A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell

Author:George Orwell [Orwell, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 1935-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3

1

[SCENE: Trafalgar Square. Dimly visible through the mist, a dozen people, Dorothy among them, are grouped about one of the benches near the north parapet.]

CHARLIE [singing]: 'Ail Mary, 'ail Mary, 'a-il Ma-ary--[Big Ben strikes ten.]

SNOUTER [mimicking the noise]: Ding dong, ding dong! Shut your ---- noise, can't you? Seven more hours of it on this ---- square before we get the chance of a setdown and a bit of sleep! Cripes!

MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Non sum qualis eram boni sub regno Edwardi! In the days of my innocence, before the Devil carried me up into a high place and dropped me into the Sunday newspapers-- that is to say when I was Rector of Little Fawley-cum-Dewsbury. . . .

DEAFIE [singing]: With my willy willy, WITH my willy willy--

MRS WAYNE: Ah, dearie, as soon as I set eyes on you I knew as you was a lady born and bred. You and me've known what it is to come down in the world, haven't we, dearie? It ain't the same for us as what it is for some of these others here.

CHARLIE [singing]: 'Ail Mary, 'ail Mary, 'a-il Ma-ary, full of grace!

MRS BENDIGO: Calls himself a bloody husband, does he? Four pound a week in Covent Garden and 'is wife doing a starry in the bloody Square! Husband!

MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Happy days, happy days! My ivied church under the sheltering hillside--my red-tiled Rectory slumbering among Elizabethan yews! My library, my vinery, my cook, house- parlourmaid and groom-gardener! My cash in the bank, my name in Crockford! My black suit of irreproachable cut, my collar back to front, my watered silk cassock in the church precincts. . . .

MRS WAYNE: Of course the one thing I DO thank God for, dearie, is that my poor dear mother never lived to see this day. Because if she ever HAD of lived to see the day when her eldest daughter--as was brought up, mind you, with no expense spared and milk straight from the cow. . . .

MRS BENDIGO: HUSBAND!

GINGER: Come on, less 'ave a drum of tea while we got the chance. Last we'll get tonight--coffee shop shuts at 'ar-parse ten.

THE KIKE: Oh Jesus! This bloody cold's gonna kill me! I ain't got nothing on under my trousers. Oh Je-e-e-EEZE!

CHARLIE [singing]: 'Ail Mary, 'ail Mary--

SNOUTER: Fourpence! Fourpence for six ---- hours on the bum! And that there nosing sod with the wooden leg queering our pitch at every boozer between Aldgate and the Mile End Road. With 'is ---- wooden leg and 'is war medals as 'e bought in Lambeth Cut! Bastard!

DEAFIE [singing]: With my willy willy, WITH my willy willy--

MRS BENDIGO: Well, I told the bastard what I thought of 'im, anyway. 'Call yourself a man?' I says. 'I've seen things like you kep' in a bottle at the 'orspital,' I says. . . .

MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Happy days, happy days! Roast beef and bobbing villagers, and the peace of God that passeth all understanding! Sunday mornings in my

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