Heartbreak House · Act I (2/2) (1/5)
The Womanservant God bless us! The Young Lady picks up the book and places it on the table. Sorry to wake you, miss, I’m sure; but you are a stranger to me. What might you be waiting here for now?
The Young Lady Waiting for somebody to show some signs of knowing that I have been invited here.
The Womanservant Oh, you’re invited, are you? And has nobody come? Dear! dear!
The Young Lady A wild-looking old gentleman came and looked in at the window; and I heard him calling out, “Nurse, there is a young and attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants.” Are you the nurse?
The Womanservant Yes, miss: I’m Nurse Guinness. That was old Captain Shotover, Mrs. Hushabye’s father. I heard him roaring; but I thought it was for something else. I suppose it was Mrs. Hushabye that invited you, ducky?
The Young Lady I understood her to do so. But really I think I’d better go.
Nurse Guinness Oh, don’t think of such a thing, miss. If Mrs. Hushabye has forgotten all about it, it will be a pleasant surprise for her to see you, won’t it?
The Young Lady It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to find that nobody expects me.
Nurse Guinness You’ll get used to it, miss: this house is full of surprises for them that don’t know our ways.
Captain Shotover Looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient but still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer jacket with a whistle hanging from his neck. Nurse, there is a holdall and a handbag on the front steps for everybody to fall over. Also a tennis racquet. Who the devil left them there?
The Young Lady They are mine, I’m afraid.
The Captain Advancing to the drawing table. Nurse, who is this misguided and unfortunate young lady?
Nurse Guinness She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir.
The Captain And had she no friend, no parents, to warn her against my daughter’s invitations? This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens! A young and attractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left on the steps for hours; and she herself is deposited in the poop and abandoned, tired and starving. This is our hospitality. These are our manners. No room ready. No hot water. No welcoming hostess. Our visitor is to sleep in the toolshed, and to wash in the duckpond.
Nurse Guinness Now it’s all right, Captain: I’ll get the lady some tea; and her room shall be ready before she has finished it. To the Young Lady. Take off your hat, ducky; and make yourself at home. She goes to the door leading to the hall.
The Captain As she passes him. Ducky! Do you suppose, woman, that because this young lady has been insulted and neglected, you have the right to address her as you address my wretched children, whom you have brought up in ignorance of the commonest decencies of social intercourse?
Nurse Guinness Never mind him, doty. Quite unconcerned, she goes out into the hall on her way to the kitchen.
The Captain Madam, will you favor me with your name? He sits down in the big wicker chair.
The Young Lady My name is Ellie Dunn.
The Captain Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship’s chandler with stores which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he became rich. Are you his daughter?
Ellie Indignant. No: certainly not. I am proud to be able to say that though my father has not been a successful man, nobody has ever had one word to say against him. I think my father is the best man I have ever known.
The Captain He must be greatly changed. Has he attained the seventh degree of concentration?
Ellie I don’t understand.
The Captain But how could he, with a daughter? I, madam, have two daughters. One of them is Hesione Hushabye, who invited you here. I keep this house: she upsets it. I desire to attain the seventh degree of concentration: she invites visitors and leaves me to entertain them. Nurse Guinness returns with the tea-tray, which she places on the teak table. I have a second daughter who is, thank God, in a remote part of the Empire with her numskull of a husband. As a child she thought the figurehead of my ship, the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing on earth. He resembled it. He had the same expression: wooden yet enterprising. She married him, and will never set foot in this house again.
Nurse Guinness Carrying the table, with the tea-things on it, to Ellie’s side. Indeed you never were more mistaken. She is in England this very moment. You have been told three times this week that she is coming home for a year for her health. And very glad you should be to see your own daughter again after all these years.
The Captain I am not glad. The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years. My daughter Ariadne was born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes, I am not at home. If she wants anything, let her take it. If she asks for me, let her be informed that I am extremely old, and have totally forgotten her.
Nurse Guinness That’s no talk to offer to a young lady. Here, ducky, have some tea; and don’t listen to him. She pours out a cup of tea.
The Captain Rising wrathfully. Now before high heaven they have given this innocent child Indian tea: the stuff they tan their own leather insides with. He seizes the cup and the teapot and empties both into the leathern bucket.
Ellie Almost in tears. Oh, please! I am so tired. I should have been glad of anything.
Nurse Guinness Oh, what a thing to do! The poor lamb is ready to drop.
The Captain You shall have some of my tea. Do not touch that flyblown cake: nobody eats it here except the dogs. He disappears into the pantry.
Nurse Guinness There’s a man for you! They say he sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar before he was a captain; and the older he grows the more I believe them.
A Woman’s Voice In the hall. Is anyone at home? Hesione! Nurse! Papa! Do come, somebody; and take in my luggage.
Thumping heard, as of an umbrella, on the wainscot.
Nurse Guinness My gracious! It’s Miss Addy, Lady Utterword, Mrs. Hushabye’s sister: the one I told the Captain about. Calling. Coming, miss, coming.
She carries the table back to its place by the door and is hurrying out when she is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who bursts in much flustered. Lady Utterword, a blonde, is very handsome, very well dressed, and so precipitate in speech and action that the first impression (erroneous) is one of comic silliness.
Lady Utterword Oh, is that you, Nurse? How are you? You don’t look a day older. Is nobody at home? Where is Hesione? Doesn’t she expect me? Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on the steps? Where’s Papa? Is everybody asleep? Seeing Ellie. Oh! I beg your pardon. I suppose you are one of my nieces. Approaching her with outstretched arms. Come and kiss your aunt, darling.
Ellie I’m only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps.
Nurse Guinness I’ll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. She takes up the tray.
Ellie But the old gentleman said he would make some himself.
Nurse Guinness Bless you! he’s forgotten what he went for already. His mind wanders from one thing to another.
Lady Utterword Papa, I suppose?
Nurse Guinness Yes, miss.
Lady Utterword Vehemently. Don’t be silly, Nurse. Don’t call me “miss.”
Nurse Guinness Placidly. No, lovey. She goes out with the tea-tray.
Lady Utterword Sitting down with a flounce on the sofa. I know what you must feel. Oh, this house, this house! I come back to it after twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage lying on the steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home to receive anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry because they are always gnawing bread and butter or munching apples, and, what is worse, the same disorder in ideas, in talk, in feeling. When I was a child I was used to it: I had never known anything better, though I was unhappy, and longed all the time⁠—oh, how I longed!⁠—to be respectable, to be a lady, to live as others did, not to have to think of everything for myself. I married at nineteen to escape from it. My husband is Sir Hastings Utterword, who has been governor of all the crown colonies in succession. I have always been the mistress of Government House. I have been so happy: I had forgotten that people could live like this. I wanted to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces (one ought to, you know), and I was looking forward to it. And now the state of the house! the way I’m received! the casual impudence of that woman Guinness, our old nurse! really Hesione might at least have been here: some preparation might have been made for me. You must excuse my going on in this way; but I am really very much hurt and annoyed and disillusioned: and if I had realized it was to be like this, I wouldn’t have come. I have a great mind to go away without another word. She is on the point of weeping.
Ellie Also very miserable. Nobody has been here to receive me either. I thought I ought to go away too. But how can I, Lady Utterword? My luggage is on the steps; and the station fly has gone.
The Captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese lacquer and a very fine tea-set on it. He rests it provisionally on the end of the table; snatches away the drawing board, which he stands on the floor against table legs; and puts the tray in the space thus cleared. Ellie pours out a cup greedily.
The Captain Your tea, young lady. What! another lady! I must fetch another cup. He makes for the pantry.
Lady Utterword Rising from the sofa, suffused with emotion. Papa! Don’t you know me? I’m your daughter.
The Captain Nonsense! my daughter’s upstairs asleep. He vanishes through the half door.
Lady Utterword retires to the window to conceal her tears.
Ellie Going to her with the cup. Don’t be so distressed. Have this cup of tea. He is very old and very strange: he has been just like that to me. I know how dreadful it must be: my own father is all the world to me. Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it.
The Captain returns with another cup.
The Captain Now we are complete. He places it on the tray.
Lady Utterword Hysterically. Papa, you can’t have forgotten me. I am Ariadne. I’m little Paddy Patkins. Won’t you kiss me? She goes to him and throws her arms round his neck.
The Captain Woodenly enduring her embrace. How can you be Ariadne? You are a middle-aged woman: well preserved, madam, but no longer young.
Lady Utterword But think of all the years and years I have been away, Papa. I have had to grow old, like other people.
The Captain Disengaging himself. You should grow out of kissing strange men: they may be striving to attain the seventh degree of concentration.
Lady Utterword But I’m your daughter. You haven’t seen me for years.
The Captain So much the worse! When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices. That is how I have come to think my absent daughter Ariadne a perfect fiend; so do not try to ingratiate yourself here by impersonating her. He walks firmly away to the other side of the room.
Lady Utterword Ingratiating myself indeed! With dignity. Very well, Papa. She sits down at the drawing table and pours out tea for herself.
The Captain I am neglecting my social duties. You remember Dunn? Billy Dunn?
Lady Utterword Do you mean that villainous sailor who robbed you?
The Captain Introducing Ellie. His daughter. He sits down on the sofa.
Ellie Protesting. No⁠—
Nurse Guinness returns with fresh tea.
The Captain Take that hogwash away. Do you hear?
Nurse You’ve actually remembered about the tea! To Ellie. Oh, miss, he didn’t forget you after all! You have made an impression.
The Captain Gloomily. Youth! beauty! novelty! They are badly wanted in this house. I am excessively old. Hesione is only moderately young. Her children are not youthful.
Lady Utterword How can children be expected to be youthful in this house? Almost before we could speak we were filled with notions that might have been all very well for pagan philosophers of fifty, but were certainly quite unfit for respectable people of any age.
Nurse You were always for respectability, Miss Addy.
Lady Utterword Nurse, will you please remember that I am Lady Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor darling, nor doty? Do you hear?
Nurse Yes, ducky: all right. I’ll tell them all they must call you My Lady. She takes her tray out with undisturbed placidity.
Lady Utterword What comfort? what sense is there in having servants with no manners?
Ellie Rising and coming to the table to put down her empty cup. Lady Utterword, do you think Mrs. Hushabye really expects me?
Lady Utterword Oh, don’t ask me. You can see for yourself that I’ve just arrived; her only sister, after twenty-three years’ absence! and it seems that I am not expected.
The Captain What does it matter whether the young lady is expected or not? She is welcome. There are beds: there is food. I’ll find a room for her myself. He makes for the door.
Ellie Following him to stop him. Oh, please⁠—He goes out. Lady Utterword, I don’t know what to do. Your father persists in believing that my father is some sailor who robbed him.
Lady Utterword You had better pretend not to notice it. My father is a very clever man; but he always forgot things; and now that he is old, of course he is worse. And I must warn you that it is sometimes very hard to feel quite sure that he really forgets.
Mrs. Hushabye* bursts into the room tempestuously and embraces Ellie. She is a couple of years older than Lady Utterword*, and even better looking. She has magnificent black hair, eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, and a nobly modelled neck, short at the back and low between her shoulders in front. Unlike her sister she is uncorseted and dressed anyhow in a rich robe of black pile that shows off her white skin and statuesque contour.
Mrs. Hushabye Ellie, my darling, my pettikins kissing her, how long have you been here? I’ve been at home all the time: I was putting flowers and things in your room; and when I just sat down for a moment to try how comfortable the armchair was I went off to sleep. Papa woke me and told me you were here. Fancy your finding no one, and being neglected and abandoned. Kissing her again. My poor love! She deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile Ariadne has left the table and come over to claim her share of attention. Oh! you’ve brought someone with you. Introduce me.
Lady Utterword Hesione, is it possible that you don’t know me?
Mrs. Hushabye Conventionally. Of course I remember your face quite well. Where have we met?
Lady Utterword Didn’t Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this is really too much. She throws herself sulkily into the big chair.
Mrs. Hushabye Papa!
Lady Utterword Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch! Rising angrily. I’ll go straight to a hotel.
Mrs. Hushabye Seizing her by the shoulders. My goodness gracious goodness, you don’t mean to say that you’re Addy!
Lady Utterword I certainly am Addy; and I don’t think I can be so changed that you would not have recognized me if you had any real affection for me. And Papa didn’t think me even worth mentioning!