Pygmalion and Three Other Plays Page 34

  WALPOLE Well!!! [He gives the situation up as indescribable, and goes for his hat].

  RIDGEON Damn his impudence!

  B. B. I shouldnt be at all surprised to learn that he’s well connected. Whenever I meet dignity and self-possession without any discoverable basis, I diagnose good family.

  RIDGEON Diagnose artistic genius, B. B. Thats what saves his self-respect.

  SIR PATRICK The world is made like that. The decent fellows are always being lectured and put out of countenance by the snobs.

  B. B. [altogether refusing to accept this] I am not out of countenance. I should like, by Jupiter, to see the man who could put me out of countenance. [Jennifer comes in]. Ah, Mrs. Dubedat! And how are we to-day?

  MRS DUBEDAT [shaking hands with him] Thank you all so much for coming. [She shakes WALPOLE’s hand]. Thank you, Sir Patrick [she shakes SIR PATRICK‘s]. Oh, life has been worth living since I have known you. Since Richmond I have not known a moment’s fear. And it used to be nothing but fear. Wont you sit down and tell me the result of the consultation?

  WALPOLE I’ll go, if you dont mind, Mrs. Dubedat. I have an appointment. Before I go, let me say that I am quite agreed with my colleagues here as to the character of the case. As to the cause and the remedy, thats not my business: I’m only a surgeon; and these gentlemen are physicians and will advise you. I may have my own views: in fact I h a v e them; and they are perfectly well known to my colleagues. If I am needed — and needed I shall be finally — they know where to find me; and I am always at your service. So for to-day, good-bye. [He goes out, leaving JENNIFER much puzzled by his unexpected withdrawal and formal manner].

  SIR PATRICK I also will ask you to excuse me, Mrs Dubedat.

  RIDGEON (anxiously] Are you going?

  SIR PATRICK Yes: I can be of no use here; and I must be getting back. As you know, maam, I’m not in practice now; and I shall not be in charge of the case. It rests between Sir Colenso Ridgeon and Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington. They know my opinion. Good afternoon to you, maam. [He bows and makes for the door].

  MRS DUBEDAT [detaining him] Theres nothing wrong, is there?You dont think Louis is worse, do you?

  SIR PATRICK No: he’s not worse. Just the same as at Richmond.

  MRS DUBEDAT Oh, thank you: you frightened me. Excuse me.

  SIR PATRICK Dont mention it, maam. [He goes out].

  B. B. Now, Mrs Dubedat, if I am to take the patient in hand —

  MRS DUBEDAT [apprehensively, with a glance at RIDGEON] You! But I thought that Sir Colenso —

  B. B. [beaming with the conviction that he is giving her a most gratifying surprise] My dear lady, your husband shall have Me.

  MRS DUBEDAT But —

  B. B. Not a word: it is a pleasure to me, for your sake. Sir Colenso Ridgeon will be in his proper place, in the bacteriological laboratory. I shall be in my proper place, at the bedside. Your husband shall be treated exactly as if he were a member of the royal family. [MRS DUBEDAT uneasy, again is about to protest]. No gratitude: it would embarrass me, I assure you. Now, may I ask whether you are particularly tied to these apartments. Of course, the motor has annihilated distance; but I confess that if you were rather nearer to me, it would be a little more convenient.

  MRS DUBEDAT You see, this studio and flat are self-contained. I have suffered so much in lodgings. The servants are so frightfully dishonest.

  B. B. Ah! Are they? Are they? Dear me!

  MRS DUBEDAT I was never accustomed to lock things up. And I missed so many small sums. At last a dreadful thing happened. I missed a five-pound note. It was traced to the housemaid; and she actually said Louis had given it to her. And he wouldnt let me do anything: he is so sensitive that these things drive him mad.

  B. B. Ah — hm — ha — yes — say no more, Mrs. Dubedat: you shall not move. If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain.[165] Now I must be off. I will write and make an appointment. We shall begin stimulating the phagocytes on — on — probably on Tuesday next; but I will let you know. Depend on me; dont fret; eat regularly; sleep well; keep your spirits up; keep the patient cheerful; hope for the best; no tonic like a charming woman; no medicine like cheerfulness; no resource like science; good-bye, good-bye, good-bye. [Having shaken hands — she being too overwhelmed to speak — he goes out, stopping to say to RIDGEON] On Tuesday morning send me down a tube of some really stiff anti-toxin. Any kind will do. Dont forget. Good-bye, Colly. [He goes out].

  RIDGEON You look quite discouraged again. [She is almost in tears]. What’s the matter? Are you disappointed?

  MRS DUBEDAT I know I ought to be very grateful. Believe me, I am very grateful. But — but —

  RIDGEON Well?

  MRS DUBEDAT I had set my heart on y o u r curing Louis.

  RIDGEON Well, Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington —

  MRS DUBEDAT Yes, I know, I know. It is a great privilege to have him. But oh, I wish it had been you. I know it’s unreasonable; I cant explain; but I had such a strong instinct that you would cure him. I dont — I cant feel the same about Sir Ralph. You promised me. Why did you give Louis up?

  RIDGEON I explained to you. I cannot take another case.

  MRS DUBEDAT But at Richmond?

  RIDGEON At Richmond I thought I could make room for one more case. But my old friend Dr Blenkinsop claimed that place. His lung is attacked.

  MRS DUBEDAT [attaching no importance whatever to BLENKINSOP] Do you mean that elderly man — that rather silly —

  RIDGEON [sternly] I mean the gentleman that dined with us: an excellent and honest man, whose life is as valuable as anyone else’s. I have arranged that I shall take his case, and that Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington shall take Mr Dubedat’s.

  MRS DUBEDAT [turning indignantly on him] I see what it is. Oh! it is envious, mean, cruel. And I thought that you would be above such a thing.

  RIDGEON What do you mean?

  MRS DUBEDAT Oh, do you think I dont know? do you think it has never happened before? Why does everybody turn against him? Can you not forgive him for being superior to you? for being cleverer? for being braver? for being a great artist?

  RIDGEON Yes: I can forgive him for all that.

  MRS DUBEDAT Well, have you anything to say against him? I have challenged everyone who has turned against him — chal — lenged them face to face to tell me any wrong thing he has done, any ignoble thought he has uttered. They have always confessed that they could not tell me one. I challenge you now. What do you accuse him of?

  RIDGE ON I am like all the rest. Face to face, I cannot tell you one thing against him.

  MRS DUBEDAT [not satisfied] But your manner is changed. And you have broken your promise to me to make room for him as your patient.

  RIDGEON I think you are a little unreasonable. You have had the very best medical advice in London for him; and his case has been taken in hand by a leader of the profession. Surely —

  MRS DUBEDAT Oh, it is so cruel to keep telling me that. It seems all right; and it puts me in the wrong. But I am not in the wrong. I have faith in you; and I have no faith in the others. We have seen so many doctors: I have come to know at last when they are only talking and can do nothing. It is dif ferent with you. I feel that you know. You must listen to me, doctor. [With sudden misgiving] Am I offending you by calling you doctor instead of remembering your title?

  RIDGEON Nonsense. I a m a doctor. But mind you, dont call Walpole one.

  MRS DUBEDAT I dont care about Mr Walpole: it is you who must befriend me. Oh, will you please sit down and listen to me just for a few minutes. [He assents with a grave inclination, and sits on the sofa. She sits on the easel chair]. Thank you. I wont keep you long; but I must tell you the whole truth. Listen. I know Louis as nobody else in the world knows him or ever can know him. I am his wife. I know he has little faults: impa tiences, sensitivenesses, even little selfishnesses that are too trivial for him to notice. I know that he sometimes shocks people about money because he is so utterly above i
t, and cant understand the value ordinary people set on it. Tell me: did he — did he borrow any money from you?

  RIDGEON He asked me for some — once.

  MRS DUDEBAT [tears again in her eyes] Oh, I am so sorry — so sorry. But he will never do it again: I pledge you my word for that. He has given me his promise: here in this room just before you came; and he is incapable of breaking his word. That was his only real weakness; and now it is conquered and done with for ever.

  RIDGEON Was that really his only weakness?

  MRS DUBEDAT He is perhaps sometimes weak about women, because they adore him so, and are always laying traps for him. And of course when he says he doesnt believe in morality, ordinary pious people think he must be wicked. You can understand, cant you, how all this starts a great deal of gossip about him, and gets repeated until even good friends get set against him?

  RIDGEON Yes: I understand.

  MRS DUDEBAT Oh, if you only knew the other side of him as I do! Do you know, doctor, that if Louis dishonored himself by a really bad action, I should kill myself.

  RIDGEON Come! dont exaggerate.

  MRS DUBEDAT I should. You dont understand that, you east country people.

  RIDGEON You did not see much of the world in Cornwall, did you?

  MRS DUBEDAT [naively] Oh yes. I saw a great deal every day of the beauty of the world — more than you ever see here in London. But I saw very few people, if that is what you mean. I was an only child.

  RIDGEON That explains a good deal.

  MRS DUBEDAT I had a great many dreams; but at last they all came to one dream.

  RIDGEON [with half a sigh] Yes, the usual dream.

  MRS DUBEDAT [surprised] Is it usual?

  RIDGEON As I guess. You havnt yet told me what it was.

  MRS DUBEDAT I didnt want to waste myself. I could do nothing myself; but I had a little property and I could help with it. I had even a little beauty: dont think me vain for knowing it. I knew that men of genius always had a terrible struggle with poverty and neglect at first. My dream was to save one of them from that, and bring some charm and happiness into his life. I prayed Heaven to send me one. I firmly believe that Louis was guided to me in answer to my prayer. He was no more like the other men I had met than the Thames Embankment is like our Cornish coasts. He saw everything that I saw, and drew it for me. He understood everything. He came to me like a child. Only fancy, doctor: he never even wanted to marry me: he never thought of the things other men think of! I had to propose it myself. Then he said he had no money. When I told him I had some, he said “Oh, all right,” just like a boy. He is still like that, quite unspoiled, a man in his thoughts, a great poet and artist in his dreams, and a child in his ways. I gave him myself and all I had that he might grow to his full height with plenty of sunshine. If I lost faith in him, it would mean the wreck and failure of my life. I should go back to Cornwall and die. I could show you the very cliff I should jump off. You must cure him: you must make him quite well again for me. I know that you can do it and that nobody else can. I implore you not to refuse what I am going to ask you to do. Take Louis yourself; and let Sir Ralph cure Dr Blenkinsop.

  RIDGEON [slowly] Mrs Dubedat: do you really believe in my knowledge and skill as you say you do?

  MRS DUBEDAT Absolutely. I do not give my trust by halves.

  RIDGEON I know that. Well, I am going to test you — hard. Will you believe me when I tell you that I understand what you have just told me; that I have no desire but to serve you in the most faithful friendship; and that your hero must be preserved to you.

  MRS DUBEDAT Oh forgive me. Forgive what I said. You will preserve him to me.

  RIDGEON At all hazards. [She kisses his hand. He rises hastily]. No: you have not heard the rest. [She rises too]. You must believe me when I tell you that the one chance of preserving the hero lies in Louis being in the care of Sir Ralph.

  MRS DUBEDAT [firmly] You say so: I have no more doubt: I believe you. Thank you.

  RIDGEON Good-bye. [She takes his hand]. I hope this will be a lasting friendship.

  MRS DUBEDAT It will. My friendships end only with death.

  RIDGEON Death ends everything, doesnt it? Good-bye. With a sigh and a look of pity at her which she does not understand, he goes.

  ACT IV

  The studio. The easel is pushed back to the wall. Cardinal Death, holding his scythe and hour-glass like a sceptre and globe, sits on the throne. On the hat-stand hang the hats of Sir Patrick and Bloomfield Bonington. Walpole, just come in, is hanging up his beside them. There is a knock. He opens the door and finds Ridgeon there.

  WALPOLE Hallo, Ridgeon!

  They come into the middle of the room together, taking off their gloves.

  RIDGEON Whats the matter! Have you been sent for, too?

  WALPOLE Weve all been sent for. Ive only just come: I havnt seen him yet. The charwoman says that old Paddy Cullen has been here with B. B. for the last half-hour. [SIR PATRICK, with bad news in his face, enters from the inner room]. Well: whats up?

  SIR PATRICK Go in and see. B. B. is in there with him.

  WALPOLE goes. RIDGEON is about to follow him; but SIR PATRICK stops him with a look.

  RIDGEON What has happened?

  SIR PATRICK Do you remember Jane Marsh’s arm?

  RIDGEON Is that whats happened?

  SIR PATRICK Thats whats happened. His lung has gone like Jane’s arm. I never saw such a case. He has got through three months galloping consumption in three days.

  RIDGEON B. B. got in on the negative phase.

  SIR PATRICK Negative or positive, the lad’s done for. He wont last out the afternoon. He’ll go suddenly: Ive often seen it.

  RIDGEON So long as he goes before his wife finds him out, I dont care. I fully expected this.

  SIR PATRICK [drilyJ It’s a little hard on a lad to be killed because his wife has too high an opinion of him. Fortunately few of us are in any danger of that.

  SIR RALPH comes from the inner room and hastens between them, humanely concerned, but professionally elate and communicative.

  B. B. Ah, here you are, Ridgeon. Paddy’s told you, of course.

  RIDGEON Yes.

  B. B. It’s an enormously interesting case. You know, Colly, by Jupiter, if I didnt know as a matter of scientific fact that I’d been stimulating the phagocytes, I should say I’d been stimulating the other things. What is the explanation of it, Sir Patrick? How do you account for it, Ridgeon? Have we over-stimulated the phagocytes? Have they not only eaten up the bacilli, but attacked and destroyed the red corpuscles as well? a possibility suggested by the patient’s pallor. Nay, have they finally begun to prey on the lungs themselves? Or on one another? I shall write a paper about this case.

  WALPOLE comes back, very serious, even shocked. He comes between B. B. and RIDGEON.

  WALPOLE Whew! B. B.: youve done it this time.

  B. B. What do you mean?

  WALPOLE Killed him. The worst case of neglected blood-poisoning I ever saw. It’s too late now to do anything. He’d die under the anaesthetic.

  B. B. [offended] Killed! Really, Walpole, if your monomania were not well known, I should take such an expression very seriously.

  SIR PATRICK Come come! When youve both killed as many people as I have in my time youll feel humble enough about it. Come and look at him, Colly.

  RIDGEON and SIR PATRICK go into the inner room.

  WALPOLE I apologize, B. B. But it’s blood-poisoning.

  B. B. [recovering his irresistible good nature] My dear Walpole, e v e r y t h i n g is blood-poisoning. But upon my soul, I shall not use any of that stuff of Ridgeon’s again. What made me so sensitive about what you said just now is that, strictly between ourselves, Ridgeon has cooked our young friend’s goose.

  JENNIFER, worried and distressed, but always gentle, comes between them from the inner room. She wears a nurse’s apron.

  MRS DUBEDAT Sir Ralph: what am I to do? That man who insisted on seeing me, and sent in word that his busine
ss was important to Louis, is a newspaper man. A paragraph appeared in the paper this morning saying that Louis is seriously ill; and this man wants to interview him about it. How can people be so brutally callous?

  WALPOLE [moving vengfully towards the door] You just leave me to deal with him!

  MRS DUBEDAT [stopping him] But Louis insists on seeing him: he almost began to cry about it. And he says he cant bear his room any longer. He says he wants to [she struggles with a sob] — to die in his studio. Sir Patrick says let him have his way: it can do no harm. What shall we do?

  B. B. [encouragingly] Why, follow Sir Patrick’s excellent advice, of course. As he says, it can do him no harm; and it will no doubt do him good — a great deal of good. He will be much the better for it.

  MRS DUBEDAT [a little cheered] Will you bring the man up here, Mr Walpole, and tell him that he may see Louis, but that he mustnt exhaust him by talking? [WALPOLE nods and goes out by the outer door]. Sir Ralph, dont be angry with me; but Louis will die if he stays here. I must take him to Cornwall. He will recover there.

  B. B. [brightening wonderfully, as if Dubedat were already saved] Cornwall! The very place for him! Wonderful for the lungs. Stupid of me not to think of it before. You are his best physician after all, dear lady. An inspiration! Cornwall: of course, yes, yes, yes.

  MRS DUBEDAT [comforted and touched] You are so kind, Sir Ralph. But dont give me m u c h hope or I shall cry; and Louis cant bear that.

  B. B. [gently putting his protecting arm round her shoulders] Then let us come back to him and help to carry him in. Cornwall! of course, of course. The very thing! [They go together into the bedroom].

  WALPOLE returns with the NEWSPAPER MAN, a cheerful, affable young man who is disabled for ordinary business pursuits by a congenital erroneousness which renders him incapable of describing accurately anything he sees, or understanding or reporting accurately anything he hears. As the only employment in which these defects do not matter is journalism (for a newspaper, not having to act on its description and reports, but only to sell them to idly curious people, has nothing but honor to lose by inaccuracy and unveracity), he has perforce become a journalist, and has to keep up an air of high spirits through a daily struggle with his own illiteracy and the precariousness of his employment. He has a note-book, and occasionally attempts to make a note; but as he cannot write shorthand, and does not write with ease in any hand, he generally gives it up as a bad job before he succeeds in finishing a sentence.