The orchestra should consist of at least a harp, a drum, and a pair of cymbals, these instruments being the most useful in enhancing the stage effect.
The landlord may with equal propriety be a landlady, if that arrangement be better suited to the resources of the company.
As the “Bill Bailey” song has not proved immortal, any equally appropriate ditty of the moment may be substituted.
Dramatis Personae
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Lady Magnesia Fitztollemache
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George Fitztollemache
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Phyllis, her maid
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Adolphus Bastable
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A Landlord
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A Policeman
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A Doctor
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Attendants
Passion, Poison and Petrifaction
In a bed-sitting room in a fashionable quarter of London a Lady sits at her dressing table, with her maid combing her hair. It is late; and the electric lamps are glowing. Apparently the room is bedless; but there stands against the opposite wall to that at which the dressing table is placed a piece of furniture that suggests a bookcase without carrying conviction. On the same side is a chest of drawers of that disastrous kind which, recalcitrant to the opener until she is provoked to violence, then suddenly come wholly out and defy all her efforts to fit them in again. Opposite this chest of drawers, on the Lady’s side of the room, is a cupboard. The presence of a row of gentleman’s boots beside the chest of drawers proclaims that the Lady is married. Her own boots are beside the cupboard. The third wall is pierced midway by the door, above which is a cuckoo clock. Near the door a pedestal bears a portrait bust of the Lady in plaster. There is a fan on the dressing table, a hatbox and rug strap on the chest of drawers, an umbrella and a bootjack against the wall near the bed. The general impression is one of brightness, beauty, and social ambition, damped by somewhat inadequate means. A certain air of theatricality is produced by the fact that though the room is rectangular it has only three walls. Not a sound is heard except the overture and the crackling of the Lady’s hair as the maid’s brush draws electric sparks from it in the dry air of the London midsummer.
| The cuckoo clock strikes sixteen. | |
| The Lady | How much did the clock strike, Phyllis? |
| Phyllis | Sixteen, my lady. |
| The Lady | That means eleven o’clock, does it not? |
| Phyllis | Eleven at night, my lady. In the morning it means half-past two; so if you hear it strike sixteen during your slumbers, do not rise. |
| The Lady | I will not, Phyllis. Phyllis: I am weary. I will go to bed. Prepare my couch. |
| Phyllis crosses the room to the bookcase and touches a button. The front of the bookcase falls out with a crash and becomes a bed. A roll of distant thunder echoes the crash. | |
| Phyllis | Shuddering. It is a terrible night. Heaven help all poor mariners at sea! My master is late. I trust nothing has happened to him. Your bed is ready, my lady. |
| The Lady | Thank you, Phyllis. She rises and approaches the bed. Goodnight. |
| Phyllis | Will your ladyship not undress? |
| The Lady | Not tonight, Phyllis. Glancing through where the fourth wall is missing. Not under the circumstances. |
| Phyllis | Impulsively throwing herself on her knees by her mistress’s side, and clasping her round the waist. Oh, my beloved mistress, I know not why or how; but I feel that I shall never see you alive again. There is murder in the air. Thunder. Hark! |
| The Lady | Strange! As I sat there methought I heard angels singing, “Oh, won’t you come home, Bill Bailey?” Why should angels call me Bill Bailey? My name is Magnesia Fitztollemache. |
| Phyllis | Emphasizing the title. Lady Magnesia Fitztollemache. |
| Lady Magnesia | In case we should never again meet in this world, let us take a last farewell. |
| Phyllis | Embracing her with tears. My poor murdered angel mistress! |
| Lady Magnesia | In case we should meet again, call me at half-past eleven. |
| Phyllis | I will, I will. |
| Phyllis withdraws, overcome by emotion. Lady Magnesia switches off the electric light, and immediately hears the angels quite distinctly. They sing “Bill Bailey” so sweetly that she can attend to nothing else, and forgets to remove even her boots as she draws the coverlet over herself and sinks to sleep, lulled by celestial harmony. A white radiance plays on her pillow, and lights up her beautiful face. But the thunder growls again; and a lurid red glow concentrates itself on the door, which is presently flung open, revealing a saturnine figure in evening dress, partially concealed by a crimson cloak. As he steals towards the bed the unnatural glare in his eyes and the broad-bladed dagger nervously gripped in his right hand bode ill for the sleeping lady. Providentially she sneezes on the very brink of eternity; and the tension of the Murderer’s nerves is such that he bolts precipitately under the bed at the sudden and startling Atscha! A dull, heavy, rhythmic thumping—the beating of his heart—betrays his whereabouts. Soon he emerges cautiously and raises his head above the bed coverlet level. | |
| The Murderer | I can no longer cower here listening to the agonized thumpings of my own heart. She but snoze in her sleep. I’ll do’t. He again raises the dagger. The angels sing again. He cowers. What is this? Has that tune reached Heaven? |
| Lady Magnesia | Waking and sitting up. My husband! All the colors of the rainbow chase one another up his face with ghastly brilliancy. Why do you change color? And what on earth are you doing with that dagger? |
| Fitz | Affecting unconcern, hut unhinged. It is a present for you: a present from mother. Pretty, isn’t it? He displays it |
