The Young Pretender

by Michael Arditti

Genres: Biographical

Synopsis

"An engrossing, enthralling and utterly captivating read, The Young Pretender tells a simply remarkable story with bounce, energy, wit, and lively authenticity . . . Michael Arditti's brilliant imaginative achievement offers high comedy, dark tragedy and everything between" STEPHEN FRY

"The Young Pretender is an absolute joy - charming and funny, with the lightest hint of melancholy, and a wonderfully imaginative recreation of the Georgian theatre scene" KATE SAUNDERS

"I loved how Arditti conjures...the smell of the theatre and the ghosts of these bygone players that haunt the stage...and the wonderful period details. Arditti wears his research so lightly" LARUSHKA IVAN-ZADEH, reviewing on Radio 4's FRONT ROW *****

"A vivid, highly detailed portrait of life in rumbustious Regency London" Mail on Sunday

Mobbed by the masses, lionised by the aristocracy, courted by royalty and lusted after by patrons of both sexes, the child actor William Henry West Betty was one of the most famous people in Georgian Britain.

At the age of thirteen, he played leading roles, including Romeo, Macbeth and Richard III, in theatres across the country. Prime Minister William Pitt adjourned the House of Commons so that its members could attend his debut as Hamlet at Covent Garden. Then, as rivals turned on him and scandal engulfed him, he suffered a fall as merciless as his rise had been meteoric.

"Arditti's voice as Betty is impeccable. He is touchy, sometimes myopic, sincere in his ambitions. His attempts to reclaim lost glory are run through with an affecting melancholy" The Times

The Young Pretender takes place during Betty's attempted comeback at the age of twenty-one. As he seeks to relaunch his career, he is forced to confront the painful truths behind his boyhood triumphs. Michael Arditti's revelatory new novel puts this long forgotten figure back in the limelight. In addition to its rich and poignant portrait of Betty himself, it offers an engrossing insight into both the theatre and society of the age. The nature of celebrity, the power of publicity and the cult of youth are laid bare in a story that is more pertinent now than ever.

"Entrancing and disturbing" ALLAN MASSIE, The Scotsman

"Michael Arditti tells a story of a Regency child star with great panache and compassion, bringing a forgotten celebrity back to life for the modern age. A compelling read I was sad to finish." LINDA GRANT

"Michael Arditti is a writer who takes risks. His material is always compelling and provocative, his techniques sophisticated and oblique" PATRICIA DUNCKER, Independent on Sunday

"Arditti is a master storyteller" PETER STANFORD, Observer

Release date: April 28, 2022

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

On my last visit to this city in 1806, the Abbey bells pealed to celebrate my arrival. A band played beneath my window the following morning and Papa complained that they expected a perquisite. A lady of rank coaxed the hotel keeper into costuming her as a serving maid and setting her to wait at my table. I do not recall her name and doubt that she would thank me if I did. I was fourteen years of age.

I am six years older now, ten inches taller, and my voice has acquired that mannish crack of which the poet wrote. Should my name spark a recollection, my figure swiftly dispels it and I am able to enjoy the diversions of Bath unremarked. At eight each morning, I visit the Pump Room to take a draught of the water, which I am assured is salutary in despite of its taste. I tarry while the orchestra plays a selection of German airs, before strolling to the coffee house where I read the newspapers, conversing with my fellow patrons on matters ranging from the war in Spain and the quakes in America to the building of Queen Charlotte’s Orangery. I parry any question about the object of my visit with a casual allusion to physicians and cures. We then part company as they make their way to breakfast with friends, followed by a morning concert or a scientific lecture, a game of billiards or piquet in the Assembly Rooms, a ride or drive in the countryside or a gentle promenade in the parades and arcades, while I go back to the hotel to address the business of the day.

I am making my return to the theatre. I have confided my purpose to no one for, while I am assured that the world at large will applaud it, I am aware of those who, professing to have my best interests at heart, would wish me to confine my endeavours to a domestic sphere. I shall allay their concerns. How could anyone who has heard the huzzahs ring in his ears seek to dissuade me? Then again, has anyone ever heard such huzzahs, save those notables with whom my name was once coupled? In Edinburgh, I was a second Chatterton; in Birmingham, a second Mozart; and everywhere, a second Garrick. The Young Roscius! The Wonder of the Age! A Player Sans Peer! The Prince of Wales received me at Carlton House and presented me with a coach and four. The greatest lords and statesmen of the day attended my performances and invited me to fetes and banquets. Painters painted me and poets eulogized me. Duchesses vied to drive with me in the Park. And all this before I had attained my fourteenth birthday. Then, before I had attained my fifteenth, they forsook me, forcing me to quit the stage when I had barely concluded the first act.

My renown lasted a mere eighteen months, but I am determined to recover it. Thus far I have sought to reacquaint myself with my surroundings. Every afternoon at four, I have made my way to Beaufort Square to be first in the line when the theatre doors are opened, even on Thursday when the cotillion ball in the Assembly Rooms attracts all but the most ardent playgoers. I hand over my three shillings at the pay box and take my check, to surrender it moments later at the pit door. After securing my place, I survey the house. I glance up at the ceiling, too distant for me to discern whether the winged figures, surrounded by discreetly undraped maidens, are angels or allegories. I turn to the one-shilling gallery, more mannerly here than in some parts but still inclined to employ the platform as a receptacle for their refuse. I lower my gaze to the boxes, the crimson-and-gold decoration eclipsed by the jewelled-and-silken splendour of the female occupants. While loath to censure their conduct, I wish that they would cease – or, at the very least, quiet – their chatter on the actors’ entrance. I shuffle along the bench to accommodate the late arrivers, whose tardiness provokes protests from my neighbours. Nothing can destroy my own excitement, not even the pungency that permeates the house during the five hours in which the play is followed, first by the farce, and then by a medley of patriotic songs. It is the smell of floats and size and the actors’ exertions and the crush of the crowd. It is the smell of my youth.

Soon, it will be the smell of my adulthood. For the first time in four years, I enter a theatre not as a spectator but as a player. I have been engaged for eight performances in Bath and two in Bristol by Mr Dimond, the circuit manager, whose correspondence is peppered with heartening recollections of my previous appearances, even if it dwells overmuch on the receipts. Our appointment is for eleven, but I arrive a half-hour in advance. I make myself known to the prompter, one Mr Charlton, but decline his offer to escort me. The stage is my element, as familiar to me as my bedroom at home in Pyms Farm. As ever, it is parsimoniously lit and I admire the scene-shifters’ skill in manoeuvring the flat-scenes without incident. Narrowing my eyes, I make out a vista of the Royal Crescent, ready for the evening’s performance of The Rivals, which is sure to draw a full house on its native soil. My heart aflutter, I step on to the platform, gingerly testing the grave trap into which I once leapt to gather the dead Ophelia in my arms. No one challenges me and the fancy takes me that I am one of the ghosts of bygone players who, according to green room lore, frequent the sites of their former glory. With melancholy looming, I remind myself that I am no incorporeal being, caught forever between roles, but a dispossessed heir – a Norval or a Selim – returning to his rightful domain.

A call boy heralds that return with his cry of ‘Overture on, sir.’ I turn around to find that he has vanished, while the voice in my ear deepens into that of Mr Dimond.

‘Master Betty, forgive me. I have only just been apprised of your arrival. You are most welcome.’

‘It is Mr Betty now,’ I gently rebuke him, as I accept the proffered hand.

‘Of course, of course. Forgive me. I would never have recognised you. You are taller . . . fuller.’

‘I wish to be admired for the excellence of my representation, not the symmetry of my figure.’

‘Of course, of course. But was it not ever thus? When I heard of your success in the north, I was incredulous. How could a boy of . . . what were you? Eleven?’

‘In Belfast, yes. By the time we crossed the sea, I had turned twelve.’

‘How could a boy of any age hold his own against full-grown players? I admit that when I first saw you, I was sensible of the discrepancy . . . the incongruity.’

‘I recall very little and that only in flashes, as if I were standing on the stage while they moved the lamps. But I do recall that my entrance was greeted with laughter on several occasions. Mr Hough – my tutor – charged me to ignore it.’

‘Very wise. In a matter of moments it was replaced by awe. The power of your playing silenced scoffers and sceptics alike.’

‘I thank you.’

‘I see you now as Norval,’ he says, seizing back my hand as if to transport me to the scene of my greatest triumph. ‘The refinement of your obeisance to Lady Randolph, which proved you to be no mean shepherd’s boy. The rapture of your countenance when she disclosed the secret of your birth. Your righteous fury when you confronted the villain, Glenalvon. Your despair on realising that fate had restored your mother to you only to tear you apart:

“O had it pleas’d high heaven to let me live

A little while! – my eyes that gaze on thee

Grow dim apace! My mother—”’

He releases my hand to strike an attitude, a reminder that in his day he had been accounted a capital actor. ‘Your youth, your freshness, your grace, your candour stirred every bosom.’ The tears welling in his eyes enhance his words. I feel a pricking in my own, but it is my memory as much as my vision that is clouded.

‘I am Mr Betty now,’ I repeat.

*

He leads me to his office where, blowing the dust off a glass, he pours me some brandy. I take a nip but, catching sight of the mouse droppings on the floor, decline one of the Union biscuits that he munches blithely. We exchange pleasantries about the recent Christmas festivities, the new turnpike in Shropshire and the comfort of the York House hotel, although we are both as eager to attend to the matter in hand as the audience during a rambling prologue. After the requisite interval, he restates the terms of my engagement, setting out my nights. He declares that there are several members of the company who remain from my last visit and they, along with my many friends in Bath, will delight in my return. To my dismay, he has yet to announce the dates.

‘On Wednesday I shall arrange for a judicious paragraph to be inserted in the Chronicle. The town will be caught unawares. I foresee that the box keeper’s office will be besieged. Of course, we can expect nothing to match the frenzy that accompanied your previous appearances. No one – not Mr Kemble, not Mrs Siddons – has ever approached the appeal of Master Betty. The stampede at the doors was so great that, against all precedent, we were obliged to institute a lottery and sell tickets in advance. Even so, we escaped lightly compared to the theatres in the north. The newspapers blazoned accounts of the fury of those who failed to gain entrance . . . the deployment of the militia to quell the tumult . . . the woman who was killed in Liverpool.’

‘Killed, just coming to the play?’

‘But it was not just a play; it was Master Betty.’ The thought disconcerts me and I gulp the rest of the drink. ‘I admire your courage,’ he adds, mistaking my fuddled look for equanimity. ‘Other actors have to contend with the repute of their predecessors in old plays and the effects of their fellows in new; you have to contend with memories of yourself.’

‘I am Mr Betty now.’

‘No actor has ever been so esteemed, only to be so discarded.’

‘I remember very little.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he says, with a smile that smacks of discretion.

I am speaking the truth. My memory has always been strong, which is how I was able to take on such taxing roles. They gave me my lengths and, within a few hours, I had them by heart, as if my mind were a mirror – no, not a mirror, for that would have inverted them and I never mistook a line. Yet, try as I might, I cannot recall why I fell from favour. I know that the houses were no longer full and, on some nights, the huzzahs did battle with hisses. I know that, in London, the managers no longer competed for my services. But everything else is a vacancy. Papa would scarcely speak to me, his silence betokening his disappointment and even his contempt.

It was left to Mama to explain that I was the victim of circumstance. The theatre is not a world set apart, and the news from abroad had overshadowed its proceedings. Buonaparte’s armies had subjugated most of Europe. Britannia might still rule the waves, but the victory at Trafalgar had been scarred by Lord Nelson’s death. I had witnessed for myself the outburst of dolour from the crowd when the royal barge bearing his coffin sailed up the Thames from Greenwich, followed by a flotilla of sixty boats, whose watermen held aloft their oars as though they were presenting arms. I was invited to watch the procession by Lord and Lady Abercorn, two of my foremost friends, but when I asked if we would be joined by Lady Hamilton, they looked shocked.

‘I doubt very much that you will be hearing from that party again,’ Lady Abercorn replied, as if offended by her mere existence. ‘The siren has sung her last song.’

‘His doctor attests that, with his dying breath, Nelson left her and her bastard issue to the nation,’ Lord Abercorn said.

‘A gift more suited to an infidel seraglio than a Christian kingdom,’ Lady Abercorn said, with a shudder.

Young as I was, I pitied the abandoned lady on whom, only months before, our hosts had fawned when we performed together at Abercorn House. Lady Hamilton exhibited her Attitudes, pantomiming the tragic heroines of Greece and Rome while enveloped in a vast white shawl, and I recited speeches from Tancred and Sigismunda. As we left, she clutched me to her bosom, which smelt of violets and wardrobes, kissing me wetly on the cheek. Soon we were both to be outcasts. Yet I will not allow the memory to distress me. Is it not a law of nature that anything that soars so high must suffer a commensurate fall, unless it is to vanish in the Empyrean?

I made my last appearance in London the following May and, for the next two years, I traversed the country, playing in towns and cities where fashion held less sway. Papa continued to bill me as the Young Roscius, a name that I grew to hate, not least when my cheeks filled out and my upper lip bristled, amid other palpable signs of manhood.

Now I am ready to return; I am everything that I was as a boy and more. I have known in myself the passions that hitherto I had to mimic: loneliness; loss; bereavement; betrayal; even love for Letty, my Cambridge sweetheart. Love, loss and betrayal, together with resentment, revenge, folly and pride, all feature in my first role, the Earl of Essex in Henry Jones’ play. Mr Dimond’s surprise that I have not chosen one of my more celebrated roles vindicates my choice. I may not be contending with the boy that I was, but I have no wish to court comparison. I first played Essex five years ago, not in London or Bath, but in Buxton, Carlisle, Dumfries and Cheltenham, and although there is little genius in the play, it contains passages of great power and excellent opportunities for points. The same is true of my other roles: Orestes in The Distress’d Mother and Tristram Fickle in The Weathercock.

Mr Dimond escorts me to the prompter’s office, where Mr Charlton is instructing a copyist. After a few words of encouragement, he withdraws, swiftly followed by the copyist, leaving me to settle the stage business with the prompter. He begins by praising the excellence of the cast, discussing each one in turn with disquieting intimacy, as if I were a local dignitary whose support he was soliciting, rather than a fellow actor shortly to share their endeavours. He makes particular mention of Mr and Mrs Haughton, the doyens of the company, who are to play Burghley and the Queen in The Earl of Essex, and Phoenix and Andromache in The Distress’d Mother, with Mr Haughton also playing Old Fickle in the farce. They remember me of yore and ‘are eager to see how Master Betty bears up.’

‘They will have their wish,’ I say, feigning a smile.

‘You will have the pleasure of acting alongside Mr Clinch. He is to be your Southampton, Pylades, and Briefwit. He is a great favourite here, especially among the weaker sex. I am no talebearer, but he has found himself in pickles that it would task the pen of the most deviceful author to resolve. He too is impati. . .