Free Life Mask by Emma Donoghue Page B

the sound of ladies fanning themselves. The building was ridiculously small, it couldn't be more than sixty feet long. 'I'd refuse to act in a theatre as cramped as this,' she remarked and Derby laughed.
    'Excuse me, ladies,' said a Norfolk accent behind them, 'but might I beg favour of you to remove your hats? Only that I've ridden through the night to see this show, but the headgear this year is so ridiculous high—'
    Derby bristled, but Eliza put her gloved hand on his arm. Mrs Damer had already lifted off her hat; it sat in her lap like a wedding cake. 'We beg your pardon, sir,' said Eliza.
    'No, no, I beg yours'—and the stranger sank back on to his bench.
    Even bareheaded, she and Mrs Damer towered above the Earl sitting between them. 'We couldn't have you defending our honour in such a scrum,' Eliza whispered in his ear.
    Derby's lower lip twitched in amusement. 'Oh, here's the PM, as cool as ever.'
    William Pitt sat down on the front government bench, his long ungainly legs crossed before him like kindling, his pointed chin as hairless as a boy's.
    'Hard to believe he's been running the country for three years and he's still only twenty-seven,' murmured Mrs Damer resentfully. 'Has any nation ever been tyrannised over by one so young?'
    It would have been comical, thought Eliza, if Pitt hadn't been such a very serious character. 'How old-fashioned he dresses,' she murmured, 'embroidered silks and lace ruffles!'
    'Oh, but that's Court dress; he'll have been with His Majesty at St James's this morning.'
    Was it impossible for Eliza to spend more than five minutes in Mrs Damer's company without exhibiting her ignorance?
    Now the young widow was bowing to friends at the other end of the Gallery: Lady Melbourne (vastly pregnant), the Devonshire House set, the Richmonds. Eliza felt a prickle of embarrassment. It was a fact that she and Mrs Damer were becoming friends—somehow, despite the disparities between them—so why did Eliza feel such a fraud, sitting here by her side?
    'Why is it that you almost never speak in the Lords, Derby?' Mrs Damer was asking. 'You're proving such a splendid Lovemore—'
    'Oh, it's easy among friends, when the lines are in my hand,' he said ruefully. 'No, my job is to canvass for Foxite votes behind the scenes. Quiet influence, civil manners, a word in the right ear at the right moment, that's the thing.'
    Eliza smiled, wondering if this was something Derby regretted slightly.
    'I suppose, considering the eloquence of Fox and Sheridan and Burke, our Party hardly needs another orator,' said Mrs Damer. 'The vast majority of Members and peers are as mute as slugs,' she told Eliza. 'They come—if they bother to come at all—to vote as their leaders, or the King, or whim directs them.'
    It sounded to Eliza as if the two Houses were much like the two patent theatres: a handful of stirring speakers and a sea of listeners.
    'Do you ever wish you'd been a second son,' Mrs Damer asked Derby, 'so you could have sat in the Commons instead of the Lords?'
    'Oh, this is a more exciting arena,' he admitted with a smile. 'In the Upper House we only tinker and polish. Fox lives in dread of his nephew dying young, which would foist a barony on him and bump him upstairs! But you know, we peers have an immense influence; the Commons is foil of our sons and brothers and chosen candidates,' he said, encompassing the benches with a wave of his finger. 'A good half of these seats are under patronage.'
    'Owned, you mean,' said Mrs Damer sternly. 'I do hope Re-form will do away with many of the pocket boroughs.'
    'Well, yes, of course, that's a laudable aim,' he said rather defensively. 'But till that time, I can assure you I put in two good men in Lancashire.'
    Interesting, thought Eliza, she seems even more of a Whig in her principles than Derby is.
    A stir in the House; Sheridan had risen to his feet. Derby craned to one side to see past the ranks of visitors. Elegant in a brown jacket, Sheridan looked strong in