The Painted Swan

ACT I

ACT I

Scene: Ann’s boudoir at Candover. The butler is directing two footmen, who are piling up blankets, garments, etc.

[Enter Lord William and Selina in travelling clothes. Lord William over to fire L.

Selina: How are you, Thompson?

[Moves over to chair D. S. L.

Thompson: Very well, thank you, Miss Selina.

Selina: Has no one else arrived yet?

Thompson: No, miss. Lady Emily and Mr. Carstairs have been here since yesterday. Mrs. Martineau and Mr. Molyneux and Mr. Jordan are coming by the three o’clock train and should be here in a few minutes.

Selina: We would have been down an hour ago if the car hadn’t been suffering from asthma.

Lord William: Who is the Mr. Jordan who is coming, Thompson?

Thompson: I believe him to be in the Cabinet, m’lord.

Selina: Aren’t you sure?

Thompson: Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, Miss Selina.

Selina: Why do you always say you believe when you know, Thompson?

Thompson: My father always said to me, miss, a good servant should never presume to be sure. He should avoid conveying information as if he were instructing his betters.

Lord William: A wise man, your father, Thompson—if only people could get it into their heads that each time they are right somebody loves them less. How is her ladyship?

Thompson: Overworking, m’lord.

Lord William: What at?

[Sits settee L.

Thompson: Other people, m’lord.

Selina: Other people?

[Sits D. S. L.

Thompson: Other people’s happiness, Miss Selina.

Selina: Ah!

Thompson: Her ladyship can’t see that the worthless is the worthless.

Selina: She doesn’t try to improve them, does she, Thompson?

Thompson: No, miss—to make them happy. Pampering the riff-raff that’s what she does. Why, only the other day she was taken in by a swindler, and do you know what she said, m’lord?

Lord William: No.

Thompson: She said, “Well, it’s much better than if he’d been honest and I’d not believed him.”

Selina: Don’t you try and protect her against herself, Thompson?

Thompson: I try, Miss Selina, but then, her ladyship says: “You aren’t kind to me, Thompson,” and I capitulate. Human and mortal, that’s what we all are.

[He goes out.

Selina: (calling to him at the door): Thompson!

Thompson: Miss Selina?

Selina: You haven’t admired my new hat.

Thompson: Very neat, I’m sure——

[Exit Thompson.

Selina: Funny, isn’t it, a saint like Ann coming out of our family.

[Enter Tim.

Lord William: How de do, Tim?

Selina: How’s Ann?

Tim: She’s looking tired.

Selina: Is Ninian here?

Tim: He doesn’t arrive till seven-thirty.

Lord William: The others are coming by the three o’clock train—Molly, Mr. Jordan and Mrs. Martineau.

Tim: Yes.

Selina: I never can think why Ann should see so much of Mabel Martineau.

Tim: They played together in the nursery.

Selina: That’s the only explanation that’s ever brought forward for Mabel.

Lord William: She’s rather an amusing little viper.

Tim: But she stings so continuously that I don’t believe she could stop if she wanted to.

Selina: She certainly is no respecter of persons.

Tim: Some day she will sting Ann.

Selina: She really would be fond of Ann if it weren’t for you.

Tim: Me?

Selina: She’s a little bit in love with you.

Tim: Nonsense.

Lord William: And why not? An attractive, personable young man like you.

Selina: Papa, you’ve made Tim blush.

Lord William: It’s easier nowadays to make a young man blush than a young woman.

Selina: One’s cheeks can’t always respond to one’s feelings.

Lord William: Do you know Jordan, Tim?

Tim: A little.

Selina: What’s he like?

Tim: Heavy and common and on the make.

Selina: Why does Ann like him?

Lord William: One of her endowment schemes, I expect.

Selina: What do you mean, Papa?

Lord William: That Ann goes about endowing people with her own qualities. Very unfair to the poor things, of course, as they have to revert to type sooner or later.

Tim: I don’t know—if she can breathe some of her own spirit into them they must be permanently enriched.

[Mrs. Martineau, Mr. Molyneux and Mr. Jordan are shown in. General greetings.

[Mrs. Martineau introduces Jordan to Lord William and Selina.

Lord William: Did you come down by train?

Jordan: Yes.

Mrs. Martineau: There was a most charming man in the carriage—quite drunk. He looked round at us all and said: “I’m glad I’m not here.”

Molyneux: Unfortunately he got out at the next station, which must have taken the edge off his enjoyment.

Mrs. Martineau: Where is Ann?

Lord William: I don’t know.

Molyneux: We should see more of Ann if we could appear to her as a duty. Unfortunately, we are undoubtedly a pleasure.

Selina: You might make a bid as sinners in need of reform.

Tim: But that is just what is so wonderful about Ann. She never wants anyone to be better—only happier.

Lord William: Ann is my niece. She is, of course, a saint, but she is not a fool. No Cathcart is a fool.

Selina: Amen.

Lord William: Don’t interrupt. I was about to say something very good.

Selina: Would you like to “think it out in silence?”

Lord William: What were we talking about?

Mrs. Martineau: There is only one subject in this house.

Selina: We were talking about Ann.

Lord William: Yes—but what were you actually saying?

Selina: Tim said that Ann never tried to make people good, but only happy.

Mrs. Martineau: Only!

Lord William: I remember I was about to say that in practice goodness and happiness are much the same thing.

Selina: Bravo!

Molyneux: My dear Bill, surely that is a platitude?

Lord William: Even a platitude can contain a truth.

Molyneux: But we are few of us brave enough to admit it.

Selina: What do you think, Mr. Jordan?

Jordan: I think that the truth can be found in very unexpected places.

Selina: The obvious, for instance?

Jordan: I wasn’t thinking of that.

Selina: Indeed?

Lord William: Is this your first visit here, Mr. Jordan?

Jordan: No.

Lord William: Then you know Ninian?

Jordan: I have just met Lord Candover.

Molyneux: Then you know Ninian.

[They laugh.

Selina: Ninian is first-hand information.

Mrs. Martineau: What do you mean?

Selina: That you learn all there is to be learnt the first time.

Lord William: No one can tell you anything about him. The whole truth is revealed in five minutes.

Selina: Yes, indeed. It doesn’t take a detective to know what Ninian is like.

Lord William: He is the family masterpiece.

Selina: By marriage.

Molyneux: A very inconvenient institution, marriage. Illogical when you want one thing, to have another.

Selina: You mean when you want one person to have two?

Molyneux: Precisely.

Selina: Ninian would be perfect if we didn’t have so much of him. He never fails one.

Lord William: He combines under the cover of an English gentleman—

Selina: Of a Lord Lieutenant.

Lord William: I accept the amendment, of a Lord Lieutenant; the ridiculous and the sublime.

Selina: And that, mind you, without taking the proverbial step.

Tim: He is our host and Ann’s husband.

Mrs. Martineau: Tim, you are becoming a prig.

Tim: Perhaps, but we must think of Ann.

Mrs. Martineau (acidly): Perhaps, but you think of nothing else.

Molyneux: Thinking about Ann is a delightful occupation. It is like thinking about primroses and spring and lilac bushes and blue-bell woods, all of the things, in fact, that we are too clever or too stupid to think about.

Lord William: You left out skylarks and rippling brooks and blossoming trees.

Mrs. Martineau (acidly): And red flannel blankets.

Molyneux: I should like to have forgotten them.

Lord William: Think of Molly dreaming about primroses and red flannel and you will realize that Ann is something more than a saint.

Selina: A saint who works miracles.

Mrs. Martineau: A siren, in fact.

Lord William: You should always remember, Selina, that virtue has its charms.

Molyneux: Which will be a strain, my poor child, as you will seldom be reminded of it.

Tim: Except when you are staying with Ann.

Selina: I am afraid that, however virtuous I may become, I shall never be as charming as Ann.

Mrs. Martineau (acidly): Not in Tim’s eyes.

Lord William: Let me beg you, my dear, not to regard Tim as representative of his sex. He is a knight errant. He puts women on a pedestal.

Molyneux: A gallant form of shelving.

Mrs. Martineau: He divides the world into saints and cocottes, and, as there are many who fall between the two stools, they are disposed of as “children of nature.”

Tim: Come!

Mrs. Martineau: You would be surprised, Selina, at Tim’s child of nature. She can powder and paint, languish and pounce, but, if she was never a saint and is not yet in the gutter, we are forced to accept her as a pure, wild creature, trapped in our horrible society.

[They laugh.

Molyneux: You are silent, Jordan.

Mrs. Martineau: Mr. Jordan is making a reputation.

Lord William: Be careful, you will find it impossible to lose.

Molyneux: We are a faithful people. A little late, perhaps, but true to the end. Have you ever known an English audience to recognize a singer till she’s forty, or disown her till she’s dead?

Lord William: Remember, Jordan, one evening may stamp you as a drunkard, one mot advertise you as a wit, one adventure immortalize you as a Don Juan.

Jordan: Will one speech proclaim me an orator?

Lord William: Speeches are swallows that never make a summer.

Selina: Do you take things seriously, Mr. Jordan?

Lord William: Really, Selina, you make me ashamed of your upbringing. You mustn’t ask a rising young statesman a question like that. He might have to say “yes” and then we should think him a fool.

Jordan: Don’t worry, Miss Selina. I am brave enough to admit that I take some things seriously.

Selina: Women?

Mrs. Martineau: Woman!

Jordan: Some women.

Molyneux: The election wasn’t lost on you, Jordan; you learnt to qualify.

Selina: Do please tell us a little more. Are the women you take seriously serious women?

Lord William: Selina, you are my daughter, and in every sense of the word, my creation. I have told you before now that your cousin Ann is the only serious woman in the world. I am for the moment using the term woman as a form of praise. There are, of course, many serious persons of the female sex.

Tim: I don’t call Ann serious. She bubbles over with gaiety.

Mrs. Martineau: But she takes things seriously.

Selina: She is good.

Molyneux: She is unique. A woman we all adore, who can be described as good.

Selina: Do you adore Ann, Mr. Jordan?

Jordan: Yes.

Lord William: Well, I wish she weren’t up to so many good works. As for her virtue it is a “Trespassers will be prosecuted” signal that you can see for miles.

Selina: Papa, I think you’re very vulgar.

Tim: Ann is so radiantly uncensoriously good.

Molyneux: Ann is a damned good-looking woman.

Lord William: But she does lead a silly life. I did think that once the war was over and she had stopped nursing cholera in Siberia we should be all right. But what has peace brought us? Why, the house is positively infested with Mayors and clergymen and cranks and old maids, and when she’s tired of talking to her Socialist friends, she thinks of Ninian, plasters on the family jewels, resumes the rôle of the Lord Lieutenant’s wife and entertains the county. Disgusting, I call it.

Molyneux: William and I have never believed in entertaining the county.

Lord William: I confess I am sometimes entertained by it.

Molyneux: My appetite is too jaded to enjoy the hunting exploits of the squire or the cameos of his lady.

Lord William: And the parson is always collecting for an organ.

Mrs. Martineau: Ann is so strange; she really seems to enjoy it.

Timothy: That is because everything is dramatic to her. She doesn’t know what patronage means, so everyone tells her their secrets.

Mrs. Martineau: They can’t be very interesting secrets.

Timothy: All secrets are interesting.

Molyneux: All secrets are the same.

Lord William: The tiresome thing about a secret is that no one believes you know one till you’ve told it.

Mrs. Martineau: Ann is so patient. She can listen for hours to the laundry-maid.

Timothy: Ann is so interested. She knows that all of the romance in the world is contained in the laundry-maid’s love affair.

Molyneux: All lovers are the same. That is why I gave up being one. I realized that the only new rôle I could assume was that of a husband, and marriage seemed too heavy a price to pay.

Mrs. Martineau: And everyone knows all about husbands.

Molyneux: To tell you the truth, I wanted to keep one illusion. I was afraid that if I married I might discover that wives deceive their lovers with their husbands.

Lord William: Molly and I gave up sentimental adventures when we noticed that we were becoming sentimental. We decided to take to dry wit.

Molyneux: We are universally considered as wits, and as that reputation, so easily gained, is impossible to lose, we are dragooned by public opinion and our own self-respect into living up to it.

Lord William: You see, Jordan, a reputation is a prison.

Mrs. Martineau: And self-respect is the jailor.

Selina: What is self-respect, Tim?

Tim: The thing that makes Mrs. Martineau dress for dinner when she is alone in the country, that prevents Jordan from buying a vote, Lord William from making a bad joke——

Mrs. Martineau: And Ann from having a lover.

Lord William: Lord bless my soul, Ann has not been prevented from having a lover. The possibility never occurred to her.

Mrs. Martineau: If it did she would reject it without a pang. Ann’s moral tidiness is unequalled.

Tim (angrily): Is that your definition of effortless radiant goodness?

Mrs. Martineau: I only meant that Ann is not exactly a Bohemian. All her meals are in the dining-room. There are no trays in her life.

Tim: That is Ninian.

Mrs. Martineau: Well, she is responsible for him, isn’t she? Husbands aren’t gifts from God like one’s relations.

Molyneux: A husband is every woman’s first big mistake.

Mrs. Martineau: Which is the next?

Molyneux: Her second lover.

Mrs. Martineau: How subtle you are.

Lord William: A woman’s first lover is usually a slight caricature of her husband. People don’t escape from one thing to another, but from one thing to the same thing.

Molyneux: There you are again, Bill, always dragging in your confounded philosophy.

Mrs. Martineau: What is your philosophy?

Molyneux: It isn’t really philosophy at all—Bill maintains that life is a merry-go-round always coming back to the same point.

Lord William: And we poor fools think that we are steering our painted swans when we can turn them neither to right nor to left. Why, we can’t even make them go faster or slower.

Jordan: You don’t believe in free will, Lord William?

Lord William: I believe that one can fall off.

Selina: Mr. Jordan, do you think that this is the right atmosphere in which to bring up a young girl?

Mrs. Martineau: We shall drive you to romance.

Selina: And then what will become of me?

Lord William: You will return to us, my dear.

Selina: I can’t think why Ann has you in the house.

Lord William: I am her uncle. She believes that Molly has a heart of gold. Mrs. Martineau played with her in the nursery. Tim is a saint, and Jordan, as he told you, takes some women and some things seriously. Ann is the woman and she selects the things.

[Enter Lady Emily Cathcart.

Lady Emily: Where is Ann?

Mrs. Martineau: Still at her Red Cross meeting.

Lord William: Emily, as a maiden lady of immaculate reputation——

Molyneux: Remember you are speaking of your sister, Bill.

Lady Emily: Molly, you are taking away my character.

Molyneux (gallantly): I am too modest to hope to succeed where so many have failed.

Lord William: I was about to ask my sister, before Molly interrupted with the rather half-hearted propositions we have just been listening to—I was about to ask my sister whether she does not consider that Ann is becoming almost too much of a good thing.

Lady Emily: Too good, you mean?

Mrs. Martineau: For this world.

Lady Emily: For our world.

Tim: Ann couldn’t live in your world. It is too small. She would die for lack of exercise.

Mrs. Martineau: She will die of exhaustion if she tries to combine Whitechapel and the County.

Molyneux: I regard Ninian as the most fatiguing item in the account. He has only two topics of conversation—his responsibilities and his improvements.

Lord William: And if you boil them down, they become the same thing—his pigstys.

Molyneux: You’re a nice unselfish boy, Tim: couldn’t you kill Ninian?

Lord William: Wait a moment, Tim. This requires serious consideration. Wouldn’t Ninian’s death leave Ann even busier than she is?

Lady Emily: And she might marry someone she loved, which would be very inconvenient for you all.

Molyneux: I don’t see that we profit much by the present state of affairs.

Tim: Ann’s in touch with so many kinds of life.

Mrs. Martineau: Ann is a woman of the world.

Tim: But not of this age.

Molyneux: Ann is the only spot of repose in the twentieth century. When she sits in a chair she doesn’t fidget; when she talks to you her attention doesn’t wander to someone else. When she wants to be listened to, she lowers her voice a little. I am sure that when she goes to bed she sleeps, and that when she wakes up she is refreshed.

Selina: Mr. Molyneux, you’re quite romantic.

Lady Emily: You talk very little for a politician, Mr. Jordan.

Jordan: You all talk so well, it is a pleasure to listen.

Lady Emily: What you mean is, that we are difficult to interrupt. It is quite true. But once you cease to be discouraged by finding that what you hoped was going to be a solo is either a duet or a chorus, you will soon begin to rush in on all occasions, and ultimately you will learn to force a hearing for yourself.

[Enter Ann.

[They all get up and help her off with her things, finally pushing her on to a sofa.

Ann: How spoilt I am.

Lady Emily: How tired you are.

Ann: But being with you all will soon put that right.

Lord William: You have missed a lot, Ann. Molly and I were at our best.

Ann: I hate to have missed a moment of it, but you are both always at your best.

Selina: We were all very characteristic. Aunt Emily flirted with Mr. Molyneux, and Mrs. Martineau tried to flirt with Tim; Papa balanced precariously on a tight-rope of wit over an abyss of vulgarity, and Mr. Jordan was silent.

Ann: And what did you do?

Selina: I helped them to their remarks by asking questions.

Mrs. Martineau: Selina treats everyone as if they were performing animals. Except animals.

Selina: I love animals.

Ann: It all sounds delightful. What did you talk about?

Tim: About you, of course.

Lord William: We tried to talk about other things, but you have a way of making conversation into a boomerang.

Ann: I am afraid you can’t have said nice things, or the conversation would have died out very quickly.

Molyneux: We said that you were unique, good, and yet adored by us all.

Lord William: Molly said that. Whenever anyone describes a conversation, they always repeat their own remarks.

Ann: What did you say, Uncle Bill?

Lord William: I said that as far as you were concerned, winning the war had done us no good at all, that your life was becoming a perfect slum of good works. We all feel that we are between the Scylla of Whitechapel and the Charybdis of the County.

Selina: We must tell Ninian that the County has been rechristened Charybdis. The Lord Lieutenant of Charybdis—what a magnificent title!

Ann: In reality, as you know, I am an altogether self-indulgent woman.

Mrs. Martineau: You are so charming, Ann darling, that you entangle other people’s selfishness—to be self-sacrificing is useless. The essential thing is to receive the egotism of others on deposit.

Ann: I know that you are all shamefully nice to me, and the result is that I spend the whole time with you when I ought to be talking to the vicar or calling on Lady Bootle.

Lord William: How is the dear old vicar?

Ann: Very well.

Mrs. Martineau: And Mrs. Sidebotham?

Ann: She prefers it to be pronounced Sidebotham.

Mrs. Martineau: And being very properly called Amy, she spells it Aimee.

Lady Emily: She still believes in the aristocracy. So lucky.

Molyneux: Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Ann: Do you think she is as complicated as that?

Lady Emily: She asked me after William, saying, “Your dear brother will have his little joke.”

Lord William: Couldn’t you explain to her, Ann, that my jokes are large and monumental, and world-famous?

Ann: I don’t think she would understand. To Mrs. Sidebotham all jokes are “little jokes,”—household pets in fact.

Lord William: Personally, I prefer the dear vicar to his wife. Can’t you give me any news of him?

Ann: He is such a kind man—just as high as ever, calling the Church of England the Catholic Church, with a long “a,” and he knows that Christ was a Jew.

Lady Emily: Did you tell him?

Ann: I don’t think so.

Lady Emily: Well, he couldn’t have heard it from Ninian.

Selina: I hated him when I was a child. He always said “How are we this morning?” And I never could abide the medical touch in private life.

Molyneux: Ann, you are very stingy of the County news, which, however much we may try to conceal it, really thrills us. How is Lady Bootle?

Ann: Very rich.

Lord William: I don’t like her wig.

Mrs. Martineau: Why do wigs always calumniate hair?

Ann: You will see them all at dinner to-morrow.

Selina: And Sir Henry Bootle will say to Ninian: “That’s a new acquisition, isn’t it?” pointing to the oldest family portrait, and Ninian will reply: “It has hung there for four hundred years.” And Ann will be wretched. Then Lady Bootle will exclaim: “What a superb emerald,” and Ninian will indicate that it was given to an ancestress by Catherine the Great, and Ann will wish she hadn’t put it on.

Lady Emily: And the vicar will say to me: “Quite a stranger, Lady Emily,” which he always says, however often I come, and I will answer: “I had meant to be down before,” and he will shake his finger playfully at me, exclaiming: “A change of mind is the prerogative of the fair sex.” And at that moment, God willing, dinner will be announced.

Ann: I think you are all very unkind, and as I am very tired I am going to shoo you all away.

Lord William (grumbling): You manage things so simply, Ann. When you want people to come, you ask them to come, and when you want them to go, you ask them to go.

Lady Emily: Why can’t you let the poor child alone? She is tired.

Molyneux: We can believe that she is tired, but we are incapable of believing that we are not refreshing.

Ann: Of course you are refreshing. It is only that I am showing absolute self-interest. I don’t want even the film of a headache to come between us after dinner.

Lady Emily: Molly can never believe that a woman is resting. He remembers that in his youth it invariably meant that she was with someone else.

Molyneux: I have always felt that instead of saying strong as an ox, one should say strong as a woman.

Selina: You haven’t read your Shakespeare. “Frailty, thy name is woman.”

Molyneux: That had a moral, not a physical, significance, my dear. I am not speaking of robust virtue.

[They are talking themselves out of the room.

Ann: Aunt Emily—will you show Mabel her room?

Lady Emily: Certainly, my love.

Ann (calling to the door): Half-past eight dinner, everybody.

Tim (in an undertone): Might I stay for a moment or two? I will be quiet as a mouse.

Ann: Tim, dear.

Tim: Please don’t think that I am going to be tiresome. I do try to keep my thoughts away from you when you don’t want them, but it is so difficult.

Ann: My dear, I need all of the reinforcements that you can give me—always.

Tim: You are so nice, dearest, that you count on my being a fool.

Ann: You’re teasing me.

Tim: I know you can’t need anything. It is horrible to have nasty involuntary necessities nibbling things out of one’s wishes.

Ann: What wishes?

Tim: The wish to behave well.

Ann: I never want to behave well.

Tim: You’ve never had to.

Ann (to herself): Oh, my dear.

Tim: I always hope that there are going to be little things that I can do for you. I don’t ask you to need things. I only long—quite passionately—for you to want some thing.

Ann: It is so complicated—I need your love and I want you to be happy.

Tim: How deliciously simple that would be. You have my love and you make me happy.

Ann: Happy?

Tim: My love for you doesn’t make me unhappy any more. It has become a sort of religion.

Ann: Tim——

Tim: My reverent adoration is without requests and without claims. I don’t want you to step down off your altar, dearest.

Ann: Tim, you frighten me.

Tim: And they think you are cold or conventional because your wonderful goodness is a steady light, because you know nothing of ugly flares of passion, which first blind you and then leave everything dark.

Ann (shutting her eyes): Oh!

Tim: It is so difficult not to be selfish when one loves. It seems somehow to make everything so personal.

Ann (looking into distance): Yes.

Tim: You don’t say “How divinely she walks,” but “Is she coming straight to me?”

Ann: Yes.

Tim: There is a feverish unreality about everything, so that you feel that even physical pain would soothe your nerves.

Ann (under her breath): I know.

Tim (has not heard her): You want to be cruel ... or violent ... or something....

Ann: Tim dear, you have never wanted to hurt a fly in your life.

Tim: Oh yes, I have. When I first fell in love with you, I wanted to kill Ninian.

Ann: And now?

Tim: Now I just want to have him killed—not by my own hand, but impersonally. You see, Ann, you have taught me that there is something unblessed about the things you do for your own sake. Does it sound priggish? I mean that now I quite honestly don’t think about how things will affect me, but how they will affect you. It has made me so happy.

Ann: I don’t deserve it.

Tim: I don’t mean that I don’t want you with every breath of my body; the whole of me is yearning for you all the time. I feel a burning wave sweep through me whenever you walk into the room. When I hear your name suddenly, it makes me feel sick and giddy and excited. If I meet you unexpectedly I am like a nervous actor in the wings, waiting for his cue.

Ann: Tim....

Tim: Does it worry you if I talk like that? I am not trying to appeal to you, or fuss you, dearest. God knows I’m not.

Ann: I know, dear.

[She gives him her hand.

Tim (kissing it): Sometimes I have wondered what it would feel like to kiss you—just once.

Ann (putting her face up to him): There.

Tim: No. I’m not going to take advantage of your generosity. It would be sacrilege. I am not an irreverent worshipper nor an ungrateful one. I am proud to be allowed to kiss your finger tips.

Ann (bitterly): Why is it the selfish people who get so much out of one? Why do we go on pouring ourselves into shallow streams? Why can’t we love the people we want to love?

Tim (simply): I do.

Ann: Tim—I wish you didn’t think such wonderful things about me. Some day you will be so shocked. So surprised.

Tim: Never.

Ann: You will find out that I am not a saint at all.

Tim: I know you are a saint. Nothing can alter that.

Ann: You have created me in your own image, giving me all your own lovely qualities. They are a divine gift, Tim. Thank you for them.

Tim: What nonsense you talk. Everyone becomes good when they are with you.

Ann: Some day you may find out terrible things about me—and then what shall I do?

Tim: What you did wouldn’t matter, anyway.

Ann (looking at him intensely): Wouldn’t it? Are you sure?

Tim: Quite sure. It’s what you are. The warm glowing light you give. It doesn’t matter into what dark corners it goes, does it?

Ann (in a whisper): I wonder.

Tim: The places it lights and warms aren’t part of the sun, are they?

Ann: But people don’t work in that magnificent way. They select their just and their unjust. What human being is impartial?

Tim: You are, very nearly. You make everyone happy.

Ann: I don’t! My God—I don’t.

Tim: How I used to curse your marriage to Ninian. I do still in a way—and yet I am glad—selfishly glad, perhaps, that you have never been in love, that no hellish divine unrest has wrought havoc in your heart—that you are always there, serene and luminous and tender and whole.

Ann (wonderingly): Do you really think I am like that?

Tim: Yes. Not a searchlight, or a lamp, but sunshine out of doors.

Ann: My dear, I am a nervous, impatient, hungry, selfish creature.

Tim: You are a wicked woman, to fish after all the divine things I have been saying to you.

Ann: Tim, you spoil me.

Tim (seizing her shoulders): I’d love to spoil you, all day, every day, all of the time. I’m sorry, Ann. I’m being rough and uncontrolled, and worrying you. Forgive me.

Ann: Forgive you? Tim dear, you are an angel, and I am a very ordinary woman, and so tired.

Tim: Bless you.

[Tim tiptoes out of the room.

[There is a pause. Then Jordan enters quietly, shutting the door behind him.

Ann: Philip!

[Jordan walks to the window.

Ann: Darling, you haven’t kissed me.

Philip: Oh, I am thinking of something else, and kisses have nothing to do with it.

Ann: I don’t understand.

Philip: Women never do.

Ann: For God’s sake, don’t generalize—it sounds so cheap.

Philip: It’s my platform training.

Ann: You’re so strange to-day—is anything the matter?

Philip: Nothing and everything.

Ann: Are you angry with me?

Philip: No.

Ann: I am sorry if I was snappy.

[There is a pause.

Ann: In twenty minutes Ninian will be back from the station, the dressing-gong will ring, and I shall have to leave you. Oh, I wish there weren’t a clock in my heart telling me that time is running away.

Philip: It is half-past seven now.

Ann: All those lovely precious moments when I have you to myself ... don’t let them be empty moments, Philip. Think of all the agonizing happiness that we can fill them with.

Philip: Why do you always want things at fever pitch?

Ann: I don’t, but each time I am with you my love is like a child being born. It tears me to bits. And then there comes a moment of pure ecstasy and forgetfulness, and my life ceases to exist, and there is no time, and everything is simple.

Philip: My dear child, your nerves are out of order.

Ann: I’m sorry, darling. You do hate me to be what you call fanciful, don’t you?

Philip: Yes.

Ann: I’ll be just what you like. So good and sober and matter-of-fact if you’ll only smile.

Philip: One can’t always smile.

Ann: I can never help it when I’m with you. Smiles seem to flutter about my lips like butterflies. But sometimes I can’t help thinking—in an hour he’ll be gone, in ten minutes he’ll be gone. And then when people come into the room, I try to shut them out of my consciousness and imagine I am in your arms. Do you never do that?

Philip: No.

Ann: First I feel one arm around me, then the other.... I think of each finger of your hand and the features of your face getting closer and closer till they merge into my face, and your lips creeping about covering every bit of me with kisses—my neck, my eyes, my lips. And then I look up dazed and radiant and see some old man talking to me about the Tariff. Do you never do that?

Philip: No.

Ann: You are dreadfully wanting me to be sensible, aren’t you?

Philip: Yes.

[There is a pause.

Ann (nervously): Do Uncle Bill and Mr. Molyneux get on your nerves?

Philip: No.

Ann: They have hearts of gold, really.

Philip: Your universe is entirely populated by saints, and sinners who sin in order to become still greater saints.

[There is a pause.

Ann: Were you in your constituency yesterday?

Philip: Yes.

Ann: Did you make a speech? Was it a good meeting?

Philip: Fairly.

[There is another pause. Ann is crying silently.

Philip: What the devil is the matter now?

Ann: I don’t understand.

Philip: So you have already observed.

Ann: It’s dreadful. Why, we can’t even talk any more.

Philip: That does indeed put me in a unique position. Someone a Cathcart can’t talk to.

Ann: I can’t bear it. What have I done? Don’t you love me any more? Don’t I even amuse you?

Philip: I don’t know.

Ann: You see, I haven’t ever loved anyone before. I suppose I am clumsy—I can’t play it as a game, giving little bits of myself to make you want more. I don’t know how to.

Philip: An end was bound to come sooner or later, wasn’t it?

Ann: But I don’t see. How can there be an end? I belong to you—all of me—always. Philip, my beloved, my lover.

Philip (bitterly): How surprised they would be.

Ann: Philip, you are teasing me, aren’t you? You’re testing me? You want to see how much I care. It will always be so easy for you to hurt me, dear heart—too easy to be amusing.

[Philip is sitting on the sofa beside her and she is stroking his face.

Ann: But then, there is nothing difficult left, is there? Because it is just as easy—terribly easy—to make me happy.

Philip: Ann, haven’t you ever thought that love affairs don’t last for ever?

Ann: I have never thought of love affairs; I have only thought of love—which means you—and you, which means life.

Philip: You haven’t learnt much from your uncle and aunt, have you?

Ann: It makes me so dreadfully sad when I hear them, because I know—you have taught me—that they don’t understand life.

Philip: Suppose that they are right? They are careless and care-free, and courageous and clear-eyed, and old and young—why shouldn’t they be right?

Ann: They have never loved.

Philip: A hundred times.

Ann: It is the same thing.

[She is looking into his face.

Philip (more gently): What do you want?

Ann: I want to be kissed—to be kissed better, as we said in the nursery.

Philip: Where does it hurt?

Ann: It doesn’t hurt when you ask me.

Philip: Baby!

Ann: Beloved!

[Philip kisses her. Pause. Her face is buried on his shoulder.

Ann: Philip....

Philip: Yes?

Ann (happily): Why did you frighten me? It was wicked and cruel.

Philip: This is an impossible situation.

Ann (drowsily gay): Don’t talk business.

Philip: We can’t go on like this for ever.

Ann: We can’t help going on like this.

Philip: And if your husband finds out?

Ann (doubtfully): Perhaps he would divorce me; then we could marry.

Philip: How could I marry you?

Ann (still gay): Do members of Parliament never marry?

Philip: Ann, how can you be so exasperating?

Ann: Did she threaten him with respectability? It was a shame.

Philip: Of all the contrary little devils....

Ann: Philip, I’ve made you laugh.... Oh, I’m so happy. Do you know that ten minutes ago I thought I should never make you laugh again?

Philip: Ann, get up.

[Ann gets up.

Philip: Let me look at you. Ann—you are a beautiful woman.

Ann: So I’ve been told.

Philip: Ann, come here.

[Ann approaches him gingerly. Philip crushes her in his arms.

Ann: Philip, you’re hurting me!

Philip (passionately): I want to hurt you.

[Philip is pushing back her hair with one hand, and with the other he holds her at arm’s length. Very brutally he crushes her against himself, and then pushes her away again. Her hair is coming down and her lip is bleeding. At last he releases her and walks away with his back to her. Ann tremulously follows him and puts her hand on his arm. Philip turns.

Ann: Philip, you do love me, don’t you?

Philip (in a hard voice): I wonder.

Curtain

ACT II

ACT II — Scene I — Scene II

Ann, alone, walks about humming happily. Philip is shown in by Thompson.

Thompson: Mr. Jordan.

[Exit Thompson.

Ann: Philip——

Philip: Here I am.

Ann: But you can’t dine——

Philip: No, I must be in the House.

Ann: Of course.

Philip (suspiciously): Why do you say “of course”?

Ann (smiling): Because I am so well trained.

Philip: You sounded as if you were thinking of something.

Ann: My mind was in that rare and delightful state known as a perfect blank.

Philip: You don’t usually say “of course” when I break an engagement with you.

Ann: You told me it was so important to be sensible.

Philip: I doubt if the Almighty Himself could make you sensible. It wasn’t part of His conception——

Ann: But I have always known that you ought to go more to the House.

Philip (sharply): What do you mean?

Ann: That to be young and charming and promising and intelligent means nothing compared to being on the spot.

Philip: How practical you are getting.

Ann: It isn’t that I am getting practical; it is that every day you seem to be becoming more and more a part of me. You see, if you are always with me, it doesn’t matter quite so much that you should sometimes be away from me.

Philip: I don’t see.

Ann: Loving you used to make me unhappy, but now it makes me happy—now that I am sure. I used to feel “He isn’t looking at me, he isn’t thinking about me, his eyes aren’t even straying in my direction. He is quite happy on that sofa, quite concentrated—if only he were inattentive. But he isn’t.” But now I feel “It doesn’t matter what woman he is with, or what man—his heart is with me. I don’t need any stray looks, any accidental jealousy—he means so much to me now that I don’t want him to be anxious when he’s away from me. I want him to be confident.” When you are a little bit in love you are flattered by doubt, but when you really love you only want trust.

Philip: You give enough trust for two.

Ann: You make it so easy.

Philip: Ann——

Ann: Yes?

Philip (thinks better of it): Nothing.

Ann: Did you want to tell me something?

Philip: One can’t tell you anything. You have the divine scepticism of all the saints.

Ann: What do you mean?

Philip: All saints are unbelievers. They don’t believe in realities. They don’t even believe in mortality.

Ann (passionately): One can’t believe in mortality.

Philip: You must have seen enough death during the war.

Ann: That is why I can’t believe in mortality.

Philip: Doesn’t it let you down, always following your hopes?

Ann: What else can one follow?

Philip: Anyway, if it doesn’t let you down, it must let you in for things.

Ann: But I like being let in for things.

Philip: I wonder your illusions aren’t threadbare by now—you use them enough.

Ann: Philip, why do you go on keeping up a silly pretence of being hard and cold and cynical and heartless? They are all such foolish things to be. People are only hard because they are frightened, and cold because they are clumsy. As for cynicism, it is so misleading; it keeps you out of touch with life.

Philip: That seems an odd remark for a Cathcart.

Ann: Uncle Bill and Aunt Emily aren’t really cynical; they are just a little out of tune with the sort of lives we live. You ought to think of them as delicious museum pieces. You watch Uncle Bill if somebody makes a pun—he glows—not because he very much likes puns, but because they make him feel young. It must be so sad to see the world drifting away out of your ken into a strange new century full of distorted angles and alien values.

Philip (violently): I don’t understand you, any of you—your uncle or your aunt or Selina.

Ann (interrupting): Selina is just very young and uncompromising—a ruthless, fastidious realist. At least she thinks she is a realist, because she can face things, but it is so easy to face things before one has ever been hurt.

Philip: Then there is you.

Ann (laughing): There is me. (Tenderly): Are you glad?

Philip (who is walking up and down): You are the most mysterious of them all.

Ann: I am simplicity itself. It is only because you love me that you think me mysterious. The person you love is always mysterious because you have encircled them in the great mystery of love.

Philip (who is taking no notice of what she is saying): They all think you a saint, and they are right, I suppose. You see no evil, in anyone, not even in yourself.

Ann: Philip, how can you say a thing like that? No one knows better than I do that I am riddled with faults.

Philip: You are practically faultless, and yet it would seem as if virtue meant nothing to you.

Ann: What do you mean by virtue?

Philip: What other people mean by it.

Ann: That one’s body matters more than anything else?

Philip: I shouldn’t have put it like that.

Ann: Nor would the other people.

Philip: You think nothing of having a lover.

Ann: I think everything of it.

Philip: You don’t mind deceiving your husband.

Ann: You know I would have told him long ago if you had let me.

Philip (in despair at her blindness): Good God!

Ann: Don’t you remember we thought that although he doesn’t love me it would hurt him?

Philip (sneering): Ninian too is like other people.

Ann: Yes—once one has given one’s heart all other gifts are so small. That is where it seems to me that the moralists go wrong—they seem to think the body so much more important than the heart or the soul.

Philip: Moralists aren’t occupied with the heart or the soul. They are interested in the structure of society.

Ann: Then why don’t they become county councillors or politicians?

Philip: Because they would find difficulty in getting elected.

Ann: You look tired.

Philip: I am tired.

Ann: What has tired you? The things you have done or the things you haven’t done?

Philip: Both.

Ann: Tell me!

Philip (sharply): What?

Ann: Everything—anything.

Philip: There is nothing to tell.

Ann (teasing): You look like a man with a guilty secret.

Philip (startled): What are you driving at?

Ann (still gay): How should I know?

Philip: Well, I must be going.

Ann: Already?

Philip: Your guests will be arriving in a moment.

Ann: Philip, please say something nice to me before you go.

Philip: What do you mean by a nice thing?

Ann: Something obvious and all-embracing.

Philip: So you’ve reached the obvious, have you?

Ann: I have always believed in the obvious.

Philip: What would you call an obvious and all-embracing thing to say?

Ann: I love you.

Philip: Why do women always want to be told that one loves them? They must know whether it is true or not.

Ann: There may be truths that are better left unsaid, but there are no nice truths that are not the better for being repeated.

Philip: Do you call love a nice truth?

Ann: A respectable truth.

Philip: So long as you change the subject.

Ann: Don’t tease me, sweet.

Philip: I’m not teasing you.

Ann (stroking his forehead): I don’t want you to be tired or worried.... I don’t want you to have a conscience.

Philip: Not any conscience at all?

Ann: A preventive conscience but not a retrospective one.

Philip: I think it is better to worry after than before ... a sin followed by a regret is better than a blank preceded by a doubt.

Ann: It might be such a small sin and such a big regret.

Philip: Why do you look so happy?

Ann: I am so happy.

Philip: How do you manage it?

Ann: You manage most of it.

Philip (showing some faint emotion for the first time): There are moments when I wish I had managed it.

Ann (kisses his hand): Good-bye.

Philip: Good-bye.

[Exit Philip.

[Ann walks about the room singing to herself.

[Enter Lord William.

Ann: Uncle William, how nice of you to come early.

Lord William: One never gets you alone.

Ann: I would always be alone if I knew you were coming.

Lord William: You ought not to be wasting your wiles on an old uncle; you ought to be ruining some young man with them.

Ann: Is it nice for young men to be ruined?

Lord William: Delightful.

Ann: When were you first ruined, Uncle Bill?

Lord William: When I was twenty-one. That was, quite properly, the method I selected for coming of age.

Ann: What was she like?

Lord William: She was a circus-rider. We did things in style in those days.

Ann: Was she pretty?

Lord William: She was dashing—damned expensive too. I will say that for her. Now you could ruin a young man without costing him a penny.

Ann: In fact you are recommending me as an economy.

Lord William: I’m sorry, my dear. For a moment sordid financial considerations arose in my mind with the memory of Annette. We were all so affected by Ouida in those days. It never occurred to us to do anything simply.

Ann: And now I suppose you think that we none of us do anything well?

Lord William: A little slipshod, a little casual, I find you. And your young men are so lacking in persistence that your young women can’t afford any subtlety. If men go about taking no for an answer they can’t expect to get “no” said to them, and there is nothing like affirmatives for taking the savour out of an affair.

Thompson: Lady Emily Cathcart, my lady.

[Enter Lady Emily Cathcart. She kisses Ann.

Lord William: Emily, do you recollect that year when Molly was first attentive to you?

Lady Emily: Very clearly.

Lord William: Molly was a buffoon in those days.

Lady Emily: Really, William, you should not betray the secrets of our youth. Ann, who is romantic, believes that Molly was the most tender of lovers.

Lord William: Well, even when you lay your amour propre aside you will admit that Molly was, if possible, far more tender than passionate.

Lady Emily: Fiddlesticks! Molly was never in the least tender, nor for that matter was he in the least passionate either. But he was not more ridiculous than any other young man who adopts an attitude unpropelled by an impulse.

Ann: What was his attitude?

Lady Emily: In the year ’80, to which William is referring, his attitude was one of affection towards myself.

Ann: I am sure that that was quite sincere.

Lady Emily: Perfectly. He liked me in private and loved me in public.

Ann: You mean that he was shy when he was alone with you?

Lady Emily: No. I mean that he was frank when he was alone with me.

Ann: What a divine compliment.

Lady Emily: The truth is the most tiresome of all compliments.

Lord William: When I am flattered I always imagine that I have been told the truth.

Lady Emily: William has always been vain—whereas I have been selfish, which is a much more artistic achievement. When William was young, he succumbed to every temptation—a sad lack both of fastidiousness and of concentration. I, on the other hand, determined to miss chances and take opportunities. I succeeded.

Lord William: Your aunt means that she remained unmarried.

Lady Emily: On purpose.

Lord William: A misguided objective.

Lady Emily: Why?

Lord William: The stationary is no achievement.

Lady Emily: There was nothing stationary about it.

Lord William: Don’t shock Ann.

[Enter Thompson and Selina.

Thompson: Miss Selina, m’lady.

[Exit Thompson.

Selina: Papa, you are an outrage.

Lord William: I hope so, my love.

Selina: You forgot me.

Lord William: How is that possible?

Selina: I should have hoped it would be impossible.

Lord William: Are you suggesting that my delight as a parent has triumphed over my indiscretion as a chaperon? That my desire for your society has prevented me from leaving you at the right moment?

Selina: I am suggesting no such thing. I am merely mentioning the fact that you went out without me.

Lord William: To be sure, that is what comes of living in the same house. One never can remember the other person.

[Enter Thompson and Mr. Molyneux.

Thompson: Mr. Molyneux, m’lady.

Ann: Mr. Molyneux, Uncle Bill and Aunt Emily have been taking your character away. If you want to find it again you need only come to me.

Lord William: Quite right, my dear. At last I have found a profession for you. A pawnbroker of reputations.

Lady Emily: Remember not to accept stolen goods.

Selina: And that, failing a payment, the property becomes your own.

Molyneux: I am not putting my reputation on deposit; I am giving it to Ann.

Lady Emily: You are giving away something you don’t possess.

Molyneux: Won’t you lend it to me?

[Enter Ninian.

Ninian: I apologize, Mr. Molyneux. Forgive me, Uncle William. I have been kept.

Lord William: Tut, tut, Ninian, a rich man like you!

Ninian: I cannot see how being rich can affect the fact that I was sitting late on a committee. And anyway, I am not rich ... you know very well, Uncle William, that it is almost impossible nowadays for a gentleman to be rich.

Molyneux: It was always difficult.

Lord William: It is a question of minerals, my boy. There is still coal in the earth.

Molyneux: But, as Ninian would say, there are unfortunately also miners.

Ninian: There are, I understand, a number of very rich people in this country to-day. I know very few of them.

Selina: What a pity.

Molyneux: Never mind—as the proverb says, if you fail the first time—and it applies, I imagine, to all of the numerous first times—try, try again.

Lady Emily: I feel that you ought to make an effort to get into touch with all these millionaires.

Ninian: I do not know their names.

Selina: What a shame!

Molyneux: There must be ways of finding out. Somerset House, for instance.

Selina: Aren’t they all dead there?

Molyneux: It is difficult not to have an heir.

Ninian: I have no desire to know any of these profiteers. What could they do me? I should, I hope, feel at a disadvantage in their company.

[Enter Thompson and Mrs. Martineau.

Thompson: Mrs. Martineau, m’lady.

[Exit Thompson.

Ann: Dear Mabel.

[General greetings.

Ninian: If you were older, Mrs. Martineau, I should say that you look younger each time I see you.

Mrs. Martineau: Please say it—I am not young enough not to have my head turned.

[Enter Thompson and Tim.

Thompson: Mr. Carstairs, m’lady.

Ann: Tim....

Tim: I am so sorry if I am late.

Ann: You’re not late—for dinner.

Lady Emily (in the other corner): Why, Mrs. Martineau?

Molyneux: Why indeed? These nursery friendships never come to any good.

Lady Emily: Even later friendships rarely come to any good.

Molyneux: But they can easily be taken to the bad.

Lady Emily: Not easily. Believe me, not easily. Going to the bad is very difficult.

Molyneux: Why so difficult?

Lady Emily: Because one’s roots go deeper than one thinks. You find a lot of odd principles and inhibitions lying about at the bottom of the sea. If the psychoanalysts hadn’t made the term ridiculous I should talk of the subconscious.

Lord William: Did I hear you use the word subconscious, Emily?

Lady Emily: You did, William.

Lord William: It has played no part in your life.

Lady Emily: It has played the same part in my life that it plays in other people’s. It has been the refuge of unwelcome guests.

Lord William (calling): Ann. Ann! There is something the matter with Emily to-night. She has become a moralist. Everyone is very odd. Selina is silent, Tim is restless, Ninian is absent-minded, and Mrs. Martineau is sunny. Why the devil should they run away from themselves like that? By the way, Ann, what are you?

Ann (smiling): I am happy.

Molyneux: Tell us, Ann, is virtue really its own reward? We should so like to know. We need cheering up.

[Enter Thompson.

Thompson: Dinner is served, m’lady.

[General bustle.

Curtain for Ten Seconds

Curtain rises as Ann, Lady Emily, Mrs. Martineau and Selina come out of the dining-room.

Lady Emily: Could anything be more Prussian than a dinner-party? The same courses succeeding one another night after night, just as if cooking were regulated by staff officers. In vain one longs for mustard with mutton.

Ann (to Mrs. Martineau): What a lovely dress, Mabel.

Mrs. Martineau: I am so glad you like it.

Ann: You are always so beautifully dressed.

Mrs. Martineau: That is because I insist on having the clothes made by the French for the French; not the models designed for export purposes.

Lady Emily: What is the difference?

Mrs. Martineau: When an Englishwoman or an American goes into Callot, or Cheruit, the vendeuse instantly shows her the most elaborate things she has got—lace, flowers, furs and furbelows.

Lady Emily: Why?

Mrs. Martineau: Out of contempt for our taste and desire to make the price as high as possible.

Selina: And we think it must be all right because of the name inside.

Mrs. Martineau: Men are such bad judges of clothing! They like crude colours and they notice nothing.

Selina: No. They say, “Kitty had on a divine dress,” and you ask, “What colour was it?” and they explain, “Kind of orange,” and it turns out to have been jade green.

Ann: And they always admire on other women the sort of clothes they deprecate for their wives.

Mrs. Martineau: And they talk about the conspicuous, which doesn’t mean anything. Of course it is dreadful to be conspicuously imperfect, just as it is delightful to be conspicuously perfect. But the conspicuousness is just underlining.

Ann: So few of us can afford to be underlined.

Selina: Blue serge and black velvet are safest in all things.

Mrs. Martineau: There isn’t much blue serge and black velvet about you, Selina.

Selina: No. I’m always in the worst of taste.

Mrs. Martineau: We all dress for women, really.

Selina: To annoy women, you mean?

Lady Emily: With some people all admiration is a form of envy, and all pleasure is a compound of pleasing and annoying your friends.

Selina: How moral you are this evening, Aunt Emily.

Lady Emily: Not moral, my dear, moralizing—it’s not the same thing.

Selina: No, indeed. Look at Ann. She never gives us advice.

Mrs. Martineau (acidly): Only an example.

Ann: Really, the way my family talk about me—I wonder anyone can put up with me at all.

Mrs. Martineau: And Mr. Molyneux.

Ann: He is almost one of the family.

Selina (maliciously to Mrs. Martineau): And Tim?

Lady Emily: Tim does not at all remind me of my youth.

Ann: Doesn’t he, Aunt Emily?

Lady Emily (with decision): No.

Selina: Why not?

Lady Emily: Too good.

Mrs. Martineau: Perhaps you didn’t like good young men, Lady Emily.

Lady Emily: I did not, and they didn’t like me.

Selina: What was Molly like when he was young, Aunt Emily?

Lady Emily: Much the same. Not bald, of course, but funny—always very funny and available ... there when wanted.

Selina: And when he wasn’t?

Lady Emily: Yes, then too. Curiosity, not unkindness.

Ann: He has never loved anyone but you.

Lady Emily: Fiddlesticks.... He never loved me. But with approaching senility he requires a romance to look back on. I don’t know why he chooses me.

Ann: Because he loved you.

Lady Emily: Nonsense, but I’m honoured to play my part in this haze of rosy retrospect.

Selina: What a lovely phrase....

[She hums.

Selina: ... haze of rosy retrospect.

Lady Emily (severely): You manage to give everything a music-hall touch.

Selina: Papa thinks I am very eighteenth-century.

Lady Emily: Your father likes to think himself eighteenth-century. A halo of wit ’round coarseness.

Selina (who is looking at an illustrated paper): I love dogs. They are such wonderful company and they never talk about Bolshevism.

Ann: It is a devastating topic. Everyone always gets cross and silly.

Selina: And they go on overstating their cases until it becomes an auction of folly.

Lady Emily: It is extraordinary how exacerbating subjects of world importance can be. After an hour of Ninian, I find myself getting frenzied about Smyrna.

Ann: Pro-Turk or pro-Greek?

Lady Emily: I forget which. It depends on the other person.

Selina: Yes. When we are with the vicar, who calls the Turks infidels, we are pro-Turk; and when we are with Ninian, who calls the Turks gentlemen, we are pro-Greek.

Ann: It sounds so tiring.

Selina: It is. But agreeing with Ninian or the vicar does no good. It doesn’t stop them.

Ann: You must make Ninian show you his map of the water power of Austria-Hungary, showing that it must remain an Empire.

Lady Emily: Ninian always proves everything by diagrams and statistics.

Selina: He has designed what he calls a world danger map, showing Socialist danger centres in red—Glasgow in scarlet, and Munich in snow-white.

Mrs. Martineau: I thought it was a map of scarlet fever.

Selina: So it is.

Ann: You are all very unkind about Ninian. He is so public-spirited and conscientious.

Mrs. Martineau: He is very good-looking.

Selina: The Candovers have kept up a higher standard of imbecility and beauty than any other family in England.

[Enter Ninian, Lord William, Molyneux and Tim.

Ninian: Well—clothes, servants and babies? Have they all been exhausted? Is there a character still intact?

Selina: We have been talking about Smyrna and Austria-Hungary and the Socialist danger.

Mrs. Martineau: Will you show me your maps, Lord Candover?

Ninian: I should be most happy.

Mrs. Martineau: Isn’t there one called the world danger map?

Ninian: Yes ... I have tried to show in black and white....

Selina: In red and white....

Ninian: Selina, your habit of interrupting is intolerable.

Selina: I am so sorry. But I had an idea.

Lord William: How very disconcerting, my love.

Selina: I am going to write a brochure called “The Quadruple Terror,” or “Where the Rainbow Ends.”

Mrs. Martineau: What are you talking about?

Selina: The Red Peril, the White Peril, the Black Peril, and the Yellow Peril.

Molyneux: Bravo.

Selina: I have the half-penny mind. I should edit a paper called the Johanna Cow.

Lord William: That is really a disgracefully bad joke.

Lady Emily: Well, Ninian, did you have a good meeting?

Molyneux: What met?

Ninian: The Conservative Association.

Selina: It should be rechristened the Preservative Association.

Ninian: Little girls should be seen and not heard.

Selina: I should think I could get an engagement to show myself at parties as the one Silent Cathcart.

Ninian: My sisters were brought up to speak when they were spoken to.

Selina: Did anyone ever talk to them?

Ninian: If it is fine on Sunday I shall be able to show you the new cement pigsties.

Molyneux: Pigs upset my digestion.

Lord William: Model landlords exhaust my vocabulary.

Ninian (undeterred): You may not be aware of the fact that pigs are very clean animals. It is only a question of providing them with water.

Selina: Warm water?

Ninian: Water.

Lady Emily: How conscientious you are.

Ninian: I was brought up with a sense of duty. My father said to me, “Ninian, remember five centuries of Candovers are watching you.”

Selina: Wasn’t he quoting Napoleon?

Ninian: Certainly not. In any case, he always referred to him as Bonaparte.

Selina: Oh, Ninian, was that a nice way of talking of the dead?

Lord William: How lucky that etiquette always prevents us from saying disagreeable things about the departed. It leaves so much more for the living.

Selina: But Lord Candover was a pioneer. He didn’t believe in respecting tombstones.

Ninian: I wish you wouldn’t twist my words, Selina. My father was most careful in speaking of the dead, and I am sure he would have hated to be called a pioneer.

Selina: I beg your pardon. He only felt free to insult the immortal.

Ninian: We are all of us immortal.

Molyneux: But the fact is only known about some of us.

Mrs. Martineau (to Tim. They are on stool D. S. C. and she speaks in an undertone that is not heard by the rest of the party): What is the matter with Ann?

Tim: Is anything the matter?

Mrs. Martineau: She’s been so moody lately.

Tim: She overworks.

Mrs. Martineau: Every time I see Ninian I realize that marriage to him was the only adequate punishment for marrying him.

Tim: He is very good-looking.

Mrs. Martineau: Why did Ann do it?

Tim: She was very young.

Mrs. Martineau: Youth is an excuse for doing something foolish, not for doing something suitable.

Tim: I don’t suppose that the worldly side of the thing ever struck her.

Mrs. Martineau: Then it was pure bad taste.

Tim: She was probably in love with love and he was its first representative.

Mrs. Martineau: And when the romance wore off there was fifty thousand a year left.

Tim: I don’t think that is a very nice thing to say.

Mrs. Martineau: How you adore her.

Tim: Everyone does.

Selina: Ninian, have you ever thought of becoming a Mayor?

Ninian: Mayor? Mayor of what?

Selina: It wouldn’t matter. Any town would do. Papa, wouldn’t Ninian make an excellent Mayor?

Lord William: I really can’t say, my dear. I’ve never seen one.

Selina: Ann knows lots. She adores them.

Molyneux: In that case it would be quite proper that her husband should join the company.

Lady Emily: Ann, how silent you are.

Ann: I was always the most silent of the Cathcarts, but even that is enough to get me the reputation of a chatterbox outside the family circle.

Ninian: Uncle William, I am very glad you should be here, as I am thinking of starting a league for combating budding Bolshevism in this country. Your active help would be invaluable to me.

Lord William: Molly and I are too old to see red.

Molyneux: And being autocrats ourselves we approve of Lenin.

Lord William: I suppose you feel bound to fight the only people who hate liberty more than you do.

Ninian: I don’t understand. Education is at the bottom of all the mischief; teaches the people discontent and damned little else. What does a working-man need to know except how to do an honest day’s work and watch his cricket or his football on a Saturday? As a landlord I regard my tenants as my children, and I know them well enough to know that good old English ale and good old English sport mean a damned sight more to them than cheap editions of the classics. Being educated above their station, that’s what they are.

Tim: That would not teach them much.

Ninian: I don’t know what you mean.

Selina: I have often heard you say yourself, Ninian, that the only thing a gentleman need learn is how to play the game—which, by the way, he ought to be born knowing.

Tim: In case of accidents there’s Eton.

Ninian: Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

Selina: But Hamlet wasn’t written there.

Lord William: I always find it so difficult to write out of doors. However still the day, there’s always enough breeze to blow the paper about.

Ninian: I don’t see what that has to do with education.

Mrs. Martineau: It all comes from your anti-Bolshevist League.

Ann: Don’t let’s talk politics.

Selina: I am going to write a song for Ninian to sing with the refrain: “I’m a red rag to the Reds, so we’re all of us red together.” It will be called the Red Pottage.

Lord William: Selina, don’t you think you could write a revue? Then Molly and I could get off some of our vulgarer jokes.

Selina: What a good idea! Then, when you want to say something really outrageous, you need only make a note of it, and we will use it in Whispers.

Mrs. Martineau: What do you say, Selina?

Selina: I am going to write a revue called Whispers as a lightning conductor for papa’s vulgarer jokes.

Ninian: Why Whispers?

Selina: Because it sounds so indiscreet. Haven’t you noticed that no one ever listens until one drops one’s voice?

Ninian: I should have thought it was easier to hear people who raised their voices.

Selina: Don’t you see? Then one doesn’t want to hear them.

Ninian: You are all too clever for me. But I really don’t know where it leads you to.

Mrs. Martineau: It has made Lord William and Mr. Molyneux the two most sought-after men in London.

Lord William: It has helped Emily to avoid marriage and enabled her to lead her own life with admirable indiscretion.

Selina: It has made me a comfort to my father in his old age.

Lady Emily: We have only one regret. It has not prevented Ann and Tim from being saints.

Ninian: Ann has no temptations and Tim is indoors too much.

[He caresses Ann’s hair and she shudders a little.

Molyneux: And it is delightful just being ourselves.

Lord William: How is the dear vicar—still pro-Semite?

Ann: What a memory you’ve got, Uncle Bill.

Molyneux: And my friend, Mrs. Sidebotham?

Lady Emily: Sidebotham, please.

Ann: She told me that you had said something very funny to her last time you met, and that unfortunately she has forgotten it, and couldn’t you remember what it was?

Molyneux: A most insulting woman to think that I have a limited supply of labelled witticisms.

Lady Emily: The last time we were altogether there was that young politician.

Tim: Jordan?

Lady Emily: Yes, that’s the man.

Selina: Do you remember how we teased him?

Tim: I only remember your asking him if he took things seriously.

Selina: It was a delicate way of suggesting that he took himself seriously.

Lord William: That was abundantly clear without any hint from you, my dear.

Molyneux: He certainly didn’t fit into our airy conversation.

Selina: He was like a porpoise among gold fish.

Lord William: But we agreed that it was a mistake to waste malice on the dead.

Ann (with a muffled cry): The dead?

Lord William: His reputation has come to an untimely end. He is, however, I believe, in excellent health.

Lady Emily: What did his reputation die of?

Lord William: Guess.

Molyneux: I suggest drink.

Ninian: He was never quite a gentleman.

Selina: Do gentlemen always have strong heads?

Molyneux: They sometimes have a good wine.

Mrs. Martineau: Was that it? Do tell us about it. Did he get very drunk?

Selina: As Ninian would say, he couldn’t carry his liquor like a gentleman.

Molyneux: Nor can most gentlemen.

Mrs. Martineau: But he can’t have ruined himself so quickly for such a common failing.

Molyneux: Shall we assume that he drugged?

Lady Emily: Or gambled?

Selina: Another gentlemanly vice.

Molyneux: We can pretend, if you prefer it, that he lost his temper when he lost, and crowed when he won.

Mrs. Martineau: I suggest a woman.

Lady Emily: What sort of woman shall we have—a poor victim, or a common vampire?

Selina: Let us have both—the one to prove him a villain, and the other a fool.

Molyneux: Why are you so vindictive?

Selina: Because I was so much bored. “I am brave enough to admit, Miss Selina, that I take some things seriously.”

Ninian: The best thing about him.

Mrs. Martineau: But even with all the details that we have supplied, I don’t see how he lost his reputation as a politician.

Lady Emily: It is probably only a temporary eclipse. No one’s political career is ever over.

Lord William: If you will allow me to get in a word edgeways, I will tell you the whole story. It was last night—I heard all about it at my Club at lunch to-day—Jordan had promised to make a most important speech. The Prime Minister, depending on him, left the House, but when the time came he was nowhere to be found. The situation was critical, and the Government only just squeaked through. So you see his position in his party isn’t very rosy for the moment.

Ninian: Probably it was cowardice, thought the ship was sinking.

Mrs. Martineau: But where was he?

Lord William: With a woman.

Mrs. Martineau: What sort of a woman?

Lord William: A woman he had picked up.

Mrs. Martineau: Where?

Lord William: I really don’t know one street from another.

Molyneux: There isn’t very much variety.

Lord William: Jordan wasn’t the sort of man to get as far even as a circus. Now in my day it wasn’t etiquette to begin lower than a circus-rider.

Molyneux: We didn’t know what economy meant.

Lord William: If Jordan was drunk he was probably quite right to pick without choosing. At the time he could tell nothing, and by morning his purse must have been his sole criterion.

Ann (who has been listening to the conversation with ever-increasing anguish and now rises): It’s not true!

[There is a dead silence.

Ann: It is a wicked shameful lie.

Lord William: There is our little Ann up in arms to defend her friends. Very laudable, very characteristic. Nothing but saints in your world, eh, Ann?

Ann (trembling with passion): Don’t you believe me?

Mrs. Martineau: Where was he then?

Ann: Do you want to know where he was? If you want to—I’ll tell you. He was with a woman—he was with me.

Mrs. Martineau: And may one ask why he was with you at such a critical moment in his career?

Ann: Why?

Mrs. Martineau: Did you have a headache, dear? Was that what made him run round at the crucial moment in the Debate?

Selina: Fancy Mr. Jordan forgetting himself.

Mrs. Martineau: How did you let him know, darling, that you needed him so badly?

Selina: Did he just come round and say, “You wanted me; here I am?” How delightfully romantic.

Mrs. Martineau: He clearly must have said, “They call me a statesman, rather let it be said of me, ‘He was a friend!’”

Selina: “I had not loved these, dear, so much—” No, that is the wrong way round, isn’t it?

Ann: You don’t understand. He——

Lord William: Your little story is not good, etc.

Ninian: I seem to recollect that the division took place at two in the morning.

Mrs. Martineau: Tut, tut, Ann, the early hours of the morning! Devoted to friendship!

Ann: Yes. I don’t know at what time they wanted him to speak, but he was with me. He is my lover.

Lady Emily: Ann, dearest, you’re mad.

Lord William: Ann, you’re joking.

Ninian: Do you think you are going to make us believe a yarn like that?

Mrs. Martineau: Tim’s Madonna Jordan’s mistress?

Ann: It’s true.

[She is almost in tears.

Ninian: Really, Ann, it’s bad enough to have friends like that, but this hysterical self-sacrifice business is preposterous.

Molyneux: My dear child, you should remember that Mrs. Martineau always believes the worst on principle.

Ann: But I can prove to her that it’s true, that he wasn’t drunk or—with someone like that.

Ninian: Don’t be absurd. By the worst, Molyneux means your assertion that Jordan was your lover. If that story got about, someone who didn’t know you might believe it.

Ann (quite calmly): It’s true.

Lord William: It is delightful to know anyone as innocent as you are, Ann. To sit there deliberately and tell us a fifth-rate politician is your lover! Even we did not think you as ignorant of the usages of La Vie Galante.

Ann: Don’t you see it is not a question of la vie galante? It is a question of love.

Ninian: How dare you talk about love? You damned cold——

Lady Emily: Ninian!

Ninian: I beg your pardon.

Molyneux: Dear little Ann, thinking that women with lovers use their liaisons as alibis for politicians.

Selina: Ann, how do you keep so innocent?

Mrs. Martineau: Tell us your secret!

Ann: It is a secret you none of you know.

[She bursts into tears.

Ninian: Wives should have no secrets from their husbands.

[He strikes a match.

Curtain

ACT III

ACT III

[Tim, Selina and Lord William.

Lord William: Tim! Who was it?

Tim: It was Mrs. Martineau who spread the story.

Selina: Viper.

Tim: I should like to gag her with thistles.

Selina: Have you seen her?

Tim: I met her in the street.

Lord William: I trust you did not cut her. It is better to hear what people have to say first, then you can cut them afterwards with all the more reason.

Tim: I am afraid I told her what I thought about her.

Lord William: What did she say?

Tim: She said that of course she did not believe Ann’s story, but that it was so interesting that Ann should have cared enough for Jordan to invent it.

Selina: Brute!

Tim: Afterwards, when she was really angry, she remarked that she had been sure that we would all like to feel that the world had been able to benefit by this wonderful story of Ann’s unworldliness and high sense of friendship, as these qualities are so rarely seen and still more rarely believed in.

Selina: I can hear her saying it.

Lord William: Have you seen Ann?

Tim: No, I only came an hour ago.

Lord William: It’s all very trying.

Tim: It is having a saint like Ann discussed at all that makes one so sick. It is like seeing people without religion in a church.

Selina: I wouldn’t mind so much if they knew Ann. She is a miracle no one can deny.

Tim: What line does Ninian take?

Selina: At last Ninian’s qualities are coming in handy. He is incredibly grand, and, of course, it comes quite naturally to him. He is prepared to horse-whip anyone. He talks about “my wife.” He does not, of course, say she is above suspicion. That would be to cast a slur upon himself. Who was Cæsar?

Lord William: Ninian is one of those men who believe implicitly in their own all-conquering charm and, consequently, in the absence of temperament of every woman who resists them. They never consider the possibility of anyone who is not passionately in love with them being passionately in love with anyone else.

Tim: Well, no one suspects Ann of being in love with Jordan.

Lord William: Ah—no.

[He obviously knows the truth.

Tim: It is wonderful of her suddenly to invent a story like that, but, of course, I do see that it was rather trying for Ninian.

Selina: Have you seen Mr. Jordan since, Papa?

Lord William: Yes.

Tim: He must have been dreadfully upset at all the worry poor Ann is having.

Lord William: He seemed to be thinking mainly of himself.

Selina: There are two things I can’t forgive Ann. One is her marriage with Ninian, and the other her friendship with Mr. Jordan.

Lord William: They would, no doubt, each agree with you about the other.

Tim: But for that Martineau woman, no one would have known anything about it.

[Enter Ann, looking white and wretched, she kisses Lord William and Selina, and Tim kisses her hands.

Ann: What were you saying about Mabel?

Selina: The viper.

Lord William: That woman is a hell cat.

Ann: Poor thing! I don’t think she means it. Her tongue runs away with her.

Selina: Tim wants to gag her with thistles.

Ann: I didn’t know you went in for ingenious tortures.

Lord William: Tim is a little more discriminating in his charity than you are.

Selina: Where is Ninian?

Ann: At his anti-Bolshevist Committee Meeting.

Lord William: Is that bud bursting into flower?

Ann: It keeps a lot of violent-minded people busy. If “minded” be the word.

Selina: I had a letter from Mrs. Sidebotham—Sidebotham ... this morning. She wants me to organize an entertainment in the village. I am afraid that Papa’s vulgar jokes wouldn’t do for that.

Ann: Nor would Red Pottage.

Selina: “I’m a red rag to the Reds, so we’re all of us red together.”

Lord William: Is it to be in aid of the organ?

Selina: It is.

Lord William: No one can say that I don’t know all about village life. I’ve not forgotten my youth.

Ann: What was Grandpapa like?

Lord William: Very formidable—arrogant, dry, autocratic, with magnificent manners.

Ann: That’s what Ninian’s generation misses. They take themselves very seriously, but somehow they are not in the least formidable. Just very long and a tiny bit ridiculous.

Selina: I still believe in a municipal solution for them.

[Enter Thompson.

Thompson: Mr. Jordan has motored down from London. Could your Ladyship see him?

[Dead silence. Ann gets very white.

Tim: You’d better see him, hadn’t you? We’ll go.

[Ann nods yes.

[Selina kisses her silently.

[Lord William stays behind a second; takes her in his arms.

Lord William: I understand, my darling, but believe me he’s not worth it.

[Lord William and Jordan meet in the door and bow, but do not shake hands.

[There is a pause.

Ann (nervously): Philip, you look so strange.

Philip (with a bitter laugh): Strange!

Ann: Set and hard, with a different voice, not your voice for me.

Philip: Ann, there are moments when you don’t seem to me quite normal.

Ann: I don’t understand.

Philip: I have come here to talk sense, not to make love.

Ann: Love is the only sense in the world.

Philip: In the whole of my life I have never met anyone so deliberately blind as you are. You ignore all values except the ones you have created yourself. Quite suddenly, on the spur of the moment, you ruin my reputation and your own and then sit there quite calmly, talking about love.

Ann: But I love you.

Philip: What in God’s name has love got to do with it?

Ann: What else has anything to do with it?

Philip: Your reputation, my career.

Ann: You see, they were all attacking you, saying monstrous, wicked, lying things, I couldn’t sit there and listen. I simply told them the truth.

Philip: What did they say?

Ann: They said you were frightened. At least, someone suggested that, and then Mr. Molyneux said no, you were drunk, and that was why you had failed the Government. And Uncle Bill told them you had been with a woman—a woman you had picked up in the streets.

Philip: Well?

Ann: Naturally I denied it. I said that you had been with me.

Philip: And they wouldn’t believe you?

Ann: No. So I told them that you were my lover.

Philip: Were you mad?

Ann: Not in the least. It was the obvious thing to do. I couldn’t sit there and listen to them telling lies about you—I’m not ashamed of having loved you.

Philip: Do you mean to sit there and tell me that all this arose simply because they said I had taken part in a drunken orgy?

Ann: How could I let them say that?

Philip: Good God, do you think anyone cares a damn? That that sort of thing doesn’t happen to everyone?

Ann: I think that it matters very much for a man to fail his chief when he has trusted him, relied on him.

Philip: And if I am with you, am I not equally failing my chief who has trusted me, relied on me? Doesn’t that matter?

Ann: I think that matters too. But somehow, love is a different world—far away beyond our ordinary lives. It makes everything else seem so distant and irrelevant.

Philip: Well, I may as well explain to you that to me love is an appetite like any other appetite. It is no better and no worse than drink, and one woman is no better and no worse than another. At least I used to think that. But now I realize that a temporary adventure is nothing to being entangled in the octopus grip of a love affair with a virtuous woman.

[Ann makes a gesture.

If you want to have children, marry. If you want to love you will have to pay the bill, but see that it is a cash transaction. I meet you—a good woman, a beautiful woman, a charming woman. I am attracted to you as hundreds of men have been before me. And then, suddenly you present me with your virtue. I am flattered, naturally, I take what the gods give me. Who wouldn’t? And then, what happens? The woman who used to believe in virtue, believes in love. A strange flaming thing this love, before which everything is sacrificed, pride, discretion, the conventions, reputation. You are blinded by it. What am I to do? I tell you things, I warn you, I try to escape. But everything I say is like describing objects to someone who can’t see. Gently, serenely, you laugh the foundations of your life away as if they were irrelevant absurdities.

Ann (in agony): Oh....

Philip: And then, one fine day, in a moment of hysterical exaltation, you pull down the very scaffolding of the building, and, sitting among the ruins, you still smile and say: “Love is the only sense in the world.” A child of ten could have told that I had ceased to care for you. And I have been sacrificed on my own altar. Funny, isn’t it?

Ann: Oh, my God!

Philip: Well, I don’t want to waste any time psychologizing. I want to discuss the situation sensibly. Does your husband mean to divorce you?

Ann: No. You see, he doesn’t believe that I was telling the truth.

Philip (infinitely relieved): Doesn’t believe that I have been your lover?

Ann: No.

Philip: Good God—you are a clever woman, Ann.

Ann: They none of them believe it except Uncle Bill. They think—it was a mad invention.

Philip: Well, you must try and make all of your friends think it was a joke.

Ann: But I wanted them to believe it. I—I was proud of it.

Philip (brutally): Well, you’re not proud of it now, are you?

Ann: No. I don’t think that I shall ever recover from the shame of it.

Philip: It’ll soon blow over.

Ann: I didn’t mean that. Do you think I care what the world thinks? Do you think I mind the scandal? It’s having loved you that I mind. That is the shame that will never wear out.

[There is a pause.

Philip: I suppose I have been saying things I didn’t altogether mean.

Ann: I don’t think so.

Philip: It’s no good saying I am sorry, is it?

Ann: No.

Philip: I should like to try and make you understand.

Ann: I understand everything—now.

Philip: At the beginning there are so many things. Surprise, discovery, exploration, enchantment. You are always going a step further—a delicious unacknowledged step—or rather you don’t go further, but you are always finding yourself further—further and deeper. And later, when you are tiring, there are still inflamed moments—moments of passion, meaningless victories of the senses over the heart, which are greedily accepted as proofs of love.

Ann: Don’t....

Philip: And with you there was nothing. No pride I could hurt, no vanity I could offend, no self-respect I could outrage. You gave your whole self to me, and therefore I was without weapons. There wasn’t anyone I could deal with.

Ann (icily): Is it usually very easy to bring a woman to breaking-point—to breaking-off point, I mean?

Philip (cynically): It can be done.

Ann: It has been beautifully done this time. There is nothing left, nothing at all, no mess of regrets and pangs and importunities.

Philip: Ann, Ann dearest, don’t!

Ann (with immense scorn): Are you going to make love to me?

Philip: There is no making about it. I have cared very much.

Ann: You are incredible.

Philip: I wouldn’t like to leave you unnecessarily hurt by foolish things that I said in a temper.

Ann: You have not hurt me; you have emptied me, depopulated me of everything I have ever known and believed. I shall be able to go out and look at life and try to find out what things exist and where they are.

[Pause.

Philip (curiously): Ann, where did you think I was that night?

Ann: What night?

Philip: The night of the debate.

Ann: I didn’t know. I thought perhaps that you had been frightened.

Philip: I was with a woman.

Ann: Oh!

Philip: They were right after all, you see.

[Pause.

Ann: I think I would like you to go.

Philip: Ann!

Ann (icily): It is no good my discussing it with a stranger, is it? He wouldn’t understand.

[Philip is walking up and down the room.

Ann: I think I asked you to go.

Philip: I hate to leave you like this.

[Ann is looking out of the window with her back turned toward him.

Philip: Ann!

Ann: Good-bye!

Philip: Good-bye!

[Exit Philip.

[Pause.

[Enter Ninian.

Ninian: Hullo!

Ann: Is that you?

Ninian: You do look a wreck.

Ann (nervously): Ninian....

Ninian: Yes?

Ann (she thinks better of it): Did you have a good meeting?

Ninian: Pretty good.

Ann (still more nervously): Ninian....

Ninian: Yes?

Ann: I am afraid that what I said the other night distressed you.

Ninian: That tommy-rot about Jordan?

Ann: Yes.

Ninian: Hysteria, that’s what it was.

Ann: Yes.

Ninian: You cold women aren’t quite normal. No natural outlets, so you go and invent things.

Ann: It was just a silly joke.

Ninian (putting his arm around her): After all, you didn’t need to invent a lover.

Ann (shuddering): Don’t!

Ninian: I see what a fool I’ve been to let my little prude be a little prude.

Ann: You mustn’t....

Ninian: Turn your face around.

Ann: No.

Ninian: Those days are over, my darling.

[Ninian turns her face round and kisses and kisses her. When he is finished, they are both flushed; her hair is dishevelled and he is out of breath.

Ninian: That’s what you needed, isn’t it?

Ann: How dare you! How dare you!

Ninian: You prefer the imaginary Mr. Jordan?

Ann: If you ever do that again, I shall kill you!

Ninian: What a little vixen you are!

Ann: I mean it.

Ninian: My dear, seriously, you ask a little too much of life. For years you have been worshipped from afar by reverent friends as a saint and a statue. I joined them in my awe of the cold, good woman, beautiful and untouched. I respected my model wife. Then, one fine day, you tell us that you have a lover—you proclaim it with flaming passion. No one believes you. Of course it isn’t true. You are the saint. What you say is only the flaring loyalty of friendship. You are such a wonderful friend, with such a beautiful, unworldly sense of the relationship.

Ann: Don’t!

Ninian: You all think I’m a fool, don’t you? I can’t talk. I’m not witty. I take myself seriously, and my duties seriously. Supposing some day you discover that I was not stupid as I seemed?

Ann: I never thought you stupid.

Ninian: Because I don’t choose to play at eighteenth-century conversations with two ridiculous old men and one intolerable young girl, because I have nothing to say to your disreputable old aunt, you think I see nothing. I let them laugh at me because it is the only thing they can do; but sometimes when I am alone, I laugh at them—I, who have no sense of humour; Ninian, your one great blunder.

Ann: Please!

Ninian: Well, you’ve often had your little laughs against me. Now, for a change, you and I are going to be fellow conspirators.

Ann (frightened): What do you mean?

Ninian: I’m a simple man; I don’t go in for psychology. I can’t talk. I don’t want to. It is a curtain between you and life. Your uncle, your aunt, Molyneux, Selina, they make patterns over everything, but it doesn’t change the underneath.

Ann: They only pretend.

Ninian: They think they pretend, but they get caught themselves. They thought it would be amusing to have a saint in the family. You were the only possible candidate. In fact, I agree that you fitted admirably into the rôle. You are unselfish and conscientious and charitable. Only you upset their calculations by being a real person.

Ann: They are all like that underneath.

Ninian: And you fell in love; that made you more human still.

Ann: What do you mean?

Ninian: And one day, their artificial chatter became unbearable and you told them the truth.

Ann: Do you mean that silly joke about Mr. Jordan?

Ninian: Precisely. But they were so well trained that they didn’t believe you.

Ann: I don’t understand.

Ninian: You weren’t playing the game of love according to their rules.

Ann (terrified): Ninian!

Ninian: So they pointed out to one another that you were rather more of a saint than even they had supposed.

Ann: Ninian, why are you torturing me? Pretending to believe that ridiculous story.

Ninian: I have watched you for some time, my dear, and I have come to the conclusion that you are suffering from a very dangerous disease. Ann, you are a human being. Incidentally, you are my wife.

Ann: Of course.

Ninian: You haven’t been much of a wife to me, have you, my little Ann?

[Ninian is getting closer to her. Ann recoils.

Ann: I have tried to be.

Ninian: You have been the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, the mistress of his household. Now, my darling, you are going to be my wife, my mistress.

[His tone is half bullying, half insinuating. He is obviously enjoying having her on the rack.

Ann: Ninian, you are so different. I—you—I mean I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Ninian: You’ll soon know, my darling. Don’t shudder.

[Ann has got up and is moving away from him.

Ninian: Come here!

[Like a C. O.

Ninian: Come here!

[Ninian gets up and drags Ann to the sofa, pushing her on to her knees and imprisoning her between his two legs. With one hand he is holding her two wrists behind her back, with the other he is stroking her hair.

Ninian: They didn’t know how to treat you, did they? Tim and the others? Only Jordan knew. Women always capitulate to the men who think lightly of love.

Ann: Ninian, you’re hurting me.

Ninian: I’m asserting myself, my dear. Master and Mistress—that’s what a household needs.

[He laughs.

Ninian: By Jove, that’s good—worthy of your uncle.

Ann: Let me go.

Ninian: Where are those beautiful manners? Say “Please let me go, dear Ninian.”

Ann: Please let me go.

[Ninian releases her. She gets up and walks towards the window.

Ninian: I didn’t say you might walk away. Sit there. It is delightful to feel that we are sharing a secret—fellow conspirators.

[Pause.

Ninian: Where is the charming family chatter? And surely even your usual courtesy would compel you to answer when you are spoken to.

Ann: Ninian, please let me go and wash my face and tidy my hair.

Ninian: By all means. Make yourself pretty. I shall still be here.

[Exit Ann.

[Enter Lord William and Selina.

Lord William: Good morning, Ninian.

Ninian: Good morning.

Lord William: You seem in excellent spirits.

Ninian: I am.

Lord William: Bolshies red as ever?

Ninian: I beg your pardon?

Lord William: Red as the faces of their most apoplectic opponents.

Selina: Papa, you’re getting vulgar.

Ninian: It is a sad thing that a man with your father’s attainments should not have devoted his gifts to the service of his country.

Lord William (dryly): I leave that to you and Jordan.

Selina: Mr. Jordan is altogether detestable.

Lord William: By the way, Ninian, I’ve found something out about Jordan.

Ninian: What?

Lord William: That night when he didn’t turn up to make his speech. You remember? The occasion Ann made that tirade about.

Ninian: Yes.

Lord William: Well, it was true. He was with a woman.

Ninian (paling): What?

Lord William: Tommy Dunn saw him getting out of a taxi with a woman at one a.m. at the door of a block of flats—flats that I am afraid Tommy knows only too well. He’s quite certain it was Jordan because Jordan’s hat fell off and he picked it up.

Ninian: Good God!

[Enter Ann, looking very pale. She has obviously been weeping.

Ninian: Ann, did you hear what Uncle William said?

Ann: Yes, I knew.

Ninian: Knew what?

Ann: Knew that Mr. Jordan was with a woman that night.

Ninian: Then why the devil——

Ann: I know. I was a fool. It was a silly thing to do. It was the first thing that came into my head.

Ninian: Uncle William, I have insulted my wife this morning in a way that no woman has ever been insulted before. Ann, do you think that you can ever forgive me?

Ann: I forgive you.

Ninian (taking her hand and kissing it): You are a saint.

Ann: Alas, no. You were right, Ninian. Only a human being.

[Enter Molyneux and Lady Emily. They are all talking. Lord William and Ann are D. S. L. corner.

Lady Emily: There is nothing like the country, Ann, nothing like it.

Molyneux: Home, sweet home. When I am asked if I have any relations I always say, I have some Cathcart connections.

Ann (in a tone of desperate weariness): Everything is going round and round just the same, though the bottom has fallen out of life.

Lord William: My dear, life is a merry-go-round. It never stops for you however many things you drop. The onlooker sees you sitting on the same painted swan, but he can’t see your broken heart unless you show it to him. There is only one rule—not to fall off.

Ann: What is there left for me?

Lord William: Your painted swan.

Lady Emily: As we were crossing the park we met the vicar, who said, “Quite a stranger, Lady Emily.” It is delightful to be able to count on something in this world.

Molyneux: Candover means a great deal to me. In the whole shifting scene of life, here alone I find my certainties.

Lady Emily: Selina, do you remember that little thing like barley sugar who married a big-game shooter?

Ann (desperately, to Lord William): Listen to them. I can’t bear it. They are going on as if nothing had happened.

Lord William: Nothing has happened.

Ann: They are just the same—just the same as they were the day before yesterday.

Lord William: Just the same as they were fifty years ago. Why should they change now?

Ann: And Ninian thinks that he has wronged me, and Tim believes that I am a saint.

Lord William: Ninian did wrong you and you are a saint.

Ann: What was it you said? In life we don’t go from one thing to another, but from one thing to the same thing.

Lord William: You see, one is after all the same person. Whatever we do, our actions are defeated by our characters.

Ann: Then this merry-go-round is a life sentence?

Lord William: And you can’t change your swan without falling.

Ann (passionately): I want to fall——

Lord William (gently): Listen, my dear, to what Emily is saying.

Lady Emily:—she really was a very silly woman. Looking up with her huge blue eyes, she said, “My husband married me for love.”

Molyneux:—And I commented acidly, “So many marriages can only be explained by love.”

Lady Emily:—And the fool answered, “Dear Mr. Molyneux, it does me good to hear you say that. I knew you were an idealist.”

Molyneux:—And then——?

Curtain

Washington,
November, 1922.

Printed at
The Chapel River Press,
Kingston, Surrey.