Torrid forenoon filtered through small Moorish windows high up in the
adobe walls of the largest room in Leslie Rankin's house. A clean
cool room, with the table (a Christian article) set in the middle, a
presidentially elbowed chair behind it, and an inkstand and paper ready
for the sitter. A couple of cheap American chairs right and left of the
table, facing the same way as the presidential chair, give a judicial
aspect to the arrangement. Rankin is placing a little tray with a jug
and some glasses near the inkstand when Lady Cicely's voice is heard at
the door, which is behind him in the corner to his right.
LADE CICELY. Good morning. May I come in?
RANKIN. Certainly. (She comes in, to the nearest end of the table. She
has discarded all travelling equipment, and is dressed exactly as she
might be in Surrey on a very hot day.) Sit ye doon, Leddy Ceecily.
LADY CICELY (sitting down). How nice you've made the room for the
inquiry!
RANKIN (doubtfully). I could wish there were more chairs. Yon American
captain will preside in this; and that leaves but one for Sir Howrrd and
one for your leddyship. I could almost be tempted to call it a maircy
that your friend that owns the yacht has sprained his ankle and cannot
come. I misdoubt me it will not look judeecial to have Captain Kearney's
officers squatting on the floor.
LADY CICELY. Oh, they won't mind. What about the prisoners?
RANKIN. They are to be broat here from the town gaol presently.
LADY CICELY. And where is that silly old Cadi, and my handsome Sheikh
Sidi? I must see them before the inquiry,or they'll give Captain Kearney
quite a false impression of what happened.
RANKIN. But ye cannot see them. They decamped last night, back to their
castles in the Atlas.
LADY CICELY (delighted). No!
RANKIN. Indeed and they did. The poor Cadi is so terrified by all he
has haird of the destruction of the Spanish fleet, that he daren't trust
himself in the captain's hands. (Looking reproachfully at her) On your
journey back here, ye seem to have frightened the poor man yourself,
Leddy Ceecily, by talking to him about the fanatical Chreestianity of
the Americans. Ye have largely yourself to thank if he's gone.
LADY CICELY. Allah be praised! WHAT a weight off our minds, Mr. Rankin!
RANKIN (puzzled). And why? Do ye not understand how necessary their
evidence is?
LADY CICELY. THEIR evidence! It would spoil everything. They would
perjure themselves out of pure spite against poor Captain Brassbound.
RANKIN (amazed). Do ye call him POOR Captain Brassbound! Does not your
leddyship know that this Brasshound is--Heaven forgive me for judging
him!--a precious scoundrel? Did ye not hear what Sir Howrrd told me on
the yacht last night?
LADY CICELY. All a mistake, Mr. Rankin: all a mistake, I assure you.
You said just now, Heaven forgive you for judging him! Well, that's just
what the whole quarrel is about. Captain Brassbound is just like you:
he thinks we have no right to judge one another; and its Sir Howard gets
£5,000 a year for doing nothing else but judging people, he thinks poor
Captain Brassbound a regular Anarchist. They quarreled dreadfully at
the castle. You mustn't mind what Sir Howard says about him: you really
mustn't.
RANKIN. But his conduct--
LADY CICELY. Perfectly saintly, Mr. Rankin. Worthy of yourself in your
best moments. He forgave Sir Howard, and did all he could to save him.
RANKIN. Ye astoanish me, Leddy Ceecily.
LADY CICELY. And think of the temptation to behave badly when he had us
all there helpless!
RANKIN. The temptation! ay: that's true. Ye're ower bonny to be cast
away among a parcel o lone, lawless men, my leddy.
LADY CICELY (naively). Bless me, that's quite true; and I never thought
of it! Oh, after that you really must do all you can to help Captain
Brassbound.
RANKIN (reservedly). No: I cannot say that, Leddy Ceecily. I doubt he
has imposed on your good nature and sweet disposeetion. I had a crack
with the Cadi as well as with Sir Howrrd; and there is little question in
my mind but that Captain Brassbound is no better than a breegand.
LADY CICELY (apparently deeply impressed). I wonder whether he can be,
Mr. Rankin. If you think so, that's heavily against him in my opinion,
because you have more knowledge of men than anyone else here. Perhaps
I'm mistaken. I only thought you might like to help him as the son of
your old friend.
RANKIN (startled). The son of my old friend! What d'ye mean?
LADY CICELY. Oh! Didn't Sir Howard tell you that? Why, Captain
Brassbound turns out to be Sir Howard's nephew, the son of the brother
you knew.
RANKIN (overwhelmed). I saw the likeness the night he came here! It's
true: it's true. Uncle and nephew!
LADY CICELY. Yes: that's why they quarrelled so.
RANKIN (with a momentary sense of ill usage). I think Sir Howrrd might
have told me that.
LADY CICELY. Of course he OUGHT to have told you. You see he only tells
one side of the story. That comes from his training as a barrister. You
mustn't think he's naturally deceitful: if he'd been brought up as a
clergyman, he'd have told you the whole truth as a matter of course.
RANKIN (too much perturbed to dwell on his grievance). Leddy Ceecily: I
must go to the prison and see the lad. He may have been a bit wild; but
I can't leave poor Miles's son unbefriended in a foreign gaol.
LADY CICELY (rising, radiant). Oh, how good of you! You have a real kind
heart of gold, Mr. Rankin. Now, before you go, shall we just put our
heads together, and consider how to give Miles's son every chance--I
mean of course every chance that he ought to have.
RANKIN (rather addled). I am so confused by this astoanishing news--
LADY CICELY. Yes, yes: of course you are. But don't you think he would
make a better impression on the American captain if he were a little
more respectably dressed?
RANKIN. Mebbe. But how can that be remedied here in Mogador?
LADY CICELY. Oh, I've thought of that. You know I'm going back to
England by way of Rome, Mr. Rankin; and I'm bringing a portmanteau full
of clothes for my brother there: he's ambassador, you know, and has to
be VERY particular as to what he wears. I had the portmanteau brought
here this morning. Now WOULD you mind taking it to the prison, and
smartening up Captain Brassbound a little. Tell him he ought to do it to
show his respect for me; and he will. It will be quite easy: there are
two Krooboys waiting to carry the portmanteau. You will: I know you
will. (She edges him to the door.) And do you think there is time to get
him shaved?
RANKIN (succumbing, half bewildered). I'll do my best.
LADY CICELY. I know you will. (As he is going out) Oh! one word, Mr.
Rankin. (He comes back.) The Cadi didn't know that Captain Brassbound
was Sir Howard's nephew, did he?
RANKIN. No.
LADY CICELY. Then he must have misunderstood everything quite
dreadfully. I'm afraid, Mr. Rankin--though you know best, of
course--that we are bound not to repeat anything at the inquiry that the
Cadi said. He didn't know, you see.
RANKIN (cannily). I take your point, Leddy Ceecily. It alters the case.
I shall certainly make no allusion to it.
LADY CICELY (magnanimously). Well, then, I won't either. There! They
shake hands on it. Sir Howard comes in.
SIR HOWARD. Good morning Mr. Rankin. I hope you got home safely from the
yacht last night.
RANKIN. Quite safe, thank ye, Sir Howrrd.
LADY CICELY. Howard, he's in a hurry. Don't make him stop to talk.
SIR HOWARD. Very good, very good. (He comes to the table and takes Lady
Cicely's chair.)
RANKIN. Oo revoir, Leddy Ceecily.
LADY CICELY. Bless you, Mr. Rankin. (Rankin goes out. She comes to
the other end of the table, looking at Sir Howard with a troubled,
sorrowfully sympathetic air, but unconsciously making her right hand
stalk about the table on the tips of its fingers in a tentative stealthy
way which would put Sir Howard on his guard if he were in a suspicious
frame of mind, which, as it happens, he is not.) I'm so sorry for you,
Howard, about this unfortunate inquiry.
SIR HOWARD (swinging round on his chair, astonished). Sorry for ME! Why?
LADY CICELY. It will look so dreadful. Your own nephew, you know.
SIR HOWARD. Cicely: an English judge has no nephews, no sons even, when
he has to carry out the law.
LADY CICELY. But then he oughtn't to have any property either. People
will never understand about the West Indian Estate. They'll think you're
the wicked uncle out of the Babes in the Wood. (With a fresh gush of
compassion) I'm so SO sorry for you.
SIR HOWARD (rather stiffly). I really do not see how I need your
commiseration, Cicely. The woman was an impossible person, half mad,
half drunk. Do you understand what such a creature is when she has a
grievance, and imagines some innocent person to be the author of it?
LADY CICELY (with a touch of impatience). Oh, quite. THAT'll be made
clear enough. I can see it all in the papers already: our half mad,
half drunk sister-in-law, making scenes with you in the street, with the
police called in, and prison and all the rest of it. The family will
be furious. (Sir Howard quails. She instantly follows up her advantage
with) Think of papa!
SIR HOWARD. I shall expect Lord Waynflete to look at the matter as a
reasonable man.
LADY CICELY. Do you think he's so greatly changed as that, Howard?
SIR HOWARD (falling back on the fatalism of the depersonalized public
man). My dear Cicely: there is no use discussing the matter. It cannot
be helped, however disagreeable it may be.
LADY CICELY. Of course not. That's what's so dreadful. Do you think
people will understand?
SIR HOWARD. I really cannot say. Whether they do or not, I cannot help
it.
LADY CICELY. If you were anybody but a judge, it wouldn't matter so
much. But a judge mustn't even be misunderstood. (Despairingly) Oh, it's
dreadful, Howard: it's terrible! What would poor Mary say if she were
alive now?
SIR HOWARD (with emotion). I don't think, Cicely, that my dear wife
would misunderstand me.
LADY CICELY. No: SHE'D know you mean well. And when you came home and
said, "Mary: I've just told all the world that your sister-in-law was a
police court criminal, and that I sent her to prison; and your nephew is
a brigand, and I'm sending HIM to prison." she'd have thought it must be
all right because you did it. But you don't think she would have LIKED
it, any more than papa and the rest of us, do you?
SIR HOWARD (appalled). But what am I to do? Do you ask me to compound a
felony?
LADY CICELY (sternly). Certainly not. I would not allow such a thing,
even if you were wicked enough to attempt it. No. What I say is, that
you ought not to tell the story yourself
SIR HOWARD. Why?
LADY CICELY. Because everybody would say you are such a clever lawyer
you could make a poor simple sailor like Captain Kearney believe
anything. The proper thing for you to do, Howard, is to let ME tell the
exact truth. Then you can simply say that you are bound to confirm me.
Nobody can blame you for that.
SIR HOWARD (looking suspiciously at her). Cicely: you are up to some
devilment.
LADY CICELY (promptly washing her hands of his interests). Oh, very
well. Tell the story yourself, in your own clever way. I only proposed
to tell the exact truth. You call that devilment. So it is, I daresay,
from a lawyer's point of view.
SIR HOWARD. I hope you're not offended.
LADY CICELY (with the utmost goodhumor). My dear Howard, not a bit. Of
course you're right: you know how these things ought to be done. I'll do
exactly what you tell me, and confirm everything you say.
SIR HOWARD (alarmed by the completeness of his victory). Oh, my dear,
you mustn't act in MY interest. You must give your evidence with
absolute impartiality. (She nods, as if thoroughly impressed and
reproved, and gazes at him with the steadfast candor peculiar to liars
who read novels. His eyes turn to the ground; and his brow clouds
perplexedly. He rises; rubs his chin nervously with his forefinger; and
adds) I think, perhaps, on reflection, that there is something to be
said for your proposal to relieve me of the very painful duty of telling
what has occurred.
LADI CICELY (holding off). But you'd do it so very much better.
SIR HOWARD. For that very reason, perhaps, it had better come from you.
LADY CICELY (reluctantly). Well, if you'd rather.
SIR HOWARD. But mind, Cicely, the exact truth.
LADY CICELY (with conviction). The exact truth. (They shake hands on
it.)
SIR HOWARD (holding her hand). Fiat justitia: ruat coelum!
LADY CICELY. Let Justice be done, though the ceiling fall.
An American bluejacket appears at the door.
BLUEJACKET. Captain Kearney's cawmpliments to Lady Waynflete; and may he
come in?
LADY CICELY. Yes. By all means. Where are the prisoners?
BLUEJACKET. Party gawn to the jail to fetch em, marm.
LADY CICELY. Thank you. I should like to be told when they are coming,
if I might.
BLUEJACKET. You shall so, marm. (He stands aside, saluting, to admit his
captain, and goes out.)
Captain Hamlin Kearney is a robustly built western American, with the
keen, squeezed, wind beaten eyes and obstinately enduring mouth of his
profession. A curious ethnological specimen, with all the nations of
the old world at war in his veins, he is developing artificially in
the direction of sleekness and culture under the restraints of an
overwhelming dread of European criticism, and climatically in the
direction of the indiginous North American, who is already in possession
of his hair, his cheekbones, and the manlier instincts in him, which
the sea has rescued from civilization. The world, pondering on the great
part of its own future which is in his hands, contemplates him with
wonder as to what the devil he will evolve into in another century or
two. Meanwhile he presents himself to Lady Cicely as a blunt sailor who
has something to say to her concerning her conduct which he wishes to
put politely, as becomes an officer addressing a lady, but also with an
emphatically implied rebuke, as an American addressing an English person
who has taken a liberty.
LADY CICELY (as he enters). So glad you've come, Captain Kearney.
KEARNEY (coming between Sir Howard and Lady Cicely). When we parted
yesterday ahfternoon, Lady Waynflete, I was unaware that in the
course of your visit to my ship you had entirely altered the sleeping
arrangements of my stokers. I thahnk you. As captain of the ship, I
am customairily cawnsulted before the orders of English visitors are
carried out; but as your alterations appear to cawndooce to the comfort
of the men, I have not interfered with them.
LADY CICELY. How clever of you to find out! I believe you know every
bolt in that ship.
Kearney softens perceptibly.
SIR HOWARD. I am really very sorry that my sister-in-law has taken so
serious a liberty, Captain Kearney. It is a mania of hers--simply a
mania. Why did your men pay any attention to her?
KEARNEY (with gravely dissembled humor). Well, I ahsked that question
too. I said, Why did you obey that lady's orders instead of waiting for
mine? They said they didn't see exactly how they could refuse. I ahsked
whether they cawnsidered that discipline. They said, Well, sir, will you
talk to the lady yourself next time?
LADY CICELY. I'm so sorry. But you know, Captain, the one thing that one
misses on board a man-of-war is a woman.
KEARNEY. We often feel that deprivation verry keenly, Lady Waynflete.
LADY CICELY. My uncle is first Lord of the Admiralty; and I am always
telling him what a scandal it is that an English captain should be
forbidden to take his wife on board to look after the ship.
KEARNEY. Stranger still, Lady Waynflete, he is not forbidden to take any
other lady. Yours is an extraordinairy country--to an Amerrican.
LADY CICELY. But it's most serious, Captain. The poor men go melancholy
mad, and ram each other's ships and do all sorts of things.
SIR HOWARD. Cicely: I beg you will not talk nonsense to Captain Kearney.
Your ideas on some subjects are really hardly decorous.
LADY CICELY (to Kearney). That's what English people are like, Captain
Kearney. They won't hear of anything concerning you poor sailors except
Nelson and Trafalgar. YOU understand me, don't you?
KEARNEY (gallantly). I cawnsider that you have more sense in your
wedding ring finger than the British Ahdmiralty has in its whole
cawnstitootion, Lady Waynflete.
LADY CICELY. Of course I have. Sailors always understand things.
The bluejacket reappears.
BLUEJACKET (to Lady Cicely). Prisoners coming up the hill, marm.
KEARNEY (turning sharply on him). Who sent you in to say that?
BLUEJACKET (calmly). British lady's orders, sir. (He goes out,
unruffled, leaving Kearney dumbfounded.)
SIR HOWARD (contemplating Kearney's expression with dismay). I am really
very sorry, Captain Kearney. I am quite aware that Lady Cicely has no
right whatever to give orders to your men.
LADY CICELY. I didn't give orders: I just asked him. He has such a nice
face! Don't you think so, Captain Kearney? (He gasps, speechless.) And
now will you excuse me a moment. I want to speak to somebody before the
inquiry begins. (She hurries out.)
KEARNEY. There is sertnly a wonderful chahrn about the British
aristocracy, Sir Howard Hallam. Are they all like that? (He takes the
presidential chair.)
SIR HOWARD (resuming his seat on Kearney's right). Fortunately not,
Captain Kearney. Half a dozen such women would make an end of law in
England in six months.
The bluejacket comes to the door again.
BLUEJACKET. All ready, sir.
KEARNEY. Verry good. I'm waiting.
The bluejacket turns and intimates this to those without.
The officers of the Santiago enter.
SIR HOWARD (rising and bobbing to them in a judicial manner). Good
morning, gentlemen.
They acknowledge the greeting rather shyly, bowing or touching their
caps, and stand in a group behind Kearney.
KEARNEY (to Sir Howard). You will be glahd to hear that I have a verry
good account of one of our prisoners from our chahplain, who visited
them in the gaol. He has expressed a wish to be cawnverted to
Episcopalianism.
SIR HOWARD (drily). Yes, I think I know him.
KEARNEY. Bring in the prisoners.
BLUEJACKET (at the door). They are engaged with the British lady, sir.
Shall I ask her--
KEARNEY (jumping up and exploding in storm piercing tones). Bring in the
prisoners. Tell the lady those are my orders. Do you hear? Tell her so.
(The bluejacket goes out dubiously. The officers look at one another in
mute comment on the unaccountable pepperiness of their commander.)
SIR HOWARD (suavely). Mr. Rankin will be present, I presume.
KEARNEY (angrily). Rahnkin! Who is Rahnkin?
SIR HOWARD. Our host the missionary.
KEARNEY (subsiding unwillingly). Oh! Rahnkin, is he? He'd better look
sharp or he'll be late. (Again exploding.) What are they doing with
those prisoners?
Rankin hurries in, and takes his place near Sir Howard.
SIR HOWARD. This is Mr. Rankin, Captain Kearney.
RANKIN. Excuse my delay, Captain Kearney. The leddy sent me on an
errand. (Kearney grunts.) I thought I should be late. But the first
thing I heard when I arrived was your officer giving your compliments to
Leddy Ceecily, and would she kindly allow the prisoners to come in, as
you were anxious to see her again. Then I knew I was in time.
KEARNEY. Oh, that was it, was it? May I ask, sir, did you notice any
sign on Lady Waynflete's part of cawmplying with that verry moderate
request?
LADY CICELY (outside). Coming, coming.
The prisoners are brought in by a guard of armed bluejackets.
Drinkwater first, again elaborately clean, and conveying by a virtuous
and steadfast smirk a cheerful confidence in his innocence. Johnson
solid and inexpressive, Redbrook unconcerned and debonair, Marzo uneasy.
These four form a little group together on the captain's left. The rest
wait unintelligently on Providence in a row against the wall on the
same side, shepherded by the bluejackets. The first bluejacket, a petty
officer, posts himself on the captain's right, behind Rankin and Sir
Howard. Finally Brassbound appears with Lady Cicely on his arm. He is
in fashionable frock coat and trousers, spotless collar and cuffs,
and elegant boots. He carries a glossy tall hat in his hand. To an
unsophisticated eye, the change is monstrous and appalling; and its
effect on himself is so unmanning that he is quite out of countenance--a
shaven Samson. Lady Cicely, however, is greatly pleased with it; and the
rest regard it as an unquestionable improvement. The officers fall back
gallantly to allow her to pass. Kearney rises to receive her, and stares
with some surprise at Brassbound as he stops at the table on his left.
Sir Howard rises punctiliously when Kearney rises and sits when he sits.
KEARNEY. Is this another gentleman of your party, Lady Waynflete? I
presume I met you lahst night, sir, on board the yacht.
BRASSBOUND. No. I am your prisoner. My name is Brassbound.
DRINKWATER (officiously). Kepn Brarsbahnd, of the schooner Thenksgiv--
REDBROOK (hastily). Shut up, you fool. (He elbows Drinkwater into the
background.)
KEARNEY (surprised and rather suspicious). Well, I hardly understahnd
this. However, if you are Captain Brassbound, you can take your place
with the rest. (Brassbound joins Redbrook and Johnson. Kearney sits down
again, after inviting Lady Cicely, with a solemn gesture, to take the
vacant chair.) Now let me see. You are a man of experience in these
matters, Sir Howard Hallam. If you had to conduct this business, how
would you start?
LADY CICELY. He'd call on the counsel for the prosecution, wouldn't you,
Howard?
SIR HOWARD. But there is no counsel for the prosecution, Cicely.
LADY CICELY. Oh yes there is. I'm counsel for the prosecution. You
mustn't let Sir Howard make a speech, Captain Kearney: his doctors have
positively forbidden anything of that sort. Will you begin with me?
KEARNEY. By your leave, Lady Waynfiete, I think I will just begin with
myself. Sailor fashion will do as well here as lawyer fashion.
LADY CICELY. Ever so much better, dear Captain Kearney. (Silence.
Kearney composes himself to speak. She breaks out again). You look so
nice as a judge!
A general smile. Drinkwater splutters into a half suppressed laugh.
REDBROOK (in a fierce whisper). Shut up, you fool, will you? (Again he
pushes him back with a furtive kick.)
SIR HOWARD (remonstrating). Cicely!
KEARNEY (grimly keeping his countenance). Your ladyship's cawmpliments
will be in order at a later stage. Captain Brassbound: the position
is this. My ship, the United States cruiser Santiago, was spoken off
Mogador latest Thursday by the yacht Redgauntlet. The owner of the
aforesaid yacht, who is not present through having sprained his ankle,
gave me sertn information. In cawnsequence of that information the
Santiago made the twenty knots to Mogador Harbor inside of fifty-seven
minutes. Before noon next day a messenger of mine gave the Cadi of the
district sertn information. In cawnsequence of that information the Cadi
stimulated himself to some ten knots an hour, and lodged you and your
men in Mogador jail at my disposal. The Cadi then went back to his
mountain fahstnesses; so we shall not have the pleasure of his company
here to-day. Do you follow me so far?
BRASSBOUND. Yes. I know what you did and what the Cadi did. The point
is, why did you do it?
KEARNEY. With doo patience we shall come to that presently. Mr. Rahnkin:
will you kindly take up the parable?
RANKIN. On the very day that Sir Howrrd and Lady Cicely started on their
excursion I was applied to for medicine by a follower of the Sheikh Sidi
el Assif. He told me I should never see Sir Howrrd again, because his
master knew he was a Christian and would take him out of the hands of
Captain Brassbound. I hurried on board the yacht and told the owner to
scour the coast for a gunboat or cruiser to come into the harbor and
put persuasion on the authorities. (Sir Howard turns and looks at Rankin
with a sudden doubt of his integrity as a witness.)
KEARNEY. But I understood from our chahplain that you reported Captain
Brassbound as in league with the Sheikh to deliver Sir Howard up to him.
RANKIN. That was my first hasty conclusion, Captain Kearney. But it
appears that the compact between them was that Captain Brassbound should
escort travellers under the Sheikh's protection at a certain payment
per head, provided none of them were Christians. As I understand it, he
tried to smuggle Sir Howrrd through under this compact, and the Sheikh
found him out.
DRINKWATER. Rawt, gavner. Thet's jest ah it wors. The Kepn--
REDBROOK (again suppressing him). Shut up, you fool, I tell you.
SIR HOWARD (to Rankin). May I ask have you had any conversation with
Lady Cicely on this subject?
RANKIN (naively). Yes. (Sir Howard qrunts emphatically, as who should
say "I thought so." Rankin continues, addressing the court) May I say
how sorry I am that there are so few chairs, Captain and gentlemen.
KEARNEY (with genial American courtesy). Oh, THAT's all right, Mr.
Rahnkin. Well, I see no harm so far: it's human fawlly, but not human
crime. Now the counsel for the prosecution can proceed to prosecute. The
floor is yours, Lady Waynflete.
LADY CICELY (rising). I can only tell you the exact truth--
DRINKWATER (involuntarily). Naow, down't do thet, lidy--
REDBROOK (as before). SHUT up, you fool, will you?
LADY CICELY. We had a most delightful trip in the hills; and Captain
Brassbound's men could not have been nicer--I must say that for
them--until we saw a tribe of Arabs--such nice looking men!--and then
the poor things were frightened.
KEARNEY. The Arabs?
LADY CICELY. No: Arabs are never frightened. The escort, of course:
escorts are always frightened. I wanted to speak to the Arab chief; but
Captain Brassbound cruelly shot his horse; and the chief shot the Count;
and then--
KEARNEY. The Count! What Count?
LADY CICELY. Marzo. That's Marzo (pointing to Marzo, who grins and
touches his forehead).
KEARNEY (slightly overwhelmed by the unexpected profusion of incident
and character in her story). Well, what happened then?
LADY CICELY. Then the escort ran away--all escorts do--and dragged me
into the castle, which you really ought to make them clean and whitewash
thoroughly, Captain Kearney. Then Captain Brassbound and Sir Howard
turned out to be related to one another (sensation); and then of course,
there was a quarrel. The Hallams always quarrel.
SIR HOWARD (rising to protest). Cicely! Captain Kearney: this man told
me--
LADY CICELY (swiftly interrupting him). You mustn't say what people told
you: it's not evidence. (Sir Howard chokes with indignation.)
KEARNEY (calmly). Allow the lady to proceed, Sir Howard Hallam.
SIR HOWARD (recovering his self-control with a gulp, and resuming his
seat). I beg your pardon, Captain Kearney.
LADY CICELY. Then Sidi came.
KEARNEY. Sidney! Who was Sidney?
LADY CICELY. No, Sidi. The Sheikh. Sidi el Assif. A noble creature, with
such a fine face! He fell in love with me at first sight--
SIR HOWARD (remonstrating). Cicely!
LADY CICELY. He did: you know he did. You told me to tell the exact
truth.
KEARNEY. I can readily believe it, madam. Proceed.
LADY CICELY. Well, that put the poor fellow into a most cruel dilemma.
You see, he could claim to carry off Sir Howard, because Sir Howard is a
Christian. But as I am only a woman, he had no claim to me.
KEARNEY (somewhat sternly, suspecting Lady Cicely of aristocratic
atheism). But you are a Christian woman.
LADY CICELY. No: the Arabs don't count women. They don't believe we have
any souls.
RANKIN. That is true, Captain: the poor benighted creatures!
LADY CICELY. Well, what was he to do? He wasn't in love with Sir Howard;
and he WAS in love with me. So he naturally offered to swop Sir Howard
for me. Don't you think that was nice of him, Captain Kearney?
KEARNEY. I should have done the same myself, Lady Waynflete. Proceed.
LADY CICELY. Captain Brassbound, I must say, was nobleness itself, in
spite of the quarrel between himself and Sir Howard. He refused to give
up either of us, and was on the point of fighting for us when in came
the Cadi with your most amusing and delightful letter, captain, and
bundled us all back to Mogador after calling my poor Sidi the most
dreadful names, and putting all the blame on Captain Brassbound. So here
we are. Now, Howard, isn't that the exact truth, every word of it?
SIR HOWARD. It is the truth, Cicely, and nothing but the truth. But the
English law requires a witness to tell the WHOLE truth.
LADY CICELY. What nonsense! As if anybody ever knew the whole truth
about anything! (Sitting down, much hurt and discouraged.) I'm sorry you
wish Captain Kearney to understand that I am an untruthful witness.
SIR HOWARD. No: but--
LADY CICELY. Very well, then: please don't say things that convey that
impression.
KEARNEY. But Sir Howard told me yesterday that Captain Brassbound
threatened to sell him into slavery.
LADY CICELY (springing up again). Did Sir Howard tell you the things he
said about Captain Brassbound's mother? (Renewed sensation.) I told you
they quarrelled, Captain Kearney. I said so, didn't I?
REDBROOK (crisply). Distinctly. (Drinkwater opens his mouth to
corroborate.) Shut up, you fool.
LADY CICELY. Of course I did. Now, Captain Kearney, do YOU want me--does
Sir Howard want me--does ANYBODY want me to go into the details of
that shocking family quarrel? Am I to stand here in the absence of any
individual of my own sex and repeat the language of two angry men?
KEARNEY (rising impressively). The United States navy will have no
hahnd in offering any violence to the pure instincts of womanhood. Lady
Waynflete: I thahnk you for the delicacy with which you have given
your evidence. (Lady Cicely beams on him gratefully and sits down
triumphant.) Captain Brassbound: I shall not hold you respawnsible
for what you may have said when the English bench addressed you in the
language of the English forecastle-- (Sir Howard is about to protest.)
No, Sir Howard Hallam: excuse ME. In moments of pahssion I have called
a man that myself. We are glahd to find real flesh and blood beneath the
ermine of the judge. We will all now drop a subject that should never
have been broached in a lady's presence. (He resumes his seat, and adds,
in a businesslike tone) Is there anything further before we release
these men?
BLUEJACKET. There are some dawcuments handed over by the Cadi, sir. He
reckoned they were sort of magic spells. The chahplain ordered them to
be reported to you and burnt, with your leave, sir.
KEARNEY. What are they?
BLUEJACKET (reading from a list). Four books, torn and dirty, made up of
separate numbers, value each wawn penny, and entitled Sweeny Todd, the
Demon Barber of London; The Skeleton Horseman--
DRINKWATER (rushing forward in painful alarm, and anxiety). It's maw
lawbrary, gavner. Down't burn em.
KEARNEY. You'll be better without that sort of reading, my man.
DRINKWATER (in intense distress, appealing to Lady Cicely) Down't let
em burn em, Lidy. They dasn't if you horder them not to. (With desperate
eloquence) Yer dunno wot them books is to me. They took me aht of the
sawdid reeyellities of the Worterleoo Rowd. They formed maw mawnd: they
shaowed me sathink awgher than the squalor of a corster's lawf--
REDBROOK (collaring him). Oh shut up, you fool. Get out. Hold your ton--
DRINKWATER (frantically breaking from him). Lidy, lidy: sy a word for
me. Ev a feelin awt. (His tears choke him: he clasps his hands in dumb
entreaty.)
LADY CICELY (touched). Don't burn his books. Captain. Let me give them
back to him.
KEARNEY. The books will be handed over to the lady.
DRINKWATER (in a small voice). Thenkyer, Lidy. (He retires among his
comrades, snivelling subduedly.)
REDBROOK (aside to him as he passes). You silly ass, you. (Drinkwater
sniffs and does not reply.)
KEARNEY. I suppose you and your men accept this lady's account of what
passed, Captain Brassbound.
BRASSBOUND (gloomily). Yes. It is true--as far as it goes.
KEARNEY (impatiently). Do you wawnt it to go any further?
MARZO. She leave out something. Arab shoot me. She nurse me. She cure
me.
KEARNEY. And who are you, pray?
MARZO (seized with a sanctimonious desire to demonstrate his higher
nature). Only dam thief. Dam liar. Dam rascal. She no lady.
JOHNSON (revolted by the seeming insult to the English peerage from a
low Italian). What? What's that you say?
MARZO. No lady nurse dam rascal. Only saint. She saint. She get me to
heaven--get us all to heaven. We do what we like now.
LADY CICELY. Indeed you will do nothing of the sort Marzo, unless you
like to behave yourself very nicely indeed. What hour did you say we
were to lunch at, Captain Kearney?
KEARNEY. You recall me to my dooty, Lady Waynflete. My barge will be
ready to take off you and Sir Howard to the Santiago at one o'clawk. (He
rises.) Captain Brassbound: this innquery has elicited no reason why I
should detain you or your men. I advise you to ahct as escort in future
to heathens exclusively. Mr. Rahnkin: I thahnk you in the name of the
United States for the hospitahlity you have extended to us today; and
I invite you to accompany me bahck to my ship with a view to lunch at
half-past one. Gentlemen: we will wait on the governor of the gaol on
our way to the harbor (He goes out, following his officers, and followed
by the bluejackets and the petty officer.)
SIR HOWARD (to Lady Cicely). Cicely: in the course of my professional
career I have met with unscrupulous witnesses, and, I am sorry to say,
unscrupulous counsel also. But the combination of unscrupulous witness
and unscrupulous counsel I have met to-day has taken away my breath You
have made me your accomplice in defeating justice.
LADY CICELY. Yes: aren't you glad it's been defeated for once? (She
takes his arm to go out with him.) Captain Brassbound: I will come back
to say goodbye before I go. (He nods gloomily. She goes out with Sir
Howard, following the Captain and his staff.)
RANKIN (running to Brassbound and taking both his hands). I'm right glad
ye're cleared. I'll come back and have a crack with ye when yon lunch is
over. God bless ye. (Hs goes out quickly.)
Brassbound and his men, left by themselves in the room, free and
unobserved, go straight out of their senses. They laugh; they dance;
they embrace one another; they set to partners and waltz clumsily; they
shake hands repeatedly and maudlinly. Three only retain some sort of
self-possession. Marzo, proud of having successfully thrust himself into
a leading part in the recent proceedings and made a dramatic speech,
inflates his chest, curls his scanty moustache, and throws himself
into a swaggering pose, chin up and right foot forward, despising the
emotional English barbarians around him. Brassbound's eyes and
the working of his mouth show that he is infected with the general
excitement; but he bridles himself savagely. Redbrook, trained to affect
indifference, grins cynically; winks at Brassbound; and finally relieves
himself by assuming the character of a circus ringmaster, flourishing an
imaginary whip and egging on the rest to wilder exertions. A climax is
reached when Drinkwater, let loose without a stain on his character for
the second time, is rapt by belief in his star into an ecstasy in which,
scorning all partnership, he becomes as it were a whirling dervish,
and executes so miraculous a clog dance that the others gradually cease
their slower antics to stare at him.
BRASSBOUND (tearing off his hat and striding forward as Drinkwater
collapses, exhausted, and is picked up by Redbrook). Now to get rid of
this respectable clobber and feel like a man again. Stand by, all hands,
to jump on the captain's tall hat. (He puts the hat down and prepares to
jump on it. The effect is startling, and takes him completely aback.
His followers, far from appreciating his iconoclasm, are shocked into
scandalized sobriety, except Redbrook, who is immensely tickled by their
prudery.)
DRINKWATER. Naow, look eah, kepn: that ynt rawt. Dror a lawn somewhere.
JOHNSON. I say nothin agen a bit of fun, Capn, but let's be gentlemen.
REDBROOK. I suggest to you, Brassbound, that the clobber belongs to Lady
Sis. Ain't you going to give it back to her?
BRASSBOUND (picking up the hat and brushing the dust off it anxiously).
That's true. I'm a fool. All the same, she shall not see me again like
this. (He pulls off the coat and waistcoat together.) Does any man here
know how to fold up this sort of thing properly?
REDBROOK. Allow me, governor. (He takes the coat and waistcoat to the
table, and folds them up.)
BRASSBOUND (loosening his collar and the front of his shirt).
Brandyfaced Jack: you're looking at these studs. I know what's in your
mind.
DRINKWATER (indignantly). Naow yer down't: nort a bit on it. Wot's in
maw mawnd is secrifawce, seolf-secrifawce.
BRASSBOUND. If one brass pin of that lady's property is missing, I'll
hang you with my own hands at the gaff of the Thanksgiving--and would,
if she were lying under the guns of all the fleets in Europe. (He pulls
off the shirt and stands in his blue jersey, with his hair ruffled. He
passes his hand through it and exclaims) Now I am half a man, at any
rate.
REDBROOK. A horrible combination, governor: churchwarden from the waist
down, and the rest pirate. Lady Sis won't speak to you in it.
BRASSBOUND. I'll change altogether. (He leaves the room to get his own
trousers.)
REDBROOK (softly). Look here, Johnson, and gents generally. (They gather
about him.) Spose she takes him back to England!
MARZO (trying to repeat his success). Im! Im only dam pirate. She saint,
I tell you--no take any man nowhere.
JOHNSON (severely). Don't you be a ignorant and immoral foreigner. (The
rebuke is well received; and Marzo is hustled into the background and
extinguished.) She won't take him for harm; but she might take him for
good. And then where should we be?
DRINKWATER. Brarsbahnd ynt the ownly kepn in the world. Wot mikes a kepn
is brines an knollidge o lawf. It ynt thet ther's naow sitch pusson:
it's thet you dunno where to look fr im. (The implication that he is
such a person is so intolerable that they receive it with a prolonged
burst of booing.)
BRASSBOUND (returning in his own clothes, getting into his jacket as
he comes). Stand by, all. (They start asunder guiltily, and wait for
orders.) Redbrook: you pack that clobber in the lady's portmanteau, and
put it aboard the yacht for her. Johnson: you take all hands aboard the
Thanksgiving; look through the stores: weigh anchor; and make all ready
for sea. Then send Jack to wait for me at the slip with a boat; and give
me a gunfire for a signal. Lose no time.
JOHNSON. Ay, ay, air. All aboard, mates.
ALL. Ay, ay. (They rush out tumultuously.)
When they are gone, Brassbound sits down at the end of the table, with
his elbows on it and his head on his fists, gloomily thinking. Then he
takes from the breast pocket of his jacket a leather case, from which he
extracts a scrappy packet of dirty letters and newspaper cuttings. These
he throws on the table. Next comes a photograph in a cheap frame. He
throws it down untenderly beside the papers; then folds his arms, and
is looking at it with grim distaste when Lady Cicely enters. His back
is towards her; and he does not hear her. Perceiving this, she shuts the
door loudly enough to attract his attention. He starts up.
LADY CICELY (coming to the opposite end of the table). So you've taken
off all my beautiful clothes!
BRASSBOUND. Your brother's, you mean. A man should wear his own clothes;
and a man should tell his own lies. I'm sorry you had to tell mine for
me to-day.
LADY CICELY. Oh, women spend half their lives telling little lies for
men, and sometimes big ones. We're used to it. But mind! I don't admit
that I told any to-day.
BRASSBOUND. How did you square my uncle?
LADY CICELY. I don't understand the expression.
BRASSBOUND. I mean--
LADY CICELY. I'm afraid we haven't time to go into what you mean before
lunch. I want to speak to you about your future. May I?
BRASSBOUND (darkening a little, but politely). Sit down. (She sits down.
So does he.)
LADY CICELY. What are your plans?
BRASSBOUND. I have no plans. You will hear a gun fired in the harbor
presently. That will mean that the Thanksgiving's anchor's weighed and
that she is waiting for her captain to put out to sea. And her captain
doesn't know now whether to turn her head north or south.
LADY CICELY. Why not north for England?
BRASSBOUND. Why not south for the Pole?
LADY CICELY. But you must do something with yourself.
BRASSBOUND (settling himself with his fists and elbows weightily on the
table and looking straight and powerfully at her). Look you: when you
and I first met, I was a man with a purpose. I stood alone: I saddled
no friend, woman or man, with that purpose, because it was against law,
against religion, against my own credit and safety. But I believed in
it; and I stood alone for it, as a man should stand for his belief,
against law and religion as much as against wickedness and selfishness.
Whatever I may be, I am none of your fairweather sailors that'll do
nothing for their creed but go to Heaven for it. I was ready to go to
hell for mine. Perhaps you don't understand that.
LADY CICELY. Oh bless you, yes. It's so very like a certain sort of man.
BRASSBOUND. I daresay but I've not met many of that sort. Anyhow,
that was what I was like. I don't say I was happy in it; but I wasn't
unhappy, because I wasn't drifting. I was steering a course and had work
in hand. Give a man health and a course to steer; and he'll never stop
to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
LADY CICELY. Sometimes he won't even stop to trouble about whether other
people are happy or not.
BRASSBOUND. I don't deny that: nothing makes a man so selfish as work.
But I was not self-seeking: it seemed to me that I had put justice above
self. I tell you life meant something to me then. Do you see that dirty
little bundle of scraps of paper?
LADY CICELY. What are they?
BRASSBOUND. Accounts cut out of newspapers. Speeches made by my uncle
at charitable dinners, or sentencing men to death--pious, highminded
speeches by a man who was to me a thief and a murderer! To my mind they
were more weighty, more momentous, better revelations of the wickedness
of law and respectability than the book of the prophet Amos. What are
they now? (He quietly tears the newspaper cuttings into little fragments
and throws them away, looking fixedly at her meanwhile.)
LADY CICELY. Well, that's a comfort, at all events.
BRASSBOUND. Yes; but it's a part of my life gone: YOUR doing, remember.
What have I left? See here! (He take up the letters) the letters
my uncle wrote to my mother, with her comments on their cold drawn
insolence, their treachery and cruelty. And the piteous letters she
wrote to him later on, returned unopened. Must they go too?
LADY CICELY (uneasily). I can't ask you to destroy your mother's
letters.
BRASSBOUND. Why not, now that you have taken the meaning out of them?
(He tears them.) Is that a comfort too?
LADY CICELY. It's a little sad; but perhaps it is best so.
BRASSBOUND. That leaves one relic: her portrait. (He plucks the
photograph out of its cheap case.)
LADY CICELY (with vivid curiosity). Oh, let me see. (He hands it to
her. Before she can control herself, her expression changes to one of
unmistakable disappointment and repulsion.)
BRASSBOUND (with a single sardonic cachinnation). Ha! You expected
something better than that. Well, you're right. Her face does not look
well opposite yours.
LADY CICELY (distressed). I said nothing.
BRASSBOUND. What could you say? (He takes back the portrait: she
relinquishes it without a word. He looks at it; shakes his head; and
takes it quietly between his finger and thumb to tear it.)
LADY CICELY (staying his hand). Oh, not your mother's picture!
BRASSBOUND. If that were your picture, would you like your son to keep
it for younger and better women to see?
LADY CICELY (releasing his hand). Oh, you are dreadful! Tear it, tear
it. (She covers her eyes for a moment to shut out the sight.)
BRASSBOUND (tearing it quietly). You killed her for me that day in the
castle; and I am better without her. (He throws away the fragments.) Now
everything is gone. You have taken the old meaning out of my life; but
you have put no new meaning into it. I can see that you have some clue
to the world that makes all its difficulties easy for you; but I'm not
clever enough to seize it. You've lamed me by showing me that I take
life the wrong way when I'm left to myself.
LADY CICELY. Oh no. Why do you say that?
BRASSBOUND. What else can I say? See what I've done! My uncle is no
worse a man than myself--better, most likely; for he has a better head
and a higher place. Well, I took him for a villain out of a storybook.
My mother would have opened anybody else's eyes: she shut mine. I'm
a stupider man than Brandyfaced Jack even; for he got his romantic
nonsense out of his penny numbers and such like trash; but I got just
the same nonsense out of life and experience. (Shaking his head) It was
vulgar--VULGAR. I see that now; for you've opened my eyes to the past;
but what good is that for the future? What am I to do? Where am I to go?
LADY CICELY. It's quite simple. Do whatever you like. That's what I
always do.
BRASSBOUND. That answer is no good to me. What I like is to have
something to do; and I have nothing. You might as well talk like the
missionary and tell me to do my duty.
LADY CICELY (quickly). Oh no thank you. I've had quite enough of your
duty, and Howard's duty. Where would you both be now if I'd let you do
it?
BRASSBOUND. We'd have been somewhere, at all events. It seems to me that
now I am nowhere.
LADY CICELY. But aren't you coming back to England with us?
BRASSBOUND. What for?
LADY CICELY. Why, to make the most of your opportunities.
BRASSBOUND. What opportunities?
LADY CICELY. Don't you understand that when you are the nephew of a
great bigwig, and have influential connexions, and good friends among
them, lots of things can be done for you that are never done for
ordinary ship captains?
BRASSBOUND. Ah; but I'm not an aristocrat, you see. And like most poor
men, I'm proud. I don't like being patronized.
LADY CICELY. What is the use of saying that? In my world, which is now
your world--OUR world--getting patronage is the whole art of life. A man
can't have a career without it.
BRASSBOUND. In my world a man can navigate a ship and get his living by
it.
LADY CICELY. Oh, I see you're one of the Idealists--the Impossibilists!
We have them, too, occasionally, in our world. There's only one thing to
be done with them.
BRASSBOUND. What's that?
LADY CICELY. Marry them straight off to some girl with enough money for
them, and plenty of sentiment. That's their fate.
BRASSBOUND. You've spoiled even that chance for me. Do you think I could
look at any ordinary woman after you? You seem to be able to make me
do pretty well what you like; but you can't make me marry anybody but
yourself.
LADY CICELY. Do you know, Captain Paquito, that I've married no less
than seventeen men (Brassbound stares) to other women. And they all
opened the subject by saying that they would never marry anybody but me.
BRASSBOUND. Then I shall be the first man you ever found to stand to his
word.
LADY CICELY (part pleased, part amused, part sympathetic). Do you really
want a wife?
BRASSBOUND. I want a commander. Don't undervalue me: I am a good man
when I have a good leader. I have courage: I have determination: I'm not
a drinker: I can command a schooner and a shore party if I can't command
a ship or an army. When work is put upon me, I turn neither to save my
life nor to fill my pocket. Gordon trusted me; and he never regretted
it. If you trust me, you shan't regret it. All the same, there's
something wanting in me: I suppose I'm stupid.
LADY CICELY. Oh, you're not stupid.
BRASSBOUND. Yes I am. Since you saw me for the first time in that
garden, you've heard me say nothing clever. And I've heard you say
nothing that didn't make me laugh, or make me feel friendly, as well
as telling me what to think and what to do. That's what I mean by real
cleverness. Well, I haven't got it. I can give an order when I know what
order to give. I can make men obey it, willing or unwilling. But I'm
stupid, I tell you: stupid. When there's no Gordon to command me, I
can't think of what to do. Left to myself, I've become half a brigand.
I can kick that little gutterscrub Drinkwater; but I find myself doing
what he puts into my head because I can't think of anything else. When
you came, I took your orders as naturally as I took Gordon's, though
I little thought my next commander would be a woman. I want to take
service under you. And there's no way in which that can be done except
marrying you. Will you let me do it?
LADY CICELY. I'm afraid you don't quite know how odd a match it would be
for me according to the ideas of English society.
BRASSBOUND. I care nothing about English society: let it mind its own
business.
LADY CICELY (rising, a little alarmed). Captain Paquito: I am not in
love with you.
BRASSBOUND (also rising, with his gaze still steadfastly on her). I
didn't suppose you were: the commander is not usually in love with his
subordinate.
LADY CICELY. Nor the subordinate with the commander.
BRASSBOUND (assenting firmly). Nor the subordinate with the commander.
LADY CICELY (learning for the first time in her life what terror is,
as she finds that he is unconsciously mesmerizing her). Oh, you are
dangerous!
BRASSBOUND. Come: are you in love with anybody else? That's the
question.
LADY CICELY (shaking her head). I have never been in love with any real
person; and I never shall. How could I manage people if I had that mad
little bit of self left in me? That's my secret.
BRASSBOUND. Then throw away the last bit of self. Marry me.
LADY CICELY (vainly struggling to recall her wandering will). Must I?
BRASSBOUND. There is no must. You CAN. I ask you to. My fate depends on
it.
LADY CICELY. It's frightful; for I don't mean to--don't wish to.
BRASSBOUND. But you will.
LADY CICELY (quite lost, slowly stretches out her hand to give it to
him). I-- (Gunfire from the Thanksgiving. His eyes dilate. It wakes her
from her trance) What is that?
BRASSBOUND. It is farewell. Rescue for you--safety, freedom! You were
made to be something better than the wife of Black Paquito. (He kneels
and takes her hands) You can do no more for me now: I have blundered
somehow on the secret of command at last (he kisses her hands): thanks
for that, and for a man's power and purpose restored and righted. And
farewell, farewell, farewell.
LADY CICELY (in a strange ecstasy, holding his hands as he rises). Oh,
farewell. With my heart's deepest feeling, farewell, farewell.
BRASSBOUND. With my heart's noblest honor and triumph, farewell. (He
turns and flies.)
LADY CICELY. How glorious! how glorious! And what an escape!
CURTAIN
NOTES TO CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION
SOURCES OF THE PLAY
I claim as a notable merit in the authorship of this play that I have
been intelligent enough to steal its scenery, its surroundings, its
atmosphere, its geography, its knowledge of the east, its fascinating
Cadis and Kearneys and Sheikhs and mud castles from an excellent book of
philosophic travel and vivid adventure entitled Mogreb-el-Acksa (Morocco
the Most Holy) by Cunninghame Graham. My own first hand knowledge of
Morocco is based on a morning's walk through Tangier, and a cursory
observation of the coast through a binocular from the deck of an Orient
steamer, both later in date than the writing of the play.
Cunninghame Graham is the hero of his own book; but I have not made
him the hero of my play, because so incredible a personage must have
destroyed its likelihood--such as it is. There are moments when I do
not myself believe in his existence. And yet he must be real; for I have
seen him with these eyes; and I am one of the few men living who can
decipher the curious alphabet in which he writes his private letters.
The man is on public record too. The battle of Trafalgar Square, in
which he personally and bodily assailed civilization as represented by
the concentrated military and constabular forces of the capital of the
world, can scarcely be forgotten by the more discreet spectators,
of whom I was one. On that occasion civilization, qualitatively his
inferior, was quantitatively so hugely in excess of him that it put him
in prison, but had not sense enough to keep him there. Yet his getting
out of prison was as nothing compared to his getting into the House of
Commons. How he did it I know not; but the thing certainly happened,
somehow. That he made pregnant utterances as a legislator may be taken
as proved by the keen philosophy of the travels and tales he has since
tossed to us; but the House, strong in stupidity, did not understand
him until in an inspired moment he voiced a universal impulse by bluntly
damning its hypocrisy. Of all the eloquence of that silly parliament,
there remains only one single damn. It has survived the front bench
speeches of the eighties as the word of Cervantes survives the
oraculations of the Dons and Deys who put him, too, in prison. The
shocked House demanded that he should withdraw his cruel word. "I never
withdraw," said he; and I promptly stole the potent phrase for the sake
of its perfect style, and used it as a cockade for the Bulgarian hero
of Arms and the Man. The theft prospered; and I naturally take the first
opportunity of repeating it. In what other Lepantos besides Trafalgar
Square Cunninghame Graham has fought, I cannot tell. He is a fascinating
mystery to a sedentary person like myself. The horse, a dangerous
animal whom, when I cannot avoid, I propitiate with apples and sugar, he
bestrides and dominates fearlessly, yet with a true republican sense of
the rights of the fourlegged fellowcreature whose martyrdom, and man's
shame therein, he has told most powerfully in his Calvary, a tale with
an edge that will cut the soft cruel hearts and strike fire from the
hard kind ones. He handles the other lethal weapons as familiarly as the
pen: medieval sword and modern Mauser are to him as umbrellas and kodaks
are to me. His tales of adventure have the true Cervantes touch of
the man who has been there--so refreshingly different from the scenes
imagined by bloody-minded clerks who escape from their servitude into
literature to tell us how men and cities are conceived in the counting
house and the volunteer corps. He is, I understand, a Spanish hidalgo:
hence the superbity of his portrait by Lavery (Velasquez being no
longer available). He is, I know, a Scotch laird. How he contrives to be
authentically the two things at the same time is no more intelligible to
me than the fact that everything that has ever happened to him seems to
have happened in Paraguay or Texas instead of in Spain or Scotland. He
is, I regret to add, an impenitent and unashamed dandy: such boots, such
a hat, would have dazzled D'Orsay himself. With that hat he once saluted
me in Regent St. when I was walking with my mother. Her interest was
instantly kindled; and the following conversation ensued. "Who is that?"
"Cunninghame Graham." "Nonsense! Cunninghame Graham is one of your
Socialists: that man is a gentleman." This is the punishment of vanity,
a fault I have myself always avoided, as I find conceit less troublesome
and much less expensive. Later on somebody told him of Tarudant, a city
in Morocco in which no Christian had ever set foot. Concluding at once
that it must be an exceptionally desirable place to live in, he took
ship and horse: changed the hat for a turban; and made straight for the
sacred city, via Mogador. How he fared, and how he fell into the hands
of the Cadi of Kintafi, who rightly held that there was more danger to
Islam in one Cunninghame Graham than in a thousand Christians, may be
learnt from his account of it in Mogreb-el-Acksa, without which Captain
Brassbound's Conversion would never have been written.
I am equally guiltless of any exercise of invention concerning the story
of the West Indian estate which so very nearly serves as a peg to hang
Captain Brassbound. To Mr. Frederick Jackson of Hindhead, who, against
all his principles, encourages and abets me in my career as a dramatist,
I owe my knowledge of those main facts of the case which became public
through an attempt to make the House of Commons act on them. This being
so, I must add that the character of Captain Brassbound's mother, like
the recovery of the estate by the next heir, is an interpolation of my
own. It is not, however, an invention. One of the evils of the pretence
that our institutions represent abstract principles of justice
instead of being mere social scaffolding is that persons of a certain
temperament take the pretence seriously, and when the law is on the side
of injustice, will not accept the situation, and are driven mad by their
vain struggle against it. Dickens has drawn the type in his Man from
Shropshire in Bleak House. Most public men and all lawyers have been
appealed to by victims of this sense of injustice--the most unhelpable
of afflictions in a society like ours.
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DIALECTS
The fact that English is spelt conventionally and not phonetically makes
the art of recording speech almost impossible. What is more, it places
the modern dramatist, who writes for America as well as England, in
a most trying position. Take for example my American captain and my
English lady. I have spelt the word conduce, as uttered by the
American captain, as cawndooce, to suggest (very roughly) the American
pronunciation to English readers. Then why not spell the same word,
when uttered by Lady Cicely, as kerndewce, to suggest the English
pronunciation to American readers? To this I have absolutely no defence:
I can only plead that an author who lives in England necessarily loses
his consciousness of the peculiarities of English speech, and sharpens
his consciousness of the points in which American speech differs from
it; so that it is more convenient to leave English peculiarities to be
recorded by American authors. I must, however, most vehemently disclaim
any intention of suggesting that English pronunciation is authoritative
and correct. My own tongue is neither American English nor English
English, but Irish English; so I am as nearly impartial in the matter
as it is in human nature to be. Besides, there is no standard English
pronunciation any more than there is an American one: in England every
county has its catchwords, just as no doubt every state in the Union
has. I cannot believe that the pioneer American, for example, can spare
time to learn that last refinement of modern speech, the exquisite
diphthong, a farfetched combination of the French eu and the English e,
with which a New Yorker pronounces such words as world, bird &c. I have
spent months without success in trying to achieve glibness with it.
To Felix Drinkwater also I owe some apology for implying that all his
vowel pronunciations are unfashionable. They are very far from being so.
As far as my social experience goes (and I have kept very mixed company)
there is no class in English society in which a good deal of Drinkwater
pronunciation does not pass unchallenged save by the expert phonetician.
This is no mere rash and ignorant jibe of my own at the expense of my
English neighbors. Academic authority in the matter of English speech is
represented at present by Mr. Henry Sweet, of the University of Oxford,
whose Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Engliach, translated into his
native language for the use of British islanders as a Primer of Spoken
English, is the most accessible standard work on the subject. In such
words as plum, come, humbug, up, gum, etc., Mr. Sweet's evidence is
conclusive. Ladies and gentlemen in Southern England pronounce them as
plam, kam, hambag, ap, gan, etc., exactly as Felix Drinkwater does. I
could not claim Mr. Sweet's authority if I dared to whisper that such
coster English as the rather pretty dahn tahn for down town, or the
decidedly ugly cowcow for cocoa is current in very polite circles. The
entire nation, costers and all, would undoubtedly repudiate any such
pronunciation as vulgar. All the same, if I were to attempt to represent
current "smart" cockney speech as I have attempted to represent
Drinkwater's, without the niceties of Mr. Sweet's Romic alphabets, I
am afraid I should often have to write dahn tahn and cowcow as being
at least nearer to the actual sound than down town and cocoa. And this
would give such offence that I should have to leave the country; for
nothing annoys a native speaker of English more than a faithful setting
down in phonetic spelling of the sounds he utters. He imagines that
a departure from conventional spelling indicates a departure from the
correct standard English of good society. Alas! this correct standard
English of good society is unknown to phoneticians. It is only one of
the many figments that bewilder our poor snobbish brains. No such thing
exists; but what does that matter to people trained from infancy to make
a point of honor of belief in abstractions and incredibilities? And so I
am compelled to hide Lady Cicely's speech under the veil of conventional
orthography.
I need not shield Drinkwater, because he will never read my book. So
I have taken the liberty of making a special example of him, as far as
that can be done without a phonetic alphabet, for the benefit of the
mass of readers outside London who still form their notions of cockney
dialect on Sam Weller. When I came to London in 1876, the Sam Weller
dialect had passed away so completely that I should have given it up as
a literary fiction if I had not discovered it surviving in a Middlesex
village, and heard of it from an Essex one. Some time in the eighties
the late Andrew Tuer called attention in the Pall Mall Gazette to
several peculiarities of modern cockney, and to the obsolescence of the
Dickens dialect that was still being copied from book to book by authors
who never dreamt of using their ears, much less of training them to
listen. Then came Mr. Anstey's cockney dialogues in Punch, a great
advance, and Mr. Chevalier's coster songs and patter. The Tompkins
verses contributed by Mr. Barry Pain to the London Daily Chronicle have
also done something to bring the literary convention for cockney English
up to date. But Tompkins sometimes perpetrates horrible solecisms. He
will pronounce face as fits, accurately enough; but he will rhyme it
quite impossibly to nice, which Tompkins would pronounce as newts: for
example Mawl Enn Rowd for Mile End Road. This aw for i, which I have
made Drinkwater use, is the latest stage of the old diphthongal oi,
which Mr. Chevalier still uses. Irish, Scotch and north country readers
must remember that Drinkwater's rs are absolutely unpronounced when they
follow a vowel, though they modify the vowel very considerably. Thus,
luggage is pronounced by him as laggige, but turn is not pronounced as
tern, but as teun with the eu sounded as in French. The London r seems
thoroughly understood in America, with the result, however, that the use
of the r by Artemus Ward and other American dialect writers causes Irish
people to misread them grotesquely. I once saw the pronunciation of
malheureux represented in a cockney handbook by mal-err-err: not at
all a bad makeshift to instruct a Londoner, but out of the question
elsewhere in the British Isles. In America, representations of English
speech dwell too derisively on the dropped or interpolated h. American
writers have apparently not noticed the fact that the south English h
is not the same as the never-dropped Irish and American h, and that to
ridicule an Englishman for dropping it is as absurd as to ridicule the
whole French and Italian nation for doing the same. The American
h, helped out by a general agreement to pronounce wh as hw, is
tempestuously audible, and cannot be dropped without being immediately
missed. The London h is so comparatively quiet at all times, and so
completely inaudible in wh, that it probably fell out of use simply by
escaping the ears of children learning to speak. However that may be, it
is kept alive only by the literate classes who are reminded constantly
of its existence by seeing it on paper.
Roughly speaking, I should say that in England he who bothers about
his hs is a fool, and he who ridicules a dropped h a snob. As to the
interpolated h, my experience as a London vestryman has convinced me
that it is often effective as a means of emphasis, and that the London
language would be poorer without it. The objection to it is no more
respectable than the objection of a street boy to a black man or to a
lady in knickerbockers.
I have made only the most perfunctory attempt to represent the dialect
of the missionary. There is no literary notation for the grave music of
good Scotch.
BLACKDOWN, August 1900