Doctors of Philosophy (8 page)

C
HARLIE.
I don’t want anyone’s pity.

Enter
MRS. S
. with tea-tray, followed by
DAPHNE.

M
RS.
S. I been and muddled up all your papers, Leonora. They just fell to bits on the floor and the pages isn’t numbered.

L
EONORA.
You shouldn’t meddle with my work, Mrs. S. Which batch have you muddled?

M
RS.
S. Your new line of study.

D
APHNE.
Leonora, I hope you haven’t started any new work. You need a rest.

M
RS.
S. Entitled ‘ “Observations of Human Reactions to Pitiable Objects.” First case history — the economist who, when put to the test of an artificial encounter contrived by the author—’

L
EONORA.
My notes are private, Mrs. S.

CHARLIE.
Did you say case history of an economist?

MRS.
S. I did. But I shouldn’t of. Mrs. D., what have you done with the half a cucumber I put away for Daphne?

CATHERINE.
I threw it out. It was dry. D
APHNE.
It wasn’t dry. I’m pining for cucumber.

CHARLIE.
Did you say case history of an economist, or was it a communist?

M
RS.
S. Economist. You think I don’t know the difference?

D
APHNE.
It was only dry at the end. What a waste!

M
RS.
S. It goes ‘First case history — the economist who, when put to the test of an artificial encounter contrived by the author—’

CHARLIE.
Leonora, what is the title of your thesis?

M
RS.
S. I told you the title. ‘Observations of Human Reactions to Pitiable Objects.’
(Goes out.)

D
APHNE.
Have you told Leonora what you said you were going to say?

CATHERINE.
No. Leonora has been having all the say.

D
APHNE.
I think you’re both very cowardly. Leonora, we want to ask you to consult a psychiatrist and have a course of treatment.

C
HARLIE.
Be careful what you say, Daphne.

CATHERINE.
Why should she be careful? Leonora has not been careful what she has said.

D
APHNE.
It’s a simple matter of repressed emotions and desires, Leonora. These schizophrenic symptoms like accosting Father with suggestions, well, they might occur again. You might approach some ancient male colleague one dark night. Next time you have an attack—

CHARLIE.
Daphne, I wish you would be quiet.

D
APHNE.
Someone’s got to speak. Now that Leonora has found out that she was quite unconsciously making absurd remarks, she must see that something must be done.

LEONORA.
My discovery was very dramatic. I suspected something, of course, but when I heard my own voice on the tape recorder, it was a kind of liberation. It felt like a cure in itself. Sometimes these revelations seem to occur in a dramatic way for curative purposes. I must say, I feel myself to be occupying a very dramatic role now. It’s quite a new sensation.

ANNIE.
I know exactly how you feel, Leonora. I’ve had a dramatic feeling all my life. It’s thrilling.

D
APHNE.
Once you start feeling dramatic you might do anything. You might do it at Oxford.

LEONORA.
So might you.

D
APHNE.
What do you mean?

C
HARLIE.
Daphne, it’s my belief that Leonora is enacting a part simply in order to observe my reactions. The whole thing was contrived.

CATHERINE.
Leonora, if you have done this to your own kith and kin—

L
EONORA.
I deny it. It was a humiliating experience for me, and I remain an object of your pity.

CATHERINE.
You don’t appear very humiliated. Quite the opposite. You’ve been laying down the law all afternoon. How can one exercise pity on people who are arrogant?

ANNIE.
Oh, Catherine, Leonora is very humble, she has just admitted that she honestly didn’t know what she was saying when she said ‘Charlie, give me a—’

CHARLIE
Annie, don’t. Please don’t repeat those words.

ANNIE
‘… child. I want a— ’

LEONORA.
Charlie knows it all by heart, Annie.

CHARLIE.
Leonora, I shall never know what to believe.

ANNIE.
It was most dramatic.

LEONORA.
It was a kind of dramatic urge. You are in a way to blame for the form it took, and so is Catherine.

CATHERINE.
I knew we would be to blame in the end.

LEONORA.
I have occupied the role in which you’ve cast me. At times of low spirits when one is tired one behaves largely as people expect one to behave. It has been expected of me that I should be envious of you, Catherine, and should want Charlie to give me a child. I’ve instinctively played a part in your minds of Leonora the barren virgin.

DAPHNE.
Well, Leonora, isn’t that the truth?

LEONORA.
Not the whole truth. The definition excludes other aspects of my personality which are also true.

CATHERINE.
The definition is yours, Leonora. We have never referred to you as Leonora the barren virgin. Have we, Charlie?

LEONORA.
Charlie has frequently said to his daughter, ‘Your maiden aunt will be here next week.’

D
APHNE.
How did you know that?

C
HARLIE.
Daphne, be careful what you say. Leonora’s preparing a thesis based on personal observations of human reactions. We shall all be in the book.

LEONORA.
I am trying to point out the context in which you think of me.

D
APHNE.
Of course you aren’t really my maiden aunt, you’re my maiden second cousin, to be accurate.

LEONORA.
And even that might not be accurate.

D
APHNE.
Why won’t you consult a psychiatrist?

LEONORA.
It would reduce me to the ranks. I’m not prepared to be reduced to the ranks, now that I have obtained such an exhilarating glimpse of my dramatic position.

ANNIE.
Leonora darling, I think you’re brilliant. That’s exactly what I said to my C.O. in the Wrens when she was trying to intimidate me about some silly business with a lance-corporal. I said to her, ‘I’m not prepared to be reduced to the ranks, that’s all.’ I said, ‘Not when I’m having such a thrilling time up here I’m not going to be reduced to the ranks.’ Of course, she knew I had the Air Vice-Marshal behind me. But it was a most dramatic moment. As soon as she mentioned the ranks I realised that I was a woman of destiny. No woman of destiny, Leonora, should permit herself to be reduced to the ranks, it would be most undramatic.

CATHERINE.
I don’t think I can cope with both my cousins having dramatic senses of themselves. I wish I could have a dramatic sense of myself, it must be lovely. But I’m too honest. It’s stark reality for me, every time.

LEONORA.
For me, it’s a glimpse of reality which gives me the dramatic sense of myself. Perhaps the same applies to Annie.

CATHERINE.
What sort of reality? Everyday life?

LEONORA.
Not the everyday life I’ve known so far. But I have a definite sense of being
watched.

D
APHNE.
What?

CATHERINE.
What did you say?

LEONORA:
A definite sense of being observed and listened to by an audience.

CATHERINE.
What sort of audience?

LEONORA.
An invisible audience. Somewhere outside. Looking at all of us and waiting to see what’s going to happen.

ANNIE.
Leonora, this is thrilling. All my life I’ve had a feeling of being looked at by an audience. That’s why I always take care to be suitably dressed.

L
EONORA.
Shall Annie consult a psychiatrist, too?

CATHERINE.
Oh Annie. Annie has always been like that.

L
EONORA.
Well, now I’m like that. A great many dons are like that. We all go dotty in the end.

CATHERINE.
I see. Somehow I thought you spoke with conviction when you mentioned a sense of being watched. It’s a well-known symptom.

ANNIE.
I speak with conviction.

D
APHNE.
This might be the beginning of something like religious mania, Leonora. There’s a type of religious mania where the patients are beset by a terrible sense of being watched. They feel eyes upon them.

L
EONORA.
I feel eyes upon me.

D
APHNE.
It must be ghastly. At least you should see a general practitioner.

L
EONORA.
My condition isn’t in the least distressing. It’s most interesting. Exhilarating. I feel like the first woman who’s ever been born. I feel I’ve discovered the world.

ANNIE.
I know exactly how you feel, Leonora. I’ve never felt otherwise myself. Only I couldn’t put it into words.

L
EONORA.
Beware of religious mania, Annie. There are eyes upon you. They might disapprove of religious mania.

ANNIE.
Well, of course, Leonora, I am a very religious type. That is something that very few people understand about me.

C
HARLIE.
Annie, be careful what you say. I think it highly possible that Leonora’s posing as an object of pity simply to see how we react. We’ve got our eyes on you, Leonora.
(Exit.)

L
EONORA.
I think I ought to go away. I’ve played on Charlie’s nerves.

CATHERINE.
He would be far more worried if you left.

A
NNIE.
He would think you weren’t going to leave your money to Daphne.

D
APHNE.
That’s unfair to my father, Annie.

L
EONORA.
It isn’t unflattering to him as a father.

CATHERINE.
We would feel terribly guilty if you left just now, Leonora. — As if we’d failed you after all these years.

A
NNIE
(goes through French windows).
It’s going to be marvellous on the canal this afternoon.

CATHERINE.
Daphne, why don’t you go out on the boat with Annie? You look moony.

D
APHNE.
No, I couldn’t possibly. I feel sick. Besides, I’ve nothing suitable to wear in a boat with Annie.
(Exit.)

LEONORA
follows
ANNIE
on to terrace.

Light fades on
CATHERINE.

Light up on
ANNIE
and
LEONORA
on terrace obliquely facing
c
anal.

A
NNIE.
I think you came through that ordeal magnificently.

L
EONORA.
Yes, I saved a certain amount of face.

A
NNIE.
It was quite a drama, Leonora.

L
EONORA.
Saving face is essentially a dramatic instinct for those who insist on playing heroic parts.

A
NNIE.
But you are a heroine. They were quite unprepared for you. So was I, of course, but then I’m always prepared for things I’m unprepared for. Whatever will you do next?

L
EONORA.
It will have to be something suitably dramatic, won’t it?

A
NNIE.
Let me see. You mustn’t, of course, go near a psychiatrist, unless you were thinking of eloping with him. But they aren’t satisfactory. One can’t lean on them when it comes to the leaning point. In my experience —well, I say no more, but take it from me they aren’t any good. You couldn’t elope with Charlie, I suppose?

L
EONORA.
Charlie hasn’t proved responsive to my overtures, Annie.

A
NNIE.
I quite agree. There is no chivalrous spirit in Charlie. What about eloping with Daphne’s boy friend? He doted on you, obviously, at first sight, although of course he said little.

L
EONORA.
Young Charlie had better stick to Daphne. She’s pregnant.

A
NNIE.
She isn’t!

L
EONORA.
She is.

A
NNIE.
How thrilling! Who told you?

L
EONORA.
The symptoms told me.

A
NNIE.
Do they know?

L
EONORA.
Not yet.

A
NNIE.
I never thought young Charlie had it in him. I suppose he is the man?

L
EONORA.
I think so. The symptoms tell me he is.

A
NNIE.
Well, you certainly can’t elope with him.

L
EONORA.
I had better disappear.

A
NNIE.
It wouldn’t be dramatic enough. They wouldn’t know what had happened to you, and it would all be a worry and a mess.

L
EONORA.
I have thought of a dramatic way. Imagine Catherine, Charlie and Daphne sitting out here on the terrace after dinner.
(Pointing to chairs.)
Catherine, Charlie, Daphne. It’s just gone nine, not quite dark yet. Mrs. S. has gone home. They are discussing what to do about Leonora. Daphne says Leonora must see a psychiatrist. Catherine says yes, but how can we make her see that? Charlie says, the woman is going through the menopause, it’s obvious. Catherine says yes, but what do we do about it — Can you envisage the scene, Annie?

A
NNIE.
Yes, and Daphne keeps saying a psychiatrist.