Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)
Page 313
John.
[Gaily.] Saw it with mine own eyes. I congratulate you, and I give you my blessing. I’ll get a new frock-coat to give the lady away in.
Basil.
You?... [Suddenly understanding.] You’re on the wrong tack, old man. It’s not your sister-in-law I’m going to marry.
John.
Then why the dickens did you say it was?
Basil.
I never mentioned her name.
John.
H’m! I’ve made rather more than an average ass of myself, haven’t I?
Basil.
What on earth made you think...?
John.
[Interrupting.] Oh, it was only some stupid idea of my wife’s. Women are such fools, you know. And they think they’re so confoundedly sharp.
Basil.
[Disconcerted — looking at him.] Has Mrs. Murray...?
John.
No, of course not! Well, who the deuce are you going to marry?
Basil.
[Flushing.] I’m going to marry Miss Jenny Bush.
John.
Never heard of her. Is it any one I know?
Basil.
Yes, you knew her.
John.
[Searching his memory.] Bush ... Bush.... [With a smile.] The only Jenny Bush I’ve ever heard of was a rather pretty little barmaid in Fleet Street. Presumably you’re not going to marry her.
[John has said this quite lightly, not guessing for a moment that it can have anything to do with the person Basil proposes to marry. Then, since Basil makes no answer, John looks at him sharply: there is a silence while the two men stare at one another.
John.
Basil, it’s not the woman we used to know before you went out to the Cape?
Basil.
[Pale and nervous, but determined.] I’ve just told you that you used to know Jenny.
John.
Man alive, you’re not going to marry the barmaid of the “Golden Crown”?
Basil.
[Looking at him steadily.] Jenny was a barmaid at the “Golden Crown.”
John.
But, good Lord, Basil, what d’you mean? You’re not serious?
Basil.
Perfectly! We’re going to be married this day week.
John.
Are you stark, staring mad? Why on earth d’you want to marry Jenny Bush?
Basil.
That’s rather a delicate question, isn’t it? [With a smile.] Presumably because I’m in love with her.
John.
Well, that’s a silly ass of an answer.
Basil.
It’s quite the most obvious.
John.
Nonsense! Why, I’ve been in love with twenty girls, and I haven’t married them all. One can’t do that sort of thing in a country where they give you seven years for bigamy. Every public-house along the Thames from Barnes to Taplow is the tombstone of an unrequited passion of my youth. I loved ’em dearly, but I never asked ’em to marry me.
Basil.
[Tightening his lips.] I’d rather you didn’t make jokes about it, John.
John.
Are you sure you’re not making an ass of yourself? If you’ve got into a mess, surely we can get you out. Marriage, like hanging, is rather a desperate remedy.
[Basil is sitting down and moodily shrugs his shoulders. John goes up to him, and putting his hands on his friend’s shoulders looks into his eyes.
John.
Why are you going to marry her, Basil?
Basil.
[Springing up impatiently.] Damn you, why don’t you mind your own business?
John.
Don’t be a fool, Basil.
Basil.
Can’t I marry any one I choose? It’s nothing to you, is it? D’you suppose I care if she’s a barmaid?
[He walks up and down excitedly, while John with steady eyes watches him.
John.
Basil, old man, we’ve known each other a good many years now. Don’t you think you’d better trust me?
Basil.
[Setting his teeth.] What d’you want to know?
John.
Why are you going to marry her?
Basil.
[Abruptly, fiercely.] Because I must.
John.
[Nodding his head quietly.] I see.
[There is a silence. Then Basil, more calmly turns to John.
Basil.
D’you remember Jenny?
John.
Yes, rather. Why, we always lunched there in the old days.
Basil.
Well, after I came back from the Cape I began going there again. When I was out there she took it into her head to write me a letter, rather ill-spelt and funny — but I was touched that she thought of me. And she sent some tobacco and some cigarettes.
John.
My maiden aunt sent you a woollen comforter, but I’m not aware that in return you ever made her a proposal of marriage.
Basil.
And so in one way and another I came to know Jenny rather well. She appeared to get rather fond of me — and I couldn’t help seeing it.
John.
But she always pretended to be engaged to that scrubby little chap with false teeth who used to hang about the bar and make sheep’s eyes at her over innumerable Scotch-and-sodas.
Basil.
He made a scene because I took her out on one of her off-nights, and she broke it off. I couldn’t help knowing it was on my account.
John.
Well, and after that?
Basil.
After that I got into the habit of taking her to the play, and so on. And finally...!
John.
How long has this been going on?
Basil.
Several months.
John.
And then?
Basil.
Well, the other day she wired for me. I found her in the most awful state. She was simply crying her eyes out, poor thing. She’d been seedy and gone to the doctor’s. And he told her ...
John.
What you might really have foreseen.
Basil.
Yes.... She was quite hysterical. She said she didn’t know what to do nor where to go. And she was in an awful funk about her people. She said she’d kill herself.
John.
[Drily.] Naturally she was very much upset.
Basil.
I felt the only thing I could do was to ask her to marry me. And when I saw the joy that came into her poor, tear-stained face I knew I’d done the right thing.
[There is a pause. John walks up and down, then stops suddenly and turns to Basil.
John.
Have you thought that you, who’ve never needed to economise, will have to look at every shilling you spend? You’ve always been careless with your money, and what you’ve had you’ve flung about freely.
Basil.
[Shrugging his shoulders.] If I have to submit to nothing worse than going without a lot of useless luxuries, I really don’t think I need complain.
John.
But you can’t afford to keep a wife and an increasing family.
Basil.
I suppose I can make money as well as other men.
John.
By writing books?
Basil.
I shall set to work to earn my living at the Bar. Up till now I’ve never troubled myself.
John.
I don’t know any man less fit than you for the dreary waiting and the drudgery of the Bar.
Basil.
We shall see.
John.
And what d’you think your friends will say to your marrying — a barmaid?
Basil.
[Contemptuously.] I don’t care two straws for my friends.
John.
That’s pleasant for them. You know, men and women without end have snapped their fingers at society and laughed at it, and for a while thought they had the better of it. But al
l the time society was quietly smiling up its sleeve, and suddenly it put out an iron hand — and scrunched them up.
Basil.
[Shrugging his shoulders.] It only means that a few snobs will cut me.
John.
Not you — your wife.
Basil.
I’m not such a cad as to go to a house where I can’t take my wife.
John.
But you’re the last man in the world to give up these things. There’s nothing you enjoy more than going to dinner-parties and staying in country houses. Women’s smiles are the very breath of your nostrils.
Basil.
You talk of me as if I were a tame cat. I don’t want to brag, John, but after all, I’ve shown that I’m fit for something in this world. I went to the Cape because I thought it was my duty. I intend to marry Jenny for the same reason.
John.
[Seriously.] Will you answer me one question — on your honour?
Basil.
Yes.
John.
Are you in love with her?
Basil.
[After a pause.] No.
John.
[Passionately.] Then, by God, you have no right to marry her. A man has no right to marry a woman for pity. It’s a cruel thing to do. You can only end by making yourself and her entirely wretched.
Basil.
I can’t break the poor girl’s heart.
John.
You don’t know what marriage is. Even with two people who are devoted to one another, who have the same interests and belong to the same class, it’s sometimes almost unbearable. Marriage is the most terrible thing in the world unless passion makes it absolutely inevitable.
Basil.
My marriage is absolutely inevitable — for another reason.
John.
You talk as if such things had never happened before.
Basil.
Oh, I know, they happen every day. It’s no business of the man’s. And as for the girl, let her throw herself in the river. Let her go to the deuce, and be hanged to her.
John.
Nonsense. She can be provided for. It only needs a little discretion — and no one will be a ha’porth the wiser, nor she a ha’porth the worse.
Basil.
But it’s not a matter of people knowing. It’s a matter of honour.
John.
[Opening his eyes.] And where precisely did the honour come in when you...?
Basil.
Good heavens, I’m a man like any other. I have passions as other men have.
John.
[Gravely.] My dear Basil, I wouldn’t venture to judge you. But I think it’s rather late in the day to set up for a moralist.
Basil.
D’you think I’ve not regretted what I did? It’s easy enough afterwards to say that I should have resisted. The world would be a Sunday School if we were all as level-headed at night as we are next morning.
John.
[Shaking his head.] After all, it’s only a very regrettable incident due to your youth and — want of innocence.
Basil.
[With vehement seriousness.] I may have acted like a cur. I don’t know. I acted as I suppose every other man would. But now I have a plain duty before me, and, by God, I mean to do it.
John.
Don’t you realise that you’ve only one life and that mistakes are irreparable? People play with life as if it were a game of chess in which they can try this move and that, and when they get into a muddle, sweep the board clear and begin again.
Basil.
But life is a game of chess in which one is always beaten. Death sits on the other side of the board, and for every move he has a counter-move. And for all your deep-laid schemes he has a parry.
John.
But if at the end Death always mates you, the fight is surely worth the fighting. Don’t handicap yourself at the beginning by foolish quixotry. Life is so full. It has so much to offer, and you’re throwing away almost everything that makes it worth the trouble.
Basil.
[Gravely.] Jenny would kill herself if I didn’t marry her.
John.
You don’t seriously think she’d do that. People don’t commit suicide so easily, you know.
Basil.
You’ve thought of a great deal, John — you’ve not thought of the child. I can’t let the child skulk into the world like a thief. Let him come in openly and lawfully. And let him go through the world with an honest name. Good heavens, the world’s bad enough without fettering him all his life with a hideous stigma.
John.
Oh, my dear Basil ...
Basil.
[Interrupting.] You can bring forward a thousand objections, but nothing alters the fact that, under the circumstances, there’s only one way open to a man of honour.
John.
[Drily.] Well, it’s a way that may do credit to your heart, but scarcely to your understanding.
Basil.
I thought you’d see at once that I was doing the only possible thing.
John.
My dear Basil, you talk of pity, and you talk of duty, but are you sure there’s anything more in it than vanity? You’ve set yourself up on a sort of moral pinnacle. Are you sure you don’t admire your own heroism a little too much?
Basil.
[With a good-natured smile.] Does it look so petty as that in your eyes? After all, it’s only common morality.
John.
[Impatiently.] But, my dear chap, its absurd to act according to an unrealisable ideal in a world that’s satisfied with the second-rate. You’re tendering bank-notes to African savages, among whom cowrie shells are common coin.
Basil.
[Smiling.] I don’t know what you mean.
John.
Society has made its own decalogue, a code that’s just fit for middling people who are not very good and not very wicked. But Society punishes you equally if your actions are higher than its ideal or lower.
Basil.
Sometimes it makes a god of you when you’re dead.
John.
But it takes precious good care to crucify you when you’re alive.
[There is a knock at the door, and Mrs. Griggs comes in.
Mrs. Griggs.
Some more visitors, Sir.
Basil.
Show ’em in. [To John] It’s Jenny. She said she was coming to tea.
John.
[With a smile.] Oh, the cake was for her, was it? Would you like me to go?
Basil.
Not unless you choose. Do you suppose I’m ashamed?
John.
I thought, after all you’ve told me, you might not care for me to see her.
[Jenny Bush and her brother James come in. She is very pretty, with delicate features and a beautiful complexion: her fair hair is abundant and very elaborately arranged. She is dressed smartly, rather showily. It is the usual type of barmaid, or tea-girl, a shade more refined perhaps than the common run. Her manners are unobjectionable, but not those of a gentlewoman. James is a young man with clean-shaven face and a sharp expression. He is over-dressed in a very horsey manner, and is distinctly more vulgar than his sister. He talks English with a cockney accent, not invariably dropping his aitches, but only now and then. He is over cordial and over genial.
Jenny.
[Going up to Basil.] I’m awfully late, I couldn’t come before.
James.
[Jocosely.] Don’t mind me. Give ’im a kiss, old tart.
Jenny.
Oh, I brought my brother Jimmie to see you.
Basil.
[Shaking hands.] How d’you do?
James.
Nicely, thanks. Pleased to make your acquaintance.
Jenny.
[Looking at John and suddenly recognising him.]
Well, I never! If that isn’t old John Halliwell. I didn’t expect to see you. This is a treat.
John.
How d’you do?
/>
Jenny.
What are you doing here?
John.
I’ve been having a cup of tea with Basil.
Jenny.
[Looking at the tea-things.] D’you always drink out of three cups at once?
John.
My wife has been here — and her sister.
Jenny.
Oh, I see. Fancy your being married. How d’you like it?
John.
All right, thanks.
[Basil pours out a cup of tea, and during the following speeches gives Jenny milk and sugar and cake.
James.
People say it wants a bit of gettin’ used to.
John.
Mr. Bush, you’re a philosopher.
James.
Well, I will say this for myself, you’d want to get up early in the morning to catch me nappin’. I didn’t catch your name.
John.
Halliwell.
James.
‘Alliwell?
John.
[Emphasising the H.] Halliwell.
James.
That’s what I say— ‘Alliwell. I knew a fellow in the meat trade called ‘Alliwell. Any relation?
John.
I don’t think so.
James.
Fine business ’e ‘ad too. There’s a rare lot of money to be made out of meat.
John.
I dare say.
Jenny.
[To John.] It is a long time since I’ve seen you. I suppose you’ve quietened down now you’re a married man. You were a hot ‘un when you was a bachelor.
James.
[Facetiously.] Don’t make ’im blush, Jenny. Accidents will ‘appen in the best regulated families. And boys will be boys, as they say in the Bible.
John.
I think I must be off, Basil.
James.
Well, I’ll be toddlin’ too. I only come in just to say ‘ow d’you do to my future brother-in-law. I’m a fellow as likes to be cordial. There’s no ‘aughtiness about me.
Basil.
[Politely, but not effusively.] Oh; won’t you stay and have some tea?
James.
No, thanks. I’m not much of an ‘and at tea; I leave that to females. I like something stronger myself.
Jenny.
[Remonstrating.] Jimmie!
Basil.
I have some whisky, Mr. Bush.
James.
Oh, blow the Mister and blow the Bush. Call me Jimmie. I can’t stand ceremony. The way I look on it is this. We’re both of us gentlemen. Now, mind you, I’m not a fellow to praise myself. But I will say this: I am a gentleman. That’s not self-praise, is it?
John.
Dear me, no. Mere statement of fact.
James.