Yay for me for posting much more than biweekly. I know I should be focusing on The Tailor of Riddling Way, with its due date coming up, but I felt inspired to whip up this short scene for another play, a full-length piece, that I would someday like to finished called Mrs. Hawking. You can read the first scene of Mrs. Hawking here. I'm not sure where this falls in the sequence of the story, but this is an early scene showing the bonding between the eccentric, prickly Mrs. Hawking and her newly hired house girl, the bright young woman Mary Stone.
MARY: My dear Catherine, I am at last settling into my new position here in the home of Mrs. Victoria Hawking. I must say, however, though I know it is quite gauche to gossip about one’s employer, to work for Mrs. Hawking is nothing as I expected it to be. I have told you something of her extraordinary talents and her unusual profession for a gentlewoman, but not her remarkable habits. I had been made to understand her to be a retiring lady, but even so I was surprised to find that chief among my duties is to see that she must deal with as few outside people as possible. Tradesmen, prominent citizens, and would-be social callers alike I am to ward off in deference to her privacy and solitude. And yet, for one who goes to such lengths to avoid the society of others, at the same time society very often comes to the door seeking her. She sees only those ladies who have engagements marked down in her appointment-book to call on her, presumably those students she instructs in etiquette, and not only gentlewomen like herself but women of all walks. Her teaching takes no pattern that ever I've seen, for she seldom sees the same one twice, and they come at all hours of the day or night. I am to put on a pot of tea, show them into the parlor, and then make myself scarce. I am not at all sure what to make of it. Indeed this Mrs. Hawking is a strange one, Catherine, and perhaps more so even than at first I thought.
(Enter MRS. HAWKING. She wears a shift and a shawl. She looks for a book on a shelf before noticing MARY.)
MRS. HAWKING: Oh, hello, Mary.
MARY: Good afternoon, Mrs. Hawking. Is there something you need?
MRS. HAWKING: No, thank you, I find myself disappearing into my own thoughts today. Do not stir yourself from your writing, you seem most absorbed.
MARY: It's a letter to my sister.
MRS. HAWKING: (Sharply) Your sister?
MARY: Yes, Catherine. She lives in Durham.
MRS. HAWKING: You've family living? Surely not!
MARY: In fact I do, Mrs. Hawking.
MRS. HAWKING: How irregular! Then why is it that upon your return this sister did not take you in?
MARY: I beg your pardon, ma'am?
MRS. HAWKING: It was my understanding that such was the done thing when it came to unmarried women thrust suddenly into your predicament.
MARY: Ah... yes, I suppose it is.
MRS. HAWKING: Then what kept you? You’d not write so long a letter if you were not close. To turn away a dear sister otherwise alone in the world must mean they are in dire financial straits. Or do you simply get on ill with her boorish husband?
MARY: Goodness, no! It’s nothing like that. They are quite comfortable, and Jacob is a lovely man. They are a lovely family.
MRS. HAWKING: Then what, then?
MARY: In truth… I didn’t fancy growing old as just Maiden Aunt Mary in some north country town. So when Catherine offered, I turned her down and said I wanted to make my own way of it.
MRS. HAWKING: I see.
MARY: I’m sure you must think me dreadfully silly.
MRS. HAWKING: Not at all. I do believe that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard from a young woman in ages.
MARY: You do?
MRS. HAWKING: Very much so. It’s appalling, the choices young women are offered by this world. Sell yourself like a bushel of turnips into a marriage, or else everyone looks askance at you for failing to find a buyer.
MARY: The town spinster on the charity of her family.
MRS. HAWKING: An unfortunate to be gawked at.
MARY: People do often chide a girl of my age for it. Or worse, pity.
MRS. HAWKING: Because evidently the lack of a husband is a handicap akin to the lack of a right leg. So people seem to think. People like my sweet, well-meaning fool of a nephew. Never mind what you’ve got when you do have one.
(MARY looks at her curiously. MRS. HAWKING collects herself uncomfortably.)
MRS. HAWKING: But no more of that. I’ve kept you from your letter. My apologies. I am… unused to having someone about to talk to.
MARY: It’s never any trouble to talk, Mrs. Hawking.
MRS. HAWKING: Good of you to say. Carry on, Miss Stone.
(MRS. HAWKING selects her book and exits. MARY returns to writing.)
MARY: Indeed this Mrs. Hawking is a strange one, Catherine, and perhaps more so even than at first I thought. But… I shall be intrigued to know just what sort of person she is.
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