The Secrets of a Savoyard

by Henry A. Lytton

This incident is followed by the appearance of Mad Margaret, a crazy figure in white who lost her reason when she was jilted by the reigning baronet, Sir Despard Murgatroyd. The poor, distracted girl is still seeking for her faithless lover, and as she toys with her flowers she sings a plaintive and haunting ballad "To a garden full of posies." Following this strange scene, there arrive the Bucks and Blades—all wearing the regimental uniforms of Wellington's time, the period to which the opera is supposed to belong—and after them the gloomy Sir Despard. The crowd shrink from him in horror, while he, poor man, tells how he has really the heart of a child, but how a whole picture gallery of ancestors threaten him with death if he hesitates to commit his daily crime. Then Richard re-enters. Either because of his anger that Robin has claimed Rose's hand or because, at whatever cost, he must do as his heart dictates, he makes known to the baronet that his missing brother is none other than Robin Oakapple. When, a little later, the nuptial ceremony of the happy couple is about to begin, the festivities are interrupted by Sir Despard dramatically declaring Robin's real identity, and poor Robin has to forfeit Rose, who once more turns to Richard, and face a fateful existence as Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd.

For the second act the scene moves to the haunted Picture Gallery of Ruddigore Castle. Sir Ruthven, otherwise Robin, now wears the haggard aspect of a guilty roué, while the once-benevolent Old Adam acts the part of the wicked "confidential adviser of the greatest villain unhung." They discuss a likely crime for the day. It concerns Richard and Rose, who have arrived to ask for the baronet's consent to their marriage, and he retorts by threatening to commit them to a dungeon. This the sailor thwarts by waving a Union Jack. Then Rose prevails upon the wicked relative to relent. Left alone, the unhappy man addresses the portraits of his ancestors, bidding them to remember the time when they themselves welcomed death at last as a means of freedom from a guilty existence, and urging them to let the thought of that repentance "tune your souls to mercy on your poor posterity." The stage darkens for a moment, and then it is seen that the pictures have become animated and that the figures, representing the long line of the accursed race, and garbed magnificently according to the times in which each of the ancestors lived, have stepped from their frames. Sir Roderic, the last of the baronets to die, sings a spectral song about the ghostly revelries by night.

Now the ancestors remind their degenerate successor that it is their duty to see that he commits his daily crimes in conscientious and workmanlike style. They are not impressed with his record of the crimes he has so far committed. "Everybody does that," they tell him, when he declares that he has falsified his income-tax return, and they are also unmoved when he says that, on other days, he forged his own will and disinherited his unborn son. They demand that he must at least carry off a lady, and when he refuses they torture him until, in agony, he has to accept their command. When the ghosts have returned to their frames Old Adam is accordingly ordered to bring a maiden—any maiden will do—from the village.

Once more we meet Sir Despard and Mad Margaret. They are prim of manner, they wear black of formal cut, and in every way their appearances have changed. They are married and conduct a National School. The ex-baronet has become expert at penny readings. Margaret, now a district visitor, has recovered her sanity, though she has occasional lapses. The quaint duet between them is followed by a meeting with Robin, who hears that his record of infamy includes not only the crimes he has committed during the week, but all those perpetrated by Despard during the ten years he reigned at Ruddigore. He decides, even at the cost of his life, to bid his ancestors defiance. But now Old Adam returns, not with a beautiful maiden, but with old Dame Hannah. She is a tiger cat indeed, and despite the baronet's declaration that he is reforming and that his intentions towards her are honourable, she seizes a formidable dagger from one of the armed figures and declares for a fight to the finish. The episode is interrupted by the re-appearance of the ghostly Sir Roderic. What is more, he and Dame Hannah recognise themselves as old lovers, and a whimsical love-scene leads up to a tender little ballad about the "flower and the oak tree."

The end comes swiftly. Robin, accompanied by all the other characters, rushes in to declare his happy discovery. He argues that a baronet can die only by refusing to commit his daily crime, and thus it follows that a refusal to commit a crime is tantamount to suicide, which is in itself a crime. The curse will thus not stand logical analysis! Sir Roderic concurs, and as the natural deduction is that he himself ought never to have died at all, he and Dame Hannah are able at last to bring joy and laughter within the grim walls of Ruddigore. Robin, having found a week as holder of a title ample enough, determines to earn a modest livelihood in agricultural employment, and this time he both claims and keeps the hand of Rose Maybud. Richard, robbed of his intended bride, soon replaces her from amongst the troup of professional bridesmaids, while Despard and Margaret leave to pass a secluded existence in the town of Basingstoke.

"THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD."

Produced October 3rd, 1888.

Jack Point was a poor strolling player in the days of old Merrie England. With pretty Elsie Maynard he tramped through the towns and villages, and everywhere the two entertained the good folk with their songs and their dances, their quips and their cranks. Jack Point could have been no ordinary jester. Some years before he had been in the service of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he mortally offended his Grace by his conundrum that the only difference between the two of them was that "whereas his Grace was paid £10,000 a year for being good, poor Jack Point was good—for nothing." "Twas but a harmless jest," the Merry-man sadly reflected, but the Archbishop had him whipped and put in the stocks as a rogue, and Jack Point was in no humour to "take a post again with the dignified clergy."

Then began the vagabondage of the strolling player. Jack and Elsie made but a poor living, though they looked forward to the time when the smiles of fortune, the rewards of honest mirth, would allow them to marry. Certainly Jack Point had a pretty wit, and beneath the motley there beat a true heart of gold, too soon to be broken by tragedy. It was the old, old story of the jester who to the world's eye was a merry and boisterous fellow, though in his inner being he was suffering all the while the tortures of anguish. But list ye now to the story's unfolding!