Heartbreak House

her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to the sofa and resumes her seat beside her. Mrs. Hushabye Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those stories that Othello told Desdemona couldn’t have happened⁠—? Ellie Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened. Mrs. Hushabye Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But they didn’t. Ellie Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a sphinx: I never know what you mean. Mrs. Hushabye Desdemona would have found him out if she had lived, you know. I wonder was that why he strangled her! Ellie Othello was not telling lies. Mrs. Hushabye How do you know? Ellie Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are men who have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of course, white, and very handsome, and⁠— Mrs. Hushabye Ah! Now we’re coming to it. Tell me all about him. I knew there must be somebody, or you’d never have been so miserable about Mangan: you’d have thought it quite a lark to marry him. Ellie Blushing vividly. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don’t want to make a secret of it, though of course I don’t tell everybody. Besides, I don’t know him. Mrs. Hushabye Don’t know him! What does that mean? Ellie Well, of course I know him to speak to. Mrs. Hushabye But you want to know him ever so much more intimately, eh? Ellie No, no: I know him quite⁠—almost intimately. Mrs. Hushabye You don’t know him; and you know him almost intimately. How lucid! Ellie I mean that he does not call on us. I⁠—I got into conversation with him by chance at a concert. Mrs. Hushabye You seem to have rather a gay time at your concerts, Ellie. Ellie Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting for our turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so splendid. But he was only one of the committee. I happened to tell him that I was copying a picture at the National Gallery. I make a little money that way. I can’t paint much; but as it’s always the same picture I can do it pretty quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It happened that he came to the National Gallery one day. Mrs. Hushabye One students’ day. Paid sixpence to stumble about through a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day for nothing and found the floor clear! Quite by accident? Ellie Triumphantly. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He knows lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are all in love with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the National Gallery and persuade me to come with him for a drive round Richmond Park in a taxi. Mrs. Hushabye My pettikins, you have been going it. It’s wonderful what you good girls can do without anyone saying a word. Ellie I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn’t make acquaintances in that way I shouldn’t have any at all. Mrs. Hushabye Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. May I ask his name? Ellie Slowly and musically. Marcus Darnley. Mrs. Hushabye Echoing the music. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name! Ellie Oh, I’m so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it was only a silly fancy of my own. Mrs. Hushabye Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys? Ellie Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest⁠— Mrs. Hushabye A what? Ellie An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm. Mrs. Hushabye What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into it because he was afraid of the lightning? Ellie Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold. Mrs. Hushabye Looking hard at her. Ellie! Ellie The garden of the Viscount⁠— Mrs. Hushabye —de Rougemont? Ellie Innocently. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. His life has been one long romance. A tiger⁠— Mrs. Hushabye Slain by his own hand? Ellie Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger from a hunting party: one of King Edward’s hunting parties in India. The King was furious: that was why he never had his military services properly recognized. But he doesn’t care. He is a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades. Mrs. Hushabye How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, good girl. Ellie Rising, dignified but very angry. Do you mean you don’t believe me? Mrs. Hushabye Of course I don’t believe you. You’re inventing every word of it. Do you take me for a fool? Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs. Hushabye is puzzled. Ellie Goodbye, Hesione. I’m very sorry. I see now that it sounds very improbable as I tell it. But I can’t stay if you think that way about me. Mrs. Hushabye Catching her dress. You shan’t go. I couldn’t be so mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told you all this. Ellie Flushing. Hesione, don’t say that you don’t believe him. I couldn’t bear that. Mrs. Hushabye Soothing her. Of course I believe him, dearest. But you should have broken it to me by degrees. Drawing her back to her seat. Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him? Ellie Oh, no. I’m not so foolish. I don’t fall in love with people. I’m not so silly as you think. Mrs. Hushabye I see. Only something to think about⁠—to give some interest and pleasure to life. Ellie Just so. That’s all, really. Mrs. Hushabye It makes the hours go fast, doesn’t it? No tedious waiting to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad night. How delightful it makes waking