ACT I
In the garden restaurant of a hotel at Remagen on the Rhine, on a fine afternoon in August in the eighteen-eighties. Looking down the Rhine towards Bonn, the gate leading from the garden to the riverside is seen on the right. The hotel is on the left. It has a wooden annex with an entrance marked Table d’Hote. A waiter is in attendance.
A couple of English tourists come out of the hotel. The younger, Dr Harry Trench, is about 24, stoutly built, thick in the neck, close-cropped and black in the hair, with undignified medical-student manners, frank, hasty, rather boyish. The other, Mr William de Burgh Cokane, is older probably over 40, possibly 50 an ill-nourished, scanty-haired gentleman, with affected manners; fidgety, touchy, and constitutionally ridiculous in uncompassionate eyes.
COKANE [on the threshold of the hotel, calling peremptorily to the waiter] Two beers for us out here. [The waiter goes for the beer.] Cokane comes into the garden]. We have got the room with the best view in the hotel, Harry, thanks to my tact. We’ll leave in the morning and do Mainz and Frankfurt. There is a very graceful female statue in the private house of a nobleman in Frankfurt. Also a zoo. Next day, Nuremberg! finest collection of instruments of torture in the world.
TRENCH All right. You look out the trains, will you? [He takes out a Continental Bradshaw, and tosses it on one of the tables].
COKANE [baulking himself in the act of sitting down] Pah! the seat is all dusty. These foreigners are deplorably unclean in their habits.
TRENCH [buoyantly] Never mind : It dont matter, old chappie. Buck up, Billy, buck up. Enjoy yourself. [He throws Cokane into the chair, and sits down opposite him, taking out his pipe, and singing noisily]
Pour out the Rhine wine: let it flow
Like a free and bounding river
COKANE [scandalized] In the name of common decency, Harry, will you remember that you are a gentleman and not a coster on Hampstead Heath on Bank Holiday? Would you dream of behaving like this in London?
TRENCH Oh, rot! Ive come abroad to enjoy myself. So would you if youd just passed an examination after four years in the medical school and walking the hospital. [He again bursts into song.]
COKANE [rising] Trench: either you travel as a gentleman, or you travel alone. This is what makes Englishmen unpopular on the Continent. It may not matter before the natives; but the people who came on board the steamer at Bonn are English. I have been uneasy all the afternoon about what they must think of us. Look at our appearance.
TRENCH Whats wrong with our appearance?
COKANE Negligé, my dear fellow, negligé. On the steamboat a little negligé was quite en regie; but here, in this hotel, some of them are sure to dress for dinner; and you have nothing but that Norfolk jacket. How are they to know that you are well connected if you do not shew it by your manners?
TRENCH Pooh! the steamboat people were the scum of the earth Americans and all sorts. They may go hang themselves, Billy. I shall not bother about them. [He strikes a match, and proceeds to light his pipe.]
COKANE Do drop calling me Billy in public, Trench. My name is Cokane. I am sure they were persons of consequence: you were struck with the distinguished appearance of the father yourself.
TRENCH [sobered at once] What! those people? [He blows out the match and puts up his pipe.]
COKANE [following up his advantage triumphantly] Here, Harry, here: at this hotel. I recognized the father’s umbrella in the hall.
TRENCH [with a touch of genuine shame] I suppose I ought to have brought a change. But a lot of luggage is such a nuisance; and [rising abruptly] at all events we can go and have a wash. [He turns to go into the hotel, but stops in consternation, seeing some people coming up to the riverside gate]. Oh, I say! Here they are.
A lady and gentleman, followed by a porter with some light parcels, not luggage, but shop purchases, come into the garden. They are apparently father and daughter. The gentleman is 50, tall, well preserved, and of upright carriage. His incisive, domineering utterance and imposing style, with his strong aquiline nose and resolute clean-shaven mouth, give him an air of importance. He wears a light grey frock-coat with silk linings, a white hat, and a fieldglass slung in a new leather case. A self-made man, formidable to servants, not easily accessible to anyone. His daughter is a well-dressed, well-fed, goodlooking, strongminded young woman, presentably ladylike, but still her father’s daughter. Nevertheless fresh and attractive, and none the worse for being vital and energetic rather than delicate and refined.
COKANE [quickly taking the arm of Trench, who is staring as if transfixed] Recollect yourself, Harry: presence of mind, presence of mind! [He strolls with him towards the hotel. The waiter comes out with the beer]. Kellner: Ceci-la est notre table. Est-ce que vous comprenez Français?
WAITER Yes, zare. Oil right, zare.
THE GENTLEMAN [to his porter] Place those things on that table. [The porter does not understand]
WAITER [interposing] Zese zhentellmen are using zis table, zare. Vould you mind?
THE GENTLEMAN [severely] You should have told me so before. [To Cokane, with fierce condescension] I regret the mistake, sir.
COKANE Dont mention it, my dear sir: dont mention it. Retain the place, I beg.
THE GENTLEMAN {coldly turning his back on him] Thank you. [To the porter] Place them on that table. [The porter makes no movement until the gentleman points to the parcels and peremptorily raps on another table, nearer the gate].
PORTER Ja wohl, gnad’g’ Herr. [He puts down the parcels].
THE GENTLEMAN [taking out a handful of money] Waiter.
WAITER [awestruck] Yes, zare.
THE GENTLEMAN Tea. For two. Out here.
WAITER Yes, zare. [He goes into the hotel.]
The gentleman selects a small coin from his handful of money, and gives it to the porter, who receives it with a submissive touch to his cap, and goes out, not daring to speak. His daughter sits down and opens a parcel of photographs. The gentleman takes out a Baedeker; places a chair for himself; and then, before sitting down, looks truculently at Cokane,as if waiting for him to take himself off. Cokane, not at all abashed, resumes his place at the other table with an air of modest good breeding, and calls to Trench, who is prowling irresolutely in the background.
COKANE Trench, my dear fellow: your beer is waiting for you. [He drinks.]
TRENCH [glad of the excuse to come back to his chair] Thank you, Cokane. [He also drinks.]
COKANE By the way, Harry, I have often meant to ask you: is Lady Roxdale your mother’s sister or your father’s? [This shot tells immediately. The gentleman is perceptibly interested.]
TRENCH My mother’s, of course. What put that into your head?
COKANE Nothing. I was just thinking hm! She will expect you to marry, Harry: a doctor ought to marry.
TRENCH What has she got to do with it?
COKANE A great deal, dear boy. She looks forward to floating your wife in society in London.
TRENCH What rot!
COKANE Ah, you are young, dear boy: You dont know the importance of these things apparently idle ceremonial trifles, really the springs and wheels of a great aristocratic system. [The waiter comes back with the tea