Dear Brutus | Page 5

proposes to us to go farther. Why should
he to-night?
MATEY. I don't know, ma'am, hut don't any of you go--(devilishly)
except you, my lady; I should like you to go.
LADY CAROLINE. Fellow!
(They consider this odd warning.)
ALICE. Shall I? (They nod and she tears up the telegram.)
MATEY (with a gulp). Thank you, ma'am.
LADY CAROLINE. You should have sent that telegram off.
JOANNA. You are sure you have told us all you know, Matey?
MATEY. Yes, miss. (But at the door he is more generous.) Above all,
ladies, I wouldn't go into the wood.
MABEL. The wood? Why, there is no wood within a dozen miles of
here.
MATEY. NO, ma'am. But all the same I wouldn't go into it, ladies--not
if I was you.

(With this cryptic warning he leaves them, and any discussion of it is
prevented by the arrival of their host. LOB is very small, and probably
no one has ever looked so old except some newborn child. To such as
watch him narrowly, as the ladies now do for the first time, he has the
effect of seeming to be hollow, an attenuated piece of piping
insufficiently inflated; one feels that if he were to strike against a solid
object he might rebound feebly from it, which would be less
disconcerting if he did not obviously know this and carefully avoid the
furniture; he is so light that the subject must not be mentioned in his
presence, but it is possible that, were the ladies to combine, they could
blow him out of a chair. He enters portentously, his hands behind his
back, as if every bit of him, from his domed head to his little feet, were
the physical expressions of the deep thoughts within him, then
suddenly he whirls round to make his guests jump. This amuses him
vastly, and he regains his gravity with difficulty. He addresses MRS.
COADE.)
LOB. Standing, dear lady? Pray be seated.
(He finds a chair for her and pulls it away as she is about to sit, or
kindly pretends to be about to do so, for he has had this quaint conceit
every evening since she arrived.)
MRS. COADE (who loves children). You naughty!
LOB (eagerly). It is quite a flirtation, isn't it?
(He rolls on a chair, kicking out his legs in an ecstasy of satisfaction.
But the ladies are not certain that he is the little innocent they have
hitherto thought him. The advent of MR. COADE and MR. PURDIE
presently adds to their misgivings. MR. COADE is old, a sweet pippin
of a man with a gentle smile for all; he must have suffered much, you
conclude incorrectly, to acquire that tolerant smile. Sometimes, as
when he sees other people at work, a wistful look takes the place of the
smile, and MR. COADE fidgets like one who would be elsewhere.
Then there rises before his eyes the room called the study in his house,
whose walls are lined with boxes marked A. B. C. to Z. and A2. B2. C2.
to K2. These contain dusty notes for his great work on the Feudal

System, the notes many years old, the work, strictly speaking. not yet
begun. He still speaks at times of finishing it but never of beginning it.
He knows that in more favourable circumstances, for instance if he had
been a poor man instead of pleasantly well to do, he could have flung
himself avidly into that noble undertaking; but he does not allow his
secret sorrow to embitter him or darken the house. Quickly the vision
passes, and he is again his bright self. Idleness, he says in his game way,
has its recompenses. It is charming now to see how he at once crosses
to his wife, solicitous for her comfort. He is bearing down on her with a
footstool when MR. PURDIE comes from the dining-room. He is the
most brilliant of our company, recently notable in debate at Oxford,
where he was runner-up for the presidentship of the Union and only
lost it because the other man was less brilliant. Since then he has gone
to the bar on Monday, married on Tuesday and had a brief on
Wednesday. Beneath his brilliance, and making charming company for
himself, he is aware of intellectual powers beyond his years. As we are
about to see, he has made one mistake in his life which he is bravely
facing.)
ALICE. Is my husband still sampling the port, Mr. Purdie?
PURDIE (with a disarming smile for the absent DEARTH). Do you
know, I believe he is. Do the ladies like our proposal, Coade?
COADE. I have not told them of it yet. The fact is, I am afraid that it
might tire my wife too much. Do you