Arcadia (12 page)

(Her interest has switched in the mercurial way characteristic
of her-she has crossed to take the book.)

Thomasina: Let me see—oh! In French?

Septimus: Yes. Paris is the capital of France.

Thomasina: Show me where to read.

(He takes the book back from her and finds the page for
her. Meanwhile, the piano music from the next room has doubled its notes and
its emotion.)

Thomasina: Four-handed now! Mama is in love with the Count.

Septimus: He is a Count in Poland. In Derbyshire he is a
piano tuner.

(She has taken the book and is already immersed in it.
The piano music becomes rapidly more passionate, and then breaks off suddenly
in mid-phrase. There is an expressive silence next door which makes
Septimus
raise his eyes. It does not register with
Thomasina.
The silence
allows us to hear the distant regular thump of the steam engine which is to be
a topic. A few moments later
LADY CROOM
enters from the music room,
seeming surprised and slightly flustered to find the schoolroom occupied. She
collects herself, closing the door behind her. And remains watching, aimless
and discreet, as though not wanting to interrupt the lesson
. Septimus
has
stood, and she nods him back into his chair.

CHLOfi,
in Regency dress, enters from the door opposite
the music room. She takes in
Valentine
and
Hannah
but crosses without
pausing to the music room door.)
CHLOfi: Oh!-where’s Gus? Valentine: Dunno.

(CHLOfi
goes into the music room.)
lady croom:
(Annoyed)
Oh!—Mr Noakes’s engine!

(She goes to the garden door and steps outside.

CHLOfi
re-enters.)
CHLOfi: Damn.

lady croom:
(Calls out)
Mr Noakes! Valentine: He was
there not long ago ... lady croom: Halloo!

CHLOfi: Well, he has to be in the photograph—is he dressed? Hannah:
Is Bernard back? CHLOfi: No-he’s late!

(The piano is heard again, under the noise of the steam engine.

lady croom
steps back into the room.

CHLOfi
steps outside the garden door. Shouts.)
Gus!
lady croom: I wonder you can teach against such a disturbance and I am sorry
for it, Mr Hodge.

(CHLOfi
comes back inside.)
Valentine:
(Getting
up)
Stop ordering everybody about. lady croom: It is an unendurable noise. Valentine:
The photographer will wait.

(But, grumbling, he follows
CHLOfi
out of the door
she came in by, and closes the door behind them,
Hannah
remains
absorbed.

In the silence, the rhythmic thump can be heard again.)
lady
croom: The ceaseless dull overbearing monotony of it! It will drive me
distracted. I may have to return to town to escape it. Septimus: Your ladyship
could remain in the country and let

Count Zelinsky return to town where you would not hear him.
lady croom: I mean Mr Noakes’s engine!
(Semi-aside to

Septimus.) Would you sulk? I will not have my daughter study
sulking. Thomasina:
(Not listening)
What, mama?

(Thomasina
remains lost in her book,
lady croom
returns
to close the garden door and the noise of the steam engine subsides.

Hannah
closes one of the ‘garden books’, and opens the
next. She is making occasional notes.

The piano ceases.)
lady croom:
(To
Thomasina)
What are we learning today?

(Pause.)
Well, not manners. Septimus: We are drawing
today.

(lady croom
negligently examines what
Thomasina
had
started to draw.)
lady croom: Geometry. I approve of geometry. Septimus:
Your ladyship’s approval is my constant object. lady croom: Well, do not
despair of it.
(Returning to the window impatiently.)
Where is ‘Culpability’
Noakes?
(She looks out and is annoyed.)
Oh!—he has gone for his hat so
that he may remove it.

(She returns to the table and touches the bowl of
dahlias.

Hannah
sits back in her chair, caught by what she is reading.)
For the widow’s dowry of dahlias I can almost forgive my brother’s
marriage. We must be thankful the monkey bit the husband. If it had bit the
wife the monkey would be dead and we would not be first in the kingdom to show
a dahlia. (Hannah,
still reading the garden book, stands up.)
I sent one
potted to Chatsworth. The Duchess was most satisfactorily put out by it when I
called at Devonshire House. Your friend was there lording it as a poet.

(Hannah
leaves through the door, following
Valentine
and
CHLOE.)

Meanwhile,
Thomasina
thumps the book down on the
table.)
Thomasina: Well! Just as I said! Newton’s machine which would knock
our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism
leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very
likely hidden in this gentleman’s observation. lady croom: Of what? Thomasina:
The action of bodies in heat. lady croom: Is this geometry? Thomasina: This?
No, I despise geometry!

(Touching the dahlias she adds, almost to herself.)
The

Chater would overthrow the Newtonian system in a weekend.
Septimus: Geometry, Hobbes assures us in the
Leviathan,
is the only
science God has been pleased to bestow on mankind. lady croom: And what does he
mean by it? Septimus: Mr Hobbes or God?

lady croom: I am sure I do not know what either means by it.
Thomasina: Oh, pooh to Hobbes! Mountains are not pyramids and trees are not
cones. God must love gunnery and architecture if Euclid is his only geometry.
There is another geometry which I am engaged in discovering by trial and error,
am I not, Septimus? Septimus: Trial and error perfectly describes your
enthusiasm, my lady. lady croom: How old are you today? Thomasina: Sixteen
years and eleven months, mama, and three weeks. lady croom: Sixteen years and
eleven months. We must have you married before you are educated beyond
eligibility. Thomasina: I am going to marry Lord Byron. lady croom: Are you? He
did not have the manners to mention it. Thomasina: You have spoken to him?!
lady croom: Certainly not. Thomasina: Where did you see him? lady croom:
(With
some bitterness)
Everywhere. Thomasina: Did you, Septimus? Septimus: At the
Royal Academy where I had the honour to accompany your mother and Count
Zelinsky. Thomasina: What was Lord Byron doing? lady croom: Posing. Septimus:
(Tactfully)
He was being sketched during his visit ...

by the Professor of Painting ... Mr Fuseli.

lady croom: There was more posing
at
the pictures
than
in
them. His companion likewise reversed the custom of the Academy
that the ladies viewing wear more than the ladies viewed—well, enough! Let him
be hanged there for a Lamb. I have enough with Mr Noakes, who is to a garden
what a bull is to a china shop.
(This as
noakes
enters.)

Thomasina: The Emperor of Irregularity!

(She settles down to drawing the diagram which is to be
the third item in the surviving portfolio.)

lady croom: Mr Noakes!

noakes: Your ladyship—

lady croom: What have you done to me!

noakes: Everything is satisfactory, I assure you. A little behind,
to be sure, but my dam will be repaired within the month—

lady croom:
(Banging the table)
Hush!

(In the silence, the steam engine thumps in the
distance.)
Can you hear, Mr Noakes?

noakes:
(Pleased and proud)
The Improved Newcomen
steam pump—the only one in England!

lady croom: That is what I object to. If everybody had his
own I would bear my portion of the agony without complaint. But to have been
singled out by the only Improved Newcomen steam pump in England, this is hard,
sir, this is not to be borne.

noakes: Your lady—

lady croom: And for what? My lake is drained to a ditch for
no purpose I can understand, unless it be that snipe and curlew have deserted
three counties so that they may be shot in our swamp. What you painted as
forest is a mean plantation, your greenery is mud, your waterfall is wet mud, and
your mount is an opencast mine for the mud that was lacking in the dell.
(Pointing
through the window.)
What is that cowshed?

noakes: The hermitage, my lady?

lady croom: It is a cowshed.

noakes: Madam, it is, I assure you, a very habitable cottage,
properly founded and drained, two rooms and a closet under a slate roof and a
stone chimney—lady croom: And who is to live in it? noakes: Why, the hermit.
lady croom: Where is he? noakes: Madam? lady croom: You surely do not supply a
hermitage without a hermit? noakes: Indeed, madam-lady croom: Come, come, Mr
Noakes. If I am promised a fountain I expect it to come with water. What
hermits do you have? noakes: I have no hermits, my lady. lady croom: Not one? I
am speechless. noakes: I am sure a hermit can be found. One could advertise.
lady croom: Advertise? noakes: In the newspapers. lady croom: But surely a
hermit who takes a newspaper is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence.
noakes: I do not know what to suggest, my lady. Septimus: Is there room for a
piano? noakes:
(Baffled)
A piano? lady croom: We are intruding here—this
will not do, Mr

Hodge. Evidently, nothing is being learned.
(To
noakes)

Come along, sir! Thomasina: Mr Noakes—bad news from Paris!
noakes: Is it the Emperor Napoleon? THOMASINA: No.
(She tears the page off
her drawing block
_y
with her

‘diagram’ on it.)
It concerns your heat engine.
Improve it as you will, you can never get out of it what you put in. It repays
eleven pence in the shilling at most. The penny is for this author’s thoughts.

(She gives the diagram to
Septimus
who looks at
it.)
noakes:
(Baffled again)
Thank you, my lady.

(noakes
goes out into the garden.)
lady croom: (To
Septimus) Do you understand her? Septimus: No. lady croom: Then this business
is over. I was married at seventeen.
Ce soir ilfaut qu’on parlefrangais,je
te demande,
Thomasina, as a courtesy to the Count. Wear your green velvet,
please, I will send Briggs to do your hair. Sixteen and eleven months ...!
(She
follows
noakes
out of view.)

Thomasina: Lord Byron was with a lady?

Septimus: Yes.

Thomasina: Huh!

(Now
Septimus
retrieves his book from
Thomasina.
He turns the pages, and also continues to study Thomasina
³
s
diagram. He strokes the tortoise absently as he reads,
Thomasina
takes
up pencil and paper and starts to draw
Septimus
with Plautus.)

Septimus: Why does it mean Mr Noakes’s engine pays eleven
pence in the shilling? Where does he say it?

Thomasina: Nowhere. I noticed it by the way. I cannot remember
now.

Septimus: Nor is he interested by determinism—

Thomasina: Oh ... yes. Newton’s equations go forwards and
backwards, they do not care which way. But the heat equation cares very much,
it goes only one way. That is the reason Mr Noakes’s engine cannot give the
power to drive Mr Noakes’s engine.

Septimus: Everybody knows that.

Thomasina: Yes, Septimus, they know it about engines!

Septimus:
(Pause. He looks at his watch.)
A quarter
to twelve. For your essay this week, explicate your diagram.

Thomasina: I cannot. I do not know the mathematics.

Septimus: Without mathematics, then.

(Thomasina
has continued to draw. She tears the top page
from her drawing pad and gives it to
Septimus.)

Thomasina: There. I have made a drawing of you and Plautus.

Septimus:
(Looking at it)
Excellent likeness. Not so
good of me. (Thomasina
laughs, and leaves the room.
AUGUSTUS
appears
at the garden door. His manner cautious and diffident.
Septimus
does not
notice him for a moment.
Septimus
gathers his papers together.)

Augustus: Sir ...

Septimus: My lord ... ?

AUGUSTUS: I gave you offence, sir, and I am sorry for it.
Septimus: I took none, my lord, but you are kind to mention it. Augustus: I
would like to ask you a question, Mr Hodge.

(Pause.)
You have an elder brother, I dare say, being
a

Septimus? Septimus: Yes, my lord. He lives in London. He is
the editor of a newspaper, the
Piccadilly Recreation. (Pause.)
Was that
your question?

(AUGUSTUS,
evidently embarrassed about something, picks up
the drawing of Septimus.)
Augustus: No. Oh ... it is you? ... I would like
to keep it.

(Septimus
inclines his head in assent.)
There are
things a fellow cannot ask his friends. Carnal things. My sister has told me
... my sister believes such things as I cannot, I

assure you, bring myself to repeat. Septimus: You must not repeat
them, then. The walk between here and dinner will suffice to put us straight,
if we stroll by the garden. It is an easy business. And then I must rely on you
to correct your sister’s state of ignorance.

(A commotion is heard outside—
Bernard’s
loud voice
in a sort of agony.)
Bernard:
(outside the door)
Oh no—no—no—oh, bloody
hell!—Augustus: Thank you, Mr Hodge, I will.

(Taking the drawing with him,
Augustus
allows
himself to be shown out through the garden door, and
Septimus
follows
him.

Bernard
enters the room, through the door
Hannah
left
by.
VALENTINE
comes in with him, leaving the door open and they are
followed by
Hannah
who is holding the ‘garden book’.)