The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays by Gordon Bottomley et al. (best books to read .TXT) 📕

with you to that musical comedy you're going to see, only I'm a bit tired after writing this; it's a tedious job. I'll come another night.

PRATTLE. How do you know I'm going to see a musical comedy?

DE REVES. Well, where would you go? Hamlet's on at the
Lord Chamberlain's. You're not going there.

PBATTLE. Do I look like it?

DE REVES. No.

PRATTLE. Well, you're quite right. I'm going to see "The Girl from Bedlam." So long. I must push off now. It's getting late. You take a rest. Don't add another line to that sonnet; fourteen's quite enough. You take a rest. Don't have any dinner to-night, just rest. I was like that once myself. So long.

DE REVES. So long.

(Exit PRATTLE. DE REVES returns to his table and sits down.)

Good old Dick. He's the same as ever. Lord, how time passes.

(He takes his pen and his sonnet and makes a few alterations.)

Well, that's finished. I can't do any more to it.

(He rises and goes to the screen; he draws back part of it and goes up to the altar. He is about to place his sonnet reverently at the foot of the altar amongst his other verses.)

No, I will not put it there. This one is worthy of the altar.

(He places the sonnet upon the altar itself.)

If that sonnet does not give me Fame, nothing that I have done before will give it to me, nothing that I ever will do.

(He replaces the screen and returns to his chair at the table. Twilight is coming on. He sits with his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, or however the actor pleases.)

Well, well. Fancy seeing Dick again. Well, Dick enjoys his life, so he's no fool. What was that he said? "There's no money in poetry. You'd better chuck it." Ten years' work and what have I to show for it? The admiration of men who care for poetry, and how many of them are there? There's a bigger demand for smoked glasses to look at eclipses of the sun. Why should Fame come to me? Haven't I given up my days for her? That is enough to keep her away. I am a poet; that is enough reason for her to slight me. Proud and aloof and cold as marble, what does Fame care for us? Yes, Dick is right. It's a poor game chasing illusions, hunting the intangible, pursuing dreams. Dreams? Why, we are ourselves dreams. (He leans back in his chair.)

                       We are such stuff
  As dreams are made on, and our little life
  Is rounded with a sleep.

(He is silent for a while. Suddenly he lifts his head)

My room at Eton, Dick said. An untidy mess.

(As he lifts his head and says these words, twilight gives place to broad daylight, merely as a hint that the author of the play may have been mistaken, and the whole thing may have been no more than a poet's dream.)

So it was, and it's an untidy mess there (looking at screen) too. Dick's right. I'll tidy it up. I'll burn the whole damned heap. (He advances impetuously toward the screen) Every damned poem that I was ever fool enough to waste my time on.

(He pushes back the screen. FAME in a Greek dress with a long golden trumpet in her hand is seen standing motionless on the altar like a marble goddess.)

So … you have come!

(For a while he stands thunderstruck. Then he approaches the altar.)

Divine fair lady, you have come.

(He holds up his hands to her and leads her down from the altar and into the centre of the stage. At whatever moment the actor finds it most convenient, he repossesses himself of the sonnet that he had placed on the altar. He now offers it to FAME.)

This is my sonnet. Is it well done?

(FAME takes it, reads it in silence, while the POET watches her rapturously.)

FAME. You're a bit of all right.

DE REVES. What?

FAME. Some poet.

DE REVES. I—I—scarcely … understand.

FAME. You're IT.

DE REVES. But … it is not possible … are you she that knew Homer?

FAME. Homer? Lord, yes. Blind old bat, 'e couldn't see a yard.

DE REVES. O Heavens!

(FAME walks beautifully to the window. She opens it and puts her head out.)

FAME (in a voice with which a woman in an upper story would cry for help if the house was well alight). Hi! Hi! Boys! Hi! Say, folks! Hi!

(The murmur of a gathering crowd is heard. FAME blows her trumpet.)

FAME. Hi, he's a poet. (Quickly, over her shoulder.) What's your name?

DE REVES. De Reves.

FAME. His name's de Reves.

DE REVES. Harry de Reves.

FAME. His pals call him Harry.

THE CROWD. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

FAME. Say, what's your favourite color?

DE REVES. I … I … I don't quite understand.

FAME. Well, which do you like best, green or blue?

DE REVES. Oh—er—blue. (She blows her trumpet out of the window.) No—er—I think green.

FAME. Green is his favourite colour.

THE CROWD. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

FAME. 'Ere, tell us something. They want to know all about yer.

DE REVES; Wouldn't you perhaps … would they care to hear my sonnet, if you would—er….

FAME (picking up quill). Here, what's this?

DE REVES. Oh, that's my pen.

FAME (after another blast on her trumpet). He writes with a quill. (Cheers from THE CROWD.)

FAME (going to a cupboard). Here, what have you got in here?

DE REVES. Oh … er … those are my breakfast things.

FAME (finding a dirty plate). What have yer had on this one?

DE REVES (mournfully). Oh, eggs and bacon.

FAME (at the window). He has eggs and bacon for breakfast.

THE CROWD. Hip hip hip hooray! Hip hip hip hooray!
Hip hip hip hooray!

FAME. Hi, and what's this?

DE REVES (miserably). Oh, a golf stick.

FAME. He's a man's man! He's a virile man! He's a manly man!

(Wild cheers from THE CROWD, this time only from women's voices.)

DE REVES. Oh, this is terrible. This is terrible. This is terrible.

(FAME gives another peal on her horn. She is about to speak.)

DE REVES (solemnly and mournfully). One moment, one moment….

FAME. Well, out with it.

DE REVES. For ten years, divine lady, I have worshipped you, offering all my songs … I find … I find I am not worthy….

FAME. Oh, you're all right.

DE REVES. No, no, I am not worthy. It cannot be. It cannot possibly be. Others deserve you more. I must say it! I cannot possibly love you. Others are worthy. You will find others. But I, no, no, no. It cannot be. It cannot be. Oh, pardon me, but it must not.

(Meanwhile FAME has been lighting one of his cigarettes. She sits in a comfortable chair, leans right back, and puts her feet right up on the table amongst the poet's papers.)

Oh, I fear I offend you. But—it cannot be.

FAME. Oh, that's all right, old bird; no offence. I ain't going to leave you.

DE REVES. But—but—but—I do not understand.

FAME. I've come to stay, I have.

(She blows a puff of smoke through her trumpet.)

[CURTAIN] THE CAPTAIN OF THE GATE[1]

Beulah Marie Dix

SCENE: In the cheerless hour before the dawn of a wet spring morning five gentlemen-troopers of the broken Royalist army, fagged and outworn with three long days of siege, are holding, with what strength and courage are left them, the Gatehouse of the Bridge of Cashala, which is the key to the road that leads into Connaught. The upper chamber of the Gatehouse, in which they make their stand, is a narrow, dim-lit apartment, built of stone. At one side is a small fireplace, and beside it a narrow, barred door, which leads to the stairhead. At the end of the room, gained by a single raised step, are three slit-like windows, breast-high, designed, as now used, for defense in time of war. The room is meagrely furnished, with a table on which are powder-flask, touch-box, etc., for charging guns, a stool or two, and an open keg of powder. The whole look of the place, bare and martial, but depressed, bespeaks a losing fight. On the hearth the ashes of a fire are white, and on the chimneypiece a brace of candles are guttering out.

The five men who hold the Gatehouse wear much soiled and torn military dress. They are pale, powder-begrimed, sunken-eyed, with every mark of weariness of body and soul. Their leader, JOHN TALBOT, is standing at one of the shot-windows, with piece presented, looking forth. He is in his mid-twenties, of Norman-Irish blood, and distinctly of a finer, more nervous type than his companions. He has been wounded, and bears his left hand wrapped in a bloody rag. DICK FENTON, a typical, careless young English swashbuckler, sits by the table, charging a musket, and singing beneath his breath as he does so. He, too, has been wounded, and bears a bandage about his knee. Upon the floor (at right) KIT NEWCOMBE lies in the sleep of utter exhaustion. He is an English lad, in his teens, a mere tired, haggard child, with his head rudely bandaged. On a stool by the hearth sits MYLES BUTLER, a man of JOHN TALBOT'S own years, but a slower, heavier, almost sullen type. Beside him kneels PHELIMY DRISCOLL, a nervous, dark Irish lad, of one and twenty. He is resting his injured arm across BUTLER'S knee, and BUTLER is roughly bandaging the hurt.

For a moment there is a weary, heavy silence, in which the words of the song which FENTON sings are audible. It is the doleful old strain of "the hanging-tune."

[Footnote 1: Included by permission of the author and of Messrs. Henry Holt and Company, the publishers, from the volume Allison's Lad and Other Martial Interludes. (1910).]

FENTON (singing).

Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown on me,
And will thy favors never greater be?
Wilt thou, I say, forever breed me pain,
And wilt thou not restore my joys again?

BUTLER (shifting DRISCOLL'S arm, none too tenderly). More to the light!

DRISCOLL (catching breath with pain). Ah! Softly, Myles!

JOHN TALBOT (leaning forward tensely). Ah!

FENTON. Jack! Jack Talbot! What is it that you see?

JOHN TALBOT (with the anger of a man whose nerves are strained almost beyond endurance). What should I see but Cromwell's watch-fires along the boreen? What else should I see, and the night as black as the mouth of hell? What else should I see, and a pest choke your throat with your fool's questions, Dick Fenton!

(Resumes his watch.)

FENTON (as who should say: "I thank you!"). God 'a' mercy—Captain Talbot!

(Resumes his singing.)

DRISCOLL. God's love! I bade ye have a care, Myles Butler.

BUTLEK (tying the last bandage). It's a stout heart you have in you, Phelimy Driscoll—you to be crying out for a scratch. It's better you would have been, you and the like of you, to be stopping at home with your mother.

(Rises and takes up his musket from the corner by the fireplace.)

DRISCOLL. You—you dare—you call me—coward? Ye black liar! I'll lesson ye! I'll—

(Tries to rise, but in the effort sways weakly forward and rests with his head upon the stool which BUTLER has quitted.)

BUTLER. A'Heaven's name, ha' done with that hanging tune! Ha' done, Dick Fenton! We're not yet at the gallows' foot.

(Joins JOHN TALBOT at the shot-windows.)

FENTON. Nay, Myles, for us 'tis like to be nothing half so merry as the gallows.

BUTLER. Hold your fool's tongue!

NEWCOMBE (crying out in his sleep). Oh! Oh!

JOHN TALBOT. What was that?

FENTON. 'Twas naught but young Newcombe that cried out in the clutch of a nightmare.

BUTLER. 'Tis time Kit Newcombe rose and stood his watch.

JOHN TALBOT (leaving the window). Nay, 'tis only a boy. Let him sleep while he can! Let him sleep!

BUTLER. Turn and turn at the watch, 'tis but fair. Stir yonder sluggard awake, Dick!

FENTON. Aye. (Starts to rise.)

JOHN TALBOT. Who gives commands here? Sit you down, Fenton! To your place, Myles Butler!

BUTLER. Captain of the Gate! D'ye mark the high tone of him,
Dick?

JOHN TALBOT (tying a fresh bandage about his hand). You're out there, Myles. There