Tom Stoppard Plays 2

by Tom Stoppard

DURANCE: Absolutely. When you had to sail round the Cape this was a man’s country and we mucked in with the natives. The memsahibs put a stop to that. The memsahib won’t muck in, won’t even be alone in a room with an Indian.

  FLORA: Oh …

  DURANCE: Don’t point your toes out. May I ask you a personal question?

  FLORA: No.

  DURANCE: All right.

  FLORA: I wanted to ask you something. How did the Resident know I came to India for my health?

  DURANCE: It’s his business to know. Shoulders back. Reins too slack.

  FLORA: But I didn’t tell anybody.

  DURANCE: Obviously you did.

  FLORA: Only Mr Das.

  DURANCE: Oh, well, say no more. Jolly friendly of you, of course, sharing a confidence, lemonade, all that, but they can’t help themselves bragging about it, telling all they know.

  FLORA: (Furious) Rubbish!

  DURANCE: Well … I stand corrected.

  FLORA: I’m sorry. I don’t believe you, though.

  DURANCE: Righto.

  FLORA: I’m sorry. Pax.

  DURANCE: Flora.

  FLORA: No.

  DURANCE: Would you marry me?

  FLORA: No.

  DURANCE: Would you think about it?

  FLORA: No. Thank you.

  DURANCE: Love at first sight, you see. Forgive me.

  FLORA: Oh, David.

  DURANCE: Knees together.

  FLORA: ’Fraid so.

  (She laughs without malice but unrestrainedly. He punishes her without malice by breaking his horse into a trot. Her horse follows, trotting, flora squealing with fright and laughing.)

  SCENE FOURTEEN: INDIA

  Inside the bungalow.

  FLORA: ‘Next day. Oh dear, guess what? You won’t approve. Quite right. So I think it’s time to go. Love ’em and leave ’em.’

  PIKE: What, if anything, came of this is not known. The man was most probably the Junior Political Agent at the Residency, Captain David Arthur Durance, who took FC dancing and horse riding. He was killed in Malaya in 1942 during the Japanese advance on Singapore.

  FLORA: ‘I feel tons better, though. The juices are starting to flow again, as you can see from the enclosed.’

  PIKE: ‘Buffalo’ and ‘Pearl’, included in Indian Ink, 1932.

  FLORA: ‘I’ll keep sending you fair copies of anything I finish in case I get carried away by monsoons or tigers, and if I do, look after the comma after “astride”, please, it’s just the sort of thing they leave out – printers have taken more years off my life than pulmonary congestion, I can tell you. Send “Buffalo” to Blackwood’s and “Pearl” to Transition, and if you get a pound for them put it in the Sacha Fund.’

  PIKE: The reference is obscure.

  FLORA: ‘I’m writing this at my table on the verandah, looking longingly to the hills I can’t see. The dak menagerie is subdued by the heat, except for a pi-dog barking under the house – and I’d better start with what interrupted me yesterday after my early morning ride – which was a Rolls Royce circa 1912 but brand new, as it were, driven by a Sikh in a turban called Singh –’

  PIKE: A tautology: all Sikhs are named Singh (however, not all people named Singh are Sikhs).

  FLORA: Oh, shut up! (She is shouting at the dog, which is responding. She manages to get rid of the dog – clapping her hands and generally making a dog-dismissing row. The dog departs, whining and yelping.)

  ‘He was a chauffeur with a note from His Highness the Rajah of Jummapur, inquiring after my health and assuring me that the spiritual beauty of Jummapur had been increased a thousandfold by my presence, and asking my indulgence towards his undistinguished collection of motor cars, which nevertheless might be worthy of my interest during an idle hour since he understood I was a connoisseur of the automobile … Well, what is a poor girl to do? Hop into the back of the Rolls, that’s what.’

  (Sound of FLORA getting into the Rolls.)

  Thank you!

  (The car moves, etc.)

  ‘The Rajah’s palace didn’t exactly have a garage, more of a cavalry barracks with the Motor Show thrown in, and he himself was there to greet me.’

  RAJAH: Miss Crewe! How delightful that you were able to come!

  FLORA: Oh, how sweet of you to ask me … your Highness … oh – sorry!

  RAJAH: Please!

  FLORA: ‘And I made a mess of that, sticking my hand out at his bow, bowing at his hand –’

  What a wonderful sight!

  ‘– but he was very sporting about it, and there were all these cars gleaming in the courtyard – with a dozen grooms standing by, one couldn’t think of them as mechanics.’

  RAJAH: Let me show you one or two.

  FLORA: Thank you! Oh – a Hispano-Suiza!

  ‘He’s a large soft-looking man with beautiful eyes like a seal and wearing a long buttoned-up brocade coat over white leggings, no jewellery except a yellow diamond ring not much bigger than my engagement ring from Gus, only real, I suppose –’

  PIKE: Augustus de Boucheron enjoyed brief celebrity as a millionaire philanthropist and patron of the arts. FC met him, and received his proposal of marriage, on October 11th 1918, at a party given for the Russian Ballet by the Sitwells at Swan Walk (it was at the same party that Maynard Keynes met the ballerina Lopokova). FC had returned from France only hours earlier and was wearing her auxiliary nurse’s uniform. Her fortunes were at their lowest ebb, for she was supporting her sister, still at school, and also her father, who, since being invalided out of the Army, had given up the Bar and enjoyed few periods of lucidity. The engagement to de Boucheron was announced on January 1st 1919 and ended on August 1st in a furniture store (see note on page 334).

  FLORA: ‘– and he knew very little about cars, he just liked the look of them, which was endearing, and I know how badly this must be going down in Doughty Street but we soon got on to politics – he was at school with Winston Churchill.’

  RAJAH: But I’m afraid I can’t remember him at all. Look at this one! I couldn’t resist the headlamps! So enormous, like the eggs of a mythical bird!

  FLORA: Yes – a Brancusi!

  RAJAH: Is it? I don’t know their names. All the same, I read Churchill’s speeches with great interest. He is right in what he says, don’t you agree, Miss Crewe? The loss of India would reduce Britain to a minor power.

  FLORA: That may be, but one must consider India’s interests too.

  RAJAH: But what about Jummapur’s interests?

  FLORA: Yes, of course, but aren’t they same thing?

  RAJAH: No, no. Independence would be the beginning of the end for the Native States. Though in a sense you are right too – Independence may be the beginning of the end for Indian nationalism too. Only yesterday, you may have heard about the hullabaloo in town.

  FLORA: Yes.

  RAJAH: The Princes stood firm with the British during the First Uprising in my grandfather’s day –

  FLORA: The …?

  RAJAH: In ’57 the danger was from fundamentalists –

  FLORA: The Mutiny …

  RAJAH: – today it is the progressives. Marxism. Civil disobedience. But I told the Viceroy, you have to fight them the same way, you won’t win by playing cricket. (He presses a bulb-horn, which honks.) My father drove this one.

  It’s a Bentley.

  FLORA: Yes.

  RAJAH: He won it at Monte Carlo. He spent much of his time in the south of France, for his health. (He laughs.) But you have come to India for your health!

  FLORA: (Not pleased) Well … yes, your Highness. Everybody seems to know everything about me.

  RAJAH: Should we have some refreshment? (He opens the door of a car.)

  FLORA: (Puzzled) Oh … thank you.

  RAJAH: After you.

  FLORA: You mean in the car?

  RAJAH: Do you like this one?

  FLORA: I … yes, of course. It’s a Packard.

  RAJAH: It’s quite a step to my apartments. Why walk in the sun when w
e have so many motorcars?

  FLORA: Oh I see. Thank you. (She gets into the car.)

  RAJAH: I keep them all ready. Would you care to drive?

  FLORA: Yes, I’d love to. I’ll slip over.

  (She moves over to the steering wheel. The RAJAH gets into the car and closes the door.)

  RAJAH: Jolly good, we’ll have some tiffin. When do you leave Jummapur?

  FLORA: ‘– and we drove all of two hundred yards past saluting sentries, into the palace proper, which had a fountain inside, and we walked through a series of little gardens into his reception room, where we had sherbet – you can imagine the rest, can’t you? – me sat on silk cushions being peeped at by giggling ladies of the harem through the latticework of carved marble – well, no such thing. We had tea and cold cuts and little iced cakes, and the furniture was from Heals, three-piece suite and all, and I know it was Heals because the sofa was absolutely the one I broke my engagement on when I took Gus to the French Pictures – my God, I thought, that’s the Modigliani sofa!’

  PIKE: The exhibition of Modern French Art at Heal and Sons in the Tottenham Court Road enlivened the hot early-August days of 1919. Modigliani was one of several newer artists shown with the better-known Matisse, Picasso and Derain, and it was his nudes, including the ‘Peasant Girl’, now in the Tate Gallery, which provoked such comments in the press as that the show was glorying in prostitution. FC had met Modigliani in Paris at his first show, on December 3rd 1917 (the date is fixed by the fact that the show was closed by the police on the opening day) and she sat, or rather reclined, for the artist soon afterwards. Concurrently with the French pictures, Messrs Heals were showing a model flat. FC arrived at Heals with de Boucheron, expecting to see her portrait, only to discover that her fiancé had bought the painting from the artist and, as he triumphantly confessed, burned it. The ensuing row moved from the gallery to the model flat, and it was on the sofa of the model sitting-room that FC returned de Boucheron’s engagement ring (though not the lease on the Flood Street house, which was to be the Crewes’ London home from then on). De Boucheron, under his real name, Perkins Butcher, went to prison in 1925 for issuing a false prospectus. His end is unknown.

  FLORA: ‘I started to tell his Highness about Heals but when I said French pictures he got hold of the wrong end of the stick entirely –’

  RAJAH: French pictures?

  FLORA: Yes. There was a tremendous fuss – the pictures were wallowing in prostitution, that sort of thing. And of course those of us who defended them were simply admitting our depravity!

  RAJAH: My dear Miss Crewe, you are quite the emancipated woman!

  FLORA: Not at all. What has being a woman got to do with it?

  RAJAH: Oh, I agree with you! I was guilty of male prejudice!

  FLORA: In fact they are probably more to my taste than yours – surely it’s more a matter of culture than gender?

  RAJAH: Ah, but we have ‘French pictures’ of our own. Of course, you have never seen them.

  FLORA: I’m not sure that I understand.

  RAJAH: In our culture, you see, erotic art has a long history and a most serious purpose. (Walking away.) These drawings, for example – if I may be so bold – are the depictions not of depravity … (walking back) but of precepts towards a proper fulfilment of that side of life which …

  FLORA: ‘And he produced an album of exquisite water colours – medieval, I think – which we admired solemnly together, he determined to acknowledge me as an enlightened woman, I determined to be one. Really what a muddle, and not entirely honest, of course – he insisted I chose one as a gift –’

  No, really, I couldn’t –

  RAJAH: Yes, yes – which one would you like?

  FLORA: ‘– like pondering a big box of chocolates – should one go for the Turkish Delight or plump for the nut cluster?’ Well, this one is rather sweet …

  RAJAH: Ah, yes …

  FLORA: How very kind.

  ‘– and he invited me to move into the palace for the remainder of my visit but I got away finally in a yellow Studebaker and was brought home at lamp-lighting time …’

  (Sounds of the Studebaker arriving, Flora getting out and closing the car door; the car leaving, FLORA calls out.)

  Thank you very much, Mr Singh! (She comes up the wooden steps to the verandah.) Oh, Mr Das!

  DAS: Good evening, Miss Crewe! I’m sorry if we frightened you.

  FLORA: And Mr Coomaraswami!

  COOMARASWAMI: Yes, it is me, Miss Crewe.

  FLORA: Good evening. What a surprise.

  COOMARASWAMI: I assure you – I beg you – we have not come to presume on your hospitality –

  FLORA: I wish I had some whisky to offer you, but will you come inside.

  COOMARASWAMI: It will be cooler for you to remain on the verandah.

  FLORA: Let me find Nazrul.

  COOMARASWAMI: He is not here, evidently. But perhaps now that the mistress has returned it is permitted to light the lamp?

  FLORA: Yes, of course.

  COOMARASWAMI: So much more pleasant than sitting in the electric light. (He lights the oil lamp.) There we are. And the moon will clear the house tops in a few minutes … but where is it? Perhaps on the wrong side of the house. Never mind.

  FLORA: Please sit down.

  COOMARASWAMI: May I take this chair?

  FLORA: No, that’s Mr Das’s chair. And this is mine. So that leaves you with the sofa.

  COOMARASWAMI: Ah, never, never has my fatness received more charming, more delicate acknowledgement! (He sits down.) Oh yes, very comfortable. Thank you, Miss Crewe. Mr Das told me that I was exceeding our rights of acquaintance with you in coming to see you without proper arrangement, and even more so to lie in wait for you like mulaquatis. If it is so, he is blameless. Please direct your displeasure to me.

  DAS: Miss Crewe does not understand mulaquatis.

  COOMARASWAMI: Petitioners!

  FLORA: In my house you are always friends.

  COOMARASWAMI: Mr Das, what did I tell you!

  FLORA: But what can I do for you?

  DAS: Nothing at all! We require nothing!

  FLORA: Oh …

  COOMARASWAMI: Have you had a pleasant day, Miss Crewe?

  FLORA: Extremely interesting. I have been visiting his Highness the Rajah.

  COOMARASWAMI: My goodness!

  FLORA: I believe you knew that, Mr Coomaraswami.

  COOMARASWAMI: Oh, you have found me out!

  FLORA: He showed me his cars … and we had an interesting conversation, about art …

  COOMARASWAMI: And poetry, of course.

  FLORA: And politics.

  COOMARASWAMI: Politics, yes. I hope, we both hope – that your association with, that our association with, in fact – if we caused you embarrassment, if you thought for a moment that I personally would have knowingly brought upon you, compromised you, by association with –

  FLORA: Stop, stop. Mr Das, I am going to ask you. What is the matter?

  DAS: The matter?

  FLORA: I shall be absolutely furious in a moment.

  DAS: Yes, yes, quite so. My friend Coomaraswami, speaking as President of the Theosophical Society, wishes to say that if his Highness reproached you or engaged you in any unwelcome conversation regarding your connection with the Society, he feels responsible, and yet at the same time wishes you to know that –

  FLORA: His Highness never mentioned the Theosophical Society.

  DAS: Ah.

  COOMARASWAMI: Not at all, Miss Crewe?

  FLORA: Not at all.

  COOMARASWAMI: Oh … well, jolly good!

  FLORA: What has happened?

  COOMARASWAMI: Ah well, it is really of no interest. I am very sorry to have mentioned it. And we must leave you, it was not right to trouble you after all. Will you come, Mr Das?

  FLORA: I hope it is nothing to do with my lecture?

  COOMARASWAMI: (Getting up) Oh no! Certainly not!

  DAS: Nothing!

  COO
MARASWAMI: Mr Das said we should not mention the thing, and how truly he spoke. I am sorry. Goodnight, Miss Crewe. (He shouts towards somebody distant, in Urdu, and the explanation is an approaching jingle of harness, horse and buggy. He goes down the steps to meet it and climbs aboard.)

  DAS: I am coming, Mr Coomaraswami. Please wait for me a moment.

  FLORA: If you expect to be my friends, you must behave like friends and not like whatever-you-called it. Tell me what has happened.

  COOMARASWAMI: (Off) Mr Das!

  DAS: (Shouts) Please wait!

  FLORA: Well?

  DAS: The Theosophical Society has been banned, you see. The order came to Mr Coomaraswami’s house last night.

  FLORA: But why?

  DAS: Because of the disturbances in the town.

  FLORA: The riot?

  DAS: Yes, the riot.

  FLORA: I know about it. The Hindus wanted the Muslims to close their shops. What has that to do with the Theosophical Society?

  COOMARASWAMI: (Off) I am going, Mr Das!

  DAS: (Shouts) I come now!

  Mr Coomaraswami is a man with many hats! And his Highness the Rajah is not a nationalist. I must leave you, Miss Crewe. But may I step inside to fetch my painting away?

  FLORA: If you like.

  DAS: I do not have my bicycle this evening, so I can manage the easel also.

  FLORA: Mr Das, did you tell people I was ill?

  DAS: What do you mean?

  FLORA: That I came to India for my health?

  COOMARASWAMI: (Off) I cannot wait, Mr Das!

  DAS: (Shouts) A moment!

  Why do you ask me that?

  FLORA: He is leaving you behind.

  (The horse and buggy are heard departing.)

  DAS: I will walk, then.

  FLORA: It seems that everyone from the Rajah to the Resident knows all about me. I told no one except you. If I want people to know things, I tell them myself, you see. I’m sorry to mention it but if there’s something wrong between two friends I always think it is better to say what it is.

  DAS: Oh … my dear Miss Crewe … it was known long before you arrived in Jummapur. Mr Chamberlain’s letter said exactly why you were coming. Mr Coomaraswami told me himself when I began to paint your portrait. But, you see, I already knew from talking with others. This is how it is with us, I’m afraid. The information was not considered to be private, only something to be treated with tact.