Fault in the Structure

‘I can tell you what he was thinking of. He was thinking of the criminal classes. He was thinking of thieves and highwaymen; of the receivers of stolen goods; of pickpockets and prostitutes; of illegitimate children and of co- habitation outside the sanctity of marriage. The piece has not one single uplifting or ennobling theme or thought. It is disgracefully improper. My son, a child of sixteen years, has been given the part of Filch, a pickpocket, and words cannot express the horror I felt when, upon glancing through the copy of the words with which, at my request, Dr Denbigh had supplied me, my eye lighted upon one of the speeches which my son will be required to make. I am fully and disapprovingly aware, Dame Beatrice, that we live in a decadent and so-called permissive age, but surely…’

‘I am convinced that you need have no fear,’ said Dame Beatrice, as words appeared, for once in her masterful career, to fail Mrs Blaine. ‘I am familiar with the text of The Beggar’s Opera and I have no doubt that Dr Denbigh will sufficiently expurgate the text to make it acceptable to the Ladies’ Guild and the other unsullied minds of Chardle. Sir Nigel Playfair himself thought it better not to include those lines in your son’s speech to which I think you refer.’

‘I am relieved to hear it, but that does not alter the fact that this profligate piece extols and approves the drunken skylarkings of…’

‘Pimps, trulls and trollops?’

‘You appear to take the matter light-heartedly, Dame Beatrice!’

‘Surely that is the way John Gay intended it to be taken?’

‘But the characters he depicts! I repeat – highwaymen, pickpockets, receivers of stolen goods! Every man in it, including the prison authorities, is an infamous scoundrel. As for the so-called “ladies of the town”, in other words the drabs of Drury Lane…’

‘Lewkner’s Lane,’ amended Dame Beatrice solemnly. ‘In fact, we are told that some of the ladies came from as far away as Hockley-in-the-Hole. Macheath must have had great charm and, “although the bank hath stopped payment”, to have been generously free with his money.’

‘You appear to be extremely familiar with the text, Dame Beatrice,’ said poor Clarice, striving vainly, although valiantly, to keep disapproval out of her voice, ‘but perhaps you have used it as an exercise in the psychology of human depravity. The frailty of human nature…’

‘Particularly the frailty of women, to whom the author gives, in the person of Mrs Peachum (to be played, to her great delight, by Laura) some excellent advice. May I quote?’

‘Please do,’ said Mrs Blaine stiffly, ‘if you see any point in doing so.’

‘She says,’ continued Dame Beatrice in her beautiful voice, ‘ “Yes, indeed, the sex is frail. But the first time a woman is frail she should be somewhat nice, methinks, for then or never is the time to make her fortune.” So pleasant to have the word “nice” correctly used, don’t you think? The speech of the eighteenth century was so eminently superior to our present-day slipshod methods of using and misusing the language.’

‘I am not aware of being slipshod or of misusing the language,’ said Clarice, ‘and I still think the piece is utterly unsuitable for public performance in Chardle.’

‘You are of Jeeves’s opinion, perhaps, that “what pleases the London public is not always so acceptable to the rural mind. The metropolitan touch sometimes proves a trifle too exotic for the provinces”. May I ask whether you are alone in your disapproval of the piece?’

‘Unfortunately, this appears to be so.’

‘Then I suppose there is nothing to be done but to accept the democratic principle that the wishes of the majority must be respected.’

‘Democracy is the most inefficient form of government ever invented!’ snorted Clarice angrily.

‘That is so true; and yet, if vox populi is vox dei, who are we to set ourselves against it?’ asked her hostess.

The visitor rose to take her leave. She tore a leaf out of a tiny notebook and handed it to Dame Beatrice.

‘It is good of you to promise to visit Caxton. Here is his address,’ she said abruptly. ‘It is a little off the beaten track. The best way is to take the Brockenhurst road and enquire at Buckett’s farm. Caxton is their tenant. I have to thank you for a most delicious tea.’

‘She may have enjoyed a delicious tea, but I do not think she saw mine as a delicious mind,’ said Dame Beatrice to Laura when the latter returned. ‘As for giving my kind co-operation in the matter of attempting to persuade William Caxton to lead the Ladies’ Guild through the streets of Chardle, I would not have agreed except that I want an excuse to meet this aptly-named printer.’

‘Do I gather you didn’t much take to our Clarice?’

‘I am sure she is the worthiest of women and, no doubt, a good wife and mother.’

‘But, as a companion on a walking tour she wouldn’t be exactly your first choice. Oh, well, we don’t always recognise or appreciate the highest when we see it. She’s a bit cheesed off, you know, because Denbigh has ridden rough-shod over her. She’s accustomed to try to produce our shows as well as stage-manage them, I’m told, so I do rather hope you didn’t tease her, but I’m rather afraid you might have done. Did she touch you for a subscription?’

‘In the beginning, yes, but at parting she refused it. I think the refusal was a mark of her displeasure. In fact, I am quite sure it was.’

‘Too right, I’d say. Well, you’ve agreed to tackle Caxton, it seems, so do you want me to accompany you on your visit to this wild man of the woods?’

‘If you will agree to leave all the talking to me, I shall be glad of your company. I have the liveliest suspicions concerning him.’

‘What is he? – clad in goat skins, like Robinson Crusoe, or a demander of cheese, like poor Ben Gunn?’

‘Neither, I trust. Does the name William Caxton convey anything to you, apart from the printing press and the date 1476?’

‘Convey anything to me? No. Why should it? There are probably dozens of Caxtons in the telephone book and