The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950

  SIR CLAUDE. Mr. Simpkins had very strong recommendations …

  EGGERSON. And at the same time, he had another tempting offer:

  So we had to make a quick decision.

  SIR CLAUDE. I didn’t want to bother you, during your treatment …

  EGGERSON. And Mr. Simpkins is much more highly qualified

  Than I am, to be a confidential clerk.

  Besides, he’s very musical.

  LADY ELIZABETH. Musical?

  Isn’t this the young man I interviewed

  And recommended to Sir Claude? Of course it is.

  I remember saying: ‘He has a good aura.’

  I remember people’s auras almost better than their faces.

  What did you say his name was?

  SIR CLAUDE. Colby Simpkins.

  LADY ELIZABETH [counting on her fingers]. Thirteen letters. That’s very auspicious —

  Contrary to what most people think.

  You should be artistic. But you look rather frail.

  I must give you lessons in the art of health.

  Where is your home, Mr. Colby?

  COLBY. Simpkins.

  EGGERSON. Mr. Colby Simpkins.

  LADY ELIZABETH. I prefer Colby.

  Where are you living?

  SIR CLAUDE. His home’s outside London.

  But I want to have him closer at hand —

  You know what a bother it’s been for Eggerson —

  So I’m having the flat in the mews done over.

  LADY ELIZABETH. But all in the wrong colours, I’m sure. My husband

  Does not understand the importance of colour

  For our spiritual life, Mr. Colby.

  Neither, I regret to say, does Eggerson.

  What colour have you chosen, between you?

  SIR CLAUDE. I thought a primrose yellow would be cheerful.

  LADY ELIZABETH. Just what I expected. A primrose yellow

  Would be absolutely baneful to Mr. Colby.

  He needs a light mauve. I shall see about that.

  But not today. I shall go and rest now.

  In a sleeping-car it is quite impossible

  To get one’s quiet hour. A quiet hour a day

  Is most essential, Dr. Rebmann says.

  SIR CLAUDE. Rebmann? I thought it was a Dr. Leroux.

  LADY ELIZABETH. Dr. Leroux is in Lausanne.

  I have been in Zürich, under Dr. Rebmann.

  SIR CLAUDE. But you were going out to Dr. Leroux

  In Lausanne. What made you go to Zürich?

  LADY ELIZABETH. Why, I’d no sooner got to Lausanne

  Than whom should I meet but Mildred Deverell.

  She was going on to Zürich. So she said: ‘Come to Zürich!

  There’s a wonderful doctor who teaches mind control.’

  So on I went to Zürich.

  SIR CLAUDE. So on you went to Zürich.

  But I thought that the doctor in Lausanne taught mind control?

  LADY ELIZABETH. No, Claude, he only teaches thought control.

  Mind control is a different matter:

  It’s more advanced. But I wrote you all about it.

  SIR CLAUDE. It’s true, you did send me postcards from Zürich;

  But you know that I can’t decipher your writing.

  I like to have the cards, just to know where you are

  By reading the postmark.

  LADY ELIZABETH. But Claude, I’m glad to find

  That you’ve taken my advice.

  SIR CLAUDE. Your advice? About what?

  LADY ELIZABETH. To engage Mr. Colby. I really am distressed!

  This is not the first sign that I’ve noticed

  Of your memory failing. I must persuade you

  To have a course of treatment with Dr. Rebmann —

  No, at your stage, I think, with Dr. Leroux.

  Don’t you remember, I said before I left:

  ‘Trust my guidance for once, and engage that young man?’

  Well, that was Mr. Colby.

  SIR CLAUDE. Oh, I see.

  Yes, now I am beginning to remember.

  I must have acted on your guidance.

  LADY ELIZABETH. I must explain to you, Mr. Colby,

  That I am to share you with my husband.

  You shall have tea with me tomorrow,

  And then I shall tell you about my committees.

  I must go and rest now.

  SIR CLAUDE. Yes, you go and rest.

  I’m in the middle of some business with Mr….

  LADY ELIZABETH. Colby!

  [Exit LADY ELIZABETH]

  SIR CLAUDE. She actually went and changed her own ticket.

  It’s something unheard of.

  EGGERSON. Amazing, isn’t it!

  SIR CLAUDE. If this is what the doctor in Zürich has done for her,

  I give him full marks. Well, Eggerson,

  I seem to have brought you up to London for nothing.

  EGGERSON. Oh, not for nothing! I wouldn’t have missed it.

  And besides, as I told you, I’ve done some shopping.

  But I’d better be off now. Mr. Simpkins —

  If anything should turn up unexpected

  And you find yourself non-plussed, you must get me on the phone.

  If I’m not in the house, I’ll be out in the garden.

  And I’ll slip up to town any day, if you want me.

  In fact, Mrs. E. said: ‘I wish he’d ring us up!

  I’m sure he has a very cultivated voice.’

  COLBY. Thank you very much, I will. It’s reassuring

  To know that I have you always at my back

  If I get into trouble. But I hope

  That I shan’t have to call upon you often.

  EGGERSON. Oh, and I forgot … Mrs. E. keeps saying:

  ‘Why don’t you ask him out to dinner one Sunday?’

  But I say: ‘We couldn’t ask him to come

  All the way to Joshua Park, at this time of year!’

  I said: ‘Let’s think about it in the Spring

  When the garden will really be a treat to look at.’

  Well, I’ll be going.

  SIR CLAUDE. Goodbye, and thank you, Eggerson.

  EGGERSON. Good day, Sir Claude. Good day, Mr. Simpkins.

  [Exit EGGERSON]

  SIR CLAUDE. Well, Colby! I’ve been calling you Mr. Simpkins

  In public, till now, as a matter of prudence.

  As we arranged. But after two months —

  And as my wife insists upon your being Mr. Colby —

  I shall begin to call you Colby with everyone.

  COLBY. I’m sure that will make it easier for both of us.

  SIR CLAUDE. Her sudden arrival was very disconcerting:

  As you gather, such a thing never happened before.

  So the meeting didn’t go quite the way I’d intended;

  And yet I believe that it’s all for the best.

  It went off very well. It’s very obvious

  That she took to you at once.

  COLBY. Did she really think

  That she had seen me before?

  SIR CLAUDE. Impossible to tell.

  The point is that she’s taken a fancy to you

  And so she lays claim to you. That’s very satisfactory.

  She’s taken it for granted that you should have the flat —

  By tomorrow she’ll be sure it was she who proposed it.

  So I feel pretty confident that, before long,

  We can put matters onto a permanent basis.

  COLBY. I must confess, that up to this point

  I haven’t been able to feel very settled.

  And what you’ve had in mind still seems to me

  Like building my life upon a deception.

  Do you really believe that Lady Elizabeth

  Can ever accept me as if I was her son?

  SIR CLAUDE. As if you were her son? If she comes to think of you

  As the kind of man that her son would have
been —

  And I believe she will: though I’m perfectly convinced

  That her son would have been a different type of person —

  Then you will become her son, in her eyes. She’s like that.

  Why, it wouldn’t surprise me if she came to believe

  That you really are her son, instead of being mine.

  She has always lived in a world of make-believe,

  And the best one can do is to guide her delusions

  In the right direction.

  COLBY. It doesn’t seem quite honest.

  If we all have to live in a world of make-believe,

  Is that good for us? Or a kindness to her?

  SIR CLAUDE. If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms

  Upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.

  But tell me first — I’ve a reason for asking —

  How do you like your work? You don’t find it uncongenial?

  I’m not changing the subject: I’m coming back to it.

  You know I’ve deliberately left you alone,

  And so far we’ve discussed only current business,

  Thinking that you might find it easier

  To start by a rather formal relationship

  In adapting yourself to a new situation.

  COLBY. I’m very grateful to you, for that:

  It is indeed a new and strange situation,

  And nothing about it is real to me yet.

  SIR CLAUDE. But now I want it to be different. It’s odd, Colby.

  I didn’t realise, till you started with me here,

  That we hardly know each other at all.

  COLBY. I suppose there hasn’t been the opportunity.

  SIR CLAUDE. When you were a child, you belonged to your aunt,

  Or so she made me feel. I never saw you alone.

  And then when I sent you both over to Canada

  In the war — that was perhaps a mistake,

  Though it seemed to have such obvious advantages

  That I had no doubts at the time — that’s five years;

  And then your school, and your military service,

  And then your absorption in your music …

  COLBY. You started by asking me how I found this work.

  SIR CLAUDE. Yes, how do you find it?

  COLBY. In a way, exhilarating.

  To find there is something that I can do

  So remote from my previous interests.

  It gives me, in a way, a kind of self-confidence

  I’ve never had before. Yet at the same time

  It’s rather disturbing. I don’t mean the work:

  I mean, about myself. As if I was becoming

  A different person. Just as, I suppose,

  If you learn to speak a foreign language fluently,

  So that you can think in it — you feel yourself to be

  Rather a different person when you’re talking it.

  I’m not at all sure that I like the other person

  That I feel myself becoming — though he fascinates me.

  And yet from time to time, when I least expect it,

  When my mind is cleared and empty, walking in the street

  Or waking in the night, then the former person,

  The person I used to be, returns to take possession:

  And I am again the disappointed organist,

  And for a moment the thing I cannot do,

  The art that I could never excel in,

  Seems the one thing worth doing, the one thing

  That I want to do. I have to fight that person.

  SIR CLAUDE. I understand what you are saying

  Much better than you think. It’s my own experience

  That you are repeating.

  COLBY. Your own experience?

  SIR CLAUDE. Yes, I did not want to be a financier.

  COLBY. What did you want to do?

  SIR CLAUDE. I wanted to be a potter.

  COLBY. A potter!

  SIR CLAUDE. A potter. When I was a boy

  I loved to shape things. I loved form and colour

  And I loved the material that the potter handles.

  Most people think that a sculptor or a painter

  Is something more excellent to be than a potter.

  Most people think of china or porcelain

  As merely for use, or for decoration —

  In either case, an inferior art.

  For me, they are neither ‘use’ nor ‘decoration’ —

  That is, decoration as a background for living;

  For me, they are life itself. To be among such things,

  If it is an escape, is escape into living,

  Escape from a sordid world to a pure one.

  Sculpture and painting — I have some good things —

  But they haven’t this … remoteness I have always longed for.

  I want a world where the form is the reality,

  Of which the substantial is only a shadow.

  It’s strange. I have never talked of this to anyone.

  Never until now. Do you feel at all like that

  When you are alone with your music?

  COLBY. Just the same.

  All the time you’ve been speaking, I’ve been translating

  Into terms of music. But may I ask.

  With this passion for … ceramics, how did it happen

  That you never made it your profession?

  SIR CLAUDE. Family pressure, in the first place.

  My father — your grandfather — built up this business

  Starting from nothing. It was his passion.

  He loved it with the same devotion

  That I gave to clay, and what could be done with it —

  What I hoped I could do with it. I thought I despised him

  When I was young. And yet I was in awe of him.

  I was wrong, in both. I loathed this occupation

  Until I began to feel my power in it.

  The life changed me, as it is changing you:

  It begins as a kind of make-believe

  And the make-believing makes it real.

  That’s not the whole story. My father knew I hated it:

  That was a grief to him. He knew, I am sure,

  That I cherished for a long time a secret reproach:

  But after his death, and then it was too late,

  I knew that he was right. And all my life

  I have been atoning. To a dead father,

  Who had always been right. I never understood him.

  I was too young. And when I was mature enough

  To understand him, he was not there.

  COLBY. You’ve still not explained why you came to think

  That your father had been right.

  SIR CLAUDE. Because I came to see

  That I should never have become a first-rate potter.

  I didn’t have it in me. It’s strange, isn’t it,

  That a man should have a consuming passion

  To do something for which he lacks the capacity?

  Could a man be said to have a vocation

  To be a second-rate potter? To be, at best,

  A competent copier, possessed by the craving

  To create, when one is wholly uncreative?

  I don’t think so. For I came to see

  That I had always known, at the secret moments,

  That I didn’t have it in me. There are occasions

  When I am transported — a different person,

  Transfigured in the vision of some marvellous creation,

  And I feel what the man must have felt when he made it.

  But nothing I made ever gave me that contentment —

  That state of utter exhaustion and peace