A Rough Diamond

BLEN. Irrevocably! She concealed the name and title of her husband, as she did not wish me to write in reply, as any reproach from me would but add to her wretchedness – and now you know the cause of my dejection.

SIR W. I pity you from my heart. If you have lost a treasure, you should see the one that I have found.

BLEN. You are married, I hear.

SIR W. Yes, I also formed an attachment to a young girl that I idolised. You have known me some years – that is to say, I was leaving college shortly after you entered, and you know how I have ever prized education – that it has been my watchword, my constant theme when I had a seat in Parliament. I don’t sit now, but that’s not my fault; but when I did sit, my constant agitation was education. “Educate,” said I, “educate! that is the panacea for every social evil!”

BLEN. I’ve read your speeches.

SIR W. You should have heard them – will you hear one now?

BLEN. Don’t trouble yourself.

SIR W. Well, after dinner. One day, Sir, in riding through the country, my horse stumbled, and I was thrown violently. My head encountered the edge of a stone wall; the wall being the hardest I was the only sufferer. Stunned and bleeding I was carried into a farm-house. My injuries were so severe that I was compelled to remain there for some weeks. The farmer’s daughter constantly waited on me, paid me so much attention, so amused me, so anticipated my every wish – in short, made herself so necessary to my comforts, that —

BLEN. You —

SIR W. Exactly! I used to watch her every action as I reclined on my sofa. She was rude and odd, but there was a heartiness in her nature and a comeliness in her person that pleased me, that really fascinated me, till at last I began rather to love her.

BLEN. You love an uneducated country wench?

SIR W. It was silly, wasn’t it? but we are not our own masters in such matters. However, don’t laugh at me yet. I anticipated the pleasure of rightly directing her mind, of the happiness in possessing a subject on which to practise my favorite theory – in short, I pictured a whole life of felicity in educating the object of my affection.

BLEN. For which purpose you married her.

SIR W. I did, to the great disgust of my connexions; indeed, my uncle, Lord Plato, has never visited me since my union – has never written, or noticed me in any way.

BLEN. But you found happiness in combining the character of husband and tutor?

SIR W. I surrounded her with masters – an English master, a French master, a music master, a dancing master, a singing master, a philosophical lecturer, and a political economist.

BLEN. And what has been her progress?

SIR W. Her progress has been entirely stationary. I can do nothing with her – she seems to rejoice in her ignorance – and, though I sometimes think she has a capacity for learning, my hopes have been so often disappointed that I now give her up. She’s a female Orson, Sir, though I confess I was once her Valentine.

MARGERY, laughs without

– There she is.

BLEN. Very merry, at any rate.

SIR W. Oh, she’s merry enough, and good-humoured enough; but, my dear Sir, with my prejudices, with my ideas of refinement, with my delicacy as regards conduct in society, conceive my agony in possessing a wife who is as wild as an unbroken colt, finds a nickname for everybody, and persists in being called by her Christian name of – of —

BLEN. What?

SIR W. I’m ashamed to tell you – Margery.

BLEN. Margery?

SIR W. I have tried to persuade her to change it to Matilda, or Magaretta, or Marguerite, but all in vain – she says her mother’s name was Margery, her grandmother’s name was Margery, that her name is Margery, and Margery she’ll be to the end of the chapter.

MARGERY. (without) Now, come along, Jack! and you, Tom, mind how you carry my kitten.

    Enter MARGERY from the back, in a fashionably-made dress, but which she wears awkwardly – She is followed by TWO SERVANTS.

MAR. Now, Jack, mind what I say – how many pigs is there in the last litter? Oh, I know – eight! Well, you may send one to my cousin Joe – I’ll tell you where he lives by and by – two to my old dad, and one to Betsy Buncle, my old playfellow in Lancashire – the three black ones I shall want to have in the parlor to play with.

SIR W. Pigs in the parlor to play with? Lady Evergreen, do you not perceive a visitor?

MAR. Wait a minute – I’ll speak to him presently. Do as I bid you; and you, Tom, give my kitten her lunch, and turn all the young terriers loose on the grass plot, because I like to see ’em tumble over one another – and now go.

    Exit SERVANTS at back.

– Well, Sir, and how d’ye do, Sir? and (to BLENHEIM) how are you, and who are you?

SIR W. My dear, my dear, do think of your station! This is an old friend of mine – we were at college together. Captain Blenheim – Lady Evergreen.

MAR. (dropping a country curtsey) Hope you’re well, Sir – fine weather for the hay, and nothing can look better as yet than the taters.

SIR W. Hush, hush! don’t talk, my dear.

MAR. Then what did you bring him here for?

BLEN. I am delighted in being introduced to the wife of my old friend.

MAR. Well, I ain’t sorry to see you, if it comes to that, if only for a bit of a change, for my Billy here seldom lets anybody come a-visiting, and when I ask him why he don’t have a few friends now and then to kick up a bit of a bobbery —

SIR W. My dear!

MAR. I will talk! He says I’m too rough to mix up with his sort, and that he can’t bring ’em here or take me amongst them till I’m polished up; but I’m afraid I shall take so much polishing that I shall be worn out before I’m as bright as he wants me to be.

BLEN. I trust not, Madam.

SIR W. My dear, will you go into your —

MAR. Not just yet – if I talk a little more to the gentleman he’ll get used to me, and won’t notice my grammar. And I’m not going to stand mumchance and try to talk that horrid gibberish you’ve been wanting to teach me, when I’ve got a good English tongue of my own. Leave me alone, Billy, or I’ll set Growler at you. Please don’t mind us, Sir (to BLENHEIM), man and wife, you know, when in company often have a few snaps at one another on the sly, and, as it’s nobody’s business but their own, why, of course you don’t know what we’re snapping about, do you?

BLEN. Certainly not, my lady.

MAR. Of course! I suppose you’ve been educated, haven’t you, Sir?

BLEN. Your husband and I were at college together.

MAR. I know what you mean – you were schoolfellows. Well, I dare say you’re very glad to see one another. I know I should be very glad to see my cousin Joe – we were schoolfellows, too – used to go to Old Mother Tickle’s, at the first house in the village, close to the duck pond. Oh, many and many’s the time I’ve pushed him into it – up to his knees! Oh lord! it was so bong-bong– that’s a bit of French – do you understand it, Sir?

SIR W. (who has crossed behind to BLENHEIM) Don’t you, don’t you pity me?

BLEN. I think her charming – it’s natural gaiety of heart, nothing more.