Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (524 page)
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Authors: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Mary. My husband?... Never.
Leslie. Mary...!
Mary. You forget, you forget what I am. I am his sister. I owe him a lifetime of happiness and love; I owe him even you. And whatever his fault, however ruinous his disgrace, he is my brother — my own brother — and my place is still with him.
Leslie. Your place is with me — is with your husband. With me, with me; and for his sake most of all. What can you do for him alone? how can you help him alone? It wrings my heart to think how little. But together is different. Together...! Join my strength, my will, my courage to your own, and together we may save him.
Mary. All that is over. Once I was blessed among women. I was my father’s daughter, my brother loved me, I lived to be your wife. Now...! My father is dead, my brother is shamed; and you ... O how could I face the world, how could I endure myself, if I preferred my happiness to your honour?
Leslie. What is my honour but your happiness? In what else does it consist? Is it in denying me my heart? is it in visiting another’s sin upon the innocent? Could I do that, and be my mother’s son? Could I do that, and bear my father’s name? Could I do that, and have ever been found worthy of you?
Mary. It is my duty ... my duty. Why will you make it so hard for me? So hard, Walter, so hard!
Leslie. Do I pursue you only for your good fortune, your beauty, the credit of your friends, your family’s good name? That were not love, and I love you. I love you, dearest, I love you. Friend, father, brother, husband ... I must be all these to you. I am a man who can love well.
Mary. Silence ... in pity! I cannot ... O, I cannot bear it.
Leslie. And say it was I who had fallen. Say I had played my neck and lost it ... that I were pushed by the law to the last limits of ignominy and despair. Whose love would sanctify my gaol to me? whose pity would shine upon me in the dock? whose prayers would accompany me to the gallows? Whose but yours? Yours!... And you would entreat me — me! — to do what you shrink from even in thought, what you would die ere you attempted in deed!
Mary. Walter ... on my knees ... no more, no more!
Leslie. My wife! my wife! Here on my heart! It is I that must kneel ... I that must kneel to you.
Mary. Dearest!... Husband! You forgive him? O, you forgive him?
Leslie. He is my brother now. Let me take you to our father. Come.
SCENE IV
After a pause, Brodie through the window
Brodie. Saved! And the
alibi
! Man, but you’ve been near it this time — near the rope, near the rope. Ah, boy, it was your neck, your neck you fought for. They were closing hell-doors upon me, swift as the wind, when I slipped through and shot for heaven! Saved! The dog that sold me, I settled him; and the other dogs are staunch. Man, but your
alibi
will stand! Is the window fast? The neighbours must not see the Deacon, the poor, sick Deacon, up and stirring at this time o’ night. Ay, the good old room in the good, cosy old house ... and the rat a dead rat, and all saved. (
He lights the candles.
) Your hand shakes, sir? Fie! And you saved, and snug and sick in your bed, and
it
but a dead rat after all? (
He takes off his hanger and lays it on the table.
) Ay, it was a near touch. Will it come to the dock? If it does! You’ve a tongue and you’ve a head, and you’ve an
alibi
; and your
alibi
will stand. (
He takes off his coat, takes out the dagger, and with a gesture of striking.
) Home! He fell without a sob. “He breaketh them against the bosses of His buckler!” (
Lays the dagger on the table.
) Your
alibi
... ah, Deacon, that’s your life!... your
alibi
, your
alibi
. (
He takes up a candle and turns towards the door.
) O!... Open, open, open! Judgment of God, the door is open!
SCENE V
Brodie, Mary
Brodie. Did you open the door?
Mary. I did.
Brodie. You ... you opened the door?
Mary. I did open it.
Brodie. Were you ... alone?
Mary. I was not. The servant was with me; and the doctor.
Brodie. O ... the servant ... and the doctor. Very true. Then it’s all over the town by now. The servant and the doctor. The doctor? What doctor? Why the doctor?
Mary. My father is dead. O Will, where have you been?
Brodie. Your father is dead. O yes! He’s dead, is he? Dead. Quite right. Quite right.... How did you open the door? It’s strange. I bolted it.
Mary. We could not help it, Will, now could we? The doctor forced it. He had to, had he not?
Brodie. The doctor forced it? The doctor? Was he here? He forced it? He?
Mary. We did it for the best; it was I who did it ... I, your own sister. And O Will, my Willie, where have you been? You have not been in any harm, any danger?
Brodie. Danger? O, my young lady, you have taken care of that. It’s not danger now, it’s death. Death? Ah! Death! Death! Death! (
Clutching the table. Then recovering as from a dream.
) Death? Did you say my father was dead? My father? O my God, my poor old father! Is he dead, Mary? Have I lost him? is he gone? O, Mary dear, and to think of where his son was!
Mary. Dearest, he is in heaven.
Brodie. Did he suffer?
Mary. He died like a child. Your name ... it was his last.
Brodie. My name? Mine? O Mary, if he had known! He knows now. He knows; he sees us now ... sees me! Ay, and sees you left — how lonely!
Mary. Not so, dear; not while you live. Wherever you are, I shall not be alone, so you live.
Brodie. While I live? I? The old house is ruined, and the old master dead, and I!... O Mary, try and believe I did not mean that it should come to this; try and believe that I was only weak at first. At first? And now! The good old man dead, the kind sister ruined, the innocent boy fallen, fallen.... You will be quite alone; all your old friends, all the old faces, gone into darkness. The night (
with a gesture
) ... it waits for me. You will be quite alone.
Mary. The night!
Brodie. Mary, you must hear. How am I to tell her, and the old man just dead! Mary, I was the boy you knew; I loved pleasure, I was weak; I have fallen ... low ... lower than you think. A beginning is so small a thing! I never dreamed it would come to this ... this hideous last night.
Mary. Willie, you must tell me, dear. I must have the truth ... the kind truth ... at once ... in pity.
Brodie. Crime. I have fallen. Crime.
Mary. Crime?
Brodie. Don’t shrink from me. Miserable dog that I am, selfish hound that has dragged you to this misery ... you and all that loved him ... think only of my torments, think only of my penitence, don’t shrink from me.
Mary. I do not care to hear, I do not wish, I do not mind; you are my brother. What do I care? How can I help you?
Brodie. Help? help
me
? You would not speak of it, not wish it, if you knew. My kind good sister, my little playmate, my sweet friend! Was I ever unkind to you till yesterday? Not openly unkind? You’ll say that when I am gone.
Mary. If you have done wrong, what do I care? If you have failed, does it change my twenty years of love and worship? Never!
Brodie. Yet I must make her understand...!
Mary. I am your true sister, dear. I cannot fail, I will never leave you, I will never blame you. Come! (
Goes to embrace.
)
Brodie (
recoiling
). No, don’t touch me, not a finger, not that, anything but that!
Mary. Willie, Willie!
Brodie (
taking the bloody dagger from the table
). See, do you understand that?
Mary. Ah! What, what is it!
Brodie. Blood. I have killed a man.
Mary. You?...
Brodie. I am a murderer; I was a thief before. Your brother ... the old man’s only son!
Mary. Walter, Walter, come to me!
Brodie. Now you see that I must die; now you see that I stand upon the grave’s edge, all my lost life behind me, like a horror to think upon, like a frenzy, like a dream that is past. And you, you are alone. Father, brother, they are gone from you; one to heaven, one...!
Mary. Hush, dear, hush! Kneel, pray; it is not too late to repent. Think of our father, dear; repent. (
She weeps, straining to his bosom.
) O Willie, my darling boy, repent and join us.
SCENE VI
To these, Lawson, Leslie, Jean
Lawson. She kens a’, thank the guid Lord!
Brodie (
to Mary
). I know you forgive me now; I ask no more. That is a good man. (
To Leslie.
) Will you take her from my hands? (
Leslie takes Mary.
) Jean, are ye here to see the end?
Jean. Eh man, can ye no’ fly? Could ye no’ say that it was me?
Brodie. No, Jean, this is where it ends. Uncle, this is where it ends. And to think that not an hour ago I still had hopes! Hopes! Ay, not an hour ago I thought of a new life. You were not forgotten, Jean. Leslie, you must try to forgive me ... you too!
Leslie. You are her brother.
Brodie (
to Lawson
). And you.
Lawson. My name-child and my sister’s bairn.
Brodie. You won’t forget Jean, will you? nor the child?
Lawson. That I will not.
Mary. O Willie, nor I.
SCENE VII
To these, Hunt
Hunt. The game’s up, Deacon. I’ll trouble you to come along with me.
Brodie (
behind the table
). One moment, officer: I have a word to say before witnesses ere I go. In all this there is but one man guilty; and that man is I. None else has sinned; none else must suffer. This poor woman (
pointing to Jean
) I have used; she never understood. Mr. Procurator-Fiscal, that is my dying confession. (
He snatches his hanger from the table, and rushes upon Hunt, who parries, and runs him through. He reels across the stage and falls.
) The new life ... the new life! (
He dies.
)
CURTAIN
BEAU AUSTIN
DEDICATED
WITH
ADMIRATION AND RESPECT
TO
GEORGE MEREDITH
BOURNEMOUTH,
1st October, 1884
CONTENTS
PERSONS REPRESENTED
George Frederick Austin, called “Beau Austin”Ætat. 50
John Fenwick, of Allonby Shaw “ 26
Anthony Musgrave, Cornet in the Prince’s Own “21
Menteith, the Beau’s Valet “ 55
A Royal Duke. (Dumb show.)
Dorothy Musgrave, Anthony’s Sister “25
Miss Evelina Foster, her Aunt “45
Barbara Ridley, her Maid “20
Visitors to the Wells
The Time is 1820. The Scene is laid at Tunbridge Wells. The Action occupies a space of ten hours.
PROLOGUE
“To all and singular,” as Dryden says,
We bring a fancy of those Georgian days,
Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume
Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom:
When speech was elegant and talk was fit,
For slang had not been canonised as wit;
When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall,
And Women — yes! — were ladies first of all;
When Grace was conscious of its gracefulness,
And man — though Man! — was not ashamed to dress.