Plays Pleasant Page 13

  BURGESS [pretending to belittle the aristocracy, but with his eyes gleaming] Hm! I thort you wouldnt git a hearl’s nevvy visitin in Victawriar Pawrk unless he were a bit of a flat. [Looking again at the picture] Of course I dont old with that picture, Candy; but still it’s a ‘igh class fust rate work of ort: I can see that. Be sure you hintrodooce me to im, Candy. [He looks at his watch anxiously]. I can ony stay about two minutes.

  Morell comes back with Eugene, whom Burgess contemplates moist-eyed with enthusiasm. He is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitiveness of very swift and acute apprehensiveness in youth, before the character has grown to its full strength. Miserably irresolute, he does not know where to stand or what to do. He is afraid of Burgess, and would run away into solitude if he dared; but the very intensity with which he feels a perfectly commonplace position comes from excessive nervous force; and his nostrils, mouth, and eyes betray a fiercely petulant wilfulness, as to the bent of which his brow, already lined with pity, is reassuring. He is so uncommon as to be almost unearthly; and to prosaic people there is something noxious in this unearthlincss, just as to poetic people there is something angelic in it. His dress is anarchic. He wears an old blue serge jacket, unbuttoned, over a woollen lawn tennis shirt, with a silk handkerchief for a cravat, trousers matching the jacket, and brown canvas shoes. In these garments he has apparently lain in the heather and waded through the waters; and there is no evidence of his having ever brushed them.

  As he catches sight of a stranger on entering, he stops, and edges along the wall on the opposite side of the room.

  MORELL [as he enters] Come along: you can spare us quarter of an hour at all events. This is my father-in-law. Mr Burgess – Mr Marchbanks.

  MARGHBANKS [nervously backing against the bookcase] Glad to meet you, sir.

  BURGESS [crossing to him with great heartiness, whilst Morell joins Candida at the fire] Glad to meet you, I’m shore, Mr Morchbanks. [Forcing him to shake hands] Ow do you find yoreself this weather? Ope you aint lettin James put no foolish ideas into your ed?

  MARCHBANKS. Foolish ideas? Oh, you mean Socialism? No.

  BURGESS. Thats right. [Again looking at his watch] Well, I must go now: theres no elp for it. Yore not comin my way, orr you, Mr Morchbanks?

  MARCHBANKS. Which way is that?

  BURGESS. Victawriar Pawrk Station. Theres a city train at 12. 25.

  MORELL. Nonsense. Eugene will stay to lunch with us, I expect.

  MARCHBANKS [anxiously excusing himself] No – I – I –

  BURGESS. Well, well, I shornt press you: I bet youd rather lunch with Candy. Some night, I ope, youll come and dine with me at my club, the Freeman Founders in Nortn Folgit. Come: say you will!

  MARCHBANKS. Thank you, Mr Burgess. Where is Norton Folgate. Down in Surrey, isnt it?

  Burgess, inexpressibly tickled, begins to splutter with laughter.

  CANDIDA [coming to the rescue] Youll lose your train, papa, if you dont go at once. Come back in the afternoon and tell Mr Marchbanks where to find the club.

  BURGESS [roaring with glee] Down in Surrey! Har, har! thats not a bad one. Well, I never met a man as didnt know Nortn Folgit afore. [Abashed at his own noisiness] Goodbye, Mr Morchbanks: I know yore too ighbred to take my pleasantry in bad part. [He again offers his hand].

  MARCHBANKS [taking it with a nervous jerk] Not at all.

  BURGESS. Bye, bye, Candy. I’ll look in again later on. So long, James.

  MORELL. Must you go?

  BURGESS. Dont stir. [He goes out with unabated heartiness].

  MORELL. Oh, I’ll see you off. [He follows him].

  Eugene stares after them apprehensively, holding his breath until Burgess disappears.

  CANDIDA [laughing] Well, Eugene? [He turns with a start, and comes eagerly towards her, but stops irresolutely as he meets her amused look]. What do you think of my father?

  MARCHBANKS. I – I hardly know him yet. He seems to be a very nice old gentleman.

  CANDIDA [with gentle irony] And youll go to the Freeman Founders to dine with him, wont you?

  MARGHBANKS [miserably, taking it quite seriously] Yes, if it will please you.

  CANDIDA [touched] Do you know, you are a very nice boy, Eugene, with all your queerness. If you had laughed at my father I shouldnt have minded; but I like you ever so much better for being nice to him.

  MARCHBANKS. Ought I to have laughed? I noticed that he said something funny; but I am so ill at ease with strangers; and I never can see a joke. I’m very sorry. [He sits down on the sofa, his elbows on his knees and his temples between his fists with an expression of hopeless suffering].

  CANDIDA [bustling him goodnaturedly] Oh come! You great baby, you! You are worse than usual this morning. Why were you so melancholy as we came along in the cab?

  MARCHBANKS. Oh, that was nothing. I was wondering how much I ought to give the cabman. I know it’s utterly silly; but you dont know how dreadful such things are to me – how I shrink from having to deal with strange people. [Quickly and reassuringly] But it’s all right. He beamed all over and touched his hat when Morell gave him two shillings. I was on the point of offering him ten.

  Morell comes back with a few letters and newspapers which have come by the midday post.

  CANDIDA. Oh, James dear, he was going to give the cabman ten shillings! ten shillings for a three minutes drive! Oh dear!

  MORELL [at the table, glancing through the letters] Never mind her, Marchbanks. The overpaying instinct is a generous one: better than the underpaying instinct, and not so common.

  MARCHBANKS [relapsing into dejection] No: cowardice, incompetence. Mrs Morell’s quite right.

  CANDIDA. Of course she is. [She takes up her handbag]. And now I must leave you to James for the present. I suppose you are too much of a poet to know the state a woman finds her house in when she’s been away for three weeks. Give me my rug. [Eugene takes the strapped rug from the couch, and gives it to her. She takes it in her left hand, having the bag in her right]. Now hang my cloak across my arm. [He obeys]. Now my hat. [He puts it into the hand which has the bag]. Now open the door for me. [He hurries before her and opens the door]. Thanks. [She goes out; and Marchbanks shuts the door].

  MORELL [still busy at the table] Youll stay to lunch, Marchbanks, of course.

  MARCHBANKS [scared] I mustnt. [He glances quickly at Morell, but at once avoids his frank look, and adds, with obvious disingenuousness] I mean I cant.

  MORELL. You mean you wont.

  MARCHBANKS [earnestly] No: I should like to, indeed. Thank you very much. But – but –

  MORELL. But – but – but – but – Bosh! If youd like to stay, stay. If youre shy, go and take a turn in the park and write poetry until half past one; and then come in and have a good feed.

  MARCHBANKS. Thank you, I should like that very much. But I really musnt. The truth is, Mrs Morell told me not to. She said she didnt think youd ask me to stay to lunch, but that I was to remember, if you did, that you didnt really want me to. [Plaintively] She said I’d understand; but I dont. Please dont tell her I told you.

  MORELL [drolly] Oh, is that all? Wont my suggestion that you should take a turn in the park meet the difficulty?

  MARCHBANKS. How?

  MORELL [exploding good-humoredly] Why, you duffer – [But this boisterousness jars himself as well as Eugene. He checks himself]. No: I wont put it in that way. [He comes to Eugene with affectionate seriousness]. My dear lad: in a happy marriage like ours, there is something very sacred in the return of the wife to her home. [Marchbanks looks quickly at him, half anticipating his meaning]. An old friend or a truly noble and sympathetic soul is not in the way on such occasions; but a chance visitor is. [The hunted horrorstricken expression comes out with sudden vividness in Eugene’s face as he understands. Morell, occupied with his own thoughts, goes on without noticing this], Candida thought I would rather n
ot have you here; but she was wrong. I’m very fond of you, my boy; and I should like you to see for yourself what a happy thing it is to be married as I am.

  MARCHBANKS. Happy! Your marriage! You think that! You believe that!

  MORELL [buoyantly] I know it, my lad. Larochefoucauld said that there are convenient marriages but no delightful ones. You dont know the comfort of seeing through and through a thundering liar and rotten cynic like that fellow. Ha! ha! Now, off with you to the park, and write your poem. Half past one, sharp, mind: we never wait for anybody.

  MARCHBANKS [wildly] No: stop: you shant. I’ll force it into the light.

  MORELL [puzzled] Eh? Force what?

  MARCHBANKS. I must speak to you. There is something that must be settled between us.

  MORELL [with a whimsical glance at his watch] Now?

  MARCHBANKS [passionately] Now. Before you leave this room. [He retreats a few steps, and stands as if to bar Morell’s way to the door].

  MORELL [without moving, and gravely, perceiving now that there is something serious the matter] I’m not going to leave it, my dear boy: I thought you were. [Eugene, baffled by his firm tone,turns his back on him, writhing with anger. Morell goes to him and puts his hand on his shoulder strongly and kindly, disregarding his attempt to shake it off]. Come: sit down quietly; and tell me what it is: And remember: we are friends, and need not fear that either of us will be anything but patient and kind to the other, whatever we may have to say.

  MARGHBANKS [twisting himself round on him] Oh, I am not forgetting myself: I am only [covering his face desperately with his hands] full of horror. [Then, dropping his hands, and thrusting his face forward fiercely at Morell, he goes on threateningly] You shall see whether this is a time for patience and kindness. [Morell, firm as a rock, looks indulgently at him]. Dont look at me in that self-complacent way. You think yourself stronger than I am; but I shall stagger you if you have a heart in your breast.

  MORELL [powerfully confident] Stagger me, my boy. Out with it.

  MARCHBANKS. First –

  MORELL. First?

  MARCHBANKS. I love your wife.

  Morell recoils, and, after staring at him for a moment in utter amazement, bursts into uncontrollable laughter. Eugene is taken aback; but not disconcerted; and he soon becomes indignant and contemptuous.

  MORELL [sitting down to have his laugh out] Why, my dear child, of course you do. Everybody loves her: they cant help it. I like it. But [looking up jocosely at him] I say, Eugene: do you think yours is a case to be talked about? Youre under twenty: she’s over thirty. Doesnt it look rather too like a case of calf love?

  MARCHBANKS [vehemently] You dare say that of her! You think that way of the love she inspires! It is an insult to her!

  MORELL [rising quickly, in an altered tone] To her! Eugene: take care. I have been patient. I hope to remain patient. But there are some things I wont allow. Dont force me to shew you the indulgence I should shew to a child. Be a man.

  MARCHBANKS [with a gesture as if sweeping something behindhim] Oh, let us put aside all that cant. It horrifies me when I think of the doses of it she has had to endure in all the weary years during which you have selfishly and blindly sacrificed her to minister to your self-sufficiency: you! [turning on him] who have not one thought – one sense – in common with her.

  MORELL [philosophically] She seems to bear it pretty well. [Looking him straight in the face] Eugene, my boy: you are making a fool of yourself: a very great fool of yourself. Theres a piece of wholesome plain speaking for you. [He knocks in the lesson with a nod in his old way, and posts himself on the hearth-rug, holding his hands behind him to warm them].

  MARCHBANKS. Oh, do you think I dont know all that? Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? [Morell’s gaze wavers for the first time. He forgets to warm his hands, and stands listening, startled and thoughtful]. They are more true: they are the only things that are true. You are very calm and sensible and moderate with me because you can see that I am a fool about your wife; just as no doubt that old man who was here just now is very wise over your Socialism, because he sees that you are a fool about it. [Morell’s perplexity deepens markedly. Eugene follows up his advantage, plying him fiercely with questions]. Does that prove you wrong? Does your complacent superiority to me prove that I am wrong?

  MORELL. Marchbanks: some devil is putting these words into your mouth. It is easy – terribly easy – to shake a man’s faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man’s spirit is devil’s work. Take care of what you are doing. Take care.

  MARCHBANKS [ruthlessly] I know. I’m doing it on purpose. I told you I should stagger you.

  They confront one another threateningly for a moment. Then Morell recovers his dignity.

  MORELL [with noble tenderness] Eugene: listen to me. Some day, I hope and trust, you will be a happy man like me. [Eugene chafes intolerantly, repudiating the worth of his happiness. Morell, deeply insulted, controls himself with fine for bearance, and continues steadily with great artistic beauty of delivery] You will be married; and you will be working with all your might and valor to make every spot on earth as happy as your own home. You will be one of the makers of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth; and – who knows? – you may be a master builder where I am only a humble journeyman; for dont think, my boy, that I cannot see in you, young as you are, promise of higher powers than I can ever pretend to. I well know that it is in the poet that the holy spirit of man – the god within him – is most godlike. It should make you tremble to think of that – to think that the heavy burthen and great gift of a poet may be laid upon you.

  MARCHBANKS [unimpressed and remorseless, his boyish crudity of assertion telling sharply against Morell’s oratory] It does not make me tremble. It is the want of it in others that makes me tremble.

  MORELL [redoubling his force of style under the stimulus of his genuine feeling and Eugene’s obduracy] Then help to kindle it in them – in me – not to extinguish it. In the future, when you are as happy as I am, I will be your true brother in the faith. I will help you to believe that God has given us a world that nothing but our own folly keeps from being a paradise. I will help you to believe that every stroke of your work is sowing happiness for the great harvest that all – even the humblest – shall one day reap. And last, but trust me, not least, I will help you to believe that your wife loves you and is happy in her home. We need such help, Marchbanks: we need it greatly and always. There are so many things to make us doubt, if once we let our understanding be troubled. Even at home, we sit as if in camp, encompassed by a hostile army of doubts. Will you play the traitor and let them in on me?

  MARCHBANKS [looking round wildly] Is it like this for her here always? A woman, with a great soul, craving for reality, truth, freedom; and being fed on metaphors, sermons, stale perorations, mere rhetoric. Do you think a woman’s soul can live on your talent for preaching?

  MORELL [stung] Marchbanks: you make it hard for me to control myself. My talent is like yours insofar as it has any real worth at all. It is the gift of finding words for divine truth.

  MARCHBANKS [impetuously] It’s the gift of the gab, nothing more and nothing less. What has your knack of fine talking to do with the truth, any more than playing the organ has? Ive never been in your church; but Ive been to your political meetings; and Ive seen you do whats called rousing the meeting to enthusiasm: that is, you excited them until they behaved exactly as if they were drunk. And their wives looked on and saw what fools they were. Oh, it’s an old story: youll find it in the Bible. I imagine King David, in his fits of enthusiasm, was very like you. [Stabbing him with the words] ‘ But his wife despised him in her heart.’

  MORELL [wrathfully] Leave my house. Do you hear? [He advances on him threateningly].

  MARCHBANKS [shrinking back against the couch] Let me alone. Dont touch me. [Morell grasps him powerfully by the lappell of his coat: he cowers
down on the sofa and screams passionately] Stop, Morell: if you strike me, I’ll kill myself: I wont bear it. [Almost in hysterics] Let me go. Take your hand away.

  MORELL [with slow emphatic scorn] You little snivelling, cowardly whelp. [He releases him]. Go, before you frighten yourself into a fit.

  MARCHBANKS [on the sofa, gasping, but relieved by the withdrawal of Morell’s hand] I’m not afraid of you: it’s you who are afraid of me.

  MORELL [quietly, as he stands over him] It looks like it, doesnt it?

  MARCHBANKS [with petulant vehemence] Yes, it does. [Morell turns away contemptuously. Eugene scrambles to his feet and follows him]. You think because I shrink from being brutally handled – because [with tears in his voice] I can do nothing but cry with rage when I am met with violence – because I cant lift a heavy trunk down from the top of a cab like you – because I can’t fight you for your wife as a drunken navvy would: all that makes you think I’m afraid of you. But youre wrong. If I havnt got what you call British pluck, I havnt British cowardice either: I’m not afraid of a clergyman’s ideas. I’ll fight your ideas. I’ll rescue her from her slavery to them. I’ll pit my own ideas against them. You are driving me out of the house because you darent let her choose between your ideas and mine. You are afraid to let me see her again. [Morell, angered, turns suddenly on him. He flies to the door in involuntary dread]. Let me alone, I say. I’m going.

  MORELL [with cold scorn] Wait a moment: I am not going to touch you: dont be afraid. When my wife comes back she will want to know why you have gone. And when she finds that you are never going to cross our threshold again, she will want to have that explained too. Now I dont wish to distress her by telling her that you have behaved like a blackguard.

  MARCHBANKS [coming back with renewed vehemence] You shall. You must. If you give any explanation but the true one, you are a liar and a coward. Tell her what I said; and how you were strong and manly, and shook me as a terrier shakes a rat; and how I shrank and was terrified; and how you called me a snivelling little whelp and put me out of the house. If you dont tell her, I will: I’ll write it to her.