.
ARCADIA II.5 / 2763
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,4 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.5
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? 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 pro
duces 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 educa
tion for today. THOMASINA There. I have made him like the Baptist in the wilderness.6 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'.]
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 he 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 woidd 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,
4. Closed to hunters. 6. Thomasina's hermit looks like John the Baptist 5. For recording a sportsman's or sportswoman's (cf. Luke 1.4), who lived many years in the desert, kill.
.
2764 / TOM STOPPARD
o-pened and closed, are a number of small volumes like diaries (these turn out to he Lady Croom's 'garden books'). After a few moments, HANNAH takes the sketch hook to the windows, comparing the view with what has been drawn, and then she replaces the sketch hook 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, but he has damped it down for the occasion, slightly. A peacock-coloured display handkerchief boils over in his breast pocket. 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.
[CHLOE steps out through the garden door and disappears from view. BERNARD hangs on. The second door opens and VALENTINE looks in.]
VALENTINE Sod.7 [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 route8 to the nearest lavatory.
BERNARD Everything is? CHLOE NO, this room is. They drew the line at chemical 'Ladies' '.9 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.
