by Unknown
Sir Harry. Oh, thank you.
Kate (thinking, dear friends in front, of you and me perhaps). Yes, and some of your most successful friends knew it. One or two of them used to look very sad at times, as if they thought they might have come to something if they hadn’t got on.
Sir Harry (who has a horror of sacrilege). The battered crew you live among now — what are they but folk who have tried to succeed and failed?
Kate. That’s it; they try, but they fail.
Sir Harry. And always will fail.
Kate. Always. Poor souls — I say of them. Poor soul — they say of me. It keeps us human. That is why I never tire of them.
Sir Harry (comprehensively). Bah! Kate, I tell you I’ll be worth half a million yet.
Kate. I’m sure you will. You’re getting stout, Harry.
Sir Harry. No, I’m not.
Kate. What was the name of that fat old fellow who used to fall asleep at our dinner-parties?
Sir Harry. If you mean Sir William Crackley ——
Kate. That was the man. Sir William was to me a perfect picture of the grand success. He had got on so well that he was very, very stout, and when he sat on a chair it was thus (her hands meeting in front of her) — as if he were holding his success together. That is what you are working for, Harry. You will have that and the half million about the same time.
Sir Harry (who has surely been very patient). Will you please to leave my house.
Kate (putting on her gloves, soiled things). But don’t let us part in anger. How do you think I am looking, Harry, compared to the dull, inert thing that used to roll round in your padded carriages?
Sir Harry (in masterly fashion). I forget what you were like. I’m very sure you never could have held a candle to the present Lady Sims.
Kate. That is a picture of her, is it not?
Sir Harry (seizing his chance again). In her wedding-gown. Painted by an R.A.
Kate (wickedly). A knight?
Sir Harry (deceived). Yes.
Kate (who likes Lady Sims: a piece of presumption on her part). It is a very pretty face.
Sir Harry (with the pride of possession). Acknowledged to be a beauty everywhere.
Kate. There is a merry look in the eyes, and character in the chin.
Sir Harry (like an auctioneer). Noted for her wit.
Kate. All her life before her when that was painted. It is a spirituelle face too. (Suddenly she turns on him with anger, for the first and only time in the play.) Oh, Harry, you brute!
Sir Harry (staggered). Eh? What?
Kate. That dear creature capable of becoming a noble wife and mother — she is the spiritless woman of no account that I saw here a few minutes ago. I forgive you for myself, for I escaped, but that poor lost soul, oh, Harry, Harry.
Sir Harry (waving her to the door). I’ll thank you — If ever there was a woman proud of her husband and happy in her married life, that woman is Lady Sims.
Kate. I wonder.
Sir Harry. Then you needn’t wonder.
Kate (slowly). If I was a husband — it is my advice to all of them — I would often watch my wife quietly to see whether the twelve-pound look was not coming into her eyes. Two boys, did you say, and both like you?
Sir Harry. What is that to you?
Kate (with glistening eyes). I was only thinking that somewhere there are two little girls who, when they grow up — the dear, pretty girls who are all meant for the men that don’t get on! Well, goodbye, Sir Harry.
Sir Harry (showing a little human weakness, it is to be feared). Say first that you’re sorry.
Kate. For what?
Sir Harry. That you left me. Say you regret it bitterly. You know you do. (She smiles and shakes her head. He is pettish. He makes a terrible announcement.) You have spoilt the day for me.
Kate (to hearten him). I am sorry for that; but it is only a pinprick, Harry. I suppose it is a little jarring in the moment of your triumph to find that there is — one old friend — who does not think you a success; but you will soon forget it. Who cares what a typist thinks?
Sir Harry (heartened). Nobody. A typist at eighteen shillings a week!
Kate (proudly). Not a bit of it, Harry. I double that.
Sir Harry (neatly). Magnificent!
(There is a timid knock at the door.)
Lady Sims. May I come in?
Sir Harry (rather appealingly). It is Lady Sims.
Kate. I won’t tell. She is afraid to come into her husband’s room without knocking!
Sir Harry. She is not. (Uxoriously) Come in, dearest. (Dearest enters carrying the sword. She might have had the sense not to bring it in while this annoying person is here.)
Lady Sims (thinking she has brought her welcome with her). Harry, the sword has come.
Sir Harry (who will dote on it presently). Oh, all right.
Lady Sims. But I thought you were so eager to practise with it.
(The person smiles at this. He wishes he had not looked to see if she was smiling.)
Sir Harry (sharply). Put it down.
(Lady Sims flushes a little as she lays the sword aside.)
Kate (with her confounded courtesy). It is a beautiful sword, if I may say so.
Lady Sims (helped). Yes.
(The person thinks she can put him in the wrong, does she? He’ll show her.)
Sir Harry (with one eye on Kate). Emmy, the one thing your neck needs is more jewels.
Lady Sims (faltering). More!
Sir Harry. Some ropes of pearls. I’ll see to it. It’s a bagatelle to me. (Kate conceals her chagrin, so she had better be shown the door. He rings.) I won’t detain you any longer, miss.
Kate. Thank you.
Lady Sims. Going already? You have been very quick.
Sir Harry. The person doesn’t suit, Emmy.
Lady Sims. I’m sorry.
Kate. So am I, madam, but it can’t be helped. Goodbye, your ladyship — goodbye, Sir Harry. (There is a suspicion of an impertinent curtsy, and she is escorted off the premises by Tombes. The air of the room is purified by her going. Sir Harry notices it at once.)
Lady Sims (whose tendency is to say the wrong thing). She seemed such a capable woman.
Sir Harry (on his hearth). I don’t like her style at all.
Lady Sims (meekly). Of course you know best. (This is the right kind of woman.)
Sir Harry (rather anxious for corroboration). Lord, how she winced when I said I was to give you those ropes of pearls.
Lady Sims. Did she? I didn’t notice. I suppose so.
Sir Harry (frowning). Suppose? Surely I know enough about women to know that.
Lady Sims. Yes, oh yes.
Sir Harry. (Odd that so confident a man should ask this.) Emmy, I know you well, don’t I? I can read you like a book, eh?
Lady Sims (nervously). Yes, Harry.
Sir Harry (jovially, but with an inquiring eye). What a different existence yours is from that poor lonely wretch’s.
Lady Sims. Yes, but she has a very contented face.
Sir Harry (with a stamp of his foot). All put on. What?
Lady Sims (timidly). I didn’t say anything.
Sir Harry (snapping). One would think you envied her.
Lady Sims. Envied? Oh no — but I thought she looked so alive. It was while she was working the machine.
Sir Harry. Alive! That’s no life. It is you that are alive. (Curtly) I’m busy, Emmy. (He sits at his writing-table.)
Lady Sims (dutifully). I’m sorry; I’ll go, Harry. (Inconsequentially) Are they very expensive?
Sir Harry. What?
Lady Sims. Those machines?
(When she has gone the possible meaning of her question startles him. The curtain hides him from us, but we may be sure that he will soon be bland again. We have a comfortable feeling, you and I, that there is nothing of Harry Sims in us.)
ROSALIND
Two middle-aged ladies are drinking tea in the parlour of a cottage by the sea. It is far from Lond
on, and a hundred yards from the cry of children, of whom middle-aged ladies have often had enough. Were the room Mrs. Page’s we should make a journey through it in search of character, but she is only a bird of passage; nothing of herself here that has not strayed from her bedroom except some cushions and rugs: touches of character after all maybe, for they suggest that Mrs. Page likes to sit soft.
The exterior of the cottage is probably picturesque, with a thatched roof, but we shall never know for certain, it being against the rules of the game to step outside and look. The old bowed window of the parlour is of the engaging kind that still brings some carriage folk to a sudden stop in villages, not necessarily to sample the sweets of yester-year exposed within in bottles; its panes are leaded; but Mrs. Quickly will put something more modern in their place if ever her ship comes home. They will then be used as the roof of the hencoop, and ultimately some lovely lady, given, like the chickens, to ‘picking up things,’ may survey the world through them from a window in Mayfair. The parlour is, by accident, like some woman’s face that scores by being out of drawing. At present the window is her smile, but one cannot fix features to the haphazard floor, nor to the irregular walls, which nevertheless are part of the invitation to come and stay here. There are two absurd steps leading up to Mrs. Page’s bedroom, and perhaps they are what give the room its retroussée touch. There is a smell of seaweed; twice a day Neptune comes gallantly to the window and hands Mrs. Page the smell of seaweed. He knows probably that she does not like to have to go far for her seaweed. Perhaps he also suspects her to be something of a spark, and looks forward to his evening visits, of which we know nothing.
This is a mere suggestion that there may be more in Mrs. Page (when the moon is up, say) than meets the eye, but we see at present only what does meet the eye as she gossips with her landlady at the teatable. Is she good-looking? is the universal shriek; the one question on the one subject that really thrills humanity. But the question seems beside the point about this particular lady, who has so obviously ceased to have any interest in the answer. To us who have a few moments to sum her up while she is still at the teatable (just time enough for sharp ones to form a wrong impression), she is an indolent, sloppy thing, this Mrs. Page of London, decidedly too plump, and averse to pulling the strings that might contract her; as Mrs. Quickly may have said, she has let her figure go and snapped her fingers at it as it went. Her hair is braided back at a minimum of labour (and the brush has been left on the parlour mantelpiece). She wears at teatime a loose and dowdy dressing-gown and large flat slippers. Such a lazy woman (shall we venture?) that if she were a beggar and you offered her alms, she would ask you to put them in her pocket for her.
Yet we notice, as contrary to her type, that she is not only dowdy but selfconsciously enamoured of her dowdiness, has a kiss for it so to speak. This is odd, and perhaps we had better have another look at her. The thing waggling gaily beneath the table is one of her feet, from which the sprawling slipper has dropped, to remain where it fell. It is an uncommonly pretty foot, and one instantly wonders what might not the rest of her be like if it also escaped from its moorings.
The foot returns into custody, without its owner having to stoop, and Mrs. Page crosses with cheerful languor to a chair by the fire. She has a drawling walk that fits her gown. There is no footstool within reach, and she pulls another chair to her with her feet and rests them on it contentedly. The slippers almost hide her from our view.
Dame Quickly. You Mrs. Cosy Comfort.
Mrs. Page (whose voice is as lazy as her walk). That’s what I am. Perhaps a still better name for me would be Mrs. Treacly Contentment. Dame, you like me, don’t you? Come here, and tell me why.
Dame. What do I like you for, Mrs. Page? Well, for one thing, its very kind of you to let me sit here drinking tea and gossiping with you, for all the world as if I were your equal. And for another, you always pay your book the day I bring it to you, and that is enough to make any poor woman like her lodger.
Mrs. Page. Oh, as a lodger I know I’m well enough, and I love our gossips over the tea-pot, but that is not exactly what I meant. Let me put it in this way: If you tell me what you most envy in me, I shall tell you what I most envy in you.
Dame (with no need to reflect). Well, most of all, ma’am, I think I envy you your contentment with middle-age.
Mrs. Page (purring). I am middle-aged, so why should I complain of it?
Dame (who feels that only yesterday she was driving the youths to desperation). You even say it as if it were a pretty word.
Mrs. Page. But isn’t it?
Dame. Not when you are up to the knees in it, as I am.
Mrs. Page. And as I am. But I dote on it. It is such a comfy, sloppy, pull-the-curtains, carpet-slipper sort of word. When I wake in the morning, Dame, and am about to leap out of bed like the girl I once was, I suddenly remember, and I cry ‘Hurrah, I’m middle-aged.’
Dame. You just dumbfounder me when you tell me things like that. (Here is something she has long wanted to ask.) You can’t be more than forty, if I may make so bold?
Mrs. Page. I am forty and a bittock, as the Scotch say. That means forty, and a good wee bit more.
Dame. There! And you can say it without blinking.
Mrs. Page. Why not? Do you think I should call myself a 30-to-45, like a motor-car? Now what I think I envy you for most is for being a grandmamma.
Dame (smiling tolerantly at some picture the words have called up). That’s a cheap honour.
Mrs Page (summing up probably her whole conception of the duties of a grandmother). I should love to be a grandmamma, and toss little toddlekins in the air.
Dame (who knows that there is more in it than that). I dare say you will be some day.
(The eyes of both turn to a photograph on the mantelpiece. It represents a pretty woman in the dress of Rosalind. The Dame fingers it for the hundredth time, and Mrs. Page regards her tranquilly.)
Dame. No one can deny but your daughter is a pretty piece. How old will she be now?
Mrs. Page. Dame, I don’t know very much about the stage, but I do know that you should never, never ask an actress’s age.
Dame. Surely when they are as young and famous as this puss is.
Mrs. Page. She is getting on, you know. Shall we say twenty-three?
Dame. Well, well, it’s true you might be a grandmother by now. I wonder she doesn’t marry. Where is she now?
Mrs. Page. At Monte Carlo, the papers say. It is a place where people gamble.
Dame (shaking her head). Gamble? Dear, dear, that’s terrible. (But she knows of a woman who once won a dinner service
without anything untoward happening afterwards.) And yet I would like just once to put on my shilling with the best of them. If I were you I would try a month of that place with her.
Mrs. Page. Not I, I am just Mrs. Cosy Comfort. At Monte Carlo I should be a fish out of water, Dame, as much as Beatrice would be if she were to try a month down here with me.
Dame (less in disparagement of local society than of that sullen bore the sea, and blissfully unaware that it intrudes even at Monte Carlo). Yes, I’m thinking she would find this a dull hole. (In the spirit of adventure that has carried the English far) And yet, play-actress though she be, I would like to see her, God forgive me.
(She is trimming the lamp when there is a knock at the door. She is pleasantly flustered, and indicates with a gesture that something is constantly happening in this go-ahead village.)
Dame. It has a visitor’s sound.
(The lodger is so impressed that she takes her feet off the chair. Thus may Mrs. Quickly’s ancestors have stared at each other in this very cottage a hundred years ago when they thought they heard Napoleon tapping.)
Mrs. Page (keeping her head). If it is the doctor’s lady, she wants to arrange with me about the cutting out for the mothers’ meeting.
Dame (who has long ceased to benefit from these gatherings). Drat the mothers’ meetings.
Mrs. Page.
Oh no, I dote on them. (She is splendidly active; in short, the spirited woman has got up.) Still, I want my evening snooze now, so just tell her I am lying down.
Dame (thankful to be in a plot). I will.
Mrs. Page. Yes, but let me lie down first, so that it won’t be a fib.
Dame. There, there. That’s such a middle-aged thing to say.