Текст книги "Pygmalion and Three Other Plays"

Автор книги: George Bernard Shaw

Соавторы: John A. Bertolini
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Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

MRS HUSHABYE On condition that you married him?

ELLIE Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never even seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely disinterested. Pure generosity.

MRS HUSHABYE Oh! I beg the gentleman’s pardon. Well, what became of the money?

ELLIE We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I went to another school for two years.

MRS HUSHABYE Only two years?

ELLIE That was all: for at the end of two years my father was utterly ruined.

MRS HUSHABYE How?

ELLIE I don’t know. I never could understand. But it was dreadful. When we were poor my father had never been in debt. But when he launched out into business on a large scale, he had to incur liabilities. When the business went into liquidation he owed more money than Mr Mangan had given him.

MRS HUSHABYE Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose.

ELLIE I think you are a little unfeeling about it.

MRS HUSHABYE My pettikins, you mustn’t mind my way of talking. I was quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have picked up so much slang from the children that I am really hardly presentable. I suppose your father had no head for business, and made a mess of it.

ELLIE Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about him. The business turned out a great success. It now pays forty-four per cent after deducting the excess profits tax.

MRS HUSHABYE Then why aren’t you rolling in money?

ELLIE I don’t know. It seems very unfair to me.You see, my father was made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he had persuaded several of his friends to put money into the business. He was sure it would succeed; and events proved that he was quite right. But they all lost their money. It was dreadful. I don’t know what we should have done but for Mr Mangan.

MRS HUSHABYE What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after all his money being thrown away?

ELLIE He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father. He bought what was left of the business – the buildings and the machinery and things – from the official trustee for enough money to enable my father to pay six and eightpence in the pound and get his discharge.[302]302
  That is, from bankruptcy, so he could once again engage in business.


[Закрыть] Everyone pitied papa so much, and saw so plainly that he was an honorable man, that they let him off at six-and-eight-pence instead of ten shillings. Then Mr Mangan started a company to take up the business, and made my father a manager in it to save us from starvation; for I wasn’t earning anything then.

MRS HUSHABYE Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the tender passion?

ELLIE Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair one night at a sort of people’s concert. I was singing there. As an amateur, you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs with three encores. He was so pleased with my singing that he asked might he walk home with me. I never saw anyone so taken aback as he was when I took him home and introduced him to my father, his own manager. It was then that my father told me how nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great chance for me, as he is so rich. And – and – we drifted into a sort of understanding – I suppose I should call it an engagement – [she is distressed and cannot go on].

MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about] You may have drifted into it; but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to have anything to do with it.

ELLIE [hopelessly] No: it’s no use. I am bound in honor and gratitude. I will go through with it.

MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her] You know, of course, that it’s not honorable or grateful to marry a man you don’t love. Do you love this Mangan man?

ELLIE Yes. At least —

MRS HUSHABYE I don’t want to know about “at least”: I want to know the worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of impossible people, especially old people.

ELLIE I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be —

MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing away intolerantly to starboard] – grateful to him for his kindness to dear father. I know. Anybody else?

ELLIE What do you mean?

MRS HUSHABYE Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else?

ELLIE Of course not.

MRS HUSHABYE Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her eye. She picks it up, and evidently finds the title very unexpected. She looks at ELLIE, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure you’re not in love with an actor?

ELLIE No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head?

MRS HUSHABYE This is yours, isn’t it? Why else should you be reading Othello?

ELLIE My father taught me to love Shakespeare.

MRS HUSHABYE [flinging the book down on the table] Really! your father does seem to be about the limit.

ELLIE [naively] Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That seems to me so extraordinary. I like Othello.

MRS HUSHABYE Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn’t he?

ELLIE Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is horrible. But don’t you think it must have been a wonderful experience for Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet a man who had been out in the world doing all sorts of brave things and having terrible adventures, and yet finding something in her that made him love to sit and talk with her and tell her about them?

MRS HUSHABYE That’s your idea of romance, is it?

ELLIE Not romance, exactly. It might really happen.

ELLIE’s eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. MRS HUSHABYE, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to the sofa and resumes her seat beside her.

MRS HUSHABYE Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those stories that Othello told Desdemona couldn’t have happened?

ELLIE Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened.

MRS HUSHABYE Um! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But they didn’t.

ELLIE Why do you look so enigmatic about it?You are such a sphinx: I never know what you mean.

MRS HUSHABYE Desdemona would have found him out if she had lived, you know. I wonder was that why he strangled her!

ELLIE Othello was not telling lies.

MRS HUSHABYE How do you know?

ELLIE Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are men who have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of course, white, and very handsome, and —

MRS HUSHABYE Ah! Now we’re coming to it. Tell me all about him. I knew there must be somebody, or you’d never have been so miserable about Mangan: you’d have thought it quite a lark to marry him.

ELLIE [blushing vividly] Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don’t want to make a secret of it, though of course I don’t tell everybody. Besides, I don’t know him.

MRS HUSHABYE Don’t know him! What does that mean?

ELLIE Well, of course I know him to speak to.

MRS HUSHABYE But you want to know him ever so much more intimately, eh?

ELLIE No, no: I know him quite – almost intimately.

MRS HUSHABYE You don’t know him; and you know him almost intimately. How lucid!

ELLIE I mean that he does not call on us. I – I got into conversation with him by chance at a concert.

MRS HUSHABYE You seem to have rather a gay time at your concerts, Ellie.

ELLIE Not at all: we talk to everyone in the green-room waiting for our turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so splendid. But he was only one of the committee. I happened to tell him that I was copying a picture at the National Gallery. I make a little money that way. I can’t paint much; but as it’s always the same picture I can do it pretty quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It happened that he came to the National Gallery one day.

MRS HUSHABYE On students’ day. Paid sixpence to stumble about through a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day for nothing and found the floor clear! Quite by accident?

ELLIE [triumphantly] No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He knows lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are all in love with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the National Gallery and persuade me to come with him for a drive round Richmond Park in a taxi.

MRS HUSHABYE My pettikins, you have been going it. It’s wonderful what you good girls can do without anyone saying a word.

ELLIE I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn’t make acquaintances in that way I shouldn’t have any at all.

MRS HUSHABYE Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. May I ask his name?

ELLIE [slowly and musically] Marcus Darnley.

MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music] Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name!

ELLIE Oh, I’m so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it was only a silly fancy of my own.

MRS HUSHABYE Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys?

ELLIE Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest —

MRS HUSHABYE A what?

ELLIE An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm.

MRS HUSHABYE What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into it because he was afraid of the lightning?

ELLIE Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold.

MRS HUSHABYE [looking hard at her] Ellie!

ELLIE The garden of the Viscount —

MRS HUSHABYE – de Rougemont?[303]303
  Louis de Rougemont is the assumed name of nineteenth-century Swiss adventurer Louis Grin (1847– 1921), who wrote sensational, often bogus, accounts of his adventures; Hesione implies that “Marcus Darnley” (her husband’s pseudonym) is a liar.


[Закрыть]

ELLIE [innocently] No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. His life has been one long romance. A tiger —

MRS HUSHABYE Slain by his own hand?

ELLIE Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger from a hunting party: one of King Edward’s hunting parties in India. The King was furious: that was why he never had his military services properly recognized. But he doesn’t care. He is a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades.

MRS HUSHABYE How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, good girl.

ELLIE [rising, dignified but very angry] Do you mean to say you don’t believe me?

MRS HUSHABYE Of course I don’t believe you. You’re inventing every word of it. Do you take me for a fool?

ELLIE stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that MRS HUSHABYE is puzzled.

ELLIE Goodbye, Hesione. I’m very sorry. I see now that it sounds very improbable as I tell it. But I can’t stay if you think that way about me.

MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress] You shan’t go. I couldn’t be so mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told you all this.

ELLIE [flushing] Hesione, don’t say that you don’t believe him. I couldn’t bear that.

MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her] Of course I believe him, dearest. But you should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back to her seat.] Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him?

ELLIE Oh, no. I’m not so foolish. I don’t fall in love with people. I’m not so silly as you think.

MRS HUSHABYE I see. Only something to think about – to give some interest and pleasure to life.

ELLIE Just so. That’s all, really.

MRS HUSHABYE It makes the hours go fast, doesn’t it? No tedious waiting to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad night. How delightful it makes waking up in the morning! How much better than the happiest dream! All life transfigured! No more wishing one had an interesting book to read, because life is so much happier than any book! No desire but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be alone and just think about it.

ELLIE [embracing her] Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? Oh, you are the most sympathetic woman in the world!

MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her] Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy you! and how I pity you!

ELLIE Pity me! Oh, why?

A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, wearing a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an elaborate walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and stops short at sight of the women on the sofa.

ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise] Oh! Hesione: this is Mr Marcus Darnley.

MRS HUSHABYE [rising] What a lark! He is my husband.

ELLIE But now – [she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways].

MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa] Steady, my pettikins.

THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his hat and stick on the teak table] My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man would care to confess so. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you in our little house.

ELLIE [in great distress] I don’t know what to do. Please, may I speak to papa? Do leave me. I can’t bear it.

MRS HUSHABYE Be off, Hector.

HECTOR I —

MRS HUSHABYE Quick, quick. Get out.

HECTOR If you think it better – [he goes out, taking his hat with him but leaving the stick on the table].

MRS HUSHABYE [laying ELLIE down at the end of the sofa] Now, pettikins, he is gone. There’s nobody but me. You can let yourself go. Don’t try to control yourself. Have a good cry.

ELLIE [raising her head] Damn!

MRS HUSHABYE Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again.

ELLIE I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. [Rising.] How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder.]

MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully] Why not, pettikins? Very few young women can resist Hector. I couldn’t when I was your age. He is really rather splendid, you know.

ELLIE [turning on her] Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But how can you love a liar?

MRS HUSHABYE I don’t know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much love in the world.

ELLIE But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward!

MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm] Pettikins, none of that, if you please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector’s courage, he will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself that he isn’t a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals[304]304
  Awards, named for Prince Albert (1819-1861, husband of Queen Victoria), for altruistic rescues from injury or death.


[Закрыть] for saving people’s lives.

ELLIE He never told me that.

MRS HUSHABYE He never boasts of anything he really did: he can’t bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are made-up stories.

ELLIE [coming to her] Do you mean that he is really brave, and really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he never did and that never happened?

MRS HUSHABYE Yes, pettikins, I do. People don’t have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.

ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully] There’s something odd about this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don’t know why I’m talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be.

MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her] It’s only life educating you, pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now?

ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste] Oh, how can you remind me of him, Hesione?

MRS HUSHABYE Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You don’t mind now, do you, dear?

ELLIE Not in the least. I am quite cured.

MAZZINI DUNN and HECTOR come in from the hall.

HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows MAZZINI to pass in] One second more, and she would have been a dead woman!

MAZZINI Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye has just been telling me the most extraordinary —

ELLIE Yes, I’ve heard it [she crosses to the other side of the room].

HECTOR [following her] Not this one: I’ll tell it to you after dinner. I think you’ll like it. The truth is I made it up for you, and was looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a moment of impatience at being turned out of the room, I threw it away on your father.

ELLIE [turning at bay with her back to the carpenter’s bench, scornfully self-possessed] It was not thrown away. He believes it. I should not have believed it.

MAZZINI [benevolently] Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of course she does not really think that. [He goes to the bookshelves, and inspects the titles of the volumes.]

BOSS MANGAN comes in from the hall, followed by the captain. MANGAN, carefully frock-coated as for church or for a directors’ meeting, is about fifty-five, with a care-worn, mistrustful expression, standing a little on an entirely imaginary dignity, with a dull complexion, straight, lustreless hair, and features so entirely commonplace that it is impossible to describe them.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to MRS HUSHABYE, introducing the newcomer] Says his name is Mangan. Not able-bodied.

MRS HUSHABYE [graciously] How do you do, Mr Mangan?

MANGAN [shaking hands] Very pleased.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Dunn’s lost his muscle, but recovered his nerve. Men seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he goes into the pantry].

MRS HUSHABYE I congratulate you, Mr Dunn.

MAZZINI [dazed] I am a lifelong teetotaler.

MRS HUSHABYE You will find it far less trouble to let papa have his own way than try to explain.

MAZZINI But three attacks of delirium tremens, really!

MRS HUSHABYE [to MANGAN] Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she indicates HECTOR].

MANGAN [going to HECTOR, who meets him with outstretched hand] Very pleased. [Turning to ELLIE.] I hope, Miss Ellie, you have not found the journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands.]

MRS HUSHABYE Hector, show Mr Dunn his room.

HECTOR Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes MAZZINI out.]

ELLIE You haven’t shown me my room yet, Hesione.

MRS HUSHABYE How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite at home, Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the captain in the pantry.] Papa, come and explain the house to Mr Mangan.

She goes out with ELLIE. The captain comes from the pantry.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You’re going to marry Dunn’s daughter. Don’t. You’re too old.

MANGAN [staggered] Well! That’s fairly blunt, Captain.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It’s true.

MANGAN She doesn’t think so.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER She does.

MANGAN Older men than I have —

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him] – made fools of themselves. That, also, is true.

MANGAN [asserting himself] I don’t see that this is any business of yours.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It is everybody’s business. The stars in their courses are shaken when such things happen.

MANGAN I’m going to marry her all the same.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER How do you know?

MANGAN [playing the strong man] I intend to. I mean to. See? I never made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn’t bring it off. That’s the sort of man I am; and there will be a better understanding between us when you make up your mind to that, Captain.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You frequent picture palaces.

MANGAN Perhaps I do. Who told you?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Talk like a man, not like a movy.You mean that you make a hundred thousand a year.

MANGAN I don’t boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out my hand to him and call him brother.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, hey?

MANGAN No. I can’t say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER His half brother only [he turns away from MANGAN with his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups on the Chinese tray].

MANGAN [irritated] See here, Captain Shotover. I don’t quite understand my position here. I came here on your daughter’s invitation. Am I in her house or in yours?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the house of God. What is true within these walls is true outside them. Go out on the seas; climb the mountains; wander through the valleys. She is still too young.

MANGAN [weakening] But I’m very little over fifty.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, you will not marry the pirate’s child [he carries the tray away into the pantry].

MANGAN [following him to the half door] What pirate’s child? What are you talking about?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry] Ellie Dunn. You will not marry her.

MANGAN Who will stop me?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging] My daughter [he makes for the door leading to the hall].

MANGAN [followins him] Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she brought me down here to break it off?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him] I know nothing more than I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my advice: marry a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I was married to one myself for two years.

MANGAN Well, I am damned!

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The negress redeemed me.

MANGAN [feebly] This is queer. I ought to walk out of this house.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Why?

MANGAN Well, many men would be offended by your style of talking.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Nonsense! It’s the other sort of talking that makes quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me.

A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has an engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close inspection is found to be at least over forty.

THE GENTLEMAN Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is no knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Why should there be a knocker? Why should the bell ring? The door is open.

THE GENTLEMAN Precisely. So I ventured to come in.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Quite right. I will see about a room for you [he makes for the door].

THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him] But I’m afraid you don’t know who I am.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Do you suppose that at my age I make distinctions between one fellowcreature and another? [He goes out. MANGAN and the newcomer stare at one another.]

MANGAN Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir.

THE GENTLEMAN Very.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside] Hesione, another person has arrived and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty.

THE GENTLEMAN Fancy Hesione’s feelings! May I ask are you a member of the family?

MANGAN No.

THE GENTLEMAN I am. At least a connection.

MRS HUSHABYE comes back.

MRS HUSHABYE How do you do? How good of you to come!

THE GENTLEMAN I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Hesione. [Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same moment the captain appears in the doorway.] You will excuse my kissing your daughter, Captain, when I tell you that —

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as much as you like [he makes for the pantry].

THE GENTLEMAN Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts and turns. The gentleman goes to him affably.] Do you happen to remember – but probably you don‘t, as it occurred many years ago – that your younger daughter married a numskull?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Yes. She said she’d marry anybody to get away from this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is no longer like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread and milk for years and years, like other married men. Poor devil! [He disappears into the pantry.]

MRS HUSHABYE [going past MANGAN to the gentleman and scrutinizing him]. I don’t believe you are Hastings Utterword.

THE GENTLEMAN I am not.

MRS HUSHABYE Then what business had you to kiss me?

THE GENTLEMAN I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am Randall Utterword, the unworthy younger brother of Hastings. I was abroad diplomatizing when he was married.

LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in] Hesione, where is the key of the wardrobe in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must lock it up – [recognizing the stranger with a shock] Randall, how dare you? [She marches at him past MRS HUSHABYE, who retreats and joins MANGAN near the sofa.]

RANDALL How dare I what? I am not doing anything.

LADY UTTERWORD Who told you I was here?

RANDALL Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at Claridge’s; so I followed you down here. You are looking extremely well.

LADY UTTERWORD Don’t presume to tell me so.

MRS HUSHABYE What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy?

LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself] Oh, nothing. But he has no right to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she goes to the window-seat and sits down, turning away from them ill-humoredly and looking into the garden, where HECTOR and ELLIE are now seen strolling together].

MRS HUSHABYE I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy.

LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to MANGAN] I beg your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a perfect fool of myself.

MRS HUSHABYE Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister.

MANGAN [bowing] Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword.

LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest] Who is that gentleman walking in the garden with Miss Dunn?

MRS HUSHABYE I don’t know. She quarrelled mortally with my husband only ten minutes ago; and I didn’t know anyone else had come. It must be a visitor. [She goes to the window to look.] Oh, it is Hector. They’ve made it up.

LADY UTTERWORD Your husband! That handsome man?

MRS HUSHABYE Well, why shouldn’t my husband be a handsome man?

RANDALL [joining them at the window] One’s husband never is, Ariadne [he sits by LADY UTTERWORD, on her right].

MRS HUSHABYE One’s sister’s husband always is, Mr Randall.

LADY UTTERWORD Don’t be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are just as bad.

ELLIE and HECTOR come in from the garden by the starboard door. Randall rises. ELLIE retires into the corner near the pantry. HECTOR comes forward; and LADY UTTERWORD rises looking her very best.

MRS. HUSHABYE Hector, this is Addy.

HECTOR [apparently surprised] Not this lady.

LADY UTTERWORD [smiling] Why not?

HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but respectful admiration, his moustache bristling] I thought – [pulling himself together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am extremely glad to welcome you at last under our roof [he offers his hand with grave courtesy].

MRS HUSHABYE She wants to be kissed, Hector.

LADY UTTERWORD Hesione! [But she still smiles.]

MRS HUSHABYE Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good brother-in-law; and have done with it. [She leaves them to themselves. ]

HECTOR Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not only to hospitality but to civilization.

LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully] Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands cordially.]

MAZZINI DUNN is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing ELLIE] Your father has washed himself.

ELLIE [quite self-possessed] He often does, Captain Shotover.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER A strange conversion! I saw him through the pantry window.

MAZZINI DUNN enters through the port window door, newly washed and brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between MANGAN and MRS HUSHABYE.

MRS HUSHABYE [introducing] Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut – oh, I forgot: you’ve met. [Indicating ELLIE] Miss Dunn.

MAZZINI [walking across the room to take ELLIE’s hand, and beaming at his own naughty irony] I have met Miss Dunn also. She is my daughter. [He draws her arm through his caressingly.]

MRS HUSHABYE Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister‘s – er —

RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably] Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn. How do you do?

MRS HUSHABYE This is my husband.

HECTOR We have met, dear. Don’t introduce us any more. [He moves away to the big chair, and adds] Won’t you sit down, Lady Utterword? [She does so very graciously.]

MRS HUSHABYE Sorry. I hate it: it’s like making people show their tickets.

MAZZINI [sententiously] How little it tells us, after all! The great question is, not who we are, but what we are.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Ha! What are you?

MAZZINI [taken aback] What am I?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER A thief, a pirate, and a murderer.

MAZZINI I assure you you are mistaken.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER An adventurous life; but what does it end in? Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance of a city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes out through the garden].

DUNN I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or a murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must really go and explain. [He follows the captain.]

MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes] It’s no use.You’d really better – [but DUNN has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for some tea. We never have regular tea; but you can always get some when you want: the servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda is the best place to ask. May I show you? [She goes to the starboard door.

RANDALL [going with her] Thank you, I don’t think I’ll take any tea this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden —

MRS HUSHABYE There’s nothing to see in the garden except papa’s observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite and things of that sort. However, it’s pleasanter out of doors; so come along.

RANDALL Dynamite! Isn’t that rather risky?

MRS HUSHABYE Well, we don’t sit in the gravel pit when there’s a thunderstorm.

LADY UTTERWORD That’s something new. What is the dynamite for?

HECTOR To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the will of a Mahatma.[305]305
  Saindy sage.


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ELLIE The captain’s tea is delicious, Mr Utterword.

MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway] Do you mean to say that you’ve had some of my father’s tea? that you got round him before you were ten minutes in the house?

ELLIE I did.

MRS HUSHABYE You little devil! [She goes out with RANDALL.]

MANGAN Won’t you come, Miss Ellie?

ELLIE I’m too tired. I’ll take a book up to my room and rest a little. [She goes to the bookshelf.]

MANGAN Right. You can’t do better. But I’m disappointed. [He follows RANDALL and MRS HUSHABYE.]

ELLIE, HECTOR, and LADY UTTERWORD are left. HECTOR is close to LADY UTTERWORD. They look at ELLIE, waiting for her to go.

ELLIE [looking at the title of a book] Do you like stories of adventure, Lady Utterword?

LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly] Of course, dear.

ELLIE Then I’ll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the hall.]

HECTOR That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I have to tell her!