Quality Street: A Comedy

PHOEBE (appalled). Oh, Susan.

(Enter MISS WILLOUGHBY, partly cloaked.)

MISS WILLOUGHBY. How do you do, Miss Phoebe. (Portentously) Susan, I have no wish to alarm you, but I am of opinion that there is a man in the house. I suddenly felt it while putting on my pattens.

MISS SUSAN. You mean – a follower – in the kitchen? (She courageously rings the bell, but her voice falters.) I am just a little afraid of Patty.

(Enter PATTY, a buxom young woman, who loves her mistresses and smiles at them, and knows how to terrorise them.)

Patty, I hope we may not hurt your feelings, but —

PATTY (sternly). Are you implicating, ma'am, that I have a follower?

MISS SUSAN. Oh no, Patty.

PATTY. So be it.

MISS SUSAN (ashamed). Patty, come back, (Humbly) I told a falsehood just now; I am ashamed of myself.

PATTY (severely). As well you might be, ma'am.

PHOEBE (so roused that she would look heroic if she did not spoil the effect by wagging her finger at PATTY). How dare you. There is a man in the kitchen. To the door with him.

PATTY. A glorious soldier to be so treated!

PHOEBE. The door.

PATTY. And if he refuses?

(They looked perplexed.)

MISS SUSAN. Oh dear!

PHOEBE. If he refuses send him here to me.

(Exit PATTY.)

MISS SUSAN. Lion-hearted Phoebe.

MISS WILLOUGHBY. A soldier? (Nervously) I wish it may not be that impertinent recruiting sergeant. I passed him in the street to-day. He closed one of his eyes at me and then quickly opened it. I knew what he meant.

PHOEBE. He does not come.

MISS SUSAN. I think I hear their voices in dispute.

(She is listening through the floor. They all stoop or go on their knees to listen, and when they are in this position the RECRUITING SERGEANT enters unobserved. He chuckles aloud. In a moment PHOEBE is alone with him.)

SERGEANT (with an Irish accent). Your servant, ma'am.

PHOEBE (advancing sternly on him). Sir – (She is perplexed, as he seems undismayed.) Sergeant – (She sees mud from his boots on the carpet.) Oh! oh! (Brushes carpet.) Sergeant, I am wishful to scold you, but would you be so obliging as to stand on this paper while I do it?

SERGEANT. With all the pleasure in life, ma'am.

PHOEBE (forgetting to be angry). Sergeant, have you killed people?

SERGEANT. Dozens, ma'am, dozens.

PHOEBE. How terrible. Oh, sir, I pray every night that the Lord in His loving-kindness will root the enemy up. Is it true that the Corsican Ogre eats babies?

SERGEANT. I have spoken with them as have seen him do it, ma'am.

PHOEBE. The Man of Sin. Have you ever seen a vivandiere, sir? (Wistfully) I have sometimes wished there were vivandieres in the British Army. (For a moment she sees herself as one.) Oh, Sergeant, a shudder goes through me when I see you in the streets enticing those poor young men.

SERGEANT. If you were one of them, ma'am, and death or glory was the call, you would take the shilling, ma'am.

PHOEBE. Oh, not for that.

SERGEANT. For King and Country, ma'am?

PHOEBE (grandly). Yes, yes, for that.

SERGEANT (candidly). Not that it is all fighting. The sack of captured towns – the loot.

PHOEBE (proudly). An English soldier never sacks nor loots.

SERGEANT. No, ma'am. And then – the girls.

PHOEBE. What girls?

SERGEANT. In the towns that – that we don't sack.

PHOEBE. How they must hate the haughty conqueror.

SERGEANT. We are not so haughty as all that.

PHOEBE (sadly). I think I understand. I am afraid, Sergeant, you do not tell those poor young men the noble things I thought you told them.

SERGEANT. Ma'am, I must e'en tell them what they are wishful to hear. There ha' been five, ma'am, all this week, listening to me and then showing me their heels, but by a grand stroke of luck I have them at last.

PHOEBE. Luck?

(MISS SUSAN opens door slightly and listens.)

SERGEANT. The luck, ma'am, is that a gentleman of the town has enlisted. That gave them the push forward.

(MISS SUSAN is excited.)

PHOEBE. A gentleman of this town enlisted? (Eagerly) Sergeant, who?