Complete Poems and Plays (99 page)

What better recommendation could I have?’

So he sent me here.

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
          Oh, you’ve seen each other lately?

Richard, I think that you might introduce us.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Oh. This is …

G
OMEZ.
                                           Your old friend Federico Gomez,

The prominent citizen of San Marco.

That’s my name.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
So let me introduce you — by that name —

To Mrs … Mrs …

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
          Mrs. John Carghill.

G
OMEZ
.
We seem a bit weak on the surnames, Dick!

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
Well, you see, Señor Gomez, when we first became friends —

Lord Claverton and I — I was known by my stage name.

There was a time, once, when everyone in London

Knew the name of Maisie Montjoy in revue.

G
OMEZ
.
If Maisie Montjoy was as beautiful to look at

As Mrs. Carghill, I can well understand

Her success on the stage.

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
                     Oh, did you never see me?

That’s a pity, Señor Gomez.

G
OMEZ
.
I lost touch with things in England.

Had I been in London, and in Dick’s position

I should have been your most devoted admirer.

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL.
It’s
Not
Too
Late
For
You
To
Love
Me!
That’s the song

That made my reputation, Señor Gomez.

G
OMEZ
.
It will never be too late. Don’t you agree, Dick?

— This young lady I take to be your daughter?

And this is your son?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
    This is my son Michael,

And my daughter Monica.

M
ONICA
.
                                   How do you do.

Michael!

M
ICHAEL
.
     How do you do.

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
I don’t believe you’ve known Lord Claverton

As long as I have, Señor Gomez.

G
OMEZ
.
My dear lady, you’re not old enough

To have known Dick Ferry as long as I have.

We were friends at Oxford.

M
RS
. C
ARGHILL
.
                       Oh, so you were at Oxford!

Is that how you come to speak such perfect English?

Of course, I could tell from your looks that you were Spanish.

I do like Spaniards. They’re so aristocratic.

But it’s very strange that we never met before.

You were a friend of Richard’s at Oxford

And Richard and I became great friends

Not long afterwards, didn’t we, Richard?

G
OMEZ
.
I expect that was after I had left England.

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
Of course, that explains it. After Oxford

I suppose you went back to … where is your home?

G
OMEZ
.
The republic of San Marco.

M
RS.
C
ARGHILL
.
                                   Went back to San Marco.

Señor Gomez, if it’s true you’re staying at Badgley Court,

I warn you — I’m going to cross-examine you

And make you tell me all about Richard

In his Oxford days.

G
OMEZ.
                         On one condition:

That you tell me all about Dick when you knew him.

M
RS
. C
ARGHILL
[
pats
her
despatch-case
]
.
Secret for secret, Señor Gomez!

You’ve got to be the first to put your cards on the table!

M
ONICA
.
Father, I think you should take your rest now.

— I must explain that the doctors were very insistent

That my father should rest and have absolute quiet

Before every meal.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
      But Michael and I

Must continue our discussion. This afternoon, Michael.

M
ONICA
.
No, I think you’ve had enough talk for to-day.

Michael, as you’re staying so close at hand

Will you come back in the morning? After breakfast?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Yes, come tomorrow morning.

M
ICHAEL
.
                                    Well, I’ll come tomorrow morning.

M
RS
. C
ARGHILL
.
Are you staying in the neighbourhood, Michael?

Your father is such an old friend of mine

That it seems most natural to call you Michael.

You don’t mind, do you?

M
ICHAEL
.
                            No, I don’t mind.

I’m staying at the George — it’s not far away.

M
RS
. C
ARGHILL
.
Then I’d like to walk a little way with you.

M
ICHAEL
.
Delighted, I’m sure.

G
OMEZ.
                                         Taking a holiday?

You’re in business in London, aren’t you?

M
ICHAEL
.
Not a holiday, no. I’ve been in business in London,

But I think of cutting loose, and going abroad.

M
RS
. C
ARGHILL
.
You must tell me all about it. Perhaps I could advise you.

We’ll leave you now, Richard. Au revoir, Monica.

And Señor Gomez, I shall hold you to your promise!

[
Exeunt
Mrs. C
ARGHILL
and
M
ICHAEL
]

G
OMEZ
.
Well, Dick, we’ve got to obey our doctors’ orders.

But while we’re here, we must have some good talks

About old times. Bye bye for the present.

[
Exit
]

M
ONICA
.
Father, those awful people. We mustn’t stay here.

I want you to escape from them.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
                           What I want to escape from

Is myself, is the past. But what a coward I am,

To talk of escaping! And what a hypocrite!

A few minutes ago I was pleading with Michael

Not to try to escape from his own past failures:

I said I knew from experience. Do I understand the meaning

Of the lesson I would teach? Come, I’ll start to learn again.

Michael and I shall go to school together.

We’ll sit side by side, at little desks

And suffer the same humiliations

At the hands of the same master. But have I still time?

There is time for Michael. Is it too late for me, Monica?

CURTAIN

Same
as
Act
Two.
Late
afternoon
of
the
following
day.
M
ONICA
seated
alone.
Enter
C
HARLES
.

C
HARLES
.
Well, Monica, here I am. I hope you got my message.

M
ONICA
.
Oh Charles, Charles, Charles, I’m so glad you’ve come!

I’ve been so worried, and rather frightened.

It was exasperating that they couldn’t find me

When you telephoned this morning. That Mrs. Piggott

Should have heard my beloved’s voice

And I couldn’t, just when I had been yearning

For the sound of it, for the caress that is in it!

Oh Charles, how I’ve wanted you! And now I
need
you.

C
HARLES
.
My darling, what I want is to know that you need me.

On that last day in London, you admitted that you loved me,

But I wondered … I’m sorry, I couldn’t help wondering

How much your words meant. You didn’t seem to need me then.

And you said we weren’t engaged yet …

M
ONICA
.
                                                         We’re engaged now.

At least
I’m
engaged. I’m engaged to you for ever.

C
HARLES
.
There’s another shopping expedition we must make!

But my darling, since I got your letter this morning

About your father and Michael, and those people from his past,

I’ve been trying to think what I could do to help him.

If it’s blackmail, and that’s very much what it looks like,

Do you think I could persuade him to confide in me?

M
ONICA
.
Oh Charles! How could anyone blackmail Father?

Father, of all people the most scrupulous,

The most austere. It’s quite impossible.

Father with a guilty secret in his past!

I just can’t imagine it.

[C
LAVERTON
has
entered
unobserved]

M
ONICA
.
I never expected you from
that
direction, Father!

I thought you were indoors. Where have you been?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON.
Not far away. Standing under the great beech tree.

M
ONICA
.
Why under the beech tree?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
                               I feel drawn to that spot.

No matter. I heard what you said about guilty secrets.

There are many things not crimes, Monica,

Beyond anything of which the law takes cognisance:

Temporary failures, irreflective aberrations,

Reckless surrenders, unexplainable impulses,

Moments we regret in the very next moment,

Episodes we try to conceal from the world.

Has there been nothing in your life, Charles Hemington,

Which you wish to forget? Which you wish to keep unknown?

C
HARLES
.
There are certainly things I would gladly forget, Sir,

Or rather, which I wish had never happened.

I can think of things you don’t yet know about me, Monica,

But there’s nothing I would ever wish to conceal from you.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
If there’s nothing, truly nothing, that you couldn’t tell Monica

Then all is well with you. You’re in love with each other —

I don’t need to be told what I’ve seen for myself!

And if there is nothing that you conceal from
her

However important you may consider it

To conceal from the rest of the world — your soul is safe.

If a man has one person, just one in his life,

To whom he is willing to confess everything —

And that includes, mind you, not only things criminal,

Not only turpitude, meanness and cowardice,

But also situations which are simply ridiculous,

When he has played the fool (as who has not?) —

Then he loves that person, and his love will save him.

I’m afraid that I’ve never loved anyone, really.

No, I do love my Monica — but there’s the impediment:

It’s impossible to be quite honest with your child

If you’ve never been honest with anyone older,

On terms of equality. To one’s child one can’t reveal oneself

While she is a child. And by the time she’s grown

You’ve woven such a web of fiction about you!

I’ve spent my life in trying to forget myself,

In trying to identify myself with the part

I had chosen to play. And the longer we pretend

The harder it becomes to drop the pretence,

Walk off the stage, change into our own clothes

And speak as ourselves. So I’d become an idol

To Monica. She worshipped the part I played:

How could I be sure that she would love the actor

If she saw him, off the stage, without his costume and makeup

And without his stage words. Monica!

I’ve had your love under false pretences.

Now, I’m tired of keeping up those pretences,

But I hope that you’ll find a little love in your heart

Still, for your father, when you know him

For what he is, the broken-down actor.

M
ONICA
.
I think I should only love you the better, Father,

The more I knew about you. I should understand you better.

There’s nothing I’m afraid of learning about Charles,

There’s nothing I’m afraid of learning about you.

C
HARLES
.
I was thinking, Sir — forgive the suspicion —

From what Monica has told me about your fellow guests,

Two persons who, she says, claim a very long acquaintance —

I was thinking that if there’s any question of blackmail,

I’ve seen something of it in my practice at the bar.

I’m sure I could help.

M
ONICA
.
                         Oh Father, do let him.

C
HARLES
.
At least, I think I know the best man to advise you.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Blackmail? Yes, I’ve heard that word before,

Not so very long ago. When I asked him what he wanted.

Oh no, he said, I want nothing from you

Except your friendship and your company.

He’s a very rich man. And she’s a rich woman.

If people merely blackmail you to get your company

I’m afraid the law can’t touch them.

C
HARLES.
                                                 Then why should you submit?

Why not leave Badgley and escape from them?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Because they are not real, Charles. They are merely ghosts:

Spectres from my past. They’ve always been with me

Though it was not till lately that I found the living persons

Whose ghosts tormented me, to be only human beings,

Malicious, petty, and I see myself emerging

From my spectral existence into something like reality.

M
ONICA.
But what did the ghosts mean? All these years

You’ve kept them to yourself. Did Mother know of them?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Your mother knew nothing about them. And I know

That I never knew your mother, as she never knew me.

I thought that she would never understand

Or that she would be jealous of the ghosts who haunted me.

And I’m still of that opinion. How open one’s heart

When one is sure of the wrong response?

How make a confession with no hope of absolution?

It was not her fault. We never understood each other.

And so we lived, with a deep silence between us,

And she died silently. She had nothing to say to me.

I think of your mother, when she lay dying:

Completely without interest in the life that lay behind her

And completely indifferent to whatever lay ahead of her.

M
ONICA
.
It is time to break the silence! Let us share your ghosts!

C
HARLES
.
But these are only human beings, who can be dealt with.

M
ONICA
.
Or only ghosts, who can be exorcised!

Who are they, and what do they stand for in your life?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
… And yet they’ve both done better for themselves

In consequence of it all. He admitted as much,

Fred Culverwell …

M
ONICA
.
                      Fred Culverwell?

Who is Fred Culverwell?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
               He no longer exists.

He’s Federico Gomez, the Central American,

A man who’s made a fortune by his own peculiar methods,

A man of great importance and the highest standing

In his adopted country. He even has sons

Following in their father’s footsteps

Who are also successful. What would
he
have been

If he hadn’t known me? Only a schoolmaster

In an obscure grammar school somewhere in the Midlands.

As for Maisie Batterson …

M
ONICA
.
                                   Maisie Batterson?

Who is Maisie Batterson?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
                 She no longer exists.

Nor the musical comedy star, Maisie Montjoy.

There is Mrs. John Carghill, the wealthy widow.

But Freddy Culverwell and Maisie Batterson,

And Dick Ferry too, and Richard Ferry —

These are my ghosts. They were people with good in them,

People who might all have been very different

From Gomez, Mrs. Carghill and Lord Claverton.

Freddy admired me, when we were at Oxford;

What did I make of his admiration?

I led him to acquire tastes beyond his means: