Dear Brutus | Page 3

needle-work.)
ALICE (who is THE DEARTH now). Thank you. Better read the
telegram, Matey, to be sure that you can make it out. (MATEY reads it
to himself, and he has never quite the same faith in woman again. THE
DEARTH continues in a purring voice.) Read it aloud, Matey.

MATEY. Oh, ma'am!
ALICE (without the purr). Aloud.
(Thus encouraged he reads the fatal missive.)
MATEY. 'To Police Station, Great Cumney. Send officer first thing
to-morrow morning to arrest Matey, butler, for theft of rings.'
ALICE. Yes, that is quite right.
MATEY. Ma'am! (But seeing that she has taken up a book, he turns to
LADY CAROLINE.) My lady!
LADY CAROLINE (whose voice strikes colder than THE DEARTH'S).
Should we not say how many wings?
ALICE. Yes, put in the number of rings, Matey.
(MATEY does not put in the number, but he produces three rings from
unostentatious parts of his person and returns them without noticeable
dignity to their various owners.)
MATEY (hopeful that the incident is now closed). May I tear up the
telegram, ma'am?
ALICE. Certainly not.
LADY CAROLINE. I always said that this man was the culpwit. I am
nevaw mistaken in faces, and I see bwoad awwows all over youws,
Matey.
(He might reply that he sees w's all over hers, but it is no moment for
repartee.)
MATEY. It is deeply regretted.
ALICE (darkly). I am sure it is.

JOANNA (who has seldom remained silent for so long). We may as
well tell him now that it is not our rings we are worrying about. They
have just been a means to an end, Matey.
(The stir among the ladies shows that they have arrived at the more
interesting point.)
ALICE. Precisely. In other words that telegram is sent unless--
(MATEY'S head rises.)
JOANNA. Unless you can tell us instantly whet peculiarity it is that all
we ladies have in common.
MABEL. Not only the ladies; all the guests in this house.
ALICE. We have been here a week, and we find that when Lob invited
us he knew us all so little that we begin to wonder why he asked us.
And now from words he has let drop we know that we were invited
because of something he thinks we have in common.
MABEL. But he won't say what it is.
LADY CAROLINE (drawing back a little from JOANNA). One knows
that no people could be more unlike.
JOANNA (thankfully). One does.
MRS. COADE. And we can't sleep at night, Matey, for wondering
what this something is.
JOANNA (summing up). But we are sure you know, and it you don't
tell us--quod.
MATEY (with growing uneasiness). I don't know what you mean,
ladies.
ALICE. Oh yes, you do.

MRS. COADE You must admit that your master is a very strange
person.
MATEY (wriggling). He is a little odd, ma'am. That is why every one
calls him Lob; not Mr. Lob.
JOANNA. He is so odd that it has got on my nerves that we have been
invited here for some sort of horrid experiment. (MATEY shivers.)
You look as if you thought so too!
MATEY. Oh no, miss, I--he--(The words he would keep back elude
him). You shouldn't have come, ladies; you didn't ought to have come.
(For the moment he is sorrier for them than for himself.)
LADY CAROLINE. (Shouldn't have come). Now, my man, what do
you mean by that?
MATEY. Nothing, my lady: I--I just mean, why did you come if you
are the kind he thinks?
MABEL. The kind he thinks?
ALICE. What kind does he think? Now we are getting at it.
MATEY (guardedly). I haven't a notion, ma'am.
LADY CAROLINE (whose w's must henceforth be supplied by the
judicious reader). Then it is not necessarily our virtue that makes Lob
interested in us?
MATEY (thoughtlessly). No, my lady; oh no, my lady. (This makes an
unfavourable impression.)
MRS. COADE. And yet, you know, he is rather lovable.
MATEY (carried away). He is, ma'am, He is the most lovable old
devil--I beg pardon, ma'am.

JOANNA. You scarcely need to, for in a way it is true. I have seen him
out there among his flowers, petting them, talking to them, coaxing
them till they simply had to grow.
ALICE (making use perhaps of the wrong adjective). It is certainly a
divine garden.
(They all look at the unblinking enemy.)
MRS. COADE (not more deceived than the others). How lovely it is in
the moonlight. Roses, roses, all the way. (Dreamily.) It is like a hat I
once had when I was young.
ALICE. Lob is such an amazing gardener that I believe he could even
grow hats.
LADY CAROLINE (who will catch it for this). He is a wonderful
gardener; but is that quite nice at his age? What is his