Plays 5 Read online

  Septimus Peace! Peace until a quarter to twelve. It is intolerable for a tutor to have his thoughts interrupted by his pupils.

  Augustus You are not my tutor, sir. I am visiting your lesson by my free will.

  Septimus If you are so determined, my lord.

  Thomasina laughs at that, the joke is for her.

  Augustus, not included, becomes angry.

  Augustus Your peace is nothing to me, sir. You do not rule over me.

  Thomasina (admonishing) Augustus!

  Septimus I do not rule here, my lord. I inspire by reverence for learning and the exaltation of knowledge whereby man may approach God. There will be a shilling for the best cone and pyramid drawn in silence by a quarter to twelve at the earliest.

  Augustus You will not buy my silence for a shilling, sir. What I know to tell is worth much more than that.

  And throwing down his drawing book and pencil, he leaves the room on his dignity, closing the door sharply. Pause. Septimus looks enquiringly at Thomasina.

  Thomasina I told him you kissed me. But he will not tell.

  Septimus When did I kiss you?

  Thomasina What! Yesterday!

  Septimus Where?

  Thomasina On the lips!

  Septimus In which county?

  Thomasina In the hermitage, Septimus!

  Septimus On the lips in the hermitage! That? That was not a shilling kiss! I would not give sixpence to have it back. I had almost forgot it already.

  Thomasina Oh, cruel! Have you forgotten our compact?

  Septimus God save me! Our compact?

  Thomasina To teach me to waltz! Sealed with a kiss, and a second kiss due when I can dance like mama!

  Septimus Ah yes. Indeed. We were all waltzing like mice in London.

  Thomasina I must waltz, Septimus! I will be despised if I do not waltz! It is the most fashionable and gayest and boldest invention conceivable – started in Germany!

  Septimus Let them have the waltz, they cannot have the calculus.

  Thomasina Mama has brought from town a whole book of waltzes for the Broadwood, to play with Count Zelinsky.

  Septimus I need not be told what I cannot but suffer. Count Zelinsky banging on the Broadwood without relief has me reading in waltz time.

  Thomasina Oh, stuff! What is your book?

  Septimus A prize essay of the Scientific Academy in Paris. The author deserves your indulgence, my lady, for you are his prophet.

  Thomasina I? What does he write about? The waltz?

  Septimus Yes. He demonstrates the equation of the propagation of heat in a solid body. But in doing so he has discovered heresy – a natural contradiction of Sir Isaac Newton.

  Thomasina Oh! – he contradicts determinism?

  Septimus No! … Well, perhaps. He shows that the atoms do not go according to Newton.

  Her interest has switched in the mercurial way characteristic of her – she has crossed to take the book.

  Thomasina Let me see – oh! In French?

  Septimus Yes. Paris is the capital of France.

  Thomasina Show me where to read.

  He takes the book back from her and finds the page for her. Meanwhile, the piano music from the next room has doubled its notes and its emotion.

  Thomasina Four-handed now! Mama is in love with the Count.

  Septimus He is a Count in Poland. In Derbyshire he is a piano tuner.

  She has taken the book and is already immersed in it. The piano music becomes rapidly more passionate, and then breaks off suddenly in mid-phrase. There is an expressive silence next door which makes Septimus raise his eyes. It does not register with Thomasina. The silence allows us to hear the distant regular thump of the steam engine which is to be a topic. A few moments later Lady Croom enters from the music room, seeming surprised and slightly flustered to find the schoolroom occupied. She collects herself, closing the door behind her. And remains watching, aimless and discreet, as though not wanting to interrupt the lesson. Septimus has stood, and she nods him back into his chair.

  Chloë, in Regency dress, enters from the door opposite the music room. She takes in Valentine and Hannah but crosses without pausing to the music room door.

  Chloë Oh! – where’s Gus?

  Valentine Dunno.

  Chloë goes into the music room.

  Lady Croom (annoyed) Oh! – Mr Noakes’s engine!

  She goes to the garden door and steps outside. Chloë re-enters.

  Chloë Damn.

  Lady Croom (calls out) Mr Noakes!

  Valentine He was there not long ago …

  Lady Croom Halloo!

  Chloë Well, he has to be in the photograph – is he dressed?

  Hannah Is Bernard back?

  Chloë No – he’s late!

  The piano is heard again, under the noise of the steam engine. Lady Croom steps back into the room.

  Chloë steps outside the garden door. Shouts.

  Gus!

  Lady Croom I wonder you can teach against such a disturbance and I am sorry for it, Mr Hodge.

  Chloë comes back inside.

  Valentine (getting up) Stop ordering everybody about.

  Lady Croom It is an unendurable noise.

  Valentine The photographer will wait.

  But, grumbling, he follows Chloë out of the door she came in by, and closes the door behind them. Hannah remains absorbed. In the silence, the rhythmic thump can be heard again.

  Lady Croom The ceaseless dull overbearing monotony of it! It will drive me distracted. I may have to return to town to escape it.

  Septimus Your ladyship could remain in the country and let Count Zelinsky return to town where you would not hear him.

  Lady Croom I mean Mr Noakes’s engine! (semi-aside to Septimus) Would you sulk? I will not have my daughter study sulking.

  Thomasina (not listening) What, mama?

  Thomasina remains lost in her book. Lady Croom returns to close the garden door and the noise of the steam engine subsides.

  Hannah closes one of the ‘garden books’, and opens the next. She is making occasional notes.

  The piano ceases.

  Lady Croom (to Thomasina) What are we learning today? (Pause.) Well, not manners.

  Septimus We are drawing today.

  Lady Croom negligently examines what Thomasina had started to draw.

  Lady Croom Geometry. I approve of geometry.

  Septimus Your ladyship’s approval is my constant object.

  Lady Croom Well, do not despair of it. (Returning to the window impatiently.) Where is ‘Culpability’ Noakes? (She looks out and is annoyed.) Oh! – he has gone for his hat so that he may remove it.

  She returns to the table and touches the bowl of dahlias.

  Hannah sits back in her chair, caught by what she is reading.

  For the widow’s dowry of dahlias I can almost forgive my brother’s marriage. We must be thankful the monkey bit the husband. If it had bit the wife the monkey would be dead and we would not be first in the kingdom to show a dahlia.

  Hannah, still reading the garden book, stands up.

  I sent one potted to Chatsworth. The Duchess was most satisfactorily put out by it when I called at Devonshire House. Your friend was there lording it as a poet.

  Hannah leaves through the door, following Valentine and Chloë.

  Meanwhile, Thomasina thumps the book down on the table.

  Thomasina Well! Just as I said! Newton’s machine which would knock our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very likely hidden in this gentleman’s observation.

  Lady Croom Of what?

  Thomasina The action of bodies in heat.

  Lady Croom Is this geometry?

  Thomasina This? No, I despise geometry! (Touching the dahlias she adds, almost to herself:) The Chater would overthrow the Newtonian system in a weekend.

  Septimus Geometry, Hobbes assures us in the Leviat
han, is the only science God has been pleased to bestow on mankind.

  Lady Croom And what does he mean by it?

  Septimus Mr Hobbes or God?

  Lady Croom I am sure I do not know what either means by it.

  Thomasina Oh, pooh to Hobbes! Mountains are not pyramids and trees are not cones. God must love gunnery and architecture if Euclid is his only geometry. There is another geometry which I am engaged in discovering by trial and error, am I not, Septimus?

  Septimus Trial and error perfectly describes your enthusiasm, my lady.

  Lady Croom How old are you today?

  Thomasina Sixteen years and eleven months, mama, and three weeks.

  Lady Croom Sixteen years and eleven months. We must have you married before you are educated beyond eligibility.

  Thomasina I am going to marry Lord Byron.

  Lady Croom Are you? He did not have the manners to mention it.

  Thomasina You have spoken to him?!

  Lady Croom Certainly not.

  Thomasina Where did you see him?

  Lady Croom (with some bitterness) Everywhere.

  Thomasina Did you, Septimus?

  Septimus At the Royal Academy where I had the honour to accompany your mother and Count Zelinsky.

  Thomasina What was Lord Byron doing?

  Lady Croom Posing.

  Septimus (tactfully) He was being sketched during his visit … by the Professor of Painting … Mr Fuseli.

  Lady Croom There was more posing at the pictures than in them. His companion likewise reversed the custom of the Academy that the ladies viewing wear more than the ladies viewed – well, enough! Let him be hanged there for a Lamb. I have enough with Mr Noakes, who is to a garden what a bull is to a china shop.

  This as Noakes enters.

  Thomasina The Emperor of Irregularity! (She settles down to drawing the diagram which is to be the third item in the surviving portfolio.)

  Lady Croom Mr Noakes!

  Noakes Your ladyship –

  Lady Croom What have you done to me!

  Noakes Everything is satisfactory, I assure you. A little behind, to be sure, but my dam will be repaired within the month –

  Lady Croom (banging the table) Hush!

  In the silence, the steam engine thumps in the distance.

  Can you hear, Mr Noakes?

  Noakes (pleased and proud) The Improved Newcomen steam pump – the only one in England!

  Lady Croom That is what I object to. If everybody had his own I would bear my portion of the agony without complaint. But to have been singled out by the only Improved Newcomen steam pump in England, this is hard, sir, this is not to be borne.

  Noakes Your lady –

  Lady Croom And for what? My lake is drained to a ditch for no purpose I can understand, unless it be that snipe and curlew have deserted three counties so that they may be shot in our swamp. What you painted as forest is a mean plantation, your greenery is mud, your waterfall is wet mud, and your mount is an opencast mine for the mud that was lacking in the dell. (pointing through the window) What is that cowshed?

  Noakes The hermitage, my lady?

  Lady Croom It is a cowshed.

  Noakes Madam, it is, I assure you, a very habitable cottage, properly founded and drained, two rooms and a closet under a slate roof and a stone chimney –

  Lady Croom And who is to live in it?

  Noakes Why, the hermit.

  Lady Croom Where is he?

  Noakes Madam?

  Lady Croom You surely do not supply a hermitage without a hermit?

  Noakes Indeed, madam –

  Lady Croom Come, come, Mr Noakes. If I am promised a fountain I expect it to come with water. What hermits do you have?

  Noakes I have no hermits, my lady.

  Lady Croom Not one? I am speechless.

  Noakes I am sure a hermit can be found. One could advertise.

  Lady Croom Advertise?

  Noakes In the newspapers.

  Lady Croom But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence.

  Noakes I do not know what to suggest, my lady.

  Septimus Is there room for a piano?

  Noakes (baffled) A piano?

  Lady Croom We are intruding here – this will not do, Mr Hodge. Evidently, nothing is being learned. (to Noakes) Come along, sir!

  Thomasina Mr Noakes – bad news from Paris!

  Noakes Is it the Emperor Napoleon?

  Thomasina No. (She tears the page off her drawing block, with her ‘diagram’ on it.) It concerns your heat engine. Improve it as you will, you can never get out of it what you put in. It repays eleven pence in the shilling at most. The penny is for this author’s thoughts.

  She gives the diagram to Septimus who looks at it.

  Noakes (baffled again) Thank you, my lady. (He goes out into the garden.)

  Lady Croom (to Septimus) Do you understand her?

  Septimus No.

  Lady Croom Then this business is over. I was married at seventeen. Ce soir il faut qu’on parle français, je te demande, Thomasina, as a courtesy to the Count. Wear your green velvet, please, I will send Briggs to do your hair. Sixteen and eleven months …! (She follows Noakes out of view.)

  Thomasina Lord Byron was with a lady?

  Septimus Yes.

  Thomasina Huh!

  Now Septimus retrieves his book from Thomasina. He turns the pages, and also continues to study Thomasina’s diagram. He strokes the tortoise absently as he reads. Thomasina takes up pencil and paper and starts to draw Septimus with Plautus.

  Septimus Why does it mean Mr Noakes’s engine pays eleven pence in the shilling? Where does he say it?

  Thomasina Nowhere. I noticed it by the way. I cannot remember now.

  Septimus Nor is he interested by determinism –

  Thomasina Oh … yes. Newton’s equations go forwards and backwards, they do not care which way. But the heat equation cares very much, it goes only one way. That is the reason Mr Noakes’s engine cannot give the power to drive Mr Noakes’s engine.

  Septimus Everybody knows that.

  Thomasina Yes. Septimus, they know it about engines!

  Septimus (pause. He looks at his watch.) A quarter to twelve. For your essay this week, explicate your diagram.

  Thomasina I cannot. I do not know the mathematics.

  Septimus Without mathematics, then.

  Thomasina has continued to draw. She tears the top page from her drawing pad and gives it to Septimus.

  Thomasina There. I have made a drawing of you and Plautus.

  Septimus (looking at it) Excellent likeness. Not so good of me.

  Thomasina laughs, and leaves the room. Augustus appears at the garden door. His manner cautious and diffident. Septimus does not notice him for a moment. Septimus gathers his papers together.

  Augustus Sir …

  Septimus My lord …?

  Augustus I gave you offence, sir, and I am sorry for it.

  Septimus I took none, my lord, but you are kind to mention it.

  Augustus I would like to ask you a question, Mr Hodge. (Pause.) You have an elder brother, I dare say, being a Septimus?

  Septimus Yes, my lord. He lives in London. He is the editor of a newspaper, the Piccadilly Recreation. (Pause.) Was that your question?

  Augustus, evidently embarrassed about something, picks up the drawing of Septimus.

  Augustus No. Oh … it is you? … I would like to keep it.

  Septimus inclines his head in assent.

  There are things a fellow cannot ask his friends. Carnal things. My sister has told me … my sister believes such things as I cannot, I assure you, bring myself to repeat.

  Septimus You must not repeat them, then. The walk between here and dinner will suffice to put us straight, if we stroll by the garden. It is an easy business. And then I must rely on you to correct your sister’s state of ignorance.

  A commotion is heard outside – Bernard’s loud voice in a
sort of agony.

  Bernard (outside the door) Oh no – no – no – oh, bloody hell! –

  Augustus Thank you, Mr Hodge, I will.

  Taking the drawing with him, Augustus allows himself to be shown out through the garden door, and Septimus follows him.

  Bernard enters the room, through the door Hannah left by. Valentine comes in with him, leaving the door open and they are followed by Hannah who is holding the ‘garden book’.

  Bernard Oh, no – no –

  Hannah I’m sorry, Bernard.

  Bernard Fucked by a dahlia! Do you think? Is it open and shut? Am I fucked? What does it really amount to? When all’s said and done? Am I fucked? What do you think, Valentine? Tell me the truth.

  Valentine You’re fucked.

  Bernard Oh God! Does it mean that?

  Hannah Yes, Bernard, it does.

  Bernard I’m not sure. Show me where it says. I want to see it. No – read it – no, wait … (He sits at the table. He prepares to listen as though listening were an oriental art.) Right.

  Hannah (reading) ‘October 1st, 1810. Today under the direction of Mr Noakes, a parterre was dug on the south lawn and will be a handsome show next year, a consolation for the picturesque catastrophe of the second and third distances. The dahlia having propagated under glass with no ill effect from the sea voyage, is named by Captain Brice ‘Charity’ for his bride, though the honour properly belongs to the husband who exchanged beds with my dahlia, and an English summer for everlasting night in the Indies.’

  Pause.

  Bernard Well it’s so round the houses, isn’t it? Who’s to say what it means?

  Hannah (patiently) It means that Ezra Chater of the Sidley Park connection is the same Chater who described a dwarf dahlia in Martinique in 1810 and died there, of a monkey bite.

  Bernard (wildly) Ezra wasn’t a botanist! He was a poet!

  Hannah He was not much of either, but he was both.

  Valentine It’s not a disaster.

  Bernard Of course it’s a disaster! I was on ‘The Breakfast Hour’!

  Valentine It doesn’t mean Byron didn’t fight a duel, it only means Chater wasn’t killed in it.

  Bernard Oh, pull yourself together! – do you think I’d have been on ‘The Breakfast Hour’ if Byron had missed!

  Hannah Calm down, Bernard. Valentine’s right.

  Bernard (grasping at straws) Do you think so? You mean the Piccadilly reviews? Yes, two completely unknown Byron essays – and my discovery of the lines he added to ‘English Bards’. That counts for something.