Life Mask

by Emma Donoghue

  She was almost at the door, but Derby got there before her, surprisingly agile. He didn't touch her, but he barred her way. There was nothing exceptional about these circumstances, she saw now, sickened. It could be any run-of-the-mill comedy of manners: the predictable tos and fros of it, the crowing and clucking, like a cock and a hen in a barnyard.

  'You misunderstand—'

  'I understand you perfectly,' she told him. She wouldn't play the shrieking harridan. 'My profession has made me only too aware of the meaning of that soiled word, arrangement. Mrs Jordan has an arrangement with Mr Ford, the father of her child. The sums and conditions may vary; the nature of the bargain not at all. Whether in an Oxford Street emporium or a Spitalfields shack, a sale is a sale.' Her delivery was perfectly crisp. 'You're not the first to have asked me to stoop to this, only the wealthiest.'

  Derby's narrow eyes were bruised. 'I mean my proposal in the most honourable spirit—'

  'There is only one kind of honourable proposal.'

  '—everything done very handsomely and quietly, with tact and discretion, so the World won't object—full contracts—I mean a marriage in all but name—'

  She was aghast at his stupidity. 'Derby, you know my circumstances. My mother and I have no property, no rich relations, nothing to fall back on. I've only my talents and my energies, and I've bent them all on my profession. It's bad enough that half the scandal sheets in the country call me your platonic inamorata,' she said, her voice rising towards shrillness. 'A marriage in all but name? Tell me, what do I have but my name?'

  'My dearest, if I could offer you your due,' he groaned, 'I would. You know I would, the very moment I were free. If the Countess—when the Countess—her health—'

  She flinched at that. He shouldn't have dropped so gross a hint; it sounded as if he were betting on his wife's death.

  Derby's face had fallen; she could tell he knew he'd made a mistake. He drew himself up, though he was still so much shorter than her. 'Like it or not,' he said sternly, 'you have my love. You've had it for long enough to know its nature; it's no fleeting lust. And I don't believe your heart is coldly pious enough to think such love disgusting.'

  'What do you know of my heart?' she barked. He was right, of course. This wasn't about piety. Dignity, if anything.

  'All I ask is that you show me some mercy. Consider bending your principles so that we might both know some happiness in this uncertain world.'

  She stood a little closer to him. She said, 'My happiness is none of your concern.'

  Then she was gone, leaving the Earl standing there like a fool behind her. Like a bad actor who'd forgotten his exit line, Eliza thought, and hung on, shifting from foot to foot, while the crowd started to titter.

  ANNE WAS trying to remember if she'd ever been happier. Such a night! As Mrs Lovemore, she'd made more than a hundred of her oldest friends and nearest relations laugh and cry out. For once she hadn't been the artist in the silence of her workshop, toiling over beauty in stone; she'd been the living statue. She looked for Eliza Farren to tell her how grateful she was—but she couldn't see her anywhere.

  The First Gentleman of Europe enveloped her in a sweet-smelling embrace, one of his frizzed side curls poking her in the eye. 'Mrs Damer! You made me weep in your big scene.'

  'I did?' she asked, foolishly gratified. The Prince's black velvet suit was lined with pink satin and ornamented with gold embroidery and pink spangles, which didn't make him look any thinner, and he was wobbling in pink shoes with high heels.

  'Proof positive,' said Prinny, holding up a crumpled handkerchief with tiny letters embroidered all over it in gold; G. for George, she realised. 'Mrs Fitz had to poke me to silence my sobs.'

  It was hard to think of the slow-moving woman by his side taking the liberty of poking anyone, least of all the heir to the British throne. The Widow Fitzherbert was older than her husband, but ageing well, with her smooth plumpness and golden hair. She wore a tiny jewelled cross at her throat, Anne noticed; you had to grant her that, she wasn't ashamed of being a Catholic. Her expression was oddly calm for a woman whose reputation was being fought over so bitterly in the Commons. She'd been through so much, she must be used to wearing a mask of serenity.

  'But tell me,' Prinny said, seizing Anne by the fingertips, 'how's your real work going? When are you ever going to carve me something for Carlton House?'

  She was touched. When people mocked the Prince of Wales as overdressed, overweight and oversexed, they forgot what a passionate patron of the arts he was—like Henry VIII, almost. His succession to the throne, bringing the Foxites to power with him, might usher in a new Golden Age for the arts, as well as all the liberalising reforms he promised.

  Anne was about to say that she'd be honoured to carve a piece for him, but he rushed on happily. 'The renovations are such a slog, I have to choose everything myself: the colours, the lamps, the design of the pastry scullery, the maids' quarters...'

  When he swept Mrs Fitz off to greet someone else, Lady Mary appeared at her sister's elbow. 'Apparently their son's being raised in Spain.'

  'Why Spain?' murmured Anne. 'Isn't France the more usual for fostering?'

  'It's too close to home—practically our back garden—and the newspapers would be sure to track the baby down.'

  Anne winced, considering what it would be like for a mother to send her child to Spain and probably never see him again. She'd never had any maternal sentiment herself, unless she could count her feelings towards her sculptures, and she always made those in order to give away. 'What I can't understand is why they risked that secret wedding; they might have known it would all come out in the end.'

  Lady Mary shrugged. 'You've such a cool spirit, sister, you forget how people can act in the heat of passion.'

  Anne felt rather stung.

  There was a crash of glass; it sounded as though all the champagne glasses had been flung down at once. Startled, she sensed a cool breeze and turned towards it. Ladies began to squeal. There was a gaping hole in the window nearest to Anne—a dark mouth that let in the night air.

  'Good God,' a male voice roared.

  Outside there was a confused music of voices and the banging of saucepans. Anne realised that she'd been hearing this faintly for some time without paying any attention. While she was staring at the smashed pane, she saw the one beside it break; this time she actually witnessed the explosion, noticed the stone thump on to the boards beside her. She felt no fear, only an acute curiosity. There was something tied round the stone; she bent to disentangle it.

  'Quick, this way.' Fox's arms were round her; he was herding people out of the theatre. She went with him, still clutching the stone.

  'My dear guests,' Richmond was calling hoarsely over the throng, 'don't be alarmed. I've sent for the constables. Just be so good as to move along the corridor into the main house and our festivity can continue.'

  'Is it a riot?' Anne asked Fox. Her fingers scrabbled at the string that tied the paper round the stone. 'Look This says—' She struggled to read while the chattering crowd pushed them along. 'What a curious little couplet.'

  'Let's see.' Fox almost snatched the page from her.

  God dam the Duke of Richmond and all his works.

  We'll put down Luxsury and Extravegance in high life.

  'They can't spell,' said Anne, facetious.

  'Oh, dear,' murmured Fox, 'I feared as much. Your brother-in-law has become rather persona non grata with the lower orders.'

  'But—you mean it's a political mob?'

  He shrugged. 'Every mob has a bit of politics in it, and a bit of restlessness, and a lot of porter.'

  'How dare they!' Anne's eyes were prickling. 'To attack our harmless theatricals...'

  'I know, I know.' His voice was soothing and he held her elbow firmly as they climbed the stairs into the main house. 'But they have so little, they spend a third of their wages on bread—did you know that?—and when they gawked in the bright windows of the Richmond House Theatr
e tonight, what did they see? Lords and ladies dressing up and pretending to be what they aren't, at enormous expense.'

  Anne felt rebuked. This stained, rumpled man was her conscience. She recognised Mrs Hobart's shrill voice behind her. 'For this, in Paris, they'd swing from the gallows.'

  She turned. 'There's not much harm done, after all. Only a few panes of glass.'

  Mrs Hobart, ten rows of pearls round her throat, goggled at her. 'To threaten the person of the heir to the throne—'

  'For my part,' Anne told her, 'I delight in our British liberties, even if they lead to occasional abuses.'

  'That's the spirit,' Fox told her jovially.

  But she was still shaken. She wondered what the constables were doing outside. If one could be hanged for picking a pocket, or burned at the stake for coining like that poor woman last year, then what was the punishment for attacking a duke and his guests? The irony was that ten years ago Richmond had been a radical Reformer who'd gone so far as to argue for one man, one vote.; how must he feel, to be so hated by the people now?

  There was Derby in the corner, the unruffled aristocrat, his face as smooth as an egg. She looked for Eliza Farren, but couldn't see her anywhere.

  ELIZA LAID her head back on the cracked padding of the hackney cab as it jolted along the Strand.

  Her mother, after three glasses of Richmond's champagne, was voluble. 'Well, I call that very strange. My Lord never forgets lending us his carriage at night, unless he's got a prior engagement. Either he escorts us back to Great Queen Street himself or at the very least he lends us the carriage. It's understood, has been for years.'

  Eliza's eyes were shut. The upholstery of the cab smelt of something faintly rancid; she tried not to wonder what it might be.

  'You say he was fatigued,' Mrs Farren went on, 'but that can't be it. Why, you're fatigued too, after you oversaw the whole performance, with all your responsibilities—and seized with headache, or else you wouldn't have brought us away before the Duke's select supper,' she added a little resentfully. 'I'm fatigued too, come to that.'

  Why couldn't her mother just say tired?

  'Was Derby the worse for liquor, I wonder? I didn't notice. But I think he must have been such to have forgot our arrangement about the carriage.'

  Eliza snapped into life. 'Since you insist on knowing—I told the driver we wouldn't be needing it tonight.'

  Her mother gawked at her. 'Betsy Farren!'

  She winced; the name made her fourteen again, with wrists too long for her frayed lace ruffles. 'Don't shriek, the cabman will hear you. I don't want to discuss it.'

  'You won't talk to your own mother, who's spent her life watching over you?' Though Margaret Farren's career on the provincial stage had been undistinguished to the point of humiliation, she could still turn on the tragedy voice. 'You won't tell your own mother what shocking thing has happened?'

  Eliza sighed loudly. She might as well get it over with, or there'd be no sleep tonight and she had a rehearsal at nine in the morning. 'I was backstage—I don't know where you'd got to,' she added with quiet spite, 'and Derby rushed in and made a proposition.'

  'What kind of proposition?'

  'Oh, Mother! A proposition to sail to Kathmandu, what do you think?'

  The older woman absorbed this in silence and for a moment Eliza thought it was over. Then the real interrogation began. 'Did he lay hands on you, any?'

  She shook her head.

  'Did he speak obscenely?'

  Eliza didn't dignify that one with a reply.

  'Did he mention any figure?'

  'Mother!' Eliza's head was tight with pain and she had a terrible thirst. The last thing she wanted was to work through the whole tawdry business again in the hackney cab, like a low afterpiece to the main drama.

  'One must keep all facts in mind,' said Mrs Farren, knotting her fingers on her lap.

  'The facts are these,' said her daughter, turning on her, 'item, the person in question is still married; item, I don't care to be any man's mistress; item, it's therefore irrelevant whether he was about to offer me a house in Hanover Square and £10,000 a year!'

  'That's enough items for now,' said Mrs Farren, as if discussing laundry. Then, after a minute, 'Do you think it would be as high as £10,000?'

  'Christ!' They both reeled back a little at the curse. 'I won't haggle. I won't sell out. I thought you understood that about me.'

  Mrs Farren's eyes were watery. 'I do, I do. You've never been like other girls, you're a cut above. But, and I don't mean to anger you, but it's been years and years, Betsy—'

  'Eliza.'

  'Eliza, then, it's been near ten years since we came to London and where's your fine principles got us?'

  She was watching out for their door on Great Queen Street; she rapped on the ceiling to make the cabman stop.

  'You're twenty-four, my dear, and you won't get any, younger,' said her mother, wheedling. 'Maybe now's the time to make the best settlement you can. His Lordship's friends all dote on you since these theatricals; they Wouldn't drop you if there was gossip, or not all of them. The thing could be done decently enough. Just provisionally, like, till the Countess snuffs it and you're free to marry.'

  Eliza was fumbling in her net purse.

  'Don't forget, Derby's a man, for all he's an earl,' Mrs Farren warned. 'He won't wait for ever.'

  She found the coin and looked up. 'We won't speak of this again.'

  II. Struts

  Narrow pieces of stone, wood or ivory connecting

  small, delicate elements or limbs of a statue to

  prevent them from snapping off.

  THIS Paper has received a veritable deluge of letters on the question of Immorality in high life. Our correspondents point out that every vice known to man is presently practised on the dark side of that little moon known as the World. Do we not hear daily of disgusting episodes of Drunkenness, with p-ssings under tables and v-m-tings in the street? Even our P—e M—r himself has been seen to address the H—e of C—ns in an intoxicated state. The Sporting realm, in particular, is known not only for excessive tippling, smoking and blaspheming, but also Gambling, the greatest peril of our age.

  As for the gentler sex, they are among the most addicted practitioners of Faro and Roulette, but reserve much of their energies for Tittle-tattle and Carnality. But we do not speak of these matters to cast harsh judgement, as do some pious publications. It is said there is nothing new under the sun and, since Mam was first corrupted by his blushing Eve, has not our race struggled with its Appetites? And if the vices of the great are so prominent, perhaps it is only because they live in the glare of Celebrity, while lesser folk commit their misdeeds behind closed doors.

  Is the foremost young gentleman of the land, the P—e of W—s himself, not first among sinners, whether we speak of gluttony, drunkenness, prodigality, gambling, or fleshly passion? No wonder so many say to themselves, whatever our future Monarch does must be right!

  —BEAU MONDE INQUIRER, June 1787

  VISCOUNTESS MELBOURNE'S CONFINEMENT WAS ALMOST OVER and Anne was taking her first look at the newcomer. The bedroom was hot and musty, since the windows couldn't be opened till the month was up; only faint rattlings of carriage wheels leaked across the courtyard from Piccadilly. Lady Melbourne was in the great pink bed with the floating tester. 'Emily's a good name,' Anne remarked, bending down to the carved rosewood cradle and putting her finger into the tiny creature's grip.

  'Isn't it ravish,' chimed Georgiana.

  The mother shrugged and adjusted her satin wrapping robe round her strong neck. 'It's in the family; Peniston likes it and I picked the last three names, after all.'

  Anne hadn't seen Lord Melbourne on this visit, or not that she'd noticed; the Viscount was never more than a smiling ghost in the corridors. He and his wife were so fashionable, they were hardly ever seen together. The baby's cap had slipped sideways now, revealing a lick of dark-red hair. 'She doesn't look very like you,' Anne remarked carefully.


  'No. She's the spit of her father,' said Lady Melbourne.

  Nothing ruffles her feathers, thought Anne in rueful admiration.

  'And is Lord Melbourne ... happy with the new arrival?' asked Georgiana.

  'Perfectly.'

  'How well you manage things,' the Duchess murmured, widening her eyes at Anne.

  Anne thought about the red-haired Lord Egremont, an intimate at Melbourne House for the last ten years; Lady Melbourne's little twins who'd died at birth had had the same colouring. Emily's brother William, at eight, had dark-red curls too, whereas George, the toddler, was named for his godfather, the Prince of Wales, and had the little pursed royal mouth. Only young Peniston, away at Oxford, had the indolent looks of Lady Melbourne's husband—but he was the heir and so the one that mattered, of course.

  Anne found her friend's ménage rather extraordinary; she felt quite at sea when she tried to reconcile the principles of virtue and self-respect with the complexities of Lady Melbourne's private life. But she couldn't find it in herself to condemn it, as it was so evidently harmonious and the lady was never indiscriminate or obvious. Perhaps, Anne thought, Lady Melbourne's long and serene attachment to Lord Egremont should be considered a sort of marriage of the heart, with its own form of honour; it was significant that when he'd tried to form an engagement elsewhere (to Walpole's niece, unfortunately), he'd ended by breaking it off. Viscount Melbourne had his freedom and so did his wife, and the children were well loved; it was a strange arrangement, but it seemed to work.

  'So,' said Lady Melbourne, setting down her cup of caudle, 'I heard about your marvellous show at Richmond House.' Anne was about to give her details, but the Viscountess was already listing the parties she'd missed during her confinement, including an assembly at Devonshire House. She'd been most amused to hear that several ladies had bribed Georgiana's seamstress for the secret of her latest design and they'd all turned up in exactly the same costume—which was nothing like what Georgiana was wearing.