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Read Ebook: Possession: A Peep-Show in Paradise by Housman Laurence
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Ebook has 395 lines and 8797 words, and 8 pages
OLD LADY. My dear, would you move the light a little nearer? I've dropped a stitch.
LAURA . Why, Mother dear, when did you come in?
JULIA . Don't! You mustn't try to touch her, or she goes.
LAURA. Goes?
JULIA. I can't explain. She is not quite herself. She doesn't always hear what one says.
LAURA . She can hear me. Can't you, Mother?
MRS. R. . Jane, dear, I wonder what's become of Laura, little Laura: she was always so naughty and difficult to manage, so different from Martha--and the rest.
LAURA. Lor', Julia! Is it as bad as that? Mother, 'little Laura' is here, sitting in front of you. Don't you know me?
MRS. R. Do you remember, Jane, one day when we'd all started for a walk, Laura had forgotten to bring her gloves, and I sent her back for them? And on the way she met little Dorothy Jones, and she took her gloves off her, and came back with them just as if they were her own.
LAURA. What a good memory you have, Mother! I remember it too. She was an odious little thing, that Dorothy--always so whiney-piney.
JULIA. More tea, Laura?
LAURA. Mother! Where are you living now?
MRS. R. I'm living, my dear.
LAURA. I said 'where?'
JULIA. We live where it suits us, Laura.
JULIA . Now you see! If you press her too much, she goes. . . . You'll have to accommodate yourself, Laura.
JULIA . The dear Mother seldom stays long, except when she finds me alone.
LAURA. I don't believe she recognised me. Why did she keep on calling me 'Jane'?
JULIA. She took you for poor Aunt Jane, I fancy.
LAURA . Why should she do that, pray?
JULIA. Well, there always was a likeness, you know; and you are older than you were, Laura.
LAURA . Does 'poor Aunt Jane' wear widow's weeds? Julia! . . . Where's William?
JULIA. I haven't inquired.
LAURA . I wish to see him.
JULIA. Better not, as it didn't occur to you before.
LAURA. Am I not to see my own husband, pray?
LAURA. He can come, I suppose. He has got legs like the rest of us.
JULIA. Yes, but one can't force people: at least, not here. You should remember that--before he married you--he had other ties.
LAURA. He was married to me longer than he was to Isabel.
JULIA. They had children.
LAURA. I could have had children if I chose. I didn't choose. . . . Julia, how am I to see him?
JULIA . You must manage for yourself, Laura.
LAURA. I'm puzzled! Here are we in the next world just as we expected, and where are all the--? I mean, oughtn't we to be seeing a great many more things than we do?
JULIA. What sort of things?
LAURA. Well, . . . have you seen Moses and the Prophets?
JULIA. I haven't looked for them, Laura. On Sundays, I still go to hear Mr. Moore.
LAURA. That's you all over! You never would go to the celebrated preachers. But I mean to. What happens here, on Sundays?
JULIA . Oh, just the same.
JULIA . You will go out if you wish to go out. You can choose your church. As I tell you, I always go to hear Mr. Moore; you can go and hear Canon Farrar.
JULIA. He was not Dean in my day.
JULIA. Well, Laura, it's the world as we knew it--that for the present. No doubt other things will come in time, gradually. But I don't know: I don't ask questions.
JULIA. Dispensation has its own ways, Laura; and we have ours.
LAURA . Julia, I shall start washing the old china again.
JULIA. As you like; nothing ever gets soiled here.
LAURA. Then why can't we have our Mother, like other things?
JULIA. Ah, with persons it is different. We all belong to ourselves now. That one has to accept.
JULIA. I suppose.
LAURA. It isn't Scriptural!
JULIA. It's better.
LAURA. Julia, don't be blasphemous!
JULIA. To consult William's wishes, I meant.
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