the panel. He must be cashiered for calumny at least.”
My brother was silent an interval. Then he sighed. “I am too simple a man for prognostication. Chessyre is fled, Jane; and what Chessyre intends for the morrow must remain in question.”
I sipped the last of my chocolate. “We ought, nonetheless, to take measures against the worst that Chessyre might do.”
“Your French surgeon?” Frank cocked his head. “Very well. I shall go this morning to Wool House and petition Mr. Hill for the loan of his patient.”
“Will Admiral Bertie consent?”
“Admiral Bertie is so adamant in his refusal to credit any Frenchman of disinterested good, that he warns me soundly to be on my guard, and thinks it very likely your surgeon shall not receive a hearing before Seagrave's court. We can but try.”
I set aside my breakfast plate without further ado. “Then I shall accompany you.”
“There is not the slightest need.”
“On the contrary,” I retorted. “I have been ordered by Martha to procure a box for the theatre tonight; and Wool House lies in my way. You cannot thwart me in this, Fly. Mrs. Jordan is to play.”2
“Mrs. Jordan!” he cried. “And poor Mary has not seen the inside of a theatre in weeks. It was always her chief delight I secured the promise of her affection,
you know, during the interval of a play at Ramsgate; and must always accord the theatre my heartfelt gratitude.”
“Then it is decided- You shall make another couple of our party, and I shall walk out with you now in the direction of French Street. I only stay to discover my bonnet.”
“I hope Mary may not swoon,” Frank added. “The crush, you know, is likely to be fearful if Mrs. Jordan is to play.”
“Let her swoon, and welcome!” I said in exasperation. “A lady in an interesting condition has so few opportunities to shine in public; and Mary, in fainting charmingly, might divert the attention of all assembled from a royal mistress. Think what delights she shall have in store! A play, and a personal act of considerable distinction! When one is grown old, and sources of satisfaction are few, it is much to relive one's youth in recounting such a tale.”
1Nunnery was the cant term for a bordello. Its proprietor was called an “abbess.”—Editor's note.
2Dorothea Jordan was one of the most accomplished comic actresses of the late Georgian period, a regular performer at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. For many years the mistress of William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV), she bore him ten children before their parting in 1811.—Editor's note.
Chapter 9
Scenes Played in French Street
25 February 1807,
cont.
~
I MOUNTED THE STEPS TOWARDS MY ROOM IN SEARCH OF my. bonnet, a parcel clutched to my breast. Martha was in the act of descending, and the staircase being narrow, one of us must be forced to give way. I elected the office, and pressed myself flat against the wall.
“I have ordered of Mrs. Davies a good dinner,” she told me, “and begged that it might be early, on account of Mrs. Jordan. I do hope we may secure good seats! Do you think that your mother might be persuaded to make another of the party?”
“I do not think wild dogs could keep her from French Street. It is exactly the sort of amusement calculated to drive her from her bed.”
“She has been very low,” Martha mused, “but I cannot make out any symptoms of decline. Perhaps a change of season, coupled with a change of domicile, will offer amendment.”
“Was she very pitiful when you begged admittance this morning?
“I counted only three sighs and one dab at the eyes,” Martha replied, “but you know that talk of an early dinner must always raise her spirits.”
“True. Had I recollected the fact earlier, we all might have spent the winter months in tolerable good humour.”
I have known Martha Lloyd since I was fourteen. It was in 1789 that her mother, a clergyman's widow, settled in Deane and rented from my father the neglected parsonage; and though the Lloyds very soon removed again, to Ibthorp, the bond of our friendship endured. It is true, as Mary says, that Martha is ten years my senior, and might be supposed to have found a better companion in a girl closer to her own age; but there has hardly been a time when Martha and I did not share a good joke, or chatter about our acquaintance, or dispose of our friends in marriages they should never have thought of for themselves. Martha