“It has been a long time, William, since you visited.”
“I had no notion that you were indisposed.”
“Indisposed? Nothing of the kind. I have been resting.”
“Of course.”
“But it is good of you to call. Father and I often talk of you. Don’t we, Pa?” Mr. Lamb looked at his daughter fearfully, and said nothing. “You must have some tea. Tizzy!” The maid stopped, turned, and came back into the room. “Tea for our guest, please.” Her voice was stern, implacable. “Do sit down, William. Talk to me about something.”
He was unnerved and embarrassed by her. “The play is in rehearsal at Drury Lane. Kemble plays Vortigern.”
“Oh yes? Charles will be pleased to hear of it.” She seemed distracted, scarcely listening to what he was saying. “Where is that tea, I wonder? It is so like Tizzy. She is always in a muddle. I wonder that you put up with her, Pa.” Mr. Lamb continued rocking backward and forward. “You have heard that Charles has prevented us from playing Pyramus and Thisbe? It is too bad of him.”
“I met Mr. Drinkwater in the street.”
“You met Flute, did you? Poor Flute. He has no music.”
William did not know how to reply. “I will be sending your family tickets.”
“Tickets?”
“For Vortigern, Miss Lamb.”
“Oh why do you not call me Mary?”
She burst into tears.
William looked on, horrified, as Tizzy hurried back into the room. “Well, Miss, it was not good to leave your bed was it? You have caught a chill, and now you are paying for it.” She gestured to William that he should leave and, with a helpless glance at Mr. Lamb sitting on the rug, he went out of the door.
chapter eleven
IT WAS THE FIRST night of Vortigern. Drury Lane was filled to its capacity, from box to pit. From a gap between the wing and the drop-curtain William could pick out the faces of those he knew. Close to the stage were Charles and Mary Lamb, together with their father. In the Hamlet Box were Samuel Ireland, Rosa Ponting and Edmond Malone. Tom Coates and Benjamin Milton were standing together in the pit, but William could see Selwyn Onions and Siegfried Drinkwater behind them. Thomas de Quincey had just come through a side-entrance, and was looking for a place. The Macbeth Box was occupied by two Members of Parliament, with their wives, while the Othello Box had been given to Kemble’s large family. In the Lear Box was the Earl of Kilmartin with his mistress. The whole of London seemed to have arrived. William could not bear to join them; he had decided to remain back-stage out of sheer fright. He could no more have seen the play as part of the audience than he could have performed in it himself. It was too close to him.
The area behind the drop-curtain was filled with activity. The master of the stage was moving a large boulder into a more central position, while the senior property man was adjusting the branches of an artificial tree. The scene represented a woodland glade in an ancient British forest, and a number of stage-workers were busily placing bushes and moss-covered rocks over the wooden boards. A moon was being hauled into position by means of a rope and pulley, prompting the master of the stage to sing out the old favourite of the song-and-supper rooms, “Why Are There No Monkeys on the Moon?” In a gush of recollection William remembered his father singing it, in a rowing-boat near Hammersmith; it was a hot afternoon, and he could smell his father’s sweat as he laboured at the oars.
“It will be a grand night, Mr. Ireland.” Sheridan was standing just behind him, in the shade of a gnarled oak-tree. “I have high hopes.”
“Will the audience be with us, do you think?”
“Of course. What Englishman could fail to rise to a new Shakespearian play? They will cheer, Mr. Ireland. They will hurrah. They may even call for the author.”
“But the author will not be forthcoming.”
“A jest, sir. But you may take a bow as first finder.”
“Oh no. Unthinkable.”
“Not even to explain the circumstances of your discovery?”
“I could not, Mr. Sheridan. I cannot.” Ireland seemed to be genuinely frightened by Sheridan’s suggestion. “I have no words for such an audience. It is too—too imposing.”
“Very well, Mr. Ireland. You may keep to the dressing-area, if you wish. It will fall to me to speak on your behalf. A young man who by great good fortune has come upon an assemblage of Shakespeare’s hitherto unknown and unseen papers, et cetera. Wonderful stuff. I might turn it into an epilogue for a later performance. Will this do?” He struck an attitude.
“‘Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
Our greatest poet, and his bold young friend.
Shakespeare and Ireland now together stand
And earn the plaudits of a grateful land.’
“Do you think it fit?”
“And then, sir, you might add—
‘Now where are the successors to his name?
What bring they to fill out a poet’s fame?
Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age
Scarce living to be christened on the stage.’”
“You have a gift, Mr. Ireland. But we must not complain about the feeble age. It will not be good for business. We may condemn the critics instead. How is this?
‘And malice in all critics reigns so high
That for small errors they whole plays decry.’”
William continued his verse for him.
“‘You equal judges of the whole will be,
They judge but half who only faults will see.’”
“Congratulations, Mr. Ireland. You are a poet.”
“I have no such ambitions, sir.”
“Nonsense. One day you will write a play. I know it.”
The master of the stage came up to Sheridan, and described the properties as “captivating” and “astonishing.” “This will melt them, Mr. Sheridan. This is sylvan. This is yesteryear.”
“Have you left room for Kemble to flourish?”
“He has a plateau of rock.”
“And Mrs. Siddons? I worry about her wig against these branches. You recall the disaster in The Twins of Tottenham?”
“She will not be snagged. I have arranged them high.”
“And there is still stage enough for the warriors? With their spears and shields?”
“They will be terrifying, sir. They have been painted with woad. One of the water-colourists has done them.”
It was time now for the stage to be cleared of all its workers, its wardrobe-keepers and stage-hands, its dressers and scene-painters. William walked behind the scenes to the back-stage area where the warriors were already assembled; they were known in the theatre as “the walking gentlemen” with no lines of their own. There was much subdued whispering and chattering, hushed by strains of music as the orchestra commenced the overture especially written by the conductor, Crispin Bank. It was entitled “Vortigern’s Dream.” Charles Kemble approached the darkened wings in his costume. He was wearing a tartan kilt together with a bronze breast-plate and a silver helmet surmounted by pink and blue plumes. He glanced at William but did not seem to see him; he was fixed in the role of Vortigern. He cleared his throat and looked up at all the stage machinery. At the other side of the stage Mrs. Siddons was being larded with grease and powder. The overture was complete. The audience became quiet. William retreated further back, among discarded stools and properties. He could not endure this silence.
The drop-curtain rose, creaking, to a chorus of cheers and hurrahs that took William by surprise. The audience was cheering the scenery. After a few moments he could hear Vortigern’s voice distinctly, as he berated his daughter for becoming secretly betrothed to the Roman general Constantius. Mrs. Siddons, swathed in draperies dating from no particular period, took up her position centre-stage. With arms outstretched, just blocking Kemble from the general view of the audience, she recited the virtues of her lover.
“No brow so rough but sure will smooth at his,
No frown
so black but will to sweetness turn
And, bright as sun when bursting from the east,
Drives night away. Yet why entreat I thus?”
William could detect approval from the audience; there was a palpable sense of content, even of surprise, at the quality of the verse. Towards the end of the first act, Mrs. Siddons burst into song.
“Last Whitsuntide they brought me
Roses and lilies fair;
Violets too they gave me,
To bind my golden hair.”
There was laughter from the pit, at the mention of her hair colour, but she continued in a clear unfaltering voice. When she came off at the end of the act, however, William saw that she was in tears; she ran into the arms of her dresser, an elderly woman known only as “Crump,” and was led back into the green-room.
The mood of the audience had changed by the opening of the second act. Vortigern was upon the stage eager to rally his troops before their battle against the Romans. It was a long speech that at its end included a stern apostrophe to Death as a way of stirring the assembled soldiers:
“O then thou dost ope wide thy hideous jaws
And with rude laughter and fantastic tricks
Thou clasps thy rattling fingers to their side
And when this solemn mockery is over—”
After this line had been delivered, William heard a single howl of derision rising from the pit. Once it had been expressed, it became infectious. Kemble tried the line again. Now, the whole audience was overcome with laughter. After two or three minutes Kemble resumed his speech.
“And when this solemn mockery is over,
We will—”
The audience could not be controlled. To William’s amazement there was a general and prolonged hysteria that lasted for several minutes. He could hear a thudding sound that he interpreted, correctly, as the noise of fruit being thrown upon the stage.
William became very calm, almost indifferent. He studied the palm of his hand with intense concentration, wondering if there was some slight break or diversion in his line of life.
The actors struggled through the rest of the second act, interrupted by occasional laughter and hoots of derision. Mrs. Jordan stalked upon the stage in her best classical manner, with one stride followed by a short step. She waved her hands mysteriously before her face, as if she were peering through a veil at some object far off—prompting a call from one member of the audience that “He’s over here!” She had insisted on wearing white muslin, as became a Roman matron, but half-way across the stage one corner of it became entangled with a bush. Mr. Harcourt knelt down, in the pretence of picking some of its leaves, in order to release her costume. Harcourt was well known also as a comic actor, and could not resist pulling some of his most famous “comical faces.” For this production he gave what he called his “Roman orgy face,” a mixture of lust and cynicism and weariness that he managed with his mouth turned down and his eyebrows turned up. It was much appreciated by the audience, on the many occasions he repeated it.
The battle between the Romans and the Britons, in the third act, was not altogether a success. The woad had begun to run on the skins of the ancient Britons, and in the desperate hand-to-hand combat it was liberally smeared over the faces and wooden armour of the Roman infantry. As one of the walking gentlemen said later, “We looked like parrots.” In that battle Mr. Harcourt fell mortally wounded just as the drop-curtain was about to be lowered; unfortunately he had so placed himself on stage that the curtain literally divided his body. His head and shoulders faced the actors on stage, while his lower half was visible to the audience. He struggled to free himself since, as he said to Mrs. Siddons later, “I could not lie there dying all evening.” But the uproar of laughter could be heard as far as Bow Street and Covent Garden.
William remained impassive even when Sheridan approached him. “I thought Shakespeare had written a tragedy. He seems to have written a comedy.”
“I am at a loss for words, sir.”
“You? Oh surely not?”
“I really do not know what to say.”
“Nothing. Nothing in the world, Mr. Ireland. It is not the most subtle humour. But it has had the desired effect. I congratulate you.”
“There is no reason whatever to praise me, Mr. Sheridan.”
“Every reason. You have given us—how shall I put it—a novelty!”
“It was not of my devising. Shakespeare—”
“Is a very good name on the play-bill. We will keep it.”
“We will have a run?”
“As long as the English public retains its humour.”
The last two acts proceeded more quietly; there was occasional laughter but there was also applause after some of the soliloquies. In the final scene Vortigern and Edmunda are reunited among the slain of both sides. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons stood beside each other, clearly exhausted by the events of the evening, and clasped hands in a gesture of mutual forgiveness before they sank upon the stage and expired. Mrs. Siddons began:
“As I kiss thee, methinks sweet love himself
Sits on thy front and waves thy silvery hair.”
To which Kemble replied:
“You smile as if an angel kissed your lips,
And whispered you of joys that are to come.”
When the drop-curtain finally came down there was applause and cheering mingled with a few boos and cat-calls. The cast assembled on the stage as the curtain rose again, and took a general bow. As a large bouquet of lilies was presented to Mrs. Siddons, there were cries of “Author! Author!” which caused much laughter in the pit. When the curtain came down again, after a stirring performance of the national anthem from actors and audience, Mrs. Siddons hurried off to the green-room without glancing at William Ireland. Kemble came up to him, however, and put his arm round him. “We survived, sir. We hit choppy waters, and we were holed beneath the deck, but we sailed on guns blazing! God bless the London stage!”
William still felt strangely indifferent to the night’s proceedings. The fear and the shock, upon hearing the first notes of ridicule, had left him. He was very tired.
SAMUEL IRELAND AND Rosa Ponting were waiting for him in the corridor that led from the back of the stage to the green-room. “I know what it is to be proud,” his father said. “You have exceeded all expectation.”
“Quite a treat.” Rosa Ponting was looking at him with an expression of curiosity and sympathy. “Don’t pay attention to them that laughed.”
“Nothing,” Samuel Ireland said. “A trifle. A deliberate claque.”
“The Lambs came up to your father and congratulated him.”
“The Lambs?” William had already forgotten that he had seen them in the auditorium; it seemed a long age ago.
“Charles and Mary were standing by the orchestra. With a funny old gentleman. They looked up and saw us. We had such a nice box to ourselves. Everyone was watching your father.”
“Where is Sheridan?” his father was asking. “I must shake his hand. He is the great begetter. There must be a celebration. Some toasts.”
“Forgive me, Father. Do stay and greet Mr. Sheridan. I will walk back.”
Samuel Ireland needed no prompting to linger in the passages of the theatre; Rosa, dressed in a satin and lace gown lovingly prepared by her dress-maker and confidante in Harley Street, was eager to meet Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Jordan. So William left Drury Lane alone. As he passed the corner of Catherine Street and Tavistock Street he noticed a man in a shabby hat and frock-coat giving out handbills to those who were coming from the theatre; he was restless and eager, darting between the small pockets of people and thrusting the paper into their hands. He approached William, who, taking the bill, saw the black type of “RANK FORGERY” at its head.
William stopped and addressed him. “Who are you, sir?”
“A lover of Shakespeare, sir.”
“And you do not love this play?”
“Oh no. Fraudulent, sir. A fakery.”
&n
bsp; “How do you know that?”
“I have a friend in the theatre who showed it to me.” William suspected that the man himself was an out-of-work actor. “It never has the genuine note.”
“I disagree with you. I have just seen it. I assure you it is real.”
“Ah, sir, it may be real and yet unreal. Do you understand me?”
He rushed upon another group before William could ask him what he meant. So William walked towards Covent Garden, clutching the handbill, until he caught a glimpse of the Lambs a few yards in front of him. Mary Lamb was walking arm in arm with her father, talking intently to him. William did not wish to be noticed, so he held back until they had entered the cobbled space of the market itself. Then he saw Mary walking quickly away, towards that part of the arcade where the potters kept their stalls, with Charles following her. Had there been some disagreement between them?
He turned away and walked back towards Holborn. That night, he slept profoundly and awoke the next morning much later than his usual hour.
chapter twelve
THOMAS DE QUINCEY also possessed a copy of the handbill that had been distributed outside the Drury Lane Theatre. He had been given it, as a memento of that night, by Charles Lamb. De Quincey and Lamb were now very friendly; they had become drinking companions, and Charles had assisted him in finding a junior clerk’s post at South Sea House in Threadneedle Street. De Quincey had a good hand, having attended the grammar school in Manchester, and was surprisingly numerate. They met on many evenings, after work, in the Billiter Inn. It was here that Charles showed him the handbill, five nights after the first performance of Vortigern.
“Our friend is accused of ‘rank forgery,’” he said with a certain relish.
“Is he so?”
“But Ireland could not have written so much. He could not have written so fluently. It was excellent poetry in parts. You were there.” He touched de Quincey’s arm. “I have a theory. I believe this play to have been written by some contemporary of Shakespeare’s. Some minor poet, perhaps. Ireland is so seduced by the name of Shakespeare that he attaches it to every item he has found.”
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