Goddess of the Green Room: (Georgian Series) Read Free Page B

seller. They had heard it many times before but never as sung that night.
    They called for her to sing again, which she did; and it was clear from that night that Dorothy Bland was no ordinary actress.
    Grace read the letter to her daughters. It was formal and from a lawyer who represented Francis’s relations. The family resented the fact that Miss Grace Phillips allowed her actress daughter to use their name and to have it appearing on play bills. As she had no right to this, they must ask her to stop doing so.
    Dorothy could not restrain her feelings. She had a temper, as the family well knew; but it did not greatly worry them because although it would flare up suddenly it was quickly over.
    ‘Impudence!’ she cried. ‘They have done nothing for us and now they are telling us what we should do.’
    ‘Take no notice of them,’ advised Hester more calmly. ‘You’ve made something of a stir as Dorothy Bland, are you going to throw it away because Papa’s family are ashamed of us?’
    ‘I am not,’ Dorothy assured her. ‘And I may well make it known that I am connected with the high and mighty Blands of Dublin’s fair city – yes, and that they will have nothing to do with us although it is their plain and bounden duty to keep us from starvation.’
    ‘You’re not on the boards now, Dolly,’ Hester reminded her sister.
    ‘Now, girls,’ put in Grace, ‘I’ve been thinking about this; and it’s not wise to go against your Papa’s family. It’s always been my hope that one day they would do something for us. Now that your grandfather, the Judge, is dead, it may be that the rest of the family will feel differently.’
    ‘It doesn’t seem like it,’ retorted Dorothy. ‘And why do you imagine they should suddenly turn so virtuous?’
    ‘You never know,’ insisted Grace; ‘and it’s always wise to be on the safe side.’
    Dorothy laughed suddenly. Dear Mamma, who had been so badly treated by life, who had really believed that Papa was going to marry her one day – how she always wanted to be on the Safe Side.
    Dorothy kissed her suddenly. ‘All right, Mamma. We’ll be onthe safe side. We’ll compromise. I’m not going to give up Papa’s name altogether. But we’ll meet the high and mighty Blands half way. I’ll be Dorothy Francis. They couldn’t object to that.’
    They all thought this was a good idea; and from that day Dorothy became Miss Francis.
    Miss Francis was a considerable actress. She could dance prettily; her singing voice was unusually appealing and when she sang on a stage the audience were always loth to let her go. If the play was not going well it was always advisable to bring in Dorothy Francis to sing or do some sort of a jig on the stage and the audience could usually be put into a good humour. In addition her speaking voice had a soothing effect and when she spoke a prologue the noisiest audience grew quiet. It was not so much that she was a good actress as that she was Dorothy Bland – or Francis as she had now become – with a carefree diffidence, a gaiety, an insouciance… who could say what it was? But whatever the description it was Dorothy – and the people liked it.
    Is it those shapely legs? wondered Thomas Ryder, determined to get her into breeches parts as much as possible. Is it her singing voice? Her speaking voice? Her way of romping through a part as though she enjoyed it? Even a tragic role seemed less tragic in her hands. There was something about Dorothy which assured him that the day he had decided to let the young sister try where the elder one had failed had not been an unlucky one for him.
    Dorothy – with Hester and the rest of the company – went to Waterford and Cork to play under Ryder’s management while Grace stayed behind in Dublin with the young children because her two daughters were earning enough to make this possible.
    By the time she was back in Crow Street Dorothy had come to regard herself as a professional actress. The smell of