The Land of Promise: A Comedy in Four Acts

By W. Somerset Maugham

"The Land of Promise" by W. Somerset Maugham is a novelization of the author's play of the same name. The story tells about the emigration of English people to the Canadian prairies. An employer of a young lady dies, leaving her penniless. She decides to make her home with her brother in Canada but fails to get along with her sister-in-law. Now she has to find a way out of the house. A hired man owns a farm of his own but a storm has destroyed his crops and forced him to work. Shortly after the lady's arrival he leaves for his farm but not before she hears him remarking that he intends to get a woman to be his wife and housekeeper, to which the lady decides to take a chance. They get married but soon his crops are infested and his entire harvest is destroyed…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: May 19, 2021
• ISBN: 4057664574831

W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Born in Paris, he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle. He struggled to fit in as a student at The King’s School in Canterbury and demanded his uncle send him to Heidelberg University, where he studied philosophy and literature. In Germany, he had his first affair with an older man and embarked on a career as a professional writer. After completing his degree, Maugham moved to London to begin medical school. There, he published Liza of Lambeth (1897), his debut novel. Emboldened by its popular and critical success, he dropped his pursuit of medicine to devote himself entirely to literature. Over his 65-year career, he experimented in form and genre with such works as Lady Frederick (1907), a play, The Magician (1908), an occult novel, and Of Human Bondage (1915). The latter, an autobiographical novel, earned Maugham a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s leading authors, and continues to be recognized as his masterpiece. Although married to Syrie Wellcome, Maugham considered himself both bisexual and homosexual at different points in his life. During and after the First World War, he worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service as a spy in Switzerland and Russia, writing of his experiences in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927), a novel that would inspire Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. At one point the highest-paid author in the world, Maugham led a remarkably eventful life without sacrificing his literary talent.

Book preview

W. Somerset Maugham

The Land of Promise

A Comedy in Four Acts

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4057664574831

Table of Contents

CHARACTERS

THE LAND OF PROMISE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

CHARACTERS

Table of Contents

The action of the play takes place at Tunbridge Wells, and later in Canada.

THE LAND OF PROMISE

Table of Contents

ACT I

Table of Contents

Scene

: The drawing-room at Miss Wickham’s house in Tunbridge Wells. It is a room in which there is too much furniture. There are armchairs covered with faded chintz, little tables here and there, cabinets containing china, a great many photographs in silver frames, porcelain ornaments wherever there is a vacant space, Chippendale chairs and chairs from the Tottenham Court Road. There are flowers in vases and growing plants. The wall-paper has a pattern of enormous chrysanthemums, and on the walls are a large number of old-fashioned watercolours in gilt frames. There is one door, which leads into the hall; and a French window opens on to the garden. The window is decorated with white lace curtains. It is four o’clock in the afternoon. The sun is streaming through the drawn blinds. There is a wreath of white flowers in a cardboard box on one of the chairs. The door is opened by

Kate

, the parlour-maid. She is of respectable appearance and of a decent age. She admits

Miss Pringle

.

Miss Pringle

is companion to a wealthy old lady in Tunbridge Wells. She is a woman of middle age, plainly dressed, thin and narrow of shoulders, with a weather-beaten, tired face and grey hair.

Kate.

I’ll tell Miss Marsh you’re here, Miss Pringle.

Miss Pringle.

How is she to-day, Kate?

Kate.

She’s tired out, poor thing. She’s lying down now. But I’m sure she’d like to see you, Miss.

Miss Pringle.

I’m very glad she didn’t go to the funeral.

Kate.

Dr. Evans thought she’d better stay at home, Miss, and Mrs. Wickham said she’d only upset herself if she went.

Miss Pringle.

I wonder how she stood it all those months, waiting on Miss Wickham hand and foot.

Kate.

Miss Wickham wouldn’t have a professional nurse. And you know what she was, Miss.... Miss Marsh slept in Miss Wickham’s room, and the moment she fell asleep Miss Wickham would have her up because her pillow wanted shaking, or she was thirsty, or something.

Miss Pringle.

I suppose she was very inconsiderate.

Kate.

Inconsiderate isn’t the word, Miss. I wouldn’t be a lady’s companion, not for anything. What they have to put up with!

Miss Pringle.

Oh, well, everyone isn’t like Miss Wickham. The lady I’m companion to, Mrs. Hubbard, is kindness itself.

Kate.

That sounds like Miss Marsh coming downstairs [She goes to the door and opens it.] Miss Pringle is here, Miss.

[

Norah

comes in. She is a woman of twenty-eight, with a pleasant, honest face and a happy smile. She is gentle, with quiet manners, but she has a quick temper, under very good control, and a passionate nature which is hidden under a demure appearance. She is simply dressed in black.]

Norah.

I am glad to see you. I was hoping you’d be able to come here this afternoon.

Miss Pringle.

Mrs. Hubbard has gone for a drive with somebody or other, and didn’t want me.

[They kiss one another.

Norah

notices the wreath.]

Norah.

What’s this?

Kate.

It didn’t arrive till after they’d started, Miss.

Norah.

I wonder whom it’s from. [She looks at a card which is attached to the wreath.] From Mrs. Alfred Vincent, with deepest regret for my dear Miss Wickham and heartiest sympathy for her sorrowing relatives.

Kate.

Sorrowing relatives is good, Miss.

Norah.

[Remonstrating.] Kate ... I think you’d better take it away.

Kate.

What shall I do with it, Miss?

Norah.

I’m going to the cemetery a little later. I’ll take it with me.

Kate.

Very good, Miss.

[

Kate

takes up the box and goes out.]

Miss Pringle.

You haven’t been crying, Norah?

Norah.

[With a little apologetic smile.] Yes, I couldn’t help it.

Miss Pringle.

What on earth for?

Norah.

My dear, it’s not unnatural.

Miss Pringle.

Well, I don’t want to say anything against her now she’s dead and gone, poor thing, but Miss Wickham was the most detestable old woman I ever met.

Norah.

I don’t suppose one can live all that time with anyone and not be a little sorry to part with them for ever. I was Miss Wickham’s companion for ten years.

Miss Pringle.

How you stood it! Exacting, domineering, disagreeable.

Norah.

Yes, I suppose she was. Because she paid me a salary she thought I wasn’t a human being. I never saw anyone with such a bitter tongue. At first I used to cry every night when I went to bed because of the things she said to me. But I got used to them.

Miss Pringle.

I wonder you didn’t leave her. I would have.

Norah.

It’s not easy to get posts as lady’s companion.

Miss Pringle.

That’s true. They tell me the agents’ books are full of people wanting situations. Before I went to Mrs. Hubbard I was out of one for nearly two years.

Norah.

It’s not so bad for you. You can always go and stay with your brother.

Miss Pringle.

You’ve got a brother too.

Norah.

Yes, but he’s farming in Canada. He had all he could do to keep himself, he couldn’t keep me too.

Miss Pringle.

How is he doing now?

Norah.

Oh, he’s doing very well. He’s got a farm of his own. He wrote over a couple of years ago and told me he could always give me a home if I wanted one.

Miss Pringle.

Canada’s so far off.

Norah.

Not when you get there.

Miss Pringle.

Why don’t you draw the blinds?

Norah.

I thought I ought to wait till they come back from the funeral.

Miss Pringle.

It must be a great relief to you now it’s all over.

Norah.

Sometimes I can’t realise it. These last few weeks I hardly got to bed at all, and when the end came I was utterly exhausted. For two days I could do nothing but sleep. Poor Miss Wickham. She did hate dying.

Miss Pringle.

That’s the extraordinary part of it. I believe you were really fond of her.

Norah.

D’you know that for nearly a year she would eat nothing but what I gave her with my own hands. And she liked me as much as she was capable of liking anybody.

Miss Pringle.

That wasn’t much.

Norah.

And then, I was so dreadfully sorry for her.

Miss Pringle.

Good heavens!

Norah.

She’d been a hard and selfish woman all her life, and there was no one who cared for her. It seemed so dreadful to die like that and leave not a soul to regret one. Her nephew and his wife were just waiting for her death. It was dreadful. Each time they came down from London I saw them looking at her to see if she was any worse than when last they’d seen her.

Miss Pringle.

Well, I thought her a horrid old woman, and I’m glad she’s dead. And I hope she’s left you well provided for.

Norah.

[With a smile.] Oh, I think