Dear Brutus Part 20

MATEY (stoutly). There was nothing proved.

JOANNA (like one calling a meeting). Mabel, Jack, here is another of us! You have gone just the same way again, my friend. (Ecstatically.) There is more in it, you see, than taking the wrong turning; you would always take the wrong turning. (The only fitting comment.) Tra-la-la!

LADY CAROLINE. If you are casting any aspersions on my husband, allow me to say that a prouder wife than I does not to-day exist.

MRS. COADE (who finds herself the only clear-headed one). My dear, do be careful.

MABEL. So long as you are satisfied, dear Lady Caroline. But I thought you shrank from all blood that was not blue.

LADY CAROLINE. You thought? Why should you think about me? I beg to a.s.sure you that I adore my Jim.

(She seeks his arm, but her Jim has encountered the tray containing coffee cups and a cake, and his hands close on it with a certain intimacy.) Whatever are you doing, Jim?

MATEY. I don't understand it, Caroliny; but somehow I feel at home with this in my hands.

MABEL. 'Caroliny!'

MRS. COADE. Look at me well; don't you remember me?

MATEY (musing). I don't remember you; but I seem to a.s.sociate you with hard-boiled eggs. (With conviction.) You like your eggs hard-boiled.

PURDIE. Hold on to hard-boiled eggs! She used to tip you especially to see to them.

(MATEY'S hand goes to his pocket.)

Yes, that was the pocket.

LADY CAROLINE (with distaste). Tip!

MATEY (without distaste). Tip!

PURDIE. Jolly word, isn't it?

MATEY (raising the tray). It seems to set me thinking.

LADY CAROLINE (feeling the tap of the hammer). Why is my work-basket in this house?

MRS. COADE. You are living here, you know.

LADY CAROLINE. That is what a person feels. But when did I come? It is very odd, but one feels one ought to say when did one go.

PURDIE. She is coming to with a wush!

MATEY (under the hammer). Mr.... Purdie!

LADY CAROLINE. MRS. Coade!

MATEY. The Guv'nor! My clothes!

LADY CAROLINE. One is in evening dress!

JOANNA (charmed to explain). You will understand clearly in a minute, Caroliny. You didn't really take that clerkship, Jim; you went into domestic service; but in the essentials you haven't altered.

PURDIE (pleasantly). I'll have my shaving water at 7.30 sharp, Matey.

MATEY (mechanically). Very good, sir.

LADY CAROLINE. Sir? Midsummer Eve! The wood!

PURDIE. Yes, hold on to the wood.

MATEY. You are ... you are ... you are Lady Caroline Laney!

LADY CAROLINE. It is Matey, the butler!

MABEL. You seemed quite happy with him, you know, Lady Caroline.

JOANNA (nicely). We won't tell.

LADY CAROLINE (subsiding). Caroline Matey! And I seemed to like it!

How horrible!

MRS. COADE (expressing a general sentiment). It is rather difficult to see what we should do next.

MATEY (tentatively). Perhaps if I were to go downstairs?

PURDIE. It would be conferring a personal favour on us all.

(Thus encouraged MATEY and his tray resume friendly relations with the pantry.)

LADY CAROLINE (with itching fingers as she glares at Lob). It is all that wretch's doing.

(A quiver from Lob's right leg acknowledges the compliment. The gay music of a pipe is heard from outside.)

JOANNA (peeping). Coady!

MRS. COADE. Coady! Why is he so happy?

JOANNA (troubled). Dear, hold my hand.

MRS. COADE (suddenly trembling). Won't he know me?

PURDIE (abashed by that soft face). Mrs. Coade, I 'm sorry. It didn't so much matter about the likes of us, but for your sake I wish Coady hadn't gone out.

MRS. COADE. We that have been happily married this thirty years.

COADE (popping in buoyantly). May I intrude? My name is Coade. The fact is I was playing about in the wood on a whistle, and I saw your light.