Cinnamon and Angelica;

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

SANTA BARBARA

COLLEGE

PRESENTED BY

Mrs. Hulda Vaxwell
in memory of
Professor William Maxwell

CINNAMON AND ANGELICA

A PLAY

BY JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY

RICHARD

COBDEN-SANDERSON

THAVIES INN

1920

TO
KATHERINE

UNIVEF-SITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE LIBRARY

C^ DRAMATIS PERSON.^

CINNAMON
MACE .

MARJORAM

ANGELICA
CARAWAY

VANILLA BEAN

Prince of the Peppercorns

The Colonel-in-Command of
the Peppercorn Army

Captain of Halberdiers to
AngeHca

Princess of the Cloves

Mistress of the Bedchamber
to Angelica

Housekeeper to Cinnamon

An Orderly to Captain Marjoram
Heralds

PROLOGUE

Man is a thing of dreams ; by dreams he

lives
And, dreaming, dies : alone his dreaming

gives
To life her tremulous beauties which are past
Swifter than spring's own flower, and over-
cast
With the grey clouds of chill reality.
Yet one, a dreamer, muses fitfully
On the dim purpose which may light the

dream
On this or that existence with a gleam
Nor ours nor alien, but all transfusing
Into a rareness far beyond our choosing.
Beauty we did not follow, yet we are
Her elements since birth familiar ;
In whose grave light may one, a dreamer, see
The paths made straight by sweet necessity,
A world where pain is pain and a child's

sobbing
Tears at the stars, and joy lives not by robbing
Sorrow of her true sting ; where laughter

rises
Out of one fount with tears, and no surprise is
That love should still be sovereign in men's

hearts.
For love is kind and to her own imparts
Grace that is stronger than the destinies

7

Which they confront with comprehending

eyes.
O dream of dreams, O wisdom of the

child
That hides in us and is not reconciled
To what we are, remembering what we were,
And what, were the word spoken, even here,
Even now, we might be — creatures of truth.
Knowledge and beauty, simpleness and ruth.
Whom death cannot diminish, who have

been —
Light for a tremulous instant this quaint

scene ;
Flicker enchantments, like a summer sun
Through the green mesh of leaves, on everyone
Of these my love's creations so they leap
From shade to light, from wakefulness to

sleep.

ACT I
SCENE : CINNAMON'S PALACE

[Cinnamon is looking out of the window of
a room in the palace in Peppercorn. Colonel
Mace is standing with a ceremonial rigidity
at the correct distance from him. It is
Cinnamon's birthday.]

MACE

What's that you say, Sir ?

CINNAMON

I . . . But did I speak ?
Of course. How fooUsh of me ! You're a
friend ?

MACE

Your Majesty commands my very Hfe.

CINNAMON

Ah, that's no answer. Did you understand
The words you heard ?

MACE

I scarcely heard them, Sir.

CINNAMON

Ah, no, Mace, no ! If I spoke, I spoke

aloud.
Was it not this : " May be I've lived too

long " .?

MACE

I do not take you. Sir. But how too long ?
Since when too long ?

CINNAMON

Since twenty-seven years.

lO

It's twenty-seven you give me ? Count them Act I
now.

[The guns begin to boom.]

Yes, twenty-seven. We'll call it twenty-
seven.

And yet each cannon makes a million waves

That tremble through the spaces of the vast

And gather huddled on the edge of all.

Still twenty-seven, Mace ? When each dis-
solving year

Carries my atoms like the tiny airs

Into the universe, leaving I know not what—

A sceptred thing, a crowned vehicle

Of cosmic perturbations.

Don't shake your head and prove yourself a
fool.

The worst of education for a prince,

It takes the princedom from him, splinters
the crown

Into a cloud of gold dust, powdering

The infinite horizons of old time.

And haloing the sunrise, of no sun.

Why has the glory stuck to me alone,

Like one of those old-fashioned postage
stamps

That published forth the birth of Cinnamon

How many years ago ? Yes, twenty-seven.

Let us shake hands on that, and hold it fast.

II

Swear it upon your knees.

[Mace is alarmed and uncomprehending.]

Down, you old dog,

And say : I swear that you are twenty-seven.

So swear.

My lord.

MACE

I swear that you are twenty-seven.

CINNAMON

Forgive me. Mace. Not royalty
Has made me call you dog. Now I '11 go down
And you shall call me dog.

MACE

I cannot, Sir,
Though you command.

CINNAMON

I'll not command. I'll kiss
The polish on your boots. You are absolved
The word. Arc those your best boots }

Two such pairs
Could not be found in Peppercorn. When I

kissed
I saw my face. I don't like it at all.
The mouth is crooked and the nose presumes
On its advantage.

MACE

It's the Cinnamon nose.
Did you not know your honoured grandfather
12

Was called Old Longbeak by his Yellow Act I

Guards ?
And though I should prefer they should not

lack
Aught of due reverence, still it was but love.
Think how they followed him against the

Cloves —
I was an ensign then — and when he fell,
With a chance bullet ploughed into his eye,
I could not hold my company. They spurred
Against the Royal command into the Cloves
And routed them instanter. Hence you

hold
The valley and the uplands of Mireil,
That this mere girl, ascended to the throne,
Thinks to beleaguer, has encompassed
With half a dozen regiments of Cloves
And some new-fangled tin artillery.
It'll come to nothing. Garlic tried to load
The patent off on me, the year you went
To Tamarind to fetch that painter fellow
To colour-wash the palace, and left me regent.

[He unrolls a map.]
But, look, the Cloves
Have fastened on Mireil, the fairest jewel
In the princely diadem of Peppercorn,
Knit ours by conquest and cement of blood.
By free decision of its parliament

13

Act I Made on the battlefield, whither we dragged
them
Tied to our stirrup leathers. Sir, Mireil
With Nonpareil its capital once lost,
Then ended is the day of Peppercorn
And what was built by valour lost in scorn.

CINNAMON

You really think so, Mace ?

MACE

Oh, Sir, forgive me.
But when I hear you ask me with that voice,
The very voice with which you say to me :
" I've spent the morning picking out these

three
Out of the hundred plans for the new fountain
At Vallombrosa — tell me which is best,"
Something turns cold in me. I thought that

princes
Had points of honour sprinkled in their blood,
So that they chafed by instinct when some

outrage
Was done their royalty or their demesne ;
And then they sent their loyal editors
To rouse the sluggish temper of the plebs,
While they raged inly at an hour's delay
Of condign chastisement. . . . Sir, yet once

more —
I fear you have not heard me nor have read

14

To-day's dispatches — yesterday the Cloves Act I
Gathered their armies on the further bank
Of the VolubiHs. To-day they've crossed
In ten detachments ; a galloper
Now brings me news that by forced marches
The Cloves are converging on Nonpareil.
I came to tell you this ; but, God forgive

me,
Your strange behaviour has benighted all
My resolution and my thoughts confused,
For you so smile at me that there are

moments
When to myself I seem a wanton child,
Telling a tale of dreams past all belief
To such another. Why do you thus bewitch

me ?
Here is the message. Read.

[Hands Cinnamon the dispatch i\
I pray you, do not smile.

CINNAMON

I am not smiling. Mace. I will not smile.
I swear it. Why, my very muscles ache
With pursing of my lips to such a scowl
As should afford you satisfaction.

MACE

It's not your lips that smile.

CINNAMON

Still not enough .''
15

Act I You'd stand me like a dunce into the comer
And say my back was laughing.

MACE

I could believe it ; for your lips are set,
And yet your shining eyes make mock of me,
Being shot with silent laughter. If I'm stiff.
It's wounds have ironed me ; if my face is

pocked,
It was gunpowder that seared it ; if my eye
Droops, it was got upon the Rataplan
Shielding your father. As I scorned my life.
It's just you scorn my body.

CINNAMON

O Mace, Mace !
A little and you'd rob me of your love —
The only jewel I have, the only country
Where I am prince without constraint of law.
The only citadel where I rest secure
And rest in very deed, the only gift
Whose impulse I shall never understand.
My only miracle and only fear.
If my eyes laugh — they have no cause for

laughter —
Then they are rebels to my princely will.
My heart is sick, sick with the trembling

sunshine
That whispers that the world's in holiday,
Yet will not speak it that the world may hear
i6

And answer to the summons, faints away Act I

Against the brazen bugle.

[The bugles sound from the palace yard —

To horsey to arms and gallop away ;

Laugh in the evenings dead in the morn.
For Nonpareil, for Nonpareil —

A Peppercorn, a Peppercorn.]

That's no pain
To you, my Mace, for you are smiling now.
But I'll not twit you with it. I've no stomach
For jesting, though you think me idle.
Nor yet am I afraid. I have no fear
Save one that I have told you of, your love.
But there is something in that bugle call
Like to the sun's own voice for plangency,
So beautiful, so brimming, and so ended,
Never to be again, richly remembered
Only with wealth of anguish for a past
Of dreams we wake and hold not, topping all
Mortal ascension to eternity.
There'll be another sun, another call.
Another sunshot wind will stream my pennons
Against the vaulted sky ; but that conjuncture
Of heavenly music and of heavenly weather
Slides from our sense for ever. It has been.
And we sick mortals are. And when we're
dead

b 17

Act I They'd say, did they not cheat the truth, " we

were,"
Not " we have been." If only it were true
And Hves were moments, sudden leaping

flames.
Burnt out in the splendour of a birth in death,
Then Memory would not take us by the hand
Veiling her face, nor her sister Desire
Lay hold the other, nor their guidance lead
Men through this vale of half-heard echoings,
Brushings of unseen wings, uncertain lights,
And far-off whispers of beatitudes.
[The bugles sound again —

Women and wine and a city to sack ;
Not two in a hundred ever come back.
Their mothers shall wish they had never

been born
Who'd take Mireil from Peppercorn.}

But I am talking nonsense, for a prince.
The army's ready. I'll not lag behind.
What are the plans ?

[Mace, smiling y unrolls the map again ^
No, no, I know the country
Far better than the barrack-yard beyond.
Each several hill and each estraded garden,
Apricia that lies unto the sea
Like a dead maiden with her soft hair floating
i8

Upon the crystal waves ; so do her trees Act I

Bow to the water, and her rounded breasts
Are golden with the vines. When I have lain
Between them in the sunshine and looked

down
Upon the whited roofs of Nonpareil,
I closed my eyes and prayed that she would

take me,
A pygmy lover, to her breathing heart,
And make of me her increase in the vine,
The jonquil and the curved anemone.
Now we will tread them under.

Tell me, Mace,
How will the army stand }

MACE

I do not know
Whether to give them battle ere they reach
The walls of Nonpareil, or let them take it
And send the armies swiftly to the roads
Beyond the city; drive them from the bridges,
Stake all upon a large encirclement.
And both fight face to home. We'd make an end
To all alarms for ever. No falling back.
No undecided issue, no retreat —
Win or be blotted out.

CINNAMON

But they will have
The city at their mercy ?

19

Act I MACE

Mercy, yes.
For the princess is with them and will hold
Her soldiery in leash. Vanilla told me —
Miss Bean, that is, Your Highness' house-
keeper—
Who was attache to our embassy
In Nectarine hardly a year ago,
The Princess bore such love to Nonpareil
(She stayed there as a child when she was ill).
She still frequents it in most strange disguises,
A lemon-woman or a flower-seller,
And once she sailed down the Volubilis
On a woodman's raft. She loves the city so,
She would not change an awning in the streets
Nor stop a single fountain. She believes
It's hers by right and tenfold hers by love.
It was her mother's dowry, you remember,
Brought to her father, old Gingembris Five,
From whom we took it in the seventy-nine.
I make no doubt that if my news be true
That the Princess herself commands the
Cloves . . .
[Cinnamon has been looking out of the
open window^

CINNAMON

What was that }
Dreaming again. I cannot keep my mind
20

From ringing silly chimes. The sun, the Act I

birds,
The day, the bugles, and those oranges
Burning their sombre leaves . . .

Angelica,
You say, commands the Cloves. Then

laggard I
Who stand unspurred and idle. To the plan !
We'll let her have the city for a space
And love it for her own. You to the west
Will take ten thousand infantry and horse
By way of Vallombrosa ; with five thousand
I'll go under Apricia and cut
The valley road ; while you will hold the

ridges.
Then, being met, we'll cogitate a plan,
Not seek to pin to our pet purposes
The frail event, which, like the butterfly.
Being caught escapes us,being watched is ours,
In full possession of her comeliness.
Till then all speed . . .

But this Angelica
Seems not to mingle love with courtesy,
Though each is fairer for the admixture.
Why did she make no declaration
Of her intent to war, why sent she not
A letter or an embassy to show
Her cause of quarrel and her rightful claim }

21

Act I MACE

Love is no claim on nations ; she did well
Not to propound it and be laughed to scorn
As well as give us warning of her motions.

CINNAMON

Love is a claim on princes ; it's by this
That they do recognise the bond of love,
Themselves are princely. Blood doth make

them free
For all endeavour, and the instrument
For working out their purpose riches give.
Yet these are but the bounds of their great

freedom,
Which they must fill or their severer judgment
Is pitiless. Yes, a princely heart must be
A harp of many strings, the lightest finger,
The softest breathing and most delicate air,
The whisper of a leaf, the faintest voice
Of any child in pain must wake to music
Subtle as perfume and like thunder strong ;
And all appeals that leave the one-stringed

law
Unmoved and dumb must find a princely

echo
Within a princely heart. I'd have the world
All princes.

MACE

Ah, you have strange fancies. Sir.

22

Yet you'd not work them. How if she had Act I

sent
And told you her great love for Nonpareil
And asked you of your grace to give it her ;
Could you have said : ''I'll give it " ? You

dared not.
{Cinnamon is silent for a time. The bugles
sound again —

Bright are our sabres, bright is the noon ;
Grey is the morning, grey are the dead.
Ninety-jive troopers lay under the moon,
Turf for a pillow and blood for a bed.
Bully boys all.
With dew for a pall.
Sleep a long night when there's glory
to wed.]

CINNAMON

I talk too much, and we are wasting time.
She asked me not. Why, what's the use of

thinking
What I might dare to answer ? She is kind,
You say, and loves the city. We might parley
Before the morning greys the bully boys
And turns their eyes to ashes.

MACE

With an invader
In Peppercorn, no Cinnamon can parley.

23

Act I CINNAMON

Why are their songs so sad ? No law doth

force them
To be my soldiers, nor does any love —
But if they freely choose the uniform,
Why are they sad ? Oh, why am I so sad ?
There's no more answer to the question.
For we are sad because we know not why,
Nor whereunto we're happy. Or are they sad
Thinking of death ?

MACE

They do not think at all.

CINNAMON

They then are wise ; it lies too deep within

them
For thought to drag it forth.

[He looks down from the window.]

How beautiful

My soldiers are in the sunlight . . . and the

moon
Another beauty and as rare as this, —
Their pallid faces in the quietness
Of the still-dropping moon. Oh, that this

beauty
Should cheat us so, and whisper that to be
A part of her enchantment might be all
Our great endeavour and our destiny !

And yet our life is precious. It's the firm
24

Rock that we tread on, grip it in our hands Act I
Until the blood runs from our weakening

fingers.
If it's a dream, there's none so real as this
And none that haunts us longer, nor so trips
Our brave resolves. She is a queenly mistress.
Whom we do clasp in anguish to be held
Close in her arms for ever ; yet she turns
Thrusting us from her : so we fall and weep.
And then she is a gentle child who leans
Over our sobbing and demented heads.
And through our tears she shows us rainbow

beauties
Till we are comforted, and happy grown,
Would be children no more but very lovers ;
We clasp her and she turns away again.
I think for leaving her they should be sad.

MACE

They're only children.

CINNAMON

Then the sadder they
For they have known her happiest.

MACE

For a soldier
It is his duty and his privilege
To make surrender on the battlefield
Of that he holds most precious in the world.
The more the sadness, more the pride.

25

CINNAMON

Hut, Mice,
If they arc children, where 's the privilege ?
They do not understand it.

MAt r

Hut they feci it.

CINNAMON

[After a pituse.]
They Kivc ihemsclves for me and do not ask
If I am worthy that so great a price
Should l>e my ransom.

MACE

Hut they pay it not
For you. hut uhat thty think you ; to the

country
Of which the visible head is Cinnamon,
And to themselves who entered on a service
Where there's no huckstering, and what thev

give
They'll not receive again.
This service has its honour : that its gift
Bears no equality of recompense.
It is a solemn covenant, whose end
Lies in its own fultilment. There's no force
Compels their signature : they've freely given
And freely do receive of wounds and pain.
If they were forced, why. there's the end of
honour —
26

A noble craft robbed of its mystery Act I

To make a traffic and a servitude.

Soldiers are children, but by sacrifice
Are children like the holy men of old.
You are their priest, whose own unworthiness
Cannot attach the office that you bear.
That is the soldier's Credo, though he may not
Find words to say it in.

CINNAMON

Why, you do shame me
With so much eloquence upon a cause
You're certain of.

MACE

What has come over me .''
I never made a speech at the mess table
Of half so many words.

CINNAMON

You were inspired.
[Mace looks surprised and almost indignant.]
It's nothing terrible ; the soldiers' song
Is more than they could make it with their

thought.
Why, you did tell me so— and suddenly
You sang your song, that's all.

[Mace is still suspicious.]
Let's say you spoke
What lay within your heart so deep, your mind
Could not have fathomed it.

27

But you have put a heavy burden on me.
I must be what they think me, fill the office.
O, but I have su many : to command
And satisfy this confraternity
Of covenanted soldiers, lead a people
Along the road of happiness and joy.

[Mace lifts his eyehrows.]
Yes, joy, my Mace, so that they love the sun,
Not bend their aching backs all day beneath it,
And love their country as a land which gives
Her bounty and her peace unto the poor.
Vet were these rival duties reconciled.
Then there's another office which doth bear
Hardest upon me — though perchance it's I
Have made it hardest to be borne — I carry
Somewhere in Cinnamon's body the faint

soul
Of Cinnamon. I do not understand it
Nor all its voices, yet obedience
It's not within me to refuse. I dare not.
It cries for the moon ; then I must climb

the sky
And bend her face toward me. If it whisper
That there's some ascent of humanity
I have not tried, a gift I have not given,
Or some conjuncture of myself with men
Whereby I'll enter on serenity,
Then I must wait the occasion, like a horse
28

(A thoroughbred, my Mace) fretting the Act I

bridle ;
Or Hke a poet who should find all barred
The issues of his soul to the moonlit mountain,
Sick like Endymion of the wondrous story
In converse with Paeona ; till he flings
His thought-o'erwearied body on a bed
Of poppies and the long unhoped-for voice
Whispers a magic wisdom in his ear.

In such suspense 1 wait, but with more

calm
And more despair, for I do scarce believe
There's any issue to this life of ours
Save its own poignant beauty.

[The bugles sound very faintly in the
distance. Cinnamon listens intently.]

If I wait
Upon some other consummation,
Dream on a less uncertain ecstasy
With less of longing and fantastic tears,
Nearer to that more joyful plenitude
That filled me on Apricia in the sun.
Nearer to flowers than queer and mortal

men.
It's not because aught could be lovelier
Than those faint silver trumpet notes, those

shining
Tears of the world for transitory things.

29

Act I But something drives me in despite of
knowledge
To all adventure for an idle — dream,
If I had only dreamed it.

That's the office
Of body to the soul of Cinnamon.
O, would I were a soldier !
MACE

So you are ;
Or so forgive me, Sir -you should he now.
You are not like your father ; he would never
Have let his army march out of the city
And not ride at the head of the Yellow Guards.

CINNAMON

Only a third part soldier at the best,

A third part prince and wholly Cinnamon.

There's no arithmetic in that, but sums

I cheated as a boy. The answers came

Pat from the prompt-book. So they'll come

again
And Cinnamon be equal to a soldier.
Quod erat demonstrandum. I shall be
That which I must be by the answer-book.
You'll not perceive the difference by a button.
Pluses and minuses shall be in order ;
And if it's meet and right that Cinnamon
Should cancel out into a great round O,
Why then he'll do it, and perchance he'll find

30

A quicker way to his own moony mountain Act I
And his dear mistress than Endymion.

[Cinnamon sings softly " Bully boys all ";
then suddenly breaks off.]
But now delay not. Take ExcaUbur.
Oh, what a fooHsh, silly prince am I
That will not rhyme with reason ! Nonpareil
ril take, and take Angelica for mine.

[He pushes Mace, bewildered, before him
out of the room.]
You know the plan. You have considered it ?

[Mace nods.]
It stands then. You are ready ? Wait for

me.
In half an hour I'll have my business done.
Look like the yellowest of Yellow Guards,
And meet you in the courtyard. Then we'll

ride
With a welcome for whatever may betide.

[Exeunt. Curtain.]

31

ACT II SCENE: THE SAME

[Scene : the same. Mace is sitting, fully equip- Act II
ped and impatient, on the edge of a gilt chair
in the same room in the palace. He is obviously
eager to get away without a momenfs further
delay. Vanilla Bean enters. Mace looks as
though the worst had happened^

MACE

Now, please don't make a scene. There's

nothing lies
So cold upon a soldier's heart as tears
Shed over him at parting.

VANILLA

So, you're going .?
[Mace does not answer.]
I have a right to know.

[Mace nods reluctantly. Vanilla looks at
him hard. He stares upon the ground.]
Don't be afraid ;
I never was a woman much for weeping.

MACE

[Plucking up courage.]
There have been times . . .

VANILLA

I want to ask you this.
Do you remember that you promised me,
Before you sent me off to Nectarine,
That you'd give up the service when I
came

c 33

Act 1 1 Hack with a full report of the new princess ?
It she intentled war you were too old
To lead an army on an enemy
Armed with the Garlic gun : you would

apprise
The Prince of what impended and retire.
If peace were in her mind, then you in yours
Would also be at peace and free to marry —
Those were your very words — your dear

Vanilla.
I went to Nectarine, wasted a year
Inside the musty, fusty embassy,
Saw that Angelica had set her mind
(3n Nonpareil (which your ambass;Kior
Would still have blinked at had he lived to

ninety) —
I told you this, and faithfully performed
All vour instructions, though I thought them

wicked.
And when the darling girl (she is a darling)
So shyly asked me w hether Cinnamon
(Who had gone whirling otT to Tamarind
Just like a boy) had such a princely nature
That he would listen to her if she wrote
A priN-y letter with her own dear hand,
Expounding her great love for Nonpareil
And craving of his grace he would exchange it
Against some equal part of her demesne —

34

I did your bidding, made my eyebrows beetle Act II

Over my eyes in a forbidding frown,

And said : ** There were such things as

princely pride,
Prestige, a nation's name and reputation " —
I had it all by heart from your dispatch —
*' Mireil had been cemented to our country
By Peppercorn blood upon the battlefield.
I dared not bear a message to His Highness
Of so great provocation, such a challenge
To his hot-blooded and fierce-mettled heart,
A promise of design and future war."

And at the word she hid her trembling

lips,
Her brimming crystal eyes within her hands,
The while old Caraway did glare at me
As one who had been traitor, — as I was.
For I had sought her friendship and received it ;
Through her I learned Angelica's intent
And her most lovely heart. . . . No, worse

than traitor.
For as I turned my guilty glance away
I knew I'd hurt a child. O God forgive me !
And when Angelica did murmur softly :
" But I had thought him gentler," in my

throat
Rose a great wave of tears. I choked them

down,

35

Act II And with them choked the surging : " Child,

it's lies :
All lies, my heart, all lies. My pretty, come,
Forget them. I'm a sinful wicked woman
Who sinned for love. But write your letter

now,
And I will bear it unto Cinnamon
Though I should die for it . . ."

But no, I tiid your bidding and was

silent.
Then she updrew herself to her full height,
.\nd with a curling of her tremulous lip.
Reached with her white-clenched hand into

her bosom
(Where would to (lod our Cinnamon had

rested
I lis spinning head), took out a folded letter
And read : " My well-beloved cousin." Ah,
If only your keen bugles had not called
The memory of that voice back to my brain.
" My well-beloved cousin " — I know not
Why it should haunt me so. . . . Oh, why

more lies ?
I have most certain knowledge why it haunts

me.
" My well-beloved cousin." Have you heard
One of your drummer boys laugh when a

sergeant

36

Has punished him unjustly ? You have heard, Act II
But you would not have known. The drill-
book says
Volumes about the timbre of their drums,
But nothing of their boyish, breaking hearts.
She laughed, and I'll remember it for
ever.
A crystal vase rings with a golden music
When struck with a loving finger : suddenly
An unfamiliar and untender hand
Strikes, and the glittering echo
Falls dead on the instant like a winged bird
Struck to the heart, for some invisible
Faint fracture has destroyed its singing soul.
That's how she laughed, while in a single
hand
She crushed the letter to a crumpled ball,
Holding the other out to me to kiss.
And said : " Forget what went before the

lesson
That you have taught me now. To be a

princess
Comes not by nature but by breaking it.
I thank you for your pains. Come, Caraway."
I did your bidding and performed your
promise.
You think it cost me nothing ? Where is

yours ?

37

MACE

I do not know . . . Vanilla, do not cry . . .
I'll keep my promise. I have sworn to keep it.

VANILLA

[On tilt fyoint of tears.]
Then ask him now for his permission
To leave the army. . . . But go now, go now,
If you pretend to love me.

MACE [Weakly.]

But, Vanilla,
The army's on the march.

VANILLA

My loyalty
Is thrown like ashes on the hungry sea
And swallowed up. .After how many days
Will it return to me. When I am old }
Ashes to ashes, ilust to dust. .Ah, Love
Thou stony-hearted antl unpitving god
Who binds us to thy ser\'ice and returns
Only a desolate heart.

MACE

So am 1 hound
In service to the prince.

VANILLA

.And unto me.

MACE

[Doicing his head.]
A loyal soldier and a loyal lover.
^8

Two equal bonds. Oh, would that one Act II

would snap.
They grip my heart so hardly.

VANILLA

Let them be.
A woman's heart will bear the longer strain.
I would not have you suffer. Get you gone.
Our troth will last another little year.
I could not bear your presence at my side
If your dear eyes should glance reproach

at me
For that I made you fail of your true duty
As I did fail in mine for love of you.
Nay, though I dreamed of quiet happiness
Within our garden at Ratafia —
For we have loved so long — it will not be,
And I'd not have it now.

MACE

Oh, don't say that.
It shall be ours ; it must be. We've de-
served it.
Don't be so faint of heart.

VANILLA

Faint-hearted ? I ?
I have believed too much, been overbold
In faith and faithfulness . . .

MACE

My sword shall hang
39

Over the chimney . . . No, we'll make of it
A pruning liook, according to the Scripture —
Two pruning hooks. There's metal sure

enough
In this oKl-tashioned hanger for a pair
With which we'll tend our roses . . . 1

forget
You're not so fond of roses. When I came
Back from the Rataplan with a great armful
Of reds anii whites .uiil purples vou re-
member
\nu threw them to the ground.

VANILLA

It's you forget.
The reds and whites were in your other arm ;
A pitiful lump of purpled bandages,
And roun«.l your heail another. (), I threw
Your roses down. I s;iw them nnf T s:nv
Only the body broken that I love
And the one weary and o'erclouded eye
That was not swathed. Could I sec roses

then .'
Yet you believe that I did love them not ?
That night when I had laid vou on vour

bed.
The while 1 watched ycju tossmt; m the fever
With which we struggled tor \nii twenty

day>

40

And nights as long as years, I turned away, Act II
Gathered your roses and . . . no, I'll not

tell you.
You would not understand my foolishness.

MACE

No, tell me.

VANILLA

No. There's nothing more to tell.
I loved you and your roses.

MACE

Blind, blind, blind.
[Vanilla deliberately misunderstands him and
strokes his scarred eye with her hand.]

VANILLA

Ah, no. We saved it. Only a little droop
Still whispers to us of the thing we feared.

MACE

I did not mean it so. My eyes may see
A halted patrol twenty miles away,
Yet I am blind.

VANILLA

I have tormented you
With my untimely memory. You're a

soldier.
And I a woman.

MACE

Yet you love me still ?
Why do you love me still ?

41

VANILLA

Ask rather why
Snails crawl, birds sing, and two and two make

four.
Yet you'll not tind the answer.

MACE

V.\NILLA

\'ou would not see the answer ?

MACE

I am blind.

I am blind.

VANILLA
All, all are blind. You have no privilege.
Was I not blind, who did obey vour bidding
In Nectarine, and turnetl .Angelica
From her far-seeing, heavenly intent ?
Were you not blind who bade mc,and your eyes
Filnuti by the childish black hypocrisy
That taints the soldier's valour at the spring,
And turns this earthly Kden to a shambles ?
Was she not blind who did believe my words
And could not see my soul ? Yet, if she was,
I dare not say it ; she was but a child
Who had not learned that being blind we lie.
But you too are a child ; yes, even I.

All, all are children who do idly tear
At the roots of the great green o'erbranching
tree

42

Whose sun-warm fruit shining above our head Act II
Has lured us into dimbing her large limbs,
Whereunto clinging we do eat our fill
Of mortal knowledge, laughing on those below;
Yet sudden looking up through the myriad

threads
Of woven light spun by the glancing leaves,
We have a perilous vision what we are.
How small, how brief, like summer flies that

stir
The surface of a water on a day.
For in that moment comes an anguished sight
Of lands beyond our dreaming.

And some do stand apart thinking upon

them
With quiet eyes, and some do softly whisper
Of what they saw, and some speak not again :
And many have not seen ; but all forget.
For all are children. Some would build a

house
Among the columned roots, and some would

know
What they are made of and from whence they

came.
And some would have one for their very own
To carry it away. So do we tear
At the roots of our o'erarching happiness
Until it falls upon us at our play.

43

Were not my mine! so fearful ot disaster,
It echoes sounds unheard witiun my car,
I'd say, I hear it cracking on us now.
I am afraid.

MAI K

M\ darling, we have lived,
Yes, and have loved through such campaigns

before
And counted them for tritles. Let mc go,
And you shall see me standing on your

threshold
With no new scars save only that of love
Which in a moment is thrust deeper far
Hv vour stnmge wnril>.

[Iff is suddtnlx siltnt, as though he were
frif^htemd at his fmn smooth-running
uxjrJs. Then ht hursts nut.]

(), i am all bewildered.
I feci I was a child ami am a man
Who must do childish things. If I have torn
At the roots of the tree, then I am paid indeed.
Blind fingers tear at mv own heart-roots now.
The world is strange, and I am stranger to it
Who lived upon life's lap. I have done wrong
Who did my simple duty. I am blind
Who saw so clear, and in a little moment
I am become a faint, misgiving soul
Who was a soldier.

44

[Vanilla turns to him and clasps him in
her arms. He is again silent for a while.]
It's late to climb the tree
At fifty-seven. Ah, no, I often climbed it ;
For years did eat the fruit, and looked not up.
But having started at a sudden voice
I am of those who do not speak again.
Being a soldier ; but, being a lover.
No, not a lover, one who leans on love
Else he must fall, I am of those who whisper
I am afraid.

VANILLA

Can you not parley yet ?
O, there is time for that.

MACE

" While there's a Clove
In Peppercorn, no Cinnamon can parley."
My loyal editors will see to that.

VANILLA

Go, call them now, and tell them we did

wrong,
And we must right it.

MACE

Do you know the breed ?
Beside them I do count myself a child
In innocence. When I had summoned them
To meet me in this room but yesterday
My belly sickened, as it once did faint

45

\Shtll 1 >sa^ iiiiii.; n<'iii> irDfU KatJolan

And saw the hianchcd Ixk!) t)f a !M)lJ»cr
Mouthed in the fitter by a herd of swinc.

These jackals of the dead, ihejie parasites
'Hiat creep their way into the maddened brain
Of simple men till they too cr)' : " War. war."
And are the beastn they rose front, thing*

devoid
Of honour and the seed ot sympathy.

Ami then I saw a wounded grenadier
Who died within my arms in my first battle.
He waa a dark-haired l>oy who tended me
When I was but an ensipn. He wav'd at me,
Ami I ran to him ; he was bl<MKl, all blcMnJ-
IJlooil arul a white drawn face. Ids fl.i/in^'

eye
Did seem to smile at me. He did not smile
He could not smile. Since then I have

known wounds
In my own b<xly. As I held him up
Mis face writhed and two sudden drops of

sweat
Started ujwn his forehead. I bent my head,
Knowing that he would speak, and then I s.iw
His teeth were clenched clean through his

underlip.
And from the corners of his mouth there came
Two little spurts of bl(x>d. I could not tell

46

The word he spoke, but now I have known Act II

wounds,
I know he said, " Cold, cold." I do thank

God
That though I did not know I covered him.
Then, as I held him up, I saw him bite
His bloody lip. His nostrils opened wide
And quivered, and his brown and liquid eye
Froze. He was my brother for the grief,
The sudden scalding and consuming pain
That burned into my heart. I laid him down
And kissed his frozen eyes. The kiss was

salt,
For his dead eyes were weeping.

This I saw,
And then I looked upon the editors.
If I should say to them : We have done

wrong
Which must be righted, they would show

their fangs.
They'd howl, and screech, and slaver, call

me traitor ;
Yes, turn my men against me and the Prince.
I cannot hold them now.

VANILLA

Could you not pay them ?
Better a whole year's revenue were spent
Than this most wanton murder.

47

Act II MACE

Ikttcr far ;
But money will not turn their will aside
From its intcntioned rage. I do them wron^.
They are m>t beasts, but men soul -warped

by lust
Of jxjwer, who know by instinct that their

claw
Grips hardest m the beast-hkc part ot man.
Now they have tleshed their tanijs, which

they'll not loose
Hut tear and worry till the peasantry
Through all this peaceful land of Peppercorn
Howls like a pack of curs for carrion.

VAMl.l.A

Are there no men among them ? There was

one
I know who worked for peace in Nectarine.

MACE

And I did thwart him. (), what right have I
Wlio did the sin to judge its ministers ?
They are what I liavc made them, being blind.
Now there's no help, the great engme of war
Rolls on, and all our keen regrets are vain
To hold it in its course.

[Cinnamori's voice is heard from the court-
\ard ctillirt^, ** Mace, Mace/']

I'm ready, Sir.

48

{To Vanilla.) Act II

If only my deep love could aught atone.
An undreamed hour has opened my blind eyes
To my own sin and my consuming love.
The sight has dazed me, and I wander on
To all adventure like a crazy fool.
How shall I lead an army ?

VANILLA

You must go,
Dear childish heart. My love shall burn

for you
Bright as the sun, but let God grant the

flame
May tremble not in anguish overmuch.
If we're afraid, we are afraid together.
Speak out your changed mind to Cinnamon,
He may contrive that happiness be won.
[They clasp each other. Mace departs.
Vanilla flings herself down on a couch,
and, after a moment, sobs quietly.]
O breaking heart, I pray you sob no more.
[Curtain.]

49

ACT III
ZiCLNK: TIIK HII.l. ArUR lA

[A remote hollozv of the hill Apricia. Angelica, Act III
Mrs Caraway, and Captain Marjoram are
standing just outside the mouth of a cave, before
which is a little space of fine turf. On the
north side, to the back of the stage, the hill
slopes steeply away. Marjoram is looking out
over the precipice into the moonlit space. Then
he turns.]

MARJORAM

The nearest outposts are a mile below.
Madam, I pray you, let me order them
Come further up the hill. A little way —
Two hundred paces, so they'll hear your call.

CARAWAY

Listen to Marjoram, I do beseech you.

ANGELICA

You are too anxious for me, Caraway ;
And, Marjoram, your ever faithful heart
Is played upon by fanciful alarms.
No, do not shake your heads. But, Marjoram,
Tell me : Could you have found the twisted

path
Without my guidance to this hollow, tell }

MARJORAM

No, Madam, I could not.

ANGELICA

Brave Marjoram !
As true as honest.

51

\cl III .MAKJ<>K.\.M

Hut the enemy
May find another way on yonder side.
I have not tried to find an entrance there.
It's steep, it's true ; hut not more steep than

where
You found your path. Perhaps a local

shepherd
Hearinj^ a sheep tar-l>lcatinj» on the height
lias chinhed the trackless edpe to rescue it,
And in the village tavern told his nuti*s
Of his great ct)uragc and his perilous climb.
Old Mace will call for guides. They'll

scratch their heads
And mutnl»!f that thtv ruinil fliere- was a

man

SNr.KI-K A

But I have known this hollow since a ciuld.
When Caraway once brought me for a picnic
To where your outposts are. The soothing

sun
Coaxed her to sleep, and I wandered away.

CARAWAY

Madam, I pray you, call it not to mind.
I was distraught to madness when I woke
To find you were not playing by my side.

ANGEIJCA

It was I was wilful and not you remiss.
52

I found my secret kingdom and my subjects ;
The furry rabbits and the cheeping birds
Were patient of my sovereignty benign,
While the cicada rubbed his bronzen wings
To make me music. Every day I came
The summer long to see them. Caraway
Was sworn to shut her eyes and count a score
Before she peeped again, and I was sworn
To be back ere the bell of Nonpareil
Had finished tolling vespers. We kept faith.

And every after year I visited
My sole kingdom through the long summer

days
Till I was grown and might no longer come,
Being a princess, to a neighbour country.
But still I came in spite of Caraway.
Yet never have I seen a fainting trace
Of any other footstep save my own
Upon this velvet grass ; and though I stored
My treasures in this cleft through all the

winter,
I found them always with returning spring.
And once to tempt my fortune and to know
Whether my sanctuary was my own
Indeed, shared only with the happy birds
And conies rich in tenement of sun,
I left a purse of gold. The warm spring came,
But not the eye of man : my purse was wreathed

S3

Act III In gossamers more sjlky ihan ihc airs

That wavcil them for a j;rcctini» to their queen.
Yet still I dreamed that an enchanted

kni>^ht.
Despising K'^'^' ^^'^J ^'1 ^^*'* courtesy.
Had climlH-d my cyr\', seen my secret store,
And, with a sweet thought for the unknown

maid
WTio left it, wandered on his lonely way,
Sighing, as knights of dreams can only sigh
For him I left a me^wagc in my hand
Most honourably writ, bidding him take
If he had need whate'er provision
Might do him service most —the tixKl. the

gt)ld,
My fairy necklace, or my loyal doll,
My viceroy during all the winter gales,
And, if it cliancetl, my true ambassador
With full credentials to a kniglitly heart.

rive years my faded letter from its stick
N<xided reproach at me when I returned ;
Five years my viceroy did bow to me
And hand me a blank schedule of his charge
In most respectful silence ; and five years
A fluttering bird of hope folded her wings
Within my pulsing and conceited breast.
Hut in the sixth, hardly a twelvemonth past.
The spring I sailed down the VnliiMlis

54

With Sage the forester upon his raft, Act III

I found my letter vanished.

Caraway,
I dare not tell you with what speed I ran
To know what he had taken of my treasure.
If but the food, then he must be a knight
Already sworn to his own lady fair ;
The purse, 'twas hazard whether he should be
In straits or merely covetous of gold ;
But if my fairy necklace he had taken,
Then he had won my favour ; if my doll,
Then he had stolen my very heart away,
And with him went my true ambassador
To give report of me, how I was fair
And faithful, dreaming of his gentleness, —
How I was what I am, Angelica, —
To call to him : " Wayward Angelica
Has sent me here to guard your heart for her.
So set me close beside that I may hear
It singing rightfully : x\ngelica."

So swift I ran to see my treasure-cave ;
But nothing, nothing. None had stolen my

heart
Or gained my favour. The dewed gossamers
Sparkled their joy to their returned queen ;
But all the dancing lights within her eyes
Were dimmed, and she went sorrowful away.
But in the consolation of the sun

55

Act 111 She- rnux-vl 1 lurr w.is not mkii .1 cliurl alive
Would read her letter and not l<M>k withm
1*hc trcaiiur)' which &hc had offered him.
The wind had stolen her words, the fickl-

wind,
And ca.Ht then) in the valley far away,
Where one might find, hut none could under

stand.
End of that chapter. Far lrx> long, my

dear.
Says Caraway.

\RAWAY

(), how it was like you, child
And like your precious and unsfviited heart.
Not you arc wayward. \'erily, I believe
The world is wa)'>vard ami the wind, but you
Are what CJod meant by woman.

ANGKI.HA

The upshot of it all, k<xk1 Marjoram,
Is that for thrice five years no sinjjle soul
lias climbed into this place save only mc
I'ntil this day.

What celebration
Shall mark vour enir.irur hither ? Shall 1

give
The half my kingdom unto Caraway
And Marjoram } I cannot, though your love
And loyalty demand it. Shall I make you free

56 ' '

Of this my city, this unsleeping eye Act III

That watches dreaming Nonpareil below ?

Even that I cannot. It is not mine to give,

But only to be taken. Bid you sit

And banquet with me here ? Is that an honour }

The night-grass does no good to Caraway.

Yet, though I'd have her sit the livelong day

Upon my throne in Nectarine and be glad.

She may not sit upon the only throne

In this star-whispering solitary realm.

What shall we give her then, good
Marjoram ?
And what shall be his boon, dear Caraway ?

MARJOR.\M AND CARAWAY

That you should let the topmost sentinels
Come nearer, only a hundred paces.

ANGELICA

How tiresome of you both ! How fortunate
I did not promise whatsoe'er you asked !
I should have been of queens most miserable
Had I been forced to grant it, and condemned
To have my reign molested and my realm
Spied on by sentinels who wish me well.
Did you not hear my careful argument.
Proving the vanity of your alarms ?
I might have spoke to the old Ocean there.
Seeing you answer with the selfsame roar,
Though I have poured out all persuasion.

57

MARJORAM
1 am persuaded , Madam ; but if Heaven
Should lighten and a thunder-cloud let drop
A stony table, as it did f«)r Moses,
Bearing all certainty engraven on it
That there's no ascent hither save the path
Whose key we hold, still would I fear for

you .
The Book says pertt-u i"\r *ii>tM vast it <»ut,
I'll not deny it, bein>» ignorant
Whether my love unto my perfect queen
Is perfect ; but it tills the whole of mc,
And I who i^'uaril your s;ifcty am beset
By fears my mind wouKI mock at.
\S(;¥\.U'\

Marjoram
Be carctul ot yi>ur heart -beleaguering; spcx*ches
That will not let me sally when I will,
Or I will make yoii Major.
MARJORAM

Madam. I . . .
How can the Capt.iui <>\ your Halberdiers
Be au^ht but captain .' Marjor .M.iriorain.
I could not bear my own derision.

ANGELICA

1 jested, Captain of my Halberdiers,

For you came near to turn my tirm-set mind

From its most fixed intention, — to remain

5«

Alone this night with my companions, Act III

The sleepy rabbits and the slumbering birds.
How could the walls of my purpose stand firm
And not be breached by your affection's

siege ?
I did but make a sally of despair
While time remained.

I'll clinch my respite now.
Thus : the sole Captain of my Halberdiers
Appoint for life, and hereinafter called
Good, loyal, brave, or simply Marjoram
Covenanteth with me, Angelica,
Called by her name hereafter, also known
As Princess of the Cloves, and rightful queen
Of a most secret and divine domain
Topping Apricia, that he'll not advance
(Save in the case of manifest attack
Or her own signal) any sentinels
Nearer to her domain than they now stand.
In due return for which concession
Angelica allows that Caraway,
The Mistress of her Robes and Bedchamber,
Shall be her bodyguard throughout the night
With privilege of signalling without
The agreement of the said .Angelica.
In the second place Angelica confirms
The office, title, and emolument
Of Captain of her Princely Halberdiers

59

To Marjoram in perpetuity,
Or M) iiuK'h nt It AH the jealous ^(kIs
Vouchsafe his scr\'icc to Angelica.

Whereunio witness sleepy rabbits, birds.

The curt • •' ' >ckchafcrs

(Cicail.1 , ,_: things

InnunuTahic. and all night-scented Huwcrs
Who will not g«> to sleep l>ecause of me,
My tr * Sassador withm his cave,

Aiui 1 iv dear Caraway hern^-lf

VVh(is<- Hi^Muture is lawful to the l>ond,
Seeing the only advantage she derives
From its contracture is a rheumatism —
Not serious I hope.

Come now, shake hands.
Perpetual Captain of my HallH-rdicrs,
Upon our seal^ covenant ; and take,
Knowing, ala.** ! that it no Innijcr carries
Its ancient benctits, this purjic of gt)ld
.\nd you my fair)* necklace, Caraway.

MARJORAM

Vou arc too gracious, lady, yet my lK)tdness
Shall outrun the brge limits of your grace,
And I most humbly crave that you will grant

nu-
Instead of the gold, your true ambassador
To guard for ever in the humilitv
Of patient atfection. knowing well
60

He has no more the unbeHeved virtue Act III

He bore until this day of entry rude.

ANGELICA

I would I could. I cannot, Marjoram.
Something would go with him more like a

curse
Than virtue. He must stay. But why should

you
Be fobbed off with a purse while Caraway
Has my own necklace ? Oh, what misery !
Your equal love doth claim equal reward.
Stay, here are equal rings on equal hands.

[Holding them outi\
I have no others. Yours the amethyst,
And yours the opal. When my eye shall fall
Upon my barren hands, I shall be warm
Knowing how greatly richer their bestowal
Made me this night.

Now, Captain Marjoram,
You must away. Here ends the armistice ;
Begins the treaty. Fortune attend you.
[She zvalks with him a little way as he
goes]
Do you not think, now we have Nonpareil
By bloodless entry, that his mind might

change
And be attuned to our own desire ?
Might we not send a herald with the morning

6i

1 1 To offer parley and Ratafia

I'o Cinnamon, acre f«>r acre, \V(hhJ

Set a^amsi \\«mk1, ami stream for equal

stream ?

MARJORAM
l.rt iiu- sleep on it, though indeed I fear
\N'e are t(H) tar adventured. Cinnamon
I know not mvc by mmour ; Mace I know.
The chivalrous old tire-eater of old :
V'oluhiliH, lioinhardon. Rataplan.
Fn)m Aspideslra unto Taniarinil
And bhxKly Ortolano, he has made
Twenty campaigns and more, and won in all
'Ilie same repute, cool-headed in device,
Fierce in attack, yet sparing of his men
Who love hin», for oKl Ramrod is the plume
Of valour and the soul of chivalr\
Hut he's a tighter born : I'd swear his dreamt
Ilasc shown him nothing sweeter than a

charge
Of horse to horse, when to all eyes but his
The reckoning's desperate. In tmth I have
A soft spot for old Ramrod in my heart.

ANGFXKA

So I obscr\c.

MARJORAM

Vc*s, lady, I'd be glad
If there were some engagement not of battle.
62

I do believe I lack the hardness in me Act III

(Which I must have) to loose that devilish

gun
Upon the unsuspecting Peppercorns.

Let me sleep on it, Madam — if I sleep
And think not too much on the massacre
That's coiled within our limbers.

ANGELICA

May your sleep
Be gentle as your words are balm to me.
Come before dawn I charge you, andj fare-
well.
[Marjoram descends the path. Angelica
returns.]
Surely you must be sleepy, Caraway.
So long a journey on a jolting mule,
So little quiet and such great alarms.
Then why not sleep ?

CARAWAY

I am your bodyguard
Set in the bond ; therefore I may not sleep.

ANGELICA

What nonsense ! Were you not my bodyguard
Those fifteen years ago ? Did you not sleep ?
It is the use and function of a guard
Often to sleep and soundly, so his charge
May have the blessings and escape the fears
Of solitude. What nonsense ! Lay you down !

63

Aet III Why you arc brimmed with sleep . It't

softer s<).
[Carmvay falls oslerp tmmeJtatel\ . Angrluu
ties dtncn tciih hrr head Uamnj^ on hrr hand,
and is silent fur a uhtle. Then ilie speaks
sluu'ly.]

This is the hour fixed for sohloquy,
To whisper pitiful, heart -devouring things
To the other trembling child whose hand in

mine
Is cla^ipcd and warm, who with me is afraid.
Yet, () my brother, tell me what thou fearest.
I^K)k not on me with wise, sad-smiling eyes.
I am ;i-H old as thou. (), tell me. brother,
What is It awaits us on our lonely hill.
From thy still wisil<»m whisjx'r untt> me.

O, turn not from me ; let me see thy lips,
Brush back from thy ccx)l forehead the curled

hair.
And listen to thy breathing, soft, soft, soft.
My gentle brother let us weep no more.
I^jvcly and lonely thou and I with thee.

(), let my aching bosom be cool -bathed
In the flooding silver of the unfretful m(K)n,
My eyes be dro<iped with quiet from the stars,
My hair be wafted till each st)mbre thread
Sways to his rippling wind, my heart so still
It may endure the ver\* voice of heaven.

64

So let it be. Let me be borne away Act III

On this unruffled pinion of the night
Beyond that shining ocean on whose shore
The farthest-riding breakers of our dreams
Sink into silence, and our plumed thoughts
Drop, weary of their voyaging forlorn,
To seek the respite of the insentient sea.

There is a music in great weariness
Whose crystal melody unravels all
The fevered clew of our much hoping

brain.
Makes " nothing " ring with so divine a

cadence —
A lullaby to our o'erfretted ear —
Makes disappointment kinder than the height
Of heaped fulfilment and the fall of tears
Sweeter than rain is to the droughted earth ;
Kins us with the great majesty of power
Whose sword of flame hath strongly driven us

forth
To wander the vast continent of years
Till we too sink, unknowing and unknown.
Barren and big with dreams into the earth.

Yes, this is wonderful, my creature heart
Doth praise the fearful handiwork of God
Who made me weary so that I might hear
The music of his stars and be at rest.
Angelica, weary Angelica.

e 65

Act 111 [.I Jiitnl sound nj slutc rhythmic ^ingimg i
heard. Angelica is half asleep. She dot
not stir even tihen the sin^tnf^ j^rtms loud enough
for the words to be heard. During the first
two vrrses the song grtnis ioudtr, fftr C.tn-
namons guards are passing right under the
hill ; then, as thty skirt it, the song dies
axvay.]

cinnamon's f;i ari)> [smgtng]

O stcret was his laugh for to hear it.

And Itndtr his lips to he kissed ;
He madt him a name j or to bear it.
Corporal Loir-in-a-mist.

Light hands must hrwer him;

Sone was so braxe.

God^s eyes look o'er him

Dotcn in his grate.

He lined and he asktd Jor a maiden

l\ htse eves were as sad as the stars;
She trtmhUd with longing overladen
And dreamed of the wars.

Light hands must tend to her;

\one was so fair.
A'ofc death must send to hr ;
Unbind her hair.

66

She wandered for years past a hundred Act III

Over the hills and the plain ^
Till the bats and the tawny owls wondered
At her great pain.

Dormice come all to her

From harm to save;
Grey owls must call to her;
Here is his grave.

They showed her his grave and she found it

Under the moon at midnight;
Pale were the pansies grew round ity
The primroses white.
Dead leaves embower them,

Squirrels do keep
Sharp-eyed watch o'er them,
Now they're asleep.

CARAWAY [waking]
Dear child, can you not hear a sound of song ?

ANGELICA

Only our dreams did chime, dear Caraway.
For I too thought to hear a sound of song
And woke to this full silence of the night.
Hark to it, Caraway ; if there's a sound
It's but the breathing of the quiet earth.

CARAWAY

O Madam, are you sure it's only that ?

67

Act III ANCII.KA

That,- and the poised spinning of the wheel
Of destiny ; the low dirge of the moon
Laving the body unto burial
Of her nii,'ht-ba!ined lover ; the solemn speech
Of conclaved oaks to their tall sister pines ;
The waters murmuring at the co<;l caress
Of day-dispelling stars ; the soft ascension
Of sweetly climbing otlours rosemary.
The sleeping jonijuil. and the hyacinth ;
The tremulous beating of the wings of Love
Shut out from his creation.

Caraway,
I swear it is no more, ff>r I have listened
In a suspense as tjuiet as your sleep
For any sound of more ; therefore, sleep well.

CARAWAY

Child, what paral^lcs

You speak of nights, as when you were indeed
A child, and woke to tell me what you saw,
Strange terrors and yet stranger ecstasies
l^hat passed mv comprehension then, and now
They are no less beyond my groping nund.
1 know, because you love me, you would tell
Your Caraway if anything ill befell ?

ANGELICA

I would, but silence is no evil thing.
It's what we furthest outposts of the Cloves
68

Must pray for, and our prayer is answered. Act III
And if I speak in parables, perhaps,
Though you must think me to a princess

grown,
I have not changed my visions since a child,
And they possess me still. My memory
Doth tell me only of your comforting ;
As that abideth, may not dreams abide }
Another riddle, and the answer to it
Is simple as the doubt-dissolving day :
This is the hour of sleep for Caraway.
We'll try the virtue of your own old song.

Of all living things of earth

Babies have their fortunes best.
For their mother gives them birth

And gives them rest.
All the day long they are creeping
Closer to her bosom and sleeping

At her breast.

Happy too are wedded brides

Who are rightly married;
Then what ill the day betides

Is pillowed
On their true man"* s faithful shoulder,
And the day doth find them bolder

Who are truly wed.

69

Act III Babies i^row to iceary men,

Miiids and uires to btldamis creep;
Birth and Ime come not again

From the deep.
What of all past joys remaineth.
Age and sorrow ne'er disdaineth ?
Only gentle sleep.

[During the song Car ate ay sleeps^
I too would sleep ; though cold the arms of

silence,
I fear my mother's breast were colder still
That once was warm to me, — the vanished

odour
Of a dream-haunting scent I might recapture
If Nonpareil, her tlariing home, were mine.
So barren hope stands at the tear-sprent

door
Of Memory and beckons us within.
No, ril not enter. Silence take thy bride
Softly within thy loving arms, so gentle,
Gentle as Sleep thy brother, whose closed

eyes
See not thy sealed lips.

[Angelica sleeps. After a little while
Cinnamon enters from the back of the
stage, hazing climbed up the steep side.
He stands watching Angelica, who sees
him in a waking dream.]
70

Too late, thou'rt come too late ... I am Act III

the bride
Of Silence.

CINNAMON

I the groom of Destiny.
Well wedded both. How came I,then,too late ?

ANGELICA [waking]
You are my knight !

CINNAMON

That verily am I.

ANGELICA

You had my letter } Yet how came you hither ?
How knew you which of all the thousand hills
Was mine ?

CINNAMON

I found you sleeping on its top.

ANGELICA

Or did you read my letter in this place }
Then was it not a churlish thing to spurn
My treasures ?

CINNAMON

Lady, I did spurn them not.
Looking upon them with a reverent eye,
I dared not touch them.

ANGELICA

Why did you not speak ?
Why left you not the word of courtesy
For which I did beseech you ?

71

Act ill CINNAMON

Could I write

Who had no pen ?

ANGELICA

A true knight cuts a reed,
Dips in his own warm blood.

CINNAMON

If the blood's red.
liut mine luis so miieli water, it woiilil not

stain
A parchment white as snow.

ANGEL HA

\()U jest with mc
Who jested not. Show me your hand. It's

pale.
Hut not by so much paler than my own
As would acquit you.

CINNAMON

Let's put it to the proof.
Here is my sabre. So.

ANGELICA

You shall not do it
To please the fancy of a wilful girl
Who though she queen it in this little realm,
Has royalty enough to use her power
More lightly.

Longed you not to see my face ?
Am I as fair as you have dreamed of me ?

72

CINNAMON Act III

No, fairer far than any dream of mine,
When they were fairest ; and your golden

speech
Tunes me to expectation of such things
My mind will not believe on.

Yes, too late.
My heart is so deep-laden with despair
That it will sink into the calmed sea.
Though all the storms are lulled and the high

vault
Thrills to the benediction of the sun ;
Though my eyes see the beauty of the land
I sailed to win how many years ago ;
The fringed trees do brush my weary prow,
The birds of flame are in my rigging perched,
The island queen herself has signed to me, —
My logged heart sinks into the crystal sea.

ANGELICA

So you are full of fancies.

CINNAMON

And of fears.
I have known many ; one o'ermasters all.
I knew it not till now.

A man hath found
After long searching in a barren land,
A jewel rare, storied in dim legend.
That moved his doubting heart unto a venture

73

Act III His mini! Jcspaircd on. Is he not .ifr.iui
( )f those mischances which in his despair
Did smile on him as fortunes ? Doubtful

Death
\S hose slirouded face is ever turned away,
And what she sees we know ""t h*'! thr

weight
Of grim experience and illusion old
Whose pressure at his step was like a friend's
Who whisperetl : He not lavish overmuch
With hope. Mold back the bird witlun thy

breast,
Eager for tli^jht, lest he return to thee.
Sink at thy feet with a deep-vjapmi; wound ;
Bare not thy heart, arrows will enter in ;
Speak not thy love, it will be spurned ever ;
Sing n<)t thy song, the winds will scatter it ;
Dream not on bliss, for life has none for thee

Yet has he found his jewel in a cave
Wherein he crept to die. It glimmers there
With trancing lights so softly interwoven.
The garish splendour his unquiet mind
Bodeti so often is dissolved ijuite
Into a silent loveliness of calm.
His bated soul is sick with old alarms.
A vision doth cheat him ; Death may come
Ere beauty has transfused him utterly.

Such are my fears ; you are the jewel rare.

74

ANGELICA Act III

You are my knight ; I give the jewel to you.
Speak not of fears to one who has her own ;
Call not on Death lest she may come too soon ;
Be not cast down who hast so great a boon.

CINNAMON

What boon have I ? [Angelica looks at him.]

O tender, wondrous love
Bare me thy heart that I may enter in.

ANGELICA

Speak out thy love, for I will answer ever.

CINNAMON

Sing me thy song, that it may melt my soul.

ANGELICA

ril dream on bliss, for life is full for me.

CINNAMON

Why lovest thou me ?

ANGELICA

It's not that thou art fair.
Ah me, I cannot tell. Why lovest thou me ?

CINNAMON

It's not thy wondrous beauty, thy arched

brows
Incurving thy wild, woodland-gleaming eyes
And guiding them to me ; thy windswept hair
Whose every thread could bind a lover's heart
Faster than chains of iron ;
Thy lips that will not shape the speech of men

75

Act III I nto tfu- lar, but whisper niiracU-s

I nto the Mjul. Aye, that's the aruswcr.
Soul leaps to tuml. and there's the end of all

\N(iElJlA

You spiak as though you heard the crack of

The last tmmp blaring to the silent world.
Is love, then, woebcvone within the womb
And bom to tears ?

I INN \Mi»N

It's but a trick of speech.
There's Ixrcn so much sad in my happiness
That I have come to think the end of all
'nif bright bc^innini;.

ANGKLIl A

You have been sad indeeii,
That e\cn your lover's speech is so imbued
With bitter melancholy.

VV hen I was sad it was my speech l>et rayed
My constant hoping heart. It would smile

and dance,
And like a lumblinp river sweep away
That which would dam it up. But you speak

ploonis
Hcin^ happy. Do you feign your happiness
And cheat me w ith the semblance of a love
That I iindoubtin^ have believed upon ?
1 do not think you d«>. I darr rmt fhitik it,

76

For I am yours henceforward and for ever. Act III

What I have given I cannot take again,

Not though you cast him from you. He will

wander,
His sad eyes covered by his drooping wings,
And he will be for ever at your heels
In stony places, till one day you turn
To bind his bleeding feet, and will remember
He was the first-born of a mountain maid
Whom once you met in darkness on a hill.

CINNAMON

Who has the sadder speech of these lovers
Whose star is at his zenith } Our first-born
Shall rest for ever here between our hearts —
So must he needs be small and never fledged
For such a lonely journey. If the dawn
Shall part us, he will warmly dwell with thee,
Resting where I would rest, in the soft vale
Of thy dear breasts embosomed, knowing well
That where he entered in my aching heart,
There are the gates flung wide till my return.

ANGELICA

May all the loves that ever yet were born
Tug backwards at the jealous wheels of Day ;
Let him be moved by pity for a maid
Who once adored his coming, but now dreads
The first faint flush of the envermeiled
clouds

77

Act 1 1 1 More than the tramp of death. Death would

he kirul,
Knowing us what wc are, and gather h«th
L'ndcr (inc sable pinion ; hut the day
Sumlers two he;irts that one hrief nij^hl has

laced
So close that all their hl(K)d will be outpoured
To sanjjuine the grey dawn.

O, K'> not thou
My love, l>ut truly he nu knight and slay
Since thou hast sworn mv scr\ice. Let the

Hlirik idly tor us hulden in the cave,
Where all my treasures are as nothing worth
Beside the ihinij I'll linKI . . . IJrt-.ik not my
heart.

CINNAMON
it \m11 he more surely broken it 1 stay.
() love, that lovesl me so, love me yet more
And render courage to my fainting nund
Which, if it gather not command again,
Will sutler me conunit so gre;il a sin
As would until me unto seventy limes
To be your knight. Yes, if this thing were

done.
One day you'd know me for a renegade
And tear your heart out by the painful roots
Rather than bear the thouijht vnvi sutFcred it

78

To house my love an instant. Act III

I am a soldier. You who live remote

Know not a war is suddenly burst forth

Upon Apricia's peace, and I know not

Nor why nor how, but only there is war.

I am a captain of the Peppercorns

Leading a troop of horsemen. Without me

They're lost, and I am lost to honour.

Honour be cursed. I'd be a murderer

If I should leave them to to-morrow's battle

Like sheep.

O, I'll not tell you more ; my mind

Is torn by nightmares and by bloody dreams.

I dare not think upon them.

Lend so much virtue to my halting words

They may bring to you such persuasion

You'll think my going at the streak of dawn

Only the fiery ordeal I must pass

To be your true knight, and you'll pray for me.
Pray that my Prince, the troubled Cin-
namon,

May find the way to peace. Let's think no
more

On this disaster foaming round the rock

Of love. Here is our island ; here our lips ;

Here will my soul inhabit unto death ;

And when I turn from you I'll not be I,

But only a numb carcase uninformed

79

P>V its once tenant soul, which sweetly chained
To loveliness and love inhabits here.

And I'll not feel the battle. If a thrust
Aim truly at my heart it will blunt its edge
Striking on lead, for all the sentient part
Will be in e.xile.

.ANGELICA

Let this jesting be ;
It chills my heart. Docs not my lover know —
Has he so little of true understanding
As to forget — that in his body lives
My soul, so tender-sensed that a breath
Out of due order taken, a chance-slid step
Will cut it to the agonised (juick .•*
He knows not that, then he does not know

love.
Learn it, 1 pray you, quickly.

.•\ moment smce,
Before that traitor fancy tripped your tongue,
You spoke of war. I am not so unfriended
But that I hear its rumours, and approve
^'our constancy in service to your lord,
Prince Cinnamon, of whom you spoke as one
W^ho knew his temper and his purposes.
Are you indeed acquainted }

CINNAMON

Acquainted, yes.
I know him not as well as once I did ;
80

But as one man another, I do know him, Act III
Set close to him in service as a guard,
Wearing his yellow facings.

ANGELICA

Tell me then
(Since you have urged me pray that he may

find
The way to peace), has he a true desire
Of peace ? My prayers have oft been

answered ;
But pray I cannot for a man whose will
Stands counter to my prayer.

CINNAMON

Dear love, he has
Of my own knowledge straitly longed for

peace.
If only he'd been mindful of the affairs
Of Peppercorn with but the hundredth part
Of his own zeal to find salvation
There would be no armies on this hill to-night.
That I will swear. But something in the

blood,
Some canker in his composition
Did make him careless, and the armies stand
To battle with the dawn . . . We'll speak

no more
Of Cinnamon, for verily I believe
Our faintest chiding word would reach his ear

f 8i

Act III And prick his soul with pain. No ! do not

chide him.
He's something gentle, something child, a

prince
Most miserable.

ANGELICA

You love him ?

CINNAMON

Nay, I know him.

ANGELICA

Might it not he that he assumed a face

To win your love ? I think that " something

gentle,"
That ** something child," would win you

more than all
The blandishment of office. It would

whisper
Like a brother in your ear, as it has in mine,
Therefore I love you.

CINNAMON

Then you would love him.

ANGELICA

No, that I cannot ... 1 will tell you why.
Until to-night I had but one dear friend
Who sleeps beside me here. She was the

maid
Since childhood of Princess Angelica.
And she has told me how^ a year ago
82

The Princess, sore enamoured of Mireil, Act III

Which was her mother's birthplace and her
own

Child home, wrote to your something gentle
prince

A privy letter of much courtesy

Praying him to consider the exchange

Of his Mireil against her Ratafia,

Or any equal part of her domain.

As she was bound, she made inquiry among

His embassy in Nectarine, and learnt

His eye would read a challenge where she
meant

Cousinly kindness, and in her request

Intent to take Mireil by force of arms.

Therefore, since all she had to love

Was her dear mother's memory, she deter-
mined

To enter on her rightful heritage.

Trusting to justice.

CINNAMON

And the Garlic gun.

ANGELICA

Nay, be not so unkind ; she too is gentle.
It was she who sought in kindness to compose
A cause of quarrel.

CINNAMON

Is this story true }

83

ANGELICA

True as my love.

CINNAMON

But you may be deceived
By her who told you. O, I pray you, tell me
Whether she too spoke truth. No, no, you

cannot.
I'll wake her now.

ANGELICA

You must not. If she wake,
I am undone.

CINNAMON

And if I wake her not.
And question her and prove her story false,
Then I ... I also am undone. Undone ?
No, murderer proved and utterly cast out
From happiness.

ANGELICA

How can that be ? The fault
Falls on the prince, not his ministers.

CINNAMON

Upon the prince unto a hundred times,

But on the man a thousand . . . She, you

say,
Is body-servant to Angelica ;
Then she could surely find her. Let her

guide
Me to her mistress now. But wake her now.

84

ANGELICA Act III

Dear heart, be calm. What can you ? If

she bring
You to the Princess, what credentials
Will you present ? No, first to Cinnamon.
Now, now . . . Return with his consent to

parley
Or bring himself, and by our love I

swear
To set you in the presence of Angelica.
I swear it. Doubt me not . . .

O, is my love
So weak ? The lives of men wait on your

speed.
Go, go. [He hesitates still.]

I am Angelica.

CINNAMON

And I
Am Cinnamon.

O tender, wondrous love.
The full cup of my heart will overflow
And drown my eyes in tears.

ANGELICA

And I am not
The maid a moment gone, but some weak

thing
Set on the dizzy pinnacle of joy.
Thou Cinnamon !

85

Act III CINNAMON

And thou Angelica.
This is that true conspiracy of heaven
That leagues with love, when the infinite

stars
Submit the attracti(Hi and the enipery
Of the sweet impulse which did order them
And us with them ordained that we should

meet ,
Twin stars of love- under the presidence
Of our far-shining brothers of the sky.

ANGELICA

I thought I heard the spinning of the wheel
Of Destiny, and this is what she span :
Such close-knit intertexture of two hearts,
Diapered o'er with dreams, and so inwove
With fultilled aspiration's thread of gold
That even the hungr)' Fates must hold their

shears
From so divine a pattern.

CINNAMON

Love, look down
On Nonpareil, the quiet-shining jewel
Of our engaged love.

ANGELICA

I know not whether
I love it still. I have been lifted up
And this Angelica is strange to me,
86

Whose love has left its channels, made one Act III

sea, —
Nay, one great ocean, — and about one rock,
One Cinnamon has heaped his jealous tides.

And yet this same new-born Angehca
Looks down as she was used on Nonpareil.
But does she love it still ? Surely its bells
Should of their unpersuaded motion chime
Out to the night the triumph of their queen ;
Yet they are silent.

How the city sleeps
Beneath the still lake of the silent moon.
See how the great cool fishes poise their fins
Within the shadows of the silver rocks
Of the night-drowned houses and the coral

trees.
For love has made her lovelier, and I
Do love her still, for still I am the same,
Only more true, more constant, and more

woman.

CINNAMON

Now shall our parting be the happiest
That ever lover from his mistress took ;
For we shall bear the only gift that love,
Since he was born, has ever worthy found
Of his bestowal on the ruck of men
Whom he has not elected for his own.
The largesse of our marriage is peace.

87

Act III And, thou^'h \vc cannot give the influence

That has been poured on our souls to-night,
We'll scatter virtue that it drop like rain
In coolness, and in softness like the leaves
Upon all hearts throughout our wedded lands.
Our word shall scatter to oblivion
The carrion crows of anguish and of pain
That flock together at the whisper '* War."

We'll i^dut them on the sound of pealing
bells.
Smiles, maypoles, feastings, holiday.
So they'll remember to eternity
How lank tluy left the banquet, when with

them
There sat Angelica and Cinnamon.

Was ever love like this .' If verilv
There was, why was it not set down
In stor\' or in song ? Or were they dumb
On whom it did descend } Or has it been
That lover's speech is like the nightingale's,
Heard, but for ever lost to mortal ear
Till yet another angel-voice uplifts
The earth into the sky .' Or are we twain
That last conjuncture of the human soul
The patient world has waited since the dawn
First rose on chaos, and the creeping things
Began their slow ascension through Time
To this appointed end — Angelica

88

And Cinnamon ? Has not a mystery Act III

Entered our linked names ?

ANGELICA

Truly it has.
And truly we were waited by the world,
The stars, the rivers, and all human kind,
And these await us still. O, let us go
Quickly, for not even what we bring
Can make the chasm of time that we must

part
Seem what it is, a little mortal hour.
For love has his own measurement ; his hand
Creeps an eternity upon the dial
Within a parted second. I must charm it
Back to its proper true condition
And whisper : This Angelica is loved
By Cinnamon, who in his turn is loved . . .
I fear me lest I whisper it so often
That I forget the blessed word of Peace.

Let us go quickly. There has never been
Such love as ours. O darling heart, good-bye.
[Exit Cinnamon. Curtain.]

89

ACT IV. SCENE: THE SAME

[The same time: immediately following Act Act IV
///. Day is just beginning to break. Mar-
joram enters^

ANGELICA

0 Marjoram, haste, I pray you. You are late.
Did you forget the tryst ?

MARJORAM

Forget ! Why, lady,

1 came so early that I thought to offend you ;
It's not yet dawn.

ANGELICA

Forgive me. Marjoram.
It must be as you say. Yet I have seen
Grey in the sky for years. Too little sleep
Has tricked my eyes.

There's peace.

MARJORAM

How mean you, lady ?

ANGELICA

Peace, peace is signed and sv/om. Go tell

your men,
My men, my happy Cloves, that there is

peace.
Let all the bugles sound it ; tell the men
They may return this instant. No, they shall

not ;
They shall make holiday upon my hill.
Each spend the golden ducat that I give him.

91

Act IV Go, tell them, Marjoram. Or shall I go

And take the honour from vou ? You have

heard ?
Why stand you moon-faced there ? Do my
command .

MAF^JORAM

Lady, it shall be done. But I am guardian
Of your most precious life. I dare not go
Till you have told me of this promised peace.
Whence came it in the nii^lit ? If you alone
Have struck a peace . . .

ANGELICA

Obey me, Marjoram.

MARJORAM

1 dare not.

A>'GELICA

O, why do you thus torment me ?
Then I must go ... I dare not leave this

place
Until he comes again ... I tell you there
is peace.

MARJORAM

But what if old Ramrod will not have your

peace }
What if our men are making holiday
And the Peppercorns fall on us ? Once the

word
Is spoken, all our discipline is gone.
92

ANGELICA Act IV

O Caraway, do make him understand
That there is certain peace.

[Caraway rubs her eyes and stares^
O, why am I plagued
With two such owls !

[Angelica throws herself on the ground^

MARJORAM

[Kneeling beside her.]
Dear lady . . .

CARAWAY

Madam, I beseech you . . .

MARJORAM

Listen . . .

ANGELICA

Do you believe me now, or must I prove
Peace with more tears ? Prince Cinnamon

and I
Have sealed a pact to-night.

CARAWAY

What dream is this ?
My child . . . my lady . . . how could
Cinnamon . . . ?

ANGELICA

Prince Cinnamon is my cousin, Caraway ;
And I was born Princess Angelica.
Well may you ask what dream, for you have
slept

93

Act IV Like a true guarJian. liut it is time to

wake,
And time to d(^ my bidding, Marjoram.
I do assure you I this night have seen
Prince Cinnamon, and spoke with him, and

made
My peace. Go now, as he is gone, to bid
The bugles blow a parley, or what call
Your careful mind approves. Only mark

this :
If from our side a single shot is fired
You are condenmed. [Marjoram departs.]

Now leave me. Caraway.
O, I am hard. The burden of your love
Is sometimes heav)', and I am afraid
For every second lost. If blood were spilled
L'pon this spotless unbelieved day
I'hc stain would cat my heart. Come,

Caraway,
Tell me a story of Prince Cinnamon.
Did you not see him once .''

[The report of a simple shot is heard.
Angelica listens.]
Thank God there was no answer. Marjoram
Has done my bidding bravely. Blessed am I
In such a captain. I would give them all.
And all were little, in acknowledgment
Of love so loyal as theirs.

94

O, what perfection Act IV
Of love is mine. I dare not think upon it,
Lest thinking should dissolve it to a dream,
A dream in the blood, singing within my ears,
Smiling upon my lips, playing upon me.
That plucks at a thousand unknown strings

within ;
Makes me not me, a being musical,
A thing I love who never loved myself. . . .
We shall go hand in hand ; my thoughts

be his,
His shall be mine. Put off Angelica —
Alas ! I have forgotten her already —
And how should I remember ? My heart,

my mind,
These govern me no longer. I am chained
To that which is beyond me ; I am guided
By a new power created out of me
And him I love. So does our happiness
Lie in our own submission — to ourselves.
Did I not choose him ? Did he not choose

me }
No, no ! Love chose us both and made us one,
Suddenly shaped our elements anew
Into . . . this thing of which I am a part,
A most impatient part. Is it not hours
Since last — and first — we met } I'll think no

more.

95

It does no good. That is Prince Cinnamon,
And this must be Princess AngeHca.

Why do the bugles wait to sound the
parley ?
Why did I not go with him ?

[Re-enter Marjoram , shaking his head.]

MARJORAM

Madam, I rode along our forward line
From end to end, questioned each sentinel,
Yet none had heard a parley from the foe
Nor any sound but one, a single shot
Fired but a moment since. Myself I heard it.

ANGELICA

And I. I heard no answer. Marjoram.

MARJORAM

Nor none there was from us. I gave your

order.
And even without it none would have replied.
Our vanguard knows its business. To give

away
For the mere satisfaction of an echo
Our whereabouts to Ramrod ! We're not

children.

ANGELICA

Did I not bid you make our bugles sound ?

MARJORAM

Madam, the gunshot put it out of mind.
I pondered it too much, quickly revolving

96

Whether it were a ruse to tempt reply Act IV

Or aimed against our skirmishers below,
Or someone stumbled as he climbed the hill.

ANGELICA

And I ... I am no child. You disobey my

orders
And dare to tell me that the dim report
Of one chance shot more than a mile away
Did drown their echo in your careless mind.
No, no ! I am your princess. There are tales
That even a princess gives no credit to.
Either you lie, or you are no true soldier.
If even the youngest of your Halberdiers
Being given an order to perform, returned.
Saying a drumtap put it out of mind :
He pondered it too much, quickly revolving
Whether it meant that breakfast had been

served.
Or changing guard, or bed-time, — would you

believe him ?
Or if believing would you not punish him
To make him fit to be a Halberdier
Who must obey his orders or depart ?

MARJORAM

Depart ! He'd hang for it.

ANGELICA

No, he would not, for I would pardon him.
Nor shall you hang, for I will pardon you.

g 97

But were this not the day that outshines all
In happiness and kindness and in love —
We'll speak no more, for you have wronged

me much,
Wronged that in me you know not, for no

shot.
No power and no compulsion you can dream.
Had made you wrong me thus if you had

known.

MARJORAM

Madam, I love but you ; and my rough love
Has there offended where it most would

shield.
Pardon me not, I pray you. Let me go.
Let me resign my proud commission.
And let me be a soldier.

[The Peppercorn bugles sound a parley^

ANGELICA

I need no soldiers.

0 Marjoram, if it had been a dream !

1 was afraid. I have been harsh with you.
You heard the bugle then ?

MARJORAM

I did, my lady.
And I am glad that I am proved at fault,
And glad a thousand times that there is peace.
Though I'm a soldier. I little thought a
parley

98

Could sound so sweet to me. But I am sick Act IV
With thinking on that hideous GarHc gun.

ANGELICA

Do we not answer }

MARJORAM

Madam, let me go,
Still Captain of your Royal Halberdiers,
To give this final order.

ANGELICA

Quickly, Captain,
And all shall be forgotten.

[Marjoram hurries away.]
Caraway,
Do you believe me now ?

CARAWAY

I pray you, lady,
Dismiss me not, though age and aged love
Have made me foolish, foolish as my dream
That one day I should nurse my darling's

child
As I nursed her.

ANGELICA

Why foolish, Caraway ?
What if I dreamed the same — am I a fool ?
If you but let him wander while you sleep
The charge is yours.

CARAWAY

But you will never marry.
99

Act IV How can you ? There is not in all the world
A royalty like your own.

ANGELICA

What if a lover . . .

Dream children need no wedlock, Caraway.

CARAWAY

Dream children need no nurses.

ANGELICA

Still it may be.

[The Clove bugles sound a parley.]

Strange things are being done. Is it not

strange
To hear the sound of peace where we feared

war ?
Is it not strange that Cinnamon and I
Should seal a compact while our armies slept }
Strange that we met in darkness on this hill,
Strange that we knew each other not at all ;
Strange that we learned, and strange we

kissed, and strange
We love, we love !

Was that writ in your dreams ?

CARAWAY

My dreams are tangled, child, and over-
scored.
Yes, that was in them once. But is it true }

ANGELICA

Have you no eyes }

100

CARAWAY

I never looked in yours
But I found love there, child.

ANGELICA

Such love as this ?

CARAWAY

I do not know. But you are happy, child ?
Then I'll be happy too ; this was my dream.
I did not dream that I must lose you to him.
You were both mine.

[Enter an Orderly.]

ORDERLY

I come from Captain Marjoram, my lady.
To say a truce has entered our front Hne,
Bearing a message from old Ramrod — Mace,

I mean —
The Colonel in command of the Peppercorns.
He wishes to be conducted to your presence
Without a previous parley and to salute you
As future Princess of the Peppercorns.
And Captain Marjoram commanded me
To say he did not understand the message,
Though he had not mistaken it ; the truce
Said Colonel Mace was most particular
About those very words : " And to salute her
As future Princess of the Peppercorns."
My captain waits for your instructions.
He does not look upon it as a ruse,

lOI

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE LIBRARY

Knowing old Ramrod — Colonel Mace, I

mean —
Would hold a formal truce inviolable ;
And yet he is perplexed by the demand
Of instant access to your Majesty.

ANGELICA

/ understand the message. Let him come
Instantly to me. Let Captain Marjoram
Conduct him to this place, where I remain.

[Exit Orderly.]
You understand the message, Caraway ?

0 think ! Who is the future Prince of Cloves ?
Does everything I tell you tumble down
Into a bottomless well ? O Caraway !

Ah, it begins to dawn upon my darling.
What should I do without you ?

And yet I wonder
WTiy Cinnamon should not have come him-
self.
It's not the thing, I know ; but on occasions
Princes make precedents — the only thing
They do make — and I think this might be one.
But he knows best. And yet it would be

sweeter
If he had told none but himself and come.
And clasped me in his arms, saluting me
Princess of Peppercorn with a lover's kiss.

1 wonder. But there are so many ways

102

Of being perfect when you're Cinnamon. Act IV

And then — did I not tell the news to you ?
You are my Mace, and Mace his Caraway.
Of course, it goes by doubles. You must

marry
The Colonel in command of the Peppercorns.
How stupid of me to be so blind ! You'll

like him,
I'm sure. Perhaps you know him well

already ?

CARAWAY

Yes, Madam, and I know he's been engaged
For thirty years and more to Miss Vanilla.

ANGELICA

The Ambassadress ? How tiresome ! But I
like her.

More than her message. O, how strange it is

Remembering those intolerable days . . .

But what a long engagement ! It's a night-
mare.

What put it in their heads ?

CARAWAY

It never was
In hers ; it was the Colonel's own idea.

ANGELICA

But then . . . who can you marry. Caraway?

CARAWAY

Must I, Ma'am ?

103

Act IV ANGELICA

No, Mace is the only one
Could make it properly symmetrical.
How long they are ! If Cinnamon had

known it
He would have come himself in spite of all.
Go, look if you can see them on the way.
[Exit Caraway. Angelica after a little

silence speaks to herself.]
Ah, love, if you and I were ever old
We should be lovers still ; your arms would

fold
Me to your heart, and my dim eyes would light
With the unfading spark of the dear smile
That wrestled with the tears within your eyes.
We should be children, children, children

ever ;
Each give to each immortal love as now
That age cannot diminish : we shall die
As we were being born into our love
Like sleeping beauties locked in each other's

arms.
Babes in the wood whom only babes shall

wake,
The babes that are our children, when they

love
And loving bring us into life again.

[Re-enter Caraway.]
104

CARAWAY

They've turned

the thicket, Madam, but

they come

So very slowly

. . . because it's a great

occasion.

Act IV

ANGELICA

Caraway,

I must be gracious, queenly to old Mace.
I'm sure he will suspect me, for he was
The right-hand man of Uncle Peppercorn
Who had the strictest notions how princesses
Should bear themselves in ceremonial.
My mother told me what she had to do
At his petit lever ; and this is worse.
Far worse than even the grandest grand lever.
But here he comes. Be good, Angelica.
I think they might have had some drums or
music.
[Enter Mace^ accompanied by Marjoram
and her aids. '\

MACE

I am the Colonel Mace, your Majesty,
Prince Cinnamon's vice-regent.

ANGELICA

You are welcome.

MACE

I do most humbly thank your Majesty.
My mission on behalf of Peppercorn

105

Act IV Is to do homage to our new Princess,
Angelica, Princess of Peppercorn,
The High Soldana of Ortolano, Queen
Of Aspidestra and of Rataplan,
Sole Lady Warden of Volubilis,
Duchess of Ratafia.

ANGELICA

I thank you. So Prince Cinnamon has told

you
Of our contracted marriage. I proclaim him
Prince of the Cloves, Defender of the Faith,
Duke of Bombardon, Praetor of Nectarine,
Legate of Pomegranada, — and the king
Of my own heart, the least and yet the rarest
Of all the kingdoms wherewith I invest him.
When comes my cousin } Waits he on your

return ?
I understand your sadness ; it is hard
For a great soldier to forgo a battle :
Yet it is sweet for his small soldiery
To forgo death. Were you as great a

courtier
As you are man of arms, you would be kind
To your new queen and half-conceal your

sadness.
And yet I cannot blame you, though in this
Equal contracture of two royalties
Can lie no derogation. Sir, be happy
1 06

As you are welcome, honoured, and renowned. Act IV
Where is my cousin ?

MACE

Madam, he is without.

ANGELICA

Oh, why did you not tell me ? Ceremony !
I hate your ceremony ! Go, Marjoram,
And bid my cousin enter.

MACE

I pray you. Madam,
Forgive me.

ANGELICA

[Seeing more than sadness in his face.]
Speak . . . What is this. Caraway ?

MACE

Your Majesty, Prince Cinnamon is dead —
Dead at the dawn of peace, the dawn of day,
The dawn of happiness, the dawn of love, —
Struck by a chance sped bullet as he came
Down from the hill unknown.

Ah, I am old.
But all the little flame that burned in me
Was love of him.

ANGELICA

[Speaking very distinctly.]
Speak not to me of love.

You found him dead ? Had he no life, no word ?

Speak loud and quick.

107

Act IV MACE

Madam, he muttered something
I could not hear, and then he smiled at

me
Into my eyes and whispered : ** War, Mace,

war."
And then he tried to rise up from the

ground,
And said in pain : " My darling," and his

lip

Drooped, and then I knew he drooped and
died.

ANGELICA

I thank you, sir. But you yourself are

wounded.
You must be tended.

MACE

Long past tending. Madam.
It bleeds in the heart.

ANGELICA

Yes. . . . Bring my husband in,
And leave his wife to comfort him alone.
[The bearers bring in Cinnamon's body upon a
bier. Angelica goes to him and kneels down,
with her head pillowed upon Cinnamon's
breast. Caraway y Marjoram^ and Mace
are frightened for her and hesitate to go
out, while she is silent over Cinnamon's
1 08

body. After a little while she lifts up her Act IV

headi\

Alone, I say, alone.

[Caraway y Marjoram, and Mace leave the

stage, and the curtain falls on Angelica

alone.']

109

EPILOGUE

So died my prince, and so the bleeding heart
Of his sweet princess into stone was turned ;
And not Vanilla's love could reimpart
Fire to the ashes which so bright had burned
Of Mace's late-found love ; and Marjoram
Pined for the mistress he had served too true ;
While Caraway gazed silent in the flame
Of the palace fire and watched it leap from

blue
To red, to white, to gold, then sink to embers

grey
And woke from listening to the words dream-
children say.

THE END

Printed in Great Britain by
Neill & Co., Ltd., Edinburgh,
for Richard Cobden-Sanderson

RC-S'

MC.V1XX

P - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

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