Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Arcadia
Page 14
hannah: Do you mean - ?
51
(She stops because GUS is plucking valentine's sleeve.)
Do you mean - ? valentine: All right, Gus, I'm coming. hannah: Do you mean that was the only problem? Enough time?
And paper? And the boredom? valentine: We're going to get out the dressing-up box. HANNAH: (Driven to raising her voice) Vail Is that what you're
saying? valentine: (Surprised by her. Mildly) No, I'm saying you'd have
to have a reason for doing it.
(gus runs out of the room, upset.)
(Apologetically) He hates people shouting. hannah: I'm sorry.
(valentine starts to follow gus.)
But anything else? valentine: Well, the other thing is, you'd have to be insane.
(valentine leaves.
HANNAH stays, thoughtful. After a moment, she turns to the
table and picks up the Cornhill Magazine. She looks into it
briefly, then closes it, and leaves the room, taking the magazine
with her.
The empty room.
The light changes to early morning. From a long way off, there
is a pistol shot. A moment later there is the cry of dozens of crows
disturbed from the unseen trees.)
52
ACT TWO
SCENE FIVE
BERNARD is pacing around, reading aloud from a handful of typed
sheets, valentine, chlo? and gus are his audience, gus sits
somewhat apart, perhaps less attentive, valentine has his tortoise
and is eating a sandwich from which he extracts shreds of lettuce to offer
the tortoise.
Bernard: 'Did it happen? Could it happen?
Undoubtedly it could. Only three years earlier the Irish poet Tom Moore appeared on the field of combat to avenge a review by Jeffrey of the Edinburgh. These affairs were seldom fatal and sometimes farcical but, potentially, the duellist stood in respect to the law no differently from a murderer. As for the murderee, a minor poet like Ezra Chater could go to his death in a Derbyshire glade as unmissed and unremembered as his contemporary and namesake, the minor botanist who died in the forests of the West Indies, lost to history like the monkey that bit him. On April 16th 1809, a few days after he left Sidley Park, Byron wrote to his solicitor John Hanson: 'If the consequences of my leaving England were ten times as ruinous as you describe, I have no alternative; there are circumstances which render it absolutely indispensable, and quit the country I must immediately.' To which, the editor's note in the Collected Letters reads as follows: 'What Byron's urgent reasons for leaving England were at this time has never been revealed.' The letter was written from the family seat, Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. A long day's ride to the north-west lay Sidley Park, the estate of the Coverlys- a far grander family, raised by Charles II to the Earldom of Croom . . .' (hannah enters briskly, apiece of paper in her hand.)
hannah: Bernard . . .! Val. . .
Bernard: Do you mind?
(HANNAHpwte her piece ofpaper downin front ofValentine.)
chloE: (Angrily)Hannah).
hannah: What?
53
CHLOE: She's so rudel
HANNAH: (Taken aback) What? Am I?
valentine: Bernard's reading us his lecture.
HANNAH: Yes, Iknow. (Then recollecting herself.) Yes -yes -that was rude. I'm sorry, Bernard.
valentine: (With the piece of paper) What is this?
hannah: (To Bernard) Spot on- the India Office Library. (To valentine) Peacock's letter in holograph, I got a copy sent -
chloE: Hannahl Shut up!
hannah: (Sitting down) Yes, sorry.
Bernard: It's all right, I'll read it to myself.
chlo?: No.
(HANNAH reaches for the Peacock letter and takes it back.)
hannah: Go on, Bernard. Have I missed anything? Sorry. (BERNARD stares at her balefully but then continues to read.)
Bernard: The Byrons of Newstead in 1809 comprised an eccentric widow and her undistinguished son, the "lame brat", who until the age often when he came into the title, had been carted about the country from lodging to lodging by his vulgar hectoring monster of a mother -' (h ann ah's hand has gone up) - overruled - 'and who four months past his twenty-first birthday was master of nothing but his debts and his genius. Between the Byrons and the Coverlys there was no social equality and none to be expected. The connection, undisclosed to posterity until now, was with Septimus Hodge, Byron's friend at Harrow and Trinity College-' (Hannah's hand goes up again) - sustained - (He makes an instant correction with a silver pencil.) 'Byron's contemporary at Harrow and Trinity College, and now tutor in residence to the Croom daughter, Thomasina Coverly. Byron's letters tell us where he was on April 8th and on April 12th. He was at Newstead. But on the 10th he was at Sidley Park, as attested by the game book preserved there: "April 10th 1809-forenoon. High cloud, dry, and sun between times, wind southeasterly. Self-Augustus - Lord Byron. Fourteen pigeon, one hare (Lord B.)." But, as we know now, the drama of life and death at Sidley Park was not about pigeons but about sex and literature.'
54
valentine: Unless you were the pigeon.
Bernard: I don't have to do this. I'm paying you a compliment.
chlo?: Ignore him, Bernard - go on, get to the duel.
Bernard: Hannah's not even paying attention.
hannah: Yes I am, it's all going in. I often work with the radio on.
Bernard: Oh thanks!
hannah: Is there much more?
chloE: Hannah!
hannah: No, it's fascinating. I just wondered how much more there was. I need to ask Valentine about this (letter) - sorry, Bernard, go on, this will keep.
valentine: Yes - sorry, Bernard.
chloE: Please, Bernard!
Bernard: Where was I?
valentine: Pigeons.
chloE: Sex.
hannah: Literature.
Bernard: Life and death. Right. 'Nothing could be more
eloquent of that than the three documents I have quoted: the terse demand to settle a matter in private; the desperate scribble of "my husband has sent for pistols"; and on April i ith, the gauntlet thrown down by the aggrieved and cuckolded author Ezra Chater. The covers have not survived. What is certain is that all three letters were in Byron's possession when his books were sold in 1816 -preserved in the pages of "The Couch of Eros" which seven years earlier at Sidley Park Byron had borrowed from Septimus Hodge.'
hannah: Borrowed?
BERNARD: I will be taking questions at the end. Constructive comments will be welcome. Which is indeed my reason for trying out in the provinces before my London opening under the auspices of the Byron Society prior to publication. By the way, Valentine, do you want a credit? - 'the game book recently discovered by.'?
valentine: It was never lost, Bernard.
Bernard: 'As recently pointed out by.' I don't normally like
55
giving credit where it's due, but with scholarly articles as with divorce, there is a certain cachet in citing a member of the aristocracy. I'll pop it in ad lib for the lecture, and give you a mention in the press release. How's that?
valentine: Very kind.
HANNAH: Press release? What happened to the Journal of English Studies}
Bernard: That comes later with the apparatus, and in the recognized tone - very dry, very modest, absolutely gloat-free, and yet unmistakably 'Eat your heart out, you dozy bastards'. But first, it's 'Media Don, book early to avoid disappointment'. Where was I?
valentine: Game book.
chloE: Eros.
hannah: Borrowed.
Bernard: Right.' - borrowed from Septimus Hodge. Is it conceivable that the letters were already in the book when Byron borrowed it?'
valentine: Yes.
chloE: Shut up, Val.
valentine: Well, it's conceivable.
Bernard: 'Is it likely that Hodge would have lent Byron the book
without first removing the three private letters?'
valentine: Look, sorry -1 only meant, Byron could have borrowed the book without asking.
hannah: That's true.
Bernard: Then why wouldn't Hodge get them back?
hannah: I don't know, I wasn't there.
BERNARD: That's right, you bloody weren't.
chloE: Go on, Bernard.
Bernard: 'It is the third document, the challenge itself, that convinces. Chater "as a man and a poet", points the finger at his "slanderer in the press". Neither as a man nor a poet did Ezra Chater cut such a figure as to be habitually slandered or even mentioned in the press. It is surely indisputable that the slander was the review of "The Maid of Turkey" in the Piccadilly Recreation, Did Septimus Hodge have any connection with the London periodicals? No. Did Byron?
56
Yes! He had reviewed Wordsworth two years earlier, he was to review Spencer two years later. And do we have any clue as to Byron's opinion of Chater the poet? Yes! Who but Byron could have written the four lines pencilled into Lady Croom's copy of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' -
HANNAH: Almost anybody.
BERNARD: Darling T
hannah: Don't call me darling.
Bernard: Dickhead, then, is it likely that the man Chater calls his friend Septimus Hodge is the same man who screwed his wife and kicked the shit out of his last book?
hannah: Put it like that, almost certain.
chlo?: (Earnestly) You've been deeply wounded in the past, haven't you, Hannah?
hannah: Nothing compared to listening to this. Why is there nothing in Byron's letters about the Piccadilly reviews?
Bernard: Exactly. Because he killed the author.
hannah: But the first one, The Maid of Turkey', was the year before. Was he clairvoyant?
chloE: Letters get lost.
Bernard: Thank you! Exactly! There is a platonic letter which confirms everything - lost but ineradicable, like radio voices rippling through the universe for all eternity. 'My dear Hodge - here I am in Albania and you're the only person in the whole world who knows why. Poor C! I never wished him any harm - except in the Piccadilly, of course - it was the woman who bade me eat, dear Hodge! - what a tragic business, but thank God it ended well for poetry. Yours ever, B.-PS. Burn this.'
valentine: How did Chater find out the reviewer was Byron?
Bernard: (Irritated) I don't know, I wasn't there, was I? (Pause. To hannah) You wish to say something?
hannah: Moi?
chloE: I know. Byron told Mrs Chater in bed. Next day he dumped her so she grassed on him, and pleaded date rape.
Bernard: (Fastidiously) Date rape? What do you mean, date rape?
hannah: April the tenth.
57
(BERNARD cracks. Everything becomes loud and overlapped as BERNARD threatens to walk out and is cajoled into continuing.)
Bernard: Right! - forget it!
hannah: Sorry-
Bernard: No - I've had nothing but sarcasm and childish interruptions -
valentine: What did I do?
Bernard: No credit for probably the most sensational literary discovery of the century -
chloE: I think you're jolly unfair - they're jealous, Bernard -
hannah: I won't say another word -
valentine: Yes, go on, Bernard - we promise.
BERNARD: {Finally) Well, only if you stop feeding tortoisesl
valentine: Well, it's his lunch time.
Bernard: And on condition that I am afforded the common courtesy of a scholar among scholars -
hannah: Absolutely mum till you're finished -
BERNARD: After which, any comments are to be couched in terms of accepted academic -
hannah: Dignity - you're right, Bernard.
Bernard: - respect.
hannah: Respect. Absolutely. The language of scholars. Count on it.
(Having made a great show of putting his pages away, BERNARD reassembles them and finds his place, glancing suspiciously at the other three for signs of levity.)
Bernard: Last paragraph. 'Without question, Ezra Chater issued a challenge to somebody. If a duel was fought in the dawn mist of Sidley Park in April 1809, his opponent, on the evidence, was a critic with a gift for ridicule and a taste for seduction. Do we need to look far? Without question, Mrs Chater was a widow by 1810. If we seek the occasion of Ezra Chater's early and unrecorded death, do we need to look far? Without question, Lord Byron, in the very season of his emergence as a literary figure, quit the country in a cloud of panic and mystery, and stayed abroad for two years at a time when Continental travel was unusual and dangerous. If we seek his reason - do we need to look far?
58
(No mean performer, he is pleased with the effect of his peroration. There is a significant silence.)
hannah: Bollocks.
chlo?: Well, I think it's true.
hannah: You've left out everything which doesn't fit. Byron had been banging on for months about leaving England - there's a letter in February -
BERNARD: But he didn't go, did he?
hannah: And then he didn't sail until the beginning of July!
Bernard: Everything moved more slowly then. Time was
different. He was two weeks in Falmouth waiting for wind or something -
hannah: Bernard, I don't know why I'm bothering - you're arrogant, greedy and reckless. You've gone from a glint in your eye to a sure thing in a hop, skip and a jump. You deserve what you get and I think you're mad. But I can't help myself, you're like some exasperating child pedalling its tricycle towards the edge of a cliff, and I have to do something. So listen to me. If Byron killed Chater in a duel I'm Marie of Romania. You'll end up with so much fame you won't leave the house without a paper bag over your head.
valentine: Actually, Bernard, as a scientist, your theory is incomplete.
Bernard: But I'm not a scientist.
valentine: (Patiently) No, as a scientist-
BERNARD: (Beginning to shout) I have yet to hear a proper argument.
hannah: Nobody would kill a man and then pan his book. I
mean, not in that order. So he must have borrowed the book, written the review, posted it, seduced Mrs Chater, fought a duel and departed, all in the space of two or three days. Who would do that?
BERNARD: Byron.
hannah: It's hopeless.
Bernard: You've never understood him, as you've shown in your novelette.
hannah: In my what?
BERNARD: Oh, sorry - did you think it was a work of historical
59
revisionism? Byron the spoilt child promoted beyond his
gifts by the spirit of the age! And Caroline the closet
intellectual shafted by a male society! valentine: I read that somewhere -hannah: It's his review. Bernard: And bloody well said, too!
(Things are turning a little ugly and Bernard seems in a mood
to push them that way.)
You got them backwards, darling. Caroline was Romantic
waffle on wheels with no talent, and Byron was an
eighteenth-century Rationalist touched by genius. And he
killed Chater. hannah: (Pause) If it's not too late to change my mind, I'd like
you to go ahead. Bernard: I intend to. Look to the mote in your own eye! - you
even had the wrong bloke on the dust-jacket! hannah: Dust-jacket? valentine: What about my computer model? Aren't you going
to mention it? Bernard: It's inconclusive. valentine: (To hannah) The Piccadilly reviews aren't a very
good fit with Byron's other reviews, you see. hannah: (To Bernard) What do you mean, the wrong bloke? Bernard: (Ignoring her) The other reviews aren't a very good fit
for each other, are they? valentine: No, but differently. The parameters -Bernard: (Jeering) Parameters! You can't stick Byron's head in
your laptop! Genius isn't like your average grouse. valentine: (Casually) Well, it's all trivial anyway. Bernard: Wha
t is? valentine: Who wrote what when ... Bernard: Trivial? valentine: Personalities. Bernard: I'm sorry - did you say trivial? valentine: It's a technical term. Bernard: Not where I come from, it isn't. valentine: The questions you're asking don't matter, you see.
It's like arguing who got there first with the calculus. The
60
English say Newton, the Germans say Leibnitz. But it doesn't matter. Personalities. What matters is the calculus. Scientific progress. Knowledge.
Bernard: Really? Why?
valentine: Why what?
BERNARD: Why does scientific progress matter more than personalities?
valentine: Is he serious?
Hannah: No, he's trivial. Bernard-
valentine: (Interrupting, to BERNARD) Do yourself a favour, you're on a loser.
BERNARD: Oh, you're going to zap me with penicillin and pesticides. Spare me that and I'll spare you the bomb and aerosols. But don't confuse progress with perfectibility. A great poet is always timely. A great philosopher is an urgent need. There's no rush for Isaac Newton. We were quite happy with Aristotle's cosmos. Personally, I preferred it. Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God's crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can't think of anything more trivial than the speed of light. Quarks, quasars - big bangs, black holes - who gives a shit? How did you people con us out of all that status? All that money? And why are you so pleased with yourselves?
CHLOE: Are you against penicillin, Bernard?
Bernard: Don't feed the animals. (Back to valentine) I'd push the lot of you over a cliff myself. Except the one in the wheelchair, I think I'd lose the sympathy vote before people had time to think it through.
hannah: (Loudly) What the hell do you mean, the dust-jacket?
Bernard: (Ignoring her) If knowledge isn't self-knowledge it isn't doing much, mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it contracting? Is it standing on one leg and singing 'When Father Painted the Parlour'? Leave me out. I can expand my universe without you. 'She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.' There you are, he wrote it after coming home from a party. (With offensive politeness.) What is it that you're doing with
61
grouse, Valentine, I'd love to know?
(valentine stands up and it is suddenly apparent that he is