Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 233

MARGARET. I thought you were going to stop smoking before breakfast.

PENDLETON. My dear, I can't possibly stand the taste of tooth paste in my mouth all day.

[_Pendleton sits at table. Enters Mrs. Abbey with tray. Pendleton helps himself, then drops his knife and fork with a clang. Mrs.

Abbey and Margaret are startled._]

MRS. ABBEY. Anything the matter, sir?

PENDLETON. Dear, dear! My breakfast is quite spoiled again.

MRS. ABBEY [_concerned_]. Spoiled, sir?

PENDLETON [_pointing to red flowers on breakfast table_]. Look at those flowers, Mrs. Abbey. Not only are they quite out of harmony with the color scheme in this room, but they're positively red, and you know I have a perfect horror of red.

MRS. ABBEY. But you like them that color sometimes, sir. What am I to do when you're so temperamental about 'em.

MARGARET. Temperamental. I should say bad-tempered.

MRS. ABBEY [_soothingly_]. Oh no, ma'am. It isn't bad temper. I understand Mr. Pendleton. It's just another bad night he's had, that's what it is.

PENDLETON [_sarcastically polite_]. Mrs. Abbey, you appear to have an intimate knowledge of how I pa.s.s the nights. It's becoming quite embarra.s.sing.

MRS. ABBEY. You mustn't mind an old woman like me, sir.

[_The sound of a piano hopelessly out of tune, in the apartment upstairs, is heard, the player banging out Mendelssohn's Wedding March with unusual insistence._]

PENDLETON. There! That confounded piano again!

MARGARET. And they always play the Wedding March. There must be an old maid living there.

MRS. ABBEY. They're doing that for a reason.

MARGARET. What reason?

MRS. ABBEY. Their cook tole me yesterday that her missus thinks if she keeps on a-playing of the Wedding March, p'raps it'll give you an' Mr.

Pendleton the idea of getting married. She don't believe in couples livin' to-gether, like you an' Mr. Pendleton.

MARGARET. No?

MRS. ABBEY. And I just said you an' Mr. Pendleton had been living together so long, it was my opinion you might just as well be married an' done with it.

MARGARET [_angrily_]. Your opinion is quite uncalled for, Mrs. Abbey.

PENDLETON. Why shouldn't Mrs. Abbey give us her opinion? It may be valuable. Look at her experiences in matrimony.

MRS. ABBEY. In matrimony, and out of it, too.

MARGARET [_sitting_]. But Mrs. Abbey has no right to discuss our affairs with other people's maids.

MRS. ABBEY. I'll be glad to quit if I don't suit the mistress.

MARGARET [_angrily_]. There! Mistress again! How often have I asked you not to refer to me as the mistress?

MRS. ABBEY. No offense, ma'am.

PENDLETON. You'd better see if there's any mail, Mrs. Abbey, and take those flowers away with you.

MRS. ABBEY. Very well, sir.

[_Exit Mrs. Abbey door center._]

MARGARET. What an old-fas.h.i.+oned point of view Mrs. Abbey has.

[_Pendleton takes up paper and commences to read._]

MARGARET. Pommy, why do you stoop so?

PENDLETON. Am I stooping?

MARGARET. I'm tired of telling you. You ought to take more exercise.

[_Pendleton continues to read._]

MARGARET. One reason why the Greeks were the greatest of artists was because they cultivated the body as carefully as the mind.

PENDLETON. Oh! Hang the Greeks!

[_Enter Mrs. Abbey right, with letters._]

MRS. ABBEY. There are your letters, sir. [_Coldly._] And these are yours, ma'am.

[_Exit Mrs. Abbey left._]

MARGARET [_who has opened her letters meanwhile_]. How delightful! Tom Del Valli has asked us to a party at his studio next Friday.

PENDLETON [_opening his letters_]. Both of us?

MARGARET [_giving him letter_]. Yes, and Helen Marsden wants us for Sat.u.r.day.

PENDLETON. Both of us?

MARGARET [_picking up another letter_]. Yes, and here's one from Bobby Watson for Sunday.

PENDLETON. Both of us?

MARGARET. Yes.

PENDLETON. Really, Margaret, this is becoming exasperating. [_Holds up letters._] Here are four more, I suppose for both of us. People keep on inviting us out together time after time as though we were the most conventional married couple on G.o.d's earth.