GERDA. (Sitting in the archair Left Centre) Will Henrietta be here?
JOHN. (Turning) Yes, she’s here.
GERDA. Oh, I’m so glad. I do like Henrietta.
JOHN. (Rather shortly) Henrietta’s all right.
GERDA. I wonder if she’s finished that statuette she was doing of me?
JOHN. (Moving above the Left end of the sofa; sharply) I don’t know why she asked you to sit for her. Most extraordinary.
(GERDA flinches at his tone and look.)
(He crosses to Right.) I always think it’s rather a good thing if people are around to meet their guests.
(He exits Right. GERDA rises, crosses below the sofa to Right, looks off, turns, looks Left, hesitates, fidgets with her handbag, then gives a nervous cough and crosses to Left Centre.)
EDWARD. (Off up Centre.) And this winter I’m going to cut down that avenue of trees so that we can have a better view of the lake.
(HENRIETTA and EDWARD enter up Centre from Left. GERDA turns. EDWARD eases to Left of the sofa.)
HENRIETTA. (As she enters) I think it’s a very good idea, Edward. Hullo, Gerda, how are you? You know Edward Angkatell, don’t you? (She eases above the Right end of the sofa.)
EDWARD. How d’you do, Mrs. Cristow?
GERDA. How do you do? (She drops one glove and picks it up.)
(EDWARD bends to pick up the glove, but GERDA forestalls him.)
HENRIETTA. Where’s John?
(EDWARD turns and looks at HENRIETTA.)
GERDA. He just went out into the garden to see if he could find Lady Angkatell.
HENRIETTA. (Moving to the French window Right and glancing off) It’s an impossible garden to find anyone in, all woods and shrubs.
GERDA. But soon there’ll be such lovely autumn tints.
HENRIETTA. (Turning) Yes. (She turns and gazes out of the window.)
EDWARD. (Crossing to the door Left) You’ll forgive me if I go and change.
(He exits Left. GERDA starts to follow him but stops as HENRIETTA speaks.)
HENRIETTA. Autumn takes one back—one keeps saying, “Don’t you remember?”
(GERDA, strung up and obviously miserable, moves to the armchair Left Centre.)
(She turns suddenly, looks at GERDA, and her face softens.) Shall we go and look for the others, too?
GERDA. (About to sit in the armchair) No, please—I mean—(She rises) yes, that would be very nice.
HENRIETTA. (Moving below the sofa; vigorously) Gerda! Why do you come down here when you hate it so much?
GERDA. But I don’t.
HENRIETTA. (Kneeling with one knee on the sofa) Yes you do.
GERDA. I don’t really. It’s delightful to get down here into the country and Lady Angkatell is always so kind.
HENRIETTA. Lucy? (She sits on the sofa at the Right end of it.) Lucy’s not a bit kind. She has good manners and she knows how to be gracious. But I always think she’s rather a cruel person, perhaps because she isn’t quite human. She doesn’t know what it is to feel and think like ordinary people. And you are hating it here, Gerda, you know you are.
GERDA. (Easing to Left of the sofa) Well, you see, John likes it.
HENRIETTA. Oh, John likes it all right. But you could let him come by himself.
GERDA. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t enjoy himself here without me. He is so unselfish. He thinks it does me good to get down into the country. (She moves below the Left end of the sofa.) But I’m glad you’re here, though—it makes it so much better.
HENRIETTA. Does it? I’m glad.
GERDA. (Sitting on the sofa at the Left end of it; in a burst of confidence) You see, I don’t really like being away from home. There is so much to do before I leave, and John is so impatient. Even now I’m not sure I turned the bathroom taps off properly, and there was a note I meant to leave for the laundry. And you know, Henrietta, I don’t really trust the children’s French governess—when I’m not there they never do anything she tells them. Oh, well, it’s only for two days.
HENRIETTA. Two days of hell—cheerfully endured for John’s sake.
GERDA. You must think I’m very ungrateful—when everybody is so kind. My breakfast brought up to my room and the housemaids so beautifully trained—but I do sometimes feel . . .
HENRIETTA. I know. They snatch away one’s clothes and put them where you can’t find them, and always lay out the dress and shoes you don’t want to wear. One has to be strong-minded.
GERDA. Oh, I’m afraid I’m never strong-minded.
HENRIETTA. How’s the knitting?
GERDA. I’ve taken up leathercraft. (She holds up her handbag.) I made this handbag.
HENRIETTA. Did you? (She rises, crosses to the alcove and opens the curtains.) That reminds me, I’ve something for you.
(She switches on the light and exits. She reenters immediately, carrying a small plaster statuette. She switches off the alcove light, closes the curtain and moves to the armchair Left Centre.)
GERDA. (Rising and crossing to HENRIETTA) Henrietta! The statuette you were doing of me?
(HENRIETTA gives GERDA the statuette.)
Oh, it’s lovely.
HENRIETTA. I’m glad you like it.
GERDA. (Moving below the Left end of the sofa) I do, I like it very much.
JOHN. (Off Right) I say, Sir Henry, your gardener has really made a wonderful job of those roses.
(LADY ANGKATELL, JOHN, MIDGE and SIR HENRY enter Right.)
SIR HENRY. (As he enters) The soil here is pretty good for roses.
JOHN. (Crossing above the sofa to Left of it) Hullo, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA. Hullo, John.
LADY ANGKATELL. (Moving below the sofa) How very nice to see you, Gerda.
SIR HENRY. (Moving above the sofa) How are you, Mrs. Cristow?
LADY ANGKATELL. (To GERDA) You haven’t been here for so long. You know my cousin, Midge Harvey? (She sits on the sofa.)
MIDGE. (Moving to the writing table) Yes, we met last year. (She puts her bag on the writing table.)
(HENRIETTA moves to the fireplace, takes a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece and lights it with the table lighter.)
GERDA. (Turning and moving to Right of JOHN) John, look what Henrietta’s just given me. (She hands the statuette to him.)
JOHN. (To HENRIETTA) Why—what on earth made you do this?
GERDA. Oh, John, it’s very pretty.
JOHN. (Crossing down Left turning and facing HENRIETTA) Really, Henrietta.
SIR HENRY. (Tactfully interposing) Mrs. Cristow, I must tell you about our latest excitement. You know the cottage at the end of this lane? It’s been taken by a well-known film star, and all the locals are simply goggling.
GERDA. Oh yes, of course—they will be.
MIDGE. Is she very glamorous?
SIR HENRY. Well, I haven’t seen her yet, though I believe she’s in residence. What’s her name now?
MIDGE. Hedy Lamarr?
SIR HENRY. No. Who’s that girl with her hair over her eyes?
MIDGE. Veronica Lake.
SIR HENRY. No.
MIDGE. Lauren Bacall.
SIR HENRY. No.
LADY ANGKATELL. Nazimova—no. We’d better ask Gudgeon. He’ll know.
SIR HENRY. We saw her in that film—you remember, that tough chap—plays gangsters, and they flew to the Pacific and then flew back again, and there was a particularly horrible child . . .
MIDGE. San Francisco Story?
SIR HENRY. Yes.
MIDGE. Veronica Craye.
(JOHN drops the statuette. GERDA moves quickly down Left with a cry and picks up the statuette. It is not broken.)
HENRIETTA. John! (She watches him with sharpened interest.)
LADY ANGKATELL. (Rising and crossing to Right of GERDA) Would you like to see your room, Gerda?
GERDA. Oh—yes, perhaps I’d better go and unpack.
LADY ANGKATELL. (Crossing below GERDA to the door Left) Simmonds will have done that. But if you’d like to come u
p . . . ?
MIDGE. (Crossing to Left) I’ll come with you. Where am I, Lucy? In the Blue Room?
LADY ANGKATELL. Yes, and I’ve put Edward in the Hermit, and I’ve put the rest . . .
(Her voice dies away as she exits Left. GERDA and MIDGE follow her off. JOHN stands in a daze.)
SIR HENRY. Where is Edward? Has he put his car away, I wonder? There’s room in the end garage.
(He exits up Centre to Left. HENRIETTA moves to JOHN and gives him her cigarette. Now that they are alone her voice holds a new intimacy.)
HENRIETTA. Is there anything the matter, darling?
JOHN. (Crossing to the sofa) M’m? I was—thinking—remembering. I’m sorry. (He sits on the sofa at the Left end, and faces Right.)
HENRIETTA. (Easing to the fireplace) There’s an atmosphere of remembering about this place. (She turns and looks at the picture over the mantelpiece.) I’ve been remembering, too.
JOHN. Have you? (Disinterested) Remembering what?
HENRIETTA. (Turning; bitterly) The time when I was a long-legged lanky girl with untidy hair—a happy girl with no idea of the things that life could do to her. (She turns to face the fire.) Going back . . .
JOHN. (Dreamily) Why should one want to go back—suddenly? Why do things you haven’t thought of for years suddenly spring into your mind?
HENRIETTA. (Turning) What things, John?
JOHN. (Dreamily) Blue sea—the smell of mimosa . . .
HENRIETTA. When?
JOHN. Ten years ago.
HENRIETTA. (Crossing to Left of the sofa) And you’d like—to go back?
JOHN. I don’t know—I’m so tired.
(HENRIETTA, from behind, lays a hand on JOHN’s shoulder.)
(He holds her hand but still stares dreamily Right.) What would I do without you?
HENRIETTA. Get along quite well, I expect.
JOHN. Why should things come back into your mind—things that are over and done with?
HENRIETTA. (Crossing above the sofa to Right of it) Perhaps because they are not really over and done with.
JOHN. Not after ten years? Heaven knows how long since I thought about it. But lately—even when I’m walking round the wards, it comes into my mind and it’s as vivid as a picture. (He pauses. With sudden energy) And now, on top of it all, she’s here, just a few yards down the lane.
HENRIETTA. (Moving below the Right end of the sofa) Veronica Craye, you mean?
JOHN. Yes. I was engaged to her once—ten years ago.
HENRIETTA. (Sitting on the sofa at the Right end of it) I—see.
JOHN. Crazy young fool! I was mad about her. She was just starting in pictures then. I’d qualified about a year before. I’d had a wonderful chance—to work under Radley. D.H. Radley, you know, the authority on cortex of degeneration.
HENRIETTA. What happened?
JOHN. What I might have guessed would happen. Veronica got her chance to go to Hollywood. Well, naturally, she took it. But she assumed, without making any bones about it, that I’d give up everything and go with her. (He laughs.) No idea how important my profession was to me. I can hear her now. “Oh, there’s absolutely no need for you to go on doctoring—I shall be making heaps of money.” (He gives his cigarette to HENRIETTA.) I tried to explain it all to her. Radley—what a wonderful opportunity it was to work under him. Do you know what she said? “What, that comic little old man?” I told her that that comic little old man had done some of the most remarkable work of our generation—that his experiments might revolutionize the treatment of Rigg’s Disease. But of course that was a waste of time. She’d never even heard of Rigg’s Disease.
HENRIETTA. Very few people have. I hadn’t till you told me about it and I read it up.
(JOHN rises, moves up Centre, goes on to the terrace and stands facing Left.)
JOHN. She said who cared about a lot of obscure diseases anyway. California was a wonderful climate—it would be fun for me to see the world. She’d hate to go there without me. Miss Craye was the complete egoist—never thought of anyone but herself.
HENRIETTA. You’re rather by way of being an egoist too, John.
JOHN. (Turning to face HENRIETTA) I saw her point of view. Why couldn’t she see mine?
HENRIETTA. What did you suggest?
JOHN. (Moving to the sofa and leaning over the back of it) I told her I loved her. I begged her to turn down the Hollywood offer and marry me there and then.
HENRIETTA. And what did she say to that?
JOHN. (Bitterly) She was just—amused.
HENRIETTA. And so?
JOHN. (Moving down Right) Well, there was only one thing to be done—break it off. I did. It wasn’t easy. All that was when we were in the South of France. (He crosses to the coffee table, picks up a magazine, then crosses and stands below the armchair Left Centre.) I broke with Veronica, and came back to London to work under Radley. (During the following speeches he occasionally glances idly at the magazine.)
HENRIETTA. And then you married Gerda?
JOHN. The following year. Yes.
HENRIETTA. Why?
JOHN. Why?
HENRIETTA. Yes. Was it because you wanted someone as different as possible from Veronica Craye?
JOHN. Yes, I suppose that was it. (He sits in the armchair Left Centre.) I didn’t want a raving beauty as a wife. I didn’t want a damned egoist out to grab everything she could get. I wanted safety and peace and devotion, and all the quiet enduring things of life. I wanted someone who’d take her ideas from me.
HENRIETTA. Well, you certainly got what you wanted. None could be more devoted to you than Gerda.
JOHN. That’s the irony of it. I picked Gerda for just the qualities she has, and now half the time I snap her head off because of them. How was I to know how irritating devotion can be?
HENRIETTA. (Rising and stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table) And what about Gerda? Is she satisfied?
JOHN. Oh, Gerda’s all right. She’s quite happy.
HENRIETTA. Is she?
JOHN. Oh, yes. She spends her life fussing about the house and the children. That’s all she thinks about. She’s the most incompetent housekeeper and the most injudicious mother that you can imagine. Still, it keeps her occupied.
HENRIETTA. (Crossing to Right of JOHN) How horribly cruel you are, John.
JOHN. (Surprised) Me?
HENRIETTA. Do you never see or feel anything except from your own point of view? Why do you bring Gerda down here for weekends when you know it’s misery for her?
JOHN. Nonsense! Does her a world of good to get away. It makes a break for her.
HENRIETTA. Sometimes, John, I really hate you.
JOHN. (Startled) Henrietta. (He rises.) Darling—don’t say that. You know it’s only you who makes life possible for me.
HENRIETTA. I wonder. (She puts up a hand to touch him lovingly, then checks herself.)
(JOHN kisses her, then crosses and puts the magazine on the coffee table.)
JOHN. Who’s the Edward Angkatell?
HENRIETTA. A second cousin of mine—and of Henry’s.
JOHN. Have I met him?
HENRIETTA. Twice.
JOHN. I don’t remember. (He perches himself on the Left arm of the sofa.) Is he in love with you, Henrietta?
HENRIETTA. Yes.
JOHN. Well, you watch your step. You’re mine, you know.
(HENRIETTA looks at him in silence.)
And look here, what do you mean by doing that absurd statuette of Gerda? Hardly up to your standard, is it?
HENRIETTA. It’s technically quite good craftsmanship—a straightforward portrait statuette. It pleased Gerda.
JOHN. Oh, Gerda!
HENRIETTA. It was made to please her.
JOHN. Gerda doesn’t know the difference between a work of art and a coloured photograph. What about your pearwood figure for the International Group? Have you finished that?
HENRIETTA. Yes.
JOHN. Let’s have a look at it.
(HENRIETTA moves unwillingly to the alcove, opens the curtain, switches on the light, then stands Left of the arch and watches JOHN’s face. JOHN rises, crosses to the alcove and stands in the arch looking off Left.)
I say, that’s rather good. Why, what on earth . . . ? (Angrily) So that’s why you wanted Gerda to sit for you. How dare you!
HENRIETTA. (Thoughtfully) I wondered if you’d see it.
JOHN. See it? Of course I see it.
HENRIETTA. The face isn’t Gerda’s.
JOHN. No, it’s the neck—the shoulders—the whole attitude.
(The daylight starts to fade and continues to do so steadily until the end of the Act.)
HENRIETTA. Yes, that’s what I wanted.
JOHN. How could you do a thing like that? It’s indefensible.
HENRIETTA. You don’t understand. John. You don’t know what it is to want something—to look at it day after day—that line of neck—the muscle—the angle of the head—that heaviness under the jaw. I’ve been looking at them, wanting them, every time I saw Gerda. In the end—I just had to have them.
JOHN. Utterly unscrupulous.
HENRIETTA. Yes—I suppose you could call it that.
JOHN. (Uneasily) That’s a terrifying thing you’ve made, Henrietta. What’s she looking at—who is it there, in front of her?
HENRIETTA. I don’t know, John. I think—it might be you.
(EDWARD enters Left. He now wears dinner clothes.)
You remember Edward—John.
JOHN. (Tersely) Of course.
EDWARD. (Moving below the armchair Left Centre) Looking at Henrietta’s latest masterpiece?
JOHN. (Without looking at EDWARD) Yes. (He crosses to the fireplace.) Yes, I was.
EDWARD. What do you think of it?
JOHN. (With his back to EDWARD) I’m not really qualified to judge. (He takes a cigarette from his case.)
EDWARD. Powerful!
JOHN. ’M?
EDWARD. I said it’s powerful.
JOHN. Yes.
HENRIETTA. (Switching off the light and closing the alcove curtain) I must go and change.
EDWARD. Still lots of time. (He crosses to the drinks table.) Can I get you a drink, Cristow?
JOHN. No, thank you. (He taps his cigarette on his case.)
EDWARD. (Moving to the French window Right) Quite a mild evening.
(He glances at HENRIETTA and JOHN, then exits Right.)