FullReads

STRANGER
(sulkily). Well, why shouldn’t she be proud? (After a pause) Two years ago, if you want to know.

LADY PEMBURY
. It was then that you found out who your father was?

STRANGER
. That’s right. I found these old letters. She’d kept them locked up all those years. Bit of luck for me.

LADY PEMBURY
(almost to herself). And that was two years ago. And for two years you had your hopes, your ambitions, for two years you were proud and independent. . . . Why did you not come to us then?

STRANGER
(with a touch of vanity). Well, I was getting on all right, you know–and—-

LADY PEMBURY
. And then suddenly, after two years, you lost hope.

STRANGER
. I lost my job.

LADY PEMBURY
. Poor boy! And couldn’t get another.

STRANGER
(bitterly). It’s a beast of a world if you’re down. He’s in the gutter–kick him down–trample on him. Nobody wants him. That’s the way to treat them when they’re down. Trample on ’em.

LADY PEMBURY
. And so you came to your father to help you up again. To help you out of the gutter.

STRANGER
. That’s right.

LADY PEMBURY
(pleadingly). Ah, but give him a chance!

STRANGER
. Now, look here, I’ve told you already that I’m not going to have any of that game.

LADY PEMBURY
(shaking her head sadly). Foolish boy! You don’t understand. Give him a chance to help you out of the gutter.

STRANGER
. Well, I’m—-! Isn’t that what I am doing?

LADY PEMBURY
. No, no. You’re asking him to trample you right down into it, deeper and deeper into the mud and slime. I want you to let him help you back to where you were two years ago–when you were proud and hopeful.

STRANGER
(looking at her in a puzzled way). I can’t make out what your game is. It’s no good pretending you don’t hate the sight of me–it stands to reason you must.

LADY PEMBURY
(smiling). But then women are unreasonable, aren’t they? And I think it is only in fairy-stories that stepmothers are always so unkind.

STRANGER
(surprised). Stepmother!

LADY PEMBURY
. Well, that’s practically what I am, isn’t it? (Whimsically) I’ve never been a stepmother before. (Persuasively) Couldn’t you let me be proud of my stepson?

STRANGER
. Well, you are a one! . . . Do you mean to say that you and your husband aren’t going to have a row about this?

LADY PEMBURY
. It’s rather late to begin a row, isn’t it, thirty years after it’s happened? . . . Besides, perhaps you aren’t going to tell him anything about it.

STRANGER
. But what else have I come for except to tell him?

LADY PEMBURY
. To tell me. . . . I asked you to give him a chance of helping you out of your troubles, but I’d rather you gave me the chance. . . . You see, John would be very unhappy if he knew that I knew this; and he would have to tell me, because when a man has been happily married to anybody for twenty-eight years, he can’t really keep a secret from the other one. He pretends to himself that he can, but he knows all the time what a miserable pretence it is. And so John would tell me, and say he was sorry, and I would say: “It’s all right, darling, I knew,” but it would make him ashamed, and he would be afraid that perhaps I wasn’t thinking him such a wonderful man as I did before. And it’s very bad for a public man like John when he begins to lose faith in what his wife is thinking about him. . . . So let me be your friend, will you? (There is a silence between them for a little. He looks at her wonderingly. Suddenly she stands up, her finger to her lips) H’sh! It’s John. (She moves away from him)