‘You should have had Mrs Siddons,’ she told him.
‘Oh, no. Her Majesty the Queen thinks that a little light entertainment would be better for His Majesty. If you can amuse him, Mrs Jordan, you will please Her Majesty.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Dorothy. ‘But I’m sure a breeches part would have been more likely to.’
But the manager did not agree.
It was not until Dorothy arrived in Cheltenham that the King and Queen honoured the playhouse with their presence and from their royal box they looked down with approval at the actors, and Dorothy had the satisfaction of hearing the King laugh at her antics.
This pleased the Queen and when Dorothy made her final bow they expressed their pleasure by inclining their heads for her alone.
It was not the gracious acknowledgement she had had from the Prince of Wales, but this was the King and his bulbous eyes which still looked a little wild were kindly, and so was his smile.
‘Very good,’ Dorothy heard him say. ‘A pleasant little actress, eh, what?’
And the Queen replied that Mrs Jordan’s performance had given her great pleasure.
That was triumph and Dorothy was delighted to have contributed to the King’s pleasure.
The people of Cheltenham were pleased too. The famous London actress had brought a change to their town. They were grateful to her and almost as pleased that she was with them as they were to have royal visitors.
All the same she was glad when the time came to return to London.
She came back to change.
Dr Ford – who should have been her father-in-law – had made his decision to retire and leave London. He had bought a house in Wales and since he would be far from the metropolis he had no further interest in the theatre. He was therefore going to sell his share in Drury Lane.
For some time there had been a certain amount of friction between Sheridan and Tom King; they could not agree on policy and their tastes differed widely. Sheridan had done his best to curtail King’s power and at the same time had himself shown a greater interest in affairs outside the theatre. This was understandable in view of the King’s illness and what had seemed a few months earlier a certain Regency. But King resented Sheridan’s attitude. If he wanted to be a politician and a man about town he insisted he should give up his theatrical commitments.
When he knew that Dr Ford wanted to sell out, King had hoped to buy his shares and thus gain a stronger influence at the theatre; unfortunately in attempting to raise money for this he gambled and lost heavily so that he was worse off than he had been in the first place. He went to see Dr Ford and told him that although he could not produce cash he had some securities and if Dr Ford would accept these he was eager to buy.
King’s hope was that the ever impecunious Sheridan would certainly not be able to raise the necessary capital, but he had reckoned without Sheridan’s friends. The Duke of Norfolk came to the rescue and lent Sheridan the necessary cash with the result that, with his father-in-law Thomas Linley, he became the proprietor of Drury Lane, and as Linley had nothing but a monetary interest this gave Sheridan complete control.
King declared his intention to leave and go to Dublin and work there. He had had enough of Sheridan and Drury Lane.
This was the state of affairs when Dorothy returned from Cheltenham.
It did not greatly perturb her that King was going. He had been fair to her but she knew that he, being an old man, did not care for her style of acting. He did not see comedy as the romp she made of it. He believed it should be more refined; and for that reason he had never held the high opinion of her that Sheridan had held, while at the same time, as manager, he must respect her ability to fill the theatre.
It was when King’s successor was appointed that she began to feel uneasy. For Sheridan had chosen none other than John Kemble to act as manager; and Kemble, as the brother of Sarah Siddons, could scarcely be a partisan of Dorothy Jordan.
No sooner had Kemble taken over than trouble began. He made it clear that in his opinion the greatest draw at Drury Lane was Sarah Siddons and every other actress must be subordinate to her.
Sarah immediately suggested that her salary was not enough and Kemble arranged to pay her thirty pounds for each performance. This meant that if she only played once a fortnight she would be more highly paid than Dorothy who might be playing every night, for she was still getting only her twelve pounds a week.
This rankled and Dorothy had made up her mind not to accept it.
Since the birth of Dodee she had suffered from minor indispositions and there had been occasions when she had found it impossible to appear. Kemble always made the most of this and set a rumour about that Mrs Jordan was becoming so autocratic that she would only appear when she felt in the mood to do so and made the excuse of illness.
This was accepted by the public who had been disappointed once or twice, hoping to see Mrs Jordan and being fobbed off with some lesser light.
Kemble was determined to show Dorothy in what little esteem he held her and that although he was prepared to accept that she had a certain following he regarded her as in no way the equal of his great sister.
One night when she was playing, her brother George went behind the scenes and Kemble, finding him there, demanded to know what he was doing. Was he playing? George was not. Then what right had he to go behind the scenes while the play was in progress?
‘You’ve forgotten my sister Mrs Jordan is playing.’
‘I had not forgotten and that does not give you a right to be there. You are fined five shillings.’
Kemble strode off and George was discomfited to hear the titters of Sarah’s adherents. The incident would be talked of in the Green Room that night and be all over Town by tomorrow. It was an insult to Dorothy. It was hinting that she was of no more importance than the humblest player, and her friends and family had no right to be anywhere but in the front of the stage and in a seat for which they had paid.
Dorothy paid the five shillings but the matter became an issue in the press which was forming itself into factions for and against one or the other side in the Jordan–Kemble dispute, and it was becoming quite clear to Dorothy that she would have to make a stand or leave Drury Lane. Harris of Covent Garden, who had done his best to denigrate her, would doubtless change his tune if she showed her willingness to work for him; but she had no desire to do so. She could not forget the insults he had flung at her and was certainly not going to forgive him for the sake of expediency if she could help it.
She could of course appeal to Sheridan who was her partisan, but he was so little in the theatre and so completely absorbed with his own affairs and his grand friends – and it must be admitted very often a little bemused by too much wine and spirits.
She would fight her own battles. And they were arising on all sides. Most important was her relationship with Richard, who was so content in their present circumstances he made no effort to change them. His father had retired from the theatre to his comfortable country establishment with a fortune – so rumour had it – of £100,000, and surely now was the time to tell him of their desire to marry.
‘No,’ cried Richard vehemently. ‘He’d be so incensed he would cut me right out of his will.’
‘Let him.’
‘My dearest, do you understand what this would mean? He would cut off my allowance and what I get from my briefs wouldn’t go far.’
‘You must get more briefs and I must get a higher salary. I’m a bigger draw than Siddons. I’ll not endure this much longer.’
Richard tried to evade the question at issue by going on at length about the injustice Dorothy suffered at the theatre, but she would not allow this.