by Unknown
COADE (with a flourish of his legs). Can’t say I have.
JOANNA (dolefully). He isn’t necessarily by himself; and I don’t know that he is looking for me. There may be a young lady with him.
(The more happily married lady smiles, and Joanna is quick to take offence.)
JOANNA. What do you mean by that? LADY CAROLINE (neatly). Oho — if you like that better.
MATEY. Now, now, now — your manners, Caroliny.
COADE. Would he be singing or dancing?
JOANNA. Oh no — at least, I hope not.
COADE (an artist to the tips). Hope not? Odd! If he is doing neither I am not likely to notice him, but if I do, what name shall I say?
JOANNA (gloating not). Purdie; I am Mrs. Purdie.
COADE. I will try to keep a lookout, and if I see him ... but I am rather occupied at present ... (The reference is to his legs and a new step they are acquiring. He sways this way and that, and, whistle to lips, minuets off in the direction of Paradise.)
JOANNA (looking elsewhere). I am sorry I troubled you. I see him now.
LADY CAROLINE. Is he alone?
(JOANNA glares at her.)
Ah, I see from your face that he isn’t.
MATEY (who has his wench in training). Caroliny, no awkward questions. Evening, missis, and I hope you will get him to go along with you quietly. (Looking after COADE.) Watch the old codger dancing.
(Light-hearted as children they dance after him, while JOANNA behind a tree awaits her lord. PURDIE in knickerbockers approaches with misgivings to make sure that his JOANNA is not in hiding, and then he gambols joyously with a charming confection whose name is MABEL. They chase each other from tree to tree, but fortunately not round JOANNA’S tree.)
MABEL (as he catches her). No, and no, and no. I don’t know you nearly well enough for that. Besides, what would your wife say! I shall begin to think you are a very dreadful man, Mr. Purdie.
PURDIE (whose sincerity is not to be questioned). Surely you might call me Jack by this time.
MABEL (heaving). Perhaps, if you are very good, Jack.
PURDIE (of noble thoughts compact). If only Joanna were more like you.
MABEL. Like me? You mean her face? It is a — well, if it is not precisely pretty, it is a good face. (Handsomely.) I don’t mind her face at all. I am glad you have got such a dependable little wife, Jack.
PURDIE (gloomily). Thanks.
MABEL (seated with a moonbeam in her lap). What would Joanna have said if she had seen you just now?
PURDIE. A wife should be incapable of jealousy.
MABEL Joanna jealous? But has she any reason? Jack, tell me, who is the woman?
PURDIE (restraining himself by a mighty effort, for he wishes always to be true to JOANNA). Shall I, Mabel, shall I?
MABEL (faltering, yet not wholly giving up the chase). I can’t think who she is. Have I ever seen her?
PURDIE. Every time you look in a mirror.
MABEL (with her head on one side). How odd, Jack, that can’t be; when I look in a mirror I see only myself.
PURDIE (gloating). How adorably innocent you are, Mabel. Joanna would have guessed at once.
(Slowly his meaning comes to her, and she is appalled.)
MABEL. Not that!
PURDIE (aflame). Shall I tell you now?
MABEL (palpitating exquisitely). I don’t know, I am not sure. Jack, try not to say it, but if you feel you must, say it in such a way that it would not hurt the feelings of Joanna if she happened to be passing by, as she nearly always is.
(A little moan from JOANNA’S tree is unnoticed.)
PURDIE. I would rather not say it at all than that way. (He is touchingly anxious that she should know him as he really is.) I don’t know, Mabel, whether you have noticed that I am not like other men. (He goes deeply into the very structure of his being.) All my life I have been a soul that has had to walk alone. Even as a child I had no hope that it would be otherwise. I distinctly remember when I was six thinking how unlike other children I was. Before I was twelve I suffered from terrible self-depreciation; I do so still. I suppose there never was a man who had a more lowly opinion of himself.
MABEL. Jack, you who are so universally admired.
PURDIE. That doesn’t help; I remain my own judge. I am afraid I am a dark spirit, Mabel. Yes, yes, my dear, let me leave nothing untold however it may damage me in your eyes. Your eyes! I cannot remember a time when I did not think of Love as a great consuming passion; I visualised it, Mabel, as perhaps few have done, but always as the abounding joy that could come to others but never to me. I expected too much of women: I suppose I was touched to finer issues than most. That has been my tragedy.
MABEL. Then you met Joanna.
PURDIE. Then I met Joanna. Yes! Foolishly, as I now see, I thought she would understand that I was far too deep a nature really to mean the little things I sometimes said to her. I suppose a man was never placed in such a position before. What was I to do? Remember, I was always certain that the ideal love could never come to me. Whatever the circumstances, I was convinced that my soul must walk alone.
MABEL. Joanna, how could you.
PURDIE (firmly). Not a word against her, Mabel; if blame there is the blame is mine.
MABEL. And so you married her.
PURDIE. And so I married her.
MABEL. Out of pity.
PURDIE. I felt it was a man’s part. I was such a child in worldly matters that it was pleasant to me to have the right to pay a woman’s bills; I enjoyed seeing her garments lying about on my chairs. In time that exultation wore off. But I was not unhappy, I didn’t expect much, I was always so sure that no woman could ever plumb the well of my emotions.
MABEL. Then you met me.
PURDIE. Then I met you.
MABEL. Too late — never — forever — forever — never. They are the saddest words in the English tongue.
PURDIE. At the time I thought a still sadder word was Joanna.
MABEL. What was it you saw in me that made you love me?
PURDIE (plumbing the well of his emotions). I think it was the feeling that you are so like myself.
MABEL (with great eyes). Have you noticed that, Jack? Sometimes it has almost terrified me.
PURDIE. We think the same thoughts; we are not two, Mabel; we are one. Your hair —
MABEL. Joanna knows you admire it, and for a week she did hers in the same way.
PURDIE. I never noticed.
MABEL. That was why she gave it up. And it didn’t really suit her. (Ruminating.) I can’t think of a good way of doing dear Joanna’s hair. What is that you are muttering to yourself, Jack? Don’t keep anything from me.
PURDIE. I was repeating a poem I have written: it is in two words, ‘Mabel Purdie.’ May I teach it to you, sweet: say ‘Mabel Purdie’ to me.
MABEL (timidly covering his mouth with her little hand). If I were to say it, Jack, I should be false to Joanna: never ask me to be that. Let us go on.
PURDIE (merciless in his passion). Say it, Mabel, say it. See I write it on the ground with your sunshade.
MABEL. If it could be! Jack, I’ll whisper it to you.
(She is whispering it as they wander, not two but one, farther into the forest, ardently believing in themselves; they are not hypocrites. The somewhat bedraggled figure of Joanna follows them, and the nightingale resumes his love-song. ‘That’s all you know, you bird!’ thinks Joanna cynically. The nightingale, however, is not singing for them nor for her, but for another pair he has espied below. They are racing, the prize to be for the one who first finds the spot where the easel was put up last night. The hobbledehoy is sure to be the winner, for she is less laden, and the father loses time by singing as he comes. Also she is all legs and she started ahead. Brambles adhere to her, one boot has been in the water and she has as many freckles as there are stars in heaven. She is as lovely as you think she is, and she is aged the moment when you like your daughter best. A hoot of triumph from her brings her father
to the spot.)
MARGARET. Daddy, Daddy. I have won. Here is the place. Crackin-my-eye-Tommy!
(He comes. Crackin-my-eye-Tommy, this engaging fellow in tweeds is MR. DEARTH, ablaze in happiness and health and a daughter. He finishes his song, picked up in the Latin Quarter.)
DEARTH. Yes, that is the tree I stuck my easel under last night, and behold the blessed moon behaving more gorgeously than ever. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, old moon; but you ought to know by now how time passes. Now, keep still, while I hand you down to posterity.
(The easel is erected, MARGARET helping by getting in the way.)
MARGARET (critical, as an artist’s daughter should be.) The moon is rather pale tonight, isn’t she?
DEARTH. Comes of keeping late hours.
MARGARET (showing off). Daddy, watch me, look at me. Please, sweet moon, a pleasant expression. No, no, not as if you were sitting or it; that is too professional. That is better; thank you. Now keep it. That is the sort of thing you say to them, Dad.
DEARTH (quickly at work). I oughtn’t to have brought you out so late; you should be tucked up in your cosy bed at home.
MARGARET (pursuing a squirrel that isn’t there). With the pillow anyhow.
DEARTH. Except in its proper place.
MARGARET (wetting the other foot). And the sheet over my face.
DEARTH. Where it oughtn’t to be.
MARGARET (more or less upside down). And Daddy tiptoeing in to take it off.
DEARTH. Which is more than you deserve.
MARGARET (in a tree). Then why does he stand so long at the door? And before he has gone she bursts out laughing, for she has been awake all the time.
DEARTH. That’s about it. What a life! But I oughtn’t to have brought you here. Best to have the sheet over you when the moon is about; moonlight is bad for little daughters.
MARGARET (pelting him with nuts). I can’t sleep when the moon’s at the full; she keeps calling to me to get up. Perhaps I am her daughter too.
DEARTH. Gad, you look it tonight.
MARGARET. Do I? Then can’t you paint me into the picture as well as Mamma? You could call it ‘A Mother and Daughter’ or simply ‘Two ladies.’ if the moon thinks that calling me her daughter would make her seem too old.
DEARTH. O matre pulchra filia pulchrior. That means, ‘O Moon — more beautiful than any twopenny-halfpenny daughter.’
MARGARET (emerging in an unexpected place). Daddy, do you really prefer her?
DEARTH. ‘Sh! She’s not a patch on you; it’s the sort of thing we say to our sitters to keep them in good humour. (He surveys ruefully a great stain on her frock.) I wish to heaven, Margaret, we were not both so fond of apple-tart. And what’s this? (Catching hold of her skirt.)
MARGARET (unnecessarily). It’s a tear.
DEARTH. I should think it is a tear.
MARGARET. That boy at the farm did it. He kept calling Snubs after me, but I got him down and kicked him in the stomach. He is rather a jolly boy.
DEARTH. He sounds it. Ye Gods, what a night!
MARGARET (considering the picture). And what a moon! Dad, she is not quite so fine as that.
DEARTH. ‘Sh! I have touched her up.
MARGARET. Dad, Dad — what a funny man!
(She has seen MR. COADE with whistle, enlivening the wood. He pirouettes round them and departs to add to the happiness of others. MARGARET gives an excellent imitation of him at which her father shakes his head, then reprehensibly joins in the dance. Her mood changes, she clings to him.)
MARGARET. Hold me tight, Daddy, I ‘m frightened. I think they want to take you away from me.
DEARTH. Who, gosling?
MARGARET. I don’t know. It’s too lovely, Daddy; I won’t be able to keep hold of it.
DEARTH. What is?
MARGARET. The world — everything — and you, Daddy, most of all. Things that are too beautiful can’t last.
DEARTH (who knows it). Now, how did you find that out?
MARGARET (still in his arms). I don’t know, Daddy, am I sometimes stranger than other people’s daughters?
DEARTH. More of a madcap, perhaps.
MARGARET (solemnly). Do you think I am sometimes too full of gladness?
DEARTH. My sweetheart, you do sometimes run over with it. (He is at his easel again.)
MARGARET (persisting). To be very gay, dearest dear, is so near to being very sad.
DEARTH (who knows it). How did you find that out, child?
MARGARET. I don’t know. From something in me that’s afraid. (Unexpectedly.) Daddy, what is a ‘might-have-been?’
DEARTH. A might-have-been? They are ghosts, Margaret. I daresay I ‘might have been’ a great swell of a painter, instead of just this uncommonly happy nobody. Or again, I might have been a worthless idle waster of a fellow.
MARGARET (laughing). You!
DEARTH. Who knows? Some little kink in me might have set me off on the wrong road. And that poor soul I might so easily have been might have had no Margaret. My word, I’m sorry for him.
MARGARET. So am I. (She conceives a funny picture.) The poor old Daddy, wandering about the world without me!
DEARTH. And there are other ‘might-have-beens’ — lovely ones, but intangible. Shades, Margaret, made of sad folk’s thoughts.
MARGARET (jigging about). I am so glad I am not a shade. How awful it would be, Daddy, to wake up and find one wasn’t alive.
DEARTH. It would, dear.
MARGARET. Daddy, wouldn’t it be awful. I think men need daughters.
DEARTH. They do.
MARGARET. Especially artists.
DEARTH. Yes, especially artists.
MARGARET. Especially artists.
DEARTH. Especially artists.
MARGARET (covering herself with leaves and kicking them off). Fame is not everything.
DEARTH. Fame is rot; daughters are the thing.
MARGARET. Daughters are the thing.
DEARTH. Daughters are the thing.
MARGARET. I wonder if sons would be even nicer?
DEARTH. Not a patch on daughters. The awful thing about a son is that never, never — at least, from the day he goes to school — can you tell him that you rather like him. By the time he is ten you can’t even take him on your knee. Sons are not worth having, Margaret. Signed W. Dearth.
MARGARET. But if you were a mother, Dad, I daresay he would let you do it.
DEARTH. Think so?
MARGARET. I mean when no one was looking. Sons are not so bad. Signed, M. Dearth. But I’m glad you prefer daughters. (She works her way toward him on her knees, making the tear larger.) At what age are we nicest, Daddy? (She has constantly to repeat her questions, he is so engaged with his moon.) Hie, Daddy, at what age are we nicest? Daddy, hie, hie, at what age are we nicest?
DEARTH. Eh? That’s a poser. I think you were nicest when you were two and knew your alphabet up to G but fell over at H. No, you were best when you were half-past three; or just before you struck six; or in the mumps year, when I asked you in the early morning how you were and you said solemnly ‘I haven’t tried yet.’
MARGARET (awestruck). Did I?
DEARTH. Such was your answer. (Struggling with the momentous question.) But I am not sure that chicken-pox doesn’t beat mumps. Oh Lord, I’m all wrong. The nicest time in a father’s life is the year before she puts up her hair.
MARGARET (topheavy with pride in herself). I suppose that is a splendid time. But there’s a nicer year coming to you. Daddy, there is a nicer year coming to you.
DEARTH. Is there, darling?
MARGARET. Daddy, the year she does put up her hair!
DEARTH. (with arrested brush). Puts it up for ever? You know, I am afraid that when the day for that comes I shan’t be able to stand it. It will be too exciting. My poor heart, Margaret.
MARGARET (rushing at him). No, no, it will be lucky you, for it isn’t to be a bit like that. I am to be a girl and woman day about for the first year. You will never know wh
ich I am till you look at my hair. And even then you won’t know, for if it is down I shall put it up, and if it is up I shall put it down. And so my Daddy will gradually get used to the idea.
DEARTH. (wryly). I see you have been thinking it out.
MARGARET (gleaming). I have been doing more than that. Shut your eyes, Dad, and I shall give you a glimpse into the future.