Barrie, J M - The Admirable Crichton Read online

  CRICHTON (who has intended no dire meaning). What is it, my lady?

  (But she only stares into his face and then hurries from him. Left alone he is puzzled, but being a practical man he busies himself gathering firewood, until TWEENY appears excitedly carrying cocoa- nuts in her skirt. She has made better use than the ladies of her three minutes' grace for dressing.)

  TWEENY (who can be happy even on an island if CRICHTON is with her). Look what I found.

  CRICHTON. Cocoa-nuts. Bravo!

  TWEENY. They grows on trees.

  CRICHTON. Where did you think they grew?

  TWEENY. I thought as how they grew in rows on top of little sticks.

  CRICHTON (wrinkling his brows). Oh Tweeny, Tweeny!

  TWEENY (anxiously). Have I offended of your feelings again, sir?

  CRICHTON. A little.

  TWEENY (in a despairing outburst). I'm full o' vulgar words and ways; and though I may keep them in their holes when you are by, as soon as I'm by myself out they comes in a rush like beetles when the house is dark. I says them gloating-like, in my head--'Blooming' I says, and 'All my eye,' and 'Ginger,' and 'Nothink'; and all the time we was being wrecked I was praying to myself, 'Please the Lord it may be an island as it's natural to be vulgar on.'

  (A shudder passes through CRICHTON, and she is abject.)

  That's the kind I am, sir. I'm 'opeless. You'd better give me up.

  (She is a pathetic, forlorn creature, and his manhood is stirred.)

  CRICHTON (wondering a little at himself for saying it). I won't give you up. It is strange that one so common should attract one so fastidious; but so it is. (Thoughtfully.) There is something about you, Tweeny, there is a je ne sais quoi about you.

  TWEENY (knowing only that he has found something in her to commend). Is there, is there? Oh, I am glad.

  CRICHTON (putting his hand on her shoulder like a protector). We shall fight your vulgarity together. (All this time he has been arranging sticks for his fire.) Now get some dry grass. (She brings him grass, and he puts it under the sticks. He produces an odd lens from his pocket, and tries to focus the sun's rays.)

  TWEENY. Why, what's that?

  CRICHTON (the ingenious creature). That's the glass from my watch and one from Mr. Treherne's, with a little water between them. I'm hoping to kindle a fire with it.

  TWEENY (properly impressed). Oh sir!

  (After one failure the grass takes fire, and they are blowing on it when excited cries near by bring them sharply to their feet. AGATHA runs to them, white of face, followed by ERNEST.)

  ERNEST. Danger! Crichton, a tiger-cat!

  CRICHTON (getting his cutlass). Where?

  AGATHA. It is at our heels.

  ERNEST. Look out, Crichton.

  CRICHTON. H'sh!

  (TREHERNE comes to his assistance, while LADY MARY and CATHERINE join AGATHA in the hut.) ERNEST. It will be on us in a moment. (He seizes the hatchet and guards the hut. It is pleasing to see that ERNEST is no coward.)

  TREHERNE. Listen!

  ERNEST. The grass is moving. It's coming.

  (It comes. But it is no tiger-cat; it is LORD LOAM crawling on his hands and knees, a very exhausted and dishevelled peer, wondrously attired in rags. The girls see him, and with glad cries rush into his arms.)

  LADY MARY. Father.

  LORD LOAM. Mary--Catherine--Agatha. Oh dear, my dears, my dears, oh dear!

  LADY MARY. Darling.

  AGATHA. Sweetest.

  CATHERINE. Love.

  TREHERNE. Glad to see you, sir.

  ERNEST. Uncle, uncle, dear old uncle.

  (For a time such happy cries fill the air, but presently TREHERNE is thoughtless.)

  TREHERNE. Ernest thought you were a tiger-cat.

  LORD LOAM (stung somehow to the quick). Oh, did you? I knew you at once, Ernest; I knew you by the way you ran.

  (ERNEST smiles forgivingly.)

  CRICHTON (venturing forward at last). My lord, I am glad.

  ERNEST (with upraised finger). But you are also idling, Crichton. (Making himself comfortable on the ground.) We mustn't waste time. To work, to work.

  CRICHTON (after contemplating him without rancour). Yes, sir.

  (He gets a pot from the hut and hangs it on a tripod over the fire, which is now burning brightly.)

  TREHERNE. Ernest, you be a little more civil. Crichton, let me help.

  (He is soon busy helping CRICHTON to add to the strength of the hut.)

  LORD LOAM (gazing at the pot as ladies are said to gaze on precious stones). Is that--but I suppose I 'm dreaming again. (Timidly.) It isn't by any chance a pot on top of a fire, is it?

  LADY MARY. Indeed, it is, dearest. It is our supper.

  LORD LOAM. I have been dreaming of a pot on a fire for two days. (Quivering.) There 's nothing in it, is there?

  ERNEST. Sniff, uncle. (LORD LOAM sniffs.)

  LORD LOAM (reverently). It smells of onions!

  (There is a sudden diversion.)

  CATHERINE. Father, you have boots!

  LADY MARY. So he has.

  LORD LOAM. Of course I have.

  ERNEST (with greedy cunning). You are actually wearing boots, uncle. It's very unsafe, you know, in this climate.

  LORD LOAM. Is it?

  ERNEST. We have all abandoned them, you observe. The blood, the arteries, you know.

  LORD LOAM. I hadn't a notion.

  (He holds out his feet, and ERNEST kneels.)

  ERNEST. O Lord, yes.

  (In another moment those boots will be his.)

  LADY MARY (quickly). Father, he is trying to get your boots from you. There is nothing in the world we wouldn't give for boots.

  ERNEST (rising haughtily, a proud spirit misunderstood). I only wanted the loan of them.

  AGATHA (running her fingers along them lovingly). If you lend them to any one, it will be to us, won't it, father.

  LORD LOAM. Certainly, my child.

  ERNEST. Oh, very well. (He is leaving these selfish ones.) I don't want your old boots. (He gives his uncle a last chance.) You don't think you could spare me one boot?

  LORD LOAM (tartly). I do not.

  ERNEST. Quite so. Well, all I can say is I'm sorry for you.

  (He departs to recline elsewhere.)

  LADY MARY. Father, we thought we should never see you again.

  LORD LOAM. I was washed ashore, my dear, clinging to a hencoop. How awful that first night was.

  LADY MARY. Poor father.

  LORD LOAM. When I woke, I wept. Then I began to feel extremely hungry. There was a large turtle on the beach. I remembered from the Swiss Family Robinson that if you turn a turtle over he is helpless. My dears, I crawled towards him, I flung myself upon him--(here he pauses to rub his leg)--the nasty, spiteful brute.

  LADY MARY. You didn't turn him over?

  LORD LOAM (vindictively, though he is a kindly man). Mary, the senseless thing wouldn't wait; I found that none of them would wait.

  CATHERINE. We should have been as badly off if Crichton hadn't--

  LADY MARY (quickly). Don't praise Crichton.

  LORD LOAM. Arid then those beastly monkeys, I always understood that if you flung stones at them they would retaliate by flinging cocoa- nuts at you. Would you believe it, I flung a hundred stones, and not one monkey had sufficient intelligence to grasp my meaning. How I longed for Crichton.

  LADY MARY(wincing). For us also, father?

  LORD LOAM. For you also. I tried for hours to make a fire. The authors say that when wrecked on an island you can obtain a light by rubbing two pieces of stick together. (With feeling.) The liars!

  LADY MARY. And all this time you thought there was no one on the island but yourself?

  LORD LOAM. I thought so until this morning. I was searching the pools for little fishes, which I caught in my hat, when suddenly I saw before me--on the sand--

  CATHERINE. What?

  LORD LOAM. A hairpin.

  LADY MARY. A hairpin! It must be one of ours. Give it
me, father.

  AGATHA. No, it's mine.

  LORD LOAM. I didn't keep it.

  LADY MARY (speaking for all three). Didn't keep it? Found a hairpin on an island, and didn't keep it?

  LORD LOAM (humbly). My dears.

  AGATHA (scarcely to be placated). Oh father, we have returned to nature more than you bargained for.

  LADY MARY. For shame, Agatha. (She has something on her mind.) Father, there is something I want you to do at once--I mean to assert your position as the chief person on the island.

  (They are all surprised.)

  LORD LOAM. But who would presume to question it?

  CATHERINE. She must mean Ernest.

  LADY MARY. Must I?

  AGATHA. It's cruel to say anything against Ernest.

  LORD LOAM (firmly). If any one presumes to challenge my position, I shall make short work of him.

  AGATHA. Here comes Ernest; now see if you can say these horrid things to his face.

  LORD LOAM. I shall teach him his place at once.

  LADY MARY (anxiously). But how?

  LORD LOAM (chuckling). I have just thought of an extremely amusing way of doing it. (As ERNEST approaches.) Ernest.

  ERNEST (loftily). Excuse me, uncle, I 'm thinking. I'm planning out the building of this hut.

  LORD LOAM. I also have been thinking.

  ERNEST. That don't matter.

  LORD LOAM. Eh?

  ERNEST. Please, please, this is important.

  LORD LOAM. I have been thinking that I ought to give you my boots.

  ERNEST. What!

  LADY MARY. Father.

  LORD LOAM (genially). Take them, my boy. (With a rapidity we had not thought him capable of, ERNEST becomes the wearer of the boots.) And now I dare say you want to know why I give them to you, Ernest?

  ERNEST (moving up and down in them deliciously). Not at all. The great thing is, 'I've got 'em, I've got 'em.'

  LORD LOAM (majestically, but with a knowing look at his daughters). My reason is that, as head of our little party, you, Ernest, shall be our hunter, you shall clear the forests of those savage beasts that make them so dangerous. (Pleasantly.) And now you know, my dear nephew, why I have given you my boots.

  ERNEST. This is my answer.

  (He kicks off the boots.)

  LADY MARY (still anxious). Father, assert yourself.

  LORD LOAM. I shall now assert myself. (But how to do it? He has a happy thought.) Call Crichton.

  LADY MARY. Oh father.

  (CRICHTON comes in answer to a summons, and is followed by TREHERNE.)

  ERNEST (wondering a little at LADY MARY'S grave face). Crichton, look here.

  LORD LOAM (sturdily). Silence! Crichton, I want your advice as to what I ought to do with Mr. Ernest. He has defied me.

  ERNEST. Pooh!

  CRICHTON (after considering). May I speak openly, my lord?

  LADY MARY (keeping her eyes fixed on him). That is what we desire.

  CRICHTON (quite humbly). Then I may say, your lordship, that I have been considering Mr. Ernest's case at odd moments ever since we were wrecked.

  ERNEST. My case?

  LORD LOAM (sternly). Hush.

  CRICHTON. Since we landed on the island, my lord, it seems to me that Mr. Ernest's epigrams have been particularly brilliant.

  ERNEST (gratified). Thank you, Crichton.

  CRICHTON. But I find--I seem to find it growing wild, my lord, in the woods, that sayings which would be justly admired in England are not much use on an island. I would therefore most respectfully propose that hence-forth every time Mr. Ernest favours us with an epigram his head should be immersed in a bucket of cold spring water.

  (There is a terrible silence.)

  LORD LOAM (uneasily). Serve him right.

  ERNEST. I should like to see you try to do it, uncle.

  CRICHTON (ever ready to come to the succour of his lordship). My feeling, my lord, is that at the next offence I should convey him to a retired spot, where I shall carry out the undertaking in as respectful a manner as is consistent with a thorough immersion.

  (Though his manner is most respectful, he is firm; he evidently means what he says.)

  LADY MARY (a ramrod). Father, you must not permit this; Ernest is your nephew.

  LORD LOAM (with his hand to his brow). After all, he is my nephew, Crichton; and, as I am sure, he now sees that I am a strong man--

  ERNEST (foolishly in the circumstances). A strong man. You mean a stout man. You are one of mind to two of matter. (He looks round in the old way for approval. No one has smiled, and to his consternation he sees that CRICHTON is quietly turning up his sleeves. ERNEST makes an appealing gesture to his uncle; then he turns defiantly to CRICHTON.)

  CRICHTON. Is it to be before the ladies, Mr. Ernest, or in the privacy of the wood? (He fixes ERNEST with his eye. ERNEST is cowed.) Come.

  ERNEST (affecting bravado). Oh, all right.

  CRICHTON (succinctly). Bring the bucket.

  (ERNEST hesitates. He then lifts the bucket and follows CRICHTON to the nearest spring.)

  LORD LOAM (rather white). I'm sorry for him, but I had to be firm.

  LADY MARY. Oh father, it wasn't you who was firm. Crichton did it himself.

  LORD LOAM. Bless me, so he did.

  LADY MARY. Father, be strong.

  LORD LOAM (bewildered). You can't mean that my faithful Crichton--

  LADY MARY. Yes, I do.

  TREHERNE. Lady Mary, I stake my word that Crichton is incapable of acting dishonourably.

  LADY MARY. I know that; I know it as well as you. Don't you see that that is what makes him so dangerous?

  TBEHERNE. By Jove, I--I believe I catch your meaning.

  CATHERINE. He is coming back.

  LORD LOAM (who has always known himself to be a man of ideas). Let us all go into the hut, just to show him at once that it is our hut.

  LADY MARY (as they go). Father, I implore you, assert yourself now and for ever.

  LORD LOAM. I will.

  LADY MARY. And, please, don't ask him how you are to do it

  (CRICHTON returns with sticks to mend the fire.)

  LORD LOAM (loftily, from the door of the hut). Have you carried out my instructions, Crichton?

  CRICHTON: (deferentially) Yes, my lord.

  (ERNEST appears, mopping his hair, which has become very wet since we last saw him. He is not bearing malice, he is too busy drying, but AGATHA is specially his champion.)

  AGATHA: It's infamous, infamous.

  LORD LOAM: (strongly) My orders, Agatha.

  LADY MARY: Now, father, please.

  LORD LOAM: (striking an attitude) Before I give you any further orders, Crichton--

  CRICHTON: Yes, my lord.

  LORD LOAM: (delighted) Pooh! It's all right.

  LADY MARY: No. Please go on.

  LORD LOAM: Well, well. This question of the leadership; what do you think now, Crichton?

  CRICHTON: My lord, I feel it is a matter with which I have nothing to do.

  LORD LOAM: Excellent. Ha, Mary? That settles it, I think.

  LADY MARY. It seems to, but--I 'm not sure.

  CRICHTON. It will settle itself naturally, my lord, without any interference from us.

  (The reference to nature gives general dissatisfaction.)

  LADY MARY. Father.

  LORD LOAM (a little severely). It settled itself long ago, Crichton, when I was born a peer, and you, for instance, were born a servant.

  CRICHTON (acquiescing). Yes, my lord, that was how it all came about quite naturally in England. We had nothing to do with it there, and we shall have as little to do with it here.

  TREHERNE (relieved). That's all right.

  LADY MARY (determined to clinch the matter). One moment. In short, Crichton, his lord-ship will continue to be our natural head.

  CRICHTON. I dare say, my lady, I dare say.

  CATHERINE. But you must know.

  CRICHTON. Asking your pardon, my lady, one can't be sure--on an i
sland.

  (They look at each other uneasily.)

  LORD LOAM (warningly). Crichton, I don't like this.

  CRICHTON (harassed). The more I think of it, your lordship, the more uneasy I become myself. When I heard, my lord, that you had left that hairpin behind--(He is pained.)

  LORD LOAM (feebly). One hairpin among so many would only have caused dissension.

  CRICHTON (very sorry to have to contradict him). Not so, my lord. From that hairpin we could have made a needle; with that needle we could, out of skins, have sewn trousers of which your lordship is in need; indeed, we are all in need of them.

  L ADY MARY (suddenly self-conscious). All?

  CRICHTON. On an island, my lady.

  LADY MARY. Father.

  CRICHTON (really more distressed by the prospect than she). My lady, if nature does not think them necessary, you may be sure she will not ask you to wear them. (Shaking his head.) But among all this undergrowth--

  LADY MARY. Now you see this man in his true colours.

  LORD LOAM (violently). Crichton, you will either this moment say, 'Down with nature,'

  CRICHTON (scandalised). My Lord!

  LORD LOAM (loftily). Then this is my last word to you; take a month's notice.

  (If the hut had a door he would now shut it to indicate that the interview is closed.)

  CRICHTON (in great distress). Your lordship, the disgrace--

  LORD LOAM (swelling). Not another word: you may go.

  LADY MARY (adamant). And don't come to me, Crichton, for a character.

  ERNEST (whose immersion has cleared his brain). Aren't you all forgetting that this is an island?

  (This brings them to earth with a bump. LORD LOAM looks to his eldest daughter for the fitting response.)

  LADY MARY (equal to the occasion). It makes only this difference-- that you may go at once, Crichton, to some other part of the island.

  (The faithful servant has been true to his superiors ever since he was created, and never more true than at this moment; but his fidelity is founded on trust in nature, and to be untrue to it would be to be untrue to them. He lets the wood he has been gathering slip to the ground, and bows his sorrowful head. He turns to obey. Then affection for these great ones wells up in him.)

  CRICHTON. My lady, let me work for you.

  LADY MARY. Go.

  CRICHTON. You need me so sorely; I can't desert you; I won't.