stood.
chater: You blackguard!
Septimus: I assure you. Mrs Chater is charming and spirited, with a pleasing voice and a dainty step, she is the epitome of all the qualities society applauds in her sex - and yet her chief renown is for a readiness that keeps her in a state of tropical humidity as would grow orchids in her drawers in January.
chater: Damn you, Hodge, I will not listen to this! Will you fight or not?
Septimus: (Definitively) Not! There are no more than two or three poets of the first rank now living, and I will not shoot one of them dead over a perpendicular poke in a gazebo with a woman whose reputation could not be adequately defended with a platoon of musketry deployed by rota.
chater: Ha! You say so! Who are the others? In your opinion? -no-no -! - this goes very ill, Hodge. I will not be flattered out of my course. You say so, do you?
Septimus: I do. And I would say the same to Milton were he not already dead. Not the part about his wife, of course -
chater: But among the living? Mr Southey?
Septimus: Southey I would have shot on sight.
chater: (Shaking his head sadly) Yes, he has fallen off. I admired Thalaba' quite, but 'Madoc', (he chuckles) oh dear me! - but we are straying from the business here - you took advantage of Mrs Chater, and if that were not bad enough, it appears every stableboy and scullery maid on the strength -
Septimus: Damn me! Have you not listened to a word I said?
chater: I have heard you, sir, and I will not deny I welcome your regard, God knows one is little appreciated if one stands outside the coterie of hacks and placemen who surround Jeffrey and the Edinburgh -
Septimus: My dear Chater, they judge a poet by the seating plan of Lord Holland's table!
chater: By heaven, you are right! And I would very much like to know the name of the scoundrel who slandered my verse
7
drama 'The Maid of Turkey' in the Piccadilly Recreation, too!
Septimus: The Maid of Turkey'! I have it by my bedside! When I cannot sleep I take up The Maid of Turkey' like an old friend!
CHATER: (Gratified) There you are! And the scoundrel wrote he would not give it to his dog for dinner were it covered in bread sauce and stuffed with chestnuts. When Mrs Chater read that, she wept, sir, and would not give herself to me for a fortnight - which recalls me to my purpose -
Septimus: The new poem, however, will make your name perpetual -
chater: Whether it do or not -
Septimus: It is not a question, sir. No coterie can oppose the acclamation of the reading public. The Couch of Eros' will take the town.
chater: Is that your estimation?
Septimus: It is my intent.
chater: Is it, is it? Well, well! I do not understand you.
Septimus: You see I have an early copy - sent to me for review. I say review, but I speak of an extensive appreciation of your gifts and your rightful place in English literature.
chater: Well, I must say. That is certainly . . . You have written it?
Septimus: (Crisply) Not yet.
chater: Ah. And how long does . . . ?
SEPTIMUS: To be done right, it first requires a careful re-reading of your book, of both your books, several readings, together with outlying works for an exhibition of deference or disdain as the case merits. I make notes, of course, I order my thoughts, and finally, when all is ready and I am calm in my mind. . .
chater: (Shrewdly) Did Mrs Chater know of this before she -before you -
Septimus: I think she very likely did.
chater: (Triumphantly) There is nothing that woman would not do for me! Now you have an insight to her character. Yes, by God, she is a wife to me, sir!
Septimus: For that alone, I would not make her a widow.
8
chater: Captain Brice once made the same observation!
Septimus: Captain Brice did?
chater: Mr Hodge, allow me to inscribe your copy in happy anticipation. Lady Thomasina's pen will serve us.
Septimus: Your connection with Lord and Lady Croom you owe to your fighting her ladyship's brother?
chater: No! It was all nonsense, sir - a canard! But a fortunate mistake, sir. It brought me the patronage of a captain of His Majesty's Navy and the brother of a countess. I do not think Mr Walter Scott can say as much, and here I am, a respected guest at Sidley Park.
Septimus: Well, sir, you can say you have received satisfaction. (CHATER is already inscribing the book, using the pen and ink-pot on the table. NOAKES enters through the door used by chater. He carries rolled-up plans, chater, inscribing, ignores noakes. noakes on seeing the occupants, panics.)
noakes: Oh!
Septimus: Ah, Mr Noakes! - my muddy-mettled rascal! Where's your spyglass?
noakes: I beg your leave -1 thought her ladyship - excuse me -(He is beating an embarrassed retreat when he becomes rooted by CHATER's voice. CHATER reads his inscription in ringing tones.)
chater: To my friend Septimus Hodge, who stood up and gave his best on behalf of the Author - Ezra Chater, at Sidley Park, Derbyshire, April ioth, 1809.' (Giving the book to Septimus.) There, sir - something to show your grandchildren!
Septimus: This is more than I deserve, this is handsome, what do you say, Noakes?
(They are interrupted by the appearance, outside the windows, of lady croom and captain edward brice, rn. Her first words arrive through the open door.)
lady croom: Oh, no! Not the gazebo!
(She enters, followed by BRICE who carries a leatherbound
sketch book.)
Mr Noakes! What is this I hear?
brice: Not only the gazebo, but the boat-house, the Chinese bridge, the shrubbery -
9
chater: By God, sir! Not possible!
brice: Mr Noakes will have it so.
Septimus: Mr Noakes, this is monstrous!
lady croom: I am glad to hear it from .you, Mr Hodge.
thomasina: (Opening the door from the music room) May I return now?
SEPTIMUS: (Attempting to close the door) Not just yet -
lady croom: Yes, let her stay. A lesson in folly is worth two in wisdom.
(brice takes the sketch book to the reading stand, where he lays it open. The sketch book is the work a/MR noakes, who is obviously an admirer of Humphry Reptoris 'Red Books'. The pages, drawn in watercolours, show 'before' and 'after* views of the landscape, and the pages are cunningly cut to allow the latter to be superimposed over portions of the former, though Repton did it the other way round.)
brice: Is Sidley Park to be an Englishman's garden or the haunt of Corsican brigands?
SEPTIMUS: Let us not hyperbolize, sir.
brice: It is rape, sir!
noakes: (Defending himself) It is the modern style.
chater: (Under the same misapprehension as Septimus) Regrettable, of course, but so it is. (thomasina has gone to examine the sketch book.)
lady croom: Mr Chater, you show too much submission. Mr Hodge, I appeal to you.
Septimus: Madam, I regret the gazebo, I sincerely regret the gazebo - and the boat-house up to a point - but the Chinese bridge, fantasy! - and the shrubbery I reject with contempt! Mr Chater! - would you take the word of a
