Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  [Caroline starts, and looks round at him.

  That open window — it’s made your cold much worse, I can see.

  Caroline: I’m afraid it has. (She sneezes.)

  Jill: Try Vapex, darling. (Starts to rise, but promptly subsides again when Owen moves.)

  Owen (starting up): Can I fetch it? Perhaps Jill could — could show me where it is.

  Jill (not moving): It’s on the top of the medicine-chest in the bathroom, where you can’t possibly miss it.

  Caroline: No, please don’t bother. I shall be going up to bed directly.

  Jill: Yes, so shall I. I need sleep, after all this excitement.

  Owen: Jill, don’t go up yet. It’s our last evening here.

  Freddie: By Jove, so it is! I say, Owen, you remember what I was telling you last night. Come and sit down.

  [Freddie leans back, crossing his legs comfortably, and begins to speak. His voice goes on, whilst Owen sits with his eyes fixed on Jill, who remains motionless, her thoughts obviously elsewhere, and Caroline gazes haggardly at her husband and stifles yet another sneeze with her handkerchief. Freddie takes final gulp of champagne and begins:

  The fact of the matter is that the whole business of paper-making, so far as we are concerned, turns on the demand for high-grade paper.

  [Caroline sneezes loudly. Freddie stares at her, and continues:

  Now, take the case of a really high-grade opaque paper. There is practically no demand for it at all nowadays. And that’s hit us particularly hard. High-grade paper has been our speciality for years. We used to be able to count on a big Government contract for envelopes alone that kept the mills busy. The men know that perfectly well. They realise that it’s all we can do to keep going, now that such a lot of cheap, inferior paper is being used. So, as I pointed out to them, to talk about the reduction on tonnage-rate is simply nonsense . . .

  [Caroline suddenly blows her nose loudly. Freddie sits up and stares at her resentfully.

  BLACK OUT

  AND

  CURTAIN

  SCENE II

  Scene II takes place in Caroline’s bedroom an hour later. It is furnished exactly as you would expect it to be furnished: that is to say, there is a large double bed, an unsophisticated washstand, the usual chairs and tables, several photographs in frames, and a dressing-table, before which Caroline, in a reasonably, but not extravagantly, becoming dressing-gown, is now seated.

  There are two doors. One of these obviously leads to Freddie’s dressing-room, as he keeps on walking in and out of it, each time in a further stage of preparedness for bed. Throughout the scene that follows, Caroline, whether speaking herself or listening to Freddie, is automatically going through a series of actions that are evidently habitual to her: i.e. brushing her hair, greasing her face and wiping it with a sheet of tissue paper that afterwards goes into the waste-paper basket, cold-creaming her hands and neck, rubbing something from a little jar into her face, turning her stockings inside out and hanging them over the back of a chair, and so on. At intervals she sneezes. As the curtain goes up, Freddie is standing in the communicating doorway without his dinner-jacket, and Caroline is sitting at the dressing-table.

  Freddie: Have you tried the Vapex?

  Caroline: I’ve sprinkled some on the pillow.

  [They both glance at the bed.

  Do you want some on your side too?

  Freddie: Might be as well, I suppose.

  [Disappears into dressing-room.

  Caroline sprinkles the Vapex, then returns to dressing-table and sits motionless.

  (Calls from within) You know, that little car of Jill’s wasn’t running properly to-night. I rather think she’s missing on one cylinder.

  Caroline: Is she?

  Freddie: She’s got a long run ahead of her. (Reappears in doorway.) They ought to test the sparking-plug first thing to-morrow. There’ll be plenty of time.

  Caroline (tonelessly): Yes, I suppose so.

  Freddie: Well, let’s see. Supposing they average thirty — or let’s say twenty-five, to be on the safe side. (Pulling dress shirt off over his head.) That means that if they leave here at ten o’clock they ought to be at Honiton by twelve, then Yeovil at about one — allow an hour, say, for lunch — they get off again at two sharp, and reach London, bar accidents, at seven o’clock. Say seven-thirty, if you like.

  Caroline (desperately): Yes, yes, I see.

  Freddie (after surveying her for a moment in astonished silence): Is anything the matter with you? Besides your cold, I mean.

  Caroline (desperately): Everything is the matter with me.

  Freddie: Don’t exaggerate, dear.

  [He returns to the dressing-room. Caroline stares haggardly after him.

  Caroline (calling): Freddie! (Louder) Freddie!

  Freddie (reappearing with pyjamas in one hand and shirt in the other): What?

  Caroline: Freddie, do you think that you — you understand me?

  Freddie: You didn’t call me in just to hear that, did you? Upon my soul, Caroline, you’re a bit unreasonable sometimes.

  Caroline: Yes, I daresay I am. One doesn’t go on being reasonable for ever.

  [Freddie gradually backs into the dressing-room once more as she goes on speaking.

  (Staring at herself in the glass and not perceiving Freddie’s withdrawal) I wonder what you’d say if the day came when I found that I just couldn’t go on any longer. For years and years I’ve pretended to myself that I was quite contented, and that one didn’t need, or expect, any kind of emotional life after one had passed thirty — and that to be your wife, and the boys’ mother, was enough. Part of me has been dead — stifled, and pushed out of sight. I don’t even think about it any more . . . and then . . . one . . . one reads something, or — or meets someone — and all of a sudden one knows. Life oughtn’t to be like this — it isn’t enough!

  [As Caroline ends, on an emotional crescendo, she flings her arms out on the dressing-table, and hides her face against them. There is a moment’s silence. Then Freddie, now in pyjamas, appears at the door.

  Freddie: Look here, dear, where the devil is that tube of Kolynos?

  [He goes to the washstand, hunts about on the shelf there for the Kolynos, and continues plaintively:

  Must you keep on moving it in here? It’s surely simply a question of remembering to get one of your own.

  Caroline (tensely): I want to speak to you.

  Freddie: If it’s about the Kolynos, all I can say is ——

  Caroline: It isn’t about the Kolynos.

  Freddie (in tones of great relief): Here it is at last!

  [He is once more returning into the dressing-room, but Caroline moves between him and the door.

  Caroline: Such a little thing can suddenly change the whole world — make everything look different — and yet one’s really known all the time. This evening — I woke up.

  Freddie: I didn’t even know you’d been to sleep, but I daresay it was a very good thing. Now look here, dear, I really do wish you’d get into bed.

  Caroline (unheeding): Supposing, Freddie, that I fell in love?

  Freddie (arrested): That you what, dear?

  Caroline: Fell in love. Women do. Even (bitterly) happily married women.

  Freddie (simply): Not in our class, they don’t, dear.

  Caroline: Or supposing somebody fell in love with me?

  Freddie: How could anybody fall in love with you when there isn’t a soul about the place except the rector, who’s turned seventy, and an occasional feller for tennis that one knows all about? It seems to me that you’re talking nonsense, Caroline.

  Caroline: What would you do if I said that I — I’d fallen in love?

  Freddie: Don’t be foolish, dear.

  Caroline: Answer me.

  Freddie: How can I answer a silly question like that? It’s ridiculous. Besides, you’ll make your cold worse, standing about.

  Caroline: Never mind that. I want to know what you’d say — what
you’d do — if I came and told you that I — I’d let another man make love to me?

  Freddie (reluctantly): Naturally, I should do what any other decent man in that position would do — kick the fellow out of the house and tell him to go to hell.

  Caroline: Would that help?

  Freddie: What’s that got to do with it?

  Caroline: And what about me?

  Freddie (uncomprehending): How do you mean, what about you?

  Caroline: Should you forgive me?

  Freddie: Well — I suppose that depends how far —— But we needn’t discuss it.

  Caroline: You wouldn’t want to give me my freedom?

  Freddie: D’you mean a divorce?

  [Caroline nods.

  (With determination) Look here, Caroline, if this is some of Jill’s nonsense, I don’t want any more of it. She’s got this newspaper work of hers in London, and no doubt she mixes with some very queer people there, and hears a lot of this up-to-date jargon — but that’s no reason why you should imitate her. You’ve got to remember that you’re a wife and a mother. Besides, Jill’s ten years younger than you are.

  Caroline: Ten years younger than I am. Yes.

  Freddie: And now, dear, we really must ——

  Caroline (unheeding): Ten years younger. That’s a whole lifetime, isn’t it?

  Freddie (annoyed): It’s not a lifetime at all. Ten years — is ten years.

  Caroline: It’s a lifetime to a woman, all the same. (With a sudden gesture of despair) Oh, you needn’t be afraid, Freddie. I shan’t ever come and tell you that another man has been making love to me.

  Freddie: I should hope not.

  Caroline: If — if it ever did happen, it would only be a pretence. Just — a kind of game. Not worth remembering or — or ever thinking about again.

  [At the ring of despair in her voice, Freddie looks at her uneasily.

  Freddie: Anybody would suppose you wanted it to happen.

  Caroline: Would they?

  [She begins to laugh hysterically, whilst Freddie stares at her in solemn perplexity.

  It’s all right — I — I — oh, Freddie, don’t look at me like that!

  Freddie: I’m certain you’re not well. Do you think you’ve got a temperature?

  Caroline: I don’t know. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.

  [She hides her face in her hands.

  Freddie (alarmed): Where’s the thermometer?

  [Hunting about on washstand and in drawer.

  It is a most extraordinary thing that in this house nothing is ever to be found in its proper place. Now, I could have sworn that the last time I saw that thermometer ——

  Caroline (at the end of her endurance): Never mind — oh, never mind.

  Freddie: But I do mind. It’s got to be found. The thing must be somewhere, you know. (Goes into dressing-room.)

  Caroline (in desperation): Jill has a thermometer.

  Freddie (off): Has she? Well, I think I ought to go and borrow it. I’m certain you’re starting ‘flu.

  [Enters, putting on dressing-gown, which catches in door. He says “Damn” and jerks it free.

  I’ll go and ask her for it now.

  Caroline: Yes, yes — go.

  [Exit Freddie. Caroline springs up, locks the door, and stands, her hands tightly wrung together.

  I can’t go on — I can’t. Owen — Owen — why didn’t you really mean it? Oh, if only there was someone — anyone — to understand . . .

  [She pushes back the hair from her forehead with a gesture of despair, looking all round her. Her eyes fall on one of the many photographs of her children on the wall.

  (In a voice gradually strangled with the sobs she is repressing) Some women . . . haven’t even got children. I — I’ve got the two boys. . . . It’s their lives that matter. Mine’s over . . . I — I’m not going to mind any more. . . .

  [There is a knock at the door, and the handle turns.

  (Distraught) What is it? Oh, what is it?

  Freddie (outside): I’ll go round by the other door.

  [Caroline looks wildly round her, then drops on her knees by the bed, her face hidden.

  Caroline: I can’t go on — I can’t go on ——

  [Freddie enters, shaking the thermometer vigorously. He suddenly perceives Caroline.

  Freddie: I say, dear — is anything the matter?

  CURTAIN

  ACT III

  Takes place in the Allertons’ drawing-room three days later.

  The curtain goes up and shows the drawing-room as in Act I., except that instead of evening it is now morning, three days later.

  Enter Freddie, in his favourite tweeds — Jill enters first and holds the door for Freddie — carrying a couple of suit-cases, which he deposits by the window. Jill wears a morning frock suitable for travelling, and carries a leather motor-coat, cap, and bag en suite.

  Freddie: Is that the lot?

  Jill: Yes, thanks.

  Freddie: What about Owen’s bag?

  Jill: I expect he’s taken it out to the car himself. Don’t bother about him.

  Freddie: That’s all right. It’s only that Caroline seems to think Emma’s been a bit overworked lately, what with our having no housemaid, and Caroline’s having been laid up, and everything.

  Jill: I know. And I’m afraid our staying on has made more work, too, but we’ve tried to help — and I had to make sure Caroline was really all right.

  Freddie: By Jove, yes. That was a very nasty chill she caught.

  Jill: If she hadn’t collapsed with a chill, she’d have had a bad nervous breakdown. In fact, as it was ——

  Freddie: Now, now, now, what’s the good of saying a thing like that? Caroline was upset, I know. She’d worked herself up about the strike.

  Jill: The strike! I suppose it was a great relief to you, Freddie, that the strike fizzled out before it had begun?

  Freddie: Of course it was. What do you suppose?

  Jill: Men never seem to mind an anti-climax. Now I shall never forget how exciting that evening was, when we all thought they might come up and mob us at any minute.

  Freddie (indignantly): I never thought anything of the kind.

  Jill: Not even when Williams telephoned?

  Freddie: Certainly not! The fellow lost his head. He isn’t English; he’s Welsh. I knew very well that was all it was. If you remember, I said so at the time.

  Jill: I believe you did.

  Freddie: I say — I’m sorry, Jill; I quite forgot.

  Jill: What?

  Freddie: Your friend — Owen — Welsh!

  Jill: Oh, that’s all right.

  Freddie: Honestly, I always look upon him as being as English as I am myself — practically.

  Jill: Thanks, Freddie.

  Freddie: Not at all. I expect he’d like some help with the car.

  Jill: Please don’t go. I want to talk to you.

  Freddie: Talk?

  Jill: About Caroline.

  Freddie: Caroline? Oh — Caroline. Well, I’m thankful to say she’s quite herself again now.

  Jill: That’s just what’s worrying me.

  Freddie (after an astonished pause): What did you say?

  Jill: I said: That’s just what’s worrying me.

  Freddie: I’m afraid I don’t understand.

  Jill: I know you don’t, Freddie. But I want to try and make you understand.

  Freddie: Will it take long?

  Jill: I don’t know. That rather depends on you, doesn’t it? Freddie, you remember the other night, before the doctor came, when Caroline’s temperature went up and up, and we didn’t quite know how bad she might be?

  Freddie: Yes, I remember.

  Jill: Could you tell me exactly what thoughts went through your mind as we sat there almost helpless, waiting for him?

  Freddie (outraged): No, of course I couldn’t. And I wouldn’t if I could, what’s more.

  Jill: Because you don’t want to admit that what you felt was a perfec
tly genuine, honest emotion.

  Freddie: Upon my word, Jill, really ——

  Jill: I’m sorry, but I simply must. For Caroline’s sake.

  Freddie: Caroline never suggested this nonsense.

  Jill: Of course she didn’t. But do you suppose I haven’t seen for myself that she’s unhappy?

  Freddie (astounded): Unhappy?

  Jill: Do you think she’s happy?

  Freddie: I’ve never thought about it.

  Jill: The husband’s slogan. Think about it, then, Freddie, before it’s too late.

  Freddie: Too late for what?

  Jill: Too late for everything — for the Alhambra by moonlight, if you like to put it that way.

  Freddie: But I don’t like to put it that way! I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

  Jill: I’m sorry. May I try and explain?

  Freddie (reluctantly): If you really feel you must.

  Jill: I do. Look here! Caroline is the type of woman to whom personal relationships mean everything. She can’t help it.

  Freddie (helplessly): No one likes a — a feminine woman better than I do myself.

  Jill: That’s lucky. But have you ever told her so?

  Freddie: What on earth are you driving at? A joke’s a joke, but really ——

  Jill: I never felt less like joking in my life. Why don’t you tell Caroline that you think she’s a feminine woman — that you admire feminine women — that you love her — that you think she runs the house beautifully ——

  Freddie (interrupting): But I don’t think she does. Not always.

  Jill: What does that matter? She won’t care what you think — only what you say.

  Freddie (bewildered): But she’d be a fool if she felt that, and Caroline’s not a fool.

  Jill: Tell her you think she isn’t a fool! Not in those words, naturally — you can say you find that companionship with her has spoilt every other woman for you.

  Freddie: How on earth do you think of speeches like that?

  Jill: Oh, if men only realised the admirable speeches that women are making for them almost every hour of their lives!

  Freddie: The fact is, women haven’t got enough to think about, that’s their trouble.

  Jill: And so they think about men? I quite agree with you, but it doesn’t apply to my generation. Thank heaven, we have jobs now, and choose them ourselves.