Barrie, J M - Half Hours Page 4

  SIR HARRY. No. (Thus ends the countess.) We had been discussing the thing and (he pulls a wry face) and I had been rather warm

  KATE (with horrid relish). I begin to see. You had been saying it served the hus band right, that the man who could not look after his wife deserved to lose her. It was one of your favourite subjects. Oh, Harry, say it was that !

  SIR HARRY (sourly). It may have been something like that.

  KATE. And all the time the letter was there,

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 65

  waiting; and none of you knew except the clock. Harry, it is sweet of you to tell me. (His face is not sweet. The illiterate woman has used the wrong ad- jective.) I forget what I said precisely in the letter.

  SIR HARRY (pulverising her). So do I. But I have it still.

  KATE (not pulverised). Do let me see it again. (She has observed his eye wander ing to the desk.)

  SIR HARRY. You are welcome to it as a gift. (The fateful letter, a poor little dead thing, is brought to light from a locked drawer.)

  KATE (taking if). Yes, this is it. Harry, how you did crumple it ! (She reads, not with out curiosity.) 'Dear husband I call you that for the last time I am off. I am what you call making a bolt of it. I won't try to excuse myself nor to ex plain, for you would not accept the ex cuses nor understand the explanation.

  66 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  It will be a little shock to you, but only to your pride; what will astound you is that any woman could be such a fool as to leave such a man as you. I am taking nothing with me that belongs to you. May you be very happy. Your un grateful KATE. P.S. You need not try to find out who he is. You will try, but you won't succeed.' (She folds the nasty little thing up.) I may really have it for my very own ?

  SIR HARRY. You really may.

  KATE (impudently). If you would care for a typed copy ?

  SIR HARRY (in a voice with which he used to frighten his grandmother). None of your sauce! (Wincing) I had to let them see it in the end.

  KATE. I can picture Jack Lamb eating it.

  SIR HARRY. A penniless parson's daughter.

  KATE. That is all I was.

  SIR HARRY. We searched for the two of you high and low.

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 67

  KATE. Private detectives ?

  SIR HARRY. They couldn't get on the track of you.

  KATE (smiling). No?

  SIR HARRY. But at last the courts let me serve the papers by advertisement on a man unknown, and I got my freedom.

  KATE. So I saw. It was the last I heard of you.

  SIR HARRY (each word a blow for her). And I married again just as soon as ever I could.

  KATE. They say that is always a compli ment to the first wife.

  SIR HARRY (violently). I showed them.

  KATE. You soon let them see that if one woman was a fool, you still had the pick of the basket to choose from.

  SIR HARRY. By James, I did.

  KATE (bringing him to earth again). But still, you wondered who he was.

  SIR HARRY. I suspected everybody even my pals. I felt like jumping at their throats and crying, 'It 's you !'

  68 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  KATE. You had been so admirable to me,

  an instinct told you that I was sure to

  choose another of the same. SIR HARRY. I thought, it can't be money,

  so it must be looks. Some dolly face.

  (He stares at her in perplexity.) He must

  have had something wonderful about

  him to make you willing to give up all

  that you had with me. KATE (as if he was the stupid one). Poor

  Harry. SIR HARRY. And it couldn't have been

  going on for long, for I would have

  noticed the change in you. KATE. Would you ? SIR HARRY. I knew you so well. KATE. You amazing man. SIR HARRY. So who was he ? Out with it. KATE. You are determined to know ? SIR HARRY. Your promise. You gave your

  word. KATE. If I must (She is the villain of the

  piece, but it must be conceded that in this

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 69

  matter she is reluctant to pain him.) I am sorry I promised. (Looking at him steadily.) There was no one, Harry; no one at all.

  SIR HARRY (rising). If you think you can play with me

  KATE. I told you that you wouldn't like it.

  SIR HARRY (rasping). It is unbelievable.

  KATE. I suppose it is; but it is true.

  SIR HARRY. Your letter itself gives you the lie.

  KATE. That was intentional. I saw that if the truth were known you might have a difficulty in getting your freedom; and as I was getting mine it seemed fair that you should have yours also. So I wrote my good-bye in words that would be taken to mean what you thought they meant, and I knew the law would back you in your opinion. For the law, like you, Harry, has a profound understand ing of women.

  SIR HARRY (trying to straighten himself). I don't believe you yet.

  70 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  KATE (looking not unkindly into the soul of

  this man). Perhaps that is the best way

  to take it. It is less unflattering than

  the truth. But you were the only one.

  (Summing up her life.) You sufficed.

  SIR HARRY. Then what mad impulse

  KATE. It was no impulse, Harry. I had

  thought it out for a year. SIR HARRY. A year? (dazed). One would

  think to hear you that I hadn't been a

  good husband to you. KATE (with a sad smile). You were a good

  husband according to your lights. SIR HARRY (stoutly). I think so. KATE. And a moral man, and chatty, and

  quite the philanthropist. SIR HARRY (on sure ground). All women

  envied you.

  KATE. How you loved me to be envied. SIR HARRY. I swaddled you in luxury. KATE (making her great revelation). That

  was it. SIR HARRY (blankly). What?

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 71

  KATE (who can be serene because it is all over). How you beamed at me when I sat at the head of your fat dinners in my fat jewellery, surrounded by our fat friends.

  SIR HARRY (aggrieved). They weren't so fat.

  KATE (a side issue). All except those who were so thin. Have you ever noticed, Harry, that many jewels make women either incredibly fat or incredibly thin ?

  SIR HARRY (shouting). I have not. (Is it worth while to argue with her any longer ?) We had all the most interesting society of the day. It wasn't only business men. There were politicians, painters, writers

  KATE. Only the glorious, dazzling successes. Oh, the fat talk while we ate too much about who had made a hit and who was slipping back, and what the noo house cost and the noo motor and the gold soup- plates, and who was to be the noo knight.

  SIR HARRY (who it will be observed is un answerable from first to last). Was any-

  72 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  body getting on better than me, and consequently you ?

  KATE. Consequently me! Oh, Harry, you and your sublime religion.

  SIR HARRY (honest heart). My religion? I never was one to talk about religion, but

  KATE. Pooh, Harry, you don't even know what your religion was and is and will be till the day of your expensive funeral. (And here is the lesson that life has taught her.} One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.

  SIR HARRY (quoting from his morning paper). Ambition it is the last infirmity of noble minds.

  KATE. Noble minds !

  SIR HARRY (at last grasping what she is talk ing about}. You are not saying that you left me because of my success ?

  KATE. Yes, that was it. (And now she stands revealed to him.} I couldn't en dure it. If a failure had come now and

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 73

  then but your success was suffocating me. (She is rigid with emotion.) The passionate craving I had to be done with it, to find myself among people who had not got on.

  SIR HARRY (with pro
per spirit}. There are plenty of them.

  KATE. There were none in our set. When they began to go down-hill they rolled out of our sight.

  SIR HARRY (clenching it). I tell you I am worth a quarter of a million.

  KATE (unabashed). That is what you are worth to yourself. I '11 tell you what you are worth to me: exactly twelve pounds. For I made up my mind that I could launch myself on the world alone if I first proved my mettle by earning twelve pounds; and as soon as I had earned it I left you.

  SIR HARRY (in the scales). Twelve pounds !

  KATE. That is your value to a woman. If she can't make it she has to stick to you.

  74 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  SIR HARRY (remembering perhaps a rectory garden). You valued me at more than that when you married me.

  KATE (seeing it also). Ah, I didn't know you then. If only you had been a man, Harry.

  SIR HARRY. A man? What do you mean by a man ?

  KATE (leaving the garden). Haven't you heard of them? They are something fine; and every woman is loathe to ad mit to herself that her husband is not one. When she marries, even though she has been a very trivial person, there is in her some vague stirring toward a worthy life, as well as a fear of her capacity for evil. She knows her chance lies in him. If there is something good in him, what is good in her finds it, and they join forces against the baser parts. So I didn't give you up willingly, Harry. I invented all sorts of theories to explain you. Your hardness I said it was a

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 75

  fine want of maukishness. Your coarse ness I said it goes with strength. Your contempt for the weak I called it virility. Your want of ideals was clear-sightedness. Your ignoble views of women I tried to think them funny. Oh, I clung to you to save myself. But I had to let go; you had only the one quality, Harry, success; you had it so strong that it swallowed all the others.

  SIR HARRY (not to be diverted from the main issue). How did you earn that twelve pounds ?

  KATE. It took me nearly six months; but I earned it fairly. (She presses her hand on the typewriter as lovingly as many a woman has pressed a rose.) I learned this. I hired it and taught myself. I got some work through a friend, and with my first twelve, pounds I paid for my machine. Then I considered that I was free to go, and I went.

  SIR HARRY. All this going on in my house

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  while you were living in the lap of luxury ! (She nods.) By God, you were deter mined.

  KATE (briefly). By God, I was.

  SIR HARRY (staring). How you must have hated me.

  KATE (smiling at the childish word). Not a bit after I saw that there was a way out. From that hour you amused me, Harry; I was even sorry for you, for I saw that you couldn't help yourself. Success is just a fatal gift.

  SIR HARRY. Oh, thank you.

  KATE (thinking, dear friends in front, of you and me perhaps). Yes, and some of your most successful friends knew it. One or two of them used to look very sad at times, as if they thought they might have come to something if they hadn't got on.

  SIR HARRY (who has a horror of sacrilege). The battered crew you live among now what are they but folk who have tried to succeed and failed ?

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 77

  KATE. That 's it; they try, but they fail.

  SIR HARRY. And always will fail.

  KATE. Always. Poor souls I say of them. Poor soul they say of me. It keeps us human. That is why I never tire of them.

  SIR HARRY (comprehensively). Bah! Kate, I tell you I '11 be worth half a million yet.

  KATE. I 'm sure you will. You 're getting stout, Harry.

  SIR HARRY. No, I 'm not.

  KATE. What was the name of that fat old fellow who used to fall asleep at our dinner-parties ?

  SIR HARRY. If you mean Sir William Crack- ley

  KATE. That was the man. Sir William was to me a perfect picture of the grand success. He had got on so well that he was very, very stout, and when he sat on a chair it was thus (her hands meeting in front of her) as if he were holding his success together. That is what you

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  are working for, Harry. You will have that and the hah* million about the same time.

  SIR HARRY (who has surely been very patient}. Will you please to leave my house.

  KATE (putting on her gloves, soiled things). But don't let us part in anger. How do you think I am looking, Harry, compared to the dull, inert thing that used to roll round in your padded carriages ?

  SIR HARRY (in masterly fashion). I forget what you were like. I 'm very sure you never could have held a candle to the present Lady Sims.

  KATE. That is a picture of her, is it not?

  SIR HARRY (seizing his chance again). In her wedding-gown. Painted by an R.A.

  KATE (wickedly}. A knight?

  SIR HARRY (deceived). Yes.

  KATE (who likes LADY SIMS: a piece of pre sumption on her part). It is a very pretty face.

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 79

  SIR HARRY (with the pride of possession). Acknowledged to be a beauty everywhere.

  KATE. There is a merry look in the eyes, and character in the chin.

  SIR HARRY (like an auctioneer). Noted for her wit.

  KATE. All her life before her when that was painted. It is a spirituelle face too. (Suddenly she turns on him with anger, for the first and only time in the play.) Oh, Harry, you brute !

  SIR HARRY (staggered). Eh? What?

  KATE. That dear creature capable of be coming a noble wife and mother she is the spiritless woman of no account that I saw here a few minutes ago. I forgive you for myself, for I escaped, but that poor lost soul, oh, Harry, Harry.

  SIR HARRY (waving her to the door). I '11 thank you If ever there was a woman proud of her husband and happy in her married life, that woman is Lady Sims.

  KATE. I wonder.

  80 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  SIR HARRY. Then you needn't wonder.

  KATE (slowly). If I was a husband it is my advice to all of them I would often watch my wife quietly to see whether the twelve-pound look was not coming into her eyes. Two boys, did you say, and both like you ?

  SIR HARRY. What is that to you ?

  KATE (with glistening eyes). I was only thinking that somewhere there are two little girls who, when they grow up the dear, pretty girls who are all meant for the men that don't get on ! Well, good bye, Sir Harry.

  SIR HARRY (showing a little human weakness, it is to be feared). Say first that you 're sorry.

  KATE. For what ?

  SIR HARRY. That you left me. Say you regret it bitterly. You know you do. (She smiles and shakes her head. He is pettish. He makes a terrible announce- ment.) You have spoilt the day for me.

  KATE (to hearten him). I am sorry for that;

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 81

  but it is only a pin-prick, Harry. I suppose it is a little jarring in the moment of your triumph to find that there is one old friend who does not think you a success; but you will soon forget it. Who cares what a typist thinks ?

  SIR HARRY (heartened). Nobody. A typist at eighteen shillings a week !

  KATE (proudly). Not a bit of it, Harry. I double that.

  SIR HARRY (neatly). Magnificent!

  (There is a timid knock at the door.)

  LADY SIMS. May I come in ?

  SIR HARRY (rather appealingly) . It is Lady Sims.

  KATE. I won't tell. She is afraid to come into her husband's room without knocking !

  SIR HARRY. She is not. (Uxoriously) Come in, dearest. (Dearest enters carrying the sword. She might have had the sense not to bring it in while this annoying person is here.)

  LADY SIMS (thinking she has brought her wel-

  82 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  come with her). Harry, the sword has come. SIR HARRY (who will dote on it presently).

  Oh, all right,

  LADY SIMS. But I thought you were so eager to practise with it.

  (The person smiles at this. He wi
shes he had not looked to see if she was smiling.) SIR ^IARRY (sharply). Put it down.

  (LADY SIMS flushes a little as she lays

  the sword aside.) KATE (with her confounded courtesy). It is a

  beautiful sword, if I may say so. LADY SIMS (helped). Yes.

  (The person thinks she can put him in the wrong, does she? He 9 ll show her.)

  SIR HARRY (with one eye on KATE). Emmy, the one thing your neck needs is more jewels.

  LADY SIMS (faltering). More! SIR HARRY. Some ropes of pearls. I '11 see

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK 83

  to it. It 's a bagatelle to me. (KATE conceals her chagrin, so she had better be shown the door. He rings.) I won't detain you any longer, miss.

  KATE. Thank you.

  LADY SIMS. Going already? You have been very quick.

  SIR HARRY. The person doesn't suit, Emmy.

  LADY SIMS. I 'm sorry.

  KATE. So am I, madam, but it can't be helped. Good-bye, your ladyship good bye, Sir Harry. (There is a suspicion of an impertinent curtsey, and she is escorted o/ the premises by TOMBES. The air of the room is purified by her going. SIR HARRY notices it at once.)

  LADY SIMS (whose tendency is to say the wrong thing). She seemed such a capable woman.

  SIR HARRY (on his hearth). I don't like her style at all.

  LADY SIMS (meekly). Of course you know best. (This is the right kind of woman.)

  84 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  SIR HARRY (rather anxious for corroboratiori). Lord, how she winced when I said I was to give you those ropes of pearls.

  LADY SIMS. Did she? I didn't notice. I suppose so.

  SIR HARRY (frowning). Suppose? Surely I know enough about women to know that.

  LADY SIMS. Yes, oh yes.

  SIR HARRY. (Odd that so confident a man should ask this.) Emmy, I know you well, don't I ? I can read you like a book, eh ?