Quality Street by Sir James Matthew Barrie (short books to read TXT) 📕

The brave Captain Brown! Good God, ma'am, how much more brave are the ladies who keep a school.

(PATTY shows in two visitors, MISS CHARLOTTE PARRATT and ENSIGN BLADES. CHARLOTTE is a pretty minx who we are glad to say does not reside in Quality Street, and BLADES is a callow youth, inviting admiration.)

CHARLOTTE (as they salute). But I did not know you had company, Miss Susan.

MISS SUSAN. 'Tis Captain Brown--Miss Charlotte Parratt.

CHARLOTTE (gushing). The heroic Brown?

VALENTINE. Alas, no, ma'am, the other one.

CHARLOTTE. Miss Susan, do you see who accompanies me?

MISS SUSAN. I cannot quite recall----

BLADES. A few years ago, ma'am, there sat in this room a scrubby, inky little boy--I was that boy.

MISS SUSAN. Can it be our old pupil--Ensign Blades?

(She thinks him very fine, and he bows, well pleased.)

BLADES. Once a little boy and now your most obedient, ma'am.

MISS SUSAN. You have come to recall old memories?

BLADES. Not precisely; I--Charlotte, explain.

CHARLOTTE. Ensign Blades wishes me to say that it must seem highly romantic to you to have had a pupil who has fought at Waterloo.

MISS SUSAN. Not exactly romantic. I trust, sir, that when you speak of having been our pupil you are also so obliging as to mention that it was during our first year. Otherwise it makes us seem so elderly.

(He bows again, in what he believes to be a quizzical manner.)

CHARLOTTE. Ensign Blades would be pleased to hear, Miss Susan, what you think of him as a whole.

MISS SUSAN. Indeed, sir, I think you are monstrous fine. (Innocently.) It quite awes me to remember that we used to whip him.

VALENTINE (delighted). Whipped him, Miss Susan! (In solemn burlesque of CHARLOTTE.) Ensign Blades wishes to indicate that it was more than Buonaparte could do. We shall meet again, bright boy.

(He makes his adieux and goes.)

BLADES. Do you think he was quizzing me?

MISS SUSAN (simply). I cannot think so.

BLADES. He said 'bright boy,' ma'am.

MISS SUSAN. I am sure, sir, he did not mean it.

(PHOEBE returns.)

PHOEBE. Charlotte, I am happy to see you. You look delicious, my dear--so young and fresh.

CHARLOTTE. La! Do you think so, Miss Phoebe?

BLADES. Miss Phoebe, your obedient.

PHOEBE. It is Ensign Blades! But how kind of you, sir, to revisit the old school. Please to sit down.

CHARLOTTE. Ensign Blades has a favour to ask of you, Miss Phoebe.

BLADES. I learn, ma'am, that Captain Brown has obtained a card for you for the ball, and I am here to solicit for the honour of standing up with you.

(For the moment PHOEBE is flattered. Here, she believes, is some one who does not think her too old for the dance. Then she perceives a meaning smile pass between CHARLOTTE and the ENSIGN.)

PHOEBE (paling). Is it that you desire to make sport of me?

BLADES (honestly distressed). Oh no, ma'am, I vow--but I--I am such a quiz, ma'am.

MISS SUSAN. Sister!

PHOEBE. I am sorry, sir, to have to deprive you of some entertainment, but I am not going to the ball.

MISS SUSAN (haughtily). Ensign Blades, I bid you my adieux.

BLADES (ashamed). If I have hurt Miss Phoebe's feelings I beg to apologise.

MISS SUSAN. If you have hurt them. Oh, sir, how is it possible for any one to be as silly as you seem to be.

BLADES (who cannot find the answer). Charlotte--explain.

(But CHARLOTTE considers that their visit has not been sufficiently esteemed and departs with a cold curtsy, taking him with her.)

(MISS SUSAN turns sympathetically to PHOEBE, but PHOEBE, fighting with her pain, sits down at the spinet and plays at first excitedly a gay tune, then slowly, then comes to a stop with her head bowed. Soon she jumps up courageously, brushes away her distress, gets an algebra book from the desk and sits down to study it. MISS SUSAN is at the window, where ladies and gentlemen are now seen passing in ball attire.)

MISS SUSAN. What book is it, Phoebe?

PHOEBE. It is an algebra.

MISS SUSAN. They are going by to the ball. (In anger.) My Phoebe should be going to the ball, too.

PHOEBE. You jest, Susan. (MISS SUSAN watches her read. PHOEBE has to wipe away a tear; soon she rises and gives way to the emotion she has been suppressing ever since the entrance of VALENTINE.) Susan, I hate him. Oh, Susan, I could hate him if it were not for his poor hand.

MISS SUSAN. My dear.

PHOEBE. He thought I was old, because I am weary, and he should not have forgotten. I am only thirty. Susan, why does thirty seem so much more than twenty-nine? (As if VALENTINE were present.) Oh, sir, how dare you look so pityingly at me? Because I have had to work so hard,--is it a crime when a woman works? Because I have tried to be courageous--have I been courageous, Susan?

MISS SUSAN. God knows you have.

PHOEBE. But it has given me the headache, it has tired my eyes. Alas, Miss Phoebe, all your charm has gone, for you have the headache, and your eyes are tired. He is dancing with Charlotte Parratt now, Susan. 'I vow, Miss Charlotte, you are selfish and silly, but you are sweet eighteen.' 'Oh la, Captain Brown, what a quiz you are.' That delights him, Susan; see how he waggles his silly head.

MISS SUSAN. Charlotte Parratt is a goose.

PHOEBE. 'Tis what gentlemen prefer. If there were a sufficient number of geese to go round, Susan, no woman of sense would ever get a husband. 'Charming Miss Charlotte, you are like a garden; Miss Phoebe was like a garden once, but 'tis a faded garden now.'

MISS SUSAN. If to be ladylike----

PHOEBE. Susan, I am tired of being ladylike. I am a young woman still, and to be ladylike is not enough. I wish to be bright and thoughtless and merry. It is every woman's birthright to be petted and admired; I wish to be petted and admired. Was I born to be confined within these four walls? Are they the world, Susan, or is there anything beyond them? I want to know. My eyes are tired because for ten years they have seen nothing but maps and desks. Ten years! Ten years ago I went to bed a young girl and I woke with this cap on my head. It is not fair. This is not me, Susan, this is some other person, I want to be myself.

MISS SUSAN. Phoebe, Phoebe, you who have always been so patient!

PHOEBE. Oh no, not always. If you only knew how I have rebelled at times, you would turn from me in horror. Susan, I have a picture of myself as I used to be; I sometimes look at it. I sometimes kiss it, and say, 'Poor girl, they have all forgotten you. But I remember.'

MISS SUSAN. I cannot recall it.

PHOEBE. I keep it locked away in my room. Would you like to see it? I shall bring it down. My room! Oh, Susan, it is there that the Phoebe you think so patient has the hardest fight with herself, for there I have seemed to hear and see the Phoebe of whom this (looking at herself) is but an image in a distorted glass. I have heard her singing as if she thought she was still a girl. I have heard her weeping; perhaps it was only I who was weeping; but she seemed to cry to me, 'Let me out of this prison, give me back the years you have taken from me. Oh, where are my pretty curls?' she cried. 'Where is my youth, my youth.'

(She goes out, leaving MISS SUSAN woeful. Presently SUSAN takes up the algebra book and reads.)

MISS SUSAN. 'A stroke B multiplied by B stroke C equal AB stroke a little 2; stroke AC add BC. "Poor Phoebe!" Multiply by C stroke A and we get-- Poor Phoebe! C a B stroke a little 2 stroke AC little 2 add BC. "Oh, I cannot believe it!" Stroke a little 2 again, add AB little 2 add a little 2C stroke a BC.' ...

(PATTY comes in with the lamp.)

PATTY. Hurting your poor eyes reading without a lamp. Think shame, Miss Susan.

MISS SUSAN (with spirit). Patty, I will not be dictated to. (PATTY looks out at window.) Draw the curtains at once. I cannot allow you to stand gazing at the foolish creatures who crowd to a ball.

PATTY (closing curtains). I am not gazing at them, ma'am; I am gazing at my sweetheart.

MISS SUSAN. Your sweetheart? (Softly.) I did not know you had one.

PATTY. Nor have I, ma'am, as yet. But I looks out, and thinks I to myself, at any moment he may turn the corner. I ha' been looking out at windows waiting for him to oblige by turning the corner this fifteen years.

MISS SUSAN. Fifteen years, and still you are hopeful?

PATTY. There is not a more hopeful woman in all the king's dominions.

MISS SUSAN. You who are so much older than Miss Phoebe.

PATTY. Yes, ma'am, I ha' the advantage of her by ten years.

MISS SUSAN. It would be idle to pretend that you are specially comely.

PATTY. That may be, but my face is my own, and the more I see it in the glass the more it pleases me. I never look at it but I say to myself, 'Who is to be the lucky man?'

MISS SUSAN. 'Tis wonderful.

PATTY. This will be a great year for females, ma'am. Think how many of the men that marched away strutting to the wars have come back limping. Who is to take off their wooden legs of an evening, Miss Susan? You, ma'am, or me?

MISS SUSAN. Patty!

PATTY (doggedly). Or Miss Phoebe? (With feeling.) The pretty thing that she was, Miss Susan.

MISS SUSAN. Do you remember, Patty? I think there is no other person who remembers unless it be the Misses Willoughby and Miss Henrietta.

PATTY (eagerly). Give her a chance, ma'am, and take her to the balls. There be three of them this week, and the last ball will be the best, for 'tis to be at the barracks, and you will need a carriage to take you there, and there will be the packing of you into it by gallant squires and the unpacking of you out, and other devilries.

MISS SUSAN. Patty!