The Admirable Crichton Part 22

LORD LOAM (searching his book eagerly). Page 81.

AGATHA. 'With presence of mind only equalled by his courage, he fixed an arrow in his bow.'

LORD LOAM. Thank you, Ernest; thank you, my boy.

AGATHA. 'Unfortunately he missed.'

LORD LOAM. Eh?

AGATHA. 'But by great good luck I heard his cries'--

LORD LOAM. My cries?

AGATHA.--'and rus.h.i.+ng forward with drawn knife, I stabbed the monster to the heart.'

(LORD LOAM shuts his book with a pettish slam. There might be a scene here were it not that CRICHTON reappears and goes to one of the gla.s.s cases. All are at once on the alert and his lords.h.i.+p is particularly sly.)

LORD LOAM. Anything in the papers, Catherine?

CATHERINE. No, father, nothing--nothing at all.

ERNEST (it pops out as of yore). The papers! The papers are guides that tell us what we ought to do, and then we don't do it.

(CRICHTON having opened the gla.s.s case has taken out the bucket, and ERNEST, looking round for applause, sees him carrying it off and is undone. For a moment of time he forgets that he is no longer on the island, and with a sigh he is about to follow CRICHTON and the bucket to a retired spot. The door closes, and ERNEST comes to himself.)

LORD LOAM (uncomfortably). I told him to take it away.

ERNEST. I thought--(he wipes his brow)--I shall go and dress. (He goes.)

CATHERINE. Father, it's awful having Crichton here. It's like living on tiptoe.

LORD LOAM (gloomily). While he is here we are sitting on a volcano.

AGATHA. How mean of you! I am sure he has only stayed on with us to--to help us through. It would have looked so suspicious if he had gone at once.

CATHERINE (revelling in the worst) But suppose Lady Brocklehurst were to get at him and pump him. She's the most terrifying, suspicious old creature in England; and Crichton simply can't tell a lie.

LORD LOAM. My dear, that is the volcano to which I was referring. (He has evidently something to communicate.) It's all Mary's fault. She said to me yesterday that she would break her engagement with Brocklehurst unless I told him about--you know what.

(All conjure up the vision of CRICHTON.)

AGATHA. Is she mad?

LORD LOAM. She calls it common honesty.

CATHERINE. Father, have you told him?

LORD LOAM (heavily). She thinks I have, but I couldn't. She's sure to find out to-night.

(Unconsciously he leans on the island concertina, which he has perhaps been lately showing to an interviewer as something he made for TWEENY.

It squeaks, and they all jump.)

CATHERINE. It's like a bird of ill-omen.

LORD LOAM (vindictively). I must have it taken away; it has done that twice.

(LADY MARY comes in. She is in evening dress. Undoubtedly she meant to sail in, but she forgets, and despite her garments it is a manly entrance. She is properly ashamed of herself. She tries again, and has an encouraging success. She indicates to her sisters that she wishes to be alone with papa.)

AGATHA. All right, but we know what it's about. Come along, Kit.

(They go. LADY MARY thoughtlessly sits like a boy, and again corrects herself. She addresses her father, but he is in a brown study, and she seeks to draw his attention by whistling. This troubles them both.)

LADY MARY. How horrid of me!

LORD LOAM (depressed). If you would try to remember--

LADY MARY (sighing). I do; but there are so many things to remember.

LORD LOAM (sympathetically). There are--(in a whisper). Do you know, Mary, I constantly find myself secreting hairpins.

LADY MARY. I find it so difficult to go up steps one at a time.

LORD LOAM. I was dining with half a dozen members of our party last Thursday, Mary, and they were so eloquent that I couldn't help wondering all the time how many of their heads he would have put in the bucket.

LADY MARY. I use so many of his phrases. And my appet.i.te is so scandalous. Father, I usually have a chop before we sit down to dinner.

LORD LOAM. As for my clothes--(wriggling). My dear, you can't think how irksome collars are to me nowadays.

LADY MARY. They can't be half such an annoyance, father, as--(She looks dolefully at her skirt.)

LORD LOAM (hurriedly). Quite so--quite so. You have dressed early to-night, Mary.

LADY MARY. That reminds me; I had a note from Brocklehurst saying that he would come a few minutes before his mother as--as he wanted to have a talk with me. He didn't say what about, but of course we know. (His lords.h.i.+p fidgets.) (With feeling.) It was good of you to tell him, father. Oh, it is horrible to me--(covering her face). It seemed so natural at the time.

LORD LOAM (petulantly). Never again make use of that word in this house, Mary.

LADY MARY (with an effort). Father, Brocklehurst has been so loyal to me for these two years that I should despise myself were I to keep my--my extraordinary lapse from him. Had Brocklehurst been a little less good, then you need not have told him my strange little secret.

LORD LOAM (weakly). Polly--I mean Mary--it was all Crichton's fault, he--

LADY MARY (with decision). No, father, no; not a word against him though. I haven't the pluck to go on with it; I can't even understand how it ever was. Father, do you not still hear the surf? Do you see the curve of the beach?

LORD LOAM. I have begun to forget--(in a low voice). But they were happy days; there was something magical about them.

LADY MARY. It was glamour. Father, I have lived Arabian nights. I have sat out a dance with the evening star. But it was all in a past existence, in the days of Babylon, and I am myself again. But he has been chivalrous always. If the slothful, indolent creature I used to be has improved in any way, I owe it all to him. I am slipping back in many ways, but I am determined not to slip back altogether--in memory of him and his island. That is why I insisted on your telling Brocklehurst. He can break our engagement if he chooses. (Proudly.) Mary Lasenby is going to play the game.

LORD LOAM. But my dear--