by Unknown
MR DON. I don’t — know that it was a game, Dick.
DICK But to play anything! I’m precious glad she can do that. Was Laura playing with her?
MR DON. She was helping her.
DICK. Good for Laura. (He is looking at some slips of paper on the table.) Are those pieces of paper used in the game? There is writing on them: ‘The first letter is H — the second letter is A — the third letter is R.’ What does it mean?
MR DON. Does it convey no meaning to you, Dick?
DICK. To me? No 5 why should it?
(MR. DON is enjoying no triumph.)
MR. DON. Let us go back to the fire, my boy.
(DICK follows him into the ingle-nook.)
DICK. But why should it convey a meaning to me? I was never much of a hand at indoor games. (Brightly) I bet you Ockley would be good at it. (After a joyous rumble) Ockley’s nickname still sticks to him!
MR. DON. I don’t think I know it DICK. He was a frightful swell, you know. Keeper of the field, and played at Lord’s the same year. I suppose it did go just a little to his head.
(They are back in their old seats, and mr don leans forward in gleeful anticipation. Probably dick is leaning forward in the same way, and this old father is merely copying him.)
MR DON. What did you nickname him, Dick?
DICK. It was his fags that did it!
MR. DON. I should like to know it. I say, do tell me, Dick.
DICK. He is pretty touchy about it now, you know.
MR. DON. I won’t tell any one. Come on, Dick.
DICK. His fags called him K.C.M.G.
MR. DON. Meaning, Dick?
DICK. Meaning ‘Kindly Call Me God!’ (mr don flings back his head; so we know what dick is doing. They are a hilarious pair, perhaps too noisy, for suddenly mr don looks at the door.)
MR DON. I think I heard some one, Dick!
DICK. Perhaps it’s mother!
MR DON (nervously). She may have heard the row.
(DICK’S eyes must be twinkling.)
DICK. I say, father, you’ll catch it!
MR. DON. I can’t believe, Dick, that she won’t see you.
DICK. Only one may see me.
MR. DON. You will speak to her, Dick. Let her hear your voice.
DICK. Only one may hear me. I could make her the one; but it would mean your losing me.
MR. DON. I can’t give you up, Dick.
(MRS DON comes in, as beautiful as ever, but a little aggrieved.)
MRS DON. I called to you, Robert.
MR. DON. Yes, I thought — I was just going to —
(He has come from the ingle-nook to meet her. He looks jrom her to dick, whom he sees so clearly, standing now by the fire. An awe falls upon mr don. He says her name, meaning, ‘See, Grace, who is with us Her eyes follow his, but she sees nothing, not even two arms outstretched to her.)
MRS. DON. What is it, Robert? What is the matter?
(She does not hear a voice say ‘Mother’) I heard you laughing, Robert; what on earth at?
(The father cannot speak.)
DICK (in a mischievous voice). Now you ‘re in a hole, father!
MRS. DON. Can I not be told, Robert?
DICK. Something in the paper.
(MR. DON lifts the paper feebly, and his wife understands.)
MRS. DON. Oh, a newspaper joke! Please, I don’t want to hear it.
MR. DON. Was it my laughing that brought you back, Grace?
MRS. DON. No, that would only have made me shut my door. If Dick thought you could laugh! (She goes to the little table.) I came back for these slips of paper. (She lifts them and presses them to her breast.) These precious slips of paper!
DICK (forgetting that she cannot hear him). How do you mean, mother? Why are they precious?
(MR. DON forgets also and looks to her for an answer.)
MRS. DON. What is it, Robert?
MR. DON. Didn’t you hear — anything, Grace?
MRS. DON. No. Perhaps Laura was calling; I left her on the stair.
MR. DON. I wish Laura would come back and say goodnight to me.
MRS. DON. I dare say she will.
MR. DON. And, if she could be — rather brighter, Grace.
MRS. DON. Robert!
MR. DON. I think Dick would like it.
(Her fine eyes reproach him mutely.)
MRS DON. Is that how you look at it, Robert? Very well, laugh your fill — if you can. But if Dick were to appear before me tonight —
(In his distress mr don cries aloud to the figure by the fire.)
MR. DON. Dick, if you can appear to your mother, do it.
(There is a pause in which anything may happen, but nothing happens. Tes, something has happened: dick has stuck to his father.)
MRS DON. Really, Robert!
(Without a word of reproach, she goes away. Evidently dick comes to his father, who has sunk into a chair, and puts a loving hand on him mr don clasps it without looking up.)
DICK. Father, that was top-hole of you! Poor mother, I should have liked to hug her; but I can’t.
MR. DON. You should have gone to her, Dick; you shouldn’t have minded me.
DICK. Mother’s a darling, but she doesn’t need me as much as you do.
MR. DON. I don’t know.
DICK. I do. I’m glad she’s so keen about that game, though.
(He has returned to the ingle-nook when laura comes in, eager to make amends to dick’s father if she hurt him when she went out.)
LAURA (softly). I have come to say goodnight, Mr. Don.
MR. DON (taking both her hands). It’s nice of you, Laura.
DICK. I want her to come nearer to the fire; I can’t see her very well there.
(For a moment MR. DON is caught out again; but LAURA has heard nothing.)
MR. DON. Your hands are cold, Laura; go over to the fire. I want to look at you.
(She sits on the hearthstone by dick’s feet.)
LAURA (shyly). Am I all right?
DICK. YOU ‘re awfully pretty, Laura. You are even prettier than I thought. I remember I used to think, she can’t be quite as pretty as I think her; and then when you came you were just a little prettier.
LAURA (who has been warming her hands). Why don’t you say anything?
MR. DON. I was thinking of you and Dick, Laura. If Dick had lived, do you think that you and he — ?
LAURA (with shining eyes). I think — if he had wanted it very much.
MR. DON. I expect he would, my dear.
(There is an odd candour about DICK’S contribution.)
DICK. I think so, too, but I never was quite sure.
LAURA (who is trembling a little). Mr. Don —
MR. DON. Yes, Laura?
LAURA. I think there is something wicked about me. I sometimes feel — quite light-hearted — though Dick has gone.
MR. DON. Perhaps, nowadays, the fruit trees have that sort of shame when they blossom, Laura; but they can’t help doing it. I hope you are yet to be a happy woman, a happy wife.
LAURA. It seems so heartless to Dick.
DICK. Not a bit; it’s what I should like.
MR. DON. It’s what he would like, Laura.
DICK. Do you remember, Laura, I kissed you once. It was under a lilac in the Loudon Woods. I am afraid you were angry.
(His sweetheart has risen, tasting something bitter-sweet.)
MR. DON. What is it, Laura?
LAURA. Somehow — I don’t know how — but, for a moment I seemed to smell lilac. Dick was once — nice to me under a lilac. Oh, Mr. Don ——
(She goes to him like a child, and he soothes and pets her. He takes her to the door.)
MR DON. Goodnight, my dear.
LAURA. Goodnight, Mr. Don.
DICK. Goodbye, Laura.
(mr don is looking so glum that the moment they are alone dick has to cry warningly, ‘Face!’) Pretty awful things, these partings. Father, don’t feel hurt though I dodge the goodbye business when I leave you.
&nb
sp; MR. DON. That’s so like you, Dick!
DICK. I’ll have to go soon.
MR. DON. Oh, Dick! Can’t you —
DICK. There’s something I want not to miss, you see.
MR. DON. I’m glad of that.
DICK. I’m not going yet; but I mean that when I do I’ll just slip away.
MR. DON. What I am afraid of is that you won’t come back.
DICK. I will — honest Injun — if you keep bright.
MR. DON. But, if I do that, Dick, you might think I wasn’t missing you so much.
DICK. We know better than that You see, if you’re bright, I’ll get a good mark for it MR. DON. I’ll be bright (dick pops him into the settle again.)
DICK. Remember your pipe.
MR. DON. Yes, Dick.
DICK. Do you still go to that swimming-bath, and do your dumb-bell exercises?
MR. DON. No, I —
DICK. You must.
MR. DON. All right, Dick, I will.
DICK. And I want you to be smarter next time. Your hair’s awful.
MR. DON. I’ll get it cut.
DICK. Are you hard at work over your picture of those three Graces?
MR. DON. No, I put that away. I’m just doing little things nowadays. I can’t —
DICK. Look here, sonny, you’ve got to go on with it. You don’t seem to know how interested I am in your future.
MR. DON. Very well, Dick; I’ll bring it out again.
(He hesitates.)
Dick, there is something I have wanted to ask you all the time.
(Some fear seems to come into the boy’s voice.)
DICK. Don’t ask it, father.
MR. DON. I shall go on worrying about it if I don’t — but just as you like, Dick.
DICK. Go ahead; ask me.
MR. DON. It is this. Would you rather be — here — than there?
DICK. Not always.
MR. DON. What is the great difference, Dick?
DICK. Well, down here one knows he has risks to run.
MR. DON. And you miss that?
DICK. It must be rather jolly.
MR. DON. Did you know that was what I was to ask?
DICK. Yes. But, remember, I’m young at it.
MR. DON. And your gaiety, Dick; is it all real, or only put on to help me?
DICK. It’s — it’s half and half, father. Face!
MR. DON. When will you come again, Dick?
DICK. There’s no saying. One can’t always get through. They keep changing the password. (His voice grows troubled.)
It’s awfully difficult to get the password.
MR. DON. What was it tonight?
DICK. Love Bade Me Welcome.
(mr don rises; he stares at his son.)
MR DON. How did you get it, Dick?
DICK. I’m not sure. (He seems to go closer to his father, as if for protection.) There are lots of things I don’t understand yet.
DON. There are things I don’t understand either. Dick, did you ever try to send messages — from there — to us?
DICK. Me? No.
MR. DON. Or get messages from us i DICK. No. HOW could we?
MR. DON. Is there anything in it?
(He is not speaking to his son. He goes to the little table and looks long at it. Has it taken on a sinister aspect? Those chairs, are they guarding a secret?)
Dick, this table — your mother — how could they —
(He turns to find that dick has gone.)
Dick! My boy! Dick!
(The well-remembered voice leaves a message behind it.)
DICK. Face!
MARY ROSE
Produced at the Haymarket Theatre on April 22, 1920, with the following cast:
Mrs. Otery...Jean Cadell
Mr. Morland...Norman Forbes
Mrs. Morland...Mary Jerrold
MR. Amy...Arthur Whitby
Mary Rose...Fay Compton
Harry and Simon Blake...Robert Loraine
Cameron…Ernest Thesiger
The play ran for 399 performances. Revivals: Haymarket, January 21, 1926, and May 11, 1929.
CONTENTS
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT I
The scene is a room in a small Sussex manor house that has long been for sale. It is such a silent room that whoever speaks first here is a bold one, unless indeed he merely mutters to himself, which they perhaps allow. All of this room’s past which can be taken away has gone. Such light as there is comes from the only window, which is at the back and is incompletely shrouded in sacking. For a moment this is a mellow light, and if a photograph could be taken quickly we might find a disturbing smile on the room’s face, perhaps like the Monna Lisa’s, which came, surely, of her knowing what only the dead should know. There are two doors, one leading downstairs; the other is at the back, very insignificant, though it is the centre of this disturbing history.
The wall-paper, heavy in the adherence of other papers of a still older date, has peeled and leans forward here and there in a grotesque bow, as men have hung in chains; one might predict that the next sound heard here will be in the distant future when another piece of paper loosens. Save for two packing-cases, the only furniture is a worn easy-chair doddering by the unlit fire, like some foolish old man. We might play with the disquieting fancy that this room, once warm with love, is still alive but is shrinking from observation, and that with our departure they cunningly set to again at the apparently never-ending search which goes on in some empty old houses. Some one is heard clumping up the stair, and the caretaker enters. It is not she, however, who clumps; she has been here for several years, and has become sufficiently a part of the house to move noiselessly in it The first thing we know about her is that she does not like to be in this room. She is an elderly woman of gaunt frame and with a singular control over herself. There may be some one, somewhere, who can make her laugh still, one never knows, but the effort would hurt her face. Even the war, lately ended, meant very little to her. She has shown a number of possible purchasers over the house, just as she is showing one over it now, with the true caretaker’s indifference whether you buy or not. The few duties imposed on her here she performs conscientiously, but her greatest capacity is for sitting still in the dark. Her work over, her mind a blank, she sits thus rather than pay for a candle.
One knows a little more about life when he knows the Mrs. Oterys, but she herself is unaware that she is peculiar, and probably thinks that in some such way do people in general pass the hour before bedtime. Nevertheless, though saving of her candle in other empty houses, she always lights it on the approach of evening in this one. The man who has clumped up the stairs in her wake is a young Australian soldier, a private, such as in those days you met by the dozen in any London street, slouching along it forlornly if alone, with sudden stoppages to pass the time (in which you ran against him), or in affable converse with a young lady. In his voice is the Australian tang that became such a friendly sound to us. He is a rough fellow, sinewy, with the clear eye of the man with the axe whose chief life-struggle till the war came was to fell trees and see to it that they did not crash down on him. Mrs. Otery is showing him the house, which he has evidently known in other days, but though interested he is unsentimental and looks about him with a tolerant grin.
MRS. OTERY. This was the drawingroom.
HARRY. Not it, no, no, never. This wasn’t the drawingroom, my cabbage; at least not in my time.
MRS. OTERY (indifferently). I only came here about three years ago and I never saw the house furnished, but I was told to say this was the drawingroom. (With a flicker of spirit)
And I would thank you not to call me your cabbage.
HARRY (whom this kind of retort helps to put at his ease). No offence. It’s a French expression, and many a happy moment have I given to the mademoiselles by calling them cabbages. But the drawingroom! I was a little shaver when I was here last, but I mind we called the drawingroom the Big Room; it wasn’t a l
ittle box like this.