Manor of Convenience

The Play's the Thing

With all the challenges that I faced in my unconventional life, I never expected one of them to be writing an amateur play. Yes, you read correctly— a play—and you'd think that with myself being a keen and able writer that it would have been easy, that constructing a story and characters could not be a challenge in the way that more important tasks were. But that weekend in 1926 when I sat down in my study, staring at a blank page, I had to wonder why I'd allowed Albert Crump to talk me into writing this play for our local church and community to perform.

I remember the weekend perfectly, not only for the fact I had two days to finish writing but also it was George's 40th birthday and we'd recently returned from a week in London to celebrate the momentous occasion. We'd dined at the Ritz, taken in a show, had a marvellous time of it until we arrived back at the manor with Fettis informing me I had two days to write an entire play before rehearsals were to commence the next week. Talk about a shock to the system.

So, there I sat, at my desk, pen in hand, suddenly without any thoughts at all. I didn't have the faintest idea of a theme, moral, plot or genre. Was it a love story, was it a horror or crime or an over-the-top misunderstanding or farce? Did I write what I knew? About us? Well if I did, I would be straight in prisoners' overalls. No, it was for the village and the church. It had to be sweet, chaste, humorous and fun. Of course, I planned to inject a little drama and excitement for good measure but it was all fruitless if I didn't even have the idea.

"How about a murder-suicide pact?" George said as he sat trouser-less in the armchair.

"George, it's meant to be family-friendly."

"Who says I'm talking about the play?"

"Would you take this seriously? I'm panicking. I don't want to get it wrong."

I put my pen to paper to write 'title by Tobias Wells' and as I did so the door opened and in came Meg, holding her camera, fiddling about with the lens. I sighed, dropped the pen back onto the paper and groaned. "Meg! You've interrupted my flow."

"You haven't written anything yet," George reminded me.

My cousin didn't look at me and instead took the opportunity to take some photographs as I stared helplessly at a blank piece of paper. "I'm only here to take photographs of the creative process, besides as I'm directing it, I need to know the plot."

"The plot is a blank page at present but I'm leaning towards a gentle love story."

"Oh, no murder?"

Meg sounded disappointed as she continued to snap away as I grew increasingly irritable with her. I could feel a pounding in my head and my heart was racing.

"I think we've had enough murderers around here," I said and then glanced at her, "although if you keep snapping away..."

"Alright. I'll take some of George."

She pointed the camera in the direction of her husband but when she noticed his bare legs, she pulled the camera away and her eyes rolled upwards. "Why are you trouser-less in the study?"

"I somewhat neglected to put them on when I came downstairs. I now know why Eleanor looked at me that way."

"Well cover up, it's not a nice sight. Your legs are so hairy and pale."

George sighed and got up from the chair, huffing as he opened the door. He was startled as he collided with Sophia in the entrance. "Pardon me, Sophia, but my legs are offensive to your girlfriend so I'm off to confine myself to trousers."

I tried to ignore them and looked intently at the page but all I could hear was the commotion behind me as Sophia and Meg whispered and laughed at George's expense. All my mind could think of then was George's legs. I almost wrote 'George's legs, act I' on the top of the paper.