Belinda | Page 3

simply must have another one. And to think that you're never
going back to school any more. (Looking at her fondly, and backing to
L.) Darling, you are looking pretty.
DELIA. Am I?
BELINDA. Lovely. (She kisses her once more, then she takes the
cushion from the hammock, moves at back of table and places it on the
head of the deck-chair.) And now you're going to stay with me for just
as long as you want a mother. (Anxiously moving to R. of deckchair.)
Darling, you didn't mind being sent away to school, did you? It is the
usual thing, you know.
DELIA. Silly mother! of course it is.
BELINDA (relieved, and sitting on deck-chair). I'm so glad you think
so too.
DELIA. Have you been very lonely without me?
BELINDA (with a sly look at DELIA). Very.
DELIA (turning to BELINDA and holding up a finger). The truth,
mummy!

BELINDA. I've missed you horribly, Delia. (Primly.) The absence of
female companionship of the requisite--
DELIA. Are you really all alone?
BELINDA (smiling mysteriously and coyly). Well, not always, of
course.
DELIA (excitedly, at she slips off the table, and backing to L. a little).
Mummy, I believe you're being bad again.
BELINDA. Really, darling, you forget that I'm old enough to be--in
fact, am--your mother.
DELIA (nodding her head). You are being bad.
BELINDA (rising with dignity and drawing herself up to her full
height, moving L.). My child, that is not the way to--Oh, I say, what a
lot taller I am than you! (Turning her back to DELIA and comparing
sizes.)
DELIA. And prettier.
BELINDA (playfully rubbing noses with DELIA). Oh, do you think so?
(Firmly, but pleased.) Don't be silly, child.
DELIA (holding up a finger). Now tell me all that's been happening
here at once.
BELINDA (with a sigh). And I was just going to ask you how you
were getting on with your French. (Sits in deck-chair.)
DELIA. Bother French! You've been having a much more interesting
time than I have, so you've got to tell.
BELINDA (with a happy sigh). O-oh! (She sinks back into her chair.)
DELIA (taking off her coat). Is it like the Count at Scarborough?

BELINDA (surprised and pained). My darling, what do you mean?
DELIA. Don't you remember the Count who kept proposing to you at
Scarborough? I do. (Places coat on hammock.)
BELINDA (reproachfully). Dear one, you were the merest child,
paddling about on the beach and digging castles.
DELIA (smiling to herself). I was old enough to notice the Count.
BELINDA (sadly). And I'd bought her a perfectly new spade! How one
deceives oneself!
DELIA (at table and leaning across, with hands on table). And then
there was the M.P. who proposed at Windermere.
BELINDA. Yes, dear, but it wasn't seconded--I mean he never got very
far with it.
DELIA. And the artist in Wales.
BELINDA. Darling child, what a memory you have. No wonder your
teachers are pleased with you.
DELIA (settling herself comfortably in deck-chair L. of BELINDA and
lying in her arms). Now tell me all about this one.
BELINDA (meekly). Which one?
DELIA (excitedly). Oh, are there lots?
BELINDA (severely). Only two.
DELIA. Two! You abandoned woman!
BELINDA. It's something in the air, darling. I've never been in
Devonshire in April before.
DELIA. Is it really serious this time?

BELINDA (pained). I wish you wouldn't say this time, Delia. It sounds
so unromantic. If you'd only put it into French--cette fois--it sounds so
much better. Cette fois. (Parentally.) When one's daughter has just
returned from an expensive schooling in Paris, one likes to feel-----
DELIA. What I meant, dear, was, am I to have a stepfather at last?
BELINDA. Now you're being too French, darling.
DELIA. Why, do you still think father may be alive?
BELINDA. Why not? It's only eighteen years since he left us, and he
was quite a young man then.
DELIA. Yes, but surely, surely you'd have heard from him in all those
years, if he'd been alive?
BELINDA. Well, he hasn't heard from me, and I'm still alive.
DELIA (looking earnestly at her mother, rises and moves L.C.). I shall
never understand it.
BELINDA. Understand what?
DELIA. Were you as heavenly when you were young as you are now?
BELINDA (rapturously). Oh, I was sweet!
DELIA. And yet he left you after only six months.
BELINDA (rather crossly, sitting up). I wish you wouldn't keep on
saying he left me. I left him too.
DELIA (running to and kneeling in front of BELINDA and looking
anxiously into her face). Why?
BELINDA (smiling to herself). Well, you see, he was quite certain he
knew how to manage women, and I was quite certain I knew how to
manage men. (Thoughtfully.) If only one of us had been certain, it

would have