Crucial Instances — Copy
A DIALOGUE
_Mrs.
Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room at the tea-table.
The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and flower-scented.
Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph inscriptions “From the Author”--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, _at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the wall-panels.
Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, her hands full of letters_.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Ten more applications for autographs?
Isn’t it strange that people who’d blush to borrow twenty dollars don’t scruple to beg for an autograph?
_Hilda (reproachfully)_.
Oh-- _Mrs.
Dale_.
What’s the difference, pray?
_Hilda_.
Only that your last autograph sold for fifty-- _Mrs.
Dale (not displeased)_.
Ah?
--I sent for you, Hilda, because I’m dining out to-night, and if there’s nothing important to attend to among these letters you needn’t sit up for me.
_Hilda_.
You don’t mean to work?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Perhaps; but I sha’n’t need you.
You’ll see that my cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and that I don’t have to crawl about the floor in search of my pen-wiper?
That’s all.
Now about these letters-- _Hilda (impulsively)_.
Oh, Mrs. Dale-- _Mrs.
Dale_.
Well?
_Hilda_.
I’d rather sit up for you.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Child, I’ve nothing for you to do.
I shall be blocking out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won’t be ready for you till next week.
_Hilda_.
It isn’t that--but it’s so beautiful to sit here, watching and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you’re in there _(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--.
_(Impulsively.
)_ What do I care for sleep?
_Mrs.
Dale (indulgently)_.
Child--silly child!
--Yes, I should have felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration-- _Hilda (rapt)_.
It is!
_Mrs.
Dale_.
But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the morning; for you’re still at the age when one is fresh in the morning!
_(She sighs.
)_ The letters?
_(Abruptly.
)_ Do you take notes of what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say?
_Hilda (shyly)_.
I have-- _Mrs.
Dale (smiling)_.
For the diary?
_Hilda (nods and blushes)_.
_Mrs.
Dale (caressingly)_.
Goose!
--Well, to business.
What is there?
_Hilda_.
Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been settled in your favor.
The English publishers of _Immolation_ write to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of _The Idol’s Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaphore_ wants a new serial--I think that’s all; except that _Woman’s Sphere_ and _The Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs-- _Mrs.
Dale_.
The same old story!
I’m so tired of it all.
_(To herself, in an undertone.
)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped?
_(The servant brings in a card.
)_ _Mrs.
Dale (reading it)_.
Is it possible?
Paul Ventnor?
_(To the servant.
)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up.
_(To herself.
)_ Paul Ventnor!
_Hilda (breathless)_.
Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor?
_Mrs.
Dale (smiling)_.
I fancy there’s only one.
_Hilda_.
The great, great poet?
_(Irresolute.
)_ No, I don’t dare-- _Mrs.
Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_.
What?
_Hilda (fervently)_.
Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, where he can’t possibly notice me--stay just a moment?
Just to see him come in?
To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest poet of the age?
Oh, it’s too much to ask!
It’s an historic moment.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Why, I suppose it is.
I hadn’t thought of it in that light.
Well _(smiling)_, for the diary-- _Hilda_.
Oh, thank you, _thank you_!
I’ll be off the very instant I’ve heard him speak.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
The very instant, mind.
_(She rises, looks at herself in the glass, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the tea-caddy.
)_ Isn’t the room very warm?
--_(She looks over at her portrait.
)_ I’ve grown stouter since that was painted--.
You’ll make a fortune out of that diary, Hilda-- _Hilda (modestly)_.
Four publishers have applied to me already-- _The Servant (announces)_.
Mr. Paul Ventnor.
_(Tall, nearing fifty, with an incipient stoutness buttoned into a masterly frock-coat, Ventnor drops his glass and advances vaguely, with a short-sighted stare.
)_ _Ventnor_.
Mrs. Dale?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
My dear friend!
This is kind.
_(She looks over her shoulder at Hilda, who vanishes through the door to the left.
)_ The papers announced your arrival, but I hardly hoped-- _Ventnor (whose short-sighted stare is seen to conceal a deeper embarrassment)_.
You hadn’t forgotten me, then?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Delicious!
Do _you_ forget that you’re public property?
_Ventnor_.
Forgotten, I mean, that we were old friends?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Such old friends!
May I remind you that it’s nearly twenty years since we’ve met?
Or do you find cold reminiscences indigestible?
_Ventnor_.
On the contrary, I’ve come to ask you for a dish of them--we’ll warm them up together.
You’re my first visit.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
How perfect of you!
So few men visit their women friends in chronological order; or at least they generally do it the other way round, beginning with the present day and working back--if there’s time--to prehistoric woman.
_Ventnor_.
But when prehistoric woman has become historic woman--?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Oh, it’s the reflection of my glory that has guided you here, then?
_Ventnor_.
It’s a spirit in my feet that has led me, at the first opportunity, to the most delightful spot I know.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Oh, the first opportunity--!
_Ventnor_.
I might have seen you very often before; but never just in the right way.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Is this the right way?
_Ventnor_.
It depends on you to make it so.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
What a responsibility!
What shall I do?
_Ventnor_.
Talk to me--make me think you’re a little glad to see me;
give me some tea and a cigarette; and say you’re out to everyone else.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Is that all?
_(She hands him a cup of tea.
)_ The cigarettes are at your elbow--.
And do you think I shouldn’t have been glad to see you before?
_Ventnor_.
No; I think I should have been too glad to see you.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Dear me, what precautions!
I hope you always wear goloshes when it looks like rain and never by any chance expose yourself to a draught.
But I had an idea that poets courted the emotions-- _Ventnor_.
Do novelists?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
If you ask _me_--on paper!
_Ventnor_.
Just so; that’s safest.
My best things about the sea have been written on shore.
_(He looks at her thoughtfully.
)_ But it wouldn’t have suited us in the old days, would it?
_Mrs.
Dale (sighing)_.
When we were real people!
_Ventnor_.
Real people?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
Are _you_, now?
I died years ago.
What you see before you is a figment of the reporter’s brain--a monster manufactured out of newspaper paragraphs, with ink in its veins.
A keen sense of copyright is _my_ nearest approach to an emotion.
_Ventnor (sighing)_.
Ah, well, yes--as you say, we’re public property.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
If one shared equally with the public!
But the last shred of my identity is gone.
_Ventnor_.
Most people would be glad to part with theirs on such terms.
I have followed your work with immense interest.
_Immolation_ is a masterpiece.
I read it last summer when it first came out.
_Mrs.
Dale (with a shade less warmth)_.
_Immolation_ has been out three years.
_Ventnor_.
Oh, by Jove--no?
Surely not--But one is so overwhelmed--one loses count.
(_Reproachfully_.
) Why have you never sent me your books?
_Mrs.
Dale_.
For that very reason.
_Ventnor (deprecatingly)_.
You know I didn’t mean it for you!
And _my_ first book--do you remember--was dedicated to you.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
_Silver Trumpets_-- _Ventnor (much interested)_.
Have you a copy still, by any chance?
The first edition, I mean?
Mine was stolen years ago.
Do you think you could put your hand on it?
_Mrs.
Dale (taking a small shabby book from the table at her side)_.
It’s here.
_Ventnor (eagerly)_.
May I have it?
Ah, thanks.
This is _very_ interesting.
The last copy sold in London for £40, and they tell me the next will fetch twice as much.
It’s quite _introuvable_.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
I know that.
_(A pause.
She takes the book from him, opens it, and reads, half to herself--)_ _How much we two have seen together, Of other eyes unwist, Dear as in days of leafless weather The willow’s saffron mist, Strange as the hour when Hesper swings A-sea in beryl green, While overhead on dalliant wings The daylight hangs serene, And thrilling as a meteor’s fall Through depths of lonely sky, When each to each two watchers call: I saw it!
--So did I. _ _Ventnor_.
Thin, thin--the troubadour tinkle.
Odd how little promise there is in first volumes!
_Mrs.
Dale (with irresistible emphasis)_.
I thought there was a distinct promise in this!
_Ventnor (seeing his mistake)_.
Ah--the one you would never let me fulfil?
_(Sentimentally.
)_ How inexorable you were!
You never dedicated a book to _me_.
_Mrs.
Dale_.
I hadn’t begun to write when we were--dedicating things to each other.
_Ventnor_.
Not for the public--but you wrote for me; and, wonderful as you are, you’ve never written anything since that I care for half as much as-- _Mrs.
Dale (interested)_.
Well?
_Ventnor_.
Your letters.
_Mrs.
Dale (in a changed voice)_.
My letters--do you remember them?
_Ventnor_.
When I don’t, I reread them.
_Mrs.
Dale (incredulous)_.
You have them still?
_Ventnor (unguardedly)_.
You haven’t mine, then?
_Mrs.
Dale (playfully)_.
Oh, you were a celebrity already.
Of course I kept them!
_(Smiling.
)_ Think what they are worth now!
I always keep them locked up in my safe over there.
_(She indicates a cabinet.
)_ _Ventnor (after a pause)_.
I always carry yours with me.
_Mrs.
Dale (laughing)_.
You-- _Ventnor_.
Wherever I go.
_(A longer pause.
She looks at him fixedly.
)_ I have them with me now.
_Mrs.
Dale (agitated)_.
You--have them with you--now?
_Ventnor (embarrassed)_.
Why not?
One never knows-- _Mrs.
Dale_.
Never knows--?
_Ventnor (humorously)_.
