The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950

  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 that 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, that 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 anæsthesia 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.