The Duchess of Drury Lane by Freda Lightfoot Read Free Book Online Page A

particularly generous legacy from your father’s estate for the boys, there would be no further help from that quarter. And we can ask nothing more of dear Cousin Blanche. She would offer you a home, without doubt, where you could safely have the baby. But there is no hope of employment in South Wales. No theatre within miles. Nevertheless, we must leave.’
    I stared at her, slightly bemused by all this reasoning. ‘Leave? How can we leave? You have already said there is nowhere for us to go.’ I, not unnaturally, was in such distress that I could no longer think clearly.
    She patted my hand. ‘I still have contacts, friends in the theatre world. We will go to my sister in Leeds. Maria is with the Tate Wilkinson company there. I worked with him many years ago, played Desdemona to his Othello in 1758 at the Smock Alley, under the management of Thomas Sheridan. Tate is a most generous-hearted man, I’m sure he will agree to give you a trial.’
    Hope fired in my breast, a fragile spark of belief that perhaps I had a future, after all. ‘Do you think he might take me on?’
    ‘We can but hope, and are you not a far more experienced actress than you were two years ago? Make no mistake,’ Mama reiterated, ‘your dear Aunt Maria will also help us. Now hurry, we must gather our few possessions together and leave at once. First thing tomorrow we will take passage to Liverpool and make our way across country, walking if necessary, to Yorkshire.’
    ‘Across the Pennine hills? But Mama, you could never manage to walk so far.’
    ‘I would walk across the fires of hell if that were necessary to save you, Dolly,’ and she kissed me, the most loving mother in the world.
    I was overwhelmed by the suddenness of this decision, and by her determination. Yet bemused as I was, and ever practical, I continued to seek out problems and difficulties. ‘I should collect my wages. We cannot leave without money.’
    She frowned a little at that, but then shrugged it away. ‘That is unfortunate, but we cannot risk asking for wages. In any case, what difference will a few more shillings make? We must make do with what I have saved in my purse.’
    ‘And all my costumes are in the dressing room at the theatre. I cannot possibly go without them! I have spent a small fortune, and Hester many hours on stitching them.’
    ‘Then you will both have to start afresh. We cannot risk your going back merely for costumes, dearest. Were Daly to guess what we are about, he would have you arrested this very night. Now call George and Hester! There is no time to be lost. We take only what we can carry and leave.’
    So it was that early the following morning we boarded a ship bound for Liverpool, albeit with mixed feelings. Delighted as I was to escape Daly’s control, the question of the debt remained worryingly unresolved.

Five
‘. . . the exquisite and plaintive melody of her voice’
    We arrived in Leeds on a wet day in early July 1782 after a gruelling journey across country. We’d begged whatever lifts we could, but walked far too many of the hundred or so miles from Liverpool, taking the better part of a month to do it. I had spent a deal of time throwing up in ditches, where we’d generally spent the night. I was sick to my stomach with fear of being followed, as well as from the effects of my pregnancy. Footsore and weary, Mama alone was in high spirits. She had astonished me by her unflagging zeal, and entertained us through the long miles with yet more anecdotes of theatre life, most of which we had heard many times before. But she did also fill us in on Tate Wilkinson.
    ‘He’s the son of a Doctor of Divinity who was once chaplain to Frederick, the previous Prince of Wales. Sadly, as Tate’s father went on to solemnize marriages in defiance of the Royal Marriages Act, the poor man was sentenced to transportation to America.’
    ‘What on earth is the Royal Marriages Act?’ I asked.
    ‘It was brought in by George III in 1772 to