MORLEY. They will get on well enough this time, I imagine.
MRS. G. (a little bit alarmect). Does that mean—any change of policy?
MORLEY. Of policy—I hope not. Of person—yes.
MRS. G. Is anyone leaving the Cabinet?
MORLEY. We may all be leaving it, very soon. He asked me to tell you; he had promised Armitstead a game. Look how he is enjoying it!
MRS. G. (shrewdly). Ah! then I expect he is winning.
MORLEY. Oh? I should not have called him a bad loser.
MRS. G. No; but he likes winning better—the excitement of it.
MORLEY. That is only human. Yes, he has been a great winner—sometimes.
MRS. G. When has he ever lost—except just for the time? He always knows that.
MORLEY. Ah, yes! To quote your own sprightly phrase, we—he and the party with him—are always "popping up again."
MRS. G. When did I say that?
MORLEY. Seven years ago, when we began to win bye-elections on the Irish question. The bye-elections are not going so well for us just now.
MRS. G. But the General Election will.
MORLEY. Perhaps one will—in another seven years or so.
MRS. G. But isn't there to be one this year?
MORLEY (gravely). The Cabinet has decided against it.
MRS. G. But Mr. Morley! Now the Lords have thrown out the Irish Bill there must be an election.
MORLEY. That was Mr. Gladstone's view.
MRS. G. Wasn't it yours, too?
MORLEY. Yes; but we couldn't—we couldn't carry the others.
MRS. G. Then you mean Mr. Gladstone is going to form a new Cabinet?
MORLEY. No. A new Cabinet is going to be formed, but he will not be in it.That is his resolution. I was to tell you.
(At this news of the downfall of her hopes the gentle face becomes piteously woeful; full of wonder also.)
MRS. G. He asked you—to tell me that!
MORLEY. Yes.
MRS. G. Oh! Then he really means it! Had he been in any doubt he would have consulted me.
(Tears have now come to sustain the dear lady in her sense of desolation. Mr. Morley, with quiet philosophy, does his best to give comfort.)
MORLEY. It was the only thing to do. Ireland kept him in politics; if that goes, he goes with it.
MRS. G. But Ireland—doesn't go.
MORLEY. As the cause for a General Election it goes, I'm afraid.
MRS. G. But that isn't honest, Mr. Morley!
MORLEY. I agree.
MRS. G. And it won't do any good—not in the end.
MORLEY. To that also, I agree. Ireland remains; and the problem will get worse.
MRS. G. But, indeed, you are wrong, Mr. Morley! It was not Ireland that kept my husband in politics; it was Mr. Chamberlain.
MORLEY. That is a view which, I confess, had not occurred to me.Chamberlain?
MRS. G. No one could have kept Mr. Chamberlain from leading the Liberal party, except Mr. Gladstone. And now he never will!
MORLEY. That, certainly, is a triumph, of a kind. You think that influenced him? Chamberlain was a friend of mine once—is still, in a way. (He pauses, then adds ruefully) Politics are a cruel game!
(He sighs and sits depressed. But mention of her husband's great antagonist has made the old lady brisk again.)
MRS. G. Do you know, Mr. Morley, that if Mr. Gladstone had not made me pray for that man every night of my life, I should positively have hated him.
MORLEY (with a touch of mischief). You do that?—still? Tell me—(I am curious)—do you pray for him as plain "Joe Chamberlain," or do you put in the "Mister"?
MRS. G. I never mention his name at all; I leave that to Providence—to be understood.
MORLEY. Well, ithasbeen understood, and answered—abundantly;Chamberlain's star is in the ascendant again. It's strange; he and Mr.Gladstone never really got on together.
MRS. G. I don't think he ever really tried—much.
MORLEY. Didn't he? Oh, you don't mean Mr. Gladstone?
MRS. G. And then, you see, the Queen never liked him. That has counted for a good deal.
MORLEY. It has—curiously.
MRS. G. Now why should it, Mr. Morley? She ought not to have such power—any more than I.
MORLEY. How can it be kept from either of you? During the last decade this country has been living on two rival catchwords, which in the field of politics have meant much—the "Widow at Windsor," and the "Grand Old Man." And these two makers of history are mentally and temperamentally incompatible. That has been the tragedy. This isherday, dear lady; but it won't always be so.
MRS. G. Mr. Morley, who is going to be—who will take Mr. Gladstone's place?
MORLEY. Difficult to say: the Queen may make her own choice. Spencer, perhaps; though I rather doubt it; probably Harcourt.
MRS. G. Shall you serve under him?
MORLEY. I haven't decided.
MRS. G. You won't.
MORLEY. Possibly not. We are at the end of a dispensation. Whether I belong to the new one, I don't yet know.
MRS. G. The Queen will be pleased, at any rate.
MORLEY. Delighted.
MRS. G. Will she offer him a peerage, do you think?
MORLEY. Oh, of course.
MRS. G. Yes. And she knows he won't accept it. So that gives her the advantage of seeming—magnanimous!
MORLEY. Dear lady, you say rather terrible things—sometimes! You pray for the Queen, too, I suppose; or don't you?
MRS. G. Oh yes; but that's different. I don't feel with her that it's personal. She was always against him. It was her bringing up; she couldn't help being.
MORLEY. So was Chamberlain; so was Harcourt; so was everybody. He is the loneliest man, in a great position, that I have ever known.
MRS. G. Till he met you, Mr. Morley.
MORLEY. I was only speaking of politics. Sixty years ago he metyou.
MRS. G. Nearly sixty-three.
MORLEY. Three to the good; all the better!
MRS. G. (having finished off the comforter). There! that is finished now!
MORLEY. A thousand thanks; so it is to be mine, is it?
MRS. G. I wanted to say, Mr. Morley, how good I think you have always been to me.
MORLEY. I, dear lady? I?
MRS. G. I must so often have been in the way without knowing it. You see, you and I think differently. We belong to different schools.
MORLEY. If you go on, I shall have to say "angel," again. That is all Icansay.
MRS. G. (tremulously). Oh, Mr. Morley, you will tell me! Is this the end? Has he—has he, after all, been a failure?
MORLEY. My dear lady, he has been an epoch.
MRS. G. Aren't epochs failures, sometimes?
MORLEY. Even so, they count; we have to reckon with them. No, he is no failure; though it may seem like it just now. Don't pay too much attention to what the papers will say. He doesn't, though he reads them. Look at him now!—does that look like failure?
(He points to the exuberantly energetic figure intensely absorbed in its game.)
MRS. G. He is putting it on to-night a little, forme, Mr. Morley. He knows I am watching him. Tell me how he seemed when he first spoke to you. Was he feeling it—much?
MORLEY. Oh, deeply, of course! He believes that on a direct appeal we could win the election.
MRS. G. And you?
MORLEY. I don't. But all the same I hold it the right thing to do. Great causes must face and number their defeats. That is how they come to victory.
MRS. G. And now that will be in other hands, not his. Suppose he should not live to see it. Oh, Mr. Morley, Mr. Morley, how am I going to bear it!
MORLEY. Dear lady, I don't usually praise the great altitudes. May I speak in his praise, just for once, to-night? As a rather faithless man myself— not believing or expecting too much of human nature—I see him now, looking back, more than anything else as a man of faith.
MRS. G. Ah, yes. To him religion has always meant everything.
MORLEY. Faith in himself, I meant.
MRS. G. Of course; he had to have that, too.
MORLEY. And I believe in him still, more now than ever. They can remove him; they cannot remove Ireland. He may have made mistakes and misjudged characters; he may not have solved the immediate problem either wisely or well. But this he has done, to our honour and to his own: he has given us the cause of liberty as a sacred trust. If we break faith with that, we ourselves shall be broken—and we shall deserve it.
MRS. G. You think that—possible?
MORLEY. I would rather not think anything just now. The game is over; I must be going. Good night, dear friend; and if you sleep only as well as you deserve, I could wish you no better repose. Good-bye.
(He moves toward the table from which the players are now rising.)
GLADSTONE. That is a game, my dear Armitstead, which came to this country nearly eight hundred years ago from the Crusades. Previously it had been in vogue among the nomadic tribes of the Arabian desert for more than a thousand years. Its very name, "backgammon," so English in sound, is but a corruption from the two Arabic wordsbacca, andgamma(my pronunciation of which stands subject to correction), meaning—if I remember rightly—"the board game." There, away East, lies its origin; its first recorded appearance in Europe was at the Sicilian Court of the Emperor Frederick II; and when the excommunication of Rome fell on him in the year 1283, the game was placed under an interdict, which, during the next four hundred years, was secretly but sedulously disregarded within those impregnably fortified places of learning and piety, to which so much of our Western civilisation is due, the abbeys and other scholastic foundations of the Benedictine order. The book-form, in which the board still conceals itself, stands as a memorial of its secretive preservation upon the shelves of the monastic libraries. I keep my own, with a certain touch of ritualistic observance, between this seventeenth century edition of the works of Roger Bacon and this more modern one, in Latin, of the writings of Thomas Aquinas; both of whom may not improbably have been practitioners of the game.
ARMITSTEAD. Very interesting, very interesting.
(During this recitation Mr. Gladstone has neatly packed away the draughts and the dice, shutting them into their case finally and restoring it to its place upon the bookshelf.)
GLADSTONE. My dear, I have won the rubber.
MRS. G. Have you, my dear? I'm very glad, if Mr. Armitstead does not mind.
ARMITSTEAD. To be beaten by Mr. Gladstone, ma'am, is a liberal education in itself.
MORLEY (to his host). I must say good-night, now, sir.
GLADSTONE. What, my dear Morley, must you be going?
MORLEY. For one of my habits it is almost late—eleven.
ARMITSTEAD. In that case I must be going, too. Can I drop you anywhere,Morley?
MORLEY. Any point, not out of your way, in the direction of my own door, I shall be obliged.
ARMITSTEAD. With pleasure. I will come at once. And so—good-night, Mrs.Gladstone. Mr. Prime Minister, good-night.
GLADSTONE. Good-night, Armitstead.
MORLEY (aside to Mr. Gladstone). I have done what you asked of me, sir.
GLADSTONE. I thank you. Good-night.
(The two guests have gone; and husband and wife are left alone. He approaches, and stands near.)
So Morley has told you, my dear?
MRS. G. That you are going down to Windsor to-morrow? Yes, William. You will want your best frock-suit, I suppose?
GLADSTONE. My best and my blackest would be seemly under the circumstances, my love. This treble-dated crow will keep the obsequies as strict as Court etiquette requires, or as his wardrobe may allow. I have a best suit, I suppose?
MRS. G. Yes, William. I keep it put away for you.
GLADSTONE (after a meditative pause begins to recite).
"Come, thou who art the wine and witOf all I've writ:The grace, the glory, and the bestPiece of the rest,Thou art, of what I did intend,The all and end;And what was made, was made to meetThee, thee, my sheet!"
Herrick, to his shroud, my dear! A poet who has the rare gift of being both light and spiritual in the same breath. Read Herrick at his gravest, when you need cheering; you will always find him helpful.
MRS. G. Then—will you read him to me to-night, William?
GLADSTONE. Why, certainly, my love, if you wish.
(He stoops and kisses her.)
MRS. G. (speaking very gently). I was waiting for that.
GLADSTONE. And I was waiting—for what you have to say.
MRS. G. I can say nothing.
GLADSTONE. Why, nothing?
MRS. G. Because I can't be sure of you, my dear. You've done this before.
GLADSTONE. This time it has been done for me. My own say in the matter has been merely to acquiesce.
MRS. G. Ah! so you say! And others—others may say it for you; but—
GLADSTONE. Anno Domini says it, my dear.
MRS. G. Anno Domini has been saying it for the last twenty years. Much heed you paid to Anno Domini.
GLADSTONE. You never lent it the weight of your counsels, my own love— till now.
MRS. G. I know, William, when talking is useless.
GLADSTONE. Ah! I wonder—if I do.
MRS. G. No; that's why I complain. Twenty years ago you said you were going to retire from politics and take up theology again—that you were old, and had come to an end. Why, you were only just beginning! And it will always be the same; any day something may happen—more Bulgarian atrocities, or a proposal for Welsh disestablishment. Then you'll break out again!
GLADSTONE. But I am in favour of Welsh disestablishment, my dear—when it comes.
MRS. G. Are you? Oh, yes; I forgot. You are in favour of so many things you didn't used to be. Well, then, it will be something else. You will always find an excuse; I shall never feel safe about you.
GLADSTONE (in moved tone). And if you could feel safe about me— what then?
MRS. G. Oh, my dear, my dear, if I could! Always I've seen you neglecting yourself—always putting aside your real interests—the things that you most inwardly cared about, the things which you always meant to do when you "had time." And here I have had to sit and wait for the time that never came. Isn't that true?
GLADSTONE. There is an element of truth in it, my dear.
MRS. G. Well, twenty years have gone like that, and you've "had no time." Oh, if you could only go back to the things you meant to do, twenty years ago—and take them up, just where you left off—why, I should see you looking—almost young again. For you've been looking tired lately, my dear.
GLADSTONE. Tired? Yes: I hoped not to have shown it. But three weeks ago I had to own to myself that I was beginning to feel tired. I went to Crichton Browne (I didn't tell you, my love); he said there was nothing the matter with me—except old age.
MRS. G. You should have come to me, my dear; I could have told you the only thing to do.
GLADSTONE. Is it too late to tell me now?
MRS. G. Yes; because now you've done it, without my advice, William. Think of that! For the first time!
GLADSTONE (gravely surprised). So you have been wishing it, have you?
(And the devoted wife, setting her face, and steadying her voice, struggles on to give him what comfort she may, in the denial of her most cherished hopes.)
MRS. G. I've been waiting, waiting, waiting for it to come. But it was the one thing I couldn't say, till you—till you thought of it yourself!
GLADSTONE. Did I do so? Or did others think of it for me? I'm not sure;I'm not sure. My judgment of the situation differed from theirs. Icouldn't carry them with me. In my own Cabinet I was a defeated man. OnlyMorley stood by me then.
(Deep in the contemplation of his last political defeat, he is not looking at her face; and that is as well. Her voice summons him almost cheerfully from his reverie.)
MRS. G. William dear, can you come shopping with me to-morrow? Oh, no, to-morrow you are going to Windsor. The day after, then.
GLADSTONE. What is that for, my dear?
MRS. G. We have to get something for Dorothy's birthday, before we go home. You mustn't forget things like that, you know. Dorothy is important.
GLADSTONE. Not merely important, my love; she is a portent—of much that we shall never know. Dorothy will live to see the coming of the new age.
MRS. G. The new age? Well, so long as you let it alone, my dear, it may be as new as it likes; I shan't mind.
GLADSTONE. We will leave Dorothy to manage it her own way.
MRS. G. Then you will shop with me—not to-morrow—Thursday?
GLADSTONE. Piccadilly, or Oxford Street?
MRS. G. I thought Gamage's.
GLADSTONE. Holborn? That sounds adventurous. Yes, my love, I will shop with you on Thursday—if all goes well at Windsor to-morrow—with all the contentment in the world. (They kiss.) Now go to bed; and presently I will come and read Herrick to you.
(She gets up and goes toward the door, when her attention is suddenly arrested by the carpet.)
MRS. G. William! Do you see how this carpet is wearing out? We shall have to get a new one.
GLADSTONE. It won't be necessary now. Those at Hawarden, if I remember rightly, are sufficiently new to last out our time.
MRS. G. I wish I could think so, my dear. They would if you didn't give them such hard wear, walking about on them. The way you wear things out has been my domestic tragedy all along!
GLADSTONE (standing with folded hands before her). My love, I have just remembered; I have a confession to make.
MRS. G. What, another? Oh, William!
GLADSTONE. I cannot find either of my comforters. I'm afraid I have lost them. I had both this morning, and now both are gone.
MRS. G. Why, you are worse than ever, my dear! Both in one day! You have not done that for twenty years.
GLADSTONE. I am sorry. I won't do it again.
MRS. G. Ah! so you say! Poor Mr. Morley will have to wait now. I had promised him this. There!
(Making him sit down, she puts the comforter round his neck, and gives him a parting kiss.)
And now I'm going.
GLADSTONE. Go, my love! I will come presently.
(But he has not quite got rid of her. Her hands are now reaching down to the back of the sofa behind him.)
What are you looking for?
MRS. G. My knitting-needles. You are sitting on them. Now mind, you are not to sit up!
GLADSTONE. I won't sit up long.
(Quietly and serenely she goes to the door, looks back for a moment, then glides through it, leaving behind a much-deceived husband, who will not hear the sound of her solitary weeping, or see any signs of it on her face when presently he comes to read Herrick at her bedside.)
(For a while he sits silent, peacefully encompassed in the thoughts with which she has provided him; then very slowly he speaks.)
GLADSTONE. Well, if it pleases her—I suppose it must be right!
Possession
Dramatis Personae
JULIA ROBINSONSistersLAURA JAMESSistersMARTHA ROBINSONSistersSUSAN ROBINSONTheir MotherTHOMAS ROBINSONTheir FatherWILLIAM JAMESHusband to Laura JamesHANNAHThe family servant
The Everlasting Habitations
"All hope abandon ye who enter here."
"Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye jail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations"
Possession
A Peep-Show in Paradise
It is evening (or so it seems), and to the comfortably furnished Victorian drawing-room a middle-aged maid-servant in cap and apron brings a lamp, and proceeds to draw blinds and close curtains. To do this she passes the fire-place, where before a pleasantly bright hearth sits, comfortably sedate, an elderly lady whose countenance and attitude suggest the very acme of genteel repose. She is a handsome woman, very conscious of herself, but carrying the burden of her importance with an ease which, in her own mind, leaves nothing to be desired. The once-striking outline of her features has been rounded by good feeding to a softness which is merely physical; and her voice, when she speaks, has a calculated gentleness very caressing to her own ear, and a little irritating to others who are not of an inferior class. Menials like it, however. The room, though over-upholstered, and not furnished with any more individual taste than that which gave its generic stamp to the great Victorian period, is the happy possessor of some good things. Upon the mantel-shelf, backed by a large mirror, stands old china in alternation with alabaster jars, under domed shades, and tall vases encompassed by pendant ringlets of glass-lustre. Rose-wood, walnut, and mahogany make a well-wooded interior; and in the dates thus indicated there is a touch of Georgian. But, over and above these mellowing features of a respectable ancestry, the annunciating Angel of the Great Exhibition of1851has spread a brooding wing. And while the older articles are treasured on account of family association, the younger and newer stand erected in places of honour by reason of an intrinsic beauty never previously attained to. Through this chamber the dashing crinoline has wheeled the too vast orb of its fate, and left fifty years after (if we may measure the times of Heaven by the ticks of an earthly chronometer) a mark which nothing is likely to erase. Upon the small table, where Hannah the servant deposits the lamp, lies a piece of crochet-work. The fair hands that have been employed on it are folded on a lap of corded silk representing the fashions of the nineties, and the grey-haired beauty (that once was) sits contemplative, wearing a cap of creamish lace, tastefully arranged, not unaware that in the entering lamp-light, and under the fire's soft glow of approval, she presents to her domestic's eye an improving picture of gentility. It is to Miss Julia Robinson's credit—and she herself places it there emphatically—that she always treats servants humanly, though at a distance. And when she now speaks she confers her slight remark just a little as though it were a favour.
JULIA. How the days are drawing out, Hannah.
HANNAH. Yes, Ma'am; nicely, aren't they?
(For Hannah, being old-established, may say a thing or two not in the strict order. In fact, it may be said that, up to a well-understood point, character is encouraged in her, and is allowed to peep through in her remarks.)
JULIA. What time is it?
HANNAH (looking with better eyes than her mistress at the large ormolu clock which records eternally the time of the great Exhibition). Almost a quarter to six, Ma'am.
JULIA. So late? She ought to have been here long ago.
HANNAH. Who, Ma'am, did you say, Ma'am?
JULIA. My sister, Mrs. James. You remember?
HANNAH. What, Miss Martha, Ma'am? Well!
JULIA. No, it's Miss Laura this time: you didn't know she had married, I suppose?
HANNAH (with a world of meaning, well under control). No, Ma'am. (A pause.) I made up the bed in the red room; was that right, Ma'am?
JULIA (archly surprised). What? Then you knew someone was coming?Why did you pretend, Hannah?
HANNAH. Well, Ma'am, you see, you hadn'ttoldme before.
JULIA. I couldn't. One cannot always be sure. (This mysteriously.) But something tells me now that she is to be with us. I have been expecting her over four days.
HANNAH (picking her phrases a little, as though on doubtful ground). It must be a long way, Ma'am. Did she make a comfortable start, Ma'am?
JULIA. Very quietly, I'm told. No pain.
HANNAH. I wonder what she'll be able to eat now, Ma'am. She was always very particular.
TULIA. I daresay you will be told soon enough. (Thus in veiled words she conveys that Hannah knows something of Mrs. James's character.)
HANNAH (resignedly). Yes, M'm.
JULIA. I don't think I'll wait any longer. If you'll bring in tea now. Make enough for two, in case: pour it off into another pot, and have it under the tea-cosy.
HANNAH. Yes, Ma'am.
(Left alone, the dear lady enjoys the sense of herself and the small world of her own thoughts in solitude. Then she sighs indulgently.)
JULIA. Yes, I suppose I would rather it had been Martha. Poor Laura! (She puts out her hand for her crochet, when it is arrested by the sound of a knock, rather rapacious in character.) Ah, that's Laura all over!
(Seated quite composedly and fondling her well-kept hands, she awaits the moment of arrival. Very soon the door opens, and the over-expected Mrs. James—a luxuriant garden of widow's weeds, enters. She is a lady more strongly and sharply featured than her sister, but there is nothing thin-lipped about her; with resolute eye and mouth a little grim, yet pleased at so finding herself, she steps into this chamber of old memories and cherished possessions, which translation to another and a better world has made hers again. For a moment she sees the desire of her eyes and is satisfied; but for a moment only. The apparition of another already in possession takes her aback.)
JULIA (with soft effusiveness). Well, Laura!
LAURA (startled). Julia!
JULIA.Hereyou are!
LAURA. Whoever thought of finding you?
JULIA (sweetly). Didn't you?
(They have managed to embrace: but Laura continues to have her grievance.)
LAURA. No! not for a moment. I really think they might have told me. What brought you?
JULIA. Our old home, Laura. It was a natural choice, I think: as one was allowed to choose. I suppose you were?
LAURA (her character showing.) I didn't ask anyone's leave to come.
JULIA. And how are you?
LAURA. I don't know; I want my tea.
JULIA. Hannah is just bringing it.
LAURA. Who's Hannah?
JULIA.OurHannah: our old servant. Didn'tsheopen the door to you?
LAURA. What? Come back, has she?
JULIA. I found her here when I came, seven years ago. I didn't ask questions. Here she is.
(EnterHannah with the tea-tray.)
LAURA (with a sort of grim jocosity). How d'ye do, Hannah?
HANNAH. Nicely, thank you, Ma'am. How are you, Ma'am?
(Hannah, as she puts down the tray, is prepared to have her hand shaken: for it is a long time (thirty years or so in earthly measure) since they met. But Mrs. James is not so cordial as all that.)
LAURA. I'm very tired.
JULIA. You've come a long way. (But Laura's sharp attention has gone elsewhere.)
LAURA. Hannah, what have you got my best tray for? You know that is not to be used every day.
JULIA. It's all right, Laura. You don't understand.
LAURA. What don't I understand?
JULIA. Here one always uses the best. Nothing wears out or gets broken.
LAURA. Then where's the pleasure of it? If one always uses them and they never break—'best' means nothing!
JULIA. It is a little puzzling at first. You must be patient.
LAURA. I'm not a child, Julia.
JULIA (beautifully ignoring). A little more coal, please, Hannah. (Then to her sister as she pours out the tea.) And how did you leave everybody?
LAURA. Oh, pretty much as usual. Most of them having colds. That's how I got mine. Mrs. Hilliard came to call and left it behind her. I went out with it in an east wind and that finished me.
JULIA. Oh, but how provoking! (She wishes to be sympathetic; but this is a line of conversation she instinctively avoids!)
LAURA.No, Julia! … (This, delivered with force, arrests the criminal intention.)Nosugar. To think of your forgetting that!
JULIA (most sweetly). Milk?
LAURA. Yes, you know I take milk.
(Crossing over, but sitting away from the tea-table, she lets her sister wait on her.)
JULIA. Did Martha send me any message?
LAURA. How could she? She didn't know I was coming.
JULIA. Was it so sudden?
LAURA. I sent for her and she didn't come. Think of that!
JULIA. Oh! She would be sorry. Tea-cake?
LAURA (taking the tea-cake that is offered her). I'm not so sure. She was nursing Edwin's boy through the measles, so of courseIdidn't count. (Nosing suspiciously.) Is this China tea?
JULIA. If you like to think it. You have as you choose. How is our brother, Edwin?
LAURA. His wife's more trying than ever. Julia, what a fool that woman is!
JULIA. Well, let's hope he doesn't know it.
LAURA. He must know. I've told him. She sent a wreath to my funeral, 'With love and fond affection, from Emily.' Fond fiddlesticks! Humbug! She knows I can't abide her.
JULIA. I suppose she thought it was the correct thing.
LAURA. And I doubt if it cost more than ten shillings. Now Mrs. Dobson—you remember her: she lives in Tudor Street with a daughter one never sees—something wrong in her head, and has fits—she sent me a cross of lilies, white lilac, and stephanotis, as handsome as you could wish; and a card—I forget what was on the card…. Julia, when you died—
JULIA. Oh, don't Laura!
LAURA. Well, you did die, didn't you?
JULIA. Here one doesn't talk of it. That's over. There are things you will have to learn.
LAURA. What I was going to say was—when I died I found my sight was much better. I could read all the cards without my glasses. Doyouuse glasses?
JULIA. Sometimes, for association. I have these of our dear Mother's in her tortoise-shell case.
LAURA. That reminds me. Where is our Mother?
JULIA. She comes—sometimes.
LAURA. Why isn't she here always?
JULIA (with pained sweetness). I don't know, Laura. I never ask questions.
LAURA. Really, Julia, I shall be afraid to open my mouth presently!
JULIA (long-suffering still). When you see her you will understand.I told her you were coming, so I daresay she will look in.
LAURA. 'Look in'!
JULIA. Perhaps. That is her chair, you remember. She always sits there, still.
(ENTERHannah with the coal.)
Just a little on, please, Hannah—only a little.
LAURA. This isn't China tea: it's Indian, three and sixpenny.
JULIA. Mine is ten shilling China.
LAURA. Lor', Julia! How are you able to afford it?
JULIA. A little imagination goes a long way here, you'll find. Once I tasted it. So now I can always taste it.
LAURA. Well! I wish I'd known.
JULIA. Now youdo.
LAURA. But I never tasted tea at more than three-and-six. Had I known, I could have got two ounces of the very best, and had it when——
JULIA. A lost opportunity. Life is full of them.
LAURA. Then you mean to tell me that if I had indulged more then, I could indulge more now?
JULIA. Undoubtedly. As I never knew what it was to wear sables, I have to be content with ermine.
LAURA. Lor', Julia, how paltry!
(While this conversation has been going on, a gentle old lady has appeared upon the scene, unnoticed and unannounced. One perceives, that is to say, that the high-backed arm-chair beside the fire, sheltered by a screen from all possibility of draughts, has an occupant. Dress and appearance show a doubly septuagenarian character: at the age of seventy, which in this place she retains as the hall-mark of her earthly pilgrimage, she belongs also to the 'seventies' of the last century, wears watered silk, and retains under her cap a shortened and stiffer version of the side-curls with which she and all 'the sex' captivated the hearts of Charles Dickens and other novelists in their early youth. She has soft and indeterminate features, and when she speaks her voice, a little shaken by the quaver of age, is soft and indeterminate also. Gentle and lovable, you will be surprised to discover that she, also, has a will of her own; but for the present this does not show. From the dimly illumined corner behind the lamp her voice comes soothingly to break the discussion.)
OLD LADY. My dear, would you move the light a little nearer? I've dropped a stitch.
LAURA (starting up). Why, Mother dear, when did you come in?
JULIA (interposing with arresting hand). Don't! You mustn't try to touch her, or she goes.
LAURA. Goes?
JULIA. I can't explain. She is not quite herself. She doesn't always hear what one says.
LAURA (assertively). She can hear me. (To prove it, she raises her voice defiantly.) Can't you, Mother?
MRS. R. (the voice perhaps reminding her). Jane, dear, I wonder what's become of Laura, little Laura: she was always so naughty and difficult to manage, so different from Martha—and the rest.
LAURA. Lor', Julia! Is it as bad as that? Mother, 'little Laura' is here, sitting in front of you. Don't you know me?
MRS. R. Do you remember, Jane, one day when we'd all started for a walk, Laura had forgotten to bring her gloves, and I sent her back for them? And on the way she met little Dorothy Jones, and she took her gloves off her, and came back with them just as if they were her own.
LAURA. What a good memory you have, Mother! I remember it too. She was an odious little thing, that Dorothy—always so whiney-piney.
JULIA. More tea, Laura?
(Laura pushes her cup at her without remark, for she has been kept waiting; then, in loud tones, to suit the one whom she presumes to be rather deaf:)
LAURA. Mother! Where are you living now?
MRS. R. I'm living, my dear.
LAURA. I said 'where?'
JULIA. We live where it suits us, Laura.
LAURA. Julia, I wasn't addressing myself to you. Mother, whereareyou living?… Why,wherehas she gone to?
(For now we perceive that this gentle Old Lady so devious in her conversation has a power of self-possession, of which, very retiringly, she avails herself.)
JULIA (improving the occasion, as she hands back the cup, with that touch of superiority so exasperating to a near relative). Now you see! If you press her too much, she goes…. You'll have to accommodate yourself, Laura.
LAURA (imposing her own explanation). I think you gave megreentea, Julia … or have had it yourself.
JULIA (knowing better). The dear Mother seldom stays long, except when she finds me alone.
(Having insinuated this barb into the flesh of her 'dear sister,' she takes up her crochet with an air of great contentment. Mrs. James, meanwhile, to make herself more at home, now that tea is finished, undoes her bonnet-strings with a tug, and lets them hang. She is not in the best of tempers.)
LAURA. I don't believe she recognised me. Why did she keep on calling me'Jane'?
JULIA. She took you for poor Aunt Jane, I fancy.
LAURA (infuriated at being taken for anyone 'poor').Why should she do that, pray?
JULIA. Well, there always was a likeness, you know; and you are older than you were, Laura.
LAURA (crushingly). Does 'poor Aunt Jane' wear widow's weeds? (This reminds her not only of her own condition, but of other things as well. She sits up and takes a stiller bigger bite into her new world.) Julia!… Where's William?
JULIA. I haven't inquired.
LAURA (self-importance and a sense of duty consuming her.) I wish to see him.
JULIA. Better not, as it didn't occur to you before.
LAURA. Am I not to see my own husband, pray?
JULIA. He didn't ever livehere, you know.
LAURA. He can come, I suppose. He has got legs like the rest of us.
JULIA. Yes, but one can't force people: at least, not here. You should remember that—before he married you—he had other ties.
(Mrs. James preserves her self-possession, but there is battle in her eye.)
LAURA. He was married to me longer than he was to Isabel.
JULIA. They had children.
LAURA. I could have had children if I chose. I didn't choose…. Julia, how am I to see him?
JULIA (Washing her hands of it). You must manage for yourself,Laura.
LAURA. I'm puzzled! Here are we in the next world just as we expected, and where are all the—? I mean, oughtn't we to be seeing a great many more things than we do?
JULIA. What sort of things?
LAURA. Well,… have you seen Moses and the Prophets?
JULIA. I haven't looked for them, Laura. On Sundays, I still go to hearMr. Moore.
LAURA. That's you all over! You never would go o the celebrated preachers.But I mean to. (Pious curiosity awakens.) What happens here, onSundays?
JULIA (smiling). Oh, just the same.
LAURA. NoHighChurch ways, I hope? If they go in for that here, I shall go out!
JULIA (patiently explanatory). You will go out if you wish to go out. You can choose your church. As I tell you, I always go to hear Mr. Moore; you can go and hear Canon Farrar.
LAURA. Dean Farrar, Isupposeyou mean.
JULIA. He was not Dean in my day.
LAURA. He ought to have been a Bishop—_Arch_bishop,Ithink— so learned, and such a magnificent preacher. But I still wonder why we don't see Moses and the Prophets.
JULIA. Well, Laura, it's the world as we knew it-that for the present. No doubt other things will come in time, gradually. But I don't know: I don't ask questions.
LAURA (doubtfully). I suppose itisHeaven, in a way, though?
JULIA. Dispensation has its own ways, Laura; and we have ours.
LAURA (who is not going to be theologically dictated to by anyone lower than Dean Farrar). Julia, I shall start washing the old china again.
JULIA. As you like; nothing ever gets soiled here.
LAURA. It's all very puzzling. The world seems cut in half. Things don't seemreal.
JULIA.Morereal, I should say. We have them—as we wish them to be.
LAURA. Then why can't we have our Mother, like other things?
JULIA. Ah, with persons it is different. We all belong to ourselves now.That one has to accept.
LAURA (stubbornly). Does William belong to _him_self?
JULIA. I suppose.
LAURA. It isn't Scriptural!
JULIA. It's better.
LAURA. Julia, don't be blasphemous!
JULIA. To consult William's wishes, I meant.
LAURA. But I want him. I've a right to him. If he didn't mean to belong to me, he ought not to have married me.
JULIA. People make mistakes sometimes.
LAURA. Then they should stick to them. It's not honourable. Julia, I mean to have William!
JULIA (resignedly). You and he must arrange that between you.
LAURA (making a dash for it). William! William, I say! William!
JULIA. Oh, Laura, you'll wake the dead! (She gasps, but it is too late: the hated word is out.)
LAURA (as one who will be obeyed). William!
(The door does not open; but there appears through it the indistinct figure of an elderly gentleman with a weak chin and a shifting eye. He stands irresolute and apprehensive; clearly his presence there is perfunctory. Wearing his hat and carrying a hand-bag, he seems merely to have looked in while passing.)
JULIA. Apparently you are to have your wish. (She waves an introductory hand; Mrs. James turns, and regards the unsatisfactory apparition with suspicion.)
LAURA. William, is that you?
WILLIAM (nervously). Yes, my dear; it's me.
LAURA. Can't you be more distinct than that?
WILLIAM. Why do you want me?
LAURA. Have you forgotten I'm your wife?
WILLIAM. I thought you were my widow, my dear.
LAURA. William, don't prevaricate. I am your wife, and you know it.
WILLIAM. Does a wife wear widow's weeds? A widow is such a distant relation: no wonder I look indistinct.
LAURA. How did I know whether I was going to find you here?
WILLIAM. Where else? But you look very nice as you are, my dear. Black suits you.
(But Mrs. James is not to be turned off by compliments.)
LAURA. William, who are you living with?
WILLIAM. With myself, my dear.
LAURA. Anyone else?
WILLIAM. Off and on I have friends staying.
LAURA. Are you living with Isabel?
WILLIAM. She comes in occasionally to see how I'm getting on.
LAURA. And how are you 'getting on'—without me?
WILLIAM. Oh, I manage—somehow.
LAURA. Are you living a proper life, William?
WILLIAM. Well, I'mhere, my dear; what more do you want to know?
LAURA. There's a great deal I want to know. But I wish you'd come in and shut the door, instead of standing out there in the passage.
JULIA. The doorisshut, Laura.
LAURA. Then I don't call it a door.
WILLIAM (trying to make things pleasant). When is a door not a door? When it's a parent.
LAURA. William, I want to talk seriously. Do you know that when you died you left a lot of debts I didn't know about?
WILLIAM. I didn't know about them either, my dear. But if you had, it wouldn't have made any difference.
LAURA. Yes, it would! I gave you a very expensive funeral.
WILLIAM. That was to please yourself, my dear; it didn't concern me.
LAURA. Have you no self-respect? I've been at my own funeral to-day, let me tell you!
WILLIAM. Have you, my dear? Rather trying, wasn't that?
LAURA. Yes, it was. They've gone and put me beside you; and now I begin to wish they hadn't!
WILLIAM. Go and haunt them for it!
(At this Julia deigns a slight chuckle.)
LAURA (abruptly getting back to her own). I had to go into a smaller house, William. And people knew it was because you'd left me badly off.
WILLIAM. That reflected on me, my dear, not on you.
LAURA. It reflected on me for ever having married you.
WILLIAM. I've often heard you blame yourself. Well, now you're free.
LAURA. I'mnotfree.
WILLIAM. You can be if you like. Hadn't you better?
LAURA (sentimentally). Don't you see I'm still in mourning for you,William?
WILLIAM. I appreciate the compliment, my dear. Don't spoil it,
LAURA. Don't be heartless!
WILLIAM. I'm not: far from it. (He looks at his watch)I'm afraid I must go now.
LAURA. Why must you go?
WILLIAM. They are expecting me—to dinner.
LAURA. Who's 'they'?
WILLIAM. The children and their mother. They've invited me to stay the night.
(Mrs. James does her best to conceal the shock this gives her. She delivers her ultimatum with judicial firmness!)
LAURA. William, I wish you to come and live here with me.
(William vanishes. Mrs. James in a fervour of virtuous indignation hastens to the door, opens it, and calls 'William!' but there is no answer!)
(Julia, meanwhile, has rung the bell. Mrs. James stills stands glowering in the doorway when she hears footsteps, and moves majestically aside for the returned penitent to enter; but alas! it is only Hannah, obedient to the summons of the bell. Mrs. James faces round and fires a shot at her.)
LAURA. Hannah, youarean ugly woman.
JULIA (faint with horror). Laura!
HANNAH (imperturbably).Well, Ma'am, I'm as God made me.
JULIA. Yes, please, take the tea-things. (Sotto voce, as Hannah approaches.) I'm sorry, Hannah!
HANNAH. It doesn't matter, Ma'am. (She picks up the tray expeditiously and carries it off)
(Mrs. James eyes the departing tray, and is again reminded of something)
LAURA. Julia, where is the silver tea-pot?
JULIA. Which, Laura?
LAURA. Why, that beautiful one of our Mother's.
JULIA. When we shared our dear Mother's things between us, didn't Martha have it?
LAURA. Yes, she did. But she tells me she doesn't know what's become of it. When I ask, what did she do with it in the first place? she loses her temper. But once she told me she left it here withyou.
(The fierce eye and the accusing tone make no impression on that cushioned fortress of gentility. With suave dignity Miss Robinson makes chaste denial.)
JULIA. No.
LAURA (insistent).Yes; in a box.
JULIA. In a box? Oh, she may have left anything in a box.
LAURA. It was that box she always travelled about with and never opened.Well, I looked in it once (never mind how), and the tea-pot wasn't there.
JULIA (gently, making allowance). Well, Ididn'tlook in it,Laura.
(Like a water-lily folding its petals she adjusts a small shawl about her shoulders, and sinks composedly into her chair.)
LAURA. The more fool you!… But all the other things she had of our Mother'swerethere: a perfect magpie's nest! And she, living in her boxes, and never settling anywhere. What did she want with them?
JULIA. I can't say, Laura.
LAURA. No—no more can I; no more can anyone! Martha has got the miser spirit. She's as grasping as a caterpillar.Iought to have had that tea-pot.
JULIA. Why?
LAURA. Because I had a house of my own, and people coming to tea. Martha never had anyone to tea with her in her life—except in lodgings.
JULIA. We all like to live in our own way. Martha liked going about.
LAURA. Yes. She promisedme, after William—I suppose I had better say 'evaporated' as you won't let me say 'died'—she promised always to stay with me for three months in the year. She never did. Two, and some little bits, were the most. And I want to know where was that tea-pot all the time?
JULIA (a little jocosely). Not in the box, apparently.
LAURA (returning to her accusation). I thought you had it.
JULIA. You were mistaken. Had I had it here, you would have found it.
LAURA. Did Martha never tellyouwhat she did with it?
JULIA. I never asked, Laura.
LAURA. Julia, if you say that again I shall scream.
JULIA. Won't you take your things off?
LAURA. Presently. When I feel more at home. (Returning to the charge) But most of our Mother's things are here.
JULIA. Your share and mine.
LAURA. How did you get mine here?
JULIA. You brought them. At least, theycame, a little before you did. Then I knew you were on your way.
LAURA (impressed).Lor'! So that's how things happen?
(She goes and begins to take a look round, and Julia takes up her crochet again. As she does so her eye is arrested by a little old-fashioned hour-glass standing upon the table from which the tea-tray has been taken, the sands of which are still running.)
JULIA (softly, almost to herself). Oh, but how strange! That was Martha's. Is Martha coming too? (She picks up the glass, looks at it, and sets it down again)
LAURA (who is examining the china on a side-table).Why, I declare,Julia! Here is your Dresden that was broken—without a crack in it!
JULIA. No, Laura, it was yours that was broken.
LAURA. It wasnotmine; it was yours…Don't you rememberIbroke it?
JULIA. When you broke it you said it was mine. Until you broke it, you said it was yours.
LAURA. Very well, then: as you wish. It isn't broken now, and it's mine.
JULIA. That's satisfactory. I get my own back again. It's the better one.
(ENTERHannah with a telegram on a salver.)
HANNAH (in a low voice of mystery). A telegram, Ma'am.
(Julia opens it. The contents evidently startle her, but she retains her presence of mind)
JULIA. No answer.
(EXITHannah)
JULIA. Laura, Martha is coming!
LAURA. Here? Well, I wonder how she has managed that!
(Her sister hands her the telegram, which she reads.)
'Accident. Quite safe. Arriving by the 6.30.' Why, it's after that now!
JULIA (sentimentally).Oh, Laura, only think! So now we shall be all together again.
LAURA. Yes, I suppose we shall.
JULIA. It will be quite like old days.
LAURA (warningly, as she sits down again and prepares for narrative). Notquite, Julia. (She leans forward, and speaks with measured emphasis) Martha's temper has got very queer! She never had a very good temper, as you know: and it's grown on her.
(A pause. Julia remains silent)
I could tell you some things; but—(Seeing herself unencouraged)oh, you'll find out soon enough! (Then, to stand right with herself) Julia,amI difficult to get on with?
JULIA. Oh well, we all have our little ways, Laura.
LAURA. But Martha: she's so rude! I can't introduce her to people! If anyone comes, she just runs away.
JULIA (changing the subject). D'you remember, Laura, that charming young girl we met at Mrs. Somervale's, the summer Uncle Fletcher stayed with us?
LAURA (snubbingly). I can't say I do.
JULIA. I met her the other day: married, and with three children—and just as pretty and young-looking as ever.
(All this is said with the most ravishing air, but Laura is not to be diverted.)
LAURA. Ah! I daresay. When Martha behaves like that, I hold my tongue and say nothing. But what people must think, I don't know. Julia, when you first came here, did you find old friends and acquaintances? Did anybody recognise you?
JULIA. A few called on me: nobody I didn't wish to see.
LAURA. Is that odious man who used to be our next-door neighbour—the one who played on the 'cello—here still?
JULIA. Mr. Harper? I see him occasionally. I don't find him odious.
LAURA.Don't you?
JULIA. It was his wife who was the—She isn't here: and I don't think he wants her.
LAURA. Where is she?
JULIA. I didn't ask, Laura.
(Mrs. James gives a jerk of exasperation, but at that moment the bell rings and a low knock is heard.)
JULIA (ecstatically).Here she is!
LAURA. Julia, I wonder how it is Martha survived us. She's much the oldest.
JULIA (pleasantly palpitating). Does it matter? Does it matter?
(The door opens and in comes Martha. She has neither the distinction of look nor the force of character which belongs to her two sisters. Age has given a depression to the plain kindliness of her face, and there is a harassed look about her eyes. She peeps into the room a little anxiously, then enters, carrying a large flat box covered in purple paper which, in her further progress across the room she lays upon the table. She talks in short jerks and has a quick, hurried way of doing things, as if she liked to get through and have done with them. It is the same when she submits herself to the embrace of her relations)
LAURA. Oh, so you've come at last. Quite time, too!
MARTHA. Yes, here I am.
JULIA. My dear Martha, welcome to your old home! (Embracing her)How are you?
MARTHA. I'm cold. Well, Laura.
(Between these two the embrace is less cordial, but it takes place)
LAURA. How did you come?
MARTHA. I don't know.
JULIA (seeing harassment in her sister's eye). Arrived safely, at any rate.
MARTHA. I think I was in a railway accident, but I can't be sure. I only heard the crash and people shouting. I didn't wait to see. I just put my fingers in my ears, and ran away.
LAURA. Why do you think it was a railway accident?
MARTHA. Because I was in a railway carriage. I was coming to your funeral. If you'd told me you were ill I'd have come before. I was bringing you a wreath. And then, as I tell you, there was a crash and a shout; and that's all I know about it.
LAURA. Lor', Martha! I suppose they'll have an inquest on you.
MARTHA (stung).I think they'd better mind their own business, and you mind yours!
JULIA. Laura! Here we don't talk about such things. They don't concern us.Would you like tea, Martha, or will you wait for supper?
MARTHA (who has shaken her head at the offer of tea, and nodded a preference for supper). You know how I've always dreaded death.
JULIA. Oh, don't, my dear Martha! It's past.
MARTHA. Yes; but it's upset me. The relief, that's what I can't get over: the relief!
JULIA. Presently you will be more used to it.
(She helps her off with her cloak.)
MARTHA. There were people sitting to right and to left of me and opposite; and suddenly a sort of crash of darkness seemed to come all over me, and I saw nothing more. I didn't feel anything: only a sort of a jar here.
(She indicates the back of her neck. Julia finds these anatomical details painful, and holds her hands deprecatingly; but Laura has no such qualms. She is now undoing the parcel which, she considers, is hers.)
LAURA. I daresay it was only somebody's box from the luggage-rack. I've known that happen. I don't suppose for a minute that it was a railway accident.
(She unfurls the tissue paper of the box and takes out the wreath)
JULIA. Why talk about it?
LAURA. Anyway, nothing has happened to these. 'With fondest love fromMartha.' H'm. Pretty!
JULIA. Martha, would you like to go upstairs with your things? And you,Laura?
MARTHA. I will presently, when I've got warm.