by Dear Brutus
MABEL. Did he move?
PURDIE. It isn't that. I am feeling--very funny. Did one of you tap me just now on the forehead?
(Their hands also have gone to their foreheads.)
MABEL. I think I have been in this room before.
PURDIE (flinching). There is something coming rushing back to me.
MABEL. I seem to know that coffee set. If I do, the lid of the milk jug is chipped. It is!
JOANNA. I can't remember this man's name; but I am sure it begins with L.
MABEL. Lob.
PURDIE. Lob.
JOANNA. Lob.
PURDIE. Mabel, your dress?
MABEL (beholding it). How on earth . . . ?
JOANNA. My dress! (To PURDIE.) You were in knickerbockers in the wood.
PURDIE. And so I am now. (He sees he is not.) Where did I change? The wood! Let me think. The wood . . . the wood, certainly. But the wood wasn't the wood.
JOANNA (revolving like one in pursuit). My head is going round.
MABEL. Lob's wood! I remember it all. We were here. We did go.
PURDIE. So we did. But how could . . . ? where was . . . ?
JOANNE. And who was . . . ?
MABEL And what was . . . ?
PURDIE (even in this supreme hour a man). Don't let go. Hold on to what we were doing, or we shall lose grip of ourselves. Devotion. Something about devotion. Hold on to devotion. 'If the dog-like devotion of a lifetime . . . ' Which of you was I saying that to?
MABEL. To me.
PURDIE. Are you sure?
MABEL (shakily). I am not quite sure.
PURDIE (anxiously). Joanna, what do you think? (With a sudden increase of uneasiness.) Which of you is my wife?
JOANNA (without enthusiasm). I am. No, I am not. It is Mabel who is your wife!
MABEL. Me?
PURDIE (with a curious gulp). Why, of course you are, Mabel!
MABEL. I believe I am!
PURDIE. And yet how can it be? I was running away with you.
JOANNA (solving that problem). You don't need to do it now.
PURDIE. The wood. Hold on to the wood. The wood is what explains it. Yes, I see the whole thing. (He gazes at LOB.) You infernal old rascal! Let us try to think it out. Don't any one speak for a moment. Think first. Love . . . Hold on to love. (He gets another tap.) I say, I believe I am not a deeply passionate chap at all; I believe I am just . . . . a philanderer!
MABEL. It is what you are.
JOANNA (more magnanimous). Mabel, what about ourselves?
PURDIE (to whom it is truly a nauseous draught). I didn't know. Just a philanderer! (The soul of him would like at this instant to creep into another body.) And if people don't change, I suppose we shall begin all over again now.
JOANNA (the practical). I daresay; but not with each other. I may philander again, but not with you.
(They look on themselves without approval, always a sorry occupation. The man feels it most because he has admired himself most, or perhaps partly for some better reason.)
PURDIE (saying good-bye to an old friend). John Purdie, John Purdie, the fine fellow I used to think you! (When he is able to look them in the face again.) The wood has taught me one thing, at any rate.
MABEL (dismally). What, Jack?
PURDIE. That it isn't accident that shapes our lives.
JOANNA. No, it's Fate.
PURDIE (the truth running through him, seeking for a permanent home in him, willing to give him still another chance, loth to desert him). It's not Fate, Joanna. Fate is something outside us. What really plays the dickens with us is some thing in ourselves. Something that makes us go on doing the same sort of fool things, however many chances we get.
MABEL. Something in ourselves?
PURDIE (shivering). Something we are born with.
JOANNA. Can't we cut out the beastly thing?
PURDIE. Depends, I expect, on how long we have pampered him. We can at least control him if we try hard enough. But I have for the moment an abominably clear perception that the likes of me never really tries. Forgive me, Joanna--no, Mabel--both of you. (He is a shamed man.) It isn't very pleasant to discover that one is a rotter. I suppose I shall get used to it.
JOANNA. I could forgive anybody anything to-night. (Candidly.) It is so lovely not to be married to you, Jack.
PURDIE (spiritless). I can understand that. I do feel small.
JOANNA (the true friend). You will soon swell up again.
PURDIE (for whom, alas, we need not weep). That is the appalling thing. But at present, at any rate, I am a rag at your feet, Joanna--no, at yours, Mabel. Are you going to pick me up? I don't advise it.
MABEL. I don't know whether I want to, Jack. To begin with, which of us is it your lonely soul is in search of?
JOANNA. Which of us is the fluid one, or the fluider one?
MABEL. Are you and I one? Or are you and Joanna one? Or are the three of us two?
JOANNA. He wants you to whisper in his ear, Mabel, the entrancing poem, 'Mabel Purdie.' Do it, Jack; there will be nothing wrong in it now.
PURDIE. Rub it in.
MABEL. When I meet Joanna's successor--
PURDIE (quailing). No, no, Mabel none of that. At least credit me with having my eyes open at last. There will be no more of this. I swear it by all that is--
JOANNA (in her excellent imitation of a sheep). Baa-a, he is off again.
PURDIE. Oh Lord, so I am.
MABEL. Don't, Joanna.
PURDIE (his mind still illumined). She is quite right--I was. In my present state of depression--which won't last--I feel there is something in me that will make me go on being the same ass, however many chances I get. I haven't the stuff in me to take warning. My whole being is corroded. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about--'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'
JOANNA. For 'dear Brutus' we are to read 'dear audience' I suppose?
PURDIE. You have it.
JOANNA. Meaning that we have the power to shape ourselves?
PURDIE. We have the power right enough.
JOANNA. But isn't that rather splendid?
PURDIE. For those who have the grit in them, yes. (Still seeing with a strange clearness through the chink the hammer has made.) And they are not the dismal chappies; they are the ones with the thin bright faces. (He sits lugubriously by his wife and is sorry for the first time that she has not married a better man.) I am afraid there is not much fight in me, Mabel, but we shall see. If you catch me at it again, have the goodness to whisper to me in passing, 'Lob's Wood.' That may cure me for the time being.
MABEL (still certain that she loved him once but not so sure why.) Perhaps I will . . . as long as I care to bother, Jack. It depends on you how long that is to be.
JOANNA (to break an awkward pause). I feel that there is hope in that as well as a warning. Perhaps the wood may prove to have been useful after all. (This brighter view of the situation meets with no immediate response. With her next suggestion she reaches harbour.) You know, we are not people worth being sorrowful about--so let us laugh.
(The ladies succeed in laughing though not prettily, but the man has been too much shaken.)
JOANNA (in the middle of her laugh). We have forgotten the others! I wonder what is happening to them?
PURDIE (reviving). Yes, what about them? Have they changed!
MABEL. I didn't see any of them in the wood.
JOANNA. Perhaps we did see them without knowing them; we didn't know Lob.
PURDIE (daunted). That's true.
JOANNA. Won't it be delicious to be here to watch them when they come back, and see them waking up--or whatever it was we did.
PURDIE. What was it we did? I think something tapped me on the forehead.
MABEL (blanching). How do we know the others will come back?
JOANNA (infected). We don't know. How awful!
MABEL. Listen!
PURDIE. I distinctly hear some one on the stairs.
MABEL. It will be Matey.
PURDIE (the chink beginning to close). Be cautious both of you; don't tell him we have had any . . . odd experiences.
(It is, however, MRS. COADE who comes downstairs in a dressing-gown and carrying a candle and her husband's muffler.)
MRS. COADE. So you are back at last. A nice house, I must say. Where is Coady?
PURDIE (taken aback). Coady! Did he go into the wood, too?
MRS. COADE (placidly). I suppose so. I have been down several times to look for him.
MABEL. Coady, too!
JOANNA (seeing visions). I wonder . . . Oh, how dreadful!
MRS. COADE. What is dreadful, Joanna?
JOANNA (airily). Nothing. I was just wondering what he is doing.
MRS. COADE. Doing? What should he be doing? Did anything odd happen to you in the wood?
PURDIE (taking command). No, no, nothing.
JOANNA. We just strolled about, and came back. (That subject being exhausted she points to LOB). Have you noticed him?
MRS. COADE. Oh, yes; he has been like that all the time. A sort of stupor, I think; and sometimes the strangest grin comes over his face.
PU RDIE (wincing). Grin?
MRS. COADE. Just as if he were seeing amusing things in his sleep.
PURDIE (guardedly). I daresay he is. Oughtn't we to get Matey to him?
MRS. COADE. Matey has gone, too.
PURDIE. Wha-at!
MRS. COADE. At all events he is not in the house.
JOANNA (unguardedly). Matey! I wonder who is with him.
MRS. COADE. Must somebody be with him?
JOANNA. Oh, no, not at all.
(They are simultaneously aware that someone outside has reached the window.)
MRS. COADE. I hope it is Coady.
(The other ladies are too fond of her to share this wish.)
MABEL. Oh, I hope not.
MRS. COADE (blissfully). Why, Mrs. Purdie?
JOANNA (coaxingly). Dear Mrs. Coade, whoever he is, and whatever he does, I beg you not to be surprised. We feel that though we had no unusual experiences in the wood, others may not have been so fortunate.
MABEL. And be cautious, you dear, what you say to them before they come to.
MRS. COADE. 'Come to'? You puzzle me. And Coady didn't have his muffler.
(Let it be recorded that in their distress for this old lady they forget their own misadventures. PURDIE takes a step toward the curtains in a vague desire to shield her;--and gets a rich reward; he has seen the coming addition to their circle.)
PURDIE (elated and pitiless). It is Matey!
(A butler intrudes who still thinks he is wrapped in fur.)
JOANNA (encouragingly). Do come in.
MATEY. With apologies, ladies and gents . . . May I ask who is host?
PURDIE (splashing in the temperature that suits him best). A very reasonable request. Third on the left.
MATEY (advancing upon Lob). Merely to ask, sir, if you can direct me to my hotel?
(The sleeper's only response is a alight quiver in one leg.)
The gentleman seems to be reposing.
MRS. COADE. It is Lob.
MATEY. What is lob, ma'am?
MRS. COADE (pleasantly curious). Surely you haven't forgotten?
PURDIE (over-riding her). Anything we can do for you, sir? Just give it a name.
JOANNA (in the same friendly spirit). I hope you are not alone: do say you have some lady friends with you.
MATEY (with an emphasis on his leading word). My wife is with me.
JOANNA. His wife! . . . (With commendation.) You have been quick!
MRS. COADE. I didn't know you were married.
MATEY. Why should you, madam? You talk as if you knew me.
MRS. COADE. Good gracious, do you really think I don't?
PURDIE (indicating delicately that she is subject to a certain softening). Sit down, won't you, my dear sir, and make yourself comfy.
MATEY (accustomed of late to such deferential treatment). Thank you. But my wife . . .
JOANNA (hospitably). Yes, bring her in; we are simply dying to make her acquaintance.
MATEY. You are very good; I am much obliged.
MABEL (as he goes out). Who can she be?
JOANNA (leaping). Who, who, who!
MRS. COADE. But what an extraordinary wood. He doesn't seem to know who he is at all.
MABEL (soothingly). Don't worry about that, Coady darling. He will know soon enough.
JOANNA (again finding the bright side). And so will the little wife! By the way, whoever she is, I hope she is fond of butlers.
MABEL (who has peeped). It is Lady Caroline!
JOANNA (leaping again). Oh, joy, joy! And she was so sure she couldn't take the wrong turning!
(Lady Caroline is evidently still sure of it.)
MATEY. May I present my wife--Lady Caroline Matey.
MABEL (glowing). How do you do!
PURDIE. Your servant, Lady Caroline.
MRS. COADE. Lady Caroline Matey! You?
LADY CAROLINE (without an r in her). Charmed, I'm sure.
JOANNA (neatly). Very pleased to meet any wife of Mr. Matey.
PURDIE (taking the floor). Allow me. The Duchess of Candelabra. The Ladies Helena and Matilda M'Nab. I am the Lord Chancellor.
MABEL. I have wanted so long to make your acquaintance.
LADY CAROLINE. Charmed.
JOANNA (gracefully). These informal meetings are so delightful, don't you think?
LADY CAROLINE. Yes, indeed.
MATEY (the introductions being thus pleasantly concluded). And your friend by the fire?
PURDIE. I will introduce you to him when you wake up--I mean when he wakes up.
MATEY. Perhaps I ought to have said that I am _James_ Matey.
LADY CAROLINE (the happy creature). _The_ James Matey.
MATEY. A name not, perhaps, unknown in the world of finance.
JOANNA. Finance? Oh, so you did take that clerkship in the City!
MATEY (a little stiffly). I began as a clerk in the City, certainly; and I am not ashamed to admit it.
MRS. COADE (still groping). Fancy that, now. And did it save you?
MATEY. Save me, madam?
JOANNA. Excuse us--we ask odd questions in this house; we only mean, did that keep you honest? Or are you still a pilferer?
LADY CAROLINE (an outraged swan). Husband mine, what does she mean?
JOANNA. No offence; I mean a pilferer on a large scale.
MATEY (remembering certain newspaper jealousy). If you are referring to that Labrador business--or the Working Women's Bank . . .
PURDIE (after the manner of one who has caught a fly). O-ho, got him!
JOANNA (bowing). Yes, those are what I meant.
MATEY (stoutly). There was nothing proved.
JOANNA (like one calling a meeting). Mabel, Jack, here is another of us! You have gone just the same way again, my friend. (Ecstatically.) There is more in it, you see, than taking the wrong turning; you would always take the wrong turning. (The only fitting comment.) Tra-la-la!
LADY CAROLINE. If you are casting any aspersions on my husband, allow me to say that a prouder wife than I does not to-day exist.
MRS. COADE (who finds herself the only clear-headed one). My dear, do be careful.
MABEL. So long as you are satisfied, dear Lady Caroline. But I thought you shrank from all blood that was not blue.
LADY CAROLINE. You thought? Why should you think about me? I beg to assure you that I adore my Jim.
(She seeks his arm, but her Jim has encountered the tray containing coffee cups and a cake, and his hands close on it with a certain intimacy.) Whatever are you doing, Jim?
MATEY. I don't understand it, Caroliny; but somehow I feel at home with this in my hands.
MABEL. 'Caroliny!'
MRS. COADE. Look at me well; don't you remember me?
MATEY (musing). I don't remember you; but I seem to associate you with hard-boiled e
ggs. (With conviction.) You like your eggs hard-boiled.
PURDIE. Hold on to hard-boiled eggs! She used to tip you especially to see to them.
(MATEY'S hand goes to his pocket.)
Yes, that was the pocket.
LADY CAROLINE (with distaste). Tip!
MATEY (without distaste). Tip!
PURDIE. Jolly word, isn't it?
MATEY (raising the tray). It seems to set me thinking.
LADY CAROLINE (feeling the tap of the hammer). Why is my work-basket in this house?
MRS. COADE. You are living here, you know.
LADY CAROLINE. That is what a person feels. But when did I come? It is very odd, but one feels one ought to say when did one go.
PURDIE. She is coming to with a wush!
MATEY (under the hammer). Mr. . . . Purdie!
LADY CAROLINE. MRS. Coade!
MATEY. The Guv'nor! My clothes!
LADY CAROLINE. One is in evening dress!
JOANNA (charmed to explain). You will understand clearly in a minute, Caroliny. You didn't really take that clerkship, Jim; you went into domestic service; but in the essentials you haven't altered.
PURDIE (pleasantly). I'll have my shaving water at 7.30 sharp, Matey.
MATEY (mechanically). Very good, sir.
LADY CAROLINE. Sir? Midsummer Eve! The wood!
PURDIE. Yes, hold on to the wood.
MATEY. You are . . . you are . . . you are Lady Caroline Laney!
LADY CAROLINE. It is Matey, the butler!
MABEL. You seemed quite happy with him, you know, Lady Caroline.
JOANNA (nicely). We won't tell.
LADY CAROLINE (subsiding). Caroline Matey! And I seemed to like it! How horrible!
MRS. COADE (expressing a general sentiment). It is rather difficult to see what we should do next.
MATEY (tentatively). Perhaps if I were to go downstairs?
PURDIE. It would be conferring a personal favour on us all.
(Thus encouraged MATEY and his tray resume friendly relations with the pantry.)
LADY CAROLINE (with itching fingers as she glares at Lob). It is all that wretch's doing.
(A quiver from Lob's right leg acknowledges the compliment. The gay music of a pipe is heard from outside.)
JOANNA (peeping). Coady!
MRS. COADE. Coady! Why is he so happy?