Second Plays Part 51

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, dear, as I think I've told you, that was a mistake of your father's. I suppose he got it out of some book. I should certainly never have agreed to it, if I had heard him distinctly. I thought he said Millicent--after your Aunt Milly. And not being very well at the time, and leaving it all to him, I never really knew about it until it was too late to do anything. I did say to your father, "Can't we christen her again?" But there was nothing in the prayer book about it except "riper years," and n.o.body seemed to know when riper years began. Besides, we were all calling you Sandy then. I think Sandy is a very pretty name, don't you, Jane?

JANE. Oh, but don't you think Melisande is beautiful, Aunt Mary? I mean really beautiful.

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, it never seems to me quite respectable, not for a nicely-brought-up young girl in a Christian house. It makes me think of the sort of person who meets a strange young man to whom she has never been introduced, and talks to him in a forest with her hair coming down. They find her afterwards floating in a pool. Not at all the thing one wants for one's daughter.

JANE. Oh, but how thrilling it sounds!

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, I think you are safer with "Jane," dear. Your mother knew what she was about. And if I can save my only child from floating in a pool by calling her Sandy, I certainly think it is my duty to do so.

MELISANDE (to her self ecstatically). Melisande!

MRS. KNOWLE (to MELISANDE). Oh, and talking about floating in a pool reminds me about the bread-sauce at dinner to-night. You heard what your father said? You must give cook a good talking to in the morning.

She has been getting very careless lately. I don't know what's come over her.

MELISANDE. _I've_ come over her. When _you_ were over her, everything was all right. You know all about housekeeping; you take an interest in it. I don't. I hate it. How can you expect the house to be run properly when they all know I hate it? Why did you ever give it up and make me do it when you know how I hate it?

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, you must learn not to hate it. I'm sure Jane here doesn't hate it, and her mother is always telling me what a great help she is.

MELISANDE (warningly). It's no good your saying you like it, Jane, after what you told me yesterday.

JANE. I don't like it, but it doesn't make me miserable doing it. But then I'm different. I'm not romantic like Melisande.

MELISANDE. One doesn't need to be very romantic not to want to talk about bread-sauce. Bread-sauce on a night like this!

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, I'm only thinking of you, Sandy, not of myself. If I thought about myself I should disregard all the warnings that Dr.

Anderson keeps giving me, and I should insist on doing the housekeeping just as I always used to. But I have to think of you. I want to see you married to some nice, steady young man before I die--my handkerchief, Jane--(JANE gets up and gives her her handkerchief from the other end of the sofa)--before I die (she touches her eyes with her handkerchief), and no nice young man will want to marry you, if you haven't learnt how to look after his house for him.

MELISANDE (contemptuously). If that's marriage, I shall never get married.

JANE (shocked). Melisande, darling!

MRS. KNOWLE. Dr. Anderson was saying, only yesterday, trying to make me more cheerful, "Why, Mrs. Knowle," he said, "you'll live another hundred years yet." "Dr. Anderson," I said, "I don't _want_ to live another hundred years. I only want to live until my dear daughter, Melisande"--I didn't say Sandy to him because it seemed rather familiar--"I only want to live until my daughter Melisande is happily married to some nice, steady young man. Do this for me, Dr. Anderson,"

I said, "and I shall be your lifelong debtor." He promised to do his best. It was then that he mentioned about the cus.h.i.+on in the small of the back after meals. And so don't forget to tell cook about the bread-sauce, will you, dear?

MELISANDE. I will tell her, Mother.

MRS. KNOWLE. That's right. I like a man to be interested in his food.

I hope both your husbands, Sandy and Jane, will take a proper interest in what they eat. You will find that, after you have been married some years, and told each other everything you did and saw before you met, there isn't really anything to talk about at meals except food. And you must talk; I hope you will both remember that. Nothing breaks up the home so quickly as silent meals. Of course, breakfast doesn't matter, because he has his paper then; and after you have said, "Is there anything in the paper, dear?" and he has said, "No," then he doesn't expect anything more. I wonder sometimes why they go on printing the newspapers. I've been married twenty years, and there has never been anything in the paper yet.

MELISANDE. Oh, Mother, I hate to hear you talking about marriage like that. Wasn't there ever _any_ kind of romance between you and Father?

Not even when he was wooing you? Wasn't there ever one magic Midsummer morning when you saw suddenly "a livelier emerald twinkle in the gra.s.s, a purer sapphire melt into the sea"? Wasn't there ever one pa.s.sionate ecstatic moment when "once he drew with one long kiss my whole soul through my lips, as sunlight drinketh dew"? Or did you talk about bread-sauce _all_ the time?

JANE (eagerly). Tell us about it, Aunt Mary.

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, dear, there isn't very much to tell. I am quite sure that we never drank dew together, or anything like that, as Sandy suggests, and it wasn't by the sea at all, it was at Surbiton. He used to come down from London with his racquet and play tennis with us. And then he would stay on to supper sometimes, and then after supper we would go into the garden together--it was quite dark then, but everything smelt so beautifully, I shall always remember it--and we talked, oh, I don't know what about, but I knew somehow that I should marry him one day. I don't think _he_ knew--he wasn't sure--and then he came to a subscription dance one evening--I think Mother, your grandmother, guessed that that was to be my great evening, because she was very particular about my dress, and I remember she sent me upstairs again before we started, because I hadn't got the right pair of shoes on--rather a tight pair--however, I put them on. And there was a hansom outside the hall, and it was our last dance together, and he said, "Shall we sit it out, Miss Bagot?" Well, of course, I was only too glad to, and we sat it out in the hansom, driving all round Surbiton, and what your grandmother would have said I don't know, but, of course, I never told her. And when we got home after the dance, I went up to her room--as soon as I'd got my shoes off--and said, "Mother, I have some wonderful news for you," and she said, "_Not_ Mr.

Knowle--Henry?" and I said, "'M," rather bright-eyed you know, and wanting to cry. And she said, "Oh, my darling child!" and--Jane, where's my handkerchief? (It has dropped off the sofa and JANE picks it up) Thank you, dear. (She dabs her eyes) Well, that's really all, you know, except that--(she dabs her eyes again)--I'm afraid I'm feeling rather overcome. I'm sure Dr. Anderson would say it was very bad for me to feel overcome. Your poor dear grandmother. Jane, dear, why did you ask me to tell you all this? I must go away and compose myself before your uncle and Mr. Coote come in. I don't know what I should do if Mr. Coote saw me like this. (She begins to get up) And after calling me a Spartan Mother only yesterday, because I said that if any nice, steady young man came along and took my own dear little girl away from me, I should bear the terrible wrench in silence rather than cause either of them a moment's remorse. (She is up now) There!

JANE. Shall I come with you?

MRS. KNOWLE. No, dear, not just now. Let me be by myself for a little.

(She turns back suddenly at the door) Oh! Perhaps later on, when the men come from the dining-room, dear Jane, you might join me, with your Uncle Henry--if the opportunity occurs. . . . But only if it occurs, of course.

[She goes.

JANE (coming back to the sofa). Poor Aunt Mary! It always seems so queer that one's mother and aunts and people should have had their romances too.

MELISANDE. Do you call that romance, Jane? Tennis and subscription dances and wearing tight shoes?

JANE (awkwardly). Well, no, darling, not romance of course, but you know what I mean.

MELISANDE. Just think of the commonplace little story which mother has just told us, and compare it with any of the love-stories of history.

Isn't it pitiful, Jane, that people should be satisfied now with so little?

JANE. Yes, darling, very, very sad, but I don't think Aunt Mary--

MELISANDE. I am not blaming Mother. It is the same almost everywhere nowadays. There is no romance left.

JANE. No, darling. Of course, I am not romantic like you, but I do agree with you. It is very sad. Somehow there is no--(she searches for the right word)--no _romance_ left.

MELISANDE. Just think of the average marriage. It makes one shudder.

JANE (doing her best). Positively shudder!

MELISANDE. He meets Her at--(she shudders)--a subscription dance, or a tennis party--(she shudders again) or--at _golf_. He calls upon her mother--perhaps in a top hat--perhaps (tragically) even in a bowler hat.

JANE. A bowler hat! One shudders.

MELISANDE. Her mother makes tactful inquiries about his income--discovers that he is a nice, steady young man--and decides that he shall marry her daughter. He is asked to come again, he is invited to parties; it is understood that he is falling in love with the daughter. The rest of the family are encouraged to leave them alone together--if the opportunity occurs, Jane. (Contemptuously) But, of course, only if it occurs.

JANE (awkwardly). Yes, dear.

MELISANDE. One day he proposes to her.

JANE (to herself ecstatically). Oh!

MELISANDE. He stutters out a few unbeautiful words which she takes to be a proposal. She goes and tells Mother. He goes and tells Father.

They are engaged. They talk about each other as "my fiance." Perhaps they are engaged for months and months--

JANE. Years and years sometimes, Melisande.

MELISANDE. For years and years--and wherever they go, people make silly little jokes about them, and cough very loudly if they go into a room where the two of them are. And then they get married at last, and everybody comes and watches them get married, and makes more silly jokes, and they go away for what they call a honeymoon, and they tell everybody--they shout it out in the newspapers--_where_ they are going for their honeymoon; and then they come back and start talking about bread-sauce. Oh, Jane, it's horrible.

JANE. Horrible, darling. (With a French air) But what would you?

MELISANDE (in a low thrilling voice). What would I? Ah, what would I, Jane?

JANE. Because you see, Sandy--I mean Melisande--you see, darling, this _is_ the twentieth century, and--

MELISANDE. Sometimes I see him clothed in mail, riding beneath my lattice window.