Mary Rose

Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

The scene is a room in a small Sussex manor house that has long been for sale. It is such a silent room that whoever speaks first here is a bold one, unless indeed he merely mutters to himself, which they perhaps allow. All of this room’s past which can be taken away has gone. Such light as there is comes from the only window, which is at the back and is incompletely shrouded in sacking. For a moment this is a mellow light, and if a photograph could be taken quickly we might find a disturbing smile on the room’s face, perhaps like the Mona Lisa’s, which came, surely, of her knowing what only the dead should know. There are two doors, one leading downstairs; the other is at the back, very insignificant, though it is the centre of this disturbing history. The wall-paper, heavy in the adherence of other papers of a still older date, has peeled and leans forward here and there in a grotesque bow, as men have hung in chains; one might predict that the next sound heard here will be in the distant future when another piece of paper loosens. Save for two packing-cases, the only furniture[4] is a worn easy-chair doddering by the unlit fire, like some foolish old man. We might play with the disquieting fancy that this room, once warm with love, is still alive but is shrinking from observation, and that with our departure they cunningly set to again at the apparently never-ending search which goes on in some empty old houses.

Some one is heard clumping up the stair, and the caretaker enters. It is not she, however, who clumps; she has been here for several years, and has become sufficiently a part of the house to move noiselessly in it. The first thing we know about her is that she does not like to be in this room. She is an elderly woman of gaunt frame and with a singular control over herself. There may be some one, somewhere, who can make her laugh still, one never knows, but the effort would hurt her face. Even the war, lately ended, meant very little to her. She has shown a number of possible purchasers over the house, just as she is showing one over it now, with the true caretaker’s indifference whether you buy or not. The few duties imposed on her here she performs conscientiously, but her greatest capacity is for sitting still in the dark. Her work over, her mind a blank, she sits thus rather than pay for a candle. One knows a little more about life when he knows the Mrs. Oterys, but she herself is unaware[5] that she is peculiar, and probably thinks that in some such way do people in general pass the hour before bedtime. Nevertheless, though saving of her candle in other empty houses, she always lights it on the approach of evening in this one.

The man who has clumped up the stairs in her wake is a young Australian soldier, a private, such as in those days you met by the dozen in any London street, slouching along it forlornly if alone, with sudden stoppages to pass the time (in which you ran against him), or in affable converse with a young lady. In his voice is the Australian tang that became such a friendly sound to us. He is a rough fellow, sinewy, with the clear eye of the man with the axe whose chief life-struggle till the war came was to fell trees and see to it that they did not crash down on him. Mrs. Otery is showing him the house, which he has evidently known in other days, but though interested he is unsentimental and looks about him with a tolerant grin.

HARRY. Not it, no, no, never. This wasn’t the drawing-room, my cabbage; at least not in my time.

MRS. OTERY (indifferently). I only came here[6] about three years ago and I never saw the house furnished, but I was told to say this was the drawing-room. (With a flicker of spirit.) And I would thank you not to call me your cabbage.

HARRY (whom this kind of retort helps to put at his ease). No offence. It’s a French expression, and many a happy moment have I given to the mademoiselles by calling them cabbages. But the drawing-room! I was a little shaver when I was here last, but I mind we called the drawing-room the Big Room; it wasn’t a little box like this.

MRS. OTERY. This is the biggest room in the house. (She quotes drearily from some advertisement which is probably hanging in rags on the gate.) Specially charming is the drawing-room with its superb view of the Downs. This room is upstairs and is approached by——

HARRY. By a stair, containing some romantic rat-holes. Snakes, whether it’s the room or not, it strikes cold; there is something shiversome about it.

[7]I’ve shivered in many a shanty in Australy, and thought of the big room at home and the warmth of it. The warmth! And now this is the best it can do for the prodigal when he returns to it expecting to see that calf done to a turn. We live and learn, missis.

HARRY (cheered). I like your spirit. You and me would get on great if I had time to devote to your amusement. But, see here, I can make sure whether this was the drawing-room. If it was, there is an apple-tree outside there, with one of its branches scraping on the window. I ought to know, for it was out at the window down that apple-tree to the ground that I slided one dark night when I was a twelve-year-old, ran away from home, the naughty blue-eyed angel that I was, and set off to make my fortune on the blasted ocean. The fortune, my—my lady friend—has still got the start of me, but the apple-tree should be there to welcome her darling boy.

MRS. OTERY. I have heard tell there was once a tree there; and you can see the root if you look down.

HARRY. Yes, yes, I see it in the long grass, and a bit of the seat that used to be round it. This is the drawing-room right enough, Harry, my boy. There were blue curtains to that window, and I used to hide behind them and pounce out upon Robinson Crusoe. There was a sofa at this end, and I had my first lessons in swimming on it. You are a fortunate woman, my petite, to be here drinking in these moving memories. There used to be a peacock, too. Now, what the hell could a peacock be doing in this noble apartment?

MRS. OTERY. I have been told a cloth used to hang on the wall here, tapestries they’re called,[9] and that it had pictures of peacocks on it. I dare say that was your peacock.

HARRY. Gone, even my peacock! And I could have sworn I used to pull the feathers out of its tail. The clock was in this corner, and it had a wheezy little figure of a smith that used to come out and strike the hour on an anvil. My old man used to wind that clock up every night, and I mind his rage when he found out it was an eight-day clock. The padre had to reprove him for swearing. Padre? What’s the English for padre? Damme, I’m forgetting my own language. Oh yes, parson. Is he in the land of the living still? I can see him clear, a long thin man with a hard sharp face. He was always quarrelling about pictures he collected.

MRS. OTERY. The parson here is a very old man, but he is not tall and thin, he is little and roundish with a soft face and white whiskers.

HARRY. Whiskers? I can’t think he had whiskers. (Ruminating.) Had he whiskers? Stop a bit, I believe it is his wife I’m thinking about. I doubt I don’t give satisfaction as a[10] sentimental character. Is there any objection, your ladyship, to smoking in the drawing-room?

HARRY. Useful in trench warfare. It’s not a knife, it’s a visiting-card. You leave it on favoured parties like this.

MRS. OTERY. Come along then. (She wants to lead him downstairs, but the little door at the back has caught his eye.)

[11]MRS. OTERY (avoiding looking at it). Nothing, it’s just a cupboard door.

HARRY (not budging). I’ll explain what I mean. That door—it’s coming back to me—it leads into a little dark passage.

HARRY. That can’t be all. Who ever heard of a passage wandering about by itself in a respectable house! It leads—yes—to a single room, and the door of the room faces this way.

HARRY. I think—yes—the room in there has two stone windows—and wooden rafters.

HARRY. Queer your anxiety to stop me, when you knew I would find the door locked.

HARRY (cunningly). I suppose you are just shivering because the room is so chilly.

HARRY. Not me. It was just my manly curiosity to see the old home that brought me. I’m for Australy again. (Suddenly turning on her.) What is wrong with this house?

[14]MRS. OTERY (wetting her lips). You have heard that, have you? Gossiping in the village, I suppose?

HARRY. I have heard some other things as well. I have heard they had to get a caretaker from a distance, because no woman hereabout would live alone in this house.

HARRY. I have heard that that caretaker was bold and buxom when she came, and that now she is a scared woman.

HARRY. I have heard she’s been known to run out into the fields and stay there trembling half the night.

Of course, I see they couldn’t have meant you. Just foolish stories that gather about an old house.

Is it a ghost? They say it’s a ghost. What is it gives this house an ill name?

MRS. OTERY. Use as brave words as you like when you have gone, but I advise you, my lad, to keep a civil tongue while you are here. (In her everyday voice.) There is no use showing you the rest of the house. If you want to be stepping, I have my work to do.

HARRY. We have got on so nicely I wonder if you would give me a mug of tea. Not a cup, we drink it by the mugful where I hail from.

HARRY. No, no, I’m sure the Prodigal got his tea in the drawing-room, though what made them make such a fuss about that man beats me.

MRS. OTERY (sullenly). You are meaning to go into that room. I wouldn’t if I was you.

HARRY (liking the tenacity of her). Very well, I promise—unless, of course, she comes peeping out at the handsome gentleman. Your ghost has naught to do wi’ me. It’s a woman, isn’t it?

See here, I’ll sit in this chair till you come back, saying my prayers. (Feeling the chair.) You’re clammy cold, old dear. It’s not the ghost’s chair by any chance, is it?

You needn’t look so scared, woman; she doesn’t walk till midnight, does she?

MRS. OTERY (looking at his knife in the wood). I wouldn’t leave that knife lying about.

(At which remark MRS. OTERY fixes him with her eyes and departs.

HARRY is now sitting sunk in the chair, staring at the fire. It goes out, but he remains[17] there motionless, and in the increasing dusk he ceases to be an intruder. He is now part of the room, the part long waited for, come back at last. The house is shaken to its foundation by his presence, we may conceive a thousand whispers. Then the crafty work begins. The little door at the back opens slowly to the extent of a foot. Thus might a breath of wind blow it if there were any wind. Presently HARRY starts to his feet, convinced that there is some one in the room, very near his knife. He is so sure of the exact spot where she is that for a moment he looks nowhere else.

In that moment the door slowly closes. He has not seen it close, but he opens it and calls out, ‘Who is that? Is any one there?’ With some distaste he enters the passage and tries the inner door, but whether it be locked or held it will not open. He is about to pocket his knife, then with a shrug of bravado sends it quivering back into the wood—for her if she can get it. He returns to the chair, but not to close his eyes; to watch and to be[18] watched. The room is in a tremble of desire to get started upon that nightly travail which can never be completed till this man is here to provide the end.

The figure of HARRY becomes indistinct and fades from sight. When the haze lifts we are looking at the room as it was some thirty years earlier on the serene afternoon that began its troubled story. There are rooms that are always smiling, so that you may see them at it if you peep through the keyhole, and MRS. MORLAND’S little drawing-room is one of them. Perhaps these are smiles that she has left lying about. She leaves many things lying about; for instance, one could deduce the shape of her from studying that corner of the sofa which is her favourite seat, and all her garments grow so like her that her wardrobes are full of herself hanging on nails or folded away in drawers. The pictures on her walls in time take on a resemblance to her or hers though they may be meant to represent a waterfall, every present given to her assumes[19] some characteristic of the donor, and no doubt the necktie she is at present knitting will soon be able to pass as the person for whom it is being knit. It is only delightful ladies at the most agreeable age who have this personal way with their belongings. Among MRS. MORLAND’S friends in the room are several of whom we have already heard, such as the blue curtains from which HARRY pounced upon the castaway, the sofa on which he had his first swimming lessons, the peacock on the wall, the clock with the smart smith ready to step out and strike his anvil, and the apple-tree is in full blossom at the open window, one of its branches has even stepped into the room.

MR. MORLAND and the local clergyman are chatting importantly about some matter of no importance, while MRS. MORLAND is on her sofa at the other side of the room, coming into the conversation occasionally with a cough or a click of her needles, which is her clandestine way of telling her husband not to be so assertive to his guest. They are all[20] middle-aged people who have found life to be on the whole an easy and happy adventure, and have done their tranquil best to make it so for their neighbours. The squire is lean, the clergyman of full habit, but could you enter into them you would have difficulty in deciding which was clergyman and which was squire; both can be peppery, the same pepper. They are benignant creatures, but could exchange benignancies without altering. MRS. MORLAND knows everything about her husband except that she does nearly all his work for him. She really does not know this. His work, though he rises early to be at it, is not much larger than a lady’s handkerchief, and consists of magisterial duties, with now and then an impressive scene about a tenant’s cowshed. She then makes up his mind for him, and is still unaware that she is doing it. He has so often heard her say (believing it, too) that he is difficult to move when once he puts his foot down that he accepts himself modestly as a[21] man of this character, and never tries to remember when it was that he last put down his foot. In the odd talks which the happily married sometimes hold about the future he always hopes he will be taken first, being the managing one, and she says little beyond pressing his hand, but privately she has decided that there must be another arrangement. Probably life at the vicarage is on not dissimilar lines, but we cannot tell as we never meet MR. AMY’S wife. MR. AMY is even more sociable than MR. MORLAND; he is reputed to know every one in the county, and has several times fallen off his horse because he will salute all passers-by. On his visits to London he usually returns depressed because there are so many people in the streets to whom he may not give a friendly bow. He likes to read a book if he knows the residence or a relative of the author, and at the play it is far more to him to learn that the actress has three children, one of them down with measles, than to follow her histrionic genius. He and his host[22] have the pleasant habit of print-collecting, and a very common scene between them is that which now follows. They are bent over the squire’s latest purchase.)

MR. AMY. Very interesting. A nice little lot. I must say, James, you have the collector’s flair.

MR. MORLAND. Oh, well, I’m keen, you know, and when I run up to London I can’t resist going a bust in my small way. I picked these up quite cheap.

MR. AMY. Yes, you have, James. You got them at Peterkin’s in Dean Street, didn’t you? Yes, I know you did. I saw them there. I wanted them too, but they told me you had already got the refusal.

MR. MORLAND. Sorry to have been too quick for you, George, but it is my way to nip in. You have some nice prints yourself.

[23]MR. AMY. No. (The saint leaves him.) You missed something yesterday at Peterkin’s though.

MR. AMY. I’ve got it. I am a poor man, but I thought ten pounds wasn’t too much for a Gainsborough.

MR. AMY. What do you precisely mean by that ‘Ah,’ James? If it had been signed, could I have got it for ten pounds? You are always[24] speaking about your flair; I suppose I can have a little flair sometimes too.

MR. MORLAND. I am not always speaking about my flair, and I don’t believe it is a Gainsborough.

MR. AMY (with dignity). Please don’t get hot, James. If I had thought you would grudge me my little find—which you missed—I wouldn’t have brought it to show you.

MR. AMY. This is it. (The squire has to examine it like a Christian.) There! I have the luck this time. I hope you will have it next. (The exultation now passes from the one face into the other.)

MR. MORLAND. Granted, but he never placed them badly. That horse destroys the whole balance of the composition.

MR. MORLAND. I don’t like that remark; for your sake I don’t like it. No one would have been more pleased than myself if you had picked up a Gainsborough. But this! Besides, look at the paper.

MR. MORLAND. It is machine-made. Gainsborough was in his grave years before that paper was made.

MR. AMY (grandly). I am not in a tantrum, and I should be obliged if you wouldn’t George me. Smile on, Mr. Morland, I congratulate you on your triumph; you have hurt an old friend to the quick. Bravo, bravo. Thank you, Mrs. Morland, for a very pleasant visit. Good day.

MR. AMY. I thank you, Mrs. Morland, but I need no one to see me into my coat. Good day.

MR. MORLAND. I heard all right. Good old George! It’s a pity he has no flair. He might as well order his prints by wireless.

MR. MORLAND. Wireless it’s to be called. There is an article about it in that paper. The fellow says that before many years have passed we shall be able to talk to ships on the ocean.

MR. MORLAND. Of course it’s nonsense. And yet there is no denying, as he says, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

MR. MORLAND (edging away from trouble). Oh, that. My dear, that is all dead and done with long ago.

MRS. MORLAND (thankfully). Yes. But sometimes when I look at Mary Rose—so happy——

MR. MORLAND (wriggling). That infant! Fanny, is it wise to seek trouble before it comes?

MRS. MORLAND. She can’t marry, James, without your first telling the man. We agreed.

MR. MORLAND. Yes, I suppose I must—though I’m not certain I ought to. Sleeping dogs— Still, I’ll keep my word, I’ll tell him everything.

MR. MORLAND. That is all right. Let her play about with Simon and the like. It may make a tomboy of her, but it will keep young men out of her head.

MR. MORLAND. Same thing. Why, Fanny, I still tip him. At least I did a year ago. And he liked it: ‘Thanks no end, you are a trump,’ he said, and then slipped behind the screen to see how much it was.

MR. MORLAND. It’s not nice of you to put such ideas into my head. I’ll go down to the boat-house at once. If this new invention was in working order, Fanny, I could send him packing without rising from my seat. I should[30] simply say from this sofa, ‘Is my little Mary Rose there?’

MARY ROSE. No; I’m not sure whom I’m hiding from. From myself, I think. Daddy, I’m frightened.

MR. MORLAND. You don’t mean that anything has really frightened you, Mary Rose?

MARY ROSE (liking this way of putting it). Yes, he has. It is all Simon’s fault.

MARY ROSE (in little mouthfuls). He is at the foot of the tree. He is not coming up by the tree. He wants to come in by the door. That shows how important it is.

MARY ROSE. You see, his leave is up to-morrow, and he—wants to see you, Daddy, before he goes.

MR. MORLAND. I am sure he does. And I know why. I told you, Fanny. Mary Rose, do you see my purse lying about?

MR. MORLAND. Yes, you gosling. There is a fiver in it, and that is what Master Simon wants to see me about.

MRS. MORLAND. Oh, James! Dearest, tell me what Simon has been saying to you; whisper it, my love.

MRS. MORLAND. James, you may as well be told bluntly; it isn’t your fiver that Simon wants, it is your daughter.

MR. MORLAND (vainly trying to push her from him). By—by—by the—by all that is horrible I’ll do more than scold him. The puppy, I’ll—I’ll——

MARY ROSE (entreating). Not more than scold him, Daddy—not more. Mary Rose couldn’t bear it if it was more.

Daddy, I am so awfully sorry that this has occurred. Mummy, what can we do? (She cries.)

MRS. MORLAND (soothing her). My own, my pet. But he is only a boy, Mary Rose, just a very nice boy.

MARY ROSE (awed). Mother, that is the wonderful, wonderful thing. He was just a boy—I quite understand that—he was a mere[35] boy till to-day; and then, Daddy, he suddenly changed; all at once he became a man. It was while he was—telling me. You will scarcely know him now, Mother.

MARY ROSE. He is quite different from breakfast-time. He doesn’t laugh any more, he would never think of capsizing the punt intentionally now, he has grown so grave, so manly, so—so protective, he thinks of everything now, of freeholds and leaseholds, and gravel soil, and hot and cold, and the hire system.

MR. MORLAND (with spirit). He has got as far as that, has he! Does he propose that this marriage should take place to-morrow?

MARY ROSE (eager to soften the blow). Oh no, not for quite a long time. At earliest, not till his next leave.

MARY ROSE. Do you mind my going upstairs into the apple-room and sometimes knocking on the floor? I think it would be a help to him to know I am so near by.

MR. MORLAND. It got me on the quick when she said, ‘You won’t try to put him against me, Daddy’—because that is just what I suppose I have got to do.

MR. MORLAND. No, it wouldn’t. (Testily.) He will be an ass if it bothers him.

SIMON. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! (He ceases uncomfortably, like one who has made his statement.)

MR. MORLAND. You will need to say more than that, you know, Simon, to justify your conduct.

MRS. MORLAND (pardonably). We feel that even we know to some extent what Mary Rose is.

SIMON (tacking). Yes, rather; and so you can see how it has come about. (This effort cheers him.) I would let myself be cut into little chips for her; I should almost like it. (With a brief glance at his misspent youth.) Perhaps you have thought that I was a rather larky sort in the past?

SIMON (eagerly). Have you noticed that? Mary Rose has noticed it too. That is my inner man coming out. (Carefully.) To some young people marriage is a thing to be entered on lightly, but that is not my style. What I want is to give up larks, and all that, and insure my life, and read the political articles.

Yes, and I promise you it won’t be like losing a daughter but like gaining a son.

SIMON (guiltily). Well— (Tap, tap.) Oh, another thing, I should consider it well worth being married to Mary Rose just to have you, Mrs. Morland, for a mother-in-law.

SIMON. Well— At any rate, never shall I forget the respect and affection I owe to the parents of my beloved wife.

SIMON (handsomely). No, she isn’t. But can she be? Mrs. Morland, can she be?

MRS. MORLAND. That is as may be, Simon. It is only a possible engagement that we are discussing at present.

SIMON. Yes, yes, of course. (Becoming more difficult to resist as his reason goes.) I used to be careless about money, but I have thought of a trick of writing the word Economy in the inside[41] of my watch, so that I’ll see it every time I wind up. My people——

SIMON. Yes; she is doing that to help me. I promised to knock back as soon as I thought things were going well. What do you say? May I?

MRS. MORLAND (braver). No. (Tremulously.) There is a little thing, Simon, that Mary Rose’s father and I feel we ought to tell you about her before—before you knock, my dear. It is not very important, I think, but it is something she doesn’t know of herself, and it makes her a little different from other girls.

[42]SIMON (alighting—sharply). I won’t believe anything against Mary Rose.

MR. MORLAND. It is just something that happened, Simon. She couldn’t help it. It hasn’t troubled us in the least for years, but we always agreed that she mustn’t be engaged before we told the man. We must have your promise, before we tell you, that you will keep it to yourself.

MR. MORLAND. It can’t be told quite in a word. It happened seven years ago, when Mary Rose was eleven. We were in a remote part of Scotland—in the Outer Hebrides.

SIMON. I once went on shore there from the Gadfly, very bleak and barren, rocks and rough grass, I never saw a tree.

[43]MR. MORLAND. It is mostly like that. There is a whaling-station. We went because I was fond of fishing. I haven’t had the heart to fish since. Quite close to the inn where we put up there is—a little island.

MRS. MORLAND. It is quite a small island, Simon, uninhabited, no sheep even. I suppose there are only about six acres of it. There are trees there, quite a number of them, Scotch firs and a few rowan-trees, they have red berries, you know. There seemed to us to be nothing very particular about the island, unless, perhaps, that it is curiously complete in itself. There is a tiny pool in it that might be called a lake, out of which a stream flows. It has hillocks and a glade, a sort of miniature land. That was all we noticed, though it became the most dreaded place in the world to us.

MR. MORLAND. I fished a great deal in the[44] loch between that island and the larger one. The sea-trout were wonderful. I often rowed Mary Rose across to the island and left her there to sketch. She was fond of sketching in those days, we thought them pretty things. I could see her from the boat most of the time, and we used to wave to each other. Then I would go back for her when I stopped fishing.

MRS. MORLAND. I didn’t often go with them. We didn’t know at the time that the natives had a superstition against landing on the island, and that it was supposed to resent this. It had a Gaelic name which means ‘The Island that Likes to be Visited.’ Mary Rose knew nothing of this, and she was very fond of her island. She used to talk to it, call it her darling, things like that.

MR. MORLAND. It was on what was to be our last day. I had landed her on this island as usual, and in the early evening I pulled across to take her off. From the boat I saw her, sitting on a stump of a tree that was her favourite seat, and she waved gaily to me and I to her.[45] Then I rowed over, with, of course, my back to her. I had less than a hundred yards to go, but, Simon, when I got across she wasn’t there.

MRS. MORLAND. All of us. No one in the village went to bed that night. It was then we learned how they feared the island.

MR. MORLAND. The little pool was dragged. There was nothing we didn’t try; but she was gone.

SIMON (distressed). I can’t—there couldn’t—but never mind that. Tell me how you found her.

[46]MRS. MORLAND. The search had long been given up, but we couldn’t come away.

MR. MORLAND. I was wandering one day along the shore of the loch, you can imagine in what state of mind. I stopped and stood looking across the water at the island, and, Simon, I saw her sitting on the tree-trunk sketching.

MR. MORLAND. She waved to me and went on sketching. I—I waved back to her. I got into the boat and rowed across just in the old way, except that I sat facing her, so that I could see her all the time. When I landed, the first thing she said to me was, ‘Why did you row in that funny way, Dad?’ Then I saw at once that she didn’t know anything had happened.

MRS. MORLAND. James brought her back to me just the same merry unselfconscious girl, with no idea that she had been away from me for more than an hour or two.

MRS. MORLAND. We had her back again, Simon; that was the great thing. At first we thought to tell her after we got her home; and then, it was all so inexplicable, we were afraid to alarm her, to take the bloom off her. In the end we decided never to tell her.

MR. MORLAND. They had no explanation for it except that it never took place. You can think that, too, if you like.

MRS. MORLAND. Simon, I am very anxious to be honest with you. I have sometimes thought that our girl is curiously young for her age—as if—you know how just a touch of frost may stop the growth of a plant and yet leave it blooming—it has sometimes seemed to me as if a cold finger had once touched my Mary Rose.

SIMON. What you are worrying about is just her innocence—which seems a holy thing to me.

MR. MORLAND. We have sometimes thought that she had momentary glimpses back into that time, but before we could question her in a cautious way about them the gates had closed and she remembered nothing. You never saw her talking to—to some person who wasn’t there?

MRS. MORLAND. Yes, we think so. But at any rate she has long outgrown those fancies.

Here are the sketches she made. You can take the book away with you and look at them at your leisure.

SIMON. It is a little curious that she has never spoken to me of that holiday. She tells me everything.

MRS. MORLAND. No, that isn’t curious, it is just that the island has faded from her memory. I should be troubled if she began to recall it. Well, Simon, we felt we had to tell you. That is all we know, I am sure it is all we shall ever know. What are you going to do?

You heard? That means it’s all right. You’ll see how she’ll come tearing down to us!

[50]MRS. MORLAND (kissing him). You dear boy, you will see how I shall go tearing up to her. (She goes off.)

MR. MORLAND. So do we, Simon. I suppose that made us love her a little more than other daughters are loved. Well, it is dead and done with, and it doesn’t disturb me now at all. I hope you won’t let it disturb you.

SIMON (undisturbed). Rather not. (Disturbed.) I say, I wonder whether I have noticed her listening for a sound?

SIMON. Oh, lord, yes. ‘The Island that Likes to be Visited.’ It is a queer name. (Boyishly.) I say, let’s forget all about it. (He looks at the ceiling.) I almost wish her mother hadn’t gone up to her. It will make Mary Rose longer in coming down.

MR. MORLAND (humorous). Fanny will think of nicer things to say to her than you could think of, Simon.

SIMON. Yes, I know. Ah, now you are[51] chaffing me. (Apologetically.) You see, sir, my leave is up to-morrow.

MARY ROSE. It isn’t you I am thinking of; it is father, it is poor father. Oh, Simon, how could you? Isn’t it hateful of him, Daddy!

MR. MORLAND. I see I am going to have an abominable day. If you two don’t mind very much being left alone, I think I’ll go up and sit in the apple-room and cry with your mother. It is close and dark and musty up there, and when we feel we can’t stick it any longer I’ll knock on the floor, Simon, as a sign that we are coming down.

MARY ROSE. At it— Being—married. Simon, after we are married you will sometimes let me play, won’t you?

Rather. Why, I’ll go on playing rugger myself. Lots of married people play games.

SIMON. Dearest—precious—my life—my sweetheart. Which name do you like best?

MARY ROSE. I’m not sure. They are all very nice. (She is conscious of the ceiling.) Oughtn’t we to knock to those beloveds to come down?

SIMON. Please don’t. I know a lot about old people, darling. I assure you they don’t mind very much sitting in dull places.

[53]SIMON. Honest Injun, is isn’t selfishness. You see, I have a ton of things to tell you. About how I put it to them, and how I remembered what you told me to say, and the way I got the soft side of them. They have heard it all already, so it would really be selfish to bring them down.

SIMON. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Let’s go back to the boat-house, and then they can come down and be cosy here.

MARY ROSE (gleeful). Let’s! We can stay there till tea-time. (She wants to whirl him away at once.)

SIMON (firmly). My child, you are in my care now; I am responsible for you, and I order you to put on a jacket.

MARY ROSE. Order! Simon, you do say the loveliest things. I’ll put it on at once.

Simon, I’ll tell you a funny thing about me.[54] I may be wrong, but I think I’ll sometimes love you to kiss me, and sometimes it will be better not.

SIMON. All right. Tell me, what were you thinking as you sat up there in the apple-room, waiting?

SIMON. Rather. Honest Injun, we’ll be nailers. Did you think of—our wedding-day?

MARY ROSE. But frightfully clearly. (Suddenly.) Simon, I had such a delicious idea about our honeymoon. There is a place in Scotland—in the Hebrides—I should love to go there.

MARY ROSE. We once went to it when I was little. Isn’t it funny, I had almost forgotten about that island, and then suddenly I saw it quite clearly as I was sitting up there. (Senselessly.)[55] Of course it was the little old woman who pointed it out to me.

SIMON (gently). Mary Rose, there are only yourselves and the three maids in the house, aren’t there?

SIMON (cautiously). I thought—I thought I had a glimpse of a little old woman on the stair to-day.

SIMON. It doesn’t matter, I had made a mistake. Tell me, what was there particular about that place in the Hebrides?

MARY ROSE. Oh, the fishing for father. But there was an island where I often— My little island!

MARY ROSE. Was I? I don’t hear anything. Oh, my dear, my dear, I should love to show you the tree-trunk and the rowan-tree[56] where I used to sketch while father was in the boat. I expect he used to land me on the island because it was such a safe place.

SIMON (troubled). That had been the idea. I am not going to spend my honeymoon by the sea, though. And yet I should like to go to the Hebrides—some day—to see that island.

An island in the Outer Hebrides. A hundred yards away, across the loch at the back, may be seen the greater island of which this might be but a stone cast into the sea by some giant hand: perhaps an evil stone which the big island had to spew forth but could not sink. It is fair to look upon to-day, all its menace hidden under mosses of various hues that are a bath to the eye; an island placid as a cow grazing or a sulky lady asleep. The sun which has left the bleak hills beyond is playing hide and seek on it—one suddenly has the curious fancy to ask, with whom? A blessed spot it might be thought, rather than sinister, were there not those two trees, a fir and a rowan, their arms outstretched for ever southward, as if they had been struck while in full flight and could no longer pray to their gods to carry them away from this island. A young Highlander, a Cameron, passes in a boat at the back. Mary Rose and Simon come into view on the island. We have already heard them swishing a way through whins and bracken that are unseen. They are dressed as English people dress in Scotland.[60] They have been married for four years and are still the gay young creatures of their engagement day. Their talk is the happy nonsense that leaves no ripple unless the unexpected happens.

MARY ROSE (thrilled). I think, I think, I don’t think at all, I am quite sure. This is the place. Simon, kiss me, kiss me quick. You promised to kiss me quick when we found the place.

SIMON (obeying). I am not the man to break my word. At the same time, Mary Rose, I would point out to you that this is the third spot you have picked out as being the place, and three times have I kissed you quick on that understanding. This can’t go on, you know. As for your wonderful island, it turns out to be about the size of the Round Pond.

SIMON. It was obviously made to fit you, or you to fit it; one of you was measured for the other. At any rate, we have now been all round it, and all through it, as my bleeding limbs[61] testify. (The whins have been tearing at him, and he rubs his legs.)

SIMON. Perhaps they like you better than me. Well, we have made a good search for the place where you used to sit and sketch, and you must now take your choice.

MARY ROSE. Simon, I know I’m not clever, but I’m always right. The rowan-berries! I used to put them in my hair. (She puts them in her hair again.) Darling rowan-tree, are you glad to see me back? You don’t look a bit older, how do you think I am wearing? I shall tell you a secret. You too, firry. Come closer, both of you. Put your arms around me, and listen: I am married!

It didn’t like that, Simon, it is jealous. After[62] all, it knew me first. Dearest trees, if I had known that you felt for me in that way—but it is too late now. I have been married for nearly four years, and this is the man. His name is Lieutenant Simon Sobersides. (She darts about making discoveries.)

MARY ROSE. That moss! I feel sure there is a tree-trunk beneath it, the very root on which I used to sit and sketch.

SIMON. This looks like it. ‘M—A—R—’ and there it stops. That is always where the blade of the knife breaks.

SIMON. Don’t you believe it, old tree-trunk. She had forgotten all about you, and you just came vaguely back to her mind because we happened to be in the neighbourhood.

[63]MARY ROSE. Yes, I suppose that is true. You were the one who wanted to come, Simon. I wonder why?

SIMON (with his answer ready). No particular reason. I wanted to see a place you had visited as a child; that was all. But what a trumpery island it proves to be.

MARY ROSE (who perhaps agrees with him). How can you? Even if it is true, you needn’t say it before them all, hurting their feelings. Dear seat, here is one for each year I have been away. (She kisses the trunk a number of times.)

SIMON (counting). Eleven. Go on, give it all the news. Tell it we don’t have a house of our own yet.

MARY ROSE. You see, dear seat, we live with my daddy and mother, because Simon is so often away at sea. You know, the loveliest thing in the world is the navy, and the loveliest thing in the navy is H.M.S. Valiant, and the loveliest thing on H.M.S. Valiant is Lieutenant Simon Sobersides, and the loveliest thing on Lieutenant Simon Sobersides is the little tuft of hair which[64] will keep standing up at the back of his head.

But, listen, you trees, I have a much more wonderful secret than that. You can have three guesses. It is this ... I—have—got—a baby! A girl? No thank you. He is two years and nine months, and he says such beautiful things to me about loving me. Oh, rowan, do you think he means them?

MARY ROSE. Then he is waving it. How clever of him. (She waves her handkerchief.) Now they are gone. Isn’t it funny to think that from this very spot I used to wave to father? That was a happy time.

SIMON. I should be happier here if I wasn’t[65] so hungry. I wonder where Cameron is. I told him after he landed us to tie up the boat at any good place and make a fire. I suppose I had better try to make it myself.

SIMON (who is collecting sticks). All very well, but you will presently be eating more than your share.

MARY ROSE. Do you know, Simon, I don’t think daddy and mother like this island.

MARY ROSE. I shall write to them from the inn this evening. How surprised they will be to know I am there again.

SIMON (casually). I wouldn’t write from there. Wait till we cross to the mainland.

SIMON. Oh, no reason. But if they have a distaste for the place, perhaps they wouldn’t like our coming. I say, praise me, I have got this fire alight.

MARY ROSE (who is occasionally pertinacious). Simon, why did you want to come to my island without me?

SIMON. Did I? Oh, I merely suggested your remaining at the inn because I thought you seemed tired. I wonder where Cameron can have got to.

MARY ROSE. Here he comes. (Solicitously.) Do be polite to him, dear; you know how touchy they are.

CAMERON (in the soft voice of the Highlander). Iss it the wish of Mr. Blake that I should land?

SIMON. We shall tumble out the luncheon if you bring a trout or two. I want you to show my wife, Cameron, how one cooks fish by the water’s edge.

CAMERON. I will do it with pleasure. (He pauses.) There iss one little matter; it iss of small importance. You may haf noticed that I always address you as Mr. Blake. I notice that you always address me as Cameron; I take no offence.

CAMERON. That iss so, ma’am. You may haf noticed that I always address you as ‘ma’am.’ It iss my way of indicating that I consider you a ferry genteel young matron, and of all such I am the humble servant. (He pauses.) In saying I am your humble servant I do not imply that I am not as good as you are. With this brief explanation, ma’am, I will now fetch the trouts.

[68]SIMON (taking advantage of his departure). That is one in the eye for me. But I’m hanged if I mister him.

MARY ROSE. Simon, do be careful. If you want to say anything to me that is dangerous, say it in French.

CAMERON. The trouts, ma’am, having been cleaned in a thorough and yet easy manner by pulling them up and down in the water, the next procedure iss as follows.

I now place the soaking little parcels on the fire, and when the paper begins to burn it will be a sure sign that the trouts iss now ready, like myself, ma’am, to be your humble servants. (He is returning to the boat.)

CAMERON. If it iss agreeable to Mistress Blake I would wish to go back to the boat.

Simon. Good man—and look after the trout. It is the most heavenly way of cooking fish, Mary Rose.

CAMERON. It iss a tasty way, Mr. Blake, but I would not use the word heavenly in this connection.

MARY ROSE. Mais moi, je l’aime; il est tellement— What is the French for an original?

CAMERON. Colloquially coquin might be used, though the classic writers would probably say simply un original.

SIMON (with a groan). Phew, this is serious. What was that book you were reading, Cameron, while I was fishing?

CAMERON. It may be Latin, but in these parts we know no better than to call it Greek.

SIMON. Crushed again! But I dare say it is good for me. Sit down and have pot-luck with us.

CAMERON. I thank you, Mr. Blake, but it would not be good manners for a paid man to sit with his employers.

[71]CAMERON. I am ferry pleased to make Mistress Blake’s acquaintance. Iss Mistress Blake making a long stay in these parts?

MARY ROSE. Thank you (passing him the sandwiches). And now, you know, you are our guest.

CAMERON. I am much obliged. (He examines the sandwiches with curiosity.) Butcher-meat! This iss ferry excellent.

Please to excuse my behaviour. You haf been laughing at me all this time, but you did not know I haf been laughing at myself also, though keeping a remarkable control over my features. I will now haf my laugh out, and then I will explain. (He finishes his laugh.) I will now explain. I am not the solemn prig I haf pretended to you to be, I am really a fairly attractive young man, but I am shy and I haf been guarding against your taking liberties with me, not because of myself, who am nothing, but[72] because of the noble profession it iss my ambition to enter. (They discover that they like him.)

CAMERON. It iss the ministry. I am a student of Aberdeen University, and in the vacation I am a boatman, or a ghillie, or anything you please, to help to pay my fees.

CAMERON. I am obliged to Mr. Blake. And I may say, now that we know one another socially, that there iss much in Mr. Blake which I am trying to copy.

CAMERON. It iss not Mr. Blake’s learning; he has not much learning, but I haf always understood that the English manage without it. What I admire in you iss your ferry nice manners and your general deportment, in all which I haf a great deal to learn yet, and I watch these things in Mr. Blake and take memoranda of them in a little note-book.

[73]CAMERON. You are not, ma’am, it would not be seemly in me. But it iss written in my heart, and also I haf said it to my father, that I will remain a bachelor unless I can marry some lady who iss ferry like Mistress Blake.

MARY ROSE. Simon, you never said anything to me as pretty as that. Is your father a crofter in the village?

CAMERON. Such iss not his purpose. When he has taken his degree he will return and be a crofter again.

CAMERON. He iss getting the grandest thing in the world out of it; he iss getting education.

MARY ROSE (for the first time eating of trout as it should be cooked). Delicious! (She offers a portion to CAMERON.)

CAMERON. No, I thank you. I haf lived on trouts most of my life. This butcher-meat iss more of an excellent novelty to me.

SIMON (curiously). Come, come, are you superstitious, you who are going into the ministry?

MARY ROSE. A bad name, Mr. Cameron? Oh, but what a shame! When I was here long ago, I often came to the island.

SIMON (brazenly). Not I. I have heard that its Gaelic name has an odd meaning—‘The Island that Likes to be Visited,’ but there is nothing terrifying in that.

CAMERON. For one thing, they are saying it has no authority to be here. It was not always here, so they are saying. Then one day it was here.

SIMON. That little incident happened before your time I should say, Mr. Cameron.

[76]SIMON. I thought so. And does the island ever go away for a jaunt in the same way?

CAMERON. There iss the birds. Too many birds come here. The birds like this island more than iss seemly.

MARY ROSE. I think it is a lovely story about the birds. I expect the kind things come because this island likes to be visited.

CAMERON. That iss another thing; for, mark you, Mistress Blake, an island that had visitors[77] would not need to want to be visited—and why has it not visitors? Because they are afraid to visit it.

MARY ROSE. Do tell us; Simon, wouldn’t it be lovely if he would tell us some misty, eerie Highland stories?

CAMERON. There iss many stories. There iss that one of the boy who was brought to this island. He was no older than your baby.

CAMERON. No one knows, Mr. Blake. His father and mother and their friends, they were[78] gathering rowans on the island, and when they looked round he was gone.

CAMERON. That iss a good thing to say, that he had fallen into the water. That iss what I say.

CAMERON. He will be saying that they are not here always, but that they come and go.

MARY ROSE. But if that child heard it, the others must have heard it also as they were with him.

CAMERON. They heard nothing. This iss how it will be. I might be standing close to you, Mistress Blake, as it were here, and I might hear it, ferry loud, terrible, or in soft whispers—no one knows—but I would haf to go, and you will not haf heard a sound.

SIMON. But full of holes, I have no doubt. How long ago is this supposed to have happened, credulous one?

MARY ROSE. Simon, don’t make fun of my island. Do you know any more ducky stories about it, Mr. Cameron?

[80]CAMERON. I cannot tell them if Mr. Blake will be saying things the island might not like to hear.

CAMERON. This one iss about a young English miss, and they say she was about ten years of age.

MARY ROSE. Not so much younger than I was when I came here. How long ago was it?

SIMON. Very likely. But, I say, we mustn’t stay on gossiping. We must be getting back. Did you bail out the boat?

CAMERON. Well, then, the father of this miss[81] he will be fond of the fishing, and he sometimes landed the little one on the island while he fished round it from the boat.

CAMERON. One day the father pulled over for his little one as usual. He saw her from the boat, and it iss said she kissed her hand to him. Then in a moment more he reached the island, but she was gone.

[82]MARY ROSE. But it would not take many minutes to search this darling little island.

MARY ROSE. What a curdling story! Simon dear, it might have been Mary Rose. Is there any more?

CAMERON. There iss more. It was about a month afterwards. Her father was walking on the shore, over there, and he saw something moving on the island. All in a tremble, ma’am, he came across in the boat, and it was his little miss.

CAMERON. It iss not so easy as that. She did not know that anything had happened. She[83] thought she had been parted from her father for but an hour.

SIMON (speaking more lightly than he is feeling). You and your bogies and wraiths, you man of the mists.

CAMERON. It iss not good to disbelieve the stories when you are in these parts. I believe them all when I am here, though I turn the cold light of remorseless Reason on them when I am in Aberdeen.

SIMON. Is that ‘chancey,’ my friend? An island that has such extraordinary powers could surely send its call to Aberdeen or farther.

SIMON. Beware, Mr. Cameron, lest some day when you are preaching far from here the call plucks you out of the very pulpit and brings you back to the island like a trout on a long cast.

[84]CAMERON. I do not like Mr. Blake’s way of talking. I will go and bail the boat.

MARY ROSE. No, of course not; but if it had been, how awful for the girl when her father told her that she had been away for weeks.

SIMON. Perhaps she was never told. He may have thought it wiser not to disturb her.

MARY ROSE. Poor girl! Yes, I suppose that would have been best. And yet—it was taking a risk.

MARY ROSE. Well, not knowing what had happened before, she might come back and—and be caught again. (She draws closer to him.) Little island, I don’t think I like you to-day.

SIMON. If she ever comes back, let us hope it is with an able-bodied husband to protect her.

[85]MARY ROSE (comfortably). Nice people, husbands. You won’t let them catch me, will you, Simon?

SIMON. Let ’em try. (Gaily.) And now to pack up the remnants of the feast and escape from the scene of the crime. We will never come back again, Mary Rose, I’m too frightened!

MARY ROSE. It is a shame to be funny about my island. You poor, lonely isle. I never knew about your liking to be visited, and I dare say I shall never visit you any more. The last time of anything is always sad, don’t you think, Simon?

MARY ROSE. Yes—I suppose—for everything. There must be a last time I shall see you, Simon. (Playing with his hair.) Some day I shall flatten this tuft for the thousandth time, and then never do it again.

SIMON. Some day I shall look for it and it won’t be there. That day I shall say ‘Good riddance.’

[86]MARY ROSE. I shall cry. (She is whimsical rather than merry and merry rather than sad.)

SIMON. That wasn’t the last time at any rate. (To prove it he kisses her again, sportively, little thinking that this may be the last time. She quivers.) What is it?

SIMON. You and your last times. Let me tell you, Mistress Blake, there will be a last time of seeing your baby. (Hurriedly.) I mean only that he can’t always be infantile; but the day after you have seen him for the last time as a baby you will see him for the first time as a little gentleman. Think of that.

MARY ROSE (clapping her hands). The loveliest time of all will be when he is a man and takes me on his knee instead of my putting him on mine. Oh, gorgeous! (With one of her sudden changes.) Don’t you think the sad thing is that[87] we seldom know when the last time has come? We could make so much more of it.

MARY ROSE. Let Cameron do that. I want you to come and sit beside me, Simon, and make love to me.

SIMON. What a life. Let me see now, how does one begin? Which arm is it? I believe I have forgotten the way.

MARY ROSE. Then I shall make love to you. (Playing with his hair.) Have I been a nice wife to you, Simon? I don’t mean always and always. There was that awful day when I threw the butter-dish at you. I am so sorry. But have I been a tolerably good wife on the whole, not a wonderful one, but a wife that would pass in a crowd?

SIMON. Look here, if you are going to butt me with your head in that way, you must take that pin out of your hair.

MARY ROSE. Have I been all right as a[88] mother, Simon? Have I been the sort of mother a child could both love and respect?

SIMON. That is a very awkward question. You must ask that of Harry Morland Blake.

SIMON. Shut up, Mary Rose. I know you: you will be crying in a moment, and you don’t have a handkerchief, for I wrapped it round the trout whose head came off.

MARY ROSE. And there were some other things—almost worse than the butter-dish.

SIMON (shaking his head). I can smile at it now, but at the time I was a miserable man. I wonder I didn’t take to drink.

SIMON. How could an ignorant young husband understand that it was a good[89] sign when his wife threw the butter-dish at him?

SIMON. No doubt I was a ninny. But I had always understood that when a young wife—that then she took the husband aside and went red, or white, and hid her head on his bosom, and whispered the rest. I admit I was hoping for that; but all I got was the butter-dish.

SIMON. I hope so. (Severely.) And that was a dastard trick you played me afterwards.

MARY ROSE. Which? Oh, that! I just wanted you to be out of the way till all was over.

SIMON. I don’t mean your getting me out of the house, sending me to Plymouth. The dastardliness was in not letting them tell me, when I got back, that—that he had arrived.

MARY ROSE. It was very naughty of me. You remember, Simon, when you came in to my room you tried to comfort me by saying it wouldn’t be long now—and I let you maunder on, you darling.

[90]SIMON. Gazing at me with solemn, innocent eyes. You unutterable brat, Mary Rose!

MARY ROSE. You should have been able to read in my face how clever I had been. Oh, Simon, when I said at last, ‘Dearest, what is that funny thing in the bassinette?’ and you went and looked, never shall I forget your face.

SIMON. You are a droll one. Always just when I think I know you at last I have to begin at the beginning again.

MARY ROSE (suddenly). Simon, if one of us had to—to go—and we could choose which one——

MARY ROSE. Well, but if—I wonder which would be best. I mean for Harry, of course.

SIMON. Oh, I haven’t popped off yet. Steady, you nearly knocked over the pickles. (He regards her curiously.) If I did go, I know your[91] first thought would be ‘The happiness of Harry must not be interfered with for a moment.’ You would blot me out for ever, Mary Rose, rather than he should lose one of his hundred laughs a day.

MARY ROSE. It is true, at any rate, that if I was the one to go, that is what I should like you to do.

MARY ROSE (gloriously). Simon, isn’t life lovely! I am so happy, happy, happy. Aren’t you?

MARY ROSE. But you can tie up marmalade. Why don’t you scream with happiness? One of us has got to scream.

SIMON. Then I know which one it will be. Scream away, it will give Cameron the jumps.

SIMON. Here you are. (Handing him the luncheon basket.) You needn’t tie the boat up. Stay there and I’ll stamp out the fire myself.

MARY ROSE. I must say good-bye to my island first. Good-bye, old mossy seat, nice rowan. Good-bye, little island that likes too much to be visited. Perhaps I shall come back when I am an old lady with wrinkles, and you won’t know your Mary Rose.

SIMON. I say, dear, do dry up. I can’t help listening to you when I ought to be getting this fire out.

SIMON. Just as it seems to be out, sparks come again. Do you think if I were to get some stones——?

SIMON (on his knees). I think the fire is done for at last, and that we can go now. How cold and grey it has become. (Smiling, but without looking up.) You needn’t grip your tongue any longer, you know. (He rises.) Mary Rose, where have you got to? Please don’t hide. Dearest, don’t. Cameron, where is my wife?

Twenty-five years have passed, and the scene is again that cosy room in the Morlands’ house, not much changed since we last saw it. If chintzes have faded, others as smiling have taken their place. The time is a crisp autumn afternoon just before twilight comes. The apple-tree, not so easy to renew as the chintzes, has become smaller, but there are a few gallant apples on it. The fire is burning, and round it sit Mr. and Mrs. Morland and Mr. Amy, the Morlands gone smaller like the apple-tree and Mr. Amy bulky, but all three on the whole still bearing their apples. Inwardly they have changed still less; hear them at it as of yore.

[98]MRS. MORLAND. I disagree. You two try if you can look at this picture without laughing.

MR. MORLAND (humorously). Not so old, Fanny. Please to remember that I am two months younger than you.

MRS. MORLAND. How can I forget it when you have been casting it up against me all our married life?

MR. MORLAND (not without curiosity). Fanny and I are seventy-three; you are a bit younger, George, I think?

MR. MORLAND. It seems to me you have been in the sixties longer than it is usual to be in them.

[99]MR. MORLAND. No offence, George, I was only going to say that at seventy-three I certainly don’t feel my age. How do you feel, George, at—at sixty-six? (More loudly, as if MR. AMY were a little deaf.) Do you feel your sixty-six years?

MR. AMY (testily). I am more than sixty-six. But I certainly don’t feel my age. It was only last winter that I learned to skate.

MR. MORLAND. I still go out with the hounds. You forgot to come last time, George.

MR. MORLAND. If I wear glasses occasionally it certainly isn’t because there is anything defective in my eyesight. But the type used by newspapers nowadays is so vile——

MR. MORLAND (not hearing him). I say the[100] type used by newspapers of to-day is vile. Don’t you think so?

MR. AMY. I have just said so. (Pleasantly.) You are getting rather dull of hearing, James.

MR. MORLAND. I am? I like that, George! Why, I have constantly to shout to you nowadays.

MR. AMY. What annoys me is not that you are a little deaf, you can’t help that. But from the nature of your replies I often see that you are pretending to have heard what I said when you did not. That is rather vain, James.

MR. MORLAND. Vain! Now you brought this on yourself, George. I have got something here I might well be vain of, and I meant not to show it to you because it will make you squirm.

MR. MORLAND. I didn’t mean that, George. I am sure that you will be delighted. What do you think of this?

MR. MORLAND. Have you any doubt? I haven’t the slightest. I am sure that it is an early Turner.

MR. MORLAND. What else can it be? Holman suggested a Gurton or even a Dayes. Absurd! Why, Dayes was only a glorified drawing-master. I flatter myself I can’t make a mistake about a Turner. There is something about a Turner difficult to define, but unmistakable, an absolute something. It is a charming view, too; Kirkstall Abbey obviously.

MR. AMY. There is an engraving of Rivaulx in that Copperplate Magazine we were looking at. (He turns up the page.) I have got it, Rivaulx. (He brightens.) Why, this is funny. It is an engraving of that very picture. Hello,[102] hello, hello. (Examining it through his private glass.) And it is signed E. Dayes.

I wouldn’t eat it, James. So it is by Dayes, the drawing-master, after all. I am sorry you have had this disappointment.

MR. AMY. James, this is very painful. Your chagrin I can well understand, but surely your sense of manhood—I regret that I have out-stayed my welcome. I bid you good afternoon. Thank you, Mrs. Morland, for your unvarying hospitality.

MR. MORLAND. I am an irascible old beggar, George. What I should do without you——

MR. AMY. Or I without you. Or either of us without that little old dear, to whom we are a never-failing source of mirth.

Tell Simon when he comes that I shall be in to see him to-morrow. Good-bye, Fanny; I suppose you think of the pair of us as in our second childhood?

MRS. MORLAND. Not your second, George. I have never known any men who have quite passed their first.

MR. MORLAND (ruminating by the fire). He is a good fellow, George, but how touchy he is about his age. And he has a way of tottering off to sleep while one is talking to him.

MRS. MORLAND. I was thinking about the apple-tree, and that you have given the order for its destruction.

MR. MORLAND. It must come down. It is becoming a danger, might fall on some one down there any day.

MRS. MORLAND. I quite see that it has to go. (She can speak of MARY ROSE without a tremor now.) But her tree! How often she made it a ladder from this room to the ground.

MR. MORLAND. Oh yes, of course. Did she use to climb the apple-tree? Yes, I think she did.

MRS. MORLAND. Twenty-five years, a third of our lifetime. It will soon be dark; I can see the twilight running across the fields. Draw the curtains, dear.

MR. MORLAND. I dare say. (He joins her on the sofa, and she sees that he is troubled.)

MR. MORLAND. I am afraid I was rather thoughtless about the apple-tree, Fanny. I hurt you.

MR. MORLAND (doggedly). I will not have another pipe. I hereby undertake to give up[106] smoking for a week as a punishment to myself. (His breast swells a little.)

MR. MORLAND (his breast ceasing to swell). Why is my heart not broken? If I had been a man of real feeling it would have broken twenty-five years ago, just as yours did.

MR. MORLAND. In a way it did. As for me, at the time I thought I could never raise my head again, but there is a deal of the old Adam in me still. I ride and shoot and laugh and give pompous decisions on the bench and wrangle with old George as if nothing much had happened to me. I never think of the island now; I dare say I could go back there and fish. (He finds that despite his outburst his hand has strayed towards his tobacco-pouch.) See what I am doing! (He casts his pouch aside as if it were the culprit.) I am a man enamoured of myself. Why, I have actually been considering, Fanny, whether I should have another dress suit.

MR. MORLAND. At my age! Fanny, this should be put on my tombstone: ‘In spite of some adversity he remained a lively old blade to the end.’

MRS. MORLAND. Perhaps that would be a rather creditable epitaph for any man, James, who has gone through as much as you have. What better encouragement to the young than to be able to tell them that happiness keeps breaking through? (She puts the pipe, which she has been filling, in his mouth.)

MR. MORLAND (as she holds the light). I don’t feel easy about it, not at all easy. (With a happy thought.) At any rate, I won’t get the dress suit.

MR. MORLAND. Isn’t it! I thought of a jacket suit only. The V-shaped waistcoat seems to be what they are all wearing now.

MRS. MORLAND. Not at all. And as for the old Adam in you, dear Adam, there is still something of the old Eve in me. Our trip to Switzerland two years ago with Simon, I enjoyed every hour of it. The little card parties here, am I not called the noisy one; think of the girls I have chaperoned and teased and laughed with, just as if I had never had a girl myself.

MRS. MORLAND. No, indeed; I have passed through the valley of the shadow, dear, but I can say thankfully that I have come out again into the sunlight. (A little tremulously.) I suppose it is all to the good that as the years go by the dead should recede farther from us.

MR. MORLAND. Up there in the misty[109] Hebrides I dare say they think of her as on the island still. Fanny, how long is it since—since you half thought that yourself?

MRS. MORLAND. Ever so many years. Perhaps not the first year. I did cling for a time——

MRS. MORLAND. It is all unfathomable. It is as if Mary Rose was just something beautiful that you and I and Simon had dreamt together. You have forgotten much, but so have I. Even that room—(she looks towards the little door)—that was hers and her child’s during all her short married life—I often go into it now without remembering that it was theirs.

MR. MORLAND. It is strange. It is rather terrible. You are pretty nigh forgotten, Mary Rose.

MRS. MORLAND. That isn’t true, dear. Mary Rose belongs to the past, and we have to live in[110] the present, for a very little longer. Just a little longer, and then we shall understand all. Even if we could drag her back to tell us now what these things mean I think it would be a shame.

MR. MORLAND. Yes, I suppose so. Do you think Simon is a philosopher about it also?

MRS. MORLAND. Don’t be bitter, James, to your old wife. Simon was very fond of her. He was a true lover.

MRS. MORLAND. It just has to be. He had all the clever ones of the day advising, suggesting, probing. He went back to the island every year for a long time.

MRS. MORLAND. If you mean he isn’t heart-broken, he isn’t. Mercifully the wound has healed.

[111]MR. MORLAND. I am not criticising, Fanny. I suppose any one who came back after twenty-five years—however much they had been loved—it might—we—should we know what to say to them, Fanny?

MR. MORLAND. Very little. I heard the train a short time ago, and he might be here—just—if he had the luck to find a cab. But not if he is walking across the fields.

MRS. MORLAND. I do hope he won’t laugh at me for having lit a fire in his room.

MR. MORLAND. Not she, loves it. Always did. Get off your greatcoat, Simon. Down with it anywhere.

MRS. MORLAND (fussing delightedly). How cold your hands are. Come nearer to the fire.

MRS. MORLAND. So nice to have you again. You do like duck, don’t you? The train was late, wasn’t it?

SIMON. No, I left the fields to the two other people who got out of the train. One of[113] them was a lady; I thought something about her walk was familiar to me, but it was darkish, and I didn’t make her out.

SIMON. If I had thought it was Mrs. Colinton I would have offered her a lift. (For a moment he gleams boyishly like the young husband of other days.) Mother, I have news; I have got the Bellerophon, honest Injun!

SIMON. It is like realising the ambition of one’s life. I’m one of the lucky folk, I admit.

SIMON (cordially). Beastly. I have loathed it ever since I slept in the old Britannia, with my feet out at the port-hole to give them air. We all slept that way; must have been a pretty sight from the water. Oh, a beast of a life, but[114] I wouldn’t exchange it for any other in the world. (Lowering.) And if this war does come——

SIMON. Avaunt! I do trust it is not recalling me. I had hoped for at least five clear days.

MRS. MORLAND. It came two days ago. I don’t like them, Simon, never did; they have broken so many hearts.

SIMON. They have made many a heart glad too. It may be from my Harry—at last. Mother, do you think I was sometimes a bit harsh to him?

[115]MRS. MORLAND (shrinking from his face). It can’t be so bad as that. We are all here, Simon.

SIMON (like some better father than he perhaps has been). It is all right, Mother. Don’t you be afraid. It is good news. You are a brave one, you have come through much, you will be brave for another minute, won’t you?

SIMON. It is all right, all right. I wouldn’t say it, surely, if it wasn’t true. Mary Rose[116] has come back. The telegram is from Cameron. You remember who he was. He is minister there now. Hold my hand, and I’ll read it. ‘Your wife has come back. She was found to-day on the island. I am bringing her to you. She is quite well, but you will all have to be very careful.’

SIMON. However changed, Mother, wouldn’t I know my Mary Rose at once! Her hair may be as grey as mine—her face—her little figure—her pretty ways—though they were all gone, don’t you think I would know Mary Rose at[117] once? (He is suddenly stricken with a painful thought.) Oh, my God, I saw her, and I didn’t know her!

SIMON. It had been Cameron with her. They must have come in my train. Mother, it was she I saw going across the fields—her little walk when she was excited, half a run, I recognised it, but I didn’t remember it was hers.

MR. MORLAND. It is rather dark. I—I shouldn’t wonder though there was a touch of frost to-night. I wish I was more use.

CAMERON. It iss true, ma’am. Mr. Blake met us at the gate and he iss with her now. I[118] hurried on to tell you the things necessary. It iss good for her you should know them at once.

CAMERON. I mean, Mrs. Morland, different from what you expect. She iss not different as we are different. They will be saying she iss just as she was on the day she went away.

These five-and-twenty years, she will be thinking they were just an hour in which Mr. Blake and I had left her in some incomprehensible jest.

CAMERON. She does not know me, ma’am, as the boy who was with her that day. When she[119] did not recognize me I thought it best—she was so troubled already—not to tell her.

MR. MORLAND (appealing). But now that she has seen Simon. His appearance, his grey hair—when she saw him she would know.

MR. MORLAND. She must have known that he would never have left her and come home.

CAMERON. That secretly troubles her, but she will not speak of it. There iss some terrible dread lying on her heart.

MRS. MORLAND. He ran away to sea when he was twelve years old. We had a few letters from Australia, very few; we don’t know where he is now.

CAMERON. Two men fishing from a boat saw[120] her. She was asleep by the shore at the very spot where Mr. Blake made a fire so long ago. There was a rowan-tree beside it. At first they were afraid to land, but they did. They said there was such a joy on her face as she slept that it was a shame to waken her.

MR. MORLAND. We are so glad you—had you a comfortable journey, Mary Rose? You would like a cup of tea, wouldn’t you? Is there anything I can do?

MARY ROSE (petulant). It wasn’t—please, it wasn’t. (She goes to her mother.) Tell me, my mother dear.

CAMERON. I haf not, sir. It iss my first[123] visit to England. You cannot hear the sea in this house at all, which iss very strange to me.

CAMERON. I thank you, Mr. Morland, but—in such circumstances do not trouble about me at all.

MR. MORLAND. I do not know if you are interested in prints. I have a pencil sketch by Cousins—undoubtedly genuine——

CAMERON. I regret my ignorance on the subject. This matter, so strange—so inexplicable——

MR. MORLAND. Please don’t talk of it to me, sir. I am—an old man. I have been so occupied all my life with little things—very pleasant—I cannot cope—cannot cope——

MRS. OTERY (who in her other hand has a large cup and saucer). Here is your tea, mister. Are you sitting in the dark? I haven’t been more than the ten minutes I promised you. I was——

[125]HARRY. See here, as I sat in that chair—I wasn’t sleeping, mind you—it’s no dream—but things of the far past connected with this old house—things I knew naught of—they came crowding out of their holes and gathered round me till I saw—I saw them all so clear that I don’t know what to think, woman. (He is a grave man now.) Never mind about that. Tell me about this—ghost.

HARRY. Yes, it is some concern of mine. The folk that used to live here—the Morlands——

HARRY. I have heard it all my days. It is one of the names I bear. I am one of the family.

HARRY. I suppose that is what made them come to me as I sat here. Tell me about them.

MRS. OTERY. It is little I know. They were dead and gone before my time, the old man and his wife.

MRS. OTERY. They had a son-in-law, a sailor.[126] The war made a great man of him before it drowned him.

HARRY. I know that; he was my father. Hard I used to think him, but I know better now. Go on, there’s the other one.

There is no such thing as ghosts. And yet— Is it true about folk having lived in this house and left in a hurry?

MRS. OTERY. All over the house, in every room and on the stairs. I tell you I’ve met her on the stairs, and she drew back to let me pass and said ‘Good evening’ too, timid-like, and at another time she has gone by me like a rush of wind.

HARRY. What is she like? Is she dressed in white? They are allus dressed in white, aren’t they?

MRS. OTERY. She looks just like you or me. But for all that she’s as light as air. I’ve seen—things.

[128]MRS. OTERY. There’s some wouldn’t say that; them that left in a hurry. If she thought you were keeping it from her she would do you a mischief.

MRS. OTERY. Whatever it is she prowls about this cold house searching for, searching, searching. I don’t know what it is.

HARRY (grimly). Maybe I could tell you. I dare say I could even put her in the way of finding him.

HARRY. My old dear, there are worse things than not finding what you are looking for; there is finding them so different from what you had hoped. (He moves about.) A ghost. Oh no—and yet, and yet— See here, I am going into that room.

HARRY. That is how it is to be, missis. Just ten minutes you were out of the room, did you say?

MARY ROSE (puzzled). There was once some one who laughed in this house. Don’t you think laughter is a very pretty sound?

MARY ROSE (confidentially). Would you mind telling me why every one is so old? I don’t know you, do I?

HARRY. I wonder. Take a look. You might[131] have seen me in the old days—playing about—outside in the garden—or even inside.

MARY ROSE (stiffening). I don’t think so. I strongly object to your saying that.

HARRY (desperately desirous to help her). If only there was something I— I know nothing about ghosts—not a thing; can they sit down? Could you——?

HARRY. Where is my knife? Were you standing looking at me with my knife in your hand?

[133]MARY ROSE. I knew once. It is such a long time ago. I am so tired; please can I go away and play now?

HARRY. You have even forgotten the call! With vision as far as I can make out, it was as if, in a way, there were two kinds of dogs out hunting you—the good and the bad.

HARRY. I am far from cross with you. I[134] begin to think it was the good dogs that got you. Are they ghosts in that place?

HARRY. What fairly does me is, if the place is so lovely, what made you leave it?

MARY ROSE. I don’t know. (She thinks his power is great.) Please, I don’t want to be a ghost any more.

HARRY. As far as I can see, if you wasn’t a ghost there you made yourself one by coming back. But it’s no use your expecting me to be able to help you. (She droops at this and he holds out his arms.) Come to me, ghostie; I wish you would.

See here, when I was sitting by the fire alone I seemed to hear you as you once were saying[135] that some day when he was a man you would like to sit on your Harry’s knee.

MARY ROSE (vaguely quoting she knows not whom). The loveliest time of all will be when he is a man and takes me on his knee instead of my taking him on mine.

HARRY. There is a name I would like to call you by, but my best course is not to worry you. Poor soul, I wonder if there was ever a man with a ghost on his knee before.

HARRY. Seems to me you’re feared of being a ghost. I dare say, to a timid thing, being a ghost is worse than seeing them.

HARRY. In this cold house, when you should be searching, do you sometimes play by yourself instead?

HARRY. Do you mind the tuft that used to stand up at the back of—of Simon’s head?

HARRY. And this brings us no nearer what’s to be done with you. I would willingly stay here though I have my clearing in Australy, but you’re just a ghost. They say there are ways of laying ghosts, but I am so ignorant.

HARRY. All I know about them for certain is that they are unhappy because they can’t find something, and then once they’ve got the thing they want, they go away happy and never come back.

HARRY. The one thing clear to me is that you have got that thing at last, but you are too dog-tired to know or care. What you need now is to get back to the place you say is lovely, lovely.

Queer, you that know so much can tell nothing, and them that know nothing can tell so much. If there was any way of getting you to that glory place!

HARRY. It’s easy to call me names, but the thing fair beats me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, but a mere man is so helpless. How should the likes of me know what to do with a ghost that has lost her way on earth? I wonder if what it means is that you broke some law, just to come back for the sake of—of that Harry? If it was that, it’s surely time He overlooked it.

HARRY. What a night of stars! Good old glitterers, I dare say they are in the know, but I am thinking you are too small a thing to get a helping hand from them.

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