ISOBEL. Yes.
WILLIAM (triumphantly). And can you explain how it was that he didn’t publish them earlier if he had had them in his possession all those years?
ISOBEL. He didn’t dare to. He was afraid of being left with nothing to publish. He took care always to have something in reserve. And that’s why everybody said how wonderfully vigorous and youthful his mind was at eighty, how amazing that the spirit and fire of youth had remained with him so long. Yes, it was the spirit and fire of youth, but of a youth who died seventy years ago.
OLIVER (impressed). Gad, you know, fancy the old chap keeping it up like that. Shows how little one really knows people. I had no idea he was such a sportsman.
SEPTIMA. Such a liar.
OLIVER. Same thing, sometimes.
SEPTIMA. I call it perfectly disgusting.
WILLIAM. Please, please! We shan’t arrive at the truth like that. (To ISOBEL) You want me to understand that Oliver Blayds has never written a line of his own poetry in his life?
MARION. Why, Grandfather was always writing poetry. Even as a child I remember——
SEPTIMA (impatiently). Mother, can’t you understand that the Oliver Blayds we thought we knew never existed?