The Duchess of Drury Lane

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘I wished not to deprive him, and to make our break as civilized as possible.’

  ‘What a delightful Little Pickle you are.’ He kissed me and stroked my cheek. ‘Then you shall have a new one, all of your own. What colour shall you choose?’

  I looked up at him, wide-eyed with delighted surprise. ‘There is really no need. I thought I could perhaps borrow yours from time to time.’

  ‘There is every need, you must have your own independence, and security,’ he assured me. ‘How shall you style it?’

  ‘Your kindness and attention to detail is both exciting and flattering. What love you must have for me.’

  ‘I love you with all my heart and soul, and shall never tire of telling you so.’

  ‘And you must know how dearly I love you.’

  ‘Then do me the honour of accepting my gift and decide upon the colour.’

  I couldn’t help myself, I just gave that delicious surge of laughter that ripples up right from the heart of me when I’m happy. ‘Very well, it shall be yellow. The interior of my own carriage was dark green turned up with buff and bound with silver, so perhaps it could be the same. And if it is not improper, an anchor on the panels. I love everything that has the least reference to you.’

  He considered the matter in mock seriousness. ‘It might well be mistaken for a passing ship,’ he teased. ‘I think we will keep to a plainer style.’ And we kissed again, as lovers do, William loving the warm pressure of my soft full breasts against his hard chest, and me the sensation of melting in his arms, both of us dreaming of all the joys which lay in store for our shared life together.

  The Duke was ill. He’d been forced to take to his bed with a feverish cold and was confined to quarters, as he described it. He was no doubt lying there fretting about all that still needed to be done, while I was staying, temporarily, at the house in Somerset Street until I’d found a new home for the dear children. Mr Ford, as I now referred to him, remained at the house in Richmond, with the apparent intention of relinquishing the lease once he too had found alternative accommodation.

  Oh, but the Duke claimed daily in his letters to me that he’d never been so passionately in love. I was his darling Dora who had given meaning to his life, brought a new purpose to it, and he was so very anxious to do everything right by me.

  And having banned me from his side in case I too should fall ill, we had to be content with exchanging letters several times a day. In these he poured out his love for me, how his anxieties were increasing with every hour we were apart in case I should tire of him and change my mind. I did what I could to reassure him but he worried too whenever he thought of me unprotected, with Mr Ford still protesting loudly about being publicly humiliated and embarrassed. As if the arrogant fellow hadn’t had ample opportunity to do right by me in the past. After all, he was not bound by the Royal Marriages Act.

  The Duke would write to me at length on practical matters, discussing the settlement on the children which Coutts and his lawyers were arranging. I had signed over to my sister all my savings in the form of a trust fund for the children, but there was much still to decide.

  ‘The house I am now in I must let, for many reasons,’ I wrote. ‘First, it is too far from the theatre. Second, I have gone through so many cruel scenes in it that there is a constant gloom hangs over my mind whenever I am in it.’

  He would write back the most supportive, fondest letters, always signed with love, and I would respond in kind, as well as gently scolding him not to venture out as he might suffer a relapse.

  ‘If I may judge of your love by my own, I am sure I may with truth say never two people loved so well. It is impossible to tell you how happy, how more than happy your dear enchanting professions of love make me.’

  There was much more in this vein, and the Duke at last confessed himself content, that he was the most fortunate of men. As one wit wrote:

  She’s in truth the best feather you have in your cap.

  How you got her, to me, I must own, is a wonder!

  When I think of your natural aptness to blunder.

  The Duke and I both giggled at the wit, and he did not disagree with the sentiment. Then the lampoons started.

  Eighteen

  ‘Her Grace bearing her new dignities . . .’

  The Duke was shocked and appalled by the vilification to which I was subjected by the press. There were pointed references to my wantonness in taking a royal lover, to my preferring the superior attractions of a Royal Lodge to the domestic bliss I apparently enjoyed with Richard Ford.

  ‘That is as inaccurate as it is outrageous!’ he roared, helpless in his sick room.

  But the clamorous press continued long after he’d made a full recovery, becoming so intrusive that it quite affected my own heath and I missed several performances.

  The Bon Ton displayed a frontispiece of the Duke kneeling upon one knee while I was sitting on the other, my arm about his neck and his arm around my waist. He was cooling me with a fan, and I was giving him a roguish smile. The Duke thought it in the lowest taste possible as it made me look like a common harlot, which infuriated him beyond measure.

  There was one cartoon of me in bed, sitting up proudly declaring my prowess, his jacket casually hung upon a chair at the foot. In another the satirists dared to show me with my breasts bared, and in the cruellest of all by James Gillray a male figure in striped sailor trousers was depicted climbing through the crack in a chamber pot, my dainty slippers peeping out below the pot. Vulgar was to put too fine a word on it. Walking past the print shops in town became an absolute nightmare for the Duke.

  But if the cartoons were bad, the comments were worse.

  A favourite comic actress, if Goody Rumour can be trusted, had thought proper to put herself under the protection of a distinguished sailor who dropped anchor before her last summer at Richmond.

  There were many such. ‘Public jordan open to all parties,’ wrote one cruel wit, again using the chamber pot connotation, while another accused Little Pickle of receiving her weekly salary from the Treasurer.

  ‘Damn me, if they aren’t bringing politics into it now.’

  To add insult to injury, this little ditty began to circulate:

  As Jordan’s high and mighty squire

  Her playhouse profits deigns to skim;

  Some folks audaciously inquire

  If he keeps her or she keeps him.

  William valiantly dismissed this as a joke he must live with, but it was one in the Morning Post which caused me the greatest distress:

  To be mistress of the King’s son Little Pickle thinks respectable, and so away go all tender ties to children!

  ‘As if I would abandon my own children for any man, even if you are the son of a king. It is unspeakably cruel. I believe Mr Ford’s friends and relatives are responsible for these cruel calumnies. They are saying that I callously and unnaturally deserted my children for grandeur. I beg you, William, to intercede and make them put a stop to this mischief.’

  The Duke wrote at once to his lawyer, William Adam, who in turn corresponded with the Morning Post expressing his concern at the severity of the attacks, insisting the paper desist as the accusations were entirely false and damaging to the good lady’s health.

  I begged my former lover to complain too, and to his credit, Ford did so. He sent me a most reasonable letter which I instantly had published in the paper concerned:

  Lest any insinuations be circulated to the prejudice of Mrs Jordan in respect to her having behaved improperly towards her children in regard to pecuniary matters, I hereby declare that her conduct in this particular has been as laudable, generous and as like a fond mother as in her present situation it was possible to be. She has indeed given up for their use every sixpence she has been able to save from her theatrical profits, she has also engaged herself to allow them £550 per annum, and at the same time settled £50 a year on her sister. It is but bare justice to her for me to assert this, as the father of those childre
n.

  Signed,

  Richard Ford,

  October, 1791

  He followed it up with a second letter:

  In gratitude for the care Mrs Jordan has ever bestowed on my children, it is my consent and wish that she, whenever she pleases, see and be with them, provided her visits are not attended by any circumstances which may be improper to them or unpleasant to me.

  Signed

  Richard Ford.

  October, 1791

  Unfortunately, although Ford did not deny that these letters were written by his own hand, he complained that they had been published without his knowledge or consent.

  ‘I rather thought that was the whole point of his writing them, in order to publicly protect me, and his children,’ I said, and William agreed.

  ‘He is concerned only with his own damaged reputation, not yours, dearest, nor his own children’s.’

  ‘I never could understand how that man’s mind works.’

  The papers continued to claim that Mrs Jordan was often seen walking westwards, away from the house, which was surely proof of her desertion. The truth was that I had found a house at Brompton Road where the children were now living with Hester.

  When the Gazetteer discovered this fact, and informed the world that the lady had taken a house at Brompton, ‘not in the Row, but in the town, which is more private’, the Duke breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Things should quieten down now, my love, as they can see you are spending time with your dear little ones every day.’

  Thinking the fracas was behind us, I thankfully returned to the theatre. But then Mr Ford began making a nuisance of himself by constantly turning up backstage whenever I was performing at the Haymarket.

  ‘Have you yet seen sense?’ he would ask. ‘I shall continue to come every day until you do.’ And there he would sit, just as he always did, while I stood behind the screen to change. His constant attendance made me feel like some sort of peep-show.

  One evening, when the Duke found me weeping in my dressing room, distressed by his presence at every turn, he asked Sheridan to demand he leave.

  ‘Pray, make it very plain to the gentleman who infests this theatre with his presence backstage, that he is not welcome. Mrs Jordan has every right to her privacy. I wish him to desist from constantly calling upon her, or I shall be obliged to demand that he be forcibly removed.’

  Sheridan, for once, did not kowtow to royalty, appearing unmoved by the request. ‘With all due respect, Sir, Mr Ford’s standing as a gentleman precludes such a prohibition. In point of fact, he has as much right to be here as yourself.’

  The Duke reacted angrily to this but Sheridan remained adamant that he could do nothing to assist. He was equally frustrated with William’s own presence in the green room. Most evenings the Duke would come backstage, laughing and talking with me before I went on. He loved to listen to me recite my lines as I put on my make-up, join in the chat and general horse-play, laughing as George mimicked Signora Storace, a young lady who had achieved brilliant success as an opera singer in Vienna, and whose rough-sounding voice my brother could take off to perfection. Or he would happily watch the dancers practising their steps.

  Sheridan, however, was never particularly welcoming to visitors during a performance, for which I could not entirely blame him. Nor did he feel much sympathy for a man who had once attempted to seduce his own wife, even if the Duke was blind to such sentiments. For my part, I was so upset by Ford’s presence and the resulting fracas, that I cried off performing the next night, quite unable to face going on.

  Hester came to see how I was faring and even she castigated me for my lack of sensitivity towards Ford. ‘You are not the only one being tormented by the press. Richard too is suffering public humiliation, and considerable embarrassment from those friends to whom he introduced you as his wedded wife.’

  I frowned at that, irritated by her support of him. ‘You know full well that those hints about a secret marriage between us were all lies, entirely of his making. He could have rectified the embarrassment of our situation at any time during this last five years.’

  ‘He was protecting you.’

  ‘He was protecting himself. I am aware of his friends’ animosity towards me. Lady Lumm and her husband have already made it clear that, however painful it might be to their personal feelings, they can no longer tolerate me as a visitor to their mansion,’ I said, mimicking the lady’s cut-glass accent. ‘I am sorry to lose such old and loyal friends, Hester, but I never for a moment thought they believed the fiction of our marriage. Lady Lumm has chosen the side she wishes to be on, and it is not mine.’

  ‘Can you blame her? You brought this scandal entirely upon yourself.’

  I gasped. My sister had been my constant support throughout my life, now she appeared to be taking Mr Ford’s part. ‘I admit I never claimed it to be a love match with the Duke, not in the beginning, but I had little choice but to take his offer seriously, if my children were to be protected.’

  ‘You’ve virtually turned yourself into a courtesan,’ she snapped.

  ‘Hester! What a dreadful thing to say.’

  ‘It is no less than the truth. What would Mama say, were she to see you now?’

  Tears filled my eyes. ‘It is unfair to bring our dear mother into this. I’m sure she would understand that Mr Ford never had any intention of making good on his promise. Did she not suffer a similar fate? So what did I have to lose?’

  Hester had the grace to look contrite, instantly enfolding me in her arms as she always did when ashamed of her quick temper. ‘I’m sorry, Doll, but I do worry about what you are getting into.’

  ‘I’m more concerned with what I am getting out of. My relationship with Ford was going nowhere.’ Tears were rolling down my cheeks, my heart sore that we should quarrel like this.

  ‘But you have to feel sorry for the man, as these friends of his are now apparently demanding explanations which he is finding hard to supply.’

  I can’t say I shared her sympathy, and was mightily relieved when Ford decided to go on a visit to France. But if I thought my troubles would disappear with his departure I was soon to be disenchanted. His friends, after all, remained behind.

  One morning at breakfast I saw the Duke tear up a letter in obvious irritation as he tossed it aside, but I could not resist asking from whom it came.

  ‘From a Mrs Crouch, apparently, but I read no more than a dozen words in which she feels the need to warn me against you.’ He smiled. ‘Clearly such a project is doomed from the start.’

  Maria Crouch, a fellow actress, had never counted herself among my friends, as she hated to take second billing. Nor was she in any position to pass judgement on my own conduct when she had set up a ménage à trois with the musician Michael Kelly and her own husband, although the poor man did not remain long with his wife after that. There was much I could say on the subject of Mrs Crouch but I refrained from doing so, determined to maintain my dignity for William’s sake.

  We made a pact to ignore, as best we could, all the malicious gossip and enjoy life regardless. We were happy, and I knew in my heart that I had made the right decision. We appeared in public together for the first time at his box at the Haymarket. I had just finished playing Peggy in The Country Girl, and instead of him coming backstage to my dressing room as he usually did, he asked me to sit with him for the second piece, The Cave of Trophonius, as I was not in it.

  We sat holding hands, teasing and kissing each other in a fond way, cocooned in our own private world of happiness. Unfortunately, our laughter and badinage attracted some attention in the pit, and from a Morning Post critic who, unbeknown to us, was present. The following morning we read a full description of our flirtatious behaviour in the paper.

  Her Grace tapt his chin, he seized her by the muff. For the play was all nonsense, the singing all stuff.

  ‘Stuff and nonsense to him too,’ said the Duke. ‘Can they not allow us to be simply happy together, as other couples are?’


  ‘They will grow tired, if we ignore them,’ I assured him, hoping it was true.

  We would walk through Bond Street and St James’s arm in arm, determinedly oblivious to passing stares. And then we would read in the press the next day:

  The conduct of a certain pair, in their journey to and from the neighbourhood of Richmond, is the daily occasion of a blush in everything on that road except the mile-stones. Her Grace bearing her new dignities with becoming indifference.

  I hated them calling me such names, to which I had no pretensions whatsoever. But such titles as ‘Her Grace’ and ‘the new Duchess’ fell into common use. And the tales fabricated about me now included the fiction that messages must only be brought to me by my own servants, that they were expected to dip a curtsey and say: ‘Your Grace’s carriage is ready,’ or ‘Will Your Grace have your bed warmed tonight?’ And even, ‘Your Grace’s tailor waits below to take the measure of a pair of breeches for Little Pickle.’

  Despite their wit they were deeply hurtful. ‘Surely it is common knowledge that I do not preen and flatter myself. I have always lived a quiet, modest life, content to work hard and bring up my children.’

  ‘Pay no attention, dearest, they are but names,’ the Duke comforted me. ‘I am constantly referred to as the royal tar, warned to buffet the storm, give a broadside, or close the hatches, not to mention apparently skimming your profits. But what does it signify? Am I not the happiest of men?’

  And I kissed him, assuring him that I was likewise the happiest of women. ‘I will listen no more to their scurrilous gossip.’

  The next morning came this, which was hard to ignore:

  Mrs Jordan’s family will present a curious assemblage of infants. Irish, Scotch, and English, and probably Princes and Princesses.

  ‘And look at this,’ I said at breakfast one morning. ‘They say my carriage, for which I apparently requested the crest of a seagull for the panels, is attended by three footmen, and, as I couldn’t have scarlet and gold, I opted for green and silver in abundance.’