No Laughing Matter (44 page)

MARGARET MATTHEWS
: Whose home, Countess? For heaven’s sake there’s enough people to support here without succouring the stranger from the street.

CLARA MATTHEWS
: The stranger from the street! You call the woman who gave you her whole life to you children a stranger!

GLADYS MATTHEWS
: It’s Regan, Maggie. They’ve brought her back here.

MARGARET MATTHEWS
: Oh, no! But she’s an invalid, Mother. What were her family doing to let her go?

CLARA MATTHEWS
: Her family were doing what I told them. I’ve never liked that sister of hers, but she’s a respectful creature when it comes down to it. I hope, by the way, dears, that
you
two were not party to Susan’s cruel idea of sending Regan away like that.

MARGARET MATTHEWS
: I didn’t think of it, but I approved.

GLADYS MATTHEWS
: It was Sukey’s idea. And it was jolly good of her to go down there and arrange it all.

[MR MATTHEWS
appears
at
the
door,
dressed
very
neatly
in
grey
Harris
tweeds,
grey
foulard
bow
tie,
grey
spats
and
tawny
brogues,
but
he
walks
a
little
arthritically
and
uses
a
malacca
cane
to
aid
him
down
the
steps.
He
sings
as
he
comes,
but
as
his
wife
begins
to
speak,
he
stops.
]

CLARA MATTHEWS
: Billy, these girls were part of the plot to shut poor Regan up in that horrible little house in Clapham.

WILLIAM MATTHEWS
[
starting
to
sing
again
]:
And the Russians shall not take Constantinople. Morning, Podge [
he
kisses
Gladys
]. You sent us a dragon, but your Mother’s slain her. Morning, Maggie [
he
kisses
her
].
I got your last from Mudie’s, dear, but it was too long. Condense your narrative, my dear. Read
Maupassant
.
Bel
Ami,
there’s your model. Or that old fraud’s
Esther
Waters.
You try to put in all this atmosphere. That’s all right for the big chaps, the Russians, Tchekov, Tolstoy, but we lesser fry must stick to hard work and art. So you thought it was your duty to take a poor old sick mare out of the sweet hay she’s been stabled in all her life, and dump her down among a lot of strangers who happen to bear the same surname. And you’re supposed to be a fighter against convention, Maggie. Why, poor old Regan … [Mrs Hannapin
appears
in
the
doorway
with
her
tray
of
coffee.]

CLARA MATTHEWS
: Pas devant les domestiques, Billy, s’il vous plait.
[
B
ILLY
POP
stops
talking,
but
as
he
drinks
his
coffee
he
hums
loudly
through
their
conversation
.]

MRS HANNAPIN
: The other lady’s gone to tidy erself.

CLARA MATTHEWS
: Oh, how like Susan. Thank you Mrs
Hannapin
. You and Miss Stoker have got cups of coffee, I hope?

MRS HANNAPIN
: Oh, yes, thank you. And she’s gettin on ever so nice drinkin out of the cup erself now – with a guidin and of course. [
She
goes.
]

[
MRS PASCOE
–
SUKEY
–
appears
in
the
doorway.
She
is
dressed
in
a
pepper
and
salt
coat
and
skirt
with
sensible
shoes,
under
her
coat
a
navy
blue
jumper,
a
string
of
pearls,
a
small
navy
blue
hat
with
matching
eye
veil
–
her
‘visit
to
London
’
clothes.
]

SUKEY PASCOE
: Mother! Father! It’s disgraceful! I’ve seen her. She no more ought to be in the kitchen than she should be flying an airship. And that old creature who opened the door to me is nearly as bad. And after all the trouble and tact I used to get her family to take her in. Haven’t you any sense of responsibility?

CLARA MATTHEWS
: I thought you were meant to be tidying yourself, Susan, not spying in my kitchen.

MARGARET MATTHEWS
: Now, Countess, you know very well Sukey’s never been called Susan.

CLARA MATTHEWS
: Don’t interfere, Wendy. Your Father and I were the ones who christened her Sukey. Now I’m calling her by another name. Responsibility! It’s you girls who’ve forgotten all you owe to that woman. To dump her down in a back street in Clapham. After all the years of fun she’s had with us here. And the ugliness of that dreadful little slum house. It almost makes one understand why Quentin went bolshie. Why here she’s got the garden. All this beauty. Do you see that your snow vine’s flowering, Margaret?

SUKEY
PASCOE
: Mother! Don’t be absurd. What is going to become of this house with old creatures like that looking after it?

MARGARET MATTHEWS
: Yes, Mother, really, you know, you cannot run a house this size on a half paralysed cook and a
slummocky
charwoman.

GLADYS MATTHEWS
: And we’d all arranged to pay Miss Agnew. She’d have taken the whole thing off your shoulders.

CLARA MATTHEWS
[
a
little
daunted
by
this
triple
attack
]: There’s an excellent woman, Mrs Sankey, who’s to come in and get Regan’s supper. We’re not expecting Regan to cook more than once a day. And if your Father and I don’t feel like going out, we can always have a lobster mayonnaise or some oysters sent over from Overtoils.

SUKEY PASCOE
: The place will get like a pigsty.

GLADYS MATTHEWS
: Miss Agnew said Regan herself really needed a nurse.

MARGARET MATTHEWS
: You’d much better let us sell up and get you a good suite in a hotel.

WILLIAM MATTHEWS
[
singing
]:
And the Russians shall not take Constantinople! We don’t want to fight, my dears, but by jingo if we do [
kissing
his
wife
]
.
You’ve fought the bare behind, my dear, haven’t you? No, my dears, we’re not going to be tidied up. We love our old 52. ‘I love it, I love it and who shall dare to keep me from my old armchair?’ Your Mother used to recite that when I first knew her. In drawing-rooms. Brought tears to my eyes.

CLARA MATTHEWS
[
giggling
despite
herself
]:
I never did Billy! You dreadful liar. Anyone would think I was born before the Flood.

SUKEY PASCOE
[
bursting
into
their
flirting
]:
Well, I’ve never known anything so irresponsible. And cruel. Poor old Regan! I’ll tell you this, both of you, even if you get into such a state here that you have the Council condemning the house I’m not going to involve myself. The trouble I took. Coming up to town, then all the way down to Clapham when P. S. has been frightfully seedy.

CLARA MATTHEWS
: I see no reason why you interfered, Susan. You don’t help your Father and me like the others. No, Margaret, I must speak out. We know your husband only earns a pittance at that school and then you’ve the boys, but the fact is you contribute nothing, so you’ve no call to interfere.

GLADYS MATTHEWS
: Oh, Mother, really. We all do what we can.

CLARA MATTHEWS
: It’s hardly your Father’s fault or mine if the government has reduced our income to nothing [
she
is
almost
tearful
].

WILLIAM MATTHEWS
: Now, now, my dear. They all mean well but they’ve none of them the feeling for life that we have. We knew the world as it was before the crash. Feelings have coarsened since then.

S
UKEY
P
ASCOE
[
explaining
on
the
side
to
M
ARGARET
]: I’m glad to say the time hasn’t been entirely wasted, Mag. Hugh’s buying a partnership. I’ve at last got him to see that it’s impossible to go on with the awful Great Man. I didn’t mind for Senior and
Middleman
. But P. S. is very highly strung and I couldn’t have anyone telling me how we should educate our children. But with our own school P. S. won’t live with the other boarders. He’ll be like a
day-boy
. I’ve been to Gabbitas, the agents. And there’s a school in Kent. It just suits because the present head’s wife doesn’t want me to be involved with the school at all. So there’s no question of my having to fuss with other people’s children. On the other hand, Mr Carver, that’s the head, quite understood that I should want P. S. living at home. Hugh may fuss, but Senior and Middleman are both away at public school now which is quite enough. Don’t ever marry a schoolmaster, Mag. One has to spend so much time
keeping
them in their place. Not that Hugh isn’t an old dear. But he’s such a stick-in-the-mud. Just because he’s been at St Aidan’s so long. Men are such sentimentalists!

C
LARA
M
ATTHEWS
: You’ve the money to buy schools then. Have the Pascoes suddenly become so rich?

S
UKEY
P
ASCOE
: If you want to know the truth, Mother, hard though you may find it to believe, I’ve saved the money out of what you call Hugh’s pittance. That’s one thing 52 did for me. It taught me how to save. Hugh’s quite happy with pocket money for his old tobacco. And then there was the little that Granny left me.

C
LARA
M
ATTHEWS
: Which should have gone to your Father. Well, it should, Billy. I never was so upset as when I heard about your Mother’s will.

W
ILLIAM
M
ATTHEWS
: Never mind that. My old mother left me something almost as precious as money. All the family albums. They’ve proved an invaluable mnemonic for my memoirs. You girls haven’t seen them yet. A world without eternal talk of doles and dictators. [
Exit
.]

C
LARA
M
ATTHEWS
: And your Father was so upset at the time. But troubles to him are like water off a duck’s back [
looking
round
the
weeds
and
rubbish
].
When I think of what a happy free home this was for you all. London children brought up in all this peace and quiet. We must have been a family in a thousand! All this talk about
self-expression nowadays. Your Father and I had discovered that for you children years and years ago. And now … I can’t think how things can have gone with you as they have.

S
UKEY
P
ASCOE
: Oh, don’t talk such nonsense, Mother. I know I’ve only brought up a family, though that’s something too. But all the others have done very well. Maggie and Rupert are quite famous. Hugh’s friend Trevor Plowright has a sister who reads all your works, Maggie. And anyone who’s employed matrons knows of Gladys’ agency.

G
LADYS
M
ATTHEWS
: It won’t be mine much longer.

C
LARA
M
ATTHEWS
: It hasn’t been for some time, has it, dear? I mean not your own.

G
LADYS
M
ATTHEWS
: Well, no. But in any case, I’m leaving. I’m starting up my own business with antiques.

M
ARGARET
M
ATTHEWS
: Antiques! Gladys! How fascinating!

G
LADYS
M
ATTHEWS
: Well, I’m getting to be a bit of an antique myself.

C
LARA
M
ATTHEWS
: Chop and change, chop and change. And Margaret’s divorce!

M
ARGARET
M
ATTHEWS
: There’s no question of divorce, Mother, only … Oh, you mean my divorce from
Ralph
.
Darling! That’s ancient history.

C
LARA
M
ATTHEWS
: It doesn’t make it any less sad, Margaret, And then Rupert. What does he want to appear in this miserable Russian play for? Anne Faulkner White went to a matinée and she said with the best will in the world she could hardly sit through it. And the theatre was half empty. A few terrible cranks in beards and beads. When I think how fine he looked in those amusing plays with Alma Grayson. Things one could really recommend to one’s friends. That first night of
The
Other
Menage
!
I shall never forget it! Lady Diana Cooper and Lady Louis Mountbatten! I really felt one of you had arrived. Of course, Marcus is apparently in the so called smart set now. It amuses me to see his name in William Hickey’s column. Your Father and I went through all that when you were children. And our dear old plane tree would soon be cut down if Quentin’s bolshie friends had their way. To make way for some wretched crêche or other. No, I don’t think Billy and I could possibly have seen how far away you all would drift from the simple, happy way of living we’ve tried to give you.
[
Although
the
three
sisters
have
once
or
twice
caught
each
others
’
eyes
during
their
mother
’
s
speech
and
even
had
to
suppress
a
giggle
,
as
the
yellowing
leaves
flutter
down
over
them
and
the
smoke
from
a
nearby
bonfire
drifts
across
the
garden
a
mood
of
sadness
settles
upon
them
.
M
ARGARET
sighs
,
G
LADYS
shifts
uneasily
in
her
rickety
chair
,
even
S
UKEY
shuts
her
eyes
in
an
unwonted
moment
of
tiredness
.]