LADY MATHESON (shocked). Oh, Maud, you haven’t –
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. I did my best, my dear, but she insisted. She absolutely insisted. (Solicitously bending over her daughter’s chair.) I’m so sorry, my dear. It must be the most dreadful shock for you. It was for us too, as you can imagine. Are you all right?
SIBYL takes her spectacles off and folding the paper meticulously, lays it down on the arm of her chair. She makes no reply.
(Slightly more sharply.) Are you all right, Sibyl?
SIBYL (barely audible). Yes, Mummy.
JEAN comes in, looking rather annoyed.
JEAN. What is it, Mrs. Railton-Bell? I can only stay a moment. I must get back to the baby.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. I won’t keep you long, I promise you. Take a seat. (Turning to SIBYL, sharply.) Sibyl, what have you done?
CHARLES comes in.
(She takes SIBYL’s glasses from her hand.) Look, you’ve broken your glasses.
SIBYL (murmuring). How stupid.
CHARLES. Hullo, you’ve cut your hand, haven’t you?
SIBYL. No.
CHARLES. Yes, you have. Let’s see.
With a rather professional air he picks up her limp hand and examines it.
Nothing much. No splinters. Here, you’d better have this. It’s quite clean.
He takes a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and ties it neatly round her hand.
Iodine and a bit of plaster later.
MR. FOWLER has come in.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Ah, Mr. Fowler, good. Would you take a seat, and then we can begin. The two young people are in a hurry. I’m afraid I have very grave news for you all.
CHARLES. The boiler’s gone wrong again?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. No. I only wish it were something so trivial.
CHARLES. I don’t consider shaving in cold, brown water trivial.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Please, Mr. Stratton.
MR. FOWLER (anxiously). They’re raising the prices again?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. No. My news is graver even than that.
MR. FOWLER. I don’t know what could be graver than that.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. The news I have to give you, Mr Fowler.
CHARLES. Look, Mrs. Railton-Bell, must we play twenty questions? Can’t you just tell us what it is?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (angrily). My hesitation is only because the matter is so painful and so embarrassing for me that I find it difficult to choose my words. However, if you want it baldly, you shall have it. (After a dramatic pause.) Major Pollock – who is not a major at all but a lieutenant promoted from the ranks in the R.A.S.C. –
CHARLES (excitedly). No. You don’t say! I knew it, you know. I always knew Sandhurst and the Black Watch was a phoney. Didn’t I say so, Jean?
JEAN. Yes, you did, but I said it first – that night he made the boob about serviettes.
MR. FOWLER (chipping in quickly). I must admit I’ve always slightly suspected the public-school education, I mean only today he made the most shocking mistake in quoting Horace – quite appalling.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (raising her voice). Please, please. ladies and gentlemen. This is not the point. The dreadful, the really ghastly revelation is still to come.
She gains silence, and once again pauses dramatically.
He was found guilty –
LADY MATHESON. Pleaded guilty –
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Please. Gladys. He was found or pleaded guilty – I don’t really see that it matters which – to behaving insultingly to no less than six respectable women in a Bournemouth cinema.
There is an aghast silence.
CHARLES (at length). Good God! What a performance.
LADY MATHESON. Really, Maud, I must correct that. I must. We only know one was respectable – the one who complained – and even she seemed a little odd in her behaviour. Why didn’t she just say straight out to the Major: ‘I do wish you’d stop doing whatever it is that you are, doing’? That’s what I’d have done. About the other five we don’t know anything at all. We don’t even know if he nudged them or anything.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Of course he nudged them. He was in that cinema for an immoral purpose – he admitted it. And he was seen to change his seat five times – always choosing one next to female persons.
CHARLES. That could make ten nudges, really, couldn’t it? If he had the chance of using both elbows?
JEAN. Eleven, with the original one. Or twelve, supposing –
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Really, we seem to be losing the essential point in a welter of trivialities. The point is surely that the Major – the so-called Major – has pleaded guilty to a criminal offence of a disgusting nature, and I want to know what action we regular residents propose to take.
MR. FOWLER. What action do you propose, Mrs. Railton-Bell?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. I propose, on your behalf, to go to Miss Cooper and demand that he leaves the hotel forthwith.
CHARLES. No.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. You disagree, Mr. Stratton?
CHARLES. Yes, I do. Please don’t think I’m making light of this business, Mrs. Railton-Bell. To me what he’s done, if he’s done it, seems ugly and repulsive. I’ve always had an intense dislike of the more furtive forms of sexual expression. So emotionally I’m entirely on your side. But logically I’m not.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (cuttingly). Are you making a speech, Mr. Stratton? If so, perhaps you’d like to stand over there and address us.
CHARLES. No. I’m all right where I am, thank you. I’m not making a speech either. I’m just saying that my dislike of the Major’s offence is emotional and not logical. My lack of understanding of it is probably a shortcoming in me. The Major presumably understands my form of lovemaking. I should therefore understand his. But I don’t. So I am plainly in a state of prejudice against him, and must be very wary of any moral judgments I may pass in this matter. It’s only fair to approach it from the purely logical standpoint of practical Christian ethics, and ask myself the question: ‘What harm has the man done?’ Well, apart from possibly slightly bruising the arm of a certain lady, whose motives in complaining – I agree with Lady Matheson – are extremely questionable – apart from that, and apart from telling us a few rather pathetic lies about his past life, which most of us do anyway from time to time, I really can’t see he’s done anything to justify us chucking him out into the street.
JEAN (hotly). I don’t agree at all. I feel disgusted at what he’s done too, but I think I’m quite right to feel disgusted. I don’t consider myself prejudiced at all, and I think that people who behave like that are a public menace and deserve anything they get.
CHARLES. Your vehemence is highly suspect. I must have you psycho-analysed.
JEAN. It’s absolutely logical, Charles. Supposing next time it’s a daughter –
CHARLES (wearily). I know. I know. And supposing in twenty or thirty years’ time she sits next to a Major Pollock in a cinema –
JEAN. Exactly. (He laughs.) It’s not funny, Charles. How would you feel –
CHARLES. Very ashamed of her if she didn’t use her elbows back, very hard, and in the right place.
JEAN. Charles, I think that’s an absolutely monstrous –
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Please, please, please. This is not a private argument between the two of you. I take it, Mr. Stratton, you are against any action regarding this matter? (CHARLES nods.) Of any kind at all?
CHARLES shakes his head.
Not even a protest?
CHARLES. I might give him a reproving glance at dinner.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (turning from him in disgust). You, Mrs. Stratton, I gather, agree with me that I should see Miss Cooper.
JEAN (firmly.) Yes.
CHARLES (murmuring to her.) Book-burner.
JEAN (furiously.) What’s book-burning got to do with it?
CHARLES. A lot.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (imperiously). Quiet please. (Turning to MR. FOWLER.) Mr. Fowler? What do you think?
MR. FOWL
ER (confused). Well, it’s difficult. Very difficult. I can’t say I see it like Stratton. That’s the modern viewpoint, I know – nothing is really wrong that doesn’t do actual and accessible harm to another human being. But he’s not correct when he calls that Christianity. Christianity, surely, goes much further than that. Certain acts are wrong because they are, in themselves and by themselves, impure and immoral, and it seems to me that this terrible wave of vice and sexual excess which seems to have flooded this country since the war might well, in part, be due to the decline of the old standards, emotional and illogical though they may well seem to the younger generation. Tolerance is not necessarily a good, you know. Tolerance of evil may itself be an evil. After all it was Aristotle, wasn’t it, who said –
MISS MEACHAM appears from the garden.
MISS MEACHAM. Oh really – you’ve all gone on far too long about it. And when you start quoting Aristotle, well, personally, I’m going to my room.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. You heard, Miss Meacham?
MISS MEACHAM. I couldn’t help hearing. I didn’t want to. I was doing my system and you need to concentrate like billy-oh on that, but I had my chair against the wall to catch the sun, and I wasn’t going to move into the cold just for you people.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Well, as you know the facts, I suppose we should canvass your opinion. What is it?
MISS MEACHAM. I haven’t any.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. You must have some opinion?
MISS MEACHAM. Why should I? I’ve been out of the world for far longer than any of you and what do I know about morals and ethics? Only what I read in novels, and as I only read thrillers, that isn’t worth much. In Peter Cheyney the hero does far worse things to his girls than the Major’s done, and no one seems to mind.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. I don’t think that it’s quite the point what Peter Cheyney’s heroes do to his girls, Miss Meacham. We want your views on Major Pollock.
MISS MEACHAM. Do you? Well, my views on Major Pollock have always been that he’s a crashing old bore, and a wicked old fraud. Now I hear he’s a dirty old man, too, well, I’m not at all surprised, and quite between these four walls, I don’t give a damn.
She goes out. There is a pause, and then MRS. RAILTON-BELL turns to MR. FOWLER.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Well, Mr. Fowler, I take it you are on the side of action?
Pause.
MR. FOWLER. I once had to recommend a boy for expulsion. Only once, in the whole of the fifteen years I was a housemaster. I was deeply unhappy about it. Deeply. And yet events proved me right. He was no good. He became a thief and a blackmailer, and – oh – horrible things happened to him. Horrible. (After a moment’s pause.) Poor boy. He had a way with him –
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (impatiently). Are you in favour of action, Mr. Fowler?
MR. FOWLER (unhappily). Yes, I suppose so. Yes, I am.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (to LADY MATHESON). And you, Gladys?
As LADY MATHESON hesitates.
You don’t need to make a speech like the others, dear. Just say yes or no.
Pause.
LADY MATHESON (at length). Oh dear!
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Now don’t shilly-shally, Gladys. You know perfectly well what you feel about all this dreadful vice that’s going on all over the country. You’ve told me often how people like that should be locked up –
LADY MATHESON (at length). Oh dear!
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (really impatient). Oh, for heaven’s sake, make up your mind, Gladys. Are you on the side of Mr. Stratton with his defence of vice, or are you on the side of the Christian virtues like Mr. Fowler, Mrs. Stratton and myself?
CHARLES (quietly). I have never in my life heard a question more disgracefully begged. Senator McCarthy could use your talents, Mrs. Railton-Bell.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Will you keep quiet! Well, Gladys. which is it to be?
LADY MATHESON. I’m on your side, of course. It’s only –
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (to CHARLES). Well, Mr. Stratton – apart from Miss Meacham, who might be said to be neutral, the count appears now to be five to one against you.
CHARLES. Five to one?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. My daughter, of course, agrees with me.
CHARLES. How do you know?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. I know her feelings in this matter.
CHARLES. May we hear them from herself?
SIBYL, during the whole of this discussion, has not stirred in her chair. Her two hands, one bound with a handkerchief, have rested motionless in her lap, and she has been staring at the wall opposite her.
Miss Railton-Bell – could we hear your views?
There is no reply.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Mr. Stratton is asking you a question, dear.
SIBYL. Yes, Mummy?
CHARLES. Could we hear your views?
SIBYL. My views?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (clearly, as to a child). On Major Pollock, dear. What action should we take about him?
SIBYL seems puzzled and makes no reply.
(To the others, in an aside.) It’s the shock. (To SIBYL again.) You know what you’ve just read in that paper, dear? What do you think of it?
SIBYL (in a whisper). It made me sick.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Of course it did, dear. That’s how we all feel.
SIBYL (her voice growing louder in a crescendo). It made me. sick. It made me sick. It made me sick. It made me sick.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL (going quickly to her and embracing her). Yes, dear. Yes. Don’t fuss now, don’t fuss. It’s all right.
SIBYL (burying her face in her mother’s arms). I don’t feel well, Mummy. Can I go and lie down?
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Of course you can, dear. We can go into the writing-room. Such a nice comfy sofa, and there’s never anyone there. (She leads her to the hall door.) And don’t fret any more, my dear. Try and forget the whole nasty business. Make believe it never happened – that there never was such a person as Major Pollock. That’s the way.
They disappear together into the hall.
LADY MATHESON. She should never have told her like that. It was such a mistake.
CHARLES (angrily). I agree. If that girl doesn’t end as a mental case it won’t be the fault of her mother.
LADY MATHESON (loyally). Mr. Stratton – I must say I consider that a quite outrageous way of twisting my remark. I used the word ‘mistake’, and you have no right –
CHARLES. No, I haven’t. I’m sorry. The comment was purely my own.
JEAN. It was your fault for asking her views,
CHARLES. She was sitting there quite peacefully, apparently listening. I wasn’t to know she was in a state of high suppressed hysteria. I might, admittedly, have guessed, but anyway, I had an idiotic but well-meaning hope that I might get her – just this once – just this once in the whole of her life-to disagree publicly with her mother. It could save her soul if she ever did. –
MR. FOWLER. I didn’t realize that modern psychiatry recognized so old-fashioned and sentimental a term as soul, Mr. Stratton.
CHARLES. Very well, for soul read mind, and one day when you have a spare ten minutes explain to me the difference.
MR. FOWLER. I will.
CHARLES (getting up). Not now, I’m afraid. It might muddle my anatomical studies. (To JEAN.) Are you coming?
JEAN gets up, rather reluctantly.
JEAN. I don’t know what’s the matter with you, this evening, Charles. You’re behaving like an arrogant pompous boor.
CHARLES. You must forgive me. I suppose it’s just that I’m feeling a little light-headed at finding myself, on an issue of common humanity, in a minority of one. The sin of spiritual pride, that’s called – isn’t it, Mr. Fowler?
He goes out. JEAN comes back from the door.
JEAN (to the other two). He’s been overworking, you know. He’ll be quite different about all this tomorrow. (Confidently.) I’ll see to that.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL comes in.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. She’s quite all right, now. She
always recovers from these little states very quickly. She’s resting in the writing-room.
LADY MATHESON. Oh good.
JEAN. I was just apologizing for my husband’s behaviour, Mrs. Railton-Bell.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Thank you, my dear – but what I always say is – we’re all of us entitled to our own opinions, however odd and dangerous and distasteful they may sometimes be. (Briskly.) Now. Shall we all go and see Miss Cooper in a body, or would you rather I acted as your spokesman?
It is plain which course she would prefer. After a pause, they begin to murmur diffidently.
LADY MATHESON. I think, perhaps, if you went, dear –
MR. FOWLER. I don’t think a deputation is a good idea –
JEAN. You be our spokesman.
MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Very well.
She picks up the copy of the newspaper and goes to the door.
I hope you all understand it’s a duty I hardly relish.
She goes out.
MR. FOWLER (to LADY MATHESON). I would hardly call that a strictly accurate self-appraisal, would you?
LADY MATHESON (doubtfully). Well – after all – doing a duty can seem a pleasure, to some people, can’t it? It never has done to me, I agree, but then I’m – well – so weak and silly about these things –
JEAN (at the door). It would be a pleasure to me in this case. Horrid old man! (To herself as she goes.) I hope the baby’s not been crying –
She goes out.
MR. FOWLER. A ruthless young girl, that, I would say.
LADY MATHESON. So many young people are these days, don’t you think?
MR. FOWLER (meaningly). Not only young people.
LADY MATHESON (unhappily). Yes – well. (With a sigh.) Oh dear! What a dreadful affair. It’s made me quite miserable.
MR. FOWLER. I feel a little unhappy about it all myself. (He sighs and gets up.) The trouble about being on the side of right, as one sees it, is that one sometimes finds oneself in the company of such very questionable allies. Let’s go and take our minds off it all with television.
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