That was the day he died. Of course.
I mean, I suppose, the day on which the news arrived.
WARBURTON. You overinterpret.
I am sure that your mother always loved him;
There was never the slightest suspicion of scandal.
HARRY. Scandal? who said scandal? I did not.
Yes, I see now. That night, when she kissed me,
I felt the trap close. If you won’t tell me,
I must ask Agatha. I never dared before.
WARBURTON. I advise you strongly, not to ask your aunt —
I mean, there is nothing she could tell you. But, Harry,
We can’t sit here all the evening, you know;
You will have to have the birthday celebration,
And your brothers will be here. Won’t you let me tell you
What I had to say?
HARRY. Very well, tell me.
WARBURTON. It’s about your mother’s health that I wanted to talk to you.
I must tell you, Harry, that although your mother
Is still so alert, so vigorous of mind,
Although she seems as vital as ever —
It is only the force of her personality,
Her indomitable will, that keeps her alive.
I needn’t go into technicalities
At the present moment. The whole machine is weak
And running down. Her heart’s very feeble.
With care, and avoiding all excitement
She may live several years. A sudden shock
Might send her off at any moment.
If she had been another woman
She would not have lived until now.
Her determination has kept her going:
She has only lived for your return to Wishwood,
For you to take command at Wishwood,
And for that reason, it is most essential
That nothing should disturb or excite her.
HARRY. Well!
WARBURTON. I’m very sorry for you, Harry.
I should have liked to spare you this,
Just now. But there were two reasons
Why you had to know. One is your mother,
To make her happy for the time she has to live.
The other is yourself: the future of Wishwood
Depends on you. I don’t like to say this;
But you know that I am a very old friend,
And have always been a party to the family secrets —
You know as well as I do that Arthur and John
Have been a great disappointment to your mother.
John’s very steady — but he’s not exactly brilliant;
And Arthur has always been rather irresponsible.
Your mother’s hopes are all centred on you.
HARRY. Hopes? … Tell me
Did you know my father at about my present age?
WARBURTON. Why, yes, Harry, of course I did.
HARRY. What did he look like then? Did he look at all like me?
WARBURTON. Very much like you. Of course there are differences:
But, allowing for the changes in fashion
And your being clean-shaven, very much like you.
And now, Harry, let’s talk about yourself.
HARRY. I never saw a photograph. There is no portrait.
WARBURTON. What I want to know is, whether you’ve been sleeping …
[Enter DENMAN]
DENMAN. It’s Sergeant Winchell is here, my Lord,
And wants to see your Lordship very urgent,
And Dr. Warburton. He says it’s very urgent
Or he wouldn’t have troubled you.
HARRY. I’ll see him.
[Exit DENMAN]
WARBURTON. I wonder what he wants. I hope nothing has happened
To either of your brothers.
HARRY. Nothing can have happened
To either of my brothers. Nothing can happen —
If Sergeant Winchell is real. But Denman saw him.
But what if Denman saw him, and yet he was not real?
That would be worse than anything that has happened.
What if you saw him, and …
WARBURTON. Harry! Pull yourself together.
Something may have happened to one of your brothers.
[Enter WINCHELL]
WINCHELL. Good evening, my Lord. Good evening, Doctor.
Many happy … Oh, I’m sorry, my Lord,
I was thinking it was your birthday, not her Ladyship’s.
HARRY. Her Ladyship’s!
[He darts at WINCHELL and seizes him by the shoulders]
He is real, Doctor.
So let us resume the conversation. You, and I
And Winchell. Sit down, Winchell,
And have a glass of port. We were talking of my father.
WINCHELL. Always at your jokes, I see. You don’t look a year older
Than when I saw you last, my Lord. But a country sergeant
Doesn’t get younger. Thank you, no, my Lord;
I don’t find port agrees with the rheumatism.
WARBURTON. For God’s sake, Winchell, tell us your business.
His Lordship isn’t very well this evening.
WINCHELL. I understand, Sir.
It’d be the same if it was my birthday —
I beg pardon, I’m forgetting.
If it was my mother’s. God rest her soul,
She’s been dead these ten years. How is her Ladyship,
If I may ask, my Lord?
HARRY. Why do you keep asking
About her Ladyship? Do you know or don’t you?
I’m not afraid of you.
WINCHELL. I should hope not, my Lord.
I didn’t mean to put myself forward.
But you see, my Lord, I had good reason for asking …
HARRY. Well, do you want me to produce her for you?
WINCHELL. Oh no indeed, my Lord, I’d much rather not …
HARRY. You mean you think I can’t. But I might surprise you;
I think I might be able to give you a shock.
WINCHELL. There’s been shock enough for one evening, my Lord:
That’s what I’ve come about.
WARBURTON. For Heaven’s sake, Winchell,
Tell us your business.
WINCHELL. It’s about Mr. John.
HARRY. John!
WINCHELL. Yes, my Lord, I’m sorry.
I thought I’d better have a word with you quiet,
Rather than phone and perhaps disturb her Ladyship.
So I slipped along on my bike. Mostly walking,
What with the fog so thick, or I’d have been here sooner.
I’d telephoned to Dr. Warburton’s,
And they told me he was here, and that you’d arrived.
Mr. John’s had a bit of an accident
On the West Road, in the fog, coming along
At a pretty smart pace, I fancy, ran into a lorry
Drawn up round the bend. We’ll have the driver up for this:
Says he doesn’t know this part of the country
And stopped to take his bearings. We’ve got him at the Arms —
Mr. John, I mean. By a bit of luck
Dr. Owen was there, and looked him over;
Says there’s nothing wrong but some nasty cuts
And a bad concussion; says he’ll come round
In the morning, most likely, but he mustn’t be moved.
But Dr. Owen was anxious that you should have a look at him.
WARBURTON. Quite right, quite right. I’ll go and have a look at him.
We must explain to your mother …
AMY’S VOICE. Harry! Harry!
Who’s there with you? Is it Arthur or John?
[Enter AMY, followed severally by VIOLET, IVY, AGATHA, GERALD and CHARLES.]
Winchell! what are you here for?
WINCHELL. I’m sorry, my Lady, but I’ve just told the doctor,
It’s r
eally nothing but a minor accident.
WARBURTON. It’s John has had the accident, Lady Monchensey;
And Winchell tells me Dr. Owen has seen him
And says it’s nothing but a slight concussion,
But he mustn’t be moved tonight. I’d trust Owen
On a matter like this. You can trust Owen.
We’ll bring him up tomorrow; and a few days’ rest,
I’ve no doubt, will be all that he needs.
AMY. Accident? What sort of an accident?
WINCHELL. Coming along in the fog, my Lady,
And he must have been in rather a hurry.
There was a lorry drawn up where it shouldn’t be,
Outside of the village, on the West Road.
AMY. Where is he?
WINCHELL. At the Arms, my Lady;
Of course, he hasn’t come round yet.
Dr. Owen was there, by a bit of luck.
GERALD. I’ll go down and see him, Amy, and come back and report to you.
AMY. I must see for myself. Order the car at once.
WARBURTON. I forbid it, Lady Monchensey.
As your doctor, I forbid you to leave the house tonight.
There is nothing you could do, and out in this weather
At this time of night, I would not answer for the consequences
I am going myself. I will come back and report to you.
AMY. I must see for myself. I do not believe you.
CHARLES. Much better leave it to Warburton, Amy.
Extremely fortunate for us that he’s here.
We must put ourselves under Warburton’s orders.
WARBURTON. I repeat, Lady Monchensey, that you must not go out.
If you do, I must decline to continue to treat you.
You are only delaying me. I shall return at once.
AMY. Well, I suppose you are right. But can I trust you?
WARBURTON. You have trusted me a good many years, Lady Monchensey;
This is not the time to begin to doubt me.
Come, Winchell. We can put your bicycle
On the back of my car.
[Exeunt WARBURTON and WINCHELL]
VIOLET. Well, Harry,
I think that you might have had something to say.
Aren’t you sorry for your brother? Aren’t you aware
Of what is going on? and what it means to your mother?
HARRY. Oh, of course I’m sorry. But from what Winchell says
I don’t think the matter can be very serious.
A minor trouble like a concussion
Cannot make very much difference to John.
A brief vacation from the kind of consciousness
That John enjoys, can’t make very much difference
To him or to anyone else. If he was ever really conscious,
I should be glad for him to have a breathing spell:
But John’s ordinary day isn’t much more than breathing.
IVY. Really, Harry! how can you be so callous?
I always thought you were so fond of John.
VIOLET. And if you don’t care what happens to John,
You might show some consideration to your mother.
AMY. I do not know very much:
And as I get older, I am coming to think
How little I have ever known.
But I think your remarks are much more inappropriate
Than Harry’s.
HARRY. It’s only when they see nothing
That people can always show the suitable emotions —
And so far as they feel at all, their emotions are suitable.
They don’t understand what it is to be awake,
To be living on several planes at once
Though one cannot speak with several voices at once.
I have all of the rightminded feeling about John
That you consider appropriate. Only, that’s not the language
That I choose to be talking. I will not talk yours.
AMY. You looked like your father
When you said that.
HARRY. I think, mother,
I shall make you lie down. You must be very tired.
[Exeunt HARRY and AMY]
VIOLET. I really do not understand Harry’s behaviour.
AGATHA. I think it is as well to leave Harry to establish
If he can, some communication with his mother.
VIOLET. I do not seem to be very popular tonight.
CHARLES. Well, there’s no sort of use in any of us going —
On a night like this — it’s a good three miles;
There’s nothing we could do that Warburton can’t.
If he’s worse than Winchell said, then he’ll let us know at once.
GERALD. I am really more afraid of the shock for Amy;
But I think that Warburton understands that.
IVY. You are quite right, Gerald, the one thing that matters
Is not to let her see that anyone is worried.
We must carry on as if nothing had happened,
And have the cake and presents.
GERALD. But I’m worried about Arthur:
He’s much more apt than John to get into trouble.
CHARLES. Oh, but Arthur’s a brilliant driver.
After all the experience he’s had at Brooklands,
He’s not likely to get into trouble.
GERALD. A brilliant driver, but more reckless.
IVY. Yet I remember, when they were boys,
Arthur was always the more adventurous
But John was the one that had the accidents,
Somehow, just because he was the slow one.
He was always the one to fall off the pony,
Or out of a tree — and always on his head.
VIOLET. But a year ago, Arthur took me out in his car,
And I told him I would never go out with him again.
Not that I wanted to go with him at all —
Though of course he meant well — but I think an open car
Is so undignified: you’re blown about so,
And you feel so conspicuous, lolling back
And so near the street, and everyone staring;
And the pace he went at was simply terrifying.
I said I would rather walk: and I did.
GERALD. Walk? where to?
VIOLET. He started out to take me to Cheltenham;
But I stopped him somewhere in Chiswick, I think.
Anyway, the district was unfamiliar
And I had the greatest trouble in getting home.
I am sure he meant well. But I do think he is reckless.
GERALD. I wonder how much Amy knows about Arthur?
CHARLES. More than she cares to mention, I imagine.
[Enter HARRY]
HARRY. Mother is asleep, I think: it’s strange how the old
Can drop off to sleep in the middle of calamity
Like children, or like hardened campaigners. She looked
Very much as she must have looked when she was a child.
You’ve been holding a meeting — the usual family inquest
On the characters of all the junior members?
Or engaged in predicting the minor event,
Engaged in foreseeing the minor disaster?
You go on trying to think of each thing separately,
Making small things important, so that everything
May be unimportant, a slight deviation
From some imaginary course that life ought to take,
That you call normal. What you call the normal
Is merely the unreal and the unimportant.
I was like that in a way, so long as I could think
Even of my own life as an isolated ruin,
A casual bit of waste in an orderly universe.
But it begins to seem just part of some huge disaster,
Some monstrous mistake and aberration
Of all men, of the world, which I cannot put in order
.
If you only knew the years that I have had to live
Since I came home, a few hours ago, to Wishwood.
VIOLET. I will make no observations on what you say, Harry;
My comments are not always welcome in this family.
[Enter DENMAN]
DENMAN. Excuse me, Miss Ivy. There’s a trunk call for you.
IVY. A trunk call? for me? why, who can want me?
DENMAN. He wouldn’t give his name, Miss; but it’s Mr. Arthur.
IVY. Arthur! Oh dear, I’m afraid he’s had an accident.
[Exeunt IVY and DENMAN]
VIOLET. When it’s Ivy that he’s asking for, I expect the worst.
AGATHA. Whatever you have learned, Harry, you must remember
That there is always more: we cannot rest in being
The impatient spectators of malice or stupidity.
We must try to penetrate the other private worlds
Of make-believe and fear. To rest in our own suffering
Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more.
VIOLET. Agatha’s remarks are invariably pointed.
HARRY. Do you think that I believe what I said just now?
That was only what I should like to believe.
I was talking in abstractions: and you answered in abstractions.
I have a private puzzle. Were they simply outside,
I might escape somewhere, perhaps. Were they simply inside
I could cheat them perhaps with the aid of Dr. Warburton —
Or any other doctor, who would be another Warburton,
If you decided to set another doctor on me.
But this is too real for your words to alter.
Oh, there must be another way of talking
That would get us somewhere. You don’t understand me.
You can’t understand me. It’s not being alone
That is the horror — to be alone with the horror.
What matters is the filthiness. I can clean my skin,
Purify my life, void my mind,
But always the filthiness, that lies a little deeper …
[Enter IVY]
IVY. Where is there an evening paper?
GERALD. Why, what’s the matter.
IVY. Somebody, look for Arthur in the evening paper.
That was Arthur, ringing up from London:
The connection was so bad, I could hardly hear him,
And his voice was very queer. It seems that Arthur too
Has had an accident. I don’t think he’s hurt,
But he says that he hasn’t got the use of his car,
And he missed the last train, so he’s coming up tomorrow;
And he said there was something about it in the paper,
But it’s all a mistake. And not to tell his mother.
VIOLET. What’s the use of asking for an evening paper?
You know as well as I do, at this distance from London
The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot Page 25