Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (53 page)

ANN Don't be absurd, Jack. Of course you are quite right, Tavy; but we don't know who he is: Violet won't tell us.

TANNER What on earth does it matter who he is? He's done his part; and Violet must do the rest.

RAMSDEN [
beside himself
] Stuff! lunacy! There is a rascal in our midst, a libertine, a villain worse than a murderer; and we are not to learn who he is! In our ignorance we are to shake him by the hand; to introduce him into our homes; to trust our daughters with him; to—to—

ANN [
coaxingly
] There, Granny, don't talk so loud. It's most shocking : we must all admit that; but if Violet won't tell us, what can we do? Nothing. Simply nothing.

RAMSDEN Hmph! I'm not so sure of that. If any man has paid Violet any special attention, we can easily find that out. If there is any man of notoriously loose principles among us—

TANNER Ahem!

RAMSDEN [
raising his voice]
Yes sir, I repeat, if there is any man of notoriously loose principles among us—

TANNER Or any man notoriously lacking in self-control.

RAMSDEN [
aghast
] Do you dare to suggest that
I
am capable of such an act?

TANNER My dear Ramsden, this is an act of which every man is capable. That is what comes of getting at cross purposes with Nature. The suspicion you have just flung at me clings to us all. It's a sort of mud that sticks to the judge's ermine or the cardinal's robe as fast as to the rags of the tramp. Come, Tavy: don't look so bewildered: it might have been me: it might have been Ramsden; just as it might have been anybody. If it had, what could we do but lie and protest—as Ramsden is going to protest.

RAMSDEN [
choking
] I—I—I—

TANNER Guilt itself could not stammer more confusedly. And yet you know perfectly well he's innocent, Tavy.

RAMSDEN
[exhausted]
I am glad you admit that, sir. I admit, myself, that there is an element of truth in what you say, grossly as you may distort it to gratify your malicious humor. I hope, Octavius, no suspicion of me is possible in your mind.

OCTAVIUS Of you! No, not for a moment.

TANNER [
drily
] I think he suspects me just a little.

OCTAVIUS Jack: you couldn‘t—you wouldn't—

TANNER Why not?

OCTAVIUS [
appalled
] Why not!

TANNER Oh, well, I'll tell you why not. First, you would feel bound to quarrel with me. Second, Violet doesn't like me. Third, if I had the honor of being the father of Violet's child, I should boast of it instead of denying it. So be easy: our friendship is not in danger.

OCTAVIUS I should have put away the suspicion with horror if only you would think and feel naturally about it. I beg your pardon.

TANNER M y pardon! nonsense! And now let's sit down and have a family council.
[He sits down. The rest follow his example, more or less under protest].
Violet is going to do the State a service; consequently she must be packed abroad like a criminal until it's over. What's happening upstairs?

ANN Violet is in the housekeeper's room—by herself, of course.

TANNER Why not in the drawingroom?

ANN Don't be absurd, Jack. Miss Ramsden is in the drawingroom with my mother, considering what to do.

TANNER Oh! the housekeeper's room is the penitentiary, I suppose; and the prisoner is waiting to be brought before her judges. The old cats!

ANN Oh, Jack!

RAMSDEN You are at present a guest beneath the roof of one of the old cats, sir. My sister is the mistress of this house.

TANNER She would put me in the housekeeper's room, too, if she dared, Ramsden. However, I withdraw cats. Cats would have more sense. Ann: as your guardian, I order you to go to Violet at once and be particularly kind to her.

ANN I h a v e seen her, Jack. And I am sorry to say I am afraid she is going to be rather obstinate about going abroad. I think Tavy ought to speak to her about it.

OCTAVIUS How can I speak to her about such a thing
[he breaks down]?

ANN Don't break down, Ricky. Try to bear it for all our sakes.

RAMSDEN Life is not all plays and poems, Octavius. Come! face it like a man.

TANNER
[chafing again
] Poor dear brother! Poor dear friends of the family! Poor dear Tabbies and Grimalkins! Poor dear everybody except the woman who is going to risk her life to create another life! Tavy: don't you be a selfish ass. Away with you and talk to Violet; and bring her down here if she cares to come. [
Octavius
rises]. Tell her we'll stand by her.

RAMSDEN
[rising]
No, sir—

TANNER
[rising also and interrupting him]
Oh, we understand: it's against your conscience; but still you'll do it.

OCTAVIUS I assure you all, on my word, I never meant to be selfish. It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

TANNER My dear Tavy, your pious English habit of regarding the world as a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in, occasionally leads you to think about your own confounded principles when you should be thinking about other people's necessities. The need of the present hour is a happy mother and a healthy baby. Bend your energies on that; and you will see your way clearly enough.

RAMSDEN
[facing TANNER impressively
] And Morality, sir? What is to become of that?

TANNER Meaning a weeping Magdalen and an innocent child branded with her shame. Not in our circle, thank you. Morality can go to its father the devil.

RAMSDEN I thought so, sir. Morality sent to the devil to please our libertines, male and female. That is to be the future of England, is it?

TANNER Oh, England will survive your disapproval. Meanwhile, I understand that you agree with me as to the practical course we are to take?

RAMSDEN Not in your spirit, sir. Not for your reasons.

TANNER You can explain that if anybody calls you to account, here or hereafter. [
He turns away, and plants himself in front of
Mr.
Herbert Spencer, at whom be stares gloomily
]
.

ANN [
rising and coming to RAMSDEN]
Granny: hadn't you better go up to the drawingroom and tell them what we intend to do?

RAMSDEN [
looking pointedly at TANNER]
I hardly like to leave you alone with this gentleman. Will you not come with me?

ANN Miss Ramsden would not like to speak about it before me, Granny. I ought not to be present.

RAMSDEN You are right: I should have thought of that. You are a good girl, Annie.

ANN Jack
[he turns with a start]:
are you glad that you are my guardian? You don't mind being made responsible for me, I hope.

TANNER The latest addition to your collection of scapegoats, eh?

ANN Oh, that stupid old joke of yours about me! Do please drop it. Why do you say things that you know must pain me? I do my best to please you, Jack: I suppose I may tell you so now that you are my guardian. You will make me so unhappy if you refuse to be friends with me.

TANNER
[studying her as gloomily as he studied the bust]
You need not go begging for my regard. How unreal our moral judgments are! You seem to me to have absolutely no conscience—only hypocrisy; and you can't see the difference—yet there is a sort of fascination about you. I always attend to you, somehow. I should miss you if I lost you.

ANN
[tranquilly slipping her arm into his and walking about with him]
But isn't that only natural, Jack? We have known each other since we were children. Do you remember—

TANNER [
abruptly breaking loose
] Stop! I remember everything.

ANN Oh, I daresay we were often very silly; but—

TANNER I won't have it, Ann. I am no more that schoolboy now than I am the dotard of ninety I shall grow into if I live long enough. It is over: let me forget it.

ANN Wasn't it a happy time?
[She attempts to take his arm again].

TANNER Sit down and behave yourself.
[He makes her sit down in the chair next the writing table].
No doubt it was a happy time for you. You were a good girl and never compromised yourself. And yet the wickedest child that ever was slapped could hardly have had a better time. I can understand the success with which you bullied the other girls: your virtue imposed on them. But tell me this: did you ever know a good boy?

ANN Of course. All boys are foolish sometimes; but Tavy was always a really good boy.

TANNER
[struck by this]
Yes: you're right. For some reason you never tempted Tavy.

ANN Tempted! Jack!

TANNER Yes, my dear Lady Mephistopheles, tempted.
⁶
You were insatiably curious as to what a boy might be capable of, and diabolically clever at getting through his guard and surprising his inmost secrets.

ANN What nonsense! All because you used to tell me long stories of the wicked things you had done—silly boys' tricks! And you call such things inmost secrets! Boys' secrets are just like men's; and you know what they are !

TANNER [
obstinatety
] No I don't. What are they, pray?

ANN Why, the things they tell everybody, of course.

TANNER Now I swear I told you things I told no one else. You lured me into a compact by which we were to have no secrets from one another. We were to tell one another everything. I didn't notice that you never told me anything.

ANN You didn't want to talk about me, Jack. You wanted to talk about yourself.

TANNER Ah, true, horribly true. But what a devil of a child you must have been to know that weakness and to play on it for the satisfaction of your own curiosity! I wanted to brag to you, to make myself interesting. And I found myself doing all sorts of mischievous things simply to have something to tell you about. I fought with boys I didn't hate; I lied about things I might just as well have told the truth about; I stole things I didn't want; I kissed little girls I didn't care for. It was all bravado: passionless and therefore unreal.

ANN I never told of you, Jack.

TANNER No; but if you had wanted to stop me you would have told of me. You wanted me to go on.

ANN [flashing out] Oh, that's not true: it's not true, Jack. I never wanted you to do those dull, disappointing, brutal, stupid, vulgar things. I always hoped that it would be something really heroic at last.
[Recovering herself
] Excuse me, Jack; but the things you did were never a bit like the things I wanted you to do. They often gave me great uneasiness; but I could not tell on you and get you into trouble. And you were only a boy. I knew you would grow out of them. Perhaps I was wrong.

TANNER [
sardonically
] Do not give way to remorse, Ann. At least nineteen twentieths of the exploits I confessed to you were pure lies. I soon noticed that you didn't like the true stories.

ANN Of course I knew that some of the things couldn't have happened. But—

TANNER You are going to remind me that some of the most disgraceful ones did.

ANN [
fondly, to his great terror]
I don't want to remind you of anything. But I knew the people they happened to, and heard about them.

TANNER Yes; but even the true stories were touched up for telling. A sensitive boy's humiliations may be very good fun for ordinary thickskinned grown-ups; but to the boy himself they are so acute, so ignominious, that he cannot confess them—cannot but deny them passionately. However, perhaps it was as well for me that I romanced a bit; for, on the one occasion when I told you the truth, you threatened to tell of me.

ANN Oh, never. Never once.

TANNER Yes, you did. Do you remember a dark-eyed girl named Rachel Rosetree?
[Ann's brows contract for an instant involuntarily].
I got up a love affair with her; and we met one night in the garden and walked about very uncomfortably with our arms round one another, and kissed at parting, and were most conscientiously romantic. If that love affair had gone on, it would have bored me to death; but it didn't go on; for the next thing that happened was that Rachel cut me because she found out that I had told you. How did she find it out? From you. You went to her and held the guilty secret over her head, leading her a life of abject terror and humiliation by threatening to tell on her.

ANN And a very good thing for her, too. It was my duty to stop her misconduct; and she is thankful to me for it now.

TANNER Is she?

ANN She ought to be, at all events.

TANNER It was not your duty to stop my misconduct, I suppose.

ANN I did stop it by stopping her.

TANNER Are you sure of that? You stopped my telling you about my adventures; but how do you know that you stopped the adventures ?

ANN Do you mean to say that you went on in the same way with other girls?

TANNER No. I had enough of that sort of romantic tomfoolery with Rachel.

ANN
[unconvinced]
Then why did you break off our confidences and become quite strange to me?

TANNER
[enigmatically]
It happened just then that I got something that I wanted to keep all to myself instead of sharing it with you.

ANN I am sure I shouldn't have asked for any of it if you had grudged it.

TANNER It wasn't a box of sweets, Ann. It was something you'd never have let me call my own.