Wicked Company (19 page)

Smiling encouragement at Sophie, Mrs. Sheridan replied, “Of course.” She opened a desk drawer and took out a pot of ink and a sharp-pointed swan’s feather. “Why not use the back of Sophie’s playbill for Sherry’s lectures? ’Tis just the right size.”

***

Sophie’s hands and arms were stained with ink when the first placard came off the Ashby press. She sighed with relief. After an hour’s search, she had found the necessary letters stored in a tray of unsorted Caslon type jumbled together in a small timber box. Painstakingly, she slipped the type into the wooden frame to spell out:

The Discovery

a comedy by Frances Sheridan

and then had set the rest of the copy that Garrick had dictated to her the previous day. Fortunately, there was paper in stock to complete the job. Within a few hours she had printed both the large playbills that would be posted in front of the theater and the smaller ones for the coffeehouses and taverns around the town. By late Monday afternoon, the fruits of her hard labor had dried sufficiently to allow her to bundle the posters together. She saw to Aunt Harriett’s comfort and headed across Covent Garden’s Great Piazza toward Drury Lane, passing the steps of St. Paul’s.

She walked briskly to Russell Street and turned right on Brydges Street, which fronted the theater. Making her way down a narrow alley, she pushed open the stage door and nodded a greeting to a rotund man perched on a stool just inside the door.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted Drury Lane’s stage doorkeeper. “I’m Sophie McGann and have been asked to deliver these new playbills to Mr. Garrick.”

“Right you are,” the man replied pleasantly. “Name’s Collins, by the way. Mr. Garrick says you’re to bring them to him directly. Shall I show you the way?” he asked kindly.

“I’d be most obliged,” she murmured, a sense of awe at the sight of her celebrated surroundings prompting her to speak in a mere whisper.

The doorkeeper hopped from his stool and led the way down a corridor that led into the lamp-lighting room. Stage workers were trimming wicks and replacing candles in several lighting devices that would be used during the next performance. The pungent smell of tallow that permeated the air reminded Sophie of the interior of the Canongate Playhouse in Edinburgh, calling forth the day she’d introduced Hunter Robertson to David Beatt. Unbidden, a pang of homesickness swept over her—for McGann’s book shop, the bustling High Street, and her Scottish friends. A sharp image of Hunter’s handsome features and rakish grin blocked out her murky surroundings and provoked in Sophie a physical longing for the sight of his familiar face.

With resignation, she continued to follow Mr. Collins’s circuitous path through the labyrinth of scene pieces and stage furniture littering the backstage area. An instant later, Sophie had her first full view of the vast stage area and the even grander auditorium. She gasped as Collins and she halted in the wings and stared at the forestage, a platform that extended twenty-five feet in front of the proscenium arch.

“Jesu!” Sophie said in a breath, her eyes widening at the sight of the cavernous performance hall. “’Tis like a temple for some great god!” she whispered.

David Garrick was seated in a chair, downstage right, watching the performers—including Thomas Sheridan—rehearsing the second act of Frances Sheridan’s comedy.

Benches that could accommodate some fourteen hundred patrons stretched out before her. Rows of empty seats in an area dubbed “the pit” were situated adjacent to a cluster of straight-back chairs where orchestra members sat with their instruments. Gazing around the hall, Sophie counted three large galleries rimmed by balconies at the rear of the auditorium. Two tiers of elegant box seats to the right and left of the stage were subdivided by low partitions with narrow pilasters supporting them. Soaring some eighty feet overhead was an elaborate, gilded plaster ceiling.

“’Tis at least thrice again as large as the Canongate, back home,” Sophie sighed, overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the place.

“Just wait here,” advised the doorkeeper, amused that the familiar sight prompted such wide-eyed admiration. “Mr. Garrick will eventually summon you.”

Sophie turned and offered a grateful nod as Collins disappeared behind the flies.

A tall, imposing young woman who looked to be about twenty-five years old strolled out from the Greenroom and stood in the wings, peering down her nose at Sophie with undisguised hauteur. Her almond-shaped eyes fastened on the younger girl’s faded blue and white muslin skirt and shabby wool shawl. Sophie concluded that this striking creature was one of the actresses. She stole an envious glance at the lady’s magnificent bosom, which was high and fulsome and spilled over her striped silk bodice. Sophie held up one of the playbills.

“I expect your name is on this,” she said quietly, in a manner inviting a friendly exchange.

The arrogant young woman squinted at the placard, inadvertently revealing her nearsightedness.

“Ah… yes,” she said, “but, once again, I see my name follows both Mrs. Clive’s and Mrs. Pritchard’s!” she said petulantly, pointing to the notation “Mrs. Piggott appearing as Lady Flutter.”

“The order of players was determined by Mr. Garrick himself,” Sophie replied cautiously, regretting now that she had shown this stranger her handiwork. She recalled that Mavis Piggott, along with Kitty Clive, had been mentioned by Garrick as one of the actresses whose play writing efforts he had nurtured at Drury Lane.

“He does have his favorites,” Mavis Piggott commented sourly.

“Stop! Please,”
Garrick’s authoritative voice boomed out suddenly. “Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Clive, if you’d be so kind,” he said to two of Drury Lane’s most celebrated names, “I think ’twill be more amusing if you make your entrance as if you had already been conversing off stage. Can we take that section again, please?”

Sophie continued to watch from the sidelines as the two women dutifully backed off stage and reentered, chattering like magpies. Mavis Piggott wandered away and soon Sophie saw her standing on the far side of the stage, awaiting her entrance.

After ten minutes, Garrick noticed Sophie standing in the muted pool of light cast by a candelabra that was positioned to provide the actors illumination during rehearsal. He signaled her to approach as soon as the scene had concluded.

“Well, well,” he chuckled softly, his eyes scanning the copy of the playbill she handed him. She held her breath, praying he would not find some error that had escaped her critical eye. “Excellent work,” he said, “and completed so quickly. I’m most obliged to you, Miss McGann.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” she said with a bright smile, inwardly heaving a sigh of relief.

Garrick called out to a man of equally short stature standing to one side, in conference with a person holding a manuscript.

“George… George, come here a moment, will you please?”

The man turned and Sophie knew instantly by his features that he must be David Garrick’s brother. Lorna had explained that George Garrick was the actor-manager’s right hand in nearly every aspect of operating the playhouse—and, she said, “Old George doesn’t let you forget it!”

George Garrick dutifully walked toward them. Behind him, another man followed in his wake clutching a copy of Mrs. Sheridan’s manuscript.

“Yes, Davy?” George said, eyeing Sophie with some suspicion.

“This is Sophie McGann, Brother, and I want you to see what a fine job she’s done with these new playbills. I’ve decided to allow her to print up smaller ones, like these,” he said, indicating the miniature placards. “I propose she sell them to our patrons for a penny. Should we try out the scheme?”

“Hmm,” George said noncommittally.

“She will turn in her profits to you each night, which you will then divide—half to the house, half to her. And if that Featherstone gives us any more problems about making last-minute changes of cast and so forth on the larger posters, Miss McGann, here, is prepared to leap into the breach, am I right, Miss McGann?”

“Oh,
yes,
sir!” she replied eagerly. “Most happy to oblige.”

“I’m sure she is,” George said dourly.

Despite George Garrick’s lack of enthusiasm, Sophie was thrilled. She would be able to run the book shop by day, complete printing assignments between customers, and sell playbills to audiences at Drury Lane during the evenings. With these profits, she hoped to seek some proper doctoring for Aunt Harriet who, of late, seemed more agitated than ever. Eventually, Sophie could begin purchasing plays and novels and turn Ashby’s into the kind of establishment of which she could be proud.

Her eyes were shining with gratitude when she shifted her gaze from George Garrick to his brother, and back to George again.

“Well,” George allowed, “I suppose ’tis worth giving the lass a trial period. I think Featherstone was just overtaxed by all the changes we demanded, Davy, and will restore his temper soon.”

“He’ll come around much faster, once he realizes we have Sophie up our sleeves, eh what?” He winked at her mischievously. “And I think my notion of selling small programs during the interval is a capital idea!”

“As I said, I think ’tis worth a trial period over the run of
The Discovery,”
George said with measured emphasis. “And speaking of such,” he added, tilting his head in the direction of the man next to him holding the manuscript, “Hopkins, here, says he’s having a devil of a time prompting the players and noting your changes at the same time. Normally, I would play scribe, Davy, but I still have much left to do to see that the repairs to the playhouse are finished by six o’clock when we reopen on Thursday.”

“Could I help, sir?” Sophie said, before she had even considered who would run her shop in her absence. “I have a fair hand.”

All three men looked at her and then exchanged glances.

“’Twill just be a day’s work… mayhap two,” George said, eyeing her skeptically.

“Can you spare us the time from your book shop?” David Garrick asked.

Sophie nodded eagerly. ’Twas a chance to learn about
stagecraft,
she thought excitedly, to learn how mere words on a page became the stuff of living, breathing human beings! As her gaze swept around the stage area, Mavis Piggott gave her a measuring glance. Kitty Clive and Frances Sheridan were chatting amiably to one another, bathed in the soft candlelight cast by the overhead chandeliers. Mrs. Sheridan, Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Piggott—all three women had seen the words they’d written come to life on this very stage! In that instant, it seemed to Sophie that the world of the theater was grand, indeed, and full of infinite possibilities. As for the book shop, she would ask Lorna Blount if she’d like to earn a shilling or two minding Ashby’s from time to time!

“There should be no problem about Ashby’s, sir!” Sophie said earnestly. “I’ve a friend who’ll look after the shop whenever I might be needed here.” She smiled brightly at William Hopkins, the prompter, and added, “Has someone an extra quill?”

Eight

F
EBRUARY 1763

Playbills for a penny! Playbills for a penny, sir!” Sophie cried as spectators streamed into the foyer of Drury Lane, jostling her as they passed. “Thank you, sirs,” she said to a pair of effete young men dressed in flamboyant shades of pomegranate and puce. “Get your playbill for only one penny!”

“Odds fish, if ’tisn’t little Sophie McGann!” said a voice diverting her from counting the coins in her apron pocket.

“Bozzy!” Sophie exclaimed as she recognized her friend, bundled up in several layers of clothing and accompanied by two young men about his age. “’Tis lovely to see you!”

“What the deuce are you doing hawking playbills?” Boswell demanded.

“’Tis thanks to
you,
Bozzy,” she replied, and brought him up to date on the results of her visit to the Sheridans.

“Good heavens!” Boswell replied. “You are the most extraordinary creature… a pen-pushing little wonder!” He introduced his friends.

“We must support such an enterprising wench,” one named Erskine cried, digging into the small pocket of his waistcoat. He handed Sophie a coin and accepted a playbill in return.

“I hope you enjoy the performance tonight,” Sophie volunteered.

“’Tis authored by a petticoat scribe,” Boswell replied disdainfully, as if that fact alone were enough to damn the entire production. “I’ll wager it won’t be a memorable evening, but ’tis pleasing sport to mingle with the crowds, eh what?”

And with that, the trio melted into the first-night throng that was streaming into the performance hall. Sophie realized that Boswell and his comrades were there not merely to render judgment on Frances Sheridan’s maiden effort, but to see and be seen.

Despite James Boswell’s dire prediction,
The Discovery
was a solid success. Eventually, Mr. Love, the actor, recovered and replaced Thomas Sheridan in the role of Lord Medway, prompting Garrick to employ Sophie to reprint the playbills with the new cast. Within a half day of his request, the revised notices were soon posted all over the city.

“You’ve done a splendid job with this,” David Garrick said when Sophie brought in the smaller playbills to solicit his brother George’s approval and deliver the week’s profits from selling playbills to the patrons.