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第2章

Part I

The Drawing Room, after Tea

An afternoon in late March

AMY, IVY, VIOLET, AGATHA, GERALD,

CHARLES, MARY

DENMAN enters to draw the curtains

AMY

Not yet! I will ring for you. It is still quite light.

I have nothing to do but watch the days draw out,

Now that I sit in the house from October to June,

And the swallow comes too soon and the spring will be over

And the cuckoo will be gone before I am out again.

O Sun, that was once so warm, O Light that was taken for granted

When I was young and strong, and sun and light unsought for

And the night unfeared and the day expected

And clocks could be trusted, tomorrow assured

And time would not stop in the dark!

Put on the lights. But leave the curtains undrawn.

Make up the fire. Will the spring never come? I am cold.

AGATHA

Wishwood was always a cold place, Amy.

IVY

I have always told Amy she should go south in the winter.

Were I in Amy's position, I would go south in the winter.

I would follow the sun, not wait for the sun to come here.

I would go south in the winter, if I could afford it,

Not freeze, as I do, in Bayswater, by a gas-fire counting shillings.

VIOLET

Go south! to the English circulating libraries,

To the military widows and the English chaplains,

To the chilly deck-chair and the strong cold tea —

The strong cold stewed bad Indian tea.

CHARLES

That's not Amy's style at all. We are country-bred people.

Amy has been too long used to our ways

Living with horses and dogs and guns

Ever to want to leave England in the winter.

But a single man like me is better off in London:

A man can be very cosy at his club

Even in an English winter.

GERALD

Well, as for me,

I'd just as soon be a subaltern again

To be back in the East. An incomparable climate

For a man who can exercise a little common prudence;

And your servants look after you very much better.

AMY

My servants are perfectly competent, Gerald.

I can still see to that.

VIOLET

Well, as for me,

I would never go south, no, definitely never,

Even could I do it as well as Amy:

England's bad enough, I would never go south,

Simply to see the vulgarest people —

You can keep out of their way at home;

People with money from heaven knows where —

GERALD

Dividends from aeroplane shares.

VIOLET

They bathe all day and they dance all night

In the absolute minimum of clothes.

CHARLES

It's the cocktail-drinking does the harm:

There's nothing on earth so bad for the young.

All that a civilised person needs

Is a glass of dry sherry or two before dinner.

The modern young people don't know what they're drinking,

Modern young people don't care what they're eating;

They've lost their sense of taste and smell

Because of their cocktails and cigarettes.

[Enter DENMAN with sherry and whisky. CHARLES takes sherry and GERALD whisky.]

That's what it comes to.

[Lights a cigarette]

IVY

The younger generation

Are undoubtedly decadent.

CHARLES

The younger generation

Are not what we were. Haven't the stamina,

Haven't the sense of responsibility.

GERALD

You're being very hard on the younger generation.

I don't come across them very much now, myself;

But I must say I've met some very decent specimens

And some first-class shots — better than you were,

Charles, as I remember. Besides, you've got to make allowances:

We haven't left them such an easy world to live in.

Let the younger generation speak for itself:

It's Mary's generation. What does she think about it?

MARY

Really, Cousin Gerald, if you want information

About the younger generation, you must ask someone else.

I'm afraid that I don't deserve the compliment:

I don't belong to any generation.

[Exit]

VIOLET

Really, Gerald, I must say you're very tactless,

And I think that Charles might have been more considerate.

GERALD

I'm very sorry: but why was she upset?

I only meant to draw her into the conversation.

CHARLES

She's a nice girl; but it's a difficult age for her.

I suppose she must be getting on for thirty?

She ought to be married, that's what it is.

AMY

So she should have been, if things had gone as I intended.

Harry's return does not make things easy for her

At the moment: but life may still go right.

Meanwhile, let us drop the subject. The less said the better.

GERALD

That reminds me, Amy,

When are the boys all due to arrive?

AMY

I do not want the clock to stop in the dark.

If you want to know why I never leave Wishwood

That is the reason. I keep Wishwood alive

To keep the family alive, to keep them together,

To keep me alive, and I live to keep them.

You none of you understand how old you are

And death will come to you as a mild surprise,

A momentary shudder in a vacant room.

Only Agatha seems to discover some meaning in death

Which I cannot find.

— I am only certain of Arthur and John,

Arthur in London, John in Leicestershire:

They should both be here in good time for dinner.

Harry telephoned to me from Marseilles,

He would come by air to Paris, and so to London,

And hoped to arrive in the course of the evening.

VIOLET

Harry was always the most likely to be late.

AMY

This time, it will not be his fault.

We are very lucky to have Harry at all.

IVY

And when will you have your birthday cake, Amy,

And open your presents?

AMY

After dinner:

That is the best time.

IVY

It is the first time

You have not had your cake and your presents at tea.

AMY

This is a very particular occasion

As you ought to know. It will be the first time

For eight years that we have all been together.

AGATHA

It is going to be rather painful for Harry

After eight years and all that has happened

To come back to Wishwood.

GERALD

Why, painful?

VIOLET

Gerald! you know what Agatha means.

AGATHA

I mean painful, because everything is irrevocable,

Because the past is irremediable,

Because the future can only be built

Upon the real past. Wandering in the tropics

Or against the painted scene of the Mediterranean,

Harry must often have remembered Wishwood —

The nursery tea, the school holiday,

The daring feats on the old pony,

And thought to creep back through the little door.

He will find a new Wishwood. Adaptation is hard.

AMY

Nothing is changed, Agatha, at Wishwood.

Everything is kept as it was when he left it,

Except the old pony, and the mongrel setter

Which I had to have destroyed.

Nothing has been changed. I have seen to that.

AGATHA

Yes. I mean that at Wishwood he will find another Harry.

The man who returns will have to meet

The boy who left. Round by the stables,

In the coach-house, in the orchard,

In the plantation, down the corridor

That led to the nursery, round the corner

Of the new wing, he will have to face him —

And it will not be a very jolly corner.

When the loop in time comes — and it does not come for everybody —

The hidden is revealed, and the spectres show themselves.

GERALD

I don't in the least know what you're talking about.

You seem to be wanting to give us all the hump.

I must say, this isn't cheerful for Amy's birthday

Or for Harry's homecoming. Make him feel at home, I say!

Make him feel that what has happened doesn't matter.

He's taken his medicine, I've no doubt.

Let him marry again and carry on at Wishwood.

AMY

Thank you, Gerald. Though Agatha means

As a rule, a good deal more than she cares to betray,

I am bound to say that I agree with you.

CHARLES

I never wrote to him when he lost his wife

That was just about a year ago, wasn't it?

Do you think I ought to mention it now?

It seems to me too late.

AMY

Much too late.

If he wants to talk about it, that's another matter;

But I don't believe he will. He will wish to forget it.

I do not mince matters in front of the family:

You can call it nothing but a blessed relief.

VIOLET

I call it providential.

IVY

Yet it must have been shocking,

Especially to lose anybody in that way —

Swept off the deck in the middle of a storm,

And never even to recover the body.

CHARLES

'Well-known Peeress Vanishes from Liner'.

GERALD

Yes, it's odd to think of her as permanently missing.

VIOLET

Had she been drinking?

AMY

I would never ask him.

IVY

These things are much better not enquired into.

She may have done it in a fit of temper.

GERALD

I never met her.

AMY

I am very glad you did not.

I am very glad that none of you ever met her.

It will make the situation very much easier

And is why I was so anxious you should all be here.

She never would have been one of the family,

She never wished to be one of the family,

She only wanted to keep him to herself

To satisfy her vanity. That's why she dragged him

All over Europe and half round the world

To expensive hotels and undesirable society

Which she could choose herself. She never wanted

Harry's relations or Harry's old friends;

She never wanted to fit herself to Harry,

But only to bring Harry down to her own level.

A restless shivering painted shadow

In life, she is less than a shadow in death.

You might as well all of you know the truth

For the sake of the future. There can be no grief

And no regret and no remorse.

I would have prevented it if I could. For the sake of the future:

Harry is to take command at Wishwood

And I hope we can contrive his future happiness.

Do not discuss his absence. Please behave only

As if nothing had happened in the last eight years.

GERALD

That will be a little difficult.

VIOLET

Nonsense, Gerald!

You must see for yourself it's the only thing to do.

AGATHA

Thus with most careful devotion

Thus with precise attention

To detail, interfering preparation

Of that which is already prepared

Men tighten the knot of confusion

Into perfect misunderstanding,

Reflecting a pocket-torch of observation

Upon each other's opacity

Neglecting all the admonitions

From the world around the corner

The wind's talk in the dry holly-tree

The inclination of the moon

The attraction of the dark passage

The paw under the door.

CHORUS

(IVY, VIOLET, GERALD and CHARLES)

Why do we feel embarrassed, impatient, fretful, ill at ease,

Assembled like amateur actors who have not been assigned their parts?

Like amateur actors in a dream when the curtain rises, to find themselves dressed for a different play, or having rehearsed the wrong parts,

Waiting for the rustling in the stalls, the titter in the dress circle, the laughter and catcalls in the gallery?

CHARLES

I might have been in St. James's Street, in a comfortable chair rather nearer the fire.

IVY

I might have been visiting Cousin Lily at Sidmouth, if I had not had to come to this party.

GERALD

I might have been staying with Compton-Smith, down at his place in Dorset.

VIOLET

I should have been helping Lady Bumpus, at the Vicar's American Tea.

CHORUS

Yet we are here at Amy's command, to play an unread part in some monstrous farce, ridiculous in some nightmare pantomime.

AMY

What's that? I thought I saw someone pass the window.

What time is it?

CHARLES

Nearly twenty to seven.

AMY

John should be here now, he has the shortest way to come.

John at least, if not Arthur. Hark, there is someone coming:

Yes, it must be John.

[Enter HARRY]

Harry!

[HARRY stops suddenly at the door and stares at the window]

IVY

Welcome, Harry!

GERALD

Well done!

VIOLET

Welcome home to Wishwood!

CHARLES

Why, what's the matter?

AMY

Harry, if you want the curtains drawn you should let me ring for Denman.

HARRY

How can you sit in this blaze of light for all the world to look at?

If you knew how you looked, when I saw you through the window!

Do you like to be stared at by eyes through a window?

AMY

You forget, Harry, you are at Wishwood,

Not in town, where you have to close the blinds.

There is no one to see you but our servants who belong here,

And who all want to see you back, Harry.

HARRY

Look there, look there: do you see them?

GERALD

No, I don't see anyone about.

HARRY

No, no, not there. Look there!

Can't you see them? You don't see them, but I see them,

And they see me. This is the first time that I have seen them.

In the Java Straits, in the Sunda Sea,

In the sweet sickly tropical night, I knew they were coming.

In Italy, from behind the nightingale's thicket,

The eyes stared at me, and corrupted that song.

Behind the palm trees in the Grand Hotel

They were always there. But I did not see them.

Why should they wait until I came back to Wishwood?

There were a thousand places where I might have met them!

Why here? why here?

Many happy returns of the day, mother.

Aunt Ivy, Aunt Violet, Uncle Gerald, Uncle Charles, Agatha.

AMY

We are very glad to have you back, Harry.

Now we shall all be together for dinner.

The servants have been looking forward to your coming:

Would you like to have them in after dinner

Or wait till tomorrow? I am sure you must be tired.

You will find everybody here, and everything the same.

Mr. Bevan — you remember — wants to call tomorrow

On some legal business, a question about taxes —

But I think you would rather wait till you are rested.

Your room is all ready for you. Nothing has been changed.

HARRY

Changed? nothing changed? how can you say that nothing is changed?

You all look so withered and young.

GERALD

We must have a ride tomorrow.

You'll find you know the country as well as ever.

There wasn't an inch of it you didn't know.

But you'll have to see about a couple of new hunters.

CHARLES

And I've a new wine merchant to recommend you;

Your cellar could do with a little attention.

IVY

And you'll really have to find a successor to old Hawkins.

It's really high time the old man was pensioned.

He's let the rock garden go to rack and ruin,

And he's nearly half blind. I've spoken to your mother

Time and time again: she's done nothing about it

Because she preferred to wait for your coming.

VIOLET

And time and time again I have spoken to your mother

About the waste that goes on in the kitchen.

Mrs. Packell is too old to know what she is doing.

It really needs a man in charge of things at Wishwood.

AMY

You see your aunts and uncles are very helpful, Harry.

I have always found them forthcoming with advice

Which I have never taken. Now it is your business.

I have only struggled to keep Wishwood going

And to make no changes before your return.

Now it's for you to manage. I am an old woman.

They can give me no further advice when I'm dead.

IVY

Oh, dear Amy!

No one wants you to die, I'm sure!

Now that Harry's back, is the time to think of living.

HARRY

Time and time and time, and change, no change!

You all of you try to talk as if nothing had happened,

And yet you are talking of nothing else. Why not get to the point

Or if you want to pretend that I am another person —

A person that you have conspired to invent, please do so

In my absence. I shall be less embarrassing to you. Agatha?

AGATHA

I think, Harry, that having got so far —

If you want no pretences, let us have no pretences:

And you must try at once to make us understand,

And we must try to understand you.

HARRY

But how can I explain, how can I explain to you?

You will understand less after I have explained it.

All that I could hope to make you understand

Is only events: not what has happened.

And people to whom nothing has ever happened

Cannot understand the unimportance of events.

GERALD

Well, you can't say that nothing has happened to me.

I started as a youngster on the North-West Frontier —

Been in tight corners most of my life

And some pretty nasty messes.

CHARLES

And there isn't much would surprise me, Harry;

Or shock me, either.

HARRY

You are all people

To whom nothing has happened, at most a continual impact

Of external events. You have gone through life in sleep,

Never woken to the nightmare. I tell you, life would be unendurable

If you were wide awake. You do not know

The noxious smell untraceable in the drains,

Inaccessible to the plumbers, that has its hour of the night; you do not know

The unspoken voice of sorrow in the ancient bedroom

At three o'clock in the morning. I am not speaking

Of my own experience, but trying to give you

Comparisons in a more familiar medium. I am the old house

With the noxious smell and the sorrow before morning,

In which all past is present, all degradation

Is unredeemable. As for what happens —

Of the past you can only see what is past,

Not what is always present. That is what matters.

AGATHA

Nevertheless, Harry, best tell us as you can:

Talk in your own language, without stopping to debate

Whether it may be too far beyond our understanding.

HARRY

The sudden solitude in a crowded desert

In a thick smoke, many creatures moving

Without direction, for no direction

Leads anywhere but round and round in that vapour —

Without purpose, and without principle of conduct

In flickering intervals of light and darkness;

The partial an?sthesia of suffering without feeling

And partial observation of one's own automatism

While the slow stain sinks deeper through the skin

Tainting the flesh and discolouring the bone —

This is what matters, but it is unspeakable,

Untranslatable: I talk in general terms

Because the particular has no language. One thinks to escape

By violence, but one is still alone

In an over-crowded desert, jostled by ghosts.

It was only reversing the senseless direction

For a momentary rest on the burning wheel

That cloudless night in the mid-Atlantic

When I pushed her over.

VIOLET

Pushed her?

HARRY

You would never imagine anyone could sink so quickly.

I had always supposed, wherever I went

That she would be with me; whatever I did

That she was unkillable. It was not like that.

Everything is true in a different sense.

I expected to find her when I went back to the cabin.

Later, I became excited, I think I made enquiries;

The purser and the steward were extremely sympathetic

And the doctor very attentive.

That night I slept heavily, alone.

AMY

Harry!

CHARLES

You mustn't indulge such dangerous fancies.

It's only doing harm to your mother and yourself.

Of course we know what really happened, we read it in the papers —

No need to revert to it. Remember, my boy,

I understand, your life together made it seem more horrible.

There's a lot in my own past life that presses on my chest

When I wake, as I do now, early before morning.

I understand these feelings better than you know —

But you have no reason to reproach yourself.

Your conscience can be clear.

HARRY

It goes a good deal deeper

Than what people call their conscience; it is just the cancer

That eats away the self. I knew how you would take it.

First of all, you isolate the single event

As something so dreadful that it couldn't have happened,

Because you could not bear it. So you must believe

That I suffer from delusions. It is not my conscience,

Not my mind, that is diseased, but the world I have to live in.

— I lay two days in contented drowsiness;

Then I recovered. I am afraid of sleep:

A condition in which one can be caught for the last time.

And also waking. She is nearer than ever.

The contamination has reached the marrow

And they are always near. Here, nearer than ever.

They are very close here. I had not expected that.

AMY

Harry, Harry, you are very tired

And overwrought. Coming so far

And making such haste, the change is too sudden for you.

You are unused to our foggy climate

And the northern country. When you see Wishwood

Again by day, all will be the same again.

I beg you to go now and rest before dinner.

Get Downing to draw you a hot bath,

And you will feel better.

AGATHA

There are certain points I do not yet understand:

They will be clear later. I am also convinced

That you only hold a fragment of the explanation.

It is only because of what you do not understand

That you feel the need to declare what you do.

There is more to understand: hold fast to that

As the way to freedom.

HARRY

I think I see what you mean,

Dimly — as you once explained the sobbing in the chimney

The evil in the dark closet, which they said was not there,

Which they explained away, but you explained them

Or at least, made me cease to be afraid of them.

I will go and have my bath.

[Exit]

GERALD

God preserve us!

I never thought it would be as bad as this.

VIOLET

There is only one thing to be done:

Harry must see a doctor.

IVY

But I understand —

I have heard of such cases before — that people in his condition

Often betray the most immoderate resentment

At such a suggestion. They can be very cunning —

Their malady makes them so. They do not want to be cured

And they know what you are thinking.

CHARLES

He has probably let this notion grow in his mind,

Living among strangers, with no one to talk to.

I suspect it is simply that the wish to get rid of her

Makes him believe he did. He cannot trust his good fortune.

I believe that all he needs is someone to talk to,

To get it off his mind. I'll have a talk to him tomorrow.

AMY

Most certainly not, Charles, you are not the right person.

I prefer to believe that a few days at Wishwood

Among his own family, is all that he needs.

GERALD

Nevertheless, Amy, there's something in Violet's suggestion.

Why not ring up Warburton, and ask him to join us?

He's an old friend of the family, it's perfectly natural

That he should be asked. He looked after all the boys

When they were children. I'll have a word with him.

He can talk to Harry, and Harry need have no suspicion.

I'd trust Warburton's opinion.

AMY

If anyone speaks to Dr. Warburton

It should be myself. What does Agatha think?

AGATHA

It seems a necessary move

In an unnecessary action,

Not for the good that it will do

But that nothing may be left undone

On the margin of the impossible.

AMY

Very well.

I will ring up the doctor myself.

[Exit]

CHARLES

Meanwhile, I have an idea. Why not question Downing?

He's been with Harry ten years, he's absolutely discreet.

He was with them on the boat. He might be of use.

IVY

Charles! you don't really suppose

That he might have pushed her over?

CHARLES

In any case, I shouldn't blame Harry.

I might have done the same thing once, myself

Nobody knows what he's likely to do

Until there's somebody he wants to get rid of.

GERALD

Even so, we don't want Downing to know

Any more than he knows already.

And even if he knew, it's very much better

That he shouldn't know that we knew it also.

Why not let sleeping dogs lie?

CHARLES

All the same, there's a question or two

[Rings the bell]

That I'd like to ask Downing.

He shan't know why I'm asking.

[Enter DENMAN]

Denman, where is Downing? Is he up with his Lordship?

DENMAN

He's out in the garage, Sir, with his Lordship's car.

CHARLES

Tell him I'd like to have a word with him, please.

[Exit DENMAN]

VIOLET

Charles, if you are determined upon this investigation,

Which I am convinced is going to lead us nowhere,

And which I am sure Amy would disapprove of —

I only wish to express my emphatic protest

Both against your purpose and the means you are employing.

CHARLES

My purpose is, to find out what's wrong with Harry:

Until we know that, we can do nothing for him.

And as for my means, we can't afford to be squeamish

In taking hold of anything that comes to hand.

If you are interested in helping Harry

You can hardly object to the means.

VIOLET

I do object.

IVY

And I wish to associate myself with my sister

In her objections —

AGATHA

I have no objection,

Any more than I object to asking Dr. Warburton:

I only see that this is all quite irrelevant;

We had better leave Charles to talk to Downing

And pursue his own methods.

[Rises]

VIOLET

I do not agree.

I think there should be witnesses. I intend to remain.

And I wish to be present to hear what Downing says.

I want to know at once, not be told about it later.

IVY

And I shall stay with Violet.

AGATHA

I shall return

When Downing has left you.

[Exit]

CHARLES

Well, I'm very sorry

You all see it like this: but there simply are times

When there's nothing to do but take the bull by the horns,

And this is one.

[Knock: and enter DOWNING]

CHARLES

Good evening, Downing.

It's good to see you again, after all these years.

You're well, I hope?

DOWNING

Thank you, very well indeed, Sir.

CHARLES

I'm sorry to send for you so abruptly,

But I've a question I'd like to put to you,

I'm sure you won't mind, it's about his Lordship.

You've looked after his Lordship for over ten years …

DOWNING

Eleven years, Sir, next Lady Day.

CHARLES

Eleven years, and you know him pretty well.

And I'm sure that you've been a good friend to him, too.

We haven't seen him for nearly eight years;

And to tell the truth, now that we've seen him,

We're a little worried about his health.

He doesn't seem to be … quite himself.

DOWNING

Quite natural, if I may say so, Sir,

After what happened.

CHARLES

Quite so, quite.

Downing, you were with them on the voyage from New York —

We didn't learn very much about the circumstances;

We only knew what we read in the papers —

Of course, there was a great deal too much in the papers.

Downing, do you think that it might have been suicide,

And that his Lordship knew it?

DOWNING

Unlikely, Sir, if I may say so.

Much more likely to have been an accident.

I mean, knowing her Ladyship,

I don't think she had the courage.

CHARLES

Did she ever talk of suicide?

DOWNING

Oh yes, she did, every now and again.

But in my opinion, it is those that talk

That are the least likely. To my way of thinking

She only did it to frighten people.

If you take my meaning — just for the effect.

CHARLES

I understand, Downing. Was she in good spirits?

DOWNING

Well, always about the same, Sir.

What I mean is, always up and down.

Down in the morning, and up in the evening,

And then she used to get rather excited,

And, in a way, irresponsible, Sir.

If I may make so bold, Sir,

I always thought that a very few cocktails

Went a long way with her Ladyship.

She wasn't one of those that are designed for drinking:

It's natural for some and unnatural for others.

CHARLES

And how was his Lordship, during the voyage?

DOWNING

Well, you might say depressed, Sir.

But you know his Lordship was always very quiet:

Very uncommon that I saw him in high spirits.

For what my judgment's worth, I always said his Lordship

Suffered from what they call a kind of repression.

But what struck me … more nervous than usual;

I mean to say, you could see that he was nervous.

He behaved as if he thought something might happen.

CHARLES

What sort of thing?

DOWNING

Well, I don't know, Sir.

But he seemed very anxious about my Lady.

Tried to keep her in when the weather was rough,

Didn't like to see her lean over the rail.

He was in a rare fright, once or twice.

But you know, it is just my opinion, Sir,

That his Lordship is rather psychic, as they say.

CHARLES

Were they always together?

DOWNING

Always, Sir.

That was just my complaint against my Lady.

It's my opinion that man and wife

Shouldn't see too much of each other, Sir.

Quite the contrary of the usual opinion,

I dare say. She wouldn't leave him alone.

And there's my complaint against these ocean liners

With all their swimming baths and gymnasiums

There's not even a place where a man can go

For a quiet smoke, where the women can't follow him.

She wouldn't leave him out of her sight.

CHARLES

During that evening, did you see him?

DOWNING

Oh yes, Sir, I'm sure I saw him.

I don't mean to say that he had any orders —

His Lordship is always most considerate

About keeping me up. But when I say I saw him,

I mean that I saw him accidental.

You see, Sir, I was down in the Tourist,

And I took a bit of air before I went to bed,

And you could see the corner of the upper deck.

And I remember, there I saw his Lordship

Leaning over the rail, looking at the water —

There wasn't a moon, but I was sure it was him.

While I took my turn about, for near half an hour

He stayed there alone, looking over the rail.

Her Ladyship must have been all right then,

Mustn't she, Sir? or else he'd have known it.

CHARLES

Oh yes … quite so. Thank you, Downing,

I don't think we need you any more.

GERALD

Oh, Downing,

Is there anything wrong with his Lordship's car?

DOWNING

Oh no, Sir, she's in good running order:

I see to that.

GERALD

I only wondered

Why you've been busy about it tonight.

DOWNING

Nothing wrong, Sir:

Only I like to have her always ready.

Would there be anything more, Sir?

GERALD

Thank you, Downing;

Nothing more.

[Exit DOWNING]

VIOLET

Well, Charles, I must say, with your investigations,

You seem to have left matters much as they were —

Except for having brought Downing into it:

Of which I disapprove.

CHARLES

Of which you disapprove.

But I believe that an unconscious accomplice is desirable.

CHORUS

Why should we stand here like guilty conspirators, waiting for some revelation

When the hidden shall be exposed, and the newsboy shall shout in the street?

When the private shall be made public, the common photographer

Flashlight for the picture papers: why do we huddle together

In a horrid amity of misfortune? why should we be implicated, brought in and brought together?

IVY

I do not trust Charles with his confident vulgarity, acquired from worldly associates.

GERALD

Ivy is only concerned for herself, and her credit among her shabby genteel acquaintance.

VIOLET

Gerald is certain to make some blunder, he is useless out of the army.

CHARLES

Violet is afraid that her status as Amy's sister will be diminished.

CHORUS

We all of us make the pretension

To be the uncommon exception

To the universal bondage.

We like to appear in the newspapers

So long as we are in the right column.

We know about the railway accident

We know about the sudden thrombosis

And the slowly hardening artery.

We like to be thought well of by others

So that we may think well of ourselves.

And any explanation will satisfy:

We only ask to be reassured

About the noises in the cellar

And the window that should not have been open.

Why do we all behave as if the door might suddenly open, the curtains be drawn,

The cellar make some dreadful disclosure, the roof disappear,

And we should cease to be sure of what is real or unreal?

Hold tight, hold tight, we must insist that the world is what we have always taken it to be.

AMY'S VOICE

Ivy! Violet! has Arthur or John come yet?

IVY

There is no news of Arthur or John.

[Enter AMY and AGATHA]

AMY

It is very annoying. They both promised to be here

In good time for dinner. It is very annoying.

Now they can hardly arrive in time to dress.

I do not understand what could have gone wrong

With both of them, coming from different directions.

Well, we must go and dress, I suppose. I hope Harry will feel better

After his rest upstairs.

[Exeunt, except AGATHA]

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