FullReads

LADY PEMBURY
(thoughtfully). I shouldn’t have said my husband was idle. But there it is. No two people ever agree as to what is work and what isn’t.

STRANGER
. What do you know about work–you aristocrats?

LADY PEMBURY
(mildly). My husband is only a K.B.E., you know. Quite a recent creation.

STRANGER
(not heeding her). You, who’ve been brought up in the lap of luxury–never known a day’s discomfort in your life—-

LADY PEMBURY
. My dear young man, you really mustn’t tell a woman who has had five children that she has never known a day’s discomfort in her life. . . . Ask any woman.

STRANGER
(upset). What’s that? . . . I didn’t come here to argue with you. You began it. Why can’t you let me alone?

LADY PEMBURY
(going to a side-table and taking up a photograph). Five children–all girls–and now I’m a grandmother. (Showing him the photograph) There! That’s my eldest daughter with her eldest son and my eldest grandchild. Isn’t he a duck? He’s supposed to be like me. . . . I never had a son of my own. (THE STRANGER has taken the photograph in his hand and is holding it awkwardly.) Oh, let me take it away from you. Other’s people’s relations are so uninteresting, aren’t they? (She takes it away and puts it back in its place. Then she returns to her seat and goes on with her work.) So you’ve made a lot of money? How exciting for you!

STRANGER
(grimly). I haven’t got it yet, but it’s coming.

LADY PEMBURY
. Soon?

STRANGER
. To-day.

LADY PEMBURY
. You’re not married, are you?

STRANGER
. You want to know a lot, don’t you? Well, I’m not married.

LADY PEMBURY
. I was thinking how much nicer it is when you can share that sort of news with somebody else, somebody you love. It makes good news so much better, and bad news so much more bearable.

STRANGER
. That’s what you and your husband do, is it?

LADY PEMBURY
(nodding). Always. For eight-and-twenty years.

STRANGER
. He tells you everything, eh?

LADY PEMBURY
. Well, not his official secrets, of course. Everything else.

STRANGER
. Ha! I wonder.

LADY PEMBURY
. But you have nobody, you say. Well, you must share your good news with me. Will you?

STRANGER
. Oh yes, you shall hear about it all right.

LADY PEMBURY
. That’s nice of you. Well then, first question. How much money is it going to be?

STRANGER
(thoughtfully). Well, I don’t quite know yet. What do you say to a thousand a year?

LADY PEMBURY
. Oh, but what a lot!

STRANGER
. You think a thousand a year would be all right. Enough to live on?

LADY PEMBURY
. For a bachelor, ample.

STRANGER
. For a bachelor.

LADY PEMBURY
. There’s no one dependent on you?

STRANGER
. Not a soul. Only got one relation living.

LADY PEMBURY
. Oh?

STRANGER
(enjoying a joke of his own). A father. But I shall not be supporting him. Oh no. Far from it.

LADY PEMBURY
(a little puzzled by this, though the is not going to show it) Then I think you will be very rich with a thousand a year.

STRANGER
. Yes, that’s what I thought. I should think it would stand a thousand.

LADY PEMBURY
. What is it? An invention of some sort?