Dramas (Baillie)/Enthusiasm/Act 1

SCENE I.—A Saloon, with a Glass Door opening into a Garden in the bottom of the Stage.—Lord Worrymore and Lady Shrewdly are seen walking towards the House in earnest conversation, and enter by the said Door, speaking as they enter.

But, my dear Lord Worrymore, did you not know all this before you married her? and did you not admire the charming ardour of her character? Yes, Madam; for things worthy of that ardour did then engage her attention. The first time I beheld her,—I believe I have told you before. ​ True, my Lord; I have heard you say that the first time you beheld her was in the painting gallery of Mr. Rougeit, where she stood rivetted with admiration before the portrait of your Lordship; and that grace and expression attracted her at that moment, I am not disposed to question. Yes, my dear friend; and in poetry also, and the graver works of composition, nothing that was excellent escaped her. My speech upon the former Corn Bill delighted her: not an argument or happy expression in the whole that she could not repeat with a spirit and action appropriate. She had a sound taste for eloquence; nobody admired it like her. How should they? She must have had a capacity made on purpose to admire that speech; and a very rare one too, I assure you. Not a word or observation fell from my lips, but she understood the sense and spirit of it so quickly. Leaving any other listener far behind, I dare say. ​ And now, every learned oddity, every foolish coxcomb who has gathered up in the world but a shred of reputation for any thing, engrosses exclusively, for the time, her thoughts and admiration; and what I do, what I speak, what I write, is no more attended to, than if I had changed into a common-place person on her hands. And that is what change could never make your Lordship. To be sure, I then thought enthusiasm a very charming quality. But not very constant to its object, my Lord; you surely could not think that. You have had your turn, and should now with a better grace give up some portion of her admiration to the other sages, orators, and poets with which this happy metropolis abounds. Sages, orators, and poets. Lady Shrewdly! She has been tearing the clothes off her back in squeezing through the crowd of a city conventicle, to hear the long-winded sermons of a ​presbyterian parson. She has knocked up two sets of horses driving over the town after Italian improvisatori and German philosophers. Her boudoir is studded round with skulls like a charnel-house; and bold dirty creatures from St. Giles come into her very dressing-room, with their ricketty brats in their arms, to put their large mis-shapen heads under her inspection, as the future mighty geniuses of the land. Speaking birds, giraffes, and lectures upon Shakspeare have followed one another in succession, to say nothing of her present little imp of a juggler; and all in their turn are the sole occupiers of her ardent admiration. What a change! what a change for me! With my poor deceased Magdalene how different it was! To be sure, in the first Lady Worrymore's time it was very different; but you compared her, not long ago, to a dull foggy day in November, and the present to a bright morning in spring. So I did, so I did, my good cousin; but there are bright mornings in spring, when the wind blows from every point of the compass in the course of ten minutes, bringing sand, dust, and straws from every lane and corner, to blind one's ​poor eyes and annoy one. I am a miserable man! What can be done to reclaim her? Very little, I believe. Oh, oh! But do not despair; she may get tired of this hurricane of enthusiasm, after two or three tricks have been played upon her credulity. You think so. And it would not, perhaps, be amiss for you to lie by for a time, and make no more attempts to bring back her attention to your own merits. Or if you cannot forbear doing so, do it covertly. How covertly? Write another eloquent speech upon some approaching Parliamentary question, and let it be submitted to her criticism, as the composition of some young Irish orator of amazing genius, who has hitherto, from modesty, given silent votes in the house, and you will see how prodigiously she will be struck with the depth, the ​force, the brilliancy of the dear, delightful oration. Now, my dear good cousin, are you serious? Serious or not, I can think of nothing so likely to serve your ends, under the present untoward circumstances. But somebody is coming.

O, 'tis a gay young sailor returned from a three years' station in the Mediterranean.—You're welcome, dear Frank! let me see you as often as you can while you remain in town; it always gives me pleasure. Permit me to present Mr. Francis Blount to your Lordship: the son of an old friend and schoolfellow of mine.

I am glad to have the honour of meeting any friend of yours; and hope he has returned safe and sound from the sabres of the Greek pirates. I boast of no honourable scars as yet, my Lord.

All in good time, young gentleman. ​ Has your Ladyship any commands for Herefordshire? Are you going so soon? In a few days, I believe. What takes you there so soon? Your native place is changed since you left it; scarcely a family remains of the old set. Nay; my good aunt Hammond still holds her state in the old mansion-house, and Squire Gozling, with his pretty daughter, I suppose, is there still.

(Lady Shrewdly frowns to him significantly.)

You will find your bird flown from that nest, I believe. Is little Kate married? No, she is not; but Arabella—— O, as to her, she is welcome to marry for me, ​as soon as she can find any wiseacre to have her. Out upon thee, Frank, for a very spiteful creature! Thou hast paid thy devoirs to her, I dare say, and she has scorned such a stripling as thou wert at that time, My devoirs, to a dull formal prude, who spoke two words in half a day, and those uttered as slowly and deliberately as if she were reading them from the spelling-book! We must be at cross purposes now, surely; we are not speaking of the same lady. Don't mind it, Lady Shrewdly; it is clearly a mistake, and is of no consequence whatever.—I wish you good morning. Good morning, Sir.[Exit. O Francis Blount! what hast thou done? Nothing very bad, I hope. ​ Didst thou not see me making faces to thee to stop thy foolish tongue? And how was I to know what all those grimaces were meant for, when ladies, now-a-days, twist their features all manner of ways, as I am told, for the sake of expression? Arabella Gozling, whom thou hast made so free with, is now the wife of Lord Worrymore, and a peeress of England. Every man to his own fancy! This good peer must have admired her as the most prudent piece of still life that ever wore mantua and petticoat. Quite wrong again, friend; he married her as a high-toned, ardent enthusiast. When my grandmother links herself to a third husband, I may believe that he marries her as a round, dimpled Hebe of fifteen. An imaginative ardent enthusiast! How could the creature so transmogrify herself? ay, or think of such a change? ​ That, it must be owned, is difficult to explain. O, now I have it! She became tired of sitting in the corner unnoticed, and has heard no doubt of some lady captivating every heart by her lively and generous enthusiasm; so she has rushed from her tackle of footstools and decorum, like a brig cut from the stocks, and set herself afloat on the ocean of fashion. By my faith, and she has made a good cruise of it too! Perhaps your conjecture is not far from the truth. How came this goose of a lord to be taken in by it? By that which has taken in many, both lords and commoners, ere now;—his own obtrusive eagerness for praise, which had tired out everybody. And received this new stream of flattery like rain upon the parched sands of Araby. Even so: to say nothing of a wife lately dead, who would never say one civil thing of all the ​clever writings that his persevering talents produced. He must be a happy dog now, I think: up in the seventh heaven. Nay, nay! fallen from that exaltation deplorably. And if thou hast a mind, I'll engage thee in a plot to restore the poor man to some part of his lost felicity, and mortify his affected spouse at the same time. Canst thou put a Brutus-wig on thy head, and become a great orator for a season? Can I not? I have danced upon deck, ere now, with a turban on my head, as a sultana of the royal harem. Come, then; thou art just the man I want. Let us go to my closet, where we may concert the whole matter without interruption.

(As they are going off, he stops and laughs heartily.)
What tickles your fancy so? Don't stop here.

Methinks she is now before my eyes, this same ardent peeress who makes such commotion ​amongst you, seated on a high-legged drawing-room chair, the back of which she would not have touched on any account, for the ruffling of her pinched frill and collar. And when you showed her a butterfly or flower from the garden, and said, "Is not that beautiful?" she would draw herself up most precisely, and say, "I believe it is considered so." (Laughing again.) Move on, foolish boy. She would not give her opinion, but with prudent reserve, on the merits of a beetle or a cockchafer. Go, go! And that too was affectation; for she was a careless hoyden first of all, and took to sense and preciseness afterwards. Move on, I say. We are losing time here, and may be prevented.
​ No, she is not here. She is with her uncle, I suppose, reading to him some dull book or other—the Sportsman's Guide, or the plans of Marlborough's battles, as cheerfully and contentedly as if it were the most interesting story or poem that ever was written. I have interrupted some pleasant reading, I'm afraid. Not at all: we have got to the end of our battles, and he is now teaching me to play chess. I have brought you a book that will delight you. Are you sure of that? I am no great admirer ​of poetry,—of what is called sentimental poetry, at least. Did you not like my friend's sonnets, which I brought you yesterday? O dear, no! I did not understand them. Surely some of the thoughts they express are beautiful and tender. I dare say they are; but why should beautiful thoughts be cramped up in such patterned shapes of versification,—all rule and difficulty? I have neither ear for the measure, nor quickness of comprehension for the meaning. Don't say so, Fanny. Neither ear nor comprehension are in fault with you.—I should rather fear—I should rather say—No matter! What would you say? Nothing. Nay, a blush passes over your face. Were any of those sonnets written by yourself? ​ Not one of them, I assure you. I wish some of them were. Now I'm sure you have been writing something of the kind. I see it in your face. Well, then, since you guess so quickly, I confess that I have; but it shall never be put into your hands. O, do let me see it, Clermont! Give it me now. I have it not about me. Has any body seen it? Only one imprudent friend, who has mentioned it to Lady Worrymore. I'm sorry for it. Is it a great misfortune, that you should look so grave upon it? May I request to know—— ​ Say nothing more about it: there is company at hand. But not disagreeable company, I hope. If it be so, tell me frankly (looking significantly at them both), and I will retire. You are too well aware, Sir John, that your company is always agreeable. In this house I am sure it is.—And you arrive at a lucky moment, too; for I hear Lady Worrymore coming.

Good morning, Lady Worrymore: how kind you are to call upon me, occupied as you are with so many objects of interest.

Don't speak to me, dear creature. May I presume to say how—— Don't speak to me, Sir John; where is pen ​and paper? (Running to a writing-table.) I must write immediately; I have been prevented by a hurry of engagements all the morning. (Sits down and writes very fast, speaking to them at the same time.) The sweet, heavenly creature! it is two long hours since I heard of him. The juggling boy, I suppose, who is sick with eating plum cake. The dear little darling! and he leans his aching head on the pillow—with such languid softness—the 'kerchief twisted round it, too—no model for an artist was ever so beautiful! Your Ladyship must have him painted so; and take care to keep him sick till the picture is finished. Unfeeling savage! A little more cake will do the business. Don't speak to me. (Motioning him off with her hand, and muttering aloud as she looks over the note she has finished.) Let me know ​instantly—the health of the suffering angel—every minute particular since I saw him last. (Folds it up.) Who waits there?

Give this to my servant; it is for the mistress of the house where Master Munhaunslet lodges. He must go with it immediately, and wait for an answer.

And bring the answer here, my Lady? Yes.—No; to the exhibition of antiques in Piccadilly. No, no! to the lecture-room of Mr. Clutterbuck; there will be friends there almost as anxious as myself to hear how the little angel does. Mr. Clutterbuck must be a superlative critic, indeed, to attract your Ladyship at so anxious a moment as the present. Have you not heard him? You are incapable of appreciating two lines of our immortal bard, if you have not attended Mr. Clutterbuck. I am in very truth, then, an ignorant fellow; and so are you, Clermont, I believe. ​ Clermont! Have I the pleasure of beholding the writer of that beautiful sonnet, which has been mentioned to me with so much praise? A poet who will think himself honoured indeed by the notice of such a critic as Lady Worrymore. O no, Sir John! an ardent admirer of the Muses, but no critic.—To what a charming department of poetry, Mr. Clermont, you have devoted your pen! The sonnet!—the refined, the tender, the divine sonnet! O how it purifies and separates the mind from all commonness and meanness of Nature! Methinks the happy spirits in Elysium must converse with one another in sonnets. What a happy time they must have of it, if they do! It is a new and bright fancy of your Ladyship's, and never entered my mundane imagination before. Has it not? O, I have worshipped Petrarch, ​dreamt of him, repeated in my sleep all his beautiful conceptions, till I have started from my couch in a paroxysm of delight! Ah, Lady Worrymore! you should have lived some centuries earlier, and been the Laura of that impassioned poet yourself. I wish she had, with all my heart. But I have not yet seen your sweet composition, Mr. Clermont; pray, pray, give it to me! this very moment—O this very moment! I die to peruse it! I am miserable till I see it! it will haunt my thoughts the whole day! Dear Lady Worrymore, will you shame the divine Mr. Clutterbuck's lecture so much as to think of it then?

Ah! my dear Miss Frankland, you are too severe: Shakspeare should indeed be paramount to every thing. Dear Shakspeare! dear Petrarch! I doat on them both. (Looking at her watch.) Bless me! I am behind my time. Adieu, adieu! (To Clermont.) And you will send me your sonnet? you will do me that ​honour? you will confer upon me that infinite obligation? Adieu, adieu!

It is best to reef one's sails when a hurricane is abroad. Why did you not speak to her, Blount? She is your old acquaintance. I have known a lady called Miss Gozling, in whose presence I have stood undismayed; but I must take to my studies, I trow, before I accost my Lady Worrymore. That is prudent, Frank; you are rather far behind in book-learning. And have not yet penned a sonnet, I believe. Faith, I don't know a sonnet from a roundelay; but I shall qualify myself to compose both very expertly, before I become a candidate for her favour. ​ You look grave, Clermont. I confess you seem to me too severe on this lady. The ardour of her character very naturally betrays her into exaggerated expressions; but surely (glancing at Miss Frankland) it is preferable to the cold decorum of insensibility or indifference. Of course, Clermont, this fine sonnet of yours is to be put into her fair hands. I shall put it under cover, and leave it at her door in the evening. It is out of your way; I am sailing on the right tack for that point; give the packet to my charge, and I will leave it at Worrymore House as I pass. Colonel Frankland begs to have the honour of seeing the gentlemen in his dressing-room. Does the gout still confine him up stairs? ​ Indeed it does; and it will be charitable in you all to sit with him as long as you can.

[Exeunt Sir John, Clermont, and Blount.

That he should be so taken in!—But is he so?—In some degree, I fear.—Perhaps it is only to vex me. (Walking up and down with a hurried step.) No, no! he is taken in.—Is he a vain, conceited man, and have I never discovered it till now?— It cannot be: he has read me many compositions of his friends; one of his own, scarcely ever.—Oh, oh! I wish there was not such a thing as a sonnet in the world! The jelly is ready, Madam, that you mean to carry to the sick boy; and the carriage is waiting. I thank you, Barbara, for reminding me. Fetch my scarf and we'll go. You're very right, Ma'am, to look after him, for he's a poor peeping chit; and Lady Worrymore, his landlady tells me, will be the death of him.[Exeunt. ​

Enter Mrs. Brown, with Hugho, whom she leads to the sofa, then lays him along, and spreads a shawl over him, and then takes a note from her pocket.

Tank you, good moder. What is dat? Something to divert you, my dear;—a note from Lady Worrymore. Someting to torment me. She is too good to you, indeed. Not good—not good. I was well; she stuff me wid cream and comfeit, and make me sick, and now she leave me no rest in my sickness. Don't be disturbed, dear child; she won't ​come near you to-day. I bade the servant tell his lady not to come. You speak message to him? To be sure I did. Lord help me! where was I to find time, and words, and spelling to write her an answer to all the particlers she axed to know about? I just bade him say to her that you were no better, and must not be disturbed. She will disturb me de more, and call it comfort. O, dat ladies would leave off comforting! But there is one lady who is good and quiet, I'm sure, and does not torment you. Ay, der is one, and she be very good. She sends you what is fit for you to take, and writes no notes at all. I will dance, and play cup and ball to her, when I be well, and tell fader, when he returns, to take no money for it. And will fader do so, think you? It would ​be no misfortune to thee, poor thing, if he should never return. He is resting, I see. I have brought the jelly, and will go away. (Retiring). Who dere? Miss Frankling: but she is going away. Not go, not go; good Miss Frankling! Don't speak, Hugho: I go away if you do. You start, Madam! That handkerchief round his head gives him a likeness I never observed before. ​ Them wandering foreigners, Madam, have no nightcaps: they are no better than savages in that and many other respects. (Pointing to the handkerchief on his head.) It is, to be sure, an unchristian-looking rag: I could scarcely bear to let him say his prayers in it.

[A loud rap is heard at the street-door.]

It is Lady Worrymore. Be quiet, poor child! I'll soon carry her away with me: she sha'n't tease you long. Lovely darling! O how I grieve to find you still so ill! What can I do to make you well? Stay away: dat shall best make me well. Stay away! how can I do so, my angel, when I am so interested—so grieved? Nobody knows how much I grieve for him. ​ Nay, a good many do, I should think; for you have been grieving all over the town. You little know: how could words express what I have felt for him? Look at the lovely creature! There is soul and beauty in every line of his countenance. Nay, don't frown at me, Hugho: if you are suffering I'll kiss away the pain. (Stoops and kisses him vehemently, while he struggles and pushes her off.) Do, Lady Worrymore, be quiet. You'll put the poor child into a fever, No, no! I will make him well: he must be well; for I have told Lady Tweedler, and Lady Lockup, and Miss Larden how beautiful he looks in his handkerchief turban; and they are all coming to see him. O dear, dear! to be so tormented! I wish dat I was dead. (Bursting into tears.) Indeed, indeed, my Lady, your kindness is obstrepulous: the poor child will die of it. ​ Let me entreat you, Lady Worrymore, to leave him in peace; and forbid those ladies to come here. He will have a night-cap on his head presently, and then it will neither be worth your while nor theirs to come near him. What a heartless girl you are, Miss Frankland! how unfeeling! A night-cap on that pretty classical head! What would Mr. Palette say? what would our great sculptors say of such a proposal? They would call you a barbarian. Let them call me what they please; we have no right to torment the poor boy with our admiration. Do leave him in peace. See how he is weeping with vexation, and cannot get to sleep. Which is quite necessary, my Lady, as your Ladyship knows very well. Neither beast nor body can do without sleep, as my good old mistress used to say, and she was a very sensible woman. Well, then, be it so; since even such a creature as this is subject to the necessities of ​nature. But let me wipe his tears before I leave him, and cover him up close for repose. (Wiping his eyes with her pocket handkerchief, and going to arrange the shawl.) Bless me! what a covering is this for my darling! (Pulling it off, and taking a fine Indian shawl from her shoulders, which she spreads over him.) This is more worthy to enfold such a being; this will keep him better from the cold.—Sweet rest to you, my pretty Hugh! I must tear myself away.

[Curtsies slightly to Miss Frankland, and hurries off.

She has left him a good shawl, howsomever; it will put a mint of money into his purse, when he has wit enough to dispose of it. You must not reckon upon that too securely. You need take no trouble about the shawl, you know; for my servant will call for it tomorrow. [Exit hastily. Call for it to-morrow! The shawl, I suppose? ​ Yes; deuce take her generosity! kisses and sweet words are cheaper than shawls.

I guessed as much; the mint of money won't come from that quarter—Let us move a little to this corner, if you please. (Leads Mrs. Brown away from the sofa, more to the front.) What do you know of the man who brought him to England—this Manhaunslet? Do you think he is really his father?

He says he is. Does he behave to him as if he were? He behaves to him as well as some fathers do to their children; and that is indifferent enough. Poor boy! indifferent enough, I fear. He had a monkey, when he first came, that danced on its hind legs, and played quarter-staff and them tricks; and I never knew which of them he liked best, Hugho or the ape: he gave them the same food, the same kind of fondling, and the same education. ​ Did you not tell me, a few minutes since, that the boy said his prayers? True, Madam; but he did so, because I told him he ought to do it, for all good boys did so. Did he pray in the German tongue? No; God forbid. Madam, that he should speak to his Creator in such a jargon as that! You taught him, then, what to say? To be sure I did. Madam; for, as I said before, the ape and him had both the same learning from that heathenish vagrant, Manhaunslet. And what has become of the ape? As soon as little Hugho was so admired by the gentry, as to be sent for to great folk's houses, to show off his balls and his dancing, and all them there pretty motions of his, he understood, somehow or other, that the monkey was not reckoned genteel, and so he sent him on his ​travels with another outlandish vagrant, to go to country fairs and the like. But what has become of Manhaunslet? I don't know, Madam. Did he ever mention his wife to you or who was Hugho's mother? No, Madam. Did Hugho ever mention his mother? No, Madam. I thank you, Mrs. Brown. Take good care of the child. I'll see you soon again. (Going to the sofa.) He is in a sound sleep now. How strong that likeness is! even sleep seems to add to it.

[Exeunt.