Quality Street: A Comedy

MISS SUSAN. Indeed, sir, I do not. Phoebe, how strange that he should think so.

PHOEBE (instantly). The remark was humorous, was it not?

VALENTINE. How you see through me, Miss Phoebe.

(The sisters again exchange delighted smiles. VALENTINE is about to take a seat.)

MISS SUSAN (thinking aloud). Oh dear, I feel sure he is going to roll the coverlet into a ball and then sit on it.

(VALENTINE, who has been on the point of doing so, abstains and sits guiltily.)

VALENTINE. So I am dashing, Miss Susan? Am I dashing, Miss Phoebe?

PHOEBE. A – little, I think.

VALENTINE. Well, but I have something to tell you to-day which I really think is rather dashing. (MISS SUSAN gathers her knitting, looks at PHOEBE, and is preparing to go.) You are not going, ma'am, before you know what it is?

MISS SUSAN. I – I – indeed – to be sure – I – I know, Mr. Brown.

PHOEBE. Susan!

MISS SUSAN. I mean I do not know. I mean I can guess – I mean – Phoebe, my love, explain. (She goes out.)

VALENTINE (rather disappointed). The explanation being, I suppose, that you both know, and I had flattered myself 'twas such a secret. Am I then to understand that you had foreseen it all, Miss Phoebe?

PHOEBE. Nay, sir, you must not ask that.

VALENTINE. I believe in any case 'twas you who first put it into my head.

PHOEBE (aghast). Oh, I hope not.

VALENTINE. Your demure eyes flashed so every time the war was mentioned; the little Quaker suddenly looked like a gallant boy in ringlets.

(A dread comes over PHOEBE, but it is in her heart alone; it shows neither in face nor voice.)

PHOEBE. Mr. Brown, what is it you have to tell us?

VALENTINE. That I have enlisted, Miss Phoebe. Did you surmise it was something else?

PHOEBE. You are going to the wars? Mr. Brown, is it a jest?

VALENTINE. It would be a sorry jest, ma'am. I thought you knew. I concluded that the recruiting sergeant had talked.

PHOEBE. The recruiting sergeant? I see.

VALENTINE. These stirring times, Miss Phoebe – he is but half a man who stays at home. I have chafed for months. I want to see whether I have any courage, and as to be an army surgeon does not appeal to me, it was enlist or remain behind. To-day I found that there were five waverers. I asked them would they take the shilling if I took it, and they assented. Miss Phoebe, it is not one man I give to the King, but six.

PHOEBE (brightly). I think you have done bravely.

VALENTINE. We leave shortly for the Petersburgh barracks, and I go to London tomorrow; so this is good-bye.

PHOEBE. I shall pray that you may be preserved in battle, Mr. Brown.

VALENTINE. And you and Miss Susan will write to me when occasion offers?

PHOEBE. If you wish it.

VALENTINE (smiling). With all the stirring news of Quality Street.

PHOEBE. It seems stirring to us; it must have been merely laughable to you, who came here from a great city.

VALENTINE. Dear Quality Street – that thought me dashing! But I made friends in it, Miss Phoebe, of two very sweet ladies.

PHOEBE (timidly). Mr. Brown, I wonder why you have been so kind to my sister and me?

VALENTINE. The kindness was yours. If at first Miss Susan amused me – (Chuckling.) To see her on her knees decorating the little legs of the couch with frills as if it were a child! But it was her sterling qualities that impressed me presently.

PHOEBE. And did – did I amuse you also?

VALENTINE. Prodigiously, Miss Phoebe. Those other ladies, they were always scolding you, your youthfulness shocked them. I believe they thought you dashing.

PHOEBE (nervously). I have sometimes feared that I was perhaps too dashing.

VALENTINE (laughing at this). You delicious Miss Phoebe. You were too quiet. I felt sorry that one so sweet and young should live so grey a life. I wondered whether I could put any little pleasures into it.

PHOEBE. The picnics? It was very good of you.

VALENTINE. That was only how it began, for soon I knew that it was I who got the pleasures and you who gave them. You have been to me, Miss Phoebe, like a quiet, old-fashioned garden full of the flowers that Englishmen love best because they have known them longest: the daisy, that stands for innocence, and the hyacinth for constancy, and the modest violet and the rose. When I am far away, ma'am, I shall often think of Miss Phoebe's pretty soul, which is her garden, and shut my eyes and walk in it.

(She is smiling gallantly through her pain when MISS SUSAN returns.)

MISS SUSAN. Have you – is it – you seem so calm, Phoebe.

PHOEBE (pressing her sister's hand warningly and imploringly). Susan, what Mr. Brown is so obliging as to inform us of is not what we expected – not that at all. My dear, he is the gentleman who has enlisted, and he came to tell us that and to say good-bye.

MISS SUSAN. Going away?

PHOEBE. Yes, dear.

VALENTINE. Am I not the ideal recruit, ma'am: a man without a wife or a mother or a sweetheart?

MISS SUSAN. No sweetheart?

VALENTINE. Have you one for me, Miss Susan?

PHOEBE (hastily, lest her sister's face should betray the truth). Susan, we shall have to tell him now. You dreadful man, you will laugh and say it is just like Quality Street. But indeed since I met you to-day and you told me you had something to communicate we have been puzzling what it could be, and we concluded that you were going to be married.

VALENTINE. Ha! ha! ha! Was that it.