Читать книгу: «Married Life», страница 3

Lynx. You must publicly declare this girl to be your own.

Cod. What?

Lynx. Your own daughter, and that to save your secret, I undertook her charge.

Cod. Bless you – what would Mrs. Coddle say? My dear boy she’d murder me. I could not support such an assertion for the world – how could I ever look in my wife’s face afterwards?

Lynx. With more confidence than were she to know —

Cod. What? (LYNX whispers CODDLE, who staggers back to a chair in great alarm.) – I’m a dead man!

Lynx. I know more than you thought, Mr. Coddle. – Now, Sir, you see the plot is not one of such very great difficulty to execute. If you will not assist me, I must proclaim —

Cod. Not a word, on your life – plunge me into a cold bath, make me sleep a whole night on the top of the Monument – compel me to do any thing for which I have a horror – but breathe not a word of that– of that—

Lynx. Do, then, as I request you.

Cod. I will – I swear it – there – (falls on both his knees.)

Lynx. Save my secret, and I will preserve yours.

END OF ACT I

ACT II

SCENE I

An Apartment in the house of MR. CODDLE; windows at the back with curtains; the doors are edged with list and leather. Table and chairs; an easy chair in the centre of the stage; MRS. CODDLE discovered at the table, a note in her hand.

Mrs. Cod. How very odd! how very strange! though this note arrived last night, I have scarcely done anything since but read it. – (Reads.) – “My dear Mrs. Coddle, pray pardon the warmth of my temper that led me to use certain expressions to you, of which, at the time, I was not conscious – though now, on recollection of them, I express my sorrow. Forgive me, and dine with us at five to-morrow, do not dissappoint me on your life, as I have a strong reason for inviting you; bring Coddle with you, of course. Sincerely yours, Emmeline Lynx.” What a strange woman! who would suppose, that yesterday, she desired me to quit the house and never enter there again. Well, I’m resolved to go. What a length of time Coddle takes for dressing; ’tis now half-past four, and I have been ready this hour. – (She knocks at R. H. D.) – Coddle, you drone, make haste.

Cod. (Within.) – I shall be ready immediately – I am now putting on my fourth waistcoat.

Mrs. Cod. And he wears six– how the man can exist in such a state, I know not; and what is the matter with him, I am equally at a loss to guess; he has been overpowered with nervous agitation, and in a high fever all the morning – has been talking in his sleep all night. I could only catch the words “Dont, – I’ll say any thing – declare any thing – but don’t;” – the man has something on his mind – what can it be? – He surely can’t have committed any crime – a robbery, nor a murder? – oh, the monster! I must question him. – (Enter CODDLE, R. H. D., dressed for a dinner party.) – Well, my dear, are you better?

Cod. Not much – I feel very faint.

Mrs. Cod. Give me your hand. – (CODDLE presents his hand timidly.) – Dear – dear – what a burning fever you are in – your hands are like live coals; and what a pulse. – (Feeling his pulse.) – Heaven’s, Samuel! – you are ill!

Cod. I am.

Mrs. Cod. And the cause is not so much bodily infirmity as mental anxiety.

Cod. Lord! – do you – do you think so?

Mrs. Cod. You are fainting – let me open the windows.

Cod. No – no – not for worlds.

Mrs. Cod. What has caused this fever?

Cod. I – I – don’t know.

Mrs. Cod. Coddle, your mind is diseased.

Cod. My dear, don’t speak to me in that fierce manner, you make me tremble from head to foot.

Mrs. Cod. You pass’d a wretched night.

Cod. I did.

Mrs. Cod. You talk’d in your sleep.

Cod. No! – (Alarmed.) – Did I – what did I say?

Mrs. Cod. Sufficient to rouse my suspicions.

Cod. I have been criminating myself – ’twas while I was dreaming of being hanged. – (Aside.) – What will become of me?

Mrs. Cod. Tell me – what is this matter that has so suddenly disconcerted you?

Cod. Ah – she don’t know – I breathe again.

Mrs. Cod. Answer me, Sir; what have you done?

Cod. I – I – left off my life-preserving under-waistcoat, yesterday.

Mrs. Cod. Base equivocator – you shall have no rest, depend upon it, till I am perfectly acquainted with the cause of your agitation. I have watched your actions, Sir, more than you are aware of; ’tis something in which Mr. Lynx is concerned; I observed you, when you returned from his house yesterday, you came home quite an altered man – you that were not to be roused by any thing that did not interfere with your own immediate comfort, seemed suddenly to have changed your nature: the servant left your room door open, unchecked; a broken pane close to your ear escaped your notice – you ate no supper – you ordered no fire in your bed-room – and your sleep was disturbed by sighs and groans, and words of guilt. – Ha! – I have made you tremble – now, Sir, I shall leave you, and in the meantime you will do well to prepare for a confession that I am resolved to wring from you. – (Aside.) – I have shaken him from his lethargy at last.

[Exit, L. H.

Cod. I am a lost man – I knew my day of reckoning would arrive. Mary suspects something, that’s clear – um! – and I’m going out to dinner too – what a dinner it will be to me; it must be a feast of poison, and a flow of woe – if my secret is preserved, my promise to Lynx must lead to a commotion. – Who can this girl be that I undertake to own? Ha! ha! – now I think of it, I am safe; he dare not betray me, he is as much in my power as I am in his– yet how could he have discovered my unhappy situation? He won’t acknowledge that. No – no; he considers that mystery adds to his strong hold upon me. I have borrowed a book of criminal jurisprudence, from my attorney. – I want to learn the utmost penalty of the law for my offence. – (He takes a book from his pocket and turns over the leaves.) – Here it is – bigamy! – (Reads.) – “If guilty,” – what? “transportation for life.” Oh! – (Falling in a chair.) – Think of my being at Botany Bay – working night and day – summer and winter – in trousers without lining – only a shirt on my back – and a chain round my leg; no umbrella to put up when it rains, no such thing as a yard of Welch flannel within a thousand miles of me, and nothing aired for me – I should die – the first damp night would send me to the tomb of the Coddles – oh! – (Shuddering.)

Re-enter MRS. CODDLE, introducing MR. and MRS. DISMAL

Mrs. Cod. Come in, come in; there is nobody here but Coddle.

Cod. Ah, Mr. Dismal! – I was thinking of you.

Mrs. Cod. Mr. and Mrs. D. have also received an invitation to dine at Lynx’s to-day – and have called, in passing, to know if we were also going.

Mrs. Dis. How ill poor Mr. Coddle looks!

Dis. What is the matter with him?

Mrs. Cod. I’m sure I can’t tell, he keeps the cause of his illness a profound secret.

Mrs. Dis. He’s like me – he loves to pine in solitude, and brood over unrevealed sorrows.

Dis. You love to be a fool.

Mrs. Cod. Our friends are as much surprised at receiving an invitation from Mrs. Lynx as we were.

Mrs. Dis. For the last time we called there the poor woman thought proper to be jealous of me.

Dis. There was only that wanting to prove her madness.

Mrs. Dis. But she has a cause for her jealousy.

Dis. Certainly, when you are present.

Mrs. Dis. Didn’t we see him, yesterday, following a young person past our house?

Dis. What of that? ’tis a natural impulse to which our sex are peculiarly subject.

Mrs. Cod. Except Mr. Coddle – were Venus herself to rise from the sea before him, he’d take to his heels for fear of catching cold from the foam.

Mrs. Dis. Tell Mr. Coddle the strange result of our inquiries, respecting Mr. Lynx’s conduct.

Dis. Pooh! tell him yourself.

Mrs. Dis. The young person that we saw Mr. Lynx following, and striving to speak to, was joined by an elderly lady in black.

Cod. Eh! an elderly lady in black – ’twas she, he told me she was in black. – (aside.)

Mrs. Dis. Of a very masculine appearance – Mr. Lynx seemed to enter into earnest conversation with her; when they parted, the two ladies entered a boarding-house, next door to us; our servant, gossiping with the footman, there ascertained that the elderly lady in black —

Cod. Well —

Mrs. Dis. Had just arrived from Antigua —

Mrs. Cod. Where your property is situated. – (To CODDLE.)

Mrs. Dis. That she had taken lodgings there for a short time, her object being to discover her husband, who had left her in the West Indies, and whose name, strange to say, was —

Cod. (Who has started up during MRS. D’s narrative, and is regarding her with intense curiosity, now falls back into his chair.) – Oh!

Mrs. Cod. What’s the matter? – what’s the matter?

Dis. He’s fainted —

Mrs. Dis. Here, here are my salts.

Dis. Open the windows – open the windows.

Mrs. Cod. No, no, you will kill him if you do. – (DISMAL makes to the windows, but is checked by MRS. CODDLE; CODDLE, on hearing that the windows are to be opened, is about to start from his chair, but checks himself and resumes his position.)

Mrs. Dis. Get him some water – ring the bell.

Mrs. Cod. Stay stay, I’ll go myself. – (MRS. CODDLE runs off R. H. F. E. CODDLE suddenly starts up between MR. and MRS. DISMAL, and takes a hand of each.)

Cod. As you love me – if you do not wish to see me lifeless at your feet, breathe not a syllable relative to the elderly lady in black – mention not her name.

Dis. ’Twas your own —

Cod. I know it, I know it – ’tis a terrible secret; a story of horror and despair; when we are alone, you shall know all – but not a word now. I beg – I implore – I pray – ah, my wife! – (He falls back again into his chair.)

Re-enter MRS. CODDLE, with a glass of water

Mrs. Dis. He’s better now.

Dis. Much better.

Cod. (Affecting to revive.) – Considerably better.

Mrs. Cod. I don’t wonder at your fainting, my only surprize is that you can breathe at all, in such an atmosphere; there’s not a breath of air permitted to enter the room. Phew! I’m stifled; excuse me a moment, my friends, I wish to speak to Coddle alone. – (DISMAL and his wife are going.) – No, no – don’t leave the room.

Cod. (Aside.) – What can she be going to say?

Mrs. Cod. Samuel!

Cod. My love!

Mrs. Cod. Surely your agitation, and your sudden faintness cannot arise from any apprehension?

Cod. Of what?

Mrs. Cod. That this elderly lady, in black, is —

Cod. No, no, no – oh, dear! no, no.

Mrs. Cod. You anticipate me – not what?

Cod. Not – I don’t know? what were you going to say?

Mrs. Cod. I have very strange and very terrible suspicions! ’tis surely no poor creature that you, in the hey-day of your youth —

Cod. No, no, no – my dear! How can you think – how can you dream of such a thing? I never had any hey-day – never; don’t think that of me. Come, come – let us go to Lynx’s to dinner. Get ready, dear; get ready.

Mrs. Cod. I strongly suspect you. – (MRS. CODDLE goes up the stage, and throws a shawl on her shoulders.)

Cod. What will become of me? If I escape the imputation of bigamy, the subject of that girl will be sufficient to bring my wife’s vengeance on my head; I’ll run and drown myself in a warm bath. I’ll – no, no – I must rouse, I must rouse; I must summon all my courage – all my fortitude – and bring out what little of the devil I have left in me.

Mrs. Cod. Now, Coddle, I’m quite ready.

Cod. So am I. – (Putting on his hat.) – Come along, I shall be very gay to-day; you will wonder what possesses me. I shall be so gay; come Mrs. Dismal, take my arm, my dear; ’tis bad taste to walk with one’s wife. D., look to Mrs. Coddle!

Mrs. Cod. The man’s mad —

Dis. Raving.

Cod. You shall see me to advantage, to-day; I feel a new man; you may open all the doors and windows in the house. I’ll do any thing desperate, to-day – walk to Lynx’s, without my coat, hat, any thing – come, my love. – Come Dismal. – Fol de rol, de rol lol. – (CODDLE dances off with MRS. DISMAL, L. H.)

Mrs. Cod. Mad!

Dismal. Gone, quite gone.

[Exeunt following.