Legend: A Romance
by
LEGEND
A ROMANCE
TO KIRAH MARKHAM
“Legend” was first produced, under the title,
“My Lady’s Mirror,” at the Liberal Club, in 1915,
with the following cast:
He …………… Clement Wood
She…………… Kirah Markham
A small room with a little table in the centre, and a chair on either side of it. At the back is the embrasure of a French window opening on a balcony. In another wall is the outer door. The room is lighted by tall candles. There is an image of the Virgin in a niche in the corner.
HE.
( a cloaked figure, standing with hat and stick
in one hand and holding in the other a large square parcel )
First of all, I have a present for you.
SHE.
( where she has just risen when he entered )
A present! Oh, thank you, Luciano!
HE.
It is not me you have to thank for this present!
( He puts it on the table.)
It is some one else. I am only the bearer.
SHE.
Who can it be? Who would send me a present?
HE.
What a question, Donna Violante! Not a man in Seville,
not a man in Spain, but would send you gifts if he dared.
It is not “Who would?” but “Who could?”
SHE.
No man, as you know, Luciano, has that right.
HE.
Have you so soon forgotten your husband, Violante? He, surely, has that right! And it is thoughtful of him, too, to pause in the midst of his antiquarian researches in Rome, to think of his young wife and send her a gift. He appreciates you more than I imagined. Under his grizzled and scientific exterior, he is a human being. I respect him for it.
He puts down his hat and stick.
SHE.
My husband! But why, then, do you bring it?
HE.
I was commissioned by him to do so.
I received the package, this morning, with a letter.
Shall I read it to you?
He takes out the letter.
SHE.
Yes…. But why should he not send it direct to me ?
HE.
Your husband is a man of curious and perverse mind, Violante, and, in spite of his interest in dead things, not without some insight into the living soul. I think it gave him an obscure pleasure to think of me the bearer of his gift. But shall we let him speak for himself?
He opens the envelope.
SHE.
Yes. Read the letter.
She sits down to listen.
HE.
( reading )
“My dear young friend: I am sending you a package, which I beg you, as a favour, to deliver to Donna Violante, my wife. It contains a gift of an unusual sort, which you as well as she will appreciate. As you know, it is the unusual which interests me–the unusual and the old. And yet, antiquarian though I am, I flatter myself that I understand the mind of a beautiful young woman, especially when that young woman is my wife. I have found her a mirror. Yes, a mirror! Under this name it seems commonplace enough, but when you have seen it I do not think you will say so. It is not the kind of mirror that is ordinarily found in a lady’s boudoir. Yet it will give to her a faithful reflection of her loveliness as it is in truth. I found it– this will interest you–in the Catacombs. You would not think the early Christians had so much vanity! Yet it was a mirror into which the virgin-martyrs-to-be of the time of Nero looked each day. As they looked, let Donna Violante look. Say to her from me–‘Look long and well into this mirror, and profit by what you see.’–Humbly your friend, Don Vincenzio.” . . . Is not that a pleasant letter?