The Princess Casamassima. Frank J. Morlock
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You used to live in the Place—you were the girl that always wanted to kiss me. Didn’t she live in Lomax Place, Pinnie?
Milly
Do you know what you look like—you look for all the world like a plastered up Frenchman! Don’t he look like a funny little Frenchie, Mrs. Pysnet?
Hyacinth
Have you come back to live in the Place?
Milly
Heaven forbid, that I should ever do that! I must live near the establishment in which I am employed.
Hyacinth
And what establishment is that now? Is it the Cock and Bull, or the Elephant and Castle?
Milly
A pub? Well, you haven’t got the manners of a Frenchie.
Pinnie (under her breath)
Whorehouse more likely!
Milly
I don’t care what a man looks like so long as he knows a lot. That’s the look I like.
Pinnie
Miss ’Enning wouldn’t live in Lomax Place for the world. She thinks it too low.
Hyacinth
So it is, it’s a beastly hole.
Milly
Right you are!
Hyacinth
Don’t you think I know something?
Milly
You? Oh, I don’t care a straw what you know!
Pinnie
I think you had better shut the door.
Hyacinth
Did you come here on purpose to see us?
Milly
I thought I’d just give it a look. I had an engagement not far off. But I wouldn’t have believed anyone who said I’d find you just where I left you.
Pinnie (sourly)
We needed you to look after us!
Hyacinth
Oh, you’re such a success.
Milly
None of your rattling impudence. I’m as good a girl as there is in London. If you were to offer to see me home, I’d tell you I don’t knock about that way with gentlemen.
Hyacinth
I’ll go with you as far as you like.
Milly
Well—all right—but it’s only because I knew you as a baby.
Hyacinth
Pinnie, let’s have some tea.
(Pinnie, mortified, obeys and goes out to get the tea.)
Milly
What a way to treat your mother. Oh—I forgot she ain’t your mother. How stupid I am! I keep forgetting.
Hyacinth
My mother died many years ago; she was an invalid. But Pinnie has been very good to me.
Milly
My mother’s dead, too. She died very suddenly. I daresay you remember her in the Place. But I’ve had no Pinnie.
Hyacinth
You look as if you can take care of yourself.
Milly
Well, I’m very healthy. What became of Mr. Vetch? We used to say that if Miss Pysnet was your mama, Mr. Vetch was your papa. We used to call him Miss Pysnet’s young man.
Hyacinth
He’s her young man still. He’s our best friend. He lives by his fiddle—as he used to. In fact, he got me the place I’m now in.
Milly
I should have thought he would get you a place at his theatre.
Hyacinth
At his theatre? But, I’d be no use in the theatre. I don’t play any instrument.
Milly
I don’t mean in the orchestra, you baby. You’d look very nice in a fancy costume. Is Miss Pysnet some relation? What gave her any rights over you?
Hyacinth (uneasily)
Miss Pysnet’s an old friend of the family. My mother was very fond of her and she was fond of my mother. Mr. Vetch has changed his lodgings: he moved out of Seventeen three years ago. He couldn’t stand the other people in the house. There was a man who played the accordion.
Milly (reproachfully)
He might have put you into something better than a bookbinder’s.
Hyacinth
He wasn’t obliged to put me into anything. After all, he’s not even a relation of Pinnie’s. And he has trouble enough supporting himself. I think he never married Pinnie—assuming he could persuade her—because he has no money.
(Pinnie returns with the teapot and servings. After placing everything on the table, she stalks out.)
Milly
Friendly, ain’t she?
Hyacinth
She’s very protective of me. She’s always afraid I’ll marry beneath me.
Milly
All the same, I didn’t expect to find you in a bookbinder’s.
Hyacinth
Where would you have looked to find me? Pity you couldn’t have told me in advance, I’d have endeavored to meet your expectations.
Milly
Do you know what they used to say in the Place? They say your father was a Lord. A real English Lord.
Hyacinth
Very likely. That’s the kind of gossip they spread in that precious hole.
Milly
Well, perhaps he was.
Hyacinth
He might have been Prime Minister for all the good it has done me.
Milly
Fancy, your talking as if you didn’t know!
Hyacinth (politely, but savagely)
Finish your tea. Don’t mind how I talk.
Milly
Well, you ’ave got a temper. I should’ve thought you’d be a clerk to a lawyer, or at a bank.
Hyacinth
Do they select them for their tempers?
Milly
You know what I mean. You used to be so clever. I never thought you’d follow a trade.
Hyacinth
I’m not clever enough to live on air.
Milly
You might be, really, for all the tea you drink! Why didn’t you go in for some profession?
Hyacinth (bitterly)
How was I to go in? Who the devil was to help me?
Milly
Haven’t you got a connection?
Hyacinth
Are you trying to trick me into boasting of my aristocratic connections? Sorry, I don’t have