Jean Plaidy - Goddess of the Green Room

Sheridan was not only a theatre manager, he was a politician. Did this play reflect his own feelings? Impossible! There wasn’t a bigger gambler in the country unless it was the Prince of Wales. They had both been schooled in the art by Charles James Fox who had gambled several fortunes away. Sheridan was in debt – up to his eyes. He had reformed? Was it the case of the devil being sick and wanting to be a saint?

Whatever it was they were not having plays against gambling.

When Dorothy went into her dressing room after rehearsal there was a letter propped up on her dressing table.

She opened it and read: ‘Damn Nobody or you will be damned.’

She took it at once to Sheridan who shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re not the only one who has such a letter. We’re all getting them.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Do. We’re in production. We can’t take any notice of lunatics like this.’

‘Lunatics can wreck a performance.’

He laid his hand on her shoulder.

‘We’ll have a full house,’ he said with a grin.

But she was afraid. She was immediately sensitive to the mood of an audience and hostility unnerved her. It had always been so. She lacked the absolute confidence of Sarah Siddons who could go on and forget everything but the magnificence of Sarah. Dorothy must have a friendly audience, an audience who loved her.

‘I don’t look forward to it,’ she said; and began to brood on it.

She stayed in London and did not go down to Petersham Lodge. The Duke wrote to her. He had expected her, he said with mild reproach.

She wrote and told him that she was concerned about Nobody and she felt she would be a hot-tempered irritable impossible-to-love creature, so she preferred to stay away. She knew the babies were well cared for, with him and the nurses.

She went to Hester to talk to her about it. It did not matter if she was irritated with Hester.

Hester thought she should make some excuse not to play. ‘After all,’ said Hester, ‘you could plead sickness.’

‘I could, but I keep thinking of that woman. I could see what it means to her. She wants this play to go on. She longs to be some sort of pioneer. It’s a kind of expiation for the past.’

Hester shrugged her shoulders. ‘The Prince of Wales didn’t feel the same need for repentance and he was the one who deserted her.’

‘But she threatened to publish his letters and this settlement was arranged. One would feel ashamed of that. I was sorry for her. She was so obviously living a part. I think she suffers a great deal in her private thoughts and that is why she plays this part… unconsciously.’

‘Some people can’t stop acting.’

‘I can’t get her out of my mind.’

Hester looked at her sharply. ‘Is all well between you and the Duke?’

‘Of course.’

Hester did not speak for some time but Dorothy knew what she was thinking. How long would it last? Already it had lasted longer than the affair between the Prince of Wales and Perdita. It was a different sort of relationship. Cosy, almost respectable. They already had two little boys and the Duke doted on them. He was meant to be a father and she a mother.

It is different… quite different, thought Dorothy.

She said resolutely: ‘No matter what happens, I shall play my part.’

When she returned to the theatre she learned that Elizabeth Farren had decided to give up her part in Nobody. A friend of hers had been libelled in it and she could naturally not give her support of it. In fact her lover, the Earl of Derby, had warned her that there would be trouble and she must not play.

As the first night of Nobody grew nearer Dorothy grew more and more nervous.

William called at Somerset Street in the morning of the day Nobody was to open.

‘We hoped you would come to Petersham Lodge,’ he told her coolly. ‘George was most disappointed.’

‘Darling George! Did you explain to him that I was so busy rehearsing?’

‘I did not. Do you think he would have understood? But he might have if I’d told him that you had been to see the girls.’

‘Understood?’ she stammered.

‘That you had time for the girls but not for the boys.’

‘But that is absurd.’ The terrors of the coming night were like dragons closing in on her, breathing fire and wrath; and she had to face them. She would forget her lines. She knew she would. It was going to be a nightmare; and her family for whom she was suffering all this, because always at the back of her mind was the need for money, were carping because she needed a little respite, and had wanted to talk things over with her sister – herself an actress who had known the terrors of going on a stage when one was overcome with fright.

‘That be damned,’ said William. ‘It’s a truth. Did you not go to see them?’

‘I went to see Hester to talk about this… this nightmare of a Nobody. And if you can’t understand what I’m going through now I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anybody.’

‘Is that dismissal?’

‘If you have come to reproach me about something of which you are entirely ignorant, yes.’

‘I know something of the stage.’

‘The deck of the Pegasus is somewhat different from Drury Lane.’

Her face was flushed and angry. He had never seen her like this before.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Go to your precious girls and leave the boys to me.’

With that he left her.

She could not believe it. It was the first time he had spoken to her in that way. She thought: It was my fault. I lost my temper – and I always had an Irish temper. I wish I’d never heard of Nobody. That woman had been like a sinister prophetess sitting with her rouge and white lead covering her wrinkles and those bows and ribbons which were too young for her.

From the moment she had seen Perdita Robinson the doubts and fears had come – and not only for the play. She passed the day in a state of nervous tension; and was almost glad when it was time to go to the theatre.

There she found the atmosphere explosive.

Sheridan was prepared for trouble. The house was full but several employees from the gambling houses were there and clearly they had come for a purpose.

As soon as the curtain rose and the play started the audience made its disapproval clear. Rotten fruit was thrown on the stage. Even the fine ladies hissed behind their fans, and comments – derisive and abusive – were shouted at the players.

Dorothy struggled through. It can’t last forever, she kept telling herself. This nightmare will end.

She was thankful for the support of her fellow actors on that night. Whatever petty rivalries took place behind the scenes once they were in action they were real professionals. They acted as though nothing was happening. She was grateful to them on that night.

How they stumbled through to the end, she was not sure, but they did; and the curtain fell to a storm of hissing and booing.

Poor Mrs Robinson, thought Dorothy, this is the end of Nobody.

She felt sick and ill. Perhaps she had acted too soon after her confinement. Perhaps this life she was living was too much for her. The life of a popular actress was enough in itself; one could not be the mistress of an exacting prince and the mother of young children at the same time. Perhaps she should retire. As Perdita Robinson had?

Only if a woman had a docile partner – like Will Siddons for instance – could one combine such careers as that of prominent actress and prince’s mistress.

Is this the beginning of the end? she asked herself; and she remembered his face cold, almost hating, as he had reminded her that she had been to see the girls.

She opened her dressing room door and as she entered someone stepped from the shadows and held her.

‘William!’

‘Of course I came,’ he said. ‘That dreadful play! The audience was in a nasty mood.’

‘You were out there?’

‘No! I was back-stage. I was going to get on to that stage and carry you off if anything started.’

She felt limp with relief and happiness.

‘Oh, William… and I feared…’

‘There is nothing to fear,’ he said.

‘But you thought…’

‘Jealous,’ he said. ‘Jealous fool, that is your William.’

It was over. Sheridan put on Nobody for the two following nights; the audience were hostile. On the third night he ran down the curtain on Nobody for the last time.

Dorothy was happy.

There was no rift. Everything was as it had been in the beginning between her and William. But she must remember that there must be no jealousy between her two families. She wished that she could have had them under one roof. But although she assured herself that William loved her and wished to give her everything she desired, that was something for which she dared not ask.

SHE WAITED FOR William to suggest that she give up the theatre, but he did not.

He expressed a great interest in all her parts; and although this necessitated her often staying in London while he, with the boys, was at Petersham, he accepted this too.

The money she earned was important. She was commanding the highest salary of any living actress; and always in her mind was the household presided over by Hester. She could not ask William’s support for the girls, particularly now that they had their own family. His delight in the boys was great; and although he raised no objection to her seeing the girls and even taking the boys to visit them and allowing the girls to come now and then to Petersham, it was obvious that he would not have wished them to be under the same roof.