All four look as if they had been having a good deal of fun in the drawingroom. The girls enter first, leaving the swains outside. SARAH comes to the settee. BARBARA comes in after her and stops at the door.
BARBARA Are Cholly and Dolly to come in?
LADY BRITOMART [forcibly] Barbara: I will not have Charles called Cholly: the vulgarity of it positively makes me ill.
BARBARA It’s all right, mother. Cholly is quite correct nowadays. Are they to come in?
LADY BRITOMART Yes, if they will behave themselves.
BARBARA [through the door] Come in, Dolly, and behave yourself.
BARBARA comes to her mother’s writing table. CUSINS enters smiling, and wanders towards LADY BRITOMART.
SARAH [calling] Come in, Cholly. [LOMAX enters, controlling his features very imperfectly, and places himself vaguely between SARAH and BARBARA.]
LADY BRITOMART [peremptorily] Sit down, all of you. [They sit. CUSINS crosses to the window and seats himself there. LOMAX takes a chair. BARBARA sits at the writing table and SARAH on the settee. ] I dont in the least know what you are laughing at, Adolphus. I am surprised at you, though I expected nothing better from Charles Lomax.
CUSINS [in a remarkably gentle voice] Barbara has been trying to teach me the West Ham Salvation March.
LADY BRITOMART I see nothing to laugh at in that; nor should you if you are really converted.
CUSINS [sweetly] You were not present. It was really funny, I believe.
LOMAX Ripping.
LADY BRITOMART Be quiet, Charles. Now listen to me, children. Your father is coming here this evening. [General stupefaction. ]
LOMAX [remonstrating] Oh I say!
LADY BRITOMART You are not called on to say anything, Charles.
SARAH Are you serious, mother?
LADY BRITOMART Of course I am serious. It is on your account, Sarah, and also on Charles’s. [Silence. CHARLES looks painfully unworthy.] I hope you are not going to object, Barbara.
BARBARA I! why should I? My father has a soul to be saved like anybody else. Hes quite welcome as far as I am concerned.
LOMAX [still remonstrant] But really, dont you know! Oh I say!
LADY BRITOMART [frigidly] What do you wish to convey, Charles?
LOMAX Well, you must admit that this is a bit thick.
LADY BRITOMART [turning with ominous suavity to CUSINS] Adolphus: you are a professor of Greek. Can you translate Charles Lomax’s remarks into reputable English for us?
CUSINS [cautiously] If I may say so, Lady Brit, I think Charles has rather happily expressed what we all feel. Homer, speaking of Autolycus, uses the same phrase.18 means a bit thick.
LOMAX [handsomely] Not that I mind, you know, if Sarah dont.
LADY BRITOMART [crushingly] Thank you. Have I your permission, Adolphus, to invite my own husband to my own house?
CUSINS [gallantly] You have my unhesitating support in everything you do.
LADY BRITOMART Sarah: have you nothing to say?
SARAH Do you mean that he is coming regularly to live here?
LADY BRITOMART Certainly not. The spare room is ready for him if he likes to stay for a day or two and see a little more of you; but there are limits.
SARAH Well, he cant eat us, I suppose. I dont mind.
LOMAX [chuckling] I wonder how the old man will take it.
LADY BRITOMART Much as the old woman will, no doubt, Charles.
LOMAX [abashed] I didnt mean—at least—
LADY BRITOMART You didnt think, Charles. You never do; and the result is, you never mean anything. And now please attend to me, children. Your father will be quite a stranger to us.
LOMAX I suppose he hasnt seen Sarah since she was a little kid.
LADY BRITOMART Not since she was a little kid, Charles, as you express it with that elegance of diction and refinement of thought that seem never to desert you. Accordingly—er—[impatiently] Now I have forgotten what I was going to say. That comes of your provoking me to be sarcastic, Charles. Adolphus: will you kindly tell me where I was.
CUSINS [sweetly] You were saying that as Mr. Undershaft has not seen his children since they were babies, he will form his opinion of the way you have brought them up from their behavior to-night, and that therefore you wish us all to be particularly careful to conduct ourselves well, especially Charles.
LOMAX Look here: Lady Brit didnt say that.
LADY BRITOMART [vehemently] I did, Charles. Adolphus’s recollection is perfectly correct. It is most important that you should be good; and I do beg you for once not to pair off into opposite corners and giggle and whisper while I am speaking to your father.
BARBARA All right, mother. We’ll do you credit.
LADY BRITOMART Remember, Charles, that Sarah will want to feel proud of you instead of ashamed of you.
LOMAX Oh I say! theres nothing to be exactly proud of, dont you know.
LADY BRITOMART Well, try and look as if there was. MORRISON, pale and dismayed, breaks into the room in unconcealed disorder.
MORRISON Might I speak a word to you, my lady?
LADY BRITOMART Nonsense! Shew him up.
MORRISON Yes, my lady. [He goes.]
LOMAX Does Morrison know who it is?
LADY BRITOMART Of course. Morrison has always been with us.
LOMAX It must be a regular corker for him, dont you know.
LADY BRITOMART Is this a moment to get on my nerves, Charles, with your outrageous expressions?
LOMAX But this is something out of the ordinary, really—
MORRISON [at the door] The—er—Mr. Undershaft. [He retreats in confusion.]
ANDREW UNDERSHAFT comes in. All rise. LADY BRITOMART meets him in the middle of the room behind the settee.
ANDREW is, on the surface, a stoutish, easygoins elderly man, with kindly patient manners, and an engaging simplicity of character. But he has a watchful, deliberate, waiting, listening face, and formidable reserves of power, both bodily and mental, in his capacious chest and long head. His gentleness is partly that of a strong man who has learnt by experience that his natural grip hurts ordinary people unless he handles them very carefully, and partly the mellowness of age and success. He is also a little shy in his present very delicate situation.
LADY BRITOMART Good evening, Andrew.
UNDERSHAFT How d‘ye do, my dear.
LADY BRITOMART You look a good deal older.
UNDERSHAFT [apologetically] I am somewhat older. [With a touch of courtship.] Time has stood still with you.
LADY BRITOMART [promptly] Rubbish! This is your family.
UNDERSHAFT [surprised] Is it so large? I am sorry to say my memory is failing very badly in some things. [He offers his hand with paternal kindness to LOMAX.]
LOMAX [jerkily shaking his hand] Ahdedoo.
UNDERSHAFT I can see you are my eldest. I am very glad to meet you again, my boy.
LOMAX [remonstrating] No but look here dont you know—[Overcome.] Oh I say!
LADY BRITOMART [recovering from momentary speechlessness] Andrew: do you mean to say that you dont remember how many children you have?
UNDERSHAFT Well, I am afraid I—. They have grown so much—er. Am I making any ridiculous mistake? I may as well confess: I recollect only one son. But so many things have happened since, of course—er—
LADY BRITOMART [decisively] Andrew: you are talking nonsense. Of course you have only one son.
UNDERSHAFT Perhaps you will be good enough to introduce me, my dear.
LADY BRITOMART That is Charles Lomax, who is engaged to Sarah.
UNDERSHAFT My dear sir, I beg your pardon.
LOMAX Notatall. Delighted, I assure you.
LADY BRITOMART This is Stephen.
UNDERSHAFT [bowing] Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Stephen. Then [going to CUSINS] you must be my son. [Taking CUSINS’ hands in his.] How are you, my young friend? [To LADY BRITOMART. He is very like you, my love.
CUSINS You flatter me, Mr. Undershaft. My name is Cusins: engage
d to Barbara. [Very explicitly.] That is Major Barbara Undershaft, of the Salvation Army. That is Sarah, your second daughter. This is Stephen Undershaft, your son.
UNDERSHAFT My dear Stephen, I beg your pardon.
STEPHEN Not at all.
UNDERSHAFT Mr. Cusins: I am much indebted to you for explaining so precisely. [Turning to SARAH.] Barbara, my dear—
SARAH [prompting him] Sarah.
UNDERSHAFT Sarah, of course. [They shake hands. He goes over to BARBARA.] Barbara—I am right this time, I hope.
BARBARA Quite right. [They shake hands.]
LADY BRITOMART [resuming command] Sit down, all of you. Sit down, Andrew. [She comes forward and sits on the settee. CUSINS also brings his chair forward on her left. BARBARA and STEPHEN resume their seats. LOMAX gives his chair to SARAH and goes for another.]
UNDERSHAFT Thank you, my love.
LOMAX [conversationally, as he brings a chair forward between the writing table and the settee, and offers it to UNDERSHAFT] Takes you some time to find out exactly where you are, dont it?
UNDERSHAFT [accepting the chair] That is not what embarrasses me, Mr. Lomax. My difficulty is that if I play the part of a father, I shall produce the effect of an intrusive stranger; and if I play the part of a discreet stranger, I may appear a callous father.
LADY BRITOMART There is no need for you to play any part at all, Andrew. You had much better be sincere and natural. UNDERSHAFT [submissively] Yes, my dear: I daresay that will be best. [Making himself comfortable.] Well, here I am. Now what can I do for you all?
LADY BRITOMART You need not do anything, Andrew. You are one of the family. You can sit with us and enjoy yourself. LOMAX’s too long suppressed mirth explodes in agonized neighings.
LADY BRITOMART [outraged] Charles Lomax: if you can behave yourself, behave yourself. If not, leave the room. LOMAX I’m awfully sorry, Lady Brit; but really, you know, upon my soul! [He sits on the settee between LADY BRITOMART and UNDERSHAFT, quite overcome.]
BARBARA Why dont you laugh if you want to, Cholly? It’s good for your inside.
LADY BRITOMART Barbara: you have had the education of a lady. Please let your father see that; and dont talk like a street girl.
UNDERSHAFT Never mind me, my dear. As you know, I am not a gentleman; and I was never educated.
LOMAX [encouragingly] Nobody’d know it, I assure you. You look all right, you know.
CUSINS Let me advise you to study Greek, Mr. Undershaft. Greek scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek; and none of them know anything else; but their position is unchallengeable. Other languages are the qualifications of waiters and commercial travellers: Greek is to a man of position what the hallmark is to silver.
BARBARA Dolly: dont be insincere. Cholly: fetch your concertina and play something for us.
LOMAX [doubtfully to UNDERSHAFT] Perhaps that sort of thing isnt in your line, eh?
UNDERSHAFT I am particularly fond of music.
LOMAX [delighted] Are you? Then I’ll get it. [He goes upstairs for the instrument.]
UNDERSHAFT Do you play, Barbara?
BARBARA Only the tambourine. But Cholly’s teaching me the concertina.
UNDERSHAFT Is Cholly also a member of the Salvation Army?
BARBARA No: he says it’s bad form to be a dissenter.ao But I dont despair of Cholly. I made him come yesterday to a meeting at the dock gates, and took the collection in his hat.
LADY BRITOMART It is not my doing, Andrew. Barbara is old enough to take her own way. She has no father to advise her.
BARBARA Oh yes she has. There are no orphans in the Salvation Army.
UNDERSHAFT Your father there has a great many children and plenty of experience, eh?
BARBARA [looking at him with quick interest and nodding] Just so. How did you come to understand that? [LOMAX is heard at the door trying the concertina.]
LADY BRITOMART Come in, Charles. Play us something at once.
LOMAX Righto! [He sits down in his former place, and preludes.]
UNDERSHAFT One moment, Mr. Lomax. I am rather interested in the Salvation Army. Its motto might be my own: Blood and Fire.
LOMAX [shocked] But not your sort of blood and fire, you know.
UNDERSHAFT My sort of blood cleanses: my sort of fire purifies.
BARBARA So do ours. Come down to-morrow to my shelter—the West Ham shelter—and see what we’re doing. We’re going to march to a great meeting in the Assembly Hall at Mile End. Come and see the shelter and then march with us: it will do you a lot of good. Can you play anything?
UNDERSHAFT In my youth I earned pennies, and even shillings occasionally, in the streets and in public house parlors by my natural talent for stepdancing. Later on, I became a member of the Undershaft orchestral society, and performed passably on the tenor trombone.
LOMAX [scandalized] Oh I say!
BARBARA Many a sinner has played himself into heaven on the trombone, thanks to the Army.
LOMAX [to BARBARA, still rather shocked] Yes; but what about the cannon business, dont you know? [To UNDERSHAFT.] Getting into heaven is not exactly in your line, is it?
LADY BRITOMART Charles!!!
LOMAX Well; but it stands to reason, dont it? The cannon business may be necessary and all that: we cant get on without cannons; but it isnt right, you know. On the other hand, there may be a certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army—I belong to the Established Churchap myself—but still you cant deny that it’s religion; and you cant go against religion, can you? At least unless youre downright immoral, dont you know.
UNDERSHAFT You hardly appreciate my position, Mr. Lomax—
LOMAX [hastily] I’m not saying anything against you personally, you know.
UNDERSHAFT Quite so, quite so. But consider for a moment. Here I am, a manufacturer of mutilation and murder. I find myself in a specially amiable humor just now because, this morning, down at the foundry, we blew twenty-seven dummy soldiers into fragments with a gun which formerly destroyed only thirteen.
LOMAX [leniently] Well, the more destructive war becomes, the sooner it will be abolished, eh?
UNDERSHAFT Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. No, Mr. Lomax: I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always done so; and I always shall. Therefore your Christmas card moralities of peace on earth and goodwill among men are of no use to me. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil, and to turn the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. M y morality—m y religion—must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it.
STEPHEN [coldly—almost sullenly] You speak as if there were half a dozen moralities and religions to choose from, instead of one true morality and one true religion.
UNDERSHAFT For me there is only one true morality; but it might not fit you, as you do not manufacture aerial battleships. There is only one true morality for every man; but every man has not the same true morality.
LOMAX [overtaxed] Would you mind saying that again? I didnt quite follow it.
CUSINS It’s quite simple. As Euripides says, one man’s meat is another man’s poison morally as well as physically.
UNDERSHAFT Precisely.
LOMAX Oh, t hat. Yes, yes, yes. True. True.
STEPHEN In other words, some men are honest and some are scoundrels.
BARBARA Bosh. There are no scoundrels.
UNDERSHAFT Indeed? Are there any good men?
BARBARA No. Not one. There are neither good men nor scoundrels: there are just children of one Father; and the sooner they stop calling one another names the better. You neednt talk to me: I know them. Ive had scores of them through my hands: scoundrels, criminals, infidels, philanthropis
ts, missionaries, county councillors, all sorts. Theyre all just the same sort of sinner; and theres the same salvation ready for them all.
UNDERSHAFT May I ask have you ever saved a maker of cannons ?
BARBARA No. Will you let me try?
UNDERSHAFT Well, I will make a bargain with you. If I go to see you to-morrow in your Salvation Shelter, will you come the day after to see me in my cannon works?
BARBARA Take care. It may end in your giving up the cannons for the sake of the Salvation Army.
UNDERSHAFT Are you sure it will not end in your giving up the Salvation Army for the sake of the cannons?
BARBARA I will take my chance of that.
UNDERSHAFT And I will take my chance of the other. [They shake hands on it.] Where is your shelter?
BARBARA In West Ham. At the sign of the cross. Ask anybody in Canning Town. Where are your works?
UNDERSHAFT In Perivale St. Andrews. At the sign of the sword. Ask anybody in Europe.
LOMAX Hadnt I better play something?
BARBARA Yes. Give us Onward, Christian Soldiers.
LOMAX Well, thats rather a strong order to begin with, dont you know. Suppose I sing Thourt passing hence, my brother. It’s much the same tune.
BARBARA It’s too melancholy. You get saved, Cholly; and youll pass hence, my brother, without making such a fuss about it.
LADY BRITOMART Really, Barbara, you go on as if religion were a pleasant subject. Do have some sense of propriety.
UNDERSHAFT I do not find it an unpleasant subject, my dear. It is the only one that capable people really care for.
LADY BRITOMART [looking at her watch] Well, if you are determined to have it, I insist on having it in a proper and respectable way. Charles: ring for prayers. [General amazement. STEPHEN rises in dismay. ]
LOMAX [risingJ Oh I say!
UNDERSHAFT [rising] I am afraid I must be going.
LADY BRITOMART You cannot go now, Andrew: it would be most improper. Sit down. What will the servants think?
UNDERSHAFT My dear: I have conscientious scruples. May I suggest a compromise? If Barbara will conduct a little service in the drawingroom, with Mr. Lomax as organist, I will attend it willingly. I will even take part, if a trombone can be procured.
Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 10