by Jean Plaidy
‘Frederick will manage everything,’ soothed Miss Sketchley.
‘Thank God for Frederick.’
Frederick told Dorothy that he had control of affairs in Cadogan Place and she could trust him to carry out her wishes. So she wished to raise the insurance on Alsop’s life; he would deal with the matter. He was not sure of the amount but if she would send him a blank cheque he would fill in the amount required. He was also advising Fanny that she should, after the trouble with the Duke, make plans immediately to leave for India, or if she did not wish to go so far he was sure it could be arranged for her to go to her relations in Wales.
Fanny said she would consider which appealed to her more. And one day she went out and did not return.
When Dorothy – still on tour – heard the news she was heartbroken; but Miss Sketchley said that Fanny would always fall on her feet and she probably had been making plans to leave home for some time. It was clear that she would not go to her husband; and now that she had made everything so uncomfortable at home, preferred to leave.
It was very likely, added Miss Sketchley, that she had gone to Wales.
Dorothy remained in a state of great unhappiness. It was all very well for others to say that all would be happier without Fanny. Dorothy could not forget that she was her daughter and she loved her in spite of all the trouble she had caused.
‘What will become of the child?’ she asked distractedly of Miss Sketchley.
‘Child! She is scarcely a child. If it were not for her and her husband you would not be here now working yourself into a state of exhaustion. You would be living peacefully at Cadogan Place.’
‘She did not ask to come into the world. Nor did I ask that she should. It’s that man Daly… he has been an evil shadow across my life from the day I met him. If I had never known him, everything would have been different.’
‘Fanny would never have been born, but would the Duke have remained faithful?’
‘It might have been different. Who knows? We had quarrels and I think I irritated him beyond endurance with my preoccupation with money and it was for the girls, I suppose.’
Miss Sketchley did not think highly of the Duke and conveyed it in her silence when he was mentioned. But Dorothy insisted on defending him. ‘He was always good and generous. It was money which separated us.’
Miss Sketchley said nothing. She was maliciously amused by his inability to find an heiress. She hoped that one day he would realize what he had lost.
Dorothy was waiting anxiously for news. There was none. Touring was so exhausting particularly when one felt so ill. She was spitting blood more frequently now and the pain in her chest was recurring. She must go on playing the old roles. Peggy in The Country Girl, Prue in Love for Love and Letitia Hardy in The Belle’s Stratagem. She could no longer play Priscilla Tomboy or the Little Pickle. Those days were over, but there was some satisfaction in knowing that audiences felt very lukewarm about anyone else’s playing of the parts.
So weary she was after a performance that Miss Sketchley had to help her to bed where she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Every day she would wait for news. ‘Any news of Fanny?’ she would ask, fear showing in her voice and eyes. What next? she was wondering. What else could happen?
The next blow came from an unexpected quarter and was all the more cruel for that.
She was deeply in debt. Someone had been drawing on her account; bills which she had believed to have been paid had been left outstanding. Her creditors were threatening that they could wait no longer.
She read the letter from Frederick several times and Miss Sketchley who was always alarmed when the mail arrived came in to find her sitting staring blankly before her.
‘May I?’ she asked, picking up the letter.
Dorothy nodded.
‘Good God!’ cried Miss Sketchley. ‘This can only be Frederick March.’
‘Impossible.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Miss Sketchley sadly, ‘that it is the unexpected that often happens.’
‘I must go home,’ said Dorothy.
‘You are certainly in no fit state to go on the stage. Leave it to me. I’ll make all our arrangements. We must leave at once for London.’
That very day they drove out of Margate; and when Dorothy returned home it was to find Frederick in a state of near dementia.
He threw himself at her feet. He deserved her reproaches. Nothing she could say or do to him would be hard enough punishment.
Yes, he had been wicked. He had been criminal. He had needed the money. He had stolen from her. He had filled in the blank cheques she had given him for double and treble the amounts she had intended.
They were ruined.
That it should be Frederick, her favourite son-in-law!
She did not know what to do. She could only think of her poor mother who had feared insecurity and so longed for the respectability of marriage. Marriage! What had it brought to Fanny? And now Dodee’s husband had done this to her!
Colonel Hawker offered to help but how could he? He was not a rich man. He had not the sums at his disposal which they would need.
She read through the demands for payment. The veiled threats if the bills were not met. She understood them well. They pointed to the debtors’ prison from which there was no escape, for how could she earn money while in prison to pay her debts, and how could she escape from prison until she did?
What to do? Where to turn?
She thought of the one man who had been good to her. Yes, he had, she insisted, until his family had demanded that he marry for State reasons and pay his debts.
William would never desert her.
But she could not plead to him personally. She would write to his agent, John Barton, who had arranged the settlement. He would most certainly inform the Duke and everything that could be done to save her would be done.
It was a relief.
She wrote to Barton and waited.
When John Barton received Dorothy’s appeal for help he began to see how he could use the position to the advantage of his master.
Since his desertion of Dorothy the Duke of Clarence had become a figure of fun to the people. They did not approve of the desertion. He had lived with Dorothy for twenty years. They had had ten children and then like a silly lovesick schoolboy he had started to court young women. Heiresses, of course. There was something ridiculous about an ageing man pretending to be a young one; and the fact that the heiresses had the good sense to refuse him made him all the more ridiculous.
The people did not like this treatment of one of their favourite actresses; and while she appeared on the stage and was constantly in the public eye, they could not forget.
After being refused by Miss Tylney-Long and Miss Elphinstone, William had tried for royalty. The Princess Anne of Denmark had declined to marry him, so had the sister of the Tsar, the Duchess of Oldenburg.
William was depicted in all the cartoons as the lovelorn suitor who could succeed nowhere and on these cartoons Dorothy was invariably in the background with her ten children about her.
Barton had a brilliant idea. He might extricate his master from this humiliating position and win his eternal gratitude.
With this plan in mind he went to see Dorothy.
‘I know,’ he told her, ‘that the Duke would wish me to do everything possible to ease your situation. I beg of you show me all the accounts.’
This she did and when Barton had calculated how much money was needed he made a wry face.
‘It will take months to raise this money,’ he said. ‘And in the meantime your creditors will take action.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘There is only one thing. You must get out of the country.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the only way you will be safe. You must slip quietly away. Leave these bills with me. I will settle your affairs as speedily as I can and when I have done so send word for you that it is safe for you to return.’
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‘Do you mean… ?’
He looked at her intently.
‘I mean, Madam,’ he said, ‘that from the threatening tones of your creditors they will have you in a debtors’ prison within the month. I should say you have at most three weeks to get out of the country.’
Dorothy was aghast.
She thought of that day long ago when Daly had threatened her with a debtors’ prison. She had given way and as a result there had been Fanny… and because of Fanny she was in her present dilemma, for she believed deep down in her heart that it was their differences over Fanny which had begun to make the rift between her and the Duke and that had it not been there he would never have deserted her no matter what family pressure had been exerted. It was as though she had completed a circle.
‘I could not face prison,’ she said. ‘It is so… impossible. How should I ever get out… and what would become of my family?’
‘Take my advice,’ said Barton. ‘Get away. I will do all I can to help. Sell up everything you have here and go. I shall be in touch. Your allowances will be paid… and in a short time you will be able to settle your debts and come back.’
She trusted Barton. There was no one else to trust.
Barton went away satisfied that he had done an excellent thing for the Duke. He would not tell him at present for the Duke was a sentimental man. But he would never regain the dignity of his rank, nor would he find a bride, while Dorothy Jordan remained in the public eye.
Dorothy frantically started to sell her furniture at ridiculous prices; she disposed of the lease of her house, and with the faithful Miss Sketchley as her company set out for France.
The order of release
THE LITTLE COTTAGE at Marquetra was small but the surrounding country was green and reminded her poignantly of England. There were two cottages side by side and in the second lived her landlady Madame Ducamp, the widow of a gardener. Madame Ducamp’s maid Agnes also looked after Dorothy and was soon charmed by her. So beautiful although she was no longer young; so graceful although she was no longer slim; so different from anyone Agnes had ever known.
Agnes would talk of Dorothy continually to Madame Ducamp and to Miss Sketchley.
‘I have never known anyone like the dear sad English lady,’ she said. ‘I am sure Madame James has been a grand lady in England. Of course, I do not believe Madame James is her real name. Ah, I can see it is not, Mademoiselle Sketchley. I believe she is a princess… or a duchess. She has the airs of one for all that she is so kind.’
Why did she wait so eagerly for the mail which did not come to her direct but had to be collected?
‘When it is time for it to come,’ said Agnes, ‘she becomes so anxious that I am afraid she will die if she does not get what she wants. I hear her coughing at night and I fear for her. Is she very ill? How I wish that the letter she longs for would come.’
Miss Sketchley gave nothing away. Calm, discreet, she looked after Dorothy who often wondered what would have happened if this dear good woman had not come to her.
One day she was wildly happy. It was due to a letter. Agnes wondered but Miss Sketchley did not tell.
It was not the letter for which she had hoped; the letter from Barton to say that it was safe for her to come home. But it was from sixteen-year-old Frederick FitzClarence who although he did not know her address did know that she was living in France under the name of Mrs James and that he must address letters to her in this name c/o the Post Office at Boulogne.
Frederick was already in the Army and had written: ‘If you want money… take my allowance because with a little care I could live on my father’s.’
She wept over the letter, kissed it and slept with it under her pillow.
The children loved her. Dodee and Lucy were in despair because she had left home; George had always been a good son and so had Henry, but they were in India, and now dear Fred had offered his allowance.
She felt that she was not entirely forgotten.
‘I feel,’ she told Miss Sketchley, ‘that soon release will come.’
After a few months she left Marquetra for Versailles and there found rooms. She spent her time writing letters and reading, and each day she would ask herself: Will the letter come today – the order of release?
She longed to be with her family. Dodee and Lucy wrote regularly. Dodee was sad because of the disaffection of her husband. They missed her and longed for her return.
She wrote to Frederick telling him not to worry, that she understood his difficulties; she was sure he had hoped to repay her before the deficiencies were discovered; and when Mr Barton had so settled her affairs and she could return to England they would all set up house together.
Versailles did not suit her and she went to St Cloud and took rooms in the Maison du Sieur Mongis, a gloomy place with a dark overgrown garden and shabbily furnished rooms. It was ill-heated and as it was winter she felt chilled and thought longingly of the comforts of Bushy House.
She would lie on the shabby old sofa and say to Miss Sketchley: ‘Sometimes I feel that this old sofa will be my death bed. One day I shall lie down on it and never get up. Do you know, I don’t think I should greatly care.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Miss Sketchley. ‘What of the girls? They are expecting you to go back and make a home for them.’
Yes, the girls. She must always think of the girls.
A new year had started. 1816. One weary day followed another, bringing no letter of release.
‘Have they forgotten me?’ she asked Miss Sketchley.
Her health did not improve with the coming of the spring. She developed jaundice and her skin turned yellow. Miss Sketchley, alarmed, wrote to Dodee.
She waited for the reply.
Meanwhile Dorothy was growing worse. The coughing fits were frequent and alarming.
‘Are there any letters from England?’ she asked constantly.
Miss Sketchley could only shake her head miserably.
‘My dear, ask them to go to the Post Office… let them go now… There may be some waiting for me.’
Miss Sketchley knew it was useless, but nevertheless, to satisfy Dorothy, she sent the messenger.
She sat by Dorothy’s side at that old sofa. She thought: ‘Will her daughter come? Is none of her family – for whom she lived, and for whom she is dying – to be with her at the end?’
Someone was knocking at the door. But it was only the messenger.
‘Are there any letters?’ asked Dorothy.
‘No, Madame, nothing at all.’
In weary resignation she sank back on the sofa and turned her head to the wall.
Miss Sketchley sat still, afraid to look at Dorothy because in her heart she knew.
The July sun filtered through the window showing the dust on the furniture and Miss Sketchley sat listening as Dorothy had listened for the family to come to take her home, for the letters which would never come.
The favourite exponent of the Comic Muse had died from an inflammation of the lungs at St Cloud in France, so said the English papers.
She was buried with only Miss Sketchley and strangers to mourn her; but one of these strangers put up a granite slab to her on which he had the words inscribed:
‘Sacred to the memory of Dorothy Jordan, who for a series of years in London as well as other cities of Britain pre-eminently adorned the stage. For Comic Wit, sweetness of voice, and imitating the manners and customs of laughing maidens as well as the opposite sex, she ranked second to none in the display of that art. Neither was anyone more prompt on relieving the necessitous. She departed this life, the 5th July 1816. Remember and weep for her.’
Bibliography
Mrs Jordan and Her Family: being the Unpublished Correspondence of Mrs Jordan and the Duke of Clarence, later William IV edited by A. Aspinall
National and Domestic History of England William Hickman Smith Aubrey
The Life of Mrs Jordan including Original Private Correspondence James Boaden
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sp; In the Days of the Georges William B. Boulton
George III; His Court and Family Henry Colburn
Life and Times of George IV The Rev. George Croly
The Good Queen Charlotte Percy Fitzgerald
Life of George IV Percy Fitzgerald
Mrs Jordan, Portrait of an Actress Brian Fothergill
George IV Roger Fulford
Unsuccessful Ladies Jane-Eliza Hasted
The Life and Reign of William IV Robert Huish
The Story of Dorothy Jordan Clare Jerrold
George IV Shane Leslie
George III J. C. Long
The Sailor King William IV, His Court and His Subjects Fitzgerald Molloy
A History of the Late 18th Century Drama Allardyce Nicoll
The Four Georges Sir Charles Petrie
The House of Hanover Alvin Redman
George IV Joanna Richardson
Mrs Jordan Philip W. Sergeant
The Dictionary of National Biography edited by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee
Portrait of the Prince Regent Dorothy Margaret Stuart
The Four Georges W. M. Thackeray
The Patriot King, William IV Grace E. Thompson
British History John Wade
Memoirs and Portraits Horace Walpole
Memoirs of the Reign of George III Horace Walpole
George III Beckles Wilson
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