by Unknown
MRS. OTERY. This is the biggest room in the house. (She quotes drearily from some advertisement which is probably hanging in rags on the gate.) Specially charming is the drawingroom with its superb view of the Downs. This room is upstairs and is approached by —
HARRY. By a stair, containing some romantic rat-holes. Snakes, whether it’s the room or not, it strikes cold; there is something shiversome about it.
(For the first time she gives him a sharp glance.)
I’ve shivered in many a shanty in Australy, and thought of the big room at home and the warmth of it. The warmth! And now this is the best it can do for the prodigal when he returns to it expecting to see that calf done to a turn. We live and learn, missis.
MRS. OTERY. We live, at any rate.
HARRY. Well said, my cabbage.
MRS. OTERY. Thank you, my rhododendron.
HARRY (cheered). I like your spirit. You and me would get on great if I had time to devote to your amusement. But, see here, I can make sure whether this was the drawingroom. If it was, there is an apple-tree outside there, with one of its branches scraping on the window. I ought to know, for it was out at the window down that apple-tree to the ground that I slided one dark night when I was a twelve-year-old, ran away from home, the naughty blue-eyed angel that I was, and set off to make my fortune on the blasted ocean. The fortune, my — my lady friend — has still got the start of me, but the apple-tree should be there to welcome her darling boy.
(He pulls down the sacking, which lets a little more light into the room. We see that the window, which reaches to the floor, opens outwards. There were probably long ago steps from it down into the garden, but they are gone now, and gone too is the apple-tree.)
I’ve won! No tree: no drawingroom.
MRS. OTERY. I have heard tell there was once a tree there; and you can see the root if you look down.
HARRY. Yes, yes, I see it in the long grass, and a bit of the seat that used to be round it. This is the drawingroom right enough, Harry, my boy. There were blue curtains to that window, and I used to hide behind them and pounce out upon Robinson Crusoe. There was a sofa at this end, and I had my first lessons in swimming on it. You are a fortunate woman, my petite, to be here drinking in these moving memories There used to be a peacock, too. Now, what the hell could a peacock be doing in this noble apartment?
MRS OTERY. I have been told a cloth used to hang on the wall here, tapestries they ‘re called, and that it had pictures of peacocks on it. I dare say that was your peacock.
HARRY. Gone, even my peacock! And I could have sworn I used to pull the feathers out of its tail. The clock was in this corner, and it had a wheezy little figure of a smith that used to come out and strike the hour on an anvil. My old man used to wind that clock up every night, and I mind his rage when he found out it was an eight-day clock. The padre had to reprove him for swearing. Padre? What’s the English for padre? Damme, I’m forgetting my own language. Oh yes, parson. Is he in the land of the living still? I can see him clear, a long thin man with a hard sharp face. He was always quarrelling about pictures he collected.
MRS OTERY. The parson here is a very old man, but he is not tall and thin, he is little and roundish with a soft face and white whiskers.
HARRY. Whiskers? I can’t think he had whiskers.
(Ruminating) Had he whiskers? Stop a bit, I believe it is his wife I’m thinking about I doubt I don’t give satisfaction as a sentimental character. Is there any objection, your ladyship, to smoking in the drawingroom?
MRS. OTERY (ungraciously). Smoke if you want.
(He hacks into a cake of tobacco with a large clasp knife.)
That’s a fearsome-looking knife.
HARRY. Useful in trench warfare. It’s not a knife, it’s a visiting-card. You leave it on favoured parties like this.
(He casts it at one of the packing-cases, and it sticks quivering in the wood.)
MRS OTERY. Were you an officer?
HARRY. For a few minutes now and again.
MRS OTERY. You ‘re playing with me.
HARRY. You ‘re so irresistible.
MRS OTERY. Do you want to see the other rooms?
HARRY. I was fondly hoping you would ask me that mrs otery. Come along, then. (She wants to lead him downstairs, but the little door at the back has caught his eye.)
HARRY. What does that door open on?
MRS OTERY (avoiding looking at it). Nothing, it’s just a cupboard door.
HARRY (considering her). Who is playing with me now?
MRS OTERY. I don’t know what you mean. Come this way.
HARRY (not budging). I’ll explain what I mean. That door — it’s coming back to me — it leads into a little dark passage.
MRS. OTERY. That’s all.
HARRY. That can’t be all. Who ever heard of a passage wandering about by itself in a respectable house! It leads — yes — to a single room, and the door of the room faces this way.
(He opens the door, and a door beyond is disclosed.)
There’s a memory for you! But what the hell made you want to deceive me?
MRS OTERY. It’s of no consequence.
HARRY. I think — yes — the room in there has two stone windows — and wooden rafters.
MRS OTERY. It’s the oldest part of the house.
HARRY. It comes back to me that I used to sleep there.
MRS OTERY. That may be. If you’ll come down with me —
HARRY. I’m curious to see that room first.
(She bars the way.)
MRS OTERY (thin-lipped and determined). You can’t go in there.
HARRY. Your reasons?
MRS OTERY. It’s — locked. I tell you it’s just an empty room.
HARRY. There must be a key.
MRS. OTERY. It’s — lost.
HARRY. Queer your anxiety to stop me, when you knew I would find the door locked.
MRS OTERY. Sometimes it’s locked; sometimes not.
HARRY. Is it not you that locks it?
MRS OTERY (reluctantly). It’s never locked, it’s held.
HARRY. Who holds it?
MRS OTERY (in a little outburst). Quiet, man.
HARRY. You’re all shivering.
MRS. OTERY. I’m not.
HARRY (cunningly). I suppose you are just shivering because the room is so chilly.
MRS. OTERY (jailing into the trap). That’s it.
HARRY. So you are shivering!
(She makes no answer, and he reflects with the help of his pipe.)
May I put a light to these bits of sticks?
MRS. OTERY. If you like. My orders are to have fires once a week.
(He lights the twigs in the fireplace, and they burn up easily, but will be ashes in a few minutes.)
You can’t have the money to buy a house like this.
HARRY. Not me. It was just my manly curiosity to see the old home that brought me. I’m for Australy again.
(Suddenly turning on her) What is wrong with this house?
MRS. OTERY (on her guard). There is nothing wrong with it.
HARRY. Then how is it going so cheap?
MRS. OTERY. It’s — in bad repair.
HARRY. Why has it stood empty so long?
MRS. OTERY. It’s — far from a town.
HARRY. What made the last tenant leave in such a hurry?
MRS. OTERY (wetting her lips). You have heard that, have you? Gossiping in the village, I suppose?
HARRY. I have heard some other things as well. I have heard they had to get a caretaker from a distance, because no woman hereabout would live alone in this house.
MRS. OTERY. A pack o’ cowards.
HARRY. I have heard that that caretaker was bold and buxom when she came, and that now she is a scared woman.
MRS. OTERY. I’m not.
HARRY. I have heard she’s been known to run out into the fields and stay there trembling half the night.
(She does not answer, and he resorts to cunning again.)
Of course,
I see they couldn’t have meant you. Just foolish stories that gather about an old house.
MRS. OTERY (relieved). That’s all.
HARRY (quickly, as he looks at the little door). What’s that?
(mrs otery screams.) I got you that time! What was it you expected to see?
(No answer.)
Is it a ghost? They say it’s a ghost. What is it gives this house an ill name?
MRS. OTERY. Use as brave words as you like when you have gone, but I advise you, my lad, to keep a civil tongue while you are here. (In her everyday voice) There is no use showing you the rest of the house. If you want to be stepping, I have my work to do.
HARRY. We have got on so nicely, I wonder if you would give me a mug of tea. Not a cup, we drink it by the mugful where I hail from.
MRS. OTERY (ungraciously). I have no objection.
HARRY. Since you are so pressing, I accept.
MRS. OTERY. Come down, then, to the kitchen.
HARRY. No, no, I’m sure the Prodigal got his tea in the drawingroom, though what made them make such a fuss about that man beats me.
MRS. OTERY (sullenly). You are meaning to go into that room. I wouldn’t if I was you.
HARRY. If you were me you would.
MRS. OTERY (closing the little door). Until I have your promise —
HARRY (liking the tenacity of her). Very well, I promise — unless, of course, she comes peeping out at the handsome gentleman. Your ghost has naught to do wi’ me. It’s a woman, isn’t it?
(Her silence is perhaps an assent.)
See here, I’ll sit in this chair till you come back, saying my prayers. (Feeling the chair) You’re clammy cold, old dear. It’s not the ghost’s chair by any chance, is it?
(No answer.)
You needn’t look so scared, woman; she doesn’t walk till midnight, does she?
MRS. OTERY (looking at his knife in the wood). I wouldn’t leave that knife lying about.
HARRY. Oh, come, give the old girl a chance.
MRS. OTERY. I’ll not be more than ten minutes.
HARRY. She can’t do much in ten minutes.
(At which remark mrs otery fixes him with her eyes and departs.
harry is now sitting sunk in the chair, staring at the fire. It goes out, but he remains there motionless, and in the increasing dusk he ceases to be an intruder. He is now part of the room, the part long waited for, come back at last. The house is shaken to its foundation by his presence, we may conceive a thousand whispers. Then the crafty work begins. The little door at the back opens slowly to the extent of a foot. Thus might a breath of wind blow it if there were any wind. Presently harry starts to his feet, convinced that there is some one in the room, very near his knife. He is so sure of the exact spot where she is that for a moment he looks nowhere else. In that moment the door slowly closes. He has not seen it close, but he opens it and calls out, ‘Who is that? Is any one there?’ With some distaste he enters the passage and tries the inner door, but whether it be locked or held it will not open. He is about to pocket his knife, then with a shrug of bravado sends it quivering back into the wood — for her if she can get it. He returns to the chair, but not to close his eyes; to watch and to be watched. The room is in a tremble of desire to get started upon that nightly travail which can never be completed till this man is here to provide the end. The figure of harry becomes indistinct and fades from sight. When the haze lifts we are looking at the room as it was some thirty years earlier on the serene afternoon that began its troubled story. There are rooms that are always smiling, so that you may see them at it if you peep through the keyhole, and MRS. morland’s little drawingroom is one of them. Perhaps these are smiles that she has left lying about. She leaves many things lying about; for instance, one could deduce the shape of her from studying that corner of the sofa which is her favourite seat, and all her garments grow so like her that her wardrobes are full of herself hanging on nails or folded away in drawers. The pictures on her walls in time take on a resemblance to her or hers though they may be meant to represent a waterfall, every present given to her assumes some characteristic of the donor, and no doubt the necktie she is at present knitting will soon be able to pass as the person for whom it is being knit. It is only delightful ladies at the most agreeable age who have this personal way with their belongings. Among mrs.
morland’s friends in the room are several of whom we have already heard, such as the blue curtains from which harry pounced upon the castaway, the sofa on which he had his first swimming lessons, the peacock on the wall, the clock with the smart smith ready to step out and strike his anvil, and the apple-tree is in full blossom at the open window, one of its branches has even stepped into the room.
MR. morland and the local clergyman are chatting importantly about some matter of no importance, while MRS.
morland is on her sofa at the other side of the room, coming into the conversation occasionally with a cough or a click of her needles, which is her clandestine way of telling her husband not to be so assertive to his guest. They are all middle-aged people who have found life to be on the whole an easy and happy adventure, and have done their tranquil best to make it so for their neighbours. The squire is lean, the clergyman of full habit, but could you enter into them you would have difficulty in deciding which was clergyman and which was squire; both can be peppery, the same pepper. They are benignant creatures, but could exchange benignancies without altering, mrs morland knows everything about her husband except that she does nearly all his work for him. She really does not know this. His work, though he rises early to be at it, is not much larger than a lady’s handkerchief, and consists of magisterial duties, with now and then an impressive scene about a tenant’s cowshed. She then makes up his mind for him, and is still unaware that she is doing it. He has so often heard her say (believing it, too) that he is difficult to move when once he puts his foot down that he accepts himself modestly as a man of this character, and never tries to remember when it was that he last put down his foot. In the odd talks which the happily married sometimes hold about the future he always hopes he will be taken first, being the managing one, and she says little beyond pressing his hand, but privately she has decided that there must be another arrangement. Probably life at the vicarage is on not dissimilar lines, but we cannot tell, as we never meet mr amy’s wife mr amy is even more sociable than MR. MORLAND; he is reputed to know every one in the county, and has several times fallen off his horse because he will salute all passers-by. On his visits to London he usually returns depressed because there are so many people in the streets to whom he may not give a friendly bow. He likes to read a book if he knows the residence or a relative of the author, and at the play it is far more to him to learn that the actress has three children, one of them down with measles, than to follow her histrionic genius. He and his host have the pleasant habit of print-collecting, and a very common scene between them is that which now follows. They are bent over the squire’s latest purchase.)
MR. AMY. Very interesting. A nice little lot. I must say, James, you have the collector’s flair.
MR. MORLAND. Oh, well, I’m keen, you know, and when I run up to London I can’t resist going a bust in my small way. I picked these up quite cheap.
MR AMY. THE flair. That is what you HAVE.
MR. MORLAND. Oh, I don’t know.
MR. AMY. Yes, you have, James. You got them at Peterkin’s in Dean Street, didn’t you? Yes, I know you did. I saw them there. I wanted them too, but they told me you had already got the refusal.
MR. MORLAND. Sorry to have been too quick for you, George, but it is my way to nip in. You have some nice prints yourself.
MR. AMY. I haven’t got your flair, James.
MR. MORLAND. I admit I don’t miss much.
(iSo far it has been a competition in saintliness.)
MR. AMY No. (The saint leaves him.) You missed something yesterday at Peterkin’s, though.
MR. MORLAND. How do you mean?
MR. AMY.
You didn’t examine the little lot lying beneath this lot.
MR. MORLAND. I turned them over; just a few odds and ends of no account.
MR. AMY (with horrible complacency). All except one, James.
MR. MORLAND (twitching). Something good?
MR. AMY (at his meekest). Just a little trifle of a Gainsborough.
MR. MORLAND (faintly). What! You Ve got it?
