Between the acts, p.15
Between the Acts, page 15
SIR S. L. (reading). “Must marry to her Aunt’s liking.” That’s plain enough.
LADY H. H. Her Aunt, Sir. That’s me. That’s plain enough.
SIR S. L. (aside). She speaks the truth there! (Aloud.) You would have me understand, Madam. . . . ?
LADY H. H. Hist! Come closer. Let me whisper in your ear . . . You and I have long entertained a high opinion of one another, Sir Spaniel. Played at ball together. Bound our wrists with daisy chains together. If I mind aright, you called me little bride—’tis fifty years since. We might have made a match of it, Sir Spaniel, had fortune favoured . . . You take my meaning, Sir?
SIR S. L. Had it been written in letters of gold, fifty feet high, visible from Paul’s Churchyard to the Goat and Compasses at Peckham, it could have been no plainer. . . . Hist, I’ll whisper it. I, Sir Spaniel Lilyliver, do hereby bind myself to take thee—what’s the name of the green girl that was cast up in a lobster pot covered with seaweed? Flavinda, eh? Flavinda, so—to be my wedded wife . . . O for a lawyer to have it all in writing!
LADY H. H. On condition, Sir Spaniel.
SIR S. L. On condition, Asphodilla.
(Both speak together.)
That the money is shared between us.
LADY H. H. We want no lawyer to certify that! Your hand on it, Sir Spaniel!
SIR S. L. Your lips, Madam!
(They embrace.)
SIR S. L. Pah! She stinks!
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the indigenous old lady in her bathchair.
“Reason, begad! Reason!” exclaimed old Bartholomew, and looked at his son as if exhorting him to give over these womanish vapours and be a man, Sir.
Giles sat straight as a dart, his feet tucked under him.
Mrs. Manresa had out her mirror and lipstick and attended to her lips and nose.
The gramophone, while the scene was removed, gently stated certain facts which everybody knows to be perfectly true. The tune said, more or less, how Eve, gathering her robes about her, stands reluctant still to let her dewy mantle fall. The herded flocks, the tune continued, in peace repose. The poor man to his cot returns, and, to the eager ears of wife and child, the simple story of his toil relates: what yield the furrow bears; and how the team the plover on the nest has spared; while Wat her courses ran; and speckled eggs in the warm hollow lay. Meanwhile the good wife on the table spreads her simple fare; and to the shepherd’s flute, from toil released, the nymphs and swains join hands and foot it on the green. Then Eve lets down her sombre tresses brown and spreads her lucent veil o’er hamlet, spire, and mead, etc., etc. And the tune repeated itself once more.
The view repeated in its own way what the tune was saying. The sun was sinking; the colours were merging; and the view was saying how after toil men rest from their labours; how coolness comes; reason prevails; and having unharnessed the team from the plough, neighbours dig in cottage gardens and lean over cottage gates.
The cows, making a step forward, then standing still, were saying the same thing to perfection.
Folded in this triple melody, the audience sat gazing and beheld gently and approvingly without interrogation, for it seemed inevitable, a box tree in a green tub take the place of the ladies’ dressing-room; while on what seemed to be a wall, was hung a great clock face; the hands pointing to three minutes to the hour; which was seven.
Mrs. Elmhurst roused herself from her reverie; and looked at her programme.
“Scene Two. The Mall,” she read out. “Time; early morning. Enter Flavinda. Here she comes!”
Here came Millie Loder (shop assistant at Messrs. Hunt and Dicksons, drapery emporium), in sprigged satin, representing Flavinda.
FLAV. Seven he said, and there’s the clock’s word for it. But Valentine—where’s Valentine? La! How my heart beats! Yet it’s not the time o’ day, for I’m often afoot before the sun’s up in the meadows . . . See—the fine folk passing. All a-tiptoeing like peacocks with spread tails! And I in my petticoat that looked so fine by my Aunt’s cracked mirror. Why, here it’s a dish clout . . . And they heap their hair up like a birthday cake stuck about with candles. . . . That’s a diamond—that’s a ruby . . . Where’s Valentine? The Orange Tree in the Mall, he said. The tree—there. Valentine—nowhere. That’s a courtier, I’ll warrant, that old fox with his tail between his legs. That’s a serving wench out without her master’s knowledge. That’s a man with a broom to sweep paths for the fine ladies’ flounces . . . La! the red in their cheeks! They never got that in the fields, I warrant! O faithless, cruel, hard-hearted Valentine. Valentine! Valentine!
(She wrings her hands, turning from side to side.)
Didn’t I leave my bed a-tiptoe and steal like a mouse in the wainscot for fear of waking Aunt? And lard my hair from her powder box? And scrub my cheeks to make ’em shine? And lie awake watching the stars climb the chimney pots? And give my gold guinea that Godfather hid behind the mistletoe last Twelfth Night to Deb so she shouldn’t tell on me? And grease the key in the lock so that Aunt shouldn’t wake and shriek Flavvy! Flavvy! Val, I say Val——That’s him coming. . . . No, I could tell him a mile off the way he strides the waves like what d’you call him in the picture book. . . . That’s not Val. . . . That’s a cit; that’s a fop; raising his glass, prithee, to have his fill of me . . . I’ll be home then . . . No, I won’t . . . That’s to play the green girl again and sew samplers . . . I’m of age, ain’t I, come Michaelmas? Only three turns of the moon and I inherit . . . Didn’t I read it in the Will the day the ball bounced on top of the old chest where Aunt keeps her furbelows, and the lid opened? . . . “All I die possessed of to my Daughter . . .” So far I’d read when the old lady came tapping down the passage like a blind man in an alley. . . . I’m no castaway, I’d have you know, Sir; no fish-tailed mermaid with a robe of sea weed, at your mercy. I’m a match for any of ’em—the chits you dally with, and bid me meet you at the Orange Tree when you’re drowsing the night off spent in their arms. . . . Fie upon you, Sir, making sport with a poor girl so. . . . I’ll not cry, I swear I won’t. I’ll not brew a drop of the salt liquid for a man who’s served me so. . . . Yet to think on’t—how we hid in the dairy the day the cat jumped. And read romances under the holly tree. La! how I cried when the Duke left poor Polly. . . . And my Aunt found me with eyes like red jellies. “What stung, niece?” says she. And cried “Quick Deb, the blue bag.” I told ye . . . La, to think I read it all in a book and cried for another! . . . Hist, what’s there among the trees? It’s come—it’s gone. The breeze is it? In the shade now—in the sun now. . . . Valentine on my life! It’s he! Quick, I’ll hide. Let the tree conceal me!
(Flavinda hides behind the tree.)
He’s here . . . He turns . . . He casts about . . . He’s lost the scent . . . He gazes—this way, that way. . . . Let him feast his eyes on the fine faces—taste ’em, sample ’em, say: “That’s the fine lady I danced with . . . that I lay with . . . that I kissed under the mistletoe . . .” Ha! How he spews ’em out! Brave Valentine! How he casts his eyes upon the ground! How his frowns become him! “Where’s Flavinda?” he sighs. “She I love like the heart in my breast.” See him pull his watch out! “O faithless wretch!” he sighs. See how he stamps the earth! Now turns on his heel. . . . He sees me—no, the sun’s in his eyes. Tears fill ’em . . . Lord, how he fingers his sword! He’ll run it through his breast like the Duke in the story book! . . . Stop, Sir, stop!
(She reveals herself.)
VALENTINE. . . . O Flavinda, O!
FLAVINDA. . . . O Valentine, O!
(They embrace.)
The clock strikes nine.
“All that fuss about nothing!” a voice exclaimed. People laughed. The voice stopped. But the voice had seen; the voice had heard. For a moment Miss La Trobe behind her tree glowed with glory. The next, turning to the villagers who were passing in and out between the trees, she barked:
“Louder! Louder!”
For the stage was empty, the emotion must be continued; the only thing to continue the emotion was the song and the words were inaudible.
“Louder! Louder!” She threatened them with her clenched fists.
Digging and delving (they sang), hedging and ditching, we pass. . . . Summer and winter, autumn and spring return . . . All passes but we, all changes . . . but we remain forever the same . . . (The breeze blew gaps between their words.)
“Louder, louder!” Miss La Trobe vociferated.
Palaces tumble down (they resumed), Babylon, Nineveh, Troy . . . And Caesar’s great house . . . allfallen they lie . . . Where the plover nests was the arch . . . through which the Romans trod . . . Digging and delving we break with the share of the plough the clod . . . Where Clytemnestra watched for her Lord . . . saw the beacons blaze on the hills . . . we see only the clod . . . Digging and delving we pass. . . . and the Queen and the Watch Tower fall . . . for Agamemnon has ridden away. . . . Clytemnestra is nothing but. . . .
The words died away. Only a few great names—Babylon, Nineveh, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Troy—floated across the open space. Then the wind rose, and in the rustle of the leaves even the great words became inaudible; and the audience sat staring at the villagers, whose mouths opened, but no sound came.
And the stage was empty. Miss La Trobe leant against the tree, paralyzed. Her power had left her. Beads of perspiration broke on her forehead. Illusion had failed. “This is death,” she murmured, “death.”
Then suddenly, as the illusion petered out, the cows took up the burden. One had lost her calf. In the very nick of time she lifted her great moon-eyed head and bellowed. All the great moon-eyed heads laid themselves back. From cow after cow came the same yearning bellow. The whole world was filled with dumb yearning. It was the primeval voice sounding loud in the ear of the present moment. Then the whole herd caught the infection. Lashing their tails, blobbed like pokers, they tossed their heads high, plunged and bellowed, as if Eros had planted his dart in their flanks and goaded them to fury. The cows annihilated the gap; bridged the distance; filled the emptiness and continued the emotion.
Miss La Trobe waved her hand ecstatically at the cows.
“Thank Heaven!” she exclaimed.
Suddenly the cows stopped; lowered their heads, and began browsing. Simultaneously the audience lowered their heads and read their programmes.
“The producer,” Mrs. Elmhurst read out for her husband’s benefit, “craves the indulgence of the audience. Owing to lack of time a scene has been omitted; and she begs the audience to imagine that in the interval Sir Spaniel Lilyliver has contracted an engagement with Flavinda; who had been about to plight her troth; when Valentine, hidden inside the grandfather’s clock, steps forward; claims Flavinda as his bade; reveals the plot to rob her of her inheritance; and, during the confusion that ensues, the lovers fly together, leaving Lady Harpy and Sir Spaniel alone together.”
“We’re asked to imagine all that,” she said, putting down her glasses.
“That’s very wise of her,” said Mrs. Manresa, addressing Mrs. Swithin. “If she’d put it all in, we should have been here till midnight. So we’ve got to imagine, Mrs. Swithin.” She patted the old lady on the knee.
“Imagine?” said Mrs. Swithin. “How right! Actors show us too much. The Chinese, you know, put a dagger on the table and that’s a battle. And so Racine . . .”
“Yes, they bore one stiff,” Mrs. Manresa interrupted, scenting culture, resenting the snub to the jolly human heart. “T’other day I took my nephew—such a jolly boy at Sandhurst—to Pop Goes the Weasel. Seen it?” She turned to Giles.
“Up and down the City Road,” he hummed by way of an answer.
“Did your Nanny sing that!” Mrs. Manresa exclaimed. “Mine did. And when she said ‘Pop’ she made a noise like a cork being drawn from a ginger-beer bottle. Pop!”
She made the noise.
“Hush, hush,” someone whispered.
“Now I’m being naughty and shocking your aunt,” she said. “We must be good and attend. This is Scene Three. Lady Harpy Harraden’s Closet. The sound of horses’ hooves is heard in the distance.”
The sound of horses’ hooves, energetically represented by Albert the idiot with a wooden spoon on a tray, died away.
LADY H. H. Half-way to Gretna Green already. O my deceitful niece! You that I rescued from the brine and stood on the hearthstone dripping! O that the whale had swallowed you whole! Perfidious porpoise, O! Didn’t the Horn book teach you Honour thy Great Aunt? How have you misread it and misspelt it, learnt thieving and cheating and reading of wills in old boxes and hiding of rascals in honest time-pieces that have never missed a second since King Charles’s day! O Flavinda! O porpoise, O!
SIR S. L. (trying to pull on his jack boots). Old—old—old. He called me “old”—“To your bed, old fool, and drink hot posset!”
LADY H. H. And she, stopping at the door and pointing the finger of scorn at me said “old,” Sir—“woman” Sir—I that am in the prime of life and a lady!
SIR S. L. (tugging at his boots). But I’ll be even with him. I’ll have the law on ’em! I’ll run ’em to earth . . .
(He hobbles up and down, one boot on, one boot off.)
LADY H. H. (laying her hand on his arm). Have mercy on your gout, Sir Spaniel. Bethink you, Sir—let’s not run mad, we that are on the sunny side of fifty. What’s this youth they prate on? Nothing but a goose feather blown on a north wind. Sit you down, Sir Spaniel. Rest your leg——so——
(She pushes a cushion under his leg.)
SIR S. L. “Old” he called me . . . jumping from the clock like a jack-in-the-box . . . And she, making mock of me, points to my leg and cries “Cupid’s darts, Sir Spaniel, Cupid’s darts.” O that I could braise ’em in a mortar and serve ’em up smoking hot on the altar of—O my gout, O my gout!
LADY H. H. This talk, Sir, ill befits a man of sense. Bethink you, Sir, only t’other day you were invoking—ahem—the Constellations. Cassiopeia, Aldebaran; the Aurora Borealis . . . It’s not to be denied that one of ’em has left her sphere, has shot, has eloped, to put it plainly, with the entrails of a time-piece, the mere pendulum of a grandfather’s clock. But, Sir Spaniel, there are some stars that—ahem—stay fixed; that shine, to put it in a nutshell, never so bright as by a sea-coal fire on a brisk morning.
SIR S. L. O that I were five and twenty with a sharp sword at my side!
LADY H. H. (bridling). I take your meaning, Sir. Tee hee—To be sure, I regret it as you do. But youth’s not all. To let you into a secret, I’ve passed the meridian myself. Am on t’other side of the Equator too. Sleep sound o’ nights without turning. The dog days are over. . . . But bethink you, Sir. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
SIR S. L. God’s truth Ma’am . . . ah my foot’s like a burning, burning horseshoe on the devil’s anvil ah!—What’s your meaning?
LADY H. H. My meaning, Sir? Must I disrupt my modesty and unquilt that which has been laid in lavender since my lord, peace be to his name—’tis twenty years since—was lapped in lead? In plain words, Sir, Flavinda’s flown. The cage is empty. But we that have bound our wrists with cowslips might join ’em with a stouter chain. To have done with fallals and figures. Here am I, Asphodilla—but my plain name Sue. No matter what my name is—Asphodilla or Sue—here am I, hale and hearty, at your service. Now that the plot’s out, Brother Bob’s bounty must go to the virgins. That’s plain. Here’s Lawyer Quill’s word for it. “Virgins . . . in perpetuity . . . sing for his soul.” And I warrant you, he has need of it . . . But no matter. Though we have thrown that to the fishes that might have wrapped us in lamb’s-wool, I’m no beggar. There’s messuages; tenements; napery; cattle; my dowry; an inventory. I’ll show you; engrossed on parchment; enough I’ll warrant you to keep us handsomely, for what’s to run of our time, as husband and wife.
SIR S. L. Husband and wife! So that’s the plain truth of it! Why, Madam, I’d rather lash myself to a tar barrel, be bound to a thorn tree in a winter’s gale. Faugh!
LADY H. H. . . . A tar barrel, quotha! A thorn tree—quotha! You that were harping on galaxies and milky ways! You that were swearing I outshone ’em all! A pox on you—you faithless! You shark, you! You serpent in jack boots, you! So you won’t have me? Reject my hand do you?
(She proffers her hand; he strikes it from him.)
SIR S. L. . . . Hide your chalk stones in a woollen mit! pah! I’ll none of ’em! Were they diamond, pure diamond, and half the habitable globe and all its concubines strung in string round your throat I’d none of it . . . none of it. Unhand me, scritch owl, witch, vampire! Let me go!
LADY H. H. . . . So all your fine words were tinsel wrapped round a Christmas cracker!
SIR S. L. . . . Bells hung on an ass’s neck! Paper roses on a barber’s pole . . . O my foot, my foot . . . Cupid’s darts, she mocked me . . . Old, old, he called me old . . .
