Heartbreak House · Act II (2/2) (1/6)
Mangan What a dinner! I don’t call it a dinner: I call it a meal.
Ellie I am accustomed to meals, Mr. Mangan, and very lucky to get them. Besides, the captain cooked some macaroni for me.
Mangan Shuddering liverishly. Too rich: I can’t eat such things. I suppose it’s because I have to work so much with my brain. That’s the worst of being a man of business: you are always thinking, thinking, thinking. By the way, now that we are alone, may I take the opportunity to come to a little understanding with you?
Ellie Settling into the draughtsman’s seat. Certainly. I should like to.
Mangan Taken aback. Should you? That surprises me; for I thought I noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you could. Not for the first time either.
Ellie I was very tired and upset. I wasn’t used to the ways of this extraordinary house. Please forgive me.
Mangan Oh, that’s all right: I don’t mind. But Captain Shotover has been talking to me about you. You and me, you know.
Ellie Interested. The captain! What did he say?
Mangan Well, he noticed the difference between our ages.
Ellie He notices everything.
Mangan You don’t mind, then?
Ellie Of course I know quite well that our engagement⁠—
Mangan Oh! you call it an engagement.
Ellie Well, isn’t it?
Mangan Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is the first time you’ve used the word; and I didn’t quite know where we stood: that’s all. He sits down in the wicker chair; and resigns himself to allow her to lead the conversation. You were saying⁠—?
Ellie Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the country? I heard you ask Mr. Hushabye at dinner whether there are any nice houses to let down here.
Mangan I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn’t be surprised if I settled down here.
Ellie Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And I want to be near Hesione.
Mangan With growing uneasiness. The air may suit us; but the question is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about that?
Ellie Mr. Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn’t we? It’s no use pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very well together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness of heart will make it easy for me.
Mangan Leaning forward, with the beginning of something like deliberate unpleasantness in his voice. Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your father, didn’t I?
Ellie Oh, not intentionally.
Mangan Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose.
Ellie On purpose!
Mangan Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you’ll admit that I kept a job for him when I had finished with him. But business is business; and I ruined him as a matter of business.
Ellie I don’t understand how that can be. Are you trying to make me feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose freely?
Mangan Rising aggressively. No. I mean what I say.
Ellie But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my father? The money he lost was yours.
Mangan With a sour laugh. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all the money the other fellows lost too. He shoves his hands into his pockets and shows his teeth. I just smoked them out like a hive of bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh?
Ellie It would have been, this morning. Now! you can’t think how little it matters. But it’s quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me. I don’t understand it. Propping her elbows on the drawing board and her chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance.
Mangan Of course you don’t understand: what do you know about business? You just listen and learn. Your father’s business was a new business; and I don’t start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They put all their money and their friends’ money into starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. They’re what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing is too much for them; and they haven’t enough financial experience. In a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if they’re lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple of years’ more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third lot. If it’s really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, and leave their work and their money behind them. And that’s where the real business man comes in: where I come in. But I’m cleverer than some: I don’t mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your father’s measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to ruin a man who doesn’t know how to handle money is to give him some. I explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; for I take no risks in ideas, even when they’re my own. Your father and the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons. You’ve been wasting your gratitude: my kind heart is all rot. I’m sick of it. When I see your father beaming at me with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that I know he wouldn’t believe me. He’d think it was my modesty, as you did just now. He’d think anything rather than the truth, which is that he’s a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of himself. He throws himself back into the big chair with large self-approval. Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie?
Ellie Dropping her hands. How strange! that my mother, who knew nothing at all about business, should have been quite right about you! She always said⁠—not before Papa, of course, but to us children⁠—that you were just that sort of man.
Mangan Sitting up, much hurt. Oh! did she? And yet she’d have let you marry me.
Ellie Well, you see, Mr. Mangan, my mother married a very good man⁠—for whatever you may think of my father as a man of business, he is the soul of goodness⁠—and she is not at all keen on my doing the same.
Mangan Anyhow, you don’t want to marry me now, do you?
Ellie Very calmly. Oh, I think so. Why not?
Mangan Rising aghast. Why not!
Ellie I don’t see why we shouldn’t get on very well together.
Mangan Well, but look here, you know⁠—He stops, quite at a loss.
Ellie Patiently. Well?
Mangan Well, I thought you were rather particular about people’s characters.
Ellie If we women were particular about men’s characters, we should never get married at all, Mr. Mangan.
Mangan A child like you talking of “we women”! What next! You’re not in earnest?
Ellie Yes, I am. Aren’t you?
Mangan You mean to hold me to it?
Ellie Do you wish to back out of it?
Mangan Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it.
Ellie Well?
He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops into the wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared gambler. But a cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans over towards her on his right elbow, and speaks in a low steady voice.
Mangan Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman!
Ellie Echoing him. Suppose I told you I was in love with another man!
Mangan Bouncing angrily out of his chair. I’m not joking.
Ellie Who told you I was?
Mangan I tell you I’m serious. You’re too young to be serious; but you’ll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs. Hushabye. I’m in love with her. Now the murder’s out.
Ellie I want to be near your friend Mr. Hushabye. I’m in love with him. She rises and adds with a frank air. Now we are in one another’s confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me.
Mangan Almost beside himself. Do you think I’ll be made a convenience of like this?
Ellie Come, Mr. Mangan! you made a business convenience of my father. Well, a woman’s business is marriage. Why shouldn’t I make a domestic convenience of you?
Mangan Because I don’t choose, see? Because I’m not a silly gull like your father. That’s why.
Ellie With serene contempt. You are not good enough to clean my father’s boots, Mr. Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment in condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; but, if you do, you’ll never enter Hesione’s house again: I will take care of that.
Mangan Gasping. You little devil, you’ve done me. On the point of collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself. Wait a bit, though: you’re not so cute as you think. You can’t beat Boss Mangan as easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs. Hushabye and tell her that you’re in love with her husband.
Ellie She knows it.
Mangan You told her!!!
Ellie She told me.
Mangan Clutching at his bursting temples. Oh, this is a crazy house. Or else I’m going clean off my chump. Is she making a swap with you⁠—she to have your husband and you to have hers?
Ellie Well, you don’t want us both, do you?
Mangan Throwing himself into the chair distractedly. My brain won’t stand it. My head’s going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: hold it: squeeze it. Save me. Ellie comes behind his chair; clasps his head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from his forehead back to his ears. Thank you. Drowsily. That’s very refreshing. Waking a little. Don’t you hypnotize me, though. I’ve seen men made fools of by hypnotism.
Ellie Steadily. Be quiet. I’ve seen men made fools of without hypnotism.
Mangan Humbly. You don’t dislike touching me, I hope. You never touched me before, I noticed.
Ellie Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice woman, who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will never expect him to make love to me.
Mangan He may, though.
Ellie Making her passes rhythmically. Hush. Go to sleep. Do you hear? You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.
He falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light out; and goes into the garden.
Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in the light which comes in from the hall.
Guinness Speaking to someone outside. Mr. Mangan’s not here, duckie: there’s no one here. It’s all dark.
Mrs. Hushabye Without. Try the garden. Mr. Dunn and I will be in my boudoir. Show him the way.
Guinness Yes, ducky. She makes for the garden door in the dark; stumbles over the sleeping Mangan; and screams. Ahoo! O Lord, sir! I beg your pardon, I’m sure: I didn’t see you in the dark. Who is it? She goes back to the door and turns on the light. Oh, Mr. Mangan, sir, I hope I haven’t hurt you plumping into your lap like that. Coming to him. I was looking for you, sir. Mrs. Hushabye says will you please⁠—Noticing that he remains quite insensible. Oh, my good Lord, I hope I haven’t killed him. Sir! Mr. Mangan! Sir! She shakes him; and he is rolling inertly off the chair on the floor when she holds him up and props him against the cushion. Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! quick, doty darling. Miss Hessy! Mrs. Hushabye* comes in from the hall, followed by Mazzini Dunn*. Oh, Miss Hessy, I’ve been and killed him.
Mazzini* runs round the back of the chair to Mangan’s right hand, and sees that the Nurse’s* words are apparently only too true.
Mazzini What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman?
Mrs. Hushabye Trying not to laugh. Do you mean, you did it on purpose?
Guinness Now is it likely I’d kill any man on purpose? I fell over him in the dark; and I’m a pretty tidy weight. He never spoke nor moved until I shook him; and then he would have dropped dead on the floor. Isn’t it tiresome?
Mrs. Hushabye Going past the Nurse to Mangan’s side, and inspecting him less credulously than Mazzini. Nonsense! he is not dead: he is only asleep. I can see him breathing.
Guinness But why won’t he wake?
Mazzini Speaking very politely into Mangan’s ear. Mangan! My dear Mangan! He blows into Mangan’s ear.
Mrs. Hushabye That’s no good. She shakes him vigorously. Mr. Mangan: wake up. Do you hear? He begins to roll over. Oh! Nurse, nurse: he’s falling: help me.
Nurse Guinness* rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini’s assistance, Mangan* is propped safely up again.
Guinness Behind the chair; bending over to test the case with her nose. Would he be drunk, do you think, pet?
Mrs. Hushabye Had he any of Papa’s rum?
Mazzini It can’t be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs. Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized.
Guinness Hip no what, sir?
Mazzini One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up. Mrs. Hushabye splutters. Oh, you may laugh, Mrs. Hushabye; but I might have been killed.
Mrs. Hushabye I couldn’t have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr. Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun!
Mazzini Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing would induce her to try such a thing again.
Mrs. Hushabye Then who did it? I didn’t.
Mazzini I thought perhaps the captain might have done it unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever he comes close to me.
Guinness The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I’ll back him for that. I’ll go fetch him. She makes for the pantry.
Mrs. Hushabye Wait a bit. To Mazzini. You say he is all right for eighteen hours?
Mazzini Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours.
Mrs. Hushabye Were you any the worse for it?
Mazzini I don’t quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, you see; and⁠—
Mrs. Hushabye Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. You will find her with Mr. Hushabye probably.
Guinness I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I’ll find her and send her to you. She goes out into the garden.
Mrs. Hushabye Calling Mazzini’s attention to the figure on the chair. Now, Mr. Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still intend to sacrifice your daughter to that thing?
Mazzini Troubled. You have completely upset me, Mrs. Hushabye, by all you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I⁠—I, a consecrated soldier of freedom, if I may say so⁠—could sacrifice Ellie to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of forcing her inclinations in any way, is a most painful blow to my⁠—well, I suppose you would say to my good opinion of myself.
Mrs. Hushabye Rather stolidly. Sorry.