Second Plays Part 75

MELISANDE. Are they? Oh, if I could believe they were!

GERVASE. You thought of me as your lover and true knight this morning.

Ah, but what an easy thing to be! You were my Princess. Look at yourself in the gla.s.s--how can you help being a princess? But if we could be companions, Melisande! That's difficult; that's worth trying.

MELISANDE (gently). What do you want me to do?

GERVASE. Get used to me. See me in a top-hat--see me in a bowler-hat.

Help me with my work; play games with me--I'll teach you if you don't know how. I want to share the world with you for all our lives. That's a long time, you know; we can't do it on one twenty-minutes' practice before breakfast. We can be lovers so easily--can we be friends?

MELISANDE (looking at him gravely). You are very wise.

GERVASE. I talked with a wise man in the wood this morning; I've been thinking over what he said. (Suddenly) But when you look at me like that, how I long to be a fool and say, "Come away with me now, now, now," you wonderful, beautiful, maddening woman, you adorable child, you funny foolish little girl. (Holding up a finger) Smile, Melisande.

Smile! (Slowly, reluctantly, she gives him a smile.) I suppose the fairies taught you that. Keep it for _me_, will you--but give it to me often. Do you ever laugh, Melisande? We must laugh together sometimes--that makes life so easy.

MELISANDE (with a happy little laugh). Oh, what can I say to you?

GERVASE. Say, "I think I should like you for a companion, Gervase."

MELISANDE (shyly). I think I should like you for a companion, Gervase.

GERVASE. Say, "Please come and see me again, Gervase."

MELISANDE. Please come and see me again, Gervase.

GERVASE (Jumping up and waving his hand) Say, "Hooray for things!"

MELISANDE (standing up, but shyly still). Hooray for things!

GERVASE. Thank you, Melisande . . . I must go. (He presses her hand and goes; or seems to be going. But suddenly he comes back, bends on one knee, raises her hand on his, and kisses it) My Princess!

[Then GERVASE goes out.

(MELISANDE stays there, looking after him, her hand to her cheek. . . .

But one cannot stand thus for ever. The new life must begin. With a little smile at herself, at GERVASE, at things, she fetches out the Great Book from its hiding-place, where she had buried it many weeks ago in disgust. Now it comes into its own. She settles down with it in her favourite chair. . . .)

MELISANDE (reading). To make Bread-Sauce. . . . Take an onion, peel and quarter it, and simmer it in milk. . . .

(But you know how the romantic pa.s.sage goes. We have her with it, curled up in the chair, this adorable child, this funny foolish little girl.)

THE STEPMOTHER

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

CHARACTERS

SIR JOHN PEMBURY, M.P.

LADY PEMBURY.

PERKINS.

THE STRANGER.

The first performance of this play was given at the Alhambra Theatre on November 16, 1920, with the following cast:

Sir John Pembury--GILBERT HARE.

Lady Pembury--WINIFRED EMERY.

Perkins--C.M. LOWNE.

The Stranger--GERALD DU MAURIER.

THE STEPMOTHER

(A summer morning. The sunniest and perhaps the pleasantest room in the London house of SIR JOHN PEMBURY, M.P. For this reason LADY PEMBURY uses it a good deal, although it is not officially hers. It is plainly furnished, and probably set out to be a sort of waiting-room for SIR JOHN'S many callers, but LADY PEMBURY has left her mark upon it.)

(PERKINS, the butler, inclining to stoutness, but not yet past his prime, leads the may in, followed by THE STRANGER, PERKINS has already placed him as "one of the lower cla.s.ses," but the intelligent person in the pit perceives that he is something better than that, though whether he is in the process of falling from a higher estate, or of rising to it, is not so clear. He is thirty odd, shabbily dressed (but then, so are most of us nowadays), and ill at ease; not because he is shabby, but because he is ashamed of himself. To make up for this, he adopts a bl.u.s.tering manner, as if to persuade himself that he is a fine fellow after all. There is a touch of commonness about his voice, but he is not uneducated.)

PERKINS. I'll tell Sir John you're here, but I don't say he'll see you, mind.

STRANGER. Don't you worry about that. He'll see me right enough.

PERKINS. He's busy just now. Well---- (He looks at THE STRANGER doubtfully.)

STRANGER (bitterly). I suppose you think I've got no business in a gentleman's house. Is that it?

PERKINS. Well, I didn't say so, did I? Maybe you're a const.i.tuent?

Being in the 'Ouse of Commons, we get some pretty queer ones at times.

All sorts, as you might say. . . . P'raps you're a deputation?

STRANGER (violently). What the h.e.l.l's it got to do with you who I am.

You go and tell your master I'm here--that's all you've got to do.

See?

PERKINS (unruffled). Easy, now, easy. You 'aven't even told me your name yet. Is it the Shah of Persia or Mr. Bottomley?

STRANGER. The less said about names the better. You say, "Somebody from Lambeth"--_he'll_ know what I mean.

PERKINS (humorously). Ah, I beg your pardon--the Archbishop of Canterbury. I didn't recognise your Grace.

STRANGER (angrily). It's people like you who make one sick of the world. Parasites--servile flunkeys, bolstering up an effete aristocracy. Why don't you get some proper work to do?

PERKINS (good-naturedly). Now, look here, young man, this isn't the time for that sort of talk. If you've got anything you want to get off your chest about flunkeys or monkeys, or whatever it may be, keep it till Sunday afternoon--when I'm off duty. (He comes a little closer to THE STRANGER) Four o'clock Sunday afternoon--(jerking his thumb over his shoulder)--just round the corner--in the Bolton Mews. See? n.o.body there to interrupt us. See? All quite gentlemanly and secluded, and a friend of mine to hold the watch. See? (He edges closer as he talks.)