Cast

Teresa, la Marquise de Boissy

Mrs. Mary Darby Smith

Catherine Adams Dix, the Ambassador's wife

Lord Byron in Limbo

Scrope B Davies

Alexander Pope

St. Peter

Flaücher - T's butler

​x

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​Scene 1

 

Paris, 1868 - a party hosted by the American Ambassador, John Adams Dix, and his wife Catherine

 

C: Why, bon soir, Mrs. Darby Smith! Bourbon with a twist? How our little Emperor loves that joke! (chuckles) - I must say how pleasant it is to meet one of my countrywomen here in Paris

DS(curtseys): I too similarly, Mrs. Ambassador, my husband has urgent business with the Emporer re. the conquest of Mexico - although why an old Bostonian has concerns in that Agave-parlous region of our continent, I'll never know!

C(whispers): Tsk! Yet another mad land-grabbing scheme his Highness conjured up - alone and bored - in his Chateau

DS: May I ask? (points discreetly) Who is that venerable yet luminous noblewoman seated on yon terrace?

C: Ah! That fine lady is the Marquise de Boissy - formerly the mistress of the late, deeply lamented Lord Byron - and wife of the late, loaded Marquise de Boissy - would you care for an introduction?

DS: Lord Byron! Oh, holy fires!! - since I was but sixteen, that noble poet has been the sole fixation of my dreams and desires! (is mesmerised by T's diamonds sparkling in the moonlight) I should like to meet the lady very much -‘ though - such an eminent Dame Scandaleuse, I should hesitate to embarrass

C: Not at all, my dear - nothing can mortify that ageless Hesperous 

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The ladies amble eagerly toward T - they curtsey

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C: Madame, may I introduce - from Boston, America - Mrs. Mary Darby Smith

T: Bonne soirée, Mrs. Darbysmith - please, do sit (pats silk cushion)
C(to DS): Mrs. Darby Smith, did you know that the Marquise is one of the very last people alive who knew Lord Byron personally 

T(acknowledges homage with all due good breeding): Oui - 'tis true - although that villainous pyromaniac Hobhouse also claims such bays (laughs, unconvincingly) - the adder! (grimaces, convincingly)

C: I shall leave you, ladies - Napoleon III is due at any moment and is sorely in need of a translator and a step-ladder

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DS snuggles next to T on the terrace

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DS: Madame - if you would forgive my most disarming forwardness (laughs nervously, T glares) - really and truly, I'm not an obsessed fanatic fresh out of Hades!

T: Pas du tout, chérie - how his Lordship adored the forwardness of American ladies

DS: Is it true - I have heard Lord Byron was the“ King of Poets"

T: Mrs. Darbysmith - milord was the King of Men! - and 'tis not incroyable to say that he would have been the King of Greece had not his incompétent Inglese doctors murdered him with their leeches and lancets (is distressed into posy of violets) - I must have violets always by me, Mrs. Darbysmith - I made a promise to mio Byron - but enough of the past!

DS: Madame, you would do well to pen a volume re. your youthful Platonics with his Lordship - the revolutions, the fly-fishing, the assignations, the masques..

T: As chance would have it, Mrs. Darbysmith - I have penned two manuscripts, although I shall have to consult with his Lordship if publication were ever to be contemplated

DS: His Lordship? (head darts about) - Do you have another Amoroso? 

T: No, my child! I speak of Lord Byron, naturallamente! (confidingly) I am, you see, what we call a ‘ Spiritist', which isn't easy to say - never mind spell - and have the gift of conversing with the departed

DS: Oh, please allow me at your next séance! - I should not run screaming for the Holy Water, for I am quite stout-hearted! Would his Lordship condescend to entertain an American eavesdropper? 

T(sighs): I suspect he will, mon ami - for his ex-spouse torments him yet, and there's nothing - nay, all the Saints in Heaven, nor I - can do to stop her (ponders) Mind! - we converse - even in the Spirit Land - solely in Italian - do you speak Italian?

DS: Nay - not even in blasphemy

T(appears relieved): Very well, you shall visit me at my Palace in the Rue St. Lazare tomorrow, for Dinner and the Departed - at eight, si?

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The ladies exchange pleasantries and part

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x

​​​​Scene 2

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​T's hôtel is spectacularly luxurious - the butler Flaücher appears

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F: Bonjour Mrs. Darbysmith - come this way - the Marquise is up t'stairs

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DS is shown into a fairy world of Venetian glass, silver frog condiment sets, gurgling fountains, and an apparition over the mantlepiece

DS(gasps): Ah! Good Go.. - I mean - gosh! Is that...

T: Yes, my dear (gazes forlornly) - that is a portrait of milord, taken at my own request in the days of our youth - mon dieu! (sighs) - he was beautiful! Although, why did he insist on wearing that tartan blanket about the place even during the summer? (shakes head) - in fairness, he was oft inscrutable!

DS: Perchance, you could ask him tonight, Madam? - maybe? if we pull an all-nighter?

T: Hmm, his time - even in eternity - is much taken up in writing petitions to St. Peter, pleading on behalf of his more rascally comrades

DS: Hah! - our poetic Lordship is now an extra-annuated ghostwriter! (giggles, alone)

 

T(claps hands): Flaücher!! To eat!

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The ladies feast amid the scent of violets and wavering moonlight 

 

T: Now - Mary, my dear, tonight I shall devote myself to the accomplishment of your wish - to obtain a communication from Lord Byron - are you ready? (DS brings forth a questionnaire) I am also a writing medium and shall record his Lordship's responses with the utmost rapidity in my journal

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T bends her head over her hands, clasped in prayer

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T(after a minute's silence): Benissimo, he will speak with us (makes the sign of the cross on the paper)

DS: Oh, super!! (claps hands) Shall we start in his year of birth? (starts) whoa! (deliberates) - actually, who were all those Carolines, and Marions, and xxx's and ++'s - in truth, that's what I've been aching to know!

T: Silence, my dear! (closes eyes - converses in Italian) Byron, mio Byron, I have an adorable little American fanatic here who, she avers, has been dreaming of you since she was but sixteen (T laughs) - and would like a detailed accounting of your larcenous childhood in Aberdeen

B: Ciao(mewls, provokingly) - mio despairing Shepherdess (is arch) Your diamonds are somewhat blinding this eve - “ How well they become mio Teresina" - spaketh your malevolent Marquise as he merrily watched you grieve (laughs)

T: I'm under pressure here, mio amore! She has questions and interrogations and accusations prepared!

B: Well now - she is quite pretty, in the American style, outdoorsy and free - how she would have haunted Bennet Street circa. 1812, and made quite the fool of me!

DS: The answers come like magic! You write with such speed, Madam - is his lordship rattling on? In his best Beppo style? What visions has God given him? 

B: I see her elderly husband is busy schmoozing Napoleon III re. a land purchase in the wilds of Mexico - is the old boy senile?

T: Enough of the rambling, mi amore - she has many enquiries to make!

B: Once that would have delighted me, but her countrymen lately gave scandalous reviews of Mazeppa and other assorted odes and whatnot - I have therefore switched my allegiances to the Canadians

T: Dio! - I can't tell her that! 

DS: Milady - er, will I disturb his heavenly rest by asking questions?

B: Heh heh - shall you or I inform Mrs. Darby Smith that I have not yet been granted paradise?

T: You're still in limbo! Dio mio!

DS: What?! In limbo?! - He's been dead these forty years - er, forty-four to be precise!

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DS faints on sopha

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T: Flaücher!!​​​

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x

​​​SCENE 3

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​DS regains consciousness 

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B(whining): I am up to my oxters here, ladies - why - who do you think persists in harassing St. Peter's gates? - He had no luck getting into Whites yet imagines success here (laughter is heard in the background) - the dog Brougham!

T: Ill bastardo! (DS starts)

DS: I fear my sticking up for his Lordship has all been for naught - that he still not at peace would imply e'en yet God and all his Angels are - as in 1815/16 - still as fraught (sniffles)

B: Inform the little pious one that I'm on the VIP list and can enter anytime I choose - at present, I plan on stretching out my immortality
T: Mrs. Darbysmith - he says (rubs temples) “ These are mysteries whose secret God does not reveal to us" - now, don't you have anything else to say to him?

DS: Will I find in heaven the one I can love - if by chance I was thence prematurely hurled?

B: Quelle surprise - she doesn't love the rich old fool she currently has?! (chortles) Please inform the fair one that opportunities for romantic entanglements are somewhat scarce in the non-corporeal world

T: He says you must walk in the path of justice and religion

DS: Tell him that I will always pray for his sinful soul, and hope the good Lord shall grant him happiness in eternity

B: Pfft! Me, sinful! - the presumptious wench! Tell her I warm my toes each night on the screams of Tories, reviewers, hacks - oh, and wives (grinds ethereal teeth) - in particular, one eighth-circle battleaxe

T: He says you must pray twice a day for the Martyrs, the harvest, and an end to warfare (angrily to self:  really! of that unrepentant spectre I do heartily despair!)

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DS retires, requests Flaücher fetch a parish Priest  - T soaks in a violet-scented bath

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x

​​​SCENE 4

 

Limbo - B's chosen companions are Scrope B. Davies and Alexander Pope - suddenly, there is a clank of the rusty celestial gates - St. Peter has had a long day

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St.P: Byron, Lord? - prithee rise!

B: Hup! Saint Porter calls! - I'm off lads, for Teresa and a Mrs. Darby-Smith hath chastened me into a longing for peace - and have exhausted my ill-will towards rogues, strumpets and sundry cursing Greeks

SBD: You'll be bored in two weeks

Pope: There'll be no more Abbey hauntings, shape-shifting pub crawls...

SBD: ... aye, nor supernatural brawls

St.P: Byron, Lord? - this is your final call

 

B is torn between his comrades and eternal rest

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St.P: Well, what is it? I've had a hell of a morning - the most irritating ex-coach designer snuck in just this very second ahead of you

​B: Brougham! Why didn't the Devil take him sooner? - well, that settles it! - St. Peter, I fear I am not yet worthy of passing that holy gate, and must continue to atone before I can consider becoming interlunar

St.P: Well, you are on my VIP list (flips pages) - 'twould seem you were quite wronged in life, you should have been here forty-four years since, were it not for the muscular protestations offered up by your wife (regards B's still red-blooded aspect and the pleas of his friends) Very well, you can remain in limbo - after all, half the literary world is still in mourning - however - this is your last warning!

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B scampers off

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St.P: Next - Byzantium, Mufti thereof? (checks paperwork)

 

The friends make plans for the next hundred earth years

 

SBD: Shall we slash all the ripened vines in Champagne?

Pope: Grease the ball for the Harrow v Eton game?

SBD: Post some supernatural scribblings to Murray - in your name?

Pope: Petition the parliament to criminalise cocaine?

B: An excellent start! - but first, I must leave a message for my earthly flame

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A mysterious knock on the door of Teresa's hôtel - Flaücher orders the baskets of unexpected violets upstairs to her bath - and hands to Mrs. Darby-Smith a notarised deed to a profitable Mexcian oil-well​​​​​​​​​​​

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x

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​END​​

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