. Anne's breath came shallow. William Fawkener wished to remarry. He had divorced Jockey Poyntz for cuckolding him half a dozen years ago and now he wished to be married again. What was this to do with her? 'Of all the ladies of my acquaintance...' he was saying. Anne wasn't listening. Solitude, that was one word that came up, the long years, esteem, devotion, duties, graces, companions, compatibility. No doubt the diplomat was talking eloquently, but her pulse was so loud she couldn't hear him. Her leg was beginning to throb.

  'Do you understand me?'

  'I believe so,' she said, hoarse, 'but I hardly think—'

  'Please,' he said, 'allow me to marshal a few arguments. My feelings aren't merely romantic, Mrs Damer, they're quite sensible. I believe you and I would make a good team.'

  She saw them as two horses, trotting down Oxford Street in harness.

  'Though your birth is higher than mine, I look to my career to raise me; after all, my father earned a knighthood as a diplomat.'

  'Believe me, rank is not a consideration,' Anne managed to say. 'I feel—'

  'Please,' Fawkener interrupted, 'do me the kindness of taking some time to consider my proposal. I wouldn't dream of demanding an immediate answer, especially in your current state of health.'

  Anne resented that. 'It's just an inflamed tendon.'

  'Widowed so young, you've done splendidly—you've impressed the whole World with your pluck,' he assured her, 'but haven't you struggled through life alone long enough? Isn't it time you had a protector?'

  Her teeth met with a little click.

  'You know my history, everyone does, and I won't pretend that I was a good husband, on the first occasion—I neglected my wife for my work,' he said ruefully, 'but I believe I'd do considerably better this time.'

  'Your candour is admirable, Mr Fawkener.'

  'We've both sailed on the rough seas of matrimony, Mrs Damer.' He spoke in a comradely way and she almost smiled. 'We're both wiser than we were and we deserve some happiness.'

  'I ... have not been unhappy, on the whole,' she insisted. 'My work—my friends—friendship has supplied so much of what my heart—'

  And it does you honour,' he cut in, 'I assure you I delight in the contemplation of intimacy, especially female intimacy. I'd never interfere with that.'

  She found herself bristling. Who did he think he was to interfere or not interfere?

  'All I ask is that you think about what I've said.' Fawkener had her hand in his grasp and he was pressing his lips to it. They were cooler than she'd have expected.

  'I will,' she assured him, 'thank you, I will.'

  He'd made his bows and gone out through the door before she could think of anything to add.

  ANNE FOUND herself wide awake at four in the morning. The room was dark and she couldn't reach the tinderbox to light the lamp without dragging her leg out of bed. I'm forty-five years old, she said; she moved her lips but no sound came out. Struggling, Fawkener had said. Splendid. Struggling splendidly.

  After forty-five years spent in this empty yet bustling World, she wrote to Mary in Twickenham, I find myself the object—I almost said the victim—of courtship once more. I need your counsel now more than I ever have. Come up for supper?

  With O'Hara it had been different, he'd only given the impression that a proposal had been on his mind; really, nothing had happened, Anne hadn't allowed anything to happen. She'd never told anyone and had barely remembered it till the news came that the soldier was in a French gaol. The same went for Sir William Hamilton in Naples; the ageing antiquary had only dropped some hints, sounded her out. But this Fawkener business was official and deadly serious.

  Mary arrived with a parcel of books and a framed sketch from Agnes, and wrapped Anne in her arms. She felt better at once.

  'Mr Fawkener, I expect?' Mary said the name in a brisk, almost sprightly way.

  'You told me so months ago, but I wouldn't listen. For some reason,' Anne told her, 'proposals of marriage make me feel dizzy and sick.'

  'That's very natural. At least, I'd imagine so—never having received one in my life,' said Mary.

  'How strange. Here you are, a beauty in the bloom of your youth—'

  Mary rolled her eyes.

  '—while I, with all my faults and oddities, have received or warded off a good handful. I shouldn't say from whom,' Anne added, 'since at the very least I owe those gentlemen discretion. But I can't see why—apart from monetary interests—they should fix their ambitions on a woman who seems expressly designed for a single life.'

  'Mr Fawkener clearly doesn't think so,' Mary pointed out.

  She's not happy about this, Anne registered, which lit a little glow in her chest.

  'And quite apart from your personal charms and merits, which I needn't number—'

  'No, my dear, please don't.' Anne laughed.

  'There's your birth.'

  'You're right about that,' said Anne soberly. 'I'm sure Fawkener likes the idea of a countess for his mother-in-law.'

  'He has a respectable position,' said Mary in a tone of strict fairness, 'and—I assume—funds to go with it. There was no issue from his first marriage?'

  'No,' said Anne uncomfortably, 'but there was talk about him and Lady Jersey, years ago—a child, possibly—'

  'Ah.'

  They sat in silence. This wasn't good, but it wasn't unusual for a gentleman in his forties to have some entanglements. The Countess of Jersey had little reputation left, anyway; it wasn't as if he'd debauched some virtuous wife.

  'Mrs William Fawkener,' said Mary, trying out the phrase with forced cheer.

  Anne gave an involuntary shiver. 'Not to you; I'll always be Anne, I hope.'

  Mary grabbed her hand for an answer. 'Are you inclining to accept him?'

  'Oh, my dear!' Anne was silent for a minute. 'I like the fellow well enough, but I barely know his character.'

  'Given time, that would change.'

  'Well, yes, but by then it might be too late. I don't know whether we have much in common; he works for Pitt,' she protested. 'He's lively and pleasant, with a down-to-earth, man-ofthe-world air; there's nothing dull or priggish about him. But sometimes he's very modern and cynical. The man's a puzzle to me; I can tell he likes my company, but it doesn't have the ring of passionate affection.'

  'Well, as a husband Fawkener might occupy your feelings, whether or not he'd satisfy them,' said Mary uncertainly. 'If you were married, at least the powers of your heart would be ... called into action. If you don't think him absolutely unworthy, why not risk it?'

  'But my heart's not inactive,' Anne cut in, defensive. 'Friendship is the most perfect good I know. No, really, all my instincts say no,' she said, suddenly decisive. 'My liberty's precious to me—'

  'Oh, Anne!'

  'What? What is it, my darling girl?' Anne kept hold of the small hand. 'You think I'm wrong.'

  Mary nodded slowly.

  'You want me to marry this man whom I barely know and whom you haven't even met except in a crowd?'

  'I want
you to be happy.'

  She saw tears glittering in the deep-brown eyes. 'But I like my life; I have all that I need. Why would I change my condition?'

  Mary seemed to be having some difficulty speaking. 'It's your chance.'

  'My chance of what?'

  'Your last chance, perhaps, to clear up all the vile mistakes and misapprehensions about you.'

  'Ah,' said Anne, sitting back and letting go of Mary's hand. The dreadful subject; she might have known it would come up again.

  'The day after your wedding,' said Mary eagerly, 'such a bizarre idea would never more be thought of and you'd become as respectable in the eyes of the World as you've always been in your own—and mine.'

  Anne sighed. She got to her feet carefully; she still couldn't put any weight on her right leg. Mary jumped up to support her, but Anne waved her away. She made it to the window by leaning on the furniture and looked down on the vast oval of Grosvenor Square, the grass browned with dead leaves. 'With regard to the World,' she said, 'even were I inclined to buy its uncertain favour, I very much doubt if marriage would have the cure-all effect you imagine. In the past I've been attacked by malicious invention, not because of the sober opinion of any living creature.'

  'Isn't it worth trying? I just know I'll regret it,' said Mary, wiping her eyes, 'if I don't use all my influence to persuade you not to give a hasty answer to Fawkener. For God's sake, Anne, don't let false ideas of personal liberty prevent you from entering into a partnership which might keep you safe!'

  A partnership, thought Anne. She tried to see herself and William Fawkener at the breakfast table together, discussing their plans. Do you require Sam for your errands, my dear? I don't believe so, not today.

  'Think what your heart has suffered and how much it deserves to be repaid,' said Mary.

  'But not with false coin,' said Anne under her breath.

  WHEN FAWKENER called again it was a mild day, for November, and Anne was well enough to go out for a ride in Hyde Park in his sporty two-wheeled phaeton. 'I'm a careful driver I assure you,' he said, tucking the furs round her, and she wondered if he was being metaphorical.