The Disgraceful Duke Read online

  There was also something of her father’s looks in Shimona’s face.

  His Grecian profile seemed somehow to give him a spirituality that was seldom seen upon the stage and it also made his daughter seem different from other young women of her age.

  She was lovely, there was no doubt about that!

  There was also something unique about her, which was one of the reasons why Beau Bardsley kept her away from the people who frequented his dressing room at Drury Lane and who, although he called them his friends, he never invited to his home.

  Beau had always kept his family life strictly private from the moment he had caused one of the greatest scandals that Bath had ever known.

  Because of it he had been determined not to expose his wife to the familiarity and the free and easy morals of the theatre world.

  It was when he was playing some of his last parts at Bath with Mrs. Siddons before they both went to London, that Beau Bardsley had noticed a girl in a stage box.

  It was not surprising that he became aware of her, for she was there day after day. She was usually accompanied in the afternoon by a maid or footman and in the evening by an elderly couple whom he learnt later were her father and mother.

  There were plenty of people in Bath to tell him about Annabel Winslow.

  Her beauty had taken the fashionable Society that congregated in the Assembly Rooms by storm.

  She was feted and sought after by the dandies and bucks of eligible age and she was adulated by the elderly Noblemen, who found her manners as charming as her appearance.

  All Bath appeared to be delighted when Annabel’s engagement was announced to Lord Powell, a gentleman whose wealth and distinction had already impressed itself upon the pleasure-seeking visitors to the famous Spa.

  He had come to Bath because he was suffering with rheumatism in his legs, but after one look at Annabel his rheumatism was forgotten and he lost his heart!

  Lord Powell’s was undoubtedly the most prestigious offer of marriage Annabel had received and her father, Sir Harvey Winslow, lost no time in accepting on her behalf.

  But no one realised that, if Lord Powell had lost his heart, Annabel had also lost hers.

  Her parents had not concerned themselves with her passion for the theatre. After all, it was good for her education to listen to Shakespeare’s plays, and Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth and Desdemona was the talk of The Pump Room.

  Sir Harvey and Lady Winslow also thought her excellent in Garrick’s version of Hamlet and they did not notice particularly the actor who played the name part.

  They were therefore stupefied with astonishment, as indeed was the rest of Bath, when Annabel ran away with Beau Bardsley.

  When Mrs. Siddons left for London and Drury Lane, Annabel and Beau followed her.

  Sir Harvey cut his daughter off with the proverbial shilling and returned to his estates in Dorset, saying that he never wished to hear of her again.

  Annabel was, however, supremely and utterly happy with the man she had chosen for her husband and, when Shimona was born in 1785, she thought that it would be difficult for any woman to be more blessed than she had been.

  From the time they married there was never another breath of scandal where Beau Bardsley was concerned.

  It was to be expected that he would be pursued by women of every sort and kind, but while he was always courteous and pleasant, they found him elusive and impossible to meet outside the theatre.

  As soon as a performance was over he went back to the little house in Chelsea where he lived with Annabel and Shimona and craved no other company but theirs.

  Perhaps it was the puritanical streak in him that he had inherited from his clergyman father, or maybe a sense of guilt at his own shortcomings towards his parents that made him ultra-strict with Shimona.

  She had no idea that her life was different from that of other children or that she and her mother might have been living on a desert island for all the contact they had with other people.

  From the moment Beau Bardsley left his home to the moment he returned there was always a feverish activity to get everything ready for him and to make his homecoming a perfect one.

  From the time she was a tiny child Shimona was told, “you must not bother your father, you must not upset him, you must not worry him”, and her whole object in life therefore was to make him happy.

  The only amusement that was permitted outside the ordinary round of her life at home was when she and her mother went to the theatre to see her father in each new role.

  It was then he seemed to her to be a very different person from the man who held her on his knee to kiss and fondle her.

  On the stage her father became a Knight like those she read about in storybooks.

  There was something inspiring and spiritual about him too, which made him seem almost like the angels she had believed in ever since her mother had taught her to say her prayers.

  If the audiences worshipped Beau Bardsley for his looks and the magical hours of pleasure he gave them, his daughter worshipped him because to her he was everything that was fine and noble personified in one man.

  Beau Bardsley had, despite his father’s poverty, been well educated.

  He had been accepted in private schools at reduced rates because his father was a Clergyman and the parts he played also gave him a command of the English language and a knowledge of history which he imparted to his daughter.

  Although she never went to school and never competed with other children, Shimona was far better educated than was considered necessary for the average girl at that time.

  In fact through her father’s tuition she received to all intents and purposes a boy’s education, while her mother imparted the accomplishments that were considered obligatory for a well-bred young woman.

  When her mother died, Shimona experienced a loneliness that she had never encountered before.

  Now there were long days at home when there was nothing to do but talk to her old nurse and await her father’s return.

  Because she was lonely and because time often hung heavy on her hands, she started to read the newspapers and enjoy all the anecdotes and gossip that her father brought home in the evenings.

  Whereas before her death, Beau Bardsley had talked with his wife about the problems and quarrels of the theatre and about those who visited his dressing room with their scandal and gossip, he now talked to Shimona.

  She had always been excluded in the past from anything that appertained to the outside world, but now, because his wife was no longer beside him, Beau allowed Shimona to take her place.

  For almost the first time, Shimona at eighteen, began to realise that she was missing something.

  She heard about balls, assemblies, receptions, great parties at Carlton House, dinner at Almack’s Club, where one had to receive a voucher from one of the distinguished hostesses before being admitted.

  “Will I ever be able to go to a ball, Papa?” she asked Beau one evening.

  He had returned from the theatre to tell Shimona how he had refused an invitation to a party at the Duke of Richmond’s at which the Prince of Wales was to be present.

  Beau Bardsley looked at his daughter as if he saw her for the first time.

  She was very lovely in a muslin gown with its high waist outlining the soft curves of her breasts and her skin was very white against the red velvet chair where she was sitting.

  In fact she looked so lovely that he drew in his breath as he remembered that his wife Annabel had looked almost exactly the same when they had first met.

  “A ball, my dearest?” he repeated, his thoughts elsewhere.

  “Yes, Papa. Have you forgotten that I am eighteen? Mama told me about the ball that was given for her when she made her debut and I would so love to go to one myself.”

  Beau Bardsley stared at her for a long time and then he said,

  “It is impossible!”

  “Why?” Shimona enquired.

  He rose to his feet to walk a
cross the room as if he was finding words to answer her with and finally he said,

  “You might as well face the truth. The Beau Monde invite me to their houses because I am a celebrity – a celebrity but merely an actor. It amuses them to condescend to those who have reached the top of their profession.”

  His voice sharpened as he went on,

  “But while they will accept me, their wives and daughters would not accept my wife and daughter.”

  “Why not, Papa?”

  “Because an actor can never be the social equal of those of noble birth. Because I am what I have made myself, you must suffer.”

  Shimona gazed at him wide-eyed before she said hesitatingly,

  “Although you are an actor, you are a – gentleman, Papa. Your father was a Canon before he died – Mama told me so.”

  “My father was ashamed of me,” Beau Bardsley replied. “He planned that I should enter the Church. He envisaged me inspiring a congregation with my oratory from the pulpit.”

  He smiled a little wryly.

  “I doubt if my congregation would ever have filled Drury Lane.”

  “And the Winslows were a County family and much respected in Dorset,” Shimona persisted.

  “And how often have you been asked to stay with your grandfather and grandmother?” Beau Bardsley asked.

  There was a long silence.

  “I think – I understand.”

  “If I was meant to be punished for running away with your mother and being given the greatest happiness any man could ever know on earth, it is now,” Beau Bardsley said, “because, my dearest, I cannot give you all the things I would wish to.”

  Shimona had run into his arms.

  “You are not to think about it, Papa. I am happy, terribly happy just to be with you. Do you think I worry about balls when I can watch you on the stage and we can be together when you come home?”

  Beau Bardsley had not replied. He merely bent his head and kissed his daughter on the cheek.

  Then he said almost beneath his breath,

  “The Bible is right. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.”

  Shimona had heard the pain in her father’s voice and never again had she mentioned the fashionable world or the irrepressible longing she felt at times to be part of it. But she listened even more intently to her father’s stories.

  Every evening when he returned home, while he ate his supper she would ask who had visited him in his dressing room and who was in the principal boxes in the theatre.

  She also coaxed him into telling her stories about the social personalities of the Beau Monde.

  It was not that she wished to listen to scandal, it was just that she was curious about the people who lived in the world outside the little house in Chelsea, who were very much less real to her than the characters of Shakespeare or those whom she loved in Sheridan’s School for Scandal.

  Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Benjamin Backbite and Sir Harry Bumper all meant much more in her life than the Prince of Wales and the bucks and dandies who accompanied him when he occupied the Royal Box at Drury Lane.

  When she visited the theatre, Shimona would look around her and try to identify some of the people her father talked about.

  Now, as she waited in the dressing room, she heard the applause beginning to roar out like distant thunder and, rising to her feet, she opened the door so that it came to her in great waves of sound.

  She knew that once again her father’s magic had infected the audience to the point where they would be rising in their seats, clapping and cheering him as he took bow after bow.

  She stood in the open doorway and looked down the long passage, which was dimly lit by candles in wooden sconces.

  It was then Shimona remembered that the other actors also would be returning to their dressing rooms and quickly closed the door.

  Her father came in followed by Joe who had been waiting for him in the wings. Now his cheeks were flushed and there was a light in his eyes that was always there after a particularly successful performance.

  “They loved you, Papa!”

  “It went well,” Beau Bardsley answered.

  He turned toward his dressing table and as he did so he was suddenly seized by a fit of coughing.

  It was as if it had been held back for so long that now it was a paroxysm that racked his whole frame so that he coughed and coughed until it seemed that the very sound of it must tear him in pieces.

  Joe and Shimona helped him to the chair and, when finally the spasm ceased, the sweat was pouring down Beau Bardsley’s forehead and his eyes were closed.

  He was shaking and once again it was a glass of brandy and water that revived him.

  This time Shimona knew that Joe had made it stronger even than it had been before.

  It was an effort to get her father changed in time and an almost superhuman effort, she was well aware, for him to obey the callboy’s voice as he shouted imperiously,

  “One minute, Mr. Bardsley!”

  There was a note of rebuke because the leading actor was not already in the wings.

  Joe went with his Master to the stage and then came back.

  “He’s bad, Miss Shimona!” he said abruptly as he came into the dressing room.

  “I know, Joe, but he will not rest. I begged him not to come today.”

  “He’ll kill himself, Miss Shimona. You mark my words.”

  Shimona stifled a little cry that came to her lips.

  “The doctor said the same – thing, but he will not – listen and – and he has to work.”

  “I understands, miss.”

  “You have been with him for so many years, Joe. You know as well as I do that he has never saved a penny.”

  “I knows, miss, and on Saturday morning they’ll be around him like hawks. I often thinks as how he never touches his wages himself. So many other fingers are a-diggin’ at it.”

  “If he can keep going a little – longer he will be awarded a – benefit,” Shimona said.

  “He’s due for one, Lord knows!” Joe said, “but the theatre ain’t doing well except when the Master’s playing and I has a feeling the management thinks that if he gets a benefit he might go off on a holiday.”

  “That is exactly what he ought to do,” Shimona replied. “The doctor said only yesterday that he should go to a warmer climate for the winter. It will be November soon and he will never stand the fogs and the cold winds.”

  They looked at each other anxiously and then, as if he could not bring himself to speak of it any more, Joe said,

  “I’m taking a glass of brandy to the stage. If he has another coughing fit, it’s the only thing that’ll enable him to carry on.”

  Shimona did not answer. She only sat down on the sofa again.

  The future seemed bleak and she wondered what her mother would have done.

  She looked across the small dressing room at the miniature standing on the dressing table.

  “Oh, Mama,” she whispered, “help us. How can Papa go on like this? Joe says he will kill himself and then what will happen to me? Please, Mama, please help us! You must know the trouble we are in.”

  She felt the tears come into her eyes as she spoke.

  Then, because she was afraid that her father might notice if she cried, she quickly wiped them away.

  Shimona could never bear to remember how distraught he had been when her mother died. At times she thought he would go insane and, because she had to give him her strength, she had never let herself cry in front of him.

  Sometimes she thought it was all that sustained him, all that had prevented him from collapsing completely.

  There was another long wait.

  Then at last she heard the applause break out and knew that the play had ended.

  ‘I must get Papa home as quickly as possible,’ she told herself. ‘Joe can call us a carriage which will be waiting at the door and Nanna will have supper ready. Then he must go straight to bed.’

  She wondered
if it would be wiser for him not to change but to go home as he was.

  Her father was always very fastidious about his appearance, but there would be nobody to see him and his long grey cloak would conceal the velvet costume he wore as Hamlet.

  ‘I am sure that would be wise,’ Shimona decided.

  Now the noise in the distance was gradually subsiding and she heard the voices of the actors outside in the passage.

  Then she heard her father say,

  “If you will just wait a moment, Your Grace, I will look and see if the dressing room is tidy.”

  “My dear Bardsley, I have been in enough dressing rooms not to worry whether they are tidy or not,” came the reply.

  Shimona knew immediately that her father was saying this to warn her that he had a visitor and rising she quickly slipped behind the curtain as the door opened.

  “As I might have expected,” she heard an amused voice remark, “your dressing room is a model of neatness and certainly there are no suspicious petticoats about!”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  Beau Bardsley spoke abruptly as if he resented the insinuation.

  “I know you want to get home, Bardsley,” his visitor went on. “I am well aware how you hate to hang about after the performance is over, but I have to see you – I need your help.”

  Beau Bardsley gave a light laugh.

  “My help? How can I possibly be of help to the Duke of Ravenstone?”

  Shimona listening knew that her father was in his own fashion informing her who was present and at the same time warning her that she must on no account reveal her presence.

  She had heard him speak of the Duke of Ravenstone and everything he had said about him came to her mind as she listened intently.

  “Will you have a drink, Your Grace?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Shimona realised without being able to see him that the Duke had seated himself on the sofa she had just vacated.

  “I will come straight to the point,” he said. “I need an actress – ”

  “Then you have come to the wrong man, Your Grace,” Beau Bardsley interrupted sharply. “As you are well aware, I never effect introductions to the members of the cast in this or in any other theatre.”