equations through the computer a few million times further
than she managed to do with her pencil.
(From the old portfolio he takes Thomasina's lesson book and gives
it to HANNAH. The piano starts to be heard.)
You can have it back now. hannah: What does it mean? valentine: Not what you'd like it to. HANNAH: Why not?
valentine: Well, for one thing, she'd be famous. hannah: No, she wouldn't. She was dead before she had time to
be famous . .. valentine: She died? hannah: . . .burned to death.
valentine: (Realizing) Oh. .. the girl who died in the fire! hannah: The night before her seventeenth birthday. You can see
where the dormer doesn't match. That was her bedroom
under the roof. There's a memorial in the Park. valentine: (Irritated) I know-it's my house.
(valentine turns his attention back to his computer, hannah
goes back to her chair. She looks through the lesson book.) hannah: Val, Septimus was her tutor -he and Thomasina would
have-
?6
valentine: You do yours. (Pause. Two researchers.
LORD AUGUSTUS, fifteenyears old, wearing clothes ofi8i2,
bursts in through the non-music room door. He is laughing. He
dives under the table. He is chased into the room by
thomasina, aged sixteen and furious. She spots AUGUSTUS
immediately.) thomasina: You swore! You crossed your heart!
(AUGUSTUS scampers out from under the table and THOMASINA
chases him around it.) Augustus: I'll tell mama! I'll tell mama! thomasina: You beast!
{She catches Augustus as Septimus enters from the other
door, carrying a book, a decanter and a glass, and his portfolio.) Septimus: Hush! What is this? My lord! Order, order!
(thomasina and Augustus separate.)
I am obliged.
(SEPTIMUS goes to his place at the table. He pours himself a
glass of wine.) Augustus: Well, good day to you, Mr Hodge!
(He is smirking about something.
thomasina dutifully picks up a drawing book and settles down
to draw the geometrical solids.
SEPTIMUS opens his portfolio.) Septimus: Will you join us this morning, Lord Augustus? We
have our drawing lesson. Augustus: I am a master of it at Eton, Mr Hodge, but we only
draw naked women. Septimus: You may work from memory. thomasina: Disgusting! Septimus: We will have silence now, if you please.
(From the portfolio SEPTIMUS takes Thomasina's lesson book
and tosses it to her; returning homework. She snatches it and
opens it.) thomasina: No marks?! Did you not like my rabbit equation? Septimus: I saw no resemblance to a rabbit. thomasina: It eats its own progeny.
77
Septimus: (Pause) I did not see that.
(He extends his hand for the lesson book. She returns it to him.) thomasina: I have not room to extend it.
(SEPTIMUS and HANNAH turn the pages doubled by time.
AUGUSTUS indolently starts to draw the models.) hannah: Do you mean the world is saved after all? valentine: No, it's still doomed. But if this is how it started,
perhaps it's how the next one will come. hannah: From good English algebra? Septimus: It will go to infinity or zero, or nonsense. thomasina: No, if you set apart the minus roots they square
back to sense.
(SEPTIMUS turns the pages.
THOMASINA starts drawing the models.
HANNAH closes the lesson book and turns her attention to her
stack of'garden books'.) valentine: Listen - you know your tea's getting cold. hannah: I like it cold. valentine: (Ignoring that) I'm telling you something. Your tea
gets cold by itself, it doesn't get hot by itself. Do you think
that's
odd?
HANNAH: No.
valentine: Well, it is odd. Heat goes to cold. It's a one-way street. Your tea will end up at room temperature. What's happening to your tea is happening to everything everywhere. The sun and the stars. It'll take a while but we're all going to end up at room temperature. When your hermit set up shop nobody understood this. But let's say you're right, in 18-whatever nobody knew more about heat than this scribbling nutter living in a hovel in.Derbyshire.
hannah: He was at Cambridge - a scientist.
valentine: Say he was. I'm not arguing. And the girl was his pupil, she had a genius for her tutor.
hannah: Or the other way round.
valentine: Anything you like. But not thisl Whatever he thought he was doing to save the world with good English
78
algebra it wasn't this! hannah: Why? Because they didn't have calculators? valentine: No. Yes. Because there's an order things can't
happen in. You can't open a door till there's a house. hannah: I thought that's what genius was. valentine: Only for lunatics and poets.
(Pause.) hannah: 'I had a dream which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air . ..' valentine: Your own? hannah: Byron.
(Pause. Two researchers again.) thomasina: Septimus, do you think that I will marry Lord
Byron? Augustus: Who is he? thomasina: He is the author of 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage',
the most poetical and pathetic and bravest hero of any book I
ever read before, and the most modern and the handsomest,
for Harold is Lord Byron himself to those who know him,
like myself and Septimus. Well, Septimus? SEPTIMUS: (Absorbed) No.
(Then he puts her lesson book away into the portfolio and picks
up his own book to read.) thomasina: Why not?
Septimus: For one thing, he is not aware of your existence. thomasina: We exchanged many significant glances when he
was at Sidley Park. I do wonder that he has been home
almost a year from his adventures and has not written to me
once. Septimus: It is indeed improbable, my lady. Augustus: Lord Byron?! - he claimed my hare, although my
shot was the earlier! He said I missed by a hare's breadth.
His conversation was very facetious. But I think Lord Byron
will not marry you, Thorn, for he was only lame and not
blind.
79
Septimus: Peace! Peace until a quarter to twelve. It is intolerable
for a tutor to have his thoughts interrupted by his pupils. Augustus: You are not my tutor, sir. I am visiting your lesson by
my free will. Septimus: If you are so determined, my lord.
(thomasina laughs at that, the joke is for her, Augustus, not
included, becomes angry.) Augustus: Your peace is nothing to me, sir. You do not rule
over me. thomasina: (Admonishing) Augustus! Septimus: I do not rule here, my lord. I inspire by reverence for
learning and the exaltation of knowledge whereby man may
approach God. There will be a shilling for the best cone and
pyramid drawn in silence by a quarter to twelve at the earliest. Augustus: You will not buy my silence for a shilling, sir. What I
know to tell is worth much more than that.
(And throwing down his drawing book and pencil, he leaves the
room on his dignity, closing the door sharply. Pause. SEPTIMUS
looks enquiringly at THOMASINA.) thomasina: I told him you kissed me. But he will not tell. Septimus: When did I kiss you? thomasina: What! Yesterday! Septimus: Where? thomasina: On the lips! Septimus: In which county? thomasina: In the hermitage, Septimus! Septimus: On the lips in the hermitage! That? That was not a
shilling kiss! I would not give sixpence to have it back. I had
almost forgot it already. thomasina: Oh, cruel! Have you forgotten our compact? Septimus: God save me! Our compact? thomasina: To teach me to waltz! Sealed with a kiss, and a
second kiss due when I can dance like mama! SEPTIMUS: Ah yes. Indeed. We were all waltzing like mice in