MATEY (who has his wench in training). Caroliny, no awkward questions. Evening, missis, and I hope you will get him to go along with you quietly. (Looking after COADE.) Watch the old codger dancing.
(Light-hearted as children they dance after him, while JOANNA behind a tree awaits her lord. PURDIE in knickerbockers approaches with misgivings to make sure that his JOANNA is not in hiding, and then he gambols joyously with a charming confection whose name is MABEL. They chase each other from tree to tree, but fortunately not round JOANNA"S tree.)
MABEL (as he catches her). No, and no, and no. I don"t know you nearly well enough for that. Besides, what would your wife say! I shall begin to think you are a very dreadful man, Mr. Purdie.
PURDIE (whose sincerity is not to be questioned). Surely you might call me Jack by this time.
MABEL (heaving). Perhaps, if you are very good, Jack.
PURDIE (of n.o.ble thoughts compact). If only Joanna were more like you.
MABEL. Like me? You mean her face? It is a--well, if it is not precisely pretty, it is a good face. (Handsomely.) I don"t mind her face at all. I am glad you have got such a dependable little wife, Jack.
PURDIE (gloomily). Thanks.
MABEL (seated with a moonbeam in her lap). What would Joanna have said if she had seen you just now?
PURDIE. A wife should be incapable of jealousy.
MABEL Joanna jealous? But has she any reason? Jack, tell me, who is the woman?
PURDIE (restraining himself by a mighty effort, for he wishes always to be true to JOANNA). Shall I, Mabel, shall I?
MABEL (faltering, yet not wholly giving up the chase). I can"t think who she is. Have I ever seen her?
PURDIE. Every time you look in a mirror.
MABEL (with her head on one side). How odd, Jack, that can"t be; when I look in a mirror I see only myself.
PURDIE (gloating). How adorably innocent you are, Mabel. Joanna would have guessed at once.
(Slowly his meaning comes to her, and she is appalled.)
MABEL. Not that!
PURDIE (aflame). Shall I tell you now?
MABEL (palpitating exquisitely). I don"t know, I am not sure. Jack, try not to say it, but if you feel you must, say it in such a way that it would not hurt the feelings of Joanna if she happened to be pa.s.sing by, as she nearly always is.
(A little moan from JOANNA"S tree is unnoticed.)
PURDIE. I would rather not say it at all than that way. (He is touchingly anxious that she should know him as he really is.) I don"t know, Mabel, whether you have noticed that I am not like other men.
(He goes deeply into the very structure of his being.) All my life I have been a soul that has had to walk alone. Even as a child I had no hope that it would be otherwise. I distinctly remember when I was six thinking how unlike other children I was. Before I was twelve I suffered from terrible self-depreciation; I do so still. I suppose there never was a man who had a more lowly opinion of himself.
MABEL. Jack, you who are so universally admired.
PURDIE. That doesn"t help; I remain my own judge. I am afraid I am a dark spirit, Mabel. Yes, yes, my dear, let me leave nothing untold however it may damage me in your eyes. Your eyes! I cannot remember a time when I did not think of Love as a great consuming pa.s.sion; I visualised it, Mabel, as perhaps few have done, but always as the abounding joy that could come to others but never to me. I expected too much of women: I suppose I was touched to finer issues than most.
That has been my tragedy.
MABEL. Then you met Joanna.
PURDIE. Then I met Joanna. Yes! Foolishly, as I now see, I thought she would understand that I was far too deep a nature really to mean the little things I sometimes said to her. I suppose a man was never placed in such a position before. What was I to do? Remember, I was always certain that the ideal love could never come to me. Whatever the circ.u.mstances, I was convinced that my soul must walk alone.
MABEL. Joanna, how could you.
PURDIE (firmly). Not a word against her, Mabel; if blame there is the blame is mine.
MABEL. And so you married her.
PURDIE. And so I married her.
MABEL. Out of pity.
PURDIE. I felt it was a man"s part. I was such a child in worldly matters that it was pleasant to me to have the right to pay a woman"s bills; I enjoyed seeing her garments lying about on my chairs. In time that exultation wore off. But I was not unhappy, I didn"t expect much, I was always so sure that no woman could ever plumb the well of my emotions.
MABEL. Then you met me.
PURDIE. Then I met you.
MABEL. Too late--never--forever--forever--never. They are the saddest words in the English tongue.
PURDIE. At the time I thought a still sadder word was Joanna.
MABEL. What was it you saw in me that made you love me?
PURDIE (plumbing the well of his emotions). I think it was the feeling that you are so like myself.
MABEL (with great eyes). Have you noticed that, Jack? Sometimes it has almost terrified me.
PURDIE. We think the same thoughts; we are not two, Mabel; we are one.
Your hair--
MABEL. Joanna knows you admire it, and for a week she did hers in the same way.
PURDIE. I never noticed.
MABEL. That was why she gave it up. And it didn"t really suit her.
(Ruminating.) I can"t think of a good way of doing dear Joanna"s hair.
What is that you are muttering to yourself, Jack? Don"t keep anything from me.
PURDIE. I was repeating a poem I have written: it is in two words, "Mabel Purdie." May I teach it to you, sweet: say "Mabel Purdie" to me.
MABEL (timidly covering his mouth with her little hand). If I were to say it, Jack, I should be false to Joanna: never ask me to be that.
Let us go on.
PURDIE (merciless in his pa.s.sion). Say it, Mabel, say it. See I write it on the ground with your sunshade.
MABEL. If it could be! Jack, I"ll whisper it to you.