“We’ll begin with The Rivals. Mrs. Malaprop and Lydia Languish. Act 4, scene 2. Lydia, reclining on the sofa, Mrs. Malaprop, standing stage right.”
My mother arrived before me. She seems relieved to be thinking about her role, and I see her relax. The lines do not matter in this strange place where emotion is everything. The absurdity of Mrs. Malaprop will be lost on the French.
“Why, though perverse one! Tell me what you can object to in him? Isn’t he a handsome man?”
“More, more!” Abbott urges. “We are performing for the deaf!”
And I find myself crying and laughing with the animation of one deranged. The three bearded men are delighted as they stand only a few feet away, giggling and slapping their thighs. They do not understand a word.
By the time we have finished our scene, most of the other actors have arrived. Some are staring at me curiously.
“Everything all right, Harriet?” Bennett, one of the younger actors, asks. I nod. Abbott tells everyone to sit. I am allowed to keep my chair; my mother stands behind me. The men disturb the dust in small patches on the stage, and my mother sneezes.
Abbott paces the stage as he speaks. “What we are doing here has never succeeded before. We are presenting some very English plays to an audience which, on the whole, is not going to understand the words. We need to perform as we have never performed before. The tickets have almost sold out. We will have a large and important audience. This is a marvelous opportunity for us to show the French what English theater is.”
A few hours later, the Odéon hums with noise. I cannot make out a single individual voice and wonder how I will be able to make myself heard. The lighting is dim, and backstage is a mess. There are too many of us in this small, dark place, which smells of sweat and wine.
I sit at the dresser and notice that the furniture vibrates with sound. A chamber pot is tucked beneath a shelf. The muted music of “Vive Henri IV” pulses down through the ceiling. It is a triumphant sound, blasting trumpets and soaring strings. Then I hear applause. I grip my quivering arms to my chest. The next item is an embellished “God Save the King,” and I wonder briefly which king they mean. There is wild singing outside my room.
The atmosphere on stage is different from any I have ever known before. The audience is silent, attentive. In the dim light I can make out people reading. I realize they are following the text of The Rivals. These people show respect, and I am grateful. I perform for them and they sob at my tears, they laugh at my joy. I am Lydia Languish, and I feel elated.
I stare out from the stage. I see muted red velvet and gold leaf. There are dimmed chandeliers. I peer blindly into the audience and see my dreams. My future takes shape before me, and I feel as though I can almost touch it. Fleetingly, I know that I will never leave.
IN SEARCH OF THE FAMILIAR, my mother and I are drawn to gardens. We walk slowly, for Anne is with us and she is unsteady on her feet. On our way to the Tuileries we pass street gardeners offering their plants for sale and shake our heads, protesting our lack of French to those who pursue us. We sit down and breathe in lilacs, we admire the perfectly carved box tree borders. From there, Paris is a fairy city sinking into a gray-blue mist. My mother tells me the gardens were planted with potatoes to feed the starving during the revolution, and I peer among flowers for those familiar great leaves and the tender flowers which would hint at the yield beneath. We Irish are not so different from the French.
And then my mother leaves me to my own musings while she takes a turn around the lake. Within seconds I am surrounded by French gentlemen as though they have been watching from a distance, stalking their pray. An elegantly dressed gentleman with a cravat and a mustache takes my hand, and I am shocked by this familiarity. I stand and try to shake my hand free while another touches my shoulder. And suddenly I am shaking and clawing at my own skin as though I have fleas. It is my mother who frightens them away. They try to take her hand, and she glares coldly back. As though stunned, they jump back and within seconds are gone.
BY THE TIME OUR MANAGER, Charles Kemble, arrives in Paris I am beginning to think I will spend the rest of my days playing pretty and frivolous maidens. That I am destined to make audiences delight at my charms and laugh at my misfortunes. That one day I will drop dead as a frivolous maiden, transforming one of these light comedies into a tragedy of the first rate.
The arrival of any Kemble is bound to bring with it a weight of seriousness. French audiences remember their admiration for Mistress Siddons, Tragedienne of the Century. They are curious to ascertain the talents of her youngest brother.
It is with great relief that I greet Kemble on the stage at rehearsal. I know that his arrival brings with it an enormous Shakespearean repertoire and that this will provide me with opportunities to savor words and passions. I will be able to immerse myself in a role once more.
In Bennett’s face I read relief that we have not yet begun rehearsal, that he is not late. Then he sees Kemble and raises his eyebrows. He sits on the boards and slides over to the edge of the stage. He dangles his legs over the edge as though he is bathing. One by one, actors arrive on the stage. By half past ten, the men are leaning against sets or sitting untidily on the boards, the women standing with arms crossed or sitting on chairs. Kemble looks to Abbott who pulls his watch from his pocket and flips it open before nodding.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kemble declaims as though addressing a crowd. We laugh. “We are to begin a season of Shakespeare with Hamlet. I will play the man himself.” He pauses. “The rest of the cast is as follows: Ghost of Hamlet—Burke; Claudius—Chippendale; Queen Gertrude—Mrs. Brindal, Polonius—Abbott; Laertes—Bennett; Horatio—Spencer; Ophelia—Miss Smithson.” Mrs. Bathurst and Mrs. Gashall smile at me, and I wonder whether they are secretly rejoicing at my forthcoming downfall. They must know, all of them, that I am unable to sing.
“Others of you will be required to play members of the Danish court. Please revise this play to begin rehearsals punctually in two days’ time.”
Backstage is a flurry of cloaks and scripts. It seems most people are going to learn their lines at home. There is a choked feeling in my chest, and I feel as though I might cry. I cannot play Ophelia. I must not play Ophelia.
“Mrs. Bathurst.” I touch her arm as she steps toward the backstage door. Light filters through cracks in the wooden ceiling. The sweet smell of fresh sawdust is in the air. “Won’t you take the role of Ophelia?”
“Heavens no, Miss Smithson. My days of playing Ophelia are gone.” She grins. Her eyes are sky blue and her skin is light. “Must be off,” she says.
I run from one dressing room to another; all the other women seem to have gone. How could they have left so quickly? At the end of the line I discover Mrs. Gashall in the small corner dressing room. Her eyes are bloodshot.
“Mrs. Gashall, I was wondering, would you take the role of Ophelia? I feel you would be so much better.”
She sniffs. “I was not asked. It would not be right.”
“But your voice is sweet, you would be far better suited to the songs.” I pause. “I will pay you a week’s salary.”
“Miss Smithson.” She clears her throat. “I do not require your unwanted roles. Thank you.” She pushes past me and I am left alone in her dressing room.
In my own dressing room, confident that I am alone, I sob. It is in intimate theaters that my powers are greatest. I lack power in my vocal chords, I am not suited to vast theaters such as this one. I am lucky to make spoken words heard let alone words that are sung. What was Kemble thinking of, casting me as Ophelia? And now on top of my feelings of inadequacy I have the envy of the other actresses to bear. I cannot endure any more scathing reviews such as those I received in London. I wipe my face and blow my nose on a rag I find in a drawer. The fabric prickles my skin and allows moisture through. I have been using my black veil as a handkerchief.
For some moments I believe the tapping on my door is the sound of the boards expanding in the sunlig
ht. Eventually I realize someone is knocking hard on my door. I sniff.
“Yes?”
“It is Charles Kemble. May I come in?”
My voice breaks as I tell him, “Yes.”
“Miss Smithson,” he stands awkwardly in the doorway. “I hope you do not mind me intruding. I have a daughter almost your age. You remember Fanny? Miss Smithson, may I ask, are you unhappy with the role of Ophelia?”
I watch my fingers twisting the veil. “It is just that—my voice is not strong enough to sing her songs. I fear I will not play her well.”
“We have been required to make a number of amendments by the censors. The play has been shortened somewhat. To make time for the farce, you know. It ends with the words the rest is silence. So if you could perhaps concentrate on the mad scene. You will not be required to play many others. Make it your own, Miss Smithson. Ophelia is not an opera singer. Feel her passions.” He clears his throat as though he has just revealed intimate information.
“Thank you, Mr. Kemble.” I try to smile.
“Miss Smithson, please do not hesitate to seek me out if you require professional advice or additional rehearsal of that particular scene.” He bows, and I thank him again as he shuts the door behind him. My knuckles ache and I look down to see my hands gripping the veil. It has left an imprint on my palms. The rest is silence.
1833
WITH ALL HECTOR’S REFERENCE to Desdemona, Ophelia, and Juliet, I own I wondered whether it was me he saw when he stared into my eyes. At one of my more lucid moments I asked him to cease attending my performances for I wanted him to prove it was me he loved and not the characters of my making. These doubts settled deep inside me like a cancer, occasionally reminding me of their presence with a sharp pain. I ignored them at my peril.
In the night I lay sleepless, filled with a strange excitement tinged with panic. I could not imagine a future with him or a future without him. Was I to die in this state? I prayed that this time the correct decision would become clear and I would know what to do.
I resolved to send him away. For it was true he was penniless, and he had made it clear that his family would not support our match. And fond as I was becoming of him, I could not imagine how we would live.
“It is better,” I said to him, “that we end now when we have barely begun. For can you imagine the difficulties we would have . . .”
I could not finish my sentence before he sobbed like a child. He began shouting a torrent of French of which I understood not a word, and I thought I heard stifled laughter from Anne who had been apparently engrossed in her reading. I could not stop my tears.
“Hector, I am sorry. I was mistaken. Je vous aime.”
He lifted his head from his hands then and stared at me, mouth agape. After some moments he pressed his salty lips on mine. I ended our kiss with my hands on his cheeks, holding his head like some fragile object.
Anne said some frightful things to Hector, and at times I was relieved his understanding of English was limited. On more than one occasion we were whispering quietly in a corner. Hector was practicing his compliments in English.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Pretty eyes.” And I smiled, looking down at my hands as he stroked my cheek.
“It is time you left, Hector,” Anne told him. “Harriet is very busy. She has work to do.”
“Quoi?”
“I said go! Leave or I’ll throw you out the window!”
The suggestion would have been comical had it not been said with such violence. My mother looked up from her sewing.
“Anne, that’s enough. Monsieur, I am sorry. Will you have more tea?”
While outbursts between Anne and Hector were frequent, most often he looked upon her with the pity owed to a cripple.
Anne took to mocking Hector with an acting genius I had never before seen. And though her imitations were at times clever and could make my mother laugh, I made it clear I would not tolerate such insolence from one who had ruled our lives by her very existence. Were it not for Anne and her illness, I was quite sure I would not have been forced to work from such an early age. And had she been blessed with greater health, I had sometimes imagined she would have taken to the stage with me and our work together would have been more of a happy game than a daily drudgery.
My evenings with Hector went longer and longer until finally my mother announced one evening that she needed to retire. I believe she expected Hector to leave then, but he merely stood and kissed her hand. My mother looked at me and then back at him. She nodded to us both, bade us good night, and left the room.
He kissed me hard and deep, my lips numbing as his hands pulled the pins one by one from my hair, and my locks fell to my shoulders. At first I abandoned myself to the joy of it all. My skin tingled with his touch and I could feel my very veins opening for him.
He had undone three buttons upon my gown before I realized. I stood suddenly and pushed him away. “How dare you!”
“Mais. . . .”
“No!”
He stepped toward me.
“Don’t touch me! No man is to be intimate with me before marriage.”
“But. . . . you are an actrice!”
“Go!” Before I knew what I was doing I was pushing him out the door. If my mother was woken by the commotion she remained in her room. And I was grateful that I did not have to explain my state of dishevelment.
I thought I had lost him then. I grieved for days. I wept in my bedchamber. My mother and even Anne became uncommonly kind to me. My mother brought me many cups of tea and assured me that I would soon meet a more suitable man.
“My dear Harriet, I am sorry you had to have this difficult experience. But now you will know the right man when you meet him.”
“Monsieur wept like a girl,” Anne said. “No woman could live with that.”
Anne spent hours and hours sitting on my bed, keeping me company as I slept and reading to me when I was awake. I recall my mother knocking on the door a number of times. “Anne!” she would whisper. “Come, now. Let your sister sleep.”
“I don’t mind, Mother,” I would say. “Leave her be.”
“Harriet, do you think I shall marry a prince?” she said to me one day as I sat up in bed with a glass of water.
“A prince? Perhaps. Where shall we find one for you?” I asked in mock seriousness.
“In the theater. There’s bound to be some princes in your theater. And when they speak to you, you can tell them you have a lovely sister waiting to meet them.”
“I shall, Anne.”
“Although, perhaps it would be better if I did not marry. Then we could stay together. We could see the world, Harriet. Bathe in the summertime.”
“That sounds lovely.” I closed my eyes.
I own it was not just the loss of Hector which upset me. I sensed that he had been my last chance of happiness. I was almost thirty-three years old, and it was growing increasingly unlikely that I would find a husband. My appearance had also altered, and I had grown more stout, similar in shape to my mother. This not only influenced my chances at marriage but also my success on the stage.
There I lay in my bedchamber, drowning in the darkest thoughts I had yet known but not the darkest thoughts I would have. I longed for the courage to gulp a poison that would bring relief. There was nothing for me to live for. Nor was there enough for me to die for. And it was nigh impossible to soften the protective shell that had taken so many years to cultivate. If this was the pain of a broken heart, I now knew I had not done Ophelia or Juliet justice. If I ever chanced to play them again, I would play them anew.
I had never before seen my mother so concerned for me, and even Anne hushed her own complaining. They sent for the English doctor, and the light from his lamp brought tears afresh from my eyes.
“I see she is weak, Mrs. Smithson,” he said. “But this is no other fever than the fever of love. See she gets enough fluids and try to give her stale bread to settle her stomach.”
“Will she
recover?” I heard my mother ask.
“That I cannot tell you.”
Jane Shore
THE EMPTINESS OF MY BODY is naught compared with the emptiness of my soul. For if a woman cannot offer friendship to one who has loved her, given her all, she suffers a greater poverty than I can imagine. I cannot believe Alicia would not know me, that she would deny me in the street. What alarmed me more than her refusal to give me a little bread and water was her wild look. She pointed at me and called to a “headless trunk”; it was not me she saw when she addressed the murdered body of Lord Hastings. Even while they claw my face and spit on me, they say she loved Hastings and has been maddened by his death. They say that instead of his death she meant mine. If this be so, she shall soon have her wish.
I leave behind me a trail of blood, dripping from the soles of my feet. My hair is matted as a mane. Most of the time I can forget my aching bones as I stare upward and know heaven will soon take me. I am recognized by my burning taper. At first crowds lined the streets, as though I were royalty. My two guards were beasts with whips and sticks. They called my name so all would know me and called me many other names I have never known. And where I once stood, handing bread and blankets to the poor, now there were crowds hurling nothing but curses. I am all bone now, and I am purified by the neglect of my body. There is some peace in knowing that no man will crave me again.
I have known the death of one husband and one worthy of that name, both of whom I loved more than my own life; I will not be taken by a third. My guards have tired of watching over me; I know not where they are now. They have served their master well; the people of England no longer need to be told whom to scorn. Alas, I had hoped to save England from an evil rule. I will find a quiet doorway in which to lay my head. I hope sleep will take me with haste.
I was young when I married Shore. He took me rosy cheeked and fresh from the dances of the season. Our wedding was all wildflowers and turtledoves. He sought always to protect me; my pillows were soft down, windows were kept closed lest I be taken by a gentle breeze. Often nights I woke to candlelight, for Shore would sit by and watch me as I slept.
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