Scene One
Marguerite and Veronica disappear up the steps as the room fades into darkness, with the exception of a beam of moonlight in the center of the room.
Evil emerges out of the darkness into the ray of silver moonshine. Adorned in long magnificent dark colored robes that are tight to her torso but flowing and elegant everywhere else, her long hair laying on her shoulders, she smiles softly. The slightest hint of a knowing smirk hanging on the corners of her mouth. She holds her hands together casually her elbows pointing down, the long sleeves of her robes flowing to just below her knees.
"Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie," she begins in the same eerie, knowing tone as last she spoke.
"And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fairÁ for which love groaned for and would die,
With tender Marguerite matched, is now not fair.
Now Roxton is beloved and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks,
But to his foe supposed he must complain,
And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved any where:
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet." Evil finishes taking a bit of a
lighter tone. She smiles once at her loyal audience, jumping her eyebrows once
and then taking hold of one of the folds of her robes swings it around in a
great swoosh of cloth and disappears as the moonlight drips in and exposes the
orchard beneath the tree house; the tree house showing in the corner above the
scene and the street behind the garden wall.
------
Roxton enters walking along the garden wall looking at it intently. He then jogs back a few paces and taking a running start bounds up the wall, trying desperately to pull himself up, more now from fear of falling then getting over the barrier. He is tensed, grunting as he strains to pull himself to the flat top of the wall. The calls of his kinsmen suddenly reach his ears.
"Roxton! My cousin Roxton!"
"Oh great," Roxton grunts almost releasing the wall in exasperation, but abruptly clinging to it quickly makes it to the top of the barricade.
-------------
"He is wise and, on my lie, has gone home to bed," said Robert with a bored tone, throwing a rock up the road into the dark.
"He ran this way, and leaped this orchard wall: Call, good Robert," Malone pleads anxious to find his dismal cousin.
Robert puts up his arms to calm his friend and nods his head, rolling his eyes, perhaps he can make this fun.
"Nay, I'll conjure too. Roxton! Humorous! Madman! Passion! Lover!" Robert calls into the dark.
"Oh dear," Malone groans placing a hand over his
face.
"Appear you in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!" he stops listening a minute then
throws his hands down in disdain.
"He hears not, he stirs not, he moves not; The ape
is dead, and I must conjure him." Robert sighs thinking a moment and then
beginning again, his face lit with new mischief.
"I summon you by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in you likeness you appear to us!" Roberts turns to Malone and smirks.
"And if he hears you, you will anger him," Malone whispers calmly his arms crossed not entertained by the display.
Robert rolls his eyes "This cannot anger him: it would anger him to raise a spirit in his mistress' circle of some strange nature, letting it there stand till she had laid it and conjured it down; that were some spite: my invocation is fair and honest, and in his mistress' name I conjure only but to raise up him." He says trying to put an innocent tone in his voice
"Uh-huh," Malone sighs looking at him not even slightly fooled, "Come, he hath hid himself among these trees, To be consorted with the humorous night: Blind is his love and best befits the dark."
Robert chuckled or rather guffaws "If love be
blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
Romeo, that she were, Oh, that she were
An open et caetera, you a poperin pear!" he finishes looks around now utterly
bored, "Roxton, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed; This field-bed is too cold
for me to sleep!!" He shouts out into the night,
"Come, shall we go?" He then turns and asks Malone.
"Yes for it's in vain to seek him here that means not to be found." Malone yawns and they both leave together walking off down the road to their respected beds.
End of Scene One
