The Admirable Crichton | Page 6

he starts back melodramatically.)
The ring! Then I am too late, too late! (Fixing LADY MARY sternly, like a prosecuting counsel.) May I ask, Mary, does Brocky know? Of course, it was that terrible mother of his who pulled this through. Mother does everything for Brocky. Still, in the eyes of the law you will be, not her wife, but his, and, therefore, I hold that Brocky ought to be informed. Now--
(He discovers that their languorous eyes have closed.)
If you girls are shamming sleep in the expectation that I shall awaken you in the manner beloved of ladies, abandon all such hopes.
(CATHERINE and AGATHA look up without speaking.)
LADY MARY (speaking without looking up). You impertinent boy.
ERNEST (eagerly plucking another epigram from his quiver). I knew that was it, though I don't know everything. Agatha, I'm not young enough to know everything.
(He looks hopefully from one to another, but though they try to grasp this, his brilliance baffles them.)
AGATHA (his secret admirer). Young enough?
ERNEST (encouragingly). Don't you see? I'm not young enough to know everything.
AGATHA. I'm sure it's awfully clever, but it's so puzzling.
(Here CRICHTON ushers in an athletic, pleasant-faced young clergyman, MR. TREHERNE, who greets the company.)
CATHERINE. Ernest, say it to Mr. Treherne.
ERNEST. Look here, Treherne, I'm not young enough to know everything.
TREHERNE. How do you mean, Ernest?
ERNEST. (a little nettled). I mean what I say.
LADY MARY. Say it again; say it more slowly.
ERNEST. I'm--not--young--enough--to--know--everything.
TREHERNE. I see. What you really mean, my boy, is that you are not old enough to know everything.
ERNEST. No, I don't.
TREHERNE. I assure you that's it.
LADY MARY. Of course it is.
CATHERINE. Yes, Ernest, that's it.
(ERNEST, in desperation, appeals to CRICHTON.)
ERNEST. I am not young enough, Crichton, to know everything.
(It is an anxious moment, but a smile is at length extorted from CRICHTON as with a corkscrew.)
CRICHTON. Thank you, sir. (He goes.)
ERNEST (relieved). Ah, if you had that fellow's head, Treherne, you would find something better to do with it than play cricket. I hear you bowl with your head.
TREHERNE (with proper humility). I'm afraid cricket is all I'm good for, Ernest.
CATHERINE (who thinks he has a heavenly nose). Indeed, it isn't. You are sure to get on, Mr. Treherne.
TREHERNE. Thank you, Lady Catherine.
CATHERINE. But it was the bishop who told me so. He said a clergyman who breaks both ways is sure to get on in England.
TREHERNE. I'm jolly glad.
(The master of the house comes in, accompanied by LORD BROCKLEHURST. The EARL OF LOAM is a widower, a philanthropist, and a peer of advanced ideas. As a widower he is at least able to interfere in the domestic concerns of his house--to rummage in the drawers, so to speak, for which he has felt an itching all his blameless life; his philanthropy has opened quite a number of other drawers to him; and his advanced ideas have blown out his figure. He takes in all the weightiest monthly reviews, and prefers those that are uncut, because he perhaps never looks better than when cutting them; but he does not read them, and save for the cutting it would suit him as well merely to take in the covers. He writes letters to the papers, which are printed in a type to scale with himself, and he is very jealous of those other correspondents who get his type. Let laws and learning, art and commerce die, but leave the big type to an intellectual aristocracy. He is really the reformed House of Lords which will come some day.
Young LORD BROCKLEHURST is nothing save for his rank. You could pick him up by the handful any day in Piccadilly or Holborn, buying socks--or selling them.)
LORD LOAM (expansively). You are here, Ernest. Feeling fit for the voyage, Treherne?
TREHERNE. Looking forward to it enormously.
LORD LOAM. That's right. (He chases his children about as if they were chickens.) Now then, Mary, up and doing, up and doing. Time we had the servants in. They enjoy it so much.
LADY MARY. They hate it.
LORD LOAM. Mary, to your duties. (And he points severely to the tea- table.)
ERNEST (twinkling). Congratulations, Brocky.
LORD BROCKLEHURST (who detests humour). Thanks.
ERNEST. Mother pleased?
LORD BROCKLEHURST (with dignity). Mother is very pleased.
ERNEST. That's good. Do you go on the yacht with us?
LORD BROCKLEHURST. Sorry I can't. And look here, Ernest, I will not be called Brocky.
ERNEST. Mother don't like it?
LORD BROCKLEHURST. She does not. (He leaves ERNEST, who forgives him and begins to think about his speech. CRICHTON enters.)
LORD LOAM (speaking as one man to another). We are quite ready, Crichton. (CRICHTON is distressed.)
LADY MARY (sarcastically). How Crichton enjoys it!
LORD LOAM (frowning). He is the only one who doesn't; pitiful creature.
CRICHTON (shuddering under his lord's displeasure). I can't help being a Conservative, my lord.
LORD LOAM. Be a man, Crichton. You are the same flesh and blood as myself.
CRICHTON (in pain). Oh,