by Half Hours
CHARLES (peering over the slippers). Yes, yes, yes.
DAME. Is she like the daughter, think you?
CHARLES (judicially). In a way, very. Hair's not so pretty. She 's not such a fine colour. Heavier build, and I should say not so tall. None of Miss Page's dis tinction, nothing svelte about her. As for the feet (he might almost have said the
palisade) the feet (He shudders a
little, and so do the feet.}
DAME. She is getting on, you see. She is forty and a bittock.
CHARLES. A whattock ?
DAME (who has never studied the Doric). It may be a whattock.
CHARLES (gallantly). But there 's something nice about her. I could have told she was her mother anywhere. (With which
ROSALIND 109
handsome compliment he returns to the fire, and MRS. PAGE, no doubt much grati fied, throws a kiss after him. She also signs to the DAME a mischievous desire to be left alone with this blade. DAME (discreetly). Well, I '11 leave you, but, mind, you are not to disturb her.
(She goes, with the pleasant feeling that there are two clever women in the house; and with wide-open eyes MRS. PAGE watches CHARLES / dealing amorously with the photo graph. Soon he returns to her side, and her eyes are closed, but she does not trouble to repeat the trifling with her appearance. She probably knows the strength of first impressions.) CHARLES (murmuring the word as if it were sweet music). Mumsy. (With conviction) You lucky mother.
MRS. PAGE (in a dream). Is that you, Beatrice ?
110 ROSALIND
(This makes him skurry away, but he is soon back again, and the sound ness of her slumber annoys him.) CHARLES (in a reproachful whisper). Woman, wake up and talk to me about your daughter.
(The selfish thing sleeps on, and some what gingerly he pulls away the cushion from beneath her head. Nice treatment for a lady. MRS. PAGE starts up, and at first is not quite sure where she is, you know.)
MRS. PAGE. Why what
CHARLES (contritely). I am very sorry. I 'm
afraid I disturbed you.
MRS. PAGE (blankly). I don't know you, do I ? CHARLES (who has his inspirations). No,
madam, but I wish you did. MRS. PAGE (making sure that she is still in the DAME'S cottage). Who are you? and what are you doing here ? CHARLES (for truth is best). My name is Roche. I am nobody in particular. I 'm
ROSALIND 111
just the usual thing; Eton, Oxford, and so to bed as Pepys would say. I am on a walking tour, on my way to the station, but there is no train till seven, and your landlady let me in out of the rain on the promise that I wouldn't dis turb you.
MRS. PAGE (taking it all in with a woman's quickness). I see. (Suddenly) But you have disturbed me.
CHARLES. I 'm sorry.
MRS. PAGE (with a covert eye on him). It wasn't really your fault. This cushion slipped from under me, and I woke up.
CHARLES (manfully). No, I I pulled it away.
MRS. PAGE (indignant) . You did ! (She advances upon him like a stately ship). Will you please to tell me why ?
CHARLES (feebly). I didn't mean to pull so hard. (Then he gallantly leaps into the breach.) Madam, I felt it was impossible for me to leave this house without first
ROSALIND
waking you to tell you of the feelings of solemn respect with which I regard you.
MRS. PAGE. Really.
CHARLES. I suppose I consider you the cleverest woman in the wor ld.
MRS. PAGE. On so short an acquaintance ?
CHARLES (lucidly). I mean, to have had the priceless cleverness to have her
MRS. PAGE. Have her? (A light breaks on her.) My daughter ?
CHARLES. Yes, I know her. (As who should say, Isn't it a jolly world?)
MRS. PAGE. You know Beatrice personally ?
CHARLES (not surprised that it takes her a little time to get used to the idea). I assure you I have that honour. (In one mouth ful) I think she is the most beautiful and the cleverest woman I have ever known.
MRS. PAGE. I thought I was the cleverest.
CHARLES. Yes, indeed; for I think it even cleverer to have had her than to be her.
MRS. PAGE. Dear me. I must wait till I
ROSALIND 113
get a chair before thinking this out. (A chair means two chairs to her, as we have seen, but she gives the one on which her feet wish to rest to CHARLES.) You can have this half, Mr. ah Mr. ?
CHARLES. Roche.
MRS. PAGE (resting from her labours of the last minute). You are so flattering, Mr. Roche, I think you must be an actor yourself.
CHARLES (succinctly). No, I 'm nothing. My father says I 'm just an expense. But when I saw Beatrice's photograph there (the nice boy pauses a moment because this is the first time he has said the name to her mother; he is taking off his hat to if) with the inscription on it
MRS. PAGE. That foolish inscription.
CHARLES (arrested). Do you think so?
MRS. PAGE. I mean foolish, because she has quite spoilt the picture by writing across the chest. That beautiful gown ruined.
114 ROSALIND
CHARLES (fondly tolerant). They all do it,
even across their trousers; the men I
mean. MRS. PAGE (interested). Do they? I wonder
why. CHARLES (remembering now that other people
don't do it) . It does seem odd. (But after all
the others are probably missing something.) MRS. PAGE (shaking her wise head). I know
very little about them, but I am afraid
they are an odd race. CHARLES (who has doted on many of them,
though they were usually not sitting at his
table). But very attractive, don't you
think ? The ladies I mean. MRS. PAGE (luxuriously). I mix so little with
them. I am not a Bohemian, you see.
Did I tell you that I have never even seen
Beatrice act ? CHARLES. You haven't? How very strange.
Not even her Rosalind ? MRS. PAGE (stretching herself). No. Is it
cruel to her ?
ROSALIND 115
CHARLES (giving her one). Cruel to yourself. (But this is no policy for an admirer of Miss Page.) She gave me her photo graph as Rosalind. (Hurriedly) Not a postcard.
MRS. PAGE (who is very likely sneering). With writing across the chest, I '11 be bound.
CHARLES (stoutly). Do you think I value it the less for that ?
MRS. PAGE (unblushing). Oh no, the more. You have it framed on your mantelshelf, haven't you, so that when the other young bloods who are just an expense drop in they may read the pretty words and say, 'Roche, old man, you are going it.'
CHARLES. Do you really think that I
MRS. PAGE. Pooh, that was what Beatrice expected when she gave it you.
CHARLES. Silence ! (She raises her eyebrows, and he is stricken.) I beg your pardon, I should have remembered that you are her mother.
MRS. PAGE (smiling on him). I beg yours. I
116 ROSALIND
should like to know, Mr. Roche, where you do keep that foolish photograph.
CHARLES (with a swelling). Why, here. (He produces it in a case from an honoured pocket.) Won't you look at it?
MRS. PAGE (with proper solemnity}. Yes. It is one I like.
CHARLES (cocking his head). It just misses her at her best.
MRS. PAGE. Her best? You mean her way of screwing her nose ?
CHARLES (who was never sent up for good for lucidity or perhaps he was). That comes into it. I mean I mean her naivete.
MRS. PAGE. Ah yes, her naivete. I have often seen her practising it before a glass.
CHARLES (with a disarming smile). Excuse me; you haven't, you know.
MRS. PAGE (disarmed). Haven't I? Well, well, I dare say she is a wonder, but, mind you, when all is said and done, it is for her nose that she gets her salary. May I read what is written on the chest?
ROSALIND 117
(She reads.) The baggage ! (Shaking her head at him.) But this young lady on
the other side, who is she, Lothario ? CHARLES (boyish and stumbling). That is my sister. She died three years ago. We were rather chums and she gave me that case to put her picture in. So I did.
(He jerks it out, glaring at her to see if she is despising him. But MRS. PAGE, though she cannot be senti mental for long, can be very good at it while it lasts.)
MRS. PAGE (quite moved). Good brother. And it is a dear face. But you should not have put my Beatrice opposite it, Mr. Roche: your sister would not have liked that. It was thoughtless of you. CHARLES. My sister would have liked it very much. (Floundering) When she gave me the case she said to me you know what girls are she said, 'If you get to love a woman, put her picture opposite mine,
118 ROSALIND
and then when the case is closed I shall be kissing her.'
(His face implores her not to think him a silly. She is really more troubled than we might have expected.)
MRS. PAGE (rising). Mr. Roche, I never dreamt
CHARLES. And that is why I keep the two pictures together.
MRS. PAGE. You shouldn't.
CHARLES. Why shouldn't I? Don't you dare to say anything to me against my Beatrice.
MRS. PAGE (with the smile of ocean on her face). Your Beatrice. You poor boy.
CHARLES. Of course I haven't any right to call her that. I haven't spoken of it to her, yet. I 'm such a nobody, you see. (Very nice and candid of him, but we may remember that his love has not set him trying to make a somebody out of the nobody. Are you perfectly certain, CHARLES, that to be seen with the cele-
ROSALIND 119
brated PAGE is not almost more delightful to you than to be with her? Her mother at all events gives him the benefit of the doubt, or so we interpret her sudden action. She tears the photograph in two. He pro tests indignantly.)
MRS. PAGE. Mr. Roche, be merry and gay with Beatrice as you will, but don't take her seriously. J (She gives him back the case.) I think you said you had to catch a train.
CHARLES (surveying his torn treasure. He is very near to tears, but decides rather recklessly to be a strong man). Not yet; I must speak of her to you now.
MRS. PAGE (a strong woman without having to decide). I forbid you.
CHARLES (who, if he knew himself, might see thai a good deal of gloomy entertainment could be got by stopping here and stalking London as the persecuted of his lady's mamma). I have the right. There is no decent man who hasn't the right to tell a woman that he loves her daughter.
120 ROSALIND
MRS. PAGE (determined to keep him to earth though she has to hold him down). She doesn't love you, my friend.
CHARLES (though a hopeless passion would be another rather jolly thing). How do you know ? You have already said
MRS. PAGE (rather desperate). I wish you had never come here.
CHARLES (manfully). Why are you so set against me? I think if I was a woman I should like at any rate to take a good straight look into the eyes of a man who said he was fond of her daughter. You might have to say 'No' to him, but often you must have had thoughts of the kind of man who would one day take her from you, and though I may not be the kind, I assure you, I I am just as fond of her as if I were. (Not bad for CHARLES. Sent up for good this time.)
MAS. PAGE (beating her hands together in distress). You are torturing me, Charles.
ROSALIND
CHARLES. But why? Did I tell you my name was Charles? (With a happy thought.} She has spoken of me to you! What did she say ?
(// he were thinking less of himself
and a little of the woman before him
he would see that she has turned into
an exquisite supplicant.)
MRS. PAGE. Oh, boy you boy ! Don't say
anything more. Go away now. CHARLES. I don't understand. MRS. PAGE. I never had an idea that you cared in that way. I thought we were only jolly friends. CHARLES. We?
MRS. PAGE (with a wry lip for the word that has escaped her). Charles, if you must know, can't you help me out a little? Don't you see at last ?
(She has come to him with undulations as lovely as a swallow's flight, mocking, begging, not at all the woman we have been watching; she
ROSALIND
has become suddenly a disdainful, melting armful. But CHARLES does not see.)
CHARLES (the obtuse). I I
MRS. PAGE. Very well. But indeed I am sorry to have to break your pretty toy. (Drooping still farther on her stem.) Beatrice, Mr. Roche, has not had a mother this many a year. Do you see now?
CHARLES. No.
MRS. PAGE. Well, well. (Abjectly) Beat rice, Mr. Roche, is forty and a bittock.
CHARLES. I you but oh no.
MRS. PAGE (for better, for worse). Yes, I am Beatrice. (He looks to the photograph to rise up and give her the lie.) The writing on the photograph? A jest, I can ex plain that.
CHARLES. But but it isn't only on the stage I have seen her. I know her off too.
MRS. PAGE. A little. I can explain that
ROSALIND 123
also. (He is a very woeful young man.) I am horribly sorry, Charles.
CHARLES (with his last kick). Even now
MRS. PAGE. Do you remember an incident with a pair of scissors one day last June in a boat near Maidenhead ?
CHARLES. When Beatrice when you when she cut her wrist ?
MRS. PAGE. And you kissed the place to make it well. It left its mark.
CHARLES. I have seen it since.
MRS. PAGE. You may see it again, Charles. (She offers him her wrist, but he does not look. He knows the mark is there. For the moment the comic spirit has deserted her, so anxious is she to help this tragic boy. She speaks in the cooing voice that proves her to be Beatrice better than any wrist-mark.) Am I so terribly unlike her as you knew her.
CHARLES (ah, to be stabbed with the voice you have loved). No, you are very like, only yes, I know now it' s you.
124 ROSALIND
MRS. PAGE (pricked keenly). Only I am look ing my age to-day. (Forlorn) This is my real self, Charles if I have one. Why don't you laugh, my friend. I am laugh ing. (No, not yet, though she will be pre sently.) You won't give me away, will you ? (He shakes his head.) I know you won't now, but it was my first fear when I saw you. (With a sigh.) And now, I suppose, I owe you an explanation.
CHARLES (done with the world). Not unless you wish to.
MRS. PAGE. Oh yes, I wish to. (The laughter is bubbling up now.) Only it will leave you a wiser and a sadder man. You will never be twenty-three again, Charles.
CHARLES (recalling his distant youth). No, I know I won't.
MRS. PAGE (now the laughter is playing round her mouth). Ah, don't take it so lugu briously. You will only jump to twenty- four, say. (She sits down beside him to
ROSALIND 125
make full confession.) You must often have heard gossip about actresses' ages ?
CHARLES. I didn't join in it.
MRS. PAGE. Then you can't be a member of a club.
CHARLES. If they began it
MRS. PAGE. You wouldn't listen ?
CHARLES. Not about you. I dare say I lis tened about the others.
MRS. PAGE. You nice boy. And now to make you twenty-four. (Involuntarily, true to the calling she adorns, she makes the surgeon's action of turning up her sleeves.) You have seen lots of plays, Charles ?
CHARLES. Yes, tons.
MRS. PAGE. Have you noticed that there are no parts in them for middle-aged ladies ?
CHARLES (who has had too happy a life to notice this or almost anything else). Aren't there?
MRS. PAGE. Oh no, not for 'stars.' There is nothing for them between the ages of twenty-nine and sixty. Occasionally one
126 ROSALIND
of the less experienced dramatists may write such a part, but with a little coax ing we can always make him say, 'She needn't be more than twenty-nine/ And so, dear Charles, we have succeeded in keeping middle-age for women off the stage. Why, even Father Time doesn't let on about us. He waits at the wings with a dark cloth fo
r us, just as our dressers wait with dust-sheets to fling over our ex pensive frocks; but we have a way with us that makes even Father Time reluctant to cast his cloak; perhaps it is the coquettish imploring look we give him as we dodge him; perhaps though he is an old fellow he can't resist the powder on our pretty noses. And so he says, 'The enchanting baggage, I '11 give her another year.' When you come to write my epitaph, Charles, let it be in these de licious words, 'She had a long twenty- nine.' CHARLES. But off the stage I knew you off.
ROSALIND
(Recalling a gay phantom) Why, I was one of those who saw you into your train for Monte Carlo.
MRS. PAGE. You thought you did. That made it easier for me to deceive you here. But I got out of that train at the next station.
(She makes a movement to get out of the train here. We begin to note how she suits the action to the word in obedience to Shakespeare 9 s fatal injunction; she cannot mention the tongs without forking two of her fingers.) CHARLES. You came here instead ? MRS. PAGE. Yes, stole here. CHARLES (surveying the broken pieces of her). Even now I can scarcely You who seemed so young and gay. MRS. PAGE (who is really very good-natured, else would she clout him on the head). I was a twenty-nine. Oh, don't look so solemn, Charles. It is not confined to the stage. The stalls are full of twenty-nines. Do
128 ROSALIND
you remember what fun it was to help me on with my cloak? Remember why I had to put more powder on my chin one evening ?
CHARLES (with a groan). It was only a few weeks ago.
MRS. PAGE. Yes. Sometimes it was Mr. Time I saw in the mirror, but the wretch only winked at me and went his way.
CHARLES (ungallantly) . But your whole ap pearance so girlish compared to
