Chapter 15
Fifteen
She had escaped. Wright was not in the room, and that was a blessing, for once. Catherine sat in the chair by the fire and put her head in her hands. She heard the door open.
“Go away, Lord Daventry.”
The door closed. “Non, it is not Lord Daventry, Madame Lovelock. It is Mademoiselle DuMornay.”
Catherine raised her head, her eyes dry. “I’m sorry, Mamselle. I don’t feel well.” She attempted a smile.
Isabella crossed to her and sank down on her knees next to her. “Of course, you are not well. That painting is an atrocity.”
“You think so, too?”
“Mais, oui! Anyone who can’t see that is an idiote! That poor child est traumatisée.” Isabella reached out and brushed one of Catherine’s curls with a finger. “But such beautiful hair.”
Catherine looked at the fire. “Thank you, you are kind. Of course, that poor child is me.”
Isabella turned her head to one side. “Non, pas vraiment. Perhaps it once was, but I have a hard time believing even that. I cannot think you were ever to be pitied.”
Catherine met Isabella’s eyes. “I hope not.”
“But I must ask,” Catherine held her breath, dreading the question, “what are the lines?” Isabella touched Catherine lightly on her ribs, under her arm.
Catherine laughed, relieved. “They’re from the wrappings, the bandages. I had to compress my breasts, you see, to flatten them for the role.”
“Oh, your poor bosom!” Isabella sighed in sympathy.
Catherine shrugged. She had liked playing Viola, a woman who managed to have some power over her destiny even if she had to dress as the boy Cesario to do so.
She had liked the world of the play, a fantastical place called Illyria where a woman could survive alone.
Where a woman could be spurned and still, somehow, magically wind up in the arms of the man she loved.
And she had not minded the pain of her breast wrappings. She had welcomed the bite and the ache and even the control she had to use to get in a full breath. It had distracted her from the other pain in her life, the pain caused by Roger Siddons and her own despicable weakness.
“I think I will leave tomorrow,” Catherine said abruptly. “My ankle.”
“Bien s?r.”
“It is a lovely house, but the atmosphere is not . . . conducive.”
Isabella laughed. “Lovely?” She looked around the room. “Well, yes, this is quite the nicest room, I believe. You are a favorite.”
“Your bedchamber is . . . ?”
Isabella waved a hand. “It is sans conséquence. Yes, I agree you should return to London, away from that bad Mr. Siddons.”
“And Lord Daventry.”
Isabella looked surprised. “Lord Daventry? Why Lord Daventry?”
Catherine was at a loss. “Well, I . . . uh, he . . . uh . . .”
“Peut-être his lordship has done something he should not have?”
“No, no, of course not. It’s just— He is very drunk all the time, isn’t he? And silly?”
“You don’t like silly men, Madame Lovelock?”
“I suppose,” Catherine said slowly, “I don’t like his being silly.” Although his being silly was perhaps the only thing keeping her safe from the terrible jeopardy she felt when he was in earnest.
Isabella stood. “You should tell his lordship that.”
Catherine could feel the heat of the blush coloring her cheeks. “I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested in my opinion in the slightest.”
“You might be surprised.” Isabella shrugged and pouted. “But it is, how you English say, none of my business. I will give your apologies to our host and the other guests. Rest well, Madame Lovelock.”
The door closed behind Isabella, and Catherine was alone. To rest.
Rest.
Catherine got up from the chair, and, despite her ankle, she paced the room. Hadn’t she been resting for the last decade and a half? She was not built for rest. She was restless by nature.
Because only a restless, wild Kate Cooksey would have made her way to London at age sixteen, determined not to stay a farmer’s daughter or become a blacksmith’s wife but to take to the stage.
And through ambition and hard work and quite a bit of cleverness become Catherine Cooke, a leading actress of the Theatre-Royal, Drury Lane, where she was famed for her portrayals of Shakespeare’s heroines.
Spirited Rosalind, rebellious Katherina, loyal Cordelia, wise Portia.
And, of course, the brave, passionate, and resourceful Viola.
She was all of them, and they were all of her.
There was nothing restful about her back then.
Her husband Edward had fallen in love with her as Ophelia in Hamlet.
Many men had. She had been forced to wear a brown wig and her maid’s clothes every night so she could evade her admirers outside the theater.
She had needed to hire a servant to ferry her gifts of flowers out of her dressing room, or she would have drowned in blooms. Some lovely—as well as some perfectly horrendous—verse had been dedicated to her Ophelia.
The actor-manager Mr. Kemble had explained her triumph thus: “My dear, your pain when the prince rejects you is palpable. And fraught. You bring a soul-scouring pathos to the part, one I have never seen before. In their heads, these men in the audience become your savior, and they imagine rescuing you, earning your devotion. They want to hold this little girl with the golden hair and make her safe, tame her madness, keep her from drowning. And it doesn’t hurt that your Ophelia is a naughty little minx, eager for all sorts of country matters with her beau Hamlet before he breaks her heart.
” Then Kemble had chuckled and patted Catherine’s bottom and resumed taking off his face paint.
Twenty-eight years of age at the time, Catherine was no longer a girl. She knew very well how much her bosom and the damp, sheer gown she wore in her mad scene had made her a success in the role. And her pathos in the role was convincing because it was real.
Because of Roger.
Roger Siddons was ten years older than she, an artist of some note when he first came backstage to ask her to model for him.
She was drawn to his hunger for success, which she thought matched hers.
And to his sculpted good looks. His aquiline nose, his narrow lips.
His devouring eyes, his controlling hands.
Their coupling had been torrid in every sense of the word—hot, ardent, and full of tempests.
Their nights together had been marked by passionate love-making and equally passionate shouting matches.
Roger had struck her often, but he had never hit her on her face.
Mustn’t leave a bruise or the manager of the company would have had his head.
Even worse, Roger would be cold to her and not speak for days, and she would be wretched, craving his attention, his caresses. But he would ignore her unless she did as he asked.
He asked her to pay attention to other men—to flirt and to allow gropes and kisses—so he might attract commissions. “It’s the same as what you do on stage with those other actors,” he said. “You might as well do it to benefit me.”
So she had whored, in her own way. For him. For her desire for him. She had permitted things. Things she could not bring herself to name even to herself.
And he would reward her with earth-shattering climaxes. Evil became intertwined with pleasure.
Then, after she had spent eight brutal years keeping daily company with her lust demon, hoping for God knows what resolution to the madness of being Roger’s mistress, he had suddenly taken up with a seventeen-year-old opera singer.
It had been the day before the opening of Hamlet. At least, the heartbreak had been good for her art. And, in retrospect, it had been the making of her to be shut of him.
As the run of the play was extended over and over again, Catherine used her time alone to think. She was an aging ingénue, and this could well be the peak of her career. With her short stature, she would never be a Lady Macbeth or a Cleopatra or even a Duchess of Malfi.
She was tired, and she was hurt. She felt damaged. This moment might be her one chance for a new life, a safe life.
Her most devoted admirer, the kindest of men, the banker Edward Lovelock won out over all others. He helped her lock the lust demon away even as she sought solace in his arms. She married him as quickly as she could and learned for the first time that making love could actually make love.
Ophelia was her last role.
Her last role on the stage, that is. Because she soon realized that although Edward had fallen in love with a love-crazed and grief-stricken maiden, he really needed someone else. Someone restful.
The role of Mrs. Edward Lovelock was actually Catherine’s greatest triumph.
She determined what her husband and stepdaughters needed, and she created that woman.
She became an oasis from their grief of losing Edward’s first wife, Mary and Harry’s mother.
A paragon of patience who could calm Harry’s tantrums and direct her away from screaming and thumping her head on the floor.
She became oh-so-very restful, managing everything in the house with very little trouble to anyone else.
And now with Edward dead, Mary and Harry both married, there was nothing left to manage.
Oh, yes, there was Arabella. But Arabella—lovely, fiery, playful Arabella—did not really need her. Not the way Edward and Mary and Harry had. Arabella could take care of herself. Arabella was just like Catherine.
She stopped pacing and looked at herself in the mirror that hung in the room.
But who was Catherine Lovelock? She had pretended for so long, she no longer knew.