POOR JACK

  A PLAY IN ONE ACT

  “_What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
  Keep in a little life! Poor Jack, farewell!
  I could have better spared a better man._”

  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._




CAST


  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._)

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 _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 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! 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 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.”

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, 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 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?

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._)

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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._)

  Have pity, Sylvia! Cringing at thy door
  Entreats with dolorous cry and clamoring
  That mendicant who quits thee nevermore;
  Now winter chills the world, and no birds sing
  In any woods, yet as in wanton Spring
  He follows thee; and never will have done
  Though nakedly he die, from following
  Whither thou leadest. Canst thou look upon
  His woes and laugh to see a goddess’ son
  Of wide dominion, and in strategy
  More strong than Jove, more wise than Solomon,
  Inept to combat thy severity?
  Have pity Sylvia! And let Love be one
  Among the folk that bear thee company.

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.

(_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! 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._)

[Illustration]




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.