SCENE. The Alley of Sighs. A table set out.
Enter Clown and Bellona.
Clown. O Amazon, victorious and proud,
More dread than is your bow your eyebrows are,
Upbending to discharge darts keener far
Than fill your quiver or the thunder-cloud.
You jest at me, you mock my heartfelt love;
You put me off and on even as a glove.
O gentle, noble, bitter amazon,
I would that you could see into my heart!
Bellona. I've seen; it is an empty nut, good clown.
Clown. Thenceforward I will play a silent part.
Enter Mary-Jane.
Bellona. What is to be done?
Mary-Jane. Herminia is dressing Annie Smith like a bride in satin and
lace; and she and Antinous will lead her into the presence of the mad boy,
whom we are to have here. As it was our dresses as much as our maturity
that caught his fancy, I have no doubt that, mistaking Annie for a new
goddess, he will fall at her feet with some hyperbolical apostrophe, as he
did at yours.
Bellona. A very likely thing. I hope he may not recognise
her.—Clown.
Clown. Your will?
Bellona. Fetch hither Ringan Deane.
Clown. Where is he?
Bellona. Find him.
[Clown goes out.
Mary-Jane. Have you two quarrelled?
Bellona. O no! He's a patient, strong man, that clown.
Mary-Jane. He's a handsome fellow.
Bellona. I have eyes.
Enter Edmund and May Montgomery.
May [aside]. We're not the last: we're safe from mockery.
Edmund. Why, where are all the rest, good amazon?
Bellona. Why, where's your wondrous plot, good earl?
Edmund. Fate knows.
Bellona. Fate!—how you startle me! I brooded once
On destiny, and thus said with myself:
I will not do as other women do,
Marry a man, and be one couple more;
I will not be as other women are,
Whom the world praises, and who deem themselves
Happy as earth can make them: I will be
Unwomanly, and scorn what women love.
Edmund. A new Diana.
Bellona. No, a thousand times!
Why will you think what may be must have been?
My thought——But I'll not tell you; for to tell
Would kill it; then I could not give it shape.
Always I read of fate and talked of it,
Of birth-stars, and our own polarity,
And of the orient, iron dooms-day book,
Of former lives that we have led, whose deeds
Determine this, of unrelenting life—
The ecstasy that with the flowers we share,
The crisis that for ever shakes the world;
And I would ebb and flow with hope and fear,
But mostly breast the adamant with waves
Of seething blood, I curbed, I quelled——How's this?
You spoke of fate, and struck a resonant string.
Edmund. Then, you're a fatalist.
Bellona. I fear I am.
Edmund. You speak more truly than you think. Your fear
Is just; for brooding souls that talk of fate,
And of their helpless, brute plasticity
In mighty, thoughtless hands, bring down the woes
They dread and should defy: the timid blood
Is first to be diseased; and winged death
Falls on the shrinking quarry. Amazon,
Face fate and stare it down. Why, this is fate,
This only: other slave we cannot have
Than these same hands and feet of circumstance.
Master it, master it; or fire and flood
Are drowned and scorched like moths and drops of dew!
The Arab fisher's jinn; unsealed, diffused,
He fills and suffocates the universe;
Inurned, a plaything, or a marshalled host.
You see, I know the western prophet, too.
May. O, let us lie and talk of love and fate
Here on the daisies till the night comes down!
Enter Sir James and Lady Montgomery, and Captain Mercer.
Mary-Jane [aside]. My husband! O, what shall I do?
Lady M. Alas,
She is not here!
Mercer. My wife is; that is she.
Edmund. You watch us keenly.
Sir James. We have reason, sir.
Mary-Jane [kneeling before Mercer].
Forgive me. Kneel beside me, May; kneel down.
[May kneels.
Give me your hand, and—kiss me.
May. Mother, mother!
What is it?
Bellona. Now, I think, the play begins.
Mary-Jane. They killed my baby; and they gave me her.
Look at her, feel her!—could I give her up?
Sir—madam!
May. Mother, mother!
Mary-Jane. Husband!
May. Hush,
Or you will die.
Mercer. Dear love, dear soul, dread nothing.
[Raises Mary-Jane.
Bellona [aside]. Herminia comes.—Good people, who are caught In this
same net of circumstance, go hence:
Pass through these birches, and you'll find a bower
Whose shade will blend more sweetly with your mood,
And make serener your enraptured souls.
Besides, I am the prompter, or the fate
Of one scene more fantastic than you play,
Which falls now to be acted here.
Sir James. Lady,
Your garb does not bespeak your wisdom.
Bellona. Sir,
Since when had decency sole grant of sense?
Edmund. Well said!
Sir James. I'll set my wits to yours anon.
Is this the way?
Bellona. Under the lowest boughs.
[Sir James and Lady Montgomery, Mercer,
Edmund, Mary-Jane and May go out.
Enter Antinous and Herminia with Annie Smith dressed like a bride.