Beneath Ceaseless Skies #173 Read online

  LADY CADENCE:

  Thus I trust he’s preparing to woo.-

  WHITLOCK:

  With disgust, she has bid me adieu.

  JACQUENETTE:

  By my rust! Now Monsieur’s singing too!

  ALL:

  Alas, if he (she) only knew!

  (LADY CADENCE and JACQUENETTE withdraw into the HOUSE.)

  WHITLOCK: Brass tacks! How shall I ever regain her esteem?

  Shall I confess my true feelings? Impossible! She could never accept a man so wanting in punctuality.

  If only I could somehow re-live the last few minutes...

  Wait! Of course! If a vessel can voyage through the gulf of Space, why not the River of Time?

  Ha! I’ll invent a Punctuality Machine! How could I have missed a solution so simple? I’ll construct such a device in no time at all! To my workshop! Huzzah!

  CURTAIN

  * * *

  ACT 2

  SCENE 1

  (Scene: The PLAZA, now empty. The VILLAGE CLOCK shows a QUARTER to TEN. An EXPLOSION sounds off-stage. WHITLOCK is thrown on at L. of stage. He staggers up, his TWEED SINGED and SMOULDERING.)

  WHITLOCK: Quarter to ten! It worked! Francis Bacon and eggs, my invention actually worked! I have traversed the boundaries of Space and Time! And more than that—I’m early!

  (WHITLOCK jaunts across the PLAZA and knocks on LADY CADENCE’s DOOR. JACQUENETTE answers, followed by LADY CADENCE.)

  JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright! Early? It cannot be! Help! The impostor!

  LADY CADENCE: Nonsense. No human agency could replicate that tweed.

  WHITLOCK: Lady Cadence, if I might draw your attention to the time.

  LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright, this is unprecedented! I commend you.

  WHITLOCK: I accept your commendation, my lady.

  LADY CADENCE: I acknowledge your acceptance, Mr. Cartwright.

  WHITLOCK: I savour your acknowledgement, my lady.

  LADY CADENCE: Savour! Mr. Cartwright, let us keep our metaphors within the bounds of propriety.

  (Off-stage, concealed behind the SHOPPES that line the PLAZA, STRANGE VOICES cry, ‘Vril, Vril, Vril!’)

  WHITLOCK: The alien race! I’m early! Great Scott!

  (A platoon of VRILLIANS enters from back-stage, marching in single file into the PLAZA. These BEINGS from ANOTHER WORLD wear hip-high silver BOOTS, sparkling white EVENING SUITS, and matching CAPES with towering COLLARS and silver TRIM. Their fantastical SKIN glares in strident STRIPES of PURPLE and YELLOW. Their leader, VRIL, stops to sing, brandishing a tall STAFF.)

  SONG—VRIL

  (a bombastic march)

  VRIL:

  Vril! Vril! Vril!

  VRILLIANS:

  Vril!

  VRIL:

  We cry in voices shrill!

  VRILLIANS:

  Shrill!

  VRIL:

  And in tender mem’ries drill!

  VRILLIANS:

  Drill!

  VRIL:

  That we are the Vrillians,

  Belovèd by millions,

  The Vrillians, the fellows of Vril!

  VRILLIANS:

  Huzzah!

  The Vrillians, the vassals of Vril!

  (As the VRILLIANS form in RANKS around VRIL, the VILLAGERS spill out after them from back-stage.)

  VRIL: I am Vril. Am I not splendid?

  VRILLIANS: You are!

  VRIL: I was addressing our new friends.

  (The VRILLIANS hush each other with cries of ‘Quiet!’ ‘Hold your tongue!’ ‘Shut up your garret!’ etc.)

  VILLAGER 1: (stepping forward) I believe I speak for everyone, sir, when I say that you are definitely splendid.

  VILLAGERS: (cheering) Splendid!

  (JACQUENETTE, all aflutter, produces a steam-powered LADY’s FAN. Even LADY CADENCE seems MESMERIZED by VRIL, and WHITLOCK notes her FASCINATION.)

  VRIL: (to VILLAGER 1) By ‘everyone’, I trust you do mean everyone?

  VILLAGER 1: Indeed, sir! Every last one!

  VRIL: On this entire celestial sphere?

  VILLAGER 1: Absolutely, sir! There’s naught but our humble hamlet on all this verdacious Earth.

  WHITLOCK: (aside) What means this audacious deception?

  VRIL: How fortunate we happened to land so near!

  VILLAGER 1: Fortunate indeed! You’ve captured every heart our Earth’s got for the taking, sir, and you’ve still got time to astound your next world before tea. Three cheers for Vril!

  VILLAGERS & VRILLIANS: Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

  VRIL: My Vrillians! Once again, we have journeyed to a faraway sphere and discovered kindred spirits. Like you, they all rejoice in my irresistible magnificence.

  VILLAGERS: We do!

  WHITLOCK: (to VILLAGER 1) Why is everyone so smitten by this revolting creature?

  VILLAGER 1: (to WHITLOCK, sotto voce) Smitten? Not in the least! It’s all bunkum! Flam! Titotular bosh!

  WHITLOCK: You fail to clarify.

  VRIL: (to VRILLIANS) Now let us return to our star vessel!

  VILLAGER 1: (to WHITLOCK) See? Off they go!

  LADY CADENCE: (murmurs) Star vessel!

  VRIL: And continue our quest throughout the heavens! What an appropriate moment for one final, spontaneous gesture of affection!

  (VRIL extends a gleaming silver BOOT, which two VILLAGERS rush forward and begin to LICK. As VRIL turns to march up-stage, they scrabble to follow on their KNEES while still performing their ABLUTIONS. But VRIL sees LADY CADENCE, gasps, halts his procession, and STARES. LADY CADENCE modestly averts her EYES.)

  VRIL: What is this? What strange admixture of desire, wonder, desire, fear, desire, and desire now wells within my muscular breast?

  (WHITLOCK steps forward, but VILLAGER 1 clutches his arm.)

  VILLAGER 1: Wait, Mr. Cartwright! You haven’t seen what he can do!

  WHITLOCK: I can see what he’s doing!

  VRIL: How can these feelings be? She’s pink!

  LADY CADENCE: I beg your pardon?

  SONG—VRIL

  (slow, almost reflective)

  VRIL:

  Neither purple nor yellow, but pink!

  Yet she’s somehow detected a chink

  In the guard of my heart, where she sinks

  And seeps, like a staining ink.

  Can a purplish prince really think

  Of begetting a permanent link

  With a species so specially pink?

  Alas, wouldn’t Mother blink?

  (As VRIL lazily repeats his first stanza, the original, pre-time-traversal WHITLOCK (henceforth, ‘WHITLOCK 1’) enters from L. of stage and gasps at the scene. The time-traversed WHITLOCK (henceforth, ‘WHITLOCK 2’) spots him.)

  WHITLOCK 2: Great Scott! It’s my original self! If Lady Cadence sees him, all is lost! She will easily deduce that my apparent punctuality is a mere time-traversing trick!

  (WHITLOCK 2 hurries around the serenaded LADY CADENCE to confront WHITLOCK 1 at L. of stage.)

  WHITLOCK 1: (seeing WHITLOCK 2) Brass tacks! (WHITLOCK 2 slaps him.) Ow! Who are you? A long-lost twin?

  WHITLOCK 2: Don’t be ridiculous. I’m you.

  WHITLOCK 1: I beg to differ.

  WHITLOCK 2: You do differ—by several hours. I, having lived those hours, have returned to this temporal juncture via Punctuality Machine.

  WHITLOCK 1: Nonsense! I’ve never heard of such a preposterous device.

  WHITLOCK 2: Naturally. You haven’t invented it yet.

  WHITLOCK 1: Then where is it?

  WHITLOCK 2: The machine puts me through time. I didn’t manage to enable the machine itself to travel.

  WHITLOCK 1: Why not?

  WHITLOCK 2: There wasn’t time! Besides, I knew you would invent it again shortly.

  WHITLOCK 1: I most certainly will not! I have an appointment to keep! What’s more—

  WHITLOCK 2: Quiet! They’re stopping!

  (VRIL completes his song and takes the hand of LADY CADENCE.)
/>   VRIL: O pinkish delight, my mind is settled. You shall voyage with me through the heavens and reign as my Salmon Queen. (VRIL grips her ARM. LADY CADENCE cries out in dismay. Both WHITLOCKS rush forward, but WHITLOCK 2 knocks WHITLOCK 1 down with a blow to the HEAD, then gasps and touches his own SCALP gingerly.)

  WHITLOCK 2: (to VRIL) Stop at once, you star-smearing narcissist!

  VRIL: I beg your pardon, you cannot be directing that offensive tone towards myself?

  WHITLOCK 2: I am indeed, you delusional, despicable, undesirable—

  VRIL: Undesirable! Alas, now who is delusional? Am I not belovèd by every rational creature on this entire orb?

  VILLAGERS: Huzzah!

  RECITATIVE

  (fast, rhythmic speech)

  VILLAGERS:

  Huzzah for the Vrillians,

  Adorèd by millions!

  We humble civilians

  All weep that they go!

  WHITLOCK 2:

  (to VRIL) In my humble opinion,

  Be off to oblivion!

  Their tears crocodilian

  Will dry here below.

  Your act is vaudevillian,

  Your faults are octillion!

  Your manners reptilian

  Would shock a Brazilian!

  Alas, but a Vrillian’s a pitiful beau!

  A despicable, fickle, unprintable foe!

  LADY CADENCE: (still in the grip of VRIL) Mr. Cartwright, my most mannered acquaintances hail from Brazil.

  WHITLOCK 2: My apologies, Your Ladyship. It’s a difficult rhyme.

  VRIL: And where, pray tell, is Brazil?

  WHITLOCK 2: Oh dear.

  VILLAGER 1: ‘Brazil’? Ha! Ha ha! What a fancy! This ‘Brazil’ ain’t any place at all, sir! And it’s criminal expensive! Or my name isn’t Villager—

  VRIL: Silence!

  (VRIL aims his STAFF, an EXPLOSION sounds, and VILLAGER 1 DISTINTEGRATES into a PUFF of VAPOUR. VRILLIANS seize WHITLOCK 2.)

  VRIL: Mr. Cartwright, you must have missed my earlier demonstration. And in your ignorance, you have revealed the minor detail that your entire civilisation does not consist of one hamlet named ‘Fork-in-the-Heigh’! No, you must have thousands, millions of pink brethren, all awaiting the chance to adore me or die! Well. I presume I have your answer?

  WHITLOCK 2: Quite.

  (VRIL points his STAFF at WHITLOCK 2.)

  LADY CADENCE: No! Not Whitlock! He is my... Geometry tutor.

  VRIL: Mathematics, my peach, are useless and eccentric. However, anything to develop your diverting simulation of a mind. He shall have time to reconsider.

  WHITLOCK 2: (as two VRILLIANS DRAG him up-stage, STOMPING in concert) She called me Whitlock!

  VRIL: (to LADY CADENCE) Come, my rosette coquette.

  LADY CADENCE: You cannot hope to rule an entire world with a single staff.

  VRIL: No. That would be rash.

  (Each VRILLIAN produces a STAFF, which they SLAM in unison. JACQUENETTE faints. LADY CADENCE frowns. Deeply.)

  CURTAIN

  * * *

  SCENE 2

  (Scene: A cell in the VILLAGE PRISON. WHITLOCK 2 sits on a bench under a BARRED WINDOW.)

  WHITLOCK 2: She called me Whitlock...

  (The DOOR opens softly, and LADY CADENCE enters.)

  WHITLOCK 2: Lady Cadence!

  LADY CADENCE: Hush! Your gaoler is somniferously indisposed, having sampled, at my urging, a beverage of lamentable potency. You must fly!

  WHITLOCK 2: Then come with me! Let me atone for my abominable lapse in judgement! Without my confounded meddling, this evril villain—that is, this evil Vrillian—would have departed at once with his violet Vermilions—I mean, violent Vrillians—

  LADY CADENCE: No, Mr. Cartwright, the lapse in judgement was entirely my own. I am not vain, but a realistic assessment of my personal charms should have dictated caution in an encounter with a strange male of alien origin.

  WHITLOCK 2: (aside) Too true. (to LADY CADENCE) But a small miscalculation must not dictate a lifetime of misery!

  LADY CADENCE: Perhaps ‘misery’ would be too strong a word.

  WHITLOCK 2: Too strong? For entering wedlock with an alien creature who disintegrates the helpless on a whim? Who traverses the aether seeking new celestial spheres solely to terrify the inhabitants into the falsest pretence of adulation?

  LADY CADENCE: I don’t deny that he has his faults.

  WHITLOCK 2: You—you have feelings for this monster!

  LADY CADENCE: Because this ‘monster’ has feelings!

  WHITLOCK 2: So did Caligula! Bad feelings!

  LADY CADENCE: Oh, Mr. Cartwright...

  SONG—LADY CADENCE and WHITLOCK 2

  (with feeling)

  LADY CADENCE:

  How can woman resist him? He broods!

  The mysterious hues of his moods

  And the energy which he exudes

  All compel an analysis shrewd.

  (LADY CADENCE sweeps past WHITLOCK 2 to soloize at the BARRED WINDOW. WHITLOCK 2 withdraws to sing in the DARKEST CORNER.)

  LADY CADENCE:

  To a prude, all his ardour is poorly construed—

  WHITLOCK 2:

  Has he wooed her so quickly with cravings so crude?

  LADY CADENCE:

  I conclude that at last I am truly pursued—

  WHITLOCK 2:

  She eludes me, she’s his, and I shouldn’t intrude..

  LADY CADENCE:

  Though a tutor’s attentions may yet be renewed.

  WHITLOCK 2:

  I’ll occlude my desires and never intrude.

  WHITLOCK 2: (speaks) I wish you every happiness, Your Ladyship. Surely your civilising influence will avert many a disintegration, as it has averted mine.

  LADY CADENCE: O masculine race! You can build a machine to traverse the corridors of time, but you fail to learn the most elementary dynamics of conversing with a woman!

  (LADY CADENCE storms out, leaving the DOOR open.)

  WHITLOCK 2: What? Lady Cadence! I meant no offence! Alas, I’ve lost her again, for the last time.

  Wait. Time! (He PACES, pivoting with each new THOUGHT at a rate commensurate with the diminutive dimensions of his CELL.)

  I can prevent her ever meeting that monster!

  But no. How could I? She loves him. A simulated punctuality might be forgiven, but what man of honour can woo a woman who is fated to find True Love with another?

  Although one could argue that Vril is hardly harmless...

  Bah! Can I sacrifice the happiness of the woman I love on the pretext of averting global annihilation? Begone, false virtue! Under thy clerical cloak lurks the foetid ghoul of Selfishness!

  And yet... poor Villager 1. There must be a way...

  Brass tacks! (He stops.) There is. (He sighs, then STRIDES out the DOOR into DARKNESS.)

  CURTAIN

  * * *

  ACT 3

  SCENE 1

  (Scene: VILLAGE PLAZA, as before. The VILLAGE CLOCK shows TWENTY minutes to TEN. All is empty, save an OLD BEGGAR WOMAN shrouded in a heavy black shawl. An EXPLOSION sounds off-stage, and WHITLOCK (henceforth, ‘WHITLOCK 3’) is thrown on-stage as before, his TWEED AFLAME and BILLOWING with SMOKE. )

  WHITLOCK 3: (as he SLAPS out the FLAMES) Cursed machine! (He sees the OLD BEGGAR WOMAN.) Ah! Forgive my lack of charity, grandmother, but I seem to have left my pocketbook in the future.

  OLD BEGGAR WOMAN: Forgiven, sir, and well expungified. I’ll make my beseechments to Lady Cadence.

  WHITLOCK 3: As will I. (He climbs LADY CADENCE’s steps, then halts.) (aside) Great Scott! I remember no such beggar present at either iteration of my interview with Lady Cadence. By what cause does she appear now, before my earliest arrival? Have I incited alterations which flow backwards in the River of Time? Are these the tremors of a coming cosmic cataclysm? Alas... such speculations only squander time so dearly won. (He knocks at the DOOR. JACQUENETTE answers.)

  JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright! Earl
y?

  WHITLOCK 3: (aside) An identical response! Perhaps free will is a mere illusion. On the other hand, she’s an automaton.

  (JACQUENETTE slaps him.)

  JACQUENETTE: How dare you employ such a term for a lady!

  WHITLOCK 3: How dare you eavesdrop on an obvious aside!

  (LADY CADENCE appears at the DOOR. Coughing, she WAVES away the SMOKE which continues to issue from WHITLOCK’s TWEED.)

  LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright? Are you quite extinguished?

  WHITLOCK 3: Lady Cadence! Come, we haven’t much time. (He takes her ARM and ushers her into the PLAZA. JACQUENETTE follows, PROTESTING in FRENCH.)

  LADY CADENCE: I demand to know the meaning of this impertinence!

  WHITLOCK 3: In a few moments, your one true love will enter this plaza.

  LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright! You’re raving! I assure you, that is quite impossible.

  (An EXPLOSION sounds, and WHITLOCK 2, only MODERATELY SINGED, is thrown on-stage as before. LADY CADENCE gasps.)

  WHITLOCK 2 & 3: (together) Great Scott!

  WHITLOCK 3: I forgot that you would be barging in.

  WHITLOCK 2: (aside) Brass tacks! I appear to be preceded by my future self! But perhaps I can yet conceal from Lady Cadence the secret of my punctuality. (to WHITLOCK 3) I know thee not, foul foreigner flambé! Unhand that lady at once!

  WHITLOCK 3: Silence, you pompous idiot! You’re about to enslave mankind to an alien race!