Lady of Passion Read online

  I blamed his mistress, this Elinor who held Papa in such fatal fascination. He was, I believed, the hapless slave of a young and artful woman. Were men always so fickle? My own pain was as deeply felt as Mama’s, and from that moment I believe every event of my life has more or less been marked by the progressive evils of a too acute sensibility.

  And so our new life in London began. I attended a young ladies seminary in Chelsea, where I was instructed by a Meribah Lorrington. She was the most accomplished and extraordinary woman I ever had the good fortune to meet, being conversant in Latin, French and Italian, a brilliant arithmetician and knowledgeable on astronomy, if something of an eccentric. Unfortunately, she had one sad failing. She was a martyr to drink, in spite of her father being a stern Anabaptist.

  When not intoxicated, Mrs Lorrington would delight in her role of teacher, having only a small class of five or six pupils. It soon became clear that I was a particular favourite.

  ‘You are my little friend,’ she would say. ‘What would I do without you when I am so lonely, having lost my beloved husband?’

  ‘I shall always be your friend,’ I told her, as I had grown quite fond of her, and would listen with avid attention to her every word.

  A year went by under her care, in which I applied myself rigorously to my studies. I was a sensitive, rather dreamy child with a somewhat melancholic imagination. I put this down to the fact that I was born on a stormy night in November 1757, at Minster House in Bristol within the shadow of an Augustinian monastery, where once the prior had lived. My mother would often tell of how the wind had whistled round the dark pinnacles of the minster tower, the rain beating in torrents against the casements of her chamber on the night she gave birth. The tempest has dogged my footsteps ever since.

  As the house even then was sinking into decay, we eventually moved to a far grander abode, but in those early years I loved to hear the melody of the bells, a rhythm that became very much a part of my soul. As was the music of the organ and choir. I would often creep down the winding stair, or crouch under the eagle lectern to listen.

  ‘Why do you not play with your brothers on the green?’ Mama would ask.

  ‘I like the music better,’ I would stubbornly declare, although my greatest love was poetry. I liked to read the epitaphs and inscriptions on the many tombs and monuments, which was what led me into the world of verse.

  At the ladies seminary, Mrs Lorrington encouraged this passion, and my love of books, and would often read to me after school hours. It was she who first inspired me to put pen to paper. I would happily show her my early attempts at romantic verse, knowing she would applaud these juvenile efforts, where I might quail at showing them to Mama for fear of making her blush.

  Every Sunday evening I would visit my mother at her lodgings, where we would take tea together, and I would tell her of my week’s activities. She was often tearful, greatly missing my company, and filled with guilt over the way our family life had disintegrated. Sometimes other guests would be present. On one occasion a friend of my father’s called to offer his compliments. He was a captain in the British navy, and I could tell by the way he kept glancing my way, that he was quite taken with me.

  ‘What a delightful daughter you have, Mrs Darby.’

  ‘She is most talented,’ my mother proudly agreed. ‘Pass the captain another cake, dearest,’ she instructed me.

  I did so, struggling to suppress a shudder as I felt his fingers deliberately brush against mine.

  ‘I am beginning to wish that I was not shortly off to sea, as I would very much like to become better acquainted with your beautiful daughter.’

  Mama smiled, casting me a sideways glance of pleasure indicating I should be flattered by such compliments. At that time I was barely aware of my own burgeoning beauty. Tall and olive skinned, like my father, I thought of myself as swarthy, with curly, auburn hair, somewhat darker than my brothers. My eyes were blue, and rather too large for my small, delicate features. I was at that gawky, awkward age, neither woman nor child. The captain, however, clearly found something in my appearance to please him, for he went on to make the most astonishing proposition.

  ‘Madam, perhaps when I return from my expedition I may call again, and if the young lady is still unattached at that time, you will permit me to declare myself.’

  Mama was so startled she very nearly choked on her tea. ‘Sir,’ she spluttered. ‘Have you any notion how old my daughter is?’

  He considered me in all seriousness. ‘Sixteen, seventeen?’

  ‘She is not quite thirteen.’

  His jaw dropped. ‘You jest, madam.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. She is admittedly quite mature for her age, but a child still. Tell him your birth date, Mary dear.’

  When I politely obliged, now struggling to stifle my giggles, he almost dropped his cup and saucer in his eagerness to depart, and fled the room flushed with embarrassment. Sadly, a few months later we heard that his ship had foundered at sea, and this gallant officer perished.

  For me the incident was significant in that it was my first taste of my burgeoning beauty, which was to chart my life’s path. I began to notice how young men would gawp at me, or shyly blush if I returned their adoring gaze. Fortunately, my sheltered background and strictures set by a dominant father, albeit an absent one, maintained my innocence. I was, as Mama had said, still a child.

  Two months later my life was again torn apart when Mrs Lorrington was obliged to close her school, partly from lack of funds to maintain it, and partly I suspect, because of her peculiar addictions. I was sent instead to a less outlandish establishment in Battersea. A boarding school run by the very sensible Mrs Leigh. I might have been happy here, were it not for my father’s neglect. The money he had intermittently paid ceased altogether, and my mother was obliged to remove me. Fortunately, my brother George was allowed to remain under the care of the Reverend Gore, at Chelsea.

  ‘What am I to do now?’ I cried, mortified by the loss of my education, the access to the books and verse which were so essential to my soul.

  ‘I am sure your papa will resolve the situation, given time,’ my distressed mother insisted, with a faith I knew she did not entirely feel. I waited with growing impatience for the matter to be resolved, but weeks went by and no money came. The future looked grim.

  Undeterred, and with a rod of steel in her character that I could only admire, Mama came to a decision. ‘We can wait no longer. You have been properly and most tenderly brought up, well educated, yet you are without the advantage of fortune to which you had every reason to expect would be yours. In the circumstances, therefore, we have no choice but to provide our own.’

  How I adored her. As cheerful as she was naïve, my mother was the most inoffensive of women with not a streak of ill temper in her. If she had a fault it was to spoil her children, whom she saw as fatherless and as bereft and lonely as herself. The loss of her security, and the way she had been abandoned by the man she had loved most dear, made the deepest impression upon me. My heart was filled with pity and love for her. Never, I thought, will I allow any man to treat me with such callousness.

  This decision having been made, Mama rented a house in Little Chelsea, and managed to fit it out as a young ladies’ boarding school at modest cost, then set about hiring assistants.

  ‘You, Mary, shall assist by teaching English to the youngest girls.’

  ‘But Mama,’ I protested. ‘I am but fourteen and have not yet finished my own education.’

  ‘I am quite certain that you will do well at the task.’

  In truth I found it exciting to be permitted to select passages for my young pupils to learn. I would often read my favourite verses to them, and suitably moral lessons on saints’ days and Sunday evenings, recalling those I had memorised as a child. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my passion for poetry with the little ones, and didn’t mind in the least having to supervise them at their toilette, and see that they were properly dressed for their lesson
s or church.

  One evening, with the children in bed and my mother visiting a friend, I was left in sole charge and sat reading by the light of the window. From time to time I would glance out and, quite by chance, saw a poor beggar-woman in the street. She was wandering recklessly about, her dress all torn and filthy, her face hidden beneath a tatty old bonnet so that it was difficult to judge her age. But she seemed to be in dire danger of being run over by passing carriages. Taking pity on her sorry state, I went out to see if I could be of assistance. I smelt the gin on her breath, but in pity slipped a few coins in her pocket, politely enquiring if I could be of any further help. She quickly grasped my hand and pressed it to her lips.

  ‘Sweet girl, you are still the angel I ever knew!’

  I recognised the voice instantly, and, tilting back her bonnet, looked into a pair of all-too-familiar dark eyes. ‘Mrs Lorrington, can it truly be you?’

  It was indeed my old teacher, and my heart went out to her to see such a proud, well-educated woman the worse for drink. I helped her into the house, supporting her as she half stumbled up the steps and offered her the facilities to bathe, gave her food and clothing. But the moment she had finished the meal, she insisted on leaving.

  ‘There is really no need for you to go. We have a spare bed and you are most welcome to stay.’

  ‘You are as ever, most generous, child, but I have no wish to be a burden upon your dear mother.’

  ‘You would be no burden, Mrs Lorrington. This is a school, and Mama would readily offer you employment, I am sure of it. You would have no need then to resort to the evils of the bottle ever again.’

  She gazed upon me with a rare sadness in her eyes. ‘Would that were true, but I fear I’d be of little use to her. I thank you for the supper, and bid you goodnight.’ So saying she pulled open the door and stepped out into the night.

  ‘You will call again, will you not, now that you know where we are, and perhaps meet Mama?’

  ‘It would be my pleasure.’

  Somehow I sensed her words to be insincere. ‘At least tell me where I can find you?’ I cried, but she hurried away without a backward glance, disappearing into the darkness. I never saw her again. I heard later that she ended her days in the workhouse. What a wretched conclusion for so accomplished a woman! Nothing of the sort, I vowed, would ever happen to me. I took this lesson to heart and I doubt I have touched a drop of alcohol from that day to this.

  Papa arrived home not many weeks later, having run into fresh problems with his latest project. He was shocked to discover his wife had become entirely independent.

  ‘How dare you embarrass me in this way?’ he roared. ‘Have I not enough to contend with, being robbed of thousand of pounds’ worth of seal skins that were ready for market, and accused of illegally employing French fishermen, without my own wife turning against me?’

  ‘If I am still your wife, it is in name only,’ my mother valiantly responded. ‘How did you expect us to survive once you stopped sending us money? Were we to be left to starve?’

  ‘You do not know the meaning of the word,’ he scorned.

  ‘Perhaps not, but you should be grateful for my inventiveness, and your own daughter’s skills, not castigate us for them.’

  ‘You are nothing but a trial to me, woman, and I have trials enough. The military seized my equipment and I am now obliged to beg the Board of Trade for compensation. I certainly need no further humiliation from my own wife. You have wilfully tarnished my reputation by publicly revealing to the entire world your unprotected situation, as if you were an impoverished widow.’

  ‘It is no fault of mine that I have no protection, and I might as well be a widow for all the use you are as a husband,’ she sobbed, the tears rolling down her cheeks. But I could see she was wasting her breath. Within a very short time my father had closed our little school, and dismissed all the pupils.

  Mama found us lodgings in Marylebone, while my father set up home with his mistress in Green Street, Grosvenor Square, a sorry state of affairs so far as I was concerned. He would call upon us from time to time, but the money he provided by way of support was scanty as he was already heavily involved in yet another new venture to the Labrador coast.

  My mother endured this latest blow to her fortunes with the patience of conscious rectitude, while my own sense of loyalty was torn between the two of them. Much as I loathed the way Nicholas Darby had destroyed my mother’s life, leaving her to largely fend for herself, he was still my father and I loved him. I took the opportunity to call upon him regularly, for I guessed he would not remain long in London. We would walk together in the fields near his home, and he freely confessed to me the great attraction he felt for Elinor.

  ‘You complain that Mama has humiliated you, yet you daily destroy her dignity by openly living with your mistress. How can you justify such hypocrisy, Papa?’

  ‘I cannot deny that I am besotted with her. Elinor is everything to me.’

  ‘And what of us, your family? Do we mean nothing?’ The hurt I felt inside, as a result of my father’s callousness, cut deep into my sensitive heart.

  ‘You will ever be dear to me, but we cannot choose whom we love. It is something that simply happens to us, often against our wishes.’

  I was to remember these prophetic words many years later when yet another man betrayed me.

  One morning we called upon the Earl of Northington. He was one of my father’s patrons, residing in Berkeley Square. Papa presented me as the god-daughter of the late Lord Northington, consequently we were received with polite attention. I was fascinated by his lordship’s handsome good looks, being quite the young rake, and, as a politician, a man of some influence. He invited my father to dine with him a few days later in order to further discuss their business. I was not included in the party as I was merely a young girl of fourteen, but he was most civil towards me, and flatteringly gallant. Thereafter I became a frequent visitor to the house, where I was ever certain of a welcome.

  Shortly after that, Father again left for America, although not without first issuing a stern injunction to my mother. ‘Take care that no dishonour falls upon my daughter. If she is not safe at my return I will annihilate you!’

  I saw Mama tremble, even as she stoutly responded. ‘As if I would allow such a thing to happen. I think you may rely upon my good sense to properly protect my own daughter.’

  ‘Let us hope so, or you will live to rue the day you ever crossed me.’

  Once he had gone, she breathed a sigh of relief and instantly began planning to move us all to Southampton Buildings in Chancery Lane.

  ‘Must we move yet again, Mama?’ I complained, in my overly dramatic way. What a spoiled child I still was.

  ‘Yes, dearest, I am placing myself under the protection of a lawyer, Samuel Cox.’

  I turned this over rather crossly in my mind. ‘Why? Is he offering you legal help in some regard?’

  ‘Indeed, if that should ever become necessary, he most certainly would. But a woman is much more secure with a man to look out for her,’ Mama declared, blushing slightly.

  I dared not enquire further into the nature of their relationship, being old enough to understand that a man offering protection to a woman often involved sexual favours. I certainly had no wish to consider such matters with regard to my own mother. She was happy at last, which was all that mattered. But I would never forgive my father for deserting us.

  My education was to be finished at Oxford House, and it was here that my talents finally flourished. The governess, a Mrs Hervey, expressed great admiration over my facility for dramatic recitation. And as my dancing teacher, John Hussey, was at that time ballet master at Covent Garden Theatre, he generously offered to procure me an audition. I was bursting with excitement. The dream of treading the boards had been growing in me ever since the school visit to see King Lear with the Misses More. Now it looked as if it might actually happen. All I needed was my mother’s consent, which even at my most optimistic I
realised would be hard to come by.

  ‘We wondered if perhaps you would allow Mary to try for the stage,’ Mrs Hervey politely asked, having called at my home specifically to make this request.

  Mama started, shocked by the very idea. ‘My daughter, upon the stage?’ she cried. ‘Never!’

  ‘It is true that actresses do not generally have a good reputation,’ that good lady admitted. ‘However, there are many examples of respectable females who, even in that most perilous of professions, have preserved an unspotted fame. Would you at least permit Mary the opportunity of an audition, to consult some master of the art as to her capability?’

  ‘Indeed not! Her father has left very firm instructions that our daughter must be most carefully protected.’

  Mrs Hervey used every persuasion she could think of, but Mama was adamant that she would never permit such a thing. Regretfully, my governess took her leave. I at once turned upon Mama in a lather of childish temper.

  ‘How can you be so selfish? You know full well that this latest expedition of Papa’s will thrive no better than the others. How am I to make my way in the world without a fortune, and no means of earning a living? Tell me that! Do you wish me to spend my entire days as a governess, or companion to some doughty old lady? There is money to be made in the theatre, and I believe I may have a talent for acting.’

  ‘And I have made my feelings on this matter very plain, Mary. I dare not cross your father. This discussion is closed.’

  But I did not allow it to be closed. In the coming days I constantly returned to the subject: nagging, pleading, begging my mother, even resorting to tears and tantrums as young girls are apt to do. At last I wore down her arguments and managed to touch her soft heart. An audition was duly arranged for me at Covent Garden Theatre.

  Sad to say it proved to be a disaster. I gave a rendition of one of Jane Shore’s speeches from the tragedy of that name by Nicholas Rowe. But what did I, a girl of fourteen, understand about the emotions of a royal mistress? I was so devastated at the thought that I’d made a complete fool of myself, I cried for hours into my pillow.