inscription in ringing tones.)
Chater: To my friend Septimus Hodge, who stood up and gave his best on behalf of
the Author - Ezra Chater, at Sidley Park, Derbyshire, April ioth, 1809.' (Giving the
book to Septimus.) There, sir - something to show your grandchildren!
Septimus: This is more than I deserve, this is handsome, what do you say, Noakes?
(They are interrupted by the appearance, outside the windows, of Lady Croom and
Captain Edward Brice, rn. Her first words arrive through the open door.)
Lady Croom: Oh, no! Not the gazebo!
(She enters, followed by Brice, who carries a leatherbound sketch book.)
Mr Noakes! What is this I hear?
Brice: Not only the gazebo, but the boat-house, the Chinese bridge, the shrubbery -
9
Chater: By God, sir! Not possible!
Brice: Mr Noakes will have it so.
Septimus: Mr Noakes, this is monstrous!
Lady Croom: I am glad to hear it from you, Mr Hodge.
Thomasina: (Opening the door from the music room) May I return now?
Septimus: (Attempting to close the door) Not just yet -
Lady Croom: Yes, let her stay. A lesson in folly is worth two in wisdom.
(Brice takes the sketch book to the reading stand, where he lays it open. The sketch
book is the work of Mr. Noakes, who is obviously an admirer of Humphry Repton's
'Red Books'. The pages, drawn in watercolours, show 'before' and 'after* views of
the landscape, and the pages are cunningly cut to allow the latter to be
superimposed over portions of the former, though Repton did it the other way round.)
Brice: Is Sidley Park to be an Englishman's garden or the haunt of Corsican
brigands?
Septimus: Let us not hyperbolize, sir.
Brice: It is rape, sir!
Noakes: (Defending himself) It is the modern style.
Chater: (Under the same misapprehension as Septimus) Regrettable, of course, but
so it is. (Thomasina has gone to examine the sketch book.)
Lady Croom: Mr Chater, you show too much submission. Mr Hodge, I appeal to
you.
Septimus: Madam, I regret the gazebo, I sincerely regret the gazebo - and the boat-
house up to a point - but the Chinese bridge, fantasy! - and the shrubbery I reject
with contempt! Mr Chater! - would you take the word of a jumped-up jobbing
gardener who sees carnal embrace in every nook and cranny of the landskip!
Thomasina: Septimus, they are not speaking of carnal embrace, are you, Mama?
Lady Croom: Certainly not. What do you know of carnal embrace?
Thomasina: Everything, thanks to Septimus. In my opinion, Mr Noakes's scheme
for the garden is perfect. It is a Salvator!
Lady Croom: What does she mean?
10
Noakes: (Answering the wrong question) Salvator Rosa, your ladyship, the painter.
He is indeed the very exemplar of the picturesque style.
Brice: Hodge, what is this?
Septimus: She speaks from innocence not from experience.
Brice: You call it innocence? Has he ruined you, child? (Pause.)
Septimus: Answer your uncle!
Thomasina: (To Septimus.) How is a ruined child different from a ruined castle?
Septimus: On such questions I defer to Mr Noakes.
Noakes: (Out of his depth) A ruined castle is picturesque, certainly.
Septimus: That is the main difference. (To Brice) I teach the classical authors. If I do not elucidate their meaning, who will?
Brice: As her tutor you have a duty to keep her in ignorance.
Lady Croom: Do not dabble in paradox, Edward, it puts you in danger of fortuitous
wit. Thomasina, wait in your bedroom.
Thomasina: (Retiring) Yes, mama. I did not intend to get you into trouble,
Septimus. I am very sorry for it. It is plain that there are some things a girl is
allowed to understand, and these include the whole of algebra, but there are others,
such as embracing a side of beef, that must be kept from her until she is old enough
to have a carcass of her own.
Lady Croom: One moment.
Brice: What is she talking about?
Lady Croom: Meat.
Brice: Meat?
Lady Croom: Thomasina, you had better remain. Your knowledge of the
picturesque obviously exceeds anything the rest of us can offer. Mr Hodge,
not a cabinet of vulgar curios. Mr Noakes - now at last it is your turn-
Noakes: Thank you, your ladyship -
11
Lady Croom: Your drawing is a very wonderful transformation. I would not have
recognized my own garden but for your ingenious book - is it not? - look! Here is
the Park as it appears to us now, and here as it might be when Mr Noakes has done
with it. Where there is the familiar pastoral refinement of an Englishman's garden,
here is an eruption of gloomy forest and towering crag, of ruins where there was
never a house, of water dashing against rocks where there was neither spring nor a
stone I could not throw the length of a cricket pitch. My hyacinth dell is become a
haunt for hobgoblins, my Chinese bridge, which I am assured is superior to the one
at Kew, and for all I know at Peking, is usurped by a fallen obelisk overgrown with
briars -
Noakes: (Bleating) Lord Little has one very similar-
Lady Croom: I cannot relieve Lord Little's misfortunes by adding to my own. Pray,
what is this rustic hovel that presumes to superpose itself on my gazebo?
Noakes: That is the hermitage, madam.
Lady Croom: I am bewildered.
Brice: It is all irregular, Mr Noakes.
Noakes: It is, sir. Irregularity is one of the chiefest principles of the picturesque
style -
Lady Croom: But Sidley Park is already a picture, and a most amiable picture too.
The slopes are green and gentle. The trees are companionably grouped at intervals
that show them to advantage. The rill is a serpentine ribbon unwound from the lake
peaceably contained by meadows on which the right amount of sheep are tastefully
arranged - in short, it is nature as God intended, and I can say with the painter, 'Et
in Arcadia ego 'Here I am in Arcadia,' Thomasina.
Thomasina: Yes, mama, if you would have it so.
Lady Croom: Is she correcting my taste or my translation?
Thomasina: Neither are beyond correction, mama, but it was your geography
caused the doubt.
Lady Croom: Something has occurred with the girl since I saw her last, and surely
that was yesterday. How old are you this morning?
Thomasina: Thirteen years and ten months, mama.
Lady Croom: Thirteen years and ten months. She is not due to be pert for six
months at the earliest, or to have notions of
12
taste for much longer. Mr Hodge, I hold you accountable. Mr Noakes, back to you -
Noakes: Thank you, my -
Lady Croom: You have been reading too many novels by Mrs Radcliffe, that is my
opinion. This is a garden for The Castle of Otranto or The Mysteries of Udolpho -
Chater: The Castle of Otranto, my lady, is by Horace Walpole.
Noakes: (Thrilled) Mr Walpole the gardener?!
Lady Croom: Mr Chater, you are a welcome guest at Sidley Park but while you are
one, The Castle of Otranto was written by whomsoever I say it was, otherwise what
is the point of being a gue
st or having one? (The distant popping of guns
heard.) Well, the guns have reached the brow - I will speak to his lordship on the subject, and we will see by and by - (She stands looking out.) Ah! - your friend has got down a pigeon, Mr Hodge. (Calls out.) Bravo, sir!
Septimus: The pigeon, I am sure, fell to your husband or to your son, your ladyship
- my schoolfriend was never a sportsman.
Brice: (Looking out) Yes, to Augustus! - bravo, lad!
Lady Croom: (Outside) Well, come along! Where are my troops? (Brice, Noakes
and Chater obediently follow her, Chater making a detour to shake Septimus's
hand fervently.)
Chater: My dear Mr Hodge!
(Chater leaves also. The guns are heard again, a little closer.)
Thomasina: Pop, pop, pop ... I have grown up in the sound of guns like the child of
a siege. Pigeons and rooks in the close season, grouse on the heights from AuGust,
and the pheasants to follow - partridge, snipe, woodcock, and teal -pop - pop - pop,
and the culling of the herd. Papa has no need of the recording angel, his life is
written in the game book.
Septimus: A calendar of slaughter. 'Even in Arcadia, there am I!'
Thomasina: Oh, phooey to Death! (She dips a pen and takes it to the reading
stand.) I will put in a hermit, for what is a hermitage without a hermit? Are you in love with my mother, Septimus?
13
Septimus: You must not be cleverer than your elders. It is not polite.
Thomasina: Am I cleverer?
Septimus: Yes. Much.
Thomasina: Well, I am sorry, Septimus. (She pauses in her drawing and produces
a small envelope from her pocket.) Mrs Chater came to the music room with a note
for you. She said it was of scant importance, and that therefore I should carry it to
you with the utmost safety, urgency and discretion. Does carnal embrace addle the brain?
Septimus: (Taking the letter) Invariably. Thank you. That is enough education for
today.
Thomasina: There. I have made him like the Baptist in the wilderness.
Septimus: How picturesque.
(Lady Croom is heard calling distantly for Thomasina who runs off into the garden,
cheerfully, an uncomplicated girl. Septimus opens Mrs Chater's note. He crumples
the envelope and throws it away. He reads the note, folds it and inserts it into the
pages of'The Couch of Eros.
14
SCENE TWO
The lights come up on the same room, on the same sort of morning, in the present
day, as is instantly clear from the appearance of Hannah Jarvis; and from nothing else.
Something needs to be said about this. The action of the play shuttles back and
forth between the early nineteenth century and the present day, always in this same
room. Both periods must share the state of the room, without the additions and
subtractions which would normally be expected. The general appearance of the
room should offend neither period. In the case of props - books, paper, flowers,
etc., there is no absolute need to remove the evidence of one period to make way
for another. However, books, etc., used in both periods should exist in both old and new versions. The landscape outside, we are told, has undergone changes. Again,
what we see should neither change nor contradict.
On the above principle, the ink and pens etc., of the first scene can remain. Books
and papers associated with Hannah's research, in Scene Two, can have been on the
table from the beginning of the play. And so on. During the course of the play the
table collects this and that, and where an object from one scene would be an
anachronism in another (say a coffee mug) it is simply deemed to have become
invisible. By the end of the play the table has collected an inventory of objects.
Hannah is leafing through the pages of Mr Noakes's sketch book. Also to hand,
opened and closed, are a number of small volumes like diaries (these turn out to be
Lady Groom's 'garden books'). After a few moments, Hannah takes the sketch book
to the windows, comparing the view with what has been drawn, and then she
replaces the sketch book on the reading stand.
She wears nothing frivolous. Her shoes are suitable for the garden, which is where she goes now after picking up the theodolite from the table. The room is empty for a
few moments.
One of the other doors opens to admit Chloe and Bernard. She is the daughter of
the house and is dressed casually. Bernard, the visitor, wears a suit and a tie. His
tendency is to dress flamboyantly,
15
but he has damped it down for the occasion, slightly. A peacock-coloured display
handkerchief boils over in his breastpocket. He carries a capacious leather bag
which serves as a briefcase.
Chloe: Oh! Well, she was here ...
Bernard: Ah. . . the french window .. .
Chloe: Yes. Hang on.
Chloesteps out through the garden door and disappears from view. Bernard hangs
on. The second door opens and Valentine looks in.)
Valentine: Sod.
(Valentine goes out again, closing the door. Chloe returns, carrying a pair of
rubber boots. She comes in and sits down and starts exchanging her shoes for the
boots, while she talks.)
Chloe: The best thing is, you wait here, save you tramping around. She spends a
good deal of time in the garden, as you may imagine.
Bernard: Yes. Why?
Chloe: Well, she's writing a history of the garden, didn't you know?
Bernard: No, I knew she was working on the Croom papers, but...
Chloe: Well, it's not exactly a history of the garden either. I'll let Hannah explain it.
The trench you nearly drove into is all to do with it. I was going to say make
yourself comfortable but that's hardly possible, everything's been cleared out, it' s en
route to the nearest lavatory.
Bernard: Everything is?
Chloe: No, this room is. They drew the line at chemical 'Ladies'.
Bernard: Yes, I see. Did you say Hannah?
Chloe: Hannah, yes. Will you be all right? (She stands up wearing the boots.) I
won't be. . . (But she has lost him.) Mr Nightingale?
Bernard: (Waking up) Yes. Thank you. Miss Jarvis is Hannah Jarvis the author?
Chloe: Yes. Have you read her book?
Bernard: Oh, yes. Yes.
Chloe: I bet she's in the hermitage, can't see from here with the marquee. . .
16
Bernard: Are you having a garden party?
Chloe: A dance for the district, our annual dressing up and general drunkenness.
The wrinklies won't have it in the house, there was a teapot we once had to bag
back from Christie's in the nick of time, so anything that can be destroyed, stolen or
vomited on has been tactfully removed; tactlessly, I should say - (She is about to
leave.)
Bernard: Um - look - would you tell her - would you mind not mentioning my
name just yet?
Chloe: Oh. All right.
Bernard: (Smiling) More fun to surprise her. Would you mind?
Chloe: No. But she's bound to ask . .. Should I give you another name, just for the
moment?
Bernard: Yes, why not?
Chloe: Perhaps another bird, you're not really a Nightingale.
(She leaves again. Bernard glances over the books on the table. He puts his
briefcase down. There is the distant pop-pop of a shotgun. It takes Bernard vaguely
to the window. He looks out. The door he entered by now opens and Gus looks into
the room. Bernard turns and sees him.)
Bernard: Hello.
(Gus doesn't speak. He never speaks. Perhaps he cannot speak. He has no
composure, and faced with a stranger, he caves in and leaves again. A moment
later the other door opens again and Valentine crosses the room, not exactly ignoring Bernard and yet ignoring him.)
Valentine: Sod, sod, sod, sod, sod, sod . . . (As many times as it takes him to leave
by the opposite door, which he closes behind him. Beyond it, he can be heard
shouting. Chloe! Chloe! Bernard's discomfort increases. The same door opens and
Valentine returns. He looks at Bernard.)
Bernard: She's in the garden looking for Miss Jarvis.
Valentine: Where is everything?
Bernard: It's been removed for the, er . . .
Valentine: The dance is all in the tent, isn't it?
Bernard: Yes, but this is the way to the nearest toilet.
Valentine: I need the commode.
17
Bernard: Oh. Can't you use the toilet?
Valentine: It's got all the game books in it.
Bernard: Ah. The toilet has or the commode has?
Valentine: Is anyone looking after you?
Bernard: Yes. Thank you. I'm Bernard Nigh— I've come to see Miss Jarvis. I wrote
to Lord Croom but unfortunately I never received a reply, so I -
Valentine: Did you type it?
Bernard: Type it?
Valentine: Was your letter typewritten?
Bernard: Yes.
Valentine: My father never replies to typewritten letters. {He spots a tortoise which
has been half-hidden on the table.) Oh! Where have you been hiding,
Lightning? {He picks up the tortoise.}
Bernard: So I telephoned yesterday and I think I spoke to you -
Valentine: To me? Ah! Yes! Sorry! You're doing a talk about - someone - and you wanted to ask Hannah - something -
Bernard: Yes. As it turns out. I'm hoping Miss Jarvis will look kindly on me.
Valentine: I doubt it.
Bernard: Ah, you know about research?
Valentine: I know Hannah.
Bernard: Has she been here long?
Valentine: Well in possession, I'm afraid. My mother had read her book, you see.
Have you?
Bernard: No. Yes. Her book. Indeed.
Valentine: She's terrifically pleased with herself.
Bernard: Well, I dare say if I wrote a bestseller -
Valentine: No, for reading it. My mother basically reads gardening books.