Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (23 page)

CANDIDA Oh, Eugene's one of James's discoveries. He found him sleeping on the Embankment last June. Haven't you noticed our new picture
[pointing to the Virgin]?
He gave us that.

BURGESS
(incredulouslyJ
Garn! D‘you mean to tell me—your hown father!—that cab touts or such like, orf the Embankment, buys pictur's like that? [
Severely.
] Don't deceive me, Candy: it's a 'Igh Church pictur;
⁹
and James chose it hisself.

CANDIDA Guess again. Eugene isn't a cab tout.
^ak

BURGESS Then wot is he?
[Sarcastically.]
A nobleman, I ‘spose.

CANDIDA
[delighted
—
nodding]
Yes. His uncle's a peer—a real live earl.

BURGESS [
not daring to believe such good news
] No!

CANDIDA Yes. He had a seven day bill
^al
for £55 in his pocket when James found him on the Embankment. He thought he couldn't get any money for it until the seven days were up; and he was too shy to ask for credit. Oh, he's a dear boy! We are very fond of him.

BURGESS
[pretending to belittle the aristocracy, but with his eyes gleaming]
Hm, I thort you wouldn't git a piorr's (peer's) nevvy vis itin' in Victoria Park unless he were a bit of a flat. [
Looking again at the picture.]
Of course I don't ‘old with that pictur, Candy; but still it's a 'igh class, fust rate work of art: I can see that. Be sure you hintroduce me to him, Candy.
[He looks at his watch anxiously.]
I can only stay about two minutes.

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

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

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

BURGESS [
crossing to him with great heartiness, whilst MORELL joins CANDIDA at the fire]
Glad to meet you , I'm shore, Mr. Morchbanks.
[Forcing him to shake hands.
‘Ow do you find yore-self this weather? Ope you ain't lettin' James put no foolish ideas into your ed?

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

BURGESS That's right.
[Again looking at his watch.]
Well, I must go now: there's no ‘elp for it. Yo're not comin' my way, are you, Mr. Morchbanks?

MARCHBANKS Which way is that?

BURGESS Victawriar Pork Station. There's a city train at 12:25.

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

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

BURGESS Well, well, I shan't press you: I bet you'd rather lunch with Candy. Some night, I ‘ope, you'll come and dine with me at my club, the Freeman Founders in Nortn Folgit. Come, say you will.

MARCHBANKS Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Where is Norton Folgate—down in Surrey, isn't it?
[BURGESS, inexpressibly tickled, begins to splutter with laughter.]

CANDIDA
[coming to the rescue]
You'll lose your train, papa, if you don't go at once. Come back in the afternoon and tell Mr. Marchbanks where to find the club.

BURGESS [
roaring with glee]
Down in Surrey—har, har! that's not a bad one. Well, I never met a man as didn't know Nortn Folgit before.
[Abashed at his own noisiness.]
Good-bye, Mr. Morchbanks: I know yo're too ‘ighbred to take my pleasantry in bad part.
[He again offers his hand.
]

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

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

MORELL Must you go?

BURGESS Don't stir.
[He goes out with unabated heartiness.]

MORELL Oh, I'll see
you out.
[
He follows him out. EUGENE stares after them apprehensively, holding his breath until BURGESS disappears.]

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

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

CANDIDA
[with gentle irony]
And you'll go to the Freeman Founders to dine with him, won't you?

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

CANDIDA
[touched]
Do you know, you are a very nice boy, Eugene, with all your queerness. If you had laughed at my father I shouldn't have minded; but I like you ever so much better for being nice to him.

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

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

MARCHBANKS Oh, that was nothing. I was wondering how much I ought to give the cabman. I know it's utterly silly; but you don't know how dreadful such things are to me—how I shrink from having to deal with strange people. [
Quickly and reassuringly.]
But it's all right. He beamed all over and touched his hat when Morell gave him two shillings. I was on the point of offering him ten.
[CANDIDA laughs heartily. MORELL comes back with a few letters and newspapers which have come by the midday post.]

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

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

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

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

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

MARCHBANKS
[scared]
I mustn't.
[He glances quickly at MORELL, but at once avoids his frank look, and adds, with obvious disingenuousness
]
I can't.

MORELL
[over his shoulder]
You mean you won't.

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

MORELL
[breezily, finishing with the letters and coming close to him
] But—but—but—but—bosh! If you'd like to stay, stay. You don't mean to persuade me you have anything else to do. If you're shy, go and take a turn in the park and write poetry until half past one; and then come in and have a good feed.

MARCHBANKS Thank you, I should like that very much. But I really mustn't. The truth is, Mrs. Morell told me not to. She said she didn't think you'd ask me to stay to lunch, but that I was to remember, if you did, that you didn't really want me to.
[Plain
tively.] She said I'd understand; but I don't. Please don't tell her I told you.

MORELL
[drolly]
Oh, is that all? Won't my suggestion that you should take a turn in the park meet the difficulty?

MARCHBANKS How?

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

MARCHBANKS Happy!—y o u r marriage! You think that! You believe that!

MORELL
[buoyantly]
I know it, my lad. La Rochefoucauld said that there are convenient marriages, but no delightful ones. You don't know the comfort of seeing through and through a thundering liar and rotten cynic like that fellow. Ha, ha! Now off with you to the park, and write your poem. Half past one, sharp, mind: we never wait for anybody.

MARCHBANKS
[wildly]
No: stop: you shan't. I'll force it into the light.

MORELL [
puzzled
] Eh? Force what?

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

MORELL
[with a whimsical glance at the clock]
Now?

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

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

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

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

MARCHBANKS First—

MORELL First?

MARCHBANKS I love your wife.

MORELL
[sitting down to have his laugh out]
Why, my dear child, of course you do. Everybody loves her: they can't help it. I like it. But
[looking up whimsically at him]
I say, Eugene: do you think yours is a case to be talked about? You're under twenty: she's over thirty. Doesn't it look rather too like a case of calf love?

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

MORELL
[rising quickly, in an altered tone]
To her! Eugene: take care. I have been patient. I hope to remain patient. But there are some things I won't allow. Don't force me to shew you the indulgence I should shew to a child. Be a man.

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