Duch. He shall be none;
We’ll keep him here; then what is that to him?
York. Away, fond woman! Were he twenty times my son,
I would appeach him.
Duch. Hadst thou groan’d for him
As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.
But now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect
That I have been disloyal to thy bed,
And that he is a bastard, not thy son.
Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.
He is as like thee as a man may be,
Not like to me or any of my kin,
And yet I love him.
York. Make way, unruly woman! (Exit.)
Duch. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;
Spur post and get before him to the King,
And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.
I’ll not be long behind; though I be old,
I doubt not but to ride as fast as York.
And never will I rise up from the ground
Till Bolingbroke have pardon’d thee. Away, be gone!
(Exeunt.)
So far as the situation is concerned we might go directly from York’s “fealty to the new made King” to his “What seal is that?” omitting some ten lines. We should lose, however, the deft touches which make the discovery all the more dramatic,—the words of York which show that he has no idea that his son is really involved in any disloyalty; the affectionate effort of the mother to draw the talk from unpleasant subjects; and the distrait mood of Aumerle. Again, the discovery of the contents of the seal might be made at once, but the fifteen intervening lines before York cries “Treason! foul treason!” increase our suspense by their clear presentation of the emotions of father, mother, and son. Once more the situation is held when York does not declare at once the nature of the treason and the frantic mother demands again and again the contents of the paper before Aumerle says bitterly, and in perfect character with his first speeches of the scene,
| “it is no more Than my poor life must answer.” |
Still again we should have the necessary action of the scene perfectly if York, as soon as he has his boots, flung out of the room, to be followed immediately by the Duchess, crying that she will follow him to the King and ask the boy’s pardon. However, had Shakespeare’s treatment here been that he used in the scene of Talbot and the Countess we should have lacked the perfect portrayal of the mother who loses all sense of right and wrong in fear that her loved child may die. Finally, do we not gain greatly by the characterization of the Duchess in the last lines of the scene? Five times, then, Shakespeare, by entering into his characters, “holds the situation.”
The second act of The Magistrate,[28] by Sir Arthur Pinero, is in central situation broadly this. Cis Farringdon, represented by his mother to his stepfather, Mr. Posket, as fourteen, because she does not like to admit her own age, is really nineteen and precocious at that. He has brought Mr. Posket to one of his haunts, a supper room in the Hotel des Princes, Meek Street, London, where they are to sup together. As Mr. Posket is a police justice, he has been induced to figure for the evening as “Skinner of the stock exchange.” Shortly after the arrival of the two comes word that a frequenter of the restaurant twenty years ago, now returned to London, wants to sup in their chosen room for the sake of old times. Therefore Mr. Posket and Cis are put into an adjoining room. Colonel Lukyn, the returned stranger, and a friend, Captain Vale, enter. Just as they are ordering supper, a note comes to the effect that Mrs. Posket, with a woman friend, is below, begging to speak with her old acquaintance, Colonel Lukyn. As Mrs. Posket asks a private interview, Captain Vale is put out on the balcony. With Mrs. Posket comes her sister Charlotte. We have already learned from Vale that he is deeply depressed because he thinks Charlotte no longer cares for him. Mrs. Posket has come to beg Colonel Lukyn, who knew her before she became a widow, not to reveal the truth about her age.