Three Plays by Granville-Barker Part 42

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. [_giving up the cigar search._] Here, who's going to play?

MR. GEORGE BOOTH. [_pathetically as he gets up._] Well, if my wrist will hold out . .

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. [_To_ TREGONING.] No, don't you bother to look for them. [_He strides from the room, his voice echoing through the hall._]

Honor, where are those Ramon Allones?

ALICE. [_calling after._] She's in the drawing-room with Auntie and Mr.

Colpus.

MR. VOYSEY. Now I should suggest that you and Denis go and take off the billiard table cover. You'll find folding it up is a very excellent amus.e.m.e.nt.

_He ill.u.s.trates his meaning with his table napkin and by putting together the tips of his forefingers, roguishly._

ETHEL. I am not going to blush. I do kiss Denis . . occasionally . .

when he asks me.

MR. GEORGE BOOTH. [_teasing her._] You are blus.h.i.+ng.

ETHEL. I am not. If you think we're ashamed of being in love, we're not, we're very proud of it. We will go and take off the billiard table cover and fold it up . . and then you can come in and play. Denis, my dear, come along solemnly and if you flinch I'll never forgive you. [_she marches off and reaches the door before her defiant dignity breaks down; then suddenly_--] Denis, I'll race you.

_And she flashes out._ DENIS, _loyal, but with no histrionic instincts, follows her rather sheepishly_.

DENIS. Ethel, I can't after dinner.

MR. VOYSEY. Women play that game better than men. A man shuffles through courts.h.i.+p with one eye on her relations.

_The Major comes stalking back, followed in a fearful flurry by his elder sister_, HONOR. _Poor_ HONOR [_her female friends are apt to refer to her as Poor_ HONOR] _is a phenomenon common to most large families.

From her earliest years she has been bottle washer to her brothers.

While they were expensively educated she was grudged schooling; her highest accomplishment was meant to be mending their clothes. Her fate is a curious survival of the intolerance of parents towards her s.e.x until the vanity of their hunger for sons had been satisfied. In a less humane society she would have been exposed at birth. But if a very general though patronising affection, accompanied by no consideration at all, can bestow happiness_, HONOR _is not unhappy in her survival. At this moment, however, her life is a burden._

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. Honor, they are not in the dining-room.

HONOR. But they must be!--Where else can they be?

_She has a habit of accentuating one word in each sentence and often the wrong one._

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. That's what you ought to know.

MR. VOYSEY. [_as he moves towards the door._] Well . . will you have a game?

MR. GEORGE BOOTH. I'll play you fifty up, not more. I'm getting old.

MR. VOYSEY. [_stopping at a dessert dish._] Yes, these are good apples of Bearman's. I think six of my trees are spoilt this year.

HONOR. Here you are, Booth.

_She triumphantly discovers the discarded box, at which the Major becomes pathetic with indignation._

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. Oh, Honor, don't be such a fool. These are what we've been smoking. I want the Ramon Allones.

HONOR. I don't know the difference.

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. No, you don't, but you might learn.

MR. VOYSEY. [_in a voice like the crack of a very fine whip._] Booth.

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. [_subduedly._] What is it, sir?

MR. VOYSEY. Look for your cigars yourself. Honor, go back to your reading and your sewing or whatever you were fiddling at, and fiddle in peace.

MR. VOYSEY _departs, leaving the room rather hushed_. MR. BOOTH _has not waited for this parental display. Then_ ALICE _insinuates a remark very softly_.

ALICE. Have you looked in the Library?

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. [_relapsing to an injured mutter._] Where's Emily?

HONOR. Upstairs with little Henry, he woke up and cried.

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. Letting her wear herself to rags over the child . . !

HONOR. Well, she won't let me go.

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. Why don't you stop looking for those cigars?

HONOR. If you don't mind, I want a reel of blue silk now I'm here.

MAJOR BOOTH VOYSEY. I daresay they are in the Library. What a house!

_He departs._

HONOR. Booth is so trying.

ALICE. Honor, why do you put up with it?

HONOR. Someone has to.

ALICE. [_discreetly nibbling a nut, which_ EDWARD _has cracked for her_.] I'm afraid I think Master Major Booth ought to have been taken in hand early . . with a cane.

HONOR. [_as she vaguely burrows into corners._] Papa did. But it's never prevented him booming at us . . oh, ever since he was a baby. Now he's fl.u.s.tered me so I simply can't think where this blue silk is.

ALICE. All the Pettifers desired to be remembered to you, Edward.

HONOR. I must do without it. [_but she goes on looking._] I think, Alice, that we're a very difficult family . . except perhaps Edward.

EDWARD. Why except me?

HONOR. [_Who has only excepted out of politeness to present company._]

Well, you may be difficult . . to yourself. [_Then she starts to go, threading her way through the disarranged chairs._] Mr. Colpus will shout so loud at Mother and she hates people to think she's so very deaf. I thought Mary Pettifer looking old . . [_and she talks herself out of the room._]