Plays Pleasant Read online

  They are all amazed at this outburst, except Eugene. His expression remains unchanged.

  CANDIDA. Oh, James, you mustnt mind what I said about that. And if you dont go youll have an attack of bad conscience tomorrow.

  LEXY [intimidated, but urgent] I know, of course, that they make the most unreasonable demands on you. But they have been telegraphing all over the place for another speaker; and they can get nobody but the President of the Agnostic League.

  MORELL [promptly] Well, an excellent man. What better do they want?

  LEXY. But he always insists so powerfully on the divorce of Socialism from Christianity. He will undo all the good we have been doing. Of course you know best; but – [he shrugs his shoulders and wanders to the hearth beside Burgess].

  CANDIDA [coaxingly] Oh, do go, James. We’ll all go.

  BURGESS [grumblingly] Look ere, Candy! I say! Lets stay at home by the tire, comfortable. He wont need to be more’n a couple-o-hour away.

  CANDIDA. Youll be just as comfortable at the meeting. We’ll all sit on the platform and be great people.

  MARCHBANKS [terrified] Oh please dont let us go on the platform. No: everyone will stare at us: I couldnt. I’ll sit at the back of the room.

  CANDIDA. Dont be afraid. Theyll be too busy looking at James to notice you.

  MORELL. Prossy’s complaint, Candida! Eh?

  CANDIDA [gaily] Yes: Prossy’s complaint.

  BURGESS [mystified] Prossy’s complaint! What are you talkin about, James?

  MORELL [not heeding him, rises; goes to the door; and holds it open, calling in a commanding tone] Miss Garnett.

  PROSERPINE [in the distance] Yes, Mr Morell. Coming.

  They all wait, except Burgess, who turns stealthily to Lexy.

  BURGESS. Listen ere, Mr Mill. Whats Prossy’s complaint? Whats wrong with er?

  LEXY [confidentially] Well, I dont exactly know; but she spoke very strangely to me this morning. I’m afraid she’s a little out of her mind sometimes.

  BURGESS [overwhelmed] Why, it must be catchin! Four in the same ouse!

  PROSERPINE [appearing on the threshold] What is it, Mr Morell?

  MORELL. Telegraph to the Guild of St Matthew that I am coming.

  PROSERPINE [surprised] Dont they expect you?

  MORELL [peremptorily] Do as I tell you.

  Proserpine, frightened, sits down at her typewriter, and obeys. Morell, now unaccountably resolute and forceful, goes across to Burgess. Candida watches his movements with growing wonder and misgiving.

  MORELL. Burgess: you dont want to come.

  BURGESS. Oh, dont put it like that, James. It’s ony that it aint Sunday, you know.

  MORELL. I’m sorry. I thought you might like to be introduced to the chairman. He’s on the Works Committee of the County Council, and has some influence in the matter of contracts. [Burgess wakes up at once]. Youll come?

  BURGESS [with enthusiasm] Cawrse I’ll come, James. Aint it awlus a pleasure to ear you!

  MORELL [turning to Prossy] I shall want you to take some notes at the meeting, Miss Garnett, if you have no other engagement. [She nods, afraid to speak]. You are coming, Lexy, I suppose?

  LEXY. Certainly.

  CANDIDA. We’re all coming, James.

  MORELL. No: you are not coming; and Eugene is not coming. You will stay here and entertain him – to celebrate your return home. [Eugene rises, breathless].

  CANDIDA. But, James –

  MORELL [authoritatively] I insist. You do not want to come; and he does not want to come. [Candida is about to protest]. Oh, dont concern yourselves: I shall have plenty of people without you: your chairs will be wanted by unconverted people who have never heard me before.

  CANDIDA [troubled] Eugene: wouldn’t you like to come?

  MORELL. I should be afraid to let myself go before Eugene: he is so critical of sermons. [Looking at him] He knows I am afraid of him: he told me as much this morning. Well, I shall shew him how much afraid I am by leaving him here in your custody, Candida.

  MARCHBANKS [to himself, with vivid feeling] Thats brave. Thats beautiful.

  CANDIDA [with anxious misgiving] But – but – Is anything the matter, James? [Greatly troubled] I cant understand –

  MORELL [taking her tenderly in his arms and kissing her on the forehead] Ah, I thought it was I who couldnt understand, dear.

  ACT III

  Past ten in the evening. The curtains are drawn, and the lamps lighted. The typewriter is in its case: the large table has been cleared and tidied: everything indicates that the day’s work is over.

  Candida and Marchbanks are sitting by the fire. The reading lamp is on the mantelshelf above Marchbanks, who is in the small chair, reading aloud. A little pile of manuscripts and a couple of volumes of poetry are on the carpet beside him. Candida is in the easy chair. The poker, a light brass one, is upright in her hand. Leaning back and looking intently at the point of it, with her feet stretched towards the blaze, she is in a waking dream, miles away from the surroundings and completely oblivious of Eugene.

  MARCHBANKS [breaking off in his recitation] Every poet that ever lived has put that thought into a sonnet. He must: he cant help it. [He looks to her for assent, and notices her absorption in the poker]. Havnt you been listening? [No response]. Mrs Morell!

  CANDIDA [starting] Eh?

  MARCHBANKS. Havnt you been listening?

  CANDIDA [with a guilty excess of politeness] Oh yes. It’s very nice. Go on, Eugene. I’m longing to hear what happens to the angel.

  MARCHBANKS [letting the manuscript drop from his hand to the floor] I beg your pardon for boring you.

  CANDIDA. But you are not boring me, I assure you. Please go on. Do, Eugene.

  MARCHBANKS. I finished the poem about the angel quarter of an hour ago. Ive read you several things since.

  CANDIDA [remorsefully] I’m so sorry, Eugene. I think the poker must have hypnotized me. [She puts it down]

  MARCHBANKS. It made me horribly uneasy.

  CANDIDA. Why didnt you tell me? I’d have put it down at once.

  MARCHBANKS. I was afraid of making you uneasy too. It looked as if it were a weapon. If I were a hero of old I should have laid my drawn sword between us. If Morell had come in he would have thought you had taken up the poker because there was no sword between us.

  CANDIDA [wondering] What? [With a puzzled glance at him] I cant quite follow that. Those sonnets of yours have perfectly addled me. Why should there be a sword between us?

  MARCHBANKS [evasively] Oh, never mind. [He stoops to pick up the manuscript].

  CANDIDA. Put that down again, Eugene. There are limits to my appetite for poetry: even your poetry. Youve been reading to me for more than two hours, ever since James went out. I want to talk.

  MARCHBANKS [rising, scared] No: I mustnt talk. [He looks round him in his lost way, and adds, suddenly] I think I’ll go out and take a walk in the park. [He makes for the door].

  CANDIDA. Nonsense: it’s closed long ago. Come and sit down on the hearth-rug, and talk moonshine as you usually do. I want to be amused. Dont you want to?

  MARCHBANKS [half in terror, half enraptured] Yes.

  CANDIDA. Then come along. [She moves her chair back a little to make room].

  He hesitates; then timidly stretches himself on the hearth-rug, face upwards, and throws back his head across her knees, looking up at her.

  MARCHBANKS. Oh, Ive been so miserable all the evening, because I was doing right. Now I’m doing wrong; and I’m happy.

  CANDIDA [tenderly amused at him] Yes: I’m sure you feel a great grown-up wicked deceiver. Quite proud of yourself, arnt you?

  MARCHBANKS [raising his head quickly and turning a little to look round at her] Take care. I’m ever so much older than you, if you only knew. [He turns quite over on his knees, with his hands clasped and his arms on her lap, and speaks with growing impulse, his blood beginning to stir]. May I say some wicked things to you?

  CANDIDA [without the least fear or coldness,
and with perfect respect for his passion, but with a touch of her wise-hearted maternal humor] No. But you may say anything you really and truly feel. Anything at all, no matter what it is. I am not afraid, so long as it is your real self that speaks, and not a mere attitude: a gallant attitude, or a wicked attitude, or even a poetic attitude. I put you on your honor and truth. Now say whatever you want to.

  MARCHBANKS [the eager expression vanishing utterly from his lips and nostrils as his eyes light up with pathetic spirituality] Oh, now I cant say anything: all the words I know belong to some attitude or other – all except one.

  CANDIDA. What one is that?

  MARCHBANKS [softly, losing himself in the music of the name] Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida. I must say that now, because you have put me on my honor and truth; and I never think or feel Mrs Morell: it is always Candida.

  CANDIDA. Of course. And what have you to say to Candida?

  MARCHBANKS. Nothing but to repeat your name a thousand times. Dont you feel that every time is a prayer to you?

  CANDIDA. Doesnt it make you happy to be able to pray?

  MARCHBANKS. Yes, very happy.

  CANDIDA. Well, that happiness is the answer to your prayer. Do you want anything more?

  MARCHBANKS. NO: I have come into Heaven, where want is unknown.

  Morell comes in. He halts on the threshold, and takes in the scene at a glance.

  MORELL [grave and self-contained] I hope I dont disturb you.

  Candida starts up violently, but without the smallest embarrassment, laughing at herself Eugene, capsized by her sudden movement, recovers himself without rising, and sits on the rug hugging his ankles, also quite unembarrassed.

  CANDIDA. Oh, James, how you startled me! I was so taken up with Eugene that I didnt hear your latchkey. How did the meeting go off? Did you speak well?

  MORELL. I have never spoken better in my life.

  CANDIDA. That was first rate! How much was the collection?

  MORELL. I forgot to ask.

  CANDIDA [to Eugene] He must have spoken splendidly, or he would never have forgotten that. [To Morell] Where are all the others?

  MORELL. They left long before I could get away: I thought I should never escape. I believe they are having supper somewhere.

  CANDIDA [in her domestic business tone] Oh, in that case, Maria may go to bed. I’ll tell her. [She goes out to the kitchen].

  MORELL [looking sternly down at Marchbanks] Well?

  MARCHBANKS [squatting grotesquely on the hearth-rug, and actually at ease with Morell: even impishly humorous] Well?

  MORELL. Have you anything to tell me?

  MARCHBANKS. Only that I have been making a fool of myself here in private whilst you have been making a fool of yourself in public.

  MORELL. Hardly in the same way, I think.

  MARCHBANKS [eagerly, scrambling up] The very, very, very same way. I have been playing the Good Man. Just like you. When you began your heroics about leaving me here with Candida –

  MORELL [involuntarily] Candida!

  MARCHBANKS. Oh yes: Ive got that far. But dont be afraid. Heroics are infectious: I caught the disease from you. I swore not to say a word in your absence that I would not not have said a month ago in your presence.

  MORELL. Did you keep your oath?

  MARCHBANKS [suddenly perching himself on the back of the easy chair] It kept itself somehow until about ten minutes ago. Up to that moment I went on desperately reading to her – reading my own poems – anybody’s poems – to stave off a conversation. I was standing outside the gate of Heaven, and refusing to go in. Oh, you cant think how heroic it was, and how uncomfortable! Then –

  MORELL [steadily controlling his suspense] Then?

  MARCHBANKS [prosaically slipping down into a quite ordinary attitude on the seat of the chair] Then she couldnt bear being read to any longer.

  MORELL. And you approached the gate of Heaven at last?

  MARCHBANKS. Yes.

  MORELL. Well? [Fiercely] Speak, man: have you no feeling for me?

  MARCHBANKS [softly and musically] Then she became an angel; and there was a flaming sword that turned every way, so that I couldnt go in; for I saw that that gate was really the gate of Hell.

  MORELL [triumphantly] She repulsed you!

  MARCHBANKS [rising in wild scorn] No, you fool: if she had done that I should never have seen that I was in Heaven already. Repulsed me! You think that would have saved us! virtuous indignation! Oh, you are not worthy to live in the same world with her. [He turns away contemptuously to the other side of the room].

  MORELL [who has watched him quietly without changing his place] Do you think you make yourself more worthy by reviling me, Eugene?

  MARCHBANKS. Here endeth the thousand and first lesson. Morell: I dont think much of your preaching after all: I believe I could do it better myself. The man I want to meet is the man that Candida married.

  MORELL. The man that –? Do you mean me?

  MARCHBANKS. I dont mean the Reverend James Mavor Morell, moralist and windbag. I mean the real man that the Reverend James must have hidden somewhere inside his black coat: the man that Candida loved. You cant make a woman like Candida love you by merely buttoning your collar at the back instead of in front.

  MORELL [boldly and steadily] When Candida promised to marry me, I was the same moralist and windbag you now see. I wore my black coat; and my collar was buttoned behind instead of in front. Do you think she would have loved me any the better for being insincere in my profession?

  MARCHBANKS [on the sofa, hugging his ankles] Oh, she forgave you, just as she forgives me for being a coward, and a weakling, and what you call a snivelling little whelp and all the rest of it. [Dreamily] A woman like that has divine insight: she loves our souls, and not our follies and vanities and illusions, nor our collars and coats, nor any other of the rags and tatters we are rolled up in. [He reflects on this for an instant: then turns intently to question Morell], What I want to know is how you got past the flaming sword that stopped me.

  MORELL. Perhaps because I was not interrupted at the end of ten minutes.

  MARCHBANKS [taken aback] What!

  MORELL. Man can climb to the highest summits; but he cannot dwell there long.

  MARCHBANKS [springing up] It’s false: there can he dwell for ever, and there only. It’s in the other moments that he can find no rest, no sense of the silent glory of life. Where would you have me spend my moments, if not on the summits?

  MORELL. In the scullery, slicing onions and filling lamps.

  MARCHBANKS. Or in the pulpit, scrubbing cheap earthenware souls?

  MORELL. Yes, that too. It was there that I earned my golden moment, and the right, in that moment, to ask her to love me. I did not take the moment on credit; nor did I use it to steal another man’s happiness.

  MARCHBANKS [rather disgustedly, trotting back towards the fireplace] I have no doubt you conducted the transaction as honestly as if you were buying a pound of cheese. [He stops on the brink of the hearth-rug, and adds, thoughtfully, to himself, with his back turned to Morell] I could only go to her as a beggar.

  MORELL [staring] A beggar dying of cold! asking for her shawl! MARCHBANKS [turning, surprised] Thank you for touching up my poetry. Yes, if you like: a beggar dying of cold, asking for her shawl.

  MORELL [excitedly] And she refused. Shall I tell you why she refused? I can tell you, on her own authority. It was because of –

  MARCHBANKS. She didnt refuse.

  MORELL. Not!

  MARCHBANKS. She offered me all I chose to ask for: her shawl, her wings, the wreath of stars on her head, the lilies in her hand, the crescent moon beneath her feet –

  MORELL [seizing him] Out with the truth, man: my wife is my wife: I want no more of your poetic fripperies. I know well that if I have lost her love and you have gained it, no law will bind her.

  MARCHBANKS [quaintly, without fear or resistance] Catch me by the shirt collar, Morell: she will arrange it for me afterwar
ds as she did this morning. [With quiet rapture] I shall feel her hands touch me.

  MORELL. You young imp, do you know how dangerous it is to say that to me? Or [with a sudden misgiving] has something made you brave?

  MARCHBANKS. I’m not afraid now. I disliked you before: that was why I shrank from your touch. But I saw today – when she tortured you – that you love her. Since then I have been your friend: you may strangle me if you like.

  MORELL [releasing him] Eugene: if that is not a heartless lie – if you have a spark of human feeling left in you – will you tell me what has happened during my absence?

  MARCHBANKS. What happened! Why, the flaming sword [Morell stamps with impatience] – Well, in plain prose, I loved her so exquisitely that I wanted nothing more than the happiness of being in such love. And before I had time to come down from the highest summits, you came in.

  MORELL [suffering deeply] So it is still unsettled. Still the misery of doubt.

  MARCHBANKS. Misery! I am the happiest of men. I desire nothing now but her happiness. [In a passion of sentiment] Oh, Morell, let us both give her up. Why should she have to choose between a wretched little nervous disease like me, and a pig-headed parson like you? Let us go on a pilgrimage, you to the east and I to the west, in search of a worthy lover for her: some beautiful archangel with purple wings –

  MORELL. Some fiddlestick! Oh, if she is mad enough to leave me for you, who will protect her? who will help her? who will work for her? who will be a father to her children? [He sits down distractedly on the sofa, with his elbows on his knees and his head propped on his clenched fists].

  MARCHBANKS [snapping his fingers wildly] She does not ask those silly questions. It is she who wants somebody to protect, to help, to work for: somebody to give her children to protect, to help and to work for. Some grown up man who has become as a little child again. Oh, you fool, you fool, you triple fool! I am the man, Morell: I am the man. [He dances about excitedly, crying] You dont understand what a woman is. Send for her, Morell: send for her and let her choose between – [The door opens and Candida enters. He stops as if petrified].