ONE DAY MORE
A PLAY IN ONE ACT
BY JOSEPH CONRAD
Contents
CHARACTERS
Captain Hagberd (a retired coasting skipper).
Josiah Carvil (formerly a shipbuilder—a widower—blind).
Harry Hagberd (son of Captain Hagberd, who as a boy ran away from home).
A Lamplighter.
Bessie Carvil (daughter of Josiah Carvil).
SCENE
A small sea port.
To right, two yellow brick cottages belonging to Captain Hagberd, one inhabited by himself the other by the Carvils. A lamp-post in front. The red roofs of the town in the background. A sea-wall to left.
Time: The present-early autumn, towards dusk.
ONE DAY MORE
SCENE I.
CURTAIN RISES DISCLOSING CARVIL and Bessie moving away from sea-wall. Bessie about twenty-five. Black dress; black straw hat. A lot of mahogany-coloured hair loosely done up. Pale face. Full figure. Very quiet. Carvil, blind, unwieldy. Reddish whiskers; slow, deep voice produced without effort. Immovable, big face.
Carvil (Hanging heavily on Bessie's arm). Careful! Go slow! (Stops; Bessie waits patiently.) Want your poor blind father to break his neck? (Shuffles on.) In a hurry to get home and start that everlasting yarn with your chum the lunatic?
Bessie. I am not in a hurry to get home, father.
Carvil. Well, then, go steady with a poor blind man. Blind! Helpless! (Strikes the ground with his stick.) Never mind! I've had time to make enough money to have ham and eggs for breakfast every morning—thank God! And thank God, too, for it, girl. You haven't known a single hardship in all the days of your idle life. Unless you think that a blind, helpless father———-
Bessie. What is there for me to be in a hurry for?
Carvil. What did you say?
Bessie. I said there was nothing f