by Diana Norman
‘And I’m out to save slaves, you pious little pizzxle,’ she’d shouted, not above some alliteration herself in her temper, ‘so get out of my theater.’ And she’d shredded the Lord Chamberlain’s injunction and thrown the pieces after him.
Stephen Heilbron, however, had remained, kind and careworn as ever. ‘I know Deedes can be insufferable,’ he said, ‘but he came to me when he heard I was back from Liverpool and, dear missus, as there is no man to direct your family, I—who will soon belong to it—hold myself responsible for you.’
‘Well, you ain’t,’ she told him sharply. ‘Of all people, you ought to see what I’m doing here.’
‘I understand what you are trying to do and that I must seem pharisaical in your eyes. But, missus, the means are foul, don’t you see? No matter what the end? Attitudes to slavery must be changed by bringing people nearer to Jesus Christ and only by that. A playhouse merely brings the Christian religion into contempt.’
‘Why does it?’ She didn’t understand him; Christianity was strong enough to look after itself. ‘How can it?’
Gently, he took her by the shoulders and turned her round so that they both faced the stage and the splintered hole that Jacques’s cannonballs had made in it. ‘Were you not trying to imitate the Almighty’s wonderful act of thunder? Oh yes, I know the tricks—dropping peas on a drum to make the sound of rain. Can you not see you are making mockery of him and his most blessed gifts?’
At which point Makepeace decided the man was mad. She’d left him and followed the cast’s flight to the Green Room.
Chrissie Gardham said, ‘Missus, the Marquis thinks it wouldn’t take much to turn Oroonoko into a burletta, it’s got songs already.’ They were all looking at her. The Marquis of Barigoule was with them, now part of the team, nodding in confirmation.
Murrough was watching her. He always watched her.
They filled the shabby room liked a crowded flower arrangement, elegant even when they were troubled; the men placed like dark fronds between the overblown roses of the women balancing on the stalks of their pretty, white-stockinged feet.
Such good companions, she thought. Yet they made her feel lonelier, even jealous; she might long to be one of them but the foot-lights divided them; she could never enjoy the easy understanding they shared. Part of her belonged in the auditorium. They knew it, kind as they were to her, and she knew it.
‘Missus? It isn’t just that we’ve worked so hard, I promise it is not. It would be so nice if we could do the teeniest bit to help stop slavery. ’ Chrissie Gardham looked round. ‘Wouldn’t it?’
There was a round of clapping.
Chrissie the sinner, Makepeace thought. They were all sinners. Small wonder Christ had preferred their company to that of Pharisees.
‘You can turn it into a pantomime for all I care,’ she said. ‘We open next week if it kills us.’
MURROUGH didn’t go home with them that night, saying he had to see to the new arrangement; he’d beg a bed from somewhere.
Makepeace thought, And who’ll be in it with you? She’d noticed Jordan’s hopeful eyes; the woman was always waggling her hips at him.
So it was quiet in the coach back to Chelsea; Marie Joséphine asleep, Jacques figuring weights and stresses for a new cannonball run on his slate, Jenny unusually silent—until they were at Reach House and getting ready for bed.
‘May I talk to you, Ma?’
‘Come in. See to this damn bodice, will you?’
Jenny unhooked her. ‘Ma, I don’t think I should come to the theater any more.’
Makepeace turned round. ‘What?’
‘Stephen doesn’t want me to. I was talking to him . . . when you were in the Green Room.’ She smiled. ‘He won’t give up, you know, he says your soul is worth fighting for.’
‘Does he? And who is Stephen to tell you what to do?’
‘He’s . . . he’s goodness. He points the way. When he was speaking everything else seemed . . . I don’t know . . . grubby.’
‘Did it, indeed.’
‘Oh, Ma, don’t be cross. But he was so shocked that I should be there; he said he was worried for my reputation and he truly was, Ma. Concerned for me, I mean. He asked why I wasn’t amusing myself with things like botany or astronomy instead.’ Jenny’s speedwell eyes concentrated. ‘From which I could never obtain what was false or base.’
‘Botany and astronomy.’
‘Yes, Ma. Or helping the Society in its clerical work. That way I could come up in the coach with you to London every day.’
‘Lot of botany in London, is there?’
‘Ma, please. He’s afraid that by being too close to the flame I may be scorched.’
‘And the rest of us are burning in hell, I suppose.’
‘Of course not. But he said I had my future to consider and that good men might judge me by the company I had kept. I know I agitated to come but I didn’t realize . . . Stephen says no female can become an actress and remain an honest woman. And though Ninon and Mrs Jordan and Chrissie are charming . . . well, you know what they are.’
‘Human beings,’ Makepeace said. ‘Human human beings. Don’t judge them, pet—it doesn’t give you any leeway for what crops up in your own life. I’ve learned that much.’
She sat down on the bed. What a preacher Stephen is, she thought. With one conversation he has taken Jenny away from me. Have I risked her morals? Have I been a bad parent? Her father would have known what to do.
‘I don’t judge them,’ Jenny promised. ‘ “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” But I see my own way now.’
She looked like Andra at that moment, fair-skinned where he’d been dark, but the same purposefulness giving her face character where before it had been just youthfully pretty. Yet Andra’s road had been wide and taken in all human endeavour. Jenny was choosing a way that narrowed.
Makepeace put out her hand. ‘Do you want to go home, pet?’
‘No, Ma.’ Jenny sat down beside her and hugged her. ‘I want to stay with you, I just won’t come to the theater anymore.’ Like a modern day Mary, she began figuratively pouring spikenard onto the head of the absent Heilbron; how brave he was, how good, a modern saint. With all of which Makepeace was prepared to agree to a point though, like Martha, she thought the adulation overexpensive. Was it adulation, or adoration? Had Jenny fallen in love?
‘. . . and I think it naughty of Philippa not to be here to greet him back. He was so disappointed. He’d told her when he’d be arriving. He wanted to know where she had gone. If only she would get over her calf love for Andrew and see that Stephen stands head and shoulders over other men . . . What is it, Mama?’
Makepeace was scrabbling at her writing case. ‘We can post it tonight. Sanders can catch the mail at Slough and put it in the bag.’
‘Who are you writing to?’
‘Babbs Cove. Jan Gurney’ll know.’
‘Know what?’
Makepeace looked up, distracted. ‘Whether she’s gone to France.’
‘Pippy? Ma, I told you. She’s at Raby. Yes, yes, we haven’t heard from them but you know what Sally and Aunt Ginny are like for letter writing.’
‘I know what Philippa’s like. She’d have written. It’s been weeks . . . Damn the girl, I should have known, I should have known. I’ve done nothing. Oh, Pippy.’
‘Ma.’
Makepeace threw off Jenny’s restraining hand, scattering them both with ink. ‘She’s gone to France; she’s gone to rescue the Condorcets. ’
‘Of course she hasn’t, Ma. How can you think that?’
‘Because it’s what I would have done.’
EVERYONE thought her hysterical—except Marie Joséphine, who became hysterical herself. Hildy, Jenny and Aaron considered her conviction to be outlandish. Philippa? Too level-headed. It was merely bad manners on the girl’s part not to have come back to greet her fiancé’s arrival—obviously, she was still in two minds about the marriage.
Makepeace was persuaded that she had
been overworking; she must rest, at least for today. ‘I’ll go in your place,’ Aaron said. ‘I’ve been meaning to look things over. Tomorrow you can take up the reins again. Makepeace, I am well, I shall not overreach myself. Jenny can bring me up-to-date; yes, you can, Jen, just for today. Makepeace, stay.’
So, because she had no proof and because she was in such a taking, she stayed, like a dog, watching them go off without her and, like a dog, not knowing what to do with herself.
Eventually, needing to breathe, she clapped a straw hat on her head and went for a walk by the river.
The countryside conspired to calm her down; the last of the bluebells rendered scent that mixed with the cow parsley coming into flower. The water meadows were striped with yellow-rattle and Saint-John’s-wort.
It was all gray to her and she tired herself out by metaphorically pushing a distant mail coach into going faster.
Their lives are controlled, she thought, even Aaron’s. They think things proceed at the same pace but they don’t. They haven’t felt the winds that scatter normality in a second.
No they don’t know Philippa. I should have seen the warnings. She didn’t send the forged passport; she took it. Why didn’t she tell me?
She became angry. This was déjà vu. The blasted girl had done this before when the ship bringing her back from America had been sunk; Philippa was rescued but in the confusion had been lost on the docklands of Plymouth. And there she’d stayed, deliberately, waiting for Makepeace to find her. Aged eleven and using her adversity to see whether her mother loved her enough to come after her.
I passed that test. Is this another?
‘ ’Mornin’ Mrs Hedley. ’Nother fine day.’
‘ ’Morning, David. Yes, it is.’
While she waited for the herdsman’s cows to go past, she forgave her daughter. This time Philippa had gone where she knew her mother couldn’t follow. Makepeace didn’t speak French.
God, if they catch her.
Reach House was deserted when she got home and she remembered, resentfully, that she’d given everybody the afternoon off to go to a flower show at the hospital. It was so quiet she could hear Chadwell hammering something in the stables and the flutter of house martins’ wings as they repaired last year’s nests under the eaves for occupation.
She went into the parlor, taking off her hat, and somewhat self-consciously fell to her knees. ‘Watch over her, dear Lord. Keep her from all harm. If I have offended thee in the matter of the playhouse, thou knowest it was done with the best intentions so don’t visit it on my daughter’s brave head. May she achieve her purpose and be on her way home. This instant, Lord, it if please thee. Your loving servant, Makepeace Hedley. Amen.’
The prayer was so strong that she got up and went to the window to see if the Lord had granted it and Philippa should be coming up the drive. She wasn’t but Makepeace sat down, waiting for her—and for one other.
He came half an hour later.
Since the play had gone into rehearsal, he’d been limbering up. His exercises in the garden and refusal of the richer foods in the dining room had occasioned hilarity in the household, especially from Aaron, a fellow-sufferer. Makepeace had expressed scorn—another example of dramatic attitudes, more vanity.
‘My body is my instrument, madam,’ he’d said, making her scoff the more. ‘Would you have a trumpeter let his trumpet rust?’
If it was ridiculous, it had been effective. The man who got down from the coach was trimmer than he had been. He said something to Sanders up on the box and strode up the steps.
She ran to the front door, pulled it open and threw herself at him. ‘Mick, she’s gone to France.’
‘I know,’ he said and picked her up. ‘Come to bed.’
SHE was appalled at herself afterwards. The afternoon sun coming through the open window onto their bodies among the rumpled sheets was a reproach. A blackbird’s song was the reply of innocence to the groans of satiety that had so recently drowned it.
She heaved his arm off her breasts. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, stiffly.
His face was buried in the pillow but she saw one eye open and swivel towards her. ‘What the hell for are ye sorry?’
‘I was upset,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’
The eye closed. ‘You did it fine all the same.’
‘Oh, don’t say that.’ She untangled her legs from his; the skin sucked apart with sweat. An actor. In the afternoon, like a trollop, like an adultress while her husband was away. Which he was. Andra, pet, forgive me.
She must get up. What was she doing here? Give her a moment for her body’s lethargy to release her and this interlude would be over.
The worst was, she’d betrayed Philippa. For intense and sordid minutes her mind had neglected its duty, as if the cessation of worrying had taken away what protection she could give her daughter.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘They don’t believe me, but I know she’s gone to France.’
‘So Aaron told me. I’m unacquainted with the young lady,’ he said, ‘but I gather she has strong reasons and a stronger will. From all I’ve heard of the circumstances, I’m inclined to agree with you.’
‘Oh, God.’ That he found it credible added to its reality and her fear.
She began to get out of bed. He dragged her back and loomed over her on his elbows. ‘Listen, when we know—and I mean for certain—I’ll go and fetch her back meself, I’ll maybe need to go anyway. Me sources tell me the lads I dealt with over there in that little matter of armaments are no longer the ones in charge. There’ll have to be new arrangements made.’
He sat back, offended. ‘I’ve offered to rescue your daughter, woman. A bit of gratitude wouldn’t come amiss. What for are you smiling?’
‘Andrew,’ she exulted. ‘He’ll fetch her back. Why didn’t I think of it? Where’s his letter?’ She rolled out of bed and scampered to her writing case. ‘What’s today?’
‘The fifteenth.’
Makepeace scanned Lord Ffoulkes’s latest scrawl. ‘“Return sixteenth.” He’ll be back tomorrow. Oh, God, thank you, God.’
‘Andrew?’
‘My adopted son, sort of. Lord Ffoulkes. He and his friends smuggle aristocrats out of France, they’re experts at it.’
‘Aristocrats,’ he said, musing. ‘No friends of mine then.’
‘He’s Philippa’s friend,’ she told him, sharply. ‘He’ll bring her home.’
She realized that the bosom to which she was clasping Andrew’s letter had nothing else on it, a petticoat that had fought back when she’d tried to rip it off had rolled itself up around her waist. ‘Oh, look at me. No, don’t.’
He was, comfortably, his arms behind his head. ‘I’m enjoying the view, woman. It’s rare to see a natural redhead nowadays.’
Revulsion overtook her; he was comparing her to his other women. She was an incident that had been enacted in bedrooms across all Europe.
Through nausea the clear eyes of her children peered at their mama. Sir Mick and his fancy woman. She was ashamed, entangled, suffocating. Her body had lain only with good men, both of them with honorable intentions. This man was . . . God knew what he was. For one thing, he was silly—lying there, making silly faces at her as she picked up her clothes from the floor and struggled into them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘This shouldn’t’ve happened. I ain’t that sort of woman.’
‘When did your husband die?’
‘Five years ago.’
‘A long time for not being that sort of woman.’
Assuming everybody needed sex, as if it was a tonic to be taken regularly for one’s health’s sake.
‘Get up and dress, for God’s sake,’ she said. ‘They’ll all be back in a minute.’ She paused in pulling up a stocking as another horror struck home. ‘What will Sanders think? What did you tell him?’
‘I told him I’d heard you were upset and needed a good fuck to calm ye down.’
> ‘You didn’t.’
He got up, yawning, and began pulling on his breeches. ‘I told him I’d left some papers behind. Since he could have fetched them himself, I doubt he believed me, but that’s his business.’
Soon it would be everybody’s. Groaning, she sat down at her dressing table to brush her hair.
‘But the first explanation was the truth, wasn’t it?’ He’d descended into Irish ever since he’d got her to bed; his ‘truth’ was ‘troot.’ He padded over and took her head between his hands. ‘Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? You’re feeling better, confess it.’
Well, she was, but not due to him, thank you very much. It was remembering Andrew that had done it; Andrew, the rescuer.
In the looking glass, she could see his fingers in her hair; his hands were the most gentlemanly thing about him; strong and nice nails. She closed her eyes to them and felt the warmth of the bare skin above his waistband against the back of her head.
‘I was upset,’ she said, stubbornly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Ah, well.’
She went on brushing her hair, listening to him dress and the door close as he went.
From the window she saw him emerge and walk off to the stables, calling for Sanders to take him back to the theater. It was ‘theater’ now, not ‘t’eater.’
A shape-changer, a bog-trotter who’d learned tricks. Everything about him was wrong. He was a skulker. Time and again she’d caught him in the alley by the stage door talking—in Irish—with men who’d look better on a gallows. That bravado about fetching Philippa home . . . an actor’s boast and about as honest.
The coach came crunching out of the stableyard and passed beneath her window in a spray of gravel. A hat was waved out of its window.
She didn’t wave back.
She sat down again to finish her toilette, wondering how it was she’d been so sure he would come to her. And that he had. As if she’d called to him and he’d heard her. ‘Ye’re not denying what’s been between us these last weeks?’
I damn well am, she thought. If you think it’s the start of a liaison between us, Mick Murrough, you can think again. I’m too old and respectable for that, thank you very much.