The Essential Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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      ACT III

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      [In the Rectory garden next morning, with the sun shining from a cloudless sky. The garden wall has a five-barred wooden gate, wide enough to admit a carriage, in the middle. Beside the gate hangs a bell on a coiled spring, communicating with a pull outside. The carriage drive comes down the middle of the garden and then swerves to its left, where it ends in a little gravelled circus opposite the Rectory porch. Beyond the gate is seen the dusty high road, parallel with the wall, bounded on the farther side by a strip of turf and an unfenced pine wood. On the lawn, between the house and the drive, is a clipped yew tree, with a garden bench in its shade. On the opposite side the garden is shut in by a box hedge; and there is a little sundial on the turf, with an iron chair near it. A little path leads through the box hedge, behind the sundial.]

      [Frank, seated on the chair near the sundial, on which he has placed the morning paper, is reading The Standard. His father comes from the house, red-eyed and shivery, and meets Frank’s eye with misgiving.]

      FRANK [looking at his watch] Half-past eleven. Nice hour for a rector to come down to breakfast!

      REV. S. Don’t mock, Frank: don’t mock. I am a little — er — [Shivering] —

      FRANK. Off color?

      REV. S. [repudiating the expression] No, sir: unwell this morning. Where’s your mother?

      FRANK. Don’t be alarmed: she’s not here. Gone to town by the 11.13 with Bessie. She left several messages for you. Do you feel equal to receiving them now, or shall I wait til you’ve breakfasted?

      REV. S. I h a v e breakfasted, sir. I am surprised at your mother going to town when we have people staying with us. They’ll think it very strange.

      FRANK. Possibly she has considered that. At all events, if Crofts is going to stay here, and you are going to sit up every night with him until four, recalling the incidents of your fiery youth, it is clearly my mother’s duty, as a prudent housekeeper, to go up to the stores and order a barrel of whisky and a few hundred siphons.

      REV. S. I did not observe that Sir George drank excessively.

      FRANK. You were not in a condition to, gov’nor.

      REV. S. Do you mean to say that I — ?

      FRANK [calmly] I never saw a beneficed clergyman less sober. The anecdotes you told about your past career were so awful that I really don’t think Praed would have passed the night under your roof if it hadnt been for the way my mother and he took to one another.

      REV. S. Nonsense, sir. I am Sir George Crofts’ host. I must talk to him about something; and he has only one subject. Where is Mr Praed now?

      FRANK. He is driving my mother and Bessie to the station.

      REV. S. Is Crofts up yet?

      FRANK. Oh, long ago. He hasn’t turned a hair: he’s in much better practice than you. Has kept it up ever since, probably. He’s taken himself off somewhere to smoke.

      [Frank resumes his paper. The parson turns disconsolately towards the gate; then comes back irresolutely.]

      REV. S. Er — Frank.

      FRANK. Yes.

      REV. S. Do you think the Warrens will expect to be asked here after yesterday afternoon?

      FRANK. Theyve been asked already.

      REV. S. [appalled] What!!!

      FRANK. Crofts informed us at breakfast that you told him to bring Mrs Warren and Vivie over here to-day, and to invite them to make this house their home. My mother then found she must go to town by the 11.13 train.

      REV. S. [with despairing vehemence] I never gave any such invitation. I never thought of such a thing.

      FRANK [compassionately] How do you know, gov’nor, what you said and thought last night?

      PRAED [coming in through the hedge] Good morning.

      REV. S. Good morning. СКАЧАТЬ