(Семья Санбери в парке пускает змея)

(Семья Санбери в парке пускает змея)

Mrs. Sunbery: Elizabeth is here.

Herbert: Betty?

Mrs. Sunbury: Spying on you.

Herbert: Let her spy. I don’t care.

(продолжает запускать змея, вскоре уходит домой)

Scene 14.

(Ссора Герберта и Бетти у них дома)

Betty: So that’s the fellows you got talking to. I’ve been suspicious for some time, you going for a walk on Saturday afternoon, and all of a sudden I tumbled to it. Flying a kite, you, a grown man. Contemptible I call it.

Herbert: I don’t care what you call it. I like it, and if you don’t like it you can lump it.

Betty: I won’t have it and I tell you that straight. I’m not going to have you make a fool ofyourself.

Herbert: I’ve flown a kite every Saturday afternoon ever since I was a kid, and I’m going to fly a kite as long as ever I want to.

Betty: It’s that old bitch, she’s just trying to get you away from me. I know her. If you were a man you’d never speak to her again, not after the way she’s treated me.

Herbert: I won’t have you call her that. She’s my mother and I’ve got the right to see her as often as ever I want to.

Author: Betty and Herbert had had trifling disagreements before, because they were both obstinate, but this was the first serious row they had had. They didn’t speak to one another on the Sunday, and during the rest of the week, though outwardly there was peace between them, their ill–feeling rankled. It happened that the next two Saturdays it poured with rain. The recollection of their quarrel grew dim. Living in two rooms as they did, sleeping in the same bed, it was inevitable that they should agree to forget their differences. Betty went out of her way to be nice to her Herb, and she thought that now she had given him a taste of her tongue and he knew she wasn’t going to be put upon by anyone, he’d be reasonable. He was a good husband in his way, generous with his money and steady. Give her time and she’d manage him all right.

Scene 15.

( Герберт дома. Приходит посыльный, отдет письмо Герберту, тот сразу же читает ):

Herbert (reading): " It looks as if we’re going to have good flying weather tomorrow. The new kite’s come. Your mum says of course we’d like you to come and help us with it, but no one’s got the right to come between a man and his wife, and if you’re afraid of Betty, her kicking up a rumpus, I mean, you’d better not come. There’s a young fellow we’ve got to know on the common who’s just mad about it, and he says he’ll get it to fly if anybody can. " (к посыльному ): Run and tell him not to let any strangers touch our kite. I’ll be there all right.

Scene 16.

(На следующий день Герберт переодевается)

Betty: What are you doing?

Herbert: Changing. Their new kite’s come and I’m going to fly it’

Betty: Oh, no, you’re not. I won’t have it.

Herbert: Don’t be a fool, Betty. I’m going, I tell you, and if you don’t like it you can do the other thing.

BETTY: I’m not going to let you, so that’s that.

Herbert: D’you want me to give you a sock on the jaw?

Betty: If you go you don’t come back!

(Герберт убирает ее в сторону и злобно уходит из дома... )

(Музыка. Бетти начинает упаковывать вещи Герберта)

Scene 17.

(приходит Герберт, у входа стоит чемодан, Бетти сидит за столом и читает)

Betty: Your bag’s packed.

Herbert: My what?

Betty: You heard what I said. I said if you went you needn’t come back. I forgot about your things. Everything’s packed. It’s in the bedroom. (продолжает читать)

Herbert: All right, have it your own way.

(Забирает чемодан и уходит)

Scene 18.

(Герберт стучится в дом к родителям, ему открывает дверь миссис Санбери)

Herbert: I’ve come home, Mum.

Mrs. Sunbury: Have you, Herbert? Your room’s ready for you. Put your things down and come in. We were just sitting down to supper. (проходят в гостиную) Samuel, Herbert’s come home. Run out and get a quart of beer. Over supper and during the rest of the evening he told them the trouble he had had with Betty. (садятся обедать)Well, you’re well out of it, Herber. I told you she was no wife for you. Common she is, common as dirt, and you who’s always been brought up so nice. And we won’t go to chapel on Sunday. It’s been an upset to you, Herbert; we’ll all take it easy. Betty will try and get you back.

Herbert: A fat chance she’s got of doing that.

Mr. Sunbury: You’ll have to provide for her.

Mrs. Sunbury: Why should he do that? She trapped him into marrying her and now she’s turned him out of the home he made for her.

Herbert: I’ll give her what’s right as long as she leaves me alone. ’

(Стук в дверь)

All together: That’s her!

Mrs. Sunbury: You leave it to me. I’ll see her.

(Она открывает дверь, на пороге Бетти, пытается войти, но миссис Санбери не пускает ее)

Betty: I want to see Herb.

Mrs. Sunbury: You can’t. He’s out.

Betty: No, he isn’t. I watched him go in with his dad and he hasn’t come out again.

Mrs. Sunbury: Well, he doesn’t want to see you, and if you start making a disturbance I’ll call the police.

Betty: I want my week’s money.

Mrs. Sunbury: That’s all you’ve ever wanted of him. (Достает кошелек и дает деньги) There’s thirty–five shillings for you.

Betty: Thirty–five shillings? The rent’s twelve shillings a week.

Mrs. Sunbury: That’s all you’re going to get. He’s got to pay his board here, hasn’t he?

Betty: And then there’s the instalments on the furniture.

Mrs. Sunbury: We’ll see about that when the time comes. D’you want the money or don’t you? (Бетти берет деньги, Миссис санбери отталкивает ее и закрывает дверь. Миссис Санбери возращается в гостиную): I’ve settled her hash all right.

Scene 19.

Author: Several weeks passed by. They concocted a letter for Herbert to write in which he told Betty that so long as she didn’t molest him or members of his family she would receive a postal order for thirty–five shillings every Saturday morning and he would pay the instalments on the furniture as they came due. But one evening when he was walking back from the station with his father Betty waylaid him.

(На улице Бетти встречает Гереберта и его отца. )

Betty: Hullo, Herb.

Herbert: Hullo.

Betty: I want to talk to my husband alone, Mr Sunbury.

Herbert: There’s nothing you’ve got to say to me that my dad can’t hear.

Betty: All right, then. I want you to come back home, Herb. I didn’t mean it that night when I packed your bag. I only did it to frighten you. I was in a temper. I’m sorry for what I did. It’s all so silly, quarrelling about a kite.

Herbert: Well, I’m not coming back, see. When you turned me out you did me the best turn you ever did me.

Betty: But I love you, Herb. If you want to fly your silly old kite, you fly it, I don’t care so long as you come back.

Herbert: Thank you very much, but it’s not good enough. I know when I’m well off and I’ve had enough of married life to last me a lifetime. Come on, Dad (Быстро с отцом уходят)

Scene 20.

Author: They walked on quickly and Betty made no attempt to follow them. On the following Sunday they went to chapel and after dinner Herbert went to the coal–shed where he kept the kite to have a look at it. He just couldn’t keep away from it. He doted on it. In a minute he rushed back, his face white, with a hatchet in his hand.

Herbert: She’s smashed it up. She did it with this. She must have done it while we were at chapel. Watched us go out, that’s what she did.

Mr. Sunbury: But how did she get in?

Herbert: I had two keys. When I came home I noticed one was missing, but I didn’t think anything about it.

Mr. Sunbury: You can’t be sure she did it, some of them fellows on the common have been very snooty, I wouldn’t put it past them to have done this.