Mrs Jordan's Profession

by Claire Tomalin

  The bizarre injustice of the outcome suggests that something else was at work beneath the surface. The idea of George as a ringleader, trying to make his mark by attacking his colonel and supported by a group of sympathetic young officers, must have given his uncles serious twinges of alarm. George and Henry were only twenty and seventeen, but if they were prepared to topple their colonel, might they conceivably go on to greater rebellion? The bad bastard is one of the most strongly established stereotypes in history and literature: envious, plotting against the legitimate line, building up a rival court. Absurd as the comparison might be, the shadow of Monmouth, Charles II’s illegitimate son who rose in arms against his uncle James II, may have hovered in the Regent’s mind.

  All the disgraced officers were instructed to hold themselves ready to join such other regiments as they should be appointed to. George and Henry’s first reaction was that they would leave the army altogether. Their mother, now on the Scottish borders, wrote passionately consoling letters, reminding them of the purity of their motives and assuring them the whole thing would soon blow over; she asked how their father bore the disappointment and, at her most maternal, suggested it was perhaps after all for the best. Even as she was writing, the two young men were informed of their fate: they were to go to India, and to remain there for four or five years at least.

  Their first reaction was to refuse outright what they both regarded as a sentence of banishment. In truth they had hardly any choice in the matter. Once the Regent had decided, their father immediately caved in. There was nothing else for them to do, unless they were prepared to break with their family and the only career they had been trained for. The Duke, terrified of what might happen if they did not obey, suddenly began to insist that India offered them a golden future, and that the Regent was acting out of kindness; at the same time, he nervously forbad them to go anywhere near the Regent or any of their uncles.

  India was a land of opportunity, their father told them, where they could make their fortunes; the Regent was all goodness, McMahon was their friend and would smooth their paths. The truth was, McMahon was already composing a letter to the Governor-General in India, Lord Moira, ‘begging that the strictest discipline, not to say severity, should be exercised towards them in consequence of their share in the business of the 10th Hussars’.20

  The Duke also urged his sons not to see their mother before they went; he said he felt most sincerely for her distress, but ‘Believe me, it is better for your mother and you two not to meet: it will only make her more unhappy and do no good.’21 And their departure was to be hurried; they must go as soon as possible and not wait for the spring, which was the usual time of embarkation. George and Henry, like Dora, had failed to keep their heads down as they were expected to by the royal family; this was an offence not to be forgiven.

  At Bushy the younger children were taken aback, and dismayed. Mary thought at once of her mother: ‘Poor Mama I will write to her tomorrow it will be the bitter thankless seeing it first in the Papers for I am sure it will worry her to death – What does Henry say – When shall you come how I long to see you God bless you my dearest George.’22 She was right. Bitter thankless it was for Dora in Carlisle to hear of the sacrifice of her sons. The news must have reached her for her ill-fated November birthday. In the evening she had to be led weeping from the stage, and for a day she was ill with grief, and took to her bed. Miss Sketchley, writing frantically to George, had great difficulty in preventing her from abandoning her tour immediately. She felt as much for the Duke as for herself and the boys. As soon as she was well enough, she wrote, ‘It is your dear father that I feel for; surely on this occasion I may judge of his feelings by my own, and bitter, very bitter they have been,’ she told George.23

  She rallied her spirits again, began to make plans, and sent off volleys of letters. Were George and Henry to be together in India? The answer was no, their stations were to be 700 miles apart, George in Calcutta, Henry in Madras; but at least they had now been granted permission to travel out together. Then Dora asked, would they consider taking Fanny with them, to join Alsop? George refused with great firmness: ‘I cannot take her on board the King’s ship. It will be impossible; I would not shackle myself with her. McMahon gives me the most certain assurances of Alsop being provided for. I will do all I can; but I cannot take Fanny out with us. It will cost £3,000 to get us out to India – where is all this to come from?’24 Where indeed? Dora began at once to think what she could raise, and wrote to Barton offering to contribute; when he declined, she told Henry, ‘I sd hope the £3,000 comes from any source but your dear father, it ought for the misery they have occasioned him.’25 It is not clear who did pay, and likely she did contribute a good deal of the cost.

  In London Colonel Palmer brought a motion in the House of Commons against the court martial’s verdict, and Lord Egremont, whose son was one of the young officers, enraged the Regent by threatening to do the same in the Lords. The Duke advised his sons, ‘I hope you and Henry will be quiet and recollect the thing is over and that the law of the land makes the Sovereign absolute with his Army.’ He added that he never spoke to the Regent now on any business but what was absolutely necessary.26

  Dora accepted George’s refusal to take Fanny with good grace. Alsop had revealed himself as an unfeeling and unprincipled man who had cheated her out of a large amount of money before abandoning his wife to her care. Fanny was currently living in Cadogan Place with the Marches, and causing fresh trouble by writing hostile letters to the Duke; she may have seen this as a demonstration of love and loyalty to her mother, but the letters brought Barton, supported by Wilks, one of the lawyer signatories of the settlement, round to Cadogan Place in a fury. Frederick March was questioned, and denied any involvement or knowledge of the letters; Dora, outraged by what Fanny had done, asked March to tell her she must leave London and go to one of her uncles in Wales, and stay there until her husband sent for her. She would continue to give her an allowance.

  If she refuses this, I here swear, by the most heart-breaking oath that presents itself to my tortured mind, that ‘may I never again see those two sacrificed young men, if I ever (if possible) think of her again as a child that has any claim on me’. And I shall be led to doubt the affection of any one who may, by a mistaken motive, endeavour to make me break an oath so seriously and solemnly taken. If she has an atom of feeling, and wishes to regain any part of my affection, she will instantly agree to this: if not, the £90 a year shall be regularly paid to her so long as I have it to give. Let her not look on this as a banishment: let her look on the fate of two gallant young men submitting to a cruel exile without a murmur, whatever they may feel.27

  Two days later she wrote to March again, ‘I trust in God you will exert yourself in pointing out to Fanny the absolute necessity of her prompt compliance with the proposal; in which case she shall ever find me her mother and friend.’ Fanny did not relish getting messages of this kind from her mother. Her response was to walk out of Cadogan Place and break off all communications. She surfaced later, as we shall find, but her mother never saw her again. Dora reproached herself bitterly for having ‘almost deprived myself of the means of affording to two amiable children [Dodee and Lucy] by having lavished them on one’.28

  With one grief piling on another, Dora was absolutely determined to see her sons before they left. The next day – 4 December 1814 – she wrote to George again to say, ‘If you go soon I shall instantly set out – if not till the spring I will endeavour to finish my engagement – but by the hopes of our meeting again, dont deceive me – my mind is too unsettled to bear a disappointment.’29 At this the boys disobeyed their father and told her the truth, that they were scheduled to leave early in the new year of 1815. She fulfilled one more engagement, in Newcastle, then cancelled the rest of her tour, and travelled south. Arriving at Cadogan Place at Christmas, she had a month in which to see them before their departure; they were to sail from Portsmouth on 21 January. The journey to India t
ook from five to six months; they would arrive in the summer, and she might hope to hear from them in a year’s time. She would be able neither to help them nor to communicate in the easy, comfortable to-and-fro fashion that was so precious to her. For years the Duke had been her confidant, to whom she could complain, argue, boast, lament, gossip, joke and give family and theatre news; when he abandoned the role, she gave it primarily to George – Henry being a less assiduous correspondent, as well as younger. Now that comfort too was taken from her.

  Once they had gone, she sat down to consider her situation. Money, for so long an easily solved problem, was becoming a more stubborn one. In fact it was so short that she began to think of disposing of the lease of her house and of finding somewhere out of town, ‘but not farther from the children than I am at present’ – although the children were an ever diminishing band.30 Lolly, having reached twelve, had been sent to sea and was somewhere in the Atlantic aboard the Newcastle. Frederick, just fifteen, was preparing to join his regiment in France where, in March, Napoleon reappeared and the war was resumed. Fanny had disappeared. Sophy, on the point of her official ‘coming out’, was busy with her young life. Tuss was away at school, and also promised to the navy. Lucy was taken up with her family at Woodbridge, expecting another child. Mary and Eliza were always loving, but they too were much occupied, being carefully prepared for their confirmation by the Bishop of London; the Duke was no fonder of religion than before, but someone was making sure all his daughters should be well drilled in its precepts.31 To the little ones, Ta and Mely, their mother had become an increasingly episodic and mysterious presence, appearing and disappearing unpredictably, unrelated to their daily life, likely to evoke sour looks and comments from their governesses: she must have seemed more fairy godmother than parent.

  Yet Dora was determined not to lose her girls; she found a small house at Englefield Green, intended to replace Cadogan Square. Only the Marches were now in permanent residence there, with their three thriving but noisy babies. Dora had always had a soft spot for Frederick March, and when he mentioned that he was in slight financial difficulties, she gave him some ‘notes’ that appear to have allowed him to draw on her bank account. It was the sort of generous gesture she was used to making without a second thought; and it was a mistake.

  Her judgement was not as good as it had been. She was sometimes confused, and her energy was running out. She had planned to retire in the spring of 1815, and in effect she did; but there was no triumphant and emotional last performance, no speeches and tears, no appreciative crowd making a formal farewell, no presentation from fellow actors. Perhaps she could not face it, or perhaps the committees of Covent Garden and Drury Lane thought it inappropriate. She went to Dover and Deal to give some performances in their small theatres, then to Boston in Lincolnshire for a few more. She visited Tuss at school, and saw as much as she could of the girls. Lolly delighted her with his letters and presents of oranges from Madeira, where his ship was stationed, although some of her letters to him, which she had asked the Duke to forward, went mysteriously astray at Bushy.

  In the summer came the great news of Waterloo; England was triumphant but exhausted. Perhaps Dora felt she was lucky after all that George and Henry had not been able to fight; and that Frederick’s regiment was not involved. As she said, it was time for the heroine of The Soldier’s Daughter to become a full-time soldiers’ mother. Her professional life was at an end; there was a final flicker when she gave ten performances in Margate in July and August and three in Oxford on 25, 27 and 28 August. This was the very last time she appeared on a stage. She was fifty-three; she had been acting for nearly forty years; and she had less than a year to live.

  At the end of August she was in Gosport, saw in the papers that Lolly’s ship was back in English waters, and sent off a letter to Bushy. ‘My darling Lolly,’ she wrote,

  I see the Newcastle is arrived, and that this may meet you, surrounded by your dear Sisters at Bushy I pray God – I have been miserable about you, I shall return to Englefield Green on Sunday – and hope to see you, as soon as you can be spared – if you write immediately I shall get a letter in answer to this before I leave this place give my love to your dear Sisters and God Bless you my dear Boy prays your affectionate and anxious mother DJ.32

  We don’t know whether she went to Englefield Green, or whether she managed to see Lolly or any of the others. The person she did see in September was Barton. He was surprised to be summoned by letter, and found her ‘in tears, and under much embarrassment, from a circumstance that had burst upon her, as she said, “like a thunder storm”.’33 The circumstance was the discovery of the extent to which Frederick March had been drawing on her Coutts account, and not only that: he had borrowed in her name, and run up a terrifying tangle of debts that were now out of control and impossible to conceal any longer. Once again, she had been betrayed where she had most put her trust.

  Barton’s account says she was fearful of immediate arrest, wished to treat all her claimants fairly, and to save ‘the wife and children of the person who had so deceived her, from utter ruin’. Since she could not negotiate with creditors if she was under arrest, her idea was to go abroad while things were sorted out. Barton seized on this plan and encouraged her in it enthusiastically. There was no fight left in her; yet again, she gave her trust too readily. She had to believe Barton was acting in her best interests, and to accept his seeming kindness at its face value, though the obvious truth is he was eager to get her out of the way before she and her awkward children and crooked son-in-law could bring more embarrassment on the royal family. Had he chosen to exert himself to help her, she could almost certainly have avoided leaving the country; as it was, he did not choose even to inform the Duke. She went relying on Barton to arrange matters and summon her home as soon as possible; ten days abroad, she believed, might be enough.

  Before she left, she called in an auctioneer to value the contents of Cadogan Place; once more, she let herself be swindled, allowing furniture and lease to go for a sum far below their value.34 Then, accompanied only by Miss Sketchley, she took ship, landed at Boulogne, and found a modest and isolated cottage. The name Mrs Jordan was now a liability; after this crossing of the water she changed it again, and chose to be called Mrs James. She asked for her letters to be delivered to the Post Office, Boulogne.

  Two of her children were in Paris at this time: Frederick was there on regimental duty, and Sophy had just arrived for a holiday. None of Sophy’s letters to her former companion Miss Turner makes any reference to her mother; she talks mostly of being very happy, of sightseeing and riding, and of her great social success. Metternich was kind to her, the Duke of Wellington gave dinners and concerts; she visited Talleyrand, went to Lady Castlereagh’s balls, and was hotly pursued by a Prince Royal of Bavaria, who turned out to be married. Through all these adventures Sophy kept her ‘horror of impropriety and irreligion’, she assured Dot Turner, and was delighted to find her letters gave ‘dear Papa’ pleasure.35 We know she met Frederick only because he wrote to his mother in Boulogne to say so.36 Both brother and sister were cast down by the news about the Marches. Sophy told her brother she was about to write to her mother; so perhaps she was not so entirely taken up with her social triumphs as the letters to Miss Turner suggest. Frederick was homesick, but his regiment was not due home for a long time: ‘I long to see dear Lucy,’ he told his mother; but she could no longer hold the family together.

  On 18 October a new actress appeared at Covent Garden as Rosalind in As You Like It. She was small, and sang well; she was also visibly pregnant. Crabb Robinson described her in his diary as ‘the plainest woman, I should think, who ever ventured on the stage’.37 This was Fanny Alsop. William Hazlitt went to see her on 22 October and was inspired to write as follows:

  A lady of the name of Alsop, a daughter of Mrs Jordan (by a former husband), has appeared at Covent Garden theatre, in the character of Rosalind. Not only the circumstances of her relationship to that e
xcellent actress, but the accounts in the papers raised our curiosity and expectations very high. We were unwillingly disappointed. The truth is, Mrs Alsop is a very nice little woman, who acts her part very sensibly and cleverly, and with a certain degree of arch humour, but no more like her mother, ‘than I to Hercules’. When we say this, we mean no disparagement to this lady’s talents, who is a real acquisition to the stage in correct and chaste acting, – but simply to prevent comparisons, which can end only in disappointment. Mrs Alsop would make a better Celia than Rosalind. – Mrs Jordan’s excellencies were all natural to her; it was not as an actress, but as herself, that she charmed everyone. Nature had formed her in most prodigal humour, and when nature is in the humour to make a woman all that is delightful, she does it most effectually. Mrs Jordan was the same in all her characters, and inimitable in all of them, because there was no one else like her.

  Her face, her tears, her manners were irresistible. Her smile had the effect of sunshine, and her laugh did one good to hear it. Her voice was eloquence itself: it seemed as if her heart was always at her mouth. She was all gaiety, openness and good nature. She rioted in her fine animal spirits, and gave more pleasure than any other actress, because she had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself. Her Nell – but we will not tantalise ourselves, or our readers. Mrs Alsop has nothing luxurious about her, and Mrs Jordan was nothing else. Her voice is clear and articulate, but not rich or flowing. In person she is small, and her face is not prepossessing. Her delivery of the speeches was correct and excellent, as far as it went, but without much richness, or power; – lively good sense is what she really possesses. She also sung the Cuckoo song very pleasingly.38

  Between mother and daughter, it is hard to imagine which of them would have found Hazlitt’s sincere and entirely good-hearted criticism more piercing and painful.