Chapter 2

[It is part of Alice's regret, for which she keeps a nearly secret sigh, that we couldn't have real bees and butterflies. She thinks it would be so jolly to see the bees and butterflies go among the audience and settle on the buttonholes and sprays they wear and bring back the sense of gardens to the people there.

Uncle, do you know how Clown told me how to tell the difference?

UNCLE EDWARD. You minx!

ALICE. Put your hand into the butterfly hive, and if they sting you, you know it's the bees.

UNCLE EDWARD. Did he? Well, go on and tell them the rest.

ALICE. Yes. Columbine has run away again. The story's always got to be that. Either Columbine runs away from somebody, or somebody runs away with her. That's because the soul is always struggling to be free. This time Cousin Clown and Uncle Pantaloon helped her. She could twist them round her little finger. And she made a great mistake in running away with this very sham-serious young man.

UNCLE EDWARD. Sham-serious?

ALICE. He only thinks he's serious because he reads books all day long. And she married him, and he's turned out to be most awfully dull. And I'm most awfully sorry for her. He treats her like a bit of furniture. Isn't it funny the way the soul will fall in love ... and with the most unaccountable people; and you know how you say "I can't think what she sees in the man...." But a god can see ... and an artist. And Harlequin's a bit of both. So when he comes along ... Uncle, the rest of it isn't a very nice story. Will they mind?

UNCLE EDWARD. They? They'll like it all the better.

ALICE. Well, you see the husband being so dull, she wants somebody to take her out and show her things and be attentive. And there's the Man of the World. And things are getting rather serious. For Cousin Clown and Uncle Pantaloon aren't any use. They're just stupid and friendly and nice, like all one's country cousins. But just in time comes Harlequin-Mercury. He has no wings left to his feet, because you wear off wings rather soon if you wander about the world. And his wand hasn't any snakes left. It's just painted white wood. And it's a good thing we've come to the jokes about the sausages, because, now Harlequin's only a strolling player, he's sometimes awfully hungry.

UNCLE EDWARD. Very true. Are they ready?

ALICE. I'll see.

[So she turns and sticks her head through the curtains.

Yes.

UNCLE EDWARD. Music.

[And the music begins again.

Some are all for a bell, and again others are for a gong, but ...

[He wields his trusty mallet for three hard whacks on the floor. And then the two of them draw back the curtains on the second scene.

* * * * *

A line of dark cypress trees; a blue sky and an Italian landscape. A path to a house. A young man lying on the ground reading. His name is Gelsomino. The music tells him that he hears Columbine. He stirs, looks round, frowns, and goes back to his book. Columbine flies out of the house.

ALICE. [Radiant and proud.] This is Columbine.

[And what should Columbine be like? Well, she is just like what you'd most like her to be. She has a rose in her hand. She stops as she sees her husband, then shyly puts out her arms to him, but he cannot see that, for his back is turned. She creeps up to him and drops the rose on his book. He brushes the rose away and waves her away too.

He's not really angry, but you see he's married to her, and he can't bear being interrupted.

[Columbine stands looking--deliberately looking her prettiest; wistful, appealing.

I think that's been her mistake. If she'd ...

UNCLE EDWARD. Sh!

ALICE. Sorry!

[Mechanically he has put the rose in the book for a marker, and is moving away. But now we see--or if we don't see, we hear in the music--the Man of the World on his way.

The Man of the World. I told you!

[Such a man of the world! But when you can dress in vermilion and purple and gold and wear the biggest cloak and the largest sword that ever was and twist your moustache as outrageously as you please, what's easier than to fascinate such a child as Columbine? She curtseys to him as he bows to her. She beckons to her husband to join them. But he, lost now in the landscape, now in his reopened book, waves only a distant greeting, and will not budge. The Man of the World smiles a most worldly smile, and soon he and pretty Columbine are strolling towards the house; she looking down at the flagged walk and the flowers that border it, he looking down at her, with eyes too greedy to be kind.

What a pity, isn't it?

[Then the music tells us quite unmistakably that Pantaloon and Clown are tumbling along.

Listen! Pantaloon and Clown! They are always coming to lunch. Because if actors like this know there is lunch ...

UNCLE EDWARD. Hush!

[And on they tumble; the Pantaloon and Clown that Children know! Clown has a basket that he slyly sets down and Pantaloon falls over it, of course. Gelsomino joins them, willy-nilly; for they fetch him there, because Clown has a joke to tell.

ALICE. This is the beehive and butterfly-hive story. The music does bees and butterflies beautifully, doesn't it? And I told you the joke besides, so it's quite easy to follow. Gelsomino never sees it. He is dull.

[Clown does sigh deeply over Gelsomino's unmoved face. But he tries again. He takes from his basket the entirely impossible corpse of a cat. Pantaloon chuckles silently. But Alice laughs out loud.

Oh! I'd forgotten that one. It's one of his very old ones ... but I like it. He says ... "Somebody's thrown away this perfectly good cat." Gelsomino doesn't think it a bit funny.

[Gelsomino doesn't. He sniffs and retires disgusted. Clown juggles with the cat to cheer himself up. Then he flings it recklessly high in air and you hear it fall (the big drum does this) with a loud plomp in the road.

Back stroll Columbine and the Man of the World. But she is looking up at him now, and the music tells us that her heart is beating fast. She welcomes Clown and Pantaloon with a kiss, one for each. Clown is so funny when he is kissed. And she makes them known to the Man of the World. Clown is so funny when he bows. He can't bow all he wants to without knocking Pantaloon over. Then Columbine has to help pick him up and comfort him and kiss him again. Then there is the meal to be prepared. Off they run, all three, and on they bring it, drinkables, eatables, table and chairs.

Only Gelsomino sits aside. The Man of the World goes to him to ask what book so absorbs him, friendly, faux bonhomme. Gelsomino responds at once. Books are important. And, as he lifts his up, the rose drops out. The Man of the World picks it up and--"May he keep such a trifle?" "By all means" nods Gelsomino, wondering. And Columbine, there with the dish in her hands, sees it, and--there's very nearly no macaroni for lunch.

But some one else sees it, too--sees it and sees all. This is Harlequin, who has sprung somehow from behind the trees.

There's Harlequin ... with his wand and his mask. He's watching. Now you watch.

UNCLE EDWARD. What are you laughing at? The many times you've seen this!

ALICE. I never can help it. This is where Clown tries to steal the breakfast, and he never remembers that Harlequin's close behind.

[And, indeed, while the others most ostentatiously don't see, Clown and Pantaloon do steal bread and sausages and beer--and into the basket they all go. Not the beer; that goes down the neck of Clown. Then Columbine calls them to breakfast. Harlequin is presented to the company. Gelsomino has greeted him even more coldly.

He is weary of her relations.

[But, behold, they discover there is no breakfast. Clown discovers it, and is more amazed and innocent than any. Columbine is in desp But Harlequin rises and waves his wand and strikes on the table, and breakfast appears. Clown, in a panic, turns to his basket. But, behold, that is empty now.

Then they have breakfast. And Clown gets a lot and Pantaloon very little. Gelsomino hasn't come to the table at all, so Columbine goes to fetch him. But he isn't hungry, he won't come. And, turning, disappointed, she sees the Man of the World lifting, not his glass to toast her, but the rose. Harlequin sees, too. And he rises to wave his wand again. Gelsomino starts to move away.

He's getting so cross. And he says ... "Do, for Heaven's sake, let me read in peace." You know!

[But, with a flash of his wand, Harlequin strikes the book.

There! He has magicked the book all empty.

[And, sure enough, we see Gelsomino turn the empty pages in despair. It is the simplest of tricks. Then Harlequin points to where the Man of the World woos Columbine with those eyes of his, those greedy eyes. But Gelsomino will not see.

He's out of temper now, so he pretends he doesn't care.

[Harlequin points to the rose that Gelsomino so lightly let fall. The Man of the World is pressing it to his lips.

He points to the rose because that's a--that's a...! Oh, what's the word, Uncle?

UNCLE EDWARD. Symbol.

ALICE. Thank you ... Symbol of Columbine's true wifely love for him. And what the pointing says is: Are you going to throw that away, too? Don't be a silly fool!

[The Man of the World is taking his leave. The rose is at her lips now.

And what he says is To-night ... just like that. Only I can't say it. Which means he'll come back to-night and carry her off and love her ever so. And he might, what's more, if it wasn't for...! But you'll see.

[Suddenly Gelsomino goes to Columbine and demands the rose, imperiously, with a gesture not to be denied.

That means he says he's her husband, and can't he have it if he likes? And she won't give it him now. And she's quite right. I wouldn't either. Nor would any woman. Look!

[And Columbine has torn the rose in pieces and flung them on the ground, and flung herself off. And then Gelsomino flings himself down in self-reproachful despair. But all this flinging shows a lover's quarrel, and there's life and hope in that. But Alice is young and stern.

Serve him right! And if it wasn't for Harlequin ....

UNCLE EDWARD. Hush!

[Harlequin has called to Clown and Pantaloon. And, like conspirators, they stand there and most elaborately they weave a plot. It's a most difficult plot to follow. It involves a dark night and tiptoes and a signal given. It involves, too, a cloak and a skirt and a bonnet for Clown; and this attracts him so much he can attend to little else.

ALICE. Do you guess what's going to happen? Uncle, they've forgotten the lights. Oh, this is the bit I love.

UNCLE EDWARD. [In a hoarse whisper.] St! George!

[Suddenly on the little stage day becomes night. What had George to do with it?

[In a hoarse whisper still.] Bring 'em round a bit ... the number two steels.

[And the moon, obediently turning, floods the little stage. Indeed it is pretty. Uncle Edward can't contain himself. And he has given it away anyhow.

Romantic, isn't it? And just the colour moonlight ought to be.

[The music tells us this is real romance. Dark figures are flitting among the trees. Who are they? Gelsomino, Harlequin, Pantaloon. The Man of the World, wrapped dramatically in a great black cloak, arrives. "Arrives" is poor. He approaches. Pantaloon totters down to him. "Wait, and your love will come." He waits and his love comes, waddling most amazingly and wrapped in the tablecloth. We are sure it's Clown, and who wouldn't be? But the Man of the World--for a real Man of the World--is strangely deceived. He kneels to her adoringly; he rises and would embrace her passionately.

ALICE. "Love of my life," he says. "Let us away!"

[Harlequin waves his wand. The tablecloth has gone. It is Clown indeed, clownish and undoubted.

Yes, it's Clown, it's Clown, it's Clown! And Clown says:--"Whither away, fair sir?" And the Man of the World just withers.

[He grinds his teeth, does the Man of the World (if there is anything in the orchestra that will do it). And he goes, defeated. "Exit, baffled, the Man of the World."

Alice is breathless.

Harlequin and Gelsomino are alone now, and Harlequin wraps Gelsomino, all trembling as he is, in the cloak which the Man of the World dropped there. They wait. Then comes poor Columbine creeping in, timid and ashamed. She half-dreads from the stern cloaked figure. She turns to her home to kiss her hand to it. But Harlequin with his wand lures her forward. And she goes, she goes. Then the wand is waved again, and the cloak is off. It is her husband; and she shrinks, this time in terror. He stands like a stone. She waits for a blow--for a curse. But suddenly he kneels among the petals of the forgotten rose. Is it he begging forgiveness of her? She has no thought for that; only that she always loved him. She bends to him, he takes her hands. He rises and she lifts her face. Their lips join.

Alice and Uncle Edward draw the curtains.

There! That's how they get back among the gods.

* * * * *

We don't travel to the next Scene too quickly. Alice has gone back to her little chair, and there she sits silent, her chin cupped in her hand, her eyes dreamy. Uncle Edward clears his throat noisily several times. Then he puts on his spectacles and looks at her.

UNCLE EDWARD. Wool-gathering?

ALICE. I love a love story. And she's such a darling, and always, all through the ages, all through what Clown calls the longest weekend on record, she falls in love and falls in love ...and falls in love.

UNCLE EDWARD. Come, now, it's only storytelling. Don't let it get on your mind. Here, I want to speak to you.

[Alice most obediently goes over to him, and he whispers to her.

ALICE. [By no means in a whisper.] But perhaps George is busy with the next scene.

UNCLE EDWARD. Never you mind.

[Away she goes and through the curtains, leaving Uncle Edward to fill his pipe. But she's back almost at once and full of smiles.

UNCLE EDWARD. [Anxiously.] Well, what did he say?

ALICE. He said:--"I was thinking of having one myself, Miss Whistler."

[And there follows her through the curtains a hand and arm holding a foaming pint of beer, which she takes across to her Uncle. The beer goes the way of all beer.

UNCLE EDWARD. [After wiping his mouth, most politely, with the cheerfullest looking handkerchief you ever saw.] On the warm side. Go on with your bit.

[Alice takes her talking place again, feet together, hands behind her. Then a long breath.

ALICE. So the years went by. And they acted in Italy, and they acted in France, and they acted in England. Which is where we've got to now, in about seventeen hundred and something. All sorts of odd people got added to the company, and dropped out again on the journeys. In France they found Pierrot. But, being a Frenchman, he hated travelling; so they left him there. Nobody knows who Pierrot was ... at least I don't.

UNCLE EDWARD. My dear, if we start on what we don't know, we'll be here all night ... and the next.

ALICE. I'll skip lots then ... all about Mr. Rich and the great Harlequins. People liked them better than Garrick! And now we come to the next story. It's England, and it's London. It's about Columbine running away. It must always be about that. The hero runs away with her. Or, strictly speaking, p'raps this time it's her that runs away with him.

UNCLE EDWARD. Grammar.

ALICE. Her ... or she that runs away with he ... or him! She's a country girl come to be a chambermaid in London. A singing chambermaid, she is; they had them in the old plays, and it must have brightened the hotels lots. And she's called Richardson for short. Harlequin's a valet in the same house. And why they're servants now instead of actors is because it was about this time people began to think that Art and Religion and Love were things you could just ring the bell for, and up they would come and wait on you. So this is another sort of a...symbol. And the gods have lost their magic.

UNCLE EDWARD. [Much alarmed.] What?

ALICE. All right, Uncle; it's to make a surprise. [And then to reassure the audience, who, bless them, aren't alarmed at all.] They really haven't, and they never can. They may lose their magicky magic; for the world grows up like we do. But Harlequin can still see deep into the hearts of men, and Columbine's so sweet that you can't help loving her though you don't know why. And that's the realest magic of all. There!

Pantaloon's the hero's lawyer ... because when you're an old 'un you're always a bit of a lawyer ... you can't help it. And Clown is Charles, his friend, a country squire, come up to swagger in London because they did. The story's the same story really ... it always is ... just twisted about. The Italian young man was buried in books, which was bad enough. But this young man is so drowned deep in himself ... which is worse ... that he's almost nothing but clothes. In fact he has so dropped right through himself, that he isn't himself at all. There's nothing left of him but the reflection in his mirror. In his mirror! Do remember that ... it's important.... And Harlequin has to make a man of him ... because Harlequin is the spirit of man wanting to come to life. It's the young man's wedding morning, and Harlequin-valet--is putting out his wedding suit. There's a Woman of the World this time instead of a Man of the World, who is going to marry him only for his money. But Columbine, the chambermaid that he has never even noticed ...

[Behind the dosed curtains a girl's voice is heard singing a simple country song.

There! they've begun ... because I've been so long. That's her song. She sings as she goes through the rooms a-dusting them. And when she sings, little wild flowers grow up through the chinks of the boards.

UNCLE EDWARD. I suppose they are ready.

[She pokes her head between the curtains. Uncle Edward has really melted to this last touch. He is wreathed in smiles.

She's a wonderful child. Knows the whole thing backwards. Thinks of new bits for herself! I call to mind her mother saying ...

[Alice has turned back.

ALICE. Ready when we've counted twenty.

UNCLE EDWARD. Right.

[Alice counts: you can see her lips move. Uncle Edward hums his counting as an accompaniment to the little song.

* * * * *

And so we have got to the Eighteenth Century. And we're to have a comedy of manners, and a nice study of clothes. All rather shapely; for it contains a real Beau, and the only valet who was ever a hero, and the only hero who ever had Mercury to valet him.

There is a good deal of dressing up in this scene, and a neat ploy of dressing down, and a man's soul comes into being all over an affair of a looking-glass. Which makes a pretty piece of work.

Alice knows Hogarth through the--shall we say?--nicer prints, and Austin Dobson through the daintiest of Ballads. This scene is a sort of mixture to her of early reading, and visits with her Uncle to the National Gallery, and old bits of China, and dumpy little leather-bound volumes of "The Spectator", the real "Spectator", which she can just remember on the fourth shelf from the top near the window.

You may add, for your own personal satisfaction, when you are sitting and looking on, all that tense excitement the very words "Eighteenth Century" awaken in the properly balanced mind. Wigs and coaches and polite highwaymen, and lonely gibbets on still more lonely moors, and the Bath road with its chains and posts, all come into the background. Pedlars and cries of Pottles of Cherries, Puppet Showmen, and Clowns on stilts and French watergilders, and the sound of swords early in the morning in Leicester Fields: the touch of them all should be there. And also St. James's Street crammed with sedan chairs, and black pages with parrots, and the rattle of dice at White's or Almack's, and the hurrying feet of the Duke of Queensberry's running footmen. Such romantic dreams should come to you. Sliding panels and gentlemen driving heiresses to Gretna Green, and secret meeting places, and Fleet marriages and the scent of lavender, musk, and bergamot!

But the song is nearly over and the curtains are drawn back.

The room might be a background to a picture by Zoffany, dim and mellow and empty. There is a door leading to the passage; another that must lead to the Beau's bedroom. There is a fireplace with a fire burning. A portrait of the Woman of the World is over the fireplace. There is a dressing-table by the fireplace, with a tall wig stand and a big arm-chair by it. There is a bureau with writing materials. There are cupboards in the wall full of clothes and stockings and shoes. The bedroom door is open.

Harlequin-Valet stands listening until the sound of the song dies away. He has a clothes' brush in his hand. Then he places the clothes he has been brushing on the Beau's chair in a ridiculous semblance of a man. He adds a wig to the wig stand which is behind it, puts a patch on the wig block; a cane to one sleeve, a snuff-box to the other; puts shoes to their place, so that the stockings dangle into them, and then stands back to admire his work. He bows low.

Columbine dances on with a feather brush in her hand. He takes her to the clothes, and presents her to them with every formality. She curtseys.

ALICE. You see, she's a new maid, and he's pretending that that's her master. Lord Eglantine ... Betty Richardson! It's rather wicked of them.

[Harlequin waves his clothes' brush, and the wig stand bows back. He waves it again, and all the clothes tumble together in a heap.

One hears the front door bang. Harlequin waves Columbine into the bedroom, sweeps the clothes together into a neat pile and stands waiting by the door. There enters Lord Eglantine, the Beau. A trifle pale, disordered, calm. He has been gambling all night. To the rhythm of a minuet Harlequin takes his cloak, hat, and cane, takes off his coat and gets him into a gorgeous dressing-gown, and so into his chair. And there he sits looking for all the world like the bundle of clothes come to life.

In the next room Columbine begins to sing again, and Lord Eglantine leans forward to listen.

EGLANTINE. Maunds of cowslips, honey bags of bees! Whose voice is that?

HARLEQUIN. Ten thousand pardons, my lord, it is the chambermaid.

EGLANTINE. She has a name?

HARLEQUIN. Richardson, my lord.

EGLANTINE. Richardson. Are there people called Richardson? Interesting!

HARLEQUIN. I will stop her, my lord. We did not expect your lordship to return so soon.

EGLANTINE. No. A woman singing ... in my bedroom. Dusting yesterday's cares away to make room for the cares of to-morrow. Put that down. I may want to say it again. What is she singing? You know everything.

HARLEQUIN. A country song, my lord.

EGLANTINE. Is the country like that? Handkerchief.

[The word has hardly left his lips before the handkerchief, neatly unfolded, is in his hand. What a valet!

She has stopped. Put the door ajar so that I see her.

[Harlequin looks at the door. It opens and stands obediently ajar.

A picture of innocence. Putting her hair tidy before my mirror. She is like a ... [He has almost forgotten those little things that grow so prettily.] ... when I was a boy they grew in the garden.

HARLEQUIN. Flower, my lord?

EGLANTINE. I must give her a guinea. Give me a guinea. Send her to me.

HARLEQUIN. Certainly, my lord.

[He beckons to Columbine, and she dances on.

EGLANTINE. So you are a chambermaid?