Misalliance (2/2) (2/12)

| Johnny | Or he can spend more on it than it brings him in: that’s how I look at it. What I say is that everybody’s business is nobody’s business. I hope I’m not a hard man, nor a narrow man, nor unwilling to pay reasonable taxes, and subscribe in reason to deserving charities, and even serve on a jury in my turn; and no man can say I ever refused to help a friend out of a difficulty when he was worth helping. But when you ask me to go beyond that, I tell you frankly I don’t see it. I never did see it, even when I was only a boy, and had to pretend to take in all the ideas the Governor fed me up with. I didn’t see it; and I don’t see it. | | Lord Summerhays | There is certainly no business reason why you should take more than your share of the world’s work. | | Johnny | So I say. It’s really a great encouragement to me to find you agree with me. For of course if nobody agrees with you, how are you to know that you’re not a fool? | | Lord Summerhays | Quite so. | | Johnny | I wish you’d talk to him about it. It’s no use my saying anything: I’m a child to him still: I have no influence. Besides, you know how to handle men. See how you handled me when I was making a fool of myself about Bunny! | | Lord Summerhays | Not at all. | | Johnny | Oh yes I was: I know I was. Well, if my blessed father had come in he’d have told me to control myself. As if I was losing my temper on purpose! | | | Bentley returns, newly washed. He beams when he sees his father, and comes affectionately behind him and pats him on the shoulders. | | Bentley | Hel‑lo, commander! have you come? I’ve been making a filthy silly ass of myself here. I’m awfully sorry, Johnny, old chap: I beg your pardon. Why don’t you kick me when I go on like that? | | Lord Summerhays | As we came through Godalming I thought I heard some yelling⁠— | | Bentley | I should think you did. Johnny was rather rough on me, though. He told me nobody here liked me; and I was silly enough to believe him. | | Lord Summerhays | And all the women have been kissing you and pitying you ever since to stop your crying, I suppose. Baby! | | Bentley | I did cry. But I always feel good after crying: it relieves my wretched nerves. I feel perfectly jolly now. | | Lord Summerhays | Not at all ashamed of yourself, for instance? | | Bentley | If I started being ashamed of myself I shouldn’t have time for anything else all my life. I say: I feel very fit and spry. Lets all go down and meet the Grand Cham. He goes to the hatstand and takes down his hat. | | Lord Summerhays | Does Mr. Tarleton like to be called the Grand Cham, do you think, Bentley? | | Bentley | Well, he thinks he’s too modest for it. He calls himself Plain John. But you can’t call him that in his own office: besides, it doesn’t suit him: it’s not flamboyant enough. | | Johnny | Flam what? | | Bentley | Flamboyant. Lets go and meet him. He’s telephoned from Guildford to say he’s on the road. The dear old son is always telephoning or telegraphing: he thinks he’s hustling along like anything when he’s only sending unnecessary messages. | | Lord Summerhays | Thank you: I should prefer a quiet afternoon. | | Bentley | Righto. I shan’t press Johnny: he’s had enough of me for one weekend. He goes out through the pavilion into the grounds. | | Johnny | Not a bad idea, that. | | Lord Summerhays | What? | | Johnny | Going to meet the Governor. You know you wouldn’t think it; but the Governor likes Bunny rather. And Bunny is cultivating it. I shouldn’t be surprised if he thought he could squeeze me out one of these days. | | Lord Summerhays | You don’t say so! Young rascal! I want to consult you about him, if you don’t mind. Shall we stroll over to the Gibbet? Bentley is too fast for me as a walking companion; but I should like a short turn. | | Johnny | Rising eagerly, highly flattered. Right you are. That’ll suit me down to the ground. He takes a Panama and stick from the hat stand. | | | Mrs. Tarleton and Hypatia come back just as the two men are going out. Hypatia salutes Summerhays from a distance with an enigmatic lift of her eyelids in his direction and a demure nod before she sits down at the worktable and busies herself with her needle. Mrs. Tarleton, hospitably fussy, goes over to him. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, Lord Summerhays, I didn’t know you were here. Won’t you have some tea? | | Lord Summerhays | No, thank you: I’m not allowed tea. And I’m ashamed to say I’ve knocked over your beautiful punch bowl. You must let me replace it. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, it doesn’t matter: I’m only too glad to be rid of it. The shopman told me it was in the best taste; but when my poor old nurse Martha got cataract, Bunny said it was a merciful provision of Nature to prevent her seeing our china. | | Lord Summerhays | Gravely. That was exceedingly rude of Bentley, Mrs. Tarleton. I hope you told him so. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, bless you! I don’t care what he says; so long as he says it to me and not before visitors. | | Johnny | We’re going out for a stroll, mother. | | Mrs. Tarleton | All right: don’t let us keep you. Never mind about that crock: I’ll get the girl to come and take the pieces away. Recollecting herself. There! I’ve done it again! | | Johnny | Done what? | | Mrs. Tarleton | Called her the girl. You know, Lord Summerhays, its a funny thing; but now I’m getting old, I’m dropping back into all the ways John and I had when we had barely a hundred a year. You should have known me when I was forty! I talked like a duchess; and if Johnny or Hypatia let slip a word that was like old times, I was down on them like anything. And now I’m beginning to do it myself at every turn. | | Lord Summerhays | There comes a time when all that seems to matter so little. Even queens drop the mask when they reach our time of life. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Let you alone for giving a thing a pretty turn! You’re a humbug, you know, Lord Summerhays. John doesn’t know it; and Johnny doesn’t know it; but you and I know it, don’t we? Now that’s something that even you can’t answer; so be off with you for your walk without another word. | | | Lord Summerhays* smiles; bows; and goes out through the vestibule door, followed by Johnny. Mrs. Tarleton sits down at the worktable and takes out her darning materials and one of her husband’s socks. Hypatia* is at the other side of the table, on her mother’s right. They chat as they work. | | Hypatia | I wonder whether they laugh at us when they are by themselves! | | Mrs. Tarleton | Who? | | Hypatia | Bentley and his father and all the toffs in their set. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, that’s only their way. I used to think that the aristocracy were a nasty sneering lot, and that they were laughing at me and John. They’re always giggling and pretending not to care much about anything. But you get used to it: they’re the same to one another and to everybody. Besides, what does it matter what they think? It’s far worse when they’re civil, because that always means that they want you to lend them money; and you must never do that, Hypatia, because they never pay. How can they? They don’t make anything, you see. Of course, if you can make up your mind to regard it as a gift, that’s different; but then they generally ask you again; and you may as well say no first as last. You needn’t be afraid of the aristocracy, dear: they’re only human creatures like ourselves after all; and you’ll hold your own with them easy enough. | | Hypatia | Oh, I’m not a bit afraid of them, I assure you. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Well, no, not afraid of them, exactly; but you’ve got to pick up their ways. You know, dear, I never quite agreed with your father’s notion of keeping clear of them, and sending you to a school that was so expensive that they couldn’t afford to send their daughters there; so that all the girls belonged to big business families like ourselves. It takes all sorts to make a world; and I wanted you to see a little of all sorts. When you marry Bunny, and go among the women of his father’s set, they’ll shock you at first. | | Hypatia | Incredulously. How? | | Mrs. Tarleton | Well, the things they talk about. | | Hypatia | Oh! scandalmongering? | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh no: we all do that: that’s only human nature. But you know they’ve no notion of decency. I shall never forget the first day I spent with a marchioness, two duchesses, and no end of Ladies This and That. Of course it was only a committee: they’d put me on to get a big subscription out of John. I’d never heard such talk in my life. The things they mentioned! And it was the marchioness that started it. | | Hypatia | What sort of things? | | Mrs. Tarleton | Drainage!! She’d tried three systems in her castle; and she was going to do away with them all and try another. I didn’t know which way to look when she began talking about it: I thought they’d all have got up and gone out of the room. But not a bit of it, if you please. They were all just as bad as she. They all had systems; and each of them swore by her own system. I sat there with my cheeks burning until one of the duchesses, thinking I looked out of it, I suppose, asked me what system I had. I said I was sure I knew nothing about such things, and hadn’t we better change the subject. Then the fat was in the fire, I can tell you. There was a regular terror of a countess with an anaerobic system; and she told me, downright brutally, that I’d better learn something about them before my children died of diphtheria. That was just two months after I’d buried poor little Bobby; and that was the very thing he died of, poor little lamb! I burst out crying: I couldn’t help it. It was as good as telling me I’d killed my own child. I had to go away; but before I was out of the door one of the duchesses⁠—quite a young woman⁠—began talking about what sour milk did in her inside and how she expected to live to be over a hundred if she took it regularly. And me listening to her, that had never dared to think that a duchess could have anything so common as an inside! I shouldn’t have minded if it had been children’s insides: we have to talk about them. But grown-up people! I was glad to get away that time. | | Hypatia | There was a physiology and hygiene class started at school; but of course none of our girls were let attend it. | | Mrs. Tarleton | If it had been an aristocratic school plenty would have attended it. That’s what they’re like: they’ve nasty minds. With really nice good women a thing is either decent or indecent; and if it’s indecent, we just don’t mention it or pretend to know about it; and there’s an end of it. But all the aristocracy cares about is whether it can get any good out of the thing. They’re what Johnny calls cynical-like. And of course nobody can say a word to them for it. They’re so high up that they can do and say what they like. | | Hypatia | Well, I think they might leave the drains to their husbands. I shouldn’t think much of a man that left such things to me. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, don’t think that, dear, whatever you do. I never let on about it to you; but it’s me that takes care of the drainage here. After what that countess said to me I wasn’t going to lose another child or trust John. And I don’t want my grandchildren to die any more than my children. | | Hypatia | Do you think Bentley will ever be as big a man as his father? I don’t mean clever: I mean big and strong. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Not he. He’s overbred, like one of those expensive little dogs. I like a bit of a mongrel myself, whether it’s a man or a dog: they’re the best for everyday. But we all have our tastes: what’s one woman’s meat is another woman’s poison. Bunny’s a dear little fellow; but I never could have fancied him for a husband when I was your age. | | Hypatia | Yes; but he has some brains. He’s not like all the rest. One can’t have everything. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, you’re quite right, dear: quite right. It’s a great thing to have brains: look what it’s done for your father! That’s the reason I never said a word when you jilted poor Jerry Mackintosh. | | Hypatia | Excusing herself. I really couldn’t stick it out with Jerry, mother. I know you liked him; and nobody can deny that he’s a splendid animal⁠— | | Mrs. Tarleton | Shocked. Hypatia! How can you! The things that girls say nowadays! | | Hypatia | Well, what else can you call him? If I’d been deaf or he’d been dumb, I could have married him. But living with father, I’ve got accustomed to cleverness. Jerry would drive me mad: you know very well he’s a fool: even Johnny thinks him a fool. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Up in arms at once in defence of her boy. Now don’t begin about my Johnny. You know it annoys me. Johnny’s as clever as anybody else in his own way. I don’t say he’s as clever as you in some ways; but he’s a man, at all events, and not a little squit of a thing like your Bunny. | | Hypatia | Oh, I say nothing against your darling: we all know Johnny’s perfection. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Don’t be cross, dearie. You let Johnny alone; and I’ll let Bunny alone. I’m just as bad as you. There! | | Hypatia | Oh, I don’t mind your saying that about Bentley. It’s true. He is a little squit of a thing. I wish he wasn’t. But who else is there? Think of all the other chances I’ve had! Not one of them has as much brains in his whole body as Bentley has in his little finger. Besides, they’ve no distinction. It’s as much as I can do to tell one from the other. They wouldn’t even have money if they weren’t the sons of their fathers, like Johnny. What’s a girl to do? I never met anybody like Bentley before. He may be small; but he’s the best of the bunch: you can’t deny that. | | Mrs. Tarleton | With a sigh. Well, my pet, if you fancy him, there’s no more to be said. | | | A pause follows this remark: the two women sewing silently. | | Hypatia | Mother: do you think marriage is as much a question of fancy as it used to be in your time and father’s? | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, it wasn’t much fancy with me, dear: your father just wouldn’t take no for an answer; and I was only too glad to be his wife instead of his shopgirl. Still, it’s curious; but I had more choice than you in a way, because, you see, I was poor; and there are so many more poor men than rich ones that I might have had more of a pick, as you might say, if John hadn’t suited me. | | Hypatia | I can imagine all sorts of men I could fall in love with; but I never seem to meet them. The real ones are too small, like Bunny, or too silly, like Jerry. Of course one can get into a state about any man: fall in love with him if you like to call it that. But who would risk marrying a man for love? I shouldn’t. I remember three girls at school who agreed that the one man you should never marry was the man you were in love with, because it would make a perfect slave of you. There’s a sort of instinct against it, I think, that’s just as strong as the other instinct. One of them, to my certain knowledge, refused a man she was in love with, and married another who was in love with her; and it turned out very well. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Does all that mean that you’re not in love with Bunny? | | Hypatia | Oh, how could anybody be in love with Bunny? I like him to kiss me just as I like a baby to kiss me. I’m fond of him; and he never bores me; and I see that he’s very clever; but I’m not what you call gone about him, if that’s what you mean. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Then why need you marry him? | | Hypatia | What better can I do? I must marry somebody, I suppose. I’ve realized that since I was twenty-three. I always used to take it as a matter of course that I should be married before I was twenty. | | Bentley’s Voice | In the garden. You’ve got to keep yourself fresh: to look at these things with an open mind. | | John Tarleton’s Voice. | Quite right, quite right: I always say so. | | Mrs. Tarleton | There’s your father, and Bunny with him. |