We Three - Act IV , Scene 3

CHAPTER 13 - FUNERAL OF ANNA HERRMANN

ACT IV, Scene 3

Scene: Sitting room of the late Anna Herrmann, Grove Street, Liverpool, the evening after her funeral.

Time: November 8, 1884, 8 p.m.

Those involved:

Lindsay Hall, had been staying with Anna - as had his son Bernard a few years previously

Emily Hall, now living in London

Verena Twycross, now living in Erith, Kent, with her stock broker husband

Josephine who lives with her clergyman husband in Huyton with Roby, Lancashire

Mary Boxwell, living with her cotton broker husband in Liverpool

Charley Cox, still working as a cotton broker in Birkenhead

Charles Walker, still living and working in Worcester

 

Verena: Hello Charles. It was nice of you to come. I’m sure Mother would have appreciated it.

Charles: I always found her an inspiration, and felt that I must pay my last respects to such a
remarkable woman.

Josephine: I am surprised to see you here with us, Lindsay. Don’t you think that it would be easier
for Emily, in her grieving, if you had stayed away?

Lindsay: Anna was like a mother to me. I stayed here with her for much of the last few years, and
Bernard stayed here too. I very much resent you saying that I should stay away. I didn’t leave Emily - she left me.

Mary: And for good reason, from the stories we have been told. Have you stopped your profligate ways? What a way to ruin a fortune. You only stayed with Mother because you couldn’t afford to stay anywhere else - and none of your own relatives would have you.

Charley: Don’t be so hard on him. It is not that easy to live on your own without a wife. I should
know. I’ve been doing it for the last 14 years, and since the children left home, I have been boarding in a friend’s house but it is not like having a family. I’m sure Anna would have appreciated Lindsay’s company.

Emily: She had plenty of company with Alphonse and Ada, and several of the others live close enough by to come to see her most Sundays. She certainly was not lonely.

Charley: I didn’t mean it quite like that. But I think Anna liked Lindsay. People do, you know.
Or at least most people.

Emily: Oh, I liked him well enough at one time too, but where did it get me. In ruins, with him
gambling away all his money and the family house. I had to get out or he would have gambled away my money too, and I was not about to let that happen. I wanted to be near my sons.

Lindsay: Your other son was here sometime over the past few years, staying with your mother, you know. He needed your support too.

Emily: I have always given Bernard my full support. And Mother was happy to give him a place to
stay when he needed to be around here for the exhibitions and such. But at least he was doing something and making his living. You were just cadging off her. And he has settled in London now, and is working as a painter and black and white artist for the illustrated press. Or perhaps you didn’t know that. And last year, he had his first picture accepted by the Royal Academy and he also exhibited with the Society of British Artists. But I don’t remember seeing you down there supporting him. Anyway, I am going into the morning room. I don’t think the atmosphere in here is what Mother would have wanted in her own home, and at her funeral.

(Verena, Josephine, Mary and Emily go out stage left, leaving Charley, Lindsay
and Charles alone together in the room.)

Charley: I do think maybe Emily has a point, Lindsay. You have made such a mess of your life. I would have thought when you saw Eliza die that you would have made more of an effort to appreciate the wife you had. You drove her away. You know you did.

Lindsay: So I gambled too much and got into trouble. So do you gamble, Charley. Don’t come all
holier than thou with me now. You know you do it too.

Charley: Yes, but I make sure to stop when I've lost the limit that I've set myself. That’s what
you could never do, set a limit.

Charles: I really thought that perhaps we three could enjoy our time together once more. But if you
are just going to be sniping at each other all evening, then I will be off.

Lindsay: I’m sorry Charles. I do appreciate you coming up here for Anna’s funeral. You hardly
knew her.

Charles: She always made me welcome whenever I was here. She reminded me of my own dear mother, who died so young. At least Anna had her full quota of three score and ten plus a few more.

Charley: And how is your family now, Charles. Have you got over your son’s death?

Charles: You don’t ever really get over something like that. But our daughters are fine and very
helpful to their mother. But to be honest, I do envy you both, having several fine sons each. Make sure you appreciate them.

Charley: And we both envy you your family life. Living in one room is not much fun, I can tell you,
as nice as the Pilkingtons are, who I am rooming with. John Pilkington is a colleague of mine, so we have a lot in common, but I don’t feel really at home in their house.

Charles: Where will you go now Lindsay? Will the family sell the house, do you think?

Lindsay: It hasn’t been discussed, at least not with me, but I think that Emily will make her
point of view plain to Alphonse and Ada, and even if they do choose to continue to live here, they won’t be able to make me welcome. I will find someplace else, don’t worry about me. I might well go
abroad and live with Alison.

Charley: And how is Bernard doing with his art these days, Lindsay?

Lindsay: Well, after that exhibition in 1883 that we were all together for, he did several oil
paintings that were exhibited here: The Tales of a Traveller, and the End of the Chapter, and this last autumn he had his newest work, A New Canvas it was called, in the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition. And despite what Emily says, I have been to visit him and see his work in London. He lives at 1 Cathcart Road in South Kensington now. But I make sure I am well clear of her when I'm there.

Charles: So he really has made a success of his painting then?

Lindsay: Oh, yes. As well as the Royal Academy, he has had his work shown at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, New English Art Club and Society of British Artists and Manchester City Art Gallery. He’s been doing some sculpture lately too, and has exhibited with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers.

Charley: He has always struck me as the sort of person who has few friends but many enemies, respected but not liked, aloof yet outspoken, lacking in humour or tact, intensely conservative and obsessed with the proposition that he and he alone knew what was best.

Lindsay: You don’t know him at all Charley. You should keep your opinions to yourself and if you are
going to criticise my son, you are not welcome here.

Charley: I didn’t mean anything personal. That is just how he impresses me. I admit that I
don’t know him well. I didn’t intend to give offence.

Lindsay: Well, you have, so I suggest it might be well if you left. It is bad enough having my wife
and her family picking me to pieces, without my so called best friend calling my son all sorts of names.

Charles: Now, let’s all calm down here. Lindsay, I am sure Charley didn’t mean anything by what
he said. Let’s just all take some time and try to get back some of our old friendly ways. How are things in the cotton trade these days, Charley?

Charley: I know when I'm not welcome, and I will certainly leave. Are you coming Charles?

Charles: Well, I suppose as you have offered me a bed for the night, I don’t have much choice. So
this is goodbye for the time being, Lindsay. I hope that when you calm down you will see that our old friendship is worth more than to be thrown away over a careless remark.

Lindsay: Goodbye to you both. I don’t know when or if we three shall meet again. Perhaps never
would be best.

(They leave and Lindsay slams the door.)

Curtain down