Dear Brutus Part 16

MABEL (who comes of a good family). I think he would expect it of us.

PURDIE (after trying again). There is no budging him.

MABEL (appeased). At any rate, we have done the civil thing.

(She has now time to regard the room more attentively, including the tray of coffee cups which MATEY had left on the table in a not unimportant moment of his history.) There have evidently been people here, but they haven't drunk their coffee. Ugh! cold as a deserted egg in a bird's nest. Jack, if you were a clever detective you could construct those people out of their neglected coffee cups. I wonder who they are and what has spirited them away?

PURDIE. Perhaps they have only gone to bed. Ought we to knock them up?

MABEL (after considering what her mother would have done). I think not, dear. I suppose we have run away, Jack--meaning to?

PURDIE (with the st.u.r.diness that weaker vessels adore). Irrevocably.

Mabel, if the dog-like devotion of a lifetime ... (He becomes conscious that something has happened to LOB'S leer. It has not left his face but it has s.h.i.+fted.) He is not shamming, do you think?

MABEL. Shake him again.

PURDIE (after shaking him). It's all right. Mabel, if the dog-like devotion of a lifetime ...

MABEL. Poor little Joanna! Still, if a woman insists on being a pendulum round a man's neck ...

PURDIE. Do give me a chance, Mabel. If the dog-like devotion of a lifetime ...

(JOANNA comes through the curtains so inopportunely that for the moment he is almost pettish.)

May I say, this is just a little too much, Joanna!

JOANNA (unconscious as they of her return to her dinner gown). So, sweet husband, your soul is still walking alone, is it?

MABEL (who hates coa.r.s.eness of any kind). How can you sneak about in this way, Joanna? Have you no pride?

JOANNA (das.h.i.+ng away a tear). Please to address me as Mrs. Purdie, madam. (She sees LOB.) Who is this man?

PURDIE. We don't know; and there is no waking him. You can try, if you like.

(Failing to rouse him JOANNA makes a third at table. They are all a little inconsequential, as if there were still some moon-s.h.i.+ne in their hair.)

JOANNA. You were saying something about the devotion of a lifetime; please go on.

PURDIE (diffidently). I don't like to before you, Joanna.

JOANNA (becoming coa.r.s.e again). Oh, don't mind me.

PURDIE (looking like a note of interrogation). I should certainly like to say it.

MABEL (loftily). And I shall be proud to hear it.

PURDIE. I should have liked to spare you this, Joanna; you wouldn't put your hands over your ears?

JOANNA (alas). No, sir.

MABEL. Fie, Joanna. Surely a wife's natural delicacy ...

PURDIE (severely). As you take it in that spirit, Joanna, I can proceed with a clear conscience. If the dog-like devotion of a lifetime--(He reels a little, staring at LOB, over whose face the leer has been wandering like an insect.)

MABEL. Did he move?

PURDIE. It isn't that. I am feeling--very funny. Did one of you tap me just now on the forehead?

(Their hands also have gone to their foreheads.)

MABEL. I think I have been in this room before.

PURDIE (flinching). There is something coming rus.h.i.+ng back to me.

MABEL. I seem to know that coffee set. If I do, the lid of the milk jug is chipped. It is!

JOANNA. I can't remember this man's name; but I am sure it begins with L.

MABEL. Lob.

PURDIE. Lob.

JOANNA. Lob.

PURDIE. Mabel, your dress?

MABEL (beholding it). How on earth...?

JOANNA. My dress! (To PURDIE.) You were in knickerbockers in the wood.

PURDIE. And so I am now. (He sees he is not.) Where did I change? The wood! Let me think. The wood ... the wood, certainly. But the wood wasn't the wood.

JOANNA (revolving like one in pursuit). My head is going round.

MABEL. Lob's wood! I remember it all. We were here. We did go.

PURDIE. So we did. But how could...? where was...?

JOANNE. And who was...?

MABEL And what was...?

PURDIE (even in this supreme hour a man). Don't let go. Hold on to what we were doing, or we shall lose grip of ourselves. Devotion.

Something about devotion. Hold on to devotion. 'If the dog-like devotion of a lifetime...' Which of you was I saying that to?

MABEL. To me.

PURDIE. Are you sure?