by Unknown
COMTESSE. Tell me since when has my dear Sybil become one of these ladies? It is not like her.
[MAGGIE is obviously not clever enough to understand the woman question. Her eye rests longingly on a half-finished stocking as she innocently but densely replies:]
MAGGIE. I think it was about the time that my husband took up their cause.
[The COMTESSE has been hearing tales of LADY SYBIL and the barbarian; and after having the grace to hesitate, she speaks with the directness for which she is famed in Mayfair.]
COMTESSE. Mrs. Shand, excuse me for saying that if half of what I hear be true, your husband is seeing that lady a great deal too often. [MAGGIE is expressionless; she reaches for her stocking, whereat her guest loses patience.] Oh, mon Dieu, put that down; you can buy them at two francs the pair. Mrs. Shand, why do not you compel yourself to take an intelligent interest in your husband’s work?
MAGGIE. I typewrite his speeches.
COMTESSE. But do you know what they are about?
MAGGIE. They are about various subjects.
COMTESSE. Oh!
[Did MAGGIE give her an unseen quizzical glance before demurely resuming the knitting? One is not certain, as JOHN has come in, and this obliterates her. A ‘Scotsman on the make,’ of whom DAVID has spoken reverently, is still to be read — in a somewhat better bound volume — in JOHN SHAND’s person; but it is as doggedly honest a face as ever; and he champions women, not for personal ends, but because his blessed days of poverty gave him a light upon their needs. His self-satisfaction, however, has increased, and he has pleasantly forgotten some things. For instance, he can now call out ‘Porter’ at railway stations without dropping his hands for the barrow. MAGGIE introduces the COMTESSE, and he is still undaunted.]
JOHN. I remember you well — at Glasgow.
COMTESSE. It must be quite two years ago, Mr. Shand.
[JOHN has no objection to showing that he has had a classical education.]
JOHN. Tempus fugit, Comtesse.
COMTESSE. I have not been much in this country since then, and I return to find you a coming man.
[Fortunately his learning is tempered with modesty.]
JOHN. Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.
COMTESSE. The Ladies’ Champion.
[His modesty is tempered with a respect for truth.]
JOHN. Well, well.
COMTESSE. And you are about, as I understand, to introduce a bill to give women an equal right with men to grow beards [which is all she knows about it. He takes the remark literally.]
JOHN. There’s nothing about beards in it, Comtesse. [She gives him time to cogitate, and is pleased to note that there is no result.] Have you typed my speech, Maggie?
MAGGIE. Yes; twenty-six pages. [She produces it from a drawer.]
[Perhaps JOHN wishes to impress the visitor.]
JOHN. I’m to give the ladies’ committee a general idea of it. Just see, Maggie, if I know the peroration. ‘In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, these are the reasonable demands of every intelligent Englishwoman’ — I had better say British woman—’and I am proud to nail them to my flag’ —
[The visitor is properly impressed.]
COMTESSE. Oho! defies his leaders!
JOHN. ‘So long as I can do so without embarrassing the Government.’
COMTESSE. Ah, ah, Mr. Shand!
JOHN. ‘I call upon the Front Bench, sir, loyally but firmly’ —
COMTESSE. Firm again!
JOHN.—’either to accept my Bill, or to promise WITHOUT DELAY to bring in one of their own; and if they decline to do so I solemnly warn them that though I will not press the matter to a division just now’ —
COMTESSE. Ahem!
JOHN. ‘I will bring it forward again in the near future.’ And now Comtesse, you know that I’m not going to divide — and not another soul knows it.
COMTESSE. I am indeed flattered by your confidence.
JOHN. I’ve only told you because I don’t care who knows now.
COMTESSE. Oh!
[Somehow MAGGIE seems to be dissatisfied.]
MAGGIE. But why is that, John?
JOHN. I daren’t keep the Government in doubt any longer about what I mean to do. I’ll show the whips the speech privately tonight.
MAGGIE [who still wants to know]. But not to go to a division is hedging, isn’t it? Is that strong?
JOHN. To make the speech at all, Maggie, is stronger than most would dare. They would do for me if I went to a division.
MAGGIE. Bark but not bite?
JOHN. Now, now, Maggie, you’re out of your depth.
MAGGIE. I suppose that’s it.
[The COMTESSE remains in the shallows.]
COMTESSE. But what will the ladies say, Mr. Shand?
JOHN. They won’t like it, Comtesse, but they’ve got to lump it.
[Here the maid appears with a card for MAGGIE, who considers it quietly.]
JOHN. Any one of importance?
MAGGIE. No.
JOHN. Then I’m ready, Maggie.
[This is evidently an intimation that she is to open the folding-doors, and he makes an effective entrance into the dining-room, his thumb in his waistcoat. There is a delicious clapping of hands from the committee, and the door closes. Not till then does MAGGIE, who has grown thoughtful, tell her maid to admit the visitor.]
COMTESSE. Another lady, Mrs. Shand?
MAGGIE. The card says ‘Mr. Charles Venables.’
[The COMTESSE is really interested at last.]
COMTESSE. Charles Venables! Do you know him?
MAGGIE. I think I call to mind meeting one of that name at the
Foreign Office party.
COMTESSE. One of that name! He who is a Minister of your Cabinet. But as you know him so little why should he call on you?
MAGGIE. I wonder.
[MAGGIE’s glance wanders to the drawer in which she has replaced
JOHN’s speech.]
COMTESSE. Well, well, I shall take care of you, petite.
MAGGIE. Do you know him?
COMTESSE. Do I know him! The last time I saw him he asked me to — to — hem! — ma cherie, it was thirty years ago.
MAGGIE. Thirty years!
COMTESSE. I was a pretty woman then. I dare say I shall detest him now; but if I find I do not — let us have a little plot — I shall drop this book; and then perhaps you will be so charming as — as not to be here for a little while?
[MR. VENABLES, who enters, is such a courtly seigneur that he seems to bring the eighteenth century with him; you feel that his sedan chair is at the door. He stoops over MAGGIE’s plebeian hand.]
VENABLES. I hope you will pardon my calling, Mrs. Shand; we had such a pleasant talk the other evening.
[MAGGIE, of course, is at once deceived by his gracious manner.]
MAGGIE. I think it’s kind of you. Do you know each other? The
Comtesse de la Briere.
[He repeats the name with some emotion, and the COMTESSE, half mischievously, half sadly, holds a hand before her face.]
VENABLES. Comtesse.
COMTESSE. Thirty years, Mr. Venables.
[He gallantly removes the hand that screens her face.]
VENABLES. It does not seem so much.
[She gives him a similar scrutiny.]
COMTESSE. Mon Dieu, it seems all that.
[They smile rather ruefully. MAGGIE like a kind hostess relieves the tension.]
MAGGIE. The Comtesse has taken a cottage in Surrey for the summer.
VENABLES. I am overjoyed.
COMTESSE. No, Charles, you are not. You no longer care. Fickle one!
And it is only thirty years.
[He sinks into a chair beside her.]
VENABLES. Those heavenly evenings, Comtesse, on the Bosphorus.
COMTESSE. I refuse to talk of them. I hate you.
[But she drops the book, and MAGGIE fades from the room. It is not a very clever departure, and the old diplomatist smiles. Then he sighs a beau
tiful sigh, for he does all things beautifully.]
VENABLES. It is moonlight, Comtesse, on the Golden Horn.
COMTESSE. Who are those two young things in a caique?
VENABLES. Is he the brave Leander, Comtesse, and is she Hero of the
Lamp?
COMTESSE. No, she is the foolish wife of the French Ambassador, and he is a good-for-nothing British attache trying to get her husband’s secrets out of her.
VENABLES. Is it possible! They part at a certain garden gate.
COMTESSE. Oh, Charles, Charles!
VENABLES. But you promised to come back; I waited there till dawn.
Blanche, if you HAD come back —
COMTESSE. How is Mrs. Venables?
VENABLES. She is rather poorly. I think it’s gout.
COMTESSE. And you?
VENABLES. I creak a little in the mornings.
COMTESSE. So do I. There is such a good man at Wiesbaden.
VENABLES. The Homburg fellow is better. The way he patched me up last summer — Oh, Lord, Lord!
COMTESSE. Yes, Charles, the game is up; we are two old fogies. [They groan in unison; then she raps him sharply on the knuckles.] Tell me, sir, what are you doing here?
VENABLES. Merely a friendly call.
COMTESSE. I do not believe it.
VENABLES. The same woman; the old delightful candour.
COMTESSE. The same man; the old fibs. [She sees that the door is asking a question.] Yes, come, Mrs. Shand, I have had quite enough of him; I warn you he is here for some crafty purpose.
MAGGIE [drawing back timidly]. Surely not?
VENABLES. Really, Comtesse, you make conversation difficult. To show that my intentions are innocent, Mrs. Shand, I propose that you choose the subject.
MAGGIE [relieved]. There, Comtesse.
VENABLES. I hope your husband is well?
MAGGIE. Yes, thank you. [With a happy thought] I decide that we talk about him.
VENABLES. If you wish it.
COMTESSE. Be careful; HE has chosen the subject.
MAGGIE. I chose it, didn’t I?
VENABLES. You know you did.
MAGGIE [appealingly]. You admire John?
VENABLES. Very much. But he puzzles me a little. You Scots, Mrs. Shand, are such a mixture of the practical and the emotional that you escape out of an Englishman’s hand like a trout.
MAGGIE [open-eyed]. Do we?
VENABLES. Well, not you, but your husband. I have known few men make a worse beginning in the House. He had the most atrocious bow-wow public-park manner —
COMTESSE. I remember that manner!
MAGGIE. No, he hadn’t.
VENABLES [soothingly]. At first. But by his second session he had shed all that, and he is now a pleasure to listen to. By the way, Comtesse, have you found any dark intention in that?
COMTESSE. You wanted to know whether he talks over these matter with his wife; and she has told you that he does not.
MAGGIE [indignantly]. I haven’t said a word about it, have I?
VENABLES. Not a word. Then, again, I admire him for his impromptu speeches.
MAGGIE. What is impromptu?
VENABLES. Unprepared. They have contained some grave blunders not so much of judgment as of taste —
MAGGIE [hotly]. I don’t think so.
VENABLES. Pardon me. But he has righted himself subsequently in the neatest way. I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching. Well, Comtesse, I see you have something to say.
COMTESSE. You are wondering whether she can tell you who gives him his second thoughts.
MAGGIE. Gives them to John? I would like to see anybody try to give thoughts to John.
VENABLES. Quite so.
COMTESSE. Is there anything more that has roused your admiration
Charles?
VENABLES [purring]. Let me see. Yes, we are all much edified by his humour.
COMTESSE [surprised indeed]. His humour? That man!
MAGGIE [with hauteur]. Why not?
VENABLES. I assure you, Comtesse, some of the neat things in his speeches convulse the house. A word has even been coined for them — Shandisms.
COMTESSE [slowly recovering from a blow]. Humour!
VENABLES. In conversation, I admit, he strikes one as being — ah — somewhat lacking in humour.
COMTESSE [pouncing]. You are wondering who supplies his speeches with the humour.
MAGGIE. Supplies John?
VENABLES. Now that you mention it, some of his Shandisms do have a curiously feminine quality.
COMTESSE. You have thought it might be a woman.
VENABLES. Really, Comtesse —
COMTESSE. I see it all. Charles, you thought it might be the wife!
VENABLES [flinging up his hands]. I own up.
MAGGIE [bewildered]. Me?
VENABLES. Forgive me, I see I was wrong.
MAGGIE [alarmed]. Have I been doing John any harm?
VENABLES. On the contrary, I am relieved to know that there are no hairpins in his speeches. If he is at home, Mrs. Shand, may I see him? I am going to be rather charming to him.
MAGGIE [drawn in two directions]. Yes, he is — oh yes — but —
VENABLES. That is to say, Comtesse, if he proves himself the man I believe him to be.
[This arrests MAGGIE almost as she has reached the dining-room door.]
MAGGIE [hesitating]. He is very busy just now.
VENABLES [smiling]. I think he will see me.
MAGGIE. Is it something about his speech?
VENABLES [the smile hardening]. Well, yes, it is.
MAGGIE. Then I dare say I could tell you what you want to know without troubling him, as I’ve been typing it.
VENABLES [with a sigh]. I don’t acquire information in that way.
COMTESSE. I trust not.
MAGGIE. There’s no secret about it. He is to show it to the whips tonight.
VENABLES [sharply]. You are sure of that?
COMTESSE. It is quite true, Charles. I heard him say so; and indeed he repeated what he called the ‘peroration’ before me.
MAGGIE. I know it by heart. [She plays a bold game.] ‘These are the demands of all intelligent British women, and I am proud to nail them to my flag’ —
COMTESSE. The very words, Mrs. Shand.
MAGGIE [looking at her imploringly]. ‘And I don’t care how they may embarrass the Government.’ [The COMTESSE is bereft of speech, so suddenly has she been introduced to the real MAGGIE SHAND]. ‘If the right honourable gentleman will give us his pledge to introduce a similar Bill this session I will willingly withdraw mine; but otherwise I solemnly warn him that I will press the matter now to a division.’
[She turns her face from the great man; she has gone white.]
VENABLES [after a pause]. Capital.
[The blood returns to MAGGIE’s heart.]
COMTESSE [who is beginning to enjoy herself very much]. Then you are pleased to know that he means to, as you say, go to a division?
VENABLES. Delighted. The courage of it will be the making of him.
COMTESSE. I see.
VENABLES. Had he been to hedge we should have known that he was a pasteboard knight and have disregarded him.
COMTESSE. I see.
[She desires to catch the eye of MAGGIE, but it is carefully turned from her.]
VENABLES. Mrs. Shand, let us have him in at once.
COMTESSE. Yes, yes, indeed.
[MAGGIE’s anxiety returns, but she has to call JOHN in.]