Misalliance (2/2) (5/12)

| Lord Summerhays | Extricating his hands and sitting down. Where on earth did you get these morbid tastes? You seem to have been well brought up in a normal, healthy, respectable, middle-class family. Yet you go on like the most unwholesome product of the rankest Bohemianism. | | Hypatia | That’s just it. I’m fed up with⁠— | | Lord Summerhays | Horrible expression. Don’t. | | Hypatia | Oh, I daresay it’s vulgar; but there’s no other word for it. I’m fed up with nice things: with respectability, with propriety! When a woman has nothing to do, money and respectability mean that nothing is ever allowed to happen to her. I don’t want to be good; and I don’t want to be bad: I just don’t want to be bothered about either good or bad: I want to be an active verb. | | Lord Summerhays | An active verb? Oh, I see. An active verb signifies to be, to do, or to suffer. | | Hypatia | Just so: how clever of you! I want to be; I want to do; and I’m game to suffer if it costs that. But stick here doing nothing but being good and nice and ladylike I simply won’t. Stay down here with us for a week; and I’ll show you what it means: show it to you going on day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. | | Lord Summerhays | Show me what? | | Hypatia | Girls withering into ladies. Ladies withering into old maids. Nursing old women. Running errands for old men. Good for nothing else at last. Oh, you can’t imagine the fiendish selfishness of the old people and the maudlin sacrifice of the young. It’s more unbearable than any poverty: more horrible than any regular-right-down wickedness. Oh, home! home! parents! family! duty! how I loathe them! How I’d like to see them all blown to bits! The poor escape. The wicked escape. Well, I can’t be poor: we’re rolling in money: it’s no use pretending we’re not. But I can be wicked; and I’m quite prepared to be. | | Lord Summerhays | You think that easy? | | Hypatia | Well, isn’t it? Being a man, you ought to know. | | Lord Summerhays | It requires some natural talent, which can no doubt be cultivated. It’s not really easy to be anything out of the common. | | Hypatia | Anyhow, I mean to make a fight for living. | | Lord Summerhays | Living your own life, I believe the Suffragist phrase is. | | Hypatia | Living any life. Living, instead of withering without even a gardener to snip you off when you’re rotten. | | Lord Summerhays | I’ve lived an active life; but I’ve withered all the same. | | Hypatia | No: you’ve worn out: that’s quite different. And you’ve some life in you yet or you wouldn’t have fallen in love with me. You can never imagine how delighted I was to find that instead of being the correct sort of big panjandrum you were supposed to be, you were really an old rip like papa. | | Lord Summerhays | No, no: not about your father: I really can’t bear it. And if you must say these terrible things: these heart-wounding shameful things, at least find something prettier to call me than an old rip. | | Hypatia | Well, what would you call a man proposing to a girl who might be⁠— | | Lord Summerhays | His daughter: yes, I know. | | Hypatia | I was going to say his granddaughter. | | Lord Summerhays | You always have one more blow to get in. | | Hypatia | You’re too sensitive. Did you ever make mud pies when you were a kid⁠—beg pardon: a child. | | Lord Summerhays | I hope not. | | Hypatia | It’s a dirty job; but Johnny and I were vulgar enough to like it. I like young people because they’re not too afraid of dirt to live. I’ve grown out of the mud pies; but I like slang; and I like bustling you up by saying things that shock you; and I’d rather put up with swearing and smoking than with dull respectability; and there are lots of things that would just shrivel you up that I think rather jolly. Now! | | Lord Summerhays | I’ve not the slightest doubt of it. Don’t insist. | | Hypatia | It’s not your ideal, is it? | | Lord Summerhays | No. | | Hypatia | Shall I tell you why? Your ideal is an old woman. I daresay she’s got a young face; but she’s an old woman. Old, old, old. Squeamish. Can’t stand up to things. Can’t enjoy things: not real things. Always on the shrink. | | Lord Summerhays | On the shrink! Detestable expression. | | Hypatia | Bah! you can’t stand even a little thing like that. What good are you? Oh, what good are you? | | Lord Summerhays | Don’t ask me. I don’t know. I don’t know. | | | Tarleton returns from the vestibule. Hypatia sits down demurely. | | Hypatia | Well, papa: have you meditated on your destiny? | | Tarleton | Puzzled. What? Oh! my destiny. Gad, I forgot all about it: Jock started a rabbit and put it clean out of my head. Besides, why should I give way to morbid introspection? It’s a sign of madness. Read Lombroso. To Lord Summerhays. Well, Summerhays, has my little girl been entertaining you? | | Lord Summerhays | Yes. She is a wonderful entertainer. | | Tarleton | I think my idea of bringing up a young girl has been rather a success. Don’t you listen to this, Patsy: it might make you conceited. She’s never been treated like a child. I always said the same thing to her mother. Let her read what she likes. Let her do what she likes. Let her go where she likes. Eh, Patsy? | | Hypatia | Oh yes, if there had only been anything for me to do, any place for me to go, anything I wanted to read. | | Tarleton | There, you see! She’s not satisfied. Restless. Wants things to happen. Wants adventures to drop out of the sky. | | Hypatia | Gathering up her work. If you’re going to talk about me and my education, I’m off. | | Tarleton | Well, well, off with you. To Lord Summerhays. She’s active, like me. She actually wanted me to put her into the shop. | | Hypatia | Well, they tell me that the girls there have adventures sometimes. She goes out through the inner door. | | Tarleton | She had me there, though she doesn’t know it, poor innocent lamb! Public scandal exaggerates enormously, of course; but moralize as you will, superabundant vitality is a physical fact that can’t be talked away. He sits down between the writing table and the sideboard. Difficult question this, of bringing up children. Between ourselves, it has beaten me. I never was so surprised in my life as when I came to know Johnny as a man of business and found out what he was really like. How did you manage with your sons? | | Lord Summerhays | Well, I really hadn’t time to be a father: that’s the plain truth of the matter. Their poor dear mother did the usual thing while they were with us. Then of course, Harrow, Cambridge, the usual routine of their class. I saw very little of them, and thought very little about them: how could I? with a whole province on my hands. They and I are⁠—acquaintances. Not perhaps, quite ordinary acquaintances: there’s a sort of⁠—er⁠—I should almost call it a sort of remorse about the way we shake hands (when we do shake hands) which means, I suppose, that we’re sorry we don’t care more for one another; and I’m afraid we don’t meet oftener than we can help. We put each other too much out of countenance. It’s really a very difficult relation. To my mind not altogether a natural one. | | Tarleton | Impressed, as usual. That’s an idea, certainly. I don’t think anybody has ever written about that. | | Lord Summerhays | Bentley is the only one who was really my son in any serious sense. He was completely spoilt. When he was sent to a preparatory school he simply yelled until he was sent home. Harrow was out of the question; but we managed to tutor him into Cambridge. No use: he was sent down. By that time my work was over; and I saw a good deal of him. But I could do nothing with him⁠—except look on. I should have thought your case was quite different. You keep up the middle-class tradition: the day school and the business training instead of the university. I believe in the day school part of it. At all events, you know your own children. | | Tarleton | Do you? I’m not so sure of it. Fact is, my dear Summerhays, once childhood is over, once the little animal has got past the stage at which it acquires what you might call a sense of decency, it’s all up with the relation between parent and child. You can’t get over the fearful shyness of it. | | Lord Summerhays | Shyness? | | Tarleton | Yes, shyness. Read Dickens. | | Lord Summerhays | Surprised. Dickens!! Of all authors, Charles Dickens! Are you serious? | | Tarleton | I don’t mean his books. Read his letters to his family. Read any man’s letters to his children. They’re not human. They’re not about himself or themselves. They’re about hotels, scenery, about the weather, about getting wet and losing the train and what he saw on the road and all that. Not a word about himself. Forced. Shy. Duty letters. All fit to be published: that says everything. I tell you there’s a wall ten feet thick and ten miles high between parent and child. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve girls in my employment: girls and young men. I had ideas on the subject. I used to go to the parents and tell them not to let their children go out into the world without instruction in the dangers and temptations they were going to be thrown into. What did every one of the mothers say to me? “Oh, sir, how could I speak of such things to my own daughter?” The men said I was quite right; but they didn’t do it, any more than I’d been able to do it myself to Johnny. I had to leave books in his way; and I felt just awful when I did it. Believe me, Summerhays, the relation between the young and the old should be an innocent relation. It should be something they could talk about. Well, the relation between parent and child may be an affectionate relation. It may be a useful relation. It may be a necessary relation. But it can never be an innocent relation. You’d die rather than allude to it. Depend on it, in a thousand years it’ll be considered bad form to know who your father and mother are. Embarrassing. Better hand Bentley over to me. I can look him in the face and talk to him as man to man. You can have Johnny. | | Lord Summerhays | Thank you. I’ve lived so long in a country where a man may have fifty sons, who are no more to him than a regiment of soldiers, that I’m afraid I’ve lost the English feeling about it. | | Tarleton | Restless again. You mean Jinghiskahn. Ah yes. Good thing the empire. Educates us. Opens our minds. Knocks the Bible out of us. And civilizes the other chaps. | | Lord Summerhays | Yes: it civilizes them. And it uncivilizes us. Their gain. Our loss, Tarleton, believe me, our loss. | | Tarleton | Well, why not? Averages out the human race. Makes the nigger half an Englishman. Makes the Englishman half a nigger. | | Lord Summerhays | Speaking as the unfortunate Englishman in question, I don’t like the process. If I had my life to live over again, I’d stay at home and supercivilize myself. | | Tarleton | Nonsense! don’t be selfish. Think how you’ve improved the other chaps. Look at the Spanish empire! Bad job for Spain, but splendid for South America. Look at what the Romans did for Britain! They burst up and had to clear out; but think of all they taught us! They were the making of us: I believe there was a Roman camp on Hindhead: I’ll show it to you tomorrow. That’s the good side of Imperialism: it’s unselfish. I despise the Little Englanders: they’re always thinking about England. Smallminded. I’m for the Parliament of man, the federation of the world. Read Tennyson. He settles down again. Then there’s the great food question. | | Lord Summerhays | Apprehensively. Need we go into that this afternoon? | | Tarleton | No; but I wish you’d tell the Chickabiddy that the Jinghiskahns eat no end of toasted cheese, and that it’s the secret of their amazing health and long life! | | Lord Summerhays | Unfortunately they are neither healthy nor long lived. And they don’t eat toasted cheese. | | Tarleton | There you are! They would be if they ate it. Anyhow, say what you like, provided the moral is a Welsh rabbit for my supper. | | Lord Summerhays | British morality in a nutshell! | | Tarleton | Hugely amused. Yes. Ha ha! Awful hypocrites, ain’t we? | | | They are interrupted by excited cries from the grounds. | | Hypatia | Papa! Mamma! Come out as fast as you can. Quick. Quick. | | Bentley | Hello, governor! Come out. An aeroplane. Look, look. | | Tarleton | Starting up. Aeroplane! Did he say an aeroplane? | | Lord Summerhays | Aeroplane! A shadow falls on the pavilion; and some of the glass at the top is shattered and falls on the floor. | | | Tarleton* and Lord Summerhays rush out through the pavilion into the garden. | | Hypatia | Take care. Take care of the chimney. | | Bentley | Come this side: it’s coming right where you’re standing. | | Tarleton | Hallo! where the devil are you coming? you’ll have my roof off. | | Lord Summerhays | He’s lost control. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Look, look, Hypatia. There are two people in it. | | Bentley | They’ve cleared it. Well steered! | | Tarleton | Yes; but they’re coming slam into the greenhouse. | | Lord Summerhays | Look out for the glass. | | Mrs. Tarleton | They’ll break all the glass. They’ll spoil all the grapes. | | Bentley | Mind where you’re coming. He’ll save it. No: they’re down. | | | An appalling crash of breaking glass is heard. Everybody shrieks. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, are they killed? John: are they killed? | | Lord Summerhays | Are you hurt? Is anything broken? Can you stand? | | Hypatia | Oh, you must be hurt. Are you sure? Shall I get you some water? Or some wine? | | Tarleton | Are you all right? Sure you won’t have some brandy just to take off the shock. | | The Aviator | No, thank you. Quite right. Not a scratch. I assure you I’m all right. | | Bentley | What luck! And what a smash! You are a lucky chap, I can tell you. | | | The Aviator and Tarleton come in through the pavilion, followed by Lord Summerhays and Bentley, the Aviator on Tarleton’s right. Bentley passes the Aviator and turns to have an admiring look at him. Lord Summerhays overtakes Tarleton less pointedly on the opposite side with the same object. | | The Aviator | I’m really very sorry. I’m afraid I’ve knocked your vinery into a cocked hat. Effusively. You don’t mind, do you? | | Tarleton | Not a bit. Come in and have some tea. Stay to dinner. Stay over the weekend. All my life I’ve wanted to fly. | | The Aviator | Taking off his goggles. You’re really more than kind. | | Bentley | Why, its Joey Percival. | | Percival | Hallo, Ben! That you? | | Tarleton | What! The man with three fathers! | | Percival | Oh! has Ben been talking about me? | | Tarleton | Consider yourself as one of the family⁠—if you will do me the honor. And your friend too. Where’s your friend? | | Percival | Oh, by the way! before he comes in: let me explain. I don’t know him. | | Tarleton | Eh? | | Percival | Haven’t even looked at him. I’m trying to make a club record with a passenger. The club supplied the passenger. He just got in; and I’ve been too busy handling the aeroplane to look at him. I haven’t said a word to him; and I can’t answer for him socially; but he’s an ideal passenger for a flyer. He saved me from a smash. | | Lord Summerhays | I saw it. It was extraordinary. When you were thrown out he held on to the top bar with one hand. You came past him in the air, going straight for the glass. He caught you and turned you off into the flower bed, and then lighted beside you like a bird. | | Percival | How he kept his head I can’t imagine. Frankly, I didn’t. | | | The Passenger, also begoggled, comes in through the pavilion with Johnny and the two ladies. The Passenger comes between Percival and Tarleton, Mrs. Tarleton between Lord Summerhays and her husband, Hypatia between Percival and Bentley, and Johnny to Bentley’s* right. |