Waste Part 20

KENT. Well, he talked of his Flock. There are quite fifteen letters you'll have to deal with yourself, I'm afraid.

TREBELL _stares at him: then, apparently, making up his mind...._

TREBELL. Ring up a messenger, will you ... I must write a note and send it.

KENT. Will you dictate?

TREBELL. I shall have done it while you're ringing ... it's only a personal matter. Then we'll start work.

KENT _goes into his room and tackles the telephone there._ TREBELL _sits down to write the note, his face very set and anxious._

THE THIRD ACT

At LORD HORSHAM'S house in Queen Anne's Gate, in the evening, a week later.

_If rooms express their owners' character, the grey and black of_ LORD HORSHAM'S _drawing room, the faded brocade of its furniture, reveal him as a man of delicate taste and somewhat thin intellectuality. He stands now before a noiseless fire, contemplating with a troubled eye either the pattern of the Old French carpet, or the black double doors of the library opposite, or the moulding on the Adams ceiling, which the flicker of all the candles casts into deeper relief. His grey hair and black clothes would melt into the decoration of his room, were the figure not rescued from such oblivion by the British white glaze of his shirt front and--to a sympathetic eye--by the loveable perceptive face of the man. Sometimes he looks at the sofa in front of him, on which sits_ WEDGECROFT, _still in the frock coat of a busy day, depressed and irritable. With his back to them, on a sofa with its back to them, is_ GEORGE FARRANT, _planted with his knees apart, his hands clasped, his head bent; very glum. And sometimes_ HORSHAM _glances at the door, as if waiting for it to open. Then his gaze will travel back, up the long shiny black piano, with a volume of the Well Tempered Clavichord open on its desk, to where_ CANTELUPE _is perched uncomfortably on the bench; paler than ever; more self-contained than ever, looking, to one who knows him as well as Horsham does, a little dangerous. So he returns to contemplation of the ceiling or the carpet. They wait there as men wait who have said all they want to say upon an unpleasant subject and yet cannot dismiss it. At last_ FARRANT _breaks the silence._

FARRANT. What time did you ask him to come, Horsham?

HORSHAM. Eh ... O'Connell? I didn't ask him directly. What time did you say, Wedgecroft?

WEDGECROFT. Any time after half past ten, I told him.

FARRANT. [_Grumbling._] It's a quarter to eleven. Doesn't Blackborough mean to turn up at all?

HORSHAM. He was out of town ... my note had to be sent after him. I couldn't wire, you see.

FARRANT. No.

CANTELUPE. It was by the merest chance your man caught me, Cyril. I was taking the ten fifteen to Tonbridge and happened to go to James Street first for some papers.

_The conversation flags again._

CANTELUPE. But since Mrs. O'Connell is dead what is the excuse for a scandal?

_At this unpleasant dig into the subject of their thoughts the three other men stir uncomfortably._

HORSHAM. Because the inquest is unavoidable ... apparently.

WEDGECROFT. [_Suddenly letting fly._] I declare I'd I'd have risked penal servitude and given a certificate, but just before the end O'Connell would call in old Fielding Andrews, who has moral scruples about everything--it's his trademark--and of course about this...!

FARRANT. Was he told of the whole business?

WEDGECROFT. No ... O'Connell kept things up before him. Well ... the woman was dying.

HORSHAM. Couldn't you have kept the true state of the case from Sir Fielding?

WEDGECROFT. And been suspected of the malpractice myself if he'd found it out? ... which he would have done ... he's no fool. Well ... I thought of trying that....

FARRANT. My dear Wedgecroft ... how grossly quixotic! You have a duty to yourself.

HORSHAM. [_Rescuing the conversation from unpleasantness._] I'm afraid I feel that our position to-night is most irregular, Wedgecroft.

WEDGECROFT. Still if you can make O'Connell see reason. And if you all can't.... [_He frowns at the alternative._]

CANTELUPE. Didn't you say she came to you first of all?

WEDGECROFT. I met her one morning at Trebell's.

FARRANT. Actually _at_ Trebell's!

WEDGECROFT. The day he came back from abroad.

FARRANT. Oh! No one seems to have noticed them together much at any time. My wife ... No matter!

WEDGECROFT. She tackled me as a doctor with one part of her trouble ...

added she'd been with O'Connell in Ireland, which of course it turns out wasn't true ... asked me to help her. I had to say I couldn't.

HORSHAM. [_Echoing rather than querying._] You couldn't.

FARRANT. [_Shocked._] My dear Horsham!

WEDGECROFT. Well, if she'd told me the truth!... No, anyhow I couldn't. I'm sure there was no excuse. One can't run these risks.

FARRANT. Quite right, quite right.

WEDGECROFT. There are men who do on one pretext or another.

FARRANT. [_Not too shocked to be curious._] Are there really?

WEDGECROFT. Oh yes, men well known ... in other directions. I could give you four addresses ... but of course I wasn't going to give her one. Though there again ... if she'd told me the whole truth!... My G.o.d, women are such fools! And they prefer quackery ... look at the decent doctors they simply turn into charlatans. Though, there again, that all comes of letting a trade work mysteriously under the thumb of a benighted oligarchy ... which is beside the question. But one day I'll make you sit up on the subject of the Medical Council, Horsham.

HORSHAM _a.s.sumes an impenetrable air of statesmanship._

HORSHAM. I know. Very interesting ... very important ... very difficult to alter the status quo.

WEDGECROFT. Then the poor little liar said she'd go off to an appointment with her dressmaker; and I heard nothing more till she sent for me a week later, and I found her almost too ill to speak. Even then she didn't tell me the truth! So, when O'Connell arrived, of course I spoke to him quite openly and all he told me in reply was that it wouldn't have been his child.

FARRANT. Poor devil!

WEDGECROFT. O'Connell?

FARRANT. Yes, of course.

WEDGECROFT. I wonder. Perhaps she didn't realize he'd been sent for ... or felt then she was dying and didn't care ... or lost her head. I don't know.