The Mousetrap

LADYANGKATELL. (Moving to the French windows Right) Oh dear. I knew this weekend was going to be awkward.

(MIDGE rises, stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table, picks up her handbag and gloves and moves to LADY ANGKATELL.)

MIDGE. Let’s go round the garden, Lucy. What’s on in the flower world at the moment? I’m such a hopeless cockney nowadays. Most dahlias?

LADYANGKATELL. Yes. Handsome—in a rather dull way. And so full of earwigs. Mind you, I’m told earwigs are very good mothers, not that it makes one like them any better.

(LADY ANGKATELL and MIDGE exit Right. DORIS, the maid, enters Left and holds the door open. She looks slightly half-witted and is terrified of GUDGEON. GUDGEON enters Left and crosses to the drinks table. He carries a tray of drinks, a bowl of olives and a tea cloth. DORIS closes the door, moves Left Centre and stands gaping.)

GUDGEON. (Putting the tray on the drinks table) Well, fold the papers, Doris, the way I showed you. (He starts to polish the glasses.)

DORIS. (Moving hastily to Left of the coffee table) Yes, Mr. Gudgeon. (She picks up “The Times” and folds it.) Her ladyship is bats, isn’t she, Mr. Gudgeon?

GUDGEON. (Turning) Certainly not. Her ladyship has a very keen intellect. She speaks five foreign languages, and has been all over the world with Sir Henry. Sir Henry was Governor of one of the principal provinces in India. He would have been the next Viceroy most probably if it hadn’t been for that terrible Labour Government doing away with the Empire.

DORIS. (Putting the newspaper on the Left arm of the sofa) My dad’s Labour.

(There is a pause as GUDGEON looks almost pityingly at DORIS.)

(She takes a step back. Apologetically) Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Gudgeon.

GUDGEON. (Tolerantly) You can’t help your parents, Doris.

DORIS. (Humbly) I know they’re not class.

GUDGEON. (Patronizingly) You are coming along quite nicely—(He turns to the drinks table and continues polishing the glasses) although it’s not what any of us have been used to. Gamekeeper’s daughter, or Head Groom’s daughter, a young girl who knows her manners, and has been brought up right.

(DORIS picks up the “Daily Graphic” and folds it.)

That’s what I like to train.

DORIS. (Putting all the papers together tidily on the coffee table) Sorry, Mr. Gudgeon. (She crosses to the writing table, picks up the ashtray from it, returns to the coffee table and empties the ashtray she is carrying into that on the coffee table.)

GUDGEON. Ah well, it seems those days are gone for ever.

DORIS. (Replacing the ashtray on the writing table) Miss Simmonds is always down on me, too.

GUDGEON. She’s doing it for your own good, Doris. She’s training you.

DORIS. (Picking up the ashtray from the coffee table, crossing to the fireplace and emptying the ashtray into the one on the mantelpiece) Shan’t get more money, shall I, when I’m trained? (She replaces the ashtray on the coffee table.)

GUDGEON. Not much, I’m afraid.

DORIS. (Crossing to the fireplace) Doesn’t seem worth being trained, then, does it? (She picks up the full ashtray from the mantelpiece.)

GUDGEON. I’m afraid you may be right, my girl.

(DORIS is about to empty the ashtray into the fire.)

Ah!

(DORIS turns guiltily, and puts the ashtray on the mantelpiece.)