Complete Poems and Plays (82 page)

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Oh Claude! I am terribly sorry for you.

I believe that if I had known of your … delusion

I would never have undeceived you.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                                           And as for me,

If I could have known what was going to happen,

I would gladly have surrendered Colby to you.

But we must see Mrs. Guzzard. I’ll arrange to get her here.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
And I think you ought to get Eggerson as well.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
[
rising
]
.
Oh, of course, Eggerson! He knows all about it.

Let us say no more tonight. Now, Colby,

Can you find some consolation at the piano?

C
OLBY
.
I don’t think, tonight, the piano would help me:

At the moment, I never want to touch it again.

But there’s another reason. I must remind you

About your speech for the Potters’ Company

Tomorrow night. I must get to work on it.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
Tomorrow night. Must I go to that dinner

Tomorrow night?

C
OLBY
.
                      I was looking at your notes —

Before you brought me into the conversation —

And I found one note I couldn’t understand.

‘Reminiscent mood.’ I can’t develop that

Unless you can tell me — reminiscent of what?

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
Reminiscent of what? Reminiscent of what?

‘Tonight I feel in a reminiscent mood’ —

Oh yes. To say something of my early ambitions

To be a potter. Not that the Members

Of the Potters’ Company know anything at all

About ceramics … or any other art.

No, I don’t think I shall be in a reminiscent mood.

Cross that out. It would only remind me

Of things that would surprise the Potters’ Company

If I told them what I was really remembering.

Come, Elizabeth.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
My poor Claude!

[
Exeunt
S
IR
C
LAUDE
and
L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
]

CURTAIN

The
Business
Room,
as
in
Act
 
1.
Several
mornings
later.
S
IR
C
LAUDE
is
moving
chairs
about.
Enter
L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Claude, what are you doing?

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                                                        Settling the places.

It’s important, when you have a difficult meeting,

To decide on the seating arrangements beforehand.

I don’t think you and I should be near together.

Will you sit there, beside the desk?

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
On the other side, with the light behind me:

But won’t you be sitting at the desk yourself?

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
No, that would look too formal. I thought it would be better

To put Eggerson there, behind the desk.

You see, I want him to be a sort of chairman.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
That’s a good idea.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                                           On the other hand,

We mustn’t look like a couple of barristers

Ready to cross-examine a witness.

It’s very awkward. We don’t want to start

By offending Mrs. Guzzard. That’s why I thought

That Eggerson should put the first questions.

He’s very good at approaching a subject

In a roundabout way. But where shall we place her?

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Over there, with the light full on her:

I want to be able to watch her expression.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
But not in this chair! She must have an armchair …

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Not such a low one. Leave that in the corner

For Colby. He won’t want to be conspicuous,

Poor boy!

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
After all, it was he who insisted

On this … investigation. But perhaps you’re right.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Claude, I’ve been thinking things over and over —

All through the night. I hardly slept at all.

I wish that Colby, somehow, might prove to be
your
son

Instead of mine. Really, I do!

It would be so much fairer. If he is mine —

As I am sure he is — then you never had a son;

While, if he were yours … he could still take the place

Of my son: and so he could be
our
son.

Oh dear, what do I want? I should like him to be mine,

But for you to believe that he is yours!

So I hope Mrs. Guzzard will say he is your son

And I needn’t believe her. I don’t believe in facts.

You do. That is the difference between us.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
I’m not so sure of that. I’ve tried to believe in facts;

And I’ve always acted as if I believed in them.

I thought it was facts that my father believed in;

I thought that what he cared for was power and wealth;

And I came to see that what I had interpreted

In this way, was something else to
him
—

An idea, an inspiration. What he wanted to transmit to me

Was that idea, that inspiration,

Which to him was life. To me, it was a burden.

You can’t communicate an inspiration,

Like that, by force of will. He was a great financier —

And I am merely a successful one.

I might have been truer to my father’s inspiration

If I had done what I wanted to do.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
You’ve never talked like this to me before!

Why haven’t you? I don’t suppose I understand

And I know you don’t think I understand anything,

And perhaps I don’t. But I wish you would talk

Sometimes to me as if I did understand,

And perhaps I might come to understand better.

What did you want to do?

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                          To be a potter.

Don’t laugh.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
I’m not laughing. I was only thinking

How strange to have lived with you, all these years,

And now you tell me, you’d have liked to be a potter!

You really mean, to make jugs and jars

Like those in your collection?

S
IR
C
LAUDE.
                                  That’s what I mean.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
But I should have loved you to be a potter!

Why have you never told me?

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                                 I didn’t think

That you would be interested. More than that.

I took it for granted that what you wanted

Was a husband of importance. I thought you would despise me

If you knew what I’d really wanted to be.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
And I took it for granted that you were not interested

In anything but financial affairs;

And that you needed me chiefly as a hostess.

It’s a great mistake, I do believe,

For married people to take anything for granted.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
That was a very intelligent remark.

Perhaps I have taken too much for granted

About you, Elizabeth. What did
you
want?

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
To inspire an artist. Don’t laugh.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                                                              I’m not laughing.

So what you wanted was to inspire an artist!

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
Or to inspire a poet. I thought Tony was a poet.

Because he wrote me poems. And he was so beautiful.

I know now that poets don’t look like poets:

And financiers, it seems, don’t look like potters —

Is that what I mean? I’m getting confused.

I thought I was escaping from a world that I loathed

In Tony — and then, too late, I discovered

He belonged to the world I wanted to escape from.

He was so commonplace! I wanted to forget him,

And so, I suppose, I wanted to forget

Colby. But Colby is an artist.

S
IR
C
LAUDE
.
                                A musician.

I am a disappointed craftsman,

And Colby is a disappointed composer.

I should have been a second-rate potter,

And he would have been a second-rate organist.

We have both chosen … obedience to the facts.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH
.
I believe that was what
I
was trying to do.

It’s very strange, Claude, but this is the first time

I have talked to you, without feeling very stupid.

You always made me feel that I wasn’t worth talking to.

S
IR
C
LAUDE.
And you always made me feel that
your
interests

Were much too deep for discussion with
me
:

Health cures. And modern art — so long as it was modern —

And dervish dancing.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH.
            Dervish dancing!

Really, Claude, how absurd you are!

Not that there isn’t a lot to be learnt,

I don’t doubt, from the dervish rituals.

But it doesn’t matter what Mrs. Guzzard tells us,

If it satisfies Colby. Whatever happens

He shall be
our
son.

[
A
knock
on
the
door.
Enter
E
GGERSON
]

S
IR
C
LAUDE.
                 Good morning, Eggerson.

E
GGERSON.
Good morning, Sir Claude. And Lady Elizabeth!

S
IR
C
LAUDE.
I’m sorry, Eggerson, to bring you up to London

At such short notice.

E
GGERSON.
                     Don’t say that, Sir Claude.

It’s true, I haven’t much nowadays to bring me;

But Mrs. E. wishes I’d come up oftener!

Isn’t that like the ladies! She used to complain

At my being up in London five or six days a week:

But now she says: ‘You’re becoming such a countryman!

You’re losing touch with public affairs.’

The fact is, she misses the contact with London,

Though she doesn’t admit it. She misses my news

When I came home in the evening. And the late editions

Of the papers that I picked up at Liverpool Street.

But I’ve so much to do, in Joshua Park —

Apart from the garden — that I’ve not an idle moment.

And really, now, I’m quite lost in London.

Every time I come, I notice the traffic

Has got so much worse.

S
IR
C
LAUDE.
                       Yes, it’s always getting worse.

L
ADY
E
LIZABETH.
— I hope Mrs. Eggerson is well?

E
GGERSON.
                                                                Pretty well.

She’s always low-spirited, around this season,

When we’re getting near the anniversary.

S
IR
C
LAUDE.
The anniversary? Of your son’s death?