by Unknown
Host. Yes. You’ll have a cigarette, Preen?
(The cigarettes are passed round and share the fate of the wine.)
Gourlay. I wonder why Mrs. Bland — she is the only one of them that there seems to be nothing against.
Vaile. A bit fishy, that.
Preen (murmuring). It was rather odd my wife fainting.
Capt. Jennings (who has been a drooping figure since a recent incident). I dare say the ladies are saying the same sort of thing about us. (He lights a cigarette — one of his own. Dolphin is offering them liqueurs.)
Preen (sulkily). No, thanks. (But he takes one.) Smith, I am sure I speak for all of us when I say we would esteem it a favour if you ask Dolphin to withdraw.
Host. He has his duties.
Gourlay (pettishly, to Dolphin). No, thanks. He gets on my nerves. Can nothing disturb this man?
Capt. Jennings (also refusing). No, thanks. Evidently nothing.
Sir Joseph (reverting to a more hopeful subject). Everything seems to point to its being a woman — wouldn’t you say, Smith?
Host. I wouldn’t say everything, Sir Joseph. Dolphin thinks it was a man.
Sir Joseph. One of us here?
(Smith nods, and they survey their friend Dolphin with renewed distaste.)
Gourlay. Did he know your brother?
Host. He was my brother’s servant out there.
Vaile (rising). What? He wasn’t the fellow who —— ?
Host. Who what, Vaile?
Preen. I say!
Vaile (hotly). What do you say?
Preen. Nothing (doggedly). But I say!
(Though Dolphin is now a centre of interest, no one seems able to address him personally.)
Gourlay. Are we to understand that you have had Dolphin spying on us here?
Host. That was the idea. And he helped me by taking your finger-prints.
Vaile. How can that help?
Host. He sent them to Scotland Yard.
Sir Joseph (vindictively). Oh, he did, did he?
Preen. What shows finger-marks best?
Host. Glass, I believe.
Preen (putting down his glass). Now I see why the Americans went dry.
Sir Joseph. Smith, how can you be sure that Dolphin wasn’t the man himself?
(Mr. Smith makes no answer. Dolphin picks up Sir Joseph’s napkin and returns it to him.)
Preen. Somehow I still cling to the hope that it was a woman.
Vaile. If it is a woman, Smith, what will you do?
Host. She shall hang by the neck until she is dead. You won’t try the benedictine, Vaile?
Vaile. No, thanks.
(The maid returns with coffee, which she presents under Dolphin’s superintendence. Most of them accept. The cups are already full.)
Sir Joseph (in his lighter manner). Did you notice what the ladies are doing in Dolphin’s room, Lucy?
Maid (in a tremble, and wishing she could fly from this house). Yes, Sir Joseph, they are wondering, Sir Joseph, which of you it was that did it.
Preen. How like women!
Gourlay. By the way, Smith, do you know how the poison was administered?
Host. Yes, in coffee. (He is about to help himself.)
Maid. You are to take the yellow cup, sir.
Host. Who said so?
Maid. The lady who poured out this evening, sir.
Preen. Aha, who was she?
Maid. Lady Jane Wraye, sir.
Preen. I don’t like it.
Gourlay. Smith, don’t drink that coffee.
Capt. Jennings (in wrath). Why shouldn’t he drink it?
Gourlay. Well, if it was she — a desperate woman — it was given in coffee the other time, remember. But stop, she wouldn’t be likely to do it in the same way a second time.
Vaile. I’m not so sure. Perhaps she doesn’t suspect that Smith knows how it was given the first time. We didn’t know till the ladies had left the room.
Preen (admiring him at last). I say, Vaile, that’s good.
Capt. Jennings. I have no doubt she merely meant that she had sugared it to his taste.
Vaile (smiling). Sugar!
Preen (pinning his faith to Vaile). Sugar!
Gourlay. Couldn’t we analyse it?
Capt. Jennings (the one who is at present looking most like a murderer). Smith, I insist on your drinking that coffee.
Vaile. Lady Jane! Who would have thought it!
Preen (become a mere echo of Vaile). Lady Jane! Who would have thought it!
Capt. Jennings. Give me the yellow cup. (He drains it to the dregs.)
Sir Joseph. Nobly done, in any case. Look here, Jennings — you are among friends — it hadn’t an odd taste, had it?
Capt. Jennings. Not a bit.
Vaile. He wouldn’t feel the effects yet.
Preen. He wouldn’t feel them yet.
Host. Vaile ought to know.
Preen. Vaile knows.
Sir Joseph. Why ought Vaile to know, Smith?
Host. He used to practise as a doctor.
Sir Joseph. You never mentioned that to me, Vaile.
Vaile. Why should I?
Host. Why should he? He is not allowed to practise now.
(We now see that Vaile has unpleasant teeth.)
Preen. A doctor — poison — ease of access.
(His passion for Vaile is shattered. He gives him back the ring, as Capt. Jennings might say, and wanders the room despondently.)
Sir Joseph. We are where we were again.
(Dolphin escorts out the maid, who is not in a condition to go alone.)
Capt. Jennings. At any rate that fellow has gone.
Gourlay (the first to laugh for some time). Excuse me. I suddenly remembered that Wrathie had called this the end of a perfect day.
Host. It isn’t ended yet.
(Mr. Preen in his wanderings towards the sideboard encounters a very large glass and a small bottle of brandy. He introduces them to each other. He swirls the contents in the glass as if hopeful it may climb the rim and so escape without his having to drink it. This is a trick which has become so common with him that when lost in thought he sometimes goes through the motion though there is no glass in his hand.)
Preen (communing with himself). I feel I am not my old bright self. (Sips.) I can’t believe for a moment that it was my wife. (Sips.) And yet — (sips) — that fainting, you know. (Sips.) I should go away for a bit until it blew over. (Sips.) I don’t think I should ever marry again. (Sips and sips, and becomes perhaps a little more like his old bright self.)
Gourlay. There is something shocking about sitting here, suspecting each other in this way. Let us go to that room and have it out.
Host. I am quite ready. Nothing more to drink, anyone? Bring your cigarette, Captain.
Sir Joseph (hoarsely). Smith — Sam — before we go, can I have a word with you alone?
Host. Sorry, Joseph. And now, shall we join the ladies?
(As they rise, a dreadful scream is heard from the direction of Dolphin’s room — a woman’s scream. Next moment Dolphin reappears in the doorway. He is no longer the imperturbable butler. He is livid. He tries to speak, but no words will come out of his mouth. Capt. Jennings dashes past him, and the others follow. Dolphin looks at his master with mingled horror and appeal, and then goes. Smith sits down again to take one glass of brandy. Where he sits we cannot see his face, but his rigid little back is merciless. As he rises to follow the others the curtain falls on Act One.)
BARBARA’S WEDDING
Produced at the Savoy Theatre on August 23, 1927, with the following cast:
The Colonel...Robert Loraine
Dering...Henry Oscar
Barbara.Maisie Darrell
Granny.Mary Jerrold
Karl...Osmund Willson
Billy...Frederick Peisley
BARBARA’S WEDDING
THE Colonel is in the sitting-room of his country cottage, staring through the open windows at his pretty garden. He is a very old man, an
d is sometimes bewildered nowadays. You must understand that at the beginning of the play he is just seeing visions of the past. No real people come to him, though he thinks they do. He calls to Dering, the gardener, who is on a ladder, pruning. Dering, who comes to him, is a rough, capable young fellow with fingers that are already becoming stumpy because he so often uses his hands instead of a spade. This is a sign that Dering will never get on in the world. His mind is in the same condition as his fingers, working back to clods. He will get a rise of one and sixpence in a year or two, and marry on it and become duller and heavier; and, in short, the clever ones could already write his epitaph.
COLONEL. A beautiful morning, Dering.
DERING. Too much sun, sir. The roses be complaining, and, to make matters worse, Miss Barbara has been watering of them — in the heat of the day.
COLONEL. Has she? She means well. (But that is not what is troubling him. He approaches the subject diffidently.)
Dering, you heard it, didn’t you? (He is longing to be told that DERING heard it.)
DERINQ. What was that, sir?
COLONEL. The thunderstorm — early this morning.
DERING. There was no thunderstorm, sir.
COLONEL (dispirited). That is what they all say. (He is too courteous to contradict any one, but he tries again; there is about him the insistence of one who knows that he is right.) It was at four o’clock. I got up and looked out at the window. The evening primroses were very beautiful.
DERING (equally dogged). I don’t hold much with evening primroses, sir; but I was out and about at four; there was no thunderstorm.
(The COLONEL still thinks that there was a thunderstorm, but he wants to placate DERING.)
COLONEL. I suppose I just thought there was one. Perhaps it was some thunderstorm of long ago that I heard. They do come back, you know.
DERING (heavily). Do they, sir?
COLONEL. I am glad to see you moving about in the garden, Dering, with everything just as usual.
(There is a cautious slyness about this, as if the colonel was fishing for information; but it is too clever for DERING, who is going with a ‘Thank you, sir.’)
No, don’t go. (The old man lowers his voice and makes a confession reluctantly.) I am — a little troubled, Dering.
(DERING knows that his master has a wandering mind, and he answers nicely.)
DERING. Everything be all right, sir.
COLONEL (with relief). I’m glad of that. It is pleasant to see that you have come back, Dering. Why did you go away for such a long time?
DERING. Me, sir? (He is a little aggrieved.) I haven’t had a day off since Christmas.
COLONEL. Haven’t you? I thought —
(The COLONEL tries to speak casually, but there is a trembling eagerness in his voice.)
COLONEL. Is everything just as usual, Dering?
DERING. Yes, sir. There never were a place as changes less than this.
COLONEL. That’s true. Thank you, Dering, for saying that. (But next moment he has lowered his voice again.) Dering, there is nothing wrong, is there? Is anything happening that I am not being told about?
DERING. Not that I know of, sir.
COLONEL. That is what they all say, but — I don’t know.
(He stares at his old sword which is hanging on the wall.) Where is every one?
DERING. They ‘re all about, sir. There is a cricket match on at the village green.
COLONEL. IS there?
DERING. If the wind had a bit of south in it you could hear their voices. You were a bit of a nailer at cricket yourself, sir.
(The COLONEL sees himself standing up to fast ones. He is gleeful over his reminiscences.)
COLONEL. Ninety-nine against Mallowfield, and then bowled off my pads. Biggest score I ever made. Mallowfield wanted to add one to make it the hundred, but I wouldn’t let them. I was pretty good at steering them through the slips, Dering! Do you remember my late cut? It didn’t matter where point stood, I got past him. You used to stand at point, Dering.
DERING. That was my grandfather, sir. If he was to be believed, he used to snap you regular at point.
(The COLONEL is crestfallen, but he has a disarming smile.)
COLONEL. Did he? I dare say he did. I can’t play now, but I like to watch it still. (He becomes troubled again.)
Dering, there’s no cricket on the green to-day. I have been down to look. I don’t understand it, Dering. When I got there the green was all dotted with them. But as I watched them they began to go away, one and two at a time; they weren’t given out, you know, they went as if they had been called away. Some of the little shavers stayed on — and then they went off, as if they had been called away too. The stumps were left lying about. Why is it?
DERING. It’s just fancy, sir. I saw Master Will oiling his bat yesterday.
COLONEL (avidly). Did you? I should have liked to see that. I have often oiled their bats for them. Careless lads, they always forget. Was that nice German boy with him?
DERING. Mr. Karl? Not far off, sir. He was sitting by the bank of the stream playing on his flute; and Miss Barbara, she had climbed one of my apple-trees — she says they are your trees. (He lowers.)
COLONEL (meekly). They are, you know, Dering.
DERING. Yes, sir, in a sense, but I don’t like any of you to meddle with them. And there she sat, pelting the two of them with green apples.
COLONEL. How like her! (He shakes his head indulgently.) I don’t know how we are to make a demure young lady of her.
DERING. They say in the village, sir, that Master Will would like to try.
(To the colonel this is wit of a high order.)
COLONEL. Ha! ha! he is just a colt himself. (But the laughter breaks off. He seems to think that he will get the truth if DERING comes closer.) Who are all here now, Dering; in the house, I mean? I sometimes forget. They grow old so quickly. They go out at one door in the bloom of youth, and come back by another, tired and grey. Haven’t you noticed it?
DERING. No, sir. The only visitors staying here are Miss Barbara and Mr. Karl. There’s just them and yourselves, sir, you and the mistress and Master Will. That’s all.
COLONEL. Yes, that’s all. Who is the soldier, Dering?
DERING. Soldier, sir? There is no soldier here except yourself.
COLONEL. Isn’t there? There was a nurse with him. Who is ill?
DERING. NO one, sir. There’s no nurse. (He backs away from the old man.) Would you like me to call the mistress, sir?
COLONEL. No, she has gone down to the village. She told me why, but I forget. Miss Barbara is with her.
DERING. Miss Barbara is down by the stream, sir.
COLONEL. Is she? I think they said they were going to a wedding. (With an old man’s curiosity) Who is being married to-day, Dering?
DERING. I have heard of no wedding, sir. But here is Miss Barbara.
(It is perhaps the first time that DERING has been glad to see miss barbara, who romps in, a merry hoyden, running over with animal spirits.)
COLONEL (gaily). Here’s the tomboy!
(BARBARA looks suspiciously from one to the other.)
BARBARA. Dering, I believe you are complaining to the Colonel about my watering the flowers at the wrong time of day.
(The colonel thinks she is even wittier than DERING, who is properly abashed.)
DERING. I did just mention it, miss.
BARBARA. You horrid! (She shakes her mop of hair at the gardener.) Dear, don’t mind him. And every time he says they are his flowers and his apples, you tell me, and I shall say to his face that they are yours.
COLONEL. The courage of those young things!
(DERING’s underlip becomes very pronounced, but he goes off into the garden barbara attempts to attend to the colonel’s needs.)
BARBARA. Let me make you comfy — the way GRANNY does it.
(She arranges his cushions clumsily.)
COLONEL. That is not quite the way she does it. Do you call her granny, Barbara?<
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