Jeanne de Casalis
MIDGE HARVEY
Jessica Spencer
GUDGEON
A.J. Brown
EDWARD ANGKATELL
Colin Douglas
DORIS
Patricia Jones
GERDA CRISTOW
Joan Newell
JOHN CRISTOW, MD, FRCP
Ernest Clark
VERONICA CRAYE
Dianne Foster
INSPECTOR COLQUHOUN, CID
Martin Wyldeck
DETECTIVE SERGEANT PENNY
Shaw Taylor
The play directed by Hubert Gregg
The play was subsequently transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre
SYNOPSIS OF SCENES
The action of the play passes in the garden room of Sir Henry Angkatell’s house, The Hollow, about eighteen miles from London
ACT I
A Friday afternoon in early September
ACT II
SCENE 1 Saturday morning
SCENE 2 Later the same day
ACT III
The following Monday morning
The lights are lowered during Act III to denote the passing of one hour
Time: the present
ACT ONE
SCENE: The garden room of SIR HENRY ANGKATELL’s house, The Hollow, about eighteen miles from London. A Friday afternoon in early September.
It is an informal room, but furnished with taste. Back Centre, up three steps, there are French windows opening on to a terrace with a low wall at the far side. Beyond the wall there is a view of the wooded hillside on which the house is built. There are smaller French windows, up one step Centre, of the wall Right, leading to the garden and giving a view of dense shrubbery. A door down Left leads to the other parts of the house. There is a large alcove in the back wall Left of the French windows. The entrance to this is arched, and a heavy curtain in the archway closes it off from the rest of the room. The back wall of the alcove is fitted with well-filled, built-in bookshelves and furnished with a small table on which stands a silver bowl of roses. A piece of statuary can be supposed to stand in the alcove, though not visible to the audience. The fireplace is Centre of the wall Left and there are well-filled, built-in bookshelves in the walls Right of the French windows up Centre and below the French windows Right. There is a small writing table down Right, on which stands a small table lamp and a telephone. A small chair is set at the table and a wastepaper basket stands below it. Above the writing table there is a pedestal on which stands a piece of abstract statuary. There is a table with a table lamp on it below the bookshelves up Right. A small table with a radio receiver stands above the fireplace. There is an armchair up Left Centre, and a comfortable sofa Right Centre. Below the sofa stands a small circular coffee table. A pouffe near the hearth completes the furniture. The room is carpeted and gay curtains hang at the windows. In addition to the table lamps, the room is lit at night by an electric candle lamp wall bracket Left of the French windows up Centre, and small electric candle lamps on the mantelpiece. One or two miniatures decorate the walls, and over the mantelpiece there is a fine picture depicting the idyllic scene of a Georgian house with columns, set in woodlands. The light switch and bell push are in the wall below the fireplace. There is also a switch controlling the light in the alcove, Right of the arch. Two wall vases, filled with flowers, decorate the side walls of the French windows up Centre.
When Curtain rises, it is a fine afternoon and all the French windows stand open. SIR HENRY ANGKATELL, KCB., a distinguished-looking, elderly man, is seated at the Right end of the sofa, reading “The Times.” HENRIETTA ANGKATELL is on the terrace outside the French windows up Centre, standing at a tall sculptor’s stand, modelling in clay. She is a handsome young woman of about thirty-three, dressed in good country tweeds and over them a painter’s overall. She advances and retreats towards her creation once or twice, then enters up Centre and moves to the coffee table below the sofa. There is a smear of clay on her nose, and she is frowning.
HENRIETTA. (As she enters) Damn and damn and damn!
SIR HENRY. (Looking up) Not going well?
HENRIETTA. (Taking a cigarette from the box on the coffee table) What misery it is to be a sculptor.
SIR HENRY. It must be. I always thought you had to have models for this sort of thing.
HENRIETTA. It’s an abstract piece I’m modelling, darling.
SIR HENRY. What—(He points with distaste to the piece of modern sculpture on the pedestal Right) like that?
HENRIETTA. (Crossing to the mantelpiece) Anything interesting in The Times? (She lights her cigarette with the table lighter on the mantelpiece.)
SIR HENRY. Lots of people dead. (He looks at HENRIETTA.) You’ve got clay on your nose.
HENRIETTA. What?
SIR HENRY. Clay—on your nose.
HENRIETTA. (Looking in the mirror on the mantelpiece; vaguely) Oh, so I have. (She rubs her nose, then her forehead, turns and moves Left Centre.)
SIR HENRY. Now it’s all over your face.
HENRIETTA. (Moving up Centre; exasperated) Does it matter, darling?
SIR HENRY. Evidently not.
(HENRIETTA goes on to terrace up Centre and resumes work. LADY ANGKATELL enters Right. She is a very charming and aristocratic-looking woman aged about sixty, completely vague, but with a lot of personality. She is apparently in the middle of a conversation.)
LADY ANGKATELL. (Crossing above the sofa to the fireplace) Oh dear, oh dear! If it isn’t one thing it’s another. Did I leave a mole trap in here? (She picks up the mole trap from the mantelpiece and eases Centre) Ah yes—there it is. The worst of moles is—you never know where they are going to pop up next. People are quite right when they say that nature in the wild is seldom raw. (She crosses below the sofa to Right.) Don’t you think I’m right, Henry?
SIR HENRY. I couldn’t say, my dear, unless I know what you’re talking about.
LADY ANGKATELL. I’m going to pursue them quite ruthlessly—I really am.
(Her voice dies away as she exits Right.)
HENRIETTA. (Looking in through the French window up Centre.) What did Lucy say?
SIR HENRY. Nothing much. Just being Lucyish. I say, it’s half past six.
HENRIETTA. I’ll have to stop and clean myself up. They’re all coming by car, I suppose? (She drapes a damp cloth over her work.)
SIR HENRY. All except Midge. She’s coming by Green Line bus. Ought to be here by now.
HENRIETTA. Darling Midge. She is nice. Heaps nicer than any of us, don’t you think? (She pushes the stand out of sight Right of the terrace.)
SIR HENRY. I must have notice of that question.
HENRIETTA. (Moving Centre; laughing) Well, less eccentric, anyway. There’s something very sane about Midge. (She rubs her hands on her overall.)
SIR HENRY. (Indignantly) I’m perfectly sane, thank you.
HENRIETTA. (Removing her overall and looking at SIR HENRY) Ye-es—perhaps you are. (She puts her overall over the back of the armchair Left Centre.)
SIR HENRY. (Smiling) As sane as anyone can be that has to live with Lucy, bless her heart. (He laughs.)
(HENRIETTA laughs, crosses to the mantelpiece and puts her cigarette ash in the ashtray.)
(He puts his newspaper on the coffee table. Worried.) You know, Henrietta, I’m getting worried about Lucy.
HENRIETTA. Worried? Why?
SIR HENRY. Lucy doesn’t realize there are certain things she can’t do.
HENRIETTA. (Looking in the mirror) I don’t think I quite know what you mean. (She pats her hair).
SIR HENRY. She’s always got away with things. I don’t suppose any other woman in the world could have flouted the traditions of Government House as she did. (He takes his pipe from his pocket.) Most Governors’ wives have to toe the line of convention. But not Lucy! Oh dear me, no! She played merry hell with precedence at dinner parties—and that, my dear Henrietta, is the blackest of crimes.
(HENRIETTA turns.)
/> (He pats his pockets, feeling for his tobacco pouch.) She put deadly enemies next to each other. She ran riot over the colour question. And instead of setting everyone at loggerheads, I’m damned if she didn’t get away with it.
(HENRIETTA picks up the tobacco jar from the mantelpiece, crosses and hands it to SIR HENRY.)
Oh, thank you. It’s that trick of hers—always smiling at people and looking so sweet and helpless. Servants are the same—she gives them any amount of trouble and they simply adore her.
HENRIETTA. I know what you mean. (She sits on the sofa at the Left end.) Things you wouldn’t stand from anyone else, you feel they are quite all right if Lucy does them. What is it? Charm? Hypnotism?
SIR HENRY. (Filling his pipe) I don’t know. She’s always been the same from a girl. But you know, Henrietta, it’s growing on her. She doesn’t seem to realize there are limits. I really believe Lucy would feel she could get away with murder.
HENRIETTA. (Rising and picking up the piece of clay from the carpet) Darling Henry, you and Lucy are angels letting me make my messes here—treading clay into your carpet. (She crosses and puts the piece of clay in the wastepaper basket down Right.) When I had that fire at my studio, I thought it was the end of everything—it was sweet of you to let me move in on you.
SIR HENRY. My dear, we’re proud of you. Why, I’ve just been reading a whole article about you and your show in The Times.
HENRIETTA. (Crossing to the coffee table and picking up “The Times”) Where?
SIR HENRY. Top of the page. There, I believe. Of course, I don’t profess to know much about it myself.
HENRIETTA. (Reading) “The most significant piece of the year.” Oh, what gup! I must go and wash.
(She drops the paper on the sofa, crosses, picks up her overall and exits hurriedly Left. SIR HENRY rises, puts the papers and tobacco on the coffee table, takes the clay from the table to the wastepaper basket, moves to the drinks table, and picks up the matches. MIDGE HARVEY enters up Centre from Left. She is small, neatly dressed but obviously badly off. She is a warmhearted, practical and very nice young woman, a little younger than HENRIETTA. She carries a suitcase.)
MIDGE. (As she enters) Hullo, Cousin Henry.
SIR HENRY. (Turning) Midge! (He moves to Right of her, takes the suitcase from her, and kisses her.) Nice to see you.
MIDGE. Nice to see you.
SIR HENRY. How are you?
MIDGE. Terribly well.
SIR HENRY. Not been overworking you in that damned dress shop of yours?
MIDGE. (Moving down Centre) Business is pretty slack at the moment, or I shouldn’t have got the weekend off. The bus was absolutely crowded; I’ve never known it go so slowly. (She sits on the sofa, puts her bag and gloves beside her and looks towards the window Right.) It’s heaven to be here. Who’s coming this weekend?
SIR HENRY. (Putting the suitcase on the floor Right of the armchair Left Centre) Nobody much. The Cristows. You know them, of course.
MIDGE. The Harley Street doctor with a rather dim wife?
SIR HENRY. That’s right. Nobody else. Oh yes—(He strikes a match) Edward, of course.
MIDGE. (Turning to face SIR HENRY; suddenly stricken by the sound of the name) Edward!
SIR HENRY. (Lighting his pipe) Quite a job to get Edward away from Ainswick these days.
MIDGE. (Rising) Ainswick! Lovely, lovely Ainswick! (She crosses to the fireplace and gazes up at the picture above it.)
SIR HENRY. (Moving down Centre) Yes, it’s a beautiful place.
MIDGE. (Feelingly) It’s the most beautiful place in the world.
SIR HENRY. (Putting the matchbox on the coffee table) Had some happy times there, eh? (He eases to Right of the armchair Left Centre.)
MIDGE. (Turning) All the happy times I’ve ever had were there.
(LADY ANGKATELL enters Right. She carries a large empty flowerpot.)
LADY ANGKATELL. (As she enters) Would you believe it, (She crosses above the sofa to Right of SIR HENRY) they’ve been at it again. They’ve pushed up a whole row of lovely little lobelias. Ah well, as long as the weather keeps fine . . .
SIR HENRY. Here’s Midge.
LADY ANGKATELL. Where? (She crosses to MIDGE and kisses her.) Oh, darling Midge, I didn’t see you, dear. (To SIR HENRY. Confidentially) That would help, wouldn’t it? What were you both doing when I came in?
SIR HENRY. Talking Ainswick.
LADY ANGKATELL. (Sitting in the armchair Left Centre; with a sudden change of manner) Ainswick!
SIR HENRY. (Patting LADY ANGKATELL’s shoulder) There, there, Lucy.
(A little disturbed, he crosses and exits Left.)
MIDGE. (Indicating the flowerpot; surprised) Now why did you bring that in here, darling?
LADY ANGKATELL. I can’t begin to think. Take it away.
(MIDGE takes the flowerpot from LADY ANGKATELL, crosses, goes on to the terrace up Centre and puts the flowerpot on the ground out of sight.)
Thank you, darling. As I was saying, at any rate the weather’s all right. That’s something. Because if a lot of discordant personalities are boxed up indoors . . . (She looks around.) Where are you?
(MIDGE moves to Right of the armchair Left Centre.)
Ah, there you are. It makes things ten times worse. Don’t you agree?
MIDGE. Makes what worse?
LADY ANGKATELL. One can play games, of course—but that would be like last year when I shall never forgive myself about poor Gerda—and the worst of it is that she really is so nice. It’s odd that anyone as nice as Gerda should be so devoid of any kind of intelligence. If that is what they mean by the law of compensation I don’t think it’s at all fair.
MIDGE. What are you talking about, Lucy?
LADY ANGKATELL. This weekend, darling. (She takes hold of MIDGE’s left hand.) It’s such a relief to talk it over with you, Midge dear, you’re so practical.
MIDGE. Yes, but what are we talking over?
LADY ANGKATELL. John, of course, is delightful, with that dynamic personality that all really successful doctors seem to have. But as for Gerda, ah well, we must all be very, very kind.
MIDGE. (Crossing to the fireplace) Come now, Gerda Cristow isn’t as bad as all that.
LADY ANGKATELL. Darling. Those eyes. Like a puzzled cow. And she never seems to understand a word one says to her.
MIDGE. I don’t suppose she understands a word you say—and I don’t know that I blame her. Your mind goes so fast, Lucy, that to keep pace with it, your conversation has to take the most astonishing leaps—with all the connecting links left out. (She sits on the pouffe.)
LADY ANGKATELL. Like monkeys. Fortunately Henrietta is here. She was wonderful last spring when we played limericks or anagrams—one of those things—we had all finished when we suddenly discovered that poor Gerda hadn’t even started. She didn’t even know what the game was. It was dreadful wasn’t it, Midge?
MIDGE. Why anyone ever comes to stay with the Angkatells, I don’t know. What with the brainwork and the round games and your peculiar style of conversation, Lucy.
LADY ANGKATELL. I suppose we must be rather trying. (She rises, moves to the coffee table and picks up the tobacco jar.) The poor dear looked so bewildered; and John looked so impatient. (She crosses to the fireplace.) It was then that I was grateful to Henrietta. (She puts the jar on the mantelpiece, turns and moves Centre.) She turned to Gerda and asked for the pattern of the knitted pullover she was wearing—a dreadful affair in pea green—with little bobbles and pom-poms and things—oh, sordid—but Gerda brightened up at once and looked so pleased. The worst of it is Henrietta had to buy some wool and knit one.
MIDGE. And was it very terrible?
LADY ANGKATELL. Oh, it was ghastly. No—on Henrietta it looked quite charming—which is what I mean when I say that the world is so very very sad. One simply doesn’t know why . . .
MIDGE. Whoa! Don’t start rambling again, darling. Let’s stick to the weekend.
(LADY ANGKATELL sits on the sof
a.)
I don’t see where the worry is. If you manage to keep off round games, and try to be coherent when you’re talking to Gerda, and put Henrietta on duty to tide over the awkward moments, where’s the difficulty?
LADY ANGKATELL. It would all be perfectly all right if only Edward weren’t coming.
MIDGE. (Reacting at the name) Edward? (She rises and turns to the fireplace.) Yes, of course. What on earth made you ask Edward for the weekend, Lucy?
LADY ANGKATELL. I didn’t ask him. He wired to know if we could have him. You know how sensitive Edward is. If I’d wired back “No,” he would never have asked himself again. Edward’s like that.
MIDGE. Yes.
LADY ANGKATELL. Dear Edward. If only Henrietta would make up her mind to marry him.
(MIDGE turns and faces LADY ANGKATELL.)
She really is quite fond of him. If only they could have been alone this weekend without the Cristows. As it is, John has the most unfortunate effect on Edward. John becomes so much more so, and Edward so much less so. If you know what I mean.
(MIDGE nods.)
But I do feel that it’s all going to be terribly difficult. (She picks up the “Daily Graphic”)
(GUDGEON, the butler, enters Left. He is in all respects the perfect butler.)
GUDGEON. (Announcing) Mr. Edward.
(EDWARD ANGKATELL enters left. He is a tall, slightly stooping man, between thirty-five and forty-five, with a pleasant smile and a diffident manner. He is a bookish man and wears well-cut but rather shabby tweeds. GUDGEON exits Left.)
LADY ANGKATELL. (Rising and crossing to EDWARD) Edward. (She kisses him.) We were just saying how nice it was of you to come.
EDWARD. Lucy, Lucy. How nice of you to let me come. (He turns to MIDGE. Pleased and surprised.) Why—it’s little Midge. (He talks throughout to MIDGE with indulgent affection, as to a child.) You look very grown up.
MIDGE. (With slight acidity) I’ve been grown up for quite a few years now.
EDWARD. I suppose you have. I haven’t noticed it.