Ophelia's Fan Read online

  W. W. Norton & Company

  New York London

  For Rupert

  At once he took his Muse and dipt her Right in the middle of the Scripture.

  —W. HAZLITT, LIBER AMORIS: OR, THE NEW PYGMALION

  The aspiration of the mind is after the highest excellence, its longings are after immortality: its performance is generally as nothing; its triumph but for a moment!

  —OXBERRY’S PREFATORY REMARKS TO JANE SHORE: A TRAGEDY BY NICHOLAS ROWE

  Contents

  Part One: Benevolence

  The Birth: Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, 1800

  Ennis: 1800

  Ennis: 1806

  Juliet

  Part Two: Learning

  Advice to the Actor

  Ennis: 1808

  Waterford, County Waterford: 1809–1814

  Desdemona

  Dublin: 1814

  Waterford: 1817

  Birmingham, England: 1817

  Ennis: 1806

  Dublin: 1817

  Ennis: 1807

  Part Three: Love

  London: 1818

  Liverpool: 1819

  London: 1820

  Anne Boleyn

  London: 1821

  London: 1826

  London: 1820–1827

  London: 1826

  Ennis: 1808

  Part Four: Harmony

  In the Beginning

  Paris: 1827

  Paris: December 1832

  Paris: December 1832

  1827

  Ophelia

  1827

  1833

  Jane Shore

  1833

  1827

  1833

  1833

  1833

  1827

  1827

  1833

  1828

  1827

  Acknowledgements

  Select Bibliography

  Part One

  BENEVOLENCE

  Mme Harriet Berlioz

  Rue de Londres

  Paris, 7 May 1838

  My dear Louis,

  I write to you in English for in French you have never known your mother. I long for the lands of English where words flow like song and do not catch their sharp edges in my throat.

  I collect my writings and papers because I am compelled to make you understand the lands and journeys that made me. A great many things happened to me before I was your mother and your father’s wife.

  Do not let them tell you I am melancholic, for it is the perpetual forward movement of time which breeds melancholy. We are the sum of all we have been, all we have read, all we have played, and all we have dreamed. My mind is not lost, it is merely wandering the passages of my life.

  Today your father brought you to my room and you touched the fan now so gray and threadbare on my bureau, before asking softly about Ophélie. Your father wept when he heard you. For the story of Ophelia you must wait.

  I will bind this manuscript and ask Joséphine to give it to you when you are grown. By the time you read this, you will have long forgotten such childish moments.

  Your loving mother,

  Harriet

  The Birth: Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, 1800

  THE WINTER BEFORE Henrietta Smithson’s confinement was the worst in living memory. Ice glazed the streets and doorsteps. The poor locked themselves into cottages with stale bread crumbs, and their body heat nurtured a fever that would spread like fire through the town.

  In Simms Lane, the Smithsons were away from the fever. Many of their patrons, including Father Barrett and Lady Castle Coote, sent the salted meat and preserved vegetables they could spare in gratitude for last season’s performances. As the ice melted, Smithson embarked on a new season of theater.

  On the night his daughter Harriet was born, Smithson left for the theater in the late afternoon. As he kissed his wife, he saw that her face was paler than usual and her cheeks felt like the warm dough of his childhood. It seemed to him that all her skin was becoming more malleable in preparation for the birth.

  “Romeo and Juliet tonight,” he shouted as he left the house. “Rest, my fair Juliet.”

  Although Smithson had built the theater himself, he felt an initial resistance on entering it. The building was small; the stone walls were close together and it was as though they would swallow him up in the musty dimness. Whenever his theater was full, he would look over the crammed house. His heart would beat madly, and he would pray that on this night the candles would not set the house on fire. Smithson still hoped that he would one day have the funds to build a grander theater like the one in Limerick. He imagined himself as manager of such a theater. He believed this was one role he could perform very well.

  On the night Harriet was born, her mother screamed lines from Shakespeare to dull the pain. The midwife was puzzled by words of love and death.

  Ennis: 1800

  FATHER BARRETT RETURNED from the lodge feeling warm and merry. He had spent a very satisfactory evening with the brethren, enjoying the Freemasons’ singing and the ceremony which he did not have to lead. News of the child’s birth had come from Smithson himself, who had left his wife in the care of a friend.

  Father Barrett tried to imagine the child Smithson had described. Clear blue eyes and thick dark hair. Her name was Harriet and she was going to be a great actress, Smithson had said. And he had shaken his head tearfully. The reverend had patted the arm of his friend and shuddered imperceptibly. She had an expressive face, the new father said, even in her newly born redness, her unfocused eyes, uncontrollable movements, and limpness. Barrett felt a connection with this child he had not yet seen, a Protestant child who would not be christened by his hand. Later, he would long to christen her one hundred times over as though bearing his cross would prevent her bearing any other.

  “Father, if we cannot . . . if it is better. . . . Will you look after her?”

  At seventy-nine, Father Barrett knew few people older than himself and many younger. He had little left to learn but much to teach. His very mind quickened at the thought of a child hungering for learning in his library. He nodded.

  Ennis: 1806

  THE SMELL OF ENNIS permeated everything. It slipped between the cobblestones and saturated bed linen. It stained clothing so deeply that the few people who had ever left the town had written home that no amount of scrubbing restored their clothing to cleanliness. Even when old Ennis clothes were torn to shreds and used as dishrags, they still retained the alarming sourness of home.

  The streets leading into the town were rank. Odors of mashed potatoes whirled among oily hair and the boiled onion smell of sweat. Dead, ill, and tired air blended into a deep pungency. Hot, thick lumps of horse manure became part of the air breathed by the town and remained unnoticed until a workman slipped on the cobblestones and cursed.

  The lopsided walls of the workers’ cottages lining the streets looked like cards. They were constructed with the haphazardness of a child’s game. A small boy, waking confused to find himself alone in the bed he normally shared with five other children, once stood and began jumping on the mattress. The shaking of the walls was visible from outside. His mother shouted, and a quick shudder moved up from the foundations. A tiny earthquake. A warning not to overstep boundaries.

  The people of Ennis were accustomed to living with death. Too much rain had blighted crops. Tiny black insects could be found on the soft skin of babies and could carry them off within the day. Lack of fuel could bring on rasping coughs. Stories of the 1745 famine pulsed through their veins and made them grateful for potatoes. The old Franciscan friary overlooking the fierce brown Shannon reminded them that the river had swallowed the life of little Annie Rich who had slipped off the stone wall lining its slippery banks.
Winter puddles were large enough to drown children. Many families were said to be hoarding corpses beneath the floorboards for fear that the Church of Ireland would snatch them and bury them secretly in unconsecrated Protestant ground.

  In Ennis, it was not unusual for the dead to speak. They had much to complain about. It was common over cups of tea in the morning to be told that Grandpa Tippett had whispered words up through the floorboards during the night. Children sometimes crept back to the kitchen after dark and held glasses to the floorboards. Little George received a belting on the day he told his father that Uncle Michael had asked for his hair comb back. Sometimes the dead incited mischief. If Ennis boys were beaten for stealing the pennies from their father’s purse, they would scream that Aunt Ellen had made them do it. Their mother would pause, tell them not to speak ill of the dead, and then remember that once Aunt Ellen had, in fact, stolen pennies. Occasionally the dead did nothing more than take rasping breaths. Those who could find no peace were said to groan fit to bring the roof down. Dead children wailed like banshees. Those seeking revenge could throw cooking pots, leaving gashed walls slowly crumbling as a reminder of their pain.

  FATHER BARRETT TRIED to keep the sourness of Ennis away with morning prayers and sweets. He preferred the strawberry sweets; they distracted from the brownness of his teeth, dyed his lips crimson, and made his gums look as though they bled. But if Bridie, the maid, was unable to find them, sugar cubes would do. Each morning and then every hour or when required. This sweetness was warm when you came in the oak door. It rubbed off Father Barrett’s hands and infused everything he touched. It left a trail around the house so that Harriet always knew where to find him.

  Harriet knew there were many words that could be used for him, but she could never remember the correct order. Barrett, Dean, Doctor, Father, Reverend. She knew that if she called him James, he would nod vaguely and peer somewhere behind her while Bridie gasped and her cheeks turned purple.

  Sometimes Harriet liked to make Bridie angry on purpose. It meant that she would feel strong fingers gripping her arm while Bridie bent down to hiss at her. It made Harriet feel strong being touched like this. Then she knew that what she was doing mattered. It was like being wrapped. There was nothing Harriet loved more than the feeling of being wrapped in a towel after she was soaked and scrubbed in time for the Sabbath. She liked the tightness on her limbs, the moisture being blotted from her skin, and the warmth of being rubbed dry. At other times, Bridie’s touch would make her jump and she would have to hold back from hitting her. There was only one person who had ever really held her. Harriet thought she remembered Mrs. Fudge. Mrs. Fudge had looked after Harriet in Father Barrett’s home when Harriet was very small, before she had learned to read. Harriet had a faint memory of standing in the parlor, clinging to Mrs. Fudge’s thick thighs while the woman’s whole body had heaved with sobs.

  “Don’t make me leave my girl,” she had said. And Father Barrett had stepped from his left foot to his right, scratching his left temple and frowning.

  “Come, come, Mrs. Fudge,” he had said. “Harriet does not need your help any more. I will teach her.”

  Now that Harriet was nearly six, she knew that if she did not make too much noise, they would leave her alone. Then she could give herself up to the spirits in the dusty air and old books in the nursery. Once Harriet had pulled one of Bridie’s old gray aprons over her pinafore and made a feather duster from clothing scraps. As she dusted someone else’s long-forgotten toy soldiers, Harriet’s voice became full and sweet. Sounds she had never made before began to pour out of her.

  You remember Ellen, our hamlet’s pride,

  How meekly she blessed her humble lot,

  When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,

  And love was the light of their lovely cot

  Together they toil’d through winds and rains,

  Till William, at length, in sadness said,

  “We must seek our fortune on other plains;”

  Then sighing, she left her lowly shed . . .

  “Whatever are you doing, child?” Bridie had appeared after some time in the nursery. Harriet had not heard her climbing the stairs. She noticed that although Bridie’s eyes were stern, her lips were curved into the hint of a smile. Harriet closed her mouth and turned back to the soldiers.

  “And I did those shelves only yesterdy!”

  THE SONG ABOUT ELLEN reminded Harriet of Mother Mary and Babyjesus. Harriet knew that she was lucky to live with Father Barrett, even if he was not like other people’s fathers, because he had been there when Babyjesus was born. He had told her all about it. Each Christmas they celebrated the birthday of Babyjesus, and everyone wanted Father Barrett to go to their house for lunch to tell them about the night that Babyjesus was born. Just before Christmas every year, Harriet was allowed to go with Father Barrett to find Babyjesus in the church. She would put on her very best Sunday dress, and Father Barrett, with unusual perceptiveness, would peer down at her and say, “Harriet, your pretty dress will soon be covered in dust.”

  She would puff out her chest, stand on her toes, and say, “I am visiting our king.” Father Barrett would grin and let his fingers hang low so that she could hold onto them. His pocket would be heavy and bulging from the Christmas Key when they arrived in the church.

  “Now then, Harriet,” he would say, “do you remember where we left Babyjesus last year?”

  She would nod proudly and say, “Yes, in the crypt down below.” Father Barrett was lucky she was there, Harriet thought, because otherwise he would never remember where he had left Babyjesus and then all of Ennis would be without Christmas.

  The crypt was dark, and they had to light a candle to see their way down the stone steps. Harriet would slide her hand down the banisters, trying not to trip as she ran ahead while Father Barrett stumbled behind her and his voice echoed, “Patience is a virtue, Harriet! Be careful you don’t slip!” Harriet would slow down, knowing that still she would be the first person in Ennis to see Babyjesus.

  Father Barrett found her crouched in the dark corner, gently unraveling the rags, which Harriet knew were really silk cloths, in which Babyjesus was wrapped. She laid Babyjesus on her lap, stared at his dusty and fading eyes. By candlelight she wiped his face with a velvet sleeve. She leaned over him and kissed his cheek.

  Every Christmas Harriet was Mary. She cradled Babyjesus as she carried him home. She bathed him in the porcelain basin in her own bedroom, in water that was Neither Too Hot Nor Too Cold. Gently she shook the water out of his joints and wrapped him in clean cloths. She took him back to the chapel with Father Barrett and laid him in the manger for all Ennis to see. She collected him after the Christmas Day service and picked the straw from his face. She arrived at Christmas Lunch with Father Barrett, cradling Babyjesus and staring up into the faces of grown-ups with large, pious eyes. But this Mary was never satisfied with her Joseph. One year Tommy Kiley dropped Babyjesus on purpose in the ash of a dead fireplace. Another year, Johnny Owen swung Babyjesus around by the left arm. Babyjesus had never quite recovered, and his left arm was still a little longer and more flexible than his right.

  FATHER BARRETT WAS GOOD at telling stories about the events surrounding the birth. So much so that Harriet longed for him to tell her own story.

  “What happened?” she would ask at dinner when they were alone and she was allowed to ask him anything she wanted to know. “What happened on the night I was born?”

  In the beginning, Father Barrett had only told Harriet about The Irishman in Naples and Romeo and Juliet. One night she asked, “What else, Reverend Doctor? What else happened on the night I was born?”

  Father Barrett murmured quietly to himself. His eyes were so misty that Harriet wondered if he could see at all.

  “After The Irishman in Naples and Romeo and Juliet there was,” he cleared his throat, “a distinct view of Mount Vesuvius on fire and,” he paused, “a solemn dirge and funeral procession.”

  The word
s were sweet and warm as milk. She rolled them around in her mouth as she waited for Father Barrett to tell her the stories. He stared at the portrait of an earlier priest on the wall.

  “Hmmm,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. He looked down at his plate and gently sawed at his mutton. Harriet sat still, her back straight, her hands clasped in her lap, her meat growing cold.

  “Hmmm,” he repeated. That was all he said.

  So Harriet had been forced to embellish the stories herself. She painted her face with black ink in front of her small hand mirror, a gift her mother had slipped to her at the end of one of the family visits. The mustache was nearly perfect, apart from a slight drip down to her chin. She pulled her hair behind her head with a ribbon and found a misshapen hat in the chest. If she shook her head too much, it covered her eyes. Harriet knew she could learn to walk without moving her head. She also knew that Naples was in Italy and there were nice churches there. She remembered a friend of Father Barrett’s from his Paris days, an old Italian man who had once come to visit. Harriet remembered that he had talked a great deal and waved his hands about during the meal. It was only when Bridie came to clear the table after the men had gone that Harriet noticed he had barely touched his Irish stew.

  Now Harriet stretched a skipping rope across the nursery so that one half of the room could be her father’s theater, the other her parents’ small cottage, somewhere up in Simms Lane. She spread a blanket on the floor for her mother and found her doll to play the part of herself. Soon she would be lying on the blanket playing the part of her mother; for Harriet knew babies came to women while they slept. She peered over the rope to where the theater was going to be. She stared back at the doll and realized that she did not want to play this role.

  Slowly, Harriet wound the skipping rope around her left hand. She returned the blanket to Bridie’s linen press. She leaned the doll against the shelf. The doll became her audience, and Harriet began her performance.