The Big Drum Part 29

[_Rising and moving to the fireplace, complainingly._] Really, Ottoline----!

OTTOLINE.

[_Sitting upon the settee._] Ha, ha, ha----!

LADY FILSON.

[_To_ BERTRAM, _who is slowly getting to his feet._] Go away, Bertie darling.

OTTOLINE.

_Mais pourquoi?_ Bertie knows everything, obviously.

LADY FILSON.

Why shouldn't he, Otto? Your brother is as interested as we are----

OTTOLINE.

But of course! _Naturellement!_ [_With a shrug._] _C'est une affaire de famille._ [_To_ BERTRAM, _who is now at the door on the left, his hand on the door-handle._] Come back, Bertie. [_Repeating her wry smile._] I shall be glad to receive your congratulations with mother's and Dad's.

[_To_ SIR RANDLE _and_ LADY FILSON.] Sit down, Dad; sit down, mother.

[SIR RANDLE _sits in the chair on the left of the settee on the right,_ LADY FILSON _in the low-backed arm-chair, and_ BERTRAM _at the oblong table._] Are you very much surprised, dear people?

SIR RANDLE.

Surprised? Hardly.

LADY FILSON.

Poor Sir Timothy! No, we are hardly surprised, Ottoline.

OTTOLINE.

Ah, but I don't mean surprised at my--having made Sir Timothy unhappy; I mean surprised at hearing there is--someone else----

SIR RANDLE.

My dear child, _that_ surprises us even less.

LADY FILSON.

Your dear father and I, Ottoline, are not unaware of the _many_ eligible men who are--how shall I put it?--pursuing you with their attentions.

SIR RANDLE.

Parents are notoriously short-sighted; but they are not necessarily--er--what are the things?--tss.h.!.+--the creatures that flutter----

BERTRAM.

Bats, father.

SIR RANDLE.

[_To_ BERTRAM.] Thank you, my boy.

OTTOLINE.

[_In a rigid att.i.tude._] It's cowardly of me perhaps, but I almost wish I had told Sir Timothy--a little more----

LADY FILSON.

Cowardly?

OTTOLINE.

So that he might have taken the edge off the announcement I'm going to make--and spared me----

SIR RANDLE.

The edge----?

LADY FILSON.

_Spared_ you--? [_Staring at_ OTTOLINE.] Ottoline, what on earth----!

OTTOLINE.

[_Relaxing._] Oh, I know I'm behaving as if I were a girl instead of a woman who has been married--a widow--free--independent--[_to_ SIR RANDLE] thanks to your liberality, Dad! But, being at home, I seem to have lost, in a measure, my sense of personal liberty----

SIR RANDLE.

[_Blandly but uneasily._] My child!

OTTOLINE.

That's _it_! Child! Now that I've returned to you, I'm still a child--still an object for you to fix your hopes and expectations upon.

The situation has slipped back, in your minds, pretty much to what it was in the old days in the Avenue Montaigne. You may protest that it isn't so, but it _is_. [_Attempting a laugh._] That's why my knees are shaking at this moment, and my spine's all of a jelly! [_She rises and goes to the chair at the writing-table and grips the chair-rail. The others follow her apprehensively with their eyes._] I--I'm afraid I'm about to disappoint you.

LADY FILSON.

H-how?

SIR RANDLE.

Disap-point us?

OTTOLINE.

[_Abruptly._] What's the time, Dad?