Part 34

THE YOUNGER MISS WETHERELL [turning and greeting him]. It was so kind of you not to leave us last night.

THE ELDER MISS WETHERELL. We were so upset.

Dr. Freemantle pats their hands.

THE YOUNGER MISS WETHERELL. We hope you slept all right.

DR. FREEMANTLE. Excellently. Shall be glad of a shave, that’s all. [Laughs. Both he and Newte suggest the want of one.]

NEWTE [who has been officiating]. Help yourself to milk and sugar.

DR. FREEMANTLE [who has seated himself]. Have the Bennets gone?

NEWTE. Well, they had their notice all right.

THE YOUNGER MISS WETHERELL [they have begun to cry]. It has been so wrong and foolish of us. We have never learnt to do anything for ourselves.

THE ELDER MISS WETHERELL. We don’t even know where our things are.

DR. FREEMANTLE. They can’t all have gone—the whole twenty-three of them, at a couple of hours’ notice. [To Newte] Haven’t seen any of them, have you?

NEWTE. No sign of any of them downstairs.

DR. FREEMANTLE. Oh, they must be still here. Not up, I suppose. It isn’t seven o’clock yet.

THE YOUNGER MISS WETHERELL. But they have all been discharged. We can’t ask them to do anything.

THE ELDER MISS WETHERELL [to her sister]. And the Grimstones are coming to lunch with the new curate. Vernon asked them on Sunday.

THE YOUNGER MISS WETHERELL. Perhaps there’s something cold.

THE ELDER MISS WETHERELL. Vernon so dislikes a cold lunch.

DR. FREEMANTLE [to Newte]. Were you able to get hold of Vernon last night?

NEWTE. Waited up till he came in about two o’clock. Merely answered that he wasn’t in a talkative mood—brushed past me and locked himself in.

DR. FREEMANTLE. He wouldn’t say anything to me either. Rather a bad sign when he won’t talk.

NEWTE. What’s he likely to do?

DR. FREEMANTLE. Don’t know. Of course it will be all over the county.

THE YOUNGER MISS WETHERELL. And dear Vernon is so sensitive.

DR. FREEMANTLE. It had to come—the misfortune is—

NEWTE. The misfortune is that people won’t keep to their own line of business. Why did he want to come fooling around her? She was doing well for herself. She could have married a man who would have thought more of her than all the damn fools in the county put together. Why couldn’t he have left her alone?

DR. FREEMANTLE [he is sitting at the head of the table, between Newte on his right and the Misses Wetherell on his left. He lays his hand on Newte’s sleeve—with a smile]. I’m sure you can forgive a man—with eyes and ears in his head—for having fallen in love with her.

NEWTE. Then why doesn’t he stand by her? What if her uncle is a butler? If he wasn’t a fool, he’d be thanking his stars that ’twas anything half as respectable.

DR. FREEMANTLE. I’m not defending him—we’re not sure yet that he needs any defence. He has married a clever, charming girl of—as you say—a better family than he’d any right to expect. The misfortune is, that—by a curious bit of ill-luck—it happens to be his own butler.