‘Oh that’s all over and done with,’ said Dorothy.
‘I only want one thing to complete my happiness,’ said Grace, ‘and that is to see you nicely settled and respectably married.’
‘Do you think I should have time for a husband with all the new parts that are coming along for me?’ demanded Dorothy.
‘A woman always has time for a husband. And I want a nice steady one for you.’
‘Someone mild as milk like Will Siddons?’
‘Ah, she has done very well. Fame and respectability. What more could an actress ask for?’
‘Which reminds me,’ said Dorothy with a laugh. ‘I have to make the most of it while Sarah gets her respectable child respectably brought into the world. I’m to have the part of Matilda in that odd play Richard Cœur de Lion. I think I can make something of that.’
Dorothy lured the talk back to the theatre and her future parts which was so much more comfortable than the subject of marriage. She could never think of it without recalling that nightmare with Daly and the rather humiliating position in which George Inchbald had put her.
She would leave men alone. Parts pleased her more.
In December of that year, two months after Dorothy’s first appearance at Drury Lane, the great comedy actress Kitty Clive died. It seemed significant; a star had set and a new one had arisen to take her place; that new one was Dorothy Jordan, for so had Dorothy’s fame grown that people had already begun to compare her with Kitty Clive and Peg Woffington.
And by that time she had met Richard Ford.
Her meeting with this young man was momentous for in a very short time he had made her change her opinions about his sex. He was different from any man she had hitherto known – young, eager and passionate; he wanted above everything else, he declared, to please her, to make her happy; and that would from henceforth be his main purpose in life. Shortly after their first meeting he told her he had made up his mind to marry her.
She reminded him of her career. It was not easy for an actress to lead a married life. Why not? he wanted to know. So many of them did. Look at the great Siddons herself.
‘And see how she had to leave the theatre to a rival while she retires to have her babies.’
‘She’ll come back as popular as ever.’
But she was not really arguing against marriage. She only wanted to be sure of Richard. Her experiences with Daly and George Inchbald had made her very wary. And as Richard broke down all her arguments against it she gave herself up to the luxury of contemplating it. She thought of him as a father to Frances – who could be a better? He was gentle and kind, all that Frances’s own father was not. She thought of other children she would have, for she knew that once she had made her family financially secure she would love to add to it. Frances born in such bitter circumstances was very dear to her; how joyful she would be to have children of a happy union! There was her mother, who longed for one thing to complete her contentment: Dorothy’s marriage.
Yet she wished to wait for a while. I must be absolutely sure, she told herself. Moreover, in spite of her recent success did she stand firmly enough in her new position? The people were flocking to see her, but she had formidable rivals and once Sarah came back the battle to hold her place would begin in earnest.
They would wait for a little while and in the meantime tell no one. There was too much gossip in the theatre already; she had many enemies who would seek to blacken her character; and if her mother knew of Richard’s intentions she would undoubtedly attempt to hustle them into marriage.
Richard was the son of Dr James Ford, a co-shareholder in Drury Lane Theatre with Richard Sheridan, though he took no part in the running of the theatre; for him it was purely a business adventure. He was rich, a court physician and on friendly terms with the royal family, and he had invested a large sum of money in the theatre to help the ever-impecunious Sheridan. Because of his father’s position Richard came and went as he pleased while he himself trained for the bar.
Whenever Dorothy played he was at the theatre and as when she was on stage he never took his eyes from her, it was soon common knowledge that he was mightily taken with her. Then so were many others. Even the Duke of Norfolk came to see her play and showed his appreciation.
But Dorothy refused to dally with any. She was an actress, she reminded them; she needed to devote herself to her work. Life was a constant round of rehearsals and learning new parts.
Not yet, was her continual excuse. ‘First I must make sure that I’ve come to stay.’
She was to play Miss Hoyden in A Trip to Scarborough, a version of Vanburgh’s The Relapse which Sheridan had arranged for his theatre. This part was the sort at which she could excel – the bouncing young woman just out of the nursery, without social graces, wayward, full of high spirits. It was a similar part to that of Priscilla Tomboy in The Romp.
She expected to enhance her reputation in this role and put everything else from her mind.
As soon as she stepped on the stage in her scanty costume, purposely not fitting and falling from her shoulders, and her hair in very charming disorder under a rakish cap, she was hailed with delight.
Sheridan watching from the back of the theatre was certain in that moment – although he assured King that he had never had a doubt before – that Dorothy was going to be one of the biggest draws they had ever had.
It was not the tradition of the London theatre to play comedy all the time. Tragedy had been more acceptable and the great Sarah herself was a confirmation of this. ‘Ask anyone,’ said Tom King to Sheridan, ‘who is the greatest actress on the boards today and the answer is Sarah Siddons. People will always come to see Sarah throw herself about in her agony and declaim disaster in that magnificent voice of hers. It’ll go on when they’re sick to death of a young hoyden romping round the stage.’
King was not as enamoured as Sheridan with the newcomer. He thought her rise had been far too rapid. She was young and had an appeal, he knew; but an actress must act. She couldn’t rely on her youth because it was a stuff that did not endure, as the bard told them; as for her beauty that was equally perishable. If the Jordan was going to prove her worth she would have to act tragedy as well as comedy.
Sheridan was persuaded and Dorothy was dismayed when she was told she must play Imogen in Cymbeline.
She could not say she would not. She was not in the position to do that. She could not declare her inability to play the part, for that was something an actress must never do.
She would do Imogen, but, she pleaded with Sheridan, could she not do Priscilla Tomboy in The Romp afterwards? The public would be in a serious mood and there was nothing it liked better than to go home in a merry one. When the curtain had fallen on Cymbeline, let it rise again on The Romp, which would give them good measure for money.
Sheridan knew his actress and applauded her energy. He had given way to King on this matter of Cymbeline and now he was going to give way to Dorothy. So The Romp followed Cymbeline – and what a stroke of luck that it did! Her performance as Imogen was indifferent. How could it be otherwise when her heart was not in it; she was not made for tragedy. She was a comedienne. She knew it. The audience must know it and accept her as such.
The audience, a little depressed to see their new idol scarcely at her best, were soon laughing at the antics of Miss Tomboy who threw herself into the part with even more verve than usual. Desperately she had to eradicate the impression of Imogen with Priscilla Tomboy; and she did. Next morning the papers were full of the performance of Mrs Jordan in The Romp.