Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (73 page)

ELLIE I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn’t make acquaintances in that way I shouldn’t have any at all.

MRS HUSHABYE Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. May I ask his name?

ELLIE [
slowly and musically
] Marcus Darnley.

MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music] Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name!

ELLIE Oh, I’m so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it was only a silly fancy of my own.

MRS HUSHABYE Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys?

ELLIE Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest—

MRS HUSHABYE A what?

ELLIE An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm.

MRS HUSHABYE What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into it because he was afraid of the lightning?

ELLIE Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold.

MRS HUSHABYE [
looking hard at her
] Ellie!

ELLIE The garden of the Viscount—

MRS HUSHABYE—de Rougemont?
^kq

ELLIE [
innocently
] No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. His life has been one long romance. A tiger—

MRS HUSHABYE Slain by his own hand?

ELLIE Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger from a hunting party: one of King Edward’s hunting parties in India. The King was furious: that was why he never had his military services properly recognized. But he doesn’t care. He is a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades.

MRS HUSHABYE How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, good girl.

ELLIE [
rising, dignified but very angry
] Do you mean to say you don’t believe me?

MRS HUSHABYE Of course I don’t believe you. You’re inventing every word of it. Do you take me for a fool?

ELLIE Goodbye, Hesione. I’m very sorry. I see now that it sounds very improbable as I tell it. But I can’t stay if you think that way about me.

MRS HUSHABYE [
catching her dress
] You shan’t go. I couldn’t be so mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told you all this.

ELLIE [
flushing
] Hesione, don’t say that you don’t believe him. I couldn’t bear that.

MRS HUSHABYE [
soothing her
] Of course I believe him, dearest. But you should have broken it to me by degrees. [
Drawing her back to her seat
.] Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him?

ELLIE Oh, no. I’m not so foolish. I don’t fall in love with people. I’m not so silly as you think.

MRS HUSHABYE I see. Only something to think about—to give some interest and pleasure to life.

ELLIE Just so. That’s all, really.

MRS HUSHABYE It makes the hours go fast, doesn’t it? No tedious waiting to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad night. How delightful it makes waking up in the morning! How much better than the happiest dream! All life transfigured! No more wishing one had an interesting book to read, because life is so much happier than any book! No desire but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be alone and just think about it.

ELLIE [
embracing her
] Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? Oh, you are the most sympathetic woman in the world!

MRS HUSHABYE [
caressing her
] Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy you! and how I pity you!

ELLIE Pity me! Oh, why?

ELLIE
[seeing him and rising in glad surprise
] Oh! Hesione: this is Mr Marcus Darnley.

MRS HUSHABYE [
rising
] What a lark! He is my husband.

ELLIE But now—[
she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways
]
.

MRS HUSHABYE [
catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa
] Steady, my pettikins.

THE MAN [
with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his hat and stick on the teak table
] My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man would care to confess so. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you in our little house.

ELLIE [
in great distress
] I don’t know what to do. Please, may I speak to papa? Do leave me. I can’t bear it.

MRS HUSHABYE Be off, Hector.

HECTOR I—

MRS HUSHABYE Quick, quick. Get out.

HECTOR If you think it better—[
he goes out, taking his hat with him but leaving the stick on the table
]
.

MRS HUSHABYE [
laying ELLIE down at the end of the sofa
] Now, pettikins, he is gone. There’s nobody but me. You can let yourself go. Don’t try to control yourself. Have a good cry.

ELLIE [
raising her head
] Damn!

MRS HUSHABYE Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again.

ELLIE I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. [
Rising
.] How could I let myself be taken in so? [
She begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder.
]

MRS HUSHABYE [
cheerfully
] Why not, pettikins? Very few young women can resist Hector. I couldn’t when I was your age. He is really rather splendid, you know.

ELLIE [
turning on her
] Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But how can you love a liar?

MRS HUSHABYE I don’t know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much love in the world.

ELLIE But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward!

MRS HUSHABYE [
rising in alarm
] Pettikins, none of that, if you please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector’s courage, he will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself that he isn’t a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals
^kr
for saving people’s lives.

ELLIE He never told me that.

MRS HUSHABYE He never boasts of anything he really did: he can’t bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are made-up stories.

ELLIE [
coming to her
] Do you mean that he is really brave, and really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he never did and that never happened?

MRS HUSHABYE Yes, pettikins, I do. People don’t have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.

ELLIE [
staring at her thoughtfully
] There’s something odd about this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don’t know why I’m talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be.

MRS HUSHABYE [
fondling her
] It’s only life educating you, pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now?

ELLIE [
disengaging herself with an expression of distaste
] Oh, how can you remind me of him, Hesione?

MRS HUSHABYE Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You don’t mind now, do you, dear?

ELLIE Not in the least. I am quite cured.

HECTOR [
as he opens the door and allows MAZZINI to pass in
] One second more, and she would have been a dead woman!

MAZZINI Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye has just been telling me the most extraordinary—

ELLIE Yes, I’ve heard it [she crosses to the other side of the room].

HECTOR [
following her
] Not this one: I’ll tell it to you after dinner. I think you’ll like it. The truth is I made it up for you, and was looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a moment of impatience at being turned out of the room, I threw it away on your father.

ELLIE [
turning at bay with her back to the carpenter’s bench, scornfully self-possessed
] It was not thrown away. He believes it. I should not have believed it.

MAZZINI [
benevolently
] Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of course she does not really think that. [
He goes to the bookshelves, and inspects the titles of the volumes.
]

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
to MRS HUSHABYE, introducing the newcomer
] Says his name is Mangan. Not able-bodied.

MRS HUSHABYE [
graciously
] How do you do, Mr Mangan?

MANGAN [
shaking hands
] Very pleased.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Dunn’s lost his muscle, but recovered his nerve. Men seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [
he goes into the pantry
].

MRS HUSHABYE I congratulate you, Mr Dunn.

MAZZINI [
dazed
] I am a lifelong teetotaler.

MRS HUSHABYE You will find it far less trouble to let papa have his own way than try to explain.

MAZZINI But three attacks of delirium tremens, really!

MRS HUSHABYE [
to MANGAN
] Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [
she indicates HECTOR
]
.

MANGAN [
going to HECTOR, who meets him with outstretched hand
] Very pleased. [
Turning to ELLIE.
] I hope, Miss Ellie, you have not found the journey down too fatiguing.
[They shake hands.]

MRS HUSHABYE Hector, show Mr Dunn his room.

HECTOR Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [
He takes MAZZINI out.
]

ELLIE You haven’t shown me my room yet, Hesione.

MRS HUSHABYE How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite at home, Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [
She calls to the captain in the pantry.]
Papa, come and explain the house to Mr Mangan.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You’re going to marry Dunn’s daughter. Don’t. You’re too old.

MANGAN [
staggered
] Well! That’s fairly blunt, Captain.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It’s true.

MANGAN She doesn’t think so.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER She does.

MANGAN Older men than I have—

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
finishing
the
sentence for him]
—made fools of themselves. That, also, is true.

MANGAN [
asserting himself
] I don’t see that this is any business of yours.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It is everybody’s business. The stars in their courses are shaken when such things happen.

MANGAN I’m going to marry her all the same.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER How do you know?

MANGAN [
playing the strong man
] I intend to. I mean to. See? I never made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn’t bring it off. That’s the sort of man I am; and there will be a better understanding between us when you make up your mind to that, Captain.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You frequent picture palaces.

MANGAN Perhaps I do. Who told you?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Talk like a man, not like a movy.You mean that you make a hundred thousand a year.

MANGAN I don’t boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out my hand to him and call him brother.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, hey?

MANGAN No. I can’t say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER His half brother only [he turns
away from MANGAN with his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups on the Chinese tray].

MANGAN [
irritated
] See here, Captain Shotover. I don’t quite understand my position here. I came here on your daughter’s invitation. Am I in her house or in yours?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the house of God. What is true within these walls is true outside them. Go out on the seas; climb the mountains; wander through the valleys. She is still too young.

MANGAN [
weakening
] But I’m very little over fifty.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, you will not marry the pirate’s child [
he carries the tray away into the pantry].

MANGAN [
following him to the half door
] What pirate’s child? What are you talking about?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry] Ellie Dunn. You will not marry her.

MANGAN Who will stop me?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
emerging
] My daughter [
he makes for the door leading to the hall].

MANGAN [
followins him
] Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she brought me down here to break it off?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
stopping and turning on him
] I know nothing more than I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my advice: marry a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I was married to one myself for two years.