Complete Poems and Plays (79 page)

Into things that have nothing to do with business.

K
AGHAN
.
And you have a very sound head for business.

Maybe you’re a better financier than I am!

That’s why we ought to be in business together.

L
UCASTA
.
You’re both very good at paying compliments;

But I remarked that I was hungry.

K
AGHAN
.
                                             You can’t want dinner yet.

It’s only six o’clock. We can’t dine till eight;

Not at any restaurant that
you
like.

— For a change, let’s talk about Lucasta.

L
UCASTA
[
rising
]
.
If you want to discuss
me
…

[
A
knock
at
the
door.
Enter
L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
]

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
                                                 Oh, good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Kaghan. Good evening, Lucasta.

Have you just arrived, or are you just leaving?

L
UCASTA
.
We’re on the point of leaving, Lady Elizabeth.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
I’ve come over to have a look at the flat

Now that you’ve moved in. Because you can’t tell

Whether a scheme of decoration

Is
right,
until the place has been lived in

By the person for whom it was designed.

So I have to see you in it. Did you say you were leaving?

K
AGHAN
.
We’re going out to dinner. Lucasta’s very hungry.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Hungry? At six o’clock? Where will you get dinner?

Oh, I know. It’s a chance to try that Herbal Restaurant

I recommended to you. You can have dinner early:

Most of its patrons dine at half past six.

They have the most delicious salads!

And I told you, Mr. Kaghan, you’re the type of person

Who needs to eat a great deal of salad.

You remember, I made you take a note of the address;

And I don’t believe that you’ve been there yet.

K
AGHAN
.
Why no, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.

I’ve kept meaning to. Shall we go there, Lucasta?

L
UCASTA
.
I’m so hungry, I could even eat a herbal salad.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
That’s right. Just mention my name, Mr. Kaghan,

And ask for the table in the left hand corner:

It has the best waitress. Good night.

L
UCASTA.
                                                Good night.

K
AGHAN
.
And thank you so much. You give such good advice.

[
Exeunt
K
AGHAN
and
L
UCASTA
]

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Were those young people here by appointment?

Or did they come in unexpectedly?

C
OLBY
.
I’d invited Lucasta. She had asked me to play to her.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
You call her Lucasta? Young people nowadays

Seem to have dropped the use of surnames altogether.

But, Colby, I hope you won’t mind a gentle hint.

I feared it was possible you might become too friendly

With Mr. Kaghan and Miss Angel.

I can see you’ve lived a rather sheltered life,

And I’ve noticed them paying you a good deal of attention.

You see, you’re rather a curiosity

To both of them — you’re not the sort of person

They ever meet in their kind of society.

So naturally, they want to take you up.

I can speak more freely, as an elderly person.

C
OLBY
.
But, Lady Elizabeth …

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
                         Well, older than you are,

And a good deal wiser in the ways of the world.

C
OLBY
.
But, Lady Elizabeth, what is it you object to?

They’re both intelligent … and kind.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Oh, I don’t say they’re not intelligent and kind.

I’m not making any malicious suggestions:

But they are rather worldly and materialistic,

And … well, rather vulgar. They’re not your sort at all.

C
OLBY
.
I shouldn’t call them vulgar. Perhaps I’m vulgar too.

But what, do you think,
is
my sort?

I don’t know, myself. And I should like to know.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
In the first place, you ought to mix with people of breeding.

I said to myself, when I first saw you,

‘He is very well bred’. I knew nothing about you,

But one doesn’t need to know, if one knows what breeding is.

And, second, you need intellectual society.

Now, that already limits your acquaintance:

Because, what’s surprising, well-bred people

Are sometimes far from intellectual;

And — what’s less surprising — intellectual people

Are often ill-bred. But that’s not all.

You need intellectual, well-bred people

Of spirituality — and that’s the rarest.

C
OLBY
.
That would limit my acquaintance to a very small number,

And I don’t know where to find them.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
                                       They can be found.

But I came to have a look at the flat

To see if the colour scheme really suited you.

I believe it does. The walls; and the curtains;

And most of the furniture. But, that writing-table!

Where did that writing-table come from?

C
OLBY
.
It’s an office desk. Sir Claude got it for me.

I said I needed a desk in my room:

You see, I shall do a good deal of my work here.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
And what is that shrouded object on it?

Don’t tell me it’s a typewriter.

C
OLBY
.
                                          It is a typewriter.

I’ve already begun to work here. At the moment

I’m working on a company report.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
I hadn’t reckoned on reports and typewriters

When I designed this room.

C
OLBY
.
                                     It’s the sort of room I wanted.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
[
rising
]
.
And I see a photograph in a silver frame.

I’m afraid I shall have to instruct you, Colby.

Photographic portraits — even in silver frames —

Are much too intimate for the sitting-room.

May I remove it? Surely your bedroom

Is the proper place for photographic souvenirs.

[
She
sits
down,
holding
the
portrait
]

What was I going to say? Oh, I know.

Do you believe in reincarnation?

C
OLBY
.
No, I don’t. I mean, I’ve never thought about it.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
I can’t say that
I
believe in it.

I did, for a time. I studied the doctrine.

But I was going to say,
if
I believed in it

I should have said that we had known each other

In some previous incarnation. — Is this your mother?

C
OLBY
.
No, that is my aunt. I never knew my mother.

She died when I was born.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH.
                    She died when you were born.

Have you other near relatives? Brothers or sisters?

C
OLBY
.
No brothers or sisters. No. As for other relatives,

I never knew any, when I was a child.

I suppose I’ve never been interested … in relatives.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
You did not want to know your relatives!

I understand exactly how you felt.

How I disliked my parents! I had a governess;

Several, in fact. And I loathed them all.

Were you brought up by a governess?

C
OLBY
.
                                                      No. By my aunt.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
And did you loathe her? No, of course not.

Or you wouldn’t have her portrait. If you never knew your parents …

But was your father living?

C
OLBY
.
                                     I never knew my father.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Then, if you never had a governess,

And if you never knew either of your parents,

You can’t understand what loathing really is.

Yet we must have
some
similarity of background.

C
OLBY
.
But you had parents. And no doubt, many relatives.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Oh, swarms of relatives! And such unpleasant people!

I thought of myself as a dove in an eagle’s nest.

They were so carnivorous. Always killing things and eating them.

And yet our childhood must have been similar.

These are only superficial differences: