Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (10 page)

CROFTS [
furtively
] I say, Praed.

PRAED Yes.

CROFTS I want to ask you a rather particular question.

PRAED Certainly. [
He takes MRS. WARREN's chair and sits close to CROFTS.
]

CROFTS That's right: they might hear us from the window. Look here: did Kitty ever tell you who that girl's father is?

PRAED Never.

CROFTS Have you any suspicion of who it might be?

PRAED None.

CROFTS [
not believing him
] I know, of course, that you perhaps might feel bound not to tell if she had said anything to you. But it's very awkward to be uncertain about it now that we shall be meeting the girl every day. We don't exactly know how we ought to feel towards her.

PRAED What difference can that make? We take her on her own merits. What does it matter who her father was?

CROFTS [
suspiciously
] Then you know who he was?

PRAED [
with a touch of temper
] I said no just now. Did you not hear me?

CROFTS Look here, Praed. I ask you as a particular favor. If you do know [
movement of protest from PRAED
]—I only say, i f you know, you might at least set my mind at rest about her. The fact is I feel attracted towards her. Oh, don't be alarmed: it's quite an innocent feeling. That's what puzzles me about it. Why, for all I know,
I
might be her father.

PRAED You! Impossible! Oh, no, nonsense!

CROFTS [
catching him up cunningly
] You know for certain that I'm not?

PRAED I know nothing about it, I tell you, any more than you. But really, Crofts—oh, no, it's out of the question. There's not the least resemblance.

CROFTS As to that, there's no resemblance between her and her mother that I can see. I suppose she's not y o u r daughter, is she?

PRAED [
He meets the question with an indignant stare; then recovers himself with an effort and answers gently and gravely
] Now listen to me, my dear Crofts. I have nothing to do with that side of Mrs. Warren's life, and never had. She has never spoken to me about it; and of course I have never spoken to her about it. Your delicacy will tell you that a handsome woman needs some friends who are not—well, not on that footing with her. The effect of her own beauty would become a torment to her if she could not escape from it occasionally. You are probably on much more confidential terms with Kitty than I am. Surely you can ask her the question yourself.

CROFTS [
rising impatiently
] I have asked her often enough. But she's so determined to keep the child all to herself that she would deny that it ever had a father if she could. No: there's nothing to be got out of her—nothing that one can believe, anyhow. I'm thoroughly uncomfortable about it, Praed.

PRAED [
rising also
] Well, as you are, at all events, old enough to be her father, I don't mind agreeing that we both regard Miss Vivie in a parental way, as a young girl whom we are bound to protect and help. All the more, as the real father, whoever he was, was probably a blackguard. What do you say?

CROFTS [
aggressively
] I'm no older than you, if you come to that.

PRAED Yes, you are, my dear fellow: you were born old. I was born a boy: I've never been able to feel the assurance of a grown-up man in my life.

MRS. WARREN [
calling from within the cottage
] Prad-dee! George! Tea-ea-ea-ea!

CROFTS [
hastily
] She's calling us.
[He hurries in. PRAED shakes his head bodingly, and is following slowly when he is hailed by a young gentleman who has just appeared on the common, and is making for the gate. He is a pleasant, pretty, smartly dressed, and entirely good-for-nothing young fellow, not long turned
20, with a charming voice and agreeably disrespectful manner. He carries a very light sporting magazine rifle.
]

THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN Hallo! Praed!

PRAED Why, Frank Gardner! [
FRANK comes in and shakes hands cordially.
] What on earth are you doing here?

FRANK Staying with my father.

PRAED The Roman father?

FRANK He's rector here. I'm living with my people this autumn for the sake of economy. Things came to a crisis in July: the Roman father
^k
had to pay my debts. He's stony broke in consequence; and so am I. What are you up to in these parts? Do you know the people here?

PRAED Yes: I'm spending the day with a Miss Warren.

FRANK [
enthusiastically
] What! Do you know Vivie? Isn't she a jolly girl! I'm teaching her to shoot—you see [
shewing the rifle.
]! I'm so glad she knows you: you're just the sort of fellow she ought to know. [
He smiles, and raises the charming voice almost to a singing tone as he exclaims
] It‘severso jolly to find you here, Praed. Ain't it, now?

PRAED I'm an old friend of her mother's. Mrs. Warren brought me over to make her daughter's acquaintance.

FRANK The mother! Is s h e here?

PRAED Yes—inside at tea.

MRS. WARREN [
calling from within
] Prad-dee-ee-ee-eee! The tea-cake'll be cold.

PRAED [
calling
] Yes, Mrs. Warren. In a moment. I've just met a friend here.

MRS. WARREN A what?

PRAED [
louder
] A friend.

MRS. WARREN Bring him up.

PRAED All right. [
To FRANK.
] Will you accept the invitation?

FRANK [
incredulous, but immensely amused
] Is that Vivie's mother?

PRAED Yes.

FRANK By Jove! What a lark! Do you think she'll like me?

PRAED I've no doubt you'll make yourself popular, as usual. Come in and try [
moving towards the house
].

FRANK Stop a bit. [
Seriously.
] I want to take you into my confidence.

PRAED Pray don't. It's only some fresh folly, like the barmaid at Redhill.

FRANK It's ever so much more serious than that. You say you've only just met Vivie for the first time?

PRAED Yes.

FRANK [
rhapsodically
] Then you can have no idea what a girl she is. Such character! Such sense! And her cleverness! Oh, my eye, Praed, but I can tell you she is clever! And the most loving little heart that—

CROFTS [
putting his head out of the window
] I say, Praed: what are you about? Do come along. [
He disappears.
]

FRANK Hallo! Sort of chap that would take a prize at a dog show, ain't he? Who's he?

PRAED Sir George Crofts, an old friend of Mrs. Warren's. I think we had better come in. [
On their way to the porch they are interrupted by a call from the gate. Turning, they see an elderly clergyman looking over it
.]

THE CLERGYMAN [
calling
] Frank!

FRANK Hallo! [To PRAED.] The Roman father. [
To the clergyman.
] Yes, gov‘nor: all right: presently. [
To PRAED.
] Look here, Praed: you'd better go in to tea. I'll join you directly.

PRAED Very good. [
He raises his hat to the clergyman, who acknowledges the salute distantly. PRAED goes into the cottage. The clergyman remains stiffly outside the gate, with his hands on the top of it. The REV. SAMUEL GARDNER, a beneficed clergyman of the Established Church, is over 50. He is a pretentious, booming, noisy person, hopelessly asserting himself as a father and a clergyman without being able to command respect in either capacity
.]

REV. S. Well, sir. Who are your friends here, if I may ask?

FRANK Oh, it's all right, gov‘nor! Come in.

REV. S. No, sir; not until I know whose garden I am entering.

FRANK It's all right. It's Miss Warren's.

REV. S. I have not seen her at church since she came.

FRANK Of course not: she's a third wrangler—ever so intellectual! —took a higher degree than you did; so why should she go to hear you preach?

REV. S. Don't be disrespectful, sir.

FRANK Oh, it don't matter: nobody hears us. Come in. [
He opens the gate, unceremoniously pulling his father with it into the garden.
] I want to introduce you to her. She and I get on rattling well together: she's charming. Do you remember the advice you gave me last July, gov‘nor?

REV. S. [
severely
] Yes. I advised you to conquer your idleness and flippancy, and to work your way into an honorable profession and live on it and not upon me.

FRANK No: that's what you thought of afterwards. What you actually said was that since I had neither brains nor money, I'd better turn my good looks to account by marrying somebody with both. Well, look here. Miss Warren has brains: you can't deny that.

REV. S. Brains are not everything.

FRANK No, of course not: there's the money—

REV. S. [
interrupting him austerely
] I was not thinking of money, sir. I was speaking of higher things—social position, for instance.

FRANK I don't care a rap about that.

REV. S. But I do, sir.

FRANK Well, nobody wants y o u to marry her. Anyhow, she has what amounts to a high Cambridge degree; and she seems to have as much money as she wants.

REV. S. [
sinking into a feeble vein of humor
] I greatly doubt whether she has as much money as y o u will want.

FRANK Oh, come: I haven't been so very extravagant. I live ever so quietly; I don't drink; I don't bet much; and I never go regularly on the razzle-dazzle as you did when you were my age.

REV. S. [
booming hollowly
] Silence, sir.

FRANK Well, you told me yourself, when I was making ever such an ass of myself about the barmaid at Redhill, that you once offered a woman £50 for the letters you wrote to her when—

REV. S. [
terrified
] Sh-sh-sh, Frank, for Heaven's sake! [
He looks
round
apprehensively. Seeing no one within earshot he plucks up courage to boom again, but more subduedly.
] You are taking an ungentlemanly advantage of what I confided to you for your own good, to save you from an error you would have repented all your life long. Take warning by your father's follies, sir; and don't make them an excuse for your own.

FRANK Did you ever hear the story of the Duke of Wellington and his letters?

REV. S. No, sir; and I don't want to hear it.

FRANK The old Iron Duke didn't throw away £50—not he. He just wrote: “My dear Jenny: Publish and be damned! Yours affectionately, Wellington.”
^l
That's what you should have done.

REV. S. [
piteously
] Frank, my boy: when I wrote those letters I put myself into that woman's power. When I told you about her I put myself, to some extent, I am sorry to say, in your power. She refused my money with these words, which I shall never forget: “Knowledge is power,” she said; “and I never sell power.” That's more than twenty years ago; and she has never made use of her power or caused me a moment's uneasiness. You are behaving worse to me than she did, Frank.

FRANK Oh, yes, I dare say! Did you ever preach at her the way you preach at me every day?

REV. S. [
wounded almost to tears
] I leave you, sir. You are incorrigible. [
He turns towards the gate
.]

FRANK [
utterly unmoved
] Tell them I shan't be home to tea, will you, gov‘nor, like a good fellow?
[He goes towards the cottage door and is met by VIVIE coming out, followed by PRAED, CROFTS, and MRS. WARREN.
]

VIVIE [
to FRANK
] Is that your father, Frank? I do so want to meet him.

FRANK Certainly. [
Calling after his father
.] Gov‘nor. [
The REV. S. turns at the gate, fumbling nervously at his hat. PRAED comes down the garden on the opposite side, beaming in anticipation of civilities. CROFTS prowls about near the hammock, poking it with his stick to make it swing. MRS. WARREN halts on the threshold, staring hard at the clergyman.
] Let me introduce—my father: Miss Warren.

VIVIE
[going to the clergyman and shaking his hand
] Very glad to see you here, Mr. Gardner. Let me introduce everybody. Mr. Gardner—Mr. Frank Gardner—Mr. Praed—Sir George Crofts, and—[
As the men are raising their hats to one another, VIVIE is interrupted by an exclamation from her mother, who swoops down on the REVEREND SAMUEL
].

MRS. WARREN Why, it's Sam Gardner, gone into the church! Don't you know us, Sam? This is George Crofts, as large as life and twice as natural. Don't you remember me?

REV. S. [
very red
] I really—er—

MRS. WARREN Of course you do. Why, I have a whole album of your letters still: I came across them only the other day.

REV. S. [
miserably confused
] Miss Vavasour,
^m
I believe.

MRS. WARREN [
correcting him quickly in a loud whisper
] Tch! Nonsense—Mrs. Warren: don't you see my daughter there?

ACT II