Plays Unpleasant (40 page)

VIVIE
[
conscience stricken
] You might go on to point out that I myself never asked where the money I spent came from. I believe I am just as bad as you.

CROFTS
[
greatly reassured
] Of course you are; and a very good thing too! What harm does it do after all? [
Rallying her jocularly
] So you dont think me such a scoundrel now you come to think it over. Eh?

VIVIE
. I have shared profits with you; and I admitted you just now to the familiarity of knowing what I think of you.

CROFTS
[
with serious friendliness
] To be sure you did. You wont find me a bad sort: I dont go in for being superfine intellectually: but Ive plenty of honest human feeling; and the old Crofts breed comes out in a sort of instinctive hatred of anything low, in which I'm sure youll sympathize with me. Believe me, Miss Vivie, the world isnt such a bad place as the croakers make out. As long as you dont fly openly in the face of society, society doesnt ask any inconvenient questions; and it makes precious short work of the cads who do. There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses. In the class of people I can introduce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far forget themselves as to discuss my business affairs or your mother's. No man can offer you a safer position.

VIVIE
[
studying him curiously
] I suppose you really think youre getting on famously with me.

CROFTS
. Well, I hope I may flatter myself that you think better of me than you did at first.

VIVIE
[
quietly
] I hardly find you worth thinking about at all now. When I think of the society that tolerates you, and the laws that protect you! when I think of how helpless nine out of ten young girls would be in the hands of you and my mother! the unmentionable woman and her capitalist bully –

CROFTS
[
livid
] Damn you!

VIVIE
. You need not. I feel among the damned already.

She raises the latch of the gate to open it and go out. He follows her and puts his hand heavily on the top bar to prevent its opening
.

CROFTS
[
panting with fury
] Do you think I'll put up with this from you, you young devil?

VIVIE
[
unmoved
] Be quiet. Some one will answer the bell. [
Without flinching a step she strikes the bell with the back of her hand. It clangs harshly; and he starts back involuntarily. Almost immediately Frank appears at the porch with his rifle
].

FRANK
[
with cheerful politeness
] Will you have the rifle, Viv; or shall I operate?

VIVIE
. Frank: have you been listening?

FRANK
[
coming down into the garden
] Only for the bell, I assure you; so that you shouldnt have to wait. I think I shewed great insight into your character, Crofts.

CROFTS
. For two pins I'd take that gun from you and break it across your head.

FRANK
[
stalking him cautiously
] Pray dont. I'm ever so careless in handling firearms. Sure to be a fatal accident, with a reprimand from the coroner's jury for my negligence.

VIVIE
. Put the rifle away, Frank; it's quite unnecessary.

FRANK
. Quite right, Viv. Much more sportsmanlike to catch him in a trap. [
Crofts, understanding the insult, makes a threatening movement
]. Crofts: there are fifteen cartridges in the magazine here; and I am a dead shot at the present
distance and at an object of your size.

CROFTS
. Oh, you neednt be afraid. I'm not going to touch you.

FRANK
. Ever so magnanimous of you under the circumstances! Thank you!

CROFTS
. I'll just tell you this before I go. It may interest you, since youre so fond of one another. Allow me, Mister Frank, to introduce you to your half-sister, the eldest daughter of the Reverend Samuel Gardner. Miss Vivie: your half-brother. Good morning. [
He goes out through the gate along the road
].

FRANK
[
after a pause of stupefaction, raising the rifle
] Youll testify before the coroner that it's an accident, Viv. [
He takes aim at the retreating figure of Crofts. Vivie seizes the muzzle and pulls it round against her breast
].

VIVIE
. Fire now. You may.

FRANK
[
dropping his end of the rifle hastily
] Stop! take care. [
She lets it go. It falls on the turf
]. Oh, youve given your little boy such a turn. Suppose it had gone off! ugh! [
He sinks on the garden seat overcome
].

VIVIE
. Suppose it had: do you think it would not have been a relief to have some sharp physical pain tearing through me?

FRANK
[
coaxingly
] Take it ever so easy, dear Viv. Remember: even if the rifle scared that fellow into telling the truth for the first time in his life, that only makes us the babes in the wood in earnest. [
He holds out his arms to her
]. Come and be covered up with leaves again.

VIVIE
[
with a cry of disgust
] Ah, not that, not that. You make all my flesh creep.

FRANK
. Why, whats the matter?

VIVIE
. Goodbye. [
She makes for the gate
].

FRANK
[
jumping up
] Hallo! Stop! Viv! Viv! [
She turns in the gateway
] Where are you going to? Where shall we find you?

VIVIE
. At Honoria Fraser's chambers, 67 Chancery Lane, for the rest of my life. [
She goes off quickly in the opposite direction to that taken by Crofts
].

FRANK
. But I say – wait – dash it! [
He runs after her
].

Honoria Fraser's chambers in Chancery Lane. An office at the top of New Stone Buildings, with a plate-glass window, distempered walls, electric light, and a patent stove. Saturday afternoon. The chimneys of Lincoln's Inn and the western sky beyond are seen through the window. There is a double writing table in the middle of the room, with a cigar box, ash pans, and a portable electric reading lamp almost snowed up in heaps of papers and books. This table has knee holes and chairs right and left and is very untidy. The clerk's desk, closed and tidy, with its high stool, is against the wall, near a door communicating with the inner rooms. In the opposite wall is the door leading to the public corridor. Its upper panel is of opaque glass, lettered in black on the outside
,
FRASER AND WARREN
.
A baize screen hides the corner between this door and the window
.

Frank, in a fashionable light-colored coaching suit, with his stick, gloves, and white hat in his hands, is pacing up and down the office. Somebody tries the door with a key
.

FRANK
[
calling
] Come in. It's not locked.

Vivie comes in, in her hat and jacket. She stops and stares at him
.

VIVIE
[
sternly
] What are you doing here?

FRANK
. Waiting to see you. Ive been here for hours. Is this the way you attend to your business? [
He puts his hat and stick on the table, and perches himself with a vault on the clerk's stool looking at her with every appearance of being in a specially restless, teasing, flippant mood
].

VIVIE
. Ive been away exactly twenty minutes for a cup of tea. [
She takes off her hat and jacket and hangs them up behind the screen
]. How did you get in?

FRANK
. The staff had not left when I arrived. He's gone to play cricket on Primrose Hill. Why dont you employ a woman, and give your sex a chance?

VIVIE
. What have you come for?

FRANK
[
springing off the stool and coming close to her
] Viv: lets go and enjoy the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like
the staff. What do you say to Richmond, and then a music hall, and a jolly supper?

VIVIE
. Cant afford it. I shall put in another six hours work before I go to bed.

FRANK
. Cant afford it, cant we? Aha! Look here. [
He takes out a handful of sovereigns and makes them chink
]. Gold, Viv: gold!

VIVIE
. Where did you get it?

FRANK
. Gambling, Viv: gambling. Poker.

VIVIE
. Pah! It's meaner than stealing it. No: I'm not coming. [
She sits down to work at the table, with her back to the glass door, and begins turning over the papers
].

FRANK
[
remonstrating piteously
] But, my dear Viv, I want to talk to you ever so seriously.

VIVIE
. Very well: sit down in Honoria's chair and talk here. I like ten minutes chat after tea. [
He murmurs
]. No use groaning: I'm inexorable. [
He takes the opposite seat disconsolately
]. Pass that cigar box, will you?

FRANK
[
pushing the cigar box across
] Nasty womanly habit. Nice men dont do it any longer.

VIVIE
. Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and weve had to take to cigarets. See! [
She opens the box and takes out a cigaret, which she lights. She offers him one; but he shakes his head with a wry face. She settles herself comfortably in her chair, smoking
]. Go ahead.

FRANK
. Well, I want to know what youve done – what arrangements youve made.

VIVIE
. Everything was settled twenty minutes after I arrived here. Honoria has found the business too much for her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me and proposing a partnership when I walked in and told her I hadnt a farthing in the world. So I installed myself and packed her off for a fortnight's holiday. What happened at Haslemere when I left?

FRANK
. Nothing at all. I said youd gone to town on particular business.

VIVIE
. Well?

FRANK
. Well, either they were too flabbergasted to say anything, or else Crofts had prepared your mother. Anyhow, she didnt say anything; and Crofts didnt say anything; and Praddy only stared. After tea they got up and went; and Ive not seen them since.

VIVIE
[
nodding placidly with one eye on a wreath of smoke
] Thats all right.

FRANK
[
looking round disparagingly
] Do you intend to stick in this confounded place?

VIVIE
[
blowing the wreath decisively away, and sitting straight up
] Yes. These two days have given me back all my strength and self-possession. I will never take a holiday again as long as I live.

FRANK
[
with a very wry face
] Mps! You look quite happy. And as hard as nails.

VIVIE
[
grimly
] Well for me that I am!

FRANK
[
rising
] Look here, Viv: we must have an explanation. We parted the other day under a complete misunderstanding. [
He sits on the table, close to her
].

VIVIE
[
putting away the cigaret
] Well: clear it up.

FRANK
. You remember what Crofts said?

VIVIE
. Yes.

FRANK
. That revelation was supposed to bring about a complete change in the nature of our feeling for one another. It placed us on the footing of brother and sister.

VIVIE
. Yes.

FRANK
. Have you ever had a brother?

VIVIE
. No.

FRANK
. Then you dont know what being brother and sister feels like? Now I have lots of sisters; and the fraternal feeling is quite familiar to me. I assure you my feeling for you is not the least in the world like it. The girls will go their way; I will go mine; and we shant care if we never see one another again. Thats brother and sister. But as to you, I cant be easy if I have to pass a week without seeing you.
Thats not brother and sister. It's exactly what I felt an hour before Crofts made his revelation. In short, dear Viv, it's love's young dream.

VIVIE
[
bitingly
] The same feeling, Frank, that brought your father to my mother's feet. Is that it?

FRANK
[
so revolted that he slips off the table for a moment
] I very strongly object, Viv, to have my feelings compared to any which the Reverend Samuel is capable of harboring; and I object still more to a comparison of you to your mother. [
Resuming his perch
]. Besides, I dont believe the story. I have taxed my father with it, and obtained from him what I consider tantamount to a denial.

VIVIE
. What did he say?

FRANK
. He said he was sure there must be some mistake.

VIVIE
. Do you believe him?

FRANK
. I am prepared to take his word as against Crofts'.

VIVIE
. Does it make any difference? I mean in your imagination or conscience; for of course it makes no real difference.

FRANK
[
shaking his head
] None whatever to me.

VIVIE
. Nor to me.

FRANK
[
staring
] But this is ever so surprising! [
He goes back to his chair
]. I thought our whole relations were altered in your imagination and conscience, as you put it, the moment those words were out of that brute's muzzle.