Night Must Fall | Page 4

of her. I've had six.
_A pause. She sighs restlessly._
HUBERT: Fed up?
OLIVIA: It's such a very inadequate expression, don't you think?... (_After a pause_) How bright the sun is to-day....
_She is pensive, far-away, smiling._
HUBERT: A penny for 'em.
OLIVIA: I was just thinking ... I often wonder on a very fine morning what it'll be like ... for night to come. And I never can. And yet it's got to.... (_Looking at his perplexed face_) It is silly, isn't it?
_DORA comes in from the kitchen with a duster and crosses towards the bedroom. She is a pretty, stupid, and rather sluttish country girl of twenty, wearing a maid's uniform. She looks depressed_.
Who are those men, Dora?
DORA: What men, miss?
OLIVIA: Over there, behind the clearing.
DORA: Oh.... (_Peering past her_) Oh. 'Adn't seen them. What are they doing poking about in that bush?
OLIVIA (_absently_): I don't know. I saw them yesterday too, farther down the woods.
DORA (_lamely_): I expect they're looking for something.
_She goes into the bedroom._
HUBERT: She looks a bit off-colour, doesn't she?
OLIVIA: The atmosphere must be getting her down too.
HUBERT: I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to stand it myself. Coming over here every day for another week.
OLIVIA (_smiling_): There's nothing to prevent you staying at home every day for another week ... is there?
HUBERT (_still apparently reading his paper_): Oh, yes, there is. What d'you think I invite myself to lunch every day for? You don't think it's the old geyser, do you?
OLIVIA (_smiling_): No.
_She comes down to the table._
HUBERT: Don't want to sound rude, et cetera, but women don't get men proposing to them every day, you know ... (_Turning over a page_) Gosh, what a wizard machine--
OLIVIA (_sitting at the left of the table_): I can't think why you want to marry me, as a matter of fact. It isn't the same as if I were very pretty, or something.
HUBERT: You do say some jolly rum things, Olivia, upon my soul.
OLIVIA: I'll tell you why, then, if it makes you feel any better. You're cautious; and you want to marry me because I'm quiet. I'd make you a steady wife, and run a home for you.
HUBERT: There's nothing to be ashamed of in being steady. I'm steady myself.
OLIVIA: I know you are. HUBERT: Then why aren't you keen?
OLIVIA (_after a pause, tolerant but weary_): Because you're an unmitigated bore.
HUBERT: A bore? (_Horrified_) _Me_, a bore? Upon my word, Olivia, I think you're a bit eccentric, I do really. Sorry to be rude, and all that, but that's put the kybosh on it! People could call me a thing or two, but I've never been called a bore!
OLIVIA: Bores never are. People are too bored with them to call them anything.
HUBERT: I suppose you'd be more likely to say "Yes" if I were an unmitigated bounder?
OLIVIA (_with a laugh_): Oh, don't be silly....
HUBERT (_going to her_): You're a rum girl, Olivia, upon my soul you are. P'raps that's why I think you're so jolly attractive. Like a mouse one minute, and then this straight-from-the-shoulder business.... What is a sonnet?
OLIVIA: It's a poem of fourteen lines.
HUBERT: Oh, yes, Shakespeare.... Never knew you did a spot of rhyming, Olivia! Now that's what I mean about you.... We'll have to start calling you Elizabeth Bronte!
_She turns away. He studies her_.
You are bored, aren't you?
_He walks to the sun-room. She rouses herself and turns to him impetuously_.
OLIVIA: I'm being silly, I know--of course I ought to get married, and of course this is a wonderful chance, and--HUBERT (_moving to her_): Good egg! Then you will? OLIVIA (_stalling_): Give me a--another week or two--will you?
HUBERT: Oh. My holiday's up on the twenty-seventh.
OLIVIA: I know I'm being tiresome, but--
MRS. BRAMSON (_in the kitchen_): The most disgraceful thing I've ever heard--
HUBERT: She's coming back....
OLIVIA rises and goes to the right window. HUBERT _hurries into the sun-room._ MRS. BRAMSON is wheeled back from the kitchen by MRS. TERENCE, _to the centre of the room. She_ (MRS. BRAMSON) _has found the pretext for the scene she has been longing to make since she got up this morning._
MRS. BRAMSON: Fetch that girl here. This minute.
MRS. TERENCE: Oh, leave the child alone.
MRS. BRAMSON: Leave her alone, the little sneak-thief? Fetch her here.
MRS. TERENCE (_at the top of her voice_): Dora! (_Opening the front door and calling into the trees_) Dora!
OLIVIA: What's Dora done now?
MRS. BRAMSON: Broken three of my Crown Derby, that's all. Thought if she planted them in the rose-bed I wouldn't be well enough ever to see them, I suppose. Well, I have seen.
MRS. TERENCE (_crossing and calling to the bedroom_): You're wanted.
DORA'S VOICE: What for?
MRS. TERENCE: She wants to kiss you good morning, what d'you think....
_She collects the table-cloth, fetches a vase from the mantelpiece, and goes into the kitchen._ DORA _enters gingerly from the bedroom,