A Lady of England: The Life and Letters of Charlotte Maria Tucker. Agnes Giberne
what good can it do my Country? I know your motives, you scientific Monster! you want to make a petrifaction of me.
Horatia. Is it possible that a treatment so. …
Charles. A treat meant is it? If you mean it for a treat, I assure you that I do not consider it as one. You may go in yourself and enjoy it.
Barbara. So short a space …
Charles. A very short space I can see, and a very narrow space too. I’ll be hanged if I get into it!
Horatia. Who could have expected opposition from such a quarter?
Sophia. Can the Hero shrink from so small a trial of his constancy? Oh, descend, descend, and we will admire. …
Charles. Add mire, you cruel wretches! is there not enough at the bottom already?
Horatia. We would preserve you.
Charles. Didn’t I say so? Some inhuman experiment! But I’ll not be preserved to please you, not I.
Sophia. [Throwing herself at his feet.] O noblest of men! doubt not our fidelity! yield to our agonized entreaties!
[The others kneel.]
Charles. Yield, indeed! I beg you will rise, fair Ladies. I know not if you are jesting; ’tis but a cold jest to me. As for entering that vault, you may kill me before you bury me, for while I’m alive I’ll not go, Ladies; I say I will not go.
Horatia. Then we must leave him to his fate.
Charles. Leave me, leave me, all alone in a churchyard. Ladies, ladies, for pity’s sake. …
Horatia. I am beside myself.
Charles. Remain then beside me. Or rather, why cannot we return to the house? I am half frozen with cold and … and excitement!
Barbara. You forget the Colonel.
Charles. The Colonel. O, is that all? Can’t you hide me in some quiet corner?
Horatia. I have it! the storeroom.
Barbara. But if a search should be made?
Charles. Search! who’ll search? The storeroom is the very place. Come, come, the air is piercing; come.
Barbara. This way; by the kitchen door.
Charles. Once more into the house, dear friends, once more. [Exit.]
Horatia. Is this the Prince? the Hero?
Sophia. O Ratty! our duty remains the same! [Exeunt.]
ACT II.
SCENE I.
THE PARLOUR.
Colonel Stumply. Weasel.
Col. Good-morrow, Weasel. An old campaigner, you see, learns to be an early riser.
Weasel. I wish your honour a good morning. I hope you found your room comfortable.
Col. Most comfortable. No traces of the pigs, ha, ha! none the worse for the chimney-top; ha, ha, ha! That Comet has a tail, I guess. Well, Weasel, how has all gone on these two years, since I last found myself at Rattleton Hermitage? Hey?
Weasel. Much the same as usual, your honour. Our only varieties are Dr. Daresby and the rheumatics; till last night when. …
Col. The girls—the young Ladies seem much grown, much improved.
Weasel. O, for the matter of that, yes, though Miss Ratty’s sadly taken up with the books, d’ye see. She’s poring all day long over a lot of different sorts of learnings; I don’t remember their names, but they all ends in oddity. Then she’s an out and out Jacobite, and thumps the piano when she sings ‘Charlie is my darling,’ as though she took it for a Whig. Indeed, your honour, last night. …
Col. And Miss Barbara?
Weasel. She’s quiet like, Sir. She’s never off her chair stitching away. They says, your honour, that she makes holes on purpose to sew them up again, d’ye see?
Col. Sophy—Miss Rattleton is a charming girl.
Weasel. Ah, so thinks some one else. Did your honour ever see young Dr. Daresby?
Col. No, what of him?
Weasel. O, nothing, Sir. But they walks alone together, and sings duets together, and he gave her the little poodle, and they says, your honour, d’ye see. …
Col. Yes, yes, I understand.
Weasel. She always feeds that fat little dog herself, your honour. She gives it slices of bread and strawberry jam. But she’s a good young Lady, Sir. Often I sees her going to the cottages with her little pink bag filled with the good things which Mrs. Judith makes. (I knows that from Mrs. Marjory who has to wash out the grease-spots every day for Miss Sophy.) And there she goes mincing along with her long veil hanging behind, and her little poodle running on before her. But may I make bold to ask how Master Stumply is? He was a very little boy when. …
Col. Not a word of him, Weasel, not a word of him! He’s a wayward … don’t speak of him! folly and indiscretion have been his bane.
Weasel. [Shaking his head.] There’s some others I know seem running the same road.
Col. How? Who?
Weasel. O, it is not for me to say, your honour.
Col. Speak; explain yourself.
Weasel. I dare say ’twas all a frolic, your honour, but there were odd doings here yesterday.
Col. Tell me, tell me.
Weasel. [Mysteriously.] Perhaps as an old friend of the Family your honour ought to know all, and such a rum affair. …
Col. Go on, go on.
Weasel. Well then, your honour, yesterday was a cold evening, d’ye see, and as I was stirring the kitchen fire there comes a knock, and I goes to the door, your honour.
Col. Well.
Weasel. There stands a tall, genteel-like lad with a ragged coat. And he would give me no name, but he said he was a Wanderer, and asked for a night’s lodging. So Mrs. Judith, who never can refuse any one, ordered the spare bed to be got ready for him.
Col. So I turned him out, hey, Weasel? There’s the secret of the pigs; but why this mystery?
Weasel. Mystery, Sir, ay, that’s the word; but if your honour was to hear what followed!
Col. What? where did they put him?
Weasel. [Lowering his voice.] When it was night, your honour, what sees I through the chink of the kitchen door in the passage but the three young Ladies lugging along a great bundle, and stopping and panting and puffing? So says I, I’ll see to the bottom of this, so I pops out suddenly and says, ‘Can I help you, Misses?’ quite civil like. But O Sir, how Miss Sophy trembled and turned as white as a lily, and Miss Ratty stamped and sent me to the village—at that hour, your honour, company in the house—the ground covered with frost—I subject to the rheumatics—and what for, d’ye think? to get her twopenceworth of shoe-ribbon, your honour; and when I brought it, would you believe it?—she roared out that it was too narrow and sent me back again.
Col. Most strange! most unaccountable! Have you any guess what was in the bundle?
Weasel. I winked at it, your honour. There was a mattress and blankets, I’m sure.
Col. For the Stranger, I suppose. But this mystery! I cannot understand it. Where could they be going?
Weasel. To the churchyard, I thinks.
Col. The churchyard!
Weasel. Why, your honour, they certainly did not go into the kitchen, and the back-door