ANNIE: To run away, Mr Brentnall.
EMILY: Annie!
ADA: To come to the scratch, you mean.
BRENTNALL: Ha! Gentlemen — to marriage!
JACK: I don’t think!
ANNIE: What is your comment, Dr Grainger?
GRAINGER: Mine!
BRENTNALL: Dr Grainger is a confirmed misogynist.
GRAINGER: Shut up, you fool.
ANNIE: Oh — we’ve not heard so before.
JACK: D’you mean George doesn’t believe in marriage? Nay, you’re wrong there. When th’ time comes —
ANNIE: When does the time come for a man to marry, Jack?
JACK: When he can’t help it, I s’d think. (Silence.)
BRENTNALL: You’re very quiet, George.
GRAINGER: Don’t you be a fool.
ANNIE: Your humour is not very complimentary this evening, Dr Grainger.
JACK: There’s perhaps too many of us in th’ room, eh?
ANNIE: Not too many for me, Jack.
ADA (bursting into laughter): Do be complimentary, somebody, if only to cheer us up.
JACK (putting his arm round EMILY’S waist): Yis, I will.
BRENTNALL (putting his arm round ADA’S neck): May I kiss you, Ada?
ADA (laughing): How (laughs) — how awfully nice (laughs heartily) of you. (BRENTNALL kisses her.)
JACK: Oh my God, now we’re coming on. (He kisses EMILY furtively.)
BRENTNALL: Mind your own business.
Seizes a newspaper, and screens it before him and ADA — they put their heads together.
JACK: I call that comin’ on — eh what?
BRENTNALL (to ADA — behind the newspaper): Well, I’ll be damned!
ANNIE (loudly and sarcastically): Do you like the flavour, Mr Brentnall?
BRENTNALL (from behind the paper): Excellent! (Sotto voce.)You are awfully jolly.
JACK (bouncing with surprise): Well strike me lucky!
BRENTNALL (throwing him another newspaper): Here you are then!
JACK: Good God! (He spreads the paper before him and EMILY.)
GRAINGER: You damn fool, Billy Brentnall.
BRENTNALL: Dog in the manger. (Softly to ADA.) Do you think I’m a fool? No, you like me.
JACK (from behind his paper): How’re you going on, Billy?
BRENTNALL: Fine. How’re you going on, George?
The four peep over their newspapers at GRAINGER and ANNIE.
BRENTNALL: Temperature down at freezing point over there?
GRAINGER: I’ll have it out of you for this, William.
ANNIE: Why, what has Mr Brentnall done amiss, Dr Grainger?
BRENTNALL (from behind his paper): Oh, it’s not I. It’s George’s sins finding him out. Be sure your sins will find you out.
ADA (softly): You’re not a bit what I thought you would be.
BRENTNALL (softly): Worse or better?
ADA (laughing): Oh — better.
BRENTNALL: What did you think I should be?
ADA: Circumspect.
GRAINGER sends a cushion smashing through their paper.
JACK: What the devil’s up, George?
ANNIE: Oh, it annoys him to see other people enjoying themselves when he can’t.
BRENTNALL (spreading the paper for screen): The nail on the head, Miss — may I say Annie?
ANNIE: Yes, Mr Brentnall.
BRENTNALL: I wish I were two men, Annie.
GRAINGER sends the cushion again smashing through the newspaper.
JACK: God help thee George, do settle down.
BRENTNALL (spreading the paper again): It’s high time he did — settle down, Georgie — it’s good advice.
ADA (softly): What makes him so cross to-night?
BRENTNALL (softly): Don’t know — unless he’s shy.
ADA (bursting with laughter): Shy!
BRENTNALL: Why, isn’t he?
ADA: You should see the way he carries on —
BRENTNALL: With you?
ADA: Annie.
The cushion crashes through the paper.
JACK: Damn thee George, take Annie downstairs a minute, if tha can’t bide still.
GRAINGER: That fool there — !
BRENTNALL (restoring the fragments of paper — softly — to ADA): You know there’s a secret about Dr Grainger.
ADA: Oh! (Laughs.) Do tell me.
GRAINGER: Billy Brentnall!
BRENTNALL: I hear you calling me.
ADA: Do tell me the secret.
BRENTNALL: Kiss me then. (They kiss — she laughs.) You are awfully jolly. (Kisses her under the ear.)
ADA (shaking with laughter): Don’t, don’t, oh don’t!
BRENTNALL: Does my moustache tickle you? Sorry.
JACK: Nation seize me, did ever you hear?
GRAINGER: Such a fool? I’ll bet you never did.
ADA: Tell me that secret.
BRENTNALL: George has got another girl.
ADA: Who? Where?
GRAINGER: Oh, cheese it, Billy.
BRENTNALL: Sally Magneer.
GRAINGER: Damn you.
ADA: No!
BRENTNALL: Fact! She told me herself.
JACK: What’s that, George?
GRAINGER (to BRENTNALL): Liar!
BRENTNALL: It’s the truth — mine’s pistols.
JACK: You’re a devil, George, you’re a devil.
GRAINGER (bitterly): I am that!
EMILY: And what is Mr Brentnall?
JACK (shaking his head): Nay, I’m not going to say. (He rises heavily, draws EMILY after him, and goes out of the room.)
BRENTNALL (rising): Well, this newspaper’s no more good.
ADA: There’s a fire in the drawing-room — and real screens there.
BRENTNALL: And Jack does occupy himself. Right you are.
GRAINGER: Chuck it, Billy.
BRENTNALL: What?
GRAINGER: None o’ that.
BRENTNALL: Well, I’ll go to —
GRAINGER: I’ve no doubt.
ANNIE: Dr Grainger is afraid of being left alone: he must have someone to protect him.
BRENTNALL: What from?
ANNIE: Presumably from me. (To GRAINGER.) Will you go down with Ada to the drawing-room? Ada, do you mind?
ADA: Not at all. (Exit ADA.)
GRAINGER (bitterly): Very nice of you, Annie, very nice of you. (Exit GRAINGER.)
BRENTNALL and ANNIE seat themselves.
ANNIE: What do you think of all this, Mr Brentnall?
BRENTNALL: Why, it’s a mere lark. Jack is really courting Emily, and Ada is sheer mischief, and I’m quite decent, really.
ANNIE: Are you really?
BRENTNALL: Judge from your own instinct.
ANNIE: I think you are — and is Dr Grainger?
BRENTNALL: What do you think?
ANNIE: There is something not nice about him.
BRENTNALL: Has he been courting you?
ANNIE (drawing herself up): Well — !
BRENTNALL: You see, it’s a pity —
ANNIE: What is a pity?
BRENTNALL: Why — shall I say just what I think — ?
ANNIE: I want you to.
BRENTNALL: Well then — it’s a pity that girls like you — you are over thirty?
ANNIE: Yes.
BRENTNALL: It’s a pity that so many of the best women let their youth slip by, because they don’t find a man good enough — and then, when dissatisfaction becomes a torture — later on — you are dissatisfied with life, you do lack something big.
ANNIE: Yes.
BRENTNALL: When it comes to that stage, the want of a man is a torture to you. And since the common men make the advances —
ANNIE: Yes!
BRENTNALL (putting his arm round her and kissing her): You are either driven to a kind of degradation, or you go nearly, slightly mad from want —
ANNIE: Yes!
BRENTNALL (kissing her): If you want love from men like Grainger, take it for what it’s worth — beca
use we’re made so that either we must have love, or starve and go slightly mad.
ANNIE: But I don’t want that kind of love.
BRENTNALL: But do be honest with yourself. Don’t cause a split between your conscious self and your unconscious — that is insanity. You do want love, almost any sort. Make up your mind what you’ll accept, or what you won’t, but keep your ideal intact. Whatever men you take, keep the idea of man intact: let your soul wait whether your body does or not. But don’t drag the first down to the second. Do you understand?
ANNIE: I could love you.
BRENTNALL: But I am going away in a day or two, and most probably shall not be here again — and I am engaged. You see, so many women are too good for the men, that for every decent man, there are thirty decent women. And you decent women go and waste and wither away. Do think it out square, and make the best of it. Virginity and all that is no good to you.
ANNIE: And what would you advise?
BRENTNALL: Know men, and have men, if you must. But keep your soul virgin, wait and believe in the good man you may never have.
ANNIE: It is not very — what made Dr Grainger so queer to-night?
BRENTNALL: Because he’s married.
ANNIE: I felt it — to whom?
BRENTNALL: A girl in Wolverhampton — married last January, a son in March, now it’s June.
ANNIE: Oh, the liar! — And what sort of girl?
BRENTNALL: Decent, I believe.
ANNIE: Does she love him?
BRENTNALL: Yes.
ANNIE: The brute — the —
BRENTNALL: He doesn’t love her, you see —
ANNIE: It makes it no better — and she doesn’t know how he’s —
BRENTNALL: Of course not.
ANNIE: I wonder if I know her — what’s her name?
BRENTNALL: Marson — her people are tailors in Broad Street.
ANNIE: No, I don’t know her! — But to think —
BRENTNALL: Don’t be too ready to blame.
ANNIE: You men are all alike.
BRENTNALL: Not true — who is coming?
ANNIE: I don’t know.
Enter SALLY MAGNEER — a very big, strapping farmer’s daughter, evidently moderately well off.
SALLY: Good evening — Jack here?
ANNIE: Good evening. Yes, I believe he’s in the drawing-room with Dr Grainger.
SALLY: That’s how you arrange it, is it? (To BRENTNALL.) Nice, isn’t it?
BRENTNALL: Very nice.
SALLY: Who else is in the drawing-room?
ANNIE: My sisters. I believe they’re having some music.
SALLY: They don’t make much noise over it, anyway. Can I go and see?
ANNIE: Certainly.
BRENTNALL opens the door for her, and whistles quickly a private call — repeats it. GRAINGER’S whistle is heard in answer.
SALLY: Alright, I won’t drop in on you too sudden. (Exit SALLY.)
ANNIE: What impertinence!
BRENTNALL (laughing): She’s made a dead set at Grainger. If he weren’t married, she’d get him.
ANNIE: How disgusting!
BRENTNALL: Maybe — but a woman who determines soon enough to get married, succeeds. Delay is fatal — and marriage is beastly, on most occasions.
ANNIE: I will go to the drawing-room. Will you excuse me? (Exit ANNIE. BRENTNALL pours himself a drink. Enter GRAINGER.)
GRAINGER: What the hell have you been up to?
BRENTNALL: What the hell have you been up to?
GRAINGER: What have you been stuffing into Annie?
BRENTNALL: What have you been stuffing into Ada?
GRAINGER: Nothing, you devil.
BRENTNALL: Nothing, you devil.
GRAINGER: What’s Sally after?
BRENTNALL: You.
GRAINGER: She ought to be shot.
BRENTNALL: So ought you.
Enter JACK.
JACK: What the hell’s up to-night?
BRENTNALL: My tail, and George’s dander, and your — but what’s Miss Magneer after?
JACK: That’s what I want to know. You know George here, he’s a devil. He’s been on wi’ some little game with our Sally.
GRAINGER: You sweet liar, Jack.
JACK: Now George, what is it?
GRAINGER: Nothing, Jack. Sally’s taken a fancy to me, an’ gives me no chance. Can’t you see for yourself?
JACK: I can, George — an’ tha shanner be pestered.
GRAINGER: There’s Charlie Greenhalgh won’t speak to me now — thinks I’m running him off. I’ve no desire to run Charlie off.
JACK: Sally’s as good as you, George.
GRAINGER: Maybe, and a thousand times better. But that doesn’t say as I want to marry her.
JACK: No, George, no, that is so, lad.
Enter SALLY and the other ladies.
SALLY: How would you arrange six folks in three chairs — ?
GRAINGER: Couldn’t do it.
SALLY: I don’t think! What’s your opinion, Ada?
ADA: Why am I asked for my opinion? I’ve never sat in a chair with Dr Grainger.
SALLY: Where have you sat then?
ADA: I may have sat on his knee while he sat in the chair.
SALLY: Here, young man, explain yourself.
GRAINGER: Well, I’ll be damned!
BRENTNALL: Sooner or later.
JACK: Now look here, our Sally, we’re havin’ none o’ this. Charlie Greenhalgh is your man; you stick to him, and leave other young fellows alone.
SALLY: Oh you are good, Jack! And what about the girl you took to Blackpool?
JACK: Say no more, Sally, now say no more.
SALLY: No, I won’t. Do you want me to drive you up to Selson, because th’ cart’s at the door?
JACK: No, we’ll walk up.
GRAINGER: I dunno, Jack. It’s getting late, and I believe Billy’s tired. He’s a convalescent, you know.
JACK: Never thought of it, lad. Sorry — sorry.
They bid good night. Exeunt SALLY and GRAINGER, EMILY, JACK, and ADA.
ANNIE: Isn’t he a thing!
BRENTNALL: He’s not bad — do be honest.
ANNIE: Oh but!
BRENTNALL: Remember what I say — don’t starve yourself, and don’t degrade the idea of men.
ANNIE: And shall I never see you again?
BRENTNALL: If I can, I will come again.
ANNIE: Good-bye.
He kisses her rather sorrowfully, and departs. ANNIE CALLADINE closes the door — drinks the last drain from his glass — weeps — dries her eyes as the girls come upstairs. There is a calling of good-bye from outside.
ADA: What’s amiss?
ANNIE: Plenty.
EMILY: What?
ANNIE: Dr Grainger is only married and got a child.
ADA and EMILY: No — where — is his wife living?
ANNIE: His wife is at her home, in Wolverhampton — Broad Street.
ADA: I’ll write to her — I will — I will.
ANNIE: No, Ada — no.
ADA: I will — I will — I will: “Dear Mrs George Grainger, come and look after your husband. He is running the rig out here, and if you don’t come quick — ”
She has flung her writing case on to the table, and sits down to write. Vain cries of “Ada,” “Ada,” from ANNIE CALLADINE.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 697