Stephen Sayer was one of the Sheriffs of the City of London, a politician who was not an aristocrat or a noble. Mrs. Steele, Sophia's friend-companion-chaperone-servant did not like the man, perhaps thinking him not good enough for Sophia. Sophia continued to spend more money than she had and Sayer lived off Sophia and treated her as a servant. Mrs. Steele quit!
Sayer humiliated Sophia by leaving her while she was pregnant to marry another, richer woman. He was an opportunist and user.
Though Elizabeth Steele did continue to look in on her friend, she no longer worked on the Memoirs and so we have only glimpses of Sophia's life after so many rich details were accounted.
Sophia did return to the stage after the birth of her son and what is called "a long illness.' I wonder to myself if she had post partum depression. Her salary as an actress was increased to 8 pounds plus a clothing allowance. She was still popular with the audiences even if she was excluded from society. In 1778 she earned a huge sum. And she found love again with a fellow actor with whom she had two more children - three total.
When Mr. Webster, the father of her two children, died, she'd become nervous and unstable. Perhaps she had long suffered from a psychological condition.
Sophia left London with yet another man, John, and moved to Dublin, where she appeared onstage, and then on to Edinburgh and York. Her heath was poor, she was chased by debt, and she had a new addiction, laudanum, a tincture of opium. Her addiction intensified. She appeared on stage when possible, until the end of the 1785; for ten years she supported her family as an actress. What happened to John who had moved her north from London is not known.
Sophia was reported to have 'consumption.' This usually means tuberculosis, and if so, then Sophia likely had been infected years earlier. She was also reportedly "lame' a more generic term, not to mean that she limped but that she was weak. Sophia was only 41 years old when she died.
She was loved enough by her fellow players in Edinburgh that they contributed to pay for someone to tend to her on her deathbed.
I feel grateful to author Katie Hickman for this well researched and interesting book. the primary reference for this month's post.
No comments:
Post a Comment