CATHERINE (who thinks he has a heavenly nose). Indeed, it isn't. You are sure to get on, Mr. Treherne.
TREHERNE. Thank you, Lady Catherine.
CATHERINE. But it was the bishop who told me so. He said a clergyman who breaks both ways is sure to get on in England.
TREHERNE. I'm jolly glad.
(The master of the house comes in, accompanied by LORD BROCKLEHURST. The EARL OF LOAM is a widower, a philanthropist, and a peer of advanced ideas. As a widower he is at least able to interfere in the domestic concerns of his house--to rummage in the drawers, so to speak, for which he has felt an itching all his blameless life; his philanthropy has opened quite a number of other drawers to him; and his advanced ideas have blown out his figure. He takes in all the weightiest monthly reviews, and prefers those that are uncut, because he perhaps never looks better than when cutting them; but he does not read them, and save for the cutting it would suit him as well merely to take in the covers. He writes letters to the papers, which are printed in a type to scale with himself, and he is very jealous of those other correspondents who get his type. Let laws and learning, art and commerce die, but leave the big type to an intellectual aristocracy. He is really the reformed House of Lords which will come some day.
Young LORD BROCKLEHURST is nothing save for his rank. You could pick him up by the handful any day in Piccadilly or Holborn, buying socks--or selling them.)
LORD LOAM (expansively). You are here, Ernest. Feeling fit for the voyage, Treherne?
TREHERNE. Looking forward to it enormously.
LORD LOAM. That's right. (He chases his children about as if they were chickens.) Now then, Mary, up and doing, up and doing. Time we had the servants in. They enjoy it so much.
LADY MARY. They hate it.
LORD LOAM. Mary, to your duties. (And he points severely to the tea- table.)
ERNEST (twinkling). Congratulations, Brocky.
LORD BROCKLEHURST (who detests humour). Thanks.
ERNEST. Mother pleased?
LORD BROCKLEHURST (with dignity). Mother is very pleased.
ERNEST. That's good. Do you go on the yacht with us?
LORD BROCKLEHURST. Sorry I can't. And look here, Ernest, I will not be called Brocky.
ERNEST. Mother don't like it?
LORD BROCKLEHURST. She does not. (He leaves ERNEST, who forgives him and begins to think about his speech. CRICHTON enters.)
LORD LOAM (speaking as one man to another). We are quite ready, Crichton. (CRICHTON is distressed.)
LADY MARY (sarcastically). How Crichton enjoys it!
LORD LOAM (frowning). He is the only one who doesn't; pitiful creature.
CRICHTON (shuddering under his lord's displeasure). I can't help being a Conservative, my lord.
LORD LOAM. Be a man, Crichton. You are the same flesh and blood as myself.
CRICHTON (in pain). Oh, my lord!
LORD LOAM (sharply). Show them in; and, by the way, they were not all here last time.
CRICHTON. All, my lord, except the merest trifles.
LORD LOAM. It must be every one. (Lowering.) And remember this, Crichton, for the time being you are my equal. (Testily.) I shall soon show you whether you are not my equal. Do as you are told.
(CRICHTON departs to obey, and his lordship is now a general. He has no pity for his daughters, and uses a terrible threat.)
And girls, remember, no condescension. The first who condescends recites. (This sends them skurrying to their labours.)
By the way, Brocklehurst, can you do anything?
LORD BROCKLEHURST. How do you mean?
LORD LOAM. Can you do anything--with a penny or a handkerchief, make them disappear, for instance?
LORD BROCKLEHURST. Good heavens, no.
LORD LOAM. It's a pity. Every one in our position ought to be able to do something. Ernest, I shall probably ask you to say a few words; something bright and sparkling.
ERNEST. But, my dear uncle, I have prepared nothing.
LORD LOAM. Anything impromptu will do.
ERNEST. Oh--well--if anything strikes me on the spur of the moment.
(He unostentatiously gets the footstool into position behind the chair.