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CAPT. G. (Affecting supreme contempt.) Take it yourself if you want it.
MRS. G. I’ve a great mind to – and I will! (Takes it and is repaid with interest.)
CAPT. G, Little Featherweight, it’s my opinion that we are a couple of idiots.
MRS. G. We’re the only two sensible people in the world. Ask the eagle. He’s coming by.
CAPT. G. Ah! I dare say he’s seen a good many sensible people at Mahasu. They say that those birds live for ever so long.
MRS. G. How long?
CAPT. G. A hundred and twenty years.
MRS. G. A hundred and twenty years! O-oh! And in a hundred and twenty years where will these two sensible people be?
CAPT. G. What does it matter so long as we are together now?
MRS. G. (Looking round the horizon.) Yes. Only you and I – I and you – in the whole wide, wide world until the end. (Sees the line of the Snows.) How big and quiet the hills look! D’you think they care for us?
CAPT. G. ‘Can’t say I’ve consulted em particularly. I care, and that’s enough for me.
MRS. G. (Drawing nearer to him.) Yes, now – but afterward. What’s that little black blur on the Snows?
CAPT. G. A snowstorm, forty miles away. You’ll see it move, as the wind carries it across the face of that spur and then it will be all gone.
MRS. G. And then it will be all gone. (Shivers.)
CAPT. G. (Anxiously.) Not chilled, pet, are you? Better let me get your cloak.
MRS. G. No. Don’t leave me, Phil. Stay here. I believe I am afraid. Oh, why are the hills so horrid! Phil, promise me that you’ll always love me.
CAPT. G. What’s the trouble, darling? I can’t promise any more than I have; but I’ll promise that again and again if you like.
MRs. G. (Her head on his shoulder.) Say it, then – say it! N-no – don’t! The – the – eagles would laugh. (Recovering.) My husband, you’ve married a little goose.
CAPT. G. (Very tenderly.) Have I? I am content whatever she is, so long as she is mine.
MRS. G. (Quickly.) Because she is yours or because she is me mineself?
CAPT. G. Because she is both. (Piteously.) I’m not clever, dear, and I don’t think I can make myself understood properly.
MRS. G. I understand. Pip, will you tell me something?
CAPT. G. Anything you like. (Aside.) I wonder what’s coming now.
MRS. G. (Haltingly, her eyes ‘owered.) You told me once in the old days – centuries and centuries ago – that you had been engaged before. I didn’t say anything – then.
CAPT. G. (Innocently.) Why not?
MRS. G. (Raising her eyes to his.) Because – because I was afraid of losing you, my heart. But now – tell about it – please.
CAPT. G. There’s nothing to tell. I was awf’ly old then – nearly two and twenty – and she was quite that.
MRS. G. That means she was older than you. I shouldn’t like her to have been younger. Well?
CAPT. G. Well, I fancied myself in love and raved about a bit, and – oh, yes, by Jove! I made up poetry. Ha! Ha!
MRS. G. You never wrote any for me! What happened?
CAPT. G. I came out here, and the whole thing went phut. She wrote to say that there had been a mistake, and then she married.
MRS. G. Did she care for you much?
CAPT. G. No. At least she didn’t show it as far as I remember.
MRS. G. As far as you remember! Do you remember her name? (Hears it and bows her head.) Thank you, my husband.
CAPT. G. Who but you had the right? Now, Little Featherweight, have you ever been mixed up in any dark and dismal tragedy?
MRS. G. If you call me Mrs. Gadsby, p’raps I’ll tell.
CAPT. G. (Throwing Parade rasp into his voice.) Mrs. Gadsby, confess!
MRS. G. Good Heavens, Phil! I never knew that you could speak in that terrible voice.
CAPT. G. You don’t know half my accomplishments yet. Wait till we are settled in the Plains, and I’ll show you how I bark at my troop. You were going to say, darling?
MRS. G. I – I don’t like to, after that voice. (Tremulously.) Phil, never you dare to speak to me in that tone, whatever I may do!
CAPT. G. My poor little love! Why, you’re shaking all over. I am so sorry. Of course I never meant to upset you Don’t tell me anything, I’m a brute.
MRS. G. No, you aren’t, and I will tell – There was a man.
CAPT. G. (Lightly.) Was there? Lucky man!
MRS. G. (In a whisper.) And I thought I cared for him.
CAPT. G. Still luckier man! Well?
MRS. G. And I thought I cared for him – and I didn’t – and then you came – and I cared for you very, very much indeed. That’s all. (Face hidden.) You aren’t angry, are you?
CAPT. G. Angry? Not in the least. (Aside.) Good Lord, what have I done to deserve this angel?
MRS. G. (Aside.) And he never asked for the name! How funny men are! But perhaps it’s as well.
CAPT. G. That man will go to heaven because you once thought you cared for him. ‘Wonder if you’ll ever drag me up there?
MRS. G. (Firmly.) ‘Sha’n’t go if you don’t.
CAPT. G. Thanks. I say, Pussy, I don’t know much about your religious beliefs. You were brought up to believe in a heaven and all that, weren’t you?
MRS. G. Yes. But it was a pincushion heaven, with hymn-books in all the pews.
CAPT. G. (Wagging his head with intense conviction.) Never mind. There is a pukka heaven.
MRS. G. Where do you bring that message from, my prophet?
CAPT. G. Here! Because we care for each other. So it’s all right.
Mrs. G. (As a troop of langurs crash through the branches.) So it’s all right. But Darwin says that we came from those!
CAPT. G. (Placidly.) Ah! Darwin was never in love with an angel. That settles it. Sstt, you brutes! Monkeys, indeed! You shouldn’t read those books.
MRS. G. (Folding her hands.) If it pleases my Lord the King to issue proclamation.
CAPT. G. Don’t, dear one. There are no orders between us. Only I’d rather you didn’t. They lead to nothing, and bother people’s heads.
MRS. G. Like your first engagement.
CAPT. G. (With an immense calm.) That was a necessary evil and led to you. Are you nothing?
MRS. G. Not so very much, am I?
CAPT. G. All this world and the next to me.
MRS. G. (Very softly.) My boy of boys! Shall I tell you something?
CAPT. G. Yes, if it’s not dreadful – about other men.
MRS. G. It’s about my own bad little self.
CAPT. G. Then it must be good. Go on, dear.
MRS. G. (Slowly.) I don’t know why I’m telling you, Pip; but if ever you marry again-(Interlude.) Take your hand from my mouth or I’ll bite! In the future, then remember – I don’t know quite how to put it!
CAPT. G. (Snorting indignantly.) Don’t try. “Marry again,” indeed!
MRS. G. I must. Listen, my husband. Never, never, never tell your wife anything that you do not wish her to remember and think over all her life. Because a woman – yes, I am a woman – can’t forget.
CAPT. G. By Jove, how do you know that?
MRS. G. (Confusedly.) I don’t. I’m only guessing. I am – I was – a silly little girl; but I feel that I know so much, oh, so very much more than you, dearest. To begin with, I’m your wife.
CAPT. G. So I have been led to believe.
MRS. G. And I shall want to know every one of your secrets – to share everything you know with you. (Stares round desperately.)
CAPT. G. So you shall, dear, so you shall – but don’t look like that.
MRS. G. For your own sake don’t stop me, Phil. I shall never talk to you in this way again. You must not tell me! At least, not now. Later on, when I’m an old matron it won’t matter, but if you love me, be very good to me now; for this part of my life I shall never forget! Have I made you understand?
CAPT. G. I think so, child. Have I said anything yet that you disapprove of?
MRS. G. Will you be very angry? That – that voice, and what you said about the engagement —
CAPT. G. But you asked to be told that, darling.
MRS. G. And that’s why you shouldn’t have told me! You must be the Judge, and, oh, Pip, dearly as I love you, I shan’t be able to help you! I shall hinder you, and you must judge in spite of me!
CAPT. G. (Meditatively.) We have a great many things to find out together, God help us both – say so, Pussy – but we shall understand each other better every day; and I think I’m beginning to see now. How in the world did you come to know just the importance of giving me just that lead?
MRS. G. I’ve told you that I don’t know. Only somehow it seemed that, in all this new life, I was being guided for your sake as well as my own.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) Then Mafilin was right! They know, and we – we’re blind all of us. (Lightly.) ‘Getting a little beyond our depth, dear, aren’t we? I’ll remember, and, if I fail, let me be punished as I deserve.
MRS. G. There shall be no punishment. We’ll start into life together from here – you and I – and no one else.
CAPT. G. And no one else. (A pause.) Your eyelashes are all wet, Sweet? Was there ever such a quaint little Absurdity?
MRS. G. Was there ever such nonsense talked before?
CAPT. G. (Knocking the ashes out of his pipe.) ‘Tisn’t what we say, it’s what we don’t say, that helps. And it’s all the profoundest philosophy. But no one would understand – even if it were put into a book.
MRS. G. The idea! No – only we ourselves, or people like ourselves – if there are any people like us.
CAPT. G. (Magisterially.) All people, not like ourselves, are blind idiots.
MRS. G. (Wiping her eyes.) Do you think, then, that there are any people as happy as we are?
CAPT. G. ‘Must be – unless we’ve appropriated all the happiness in the world.
MRS. G. (Looking toward Simla.) Poor dears! Just fancy if we have!
CAPT. G. Then we’ll hang on to the whole show, for it’s a great deal too jolly to lose – eh, wife o’ mine?
MRS. G. O Pip! Pip! How much of you is a solemn, married man and how much a horrid slangy schoolboy?
CAPT. G. When you tell me how much of you was eighteen last birthday and how much is as old as the Sphinx and twice as mysterious, perhaps I’ll attend to you. Lend me that banjo. The spirit moveth me to jowl at the sunset.
MRS. G. Mind! It’s not tuned. Ah! How that jars!
CAPT G. (Turning pegs.) It’s amazingly different to keep a banjo to proper pitch.
MRS. G. It’s the same with all musical instruments, What shall it be?
CAPT. G. “Vanity,” and let the hills hear. (Sings through the first and hal’ of the second verse. Turning to MRS. G.) Now, chorus! Sing, Pussy!
BOTH TOGETHER. (Con brio, to the horror of the monkeys who are settling for the night.) —
“Vanity, all is Vanity,” said Wisdom, scorning me — I clasped my true Love’s tender hand and answered frank and free-ee “If this be Vanity who’d be wise? If this be Vanity who’d be wise? If this be Vanity who’d be wi-ise (Crescendo.) Vanity let it be!”MRS. G. (Defiantly to the grey of the evening sky.) “Vanity let it be!”
ECHO. (Prom the Fagoo spur.) Let it be!
FATIMA
And you may go in every room of the house and see everything that is there, but into the Blue Room you must not go. – The Story of Blue Beard.
SCENE. – The GADSBYS’ bungalow in the Plains. Time, 11 A. M. on a Sunday morning. Captain GADSBY, in his shirt-sleeves, is bending over a complete set of Hussar’s equipment, from saddle to picketing-rope, which is neatly spread over the floor of his study. He is smoking an unclean briar, and his forehead is puckered with thought.
CAPT. G. (To himself, fingering a headstall.) Jack’s an ass. There’s enough brass on this to load a mule – and, if the Americans know anything about anything, it can be cut down to a bit only. ‘Don’t want the watering-bridle, either. Humbug! – Half a dozen sets of chains and pulleys for one horse! Rot! (Scratching his head.) Now, let’s consider it all over from the be-ginning. By Jove, I’ve forgotten the scale of weights! Ne’er mind. ‘Keep the bit only, and eliminate every boss from the crupper to breastplate. No breastplate at all. Simple leather strap across the breast-like the Russians. Hi! Jack never thought of that!
MRS. G. (Entering hastily, her hand bound in a cloth.) Oh, Pip, I’ve scalded my hand over that horrid, horrid Tiparee jam!
CAPT. G. (Absently.) Eb! Wha-at?
MRS. G. (With round-eyed reproach.) I’ve scalded it aw-fully! Aren’t you sorry? And I did so want that jam to jam properly.
CAPT. G. Poor little woman! Let me kiss the place and make it well. (Unrolling bandage.) You small sinner! Where’s that scald? I can’t see it.
MRS. G. On the top of the little finger. There! – It’s a most ‘normous big burn!
CAPT. G. (Kissing little finger.) Baby! Let Hyder look after the jam. You know I don’t care for sweets.
MRS. G. In-deed? – Pip!
CAPT. G. Not of that kind, anyhow. And now run along, Minnie, and leave me to my own base devices. I’m busy.
MRS. G. (Calmly settling herself in long chair.) So I see. What a mess you’re making! Why have you brought all that smelly leather stuff into the house?
CAPT. G. To play with. Do you mind, dear?
MRS. G. Let me play too. I’d like it.
CAPT. G. I’m afraid you wouldn’t. Pussy – Don’t you think that jam will burn, or whatever it is that jam does when it’s not looked after by a clever little housekeeper?
MRS. G. I thought you said Hyder could attend to it. I left him in the veranda, stirring – when I hurt myself so.
CAPT. G. (His eye returning to the equipment.) Po-oor little woman! – Three pounds four and seven is three eleven, and that can be cut down to two eight, with just a lee-tle care, without weakening anything. Farriery is all rot in incompetent hands. What’s the use of a shoe-case when a man’s scouting? He can’t stick it on with a lick-like a stamp – the shoe! Skittles —
MRS. G. What’s skittles? Pah! What is this leather cleaned with?
CAPT. G. Cream and champagne and – Look here, dear, do you really want to talk to me about anything important?
MRS. G. No. I’ve done my accounts, and I thought I’d like to see what you’re doing.
CAPT. G. Well, love, now you’ve seen and – Would you mind? – That is to say – Minnie, I really am busy.
MRS. G. You want me to go?
CAPT. G, Yes, dear, for a little while. This tobacco will hang in your dress, and saddlery doesn’t interest you.
MRS. G. Everything you do interests me, Pip.
CAPT. G. Yes, I know, I know, dear. I’ll tell you all about it some day when I’ve put a head on this thing. In the meantime —
MRS. G. I’m to be turned out of the room like a troublesome child?
CAPT. G. No-o. I don’t mean that exactly. But, you see, I shall be tramping up and down, shifting these things to and fro, and I shall be in your way. Don’t you think so?
MRS. G. Can’t I lift them about? Let me try. (Reaches forward to trooper’s saddle.)
CAPT. G. Good gracious, child, don’t touch it. You’ll hurt yourself. (Picking up saddle.) Little girls aren’t expected to handle numdahs. Now, where would you like it put? (Holds saddle above his head.)
MRS. G. (A break in her voice.) Nowhere. Pip, how good you are – and how strong! Oh, what’s that ugly red streak inside your arm?
CAPT. G. (Lowering saddle quickly.) Nothing. It’s a mark of sorts. (Aside.) And Jack’s coming to tiffin with his notions all cut and dried!
MRS. G. I know it’s a mark, but I’ve never seen it before. It runs all up the arm. What is it?
CAPT. G. A cut – if you want to know.
MRS. G. Want to know! Of course I do! I can’t have my husband cut to pieces in this way. How did it come? Was it an accident? Tell me, Pip.
CAPT. G. (Grimly.) No. ‘Twasn’t an accident. I got it – from a man – in Afghanistan.
MRS. G. In action? Oh, Pip, and you never told me!
CAPT. G. I’d forgotten all about it.
MRS. G. Hold up your arm! What a horrid, ugly scar! Are you sure it doesn’t hurt now! How did the man give it you?
CAPT. G. (Desperately looking at his watch.) With a knife. I came down – old Van Loo did, that’s to say – and fell on my leg, so I couldn’t run. And then this man came up and began chopping at me as I sprawled.
MRS. G. Oh, don’t, don’t! That’s enough! – Well, what happened?
CAPT. G. I couldn’t get to my holster, and Mafflin came round the corner and stopped the performance.
MRS. G. How? He’s such a lazy man, I don’t believe he did.
CAPT. G. Don’t you? I don’t think the man had much doubt about it. Jack cut his head off.
MRS. G. Cut-his-head-off! “With one blow,” as they say in the books?
CAPT. G. I’m not sure. I was too interested in myself to know much about it. Anyhow, the head was off, and Jack was punching old Van Loo in the ribs to make him get up. Now you know all about it, dear, and now —
MRS. G. You want me to go, of course. You never told me about this, though I’ve been married to you for ever so long; and you never would have told me if I hadn’t found out; and you never do tell me anything about yourself, or what you do, or what you take an interest in.
CAPT. G. Darling, I’m always with you, aren’t I?
MRS. G. Always in my pocket, you were going to say. I know you are; but you are always thinking away from me.
CAPT. G. (Trying to hide a smile.) Am I? I wasn’t aware of it. I’m awf’ly sorry.
MRS. G. (Piteously.) Oh, don’t make fun of me! Pip, you know what I mean. When you are reading one of those things about Cavalry, by that idiotic Prince – why doesn’t he be a Prince instead of a stable-boy?
CAPT. G. Prince Kraft a stable-boy – Oh, my Aunt! Never mind, dear. You were going to say?
MRS. G. It doesn’t matter; you don’t care for what I say. Only – only you get up and walk about the room, staring in front of you, and then Mafflin comes in to dinner, and after I’m in the drawing-room I can hear you and him talking, and talking, and talking, about things I can’t understand, and – oh, I get so tired and feel so lonely! – I don’t want to complain and be a trouble, Pip; but I do indeed I do!
CAPT. G. My poor darling! I never thought of that. Why don’t you ask some nice people in to dinner?
MRS. G. Nice people! Where am I to find them? Horrid frumps! And if I did, I shouldn’t be amused. You know I only want you.
CAPT, G. And you have me surely, Sweetheart?
MRS. G. I have not! Pip why don’t you take me into your life?
CAPT. G. More than I do? That would be difficult, dear.
MRS. G. Yes, I suppose it would – to you. I’m no help to you – no companion to you; and you like to have it so.
CAPT. G. Aren’t you a little unreasonable, Pussy?
MRS. G. (Stamping her foot.) I’m the most reasonable woman in the world – when I’m treated properly.
CAPT. G. And since when have I been treating you improperly?
MRS. G. Always – and since the beginning. You know you have.
CAPT. G. I don’t; but I’m willing to be convinced.
MRS. G. (Pointing to saddlery.) There!
CAPT. G. How do you mean?
MRS. G. What does all that mean? Why am I not to be told? Is it so precious?
CAPT. G. I forget its exact Government value just at present. It means that it is a great deal too heavy.
MRS. G. Then why do you touch it?
CAPT. G. To make it lighter. See here, little love, I’ve one notion and Jack has another, but we are both agreed that all this equipment is about thirty pounds too heavy. The thing is how to cut it down without weakening any part of it, and, at the same time, allowing the trooper to carry everything he wants for his own comfort-socks and shirts and things of that kind.
MRS. G. Why doesn’t he pack them in a little trunk?
CAPT. G. (Kissing her.) Oh, you darling! Pack them in a little trunk, indeed! Hussars don’t carry trunks, and it’s a most important thing to make the horse do all the carrying.
MRS. G. But why need you bother about it? You’re not a trooper.
CAPT. G. No; but I command a few score of him; and equipment is nearly everything in these days.
MRS. G. More than me?
CAPT. G. Stupid! Of course not; but it’s a matter that I’m tremendously interested in, because if I or Jack, or I and Jack, work out some sort of lighter saddlery and all that, it’s possible that we may get it adopted.
MRS. G. How?
CAPT. G. Sanctioned at Home, where they will make a sealed pattern – a pattern that all the saddlers must copy – and so it will be used by all the regiments.
MRS. G. And that interests you?
CAPT. G. It’s part of my profession, y’know, and my profession is a good deal to me. Everything in a soldier’s equipment is important, and if we can improve that equipment, so much the better for the soldiers and for us.
MRS. G. Who’s “us”?
CAPT. G. Jack and I; only Jack’s notions are too radical. What’s that big sigh for, Minnie?
MRS. G. Oh, nothing – and you’ve kept all this a secret from me! Why?
CAPT. G. Not a secret, exactly, dear. I didn’t say anything about it to you because I didn’t think it would amuse you.
MRS. G. And am I only made to be amused?
CAPT. G. No, of course. I merely mean that it couldn’t interest you.
MRS. G. It’s your work and – and if you’d let me, I’d count all these things up. If they are too heavy, you know by how much they are too heavy, and you must have a list of things made out to your scale of lightness, and —
CAPT. G. I have got both scales somewhere in my head; but it’s hard to tell how light you can make a head-stall, for instance, until you’ve actually had a model made.
MRS. G. But if you read out the list, I could copy it down, and pin it up there just above your table. Wouldn’t that do?
CAPT. G. It would be awf’ly nice, dear, but it would be giving you trouble for nothing. I can’t work that way. I go by rule of thumb. I know the present scale of weights, and the other one – the one that I’m trying to work to – will shift and vary so much that I couldn’t be certain, even if I wrote it down.
MRS. G. I’m so sorry. I thought I might help. Is there anything else that I could be of use in?
CAPT. G. (Looking round the room.) I can’t think of anything. You’re always helping me you know.
MRS. G. Am I? How?
CAPT. G. You are of course, and as long as you’re near me – I can’t explain exactly, but it’s in the air.
MRS. G. And that’s why you wanted to send me away?
CAPT. G. That’s only when I’m trying to do work – grubby work like this.
MRS. G. Mafflin’s better, then, isn’t he?
CAPT. G. (Rashly.) Of course he is. Jack and I have been thinking along the same groove for two or three years about this equipment. It’s our hobby, and it may really be useful some day.
MRS. G. (After a pause.) And that’s all that you have away from me?
CAPT. G. It isn’t very far away from you now. Take care the oil on that bit doesn’t come off on your dress.
MRS. G. I wish – I wish so much that I could really help you. I believe I could – if I left the room. But that’s not what I mean.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) Give me patience! I wish she would go. (Aloud.) I as-sure you you can’t do anything for me, Minnie, and I must really settle down to this. Where’s my pouch?
MRS. G. (Crossing to writing-table.) Here you are, Bear. What a mess you keep your table in!
CAPT. G. Don’t touch it. There’s a method in my madness, though you mightn’t think of it.
MRS. G. (At table.) I want to look – Do you keep accounts, Pip?
CAPT. G. (Bending over saddlery.) Of a sort. Are you rummaging among the Troop papers? Be careful.
MRs. G. Why? I sha’n’t disturb anything. Good gracious! I had no idea that you had anything to do with so many sick horses.
CAPT. G. ‘Wish I hadn’t, but they insist on falling sick. Minnie, if I were you I really should not investigate those papers. You may come across something that you won’t like.
MRS. G. Why will you always treat me like a child? I know I’m not displacing the horrid things.
CAPT. G. (Resignedly.) Very well, then. Don’t blame me if anything happens. Play with the table and let me go on with the saddlery. (Slipping hand into trousers-pocket.) Oh, the deuce!
MRS. G. (Her back to G.) What’s that for?
CAPT. G. Nothing. (Aside.) There’s not much in it, but I wish I’d torn it up.
MRS. G. (Turning over contents of table.) I know you’ll hate me for this; but I do want to see what your work is like. (A pause.) Pip, what are “farcybuds”?
CAPT. G. Hab! Would you really like to know? They aren’t pretty things.
MRS. G. This Journal of Veterinary Science says they are of “absorbing interest.” Tell me.
CAPT. G. (Aside.) It may turn her attention.
Gives a long and designedly loathsome account of glanders and farcy.