 | The Sisters |  |
3
ACT I.
Scene I.
—A morning room.Anne and Mabel.
ANNE.
April again, and not a word of war.
Last year, and not a year ago, it was
That we sat wondering when good news would come.
MABEL.
And had not heard or learnt in lesson-books
If such a place there was as Waterloo.
And never dreamed that—
ANNE.
Well?
MABEL.
That it would be
So soon for ever such a name for us
As Blenheim or Trafalgar.
4
No. For us?
We don't remember Blenheim—and we had
No cousin wounded at Trafalgar. Still,
If Redgie had been old enough to serve—
MABEL.
I wish he had chosen the navy.
ANNE.
And come home
Unhurt?
MABEL.
No; I forgot. Of course he might
Have died like Nelson—and gone home with him.
ANNE.
Home? Reginald's not quite so tired of life,
I fancy, though he frets at being kept in,
As to look up—outside this world—for home.
MABEL.
No.
5
Will you tell me—but you will not—me,
Even—
MABEL.
What? Anything I can I will.
ANNE.
Perhaps you cannot—what he said to you
Yesterday?
MABEL.
When?
ANNE.
You will not now, I know.
MABEL.
Where?
ANNE.
When and where? If you must needs be told,
At nine last evening in the library.
MABEL.
Nothing—but what I meant to tell you.
6
Yes?
You meant to tell me that he said, my dear,
What?
MABEL.
Anne!
ANNE.
You thought I knew?
MABEL.
I thought I must
Have said it without speaking.
ANNE.
Reginald!
And so you really mean to love the boy
You played with, rode with, climbed with, laughed at, made
Your tempter—and your scapegoat—when you chose
To ride forbidden horses, and break bounds
On days forbidden? Love! Of course you like—
And then how can you love him?
7
Is dislike
Mother of love? Then you—to judge by signs—
Must love Frank Dilston dearly.
ANNE.
So I might,
If—if I did not hate him.
MABEL.
Then you do.
I'm glad. I always liked him.
ANNE.
What has he
Done, that a woman—or a girl—should like
Him?
MABEL.
Need a man—or boy—do anything
More than be true and bright and kind and brave
And try to make you like him?
ANNE.
That spoils all.
He should not try.
8
I'll tell him not to try.
Enter Reginald Clavering and Frank Dilston.
ANNE.
Redgie! You've not been riding?
REGINALD.
Have I, Frank?
FRANK.
You'd have me tell a lie to get you off?
ANNE.
You stupid pair of schoolboys! Really, Frank,
You should not let him.
FRANK.
I can't lick him, Anne;
We two—or you alone—might manage.
ANNE.
Why,
The grooms must know he should not mount a horse
Yet.
9
Would you have me never ride again
Because last year I got a fall?
ANNE.
Appeal
To Mabel.
REGINALD.
She was always hard on me.
MABEL.
Always.
ANNE.
You mean that I encouraged you
To risk your neck when we were girl and boy?
Make him sit down, Frank.
REGINALD.
There. And now we'll talk
Of something—not of nothing.
ANNE.
Of your play?
REGINALD.
That's ready. How about your stage?
10
But is it
Indeed?
REGINALD.
It's just one little act, you know—
Enough for four and not too much, I hope,
To get by heart in half a pair of days.
ANNE.
In one day? No: I am slow at learning verse—
Even if my part were shorter than the rest.
REGINALD.
It is.
ANNE.
Ah! Thank you.
FRANK.
Mabel's I have read.
It's longer.
MABEL.
As the whole affair is short,
It cannot be much longer. You should rest,
Redgie. Come out and feed the pheasants, Anne.
[Exeunt Anne and Mabel.
11
How like old times it is, when we came back
From Eton! You remember, Frank, we played
—What was it?—once.
FRANK.
‘What was it?’ There's no such play.
There's ‘What you will’: perhaps we played ‘Twelfth Night’
In frocks and jackets. Might we now not play
‘Love's Labour's Lost’?
REGINALD.
‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’:
I know, because I played Lysander—you
Demetrius.
FRANK.
How the female parts were cast
You don't remember?
REGINALD.
Helena was Anne,
I think, and Hermia Mabel.
FRANK.
Change the names.
12
Ah, yes. All friends from more than twelve miles round
Came in to our Yuletide gathering through the snows.
How quick and bright Anne's acting was! you two
Bore off the palms all round: Mabel and I
Were somewhere short of nowhere.
FRANK.
Will you now
Retaliate? She and you were plotting this,
Must we suppose, last evening?
REGINALD.
She and I,
Frank? We should make but poor conspirators.
FRANK.
I hope so, and I think so. Seriously,
May not I ask—?
REGINALD.
If she and I are friends?
Surely a man may ask and answer that,
If—as you do—he knows it. If you mean
More—I would hardly tell a brother this,
13
Always, and had no right to ask me this—
No.
FRANK.
Then she does not think—she has no cause—
She cannot think you love her?
REGINALD.
Can I tell?
But this I can tell—she shall never come
To think or dream I do, and vex herself,
By any base and foolish fault of mine.
FRANK.
But if she loves you, Redgie?
REGINALD.
No, my boy.
She does not. Come, we need not talk of that.
I think mock-modesty a mincing lie—
The dirtiest form of self-conceit that is,
Quite, and in either sense the vainest. You
She may not love just yet—but me, I know,
She never will. I ought to say ‘Thank God,’
Being poor, and knowing myself unworthy her
—A younger son's son, with a closed career
14
If I on my side loved her as I should
And if I knew she would be, as I fear—
No, hope she will, happier with you than me.
I can't do that, quite; if I could, and did,
I should be just a little less unfit
To dream that she could love me—which I don't.
FRANK.
You don't mean that you want me—
REGINALD.
I do mean
I want her to be happy: as for you,
If I don't want you to be miserable
It only shows I am not quite a cur.
FRANK.
You never were: but if you meant me well,
What made you go campaigning and come back
A hero?
REGINALD.
Six months' service! Don't you be
A fool—or flatterer.
15
Still, you have (worse luck!)
Such heavy odds—a wound, and Waterloo!
REGINALD.
If I—or you—had lost an eye or arm,
That wouldn't make us Nelsons.
FRANK.
Something like.
REGINALD.
Well, you can do that in the hunting-field.
FRANK.
I wish I had you in the playing-fields
Again.
REGINALD.
We can't just settle it with fists.
But, if you asked me, as of course you don't
And won't, what she and I were talking of
Last evening, I could tell you—and I will.
I asked her if she thought it possible
That two such baby friends and playfellows
As she and Anne had been with you and me
Could, when grown up, be serious lovers.
16
Well—
Was that not making love to her? And what
Did she say?
REGINALD.
Hardly. No. Certainly not.
FRANK.
And then?
REGINALD.
The bell rang, and we went to dress
For dinner.
FRANK.
What did she say—if she did—
To make you ask her that?
REGINALD.
Something she did—
At least, I thought so—like a fool. And now
We'll talk no more about it. Mind you, Frank,
I didn't—could I possibly?—forget
That just because I love her—more than you
I won't say—she must never dream I do
If I can help it.
17
Then, in heaven's name, why
Say what you say you did?
REGINALD.
Don't fret yourself.
No harm was meant or done. But if she does
Love you—if you can win her—as I think
(There!)—you're the happiest fellow ever born.
FRANK.
And you're the best, Redgie. By Jove! she ought
To love you, if she knew how you love her.
REGINALD.
And that, please God, she never will. When you
And she are married, if you tell her so,
You'll play the traitor, not to me but her—
Make her unhappy for the minute. Don't.
She would be sorrier than I'm worth, you know,
To think of any sorrow not her own
And given by her unconsciously. She had
Always the sweetest heart a girl could have.
‘Sweet heart’! she might have been the first girl born
Whose lover ever called her by the name.
18
Redgie, I don't know what to say to you.
REGINALD.
Say nothing. Talk about our play.
FRANK.
Your play!
We are like to play, it seems, without a stage,
Another, and a sadder.
REGINALD.
Don't be sure.
My play is highly tragic. Italy,
Steel, poison, shipwreck—
FRANK.
One you made at school,
Is it? I know what those were.
REGINALD.
Wait and see.
Enter Sir Francis Dilston.
SIR FRANCIS.
Well, Frank,—how are you, Reginald?—you let
Mabel go out—and unattended?
19
Come,
Father, you would not have me (think how she
Would hate it!) hang about her like a burr?
SIR FRANCIS.
No—no. But there's a medium, sir, between
Neglect and persecution.
FRANK.
Well, I hope
And think I've hit that medium.
SIR FRANCIS.
Reginald,
If you were Mabel's lover, or in hope
To be her lover, could you slight her so?
REGINALD.
I can't imagine that condition.
SIR FRANCIS.
Then
You youngsters are no more your fathers' sons
Than moles are sons of eagles.
20
Rats of cats,
Say, father.
SIR FRANCIS.
Eh! was that an epigram?
The point, my boy? Because we worry you?
FRANK.
Because we scuttle where you used to spring,
And nibble when you used to bite. At least,
You say so—or they say so.
SIR FRANCIS.
Heaven forbid!
Tom Jones and Lovelace were not gods of ours.
But if we meant to win and keep a heart
Worth winning and worth keeping, Frank, we knew
We must not seem to slight it. ‘Pique and soothe,’
Young Byron bids you—don't stand off and gape.
There may be better means than his, if you
Love as I trust you love her. There's the bell.
[Exeunt.
21
Scene II.
—In the Garden.Frank and Mabel.
FRANK.
I may not say what any man may say?
MABEL.
To me? And any man, you think, may say
Foolish and heartless things to me? or is it
Only the heir of Heronshaw who claims
A right so undeniable?
FRANK.
Is the taunt
Fair to yourself or me? You do not think—
MABEL.
You have the right to make mock love to me?
I do not.
FRANK.
How have you the right to call
Truth mockery, knowing I love you?
22
How should I
Know it? If you mistake me now for Anne,
You may mistake her presently for me.
FRANK.
Anne?
MABEL.
If you care for either cousin—much,
It ought, by all I ever heard or read,
To be the one you are always bickering with.
FRANK.
She does not like me.
MABEL.
She does not dislike.
FRANK.
Her liking would not help nor her dislike
Forbid me to be happy. You perhaps—
I can't guess how you can—may think so: she
Cannot. And if I did—worse luck for me!—
What chance should I have? Can you not have seen
—Not once—not ever—how her face and eyes
Change when she looks at Redgie?
23
What!—Absurd!
You love her, and are mad with jealousy.
FRANK.
Mad if I am, my madness is to love
You. But you must have seen it.
MABEL.
I am not
Jealous.
FRANK.
You need not have an eye to see it.
Her voice might tell you, when she speaks to him.
MABEL.
The tone is just like yours or mine. Of course
We all make much—or something—of him now;
Since he came back, I mean.
FRANK.
From Waterloo;
I knew it—an interesting young cousin. Well,
He does deserve his luck, I know; he did
Always: and you were always good to him.
24
He always needed somebody, poor boy,
To be so.
FRANK.
Ah, if that were all! Because
His guardian, my good father,—good to me
Always—his cousin, in whose grounds we now
Walk and discuss him—and his schoolmasters,
You think, were apt—
MABEL.
To ill-use him? No; nor yet
Misunderstand him: that I did not mean.
But she who knew him and loved him best is gone—
His aunt and mine—your mother.
FRANK.
Yes: she did
Love him! she must have loved his mother more
Than many sisters love each other.
MABEL.
More
Than I love Anne or Anne loves me? I hope
Not. But when death comes in—and leaves behind
A child for pledge and for memorial, love
25
More of a call upon it—not a claim—
A sort of blind and dumb and sweet appeal
Out of the dark, and out of all the light
That burns no more but broods on all the past—
A glowworm on a grave. And you, I know,
Were never jealous: all the house knew that,
And loved you for it as we did.
FRANK.
Ah—as you
Did! I'd have had you love me more than they,
If it had not been too great and sweet a thing
For me to dream of.
MABEL.
Do not dream at all.
What good can come of dreaming?
FRANK.
Less than none,
If dreaming, doubt, or fear, should take away
The little comfort, such as it is—God knows,
Not much, though precious—that your kind last words
Gave me. Too kind they were, Mabel. I was,
And am, jealous of Redgie; more to-night
Than ever: but I will not be.
26
I am sure
You will not. Why?
FRANK.
Because I know—I am sure,
Mabel—more sure than you can be of me
Or I can of myself—he would not grudge
Nor envy me my happiness if you
Could bring yourself to make me happy.
MABEL.
Why
Should he?
FRANK.
Ask him.
MABEL.
A pretty thing to ask!
But, Frank, it's good, and very good, of you
To say so—if you care for me at all,
And think it possible I could care for him.
FRANK.
I think it more than possible: but he
Does not. You'll have to tell him. Don't let Anne
Hear you.
27
I would not let her, certainly,
If I were tempted to propose to you.
Do you think that girls—that women do such things?
FRANK.
No: but I do think—think, by heaven! I know—
He will not tell you what a child might see,
That he can love, and does, better than I,
And all his heart is set on you. But Anne
Loves him: you must have seen it.
MABEL.
You love her,
And do not know it, and take me for her, seeing
Her features in my face, and thinking she
Loves Redgie: is not this the truth? Be frank,
Or change your name for one that means a lie—
Iscariot or Napoleon.
FRANK.
God forbid!
I tell you what I am sure of, as I am sure
I wish I were not.
MABEL.
Sure? How can you be?
28
Are you not sure? Be honest. Can you say
You doubt he would have told you—what he won't
And can't—had he been heir of Heronshaw
Or Anyshaw? You might have spared that taunt,
Mabel. But can you say it? You never were
A liar, and never can be. Tell him then
The truth he will not tell you.
MABEL.
What if he
Rejects me? This is past a joke.
FRANK.
It is.
MABEL.
I knew you could not love me. Why make love?
FRANK.
I love you; but I see how you love him;
And think you are right. He loves you more than I—
Yes, more than I can—more than most men could
Love even you. You are no mate for me,
I am no mate for you, the song says. Well,
So be it. God send you happiness with him!
29
All chance of you—he would not take the chance
That honour, as he thought, forbade. Do you
Reward him.
MABEL.
God reward you, Frank! You see
—It's true—I love him.
FRANK.
And he will not speak.
Tell him to-morrow—and come in to-night.
[Exeunt.
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