The Duchess of Drury Lane

Sixteen




‘If you could think me worthy of being your wife . . .’

I meant to speak to Richard, of course I did, but I was dividing my time between the house at Somerset Street, Richmond and the theatre, and rarely saw him. When we were together there never seemed quite the right moment to speak of this delicate matter. Besides, I still loved him, didn’t I? Still wanted our situation to be resolved. And then another piece of mischief appeared. Richard set the paper before me one morning at breakfast time, his thin, angular face dark as thunder.

‘Is this the reason you no longer share my bed? Are you too occupied in a grander one?’

I gasped with horror as I looked at the print.

It was an Isaac Cruikshank cartoon showing the royal physician, Doctor Warren, dangling a baby over the balcony of a house in ‘Sommers St’. He was shouting down to the folk in the street below: ‘Damn your noise, Rascalls, you’ll disturb Mrs Pickle, who has just made a faux couch of a young seagull.’ Next to him the Duke, dressed as a nurse, was throwing the contents of a chamber pot over a dancing justice of the peace, who was clearly meant to be Richard. The Duke was saying: ‘Well said, Doctor Warren, I will rake ’em fore and aft.’

It was labelled ‘Mrs Pickle’s Mistake’. And since a common word for chamber pot is a jordan, I was utterly mortified.

‘I have no idea what this is meant to mean,’ I cried out in horror. ‘There has been nothing of that sort between us, I swear it. I am innocent of this charge. There has been no baby. You can see yourself that I am not pregnant, nor have I been since Lucy was born.’

‘Yet it likens me – I take it the figure in the black suit is supposed to represent me – to Solomon. Why is that, I wonder? Am I supposed to dispute the father of our last child?’

‘No, Richard, there is absolutely no doubt that Lucy is yours, as is Dodee. I do not understand this any more than you do. It is pure mischief, and entirely fabricated.’

He was glaring at me with the kind of sullen ferocity that made me shiver with foreboding. ‘Are you saying that you do not harbour soft feelings for the Duke? If so, then you should stop accepting his invitations to supper.’

Determined at least to hold on to my dignity, I challenged him. ‘I went just the once, as I told you, along with other members of the cast.’ I made no mention of the Duke’s disappointment that I had insisted upon this. ‘Perhaps you would care to take me instead? Or even make me your wife, as I deserve to be?’

As always when this question was asked, he turned on his heel and walked away.

There were further comments in the press in the weeks following, as if they were determined to create a scandal. One claimed Little Pickle was being besieged at Richmond by an exalted youth. This presumably because at twenty-five, the Duke was four years younger than I. Another cast doubt on whether Richard and I were truly married. I longed to tell everyone the truth, but he was adamant that we keep up the pretence, for the sake of appearances.

The Bon Ton Magazine wittily commented: ‘The Ford is too dangerous for him to cross the Jordan.’

My friend Lady Lumm advised me to stick with Richard. ‘I am convinced no good will accrue from this association. These Hanoverian princes are not known for their constancy, my dear,’ she warned, ignoring my protests of innocence.

Even Hester agreed with her. ‘Lady Lumm is right, why would you leave Ford for yet more uncertainty? Richard is at least a gentleman.’

‘He does not always behave as such,’ I gently reminded her. ‘Certainly he has shown little sign of honour, or care for my respectability. You yourself have dubbed him a scoundrel.’

My sister frowned, as if personally affronted by the scandal. I might well have laughed at her cross expression were it not all so terribly serious. ‘I will admit his failings have disappointed me, but what of the children? You might lose them.’

She had, of course, touched upon my greatest fear, and the real reason I had held back so long from telling Richard of the Duke’s earnest pursuit of me. My children were everything to me, and I could not envisage a life without them.

When my sister saw that raw terror in my face, all her temper melted away and she gathered me in her arms, as she always did in moments of crisis. ‘We will make absolutely certain that whatever you decide, the children are safe. I would be happy to care for them myself, as I do now when you are at the theatre.’

Tears rolling down my cheeks, I could scarcely speak for the emotion choking my throat. ‘What would I do without you, sister dear?’

Richard himself settled the matter. ‘The scandal will die down, as these things generally do. We are perfectly content, as are the children, so we will speak no more of this unfortunate business. We will stop buying newspapers, and ignore these scurrilous gossip sheets.’

Riddled with indecision, I readily agreed.

But it was less easy to ignore the Duke. In the following weeks he was at the theatre at every opportunity, coming to see me backstage, sending me flowers and gifts which I absolutely refused to accept.

‘Please,’ I begged him. ‘You must allow me time, some breathing space to decide. It is only fair to both Richard and myself.’

He gallantly agreed to do so, and went away to patiently await my answer.

On the fourth of June, 1791, I played the lead in the last production at Drury Lane, as the theatre was about to be demolished and rebuilt on a much grander scale. Henry Holland, the architect the Prince of Wales had used for Carlton House, was heading the project. In the meantime, the entire company was to move to the old opera house at Haymarket. On this final night I played Peggy in The Country Girl to a packed house of two thousand.

The Duke was not present on this occasion, which I secretly regretted despite my request to him to allow me some space to think. He was attending a celebration of the King’s official birthday, the first time, he explained, that he’d been able to take part, usually having been away at sea. He’d also taken delivery of a new carriage and was in high spirits. I wished I could feel the same.

I was sad to say goodbye to the old theatre, and even sadder over the gulf that was developing between myself and Richard.

That summer the revolution in France was causing considerable unease. There were riots in Birmingham and surrounding towns, in sympathy with their compatriots across the Channel. Yet it didn’t seem to put people off going to the theatre, or enjoying their card parties and soirees. Life for some continued to be a veritable merry-go-round of pleasure.

The Duke was present at my next benefit, which took place at the Haymarket in August, and again the following evening when I played at Richmond to a full house. As always he came backstage.

I was expecting Richard, who had suddenly become most attentive, insisting on escorting me to the theatre each and every day, waiting for me in the Green Room and seeing me home in my carriage afterwards, rarely letting me out of his sight. I was therefore brusque almost to the point of rudeness to the Duke.

‘You really shouldn’t be here. You agreed to stay away and give me time to think.’

‘I came to invite you to a fête at my home. There will be many friends there, and I thought you might enjoy it.’

‘You have surely not done this for me?’

‘You are the guest of honour,’ and he beamed at me.

‘I’m truly sorry, but I cannot accept. It wouldn’t be right, Sir.’

‘William, you must call me William.’ He took my hand and kissed the tips of each finger. ‘I keep rushing you, don’t I? Unfortunately, I can’t seem to help behaving like a besotted schoolboy.’

‘It is quite endearing,’ I confessed, melting a little. ‘And I promise you will have your answer soon.’

I later learned that the fête had been cancelled, since I had declined the invitation. By then Richard and I were on our way to York, rather later than Wilkinson had hoped. But I was desperate to escape and this seemed the only way.

The weather in York was unusually hot with occasional thunderstorms, which seemed to shorten tempers. Perhaps this was the reason the house was a poor one, or else fears of further riots had finally taken root. For when I walked out on stage in The Country Girl, I felt no friendly warmth emanating from those who had bothered to turn out. The cool reception reminded me very much of that time in Hull many years ago, when Mrs Smith and her coven of witches had spread their malice. I was just getting into my stride when, to my utter horror, someone in the audience shouted out, ‘Strumpet! Whore! Caught your prince yet?’

So they had been reading the gossip sheets too, or someone had circulated the scandal.

‘Is this the same tribe who hissed and booed me before?’ I asked Wilkinson, the moment I came off stage. How I had managed to struggle through, I couldn’t rightly say. Sheer professionalism, I dare say.

‘It is common knowledge, Dora, that you are not married to Ford as everyone had thought, and that you are now being pursued by the Duke of Clarence.’ He grinned good-naturedly at me, but then Tate Wilkinson had never been one to presume to pass judgement. ‘They are calling you the Duchess of Drury Lane.’

I was not amused.

In short, I would say that apart from that best-forgotten night at Hull, this was the worst performance of my entire career. I did not shine or sparkle, my lines were delivered flat and without conviction. I longed only for the play to end, and when it finally did, the audience gave lukewarm applause laced with a few muted hisses.

Wilkinson was waiting for me offstage. ‘Make haste and change and go straight back on and sing. They can never resist your singing, Dora.’

I did as he suggested, and this time they softened a little, even joined in with the familiar melodies, and the applause was warmer as the curtain fell for the last time.

‘Saved,’ Wilkinson said. ‘What a star you are.’

I fled to my dressing room and burst into tears. ‘This is all your fault,’ I snapped at Richard. ‘Had you not destroyed my reputation, I would still be a respectable woman, a respectable married woman!’ I thought of how much Mama had longed for that happy state for me, which made me cry all the more. ‘What have I ever done to deserve this sort of vilification? All I did was to love you and believe in your promise of marriage.’

‘Don’t blame me for their behaviour,’ Richard caustically remarked. ‘If you are losing the loyalty of your audience, the fault may well be yours, not mine.’

Wilkinson attempted to lift our spirits by entertaining Richard and me to a splendid dinner party, inviting many old friends: John Kemble, Michael Kelly, Maria Crouch and others, all of whom happened to be in Yorkshire too, no doubt working the circuit. Poor Richard, obliged to lower his dignity sufficiently to dine with a bunch of itinerant strolling players.

‘It will be better tomorrow,’ Wilkinson assured me. ‘We’ve certainly sold more tickets. Perhaps the play was a little risqué for Yorkshire folk. And I’ll make sure the stage door is locked so that no pranks are played there either.’

If anything, the following night was worse. I was playing one of my favourite parts, Hypolita in She Would and She Would Not. But instead of laughing when I dressed up as a man, pretending to be the rival to my own lover – the outcome being the usual tangle – the audience booed and hissed, again calling out insults regarding my personal life.

At the end of the show I took my revenge. Instead of bowing towards the audience, as I normally did, I turned my back upon them and bowed showing them my rear end. Let them salute my backside, I thought, telling them very plainly what I thought of their disapproval.

I could hear Tate Wilkinson’s roars of laughter from the wings. ‘Dashed if I don’t admire your fighting spirit, girl.’

I left the theatre without even bothering to take off my stage costume and make-up, and refused to return the next day. Instead, Richard took me to Castle Howard, but I was so upset I simply couldn’t relax and enjoy the beauty of the countryside. Later, back in our hotel room, I took out my ill temper on him, not unnaturally in the circumstances. It seemed that the moment to settle our differences had finally arrived.

‘Had you made good on your promise of marriage the scandalmongers would not have printed such scurrilous rumours about me, and the audience would have had no reason to call me vile names. They are punishing me for your neglect.’

He looked at me with disdain. ‘If the moralists disapprove of your association with a prince, you have only yourself to blame for encouraging him.’

‘I did not encourage him! Five years I have waited for you. Five long years of listening to excuses and procrastination, yet still you refuse to make me your wife. You have deprived me of a proper legal status.’ I was pacing back and forth, brimming over with rage, while he sat calmly smoking a cigar, feigning absorption in a newspaper, but I knew he heard every word. ‘Before I met you I was still considered respectable, save perhaps by Siddons, who likes to look down her long nose at everyone.’ Thinking of my old rival only made me angrier than ever, as, unlike me, she was respectably married, her children legitimate. And didn’t she just love to crow about this difference in our status.

He heaved a weary sigh. ‘I cannot see that it makes the slightest difference whether we are married or not. You are an actress, therefore you are fooling yourself if you imagine anyone would even consider you to be respectable. I am not the one to ruin your reputation. You never had one to lose in the first place.’

Flashes of fire seemed to dart before my eyes, such was my fury at this cruelly heartless remark. ‘How dare you say such a thing? What is it about the acting profession that makes everyone assume an actress is a whore? We tread the boards and entertain people in all honesty. I do not walk the streets and offer services of a less salubrious nature.’

He actually laughed at that. ‘You know full well audiences imagine you lead the same life as the characters you play.’

‘Then people are more stupid, or cruel, than I took them for. But, my reputation aside, what of our children?’

He gave a careless shrug as he turned a page, as if the news sheet were far more interesting than his family. ‘Why would our lack of marriage lines trouble them?’

‘It may not now, while they are young, but what when they are older? How will they feel to be constantly accused of being illegitimate? And there are worse words to describe the condition. I suffered many such flung at me as a child. My own father’s family treated Grace and all of us children with shameless derision, all because the marriage was not legal. Is that what you wish for your own two precious daughters?’

‘Better than risking the loss of a fortune from my father. Names never hurt anyone, being poor does.’

‘Money, is that all you think of? Does the happiness and honour of your children not count for more than your own greed?’ I could hardly contain my anger, wanting to fly at him, to scratch his arrogant face as a wild cat might. In that moment I truly hated this man I’d once professed to love.

Exhausted with emotion I collapsed on to the bed and ordered him to leave. ‘Go! I have no wish for dinner tonight. I need to be alone, to think.’ I was still sobbing into my pillow when I heard the door bang shut behind him.

After the tears finally subsided I lay on my bed for some time thinking of how the Bland family had actively encouraged their son in his ultimate betrayal, yet condemned to near starvation the innocent woman he had so callously abandoned. And all because his children, my brothers and sisters and I, were illegitimate. My poor mother must be turning in her grave to see me faced with a similar dilemma.

Were Richard Ford to do as my father had done and marry another woman of whom his parent did approve, there was no law to make him support our children. He too could leave them to starve if he chose to ignore them, and if I were not around to protect them. Or take them from me, if he so wished, as once they were seven I would have no rights over them at all, being only an unmarried mother.

I felt humiliated, violated, not only by the audience influenced by the lampoons and scandalmongers, but by Richard Ford, the man in whom I had placed my trust.

Hester once said that I was far too affectionate and trusting for my own good, and she was right.

The next day, aware of my distress, Kemble came to see me. ‘I’m sorry you’ve suffered this fracas, Dora. The reason I was in York was that I was on my way to Newcastle. I suggest that you go in my stead with my brother Stephen, and I will take your place in York. I’m staying with the Mayor here, as he is a friend of mine. I could easily do Othello. I’ve already suggested this to Wilkinson, and he has agreed.’

‘That is most generous of you.’ I was touched, as there still remained some of the old rivalry between myself and his sister.

‘Wilkinson, however, is less so. Money is tight, so he demands the payment of an indemnity of thirty pounds since you walked out of the theatre before the conclusion of your agreement.’

Taking a breath, I nodded. ‘I accept your offer with gratitude, and will gladly pay the sum he asks. Anything rather than perform in that miserable theatre ever again.’

I at once wrote to Wilkinson.

Sir,

I agree with pleasure to your proposal of giving you thirty pounds rather than ever perform in York again. I shall return tomorrow and settle the balance of the account.

I am, dear sir,

Your obliged, humble servant,

D Ford

Even writing that name which I had once used so proudly, made me feel sick to my stomach.

Kemble agreed to deliver the note and I returned to York on the Monday to pay Wilkinson the money he requested. ‘I would risk being ruined as an actress were I to play to such a milk-and-water audience,’ I told him.

‘You are the lucky child of fortune, caressed and nursed in the lap of Mother Nature, the reigning Thalia of our age. To your comic talent, archness, whim and fancy, I submissively bow. And I trust that you and I will remain friends, Dora?’

I softened and gave him an affectionate hug. ‘For ever. Did you not save my family from starvation, and me from Daly by introducing me to Cornelius Swan who paid off all my debts and penalties? I have done well, thanks to his, and your, tuition and guidance. Unfortunately, my life is in turmoil at present.’

‘You were ever a good daughter, but Grace would be most distressed to see you in danger of losing all decency.’

‘I know, and it is a situation only I can resolve.’

As we again dined with him that evening, John Kemble suddenly changed his mind. He decided that the agreed thirty guineas he’d asked for to play Othello was insufficient and demanded a share of the profits, something he knew I often received.

‘Stab me if I’ll not agree to such blackmail,’ Wilkinson cried, although I heard later that when the evening in question arrived, he backed down at the last moment rather than risk a riot in disappointing his audience. Kemble came out of the deal with a pocketful of cash.

Richard and I went on to Newcastle, barely speaking, but that engagement too fell through as Kemble had failed to inform his brother of the change in plan. I might have sued Kemble myself, but was wearied by it all, and only too thankful to return home. I had far more important matters on my mind.

By the time we arrived back in London I was convinced that Richard never would marry me, so I asked him outright. ‘I have fought you long and hard over this matter for my children’s sake, and for the security of their future. But you have made it perfectly clear these last weeks that any hope of marriage between us is virtually nil. Am I correct in this surmise?’

He gave one of his exasperated sighs. ‘Dora, I will not tolerate constantly going over this old ground.’

‘Thank you, that tells me all I need to know.’

‘That you should have so little faith in me is despicable.’

‘What faith can I have after you have treated me so reprehensibly?’

‘I refuse to be bound at your say so. And it is equally iniquitous that you should consider yourself free to leave if I do not fall in with your demands.’

‘I have no wish to leave. If you could think me worthy of being your wife, no temptation would be strong enough to detach me from you and my duties. But if I am doomed to be a gentleman’s mistress and never a wife, let it be with one who treats me more fairly.’

On the twenty-second of September I opened the new season at the Haymarket, and the very next evening the Duke and the Prince of Wales came to see me. As William was not alone he did not come backstage, merely sent a note with flowers, and yet another request to take me out to supper the next evening. This time I meant to accept, for my decision was made. I would become the Prince’s mistress.

Three weeks later, on the thirteenth of October, the Duke drove me in his yellow carriage to Petersham Lodge in Richmond, now renamed as Clarence House. My new life had begun.