by Unknown
JOANNA (hospitably). Yes, bring her in; we are simply dying to make her acquaintance.
MATEY. You are very good; I am much obliged.
MABEL (as he goes out). Who can she be?
JOANNA (leaping). Who, who, who!
MRS. COADE. But what an extraordinary wood. He doesn’t seem to know who he is at all.
MABEL (soothingly). Don’t worry about that, Coady darling. He will know soon enough.
JOANNA (again finding the bright side). And so will the little wife! By the way, whoever she is, I hope she is fond of butlers.
MABEL (who has peeped). It is Lady Caroline!
JOANNA (leaping again). Oh, joy, joy! And she was so sure she couldn’t take the wrong turning!
(Lady Caroline is evidently still sure of it.)
MATEY. May I present my wife — Lady Caroline Matey.
MABEL (glowing). How do you do!
PURDIE. Your servant, Lady Caroline.
MRS. COADE. Lady Caroline Matey! You?
LADY CAROLINE (without an r in her). Charmed, I’m sure.
JOANNA (neatly). Very pleased to meet any wife of Mr. Matey.
PURDIE (taking the floor). Allow me. The Duchess of Candelabra. The Ladies Helena and Matilda M’Nab. I am the Lord Chancellor.
MABEL. I have wanted so long to make your acquaintance.
LADY CAROLINE. Charmed.
JOANNA (gracefully). These informal meetings are so delightful, don’t you think?
LADY CAROLINE. Yes, indeed.
MATEY (the introductions being thus pleasantly concluded). And your friend by the fire?
PURDIE. I will introduce you to him when you wake up — I mean when he wakes up.
MATEY. Perhaps I ought to have said that I am James Matey.
LADY CAROLINE (the happy creature). The James Matey.
MATEY. A name not, perhaps, unknown in the world of finance.
JOANNA. Finance? Oh, so you did take that clerkship in the City!
MATEY (a little stiffly). I began as a clerk in the City, certainly; and I am not ashamed to admit it.
MRS. COADE (still groping). Fancy that, now. And did it save you?
MATEY. Save me, madam?
JOANNA. Excuse us — we ask odd questions in this house; we only mean, did that keep you honest? Or are you still a pilferer?
LADY CAROLINE (an outraged swan). Husband mine, what does she mean?
JOANNA. No offence; I mean a pilferer on a large scale.
MATEY (remembering certain newspaper jealousy). If you are referring to that Labrador business — or the Working Women’s Bank ...
PURDIE (after the manner of one who has caught a fly). O-ho, got him!
JOANNA (bowing). Yes, those are what I meant.
MATEY (stoutly). There was nothing proved.
JOANNA (like one calling a meeting). Mabel, Jack, here is another of us! You have gone just the same way again, my friend. (Ecstatically.) There is more in it, you see, than taking the wrong turning; you would always take the wrong turning. (The only fitting comment.) Tra-la-la!
LADY CAROLINE. If you are casting any aspersions on my husband, allow me to say that a prouder wife than I does not to-day exist.
MRS. COADE (who finds herself the only clearheaded one). My dear, do be careful.
MABEL. So long as you are satisfied, dear Lady Caroline. But I thought you shrank from all blood that was not blue.
LADY CAROLINE. You thought? Why should you think about me? I beg to assure you that I adore my Jim.
(She seeks his arm, but her Jim has encountered the tray containing coffee cups and a cake, and his hands close on it with a certain intimacy.) Whatever are you doing, Jim?
MATEY. I don’t understand it, Caroliny; but somehow I feel at home with this in my hands.
MABEL. ‘Caroliny!’
MRS. COADE. Look at me well; don’t you remember me?
MATEY (musing). I don’t remember you; but I seem to associate you with hard-boiled eggs. (With conviction.) You like your eggs hard-boiled.
PURDIE. Hold on to hard-boiled eggs! She used to tip you especially to see to them.
(MATEY’S hand goes to his pocket.)
Yes, that was the pocket.
LADY CAROLINE (with distaste). Tip!
MATEY (without distaste). Tip!
PURDIE. Jolly word, isn’t it?
MATEY (raising the tray). It seems to set me thinking.
LADY CAROLINE (feeling the tap of the hammer). Why is my workbasket in this house?
MRS. COADE. You are living here, you know.
LADY CAROLINE. That is what a person feels. But when did I come? It is very odd, but one feels one ought to say when did one go.
PURDIE. She is coming to with a wush!
MATEY (under the hammer). Mr.... Purdie!
LADY CAROLINE. MRS. Coade!
MATEY. The Guv’nor! My clothes!
LADY CAROLINE. One is in evening dress!
JOANNA (charmed to explain). You will understand clearly in a minute, Caroliny. You didn’t really take that clerkship, Jim; you went into domestic service; but in the essentials you haven’t altered.
PURDIE (pleasantly). I’ll have my shaving water at 7.30 sharp, Matey.
MATEY (mechanically). Very good, sir.
LADY CAROLINE. Sir? Midsummer Eve! The wood!
PURDIE. Yes, hold on to the wood.
MATEY. You are ... you are ... you are Lady Caroline Laney!
LADY CAROLINE. It is Matey, the butler!
MABEL. You seemed quite happy with him, you know, Lady Caroline.
JOANNA (nicely). We won’t tell.
LADY CAROLINE (subsiding). Caroline Matey! And I seemed to like it! How horrible!
MRS. COADE (expressing a general sentiment). It is rather difficult to see what we should do next.
MATEY (tentatively). Perhaps if I were to go downstairs?
PURDIE. It would be conferring a personal favour on us all.
(Thus encouraged MATEY and his tray resume friendly relations with the pantry.)
LADY CAROLINE (with itching fingers as she glares at Lob). It is all that wretch’s doing.
(A quiver from Lob’s right leg acknowledges the compliment. The gay music of a pipe is heard from outside.)
JOANNA (peeping). Coady!
MRS. COADE. Coady! Why is he so happy?
JOANNA (troubled). Dear, hold my hand.
MRS. COADE (suddenly trembling). Won’t he know me?
PURDIE (abashed by that soft face). Mrs. Coade, I ‘m sorry. It didn’t so much matter about the likes of us, but for your sake I wish Coady hadn’t gone out.
MRS. COADE. We that have been happily married this thirty years.
COADE (popping in buoyantly). May I intrude? My name is Coade. The fact is I was playing about in the wood on a whistle, and I saw your light.
MRS. COADE (the only one with the nerve to answer). Playing about in the wood with a whistle!
COADE (with mild dignity). And why not, madam?
MRS. COADE. Madam! Don’t you know me?
COADE. I don’t know you ... (Reflecting.) But I wish I did.
MRS. COADE. Do you? Why?
COADE. If I may say so, you have a very soft, lovable face.
(Several persons breathe again.)
MRS. COADE (inquisitorially). Who was with you, playing whistles in the wood?
(The breathing ceases.)
COADE. No one was with me.
(And is resumed.)
MRS. COADE. No ... lady?
COADE. Certainly not. (Then he spoils it.) I am a bachelor.
MRS. COADE. A bachelor!
JOANNA. Don’t give way, dear; it might be much worse.
MRS. COADE. A bachelor! And you are sure you never spoke to me before? Do think.
COADE. Not to my knowledge. Never ... except in dreams.
MABEL (taking a risk). What did you say to her in dreams?
COADE. I said, ‘My dear.’ (This when uttered surprises him.) Odd!
JOA
NNA. The darling man!
MRS. COADE (wavering). How could you say such things to an old woman?
COADE (thinking it out). Old? I didn’t think of you as old. No, no, young — with the morning dew on your face — coming across a lawn — in a black and green dress — and carrying such a pretty parasol.
MRS. COADE (thrilling). That was how he first met me! He used to love me in black and green; and it was a pretty parasol. Look, I am old... So it can’t be the same woman.
COADE (blinking). Old? Yes, I suppose so. But it is the same soft, lovable face, and the same kind, beaming smile that children could warm their hands at.
MRS. COADE. He always liked my smile.
PURDUE. So do we all.
COADE (to himself). Emma!
MRS. COADE. He hasn’t forgotten my name!
COADE. It is sad that we didn’t meet long ago. I think I have been waiting for you. I suppose we have met too late? You couldn’t overlook my being an old fellow, could you, eh?
JOANNA. How lovely; he is going to propose to her again. Coady, you happy thing, he is wanting the same soft face after thirty years!
MRS. COADE (undoubtedly hopeful). We mustn’t be too sure, but I think that is it. (Primly.) What is it exactly that you want, Mr. Coade?
COADE (under a lucky star). I want to have the right to hold the parasol over you. Won’t you be my wife, my dear, and so give my long dream of you a happy ending?
MRS. COADE (preening). Kisses are not called for at our age, Coady, but here is a muffler for your old neck.
COADE. My muffler; I have missed it. (It is however to his forehead that his hand goes. Immediately thereafter he misses his sylvan attire.) Why ... why ... what ... who ... how is this?
PURDIE (nervously). He is coming to.
COADE (reeling and righting himself). Lob!
(The leg indicates that he has got it.)
Bless me, Coady, I went into that wood!
MRS. COADE. And without your muffler, you that are so subject to chills. What are you feeling for in your pocket?
COADE. The whistle. It is a whistle I — Gone! of course it is. It’s rather a pity, but ... (Anxious.) Have I been saying awful things to you?
MABEL. You have been making her so proud. It is a compliment to our whole sex. You had a second chance, and it is her, again!
COADE. Of course it is. (Crestfallen.) But I see I was just the same nice old lazy Coady as before; and I had thought that if I had a second chance, I could do things. I have often said to you, Coady, that it was owing to my being cursed with a competency that I didn’t write my great book. But I had no competency this time, and I haven’t written a word.
PURDIE (bitterly enough). That needn’t make you feel lonely in this house.
MRS. COADE (in a small voice). You seem to have been quite happy as an old bachelor, dear.
COADE. I am surprised at myself, Emma, but I fear I was.
MRS. COADE (with melancholy perspicacity). I wonder if what it means is that you don’t especially need even me. I wonder if it means that you are just the sort of amiable creature that would be happy anywhere, and anyhow?
COADE. Oh dear, can it be as bad as that!
JOANNA (a ministering angel she). Certainly not. It is a romance, and I won’t have it looked upon as anything else.
MRS. COADE. Thank you, Joanna. You will try not to miss that whistle, Coady?
COADE (getting the footstool for her). You are all I need.
MRS. COADE. Yes; but I am not so sure as I used to be that it is a great compliment.
JOANNA. Coady, behave.
(There is a knock on the window.)
PURDIE (peeping). Mrs. Dearth! (His spirits revive.) She is alone. Who would have expected that of her?
MABEL. She is a wild one, Jack, but I sometimes thought rather a dear; I do hope she has got off cheaply.
(ALICE comes to them in her dinner gown.)
PURDIE (the irrepressible). Pleased to see you, stranger.
ALICE (prepared for ejection.) I was afraid such an unceremonious entry might startle you.
PURDIE. Not a bit.
ALICE (defiant). I usually enter a house by the front door.
PURDIE. I have heard that such is the swagger way.
ALICE (simpering). So stupid of me. I lost myself in the wood ... and ...
JOANNA (genially). Of course you did. But never mind that; do tell us your name.
LADY CAROLINE (emerging again). Yes, yes, your name.
ALICE. Of course, I am the Honourable Mrs. Finch-Fallowe.
LADY CAROLINE. Of course, of course!
PURDIE. I hope Mr. Finch-Fallowe is very well? We don’t know him personally, but may we have the pleasure of seeing him bob up presently?
ALICE. No, I am not sure where he is.
LADY CAROLINE (with point). I wonder if the dear clever police know?
ALICE (imprudently). No, they don’t.
(It is a very secondary matter to her. This woman of calamitous fires hears and sees her tormentors chiefly as the probable owner, of the cake which is standing on that tray.) So awkward, I gave my sandwiches to a poor girl and her father whom I met in the wood, and now ... isn’t it a nuisance — I am quite hungry. (So far with a mincing bravado.) May I?
(Without waiting for consent she falls to upon the cake, looking over it like one ready to fight them for it.)
PURDIE (sobered again). Poor soul.
LADY CAROLINE. We are so anxious to know whether you met a friend of ours in the wood — a Mr. Dearth. Perhaps you know him, too?
ALICE. Dearth? I don’t know any Dearth.
MRS. COADE. Oh, dear what a wood!
LADY CAROLINE. He is quite a front door sort of man; knocks and rings, you know.
PURDIE. Don’t worry her.
ALICE (gnawing). I meet so many; you see I go out a great deal. I have visiting-cards — printed ones.
LADY CAROLINE. How very distingue. Perhaps Mr. Dearth has painted your portrait; he is an artist.
ALICE. Very likely; they all want to paint me. I daresay that is the man to whom I gave my sandwiches.
MRS. COADE. But I thought you said he had a daughter?
ALICE. Such a pretty girl; I gave her half a crown.
COADE. A daughter? That can’t be Dearth.
PURDIE (darkly). Don’t be too sure. Was the man you speak of a rather chop-fallen, gone-to-seed sort of person.
ALICE. No, I thought him such a jolly, attractive man.
COADE. Dearth jolly, attractive! Oh no. Did he say anything about his wife?
LADY CAROLINE, Yes, do try to remember if he mentioned her.
ALICE (snapping). No, he didn’t.
PURDIE. He was far from jolly in her time.
ALICE (with an archness for which the cake is responsible). Perhaps that was the lady’s fault.
(The last of the adventurers draws nigh, carolling a French song as he comes.)
COADE. Dearth’s voice. He sounds quite merry!
JOANNA (protecting). Alice, you poor thing.
PURDIE. This is going to be horrible.
(A clear-eyed man of lusty gait comes in.)
DEARTH. I am sorry to bounce in on you in this way, but really I have an excuse. I am a painter of sorts, and...
(He sees he has brought some strange discomfort here.)
MRS. COADE. I must say, Mr. Dearth, I am delighted to see you looking so well. Like a new man, isn’t he?
(No one dares to answer.)
DEARTH. I am certainly very well, if you care to know. But did I tell you my name?
JOANNA (for some one has to speak). No, but — but we have an instinct in this house.
DEARTH. Well, it doesn’t matter. Here is the situation; my daughter and I have just met in the wood a poor woman famishing for want of food. We were as happy as grigs ourselves, and the sight of her distress rather cut us up. Can you give me something for her? Why are you looking so startled? (Seeing the remains of the cake.) May I have this?