FANNY [following him to door]. And tell them I shall want the best bedroom got ready in case Mr. Newte is able to stay the night. I've done it. [She goes to piano, dashes into the "Merry Widow Waltz," or some other equally inappropriate but well-known melody, and then there enters Newte, shown in by Bennet. Newte is a cheerful person, attractively dressed in clothes suggestive of a successful bookmaker.
He carries a white pot hat and tasselled cane. His gloves are large and bright. He is smoking an enormous cigar.]
BENNET. Mr. Newte.
FANNY [she springs up and greets him. They are evidently good friends] . Hulloa, George!
NEWTE. Hulloa, Fan--I beg your pardon, Lady Bantock. [Laughs.] Was just passing this way -FANNY [cutting him short]. Yes. So nice of you to call.
NEWTE. I said to myself--[His eye catches Bennet; he stops.] Ah, thanks. [He gives Bennet his hat and stick, but Bennet does not seem satisfied. He has taken from the table a small china tray. This he is holding out to Newte, evidently for Newte to put something in it.
But what? Newte is puzzled, he glances at Fanny. The idea strikes him that perhaps it is a tip Bennet is waiting for. It seems odd, but if it be the custom--he puts his hand to his trousers pocket.]
BENNET. The smoking-room is on the ground-floor.
NEWTE. Ah, my cigar. I beg your pardon. I couldn't understand.
[He puts it on the tray--breaks into a laugh.]
BENNET. Thank you. Her ladyship is suffering from a headache. If I might suggest--a little less boisterousness. [He goes out.]
NEWTE [he watches him out]. I say, your Lord Chamberlain's a bit of a freezer!
FANNY. Yes. Wants hanging out in the sun. How did you manage to get here so early? [She sits.]
NEWTE. Well, your telegram rather upset me. I thought--correct etiquette for me to sit down here, do you think?
FANNY. Don't ask me. Got enough new tricks of my own to learn.
[Laughs.] Should chance it, if I were you.
NEWTE. Such a long time since I was at Court. [He sits.] Yes, I was up at five o'clock this morning.
FANNY [laughs]. Oh, you poor fellow!
NEWTE. Caught the first train to Melton, and came on by cart.
What's the trouble?
FANNY. A good deal. Why didn't you tell me what I was marrying?
NEWTE. I did. I told you that he was a gentleman; that he -FANNY. Why didn't you tell me that he was Lord Bantock? You knew, didn't you?
NEWTE [begins to see worries ahead]. Can't object to my putting a cigar in my mouth if I don't light it--can he?
FANNY. Oh, light it--anything you like that will help you to get along.
NEWTE [bites the end off the cigar and puts it between his teeth.
This helps him]. No, I didn't know--not officially.
FANNY. What do you mean--"not officially"?
NEWTE. He never told me.
FANNY. He never told you ANYTHING--for the matter of that. I understood you had found out everything for yourself.
NEWTE. Yes; and one of the things I found out was that he didn't WANT you to know. I could see his little game. Wanted to play the Lord Burleigh fake. Well, what was the harm? Didn't make any difference to you!
FANNY. Didn't make any difference to me! [Jumps up.] Do you know what I've done? Married into a family that keeps twenty-three servants, every blessed one of whom is a near relation of my own.
[He sits paralysed. She goes on.] That bald-headed old owl--[with a wave towards the door]--that wanted to send you off with a glass of beer and a flea in your ear--that's my uncle. The woman that opened the lodge gate for you is my Aunt Amelia. The carroty-headed young man that answered the door to you is my cousin Simeon. He always used to insist on kissing me. I'm expecting him to begin again. My "lady's" maid is my cousin Jane. That's why I'm dressed like this!
My own clothes have been packed off to the local dressmaker to be made "decent." Meanwhile, they've dug up the family vault to find something for me to go on with. [He has been fumbling in all his pockets for matches. She snatches a box from somewhere and flings it to him.] For Heaven's sake light it! Then, perhaps, you'll be able to do something else than stare. I have claret and water--mixed-- with my dinner. Uncle pours it out for me. They've locked up my cigarettes. Aunt Susannah is coming in to-morrow morning to hear me say my prayers. Doesn't trust me by myself. Thinks I'll skip them.
She's the housekeeper here. I've got to know them by heart before I go to bed to-night, and now I've mislaid them. [She goes to the desk--hunts for them.]
NEWTE [having lighted his eternal cigar, he can begin to think]. But why should THEY -FANNY [still at desk]. Because they're that sort. They honestly think they are doing the right and proper thing--that Providence has put it into their hands to turn me out a passable substitute for all a Lady Bantock should be; which, so far as I can understand, is something between the late lamented Queen Victoria and Goody-Two-Shoes. They are the people that I ran away from, the people I've told you about, the people I've always said I'd rather starve than ever go back to. And here I am, plumped down in the midst of them again--for life! [Honoria Bennet, the "still-room" maid, has entered. She is a pert young minx of about Fanny's own age.] What is is? What is it?
HONORIA. Merely passing through. Sorry to have excited your ladyship. [Goes into dressing-room.]
FANNY. My cousin Honoria. They've sent her up to keep an eye upon me. Little cat! [She takes her handkerchief, drapes it over the keyhole of the dressing-room door.]
NEWTE [at sight of Honoria he has jumped up and hastily hidden his cigar behind him]. What are you going to do?
FANNY [she seats herself and suggests to him the writing-chair].
Hear from you--first of all--exactly what you told Vernon.
NEWTE [sitting]. About you?
FANNY [nods]. About me--and my family.
NEWTE. Well--couldn't tell him much, of course. Wasn't much to tell.
FANNY. I want what you did tell.
NEWTE. I told him that your late father was a musician.
FANNY. Yes.
