by Unknown
JOHN [impressed]. Mr. Venables! This is an honour.
VENABLES. How are you, Shand?
JOHN. Sit down, sit down. [Becoming himself again.] I can guess what you have come about.
VENABLES. Ah, you Scotsmen.
JOHN. Of course I know I’m harassing the Government a good deal —
VENABLES [blandly]. Not at all, Shand. The Government are very pleased.
JOHN. You don’t expect me to believe that?
VENABLES. I called here to give you the proof of it. You may know that we are to have a big meeting at Leeds on the 24th, when two Ministers are to speak. There is room for a third speaker, and I am authorised to offer that place to you.
JOHN. To me!
VENABLES. Yes.
JOHN [swelling]. It would be — the Government taking me up.
VENABLES. Don’t make too much of it; it would be an acknowledgment that they look upon you as one of their likely young men.
MAGGIE. John!
JOHN [not found wanting in a trying hour]. It’s a bribe. You are offering me this on condition that I don’t make my speech. How can you think so meanly of me as to believe that I would play the women’s cause false for the sake of my own advancement. I refuse your bribe.
VENABLES [liking him for the first time]. Good. But you are wrong. There are no conditions, and we want you to make your speech. Now do you accept?
JOHN [still suspicious]. If you make me the same offer after you have read it. I insist on your reading it first.
VENABLES [sighing]. By all means.
[MAGGIE is in an agony as she sees JOHN hand the speech to his leader. On the other hand, the COMTESSE thrills.]
But I assure you we look on the speech as a small matter. The important thing is your intention of going to a division; and we agree to that also.
JOHN [losing his head]. What’s that?
VENABLES. Yes, we agree.
JOHN. But — but — why, you have been threatening to excommunicate me if
I dared.
VENABLES. All done to test you, Shand.
JOHN. To test me?
VENABLES. We know that a division on your Bill can have no serious significance; we shall see to that. And so the test was to be whether you had the pluck to divide the House. Had you been intending to talk big in this speech, and then hedge, through fear of the Government, they would have had no further use for you.
JOHN [heavily]. I understand. [But there is one thing he cannot understand, which is, why VENABLES should be so sure that he is not to hedge.]
VENABLES [turning over the pages carelessly]. Any of your good things in this, Shand?
JOHN [whose one desire is to get the pages back]. No, I — no — it isn’t necessary you should read it now.
VENABLES [from politeness only]. Merely for my own pleasure. I shall look through it this evening. [He rolls up the speech to put it in his pocket. JOHN turns despairingly to MAGGIE, though well aware that no help can come from her.]
MAGGIE. That’s the only copy there is, John. [To VENABLES] Let me make a fresh one, and send it to you in an hour or two.
VENABLES [good-naturedly]. I could not put you to that trouble, Mrs.
Shand. I will take good care of it.
MAGGIE. If anything were to happen to you on the way home, wouldn’t whatever is in your pocket be considered to be the property of your heirs?
VENABLES [laughing]. Now there is forethought! Shand, I think that after that — ! [He returns the speech to JOHN, whose hand swallows it greedily.] She is Scotch too, Comtesse.
COMTESSE [delighted]. Yes, she is Scotch too.
VENABLES. Though the only persons likely to do for me in the street, Shand, are your ladies’ committee. Ever since they took the horse out of my brougham, I can scent them a mile away.
COMTESSE. A mile? Charles, peep in there.
[He softly turns the handle of the dining-room door, and realises that his scent is not so good as he had thought it. He bids his hostess and the COMTESSE goodbye in a burlesque whisper and tiptoes off to safer places. JOHN having gone out with him, MAGGIE can no longer avoid the COMTESSE’s reproachful eye. That much injured lady advances upon her with accusing finger.]
COMTESSE. So, madam!
[MAGGIE is prepared for her.]
MAGGIE. I don’t know what you mean.
COMTESSE. Yes, you do. I mean that there IS some one who ‘helps’ our
Mr. Shand.
MAGGIE. There’s not.
COMTESSE. And it IS a woman, and it’s you.
MAGGIE. I help in the little things.
COMTESSE. The little things! You are the Pin he picked up and that is to make his fortune. And now what I want to know is whether your John is aware that you help at all.
[JOHN returns, and at once provides the answer.]
JOHN. Maggie, Comtesse, I’ve done it again!
MAGGIE. I’m so glad, John.
[The COMTESSE is in an ecstasy.]
COMTESSE. And all because you were not to hedge, Mr. Shand.
[His appeal to her with the wistfulness of a schoolboy makes him rather attractive.]
JOHN. You won’t tell on me, Comtesse! [He thinks it out.] They had just guessed I would be firm because they know I’m a strong man. You little saw, Maggie, what a good turn you were doing me when you said you wanted to make another copy of the speech.
[She is dense.]
MAGGIE. How, John?
JOHN. Because now I can alter the end.
[She is enlightened.]
MAGGIE. So you can!
JOHN. Here’s another lucky thing, Maggie: I hadn’t told the ladies’ committee that I was to hedge, and so they need never know. Comtesse, I tell you there’s a little cherub who sits up aloft and looks after the career of John Shand.
[The COMTESSE looks not aloft but toward the chair at present occupied by MAGGIE.]
COMTESSE. Where does she sit, Mr. Shand?
[He knows that women are not well read.]
JOHN. It’s just a figure of speech.
[He returns airily to his committee room; and now again you may hear the click of MAGGIE’s needles. They no longer annoy the COMTESSE; she is setting them to music.]
COMTESSE. It is not down here she sits, Mrs. Shand, knitting a stocking.
MAGGIE. No, it isn’t.
COMTESSE. And when I came in I gave him credit for everything; even for the prettiness of the room!
MAGGIE. He has beautiful taste.
COMTESSE. Goodbye, Scotchy.
MAGGIE. Goodbye, Comtesse, and thank you for coming.
COMTESSE. Goodbye — Miss Pin.
[MAGGIE rings genteelly.]
MAGGIE. Goodbye.
[The COMTESSE is now lost in admiration of her.]
COMTESSE. You divine little wife. He can’t be worthy of it, no man could be worthy of it. Why do you do it?
[MAGGIE shivers a little.]
MAGGIE. He loves to think he does it all himself; that’s the way of men. I’m six years older than he is. I’m plain, and I have no charm. I shouldn’t have let him marry me. I’m trying to make up for it.
[The COMTESSE kisses her and goes away. MAGGIE, somewhat foolishly, resumes her knitting.]
[Some days later this same room is listening — with the same inattention — to the outpouring of JOHN SHAND’s love for the lady of the hiccoughs. We arrive — by arrangement — rather late; and thus we miss some of the most delightful of the pangs.
One can see that these two are playing no game, or, if they are, that they little know it. The wonders of the world [so strange are the instruments chosen by Love] have been revealed to JOHN in hiccoughs; he shakes in SYBIL’s presence; never were more swimming eyes; he who has been of a wooden face till now, with ways to match, has gone on flame like a piece of paper; emotion is in flood in him. We may be almost fond of JOHN for being so worshipful of love. Much has come to him that we had almost despaired of his acquiring, including nearly all the divine attributes except tha
t sense of humour. The beautiful SYBIL has always possessed but little of it also, and what she had has been struck from her by Cupid’s flail. Naked of the saving grace, they face each other in awful rapture.]
JOHN. In a room, Sybil, I go to you as a cold man to a fire. You fill me like a peal of bells in an empty house.
[She is being brutally treated by the dear impediment, for which hiccough is such an inadequate name that even to spell it is an abomination though a sign of ability. How to describe a sound that is noiseless? Let us put it thus, that when SYBIL wants to say something very much there are little obstacles in her way; she falters, falls perhaps once, and then is over, the while her appealing orbs beg you not to be angry with her. We may express those sweet pauses in precious dots, which some clever person can afterwards string together and make a pearl necklace of them.]
SYBIL. I should not … let you say it, … but … you … say it so beautifully.
JOHN. You must have guessed.
SYBIL. I dreamed … I feared … but you were … Scotch, and I didn’t know what to think.
JOHN. Do you know what first attracted me to you, Sybil? It was your insolence. I thought, ‘I’ll break her insolence for her.’
SYBIL. And I thought… ‘I’ll break his str…ength!’
JOHN. And now your cooing voice plays round me; the softness of you, Sybil, in your pretty clothes makes me think of young birds. [The impediment is now insurmountable; she has to swim for it, she swims toward him.] It is you who inspire my work.
[He thrills to find that she can be touched without breaking.]
SYBIL. I am so glad… so proud…
JOHN. And others know it, Sybil, as well as I. Only yesterday the Comtesse said to me, ‘No man could get on so fast unaided. Cherchez la femme, Mr. Shand.’
SYBIL. Auntie said that?
JOHN. I said ‘Find her yourself, Comtesse.’
SYBIL. And she?
JOHN. She said ‘I have found her,’ and I said in my blunt way, ‘You mean Lady Sybil,’ and she went away laughing.
SYBIL. Laughing?
JOHN. I seem to amuse the woman.
[Sybil grows sad.]
SYBIL. If Mrs. Shand — It is so cruel to her. Whom did you say she had gone to the station to meet?
JOHN. Her father and brothers.
SYBIL. It is so cruel to them. We must think no more of this. It is mad… ness.
JOHN. It’s fate. Sybil, let us declare our love openly.
SYBIL. You can’t ask that, now in the first moment that you tell me of it.
JOHN. The one thing I won’t do even for you is to live a life of underhand.
SYBIL. The… blow to her.
JOHN. Yes. But at least she has always known that I never loved her.
SYBIL. It is asking me to give… up everything, every one, for you.
JOHN. It’s too much.
[JOHN is humble at last.]
SYBIL. To a woman who truly loves, even that is not too much. Oh! it is not I who matter — it is you.
JOHN. My dear, my dear.
SYBIL. So gladly would I do it to save you; but, oh, if it were to bring you down!
JOHN. Nothing can keep me down if I have you to help me.
SYBIL. I am dazed, John, I…
JOHN. My love, my love.
SYBIL. I… oh… here…
JOHN. Be brave, Sybil, be brave.
SYBIL. ……….
[In this bewilderment of pearls she melts into his arms. MAGGIE happens to open the door just then; but neither fond heart hears her.]
JOHN. I can’t walk along the streets, Sybil, without looking in all the shop windows for what I think would become you best. [As awkwardly as though his heart still beat against corduroy, he takes from his pocket a pendant and its chain. He is shy, and she drops pearls over the beauty of the ruby which is its only stone.] It is a drop of my blood, Sybil.
[Her lovely neck is outstretched, and he puts the chain round it. MAGGIE withdraws as silently as she had come; but perhaps the door whispered ‘d — n’ as it closed, for SYBIL wakes out of Paradise.]
SYBIL. I thought — Did the door shut?
JOHN. It was shut already.
[Perhaps it is only that SYBIL is bewildered to find herself once again in a world that has doors.]
SYBIL. It seemed to me —
JOHN. There was nothing. But I think I hear voices; they may have arrived.
[Some pretty instinct makes SYBIL go farther from him. MAGGIE kindly gives her time for this by speaking before opening the door.]
MAGGIE. That will do perfectly, David. The maid knows where to put them. [She comes in.] They’ve come, John; they WOULD help with the luggage. [JOHN goes out. MAGGIE is agreeably surprised to find a visitor.] How do you do, Lady Sybil? This is nice of you.
SYBIL. I was so sorry not to find you in, Mrs. Shand.
[The impediment has run away. It is only for those who love it.]
MAGGIE. Thank you. You’ll sit down?
SYBIL. I think not; your relatives —
MAGGIE. They will be so proud to see that you are my friend.
[If MAGGIE were less simple her guest would feel more comfortable.
She tries to make conversation.]
SYBIL. It is their first visit to London?
[Instead of relieving her anxiety on this point, MAGGIE has a long look at the gorgeous armful.]
MAGGIE. I’m glad you are so beautiful, Lady Sybil.
[The beautiful one is somehow not flattered. She pursues her investigations with growing uneasiness.]
SYBIL. One of them is married now, isn’t he? [Still there is no answer; MAGGIE continues looking at her, and shivers slightly.] Have they travelled from Scotland to-day? Mrs. Shand, why do you look at me so? The door did open! [MAGGIE nods.] What are you to do?
MAGGIE. That would be telling. Sit down, my pretty.
[As SYBIL subsides into what the Wylies with one glance would call the best chair, MAGGIE’s menfolk are brought in by JOHN, all carrying silk hats and looking very active after their long rest in the train. They are gazing about them. They would like this lady, they would like JOHN, they would even like MAGGIE to go away for a little and leave them to examine the room. Is that linen on the walls, for instance, or just paper? Is the carpet as thick as it feels, or is there brown paper beneath it? Had MAGGIE got anything off that bookcase on account of the worm-hole? DAVID even discovers that we were simpletons when we said there was nothing in the room that pretended to be what it was not. He taps the marble mantelpiece, and is favourably impressed by the tinny sound.]
DAVID. Very fine imitation. It’s a capital house, Maggie.
MAGGIE. I’m so glad you like it. Do you know one another? This is my father and my brothers, Lady Sybil.
[The lovely form inclines towards them. ALICK and DAVID remain firm on their legs, but JAMES totters.]
JAMES. A ladyship! Well done, Maggie.
ALICK [sharply]. James! I remember you, my lady.
MAGGIE. Sit down, father. This is the study.
[JAMES wanders round it inquisitively until called to order.]
SYBIL. You must be tired after your long journey.
DAVID [drawing the portraits of himself and partners in one lightning sketch]. Tired, your ladyship? We sat on cushioned seats the whole way.
JAMES [looking about him for the chair you sit on]. Every seat in this room is cushioned.
MAGGIE. You may say all my life is cushioned now, James, by this dear man of mine.
[She gives JOHN’S shoulder a loving pressure, which SYBIL feels is a telegraphic communication to herself in a cypher that she cannot read. ALICK and the BROTHERS bask in the evidence of MAGGIE’s happiness.]
JOHN [uncomfortably]. And is Elizabeth hearty, James?
JAMES [looking down his nose in the manner proper to young husbands when addressed about their wives]. She’s very well, I thank you kindly.
MAGGIE. James is a married man now, Lady Sybil.
[S
YBIL murmurs her congratulations.]
JAMES. I thank you kindly. [Courageously] Yes, I’m married. [He looks at DAVID and ALICK to see if they are smiling; and they are.] It wasn’t a case of being catched; it was entirely of my own free will. [He looks again; and the mean fellows are smiling still.] Is your ladyship married?