England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [26]
As the play proceeded, Emma hurried around the theater carrying water, props, soap, and drapes. She may even have ventured onto the stage. In his diaries, Sheridan instructed that, in order to save money, servants and assistants should be used on busy nights in processions and crowd scenes. The future Lady Hamilton may have first appeared to the public as a vagrant in The Beggar's Opera or as a peasant in one of Shakespeare's crowd scenes. Backstage staff marveled at the stamina of the performers. An actress strove to compel the attention of thousands, who shrieked insults and compliments as well as suggestions on delivery, movement, and even dress. If she was popular, they might clap through her entire performance.7 When the theaters were rebuilt in the 1790s, they appear to have contained water closets, but in Emma's time, those in boxes used chamber pots, while everyone else had to dash outside. Sellers touted fruit in the gallery, and prostitutes cruised for customers. Scene shifters added to the chaos, along with the stream of people arriving at the end of the third act for half price. Many performers resorted to outrageous overacting to keep the attention of the audience. Foreign visitors gaped as English actors feigned death by staggering back and forth across the stage while bellowing loud groans. Any actress who succeeded in conveying believable emotion was truly worth her salary.
After the show was over, Emma took Mary her tea and then began to sort the company's clothes to go to the washerwomen: the richest dresses were brushed and aired, and then the silk dresses and stockings had to be sorted into a separate pile from the cotton shirts and dresses. Only much later was she allowed to drag herself back to her lodgings, aching from carrying, her head ringing with the sound of the theater. It was a struggle to remain a maid, surrounded by beautiful women paid to behave as they pleased.
In December, tragedy struck. The Linleys' second (now eldest) son, fourteen-year-old Samuel, left his ship and went home with cholera. He was buried on December 6. Eighteen-year-old fencing master and socialite Henry Angelo, a pallbearer at the funeral and a friend of the Linleys, claimed that Emma left Mary's employ because she was so distressed by his death.8 Angelo was making excuses for his friends: no maid would voluntarily leave in December a position that she liked. Emma was probably the victim of a cost-cutting drive. Families always fired maids if money was tight, for it was so easy to find a replacement later. Perhaps Mrs. Lin-ley wished to get rid of Emma before the January slump or suspected her of getting above her station. Mistresses often turned against maids— especially pretty ones—and in the days before employment rights, no one thought to concern themselves as to why. Emma was not given a reference, but one would not have done her much good anyway. Few families wanted a girl who had been employed in a theater.
Emma had managed to keep clear of prostitution for nearly eighteen months. It was not a bad achievement, as many new arrivals to London succumbed within three months or less. A girl sacked without references had little alternative after she had sold the few clothes she owned. Within a few days, Henry Angelo spotted Emma on the streets, hungry, but in a prime position for a man looking for a girl: standing against a post on the corner of New Compton Street in Soho.
CHAPTER 9
The Square of Venus
Covent Garden was the biggest and most flamboyant street spectacle in Europe. Rakes and pickpockets swarmed across the piazza, and the streets and alleys nearby teemed with prostitutes. Visitors were pop-eyed with excitement. "Covent Garden is the great Square of Venus," reported one, "and its purlieus are crowded with the practitioners of this Goddess." There were, he decided, "lewd