Title: Poor Jack: A play in one act
Dubious author: James Branch Cabell
Release date: July 21, 2022 [eBook #68576]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Privately Printed, 1906
Credits: Charlene Taylor, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
A PLAY IN ONE ACT
PRIVATELY PRINTED
RICHMOND
1906
To R. D. L.:
“There are some ghosts,” said poor Jack, “that will not easily bear raising....”
Thus am I confounded by words of my own choosing, for in truth I have raised one; and not for me, as for Dame Sylvia, does Chivalry blow upon a silver horn to drown the squeakings of that folly. Which is merely another way of saying that those younglings we two know and love, and who fretted me into the writing of a play for their theatricals, have rejected the outcome after a tentative rehearsal, with certain remarks for my pondering.
Well might that fat whoresome man have been left to the undignified fate his creator had appointed for him!—or at least in the staider trappings wherewith I did gird his behemothian bulk in my story, The Love Letters of Falstaff. Decked for the stage and with bella donna in its eyes, my sketch, they tell me, is a ghastly remains to which the footlights would add but the effect of funeral candles. In fine, that which lacks both plot and action, and offers, in lieu of lusty characters, four gray ghosts, is not a play but an edifying exposé of the pitfalls and snares into which a romancist might be expected to stumble when he dons the habit of a playwright. These and many other plaints which I shall strive to live down in the years before me, conveyed a discomforting unanimity of opinion on the part of my hopeful players.
With such humility as becomes one of our soberer estate in the presence of these, our juniors and betters, I pointed out that it was not my fault, assuredly, that Falstaff was no longer the merry taker of purses whose roaring oaths had filled all Gadshill. Nor that Will had never displayed any very hearty admiration for humanity nor found many more commendable traits in general exercise among its individuals than did the authors of the Bible: a spirit which, however distasteful to my palate, I was obliged in this instance to emulate! Yet I dared think (and my defense grew noticeably weaker under their incredulous stare) that old, gross and decayed as he had grown, the demiurge still clings to the old reprobate; yea, and the aura of divinity to Helen, whose beauty is drifting dust, so that Falstaff sees before him not Sylvia Vernon but Sylvia Darke.
Poor Falstaff. “Were’t not for laughing I should pity him!”
But they had since ceased to listen. Vanished were they like the merry company whose mere names, thought Falstaff, were like a breath of country air. My script lay before me, eloquent in naught but their disillusion. Alone, I thought the fire winked knowingly at me, much like the one I had fanned from the embers of the past, as if it said: How old must a man become ’ere he shall be wise enough to content these sure young critics, so awfully and so inevitably right?
I should have dropped the record of my folly into the flames and so played out the last scene in my puppet’s stead, had I not remembered in time my promise to you. Well!—you had expected to receive it worn from the caresses of eager thumbs, scented perhaps with the bouquet of reverent applause. It comes to you fresh and unmarred by any defacing ardor; only its theme is sere, only its author’s vanity thumb-marked!
And remember: ’tis not a play you give to the world but rather a spirit croaking to itself in a house where nobody has lived for a long time.
J. B. C.
| Sir John Falstaff | Sometime friend to H. M. Henry V |
| Bardolph | His serving man |
| Dame Quickly | Mistress of the Boar’s Head Inn |
| Lady Sylvia Vernon | She that was Sylvia Darke |
POOR JACK
(The curtain rises to show the Angel room of the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap. ’Tis the private parlor of the mistress of the inn, Dame Quickly.
At the back is a high fireplace with heavy leaded diamond paned windows on either side. At the left is the doorway leading to the tap room, on the right a huge clothes press. When our play opens Dame Quickly is demurely stirring the fire while Bardolph is sorting garments which he takes from the press. We hear a quivery voice singing: “Then Came Bold Sir Caradoc” ... and Sir John Falstaff fumbles at the door and enters. It is a Falstaff much broken since his loss of the King’s favor and now equally decayed in wit, health and reputation. His paunch alone remains prosperous and monstrous and contrasts greatly with the shrunken remainder of the man. He is particularly shaky this morning after a night’s hard drinking. Nevertheless he enters with what cheerfulness he can muster.)
[10]
FALSTAFF
(sings) Then came the Bold Sir Caradoc—Ah, Mistress what news?—and eke Sir Pellinore—Did I rage last night, Bardolph? Was I a Bedlamite?
BARDOLPH
As mine own bruises can testify. Had each one of them a tongue they would raise a clamor beside which Babel were an heir weeping for his rich uncle’s death; their testimony would qualify you for any mad-house in England. And if their evidence go against the doctor’s stomach, the watchman at the corner hath three teeth—or rather, hath them no longer, since you knocked them out last night, that will willingly aid him to digest it.
FALSTAFF
(as he stiffly lowers his great body into the great chair that awaits him beside the fire and stretches his hands to catch the heat of the flames.) Three say you? I would have my valor in all men’s mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a tender conscience and that mad fellow of the North, Hotspur, sits heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is[11] per se avenged, a plague upon him! Three, say you? I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had ’bated my natural inclination somewhat and slain less tall fellows by three score. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o’ nights. Three, say you? Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them; if thou hast them not, bid him eschew this vice of drunkenness whereby his misfortune hath befallen him, and thus win him heavenly crowns.
BARDOLPH
Indeed Sir, I doubt....
FALSTAFF
(testily) Doubt not, Sirrah! (He continues more calmly in a virtuous manner) Was not the apostle reproved for that same sin? Thou art a Didymus, Bardolph,—an incredulous paynim, a most unspeculative rogue. Have I carracks trading in the Indies? Have I robbed the exchequer of late? Have I the Golden Fleece for a cloak? Nay, it is a paltry gimlet, and that augurs badly. Why does this knavish watchman take me for a raven to feed him in the wilderness? Tell him that there are no such ravens hereabouts; else I had ravenously limed the house-tops and sets springes in the[12] gutters. Inform him that my purse is no better lined than his own broken skull; it is void as a beggar’s protestations, or a butcher’s stall in Lent; light as a famished gnat, or the sighing of a new-made widower; more empty than a last year’s bird’s nest, than a madman’s eye, or, in fine, than the friendship of a king.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
But you have wealthy friends, Sir John. (She nods her head vigorously) Yes I warrant you Sir John. Sir John, you have a many wealthy friends; you cannot deny that, Sir John.
FALSTAFF
(He cowers closer to the fire as though he were a little cold) I have no friends since Hal is King. I had I grant you, a few score of acquaintances whom I taught to play at dice; paltry young blades of the City, very unfledged juvenals! Setting my knighthood and my valor aside, if I did swear friendship with these, I did swear to a lie. But this is a censorious and muddy-minded world, so that, look you, even these sprouting aldermen, these foul, bacon-fed rogues, have fled my friendship of late, and my reputation hath grown somewhat more murky than Erebus. No matter! I walk alone as one that hath the pestilence. No matter![13] But I grow old, I am not in the vanward of my youth, Mistress.
(He reaches for the cup of sack that Bardolph has poured out and holds on a tray at his elbow.)
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Indeed, I do not know what your worship will do.
FALSTAFF
(Drinks the sack down and grins in a somewhat ghostly fashion) Faith! unless the Providence that watches over the fall of a sparrow hath an eye to the career of Sir John Falstaff, Knight, and so comes to my aid shortly, I must need convert my last doublet into a mask and turn highwayman in my shirt. I can take purses yet, ye Uzzite comforters, as gaily as I did at Gadshill, where that scurvy Poins, and he that is now King, and some twoscore other knaves did afterward assault me in the dark; yet I peppered some of them I warrant you.
BARDOLPH
You must be rid of me then, Master. I for one have no need of a hempen collar.
FALSTAFF
(stretching himself in the chair) I, too, would[14] be loth to break the gallow’s back. For fear of halters, we must alter our way of living; we must live close, Bardolph, till the wars make us Croesuses or food for crows. And if Hal but hold to his bias, there will be wars: I will eat a piece of my sword, if he hath not need of it shortly. Ah, go thy ways, tall Jack; there live not three good men in England and one of them is fat, and grows old. We must live close, Bardolph, we must forswear drinking and wenching! But there is lime in this sack, you rogue, give me another cup.
(Bardolph draws and brings him another cup of sack which he empties at one long draught.)
FALSTAFF
I pray you hostess, remember that Doll Tearsheet sups with me tonight; have a capon of the best and be not sparing of your wine. I will repay you, upon honor, when we young fellows return from France, all laden with rings and brooches and such trumperies like your Norfolkshire pedlars at Christmas-tide. We will sack a town for you, and bring you back the Lord Mayor’s beard to stuff you a cushion; the Dauphin shall be your tapster yet: we will walk on lilies, I warrant you to the tune of “hey then, up go we.”
[15]
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Indeed, Sir, your worship is as welcome to my pantry as the mice—a pox on them—think themselves; you are heartily welcome. Ah, well, old Puss is dead; I had her of Goodman Quickly these ten years since;—but I had thought that you looked for the lady who was here but now;—she was a roaring lion among the mice.
FALSTAFF
(with great animation) What Lady? Was it Flint the Mercer’s wife, think you? Ah, she hath a liberal disposition, and will, without the aid of Prince Houssain’s carpet or the horse of Cambuscan, transfer the golden shining pieces from her husband’s coffers to mine.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
(after due consideration) No mercer’s wife, I think. She came with two patched footmen and smelled of gentility;—Master Dumbleton’s father was a mercer; but he had red hair;—she is old;—and I could never abide red hair.
FALSTAFF
No matter! I can love this lady, be she a very Witch of Endor. Observe what a thing it is to be a proper man, Bardolph! She hath marked me;—in public, perhaps; on the street,[16] it may be;—and then, I warrant you, made such eyes! and sighed such sighs! and lain awake o’ nights, thinking of a pleasing portly gentleman, whom, were I not modesty’s self, I might name;—and I, all this while, not knowing! Fetch me my book of riddles and my sonnets, that I may speak smoothly. Why was my beard not combed this morning? No matter, it will serve. Have I no better cloak than this?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
(who has been looking out of the window) Come, but your worship must begin with unwashed hands, for old Madame Wishfor’t and her two country louts are even now at the door.
FALSTAFF
Avaunt, minions. Avaunt! Conduct the lady hither, hostess; Bardolph another cup of sack. We will ruffle it, lad, and go to France all gold like Midas! Are mine eyes too red? I must look sad, you know, and sigh very pitifully. Ah, we will ruffle it! Another cup of sack, Bardolph;—I am a rogue if I have drunk to-day. And avaunt! vanish! for the lady comes! (He throws himself into what he feels is a gallant attitude, but that is one that suggests to the audience a man suddenly palsied trying[17] to imitate a turkey cock and struts to the door. The lady that enters is on the staider side of sixty, but the years have touched her with unwonted kindliness and her form is still unbent, her countenance, although bloodless and deep furrowed still bears the traces of great beauty and she is unquestionably a person of breeding. Sir John advances to her with his peculiar strut; indubitably he feels himself a miracle of elegance.)
FALSTAFF
See, from the glowing East, Aurora Comes! Madam permit me to welcome you to my poor apartments; they are not worthy....
LADY SYLVIA
I would see Sir John Falstaff, sir.
FALSTAFF
Indeed, Madam, if those bright eyes—whose glances have already cut my poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the front of the almanac—will but desist for a moment from such butcher’s work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding the bluff soldier you seek.
LADY SYLVIA
Are you Sir John? The son of old Sir Edward Falstaff of Norfolk?
[18]
FALSTAFF
His wife hath frequently assured me so, and to confirm her evidence I have about me a certain villainous thirst that did plague Sir Edward sorely in his lifetime and came to me with his other chattels. The property I have expended long since; but no Jew will advance me a maravedi on the Falstaff thirst. It is a priceless commodity, not to be bought or sold; you might as soon quench it.
LADY SYLVIA
I would not have known you, but, I have not seen you these forty years.
FALSTAFF
Faith, Madam, the great pilferer Time hath taken away a little from my hair, and somewhat added—saving your presence—to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the grindstone for some hundred swords. But I do not know you.
LADY SYLVIA
I am Sylvia Vernon. And once years ago I was Sylvia Darke.
FALSTAFF
I remember. (His voice changes, he also loses his strut as he hands Lady Sylvia to the great chair.)
[19]
LADY SYLVIA
(after a long pause) A long time ago. Time hath dealt harshly with us both, John;—the name hath a sweet savor. I am an old woman now. And you?
FALSTAFF
I would not have known you. (Resentfully) What do you here?
LADY SYLVIA
My son goes to the wars and I am come to bid him farewell; yet I should not tarry in London for my lord is feeble and hath constant need of me. But I, an old woman, am yet vain enough to steal these few moments from him who needs me, to see for the last time, mayhap, him who once was my very dear friend.
FALSTAFF
I was never your friend, Sylvia.
LADY SYLVIA
(with a wistful smile) Ah the old wrangle. My dear and very honored lover, then; and I am come to see him here.
FALSTAFF
Ay.... ’Tis a quiet orderly place, where I bestow my patronage; the woman of the house had a husband once in my company. God rest his soul! he bore a good pike. He retired[20] in his old age and ’stablished this tavern where he passed his declining years, till death called him gently away from this naughty world. God rest his soul, say I. (aside) God wot, I cannot tell her that the rogue was knocked over the head with a joint-stool while rifling the pockets of a drunken roisterer!
LADY SYLVIA
And you for old memories’ sake yet aid his widow? That is like you, John. (There is a long silence in which the crackling of the fire can be plainly heard.) And are you sorry that I come again, in a worse body, John, strange and time ruined?
FALSTAFF
Sorry?... No, faith! but there are some ghosts that will not easily bear raising and you have raised one.
LADY SYLVIA
We have summoned up no very fearful spectre, I think. At most no worse than a pallid gentle spirit that speaks—to me at least—of a boy and a girl who loved each other and were very happy a great while ago.
FALSTAFF
And you come hither to seek that boy? The boy that went mad and rhymed of you in those[21] far off dusty years? He is quite dead, my lady, he was drowned, mayhap in a cup of wine; or he was slain, perchance, by some few light women. I know not how he died. But he is quite dead, my lady, and I had not been haunted by his ghost until to-day. (He breaks into a fit of unromantic coughing)
LADY SYLVIA
He was a dear boy. A boy who loved a young maid very truly; a boy that found the maid’s father too strong and shrewd for desperate young lovers—eh, how long ago it seems and what a flood of tears the poor maid shed at being parted from that dear boy.
FALSTAFF
Faith! the rogue had his good points.
LADY SYLVIA
Ah, John, you have not forgotten, I know and you will believe me that I am heartily sorry for the pain I brought into your life.
FALSTAFF
My wounds heal easily—
LADY SYLVIA
For though my dear dead father was too wise for us, and knew it was for the best that I should not accept your love, believe me John, I always knew the value of it and have held it[22] an honor that any woman must prize.
FALSTAFF
Dear Lady, the world is not altogether of your opinion.
LADY SYLVIA
I know not of the world, for we live away from it. But we have heard of you ever and anon; I have your life writ letter perfect these forty years or more.
FALSTAFF
You have heard of me?
LADY SYLVIA
As a gallant and brave soldier. Of how you fought at sea with Mowbray that was afterward Duke of Norfolk; of your knighthood by King Richard; of how you slew the Percy at Shrewsbury; and captured Coleville o’ late in Yorkshire; and how the prince, that is now King, did love you above all other men; and in fine, of many splendid doings in the great world.
FALSTAFF
I have fought somewhat. But we are not Bevis of Southampton; we have slain no giants. Have you heard naught else?
LADY SYLVIA
Little else of note. But we are very proud of[23] you at home in Norfolk. And such tales as I have heard I have woven together in one story; and I have told it many times to my children as we sat on the old Chapel steps at evening and the shadows lengthened across the lawn, and I bid them emulate this, the most perfect knight and gallant gentleman I have ever known. And they love you, I think, though but by repute.
(There is another long silence, finally—)
FALSTAFF
Do you still live at Winstead?
LADY SYLVIA
Yes, in the old house. It is little changed, but there are many changes about.
FALSTAFF
Is Moll yet with you that did once carry our letters?
LADY SYLVIA
Married to Hodge, the tanner, and dead long since.
FALSTAFF
And all our merry company? Marian? and Tom and little Osric? And Phyllis? and Adelais? Zounds, it is like a breath of country air to speak their names once more.
[24]
LADY SYLVIA
(She speaks in a hushed voice) All dead save Adelais and even to me poor Adelais seems old and strange. Walter was slain in the French wars and she hath never married.
FALSTAFF
All dead.... This same death hath a wide maw. It is not long before you and I, my lady, will be at supper with the worms. But you at least have had a happy life?
LADY SYLVIA
I have been content enough, but all that seems run by; for, John, I think that at our age we are not any longer very happy, or very miserable.
FALSTAFF
Faith! we are both old; and I had not known it, my lady until to-day.
(Again silence. Finally Lady Sylvia rises with a start.)
LADY SYLVIA
I would I had not come.
FALSTAFF
Nay, this is but a feeble grieving you have awakened. For, madam, you whom I loved once—you are in the right. Our blood runs[25] thinner than of yore; and we may no longer, I think, either rejoice or sorrow very deeply.
LADY SYLVIA
It is true.... I must go ... and indeed I would to God, that I had not come. (Falstaff bows his head and remains silent. Presently she goes on) Yet, there is something here which I must keep no longer; for here are all the letters you ever writ me. (She hands him a little packet. He turns them awkwardly in his hands once or twice; stares at them and then at her.)
FALSTAFF
You have kept them—always?
LADY SYLVIA
Yes, but I must not be guilty of continuing such follies. It is a villainous example to my grandchildren.... Farewell.
(Falstaff draws close to her and takes both her hands in his. He looks her in the eyes and draws himself very erect.)
FALSTAFF
How I loved you!
LADY SYLVIA
I know and I thank you for your gift, my lover, O brave, true lover, whose love I was not ever ashamed to own! Farewell, my dear, yet a little[26] while, and I go to seek the boy and girl we know of.
FALSTAFF
I shall not be long, madam. Speak a kind word for me in Heaven; for I have sore need of it.
LADY SYLVIA
(By this time she has reached the door) You are not sorry that I came?
FALSTAFF
There are many wrinkles now in your dear face, my lady, the great eyes are a little dimmed, and the sweet laughter is a little cracked; but I am not sorry to have seen you thus. For I have loved no woman truly save you alone; and I am not sorry. Farewell. (He bends over and reverently kisses her fingers. Then she leaves as quietly as a cloud passes.)
FALSTAFF
(he goes back to the chair by the fire and sits at ease) Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to the vice of lying.... Yet it was not all a lie;—but what a coil over a youthful greensickness ’twixt a lad and a wench more than forty years syne.... I might have had money of her for the asking, yet I am glad I did not; which is a parlous sign and smacks[27] of dotage.... Were it not a quaint conceit, a merry tickle-brain of Fate that this mountain of malmsey were once a delicate stripling with apple cheeks and a clean breath, smelling of civit and as mad for love, I warrant you as any Amadis of them all? For, if a man were to speak truly, I did love her. I had special marks of the pestilence. Not all the flagons and apples in the universe might have comforted me; I was wont to sigh like a leaky bellows; to weep like a wench that is lost of her granddam; to lard my speech with the fagends of ballads like a man milliner; and did indeed indite sonnets, cazonets and what not of mine own elaboration.... And Moll did carry them, plump, brown-eyed Moll that hath married Hodge, the tanner and reared her tannikins and died long since.
Lord, Lord, what did I not write (He draws a paper from the packet and leaning over deciphers the faded writing by the fire light.)
Is it not the very puling speech of your true lover? Faith, Adam Cupid, hath forsworn my fellowship long since; he hath no score chalked up against him at the Boar’s Head Tavern; or if he have, I doubt not the next street beggar might discharge it.
And she hath commended me to her children as a very gallant gentleman and a true knight. Jove that sees all hath a goodly commodity of mirth; I doubt not his sides ache at times, as if they had conceived another wine-god. “Among the folk that bear thee company” Well well, it was a goodly rogue that wrote it, though the verse runs but lamely! A goodly rogue.
[29]
(Bardolph steals back into the room.)
BARDOLPH
Well, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
(He addresses Bardolph. As the speech goes on Bardolph’s jaw drops lower and lower as he gapes his astonishment) Look you, he might have lived cleanly and forsworn sack, he might have been a gallant gentleman and begotten grandchildren and had a quiet nook at the ingleside to rest his old bones; but he is dead long since. He might have writ himself armigero in many a bill or obligation or quittance or what not; he might have left something behind him save unpaid tavern bills; he might have heard cases, harried poachers and quoted old saws; and slept in his own family chapel through sermons yet unwrit, beneath his presentment, done in stone, and a comforting bit of Latin but he is dead long since.
(Mistress Quickly too steals in.)
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Well, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
(Continues his meditation, unaware of them) Zooks, I prate like a death’s head. A thing done hath an end, God have mercy on us all![30] And I will read no more of the rubbish. (He casts the papers into the heart of the fire; they blaze up and he watches them burn to the last spark. Then he gives himself a mighty shake) A cup of sack to purge the brain! And I will go sup with Doll Tearsheet.
(The curtain falls quickly, it also is happy the play hath ended.)
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.