ROWENA: Joey must have cooked thousands of kippers in his day. All those last years when his wife was ill, he cooked everything for her. Good old Joey! He’s all lost without her. And he wants me to talk about her all the time, only he doesn’t want to bring her into the conversation first. You know, Henrietta du Vaux was wonderful, but I can’t talk about her forever.
(Another pause.)
Linda, whatever are you thinking about all the time?
LINDA: Nothing.
ROWENA: Don’t you say “Nothing.” Come now, tell your auntie. What is it you keep turning over in your mind all the time?
LINDA (Indifferently): Well, almost nothing—except that I’m going to be shot any minute.
ROWENA: Don’t say such things, dearie. No one’s going to shoot you. You ought to be ashamed to say such things.
LINDA (Pointing scornfully to the door): He’s out waiting in the street this very minute.
ROWENA: Why, he went back to his university didn’t he? He’s a student. They don’t let them come to London whenever they want.
LINDA: Oh, I don’t care! Let him shoot me. I wish I’d never seen him. What was he doing, anyway—worming his way into Madame Angellelli’s soirees. He’d oughta stayed among his own people.
ROWENA: I’m going out into the street this minute to see if he’s there. I can get the police after him for hounding a poor girl so. What’s his name?
LINDA: Arthur Warburton. I tell you I don’t care if he shoots me.
ROWENA (Sharply): Now I won’t have you saying things like that! Now mind! If he’s out there Joey’ll go and get him and we’ll have a talk. When did you see him last?
LINDA: Sunday. We had tea at Richmond and went boating on the river.
ROWENA: Did you let him kiss you?
LINDA: I let him kiss me once when we floated under some willow trees. And then he kept talking so hotheaded that I didn’t let him kiss me again, and I liked him less and less. All the way back on the bus, I didn’t pay any attention to him; just looked into the street and said yes and no; and then I told him I was too busy to see him this week. I don’t want to see him again.—Aunt Rowena, he breathes so hard.
ROWENA: He didn’t look like he was rough and nasty.
LINDA: He’s not rough and nasty. He just . . . suffers.
ROWENA: I know ’em.
LINDA: Aunt Rowena, isn’t there any way discovered to make a man get over loving you. Can it be cured?
(Rowena does not answer. She walks meditatively back to the table in the corner.)
ROWENA: Give me a hand, will you, with this table. We’ll bring it nearer to the gas jet. I’d better go downstairs and see what Joey’s doing to everything. (They bring the table forward) Dearie, what makes you say such things? What makes you say he’s thinking of shooting you?
LINDA: He looked all . . . all crazy and said I oughtn’t to be alive. He said if I didn’t marry him . . .
ROWENA: Marry him! He asked you to marry him? Linda, you are a funny girl not to tell me these things before. Why do you keep everything so secret, dearie?
LINDA: I didn’t think that was a secret. I don’t want to marry him.
ROWENA (Passing her thumb along her teeth and looking at Linda narrowly): Well, now try and remember what he said about shooting.
LINDA: He was standing at the door saying good-bye. I was playing with the key in my hand to show him I was in a hurry to be done with him. He said he couldn’t think of anything but me—that he couldn’t live without me and so on. Then he asked me was there someone else I loved instead of him, and I said no. And he said how about the Italian fellow at Madame Angellelli’s soiree, and I said no, not in a thousand years. He meant Mario. And then he started to cry and take on terrible. —Imagine being jealous of Mario.
ROWENA: I’ll teach that young man a lesson. That’s what I’ll do.
LINDA: Then he was trembling all over, and he took up the edge of my coat and cried: People like me ought not to be alive. Nature ought not to allow such soulless beauties like I.
(Linda has risen on her toes, holding out her arms, and has started drifting away with little rapid steps. From the back of the stage she calls scornfully:)
I ought not to be alive, he said. I ought not to be alive.
(Pause.)
ROWENA: Someone’s pounding on the street door down there. Joey must have dropped the latch.
LINDA: It’s Arthur.
ROWENA: Don’t be foolish.
LINDA: I know in my bones it’s him.
(Joey appears at the back.)
JOEY: There’s a gentleman to see you, Linda. Says his name is Warburton.
LINDA: Yes. Send him up.
JOEY: Kipper is almost ready. Water’s boiling, Rowena. What are you going to do about this visitor?
ROWENA: Listen, dearie, I want to look at this Arthur again. You ask him pretty to have supper with us.
LINDA: Oh, Aunt Rowena, I couldn’t eat!
ROWENA: This is serious. This is serious, Linda. Now you ask him to supper and send him around the corner for some bitters. In the meantime I’ll catch a minute to tell Joey how we must watch him.
LINDA: I don’t care if he shoots me. It’s nothing to me.
(In the gloom at the hack Arthur appears. He is wearing an opera hat and cape. He is very miserable. He expects and dreads Linda’s indifference but hopes that some miraculous change of heart may occur any minute.)
ARTHUR (Tentatively): Good evening, Linda.
LINDA: Hello, Arthur. Arthur, I’d like you to meet my aunt, Mrs. Rowena Stoker.
ARTHUR: It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Stoker. I hope I’m not intruding. I was just passing by and I thought . . . (His voice trails off)
ROWENA: We thought there was going to be a rehearsal of the new pantomime we’re engaged for, Mr. Warburton. But nobody’s showed up, so like as not we mistook the day. Linda’s just been practicing a few steps for practice, haven’t you, dovie?
LINDA (By rote): Arthur, we were just going to have a little supper. We hope you’ll have some with us. Just a kippered herring and some tea.
ARTHUR: That’s awfully good of you. I’ve just come from dinner. But I hope you won’t mind if I sit by you, Mrs. Stoker.
ROWENA: Suit yourself, I always say. It isn’t very attractive in an empty theatre. But you must have something, oh yes.
LINDA: Perhaps you’d like to do us a favor, Arthur. Joey’s downstairs doing the cooking and can’t go. Perhaps you’d like to go down to the corner and bring us a jug of ale and bitters.
ROWENA: I have a shilling here somewhere.
LINDA: Aunt Rowena, perhaps Arthur is dressed too grand to go to a pub . . .
ROWENA: The pubs in this street is used to us coming in in all kinds of costumes, Mr. Warburton. They’ll think you’re rehearsing for a society play.
ARTHUR (Who has refused the shilling, and is all feverish willingness): I’ll be right back. I’ll only be a minute, Mrs. Stoker.
(He hurries out.)
ROWENA: The poor boy is off his head for fair. Makes me feel all old just to see him. But I imagine he’s quite a nice young man when he’s got his senses. But never mind, Linda, nobody wants you to marry anybody you don’t want to marry. —Has he been drinking, dearie, or does he just look that way?
LINDA: He just looks that way.
(Enter Joey, with cups, knives, forks, etc.)
JOEY: Where’s the duke?
ROWENA: He’s gone to the corner for some ale and bitters. Thank God, he’s eaten already. Now Joey, listen. This young man is off his head about Linda, crazy for fair. Now this is serious. Linda says he talks wild and might even be thinking of shooting her. (Joey whistles) Well, the papers are full of such things, Joey. And plays are full of it. It might be. It might be.
JOEY: Well, I’ve heard about such things, but it never happened in my family.
ROWENA: Just the same we must take steps. Joey, I’ll have him take his cape off. You take it downstairs and see if the
re’s anything in the pocket.
JOEY: What in the pocket?
ROWENA: Why . . . one of those small guns.
LINDA: Yes, of course, there’s one in his pocket. I know there is.
ROWENA: It would be in his cape so as not to bulge his other pockets. Listen, Joey, if there is a gun there, you take out the bullets, and then put the gun back into his pocket empty. See? Then bring the cape back again. If this boy is going to shoot Linda, he’s going to shoot her tonight, so we can have a good heart-to-heart talk about it.
JOEY: Yes, and then call the police, that’s what!
ROWENA: No, this is a thing police and prisons can’t cure. Now, Joey, if you find a gun in his pocket and have done what I told you, you come back on the stage whistling one of your songs. Whistle your song about bank holidays. You know: “My holiday girl on a holiday bus.”
JOEY: Right-o!
ROWENA: Now, Linda, you act just natural. Let him have his murder and get it out of his system. Yes, you know I like the boy and I don’t hold it against him. When we’re twenty-one years old we all have a few drops of crazy melodrama in us.
LINDA (Suddenly): Oh, I hate him, I ’ate ’im! Why can’t he let me be?
ROWENA: Yes, yes. That’s love.
LINDA (On the verge of hysterics): Auntie, can’t it be cured? Can’t you make him just forget me?
ROWENA: Well, dovie, they say there are some ways. Some say you can make fun of him and mock him out of it. And some say you can show yourself up at your worst or pretend you’re worse than you are. But I say there’s only one way to cure that kind of love when it’s feverish and all upset. (She pauses groping for her thought) Only love can cure love. Only being interested . . . only being real interested and fond of him can . . . can . . . (She gives it up)
It’s all right, dearie. Don’t you get jumpy. It’s a lucky chance to get the thing cleared up. Only remember this: I like him. I like him. He’s just somebody’s boy that’s not well for a few weeks.
LINDA: He breathes too hard.
(Enter Arthur, followed by Joey. Arthur’s hands are laden with bundles and bottles.)
ROWENA: Why, Mr. Warburton, I never see such a load. Whatever did you find to bring? Fries? Salami, and I don’t know what all. This is a feast. Take off your coat, Mr. Warburton. Joey, help Mr. Warburton off with his coat. Take it and hang it on the peg downstairs.
ARTHUR (With concern): I think I’ll keep the coat, thanks.
ROWENA (As Joey attacks it): Oh, no, no! You won’t need your coat. There’s nothing worse than sitting about in a heavy coat.
(Arthur follows it with his eyes, as Joey bears it off.)
But Linda, you’ve been exercising. You slip that scarf about you, dearie, and draw up your chair. Well, this is going to be nice. What’s nicer than friends sitting down to a bite to eat? And extra nice for you, Mr. Warburton, because you ought to be in your university, or am I mistaken?
ARTHUR: Yes, I ought to be at Cambridge.
ROWENA: Fancy that! It must be exciting to break the rule so boldly. Ah, well, life is so dull that it does us good every now and then to make a little excitement. Now, Mr. Warburton, you’ll change your mind and have a little snack with us. A slice of salami?
ARTHUR: I don’t think I could eat anything. I’ll have a little ale.
ROWENA (Busying herself over the table): That’s right.
ARTHUR: (Ventures a word to Linda): Madame Angellelli is having a soiree Thursday, Linda. Don’t you go any more?
LINDA: No, I don’t like them.
ARTHUR: I wondered where you were last Thursday. Madame Angellelli expected you every minute.
LINDA: I don’t like them.
(Silence.)
ROWENA: What can be keeping Joey over the kipper? Have you seen Joey on the stage, Mr. Warburton? —Joey Weston he is.
ARTHUR: No, I don’t think I have.
ROWENA: Oh, very fine, he is! Quite the best comedian in the pantomimes. But surely you must have seen his wife. She was Henrietta du Vaux. She was the most popular soubrette in all England, and very famous, she was. He lost her two years ago, Henrietta du Vaux. Everybody loved her. It was a terrible loss. Shh—here he comes!
(Enter Joey with the kipper and the tea. He is jubilantly whistling a tune that presently breaks out into the words: “A holiday girl on a holiday bus.”)
What a noise you do make, Joey, for fair. Anybody’d think you were happy about something. Well, now, Mr. Warburton, you’ll excuse us if we sit down and fall right to.
(Arthur sits at the left turned toward them. Joey faces the audience, with Rowena and Linda facing one another, Rowena at his right and Linda at his left.)
JOEY: It’s cold here, Rowena, after the kitchen.
ROWENA: Yes, it’s colder than I thought for. Joey, go and get Mr. Warburton’s coat for him. I think he’ll want it after all.
ARTHUR: Yes, I’d better keep it by me.
(He follows Joey to the door and takes the coat from him.)
ROWENA (While the men are at the door): How do you feel, dearie?
LINDA: I hate it. I wish I were home.
ROWENA: Joey, this is good. You’re a good cook.
(They eat absorbedly for a few moments; then Rowena gazes out into the vault of the dark theatre.)
Oh, this old theatre has seen some wonderful nights! I’ll never forget you, Joey, in Robinson Crusoe the Second. I’ll never forget you standing right there and pretending you saw a ghost. I hurt myself laughing.
JOEY: No, it wasn’t me. It was Henrietta. She sang The Sultan of Bagdad three hundred times in this very house. On these very same boards. Three hundred times the house went crazy when she sang The Houseboat Song. They’d sit so quiet you’d think they were holding their breaths, and then they’d break out into shouts and cries. Henrietta du Vaux was my wife, Mr. Warburton. She was the best soubrette in England since Nell Gwynne, sir.
ROWENA: I can hear her now, Joey. She was as good a friend as she was a singer.
JOEY: After the show I would be waiting for her at the corner, Mr. Warburton. (He points to the corner) Do you know the corner, sir?
ARTHUR (Fascinated): Yes.
JOEY: I did not always have an engagement and the manager did not think it right to have a husband waiting in the theatre to take the soubrette home. So I waited for her at that corner. She slipped away from all that applause, sir, to go home with a husband that did not always have an engagement.
ROWENA: Joey, I won’t have you saying that. You’re one of the best comics in England. —Joey, you’re tired. Rest yourself a bit.
JOEY: No, Rowena, I want to say this about her: She never felt her success. And she had a hundred ways of pretending that she was no success at all. “Joey,” she’d say, “I got it all wrong tonight.” And then she’d ask me how she should do it.
ROWENA: Do draw up a chair, Mr. Warburton, and have a bite for good feelings’ sake. We’re all friends here. Linda, put a piece of sausage on some bread for him, with your own hands.
ARTHUR: Well, thanks, thank you very much.
JOEY (With increasing impressiveness): And when she was ill, she knew that her coughing hurt me. And she’d suffer four times over trying to hold back her coughing. “Cough, Henrietta,” I’d say, “if it makes you more comfortable.” But no!—she’d act like I was the sick person that had to be taken care of.
(Turning on Arthur with gravity and force) I read in the papers about people who shoot the persons they love. I don’t know what to think. What is it but that they want to be noticed, noticed even if they must shoot to get noticed? It’s themselves—it’s themselves they love.
(Joey stares at Arthur so fixedly that Arthur breathes an all but involuntary “Yes,” then rises abruptly and says:)
ARTHUR: I must go now. You’ve been very kind.
ROWENA (Rising): Joey, come downstairs with me a minute and help me open that old chest. I think we can find Henrietta’s shield and spear from The Palace of Ice and other things. The
lock’s been broken for years.
JOEY: All right, Rowena. Let’s look.
ROWENA: We won’t be a minute. You go on eating.
(They go out)
ARTHUR: I won’t trouble you any more, Linda. I want you to be happy, that’s all.
LINDA: You don’t trouble me, Arthur.
ARTHUR: What he said is true. I want to be noticed. I wish you liked me, Linda. I mean I wish you liked me more. I wish I could prove to you that I’d do anything for you. That I could bring to you all . . . that . . . that he was describing . . . I won’t be a trouble to you any more. (He turns) I can prove it to you, Linda. I’ve been waiting at that corner for hours, just walking up and down. And I’d planned, Linda, to prove that I couldn’t live without you . . . and if you were going to be cold and . . . didn’t like me, Linda, I was going to shoot myself right here . . . to prove to you.
(He puts the revolver on the table.)
To prove to you. —But you’ve all been so kind to me. And that . . . and Mr. Weston told about his wife. I think just loving isn’t wasted.
(He weeps silently.)
LINDA (Horrified): Arthur! I wish you wouldn’t!
ARTHUR: I imagine I’m . . . I’m young still. —Good-bye and thanks. Good-bye.
(He hurries out.
Linda shudders with distaste; peers at the revolver; starts to walk about the room and presently is sketching steps again.
Joey and Rowena return.)
ROWENA: Was that he that went out? What happened, Linda?
LINDA (Interrupting her drill, indifferently): He said goodbye forever. He left the gun to prove to me something or other. Thank you for nothing.
ROWENA: Linda, I hope you said a nice word to him.
LINDA: Thank you for nothing, I said.
ROWENA: Well, young lady, you’re only sixteen. Wait till your turn comes. We’ll have to take care of you.
LINDA: Don’t let’s talk about it. It makes me tired. So hot and excited and breathing so hard. Mario would never act like that. Mario . . . Mario doesn’t even seem to notice you when you’re there . . .
END OF PLAY
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