Miss Sketchley said nothing. She was maliciously amused by his inability to find an heiress. She hoped that one day he would realize what he had lost.
Dorothy was waiting anxiously for news. There was none. Touring was so exhausting particularly when one felt so ill. She was spitting blood more frequently now and the pain in her chest was recurring. She must go on playing the old roles. Peggy in The Country Girl, Prue in Love for Love and Letitia Hardy in The Belle’s Stratagem. She could no longer play Priscilla Tomboy or the Little Pickle. Those days were over, but there was some satisfaction in knowing that audiences felt very lukewarm about anyone else’s playing of the parts.
So weary she was after a performance that Miss Sketchley had to help her to bed where she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Every day she would wait for news. ‘Any news of Fanny?’ she would ask, fear showing in her voice and eyes. What next? she was wondering. What else could happen?
The next blow came from an unexpected quarter and was all the more cruel for that.
She was deeply in debt. Someone had been drawing on her account; bills which she had believed to have been paid had been left outstanding. Her creditors were threatening that they could wait no longer.
She read the letter from Frederick several times and Miss Sketchley who was always alarmed when the mail arrived came in to find her sitting staring blankly before her.
‘May I?’ she asked, picking up the letter.
Dorothy nodded.
‘Good God!’ cried Miss Sketchley. ‘This can only be Frederick March.’
‘Impossible.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Miss Sketchley sadly, ‘that it is the unexpected that often happens.’
‘I must go home,’ said Dorothy.
‘You are certainly in no fit state to go on the stage. Leave it to me. I’ll make all our arrangements. We must leave at once for London.’
That very day they drove out of Margate; and when Dorothy returned home it was to find Frederick in a state of near dementia.
He threw himself at her feet. He deserved her reproaches. Nothing she could say or do to him would be hard enough punishment.
Yes, he had been wicked. He had been criminal. He had needed the money. He had stolen from her. He had filled in the blank cheques she had given him for double and treble the amounts she had intended.
They were ruined.
That it should be Frederick, her favourite son-in-law!
She did not know what to do. She could only think of her poor mother who had feared insecurity and so longed for the respectability of marriage. Marriage! What had it brought to Fanny? And now Dodee’s husband had done this to her!
Colonel Hawker offered to help but how could he? He was not a rich man. He had not the sums at his disposal which they would need.
She read through the demands for payment. The veiled threats if the bills were not met. She understood them well. They pointed to the debtors’ prison from which there was no escape, for how could she earn money while in prison to pay her debts, and how could she escape from prison until she did?
What to do? Where to turn?
She thought of the one man who had been good to her. Yes, he had, she insisted, until his family had demanded that he marry for State reasons and pay his debts.
William would never desert her.
But she could not plead to him personally. She would write to his agent, John Barton, who had arranged the settlement. He would most certainly inform the Duke and everything that could be done to save her would be done.
It was a relief.
She wrote to Barton and waited.
When John Barton received Dorothy’s appeal for help he began to see how he could use the position to the advantage of his master.
Since his desertion of Dorothy the Duke of Clarence had become a figure of fun to the people. They did not approve of the desertion. He had lived with Dorothy for twenty years. They had had ten children and then like a silly lovesick schoolboy he had started to court young women. Heiresses, of course. There was something ridiculous about an ageing man pretending to be a young one; and the fact that the heiresses had the good sense to refuse him made him all the more ridiculous.
The people did not like this treatment of one of their favourite actresses; and while she appeared on the stage and was constantly in the public eye, they could not forget.
After being refused by Miss Tylney-Long and Miss Elphinstone, William had tried for royalty. The Princess Anne of Denmark had declined to marry him, so had the sister of the Tsar, the Duchess of Oldenburg.
William was depicted in all the cartoons as the lovelorn suitor who could succeed nowhere and on these cartoons Dorothy was invariably in the background with her ten children about her.
Barton had a brilliant idea. He might extricate his master from this humiliating position and win his eternal gratitude.
With this plan in mind he went to see Dorothy.
‘I know,’ he told her, ‘that the Duke would wish me to do everything possible to ease your situation. I beg of you show me all the accounts.’
This she did and when Barton had calculated how much money was needed he made a wry face.
‘It will take months to raise this money,’ he said. ‘And in the meantime your creditors will take action.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘There is only one thing. You must get out of the country.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the only way you will be safe. You must slip quietly away. Leave these bills with me. I will settle your affairs as speedily as I can and when I have done so send word for you that it is safe for you to return.’
‘Do you mean… ?’
He looked at her intently.
‘I mean, Madam,’ he said, ‘that from the threatening tones of your creditors they will have you in a debtors’ prison within the month. I should say you have at most three weeks to get out of the country.’
Dorothy was aghast.
She thought of that day long ago when Daly had threatened her with a debtors’ prison. She had given way and as a result there had been Fanny… and because of Fanny she was in her present dilemma, for she believed deep down in her heart that it was their differences over Fanny which had begun to make the rift between her and the Duke and that had it not been there he would never have deserted her no matter what family pressure had been exerted. It was as though she had completed a circle.
‘I could not face prison,’ she said. ‘It is so… impossible. How should I ever get out… and what would become of my family?’
‘Take my advice,’ said Barton. ‘Get away. I will do all I can to help. Sell up everything you have here and go. I shall be in touch. Your allowances will be paid… and in a short time you will be able to settle your debts and come back.’
She trusted Barton. There was no one else to trust.
Barton went away satisfied that he had done an excellent thing for the Duke. He would not tell him at present for the Duke was a sentimental man. But he would never regain the dignity of his rank, nor would he find a bride, while Dorothy Jordan remained in the public eye.
Dorothy frantically started to sell her furniture at ridiculous prices; she disposed of the lease of her house, and with the faithful Miss Sketchley as her company set out for France.
The order of release
THE LITTLE COTTAGE at Marquetra was small but the surrounding country was green and reminded her poignantly of England. There were two cottages side by side and in the second lived her landlady Madame Ducamp, the widow of a gardener. Madame Ducamp’s maid Agnes also looked after Dorothy and was soon charmed by her. So beautiful although she was no longer young; so graceful although she was no longer slim; so different from anyone Agnes had ever known.