Act 1 (Scene 1) Flashcards
1st Line (Hide box under something)
Mollie? Mollie? Mollie? Where are you?
(Mollie) Doing all the work, you brute
Oh, there you are - leave it all to me. Shall I stoke the furnace?
(Mollie) Done
Hullo, sweetheart. Your nose is cold
(Mollie) I’ve just come in
Why? Where you have been? Surely you’ve not been out in this weather?
(Mollie) I had to go down to the village for some stuff I’d forgotten. Did you get the chicken netting?
It wasn’t the right kind. I went on to another dump but that wasn’t any good either. Practically the whole day wasted. My God I’m half frozen. Car was skidding like anything. The snow’s coming down thick. What do you bet we’re not snowed up tomorrow?
(Mollie) Oh dear, I do hope not. If only the pipes don’t freeze
We’ll have to keep the central heating well stoked up.
(Mollie) Oh I do so want everything to go well at first. First impressions are so important.
Is everything ready? Nobody’s arrived yet, I suppose?
(Mollie) No, thank goodness. I think everything’s in order. Mrs. Barlow’s hooked it early. Afraid of the weather, I suppose
What a nuisance these daily women are. That leaves everything on your shoulders.
(Mollie) And yours. This is a partnership
So long as you don’t ask me to cook
(Mollie) No, No that’s my department. Anyway we’ve got lots of tins in case we are snowed up. Oh, Giles, do you think it’s going to be all right?
Got cold feet, have you? Are you sorry now we didn’t sell the place when your aunt left it to you, instead of having this mad idea of running it as a guest house?
(Mollie) No, I’m not. I love it. Monkswell Manor Guest House
…
(Mollie) Oh Giles, Someone may arrive at any minute now
You’ve got all the rooms worked out?
(Mollie) Yes. Mrs. Boyle, Front Fourposter Room. Major Metcalf, Blue Room, Miss Casewell, East Room, Mr. Wren, Oak Room
I wonder what all these people will be like. Oughtn’t we to have gotten rent in advance?
(Mollie) Oh no, I don’t think so
We’re rather mugs at this game
(Mollie) They bring luggage. If they don’t pay we hang on to their luggage. It’s that simple
I can’t help thinking we ought to have taken a correspondence course in hotel keeping. We’re sure to get had in some way. Their luggage might be just bricks wrapped up in newspaper and where should we be then?
(Mollie) They all wrote from very good addresses
That’s what servants with forged references do. Some of these people may be criminals hiding from the police
(Mollie) I don’t care what they are so long as they pay us seven guineas a week.
You’re such a wonderful woman of business Mollie. (Carry coat but leave scarf and hat)
(Wren) I must see it
(Giles enters and examines the suitcase exits up right)
(Wren) How do you do? Terrible weather, isn’t it? Takes one back to Dickens and Scrooge and that irritating Tiny Tim. So Bogus
I’ll take your suitcase upstairs for you. Oak Room did you say?
(Mollie) Yes
(Wren): I do hope that it’s got a fourposter with little chintz roses?
It hasn’t
(Wren) I’m going to like it here. I find your wife most sympathetic
Indeed
(Mollie) Could you stoke up the hot water boiler?
(Giles reads newspaper ignores the first two rings and gets up on the third)
(Boyle) This is Monkswell Manor, I presume
Yes
(Boyle) I am Mrs. Boyle
I’m Giles Ralston. Come in to the fire, Mrs. Boyle, and get warm. Awful weather, isn’t it? Is this your only luggage?
(Boyle) A Major- Metcalf, is it? - is seeing to it.
I’ll leave the door for him
(Boyle) The taxi wouldn’t risk coming up the drive. It stopped at the gate. We had to share a taxi from the station - and there was great difficulty in getting that/ Nothing ordered to meet us, it seems
I’m so sorry. We didn’t know what train you would be coming by, you see, otherwise of course, we’d have seen that someone was - er - standing by
(Boyle) All trains should have been met
Let me take your coat. My wife will be here in a moment. I’ll just go along and give Metcalf a hand with the bags
(Boyle) Hm This house could do with a coat of paint. You know you’ve got worm in this oak
This way, Major. This is my wife
(Metcalf) How d’you do? Absolute blizzard outside. Thought at one time we shouldn’t make it Oh, I beg your pardon. If it goes on like this I should say you’ll have five or six feet of snow by morning. Not seen anything like it since I was on leave in nineteen-forty
I’ll take these up. Which rooms did you say? Blue Room and Oak Room?
(Mollie) No - I put Mr. Wren in the Rose Room. He liked the four poster so much. So it’s Mrs. Boyle in the Oak Room and Major Metcalf in the Blue Room
Major
(Boyle) Of I had not believed this was a running concern, I should never have come here
There is no obligation for you to remain here if you are not satisfied, Mrs. Boyle
(Boyle) No, indeed, I should not think of doing so.
If there has been any misapprehension it would perhaps be better if you went elsewhere. I could ring up for the taxi to return. The roads are not yet blocked. We have had so many applications for rooms that we shall be able to fill your place quite easily. In any case we are raising our terms next month.
(Wren) I think that’s a perfectly horrible woman. I don’t like her at all. I’d love to see you turn her out into the snow. Serve her right
It’s a pleasure I’ve got to forgo, I’m afraid.
(Doorbell)
Lord, there’s another of them
Come in - Come in
(Casewell) Afraid my car’s bogged about half a mile down the road - ran into a drift
Let me take this. Any more stuff in the car?
(Casewell) No, I travel light. Ha glad to see you’ve got a good fire
Er - Mr. Wren - Miss
(Casewell) Casewell
My wife will be down in a minute
(Casewell) No hurry. Got to get myself thawed out. Weather forecast says heavy falls expected. Motorists warned 0 etc. Hope you’ve got plenty of provisions in.
Oh yes. My wife’s an excellent manager. Anyway, we can always eat our hens.
(Casewell) Could be
Who was the woman who was murdered
(Wren) Mrs. Lyon. Mrs. Maureen Lyon
Young or old?
(Wren) It doesn’t say. It doesn’t seem to have been robbery
(Casewell) I told you sex maniac
Here’s Miss Casewell, Mollie. My wife
(Mollie) I must hurry out to the kitchen and get on with things. Major Metcalf is very nice. He won’t be difficult. It’s Mrs. Boyle really frightens me. We must have a nice dinner. I was thinking of opening two tins of minced beef and cereal and a tin of peas. Do you think that will be all right?
Oh I should think so. Not - not very original, perhaps
(Wren) And if you’ve got a bottle of cheap, any type wine, you could add it to the “ mined beef and cereals” did you say? Give it a continental flavor. Show me where the kitchen is and what you’ve got, and I daresay I shall have an inspiration.
(Mollie) Come on.
(Mocking words)
(Mollie) Isn’t he sweet? He says leave it all to him and don’t come back for half an hour. If our guests want to do the cooking themselves, it will save a lot of trouble
Why on earth did you give him the best room?
(Mollie) I told you he liked the fourposter
He liked the pretty four poster. Twerp
(Mollie) Giles
I’ve got no use for that kind. You didn’t handle his suitcase I did.
(Mollie) Had it got bricks in it?
It was no weight at all. If you ask me there was nothing inside it. He’s probably one of those young men who go who go about bilking hotel keepers
(Mollie) I don’t believe it. I like him. I think Miss Casewell’s rather peculiar, don’t you?
Terrible female - if she is a female
(Mollie) It seems very hard that all our guests should be unpleasant or odd. Anyway, I think Major Metcalf’s all right don’t you?
Probably drinks
(Mollie) Oh, do you think so?
No, I don’t. I was just feeling rather depressed. Well, at any rate we know the worst now. They’ve all arrived
(Mollie) Who can that be?
Probably the Culver Street murderer
(Mollie) Giles!
Oh Come in
(Paravicini) A thousand pardons. I am - Where am I?
This is Monkswell Manor Guest House
(Paravicini) You can let me have a room yes
Oh Yes
(Paravicini) Charming Charming
What about luggage
(Paravicini) That is of no consequence. I have locked the car securely
But wouldn’t it be better to get it in?
