Scene II A Bedroom in Carter’s House. A Bed Thrust Forth, With Frank in a Slumber
Enter Katherine.
Kath. Brother, brother! so sound asleep? that’s well.
Frank. [Waking.] No, not I, sister; he that’s wounded here
As I am—all my other hurts are bitings
Of a poor flea;—but he that here once bleeds
Is maimed incurably.
Kath. My good sweet brother,—
For now my sister must grow up in you,—
Though her loss strikes you through, and that I feel
The blow as deep, I pray thee be not cruel
To kill me too, by seeing you cast away
In your own helpless sorrow. Good love, sit up;
And if you can give physic to yourself,
I shall be well.
Frank. I’ll do my best.
Kath. I thank you;
What do you look about for?
Frank. Nothing, nothing;
But I was thinking, sister,—
Kath. Dear heart, what?
Frank. Who but a fool would thus be bound to a bed,
Having this room to walk in?
Kath. Why do you talk so?
Would you were fast asleep!
Frank. No, no; I’m not idle.453
But here’s my meaning; being robbed as I am,
Why should my soul, which married was to hers,
Live in divorce, and not fly after her?
Why should I not walk hand in hand with Death,
To find my love out?
Kath. That were well indeed,
Your time being come; when Death is sent to call you,
No doubt you shall meet her.
Frank. Why should not I
Go without calling?
Kath. Yes, brother, so you might,
Were there no place to go when you’re gone
But only this.
Frank. ’Troth, sister, thou say’st true;
For when a man has been an hundred years
Hard travelling o’er the tottering bridge of age,
He’s not the thousand part upon his way:
All life is but a wandering to find home;
When we’re gone, we’re there. Happy were man,
Could here his voyage end; he should not, then,
Answer how well or ill he steered his soul
By Heaven’s or by Hell’s compass; how he put in—
Losing blessed goodness’ shore—at such a sin;
Nor how life’s dear provision he has spent,
Nor how far he in’s navigation went
Beyond commission: this were a fine reign,
To do ill and not hear of it again;
Yet then were man more wretched than a beast;
For, sister, our dead pay is sure the best.
Kath. ’Tis so, the best or worst; and I wish Heaven
To pay—and so I know it will—that traitor,
That devil Somerton—who stood in mine eye
Once as an angel—home to his deservings:
What villain but himself, once loving me,
With Warbeck’s soul would pawn his own to hell
To be revenged on my poor sister!
Frank. Slaves!
A pair of merciless slaves! speak no more of them.
Kath. I think this talking hurts you.
Frank. Does me no good, I’m sure;
I pay for’t everywhere.
Kath. I have done, then.
Eat, if you cannot sleep; you have these two days
Not tasted any food.—Jane, is it ready?
Frank. What’s ready? what’s ready?
Kath. I have made ready a roasted chicken for you:
Enter Maid with chicken.
Sweet, wilt thou eat?
Frank. A pretty stomach on a sudden; yes.—
There’s one in the house can play upon a lute;
Good girl, let’s hear him too.
Kath. You shall, dear brother. [Exit Maid.
Would I were a musician, you should hear
How I would feast your ear! [Lute plays within]—stay mend your pillow,
And raise you higher.
Frank. I am up too high,
Am I not, sister now?
Kath. No, no; ’tis well.
Fall-to, fall-to.—A knife! here’s never a knife.
Brother, I’ll look out yours. [Takes up his vest.
Enter the Dog, shrugging as it were for joy, and dances.
Frank. Sister, O, sister,
I’m ill upon a sudden, and can eat nothing.
Kath. In very deed you shall: the want of food
Makes you so faint, Ha! [Sees the bloody knife]—here’s none in your pocket;
I’ll go fetch a knife. [Exit hastily.
Frank. Will you?—’tis well, all’s well.
Frank searches first one pocket, then the other, finds the knife, and then lies down.—The Dog runs off.—The spirit of Susan comes to the bed’s side; Frank stares at it, and then turns to the other side, but the spirit is there too. Meanwhile enter Winnifred as a page, and stands sadly at the bed’s foot.—Frank affrighted sits up. The spirit vanishes.
Frank. What art thou?
Win. A lost creature.
Frank. So am I too.—Win?
Ah, my she-page!
Win. For your sake I put on
A shape that’s false; yet do I wear a heart
True to you as your own.
Frank. Would mine and thine
Were fellows in one house!—Kneel by me here.
On this side now! how dar’st thou come to mock me
On both sides of my bed?
Win. When?
Frank. But just now:
Outface me, stare upon me with strange postures,
Turn my soul wild by a face in which were drawn
A thousand ghosts leapt newly from their graves
To pluck me into a winding-sheet!
Win. Believe it,
I came no nearer to you than yon place
At your bed’s feet; and of the house had leave,
Calling myself your horse-boy, in to come,
And visit my sick master.
Frank. Then ’twas my fancy;
Some windmill in my brains for want of sleep.
Win. Would I might never sleep, so you could rest!
But you have plucked a thunder on your head,
Whose noise cannot cease suddenly: why should you
Dance at the wedding of a second wife,
When scarce the music which you heard at mine
Had ta’en a farewell of you? O, this was ill!
And they who thus can give both hands away
In th’ end shall want their best limbs.
Frank. Winnifred,—
The chamber-door’s fast?
Win. Yes.
Frank. Sit thee, then, down;
And when thou’st heard me speak, melt into tears:
Yet I, to save those eyes of thine from weeping,
Being to write a story of us two.
Instead of ink dipped my sad pen in blood.
When of thee I took leave, I went abroad
Only for pillage, as a freebooter,
What gold soe’er I got to make it thine.
To please a father I have Heaven displeased;
Striving to cast two wedding-rings in one,
Through my bad workmanship I now have none;
I have lost her and thee.
Win. I know she’s dead;
But you have me still.
Frank. Nay, her this hand
Murdered; and so I lose thee too.
Win. O me!
Frank. Be quiet; for thou my evidence art,
Jury, and judge: sit quiet, and I’ll tell all.
While they are conversing in a low tone, enter at one door Carter and Katherine, at the other the Dog, pawing softly at Frank.
Kath. I have run madding up and down to find you,
Being laden with the heaviest news that ever
Poor daughter carried.
Car. Why? is the boy dead?
Kath. Dead, sir!
O, father, we are cozened: you are told
The murderer sings in prison, and he laughs here.
This villain killed my sister see else, see,
[Takes up his vest, and shows the knife to her father, who secures it.
A bloody knife in’s pocket!
Car. Bless me, patience!
Frank. [Seeing them.] The knife, the knife, the knife!
Kath. What knife? [Exit the Dog.
Frank. To cut my chicken up, my chicken;
Be you my carver, father.
Car. That I will.
Kath. How the devil steels our brows after doing ill!
Frank. My stomach and my sight are taken from me;
All is not well within me.
Car. I believe thee, boy; I that have seen so many moons clap their horns on other men’s foreheads to strike them sick, yet mine to scape and be well; I that never cast away a fee upon urinals, but am as sound as an honest man’s conscience when he’s dying; I should cry out as thou dost, “All is not well within me,” felt I but the bag of thy imposthumes. Ah, poor villain! ah, my wounded rascal! all my grief is, I have now small hope of thee.
Frank. Do the surgeons say my wounds are dangerous, then?
Car. Yes, yes, and there’s no way with thee but one.
Frank. Would he were here to open them!
Car. I’ll go to fetch him; I’ll make an holiday to see thee as I wish.
Frank. A wondrous kind old man!
Win. [Aside to Frank.] Your sin’s the blacker
So to abuse his goodness.—[Aloud] Master, how do you?
Frank. Pretty well now, boy; I have such odd qualms
Come cross my stomach.—I’ll fall-to; boy, cut me—
Win. [Aside.] You have cut me, I’m sure;—A leg or wing, sir?
Frank. No, no, no; a wing—
[Aside.] Would I had wings but to soar up yon tower!
But here’s a clog that hinders me.
Re-enter Carter, with Servants bearing the body of Susan in a coffin.
What’s that?
Car. That! what? O, now I see her; ’tis a young wench, my daughter, sirrah, sick to the death; and hearing thee to be an excellent rascal for letting blood, she looks out at a casement, and cries, “Help, help! stay that man! him I must have or none.”
Frank. For pity’s sake, remove her: see, she stares
With one broad open eye still in my face!
Car. Thou putted’st both hers out, like a villain as thou art; yet, see! she is willing to lend thee one again to find out the murderer, and that’s thyself.
Frank. Old man, thou liest!
Car. So shalt thou—in the gaol.
—
Run for officers.
Kath. O, thou merciless slave!
She was—though yet above ground—in her grave
To me; but thou hast torn it up again—
Mine eyes, too much drowned, now must feel more rain.
Car. Fetch officers.
[Exit Katherine and Servants with the body of Susan.
Frank. For whom?
Car. For thee, sirrah, sirrah! Some knives have foolish posies upon them, but thine has a villainous one; look! [Showing the bloody knife.] O, it is enamelled with the heart-blood of thy hated wife, my belovèd daughter! What sayest thou to this evidence? is’t not sharp? does’t not strike home? Thou canst not answer honestly and without a trembling heart to this one point, this terrible bloody point.
Win. I beseech you, sir,
Strike him no more; you see he’s dead already.
Car. O, sir, you held his horses; you are as arrant a rogue as he: up go you too.
Frank. As you’re a man, throw not upon that woman
Your loads of tyranny, for she is innocent.
Car. How! how! a woman! Is’t grown to a fashion for women in all countries to wear the breeches?
Win. I’m not as my disguise speaks me, sir, his page,
But his first, only wife, his lawful wife.
Car. How! how! more fire i’ th’ bed-straw!454
Win. The wrongs which singly fell upon your daughter
On me are multiplied; she lost a life,
But I an husband, and myself must lose
If you call him to a bar for what he has done.
Car. He has done it, then?
Win. Yes, ’tis confessed to me.
Frank. Dost thou betray me?
Win. O, pardon me, dear heart! I’m mad to lose thee,
And know not what I speak; but if thou didst,
I must arraign this father for two sins,
Adultery and murder.
Re-enter Katherine.
Kath. Sir, they are come.
Car. Arraign me for what thou wilt, all Middlesex knows me better for an honest man than the middle of a market-place knows thee for an honest woman.—Rise, sirrah, and don your tacklings; rig yourself for the gallows, or I’ll carry thee thither on my back: your trull shall to the gaol go with you: there be as fine Newgate birds as she that can draw him in: pox on’s wounds!
Frank. I have served thee, and my wages now are paid;
Yet my worse punishment shall, I hope, be stayed. [Exeunt.