The Triple Marriage | Page 6

useful to us.
Manly You can count on being rewarded in proportion to the degree your services prove useful to us.
(Enter Trim, dressed for the hunt, with a hunting horn.)
Trim Tally-ho! Tally-ho!
Anna Eh! What's the reason for all this hunting noise? Have you lost your mind, my boy?
Trim No, my dear. I am just as clever as usual. Is Mr. Matthews home?
Anna No.
Trim Are you positive?
Anna Absolutely certain! He would be very angry at your making such a racket.
Trim (walking about the stage) Tally-ho! Tally-ho!
Anna Ah! You'll be the death of me! Stop it, and don't bore me anymore. What devilish music is that?
Trim Do you believe that Mr. Matthews heard me?
Anna Without a doubt, and all the neighbors, too. (Trim blasts his horn) But, what do I hear? More noise of the hunt. Are we in the time of the fairies, and have I been suddenly transported into a forest?
Trim Ah, my dear, I would love to find you in the depths of a dark wood.
Anna Why? To cut my throat?
Trim No, child, you wouldn't die of it. (another blast on the horn)
Anna Why keep it up? What do you mean to do?
Trim My master is hunting in his father's antechamber.
Anna Would you mind telling me what this means?
Trim It means that we make a noise.
Anna Does your master wish to insult his father? Are you dreaming? Are you possessed?
Trim Oh, be patient, and you will learn everything.
Anna Hurry up then! What's going on?
Trim We are trying to make Mr. Matthews think we have returned from a big hunting party in the country. We have just brought two mules home laden with game.
Anna Two mules! What poachers! Did you depopulate the entire countryside?
Trim Indeed, yes. We haven't left anything in the meat shops.
Anna What the deuce are you talking about?
Trim We were not at Cliffordshire Manor as we wish to fool old man Matthews into believing. We've only been to a village half a league from London, and we haven't even killed a sparrow.
Anna What were you doing there for eight days?
Trim The plague! Beautiful business, but it is a secret that I am not permitted to divulge to you.
Anna Why not?
Trim Because, my master has forbidden me to speak of it, and that's why I'm dying from the desire to tell you the whole thing. Oh, the heavy weight of a secret! Well--here it is--my master-- Stop there, Trim, you are going to do something stupid.
Anna You hide something from me,--from your mistress?
Trim I agree: that's not in the rules. But, at the same time, I have a thought: my mistress is a woman. Would she be a woman if she were not a person incapable of keeping her mouth shut and under the compulsion to reveal the greatest secret within twenty-four hours or die?
Anna Don't worry. I--I am stronger than a man about discretion. Speak or I will break with you.
Trim You take me on my tender side. All right, I've got to tell you. The greatest men engage in madness for these little bitches.-- Nobody can hear us?
Anna Not unless you speak loudly.
Trim The devil! There are not childish games.
Anna Well, then?
Trim If someone discovers the mystery, my master will be disinherited-- there it is, more or less.
Anna The deuce!
Trim And I, on the other hand, will inherit a beating. I don't like the idea of such a windfall.
Anna You are only exciting my curiosity. Where have you been?
Trim We were-- Shh! Here comes the old man. I've got to pacify him adroitly on this subject. Leave us--I will join you as soon as I can.
(Exit Anna. Enter Matthews without seeing Trim.)
Matthews To play me such a trick!
Trim (aside) He seems to be in a rage.
Matthews To try to put one over on me with such effrontery--a story like that.
Trim Have we been found out?
Matthews To have the audacity to say he came from Cliffordshire Manor.
Trim The mine is blown.
Matthews I wish to know if that devil Trim will also have the effrontery to pass this imposture off on me.
Trim He knows everything.
Matthews (seeing Trim) Please? Ah, you here. I'm very glad to find you, Mr. Scamp.
Trim Good day, sir, how are you?
Matthews That has nothing to do with your business.
Trim Pardon, sir. The interest that I take in your precious health from the moment that I am separated from you, creates in my foreboding heart, sentiments of the most lively tenderness, and delivers it into the turmoil of the excess of both tender and passionate emotions. Now, you are well, and I rejoice over it.
Matthews Double crosser! It's not a question of this gammon you are telling me.
Trim Anything you please. What is it a question of?
Matthews Tell me where my son has been for the last week!
Trim Didn't he tell you?
Matthews He told me that