Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (16 page)

CROFTS [
panting with fury
] Do you think I'll put up with this from you, you young devil, you?

VIVIE [
unmoved
] Be quiet. Some one will answer the bell. [
Without flinching a step she strikes the bell with the back of her hand. It clangs harshly
;
and he starts back involuntarily. Almost immediately FRANK appears at the porch with his rifle.
]

FRANK [
with cheerful politeness]
Will you have the rifle, Viv; or shall I operate?

VIVIE Frank: have you been listening?

FRANK Only for the bell, I assure you; so that you shouldn't have to wait. I think I showed great insight into your character, Crofts.

CROFTS For two pins I'd take that gun from you and break it across your head.

FRANK [
stalking him cautiously
] Pray don't. I'm ever so careless in handling firearms. Sure to be a fatal accident, with a reprimand from the coroner's jury for my negligence.

VIVIE Put the rifle away, Frank: it's quite unnecessary.

FRANK Quite right, Viv. Much more sportsmanlike to catch him in a trap. [
CROFTS, understanding the insult, makes a threatening movement
.] Crofts: there are fifteen cartridges in the magazine here; and I am a dead shot at the present distance at an object of your size.

CROFTS Oh, you needn't be afraid. I'm not going to touch you.

FRANK Ever so magnanimous of you under the circumstances! Thank you.

CROFTS I'll just tell you this before I go. It may interest you, since you're so fond of one another. Allow me, Mister Frank, to introduce you to your half-sister, the eldest daughter of the Reverend Samuel Gardner. Miss Vivie: your half-brother. Good morning. [
He goes out through the gate and along the road. ]

FRANK [
after a pause of stupefaction, raising the rifle
] You'll testify before the coroner that it's an accident, Viv. [
He takes aim at the retreating figure of CROFTS. VIVIE seizes the muzzle and pulls it round against her breast.
]

VIVIE Fire now. You may.

FRANK [
dropping his end of the rifle hastily
] Stop! take care. [
She lets it go. It falls on the turf
.] Oh, you've given your little boy such a turn. Suppose it had gone off—ugh! [
He sinks on the garden seat, overcome.
]

VIVIE Suppose it had: do you think it would not have been a relief to have some sharp physical pain tearing through me?

FRANK [
coaxingly
] Take it ever so easy, dear Viv. Remember: even if the rifle scared that fellow into telling the truth for the first time in his life, that only makes us the babes in the wood in earnest. [
He holds out his arms to her
.] Come and be covered up with leaves again.

VIVIE [
with a
cry
of disgust
] Ah, not that, not that. You make all my flesh creep.

FRANK Why, what's the matter?

VIVIE Good-bye. [
She makes for the gate.
]

FRANK [
jumping up
] Hallo! Stop! Viv! Viv! [
She turns in the gateway
.] Where are you going to? Where shall we find you?

VIVIE At Honoria Fraser's chambers, 67 Chancery Lane, for the rest of my life. [
She goes off quickly
in
the opposite direction to that taken by CROFTS
.]

FRANK But I say—wait—dash it! [
He runs after
her.]

ACT IV

FRANK, in a fashionable light-colored coaching suit, with his stick, gloves, and white hat in his hands, is pacing up and down the Office. Somebody tries
the door with
a
key.

 

FRANK [
calling
] Come in. It's not locked. [
VIVIE comes in, in her hat and jacket. She stops and stares at him
.]

VIVIE [
sternly
] What are you doing here?

FRANK Waiting to see you. I've been here for hours. Is this the way you attend to your business? [
He puts his hat and stick on the table, and perches himself with a vault on the clerk's stool, looking at her
with every appearance of being in a specially restless, teasing, flippant mood.
]

VIVIE I've been away exactly twenty minutes for a cup of tea. [
She takes off her hat and jacket and hangs them up behind the screen.]
How did you get in?

FRANK The staff had not left when I arrived. He's gone to play football on Primrose Hill. Why don't you employ a woman, and give your sex a chance?

VIVIE What have you come for?

FRANK [
springing off the stool and coming close to her
] Viv: let's go and enjoy the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like the staff. What do you say to Richmond, and then a music hall, and a jolly supper?

VIVIE Can't afford it. I shall put in another six hours' work before I go to bed.

FRANK Can't afford it, can't we? Aha! Look here. [
He takes out a handful of sovereigns and makes them chink.
] Gold, Viv, gold!

VIVIE Where did you get it?

FRANK Gambling, Viv, gambling. Poker.

VIVIE Pah! It's meaner than stealing it. No: I'm not coming. [
She sits down to work at the table, with her back to the glass door, and begins turning over the papers.
]

FRANK [remonstrating piteously] But, my dear Viv, I want to talk to you ever so seriously.

VIVIE Very well: sit down in Honoria's chair and talk here. I like ten minutes' chat after tea. [He
murmurs
.] No use groaning: I'm inexorable. [
He takes the opposite seat disconsolately.
] Pass that cigar box, will you?

FRANK [
pushing the cigar box across
] Nasty womanly habit. Nice men don't do it any longer.

VIVIE Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and we've had to take to cigarets. See! [
She opens the box and takes out a cigaret, which she lights. She offers him one; but he shakes his head with a wry face. She settles herself comfortably in her chair, smoking
.] Go ahead.

FRANK Well, I want to know what you've done—what arrangements you've made.

VIVIE Everything was settled twenty minutes after I arrived here. Honoria has found the business too much for her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me and proposing a partnership when I walked in and told her I hadn't a farthing in the world. So I installed myself and packed her off for a fortnight's holiday. What happened at Haslemere when I left?

FRANK Nothing at all. I said you'd gone to town on particular business.

VIVIE Well?

FRANK Well, either they were too flabbergasted to say anything, or else Crofts had prepared your mother. Anyhow, she didn't say anything; and Crofts didn't say anything; and Praddy only stared. After tea they got up and went; and I've not seen them since.

VIVIE [
nodding placidly with one eye on a wreath of smoke
] That's all right. FRANK [
looking round disparagingly
] Do you intend to stick in this confounded place?

VIVIE [
blowing the wreath decisively away and sitting straight up
] Yes. These two days have given me back all my strength and self-possession. I will never take a holiday again as long as I live.

FRANK [
with a very wry face
] Mps! You look quite happy—and as hard as nails.

VIVIE [
grimly
] Well for me that I am!

FRANK [
rising
] Look here, Viv: we must have an explanation. We parted the other day under a complete misunderstanding.

VIVIE [
putting away the cigaret
] Well: clear it up.

FRANK You remember what Crofts said?

VIVIE Yes.

FRANK That revelation was supposed to bring about a complete change in the nature of our feeling for one another. It placed us on the footing of brother and sister.

VIVIE Yes.

FRANK Have you ever had a brother?

VIVIE No.

FRANK Then you don't know what being brother and sister feels like? Now I have lots of sisters: Jessie and Georgina and the rest. The fraternal feeling is quite familiar to me; and I assure you my feeling for you is not the least in the world like it. The girls will go their way; I will go mine; and we shan't care if we never see one another again. That's brother and sister. But as to you, I can't be easy if I have to pass a week without seeing you. That's not brother and sister. It's exactly what I felt an hour before Crofts made his revelation. In short, dear Viv, it's love's young dream.

VIVIE [
bitingly
] The same feeling, Frank, that brought your father to my mother's feet. Is that it?

FRANK [
revolted
] I very strongly object, Viv, to have my feelings compared to any which the Reverend Samuel is capable of harboring ; and I object still more to a comparison of you to your mother. Besides, I don't believe the story. I have taxed my father with it, and obtained from him what I consider tantamount to a denial.

VIVIE What did he say?

FRANK He said he was sure there must be some mistake.

VIVIE Do you believe him?

FRANK I am prepared to take his word as against Crofts'.

VIVIE Does it make any difference? I mean in your imagination or conscience; for of course it makes no real difference.

FRANK [
shaking his head]
None whatever to m e.

VIVIE Nor to me.

FRANK
[staring]
But this is ever so surprising! I thought our whole relations were altered in your imagination and conscience, as you put it, the moment those words were out of that brute's muzzle.

VIVIE No: it was not that. I didn't believe him. I only wish I could.

FRANK Eh?

VIVIE I think brother and sister would be a very suitable relation for us.

FRANK You really mean that?

VIVIE Yes. It's the only relation I care for, even if we could afford any other. I mean that.

FRANK
[raising his eyebrows like one on whom a new light has dawned, and speaking with quite an effusion of chivalrous sentiment]
My dear Viv: why didn't you say so before? I am ever so sorry for persecuting you. I understand, of course.

VIVIE [
puzzled
] Understand what?

FRANK Oh, I'm not a fool in the ordinary sense—only in the Scriptural sense of doing all the things the wise man declared to be folly, after trying them himself on the most extensive scale. I see I am no longer Vivvums' little boy. Don't be alarmed: I shall never call you Vivvums again—at least unless you get tired of your new little boy, whoever he may be.

VIVIE My new little boy!

FRANK
[with conviction]
Must be a new little boy. Always happens that way. No other way, in fact.

VIVIE None that you know of, fortunately for you.
[Someone knocks at the door
.]

FRANK My curse upon yon caller, whoe‘er he be!

VIVIE It's Praed. He's going to Italy and wants to say good-bye. I asked him to call this afternoon. Go and let him in.

FRANK We can continue our conversation after his departure for Italy. I'll stay him out.
[He goes to the door and opens it
.] How are you, Praddy? Delighted to see you. Come in. [PRAED,
dressed for travelling, comes in, in high spirits, excited by the beginning of his journey.
]

PRAED How do you do, Miss Warren. [She presses his hand cor
dially, though a certain sentimentality in his high spirits jars on her.
] I start in an hour from Holborn Viaduct. I wish I could persuade you to try Italy.

VIVIE What for?

PRAED Why, to saturate yourself with beauty and romance, of course. [
VIVIE, with a shudder, turns her chair to the table, as if the work waiting for her there were a consolation and support to her.
PRAED
sits opposite to her. FRANK places a chair just behind VIVIE, and drops lazily and carelessly into it, talking at her over his shoulder.
]

FRANK No use, Praddy. Viv is a little Philistine. She is indifferent to my romance, and insensible to my beauty.

VIVIE Mr. Praed: once for all, there is no beauty and no romance in life for me. Life is what it is; and I am prepared to take it as it is.

PRAED [
enthusiastically
] You will not say that if you come to Verona and on to Venice. You will cry with delight at living in such a beautiful world.

FRANK This is most eloquent, Praddy. Keep it up.

PRAED Oh, I assure you
I
have cried—I shall cry again, I hope—at fifty! At your age, Miss Warren, you would not need to go so far as Verona. Your spirits would absolutely fly up at the mere sight of Ostend. You would be charmed with the gaiety, the vivacity, the happy air of Brussels. [
VIVIE recoils
.] What's the matter ?

FRANK Hallo, Viv!

VIVIE [
to PRAED with deep reproach]
Can you find no better example of your beauty and romance than Brussels to talk to me about?