Short Plays

utter it
As men announce a celebrated name.
Forgive my ignorance. Cashel

I bless it, Lydia.
I have forgot your other name.

Lydia

Carew.
Cashel’s a pretty name, too.

Mellish

Calling through the wood.

Coo-ee! Byron!

Cashel

A thousand curses! Oh, I beg you, go.
This is a man you must not meet.

Mellish

Further off.

Coo-ee!

Lydia

He’s losing us. What does he in my woods?

Cashel

He is a part of what I am. What that is
You must not know. It would end all between us.
And yet there’s no dishonor in’t: your lawyer,
Who let your lodge to me, will vouch me honest.
I am ashamed to tell you what I am⁠—
At least, as yet. Some day, perhaps.

Mellish

Nearer.

Coo-ee!

Lydia

His voice is nearer. Fare you well, my tenant.
When next your rent falls due, come to the castle.
Pay me in person. Sir: your most obedient. She curtsies and goes.

Cashel

Lives in this castle! Owns this park! A lady
Marry a prizefighter! Impossible.
And yet the prizefighter must marry her.

Enter Mellish.

Ensanguined swine, whelped by a doggish dam,
Is this thy park, that thou, with voice obscene,
Fillst it with yodeled yells, and screamst my name
For all the world to know that Cashel Byron
Is training here for combat.

Mellish

Swine you me?
I’ve caught you, have I? You have found a woman.
Let her show here again, I’ll set the dog on her.
I will. I say it. And my name’s Bob Mellish.

Cashel

Change thy initial and be truly hight
Hellish. As for thy dog, why dost thou keep one
And bark thyself? Begone.

Mellish

I’ll not begone.
You shall come back with me and do your duty⁠—
Your duty to your backers, do you hear?
You have not punched the bag this blessed day.

Cashel

The putrid bag engirdled by thy belt
Invites my fist.

Mellish

Weeping.

Ingrate! O wretched lot!
Who would a trainer be? O Mellish, Mellish,
Trainer of heroes, builder-up of brawn,
Vicarious victor, thou createst champions
That quickly turn thy tyrants. But beware:
Without me thou art nothing. Disobey me,
And all thy boasted strength shall fall from thee.
With flaccid muscles and with failing breath
Facing the fist of thy more faithful foe,
I’ll see thee on the grass cursing the day
Thou didst forswear thy training.

Cashel

Noisome quack
That canst not from thine own abhorrent visage
Take one carbuncle, thou contaminat’st
Even with thy presence my untainted blood.
Preach abstinence to rascals like thyself
Rotten with surfeiting. Leave me in peace.
This grove is sacred: thou profanest it.
Hence! I have business that concerns thee not.

Mellish

Ay, with your woman. You will lose your fight.
Have you forgot your duty to your backers?
Oh, what a sacred thing your duty is!
What makes a man but duty? Where were we
Without our duty? Think of Nelson’s words:
England expects that every man⁠—

Cashel

Shall twaddle
About his duty. Mellish: at no hour
Can I regard thee wholly without loathing;
But when thou play’st the moralist, by Heaven,
My soul flies to my fist, my fist to thee;
And never did the Cyclops’ hammer fall
On Mars’s armor⁠—but enough of that.
It does remind me of my mother.

Mellish

Ah,
Byron, let it remind thee. Once I heard
An old song: it ran thus. He clears his throat. Ahem, Ahem!

Sings.

—They say there is no other
Can take the place of mother⁠—

I am out o’ voice: forgive me; but remember:
Thy mother⁠—were that sainted woman here⁠—
Would say, Obey thy trainer.

Cashel

Now, by Heaven,
Some fate is pushing thee upon thy doom.
Canst thou not hear thy sands as they run out?
They thunder like an avalanche. Old man:
Two things I hate, my duty and my mother.
Why dost thou urge them both upon me now?
Presume not on thine age and on thy nastiness.
Vanish, and promptly.

Mellish

Can I leave thee here
Thus thinly clad, exposed to vernal dews?
Come back with me, my son, unto our lodge.

Cashel

Within this breast a fire is newly lit
Whose glow shall sun the dew away, whose radiance
Shall make the orb of night hang in the heavens
Unnoticed, like a glowworm at high noon.

Mellish

Ah me, ah me, where wilt thou spend the night?

Cashel

Wiltstoken’s windows wandering beneath,
Wiltstoken’s holy bell hearkening,
Wiltstoken’s lady loving breathlessly.

Mellish

The lady of the castle! Thou art mad.

Cashel

’Tis thou art mad to trifle in my path.
Thwart me no more. Begone.

Mellish

My boy, my son,
I’d give my heart’s blood for thy happiness.
Thwart thee, my son! Ah, no. I’ll go with thee.
I’ll brave the dews. I’ll sacrifice my sleep.
I am old⁠—no matter: ne’er shall it be said
Mellish deserted thee.

Cashel

You resolute gods
That will not spare this man, upon your knees
Take the disparity twixt his age and mine.
Now from the ring to the high judgment seat
I step at your behest. Bear you me witness
This is not Victory, but Execution.

He solemnly projects his fist with colossal force against the waistcoat of Mellish, who doubles up like a folded towel, and lies without sense or motion.

And now the night is beautiful again.

The castle clock strikes the hour in the distance.

Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark!
It strikes in poetry. ’Tis ten o’clock.
Lydia: to thee!

He steals off towards the castle. Mellish stirs and groans.

Act II

Scene I

London. A room in Lydia’s house.

	Enter Lydia and Lucian.
Lydia	Welcome, dear cousin, to my London house. Of late you have been chary of your visits.
Lucian	I have been greatly occupied of late. The minister to whom I act as scribe In Downing Street was born in Birmingham, And, like a thoroughbred commercial statesman, Splits his infinitives, which I, poor slave, Must reunite, though all the time my heart Yearns for my gentle coz’s company.
Lydia	Lucian: there is some other reason. Think! Since England was a nation every mood Her scribes have prepositionally split; But thine avoidance dates from yestermonth.
Lucian	There is a man I like not haunts this house.
Lydia	Thou speak’st of Cashel Byron?
Lucian	Aye, of him. Hast thou forgotten that eventful night When as we gathered were at Hoskyn House To hear a lecture by Herr Abendgasse, He placed a single finger on my chest, And I,