Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (56 page)

TANNER Oh, about three quarters of an hour or so.

THE CHAUFFEUR
[remonstrating]
Now, now, Mr. Tanner, come now! We could ha done it easy under fifteen.

TANNER By the way, let me introduce you. Mr. Octavius Robinson : Mr. Enry Straker.

STRAKER Pleased to meet you, sir. Mr. Tanner is gittin at you with is Enry Straker, you know. You call it Henery. But I don't mind, bless you.

TANNER You think it's simply bad taste in me to chaff him, Tavy. But you're wrong. This man takes more trouble to drop his aitches than ever his father did to pick them up. It's a mark of caste to him. I have never met anybody more swollen with the pride of class than Enry is.

STRAKER Easy, easy! A little moderation, Mr. Tanner.

TANNER A little moderation, Tavy, you observe. You would tell me to draw it mild. But this chap has been educated. What's more, he knows that we havn't. What was that Board School
^de
of yours, Straker?

STRAKER Sherbrooke Road.

TANNER Sherbrooke Road! Would any of us say Rugby! Harrow! Eton! in that tone of intellectual snobbery? Sherbrooke Road is a place where boys learn something: Eton is a boy farm where we are sent because we are nuisances at home, and because in after life, whenever a Duke is mentioned, we can claim him as an old schoolfellow.

STRAKER You don't know nothing about it, Mr. Tanner. It's not the Board School that does it: it's the Polytechnic.

TANNER His university, Octavius. Not Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Dublin or Glasgow. Not even those Nonconformist holes
^df
in Wales. No, Tavy. Regent Street, Chelsea, the Borough—I don't know half their confounded names: these are h i s universities, not mere shops for selling class limitations like ours. You despise Oxford, Enry, don't you?

STRAKER No, I don't. Very nice sort of place, Oxford, I should think, for people that like that sort of place. They teach you to be a gentleman there. In the Polytechnic they teach you to be an engineer or such like. See?

TANNER Sarcasm, Tavy, sarcasm! Oh, if you could only see into Enry's soul, the depth of his contempt for a gentleman, the arrogance of his pride in being an engineer, would appal you. He positively likes the car to break down because it brings out my gentlemanly helplessness and his workmanlike skill and resource.

STRAKER Never you mind him, Mr. Robinson. He likes to talk. We know him, don't we?

OCTAVIUS
[earnestly]
But there's a great truth at the bottom of what he says. I believe most intensely in the dignity of labor.

STRAKER
[unimpressed]
That's because you never done any, Mr. Robinson. My business is to do away with labor. You'll get more out of me and a machine than you will out of twenty laborers, and not so much to drink either.

TANNER For Heaven's sake, Tavy, don't start him on political economy. He knows all about it; and we don't. You're only a poetic Socialist, Tavy: he's a scientific one.

STRAKER [
unperturbed
] Yes. Well, this conversation is very improvin ; but I've got to look after the car; and you two want to talk about your ladies.
I
know. [
He
retires to busy himself about the car; and presently saunters off towards the house].

TANNER That's a very momentous social phenomenon.

OCTAVIUS What is?

TANNER Straker is. Here have we literary and cultured persons been for years setting up a cry of the New Woman whenever some unusually old fashioned female came along; and never noticing the advent of the New Man. Straker's the New Man.

OCTAVIUS I see nothing new about him, except your way of chaffing him. But I don't want to talk about him just now. I want to speak to you about Ann.

TANNER Straker knew even that. He learnt it at the Polytechnic, probably. Well, what about Ann? Have you proposed to her?

OCTAVIUS [
self-reproachfully
] I was brute enough to do so last night.

TANNER Brute enough! What do you mean?

OCTAVIUS [
dithyrambically
] Jack: we men are all coarse: we never understand how exquisite a woman's sensibilities are. How could I have done such a thing!

TANNER Done what, you maudlin idiot?

OCTAVIUS Yes, I am an idiot. Jack: if you had heard her voice! if you had seen her tears! I have lain awake all night thinking of them. If she had reproached me, I could have borne it better.

TANNER Tears! that's dangerous. What did she say?

OCTAVIUS She asked me how she could think of anything now but her dear father. She stifled a sob—
[he breaks down
]
.

TANNER
[patting him on the back]
Bear it like a man, Tavy, even if you feel it like an ass. It's the old game: she's not tired of playing with you yet.

OCTAVIUS
[impatiently]
Oh, don't be a fool, Jack. Do you suppose this eternal shallow cynicism of yours has any real bearing on a nature like hers?

TANNER Hm! Did she say anything else?

OCTAVIUS Yes; and that is why I expose myself and her to your ridicule by telling you what passed.

TANNER
[remorsefully]
No, dear Tavy, not ridicule, on my honor! However, no matter. Go on.

OCTAVIUS Her sense of duty is so devout, so perfect, so—

TANNER Yes: I know. Go on.

OCTAVIUS You see, under this new arrangement, you and Ramsden are her guardians; and she considers that all her duty to her father is now transferred to you. She said she thought I ought to have spoken to you both in the first instance. Of course she is right; but somehow it seems rather absurd that I am to come to you and formally ask to be received as a suitor for your ward's hand.

TANNER I am glad that love has not totally extinguished your sense of humor, Tavy.

OCTAVIUS That answer won't satisfy her.

TANNER My official answer is, obviously, Bless you, my children: may you be happy!

OCTAVIUS I wish you would stop playing the fool about this. If it is not serious to you, it is to me, and to her.

TANNER You know very well that she is as free to choose as you are.

OCTAVIUS She does not think so.

TANNER Oh, doesn't she! just ! However, say what you want me to do?

OCTAVIUS I want you to tell her sincerely and earnestly what you think about me. I want you to tell her that you can trust her to me—that is, if you feel you can.

TANNER I have no doubt that I can trust her to you. What worries me is the idea of trusting you to her. Have you read Maeterlinck's book about the bee?
^dg

OCTAVIUS [
keeping his temper with difficulty]
I am not discussing literature at present.

TANNER Be just a little patient with me.
I
am not discussing literature : the book about the bee is natural history. It's an awful lesson to mankind. You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey. You need not sit looking longingly at the bait through the wires of the trap: the door is open, and will remain so until it shuts behind you for ever.

OCTAVIUS I wish I could believe that, vilely as you put it.

TANNER Why, man, what other work has she in life but to get a husband? It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can. You have your poems and your tragedies to work at: Ann has nothing.

OCTAVIUS I cannot write without inspiration. And nobody can give me that except Ann.

TANNER Well, hadn't you better get it from her at a safe distance ? Petrarch didn't see half as much of Laura, nor Dante of Beatrice, as you see of Ann now; and yet they wrote first-rate poetry—at least so I'm told. They never exposed their idolatry to the test of domestic familiarity; and it lasted them to their graves. Marry Ann; and at the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration in her than in a plate of muffins.

OCTAVIUS You think I shall tire of her!

TANNER Not at all: you don't get tired of muffins. But you don't find inspiration in them; and you won't in her when she ceases to be a poet's dream and becomes a solid eleven stone wife. You'll be forced to dream about somebody else; and then there will be a row.

OCTAVIUS This sort of talk is no use, Jack. You don't understand. You have never been in love.

TANNER I! I have never been out of it. Why, I am in love even with Ann. But I am neither the slave of love nor its dupe. Go to the bee, thou poet: consider her ways and be wise.
^dh
By Heaven, Tavy, if women could do without our work, and we ate their children's bread instead of making it, they would kill us as the spider kills her mate or as the bees kill the drone. And they would be right if we were good for nothing but love.

OCTAVIUS Ah, if we were only good enough for Love! There is nothing like Love: there is nothing else but Love: without it the world would be a dream of sordid horror.

TANNER And this—this is the man who asks me to give him the hand of my ward! Tavy: I believe we were changed in our cradles, and that you are the real descendant of Don Juan.

OCTAVIUS I beg you not to say anything like that to Ann.

TANNER Don't be afraid. She has marked you for her own; and nothing will stop her now. You are doomed.
[STRAKER comes back with a newspaper].
Here comes the New Man, demoralizing himself with a halfpenny paper as usual.

STRAKER Now would you believe it, Mr. Robinson, when we're out motoring we take in two papers, the Times for him, the Leader or the Echo for me. And do you think I ever see my paper? Not much. He grabs the Leader and leaves me to stodge myself with his Times.

OCTAVIUS Are there no winners in the Times?

TANNER Enry don't old with bettin, Tavy. Motor records are his weakness. What's the latest?

STRAKER Paris to Biskra at forty mile an hour average, not countin the Mediterranean.

TANNER How many killed?

STRAKER Two silly sheep. What does it matter? Sheep don't cost such a lot: they were glad to ave the price without the trouble o sellin em to the butcher. All the same, d‘y'see, there'll be a clamor agin it presently; and then the French Government'll stop it; an our chance'll be gone, see? That's what makes me fairly mad: Mr. Tanner won't do a good run while he can.

TANNER Tavy: do you remember my uncle James?

OCTAVIUS Yes. Why?

TANNER Uncle James had a first rate cook: he couldn't digest anything except what she cooked. Well, the poor man was shy and hated society. But his cook was proud of her skill, and wanted to serve up dinners to princes and ambassadors. To prevent her from leaving him, that poor old man had to give a big dinner twice a month, and suffer agonies of awkwardness. Now here am I; and here is this chap Enry Straker, the New Man. I loathe travelling; but I rather like Enry. He cares for nothing but tearing along in a leather coat and goggles, with two inches of dust all over him, at sixty miles an hour and the risk of his life and mine. Except, of course, when he is lying on his back in the mud under the machine trying to find out where it has given way. Well, if I don't give him a thousand mile run at least once a fortnight I shall lose him. He will give me the sack and go to some American millionaire; and I shall have to put up with a nice respectful groom-gardener-amateur, who will touch his hat and know his place. I am Enry's slave, just as Uncle James was his cook's slave.

STRAKER
[exasperated]
Garn! I wish I had a car that would go as fast as you can talk, Mr. Tanner. What I say is that you lose money by a motor car unless you keep it workin. Might as well ave a pram and a nussmaid to wheel you in it as that car and me if you don't git the last inch out of us both.

TANNER [
soothingly
] All right, Henry, all right. We'll go out for half an hour presently.

STRAKER [
in disgust
]
Arf an ahr! [He returns to his machine; seats himself in it; and turns up a fresh page of his paper in search of more news
]
.

OCTAVIUS Oh, that reminds me. I have a note for you from Rhoda.
[He gives TANNER a note].

TANNER [
opening
it] I rather think Rhoda is heading for a row with Ann. As a rule there is only one person an English girl hates more than she hates her mother; and that's her eldest sister. But Rhoda positively prefers her mother to Ann. She—[
indignantly
] Oh, I say!

OCTAVIUS What's the matter?

TANNER Rhoda was to have come with me for a ride in the motor car. She says Ann has forbidden her to go out with me.
STRAKER suddenly begins whistling his favorite air with remarkable deliberation. Surprised by this burst of larklike melody, and jarred by a sardonic note in its cheerfulness, they turn and look inquiringly at him. But he is busy with his paper; and nothing comes of their movement.

OCTAVIUS [
recovering himself
] Does she give any reason?

TANNER Reason! An insult is not a reason. Ann forbids her to be alone with me on any occasion. Says I am not a fit person for a young girl to be with. What do you think of your paragon now?

OCTAVIUS You must remember that she has a very heavy responsibility now that her father is dead. Mrs. Whitefield is too weak to control Rhoda.

TANNER
[staring at him
] In short, you agree with Ann.

OCTAVIUS No; but I think I understand her. You must admit that your views are hardly suited for the formation of a young girl's mind and character.

TANNER I admit nothing of the sort. I admit that the formation of a young lady's mind and character usually consists in telling her lies; but I object to the particular lie that I am in the habit of abusing the confidence of girls.