The Chalk Garden by Enid Bagnold is a psychological drama that explores how secrets, trauma, and personal history shape human relationships and the possibility of redemption. The story follows Miss Madrigal, a mysterious governess with a troubled past who transforms a neglected garden and heals a fractured family, revealing that true healing comes through compassion, understanding, and the willingness to confront hidden truths. The play demonstrates how damaged lives can flourish again when individuals are given the opportunity to be seen and understood, and how the past, though painful, can be integrated into a meaningful present.
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The Chalk Garden | Saturday Night Theatre | Enid Bagnold's Drama of Secrets, Healing & Redemption
Added:Saturday Night Theater, the Edith Evans Festival. The play chosen to mark the final broadcast in this series is The Chalk Garden by Enid Bagnold.
In this adaptation by Margaret Etall, Damedith plays the role of Mrs. St. Morm, the gracious, if somewhat eccentric character she created for the London production of the play in 1956.
With her are Mary Morris as Miss Magical, the new companion, and Cecil Parker as the judge, an old and valued family friend.
The chalk garden. It is a windy morning in June, 15 years ago.
The scene is a sitting room in Mrs. Mm's mana house in a Sussex village, not far from the sea.
The room has a look of the country also of vigor and culture and is much lived in.
A wide arch leads to the hall and the main part of the house.
Inside the room, a small door gives access to a narrow flight of stairs.
Beyond the French window is a Bosski bilied garden, and running the length of the windows is a high tough workt littered with gardening paraphernalia.
On one of four chairs set out in a row sits an enigmatical contained woman who has the still look of an eagle upon a rock.
A man servant in a white coat crosses the room.
>> M.
>> In here, madam.
>> Are my teeth ON THE TABLE? MY bottom teeth?
>> There's nothing. Oh, yes. Here they are wrapped in a handkerchief.
There's a dentist taking the empty house by the church. He might make you comfortable.
>> I've tried all the dentists. You can't fit false teeth to a woman of character.
As one grows older and older, the appearance becomes such a bore. Oh, good morning.
>> Good morning.
>> But I was expecting four applicants.
Mean, >> four came. Three have gone.
>> One left out of 107 answers. You can go, Mund.
>> I'll be in the pantry if you want me.
>> Shall we sit? Thank you.
So, you wish to be considered for the post of companion to my granddaughter.
Now, what questions do total strangers put to one another? My name is Magical.
I'm the daughter of the late Ronald Benton Magical Raj Putnner Huzar's Indian Army. He was the son of General Bentum Magdal, the Honorable East India Company.
>> Oh, no. No, that you can't be. The honorable East India Company was dissolved in 1860. I'm an expert. My great-grandfather was Tarathoon, governor of Madras, tried for corruption in 1859 and found guilty. My grandfather had my father at the age of 75.
>> Oh, that might make it possible. Now, what experience have you?
>> I have small private means. I've not taken such a post before.
>> Why do you apply to me?
>> The advertisement tempted me. I have been somewhat alone. You will be able, I suppose, to give me references.
>> That will be difficult.
>> What? In fact, impossible.
>> We've been ringing, Mrs. St. Bourne.
>> What? What do you say, nurse? I heard nothing.
>> Our breakfast tray was late again.
>> Well, one can't have everything.
>> Mr. Pinkbell says one should have a great deal more.
Pink Bell is my butler. He's had a stroke. This is one of his cross mornings. Now ask me questions, Miss Madreal. Does one have a room to oneself? Life without a room to oneself is a barbarity.
Lunch on here with me and my granddaughter and your evening meal served in your room on a tray.
Are you Church of England, Miss Magical?
My religion is private.
I should tell you in case you should ask me to. I don't answer the telephone.
>> For what reason? I prefer not to.
>> What?
>> It disturbs me to join two worlds. I'll ask >> which. The outside and the inside one.
>> They want you to open the village summer festival.
>> Oh, are they holding on?
>> They are.
>> Well, ask them what attendance they can ensure. Last time I opened something, there was nobody there.
>> Madam is so unpopular.
>> Well, how do you know?
>> Oh, I hear it on all sides.
>> They tell you that when I send you down to the post. Give me my engagement book on the desk.
This is last years.
>> Well, give it me all the same. The dates are not so different. Have you lived in a village, Miss Magical?
>> No, Mrs. Mor.
>> All the graces of life here go unveiled.
In a village, one is down to the bones of things. When I was at my height, though I lived here, I never knew them.
They were waiting for my old age like wolves, it seems. I'll tell them I won't open it.
>> They won't be pleased. Now, where were we? My advertisement asks for handiccraft.
>> I'm sorry, Mrs. Simon car.
>> What handiccraft do you suggest?
>> I have ornamented a chapel >> with your needle.
>> With my brush, I have painted a twining plant on the altar candles. But uh as the candles burnt down, the painting must have melted away.
>> That was the beauty of it. Is this a quiet house?
>> Absolutely. [screaming] That's my daughter's child. My granddaughter. She's so fond of screaming.
>> While I was waiting, a young girl passed through the room.
>> That was she. She lives with me. Did she say anything?
>> Nothing of consequence.
I believe she mentioned that her father shot himself.
>> Oh, Laurel. [laughter] To make a drama. He died. Poor man, of his liver. She does not care for the truth.
>> No, but I encourage her. She loves the small limelight. One must be tender with her. Alas, he died when she was three.
Rich and of fine estate, four van dyes and unique sheritan furniture. Her mother's one success. But why speak of it? She married again. And where is her mother? She follows the drum, as they say, in Arabia. Stationed abroad is the term, but I dislike military language.
She is coming by ship. I am expecting her.
>> Would you sooner postpone? Oh, but she doesn't come here. I should be your employer.
>> She is coming >> in front of the child. We don't mention it. She's coming. One does not know why, though I shrewly suspect it. I have an unworldly daughter. She was always crying out after being simple. And that's hard to understand. It seems such a waste with all the chances of life to want to be simple. Privilege and power make selfish people, but gay ones. Oh, forgive me, Miss Magical, for being personal, but irritation is like a rash on the heart. The child, is she fond of her stepfather? I never asked. His rank is Colonel.
My granddaughter has developed an interesting mother hatred, which is clearly explained in Freud. You You've her experience. You feel competent to deal with such things.
>> For the worse or the better.
>> You seem absent in mind.
>> Not in mind.
But in manner the child is naturally alienated that her sex life has broken out again in her mother.
>> You put it well. Exactly. The child was frenzied. When nothing would stop the wedding, she ran from the hotel into the dark. There seems to be a bell ringing.
And by some extraordinary carelessness, she was violated in High Park at the age of 12. It has upset her nerves.
We are waiting, as it were, for calmer weather.
You want me, Pink Bell? One moment. Of course, we put it less strongly to her mother. Apart from certain fixations with regard to fire, she's a charming, intelligent girl. I should welcome your impressions.
What's that? I did. I ordered it. The extract of humorous for the seat boxes.
He should have come. Well, I ring. I ring and ask him. I know. I know. But one can't have perfection. Pink bell.
Oh, isn't jealousy terrible?
Yes. Made me jump. You may have had a stroke, but he still keeps his finger on things. He carried on at death's door.
His standards rule this house.
>> You must be fond of him.
>> Alas, no. He trains Maitland, but now Maitland won't go near him. But I shall overcome it. He's so good with the garden. Mland pink belt. He directs mine from his window. All butlers dream of gardening.
Now we spoke of references. Who will speak for you?
>> No one will speak for me.
Extract of humus is too rich for summers.
>> Yes.
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> Yes, ma'am. Has a bag of fume has been delivered at the back door?
>> There's a sack there.
>> When did it come?
>> Oh, days ago.
>> And you walk by it and ignore it. How do you know someone hasn't sent me a brace of fence? Mr. Pink Bell said you must always report and at once everything that comes to the back door.
>> I won't take orders from the old bastard.
>> Am I to have trouble with you, Metland?
Oh, if I could please and be sure of myself.
>> Melland, >> if things would go smoothly.
>> Mland, bring me the creme deont and two glosses.
>> Touch and go. How frail is authority.
What were you saying when about humus and the summer benials? Don't p up the soil before birth. It leads them on to expect what life won't give them. Speak louder.
What life won't give them.
>> What was that plant you painted on the candles? Lepaggeria.
Subtropical with waxy umbles. Lady Portchester had it in a wedding bouquet after the battle of the man. I'd forgotten it. Could I grow it in my greenhouse? It needs the early actctinic rays. Exclude the sun again at midday.
Counteract the high lime content in your soil with potachsh. Where did you learn about such things? I was put in charge of what? A garden.
>> I wish to give my notice.
>> If I take it, you will not get it back again.
>> I'm prepared for that.
>> Are you?
>> You know, I can't stand criticism. Every time a word said against me, a month's work is undone. We all make mistakes, >> but nothing should be said about them.
Praise is the only thing that brings to life again a man who's been destroyed.
But oh, if I leave, what will you do without me?
>> And what will the child do?
>> Do you know the secret of authority, Miss Madrical? Changes of mood, the inexplicable, the thunder, the lightning, and the sudden sun. He won't leave me. Will you have a creme de? I never touch alcohol. Certainly. He makes scenes, but I like them. He's been a prisoner. A prisoner? Five years. Now that there are no subject races, one must be served by the mad, the sick, and those who can't take their place in the outside world. And served, I must be.
Laurel, >> a moment. One moment, darling. I WATCHING THE BONFIRE. I MUST see it die.
I put salt on it to turn the flame blue.
Blocks of it.
>> Who told you to put salt on it?
>> The old bastard. Mr. Pink Bell.
>> No, not now, my darling. Superlatives only between ourselves.
>> Oh, where are the others?
>> This is Miss Madrical.
>> Have you settled everything? Do you understand all about me?
>> Not yet.
>> Oh, can't we have the interview together? Shall I get the book that explains me?
>> Not so fast. Externalize.
Externalize, my darling. She has quaint self delusions. You mustn't mind them.
>> But you mustn't cross them.
>> Are you an only child?
>> I am Delilah's daughter.
>> Laurel has a poltergeist. Stones fall in the bedrooms and words leap and change color and are most like fishes. I too at her age >> which often skips a generation.
>> She is my parchment sheet on which I write. I hope she will remember my life and times. There seems no one else to do it. I am your little immortality.
>> Those who eat too big a meal of life get no monument. Come here, my darling.
You see, Miss Madreal, how light my finger lies upon her. The trials of flower. She grows in liberty.
>> Weeds grow as easily. Then, >> as I was saying >> before the interruption, >> freedom is kept in here. Calm is its left tenant. THE MADONNA LIIES HAVE BLOWN OVER. OH, great heavens. This mule of a garden make them. He was to order the bamboos and he forgot them. Are they all down?
>> All and not for one of warnings.
>> Oh my liies. My liies and broke them.
>> What? What was that? I heard >> the calm of Grand Lou.
>> But what's happened?
>> There's been an accident in the garden.
>> Fire. Wind, you didn't stake the liies.
>> Oh, are they down? The nurse told me and I forgot. Oh, the old bastard will be crowing.
>> Steak in May.
>> They weren't full grown in May.
>> They should have been.
>> Is that a criticism?
>> So, you are the gardener here as well.
>> I'm everything. I'm the kingpin and the pivot and the manservant and the maid servant and the gobetween and the fire extinguisher.
>> Prisoner 6574.
>> SIR, CARRY YOUR BED AREA AND ABOUT TURN through the corridor. Second door on the left and your cell march.
Oh, I'm all to pieces. I can't play it.
>> He was five long years in prison. Miss Madreal, >> was it your first conviction?
>> Conviction? It was for my ideals. I was a conscientious objector.
>> And didn't you find it trying?
>> Oh, she says trying.
Five years. Five long years. Given one chance to live in five years taken from it. Ant among a thousand ants and taking orders from ants.
>> If it upsets you, better not recall it.
>> Not recall it. It's stamped on my skin and at the back of my eyes. It's in my legs when I walk up and down. In my heart that sticks with fright when she gets angry.
>> But since you felt you had right on your side.
>> Right on my side. That didn't uphold me.
I went in there because I wouldn't take her life. But before I came out, I'd have killed a warder.
>> All acts become possible.
>> What can you know of life?
>> True. It's been sheltered.
>> All our lives have been sheltered.
>> And don't drink that. She'll be furious.
>> Not with me.
I'm not responsible.
>> Your witness, miss. I didn't touch it. I have to be on the ready for injustice in life.
>> From me. From your little laurel. How touchy you are.
>> I have soft ground and hard ground to my feelings. You should mind where you step.
>> Have you taken your luminal?
>> That's it. That's it. Even a child knows a man must take a seditive. But coming from you, Laurel, >> Miss Laurel, I am a victim and you ought to love me. I do love you. Like the poor mother who ought by rights and reasons to take a stick to you.
>> What do you expect from me? A child that's been forsaken by its mother.
>> That's as maybe. That's as those think it to be. I was found in a field, but I don't make a fuss about it.
>> Poor Maitelland likes the right even when the right is wrong.
>> He has your interests at heart.
>> Are you a hospital nurse?
>> Why do you ask?
>> You have that unmeaning way of saying things. Now that we are alone, am I to call you Laurel?
>> It's my name.
>> And what are you interested in? Laurel?
I mean, apart from yourself.
>> What I don't like is to be questioned.
>> I agree with you.
>> But I don't like to be agreed with just in case I might argue. And I don't like to be read aloud to unless I suggest it.
And if read aloud to, I don't like emphasis. And every morning I don't like good morning said. I can see for myself what sort of day it is.
>> You sound as if you had lady companions before.
How did you get rid of them?
>> I tell Pink Bell.
>> He tells your grandmother.
My mind works more slowly than yours, but it was going that way.
>> You see, she loves to advertise. She loves what comes out of it. It's like dredging in the sea. She says so much comes up in the net.
>> I, for instance, >> why not?
>> Doesn't she take a chance that way?
>> No. She says you get more out of life by haphazard.
By the way, if you want to get on with my grandmother, you must noticed her eccentricity.
>> She is fond of that.
>> She adors it. The tales I let her tell me when I'm in the mood.
>> Does she love you?
>> She would like to. She thinks she does.
But I am only her remorse.
>> You try your foot upon the ice, don't you?
>> I find you wonderfully odd. Why do you come here?
>> I have to do something with my life.
What life have you been used to?
>> Regularity, punctuality, early rising.
>> Sounds like a prison.
>> And what are you used to?
>> Doing what I like.
>> Have you been told why I am peculiar?
>> Something was said about it.
>> If you come here, we'll talk for hours and hours about it. And why I hate my mother.
>> I too hated my mother. I should say it was my stepmother.
>> Oh, that's just an ordinary hatred. Mine is more special. The dangerous thing about hate is that it seems so reasonable.
>> My mother is a Jezebel. She's so overloaded with sex that it sparkles.
She is golden and striped like something in the jungle.
>> You sound proud of her. Does she never come here >> to see me? Never. She's too busy with love. Just now she's in Arabia with her paramore.
>> With her?
>> Oh, if you pin me down, he's my stepfather.
Have you read Hamlet? It tipped my mind and turned me against my mother.
>> Does she know you feel discarded?
>> I don't. I left her.
The night before she married, she forgot to say good night to me. Do you think that sounds like a little thing?
>> Oh, no, no, no. It lights up everything.
>> Are you talking of you or of me?
>> Well, one feels [clears throat] strongly, it is always of me.
>> If you're not a spy sent by my mother, I shall enjoy you.
Do you know about crime? Makand and I share a crime library. Bit by bit, we're collecting the notable trial series.
>> But don't you like detective stories better?
>> No, we like real murder. The trials. We act the parts.
>> Which trials have you got?
>> Oh, so far. Only Mrs. Mabri, Lizzy Bordon, and Dr. Krippen. But Maitelland likes the murderouses better. He's half in love with them.
>> If you come here, couldn't we act them together?
Maitelland is so slow. I make him read the prisoner. Why does the prisoner have so little to say, do you think? What a habit you have, haven't you? Of not answering.
>> All gone. All Oh, when things are killed in my garden, it upsets me as when I read every day in the newspapers that my friends died.
>> I should have thought as one got older, one found death more natural.
>> Natural? It's as though the gods went shooting when mom was walking confident in the park of the world. There are pangs and shots. A mom may be for me natural.
>> That is why a garden is a good lesson.
>> What?
>> So much dies, isn't it? And so often.
>> It's not a lesson I look for. Take Miss Magical into the garden, Laurel.
>> No, I I think I must be going.
>> But I want you to see the garden.
>> All right. I I'll let you know.
>> There's nothing to know yet.
>> I better not waste your time.
>> You can put your bag down. No one will touch it here. You may as well, Miss Madrical. Grandlau always wins.
>> Oh, very well.
>> Grandloo.
What do you think?
>> I never allow myself to think. I have another method.
>> Grand.
>> But while you're in the garden, listen to her. She knows her subject.
>> But shall you take her?
>> Certainly not. But before she goes, I want her opinion of the garden.
Good afternoon, madam.
>> I didn't [clears throat] telephone Mland. I thought it better just to come.
How is my mother?
>> She has a health something in nature.
>> And my daughter, >> they're as thick as thieves. Madam, >> could you look for my mother?
>> Madam was in there.
>> She does not appear to be there now. Oh, who are you?
>> It makes no difference. Perhaps I should tell you the field is free for you >> to see the child.
>> You have to see the grandmother first.
>> Yes.
>> Looking at you, I wouldn't come here if there is any other post open to you.
>> Why?
>> Because the child will make hay of you.
>> She has made hay of me.
>> Oh, >> are you the mother?
>> Yes. Is she in the garden?
>> Yes.
>> Please go out, keep her there.
>> But I am a stranger. I know, but sometimes one speaks the truth to a stranger. I'm not supposed to see her.
First, I must see my mother. Please, >> please, >> Olivia.
>> As you wish.
>> Mland, light a bonfire.
>> Yes, madam.
>> Olivia, so soon. That you're safe.
That's all that matters.
>> Mother.
>> Oh, let me look at you. How brown you are. You look like an Arab. How is the desert, darling? I can almost see the sand in your hair.
>> Mother, how's the child?
>> Ask for me. Ask for me, Olivia.
>> I do. I would, but you ran like a girl and not a day older. As I came in, the standards dripping with roses. Oh, the English flowers after the east.
>> Well, let me tell you before we talk.
>> Before we quarrel.
>> No, no, not this time. I was going to say that I've missed you. If I'd known you were coming, I'd have driven up to see you. Whatever end in your condition made you rush down here without a word.
>> I flew. I got here this morning.
>> Like one of those crickets that leap from a distance and fall at one's feet.
How do you do it?
>> By breakfasting in Baghdad and dining in Kufra and taking a taxi in England.
Where on a course I wrote two months at Alershot.
>> All the shot? Who would have thought you'd have taken on that look so quickly of the colonel's lady? What was it they called it? Really? How are the bugles adorned? Olivia, >> we don't live in a camp.
>> I feel sure you said you did.
>> Never mind the camp. I want to talk to you.
>> But why down here the very second you arrive and without warning?
>> Mother, I've come about, Laurel. Don't put me off any longer.
>> Did you wear that scarf on purpose to annoy me? What you wear is a language to me.
>> Oh, that's an old battle and an old method.
>> I've told you in letter after letter.
>> It's time I saw for myself, mother. For nine years, I shut the world out for her. Nine years of widowhood might have been spent better. I've asked you not to come, and you come. And how can you wear beige with your skin that color?
>> Does it never become possible to talk as one grown woman to another?
>> The gap's lessening. After 50, I haven't grown much wiser. But at least I know what the world has to have, though I cannot pass anything on. When I count my ambitions and what you made of them.
>> I did what you wanted.
>> But how you resisted me. I was burning for you to cut ice in the world. Yet you had to be driven out to get. I had to beat you into beauty. You had to be lit as one lights a lantern decked like a m tree.
>> Oh, can't we be three minutes together?
>> Even your wedding dress you wore like wrapping paper. And where is it now? the success to which I pushed you. Laurel might have been a child these four years playing in a highwalled park.
>> And I might have been a widow with deer gazing at me. But life isn't like that.
You had for me the standards of another age. The standards of Pink Bell.
>> Plain, shy, obstinate, silent. But I won. I married you.
>> But you won't meet the man I married.
The man I love.
>> Love can be had any day. Success is far harder.
>> You say that off the top of your head where you wore your tiara.
>> Oh, so find a tongue to speak with.
>> I have found many things and learned others. I have been warmed and praised and made to speak. Things came late to me. Love came late to me. Laurel was born in a kind of strange virginity.
To have a child doesn't always make a mother. And you won't give up the image of me, coish, inept, dropping the china, picking up the pieces.
>> It was I who picked up the pieces.
>> I know, but I'm without her.
>> You are going to have another child.
>> This child's the unknown. Laurel's my daughter, >> who came to me, who ran to me as an asylum from her mother.
>> Oh, you find such words to change things. You talk as if I were a light woman.
>> No, you're not light. You've never been a light woman. You're a dark, a mute woman. If there was lightness in you, it was I who lent it to you and all that I did gone.
>> Mother, of a thousand rows between you and me, and this not I know the last one. Be on my side. Oh, for once be on my side. Help me >> to what?
>> Help me to find her. Help me to take her back.
>> Take her back? What now? Just now when I've such a companion for her, a woman of the highest character of vast experience, I put myself out endlessly to find her.
>> She can help you to prepare her when I come back for her.
>> You mean before the baby's born? That will be an odd moment, won't it? To come for her?
>> No, it's why I want her. Before I love the baby. I can't sleep. I can't rest. I seem to myself to have abandoned her. to her own grandmother. I'm not a baby farmer or a head mistress or the matron of an orphanage.
>> But she'll be a woman and I'll never have known her.
>> It suited you when you first married that I should have her. Laurel came to me of her own free will and I turned my old age into a nursery for her.
>> And God has given you a second chance to be a mother.
>> Olivia, there's no one who puts me in a passion like you do.
>> And no one who knows you so well and knows today is hopeless. Mrs. Samour, there must be some mistake. This is a chalk garden. Who has tried to grow roodendrrons in a chalk garden?
>> Rodendrrons? We put them in last autumn, but they are unhappy.
>> They are dying. They are in pure lime.
Not so much as a little leaf mold. There is no evidence of paliation.
>> Oh, wait, wait, wait. Where are you going?
>> They should have had compost, but the compost heap is stone cold. Nothing in the world has been done for them.
>> Is that Laurel? She's screaming. What's the matter?
>> There is nothing the matter. She is dancing around the bonfire.
>> Oh, I I should have told you this is Miss Madreal.
>> What are you doing?
>> Not so fast. Now, I want to ask you, the Bergamut and the Gunnar >> won't thrive on chalk.
>> Well, there's an east slope I can grow nothing on.
>> The soil can't give what it has not got.
>> Don't go. The wind blows from the sea here, and growing things need protection.
>> And the liies have rust. There is black spot on the roses and the child is screaming in the garden.
>> The roses? Well, what would you have done for them? Pink bell ordered and I sprayed them.
>> With what? I wonder. You had better have prayed for them. You have been very badly advised, I think, by Mr. Pinkbell.
If you will accept me, Mrs. Morm, I will take this situation.
Two months later, Laurel is alone painting a flower in a vase before her.
By her side is an old mahogany paint box.
>> All alone. Whose idea is that?
>> The bosses.
>> And not even burning the curtains.
>> I am painting a flower.
Occupational therapy.
>> What was yours? Picking oak.
>> Who would think you were weak in the head? You've given up screaming.
>> My madness is older. It's too old for screaming.
>> Why do you sham mad, dearest?
>> Dearest.
>> Oh, only in a sad sort of way. I have no dearest. Oh, there's grease on the table.
>> You shouldn't be sorry for yourself. It unmands you.
>> It's better than being vain and in love with the glory of one's misfortune.
But I'll say this for you. The boss has changed you.
>> I am her business and her vocation.
>> Who could imagine that a maiden lady could know so much about life?
>> She's no maiden lady. Might she be allowed, child?
>> That's enough now.
>> How prudish you are. Look how she came to us with nothing. A lady from a shipwreck. Her brush is new and her dresses. No box of shells by her bed. No mirrorbacked with velvet. Oh, she's cut off her golden pass like a fish's tail.
She's had a life of passion.
>> What words you use?
>> You have a set of words you keep in a cage.
>> Does she get any letters? Do you spy on her?
>> Who?
>> Our Duke's daughter. our hired companion.
>> If you're talking of Miss Magical, she never gets a letter.
>> Don't you get a hint or a sound or a sigh out of her?
>> No.
>> Do you?
>> No. With me, she's on guard. I can't surprise or ambush her. She watches me.
>> Whatever she does, you're the better for it.
>> Mr. Pink Bell doesn't think so.
>> Poison he is, but influential.
>> If you ask me, RS are coming.
>> I don't ask you. You're too set up with yourself and pleased as a peacock to be the bone of contention. She says he's the devil in charge. He's ordered rodendrums. It took a lorry to deliver them.
>> What's that got to do with it?
>> The boss reversed the label. She sent them back again. [laughter] >> I'm for Miss Magical. I have no mercy on him.
>> Poor Mr. Pink Bell.
>> A man's no better when he's dying.
>> What's that?
>> Turpps.
Turpentine.
>> Give it to me.
Here.
>> Thank you.
>> How did she take our having a visitor to lunch?
>> I was to wear this clean frock, otherwise nothing. Straight as an envelope. It looks so adolescent. And with a judge coming.
>> How do I call him?
>> A judge has called me Lord.
>> Oh, I wish I could see it.
>> What?
>> Him in his robes and his great wig and all that happens. How you do on justice?
>> It's the machinery and the magnificence.
It's the grandness >> in prison. Was there grandness?
>> No. I was brought up from a cell and saw none of it.
>> Heavens, mand for daydreams, the gold toothpicks, the greenhandled ivory knives >> locked away.
>> And the key of the safe? It's here since I've seen it. We used to have celery with the Stilton, the Bristol finger bowls and the epan and the sie. We served the caracon and those glasses for the brandy.
>> They broke.
>> And there was a gold cigar box that played a tune King Edward gave me.
>> Is it gold? I used to keep a mouse in it.
>> Well, go and get it.
>> Can't remember where I put it. But isn't the man who's coming old? Puppy >> the judge.
>> Well, that's what I called him.
>> Can I wear >> wear anything you like? I'm sick of white things and innocence.
>> OH, THEY'RE PLAYING out there with the hard ball again. Can you identify them?
>> The one with the bat is the fish monger son.
>> Well, how do you know?
>> He's looking at me.
>> That will do.
>> Leave that to me, Mland.
>> It's time I looked at boys or I won't get the hang of it.
>> Every summer the boys with their cricket. Every summer a broken window.
>> Isn't it strange that men play cricket?
Are you an Englishman?
>> At the orphanage, we played rounders.
>> Well, now we should want the cherry before lunchon. Bring the sweet as well as the dry. Should there be two wine glasses to each person?
>> But there's only one wine.
>> Well, put two. I forget the reason. Oh, and the spoons outside the knives.
>> You said the opposite last time.
>> Never.
Well, someone must know. I'll ask Pink Bell.
>> Pink Bell is sulking.
>> Why? He's full of jealous rage about his enemy.
>> What again?
>> Where is she now?
>> She is urging on the Agapanthus liies.
>> She's what?
>> She is using diluted cowure in one in seven.
>> Oh, I must go and see it once and watch how that is done.
>> Keep behind the Escalonia hedge. Every movement is watched. The nurse came down this morning for the field glasses.
>> Prisoner 6574.
>> Sir, do you know whose paint box this is?
>> Yours?
>> No.
Come and look at it. She lent it to me, the boss.
>> Can you see where the letters are that are burnt in the wood? There in the lid.
Look under the black mark.
>> Yeah.
>> Under the smear of paint where I cleaned it with the turpps. It's C D >> D and W. It's C D W.
>> She's coming in.
>> Take the turbentine. Don't want her to see it.
>> Oh.
>> Oh, Grand Blue has just this minute gone to look for you. I caught sight of her, but I thought it best that we should not be seen together.
>> She's head over heels with excitement about our guest.
>> Does one still mind when one is old what men think?
>> One never knows when one is old for certain.
>> She calls him puppy. I think she was once his mistress.
>> Do you know that?
>> No.
>> Then why do you say it?
>> Why does one say things that's more fun?
>> If you pretend and it's believed, where are you?
>> Where am I?
>> Floating away. The only hold we have on this world is the truth. to think I'm to feed him. A man who's got so much power.
>> We've never had a judge here before.
>> A judge is a visitor that's coming. A judge.
>> He's here for the courts. He's on circuit.
>> What's his name?
>> It's in the newspapers, but the old bastards got them. They're carried up to him. I only get to read them on the doorstep.
>> We can talk to him of murder.
>> If you do that, it will be a want of tact. It will bore him. You and I will sit as a separate table for lunchon.
Maitland will put us a small table here by the sofa.
>> No, not two tables. Not with a guest.
Oh, that can't be managed.
>> You can manage anything. Now, tell us what surprise you've arranged for us.
What are we going to eat?
>> Fortnhams have sent the cold cooked chickens.
I've carved them.
I've ornamented them with mint leaves.
There's a salad and salad dressing out of a bottle. Mrs. Mourn doesn't believe so.
>> The bottled is so much better, but one must never say so.
>> Oh, when I have something to do, something to create, everything is clear again.
>> 10 years younger.
>> Oh, if we had guests often, the sense of rising to something.
>> Poor Meland. How you twist him round your finger.
>> Why do we sit separately from the guest, you and I?
>> It used to be done at lunchon in the best houses. Had you a life in them?
>> Who is CDW?
>> My married sister.
>> I thought you had been born unrelated.
>> Did you?
>> And now you have a sister.
>> Yes.
>> Suppose you were to drop down dead. To whom should we write?
>> I shall not drop down dead.
>> That will be the old bastard.
>> As I thought, PINK BELL IN A RAGE. HE HAS practically stung me. He asked for you. Would you be afraid to speak to him?
>> Afraid?
Why, Mr. Pink Bell?
Yes, it is I, Miss Madreal.
>> Who's she speaking to?
>> Pink bell. He stung me.
>> Ah, but on that I disagreed.
The roadendrons. I sent them back again.
I reversed the labels. And if I could, I would reverse everything. And I may yet, we shall see.
No, I'm afraid on that you are wrong, Mr. Pink Bell. Your facts are wrong.
Also, your deductions.
Yes. And unless it is the wrong time of year to plant them and the wrong soil.
Not at all.
Now, don't blame yourself. Amateur gardeners very often make that mistake.
>> Blame himself.
>> He made use of sarcasm.
>> My god, you shall have two tables. You shall have three if you like and the breast off both the chickens.
>> Nurse, where are you going? I have a message for your grandmother. Now there'll be ructions.
>> And with the judge coming in the newspapers, they say it'll be a long trial.
>> Are all the glasses polished?
>> Do you think in Louis prison?
>> There's a cloud on this one.
>> This murderer that's lying in his cell.
>> No man is a murderer until he has tried.
>> Does the judge look at him?
>> The judge never looks up. He seems to sleep, but it's the sleep of cruelty >> when he first sees the judge.
>> Why do you think only of the judge? It's the jury they work on.
>> But it seems when you read about such trials that it must be the judge.
>> Read more and you'll see that it's neither. But fate.
>> How can that be?
>> Because when it starts, there's no free will anymore.
>> But they work, don't they, to get at the truth.
>> Truth doesn't ring true in a court of law.
>> What rings true then?
>> The likelihood. the probability.
They work to make things fit together.
What the prisoner listens to there is not his life. It is the shape and shadow of his life with the accidents of truth taken out of it.
Time's getting on, Maitelland. [snorts] >> Oh, what would that man in prison give to be as free as I?
>> So, you've been to a trial.
>> I did not say I hadn't. Why did you not say when you know what store we both lay by it?
>> It may be. I think you lay too much store by it.
>> How does one get in?
>> It's surprisingly easy.
>> Was it a trial of murder?
>> It would have to be to satisfy you.
>> Was it a trial for murder?
>> Have you finished painting that flower?
>> Oh, as much as I can. I get tired of it.
>> In my house at home, there are so many things to do.
>> What was it like?
>> My home? H.
>> There was a stream and a Chinese bridge and you trees cut like horses and a bell on the weather vein and a little wood called mine.
>> Who called it that?
>> She did. My mother. And when it was raining, we made an army of her cream pots on a battlefield of her dressing table. I used to thread her rings on safety pins.
>> Tomorrow I will light that candle in the green glass candlestick. And you can try to paint that.
>> What? Paint the flame?
>> Yes. But I'm tired of fire, too, boss.
>> Shall we read?
>> Oh, I don't want to read.
>> Let's have a game.
>> All right. A guessing game.
>> Very well. Do you know one?
>> Maitland and I play one called The Skies the Limit.
>> How do you begin?
>> We ask three questions each, but if you don't answer one, I get a fourth.
>> What do we guess about?
>> Let's guess about each other. We're both mysterious.
>> The human heart is mysterious.
>> We don't know the first thing about each other, so there are so many things to ask. But we mustn't go too fast or there been nothing left to discover.
Has it got to be the truth?
>> One can lie, but I get better and better at spotting lies. It's so dull playing with Maitelland. He's so innocent.
>> Now, first question. Are you a maiden lady?
>> I can't answer that.
>> Why?
>> Because you throw the emphasis so oddly.
>> Right. You don't answer. So now I have an extra question.
Are you living under an assumed name?
>> Careful. I'm getting my lie detector working.
>> Do you take things at their face value?
>> No.
>> Splendid. You're getting the idea.
>> This is to be your fourth question.
>> Yes, indeed. I must think. I must be careful.
What is the full name of your married sister?
>> Clarissa Dal Rimple Westerrom.
>> Is Dal Rimple Westerrom a double name?
You've had your questions?
>> Yes, I have. Now yours. You've only three unless I pass one.
>> Was your famous affair in Hyde Park on the night of your mother's marriage?
>> About that time.
>> What was the charge by the police?
>> Police didn't come into it.
>> Did someone follow you and try to kiss you?
>> Kiss me? It was a case of criminal assault.
>> How do you know if there wasn't a charge by the police?
>> Ah, that's one too many questions.
Now for the deduction. You didn't tell me there was a deduction.
>> I forgot. It's the whole point. Mine's ready.
>> What do you deduce?
>> That you've changed so much. You must have been something quite different.
When you came here, you were like a rusty hinge that wanted oiling. You spoke to yourself out loud without knowing it. You had been alone. You may have been a missionary in central Africa. You may have escaped from a private asylum. But as a maiden lady, you are an impostor.
About your assumed name, I am not so sure. But you have no married sister.
>> You take my breath away.
>> Good at it, aren't I?
>> Yes, remind Andre Cloud.
>> Now for your deduction.
>> Mine must keep.
>> But it's the game. Where are you going?
>> To my room. To be sure. I have left no clues unlocked.
>> Your past life?
>> Yes. You've given me so much warning.
>> [bell] >> bell. That Oh, was it you? You're not supposed to ring it, >> necklace.
>> No, I'm busy now.
Oh, now what is it?
>> The boss. We played the game.
>> You didn't dare. What did you ask her?
>> Nothing and everything. No game would uncover her. But Maitelland, she knows about life.
>> What sort of knowledge?
>> Something intense, something dreadful, something cut in stone over her mind to warn you when you walk in.
>> I too had something dreadful happen to me.
>> But hers is more dreadful. That's why she has no weakness. Her eyes see through me. I'm a mouse to her.
>> Oh, are you afraid, poor dearest?
Let Maitelland speak to her.
>> Yes. Yes. You tell her. Tell her about how they brought me back that night.
>> Don't talk of it.
>> So small. Such a little thing. How I cried. They should have called a doctor.
>> It's what I said they should. I argued it. Madam's got her ways. I've got mine.
Oh, she would have got the moon for you.
But I was the one who put up with you.
Who fetched and carried? Who read to you? You had the right to the best in the world, a lady's child.
>> The colonel's lady.
>> Not that again. I forbid you your own mother.
>> Mr. Pink Bell says Julio.
>> I'll have none of it. Out with the devil in you for shame. And just when I was talking nicely to you.
>> But I've told you what she is.
>> Not me, you won't tell. That's got no mother. If your mother's black as you don't say so to me, girl, >> I shall scream.
>> Scream away. Now we've got the boss to get after you. [laughter] Oh, the relief of it.
>> No. Be nice to me. How tough you get.
Suddenly >> it comes over me. The right comes up in me. Like when they tried to make a soldier of me. All of a sudden I see how things should be.
>> Mittland. Take these holly hogs. Cut the stems three inches shorter. Put them in the blue Italian vase and three aspirins at the bottom.
>> Mrs. Mo, I Oh, indeed. My ears are filled with poison. What has the nurse been telling me? The poor old man upstairs is crying with rage. I corrected him. But for 40 years, Pink Bell has never been corrected. He's the butler who is the standard of all London. Let him take his standard from the garden. I corrected his ignorance of detail, dates, fundamentals, application of manure. I spoke not of his spoons and forks, but of his shallow knowledge of the laws of growth. You can leave the room, Maitland. That should have been said by me. But go mland.
>> About time he was criticized for a change.
>> Now, Miss Magical, this is a crisis.
Yes. Now you have to make your decision.
I I have. Now you have to choose between us.
Is Mr. Pink Bell to let the moment pass when one should layer the Clemetus? When the gladioli should be lifted? Has anyone planted the winter aites and the pelagoniums? Who has taken cutings and the red tobacco seed and the zenyas and the seeds of the white cosmos for next year? Do you wish like an amateur to buy them? But I always have bought them. If that is how you wish to live, I am no party to it. It is not possible for me to hold communication with mines brought up on bedding plants for the green grocerers dying in shallow boxes. Out there every corner is crying aloud. Must I be dumb when you and I approach together the time of year when all next summer must stand or fall by us? Have you time before death to throw away season after season? What have I let in here out of an advertisement? The east wind.
>> Oh, we shall lose her. Grandl, don't sit there. Go after her. Think what she knows about the garden.
>> I am thinking >> she will go she says she will. You don't want to lose her.
>> For nothing on earth. I'd sooner strangle Pink Bell. But how is it to be done?
>> With a cord.
>> How's the reconciliation to be done? And with the guest at lunchon.
>> Weave her in as you say you used to in London. Go after her. Promise her the earth. Promise her the garden.
>> The garden? But But what what what shall I say to him?
>> You're not afraid of him.
>> I've always been afraid of Pink Bell.
>> Put these flowers on the table, Laurel.
If we are to keep the boss Maitelland, we must fight for her.
>> Fight for her? Have you upset her?
>> I haven't. Not I. She and I understand each other. Isabelle.
>> The judge.
>> Oh.
>> Oh. Good morning. Good morning, the Lord.
>> The judge.
Oh, we're all expecting you.
>> Oh, >> I am. And Maitland, >> take his coat.
>> Oh, yes, my lord. And allow me.
[laughter] >> Thank you.
>> And my companion, Miss Madreal, and my grandmother.
>> So, you're the grandchild.
>> Won't you sit down, Maitelland? Bring the cherry, the dry, and the sweet.
Remember?
>> Oh, not for me. I never drink at midday.
But my grandmother was telling me this morning, you used to glory in your pallet.
>> We change as we grow older. As your fine little girl, [clears throat] she isn't a little girl.
>> I am 16, but backward.
>> Bless my soul. What am I to make of that?
>> Nothing. It's too long a story.
>> Then you are Olivia's daughter. Shy Olivia.
>> Shh, we don't speak of her.
>> Well, she's living, I hope, my dear child.
>> In sin, judge. So, you've met her, the little girl of my little girl. No grandmother today, but puppy after 20 years and no longer young.
>> My dear, what do you expect when you measure me by that unsuitable nickname?
Am I late? I lost my confounded way.
>> But you don't drive yourself.
>> I do, Sherry. Adam.
>> Yes. Put it down here, Mland.
>> Thank you. You may go.
>> Thank you, ma'am.
I'm so poor and much too old to be poor.
[clears throat] Forgive me.
>> Are you cold?
>> We won't pay down a trifle analogy. They were thrashing in the cornfield.
[laughter] [clears throat] I'll wear these for a while and then I should be better.
>> But how are we going to see you if you wear dark glasses?
>> You will. 20 minutes will cheat my old nose that we're back at the old belly.
>> Sher puppy, >> not for me, thank you.
>> Before we talk of the past, how do you find the present?
>> Too busy. Too busy. One hasn't time to think one's getting nearer to God.
>> Have you made it right with her?
>> Speak louder. Never whisper. My laurel has a companion puppy. A charming woman, able but passionate, at war just now with Pink Bell. blue.
>> The door was closed, sweet, and when it's not at one's best through mahogany, but I heard no sound of pecking.
>> Pink bear [clears throat] is what it brings back, or incorruptible ritual.
How I remember after the summer glare of Piccadilli, the young man that I was, crossing your hall like a porn across a chessboard.
>> And you better go and look for my darling. and how after the first and second footmen one arrived at last at Pink Bear. He stood at the foot of the stairs, the apprehension one had of his sour displeasure, his severity, his corklike dryness.
Later on, when I had to rebuke the public eye, I remembered Pink Bell.
[clears throat] Yes, [laughter] my demeanor on the bench is Pink Bells.
Everything now is at your service.
Madam, >> simply, simply, times have changed, Matland.
Ah, here she is. Ah, Miss Madreal, how you have relieved me. Let me introduce you. My right hand, my green hand, the mistress of my garden.
Yes, she has a specialty for the anonymous.
Some sherry, Miss Val.
>> No, thank you.
>> Well, then shall we all sit down, puppy?
>> But why this segregation?
>> The boss's orders.
>> Are you below the salt or are we?
>> Miss Madreal means this to be the school room.
>> She's so witty. Now you can start, Maitelland. You can give us your cold chicken. I don't entertain anymore. The fight's over. Even the table is laid with fragments of forgotten ritual.
>> Faith is handed down that way.
>> When Pink Bell is dead, we shall not know why we use two glasses for one bottle.
>> What about the wine, man?
>> The judge doesn't drink.
>> And I have such a bottle of shabby on the ice for you.
>> Alcohol in the middle of the day disperses the old brains. I try to keep together.
>> Aren't we to have any?
>> If we get flushed, Laurel, and too much at our ease.
>> I think that would be nice. The reverse alas is the truth. But bring it m bring the bottle. And after lunch, Miss Madrical, shall we show the judge our roses? M. Madrical has soil magic, puppy.
>> Things grow for you during the night.
>> You mustn't talk to us. We're invisible.
>> But you have ears.
>> Oh yes, we overhear.
>> You'll overhear the flavor of the past.
Life was full of great rules then. We high women were terrible. Would you have your youth back, puppy?
>> No. No. For a man, youth isn't the triumph.
>> I'd have it back if I could. Even life's reverses. Wouldn't you, Miss Magical?
You have spilled the salt, Laurel. I was asking, do you think grief tastes more sharply than pleasure on the pallet?
>> I beg your pardon. You can do better than that, Miss Madrego. I have not the give and take of ordinary conversation.
Show me the bottle, Maitelland.
>> Now, now open it.
>> Oh, in that case, after lunchon, you'll have to let me close my eyes.
>> What? Sleep in the daytime.
>> That shocks you. [laughter] >> Yes. Very well.
>> In my job, old age is part of the trappings.
>> Well, one gets old all the same.
>> Judges don't age. Oh, thank you. Time decorates them. You should come and hear me. Learned and crumpled like a rose leaf of knowledge. I snuffle and mumble.
I sham deaf. I move into court with the red glory of a saint carried in festival.
By some manipulation my image bows right and left to the sheriffs.
>> Mland, this is what you missed.
>> What?
>> Meland and I want to know. And Miss Magical talk is a partaking, not a usering. But it's Maitland who collects the notable trial series.
>> Maitelland. Maitland. It's myself, my lord.
>> We read them aloud together. And we are converting Miss Matrial.
>> Ah, [clears throat] >> but tell us in plain language how you will enter court tomorrow.
>> In our men in scarlet with a full bottomed wig, magnificent.
Seeing me now as I am, you wouldn't know me.
>> That's better. Without those glasses, we can see your face.
>> Oh, what's the matter?
>> She broke her glass.
>> My hand knocked it. Well, Matron will get you another. Another another glass, please. Mland, >> no more here.
>> There are plenty of the pens.
>> Oh, don't make him leave the room while the judge is talking.
>> Oh, I forgot. Mland has been imprisoned, puppy.
>> Have you indeed?
>> 5 years, my lord. I hope not too unpleasant.
>> It's given me a fascination and a horror, my lord, if you can understand.
A little stage struck.
>> Dear me, I hope that's not the usual effect. It's supposed to be a deterrent.
>> Yes and no. Yes and no. It's hard to explain.
>> Well, don't try. Take my second glass and give some wine to Miss Madly.
>> When she had one, she wasn't offered any.
>> Once Plet is reborn every morning, fill the glass. I am not used to wine. One must dissemble. But today I will have some. It helps one to hold up one's end at the table.
>> Mine. Fill mine. Oh, judge. Go on.
>> With what?
>> With tomorrow.
>> Heaven's laurel. Talk is the thoroughb bread. And let's not say go on as if it were a donkey.
>> Well, first I am driven to church to pray.
>> To pray?
>> To pray against my faults. When you're as old as I am and sit in a high place, everyone sees your faults except yourself.
I suspect I'm vain, but I get no corroboration. I have my likes and dislikes, and nobody should know that, but everybody knows it.
>> The jury doesn't know it.
>> You're wrong. Uh, when the battle around the prisoner is ended, the relationship is between me and the jury. Then comes the gamble. Wooden, inscrable, as they sit hour after hour. They grow a communal nose and they sniff out weaknesses.
I may speak seldom, but there's no neutrality. Even in the rarest words, even in silence, long, long before I come to sum up, they will have taken mysterious sides for or against me. See, I pray against bias and against vanity >> and for charity.
>> That's outside my job. You may clear the plates, mate.
>> Oh, I uh I'm sorry. I'd forgotten how they call you.
>> The name is magical.
>> I ignore the heart, Miss Magical, and satisfy justice. Every little line on my face is written by law, not life.
>> Oh, to be bound up again, puppy as you are. To be involved, to be back in the hurly burly.
>> My life's not the Hurly Burly. That's for the council. I am the old creature with a memory. I have to remember the things they said they said but didn't. I have to decide according to dry facts when appealed to in a passion.
>> But tomorrow, judge, stop badgering the judge Laurel.
>> No, let her be. On to the law courts. At the gate, my trumpeters knock three times, then blow for my admittance. In a little room behind the court, I changed my great wig for a small one. Then garbed and topped with medieval meanings, obscured by ritual, carrying the gloves of justice and the cap of death. On a hollow knock, I go in.
>> And the prisoner for the grace of heaven, Laurel, after such a speech, you should have paused and clapped him. Have some cheese, puppy.
>> Oh, thank you.
>> But I want to ask a question.
>> No, not yet. I'm trying to weave in whoever invented tomb tables. Can't one join them?
>> Not across 50 years, not the past and the present.
>> Can I ask the judge?
>> Ask then. And don't leave our friend, Miss Magical out of everything.
>> I don't know how to include her when I want to ask my own question.
>> Ask Miss Magical.
>> But it's the judge I'm asking.
Judge, aren't you going to try a murderer tomorrow? That is not a subject for discussion.
>> You see, you see how stiff you can be.
You see the resemblance >> to whom?
>> To Pink Bell.
>> Here today, you are alone with us. No one will quote you. And we are mad on murder.
>> Murder is a sorted thing.
>> Oh, you don't think so? Murder cracks open the lives of people you don't know.
Like cracking open a Walmart. Murder is a crisis.
What must have gone before to make it so?
>> Isn't it true that to you, judge, everything is told for the first time?
>> In principle, >> but Miss Madreal says that the judge isn't even interested that he sleeps.
>> I said he seemed to sleep >> with one eye open like a tiger.
>> Have you been to a trial then?
>> She has. She told me.
>> Now you defeat my purpose. Let her answer.
>> Have you heard me in court, Miss Magical? When I spoke to Laurel of judges, it was in a general sense, but I heard you on the bench, judge, >> and I trust it was one of my better days.
>> I think if I remember, I would not have come to your conclusion. Mr. Magical has such answers to life.
But that was a strange one.
>> Well, a judge doesn't always get to the bottom of a case.
>> No, it takes the pity of God to get to the bottom of things. That's enough. You must forgive me. You insisted. The wine has removed the inhibitions.
Bring the coffee on, Maitlin.
>> Oh, the coffee. Yes, ma'am.
>> When it's a murderer, what do you feel?
>> What should he feel? Laurel, judges see prisoners by the million.
Cigarette, puppy.
>> Oh, yes. Thank you.
>> But you've got to say, haven't you, whether the man's to live or die. Do you suffer?
>> Oh, thank you.
>> Nobody will suffer. They will all go into a dream together.
>> Even the prisoner. The prisoner thinks he is at the judgment seat of justice, a place where all motives are taken into account.
>> And isn't it?
>> No.
[bell] >> But judge, while he listens, if the truth is quite different, does he never cry out?
>> He may write notes to his counselor.
>> Miss Madrical says that when all has gone against you, >> I am quoted enough >> after the verdict.
>> But if quoted, quoted rightly.
>> When he's asked, "Have you anything to say?"
>> The prisoner is punchrunk and says nothing.
>> Not always. Some have said remarkable things as there comes to my mind a woman.
Maitelland have you the trial of Connie Dolly Wallace?
>> Of whom?
>> I haven't all the volumes, my lord. I haven't that one.
It wasn't one of my successes, but you should read it for what the woman said when she stood before me. It was just before I sentenced her. Fine eyes she had. I think I should remember them. A tall woman with a face like an eagle.
What I have been listening to in court, she said, is not my life. It is the shape and shadow of my life with the accidents of truth taken out of it.
15 years ago, it must have been. It was my 60th birthday.
>> What was she tried for, judge?
>> Murder. One of those cases people read at breakfast.
During those seven days, >> nine if I remember. A girl who lied. And when she told the truth, it didn't save her.
>> Have you been to many trials?
>> One trial. One. But it isn't the duplication that makes the impression.
It's the first time. The first time. The first time.
>> What the devil?
>> M. It's the fishmonger's boy. The fisher's boy. See if you can catch him.
>> Him again. The young limb. Was she hung?
Judge >> hanged, my darling, when speaking of a lady.
>> Judge.
Judge, wake up. If you have your teeth out, I will turn my back.
>> My teeth [clears throat] are my own.
Thank God.
>> What have you been thinking of?
>> I am an old man trying to sleep. Lauren, >> what did she do?
>> Who >> in that case you were speaking of? In my days, young girls didn't pester old judges about murder.
>> You are old-fashioned.
>> Yeah, you will be old-fashioned one day.
It's more shocking than getting old.
>> Who died that they should arrest her?
>> Her stepsister.
>> How was it done? And why was it jealousy?
>> If [clears throat] you're going to sit down, I'm going to stand up.
>> Why, judge, didn't they hang her?
>> What's that? What are you talking about?
>> I'm talking about the case you were mentioning.
>> She was reprieved. There was a doubt.
>> Yours, >> not mine. Enough has been said, I think.
>> Where do they go when they come out? All your murderers. When they don't go to the gallows, >> one doesn't mercifully know.
>> Do you remember them?
>> In some strange way, they are cataloged.
As I get older, they don't always come to hand.
>> But one would know them by peculiar habits.
>> Perhaps some mark might lie upon them.
If they took their country walks for instance back and forth up and down wearing out the carpet in their bedroom with a habit like a sailors of walking in a confined space. Might it be that judge >> Laurel? He was asleep child. Now you've disturbed him.
>> I think he was disturbed already.
>> My original so elegant and gentle. What do you think of her?
>> I am not fond of young girl.
>> You're not? You used to be. Uh-huh.
>> It was unfortunate about a companion, but your fault, puppy, for not drinking the wine at lunchon.
>> How did you discover her?
>> I advertised. I took a chance and was justified. Miss Magical came to me like rain from heaven.
>> With references.
>> I never listened to what one woman says of another. References are a want of faith in one's own judgment. When I finish your sleep, puppy, since you must have it, >> rather drink my coffee.
I'm sorry to disturb you.
>> On the contrary. On the contrary.
[clears throat] Excuse me.
Old men are kept alive on tablets.
>> Of course. You think this is not where I ought to be. There would be no difficulty. I have private means.
But it's an understandable job so fitted to me.
Do you believe in God?
I thought God had given it to me.
Don't look at me like that as if I were some sad piece of news of curiosity.
Why don't you say something?
[snorts] >> That's it.
>> What?
>> Well, it has come to me.
>> Oh, God. I thought you knew.
>> Well, I must say the coincidences at lunchon in retrospect are distasteful.
>> If I hadn't come in, you would not have.
So now, what will you do? I am an old man, Miss Magical, and very learned. I don't know, >> judge. I can't wait 7 hours twice. You sent me to meet my maker on a Tuesday, but that was altered. I have done what they call time.
It was a lifetime.
I don't know what you can do to me.
What can you do to me?
>> I do not presume to judge you twice.
>> Oh, you would come to the same conclusion. Clever minds. The mind could not convince you.
>> But there's nothing to gain by talking.
You came here by accident.
>> I wish I hadn't.
>> What can it be to you?
>> Embarrassment. What in the name of heaven made you choose this occupation with your history? And in this family?
>> In this family.
>> Well, in any family. I remember the young woman and the lies she told. A pathological imaginer.
>> One does not forget the plums in one's speeches.
>> And now you've planted me with ethical perplexity. It's most unpleasant and human perplexity. Old friends and a child to consider.
>> It's the child I'm considering. When I came here, I thought I'd met myself again. The cobwebs and the fantasies, the same evasions. I could have slept away.
>> There are worse solutions.
>> But the child needs me. If I stay, will you tell them who I am?
>> Connie, Dolly, Wallace, what the devil am I to do with you?
>> The name is Madrical.
>> But of course, you had to take a name.
>> It's more than a name to me.
I come of a stock who in some insensitive way cannot accept defeat. My father was cashiered and after 40 years of appeals reinstated. My grandfather died upright on his feet. He said God wouldn't give a fallen general houseroom. For 15 years and alone I have hammered out what I am. I did not know I was as dogged as any of them.
>> But even conceding >> You need concede nothing to solitude. It is a teacher. You were a girl of considerable feeling if I remember.
>> Not now.
I am burnt out white like the moon.
Luna, >> are you not, if I may gently say so, somewhat a stranger to life?
>> The girl I was, she was a stranger.
>> You have greatly changed.
>> At our last meeting, I died. It alters the appearance.
>> Dear me, dear me.
It's as if there were not quite enough this week ahead of me.
>> You would have been going. Why not leave?
>> I belong to a guild of men who feel responsibility.
>> Yes. And a deep distaste for situations.
>> What shall you do?
>> Well, don't badger me. I can't remember when I was so bothered.
>> Oh, well, what's the matter?
>> You won't mind waiting, the new driver.
>> It is that after being so long unknown, it makes my head swim to be known.
Judge, I remember you. You used to be so kind to me when I was little. What was that odd name mother had for you? Puppy. I used to wonder at it.
>> You were that silent little girl.
>> Yes, I was silent, Miss Madrical we met before. Do you remember? I've come back as I said I would to fetch my daughter.
>> To fetch her?
>> I I have to go.
Can my car be of use, Miss Magical? It will be simple.
>> Oh, don't go. Don't go. I'm so glad you're here. It's so lucky.
>> Lucky >> for me. With you here, I shall put things better.
>> Well, I ought to go. I'm I'm not good out of my sitting.
>> Surely you are not afraid of life.
>> On the contrary, the law has made me nervous of life.
>> No, judge. Please stay. It's the influence of a stranger. With a third person in the room, my mother hears reason better.
>> Don't count on it, Olivia.
I got your letter.
>> But you don't read them. You never did.
We've had our orders. We leave tonight for Aiden. Aiden, whoever heard of it, it fleshed in history and it's gone forever. Israeli Bismar, I can't remember. See what comes of marrying an army officer.
>> I Oh, >> Laru, >> have you come alone?
>> We have a guest. No drama.
>> You haven't been for 4 years.
>> Haven't But now I have come for you. Oh, as I drove down here, all the hedges and the telegraph poles were saying, Lauren, >> are you going to have a baby?
>> Yes.
>> Then there's no room for me.
>> There's room. There's always been room.
A heart isn't a house with a room for each person. I can't wait any longer.
Mother, come just as you are, Laurel.
>> I can pack her things.
>> What are you up to, boss?
>> You're so kind, but there's no need for packing.
>> Did you speak without thinking?
>> No.
>> But I've told you what she is. I've told you.
>> And you think I have believed you.
There's a seat taken on the plane tonight.
>> Fly with you? Have you thought of the risk >> on the plane? One doesn't think of that.
>> The risk that if you take me, I might murder my stepsister.
>> Are you mad?
>> They say so.
>> Don't give her the triumph of your attention. Judge >> Laurel always uses wild words instead of weeping. I knew that if she saw you, we should have trouble with her.
>> You've missed your effect, Laurel. The moment is passing. Would you care to let it go?
>> The sky's the limit, boss. The sky's the limit.
>> No time for games. I mean no limit. I can say anything.
>> I would not.
>> Shall I go on?
>> No.
>> Shall I?
>> If you want your scene, >> take it.
>> How calm you are.
>> Miss Madal has the calm of a woman in a million.
>> She has the calm of a woman who has been a long time alone.
>> So we are in for it.
>> No, it can be played on the edge still.
>> An edge is sharp. One must come down one side or the other.
>> You see, they're always at some amusing invention. They're inseparable. What game, my puppet? A game that two can play at.
>> Excuse me, ma'am.
>> Maitelland, look, it's my mother.
>> I know it's your mother.
>> Must the whole house be gathered?
>> I came for the judge's coffee cup.
>> No, no, you didn't. You came for curiosity. You have a nose for a crisis.
Like a bid for a wild hair.
>> Mland, wait. Maitelland, [sighs] >> how did you know?
>> She's been here before.
>> How deep you are. I did not know that, Grandloo.
>> But I am loyal to madam.
>> Loyal. Loyalty died with Queen Victoria.
Disregarded in my own house.
Disregarded. I'm talking to you, Olivia.
Each time I came, you promised you would tell her.
>> Well, I had my own reasons. You never would listen. You were never like other girls. The judge will remember, though.
Daughters forget everything. You remember, puppy, how I tried with her.
>> I remember only the result. The shy and gentle daughter. Thank you, judge. But I'm not staying any longer. I want to go.
>> But you'll not take Laurel. I have a special knowledge of her. To me, she's like a porcelain on a shelf, cracked in some marvelous way for the better.
>> My mother uses words in her special fashion. For a phrase she would make capital of anything.
>> Charming for a mother to hear and in front of an old friend. If at a lunchon party you want to have out the damage of a lifetime, >> let's have it.
>> What? I beg your pardon.
>> Were you objecting? Yes, I think the wine has cut the caution. Now, don't gesture at me, puppy.
>> Well, anything may precipitate.
>> What? Anything?
>> Will you come into another room, Miss Magical, and I will advise you.
>> No, your advice is foreseen that I must leave here. But it is a child who must leave. Laurel must go, Mrs. Morm. Go with her mother.
>> You take a great liberty.
>> Yes. Now I have a sense of liberty.
>> That is not what I meant.
>> No, but it is what I mean. This girl of special soil. Transplant her.
>> You have not a green thumb, Mrs. Among with a plant or a girl. This is a house where nothing good can be made of her.
>> My house?
>> Your house? Why, even your garden is demented. By the mercy of God, you do not keep an animal.
>> You're mad. You're a monster.
>> No, I am a woman who has lost touch with things, with indulgence, with excuses, with making merry over bad things. The light and the shade has been hammered out of me. I am as humilous as a missionary.
>> Why complicate life? The past is over.
>> If the past is useful, I shall not hesitate to use it. What I have been has long been done with. What Laurel is is yet to come. Let's finish with the sherad made here of affection.
>> Stop the woman, puppy. Stop her.
>> But Miss Magical has something to say.
>> No, she hasn't.
>> Oh, I am not inexperienced.
You must allow me a certain boss.
>> Have a care.
>> I'm beyond care. Boss, boss, don't go too far.
>> Don't drive me to it. Who else can tell you that when the moment comes when truth might serve you, you will not make it sound? Or that the Clarion note the innocence will desert you.
>> But everybody knows about me. They know what happened.
>> They know what you've told them. You didn't stop the marriage, but you snatched the attention. Shall we now deprive your grandmother of your famous seduction?
>> And what a moment.
>> One has to find a moment to say such things.
>> But is that what she said? Is that what you have believed? Mother, >> wait. Let the child tell you.
>> You were not there.
>> I did not need to be there. The story can be read backwards. What newspaper did the cook take in? I wonder.
>> A child of 12.
>> An only child is never 12.
>> Do you cry?
>> No.
>> I should cry.
>> I am not near crying.
>> I should cry with relief that your mother wants you. Be careful. Even a mother can't wait forever. But why did she pretend? Why did she make it up?
>> Odd things are done for love.
>> Give it up, Laurel. It isn't worth going on.
>> Has it got to be the truth, boss?
>> One can lie, but truth is more interesting.
>> Then you get better and better at spotting it.
>> You win.
>> Quick. A straw would break it.
>> Wait for me, DARLING.
>> YOUR BLUE LINEN DRESS IS FOLDED IN THE TOP DRAWER. LOOK FOR YOUR YELLOW STRIPED ONE.
What a precipitation of melodrama. Your visitor has fallen on. Blood is thicker than water, I thought. But it appears not.
>> My dear, my dear old friend.
>> If you were on your knees, you wouldn't stop me. That was a black patch, Miss Madreal. If there's a far to be you've set a match to it. What collusion behind my back. You've been a witness to it, puppy.
>> Well, you two would be better talking alone, I think.
>> Stay where you are, puppy. Men are such cowards. In the name of discretion or a cool head or some such nonsense, they leave one in the lurch.
>> So much better. Better not say anything.
>> There's an undependability in high-minded men. They sit objective and they should be burning beside one. But when things become personal, what would you say if your clark put your wig on?
>> Well, I should reflect at length, I expect, and decide on in action.
>> So you would, but I've been robbed of my granddaughter.
>> If you face facts, Mrs. Aorm, you are tired of her. be a mad puppy. Put her out. Put her out in the street for me. A flaming imprint, the infamy, and I, lavish, thrusting, leaning. But I've been leaning on a demon. In your heart, every penny should have scolded you.
I've been betrayed. Don't talk to me.
Wages. You'll see none of them.
>> Perhaps this is where I may be of use, Miss Maggal.
>> No, judge. Not now. 15 years ago, you might have been. Do you dare to speak?
What are these innuendos?
>> This said, soon as mended, >> hints since lunch have been flying like nets from one side of the room to the other. Nobody tells me in plain English anything. Have you two met before, then?
I was once sentenced to death by the judge here.
>> HOW?
>> ILL ADVISED. ILL ADVISED.
>> OH, if I were not 70, this would revive me to death. But there you are.
>> Those who still live have to be somewhere.
>> Well, if it were true, it's outrageous.
And if I start putting two and three together, oh look at heavens, how can you be living at all?
>> There was a doubt.
>> What I doubt is my senses. The thing's impossible. Either I don't believe it or or it's quite private. Besides, if it were true, it would be most inconvenient. Or I should like the situation unnalled and the conversation put back >> to where? to where it hasn't happened.
And at the interview, Miss Magical, how dared you? I let pass so many excellent applicants in favor of you.
>> No, really, it was not so.
>> The references, the references I had, I'm amazed. You must have forged them.
>> I gave you none.
>> Why? I had none.
>> This lady came to you out of prison.
>> Prison? I should have thought of university. Oh, you've been most satisfactory, I thought. But now a light is thrown. I'm growing more and more thunder struck. And don't speak to me if you please. You've come out of god knows what ancient publicity blazing from heaven knows what newspapers. A headline a felon. And how can you lunch with me, puppy, and know such things? Oh, I'm dumbfounded.
What's more, I've been defrauded.
Go pack your bags. Pack your bags out of the house with you.
>> I can't wait. I can't wait forever. Is she who we think she is?
>> She is.
>> Oh, miss. Oh, madam.
>> Heavens from an anticlimax. What veneration would think the woman was an actress?
>> When one is a humble man, one can't express it. I think it is to think that after such a gale, she is with us.
>> That's enough, mate.
>> To have stood one's life before the judge here. If you'll pardon me, my lord, even though you eat your lunch like other men, making the same light talk. Here's the nurse. Oliver dither.
>> Mrs. Sim, we have friends now. It can wait. Nurse, >> Mr. Pinkbell is dead.
>> You can go, nurse. I'll attend to it later.
>> What?
>> I say we have friends, nurse.
>> Attend to it later.
>> But good heavens, Pig Bear.
>> He is in expert hands. But the poor old bastard. He's passed over.
Is that what she said?
>> They've downed him. Stiff as a rod. He hasn't tomorrow.
He hasn't the rest of today.
>> Dead.
And my past goes with him.
>> Hear me. Dear me. I I'm shocked. First to know that he's alive and then to know that he isn't.
>> When I was a young woman, he educated me. my manner with distinguished foreigners. He saw to my escuits. He bought my wine in France for me.
Is there an afterlife, puppy?
>> I don't give judgments easily, but in this life you'll miss him.
>> Alas, no.
Shall you come again, puppy, when the excitement of your week is over?
>> Too much happens in this house for an old man. Well, I'm coming with you to your car. Everyone accusing everyone.
It's been most tiring.
Stay with a mantong. Keep an eye on her.
>> After all, you have liked the life here, Miss Magical.
>> It has a hollow quality which soothes me.
>> What shall you do?
>> I shall continue to explore the astonishment of living.
>> Goodbye, Miss Maggra.
Will you shake hands?
Yes, I am alive, aren't I?
Goodbye, judge.
>> No man is infallible.
>> Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, my dear. I'm just coming.
>> Can I come where you're going? I will serve you. We could throw our five and 15 years away from us in the dust bin.
>> Not mine.
>> Not my 15 years. I value them. They made me.
>> That's the strength I hanker after.
That's what I've been missing. I was born to worship the stars, but I've never known which stars when the whole heaven's full of them. I wish to give my notice, madam.
>> Well, you choose such odd moments.
>> I wish to accompany Miss Madrical.
>> Where too?
>> Where she's going.
>> But now you have it all your own way.
Mant, >> don't say that.
>> I'll talk to you later. I must go up and look at Pink Bell. Stiff as a rod. A poor old bastard.
>> Thin up the seedlings, Maitelland, as I showed you. The lilac wants pruning and the rock rose and the pas flour. Tie in the wild grape. Cut the head on the moss rose.
>> But as fidel and the due plant.
>> But what's to become of my decision?
>> Oh, don't give notice so often. It's a fidgety habit.
>> I'm going mland.
Oh, you look a proper daughter.
>> You may kiss my forehead. Maitelland.
>> Maitelland loves me. Mother >> loves you.
>> I had to have someone. Someone who thought the world of me.
>> As I did.
>> As you do, my darling.
>> Leave us. Mron.
>> Oh, there's so much happening here today.
You were right, Olivia, when you said Pink Bell and I had the same standards.
Well, Laurel, now you have a mother.
It's not so rare. Every kitten has one.
>> Have you often seen death before, Grandloo?
>> Up to now, I've managed to avoid it.
Now, don't begin badly. Wear your gloves.
>> Here, Grandl.
>> No, no goodbyes.
I'm too old for them.
>> Go to the car, darling. Begin by obeying.
>> Yes. All right.
>> Come soon.
>> Well, Olivia, what you going to do with her? Teach her the right things after I've taught her the wrong one.
>> You're like an old freeth thinker who finds he has a son, a clergyman.
>> Is that so terrible?
>> No, but to you, inscrable.
Why did you want her?
>> Is it a crime to want to be remembered?
The pharaohs built the pyramids for that reason.
>> Are the thoughts of a daughter no sort of memorial?
Is that an obituary?
>> Goodbye, mother. Leave her hair long. It gives her the choice later.
And keep her bust high.
What do women do? In my case, they garden.
It seems I'm not very good at that either.
Are your things packed? I'm a light-footed traveler. Before you go, would you point out the white kryum in the catalog?
You who have an impertinent answer to everything, is there an afterlife?
>> Certainly.
>> You say certainly.
>> One does not sit alone for 15 years without coming to conclusions.
>> Is there affection in it?
>> But you've been living all this while without affection. And haven't you noticed it? Here's the page.
>> Very rare from the high Andes of Bolivia.
Jasmine like tubular flowers.
>> Don't waste your time. They are beyond you.
>> It speaks wonderfully of the uvularia.
>> When will you learn you live on chalk?
>> I've made such a muddle of the heart.
Will Olivia forgive me?
>> It is pointless to wonder. You have no choice how she will sum up. She will live longer.
>> Am I to die unloved?
>> If necessary, I was prepared to do it.
>> A unicorn root >> needs a sheltered spot. You haven't won.
>> If you stay here, you can grow windbreaks.
I must know one thing.
>> What?
>> Did you do it?
>> What learned men at the top of their profession couldn't find out in nine days?
Why should you know >> the diarama? The one flower.
>> It won't grow on chalk.
But if I stay with you and we work together with potachsh and a little granular pete, we can make it do so.
This was the cast of the chalk garden by Enid Bagnold, Mrs. St. Morm Edith Evans, Miss Magical, Mary Morris, The Judge, Ceil Parker, Laurel, Angela Pleasants, Olivia Nichollet Bernard, Maitelland Ian Thompson, Nurse Morin Beck.
John Pullen was the narrator and the play which was adapted by Margaret Etl was produced by Archie Campbell.
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