CAST

Lord Byron

Joe Murray

Bob Rushton

Scrope B Davies

Captain Byron

William Harness

JC Hobhouse

Charles Dallas

Taffy & Susan​​

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​​Scene 1

 

​1811, Newstead Abbey - Byron is boxing with Bob, a measure to avoid both the glooms and rotundity

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​B: Joe!

JM: Yes, my lord

B: Fill my bath would you, I am a mass of perspiration - and bring my hookah, a bottle of claret, the ‘Nottingham Chronicle' - and my Turkish slippers and pelisse

JM: Yes, my lord

BR: I fear I am in want of a bath too, my Lord, for my gloves are a veritable repository for fleas

B: Bath? - 'tis not yet Christmas, Bob - you may refresh yourself with a lump of snow - then resume attending to my tortoise's needs

BR: Thank you, my honoured lord

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​B soaks

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​B: Joe!

JM: Yes, my lord

B: Tell me why there are no salts in my bath? No rose petals flung by the bath-house throng? No eunuch's timbrels tinkling to the nightingale's song?

JM: What?

B: You must understand, Joe, things around this northern kennel must change (experiments to see if half a bottle of claret can float) - after my wand'rings in The East - whence I became accustomed to astounding oriental luxury, I resolved such experience not be confined to memory - as per my ablutions, at least

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​JM scans the damp wood panelling and copies of ‘The Morning Post' stuffed into broken window panes​

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​B: We shall begin with our new bathing etiquette - firstly, you shall purchase salts, oils, loofahs - and have Taffy pluck flower petals and refreshing herbs

JM: 'Tis November, my Lord! - Taffy needs all our salt to preserve your lobsters

B(attempts to retrieve claret): Furthermore - once I've bathed - either you or Taffy shall shape my fingernails - count my curls - and shave my beard

JM(shakes head, sorrowfully): I fear tales of such voluptuousness shall reach the ears of that estate-embezzling scoundrel Mr. Mealey - then to your tenantry - and they will inform the constabulary

B: Truth is, Joe (sighs) - well you remember how I once enjoyed my solitude here at Newstead?

JM: Aye - Susan forever picking up books flung to the ground - poor Taffy waiting - and waiting - for a chance to fool around

B: Just so - well, it happens that now - after the losses which greeted my return - for the first time, I find solitude and idleness irksome (shivers) - at three and twenty I am left alone - what more can I be at seventy?

JM: It is true, my lord, but you are young enough to begin again (warms B’s pelisse by the fire)

B: The devil knows how, Joe! I have tried reading & boxing, & swimming, & writing, & rising early & sitting late, & water, & wine - ineffectual chemical remedies - yet here I am - freezing in a bath of claret - wretched to my very extremities!

JM(muses): T'mansion is quiet after all (muses further) - Lord above, my Lord! - why not invite some of your equally idle gentlemen friends to Newstead?! - why, there be dogs, a keeper, plenty of game - a lake, a boat, house room - neat wines and neater wenches - to be sure, 'tis a paradise for bachelors!

B: A splendid notion, Joe - though not quite up there with my great-uncle's naval spectaculars

JM: They will surely enliven your spirits, my Lord, for you are a most general favourite of all your acquaintance - 'ere yet (scowls) - the cellar will require ardent surveillance

B(is somewhat revived): Oh, how I do doat on London gossip! - and in the chilly morn we can exterminate the remainder of our pheasants! - although, they must bring guns, for I gave all mine - and my snuffboxes! - to the Aly Pacha as presents

JM: There be your nautical cousin, Captain Byron, then Mr. Hobhouse - I know he shall make few demands on us re. bath salts - Messrs. Harness, Dallas - er - and Mr. Scrope Davies! (chuckles) - that facetious jester so handsome - to whom you still owe a king's ransom

B: A fine brace, are they not, Murray? Although - to think on't - Hodgson is battening down with his belovèd on the Lower Moor of Herefordshire, Davies is courting a piece at Harrowgate - Dallas, with his pockets full of MS's, is running to and fro - all his friends are Scribblers, you know - and Hobby remains at his Majesty's pleasure in Ireland (sighs) - heigh ho!

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​JM spies Taffy

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​JM: Here then, my lord (whispers) our Taffy could provide entertainment opportunities for the gentlemen - if they can arrange to visit?

B: Marvellous idea! (whispers) - say nothing to Susan, on the matter of her share of favours, she can be somewhat touchy (plots and plans) - we shall dispatch a number of carriages to the mountains of Wales - aye, and stack them with varied vixens and wenches of that incomprehensible duchy

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​B rises from the bath and into his Turkish pelisse, ties a yatagan to his waist in order to accessorise authentically

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S

​​Scene 2

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​A fortnight later, the friends are expected, and the library is sumptuously stuffed with wines, weaponry - and but two! wenches

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​​​​​​​​​​JM: Mr. Scroope Davies is here, my lord!

B: Scrope, how do ye do! (shuffles) - er, regrettably - I don't - as yet - have a single sous for you

SBD: Tsk! Pfft! (waves hand) - don't mind that - your legal man, Hanson (B to self: that rodent!!) - informed me that your deluxe coal is to be hauled from your mines at any moment (sniffs air) - my, are you wearing Attar of Rose?

B: Aye - 'tis the only civilised bathing scent left in the house - a gift from the Pasha to my late dear mother, alas! - ‘tis the most pleasant of my inheritance of woes

​​​​​​​​​JM: Captain Byron, my lord

B: Ah! Welcome, cousin - and current heir apparent to this haunted, dilapidated pile (bows)

​​​​​​​​​JM: Mr. Harness, my lord - and (reads card) - the ‘pulling' Earl of Carlisle?

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​B starts and reddens - searches for Mantons - and broadswords, as back-up

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​Hs: How are ye all! (is roaring) - had you there Byron! - Ha! - think ye after your sojourn in the Land of Cyprus and Myrtle that your English Bards & Scotch Reviewers would be forgotten? (continues to laugh immoderately) - why, not at all! - the victims of your poesy have been in a constant state of mental infumation and have kept their powder dry these past two years

B: Sink me on Sunday if you’re not right, Harness! (shakes fist at the fine Elizabethan fireplace) - to return to this excorable kennel was madness! - for certes, I will yet have much agitation on Golders Green re. those regretful jabs into the ribs of those rascally rhymers in that cursèd Satire (to self: humph! - perchance, you scamp, you shall receive a visit this eve from the Black Friar)

Hs (is indifferent): I must say, Byron, I am wonderfully taken with your Joe Murray (JM wobbily bows) - quite the living antiquity

B: Joe? - aye, he is as much a part of Newstead as the monks Sarcophigii

CB: Speaking of same, dear cousin - I had assumed - what with you living so remotely - you had perhaps imbibed the atmosphere of this place, and intended to turn monk yourself

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​B ponders briefly on the possibility of taking holy orders

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​Hs: ​Where ye devil is Susan? (S emerges with plates of lobster claws) - thank you, my dear little Scouse (chews claws) - now, shall we all be blessed with the presence of our unfragrant lieutenant, Mr. Hobhouse?

B: I pray his regiment may dismiss him - or he is court-martialled with great éclat - and we shall all laugh again as usual and be very miserable dogs for all that 

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​B muses wistfully on the impossibility of a legal career

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B(kicks brandy cellarette): Curses! - the unmanly misery of doing nothing but make love - and enemies - and verses - and male offspring of the bar sinister

S: There is always the House - you could be of much use to your tenantry as a paw-greasing Minister

B: The devil I will, Scrope! (paces) - I dislike counting sheep - fretting over blockages in my streams - pleas from the Fletcher clan for new roofs every ten years - to say nothing of the dullness of my fellow Peers

Hs: Therefore, Byron, marriage is the only future option that remains! Marry prudently if possible - that is, wealthily, for you can’t afford Love

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​B pales at the mention of marriage, as do Taffy and Susan

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​B: Nay, I shall sell up and return to The East before I take a wife (looks lovingly at the Byron ancestral portraits) - with the sale of Newstead, I can live like a Pasha or the Abbot of a disordered convent for life

CB: Sell Newstead?! I shall inherit aught but the nothing of a name? Why not publish your Levantine scribbles and secure your fortune - and, perchance, future fame?

B: Nay, that plaguy Satire has convinced me to publish no more - indeed, Harness (who is still chuckling) assures me the entire literary establishment of this isle awaits my Seconds on that score​ (sinks in chair, sulks at T's efficiency in attending to his friend's culinary needs and not his)

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S

​​Scene 3

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​​Supper-time - Charles Robert Dallas, distant relation and literary opportunist, drops in

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​​D: Pardon my delay, gentlemen (bowings and greetings ensue) Byron - I have excellent news - John Murray II, a bookseller and aspiring publisher, has agreed to risk all on “Childe Harold" - why, he is just gasping for the press!

B: Murray, huh?

JM: Yes, my lord

B: Not you, Murray

D: He anticipates great sales, Byron - think on your roof ! - on your debts! - on marrying a maid you desire!

B: Humph! I cannot accept payment, you understand - I am not a tradesman - however, being £30k in debt, I can't quite act the well-upholstered squire

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​In alarm at his vanished pecuinary hopes, Scrope whips out The Racing Post and makes frantic markings

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​D: Mr. Murray is intrigued as to how your Lordship came to write an epic of 1745 lines - in what must have been extreme oriental discomfort? (is busy calculating prices per word, paragraph, canto - smirks smugly)

B: 'Twas an amiable distraction from the legions of bugs and fleas crawling about my person, and my convent (to self: yea, a religious life would certes be too rustic - I am certainly no philosopher or self-denying mystic)

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​Hobhouse enters

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​All: Hobby! (fine manly embraces ensue)

B: Susan, fetch Mr. Hobhouse some claws and brandy - Taffy, fix up a cot in the best stable

H: Greetings, my friends, I could not bear to read such melancholy letters from you, Byron - that, and the mention of Taffy's toothsome hill-dwelling kinfolk, added somewhat to my zeal to de-mob

B: Erm - the promised Cambrian wenches were reluctant to travel by a carriage hauled by one geriatric cob - however, we still have Taffy and Susan to attend to your needs - after they've fixed the roof tiles and weeded the garden path

H: That is a relief, for I have been travelling for two days and immediately require a bath

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​A loud gasp from the company - S faints into his sopha-bed by the fire

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​B: A bath?!

JM: A bath, Mr. Hobhouse?!

H: Yes, a bath - with lavender water and cashmere flannels (observes gaping jaws) - my three-week military training taught me the necessity of such heroic hardships (sniffs) - see to it, Murray - and fetch me a brandy warmed to 20 degrees, if you would

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​B is much relieved - and mildly disgusted - that the military as a career option can be honourably eliminated

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​H: And what for you now, Byron? You cannot remain here - in this mansion of glooms and millipedes

B: At the moment, I am yet my own master - and I know not to what point of the compass I shall direct my steps - or my carriage and my fine chesnut steeds​​​

D: We are negotiating the publication of “Childe Harold”, Mr. Hobhouse - your friend is no infantryman, or yet a husband, or prelate - and may publish as he wishes - for he is a Poet to his very britches!

B(is warming to the notion): Mmm - although I should not return to London or its literary environs with haste (eyes Susan & Taffy hacking at the weeds) - I shall therefore, Dallas, accept freely what is offered courteously - to wit - your mediation between me and Murray

JM: Yes, my Lord?

B: Not you, Murray! - sweet suffering Jesus!

H: I don’t think printing your name will answer the purpose (is huffing and pacing paternally) - you must be aware that your infamous Satire will bring the North and South Grub Street critics down heavily against any future publication

D: Not at all! - Murray may make a point of it - and if you coincide with him, my Lord - do it daringly! - and let it be entitled by “the Author of English. Bards & Sch. R.s”!!

B(is gleefully set on D's course of action): Aye - I will lay no traps for applause! - of course, there are little things I would wish to alter - and perhaps some Stanzas of a buffooning/libellous cast, for I shall no longer be a shuttlecock for scoundrels, nor the lobby-lounger's lambast!

H: Balls to all this!! Travel guides, cookbooks and Tom Moore's prattlings are the only saleables - any publication of oriental poesy will be but wrapping for brawn cutlets - within a week at that! - on our butcher's tables

S(from his sopha-bed): Aye - and wrapped up so prettily, Hobby - just like your Miscellany (all guffaw)

B: Dallas, you have me convinced! - I grant you full copyright for the “Pilgrimage” - but I shall retain the copyright for my “Tales of an Atheinan Convent by Moonlight: A Vegetable Garden of Delight"

S: I will lay odds, Byron (raises lobster claw) - that publication will end all your troubles - monetarily, martially, matrimonially and anonimitily

B: Scrope, do not bet that I will one day wake up famous and widely read - it's more likely - on Golders Green, at any rate - I'll wake up dead​

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​As Hobhouse empties the last of the late Mrs. Byron’s ‘Attar of Rose' into the bath, B determines that poesy is the sole means of recreating his experience of oriental luxury - and his only feasible career path

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S

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END