When the LIGHTS come up, the lamp is on, but the window curtains are not yet closed. A tray of tea for two is on the table L. The kettle is steaming and the teapot is beside it. The gas fire is lit. MISS WILLIAMS is seated in the armchair C. She is sixty odd, intelligent, with clear enunciation and a pedagogic manner. She wears a tweed skirt and blouse, with a cardigan and a scarf round her shoulders. CARLA is seated on the divan, looking through a photograph album. She wears a brown dress.
CARLA. I do remember you. It’s all coming back. I didn’t think I did.
MISS WILLIAMS. You were only five years old.
CARLA. You looked after me?
MISS WILLIAMS. No, you were not my responsibility. I was in charge of Angela. Ah, the kettle’s boiling. (She rises, picks up the teapot and makes the tea) Now, are you going to be happy there, dear?
CARLA. I’m fine, thanks.
MISS WILLIAMS. (pointing to the album) That’s Angela—you were only a baby when that was taken.
CARLA. What was she like?
MISS WILLIAMS. (putting down the kettle) One of the most interesting pupils I ever had. Undisciplined, but a first-class brain. She took a first at Somerville and you may have read her book on the rock paintings of the Hazelpa?
CARLA. Um?
MISS WILLIAMS. It was very well reviewed. Yes, I’m very proud of Angela. (She puts the teapot on the tray L) Now, we’ll just let that stand a minute, shall we?
CARLA. (putting the album on the upstage end of the divan) Miss Williams, you know why I’ve come?
MISS WILLIAMS. Roughly, yes. (She moves to the fireplace) You have just learnt the facts about the tragedy that ended your father’s life, and you want fuller information about the whole matter. (She switches off the kettle)
CARLA. And, I suppose, like everybody else, you think I ought to forget the whole thing?
MISS WILLIAMS. Not at all. It appears to be perfectly natural that you should want to understand. Then, and only then, can you forget about it.
CARLA. Will you tell me everything?
MISS WILLIAMS. Any questions you like to put to me I will answer to the full extent of my knowledge. Now, where’s my little footstool? I have a little footstool somewhere. (She turns the armchair to face the divan and looks around for the footstool)
CARLA. (rising and drawing the footstool out from under the armchair) Here we are.
MISS WILLIAMS. Thank you, dear. (She seats herself comfortably in the armchair and puts her feet on the footstool) I like to keep my feet off the ground.
CARLA. I think—first—that I’d like to know just what my father and mother were like—what you thought they were like, I mean. (She sits on the divan)
MISS WILLIAMS. Your father, as you know, has been acclaimed as a great painter. I, of course, am not competent to judge. I do not, myself, admire his paintings. The drawing seems to me faulty and the colouring exaggerated. However, that may be, I have never seen why the possession of what is called the artistic temperament should excuse a man from ordinary decent behaviour. Your mother had a great deal to put up with where he was concerned.
CARLA. And she minded?
MISS WILLIAMS. She minded very much. Mr. Crale was not a faithful husband. She put up with his infidelities and forgave him for them—but she did not take them meekly. She remonstrated—and with spirit.
CARLA. You mean they gave each other hell?
MISS WILLIAMS. (quietly) That would not be my description. (She rises and crosses below the armchair to the table L) There were quarrels, yes, but your mother had dignity, and your father was in the wrong. (She pours the tea)
CARLA. Always?
MISS WILLIAMS. (firmly) Always. I was—very fond of Mrs. Crale. And very sorry for her. She had a lot to bear. If I had been Mr. Crale’s wife, I should have left him. No woman should submit to humiliation at her husband’s hands.
CARLA. You didn’t like my father?
MISS WILLIAMS. (tight-lipped) I disliked him—very much.
CARLA. But he was really fond of my mother?
(MISS WILLIAMS picks up a cup of tea and the sugar bowl and crosses to Carla)
MISS WILLIAMS. I believe honestly that he cared for her—but men . . . ! (She sniffs, then hands the cup of tea to Carla)
CARLA. (slightly amused) You don’t think much of men?
MISS WILLIAMS. (with slight fanaticism) Men still have the best of this world. I hope it will not always be so. (She thrusts the sugar bowl at Carla) Sugar?
CARLA. I don’t take it, thanks. And then Elsa Greer came along?
(MISS WILLIAMS crosses to the table, puts down the sugar bowl and picks up her cup of tea)
MISS WILLIAMS. (with distaste) Yes. Ostensibly to have her portrait painted; they made poor progress with the picture. (She crosses to C) Doubtless they had other things to talk about. It was obvious that Mr. Crale was infatuated with the girl and that she was doing nothing to discourage him. (She sniffs, then sits in the armchair)
CARLA. What did you think of her?
MISS WILLIAMS. I thought she was good-looking, but stupid. She had had, presumably, an adequate education, but she never opened a book, and was quite unable to converse on any intellectual subject. All she ever thought about was her own personal appearance—and men, of course.
CARLA. Go on.
MISS WILLIAMS. Miss Greer went back to London, and very pleased we were to see her go. (She pauses and sips her tea) Then Mr. Crale went away and I knew, and so did Mrs. Crale, that he had gone after the girl. They reappeared together. The sittings were to be continued, and we all knew what that meant. The girl’s manner became increasingly insolent, and she finally came out into the open with some outrageous remarks about what she would do at Alderbury when she was mistress there.
CARLA. (horrified) Oh, no!
MISS WILLIAMS. Yes, yes, yes. (She pauses and sips her tea) Mr. Crale came in, and his wife asked him outright if it was true that he planned to marry Elsa. There he stood, a great giant of a man, looking like a naughty schoolboy. (She rises, goes to the table L, puts down her cup, picks up a plate of biscuits and crosses to Carla) My blood boiled. I really could have killed him. Do have one of these biscuits, they’re Peek Frean’s.
CARLA. (taking a biscuit) Thank you. What did my mother do?
MISS WILLIAMS. I think she just went out of the room. I know I—I tried to say something to her of what I felt, but she stopped me. “We must all behave as usual,” she said. (She crosses and puts the plate on the table L) They were all going over to tea with Mr. Meredith Blake that afternoon. Just as she was going, I remember she came back and kissed me. She said, “You’re such a comfort to me.” (Her voice breaks a little)
CARLA. (sweetly) I’m sure you were.
MISS WILLIAMS. (crossing to the fireplace, picking up the kettle and unplugging it) Never blame her for what she did, Carla. It is for you, her daughter to understand and forgive.
CARLA. (slowly) So even you think she did it.
MISS WILLIAMS. (sadly) I know she did it.
CARLA. Did she tell you she did it?
MISS WILLIAMS. (taking the kettle to the table L) Of course not. (She refills the teapot)
CARLA. What did she say?
MISS WILLIAMS. She took pains to impress upon me that it must be suicide.
CARLA. You didn’t—believe her?
MISS WILLIAMS. I said, “Certainly, Mrs. Crale, it must have been suicide.”
CARLA. But you didn’t believe what you were saying.
MISS WILLIAMS. (crossing to the fireplace and replacing the kettle) You have got to understand, Carla, that I was entirely on your mother’s side. My sympathies were with her—not with the police. (She sits in the armchair)
CARLA. But murder . . . (She pauses) When she was charged, you wanted her acquitted?
MISS WILLIAMS. Certainly.
CARLA. On any pretext?
MISS WILLIAMS. On any pretext.
CARLA. (pleading) She might have been innocent.
MISS WILLIAM
S. No.
CARLA. (defiantly) She was innocent.
MISS WILLIAMS. No, my dear.
CARLA. She was—she was. She wrote it to me. In a letter she wrote when she was dying. She said I could be sure of that.
(There is a stunned silence)
MISS WILLIAMS. (in a low voice) That was wrong—very wrong of her. To write a lie—and at such a solemn moment. I should not have thought that Caroline Crale would have done a thing like that. She was a truthful woman.
CARLA. (rising) It could be the truth.
MISS WILLIAMS. (definitely) No.
CARLA. You can’t be positive. You can’t!
MISS WILLIAMS. I can be positive. Of all the people connected with the case, I alone can be sure that Caroline Crale was guilty. Because of something I saw. I withheld it from the police—I have never told anyone. (She rises) But you must take it from me, Carla, quite definitely, that your mother was guilty. Now, can I get you some more tea, dear? We’ll both have some, shall we? It sometimes gets rather chilly in this room. (She takes Carla’s cup and crosses to the table L.)
CARLA looks distracted and bewildered as—
the LIGHTS dim to BLACK-OUT
Scene V
SCENE—A table in a restaurant.
The table is in an alcove decorated in delicate Oriental style, equipped with three banquettes.
When the LIGHTS come up, CARLA is seated R of the table and ANGELA WARREN is seated above and C of it. They are just finishing lunch. CARLA is wearing a mink-trimmed coat. ANGELA is a tall woman of thirty, of distinguished appearance, well-dressed in a plain suit with a mannish hat. There is a not too noticeable scar on her left cheek.
ANGELA. (putting down her brandy glass) Well, now that we’ve finished our meal, Carla, I’m prepared to talk. I should have been sorry if you’d gone back to Canada without our being able to meet. (She offers Carla a cigarette from a leather case)
(CARLA declines and takes a cigarette from an American pack on the table)
(She takes one of her own cigarettes) I wanted to fix it before, but I’ve had a hundred and one things to do before leaving tomorrow. (She lights Carla’s cigarette and then her own with a lighter which matches her case)
CARLA. I know how it is. You’re going by sea?
ANGELA. Yes, much easier when you’re carting out a lot of equipment.
CARLA. I told you I saw Miss Williams?
ANGELA. (smiling) Dear Miss Williams. What a life I used to lead her. Climbing trees and playing truant, and plaguing the life out of everyone all round me. I was jealous, of course.
CARLA. (startled) Jealous?
ANGELA. Yes—of Amyas. I’d always come first with Caroline and I couldn’t bear her to be absorbed in him. I played all sorts of tricks on him—put—what was it, now—some filthy stuff—valerian, I think, in his beer, and once I put a hedgehog in his bed. (She laughs) I must have been an absolute menace. How right they were to pack me off to school. Though, of course, I was furious at the time.
CARLA. How much do you remember of it all?
ANGELA. Of the actual happening? Curiously little. We’d had lunch—and then Caroline and Miss Williams went into the garden room, and then we all came in and Amyas was dead and there was telephoning, and I heard Elsa screaming somewhere—on the terrace, I think with Caroline. I just wandered about, getting in everyone’s way.
CARLA. I can’t think why I don’t remember anything. After all, I was five. Old enough to remember something.
ANGELA. Oh, you weren’t there. You’d gone away to stay with your godmother, old Lady Thorpe, about a week before.
CARLA. Ah!
ANGELA. Miss Williams took me into Caroline’s room. She was lying down, looking very white and ill. I was frightened. She said I wasn’t to think about it—I was to go to Miss Williams’ sister in London, and then on to school in Zurich as planned. I said I didn’t want to leave her—and then Miss Williams chipped in and said in that authoritative way of hers—(she mimics Miss Williams) “The best way you can help your sister, Angela, is to do what she wants you to do without making any fuss.” (She sips her brandy)
CARLA. (amused) I know just what you mean. There’s something about Miss Williams which makes you feel you’ve just got to go along with her.
ANGELA. The police asked me a few questions, but I didn’t know why. I just thought there had been some kind of accident, and that Amyas had taken poison by mistake. I was abroad when they arrested Caroline, and they kept it from me as long as they could. Caroline wouldn’t let me go and see her in prison. She did everything she could to keep me out of it all. That was just like Caroline. She always tried to stand between me and the world.
CARLA. She must have been very fond of you.
ANGELA. It wasn’t that. (She touches her scar) It was because of this.
CARLA. That happened when you were a baby.
ANGELA. Yes. You’ve heard about it. It’s the sort of thing that happens—an older child gets mad with jealousy and chucks something. To a sensitive person, like Caroline, the horror of what she had done never quite left her. Her whole life was one long effort to make up to me for the way she had injured me. Very bad for me, of course.
CARLA. Did you ever feel vindictive about it?
ANGELA. Towards Caroline? Because she had spoiled my beauty? (She laughs) I never had much to spoil. No, I never gave it a second thought.
(CARLA picks up her bag from the seat beside her, takes out a letter and hands it to Angela)
CARLA. She left a letter for me—I’d like you to read it.
(There is a pause as ANGELA reads the letter. CARLA stubs out her cigarette)
I’m so confused about her. Everyone seems to have seen her differently.
ANGELA. She had a lot of contradictions in her nature. (She turns a page and reads) “. . . want you to know that I did not kill your father.” Sensible of her. You might have wondered. (She folds the letter and puts it on the table)
CARLA. You mean—you believe she wasn’t guilty?
ANGELA. Of course she wasn’t guilty. Nobody who knew Caroline could have thought for one moment that she was guilty.
CARLA. (slightly hysterical) But they do—they all do—except you.
ANGELA. More fool they. Oh, the evidence was damning enough, I grant you, but anybody who knew Caroline well should know that she couldn’t commit murder. She hadn’t got it in her.
CARLA. What about . . . ?
ANGELA. (pointing to her scar) This? How can I explain? (She stubs out her cigarette) Because of what she did to me, Caroline was always watching herself for violence. I think she decided that if she was violent in speech she would have no temptation to violence in action. She’d say things like, “I’d like to cut So-and-so in pieces and boil him in oil.” Or she’d say to Amyas, “If you go on like this, I shall murder you.” Amyas and she had the most fantastic quarrels, they said the most outrageous things to each other. They both loved it.
CARLA. They liked quarreling?
ANGELA. Yes. They were that kind of couple. Living that way, with continual rows and makings up, was their idea of fun.
CARLA. (sitting back) You make everything sound different. (She picks up the letter and puts it in her bag)
ANGELA. If only I could have given evidence. But I suppose the sort of thing I could have said wouldn’t count as evidence. But you needn’t worry, Carla. You can go back to Canada and be quite sure that Caroline didn’t murder Amyas.
CARLA. (sadly) But then—who did?
ANGELA. Does it matter?
CARLA. Of course it matters.
ANGELA. (in a hard voice) It must have been some kind of accident. Can’t you leave it at that?
CARLA. No, I can’t.
ANGELA. Why not?
(CARLA does not answer)
Is it a man? (She sips her brandy)
CARLA. Well—there is a man, yes.
ANGELA. Are you engaged?
(CARLA, slightly embarrassed, takes a cigarette from h
er packet)
CARLA. I don’t know.
ANGELA. He minds about this?
CARLA. (frowning) He’s very magnanimous.
ANGELA. (appreciatively) How bloody! I shouldn’t marry him.
CARLA. I’m not sure that I want to.
ANGELA. Another man? (She lights Carla’s cigarette)
CARLA. (irritably) Must everything be a man?
ANGELA. Usually seems to be. I prefer rock paintings.
CARLA. (suddenly) I’m going down to Alderbury tomorrow. I want all the people concerned to be there. I wanted you as well.
ANGELA. Not me. I’m sailing tomorrow.
CARLA. I want to re-live it—as though I were my mother and not myself. (Strongly) Why didn’t she fight for her life? Why was she so defeatist at her trial?
ANGELA. I don’t know.
CARLA. It wasn’t like her, was it?
ANGELA. (slowly) No, it wasn’t like her.
CARLA. It must have been one of those four other people.
ANGELA. How persistent you are, Carla.
CARLA. I’ll find out the truth in the end.
ANGELA. (struck by Carla’s sincerity) I almost believe you will. (She pauses) I’ll come to Alderbury with you. (She picks up her brandy glass)
CARLA. (delighted) You will? But your boat sails tomorrow.
ANGELA. I’ll take a plane instead. Now, are you sure you won’t have some brandy? I’m going to have some more if I can catch his eye. (She calls) Waiter!
CARLA. I’m so glad you’re coming.
ANGELA. (sombrely) Are you? Don’t hope for too much. Sixteen years. It’s a long time ago.
ANGELA drains her glass as the LIGHTS dim to BLACK-OUT and—
the CURTAIN falls
ACT TWO
SCENE—Alderbury, a house in the West of England.
The scene shows a section of the house, with the Garden Room R and the terrace L with communicating french windows between them. The room is at an angle, so that the terrace extends and tapers off below it to R. Doors back C, in the room, and at the upstage end of the terrace, lead to the house. An exit, at the upstage end of a vine-covered pergola L, leads to the garden. There is another door down R in the room. Above this door is a small alcove with shelves for decorative plates and ornaments. A console table stands under the shelves. There is a table L of the door C, on which there is a telephone and a carved wooden head. On the wall above the table is the portrait of Elsa, painted by Amyas. There is a sofa R of the door C, with a long stool in front of it. Armchairs stand R and L, and there is an occasional table L of the armchair R. There is a stone bench C of the terrace.