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diff --git a/old/15788.txt b/old/15788.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0871f53..0000000 --- a/old/15788.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5805 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Waste, by Granville Barker - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts - -Author: Granville Barker - -Release Date: May 7, 2005 [EBook #15788] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASTE *** - - - - -Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. - - - - - - -WASTE: A TRAGEDY, IN FOUR ACTS, -BY GRANVILLE BARKER - -LONDON: SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD. -3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI. MCMIX. - - - - -_Entered at the Library of Congress, Washington, U.S.A. -All rights reserved._ - - - - -Waste - -1906-7 - - - - -WASTE - - -At Shapters, GEORGE FARRANT'S house in Hertfordshire. Ten o'clock on a -Sunday evening in summer. - -_Facing you at her piano by the window, from which she is protected by a -little screen, sits_ MRS. FARRANT; _a woman of the interesting age, -clear-eyed and all her face serene, except for a little pucker of the brows -which shows a puzzled mind upon some important matters. To become almost an -ideal hostess has been her achievement; and in her own home, as now, this -grace is written upon every movement. Her eyes pass over the head of a girl, -sitting in a low chair by a little table, with the shaded lamplight falling -on her face. This is_ LUCY DAVENPORT; _twenty-three, undefeated in anything -as yet and so unsoftened. The book on her lap is closed, for she has been -listening to the music. It is possibly some German philosopher, whom she -reads with a critical appreciation of his shortcomings. On the sofa near her -lounges_ MRS. O'CONNELL; _a charming woman, if by charming you understand a -woman who converts every quality she possesses into a means of attraction, -and has no use for any others. On the sofa opposite sits_ MISS TREBELL. _In -a few years, when her hair is quite grey, she will assume as by right the -dignity of an old maid. Between these two in a low armchair is_ LADY -DAVENPORT. _She has attained to many dignities. Mother and grandmother, she -has brought into the world and nourished not merely life but character. A -wonderful face she has, full of proud memories and fearless of the future. -Behind her, on a sofa between the windows, is_ WALTER KENT. _He is just what -the average English father would like his son to be. You can see the light -shooting out through the windows and mixing with moonshine upon a smooth -lawn. On your left is a door. There are many books in the room, hardly any -pictures, a statuette perhaps. The owner evidently sets beauty of form -before beauty of colour. It is a woman's room and it has a certain delicate -austerity. By the time you have observed everything_ MRS. FARRANT _has -played Chopin's prelude opus 28, number 20 from beginning to end._ - -LADY DAVENPORT. Thank you, my dear Julia. - -WALTER KENT. [_Protesting._] No more? - -MRS. FARRANT. I won't play for a moment longer than I feel musical. - -MISS TREBELL. Do you think it right, Julia, to finish with that after an -hour's Bach? - -MRS. FARRANT. I suddenly came over Chopinesque, Fanny; ... what's your -objection? [_as she sits by her._] - -FRANCES TREBELL. What ... when Bach has raised me to the heights of -unselfishness! - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Grimacing sweetly, her eyes only half lifted._] Does he? -I'm glad that I don't understand him. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Putting mere prettiness in its place._] One may prefer -Chopin when one is young. - -AMY O'CONNELL. And is that a reproach or a compliment? - -WALTER KENT. [_Boldly._] I do. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Or a man may ... unless he's a philosopher. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_To the rescue._] Miss Trebell, you're very hard on mere -humanity. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Completing the reproof._] That's my wretched training as -a schoolmistress, Lady Davenport ... one grew to fear it above all things. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Throwing in the monosyllable with sharp youthful -enquiry._] Why? - -FRANCES TREBELL. There were no text books on the subject. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Smiling at her friend._] Yes, Fanny ... I think you escaped -to look after your brother only just in time. - -FRANCES TREBELL. In another year I might have been head-mistress, which -commits you to approve of the system for ever. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Shaking her wise head._] I've watched the Education fever -take England.... - -FRANCES TREBELL. If I hadn't stopped teaching things I didn't understand...! - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Not without mischief._] And what was the effect on the -pupils? - -LUCY DAVENPORT. I can tell you that. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Frances never taught you. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. No, I wish she had. But I was at her sort of a school before -I went to Newnham. I know. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Very distastefully._] Up-to-date, it was described as. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. Well, it was like a merry-go-round at top speed. You felt -things wouldn't look a bit like that when you came to a standstill. - -AMY O'CONNELL. And they don't? - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_With great decision._] Not a bit. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_In her velvet tone._] I was taught the whole duty of woman -by a parson-uncle who disbelieved in his Church. - -WALTER KENT. When a man at Jude's was going to take orders.... - -AMY O'CONNELL. Jude's? - -WALTER KENT. At Oxford. The dons went very gingerly with him over bits of -science and history. - - [_This wakes a fruitful thought in_ JULIA FARRANT'S _brain._] - -MRS. FARRANT. Mamma, have you ever discussed so-called anti-Christian -science with Lord Charles? - -FRANCES TREBELL ... Cantelupe? - -MRS. FARRANT. Yes. It was over appointing a teacher for the schools down -here ... he was staying with us. The Vicar's his fervent disciple. However, -we were consulted. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. Didn't Lord Charles want you to send the boys there till -they were ready for Harrow? - -MRS. FARRANT. Yes. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Quite the last thing in Toryism! - -MRS. FARRANT. Mamma made George say we were too _nouveau riche_ to risk it. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_As she laughs._] I couldn't resist that. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Catching something of her subject's dry driving manner._] -Lord Charles takes the superior line and says ... that with his consent the -Church may teach the unalterable Truth in scientific language or legendary, -whichever is easier understanded of the people. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Is it the prospect of Disestablishment suddenly makes him so -accommodating? - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_With large contempt._] He needn't be. The majority of -people believe the world was made in an English week. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. Oh, no! - -FRANCES TREBELL. No Bishop dare deny it. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_From the heights of experience._] Dear Lucy, do you -seriously think that the English spirit--the nerve that runs down the -backbone--is disturbed by new theology ... or new anything? - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Enjoying her epigram._] What a waste of persecution -history shows us! - - WALTER KENT _now captures the conversation with a very young - politician's fervour._ - -WALTER KENT. Once they're disestablished they must make up their minds what -they do believe. - -LADY DAVENPORT. I presume Lord Charles thinks it'll hand the Church over to -him and his ... dare I say 'Sect'? - -WALTER KENT. Won't it? He knows what he wants. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Subtly._] There's the election to come yet. - -WALTER KENT. But now both parties are pledged to a bill of some sort. - -MRS. FARRANT. Political prophecies have a knack of not coming true; but, -d'you know, Cyril Horsham warned me to watch this position developing ... -nearly four years ago. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Sitting on the opposition bench sharpens the eye-sight. - -WALTER KENT. [_Ironically._] Has he been pleased with the prospect? - -MRS. FARRANT. [_With perfect diplomacy_] If the Church must be -disestablished ... better done by its friends than its enemies. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Still I don't gather he's pleased with his dear cousin -Charles's conduct. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Shrugging._] Oh, lately, Lord Charles has never concealed -his tactics. - -FRANCES TREBELL. And that speech at Leeds was the crowning move I suppose; -just asking the Nonconformists to bring things to a head? - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Judicially._] I think that was precipitate. - -WALTER KENT. [_Giving them_ LORD CHARLES'S _oratory._] Gentlemen, in these -latter days of Radical opportunism!--You know, I was there ... sitting next -to an old gentleman who shouted "Jesuit." - -FRANCES TREBELL. But supposing Mallaby and the Nonconformists hadn't been -able to force the Liberals' hand? - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Speaking as of inferior beings._] Why, they were glad of any -cry going to the Country! - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_As she considers this._] Yes ... and Lord Charles would -still have had as good a chance of forcing Lord Horsham's. It has been -clever tactics. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Who has been listening, sharp-eyed._] Contrariwise, he -wouldn't have liked a Radical Bill though, would he? - -WALTER KENT. [_With aplomb._] He knew he was safe from that. The government -must have dissolved before Christmas anyway ... and the swing of the -pendulum's a sure thing. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_With her smile._] It's never a sure thing. - -WALTER KENT. Oh, Mrs. Farrant, look how unpopular the Liberals are. - -FRANCES TREBELL. What made them bring in Resolutions? - -WALTER KENT. [_Overflowing with knowledge of the subject._] I was told -Mallaby insisted on their showing they meant business. I thought he was -being too clever ... and it turns out he was. Tommy Luxmore told me there -was a fearful row in the Cabinet about it. But on their last legs, you know, -it didn't seem to matter, I suppose. Even then, if Prothero had mustered up -an ounce of tact ... I believe they could have pulled them through.... - -FRANCES TREBELL. Not the Spoliation one. - -WALTER KENT. Well, Mr. Trebell dished that! - -FRANCES TREBELL. Henry says his speech didn't turn a vote. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_With charming irony._] How disinterested of him! - -WALTER KENT. [_Enthusiastic._] That speech did if ever a speech did. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Is there any record of a speech that ever did? He just -carried his own little following with him. - -MRS. FARRANT. But the crux of the whole matter is and has always been ... -what's to be done with the Church's money. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Visualising sovereigns._] A hundred millions or so ... -think of it! - -FRANCES TREBELL. There has been from the start a good deal of -anti-Nonconformist feeling against applying the money to secular uses. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Deprecating false modesty, on anyone's behalf._] Oh, of -course the speech turned votes ... twenty of them at least. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Determined on information._] Then I was told Lord Horsham -had tried to come to an understanding himself with the Nonconformists about -Disestablishment--oh--a long time ago ... over the Education Bill. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Is that true, Julia? - -MRS. FARRANT. How should I know? - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_With some mischief_] You might. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Weighing her words._] I don't think it would have been -altogether wise to make advances. They'd have asked more than a Conservative -government could possibly persuade the Church to give up. - -WALTER KENT. I don't see that Horsham's much better off now. He only turned -the Radicals out on the Spoliation question by the help of Trebell. And so -far ... I mean, till this election is over Trebell counts still as one of -them, doesn't he, Miss Trebell? Oh ... perhaps he doesn't. - -FRANCES TREBELL. He'll tell you he never has counted as one of them. - -MRS. FARRANT. No doubt Lord Charles would sooner have done without his help. -And that's why I didn't ask the gentle Jesuit this week-end if anyone wants -to know. - -WALTER KENT. [_Stupent at this lack of party spirit._] What ... he'd rather -have had the Liberals go to the country undefeated! - -MRS. FARRANT. [_With finesse._] The election may bring us back independent -of Mr. Trebell and anything he stands for. - -WALTER KENT. [_Sharply._] But you asked Lord Horsham to meet him. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_With still more finesse._] I had my reasons. Votes aren't -everything. - - LADY DAVENPORT _has been listening with rather a doubtful smile; she - now caps the discussion._ - -LADY DAVENPORT. I'm relieved to hear you say so, my dear Julia. On the other -hand democracy seems to have brought itself to a pretty pass. Here's a -measure, which the country as a whole neither demands nor approves of, will -certainly be carried, you tell me, because a minority on each side is -determined it shall be ... for totally different reasons. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Shrugging again._] It isn't our business to prevent popular -government looking foolish, Mamma. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Is that Tory cynicism or feminine? - - _At this moment_ GEORGE FARRANT _comes through the window; a good - natured man of forty-five. He would tell you that he was educated at - Eton and Oxford. But the knowledge which saves his life comes from the - thrusting upon him of authority and experience; ranging from the - management of an estate which he inherited at twenty-four, through the - chairmanship of a newspaper syndicate, through a successful marriage, - to a minor post in the last Tory cabinet and the prospect of one in - the near-coming next. Thanks to his agents, editors, permanent - officials, and his own common sense, he always acquits himself - creditably. He comes to his wife's side and waits for a pause in the - conversation._ - -LADY DAVENPORT. I remember Mr. Disraeli once said to me ... Clever women are -as dangerous to the State as dynamite. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Not to be impressed by Disraeli._] Well, Lady Davenport, -if men will leave our intellects lying loose about.... - -FARRANT. Blackborough's going, Julia. - -MRS. FARRANT. Yes, George. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Concluding her little apologue to_ MISS TREBELL.] Yes, my -dear, but power without responsibility isn't good for the character that -wields it either. - - [_There follows_ FARRANT _through the window a man of fifty. He has - about him that unmistakeable air of acquired wealth and power which - distinguishes many Jews and has therefore come to be regarded as a - solely Jewish characteristic. He speaks always with that swift - decision which betokens a narrowed view. This is_ RUSSELL - BLACKBOROUGH; _manufacturer, politician ... statesman, his own side - calls him._] - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_To his hostess._] If I start now, they tell me, I shall get -home before the moon goes down. I'm sorry I must get back to-night. It's -been a most delightful week-end. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Gracefully giving him a good-bye hand._] And a successful -one, I hope. - -FARRANT. We talked Education for half an hour. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Her eyebrows lifting a shade._] Education! - -FARRANT. Then Trebell went away to work. - -BLACKBOROUGH. I've missed the music, I fear. - -MRS. FARRANT. But it's been Bach. - -BLACKBOROUGH. No Chopin? - -MRS. FARRANT. For a minute only. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Why don't these new Italian men write things for the piano! -Good-night, Lady Davenport. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_As he bows over her hand._] And what has Education to do -with it? - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Non-committal himself._] Perhaps it was a subject that -compromised nobody. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Do you think my daughter has been wasting her time and her -tact? - -FARRANT. [_Clapping him on the shoulder._] Blackborough's frankly -flabbergasted at the publicity of this intrigue. - -MRS. FARRANT. Intrigue! Mr. Trebell walked across the House ... actually -into your arms. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_With a certain dubious grimness._] Well ... we've had some -very interesting talks since. And his views upon Education are quite ... -Utopian. Good bye, Miss Trebell. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Good-bye. - -MRS. FARRANT. I wouldn't be so haughty till after the election, if I were -you, Mr. Blackborough. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Indifferently._] Oh, I'm glad he's with us on the Church -question ... so far. - -MRS. FARRANT. So far as you've made up your minds? The electoral cat will -jump soon. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_A little beaten by such polite cynicism._] Well ... our -conservative principles! After all we know what they are. Good-night, Mrs. -O'Connell. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Good-night. - -FARRANT. Your neuralgia better? - -AMY O'CONNELL. By fits and starts. - -FARRANT. [_Robustly._] Come and play billiards. Horsham and Maconochie -started a game. They can neither of them play. We left them working out a -theory of angles on bits of paper. - -WALTER KENT. Professor Maconochie lured me on to golf yesterday. He doesn't -suffer from theories about that. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_With approval._] Started life as a caddie. - -WALTER KENT. [_Pulling a wry face._] So he told me after the first hole. - -BLACKBOROUGH. What's this, Kent, about Trebell's making you his secretary? - -WALTER KENT. He thinks he'll have me. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Almost reprovingly._] No question of politics? - -FARRANT. More intrigue, Blackborough. - -WALTER KENT. [_With disarming candour._] The truth is, you see, I haven't -any as yet. I was Socialist at Oxford ... but of course that doesn't count. -I think I'd better learn my job under the best man I can find ... and who'll -have me. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Gravely._] What does your father say? - -WALTER KENT. Oh, as long as Jack will inherit the property in a Tory spirit! -My father thinks it my wild oats. - - _A Footman has come in._ - -THE FOOTMAN. Your car is round, sir. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Ah! Good-night, Miss Davenport. Good-bye again, Mrs. Farrant -... a charming week-end. - - _He makes a business-like departure_, FARRANT _follows him._ - -THE FOOTMAN. A telephone message from Dr. Wedgecroft, ma'am. His thanks; -they stopped the express for him at Hitchin and he has reached London quite -safely. - -MRS. FARRANT. Thank you. - - [_The Footman goes out._ MRS. FARRANT _exhales delicately as if the - air were a little refined by_ BLACKBOROUGH'S _removal._] - -MRS. FARRANT. Mr. Blackborough and his patent turbines and his gas engines -and what not are the motive power of our party nowadays, Fanny. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Yes, you claim to be steering plutocracy. Do you never -wonder if it isn't steering you? - - MRS. O'CONNELL, _growing restless, has wandered round the room picking - at the books in their cases._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. I always like your books, Julia. It's an intellectual -distinction to know someone who has read them. - -MRS. FARRANT. That's the Communion I choose. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Aristocrat ... fastidious aristocrat. - -MRS. FARRANT. No, now. Learning's a great leveller. - -FRANCES TREBELL. But Julia ... books are quite unreal. D'you think life is a -bit like them? - -MRS. FARRANT. They bring me into touch with ... Oh, there's nothing more -deadening than to be boxed into a set in Society! Speak to a woman outside -it ... she doesn't understand your language. - -FRANCES TREBELL. And do you think by prattling Hegel with Gilbert Wedgecroft -when he comes to physic you-- - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Joyously._] Excellent physic that is. He never leaves a -prescription. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Don't you think an aristocracy of brains is the best -aristocracy, Miss Trebell? - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_With a little more bitterness than the abstraction of the -subject demands._] I'm sure it is just as out of touch with humanity as any -other ... more so, perhaps. If I were a country I wouldn't be governed by -arid intellects. - -MRS. FARRANT. Manners, Frances. - -FRANCES TREBELL. I'm one myself and I know. They're either dead or -dangerous. - - GEORGE FARRANT _comes back and goes straight to_ MRS. O'CONNELL. - -FARRANT. [_Still robustly._] Billiards, Mrs. O'Connell. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Declining sweetly._] I think not. - -FARRANT. Billiards, Lucy? - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_As robust as he._] Yes, Uncle George. You shall mark while -Walter gives me twenty-five and I beat him. - -WALTER KENT. [_With a none-of-your-impudence air._] I'll give you ten yards -start and race you to the billiard room. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. Will you wear my skirt? Oh ... Grandmamma's thinking me -vulgar. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Without prejudice._] Why, my dear, freedom of limb is -worth having ... and perhaps it fits better with freedom of tongue. - -FARRANT. [_In the proper avuncular tone._] I'll play you both ... and I'd -race you both if you weren't so disgracefully young. - -AMY O'CONNELL _has reached an open window._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. I shall go for a walk with my neuralgia. - -MRS. FARRANT. Poor thing! - -AMY O'CONNELL. The moon's good for it. - -LUCY DAVENPORT. Shall you come, Aunt Julia? - -MRS. FARRANT. [_In flat protest._] No, I will not sit up while you play -billiards. - - MRS. O'CONNELL _goes out through the one window, stands for a moment, - wistfully romantic, gazing at_ KENT _are standing at the other, - looking across the lawn._ - -FARRANT. Horsham still arguing with Maconochie. They're got to Botany now. - -WALTER KENT. Demonstrating something with a ... what's that thing? - - WALTER _goes out._ - -FARRANT. [_With a throw of his head towards the distant_ HORSHAM.] He was so -bored with our politics ... having to give his opinion too. We could just -hear your piano. - - _And he follows_ WALTER. - -MRS. FARRANT. Take Amy O'Connell that lace thing, will you, Lucy? - -LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Her tone expressing quite wonderfully her sentiments -towards the owner._] Don't you think she'd sooner catch cold? - - _She catches it up and follows the two men; then after looking round - impatiently, swings off in the direction_ MRS. O'CONNELL _took. The - three women now left together are at their ease._ - -FRANCES TREBELL. Did you expect Mr. Blackborough to get on well with Henry? - -MRS. FARRANT. He has become a millionaire by appreciating clever men when he -met them. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Yes, Julia, but his political conscience is comparatively -new-born. - -MRS. FARRANT. Well, Mamma, can we do without Mr. Trebell? - -LADY DAVENPORT. Everyone seems to think you'll come back with something of a -majority. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_A little impatient._] What's the good of that? The Bill -can't be brought into the Lords ... and who's going to take Disestablishment -through the Commons for us? Not Eustace Fowler ... not Mr. Blackborough ... -not Lord Charles ... not George! - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Warningly._] Not all your brilliance as a hostess will -keep Mr. Trebell in a Tory Cabinet. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_With wilful avoidance of the point._] Cyril Horsham is only -too glad. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Because you tell him he ought to be. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Coming to the rescue._] There is this. Henry has never -exactly called himself a Liberal. He really is elected independently. - -MRS. FARRANT. I wonder will all the garden-cities become pocket-boroughs. - -FRANCES TREBELL. I think he has made a mistake. - -MRS. FARRANT. It makes things easier now ... his having kept his freedom. - -FRANCES TREBELL. I think it's a mistake to stand outside a system. There's -an inhumanity in that amount of detachment ... - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Brilliantly._] I think a statesman may be a little inhuman. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_With keenness._] Do you mean superhuman? It's not the same -thing, you know. - -MRS. FARRANT. I know. - -LADY DAVENPORT. Most people don't know. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Proceeding with her cynicism._] Humanity achieves ... what? -Housekeeping and children. - -FRANCES TREBELL. As far as a woman's concerned. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_A little mockingly._] Now, Mamma, say that is as far as a -woman's concerned. - -LADY DAVENPORT. My dear, you know I don't think so. - -MRS. FARRANT. We may none of us think so. But there's our position ... bread -and butter and a certain satisfaction until ... Oh, Mamma, I wish I were -like you ... beyond all the passions of life. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_With great vitality._] I'm nothing of the sort. It's my -egoism's dead ... that's an intimation of mortality. - -MRS. FARRANT. I accept the snub. But I wonder what I'm to do with myself for -the next thirty years. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Help Lord Horsham to govern the country. - - JULIA FARRANT _gives a little laugh and takes up the subject this - time._ - -MRS. FARRANT. Mamma ... how many people, do you think, believe that Cyril's -_grande passion_ for me takes that form? - -LADY DAVENPORT. Everyone who knows Cyril and most people who know you. - -MRS. FARRANT. Otherwise I seem to have fulfilled my mission in life. The -boys are old enough to go to school. George and I have become happily -unconscious of each other. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_With sudden energy of mind._] Till I was forty I never -realised the fact that most women must express themselves through men. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Looking at_ FRANCES _a little curiously._] Didn't your -instinct lead you to marry ... or did you fight against it? - -FRANCES TREBELL. I don't know. Perhaps I had no vitality to spare. - -LADY DAVENPORT. That boy is a long time proposing to Lucy. - - _This effectually startles the other two from their conversational - reverie._ - -MRS. FARRANT. Walter? I'm not sure that he means to. She means to marry him -if he does. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Has she told you so? - -MRS. FARRANT. No. I judge by her business-like interest in his welfare. - -FRANCES TREBELL. He's beginning to feel the responsibility of manhood ... -doesn't know whether to be frightened or proud of it. - -LADY DAVENPORT. It's a pretty thing to watch young people mating. When -they're older and marry from disappointment or deliberate choice, thinking -themselves so worldly-wise.... - -MRS. FARRANT, [_Back to her politely cynical mood._] Well ... then at least -they don't develop their differences at the same fire-side, regretting the -happy time when neither possessed any character at all. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Giving a final douche of common sense._] My dear, any two -reasonable people ought to be able to live together. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Granted three sitting rooms. That'll be the next -middle-class political cry ... when women are heard. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Suddenly as practical as her mother._] Walter's lucky ... -Lucy won't stand any nonsense. She'll have him in the Cabinet by the time -he's fifty. - -LADY DAVENPORT. And are you the power behind your brother, Miss Trebell? - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Gravely._] He ignores women. I've forced enough good -manners on him to disguise the fact decently. His affections are two -generations ahead. - -MRS. FARRANT. People like him in an odd sort of way. - -FRANCES TREBELL. That's just respect for work done ... one can't escape from -it. - - _There is a slight pause in their talk. By some not very devious - route_ MRS. FARRANT'S _mind travels to the next subject._ - -MRS. FARRANT. Fanny ... how fond are you of Amy O'Connell? - -FRANCES TREBELL. She says we're great friends. - -MRS. FARRANT. She says that of me. - -FRANCES TREBELL. It's a pity about her husband. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Almost provokingly._] What about him? - -FRANCES TREBELL. It seems to be understood that he treats her badly. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_A little malicious._] Is there any particular reason he -should treat her well? - -FRANCES TREBELL. Don't you like her, Lady Davenport? - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_Dealing out justice._] I find her quite charming to look -at and talk to ... but why shouldn't Justin O'Connell live in Ireland for -all that? I'm going to bed, Julia. - - _She collects her belongings and gets up._ - -MRS. FARRANT. I must look in at the billiard room. - -FRANCES TREBELL. I won't come, Julia. - -MRS. FARRANT. What's your brother working at? - -FRANCES TREBELL. I don't know. Something we shan't hear of for a year, -perhaps. - -MRS. FARRANT. On the Church business, I daresay. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Did you hear Lord Horsham at dinner on the lack of dignity -in an irreligious state? - -MRS. FARRANT. Poor Cyril ... he'll have to find a way round that opinion of -his now. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Does he like leading his party? - -MRS. FARRANT. [_After due consideration._] It's an intellectual exercise. -He's the right man, Fanny. You see it isn't a party in the active sense at -all, except now and then when it's captured by someone with an axe to grind. - -FRANCES TREBELL. [_Humorously._] Such as my brother. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_As humorous._] Such as your brother. It expresses the -thought of the men who aren't taken in by the claptrap of progress. - -FRANCES TREBELL. Sometimes they've a queer way of expressing their love for -the people of England. - -MRS. FARRANT. But one must use democracy. Wellington wouldn't ... Disraeli -did. - -LADY DAVENPORT. [_At the door._] Good-night, Miss Trebell. - -FRANCES TREBELL. I'm coming ... it's past eleven. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_At the window._] What a gorgeous night! I'll come in and -kiss you, Mamma. - - FRANCES _follows_ LADY DAVENPORT _and_ MRS. FARRANT _starts across the - lawn to the billiard room.... An hour later you can see no change in - the room except that only one lamp is alight on the table in the - middle._ AMY O'CONNELL _and_ HENRY TREBELL _walk past one window and - stay for a moment in the light of the other. Her wrap is about her - shoulders. He stands looking down at her._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. There goes the moon ... it's quieter than ever now. [_She -comes in._] Is it very late? - -TREBELL. [_As he follows._] Half-past twelve. - - TREBELL _is hard-bitten, brainy, forty-five and very sure of himself. - He has a cold keen eye, which rather belies a sensitive mouth; hands - which can grip, and a figure that is austere._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. I ought to be in bed. I suppose everyone has gone. - -TREBELL. Early trains to-morrow. The billiard room lights are out. - -AMY O'CONNELL. The walk has just tired me comfortably. - -TREBELL. Sit down. [_She sits by the table. He sits by her and says with the -air of a certain buyer at a market._] You're very pretty. - -AMY O'CONNELL. As well here as by moonlight? Can't you see any wrinkles? - -TREBELL. One or two ... under the eyes. But they give character and bring -you nearer my age. Yes, Nature hit on the right curve in making you. - - _She stretches herself, cat-like._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. Praise is the greatest of luxuries, isn't it, Henry? ... -Henry ... [_she caresses the name._] - -TREBELL. Quite right ... Henry. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Henry ... Trebell. - -TREBELL. Having formally taken possession of my name.... - -AMY O'CONNELL. I'll go to bed. - - _His eyes have never moved from her. Now she breaks the contact and - goes towards the door._ - -TREBELL. I wouldn't ... my spare time for love making is so limited. - - _She turns back, quite at ease, her eyes challenging him._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. That's the first offensive thing you've said. - -TREBELL. Why offensive? - -AMY O'CONNELL. I may flirt. Making love's another matter. - -TREBELL. Sit down and explain the difference ... Mrs. O'Connell. - - _She sits down._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. Quite so. 'Mrs. O'Connell'. That's the difference. - -TREBELL. [_Provokingly._] But I doubt if I'm interested in the fact that -your husband doesn't understand you and that your marriage was a mistake ... -and how hard you find it to be strong. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Kindly._] I'm not quite a fool though you think so on a -three months' acquaintance. But tell me this ... what education besides -marriage does a woman get? - -TREBELL. [_His head lifting quickly._] Education.... - -AMY O'CONNELL. Don't be business-like. - -TREBELL. I beg your pardon. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Do you think the things you like to have taught in schools -are any use to one when one comes to deal with you? - -TREBELL. [_After a little scrutiny of her-face._] Well, if marriage is only -the means to an end ... what's the end? Not flirtation. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_With an air of self-revelation._] I don't know. To keep -one's place in the world, I suppose, one's self-respect and a sense of -humour. - -TREBELL. Is that difficult? - -AMY O'CONNELL. To get what I want, without paying more than it's worth to -me....? - -TREBELL. Never to be reckless. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_With a side-glance._] One isn't so often tempted. - -TREBELL. In fact ... to flirt with life generally. Now, what made your -husband marry you? - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Dealing with the impertinence in her own fashion._] What -would make you marry me? Don't say: Nothing on earth. - -TREBELL. [_Speaking apparently of someone else._] A prolonged fit of -idleness might make me marry ... a clever woman. But I've never been idle -for more than a week. And I've never met a clever woman ... worth calling a -woman. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Bringing their talk back to herself, and fastidiously._] -Justin has all the natural instincts. - -TREBELL. He's Roman Catholic, isn't he? - -AMY O'CONNELL. So am I ... by profession. - -TREBELL. It's a poor religion unless you really believe in it. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Appealing to him._] If I were to live at Linaskea and have -as many children as God sent, I should manage to make Justin pretty -miserable! And what would be left of me at all I should like to know? - -TREBELL. So Justin lives at Linaskea alone? - -AMY O'CONNELL. I'm told now there's a pretty housemaid ... [_she shrugs._] - -TREBELL. Does he drink too? - -AMY O'CONNELL. Oh, no. You'd like Justin, I daresay. He's clever. The -thirteenth century's what he knows about. He has done a book on its statutes -... has been doing another. - -TREBELL. And after an evening's hard work I find you here ready to flirt -with. - -AMY O'CONNELL. What have you been working at? - -TREBELL. A twentieth century statute perhaps. That's not any concern of -yours either. - - _She does not follow his thought._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. No, I prefer you in your unprofessional moments. - -TREBELL. Real flattery. I didn't know I had any. - -AMY O'CONNELL. That's why you should flirt with me ... Henry ... to -cultivate them. I'm afraid you lack imagination. - -TREBELL. One must choose something to lack in this life. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Not develop your nature to its utmost capacity. - -TREBELL. And then? - -AMY O'CONNELL. Well, if that's not an end in itself ... [_With a touch of -romantic piety._] I suppose there's the hereafter. - -TREBELL. [_Grimly material._] What, more developing! I watch people wasting -time on themselves with amazement ... I refuse to look forward to wasting -eternity. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Shaking her head._] You are very self-satisfied. - -TREBELL. Not more so than any machine that runs smoothly. And I hope not -self-conscious. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Rather attractively treating him as a child._] It would do -you good to fall really desperately in love with me ... to give me the power -to make you unhappy. - - _He suddenly becomes very definite._ - -TREBELL. At twenty-three I engaged myself to be married to a charming and -virtuous fool. I broke it off. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Did she mind much? - -TREBELL. We both minded. But I had ideals of womanhood that I wouldn't -sacrifice to any human being. Then I fell in with a woman who seduced me, -and for a whole year led me the life of a French novel ... played about -with my emotion as I had tortured that other poor girl's brains. Education -you'd call it in the one case as I called it in the other. What a waste of -time! - -AMY O'CONNELL. And what has become of your ideal? - -TREBELL. [_Relapsing to his former mood._] It's no longer a personal matter. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_With coquetry._] You're not interested in my character? - -TREBELL. Oh, yes, I am ... up to kissing point. - - _She does not shrink, but speaks with just a shade of contempt._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. You get that far more easily than a woman. That's one of my -grudges against men. Why can't women take love-affairs so lightly? - -TREBELL. There are reasons. But make a good beginning with this one. Kiss me -at once. - - _He leans towards her. She considers him quite calmly._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. No. - -TREBELL. When will you, then? - -AMY O'CONNELL. When I can't help myself ... if that time ever comes. - -TREBELL. [_Accepting the postponement in a business-like spirit._] Well ... -I'm an impatient man. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Confessing engagingly._] I made up my mind to bring you -within arms' length of me when we'd met at Lady Percival's. Do you remember? -[_His face shows no sign of it._] It was the day after your speech on the -Budget. - -TREBELL. Then I remember. But I haven't observed the process. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Subtly._] Your sister grew to like me very soon. That's all -the cunning there has been. - -TREBELL. The rest is just mutual attraction? - -AMY O'CONNELL. And opportunities. - -TREBELL. Such as this. - - _At the drop of their voices they become conscious of the silent - house._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. Do you really think everyone has gone to bed? - -TREBELL. [_Disregardful._] And what is it makes my pressing attentions -endurable ... if one may ask? - -AMY O'CONNELL. Some spiritual need or other, I suppose, which makes me risk -unhappiness ... in fact, welcome it. - -TREBELL. [_With great briskness._] Your present need is a good shaking.... I -seriously mean that. You get to attach importance to these shades of -emotion. A slight physical shock would settle them all. That's why I asked -you to kiss me just now. - -AMY O'CONNELL. You haven't very nice ideas, have you? - -TREBELL. There are three facts in life that call up emotion ... Birth, -Death, and the Desire for Children. The niceties are shams. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Then why do you want to kiss me? - -TREBELL. I don't ... seriously. But I shall in a minute just to finish the -argument. Too much diplomacy always ends in a fight. - -AMY O'CONNELL. And if I don't fight ... it'd be no fun for you, I suppose? - -TREBELL. You would get that much good out of me. For it's my point of honour -... to leave nothing I touch as I find it. - - _He is very close to her._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. You're frightening me a little ... - -TREBELL. Come and look at the stars again. Come along. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Give me my wrap ... [_He takes it up, but holds it._] Well, -put it on me. [_He puts it round her, but does not withdraw his arms._] Be -careful, the stars are looking at you. - -TREBELL. No, they can't see so far as we can. That's the proper creed. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Softly, almost shyly._] Henry. - -TREBELL. [_Bending closer to her._] Yes, pretty thing. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Is this what you call being in love? - - _He looks up and listens._ - -TREBELL. Here's somebody coming. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Oh!... - -TREBELL. What does it matter? - -AMY O'CONNELL. I'm untidy or something.... - - _She slips out, for they are close to the window. The_ FOOTMAN - _enters, stops suddenly._ - -THE FOOTMAN. I beg your pardon, sir. I thought everyone had gone. - -TREBELL. I've just been for a walk. I'll lock up if you like. - -THE FOOTMAN. I can easily wait up, sir. - -TREBELL. [_At the window._] I wouldn't. What do you do ... just slide the -bolt? - -THE FOOTMAN. That's all, sir. - -TREBELL. I see. Good-night. - -THE FOOTMAN. Good-night, sir. - - _He goes._ TREBELL'S _demeanour suddenly changes, becomes alert, with - the alertness of a man doing something in secret. He leans out of the - window and whispers._ - -TREBELL. Amy! - - _There is no answer, so he gently steps out. For a moment the room is - empty and there is silence. Then_ AMY _has flown from him into the - safety of lights. She is flushed, trembling, but rather ecstatic, and - her voice has lost all affectation now._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. Oh ... oh ... you shouldn't have kissed me like that! - - TREBELL _stands in the window-way; a light in his eyes, and speaks low - but commandingly._ - -TREBELL. Come here. - - _Instinctively she moves towards him. They speak in whispers._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. He was locking up. - -TREBELL. I've sent him to bed. - -AMY O'CONNELL. He won't go. - -TREBELL. Never mind him. - -AMY O'CONNELL. We're standing full in the light ... anyone could see us. - -TREBELL. [_With fierce egotism._] Think of me ... not of anyone else. [_He -draws her from the window; then does not let her go._] May I kiss you again? - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Her eyes closed._] Yes. - - _He kisses her. She stiffens in his arms; then laughs almost joyously, - and is commonplace._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. Well ... let me get my breath. - -TREBELL. [_Letting her stand free._] Now ... go along. - - _Obediently she turns to the door, but sinks on the nearest chair._ - -AMY O'CONNELL. In a minute, I'm a little faint. [_He goes to her quickly._] -No, it's nothing. - -TREBELL. Come into the air again. [_Then half seriously._] I'll race you -across the lawn. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Still breathless and a little hysterical._] Thank you! - -TREBELL. Shall I carry you? - -AMY O'CONNELL. Don't be silly. [_She recovers her self-possession, gets up -and goes to the window, then looks back at him and says very beautifully._] -But the night's beautiful, isn't it? - - _He has her in his arms again, more firmly this time._ - -TREBELL. Make it so. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Struggling ... with herself_] Oh, why do you rouse me like -this? - -TREBELL. Because I want you. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Want me to...? - -TREBELL. Want you to ... kiss me just once. - -AMY O'CONNELL. [_Yielding._] If I do ... don't let me go mad, will you? - -TREBELL. Perhaps. [_He bends over her, her head drops back._] Now. - -AMY O'CONNELL. Yes! - - _She kisses him on the mouth. Then he would release her, but suddenly - she clings again._ - -Oh ... don't let me go. - -TREBELL. [_With fierce pride of possession._] Not yet. - - _She is fragile beside him. He lifts her in his arms and carries her - out into the darkness._ - - - - -THE SECOND ACT - -TREBELL'S house in Queen Anne Street, London. Eleven o'clock on an October -morning. - - -TREBELL'S _working room is remarkable chiefly for the love of sunlight it -evidences in its owner. The walls are white; the window which faces you is -bare of all but the necessary curtains. Indeed, lack of draperies testifies -also to his horror of dust. There faces you besides a double door; when it -is opened another door is seen. When that is opened you discover a writing -table, and beyond can discern a book-case filled with heavy volumes--law -reports perhaps. The little room beyond is, so to speak, an under-study. -Between the two rooms a window, again barely curtained, throws light down -the staircase. But in the big room, while the books are many the choice of -them is catholic; and the book-cases are low, running along the wall. There -is an armchair before the bright fire, which is on your right. There is a -sofa. And in the middle of the room is an enormous double writing table -piled tidily with much appropriate impedimenta, blue books and pamphlets and -with an especial heap of unopened letters and parcels. At the table sits_ -TREBELL _himself, in good health and spirits, but eyeing askance the work to -which he has evidently just returned. His sister looks in on him. She is -dressed to go out and has a housekeeping air._ - -FRANCES. Are you busy, Henry? - -TREBELL. More or less. Come in. - -FRANCES. You'll dine at home? - -TREBELL. Anyone coming? - -FRANCES. Julia Farrant and Lucy have run up to town, I think. I thought of -going round and asking them to come in ... but perhaps your young man will -be going there. Amy O'Connell said something vague about our going to -Charles Street ... but she may be out of town by now. - -TREBELL. Well ... I'll be in anyhow. - -FRANCES. [_Going to the window as she buttons her gloves._] Were you on deck -early this morning? It must have been lovely. - -TREBELL. No, I turned in before we got out of le Havre. I left Kent on deck -and found him there at six. - -FRANCES. I don't think autumn means to come at all this year ... it'll be -winter one morning. September has been like a hive of bees, busy and drowsy. -By the way, Cousin Mary has another baby ... a girl. - -TREBELL. [_Indifferent to the information._] That's the fourth. - -FRANCES. Fifth. They asked me down for the christening ... but I really -couldn't. - -TREBELL. September's the month for Tuscany. The car chose to break down one -morning just as we were starting North again; so we climbed one of the -little hills and sat for a couple of hours, while I composed a fifteenth -century electioneering speech to the citizens of Siena. - -FRANCES. [_With a half smile._] Have you a vein of romance for holiday time? - -TREBELL. [_Dispersing the suggestion._] Not at all romantic ... nothing but -figures and fiscal questions. That was the hardest commercial civilisation -there has been, though you only think of its art and its murders now. - -FRANCES. The papers on both sides have been very full of you ... saying you -hold the moral balance ... or denying it. - -TREBELL. An interviewer caught me at Basle. I offered to discuss the state -of the Swiss navy. - -FRANCES. Was that before Lord Horsham wrote to you? - -TREBELL. Yes, his letter came to Innsbruck. He "expressed" it somehow. Why -... it isn't known that he will definitely ask me to join? - -FRANCES. The Whitehall had a leader before the Elections were well over to -say that he must ... but, of course, that was Mr. Farrant. - -TREBELL. [_Knowingly._] Mrs. Farrant. I saw it in Paris ... it just caught -me up. - -FRANCES. The Times is very shy over the whole question ... has a letter from -a fresh bishop every day ... doesn't talk of you very kindly yet. - -TREBELL. Tampering with the Establishment, even Cantelupe's way, will be a -pill to the real old Tory right to the bitter end. - - WALTER KENT _comes in, very fresh and happy-looking. A young man - started in life._ TREBELL _hails him._ - -TREBELL. Hullo ... you've not been long getting shaved. - -KENT. How do you do, Miss Trebell? Lucy turned me out. - -FRANCES. My congratulations. I've not seen you since I heard the news. - -KENT. [_Glad and unembarrassed._] Thank you. I do deserve them, don't I? -Mrs. Farrant didn't come down ... she left us to breakfast together. But -I've a message for you ... her love and she is in town. I went and saw Lord -Charles, sir. He will come to you and be here at half past seven. - -TREBELL. Look at these. - - _He smacks on the back, so to speak, the pile of parcels and letters._ - -KENT. Oh, lord! ... I'd better start on them. - -FRANCES. [_Continuing in her smooth oldmaidish manner._] Thank you for -getting engaged just before you went off with Henry ... it has given me my -only news of him, through Lucy and your postcards. - -TREBELL. Oh, what about Wedgecroft? - -KENT. I think it was he spun up just as I'd been let in. - -TREBELL. Oh, well ... [_And he rings at the telephone which is on his -table._] - -KENT. [_Confiding in_ MISS TREBELL.] We're a common sense couple, aren't we? -I offered to ask to stay behind but she.... - - SIMPSON, _the maid, comes in._ - -SIMPSON. Dr. Wedgecroft, sir. - - WEDGECROFT _is on her heels. If you have an eye for essentials you may - tell at once that he is a doctor, but if you only notice externals you - will take him, for anything else. He is over forty and in perfect - health of body and spirit. His enthusiasms are his vitality and he has - too many of them ever to lose one. He squeezes_ MISS TREBELL'S _hand - with an air of fearless affection which is another of his - characteristics and not the least loveable._ - -WEDGECROFT. How are you? - -FRANCES. I'm very well, thanks. - -WEDGECROFT. [_To_ TREBELL, _as they shake hands._] You're looking fit. - -TREBELL. [_With tremendous emphasis._] I am! - -WEDGECROFT. You've got the motor eye though. - -TREBELL. Full of dust? - -WEDGECROFT. Look at Kent's. [_He takes_ WALTER'S _arm._] It's a slight but -serious contraction of the pupil ... which I charge fifty guineas to cure. - -FRANCES. It's the eye of faith in you and your homeopathic doses. Don't you -interfere with it. - - FRANCES TREBELL, _housekeeper, goes out._ KENT _has seized on the - letters and is carrying them to his room._ - -KENT. This looks like popularity and the great heart of the people, doesn't -it? - -WEDGECROFT. Trebell, you're not ill, and I've work to do. - -TREBELL. I want ten minutes. Keep anybody out, Kent. - -KENT. I'll switch that speaking tube arrangement to my room. - - TREBELL, _overflowing with vitality, starts to face the floor._ - -TREBELL. I've seen the last of Pump Court, Gilbert. - -WEDGECROFT. The Bar ought to give you a testimonial ... to the man who not -only could retire on twenty years' briefs, but has. - -TREBELL. Fifteen. But I bled the City sharks with a good conscience ... -quite freely. - -WEDGECROFT. [_With a pretence at grumbling._] I wish I could retire. - -TREBELL. No you don't. Doctoring's a priestcraft ... you've taken vows. - -WEDGECROFT. Then why don't you establish _our_ church instead of ... - -TREBELL. Yes, my friend ... but you're a heretic. I'd have to give the -Medical Council power to burn you at the stake. - -KENT. [_With the book packages._] Parcel from the S.P.C.K., sir. - -TREBELL. I know.... Disestablishment a crime against God; sermon preached by -the Vicar of something Parva in eighteen seventy three. I hope you're aware -it's your duty to read all those. - -KENT. Suppose they convert me? Lucy wanted to know if she could see you. - -TREBELL. [_His eyebrows up._] Yes, I'll call at Mrs. Farrant's. Oh, wait. -Aren't they coming to dinner? - -KENT. To-night? No, I think they go back to Shapters by the five o'clock. I -told her she might come round about twelve on the chance. - -TREBELL. Yes ... if Cantelupe's punctual ... I'd sooner not have too long -with him. - -KENT. All right, then. - - _He goes, shutting the door; then you hear the door of his room shut - too. The two friends face each other, glad of a talk._ - -TREBELL. Well? - -WEDGECROFT. Well ... you'll never do it. - -TREBELL. Yes, I shall. - -WEDGECROFT. You can't carry any bill to be a credit to you with the coming -Tory cabinet on your back. You know the Government is cursing you with its -dying breath. - -TREBELL. [_Rubbing his hands._] Of course. They've been beaten out of the -House and in now. I suppose they will meet Parliament. - -WEDGECROFT. They must, I think. It's over a month since-- - -TREBELL. [_His thoughts running quickly._] There'll only be a nominal -majority of sixteen against them. The Labour lot are committed on their side -... and now that the Irish have gone-- - -WEDGECROFT. But they'll be beaten on the Address first go. - -TREBELL. Yes ... Horsham hasn't any doubt of it. - -WEDGECROFT. He'll be in office within a week of the King's speech. - -TREBELL. [_With another access of energy._] I'll pull the bill that's in my -head through a Horsham cabinet and the House. Then I'll leave them ... -they'll go to the country-- - -WEDGECROFT. You know Percival's pledge about that at Bristol wasn't very -definite. - -TREBELL. Horsham means to. - -WEDGECROFT. [_With friendly contempt._] Oh, Horsham! - -TREBELL. Anyway, it's about Percival I want you. How ill is he? - -WEDGECROFT. Not very. - -TREBELL. Is he going to die? - -WEDGECROFT. Well, I'm attending him. - -TREBELL. [_Pinked._] Yes ... that's a good answer. How does he stomach me in -prospect as a colleague, so far? - -WEDGECROFT. Sir, professional etiquette forbids me to disclose what a -patient may confess in the sweat of his agony. - -TREBELL. He'll be Chancellor again and lead the House. - -WEDGECROFT. Why not? He only grumbles that he's getting old. - -TREBELL. [_Thinking busily again._] The difficulty is I shall have to stay -through one budget with them. He'll have a surplus ... well, it looks like -it ... and my only way of agreeing with him will be to collar it. - -WEDGECROFT. But ... good heavens! ... you'll have a hundred million or so to -give away when you've disendowed. - -TREBELL. Not to give away. I'll sell every penny. - -WEDGECROFT. [_With an incredulous grin._] You're not going back to extending -old-age pensions after turning the unfortunate Liberals out on it, are you? - -TREBELL. No, no ... none of your half crown measures. They can wait to round -off their solution of that till they've the courage to make one big bite of -it. - -WEDGECROFT. We shan't see the day. - -TREBELL. [_Lifting the subject off its feet._] Not if I come out of the -cabinet and preach revolution? - -WEDGECROFT. Or will they make a Tory of you? - -TREBELL. [_Acknowledging that stroke with a return grin._] It'll be said -they have when the bill is out. - -WEDGECROFT. It's said so already. - -TREBELL. Who knows a radical bill when he sees it! - -WEDGECROFT. I'm not pleased you have to be running a tilt against the party -system. [_He becomes a little dubious._] My friend ... it's a nasty -windmill. Oh, you've not seen that article in the Nation on Politics and -Society ... it's written at Mrs. Farrant and Lady Lurgashall and that set. -They hint that the Tories would never have had you if it hadn't been for -this bad habit of opposite party men meeting each other. - -TREBELL. [_Unimpressed._] Excellent habit! What we really want in this -country is a coalition of all the shibboleths with the rest of us in -opposition ... for five years only. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Smiling generously._] Well, it's a sensation to see you become -arbiter. The Tories are owning they can't do without you. Percival likes you -personally ... Townsend don't matter ... Cantelupe you buy with a price, I -suppose ... Farrant you can put in your pocket. I tell you I think the man -you may run up against is Blackborough. - -TREBELL. No, all he wants is to be let look big ... and to have an idea -given him when he's going to make a speech, which isn't often. - -WEDGECROFT. Otherwise ... I suppose ... now I may go down to history as -having been in your confidence. I'm very glad you've arrived. - -TREBELL. [_With great seriousness._] I've sharpened myself as a weapon to -this purpose. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Kindly._] And you're sure of yourself, aren't you? - -TREBELL. [_Turning his wrist._] Try. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Slipping his doctor's fingers over the the pulse._] Seventy, I -should say. - -TREBELL. I promise you it hasn't varied a beat these three big months. - -WEDGECROFT. Well, I wish it had. Perfect balance is most easily lost. How do -you know you've the power of recovery? ... and it's that gets one up in the -morning day by day. - -TREBELL. Is it? My brain works steadily on ... hasn't failed me yet. I keep -it well fed. [_He breathes deeply._] But I'm not sure one shouldn't have -been away from England for five years instead of five weeks ... to come back -to a job like this with a fresh mind. D'you know why really I went back on -the Liberals over this question? Not because they wanted the church money -for their pensions ... but because all they can see in Disestablishment is -destruction. Any fool can destroy! I'm not going to let a power like the -Church get loose from the State. A thirteen hundred years, tradition of -service ... and all they can think of is to cut it adrift! - -WEDGECROFT. I think the Church is moribund. - -TREBELL. Oh, yes, of course you do ... you sentimental agnostic anarchist. -Nonsense! The supernatural's a bit blown upon ... till we re-discover what -it means. But it's not essential. Nor is the Christian doctrine. Put a -Jesuit in a corner and shut the door and he'll own that. No ... the -tradition of self-sacrifice and fellowship in service for its own sake ... -that's the spirit we've to capture and keep. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Really struck._] A secular Church! - -TREBELL. [_With reasoning in his tone._] Well ... why not? Listen here. In -drafting an act of Parliament one must alternately imagine oneself God -Almighty and the most ignorant prejudiced little blighter who will be -affected by what's passed. God says: Let's have done with Heaven and Hell -... it's the Earth that shan't pass away. Why not turn all those theology -mongers into doctors or schoolmasters? - -WEDGECROFT. As to doctors-- - -TREBELL. Quite so, you naturally prejudiced blighter. That priestcraft don't -need re-inforcing. - -WEDGECROFT. It needs recognition. - -TREBELL. What! It's the only thing most people believe in. Talk about -superstition! However, there's more life in you. Therefore it's to be -schoolmasters. - -WEDGECROFT. How? - -TREBELL. Listen again, young man. In the youth of the world, when priests -were the teachers of men.... - -WEDGECROFT. [_Not to be preached at._] And physicians of men. - -TREBELL. Shut up. - -WEDGECROFT. If there's any real reform going, I want my profession made into -a state department. I won't shut up for less. - -TREBELL. [_Putting this aside with one finger._] I'll deal with you later. -There's still Youth in the world in another sense; but the priests haven't -found out the difference yet, so they're wasting most of their time. - -WEDGECROFT. Religious education won't do now-a-days. - -TREBELL. What's Now-a-days? You're very dull, Gilbert. - -WEDGECROFT. I'm not duller than the people who will have to understand your -scheme. - -TREBELL. They won't understand it. I shan't explain to them that education -_is_ religion, and that those who deal in it are priests without any laying -on of hands. - -WEDGECROFT. No matter what they teach? - -TREBELL. No ... the matter is how they teach it. I see schools in the -future, Gilbert, not built next to the church, but on the site of the -church. - -WEDGECROFT. Do you think the world is grown up enough to do without dogma? - -TREBELL. Yes, I do. - -WEDGECROFT. What!... and am I to write my prescriptions in English? - -TREBELL. Yes, you are. - -WEDGECROFT. Lord save us! I never thought to find you a visionary. - -TREBELL. Isn't it absurd to think that in a hundred years we shall be giving -our best brains and the price of them not to training grown men into the -discipline of destruction ... not even to curing the ills which we might be -preventing ... but to teaching our children. There's nothing else to be done -... nothing else matters. But it's work for a priesthood. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Affected; not quite convinced._] Do you think you can buy a -tradition and transmute it? - -TREBELL. Don't mock at money. - -WEDGECROFT. I never have. - -TREBELL. But you speak of it as an end not as a means. That's unfair. - -WEDGECROFT. I speaks as I finds. - -TREBELL. I'll buy the Church, not with money, but with the promise of new -life. [_A certain rather gleeful cunning comes over him._] It'll only look -like a dose of reaction at first ... Sectarian Training Colleges endowed to -the hilt. - -WEDGECROFT. What'll the Nonconformists say? - -TREBELL. Bribe them with the means of equal efficiency. The crux of the -whole matter will be in the statutes. I'll force on those colleges. - -WEDGECROFT. They'll want dogma. - -TREBELL. Dogma's not a bad thing if you've power to adapt it occasionally. - -WEDGECROFT. Instead of spending your brains in explaining it. Yes, I agree. - -TREBELL. [_With full voice._] But in the creed I'll lay down as unalterable -there shall be neither Jew nor Greek.... What do you think of St. Paul, -Gilbert? - -WEDGECROFT. I'd make him the head of a college. - -TREBELL. I'll make the Devil himself head of a college, if he'll undertake -to teach honestly all he knows. - -WEDGECROFT. And he'll conjure up Comte and Robespierre for you to assist in -this little _rechauffée_ of their schemes. - -TREBELL. Hullo! Comte I knew about. Have I stolen from Robespierre too? - -WEDGECROFT. [_Giving out the epigram with an air._] Property to him who can -make the best use of it. - -TREBELL. And then what we must do is to give the children power over their -teachers? - - _Now he is comically enigmatic._ WEDGECROFT _echoes him._ - -WEDGECROFT. And what exactly do you mean by that? - -TREBELL. [_Serious again._] How positive a pedagogue would you be if you had -to prove your cases and justify your creed every century or so to the pupils -who had learnt just a little more than you could teach them? Give power to -the future, my friend ... not to the past. Give responsibility ... even if -you give it for your own discredit. What's beneath trust deeds and last -wills and testaments, and even acts of Parliament and official creeds? Fear -of the verdict of the next generation ... fear of looking foolish in their -eyes. Ah, we ... doing our best now ... must be ready for every sort of -death. And to provide the means of change and disregard of the past is a -secret of statesmanship. Presume that the world will come to an end every -thirty years if it's not reconstructed. Therefore give responsibility ... -give responsibility ... give the children power. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Disposed to whistle._] Those statutes will want some framing. - -TREBELL. [_Relapsing to a chuckle._] There's an incidental change to -foresee. Disappearance of the parson into the schoolmaster ... and the -Archdeacon into the Inspector ... and the Bishop into--I rather hope he'll -stick to his mitre, Gilbert. - -WEDGECROFT. Some Ruskin will arise and make him. - -TREBELL. [_As he paces the room and the walls of it fade away to him._] What -a church could be made of the best brains in England, sworn only to learn -all they could teach what they knew without fear of the future or favour to -the past ... sworn upon their honour as seekers after truth, knowingly to -tell no child a lie. It will come. - -WEDGECROFT. A priesthood of women too? There's the tradition of service with -them. - -TREBELL. [_With the sourest look yet on his face._] Slavery ... not quite -the same thing. And the paradox of such slavery is that they're your only -tyrants. - - [_At this moment the bell of the telephone upon the table rings. He - goes to it talking the while._] - -One has to be very optimistic not to advocate the harem. That's simple and -wholesome.... Yes? - - KENT _comes in._ - -KENT. Does it work? - -TREBELL. [_Slamming down the receiver._] You and your new toy! What is it? - -KENT. I'm not sure about the plugs of it ... I thought I'd got them wrong. -Mrs. O'Connell has come to see Miss Trebell, who is out, and she says will -we ask you if any message has been left for her. - -TREBELL. No. Oh, about dinner? Well, she's round at Mrs. Farrant's. - -KENT. I'll ring them up. - - _He goes back into his room to do so leaving_ TREBELL'S _door open. - The two continue their talk._ - -TREBELL. My difficulties will be with Percival. - -WEDGECROFT. Not over the Church. - -TREBELL. You see I must discover how keen he'd be on settling the Education -quarrel, once and for all ... what there is left of it. - -WEDGECROFT. He's not sectarian. - -TREBELL. It'll cost him his surplus. When'll he be up and about? - -WEDGECROFT. Not for a week or more. - -TREBELL. [_Knitting his brow._] And I've to deal with Cantelupe. Curious -beggar, Gilbert. - -WEDGECROFT. Not my sort. He'll want some dealing with over your bill as -introduced to me. - -TREBELL. I've not cross-examined company promoters for ten years without -learning how to do business with a professional high churchman. - -WEDGECROFT. Providence limited ... eh? - - _They are interrupted by_ MRS. O'CONNELL'S _appearance in the doorway. - She is rather pale, very calm; but there is pain in her eyes and her - voice is unnaturally steady._ - -AMY. Your maid told me to come up and I'm interrupting business.... I -thought she was wrong. - -TREBELL. [_With no trace of self-consciousness._] Well ... how are you, -after this long time? - -AMY. How do you do? [_Then she sees_ WEDGECROFT _and has to control a -shrinking from him._] Oh! - -WEDGECROFT. How are you, Mrs. O'Connell? - -TREBELL. Kent is telephoning to Frances. He knows where she is. - -AMY. How are you, Dr. Wedgecroft? [_then to_ TREBELL.] Did you have a good -holiday? London pulls one to pieces wretchedly. I shall give up living here -at all. - -WEDGECROFT. You look very well. - -AMY. Do I! - -TREBELL. A very good holiday. Sit down ... he won't be a minute. - - _She sits on the nearest chair._ - -AMY. You're not ill ... interviewing a doctor? - -TREBELL. The one thing Wedgecroft's no good at is doctoring. He keeps me -well by sheer moral suasion. - - KENT _comes out of his room and is off downstairs._ - - TREBELL _calls to him._ - -TREBELL. Mrs. O'Connell's here. - -KENT. Oh! [_He comes back and into the room._] Miss Trebell hasn't got there -yet. - - WEDGECROFT _has suddenly looked at his watch._ - -WEDGECROFT. I must fly. Good bye, Mrs. O'Connell. - -AMY. [_Putting her hand, constrained by its glove, into his open hand._] I -am always a little afraid of you. - -WEDGECROFT. That isn't the feeling a doctor wants to inspire. - -KENT. [_To_ TREBELL.] David Evans-- - -TREBELL. Evans? - -KENT. The reverend one ... is downstairs and wants to see you. - -WEDGECROFT. [_As he comes to them._] Hampstead Road Tabernacle ... Oh, the -mammon of righteousness! - -TREBELL. Shut up! How long have I before Lord Charles--? - -KENT. Only ten minutes. - - MRS. O'CONNELL _goes to sit at the big table, and apparently idly - takes a sheet of paper to scribble on._ - -TREBELL. [_Half thinking, half questioning._] He's a man I can say nothing -to politely. - -WEDGECROFT. I'm off to Percival's now. Then I've another case and I'm due -back at twelve. If there's anything helpful to say I'll look in again for -two minutes ... not more. - -TREBELL. You're a good man. - -WEDGECROFT. [_As he goes._] Congratulations, Kent. - -KENT. [_Taking him to the stairs._] Thank you very much. - -AMY. [_Beckoning with her eyes._] What's this, Mr. Trebell? - -TREBELL. Eh? I beg your pardon. - - _He goes behind her and reads over her shoulder what she has written._ - KENT _comes back._ - -KENT. Shall I bring him up here? - - TREBELL _looks up and for a moment stares at his secretary rather - sharply, then speaks in a matter-of-fact voice._ - -TREBELL. See him yourself, downstairs. Talk to him for five minutes ... find -out what he wants. Tell him it will be as well for the next week or two if -he can say he hasn't seen me. - -KENT. Yes. - - _He goes._ TREBELL _follows him to the door which he shuts. Then he - turns to face_ AMY, _who is tearing up the paper she wrote on._ - -TREBELL. What is it? - -AMY. [_Her steady voice breaking, her carefully calculated control giving -way._] Oh Henry ... Henry! - -TREBELL. Are you in trouble? - -AMY. You'll hate me, but ... oh, it's brutal of you to have been away so -long. - -TREBELL. Is it with your husband? - -AMY. Perhaps. Oh, come nearer to me ... do. - -TREBELL. [_Coming nearer without haste or excitement._] Well? [_Her eyes are -closed._] My dear girl, I'm too busy for love-making now. If there are any -facts to be faced, let me have them ... quite quickly. - - _She looks up at him for a moment; then speaks swiftly and sharply as - one speaks of disaster._ - -AMY. There's a danger of my having a child ... your child ... some time in -April. That's all. - -TREBELL. [_A sceptic who has seen a vision._] Oh ... it's impossible. - -AMY. [_Flashing at him, revengefully._] Why? - -TREBELL. [_Brought to his mundane self_] Well ... are you sure? - -AMY. [_In sudden agony._] D'you think I want it to be true? D'you think I--? -You don't know what it is to have a thing happening in spite of you. - -TREBELL. [_His face set in thought._] Where have you been since we met? - -AMY. Not to Ireland ... I haven't seen Justin for a year. - -TREBELL. All the easier for you not to see him for another year. - -AMY. That wasn't what you meant. - -TREBELL. It wasn't ... but never mind. - - _They are silent for a moment ... miles apart ... Then she speaks - dully._ - -AMY. We do hate each other ... don't we! - -TREBELL. Nonsense. Let's think of what matters. - -AMY. [_Aimlessly._] I went to a man at Dover ... picked him out of the -directory ... didn't give my own name ... pretended I was off abroad. He was -a kind old thing ... said it was all most satisfactory. Oh, my God! - -TREBELL. [_He goes to bend over her kindly._] Yes, you've had a torturing -month or two. That's been wrong, I'm sorry. - -AMY. Even now I have to keep telling myself that it's so ... otherwise I -couldn't understand it. Any more than one really believes one will ever die -... one doesn't believe that, you know. - -TREBELL. [_On the edge of a sensation that is new to him._] I am told that a -man begins to feel unimportant from this moment forward. Perhaps it's true. - -AMY. What has it to do with you anyhow? We don't belong to each other. How -long were we together that night? Half an hour! You didn't seem to care a -bit until after you'd kissed me and ... this is an absurd consequence. - -TREBELL. Nature's a tyrant. - -AMY. Oh, it's my punishment ... I see that well enough ... for thinking -myself so clever ... forgetting my duty and religion ... not going to -confession, I mean. [_Then hysterically._] God can make you believe in Him -when he likes, can't he? - -TREBELL. [_With comfortable strength._] My dear girl, this needs your pluck. -[_And he sits by her._] All we have to do is to prevent it being found out. - -AMY. Yes ... the scandal would smash you, wouldn't it? - -TREBELL. There isn't going to be any scandal. - -AMY. No ... if we're careful. You'll tell me what to do, won't you? Oh, it's -a relief to be able to talk about it. - -TREBELL. For one thing, you must take care of yourself and stop worrying. - - _It soothes her to feel that he is concerned; but it is not enough to - be soothed._ - -AMY. Yes, I wouldn't like to have been the means of smashing you, Henry ... -especially as you don't care for me. - -TREBELL. I intend to care for you. - -AMY. Love me, I mean. I wish you did ... a little; then perhaps I shouldn't -feel so degraded. - -TREBELL. [_A shade impatiently, a shade contemptuously_] I can say I love -you if that'll make things easier. - -AMY. [_More helpless than ever._] If you'd said it at first I should be -taking it for granted ... though it wouldn't be any more true, I daresay, -than now ... when I should know you weren't telling the truth. - -TREBELL. Then I'd do without so much confusion. - -AMY. Don't be so heartless. - -TREBELL. [_As he leaves her._] We seem to be attaching importance to such -different things. - -AMY. [_Shrill even at a momentary desertion._] What do you mean? I want -affection now just as I want food. I can't do without it ... I can't reason -things out as you can. D'you think I haven't tried? [_Then in sudden -rebellion._] Oh, the physical curse of being a woman ... no better than any -savage in this condition ... worse off than an animal. It's unfair. - -TREBELL. Never mind ... you're here now to hand me half the responsibility, -aren't you? - -AMY. As if I could! If I have to lie through the night simply shaking with -bodily fear much longer ... I believe I shall go mad. - - _This aspect of the matter is meaningless to him. He returns to the - practical issue._ - -TREBELL. There's nobody that need be suspecting, is there? - -AMY. My maid sees I'm ill and worried and makes remarks ... only to me so -far. Don't I look a wreck? I nearly ran away when I saw Dr. Wedgecroft ... -some of these men are so clever. - -TREBELL. [_Calculating._] Someone will have to be trusted. - -AMY. [_Burrowing into her little tortured self again._] And I ought to feel -as if I had done Justin a great wrong ... but I don't. I hate you now; now -and then. I was being myself. You've brought me down. I feel worthless. - - _The last word strikes him. He stares at her._ - -TREBELL. Do you? - -AMY. [_Pleadingly._] There's only one thing I'd like you to tell me, Henry -... it isn't much. That night we were together ... it was for a moment -different to everything that has ever been in your life before, wasn't it? - -TREBELL. [_Collecting himself as if to explain to a child._] I must make you -understand ... I must get you to realise that for a little time to come -you're above the law ... above even the shortcomings and contradictions of a -man's affection. - -AMY. But let us have one beautiful memory to share. - -TREBELL. [_Determined she shall face the cold logic of her position._] -Listen. I look back on that night as one looks back on a fit of drunkenness. - -AMY. [_Neither understanding nor wishing to; only shocked and hurt._] You -beast. - -TREBELL. [_With bitter sarcasm._] No, don't say that. Won't it comfort you -to think of drunkenness as a beautiful thing? There are precedents enough -... classic ones. - -AMY. You mean I might have been any other woman. - -TREBELL. [_Quite inexorable._] Wouldn't any other woman have served the -purpose ... and is it less of a purpose because we didn't know we had it? -Does my unworthiness then ... if you like to call it so ... make you -unworthy now? I must make you see that it doesn't. - -AMY. [_Petulantly hammering at her idée fixe._] But you didn't love me ... -and you don't love me. - -TREBELL. [_Keeping his patience._] No ... only within the last five minutes -have I really taken the smallest interest in you. And now I believe I'm half -jealous. Can you understand that? You've been talking a lot of nonsense -about your emotions and your immortal soul. Don't you see it's only now that -you've become a person of some importance to the world ... and why? - -AMY. [_Losing her patience, childishly._] What do you mean by the World? You -don't seem to have any personal feelings at all. It's horrible you should -have thought of me like that. There has been no other man than you that I -would have let come anywhere near me ... not for more than a year. - - _He realises that she will never understand._ - -TREBELL. My dear girl, I'm sorry to be brutal. Does it matter so much to you -that I should have wished to be the father of your child? - -AMY. [_Ungracious but pacified by his change of tone._] It doesn't matter -now. - -TREBELL. [_Friendly still._] On principle I don't make promises. But I think -I can promise you that if you keep your head and will keep your health, this -shall all be made as easy for you as if everyone could know. And let's -think what the child may mean to you ... just the fact of his birth. Nothing -to me, of course! Perhaps that accounts for the touch of jealousy. I've -forfeited my rights because I hadn't honourable intentions. You can't -forfeit yours. Even if you never see him and he has to grow up among -strangers ... just to have had a child must make a difference to you. Of -course, it may be a girl. I wonder. - - _As he wanders on so optimistically she stares at him and her face - changes. She realises...._ - -AMY. Do you expect me to go through with this? Henry! ... I'd sooner kill -myself. - - _There is silence between them. He looks at her as one looks at some - unnatural thing. Then after a moment he speaks, very coldly._ - -TREBELL. Oh ... indeed. Don't get foolish ideas into your head. You've no -choice now ... no reasonable choice. - -AMY. [_Driven to bay; her last friend an enemy._] I won't go through with -it. - -TREBELL. It hasn't been so much the fear of scandal then-- - -AMY. That wouldn't break my heart. You'd marry me, wouldn't you? We could go -away somewhere. I could be very fond of you, Henry. - -TREBELL. [_Marvelling at these tangents._] Marry you! I should murder you in -a week. - - _This sounds only brutal to her; she lets herself be shamed._ - -AMY. You've no more use for me than the use you've made of me. - -TREBELL. [_Logical again._] Won't you realise that there's a third party to -our discussion ... that I'm of no importance beside him and you of very -little. Think of the child. - - AMY _blazes into desperate rebellion._ - -AMY. There's no child because I haven't chosen there shall be and there -shan't be because I don't choose. You'd have me first your plaything and -then Nature's, would you? - -TREBELL. [_A little abashed._] Come now, you knew what you were about. - -AMY. [_Thinking of those moments._] Did I? I found myself wanting you, -belonging to you suddenly. I didn't stop to think and explain. But are we -never to be happy and irresponsible ... never for a moment? - -TREBELL. Well ... one can't pick and choose consequences. - -AMY. Your choices in life have made you what you want to be, haven't they? -Leave me mine. - -TREBELL. But it's too late to argue like that. - -AMY. If it is, I'd better jump into the Thames. I've thought of it. - - _He considers how best to make a last effort to bring her to her - senses. He sits by her._ - -TREBELL. Amy ... if you were my wife-- - -AMY. [_Unresponsive to him now._] I was Justin's wife, and I went away from -him sooner than bear him children. Had I the right to choose or had I not? - -TREBELL. [_Taking another path._] Shall I tell you something I believe? If -we were left to choose, we should stand for ever deciding whether to start -with the right foot or the left. We blunder into the best things in life. -Then comes the test ... have we faith enough to go on ... to go through with -the unknown thing? - -AMY. [_So bored by these metaphysics._] Faith in what? - -TREBELL. Our vitality. I don't give a fig for beauty, happiness, or brains. -All I ask of myself is ... can I pay Fate on demand? - -AMY. Yes ... in imagination. But I've got physical facts to face. - - _But he has her attention now and pursues the advantage._ - -TREBELL. Very well then ... let the meaning of them go. Look forward simply -to a troublesome illness. In a little while you can go abroad quietly and -wait patiently. We're not fools and we needn't find fools to trust in. Then -come back to England.... - -AMY. And forget. That seems simple enough, doesn't it? - -TREBELL. If you don't want the child let it be mine ... not yours. - -AMY. [_Wondering suddenly at this bond between them._] Yours! What would you -do with it? - -TREBELL. [_Matter-of-fact._] Provide for it, of course. - -AMY. Never see it, perhaps. - -TREBELL. Perhaps not. If there were anything to be gained ... for the child. -I'll see that he has his chance as a human being. - -AMY. How hopeful! [_Now her voice drops. She is looking back, perhaps at a -past self._] If you loved me ... perhaps I might learn to love the thought -of your child. - -TREBELL. [_As if half his life depended on her answer._] Is that true? - -AMY. [_Irritably._] Why are you picking me to pieces? I think that is true. -If you had been loving me for a long, long time--[_The agony rushes back on -her._] But now I'm only afraid. You might have some pity for me ... I'm so -afraid. - -TREBELL. [_Touched._] Indeed ... indeed, I'll take what share of this I can. - - _She shrinks from him unforgivingly._ - -AMY. No, let me alone. I'm nothing to you. I'm a sick beast in danger of my -life, that's all ... cancerous! - - _He is roused for the first time, roused to horror and protest._ - -TREBELL. Oh, you unhappy woman! ... if life is like death to you.... - -AMY. [_Turning on him._] Don't lecture me! If you're so clever put a stop -to this horror. Or you might at least say you're sorry. - -TREBELL. Sorry! [_The bell on the table rings jarringly._] Cantelupe! - - _He goes to the telephone. She gets up cold and collected, steadied - merely by the unexpected sound._ - -AMY. I mustn't keep you from governing the country. I'm sure you'll do it -very well. - -TREBELL. [_At the telephone._] Yes, bring him up, of course ... isn't Mr. -Kent there? [_then to her._] I may be ten minutes with him or half an hour. -Wait and we'll come to a conclusion. - -KENT _comes in, an open letter in his hand._ - -KENT. This note, sir. Had I better go round myself and see him? - -TREBELL. [_As he takes the note._] Cantelupe's come. - -KENT. [_Glancing at the telephone._] Oh, has he! - -TREBELL. [_As he reads._] Yes I think you had. - -KENT. Evans was very serious. - - _He goes back into his room._ AMY _moves swiftly to where_ TREBELL _is - standing and whispers._ - -AMY. Won't you tell me whom to go to? - -TREBELL. No. - -AMY. Oh, really ... what unpractical sentimental children you men are! You -and your consciences ... you and your laws. You drive us to distraction and -sometimes to death by your stupidities. Poor women--! - - _The Maid comes in to announce_ LORD CHARLES CANTELUPE, _who follows - her._ CANTELUPE _is forty, unathletic, and a gentleman in the best and - worst sense of the word. He moves always with a caution which may - betray his belief in the personality of the Devil. He speaks - cautiously too, and as if not he but something inside him were - speaking. One feels that before strangers he would not if he could - help it move or speak at all. A pale face: the mouth would be - hardened by fanaticism were it not for the elements of Christianity in - his religion: and he has the limpid eye of the enthusiast._ - -TREBELL. Glad to see you. You know Mrs O'Connell. - - CANTELUPE _bows in silence._ - -AMY. We have met. - - _She offers her hand. He silently takes it and drops it._ - -TREBELL. Then you'll wait for Frances. - -AMY. Is it worth while? - - KENT _with his hat on leaves his room and goes downstairs._ - -TREBELL. Have you anything better to do? - -AMY. There's somewhere I can go. But I mustn't keep you chatting of my -affairs. Lord Charles is impatient to disestablish the Church. - -CANTELUPE. [_Unable to escape a remark._] Forgive me, since that is also -your affair. - -AMY. Oh ... but I was received at the Oratory when I was married. - -CANTELUPE. [_With contrition._] I beg your pardon. - - _Then he makes for the other side of the room_, TREBELL _and_ MRS. - O'CONNELL _stroll to the door, their eyes full of meaning._ - -AMY. I think I'll go on to this place that I've heard of. If I wait ... for -your sister ... she may disappoint me again. - -TREBELL. Wait. - - KENT'S _room is vacant._ - -AMY. Well ... in here? - -TREBELL. If you like law-books. - -AMY. I haven't been much of an interruption now, have I? - -TREBELL. Please wait. - -AMY. Thank you. - - TREBELL _shuts her in, for a moment seems inclined to lock her in, - but he comes back into his own room and faces_ CANTELUPE, _who having - primed and trained himself on his subject like a gun, fires off a - speech, without haste, but also apparently without taking breath._ - -CANTELUPE. I was extremely thankful, Mr. Trebell, to hear last week from -Horsham that you will see your way to join his cabinet and undertake the -disestablishment bill in the House of Commons. Any measure of mine, I have -always been convinced, would be too much under the suspicion of blindly -favouring Church interests to command the allegiance of that heterogeneous -mass of thought ... in some cases, alas, of free thought ... which -now-a-days composes the Conservative party. I am more than content to -exercise what influence I may from a seat in the cabinet which will -authorise the bill. - -TREBELL. Yes. That chair's comfortable. - - CANTELUPE _takes another._ - -CANTELUPE. Horsham forwarded to me your memorandum upon the conditions you -held necessary and I incline to think I may accept them in principle on -behalf of those who honour me with their confidences. - - _He fishes some papers from his pocket._ TREBELL _sits squarely at his - table to grapple with the matter._ - -TREBELL. Horsham told me you did accept them ... it's on that I'm joining. - -CANTELUPE. Yes ... in principle. - -TREBELL. Well ... we couldn't carry a bill you disapproved of, could we? - -CANTELUPE. [_With finesse._] I hope not. - -TREBELL. [_A little dangerously._] And I have no intention of being made the -scapegoat of a wrecked Tory compromise with the Nonconformists. - -CANTELUPE. [_Calmly ignoring the suggestion._] So far as I am concerned I -meet the Nonconformists on their own ground ... that Religion had better be -free from all compromise with the State. - -TREBELL. Quite so ... if you're set free you'll look after yourselves. My -discovery must be what to do with the men who think more of the state than -their Church ... the majority of parsons, don't you think? ... if the -question's really put and they can be made to understand it. - -CANTELUPE. [_With sincere disdain._] There are more profitable professions. - -TREBELL. And less. Will you allow me that it is statecraft to make a -profession profitable? - - CANTELUPE _picks up his papers, avoiding theoretical discussion._ - -CANTELUPE. Well now ... will you explain to me this project for endowing -Education with your surplus? - -TREBELL. Putting Appropriation, the Buildings and the Representation -question on one side for the moment? - -CANTELUPE. Candidly, I have yet to master your figures.... - -TREBELL. The roughest figures so far. - -CANTELUPE. Still I have yet to master them on the first two points. - -TREBELL. [_Firmly premising._] We agree that this is not diverting church -money to actually secular uses. - -CANTELUPE. [_As he peeps from under his eyelids._] I can conceive that it -might not be. You know that we hold Education to be a Church function. -But.... - -TREBELL. Can you accept thoroughly now the secular solution for all Primary -Schools? - -CANTELUPE. Haven't we always preferred it to the undenominational? Are there -to be facilities for _any_ of the teachers giving dogmatic instruction? - -TREBELL. I note your emphasis on any. I think we can put the burden of that -decision on local authorities. Let us come to the question of Training -Colleges for your teachers. It's on that I want to make my bargain. - -CANTELUPE. [_Alert and cautious._] You want to endow colleges? - -TREBELL. Heavily. - -CANTELUPE. Under public control? - -TREBELL. Church colleges under Church control. - -CANTELUPE. There'd be others? - -TREBELL. To preserve the necessary balance in the schools. - -CANTELUPE. Not founded with church money? - -TREBELL. Think of the grants in aid that will be released. I must ask the -Treasury for a further lump sum and with that there may be sufficient for -secular colleges ... if you can agree with me upon the statutes of those -over which you'd otherwise have free control. - - TREBELL _is weighing his words._ - -CANTELUPE. "You" meaning, for instance ... what authorities in the Church? - -TREBELL. Bishops, I suppose ... and others, [CANTELUPE _permits himself to -smile._] On that point I shall be weakness itself and ... may I suggest ... -your seat in the cabinet will give you some control. - -CANTELUPE. Statutes? - -TREBELL. To be framed in the best interests of educational efficiency. - -CANTELUPE. [_Finding an opening._] I doubt if we agree upon the meaning to -be attached to that term. - -TREBELL. [_Forcing the issue._] What meaning do you attach to it? - -CANTELUPE. [_Smiling again._] I have hardly a sympathetic listener. - -TREBELL. You have an unprejudiced one ... the best you can hope for. I was -not educated myself. I learnt certain things that I desired to know ... from -reading my first book--Don Quixote it was--to mastering Company Law. You -see, as a man without formulas either for education or religion, I am -perhaps peculiarly fitted to settle the double question. I have no grudges -... no revenge to take. - -CANTELUPE. [_Suddenly congenial._] Shelton's translation of Don Quixote I -hope ... the modern ones have no flavour. And you took all the adventures as -seriously as the Don did? - -TREBELL. [_Not expecting this._] I forget. - -CANTELUPE. It's the finer attitude ... the child's attitude. And it would -enable you immediately to comprehend mine towards an education consisting -merely of practical knowledge. The life of Faith is still the happy one. -What is more crushingly finite than knowledge? Moral discipline is a -nation's only safety. How much of your science tends in support of the great -spiritual doctrine of sacrifice! - - TREBELL _returns to his subject as forceful as ever._ - -TREBELL. The Church has assimilated much in her time. Do you think it wise -to leave agnostic science at the side of the plate? I think, you know, that -this craving for common knowledge is a new birth in the mind of man; and if -your church won't recognise that soon, by so much will she be losing her -grip for ever over men's minds. What's the test of godliness, but your power -to receive the new idea in whatever form it comes and give it life? It is -blasphemy to pick and choose your good. [_For a moment his thoughts seem to -be elsewhere._] That's an unhappy man or woman or nation ... I know it if it -has only come to me this minute ... and I don't care what their brains or -their riches or their beauty or any of their triumph may be ... they're -unhappy and useless if they can't tell life from death. - -CANTELUPE. [_Interested in the digression_] Remember that the Church's claim -has ever been to know that difference. - -TREBELL. [_Fastening to his subject again._] My point is this: A man's -demand to know the exact structure of a fly's wing, and his assertion that -it degrades any child in the street not to know such a thing, is a religious -revival ... a token of spiritual hunger. What else can it be? And we -commercialise our teaching! - -CANTELUPE. I wouldn't have it so. - -TREBELL. Then I'm offering you the foundation of a new Order of men and -women who'll serve God by teaching his children. Now shall we finish the -conversation in prose? - -CANTELUPE. [_Not to be put down._] What is the prose for God? - -TREBELL. [_Not to be put down either._] That's what we irreligious people -are giving our lives to discover. [_He plunges into detail._] I'm proposing -to found about seventy-two new colleges, and of course, to bring the ones -there are up to the new standard. Then we must gradually revise all teaching -salaries in government schools ... to a scale I have in mind. Then the -course must be compulsory and the training time doubled-- - -CANTELUPE. Doubled! Four years? - -TREBELL. Well, a minimum of three ... a university course. Remember we're -turning a trade into a calling. - -CANTELUPE. There's more to that than taking a degree. - -TREBELL. I think so. You've fought for years for your tests and your -atmosphere with plain business men not able to understand such lunacy. Quite -right ... atmosphere's all that matters. If one and one don't make two by -God's grace.... - -CANTELUPE. Poetry again! - -TREBELL. I beg your pardon. Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't -plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you -know nothing of distances. We must do away with text-book teachers. - - CANTELUPE _is opening out a little in spite of himself._ - -CANTELUPE. I'm waiting for our opinions to differ. - -TREBELL. [_Businesslike again._] I'll send you a draft of the statutes I -propose within a week. Meanwhile shall I put the offer this way. If I accept -your tests will you accept mine? - -CANTELUPE. What are yours? - -TREBELL. I believe if one provides for efficiency one provides for the best -part of truth ... honesty of statement. I shall hope for a little more -elasticity in your dogmas than Becket or Cranmer or Laud would have allowed. -When you've a chance to re-formulate the reasons of your faith for the -benefit of men teaching mathematics and science and history and political -economy, you won't neglect to answer or allow for criticisms and doubts. I -don't see why ... in spite of all the evidence to the contrary ... such a -thing as progress in a definite religious faith is impossible. - -CANTELUPE. Progress is a soiled word. [_And now he weighs his words._] I -shall be very glad to accept on the Church's behalf control of the teaching -of teachers in these colleges. - -TREBELL. Good. I want the best men. - -CANTELUPE. You are surprisingly inexperienced if you think that creeds can -ever become mere forms except to those who have none. - -TREBELL. But teaching--true teaching--is learning, and the wish to know is -going to prevail against any creed ... so I think. I wish you cared as -little for the form in which a truth is told as I do. On the whole, you see, -I think I shall manage to plant your theology in such soil this spring that -the garden will be fruitful. On the whole I'm a believer in Churches of all -sorts and their usefulness to the State. Your present use is out-worn. Have -I found you in this the beginnings of a new one? - -CANTELUPE. The Church says: Thank you, it is a very old one. - -TREBELL. [_Winding up the interview._] To be sure, for practical politics -our talk can be whittled down to your accepting the secular solution for -Primary Schools, if you're given these colleges under such statutes as you -and I shall agree upon. - -CANTELUPE. And the country will accept. - -TREBELL. The country will accept any measure if there's enough money in it -to bribe all parties fairly. - -CANTELUPE. You expect very little of the constancy of my Church to her -Faith, Mr. Trebell. - -TREBELL. I have only one belief myself. That is in human progress--yes, -progress--over many obstacles and by many means. I have no ideals. I believe -it is statesmanlike to use all the energy you find ... turning it into the -nearest channel that points forward. - -CANTELUPE. Forward to what? - -TREBELL. I don't know ... and my caring doesn't matter. We do know ... and -if we deny it it's only to be encouraged by contradiction ... that the -movement is forward and with some gathering purpose. I'm friends with any -fellow traveller. - - CANTELUPE _has been considering him very curiously. Now he gets up to - go._ - -CANTELUPE. I should like to continue our talk when I've studied your draft -of the statutes. Of course the political position is favourable to a far -more comprehensive bill than we had ever looked for ... and you've the -advantage now of having held yourself very free from party ties. In fact not -only will you give us the bill we shall most care to accept, but I don't -know what other man would give us a bill we and the other side could accept -at all. - -TREBELL. I can let you have more Appropriation figures by Friday. The -details of the Fabrics scheme will take a little longer. - -CANTELUPE. In a way there's no such hurry. We're not in office yet. - -TREBELL. When I'm building with figures I like to give the foundations time -to settle. Otherwise they are the inexactest things. - -CANTELUPE. [_Smiling to him for the first time._] We shall have you finding -Faith the only solvent of all problems some day. - -TREBELL. I hope my mind is not afraid ... even of the Christian religion. - -CANTELUPE. I am sure that the needs of the human soul ... be it dressed up -in whatever knowledge ... do not alter from age to age.... - - _He opens the door to find_ WEDGECROFT _standing outside, watch in - hand._ - -TREBELL. Hullo ... waiting? - -WEDGECROFT. I was giving you two minutes by my watch. How are you, -Cantelupe? - - CANTELUPE, _with a gesture which might be mistaken for a bow, folds - himself up._ - -TREBELL. Shall I bring you the figures on Friday ... that might save time. - - CANTELUPE, _by taking a deeper fold in himself seems to assent._ - -TREBELL. Will the afternoon do? Kent shall fix the hour. - -CANTELUPE. [_With an effort._] Kent? - -TREBELL. My secretary. - -CANTELUPE. Friday. Any hour before five. I know my way. - - _The three phrases having meant three separate efforts,_ CANTELUPE - _escapes._ WEDGECROFT _has walked to the table, his brows a little - puckered. Now_ TREBELL _notices that_ KENT'S _door is open; he goes - quickly into the room and finds it empty. Then he stands for a moment - irritable and undecided before returning._ - -TREBELL. Been here long? - -WEDGECROFT. Five minutes ... more, I suppose. - -TREBELL. Mrs. O'Connell gone? - -WEDGECROFT. To her dressmaker's. - -TREBELL. Frances forgot she was coming and went out. - -WEDGECROFT. Pretty little fool of a woman! D'you know her husband? - -TREBELL. No. - -WEDGECROFT. Says she's been in Ireland with him since we met at Shapters. He -has trouble with his tenantry. - -TREBELL. Won't he sell or won't they purchase? - -WEDGECROFT. Curious chap. A Don at Balliol when I first knew him. Warped of -late years ... perhaps by his marriage. - -TREBELL. [_Dismissing that subject._] Well ... how's Percival? - -WEDGECROFT. Better this morning. I told him I'd seen you ... and in a little -calculated burst of confidence what I'd reason to think you were after. He -said you and he could get on though you differed on every point; but he -didn't see how you'd pull with such a blasted weak-kneed lot as the rest of -the Horsham's cabinet would be. He'll be up in a week or ten days. - -TREBELL. Can I see him? - -WEDGECROFT. You might. I admire the old man ... the way he sticks to his -party, though they misrepresent now most things he believes in! - -TREBELL. What a damnable state to arrive at ... doubly damned by the fact -you admire it. - -WEDGECROFT. And to think that at this time of day you should need -instructing in the ethics of party government. But I'll have to do it. - -TREBELL. Not now. I've been at ethics with Cantelupe. - -WEDGECROFT. Certainly not now. What about my man with the stomach-ache at -twelve o'clock sharp! Good-bye. - - _He is gone,_ TREBELL _battles with uneasiness and at last mutters._ - "Oh ... why didn't she wait?" _Then the telephone bell rings. He goes - quickly as if it were an answer to his anxiety._ "Yes?" _Of course, it - isn't.._ "Yes." _He paces the room, impatient, wondering what to do. - The Maid comes in to announce_ MISS DAVENPORT. LUCY _follows her. She - has gained lately perhaps a little of the joy which was lacking and at - least she brings now into this room a breath of very wholesome - womanhood._ - -LUCY. It's very good of you to let me come; I'm not going to keep you more -than three minutes. - -TREBELL. Sit down. - - _Only women unused to busy men would call him rude._ - -LUCY. What I want to say is ... don't mind my being engaged to Walter. It -shan't interfere with his work for you. If you want a proof that it shan't -... it was I got Aunt Julia to ask you to take him.... Though he didn't know -... so don't tell him that. - -TREBELL. You weren't engaged then. - -LUCY. I ... thought that we might be. - -TREBELL. [_With cynical humour._] Which I'm not to tell him either? - -LUCY. Oh, that wouldn't matter. - -TREBELL. [_With decision._] I'll make sure you don't interfere. - -LUCY. [_Deliberately ... not to be treated as a child._] You couldn't, you -know, if I wanted to. - -TREBELL. Why, is Walter a fool? - -LUCY. He's very fond of me, if that's what you mean? - - TREBELL _looks at her for the first time and changes his tone a - little._ - -TREBELL. If it was what I meant ... I'm disposed to withdraw the suggestion. - -LUCY. And, because I'm fond of his work as well, I shan't therefore ask him -to tell me things ... secrets. - -TREBELL. [_Reverting to his humour._] It'll be when you're a year or two -married that danger may occur ... in his desperate effort to make -conversation. - - LUCY _considers this and him quite seriously._ - -LUCY. You're rather hard on women, aren't you ... just because they don't -have the chances men do. - -TREBELL. Do you want the chances? - -LUCY. I think I'm as clever as most men I meet, though I know less, of -course. - -TREBELL. Perhaps I should have offered you the secretaryship instead. - -LUCY. [_Readily._] Don't you think I'm taking it in a way ... by marrying -Walter? That's fanciful of course. But marriage is a very general and -complete sort of partnership, isn't it? At least, I'd like to make mine so. - -TREBELL. He'll be more under your thumb in some things if you leave him free -in others. - - _She receives the sarcasm in all seriousness and then speaks to him as - she would to a child._ - -LUCY. Oh ... I'm not explaining what I mean quite well perhaps. Walter has -been everywhere and done everything. He speaks three languages ... which all -makes him an ideal private secretary. - -TREBELL. Quite. - -LUCY. Do you think he'd develop into anything else ... but for me? - -TREBELL. So I have provided just a first step, have I? - -LUCY. [_With real enthusiasm._] Oh, Mr. Trebell, it's a great thing for us. -There isn't anyone worth working under but you. You'll make him think and -give him ideas instead of expecting them from him. But just for that reason -he'd get so attached to you and be quite content to grow old in your shadow -... if it wasn't for me. - -TREBELL. True ... I should encourage him in nothingness. What's more, I want -extra brains and hands. It's not altogether a pleasant thing, is it ... the -selfishness of the hard worked man? - -LUCY. If you don't grudge your own strength, why should you be tender of -other people's? - - _He looks at her curiously._ - -TREBELL. Your ambition is making for only second-hand satisfaction though. - -LUCY. What's a woman to do? She must work through men, mustn't she? - -TREBELL. I'm told that's degrading ... the influencing of husbands and -brothers and sons. - -LUCY. [_Only half humorously._] But what else is one to do with them? Of -course, I've enough money to live on ... so I could take up some woman's -profession ... What are you smiling at? - -TREBELL. [_Who has smiled very broadly._] As you don't mean to ... don't -stop while I tell you. - -LUCY. But I'd sooner get married. I want to have children. [_The words catch -him and hold him. He looks at her reverently this time. She remembers she -has transgressed convention; then, remembering that it is only convention, -proceeds quite simply._] I hope we shall have children. - -TREBELL. I hope so. - -LUCY. Thank you. That's the first kind thing you've said. - -TREBELL. Oh ... you can do without compliments, can't you? - - _She considers for a moment._ - -LUCY. Why have you been talking to me as if I were someone else? - -TREBELL. [_Startled._] Who else? - -LUCY. No one particular. But you've shaken a moral fist so to speak. I don't -think I provoked it. - -TREBELL. It's a bad parliamentary habit. I apologise. - - _She gets up to go._ - -LUCY. Now I shan't keep you longer ... you're always busy. You've been so -easy to talk to. Thank you very much. - -TREBELL. Why ... I wonder? - -LUCY. I knew you would be or I shouldn't have come. You think Life's an -important thing, don't you? That's priggish, isn't it? Good-bye. We're -coming to dinner ... Aunt Julia and I. Miss Trebell arrived to ask us just -as I left. - -TREBELL. I'll see you down. - -LUCY. What waste of time for you. I know how the door opens. - - _As she goes out_ WALTER KENT _is on the way to his room. The two nod - to each other like old friends._ TREBELL _turns away with something of - a sigh._ - -KENT. Just come? - -LUCY. Just going. - -KENT. I'll see you at dinner. - -LUCY. Oh, are you to be here? ... that's nice. - - LUCY _departs as purposefully as she came._ KENT _hurries to_ TREBELL, - _whose thoughts are away again by now._ - -KENT. I haven't been long there and back, have I? The Bishop gave me these -letters for you. He hasn't answered the last ... but I've his notes of what -he means to say. He'd like them back to-night. He was just going out. I've -one or two notes of what Evans said. Bit of a charlatan, don't you think? - -TREBELL. Evans? - -KENT. Well, he talked of his Flock. There are quite fifteen letters you'll -have to deal with yourself, I'm afraid. - - TREBELL _stares at him: then, apparently, making up his mind...._ - -TREBELL. Ring up a messenger, will you ... I must write a note and send it. - -KENT. Will you dictate? - -TREBELL. I shall have done it while you're ringing ... it's only a personal -matter. Then we'll start work. - - KENT _goes into his room and tackles the telephone there._ TREBELL - _sits down to write the note, his face very set and anxious._ - - - - -THE THIRD ACT - - -At LORD HORSHAM'S house in Queen Anne's Gate, in the evening, a week later. - -_If rooms express their owners' character, the grey and black of_ LORD -HORSHAM'S _drawing room, the faded brocade of its furniture, reveal him as a -man of delicate taste and somewhat thin intellectuality. He stands now -before a noiseless fire, contemplating with a troubled eye either the -pattern of the Old French carpet, or the black double doors of the library -opposite, or the moulding on the Adams ceiling, which the flicker of all the -candles casts into deeper relief. His grey hair and black clothes would melt -into the decoration of his room, were the figure not rescued from such -oblivion by the British white glaze of his shirt front and--to a sympathetic -eye--by the loveable perceptive face of the man. Sometimes he looks at the -sofa in front of him, on which sits_ WEDGECROFT, _still in the frock coat of -a busy day, depressed and irritable. With his back to them, on a sofa with -its back to them, is_ GEORGE FARRANT, _planted with his knees apart, his -hands clasped, his head bent; very glum. And sometimes_ HORSHAM _glances at -the door, as if waiting for it to open. Then his gaze will travel back, up -the long shiny black piano, with a volume of the Well Tempered Clavichord -open on its desk, to where_ CANTELUPE _is perched uncomfortably on the -bench; paler than ever; more self-contained than ever, looking, to one who -knows him as well as Horsham does, a little dangerous. So he returns to -contemplation of the ceiling or the carpet. They wait there as men wait who -have said all they want to say upon an unpleasant subject and yet cannot -dismiss it. At last_ FARRANT _breaks the silence._ - -FARRANT. What time did you ask him to come, Horsham? - -HORSHAM. Eh ... O'Connell? I didn't ask him directly. What time did you say, -Wedgecroft? - -WEDGECROFT. Any time after half past ten, I told him. - -FARRANT. [_Grumbling._] It's a quarter to eleven. Doesn't Blackborough mean -to turn up at all? - -HORSHAM. He was out of town ... my note had to be sent after him. I couldn't -wire, you see. - -FARRANT. No. - -CANTELUPE. It was by the merest chance your man caught me, Cyril. I was -taking the ten fifteen to Tonbridge and happened to go to James Street first -for some papers. - - _The conversation flags again._ - -CANTELUPE. But since Mrs. O'Connell is dead what is the excuse for a -scandal? - - _At this unpleasant dig into the subject of their thoughts the three - other men stir uncomfortably._ - -HORSHAM. Because the inquest is unavoidable ... apparently. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Suddenly letting fly._] I declare I'd I'd have risked penal -servitude and given a certificate, but just before the end O'Connell would -call in old Fielding Andrews, who has moral scruples about everything--it's -his trademark--and of course about this...! - -FARRANT. Was he told of the whole business? - -WEDGECROFT. No ... O'Connell kept things up before him. Well ... the woman -was dying. - -HORSHAM. Couldn't you have kept the true state of the case from Sir -Fielding? - -WEDGECROFT. And been suspected of the malpractice myself if he'd found it -out? ... which he would have done ... he's no fool. Well ... I thought of -trying that.... - -FARRANT. My dear Wedgecroft ... how grossly quixotic! You have a duty to -yourself. - -HORSHAM. [_Rescuing the conversation from unpleasantness._] I'm afraid I -feel that our position to-night is most irregular, Wedgecroft. - -WEDGECROFT. Still if you can make O'Connell see reason. And if you all -can't.... [_He frowns at the alternative._] - -CANTELUPE. Didn't you say she came to you first of all? - -WEDGECROFT. I met her one morning at Trebell's. - -FARRANT. Actually _at_ Trebell's! - -WEDGECROFT. The day he came back from abroad. - -FARRANT. Oh! No one seems to have noticed them together much at any time. My -wife ... No matter! - -WEDGECROFT. She tackled me as a doctor with one part of her trouble ... -added she'd been with O'Connell in Ireland, which of course it turns out -wasn't true ... asked me to help her. I had to say I couldn't. - -HORSHAM. [_Echoing rather than querying._] You couldn't. - -FARRANT. [_Shocked._] My dear Horsham! - -WEDGECROFT. Well, if she'd told me the truth!... No, anyhow I couldn't. I'm -sure there was no excuse. One can't run these risks. - -FARRANT. Quite right, quite right. - -WEDGECROFT. There are men who do on one pretext or another. - -FARRANT. [_Not too shocked to be curious._] Are there really? - -WEDGECROFT. Oh yes, men well known ... in other directions. I could give you -four addresses ... but of course I wasn't going to give her one. Though -there again ... if she'd told me the whole truth!... My God, women are such -fools! And they prefer quackery ... look at the decent doctors they simply -turn into charlatans. Though, there again, that all comes of letting a trade -work mysteriously under the thumb of a benighted oligarchy ... which is -beside the question. But one day I'll make you sit up on the subject of the -Medical Council, Horsham. - - HORSHAM _assumes an impenetrable air of statesmanship._ - -HORSHAM. I know. Very interesting ... very important ... very difficult to -alter the status quo. - -WEDGECROFT. Then the poor little liar said she'd go off to an appointment -with her dressmaker; and I heard nothing more till she sent for me a week -later, and I found her almost too ill to speak. Even then she didn't tell me -the truth! So, when O'Connell arrived, of course I spoke to him quite openly -and all he told me in reply was that it wouldn't have been his child. - -FARRANT. Poor devil! - -WEDGECROFT. O'Connell? - -FARRANT. Yes, of course. - -WEDGECROFT. I wonder. Perhaps she didn't realize he'd been sent for ... or -felt then she was dying and didn't care ... or lost her head. I don't know. - -FARRANT. Such a pretty little woman! - -WEDGECROFT. If I could have made him out and dealt with him, of course, I -shouldn't have come to you. Farrant's known him even longer than I have. - -FARRANT. I was with him at Harrow. - -WEDGECROFT. So I went to Farrant first. - - _That part of the subject drops._ CANTELUPE, _who has not moved, - strikes in again._ - -CANTELUPE. How was Trebell's guilt discovered? - -FARRANT. He wrote her one letter which she didn't destroy. O'Connell found -it. - -WEDGECROFT. Picked it up from her desk ... it wasn't even locked up. - -FARRANT. Not twenty words in it ... quite enough though. - -HORSHAM. His habit of being explicit ... of writing things down ... I know! - - _He shakes his head, deprecating all rashness. There is another - pause._ FARRANT, _getting up to pace about, breaks it._ - -FARRANT. Look here, Wedgecroft, one thing is worrying me. Had Trebell any -foreknowledge of what she did and the risk she was running and could he have -stopped it? - -WEDGECROFT. [_Almost ill-temperedly._] How could he have stopped it? - -FARRANT. Because ... well, I'm not a casuist ... but I know by instinct when -I'm up against the wrong thing to do; and if he can't be cleared on that -point I won't lift a finger to save him. - -HORSHAM. [_With nice judgment._] In using the term Any Foreknowledge, -Farrant, you may be more severe on him than you wish to be. - - FARRANT, _unappreciative, continues._ - -FARRANT. Otherwise ... well, we must admit, Cantelupe, that if it hadn't -been for the particular consequence of this it wouldn't be anything to be so -mightily shocked about. - -CANTELUPE. I disagree. - -FARRANT. My dear fellow, it's our business to make laws and we know the -difference of saying in one of 'em you may or you must. Who ever proposed to -insist on pillorying every case of spasmodic adultery? One would never have -done! Some of these attachments do more harm ... to the third party, I mean -... some less. But it's only when a menage becomes socially impossible that -a sensible man will interfere. [_He adds quite unnecessarily._] I'm speaking -quite impersonally, of course. - -CANTELUPE. [_As coldly as ever._] Trebell is morally responsible for every -consequence of the original sin. - -WEDGECROFT. That is a hard saying. - -FARRANT. [_Continuing his own remarks quite independently._] And I put aside -the possibility that he deliberately helped her to her death to save a -scandal because I don't believe it is a possibility. But if that were so I'd -lift my finger to help him to his. I'd see him hanged with pleasure. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Settling this part of the matter._] Well, Farrant, to all -intents and purposes he didn't know and he'd have stopped it if he could. - -FARRANT. Yes, I believe that. But what makes you so sure? - -WEDGECROFT. I asked him and he told me. - -FARRANT. That's no proof. - -WEDGECROFT. You read the letter that he sent her ... unless you think it was -written as a blind. - -FARRANT. Oh ... to be sure ... yes. I might have thought of that. - - _He settles down again. Again no one has anything to say._ - -CANTELUPE. What is to be said to Mr. O'Connell when he comes? - -HORSHAM. Yes ... what exactly do you propose we shall say to O'Connell, -Wedgecroft? - -WEDGECROFT. Get him to open his oyster of a mind and.... - -FARRANT. So it is and his face like a stone wall yesterday. Absolutely -refused to discuss the matter with me! - -CANTELUPE. May I ask, Cyril, why are we concerning ourselves with this -wickedness at all? - -HORSHAM. Just at this moment when we have official weight without official -responsibility, Charles.... - -WEDGECROFT. I wish I could have let Percival out of bed, but these first -touches of autumn are dangerous to a convalescent of his age. - -HORSHAM. But you saw him, Farrant ... and he gave you his opinion, didn't -he? - -FARRANT. Last night ... yes. - -HORSHAM. I suppose it's a pity Blackborough hasn't turned up. - -FARRANT. Never mind him. - -HORSHAM. He gets people to agree with him. That's a gift. - -FARRANT. Wedgecroft, what is the utmost O'Connell will be called upon to do -for us ... for Trebell? - -WEDGECROFT. Probably only to hold his tongue at the inquest to-morrow. As -far as I know there's no one but her maid to prove that Mrs. O'Connell -didn't meet her husband some time in the summer. He'll be called upon to -tell a lie or two by implication. - -FARRANT. Cantelupe ... what does perjury to that extent mean to a Roman -Catholic? - - CANTELUPE'S _face melts into an expression of mild amazement._ - -CANTELUPE. Your asking such a question shows that you would not understand -my answer to it. - -FARRANT. [_Leaving the fellow to his subtleties._] Well, what about the -maid? - -WEDGECROFT. She may suspect facts but not names, I think. Why should they -question her on such a point if O'Connell says nothing? - -HORSHAM. He's really very late. I told ... [_He stops._] Charles, I've -forgotten that man's name again. - -CANTELUPE. Edmunds, you said it was. - -HORSHAM. Edmunds. Everybody's down at Lympne ... I've been left with a new -man here and I don't know his name. [_He is very pathetic._] I told him to -put O'Connell in the library there. I thought that either Farrant or I might -perhaps see him first and-- - - _At this moment_ EDMUNDS _comes in, and, with that air of discreet - tact which he considers befits the establishment of a Prime Minister, - announces_, "Mr. O'Connell, my lord." _As_ O'CONNELL _follows him_, - HORSHAM _can only try not to look too disconcerted._ O'CONNELL, _in - his tightly buttoned frock coat, with his shaven face and - close-cropped iron grey hair, might be mistaken for a Catholic priest; - except that he has not also acquired the easy cheerfulness which - professional familiarity with the mysteries of that religion seems to - give. For the moment, at least, his features are so impassive that - they may tell either of the deepest grief or the purest indifference; - or it may be, merely of reticence on entering a stranger's room. He - only bows towards_ HORSHAM'S _half-proffered hand. With instinctive - respect for the situation of this tragically made widower the men have - risen and stand in various uneasy attitudes._ - -HORSHAM. Oh ... how do you do? Let me see ... do you know my cousin Charles -Cantelupe? Yes ... we were expecting Russell Blackborough. Sir Henry -Percival is ill. Do sit down. - - O'CONNELL _takes the nearest chair and gradually the others settle - themselves_; FARRANT _seeking an obscure corner. But there follows an - uncomfortable silence, which_ O'CONNELL _at last breaks._ - - -O'CONNELL. You have sent for me, Lord Horsham? - -HORSHAM. I hope that by my message I conveyed no impression of sending for -you. - -O'CONNELL. I am always in some doubt as to by what person or persons in or -out of power this country is governed. But from all I hear you are at the -present moment approximately entitled to send for me. - - _The level music of his Irish tongue seems to give finer edge to his - sarcasm._ - -HORSHAM. Well, Mr. O'Connell ... you know our request before we make it. - -O'CONNELL. Yes, I understand that if the fact of Mr. Trebell's adultery with -my wife were made as public as its consequences to her must be to-morrow, -public opinion would make it difficult for you to include him in your -cabinet. - -HORSHAM. Therefore we ask you ... though we have no right to ask you ... to -consider the particular circumstances and forget the man in the statesman, -Mr. O'Connell. - -O'CONNELL. My wife is dead. What have I to do at all with Mr. Trebell as a -man? As a statesman I am in any case uninterested in him. - - _Upon this throwing of cold water_, EDMUNDS _returns to mention even - more discreetly...._ - -EDMUNDS. Mr. Blackborough is in the library, my lord. - -HORSHAM. [_Patiently impatient._] No, no ... here. - -WEDGECROFT. Let me go. - -HORSHAM. [_To the injured_ EDMUNDS.] Wait ... wait. - -WEDGECROFT. I'll put him _au fait._ I shan't come back. - -HORSHAM. [_Gratefully._] Yes, yes. [_Then to_ EDMUNDS _who is waiting with -perfect dignity._] Yes ... yes ... yes. - - EDMUNDS _departs and_ WEDGECROFT _makes for the library door, glad to - escape._ - -O'CONNELL. If you are not busy at this hour, Wedgecroft, I should be -grateful if you'd wait for me. I shall keep you, I think, but a very few -minutes. - -WEDGECROFT. [_In his most matter-of-fact tone._] All right, O'Connell. - - _He goes into the library._ - -CANTELUPE. Don't you think, Cyril, it would be wiser to prevent your man -coming into the room at all while we're discussing this? - -HORSHAM. [_Collecting his scattered tact._] Yes, I thought I had arranged -that he shouldn't. I'm very sorry. He's a fool. However, there's no one else -to come. Once more, Mr. O'Connell.... [_He frames no sentence._] - -O'CONNELL. I am all attention, Lord Horsham. - - CANTELUPE _with a self-denying effort has risen to his feet._ - -CANTELUPE. Mr. O'Connell I remain here almost against my will. I cannot -think quite calmly about this double and doubly heinous sin. Don't listen to -us while we make light of it. If we think of it as a political bother and -ask you to smooth it away ... I am ashamed. But I believe I may not be wrong -if I put it to you that, looking to the future and for the sake of your own -Christian dignity, it may become you to be merciful. And I pray too ... I -think we may believe ... that Mr. Trebell is feeling need of your -forgiveness. I have no more to say. [_He sits down again._] - -O'CONNELL. It may be. I have never met Mr. Trebell. - -HORSHAM. I tell you, Mr. O'Connell, putting aside Party, that your country -has need of this man just at this time. - - _They hang upon_ O'CONNELL'S _reply. It comes with deliberation._ - -O'CONNELL. I suppose my point of view must be an unusual one. I notice, at -least, that twenty four hours and more has not enabled Farrant to grasp it. - -FARRANT. For God's sake, O'Connell, don't be so cold-blooded. You have the -life or death of a man's reputation to decide on. - -O'CONNELL. [_With a cold flash of contempt._] That's a petty enough thing -now-a-days it seems to me. There are so many clever men ... and they are all -so alike ... surely one will not be missed. - -CANTELUPE. Don't you think that is only sarcasm, Mr. O'Connell? - - _The voice is so gently reproving that_ O'CONNELL _must turn to him._ - -O'CONNELL. Will you please to make allowance, Lord Charles, for a mediaeval -scholar's contempt of modern government? You at least will partly understand -his horror as a Catholic at the modern superstitions in favour of popular -opinion and control which it encourages. You see, Lord Horsham, I am not a -party man, only a little less enthusiastic for the opposite cries than for -his own. You appealed very strangely to my feelings of patriotism for this -country; but you see even my own is--in the twentieth century--foreign to -me. From my point of view neither Mr. Trebell, nor you, nor the men you have -just defeated, nor any discoverable man or body of men will make laws which -matter ... or differ in the slightest. You are all part of your age and you -all voice--though in separate keys, or even tunes they may be--only the -greed and follies of your age. That you should do this and nothing more is, -of course, the democratic ideal. You will forgive my thinking tenderly of -the statesmanship of the first Edward. - - _The library door opens and_ RUSSELL BLACKBOROUGH _comes in. He has on - evening clothes, complicated by a long silk comforter and the motoring - cap which he carries._ - -HORSHAM. You know Russell Blackborough. - -O'CONNELL. I think not. - -BLACKBOROUGH. How d'you do? - - O'CONNELL _having bowed_, BLACKBOROUGH _having nodded, the two men sit - down_, BLACKBOROUGH _with an air of great attention_, O'CONNELL _to - continue his interrupted speech._ - -O'CONNELL. And you are as far from me in your code of personal morals as in -your politics. In neither do you seem to realise that such a thing as -passion can exist. No doubt you use the words Love and Hatred; but do you -know that love and hatred for principles or persons should come from beyond -a man? I notice you speak of forgiveness as if it were a penny in my pocket. -You have been endeavouring for these two days to rouse me from my -indifference towards Mr. Trebell. Perhaps you are on the point of succeeding -... but I do not know what you may rouse. - -HORSHAM. I understand. We are much in agreement, Mr. O'Connell. What can a -man be--who has any pretensions to philosophy--but helplessly indifferent to -the thousands of his fellow creatures whose fates are intertwined with his? - -O'CONNELL. I am glad that you understand. But, again ... have I been wrong -to shrink from personal relations with Mr. Trebell? Hatred is as sacred a -responsibility as love. And you will not agree with me when I say that -punishment can be the salvation of a man's soul. - -FARRANT. [_With aggressive common sense._] Look here. O'Connell, if you're -indifferent it doesn't hurt you to let him off. And if you hate him...! -Well, one shouldn't hate people ... there's no room for it in this world. - -CANTELUPE. [_Quietly as ever._] We have some authority for thinking that the -punishment of a secret sin is awarded by God secretly. - -O'CONNELL. We have very poor authority, sir, for using God's name merely to -fill up the gaps in an argument, though we may thus have our way easily with -men who fear God more than they know him. I am not one of those. Yes, -Farrant, you and your like have left little room in this world except for -the dusty roads on which I notice you beginning once more to travel. The -rule of them is the same for all, is it not ... from the tramp and the -labourer to the plutocrat in his car? This is the age of equality; and it's -a fine practical equality ... the equality of the road. But you've fenced -the fields of human joy and turned the very hillsides into hoardings, -Commercial opportunity is painted on them, I think. - -FARRANT. [_Not to be impressed._] Perhaps it is O'Connell. My father made -his money out of newspapers and I ride in a motor car and you came from -Holyhead by train. What has all that to do with it? Why can't you make up -your mind? You know in this sort of case one talks a lot ... and then does -the usual thing. You must let Trebell off and that's all about it. - -O'CONNELL. Indeed. And do they still think it worth while to administer an -oath to your witnesses? - - _He is interrupted by the flinging open of the door and the triumphant - right-this-time-anyhow voice in which_ EDMUNDS _announces_ "Mr. - Trebell, my lord." _The general consternation expresses itself - through_ HORSHAM, _who complains aloud and unreservedly._ - -HORSHAM. Good God.... No! Charles, I must give him notice at once ... he'll -have to go. [_He apologises to the company._] I beg your pardon. - - _By this time_ TREBELL _is in the room and has discovered the - stranger, who stands to face him without emotion or anger_, - BLACKBOROUGH'S _face wears the grimmest of smiles_, CANTELUPE _is - sorry_, FARRANT _recovers from the fit of choking which seemed - imminent and_ EDMUNDS, _dimly perceiving by now some fly in the - perfect amber of his conduct, departs. The two men still face each - other_, FARRANT _is prepared to separate them should they come to - blows, and indeed is advancing in that anticipation when_ O'CONNELL - _speaks._ - -O'CONNELL. I am Justin O'Connell. - -TREBELL. I guess that. - -O'CONNELL. There's a dead woman between us, Mr. Trebell. - - _A tremor sweeps over_ TREBELL; _then he speaks simply._ - -TREBELL. I wish she had not died. - -O'CONNELL. I am called upon by your friends to save you from the -consequences of her death. What have you to say about that? - -TREBELL. I have been wondering what sort of expression the last of your care -for her would find ... but not much. My wonder is at the power over me that -has been given to something I despised. - - _Only_ O'CONNELL _grasps his meaning. But he, stirred for the first - time and to his very depths, drives it home._ - -O'CONNELL. Yes.... If I wanted revenge I have it. She was a worthless woman. -First my life and now yours! Dead because she was afraid to bear your child, -isn't she? - -TREBELL. [_In agony._] I'd have helped that if I could. - -O'CONNELL. Not the shame ... not the wrong she had done me ... but just -fear--fear of the burden of her woman-hood. And because of her my children -are bastards and cannot inherit my name. And I must live in sin against my -church, as--God help me--I can't against my nature. What are men to do when -this is how women use the freedom we have given them? Is the curse of -barrenness to be nothing to a man? And that's the death in life to which you -gentlemen with your fine civilisation are bringing us. I think we are -brothers in misfortune, Mr. Trebell. - -TREBELL. [_Far from responding._] Not at all, sir. If you wanted children -you did the next best thing when she left you. My own problem is neither so -simple nor is it yet anyone's business but my own. I apologise for alluding -to it. - - HORSHAM _takes advantage of the silence that follows._ - -HORSHAM. Shall we.... - -O'CONNELL. [_Measuring_ TREBELL _with his eyes._] And by which shall I help -you to a solution ... telling lies or the truth to-morrow? - -TREBELL. [_Roughly, almost insolently._] If you want my advice ... I should -do the thing that comes more easily to you, or that will content you most. -If you haven't yet made up your mind as to the relative importance of my -work and your conscience, it's too late to begin now. Nothing you may do can -affect me. - -HORSHAM. _[fluttering fearfully into this strange dispute._] O'Connell ... -if you and I were to join Wedgecroft.... - -O'CONNELL. You value your work more than anything else in the world? - -TREBELL. Have I anything else in the world? - -O'CONNELL. Have you not? [_With grim ambiguity._] Then I am sorry for you, -Mr. Trebell. [_Having said all he had to say, he notices_ HORSHAM.] Yes, -Lord Horsham, by all means.... - - _Then_ HORSHAM _opens the library door and sees him safely through. He - passes_ TREBELL _without any salutation, nor does_ TREBELL _turn after - him; but when_ HORSHAM _also is in the library and the door is closed, - comments viciously._ - -TREBELL. The man's a sentimentalist ... like all men who live alone or shut -away. [_Then surveying his three glum companions, bursts out._] Well...? We -can stop thinking of this dead woman, can't we? It's a waste of time. - -FARRANT. Trebell, what did you want to come here for? - -TREBELL. Because you thought I wouldn't. I knew you'd be sitting round, -incompetent with distress, calculating to a nicety the force of a -scandal.... - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_With the firmest of touches._] Horsham has called some of us -here to discuss the situation. I am considering my opinion. - -TREBELL. You are not, Blackborough. You haven't recovered yet from the shock -of your manly feelings. Oh, cheer up. You know we're an adulterous and -sterile generation. Why should you cry out at a proof now and then of what's -always in the hearts of most of us? - -FARRANT. [_Plaintively._] Now, for God's sake, Trebell ... O'Connell has -been going on like that. - -TREBELL. Well then ... think of what matters. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Of you and your reputation in fact. - -FARRANT. [_Kindly._] Why do you pretend to be callous? - - _He strokes_ TREBELL'S _shoulder, who shakes him off impatiently._ - -TREBELL. Do you all mean to out-face the British Lion with me after -to-morrow ... dare to be Daniels? - -BLACKBOROUGH. Bravado won't carry this off. - -TREBELL. Blackborough ... it would immortalize you. I'll stand up in my -place in the House of Commons and tell everything that has befallen soberly -and seriously. Why should I flinch? - -FARRANT. My dear Trebell, if your name comes out at the inquest-- - -TREBELL. If it does!... whose has been the real offence against Society ... -hers or mine? It's I who am most offended ... if I choose to think so. - -BLACKBOROUGH. You seem to forget the adultery. - -TREBELL. Isn't Death divorce enough for her? And ... oh, wasn't I right?... -What do you start thinking of once the shock's over? Punishment ... revenge -... uselessness ... waste of me. - -FARRANT. [_With finality._] If your name comes out at the inquest, to talk -of anything but retirement from public life is perfect lunacy ... and you -know it. - - HORSHAM _comes back from the passage. He is a little distracted; then - the more so at finding himself again in a highly-charged atmosphere._ - -HORSHAM. He's gone off with Wedgecroft. - -TREBELL. [_Including_ HORSHAM _now in his appeal._] Does anyone think he -knows me now to be a worse man ... less fit, less able ... than he did a -week ago? - - _From the piano-stool comes_ CANTELUPE'S _quiet voice._ - -CANTELUPE. Yes, Trebell ... I do. - - TREBELL _wheels round at this and ceases all bluster._ - -TREBELL. On what grounds? - -CANTELUPE. Unarguable ones. - -HORSHAM. [_Finding refuge again in his mantelpiece._] You know, he has gone -off without giving me his promise. - -FARRANT. That's your own fault, Trebell. - -HORSHAM. The fool says I didn't give him explicit instructions. - -FARRANT. What fool? - -HORSHAM. That man ... [_The name fails him._] ... my new man. One of those -touches of Fate's little finger, really. - - _He begins to consult the ceiling and the carpet once more._ TREBELL - _tackles_ CANTELUPE _with gravity._ - -TREBELL. I have only a logical mind, Cantelupe. I know that to make myself a -capable man I've purged myself of all the sins ... I never was idle enough -to commit. I know that if your God didn't make use of men, sins and all ... -what would ever be done in the world? That one natural action, which the -slight shifting of a social law could have made as negligible as eating a -meal, can make me incapable ... takes the linch-pin out of one's brain, -doesn't it? - -HORSHAM. Trebell, we've been doing our best to get you out of this mess. -Your remarks to O'Connell weren't of any assistance, and.... - -CANTELUPE _stands up, so momentously that_ HORSHAM'S _gentle flow of speech -dries up._ - -CANTELUPE. Perhaps I had better say at once that, whatever hushing up you -may succeed in, it will be impossible for me to sit in a cabinet with Mr. -Trebell. - - _It takes even_ FARRANT _a good half minute to recover his power of - speech on this new issue._ - -FARRANT. What perfect nonsense, Cantelupe! I hope you don't mean that. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Complication number one, Horsham. - -FARRANT. [_Working up his protest._] Why on earth not? You really mustn't -drag your personal feelings and prejudices into important matters like this -... matters of state. - -CANTELUPE. I think I have no choice, when Trebell stands convicted of a -mortal sin, of which he has not even repented. - -TREBELL. [_With bitterest cynicism._] Dictate any form of repentance you -like ... my signature is yours. - -CANTELUPE. Is this a matter for intellectual jugglery? - -TREBELL. [_His defence failing at last._] I offered to face the scandal from -my place in the House. That was mad, wasn't it.... - - BLACKBOROUGH--_his course mapped out--changes the tone of the - discussion._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. Horsham, I hope Trebell will believe I have no personal -feelings in this matter, but we may as well face the fact even now that -O'Connell holding his tongue to-morrow won't stop gossip in the House, club -gossip, gossip in drawing rooms. What do the Radicals really care so long as -a scandal doesn't get into the papers! There's an inner circle with its eye -on us. - -FARRANT. Well, what does that care as long as scandal's its own copyright? -Do you know, my dear father refused a peerage because he felt it meant -putting blinkers on his best newspaper. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_A little subtly._] Still ... now you and Horsham are -cousins, aren't you? - -FARRANT. [_Off the track and explanatory._] No, no ... my wife's mother.... - -BLACKBOROUGH. I'm inaccurate, for I'm not one of the family circle myself. -My money gets me here and any skill I've used in making it. It wouldn't keep -me at a pinch. And Trebell ... [_He speaks through his teeth._] ... do you -think your accession to power in the party is popular at the best? Who is -going to put out a finger to make it less awkward for Horsham to stick to -you if there's a chance of your going under? - - TREBELL _smiles at some mental picture he is making._ - -TREBELL. Can your cousins and aunts make it so awkward for you, Horsham? - -HORSHAM. [_Repaying humour with humour._] I bear up against their -affectionate attentions. - -TREBELL. But I quite understand how uncongenial I may be. What made you take -up with me at all? - -FARRANT. Your brains, Trebell. - -TREBELL. He should have enquired into my character first, shouldn't he, -Cantelupe? - -CANTELUPE. [_With crushing sincerity._] Yes. - -TREBELL. Oh, the old unnecessary choice ... Wisdom or Virtue. We all think -we must make it ... and we all discover we can't. But if you've to choose -between Cantelupe and me, Horsham, I quite see you've no choice. - - HORSHAM _now takes the field, using his own weapons._ - -HORSHAM. Charles, it seems to me that we are somewhat in the position of men -who have overheard a private conversation. Do you feel justified in making -public use of it? - -CANTELUPE. It is not I who am judge. God knows I would not sit in judgment -upon anyone. - -TREBELL. Cantelupe, I'll take your personal judgment if you can give it me. - -FARRANT. Good Lord, Cantelupe, didn't you sit in a cabinet with ... Well, -we're not here to rake up old scandals. - -BLACKBOROUGH. I am concerned with the practical issue. - -HORSHAM. We know, Blackborough. [_Having quelled the interruption he -proceeds._] Charles, you spoke, I think, of a mortal sin. - -CANTELUPE. In spite of your lifted eyebrows at the childishness of the word. - -HORSHAM. Theoretically, we must all wish to guide ourselves by eternal -truths. But you would admit, wouldn't you, that we can only deal with -temporal things? - -CANTELUPE. [_Writhing slightly under the sceptical cross-examination._] -There are divine laws laid down for our guidance ... I admit no disbelief in -them. - -HORSHAM. Do they place any time-limit to the effect of a mortal sin? If this -affair were twenty years old would you do as you are doing? Can you forecast -the opinion you will have of it six months hence? - -CANTELUPE. [_Positively._] Yes. - -HORSHAM. Can you? Nevertheless I wish you had postponed your decision even -till to-morrow. - - _Having made his point he looks round almost for approval._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. What had Percival to say on the subject, Farrant? - -FARRANT. I was only to make use of his opinion under certain circumstances. - -BLACKBOROUGH. So it isn't favourable to your remaining with us, Mr. Trebell. - -FARRANT. [_Indignantly emerging from the trap._] I never said that. - - _Now_ TREBELL _gives the matter another turn, very forcefully._ - -TREBELL. Horsham ... I don't bow politely and stand aside at this juncture -as a gentleman should, because I want to know how the work's to be done if I -leave you what I was to do. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Are we so incompetent? - -TREBELL. I daresay not. I want to know ... that's all. - -CANTELUPE. Please understand, Mr. Trebell, that I have in no way altered my -good opinion of your proposals. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Well, I beg to remind you, Horsham, that from the first I've -reserved myself liberty to criticise fundamental points in the scheme. - -HORSHAM. [_Pacifically._] Quite so ... quite so. - -BLACKBOROUGH. That nonsensical new standard of teachers' salaries for one -thing ... you'd never pass it. - -HORSHAM. Quite easily. It's an administrative point, so leave the -legislation vague. Then, as the appropriation money falls in, the -qualifications rise and the salaries rise. No one will object because no one -will appreciate it but administrators past or future ... and they never -cavil at money. [_He remains lost in the beauty of this prospect._] - -TREBELL. Will you take charge of the bill, Blackborough? - -BLACKBOROUGH. Are you serious? - -HORSHAM. [_Brought to earth._] Oh no! [_He corrects himself smiling._] I -mean, my dear Blackborough, why not stick to the Colonies? - -BLACKBOROUGH. You see, Trebell, there's still the possibility that O'Connell -may finally spike your gun to-morrow. You realise that, don't you? - -TREBELL. Thank you. I quite realise that. - -CANTELUPE. Can nothing further be done? - -BLACKBOROUGH. Weren't we doing our best? - -HORSHAM. Yes ... if we were bending our thoughts to that difficulty now.... - -TREBELL. [_Hardly._] May I ask you to interfere on my behalf no further? - -FARRANT. My dear Trebell! - -TREBELL. I assure you that I am interested in the Disestablishment Bill. - - _So they turn readily enough from the more uncomfortable part of their - subject._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. Well ... here's Farrant. - -FARRANT. I'm no good. Give me Agriculture. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Pity you're in the Lords, Horsham. - -TREBELL. Horsham, I'll devil for any man you choose to name ... feed him -sentence by sentence.... - -HORSHAM. That's impossible. - -TREBELL. Well, what's to become of my bill? I want to know. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Casting his care on Providence._] We shall manage somehow. -Why, if you had died suddenly ... or let us say, never been born.... - -TREBELL. Then, Blackborough ... speaking as a dying man ... if you go back -on the integrity of this scheme, I'll haunt you. [_Having said this with -some finality, he turns his back._] - -CANTELUPE. Cyril, I agree with what Trebell is saying. Whatever happens -there must be no tampering with the comprehensiveness of the scheme. -Remember you are in the hands of the extremists ... on both sides. I won't -support a compromise on one ... nor will they on the other. - -HORSHAM. Well, I'll confess to you candidly, Trebell, that I don't know of -any man available for this piece of work but you. - -TREBELL. Then I should say it would be almost a relief to you if O'Connell -tells on me to-morrow. - -FARRANT. We seem to have got off that subject altogether. [_There comes a -portentous tap at the door._] Good Lord!... I'm getting jumpy. - -HORSHAM. Excuse me. - - _A note is handed to him through the half opened door; and obviously - it is at_ EDMUNDS _whom he frowns. Then he returns fidgetting for his - glasses._ - -Oh, it turns out ... I'm so sorry you were blundered in here, Trebell ... -this man ... what's his name ... Edwards ... had been reading the papers and -thought it was a cabinet council ... seemed proud of himself. This is from -Wedgecroft ... scribbled in a messenger office. I never can read his writing -... it's like prescriptions. Can you? - - _It has gradually dawned on the three men and then on_ TREBELL _what - this note may have in it._ FARRANT _hand even trembles a little as he - takes it. He gathers the meaning himself and looks at the others with - a smile before he reads the few words aloud._ - -FARRANT. "All right. He has promised." - -BLACKBOROUGH. O'Connell? - -FARRANT. Thank God. [_He turns enthusiastically to_ TREBELL _who stands -rigid._] My dear fellow ... I hope you know how glad I am. - -CANTELUPE. I am very glad. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Of course we're all very glad indeed, Trebell ... very glad we -persuaded him. - -FARRANT. That's dead and buried now, isn't it? - - TREBELL _moves away from them all and leaves them wondering. When he - turns round his face is as hard as ever; his voice, if possible, - harder._ - -TREBELL. But, Horsham, returning to the more important question ... you've -taken trouble, and O'Connell's to perjure himself for nothing if you still -can't get me into your child's puzzle ... to make the pretty picture that a -Cabinet should be. - - HORSHAM _looks at_ BLACKBOROUGH _and scents danger._ - -HORSHAM. We shall all be glad, I am sure, to postpone any further -discussion.... - -TREBELL. I shall not. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Encouragingly._] Quite so, Trebell. We're on the subject, -and it won't discount our pleasure that you're out of this mess, to continue -it. This habit of putting off the hour of disagreement is ... well, Horsham, -it's contrary to my business instincts. - -TREBELL. If one time's as good as another for you ... this moment is better -than most for me. - -HORSHAM. [_A little irritated at the wantonness of this dispute._] There is -nothing before us on which we are capable of coming to any decision ... in a -technical sense. - -BLACKBOROUGH. That's a quibble. [_Poor_ HORSHAM _gasps._] I'm not going to -pretend either now or in a month's time that I think Trebell anything but a -most dangerous acquisition to the party. I pay you a compliment in that, -Trebell. Now, Horsham proposes that we should go to the country when -Disestablishment's through. - -HORSHAM. It's the condition of Nonconformist support. - -BLACKBOROUGH. One condition. Then you'd leave us, Trebell? - -HORSHAM. I hope not. - -BLACKBOROUGH. And carry with you the credit of our one big measure. Consider -the effect upon our reputation with the Country. - -FARRANT. [_Waking to_ BLACKBOROUGH'S _line of action._] Why on earth should -you leave us, Trebell? You've hardly been a Liberal, even in name. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Vigorously making his point._] Then what would be the -conditions of your remaining? You're not a party man, Trebell. You haven't -the true party feeling. You are to be bought. Of course you take your price -in measures, not in money. But you are preeminently a man of ideas ... an -expert. And a man of ideas is often a grave embarrassment to a government. - -HORSHAM. And vice-versa ... vice-versa! - -TREBELL. [_Facing_ BLACKBOROUGH _across the room._] Do I understand that you -for the good of the Tory party ... just as Cantelupe for the good of his -soul ... will refuse to sit in a cabinet with me. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Unembarrassed._] I don't commit myself to saying that. - -CANTELUPE. No, Trebell ... it's that I must believe your work could not -prosper ... in God's way. - - TREBELL _softens to his sincerity._ - -TREBELL. Cantelupe, I quite understand. You may be right ... it's a very -interesting question. Blackborough, I take it that you object first of all -to the scheme that I'm bringing you. - -BLACKBOROUGH. I object to those parts of it which I don't think you'll get -through the House. - -FARRANT. [_Feeling that he must take part._] For instance? - -BLACKBOROUGH. I've given you one already. - -CANTELUPE. [_His eye on_ BLACKBOROUGH.] Understand there are things in that -scheme we must stand or fall by. - - _Suddenly_ TREBELL _makes for the door_, HORSHAM _gets up - concernedly._ - -TREBELL. Horsham, make up your mind to-night whether you can do with me or -not. I have to see Percival again to-morrow ... we cut short our argument at -the important point. Good-bye ... don't come down. Will you decide to-night? - -HORSHAM. I have made up my own mind. - -TREBELL. Is that sufficient? - -HORSHAM. A collective decision is a matter of development. - -TREBELL. Well, I shall expect to hear. - -HORSHAM. By hurrying one only reaches a rash conclusion. - -TREBELL. Then be rash for once and take the consequences. Good-night. - - _He is gone before_ HORSHAM _can compose another epigram._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Deprecating such conduct._] Lost his temper! - -FARRANT. [_Ruffling considerably._] Horsham, if Trebell is to be hounded out -of your cabinet ... he won't go alone. - -HORSHAM. [_Bitter-sweet._] My dear Farrant ... I have yet to form my -cabinet. - -CANTELUPE. You are forming it to carry disestablishment, are you not, Cyril? -Therefore you will form it in the best interests of the best scheme -possible. - -HORSHAM. Trebell was and is the best man I know of for the purpose. I'm a -little weary of saying that. - - _He folds his arms and awaits further developments. After a moment_ - CANTELUPE _gets up as if to address a meeting._ - -CANTELUPE. Then if you would prefer not to include me ... I shall feel -justified in giving independent support to a scheme I have great faith in. -[_And he sits down again._] - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Impatiently._] My dear Cantelupe, if you think Horsham can -form a disestablishment cabinet to include Trebell and exclude you, you're -vastly mistaken. I for one.... - -FARRANT. But do both of you consider how valuable, how vital Trebell is to -us just at this moment? The Radicals trust him.... - -BLACKBOROUGH. They hate him. - -HORSHAM. [_Elucidating._] Their front bench hates him because he turned them -out. The rest of them hate their front bench. After six years of office, who -wouldn't? - -BLACKBOROUGH. That's true. - -FARRANT. Oh, of course, we must stick to Trebell, Blackborough. - - BLACKBOROUGH _is silent; so_ HORSHAM _turns his attention to his - cousin._ - -HORSHAM. Well, Charles, I won't ask you for a decision now. I know how hard -it is to accept the dictates of other men's consciences ... but a necessary -condition of all political work; believe me. - -CANTELUPE. [_Uneasily._] You can form your cabinet without me, Cyril. - - _At this_ BLACKBOROUGH _charges down on them, so to speak._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. No, I tell you, I'm damned if he can. Leaving the whole high -church party to blackmail all they can out of us and vote how they like! -Here ... I've got my Yorkshire people to think of. I can bargain for them -with you in a cabinet ... not if you've the pull of being out of it. - -HORSHAM. [_With charming insinuation._] And have you calculated, -Blackborough, what may become of us if Trebell has the pull of being out of -it? - - BLACKBOROUGH _makes a face._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. Yes ... I suppose he might turn nasty. - -FARRANT. I should hope he would. - -BLACKBOROUGH.[_Tackling_ FARRANT _with great ease._] I should hope he would -consider the matter not from the personal, but from the political point of -view ... as I am trying to do. - -HORSHAM. [_Tasting his epigram with enjoyment._] Introspection is the only -bar to such an honourable endeavour, [BLACKBOROUGH _gapes._] You don't -suffer from that as--for instance--Charles here, does. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Pugnaciously._] D'you mean I'm just pretending not to attack -him personally? - -HORSHAM. [_Safe on his own ground._] It's only a curious metaphysical point. -Have you never noticed your distaste for the colour of a man's hair -translate itself ultimately into an objection to his religious opinions ... -or what not? I am sure--for instance--I could trace Charles's scruples about -sitting in a cabinet with Trebell back to a sort of academic reverence for -women generally which he possesses. I am sure I could ... if he were not -probably now doing it himself. But this does not make the scruples less -real, less religious, or less political. We must be humanly biased in -expression ... or not express ourselves. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Whose thoughts have wandered._] The man's less of a danger -than he was ... I mean he'll be alone. The Liberals won't have him back. He -smashed his following there to come over to us. - -FARRANT. [_Giving a further meaning to this._] Yes, Blackborough, he did. - -BLACKBOROUGH. To gain his own ends! Oh, my dear Horsham, can't you see that -if O'Connell had blabbed to-morrow it really would have been a blessing in -disguise? I don't pretend to Cantelupe's standard ... but there must be -something radically wrong with a man who could get himself into such a mess -as that ... now mustn't there? Ah! ... you have a fatal partiality for -clever people. I tell you ... though this might be patched up ... Trebell -would fail us in some other way before we were six months older. - - _This speech has its effect; but_ HORSHAM _looks at him a little - sternly._ - -HORSHAM. And am I to conclude that you don't want Charles to change his -mind? - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_On another tack._] Farrant has not yet allowed us to hear -Percival's opinion. - -FARRANT _looks rather alarmed._ - -FARRANT. It has very little reference to the scandal. - -BLACKBOROUGH. As that is at an end ... all the more reason we should hear -it. - -HORSHAM. [_Ranging himself with_ FARRANT.] I called this quite informal -meeting, Blackborough, only to dispose of the scandal, if possible. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Well, of course, if Farrant chooses to insult Percival so -gratuitously by burking his message to us.... - - _There is an unspoken threat in this_, HORSHAM _sees it and without - disguising his irritation...._ - -HORSHAM. Let us have it, Farrant. - -FARRANT. [_With a sort of puzzled discontent._] Well ... I never got to -telling him of the O'Connell affair at all. He started talking to me ... -saying that he couldn't for a moment agree to Trebell's proposals for the -finance of his bill ... I couldn't get a word in edgeways. Then his wife -came up.... - - HORSHAM _takes something in this so seriously that he actually - interrupts._ - -HORSHAM. Does he definitely disagree? What is his point? - -FARRANT. He says Disestablishment's a bad enough speculation for the party -as it is. - -BLACKBOROUGH. It is inevitable. - -FARRANT. He sees that. But then he says ... to go to the country again -having bolstered up Education and quarrelled with everybody will be bad -enough ... to go having spent fifty millions on it will dish us all for our -lifetimes. - -HORSHAM. What does he propose? - -FARRANT. He'll offer to draft another bill and take it through himself. He -says ... do as many good turns as we can with the money ... don't put it all -on one horse. - -BLACKBOROUGH. He's your man, Horsham. That's one difficulty settled. - - HORSHAM'S _thoughts are evidently beyond_ BLACKBOROUGH, _beyond the - absent_ PERCIVAL _even._ - -HORSHAM. Oh ... any of us could carry that sort of a bill. - - CANTELUPE _has heard this last passage with nothing less than horror - and pale anger, which he contains no longer._ - -CANTELUPE. I won't have this. I won't have this opportunity frittered away -for party purposes. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Expostulating reasonably._] My dear Cantelupe ... you'll get -whatever you think it right for the Church to have. You carry a solid thirty -eight votes with you. - - HORSHAM'S _smooth voice intervenes. He speaks with finesse._ - -HORSHAM. Percival, as an old campaigner, expresses himself very roughly. The -point is, that we are after all only the trustees of the party. If we know -that a certain step will decimate it ... clearly we have no right to take -the step. - -CANTELUPE. [_Glowing to white heat._] Is this a time to count the -consequences to ourselves? - -HORSHAM. [_Unkindly._] By your action this evening, Charles, you evidently -think not. [_He salves the wound._] No matter, I agree with you ... the -bill should be a comprehensive one, whoever brings it in. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Not without enjoyment of the situation._] Whoever brings it -in will have to knuckle under to Percival over its finance. - -FARRANT. Trebell won't do that. I warned Percival. - -HORSHAM. Then what did he say? - -FARRANT. He only swore. - - HORSHAM _suddenly becomes peevish._ - -HORSHAM. I think, Farrant, you should have given me this message before. - -FARRANT. My dear Horsham, what had it to do with our request to O'Connell? - -HORSHAM. [_Scolding the company generally._] Well then, I wish he hadn't -sent it. I wish we were not discussing these points at all. The proper time -for them is at a cabinet meeting. And when we have actually assumed the -responsibilities of government ... then threats of resignation are not -things to be played about with. - -FARRANT. Did you expect Percival's objection to the finance of the scheme? - -HORSHAM. Perhaps ... perhaps. I knew Trebell was to see him last Tuesday. I -expect everybody's objections to any parts of every scheme to come at a time -when I am in a proper position to reconcile them ... not now. - - _Having vented his grievances he sits down to recover._ BLACKBOROUGH - _takes advantage of the ensuing pause._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. It isn't so easy for me to speak against Trebell, since he -evidently dislikes me personally as much as I dislike him ... but I'm sure -I'm doing my duty. Horsham ... here you have Cantelupe who won't stand in -with the man, and Percival who won't stand in with his measure, while I -would sooner stand in with neither. Isn't it better to face the situation -now than take trouble to form the most makeshift of Cabinets, and if that -doesn't go to pieces, be voted down in the House by your own party? - - _There is an oppressive silence,_ HORSHAM _is sulky. The matter is - beyond_ FARRANT. CANTELUPE _whose agonies have expressed themselves in - slight writhings, at last, with an effort, writhes himself to his - feet._ - -CANTELUPE. I think I am prepared to reconsider my decision. - -FARRANT. That's all right then! - - _He looks round wonderingly for the rest of the chorus to find that - neither_ BLACKBOROUGH _nor_ HORSHAM _have stirred._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Stealthily._] Is it, Horsham? - -HORSHAM. [_Sotto voce._] Why did you ever make it? - - BLACKBOROUGH _leaves him for_ CANTELUPE. - -BLACKBOROUGH. You're afraid for the integrity of the bill. - -CANTELUPE. It must be comprehensive ... that's vital. BLACKBOROUGH. [_Very -forcefully._] I give you my word to support its integrity, if you'll keep -with me in persuading Horsham that the inclusion of Trebell in his cabinet -will be a blow to the whole Conservative Cause. Horsham, I implore you not -to pursue this short-sighted policy. All parties have made up their minds to -Disestablishment ... surely nothing should be easier than to frame a bill -which will please all parties. - -FARRANT. [_At last perceiving the drift of all this._] But good Lord, -Blackborough ... now Cantelupe has come round and will stand in ... - -BLACKBOROUGH. That's no longer the point. And what's all this nonsense about -going to the country again next year? - -HORSHAM. [_Mildly._] After consulting me Percival said at Bristol.... - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Quite unchecked._] I know. But if we pursue a thoroughly -safe policy and the bye-elections go right ... there need be no vote of -censure carried for three or four years. The Radicals want a rest with the -country and they know it. And one has no right, what's more, to go wantonly -plunging the country into the expenses of these constant general elections. -It ruins trade. - -FARRANT. [_Forlornly sticking to his point._] What has all this to do with -Trebell? - -HORSHAM. [_Thoughtfully._] Farrant, beyond what you've told us, Percival -didn't recommend me to throw him over. - -FARRANT. No, he didn't ... that is, he didn't exactly. - -HORSHAM. Well ... he didn't? - -FARRANT. I'm trying to be accurate! [_Obviously their nerves are now on -edge._] He said we should find him tough to assimilate--as he warned you. - - HORSHAM _with knit brows, loses himself in thought again,_ - BLACKBOROUGH _quietly turns his attention to_ FARRANT. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Farrant, you don't seriously think that ... outside his -undoubted capabilities ... Trebell is an acquisition to the party? - -FARRANT. [_Unwillingly._] Perhaps not. But if you're going to chuck a man -... don't chuck him when he's down. - -BLACKBOROUGH. He's no longer down. We've got him O'Connell's promise and -jolly grateful he ought to be. I think the least we can do is to keep our -minds clear between Trebell's advantage and the party's. - -CANTELUPE. [_From the distant music-stool._] And the party's and the -Country's. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Countering quite deftly._] Cantelupe, either we think it -best for the country to have our party in power or we don't. - -FARRANT. [_In judicious temper._] Certainly, I don't feel our responsibility -towards him is what it was ten minutes ago. The man has other careers -besides his political one. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Ready to praise._] Clever as paint at the Bar--best Company -lawyer we've got. - -CANTELUPE. It is not what he loses, I think ... but what we lose in losing -him. - - _He says this so earnestly that_ HORSHAM _pays attention._ - -HORSHAM. No, my dear Charles, let us be practical. If his position with us -is to be made impossible it is better that he shouldn't assume it. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Soft and friendly._] How far are you actually pledged to -him? - - HORSHAM _looks up with the most ingenuous of smiles._ - -HORSHAM. That's always such a difficult sort of point to determine, isn't -it? He thinks he is to join us. But I've not yet been commanded to form a -cabinet. If neither you--nor Percival--nor perhaps others will work with him -... what am I to do? [_He appeals to them generally to justify this -attitude._] - -BLACKBOROUGH. He no longer thinks he's to join us ... it's the question he -left us to decide. - - _He leaves_ HORSHAM, _whose perplexity is diminishing._ FARRANT _makes - an effort._ - -FARRANT. But the scandal won't weaken his position with us now. There won't -be any scandal ... there won't, Blackborough. - -HORSHAM. There may be. Though, I take it we're all guiltless of having -mentioned the matter. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_Very detached._] I've only known of it since I came into -this house ... but I shall not mention it. - -FARRANT. Oh, I'm afraid my wife knows. [_He adds hastily._] My fault ... my -fault entirely. - -BLACKBOROUGH. I tell you Rumour's electric. - - HORSHAM _has turned to_ FARRANT _with a sweet smile and with the air - of a man about to be relieved of all responsibility._ - -HORSHAM. What does she say? - -FARRANT. [_As one speaks of a nice woman._] She was horrified. - -HORSHAM. Of course. [_Once more he finds refuge and comfort on the -hearthrug, to say, after a moment, with fine resignation._] I suppose I must -let him go. - -CANTELUPE. [_On his feet again._] Cyril! - -HORSHAM. Yes, Charles? - - _With this query he turns an accusing eye on_ CANTELUPE, _who is - silenced._ - -BLACKBOROUGH. Have you made up your mind to that? - -FARRANT. [_In great distress._] You're wrong, Horsham. [_Then in greater._] -That is ... I think you're wrong. - -HORSHAM. I'd sooner not let him know to-night. - -BLACKBOROUGH. But he asked you to. - -HORSHAM. [_All show of resistance gone._] Did he? Then I suppose I must. -[_He sighs deeply._] - -BLACKBOROUGH. Then I'll get back to Aylesbury. - - _He picks up his motor-cap from the table and settles it on his head - with immense aplomb._ - -HORSHAM. So late? - -BLACKBOROUGH. Really one can get along quicker at night if one knows the -road. You're in town, aren't you, Farrant? Shall I drop you at Grosvenor -Square? - -FARRANT. [_Ungraciously._] Thank you. - -BLACKBOROUGH. [_With a conqueror's geniality._] I don't mind telling you -now, Horsham, that ever since we met at Shapters I've been wondering how -you'd escape from this association with Trebell. Thought he was being very -clever when he crossed the House to us! It's needed a special providence. -You'd never have got a cabinet together to include him. - -HORSHAM. [_With much intention._] No. - -FARRANT. [_Miserably.]_ Yes, I suppose that intrigue was a mistake from the -beginning. - -BLACKBOROUGH. Well, good-night. [_As he turns to go he finds_ CANTELUPE -_upright, staring very sternly at him._] Good-night, Cantelupe. - -CANTELUPE. From what motives have we thrown Trebell over? - -BLACKBOROUGH. Never mind the motives if the move is the right one. [_Then he -nods at_ HORSHAM.] I shall be up again next week if you want me. - - _And he flourishes out of the room; a man who has done a good hour's - work_, FARRANT, _who has been mooning depressedly around, now backs - towards the door._ - -FARRANT. In one way, of course, Trebell won't care a damn. I mean, he knows -as well as we do that office isn't worth having ... he has never been a -place-hunter. On the other hand ... what with one thing and the other ... -Blackborough is a sensible fellow. I suppose it can't be helped. - -HORSHAM. Blackborough will tell you so. Good-night. - - _So_ FARRANT _departs, leaving the two cousins together._ CANTELUPE - _has not moved and now faces_ HORSHAM _just as accusingly._ - -CANTELUPE. Cyril, this is tragic. - -HORSHAM. [_More to himself than in answer._] Yes ... most annoying. - -CANTELUPE. Lucifer, son of the morning! Why is it always the highest who -fall? - - HORSHAM _shies fastidiously at this touch of poetry._ - -HORSHAM. No, my dear Charles, let us above all things keep our mental -balance. Trebell is a most capable fellow. I'd set my heart on having him -with me ... he'll be most awkward to deal with in opposition. But we shall -survive his loss and so would the country. - -CANTELUPE. [_Desperately._] Cyril, promise me there shall be no compromise -over this measure. - -HORSHAM. [_Charmingly candid._] No ... no unnecessary compromise, I promise -you. - -CANTELUPE. [_With a sigh._] If we had done what we have done to-night in -the right spirit! Blackborough was almost vindictive. - -HORSHAM. [_Smiling without amusement._] Didn't you keep thinking ... I did -... of that affair of his with Mrs. Parkington ... years ago? - -CANTELUPE. There was never any proof of it. - -HORSHAM. No ... he bought off the husband. - -CANTELUPE. [_Uneasily._] His objections to Trebell were--political. - -HORSHAM. Yours weren't. - -CANTELUPE. [_More uneasily still._] I withdrew mine. - -HORSHAM. [_With elderly reproof._] I don't think, Charles, you have the -least conception of what a nicely balanced machine a cabinet is. - -CANTELUPE. [_Imploring comfort._] But should we have held together through -Trebell's bill? - -HORSHAM. [_A little impatient._] Perhaps not. But once I had them all round -a table ... Trebell is very keen on office for all his independent airs ... -he and Percival could have argued the thing out. However, it's too late now. - -CANTELUPE. Is it? - - _For a moment_ HORSHAM _is tempted to indulge in the luxury of - changing his mind; but he puts Satan behind him with a shake of the - head._ - -HORSHAM. Well, you see ... Percival I can't do without. Now that -Blackborough knows of his objections to the finance he'd go to him and take -Chisholm and offer to back them up. I know he would ... he didn't take -Farrant away with him for nothing. [_Then he flashes out rather shrilly._] -It's Trebell's own fault. He ought not to have committed himself definitely -to any scheme until he was safely in office. I warned him about Percival ... -I warned him not to be explicit. One cannot work with men who will make up -their minds prematurely. No, I shall not change my mind. I shall write to -him. - - _He goes firmly to his writing desk leaving_ CANTELUPE _forlorn._ - -CANTELUPE. What about a messenger? - -HORSHAM. Not at this time of night. I'll post it. - -CANTELUPE. I'll post it as I go. - - _He seeks comfort again in the piano and this time starts to play, - with one finger and some hesitation, the first bars of a Bach fugue_, - HORSHAM'S _pen-nib is disappointing him and the letter is not easy to - phrase._ - -HORSHAM. But I hate coming to immediate decisions. The administrative part -of my brain always tires after half an hour. Does yours, Charles? - -CANTELUPE. What do you think Trebell will do now? - -HORSHAM. [_A little grimly._] Punish us all he can. - - _On reaching the second voice in the fugue_ CANTELUPE'S _virtuosity - breaks down._ - -CANTELUPE. All that ability turned to destructiveness ... what a pity! -That's the paradox of human activities.... - - _Suddenly_ HORSHAM _looks up and his face is lighted with a seraphic - smile._ - -HORSHAM. Charles ... I wish we could do without Blackborough. - -CANTELUPE. [_Struck with the idea._] Well ... why not? - -HORSHAM. Yes ... I must think about it. [_They both get up, cheered -considerably._] You won't forget this, will you? - -CANTELUPE. [_The letter in_ HORSHAM'S _hand accusing him._] No ... no. I -don't think I have been the cause of your dropping Trebell, have I? - - HORSHAM, _rid of the letter, is rid of responsibility and his charming - equable self again. He comforts his cousin paternally._ - -HORSHAM. I don't think so. The split would have come when Blackborough -checkmated my forming a cabinet. It would have pleased him to do that ... -and he could have, over Trebell. But now that question's out of the way ... -you won't get such a bad measure with Trebell in opposition. He'll frighten -us into keeping it up to the mark, so to speak. - -CANTELUPE. [_A little comforted._] But I shall miss one or two of those -ideas ... - -HORSHAM. [_So pleasantly sceptical._] Do you think they'd have outlasted the -second reading? Dullness in the country one expects. Dullness in the House -one can cope with. But do you know, I have never sat in a cabinet yet that -didn't greet anything like a new idea in chilling silence. - -CANTELUPE. Well, I should regret to have caused you trouble, Cyril. - -HORSHAM. [_His hand on the other's shoulder._] Oh ... we don't take politics -so much to heart as that, I hope. - -CANTELUPE. [_With sweet gravity._] I take politics very much to heart. Yes, -I know what you mean ... but that's the sort of remark that makes people -call you cynical. [HORSHAM _smiles as if at a compliment and starts with_ -CANTELUPE _towards the door._ CANTELUPE, _who would not hurt his feelings, -changes the subject._] By the bye, I'm glad we met this evening! Do you hear -Aunt Mary wants to sell the Burford Holbein? Can she? - -HORSHAM. [_Taking as keen, but no keener, an interest in this than in the -difficulty he has just surmounted._] Yes, by the will she can, but she -mustn't. Dear me, I thought I'd put a stop to that foolishness. Well now, we -must take that matter up very seriously ... - - _They go out talking arm in arm._ - - - - -THE FOURTH ACT - - -At TREBELL'S again; later, the same evening. - -_His room is in darkness but for the flicker the fire makes and the streaks -of moonlight between the curtains. The door is open, though, and you see the -light of the lamp on the stairs. You hear his footstep too. On his way he -stops to draw back the the curtains of the passage-way window; the moonlight -makes his face look very pale. Then he serves the curtains of his own window -the same; flings it open, moreover, and stands looking out. Something below -draws his attention. After leaning over the balcony with a short_ "Hullo" -_he goes quickly downstairs again. In a minute_ WEDGECROFT _comes up._ -TREBELL _follows, pausing by the door a moment to light up the room._ -WEDGECROFT _is radiant._ - -TREBELL. [_With a twist of his mouth._] Promised, has he? - -WEDGECROFT. Suddenly broke out as we walked along, that he liked the look of -you and that men must stand by one another nowadays against these women. -Then he said good-night and walked away. - -TREBELL. Back to Ireland and the thirteenth century. - -WEDGECROFT. After to-morrow. - -TREBELL. [_Taking all the meaning of to-morrow._] Yes. Are you in for -perjury, too? - -WEDGECROFT. [_His thankfulness checked a little._] No ... not exactly. - - TREBELL _walks away from him._ - -TREBELL. It's a pity the truth isn't to be told, I think. I suppose the -verdict will be murder. - -WEDGECROFT. They won't catch the man. - -TREBELL. You don't mean ... me. - -WEDGECROFT. No, no ... my dear fellow. - -TREBELL. You might, you know. But nobody seems to see this thing as I see -it. If I were on that jury I'd say murder too and accuse ... so many -circumstances, Gilbert, that we should go home ... and look in the -cupboards. What a lumber of opinions we inherit and keep! - -WEDGECROFT. [_Humouring him._] Ought we to burn the house down? - -TREBELL. Rules and regulations for the preservation of rubbish are the laws -of England ... and I was adding to their number. - -WEDGECROFT. And so you shall ... to the applause of a grateful country. - -TREBELL. [_Studying his friend's kindly encouraging face._] Gilbert, it is -not so much that you're an incorrigible optimist ... but why do you subdue -your mind to flatter people into cheerfulness? - -WEDGECROFT. I'm a doctor, my friend. - -TREBELL. You're a part of our tendency to keep things alive by hook or by -crook ... not a spark but must be carefully blown upon. The world's old and -tired; it dreads extinction. I think I disapprove ... I think I've more -faith. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Scolding him._] Nonsense ... you've the instinct to preserve -your life as everyone else has ... and I'm here to show you how. - -TREBELL. [_Beyond the reach of his kindness._] I assure you that these two -days while you've been fussing around O'Connell--bless your kind heart--I've -been waiting events, indifferent enough to understand his indifference. - -WEDGECROFT. Not indifferent. - -TREBELL. Lifeless enough already, then. [_Suddenly a thought strikes him._] -D'you think it was Horsham and his little committee persuaded O'Connell? - -WEDGECROFT. On the contrary. - -TREBELL. So you need not have let them into the secret? - -WEDGECROFT. No. - -TREBELL. Think of that. - - _He almost laughs; but_ WEDGECROFT _goes on quite innocently._ - -WEDGECROFT. Yes ... I'm sorry. - -TREBELL. Upsetting their moral digestion for nothing. - -WEDGECROFT. But when O'Connell wouldn't listen to us we had to rope in the -important people. - -TREBELL. With their united wisdom. [_Then he breaks away again into great -bitterness._] No ... what do they make of this woman's death? I saw them in -that room, Gilbert, like men seen through the wrong end of a telescope. -D'you think if the little affair with Nature ... her offence and mine -against the conveniences of civilization ... had ended in my death too ... -then they'd have stopped to wonder at the misuse and waste of the only force -there is in the world ... come to think of it, there is no other ... than -this desire for expression ... in words ... or through children. Would they -have thought of that and stopped whispering about the scandal? - - _Through this_ WEDGECROFT _has watched him very gravely._ - -WEDGECROFT. Trebell ... if the inquest to-morrow had put you out of action -... - -TREBELL. Should I have grown a beard and travelled abroad and after ten -years timidly tried to climb my way back into politics? When public opinion -takes its heel from your face it keeps it for your finger-tips. After twenty -years to be forgiven by your more broad-minded friends and tolerated as a -dotard by a new generation.... - -WEDGECROFT. Nonsense. What age are you now ... forty-six ... forty-seven? - -TREBELL. Well ... let's instance a good man. Gladstone had done his best -work by sixty-five. Then he began to be popular. Think of his last years of -oratory. - - _He has gone to his table and now very methodically starts to tidy his - papers,_ WEDGECROFT _still watching him._ - -WEDGECROFT. You'd have had to thank Heaven for a little that there were more -lives than one to lead. - -TREBELL. That's another of your faults, Gilbert ... it's a comfort just now -to enumerate them. You're an anarchist ... a kingdom to yourself. You make -little treaties with Truth and with Beauty, and what can disturb you? I'm a -part of the machine I believe in. If my life as I've made it is to be cut -short ... the rest of me shall walk out of the world and slam the door ... -with the noise of a pistol shot. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Concealing some uneasiness._] Then I'm glad it's not to be cut -short. You and your cabinet rank and your disestablishment bill! - - TREBELL _starts to enjoy his secret._ - -TREBELL. Yes ... our minds have been much relieved within the last half -hour, haven't they? - -WEDGECROFT. I scribbled Horsham a note in a messenger office and sent it as -soon as O'Connell had left me. - -TREBELL. He'd be glad to get that. - -WEDGECROFT. He has been most kind about the whole thing. - -TREBELL. Oh, he means well. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Following up his fancied advantage._] But, my friend ... -suicide whilst of unsound mind would never have done.... The hackneyed -verdict hits the truth, you know. - -TREBELL. You think so? - -WEDGECROFT. I don't say there aren't excuses enough in this miserable -world, but fundamentally ... no sane person will destroy life. - -TREBELL. [_His thoughts shifting their plane._] Was she so very mad? I'm not -thinking of her own death. - -WEDGECROFT. Don't brood, Trebell. Your mind isn't healthy yet about her -and-- - -TREBELL. And my child. - - _Even_ WEDGECROFT'S _kindness is at fault before the solemnity of - this._ - -WEDGECROFT. Is that how you're thinking of it? - -TREBELL. How else? It's very inexplicable ... this sense of fatherhood. -[_The eyes of his mind travel down--what vista of possibilities. Then he -shakes himself free._] Let's drop the subject. To finish the list of -shortcomings, you're a bit of an artist too ... therefore I don't think -you'll understand. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Successfully decoyed into argument._] Surely an artist is a -man who understands. - -TREBELL. Everything about life, but not life itself. That's where art fails -a man. - -WEDGECROFT. That's where everything but living fails a man. [_Drifting into -introspection himself._] Yes, it's true. I can talk cleverly and I've -written a book ... but I'm barren. [_Then the healthy mind re-asserts -itself._] No, it's not true. Our thoughts are children ... and marry and -intermarry. And we're peopling the world ... not badly. - -TREBELL. Well ... either life is too little a thing to matter or it's so big -that such specks of it as we may be are of no account. These are two points -of view. And then one has to consider if death can't be sometimes the last -use made of life. - - _There is a tone of menace in this which recalls_ WEDGECROFT _to the - present trouble._ - -WEDGECROFT. I doubt the virtue of sacrifice ... or the use of it. - -TREBELL. How else could I tell Horsham that my work matters? Does he think -so now?... not he. - -WEDGECROFT. You mean if they'd had to throw you over? - - _Once again_ TREBELL _looks up with that secretive smile._ - -TREBELL. Yes ... if they'd had to. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Unreasonably nervous, so he thinks._] My dear fellow, Horsham -would have thought it was the shame and disgrace if you'd shot yourself -after the inquest. That's the proper sentimental thing for you so-called -strong men to do on like occasions. Why, if your name were to come out -to-morrow, your best meaning friends would be sending you pistols by post, -requesting you to use them like a gentleman. Horsham would grieve over ten -dinner-tables in succession and then return to his philosophy. One really -mustn't waste a life trying to shock polite politicians. There'd even be a -suspicion of swagger in it. - -TREBELL. Quite so ... the bomb that's thrown at their feet must be something -otherwise worthless. - - FRANCES _comes in quickly, evidently in search of her brother. Though - she has not been crying, her eyes are wide with grief._ - -FRANCES. Oh, Henry ... I'm so glad you're still up. [_She notices_ -WEDGECROFT.] How d'you do, Doctor? - -TREBELL. [_Doubling his mask of indifference._] Meistersinger's over early. - -FRANCES. Is it? - -TREBELL. Not much past twelve yet. - -FRANCES. [_The little gibe lost on her._] It was Tristan to-night. I'm quite -upset. I heard just as I was coming away ... Amy O'Connell's dead. [_Both -men hold their breath._ TREBELL _is the first to find control of his and -give the cue._] - -TREBELL. Yes ... Wedgecroft has just told me. - -FRANCES. She was only taken ill last week ... it's so extraordinary. [_She -remembers the doctor._] Oh ... have you been attending her? - -WEDGECROFT. Yes. - -FRANCES. I hear there's to be an inquest. - -WEDGECROFT. Yes. - -FRANCES. But what has been the matter? - -TREBELL. [_Sharply forestalling any answer._] You'll know to-morrow. - -FRANCES. [_The little snub almost bewildering her._] Anything private? I -mean.... - -TREBELL. No ... I'll tell you. Don't make Gilbert repeat a story twice.... -He's tired with a good day's work. - -WEDGECROFT. Yes ... I'll be getting away. - - FRANCES _never heeds this flash of a further meaning between the two - men._ - -FRANCES. And I meant to have gone to see her to-day. Was the end very -sudden? Did her husband arrive in time? - -WEDGECROFT. Yes. - -FRANCES. They didn't get on ... he'll be frightfully upset. - - TREBELL _resists a hideous temptation to laugh._ - -WEDGECROFT. Good night, Trebell. - -TREBELL. Good night, Gilbert. Many thanks. - - _There is enough of a caress in_ TREBELL'S _tone to turn_ FRANCES - _towards their friend, a little remorseful for treating him so - casually, now as always._ - -FRANCES. He's always thanking you. You're always doing things for him. - -WEDGECROFT. Good night. [_Seeing the tears in her eyes._] Oh, don't grieve. - -FRANCES. One shouldn't be sorry when people die, I know. But she liked me -more than I liked her ... [_This time_ TREBELL _does laugh, silently._] ... -so I somehow feel in her debt and unable to pay now. - -TREBELL. [_An edge on his voice._] Yes ... people keep on dying at all -sorts of ages, in all sorts of ways. But we seem never to get used to it ... -narrow-minded as we are. - -WEDGECROFT. Don't you talk nonsense. - -TREBELL. [_One note sharper yet._] One should occasionally test one's sanity -by doing so. If we lived in the logical world we like to believe in, I could -also prove that black was white. As it is ... there are more ways of killing -a cat than hanging it. - -WEDGECROFT. Had I better give you a sleeping draught? - -FRANCES. Are you doctoring him for once? Henry, have you at last managed to -overwork yourself? - -TREBELL. No ... I started the evening by a charming little dinner at the Van -Meyer's ... sat next to Miss Grace Cutler, who is writing a _vie intime_ of -Louis Quinze and engaged me with anecdotes of the same. - -FRANCES. A champion of her sex, whom I do not like. - -WEDGECROFT. She's writing such a book to prove that women are equal to -anything. - - _He goes towards the door and_ FRANCES _goes with him._ TREBELL _never - turns his head._ - -TREBELL. I shall not come and open the door for you ... but mind you shut -it. - - FRANCES _comes back._ - -FRANCES. Henry ... this is dreadful about that poor little woman. - -TREBELL. An unwelcome baby was arriving. She got some quack to kill her. - - _These exact words are like a blow in the face to her, from which, - being a woman of brave common sense, she does not shrink._ - -TREBELL. What do you say to that? - - _She walks away from him, thinking painfully._ - -FRANCES. She had never had a child. There's the common-place thing to -say.... Ungrateful little fool! But.... - -TREBELL. If you had been in her place? - -FRANCES. [_Subtly._] I have never made the mistake of marrying. She grew -frightened, I suppose. Not just physically frightened. How can a man -understand? - -TREBELL. The fear of life ... do you think it was ... which is the beginning -of all evil? - -FRANCES. A woman must choose what her interpretation of life is to be ... as -a man must too in his way ... as you and I have chosen, Henry. - -TREBELL. [_Asking from real interest in her._] Was yours a deliberate choice -and do you never regret it? - -FRANCES. [_Very simply and clearly._] Perhaps one does nothing quite -deliberately and for a definite reason. My state has its compensations ... -if one doesn't value them too highly. I've travelled in thought over all -this question. You mustn't blame a woman for wishing not to bear children. -But ... well, if one doesn't like the fruit one mustn't cultivate the -flower. And I suppose that saying condemns poor Amy ... condemned her to -death ... [_Then her face hardens as she concentrates her meaning._] and -brands most men as ... let's unsentimentally call it illogical, doesn't it? - - _He takes the thrust in silence._ - -TREBELL. Did you notice the light in my window as you came in? - -FRANCES. Yes ... in both as I got out of the cab. Do you want the curtains -drawn back? - -TREBELL. Yes ... don't touch them. - - _He has thrown himself into his chair by the fire. She lapses into - thought again._ - -FRANCES. Poor little woman. - -TREBELL. [_In deep anger._] Well, if women will be little and poor.... - - _She goes to him and slips an arm over his shoulder._ - -FRANCES. What is it you're worried about ... if a mere sister may ask? - -TREBELL. [_Into the fire._] I want to think. I haven't thought for years. - -FRANCES. Why, you have done nothing else. - -TREBELL. I've been working out problems in legal and political algebra. - -FRANCES. You want to think of yourself. - -TREBELL. Yes. - -FRANCES. [_Gentle and ironic._] Have you ever, for one moment, thought in -that sense of anyone else? - -TREBELL. Is that a complaint? - -FRANCES. The first in ten years' housekeeping. - -TREBELL. No, I never have ... but I've never thought selfishly either. - -FRANCES. That's a paradox I don't quite understand. - -TREBELL. Until women do they'll remain where they are ... and what they are. - -FRANCES. Oh, I know you hate us. - -TREBELL. Yes, dear sister, I'm afraid I do. And I hate your influence on men -... compromise, tenderness, pity, lack of purpose. Women don't know the -values of things, not even their own value. - - _For a moment she studies him, wonderingly._ - -FRANCES. I'll take up the counter-accusation to-morrow. Now I'm tired and -I'm going to bed. If I may insult you by mothering you, so should you. You -look tired and I've seldom seen you. - -TREBELL. I'm waiting up for a message. - -FRANCES. So late? - -TREBELL. It's a matter of life and death. - -FRANCES. Are you joking? - -TREBELL. Yes. If you want to spoil me find me a book to read. - -FRANCES. What will you have? - -TREBELL. Huckleberry Finn. It's on a top shelf towards the end somewhere ... -or should be. - - _She finds the book. On her way back with it she stops and shivers._ - -FRANCES. I don't think I shall sleep to-night. Poor Amy O'Connell! - -TREBELL. [_Curiously._] Are you afraid of death? - -FRANCES. [_With humorous stoicism._] It will be the end of me, perhaps. - - _She gives him the book, with its red cover; the '86 edition, a boy's - friend evidently. He fingers it familiarly._ - -TREBELL. Thank you. Mark Twain's a jolly fellow. He has courage ... comic -courage. That's what's wanted. Nothing stands against it. You be-little -yourself by laughing ... then all this world and the last and the next grow -little too ... and so you grow great again. Switch off some light, will you? - -FRANCES. [_Clicking off all but his reading lamp._] So? - -TREBELL. Thanks. Good night, Frankie. - - _She turns at the door, with a glad smile._ - -FRANCES. Good night. When did you last use that nursery name? - - _Then she goes, leaving him still fingering the book, but looking into - the fire and far beyond. Behind him through the open window one sees - how cold and clear the night is._ - - * * * * * - - _At eight in the morning he is still here. His lamp is out, the fire - is out and the book laid aside. The white morning light penetrates - every crevice of the room and shows every line on_ TREBELL'S _face. - The spirit of the man is strained past all reason. The door opens - suddenly and_ FRANCES _comes in, troubled, nervous. Interrupted in her - dressing, she has put on some wrap or other._ - -FRANCES. Henry ... Simpson says you've not been to bed all night. - - _He turns his head and says with inappropriate politeness_-- - -TREBELL. No. Good morning. - -FRANCES. Oh, my dear ... what is wrong? - -TREBELL. The message hasn't come ... and I've been thinking. - -FRANCES. Why don't you tell me? [_He turns his head away._] I think you -haven't the right to torture me. - -TREBELL. Your sympathy would only blind me towards the facts I want to face. - - SIMPSON, _the maid, undisturbed in her routine, brings in the - morning's letters._ FRANCES _rounds on her irritably._ - -FRANCES. What is it, Simpson? - -MAID. The letters, Ma'am. - -TREBELL _is on his feet at that._ - -TREBELL. Ah ... I want them. - -FRANCES. [_Taking the letters composedly enough._] Thank you. - - SIMPSON _departs and_ TREBELL _comes to her for his letters. She looks - at him with baffled affection._ - -FRANCES. Can I do nothing? Oh, Henry! - -TREBELL. Help me to open my letters. - -FRANCES. Don't you leave them to Mr. Kent? - -TREBELL. Not this morning. - -FRANCES. But there are so many. - -TREBELL. [_For the first time lifting his voice from its dull monotony._] -What a busy man I was. - -FRANCES. Henry ... you're a little mad. - -TREBELL. Do you find me so? That's interesting. - -FRANCES. [_With the ghost of a smile._] Well ... maddening. - - _By this time he is sitting at his table; she near him watching - closely. They halve the considerable post and start to open it._ - -TREBELL. We arrange them in three piles ... personal ... political ... and -preposterous. - -FRANCES. This is an invitation ... the Anglican League. - -TREBELL. I can't go. - - _She looks sideways at him, as he goes on mechanically tearing the - envelopes._ - -FRANCES. I heard you come upstairs about two o'clock. - -TREBELL. That was to dip my head in water. Then I made an instinctive -attempt to go to bed ... got my tie off even. - -FRANCES. [_Her anxiety breaking out._] If you'd tell me that you're only -ill.... - -TREBELL. [_Forbiddingly commonplace._] What's that letter? Don't fuss ... -and remember that abnormal conduct is sometimes quite rational. - - FRANCES _returns to her task with misty eyes._ - -FRANCES. It's from somebody whose son can't get into something. - -TREBELL. The third heap ... Kent's ... the preposterous. [_Talking on with -steady monotony._] But I saw it would not do to interrupt that logical train -of thought which reached definition about half past six. I had then been -gleaning until you came in. - -FRANCES. [_Turning the neat little note in her hand._] This is from Lord -Horsham. He writes his name small at the bottom of the envelope. - -TREBELL. [_Without a tremor._] Ah ... give it me. - - _He opens this as he has opened the others, carefully putting the - envelope to one side._ FRANCES _has ceased for the moment to watch - him._ - -FRANCES. That's Cousin Robert's handwriting. [_She puts a square envelope at -his hand._] Is a letter marked private from the Education Office political -or personal? - - _By this he has read_ HORSHAM'S _letter twice. So he tears it up and - speaks very coldly._ - -TREBELL. Either. It doesn't matter. - - _In the silence her fears return._ - -FRANCES. Henry, it's a foolish idea ... I suppose I have it because I hardly -slept for thinking of her. Your trouble is nothing to do with Amy O'Connell, -is it? - -TREBELL. [_His voice strangled in his throat._] Her child should have been -my child too. - -FRANCES. [_Her eyes open, the whole landscape of her mind suddenly clear._] -Oh, I ... no, I didn't think so ... but.... - -TREBELL. [_Dealing his second blow as remorselessly as dealt to him._] Also -I'm not joining the new Cabinet, my dear sister. - -FRANCES. [_Her thoughts rushing now to the present--the future._] Not! -Because of...? Do people know? Will they...? You didn't...? - - _As mechanically as ever he has taken up_ COUSIN ROBERT'S _letter and, - in some sense, read it. Now he recapitulates, meaninglessly, that his - voice may just deaden her pain and his own._ - -TREBELL. Robert says ... that we've not been to see them for some time ... -but that now I'm a greater man than ever I must be very busy. The vicarage -has been painted and papered throughout and looks much fresher. Mary sends -you her love and hopes you have no return of the rheumatism. And he would -like to send me the proof sheets of his critical commentary on First Timothy -... for my alien eye might possibly detect some logical lapses. Need he -repeat to me his thankfulness at my new attitude upon Disestablishment ... -or assure me again that I have his prayers. Could we not go and stay there -only for a few days? Possibly his opinion-- - - _She has borne this cruel kindness as long as she can and she breaks - out...._ - -FRANCES. Oh ... don't ... don't! - - _He falls from his seeming callousness to the very blankness of - despair._ - -TREBELL. No, we'll leave that ... and the rest ... and everything. - - _Her agony passes._ - -FRANCES. What do you mean to do? - -TREBELL. There's to be no public scandal. - -FRANCES. Why has Lord Horsham thrown you over then ... or hasn't that -anything to do with it? - -TREBELL. It has to do with it. - -FRANCES. [_Lifting her voice; some tone returning to it._] Unconsciously ... -I've known for years that this sort of thing might happen to you. - -TREBELL. Why? - -FRANCES. Power over men and women and contempt for them! Do you think they -don't take their revenge sooner or later? - -TREBELL. Much good may it do them! - -FRANCES. Human nature turns against you ... by instinct ... in self-defence. - -TREBELL. And my own human-nature! - -FRANCES. [_Shocked into great pity, by his half articulate pain._] Yes ... -you must have loved her, Henry ... in some odd way. I'm sorry for you both. - -TREBELL. I'm hating her now ... as a man can only hate his own silliest -vices. - -FRANCES. [_Flashing into defence._] That's wrong of you. If you thought of -her only as a pretty little fool.... Bearing your child ... all her womanly -life belonged to you ... and for that time there was no other sort of life -in her. So she became what you thought her. - -TREBELL. That's not true. - -FRANCES. It's true enough ... it's true of men towards women. You can't -think of them through generations as one thing and then suddenly find them -another. - -TREBELL. [_Hammering at his fixed idea._] She should have brought that child -into the world. - -FRANCES. You didn't love her enough! - -TREBELL. I didn't love her at all. - -FRANCES. Then why should she value your gift? - -TREBELL. For its own sake. - -FRANCES. [_Turning away._] It's hopeless ... you don't understand. - -TREBELL. [_Helpless; almost like a deserted child._] I've been trying to ... -all through the night. - -FRANCES. [_Turning back enlightened a little._] That's more the trouble then -than the Cabinet question? - - _He shakes himself to his feet and begins to pace the room; his - keenness coming back to him, his brow knitting again with the delight - of thought._ - -TREBELL. Oh ... as to me against the world ... I'm fortified with comic -courage. [_Then turning on her like any examining professor._] Now which do -you believe ... that Man is the reformer, or that the Time brings forth such -men as it needs and lobster-like can grow another claw? - -FRANCES. [_Watching this new mood carefully._] I believe that you'll be -missed from Lord Horsham's Cabinet. - -TREBELL. The hand-made statesman and his hand-made measure! They were out of -place in that pretty Tory garden. Those men are the natural growth of the -time. Am I? - -FRANCES. Just as much. And wasn't your bill going to be such a good piece of -work? That can't be thrown away ... wasted. - -TREBELL. Can one impose a clever idea upon men and women? I wonder. - -FRANCES. That rather begs the question of your very existence, doesn't it? - - _He comes to a standstill._ - -TREBELL. I know. - - _His voice shows her that meaning in her words and beyond it a threat. - She goes to him, suddenly shaking with fear._ - -FRANCES. Henry, I didn't mean that. - -TREBELL. You think I've a mind to put an end to that same? - -FRANCES. [_Belittling her fright._] No ... for how unreasonable.... - -TREBELL. In view of my promising past. I've stood for success, Fanny; I -still stand for success. I could still do more outside the Cabinet than the -rest of them, inside, will do. But suddenly I've a feeling the work would be -barren. [_His eyes shift beyond her; beyond the room._] What is it in your -thoughts and actions which makes them bear fruit? Something that the -roughest peasant may have in common with the best of us intellectual men ... -something that a dog might have. It isn't successful cleverness. - - _She stands ... his trouble beyond her reach._ - -FRANCES. Come now ... you've done very well with your life. - -TREBELL. Do you know how empty I feel of all virtue at this moment? - - _He leaves her. She must bring him back to the plane on which she can - help him._ - -FRANCES. We must think what's best to be done ... now ... and for the -future. - -TREBELL. Why, I could go on earning useless money at the Bar ... think how -nice that would be. I could blackmail the next judgeship out of Horsham. I -think I could even smash his Disestablishment Bill ... and perhaps get into -the next Liberal Cabinet and start my own all over again, with necessary -modifications. I shan't do any such things. - -FRANCES. No one knows about you and poor Amy? - -TREBELL. Half a dozen friends. Shall I offer to give evidence at the inquest -this morning? - -FRANCES. [_With a little shiver._] They'll say bad enough things about her -without your blackening her good name. - - _Without warning, his anger and anguish break out again._ - -TREBELL. All she had ... all there is left of her! She was a nothingness ... -silly ... vain. And I gave her this power over me! - - _He is beaten, exhausted. Now she goes to him, motherlike._ - -FRANCES. My dear, listen to me for a little. Consider that as a sorrow and -put it behind you. And think now ... whatever love there may be between us -has neither hatred nor jealousy in it, has it, Henry? Since I'm not a -mistress or a friend but just the likest fellow-creature to you ... perhaps. - -TREBELL. [_Putting out his hand for hers._] Yes, my sister. What I've wanted -to feel for vague humanity has been what I should have felt for you ... if -you'd ever made a single demand on me. - - _She puts her arms round him; able to speak._ - -FRANCES. Let's go away somewhere ... I'll make demands. I need refreshing as -much as you. My joy of life has been withered in me ... oh, for a long time -now. We must kiss the earth again ... take interest in common things, common -people. There's so much of the world we don't know. There's air to breathe -everywhere. Think of the flowers in a Tyrol valley in the early spring. One -can walk for days, not hurrying, as soon as the passes are open. And the -people are kind. There's Italy ... there's Russia full of simple folk. When -we've learned to be friends with them we shall both feel so much better. - -TREBELL. [_Shaking his head, unmoved._] My dear sister ... I should be bored -to death. The life contemplative and peripatetic would literally bore me -into a living death. - -FRANCES. [_Letting it be a fairy tale._] Is your mother the Wide World -nothing to you? Can't you open your heart like a child again? - -TREBELL. No, neither to the beauty of Nature nor the particular human -animals that are always called a part of it. I don't even see them with your -eyes. I'm a son of the anger of Man at men's foolishness, and unless I've -that to feed upon...! [_Now he looks at her, as if for the first time -wanting to explain himself, and his voice changes._] Don't you know that -when a man cuts himself shaving, he swears? When he loses a seat in the -Cabinet he turns inward for comfort ... and if he only finds there a spirit -which should have been born, but is dead ... what's to be done then? - -FRANCES. [_In a whisper._] You mustn't think of that woman.... - -TREBELL. I've reasoned my way through life.... - -FRANCES. I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall. - -TREBELL. [_The wave of his agony rising again._] But here's something in me -which no knowledge touches ... some feeling ... some power which should be -the beginning of new strength. But it has been killed in me unborn before I -had learnt to understand ... and that's killing me. - -FRANCES. [_Crying out._] Why ... why did no woman teach you to be gentle? -Why did you never believe in any woman? Perhaps even I am to blame.... - -TREBELL. The little fool, the little fool ... why did she kill my child? -What did it matter what I thought her? We were committed together to that -one thing. Do you think I didn't know that I was heartless and that she was -socially in the wrong? But what did Nature care for that? And Nature has -broken us. - -FRANCES. [_Clinging to him as he beats the air._] Not you. She's dead, poor -girl ... but not you. - -TREBELL. Yes ... that's the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped -in it. The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her -body. - - _There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly, - never loosing his hand._ - -FRANCES. Henry, I want your promise that you'll go on living till ... -till.... - -TREBELL. Don't cry, Fanny, that's very foolish. - -FRANCES. Till you've learnt to look at all this calmly. Then I can trust -you. - -TREBELL _smiles, not at all grimly._ - -TREBELL. But, you see, it would give Horsham and Blackborough such a shock -if I shot myself ... it would make them think about things. - -FRANCES. [_With one catch of wretched laughter._] Oh, my dear, if shooting's -wanted ... shoot them. Or I'll do it for you. - - _He sits in his chair just from weariness. She stands by him, her hand - still grasping his._ - -TREBELL. You see, Fanny, as I said to Gilbert last night ... our lives are -our own and yet not our own. We understand living for others and dying for -others. The first is easy ... it's a way out of boredom. To make the second -popular we had to invent a belief in personal resurrection. Do you think we -shall ever understand dying in the sure and certain hope that it really -doesn't matter ... that God is infinitely economical and wastes perhaps less -of the power in us after our death than men do while we live? - -FRANCES. I want your promise, Henry. - -TREBELL. You know I never make promises ... it's taking oneself too -seriously. Unless indeed one has the comic courage to break them too. I've -upset you very much with my troubles. Don't you think you'd better go and -finish dressing? [_She doesn't move._] My dear ... you don't propose to hold -my right hand so safely for years to come. Even so, I still could jump out -of a window. - -FRANCES. I'll trust you, Henry. - - _She looks into his eyes and he does not flinch. Then, with a final - grip she leaves him. When she is at the door he speaks more gently - than ever._ - -TREBELL. Your own life is sufficient unto itself, isn't it? - -FRANCES. Oh yes. I can be pleasant to talk to and give good advice through -the years that remain. [_Instinctively she rectifies some little untidiness -in the room._] What fools they are to think they can run that government -without you! - -TREBELL. Horsham will do his best. [_Then, as for the second time she -reaches the door._] Don't take away my razors, will you? I only use them for -shaving. - -FRANCES. [_Almost blushing._] I half meant to ... I'm sorry. After all, -Henry, just because they are forgetting in personal feelings what's best for -the country ... it's your duty not to. You'll stand by and do what you can, -won't you? - -TREBELL. [_His queer smile returning, in contrast to her seriousness._] -Disestablishment. It's a very interesting problem. I must think it out. - -FRANCES. [_Really puzzled._] What do you mean? - - _He gets up with a quick movement of strange strength, and faces her. - His smile changes into a graver gladness._ - -TREBELL. Something has happened ... in spite of me. My heart's clean again. -I'm ready for fresh adventures. - -FRANCES. [_With a nod and answering gladness._] That's right. - - _So she leaves him, her mind at rest. For a minute he does not move. - When his gaze narrows it falls on the heaps of letters. He carries - them carefully into_ WALTER KENT'S _room and arranges them as - carefully on his table. On his way out he stops for a moment; then - with a sudden movement bangs the door._ - - * * * * * - - _Two hours later the room has been put in order. It is even more full - of light and the shadows are harder than usual. The doors are open, - showing you_ KENT'S _door still closed. At the big writing table in_ - TREBELL'S _chair sits_ WEDGECROFT, _pale and grave, intent on - finishing a letter._ FRANCES _comes to find him. For a moment she - leans on the table silently, her eyes half closed. You would say a - broken woman. When she speaks it is swiftly, but tonelessly._ - -FRANCES. Lord Horsham is in the drawing room ... and I can't see him, I -really can't. He has come to say he is sorry ... and I should tell him that -it is his fault, partly. I know I should ... and I don't want to. Won't you -go in? What are you writing? - - WEDGECROFT, _with his physicianly pre-occupation, can attend, - understand, sympathise, without looking up at her._ - -WEDGECROFT. Never mind. A necessary note ... to the Coroner's office. Yes, -I'll see Horsham. - -FRANCES. I've managed to get the pistol out of his hand. Was that wrong ... -oughtn't I to have touched it? - -WEDGECROFT. Of course you oughtn't. You must stay away from the room. I'd -better have locked the door. - -FRANCES. [_Pitifully._] I'm sorry ... but I couldn't bear to see the pistol -in his hand. I won't go back. After all he's not there in the room, is he? -But how long do you think the spirit stays near the body ... how long? When -people die gently of age or weakness.... But when the spirit and body are -so strong and knit together and all alive as his.... - -WEDGECROFT. [_His hand on hers._] Hush ... hush. - -FRANCES. His face is very eager ... as if it still could speak. I know that. - - MRS. FARRANT _comes through the open doorway._ FRANCES _hears her - steps and turning falls into her outstretched arms to cry there._ - -FRANCES. Oh, Julia! - -MRS. FARRANT. Oh my dear Fanny! I came with Cyril Horsham ... I don't think -Simpson even saw me. - -FRANCES. I can't go in and talk to him. - -MRS. FARRANT. He'll understand. But I heard you come in here.... - -WEDGECROFT. I'll tell Horsham. - - _He has finished and addressed his letter, so he goes out with it._ - FRANCES _lifts her head. These two are in accord and can speak their - feelings without disguise or preparation._ - -FRANCES. Julia, Julia ... isn't it unbelievable? - -MRS. FARRANT. I'd give ... oh, what wouldn't I give to have it undone! - -FRANCES. I knew he meant to ... and yet I thought I had his promise. If he -really meant to ... I couldn't have stopped it, could I? - -MRS. FARRANT. Walter sent to tell me and I sent round to.... - -FRANCES. Walter came soon after, I think. Julia, I was in my room ... it was -nearly breakfast time ... when I heard the shot. Oh ... don't you think it -was cruel of him? - -MRS. FARRANT. He had a right to. We must remember that. - -FRANCES. You say that easily of my brother ... you wouldn't say it of your -husband. - - _They are apart by this_, JULIA FARRANT _goes to her gently._ - -MRS. FARRANT. Fanny ... will it leave you so very lonely? - -FRANCES. Yes ... lonelier than you can ever be. You have children. I'm just -beginning to realise.... - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Leading her from the mere selfishness of sorrow._] There's -loneliness of the spirit, too. - -FRANCES. Ah, but once you've tasted the common joys of life ... once you've -proved all your rights as a man or a woman.... - -MRS. FARRANT. Then there are subtler things to miss. As well be alone like -you, or dead like him, without them ... I sometimes think. - -FRANCES. [_Responsive, lifted from egoism, reading her friend's mind._] You -demand much. - -MRS. FARRANT. I wish that he had demanded much of any woman. - -FRANCES. You know how this misery began? That poor little wretch ... she's -lying dead too. They're both dead together now. Do you think they've met...? - - JULIA _grips both her hands and speaks very steadily to help her - friend back to self control._ - -MRS. FARRANT. George told me as soon as he was told. I tried to make him -understand my opinion, but he thought I was only shocked. - -FRANCES. I was sorry for her. Now I can't forgive her either. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_Angry, remorseful, rebellious._] When will men learn to know -one woman from another? - -FRANCES. [_With answering bitterness._] When will all women care to be one -thing rather than the other? - - _They are stopped by the sound of the opening of_ KENT'S _door._ - WALTER _comes from his room, some papers from his table held - listlessly in one hand. He is crying, undisguisedly, with a child's - grief._ - -KENT. Oh ... am I in your way...? - -FRANCES. I didn't know you were still here, Walter. - -KENT. I've been going through the letters as usual. I don't know why, I'm -sure. They won't have to be answered now ... will they? - - WEDGECROFT _comes back, grave and tense._ - -WEDGECROFT. Horsham has gone. He thought perhaps you'd be staying with Miss -Trebell for a bit. - -MRS. FARRANT. Yes, I shall be. - -WEDGECROFT. I must go too ... it's nearly eleven. - -FRANCES. To the other inquest? - - _This stirs her two listeners to something of a shudder._ - -WEDGECROFT. Yes. - -MRS. FARRANT. [_In a low voice._] It will make no difference now ... I mean -... still nothing need come out? We needn't know why he ... why he did it. - -WEDGECROFT. When he talked to me last night, and I didn't know what he was -talking of.... - -FRANCES. He was waiting this morning for Lord Horsham's note.... - -MRS. FARRANT. [_In real alarm._] Oh, it wasn't because of the Cabinet -trouble ... you must persuade Cyril Horsham of that. You haven't told him -... he's so dreadfully upset as it is. I've been swearing it had nothing to -do with that. - -WEDGECROFT. [_Cutting her short, bitingly._] Has a time ever come to you -when it was easier to die than to go on living? Oh ... I told Lord Horsham -just what I thought. - - _He leaves them, his men grief unexpressed._ - -FRANCES. [_Listlessly._] Does it matter why? - -MRS. FARRANT. Need there be more suffering and reproaches? It's not as if -even grief would do any good. [_Suddenly with nervous caution._] Walter, you -don't know, do you? - - WALTER _throws up his tear-marked face and a man's anger banishes the - boyish grief._ - -WALTER. No, I don't know why he did it ... and I don't care. And grief is -no use. I'm angry ... just angry at the waste of a good man. Look at the -work undone ... think of it! Who is to do it! Oh ... the waste...! - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Waste, by Granville Barker - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASTE *** - -***** This file should be named 15788.txt or 15788.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/7/8/15788/ - -Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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