by Unknown
LORD PLUMLEIGH (seizing the Sandow apparatus). You will excuse me going on with things, won’t you? I can talk just the same. (Goes vigorously to work at exercises.)
LORD CARLTON (sits — staring). Are you always as busy as this, Plum?
LORD PLUMLEIGH (counting at exercise). Eight — nine — ten. Here’s my time-table. (Gets card from desk and immediately plunges into another exercise.)
LORD CARLTON. What’s this? (Taking card and reading)
6.30 — leap out of bed; 7 — run a mile, walk a mile; 7.30 — breakfast; 8 — Botany; 8.45 — Herodotus; II — run a mile, walk a mile; 12 — Latin verse; 2 — dinner. Dinner?
LORD PLUMLEIGH. We dine in the middle of the day now.
LORD CARLTON (astounded). What!
LORD PLUMLEIGH. We have no late dinner. Ever so much better. But we dress for tea at six. Nine — ten — (Finishes exercise, and goes to desk without losing a moment.) This is my new desk — the top slides back, you see, so that I can begin at once. (He suits the action to words, so that as he finishes speaking he has sat down and is intent on his studies.)
LORD CARLTON. When did this ambition seize you?
LORD PLUMLEIGH. I don’t know. It’s just as if I had suddenly wakened up.
LORD CARLTON (with sudden idea — rises and goes across to LORD PLUMLEIGH). Plum, have you been seeing much of Miss Loney lately?
LORD PLUMLEIGH (without looking up). No — very little. Do you remember she pretended she was going to change us all! Jolly rot!
(Enter LADY GEORGY with book.)
LADY GEORGY. David!
LORD CARLTON. I have turned up again, Georgy.
(LADY MILLICENT is carried in in bath-chair.)
LADY GEORGY. YOU must be famished?
LORD CARLTON. NO, I breakfasted in the train. (He crosses to LADY MILLICENT; with feeling he says) Milly! (Gets centre.) Why, Georgy! I declare she’s got quite a colour in her cheeks.
LADY GEORGY (bitterly). Yes, that is all the grand cure amounts to. (She sighs.) David — (She is about to storm.)
LORD PLUMLEIGH (holding up his hand in indignation with them for disturbing him). Mater, if you please.
(All are properly humbled and speak in lower tones.)
LORD CARLTON. You’ve taken to rising early nowadays, Georgy?
LADY GEORGY. Yes, it is such a help to the servants.
LORD CARLTON. Oh, since when have you taken to considering the servants?
LADY GEORGY (carelessly). Only lately, I think.
LORD CARLTON. I think so, too. And what is this about dining in the middle of the day?
LADY GEORGY. You can have something later if you like.
LORD CARLTON. Thanks. Don’t you?
LADY GEORGY. Oh no — we feel so much better without it.
LORD CARLTON (sharply). Who put you up to this?
LADY GEORGY (indignantly). No one. It is entirely my own idea.
LORD CARLTON. H’m!
LORD PLUMLEIGH (again annoyed by their talking). I say — how can I study, etc.
(Closes his book with a bang, and full of reproachful glances makes a pile of books and papers and with a hand clock on top of them exits upstairs carrying them indignantly. LADY GEORGY has followed PLUMLEIGH to foot of staircase to pacify him.)
LADY GEORGY (turns to LORD CARLTON). David, what A mistake it has all been! The woman has never tried to do anything.
LORD CARLTON (who is sorry and troubled about MOIRA). Well, she has done no harm, Georgy. Her time is up — let her go away quietly.
LADY GEORGY. She doesn’t deserve it — and she is not to get it.
LORD CARLTON. Urn!
LADY MILLICENT. It is a secret, mother.
LADY GEORGY. Not from your uncle. You see, David, he is in the neighbourhood, so I seized the opportunity of begging him to come over.
LORD CARLTON. Who?
LADY GEORGY. Sir Jennings. Oh, I had to humble myself before he would consent.
LORD CARLTON. Well, you must let her get away before his arrival.
LADY GEORGY. She doesn’t know he is coming. Milly wouldn’t let me tell her.
LORD CARLTON (annoyed). Milly!
LADY GEORGY (surprised at his displeasure). Surely you are the last person to complain — you who were against her from the first.
LORD CARLTON. No, I wasn’t.
LADY GEORGY. Why, you talked of the police.
LORD CARLTON. No, I didn’t.
LADY GEORGY (indignant). David.
(He can’t look her in the face. Exit LADY GEORGY upstairs, disdainfully.)
LADY MILLICENT (in a little voice). Are you angry WITH me, uncle?
LORD CARLTON (keeping away from her). I am disgusted with you.
LADY MILLICENT. For bringing Sir Jennings back?
LORD CARLTON. No, I suppose that had to be done. But you might have let her slip away quietly first. It is like hitting a woman when she’s down. (Sits.)
LADY MILLICENT (curiously). If you are so interested in her, why did you go away?
LORD CARLTON (sighing). Perhaps that was the reason.
LADY MILLICENT. Then why have you come back?
LORD CARLTON (miserably). I don’t know. Milly, somehow it is terrible to me to have to disbelieve in Moira Loney.
(She is pleased and blows him a kiss unseen by him.)
That dear, honest little girl — (With sudden change) — that lying little jade.
LADY MILLICENT. Uncle, Moira Loney is a dear. (Sitting up excitedly.)
LORD CARLTON (goes to her — brightening — sadly). No, she isn’t.
LADY MILLICENT. Uncle, if you knew what I know!
LORD CARLTON. Eh? What?
LADY MILLICENT. Listen — (Is about to confide when enter DEIGHTON and first footman.)
DEIGHTON. Are we to take you upstairs, my lady?
LADY MILLICENT. Please, Deighton. (She lies back, an invalid again, and they lift her chair and carry her off upstairs.)
LORD CARLTON. Milly, what were you going to say?
LADY MILLICENT (in a die-away voice). I am so tired, uncle.
(LORD CARLTON is going off after MILLY is carried upstairs, when he sees CECIL coming. He gets newspaper and sits on sofa. Enter CECIL — he has got away down to sofa before he sees his father, then turns and is going off, tiptoes up to door. By door he hesitates, shuts door — he pulls himself together and comes pleasantly to table.)
CECIL. How are you, father?
LORDCARLTON. Is that you, Cecil? I’m all right how are you?
CECIL. All right. (Starts humming, is stopped by a look from LORD CARLTON.)
(LORD CARLTON crosses to fireplace, reaches for book. They are selfconscious in each other’s presence, but CECIL is trying to be genial while lord carlton is brusque.
CECIL follows lord carlton to fireplace.)
CECIL (thinks he sees a chance to please). IS THE BOOK OUT OF YOUR REACH, FATHER — SHALL! GET IT DOWN FOR YOU?
LORD CARLTON (fiercely). No! (Looking up into CECIL’S face) I’m as tall as you are.
CECIL. I dare say you are, dad.
(lord carlton sits on sofa again.)
LORD CARLTON (tartly). When is the wedding going to take place?
CECIL (pleasantly). We thought the last week in October. You see —
LORD CARLTON. I don’t want to hear about it.
CECIL (mildly remonstrating). You asked.
LORD CARLTON. No, I didn’t! (Takes up paper.)
CECIL. Sorry. (Controlling himself.) I thought you did.
(LORD CARLTON behind paper is surprised at his forbearance.)
Have a cigarette, father? (Producing case.)
LORD CARLTON (ungraciously). No, thanks. (Gets his own cigarette case out and takes out cigarette.) I prefer my own.
CECIL (unconquerably). I don’t wonder. You get the best cigarettes I know.
LORD CARLTON (a little mollified). I spent years in searching for them though. (Lights cigarette.)
CECIL. They were worth it. The
odd thing is I know men who get them from the same place, but they are not the same cigarettes. (Sits.)
LORD CARLTON (pleased). No, they are not — they are not. Have one, Cecil?
CECIL. Thanks awfully. (Abandons his own cigarette case, which he puts in his pocket, and takes one of his father’s, who gives him a light.) Ah! That’s the real thing.
LORD CARLTON. They are good. So those chappies get them from the same place but they are not the same cigarettes. That’s the best thing I’ve heard for a long time. (Chuckles immoderately.)
(CECIL enjoys the joke with him.)
(Suddenly he stops suspiciously.) Cecil, you ‘re trying to get round me! What’s your game?
CECIL (humble and sincere). If I have tried to please you there’s no harm in that, is there? I have been a poor sort of a son to you, father — wish I were a better one. That ‘sail it means.
LORD CARLTON (struck by his sincerity — yet feeling there can be but one explanation). You must be wanting something.
CECIL. I — no — nothing. (Returns to chair — looks at him) I am only twenty-one, father — scarcely more than a boy, do you think?
LORD CARLTON. On the contrary, a man is at his ripest at twenty-one.
(CECIL sighs.)
Are you in a hole, Cecil?
CECIL. I? Oh no. (Wistfully) Were you ever in a hole, father, when you were my age?
LORD CARLTON (after seeing in his mind’s eye a hole of long ago, sits smiling over it). I think we ‘re going to have a change in the weather, Cecil.
CECIL (accepting this as ending the subject — rises, bravely). All right —
LORD CARLTON. No offence, my boy. (Pushes CECII, on sofa, and then sits himself on chair.)
CECIL (doggedly). How did you get out of it?
LORD CARLTON. Well, when things became desperate — I went to my mother.
CECIL. Yes — I wish I — (Is going to say he wishes he had a mother — tries to be plucky.) You get them direct from Egypt, don’t you? (Looking at cigarettes.)
LORD CARLTON. Cairo.
CECIL. I don’t see how your mother could have done anything if it was really a hole. (He is leaning on table with hand on edge of it.)
LORD CARLTON. You don’t know much about mothers.
CECIL. No.
(LORD CARLTON lays his hand on CECIL’S for a minute — after slight pause, during which CECIL has looked at his hand — he takes hand off table.)
CECIL. The duty on them must come pretty heavy.
LORD CARLTON. About 30s on the thousand. But then I get them fresh, and even although — (Gives up pretence)
What is it, Cecil?
CECIL. Father, I’m in an awful hole.
LORD CARLTON. Yes.
CECIL. I, it — (Finds explanation difficult.) You must have noticed that I am not like other young men. (Sits marvelling at himself) I am strangely different, father, from any other young man I have ever known.
LORD CARLTON. Are you? By Jove, Cecil, I haven’t an idea what it is.
CECIL (woefully). It’s this — I am somehow not so keen to get married as I was, dad.
LORD CARLTON. I thought that was it.
CECIL (surprised). Did you?
LORD CARLTON (drily). Yes.
CECIL (changing to indignation). I should like to know, sir, how the devil — (Sits miserably, looks up — bitterly) Splendid triumph for you, father — your only son broken-hearted — chuckle away — go on sneering — keep it up, dad.
LORD CARLTON (who has been doing none of these things). Poor old Cecil.
CECIL (pathetic and deadly sincere). I don’t know how it has come about, I really don’t. Eleanor is more adorable than ever — she really is — but somehow it doesn’t have the effect upon me that it used to have. Her nut-brown hair which used to entrance me as much as if I had never noticed that woman and her hair before — now, when it escapes from its coils I merely think it looks untidy. And then this always talking about show, and if either of us says anything smart she expects us to exchange seats just as they do on the stage — and I wish she wouldn’t die quite so much. Oh no, it’s all my fault! Take me out and drown me like a dog.
LORD CARLTON. By Jove!
CECIL. She loves me so much she can’t even look at me without her eyes becoming wet with adoration.
LORD CARLTON. It is a hole, Cecil.
CECIL (slowly). Was there ever a man of twenty-one so strangely placed before?
LORD CARLTON. Never, my boy, since the world began.
CECIL (indignantly, as if demanding an answer). What has come over me?
LORD CARLTON. YOU have fallen out of love.
CECIL. But how? I am like a different man.
LORD CARLTON. I can’t explain that. (Suddenly) Cecil, has it come suddenly — as if you have wakened up?
CECIL. No, I think it came gradually.
LORD CARLTON. Ah!
CECIL. What do you mean?
LORD CARLTON. Nothing. And so she looks at you with tears of adoration, my boy?
CECIL. Yes! We were out riding this morning and you should have seen her. (Abjectly) There’s no way out, father.
LORD CARLTON (watching him, sharply). Oh yes, there is.
CECIL (with sudden hope). How?
LORD CARLTON. YOU have only got to behave like a cad, and the thing’s done.
CECIL (hotly). I’m not going to behave like a cad.
LORD CARLTON (rapping it out). Oh yes, you are. We give it another name in our set — we say the boy was got at, but the lady has been squared. We call it eternal human comedy, but if she is a good girl — as she very often is — it has taken away her self-respect, which is a low, dirty thing to do, Cecil — and it’s what you are going to do to Eleanor.
CECIL (rising manfully). That’s where you are wrong, dad. I am going to marry Eleanor and I am going to be such a husband to her — (Strikes table) — that she will never know, dad.
LORD CARLTON (quietly — watching him). Then why did you come to me?
CECIL. I had no other body to go to and I thought there might be some honourable way out. Have no fear, dad — I’m going to do the fair thing by Eleanor.
LORD CARLTON. You ‘re not a bad boy, Cecil. If you hadn’t felt bitterly sorry for the girl I should never have cared to take your hand again; I was waiting to find out. (Shakes hands.)
CECIL. I’ll get on all right.
(Both are a little ashamed of their emotion.) I suppose it’s not worth their while to send less than a thousand at a time?
LORD CARLTON. They send a hundred; I get a hundred weekly myself — it’s a standing order. (He fidgets.) Well, that’s settled, Cecil.
CECIL (getting up). YES.
LORD CARLTON (really uneasy but speaking in a matter-of-fact way). You leave the rest to me.
CECIL. Um!
LORD CARLTON (cheerfully). Suppose you — go and have some fishing in Norway.
CECIL (suspicious and sharp). Why should I?
LORD CARLTON (testily). You don’t suppose I’m to let this affair go on?
CECIL. It is to go on. (Indignantly) After all you’ve said, too.
LORD CARLTON. My dear boy, that was only to try you. We’ve got ourselves to think of now.
CECIL. No, we haven’t.
LORD CARLTON (annoyed). Cecil! (Tries to get round him.)
It’s nothing to make a fuss about — often happens in the best families.
CECIL. Go on, father — I am waiting to see if I shall ever care to take your hand again.
LORD CARLTON. Oh, lord! Oh, lord! (Contains himself.) My dear boy, I’m not thinking of ourselves, I’m thinking only of her.
CECIL. It is only natural that she should think me rather splendid. I don’t mean for myself, I’m a poor bargain — but our name, father — the house — our ancient lineage.
LORD CARLTON. Good heavens, yes — I’m not blaming her. What must we seem in the eye of a girl who never had a grandfather. Poor soul — but something must be done. (Rings bell.)