BARON: You contaminate my maid.
BAKER: I contaminate your maid?
BARONESS: The shameless baggage. What have I always said of her!
BARON: Baroness von Ruge! (to BAKER) You are going to marry her?
BAKER: It’s a question generally put to the woman.
BARON: Answer me, sir.
BAKER: I couldn’t say which she’s going to marry, out of her one or two fellows.
BARONESS: Shameless! Ah, the slut!
BARON: I repeat, sir — do you intend to marry this maid?
BAKER: I hadn’t fully made up my mind —
BARON: Then, sir, you are a villain —
BAKER: You’ve got the muscle of your years up, Mister —
BARON: You threaten me!
BARONESS: Baron!
RACHEL: I sh’d have thought you’d more about you, Job Arthur Bowers.
NURSE (deprecating): Oh, Mr Bowers!
BAKER: Right you are, Nurse!
BARON: I say, sir, a man who kisses a maid —
BAKER: Ought to be hanged for it — so say I.
BARON: Sir, your facetiousness is untimely. I say, a man who kisses a maid —
BARONESS: Baron, such people do not understand —
BARON (kissing her hand): Baroness!
RACHEL (melting): We’re not given the chance.
BARON: Sir, is there no reverence in a kiss? If you strike a match against the box, even, you wonder at the outburst of fire. Then, sir — but do you wonder at nothing?
BAKER: Nothing’s surprising — but everything is comical, Baron, that’s how I find it.
BARON (puzzled and distressed): So! So! Ah, but a woman is, according to her image in the eye of the men.
BAKER (looking at the BARONESS): Some of us must have fancy eyes.
NURSE: How can you be so flippant?
BARONESS: A woman is what a man makes her.
BAKER: By gum, there’s no tellin’ what you might manufacture in time, then. It’s a big job to begin of.
RACHEL (laughing): For shame, Job Arthur.
BARONESS: What have you to say? You bad creature! What wonder men are as they are?
BAKER: When the women make them.
BARON: You are of my parish?
BAKER: Yes — but I’m in Northrop Church choir.
BARON: You are a chorister? You wish to marry Rachel?
BAKER: As I say, I haven’t decided.
BARON: But what are you doing? What of this maid?
BARONESS: What does he care! Are you a married man, Baker?
BAKER: Not that I know to, Missis.
BARON: Sir, I am an old man, you remind me —
BAKER: Beg pardon, Baron.
BARON: And — a powerless — and I will say it, I will — a useless —
BARONESS: Baron!
BARON: Sir — I shall soon be called in — and, sir, you are of my parish, Rachel is of my house. What have I done, who am responsible?
BAKER: Nay, Baron, I can’t see as you’re to fault.
BARON: My fault, sir, is failure, and failure without honour. In three campaigns, which are my life, I have been miserably beaten.
BARONESS: No, Baron, no. How are you to blame?
NURSE: No, Baron, you have not failed.
BARON: In Poland, in London, and in my parish of Greenway. Baroness, we retire to a cottage; I sit still and contain myself, under sentence — Baroness, your pardon!
BARONESS: You shall not retire, Baron. Before God, I witness, you are no failure. Ah, Rachel, see now what you’ve done.
RACHEL (weeping): It’s not me.
BAKER: Nay, for that matter — would you marry me, Rachel, eh?
RACHEL: Opportunity’s a fine thing, you mean.
BAKER: Will you marry me, Rachel?
RACHEL: I — yes, I will, Job Arthur.
BARON: She loves you, she let you kiss her. But you, sir, do you honour her?
BAKER: I do.
BARON: Then will you leave me?
BAKER: Good morning, sir — and thank you.
He and RACHEL leave.
BARONESS: You are not ill, Baron?
BARON: No, Baroness. Nurse, who is this man?
NURSE: The Baker? Oh, he’s Job Arthur Bowers — a bit rackety. He lives down Greenhill with his old mother. She’s as deaf as a post, and a little bit crazed. But she’s very fond of her son.
BARON: Ah! She is mad? She is old? Will Rachel be good to her?
BARONESS: I very much doubt it.
NURSE: Rachel will be afraid of Job Arthur Bowers. He is too big for her ever to get her apron strings round him.
BARON (smiling slightly): I began to be afraid, Nurse —
BARONESS (at the window): He is bringing my lantern.
NURSE: Who? Ah, that’s right.
BARONESS: Will you ring, Baron? I will question that young man. We must get to the bottom of last night’s affair, Baron.
BARON: Those ruffians shall not go unpunished. Still I have power for that.
BARONESS (to RACHEL): Show that young man in here. Nurse, you will help us. We must hold our own against these ungodly creatures. Must we not, Baron?
BARON: Ah, Baroness, still we fight.
RACHEL: Harry Hemstock.
HARRY (entering, his head bound up): I’ve brought this ‘ere hurricane-lamp.
BARONESS: Thank you. And where did you find it?
HARRY: Where you’d lost it.
BARONESS: What have you done to your head?
HARRY (after a silence): You should know.
BARONESS: There, Baron. I was right. And you would have stolen the lantern if Nurse had not —
BARON: Leave the lantern, Baroness. Sir, who were your accomplices in this nightly attack?
HARRY: What’s ‘e mean, Nurse?
NURSE: The Baron means what men were those that attacked the Baroness and him last night. I say they were some men out of Northrop — that you could not recognize them. Mr Hemstock came to your assistance, Baron.
BARON: Is that so?
HARRY: I pulled ‘er off’n thee.
BARON: What is it he says, Nurse?
NURSE: He says he pulled the man away who was trying to hold you.
BARON: Ah! Tell me, sir — who was this ruffian?
HARRY: I non know, no.
BARON: Who struck you that blow? That you must know, and that must be told to me.
HARRY: Tha ought ter know thysen.
BARONESS: You are speaking to the Baron, remember.
HARRY: An’t wor him as gin me a crack ower th’ yed.
BARON: Then you were with the enemy. Now I behold you, sir. I will cause you, sir, I will make you to confess. I will see you punished. You shall suffer this course.
NURSE: You are mistaken, Baron.
BARON: Nurse, I will conduct this inquiry of myself. It is not of myself. But your cowardice, yours and those others’, to attack a lady, by night. There is a penalty for such, sir; I say you are vile, and you shall name me the other villains.
HARRY: There was no other villains — without you call a couple of women villains.
BARON: What mean you by a couple of women?
BARONESS: He doesn’t know what he is talking about.
NURSE: There were some men, Mr Hemstock — from Northrop.
HARRY: Well, if there wan, I didna see ‘em. All I see’d was two women draggin’ at th’ old Baron.
BARON: You mean to say we were attacked only by two women — Baroness?
NURSE: He must be mistaken.
BARONESS: These people would say anything.
BARON: Tell me, sir, tell me the truth at once.
HARRY: I’ve told you the truth.
BARON: It was some men, Baroness? At least, Baroness, one man there was —
BARONESS: There was one man — how many more I can’t say.
BARON: The throat of these people is fuller of untruth than a bird’s gizzard —
HARRY: It is the truth I’ve told you.
<
br /> BARON: Nurse — speak — was it two women?
NURSE: It certainly was men, Baron.
HARRY: Well, it certainly wan’t, an’ I’m not a liar.
BARON: Then it was two women?
HARRY: It was.
BARON: And a woman has smitten your head?
HARRY: No, you did that youself, with your thick stick, when I’d pulled our Susy off’n you. An’ I fell over your lantern and it cut me.
BARONESS: A likely tale.
HARRY: Is it true, Nurse Broadbanks?
NURSE: I think you are mistaken, Mr Hemstock. Oh, do not be so persistent.
HARRY: I’ll not be made a liar of. Wheer’s Rachel?
BARONESS: Why Rachel? She has nothing to do with it.
HARRY: Fetch her in then.
NURSE: She has just been in. She is engaged to Job Arthur Bowers —
HARRY: I don’t care what she is.
BARON: I will ring.
BARONESS: Do not, Baron, do not trouble.
BARON: Sir, it was not two women — I defy you, sir. You make me a silly thing; it is your spleen.
BARONESS: You had better go, you.
HARRY: I’m not going to be made a liar of.
Enter RACHEL.
Rachel, who was it knocked the Baron’s hat off an’ shook him last night?
NURSE: Do you know the names of those men from Northrop, Rachel?
RACHEL: It wan’t him, Baron, he helped you.
BARON: He would patch me with shame. You saw this attack?
RACHEL: I was just slipping down to get some milk from Mrs Smalley, there was none for supper —
BARON: And what did you see?
RACHEL: I saw some men, an’ I heard some shouting, and I saw somebody hit him on the head. Then I ran home, and I’d just got in when you came.
HARRY: Why, wan’t it you and our Susy as was raggin’ the Baron an’ Baroness, an’ I come up an’ stopped you?
RACHEL: Me! Me an’ your Susy?
HARRY: You shammer!
RACHEL: I know you went up an’ stopped the men, whoever they was —
HARRY: So I’m a liar? So I’m a liar?
BARONESS: Yes — and you may go.
HARRY: So I’m a liar, Nurse Broadbanks?
He goes out.
BARON: God help us, we begin to believe in the plots they imagine against us. (He looks at his hands.) It was not two women, Baroness?
BARONESS: No, Baron, no.
BARON: You saw several men, Nurse?
NURSE: Yes, Baron.
BARON: Rachel — but why weep! Rachel — he defended me against men?
RACHEL (sobbing): Yes, Baron.
BARONESS: Rachel, leave the room.
RACHEL leaves.
BARON: Nurse, I am a soldier.
NURSE: You are, Baron.
BARON: I must reward that — fellow — although —
NURSE: It is good of you, Baron.
BARONESS: And you called yourself a failure, Rudolf.
BARON: I can — I must speak for him at the colliery. There I still have some influence.
NURSE: It is so good of you.
BARON: He has suffered already for his opposition. It is not good for the enemies of God to prosper. But I will write to my nephew.
NURSE: I could leave a letter, Baron — I am going past the colliery.
BARON: I will write now — then my honour is free. (Seats himself at the desk.) “My dear Nephew, I am placed under an obligation to that man of whom I have spoken to you before, Henry Hemstock, of the cottage at the end of the glebe close. It is within the bounds of your generosity to relieve me of this burden of gratitude contracted to one of such order. You will, of your fullness of spirit, lap over the confine of my debt with bounty. Your Aunt salutes you, and I reach you my right hand. Rudolf von Ruge.” — The manager of the collieries is as my own son to me, Nurse.
BARONESS: And he is a good son. He is my nephew.
NURSE: I will leave the letter.
CURTAIN
SCENE II
Evening of the same day. NURSE’S room, the sitting-room of a miner’s cottage: comfortable, warm, pleasant. NURSE in the armchair on one side of the fire. MR WILCOX on the other. He is a stout, elderly miner, with grey round whiskers and a face like a spaniel.
MR WILCOX: No, Nurse, I’ve not a bit of comfort.
NURSE: Why shouldn’t Rachel stay and look after you?
MR WILCOX: Nay, don’t ask me — an ungrateful hussy. And I can’t seem to get a housekeeper as’ll manage for me.
NURSE: It is difficult.
MR WILCOX: I’ve been trying this last ten years, an’ I’ve not had a good one yet. Either they eat you up, or waste, or drink. What do you think to-day? You know how it was raining. I got home from pit soaked. No breeches an’ waistcoat put to warm — fire nearly out.
NURSE: Oh, it is too bad.
MR WILCOX: An’ in the fender, a great row of roast potatoes, hard as nag-nails — not done a bit —
NURSE: What a shame —
MR WILCOX: An’ not a morsel of meat to eat to them. She’d aten the great piece of cold mutton left from yesterday, an’ then said I hadn’t left ‘er no money for no meat.
NURSE: How stupid!
MR WILCOX: So it was taters — you had to chomp ‘em like raw turnip — an’ drippin’ — an’ a bit of a batter puddin’ tough as whit-leather.
NURSE: Poor man.
MR WILCOX: An’ no fire — there never is when I come home. I believe she sells the coal.
NURSE: Isn’t it dreadful?
MR WILCOX: An’ they’re all alike.
NURSE: I suppose they are.
MR WILCOX: They are. You know I’m an easy man to live with, Nurse.
NURSE: I’m sure you are.
MR WILCOX: One as gives very little trouble. Nay, I can fettle for myself — an’ does so.
NURSE: I have seen you.
MR WILCOX: And I think I deserve a bit better treatment, Nurse.
NURSE: I’m sure you do.
MR WILCOX: An’ I ought to be able to get it. If I was drunken or thriftless I should say nothing.
NURSE: But you’re not.
MR WILCOX: No, I’m not. I’ve been a steady and careful man all my life. A Chapel-going man, whereas you’re Church — but that’s a detail.
NURSE: It ought not to matter.
MR WILCOX: You know, Nurse, I’ve got four good houses — lets at six shillings each.
NURSE: Yes, I know you have.
MR WILCOX: Besides a tidy bit in the bank.
NURSE: And you have saved it all?
MR WILCOX: Every penny.
NURSE: Ha!
MR WILCOX: An’ there’s on’y Rachel. I’d give her a couple of houses straight off, an’ then we should be alright there: nobody could grumble.
NURSE: You could do that, of course.
MR WILCOX: Nurse, do you know how old I am?
NURSE: No, Mr Wilcox.
MR WILCOX: I’m just fifty-eight.
NURSE: Hm! I should have thought you were more.
MR WILCOX: I’m not.
NURSE: It is comparatively young.
MR WILCOX: It’s not old, is it? And though I’ve been a widower these ten years — I’m not — I’m not good for nowt, d’yer see?
NURSE: Of course you’re not.
MR WILCOX: An’ you know, Nurse, you’re just the one for me.
NURSE (laughing): Am I, Mr Wilcox?
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 744