Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (54 page)

HIGGINS [
wounded
in his tenderest point by her insensibility to his
elocution
] Oh, indeed! I’m mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce: you neednt order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.

LIZA [
whimpering
] Nah-ow. You got no right to touch me.

MRS. PEARCE You see now what comes of being saucy. [
Indicating the door
] This way, please.

LIZA [
almost in tears
] I didnt want no clothes. I wouldnt have
taken them
[
she throws away the handkerchief
]
. I can buy my own
clothes.

HIGGINS [
defly retrieving the handkerchief and intercepting her on
her reluctant way to the door]
Youre an ungrateful wicked girl. This is my return for offering to take you out of the gutter and dress you beautifully and make a lady of you.

MRS . PEARCE Stop, Mr. Higgins. I wont allow it. It’s you that are wicked. Go home to your parents, girl; and tell them to take better care of you.

LIZA I aint got no parents. They told me I was big enough to earn my own living and turned me out.

MRS. PEARCE Wheres your mother?

LIZA I aint got no mother. Her that turned me out was my sixth stepmother. But I done without them. And I’m a good girl, I am.

HIGGINS Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? The girl doesnt belong to anybody—is no use to anybody but me.
[He goes to MRS. PEARCE and begins coaxing].
You can adopt her, Mrs. Pearce: I’m sure a daughter would be a great amusement to you. Now dont make any more fuss. Take her downstairs; and—

MRS. PEARCE But whats to become of her? Is she to be paid anything? Do be sensible, sir.

HIGGINS Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the housekeeping book. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with money? She’ll have her food and her clothes. She’ll only drink if you give her money.

LIZA
[turning on him]
Oh you are a brute. It’s a lie: nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me. [She goes back to her chair
and
plants herself there defiantly].

PICKERING [
in good-humored remonstrance
] Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?

HIGGINS [
looking critically at her
] Oh no, I dont think so. Not any feelings that we need bother about. [
Cheerily
] Have you, Eliza?

LIZA I got my feelings same as anyone else.

HIGGINS
[to PICKERING, reflectively
] You see the difficulty?

PICKERING Eh? What difficulty?

HIGGINS To get her to talk grammar. The mere pronunciation is easy enough.

LIZA I dont want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.

MRS. PEARCE Will you please keep to the point, Mr. Higgins. I want to know on what terms the girl is to be here. Is she to have any wages? And what is to become of her when youve finished your teaching? You must look ahead a little.

HIGGINS [
impatiently
] Whats to become of her if I leave her in the gutter? Tell me that, Mrs. Pearce.

MRS. PEARCE Thats her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS Well, when Ive done with her, we can throw her back into the gutter; and then it will be her own business again; so thats all right.

LIZA Oh, youve no feeling heart in you: you dont care for nothing but yourself
[she rises and takes the floor resolutely].
Here! Ive had enough of this. I’m going [
making for the door
]. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought.

HIGGINS [
snatching a chocolate cream from the piano, his eyes suddenly beginning to twinkle with mischief]
Have some chocolates, Eliza.

LIZA [
halting, tempted
] How do I know what might be in them? Ive heard of girls being drugged by the like of you.
HIGGINS whips out his penknife; cuts a chocolate in two; puts one half into his mouth and bolts it; and offers her the other half.

HIGGINS Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half: you eat the other. [
LIZA opens her mouth to retort: he pops the half chocolate into it].
You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day. You shall live on them. Eh?

LIZA [
who has disposed of the chocolate after being nearly choked by it
] I wouldnt have ate it, only I’m too ladylike to take it out of my mouth.

HIGGINS Listen, Eliza. I think you said you came in a taxi .

LIZA Well, what if I did? Ive as good a right to take a taxi as anyone else.

HIGGINS You have, Eliza; and in future you shall have as many taxis as you want. You shall go up and down and round the town in a taxi every day. Think of that, Eliza.

MRS. PEARCE Mr. Higgins: youre tempting the girl. It’s not right. She should think of the future.

HIGGINS At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future when you havnt any future to think of. No, Eliza: do as this lady does: think of other people’s futures; but never think of your own. Think of chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds.

LIZA No: I dont want no gold and no diamonds. I’m a good girl, I am. [
She sits down again, with an attempt at dignity
]
.

HIGGINS You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs. Pearce. And you shall marry an officer in the Guards, with a beautiful moustache: the son of a marquis, who will disinherit him for marrying you, but will relent when he sees your beauty and goodness—

PICKERING Excuse me, Higgins; but I really must interfere. Mrs. Pearce is quite right. If this girl is to put herself in your hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must understand thoroughly what shes doing.

HIGGINS How can she? Shes incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

PICKERING Very clever, Higgins; but not sound sense. [To
ELIZA
] Miss Doolittle—

LIZA [
overwhelmed
] Ah-ah-ow-oo!

HIGGINS There! Thats all you get out of Eliza. Ah-ah-ow-oo! No use explaining. As a military man you ought to know that. Give her her orders: thats what she wants. Eliza: you are to live here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist’s shop. If youre good and do whatever youre told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If youre naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out youre not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall have a present of seven-and-sixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl; and the angels will weep for you.
[To PICKERING]
Now are you satisfied, Pickering?
[To MRS. PEARCE]
Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pearce?

MRS. PEARCE
[patiently]
I think youd better let me speak to the girl properly in private. I dont know that I can take charge of her or consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you dont mean her any harm; but when you get what you call interested in people’s accents, you never think or care what may happen to them or you. Come with me, Eliza. HIGGINS Thats all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off to the bath-room.

LIZA [
rising reluctantly and suspiciously
] Youre a great bully, you are. I wont stay here if I dont like. I wont let nobody wallop me. I never asked to go to Buckingham Palace, I didnt. I was never in trouble with the police, not me. I’m a good girl—MRS. PEARCE Dont answer back, girl. You dont understand the gentleman. Come with me.
[She leads the way to the door, and holds it open for ELIZA
].

LIZA [
as she goes out
] Well, what I say is right. I wont go near the king, not if I’m going to have my head cut off. If I’d known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldnt have come here. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I dont owe him nothing; and I dont care; and I wont be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone else—MRS. PEARCE
shuts the door; and ELIZA’s plaints are no longer audible. PICKERING comes from the hearth to the chair and sits astride it with his arms on the back.

PICKERING Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?

HIGGINS
[moodily]
Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?

PICKERING Yes: very frequently.

HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I havnt. I find that
the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and youre driving at another.

PICKERING At what, for example?

HIGGINS
[coming off the piano restlessly]
Oh, Lord knows! I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind.
[He sits down on the bench at the keyboard].
So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.

PICKERING [
rising and standing over him gravely
] Come, Higgins! You know what I mean. If I’m to be in this business I shall feel responsible for that girl. I hope it’s understood that no advantage is to be taken of her position.

HIGGINS What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to explain] You see, she’ll be a pupil; and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred. Ive taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking women in the world. I’m seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood.
I
might as well be a block of wood. It‘s—
MRS. PEARCE opens the door. She has ELIZA’s hat in her hand. PICKERING retires to the easy-chair at the hearth and sits down.

HIGGINS [eagerly] Well, Mrs. Pearce: is it all right?

MRS. PEARCE [
at the door
] I just wish to trouble you with a word, if I may, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS Yes, certainly. Come in. [She
comesforward].
Dont burn that, Mrs. Pearce. I’ll keep it as a curiosity. [He takes the hat].

MRS. PEARCE Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise her not to burn it; but I had better put it in the oven for a while.

HIGGINS
[putting it down hastily on the piano]
Oh! thank you. Well, what have you to say to me?

PICKERING Am I in the way?

MRS. PEARCE Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be very particular what you say before the girl?

HIGGINS [
sternly
] Of course. I’m always particular about what I say. Why do you say this to me?

MRS. PEARCE
[unmoved]
No, sir: youre not at all particular when youve mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient. Now it doesnt matter before me: I’m used to it. But you really must not swear before the girl.

HIGGINS
[indignantly] I
swear!
[Most emphatically
] I never swear. I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?

MRS. PEARCE
[stolidly]
Thats what I mean, sir. You swear a great deal too much. I dont mind your damning and blasting, and what the devil and where the devil and who the devil—

HIGGINS Mrs. Pearce: this language from your lips! Really!

MRS. PEARCE
[not to be put off
]—but there is a certain word I must ask you not to use. The girl has just used it herself because the bath was too hot. It begins with the same letter as bath. She knows no better: she learnt it at her mother’s knee. But she must not hear it from your lips.

HIGGINS [
loftily
] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it, Mrs. Pearce. [
She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding an uneasy conscience with a judicial air
] Except perhaps in a moment of extreme and justifiable excitement.

MRS. PEARCE Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.

HIGGINS Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a poet.

MRS. PEARCE Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it.

HIGGINS Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with this girl as to personal cleanliness.

HIGGINS Certainly. Quite right. Most important.

MRS. PEARCE I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy in leaving things about.

HIGGINS [
going to her solemnly]
Just so. I intended to call your attention to that
[he passes on to PICKERING, who is enjoying the conversation immensely
]. It is these little things that matter, Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [
He comes to anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an unassailable position
] .

MRS. PEARCE Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good as not to eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in the jam only last week.