Chapter 3

[Richardson curtseys. That's a poor way to describe it. It is a bob rustic indeed, but it veils Columbine very slightly. She is like one of the flowers of Keats, "all tiptoe for a flight." Into the room with the arch-valet and the very tired, elegant modish man she has come like the scent of mignonette through the window. His lordship's mind stirs even under its counterpane of cards and dice and buttered claret and snuff and fripperies, and one might think he heard the echo of a thrush's song sung when he was a boy (Unbelievable thought), and climbed trees.

And where do you come from?

HARLEQUIN. The country, my lord.

EGLANTINE. I lived in the country once. There used to be things one picked in the hedges ...

[He has forgotten those, too.

HARLEQUIN. Blackberries?

EGLANTINE. I don't think they were called blackberries. Things with a rough husky scent.

[Columbine's lips make a pretty pout. In another moment we should hear Prim--...

The girl has it. Primroses. One forgets. One lives to learn to forget. [He likes the sound of that. It fits the sense. It is almost an epigram.] A guinea, child, for the song. Sing at your work. I like to hear you.

[She floats away. Eglantine has turned to his mirror.

Fifteen thousand pounds lost and not another wrinkle. Sir Jeffrey Rake had it of me last night. They keep those rooms so hot. Quin, am I pale?

HARLEQUIN. Perhaps a little, my lord.

[From nowhere in particular Quin (Harle-Quin, you notice) produces the Beau's morning chocolate, which Eglantine sips daintily.

EGLANTINE. What do I do to-day?

HARLEQUIN. At eight o'clock comes Mr. Talon.

EGLANTINE. A plaguy fellow, my attorney! And I have not slept a wink. What does he want with us?

HARLEQUIN. Among other things your lordship's signature to the marriage settlement.

EGLANTINE. Whose marriage settlement?

HARLEQUIN. At ten o'clock your lordship is to be married.

EGLANTINE. So I am! Heel-taps and Hymen's torches! so I am! Wonderful fellow, you remember everything! But death of my waistcoats! Have I but two hours to dress in? Not more. Begin on me ... begin.

HARLEQUIN. Pardon, my lord, the bell.

EGLANTINE. That's the man of law. Show him in. You can bring water in here ... my turban ... pantoufles.

[The door opens and in totters Pantaloon. You know him for Pantaloon, as you knew him as Pantaloon for Charon, for all he's Mr. Talon with his tie wig, his spectacles, and his lawyer's blue bag.

HARLEQUIN. His lordship will receive you, Mr. Talon.

PANTALOON. To celebrate your master's wedding day ... two crowns.

HARLEQUIN. I am obleeged, sir.

[Quin takes the proffered money and salutes in thanks. But--it's odd-- the salute is as when Charon saluted Mercury.

ALICE. D'you see ... in a dim sort of way they remember themselves and Olympus.

EGLANTINE. Mr. Talon, 'pon me honour, as punctual as a creditor. Port? Madeira or Port, Mr. Talon? Quin, Mr. Talon will drink Madeira.

[Quin pours out the Madeira. Quin takes his master's wig, beturbans him, brings rose-water for his hands, cosmetics for his face. Quin is everywhere. Quin does everything. It is magical.

Mr. Talon, you look black at me.

[Mr. Talon, seated, warmed with his wine, takes many red-taped papers from his bag and a quill from a case.

PANTALOON. A goose quill.

EGLANTINE. One of your own plucking?

PANTALOON. Often too appropriate for the signing of such documents.

EGLANTINE. This the settlement? Small house ... strip of woodland ... rentals of farm ... two hundred a year! Is that all?

PANTALOON. It is all there is left to settle, my lord; all that is left to you of your estate.

EGLANTINE. The Lady Clarissa may well complain.

PANTALOON. But if you had not pledged yourself to pay her debts besides you would be still twelve thousand five hundred pounds the richer.

EGLANTINE. True!

PANTALOON. And I must warn your lordship that all this done, if it's to be done, you will have left to you a mere fifteen thousand pounds in stocks. That, and no more in the world.

EGLANTINE. Fifteen?

PANTALOON. Exactly.

EGLANTINE. How lucky. The very sum I lost last night to Sir Jeffrey Rake. Had it been more how could I have paid him? Had it been less we should have been troubled with the change.

PANTALOON. My lord, my lord!

EGLANTINE. You seem distressed. Quin, a glass of wine for Mr. Talon to restore him.

[In a flash Quin has re-filled his glass with wine.

PANTALOON. You are ruined!

EGLANTINE. So it seems. Rose-water for my hands, Quin.

PANTALOON. This is Sir Jeffrey Rake's revenge. It's said that he has wooed Lady Clarissa while you won her from him.

EGLANTINE. At fifteen thousand! Cheap, then, you'll admit at the price.

PANTALOON. A cheap lady, no doubt, my lord, at any price.

EGLANTINE. You know her?

PANTALOON. Her reputation only.

EGLANTINE. There's her portrait behind me. I can't turn my head. Quin, bring me my mirror.

[Mr. Talon studies the brilliant lady rather doubtfully.

PANTALOON. I trust she loves your lordship?

EGLANTINE. Gad's life! I never asked her. A monstrous unfair thing to ask of any woman of the world.

PANTALOON. Doubtless she is grateful for the sacrifice you make.

EGLANTINE. I hope not.

[Quin now has the mirror placed so that Eglantine can view his bride-to-be. It reflects other matters of importance, too.

Ah ... is that the new wig on the block? Vastly good! Quin here, Mr. Talon, has a magical touch at dressing a head. Gad, but the wig block looks as lively as I do. The mirror reflects her ladyship's portrait very well.

PANTALOON. You love her, my lord?

[At this moment and at that word Harlequin waves his wand--it is a comb as it happens--and next we hear Columbine begin again to sing.

EGLANTINE. Love, Mr. Talon, is a most unmodish thing. It may be called...! That girl is singing again!

HARLEQUIN. She knows no better, my lord. Shall I stop her?

EGLANTINE. No. But hand me my epigrams upon love. They slip my memory. It's a pretty song. [The tablets are before him. He glances over them.] Now, let's see. Love is a ... [But he is caught by the song.] Artless as a bird! Love ... [That fine epigram seems out of place beside the song.] When a woman loves you, she ... [But while that girl is singing, he simply cannot read the foolish words.] That might be the oldest song in the world!

HARLEQUIN. It is, my lord.

EGLANTINE. [Gives back the tablets with the wryest smile.] Take them, put them in the fire. As epigrams well enough, Mr. Talon; but perhaps the simple truth is, that I do not love her ladyship.

[And the song ceases.

HARLEQUIN. Pardon me, my lord; once more the bell!

[Quin disappears to answer it.

EGLANTINE. Gad, no more delays, or my bride will be kept waiting at the Church.

PANTALOON. Listen to me, my lord. Pay these debts of hers in full, make this settlement as you intend, and you are a pauper.

EGLANTINE. But yet a gentleman who has given his word and not broken it.

PANTALOON. You will at least allow me to postpone the payment of the debts till you are safely married. Caution's our lawyer's trade mark. Her ladyship might die, might change her mind at the very altar!

EGLANTINE. I will not allow you to cast a doubt either on her perfect health or her perfect honour ... nor let the shadow of one rest on mine.

PANTALOON. But, my lord, why has she begged you keep your marrying secret till to-day?

EGLANTINE. Perhaps she is not very proud of me, my dear Talon. It is possible.

[Harlequin flashes through the doorway and announces ...

HARLEQUIN. Sir George Rustic.

[It is Momus. Devil a doubt it is also our old friend, Clown.

EGLANTINE. Welcome, my dear George, so soon again. We didn't part till six.

CLOWN. Damned if we did. A rake-helly place is London to be sure, but after Somerset ... I tell 'ee, I likes it. I been home since, washed hands and face! No; washed hands ... not face. Then to White's for my chocolate, and picked up the latest smack of gossip ... the best there's been in weeks ... good enough to come along and tell 'ee. So here we be again.

EGLANTINE. My attorney, Mr. Joseph Talon.

CLOWN. Han't we met somewhere before?

PANTALOON. It is possible, sir, but it must be a while ago.

CLOWN. I seem to know 'ee. I've got an uncle called Joey.

ALICE. You see they always nearly remember.

CLOWN. No pleasant business a-doing by the looks of you. I guess it, and don't wonder. What was your joke as we started the cards? Man who sits to gamble at night had better have called his attorney betimes in the morning.

EGLANTINE. Ah, well remembered. Pray redeem, Mr. Talon, as soon as may be, my note of hand for fifteen thousand from Sir Jeffrey Rake's steward.

PANTALOON. My lord.

CLOWN. And it's him that this bit of gossip's about that I've come to tell 'ee. Dang it, the best that ever you heard. You must know ...

EGLANTINE. George, we detain Mr. Talon, who has business to do and no care for gossip.

PANTALOON. Oh, believe me, my lord, for an old 'un ...

CLOWN. So we do believe you, Mr. Joseph ... sprier than many an old 'un, I'm sure.

EGLANTINE. A parting glass of wine to cheer you. George, help Mr. Talon and yourself.

[Harlequin waves his wand--a napkin it is this time--and the glasses are filled.

CLOWN. Your health, Mr. Talon.

PANTALOON. Yours, Sir George. Long life to you, my lord.

EGLANTINE. Life!

[Pat on that word--that most commanding word--Columbine's song breaks forth again. And this time loud and clear.

Ah, stop that singing, it hurts me. Dismiss the girl! Pack her out of the house! I can't bear it.

HARLEQUIN. Very good, my lord.

[He waves his wand and the song stops.

CLOWN. Another glass, Mr. Joseph.

PANTALOON. I thank you, Sir George.

CLOWN. While I tell you my story. For it's the best story...!

PANTALOON. One moment. In this glass may we drink to the bride?

CLOWN. Yes, and it's about a bride.

PANTALOON. With his lordship's permission. ... "The bride!"

CLOWN. The bride? Whose bride? I mean, whose bride is this?

PANTALOON. His lordship's.

CLOWN. Yours, Eglantine? Well, by the clocks on my stockings!

PANTALOON. It has been kept a secret.

EGLANTINE. You leave this deed of settlement with me?

PANTALOON. To hand to her ladyship when the ceremony ends.

EGLANTINE. What's this little farm like with its two hundred a year? Where is it?

[Mr. Talon doesn't know, it seems. Then, it is Harlequin who speaks.

HARLEQUIN. If your lordship pleases, it happens very strangely to be the place where Richardson, our singing chambermaid, was born; where she lived till I brought her here.

EGLANTINE. Her home?

HARLEQUIN. Her home, my lord.

EGLANTINE. I must keep this safe, Quin.

[Quite tenderly--though why?--he lays the parchment by his side.

CLOWN. Damme, I want another glass to pull me over the shock, old Talon.

PANTALOON. An excellent wine. It reminds me of the time ...

EGLANTINE. [Watch in hand.] Let it remind us all of the time. Mr. Talon, Lady Clarissa's lawyers expect you at nine with the bonds for twelve thousand five hundred pounds. Don't let me detain you.

CLOWN. Lady Clarissa! But that's the very name...

EGLANTINE. Stay, George, and bring me to the church and tell me your story on the way. You'll pardon me, my wedding suit awaits me.

[He goes out. Be-wigged, rouged, be-powdered, his dressing-gown gathered about him; like a splendid vision he fades into his bedroom.

PANTALOON. I must go.

CLOWN. No, not without a final glass. We've settled the Madeira, but there's still the Port.

[Harlequin waves a powder puff. And the empty decanter is full and the full one empty.

PANTALOON. No, no, Sir George, we've settled the Port, but there's still the Madeira.

[Harlequin waves. And the empty is empty again. But the full one is empty, too.

CLOWN. Oh, Joey, Joey, we've settled them both.

[There they stand, all three, grouped as we know them so well.

ALICE. Look, oh, look! There's the Harlequinade!

PANTALOON. I must go.

[And he goes.

EGLANTINE. [From within.] Quin!

HARLEQUIN. My lord.

[And he vanishes.

EGLANTINE. And now for your story, George, if while I dress, it will carry through a door.

[The scene you cannot see is, of course, of tremendous importa A Beau dressing for his wedding! It couldn't be done upon the stage because no audience roughly coming in from their dinner ridiculously dressed in black clawhammer coats could appreciate the niceties of the toilette of a Beau, so far, so very far removed from the uncultured vulgarities of the Nut. They say that even the very silk-worms who span to make him silk for his coats are set aside from the silk-worms who spin silk for persons of grosser habit. And every flower embroidered on his coat is perfumed with its proper scent. And a girl has gone blind through making the filmy froth of lace about his throat.

CLOWN. It's carrying round London by this time. You know Sir Jeffrey Rake?

EGLANTINE. I think so.

CLOWN. Yes, don't you. You lost enough to him last night.

EGLANTINE. I did.

CLOWN. He's been this year past, it seems, sweethearting ... and a bit more ... with a famous lady of fashion here in town. But he'd not a penny, and she'd ten thousand pounds of debts. So marry they couldn't till she hit on a plan.

EGLANTINE. Indeed?

CLOWN. A fine lady's plan. She was to cozen some wealthy fop and swear to marry him if he'd pay those debts of hers. D'you mark that?

EGLANTINE. I mark it.

CLOWN. There's more to come. The night before the wedding was to be ... last night as ever was ... if Sir Jeffrey didn't win at cards a cool fifteen thousand from the same poor fool. And this very morning, off have the precious couple gone! Married by this, begad they are; he with his pockets lined, she free of her Jews. It'll be all over town in an hour. And the fool fop is dressing for his wedding! Now did ever you hear the like of that?

[There is silence in the other room.

I say, did ever you hear the like of that? Is your master there, Quin?

HARLEQUIN. [Who is passing in and out.] To some extent he is, Sir George.

CLOWN. Gad, let me think a minute ... though the wine's in my head. What sum did you lose to Sir Jeffrey last night? Your bride's name was Clarissa.... I heard it. And Clarissa Mordaunt's the name of that fine lady. Odds, Bobs and Buttons! You're not the fool fop, Eglantine, are you?

[Is it Eglantine who enters? There stands something for a moment a dead thing dressed in a bridegroom's splendour. It is as if some ice-cold hand had plucked at his heart. Yet he is calm; the poise remains true, the subtle artifice is there. But the crushing blow to his pride is in his pale face, and his voice rings bitterly when he says:

EGLANTINE. I was.

CLOWN. I'm sorry. I might have guessed. I mean, of course I couldn't have guessed ... that any man would be such a fool ... I mean ... oh, gad, I...

ALICE. He never opens his mouth but he puts his foot in it. That's what he's trying to say.

CLOWN. But there's time yet. Old Talon can't have paid the money to her lawyers by this. Jeffrey Rake boasted too soon. I'll run to stop it.

EGLANTINE. Pray, do nothing of the sort, George.

CLOWN. But I will. An't I your friend? What's the address?

EGLANTINE. My pistol, Quin.

[The pistol is in his hand.

CLOWN. And the fifteen thousand Rake won. Hold it back. We'll call him out and do for him ... one of us.

EGLANTINE. Must I go so far as to shoot you in the leg, my dear George, to convince you that it will be an errand ill run ... that they are welcome to their gains ... that I count myself well rid of them.

CLOWN. Oh! You don't count on my not telling the story, do you?

EGLANTINE. Though I shot you as dead as mutton, every joint would squeak it, I feel sure.

CLOWN. Oh!

EGLANTINE. Quin; the door.

CLOWN. Oh!

[Still he stands, grinning there.

EGLANTINE. George, we are keeping my servant in a draught.

[Clown waddles out. Harlequin vanishes too. He is back in a moment to find Eglantine sunk in the chair facing the mirror to see--finery! And what else?

Quin. In the glass there ... is that Eglantine?

HARLEQUIN. Till this moment your lordship has been pleased to think so.

EGLANTINE. The country girl that sang. I had her sent away.

HARLEQUIN. Since the song caused your lordship some discomfort.

EGLANTINE. Stop her before she goes. [He takes the parchment from the table.] Stay, give me pen and ink. This is for her when the name is altered. Her home I think you said....

[Harlequin vanishes again. Eglantine most carefully erases the name and writes in the other. Then he rises, pistol in hand, and faces himself in mirror, looks himself full in the face.

And now, Lord Eglantine, since you are he! Peg for clothes, scribbler of epigrams, now to end and for ever your tailor's dream.

[And he fires. But he doesn't fall. Instead, the mirror cracks and a puff of smoke comes from it. Alice must not interrupt the story or she would; and she aches to, because she always fears the audience may not grasp the point. Lord Eglantine was a reflection of his tim the polished mirror of his age. Until he blew the reflection into smithereens, he had no soul, no reality. A wig, a box of patches, snuff, silk, lace, a clouded cane, a neat sense for words, that was Eglantine, and now he has become, in all humility, a man. Back comes Harlequin to find him.

HARLEQUIN. My lord!

EGLANTINE. A slight accident.

HARLEQUIN. The noise has wakened our neighbours.

EGLANTINE. On my honour it has wakened me.

HARLEQUIN. Richardson!

[Columbine appears.

Kindly pick up his lordship's pieces.

[She has her little dust-pan and brush, and most neatly she does so. Eglantine--a new Eglantine--watches her, and the thought of a new life is born in him.

EGLANTINE. We've a few guineas in the house, I suppose?

HARLEQUIN. A few, my lord.

EGLANTINE. Enough for a coach hire to the country. A penniless fellow such as I am, Quin, would she welcome me to her home, I wonder?

HARLEQUIN. But I fear that this parchment fails of its effect unless your lordship is married to the owner.

EGLANTINE. But not a bad idea, Quin. [Then he sighs doubtfully.] Would she think so?

HARLEQUIN. Let us ask her when she has picked up the pieces.

[And here Alice and Uncle Edward draw the curtains, for the scene is over. But Alice still stands fingering their folds. Her eyes smile, but her mouth droops a little doubtfully. She is never over-happy about this scene. "Very pretty" she hears the front row people say; and then they rustle their programmes and read about whiskey very old in bottle, or cigarettes, a very special blend. "Very pretty" is so patronising. Someone else remarks "How quaint"; and that is worse still. Miles away from us is the meaning of that eighteenth century with its polished perfections. So perfect, yet so partially perfect, that mankind could only break them all to pieces and start again. But Alice, tidy little soul, loves the fine order of it all. If they embroidered flowers so well, they must, she thinks, have loved the very flowers, too, and such good manners must have meant that somewhere underneath the silk and stays they had kind and worthy souls. But her mouth does droop a little, and she asks her uncle, almost whispering:

"Do you think they understood it?"

"Any child could understand it," Uncle Edward says, and back to his paper he goes.

Alice gives a shy glance round. She doesn't mind now if they do hear.

"But that's the trouble, as poor Auntie used to say: 'They're not children.' Don't we only wish they were."

Once more, then, Uncle Edward sizes up the house; a good house now, a contented house, a bread-and-butter house not to be quarrelled with.

"You take your public as you find 'em, my Missie," he says, or rather, this he only seems to say. His words are: "Alice, get on with your bit."

So Alice smiles again, and smooths her frock and puts her heels together and turns out her toes, and gets on.

* * * * *

ALICE. [As she faces them.] I beg your pardon. Well, that was in seventeen hundred and something. And we skip the eighteen hundreds because they were so busy: too busy to play, except just riotously, and we skip to-day, too, because ... well, really because what we showed you about to-day with bits of "you" put in it might seem rather rude. And we skip to-morrow, because to-morrow really is too serious to make our sort of jokes about. So we go right on to the day after. And you've noticed, haven't you, that we go westward all the time? So next the scene's in America, which you get to through New York. Things have been going from bad to worse with our four poor gods, but what has principally knocked them endways is machinery. Now America is full of machinery. And they can't understand it. For whatever a machine is supposed to do in the end, there's one thing it always seems sure to do in the beginning, if you're not very, very careful. And that is to knock the spirit out of a man. Which is his magic. Clown and Pantaloon and Harlequin and Columbine are very simple folk, you know. They let themselves be just what it's most natural to be, and only try to give their friends in front ... kind friends in front, they call them ... just what will make them happiest quickest. So this is what they've come to be by this time, Clown and Columbine, Harlequin and Pantaloon. No names but those, no meaning, no real part at all in the rattle and clatter of machinery which is now called Life. They're out of it. They clung to the skirts of the theatre for a bit. But the theatre, aching to be "in it", flung them off. The intellectual drama had no use for them, no use at all. And so they found themselves (out of it indeed) busking on the pavement, doing tricks and tumbling and singing silly songs to the unresponsive profiles of long lines of ladies (high-nosed or stumpy-nosed ladies), waiting admittance to the matinées of some highly intellectual play. And with glasses on those noses they'd be reading while they waited the book of that same play: so even then our poor gods busked in vain. But worse, far worse....

Along came the Man of the World again. He calls himself the Man of Business now. "Do the Public really want this sort of stuff?" he said. "Well, let 'em have it. But as a Business Proposition, if you please."

So he bought up all the theatres, and he said he'd make them pay. And his cousin, the Man in the Street, took shares. And they organised the Theatre. And they made it efficient. And they conducted it on sound commercial lines. And the magic vanished and people wondered where and why. Now what we're going to show you, you won't believe could ever happen at all. It does seem like the cheapest of cheap jokes. But really if we will think magic's to be bought and sold, and if we leave our gods to starve because there isn't any money in their laughter or their tears ... well, it's more than the Theatre that may suffer. But the poor pampered Theatre is our business now, and here's our cheap, cheap joke about it. You aren't expected to laugh ... in fact, perhaps you shouldn't. It's one of those jokes you smile at, crookedly you know, this joke of the Theatre as it well may be the day after to-morrow if some of us don't look out.

[And with that we hear music. It's a ragtime tune, and something about it hurts us. After ten bars we find out what and why. It is the theme of the gods cheapened and degraded. Music is of all the arts the directest epitome of life. Not a noble thing in it that cannot, it would seem, with just a turn or two, be turned to baseness.