Misalliance (2/2) (8/12)

| Tarleton | Throwing the brooch on the table and rising pepperily. Come, come, young man! none of that. Respect the romance of your mother’s youth. Don’t you start throwing stones at her. I don’t recall her features just at this moment; but I’ve no doubt she was kind to me and we were happy together. If you have a word to say against her, take yourself out of my house and say it elsewhere. | | The Man | What sort of a joker are you? Are you trying to put me in the wrong, when you have to answer to me for a crime that would make every honest man spit at you as you passed in the street if I were to make it known? | | Tarleton | You read a good deal, don’t you? | | The Man | What if I do? What has that to do with your infamy and my mother’s doom? | | Tarleton | There, you see! Doom! That’s not good sense; but it’s literature. Now it happens that I’m a tremendous reader: always was. When I was your age I read books of that sort by the bushel: the Doom sort, you know. It’s odd, isn’t it, that you and I should be like one another in that respect? Can you account for it in any way? | | The Man | No. What are you driving at? | | Tarleton | Well, do you know who your father was? | | The Man | I see what you mean now. You dare set up to be my father. Thank heaven I’ve not a drop of your vile blood in my veins. | | Tarleton | Sitting down again with a shrug. Well, if you won’t be civil, there’s no pleasure in talking to you, is there? What do you want? Money? | | The Man | How dare you insult me? | | Tarleton | Well, what do you want? | | The Man | Justice. | | Tarleton | You’re quite sure that’s all? | | The Man | It’s enough for me. | | Tarleton | A modest sort of demand, isn’t it? Nobody ever had it since the world began, fortunately for themselves; but you must have it, must you? Well, you’ve come to the wrong shop for it: you’ll get no justice here: we don’t keep it. Human nature is what we stock. | | The Man | Human nature! Debauchery! gluttony! selfishness! robbery of the poor! Is that what you call human nature? | | Tarleton | No: that’s what you call it. Come, my lad! What’s the matter with you? You don’t look starved; and you’ve a decent suit of clothes. | | The Man | Forty-two shillings. | | Tarleton | They can do you a very decent suit for forty-two shillings. Have you paid for it? | | The Man | Do you take me for a thief? And do you suppose I can get credit like you? | | Tarleton | Then you were able to lay your hand on forty-two shillings. Judging from your conversational style, I should think you must spend at least a shilling a week on romantic literature. | | The Man | Where would I get a shilling a week to spend on books when I can hardly keep myself decent? I get books at the Free Library. | | Tarleton | Springing to his feet. What!!! | | The Man | Recoiling before his vehemence. The Free Library. There’s no harm in that. | | Tarleton | Ingrate! I supply you with free books; and the use you make of them is to persuade yourself that it’s a fine thing to shoot me. He throws himself doggedly back into his chair. I’ll never give another penny to a Free Library. | | The Man | You’ll never give another penny to anything. This is the end: for you and me. | | Tarleton | Pooh! Come, come, man! talk business. What’s wrong? Are you out of employment? | | The Man | No. This is my Saturday afternoon. Don’t flatter yourself that I’m a loafer or a criminal. I’m a cashier; and I defy you to say that my cash has ever been a farthing wrong. I’ve a right to call you to account because my hands are clean. | | Tarleton | Well, call away. What have I to account for? Had you a hard time with your mother? Why didn’t she ask me for money? | | The Man | She’d have died first. Besides, who wanted your money? Do you suppose we lived in the gutter? My father mayn’t have been in as large a way as you; but he was better connected; and his shop was as respectable as yours. | | Tarleton | I suppose your mother brought him a little capital. | | The Man | I don’t know. What’s that got to do with you? | | Tarleton | Well, you say she and I knew one another and parted. She must have had something off me then, you know. One doesn’t get out of these things for nothing. Hang it, young man: do you suppose I’ve no heart? Of course she had her due; and she found a husband with it, and set him up in business with it, and brought you up respectably; so what the devil have you to complain of? | | The Man | Are women to be ruined with impunity? | | Tarleton | I haven’t ruined any woman that I’m aware of. I’ve been the making of you and your mother. | | The Man | Oh, I’m a fool to listen to you and argue with you. I came here to kill you and then kill myself. | | Tarleton | Begin with yourself, if you don’t mind. I’ve a good deal of business to do still before I die. Haven’t you? | | The Man | No. That’s just it: I’ve no business to do. Do you know what my life is? I spend my days from nine to six⁠—nine hours of daylight and fresh air⁠—in a stuffy little den counting another man’s money. I’ve an intellect: a mind and a brain and a soul; and the use he makes of them is to fix them on his tuppences and his eighteenpences and his two pound seventeen and tenpences and see how much they come to at the end of the day and take care that no one steals them. I enter and enter, and add and add, and take money and give change, and fill cheques and stamp receipts; and not a penny of that money is my own: not one of those transactions has the smallest interest for me or anyone else in the world but him; and even he couldn’t stand it if he had to do it all himself. And I’m envied: aye, envied for the variety and liveliness of my job, by the poor devil of a bookkeeper that has to copy all my entries over again. Fifty thousand entries a year that poor wretch makes; and not ten out of the fifty thousand ever has to be referred to again; and when all the figures are counted up and the balance sheet made out, the boss isn’t a penny the richer than he’d be if bookkeeping had never been invented. Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the very worst. | | Tarleton | Why not join the territorials? | | The Man | Because I shouldn’t be let. He hasn’t even the sense to see that it would pay him to get some cheap soldiering out of me. How can a man tied to a desk from nine to six be anything⁠—be even a man, let alone a soldier? But I’ll teach him and you a lesson. I’ve had enough of living a dog’s life and despising myself for it. I’ve had enough of being talked down to by hogs like you, and wearing my life out for a salary that wouldn’t keep you in cigars. You’ll never believe that a clerk’s a man until one of us makes an example of one of you. | | Tarleton | Despotism tempered by assassination, eh? | | The Man | Yes. That’s what they do in Russia. Well, a business office is Russia as far as the clerks are concerned. So don’t you take it so coolly. You think I’m not going to do it; but I am. | | Tarleton | Rising and facing him. Come, now, as man to man! It’s not my fault that you’re poorer than I am; and it’s not your fault that I’m richer than you. And if you could undo all that passed between me and your mother, you wouldn’t undo it; and neither would she. But you’re sick of your slavery; and you want to be the hero of a romance and to get into the papers. Eh? A son revenges his mother’s shame. Villain weltering in his gore. Mother: look down from heaven and receive your unhappy son’s last sigh. | | The Man | Oh, rot! do you think I read novelettes? And do you suppose I believe such superstitions as heaven? I go to church because the boss told me I’d get the sack if I didn’t. Free England! Ha! Lina* appears at the pavilion door, and comes swiftly and noiselessly forward on seeing the man with a pistol in his hand. | | Tarleton | You’re afraid of getting the sack; but you’re not afraid to shoot yourself. | | The Man | Damn you! you’re trying to keep me talking until somebody comes. He raises the pistol desperately, but not very resolutely. | | Lina | At his right elbow. Somebody has come. | | The Man | Turning on her. Stand off. I’ll shoot you if you lay a hand on me. I will, by God. | | Lina | You can’t cover me with that pistol. Try. | | | He tries, presenting the pistol at her face. She moves round him in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock with a light dancing step. He finds it impossible to cover her with the pistol: she is always too far to his left. Tarleton, behind him, grips his wrist and drags his arm straight up, so that the pistol points to the ceiling. As he tries to turn on his assailant, Lina grips his other wrist. | | Lina | Please stop. I can’t bear to twist anyone’s wrist; but I must if you don’t let the pistol go. | | The Man | Letting Tarleton take it from him. All right: I’m done. Couldn’t even do that job decently. That’s a clerk all over. Very well: send for your damned police and make an end of it. I’m accustomed to prison from nine to six: I daresay I can stand it from six to nine as well. | | Tarleton | Don’t swear. That’s a lady. He throws the pistol on the writing table. | | The Man | Looking at Lina in amazement. Beaten by a female! It needed only this. He collapses in the chair near the worktable, and hides his face. They cannot help pitying him. | | Lina | Old pal: don’t call the police. Lend him a bicycle and let him get away. | | The Man | I can’t ride a bicycle. I never could afford one. I’m not even that much good. | | Tarleton | If I gave you a hundred pound note now to go and have a good spree with, I wonder would you know how to set about it. Do you ever take a holiday? | | The Man | Take! I got four days last August. | | Tarleton | What did you do? | | The Man | I did a cheap trip to Folkestone. I spent sevenpence on dropping pennies into silly automatic machines and peepshows of rowdy girls having a jolly time. I spent a penny on the lift and fourpence on refreshments. That cleaned me out. The rest of the time I was so miserable that I was glad to get back to the office. Now you know. | | Lina | Come to the gymnasium: I’ll teach you how to make a man of yourself. The man is about to rise irresolutely, from the mere habit of doing what he is told, when Tarleton stops him. | | Tarleton | Young man: don’t. You’ve tried to shoot me; but I’m not vindictive. I draw the line at putting a man on the rack. If you want every joint in your body stretched until it’s an agony to live⁠—until you have an unnatural feeling that all your muscles are singing and laughing with pain⁠—then go to the gymnasium with that lady. But you’ll be more comfortable in jail. | | Lina | Greatly amused. Was that why you went away, old pal? Was that the telegram you said you had forgotten to send? | | | Mrs. Tarleton comes in hastily through the inner door. | | Mrs. Tarleton | On the steps. Is anything the matter, John? Nurse says she heard you calling me a quarter of an hour ago; and that your voice sounded as if you were ill. She comes between Tarleton and the man. Is anything the matter? | | Tarleton | This is the son of an old friend of mine. Mr.⁠—er⁠—Mr. Gunner. To the man, who rises awkwardly. My wife. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Good evening to you. | | Gunner | Er⁠—He is too nervous to speak, and makes a shambling bow. | | | Bentley looks in at the pavilion door, very peevish, and too preoccupied with his own affairs to pay any attention to those of the company. | | Bentley | I say: has anybody seen Hypatia? She promised to come out with me; and I can’t find her anywhere. And where’s Joey? | | Gunner | Suddenly breaking out aggressively, being incapable of any middle way between submissiveness and violence. I can tell you where Hypatia is. I can tell you where Joey is. And I say it’s a scandal and an infamy. If people only knew what goes on in this so-called respectable house it would be put a stop to. These are the morals of our pious capitalist class! This is your rotten bourgeoisie! This!⁠— | | Mrs. Tarleton | Don’t you dare use such language in company. I won’t allow it. | | Tarleton | All right, Chickabiddy: it’s not bad language: it’s only Socialism. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Well, I won’t have any Socialism in my house. | | Tarleton | To Gunner. You hear what Mrs. Tarleton says. Well, in this house everybody does what she says or out they go. | | Gunner | Do you suppose I want to stay? Do you think I would breathe this polluted atmosphere a moment longer than I could help? | | Bentley | Running forward between Lina and Gunner. But what did you mean by what you said about Miss Tarleton and Mr. Percival, you beastly rotter, you? | | Gunner | To Tarleton. Oh! is Hypatia your daughter? And Joey is Mister Percival, is he? One of your set, I suppose. One of the smart set! One of the bridge-playing, eighty-horse-power, weekender set! One of the johnnies I slave for! Well, Joey has more decency than your daughter, anyhow. The women are the worst. I never believed it till I saw it with my own eyes. Well, it won’t last forever. The writing is on the wall. Rome fell. Babylon fell. Hindhead’s turn will come. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Naively looking at the wall for the writing. Whatever are you talking about, young man? | | Gunner | I know what I’m talking about. I went into that Turkish bath a boy: I came out a man. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Good gracious! he’s mad. To Lina. Did John make him take a Turkish bath? | | Lina | No. He doesn’t need Turkish baths: he needs to put on a little flesh. I don’t understand what it’s all about. I found him trying to shoot Mr. Tarleton. | | Mrs. Tarleton | With a scream. Oh! and John encouraging him, I’ll be bound! Bunny: you go for the police. To Gunner. I’ll teach you to come into my house and shoot my husband. | | Gunner | Teach away. I never asked to be let off. I’m ashamed to be free instead of taking my part with the rest. Women⁠—beautiful women of noble birth⁠—are going to prison for their opinions. Girl students in Russia go to the gallows; let themselves be cut in pieces with the knout, or driven through the frozen snows of Siberia, sooner than stand looking on tamely at the world being made a hell for the toiling millions. If you were not all skunks and cowards you’d be suffering with them instead of battening here on the plunder of the poor. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Much vexed. Oh, did you ever hear such silly nonsense? Bunny: go and tell the gardener to send over one of his men to Grayshott for the police. | | Gunner | I’ll go with him. I intend to give myself up. I’m going to expose what I’ve seen here, no matter what the consequences may be to my miserable self. | | Tarleton | Stop. You stay where you are, Ben. Chickabiddy: you’ve never had the police in. If you had, you’d not be in a hurry to have them in again. Now, young man: cut the cackle; and tell us, as short as you can, what did you see? | | Gunner | I can’t tell you in the presence of ladies. | | Mrs. Tarleton | Oh, you are tiresome. As if it mattered to anyone what you saw. Me! A married woman that might be your mother. To Lina*. And I’m sure you’re not particular, if you’ll excuse my saying so. | | Tarleton | Out with it. What did you see? | | Gunner | I saw your daughter with my own eyes⁠—oh well, never mind what I saw. | | Bentley | Almost crying with anxiety. You beastly rotter, I’ll get Joey to give you such a hiding⁠— | | Tarleton | You can’t leave it at that, you know. What did you see my daughter doing? | | Gunner | After all, why shouldn’t she do it? The Russian students do it. Women should be as free as men. I’m a fool. I’m so full of your bourgeois morality that I let myself be shocked by the application of my own revolutionary principles. If she likes the man why shouldn’t she tell him so? |