Pygmalion · Act V (2/2) (1/3)
Mrs. Higgins’s* drawing-room. She is at her writing-table as before. The Parlormaid* comes in.
The Parlormaid At the door. Mr. Henry, mam, is downstairs with Colonel Pickering.
Mrs. Higgins Well, show them up.
The Parlormaid They’re using the telephone, mam. Telephoning to the police, I think.
Mrs. Higgins What!
The Parlormaid Coming further in and lowering her voice. Mr. Henry’s in a state, mam. I thought I’d better tell you.
Mrs. Higgins If you had told me that Mr. Henry was not in a state it would have been more surprising. Tell them to come up when they’ve finished with the police. I suppose he’s lost something.
The Parlormaid Yes, mam Going.
Mrs. Higgins Go upstairs and tell Miss Doolittle that Mr. Henry and the Colonel are here. Ask her not to come down till I send for her.
The Parlormaid Yes, mam.
Higgins* bursts in. He is, as The Parlormaid* has said, in a state.
Higgins Look here, mother: here’s a confounded thing!
Mrs. Higgins Yes, dear. Good morning. He checks his impatience and kisses her, whilst The Parlormaid goes out. What is it?
Higgins Eliza’s bolted.
Mrs. Higgins Calmly continuing her writing. You must have frightened her.
Higgins Frightened her! nonsense! She was left last night, as usual, to turn out the lights and all that; and instead of going to bed she changed her clothes and went right off: her bed wasn’t slept in. She came in a cab for her things before seven this morning; and that fool Mrs. Pearce let her have them without telling me a word about it. What am I to do?
Mrs. Higgins Do without, I’m afraid, Henry. The girl has a perfect right to leave if she chooses.
Higgins Wandering distractedly across the room. But I can’t find anything. I don’t know what appointments I’ve got. I’m⁠—Pickering* comes in. Mrs. Higgins* puts down her pen and turns away from the writing-table.
Pickering Shaking hands. Good morning, Mrs. Higgins. Has Henry told you? He sits down on the ottoman.
Higgins What does that ass of an inspector say? Have you offered a reward?
Mrs. Higgins Rising in indignant amazement. You don’t mean to say you have set the police after Eliza?
Higgins Of course. What are the police for? What else could we do? He sits in the Elizabethan chair.
Pickering The inspector made a lot of difficulties. I really think he suspected us of some improper purpose.
Mrs. Higgins Well, of course he did. What right have you to go to the police and give the girl’s name as if she were a thief, or a lost umbrella, or something? Really! She sits down again, deeply vexed.
Higgins But we want to find her.
Pickering We can’t let her go like this, you know, Mrs. Higgins. What were we to do?
Mrs. Higgins You have no more sense, either of you, than two children. Why⁠—
The Parlormaid comes in and breaks off the conversation.
The Parlormaid Mr. Henry: a gentleman wants to see you very particular. He’s been sent on from Wimpole Street.
Higgins Oh, bother! I can’t see anyone now. Who is it?
The Parlormaid A Mr. Doolittle, Sir.
Pickering Doolittle! Do you mean the dustman?
The Parlormaid Dustman! Oh no, sir: a gentleman.
Higgins Springing up excitedly. By George, Pick, it’s some relative of hers that she’s gone to. Somebody we know nothing about. To The Parlormaid. Send him up, quick.
The Parlormaid Yes, Sir. She goes.
Higgins Eagerly, going to his mother. Genteel relatives! now we shall hear something. He sits down in the Chippendale chair.
Mrs. Higgins Do you know any of her people?
Pickering Only her father: the fellow we told you about.
The Parlormaid Announcing. Mr. Doolittle. She withdraws.
Doolittle* enters. He is brilliantly dressed in a new fashionable frock-coat, with white waistcoat and grey trousers. A flower in his buttonhole, a dazzling silk hat, and patent leather shoes complete the effect. He is too concerned with the business he has come on to notice Mrs. Higgins. He walks straight to Higgins*, and accosts him with vehement reproach.
Doolittle Indicating his own person. See here! Do you see this? You done this.
Higgins Done what, man?
Doolittle This, I tell you. Look at it. Look at this hat. Look at this coat.
Pickering Has Eliza been buying you clothes?
Doolittle Eliza! not she. Not half. Why would she buy me clothes?
Mrs. Higgins Good morning, Mr. Doolittle. Won’t you sit down?
Doolittle Taken aback as he becomes conscious that he has forgotten his hostess. Asking your pardon, ma’am. He approaches her and shakes her proffered hand. Thank you. He sits down on the ottoman, on Pickering’s right. I am that full of what has happened to me that I can’t think of anything else.
Higgins What the dickens has happened to you?
Doolittle I shouldn’t mind if it had only happened to me: anything might happen to anybody and nobody to blame but Providence, as you might say. But this is something that you done to me: yes, you, Henry Higgins.
Higgins Have you found Eliza? That’s the point.
Doolittle Have you lost her?
Higgins Yes.
Doolittle You have all the luck, you have. I ain’t found her; but she’ll find me quick enough now after what you done to me.
Mrs. Higgins But what has my son done to you, Mr. Doolittle?
Doolittle Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.
Higgins Rising intolerantly and standing over Doolittle. You’re raving. You’re drunk. You’re mad. I gave you five pounds. After that I had two conversations with you, at half-a-crown an hour. I’ve never seen you since.
Doolittle Oh! Drunk! am I? Mad! am I? Tell me this. Did you or did you not write a letter to an old blighter in America that was giving five millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the world, and that wanted you to invent a universal language for him?
Higgins What! Ezra D. Wannafeller! He’s dead. He sits down again carelessly.
Doolittle Yes: he’s dead; and I’m done for. Now did you or did you not write a letter to him to say that the most original moralist at present in England, to the best of your knowledge, was Alfred Doolittle, a common dustman.
Higgins Oh, after your last visit I remember making some silly joke of the kind.
Doolittle Ah! you may well call it a silly joke. It put the lid on me right enough. Just give him the chance he wanted to show that Americans is not like us: that they recognize and respect merit in every class of life, however humble. Them words is in his blooming will, in which, Henry Higgins, thanks to your silly joking, he leaves me a share in his Predigested Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year on condition that I lecture for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as they ask me up to six times a year.
Higgins The devil he does! Whew! Brightening suddenly. What a lark!
Pickering A safe thing for you, Doolittle. They won’t ask you twice.
Doolittle It ain’t the lecturing I mind. I’ll lecture them blue in the face, I will, and not turn a hair. It’s making a gentleman of me that I object to. Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Henry Higgins. Now I am worrited; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for money. It’s a fine thing for you, says my solicitor. Is it? says I. You mean it’s a good thing for you, I says. When I was a poor man and had a solicitor once when they found a pram in the dust cart, he got me off, and got shut of me and got me shut of him as quick as he could. Same with the doctors: used to shove me out of the hospital before I could hardly stand on my legs, and nothing to pay. Now they finds out that I’m not a healthy man and can’t live unless they looks after me twice a day. In the house I’m not let do a hand’s turn for myself: somebody else must do it and touch me for it. A year ago I hadn’t a relative in the world except two or three that wouldn’t speak to me. Now I’ve fifty, and not a decent week’s wages among the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle class morality. You talk of losing Eliza. Don’t you be anxious: I bet she’s on my doorstep by this: she that could support herself easy by selling flowers if I wasn’t respectable. And the next one to touch me will be you, Henry Higgins. I’ll have to learn to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper English. That’s where you’ll come in; and I daresay that’s what you done it for.
Mrs. Higgins But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all this if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force you to accept this bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn’t that so, Colonel Pickering?
Pickering I believe so.
Doolittle Softening his manner in deference to her sex. That’s the tragedy of it, ma’am. It’s easy to say chuck it; but I haven’t the nerve. Which one of us has? We’re all intimidated. Intimidated, ma’am: that’s what we are. What is there for me if I chuck it but the workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair already to keep my job as a dustman. If I was one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit, I could chuck it; but then why should I, acause the deserving poor might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They don’t know what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor, have nothing between me and the pauper’s uniform but this here blasted three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class. (Excuse the expression, ma’am: you’d use it yourself if you had my provocation). They’ve got you every way you turn: it’s a choice between the Skilly of the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class; and I haven’t the nerve for the workhouse. Intimidated: that’s what I am. Broke. Bought up. Happier men than me will call for my dust, and touch me for their tip; and I’ll look on helpless, and envy them. And that’s what your son has brought me to. He is overcome by emotion.
Mrs. Higgins Well, I’m very glad you’re not going to do anything foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the problem of Eliza’s future. You can provide for her now.
Doolittle With melancholy resignation. Yes, ma’am; I’m expected to provide for everyone now, out of three thousand a year.
Higgins Jumping up. Nonsense! he can’t provide for her. He shan’t provide for her. She doesn’t belong to him. I paid him five pounds for her. Doolittle: either you’re an honest man or a rogue.
Doolittle Tolerantly. A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a little of both.
Higgins Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no right to take her as well.
Mrs. Higgins Henry: don’t be absurd. If you really want to know where Eliza is, she is upstairs.
Higgins Amazed. Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her downstairs. He makes resolutely for the door.
Mrs. Higgins Rising and following him. Be quiet, Henry. Sit down.
Higgins I⁠—
Mrs. Higgins Sit down, dear; and listen to me.
Higgins Oh very well, very well, very well. He throws himself ungraciously on the ottoman, with his face towards the windows. But I think you might have told me this half an hour ago.
Mrs. Higgins Eliza came to me this morning. She passed the night partly walking about in a rage, partly trying to throw herself into the river and being afraid to, and partly in the Carlton Hotel. She told me of the brutal way you two treated her.
Higgins Bounding up again. What!
Pickering Rising also. My dear Mrs. Higgins, she’s been telling you stories. We didn’t treat her brutally. We hardly said a word to her; and we parted on particularly good terms. Turning on Higgins. Higgins: did you bully her after I went to bed?
Higgins Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my face. She behaved in the most outrageous way. I never gave her the slightest provocation. The slippers came bang into my face the moment I entered the room⁠—before I had uttered a word. And used perfectly awful language.
Pickering Astonished. But why? What did we do to her?
Mrs. Higgins I think I know pretty well what you did. The girl is naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isn’t she, Mr. Doolittle?
Doolittle Very tenderhearted, ma’am. Takes after me.
Mrs. Higgins Just so. She had become attached to you both. She worked very hard for you, Henry! I don’t think you quite realize what anything in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems that when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing for you without making a single mistake, you two sat there and never said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it was all over and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then you were surprised because she threw your slippers at you! I should have thrown the fire-irons at you.
Higgins We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to go to bed. Did we, Pick?
Pickering Shrugging his shoulders. That was all.
Mrs. Higgins Ironically. Quite sure?
Pickering Absolutely. Really, that was all.
Mrs. Higgins You didn’t thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell her how splendid she’d been.
Higgins Impatiently. But she knew all about that. We didn’t make speeches to her, if that’s what you mean.
Pickering Conscience stricken. Perhaps we were a little inconsiderate. Is she very angry?
Mrs. Higgins Returning to her place at the writing-table. Well, I’m afraid she won’t go back to Wimpole Street, especially now that Mr. Doolittle is able to keep up the position you have thrust on her; but she says she is quite willing to meet you on friendly terms and to let bygones be bygones.
Higgins Furious. Is she, by George? Ho!
Mrs. Higgins If you promise to behave yourself, Henry, I’ll ask her to come down. If not, go home; for you have taken up quite enough of my time.
Higgins Oh, all right. Very well. Pick: you behave yourself. Let us put on our best Sunday manners for this creature that we picked out of the mud. He flings himself sulkily into the Elizabethan chair.
Doolittle Remonstrating. Now, now, Henry Higgins! have some consideration for my feelings as a middle class man.
Mrs. Higgins Remember your promise, Henry. She presses the bell-button on the writing-table. Mr. Doolittle: will you be so good as to step out on the balcony for a moment. I don’t want Eliza to have the shock of your news until she has made it up with these two gentlemen. Would you mind?
Doolittle As you wish, lady. Anything to help Henry to keep her off my hands. He disappears through the window.
The Parlormaid* answers the bell. Pickering sits down in Doolittle’s* place.
Mrs. Higgins Ask Miss Doolittle to come down, please.
The Parlormaid Yes, mam. She goes out.
Mrs. Higgins Now, Henry: be good.
Higgins I am behaving myself perfectly.
Pickering He is doing his best, Mrs. Higgins.
A pause. Higgins throws back his head; stretches out his legs; and begins to whistle.
Mrs. Higgins Henry, dearest, you don’t look at all nice in that attitude.
Higgins Pulling himself together. I was not trying to look nice, mother.
Mrs. Higgins It doesn’t matter, dear. I only wanted to make you speak.
Higgins Why?
Mrs. Higgins Because you can’t speak and whistle at the same time.
Higgins groans. Another very trying pause.