Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (77 page)

MRS HUSHABYE Had he any of papa’s rum?

MAZZINI It can’t be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized.

GUINNESS Hip no what, sir?

MAZZINI One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up.
[MRS HUSHABYE splutters.]
Oh, you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might have been killed.

MRS HUSHABYE I couldn’t have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun!

MAZZINI Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing would induce her to try such a thing again.

MRS HUSHABYE Then who did it?
I
didn’t.

MAZZINI I thought perhaps the captain might have done it unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever he comes close to me.

GUINNESS The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I’ll back him for that. I’ll go fetch him [
she makes for the pantry
]
.

MRS HUSHABYE Wait a bit. [
To MAZZINI.
] You say he is all right for eighteen hours?

MAZZINI Well,
I
was asleep for eighteen hours.

MRS HUSHABYE Were you any the worse for it?

MAZZINI I don’t quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, you see; and—

MRS HUSHABYE Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably.

GUINNESS I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I’ll find her and send her to you. [
She goes out into the garden.
]

MRS HUSHABYE [
calling MAZZINI’s attention to the figure on the chair]
Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still intend to sacrifice your daughter to that thing?

MAZZINI [
troubled
] You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, by all you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I—
I
, a consecrated soldier of freedom, if I may say so—could sacrifice Ellie to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of forcing her inclinations in any way, is a most painful blow to my—well, I suppose you would say to my good opinion of myself.

MRS HUSHABYE [
rather stolidly
] Sorry.

MAZZINI [
looking forlornly at the body
] What is your objection to poor Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then I am so accustomed to him.

MRS HUSHABYE Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the brute! Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this slavedriver, who spends his life making thousands of rough violent workmen bend to his will and sweat for him: a man accustomed to have great masses of iron beaten into shape for him by steam-hammers! to fight with women and girls over a halfpenny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, I think you call him, don’t you? Are you going to fling your delicate, sweet, helpless child into such a beast’s claws just because he will keep her in an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how rich he is?

MAZZINI [
staring at her in wide-eyed amazement
] Bless you, dear Mrs Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear Mangan isn’t a bit like that.

MRS HUSHABYE [
scornfully
] Poor dear Mangan indeed!

MAZZINI But he doesn’t know anything about machinery. He never goes near the men: he couldn’t manage them: he is afraid of them. I never can get him to take the least interest in the works: he hardly knows more about them than you do. People are cruelly unjust to Mangan: they think he is all rugged strength just because his manners are bad.

MRS HUSHABYE Do you mean to tell me he isn’t strong enough to crush poor little Ellie?

MAZZINI Of course it’s very hard to say how any marriage will turn out; but speaking for myself, I should say that he won’t have a dog’s chance against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of character. I think it is because I taught her to like Shakespeare when she was very young.

MRS HUSHABYE
[contemptuously]
Shakespeare! The next thing you will tell me is that you could have made a great deal more money than Mangan.
[She retires to the sofa, and sits down at the port end of it in the worst of humors.
]

MAZZINI [
following her and taking the other end
] No: I’m no good at making money. I don’t care enough for it, somehow. I’m not ambitious! that must be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he thinks of nothing else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor. I am always thinking of other things: even at the works I think of the things we are doing and not of what they cost. And the worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn’t know what to do with his money when he gets it. He is such a baby that he doesn’t know even what to eat and drink: he has ruined his liver eating and drinking the wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. Ellie will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when you come to know him better: he is really the most helpless of mortals. You get quite a protective feeling towards him.

MRS HUSHABYE Then who manages his business, pray?

MAZZINI I do. And of course other people like me.

MRS HUSHABYE Footling
^kx
people, you mean.

MAZZINI I suppose you’d think us so.

MRS HUSHABYE And pray why don’t you do without him if you’re all so much cleverer?

MAZZINI Oh, we couldn’t: we should ruin the business in a year. I’ve tried; and I know. We should spend too much on everything. We should improve the quality of the goods and make them too dear. We should be sentimental about the hard cases among the workpeople. But Mangan keeps us in order. He is down on us about every extra halfpenny. We could never do without him. You see, he will sit up all night thinking of how to save sixpence. Won’t Ellie make him jump, though, when she takes his house in hand!

MRS HUSHABYE Then the creature is a fraud even as a captain of industry!

MAZZINI I am afraid all the captains of industry are what
you
call frauds, Mrs Hushabye. Of course there are some manufacturers who really do understand their own works; but they don’t make as high a rate of profit as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is quite a good fellow in his way. He means well.

MRS HUSHABYE He doesn’t look well. He is not in his first youth, is he?

MAZZINI After all, no husband is in his first youth for very long, Mrs Hushabye. And men can’t afford to marry in their first youth nowadays.

MRS HUSHABYE Now if
I
said that, it would sound witty. Why can’t
you
say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why don’t you inspire everybody with confidence? with respect?

MAZZINI [
humbly
] I think that what is the matter with me is that I am poor. You don’t know what that means at home. Mind: I don’t say they have ever complained. They’ve all been wonderful: they’ve been proud of my poverty. They’ve even joked about it quite often. But my wife has had a very poor time of it. She has been quite resigned—

MRS HUSHABYE [
shuddering involuntarily
]!!

MAZZINI There! You see, Mrs Hushabye. I don’t want Ellie to live on resignation.

MRS HUSHABYE Do you want her to have to resign herself to living with a man she doesn’t love?

MAZZINI [
wistfully
] Are you sure that would be worse than living with a man she did love, if he was a footling person?

MRS HUSHABYE [
relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite interested in MAZZINI now
] You know, I really think you must love Ellie very much; for you become quite clever when you talk about her.

MAZZINI I didn’t know I was so very stupid on other subjects.

MRS HUSHABYE You are, sometimes.

MAZZINI [
turning his head away; for his eyes are wet
] I have learnt a good deal about myself from you, Mrs Hushabye; and I’m afraid I shall not be the happier for your plain speaking. But if you thought I needed it to make me think of Ellie’s happiness you were very much mistaken.

MRS HUSHABYE
[leaning towards him kindly
] Have I been a beast?

MAZZINI
[pulling himself together]
It doesn’t matter about me, Mrs Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and that is enough for me.

MRS HUSHABYE I’m beginning to like you a little. I perfectly loathed you at first. I thought you the most odious, self-satisfied, boresome elderly prig I ever met.

MAZZINI [
resigned
,
and now quite cheerful
] I daresay I am all that. I never have been a favorite with gorgeous women like you. They always frighten me.

MRS HUSHABYE
[pleased]
Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini? I shall fall in love with you presently.

MAZZINI [
with placid gallantry
] No, you won‘t, Hesione. But you would be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of women have flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get tired of me for the same reason.

MRS HUSHABYE [
mischievously
] Take care. You may not be so safe as you think.

MAZZINI Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in love really: the sort of love that only happens once. [
Softly.
] That’s why Ellie is such a lovely girl.

MRS HUSHABYE Well, really, you
are
coming out. Are you quite sure you won’t let me tempt you into a second grand passion?

MAZZINI Quite. It wouldn’t be natural. The fact is, you don’t strike on my box, Mrs Hushabye; and I certainly don’t strike on yours.

MRS HUSHABYE I see.Your marriage was a safety match.

MAZZINI What a very witty application of the expression I used! I should never have thought of it.

MRS HUSHABYE [
rising
] Oh! here is Ellie at last. [
She goes behind the sofa.
]

ELLIE
[on the threshold of the starboard door]
Guinness said you wanted me: you and papa.

MRS HUSHABYE You have kept us waiting so long that it almost came to—well, never mind. Your father is a very wonderful man [
she ruffles his hair affectionately
]
:
the only one I ever met who could resist me when I made myself really agreeable. [
She comes to the big chair, on MANGAN’s left.
] Come here. I have something to show you. [
ELLIE strolls listlessly to the other side of the chair.
] Look.

ELLIE [
contemplating MANGAN without interest
] I know. He is only asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he fell asleep in the middle of it.

MRS HUSHABYE You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep.

MAZZINI [
rising quickly and coming to the back of the chair
] Oh, I hope not. Did you, Ellie?

ELLIE [
wearily
] He asked me to.

MAZZINI But it’s dangerous. You know what happened to me.

ELLIE [
utterly indifferent
] Oh, I daresay I can wake him. If not, somebody else can.

MRS HUSHABYE It doesn’t matter, anyhow, because I have at last persuaded your father that you don’t want to marry him.

ELLIE [
suddenly coming out of her listlessness, much vexed
] But why did you do that, Hesione? I do want to marry him. I fully intend to marry him.

MAZZINI Are you quite sure, Ellie? Mrs Hushabye has made me feel that I may have been thoughtless and selfish about it.

ELLIE [
very clearly and steadily
] Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes it on herself to explain to you what I think or don’t think, shut your ears tight; and shut your eyes too. Hesione knows nothing about me: she hasn’t the least notion of the sort of person I am, and never will. I promise you I won’t do anything I don’t want to do and mean to do for my own sake.

MAZZINI You are quite, quite sure?

ELLIE Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and leave me to talk to Mrs Hushabye.

MAZZINI But I should like to hear. Shall I be in the way?

ELLIE
[inexorable]
I had rather talk to her alone.

MAZZINI [
affectionately
] Oh, well, I know what a nuisance parents are, dear. I will be good and go.
[He goes to the garden door.]
By the way, do you remember the address of that professional who woke me up? Don’t you think I had better telegraph to him?

MRS HUSHABYE [
moving towards the sofa
] It’s too late to telegraph tonight.

MAZZINI I suppose so. I do hope he’ll wake up in the course of the night. [
He goes out into the garden.
]

ELLIE [
turning rigorously on HESIONE the moment her father is out of the room
]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making mischief with my father about Mangan?

MRS HUSHABYE [
promptly losing her temper
] Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my house.

ELLIE Stuff! Why don’t you mind your own business? What is it to you whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? MRS HUSHABYE Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little matrimonial adventurer?

ELLIE Every woman who hasn’t any money is a matrimonial adventurer. It’s easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to want money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and respectable—

MRS HUSHABYE
[interrupting]
Ho! respectable! How did you pick up Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me that I am a—a—a—