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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Admirable Crichton, by J. M. Barrie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Admirable Crichton
+
+Author: J. M. Barrie
+
+Posting Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3490]
+Release Date: October, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Ralph Zimmermann and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON
+
+From The Plays Of J. M. Barrie
+
+A COMEDY
+
+By J. M. Barrie
+
+
+
+
+ACT I. AT LOAM HOUSE, MAYFAIR
+
+
+A moment before the curtain rises, the Hon. Ernest Woolley drives up
+to the door of Loam House in Mayfair. There is a happy smile on his
+pleasant, insignificant face, and this presumably means that he is
+thinking of himself. He is too busy over nothing, this man about town,
+to be always thinking of himself, but, on the other hand, he almost
+never thinks of any other person. Probably Ernest's great moment is when
+he wakes of a morning and realises that he really is Ernest, for we must
+all wish to be that which is our ideal. We can conceive him springing
+out of bed light-heartedly and waiting for his man to do the rest. He
+is dressed in excellent taste, with just the little bit more which shows
+that he is not without a sense of humour: the dandiacal are often saved
+by carrying a smile at the whole thing in their spats, let us say.
+Ernest left Cambridge the other day, a member of The Athenaeum (which
+he would be sorry to have you confound with a club in London of the same
+name). He is a bachelor, but not of arts, no mean epigrammatist (as you
+shall see), and a favourite of the ladies. He is almost a celebrity in
+restaurants, where he dines frequently, returning to sup; and during
+this last year he has probably paid as much in them for the privilege of
+handing his hat to an attendant as the rent of a working-man's flat. He
+complains brightly that he is hard up, and that if somebody or other at
+Westminster does not look out the country will go to the dogs. He is no
+fool. He has the shrewdness to float with the current because it is a
+labour-saving process, but he has sufficient pluck to fight, if fight
+he must (a brief contest, for he would soon be toppled over). He has
+a light nature, which would enable him to bob up cheerily in new
+conditions and return unaltered to the old ones. His selfishness is his
+most endearing quality. If he has his way he will spend his life like a
+cat in pushing his betters out of the soft places, and until he is old
+he will be fondled in the process.
+
+He gives his hat to one footman and his cane to another, and mounts the
+great staircase unassisted and undirected. As a nephew of the house he
+need show no credentials even to Crichton, who is guarding a door above.
+
+It would not be good taste to describe Crichton, who is only a servant;
+if to the scandal of all good houses he is to stand out as a figure in
+the play, he must do it on his own, as they say in the pantry and the
+boudoir.
+
+We are not going to help him. We have had misgivings ever since we found
+his name in the title, and we shall keep him out of his rights as long
+as we can. Even though we softened to him he would not be a hero in
+these clothes of servitude; and he loves his clothes. How to get him out
+of them? It would require a cataclysm. To be an indoor servant at all
+is to Crichton a badge of honour; to be a butler at thirty is the
+realisation of his proudest ambitions. He is devotedly attached to his
+master, who, in his opinion, has but one fault, he is not sufficiently
+contemptuous of his inferiors. We are immediately to be introduced to
+this solitary failing of a great English peer.
+
+This perfect butler, then, opens a door, and ushers Ernest into a
+certain room. At the same moment the curtain rises on this room, and the
+play begins.
+
+It is one of several reception-rooms in Loam House, not the most
+magnificent but quite the softest; and of a warm afternoon all that
+those who are anybody crave for is the softest. The larger rooms are
+magnificent and bare, carpetless, so that it is an accomplishment
+to keep one's feet on them; they are sometimes lent for charitable
+purposes; they are also all in use on the night of a dinner-party, when
+you may find yourself alone in one, having taken a wrong turning; or
+alone, save for two others who are within hailing distance.
+
+This room, however, is comparatively small and very soft. There are
+so many cushions in it that you wonder why, if you are an outsider and
+don't know that, it needs six cushions to make one fair head comfy. The
+couches themselves are cushions as large as beds, and there is an art
+of sinking into them and of waiting to be helped out of them. There are
+several famous paintings on the walls, of which you may say 'Jolly thing
+that,' without losing caste as knowing too much; and in cases there are
+glorious miniatures, but the daughters of the house cannot tell you of
+whom; 'there is a catalogue somewhere.' There are a thousand or so of
+roses in basins, several library novels, and a row of weekly illustrated
+newspapers lying against each other like fallen soldiers. If any one
+disturbs this row Crichton seems to know of it from afar and appears
+noiselessly and replaces the wanderer. One thing unexpected in such a
+room is a great array of tea things. Ernest spots them with a twinkle,
+and has his epigram at once unsheathed. He dallies, however, before
+delivering the thrust.
+
+ERNEST. I perceive, from the tea cups, Crichton, that the great function
+is to take place here.
+
+CRICHTON (with a respectful sigh). Yes, sir.
+
+ERNEST (chuckling heartlessly). The servants' hall coming up to have tea
+in the drawing-room! (With terrible sarcasm.) No wonder you look happy,
+Crichton.
+
+CRICHTON (under the knife). No, sir.
+
+ERNEST. Do you know, Crichton, I think that with an effort you might
+look even happier. (CRICHTON smiles wanly.) You don't approve of his
+lordship's compelling his servants to be his equals--once a month?
+
+CRICHTON. It is not for me, sir, to disapprove of his lordship's radical
+views.
+
+ERNEST. Certainly not. And, after all, it is only once a month that he
+is affable to you.
+
+CRICHTON. On all other days of the month, sir, his lordship's treatment
+of us is everything that could be desired.
+
+ERNEST. (This is the epigram.) Tea cups! Life, Crichton, is like a cup
+of tea; the more heartily we drink, the sooner we reach the dregs.
+
+CRICHTON (obediently). Thank you, sir.
+
+ERNEST (becoming confidential, as we do when we have need of an ally).
+Crichton, in case I should be asked to say a few words to the servants,
+I have strung together a little speech. (His hand strays to his pocket.)
+I was wondering where I should stand.
+
+(He tries various places and postures, and comes to rest leaning over
+a high chair, whence, in dumb show, he addresses a gathering. CRICHTON,
+with the best intentions, gives him a footstool to stand on, and
+departs, happily unconscious that ERNEST in some dudgeon has kicked the
+footstool across the room.)
+
+ERNEST (addressing an imaginary audience, and desirous of startling them
+at once). Suppose you were all little fishes at the bottom of the sea--
+
+(He is not quite satisfied with his position, though sure that the fault
+must lie with the chair for being too high, not with him for being too
+short. CRICHTON'S suggestion was not perhaps a bad one after all. He
+lifts the stool, but hastily conceals it behind him on the entrance of
+the LADIES CATHERINE and AGATHA, two daughters of the house. CATHERINE
+is twenty, and AGATHA two years younger. They are very fashionable young
+women indeed, who might wake up for a dance, but they are very lazy,
+CATHERINE being two years lazier than AGATHA.)
+
+ERNEST (uneasily jocular, because he is concealing the footstool). And
+how are my little friends to-day?
+
+AGATHA (contriving to reach a settee). Don't be silly, Ernest. If you
+want to know how we are, we are dead. Even to think of entertaining the
+servants is so exhausting.
+
+CATHERINE (subsiding nearer the door). Besides which, we have had to
+decide what frocks to take with us on the yacht, and that is such a
+mental strain.
+
+ERNEST. You poor over-worked things. (Evidently AGATHA is his favourite,
+for he helps her to put her feet on the settee, while CATHERINE has to
+dispose of her own feet.) Rest your weary limbs.
+
+CATHERINE (perhaps in revenge). But why have you a footstool in your
+hand?
+
+AGATHA. Yes?
+
+ERNEST. Why? (Brilliantly; but to be sure he has had time to think it
+out.) You see, as the servants are to be the guests I must be butler. I
+was practising. This is a tray, observe.
+
+(Holding the footstool as a tray, he minces across the room like an
+accomplished footman. The gods favour him, for just here LADY MARY
+enters, and he holds out the footstool to her.)
+
+Tea, my lady?
+
+(LADY MARY is a beautiful creature of twenty-two, and is of a natural
+hauteur which is at once the fury and the envy of her sisters. If she
+chooses she can make you seem so insignificant that you feel you might
+be swept away with the crumb-brush. She seldom chooses, because of the
+trouble of preening herself as she does it; she is usually content to
+show that you merely tire her eyes. She often seems to be about to go
+to sleep in the middle of a remark: there is quite a long and anxious
+pause, and then she continues, like a clock that hesitates, bored in the
+middle of its strike.)
+
+LADY MARY (arching her brows). It is only you, Ernest; I thought there
+was some one here (and she also bestows herself on cushions).
+
+ERNEST (a little piqued, and deserting the footstool). Had a very tiring
+day also, Mary?
+
+LADY MARY (yawning). Dreadfully. Been trying on engagement-rings all the
+morning.
+
+ERNEST (who is as fond of gossip as the oldest club member). What's
+that? (To AGATHA.) Is it Brocklehurst?
+
+(The energetic AGATHA nods.)
+
+You have given your warm young heart to Brocky?
+
+(LADY MARY is impervious to his humour, but he continues bravely.)
+
+I don't wish to fatigue you, Mary, by insisting on a verbal answer, but
+if, without straining yourself, you can signify Yes or No, won't you
+make the effort?
+
+(She indolently flashes a ring on her most important finger, and he
+starts back melodramatically.)
+
+The ring! Then I am too late, too late! (Fixing LADY MARY sternly, like
+a prosecuting counsel.) May I ask, Mary, does Brocky know? Of course,
+it was that terrible mother of his who pulled this through. Mother does
+everything for Brocky. Still, in the eyes of the law you will be,
+not her wife, but his, and, therefore, I hold that Brocky ought to be
+informed. Now--
+
+(He discovers that their languorous eyes have closed.)
+
+If you girls are shamming sleep in the expectation that I shall awaken
+you in the manner beloved of ladies, abandon all such hopes.
+
+(CATHERINE and AGATHA look up without speaking.)
+
+LADY MARY (speaking without looking up). You impertinent boy.
+
+ERNEST (eagerly plucking another epigram from his quiver). I knew that
+was it, though I don't know everything. Agatha, I'm not young enough to
+know everything.
+
+(He looks hopefully from one to another, but though they try to grasp
+this, his brilliance baffles them.)
+
+AGATHA (his secret admirer). Young enough?
+
+ERNEST (encouragingly). Don't you see? I'm not young enough to know
+everything.
+
+AGATHA. I'm sure it's awfully clever, but it's so puzzling.
+
+(Here CRICHTON ushers in an athletic, pleasant-faced young clergyman,
+MR. TREHERNE, who greets the company.)
+
+CATHERINE. Ernest, say it to Mr. Treherne.
+
+ERNEST. Look here, Treherne, I'm not young enough to know everything.
+
+TREHERNE. How do you mean, Ernest?
+
+ERNEST. (a little nettled). I mean what I say.
+
+LADY MARY. Say it again; say it more slowly.
+
+ERNEST. I'm--not--young--enough--to--know--everything.
+
+TREHERNE. I see. What you really mean, my boy, is that you are not old
+enough to know everything.
+
+ERNEST. No, I don't.
+
+TREHERNE. I assure you that's it.
+
+LADY MARY. Of course it is.
+
+CATHERINE. Yes, Ernest, that's it.
+
+(ERNEST, in desperation, appeals to CRICHTON.)
+
+ERNEST. I am not young enough, Crichton, to know everything.
+
+(It is an anxious moment, but a smile is at length extorted from
+CRICHTON as with a corkscrew.)
+
+CRICHTON. Thank you, sir. (He goes.)
+
+ERNEST (relieved). Ah, if you had that fellow's head, Treherne, you
+would find something better to do with it than play cricket. I hear you
+bowl with your head.
+
+TREHERNE (with proper humility). I'm afraid cricket is all I'm good for,
+Ernest.
+
+CATHERINE (who thinks he has a heavenly nose). Indeed, it isn't. You are
+sure to get on, Mr. Treherne.
+
+TREHERNE. Thank you, Lady Catherine.
+
+CATHERINE. But it was the bishop who told me so. He said a clergyman who
+breaks both ways is sure to get on in England.
+
+TREHERNE. I'm jolly glad.
+
+(The master of the house comes in, accompanied by LORD BROCKLEHURST.
+The EARL OF LOAM is a widower, a philanthropist, and a peer of advanced
+ideas. As a widower he is at least able to interfere in the domestic
+concerns of his house--to rummage in the drawers, so to speak, for which
+he has felt an itching all his blameless life; his philanthropy has
+opened quite a number of other drawers to him; and his advanced ideas
+have blown out his figure. He takes in all the weightiest monthly
+reviews, and prefers those that are uncut, because he perhaps never
+looks better than when cutting them; but he does not read them, and save
+for the cutting it would suit him as well merely to take in the covers.
+He writes letters to the papers, which are printed in a type to scale
+with himself, and he is very jealous of those other correspondents who
+get his type. Let laws and learning, art and commerce die, but leave the
+big type to an intellectual aristocracy. He is really the reformed House
+of Lords which will come some day.
+
+Young LORD BROCKLEHURST is nothing save for his rank. You could pick
+him up by the handful any day in Piccadilly or Holborn, buying socks--or
+selling them.)
+
+LORD LOAM (expansively). You are here, Ernest. Feeling fit for the
+voyage, Treherne?
+
+TREHERNE. Looking forward to it enormously.
+
+LORD LOAM. That's right. (He chases his children about as if they were
+chickens.) Now then, Mary, up and doing, up and doing. Time we had the
+servants in. They enjoy it so much.
+
+LADY MARY. They hate it.
+
+LORD LOAM. Mary, to your duties. (And he points severely to the
+tea-table.)
+
+ERNEST (twinkling). Congratulations, Brocky.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (who detests humour). Thanks.
+
+ERNEST. Mother pleased?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (with dignity). Mother is very pleased.
+
+ERNEST. That's good. Do you go on the yacht with us?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Sorry I can't. And look here, Ernest, I will not be
+called Brocky.
+
+ERNEST. Mother don't like it?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. She does not. (He leaves ERNEST, who forgives him and
+begins to think about his speech. CRICHTON enters.)
+
+LORD LOAM (speaking as one man to another). We are quite ready,
+Crichton. (CRICHTON is distressed.)
+
+LADY MARY (sarcastically). How Crichton enjoys it!
+
+LORD LOAM (frowning). He is the only one who doesn't; pitiful creature.
+
+CRICHTON (shuddering under his lord's displeasure). I can't help being a
+Conservative, my lord.
+
+LORD LOAM. Be a man, Crichton. You are the same flesh and blood as
+myself.
+
+CRICHTON (in pain). Oh, my lord!
+
+LORD LOAM (sharply). Show them in; and, by the way, they were not all
+here last time.
+
+CRICHTON. All, my lord, except the merest trifles.
+
+LORD LOAM. It must be every one. (Lowering.) And remember this,
+Crichton, for the time being you are my equal. (Testily.) I shall soon
+show you whether you are not my equal. Do as you are told.
+
+(CRICHTON departs to obey, and his lordship is now a general. He has no
+pity for his daughters, and uses a terrible threat.)
+
+And girls, remember, no condescension. The first who condescends
+recites. (This sends them skurrying to their labours.)
+
+By the way, Brocklehurst, can you do anything?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. How do you mean?
+
+LORD LOAM. Can you do anything--with a penny or a handkerchief, make
+them disappear, for instance?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Good heavens, no.
+
+LORD LOAM. It's a pity. Every one in our position ought to be able to
+do something. Ernest, I shall probably ask you to say a few words;
+something bright and sparkling.
+
+ERNEST. But, my dear uncle, I have prepared nothing.
+
+LORD LOAM. Anything impromptu will do.
+
+ERNEST. Oh--well--if anything strikes me on the spur of the moment.
+
+(He unostentatiously gets the footstool into position behind the chair.
+CRICHTON reappears to announce the guests, of whom the first is the
+housekeeper.)
+
+CRICHTON (reluctantly). Mrs. Perkins.
+
+LORD LOAM (shaking hands). Very delighted, Mrs. Perkins. Mary, our
+friend, Mrs. Perkins.
+
+LADY MARY. How do you do, Mrs. Perkins? Won't you sit here?
+
+LORD LOAM (threateningly). Agatha!
+
+AGATHA (hastily). How do you do? Won't you sit down?
+
+LORD LOAM (introducing). Lord Brocklehurst--my valued friend, Mrs.
+Perkins.
+
+(LORD BROCKLEHURST bows and escapes. He has to fall back on ERNEST.)
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. For heaven's sake, Ernest, don't leave me for a
+moment; this sort of thing is utterly opposed to all my principles.
+
+ERNEST (airily). You stick to me, Brocky, and I'll pull you through.
+
+CRICHTON. Monsieur Fleury.
+
+ERNEST. The chef.
+
+LORD LOAM (shaking hands with the chef). Very charmed to see you,
+Monsieur Fleury.
+
+FLEURY. Thank you very much.
+
+(FLEURY bows to AGATHA, who is not effusive.)
+
+LORD LOAM (warningly). Agatha--recitation!
+
+(She tosses her head, but immediately finds a seat and tea for M.
+FLEURY. TREHERNE and ERNEST move about, making themselves amiable. LADY
+MARY is presiding at the tea-tray.)
+
+CRICHTON. Mr. Rolleston.
+
+LORD LOAM (shaking hands with his valet). How do you do, Rolleston?
+
+(CATHERINE looks after the wants of ROLLESTON.)
+
+CRICHTON. Mr. Tompsett.
+
+(TOMPSETT, the coachman, is received with honours, from which he
+shrinks.)
+
+CRICHTON. Miss Fisher.
+
+(This superb creature is no less than LADY MARY'S maid, and even LORD
+LOAM is a little nervous.)
+
+LORD LOAM. This is a pleasure, Miss Fisher.
+
+ERNEST (unabashed). If I might venture, Miss Fisher (and he takes her
+unto himself).
+
+CRICHTON. Miss Simmons.
+
+LORD LOAM (to CATHERINE'S maid). You are always welcome, Miss Simmons.
+
+ERNEST (perhaps to kindle jealousy in Miss FISHER). At last we meet.
+Won't you sit down?
+
+CRICHTON. Mademoiselle Jeanne.
+
+LORD LOAM. Charmed to see you, Mademoiselle Jeanne.
+
+(A place is found for AGATHA'S maid, and the scene is now an animated
+one; but still our host thinks his girls are not sufficiently sociable.
+He frowns on LADY MARY.)
+
+LADY MARY (in alarm). Mr. Treherne, this is Fisher, my maid.
+
+LORD LOAM (sharply). Your what, Mary?
+
+LADY MARY. My friend.
+
+CRICHTON. Thomas.
+
+LORD LOAM. How do you do, Thomas?
+
+(The first footman gives him a reluctant hand.)
+
+CRICHTON. John.
+
+LORD LOAM. How do you do, John?
+
+(ERNEST signs to LORD BROCKLEHURST, who hastens to him.)
+
+ERNEST (introducing). Brocklehurst, this is John. I think you have
+already met on the door-step.
+
+CRICHTON. Jane.
+
+(She comes, wrapping her hands miserably in her apron.)
+
+LORD LOAM (doggedly). Give me your hand, Jane.
+
+CRICHTON. Gladys.
+
+ERNEST. How do you do, Gladys. You know my uncle?
+
+LORD LOAM. Your hand, Gladys.
+
+(He bestows her on AGATHA.)
+
+CRICHTON. Tweeny.
+
+(She is a very humble and frightened kitchenmaid, of whom we are to see
+more.)
+
+LORD LOAM. So happy to see you.
+
+FISHER. John, I saw you talking to Lord Brocklehurst just now; introduce
+me.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (at the same moment to ERNEST). That's an uncommon
+pretty girl; if I must feed one of them, Ernest, that's the one.
+
+(But ERNEST tries to part him and FISHER as they are about to shake
+hands.)
+
+ERNEST. No you don't, it won't do, Brocky. (To Miss FISHER.) You are too
+pretty, my dear. Mother wouldn't like it. (Discovering TWEENY.) Here's
+something safer. Charming girl, Brocky, dying to know you; let me
+introduce you. Tweeny, Lord Brocklehurst--Lord Brocklehurst, Tweeny.
+
+(BROCKLEHURST accepts his fate; but he still has an eye for FISHER, and
+something may come of this.)
+
+LORD LOAM (severely). They are not all here, Crichton.
+
+CRICHTON (with a sigh). Odds and ends.
+
+(A STABLE-BOY and a PAGE are shown in, and for a moment no daughter of
+the house advances to them.)
+
+LORD LOAM (with a roving eye on his children). Which is to recite?
+
+(The last of the company are, so to say, embraced.)
+
+LORD LOAM (to TOMPSETT, as they partake of tea together). And how are
+all at home?
+
+TOMPSETT. Fairish, my lord, if 'tis the horses you are inquiring for?
+
+LORD LOAM. No, no, the family. How's the baby?
+
+TOMPSETT. Blooming, your lordship.
+
+LORD LOAM. A very fine boy. I remember saying so when I saw him; nice
+little fellow.
+
+TOMPSETT (not quite knowing whether to let it pass). Beg pardon, my
+lord, it's a girl.
+
+LORD LOAM. A girl? Aha! ha! ha! exactly what I said. I distinctly
+remember saying, If it's spared it will be a girl.
+
+(CRICHTON now comes down.)
+
+LORD LOAM. Very delighted to see you, Crichton.
+
+(CRICHTON has to shake hands.)
+
+Mary, you know Mr. Crichton?
+
+(He wanders off in search of other prey.)
+
+LADY MARY. Milk and sugar, Crichton?
+
+CRICHTON. I'm ashamed to be seen talking to you, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. To such a perfect servant as you all this must be most
+distasteful. (CRICHTON is too respectful to answer.) Oh, please do
+speak, or I shall have to recite. You do hate it, don't you?
+
+CRICHTON. It pains me, your ladyship. It disturbs the etiquette of the
+servants' hall. After last month's meeting the pageboy, in a burst of
+equality, called me Crichton. He was dismissed.
+
+LADY MARY. I wonder--I really do--how you can remain with us.
+
+CRICHTON. I should have felt compelled to give notice, my lady, if the
+master had not had a seat in the Upper House. I cling to that.
+
+LADY MARY. Do go on speaking. Tell me, what did Mr. Ernest mean by
+saying he was not young enough to know everything?
+
+CRICHTON. I have no idea, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. But you laughed.
+
+CRICHTON. My lady, he is the second son of a peer.
+
+LADY MARY. Very proper sentiments. You are a good soul, Crichton.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (desperately to TWEENY). And now tell me, have you
+been to the Opera? What sort of weather have you been having in the
+kitchen? (TWEENY gurgles.) For Heaven's sake, woman, be articulate.
+
+CRICHTON (still talking to LADY MARY). No, my lady; his lordship may
+compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the
+servants' hall.
+
+LORD LOAM (overhearing this). What's that? No equality? Can't you see,
+Crichton, that our divisions into classes are artificial, that if we
+were to return to nature, which is the aspiration of my life, all would
+be equal?
+
+CRICHTON. If I may make so bold as to contradict your lordship--
+
+LORD LOAM (with an effort). Go on.
+
+CRICHTON. The divisions into classes, my lord, are not artificial. They
+are the natural outcome of a civilised society. (To LADY MARY.) There
+must always be a master and servants in all civilised communities, my
+lady, for it is natural, and whatever is natural is right.
+
+LORD LOAM (wincing). It is very unnatural for me to stand here and allow
+you to talk such nonsense.
+
+CRICHTON (eagerly). Yes, my lord, it is. That is what I have been
+striving to point out to your lordship.
+
+AGATHA (to CATHERINE). What is the matter with Fisher? She is looking
+daggers.
+
+CATHERINE. The tedious creature; some question of etiquette, I suppose.
+
+(She sails across to FISHER.)
+
+How are you, Fisher?
+
+FISHER (with a toss of her head). I am nothing, my lady, I am nothing at
+all.
+
+AGATHA. Oh dear, who says so?
+
+FISHER (affronted). His lordship has asked that kitchen wench to have a
+second cup of tea.
+
+CATHERINE. But why not?
+
+FISHER. If it pleases his lordship to offer it to her before offering it
+to me--
+
+AGATHA. So that is it. Do you want another cup of tea, Fisher?
+
+FISHER. No, my lady--but my position--I should have been asked first.
+
+AGATHA. Oh dear.
+
+(All this has taken some time, and by now the feeble appetites of the
+uncomfortable guests have been satiated. But they know there is still
+another ordeal to face--his lordship's monthly speech. Every one awaits
+it with misgiving--the servants lest they should applaud, as last time,
+in the wrong place, and the daughters because he may be personal about
+them, as the time before. ERNEST is annoyed that there should be
+this speech at all when there is such a much better one coming, and
+BROCKLEHURST foresees the degradation of the peerage. All are thinking
+of themselves alone save CRICHTON, who knows his master's weakness,
+and fears he may stick in the middle. LORD LOAM, however, advances
+cheerfully to his doom. He sees ERNEST'S stool, and artfully stands on
+it, to his nephew's natural indignation. The three ladies knit their
+lips, the servants look down their noses, and the address begins.)
+
+LORD LOAM. My friends, I am glad to see you all looking so happy. It
+used to be predicted by the scoffer that these meetings would prove
+distasteful to you. Are they distasteful? I hear you laughing at the
+question.
+
+(He has not heard them, but he hears them now, the watchful CRICHTON
+giving them a lead.)
+
+No harm in saying that among us to-day is one who was formerly hostile
+to the movement, but who to-day has been won over. I refer to Lord
+Brocklehurst, who, I am sure, will presently say to me that if the
+charming lady now by his side has derived as much pleasure from his
+company as he has derived from hers, he will be more than satisfied.
+
+(All look at TWEENY, who trembles.)
+
+For the time being the artificial and unnatural--I say unnatural
+(glaring at CRICHTON, who bows slightly)--barriers of society are swept
+away. Would that they could be swept away for ever.
+
+(The PAGEBOY cheers, and has the one moment of prominence in his life.
+He grows up, marries and has children, but is never really heard of
+again.)
+
+But that is entirely and utterly out of the question. And now for a few
+months we are to be separated. As you know, my daughters and Mr. Ernest
+and Mr. Treherne are to accompany me on my yacht, on a voyage to distant
+parts of the earth. In less than forty-eight hours we shall be under
+weigh.
+
+(But for CRICHTON'S eye the reckless PAGEBOY would repeat his success.)
+
+Do not think our life on the yacht is to be one long idle holiday. My
+views on the excessive luxury of the day are well known, and what I
+preach I am resolved to practise. I have therefore decided that my
+daughters, instead of having one maid each as at present, shall on this
+voyage have but one maid between them.
+
+(Three maids rise; also three mistresses.)
+
+CRICHTON. My lord!
+
+LORD LOAM. My mind is made up.
+
+ERNEST. I cordially agree.
+
+LORD LOAM. And now, my friends, I should like to think that there is
+some piece of advice I might give you, some thought, some noble saying
+over which you might ponder in my absence. In this connection I remember
+a proverb, which has had a great effect on my own life. I first heard
+it many years ago. I have never forgotten it. It constantly cheers and
+guides me. That proverb is--that proverb was--the proverb I speak of--
+
+(He grows pale and taps his forehead.)
+
+LADY MARY. Oh dear, I believe he has forgotten it.
+
+LORD LOAM (desperately). The proverb--that proverb to which I refer--
+
+(Alas, it has gone. The distress is general. He has not even the sense
+to sit down. He gropes for the proverb in the air. They try applause,
+but it is no help.)
+
+I have it now--(not he).
+
+LADY MARY (with confidence). Crichton.
+
+(He does not fail her. As quietly as if he were in goloshes, mind
+as well as feet, he dismisses the domestics; they go according to
+precedence as they entered, yet, in a moment, they are gone. Then he
+signs to MR. TREHERNE, and they conduct LORD LOAM with dignity from
+the room. His hands are still catching flies; he still mutters, 'The
+proverb--that proverb'; but he continues, owing to CRICHTON'S skilful
+treatment, to look every inch a peer. The ladies have now an opportunity
+to air their indignation.)
+
+LADY MARY. One maid among three grown women!
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Mary, I think I had better go. That dreadful
+kitchenmaid--
+
+LADY MARY. I can't blame you, George.
+
+(He salutes her.)
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Your father's views are shocking to me, and I am glad
+I am not to be one of the party on the yacht. My respect for myself,
+Mary, my natural anxiety as to what mother will say. I shall see you,
+darling, before you sail.
+
+(He bows to the others and goes.)
+
+ERNEST. Selfish brute, only thinking of himself. What about my speech?
+
+LADY MARY. One maid among three of us. What's to be done?
+
+ERNEST. Pooh! You must do for yourselves, that's all.
+
+LADY MARY. Do for ourselves. How can we know where our things are kept?
+
+AGATHA. Are you aware that dresses button up the back?
+
+CATHERINE. How are we to get into our shoes and be prepared for the
+carriage?
+
+LADY MARY. Who is to put us to bed, and who is to get us up, and how
+shall we ever know it's morning if there is no one to pull up the
+blinds?
+
+(CRICHTON crosses on his way out.)
+
+ERNEST. How is his lordship now?
+
+CRICHTON. A little easier, sir.
+
+LADY MARY. Crichton, send Fisher to me.
+
+(He goes.)
+
+ERNEST. I have no pity for you girls, I--
+
+LADY MARY. Ernest, go away, and don't insult the broken-hearted.
+
+ERNEST. And uncommon glad I am to go. Ta-ta, all of you. He asked me to
+say a few words. I came here to say a few words, and I'm not at all sure
+that I couldn't bring an action against him.
+
+(He departs, feeling that he has left a dart behind him. The girls are
+alone with their tragic thoughts.)
+
+LADY MARY (becomes a mother to the younger ones at last). My poor
+sisters, come here. (They go to her doubtfully.) We must make this draw
+us closer together. I shall do my best to help you in every way. Just
+now I cannot think of myself at all.
+
+AGATHA. But how unlike you, Mary.
+
+LADY MARY. It is my duty to protect my sisters.
+
+CATHERINE. I never knew her so sweet before, Agatha. (Cautiously.) What
+do you propose to do, Mary?
+
+LADY MARY. I propose when we are on the yacht to lend Fisher to you when
+I don't need her myself.
+
+AGATHA. Fisher?
+
+LADY MARY (who has the most character of the three). Of course, as the
+eldest, I have decided that it is my maid we shall take with us.
+
+CATHERINE (speaking also for AGATHA). Mary, you toad.
+
+AGATHA. Nothing on earth would induce Fisher to lift her hand for either
+me or Catherine.
+
+LADY MARY. I was afraid of it, Agatha. That is why I am so sorry for
+you.
+
+(The further exchange of pleasantries is interrupted by the arrival of
+FISHER.)
+
+LADY MARY. Fisher, you heard what his lordship said?
+
+FISHER. Yes, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY (coldly, though the others would have tried blandishment). You
+have given me some satisfaction of late, Fisher, and to mark my approval
+I have decided that you shall be the maid who accompanies us.
+
+FISHER (acidly). I thank you, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. That is all; you may go.
+
+FISHER (rapping it out). If you please, my lady, I wish to give notice.
+
+(CATHERINE and AGATHA gleam, but LADY MARY is of sterner stuff.)
+
+LADY MARY (taking up a book). Oh, certainly--you may go.
+
+CATHERINE. But why, Fisher?
+
+FISHER. I could not undertake, my lady, to wait upon three. We don't do
+it. (In an indignant outburst to LADY MARY.) Oh, my lady, to think that
+this affront--
+
+LADY MARY (looking up). I thought I told you to go, Fisher.
+
+(FISHER stands for a moment irresolute; then goes. As soon as she has
+gone LADY MARY puts down her book and weeps. She is a pretty woman, but
+this is the only pretty thing we have seen her do yet.)
+
+AGATHA (succinctly). Serves you right.
+
+(CRICHTON comes.)
+
+CATHERINE. It will be Simmons after all. Send Simmons to me.
+
+CRICHTON (after hesitating). My lady, might I venture to speak?
+
+CATHERINE. What is it?
+
+CRICHTON. I happen to know, your ladyship, that Simmons desires to give
+notice for the same reason as Fisher.
+
+CATHERINE. Oh!
+
+AGATHA (triumphant). Then, Catherine, we take Jeanne.
+
+CRICHTON. And Jeanne also, my lady.
+
+(LADY MARY is reading, indifferent though the heavens fall, but her
+sisters are not ashamed to show their despair to CRICHTON.)
+
+AGATHA. We can't blame them. Could any maid who respected herself be got
+to wait upon three?
+
+LADY MARY (with languid interest). I suppose there are such persons,
+Crichton?
+
+CRICHTON (guardedly). I have heard, my lady, that there are such.
+
+LADY MARY (a little desperate). Crichton, what's to be done? We sail in
+two days; could one be discovered in the time?
+
+AGATHA (frankly a supplicant). Surely you can think of some one?
+
+CRICHTON (after hesitating). There is in this establishment, your
+ladyship, a young woman--
+
+LADY MARY. Yes?
+
+CRICHTON. A young woman, on whom I have for some time cast an eye.
+
+CATHERINE (eagerly). Do you mean as a possible lady's-maid?
+
+CRICHTON. I had thought of her, my lady, in another connection.
+
+LADY MARY. Ah!
+
+CRICHTON. But I believe she is quite the young person you require.
+Perhaps if you could see her, my lady--
+
+LADY MARY. I shall certainly see her. Bring her to me. (He goes.) You
+two needn't wait.
+
+CATHERINE. Needn't we? We see your little game, Mary.
+
+AGATHA. We shall certainly remain and have our two-thirds of her.
+
+(They sit there doggedly until CRICHTON returns with TWEENY, who looks
+scared.)
+
+CRICHTON. This, my lady, is the young person.
+
+CATHERINE (frankly). Oh dear!
+
+(It is evident that all three consider her quite unsuitable.)
+
+LADY MARY. Come here, girl. Don't be afraid.
+
+(TWEENY looks imploringly at her idol.)
+
+CRICHTON. Her appearance, my lady, is homely, and her manners, as you
+may have observed, deplorable, but she has a heart of gold.
+
+LADY MARY. What is your position downstairs?
+
+TWEENY (bobbing). I'm a tweeny, your ladyship.
+
+CATHERINE. A what?
+
+CRICHTON. A tweeny; that is to say, my lady, she is not at present,
+strictly speaking, anything; a between maid; she helps the vegetable
+maid. It is she, my lady, who conveys the dishes from the one end of
+the kitchen table, where they are placed by the cook, to the other end,
+where they enter into the charge of Thomas and John.
+
+LADY MARY. I see. And you and Crichton are--ah--keeping company?
+
+(CRICHTON draws himself up.)
+
+TWEENY (aghast). A butler don't keep company, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY (indifferently). Does he not?
+
+CRICHTON. No, your ladyship, we butlers may--(he makes a gesture with
+his arms)--but we do not keep company.
+
+AGATHA. I know what it is; you are engaged?
+
+(TWEENY looks longingly at CRICHTON.)
+
+CRICHTON. Certainly not, my lady. The utmost I can say at present is
+that I have cast a favourable eye.
+
+(Even this is much to TWEENY.)
+
+LADY MARY. As you choose. But I am afraid, Crichton, she will not suit
+us.
+
+CRICHTON. My lady, beneath this simple exterior are concealed a very
+sweet nature and rare womanly gifts.
+
+AGATHA. Unfortunately, that is not what we want.
+
+CRICHTON. And it is she, my lady, who dresses the hair of the
+ladies'-maids for our evening meals.
+
+(The ladies are interested at last.)
+
+LADY MARY. She dresses Fisher's hair?
+
+TWEENY. Yes, my lady, and I does them up when they goes to parties.
+
+CRICHTON (pained, but not scolding). Does!
+
+TWEENY. Doos. And it's me what alters your gowns to fit them.
+
+CRICHTON. What alters!
+
+TWEENY. Which alters.
+
+AGATHA. Mary?
+
+LADY MARY. I shall certainly have her.
+
+CATHERINE. We shall certainly have her. Tweeny, we have decided to make
+a lady's-maid of you.
+
+TWEENY. Oh lawks!
+
+AGATHA. We are doing this for you so that your position socially may be
+more nearly akin to that of Crichton.
+
+CRICHTON (gravely). It will undoubtedly increase the young person's
+chances.
+
+LADY MARY. Then if I get a good character for you from Mrs. Perkins, she
+will make the necessary arrangements.
+
+(She resumes reading.)
+
+TWEENY (elated). My lady!
+
+LADY MARY. By the way, I hope you are a good sailor.
+
+TWEENY (startled). You don't mean, my lady, I'm to go on the ship?
+
+LADY MARY. Certainly.
+
+TWEENY. But--(To CRICHTON.) You ain't going, sir?
+
+CRICHTON. No.
+
+TWEENY (firm at last). Then neither ain't I.
+
+AGATHA. YOU must.
+
+TWEENY. Leave him! Not me.
+
+LADY MARY. Girl, don't be silly. Crichton will be--considered in your
+wages.
+
+TWEENY. I ain't going.
+
+CRICHTON. I feared this, my lady.
+
+TWEENY. Nothing'll budge me.
+
+LADY MARY. Leave the room.
+
+(CRICHTON shows TWEENY out with marked politeness.)
+
+AGATHA. Crichton, I think you might have shown more displeasure with
+her.
+
+CRICHTON (contrite). I was touched, my lady. I see, my lady, that to
+part from her would be a wrench to me, though I could not well say so in
+her presence, not having yet decided how far I shall go with her.
+
+(He is about to go when LORD LOAM returns, fuming.)
+
+LORD LOAM. The ingrate! The smug! The fop!
+
+CATHERINE. What is it now, father?
+
+LORD LOAM. That man of mine, Rolleston, refuses to accompany us because
+you are to have but one maid.
+
+AGATHA. Hurrah!
+
+LADY MARY (in better taste). Darling father, rather than you should lose
+Rolleston, we will consent to take all the three of them.
+
+LORD LOAM. Pooh, nonsense! Crichton, find me a valet who can do without
+three maids.
+
+CRICHTON. Yes, my lord. (Troubled.) In the time--the more suitable the
+party, my lord, the less willing will he be to come without the--the
+usual perquisites.
+
+LORD LOAM. Any one will do.
+
+CRICHTON (shocked). My lord!
+
+LORD LOAM. The ingrate! The puppy!
+
+(AGATHA has an idea, and whispers to LADY MARY.)
+
+LADY MARY. I ask a favour of a servant?--never!
+
+AGATHA. Then I will. Crichton, would it not be very distressing to you
+to let his lordship go, attended by a valet who might prove unworthy? It
+is only for three months; don't you think that you--you yourself--you--
+
+(As CRICHTON sees what she wants he pulls himself up with noble,
+offended dignity, and she is appalled.)
+
+I beg your pardon.
+
+(He bows stiffly.)
+
+CATHERINE (to CRICHTON). But think of the joy to Tweeny.
+
+(CRICHTON is moved, but he shakes his head.)
+
+LADY MARY (so much the cleverest). Crichton, do you think it safe to
+let the master you love go so far away without you while he has these
+dangerous views about equality?
+
+(CRICHTON is profoundly stirred. After a struggle he goes to his master,
+who has been pacing the room.)
+
+CRICHTON. My lord, I have found a man.
+
+LORD LOAM. Already? Who is he?
+
+(CRICHTON presents himself with a gesture.)
+
+Yourself?
+
+CATHERINE. Father, how good of him.
+
+LORD LOAM (pleased, but thinking it a small thing). Uncommon good. Thank
+you, Crichton. This helps me nicely out of a hole; and how it will annoy
+Rolleston! Come with me, and we shall tell him. Not that I think you
+have lowered yourself in any way. Come along.
+
+(He goes, and CRICHTON is to follow him, but is stopped by AGATHA
+impulsively offering him her hand.)
+
+CRICHTON (who is much shaken). My lady--a valet's hand!
+
+AGATHA. I had no idea you would feel it so deeply; why did you do it?
+
+(CRICHTON is too respectful to reply.)
+
+LADY MARY (regarding him). Crichton, I am curious. I insist upon an
+answer.
+
+CRICHTON. My lady, I am the son of a butler and a lady's-maid--perhaps
+the happiest of all combinations, and to me the most beautiful thing in
+the world is a haughty, aristocratic English house, with every one kept
+in his place. Though I were equal to your ladyship, where would be the
+pleasure to me? It would be counterbalanced by the pain of feeling that
+Thomas and John were equal to me.
+
+CATHERINE. But father says if we were to return to nature--
+
+CRICHTON. If we did, my lady, the first thing we should do would be to
+elect a head. Circumstances might alter cases; the same person might
+not be master; the same persons might not be servants. I can't say as to
+that, nor should we have the deciding of it. Nature would decide for us.
+
+LADY MARY. You seem to have thought it all out carefully, Crichton.
+
+CRICHTON. Yes, my lady.
+
+CATHERINE. And you have done this for us, Crichton, because you thought
+that--that father needed to be kept in his place?
+
+CRICHTON. I should prefer you to say, my lady, that I have done it for
+the house.
+
+AGATHA. Thank you, Crichton. Mary, be nicer to him. (But LADY MARY has
+begun to read again.) If there was any way in which we could show our
+gratitude.
+
+CRICHTON. If I might venture, my lady, would you kindly show it by
+becoming more like Lady Mary. That disdain is what we like from
+our superiors. Even so do we, the upper servants, disdain the lower
+servants, while they take it out of the odds and ends.
+
+(He goes, and they bury themselves in cushions.)
+
+AGATHA. Oh dear, what a tiring day.
+
+CATHERINE. I feel dead. Tuck in your feet, you selfish thing.
+
+(LADY MARY is lying reading on another couch.)
+
+LADY MARY. I wonder what he meant by circumstances might alter cases.
+
+AGATHA (yawning). Don't talk, Mary, I was nearly asleep.
+
+LADY MARY. I wonder what he meant by the same person might not be
+master, and the same persons might not be servants.
+
+CATHERINE. Do be quiet, Mary, and leave it to nature; he said nature
+would decide.
+
+LADY MARY. I wonder--
+
+(But she does not wonder very much. She would wonder more if she knew
+what was coming. Her book slips unregarded to the floor. The ladies are
+at rest until it is time to dress.)
+
+End of Act I.
+
+
+
+
+ACT II. THE ISLAND
+
+
+Two months have elapsed, and the scene is a desert island in the
+Pacific, on which our adventurers have been wrecked.
+
+The curtain rises on a sea of bamboo, which shuts out all view save the
+foliage of palm trees and some gaunt rocks. Occasionally Crichton and
+Treherne come momentarily into sight, hacking and hewing the bamboo,
+through which they are making a clearing between the ladies and
+the shore; and by and by, owing to their efforts, we shall have an
+unrestricted outlook on to a sullen sea that is at present hidden. Then
+we shall also be able to note a mast standing out of the water--all that
+is left, saving floating wreckage, of the ill-fated yacht the Bluebell.
+The beginnings of a hut will also be seen, with Crichton driving its
+walls into the ground or astride its roof of saplings, for at present he
+is doing more than one thing at a time. In a red shirt, with the ends of
+his sailor's breeches thrust into wading-boots, he looks a man for
+the moment; we suddenly remember some one's saying--perhaps it was
+ourselves--that a cataclysm would be needed to get him out of his
+servant's clothes, and apparently it has been forthcoming. It is no
+longer beneath our dignity to cast an inquiring eye on his appearance.
+His features are not distinguished, but he has a strong jaw and green
+eyes, in which a yellow light burns that we have not seen before. His
+dark hair, hitherto so decorously sleek, has been ruffled this way and
+that by wind and weather, as if they were part of the cataclysm and
+wanted to help his chance. His muscles must be soft and flabby still,
+but though they shriek aloud to him to desist, he rains lusty blows with
+his axe, like one who has come upon the open for the first time in his
+life, and likes it. He is as yet far from being an expert woodsman--mark
+the blood on his hands at places where he has hit them instead of the
+tree; but note also that he does not waste time in bandaging them--he
+rubs them in the earth and goes on. His face is still of the discreet
+pallor that befits a butler, and he carries the smaller logs as if they
+were a salver; not in a day or a month will he shake off the badge of
+servitude, but without knowing it he has begun.
+
+But for the hatchets at work, and an occasional something horrible
+falling from a tree into the ladies' laps, they hear nothing save the
+mournful surf breaking on a coral shore.
+
+They sit or recline huddled together against a rock, and they are
+farther from home, in every sense of the word, than ever before.
+Thirty-six hours ago, they were given three minutes in which to dress,
+without a maid, and reach the boats, and they have not made the best
+of that valuable time. None of them has boots, and had they known this
+prickly island they would have thought first of boots. They have a
+sufficiency of garments, but some of them were gifts dropped into the
+boat--Lady Mary's tarpaulin coat and hat, for instance, and Catherine's
+blue jersey and red cap, which certify that the two ladies were lately
+before the mast. Agatha is too gay in Ernest's dressing-gown, and
+clutches it to her person with both hands as if afraid that it may be
+claimed by its rightful owner. There are two pairs of bath slippers
+between the three of them, and their hair cries aloud and in vain for
+hairpins.
+
+By their side, on an inverted bucket, sits Ernest, clothed neatly in
+the garments of day and night, but, alas, bare-footed. He is the only
+cheerful member of this company of four, but his brightness is due less
+to a manly desire to succour the helpless than to his having been lately
+in the throes of composition, and to his modest satisfaction with the
+result. He reads to the ladies, and they listen, each with one scared
+eye to the things that fall from trees.
+
+ERNEST (who has written on the fly-leaf of the only book saved from the
+wreck). This is what I have written. 'Wrecked, wrecked, wrecked! on an
+island in the Tropics, the following: the Hon. Ernest Woolley, the Rev.
+John Treherne, the Ladies Mary, Catherine, and Agatha Lasenby, with two
+servants. We are the sole survivors of Lord Loam's steam yacht Bluebell,
+which encountered a fearful gale in these seas, and soon became a total
+wreck. The crew behaved gallantly, putting us all into the first boat.
+What became of them I cannot tell, but we, after dreadful sufferings,
+and insufficiently clad, in whatever garments we could lay hold of in
+the dark'--
+
+LADY MARY. Please don't describe our garments.
+
+ERNEST.--'succeeded in reaching this island, with the loss of only one
+of our party, namely, Lord Loam, who flung away his life in a gallant
+attempt to save a servant who had fallen overboard.' (The ladies have
+wept long and sore for their father, but there is something in this last
+utterance that makes them look up.)
+
+AGATHA. But, Ernest, it was Crichton who jumped overboard trying to save
+father.
+
+ERNEST (with the candour that is one of his most engaging qualities).
+Well, you know, it was rather silly of uncle to fling away his life by
+trying to get into the boat first; and as this document may be printed
+in the English papers, it struck me, an English peer, you know--
+
+LADY MARY (every inch an English peer's daughter). Ernest, that is very
+thoughtful of you.
+
+ERNEST (continuing, well pleased).--'By night the cries of wild cats and
+the hissing of snakes terrify us extremely'--(this does not satisfy
+him so well, and he makes a correction)--'terrify the ladies extremely.
+Against these we have no weapons except one cutlass and a hatchet. A
+bucket washed ashore is at present our only comfortable seat'--
+
+LADY MARY (with some spirit). And Ernest is sitting on it.
+
+ERNEST. H'sh! Oh, do be quiet.--'To add to our horrors, night falls
+suddenly in these parts, and it is then that savage animals begin to
+prowl and roar.'
+
+LADY MARY. Have you said that vampire bats suck the blood from our toes
+as we sleep?
+
+ERNEST. No, that's all. I end up, 'Rescue us or we perish. Rich reward.
+Signed Ernest Woolley, in command of our little party.' This is written
+on a leaf taken out of a book of poems that Crichton found in his
+pocket. Fancy Crichton being a reader of poetry. Now I shall put it into
+the bottle and fling it into the sea.
+
+(He pushes the precious document into a soda-water bottle, and rams the
+cork home. At the same moment, and without effort, he gives birth to one
+of his most characteristic epigrams.)
+
+The tide is going out, we mustn't miss the post.
+
+(They are so unhappy that they fail to grasp it, and a little petulantly
+he calls for CRICHTON, ever his stand-by in the hour of epigram.
+CRICHTON breaks through the undergrowth quickly, thinking the ladies are
+in danger.)
+
+CRICHTON. Anything wrong, sir?
+
+ERNEST (with fine confidence). The tide, Crichton, is a postman who
+calls at our island twice a day for letters.
+
+CRICHTON (after a pause). Thank you, sir.
+
+(He returns to his labours, however, without giving the smile which is
+the epigrammatist's right, and ERNEST is a little disappointed in him.)
+
+ERNEST. Poor Crichton! I sometimes think he is losing his sense of
+humour. Come along, Agatha.
+
+(He helps his favourite up the rocks, and they disappear gingerly from
+view.)
+
+CATHERINE. How horribly still it is.
+
+LADY MARY (remembering some recent sounds). It is best when it is still.
+
+CATHERINE (drawing closer to her). Mary, I have heard that they are
+always very still just before they jump.
+
+LADY MARY. Don't. (A distinct chapping is heard, and they are startled.)
+
+LADY MARY (controlling herself). It is only Crichton knocking down
+trees.
+
+CATHERINE (almost imploringly). Mary, let us go and stand beside him.
+
+LADY MARY (coldly). Let a servant see that I am afraid!
+
+CATHERINE. Don't, then; but remember this, dear, they often drop on one
+from above.
+
+(She moves away, nearer to the friendly sound of the axe, and LADY
+MARY is left alone. She is the most courageous of them as well as the
+haughtiest, but when something she had thought to be a stick glides
+toward her, she forgets her dignity and screams.)
+
+LADY MARY (calling). Crichton, Crichton!
+
+(It must have been TREHERNE who was tree-felling, for CRICHTON comes to
+her from the hut, drawing his cutlass.)
+
+CRICHTON (anxious). Did you call, my lady?
+
+LADY MARY (herself again, now that he is there). I! Why should I?
+
+CRICHTON. I made a mistake, your ladyship. (Hesitating.) If you are
+afraid of being alone, my lady--
+
+LADY MARY. Afraid! Certainly not. (Doggedly.) You may go.
+
+(But she does not complain when he remains within eyesight cutting the
+bamboo. It is heavy work, and she watches him silently.)
+
+LADY MARY. I wish, Crichton, you could work without getting so hot.
+
+CRICHTON (mopping his face). I wish I could, my lady.
+
+(He continues his labours.)
+
+LADY MARY (taking off her oilskins). It makes me hot to look at you.
+
+CRICHTON. It almost makes me cool to look at your ladyship.
+
+LADY MARY (who perhaps thinks he is presuming). Anything I can do for
+you in that way, Crichton, I shall do with pleasure.
+
+CRICHTON (quite humbly). Thank you, my lady.
+
+(By this time most of the bamboo has been cut, and the shore and sea
+are visible, except where they are hidden by the half completed hut. The
+mast rising solitary from the water adds to the desolation of the scene,
+and at last tears run down LADY MARY'S face.)
+
+CRICHTON. Don't give way, my lady, things might be worse.
+
+LADY MARY. My poor father.
+
+CRICHTON. If I could have given my life for his.
+
+LADY MARY. You did all a man could do. Indeed I thank you, Crichton.
+(With some admiration and more wonder.) You are a man.
+
+CRICHTON. Thank you, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. But it is all so awful. Crichton, is there any hope of a ship
+coming?
+
+CRICHTON (after hesitation). Of course there is, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY (facing him bravely). Don't treat me as a child. I have got to
+know the worst, and to face it. Crichton, the truth.
+
+CRICHTON (reluctantly). We were driven out of our course, my lady; I
+fear far from the track of commerce.
+
+LADY MARY. Thank you; I understand.
+
+(For a moment, however, she breaks down. Then she clenches her hands and
+stands erect.)
+
+CRICHTON (watching her, and forgetting perhaps for the moment that they
+are not just a man and woman). You're a good pluckt 'un, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY (falling into the same error). I shall try to be. (Extricating
+herself.) Crichton, how dare you?
+
+CRICHTON. I beg your ladyship's pardon; but you are.
+
+(She smiles, as if it were a comfort to be told this even by CRICHTON.)
+
+And until a ship comes we are three men who are going to do our best for
+you ladies.
+
+LADY MARY (with a curl of the lip). Mr. Ernest does no work.
+
+CRICHTON (cheerily). But he will, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. I doubt it.
+
+CRICHTON (confidently, but perhaps thoughtlessly). No work--no
+dinner--will make a great change in Mr. Ernest.
+
+LADY MARY. No work--no dinner. When did you invent that rule, Crichton?
+
+CRICHTON (loaded with bamboo). I didn't invent it, my lady. I seem to
+see it growing all over the island.
+
+LADY MARY (disquieted). Crichton, your manner strikes me as curious.
+
+CRICHTON (pained). I hope not, your ladyship.
+
+LADY MARY (determined to have it out with him). You are not implying
+anything so unnatural, I presume, as that if I and my sisters don't work
+there will be no dinner for us?
+
+CRICHTON (brightly). If it is unnatural, my lady, that is the end of it.
+
+LADY MARY. If? Now I understand. The perfect servant at home holds that
+we are all equal now. I see.
+
+CRICHTON (wounded to the quick). My lady, can you think me so
+inconsistent?
+
+LADY MARY. That is it.
+
+CRICHTON (earnestly). My lady, I disbelieved in equality at home because
+it was against nature, and for that same reason I as utterly disbelieve
+in it on an island.
+
+LADY MARY (relieved by his obvious sincerity). I apologise.
+
+CRICHTON (continuing unfortunately). There must always, my lady, be one
+to command and others to obey.
+
+LADY MARY (satisfied). One to command, others to obey. Yes. (Then
+suddenly she realises that there may be a dire meaning in his confident
+words.) Crichton!
+
+CRICHTON (who has intended no dire meaning). What is it, my lady?
+
+(But she only stares into his face and then hurries from him. Left alone
+he is puzzled, but being a practical man he busies himself gathering
+firewood, until TWEENY appears excitedly carrying cocoa-nuts in her
+skirt. She has made better use than the ladies of her three minutes'
+grace for dressing.)
+
+TWEENY (who can be happy even on an island if CRICHTON is with her).
+Look what I found.
+
+CRICHTON. Cocoa-nuts. Bravo!
+
+TWEENY. They grows on trees.
+
+CRICHTON. Where did you think they grew?
+
+TWEENY. I thought as how they grew in rows on top of little sticks.
+
+CRICHTON (wrinkling his brows). Oh Tweeny, Tweeny!
+
+TWEENY (anxiously). Have I offended of your feelings again, sir?
+
+CRICHTON. A little.
+
+TWEENY (in a despairing outburst). I'm full o' vulgar words and ways;
+and though I may keep them in their holes when you are by, as soon as
+I'm by myself out they comes in a rush like beetles when the house is
+dark. I says them gloating-like, in my head--'Blooming' I says, and
+'All my eye,' and 'Ginger,' and 'Nothink'; and all the time we was being
+wrecked I was praying to myself, 'Please the Lord it may be an island as
+it's natural to be vulgar on.'
+
+(A shudder passes through CRICHTON, and she is abject.)
+
+That's the kind I am, sir. I'm 'opeless. You'd better give me up.
+
+(She is a pathetic, forlorn creature, and his manhood is stirred.)
+
+CRICHTON (wondering a little at himself for saying it). I won't give you
+up. It is strange that one so common should attract one so fastidious;
+but so it is. (Thoughtfully.) There is something about you, Tweeny,
+there is a je ne sais quoi about you.
+
+TWEENY (knowing only that he has found something in her to commend). Is
+there, is there? Oh, I am glad.
+
+CRICHTON (putting his hand on her shoulder like a protector). We shall
+fight your vulgarity together. (All this time he has been arranging
+sticks for his fire.) Now get some dry grass. (She brings him grass, and
+he puts it under the sticks. He produces an odd lens from his pocket,
+and tries to focus the sun's rays.)
+
+TWEENY. Why, what's that?
+
+CRICHTON (the ingenious creature). That's the glass from my watch and
+one from Mr. Treherne's, with a little water between them. I'm hoping to
+kindle a fire with it.
+
+TWEENY (properly impressed). Oh sir!
+
+(After one failure the grass takes fire, and they are blowing on it when
+excited cries near by bring them sharply to their feet. AGATHA runs to
+them, white of face, followed by ERNEST.)
+
+ERNEST. Danger! Crichton, a tiger-cat!
+
+CRICHTON (getting his cutlass). Where?
+
+AGATHA. It is at our heels.
+
+ERNEST. Look out, Crichton.
+
+CRICHTON. H'sh!
+
+(TREHERNE comes to his assistance, while LADY MARY and CATHERINE join
+AGATHA in the hut.) ERNEST. It will be on us in a moment. (He seizes
+the hatchet and guards the hut. It is pleasing to see that ERNEST is no
+coward.)
+
+TREHERNE. Listen!
+
+ERNEST. The grass is moving. It's coming.
+
+(It comes. But it is no tiger-cat; it is LORD LOAM crawling on his hands
+and knees, a very exhausted and dishevelled peer, wondrously attired in
+rags. The girls see him, and with glad cries rush into his arms.)
+
+LADY MARY. Father.
+
+LORD LOAM. Mary--Catherine--Agatha. Oh dear, my dears, my dears, oh
+dear!
+
+LADY MARY. Darling.
+
+AGATHA. Sweetest.
+
+CATHERINE. Love.
+
+TREHERNE. Glad to see you, sir.
+
+ERNEST. Uncle, uncle, dear old uncle.
+
+(For a time such happy cries fill the air, but presently TREHERNE is
+thoughtless.)
+
+TREHERNE. Ernest thought you were a tiger-cat.
+
+LORD LOAM (stung somehow to the quick). Oh, did you? I knew you at once,
+Ernest; I knew you by the way you ran.
+
+(ERNEST smiles forgivingly.)
+
+CRICHTON (venturing forward at last). My lord, I am glad.
+
+ERNEST (with upraised finger). But you are also idling, Crichton.
+(Making himself comfortable on the ground.) We mustn't waste time. To
+work, to work.
+
+CRICHTON (after contemplating him without rancour). Yes, sir.
+
+(He gets a pot from the hut and hangs it on a tripod over the fire,
+which is now burning brightly.)
+
+TREHERNE. Ernest, you be a little more civil. Crichton, let me help.
+
+(He is soon busy helping CRICHTON to add to the strength of the hut.)
+
+LORD LOAM (gazing at the pot as ladies are said to gaze on precious
+stones). Is that--but I suppose I'm dreaming again. (Timidly.) It isn't
+by any chance a pot on top of a fire, is it?
+
+LADY MARY. Indeed, it is, dearest. It is our supper.
+
+LORD LOAM. I have been dreaming of a pot on a fire for two days.
+(Quivering.) There 's nothing in it, is there?
+
+ERNEST. Sniff, uncle. (LORD LOAM sniffs.)
+
+LORD LOAM (reverently). It smells of onions!
+
+(There is a sudden diversion.)
+
+CATHERINE. Father, you have boots!
+
+LADY MARY. So he has.
+
+LORD LOAM. Of course I have.
+
+ERNEST (with greedy cunning). You are actually wearing boots, uncle.
+It's very unsafe, you know, in this climate.
+
+LORD LOAM. Is it?
+
+ERNEST. We have all abandoned them, you observe. The blood, the
+arteries, you know.
+
+LORD LOAM. I hadn't a notion.
+
+(He holds out his feet, and ERNEST kneels.)
+
+ERNEST. O Lord, yes.
+
+(In another moment those boots will be his.)
+
+LADY MARY (quickly). Father, he is trying to get your boots from you.
+There is nothing in the world we wouldn't give for boots.
+
+ERNEST (rising haughtily, a proud spirit misunderstood). I only wanted
+the loan of them.
+
+AGATHA (running her fingers along them lovingly). If you lend them to
+any one, it will be to us, won't it, father.
+
+LORD LOAM. Certainly, my child.
+
+ERNEST. Oh, very well. (He is leaving these selfish ones.) I don't want
+your old boots. (He gives his uncle a last chance.) You don't think you
+could spare me one boot?
+
+LORD LOAM (tartly). I do not.
+
+ERNEST. Quite so. Well, all I can say is I'm sorry for you.
+
+(He departs to recline elsewhere.)
+
+LADY MARY. Father, we thought we should never see you again.
+
+LORD LOAM. I was washed ashore, my dear, clinging to a hencoop. How
+awful that first night was.
+
+LADY MARY. Poor father.
+
+LORD LOAM. When I woke, I wept. Then I began to feel extremely hungry.
+There was a large turtle on the beach. I remembered from the Swiss
+Family Robinson that if you turn a turtle over he is helpless. My dears,
+I crawled towards him, I flung myself upon him--(here he pauses to rub
+his leg)--the nasty, spiteful brute.
+
+LADY MARY. You didn't turn him over?
+
+LORD LOAM (vindictively, though he is a kindly man). Mary, the senseless
+thing wouldn't wait; I found that none of them would wait.
+
+CATHERINE. We should have been as badly off if Crichton hadn't--
+
+LADY MARY (quickly). Don't praise Crichton.
+
+LORD LOAM. And then those beastly monkeys, I always understood that if
+you flung stones at them they would retaliate by flinging cocoa-nuts at
+you. Would you believe it, I flung a hundred stones, and not one monkey
+had sufficient intelligence to grasp my meaning. How I longed for
+Crichton.
+
+LADY MARY (wincing). For us also, father?
+
+LORD LOAM. For you also. I tried for hours to make a fire. The authors
+say that when wrecked on an island you can obtain a light by rubbing two
+pieces of stick together. (With feeling.) The liars!
+
+LADY MARY. And all this time you thought there was no one on the island
+but yourself?
+
+LORD LOAM. I thought so until this morning. I was searching the pools
+for little fishes, which I caught in my hat, when suddenly I saw before
+me--on the sand--
+
+CATHERINE. What?
+
+LORD LOAM. A hairpin.
+
+LADY MARY. A hairpin! It must be one of ours. Give it me, father.
+
+AGATHA. No, it's mine.
+
+LORD LOAM. I didn't keep it.
+
+LADY MARY (speaking for all three). Didn't keep it? Found a hairpin on
+an island, and didn't keep it?
+
+LORD LOAM (humbly). My dears.
+
+AGATHA (scarcely to be placated). Oh father, we have returned to nature
+more than you bargained for.
+
+LADY MARY. For shame, Agatha. (She has something on her mind.) Father,
+there is something I want you to do at once--I mean to assert your
+position as the chief person on the island.
+
+(They are all surprised.)
+
+LORD LOAM. But who would presume to question it?
+
+CATHERINE. She must mean Ernest.
+
+LADY MARY. Must I?
+
+AGATHA. It's cruel to say anything against Ernest.
+
+LORD LOAM (firmly). If any one presumes to challenge my position, I
+shall make short work of him.
+
+AGATHA. Here comes Ernest; now see if you can say these horrid things to
+his face.
+
+LORD LOAM. I shall teach him his place at once.
+
+LADY MARY (anxiously). But how?
+
+LORD LOAM (chuckling). I have just thought of an extremely amusing way
+of doing it. (As ERNEST approaches.) Ernest.
+
+ERNEST (loftily). Excuse me, uncle, I'm thinking. I'm planning out the
+building of this hut.
+
+LORD LOAM. I also have been thinking.
+
+ERNEST. That don't matter.
+
+LORD LOAM. Eh?
+
+ERNEST. Please, please, this is important.
+
+LORD LOAM. I have been thinking that I ought to give you my boots.
+
+ERNEST. What!
+
+LADY MARY. Father.
+
+LORD LOAM (genially). Take them, my boy. (With a rapidity we had not
+thought him capable of, ERNEST becomes the wearer of the boots.) And now
+I dare say you want to know why I give them to you, Ernest?
+
+ERNEST (moving up and down in them deliciously). Not at all. The great
+thing is, 'I've got 'em, I've got 'em.'
+
+LORD LOAM (majestically, but with a knowing look at his daughters). My
+reason is that, as head of our little party, you, Ernest, shall be our
+hunter, you shall clear the forests of those savage beasts that make
+them so dangerous. (Pleasantly.) And now you know, my dear nephew, why I
+have given you my boots.
+
+ERNEST. This is my answer.
+
+(He kicks off the boots.)
+
+LADY MARY (still anxious). Father, assert yourself.
+
+LORD LOAM. I shall now assert myself. (But how to do it? He has a happy
+thought.) Call Crichton.
+
+LADY MARY. Oh father.
+
+(CRICHTON comes in answer to a summons, and is followed by TREHERNE.)
+
+ERNEST (wondering a little at LADY MARY'S grave face). Crichton, look
+here.
+
+LORD LOAM (sturdily). Silence! Crichton, I want your advice as to what I
+ought to do with Mr. Ernest. He has defied me.
+
+ERNEST. Pooh!
+
+CRICHTON (after considering). May I speak openly, my lord?
+
+LADY MARY (keeping her eyes fixed on him). That is what we desire.
+
+CRICHTON (quite humbly). Then I may say, your lordship, that I have been
+considering Mr. Ernest's case at odd moments ever since we were wrecked.
+
+ERNEST. My case?
+
+LORD LOAM (sternly). Hush.
+
+CRICHTON. Since we landed on the island, my lord, it seems to me that
+Mr. Ernest's epigrams have been particularly brilliant.
+
+ERNEST (gratified). Thank you, Crichton.
+
+CRICHTON. But I find--I seem to find it growing wild, my lord, in the
+woods, that sayings which would be justly admired in England are not
+much use on an island. I would therefore most respectfully propose that
+henceforth every time Mr. Ernest favours us with an epigram his head
+should be immersed in a bucket of cold spring water.
+
+(There is a terrible silence.)
+
+LORD LOAM (uneasily). Serve him right.
+
+ERNEST. I should like to see you try to do it, uncle.
+
+CRICHTON (ever ready to come to the succour of his lordship). My
+feeling, my lord, is that at the next offence I should convey him to a
+retired spot, where I shall carry out the undertaking in as respectful a
+manner as is consistent with a thorough immersion.
+
+(Though his manner is most respectful, he is firm; he evidently means
+what he says.)
+
+LADY MARY (a ramrod). Father, you must not permit this; Ernest is your
+nephew.
+
+LORD LOAM (with his hand to his brow). After all, he is my nephew,
+Crichton; and, as I am sure, he now sees that I am a strong man--
+
+ERNEST (foolishly in the circumstances). A strong man. You mean a stout
+man. You are one of mind to two of matter. (He looks round in the old
+way for approval. No one has smiled, and to his consternation he
+sees that CRICHTON is quietly turning up his sleeves. ERNEST makes an
+appealing gesture to his uncle; then he turns defiantly to CRICHTON.)
+
+CRICHTON. Is it to be before the ladies, Mr. Ernest, or in the privacy
+of the wood? (He fixes ERNEST with his eye. ERNEST is cowed.) Come.
+
+ERNEST (affecting bravado). Oh, all right.
+
+CRICHTON (succinctly). Bring the bucket.
+
+(ERNEST hesitates. He then lifts the bucket and follows CRICHTON to the
+nearest spring.)
+
+LORD LOAM (rather white). I'm sorry for him, but I had to be firm.
+
+LADY MARY. Oh father, it wasn't you who was firm. Crichton did it
+himself.
+
+LORD LOAM. Bless me, so he did.
+
+LADY MARY. Father, be strong.
+
+LORD LOAM (bewildered). You can't mean that my faithful Crichton--
+
+LADY MARY. Yes, I do.
+
+TREHERNE. Lady Mary, I stake my word that Crichton is incapable of
+acting dishonourably.
+
+LADY MARY. I know that; I know it as well as you. Don't you see that
+that is what makes him so dangerous?
+
+TREHERNE. By Jove, I--I believe I catch your meaning.
+
+CATHERINE. He is coming back.
+
+LORD LOAM (who has always known himself to be a man of ideas). Let us
+all go into the hut, just to show him at once that it is our hut.
+
+LADY MARY (as they go). Father, I implore you, assert yourself now and
+for ever.
+
+LORD LOAM. I will.
+
+LADY MARY. And, please, don't ask him how you are to do it.
+
+(CRICHTON returns with sticks to mend the fire.)
+
+LORD LOAM (loftily, from the door of the hut). Have you carried out my
+instructions, Crichton?
+
+CRICHTON (deferentially). Yes, my lord.
+
+(ERNEST appears, mopping his hair, which has become very wet since
+we last saw him. He is not bearing malice, he is too busy drying, but
+AGATHA is specially his champion.)
+
+AGATHA. It's infamous, infamous.
+
+LORD LOAM: (strongly). My orders, Agatha.
+
+LADY MARY. Now, father, please.
+
+LORD LOAM (striking an attitude). Before I give you any further orders,
+Crichton--
+
+CRICHTON. Yes, my lord.
+
+LORD LOAM. (delighted) Pooh! It's all right.
+
+LADY MARY. No. Please go on.
+
+LORD LOAM. Well, well. This question of the leadership; what do you
+think now, Crichton?
+
+CRICHTON. My lord, I feel it is a matter with which I have nothing to
+do.
+
+LORD LOAM. Excellent. Ha, Mary? That settles it, I think.
+
+LADY MARY. It seems to, but--I'm not sure.
+
+CRICHTON. It will settle itself naturally, my lord, without any
+interference from us.
+
+(The reference to nature gives general dissatisfaction.)
+
+LADY MARY. Father.
+
+LORD LOAM (a little severely). It settled itself long ago, Crichton,
+when I was born a peer, and you, for instance, were born a servant.
+
+CRICHTON (acquiescing). Yes, my lord, that was how it all came about
+quite naturally in England. We had nothing to do with it there, and we
+shall have as little to do with it here.
+
+TREHERNE (relieved). That's all right.
+
+LADY MARY (determined to clinch the matter). One moment. In short,
+Crichton, his lordship will continue to be our natural head.
+
+CRICHTON. I dare say, my lady, I dare say.
+
+CATHERINE. But you must know.
+
+CRICHTON. Asking your pardon, my lady, one can't be sure--on an island.
+
+(They look at each other uneasily.)
+
+LORD LOAM (warningly). Crichton, I don't like this.
+
+CRICHTON (harassed). The more I think of it, your lordship, the more
+uneasy I become myself. When I heard, my lord, that you had left that
+hairpin behind--(He is pained.)
+
+LORD LOAM (feebly). One hairpin among so many would only have caused
+dissension.
+
+CRICHTON (very sorry to have to contradict him). Not so, my lord. From
+that hairpin we could have made a needle; with that needle we could, out
+of skins, have sewn trousers of which your lordship is in need; indeed,
+we are all in need of them.
+
+LADY MARY (suddenly self-conscious). All?
+
+CRICHTON. On an island, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. Father.
+
+CRICHTON (really more distressed by the prospect than she). My lady, if
+nature does not think them necessary, you may be sure she will not ask
+you to wear them. (Shaking his head.) But among all this undergrowth--
+
+LADY MARY. Now you see this man in his true colours.
+
+LORD LOAM (violently). Crichton, you will either this moment say, 'Down
+with nature,'.
+
+CRICHTON (scandalised). My Lord!
+
+LORD LOAM (loftily). Then this is my last word to you; take a month's
+notice.
+
+(If the hut had a door he would now shut it to indicate that the
+interview is closed.)
+
+CRICHTON (in great distress). Your lordship, the disgrace--
+
+LORD LOAM (swelling). Not another word: you may go.
+
+LADY MARY (adamant). And don't come to me, Crichton, for a character.
+
+ERNEST (whose immersion has cleared his brain). Aren't you all
+forgetting that this is an island?
+
+(This brings them to earth with a bump. LORD LOAM looks to his eldest
+daughter for the fitting response.)
+
+LADY MARY (equal to the occasion). It makes only this difference--that
+you may go at once, Crichton, to some other part of the island.
+
+(The faithful servant has been true to his superiors ever since he was
+created, and never more true than at this moment; but his fidelity is
+founded on trust in nature, and to be untrue to it would be to be untrue
+to them. He lets the wood he has been gathering slip to the ground,
+and bows his sorrowful head. He turns to obey. Then affection for these
+great ones wells up in him.)
+
+CRICHTON. My lady, let me work for you.
+
+LADY MARY. Go.
+
+CRICHTON. You need me so sorely; I can't desert you; I won't.
+
+LADY MARY (in alarm, lest the others may yield). Then, father, there is
+but one alternative, we must leave him.
+
+(LORD LOAM is looking yearningly at CRICHTON.)
+
+TREHERNE. It seems a pity.
+
+CATHERINE (forlornly). You will work for us?
+
+TREHERNE. Most willingly. But I must warn you all that, so far, Crichton
+has done nine-tenths of the scoring.
+
+LADY MARY. The question is, are we to leave this man?
+
+LORD LOAM (wrapping himself in his dignity). Come, my dears.
+
+CRICHTON. My lord!
+
+LORD LOAM. Treherne--Ernest--get our things.
+
+ERNEST. We don't have any, uncle. They all belong to Crichton.
+
+TREHERNE. Everything we have he brought from the wreck--he went back to
+it before it sank. He risked his life.
+
+CRICHTON. My lord, anything you would care to take is yours.
+
+LADY MARY (quickly). Nothing.
+
+ERNEST. Rot! If I could have your socks, Crichton--
+
+LADY MARY. Come, father; we are ready.
+
+(Followed by the others, she and LORD LOAM pick their way up the rocks.
+In their indignation they scarcely notice that daylight is coming to a
+sudden end.)
+
+CRICHTON. My lord, I implore you--I am not desirous of being head. Do
+you have a try at it, my lord.
+
+LORD LOAM (outraged). A try at it!
+
+CRICHTON (eagerly). It may be that you will prove to be the best man.
+
+LORD LOAM. May be! My children, come.
+
+(They disappear proudly in single file.)
+
+TREHERNE. Crichton, I'm sorry; but of course I must go with them.
+
+CRICHTON. Certainly, sir.
+
+(He calls to TWEENY, and she comes from behind the hut, where she has
+been watching breathlessly.)
+
+Will you be so kind, sir, as to take her to the others?
+
+TREHERNE. Assuredly.
+
+TWEENY. But what do it all mean?
+
+CRICHTON. Does, Tweeny, does. (He passes her up the rocks to TREHERNE.)
+We shall meet again soon, Tweeny. Good night, sir.
+
+TREHERNE. Good night. I dare say they are not far away.
+
+CRICHTON (thoughtfully). They went westward, sir, and the wind is
+blowing in that direction. That may mean, sir, that nature is already
+taking the matter into her own hands. They are all hungry, sir, and the
+pot has come a-boil. (He takes off the lid.) The smell will be borne
+westward. That pot is full of nature, Mr. Treherne. Good night, sir.
+
+TREHERNE. Good night.
+
+(He mounts the rocks with TWEENY, and they are heard for a little time
+after their figures are swallowed up in the fast growing darkness.
+CRICHTON stands motionless, the lid in his hand, though he has forgotten
+it, and his reason for taking it off the pot. He is deeply stirred, but
+presently is ashamed of his dejection, for it is as if he doubted his
+principles. Bravely true to his faith that nature will decide now as
+ever before, he proceeds manfully with his preparations for the night.
+He lights a ship's lantern, one of several treasures he has brought
+ashore, and is filling his pipe with crumbs of tobacco from various
+pockets, when the stealthy movements of some animal in the grass
+startles him. With the lantern in one hand and his cutlass in the other,
+he searches the ground around the hut. He returns, lights his pipe, and
+sits down by the fire, which casts weird moving shadows. There is a red
+gleam on his face; in the darkness he is a strong and perhaps rather
+sinister figure. In the great stillness that has fallen over the land,
+the wash of the surf seems to have increased in volume. The sound is
+indescribably mournful. Except where the fire is, desolation has fallen
+on the island like a pall.
+
+Once or twice, as nature dictates, CRICHTON leans forward to stir the
+pot, and the smell is borne westward. He then resumes his silent vigil.
+
+Shadows other than those cast by the fire begin to descend the rocks.
+They are the adventurers returning. One by one they steal nearer to the
+pot until they are squatted round it, with their hands out to the
+blaze. LADY MARY only is absent. Presently she comes within sight of the
+others, then stands against a tree with her teeth clenched. One wonders,
+perhaps, what nature is to make of her.)
+
+
+End of Act II.
+
+
+
+
+ACT III. THE HAPPY HOME
+
+
+The scene is the hall of their island home two years later. This sturdy
+log-house is no mere extension of the hut we have seen in process of
+erection, but has been built a mile or less to the west of it, on higher
+ground and near a stream. When the master chose this site, the others
+thought that all he expected from the stream was a sufficiency of
+drinking water. They know better now every time they go down to the mill
+or turn on the electric light.
+
+This hall is the living-room of the house, and walls and roof are
+of stout logs. Across the joists supporting the roof are laid many
+home-made implements, such as spades, saws, fishing-rods, and from hooks
+in the joists are suspended cured foods, of which hams are specially in
+evidence. Deep recesses half way up the walls contain various provender
+in barrels and sacks. There are some skins, trophies of the chase, on
+the floor, which is otherwise bare. The chairs and tables are in some
+cases hewn out of the solid wood, and in others the result of rough but
+efficient carpentering. Various pieces of wreckage from the yacht have
+been turned to novel uses: thus the steering-wheel now hangs from the
+centre of the roof, with electric lights attached to it encased in
+bladders. A lifebuoy has become the back of a chair. Two barrels have
+been halved and turn coyly from each other as a settee.
+
+The farther end of the room is more strictly the kitchen, and is a great
+recess, which can be shut off from the hall by folding doors. There is
+a large open fire in it. The chimney is half of one of the boats of
+the yacht. On the walls of the kitchen proper are many plate-racks,
+containing shells; there are rows of these of one size and shape,
+which mark them off as dinner plates or bowls; others are as obviously
+tureens. They are arranged primly as in a well-conducted kitchen;
+indeed, neatness and cleanliness are the note struck everywhere, yet the
+effect of the whole is romantic and barbaric.
+
+The outer door into this hall is a little peculiar on an island. It
+is covered with skins and is in four leaves, like the swing doors of
+fashionable restaurants, which allow you to enter without allowing the
+hot air to escape. During the winter season our castaways have found
+the contrivance useful, but Crichton's brain was perhaps a little
+lordly when he conceived it. Another door leads by a passage to the
+sleeping-rooms of the house, which are all on the ground-floor, and to
+Crichton's work-room, where he is at this moment, and whither we should
+like to follow him, but in a play we may not, as it is out of sight.
+There is a large window space without a window, which, however, can be
+shuttered, and through this we have a view of cattle-sheds, fowl-pens,
+and a field of grain. It is a fine summer evening.
+
+Tweeny is sitting there, very busy plucking the feathers off a bird and
+dropping them on a sheet placed for that purpose on the floor. She is
+trilling to herself in the lightness of her heart. We may remember that
+Tweeny, alone among the women, had dressed wisely for an island when
+they fled the yacht, and her going-away gown still adheres to her,
+though in fragments. A score of pieces have been added here and there
+as necessity compelled, and these have been patched and repatched in
+incongruous colours; but, when all is said and done, it can still be
+maintained that Tweeny wears a skirt. She is deservedly proud of her
+skirt, and sometimes lends it on important occasions when approached in
+the proper spirit.
+
+Some one outside has been whistling to Tweeny; the guarded whistle
+which, on a less savage island, is sometimes assumed to be an indication
+to cook that the constable is willing, if the coast be clear. Tweeny,
+however, is engrossed, or perhaps she is not in the mood for a follower,
+so he climbs in at the window undaunted, to take her willy nilly. He
+is a jolly-looking labouring man, who answers to the name of Daddy,
+and--But though that may be his island name, we recognise him at once.
+He is Lord Loam, settled down to the new conditions, and enjoying life
+heartily as handy-man about the happy home. He is comfortably attired in
+skins. He is still stout, but all the flabbiness has dropped from him;
+gone too is his pomposity; his eye is clear, brown his skin; he could
+leap a gate.
+
+In his hands he carries an island-made concertina, and such is the
+exuberance of his spirits that, as he lights on the floor, he bursts
+into music and song, something about his being a chickety chickety chick
+chick, and will Tweeny please to tell him whose chickety chick is she.
+Retribution follows sharp. We hear a whir, as if from insufficiently
+oiled machinery, and over the passage door appears a placard showing
+the one word 'Silence.' His lordship stops, and steals to Tweeny on his
+tiptoes.
+
+LORD LOAM. I thought the Gov. was out.
+
+TWEENY. Well, you see he ain't. And if he were to catch you here
+idling--
+
+(LORD LOAM pales. He lays aside his musical instrument and hurriedly
+dons an apron. TWEENY gives him the bird to pluck, and busies herself
+laying the table for dinner.)
+
+LORD LOAM (softly). What is he doing now?
+
+TWEENY. I think he's working out that plan for laying on hot and cold.
+
+LORD LOAM (proud of his master). And he'll manage it too. The man who
+could build a blacksmith's forge without tools--
+
+TWEENY (not less proud). He made the tools.
+
+LORD LOAM. Out of half a dozen rusty nails. The saw-mill, Tweeny; the
+speaking-tube; the electric lighting; and look at the use he has made
+of the bits of the yacht that were washed ashore. And all in two years.
+He's a master I'm proud to pluck for.
+
+(He chirps happily at his work, and she regards him curiously.)
+
+TWEENY. Daddy, you're of little use, but you're a bright, cheerful
+creature to have about the house. (He beams at this commendation.) Do
+you ever think of old times now? We was a bit different.
+
+LORD LOAM (pausing). Circumstances alter cases. (He resumes his plucking
+contentedly.)
+
+TWEENY. But, Daddy, if the chance was to come of getting back?
+
+LORD LOAM. I have given up bothering about it.
+
+TWEENY. You bothered that day long ago when we saw a ship passing
+the island. How we all ran like crazy folk into the water, Daddy, and
+screamed and held out our arms. (They are both a little agitated.) But
+it sailed away, and we've never seen another.
+
+LORD LOAM. If we had had the electrical contrivance we have now we could
+have attracted that ship's notice. (Their eyes rest on a mysterious
+apparatus that fills a corner of the hall.) A touch on that lever,
+Tweeny, and in a few moments bonfires would be blazing all round the
+shore.
+
+TWEENY (backing from the lever as if it might spring at her). It's the
+most wonderful thing he has done.
+
+LORD LOAM (in a reverie). And then--England--home!
+
+TWEENY (also seeing visions). London of a Saturday night!
+
+LORD LOAM. My lords, in rising once more to address this historic
+chamber--
+
+TWEENY. There was a little ham and beef shop off the Edgware Road--(The
+visions fade; they return to the practical.)
+
+LORD LOAM. Tweeny, do you think I could have an egg to my tea? (At
+this moment a wiry, athletic figure in skins darkens the window. He is
+carrying two pails, which are suspended from a pole on his shoulder, and
+he is ERNEST. We should say that he is ERNEST completely changed if we
+were of those who hold that people change. As he enters by the window he
+has heard LORD LOAM's appeal, and is perhaps justifiably indignant.)
+
+ERNEST. What is that about an egg? Why should you have an egg?
+
+LORD LOAM (with hauteur). That is my affair, sir. (With a Parthian shot
+as he withdraws stiffly from the room.) The Gov. has never put my head
+in a bucket.
+
+ERNEST (coming to rest on one of his buckets, and speaking with
+excusable pride. To TWEENY). Nor mine for nearly three months. It was
+only last week, Tweeny, that he said to me, 'Ernest, the water cure has
+worked marvels in you, and I question whether I shall require to dip
+you any more.' (Complacently.) Of course that sort of thing encourages a
+fellow.
+
+TWEENY (who has now arranged the dinner table to her satisfaction). I
+will say, Erny, I never seen a young chap more improved.
+
+ERNEST (gratified). Thank you, Tweeny, that's very precious to me.
+
+(She retires to the fire to work the great bellows with her foot, and
+ERNEST turns to TREHERNE, who has come in looking more like a cow-boy
+than a clergyman. He has a small box in his hand which he tries to
+conceal.) What have you got there, John?
+
+TREHERNE. Don't tell anybody. It is a little present for the Gov.; a set
+of razors. One for each day in the week.
+
+ERNEST (opening the box and examining its contents.) Shells! He'll like
+that. He likes sets of things.
+
+TREHERNE (in a guarded voice). Have you noticed that?
+
+ERNEST. Rather.
+
+TREHERNE. He's becoming a bit magnificent in his ideas.
+
+ERNEST (huskily). John, it sometimes gives me the creeps.
+
+TREHERNE (making sure that TWEENY is out of hearing). What do you think
+of that brilliant robe he got the girls to make for him.
+
+ERNEST (uncomfortably). I think he looks too regal in it.
+
+TREHERNE. Regal! I sometimes fancy that that's why he's so fond
+of wearing it. (Practically.) Well, I must take these down to the
+grindstone and put an edge on them.
+
+ERNEST (button-holing him). I say, John, I want a word with you.
+
+TREHERNE. Well?
+
+ERNEST (become suddenly diffident). Dash it all, you know, you're a
+clergyman.
+
+TREHERNE. One of the best things the Gov. has done is to insist that
+none of you forget it.
+
+ERNEST (taking his courage in his hands). Then--would you, John?
+
+TREHERNE. What?
+
+ERNEST (wistfully). Officiate at a marriage ceremony, John?
+
+TREHERNE (slowly). Now, that's really odd.
+
+ERNEST. Odd? Seems to me it's natural. And whatever is natural, John, is
+right.
+
+TREHERNE. I mean that same question has been put to me today already.
+
+ERNEST (eagerly). By one of the women?
+
+TREHERNE. Oh no; they all put it to me long ago. This was by the Gov.
+himself.
+
+ERNEST. By Jove! (Admiringly.) I say, John, what an observant beggar he
+is.
+
+TREHERNE. Ah! You fancy he was thinking of you?
+
+ERNEST. I do not hesitate to affirm, John, that he has seen the
+love-light in my eyes. You answered--
+
+TREHERNE. I said Yes, I thought it would be my duty to officiate if
+called upon.
+
+ERNEST. You're a brick.
+
+TREHERNE (still pondering). But I wonder whether he was thinking of you?
+
+ERNEST. Make your mind easy about that.
+
+TREHERNE. Well, my best wishes. Agatha is a very fine girl.
+
+ERNEST. Agatha? What made you think it was Agatha?
+
+TREHERNE. Man alive, you told me all about it soon after we were
+wrecked.
+
+ERNEST. Pooh! Agatha's all very well in her way, John, but I'm flying at
+bigger game.
+
+TREHERNE. Ernest, which is it?
+
+ERNEST. Tweeny, of course.
+
+TREHERNE. Tweeny? (Reprovingly.) Ernest, I hope her cooking has nothing
+to do with this.
+
+ERNEST (with dignity). Her cooking has very little to do with it.
+
+TREHERNE. But does she return your affection.
+
+ERNEST (simply). Yes, John, I believe I may say so. I am unworthy of
+her, but I think I have touched her heart.
+
+TREHERNE (with a sigh). Some people seem to have all the luck. As you
+know, Catherine won't look at me.
+
+ERNEST. I'm sorry, John.
+
+TREHERNE. It's my deserts; I'm a second eleven sort of chap. Well, my
+heartiest good wishes, Ernest.
+
+ERNEST. Thank you, John. How's the little black pig to-day?
+
+TREHERNE (departing). He has begun to eat again.
+
+(After a moment's reflection ERNEST calls to TWEENY.)
+
+ERNEST. Are you very busy, Tweeny?
+
+TWEENY (coming to him good-naturedly). There's always work to do; but if
+you want me, Ernest--
+
+ERNEST. There's something I should like to say to you if you could spare
+me a moment.
+
+TWEENY. Willingly. What is it?
+
+ERNEST. What an ass I used to be, Tweeny.
+
+TWEENY (tolerantly). Oh, let bygones be bygones.
+
+ERNEST (sincerely, and at his very best). I'm no great shakes even now.
+But listen to this, Tweeny; I have known many women, but until I knew
+you I never knew any woman.
+
+TWEENY (to whose uneducated ears this sounds dangerously like an
+epigram). Take care--the bucket.
+
+ERNEST (hurriedly). I didn't mean it in that way. (He goes chivalrously
+on his knees.) Ah, Tweeny, I don't undervalue the bucket, but what I
+want to say now is that the sweet refinement of a dear girl has done
+more for me than any bucket could do.
+
+TWEENY (with large eyes). Are you offering to walk out with me, Erny?
+
+ERNEST (passionately). More than that. I want to build a little house
+for you--in the sunny glade down by Porcupine Creek. I want to make
+chairs for you and tables; and knives and forks, and a sideboard for
+you.
+
+TWEENY (who is fond of language). I like to hear you. (Eyeing him.)
+Would there be any one in the house except myself, Ernest?
+
+ERNEST (humbly). Not often; but just occasionally there would be your
+adoring husband.
+
+TWEENY (decisively). It won't do, Ernest.
+
+ERNEST (pleading). It isn't as if I should be much there.
+
+TWEENY. I know, I know; but I don't love you, Ernest. I'm that sorry.
+
+ERNEST (putting his case cleverly). Twice a week I should be away
+altogether--at the dam. On the other days you would never see me from
+breakfast time to supper. (With the self-abnegation of the true lover.)
+If you like I'll even go fishing on Sundays.
+
+TWEENY. It's no use, Erny.
+
+ERNEST (rising manfully). Thank you, Tweeny; it can't be helped. (Then
+he remembers.) Tweeny, we shall be disappointing the Gov.
+
+TWEENY (with a sinking). What's that?
+
+ERNEST. He wanted us to marry.
+
+TWEENY (blankly). You and me? the Gov.! (Her head droops woefully. From
+without is heard the whistling of a happier spirit, and TWEENY draws
+herself up fiercely.) That's her; that's the thing what has stole his
+heart from me. (A stalwart youth appears at the window, so handsome and
+tingling with vitality that, glad to depose CRICHTON, we cry thankfully,
+'The Hero at last.' But it is not the hero; it is the heroine. This
+splendid boy, clad in skins, is what nature has done for LADY MARY. She
+carries bow and arrows and a blow-pipe, and over her shoulder is a
+fat buck, which she drops with a cry of triumph. Forgetting to enter
+demurely, she leaps through the window.) (Sourly.) Drat you, Polly, why
+don't you wipe your feet?
+
+LADY MARY (good-naturedly). Come, Tweeny, be nice to me. It's a splendid
+buck. (But TWEENY shakes her off, and retires to the kitchen fire.)
+
+ERNEST. Where did you get it?
+
+LADY MARY (gaily). I sighted a herd near Penguin's Creek, but had
+to creep round Silver Lake to get to windward of them. However, they
+spotted me and then the fun began. There was nothing for it but to try
+and run them down, so I singled out a fat buck and away we went down
+the shore of the lake, up the valley of rolling stones; he doubled into
+Brawling River and took to the water, but I swam after him; the river is
+only half a mile broad there, but it runs strong. He went spinning down
+the rapids, down I went in pursuit; he clambered ashore, I clambered
+ashore; away we tore helter-skelter up the hill and down again. I lost
+him in the marshes, got on his track again near Bread Fruit Wood, and
+brought him down with an arrow in Firefly Grove.
+
+TWEENY (staring at her). Aren't you tired?
+
+LADY MARY. Tired! It was gorgeous. (She runs up a ladder and deposits
+her weapons on the joists. She is whistling again.)
+
+TWEENY (snapping). I can't abide a woman whistling.
+
+LADY MARY (indifferently). I like it.
+
+TWEENY (stamping her foot). Drop it, Polly, I tell you.
+
+LADY MARY (stung). I won't. I'm as good as you are. (They are facing
+each other defiantly.)
+
+ERNEST (shocked). Is this necessary? Think how it would pain him. (LADY
+MARY's eyes take a new expression. We see them soft for the first time.)
+
+LADY MARY (contritely). Tweeny, I beg your pardon. If my whistling
+annoys you, I shall try to cure myself of it. (Instead of calming
+TWEENY, this floods her face in tears.) Why, how can that hurt you,
+Tweeny dear?
+
+TWEENY. Because I can't make you lose your temper.
+
+LADY MARY (divinely). Indeed, I often do. Would that I were nicer to
+everybody.
+
+TWEENY. There you are again. (Wistfully.) What makes you want to be so
+nice, Polly?
+
+LADY MARY (with fervour). Only thankfulness, Tweeny. (She exults.) It is
+such fun to be alive. (So also seem to think CATHERINE and AGATHA, who
+bounce in with fishing-rods and creel. They, too, are in manly attire.)
+
+CATHERINE. We've got some ripping fish for the Gov.'s dinner. Are we in
+time? We ran all the way.
+
+TWEENY (tartly). You'll please to cook them yourself, Kitty, and look
+sharp about it. (She retires to her hearth, where AGATHA follows her.)
+
+AGATHA (yearning). Has the Gov. decided who is to wait upon him to-day?
+
+CATHERINE (who is cleaning her fish). It's my turn.
+
+AGATHA (hotly). I don't see that.
+
+TWEENY (with bitterness). It's to be neither of you, Aggy; he wants
+Polly again.
+
+(LADY MARY is unable to resist a joyous whistle.)
+
+AGATHA (jealously). Polly, you toad. (But they cannot make LADY MARY
+angry.)
+
+TWEENY (storming). How dare you look so happy?
+
+LADY MARY (willing to embrace her). I wish, Tweeny, there was anything I
+could do to make you happy also.
+
+TWEENY. Me! Oh, I'm happy. (She remembers ERNEST, whom it is easy to
+forget on an island.) I've just had a proposal, I tell you.
+
+(LADY MARY is shaken at last, and her sisters with her.)
+
+AGATHA. A proposal?
+
+CATHERINE (going white). Not--not--(She dare not say his name.)
+
+ERNEST (with singular modesty). You needn't be alarmed; it's only me.
+
+LADY MARY (relieved). Oh, you!
+
+AGATHA (happy again). Ernest, you dear, I got such a shock.
+
+CATHERINE. It was only Ernest. (Showing him her fish in thankfulness.)
+They are beautifully fresh; come and help me to cook them.
+
+ERNEST (with simple dignity). Do you mind if I don't cook fish to-night?
+(She does not mind in the least. They have all forgotten him. A lark is
+singing in three hearts.) I think you might all be a little sorry for
+a chap. (But they are not even sorry, and he addresses AGATHA in these
+winged words:) I'm particularly disappointed in you, Aggy; seeing that I
+was half engaged to you, I think you might have had the good feeling to
+be a little more hurt.
+
+AGATHA. Oh, bother.
+
+ERNEST (summing up the situation in so far as it affects himself). I
+shall now go and lie down for a bit. (He retires coldly but unregretted.
+LADY MARY approaches TWEENY with her most insinuating smile.)
+
+LADY MARY. Tweeny, as the Gov. has chosen me to wait on him, please
+may I have the loan of it again? (The reference made with such charming
+delicacy is evidently to TWEENY's skirt.)
+
+TWEENY (doggedly). No, you mayn't.
+
+AGATHA (supporting TWEENY). Don't you give it to her.
+
+LADY MARY (still trying sweet persuasion). You know quite well that he
+prefers to be waited on in a skirt.
+
+TWEENY. I don't care. Get one for yourself.
+
+LADY MARY. It is the only one on the island.
+
+TWEENY. And it's mine.
+
+LADY MARY (an aristocrat after all). Tweeny, give me that skirt
+directly.
+
+CATHERINE. Don't.
+
+TWEENY. I won't.
+
+LADY MARY (clearing for action). I shall make you.
+
+TWEENY. I should like to see you try.
+
+(An unseemly fracas appears to be inevitable, but something happens. The
+whir is again heard, and the notice is displayed 'Dogs delight to bark
+and bite.' Its effect is instantaneous and cheering. The ladies look at
+each other guiltily and immediately proceed on tiptoe to their duties.
+These are all concerned with the master's dinner. CATHERINE attends to
+his fish. AGATHA fills a quaint toast-rack and brings the menu, which is
+written on a shell. LADY MARY twists a wreath of green leaves around her
+head, and places a flower beside the master's plate. TWEENY signs that
+all is ready, and she and the younger sisters retire into the kitchen,
+drawing the screen that separates it from the rest of the room. LADY
+MARY beats a tom-tom, which is the dinner bell. She then gently works a
+punkah, which we have not hitherto observed, and stands at attention.
+No doubt she is in hopes that the Gov. will enter into conversation with
+her, but she is too good a parlour-maid to let her hopes appear in her
+face. We may watch her manner with complete approval. There is not one
+of us who would not give her L26 a year.
+
+The master comes in quietly, a book in his hand, still the only book
+on the island, for he has not thought it worth while to build a
+printing-press. His dress is not noticeably different from that of
+the others, the skins are similar, but perhaps these are a trifle more
+carefully cut or he carries them better. One sees somehow that he has
+changed for his evening meal. There is an odd suggestion of a dinner
+jacket about his doeskin coat. It is, perhaps, too grave a face for
+a man of thirty-two, as if he were over much immersed in affairs, yet
+there is a sunny smile left to lighten it at times and bring back its
+youth; perhaps too intellectual a face to pass as strictly handsome,
+not sufficiently suggestive of oats. His tall figure is very straight,
+slight rather than thick-set, but nobly muscular. His big hands, firm
+and hard with labour though they be, are finely shaped--note the
+fingers so much more tapered, the nails better tended than those of his
+domestics; they are one of many indications that he is of a superior
+breed. Such signs, as has often been pointed out, are infallible. A
+romantic figure, too. One can easily see why the women-folks of this
+strong man's house both adore and fear him.
+
+He does not seem to notice who is waiting on him to-night, but inclines
+his head slightly to whoever it is, as she takes her place at the back
+of his chair. LADY MARY respectfully places the menu-shell before him,
+and he glances at it.)
+
+CRICHTON. Clear, please.
+
+(LADY MARY knocks on the screen, and a serving hutch in it opens,
+through which TWEENY offers two soup plates. LADY MARY selects the
+clear, and the aperture is closed. She works the punkah while the master
+partakes of the soup.)
+
+CRICHTON (who always gives praise where it is due). An excellent soup,
+Polly, but still a trifle too rich.
+
+LADY MARY. Thank you.
+
+(The next course is the fish, and while it is being passed through the
+hutch we have a glimpse of three jealous women.
+
+LADY MARY'S movements are so deft and noiseless that any observant
+spectator can see that she was born to wait at table.)
+
+CRICHTON (unbending as he eats). Polly, you are a very smart girl.
+
+LADY MARY (bridling, but naturally gratified). La!
+
+CRICHTON (smiling). And I'm not the first you've heard it from, I'll
+swear.
+
+LADY MARY (wriggling). Oh God!
+
+CRICHTON. Got any followers on the island, Polly?
+
+LADY MARY (tossing her head). Certainly not.
+
+CRICHTON. I thought that perhaps John or Ernest--
+
+LADY MARY (tilting her nose). I don't say that it's for want of asking.
+
+CRICHTON (emphatically). I'm sure it isn't. (Perhaps he thinks he has
+gone too far.) You may clear.
+
+(Flushed with pleasure, she puts before him a bird and vegetables, sees
+that his beaker is fitted with wine, and returns to the punkah. She
+would love to continue their conversation, but it is for him to decide.
+For a time he seems to have forgotten her.)
+
+CRICHTON. Did you lose any arrows to-day?
+
+LADY MARY. Only one in Firefly Grove.
+
+CRICHTON. You were as far as that? How did you get across the Black
+Gorge?
+
+LADY MARY. I went across on the rope.
+
+CRICHTON. Hand over hand?
+
+LADY MARY (swelling at the implied praise). I wasn't in the least dizzy.
+
+CRICHTON (moved). You brave girl! (He sits back in his chair a little
+agitated.) But never do that again.
+
+LADY MARY (pouting). It is such fun, Gov.
+
+CRICHTON (decisively). I forbid it.
+
+LADY MARY (the little rebel). I shall.
+
+CRICHTON (surprised). Polly! (He signs to her sharply to step forward,
+but for a moment she holds back petulantly, and even when she does come
+it is less obediently than like a naughty, sulky child. Nevertheless,
+with the forbearance that is characteristic of the man, he addresses her
+with grave gentleness rather than severely.) You must do as I tell you,
+you know.
+
+LADY MARY (strangely passionate). I shan't.
+
+CRICHTON (smiling at her fury). We shall see. Frown at me, Polly; there,
+you do it at once. Clench your little fists, stamp your feet, bite your
+ribbons--(A student of women, or at least of this woman, he knows that
+she is about to do those things, and thus she seems to do them to order.
+LADY MARY screws up her face like a baby and cries. He is immediately
+kind.) You child of nature; was it cruel of me to wish to save you from
+harm?
+
+LADY MARY (drying her eyes). I'm an ungracious wretch. Oh God, I don't
+try half hard enough to please you. I'm even wearing--(she looks down
+sadly)--when I know you prefer it.
+
+CRICHTON (thoughtfully). I admit I do prefer it. Perhaps I am a little
+old-fashioned in these matters. (Her tears again threaten.) Ah, don't,
+Polly; that's nothing.
+
+LADY MARY. If I could only please you, Gov.
+
+CRICHTON (slowly). You do please me, child, very much--(he half
+rises)--very much indeed. (If he meant to say more he checks himself.
+He looks at his plate.) No more, thank you. (The simple island meal is
+ended, save for the walnuts and the wine, and CRICHTON is too busy a man
+to linger long over them. But he is a stickler for etiquette, end the
+table is cleared charmingly, though with dispatch, before they are
+placed before him. LADY MARY is an artist with the crumb-brush, and
+there are few arts more delightful to watch. Dusk has come sharply, and
+she turns on the electric light. It awakens CRICHTON from a reverie in
+which he has been regarding her.)
+
+CRICHTON. Polly, there is only one thing about you that I don't quite
+like. (She looks up, making a moue, if that can be said of one who so
+well knows her place. He explains.) That action of the hands.
+
+LADY MARY. What do I do?
+
+CRICHTON. So--like one washing them. I have noticed that the others tend
+to do it also. It seems odd.
+
+LADY MARY (archly). Oh Gov., have you forgotten?
+
+CRICHTON. What?
+
+LADY MARY. That once upon a time a certain other person did that.
+
+CRICHTON (groping). You mean myself? (She nods, and he shudders.)
+Horrible!
+
+LADY MARY (afraid she has hurt him). You haven't for a very long time.
+Perhaps it is natural to servants.
+
+CRICHTON. That must be it. (He rises.) Polly! (She looks up expectantly,
+but he only sighs and turns away.)
+
+LADY MARY (gently). You sighed, Gov.
+
+CRICHTON. Did I? I was thinking. (He paces the room and then turns
+to her agitatedly, yet with control over his agitation. There is some
+mournfulness in his voice.) I have always tried to do the right thing on
+this island. Above all, Polly, I want to do the right thing by you.
+
+LADY MARY (with shining eyes). How we all trust you. That is your
+reward, Gov.
+
+CRICHTON (who is having a fight with himself). And now I want a greater
+reward. Is it fair to you? Am I playing the game? Bill Crichton would
+like always to play the game. If we were in England--(He pauses so long
+that she breaks in softly.)
+
+LADY MARY. We know now that we shall never see England again.
+
+CRICHTON. I am thinking of two people whom neither of us has seen for a
+long time--Lady Mary Lasenby, and one Crichton, a butler. (He says the
+last word bravely, a word he once loved, though it is the most horrible
+of all words to him now.)
+
+LADY MARY. That cold, haughty, insolent girl. Gov., look around you and
+forget them both.
+
+CRICHTON. I had nigh forgotten them. He has had a chance, Polly--that
+butler--in these two years of becoming a man, and he has tried to take
+it. There have been many failures, but there has been some success, and
+with it I have let the past drop off me, and turned my back on it. That
+butler seems a far-away figure to me now, and not myself. I hail him,
+but we scarce know each other. If I am to bring him back it can only
+be done by force, for in my soul he is now abhorrent to me. But if I
+thought it best for you I'd haul him back; I swear as an honest man, I
+would bring him back with all his obsequious ways and deferential airs,
+and let you see the man you call your Gov. melt for ever into him who
+was your servant.
+
+LADY MARY (shivering). You hurt me. You say these things, but you say
+them like a king. To me it is the past that was not real.
+
+CRICHTON (too grandly). A king! I sometimes feel--(For a moment the
+yellow light gleams in his green eyes. We remember suddenly what
+TREHERNE and ERNEST said about his regal look. He checks himself.) I
+say it harshly, it is so hard to say, and all the time there is another
+voice within me crying--(He stops.)
+
+LADY MARY (trembling but not afraid). If it is the voice of nature--
+
+CRICHTON (strongly). I know it to be the voice of nature.
+
+LADY MARY (in a whisper). Then, if you want to say it very much, Gov.,
+please say it to Polly Lasenby.
+
+CRICHTON (again in the grip of an idea). A king! Polly, some people hold
+that the soul but leaves one human tenement for another, and so lives on
+through all the ages. I have occasionally thought of late that, in
+some past existence, I may have been a king. It has all come to me so
+naturally, not as if I had had to work it out, but-as-if-I-remembered.
+'Or ever the knightly years were gone, With the old world to the grave,
+I was a king in Babylon, And you were a Christian slave.' It may have
+been; you hear me, it may have been.
+
+LADY MARY (who is as one fascinated). It may have been.
+
+CRICHTON. I am lord over all. They are but hewers of wood and drawers
+of water for me. These shores are mine. Why should I hesitate; I have no
+longer any doubt. I do believe I am doing the right thing. Dear Polly,
+I have grown to love you; are you afraid to mate with me? (She rocks her
+arms; no words will come from her.) 'I was a king in Babylon, And you
+were a Christian slave.'
+
+LADY MARY (bewitched). You are the most wonderful man I have ever known,
+and I am not afraid. (He takes her to him reverently. Presently he is
+seated, and she is at his feet looking up adoringly in his face. As the
+tension relaxes she speaks with a smile.) I want you to tell me--every
+woman likes to know--when was the first time you thought me nicer than
+the others?
+
+CRICHTON (who, like all big men, is simple). I think a year ago. We were
+chasing goats on the Big Slopes, and you out-distanced us all; you were
+the first of our party to run a goat down; I was proud of you that day.
+
+LADY MARY (blushing with pleasure). Oh Gov., I only did it to please
+you. Everything I have done has been out of the desire to please you.
+(Suddenly anxious.) If I thought that in taking a wife from among us you
+were imperilling your dignity--
+
+CRICHTON (perhaps a little masterful). Have no fear of that, dear. I
+have thought it all out. The wife, Polly, always takes the same position
+as the husband.
+
+LADY MARY. But I am so unworthy. It was sufficient to me that I should
+be allowed to wait on you at that table.
+
+CRICHTON. You shall wait on me no longer. At whatever table I sit,
+Polly, you shall soon sit there also. (Boyishly.) Come, let us try what
+it will be like.
+
+LADY MARY. As your servant at your feet.
+
+CRICHTON. No, as my consort by my side.
+
+(They are sitting thus when the hatch is again opened and coffee
+offered. But LADY MARY is no longer there to receive it. Her sisters
+peep through in consternation. In vain they rattle the cup and saucer.
+AGATHA brings the coffee to CRICHTON.)
+
+CRICHTON (forgetting for the moment that it is not a month hence). Help
+your mistress first, girl. (Three women are bereft of speech, but he
+does not notice it. He addresses CATHERINE vaguely.) Are you a good
+girl, Kitty?
+
+CATHERINE (when she finds her tongue). I try to be, Gov.
+
+CRICHTON (still more vaguely). That's right. (He takes command of
+himself again, and signs to them to sit down. ERNEST comes in cheerily,
+but finding CRICHTON here is suddenly weak. He subsides on a chair,
+wondering what has happened.)
+
+CRICHTON (surveying him). Ernest. (ERNEST rises.) You are becoming a
+little slovenly in your dress, Ernest; I don't like it.
+
+ERNEST (respectfully). Thank you. (ERNEST sits again. DADDY and TREHERNE
+arrive.)
+
+CRICHTON. Daddy, I want you.
+
+LORD LOAM (with a sinking). Is it because I forgot to clean out the dam?
+
+CRICHTON (encouragingly). No, no. (He pours some wine into a goblet.) A
+glass of wine with you, Daddy.
+
+LORD LOAM (hastily). Your health, Gov. (He is about to drink, but the
+master checks him.)
+
+CRICHTON. And hers. Daddy, this lady has done me the honour to promise
+to be my wife.
+
+LORD LOAM (astounded). Polly!
+
+CRICHTON (a little perturbed). I ought first to have asked your consent.
+I deeply regret--but nature; may I hope I have your approval?
+
+LORD LOAM. May you, Gov.? (Delighted.) Rather! Polly! (He puts his proud
+arms round her.)
+
+TREHERNE. We all congratulate you, Gov., most heartily.
+
+ERNEST. Long life to you both, sir.
+
+(There is much shaking of hands, all of which is sincere.)
+
+TREHERNE. When will it be, Gov.?
+
+CRICHTON (after turning to LADY MARY, who whispers to him). As soon as
+the bridal skirt can be prepared. (His manner has been most indulgent,
+and without the slightest suggestion of patronage. But he knows it
+is best for all that he should keep his place, and that his presence
+hampers them.) My friends, I thank you for your good wishes, I thank you
+all. And now, perhaps you would like me to leave you to yourselves. Be
+joyous. Let there be song and dance to-night. Polly, I shall take my
+coffee in the parlour--you understand.
+
+(He retires with pleasant dignity. Immediately there is a rush of two
+girls at LADY MARY.)
+
+LADY MARY. Oh, oh! Father, they are pinching me.
+
+LORD LOAM (taking her under his protection). Agatha, Catherine, never
+presume to pinch your sister again. On the other hand, she may pinch you
+henceforth as much as ever she chooses.
+
+(In the meantime TWEENY is weeping softly, and the two are not above
+using her as a weapon.)
+
+CATHERINE. Poor Tweeny, it's a shame.
+
+AGATHA. After he had almost promised you.
+
+TWEENY (loyally turning on them). No, he never did. He was always
+honourable as could be. 'Twas me as was too vulgar. Don't you dare say a
+word agin that man.
+
+ERNEST (to LORD LOAM). You'll get a lot of tit-bits out of this, Daddy.
+
+LORD LOAM. That's what I was thinking.
+
+ERNEST (plunged in thought). I dare say I shall have to clean out the
+dam now.
+
+LORD LOAM (heartlessly). I dare say. (His gay old heart makes him again
+proclaim that he is a chickety chick. He seizes the concertina.)
+
+TREHERNE (eagerly). That's the proper spirit. (He puts his arm round
+CATHERINE, and in another moment they are all dancing to Daddy's music.
+Never were people happier on an island. A moment's pause is presently
+created by the return of CRICHTON, wearing the wonderful robe of which
+we have already had dark mention. Never has he looked more regal, never
+perhaps felt so regal. We need not grudge him the one foible of his
+rule, for it is all coming to an end.)
+
+CRICHTON (graciously, seeing them hesitate). No, no; I am delighted to
+see you all so happy. Go on.
+
+TREHERNE. We don't like to before you, Gov.
+
+CRICHTON (his last order). It is my wish.
+
+(The merrymaking is resumed, and soon CRICHTON himself joins in the
+dance. It is when the fun is at its fastest and most furious that all
+stop abruptly as if turned to stone. They have heard the boom of a gun.
+Presently they are alive again. ERNEST leaps to the window.)
+
+TREHERNE (huskily). It was a ship's gun. (They turn to CRICHTON for
+confirmation; even in that hour they turn to CRICHTON.) Gov.?
+
+CRICHTON. Yes.
+
+(In another moment LADY MARY and LORD LOAM are alone.)
+
+LADY MARY (seeing that her father is unconcerned). Father, you heard.
+
+LORD LOAM (placidly). Yes, my child.
+
+LADY MARY (alarmed by his unnatural calmness). But it was a gun, father.
+
+LORD LOAM (looking an old man now, and shuddering a little). Yes--a
+gun--I have often heard it. It's only a dream, you know; why don't we go
+on dancing?
+
+(She takes his hands, which have gone cold.)
+
+LADY MARY. Father. Don't you see, they have all rushed down to the
+beach? Come.
+
+LORD LOAM. Rushed down to the beach; yes, always that--I often dream it.
+
+LADY MARY. Come, father, come.
+
+LORD LOAM. Only a dream, my poor girl.
+
+(CRICHTON returns. He is pale but firm.)
+
+CRICHTON. We can see lights within a mile of the shore--a great ship.
+
+LORD LOAM. A ship--always a ship.
+
+LADY MARY. Father, this is no dream.
+
+LORD LOAM (looking timidly at CRICHTON). It's a dream, isn't it? There's
+no ship?
+
+CRICHTON (soothing him with a touch). You are awake, Daddy, and there is
+a ship.
+
+LORD LOAM (clutching him). You are not deceiving me?
+
+CRICHTON. It is the truth.
+
+LORD LOAM (reeling). True?--a ship--at last!
+
+(He goes after the others pitifully.)
+
+CRICHTON (quietly). There is a small boat between it and the island;
+they must have sent it ashore for water.
+
+LADY MART. Coming in?
+
+CRICHTON. No. That gun must have been a signal to recall it. It is going
+back. They can't hear our cries.
+
+LADY MARY (pressing her temples). Going away. So near--so near. (Almost
+to herself.) I think I'm glad.
+
+CRICHTON (cheerily). Have no fear. I shall bring them back.
+
+(He goes towards the table on which is the electrical apparatus.)
+
+LADY MARY (standing on guard as it were between him and the table). What
+are you going to do?
+
+CRICHTON. To fire the beacons.
+
+LADY MARY. Stop! (She faces him.) Don't you see what it means?
+
+CRICHTON (firmly). It means that our life on the island has come to a
+natural end.
+
+LADY MARY (husky). Gov., let the ship go--
+
+CRICHTON. The old man--you saw what it means to him.
+
+LADY MARY. But I am afraid.
+
+CRICHTON (adoringly). Dear Polly.
+
+LADY MARY. Gov., let the ship go.
+
+CRICHTON (she clings to him, but though it is his death sentence he
+loosens her hold). Bill Crichton has got to play the game. (He pulls the
+levers. Soon through the window one of the beacons is seen flaring
+red. There is a long pause. Shouting is heard. ERNEST is the first to
+arrive.)
+
+ERNEST. Polly, Gov., the boat has turned back. They are English sailors;
+they have landed! We are rescued, I tell you, rescued!
+
+LADY MARY (wanly). Is it anything to make so great a to-do about?
+
+ERNEST (staring). Eh?
+
+LADY MARY. Have we not been happy here?
+
+ERNEST. Happy? Lord, yes.
+
+LADY MARY (catching hold of his sleeve). Ernest, we must never forget
+all that the Gov. has done for us.
+
+ERNEST (stoutly). Forget it? The man who could forget it would be a
+selfish wretch and a--But I say, this makes a difference!
+
+LADY MARY (quickly). No, it doesn't.
+
+ERNEST (his mind tottering). A mighty difference!
+
+(The others come running in, some weeping with joy, others boisterous.
+We see blue-jackets gazing through the window at the curious scene.
+LORD LOAM comes accompanied by a naval officer, whom he is continually
+shaking by the hand.)
+
+LORD LOAM. And here, sir, is our little home. Let me thank you in the
+name of us all, again and again and again.
+
+OFFICER. Very proud, my lord. It is indeed an honour to have been able
+to assist so distinguished a gentleman as Lord Loam.
+
+LORD LOAM. A glorious, glorious day. I shall show you our other room.
+Come, my pets. Come, Crichton.
+
+(He has not meant to be cruel. He does not know he has said it. It is
+the old life that has come back to him. They all go. All leave CRICHTON
+except LADY MARY.)
+
+LADY MARY (stretching out her arms to him). Dear Gov., I will never give
+you up.
+
+(There is a salt smile on his face as he shakes his head to her. He
+lets the cloak slip to the ground. She will not take this for an answer;
+again her arms go out to him. Then comes the great renunciation. By
+an effort of will he ceases to be an erect figure; he has the humble
+bearing of a servant. His hands come together as if he were washing
+them.)
+
+CRICHTON (it is the speech of his life). My lady.
+
+(She goes away. There is none to salute him now, unless we do it.)
+
+
+End of Act III.
+
+
+
+
+ACT IV. THE OTHER ISLAND
+
+
+Some months have elapsed, and we have again the honour of waiting upon
+Lord Loam in his London home. It is the room of the first act, but
+with a new scheme of decoration, for on the walls are exhibited many
+interesting trophies from the island, such as skins, stuffed birds,
+and weapons of the chase, labelled 'Shot by Lord Loam,' 'Hon. Ernest
+Woolley's Blowpipe' etc. There are also two large glass cases containing
+other odds and ends, including, curiously enough, the bucket in which
+Ernest was first dipped, but there is no label calling attention to the
+incident. It is not yet time to dress for dinner, and his lordship is on
+a couch, hastily yet furtively cutting the pages of a new book. With him
+are his two younger daughters and his nephew, and they also are engaged
+in literary pursuits; that is to say, the ladies are eagerly but
+furtively reading the evening papers, of which Ernest is sitting
+complacently but furtively on an endless number, and doling them out as
+called for. Note the frequent use of the word 'furtive.' It implies
+that they do not wish to be discovered by their butler, say, at their
+otherwise delightful task.
+
+AGATHA (reading aloud, with emphasis on the wrong words'). 'In
+conclusion, we most heartily congratulate the Hon. Ernest Woolley.
+This book of his, regarding the adventures of himself and his brave
+companions on a desert isle, stirs the heart like a trumpet.'
+
+(Evidently the book referred to is the one in LORD LOAM'S hands.)
+
+ERNEST (handing her a pink paper). Here is another.
+
+CATHERINE (reading). 'From the first to the last of Mr. Woolley's
+engrossing pages it is evident that he was an ideal man to be wrecked
+with, and a true hero.' (Large-eyed.) Ernest!
+
+ERNEST (calmly). That's how it strikes them, you know. Here's another
+one.
+
+AGATHA (reading). 'There are many kindly references to the two servants
+who were wrecked with the family, and Mr. Woolley pays the butler a
+glowing tribute in a footnote.'
+
+(Some one coughs uncomfortably.)
+
+LORD LOAM (who has been searching the index for the letter L).
+Excellent, excellent. At the same time I must say, Ernest, that the
+whole book is about yourself.
+
+ERNEST (genially). As the author--
+
+LORD LOAM. Certainly, certainly. Still, you know, as a peer of the
+realm--(with dignity)--I think, Ernest, you might have given me one of
+your adventures.
+
+ERNEST. I say it was you who taught us how to obtain a fire by rubbing
+two pieces of stick together.
+
+LORD LOAM (beaming). Do you, do you? I call that very handsome. What
+page?
+
+(Here the door opens, and the well-bred CRICHTON enters with the evening
+papers as subscribed for by the house. Those we have already seen have
+perhaps been introduced by ERNEST up his waistcoat. Every one except the
+intruder is immediately self-conscious, and when he withdraws there is a
+general sigh of relief. They pounce on the new papers. ERNEST evidently
+gets a shock from one, which he casts contemptuously on the floor.)
+
+AGATHA (more fortunate). Father, see page 81. 'It was a tiger-cat,' says
+Mr. Woolley, 'of the largest size. Death stared Lord Loam in the face,
+but he never flinched.'
+
+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 rushing 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 glass
+cases. All are at once on the alert and his lordship 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 glass 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 appetite 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
+lordship 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--
+
+(LORD BROCKLEHURST is announced.)
+
+LADY MARY (meaningly). Father, dear, oughtn't you to be dressing?
+
+LORD LOAM (very unhappy). The fact is--before I go--I want to say--
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Loam, if you don't mind, I wish very specially to
+have a word with Mary before dinner.
+
+LORD LOAM. But--
+
+LADY MARY. Yes, father. (She induces him to go, and thus courageously
+faces LORD BROCKLEHURST to hear her fate.) I am ready, George.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (who is so agitated that she ought to see he is
+thinking not of her but of himself). It is a painful matter--I wish I
+could have spared you this, Mary.
+
+LADY MARY. Please go on.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. In common fairness, of course, this should be
+remembered, that two years had elapsed. You and I had no reason to
+believe that we should ever meet again.
+
+(This is more considerate than she had expected.)
+
+LADY MARY (softening). I was so lost to the world, George.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (with a groan). At the same time, the thing is utterly
+and absolutely inexcusable--
+
+LADY MARY (recovering her hauteur). Oh!
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. And so I have already said to mother.
+
+LADY MARY (disdaining him). You have told her?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Certainly, Mary, certainly; I tell mother everything.
+
+LADY MARY (curling her lip). And what did she say?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. To tell the truth, mother rather pooh-poohed the
+whole affair.
+
+LADY MARY (incredulous). Lady Brocklehurst pooh-poohed the whole affair!
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. She said, 'Mary and I will have a good laugh over
+this.'
+
+LADY MARY (outraged). George, your mother is a hateful, depraved old
+woman.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Mary!
+
+LADY MARY (turning away). Laugh indeed, when it will always be such a
+pain to me.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (with strange humility). If only you would let me bear
+all the pain, Mary.
+
+LADY MARY (who is taken aback). George, I think you are the noblest
+man--
+
+(She is touched, and gives him both her hands. Unfortunately he
+simpers.)
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. She was a pretty little thing. (She stares, but he
+marches to his doom.) Ah, not beautiful like you. I assure you it was
+the merest flirtation; there were a few letters, but we have got them
+back. It was all owing to the boat being so late at Calais. You see she
+had such large, helpless eyes.
+
+LADY MARY (fixing him). George, when you lunched with father to-day at
+the club--
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. I didn't. He wired me that he couldn't come.
+
+LADY MARY (with a tremor). But he wrote you?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. No.
+
+LADY MARY (a bird singing in her breast). You haven't seen him since?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. No.
+
+(She is saved. Is he to be let off also? Not at all. She bears down on
+him like a ship of war.)
+
+LADY MARY. George, who and what is this woman?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (cowering). She was--she is--the shame of it--a
+lady's-maid.
+
+LADY MARY (properly horrified). A what?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. A lady's-maid. A mere servant, Mary. (LADY MARY
+whirls round so that he shall not see her face.) I first met her at this
+house when you were entertaining the servants; so you see it was largely
+your father's fault.
+
+LADY MARY (looking him up and down). A lady's-maid?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (degraded). Her name was Fisher.
+
+LADY MARY. My maid!
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (with open hands). Can you forgive me, Mary?
+
+LADY MARY. Oh George, George!
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Mother urged me not to tell you anything about it;
+but--
+
+LADY MARY (from her heart). I am so glad you told me.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. You see there was nothing wrong in it.
+
+LADY MARY (thinking perhaps of another incident). No, indeed.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (inclined to simper again). And she behaved awfully
+well. She quite saw that it was because the boat was late. I suppose the
+glamour to a girl in service of a man in high position--
+
+LADY MARY. Glamour!--yes, yes, that was it.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Mother says that a girl in such circumstances is to
+be excused if she loses her head.
+
+LADY MARY (impulsively). George, I am so sorry if I said anything
+against your mother. I am sure she is the dearest old thing.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (in calm waters at last). Of course for women of our
+class she has a very different standard.
+
+LADY MARY (grown tiny). Of course.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. You see, knowing how good a woman she is herself,
+she was naturally anxious that I should marry some one like her. That is
+what has made her watch your conduct so jealously, Mary.
+
+LADY MARY (hurriedly thinking things out). I know. I--I think, George,
+that before your mother comes I should like to say a word to father.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (nervously). About this?
+
+LADY MARY. Oh no; I shan't tell him of this. About something else.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. And you do forgive me, Mary?
+
+LADY MARY (smiling on him). Yes, yes. I--I am sure the boat was very
+late, George.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (earnestly). It really was.
+
+LADY MARY. I am even relieved to know that you are not quite perfect,
+dear. (She rests her hands on his shoulders. She has a moment of
+contrition.) George, when we are married, we shall try to be not an
+entirely frivolous couple, won't we? We must endeavour to be of some
+little use, dear.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (the ass). Noblesse oblige.
+
+LADY MARY (haunted by the phrases of a better man). Mary Lasenby is
+determined to play the game, George.
+
+(Perhaps she adds to herself, 'Except just this once.' A kiss closes
+this episode of the two lovers; and soon after the departure of LADY
+MARY the COUNTESS OF BROCKLEHURST is announced. She is a very formidable
+old lady.)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Alone, George?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Mother, I told her all; she has behaved
+magnificently.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (who has not shared his fears). Silly boy. (She casts
+a supercilious eye on the island trophies.) So these are the wonders
+they brought back with them. Gone away to dry her eyes, I suppose?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (proud of his mate). She didn't cry, mother.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. No? (She reflects.) You're quite right. I wouldn't
+have cried. Cold, icy. Yes, that was it.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (who has not often contradicted her). I assure you,
+mother, that wasn't it at all. She forgave me at once.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (opening her eyes sharply to the full). Oh!
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. She was awfully nice about the boat being late; she
+even said she was relieved to find that I wasn't quite perfect.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (pouncing). She said that?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. She really did.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. I mean I wouldn't. Now if I had said that, what would
+have made me say it? (Suspiciously.) George, is Mary all we think her?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (with unexpected spirit). If she wasn't, mother, you
+would know it.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Hold your tongue, boy. We don't really know what
+happened on that island.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. You were reading the book all the morning.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. How can I be sure that the book is true?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. They all talk of it as true.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. How do I know that they are not lying?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Why should they lie?
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Why shouldn't they? (She reflects again.) If I had
+been wrecked on an island, I think it highly probable that I should have
+lied when I came back. Weren't some servants with them?
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Crichton, the butler. (He is surprised to see her
+ring the bell.) Why, mother, you are not going to--
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Yes, I am. (Pointedly.) George, watch whether
+Crichton begins any of his answers to my questions with 'The fact is.'
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Why?
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Because that is usually the beginning of a lie.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (as CRICHTON opens the door). Mother, you can't do
+these things in other people's houses.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (coolly, to CRICHTON). It was I who rang. (Surveying
+him through her eyeglass.) So you were one of the castaways, Crichton?
+
+CRICHTON. Yes, my lady.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Delightful book Mr. Woolley has written about your
+adventures. (CRICHTON bows.) Don't you think so?
+
+CRICHTON. I have not read it, my lady.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Odd that they should not have presented you with a
+copy.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Presumably Crichton is no reader.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. By the way, Crichton, were there any books on the
+island?
+
+CRICHTON. I had one, my lady--Henley's poems.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Never heard of him.
+
+(CRICHTON again bows.)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (who has not heard of him either). I think you were
+not the only servant wrecked?
+
+CRICHTON. There was a young woman, my lady.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. I want to see her. (CRICHTON bows, but remains.)
+Fetch her up. (He goes.)
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (almost standing up to his mother). This is
+scandalous.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (defining her position). I am a mother.
+
+(CATHERINE and AGATHA enter in dazzling confections, and quake in secret
+to find themselves practically alone with LADY BROCKLEHURST.)
+
+(Even as she greets them.) How d'you do, Catherine--Agatha? You didn't
+dress like this on the island, I expect! By the way, how did you dress?
+
+(They have thought themselves prepared, but--)
+
+AGATHA. Not--not so well, of course, but quite the same idea.
+
+(They are relieved by the arrival of TREHERNE, who is in clerical
+dress.)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. How do you do, Mr. Treherne? There is not so much of
+you in the book as I had hoped.
+
+TREHERNE (modestly). There wasn't very much of me on the island, Lady
+Brocklehurst.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. How d'ye mean? (He shrugs his honest shoulders.)
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. I hear you have got a living, Treherne.
+Congratulations.
+
+TREHERNE. Thanks.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Is it a good one?
+
+TREHERNE. So--so. They are rather weak in bowling, but it's a good bit
+of turf. (Confidence is restored by the entrance of ERNEST, who takes in
+the situation promptly, and, of course, knows he is a match for any old
+lady.)
+
+ERNEST (with ease). How do you do, Lady Brocklehurst.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Our brilliant author!
+
+ERNEST (impervious to satire). Oh, I don't know.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. It is as engrossing, Mr. Woolley, as if it were a
+work of fiction.
+
+ERNEST (suddenly uncomfortable). Thanks, awfully. (Recovering.) The fact
+is--(He is puzzled by seeing the Brocklehurst family exchange meaning
+looks.)
+
+CATHERINE (to the rescue). Lady Brocklehurst, Mr. Treherne and I--we are
+engaged.
+
+AGATHA. And Ernest and I.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (grimly). I see, my dears; thought it wise to keep the
+island in the family.
+
+(An awkward moment this for the entrance of LORD LOAM and LADY MARY,
+who, after a private talk upstairs, are feeling happy and secure.)
+
+LORD LOAM (with two hands for his distinguished guest). Aha! ha, ha!
+younger than any of them, Emily.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Flatterer. (To LADY MARY.) You seem in high spirits,
+Mary.
+
+LADY MARY (gaily). I am.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (with a significant glance at LORD BROCKLEHURST).
+After--
+
+LADY MARY. I--I mean. The fact is--
+
+(Again that disconcerting glance between the Countess and her son.)
+
+LORD LOAM (humorously). She hears wedding bells, Emily, ha, ha!
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (coldly). Do you, Mary? Can't say I do; but I'm hard
+of hearing.
+
+LADY MARY (instantly her match). If you don't, Lady Brocklehurst, I'm
+sure I don't.
+
+LORD LOAM (nervously). Tut, tut. Seen our curios from the island, Emily;
+I should like you to examine them.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Thank you, Henry. I am glad you say that, for I have
+just taken the liberty of asking two of them to step upstairs. (There
+is an uncomfortable silence, which the entrance of CRICHTON with TWEENY
+does not seem to dissipate. CRICHTON is impenetrable, but TWEENY hangs
+back in fear.)
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (stoutly). Loam, I have no hand in this.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (undisturbed). Pooh, what have I done? You always
+begged me to speak to the servants, Henry, and I merely wanted to
+discover whether the views you used to hold about equality were adopted
+on the island; it seemed a splendid opportunity, but Mr. Woolley has not
+a word on the subject.
+
+(All eyes turn to ERNEST.)
+
+ERNEST (with confidence). The fact is--
+
+(The fatal words again.)
+
+LORD LOAM (not quite certain what he is to assure her of). I assure you,
+Emily--
+
+LADY MARY (as cold as steel). Father, nothing whatever happened on the
+island of which I, for one, am ashamed, and I hope Crichton will be
+allowed to answer Lady Brocklehurst's questions.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. To be sure. There's nothing to make a fuss about, and
+we're a family party. (To CRICHTON.) Now, truthfully, my man.
+
+CRICHTON (calmly). I promise that, my lady.
+
+(Some hearts sink, the hearts that could never understand a Crichton.)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (sharply). Well, were you all equal on the island?
+
+CRICHTON. No, my lady. I think I may say there was as little equality
+there as elsewhere.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Ah the social distinctions were preserved?
+
+CRICHTON. As at home, my lady.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. The servants?
+
+CRICHTON. They had to keep their place.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Wonderful. How was it managed? (With an inspiration.)
+You, girl, tell me that?
+
+(Can there be a more critical moment?)
+
+TWEENY (in agony). If you please, my lady, it was all the Gov.'s doing.
+
+(They give themselves up for lost. LORD LOAM tries to sink out of
+sight.)
+
+CRICHTON. In the regrettable slang of the servants' hall, my lady, the
+master is usually referred to as the Gov.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. I see. (She turns to LORD LOAM.) You--
+
+LORD LOAM (reappearing). Yes, I understand that is what they call me.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (to CRICHTON). You didn't even take your meals with
+the family?
+
+CRICHTON. No, my lady, I dined apart.
+
+(Is all safe?)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (alas). You, girl, also? Did you dine with Crichton?
+
+TWEENY (scared). No, your ladyship.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (fastening on her). With whom?
+
+TWEENY. I took my bit of supper with--with Daddy and Polly and the rest.
+
+(Vae victis.)
+
+ERNEST (leaping into the breach). Dear old Daddy--he was our monkey. You
+remember our monkey, Agatha?
+
+AGATHA. Rather! What a funny old darling he was.
+
+CATHERINE (thus encouraged). And don't you think Polly was the sweetest
+little parrot, Mary?
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Ah! I understand; animals you had domesticated?
+
+LORD LOAM (heavily). Quite so--quite so.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. The servants' teas that used to take place here once
+a month--
+
+CRICHTON. They did not seem natural on the island, my lady, and were
+discontinued by the Gov.'s orders.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. A clear proof, Loam, that they were a mistake here.
+
+LORD LOAM (seeing the opportunity for a diversion). I admit it frankly.
+I abandon them. Emily, as the result of our experiences on the island, I
+think of going over to the Tories.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. I am delighted to hear it.
+
+LORD LOAM (expanding). Thank you, Crichton, thank you; that is all.
+
+(He motions to them to go, but the time is not yet.)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. One moment. (There is a universal but stifled groan.)
+Young people, Crichton, will be young people, even on an island; now,
+I suppose there was a certain amount of--shall we say sentimentalising,
+going on?
+
+CRICHTON. Yes, my lady, there was.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST (ashamed). Mother!
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (disregarding him). Which gentleman? (To TWEENY) You,
+girl, tell me.
+
+TWEENY (confused). If you please, my lady--
+
+ERNEST (hurriedly). The fact is--(He is checked as before, and probably
+says 'D--n' to himself, but he has saved the situation.)
+
+TWEENY (gasping). It was him--Mr. Ernest, your ladyship.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (counsel for the prosecution). With which lady?
+
+AGATHA. I have already told you, Lady Brocklehurst, that Ernest and I--
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Yes, now; but you were two years on the island.
+(Looking at LADY MARY). Was it this lady?
+
+TWEENY. No, your ladyship.
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST. Then I don't care which of the others it was. (TWEENY
+gurgles.) Well, I suppose that will do.
+
+LORD BROCKLEHURST. Do! I hope you are ashamed of yourself, mother. (To
+CRICHTON, who is going). You are an excellent fellow, Crichton; and if,
+after we are married, you ever wish to change your place, come to us.
+
+LADY MARY (losing her head for the only time). Oh no, impossible--
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (at once suspicious). Why impossible? (LADY MARY
+cannot answer, or perhaps she is too proud.) Do you see why it should be
+impossible, my man?
+
+(He can make or mar his unworthy MARY now. Have you any doubt of him?)
+
+CRICHTON. Yes, my lady. I had not told you, my lord, but as soon as
+your lordship is suited I wish to leave service. (They are all immensely
+relieved, except poor TWEENY.)
+
+TREHERNE (the only curious one). What will you do, Crichton? (CRICHTON
+shrugs his shoulders; 'God knows', it may mean.)
+
+CRICHTON. Shall I withdraw, my lord? (He withdraws without a tremor,
+TWEENY accompanying him. They can all breathe again; the thunderstorm is
+over.)
+
+LADY BROCKLEHURST (thankful to have made herself unpleasant). Horrid of
+me, wasn't it? But if one wasn't disagreeable now and again, it would
+be horribly tedious to be an old woman. He will soon be yours, Mary, and
+then--think of the opportunities you will have of being disagreeable to
+me. On that understanding, my dear, don't you think we might--? (Their
+cold lips meet.)
+
+LORD LOAM (vaguely). Quite so--quite so. (CRICHTON announces dinner, and
+they file out. LADY MARY stays behind a moment and impulsively holds out
+her hand.)
+
+LADY MARY. To wish you every dear happiness.
+
+CRICHTON (an enigma to the last.) The same to you, my lady.
+
+LADY MARY. Do you despise me, Crichton? (The man who could never tell a
+lie makes no answer.) You are the best man among us.
+
+CRICHTON. On an island, my lady, perhaps; but in England, no.
+
+LADY MARY. Then there's something wrong with England.
+
+CRICHTON. My lady, not even from you can I listen to a word against
+England.
+
+LADY MARY. Tell me one thing: you have not lost your courage?
+
+CRICHTON. No, my lady.
+
+(She goes. He turns out the lights.)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Admirable Crichton, by J. M. Barrie
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