I was then about to request an interview with Mr. Sheridan when he informed me that he privately wished to discuss a most pressing matter.
“I can never for the life of me comprehend how you manage to find anything in here,” I commented, picking my way through various piles of manuscripts until I found a chair, the seat of which was also hidden by a stack of scripts about to topple onto the floor. The manager’s office was capacious enough, but there never seemed to be an inch of available space.
“Terribly sorry about that,” apologized Sheridan, gathering the plays into his arms. “Please, do be seated. I would have tidied up for you, but you know one has the best of intentions, and then—tempus fugit! Suddenly it’s two weeks later.”
“Yours is not an easy task,” I assented. “And I do not envy you your position. The Theatre is an exhausting enough profession for us actors, who have far less to occupy their days than a man in your position. Even so, after four years of a most grueling—though prodigiously rewarding—schedule, one begins to—”
And here, Mr. Sheridan interrupted me. “I assure you, Mrs. Robinson, as much as the public appreciates your…your gifts…I value them even more greatly.”
“Which is why I wished to speak with you, sir, if you’ll allow me—” I laughed because Sheridan had begun to say, “Which is why—” at precisely the same moment I began to speak the words.
“You first,” we exclaimed in unison.
“No, you,” I said, deferring to my senior.
Sheridan lit a taper to dispel the gloom. The only glimmer in the room came from the glinting metal buttons on his ubiquitous blue coat. Soot covered his windows and no one had bothered to clean them, there always being matters more urgent than scrubbing between the mullions. “You are one of the brightest jewels in the company’s crown,” the manager began. “It is no secret that the houses are filled to capacity on the nights you’re on the bill. And as the gent whose job it is to put bums in seats, you’ve made me a happy, and solvent, man.”
“The pleasure has been all mine, sir. But there comes a time in every actor’s life, I imagine, when he considers whatever alternatives may lie before him….”
“It is a hard life,” Sheridan agreed, “and often without adequate compensation. But the Theatre is more of a democracy than one might surmise, for the public votes with their feet. And when they flock to a playhouse because a certain favorite is on the boards, a canny manager takes the hint that a rise in salary is in order, so the favorite won’t flee the nest and enrich another company. Mrs. Robinson, I should hate to lose you to Covent Garden.” And then he leaned forward in his chair and fixed me with his eyes. “Or Buckingham House.”
“B-Buckingham House?” I stammered. Had he read my mind?
“Oh, come, come, Mary. One would have to be a blind man not to read what’s in the papers. Puffs in one, squibs in another—but all of them giving credence to the rumor that you are the favorite with one far more exalted than John Bull. I could offer twice as many performances with the number of people clamoring for tickets who don’t even care how talented you are—they just want to see what His Royal Highness sees! Don’t you get it, my girl? It matters little to many of them that you’re a fine actress; they want to see you act because you’ve become a celebrity.”
“One takes success where one finds it, I suppose,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.
Sheridan rose and opened the doors to a large oaken cupboard, from which he extracted a heavy ledger. Seating himself at his desk once again and opening the worn leather cover, he leafed through several pages of meticulously noted entries, muttering to himself as he perused them. “I am prepared to offer you a considerable increase, Mrs. Robinson. Twenty pounds a week, with an additional two pounds for each role you perform during that week. The more you play, the more I pay,” he smiled. “What say you to that?”
It was a significant rise in pay. Perhaps I could have negotiated with him for an even larger salary, but I was of two minds, and neither of them held more sway over my final decision than the other. I did not know how to answer Mr. Sheridan. If I took his proffered hand and shook on the agreement, the bargain was sealed, and I could not turn back without a great deal of discomfort on either side. If I declined and told him I should like to retire from the stage instead, and risk my lot with His Royal Highness, that decision, too, was in my view irrevocable. There were plenty of actresses waiting in the wings, quite literally, to play the roles I had been given these past few seasons, eager and ambitious as ever I was, and who would cost the management less money. In time, they, too, might become favorites with the crowd for one reason or another. “I must…Allow me to sleep on it,” I told Sheridan.
“And in the meantime you will play?” he asked, eager. Concerned.
“In the meantime I will play,” I echoed.
“As a show of good faith, your salary rise will begin the moment you step outside this room.” The manager rose and offered me his hand again, on which I bestowed a grateful kiss.
That night, I took the stage as Cleopatra in Dryden’s All for Love. Waiting backstage for my entrance I mused upon the fact that I had achieved all I had ever wished for. Or had I? Meeting Prince George Augustus Frederick, heir to the throne of England, had changed everything. I consulted my conscience and my heart, and I wryly considered the subtitle of Dryden’s tragedy—The
