Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

Caroline: I need encouraging — perhaps we all do. Why, all over this country, middle-aged, middle-class couples are doing and saying, day in and day out, just exactly what Freddie and I are doing and saying.

  Owen: Don’t you ever get away — go up to London?

  Caroline: Sometimes, when I can’t get a servant down here, I go up to Mrs. Hunt’s Registry Office. And, of course, there are the boys’ half-term holidays.

  Owen: But I mean for theatres, and concerts, and seeing your friends.

  Caroline: Living down here, one gets out of touch with people, and there’s the question of expense, too.

  Jill: But it would be so awfully good for you darling, to get away. It’d shake you out of your rut, and make you take an interest in your clothes, and your hair, and your appearance.

  Caroline: But I do that now.

  Jill: Oh. I didn’t realise.

  Caroline: I’d be almost ashamed to tell you what a lot of time I spend wishing that everything was quite different — that I was quite different.

  Jill: But why don’t you do something about it, instead of simply letting yourself go?

  Caroline: But even if I could afford to spend money, and time, and trouble, over my looks, what on earth would be the use, down here? There’s nobody to see.

  Jill: One more reason why you must get away, as Owen says.

  Owen: It’s rather cheek for me to say anything at all, I’m afraid. But Jill’s right. You ought to get lots more fun out of life while you’re still young. Why not go abroad?

  Caroline: Freddie can’t bear foreign cooking.

  Jill: Go without him.

  Caroline: Oh, you don’t understand! It’s so easy to say, “Go without him” — but Freddie and I aren’t a modern couple. He’s late Victorian and I’m early Edwardian. He still believes that husbands and wives go everywhere together. Every summer we take the boys to the east coast.

  Jill: And you do the housekeeping in rooms, instead of in your own home, and Freddie grumbles because the landlady won’t do any cooking at night. I know! And you’re both counting the hours till you can get home again.

  Caroline: Don’t, Jill ——

  Jill (relentlessly): And all the time you might be tramping in Italy — or looking at the Alhambra by moonlight, far away in the south of Spain.

  Owen: Ah! The Alhambra by moonlight!

  Jill: Standing out against a dark Spanish sky.

  Caroline: You forget the children. And do you think Freddie would really care about the Alhambra by moonlight?

  Jill: What does he care about?

  Caroline: Oh, the mill — and me and the children — and he likes his game of golf.

  Jill: I see.

  Caroline (defiantly): After all, Freddie’s people have lived here in Devon, and owned the paper-mill, for generations. This kind of life is in his blood. Owen, you understand. I suppose your people have always lived in Wales.

  Owen (slowly): Yes. My father had a bit of a struggle after the War, but he keeps the place going somehow. There have always been Llewellyns there.

  Caroline: Let’s hope there always will be.

  Owen: Well — I wonder.

  Jill (to Caroline): You know Owen’s the only son? His father wants him to give up the City and live at home now, and manage the property.

  [As she speaks, her gaze turns away from Caroline to Owen, and it is evident that it is to him that she is really addressing her remarks.

  So in ten years’ time, I suppose, he’ll have settled into his rut, too, with a wife and children — and probably golf will interest him a good deal more than — the Alhambra by moonlight.

  Owen: Jill!

  Jill (defiantly): I expect it’s true.

  Owen: I’ve told you a hundred times ——

  Jill (interrupting): Oh, I know, I know. But domesticity, and the English countryside, will be too strong for you, my dear. You’ll get just like Fr —— (Breaks off, and ends lamely) Like anybody else.

  Owen (too angry for coherence): Everybody isn’t exactly like — anybody else.

  Jill: That’s what people always say, only they usually express it rather better.

  Caroline: Are you two quarrelling?

  Jill: Probably. I always was quarrelsome. Don’t you remember how you and I used to squabble?

  Caroline: Yes, I do!

  Jill: Do you ever quarrel with anybody now, Caroline?

  Caroline (slowly): Never. Not once — in ten years.

  Jill: You poor darling.

  Owen: Do women enjoy quarrelling?

  Jill: They don’t like never having a chance of making it up again — naturally. If more husbands understood that, there would be fewer unsuccessful marriages.

  Owen (mockingly): “Gillian Isobel Charteris on Marriage.”

  Jill: It’s only common sense to study a career before you decide whether you’re going to embark upon it or not. I’m not going to be one of those women who make a hobby of being unhappily married.

  Owen: No, you’ll go on being analytical, and modern, and open-minded, and critical, till you’re incapable of plain, honest-to-God happiness!

  Jill: Happiness — yes. I suppose that is what we’re all after?

  Caroline: I don’t believe it’s true that a happy marriage has no history.

  Jill: Much more likely that a happy history has no marriage.

  Owen: Horribly cheap, Jill.

  Jill: Well, perhaps. But true, on the whole. Now take Caroline. If only she could have an affair — (the door-handle turns, and they all three look round) — with another man ——

  [The Parlourmaid enters.

  Caroline (to Jill): Attention. Pas maintenant! — Yes, Emma?

  Emma: If you please, madam, the fish is here, and would like to speak to you a moment.

  Caroline: Oh, dear! Yes, I must go. (To Jill) I am so sorry. (Rising and collecting knitting.)

  Jill: Would you like to ask the fish in here — shall we clear out?

  Caroline: No, no, of course not. I shan’t be long.

  [Exit Caroline.

  Owen: The fish — my God!

  Jill: It’s like that all the time. Put on the gramophone, and let’s dance.

  [Owen opens the gramophone and selects a record. This proves to be a slightly out-of-date fox-trot. They dance to it in silence for a moment or two.

  Oh, I can’t dance to that. It’s as old as the hills, isn’t it? (Leaves Owen and goes and switches off gramophone.)

  Owen: Dates right back from last year, I should think. They haven’t got anything new in dance records.

  Jill: Why should they have? I can’t see Caroline and Freddie jazzing together through the long winter evenings, can you?

  Owen: Good God, no!

  Jill: Caroline used to adore dancing. But she’s let it go, like everything else.

  Owen: Oh, my Jill! (Kisses her.) What’s been the matter with you all day?

  Jill (sadly): You know. I can’t marry you, Owen.

  Owen: Haven’t you any courage?

  Jill (promptly): No. Not after staying for a week with a happily-married couple.

  Owen (sitting on the sofa, Jill leaning her head against his arm): To begin with, you and I are not Freddie and Caroline. And, to go on with, they’re not exactly happily married, are they?

  Jill: Yes, but they are, my dear! That’s what’s so devastating. At least, Freddie is quite happily married, though I’ll admit I’m not sure that Caroline is.

  Owen: And I’m dam’ sure she isn’t. She knows it, too — anyway, subconsciously.

  Jill: Caroline’s subconscious self must be rather interesting, from a psycho-analytic point of view. She seems to me to have all the repressions, and inhibitions, and things, of the people who grew up before the War.

  Owen: Well, if it saved us from all that, then thank God for the War. No one can say that you and I are bothered with repressions.

  Jill: We haven’t got repressions, but I think — I’m not certain, but I think — I’ve got an inhibition
somewhere.

  Owen (concerned): Not sex, darling?

  Jill: Oh, no. Marriage.

  Owen: If you really cared, Jill, you wouldn’t be afraid of marrying me.

  Jill: Don’t you see that it’s just because I really care that I won’t run the risk?

  Owen: What risk?

  Jill: The risk that, in a year or two’s time, we shan’t — either of us — want to go and look at the Alhambra by moonlight any more.

  Owen: If anyone but you had said that, I should call it rank sentimentalism. Practically Victorian.

  Jill: You know I’m not sentimental, Owen, or Victorian. Though I’m afraid I may be romantic — most women are.

  Owen: I see. Then if you won’t marry me, will you be indefinitely engaged to me?

  Jill (straightening herself and becoming flippant again): That sounds to me like an announcement of strictly dishonourable intentions.

  Owen: Well, you’ve turned down the alternative, haven’t you?

  Jill: My refusal was meant to include an engagement as well as a wedding.

  Owen: What on earth is one to do with you? (Pause.) Look here. You say you can’t face marriage and domestic life. But you agree with me that you and I can’t do without one another, don’t you?

  Jill: Yes, I do.

  Owen: Then there’s only one thing for it.

  Jill: No.

  Owen: Darling, you must.

  Jill: Become your mistress? I don’t think that’s a terribly good idea.

  Owen: I was afraid perhaps you mightn’t.

  Jill: It might have been all very well for Freddie’s generation, perhaps. They always made their gestures so frightfully well: “Married in the sight of all but God” didn’t they call that sort of thing? — when they did it themselves, I mean.

  Owen: I don’t somehow think you’re quoting correctly.

  Jill: Perhaps not. But, anyway, if you and I did anything like that, people would simply say we were trying to economise or something. Besides, I always think it’s rather a suburban way of doing things.

  Owen: Why suburban?

  Jill: Well — neither one thing nor the other. And illicit relations generally end in tears and suit-cases.

  Owen: Then if you won’t marry me, and won’t do the other thing — and we’re agreed we don’t want to give one another up — what are we going to do?

  Jill (hopelessly): I don’t know.

  Owen: But, darling, before we came here you’d practically promised to be engaged to me.

  Jill: I know I had. But — (gazing round the room) — if this is marriage ——

  Owen: Damn Freddie Allerton!

  Jill: Freddie and Caroline are only an example of the average husband and wife. I notice it more because Caroline happens to be my sister, that’s all. If she wasn’t, I should simply take her for granted, as a wife and mother always does get taken for granted by everyone — and most of all by her husband.

  Owen: I don’t think Caroline is the sort of person one takes for granted, quite. She’s intelligent, you know, and sensitive and imaginative.

  Jill: That’s the tragedy of it. Owen, tell me something: could you ever, possibly, have fallen in love with Caroline?

  Owen: Speaking — of course — quite impersonally?

  Jill: Of course.

  Owen: In a modern, detached, and analytical spirit?

  Jill: Quite.

  Owen: And assuming that either she belonged to my generation, or I to hers?

  Jill: Certainly, if you like.

  Owen: Well — then — I should say yes. Looking at it entirely as an abstract question, you understand.

  Jill: Entirely.

  Owen: But, of course, the possibility of falling in love is always latent between every normally healthy man and woman. That’s a biological fact.

  Jill: What an unpleasant thought! I know I shall remember that next time someone begins to make love to me, and I’m feeling gratified about it. — A biological fact!

  Owen: That’s all. Just propinquity does it, as a rule.

  Jill: You may fall in love with Caroline, if you like.

  Owen: Thanks very much.

  Jill: I don’t exactly mean really — but just a little bit, to take her mind off the fish, and Freddie, and so on.

  [Re-enter Caroline, now in a rather passée black evening dress, obviously “every evening” wear, and out of date.

  Dressed already? Is it time? (Rises, as does Owen.)

  Caroline: I went up when I’d done with the fish, so as to get back to the fire. I’m starting a cold, I know. (The gong sounds.) There’s the dressing gong now.

  Owen: Jill, I’ll race you upstairs for the first bath before dinner.

  [Exeunt Owen and Jill. Jill snatches up her coat, bag, etc., as she goes.

  Caroline: Oh, I hope the water’s hot!

  [Caroline calls out nervously:

  Oh — er — Emma! (Louder) Emma!

  [Gong stops.

  Enter Emma.

  Emma: Yes, madam?

  Caroline: Miss Jill and Mr. Llewellyn are having a bath — a — a bath each — before dinner. Just ask cook to stoke up the fire a little, if it isn’t too much trouble, so as to make sure the water’s hot.

  Emma: Very good, madam. (Exit.)

  [Caroline returns slowly into the middle of the room, and looks at herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece thoughtfully, shaking her head the while in dissatisfaction at her own appearance. As she turns away, Freddie comes in through the door. He goes up to the grandfather clock, looks at it, compares it with his watch, alters the latter, and prepares to go out again without a word.

  Caroline: Freddie!

  [Freddie looks round at her, surprised.

  Did you want me?

  Freddie: No, dear, why should I?

  [Freddie goes towards the door, with the obvious intention of departing.

  Caroline: Are you in a great hurry?

  Freddie: It’s just dressing-time, that’s all.

  Caroline: The gong’s only just sounded. Freddie, do you know, I’m practically certain that Owen does want to marry Jill.

  Freddie (advancing slowly into the room): I daresay.

  Caroline: Anyway, he’s in love with her.

  Freddie (pre-occupied): Is he? (He has taken out his pouch and is preparing to fill his pipe.)

  Caroline: He’s terribly attractive. I expect Jill is too, to men. Freddie — do you feel it?

  Freddie: Feel what?

  Caroline: Jill’s magnetism — sex appeal — whatever you like to call it.

  Freddie: I really don’t know what on earth you’re talking about, dear. How’s your cold?

  Caroline: It’s coming on, I am afraid. Freddie, you like Owen, don’t you?

  Freddie: He’s all right.

  Caroline: Not more than that?

  Freddie: Men are not always thinking whether they like people or not.

  Caroline: I suppose not. After all, the question is whether Jill likes him.

  Freddie: Well, it’s about time she settled down, isn’t it?

  Caroline: But that’s just what she doesn’t want to do! She says that, once people have settled down, there’s an end to — the Alhambra by moonlight, and everything.

  Freddie: To the what, dear?

  Caroline: Seeing those two has made me rather foolish, that’s all. Jill seems so — so free and independent, to me. She hasn’t got to worry about servants, or housekeeping, or children, or anything. She can do anything she pleases — even take a lover, if she wants to!

  [This arrests Freddie in the act of lighting his pipe.

  Freddie: Why not go and lie down for a bit before dinner?

  Caroline: I’m all right. Freddie, do you remember when we were first engaged?

  Freddie (taking this literally): I think so. Some time in 1920 — or was it the year after?

  Caroline: April 1920. I — I suppose I’ve changed a good deal since then?

  Freddie: I suppose we’ve both of us grown a b
it older, if it comes to that.

  Caroline: Do you still think me at all pretty?

  Freddie (rising): What on earth’s the matter with you to-night, old girl? I’m sure you’re not feeling well.

  Caroline: But do you?

  Freddie: I’ve never thought about it.

  Caroline (desperately): Think about it now!

  [Freddie turns to look at her, disapproval in his expression — and, indeed, Caroline’s tragic intensity is not calculated to excite admiration.

  Freddie: This is all great nonsense. You look just as nice as any other woman — of your age, I mean. Though I must say I wish you’d keep your hair tidier.

  Caroline (recklessly): I’ll grow it again!

  Freddie: Oh, I shouldn’t bother to do that. Now, dear, it’s quite time we went up to dress.

  Caroline: But I am dressed.

  Freddie: Why, so you are. I never noticed. Well, I must hurry.

  Caroline (springing up after him): Freddie — I know you’ll think me idiotic — but — say you love me!

  Freddie (kind, but awkward, and slightly annoyed): Shouldn’t have married you if I didn’t, should I? (He pats her face hurriedly) There, is that what you want?

  Caroline (dropping her hold of him): Women want such unlikely things — romance, and adventure, and excitement — but what’s the use? I know you care for me really, Freddie, even if you don’t say a — a great deal about it. You do, don’t you?

  Freddie: Yes, yes, dear; don’t be silly. Surely I’ve got enough to worry me, with a possible strike threatening, and this dam’ Labour Government in. You’ll make me late for dinner. I don’t know what’s the matter with you to-night.

  Caroline: Nothing that hasn’t been the matter for years, only you’ve never noticed it. You — you don’t take much notice of me anyway, do you, Freddie?

  Freddie: Why on earth should I take any notice of you, dear? You’re my wife, aren’t you?

  Caroline: Yes, Freddie. That’s what I want to make you understand. I want to help you if there’s a strike.

  Freddie: I shall be late for dinner if you don’t let me go now. (Exit.)

  Caroline: But the strike! I might be able to say ——

  [She remains in thought. Her face changes. She remains thinking deeply in the middle of the stage for a moment or two, then hides her face in her hands. She is not, however, weeping, and, when she lifts her face, it is with a curious expression of histrionic determination. Moving very slowly, she goes to the back of the stage, places a chair in front of her, moving it about meticulously until it is exactly where she wants it — and places herself, in a carefully posed attitude, with one hand on the back of the chair. Her lips move, and with her free hand she gesticulates dramatically. It is obvious that she is making an inspiring speech to an imaginary audience. Gradually words and sentences emerge.