Dramas (Baillie)/The Stripling/Act 3

by Joanna Baillie

ACT III.

The Prison; Arden is discovered sitting in a disconsolate posture. After a pause, he rises, and walks once or twice across the front of the Stage.

ARDEN.

And if it should come to this, in what is it really different from that which, many times, in the accumulation of my distresses, I have wished for—I have almost been upon the brink of perpetrating? How often, after returning in despair from the gaming-house, have I wistfully looked at the pistols that hung on the wall, or the razor that lay on my table!—Ah! but disgrace, disgrace! The murmurs of detestation and pity; the broad gaze of the innumerable multitude; the last horrible act imposed on a passive wretch;—this is what the human mind strongly recoils from! this is dreadful! (Sinks down again upon his seat.)

Enter Under Gaoler, bearing a covered dish, &c.

UNDER GAOLER.

I have brought you something to eat, Sir: you will be quite faint if you fast longer.

ARDEN.

Take it away, friend; I cannot eat yet.

UNDER GAOLER.

Pray, Sir, be advised. If it were but a single morsel, it would do you good.

ARDEN.

Take it away—take it away, I pray thee. Why art thou so importunate?

UNDER GAOLER.

There is a young gentleman below, who wishes to see you, and my master is anxious you should take some refreshment before he comes to you; just, as it were, to strengthen you first.

ARDEN (starting up).

A young gentleman, said ye? A boy, do you mean?

UNDER GAOLER.

Yes, Sir, one of your good, manly, gentleman-like school-boys; but wonderfully out of heart, poor fellow.

ARDEN.

Good God! Show him up immediately.

UNDER GAOLER.

Yes, Sir; but will you not take a little wine first, if you will eat nothing?

ARDEN.

No, no, kind fool! it would choke me. Show him up immediately.

[Exit Gaoler.
Now do I feel all my miseries! Now am I the selfish, the cruel, the disgraceful father. O God! O God! what is the gaze of a multitude to this boy's eye?

Enter Young Arden, who, running up to his father, falls upon his neck, and hursts into tears.

ARDEN.

Boy, boy! why hast thou come to me?

YOUNG ARDEN.

To bless you, father.

ARDEN.

To bless me, boy?

YOUNG ARDEN.

Ay, and to cling to you, father: to be with you and serve you, father; who should do that, as you are now circumstanced, but me?

ARDEN.

Woe is me! that thou shouldst have such an office! It must not be.

YOUNG ARDEN.

Turn not away from me thus! I am now at your feet in a posture you have never seen me take before. (Kneeling and catching his hand.)

ARDEN.

I know thee well: thou art a generous boy; thou art a noble boy; but what a father am I? I have blasted thy fair promise, freshly springing plant! I have blighted thee with disgrace!

YOUNG ARDEN.

Say not so, my dear father! what ruin is there to him who has a sound mind and a sound body left, and is willing to be a poor man, since Heaven pleases not that he should be a rich one? And for disgrace, I shall think it no disgrace to be the son of an unfortunate father, knowing that he is only unfortunate. Look not on me then with such anguish! You will be able to vindicate your character to the world. (Arden shakes his head.) Nay, and if all the world regard you as guilty, I will believe you to be innocent.

ARDEN.

Oh, oh, oh! This is misery indeed.

YOUNG ARDEN.

Why that terrible groan, dear father?

ARDEN.

Thou wringest my heart, my son!—Little dost thou know—— but thou shalt know it. I have kept thy mother in ignorance, but I will conceal nothing from thee. (Going to the door to see if it he closely shut.)

YOUNG ARDEN.

Good heaven! what is it you would tell me?

ARDEN.

The fatal progress of a ruined unfortunate man.

YOUNG ARDEN.

I know you are unfortunate.

ARDEN.

Hold thy peace, and hear me out.—Naturally thoughtless and profuse, and fond of the pitiful distinction that expense bestows, I dissipated an easy fortune which ought to have been thine, Edmond.

YOUNG ARDEN.

Nay, nay! take no thought of that: let it go. It is but a feather in the air; and may light where it lists.

ARDEN.

Having squandered it, as I said, that false friend Robinair——

YOUNG ARDEN.

Is he false?

ARDEN.

False, base, and treacherous.

YOUNG ARDEN.

May he be sent to perdition then!

ARDEN.

Be quiet, be quiet, and hear me out. That false friend, who had insinuated himself into my confidence, by many flattering praises and professions of regard, and by sometimes accommodating me with small loans of money, which I still hoped to repay, introduced me to the gaming table. There I was at first allowed to be successful, and encouraged to risk still higher stakes: at last a tide of ill luck, as it was called, set strongly against me, and I was borne down to ruin and despair.

YOUNG ARDEN.

O what you must have suffered, father!

ARDEN.

I was not a very happy man, Edmond; and when I thought of your mother and you——

YOUNG ARDEN.

Nay, nay! say nothing of this. We shall do very well; we are satisfied.

ARDEN.

I will go on with my story. Being thus desperate, I wrote to my old relation Fenshaw for the loan of a thousand pounds, which I sincerely meant to repay, whenever I should have it in my power.

YOUNG ARDEN.

I knew it, Sir: I knew you would willingly wrong no man.

ARDEN.

Nay, listen. Fenshaw, suspecting the state of my affairs, but pitying my distress, sent me, indeed, a bill on his banker, but it was only for a hundred pounds, which was nothing to my necessities. I had, formerly, to amuse myself, imitated different kinds of hand-writing, and once,—this is the circumstance that, if brought in evidence, along with another only known to Robinair, would have the strongest effect on the decision of a jury; namely, his having seen the bill which Fenshaw sent me. Nothing was concealed from him. Once, after copying a note of Fenshaw's so exactly that it could not be discovered from the original, I showed it to Robinair and said, "This may be a resource to me in time of need."

YOUNG ARDEN (eagerly).

But you said it only in jest?

ARDEN.

I did so then: but ruin overwhelmed me; I had no resource, and a strong temptation took hold of me. To convert this bill for a hundred into one for a thousand pounds, seemed so easily done; and still, like a madman, confident of retrieving all if I were but once more enabled to attempt fortune, I thought I should contrive to repay the sum, before the fraud could be discovered. This fatal idea came into my head in my despair, was rejected, yet still returned to me again, and, at last, an irresistible temptation fastened itself upon my miserable imbecility.

YOUNG ARDEN (in a half-choked voice).

But you resisted it?

ARDEN.

Alas! I did not. (Young Arden staggers back some paces, then sinks down upon a chair, and from that upon the ground, where he throws himself along, covering his face with his hands, while Arden strides to and fro on the front of the Stage, in violent agitation.)

Enter Mrs. Arden.

MRS. ARDEN (to her husband, not perceiving her son, who is partly concealed by the chair from which he sank).

Ha! how is it now? Thou art more overcome than I have ever seen thee before. Alas! if thy strength fail thee now, when thou hast such exertions to make, what will become of us?

ARDEN.

Let me alone—let me alone: thoughts of unutterable anguish are dealing with me.

MRS. ARDEN.

Alas! alas! I thought to have brought thee comfort.

ARDEN.

What comfort? Where is it?

MRS. ARDEN.

I went in quest of it, but I have returned empty. He is inexorable.

ARDEN.

O! I remember now. Thou hast been with Robinair then?

MRS. ARDEN.

Yes; I am come from his house, where I have knelt and wept at his feet.

ARDEN.

And he is inexorable?

MRS. ARDEN.

There is nothing to hope for from him. He has talked of befriending me and my son; but for thee he has no pity. He has talked, indeed, as if certain compliances on my part might have power to move him in your behalf, and desired me to acquaint him with my determination this night at his house near Chelsea; but there was a malignant mockery on his face, as he spoke, which made me regard what he said as an unworthy insult, that had no serious meaning.

ARDEN.

But it had a meaning,—a damned meaning. My life is in his power, and he had the audacity, even to me, to propose that which, were I but to utter it, would cover us both with shame.

MRS. ARDEN.

Let it not then be uttered! Thou hast rejected the detestable proposal with abhorrence: I know thou hast; and, for the rest, let Heaven in its mercy send us deliverance. (Arden groans.) O! how is this? Where is that vehemence of indignation? Surely thou hast rejected it with abhorrence!

ARDEN.

I did reject it with abhorrence, and I do so still. But, oh! Letitia! there are moments when the thoughts of public disgrace; of the last dreadful act of dying on a scaffold, a spectacle to the unfeeling multitude, does so terribly beset my imagination, that, were it possible to endure the idea of thy degradation, I could almost——

YOUNG ARDEN (who has been eagerly listening, raising himself meantime from the ground by degrees, now springs upon his feet, and rushing between his father and mother, separates them vehemently with his thrown-out arms).
But it is impossible.

MRS. ARDEN (to her son).

Ha! art thou here?

ARDEN (to his son, who is looking fixedly upon him).

Take off thine eyes from me, boy; they strike me to the earth. Look not so on one whom thou hast called thy father. I know the spirit that is in thee, and, alas! I know that it is none of mine. Thou hast clung round my knees, and the first word of thy lips has been my name; thou hast clung to my side, and appeared to belong to me, but the soul that is in thee claims a far higher descent; thou shouldst have been the son of a nobler father. Yet strike me not to the earth in my wretchedness: I can bear any degradation but this.

YOUNG ARDEN.

Father, father! speak not such words of humiliation: they are in my heart like daggers; they pierce it to the core. If I have looked at you as I ought not to have looked, punish me as you will, but, oh! not in this manner! Give me any other chastisement! You are the father that Heaven has given me, and I will be your son in riches and poverty; in honour and disgrace.

ARDEN.

My noble, my generous boy! Oh, the curse of my unutterable folly! What a proud father I might have been! But now——No, no! change thy name, and let no creature know who it was that gave thee being. Let me die the death of a malefactor: it will be horrible, but it will be short.

YOUNG ARDEN.

May you not yet be saved?

ARDEN.

I ask it not now: I am resigned, if thou canst save thyself from infamy, and wilt blot out from thy remembrance that a weak wish for life did once for a moment betray me into unworthy thoughts.

MRS. ARDEN.

O God! and is there no deliverance for thee? Can any thing be a crime that saves thy life?

ARDEN.

Speak not of this again. The degrading wish which I have torn from my breast, shall return to it no more. Be calm, be resigned, my dear Latitia: there is no deliverance.

YOUNG ARDEN (after a thoughtful pause, springing up in the air).

But there is—there is deliverance!

ARDEN.

What keen voice of exclamation is this? Art thou beside thyself?

YOUNG ARDEN.

No; but I am beyond myself. I am more than myself. The strength of a man thrills along my new-strung limbs, and with it there is deliverance for thee. (Running hastily to the door.)

ARDEN.

What dost thou mean? Where art thou running to, Edmond?

MRS. ARDEN.

Come back, come back, child: thou shalt not leave us.

YOUNG ARDEN.

Oh, call me not back! Let me be for this one day unquestioned, and free from control, and all my life after I am subject to your will.

ARDEN.

Knowest thou of any interest to be moved? of any means that we are ignorant of?

YOUNG ARDEN.

Yes, father; and ignorant you must be. Let me go, I beseech you: I have a thing in my head, and with you I dare no longer remain.

ARDEN.

This is a strangely sudden thought.

MRS. ARDEN.

When shall I see thee again? I shall be at home in an hour or two.

YOUNG ARDEN.

But I sha'n't return to you then.

MRS. ARDEN.

Before dark, at least, I may expect you?

YOUNG ARDEN.

I sha'n't return so soon.

MRS. ARDEN.

Good Heavens! when shall I see thee?

YOUNG ARDEN.

Enquire not about me, I beseech you! After midnight, perhaps—but rise not when I knock at the door. In the morning—daylight will be dawning on the sky when I see you again. Farewell, farewell! and may heaven have pity upon us!
[Exit hastily.

MRS. ARDEN (running after him).

I cannot let him go: there is something in his words that alarm me.

ARDEN (pulling her back).

Do not go after him, nor prevent him from following his own generous impulse, noble creature! There is some person whom he hopes to interest strongly in my favour;—some of his school-fellows, perhaps, connected with people in power. It is vain, indeed; yet let him follow his own ideas. He will have satisfaction afterwards in having made the attempt.

MRS. ARDEN.

Pray Heaven it be so! I have strange fear upon me that I cannot account for. 'T is like a presentiment: I have become superstitious.—What if I should see him no more?

ARDEN.

Do not give way to it, my dear love! Misery makes us all superstitious.

Enter Gaoler.

Does any body wish to see me?

GAOLER.

Your Counsel, Sir, are returned; and as you are permitted to use the next apartment, where there is better accommodation than here, I have shown them into it, and they wait for you.

ARDEN.

I will come to them immediately.

[Exit Gaoler.)
Leave me then, my dear Letitia, and keep up your heart, if you can. I shall see you again in the evening.—God bless and support you, under the sad trials which my sins and follies have brought upon you!
[Exeunt.