Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1988 page)

[
Exit,
R. D.

LEY. (
sighs
).
Ah! what a woman I have loved, what a woman I have lost! Wait for her here? (
seated
R. C) Why? To what purposed? It would but renew our leave-taking. No! I must spare her the misery of a last farewell. (
rises
) My life is ended. And yet I move! I breathe! I think I live! Pah! what am I surprised at? (
up
C.) It is the slave’s blood in my veins — the slave’s nature in my heart! A slave will submit to anything! (
looks to
R. D.) Farewell! my first and my last love, farewell! farewell! (
hat on, goes up
C.) forever! (
chord.
)

Enter,
L. U. E.,
to
D. F., WESTCRAFT,
hat on
. LEYRAC
recedes down
R. C.,
removing his hat politely in salute.

WEST. You here again? Once for all, Mr. Frenchman, one of us is one too many in this house — I am in my right place — you are not. (
comes down.
)

LEY.
You
are in your right place?

WEST. Here? yes!

LEY. What do you mean? (
crosses to be on
WESTCRAFT’S L.)

WEST. Why, I am engaged to be married to Miss Milburn!

LEY. (
checks himself in almost going to strike
WESTCRAFT). You! (
forced laugh
) Ha, ha!
Mr. Planter! As we say in France, “Un bon parti n’est pas trop souvent pris.”

WEST. Keep your foreign gibberish to yourself!

LEY. My foreign gibberish? One can see that your education has been neglected. In the first place, one gentleman does not speak to another in that rough manner and rude tone.

WEST. (
sternly
). You keep a civil tongue in your head! fingers get crushed that meddle with my mill!

LEY. Worse and worse! I had no idea there were such barbarians amongst these savage islanders.

WEST. Are you mad, or drunk?

LEY. (
sternly
). First lesson, Mr. Planter! When you meet a gentleman in a lady’s house, you should take your hat off. You see I have mine in my hand. You will not take yours off! No! (WESTCRAFT
laughs in his face
) There, then! (
knocks
WESTCRAFT’S
hat off with his cane.
WESTCRAFT
steps back and half draws his bowie
) If you lay a finger on me, I will strangle you where you stand! (
tosses cane over
R. C. WESTCRAFT
sheathes knife, scowling.
)

WOLF
enters,
R. U. E.
to
D. F.

WOLF. Carriage ready, massa.

LEY. (
sternly
). Keep this from Miss Milburn’s knowledge, or expect another lesson! Send your seconds to my hotel. I shall await them there in an hour from this time, Mr. Planter! (
bows formally and exits
L. U. E.
by
D. F.)

WEST. (
up to
C., WOLF
stepping in front of
D. F., R.
side of it
). Wolf, pick up that cane, and wait for me in the market-place till I come. (
smiles vindictively.
WOLF
picks up cane slowly, grinning fiercely.
)

Scene closes in.

SCENE II. —
Interior, hotel room in 1st grooves.

Enter,
L.
to
C., LEYRAC.

LEY. I have provided for my faithful servant. If I fall in the duel all is over. If I live — (
pauses
) I live? There is one thing more. Michaelmas! (
calling to
R.) Michaelmas!

DAVID
enters,
R. D.
to
C.

DAVID. Sir!

LEY. Give me your hand. (DAVID
excuses himself
) You know that fortune has reversed our stations. I, who was your master, am a slave on your estates. When I ask you for your hand, and you give it, it is an honour you do me, my master! Still refusing? Have you forgotten what I told you when I came back to the hotel last night?

DAVID. No, I have forgotten nothing of it. I wish I could.

LEY. I was your master in France — but you are my master here, and I am your slave.

DAVID. (
feelingly
). Oh! think of
me
as you please, but don’t speak of yourself in that dreadful way. Here, as everywhere, you know what I am: the devoted servant of the best and kindest master man ever had.

LEY. Thank you, David!

DAVID. I am trying to keep down my emotions, sir, but, like champagne, they will bubble up. I know I ought to be ashamed of myself, as a well-trained servant. If I was a page under a butler now, he would punch my head, and serve me deucedly well right.

LEY. There, there, that will do. My mother last night gave me this pocket-book (
shows book
) as the only relic of my father. There is only in it this paper, which mentions a letter in duplicate, the original probably destroyed.

DAVID. But the copy is in existence!

LEY. That is just possible. (
gives pocket-book.
)

DAVID. (
reads paper
). “The duplicate letter to the Provost-Marshal.” — ”In a safe hiding place” — oh, here comes the clue — ”my room — six along and three across.” Hem! it is not easy for a stranger to discover it from this.

LEY. The document must have been of importance to my poor mother, and, therefore, perhaps of some to me. I believe you enjoy quite a popularity among the negroes of this island?

DAVID. Well, yes, sir, that I do. There is that Mr. Plato who has quite patronized me.

LEY. Some of the people who were about my father when he died may know something. Take the pocket-book and do your best with it.

DAVID. I believe I can find the very man.

LEY. I give you full leave to spare no expense.

DAVID. I will interrogate all the old servants. Ah! I have something to live for now. A chance to serve my slave — I begin to feel as if he were my master again.

LEY. One question before you go. Is all prepared for my mother’s burial?

DAVID. I regret to say, sir, that there I have done nothing.

LEY. What! nothing. You know I could not move in the matter without risking the revelation of my parentage, and yet — yet you have done nothing.

DAVID. It is not my fault, sir. Another had arranged for all the funeral, whom no one knows.

LEY. No one knows?

DAVID. No one can guess.

LEY. (
aside
). I can! Oh, Emily! But I must not think of that now!

DAVID (
to
R.). I hear somebody coming up the stairs. Do you expect anybody, sir?

LEY. Ah! yes.

Enter,
R. D., WOLF,
remaining by the entrance, sullenly.

LEY. It is one of Westcraft’s seconds. (
turns, and sees
WOLF,
and is surprised.
)

WOLF. Is not one of you the Count de Leyrac?

LEY. That is my name. You are Mr. Westcraft’s servant?

WOLF. I am Mr. Westcraft’s
slave.

LEY. Ah! you come to me from his friends?

WOLF. No! I come to you from master himself.

DAVID How dare you speak to the Count in that manner?

LEY. Michaelmas, keep quiet.

DAVID. I ask your pardon, sir, but the impudence of this yellow scamp was too much for me.

LEY. Keep your reproof to yourself, and leave me to speak with this messenger for me. Come in. (WOLF
steps a little forward
) Go, Michaelmas. (
exit,
DAVID, R. D.) Well, you bring me a message from your master?

WOLF. Yes. About your cane.

LEY. About my cane. (
puzzled
) Oh! I remember now. I left it at Miss Milburn’s this morning. Where is it?

WOLF. Waiting for you in the market place.

LEY. Again! (
nearer to
WOLF,
eyeing him steadily
) Is this insolence of yours assumed, or don’t you know any better? I will give you the benefit of the doubt: you don’t know any better.

WOLF. (
curtly
). Thank you.

LEY. Answer this question civilly, if you can. Did your master tell you to say this? Yes or no?

WOLF. Yes!

LEY. Mr. Westcraft told you to tell me what you have repeated to me?

WOLF. Yes!

LEY. Very well. Mr. Westcraft wants another lesson — Mr. Westcraft shall have it! Where shall I find your master?

WOLF. Where you will find your cane.

LEY. (
going
R.). You shall feel my cane over your back .

WOLF. Shall I?

[
Exit,
LEYRAC, R. D.,
and
WOLF
same, defiantly.

Scene changes to

SCENE III. —
Market-place in 5th grooves. Very brightly lighted.

Discover
NEGROES,
at stalls, crossing with baskets, dancing, speechifying, and
PLANTERS’ WIVES
making purchases and promenading. Introduce ballet by
SLAVE GIRLS
and grotesque dance by
COMIC NEGRO. SLAVES,
with baskets, crossing stage several times, calling:
Aguadiente! quien bebe? Watermillions! Mangoes — who’ll hab de berry best mangoes?
Lively music. Small
WHITE BOY
enters
L.,
and deliberately knocks down two
LITTLE BLACKS
in his path, and struts up
C.
They grin and resume playing, as if it were a matter of course.

Enter,
R. U. E.,
and comes down
C., WESTCRAFT,
looking at his watch impatiently. Cease music.

WEST. The hour is nearly up, and yet no signs of the Frenchman and Wolf. Here! some of you! look along the road and see if you can see anything of Wolf. (
aside
) If Miss Milburn thinks she can throw me over for another man, Miss Milburn will find out her mistake, and, what’s more, if her walk this morning extends to the market-place, she will find it out here. (
goes up
C.,
and saunters off
R. U. E.)

Enter,
R. 1 E., MISS MILBURN.

MISS M. (R. C.
front
). He surely will come back this way. I must see him once more. Oh! there is his man Michaelmas.

Enter,
L.1 E., DAVID.

Mr. Michaelmas, where is your master?

DAVID. I left him at the hotel, miss.

MISS M. Is he alone there?

DAVID. Yes, except that he had Mr. Westcraft’s servant with him.

MISS M. Mr. Westcraft’s servant? (
aside
) What can he want with him. (
aloud
) Do you think he would come out this way?