Five O'Clock Tea: Farce

Campbell: "Did it do all the talking?"

Mrs. Curwen: "It would – if Mrs. Roberts and Dr. Lawton hadn't been there. Well, I must go."

Campbell: "So must I."

Mrs. Somers, in surprise: "Must you?"

Campbell: "Yes; these drifts will be over my ears directly."

Mrs. Curwen: "You poor man! You don't mean to say you're walking?"

Campbell: "I shall be, in about half a minute."

Mrs. Curwen: "Indeed you shall not! You shall be driving – with me. I've a vacancy in the coupé, and I'll set you down wherever you like."

Campbell: "Won't it crowd you?"

Mrs. Curwen: "Not at all."

Campbell: "Or incommode you in any way?"

Mrs. Curwen: "It will oblige me in every way."

Campbell: "Then I will go, and a thousand thanks. Good-by again, Mrs. Somers."

Mrs. Curwen: "Good-by, Mrs. Somers. Poor Mrs. Somers! It seems too bad to leave you here alone, bowed in an elegiac attitude over your tea-urn."

Mrs. Somers: "Oh, not at all! Remember me to Mr. Curwen."

Mrs. Curwen: "I will. Well, Mr. Campbell – "

Mrs. Somers: "Mr. Campbell – "

Campbell: "Well?"

Mrs. Curwen: "To which?"

Campbell: "Both."

Mrs. Somers: "Neither!"

Mrs. Curwen: "Ah! ha, ha, ha! Mr. Campbell, do you know much about women?"

Campbell: "I had a mother."

Mrs. Curwen: "Oh, a mother won't do."

Campbell: "Well, I have an only sister who is a woman."

Mrs. Curwen: "A sister won't do, either– not your own. You can't learn a woman's meaning in that way."

Campbell: "I will sit at your feet, Mrs. Curwen, if you'll instruct me."

Mrs. Curwen: "I shall be delighted. I'll begin now. Oh, you needn't really prostrate yourself!" She stops him in a burlesque attempt to do so. "And I'll concentrate the wisdom of the whole first lesson in a single word."

Campbell, with clasped hands of entreaty: "Speak, blessed ghost!"

Mrs. Curwen: "Stay! Ah! ha, ha, ha!" She flies at Mrs. Somers and kisses her. "You can't say I'm ill-natured, my dear, whatever I am!"

Mrs. Somers, pursuing her exit with the word: "No, merely atrocious." A pause ensues, in which Campbell stands irresolute.

X

MRS. SOMERS; MR. CAMPBELL

Campbell, finally: "Did you wish me to stay, Amy?"

Mrs. Somers, airily: "I? Oh no! It was Mrs. Curwen."

Campbell: "Then I think I'll accept her kind offer of a seat in her coupé."

Mrs. Somers: "Oh! I thought, of course, you'd stay – at her request."

Campbell: "No; I shall only stay at yours."

Mrs. Somers: "And I shall not ask you. In fact, I warn you not to."

Campbell: "Why?"

Mrs. Somers: "Because, if you urge me to speak now, I shall say – "

Campbell: "I wasn't going to urge you."

Mrs. Somers: "No matter! I shall say it now without being urged. Yes, I've made up my mind. I can't marry a flirt."

Campbell: "I can, Amy."

Mrs. Somers: "Sir!"

Campbell: "You know very well you sent those people into the other room to keep me here and torment me – "

Mrs. Somers: "Now you've insulted me, and all is over."

Campbell: "To tantalize me with your loveliness, your beauty, your grace, Amy!"

Mrs. Somers, softening: "Oh, that's all very well – "

Campbell: "I'm glad you like it. I could go on at much greater length. But you know I love you dearly, Amy, and why should you delight in my agonies? But only marry me, and you shall delight in them as long as you live, and – "

Mrs. Somers: "You must hold me very cheap to think I would take you from that creature."

Campbell: "Confound her! I wasn't hers to give. I offered myself first."

Mrs. Somers: "She offered you last, and – no, thank you, please."

Campbell: "Do you really mean it?"

Mrs. Somers: "I shall not say. Or, yes, I will say. If that woman, who seems to have you at her beck and call, had not intermeddled, I might have made you a very different answer. But now my eyes are opened, and I see what I should have to expect, and – no, thank you, please."

Campbell: "And if she hadn't offered me – "

Mrs. Somers, drawing out her handkerchief and putting it to her eyes: "I was feeling kindly towards you – I was such a little fool – "

Campbell: "Amy!"

Mrs. Somers: "And you knew how much I disliked her."

Campbell: "Yes, I saw by the way you kissed each other."

Mrs. Somers: "Nonsense! You knew that meant nothing. But if it had been anybody else in the world but her, I shouldn't have minded it. And now – "

Campbell: "Now – "

Mrs. Somers: "Now all those geese are coming back from the other room, and they'll see that I've been crying, and everybody will know everything. Willis – "

Campbell: "Willis?"

Mrs. Somers: "Let me go! I must bathe my eyes! You stay here and receive them! I'll be back at once!" She escapes from the arms stretched towards her, and out of the door, just before her guests enter from the library, and Campbell remains to receive them. The ladies, in returning, call over one another's heads and shoulders.

XI

MR. CAMPBELL and the OTHERS

Mrs. Roberts: "Amy, it's lovely! But it doesn't half do you justice."

Young Mrs. Bemis: "It's too sweet for anything, Mrs. Somers."

Mrs. Crashaw: "Why did you let the man put you into that ridiculous seventeenth-century dress? Can't he paint a modern frock?"

Mrs. Wharton: "But what exquisite coloring, Mrs. Somers!"

Mrs. Miller: "He's got just your lovely turn of the head."

Miss Bayly: "And the way you hold your fan – what character he's thrown into it!"

Mrs. Roberts: "And that fall of the skirt, Amy; that skirt is full of character!" She discovers Mr. Campbell behind the tea-urn. He has Mrs. Somers's light wrap on his shoulders, and her fan in his hand, and he alternately hides his blushes with it, and coquettishly folds it and pats his mouth in a gross caricature of Mrs. Somers's manner. In rising he twitches his coat forward in a similar burlesque of a lady's management of her skirt. "Why, where is Amy, Willis?"

Campbell: "Gone a moment. Some trouble about – the hot water."

Lawton: "Hot water that you've been getting into? Ah, young man, look me in the eye!"

Campbell: "Your glass one, Doctor?"

Young Mr. Bemis: "Why, my dear, has your father got a glass eye?"

Mrs. Bemis: "Of course he hasn't! What an idea! I don't know what Mr. Campbell means."

Lawton: "I've no doubt he wishes I had a glass eye – two of them, for that matter. But that isn't answering my question. Where is Mrs. Somers?"

Campbell: "That was my sister's question, and I did answer it. Have some tea, ladies? I'm glad you like my portrait, and that you think he's got my lovely turn of the head, and the way I hold my fan, and the character of my skirt; but I agree with you that it isn't half as pretty as I am."

The Ladies: "Oh, what shall we do to him? Prescribe for us, Doctor."

Campbell: "No, no! I want the Doctor's services myself. I don't want him to give me his medicines. I want him to give me away."

Lawton: "You're tired of giving yourself away, then?"

Campbell: "It's of no use. They won't have me."

Lawton: "Who won't?"

Campbell: "Oh, I'll leave Mrs. Somers to say."

XII

MRS. SOMERS and the OTHERS

Mrs. Somers, radiantly reappearing: "Say what?" She has hidden the traces of her tears from every one but the ladies by a light application of powder, and she knows that they all know she has been crying, and this makes her a little more smiling. "Say what?" She addresses the company in general rather than Campbell.

Campbell, with caricatured tenderness: "Say yes."

Mrs. Somers: "What does he mean, Doctor?"

Lawton: "Oh, I'm afraid he's past all surgery. I give him over to you, Mrs. Somers."

Campbell: "There, now. She wasn't the last to do it!"

Mrs. Somers, with the resolution of a widow: "Well, I suppose there's nothing else for it, then. I'll see what can be done for your patient, Doctor." She passes her hand through Campbell's arm, where he continues to stand behind the tea-table.

Mrs. Roberts, falling upon her and kissing her: "Amy, you don't mean it!"

Mrs. Bemis, embracing her in turn: "I never can believe it."

Mrs. Crashaw: "It is ridiculous! What, Willis?"

Mrs. Miller: "It does seem too nice to be true."

Bemis: "You astonish us!"

Roberts: "We never should have dreamed of it."

Young Mr. Bemis: "You must give us time to realize it."

Mrs. Wharton: "Is it possible?"

Miss Bayly: "Is it possible?" They all shake hands with Mrs. Somers in turn.

Roberts: "Isn't this rather sudden, Willis?"

Campbell: "Well, it is – for Mrs. Somers, perhaps. But I've found it awfully gradual."

Mrs. Somers: "Nonsense! It's an old story for both of us."

Campbell: "Well, what I like about it is, it's true. Founded on fact!"

Mrs. Roberts: "Really? I can't believe it!"

Campbell: "Well, I don't know whom all this charming incredulity's intended to flatter, but if it's I, I say no, not really, at all! It's merely a little coup de théâtre we've been arranging."

Lawton, patting him on the shoulder: "One ahead, as usual."

Mrs. Somers: "Oh, thank you, Doctor! There are two of us ahead now."

Lawton: "I believe you, at any rate. Bravo!" He initiates an applause in which all the rest join, while Campbell catches up Mrs. Somers's fan and unfurls it before both their faces.

THE END