Graft: A Comedy in Four Acts

A small room on the first floor, awkwardly overcrowded with the entire furniture of a cottage, a pile of which is stacked in the left corner and covered with a sheet; the plain iron bed is right, the window coming between its foot and the pile of furniture; table centre; three plain upright chairs and one wicker armchair before the fire; fireplace left; opposite it right a kitchen dresser well stocked with crockery; pans and kettle about the fireplace. For all the uncomfortable crowding the room is bright and well kept. Door right. It is 7 p.m. on a September evening, and the approach of dusk is noticed gradually.

Jim Pilling, a gardener, has finished tea and sits in his shirt-sleeves before the débris of the meal facing spectator lighting a briar pipe. Jim is thirty, clean looking, dressed in his rough working clothes without coat or his combined collar and "dicky" and red tie, which hangs with the coat behind the door. Sally Pilling is transferring the last of the table utensils to a tray which she puts on the bed; then removing the white cloth and shaking crumbs into the fire; a red cloth is underneath. Sally is of the pale complexion usual to a country girl living in a town; she dresses neatly and has an apron on; Dick, a thin boy of eight, in a blue sailor suit, gets off his chair at the table.

Dick. Can I go out and play now, mother?

(Jim rises and crosses l. with chair.)

Sally. Yes. (She crosses to door and takes down from a hook his sailor hat.) Here's your hat. (Dick comes to her; she secures it on his head with an elastic band.) Don't go far from the door, Dick. I'll shout you when it's bedtime.

Jim. And don't get playing in the road--keep on the footpath.

Dick. Yes, dad. (He runs out as Sally opens: the door.)

Sally. Don't get run over now.

Jim. The young _'_un misses the country. (Sits in armchair above fire.)

Sally (closing door). We all do that, Jim.

Jim. Aye. Streets are no sort of playground for a growing child. Did you get out while he was at school this afternoon?

Sally (gathering up tea-things). Oh, yes. There's not the cleaning to do in a single room to keep me in it all day.

Jim. No; better for you to get out a bit.

Sally (dully). It's no pleasure walking in the streets.

Jim. Not when there's shops to look at?

Sally. You can get tired of shops. (Tea-things on tray.)

Jim. You're no true woman.

Sally. I'm no town's woman. (Crosses to Jim.) I miss the flowers and the green. I'm pining for the country, Jim.

Jim. And I'm same way, only I do get the smell of the earth in Mr. Vining's garden and it's not so bad for me.

Sally (wistfully standing above his chair). I'd dearly love to see that garden, Jim.

Jim. I know you would; but they're that strict about the Polygon. No getting in unless you've business.

Sally. It does seem hard when there's not a park nor so much as a blade of grass in the whole blessed town except the Polygon. (Puts tray on bed.)

Jim. The old days were the best, Sally, on the estate where we were born.

Sally. We didn't know it, either, till Sir Charles began to sack his men.

Jim. No; many a time I've grumbled at the work there and the pay. It's a judgment on me.

Sally. You weren't sacked for grumbling. (Shaking cloth in fire.)

Jim (bitterly). No. I was sacked because Sir Charles lost so much money on the turf he couldn't keep six gardeners any longer--and me the one to go because we'd only our Dick and t'others had more childer.

Sally (mildly surprised at his tone). Gentlemen will have their sport, Jim. It might be worse. You dropped lucky into a job. (Folds cloth and puts in dresser drawer.)

Jim. Aye, the job's all right, and Mr. Vining's a good gentleman to work for--pay's better than the country an' all, though I can't get stuff to thrive in Mr. Vining's garden as I'd wish. (Rises.) Town air kills 'em. Yes, we'd do all right, Sally, if (looking round as if caged)--if there was room to live. That's what we want--room to live. We've our sticks for a proper house eating their heads off in yon corner (indicating the pile), and I've wages enough to pay rent for a house and no one 'ull take it from me. There's not a house to let in all Carrington, nor like to be but what there's plenty waiting for it before our turn come, and we've waited three years now.

Sally (consoling him). Never mind, Jim. We've got our privacy. We've a room to ourselves.

(She crosses to cupboard, gets work out and puts on table.)

Jim (hotly). A room! One room! (Cooling.) Aye, but you're right. Let's be thankful for small mercies. (Sits.) I mind it looked like we shouldn't even find a room when we came seeking. But it's hard to live decent in here, and it's harder on Dick than us. Eat and sleep an all in one room's not a Christian way of life.

(A knock at the door. Sally opens it. Walter Montgomery stands without. He is a curate, twenty-eight years old, athletic in build, clean-shaven, with a bright manner and a strong jaw.)

Walter. May I come in? Good evening, Mrs. Pilling.

Sally. Surely, sir.

(Enter Walter. Sally closes the door, adroitly taking her apron off as she does so and hanging it up. Jim makes for his coat.)

Walter. Good evening, Mr. Pilling. (Seeing his objective.) You're all right as you are.

Jim. Shirt-sleeves don't seem respectful, sir. Walter (genially).. Rubbish. It's a pity if you can't be cool in your own room.

Jim (apologetically). The fire does make it hot in here.

Sally. And we must have a fire to boil the kettle, sir.