[ Mr. Scone ] Good.
So.
Now, if...If you would stand over here again,
between the famous chair in the fireplace.
Yes. And drape to the cloth.
as it were pensive. or, uh, more languorous.
Hmm?
- And? - Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Question of getting the right pose, you see.
And making these quick sketches to brood on.
- Then, having selected the one, getting it down with the passion.
- [ Ralph Bellamy ] Quite.
I've no time for Sergeant’s method of painting a face a dozen different ways
and then cutting back to the first one.
- Isn't the ear of the jaw line a little angular?
- Well, huh, ha, I see what you're getting at. It...it's very strong of course.
No, I don't want you drawn soft to flatter him, Lady Marjorie.
Well, I see you as a woman of personality, decision.
Strong loyalty, even. - Ha.
- You're entitled to your opinion, Scone. - Huh, huh, huh.
Shall we turn him out?
Husbands with great trials, mind you.
They look on their wives as possessions
and the portrait as a kind of display case.
- [ MB ] And wives, Mr. Scone? - Huh, huh.
They don't ever see.
Besides, they like their husbands to appear strong men of the world.
Which is much easier to comply with.
I mean if I...I saw your husband as a...a lily,
and wanted to paint him like that,
what you say, huh?
- [ RB ] Send for the police, I should think.
- Ha, ha, ha.
- I just got back... Could you turn this way for me.
- I've come back from Paris.
- Where there's an exhibition of Sebastian, French painting,
which you really must try and see next time you're over there.
- And what shall I see, Mr. Scone?
Life and color as you've never seen before.
- I sent my cousin, young John Strack Ken,
- over to buy a Degas for that drafty seat
- of those in Perkshire.
- But the fool brought one of those Renoir's lush pieces.
- He said the Dowager wouldn't have a
- servant hanging in the drawing room. Huh.
- [ RB ] That old Lady Abercraven?
- Yes, my own sainted aunt.
Uh, head this way a little.
- You'll be going up to Abercraven for the twelfth?
- My dear Bellamy, since I ran a...I'm sorry.
Since I ran away to Paris to become a disreputable painter
I've managed, thank God, to see as little of my family as I wish.
Aw, uh.
- Besides, the destruction of small birds doesn't really interest me.
- Yes.
- [ Sighs ] Now...
- How shall we close the portrait, huh?
Would you like me... - My dear Lady Marjorie.
- An artist and a woman would never agree
- on such a delicate matter.
- Besides, an artists vision is quite different from that of a lady of fashion.
- Uh, will you join me in an honorable compromise?
The two words rarely go together, Mr. Scone, at least not in politics.
- Huh. - And so?
- So, if you would select one or two of your most favored dresses
and have them sent around to me to examine for texture.
Something light and frothy, perhaps, but leave the final decision to me.
- Certainly. - There.
Wouldn't you call that an honorable compromise?
Giving us both the... freedom of decision
yet without the indignity of a battle.
- Yes, I don't think I'd like to fight with you, Mr. Scone.
- At least not yet.
Well, as much as I'm enjoying the carefree atmosphere
of the artist's studio, I'm afraid that affairs of state beckon.
I'm due at the Admiralty in, uh...oh, goodness half an hour.
And the First Sea Lord dislikes unpunctuality.
In fact I require your wife's patience no longer.
The sketches are done
- [ RB ] Oh, good, then you'll begin the paintings?
Tomorrow afternoon.
Capital. Ah, Mr. Scone, I'm sure you'll produce something quite outstanding.
With such a charming subject, how could I fail?
Hudson, will you call a hansom? Mr. Scone is leaving. - Very good.
Uh, no, not for me, thank you.
I'll, uh, walk back to my studio across the park.
Till tomorrow, then, and, you uh, you won't forget the dresses?
- They'll shall be sent out this afternoon,
and I'll expect you here tomorrow at three o'clock?
My lady. Lady Marjorie and Mr. Bellamy.
- Well? - Well, I hope you've chosen the right man.
- He'll be an exciting painter, Richard.
That I don't doubt, but is it necessary for a painter
to talk quite so much?
I found his conversation very interesting and stimulating.
Rather you than me. I don't have to listen him all day.
Well, I must go. Now, uh...
dinner at 8:30, I believe and a white waistcoat?
Uh huh, you won't be late, will you, the Sethels are coming.
I will not be late. And if that talkative fellow
does not do justice to my wife's beauty I shall...
What shall you do? [ Kiss ]
I shall hang him
- next to one of his own portraits. - Huh.
[ Knock on door ] Entrée
[ Knock on door ]
Come in, damn you.
What the devil.
He said to bring these on up, sir.
He?
The foreign chap downstairs.
My servant, my servant.
Why didn't he bring them up himself?
What are they, anyway?
- Lady Marjorie Bellamy's dresses, sir. - Oh.
Will that be all, sir?
What's your name?
Sarah,...sir.
You can drop the "sir" with me.
You don't like saying it, anyway.
How do you know what I don't like saying?
Hold that. I want you to show me these dresses.
Hold out. Come on.
Hold it up. Hold it up.
Dyesh! Looks like a dust sheet.
Next.
Ah, the simple milkmaid. I might have known
there'd be one of those. Huh.
It never works over 41, and they never learn.
- Ohh, come off it! She never suppose you're lookin' for her age.
But a tyrant underneath, are they, uh?
I don't think you ought to ask me that.
What about the butler?
- Is he with you? - Pooh, I'd like to see him try.
- Ha, ha.
Now. But you're afraid of him.
I'm not afraid of no one.
When he's a little bad to me he gives us a hour shop every week
much more than most.
When's yours?
Wednesdays.
What do they pay you?
Mind your own business.
Ten pounds a year and a bed in the basement.
Noo, old clever, it is twice that much
and a room in the attic.
And Rose gets thirty.
Whose Rose?
She's my friend.
We've got this lovely room up top together.
And when we get a bit of money together
we're going up in a boarding house in Brighton.
No! Next.
Uh, you'd better fancy this one.
- Yes, put it on. Put it on. - Because it's the last.
- My word.
- Eh, come over here. Come over here.
Ah.
Now, look.
Will you bury all that beauty in a boarding house in Brighton?
- Hmm. I want to thank you, Brighton.
- Bowls at the pavilion, and a gentleman to hand me
- after my bathing machine into the water.
- And perhaps a drive along the front in a motor car.
Hmm.
He's talking novelettes you girls read.
Huh. He's never been to Brighton.
- Aw. Me thoughts are all the same.
- You've seen one, you've seen 'em all.
Yes, that's the one.
- Pardon?
That's the one.
Tell your mistress, that's the one I want her to wear.
Now, put them all back in the box and off you go.
- I've been to South End.
- Rose!
- Rose. - Where have you been?
-You've only got five minutes to change.
- Time to set drawing room two. - Rose, I've got a letter.
- Look, it says by hand.
I managed to read that much myself.
You'll have to do the rest.
- You try. - You know I can't.
You can if you persevere.
Oh, Rose, it's not like print.
Real write is different with all them squiggles.
It's too hard for me. Please, Rose.
If you don't hurry up, you'll be late downstairs.
Where'd you get it then?
Rose, I was coming down the (idean) steps,
and...this chap handed it to me.
- What sort of chap?
Oh, nobody special, just ordinary looking.
And he gave it to you, just like that?
Yes, just like that.
Well, don't you believe me?
Well, come on open it, maybe it'll show who it's from.
What's it say?
If this is one of your games.
Who'd you get to write if for you, then?
Same person as wrote your French reference, I suppose.
Well, you may have fooled Lady Marjorie and the agency,
but you can't fool me.
Rose, honest to God and cut me throat
if I tell a lie.
'Divine Sarah', Divine Sarah! 'There will be a cab waiting for you
'at the end of your street on the corner of the square
'on Wednesday at seven.
'The cabbie will bring you to me.
'Ask no questions.'
- Who's it from!
It's signed, 'An admirer.'
- Where? - There!
Ad-mirer.
- You expect me to believe that?
Well, why shouldn't I have an admirer.
- Who is he, then? - Oh, um, probably someone
- who's seen me around in the park or something.
- Oh, now does he know your name?
- "Divine Sarah."
- Sarah Bernhardt. She's an actress, French woman.
- He's laughing at you.
- Sure a bit of a laugher really, isn't he?
- Oh, I won't sleep tonight. I wonder who it's gonna'
- turn out to be.
- You're not going. - Why not!
- Gentlemen don't make assignations with house maids
- for the charm of their conversation, you know.
- An assignation! Oh, that sounds very romantic.
Not so romantic when you're turned off in disgrace
- and the father won't marry you. - Oh.
- They never do, you know.
- When it's all over you're thrown in the corner
- like a rag doll the moths have been at.
- Sometimes girls don't come back at all.
- They end up on a slab in a morgue.
- Don't, you make me feel all funny.
- How can you bear anyone pulling you about?
- Aw, it's only you says he will.
- If he's a gentleman... - If he's a gentleman
- he'll pull you about.
- Sarah, don't go.
- Don't worry, Rose, I'm ever so strong.
- If'n he gets you tipsy?
- Yeah, that's right, I'm bubbly.
Very refreshing, I must say.
What's that bed doing there? It wasn't there before.
- For models...posing.
- Sometimes I use it myself.
I'll bet.
Um,...what was this proposition that you
wanted to talk to me about?
I only take propositions from gentlemen, mind.
- How do you know I'm not a gentleman?
Cause you're a painter!
- Hah, cousin to an earl.
Ooh, and I'm (bobbing) away.
- It's true! - Prove it!
I'm not going to parade my family tree
for your inspection. Ha, ha.
Well, go on. Off you go. Finish your champagne.
Back home to Rose.
Isn't it a little bit late for you to be out? Hmm?
Of course you won't have much to tell,
but I'm sure you'll make up something as you go along.
Look...is your cousin really an earl?
[ Wink ]
[ Sip ]
Um...Rose said that if you turned out to be a gent,
I wasn't to trust you.
Rose is a very wise girl.
Rose says this Sarah... what's her name?
- Bernhardt. - Yes.
Uh, is a French actress.
The "Divine Sarah."
I thought you wouldn't be able to resist that.
Sarah Bernhardt!
The greatest actress in the world.
Umm. A consummate artist. [ A toast ]
- Are you a consummate artist?
- Of course. - Well you look healthy enough to me.
Ha, ha. [ Sighs ]
- What's your Christian name?
I never use it.
Everybody calls me Scone.
Scone?
Scone is for tea. Buttered please.
Yes.
- Now, let's get down to my proposition, shall we?
All right, what is it?
- I want to paint you.
- Paint me! - Uh, huh.
- You mean like Lady Marjorie? - That's right.
Why?
Your face.
It interests me.
- My face? - Uh, huh.
Uh, would I be hung up on the wall
for everybody to look at?
- If I paint you well enough, yes.
I can't pay you nothing.
It won't cost you a farthing.
Oh, you'll have to come on your afternoons off.
All right.
Good.
We'll start.
At once.
- Right now?
Right now, at once.
- Now, get into that bed. - Aw, come on you...
- Take your hat off. - Stop it!
- Put your hair down. - Leave me..
- Take your blouse off. - Oh!
- That's it. - No!
- Now, into bed. - Don't touch me!
- Into bed. - Lady Marjorie never
- takes her clothes off.
There you are!
That's how I want to paint you.
Your pale face against the shadows.
Now, my divine Sarah
all you have to do is to keep very still.
Um.
Here... - Be still!
[ Bedroom door opens ]
- I thought you'd be asleep. [ Door closes ]
You told me to wait up.
- You'll be ever so tired in the morning.
- What'cha reading?
The Dark in the Eagles Nest.
- Not the Bible?
It's by Charlotte M. Young.
- Is it a company novelette?
Um, my friend said that all servant girls
read company novelettes.
But, aren't you gonna ask me what happened?
If you like.
Yes, but half the fun is telling you, Rose. See?
- Is it? - Oh, we've done nothing wicked.
Come here.
Breathe.
[ Blowing breath ]
You've been drinking, haven't you?
Champagne!
That's not a drink. It's a nectar.
The nectar of the gods. The milk of Bacchus.
Shh, you'll wake Alfred.
Aw, never mind Alfred.
Well, how you gonna (work the new ruf) and it turned out to be.
Go on, ask me.
All right, who did your friend turn out to be?
- Scone! - Who?
Scone, the gentleman who's painting Lady Marjorie.
He's gonna paint me in oil. He thinks I'm beautiful.
Ho, ho, ho. Paint you!
He wanted the (offer), but I was firm.
We know how artists are. But, he still wants to set me up
in a little flat of my own.
But if that's what he wants, why does he bother painting you?
Aw, Rose, you see, he's been in Paris all this while,
but really artist's have their mistresses is smuggled,
and they go on painting until they become famous.
I told him all about you and how we share this room together.
Going there every Wednesday when I get them up
and on Sundays, too.
But what for?
To sit for him, like Lady Marjorie does
when he paints her.
Incidentally, he's ever so rich and a cousin to an earl.
He thinks I'm beautiful. Isn't that a lark?
Now, you listen to me, Sarah.
He'll dangle his money and his position in front of you
till you can't hold out no more.
The painting's just an excuse to keep going there
while he works on you.
Can't you see that?
Look, Rose, what else have I got to do?
It isn't as if you and me have the same night off.
I'm lonely by myself. I'm not used to it.
Rose, (he) rather than go walking on the street on my own.
I might just as well be there with him.
Don't be cross with me, Rose.
I can't help how I'm made.
Come to bed.
- Rose. - Yes.
- Am I beautiful?
Go to sleep, Sarah.
You must have been dining at Windsor. - Huh, huh, huh.
- Light's fading fast.
- In a moment your servant will come in
- and shut it all out with the curtains.
- That will be the end of us.
I like you best by sunset.
What the French painters call (soufé).
Yes.
Sunset.
That's your moment.
- Are you a poet as well as a painter? - Huh, huh.
- You have very fine hands, Lady Marjorie.
I shall make them pieces of mist
yet with a touch of bone underneath.
Because that's how you are.
You get to know your subjects that well
simply by painting them?
- I know what you mean to me in terms of paint.
- Oh, that's not very flattering. - Huh, huh.
Women like to be known for themselves.
- Rubbish, if I may say so.
You don't want anybody to know you.
Nobody does.
We all want our mystery.
Our own and everyone else's.
So we arrange our surfaces to give our chosen impression.
- And the painter?
Rearranges them to give his.
- Ah, but supposing he's wrong? - Huh. He can't be.
It's his.
The product of a trained mind and eye.
Is that what you friend's are trying to do
in those French paintings you want me to see?
- Perhaps.
- You may say you see them quite differently, of course.
There's no neat nugget of a moral you can take away
and forget the picture.
It's not art.
It's not even life anymore.
Life itself is a series of colorful moments.
And morality?
Largely hypocrisy.
You know you talk more like a Fabian.
- A nephew of the Countess of Abercraven, huh? - Um.
- Huh, huh, huh.
- Would you take up the pose, just a little? - Sorry.
Thank you. Head up. You see.
Now, I'm a little frightened of what your picture may show.
- Of what you see. - Good.
We'll keep the mask dropped a little.
[ Door opens ]
There. We shall be left alone no longer.
- Shall I draw the curtains, Lady, Mr. Scone?
- Yeah. - Yes, Sarah, you may.
Vous pouvez vous, Madame?
- Thank you, Lady. The bright day is done.
- (Hurrah) for the dark. - Hm, hm.
- You'll stay for tea? - If I may.
All right.
You can have a rest.
- [ Stretch; yawn ]
- Scone? Umm?
- Will you bring me some champagne?
[ Bowing ] Very good me lady.
- Huh, huh, huh. - [ Chuckle ]
- [ Clears throat ]
- To the divine Sarah.
- The divine Sarah.
[ Sarah hums ]
- It's funny to be in bed with your boots on.
- Here.
- Still got an (hour's leg).
- What are you up to, now? Um?
What dream world are you concocting for yourself,
- you little fantasist?
What's a fantasist?
- Someone who lives on airy nothing
- for tomorrows that never come.
Yes! Airy nothing
and tomorrows that never come
Oh, God, how much longer must I wait for tomorrows?
My noble earl of tomorrows will never bloody come.
For... he is the father of my luckless child.
My wild seducer.
And it is my Lord Tomorrow's fault
that I'm cast out into the storm
in my rags and tatters.
Cold and...ow!
I dropped the baby.
There, there, child. Do not cry.
You are unharmed.
- All right, Madame Bernhardt, [ Slap ] - Ow! - that will do.
- Is that my applause, (Valou)? - No, that's you signal
to get back to work. Now, come on.
I saw one of them varmints at the Lyceum once.
- He was this lord, and he... - And keep your mouth shut.
[ Scone hums ]
What about the boarding house in Brighton?
[ Lips tightly closed ]
I asked you a question.
You can move your mouth now.
- Sank you. - Well?
- I don't know. Rose rarely talks to me nowadays.
- She don't like me coming here with you.
Huh, huh.
Does she still think I'm after your virtue?
- She doesn't trust you.
- She says... - Yes?
If you were honest you'd pay me.
- D'you think I should? - Models get paid.
So do prostitutes.
- Here, you!
- What d'you think you're worth? - Aw, keep your money
I'm not like that.
Huh.
No, Rose is right.
I ought to reward you.
Maybe I should take you out somewhere
or buy you a new hat or something. I don't know.
What do girls like?
- You should know what a French girl would like.
It's what English girls like, that's the problem.
I've been away too long.
You'll have to help me.
Now, what's it to be?
- Anything? - Within reason.
- The Bioscope.
The what?
The Daily Bioscope on Bishop's Gate Street.
That's within reason.
- Moving pictures? - Yeah!
Alfred went once on his night off,
and he told us all about it.
They're real people, not painting and still,
but...moving and motorcars in all seasons. The King, himself.
- I know.
Have you been? Oh, take me. You promised.
- Then what is so exciting about the series of flickering shapes?
Because they're real!
They happen just like that. Nobody made them up.
They're true!
And what about art?
Aw, art's all right for those than can afford it
- but...it's not true, is it? - Naw.
- Well, I'll tell you something. - Yes, but...
- Can we go? - Be quiet and listen.
They've betrayed art.
All the academicians that have spent a lifetime
painting a...a chair so exact that you could almost sit on it.
And now they take sixty pictures first
to make sure to get every angle, right?
They are destroying artistic imagination.
You know what will happen?
We will be so sickened by these pictures of eight photographs
that we won't be able to paint a human being at all.
And it'll be your fault, with your naive demand for the truth.
- It's not my fault. - Um. Get ready. - Are we going?
Who am I to stop the march of civilization?
- Allons. - Pardon. - Au Bioscope. - Huh?
- Get dressed!
- Oh, we're going! - Yes. - Ohhh. - Ha, ha, ha.
- It was kind of you to take it away
- and frame it yourself. - Not at all.
- To the inexperienced eye an unframed canvas
- always looks like rough work.
- Also I wish to give you pleasure.
- You're very courteous, Mr. Scone. [ Door opens ]
- Ah, Richard.
- I hope I'm not too late. [ Door closes ]
- [ Scone ] Lady Marjorie tells me that she's as impatient
- as a child before a coveted treat.
- Well, I must say I'm a little curious myself.
We've never had a portrait before.
Well, ah, where would you like us to stand
for the, uh, for the unveiling.
- Oh, just there, I think.
- I must admit to, uh, feeling a little like a conjuring uncle
at a birthday party.
Well, here goes.
- Abracadabra.
- Oh, Richard, say you like it.
Well, I, ha...I don't know what to say, ah.
- [ R ] It takes a little getting used to, ah.
- [ R ] It, it's almost glowing.
- [ R ] Uh, uh, (tawnid), ha, ha, is that the word?
Makes you look a bit of a wild cat.
- It, it's certainly unusual.
- [ R ] Distinguished, in a way.
- It, it, it does grow on one.
- Is your hair really that color?
- [ S ] I think so.
You don't think you've gone too far?
- It's, uh,...a bit blurry. - That's the new brush work.
- Mr. Scone will think us such philistines.
- Lady Marjorie, I'm afraid you won't convert your husband
- to the new impressionist. - No. No, no, no, I like it.
- I've made up my mind.
- Thank you, Scone. Now, then...
where shall we hang it?
- Uh, first, I would like to borrow it.
- To borrow it? - If I may, yes.
- I would like to submit it to the hanging committee
- at the Royal Academy. - The Academy?
Aren't they rather more traditional in their requirements?
- Well, I think if you leave that to me I think it can be arranged.
- Ah, yes, guaranteed a safe return, of course.
- Richard, I think it's a wonderful idea.
- Here! - Artistic license.
- (Piggy thought).
- Do I really look like that?
- That's our room all right.
- But, how do you know? You've never been there.
- I didn't need to.
- Who's that behind me?
- Rose.
- You've never seen Rose. - I have
- through your eyes.
- Ah, there's all my things. I leave them lying around.
- Rose hangs hers up. She's the tidy one. - I know.
- And, you don't mind me mentioned it, but
- here there should be a little plaque with,
- To Work is to Play, written on it.
- Ah, To Work is... Yes. Uh, huh.
- What'cha gonna' call it?
- The Maids.
- Uhhhh.
- That's not very romantic, is it?
- Why don't you call it something nice like...
- Waiting for Dawn, or something like that.
- Uh-uhh.
- Well, there are pictures subtitled like that.
- Well, we have other artists, too.
- What'cha gonna' do with it now?
- Sell it.
- Sell me and Rose? - Uh-huh.
- You won't need me anymore now, will you?
- Now you've finished your rotten old picture.
- Cast off like an old shoe.
- You've used me.
- No...art has used you, Sarah.
And it's used me, too.
- There.
Just a minute, Mr. Scone.
Why aren't I your mistress?
What's the matter with me?
I was good enough for your bleeding picture!
- Oh, such language, Madame Bernhardt!
- Oh! - Damn you!
- What! Now, wait a minute.
- I wouldn't be your mistress if you were the last man on earth!
- But you might have bleeding asked me! - Ha, ha, ha.
- What are you laughing for?
- You and your idea of decency.
- Stop it! Ha, ha.
- That's not shocking. There's a good girl.
- It's our last night together.
- I'll take you out to supper.
- Then we'll go to the Bioscope.
- How about that, huh?
- Charmed I'm sure, Mr. Scone.
[ Sarah singing in the hallway ] Rose rattling dishes.
[ Door opens ]
[ Continues singing--loudly ]
- I don't know what the world is coming to.
- What's that, Mr. Hudson?
- House of Commons (Cumberland) sends transfer to Middleboro for 1000 pounds.
- No footballer is worth that amount of money.
- It's not a game anymore, it's a blooming trade.
- (Not to me), Mr. Hudson.
- I didn't ask for your opinion, Sarah.
- (Now that happen), clear the table.
[ Sarah continues to sing and hum ]
- Great heaven!
- Sarah, what have you done?
What do you mean?
I haven't done nothing, Mr. Hudson. [ Bell rings ]
- Gasp! That's today's paper. - Burn this
at once in the kitchen range, you understand?
And nobody must see it. Burn it!
- What's the matter?
Don't just stand there, girl, burn it!
And you wait in here, my girl, until I return.
- What happened to the paper this morning, Hudson?
- Eh, not come yet sir.
- It would be late this morning when I especially wanted it.
- I shall send someone around to inquire just
- as soon as convenient, sir.
- (I shall them to age) and I'll get my papers elsewhere
- if they can't deliver on time.
- Very good, sir.
- And remind her ladyship to meet me at the Academy entrance at 4:30.
- It should be quite an interesting afternoon, eh, Hudson?
- Uh, quite, sir.
Splendid morning. I think I'll walk across the park.
Tell Pearce he can put the carriage away unless her ladyship wants it.
Very good, sir.
[ Door closes ]
Now then.
- Just you look at that.
- Oh, that's my painting.
- It's in the paper. - Read what it says underneath.
- I can't, Mr. Hudson. - Come on, girl.
Read what it says. You can talk to me.
Read what it says out loud.
No, the print's too small.
Picture's turned out nice though, hasn't it?
Very well. I'll read it for you.
'Sensation of this year's Academy are undoubtedly two striking pictures
- 'by Geoffrey Skawn,...' - Pronounced Scoon.
- Shut up.
'...artist nephew of the Countess of Abercraven,
'hung side by side in fascinating counterpoint,
' "The Mistress and the Maids", as this pair of canvases
'are already being called, are both scenes from the
'house of Mr. Richard Bellamy, MP Undersecretary of State
'for the Admiralty, and set a new fashion for home portraits.
'Asked to name the model for the scantily-clad maidservant
'in his canvas aptly entitled "The Maids," Mr. Geoffrey Skawn referred
'our reporter to the servant's quarters at 165 Eaton Place.'
What a cheek.
How did than man get up to maid's quarters, eh?
What has been going on behind my back, girl?
I had the afternoon painting, like Lady Marjorie.
But, not up in the maid's bedroom?
No, he was in the drawing room painting her.
Now, you've been up to your tricks again, my girl, haven't you?
I haven't, Mr. Hudson, I went to his studio and posed for him in his bed.
Uh, I mean the bed in the studio.
- Now, don't lie, girl. - I'm not, Mr. Hudson.
I went there every Wednesday. I got up early.
[ Bell ringing ]
Well, I can tell you one thing, my girl, [ Bell ringing ]
there's going to be hell to pay in this house before the day is over.
[ Door opens ]
You mark my words.
Good old Sarah. You got your face in the papers.
Fancy.
[ Indistinct talking ]
- Go down and talk them now. - Very good, sir.
Believe me, sir, if I had had the slightest inkling...
- THAT will be all, Hudson. - Yes sir.
[ Door slams shut ]
- It's monstrous. - Yes, it is.
- He must have crept up the back stairs, or something,
- when Hudson wasn't looking.
- The point is that we have been seriously damaged,
- both socially and politically, by that irresponsible cad.
- I never liked the fellow. He talked too much.
- He is a good painter. - Oh, yes, I suppose so.
- And we helped to establish his reputation at the cost of our own.
All the same I do think the sensible thing
is to try and treat the whole thing as a joke.
It's no joke having one's wife made the laughing stock of London.
- I agree. But if we're to survive the ridicule
we must let our friend think that we're not annoyed but amused.
- Of course the worst thing is to think that Rose could have
- behaved so foolishly, leading the new girl astray.
- So both have to be dismissed, you know.
- Otherwise, the discipline of the whole household will collapse.
- Indeed they will.
What I resent most is the impudence of that man Scone,
Coming into this house and acting with such monstrous indiscretion.
[ Door closes ]
- You're to pack your trunks tonight and to be gone in the morning, the pair of you.
- They'll pay you a month's wages, which is generous, in my opinion.
- I doubt they'll ever want to set eyes on either of you again.
- They were to have gone out for dinner tonight, but cancelled it now.
- [ Sarah ] It's not fair. I haven't done nothing wrong.
- Nothing wrong you call it. Only to make this house
- the laughing stock of London.
- Those are the master's own words.
- Oh, he's in a terrible rage, and who's to blame him.
- I don't know how you could hurt him.
- [ S ] But what have you done? What have any of us done
- for that matter, even me?
- Oh, Rose, I'm sorry.
- [ S? ] What did you say?
I told him I didn't know anything about it,
and what I did not know, I could not be held responsible for.
Ignorance is no excuse in law, he said.
It is your job to know. That's what you're paid for.
- So I said... - What?
- I told him there was no knowing with you modern girls.
Not like my young day when girls were properly brought up and
glad to get a good position.
I told him I had no respect for the changing times.
That you were all as deceitful as a wagonload of monkeys.
- You mean you let him think what he likes, and let us take the blame.
- I've got my own position to think of.
- And the family's.
- Oh, Sarah.
- Never mind, Rose.
- I don't see why you should suffer. You didn't even have the fun.
- They can't blame you if I tell them the truth.
- Come on. - Where to?
- I'm going upstairs and tell them the whole story.
- They can get rid of me if they like, but not you, that's not fair.
- We can't go up there
- without being sent for. - Oh, yes we can.
- Excuse my, my lady, sir.
Send them away, please Richard.
- But, my lady, it wasn't our fault.
- I didn't know he was going to put me up
- and show me in front of everybody.
- I thought he was only do.... - I really can't stay here
and listen to all these excuses.
- When I think what you've done.
Your mistress feels betrayed in her own home by people she trusted.
That's all there is to be said.
- I beg your pardon, sir, but it isn't. - Isn't? - It isn't just, sir, not to Rose.
- She never had nothing to do with him, Scone I mean.
- It was all me.
- No use, Sarah. - Yes it is.
[ Loud ] - Now, listen!
- He asked me to go to his studio.
I went there every Wednesday I had off.
He never came anywhere near this place, and Rose
has never seen him in her life.
[ Soft ] Now, look, sir.
You're a fair man.
You wouldn't want to see an injustice done, would you?
- I will not be badgered by my own servants
- in my own drawing room.
- Well, I went and told the truth. - What good will that do?
- No gentleman would stick up for two servants
- no matter what the truth was.
- Night after night, slumming with a servant girl.
- Rose, he's not like that. He says in Paris...
- Paris. Paris. Who cares what goes on there?
- This is London.
- Oh, a gentleman can marry a chorus girl. That's romantic.
- If you don't exactly get it in the papers,
- that he's carryin' on with a scivvy.
- No, he got what he wanted from you, and you was fool
- enough to give it to him. - I never did!
- Now, listen Rose.
- I've tried to make things all right, and it's no use being cross with me.
- I'll make him tell old Bellamy the truth.
- How. - I donno how!
- But I'll think of something.
- [ Sarah ] It's all right for me, but Rose is different.
She's never done anything else. She wouldn't know how to start again.
She's set her heart on working herself to be a housekeeper one day.
She wasn't even there, so why should she suffer?
- The survival of the fittest.
- And who are you, Mr. Bleeding Scone to decide who's fit.
- If you could keep that flash for long enough, I could use you again.
[ Tearful ] Mr. Scone.
I've been pushed around all my life.
I wanted a bit of security. I'd thought I found it.
- Now, you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in you.
- But you don't deceive me. - You're sick... - Ahh!
- Now, now, now, chit, chit, chit.
- Now, look. Now, look.
- What do you expect me to do, eh?
- I can't employ you both, now can I?
- I could ask my rich relations if they could use a couple of kitchen maids
- in the castle. - I want you to tell 'em the truth.
What truth?
They think we let you come up into our bedroom
and paint us in bed.
[ Laughing ] - What are you laughing for?
- The bourgeois mentality.
- So they think I've been creeping through the little green beige door
- up to the attic, do they?
- Lady Marjorie's terribly upset.
- You shouldn't have done it to us. - Done what?
- Humiliated her in public.
- That is the price of being in the public eye.
- And, now don't pretend you're sorry for her.
- I am.
- If it had been me, I'd of... I'd of died of shame.
- Look, I am a painter and I paint pictures, and that's that.
- You can all go to hell with your sickly hothouse emotions.
- I'm going back to Paris first thing in the morning.
- (And hear of this damp and cloy.)
- Don't go like that. You can't. - I am.
- Now, go away and leave me alone.
- Ugh!
Look.
I'll come and live here with you.
And look after you, and be your...
Whatever you like, only... get Rose off.
Just do that.
I'll do anything you want.
Anything?
All right.
Take your clothes off.
All of them.
Go on!
Would you like a drink?
You may need one.
You've no idea how bizarre my tastes might be.
[ Voices heard ] I guess there's someone coming.
- I know. [ Knocking on door ]
- Go on.
[ Knocking on door ] - Scone!
- Oh, no. That's all I need.
- You better get behind that screen. You might learn something.
[ Off-screen ] - Ah, Bellamy. - May I come in?
- By all means.
- Mr. Scone, I'd like to get this thing settled once and for all.
- Uh, Have you, uh, come to challenge me to a duel?
- Walking sticks or paint brushes at fifty yards.
- You can drop the flippancy and tell me why you did it.
- I did what?
- The paintings.
- I painted two pictures and exhibited them.
- And that's what they're for.
- Surely you must know that to hang those pictures side by side
- will lead to gossip and comparison.
- It never entered my head.
- Huh. Would you like a drink? - No.
- I forgot about our class conscious society.
- I thought they were works of art not social comment.
- Was it necessary to use my underhouse maid?
- Sarah of the expressive eyes?
- Both girls have got some cock-and-bull story about
- her visiting this studio.
- Well, what do you want me to say?
- Sarah came here on her evenings off.
- Oh, she seems to like you, by the way.
- I trust you haven't been discussing me with my servants?
- Really, Bellamy, there's no pleasing you this evening, is there?
I thought you would like to know that
a pretty girl thinks you're a good master.
And which of the two did you find the prettier?
Which did you?
I've only seen one.
Do you honestly expect me to believe that...
Yes, I do.
Do you think I'm such a poor artist that I can't
imagine the interior of a housemaid's attic?
Are you prepared to give me your word that you were never
upstairs in that room?
Yes.
I went to your house every afternoon for one reason only.
To paint your wife's portrait.
- So they were telling the truth?
Your servants? Yes.
I'm afraid you'll have to keep them.
That will depend on my wife's attitude.
Oh, I don't know.
Think of the ammunition it will give the Liberals
when they find out a junior minister,
a member of the Committee for Imperial Defence,
had dismissed two of his servants for no reason at all
except that his wife's vanity was ruffled.
- Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.
- The radicals would call it victimization, a favorite word of theirs.
- I don't think that Balfour would thank you
- for adding to his troubles.
- Even if you offered to resign.
- I'd forget all about it if I were you.
- You'll find that everyone else will do the same.
You sound like a blackmailer, Scone.
However, I will accept your word that you painted my servant in the studio.
Well, I'll leave you to your... [ A noise behind the screen ]
- to your work.
- Well, thank you for receiving me.
- Yes, sir. - Goodnight, Scone. - Goodnight.
- Thank you, Mr. Scone.
- And you'd have done that....
- for Rose?
- Huh?
- Well, my divine Sarah...
- we'll open another bottle of champagne
- to celebrate.
- Celebrate what?
- We'll think of something.
- Oh, I wished you'd seen our picture, Rose.
- Just once.
- We could still go, you know. It's open to the public.
- Why, you'd be recognized.
- No, it's best to forget all about it.
- I don't think I'll ever forget.
- Was he that nice?
- He's funny.
- Rose!
- Yes.
- D'you think you could go on with the reading again?
- Yes, if you want to.
- You see, at the Bioscope, there's words between the pictures.
- and if you can't read them you don't know what's going on.
- Oh.
- Aw, we'll go together someday, Rose.
- I'll take you.
- I'm sorry I got you in all that trouble.
- Oh, you made it come all right in the end.
- Aren't men funny.