We had received word that my father’s new Labradoran scheme was proving just as disastrous as his previous undertakings. His pecuniary embarrassments had once again brought us to the brink of ruin. I was now of an age where in short order I would be required to lighten the burden, either by making a good marriage or finding some means of employment by which I might procure enough for Mother, George, and me to live comfortably.
“Then at least permit her to try for the stage,” my esteemed instructors insisted. After her resolve was worn down, my mother at last consented to allow my recitation for a gentleman who was known to have some qualification in the discerning of one’s dramatic merits. And though she never wish’d me to fail in anything, I sensed that when all was said and done, she would have been quite relieved to hear that her young Mary’s artistic abilities were better suited to the drawing room than Drury Lane.
Five
Enter Garrick
1772…age fourteen
Because Mr. Thomas Hull was an actor at Covent Garden, he was well acquainted with Mr. Hussey, esteemed his good opinion, and therefore agreed to listen to me perform for him. This audition was not to take place at Covent Garden itself, but rather within Mr. Hull’s apartments in Maiden Lane, a mere stone’s throw from the theatre. At the time, Covent Garden was one of only two theatres—the other being Drury Lane—to which the crown had granted licenses, although a summer season was permitted at the Haymarket. It seemed to me that if one did not gain employment at a licensed house, there was little chance of ever making a success upon the stage, for who would see you?
The staircase that led to Mr. Hull’s rooms was so narrow that I could scarce mount the steps without crushing my skirts against the dusty walls. It smelled of cat urine as well, and no wonder, for when Mother and I entered the actor’s domicile, no fewer than four well-fed felines scampered across my path as I approached the celebrated thespian. I found Mr. Hull, his hair powdered to a shade of pewter, smoking a clay pipe and contemplating the middle distance off to his right hand as though a mysterious object visible only to him—Macbeth’s phantom dagger, perhaps—was suspended from the chandelier. As I approached, he kicked away his footstool, which for a fleeting moment I thought might be another puss, and rose to his feet, making a graceful leg. I bobbed a curtsy, and sneezed.
“A pleasure, Miss Darby. Wait, let me fetch my spectacles.” Finding them warmed by a cat’s underbelly, he dusted them off upon his bisque-colored waistcoat. Jutting forth his little pointed chin, he peered at me. “Ah, then, you are indeed as lovely to look at as Hussey said. I would offer you tea, but I’ve none on the boil. I hope you’ll overlook the incivility. Now, what will you favor me with this afternoon, Miss Darby?”
I had selected Nicholas Rowe’s 1714 verse drama, The Tragedy of Jane Shore, from which to cull my recitation. My naïvely sentimental heart throbbed to the famous story of Elizabeth Shore, the young and beautiful wife of a goldsmith who became the mistress to a king, and his trusted adviser. After his death, she engaged in dalliances with other noblemen, but was accused of sorcery by the evil Richard III and sent to the Tower. Upon her release, she was forced to do public penance as a harlot, and though she later married well, she eventually died in poverty. Was ever woman so wronged!
By the time the tragedy begins, Richard III has been named Lord Protector and Jane has already fallen on hard times, so frail and despondent one might not recognize her. Such a role naturally suited my attraction for tortured souls.
I began with a few lines from Jane’s opening speeches, calculated to appeal to a man whose advanced years—Hull was then forty-two, though still robust—would contrast with those of young Jane.
The actor’s indulgent smile gave me the courage to continue; however, I had made the mistake that many novices do, which is to choose a role more befitting to one with a greater experience of the world than their own green years. In performing the passage where Jane describes her lover, the king—lacking all experience in everything amorous, from courtship to copulation—I could only bring my lips to shape the words. The requisite passion and brokenhearted nostalgia necessary to comprehend Jane’s lot was far beyond me.
He was the very joy of all that saw him,
Form’d to delight, to love, and to persuade…
But what had I to do with kings and courts?
My humble lot had cast me far beneath him;
And that he was the first of all mankind,
The bravest and most lovely, was my curse.
I saw Mr. Hull frown and begin to puff his pipe in earnest. Hoping to redeem my folly, I gave him just a few more lines of Jane Shore. This speech, at least, I could identify with on some level, knowing firsthand how illused my mother was by my father.
…Such is the fate unhappy women find,
And such is the curse entail’d upon our kind,
That
