It's as much as the dear man can do to get a rattle out of his keys. For a long time, Brooke, we've all been outrunning the constable. (BROOKE TWOMBLEY: Really, Mater, I ought to have been consulted before.) I know, Brooke, but I couldn't face my boy's reproaches. (BROOKE TWOMBLEY: Pa must have been inexcusably reckless--what?) No, it's all my fault, every bit of it. (A pretty melody on the harp is heard.) Brooke, never marry a country-bred girl as your pa did. When he fell in love with me I was content with three frocks a year--think of that!--and had to twist up my own hats. And I could have done it for ever down at Cleverton, but I didn't stand the transplanting. Oh, I'll never forget how the fine folks snubbed me and sneered at me when I came to town. Brooke, my son, I declare to goodness that for ten long years I never saw a nose that wasn't turned up! And then pa got his baronetcy, and old Lady Drumdurris gave us her forefinger to shake, and that did it. But it was too late; I was spoilt by that time. I had been too long fishing for friends with dances, and dinners, and drags, and race-parties, and all sorts of bait; and when the time came for a few people to like me for my own stupid, rough self I'd got into the way of scattering sovereigns as freely as I used to sprinkle mignonette seed in my little garden at the Yale Farm.

Lady Twombley Monologue from The Cabinet Minister: A farce in four acts

Rehearse Lady Twombley's monologue