CLOWN. The bride? Whose bride? I mean, whose bride is this?
PANTALOON. His lordship's.
CLOWN. Yours, Eglantine? Well, by the clocks on my stockings!
PANTALOON. It has been kept a secret.
EGLANTINE. You leave this deed of settlement with me?
PANTALOON. To hand to her ladyship when the ceremony ends.
EGLANTINE. What's this little farm like with its two hundred a year? Where
is it?
[Mr. Talon doesn't know, it seems. Then, it is Harlequin who speaks.
HARLEQUIN. If your lordship pleases, it happens very strangely to be the
place where Richardson, our singing chambermaid, was born; where she lived
till I brought her here.
EGLANTINE. Her home?
HARLEQUIN. Her home, my lord.
EGLANTINE. I must keep this safe, Quin.
[Quite tenderly--though why?--he lays the parchment by his side.
CLOWN. Damme, I want another glass to pull me over the shock, old Talon.
PANTALOON. An excellent wine. It reminds me of the time ...
EGLANTINE. [Watch in hand.] Let it remind us all of the time. Mr. Talon,
Lady Clarissa's lawyers expect you at nine with the bonds for twelve
thousand five hundred pounds. Don't let me detain you.
CLOWN. Lady Clarissa! But that's the very name...
EGLANTINE. Stay, George, and bring me to the church and tell me your story
on the way. You'll pardon me, my wedding suit awaits me.
[He goes out. Be-wigged, rouged, be-powdered, his dressing-gown
gathered about him; like a splendid vision he fades into his bedroom.
PANTALOON. I must go.
CLOWN. No, not without a final glass. We've settled the Madeira, but
there's still the Port.
[Harlequin waves a powder puff. And the empty decanter is full and the
full one empty.
PANTALOON. No, no, Sir George, we've settled the Port, but there's still
the Madeira.
[Harlequin waves. And the empty is empty again. But the full one is
empty, too.
CLOWN. Oh, Joey, Joey, we've settled them both.
[There they stand, all three, grouped as we know them so well.
ALICE. Look, oh, look! There's the Harlequinade!
PANTALOON. I must go.
[And he goes.
EGLANTINE. [From within.] Quin!
HARLEQUIN. My lord.
[And he vanishes.
EGLANTINE. And now for your story, George, if while I dress, it will carry
through a door.
[The scene you cannot see is, of course, of tremendous importa
A Beau dressing for his wedding! It couldn't be done upon the stage
because no audience roughly coming in from their dinner ridiculously
dressed in black clawhammer coats could appreciate the niceties of the
toilette of a Beau, so far, so very far removed from the uncultured
vulgarities of the Nut. They say that even the very silk-worms who span
to make him silk for his coats are set aside from the silk-worms who
spin silk for persons of grosser habit. And every flower embroidered on
his coat is perfumed with its proper scent. And a girl has gone blind
through making the filmy froth of lace about his throat.
CLOWN. It's carrying round London by this time. You know Sir Jeffrey Rake?
EGLANTINE. I think so.
CLOWN. Yes, don't you. You lost enough to him last night.
EGLANTINE. I did.
CLOWN. He's been this year past, it seems, sweethearting ... and a bit more
... with a famous lady of fashion here in town. But he'd not a penny, and
she'd ten thousand pounds of debts. So marry they couldn't till she hit on
a plan.
EGLANTINE. Indeed?
CLOWN. A fine lady's plan. She was to cozen some wealthy fop and swear to
marry him if he'd pay those debts of hers. D'you mark that?
EGLANTINE. I mark it.
CLOWN. There's more to come. The night before the wedding was to be ...
last night as ever was ... if Sir Jeffrey didn't win at cards a cool
fifteen thousand from the same poor fool. And this very morning, off have
the precious couple gone! Married by this, begad they are; he with his
pockets lined, she free of her Jews. It'll be all over town in an hour. And
the fool fop is dressing for his wedding! Now did ever you hear the like of
that?
[There is silence in the other room.