Good people, gentle rotters, creditors, courtiers, physicians, poets, and all such licensed parasites as thrive best when other men are fainting: draw near, though not too near, for this entertainment was scraped from the underside of a quarantined door and seasoned with vinegar, fear, bad ink, worse medicine, and the warm moral vapour of the English upper sort.
Here is a play of plague-time London, where the bells toll so often they acquire opinions, where every shut house breeds three rumours before breakfast, where every red cross upon a door is both a warning from God and an opportunity for trade. In such a city, death walks abroad with a cart, but commerce rides beside him with a ledger. The poor are buried, the middling are inspected, and the great are inconvenienced.
Behold Lord Peregrine Ashpottle, a nobleman composed chiefly of lace, appetite, unpaid bills, and the kind of courage that blooms only after danger has left the room. His blood is ancient, his estate is damp, his conscience is theatrical, and his last clean shirt has done more harm to his household than a regiment of lawyers. Beside him stands Lady Amarantha Ashpottle, his wife, correction, creditor, general, gaoler, and Providence in stays; a lady who has discovered that marriage is less a sacrament than a siege, and that a husband, properly frightened, may yet be rendered briefly useful.
Into their infected, suspected, over-decorated ruin tumble all the necessary vermin of civilisation: a quack with bottles full of patriotic poison, a doctor armed with Latin and resentment, a bailiff who has mistaken legality for personality, an actress who knows that tears are best when paid for, a poet who proves that pestilence is not the worst thing that can spread in a room, a soldier with honour enough to be troublesome, and a financier whose soul has been pawned so often it now bears several signatures.
This is not a solemn history of plague, nor a sermon for the improvement of the clean. It is a comedy of terrors and errors, in which infection is feared, debt is certain, virtue is negotiable, and the public will believe anything if it is shouted from an upper window by persons wearing good fabric. Here love is blackmailed, death is rehearsed, medicine is bottled, law is impersonated, repentance is monetised, and resurrection itself must compete for applause with a goose.
Those who desire moral instruction may find it, though probably by accident. Those who desire historical dignity are advised to sit farther back. For the age herein presented is not the polished century of portraits and periwigs, but the sweating, scratching, cheating, praying, bargaining, farting, dying, laughing century beneath it: a world where silk cuffs cover dirty wrists, where ladies preserve honour in locked boxes, where gentlemen write love letters like puddings under artillery, and where the plague reveals less about mortality than about pricing.
So let the curtain rise upon a house marked for death and managed for profit. Let the Viscount expire badly. Let his lady command beautifully. Let the quack sell hope by the bottle, the doctor object too late, the bailiff discover patriotism, the actress steal the scene, the poet be suppressed for the common good, the villain be pelted by vegetables, and Providence enter honking.
For if London must perish, it will first make a market; if aristocracy must fall, it will fall in brocade; and if mankind is to be judged, let the record show it asked the price before asking the cause.
The Time of Pox; or, The Viscount’s Last Clean Shirt
A retro Restoration comedy in four acts, performed for the diversion of the Crown, by your most obedient and plague-avoiding bard.
Dramatis Personae
Lord Peregrine Ashpottle, Viscount of Mouldmere, beautiful, bankrupt, powdered, and convinced Providence owes him money.
Lady Amarantha Ashpottle, his wife, sharper than a tailor’s bill and twice as fatal.
Sir Balthazar Crimp, a plague-profiteer, quack, moralist, and vendor of “sovereign anti-pox cordials.”
Mistress Clackett, gossip, laundress, spy, and unofficial bell of London.
Doctor Saffron Quill, a physician of immense vocabulary and uncertain cures.
Captain Hackwell, a returned soldier who fears neither cannon nor creditors, but greatly fears women with account books.
Mr. Latch, a bailiff disguised successively as a fiddler, corpse-collector, bishop, and decorative shrub.
Doll Violet, an actress, singer, thief of hearts, wigs, and occasionally spoons.
The Honourable Barnaby Fleam, a poet of no income and infinite grievance.
A Watchman, two servants, one undertaker, three musicians, and a suspected corpse who is not yet resolved upon the matter.
Act I
The House in Quarantine
The scene: a decayed but still ostentatious chamber in Lord Ashpottle’s London lodging. A fine chair has lost one leg and is propped upon a Bible. Velvet curtains are moth-eaten. A portrait of an ancestor glares from the wall, as though ashamed to have produced descendants. Outside: distant bells, carts, cries of “Bring out your dead!” and the occasional squabble over turnips.
Enter LORD PEREGRINE ASHPOTTLE in a brocade dressing gown, magnificent from the waist upward, barefoot below. He carries a silver mirror and examines his face with heroic despair.
Lord Peregrine:
A pox upon the pox. It hath no manners. Had it taken me in a sedan chair, after supper, with witnesses, I might have made a figure of it. But to be threatened by mortality before breakfast, and in slippers—this is an affront not to be borne by any gentleman.
Enter LADY AMARANTHA ASHPOTTLE, beautifully dressed in mourning black though nobody in the house is yet dead.
Lady Amarantha:
You may be easy, my lord. If Death comes this morning, I shall insist he waits below. The stairs have not been swept.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, your composure is unnatural.
Lady Amarantha:
And yours is expensive. You have powdered your wig with the last flour.
Lord Peregrine:
It was necessary. If I must meet pestilence, I shall not meet it looking like a clerk.
Lady Amarantha:
If pestilence has sense, it will mistake you for a debt and pass on.
Lord Peregrine:
Cruel woman. I am beset on all sides. The plague without, creditors within, and marriage everywhere.
Lady Amarantha:
Marriage is not everywhere, sir. It is precisely here, and much disappointed in its lodging.
There is a violent knocking below.
Lord Peregrine:
What thunder is that?
Lady Amarantha:
Either the angel of judgment or the butcher. We owe both.
Enter JASPER, a servant, pale, anxious, carrying a sealed paper at arm’s length with tongs.
Jasper:
My lord, my lady—there is a red cross marked upon the door.
Lord Peregrine:
Impossible. We have no paint.
Jasper:
The parish hath found some.
Lady Amarantha:
How generous of the parish to decorate us.
Jasper:
And a paper, madam. It says, “Lord have mercy upon us.”
Lord Peregrine:
Then we are declared infected?
Jasper:
Declared, my lord. Whether infected, I cannot say. But declared most thoroughly.
Lady Amarantha:
There is the English genius: when uncertain, post a notice.
Lord Peregrine:
We are shut up?
Jasper:
With a watchman at the door, my lord, and Mistress Clackett crying it at both ends of the street.
Lord Peregrine:
That woman is a pamphlet with legs.
Lady Amarantha:
What caused this happy attention?
Jasper:
The laundress says your lordship’s shirt was seen with spots.
Lord Peregrine:
Spots? That was French wine.
Lady Amarantha:
You wore the Burgundy?
Lord Peregrine:
It wore me first.
Jasper:
Also, my lord, Mr. Latch the bailiff came seeking payment and now claims he cannot depart a suspected house.
Lady Amarantha:
A bailiff trapped in quarantine? Heaven has not entirely abandoned comedy.
Lord Peregrine:
Where is he?
Jasper:
In the pantry, my lord. He says he will inventory the cheese for legal reasons.
Lady Amarantha:
Tell him the cheese is also suspected.
Jasper:
Very good, madam.
Exit JASPER.
Lord Peregrine:
Amarantha, we are ruined.
Lady Amarantha:
We were ruined yesterday. Today we are merely enclosed.
Lord Peregrine:
There is a distinction?
Lady Amarantha:
A profitable one, perhaps. A shut house cannot receive creditors.
Lord Peregrine:
Nor tailors.
Lady Amarantha:
Nor invitations.
Lord Peregrine:
Nor supper.
Lady Amarantha:
That is the defect in the scheme.
More knocking. A voice below cries, “Open in the name of physic!”
Lord Peregrine:
Who now?
Enter DOCTOR SAFFRON QUILL, wearing a great beaked plague mask, gloves, cloak, and carrying a cane. He is followed by SIR BALTHAZAR CRIMP, richly dressed, carrying bottles, pamphlets, charms, lemons, and a stuffed ferret.
Doctor Quill:
Stand away. Let no breath mingle with my breath, nor vapour invade the precinct of my nostril. I come armed against corruption.
Lady Amarantha:
You come dressed as a raven that has studied law.
Doctor Quill:
Madam, this beak contains cinnamon, wormwood, cloves, rue, vinegar, angelica, and one substance whose name is known only to Arabians and apothecaries.
Lord Peregrine:
Does it cure the plague?
Doctor Quill:
It discourages conversation, which is half the battle.
Sir Balthazar Crimp:
My lord, my lady, grieve not. Sir Balthazar Crimp brings comfort in glass. My sovereign cordial, The King’s Own Anti-Pestilential Elixir, approved by three widows, two aldermen, and a bishop’s cook, preserves the body, clarifies the blood, restores the complexion, settles inheritances, and sweetens the breath.
Lady Amarantha:
Can it pay a mortgage?
Sir Balthazar:
Taken regularly, madam, it produces a philosophical indifference to all earthly encumbrance.
Lord Peregrine:
What is in it?
Sir Balthazar:
Hope, chiefly. Also brandy.
Doctor Quill:
Charlatan.
Sir Balthazar:
Pedant.
Doctor Quill:
I am a licensed physician.
Sir Balthazar:
And I am a successful one.
Doctor Quill:
You sell liquor under Latin names.
Sir Balthazar:
And you sell Latin under the name of medicine.
Lady Amarantha:
Gentlemen, since both trades end in burial, you are brothers.
Enter MISTRESS CLACKETT, forcing her way past the servants, wrapped in scarves, carrying a basket of linen and gossip.
Mistress Clackett:
Mercy preserve us, my lady! I came only to return the linen, not to be buried in quality company.
Lord Peregrine:
Who admitted that trumpet?
Mistress Clackett:
No one, my lord. I admit myself where truth is wanted.
Lady Amarantha:
Then you must be often lonely.
Mistress Clackett:
I speak only what I see, madam. And I saw his lordship’s shirt spotted like a leopard in Lent.
Lord Peregrine:
Wine, woman. Wine.
Mistress Clackett:
So say all gentlemen when judgment stains them.
Doctor Quill:
Produce the garment.
Mistress Clackett:
With reluctance, sir, for it may bite.
She draws forth a shirt with red stains. DOCTOR QUILL examines it with grave ceremony.
Doctor Quill:
Hmmm. Circular eruptions. Irregular distribution. Darkening at the seam.
Lord Peregrine:
Burgundy at supper.
Doctor Quill:
Possibly.
Sir Balthazar:
Or plague.
Lady Amarantha:
Or claret.
Mistress Clackett:
Or divine rebuke.
Doctor Quill:
I must conduct a test.
Lord Peregrine:
What test?
Doctor Quill:
I shall smell it.
Lady Amarantha:
Heroic science.
DOCTOR QUILL raises the shirt cautiously to the beak of his mask.
Doctor Quill:
Ah. There is acidity. Fruit. Heat. A certain impertinent body.
Sir Balthazar:
Plague.
Doctor Quill:
Wine.
Lord Peregrine:
Bless you, doctor!
Doctor Quill:
Bad wine.
Lord Peregrine:
Damn you, doctor.
Mistress Clackett:
Then the house is not infected?
Doctor Quill:
Not by plague.
Lady Amarantha:
Only by rank, debt, vanity, fraud, and damp.
Sir Balthazar:
The parish mark remains. Once a door hath been crossed, suspicion sticks like pitch.
Lord Peregrine:
Then we are imprisoned by laundry?
Mistress Clackett:
There are worse causes, my lord. Some men are hanged by handwriting.
From the pantry there is a crash.
Voice of Mr. Latch:
This cheese is unlawful!
Enter MR. LATCH, the bailiff, with a cheese under one arm and a ledger under the other.
Mr. Latch:
My lord Ashpottle, I serve writs in the name of several tradesmen, one jeweller, two vintners, four mercers, a disgraced fencing master, and a lady who declines to be named but has enclosed a ribbon as evidence.
Lady Amarantha:
Give me that ribbon.
Lord Peregrine:
It is probably not mine.
Lady Amarantha:
That was not my question.
Mr. Latch:
As this house is under quarantine, I cannot remove your lordship to prison. Therefore, by equitable reasoning, the prison has come to your lordship.
Lord Peregrine:
Sir, you are too ingenious to be honest.
Mr. Latch:
A professional necessity.
Sir Balthazar:
Mr. Latch, should you fear infection, I have a bottle—
Mr. Latch:
Sir, I fear only insolvency. Contagion cannot sue.
Lady Amarantha:
You may remain, Mr. Latch, but you shall earn your keep.
Mr. Latch:
Madam, bailiffs do not work.
Lady Amarantha:
Then for once astonish your profession.
Lord Peregrine:
Amarantha, what scheme now flashes behind those eyes? I know that look. It has preceded every catastrophe of our marriage.
Lady Amarantha:
Not every catastrophe. Some were yours.
Mistress Clackett:
I smell intrigue.
Lady Amarantha:
That is merely Sir Balthazar’s cordial.
Sir Balthazar:
Madam wounds me.
Lady Amarantha:
Not fatally, more’s the pity.
She turns to all.
Lady Amarantha:
Attend me. We are shut up in a house the town believes infected. No creditor may safely enter. No guest may safely leave. Outside, fear reigns. Inside, we have a physician, a quack, a bailiff, a gossip, a suspicious shirt, and three days’ provisions if Mr. Latch can be restrained from jurisprudence upon the cheese.
Lord Peregrine:
This inventory lacks comfort.
Lady Amarantha:
It contains opportunity. Sir Balthazar, you shall sell your anti-pox cordial from our upper window at double price.
Sir Balthazar:
Triple, madam, if sold with tears.
Lady Amarantha:
Doctor Quill shall certify the house as medically interesting, not dangerous.
Doctor Quill:
I will not lend my name to commerce.
Lady Amarantha:
Then lend it to research. Commerce pays quicker, but research sounds cleaner.
Doctor Quill:
I may observe symptoms.
Lady Amarantha:
Excellent. Mistress Clackett shall spread the report that Lord Ashpottle lies nobly ill, asking forgiveness of his creditors.
Lord Peregrine:
I object to nobly.
Lady Amarantha:
You may lie ignobly, but the report shall improve you.
Mistress Clackett:
Forgiveness, my lady? From creditors?
Lady Amarantha:
No. Of creditors. That will draw the curious, the pious, and the malicious. We sell them bottles, relics, signed handkerchiefs, and admission to hear groans through the wall.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, you would make a theatre of my decline?
Lady Amarantha:
Only until rents are paid.
Mr. Latch:
And my writs?
Lady Amarantha:
You shall be appointed Master of the Door.
Mr. Latch:
A public office?
Lady Amarantha:
Without salary.
Mr. Latch:
A very public office.
Sir Balthazar:
I protest only that the dead should receive a commission.
Lord Peregrine:
I am not dead.
Lady Amarantha:
Not yet. Try to sound plausible.
Enter DOLL VIOLET suddenly through a side door, in theatrical dress, carrying a lute and a bundle.
Doll Violet:
Which of you dear infected souls has room for a persecuted actress?
Lord Peregrine:
Doll Violet?
Lady Amarantha:
Of course.
Doll Violet:
My lady, I came by the back alley, pursued by a jealous orange-woman, a constable, and a poet. I saw the red cross and thought, here is sanctuary; for no honest officer enters where death keeps house.
Lady Amarantha:
How many dishonest officers follow you?
Doll Violet:
Only one, but he limps.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam Doll, your arrival is balm to a suffering gentleman.
Lady Amarantha:
Suffer further away from her.
Doll Violet:
My lord looks pale.
Lord Peregrine:
I am rehearsing death.
Doll Violet:
You overplay it.
Another commotion outside. A man’s voice recites badly.
Voice of Barnaby Fleam:
“O cruel bolts, O doors accursed,
That keep me from my Violet first—”
Doll Violet:
Oh plague take the man, but at a distance.
Lady Amarantha:
Who is that?
Doll Violet:
Barnaby Fleam. A poet. He mistook one smile for patronage and one supper for betrothal.
Lord Peregrine:
A common error among poets.
Lady Amarantha:
And husbands.
Barnaby outside:
“Let pestilence its arrows shoot,
Love wears no mask, nor fears—”
Doctor Quill:
That is medically unsound.
Lady Amarantha:
Let him in.
Doll Violet:
Madam, no.
Lady Amarantha:
A poet in quarantine is a cheap bellows. We need groans, laments, verses, public grief. Let him in and give him ink.
Lord Peregrine:
This house was unhappy, but it had limits.
MR. LATCH goes to the door. Enter THE HONOURABLE BARNABY FLEAM, thin, overdressed, damp with feeling.
Barnaby Fleam:
Violet! Cruel constellation! I have followed thee through alley, rain, rebuke, and possible infection.
Doll Violet:
And still you have not taken the hint.
Barnaby:
Love takes no hints. It takes wounds.
Lady Amarantha:
Then marry and be finished.
Barnaby:
Madam, I am a poet.
Lady Amarantha:
My condolences.
Barnaby:
I have written an elegy upon this house.
Lord Peregrine:
We are not dead.
Barnaby:
The best elegies are prepared early. It allows polish.
Sir Balthazar:
Can you rhyme “cordial”?
Barnaby:
With “immordial,” if pressed.
Doctor Quill:
That is not a word.
Barnaby:
Nor is half your practice, sir, yet it thrives.
Lady Amarantha:
Good. We have our machinery. Lord Peregrine shall be the noble sufferer. Doctor Quill, the grave authority. Sir Balthazar, the merchant of hope. Mistress Clackett, the trumpet. Mr. Latch, the gaoler. Doll Violet, the musical angel of mercy.
Doll Violet:
At what fee?
Lady Amarantha:
Half the take after debts.
Doll Violet:
I have heard that phrase before. It means nothing.
Lady Amarantha:
Then a necklace.
Lord Peregrine:
Which necklace?
Lady Amarantha:
The one you gave the unnamed lady.
Lord Peregrine:
Ah.
Doll Violet:
Accepted.
Barnaby:
And I?
Lady Amarantha:
You shall write.
Barnaby:
For glory?
Lady Amarantha:
For supper.
Barnaby:
Glory is postponed.
A bell tolls outside. Everyone pauses. The comedy thins for a moment. The city beyond the walls feels near: frightened, hot, crowded, and mortal.
Lord Peregrine:
There it is again.
Doctor Quill:
The weekly bill will be worse.
Mistress Clackett:
God help the poor souls.
Lady Amarantha:
God help all souls. The poor merely receive the news first.
Brief silence.
Sir Balthazar (softly, then recovering his showman’s voice):
Which is why prevention must be purchased promptly.
Lady Amarantha:
There speaks England.
She moves to the window, throws open the upper casement, and looks down into the street. Below, unseen, a small crowd murmurs.
Lady Amarantha:
Good people! Pray softly, stand apart, and spend boldly. Within this afflicted house, Lord Ashpottle wrestles with mortality, repentance, and certain unpaid accounts. By providence, physic, and a cordial of rare virtue, he may yet be preserved for the benefit of his creditors and the ornament of the nation.
Lord Peregrine:
Must I appear?
Lady Amarantha:
Only your hand.
Lord Peregrine:
Which one looks ill?
Doll Violet:
The one with no rings.
He extends a limp hand through the curtain. The crowd gasps.
Barnaby (scribbling):
“Behold the hand that once signed debts,
Now pale as cheese in legal nets—”
Mr. Latch:
Strike cheese.
Barnaby:
Never. It is the strongest image.
Doctor Quill:
I shall require a basin, vinegar, three candles, and absolute obedience.
Sir Balthazar:
I shall require bottles, labels, sealing wax, and moderate panic.
Mistress Clackett:
I shall require no instruction.
Lady Amarantha:
That I believe.
A cry from below: “How much for the cordial?”
Sir Balthazar (leaping to the window):
For common preservation, one crown! For superior preservation, two! For preservation with aristocratic blessing, five!
Crowd below:
Five?
Lady Amarantha:
It has touched a viscount.
Crowd below:
Ahhh!
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, we are saved.
Lady Amarantha:
No, my lord. We are trading. Salvation is rarely so profitable.
Suddenly JASPER rushes in.
Jasper:
My lady! Worse news!
Lord Peregrine:
Worse than plague, debt, poets, and my wife’s enterprise?
Jasper:
Captain Hackwell is at the back gate.
Lady Amarantha:
Hackwell?
Lord Peregrine:
Who is Hackwell?
Doll Violet:
A soldier.
Mistress Clackett:
A duellist.
Sir Balthazar:
A debtor.
Mr. Latch:
A fugitive.
Barnaby:
A brute.
Doctor Quill:
A patient who never paid.
Lady Amarantha:
And my former suitor.
Lord Peregrine:
Your what?
Lady Amarantha:
Before I chose ruin with a title.
Jasper:
He says he has come to rescue your ladyship from infection, fraud, and matrimony.
Lord Peregrine:
In that order?
Jasper:
He seemed flexible, my lord.
Lady Amarantha:
Admit him.
Lord Peregrine:
Admit him? Into my quarantined house? Into my domestic tragedy?
Lady Amarantha:
Certainly. Every enterprise needs a threat.
Doll Violet:
And every comedy, a handsome one.
Lord Peregrine:
I begin to suspect I am not the hero.
Lady Amarantha:
My lord, you are the husband. That is safer and less demanding.
The bell tolls again. The crowd below clamours for bottles. Somewhere in the house, MR. LATCH’s cheese rolls down the stairs. LADY AMARANTHA smiles like a general before battle.
Lady Amarantha:
Places, all of you. The pox is at the door, poverty in the pantry, scandal at the gate, and London below the window with money in its fist. Let us behave like persons of quality.
Lord Peregrine:
Meaning?
Lady Amarantha:
Lie beautifully.
Curtain.
End of Act I.
Act II
The Soldier at the Back Gate
The scene continues within Lord Ashpottle’s quarantined house. The chamber is now transformed into a theatre of fashionable calamity. Bottles of Sir Balthazar’s cordial stand in ranks upon a side table. Barnaby Fleam writes verses at furious speed. Doctor Quill arranges instruments with the solemnity of a priest preparing a sacrifice. Doll Violet tunes her lute. Mr. Latch, now wearing a sash marked MASTER OF THE DOOR, takes himself insufferably seriously.
Outside, the crowd has grown. Voices cry for physic, prophecy, relics, and scandal.
Sir Balthazar Crimp:
More bottles! More corks! More aristocratic vapour! Mr. Latch, you have sealed the last batch crooked.
Mr. Latch:
Sir, I seal as the law directs: firmly, without affection, and at cost to others.
Sir Balthazar:
This label says, “The King’s Own Anti-Pestilential Elixir, Prepared in a House of Proven Contagion.”
Lady Amarantha:
Good.
Doctor Quill:
Bad. Very bad. It implies contagion.
Lady Amarantha:
It implies courage.
Doctor Quill:
It implies prosecution.
Lady Amarantha:
Only if anyone survives to complain.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, I object to that jest on compassionate grounds.
Lady Amarantha:
Then object from the couch. You are meant to be expiring.
Lord Peregrine:
I have expired twice this morning and received no applause.
Doll Violet:
You expired like a man expecting the audience to lend him money.
Barnaby Fleam:
I have written a new lament.
Lady Amarantha:
Is it shorter than the disease?
Barnaby:
Madam, art must breathe.
Lord Peregrine:
Then let it breathe elsewhere.
Barnaby:
It begins:
“O Ashpottle, thou trembling lord,
By plague, by debt, by wife outscored—”
Lady Amarantha:
Keep that line.
Lord Peregrine:
Strike that line.
Lady Amarantha:
Keep it twice.
Below, the back gate is heard shaking under a heavy blow.
Captain Hackwell (outside):
Open, or by all the campaigns of Flanders, I shall make an entrance fit for history!
Lord Peregrine:
That must be your former suitor. He announces himself like a cannon with boots.
Lady Amarantha:
Captain Hackwell never knocks where he can besiege.
Doll Violet:
I remember him at Drury Lane. He threw a gentleman through a pastry stall for misquoting Dryden.
Barnaby:
A barbarous man.
Doll Violet:
The pastry was improved by it.
Mr. Latch:
As Master of the Door, I refuse admission to armed persons, infected persons, insolvent persons, suspicious persons, and persons with aggressive memories.
Lady Amarantha:
Admit him.
Mr. Latch:
Madam, my office—
Lady Amarantha:
—is imaginary and unpaid. Obey.
Mr. Latch:
The dignity of public service is much reduced.
MR. LATCH exits. A moment later CAPTAIN HACKWELL enters: broad, weather-beaten, magnificent in old campaign clothes, sword at side, hat under arm. He has the look of a man who has slept under artillery and considered it preferable to polite society.
Captain Hackwell:
Lady Amarantha.
Lady Amarantha:
Captain Hackwell.
Captain Hackwell:
You are alive.
Lady Amarantha:
More often than convenient.
Captain Hackwell:
I heard your house was struck with plague.
Lord Peregrine:
A rumour maliciously derived from laundry.
Captain Hackwell:
And that your husband was dying.
Lord Peregrine:
A rumour encouraged by my wife.
Captain Hackwell:
Then I am come in error.
Lady Amarantha:
Most men do.
Captain Hackwell:
Had you been in danger, madam, I would have carried you from this place though every watchman in London stood across the way.
Lord Peregrine:
A generous threat, sir, but the lady is already carried. By matrimony.
Captain Hackwell:
You are Lord Ashpottle?
Lord Peregrine:
Viscount Mouldmere, though ruin has lately made us intimate.
Captain Hackwell:
I saw you once at court.
Lord Peregrine:
Impossible. I should remember being stared at by a wardrobe with a sword.
Captain Hackwell:
You were losing at cards.
Lord Peregrine:
That does not narrow the occasion.
Lady Amarantha:
Captain, your timing is excellent. We are founding a commercial ministry of terror.
Captain Hackwell:
I dislike commerce.
Sir Balthazar:
A common view among men with no talent for it.
Captain Hackwell:
Who is this scented bladder?
Sir Balthazar:
Sir Balthazar Crimp, physician to hope, enemy to pestilence, and friend to all who can pay.
Doctor Quill:
Not physician.
Sir Balthazar:
Doctor Quill insists upon distinctions because he has failed at results.
Doctor Quill:
I have preserved hundreds.
Sir Balthazar:
From what?
Doctor Quill:
From overconfidence.
Captain Hackwell:
I have seen camp surgeons remove a leg with less argument.
Doll Violet:
And did the leg pay?
Captain Hackwell:
Not afterwards.
Lady Amarantha:
Captain, you may be useful.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, must every man who once sighed beneath your window be incorporated into our household economy?
Lady Amarantha:
Only the sturdy ones.
Captain Hackwell:
Name the service.
Lady Amarantha:
The crowd below has money and fear. We have bottles and invention. But fear, poorly managed, may turn. They must believe a heroic gentleman fights the pox within these walls.
Captain Hackwell:
This one?
Lord Peregrine:
Sir.
Captain Hackwell:
He fights nothing. He reclines at it.
Lady Amarantha:
Exactly why we need you. You shall be seen guarding his sickbed, sword drawn against invisible contagion.
Captain Hackwell:
I have fought Dutchmen, Spaniards, mud, fever, bureaucracy, and a horse with opinions. I will not fight vapour for a crowd.
Lady Amarantha:
I shall call it loyalty.
Captain Hackwell:
That is unfair.
Lady Amarantha:
I know.
Doll Violet:
Sing while he stands there. The ladies will weep. The apprentices will cheer. The respectable will pretend not to look.
Barnaby:
I shall compose an ode: “The Captain’s Sword Against the Air.”
Captain Hackwell:
Compose it quietly.
Mistress Clackett (entering breathless):
My lady! News. The street is thick as a fair. Three apothecaries, two parsons, an orange-girl, a justice’s clerk, and one veiled lady in a chair have gathered below.
Lord Peregrine:
A veiled lady?
Lady Amarantha:
His lordship revives.
Lord Peregrine:
I merely inquire for public safety.
Mistress Clackett:
She asked if the suffering lord yet had the use of speech.
Lady Amarantha:
Then she is either a creditor or a lover.
Mr. Latch (re-entering):
The distinction is often clerical.
Lord Peregrine:
What colour was the chair?
Lady Amarantha:
Ah.
Lord Peregrine:
For identification only.
Mistress Clackett:
Blue velvet, my lord. With silver fringe.
Lady Amarantha:
Lady Prue Tattlecombe.
Lord Peregrine:
I deny it in advance.
Captain Hackwell:
Does this house contain any honest danger?
Doctor Quill:
It contains several inflammable moral conditions.
Sir Balthazar:
And insufficient cork.
Lady Amarantha:
We must enlarge the performance. Doll, you shall sing a lament at the window. Barnaby, provide verses, but remove every third metaphor. Doctor, stand visibly grave. Sir Balthazar, hold a bottle as though it were a sacrament. Captain, unsheathe your sword. Peregrine, moan.
Lord Peregrine:
I have artistic limits.
Lady Amarantha:
Then exceed them.
They arrange themselves. LADY AMARANTHA opens the casement. A roar from the crowd below.
Crowd below:
The lord! The lord! Is he dying?
Lord Peregrine (from couch, weakly but theatrically):
Not while England needs me.
Lady Amarantha (aside):
Less monarchy, more mortality.
Lord Peregrine:
I sink, good people. I sink beneath the fevered hand of pestilence, sustained only by conscience, nobility, and certain efficacious draughts available below.
Sir Balthazar:
One crown plain! Two crowns blessed! Five crowns noble-contact!
Doctor Quill:
This is unseemly.
Lady Amarantha:
Look graver.
Doctor Quill (to crowd):
The case is delicate, complex, and not wholly unpromising, provided all present avoid proximity, melancholy, raw fruit, excessive confidence, and unlicensed remedies.
Sir Balthazar:
Except mine.
Doctor Quill:
Especially his.
Sir Balthazar:
Observe professional jealousy.
Doll Violet (singing with mock pathos):
“Farewell, sweet lord, whose powdered head
Lies near, though not precisely, dead;
Let creditors their weeping start,
For plague hath caught his purse and heart.”
Crowd below:
Ahhh!
Barnaby:
Those were my lines.
Doll Violet:
I improved them by surviving them.
Captain Hackwell (standing beside the couch, sword drawn):
Back, foul corruption! Come no nearer this noble ruin!
Lord Peregrine:
Ruin?
Captain Hackwell:
I improvise badly.
The crowd cheers. Coins begin clattering into a basket lowered by rope.
Lady Amarantha:
There is the sound of civilization.
Mr. Latch:
Coin received under quarantine may be subject to seizure.
Lady Amarantha:
Touch the basket and I shall have you declared symptomatic.
Mr. Latch:
My office withdraws its curiosity.
From outside, a veiled female voice calls up.
Lady Prue below:
My poor Ashpottle! Does he remember Prue?
Lady Amarantha:
He remembers nothing, madam. The fever has taken all but his virtue.
Lord Peregrine:
My virtue?
Lady Amarantha:
You were not using it.
Lady Prue below:
Tell him I forgive him.
Lady Amarantha:
For what, madam?
A pause below.
Lady Prue:
In general.
Lady Amarantha:
How charitable.
Lord Peregrine:
I feel a relapse.
Captain Hackwell:
If you have wronged that lady, sir, you should answer her.
Lord Peregrine:
Captain, in London one cannot answer every lady one has wronged. It would consume the season.
Lady Amarantha:
And several winters.
Doll Violet:
And Lent.
Barnaby:
A noble theme: “The Catalogue of Ashpottle’s Injuries.”
Lord Peregrine:
I forbid the poem.
Barnaby:
Then it will be satire.
Suddenly a WATCHMAN’s voice sounds below.
Watchman:
Stand back there! By order of the parish, none shall traffic with a shut house.
Sir Balthazar:
Disaster.
Lady Amarantha:
No, regulation.
Mr. Latch:
Regulation is disaster with a hat.
Watchman:
Who sells physic from above?
Lady Amarantha:
We do not sell physic. We distribute consolation.
Watchman:
At five crowns?
Lady Amarantha:
Superior consolation.
Watchman:
This is unlawful.
Captain Hackwell:
Name your superior, fellow.
Watchman:
The parish.
Captain Hackwell:
A cowardly answer. No man ever fought a parish and knew where to aim.
Doctor Quill:
This whole spectacle must cease. Fear is no marketplace.
Sir Balthazar:
Doctor, you mistake the nation.
Lady Amarantha:
Watchman, listen carefully. This house is marked. If you interfere, you must enter. If you enter, you must remain. If you remain, you shall be fed by us, instructed by Doctor Quill, inventoried by Mr. Latch, rhymed by Mr. Fleam, sung at by Doll Violet, and morally improved by me.
A pause.
Watchman below:
Continue moderately.
Lady Amarantha:
England is governed.
The window closes.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, I nearly admired you.
Lady Amarantha:
Nearly is the usual marital allowance.
Captain Hackwell:
You always had command.
Lady Amarantha:
And you always mistook command for affection.
Captain Hackwell:
I mistook nothing. You chose title over truth.
Lord Peregrine:
Sir, I must protest at being reduced to an abstract noun.
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine, you are not reduced. You were born decorative.
Captain Hackwell:
Had you married me, Amarantha—
Lady Amarantha:
I should have followed drums, eaten horse, and buried you in Flanders.
Captain Hackwell:
Perhaps.
Lady Amarantha:
Instead I married lace, debt, and comic disappointment.
Lord Peregrine:
A phrase I find unnecessarily accurate.
Captain Hackwell:
And are you happy?
Lady Amarantha:
Captain, no woman of sense aims so low.
For a moment, the comedy sharpens into something more dangerous.
Doll Violet (lightly, to break it):
When lovers quarrel near a plague mark, the house grows crowded with ghosts.
Doctor Quill:
Ghosts are a superstition.
Mistress Clackett:
So are physicians, to many families.
Sir Balthazar:
Ghosts would be excellent customers. They have already survived the worst.
JASPER enters, carrying a small sealed note.
Jasper:
My lady, a message has been tied to a stone and thrown through the kitchen window.
Lord Peregrine:
The old diplomatic forms endure.
Lady Amarantha:
Read it.
Jasper:
“To the persons unlawfully profiting under colour of infection: cease, or I shall expose the false pox, the false cordial, the false death, and the false virtue of Lord Ashpottle. Signed, A Friend to Public Honesty.”
Lord Peregrine:
Public honesty? I know no such person.
Lady Amarantha:
Nor does London.
Captain Hackwell:
Who could know?
Doctor Quill:
Everyone in this room.
All (looking around):
Ah.
Mr. Latch:
As an officer of imaginary authority, I recommend suspicion be distributed equally.
Doll Violet:
Spoken like a man concealing something.
Mr. Latch:
Madam, concealment is the foundation of civil order.
Mistress Clackett:
The handwriting is thin and mean. A clerk’s hand.
Barnaby:
Or a poet’s when underfed.
Sir Balthazar:
It is not mine. I write roundly, to suggest abundance.
Doctor Quill:
Nor mine. My hand is illegible, to preserve dignity.
Captain Hackwell:
Give it here.
He examines the note.
Captain Hackwell:
Military fold. See there. The paper was turned twice, pressed by thumb, sealed in haste. Not a clerk.
Lady Amarantha:
A soldier?
Captain Hackwell:
Or one who has carried dispatches.
Lord Peregrine:
You?
Captain Hackwell:
If I meant to ruin you, my lord, I would not waste a stone. I would use the door.
Doll Violet:
The limping officer who followed me?
Mistress Clackett:
Or Lady Prue. Women of quality employ every hand but their own.
Lady Amarantha:
The note threatens exposure. Therefore, we must expose something first.
Lord Peregrine:
Must we?
Lady Amarantha:
Always. Scandal is a pistol. Fire early or be shot.
Doctor Quill:
This enterprise becomes intolerable.
Sir Balthazar:
On the contrary, it ripens.
Lady Amarantha:
We shall hold an evening ceremony: Lord Ashpottle’s miraculous turn from death. The cordial shall be credited. The crowd shall cheer. The watchman shall blink. The anonymous moralist shall be forced either to speak publicly or lose the moment.
Captain Hackwell:
And if he speaks?
Lady Amarantha:
Then we drown him in music.
Barnaby:
At last, a proper role for art.
Doll Violet:
No, dear Fleam. For volume.
Lord Peregrine:
What must I do?
Lady Amarantha:
Rise from the couch at sunset, stagger nobly, bless the people, and drink Sir Balthazar’s cordial without dying.
Lord Peregrine:
Without dying? What is in it?
Sir Balthazar:
As stated: hope and brandy.
Doctor Quill:
And laudanum, if I know that smell.
Sir Balthazar:
Hope sleeps better with assistance.
Lord Peregrine:
I refuse to drink unknown medicine.
Lady Amarantha:
You drink known wine daily and suffer worse results.
Captain Hackwell:
I will taste it.
Doll Violet:
Spoken like a soldier: brave before bottles.
Doctor Quill:
Absolutely not. A man of full blood, martial temperament, and recent exertion may react violently.
Captain Hackwell:
Doctor, I have eaten siege bread, mule stew, Dutch cheese, and a pie sold outside a theatre. Your bottle cannot frighten me.
He takes the bottle, drinks. A pause.
Captain Hackwell:
Hm.
Lady Amarantha:
Well?
Captain Hackwell:
It tastes like courage being robbed.
Sir Balthazar:
A complex bouquet.
Captain Hackwell:
My ears are warm.
Doctor Quill:
Sit down.
Captain Hackwell:
I will not.
Doctor Quill:
Then fall down conveniently.
Captain Hackwell:
Madam Amarantha, there are now two of you.
Lord Peregrine:
That is my constant impression.
Captain Hackwell:
One is kinder.
Lady Amarantha:
Address that one.
Captain Hackwell:
The room advances.
He takes one dignified step, then collapses backward into a chair, still gripping his sword.
Doll Violet:
There lies England’s defence.
Sir Balthazar:
A most persuasive demonstration. The cordial overcomes even military constitutions.
Doctor Quill:
It has drugged him.
Sir Balthazar:
It has calmed him.
Doctor Quill:
He is insensible.
Sir Balthazar:
At peace.
Lady Amarantha:
Can he stand by sunset?
Doctor Quill:
Possibly.
Lady Amarantha:
Can he look heroic while seated?
Doll Violet:
With lighting.
Barnaby:
I shall write: “The Captain swooned, not from weakness, but from excess of patriotic feeling.”
Lord Peregrine:
Can I not do that instead?
Lady Amarantha:
You have not enough patriotism to swoon from excess.
There is a renewed tumult outside. A new voice rises, official and sharp.
Voice below:
Open there! I bear authority from the magistrate!
Mr. Latch:
That sounds genuine. I dislike it.
Lady Amarantha:
Who is it?
JASPER looks nervously from the window.
Jasper:
A gentleman in black, madam, with two constables. And the veiled lady remains.
Lord Peregrine:
Prue would never bring constables.
Lady Amarantha:
Not for love. Perhaps for jewellery.
Mistress Clackett:
The gentleman in black has papers.
Sir Balthazar:
Papers are worse than plague. Plague merely kills you; papers explain why.
Doctor Quill:
If the magistrate enters, your fraud collapses.
Lady Amarantha:
Then the house must become truly dangerous.
Lord Peregrine:
I dislike the word truly.
Lady Amarantha:
Doctor, can you produce smoke?
Doctor Quill:
For fumigation, yes.
Lady Amarantha:
Excellent. Sir Balthazar, spill vinegar. Doll, scream musically. Barnaby, read Latin.
Barnaby:
I do not know Latin.
Lady Amarantha:
Neither does the street.
Mr. Latch:
And I?
Lady Amarantha:
Put on that spare cloak and look like a corpse.
Mr. Latch:
Madam, I am an officer.
Lady Amarantha:
Then the resemblance is close enough.
Captain Hackwell (half-conscious):
Form square. The pastry is turning left.
Doll Violet:
He is gone to war with dessert.
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine, under the sheet.
Lord Peregrine:
Again?
Lady Amarantha:
You are at your best concealed.
Chaos erupts into choreography. Doctor Quill burns herbs in a pan; smoke fills the room. Sir Balthazar sloshes vinegar so lavishly that Barnaby slips. Doll Violet unleashes a high theatrical cry. Barnaby chants nonsense with great authority.
Barnaby:
Morbus, corpus, omnibus, cartwheelius!
Doctor Quill:
That is not Latin.
Barnaby:
It is frightened Latin.
The front door below pounds.
Official Voice:
Open in the magistrate’s name!
Lady Amarantha (calling down):
Stand away! The fever rises! One man down, one raving, one suspected, one poet already beyond medical help!
Official Voice:
We have report of unlawful commerce.
Lady Amarantha:
Then send a lawyer. Death is busy.
Official Voice:
We will enter.
Doctor Quill (with full professional thunder):
Enter and you condemn the parish! I have here an acute malign effluvium of spotted febrile corruption with secondary vapours, tertiary agitation, and poetic complications!
Barnaby:
Omnibus!
Doll Violet:
Mercy! The corpse has moved!
MR. LATCH, under a cloak, rises too early.
Mr. Latch:
I object to corpse work without fee.
Jasper:
Down, sir!
He pushes LATCH back beneath the cloak.
Official Voice below:
What was that?
Lady Amarantha:
A legal spasm.
Sir Balthazar:
Common in the dead.
Captain Hackwell (from chair):
Advance the cheese!
Lord Peregrine (under sheet):
Is he better or worse than I?
Lady Amarantha:
More convincing.
Outside, murmurs spread. The crowd, hearing smoke, screams, Latin, and “corpse,” begins to panic.
Mistress Clackett (at window, shouting):
Stand back, all! The house is in a dreadful taking! The doctor says there are tertiary agitations!
Crowd below:
Tertiary!
Another voice:
What are they?
Mistress Clackett:
The third worst kind!
The crowd recoils. The official voice retreats slightly.
Official Voice:
We shall return with fuller authority.
Lady Amarantha:
Bring shorter courage.
The constables withdraw. The crowd buzzes with terror and admiration.
Sir Balthazar:
Madam, you have saved the business.
Doctor Quill:
She has endangered the city.
Lady Amarantha:
Doctor, the city was endangered before breakfast. I have merely organized it.
The smoke begins to thin. CAPTAIN HACKWELL wakes slightly.
Captain Hackwell:
Amarantha?
Lady Amarantha:
Yes?
Captain Hackwell:
Did we win?
Lady Amarantha:
Not yet.
Captain Hackwell:
Then wake me for the charge.
Lord Peregrine (emerging from beneath sheet):
I have never been so insulted by survival.
Doll Violet:
Take comfort, my lord. You made a handsome lump.
Barnaby:
The scene requires revision, but the terror was excellent.
Mr. Latch (sitting up):
I have discovered something.
Lady Amarantha:
That cowardice sweats?
Mr. Latch:
No. While serving unwillingly as a corpse, I heard a voice at the side window. Someone whispered to the veiled lady.
Lord Peregrine:
What did he say?
Mr. Latch:
“He must sign before sunset, or the estate is lost.”
Lady Amarantha:
What estate?
Lord Peregrine:
I own no estate worth stealing.
Lady Amarantha:
You own Mouldmere.
Lord Peregrine:
Mouldmere is mostly marsh, litigation, and one mad aunt.
Mr. Latch:
There is more. The whisperer said, “The wife must not see the deed.”
Lady Amarantha:
Ah.
Captain Hackwell (suddenly clearer):
That is not commerce. That is attack.
Doctor Quill:
At last, a real disease.
Sir Balthazar:
Property fever. Often fatal to heirs.
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine, what have you signed?
Lord Peregrine:
Nothing this week.
Lady Amarantha:
This month?
Lord Peregrine:
Define signed.
Lady Amarantha:
Ink. Paper. Your name. Disaster.
Lord Peregrine:
There may have been a mortgage.
Lady Amarantha:
On Mouldmere?
Lord Peregrine:
A small mortgage.
Mr. Latch:
I hold writs suggesting a large smallness.
Lady Amarantha:
To whom?
Lord Peregrine:
A gentleman of finance.
Lady Amarantha:
Name.
Lord Peregrine:
Mr. Obadiah Grin.
Everyone reacts.
Mistress Clackett:
Grin the mortality broker?
Sir Balthazar:
Grin the widow-buyer?
Doctor Quill:
Grin who speculates in infected houses?
Doll Violet:
Grin who owns three actresses and no theatre?
Barnaby:
Grin who refused my masque?
Lord Peregrine:
That may have been prudence.
Captain Hackwell:
Grin is no gentleman. He buys distress by the acre.
Lady Amarantha:
And the veiled lady below is no lover. She is bait.
Lord Peregrine:
Lady Prue as bait? She has the intelligence for it.
Lady Amarantha:
He wants you to sign before sunset, while the house is shut, confused, and believed diseased. If you die, he profits. If you live and sign, he profits. If scandal breaks, he profits.
Sir Balthazar:
A man of breadth.
Lady Amarantha:
Silence.
She crosses to the window and looks out carefully.
Lady Amarantha:
There. At the corner. Black coat, silver cane, face like a locked drawer.
Captain Hackwell:
Grin.
Doctor Quill:
He will return with magistrate’s force.
Mr. Latch:
And papers.
Lord Peregrine:
Can we not flee?
Lady Amarantha:
From a marked house? Through a crowd? With a drugged captain, a quack’s inventory, a bailiff in a corpse-cloak, an actress, a poet, a physician, and your reputation?
Lord Peregrine:
When arranged so, it sounds difficult.
Doll Violet:
Not impossible. I once left Whitehall inside a harp.
Barnaby:
That was you?
Doll Violet:
It was a generous harp.
Lady Amarantha:
No. We do not flee. We turn the trap.
Captain Hackwell:
How?
Lady Amarantha:
Grin wants secrecy, fear, and a signature. We shall give him publicity, confusion, and a corpse.
Mr. Latch:
I resign again.
Lady Amarantha:
Not you. My husband.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam.
Lady Amarantha:
You shall die at sunset.
Lord Peregrine:
Absolutely not.
Lady Amarantha:
Only legally.
Mr. Latch:
Legally dead is a delicate condition.
Doctor Quill:
It is also not a medical one.
Sir Balthazar:
But commercially intriguing.
Lady Amarantha:
If Lord Ashpottle is believed dead before signing, Grin must reveal his deed, his pressure, and his interest. If he produces forged obligations, Mr. Latch will recognize the filings. If he presses too hard, Captain Hackwell will press harder. If he brings authority, Doctor Quill will bury them in terminology. If the crowd doubts, Doll will make them weep. If language is needed, Barnaby will provide too much of it.
Barnaby:
At last, my abundance is strategic.
Lord Peregrine:
And what of me?
Lady Amarantha:
You shall lie still.
Doll Violet:
He has trained all morning.
Captain Hackwell:
Grin is dangerous.
Lady Amarantha:
So am I, when undercapitalized.
Mistress Clackett:
Shall I spread the death?
Lady Amarantha:
Not yet. Spread the turn. Say his lordship worsens, repents, and asks to see all who have claims upon his conscience.
Lord Peregrine:
That may fill Westminster.
Lady Amarantha:
Then charge admission.
Doctor Quill:
This is madness.
Lady Amarantha:
Doctor, madness is when one cannot distinguish appearance from reality. We distinguish them perfectly. We simply prefer appearance because it pays better.
Outside, the bell tolls again. Evening begins to darken the room. The crowd waits below, restless, hungry for miracle or death. Within the chamber, every rogue, fool, lover, creditor, and opportunist turns toward Lady Amarantha as toward a commander.
Lady Amarantha:
We have one hour until sunset. Dress the corpse. Hide the money. Dilute the cordial. Wake the captain. Muffle the poet. And someone find Lord Ashpottle a clean shirt.
Mistress Clackett:
Spotted or plain, my lady?
Lady Amarantha:
Plain. We have had enough theology from laundry.
Lord Peregrine:
Amarantha.
Lady Amarantha:
Yes?
Lord Peregrine:
If I am to die, even in jest, I should like a better pillow.
Lady Amarantha:
There speaks nobility.
Captain Hackwell:
There speaks England.
Doll Violet:
There speaks a man who has never packed his own trunk.
Sir Balthazar:
There speaks a future endorsement.
Barnaby:
There speaks Act Two.
Lady Amarantha:
Then let Act Three find us richer, wickeder, and not yet buried.
Curtain.
End of Act II.
Act III
The Death of Lord Ashpottle, Twice
The scene: the same chamber, now arranged as a sickroom, chapel, counting-house, theatre, and fraud office in one. Candles burn everywhere. A sheeted shape lies upon the couch: LORD PEREGRINE ASHPOTTLE, supposedly at death’s door, though he is clearly annoyed by the draught. DOCTOR QUILL stands near him with a basin and a face of professional catastrophe. SIR BALTHAZAR CRIMP counts bottles. DOLL VIOLET powders her eyes to appear freshly wept. BARNABY FLEAM clutches a manuscript titled “Upon the Noble Expiration of Lord A.” MR. LATCH wears black gloves and looks like a bailiff attending his own funeral. CAPTAIN HACKWELL, now recovered but unsteady, guards the door with military solemnity. LADY AMARANTHA commands all.
Lady Amarantha:
Now mark me. His lordship is not dead until I say so.
Lord Peregrine (under the sheet):
I find the distinction consoling.
Lady Amarantha:
If anyone asks, he declined from noon, repented at three, forgave his creditors at four, and expired at five.
Mr. Latch:
Forgave his creditors? Legally meaningless.
Lady Amarantha:
Spiritually elegant.
Mr. Latch:
The law dislikes elegance. It cannot distrain upon it.
Doctor Quill:
I protest again. I am a physician, not a stage carpenter of mortality.
Doll Violet:
Doctor, all medicine is theatre until the patient dies. Then it becomes billing.
Sir Balthazar:
And legacy.
Barnaby:
And poetry.
Lord Peregrine:
This room contains too many professions dependent upon my corpse.
Lady Amarantha:
Then be grateful you are only pretending.
Captain Hackwell:
What are my orders?
Lady Amarantha:
Look dangerous, say little, and prevent my husband from signing anything except a confession of improved character.
Captain Hackwell:
I can do two of those perfectly.
Lady Amarantha:
Which two?
Captain Hackwell:
That must remain a tactical secret.
A roar rises from outside. The crowd has swollen. Voices cry: “Is he dead?” “Is he saved?” “Did the cordial work?” “Can I have my crown back?”
Sir Balthazar:
That last voice must be suppressed.
Mistress Clackett (entering):
My lady, the street is fit to burst. There are apprentices on barrels, ladies in masks, two parsons disputing the soul, and a pie-man selling “Ashpottle pasties.”
Lord Peregrine:
Ashpottle pasties?
Doll Violet:
Fame is rarely flattering in pastry.
Mistress Clackett:
Also Mr. Obadiah Grin approaches with a magistrate’s clerk, Lady Prue Tattlecombe, two constables, and a man carrying a strongbox.
Lady Amarantha:
Excellent. The villain has brought furniture.
Doctor Quill:
If this becomes a riot, I shall not be responsible.
Lady Amarantha:
Doctor, no one here has suspected you of responsibility.
Barnaby:
Shall I begin the elegy?
All:
No.
Barnaby:
A conspiracy against literature.
Doll Violet:
No, dear Fleam. A public-health measure.
Heavy knocking below.
Voice of Obadiah Grin:
In the name of lawful business, open!
Captain Hackwell:
Lawful business never shouts its name from the street.
Mr. Latch:
Untrue. I have done so for years.
Lady Amarantha:
Places.
Everyone scrambles. LORD PEREGRINE lies flatter. DOCTOR QUILL assumes grave authority. SIR BALTHAZAR hides half the money beneath a cushion. DOLL VIOLET begins weeping prettily. BARNABY tries to look inspired and instead looks underfed. CAPTAIN HACKWELL takes position by the door.
Enter OBADIAH GRIN: spare, black-clad, smooth-faced, with silver cane and dead eyes. He is followed by LADY PRUE TATTLECOMBE, veiled and scented; a MAGISTRATE’S CLERK with papers; two CONSTABLES; and a PORTER carrying a strongbox.
Obadiah Grin:
Lady Ashpottle.
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Grin. You arrive like a tax upon mourning.
Grin:
A necessary tax, madam. Disorder breeds in sentimental houses.
Lady Prue:
Where is poor Peregrine? Oh, my poor, wicked, charming, unpaid Peregrine!
Lady Amarantha:
Madam, moderate your grief. You are using too much perfume for a sickroom and too little shame for a widow.
Lady Prue:
I am not a widow.
Lady Amarantha:
Nor shall you be, while I remain alive.
Grin:
We have come on urgent business. Lord Ashpottle is required to sign certain confirmations before the sunset hour.
Doctor Quill:
Impossible. His lordship is in extremis.
Grin:
Then his mark will suffice.
Captain Hackwell:
You ask a dying man to sign?
Grin:
I ask a debtor to remember law before eternity distracts him.
Lord Peregrine (faintly, under sheet):
Who said eternity? I distinctly heard business.
Lady Amarantha (hissing):
Die quieter.
Grin:
He speaks. Good. My lord, a small matter. Your prior mortgage upon Mouldmere requires regularization.
Lord Peregrine:
Regularization sounds painful.
Lady Amarantha:
It is worse. It is financial.
Grin:
These papers merely confirm existing obligations.
Mr. Latch:
Let me see them.
Grin:
And you are?
Mr. Latch:
An officer of entry, seizure, inventory, nuisance, and disappointment.
Grin:
A bailiff?
Mr. Latch:
Reduced by quarantine to household ornament.
Grin:
Then you have no standing.
Mr. Latch:
Sir, I have stood in doorways against stronger men than you and worse smells than this.
Sir Balthazar:
The vinegar was necessary.
Mr. Latch:
I referred to finance.
Grin:
Clerk, produce the deed.
The CLERK opens papers. LADY AMARANTHA snatches them before Grin can stop her.
Grin:
Madam!
Lady Amarantha:
A wife may read what a husband cannot understand.
Lord Peregrine:
I am wounded.
Lady Amarantha:
Then act accordingly.
She scans the document.
Lady Amarantha:
This is not confirmation. This assigns the whole estate, its rents, marshes, rights of fishery, timber, chapel silver, and “all wives’ claims therein, present and future.”
Doll Violet:
He mortgages wives now? That is innovation.
Captain Hackwell:
This paper is robbery in a peruke.
Grin:
A common vulgar view of commerce.
Lady Amarantha:
And here, Lord Ashpottle allegedly consented three days ago while dining at the Blue Pelican.
Lord Peregrine:
I was not at the Blue Pelican three days ago.
Lady Amarantha:
You recall?
Lord Peregrine:
Perfectly. I was at the Red Griffin. I lost a horse I do not own.
Mr. Latch:
A useful alibi by low standards.
Grin:
His lordship’s habits are various.
Doctor Quill:
And medically deplorable.
Lady Amarantha:
Who witnessed this?
Grin:
Lady Prue Tattlecombe.
Lady Prue:
I did, alas, with a heart torn between compassion and diamonds.
Lady Amarantha:
You witnessed my husband sign a deed in a tavern where he was not present?
Lady Prue:
I witnessed a gentleman shaped like him.
Lord Peregrine:
Many gentlemen are shaped by debt.
Lady Amarantha:
Did he speak?
Lady Prue:
Not much.
Lady Amarantha:
Then it was not my husband.
Doll Violet:
The prosecution rests.
Grin:
Enough wit. My lord, sign.
Captain Hackwell:
Move one step nearer that couch and I shall shorten your cane by passing it through you.
Grin:
Constables.
The constables advance uncertainly. DOCTOR QUILL swings his beaked mask toward them.
Doctor Quill:
Stand off! The patient enters the volatile terminal interval.
Constable One:
What is that?
Doctor Quill:
A condition in which the slightest disturbance may discharge malignant vapours, spotted humours, and irreversible civic inconvenience.
Constable Two:
Civic inconvenience sounds official.
Doctor Quill:
It is.
Constable One:
Best not.
Grin:
Cowards.
Constable Two:
Paid cowards, sir. There is a hierarchy.
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Grin, you came hoping to harvest a dying fool. You found instead a living wife.
Grin:
A temporary obstruction.
Lady Amarantha:
Marriage generally is.
Lady Prue:
Poor Peregrine, do you hear how she speaks over your grave?
Lord Peregrine:
I hear everything. Dying has sharpened me.
Lady Amarantha:
That would be its first useful effect.
Grin:
My lord, your signature, or I publish your correspondence with Lady Prue.
Lord Peregrine:
Ah.
Lady Amarantha:
Ah?
Doll Violet:
That was a guilty ah.
Barnaby:
A lyric ah.
Captain Hackwell:
A cowardly ah.
Lord Peregrine:
A surprised ah.
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine.
Lord Peregrine:
There were letters.
Lady Prue:
Burning letters.
Lady Amarantha:
Did they burn because of passion or spelling?
Grin:
They are sufficiently compromising.
Lady Amarantha:
Read one.
Grin:
Madam?
Lady Amarantha:
Read one publicly.
Lord Peregrine:
Amarantha, must you?
Lady Amarantha:
I have endured your conduct in private. I should like the relief of ridicule in company.
Doll Violet:
A sound marital doctrine.
Grin:
Very well.
He draws a letter and reads.
Grin:
“My celestial Prue, your eyes are twin comets whose fires reduce my reason to custard—”
Doll Violet:
Custard?
Captain Hackwell:
That is treason against desire.
Barnaby:
I object as a poet.
Lord Peregrine:
It improved in later paragraphs.
Grin:
“—and when I behold your ankle, modestly emergent from the carriage step, I am undone like a pudding in a storm.”
Mr. Latch:
I have seized goods with more erotic force.
Lady Amarantha:
Continue. I find widowhood less necessary.
Lady Prue:
He wrote beautifully at the time.
Doll Violet:
Madam, grief has corrupted your memory.
Grin:
“Command me, adore me, conceal me from my wife, and believe me ever your most inflamed and financially embarrassed servant—Peregrine.”
Lady Amarantha:
That is not a scandal. That is a recipe for indigestion.
Captain Hackwell:
I would have paid to keep it secret.
Lord Peregrine:
Thank you.
Captain Hackwell:
Not for your honour. For prose.
Grin:
You mock, but the town will devour it.
Lady Amarantha:
The town has already eaten Ashpottle pasties. Its palate is not refined.
Grin:
Then I shall release every letter.
Lady Amarantha:
And I shall release Lady Prue’s replies.
Lady Prue:
My replies?
Lady Amarantha:
My dear, a woman who keeps a married man’s letters never burns her own. She likes to reread the parts where she is adored.
Lady Prue:
Mr. Grin has my letters?
Grin:
For security.
Lady Prue:
You said for tenderness.
Doll Violet:
Finance speaks all languages badly.
Lady Prue:
Give them back.
Grin:
Not until the deed is signed.
Lady Prue:
You serpent in worsted! I was told this would merely distress him.
Lady Amarantha:
It has. But not creatively.
Lord Peregrine:
Prue, you joined a conspiracy against me?
Lady Prue:
Only lightly.
Lord Peregrine:
There are degrees?
Lady Prue:
In London, always.
Captain Hackwell:
Where are the letters?
Grin:
Safe.
Sir Balthazar (casually sitting on the strongbox):
How safe?
Grin:
Remove yourself from that box.
Sir Balthazar:
Ah. This box.
Grin:
Porter!
The PORTER moves forward. CAPTAIN HACKWELL steps between them.
Captain Hackwell:
No.
Porter:
Sir, I am paid to carry.
Captain Hackwell:
Then carry yourself backward.
Porter:
At once, sir.
He retreats.
Grin:
This is unlawful seizure.
Mr. Latch:
At last, my art.
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Latch, open the box.
Mr. Latch:
Madam, without warrant, key, or fee?
Lady Amarantha:
For the public good.
Mr. Latch:
The public good is notoriously bad at paying.
Lady Amarantha:
You may keep whatever documents prove actionable.
Mr. Latch:
My patriotism awakens.
MR. LATCH produces a terrifying collection of little tools from his coat.
Doctor Quill:
Do bailiffs all carry lockpicks?
Mr. Latch:
No, doctor. Only the conscientious.
He kneels at the box.
Grin:
Stop him!
The constables look at Doctor Quill, the smoke pan, Captain Hackwell’s sword, and Lord Ashpottle under the sheet.
Constable One:
We are thinking about it.
Constable Two:
Slowly.
Barnaby:
While he opens it, may I read the elegy?
All:
No!
Barnaby:
Barbarians.
Lady Amarantha:
Doll, sing.
Doll Violet:
What mood?
Lady Amarantha:
Fraud discovered beneath lace.
Doll Violet:
A familiar key.
DOLL VIOLET sings lightly as LATCH works.
Doll Violet:
“When gentlemen borrow and ladies conspire,
When merchants bring paper and call it desire,
When husbands lie sheeted and wives hold the room,
There’s more life in scandal than death in the tomb.”
Lord Peregrine:
A little more respect for the sheeted, if you please.
The lock clicks.
Mr. Latch:
Opened.
Grin:
Damnation.
Lady Amarantha:
Inventory.
Mr. Latch:
One packet of letters, tied blue. One packet red. One mortgage deed. Two blank signed papers. Three promissory notes. A list of infected houses and expected inheritances. A small purse. A curl of hair.
Lady Prue:
The blue are mine.
Doll Violet:
And the red?
Lady Amarantha:
Mine.
Silence.
Lord Peregrine:
Yours?
Lady Amarantha:
Do not sound so proprietary from under a death sheet.
Captain Hackwell:
Amarantha?
Grin:
At last. The lady’s virtue has pockets.
Lady Amarantha:
Careful, Mr. Grin. My sins have better posture than yours.
Lord Peregrine:
What are these red letters?
Grin:
Correspondence between Lady Ashpottle and Captain Hackwell.
Captain Hackwell:
That is a lie.
Grin:
Read them.
Lady Amarantha:
I wrote those letters before my marriage.
Lord Peregrine:
Before?
Lady Amarantha:
Yes.
Lord Peregrine:
How much before?
Lady Amarantha:
Enough to be romantic and stupid, but not enough to be actionable.
Mr. Latch:
A narrow but respectable category.
Grin:
The town will not trouble itself with dates.
Lady Amarantha:
Then we shall trouble the town with handwriting.
Grin:
What?
Lady Amarantha:
Those letters are mine. The additions are yours.
Captain Hackwell:
Additions?
Lady Amarantha:
I never wrote “let us dispose of the husband.” For one thing, at the time I did not have one. For another, when I dispose of a husband, I need no assistance.
Lord Peregrine:
I wish to leave the sheet.
Lady Amarantha:
Denied.
Doctor Quill:
These interpolations are visibly newer ink.
Grin:
Doctors now judge ink?
Doctor Quill:
We judge fluids. It is not so distant.
Sir Balthazar:
I can judge the brandy content, should the papers have been drunk near.
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Latch?
Mr. Latch:
The lady is right. The lines differ. The pressure is meaner. The hand tries to imitate flourish but thinks like a clerk. I know forgery. I have served many men who later denied being able to write.
Grin:
You would take the word of a bailiff?
Mr. Latch:
Sir, my word is unpopular, not false.
Outside the crowd cries louder: “What happens?” “Is he dead?” “Show us the miracle!” “Where are the pasties?”
Grin:
You have no proof beyond theatrics.
Lady Amarantha:
Then let us employ more theatrics.
Lord Peregrine:
That phrase has become ominous.
Lady Amarantha:
My lord, arise.
Lord Peregrine:
Now?
Lady Amarantha:
Resurrect.
Lord Peregrine:
I had hoped for more notice.
Lady Amarantha:
The Redeemer managed with less furniture.
LORD PEREGRINE rises from beneath the sheet, hair disordered, face powdered, one cheek marked by pillow embroidery. The constables cross themselves. Lady Prue shrieks. Barnaby drops his manuscript.
Constable One:
Lord preserve us!
Constable Two:
He looks terrible.
Lord Peregrine:
I have been dead, sir.
Lady Amarantha:
Briefly.
Lord Peregrine (warming to the role):
Yes. I have returned from the brink. I saw a great light.
Doctor Quill:
That was the candle.
Lord Peregrine:
A celestial candle. And in that light I perceived all my errors.
Lady Amarantha:
Name three.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, revelation is not an audit.
Captain Hackwell:
Speak to the crowd.
Lady Amarantha:
No. Speak to Grin first.
Lord Peregrine:
Mr. Grin, I shall sign nothing. I shall not sell Mouldmere. I shall not surrender my wife’s claim, my marshes, my chapel silver, my fishing rights, nor my mad aunt, whose value is sentimental and possibly military.
Grin:
Then your debts will destroy you.
Lord Peregrine:
Sir, my debts have had years to destroy me and have shown no imagination. My wife, in an afternoon, has done more.
Lady Amarantha:
Thank you, I think.
Grin:
You are ruined.
Lady Amarantha:
Not while there is a crowd, a fraud, and a window.
She snatches the forged deed, opens the casement, and addresses the crowd.
Lady Amarantha:
Good people of London! You came to witness death, but shall receive better value: fraud!
The crowd roars approval.
Crowd:
Fraud! Fraud!
Sir Balthazar:
They do love specificity.
Lady Amarantha:
Here stands Mr. Obadiah Grin, who would steal a house under cover of plague, forge a wife’s letters, blackmail a mistress, coerce a husband, and bring magistrate’s papers into a sickroom with less mercy than a rat.
Crowd:
Shame! Shame!
Grin:
Lies!
Lady Amarantha:
Then answer us publicly. Why bring blank signed papers? Why alter old letters? Why list infected houses beside expected inheritances?
Crowd:
Answer! Answer!
Grin (to constables):
Arrest her.
Constable One:
For what?
Grin:
Noise.
Constable Two:
Noise is not arrestable in London, sir. Else we should have emptied it by Michaelmas.
Doll Violet (to window):
And behold the lord himself, restored by providence, vinegar, terror, and possibly a cordial!
Sir Balthazar:
Careful—brand placement.
Lord Peregrine (stepping to window, grandly):
People! I was near death.
Doctor Quill:
No.
Lord Peregrine:
Near embarrassment, which to a gentleman is adjacent.
*Crowd laughs.
Lord Peregrine:
I confess I have been vain, indebted, careless, over-fond of wine, insufficiently suspicious of blue chairs, and inclined to write of custard where passion required thunder.
*Crowd laughs louder.
Lady Amarantha:
Good. Humiliation suits you. Continue.
Lord Peregrine:
But even I, reduced as I am, will not have my house stolen by a man whose smile looks locked from the inside.
*Crowd cheers.
Barnaby (unable to resist, rushing to window):
Hear now my elegy corrected into triumph!
All:
No!
Barnaby:
“O London, mark this plague-born day—”
The crowd boos instantly.
Barnaby:
Philistines!
Doll Violet (pushing him aside):
Music instead.
She sings a bawdy, fast tune. The crowd claps. The chamber becomes carnival. GRIN sweats for the first time.
Grin:
This proves nothing in court.
Mr. Latch:
Perhaps. But it ruins you in the street. Courts are slow; mobs are punctual.
Lady Prue:
Give me my letters, Mr. Grin, or I shall testify.
Grin:
Against me?
Lady Prue:
For myself. It is the only cause I have never betrayed.
Captain Hackwell:
The lady improves.
Lady Amarantha:
Marginally.
Grin:
You fools. You think exposure saves you? I hold half your debts.
Mr. Latch:
Correction. Having opened your box and examined your instruments, I observe several assignments improperly witnessed, two notes usurious beyond enforceability, one seal reused, and a schedule of distressed properties obtained under quarantine abuses.
Grin:
That is confidential.
Mr. Latch:
So is theft, until discovered.
Doctor Quill:
And your list of infected houses may interest the parish authorities.
Sir Balthazar:
And your method of profiting from dread may offend even me, which is a late but meaningful threshold.
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Grin, you have two choices. Leave the papers, the letters, the deed, and the box, then depart under your own name.
Grin:
Or?
Lady Amarantha:
Or depart under vegetables.
Outside, the crowd has begun chanting: “Grin! Grin! Grin!” but not kindly.
Captain Hackwell:
I recommend the first.
Grin:
You cannot threaten me.
Captain Hackwell:
I rarely threaten. I advertise consequences.
GRIN looks at the crowd, the constables, the papers, the sword, the furious women, and the undead husband.
Grin:
This is temporary. You will all regret this.
Lady Amarantha:
Sir, we are aristocrats. Regret is ancestral.
Grin:
Come, clerk.
Magistrate’s Clerk:
I believe I shall remain. Those papers appear evidential.
Grin:
Traitor.
Clerk:
Civil servant.
Constable One:
Mr. Grin, you may wish to step out by the rear.
Mistress Clackett:
Too late. I told the rear.
Grin:
You what?
Mistress Clackett:
I am thorough.
The crowd outside surges. Someone throws a turnip through the open window. It strikes SIR BALTHAZAR’s hat.
Sir Balthazar:
Assault by root vegetable!
Doll Violet:
London has voted.
Grin:
I shall not be pelted.
A second turnip lands. Then a cabbage. Then something that no one wishes to identify.
Captain Hackwell:
You may be outnumbered by produce.
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Latch, escort him.
Mr. Latch:
With pleasure. It is rare I remove a man from premises for moral arrears.
MR. LATCH and the constables hustle GRIN toward the door. GRIN exits under protest as the crowd roars. The CLERK secures the strongbox. LADY PRUE snatches her blue letters and clutches them to her breast.
Lady Prue:
I am ruined.
Lady Amarantha:
No, dear. You are ridiculous. Ruin requires depth.
Lady Prue:
Will you expose me?
Lady Amarantha:
Not unless bored.
Lady Prue:
You are merciful.
Lady Amarantha:
No. Economical.
Lord Peregrine:
Prue, I am sorry.
Lady Prue:
For the letters?
Lord Peregrine:
For the custard.
Lady Prue:
That, at least, was sincere.
She exits, dignity patched but mobile.
The crowd outside now chants: “Ashpottle! Ashpottle!”
Sir Balthazar:
A revived lord, a defeated villain, a pliable crowd. We must sell commemorative bottles.
Doctor Quill:
No.
Sir Balthazar:
Small bottles?
Doctor Quill:
No.
Sir Balthazar:
Labels only?
Doctor Quill:
I shall strike you with my cane.
Sir Balthazar:
Medical censorship.
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine, bow to them.
Lord Peregrine:
Must I?
Lady Amarantha:
You have been reborn. Make it useful.
He bows from the window. Cheers. Another cabbage flies in and misses.
Lord Peregrine:
I prefer court applause. It contains fewer vegetables.
Captain Hackwell:
You did well.
Lord Peregrine:
Did I?
Captain Hackwell:
For a man who died badly and resurrected worse.
Lord Peregrine:
High praise from infantry.
Lady Amarantha:
Captain, you have served us.
Captain Hackwell:
Then ask the price.
Lady Amarantha:
I know it.
Captain Hackwell:
Do you?
Lady Amarantha:
You want the old letters burned.
Captain Hackwell:
No.
Lady Amarantha:
Then what?
Captain Hackwell:
Read.
He hands her one of the red letters. She opens it. Her expression shifts: not comic now, not entirely.
Lady Amarantha:
This is mine.
Captain Hackwell:
The last you sent before you married him.
Lord Peregrine:
I dislike how many ghosts have excellent handwriting.
Captain Hackwell:
I kept it too long. Tonight proved that. Burn it, or keep it, or laugh at it. But let it stop being a weapon.
Lady Amarantha:
That is almost wisdom.
Captain Hackwell:
Age, madam. It creeps in where sense failed.
Doll Violet:
How moving. I am nearly quiet.
Barnaby:
I could versify—
All:
No.
Doctor Quill:
The house is still marked. The quarantine remains. Your legal situation is improved, but your physical situation is unchanged.
Sir Balthazar:
Except richer.
Mr. Latch (re-entering, triumphant, splashed with cabbage):
Grin has fled under escort. The crowd has renamed him Obadiah Grim. Also, three apprentices request permission to burn him in effigy using an old mop.
Lady Amarantha:
Denied. We may yet need the mop.
Mr. Latch:
The magistrate’s clerk has taken the papers and says proceedings will follow.
Lord Peregrine:
Proceedings follow me like stray dogs.
Mr. Latch:
One more item. The crowd now believes his lordship truly died and returned.
Doctor Quill:
But he did not.
Mistress Clackett:
Doctor, the crowd voted before the facts arrived.
Doll Violet:
A common constitution.
Sir Balthazar:
This can be monetized.
Lady Amarantha:
No.
Sir Balthazar:
Pilgrimage?
Lady Amarantha:
No.
Sir Balthazar:
Relic handkerchiefs?
Lady Amarantha:
No.
Lord Peregrine:
What about signed handkerchiefs?
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine.
Lord Peregrine:
For debt relief.
Lady Amarantha:
We shall discuss your reform after supper.
Doctor Quill:
There may be no supper. The pantry is depleted.
Mr. Latch:
And the cheese is legally compromised.
Jasper (entering in alarm):
My lady! The crowd has sent gifts.
Lady Amarantha:
What gifts?
Jasper:
Two pies, a ham, six oranges, a sermon, a bottle of gin, and a live goose.
Lord Peregrine:
At last, resurrection bears fruit.
*The goose honks offstage.
Captain Hackwell:
That goose sounds hostile.
Doll Violet:
All geese are born creditors.
Barnaby:
Permit me: “The Goose of Providence.”
Lady Amarantha:
Barnaby, if you rhyme goose with truce, I shall feed you to it.
Barnaby:
I withdraw the poem.
The goose bursts in, pursued by JASPER. It flaps across the chamber, scatters papers, attacks Sir Balthazar’s bottles, and chases Barnaby in a circle.
Sir Balthazar:
Save the cordial!
Barnaby:
Save the poet!
Doll Violet:
The cordial has better prospects.
Doctor Quill:
Do not alarm the animal!
Captain Hackwell:
I have faced cavalry with less formation.
Lord Peregrine:
Amarantha, command it!
Lady Amarantha:
It is a goose, not Parliament.
The goose charges MR. LATCH, who retreats behind the opened strongbox.
Mr. Latch:
I cannot seize livestock without schedule!
Mistress Clackett:
Give it Grin’s deed!
JASPER throws a forged document toward the goose. The goose stamps on it, pecks it, and drags it beneath the table.
Lady Amarantha:
There. Justice has digestive support.
Sir Balthazar:
That deed was evidence!
Mr. Latch:
Not if eaten.
Doctor Quill:
Technically altered evidence.
Doll Violet:
By an innocent party.
Captain Hackwell:
No goose is innocent.
At last the goose settles beneath the table, triumphant.
Lord Peregrine:
Is this the climax?
Lady Amarantha:
No, my lord. This is London entering through the servants’ door.
There is a sudden, solemn tolling outside. The laughter fades for one beat. A parish bell. Then another. Then a cart-wheel groans along the street.
Doctor Quill:
The dead-cart.
Silence. Even the goose is quiet.
Lady Amarantha:
Shut the window.
JASPER closes it. The chamber contracts. The noise of the crowd dims.
Lord Peregrine:
We have played at plague.
Doctor Quill:
Others do not play.
Sir Balthazar:
No.
Doll Violet:
The theatres are shut, yet the city performs grief without rehearsal.
Captain Hackwell:
War is cleaner. A man at least knows which way the gun points.
Lady Amarantha:
And yet we live.
Mistress Clackett:
For now.
Lady Amarantha:
For now is the only estate not yet mortgaged.
A pause. Then LORD PEREGRINE, unexpectedly sincere, reaches for LADY AMARANTHA’s hand.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, I have been a fool.
Lady Amarantha:
Yes.
Lord Peregrine:
A costly fool.
Lady Amarantha:
Yes.
Lord Peregrine:
A vain, painted, negligent, letter-writing fool.
Lady Amarantha:
This catalogue is improving.
Lord Peregrine:
But I would not have Mouldmere without you.
Lady Amarantha:
Mouldmere is a damp inheritance.
Lord Peregrine:
So is marriage.
Lady Amarantha:
True.
Lord Peregrine:
Stay and command it.
Lady Amarantha:
I had not intended to leave. I merely intended to win.
Captain Hackwell:
Then you have.
Lady Amarantha:
Not yet. We must survive Act IV.
Barnaby (from atop a chair, avoiding the goose):
A structure after my own heart.
Sir Balthazar:
And settle accounts.
Mr. Latch:
At last, a moral ending.
Lady Amarantha:
No, Mr. Latch. A comic ending. No one gets what he deserves. Everyone gets what can be arranged.
Doctor Quill:
Then what remains?
Lady Amarantha:
We remove the quarantine mark, expose Grin, feed the household, silence the poet, restrain the goose, sell no more false physic, and decide whether my husband’s resurrection improves his credit.
Lord Peregrine:
Surely it must.
Mr. Latch:
Creditors distrust miracles. They prefer collateral.
Doll Violet:
I prefer supper.
Captain Hackwell:
I prefer truth.
Sir Balthazar:
I prefer negotiable instruments.
Barnaby:
I prefer applause.
Mistress Clackett:
I prefer knowing everything first.
Doctor Quill:
I prefer ventilation.
Lady Amarantha:
And I prefer order, though I have never yet found it profitable.
Outside the crowd begins a new chant: “Speech! Speech! The risen lord! The clever lady! The goose!”
Lord Peregrine:
They call for us.
Lady Amarantha:
They call for the goose.
Doll Violet:
The public knows talent.
Barnaby:
I resign from art.
Lady Amarantha:
Do not threaten us with happiness.
The goose honks. Curtain falls on a tableau: Lord and Lady Ashpottle hand in hand but still quarrelling with their eyes; Captain Hackwell steady behind them; Doll Violet laughing; Doctor Quill despairing; Sir Balthazar mourning broken bottles; Mr. Latch clutching papers; Barnaby trapped on a chair; Mistress Clackett already preparing the city’s version of events.
End of Act III.
Act IV
The Goose, the Writ, and the General Pardon
The scene: morning in the quarantined house of Lord Ashpottle. The chamber bears marks of battle: broken cordial bottles, trampled papers, extinguished candles, a toppled chair, one suspicious cabbage, and a live goose enthroned beneath the table like a minor pagan god.
LORD PEREGRINE ASHPOTTLE sits in a dressing gown, alive and annoyed. LADY AMARANTHA stands at the writing desk with ledgers, letters, and the recovered strongbox. DOCTOR QUILL has opened every window he can reach. SIR BALTHAZAR CRIMP attempts to salvage labels from ruined bottles. DOLL VIOLET sleeps in a chair with theatrical elegance. BARNABY FLEAM, still avoiding the goose, has spent the night on top of a cabinet. MR. LATCH inventories everything not nailed down. CAPTAIN HACKWELL keeps watch by the door. MISTRESS CLACKETT enters and exits continually, as if the house has appointed her its pulse.
Lord Peregrine:
I have survived plague, death, forgery, public confession, and poultry. Yet my head aches worse than when I was alive yesterday.
Lady Amarantha:
That is because yesterday you were dead for only dramatic purposes. Today you must be alive for practical ones.
Lord Peregrine:
Practical life is much overrated.
Doctor Quill:
Fresh air, boiled water, clean linen, moderate diet, and no brandy before noon. These are the first principles of survival.
Sir Balthazar:
Doctor, you describe not survival but surrender.
Doll Violet (without opening her eyes):
If there is no brandy before noon, noon should be brought forward.
Captain Hackwell:
Agreed on military grounds.
Lady Amarantha:
There will be no brandy until accounts are settled.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, you wield sobriety like an axe.
Mr. Latch:
The accounts are severe. Against the estate: mortgages, writs, vintners’ claims, mercers’ claims, gaming notes, a jeweller’s claim, disputed ribbons, and one fencing master’s demand for satisfaction in money or blood.
Lord Peregrine:
He was a poor instructor.
Captain Hackwell:
That explains much.
Mr. Latch:
Assets recovered: coin from the window trade, Mr. Grin’s improper papers, two pies, one ham, six oranges, one gin bottle, the goose, and a public rumour that his lordship has returned from death touched by providence.
Sir Balthazar:
A valuable intangible.
Doctor Quill:
A dangerous falsehood.
Mistress Clackett (entering):
Not falsehood, doctor. Improvement. The town now says his lordship died, saw the devil, found him engaged in property speculation, and fled back to his wife for safety.
Lord Peregrine:
This is libel.
Lady Amarantha:
No, my lord. It is reputation, the public kind. One must accept it ready-made.
Mistress Clackett:
Also, they say the goose is an omen.
Barnaby (from cabinet):
At last, my subject descends to me.
Doll Violet:
Stay where you are, Fleam. Inspiration is safer at altitude.
Lady Amarantha:
What news of Grin?
Mistress Clackett:
He spent the night hiding in a cooper’s yard. The apprentices found him at dawn and compelled him to drink one of Sir Balthazar’s surviving cordials.
Sir Balthazar:
At retail price?
Mistress Clackett:
With onions.
Sir Balthazar:
Barbarism.
Captain Hackwell:
And the magistrate?
Mistress Clackett:
Coming here. With parish officers, the clerk, Lady Prue, two constables, a locksmith, and a man who says he can identify forged seals by smell.
Doctor Quill:
That is not a science.
Mr. Latch:
It is close enough for court.
Lord Peregrine:
Why must they come here?
Lady Amarantha:
Because every house of comedy must eventually be visited by authority, so that authority may be confused and depart weaker.
A loud knock below.
Jasper (offstage):
Madam! The magistrate!
Lady Amarantha:
Admit law. Hide the gin.
Doll Violet:
Too late.
Sir Balthazar:
Hide the labels.
Doctor Quill:
Hide nothing. Truth at last.
Lord Peregrine:
Doctor, truth is a draught fit only for the already dying.
Enter MASTER GRUBWELL, a magistrate of great belly and narrow patience; the MAGISTRATE’S CLERK carrying the strongbox; LADY PRUE TATTLECOMBE heavily veiled; two CONSTABLES; and, behind them, OBADIAH GRIN, bruised, cabbage-stained, and furious.
Master Grubwell:
Which of you is dead?
Lord Peregrine:
I was, sir, but found the office uncongenial.
Master Grubwell:
Then which of you is infected?
Doctor Quill:
No one presently shows decisive evidence of plague.
Master Grubwell:
Then why is there a red cross on the door?
Lady Amarantha:
Administrative enthusiasm.
Master Grubwell:
Why was physic sold from the upper window?
Sir Balthazar:
Consolation, your worship. In liquid form.
Master Grubwell:
Why does the street believe a goose has exposed a mortgage fraud?
Mistress Clackett:
Because, your worship, in essentials, it has.
Master Grubwell:
I hate mornings.
Grin:
Your worship, I demand immediate action. I was assaulted, defamed, pelted, robbed of private papers, and compelled by mob violence to retreat under a rain of cabbage.
Lady Amarantha:
A light rain only.
Captain Hackwell:
With isolated turnips.
Grin:
This house is a den of fraud.
Lord Peregrine:
Sir, you wound us. It is at most a parlour of improvisation.
Master Grubwell:
Silence. Clerk, open the box.
The CLERK opens it. Papers are spread.
Clerk:
Your worship, these are the documents recovered last night: an assignment of Mouldmere, several debt schedules, two blank signed papers, altered correspondence, and a list of plague-closed houses marked by likely inheritance value.
Master Grubwell:
Mr. Grin?
Grin:
Commercial research.
Doctor Quill:
Ghoul’s arithmetic.
Sir Balthazar:
And not even boldly branded.
Master Grubwell:
Lady Prue, you gave a statement?
Lady Prue:
I did, your worship. Mr. Grin persuaded me that Lord Ashpottle had behaved abominably.
Lady Amarantha:
That part required little persuasion.
Lady Prue:
And that I might recover certain letters and preserve my honour by assisting him.
Doll Violet:
Honour preserved by assisting blackmail. Very fashionable.
Lady Prue:
I now perceive I was misled.
Lord Peregrine:
Prue, were you misled before or after witnessing my impossible signature?
Lady Prue:
During, I think.
Master Grubwell:
A precise lady.
Grin:
She is a jilted fool.
Lady Prue:
Yes, but not your fool any longer.
Master Grubwell:
Good. Progress. Mr. Latch, you examined the papers?
Mr. Latch:
I did, your worship. The hand differs, the seal is reused, the dates contradict known tavern losses, and the wife’s supposed murderous intent appears inserted later by a man who thinks women use legal phrasing while plotting passion.
Lady Amarantha:
We do not. We are much more concise.
Captain Hackwell:
And better armed.
Master Grubwell:
Doctor Quill?
Doctor Quill:
Ink age varies visibly. The patient was never plague-struck. The supposed symptoms were wine stains, cowardice, theatrical exertion, and one dose of Sir Balthazar’s cordial, which I recommend be classified as a recreational hazard.
Sir Balthazar:
I object to recreational. It has spiritual applications.
Master Grubwell:
Sir Balthazar, did you sell false medicine during a public emergency?
Sir Balthazar:
Your worship, I sold hope.
Master Grubwell:
In bottles.
Sir Balthazar:
All durable things require containers.
Master Grubwell:
What was in it?
Sir Balthazar:
Brandy, spice, sugar, a little laudanum, and patriotic confidence.
Master Grubwell:
That is not medicine.
Doll Violet:
Neither are half the sermons in London, yet they are dispensed weekly.
Master Grubwell:
Madam, who are you?
Doll Violet:
An actress, your worship.
Master Grubwell:
Then I shall ignore you officially and listen privately.
Barnaby (from cabinet):
I am a poet.
Master Grubwell:
Remain where you are.
Barnaby:
Oppression of the muse!
Master Grubwell:
Correct.
The goose honks.
Master Grubwell:
And why is that animal in the evidence?
Mistress Clackett:
It ate part of the forged deed.
Master Grubwell:
Has it been examined?
Doctor Quill:
Not internally.
Mr. Latch:
Recovery may be possible with patience and a bucket.
All:
No.
Master Grubwell:
Very well. The court will accept the remaining deed and not pursue the goose.
Lady Amarantha:
A humane ruling.
Grin:
This is farce.
Lady Amarantha:
Sir, you entered a comedy and expected chancery.
Grin:
I will have satisfaction.
Captain Hackwell:
You may have me.
Master Grubwell:
No duelling.
Captain Hackwell:
I meant testimony.
Doll Violet:
A disappointment to the room.
Master Grubwell:
Mr. Grin, you will accompany my officers. The papers will be held. The alleged assignment of Mouldmere is suspended pending inquiry. The plague mark shall be removed if Doctor Quill certifies the house clean.
Doctor Quill:
With pleasure, on condition of immediate washing, fumigation, and the destruction of every remaining bottle.
Sir Balthazar:
Destruction is wasteful. Confiscation is traditional.
Master Grubwell:
Confiscated, then.
Sir Balthazar:
I withdraw my objection and mourn patriotically.
Grin:
You fools. You think me ended? I own obligations in every quarter of this town.
Lady Amarantha:
Then you may have the pleasure of being hated by districts.
Mistress Clackett:
And I shall help.
Grin:
You, laundress, know nothing.
Mistress Clackett:
Sir, I know who wears clean linen, who cannot pay for it, who stains it, who hides notes in it, and which gentlemen send shirts to one house and cuffs to another. In London, linen is biography.
Master Grubwell:
A terrible doctrine, but likely sound.
Grin:
This is not finished.
Lord Peregrine:
Most things are not. They merely become too embarrassing to continue.
The constables seize Grin. He struggles.
Grin:
I will return!
Lady Amarantha:
Do. Next time bring fruit. The crowd has used ours.
GRIN is taken out. A cheer rises from outside as the crowd sees him removed.
Crowd outside:
Grim! Grim! Grim! Goose! Goose! Goose!
Master Grubwell:
Why are they cheering the goose?
Doll Violet:
Because it has not yet spoken.
Barnaby:
Unlike some.
Lady Amarantha:
Master Grubwell, before you depart, there remains the matter of our door. We have suffered loss by wrongful quarantine.
Master Grubwell:
You sold physic under wrongful quarantine.
Lady Amarantha:
We also performed a public service by exposing fraud.
Master Grubwell:
You also incited a vegetable riot.
Lord Peregrine:
A very small one.
Master Grubwell:
You also pretended to die.
Lord Peregrine:
I was moved by circumstance.
Master Grubwell:
You also resurrected without license.
Doll Violet:
Is there a license? I know several actors who would apply.
Master Grubwell:
Enough. I shall impose a compromise. The quarantine is lifted. The false physic proceeds are to be surrendered for parish relief.
Sir Balthazar:
All of them?
Master Grubwell:
All that can be found.
Lady Amarantha:
A flexible phrase.
Master Grubwell:
Do not test it, madam.
Lady Amarantha:
I never test authority before breakfast.
Master Grubwell:
In recognition of the fraud uncovered, no further charge will be brought concerning the window trade, provided Sir Balthazar leaves London for one month.
Sir Balthazar:
One month? Where am I to go?
Doctor Quill:
Anywhere with no bottles.
Sir Balthazar:
A wilderness.
Master Grubwell:
Mr. Latch, your writs remain valid, but enforcement is stayed for seven days.
Mr. Latch:
Your worship wounds commerce.
Master Grubwell:
Commerce has survived worse men than me.
Lord Peregrine:
Seven days! Amarantha, we are saved.
Lady Amarantha:
No, Peregrine. We are delayed. It is the aristocratic form of salvation.
Master Grubwell:
As for the goose—
The goose honks and advances one step.
Master Grubwell:
The goose remains with the house until claimed.
Lord Peregrine:
By whom?
Mistress Clackett:
Public opinion.
Doll Violet:
Then it will never leave.
Master Grubwell:
Good day. Doctor, certify. Clerk, collect. Constables, keep Grin from the crowd. Lady Prue, go home and burn something.
Lady Prue:
Letters?
Master Grubwell:
Preferably illusions.
MASTER GRUBWELL exits with the clerk, constables, and Lady Prue. The crowd cheers again. Silence settles inside. The red quarantine mark is being scraped from the door below.
Lord Peregrine:
Hear that? Freedom.
Doctor Quill:
No. Scraping.
Lady Amarantha:
Often the same sound.
Captain Hackwell:
What now?
Mr. Latch:
Now his lordship has seven days before creditors resume their natural shape.
Sir Balthazar:
I have one month’s exile and no stock.
Doll Violet:
I have no necklace.
Barnaby:
I have an unperformed elegy.
All:
Good.
Lady Amarantha:
Then we settle the household by comedy’s oldest law: everyone must marry, flee, reform, or pretend to.
Lord Peregrine:
I choose reform, lightly.
Lady Amarantha:
You shall reform heavily. First, no more letters to veiled ladies.
Lord Peregrine:
Agreed.
Lady Amarantha:
No more mortgages without reading.
Lord Peregrine:
Agreed.
Lady Amarantha:
No more poetry involving custard.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam, you restrict the very soul.
Lady Amarantha:
Good. Your soul has been badly edited.
Captain Hackwell:
And I?
Lady Amarantha:
You shall dine with us before you go.
Captain Hackwell:
Before I go?
Lady Amarantha:
You are too honourable to remain in a marriage plot and too dangerous to be ornamental.
Captain Hackwell:
True.
Lord Peregrine:
Captain, I believe I owe you gratitude.
Captain Hackwell:
You do.
Lord Peregrine:
And possibly an apology.
Captain Hackwell:
Several.
Lord Peregrine:
May gratitude stand in for the first two?
Captain Hackwell:
Temporarily.
Lady Amarantha:
There. Men reconciled. It is like watching dogs decide not to bark.
Doll Violet:
And my necklace?
Lady Amarantha:
You shall have the blue velvet chair Lady Prue abandoned outside.
Doll Violet:
A chair?
Lady Amarantha:
With silver fringe.
Doll Violet:
I accept. I shall sit upon scandal.
Sir Balthazar:
And I? I am banished.
Lady Amarantha:
You shall take Barnaby with you.
Sir Balthazar:
Madam, I am not so guilty.
Barnaby:
I refuse exile with a quack.
Sir Balthazar:
I refuse exile with a metaphor leak.
Lady Amarantha:
Then consider the opportunity. Sir Balthazar needs advertisements. Barnaby needs an audience. Together you may cheat the provinces in verse.
Barnaby:
A touring enterprise?
Sir Balthazar:
With printed broadsheets?
Barnaby:
Odes?
Sir Balthazar:
Testimonials?
Barnaby:
Laments?
Sir Balthazar:
Receipts?
Barnaby:
Sir, I begin to see a civilisation.
Doll Violet:
God help the counties.
Doctor Quill:
I shall write to every physician on the road warning them.
Sir Balthazar:
Excellent. Controversy travels faster than horses.
Mr. Latch:
And my position?
Lady Amarantha:
Mr. Latch, you shall remain as steward for seven days and assemble all debts into order.
Mr. Latch:
A bailiff employed by the debtor?
Lady Amarantha:
You know every creditor’s weakness.
Mr. Latch:
Madam, you tempt me toward respectability.
Lady Amarantha:
Do not be afraid. It will probably not last.
Mistress Clackett:
And I, my lady?
Lady Amarantha:
You shall receive payment for silence.
Mistress Clackett:
My lady, silence costs more than speech.
Lady Amarantha:
Then receive payment for accuracy.
Mistress Clackett:
A poorer trade, but steadier.
Lord Peregrine:
And the goose?
All look at the goose.
Captain Hackwell:
It has martial spirit.
Doctor Quill:
It has excellent lungs.
Doll Violet:
It has presence.
Barnaby:
It has more applause than I.
Lady Amarantha:
Then it remains. We shall name it Providence.
Lord Peregrine:
Providence has fouled the carpet.
Lady Amarantha:
So has half the nobility.
JASPER enters with a folded paper.
Jasper:
My lord, my lady, a final message from the street.
Lady Amarantha:
If it is another deed, feed it to Providence.
Jasper:
No, madam. It is a subscription list. The neighbours have raised money for parish relief in honour of his lordship’s miraculous recovery and your ladyship’s exposure of Mr. Grin.
Lord Peregrine:
How much?
Jasper:
Enough to pay the watchman, doctor, and several poor families.
Doctor Quill:
Good.
Jasper:
And enough remaining for a modest supper.
Doll Violet:
Better.
Jasper:
There is also a request that his lordship appear once more at the window and bless the street.
Lord Peregrine:
Bless? I have no training.
Lady Amarantha:
You have performed without training all your life.
Lord Peregrine:
What shall I say?
Lady Amarantha:
Something short, humble, and not about custard.
They move to the window. LADY AMARANTHA opens it. Below, the street is crowded but calmer. The red cross has been scraped away. A scar of paint remains.
Crowd:
Ashpottle! Lady Ashpottle! The goose!
Lord Peregrine (aside):
I am third-billed to poultry.
Lady Amarantha:
Earn second.
Lord Peregrine (to crowd):
Good neighbours! Yesterday I was thought diseased, then dying, then dead, then alive, and at last married, which is the sternest condition of all.
The crowd laughs.
Lord Peregrine:
I thank you for your concern, your gifts, your oranges, your ham, and your restraint in using only moderate vegetables. I have learned that a man may owe money and yet not sell his soul, though he may accidentally rent out portions of it by letter.
Lady Amarantha:
Good.
Lord Peregrine:
I have learned also that a wife is not an ornament to a house, but its garrison, treasury, court, artillery, and sometimes executioner.
*Crowd cheers.
Lady Amarantha:
Better.
Lord Peregrine:
And I have learned that plague is no jest. If our folly has drawn your eyes upward, let your charity now look downward: to the poor houses, the shut rooms, the hungry, the sick, the nameless carts. Give what you can. Stand apart when told. Wash what may be washed. Trust not every bottle. And if a financier comes smiling during a fever, strike him first with a question.
Doctor Quill:
Sound advice.
Sir Balthazar:
The bottle line was ungenerous.
*Crowd cheers loudly.
Crowd:
Lady Ashpottle! Lady Ashpottle!
Lady Amarantha (to the crowd):
Good people, you have seen my husband die, revive, confess, and improve within a day. Expect no sequel. Such miracles exhaust a wife.
Laughter.
Crowd:
The goose! The goose!
Lady Amarantha:
Providence will not speak. It is therefore wiser than most public figures.
The goose honks from inside. The crowd erupts with delight.
Lord Peregrine:
I am undone by poultry.
Lady Amarantha:
You were undone before. Poultry merely clarified it.
They close the window.
Captain Hackwell:
That was well done.
Lord Peregrine:
I meant it.
Lady Amarantha:
Dangerous habit. Use sparingly.
Doctor Quill:
The mark is removed. I certify the house clean of plague.
Doll Violet:
But not of scandal.
Mr. Latch:
Nor debt.
Sir Balthazar:
Nor opportunity.
Barnaby:
Nor art.
All:
Enough.
The household begins to move toward supper. The mood is lighter, but not falsely so. London remains outside: frightened, greedy, grieving, laughing, alive. The house has not escaped the age; it has merely survived one absurd assault from it.
Lady Amarantha:
Peregrine.
Lord Peregrine:
Madam?
Lady Amarantha:
Give me your hand.
Lord Peregrine:
For affection or correction?
Lady Amarantha:
We shall see which proves necessary.
He gives it. She takes it. They stand together, not reconciled into sweetness, but into alliance.
Lord Peregrine:
Would you truly have left me?
Lady Amarantha:
Yesterday? Perhaps. This morning? No.
Lord Peregrine:
Why not?
Lady Amarantha:
Because you are improved by terror, and I am curious whether it will keep.
Lord Peregrine:
Austere devotion.
Lady Amarantha:
The only durable kind.
Captain Hackwell:
Then I shall take my leave after supper.
Lady Amarantha:
You shall take our thanks with you.
Lord Peregrine:
And my apology, properly expanded.
Captain Hackwell:
Do not expand it too much. You are poor at style.
Doll Violet:
A toast before he goes.
Doctor Quill:
With boiled water.
Sir Balthazar:
I refuse.
Mr. Latch:
With accounts.
Barnaby:
With verse.
All:
No.
Mistress Clackett:
With news, then. The street already calls this house “The Resurrection.”
Lord Peregrine:
That will improve the rent.
Lady Amarantha:
And attract pilgrims.
Sir Balthazar:
Pilgrims buy bottles.
Doctor Quill:
You are leaving London.
Sir Balthazar:
Provincial pilgrims buy bottles.
Lady Amarantha:
Out.
Sir Balthazar bows extravagantly. Barnaby climbs down from the cabinet with injured dignity.
Barnaby:
Sir Balthazar, if we must tour, I demand artistic control.
Sir Balthazar:
You may control the adjectives.
Barnaby:
And the title.
Sir Balthazar:
Never the title. Titles sell.
Doll Violet:
Call it The Goose and the Cordial.
Barnaby:
Vulgar.
Sir Balthazar:
Memorable.
Barnaby:
I accept under protest.
Mr. Latch:
I predict solvency for none of us.
Lady Amarantha:
Then you are learning hope.
JASPER brings in the supper: ham, pies, oranges, and a covered dish. Everyone gathers.
Lord Peregrine:
What is under the cover?
Jasper:
A pudding, my lord.
Everyone looks at Lord Peregrine.
Doll Violet:
Custard?
Jasper:
Yes, madam.
Silence. Then laughter begins with Doll, catches in Captain Hackwell, breaks through Lord Peregrine, and finally reaches Lady Amarantha, who tries to resist and fails.
Lady Amarantha:
Very well. Let it be known that this house forgives custard.
Lord Peregrine:
Then there is mercy.
Doctor Quill:
In moderation.
Sir Balthazar:
In bottles.
Mr. Latch:
In writing.
Barnaby:
In rhyme.
Mistress Clackett:
In circulation.
Captain Hackwell:
In leaving while one is still welcome.
Doll Violet:
In staying until supper.
Lady Amarantha:
And in laughing before the bell tolls again.
They sit. The goose, Providence, marches forward and steals the first piece of bread.
Lord Peregrine:
Providence is greedy.
Lady Amarantha:
Providence has excellent instincts.
The candles burn low. Outside, London continues: bells, carts, cries, bargains, prayers, rumours, and the coarse persistent music of survival.
LADY AMARANTHA raises a glass of boiled water with the grim grace of a queen.
Lady Amarantha:
To life, which is vulgar, temporary, badly governed, ruinously expensive, and preferable.
All:
To life.
The goose honks.
Doll Violet:
Providence concurs.
Curtain.
End of Act IV.
Thus ends The Time of Pox; or, The Viscount’s Last Clean Shirt, humbly submitted to amuse the Crown, instruct the careless, rebuke the fraudulent, reward the witty, and prove beyond dispute that in London a man may survive plague, debt, blackmail, resurrection, and marriage—yet still be conquered by a goose.
