The Complete Plays | Page 3

better. It's when he's out
of work that he's so violent.
WHEELER. Well, if you won't take any steps you 'll never get rid of
him.
MRS. JONES. Of course it's very wearing to me; I don't get my sleep at
nights. And it 's not as if I were getting help from him, because I have
to do for the children and all of us. And he throws such dreadful things
up at me, talks of my having men to follow me about. Such a thing
never happens; no man ever speaks to me. And of course, it's just the
other way. It's what he does that's wrong and makes me so unhappy.
And then he 's always threatenin' to cut my throat if I leave him. It's all
the drink, and things preying on his mind; he 's not a bad man really.
Sometimes he'll speak quite kind to me, but I've stood so much from
him, I don't feel it in me to speak kind back, but just keep myself to
myself. And he's all right with the children too, except when he's not
himself.
WHEELER. You mean when he's drunk, the beauty.
MRS. JONES. Yes. [Without change of voice] There's the young
gentleman asleep on the sofa.
[They both look silently at Jack.]
MRS. JONES. [At last, in her soft voice.] He does n't look quite
himself.
WHEELER. He's a young limb, that's what he is. It 's my belief he was
tipsy last night, like your husband. It 's another kind of bein' out of
work that sets him to drink. I 'll go and tell Marlow. This is his job.
[She goes.]
[Mrs. Jones, upon her knees, begins a gentle sweeping.]
JACK. [Waking.] Who's there? What is it?

MRS. JONES. It's me, sir, Mrs. Jones.
JACK. [Sitting up and looking round.] Where is it--what--what time is
it?
MRS. JONES. It's getting on for nine o'clock, sir.
JACK. For nine! Why--what! [Rising, and loosening his tongue;
putting hands to his head, and staring hard at Mrs. Jones.] Look here,
you, Mrs.----Mrs. Jones--don't you say you caught me asleep here.
MRS. JONES. No, sir, of course I won't sir.
JACK. It's quite an accident; I don't know how it happened. I must have
forgotten to go to bed. It's a queer thing. I 've got a most beastly
headache. Mind you don't say anything, Mrs. Jones.
[Goes out and passes MARLOW in the doorway. MARLOW is young
and quiet; he is cleanshaven, and his hair is brushed high from his
forehead in a coxcomb. Incidentally a butler, he is first a man. He looks
at MRS. JONES, and smiles a private smile.]
MARLOW. Not the first time, and won't be the last. Looked a bit dicky,
eh, Mrs. Jones?
MRS. JONES. He did n't look quite himself. Of course I did n't take
notice.
MARLOW. You're used to them. How's your old man?
MRS. JONES. [Softly as throughout.] Well, he was very bad last night;
he did n't seem to know what he was about. He was very late, and he
was most abusive. But now, of course, he's asleep.
MARLOW. That's his way of finding a job, eh?
MRS. JONES. As a rule, Mr. Marlow, he goes out early every morning
looking for work, and sometimes he comes in fit to drop--and of course
I can't say he does n't try to get it, because he does. Trade's very bad.

[She stands quite still, her fan and brush before her, at the beginning
and the end of long vistas of experience, traversing them with her
impersonal eye.] But he's not a good husband to me--last night he hit
me, and he was so dreadfully abusive.
MARLOW. Bank 'oliday, eh! He 's too fond of the "Goat and Bells,"
that's what's the matter with him. I see him at the corner late every
night. He hangs about.
MRS. JONES. He gets to feeling very low walking about all day after
work, and being refused so often, and then when he gets a drop in him
it goes to his head. But he shouldn't treat his wife as he treats me.
Sometimes I 've had to go and walk about at night, when he wouldn't
let me stay in the room; but he's sorry for it afterwards. And he hangs
about after me, he waits for me in the street; and I don't think he ought
to, because I 've always been a good wife to him. And I tell him Mrs.
Barthwick wouldn't like him coming about the place. But that only
makes him angry, and he says dreadful things about the gentry. Of
course it was through me that he first lost his place, through his not
treating me right; and that's made him bitter against the