The Admirable Crichton | Page 5

there are glorious miniatures, but the daughters of the house cannot tell
you of whom; 'there is a catalogue somewhere.' There are a thousand or
so of roses in basins, several library novels, and a row of weekly
illustrated newspapers lying against each other like fallen soldiers. If
any one disturbs this row Crichton seems to know of it from afar and
appears noiselessly and replaces the wanderer. One thing unexpected in
such a room is a great array of tea things. Ernest spots them with a
twinkle, and has his epigram at once unsheathed. He dallies, however,
before delivering the thrust.
ERNEST. I perceive, from the tea cups, Crichton, that the great
function is to take place here.
CRICHTON (with a respectful sigh). Yes, sir.
ERNEST (chuckling heartlessly). The servants' hall coming up to have
tea in the drawing-room! (With terrible sarcasm.) No wonder you look
happy, Crichton.
CRICHTON (under the knife). No, sir.
ERNEST. Do you know, Crichton, I think that with an effort you might
look even happier. (CRICHTON smiles wanly.) You don't approve of
his lordship's compelling his servants to be his equals--once a month?
CRICHTON. It is not for me, sir, to disapprove of his lordship's radical
views.

ERNEST. Certainly not. And, after all, it is only once a month that he
is affable to you.
CRICHTON. On all other days of the month, sir, his lordship's
treatment of us is everything that could be desired.
ERNEST. (This is the epigram.) Tea cups! Life, Crichton, is like a cup
of tea; the more heartily we drink, the sooner we reach the dregs.
CRICHTON (obediently). Thank you, sir.
ERNEST (becoming confidential, as we do when we have need of an
ally). Crichton, in case I should be asked to say a few words to the
servants, I have strung together a little speech. (His hand strays to his
pocket.) I was wondering where I should stand.
(He tries various places and postures, and comes to rest leaning over a
high chair, whence, in dumb show, he addresses a gathering.
CRICHTON, with the best intentions, gives him a footstool to stand on,
and departs, happily unconscious that ERNEST in some dudgeon has
kicked the footstool across the room.)
ERNEST (addressing an imaginary audience, and desirous of startling
them at once). Suppose you were all little fishes at the bottom of the
sea--
(He is not quite satisfied with his position, though sure that the fault
must lie with the chair for being too high, not with him for being too
short. CRICHTON'S suggestion was not perhaps a bad one after all. He
lifts the stool, but hastily conceals it behind him on the entrance of the
LADIES CATHERINE and AGATHA, two daughters of the house.
CATHERINE is twenty, and AGATHA two years younger. They are
very fashionable young women indeed, who might wake up for a dance,
but they are very lazy, CATHERINE being two years lazier than
AGATHA.)
ERNEST (uneasily jocular, because he is concealing the footstool).
And how are my little friends to-day?

AGATHA (contriving to reach a settee). Don't be silly, Ernest. If you
want to know how we are, we are dead. Even to think of entertaining
the servants is so exhausting.
CATHERINE (subsiding nearer the door). Besides which, we have had
to decide what frocks to take with us on the yacht, and that is such a
mental strain.
ERNEST. You poor over-worked things. (Evidently AGATHA is his
favourite, for he helps her to put her feet on the settee, while
CATHERINE has to dispose of her own feet.) Rest your weary limbs.
CATHERINE (perhaps in revenge). But why have you a footstool in
your hand?
AGATHA. Yes?
ERNEST. Why? (Brilliantly; but to be sure he has had time to think it
out.) You see, as the servants are to be the guests I must be butler. I was
practising. This is a tray, observe.
(Holding the footstool as a tray, he minces across the room like an
accomplished footman. The gods favour him, for just here LADY
MARY enters, and he holds out the footstool to her.)
Tea, my lady?
(LADY MARY is a beautiful creature of twenty-two, and is of a natural
hauteur which is at once the fury and the envy of her sisters. If she
chooses she can make you seem so insignificant that you feel you
might be swept away with the crumb-brush. She seldom chooses,
because of the trouble of preening herself as she does it; she is usually
content to show that you merely tire her eyes. She often seems to be
about to go to sleep in the middle of a remark: there is quite a long and
anxious pause, and then she continues, like a clock that hesitates, bored
in the middle of its strike.)