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
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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. . .
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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,
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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 blocky 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
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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 Thomasina3s 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 -
