style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I saw the London production,’ said Dinah. ‘You’re quite right, it would be grand. But what about the royalties? Hunt charges the earth for amateur rights, and anyway he’d probably refuse them to us.’
‘I was coming to that,’ said Mrs Ross. ‘If you should decide to do it I’d like to stand the royalties if you’d let me.’
There was another silence, broken by the rector.
‘Now, that’s very generous indeed,’ he said.
‘No, honestly it’s not. I’ve told you I’m longing to see it done.’
‘How many characters are there?’ asked the squire suddenly.
‘Let me see, I think there are six.’ She opened the play and counted prettily on her fingers.
‘Five, six – no, there seem to be seven! Stupid of me.’
‘Ha!’ said Miss Campanula.
‘But I’m sure you could find a seventh. What about the Moorton people?’
‘What about you?’ asked Dr Templett.
‘No, no!’ said Mrs Ross quickly. ‘I don’t come into the picture. Don’t be silly.’
‘It’s a damn’ good play,’ said Henry. ‘I saw the London show too, Dinah. D’you think we could do it?’
‘I don’t see why not. The situations would carry it through. The three character parts are really the stars.’
‘Which are they?’ demanded the squire.
‘The General and the Duchess and her sister,’ said Mrs Ross.
‘They don’t come on till the second act,’ continued Dinah, ‘but from then on they carry the show.’
‘May I have a look at it?’ asked the squire.
Mrs Ross opened the book and passed it across to him.
‘Do read the opening of the act,’ she said, ‘and then go on to page forty-eight.’
‘May I speak?’ demanded Miss Campanula loudly.
‘Please!’ said the rector hurriedly. ‘Please do. Ah – order!’
II
Miss Campanula gripped the edge of the table with her large hands and spoke at some length. She said that she didn’t know how everybody else was feeling but that she herself was somewhat bewildered. She was surprised to learn that such eminent authorities as Dinah and Henry and Mrs Ross considered poor Pen Cuckoo capable of producing a modern play that met with their approval. She thought that perhaps this clever play might be a little too clever for poor Pen Cuckoo and the Young People’s Friendly Circle. She asked the meeting if it did not think it would make a great mistake if it was over-ambitious. ‘I must confess,’ she said, with an angry laugh, ‘that I had a much simpler plan in mind. I did not propose to fly as high as West End successes and I don’t mind saying I think we would be in a fair way to making fools of ourselves. And that’s that.’
‘But, Miss Campanula,’ objected Dinah, ‘it’s such a mistake to think that because the cast is not very experienced it will be better in a bad play than in a good one.’
‘I’m sorry you think Simple Susan a bad play, Dinah,’ said Miss Prentice sweetly.
‘Well I think it’s very dated and I’m afraid I think it’s rather silly,’ said Dinah doggedly.
Miss Prentice gave a silvery laugh in which Miss Campanula joined.
‘I agree with Dinah,’ said Henry quickly.
‘Suppose we all read both plays,’ suggested the rector.
‘I have read Shop Windows,’ said Dr Templett. ‘I must say I don’t see how we could do better.’
‘We seem to be at a disadvantage, Eleanor,’ said Miss Campanula unpleasantly, and Miss Prentice laughed again. So, astonishingly, did the squire. He broke out in a loud choking snort. They all turned to look at him. Tears coursed each other down his cheeks and he dabbed at them absentmindedly with the back of his hand. His shoulders quivered, his brows were raised in an ecstasy of merriment, and his cheeks were purple. He was lost in the second act of Mrs Ross’s play.
‘Oh! Lord!’ he said, ‘this is funny.’
‘Jocelyn!’ cried Miss Prentice.
‘Eh?’ said the squire, and he turned a page, read half-a-dozen lines, laid the book on the table and gave himself up to paroxysms of unbridled laughter.
‘Jocelyn!’ repeated Miss Prentice. ‘Really!’
‘What?’ gasped the squire. ‘Eh? All right, I’m quite willing. Damn’ good! When do we begin?’
‘Hi!’ said Henry. ‘Steady, Father! The meeting hasn’t decided on the play.’
‘Well, we’d better decide on this,’ said the squire, and he leant towards Selia Ross. ‘When he starts telling her he’s got the garter,’ he said, ‘and she thinks he’s talking about the other affair! And then when she says she won’t take no for an answer. Oh, Lord!’
‘It’s heavenly, isn’t it?’ agreed Mrs Ross, and she and Henry and Dinah suddenly burst out laughing at the recollection of this scene, and for a minute or two they all reminded each other of the exquisite facetiæ in the second act of Shop Windows. The rector listened with a nervous smile; Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula with tightly-set lips. At last the squire looked round the table with brimming eyes and asked what they were all waiting for.
‘I’ll move we do Shop Windows,’ he said. ‘That in order?’
‘I’ll second it,’ said Dr Templett.
‘No doubt I am in error,’ said Miss Campanula, ‘but I was under the impression that my poor suggestion was before the meeting, seconded by Miss Prentice.’
The rector was obliged to put this motion to the meeting.
‘It is moved by Miss Campanula,’ he said unhappily, ‘and seconded by Miss Prentice, that Simple Susan be the play chosen for the production. Those in favour –’
‘Aye,’ said Miss Campanula and Miss Prentice.
‘And the contrary?’
‘No,’ said the rest of the meeting with perfect good humour.
‘Thank you,’ said Miss Campanula. ‘Thank you. Now we know where we are.’
‘You wait till you start learning your parts in this thing,’ said Jocelyn cheerfully, ‘and you won’t know whether you’re on your head or your heels. There’s an awful lot of us three,
