MRS. G. Then why do you touch it?
CAPT. G. To make it lighter. See here, little love, I’ve one notion and Jack has another, but we are both agreed that all this equipment is about thirty pounds too heavy. The thing is how to cut it down without weakening any part of it, and, at the same time, allowing the trooper to carry everything he wants for his own comfort — socks and shirts and things of that kind.
MRS. G. Why doesn’t he pack them in a little trunk?
CAPT. G. (Kissing her.) Oh, you darling! Pack them in a little trunk, indeed! Hussars don’t carry trunks, and it’s a most important thing to make the horse do all the carrying.
MRS. G. But why need you bother about it? You’re not a trooper.
CAPT. G. No; but I command a few score of him; and equipment is nearly everything in these days.
MRS. G. More than me?
CAPT. G. Stupid! Of course not; but it’s a matter that I’m tremendously interested in, because if I or Jack, or I and Jack, work out some sort of lighter saddlery and all that, it’s possible that we may get it adopted.
MRS. G. How?
CAPT. G. Sanctioned at Home, where they will make a sealed pattern — a pattern that all the saddlers must copy — and so it will be used by all the regiments.
MRS. G. And that interests you?
CAPT. G. It’s part of my profession, y’know, and my profession is a good deal to me. Everything in a soldier’s equipment is important, and if we can improve that equipment, so much the better for the soldiers and for us.
MRS.G. Who’s ‘us’?
CAPT. G. Jack and I; only Jack’s notions are too radical. What’s that big sigh for, Minnie?
MRS. G. Oh, nothing — and you’ve kept all this a secret from me! Why?
CAPT. G. Not a secret, exactly, dear. I didn’t say anything about it to you because I didn’t think it would amuse you.
MRS. G. And am I only made to be amused?
CAPT. G. No, of course. I merely mean that it couldn’t interest you.
MRS. G. It’s your work and — and if you’d let me, I’d count all these things up. If they are too heavy, you know by how much they are too heavy, and you must have a list of things made out to your scale of lightness, and —
CAPT. G. I have got both scales somewhere in my head; but it’s hard to tell how light you can make a headstall, for instance, until you’ve actually had a model made.
MRS. G. But if you read out the list, I could copy it down, and pin it up there just above your table. Wouldn’t that do?
CAPT. G. It would be awf’ly nice, dear, but it would be giving you trouble for nothing. I can’t work that way. I go by rule of thumb. I know the present scale of weights, and the other one — the one that I’m trying to work to — will shift and vary so much that I couldn’t be certain, even if I wrote it down.
MRS. G. I’m so sorry. I thought I might help. Is there anything else that I could be of use in?
CAPT. G. (Looking round the room.) I can’t think of anything. You’re always helping me, you know.
MRS. G. Am I? How?
CAPT. G. You are you of course, and as long as you’re near me — I can’t explain exactly, but it’s in the air.
MRS. G. And that’s why you wanted to send me away?
CAPT. G. That’s only when I’m trying to do work — grubby work like this.
MRS. G. Mafflin’s better, then, isn’t he?
CAPT. G. (Rashly.) Of course he is. Jack and I have been thinking along the same groove for two or three years about this equipment. It’s our hobby, and it may really be useful some day.
MRS. G. (After a pause.) And that’s all that you have away from me?
CAPT. G. It isn’t very far away from you now. Take care the oil on that bit doesn’t come off on your dress.
MRS. G. I wish — I wish so much that I could really help you. I believe
I could — if I left the room. But that’s not what I mean.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) Give me patience! I wish she would go. (Aloud.) I assure you you can’t do anything for me, Minnie, and I must really settle down to this. Where’s my pouch?
MRS. G. (Crossing to writing-table.) Here you are, Bear. What a mess you keep your table in!
CAPT. G. Don’t touch it. There’s a method in my madness, though you mightn’t think of it.
MRS. G. (At table.) I want to look — Do you keep accounts, Pip?
CAPT. G. (Bending over saddlery.) Of a sort. Are you rummaging among the Troop papers? Be careful.
MRS. G. Why? I shan’t disturb anything. Good gracious! I had no idea that you had anything to do with so many sick horses.
CAPT. G. ‘Wish I hadn’t, but they insist on falling sick. Minnie, if I were you I really should not investigate those papers. You may come across something that you won’t like.
MRS. G. Why will you always treat me like a child? I know I’m not displacing the horrid things.
CAPT. G. (Resignedly.) Very well, then. Don’t blame me if anything happens. Play with the table and let me go on with the saddlery. (Slipping hand into trousers-pocket.) Oh, the deuce!
MRS. G. (Her back to G.) What’s that for?
CAPT. G. Nothing. (Aside.) There’s not much in it, but I wish I’d torn it up.
MRS. G. (Turning over contents of table.) I know you’ll hate me for this; but I do want to see what your work is like. (A pause.) Pip, what are ‘farcy-buds’?
CAPT. G. Hah! Would you really like to know? They aren’t pretty things.
MRS. G. This Journal of Veterinary Science says they are of ‘absorbing interest.’ Tell me.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) It may turn her attention.
Gives a long and designedly loathsome account of glanders and farcy
MRS. G. Oh, that’s enough. Don’t go on!
CAPT. G. But you wanted to know — Then these things suppurate and matterate and spread —
MRS. G. Pip, you’re making me sick! You’re a horrid, disgusting schoolboy.
CAPT. G. (On his knees among the bridles.) You asked to be told.
It’s not my fault if you worry me into talking about horrors.
MRS. G. Why didn’t you say — No?
CAPT. G. Good Heavens, child! Have you come in here simply to bully me?
MRS. G. I bully you? How could I! You’re so strong. (Hysterically.) Strong enough to pick me up and put me outside the door and leave me there to cry. Aren’t you?
CAPT. G. It seems to me that you’re an irrational little baby. Are you quite well?
MRS. G. Do I look ill? (Returning to table.) Who is your lady friend with the big gray envelope and the fat monogram outside?
CAPT. G. (Aside.) Then it wasn’t locked up, confound it. (Aloud.) ‘God made her, therefore let her pass for a woman.’ You remember what farcy-buds are like?
MRS. G. (Showing envelope.) This has nothing to do with them. I’m going to open it. May I?
CAPT. G. Certainly, if you want to. I’d sooner you didn’t, though. I don’t ask to look at your letters to the Deercourt girl.
MRS. G. You’d better not, Sir! (Takes letter from envelope.) Now, may I look? If you say no, I shall cry.
CAPT. G. You’ve never cried in my knowledge of you, and I don’t believe you could.
MRS. G. I feel very like it to-day, Pip. Don’t be hard on me. (Reads letter.) It begins in the middle, without any ‘Dear Captain Gadsby,’ or anything. How funny!
CAPT. G. (Aside.) No, it’s not Dear Captain Gadsby, or anything, now. How funny!
MRS. G. What a strange letter! (Reads.) ‘And so the moth has come too near the candle at last, and has been singed into — shall I say Respectability? I congratulate him, and hope he will be as happy as he deserves to be.’ What does that mean? Is she congratulating you about our marriage?
CAPT. G. Yes, I suppose so.
MRS. G. (Still reading letter.) She seems to be a particular friend of yours.
CAPT. G. Yes. She was an excellent matron of sorts — a Mrs. Herriott — wife of a Colonel Her
riott. I used to know some of her people at Home long ago — before I came out.
MRS. G. Some Colonels’ wives are young — as young as me. I knew one who was younger.
CAPT. G. Then it couldn’t have been Mrs. Herriott. She was old enough to have been your mother, dear.
MRS. G. I remember now. Mrs. Scargill was talking about her at the Duffins’ tennis, before you came for me, on Tuesday. Captain Mafflin said she was a ‘dear old woman.’ Do you know, I think Mafflin is a very clumsy man with his feet.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) Good old Jack! (Aloud.) Why, dear?
MRS. G. He had put his cup down on the ground then, and he literally stepped into it. Some of the tea spirted over my dress — the gray one. I meant to tell you about it before.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) There are the makings of a strategist about Jack, though his methods are coarse. (Aloud.) You’d better get a new dress, then. (Aside.) Let us pray that that will turn her.
MRS. G. Oh, it isn’t stained in the least. I only thought that I’d tell you. (Returning to letter.) What an extraordinary person! (Reads.) ‘But need I remind you that you have taken upon yourself a charge of wardship’ — what in the world is a charge of wardship? — ’which, as you yourself know, may end in Consequences — ’
CAPT. G. (Aside.) It’s safest to let ‘em see everything as they come across it; but ‘seems to me that there are exceptions to the rule. (Aloud.) I told you that there was nothing to be gained from rearranging my table.
MRS. G. (Absently.) What does the woman mean? She goes on talking about Consequences — ’almost inevitable Consequences’ with a capital C — for half a page. (Flushing scarlet.) Oh, good gracious! How abominable!
CAPT. G. (Promptly.) Do you think so? Doesn’t it show a sort of motherly interest in us? (Aside.) Thank Heaven, Harry always wrapped her meaning up safely! (Aloud.) Is it absolutely necessary to go on with the letter, darling?
MRS. G. It’s impertinent — it’s simply horrid. What right has this woman to write in this way to you? She oughtn’t to.
CAPT. G. When you write to the Deercourt girl, I notice that you generally fill three or four sheets. Can’t you let an old woman babble on paper once in a way? She means well.
MRS. G. I don’t care. She shouldn’t write, and if she did, you ought to have shown me her letter.
CAPT. G. Can’t you understand why I kept it to myself, or must I explain at length — as I explained the farcy-buds?
MRS. G. (Furiously.) Pip, I hate you! This is as bad as those idiotic saddle-bags on the floor. Never mind whether it would please me or not, you ought to have given it to me to read.
CAPT. G. It comes to the same thing. You took it yourself.
MRS. G. Yes, but if I hadn’t taken it, you wouldn’t have said a word. I think this Harriet Herriott — it’s like a name in a book — is an interfering old Thing.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) So long as you thoroughly understand that she is old, I don’t much care what you think. (Aloud.) Very good, dear. Would you like to write and tell her so? She’s seven thousand miles away.
MRS. G. I don’t want to have anything to do with her, but you ought to have told me. (Turning to last page of letter.) And she patronises me, too. I’ve never seen her! (Reads.) ‘I do not know how the world stands with you; in all human probability I shall never know; but whatever I may have said before, I pray for her sake more than for yours that all may be well. I have learnt what misery means, and I dare not wish that any one dear to you should share my knowledge.’
CAPT. G. Good God! Can’t you leave that letter alone, or, at least, can’t you refrain from reading it aloud? I’ve been through it once. Put it back on the desk. Do you hear me?
MRS. G. (Irresolutely.) I sh — shan’t! (Looks at G’.s eyes.) Oh,
Pip, please! I didn’t mean to make you angry — ’Deed, I didn’t. Pip,
I’m so sorry. I know I’ve wasted your time — —
CAPT. G. (Grimly.) You have. Now, will you be good enough to go — if there is nothing more in my room that you are anxious to pry into?
MRS. G. (Putting out her hands.) Oh, Pip, don’t look at me like that!
I’ve never seen you look like that before and it hu-urts me! I’m sorry.
I oughtn’t to have been here at all, and — and — and — (sobbing). Oh,
be good to me! Be good to me! There’s only you — anywhere!
Breaks down in long chair, hiding face in cushions.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) She doesn’t know how she flicked me on the raw. (Aloud, bending over chair.) I didn’t mean to be harsh, dear — I didn’t really. You can stay here as long as you please, and do what you please. Don’t cry like that. You’ll make yourself sick. (Aside.) What on earth has come over her? (Aloud.) Darling, what’s the matter with you?
MRS. G. (Her face still hidden.) Let me go — let me go to my own room.
Only — only say you aren’t angry with me.
CAPT. G. Angry with you, love! Of course not. I was angry with myself. I’d lost my temper over the saddlery — Don’t hide your face, Pussy. I want to kiss it.
Bends lower, MRS. G. slides right arm round his neck. Several interludes and much sobbing.
MRS. G. (In a whisper.) I didn’t mean about the jam when I came in to tell you — —
CAPT. G. Bother the jam and the equipment! (Interlude.)
MRS. G. (Still more faintly.) My finger wasn’t scalded at all. I — I wanted to speak to you about — about — something else, and — I didn’t know how.
CAPT. G. Speak away, then. (Looking into her eyes.) Eh! Wha — at?
Minnie! Here, don’t go away! You don’t mean?
MRS. G. (Hysterically, backing to portiere and hiding her face in its folds.) The — the Almost Inevitable Consequences! (Flits though portiere as G. attempts to catch her, and bolts herself in her own room.)
CAPT. G. (His arms full of portiere.) Oh! (Sitting down heavily in chair.) I’m a brute — a pig — a bully, and a blackguard. My poor, poor little darling! ‘Made to be amused only — ?
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
Knowing Good and Evil.
SCENE. — The GADSBYS’ bungalow in the Plains, in June. Punkah-coolies asleep in veranda where CAPTAIN GADSBY is walking up and down. DOCTOR’S trap in porch. JUNIOR CHAPLAIN drifting generally and uneasily through the house. Time, 3.40 A. M. Heat 94 degrees in veranda.
DOCTOR. (Coming into veranda and touching G. on the shoulder.) You had better go in and see her now.
CAPT. G. (The colour of good cigar-ash.) Eh, wha-at? Oh, yes, of course. What did you say?
DOCTOR. (Syllable by syllable.) Go — in — to — the — room — and — see — her. She wants to speak to you. (Aside, testily.) I shall have him on my hands next.
JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. (In half-lighted dining-room.) Isn’t there any — ?
DOCTOR. (Savagely.) Hsh, you little fool!
JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. Let me do my work. Gadsby, stop a minute! (Edges after G.)
DOCTOR. Wait till she sends for you at least — at least. Man alive, he’ll kill you if you go in there! What are you bothering him for?
JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. (Coming into veranda.) I’ve given him a stiff brandy-peg. He wants it. You’ve forgotten him for the last ten hours and — forgotten yourself too.
G. enters bedroom, which is lit by one night-lamp.
Ayah on the floor pretending to be asleep.
VOICE. (From the bed.) All down the street — such bonfires! Ayah, go and put them out! (Appealingly.) How can I sleep with an installation of the C.I.E. in my room? No — not C.I.E. Something else. What was it?
CAPT. G. (Trying to control his voice.) Minnie, I’m here. (Bending over bed.) Don’t you know me, Minnie? It’s me — it’s Phil — it’s your husband.
VOICE. (Mechanically.) It’s me — it’s Phil — it’s your husband.
CAPT. G. She doesn’t know me! — It’s your own husband, darling,
VOICE. Your own husband, darling.
AYAH. (With an inspirat
ion.) Memsahib understanding all I saying.
CAPT. G. Make her understand me then — quick!
AYAH. (Hand on MRS. G’s forehead.) Memsahib! Captain Sahib here.
VOICE. Salma do. (Fretfully.) I know I’m not fit to be seen.
AYAH. (Aside to G.) Say ‘marneen’ same as breakfash.
CAPT. G. Good-morning, little woman. How are we to-day?
VOICE. That’s Phil. Poor old Phil. (Viciously.)
Phil, you fool, I can’t see you. Come nearer.
CAPT. G. Minnie! Minnie! It’s me — you know me?
VOICE. (Mockingly.) Of course I do. Who does not know the man who was so cruel to his wife — almost the only one he ever had?
CAPT. G. Yes, dear. Yes — of course, of course. But won’t you speak to him? He wants to speak to you so much.
VOICE. They’d never let him in. The Doctor would give darwaza bund even if he were in the house. He’ll never come. (Despairingly.) O Judas! Judas! Judas!
CAPT. G. (Putting out his arms.) They have let him in, and he always was in the house. Oh, my love — don’t you know me?
VOICE. (In a half chant.) ‘And it came to pass at the eleventh hour that this poor soul repented.’ It knocked at the gates, but they were shut — tight as a plaster — a great, burning plaster. They had pasted our marriage certificate all across the door, and it was made of red-hot iron — people really ought to be more careful, you know.
CAPT. G. What am I to do? (Takes her in his arms.) Minnie! speak to me — to Phil.
VOICE. What shall I say? Oh, tell me what to say before it’s too late!
They are all going away and I can’t say anything.
CAPT. G. Say you know me! Only say you know me!
DOCTOR. (Who has entered quietly.) For pity’s sake don’t take it too much to heart, Gadsby. It’s this way sometimes. They won’t recognise. They say all sorts of queer things — don’t you see?
CAPT. G. All right! All right! Go away now, she’ll recognise me; you’re bothering her. She must — mustn’t she?
DOCTOR. She will before — Have I your leave to try — ?
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 139