Between The Acts

The servants continue to prepare for the pageant, which is about to start. In the courtyard, villagers assemble to watch the play. Isa thinks about how she is constricted by the simultaneous love and hate she feels for her husband.

Mrs. Swithin invites William to look at the house. She shows him pictures hanging on the walls of the Olivers’ ancestors but struggles to remember their names and the names of those who built the house. She then shows him the room where she was born, singing an old nursery rhyme as she sits on the bed. Afterward, she apologizes to William for taking him from his friends. He considers kissing her hand and thanking her for her kindness, but he does not. Mrs. Swithin then sees Mr. Streatfield arrive and realizes it is time for the pageant.

Soon after, the play begins. First, a small girl named Phyllis Jones appears on stage. She addresses the audience and says that she is England. The audience members conclude that this part of the play is the prologue. Phyllis forgets her lines, and Miss La Trobe gives her the lines quietly from a nearby bush.