Life Mask

by Emma Donoghue

  'Well,' said Anne, tasting the bile of sacrifice, 'O'Hara's very dear to me.' She felt like a traitor, though God knew she had no treacherous intentions. She'd stamped down the secret, greedy part of herself and to punish it—and as a silent sacrifice to Mary—she was watching over this engagement like a stern guardian angel.

  'When those I love, love each other, I feel wrapped in a sort of blissful cocoon,' Mary assured her.

  Anne suddenly thought of their first real conversation, in this garden more than five years ago. How tough-minded, how austere the young Mary had seemed. Now she was a tremulous fiancée. Still herself—but declining inevitably towards ordinary womanhood.

  'I still don't know how I'll bear to go to Gibraltar when the time comes,' said Mary, shiny-eyed. 'Quite apart from my family—you've been my constant companion for so long, Anne, it'll be very strange and hard to bear.'

  'Many authors call correspondence the meat of friendship,' said Anne, looking hard at a wizened apple on a branch. 'We've done it before.'

  'But that was only for a year. We knew we'd see each other again,' said Mary miserably.

  'Gibraltar's not Timbuktu,' Anne said crisply.

  A WEEK later she learned that the protection of the fleet had been arranged, and General O'Hara was to sail for his new post at once.

  Oh, my dearest M.,

  has the parting lacerated your heart ? Don't despair; it won't be too long before your reunion. I'm sure O'H. is not really angry, only disappointed that you won't go with him directly. But he can hardly expect you to take the most serious step of your life with so little notice. I know he was moved that you managed to come to town (on the excuse of meeting me) to let him press you to him one last time. After you'd left Grosvenor Square he spoke of you with a soldier's tenderest passion. Console yourself that this enforced separation will keenly impress upon O'H. how superior you are to every other woman in the World!

  I do agree that you should endeavour to put your father's business affairs on a better footing before you go & also that Ag. requires your care at this difficult juncture. May I ask, do you think the gentleman in question sincere, or is he toying with her affections ? It seems strange to me that neither Ag. nor your father has formed the least suspicion of your engagement—but none are so blind as those who won't see. The same could be said for W., who behaves as if you've nothing better to do with your life than polish iff label his cabinet of curiosities! Remember what you owe yourself, Mary, after so many years—decades!—of taking care of others. Is it not time to be free?

  I'm endeavouring to pack up my parents' possessions here at Park Place, with my best esprit d'ordre. I fear I spent too long on my knees arranging my father's papers, for this morning I found my leg (on which I'd omitted to put the poultice) so bad that I had difficulty getting downstairs. Today I am taking care to sit well wrapped up as I go through the accounts of the Lavender Distillery.

  Such a dismal east wind, cutting through the evergreens & pressing against the windows! I won't regret P. P. much. There's something of eternal storm about it in the winter. But it was my dear father's pride. The trees, all planted & improved under his hands, will now perhaps be mangled or felled...

  'Do try to eat some beef, Mother,' Anne said at dinner.

  'I've no appetite,' said Lady Ailesbury, averting her head. 'How can I eat in such a melancholy situation, when my whole life is being packed into boxes?'

  Anne thought of a sharp answer, but swallowed it.

  Mary's letter came from Twickenham the next day.

  I wake every morning after three or four hours of broken slumber, to the melancholy knowledge of an uncertain & painful absence from O'H. Perhaps I could be ready to go to him in the spring, or join him at his next home leave?

  I think I've done right to delay, for the sake of the peace and happiness of my near ones, notfor my own. I hope he'll hereafter love me better for knowing me capable of such sacrifice. But in the meantime I am here & he (who's already suffered so much for our country, so bravely) is far away on a dangerous sea. I begged him in case of illness or attack by the French to send me some token that he thought of me to the last.

  When I had to rush away from my last meeting with O'H., I knew that you could explain my feelings better than I could. He calls you the Dear Stick, because you're so tall & such a prop—& he wishes there were some way to repay all you've done for us.

  A long engagement at least will give us time to test our affection & to plan our future life. I enclose an estimate of our household expenses, as if we were to set up in London, though I hope Gibraltar will be considerably cheaper. Will you cast your eye over it?

  Allowance for O'H. £800

  Housekeeping (victuals et cetera) £800

  Rent and taxes £800

  Allowance for me £800

  One pair of horses & coachman's wages £800

  Wine £800

  Liveries for the Menservants £800

  Housekeeper, cook, housemaid, lady's maid £800

  One Upper Manservant £800

  Coals £800

  Two Lower Manservants £800

  Candles £800

  £2238per annum

  I've tried to be modest but not shabby. I must confess I have no idea whether O'H. (aided by the meagre amount my father will be able to offer) can afford this.

  O'H. fears that W. will look unfavourably on the match for O'H.'s lack of birth & wealth; do you agree? I thought of asking you to break the awful news to W. for me, but O'H. says that would be childish, I must do it (but with you to lean on, Dear Stick!).

  If only we were not to be parted by this marriage—you & I. I believe I can steel myself to bear anything but that.

  Reading the letter for the third time, Anne wondered if she was imagining a sort of message between the lines. He wishes there were some way to repay you. For years, now, the war had kept her confined to England; Doctor Fordyce had said only the other day that she'd never be quite well in this damp climate. What about Gibraltar? If only we were not to be parted by this marriage—you and I. As Governor, O'Hara would be given a handsome residence; surely there'd be plenty of room for three? It wouldn't be the first time that a married couple had invited a female friend to stay with them, perhaps to make a permanent home with them. Not to be parted. There were the Devonshires. Such an arrangement happened in some novels, like Rousseau's Julie. The thing was unusual, but not impossible, surely?

  For a moment, Anne imagined a paragraph in the newspapers. She was too familiar with that leering language.

  We have received intelligence that a certain Sculptress has taken flight to Southern shores. Her most intimate friend, lately Miss B., now wife to the G———r of G———r, has flung wide her Doors...

  Anne shoved the thought away. Some time this year she'd come to the conclusion that she'd drive herself mad if she let herself worry about how others saw her.

  ***

  ANNE PROCEEDED very cautiously. She still had no idea whether O'Hara had ever heard the rumours about herself and Mary. Perhaps he'd laughed them off, or discounted them out of loyalty; she knew how much he liked her and he'd believe nothing bad of his beloved Mary. She reread his letters to her.

  Your soothing care & affectionate solicitude for the dear inimitable, places you, my dear Mrs D., in the inmost chamber of my heart—where the dear Mary, seated en souveraine, courts you to remain with her for ever. There, folded in her arms, her throbbing breast pressed to yours will mutely thank you for us both.

  The image unsettled Anne. There was something papist about it: the Virgin on her throne. Courts you to remain with her for ever. Was that an invitation? Had O'Hara guessed that Anne wanted to come to Gibraltar and make her home with them? Or was this letter simply a showy bit of rhetoric?

  Mary was edgy; the secrecy was weighing on her. Because the war was disrupting shipping, some crucial letters appeared to have got lost en route. This seemed a tumultuous, uncomfortable courtship—but then, what did Anne know of lov
e matches? The couple seemed unable to resolve either practical questions, such as what would be their income, or ineffable ones, such as how O'Hara could make it up to Mary for all the loved ones she'd be leaving behind.

  When one day on the Mall Anne finally allowed herself to hint that she would consider moving to Gibraltar, Mary went into a flood of tears. 'Oh, but—it's the most marvellous, most extraordinary idea,' she said, mopping at her eyes. 'Would you really be willing to give up everything—your house, your mother's company, your friends here in England—and come with us, all for the sake of friendship?'

  Would she? Without a glance behind. Lady Mary would simply have to take in their mother; Anne could say Fordyce had insisted her health required the move. 'In my experience of friendship,' she said, 'it's as sacred a tie as all those other duties and connections.' It was starting to drizzle again; Anne put up her umbrella over them and tucked her arm into Mary's, though not without the usual prickling feeling that they might be being watched. 'What I feel for you—and for O'Hara,' she said, smooth as milk, 'seems to me to outweigh everything else. But you mustn't tell him yet,' she warned.

  'Why not?' Mary smiled up at her. 'It would relieve so much of his anxiety about my future happiness.'

  'Oh, the General has enough on his mind, preparing a home for one lady. Besides, I wouldn't dream of coming till you two are comfortably established. I wouldn't intrude on newlyweds,' she added with a sharp little laugh.

  'Must there be an interval, really?' Mary's mouth turned down and she held Anne's arm tightly as the rain fell more heavily. 'My spirits are chafing at all this delay. Let's take the first ship in the morning!'

  Anne laughed with her. There was nothing she would rather do. In ten days, given fair winds, she could be at work on the marble version of her self-portrait under the yellow Spanish sun. She would have left England, with all its damps and chills, its sneering newspapers and starving mobs, far behind her.

  MARCH 1796

  Derby sat in an armchair in Eliza's dressing room, examining the mud stains on his creamy leather boots. 'The new tax on inheritance means that when Edward succeeds me he'll have to pay the government £1 in every £50. That's 2 per cent of the entire Derby fortune!'

  Mrs Farren, eyes on her needle, made a dutifully shocked hiss.

  Eliza didn't see that it was such a terrible thing for a little cream to be skimmed off the top, but of course she wasn't tactless enough to say so. She was preoccupied with her paint; the shadows on her eyelids were too dark for the lovable prattler she was to play, even if it was a turgid melodrama. 'Perhaps by then there'll be a Whig administration and the tax will be repealed.'

  'There's less chance of that than of a thaw in Siberia.'

  She smiled at that, though it was nothing to smile at, and scrubbed at her cheeks with a sponge.

  'By the time Prinny's little Princess Charlotte has learned to walk this government will have become absolute and we'll be forced on to our knees to worship Pitt as the new Caesar. Oh,' said Derby, brightening, 'on a different subject, have you seen our latest brush with fame?' He opened his watered silk pocketbook and drew out an engraving.

  She assumed by our he meant the Foxites'. But the print showed Derby and herself sitting in a theatre box in old-fashioned clothes, with Derby and Joan written over their heads. The play they were watching was identified as The Constant Couple.

  'Surprisingly mild,' said Eliza, examining it for any crude details she'd missed.

  'Isn't it?' said Derby with a grin. 'I think we may have outlived our critics.'

  Eliza pulled out her watch. 'I hate to push you out, Derby, but it'll soon be first call—'

  'Yes, My Lord,' said Mrs Farren, scolding him like a mother, 'it's time you were in your box.'

  'Of course,' he said, hopping up. He was still rather sprightly for a man with a gouty foot. 'Sherry says he's paid Colman through the nose to adapt this Iron Chest from Caleb Williams, because it's a sure hit.'

  'Huh!' Eliza knew he was playing for time, unwilling to leave her dressing room; it was rather endearing. 'The play's well named, for my money; it's going to sink like a lead coffin. Colman's gutted the story of all its radical politics and set it in the early 1600s, so the Lord Chamberlain can't interpret it as a commentary on our unjust society and ban the thing! And everything that could go wrong has. This foul weather gave our brilliant young composer a cold—you know Storace?—but he insisted on crawling up from his sickbed for rehearsal, where he passed it on to Kemble. Who refuses to give up this plum role to Palmer, but insists on playing the morbid Mortimer with a cough like a cat with hairballs,' she added satirically. 'And Colman caught the cold next, so no one's made the necessary cuts and rehearsals have been a complete shambles.'

  'I'm sure you exaggerate,' said Derby. 'Besides, your brilliance will pull it all together.'

  She sighed. 'If I were you, My Lord, I'd spend the evening tucked up by the fire at your club.'

  He laughed and kissed Eliza's cold hand, before he headed off to the boxes corridor.

  William Powell, the careworn prompter, put his head in the door. 'Be patient with the musicians tonight, Miss Farren, they don't have a conductor. Storace's dead of his cold.'

  'No!'

  'A boy just came with a note from the widow.'

  He was thirty-three, like me, remembered Eliza. Poor wretch. 'Mr Powell,' she said, standing up with sudden decisiveness, 'you know as well as I do that The Iron Chest won't play. It's running at almost four hours.'

  'Then you'll all have to speak faster,' he said, straight-faced.

  'Tell Sheridan he must give out Much Ado instead.'

  'Kemble says it'll play,' said Powell grimly.

  'But he's half delirious from those opium pills he's dosing himself with.'

  A tired shrug. 'Oh, we've had to transpose the first two scenes in Act Two,' Powell said over his shoulder, at the door, 'because the carpenters say they need ten minutes to replace the Abbey scene with the Library.'

  Eliza put her hand over her face, then remembered her paint and lifted it carefully away.

  The wings were crowded; the cast numbered eighteen men and five women. Eliza saw Mrs Jordan among them, pasty-faced after her latest miscarriage. (She'd accepted the role Eliza had passed up in the forthcoming Vortigern, the early tragedy of Shakespeare's that Sheridan was sure was going to make his fortune. Eliza didn't know if Vortigern was a forgery, but she could tell it was a stinker.)

  They all spoke of the brilliant Stephen Storace, in whispers; there'd have to be a benefit for his widow and children. Annamaria Crouch, who'd been the composer's favourite soprano, kept thumbing stray tears off her cheeks. Then The Iron Chest began, and they stood in the shadows like passers-by watching carriages smash and pile up in the Strand.

  Kemble sleepwalked his way through the first few scenes. The guilt-racked Mortimer's lines came out in the solemn sing-song of a country rector. Then Kemble paused and let out a series of coughs loud enough to be heard in the street.

  'Well, at least that woke the crowd up,' groaned Palmer in Eliza's ear.

  Her face was tight with shame. Kemble was not only dull tonight, but he dragged all the other players down too. Dodd, usually so funny, was as slow as treacle. 'Get on with it!' roared a heckler.

  Young Bannister, playing the hero Wilford, came off with his teeth clamped together. 'Couldn't you liven it up a bit?' Palmer asked.

  'You try playing shuttlecock with a zombie,' hissed Bannister.

  It was more like swimming while tied to a corpse, Eliza thought after her first two scenes. As the innocent Helen, it was her job to imbue Mortimer with all the thrilling qualities of a Romeo. 7 dreamed last night of the fire he saved me from; and I saw him, all fresh, in manly bloom, bearing me through the flames...' On the last phrase Eliza let her head fall backwards, as if swooning reminiscently. But what good were all her eloquent gestures when Kemble walked on like some arthritic gravedigger who'd lost his manly bloom some time in the reign of the las
t king?

  The first act appeared to be lasting all night. 'Powell says we're twenty minutes over time already,' muttered Palmer.

  'Oh, good God.'

  'That's your cue coming up, isn't it, Eliza? Go on!'

  Eliza jerked and spun round. She hadn't missed a cue in years; she was behaving like some green girl. She rushed on stage—and arrived a line too early.

  Instead of glaring at her Kemble kept his stupefied gaze on the boards.

  'What could'st thou do to laugh away my sickness?' he asked leadenly and exploded into a cough; Eliza felt a mist of spit on her face.

  A chorus of hacking rose from the pit. The wits were imitating him now. 'I'll mimic the physician—wise and all—' Eliza cried out, throwing herself into a comical mime,

  —with cane at nose, and nod emphatical,

  portentous in my silence; feel your pulse,

  with an owl's face...

  And she took the opportunity to seize Kemble's wrist and give him a sharp dig with her thumbnail to rouse him. He'd have a bruise tomorrow, but she didn't care. He jumped and pulled away from her. A roar of laughter went up from the crowd and harsh catcalls. Eliza was once again trapped on a huge stage trying to please more than 3000 strangers. It struck her like a slap in the face: This is no life for a grown woman.

  At her left, Kemble was speechifying gloomily. 'It should seem I was not meant to live long.'

  'Nor this play neither!' roared someone from the pit and the whole painted dome rang with mirth.

  TONTON HAD died after lunch, in his master's lap. When Anne reached Strawberry Hill she found Walpole with mud under his long nails. 'I've had him buried behind the chapel, with the other animals. It's for the best.' He sobbed. 'I was rather afraid of his surviving me, as he survived Madame du Deffand; it seemed scarce possible he'd meet with a third owner so devoted. No, I shall miss him sorely, but I mustn't have another dog, I'd just be breeding it up to be unhappy after I'm gone. My only pets now will be marble ones—those kittens you carved for me, my dear, I shall talk to them and caress them, while I can,' he said, seizing Anne's hand.