Lady Patricia: A Comedy in Three Acts

The scene shows the summer-house and platform built in an oak-tree at “Ultima Thule.” The stage, slightly raised, represents the platform. In the right-hand corner is the summer-house, built on branches a few feet higher than the platform. The entrance to the platform is through a square hole, reached by a ladder from beneath. The tree, a vast, ancient, and mossy oak, comes straight through the centre of the platform, its branches spreading aloft in every direction. (Lady Patricia, in a loose and exquisite costume, lies full length in a deck-chair, reading aloud from some beautiful vellum MSS. She is a woman of about thirty-five, languid, elegant, exotic, romantic, and sentimental. Beside her is a tall vase with arum-lilies and a table with a samovar. It is a late afternoon in May.) Lady Patricia. (Reading with fine feeling.) Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life shall I command The uses of my soul, nor lift my handSerenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forebore— Thy touch upon the palm—(Ellis, the footman, enters carrying a tray with a cup and saucer, and some sliced lemon. Lady Patricia raises her hand to command silence. He stands rigid. She continues with scarcely a break:) The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy hand in mine, With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee as the wine Must taste of its own grape. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two