Plays Pleasant Read online

  MORELL [puzzled] Why do you want her to know this?

  MARCHBANKS [with lyric rapture] Because she will understand me, and know that I understand her. If you keep back one word of it from her – if you are not ready to lay the truth at her feet as I am – then you will know to the end of your days that she really belongs to me and not to you. Goodbye. [Going].

  MORELL [terribly disquieted] Stop: I will not tell her.

  MARCHBANKS [turning near the door] Either the truth or a lie you must tell her, if I go.

  MORELL [temporizing] Marchbanks: it is sometimes justifiable –

  MARCHBANKS [cutting him short] I know: to lie. It will be useless. Goodbye, Mr Clergyman.

  As he turns to the door, it opens and Candida enters in her housekeeping dress.

  CANDIDA. Are you going, Eugene? [Looking more observantly at him] Well, dear me, just look at you, going out into the street in that state! You are a poet, certainly. Look at him, James! [She takes him by the coat, and brings him forward, shewing him to Morell]. Look at his collar! look at his tie! look at his hair! One would think somebody had been throttling you. [Eugene instinctively tries to look round at Morell; but she pulls him back]. Here! Stand still. [She buttons his collar; ties his neckerchief in a bow; and arranges his hair]. There! Now you look so nice that I think youd better stay to lunch after all, though I told you you mustnt. It will be ready in half an hour. [She puts a final touch to the bow. He kisses her hand]. Dont be silly.

  MARCHBANKS. I want to stay, of course; unless the reverend gentleman your husband has anything to advance to the contrary.

  CANDIDA. Shall he stay, James, if he promises to be a good boy and help me to lay the table?

  MORELL [shortly] Oh yes, certainly: he had better. [He goes to the table and pretends to busy himself with his papers there].

  MARCHBANKS [offering his arm to Candida] Come and lay the table. [She takes it. They go to the door together. As they pass out he adds] I am the happiest of mortals.

  MORELL. So was I – an hour ago.

  ACT II

  The same day later in the afternoon. The same room. The chair for visitors has been replaced at the table. Marchbanks, alone and idle, is trying to find out how the typewriter works. Hearing someone at the door, he steals guiltily away to the window and pretends to be absorbed in the view. Miss Garnett, carrying the notebook in which she takes down Morell’s letters in shorthand from his dictation, sits down at the typewriter and sets to work transcribing them, much too busy to notice Eugene. When she begins the second line she stops and stares at the machine. Something wrong evidently.

  PROSERPINE. Bother! Youve been meddling with my typewriter, Mr Marchbanks; and theres not the least use in your trying to look as if you hadnt.

  MARCHBANKS [timidly] I’m very sorry, Miss Garnett. I only tried to make it write. [Plaintively] But it wouldnt.

  PROSERPINE. Well, youve altered the spacing.

  MARCHBANKS [earnestly] I assure you I didn’t. I didnt indeed. I only turned a little wheel. It gave a sort of click.

  PROSERPINE. Oh, now I understand. [She restores the spacing, talking volubly all the time]. I suppose you thought it was a sort of barrel-organ. Nothing to do but turn the handle, and it would write a beautiful love letter for you straight off, eh?

  MARCHBANKS [seriously] I suppose a machine could be made to write love letters. Theyre all the same, arnt they?

  PROSERPINE [somewhat indignantly: any such discussion, except by way of pleasantry, being outside her code of manners] How do I know? Why do you ask me?

  MARCHBANKS. I beg your pardon. I thought clever people – people who can do business and write letters and that sort of thing – always had to have love affairs to keep them from going mad.

  PROSERPINE [rising, outraged] Mr Marchbanks! [She looks severely at him, and marches majestically to the bookcase].

  MARCHBANKS [approaching her humbly] I hope I havnt offended you. Perhaps I shouldnt have alluded to your love affairs.

  PROSERPINE [plucking a blue book from the shelf and turning sharply on him] I havnt any love affairs. How dare you say such a thing? The idea! [She tucks the book under her arm, and is flouncing back to her machine when he addresses her with awakened interest and sympathy].

  MARCHBANKS. Really! Oh, then you are shy, like me.

  PROSERPINE. Certainly I am not shy. What do you mean?

  MARCHBANKS [secretly] You must be: that is the reason there are so few love affairs in the world. We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the first prayer of our hearts; but we dare not utter our longing: we are too shy. [Very earnestly] Oh, Miss Garnett, what would you not give to be without fear, without shame –

  PROSERPINE [scandalized] Well, upon my word!

  MARCHBANKS [with petulant impatience] Ah, dont say those stupid things to me: they dont deceive me: what use are they? Why are you afraid to be your real self with me? I am just like you.

  PROSERPINE. Like me! Pray are you flattering me or flattering yourself? I dont feel quite sure which. [She again tries to get back to her work].

  MARCHBANKS [stopping her mysteriously] Hush! I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things: foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. [Almost whispering] It must be asked for: it is like a ghost: it cannot speak unless it is first spoken to. [At his usual pitch, but with deep melancholy] All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is shy! shy! shy! That is the world’s tragedy. [With a deep sigh he sits in the visitors’ chair and buries his face in his hands].

  PROSERPINE [amazed, but keeping her wits about her: her pointof honor in encounters with strange young men] Wicked people get over that shyness occasionally, dont they?

  MARCHBANKS [scrambling up almost fiercely] Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because they dont need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give. [He collapses into his seat, and adds, mournfully] But we, who have love, and long to mingle it with the love of others: we cannot utter a word. [Timidly] You find that, dont you?

  PROSERPINE. Look here: if you dont stop talking like this, I’ll leave the room, Mr Marchbanks: I really will. It’s not proper.

  She resumes her seat at the typewriter, opening the blue book and preparing to copy a passage from it.

  MARCHBANKS [hopelessly] Nothing thats worth saying is proper. [He rises, and wanders about the room in his lost way]. I cant understand you, Miss Garnett. What am I to talk about?

  PROSERPINE [snubbing him] Talk about indifferent things. Talk about the weather.

  MARCHBANKS. Would you talk about indifferent things if a child were by, crying bitterly with hunger?

  PROSERPINE. I suppose not.

  MARCHBANKS. Well: I cant talk about indifferent things with my heart crying out bitterly in its hunger.

  PROSERPINE. Then hold your tongue.

  MARCHBANKS. Yes: that is what it always comes to. We hold our tongues. Does that stop the cry of your heart? for it does cry: doesnt it? It must, if you have a heart.

  PROSERPINE [suddenly rising with her hand pressed on her heart] Oh, it’s no use trying to work while you talk like that. [She leaves her little table and sits on the sofa. Her feelings are keenly stirred]. It’s no business of yours whether my heart cries or not; but I have a mind to tell you, for all that.

  MARCHBANKS. You neednt. I know already that it must.

  PROSERPINE. But mind! if you ever say I said so, I’ll deny it.

  MARCHBANKS [compassionately] Yes, I know. And so you havnt the courage to tell him?

  PROSERPINE [bouncing up] Him! Who?

  MARCHBANKS. Whoever he is. The man you love. It might be anybody. The curate, Mr Mill, perhaps.


  PROSERPINE [with disdain] Mr Mill!!! A fine man to break my heart about, indeed! I’d rather have you than Mr Mill.

  MARCHBANKS [recoiling] No, really: I’m very sorry; but you mustnt think of that. I –

  PROSERPINE [testily, going to the fireplace and standing at it with her back to him] Oh, dont be frightened: it’s not you. It’s not any one particular person.

  MARCHBANKS. I know. You feel that you could love anybody that offered –

  PROSERPINE [turning, exasperated] Anybody that offered! No, I do not. What do you take me for?

  MARCHBANKS [discouraged] No use. You wont make me real answers: only those things that everybody says. [He strays to the sofa and sits down disconsolately].

  PROSERPINE [nettled at what she takes to be a disparagement of her manners by an aristocrat] Oh well, if you want original conversation, youd better go and talk to yourself.

  MARCHBANKS. That is what all poets do: they talk to themselves out loud; and the world overhears them. But it’s horribly lonely not to hear someone else talk sometimes.

  PROSERPINE. Wait until Mr Morell comes. He’ll talk to you. [Marchbanks shudders]. Oh, you neednt make wry faces over him: he can talk better than you. [With temper] He’d talk your little head off. [She is going back angrily to her place, when he, suddenly enlightened, springs up and stops her].

  MARCHBANKS. Ah! I understand now.

  PROSERPINE [reddening] What do you understand?

  MARCHBANKS. Your secret. Tell me: is it really and truly possible for a woman to love him?

  PROSERPINE [as if this were beyond all bounds] Well!!

  MARCHBANKS [passionately] No: answer me. I want to know: I must know. I cant understand it. I can see nothing in him but words, pious resolutions, what people call goodness. You cant love that.

  PROSERPINE [attempting to snub him by an air of cool propriety] I simply dont know what youre talking about. I dont understand you.

  MARCHBANKS [vehemently] You do. You lie.

  PROSERPINE. Oh!

  MARCHBANKS. You do understand; and you know. [Determined to have an answer] Is it possible for a woman to love him?

  PROSERPINE [looking him straight in the face] Yes. [He covers his face with his hands]. Whatever is the matter with you! [He takes down his hands. Frightened at the tragic mask presented to her, she hurries past him at the utmost possible distance, keeping her eyes on his face until he turns from her and goes to the child’s chair beside the hearth, where he sits in the deepest dejection. As she approaches the door, it opens and Burgess enters. Seeing him, she ejaculates] Praise heaven! here’s somebody [and feels safe enough to resume her place at her table. She puts a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter as Burgess crosses to Eugene].

  BURGESS [bent on taking care of the distinguished visitor] Well: so this is the way they leave you to yoreself, Mr Morchbanks. Ive come to keep you company. [Marchbanks looks up at him in consternation, which is quite lost on him]. James is receivin a deppitation in the dinin room; and Candy is hupstairs heducating of a young stitcher gurl she’s hinterested in. [Condolingly] You must find it lonesome here with no one but the typist to talk to. [He pulls round the easy chair, and sits down].

  PROSERPINE [highly incensed] He’ll be all right now that he has the advantage of your polished conversation: thats one comfort, anyhow. [She begins to typewrite with clattering asperity].

  BURGESS [amazed at her audacity]. Hi was not addressin myself to you, young woman, that I’m awerr of.

  PROSERPINE. Did you ever see worse manners, Mr Marchbanks?

  BURGESS [with pompous severity] Mr Morchbanks is a gentleman, and knows his place, which is more than some people do.

  PROSERPINE [fretfully] It’s well you and I are not ladies and gentlemen: I’d talk to you pretty straight if Mr Marchbanks wasnt here. [She pulls the letter out of the machine so crossly that it tears]. There! now I’ve spoiled this letter! have to be done all over again! Oh, I cant contain myself: silly old fathead!

  BURGESS [rising, breathless with indignation] Ho! I’m a silly ole fat’ead, am I? Ho, indeed [gasping]! Hall right, my gurl! Hall right. You just wait till I tell that to yore hemployer. Youll see. I’ll teach you: see if I dont.

  PROSERPINE [conscious of having gone too far] I –

  BURGESS [cutiing her short] No: youve done it now. No huse a-talking to me. I’ll let you know who I am. [Proserpine shifts her paper carriage with a defiant bang, and disdainfully goes on with her work]. Dont you take no notice of her, Mr Morchbanks. She’s beneath it. [He loftily sits down again].

  MARCHBANKS [miserably nervous and disconcerted] Hadnt we better change the subject? I – I dont think Miss Garnett meant anything.

  PROSERPINE [with intense conviction] Oh, didnt I though, just!

  BURGESS. I wouldnt demean myself to take notice on her. An electric bell rings twice.

  PROSERPINE [gathering up her note-book and papers] Thats for me. [She hurries out].

  BURGESS [calling after her] Oh, we can spare you. [Somewhat relieved by the triumph of having the last word, and yet half inclined to try to improve on it, he looks after her for a moment; then subsides into his seat by Eugene, and addresses him very confidentially]. Now we’re alone, Mr Morchbanks, let me give you a friendly int that I wouldnt give to heverybody. Ow long ave you known my son-in-law James ere?

  MARCHBANKS. I dont know. I never can remember dates. A few months, perhaps.

  BURGESS. Ever notice hennythink queer about him?

  MARCHBANKS. I dont think so.

  BURGESS [impressively] No more you wouldnt. Thats the danger on it. Well, he’s mad.

  MARCHBANKS. Mad!

  BURGESS. Mad as a Morch ‘are. You take notice on him and youll see.

  MARCHBANKS [uneasily] But surely that is only because his opinions –

  BURGESS [touching him on the knee with his forefinger, and pressing it to hold his attention] Thats the same what I hused to think, Mr Morchbanks. Hi thought long enough that it was ony his opinions; though, mind you, hopinions becomes vurry serious things when people takes to hactin on em as e does. But thats not what I go on. [He looks round to make sure that they are alone, and bends over to Eugene’s ear]. What do you think he sez to me this mornin in this very room?

  MARCHBANKS. What?

  BURGESS. He sez to me – this is as sure as we’re settin here now – he sez ‘I’m a fool,’ he sez; ‘and yore a scounderl.’ Me a scounderl, mind you! And then shook ands with me on it, as if it was to my credit! Do you mean to tell me as that man’s sane?

  MORELL [outside, calling to Proserpine as he opens the door] Get all their names and addresses, Miss Garnett.

  PROSERPINE [in the distance] Yes, Mr Morell.

  Morell comes in, with the deputation’s documents in his hands.

  BURGESS [aside to Marchbanks] Yorr he is. Just you keep your heye on im and see. [Rising momentously] I’m sorry, James, to ave to make a complaint to you. I dont want to do it; but I feel I oughter, as a matter o right and dooty.

  MORELL. Whats the matter?

  BURGESS. Mr Morchbanks will bear me hout: he was a witness. [Very solemnly] Yore young woman so far forgot herself as to call ma a silly old fat’ead.

  MORELL [with tremendous heartiness] Oh, now, isnt that exactly like Prossy? She’s so frank: she cant contain herself! Poor Prossy! Ha! ha!

  BURGESS [trembling with rage] And do you hexpec me to put up with it from the like of er?

  MORELL. Pooh, nonsense! you cant take any notice of it. Never mind. [He goes to the cellaret and puts the papers into one of the drawers].

  BURGESS. Oh, Hi dont mind. Hi’m above it. But is it right? thats what I want to know. Is it right?

  MORELL. Thats a question for the Church, not for the laity. Has it done you any harm? thats the question for you, eh? Of course it hasnt. Think no more of it. [He dismisses the subject by going to his place at the table and setting to work at his correspondence].

  BURGESS [aside to Marchbanks] What did I tell you? Mad as a att
er. [He goes to the table and asks, with the sickly civility of a hungry man] When’s dinner, James?

  MORELL. Not for a couple of hours yet.

  BURGESS [with plaintive resignation] Gimme a nice book to read over the fire, will you, James: thur’s a good chap.

  MORELL. What sort of book? A good one?

  BURGESS [with almost a yell of remonstrance] Nah-oo! Summat pleasant, just to pass the time. [Morell takes an illustrated paper from the table and offers it. He accepts it humbly]. Thank yer, James. [He goes back to the big chair at the fire, and sits there at his ease, reading].

  MORELL [as he writes] Candida will come to entertain you presently. She has got rid of her pupil. She is filling the lamps.

  MARCHBANKS [starting up in the wildest consternation] But that will soil her hands. I cant bear that, Morell: it’s a shame. I’ll go and fill them. [He makes for the door].

  MORELL. Youd better not. [Marchbanks stops irresolutely] She’d only set you to clean my boots, to save me the trouble of doing it myself in the morning.

  BURGESS [with grave disapproval] Dont you keep a servant now, james?

  MORELL. Yes: but she isnt a slave; and the house looks as if I kept three. That means that everyone has to lend a hand. It’s not a bad plan: Prossy and I can talk business after breakfast while we’re washing up. Washing up’s no trouble when there are two people to do it.

  MARCHBANKS [tormentedly] Do you think every woman is as coarse-grained as Miss Garnett?

  BURGESS [emphatically] Thats quite right, Mr Morchbanks: thats quite right. She is corse-grained.

  MORELL [quietly and significantly] Marchbanks!

  MARCHBANKS. Yes?

  MORELL. HOW many servants does your father keep?

  MARCHBANKS [pettishly] Oh, I dont know. [He moves to the sofa, as if to get as far as possible from Morell’s questioning, and sits down in great agony of spirit, thinking of the paraffin].

  MORELL [very gravely] So many that you dont know! [More aggressively] When theres anything coarse-grained to be done, you just ring the bell and throw it on to somebody else, eh?

  MARCHBANKS. Oh, dont torture me. You dont even ring the bell. But your wife’s beautiful fingers are dabbling in paraffin oil while you sit here comfortably preaching about it: everlasting preaching! preaching! words! words! words!