What Every Woman Knows | Page 4

sit on the fine chair.

JAMES. I forgot again.
[But he wishes she had spoken more sharply. Even profanation of the
fine chair has not roused her. She takes up her knitting, and they all
suspect that she knows what they have been talking about.]
MAGGIE. You're late, David, it's nearly bed-time.
DAVID [finding the subject a safe one]. I was kept late at the public
meeting.
ALICK [glad to get so far away from Galashiels]. Was it a good
meeting?
DAVID. Fairish. [with some heat] That young John Shand WOULD
make a speech.
MAGGIE. John Shand? Is that the student Shand?
DAVID. The same. It's true he's a student at Glasgow University in the
winter months, but in summer he's just the railway porter here; and I
think it's very presumptuous of a young lad like that to make a speech
when he hasn't a penny to bless himself with.
ALICK. The Shands were always an impudent family, and jealous. I
suppose that's the reason they haven't been on speaking terms with us
this six years. Was it a good speech?
DAVID [illustrating the family's generosity]. It was very fine; but he
needn't have made fun of ME.
MAGGIE [losing a stitch]. He dared?
DAVID [depressed]. You see I can not get started on a speech without
saying things like 'In rising FOR to make a few remarks.'
JAMES. What's wrong with it?
DAVID. He mimicked me, and said, 'Will our worthy chairman come

for to go for to answer my questions?' and so on; and they roared.
JAMES [slapping his money pocket]. The sacket.
DAVID. I did feel bitterly, father, the want of education. [Without
knowing it, he has a beautiful way of pronouncing this noble word.]
MAGGIE [holding out a kind hand to him]. David.
ALICK. I've missed it sore, David. Even now I feel the want of it in the
very marrow of me. I'm ashamed to think I never gave you your chance.
But when you were young I was so desperate poor, how could I do it,
Maggie?
MAGGIE. It wasn't possible, father.
ALICK [gazing at the book-shelves]. To be able to understand these
books! To up with them one at a time and scrape them as clean as
though they were a bowl of brose. Lads, it's not to riches, it's to
scholarship that I make my humble bow.
JAMES [who is good at bathos]. There's ten yards of them. And they
were selected by the minister of Galashiels. He said--
DAVID [quickly]. James.
JAMES. I mean--I mean--
MAGGIE [calmly]. I suppose you mean what you say, James. I hear,
David, that the minister of Galashiels is to be married on that Miss
Turnbull.
DAVID [on guard]. So they were saying.
ALICK. All I can say is she has made a poor bargain.
MAGGIE [the damned]. I wonder at you, father. He's a very nice
gentleman. I'm sure I hope he has chosen wisely.

JAMES. Not him.
MAGGIE [getting near her tragedy]. How can you say that when you
don't know her? I expect she is full of charm.
ALICK. Charm? It's the very word he used.
DAVID. Havering idiot.
ALICK. What IS charm, exactly, Maggie?
MAGGIE. Oh, it's--it's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you
don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't
much matter what else you have. Some women, the few, have charm
for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none.
[Somehow she has stopped knitting. Her men-folk are very depressed.
JAMES brings his fist down on the table with a crash.]
JAMES [shouting]. I have a sister that has charm.
MAGGIE. No, James, you haven't.
JAMES [rushing at her with the watch and chain]. Ha'e, Maggie.
[She lets them lie in her lap.]
DAVID. Maggie, would you like a silk?
MAGGIE. What could I do with a silk? [With a gust of passion] You
might as well dress up a little brown hen.
[They wriggle miserably.]
JAMES [stamping]. Bring him here to me.
MAGGIE. Bring whom, James?
JAMES. David, I would be obliged if you wouldn't kick me beneath the

table.
MAGGIE [rising]. Let's be practical; let's go to our beds.
[This reminds them that they have a job on hand in which she is not to
share.]
DAVID [slily]. I don't feel very sleepy yet.
ALICK. Nor me either.
JAMES. You've just taken the very words out of my mouth.
DAVID [with unusual politeness]. Good-night to you Maggie.
MAGGIE [fixing the three of them]. ALL of you unsleepy, when, as is
well known, ten o'clock is your regular bed-time?
JAMES. Yes, it's common knowledge that we go to our beds at ten.
[Chuckling] That's what we're counting on.
MAGGIE. Counting on?
DAVID. You stupid whelp.