Dear Brutus Part 2

LADY CAROLINE. Why do you ask?

MABEL. In Queen Elizabeth's time, wasn't it?

MATEY. He says he is all that is left of Merry England: that little man.

MABEL (who has brothers). Lob? I think there is a famous cricketer called Lob.

MRS. COADE. Wasn't there a Lob in Shakespeare? No, of course I am thinking of Robin Goodfellow.

LADY CAROLINE. The names are so alike.

JOANNA. Robin Goodfellow was Puck.

MRS. COADE (with natural elation). That is what was in my head. Lob was another name for Puck.

JOANNA. Well, he is certainly rather like what Puck might have grown into if he had forgotten to die. And, by the way, I remember now he does call his flowers by the old Elizabethan names.

MATEY. He always calls the Nightingale Philomel, miss--if that is any help.

ALICE (who is not omniscient). None whatever. Tell me this, did he specially ask you all for Midsummer week?

(They a.s.sent.)

MATEY (who might more judiciously have remained silent). He would!

MRS. COADE. Now what do you mean?

MATEY. He always likes them to be here on Midsummer night, ma'am.

ALICE. Them? Whom?

MATEY. Them who have that in common.

MABEL. What can it be?

MATEY. I don't know.

LADY CAROLINE (suddenly introspective). I hope we are all nice women?

We don't know each other very well. (Certain suspicions are reborn in various b.r.e.a.s.t.s.) Does anything startling happen at those times?

MATEY. I don't know.

JOANNA. Why, I believe this is Midsummer Eve!

MATEY. Yes, miss, it is. The villagers know it. They are all inside their houses, to-night--with the doors barred.

LADY CAROLINE. Because of--of him?

MATEY. He frightens them. There are stories.

ALICE. What alarms them? Tell us--or--(She brandishes the telegram.)

MATEY. I know nothing for certain, ma'am. I have never done it myself.

He has wanted me to, but I wouldn't.

MABEL. Done what?

MATEY (with fine appeal). Oh. ma'am, don't ask me. Be merciful to me, ma'am. I am not bad naturally. It was just going into domestic service that did for me; the accident of being flung among bad companions. It's touch and go how the poor turn out in this world; all depends on your taking the right or the wrong turning.

MRS. COADE (the lenient). I daresay that is true.

MATEY (under this touch of sun). When I was young, ma'am, I was offered a clerks.h.i.+p in the city. If I had taken it there wouldn't be a more honest man alive to-day. I would give the world to be able to begin over again.

(He means every word of it, though the flowers would here, if they dared, burst into ironical applause.)

MRS. COADE. It is very sad, Mrs. Dearth.

ALICE. I am sorry for him; but still--

MATEY (his eyes turning to LADY CAROLINE). What do you say, my lady?

LADY CAROLINE (briefly). As you ask me, I should certainly say jail.

MATEY (desperately). If you will say no more about this, ma'am--I'll give you a tip that is worth it.

ALICE. Ah, now you are talking.

LADY CAROLINE. Don't listen to him.

MATEY (lowering). You are the one that is hardest on me.

LADY CAROLINE. Yes, I flatter myself I am.

MATEY (forgetting himself). You might take a wrong turning yourself, my lady.

LADY CAROLINE, I? How dare you, man.

(But the flowers rather like him for this; it is possibly what gave them a certain idea.)

JOANNA (near the keyhole of the dining-room door). The men are rising.

ALICE (hurriedly). Very well, Matey, we agree--if the 'tip' is good enough.

LADY CAROLINE. You will regret this.

MATEY. I think not, my lady. It's this: I wouldn't go out to-night if he asks you. Go into the garden, if you like. The garden is all right. (He really believes this.) I wouldn't go farther--not to-night.

MRS. COADE. But he never proposes to us to go farther. Why should he to-night?