It should be a handsome, sombre room in oak and dark red, with sinister easy chairs and couches, great curtains discreetly drawn, a door to enter by, a door to hide by, a carelessly strewn table on which to write a letter reluctantly to dictation, another table exquisitely decorated for supper for two, champagne in an ice-bucket, many rows of books which on close examination will prove to be painted wood (the stage Lotharios not being really reading men). The lamps shed a diffused light, and one of them is slightly odd in construction, because it is for knocking over presently in order to let the lady escape unobserved. Through this room moves occasionally the man's Man, sleek, imperturbable, announcing the lady, the lady's husband, the woman friend who is to save them; he says little, but is responsible for all the arrangements going right; before the curtain rises he may be conceived trying the lamp and making sure that the lady will not stick in the door.
That is how it ought to be, that is how Amy has seen it several times in the past week; and now that we come to the grapple we wish we could give you what you want, for you do want it, you have been used to it, and you will feel that you are looking at a strange middle act without it. But Steve cannot have such a room as this, he has only two hundred and fifty pounds a year, including the legacy from his aunt. Besides, though he is to be a Lothario (in so far as we can manage it) he is not at present aware of this, and has made none of the necessary arrangements; if one of his lamps is knocked over it will certainly explode; and there cannot be a secret door without its leading into the adjoining house. (Theatres keep special kinds of architects to design their rooms.) There is indeed a little cupboard where his crockery is kept, and if Amy is careful she might be able to squeeze in there. We cannot even make the hour midnight; it is eight-thirty, quite late enough for her to be out alone.
Steve has just finished dinner, in his comfortable lodgings. He is not even in evening dress, but he does wear a lounge jacket, which we devoutly hope will give him a rakish air to Amy's eyes. He would undoubtedly have put on evening dress if he had known she was coming. His man, Richardson, is waiting on him. When we wrote that we deliberated a long time. It has an air, and with a little low cunning we could make you think to the very end that Richardson was a male. But if the play is acted and you go to see it, you would be disappointed. Steve, the wretched fellow, never had a Man, and Richardson is only his landlady's slavey, aged about fifteen, and wistful at sight of food. We introduce her gazing at Steve's platter as if it were a fairy tale. Steve has often caught her with this rapt expression on her face, and sometimes, as now, an engaging game ensues.
RICHARDSON, blinking, 'Are you finished, sir?' To those who know the game this means, 'Are you to leave the other chop--the one sitting lonely and lovely beneath the dish-cover?'
STEVE. 'Yes.' In the game this is merely a tantaliser.
RICHARDSON, almost sure that he is in the right mood and sending out a feeler, 'Then am I to clear?'
STEVE. 'No.' This is intended to puzzle her, but it is a move he has made so often that she understands its meaning at once.
RICHARDSON, in entranced giggles, 'He, he, he!'
STEVE, vacating his seat, 'Sit down.'
RICHARDSON. 'Again?'
STEVE. 'Sit down, and clear the enemy out of that dish.'
By the enemy he means the other chop: what a name for a chop. Steve plays the part of butler. He brings her a plate from the little cupboard.
'Dinner is served, madam.'
RICHARDSON, who will probably be a great duchess some day, 'I don't mind if I does have a snack.' She places herself at the table after what she conceives to be the manner of the genteelly gluttonous; then she quakes a little. 'If Missis was to catch me.' She knows that Missis is probably sitting downstairs with her arms folded, hopeful of the chop for herself.
STEVE. 'You tuck in and I'll keep watch.'
He goes to the door to peer over the banisters; it is all part of the game. Richardson promptly tucks in with horrid relish.
RICHARDSON. 'What makes you so good to me, sir?'
STEVE. 'A gentleman is always good to a lady.'
RICHARDSON, preening, 'A lady? Go on.'
STEVE. 'And when I found that at my dinner hour you were subject to growing pains I remembered my own youth. Potatoes, madam?'
RICHARDSON, neatly, 'If quite convenient.'
The kindly young man surveys her for some time in silence while she has various happy adventures.
STEVE. 'Can I smoke, Richardson?'
RICHARDSON. 'Of course you can smoke. I have often seen you smoking.'
STEVE, little aware of what an evening the sex is to give him, 'But have I your permission?'
RICHARDSON. 'You're at your tricks again.'
STEVE, severely, 'Have you forgotten already how I told you a true lady would answer?'
RICHARDSON. 'I minds, but it makes me that shy.' She has, however, a try at it. 'Do smoke, Mr. Rollo, I loves the smell of it.'
Steve lights his pipe; no real villain smokes a pipe.
STEVE. 'Smoking is a blessed companion to a lonely devil like myself.'
RICHARDSON. 'Yes, sir.' Sharply, 'Would you say devil to a real lady, sir?'
Steve, it may be hoped, is properly confused, but here the little idyll of the chop is brought to a close by the tinkle of a bell. Richardson springs to attention.
'That will be the friends you are expecting?'
STEVE. 'I was only half expecting them, but I daresay you are right. Have you finished, Richardson?'
RICHARDSON. 'Thereabouts. Would a real lady lick the bone--in company I mean?'
STEVE. 'You know, I hardly think so.'
RICHARDSON. 'Then I'm finished.'
STEVE, disappearing, 'Say I'll be back in a jiffy. I need brushing, Richardson.'
Richardson, no longer in company, is about to hold a last friendly communion with the bone when there is a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of a mysterious lady. You could never guess who the lady is, so we may admit at once that it is Miss Amy Grey. Amy is in evening dress--her only evening dress--and over it is the cloak, which she is presently to fling back with staggering effect. Just now her pale face is hiding behind the collar of it, for she is quaking inwardly though strung up to a terrible ordeal. The room is not as she expected, but she knows that men are cunning.
AMY, frowning, 'Are these Mr. Rollo's chambers? The woman told me to knock at this door.'
She remembers with a certain satisfaction that the woman had looked at her suspiciously.
RICHARDSON, the tray in her hand to give her confidence, 'Yes, ma'am. He will be down in a minute, ma'am. He is expecting you, ma'am.'
Expecting her, is he! Amy smiles the bitter smile of knowledge.
AMY. 'We shall see.' She looks about her. Sharply, 'Where is his man?'
RICHARDSON, with the guilt of the chop on her conscience, 'What man?'
AMY, brushing this subterfuge aside, 'His man. They always have a man.'
RICHARDSON, with spirit, 'He is a man himself.'
AMY. 'Come, girl; who waits on him?'
RICHARDSON. 'Me.'
AMY, rather daunted, 'No man? Very strange.' Fortunately she sees the two plates. 'Stop.' Her eyes glisten. 'Two persons have been dining here!' Richardson begins to tremble. 'Why do you look so scared? Was the other a gentleman?'
RICHARDSON. 'Oh, ma'am.'
AMY, triumphantly, 'It was not!' But her triumph gives way to bewilderment, for she knows that when she left the house her mother was still in it. Then who can the visitor have been? 'Why are you trying to hide that plate? Was it a lady? Girl, tell me was it a lady?'
RICHARDSON, at bay, 'He--he calls her a lady.'
AMY, the omniscient, 'But you know better!'
RICHARDSON. 'Of course I know she ain't a real lady.'
AMY. 'Another woman. And not even a lady.' She has no mercy on the witness. 'Tell me, is this the first time she has dined here?'
RICHARDSON, fixed by Amy's eye, 'No, ma'am--I meant no h
arm, ma'am.'
AMY. 'I am not blaming _you_. Can you remember how often she has dined here?'
RICHARDSON. 'Well can I remember. Three times last week.'
AMY. 'Three times in one week, monstrous.'
RICHARDSON, with her gown to her eyes, 'Yes, ma'am; I see it now.'
AMY, considering and pouncing, 'Do you think she is an adventuress?'
RICHARDSON. 'What's that?'
AMY. 'Does she smoke cigarettes?'
RICHARDSON, rather spiritedly, 'No, she don't.'
AMY, taken aback, 'Not an adventuress.'
She wishes Ginevra were here to help her. She draws upon her stock of knowledge. 'Can she be secretly married to him? A wife of the past turned up to blackmail him? That's very common.'
RICHARDSON. 'Oh, ma'am, you are terrifying me.'
AMY. 'I wasn't talking to you. You may go. Stop. How long had she been here before I came?'
RICHARDSON. 'She--Her what you are speaking about--'
AMY. 'Come, I must know.' The terrible admission refuses to pass Richardson's lips, and of a sudden Amy has a dark suspicion. 'Has she gone! Is she here now?'
RICHARDSON. 'It was just a chop. What makes you so grudging of a chop?'
AMY. 'I don't care what they ate. Has she gone?'
RICHARDSON. 'Oh, ma'am.'
The little maid, bearing the dishes, backs to the door, opens it with her foot, and escapes from this terrible visitor. The drawn curtains attract Amy's eagle eye, and she looks behind them. There is no one there. She pulls open the door of the cupboard and says firmly, 'Come out.' No one comes. She peeps into the cupboard and finds it empty. A cupboard and no one in it. How strange. She sits down almost in tears, wishing very much for the counsel of Ginevra. Thus Steve finds her when he returns.
STEVE. 'I'm awfully glad, Alice, that you--'
He stops abruptly at sight of a strange lady. As for Amy, the word 'Alice' brings her to her feet.
AMY. 'Sir.' A short remark but withering.
STEVE. 'I beg your pardon. I thought--the fact is that I expected--You see you are a stranger to me--my name is Rollo--you are not calling on me, are you?' Amy inclines her head in a way that Ginevra and she have practised. Then she flings back her cloak as suddenly as an expert may open an umbrella. Having done this she awaits results. Steve, however, has no knowledge of how to play his part; he probably favours musical comedy. He says lamely: 'I still think there must be some mistake.'
AMY, in italics, 'There is no mistake.'
STEVE. 'Then is there anything I can do for you?'
AMY, ardently, 'You can do so much.'
STEVE. 'Perhaps if you will sit down--'
Amy decides to humour him so far. She would like to sit in the lovely stage way, when they know so precisely where the chair is that they can sit without a glance at it. But she dare not, though Ginevra would have risked it. Steve is emboldened to say: 'By the way, you have not told me _your_ name.'
AMY, nervously, 'If you please, do you mind my not telling it?'
STEVE. 'Oh, very well.' First he thinks there is something innocent about her request, and then he wonders if 'innocent' is the right word. 'Well, your business, please?' he demands, like the man of the world he hopes some day to be.
AMY. 'Why are you not in evening dress?'
STEVE, taken aback, 'Does that matter?'
AMY, though it still worries her, 'I suppose not.'
STEVE, with growing stiffness, 'Your business, if you will be so good.'
Amy advances upon him. She has been seated in any case as long as they ever do sit on the stage on the same chair.
AMY. 'Stephen Rollo, the game is up.'
She likes this; she will be able to go on now.
STEVE, recoiling guiltily or so she will describe it to Ginevra, 'What on earth--'
AMY, suffering from a determination from the mouth of phrases she has collected in five theatres, 'A chance discovery, Mr. Stephen Rollo, has betrayed your secret to me.'
STEVE, awed, 'My secret? What is it?' He rushes rapidly through a well-spent youth.
AMY, risking a good deal, 'It is this: that woman is your wife.'
STEVE. 'What woman?'
AMY. 'The woman who dined with you here this evening.'
STEVE. 'With me?'
AMY, icily, 'This is useless; as I have already said, the game is up.'
STEVE, glancing in a mirror to make sure he is still the same person, 'You _look_ a nice girl but dash it all. Whom can you be taking me for? Tell me some more about myself.'
AMY. Please desist. I know everything, and in a way I am sorry for you. All these years you have kept the marriage a secret, for she is a horrid sort of woman, and now she has come back to blackmail you. That, however, is not my affair.'
STEVE, with unexpected power of irony, 'Oh, I wouldn't say that.'
AMY. 'I do say it, Mr. Stephen Rollo. I shall keep your secret--'
STEVE. 'Ought you?'
AMY. '--on one condition, and on one condition only, that you return me the letters.'
STEVE. 'The letters?'
AMY. 'The letters.'
Steve walks the length of his room, regarding her sideways.
STEVE. 'Look here, honestly I don't know what you are talking about. You know, I could be angry with you, but I feel sure you are sincere.'
AMY. 'Indeed I am.'
STEVE. 'Well, then, I assure you on my word of honour that no lady was dining with me this evening, and that I have no wife.'
AMY, blankly, 'No wife! You are sure? Oh, think.'
STEVE. 'I swear it.'
AMY. 'I am very sorry.' She sinks dispiritedly into a chair.
STEVE. 'Sorry I have no wife?' She nods through her tears. 'Don't cry. How could my having a wife be a boon to you?'
AMY, plaintively, 'It would have put you in the hollow of my hands.'
STEVE, idiotically, 'And they are nice hands, too.'
AMY, with a consciousness that he might once upon a time have been saved by a good woman, 'I suppose that is how you got round her.'
STEVE, stamping his foot, 'Haven't I told you that she doesn't exist?'
AMY. 'I don't mean her--I mean her--'
He decides that she is a little crazy.
STEVE, soothingly, 'Come now, we won't go into that again. It was just a mistake; and now that it is all settled and done with, I'll tell you what we shall do. You will let me get you a cab--' She shakes her head. 'I promise not to listen to the address; and after you have had a good night you--you will see things differently.'
AMY, ashamed of her momentary weakness, and deciding not to enter it in the diary, 'You are very clever, Mr. Stephen Rollo, but I don't leave this house without the letters.'
STEVE, groaning, 'Are they your letters?'
AMY. 'How dare you! They are the letters written to you, as you well know, by--'
STEVE, eagerly, 'Yes?'
AMY. '--by a certain lady. Spare me the pain, if you are a gentleman, of having to mention her name.'
STEVE, sulkily, 'Oh, all right.'
AMY. 'She is to pass out of your life to-night. To-morrow you go abroad for a long time.'
STEVE, with excusable warmth, 'Oh, do I! Where am I going?'
AMY. 'We thought--'
STEVE. 'We?'
AMY. 'A friend and I who have been talking it over. We thought of Africa--to shoot big game.'
STEVE, humouring her, 'You must be very fond of this lady.'
AMY. 'I would die for her.'
STEVE, feeling that he ought really to stick up a little for himself, 'After all, am I so dreadful? Why shouldn't she love me?'
AMY. 'A married woman!'
STEVE, gratified, 'Married?'
AMY. 'How can you play with me so, sir? She is my mother.'
STEVE. 'Your mother? Fond of me!'
AMY. 'How dare you look pleased.'
STEVE. 'I'm not--I didn't mean to. I say, I wish you would tell me who you are.'
AMY. 'As if you di
dn't know.'
STEVE, in a dream, 'Fond of me! I can't believe it.' Rather wistfully: 'How could she be?'
AMY. 'It was all your fault. Such men as you--pitiless men--you made her love you.'
STEVE, still elated, 'Do you think I am that kind of man?'
AMY. 'Oh, sir, let her go. You are strong and she is weak. Think of her poor husband, and give me back the letters.'
STEVE. 'On my word of honour--' Here arrives Richardson, so anxious to come that she is propelled into the room like a ball. 'What is it?'
RICHARDSON. 'A gentleman downstairs, sir, wanting to see you.'
AMY, saying the right thing at once, 'He must not find me here. My reputation--'
STEVE. 'I can guess who it is. Let me think.' He is really glad of the interruption. 'See here, I'll keep him downstairs for a moment. Richardson, take this lady to the upper landing until I have brought him in. Then show her out.'
RICHARDSON. 'Oh, lor'.'
AMY, rooting herself to the floor, 'The letters!'
STEVE, as he goes, 'Write to me, write to me. I must know more of this.'
RICHARDSON. 'Come quick, Miss.'
AMY, fixing her, 'You are not deceiving me? You are sure it isn't a lady?'
RICHARDSON. 'Yes, Miss--he said his name was Colonel Grey.'
Ginevra would have known that it must be the husband, but for the moment Amy is appalled.
AMY, quivering, 'Can he suspect!'
RICHARDSON, who has her own troubles, 'About the chop?'
AMY. 'If she should come while he is here!'
RICHARDSON. 'Come along, Miss. What's the matter?'
AMY. 'I can't go away. I am not going.'
She darts into the cupboard. It is as if she had heard Ginevra cry, 'Amy, the cupboard.'
RICHARDSON, tugging at the closed door, 'Come out of that. I promised to put you on the upper landing. You can't go hiding in there, lady.'
AMY, peeping out, 'I can and I will. Let go the door. I came here expecting to have to hide.'
Barrie, J M - Alice Sit-By-The-Fire Page 4