Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  [Enter Champion-Cheney, rubbing his hands. He is as pleased as Punch.

  C.-C. Well, I think I’ve settled the hash of that young man.

  Lady Kitty. Oh!

  C.-C. You have to get up very early in the morning to get the better of your humble servant.

  [There is the sound of a car starting.

  Lady Kitty. What is that?

  C.-C. It sounds like a car. I expect it’s your chauffeur taking one of the maids for a joy-ride.

  Porteous. Whose hash are you talking about?

  C.-C. Mr. Edward Luton’s, my dear Hughie. I told Arnold exactly what to do and he’s done it. What makes a prison? Why, bars and bolts. Remove them and a prisoner won’t want to escape. Clever, I flatter myself.

  Porteous. You were always that, Clive, but at the moment you’re obscure.

  C.-C. I told Arnold to go to Elizabeth and tell her she could have her freedom. I told him to sacrifice himself all along the line. I know what women are. The moment every obstacle was removed to her marriage with Teddie Luton, half the allurement was gone.

  Lady Kitty. Arnold did that?

  C.-C. He followed my instructions to the letter. I’ve just seen him. She’s shaken. I’m willing to bet five hundred pounds to a penny that she won’t bolt. A downy old bird, eh? Downy’s the word. Downy.

  [He begins to laugh. They laugh, too. Presently they are all three in fits of laughter.

  [The Curtain Falls]

  CAESAR’S WIFE

  CONTENTS

  CHARACTERS

  ACT I

  ACT II

  ACT III

  CHARACTERS

  This play was produced at the Royalty Theatre, on March 27th, 1919, with the following cast:

  Sir Arthur Little

  C. Aubrey Smith.

  Ronald Parry

  George Relph.

  Henry Pritchard

  V. Sutton Vane.

  George Appleby

  Townsend Whitling.

  Osman Pasha

  George C. Desplas.

  Violet

  Fay Compton.

  Mrs. Etheridge

  Eva Moore.

  Mrs. Pritchard

  Helen Haye.

  Mrs. Appleby

  Mrs. Robert Brough.

  CHARACTERS

  Sir Arthur Little, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

  Ronald Parry.

  Henry Pritchard.

  Richard Appleby, M.P.

  Osman Pasha.

  Violet.

  Mrs. Etheridge.

  Mrs. Pritchard.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  An English Butler; Native Servants; an Arab Gardener.

  The scene is laid in Cairo, in the house and garden of the British Consular Agent.

  ACT I

  Scene: The morning-room in the Consular Agent’s house at Cairo. The windows are Arabic in character and so are the architraves of the doors, but otherwise it is an English room, airy and spacious. The furniture is lacquer and Chippendale, there are cool chintzes on the chairs and sofas, cut roses in glass vases, and growing azaleas in pots; but here and there an Eastern antiquity, a helmet and a coat of mail, a piece of woodwork, reminds one of the Mussulman conquest of Egypt; while an ancient god in porphyry, graven images in blue pottery, blue bowls, recall an older civilisation still.

  When the curtain rises the room is empty, the blinds are down so as to keep out the heat, and it is dim and mysterious. A Servant comes in, a dark-skinned native in the gorgeous uniform, red and gold, of the Consular Agent’s establishment, and draws the blinds. Through the windows is seen the garden with palm-trees, oranges and lemons, tropical plants with giant leaves; and beyond, the radiant blue of the sky. In the distance is heard the plaintive, guttural wailing of an Arab song. A Gardener in a pale blue gaberdine passes with a basket on his arm.

  Servant.

  Es-salâm ‘alêkum (Peace be with you).

  Gardener.

  U’alêkum es-Salâm warahmet Allâh wa barakâta (And with you be peace and God’s mercy and blessing).

  [The Servant goes out. The Gardener stops for a moment to nail back a straggling creeper and then goes on his way. The door is opened. Mrs. Appleby comes in with Anne Etheridge and they are followed immediately by Violet. Anne is a woman of forty, but handsome still, very pleasant and sympathetic; she is a woman of the world, tactful and self-controlled. She is dressed in light, summery things. Mrs. Appleby is an elderly, homely woman, soberly but not inexpensively dressed. The wife of a North-country manufacturer, she spends a good deal of money on rather dowdy clothes. Violet is a very pretty young woman of twenty. She looks very fresh and English in her muslin frock; there is something spring-like and virginal in her appearance, and her manner of dress is romantic rather than modish. She suggests a lady in a Gainsborough portrait rather than a drawing in a paper of Paris fashions. Luncheon is just finished and when they come in the women leave the door open for the men to follow.]

  Mrs. Appleby.

  How cool it is in here! This isn’t the room we were in before lunch?

  Anne.

  No. They keep the windows closed and the blinds drawn all the morning so that it’s beautifully cool when one comes in.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  I suppose we shan’t feel the heat so much when we’ve been here a few days.

  Anne.

  Oh, but this is nothing to what you’ll get in Upper Egypt.

  Violet.

  [As she enters.] Is Mrs. Appleby complaining of the heat? I love it.

  Anne.

  Dear Violet, wait till May comes and June. You don’t know how exhausting it gets.

  Violet.

  I’m looking forward to it. I think in some past life I must have been a lizard.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  I dare say the first year you won’t feel it. I have a brother settled in Canada, and he says the first year people come out from England they don’t feel the cold anything like what they do later on.

  Anne.

  I’ve spent a good many winters here, and I always make a point of getting away by the fifteenth of March.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Oh, are you staying as late as that?

  Anne.

  Good gracious, no. You make Lady Little’s heart positively sink.

  Violet.

  Nonsense, Anne, you know we want you to stay as long as ever you can.

  Anne.

  I used to have an apartment in Cairo, but I’ve given it up now and Lady Little asked me to come and stay at the Agency while I was getting everything settled.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Oh, then you knew Sir Arthur before he married?

  Anne.

  Oh, yes, he’s one of my oldest friends. I can’t help thinking Lady Little must have great sweetness of character to put up with me.

  Violet.

  Or you must be a perfect miracle of tact, darling.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  My belief is, it’s a little of both.

  Anne.

  When Arthur came to see me one day last July and told me he was going to marry the most wonderful girl in the world, of course I thought good-bye. A man thinks he can keep his bachelor friendships, but he never does.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  His wife generally sees to that.

  Violet.

  Well, I think it’s nonsense, especially with a man like Arthur who’d been a bachelor so long and naturally had his life laid out before ever I came into it. And besides, I’m devoted to Anne.

  Anne.

  It’s dear of you to say so.

  Violet.

  I came here as an absolute stranger. And after all, I wasn’t very old, was I?

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Nineteen?

  Violet.

  Oh, no, I was older than that. I was nearly twenty.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  [Smiling.] Good gracious!

  Violet.

  It was rather alarming to find oneself on a sudden the wife of a man i
n Arthur’s position. I was dreadfully self-conscious; I felt that everybody’s eyes were upon me. And you don’t know how easy it is to make mistakes in a country that’s half Eastern and half European.

  Anne.

  To say nothing of having to deal with the representatives of half a dozen Great Powers all outrageously susceptible.

  Violet.

  And, you know, there was the feeling that the smallest false step might do the greatest harm to Arthur and his work here. I had only just left the schoolroom and I found myself almost a political personage. If it hadn’t been for Anne I should have made a dreadful mess of things.

  Anne.

  Oh, I don’t think that. You had two assets which would have made people excuse a great deal of inexperience, your grace and your beauty.

  Violet.

  You say very nice things to me, Anne.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Your marriage was so romantic, I can’t see how anyone could help feeling very kindly towards you.

  Violet.

  There’s not much room for romance in the heart of the wife of one of the Agents of the foreign Powers when she thinks she hasn’t been given her proper place at a dinner party.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  I remember wondering at the time whether you weren’t a little overcome by all the excitement caused by your marriage.

  Violet.

  I was excited too, you know.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Everyone had always looked upon Sir Arthur as a confirmed bachelor. It was thought he cared for nothing but his work. He’s had a wonderful career, hasn’t he?

  Violet.

  The Prime Minister told me he was the most competent man he’d ever met.

  Anne.

  I’ve always thought he must be a comfort to any Government. Whenever anyone has made a hash of things he’s been sent to put them straight.

  Violet.

  Well, he always has.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Mr. Appleby was saying only this morning he was the last man one would expect to marry in haste.

  Violet.

  Let’s hope he won’t repent at leisure.

  Anne.

  [Smiling.] Mrs. Appleby is dying to know all about it, Violet.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  I’m an old woman, Lady Little.

  Violet.

  [Gaily.] Well, I met Arthur at a week-end party. He’d come home on leave and all sorts of important people had been asked to meet him. I was frightened out of my life. The duchesses had strawberry leaves hanging all over them and they looked at me down their noses. And the Cabinet Ministers’ wives had protruding teeth and they looked at me up their noses.

  Anne.

  What nonsense you talk, Violet!

  Violet.

  I was expecting to be terrified of Arthur. After all, I knew he was a great man. But you know, I wasn’t a bit. He was inclined to be rather fatherly at first, so I cheeked him.

  Anne.

  I can imagine his surprise. No one had done that for twenty years.

  Violet.

  When you know Arthur at all well you discover that when he wants anything he doesn’t hesitate to ask for it. He told our hostess that he wanted me to sit next to him at dinner. That didn’t suit her at all, but she didn’t like to say no. Somehow people don’t say no to Arthur. The Cabinet Ministers’ wives looked more like camels than ever, and by Sunday evening, my dear, the duchesses’ strawberry leaves began to curl and crackle.

  Anne.

  Your poor hostess, I feel for her. To have got hold of a real lion for your party and then have him refuse to bother himself with anybody but a chit of a girl whom you’d asked just to make an even number!

  Mrs. Appleby.

  He just fell in love with you at first sight?

  Violet.

  That’s what he says now.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Did you know?

  Violet.

  I thought it looked very like it, you know, only it was so improbable. Then came an invitation from a woman I only just knew for the next week-end, and she said Arthur would be there. Then my heart really did begin to go pit-a-pat. I took the letter in to my sister and sat on her bed and we talked it over. “Does he mean to propose to me,” I said, “or does he not?” And my sister said: “I can’t imagine what he sees in you. Will you accept him if he does?” she asked. “Oh, no,” I said. “Good heavens, why he’s twenty years older than I am!” But of course I meant to all the time. I shouldn’t have cared if he was a hundred, he was the most wonderful man I’d ever known.

  Mrs. Appleby.

  And did he propose to you that week-end, when he’d practically only seen you once before?

  Violet.

  I got down in the afternoon and he was there already. As soon as I swallowed a cup of tea he said: “Come out for a walk.” Well, I’d have loved a second cup, but I didn’t like to say so, so I went. But we had a second tea in a cottage half an hour later, and we were engaged then.

  [Appleby comes in with Osman Pasha. Mr. Appleby is a self-made man who has entered Parliament; he is about sixty, grey-bearded, rather short and stout, with some accent in his speech, shrewd, simple and good-natured. He wears a blue serge suit. Osman Pasha is a swarthy, bearded Oriental, obese, elderly but dignified; he wears the official frock-coat of the Khedivial service and a tarbush.]

  Appleby.

  Sir Arthur is coming in one moment. He is talking to one of his secretaries.

  Violet.

  Really, it’s too bad of them not to leave him alone even when he’s snatching a mouthful of food.

  Osman Pasha.

  Vous permettez que j’apporte ma cigarette, chère Madame.

  Violet.

  Of course. Come and sit here, Pasha.

  Appleby.

  I wanted to tell his Excellency how interested I am in his proposal to found a technical college in Cairo, but I can’t speak French.

  Violet.

  Oh, but his Excellency understands English perfectly, and I believe really he talks it as well as I do, only he won’t.

  Osman Pasha.

  Madame, je ne comprends l’anglais que quand vous le parlez, et tout galant homme sait ce que dit une jolie femme.

  Anne.

  [Translating for the Applebys.] He says he only understands English when Lady Little speaks it, and every nice man understands what a pretty woman says.

  Violet.

  No one pays me such charming compliments as you do. You know I’m learning Arabic.

  Osman Pasha.

  C’est une bien belle langue, et vous, madame, vous avez autant d’intelligence que de beauté.

  Violet.

  I have a Copt who comes to me every day. And I practise a little with your brother, Anne.

  Anne.

  [To Mrs. Appleby.] My brother is one of Sir Arthur’s secretaries. I expect it was he that Mr. Appleby left with Sir Arthur.

  Violet.

  If it is I shall scold him. He knows quite well that he has no right to come and bother Arthur when he’s in the bosom of his family. But they say he’s a wonderful Arabic scholar.

  Osman Pasha.

  Vous parlez de M. Parry? Je n’ai jamais connu un Anglais qui avait une telle facilité.

  Anne.

  He says he’s never known an Englishman who speaks so well as Ronny.

  Violet.

  It’s a fearfully difficult language. Sometimes my head seems to get tied up in knots.

  [Two Saises come in, one with a salver on which are coffee cups and the other bearing a small tray on which is a silver vessel containing Turkish coffee. They go round giving coffee to the various people, then wait in silence. When Sir Arthur comes in they give him his coffee and go out.]

  Anne.

  It’s wonderful of you to persevere.

  Violet.

  Oh, you know, Ronny’s very encouraging. He says I’m really getting on. I want so badly to be able to talk. You can’t think how enthusias
tic I am about Egypt. I love it.

  Osman Pasha.

  Pas plus que l’Égypte vous aime, Madame.

  Violet.

  When we landed at Alexandria and I saw that blue sky and that coloured, gesticulating crowd, my heart leapt. I knew I was going to be happy. And every day I’ve loved Egypt more. I love its antiquities, I love the desert and the streets of Cairo and those dear little villages by the Nile. I never knew there was such beauty in the world. I thought you only read of romance in books; I didn’t know there was a country where it sat by the side of a well under the palm-trees, as though it were at home.

  Osman Pasha.

  Vous êtes charmante, madame. C’est un bien beau pays. Il n’a besoin que d’une chose pour qu’on puisse y vivre.

  Anne.

  [Translating.] It’s a beautiful country. It only wants one thing to make it livable. And what is that, your Excellency?

  Osman Pasha.

  La liberté.

  Appleby.

  Liberty?

  [Arthur has come in when first Violet begins to speak of Egypt and he listens to her enthusiasm with an indulgent smile. At the Pasha’s remark he comes forward. Arthur Little is a man of forty-five, alert, young in manner, very intelligent, with the urbanity, self-assurance, tact, and resourcefulness of the experienced diplomatist. Nothing escapes him, but he does not often show how much he notices.]

  Arthur.

  Egypt has the liberty to do well, your Excellency. Does it need the liberty to do ill before it loses the inclination to do it?

  Violet.

  [To Mrs. Appleby.] I hope you don’t mind Turkish coffee?

  Mrs. Appleby.

  Oh, no, I like it.

  Violet.

  I’m so glad. I think it perfectly delicious.

  Arthur.

  You have in my wife an enthusiastic admirer of this country, Pasha.