Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1058 page)

[The physicians withdraw softly, and the scene is covered.]

SCENE VI

LONDON.  CARLTON HOUSE AND THE STREETS ADJOINING

[It is a cloudless midsummer evening, and as the west fades the

stars beam down upon the city, the evening-star hanging like a

jonquil blossom.  They are dimmed by the unwonted radiance which

spreads around and above Carlton House.  As viewed from aloft the

glare rises through the skylights, floods the forecourt towards

Pall Mall, and kindles with a diaphanous glow the huge tents in

the gardens that overlook the Mall.  The hour has arrived of the

Prince Regent's festivity.

A stream of carriages and sedan-chairs, moving slowly, stretches

from the building along Pall Mall into Piccadilly and Bond Street,

and crowds fill the pavements watching the bejewelled and feathered

occupants.  In addition to the grand entrance inside the Pall Mall

colonnade there is a covert little "chair-door" in Warwick Street

for sedans only, by which arrivals are perceived to be slipping in

almost unobserved.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

What domiciles are those, of singular expression,

Whence no guest comes to join the gemmed procession;

That, west of Hyde, this, in the Park-side Lane,

Each front beclouded like a mask of pain?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Therein the princely host's two spouses dwell;

A wife in each.  Let me inspect and tell.

[The walls of the two houses—one in Park Lane, the other at

Kensington—become transparent.]

I see within the first his latter wife—

That Caroline of Brunswick whose brave sire

Yielded his breath on Jena's reeking plain,

And of whose kindred other yet may fall

Ere long, if character indeed be fate.—

She idles feasting, and is full of jest

As each gay chariot rumbles to the rout.

"I rank like your Archbishops' wives," laughs she;

"Denied my husband's honours.  Funny me!"

[Suddenly a Beau on his way to the Carlton House festival halts at

her house, calls, and is shown in.]

He brings her news that a fresh favourite rules

Her husband's ready heart; likewise of those

Obscure and unmissed courtiers late deceased,

Who have in name been bidden to the feast

By blundering scribes.

[The Princess is seen to jump up from table at some words from her

visitor, and clap her hands.]

          These tidings, juxtaposed,

Have fired her hot with curiosity,

And lit her quick invention with a plan.

PRINCESS OF WALES

Mine God, I'll go disguised—in some dead name

And enter by the leetle, sly, chair-door

Designed for those not welcomed openly.

There unobserved I'll note mine new supplanter!

'Tis indiscreet?  Let indiscretion rule,

Since caution pensions me so scurvily!

SPIRIT IRONIC

Good.  Now for the other sweet and slighted spouse.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

The second roof shades the Fitzherbert Fair;

Reserved, perverse.  As coach and coach roll by

She mopes within her lattice; lampless, lone,

As if she grieved at her ungracious fate,

And yet were loth to kill the sting of it

By frankly forfeiting the Prince and town.

"Bidden," says she, "but as one low of rank,

And go I will not so unworthily,

To sit with common dames!"—A flippant friend

Writes then that a new planet sways to-night

The sense of her erratic lord; whereon

The fair Fitzherbert muses hankeringly.

MRS. FITZHERBERT
[soliloquizing]

The guest-card which I publicly refused

Might, as a fancy, privately be used!...

Yes—one last look—a wordless, wan farewell

To this false life which glooms me like a knell,

And him, the cause; from some hid nook survey

His new magnificence;—then go for aye!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

She cloaks and veils, and in her private chair

Passes the Princess also stealing there—

Two honest wives, and yet a differing pair!

SPIRIT IRONIC

With dames of strange repute, who bear a ticket

For screened admission by the private wicket.

CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS
[aerial music]

A wife of the body, a wife of the mind,

A wife somewhat frowsy, a wife too refined:

Could the twain but grow one, and no other dames be,

No husband in Europe more steadfast than he!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Cease fooling on weak waifs who love and wed

But as the unweeting Urger may bestead!—

See them withinside, douce and diamonded.

[The walls of Carlton House open, and the spectator finds himself

confronting the revel.]

SCENE VII

THE SAME.  THE INTERIOR OF CARLTON HOUSE

[A central hall is disclosed, radiant with constellations of

candles, lamps, and lanterns, and decorated with flowering shrubs.

An opening on the left reveals the Grand Council-chamber prepared

for dancing, the floor being chalked with arabesques having in the

centre "G. III. R.," with a crown, arms, and supporters.  Orange-

trees and rose-bushes in bloom stand against the walls.  On the

right hand extends a glittering vista of the supper-rooms and

tables, now crowded with guests.  This display reaches as far as

the conservatory westward, and branches into long tents on the

lawn.

On a dais at the chief table, laid with gold and silver plate, the

Prince Regent sits like a lay figure, in a state chair of crimson

and gold, with six servants at his back.  He swelters in a gorgeous

uniform of scarlet and gold lace which represents him as Field

Marshal, and he is surrounded by a hundred-and-forty of his

particular friends.

Down the middle of this state-table runs a purling brook crossed

by quaint bridges, in which gold and silver fish frisk about

between banks of moss and flowers.  The whole scene is lit with

wax candles in chandeliers, and in countless candelabra on the

tables.

The people at the upper tables include the Duchess of York, looking

tired from having just received as hostess most of the ladies

present, except those who have come informally, Louis XVIII. of

France, the Duchess of Angouleme, all the English Royal Dukes,

nearly all the ordinary Dukes and Duchesses; also the Lord

Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Ministers, the Lord Mayor

and Lady Mayoress, all the more fashionable of the other Peers,

Peeresses, and Members of Parliament, Generals, Admirals, and

Mayors, with their wives.  The ladies of position wear, almost to

the extent of a uniform, a nodding head-dress of ostrich feathers

with diamonds, and gowns of white satin embroidered in gold or

silver, on which, owing to the heat, dribbles of wax from the

chandeliers occasionally fall.

The Guards' bands play, and attendants rush about in blue and gold

lace.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The Queen, the Regent's mother, sits not here;

Wanting, too, are his sisters, I perceive;

And it is well.  With the distempered King

Immured at Windsor, sore distraught or dying,

It borders nigh on indecency

In their regard, that this loud feast is kept,

A thought not strange to many, as I read,

Even of those gathered here.

SPIRIT IRONIC

My dear phantom and crony, the gloom upon their faces is due rather

to their having borrowed those diamonds at eleven per cent than to

their loyalty to a suffering monarch!  But let us test the feeling.

I'll spread a report.

[He calls up the SPIRIT OF RUMOUR, who scatters whispers through

the assemblage.]

A GUEST
[to his neighbour]

Have you heard this report—that the King is dead?

ANOTHER GUEST

It has just reached me from the other side.  Can it be true?

THIRD GUEST

I think it probable.  He has been very ill all week.

PRINCE REGENT

Dead?  Then my fete is spoilt, by God!

SHERIDAN

Long live the King! 
[He holds up his glass and bows to the Regent.]

MARCHIONESS OF HERTFORD
[the new favourite, to the Regent]

The news is more natural than the moment of it!  It is too cruel to

you that it should happen now!

PRINCE REGENT

Damn me, though; can it be true? 
[He provisionally throws a regal

air into his countenance.]

DUCHESS OF YORK
[on the Regent's left]

I hardly can believe it.  This forenoon

He was reported mending.

DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME
[on the Regent's right]

     On this side

They are asserting that the news is false—

That Buonaparte's child, the "King of Rome,"

Is dead, and not your royal father, sire.

PRINCE REGENT

That's mighty fortunate!  Had it been true,

I should have been abused by all the world—

The Queen the keenest of the chorus, too—

Though I have been postponing this pledged feast

Through days and weeks, in hopes the King would mend,

Till expectation fusted with delay.

But give a dog a bad name—or a Prince!

So, then, it is new-come King of Rome

Who has passed or ever the world has welcomed him!...

Call him a king—that pompous upstart's son—

Beside us scions of the ancient lines!

DUKE OF BEDFORD

I think that rumour untrue also, sir.  I heard it as I drove up from

Woburn this evening, and it was contradicted then.

PRINCE REGENT

Drove up this evening, did ye, Duke.  Why did you cut it so close?

DUKE OF BEDFORD

Well, it so happened that my sheep-sheering dinner was fixed for

this very day, and I couldn't put it off.  So I dined with them

there at one o'clock, discussed the sheep, rushed off, drove the

two-and-forty miles, jumped into my clothes at my house here, and

reached your Royal Highness's door in no very bad time.

PRINCE REGENT

Capital, capital.  But, 'pon my soul, 'twas a close shave!

[Soon the babbling and glittering company rise from supper, and

begin promenading through the rooms and tents, the REGENT setting

the example, and mixing up and talking unceremoniously with his

guests of every degree.  He and the group round him disappear into

the remoter chambers; but may concentrate in the Grecian Hall,

which forms the foreground of the scene, whence a glance can be

obtained into the ball-room, now filled with dancers.

The band is playing the tune of the season, "The Regency Hornpipe,"

which is danced as a country-dance by some thirty couples; so that

by the time the top couple have danced down the figure they are

quite breathless.  Two young lords talk desultorily as they survey

the scene.]

FIRST LORD

Are the rumours of the King of Rome's death confirmed?

SECOND LORD

No.  But they are probably true.  He was a feeble brat from the

first.  I believe they had to baptize him on the day he was born.

What can one expect after such presumption—calling him the New

Messiah, and God knows what all.  Ours is the only country which

did not write fulsome poems about him.  "Wise English!" the Tsar

Alexander said drily when he heard it.

FIRST LORD

Ay!  The affection between that Pompey and Caesar has begun to cool.

Alexander's soreness at having his sister thrown over so cavalierly

is not salved yet.

SECOND LORD

There is much beside.  I'd lay a guinea there will be war between

Russia and France before another year has flown.

FIRST LORD

Prinny looks a little worried to-night.

SECOND LORD

Yes.  The Queen don't like the fete being held, considering the

King's condition.  She and her friends say it should have been put

off altogether.  But the Princess of Wales is not troubled that way.

Though she was not asked herself she went wildly off and bought her

people new gowns to come in.  Poor maladroit woman!....

[Another new dance of the year is started, and another long line

of couples begin to foot it.]

That's a pretty thing they are doing now.  What d'ye call it?

FIRST LORD

"Speed the Plough."  It is just out.  They are having it everywhere.