The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd E-Book

D H Lawrence

• Herausgeber: D H Lawrence
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

MRS HOLROYD (aloud, to herself): You know they're not dry even now, though it's been as fine as it has. (She spreads the shirt on the back of her rocking-chair, which she turns to the fire.)
VOICE (calling from outside): Well, have you got them dry?
MRS HOLROYD starts up, turns and flings her hand in the direction of the open door, where appears a man in blue overalls, swarfed and greased. He carries a dinner-basket.
MRS HOLROYD: You--you--I don't know what to call you! The idea of shouting at me like that--like the Evil One out of the darkness!

Leseprobe

D. H. Lawrence

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Table of contents

CHARACTERS

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

CHARACTERS

MRS HOLROYDHOLROYDBLACKMOREJACK HOLROYDMINNIE HOLROYDGRANDMOTHERRIGLEYCLARALAURAMANAGERTWO MINERSThe action of the play takes place in the Holroyds' cottage

ACT I

SCENE I

The kitchen of a miner's small cottage. On the left is the fireplace, with a deep, full red fire. At the back is a white-curtained window, and beside it the outer door of the room. On the right, two white wooden stairs intrude into the kitchen below the closed stair-foot door. On the left, another door.

The room is furnished with a chintz-backed sofa under the window, a glass-knobbed painted dresser on the right, and in the centre, toward the fire, a table with a red and blue check tablecloth. On one side of the hearth is a wooden rocking-chair, on the other an arm-chair of round staves. An unlighted copper-shaded lamp hangs from the raftered ceiling. It is dark twilight, with the room full of warm fireglow. A woman enters from the outer door. As she leaves the door open behind her, the colliery rail can be seen not far from the threshold, and, away back, the headstocks of a pit.

The woman is tall and voluptuously built. She carries a basket heaped full of washing, which she has just taken from the clotheslines outside. Setting down the basket heavily, she feels among the clothes. She lifts out a white heap of sheets and other linen, setting it on the table; then she takes a woollen shirt in her hand.

MRS HOLROYD (aloud, to herself): You know they're not dry even now, though it's been as fine as it has. (Shespreads the shirt on the back of her rocking-chair, which she turns to the fire.)VOICE (calling from outside): Well, have you got them dry?MRS HOLROYD starts up, turns and flings her hand in the direction of the open door, where appears a man in blue overalls, swarfed and greased. He carries a dinner-basket.MRS HOLROYD: You--you--I don't know what to call you! The idea of shouting at me like that--like the Evil One out of the darkness!BLACKMORE: I ought to have remembered your tender nerves. Shall I come in?MRS HOLROYD: No--not for your impudence. But you're late, aren't you?BLACKMORE: It's only just gone six. We electricians, you know, we're the gentlemen on a mine: ours is gentlemen's work. But I'll bet Charles Holroyd was home before four.MRS HOLROYD (bitterly): Ay, and gone again before five.BLACKMORE: But mine's a lad's job, and I do nothing!--Where's he gone?MRS HOLROYD (contemptuously): Dunno! He'd got a game on somewhere--toffed himself up to the nines, and skedaddled off as brisk as a turkey-cock. (She smirks in front of the mirror hanging on the chimney-piece, in imitation of a man brushing his hair and moustache and admiring himself.)BLACKMORE: Though turkey-cocks aren't brisk as a rule. Children playing?MRS HOLROYD (recovering herself, coldly): Yes. And they ought to be in.She continues placing the flannel garments before the fire, on the fender and on chair-backs, till the stove is hedged in with a steaming fence; then she takes a sheet in a bundle from the table, and goes up to BLACKMORE, who stands watching her.Here, take hold, and help me fold it.BLACKMORE: I shall swarf it up.MRS HOLROYD (snatching back the sheet): Oh, you're as tiresome as everybody else.BLACKMORE (putting down his basket and moving to door on right): Well, I can soon wash my hands.MRS HOLROYD (ceasing to flap and fold pillow-cases): That roller-towel's ever so dirty. I'll get you another. (She goes to a drawer in the dresser, and then back toward the scullery, from which comes the sound of water.)BLACKMORE: Why, bless my life, I'm a lot dirtier than the towel. I don't want another.MRS HOLROYD (going into the scullery): Here you are.BLACKMORE (softly, now she is near him): Why did you trouble now? Pride, you know, pride, nothing else.MRS HOLROYD (also playful): It's nothing but decency.BLACKMORE (softly): Pride, pride, pride!A child of eight suddenly appears in the doorway.JACK: Oo, how dark!MRS HOLROYD (hurrying agitated into the kitchen): Why, where have you been--what have you been doing now?JACK (surprised): Why--I've only been out to play.MRS HOLROYD (still sharply): And where's Minnie?A little girl of six appears by the door.MINNIE: I'm here, mam, and what do you think--?MRS HOLROYD (softening, as she recovers equanimity): Well, and what should I think?JACK: Oh, yes, mam--you know my father--?MRS HOLROYD (ironically): I should hope so.MINNIE: We saw him dancing, mam, with a paper bonnet.MRS HOLROYD: What--?JACK: There's some women at New Inn, what's come from Nottingham--MINNIE: An' he's dancin' with the pink one.JACK: Shut up, our Minnie. An' they've got paper bonnets on--MINNIE: All colours, mam!JACK (getting angry): Shut up, our Minnie! An' my dad's dancing with her.MINNIE: With the pink-bonnet one, mam.JACK: Up in the club-room over the bar.MINNIE: An' she's a lot littler than him, mam.JACK (piteously): Shut up, our Minnie--An' you can see 'em go past the window, 'cause there isn't no curtains up, an' my father's got the pink bonnet one--MINNIE: An' there's a piano, mam--JACK: An' lots of folks outside watchin', lookin' at my dad! He can dance, can't he, mam?MRS HOLROYD (she has been lighting the lamp, and holds the lamp-glass): And who else is there?MINNIE: Some more men--an' all the women with paper bonnets on.JACK: There's about ten, I should think, an' they say they came in a brake from Nottingham.MRS HOLROYD, trying to replace the lamp-glass over the flame, lets it drop on the floor with a smash.JACK: There, now--now we'll have to have a candle.BLACKMORE (appearing in the scullery doorway with the towel): What's that--the lamp-glass?JACK: I never knowed Mr Blackmore was here.BLACKMORE (to MRS HOLROYD): Have you got another?MRS HOLROYD: No. (There is silence for a moment.) We can manage with a candle for to-night.BLACKMORE (stepping forward and blowing out the smoky flame): I'll see if I can't get you one from the pit. I shan't be a minute.MRS HOLROYD: Don't--don't bother--I don't want you to.He, however, unscrews the burner and goes.MINNIE: Did Mr Blackmore come for tea, mam?MRS HOLROYD: No; he's had no tea.JACK: I bet he's hungry. Can I have some bread?MRS HOLROYD (she stands a lighted candle on the table): Yes, and you can get your boots off to go to bed.JACK: It's not seven o'clock yet.MRS HOLROYD: It doesn't matter.MINNIE: What do they wear paper bonnets for, mam?MRS HOLROYD: Because they're brazen hussies.JACK: I saw them having a glass of beer.MRS HOLROYD: A nice crew!JACK: They say they are old pals of Mrs Meakins. You could hear her screaming o' laughin', an' my dad says: "He-ah, missis--here--a dog's-nose for the Dachess--hopin' it'll smell samthing"--What's a dog's-nose?MRS HOLROYD (giving him a piece of bread and butter): Don't ask me, child. How should I know?MINNIE: Would she eat it, mam?MRS HOLROYD: Eat what?MINNIE: Her in the pink bonnet--eat the dog's-nose?MRS HOLROYD: No, of course not. How should I know what a dog's-nose is?JACK: I bet he'll never go to work to-morrow, mother--will he?MRS HOLROYD: Goodness knows. I'm sick of it--disgracing me. There'll be the whole place cackling this now. They've no sooner finished about him getting taken up for fighting than they begin on this. But I'll put a stop to it some road or other. It's not going on, if I know it: it isn't.She stops, hearing footsteps, and BLACKMORE enters.BLACKMORE: Here we are then--got one all right.MINNIE: Did they give it you, Mr Blackmore?BLACKMORE: No, I took it.He screws on the burner and proceeds to light the lamp. He is a tall, slender, mobile man of twenty-seven, brown-haired, dressed in blue overalls. JACK HOLROYD is a big, dark, ruddy, lusty lad. MINNIE is also big, but fair.MINNIE: What do you wear blue trousers for, Mr Blackmore?BLACKMORE: They're to keep my other trousers from getting greasy.MINNIE: Why don't you wear pit-breeches, like dad's?JACK: 'Cause he's a 'lectrician. Could you make me a little injun what would make electric light?BLACKMORE: I will, some day.JACK: When?MINNIE: Why don't you come an' live here?BLACKMORE (looking swiftly at MRS HOLROYD): Nay, you've got your own dad to live here.MINNIE (plaintively): Well, you could come as well. Dad shouts when we've gone to bed, an' thumps the table. He wouldn't if you was here.JACK: He dursn't--MRS HOLROYD: Be quiet now, be quiet. Here, Mr Blackmore. (She again gives him the sheet to fold.)BLACKMORE: Your hands are cold.MRS HOLROYD: Are they?--I didn't know.BLACKMORE puts his hand on hers.MRS HOLROYD (confusedly, looking aside): You must want your tea.BLACKMORE: I'm in no hurry.MRS HOLROYD: Selvidge to selvidge. You'll be quite a domestic man, if you go on.BLACKMORE: Ay.They fold the two sheets.BLACKMORE: They are white, your sheets!MRS HOLROYD: But look at the smuts on them--look! This vile hole! I'd never have come to live here, in all the thick of the pit-grime, and lonely, if it hadn't been for him, so that he shouldn't call in a public-house on his road home from work. And now he slinks past on the other side of the railway, and goes down to the New Inn instead of coming in for his dinner. I might as well have stopped in Bestwood.BLACKMORE: Though I rather like this little place, standing by itself.MRS HOLROYD: Jack, can you go and take the stockings in for me? They're on the line just below the pigsty. The prop's near the apple-tree--mind it. Minnie, you take the peg-basket.MINNIE: Will there be any rats, mam?MRS HOLROYD: Rats--no. They'll be frightened when they hear you, if there are.The children go out.BLACKMORE: Poor little beggars!MRS HOLROYD: Do you know, this place is fairly alive with rats. They run up that dirty vine in front of the house--I'm always at him to cut it down--and you can hear them at night overhead like a regiment of soldiers tramping. Really, you know, I hate them.BLACKMORE: Well--a rat is a nasty thing!MRS HOLROYD: But I s'll get used to them. I'd give anything to be out of this place.BLACKMORE: It is rotten, when you're tied to a life you don't like. But I should miss it if you weren't here. When I'm coming down the line to the pit in the morning--it's nearly dark at seven now--I watch the firelight in here. Sometimes I put my hand on the wall outside where the chimney runs up to feel it warm. There isn't much in Bestwood, is there?MRS HOLROYD: There's less than nothing if you can't be like the rest of them--as common as they're made.BLACKMORE: It's a fact--particularly for a woman--But this place is cosy--God love me, I'm sick of lodgings.MRS HOLROYD: You'll have to get married--I'm sure there are plenty of nice girls about.BLACKMORE: Are there? I never see 'em. (He laughs.)MRS HOLROYD: Oh, come, you can't say that.BLACKMORE: I've not seen a single girl--an unmarried girl--that I should want for more than a fortnight--not one.MRS HOLROYD: Perhaps you're very particular.< [...]