ERNEST: I would kill him, if it weren’t that I shiver at the thought of touching him.
MOTHER: Oh, you mustn’t! Think how awful it would be if there were anything like that. I couldn’t bear it.
ERNEST: He is a damned, accursed fool!
The MOTHER sighs. ERNEST begins to read.
There is a quick patter of feet, and GERTIE COOMBER comes running in.
GERTIE: Has Mr Lambert come?
MOTHER: Ay — in bed.
GERTIE: My father hasn’t come yet. Isn’t it sickening?
MOTHER: It is, child. They want horsewhipping, and those that serve them, more.
GERTIE: I’m sure we haven’t a bit of peace of our lives. I’m sure when mother was alive, she used to say her life was a burden, for she never knew when he’d come home, or how.
MOTHER: And it is so.
GERTIE: Did you go far, Ernest?
ERNEST (not looking up): I don’t know. Middling.
MOTHER: He must have gone about home, for he’s not been back many minutes.
GERTIE: There’s our Frances shouting!
She runs off.
MOTHER (quietly): What did you do with that other loaf?
ERNEST (looking up, smiling): Why, we forgot it, and it got all burned.
MOTHER (rather bitterly): Of course you forgot it. And where is it?
ERNEST: Well, it was no good keeping it. I thought it would only grieve your heart, the sight of it, so I put it on the fire.
MOTHER: Yes, I’m sure! That was a nice thing to do, I must say! . . . Put a brown loaf on the fire, and dry the only other one up to a cinder!
The smile dies from his face, and he begins to frown.
(She speaks bitterly): It’s always alike, though. If Maggie Pearson’s here, nobody else matters. It’s only a laughing matter if the bread gets burnt to cinders and put on the fire. (Suddenly bursts into a glow of bitterness.)It’s all very well, my son — you may talk about caring for me, but when it comes to Maggie Pearson it’s very little you care for me — or Nellie — or anybody else.
ERNEST (dashing his fingers through his hair): You talk just like a woman! As if it makes any difference! As if it makes the least difference!
MOTHER (folding her hands in her lap and turning her face from him): Yes, it does.
ERNEST (frowning fiercely): It doesn’t. Why should it? If I like apples, does it mean I don’t like — bread? You know, Ma, it doesn’t make any difference.
MOTHER (doggedly): I know it does.
ERNEST (shaking his finger at her): But why should it, why should it? You know you wouldn’t be interested in the things we talk about: you know you wouldn’t.
MOTHER: Why shouldn’t I?
ERNEST: Should you, now? Look here: we talked about French poetry. Should you care about that?
No answer.
You know you wouldn’t! And then we talked about those pictures at the Exhibition — about Frank Brangwyn — about Impressionism — for ever such a long time. You would only be bored by that —
MOTHER: Why should I? You never tried.
ERNEST: But you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t care whether it’s Impressionism or pre-Raphaelism. (Pathetically.)
MOTHER: I don’t see why I shouldn’t.
ERNEST (ruffling his hair in despair; after a pause): And, besides, there are lots of things you can’t talk to your own folks about, that you would tell a stranger.
MOTHER (bitterly): Yes, I know there are.
ERNEST (wildly): Well, I can’t help it — can I, now?
MOTHER (reluctantly): No — I suppose not — if you say so.
ERNEST: But you know — !
MOTHER (turning aside again; with some bitterness and passion): I do know, my boy — I do know!
ERNEST: But I can’t help it.
His MOTHER does not reply, but sits with her face averted.
Can I, now? Can I?
MOTHER: You say not.
ERNEST (changing the position again): And you wouldn’t care if it was Alice, or Lois, or Louie. You never row me if I’m a bit late when I’ve been with them. . . . It’s just Maggie, because you don’t like her.
MOTHER (with emphasis): No, I don’t like her — and I can’t say I do.
ERNEST: But why not? Why not? She’s as good as I am — and I’m sure you’ve nothing against her — have you, now?
MOTHER (shortly): No, I don’t know I’ve anything against her.
ERNEST: Well, then, what do you get so wild about?
MOTHER: Because I don’t like her, and I never shall, so there, my boy!
ERNEST: Because you’ve made up your mind not to.
MOTHER: Very well, then.
ERNEST (bitterly): And you did from the beginning, just because she happened to care for me.
MOTHER (with coldness): And does nobody else care for you, then, but her?
ERNEST (knitting his brows and shaking his hands in despair): Oh, but it’s not a question of that.
MOTHER (calmly, coldly): But it is a question of that.
ERNEST (fiercely): It isn’t! You know it isn’t! I care just as much for you as ever — you know I do.
MOTHER: It looks like it, when night after night you leave me sitting up here till nearly eleven — and gone eleven sometimes —
ERNEST: Once, Mother, once — and that was when it was her birthday.
MOTHER (turning to him with the anger of love): And how many times is it a quarter to eleven, and twenty to?
ERNEST: But you’d sit up just the same if I were in; you’d sit up reading — you know you would.
MOTHER: You don’t come in to see.
ERNEST: When I am in, do you go to bed before then?
MOTHER: I do.
ERNEST: Did you on Wednesday night, or on Tuesday, or on Monday?
MOTHER: No; because you were working.
ERNEST: I was in.
MOTHER: I’m not going to go to bed and leave you sitting up, and I’m not going to go to bed to leave you to come in when you like . . . so there!
ERNEST (beginning to unfasten his boots): Alright — I can’t help it, then.
MOTHER: You mean you won’t.
There is a pause. ERNEST hangs his head, forgetting to unlace his boot further.
ERNEST (pathetically): You don’t worry our Nellie. Look, she’s out now. You never row her.
MOTHER: I do. I’m always telling her.
ERNEST: Not like this.
MOTHER: I do! I called her all the names I could lay my tongue to last night.
ERNEST: But you’re not nasty every time she goes out to see Eddie, and you don’t for ever say nasty things about him. . . .
There is a moment of silence, while he waits for an answer.
ERNEST: And I always know you’ll be sitting here working yourself into a state if I happen to go up to Herod’s Farm.
MOTHER: Do I? — and perhaps you would, if you sat here waiting all night —
ERNEST: But, Ma, you don’t care if Nellie’s out.
MOTHER (after brooding awhile; with passion): No, my boy, because she doesn’t mean the same to me. She has never understood — she has not been — like you. And now — you seem to care nothing — you care for anything more than home: you tell me nothing but the little things: you used to tell me everything; you used to come to me with everything; but now — I don’t do for you now. You have to find somebody else.
ERNEST: But I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I have to grow up — and things are different to us now.
MOTHER (bitterly): Yes, things are different to us now. They never used to be. And you say I’ve never tried to care for her. I have — I’ve tried and tried to like her, but I can’t, and it’s no good.
ERNEST (pathetically): Well, my dear, we shall have to let it be, then, and things will have to go their way. (He speaks with difficulty.)You know, Mater — I don’t care for her — really — not half as I care for you. Only, just now — well, I can’t help it, I can’t help it. But I care just t
he same — for you — I do.
MOTHER (turning with a little cry): But I thought you didn’t!
He takes her in his arms, and she kisses him, and he hides his face in her shoulder. She holds him closely for a moment; then she kisses him and gently releases him. He kisses her. She gently draws away, saying, very tenderly:
MOTHER: There! — Nellie will be coming in.
ERNEST (after a pause): And you do understand, don’t you, Mater?
MOTHER (with great gentleness, having decided not to torment him): Yes, I understand now. (She bluffs him.)
ERNEST takes her hand and strokes it a moment. Then he bends down and continues to unfasten his boots. It is very silent.
I’m sure that hussy ought to be in — just look at the time!
ERNEST: Ay, it’s scandalous!
There are in each of their voices traces of the recent anguish, which makes their speech utterly insignificant. Nevertheless, in thus speaking, each reassures the other that the moment of abnormal emotion and proximity is passed, and the usual position of careless intimacy is reassumed.
MOTHER (rising): I shall have to go and call her — a brazen baggage!
There is a rattle of the yard gate, and NELLIE runs in, blinking very much.
NELLIE (out of breath; but very casually): Hello, our Ernest, you home?
MOTHER: Yes, miss, and been home long ago. I’ll not have it, my lady, so you needn’t think it. You’re not going to be down there till this time of night! It’s disgraceful. What will his mother say, do you think, when he walks in at past eleven?
NELLIE: She can say what she likes. Besides, she’ll be in bed.
MOTHER: She’ll hear him, for all that. I’d be ashamed of myself, that I would, standing out there slobbering till this time of night! I don’t know how anyone can be such a fool!
NELLIE (smiling): Perhaps not, my dear.
MOTHER (slightly stung): No, and I should be sorry. I don’t know what he wants running up at this time of a night.
NELLIE: Oh, Mother, don’t go on again! We’ve heard it a dozen times.
MOTHER: And you’ll hear it two dozen.
ERNEST, having got off his shoes, begins to take off his collar and tie.
NELLIE sits down in the arm-chair.
NELLIE (dragging up the stool and beginning to unlace her boots): I could hear my father carrying on again. Was he a nuisance?
MOTHER: Is he ever anything else when he’s like that?
NELLIE: He is a nuisance. I wish he was far enough! Eddie could hear every word he said.
ERNEST: Shame! Shame!
NELLIE (in great disgust): It is! He never hears anything like that. Oh, I was wild. I could have killed him!
MOTHER: You should have sent him home; then he’d not have heard it at all.
NELLIE: He’d only just come, so I’m sure I wasn’t going to send him home then.
ERNEST: So you heard it all, to the mild-and-bitter end?
NELLIE: No, I didn’t. And I felt such a fool!
ERNEST: You should choose your spot out of earshot, not just by the garden gate. What did you do?
NELLIE: I said, “Come on, Eddie, let’s get away from this lot.” I’m sure I shouldn’t have wondered if he’d gone home and never come near again.
MOTHER (satirically): What for?
NELLIE: Why — when he heard that row.
MOTHER: I’m sure it was very bad for him, poor boy.
NELLIE (fiercely): How should you like it?
MOTHER: I shouldn’t have a fellow there at that time at all.
ERNEST: You thought a father-in-law that kicked up a shindy was enough to scare him off, did you? Well, if you choose your girl, you can’t choose your father-in-law — you’ll have to tell him that.
NELLIE has taken off her shoes. She stands in front of the mirror and uncoils her hair, and plaits it in a thick plait which hangs down her back.
MOTHER: Come, Ernest; you’ll never want to get up in the morning.
NELLIE (suddenly): Oh! There now! I never gave him that rose. (She looks down at her bosom and lifts the head of a rather crushed rose.)What a nuisance!
ERNEST: The sad history of a rose between two hearts:
“Rose, red rose, that burns with a low flame,
What has broken you?
Hearts, two hearts caught up in a game
Of shuttlecock — Amen!”
NELLIE (blushing): Go on, you soft creature! (Looks at the rose.)
ERNEST: Weep over it.
NELLIE: Shan’t!
ERNEST: And pickle it, like German girls do.
NELLIE: Don’t be such a donkey.
ERNEST: Interesting item: final fate of the rose.
NELLIE goes out; returns in a moment with the rose in an egg-cup in one hand, and a candle in the other.
The MOTHER rises.
ERNEST: I’ll rake, Mother.
NELLIE lights her candle, takes her shawl off the table, kisses her mother good night, and bids her brother good night as he goes out to the cellar.
The MOTHER goes about taking off the heavy green tablecloth, disclosing the mahogany, and laying a doubled table-cloth half across. She sets the table with a cup and saucer, plate, knife, sugar-basin, brown-and-white teapot and tea-caddy. Then she fetches a tin bottle and a soiled snapbag, and lays them together on the bare half of the table. She puts out the salt and goes and drags the pit-trousers from the cupboard and puts them near the fire.
Meanwhile ERNEST has come from the cellar with a large lump of coal, which he pushes down in the fireplace so that it shall not lodge and go out.
MOTHER: You’ll want some small bits. — And bring a few pieces for him in the morning.
ERNEST (returning to the cellar with the dust-pan): Alright! I’ll turn the gas out now.
The MOTHER fetches another candle and continues her little tasks. The gas goes suddenly down and dies slowly out.
ERNEST comes up with his candlestick on a shovelful of coal. He puts the candle on the table, and puts some coal on the fire, round the “raker”. The rest he puts in the shovel on the hearth. Then he goes to wash his hands.
The MOTHER, leaving her candle in the scullery, comes in with an old iron fire-screen which she hangs on the bars of the grate, and the ruddy light shows over and through the worn iron top.
ERNEST is heard jerking the roller-towel. He enters, and goes to his mother, kissing her forehead, and then her cheek, stroking her cheek with his finger-tips.
ERNEST: Good night, my dear.
MOTHER: Good night. — Don’t you want a candle?
ERNEST: No — blow it out. Good night.
MOTHER (very softly): Good night.
There is in their tones a dangerous gentleness — so much gentleness that the safe reserve of their souls is broken.
ERNEST goes upstairs. His bedroom door is heard to shut.
The MOTHER stands and looks in the fire. The room is lighted by the red glow only. Then in a moment or two she goes into the scullery, and after a minute — during which running of water is heard — she returns with her candle, looking little and bowed and pathetic, and crosses the room, softly closing the passage door behind her.
END OF ACT III
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
A PLAY IN FIVE ACTS
CONTENTS
CHARACTERS
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
CHARACTERS
MRS HEMSTOCK
NURSE BROADBANKS
MR HEMSTOCK
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 738