The Duchess of Drury Lane

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Now it is you who must rest, my darling,’ I told him, enjoying fussing over him for a change.

  Pitt, however, was firmly against the Duke taking part, even after he was fit, and despite the fact that several of his brothers were given roles. William was incensed.

  ‘The Prime Minister has objected to the criticisms I made about the war in the House of Lords, simply because I said we should negotiate peace at the earliest opportunity. I strongly believe that the war effort should be confined as far as possible to naval operations. In response Pitt said that he could not have a political admiral. Yet I wish to serve my country. What is so wrong in that?’

  I looked at his outraged expression, thinking how well meaning he was, how passionate and caring, yet also perhaps a little naïve. ‘But as you don’t agree with the war, you can surely see Pitt’s point of view.’

  ‘I do see his point of view, but I distrust Pitt’s policy of military intervention on the Continent. Events will prove me right, I’m sure of it. I tell you, Dora, if ever, unfortunately for this country, I should by providence be commanded to wear the crown, my greatest desire would be to be considered a peaceful monarch, and to study the true interests of Great Britain by attending to the extension of its commerce and consequently to the increase of the navy.’

  I made no response to this comment, for were that occasion ever to arise, it would be the end of our relationship. Mistresses did not become queens, even if they were not an actress with three children by two different fathers.

  I was also pregnant again, but he gave no thought either to the implication of that outcome for his unborn child.

  Events did, however, as William had predicted, prove him right when the British army under the leadership of the Duke of York were defeated at Hondschoote, and a few weeks later the allied army was beaten at Wattignies. Worse news came when we received word that the French King and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, had both been executed, their heads cut from their bodies.

  I was quite beside myself with horror. ‘I never imagined such a thing could happen,’ I cried.

  ‘It is indeed a barbarous and inhuman murder, but it could not possibly happen here, my love.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘The British are not like the French, we are far too pragmatic to start a revolution. Fate, I am sorry to say, seems unfavourable to us on the Continent, and every day convinces me more and more of the propriety of my objections to the war in that quarter.’

  Out of respect for the French royal family, Kemble closed the Haymarket for the day, but Sheridan reacted badly to the gesture. ‘Am I not struggling enough over financing the building of the new theatre at Drury Lane? It’s costing me a small fortune. I cannot afford to miss a single day’s trade, and certainly not for the French.’

  Their disputes rumbled on, as always, but I was too busy with rehearsals, and taking extreme care over the child I was carrying, to concern myself too much with theatre politics. I was, however, aware that Sheridan was heavily involved in calls for parliamentary reform, determined to avoid a similar threat here to that in France. And, like William, hard-pressed as he was for cash, yet he could not resist putting on a bet that reform would pass into law within two years. I feared he would lose his money.

  His long face with its downward sloping eyes and small pinched mouth looked more mournful than ever, and I did feel most dreadfully sorry for him as Elizabeth, his wife, had recently died of consumption. To everyone’s astonishment this much-betrayed and once innocent woman had given birth to a daughter that was not her husband’s, only shortly before her death. Nevertheless, the guilt-ridden, grief-stricken Sheridan had taken the child to his heart, only to lose her too within a twelvemonth. He did find himself a new love, but she flagrantly married his late wife’s ex-lover.

  Poor Sheridan, finally being paid in kind for all his own adulterous betrayals in the past. A lesson to us all.

  The war continued but William took no part in it. The King would not permit him to go to sea, and the government refused to give him a job at the Admiralty, for which I was deeply thankful, despite his very real sense of frustration. But I wept for those two lost souls. Whatever the French King and Queen’s faults and flaws, they surely did not deserve such an end.

  And looking at my own royal prince, I silently prayed nothing of the sort would happen here, should he ever wear the crown, whether or not I was at his side.

  Twenty

  ‘. . . a young Admiral or a Pickle Duchess’

  In January of 1794 I at last gave the Duke the son he craved. We named him George FitzClarence, and had him baptized in May. The birth was long drawn out but he was a fine healthy baby. As always I recovered quite quickly and fed him myself, which I’m quite sure the society ladies of Richmond would never do. I also took some much-needed rest from the theatre, enjoying a few months’ peace to devote myself entirely to my child. I loved to walk out through the park pushing the perambulator, calling at the shops in Richmond, one of my favourites being a milliner’s shop. I liked to remember the days when I had worked in one myself as a girl of fourteen. I loved to try on hats, and they would laugh when, having done a fair imitation of a society lady admiring myself before the looking glass, I would then put baby George on my lap and change his linen.

  ‘I have never seen the like,’ marvelled the proprietor. ‘You are a mother to those children in the truest sense of the word.’

  Mother, mistress, actress, manager, sister, financier, supporter and help-meet. All things to all people, except a wife. I stifled a sigh of nostalgia for what might have been. Perhaps Sheridan had been right after all, respectable marriage for an actress was never on the cards, but I loved my Billy and had no regrets.

  In April he was made a vice-admiral, more by way of compensation as it was but an honorary position with no role attached to it. He seemed reasonably content and was often at the House of Lords, and visited his brother for hard duty drinking sessions perhaps a mite too often. He seemed content, yet I worried about his lack of purpose in life.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t grow bored when I return to work?’ I asked him.

  ‘I shall find plenty to amuse myself. Do not fret, dearest.’

  ‘Perhaps you will grow tired of my frequent absences in the end?’

  He drew me into his arms and kissed me. ‘I would never grow tired of you. So long as you come home every weekend, I am content.’

  Later that summer we enjoyed a short holiday in Brighton at Mrs Fitzherbert’s house with William and baby George, and it was here that I was privy to a conversation between the brothers.

  ‘I fear if I don’t do something, I may well lose Petersham,’ William confessed to the Prince of Wales. ‘As you know, I have it on a mortgage and I never know from one month to the next whether I can continue to maintain it.’

  ‘The King will surely never allow that to happen,’ the Prince replied, somewhat dismissively.

  ‘I think it highly likely that he will, since he refuses to settle my debts.’

  Possibly out of a sense of guilt for helping to create those debts, George later went to the King and suggested that His Majesty might ask Parliament to purchase the property, and allow William to remain as tenant. Apparently Pitt did not approve of the plan, pointing out that there were far more important matters upon which to spend the public purse.

  The King also declined to relieve his son of the mortgage, and my Billy was obliged to seek a loan elsewhere to help pay off at least some of his debts.

  ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul, that’s all I seem to do these days,’ he mourned. ‘I’ve written to Coutts stating that seven thousand pounds will settle my difficulties, and then by economy I hope to be once more free.’

  Coutts was sympathetic if not particularly optimistic, but then William had given no indication of any real understanding of the word economy, bless his dear heart.

  I returned to the stage in September when baby George was eight months old, thinking it impor
tant to keep some money coming in. I signed a new contract to appear at the new Drury Lane Theatre, which was at last open. It was utterly magnificent, if with a vast auditorium that was far too high, with poor sight-lines and difficulties with sound. Sheridan was still struggling over finances and wages were not being paid, resulting in strikes by dissatisfied staff and actors alike.

  In the time-honoured fashion of all actors I took my baby with me, sending his devoted father constant little notes that ‘your dear little boy is perfectly well. He is now very much a theatre baby.’

  By then I was already pregnant again. The Duke was, as I say, a most vigorous and passionate lover.

  The Bon Ton Magazine announced:

  Mrs Jordan is shortly expecting to produce something, whether a young Admiral or a Pickle Duchess it is impossible yet to tell.

  I continued with my career as before, staying at Somerset Street during the week and going home to Richmond every Saturday. Sheridan arranged for Elizabeth Inchbald to write a play for me. It was entitled The Wedding Day and was a great success.

  The one that followed, however, was a most dreadful flop. This was a satirical play about gambling, titled Nobody. It was written by Mary Robinson, who was most condemnatory on the subject of the nation’s favourite pastime. She had begged me to persuade Sheridan to put it on, and, perhaps foolishly, I did so, not only because she had once been mistress to the Prince of Wales, but was also a writer of some renown.

  It was a bad mistake and most of the cast cried off. Bannister and I struggled through as best we could, despite the society ladies hissing behind their fans, and the young bucks in the pits blowing their cat-calls. It was also slated by the critics and finally Mrs Robinson had the good sense to withdraw the play. It was particularly sad considering the many literary achievements this fine lady had to her credit, most of which commented on the shortcomings of high society.

  But seeing how pitiful this one-time adored and beautiful mistress of royalty had become, now suffering ridicule, ill health and neglect, brought a shiver to my spine almost as if someone had walked on my grave.

  Such worries had little time to linger, as I soon had concerns of a more personal nature when Hester sent me a frantic message to say that Fanny was ill. She was twelve by this time, and normally such a healthy child, but I went at once to Brompton to nurse her. I found her fretful and feverish, but glad to have her mother there.

  ‘I will stay with her,’ I told Hester. ‘You keep the other children away so that they don’t catch whatever it is.’

  ‘I can cope perfectly well,’ my sister snapped, in that impatient way she had. ‘Are you not in a production? We cannot risk you catching it either.’

  ‘She is my daughter. Do as I ask without argument for once, please, Hester.’

  But our efforts were in vain as Dodee did catch it. Both my girls were soon very ill indeed, although thankfully Lucy was spared, having been kept well clear. Doctor Turton, one of the royal physicians, quickly arrived on the scene, the Duke having kindly called him out.

  ‘I would say it is either putrid or scarlet fever. Either one can be extremely dangerous.’

  I felt weak with fear. ‘What must I do to make her better? Is there something you can give her?’

  ‘If she can take this bark, and keep it down, there is hope.’

  He very generously stayed with me all through that first night, which seemed endless, one which Hester and I spent wringing out cold cloths in an effort to bring down the girls’ fever. I stayed for a further three nights, so fearful for my daughters that I grew quite demented. The Duke wrote regularly, asking to meet me, but I was nervous of using the coach in case I should infect it. I offered to walk out to meet him, although not too far as I was utterly exhausted. But then I was advised by Doctor Turton not to do even that in case of spreading the contagion.

  ‘I should never forgive myself,’ I wrote to him, ‘if I was the cause of giving you any pain either of body or mind. Poor Fanny is very ill – her life depends on her being able to keep the bark on her stomach. Love and kiss my dear little boy . . . Yours ever, Dora.’

  Praise the lord, my darling Fanny slowly began to recover, as did little Dodee.

  ‘All thanks to your good nursing,’ Doctor Turton told me.

  ‘My daughter owes her life to your bark, doctor, whatever it may be.’

  In March 1795, I gave birth to another child, this time a daughter. The Duke chose to name her Sophia after his sister, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. Within the month I was back at work, taking baby with me as I was still feeding her: a necessity as money had begun to be something of a problem.

  As if I didn’t have enough to contend with, the Duke and I were sitting peacefully at home at Clarence House one afternoon when we heard a great commotion at the door.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ he cried, jumping up.

  At that moment a footman appeared, looking somewhat harassed. ‘I tried to send him away, but the fellow says he is Mrs Jordan’s brother, Your Highness.’

  And there stood George, looking very much the worse for drink, his clothes in a most disgusting state. I was utterly mortified. ‘George, what on earth are you doing here, and in such a condition?’

  The Duke very tactfully left the room while I drew George on to the couch beside me. I recoiled a little as he stank strongly of gin. ‘Please bring coffee, and a bowl of hot water,’ I asked the footman.

  ‘My lovely Maria has left me,’ George cried, his words slurred. Never had I seen him so inebriated, as he’d rarely touched a drop of drink in his life. ‘She says we have drifted apart and has taken up residence with Caulfield, the comedian.’ And my poor brother began to sob.

  ‘Oh, George, I am truly sorry.’ It was quite common in our profession for actors working in different parts of the country to see each other but rarely, and marriages frequently broke down as a result. ‘Is there no hope?’

  He shook his head in despair. ‘None. She has turned me out of the house, so I have nowhere even to live. She says I am useless, which is certainly true. I am not the actor she is, or you are, Dolly,’ he mourned, maudlin in his self-pity.

  ‘You do not have to be, George. You need only be yourself. Our mother once told me the very same thing when I was feeling low.’

  ‘I cannot. Without her, I am finished. I shall never act again.’

  ‘Nonsense, you will recover. We all must after heartbreak.’

  I was devastated to hear this news, as the last thing I wanted was to take my brother in. But despite my sisterly scolding, copious amounts of coffee, and helping him to clean the vomit from his clothes, it was clear he was a broken man. I had no alternative but to send him to Cousin Blanche in Trelethyn to recover, and agree to give him an allowance of fifty pounds a year. What else could I do? He was ever weak, like his father, yet he is my dear brother.

  I apologized profusely to the Duke, but unlike Ford, when he learned of my generosity, he uttered not one word of condemnation.

  Oh, but it was an extra burden I could have done without.

  ‘It is the most vexing thing, but I am to be obliged to marry,’ The Prince of Wales mourned to us one day. ‘Parliament has agreed to pay off my debts, which confound it have now topped six hundred thousand pounds, so long as I agree to marry a German princess.’

  ‘But I thought you were married already, to Mrs Fitzherbert?’ William said, looking puzzled. I never took part in these brotherly discussions as it did not seem to be my place. I sat silent, my head bowed over my embroidery, an occupation that kept my fingers busy when waiting backstage, or as now when I wished not to appear to be listening.

  ‘My marriage to Maria is not considered to be legal, since I never received the King’s permission. I am to be sold off to Caroline of Brunswick. How I shall face another woman in my bed after my darling Maria, I cannot imagine.’

  William laughed out loud. ‘But you never were faithful to your darling Maria. What of Lady Jersey? Is she not your mistr
ess also?’

  ‘But Maria is the wife of my heart and soul.’

  ‘I understand,’ William softly agreed. ‘As Mrs Jordan is to me,’ and he cast me a fond look which I smilingly returned.

  ‘I am told that Caroline is very like our dear sister Mary. If so, then she will be all I could wish for in a wife.’

  The Duke naturally attended his brother’s wedding on the eighth of April, 1795, and witnessed George’s revulsion at sight of his bride, who turned out to be not at all like Mary. I, of course, was not present, but he told me that the poor girl had been trussed up in a most unflattering gown at Lady Jersey’s instigation. She was presented to the Prince almost the moment she stepped ashore without even being allowed time for proper ablutions, over which the Prince was most fastidious. She was also loud and somewhat vulgar, certainly in her husband’s opinion. He went to her bed drunk and left it swearing never to return.

  The wedding celebrations continued with a ball, and I was not invited to that either, which was only to be expected, this being a family occasion, but hurtful all the same. William, however, was unaware that I watched the proceedings from the gallery where the band was playing.

  I found it excruciatingly painful to witness how closely he paid attention to the court ladies. I fear he rather enjoyed himself dancing with all the young beauties in their enchanting gowns, no doubt telling them his seafaring yarns, and basking in their enticing little smiles.

  ‘You were flirting with that woman,’ I accused him later, eyes hot with tears.

  He looked quite shocked. ‘Dearest, I did no such thing.’

  ‘I saw you with my own eyes. While I was considered unworthy of attending such a magnificent event, thereby being humiliated before everyone, you can put yourself about as you choose.’

  He looked rather annoyed by this charge, although I was quite certain he’d thoroughly enjoyed the attention. ‘How could you be humiliated when you were not even present?’ he said.