WESSON: Don’t you wish there’d never been any Frederick — or anybody else —
BARBARA: Well, you haven’t much room to talk; look what a mess your women had got you into.
WESSON: But don’t you wish we could have come straight to each other, and been married simply, before we’d knocked about?
BARBARA: I don’t trust marriage.
WESSON: Because you were stupid and married wrong — that’s not the fault of marriage.
BARBARA: No — but I don’t trust it.
WESSON: Folk are such fools, they should marry the right people.
BARBARA: Even when the right people are married, they go wrong.
WESSON: No — I don’t believe it — and I don’t believe you love me — and whether you do or not, I do love you.
BARBARA: Because you’ve decided to.
WESSON: Yes, because I know. I may hate you, I may rage against you, I may sneer at you — very well! It doesn’t alter the fact that I love you.
BARBARA: It seems to me so queer, to make up your mind that you love anybody.
WESSON: You poke holes in me — well, I’ll patch ‘em up — I won’t give in.
BARBARA: Oh — oh — the dear! He’s on his nice little high horse, is he? Oh! — he should be on the roundabouts, on his wooden prancer!
WESSON: Or on a round-about chicken.
BARBARA: And he looks so pathetic on his chicken — the dear. (Kisses him.)
WESSON: Will you stick to me, Barbara?
BARBARA: Oh, did it want to be stuck to? It shall then — Oh, it’s nice hair!
WESSON: Till death do us part —
BARBARA: Aw, is it talking about death, is it — aw!
WESSON: It’s ten-past-six. What train did your mother say — the five-to-six?
BARBARA (starting): No, half-past seven.
WESSON: The six train has just gone.
BARBARA: Are you frightened?
WESSON: No — no — I’m not frightened. Only we’re rather raw, really, about the business. It seems funny that we’re a scandal.
BARBARA: Doesn’t it!
WESSON: I’ll go and look if I can see anybody, shall I?
BARBARA: Yes! Kiss me first. (He kisses her.)
Exit WESSON. BARBARA sits up straightening her hair. She is in Bavarian peasant dress, with bare arms and throat. WESSON comes running in.
WESSON: I don’t think it’s she — but there is a woman —
BARBARA: Good gracious — and look at us! (She flies out — her voice is heard, excited): yes — it’s she. Quick!
WESSON: Well, I must get my collar on first.
In a great flurry, he ties his tie, then runs out. The stage is empty. Then voices are heard.
VOICE OF BARBARA: Poor Mama!
They both laugh — there is silence. The door-bell rings loudly. BARBARA rushes in and stands near the door. WESSON is heard outside.
VOICE OF WESSON: Oh, how do you do! This is earlier than we thought.
VOICE OF LADY CHARLCOTE: How do you do, Mr Wesson?
Enter LADY CHARLCOTE — about sixty — white hair, shortish, stout, rather handsome — looks resentful — uglily dressed.
BARBARA: Oh — Mama!
Runs forward, laughing shakily — does not kiss — takes her mother’s hand — then stands embarrassed.
LADY CHARLCOTE (looking round): Yes —
BARBARA: Take your things off —
LADY CHARLCOTE: But I mustn’t stay — I mustn’t stay. (Taking off her gloves — nervous.) I want to say to you, Mr Wesson, why don’t you do something for Barbara?
WESSON (astonished): But I do.
LADY CHARLCOTE: But you don’t. A married woman, and you keep her here with you as she is. It is wrong, quite wrong.
WESSON: But you don’t know — you don’t understand.
LADY CHARLCOTE: Yes, yes, I do understand. It is you who don’t understand. What right have you to do it? Barbara has a husband in England, a good honest gentleman, who is going mad because of her. She is here, but she can go back.
BARBARA: But, Mama, what I do, I do of myself. (She is crocheting nervously.)
LADY CHARLCOTE: Yes. (Turning to WESSON.) You have not got even enough money to keep her. She has to have money from her sister, from her friends. She is the daughter of a high-born and highly cultured gentleman.
BARBARA: But if I choose to do it, Mama, it is my own affair.
LADY CHARLCOTE: No, it isn’t. Think of your father — think of Frederick. (Turning to WESSON.) And do you expect to build up happiness on the ruins of this life? You cannot. Think of your future. You can do nothing with my daughter. You can’t put her in her own station, you can’t even give her an honest name. Is she to live with you, and take money from her husband and her friends?
WESSON: She needn’t take any money from anybody.
LADY CHARLCOTE: And you say you will live here. You try it for six months, Mr Wesson, and you will wish yourself dead, you will find it so dull. And Barbara is to be the servant, and she is to have no friends, no, not a friend in the world, but is to live buried here among these common Italians. Another man’s wedding ring and engagement ring on her finger at this minute. The very bills of her last dresses left for her husband to pay.
BARBARA: But, Mama, I’m not a horse that is to be kept. You don’t consider me.
LADY CHARLCOTE: Yes, it is you I consider. How can any man say he loves you, when he brings you into this shame. Where will you live?
WESSON: But if there were a divorce —
LADY CHARLCOTE (to him): You think only of yourself. Think of her father. He is getting old now. Where will he go, that he can hold his head up. It is a shame that will kill him. It will kill everybody. (Beginning to cry — looking in her handbag for a hanky.) We are old, and hoped to live at last in peace. Haven’t we had trouble enough in our lives? And how can I sleep at night, thinking of my daughter, and what is to become of her. Her father does not want to see her again. (Cries.) There is no rest, and no peace. Her husband comes, and it nearly kills me to see the state he is in. A woman — what is to become of her, what is to become of her. And you keep her here.
WESSON: No — I don’t keep her.
LADY CHARLCOTE: Yes, you keep her here — the daughter of a highly cultured gentleman, as your mistress. It is impossible. And her husband is so good. He will have her back in spite of all, and everything can be hushed up —
BARBARA: I don’t want things to be hushed up. What I do I want to be done openly —
LADY CHARLCOTE: Don’t be a fool — you can’t live on ideas.
WESSON: No — I don’t want people to talk —
LADY CHARLCOTE: But they will talk. Sir William and I have come out here because they’ve started — and his heart so bad! We expect to be considered by our children, but they turn on us. It’s not natural that we should have all this trouble now, when we’re not expecting it. Everything begins to look comfortable, and Barbara so well settled, when this happens. As her mother, as a woman older than yourself, I’ve got to tell you it’s wrong, absolutely wrong, and can only end in sorrow. You will see in a few years’ time where you will be. It is my duty to warn you. And you must let Barbara go back with me.
WESSON shakes his head — BARBARA crochets nervously — there is silence.
BARBARA: Has Papa come with you, then?
LADY CHARLCOTE: Yes — we’re staying a month with Laura in Gardone.
WESSON (rising): Let me give you something to eat.
LADY CHARLCOTE: No — no — I must be going at once. I must be going. It’s such a long way to the station.
WESSON: Excuse me.
Exit WESSON.
BARBARA (quietly): How does Frederick look?
LADY CHARLCOTE: Oh, poor fellow! If you saw him, you could never do it.
BARBARA (bending her head over her work): Is he ill?
LADY CHARLCOTE: Ill! — poor fellow! He is three parts mad! And he loves you, Barbara, he loves you! How can you thro
w away the love of a man like that?
BARBARA: Does he really want me, or does he want his reputation — or rather mine.
LADY CHARLCOTE: Poor fellow — such a position to leave him in. And has he ever been anything but good to you? You have had everything you wanted —
BARBARA: I haven’t. He has been good to me — I wish he hadn’t, it would have been easier. He has been good to me, and he’s given me everything he could. But I haven’t had what I wanted, no, and he couldn’t give it me.
LADY CHARLCOTE: And do you mean that this man can?
BARBARA crochets in silence — they wait for each other.
BARBARA: Will it kill him?
LADY CHARLCOTE: I tell him, at this rate he won’t live long.
Enter WESSON with a tray, wine, biscuits, bread and butter.
WESSON: Will you have a glass of wine — it’s “vin de pays”, but it’s — at any rate, it’s all right for me, though I’m no connoisseur.
LADY CHARLCOTE: No, thank you.
WESSON: Could I make you a cup of tea?
LADY CHARLCOTE: Oh no, thank you very much.
BARBARA: Is Papa in Gardone?
LADY CHARLCOTE: In Brescia — but he doesn’t want to see you. Oh, thank you — But he expects you to come back in a proper state of mind — I think it’s all you can do, to make the best of it now. This is impossible. (Neither of them answers.) And we are staying at the Monte Baldo. You will write to me, Barbara.
BARBARA: Yes. Good-bye, Mama. (They shake hands.)
LADY CHARLCOTE: Good-bye. (To WESSON): Oh, don’t you trouble to come out.
WESSON: I think it is no good for Barbara to go back to Frederick. It would only be misery for them both. They can’t —
Exit talking. BARBARA remains alone. Her hands fall in her lap, and she broods. There is sound of a carriage — re-enter WESSON — he flings his cap on the table. When BARBARA hears him coming she picks up her crocheting. When he enters she looks up with a laugh.
BARBARA: Poor Mama — always full of commonsense. She was always a good one at showing the sensible side of the affair. But didn’t it seem common to you — like any of the women of the common people you’ve told me about?
WESSON: Just. Only it’s natural. At any rate she wasn’t lofty.
BARBARA: Oh no — Mama would never have been that. She would have said just the same to a Grand Duke.
WESSON: She wouldn’t — look at the money business. You don’t need any of their money — we can live on what I earn.
BARBARA: And I don’t mind making your bed. I wouldn’t do it for any man — no, I wouldn’t. But I don’t mind.
WESSON: If I can’t give you much money, well, I give you everything I’ve got.
BARBARA: Yes, it was mean of her, bringing that up — it’s like kicking a man when he’s down.
WESSON: But I suppose anybody would do it. She doesn’t seem superior, that’s one thing. But I hate them! Why can’t they leave us alone! What do I care what the old Mrs Baronet says.
BARBARA (laughing): You looked as if you didn’t care — the way you sat in that chair. (Imitates him, half crouching.)
WESSON: Well — that coming all at once —
BARBARA: When we’d been so happy — yes, it was a bit overwhelming!
WESSON: I thought the heavens had opened and the last day come.
BARBARA: You looked it — the way you sat crumpled up in that chair. (Laughs.)
WESSON: What could I do?
BARBARA (laughing): You looked so frightened, so crumpled up! I expected you every minute to wither away into nothing. (Laughs uncontrollably) I thought there’d be nothing left of you (interrupted by her laughter). You — you seemed to get less and less — till — (helpless with laughter) I thought you’d be gone. (laughing) I was frightened — I wanted to get hold of your coat-tails (laugh) to keep you.
WESSON: Well, what could I do?
BARBARA: I thought you were going to creep under that desk. (Shaking and helpless with laughter, she points to the hole under the writing desk, by which he sits.) I thought you were going to crawl inside like a dog into a kennel (helpless laughter) and pop your head out, and look sideways at her, and say “Yap — yap” in a little, frightened voice — then rush inside.
WESSON: Well — if she’d been a man, I might have shouted — but what else could I do?
BARBARA: You looked so crumpled up, with your little tail between your legs. (Laughs.) You did want to get into that corner. (Laughs helplessly — then rises.) Mind, let me show you. (Laughing, she almost falls to the floor, then creeps inside the space under the desk — pokes out her head — falls face forward on the floor with laughter — lifts up her face, peering sideways.) Yap — yapyap! Yap! — the little dog! (She shrieks with laughter — he giggles from time to time — she rises again.)
WESSON: No — I wasn’t as bad as that.
BARBARA (shrieking): You were, you were! I thought I should have died. And every minute I had visions of you collapsing under the desk and barking at Mama. (Laughing.) Poor Mama, what would she have done if you had?
WESSON: I wish I had.
BARBARA: I wish you had, I wish you had! (Drying her eyes.) But no, you sat there getting less and less. You can go so little, like a dying pig.
WESSON: Well, you were impressed, you know you were.
BARBARA: I wasn’t — I wanted to scream. Why didn’t you suddenly get up and flap your arms like a cockerel and crow?
WESSON: But what good would it have done?
BARBARA: It would have been so beautiful. Or you might have got astride on a chair and gone riding round the room, shouting.
WESSON: I might have done a lot of things.
BARBARA: Oh, you might, and you did nothing but crumple up! What a pity! (Beginning to laugh again.) You looked anything but a hero that time.
WESSON: I didn’t feel a hero. And if I’d crowed like a cock I shouldn’t have looked a hero.
BARBARA: Mama little thought what havoc she’d work in our little ménage. (Laughing.) But why do you take it so seriously?
WESSON: I don’t take it seriously, but I reckon it’s rather rotten of her. We thought she was coming friendlily, to help. . . . What will you eat?
BARBARA: I don’t mind a bit.
WESSON (drinking wine): Drink?
BARBARA: Thank you. (She drinks a little.)
WESSON: I told her the only thing possible was a divorce.
BARBARA: You know what a muddler she is. She blows with every wind.
WESSON: I don’t care how she blows, so long as we can get that divorce.
BARBARA: If she goes and gets Frederick’s back up now, God knows when you’ll get it, I tell you.
WESSON: I don’t care — they can all go to hell! But until you stand up in front of me and say, “I want definitely to go back to Frederick — you’re no good to me”, I shall tell them to go to blazes.
BARBARA: It looks as if you’ll tell them a lot. Poor little dog, is his tail coming up again? Come here and be kissed.
WESSON: I don’t want to be kissed. Will you eat now?
BARBARA: Just as you like.
WESSON: A tray is ready.
Goes out — returns immediately with the supper tray.
BARBARA: Poor Frederick — it does twist my inside to think about him.
WESSON: And a lot of good may it do you.
BARBARA: Do you think he really might go mad?
WESSON: Not unless he’s weak-minded to start with.
BARBARA: Well, he isn’t — his mind is stronger than yours, if it came to it.
WESSON (rather ashamed): I know he’s not — and he won’t go mad.
BARBARA: But he loves me so. (Plaintively.)
WESSON: He should have more sense, then, for you don’t love him.
BARBARA: But I do, Giacomo.
WESSON: Very well, you do, then.
BARBARA: And I can’t bear him to suffer.
WESSON: You made him suffer worse underneath, t
wisting your spear in his secret wound, before you left him, than you do now that it’s open. He can doctor an open wound. A secret one drives him mad.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 703