The Harlequinade: An Excursion Part 8

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

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

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

CLOWN. Your health, Mr. Talon.

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

EGLANTINE. Life!

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

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

HARLEQUIN. Very good, my lord.

[He waves his wand and the song stops.

CLOWN. Another gla.s.s, Mr. Joseph.

PANTALOON. I thank you, Sir George.

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

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

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

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

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

PANTALOON. His lordship's.

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

PANTALOON. It has been kept a secret.

EGLANTINE. You leave this deed of settlement with me?

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

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

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

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

EGLANTINE. Her home?

HARLEQUIN. Her home, my lord.

EGLANTINE. I must keep this safe, Quin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PANTALOON. I must go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PANTALOON. I must go.

[And he goes.

EGLANTINE. [From within.] Quin!

HARLEQUIN. My lord.

[And he vanishes.

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

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