Plays Unpleasant (15 page)

LICKCHEESE
[
jumping up, relieved
] There! Now the murder's out. Excuse me, Dr Trench. Ex – cuse me, Mr Sartorius: excuse my freedom. Why not Dr Trench marry Miss Blanche, and settle the whole affair that way?

Sensation. Lickcheese sits down triumphant
.

COKANE
. You forget, Mr Lickcheese, that the young lady, whose taste has to be considered, decisively objected to him.

TRENCH
. Oh! Perhaps you think she was struck with you.

COKANE
. I do not say so, Trench. No man of any delicacy would suggest such a thing. You have an untutored mind, Trench, an untutored mind.

TRENCH
. Well, Cokane: Ive told you my opinion of you already.

COKANE
[
rising wildly
] And I have told you my opinion of you. I will repeat it if you wish. I am ready to repeat it.

LICKCHEESE
. Come, Mr Sekketerry: you and me, as married men, is out of the unt as far as young ladies is concerned. I know Miss Blanche: she has her father's eye for business. Explain this job to her; and she'll make it up with Dr Trench. Why not have a bit of romance in business when it costs nothing? We all have our feelins: we aint mere calculatin machines.

SARTORIUS
[
revolted
] Do you think, Lickcheese, that my daughter is to be made part of a money bargain between you and these gentlemen?

LICKCHEESE
. Oh come, Sartorius! dont talk as if you was the only father in the world. I have a daughter too; and my feelins in that matter is just as fine as yours. I propose nothing but what is for Miss Blanche's advantage and Dr Trench's.

COKANE
. Lickcheese expresses himself roughly, Mr Sartorius; but his is a sterling nature; and what he says is to
the point. If Miss Sartorius can really bring herself to care for Harry, I am far from desiring to stand in the way of such an arrangement.

TRENCH
. Why, what have you got to do with it?

LICKCHEESE
. Easy, Dr Trench, easy. We want your opinion. Are you still on for marrying Miss Blanche if she's agreeable?

TRENCH
[
shortly
] I dont know that I am. [
Sartorius rises indignantly
].

LICKCHEESE
. Easy one moment, Mr Sartorius. [
To Trench
] Come now, Dr Trench! you say you dont know that you are. But do you know that you aint? thats what we want to know.

TRENCH
[
sulkily
] I wont have the relations between Miss Sartorius and myself made part of a bargain. [
He rises to leave the table
].

LICKCHEESE
[
rising
] Thats enough: a gentleman could say no less. [
Insinuatingly
] Now, would you mind me and Cokane and the guvnor steppin into the study to arrange about the lease to the North Thames Iced Mutton Company?

TRENCH
. Oh, I dont mind. I'm going home. Theres nothing more to say.

LICKCHEESE
. No: dont go. Only just a minute: me and Cokane will be back in no time to see you home. Youll wait for us, wont you?

TRENCH
. Oh well, if you wish, yes.

LICKCHEESE
[
cheerily
] Didnt I know you would!

SARTORIUS
[
at the study door, to Cokane
] After you, sir.
Cokane bows formally and goes into the study
.

LICKCHEESE
[
at the door, aside to Sartorius
] You never ad such a managin man as me, Sartorius. [
He goes into the study chuckling, followed by Sartorius
].

Trench, left alone, looks round carefully and listens a moment. Then he goes on tiptoe to the piano and leans upon it with folded arms, gazing at Blanche's portrait. Blanche herself appears
presently at the study door. When she sees how he is occupied, she closes it softly and steals over to him, watching him intently. He rises from his leaning attitude, and takes the portrait from the easel, and is about to kiss it when, taking a second look round to reassure himself that nobody is watching him, he finds Blanche close upon him. He drops the portrait, and stares at her without the least presence of mind
.

BLANCHE
[
shrewishly
] Well? So you have come back here. You have had the meanness to come into this house again. [
He flushes and retreats a step. She follows him up remorselessly
]. What a poor spirited creature you must be! Why dont you go? [
Red and wincing, he starts huffily to get his hat from the table; but when he turns to the door with it she deliberately stands in his way; so that he has to stop]. I
dont want you to stay. [
For a moment they stand face to face, quite close to one another, she provocative, taunting, half defying, half inviting him to advance, in a flush of undisguised animal excitement. It suddenly flashes on him that all this ferocity is erotic: that she is making love to him. His eye lights up: a cunning expression comes into the corners of his mouth: with a heavy assumption of indifference he walks straight back to his chair, and plants himself in it with his arms folded. She comes down the room after him
]. But I forgot: you have found that there is some money to be made here. Lickcheese told you. You, who were so disinterested, so independent, that you could not accept anything from my father! [
At the end of every sentence she waits to see what execution she has done
]. I suppose you will try to persuade me that you have come down here on a great philanthropic enterprise – to befriend the poor by having those houses rebuilt, eh? [
Trench maintains his attitude and makes no sign
]. Yes: when my father makes you do it. And when Lickcheese has discovered some way of making it profitable. Oh, I know papa; and I know you. And for the sake of that, you come back here – into the house where you were refused – ordered out. [
Trench's face darkens: her eyes gleam as she sees it
]. Aha! you remember that. You
know it's true: you cant deny it. [
She sits down, and softens her tone a little as she affects to pity him
]. Well, let me tell you that you cut a poor figure, a very, very poor figure, Harry. [
At the word Harry he relaxes the fold of his arms; and a faint grin of anticipated victory appears on his face
]. And you, too, a gentleman! so highly connected! with such distinguished relations! so particular as to where your money comes from! I wonder at you. I really wonder at you. I should have thought that if your fine family gave you nothing else, it might at least have given you some sense of personal dignity. Perhaps you think you look dignified at present: eh? [
No reply
]. Well, I can assure you that you dont: you look most ridiculous – as foolish as a man could look – you dont know what to say; and you dont know what to do. But after all, I really dont see what any one could say in defence of such conduct. [
He looks straight in front of him, and purses up his lips as if whistling. This annoys her; and she becomes affectedly polite
]. I am afraid I am in your way, Dr Trench. [
She rises
]. I shall not intrude on you any longer. You seem so perfectly at home that I need make no apology for leaving you to yourself. [
She makes a feint of going to the door; but he does not budge; and she returns and comes behind his chair
]. Harry. [
He does not turn. She comes a step nearer
]. Harry: I want you to answer me a question. [
Earnestly, stooping over him
] Look me in the face. [
No reply
]. Do you hear? [
Seizing his cheeks and twisting his head round
] Look – me – in – the – face. [
He shuts his eyes tight and grins. She suddenly kneels down beside him with her breast against his shoulder
]. Harry: what were you doing with my photograph just now, when you thought you were alone? [
He opens his eyes: they are full of delight. She flings her arms around him, and crushes him in an ecstatic embrace as she adds, with furious tenderness
] How dare you touch anything belonging to me?

The study door opens and voices are heard
.

TRENCH
. I hear some one coming.

She regains her chair with a bound, and pushes it back as far as
possible. Cokane, Lickcheese, and Sartorius come from the study
.
Sartorius and Lickcheese come to Trench. Cokane crosses to Blanche in his most killing manner
.

COKANE
. How do you do, Miss Sartorius? Nice weather for the return of l'enfant prodigue, eh?

BLANCHE
. Capital, Mr Cokane. So glad to see you. [
She gives him her hand, which he kisses with gallantry
].

LICKCHEESE
[
on Trench's left, in a low voice
] Any noos for us, Dr Trench?

TRENCH
[to
Sartorius, on his right
] I'll stand in, compensation or no compensation. [
He shakes Sartorius's hand
].

The parlormaid has just appeared at the door
.

THE PARLORMAID
. Supper is ready, miss.

COKANE
. Allow me.

Exeunt omnes: Blanche on Cokane's arm; Lickcheese jocosely taking Sartorius on one arm, and Trench on the other
.

T
HERE
is a disease to which plays as well as men become liable with advancing years. In men it is called doting, in plays dating. The more topical the play the more it dates. The Philanderer suffers from this complaint. In the eighteen-nineties. when it was written, not only dramatic literature but life itself was staggering from the impact of Ibsen's plays, which reached us in 1889. The state of mind represented by the Ibsen Club in this play was familiar then to our Intelligentsia. That far more numerous body which may be called the Unintelligentsia was as unconscious of Ibsen as of any other political influence: quarter of a century elapsed before an impatient heaven rained German bombs down on them to wake them from their apathy. That accustomed them to much more startling departures from Victorian routine than those that shock the elderly colonel and the sentimental theatre critic in The Philanderer; but they do not associate their advance in liberal morals with the great Norwegian. Even the Intelligentsia have forgotten that the lesson that might have saved the lives of ten million persons hideously slaughtered was offered to them by Ibsen.

I make no attempt to bring the play up to date. I should as soon think of bringing Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair up to date by changing the fair into a Woolworth store. The human nature in it is still in the latest fashion: indeed I am far from sure that its ideas, instead of being 36 years behind the times, are not for a considerable section of the community 36 years ahead of them. My picture of the past may be for many people a picture of the future. At all events I shall leave the play as it is; for all the attempts within my experience to modernize ancient plays have only produced worse anachronisms than those they aimed at remedying.

1930

A lady and gentleman are making love to one another in the drawing room of a flat in Ashley Gardens in the Victoria district of London. It is past ten at night. The walls are hung with theatrical engravings and photographs: Kemble as Hamlet, Mrs Siddons as Queen Katharine pleading in court, Macready as Werner (after Maclise), Sir Henry Irving as Richard III (after Long), Ellen Terry, Mrs Kendal, Ada Rehan, Sarah Bernhardt, Henry Arthur Jones, Sir Arthur Pinero, Sydney Grundy, and so on, but not Eleonora Duse nor anyone connected with Ibsen. The room is not rectangular, one corner being cut off diagonally by the doorway, and the opposite one rounded by a turret window filled up with a stand of flowers surrounding a statuet of Shakespear. The fireplace is on the doorway side, with an armchair near it. A small round table, further from the door on the same side, with a chair beside it, has a yellow backed French novel lying open on it. The piano, a grand, is on the Shakespear side, open, with the keyboard at right angles to the wall. The piece of music on the desk is When Other Lips. Incandescent lights, well shaded, are on the piano and mantelpiece. Near the piano is a sofa, on which the lady and gentleman are seated affectionately side by side, in one another's arms
.

The lady, Grace Tranfield, is about
32,
slight of build, delicate of feature, and sensitive in expression. She is just now given up to the emotion of the moment; but her well closed mouth, proudly set brows, firm chin, and elegant carriage shew plenty of determination and self-respect. She is in evening dress
.

The gentleman, Leonard Charteris, a few years older, is unconventionally but smartly dressed in a velvet jacket and cashmere trousers. His collar, dyed Wotan blue, is part of his shirt, and turns over a garnet colored scarf of Indian silk, secured by a turquoise ring. He wears socks and leather sandals. The arrangement of his tawny hair, and of his moustaches and short beard, is apparently left to Nature; but he has taken care that Nature shall do him the fullest justice. His amative enthusiasm, at which he is himself laughing, and
his clever, imaginative, humorous ways, contrast strongly with the sincere tenderness and dignified quietness of the woman
.

CHARTERIS
[
impulsively clasping Grace
] My dearest love,

GRACE
[
responding affectionately
] My darling. Are you happy?

CHARTERIS
. In Heaven.

GRACE
. My own.

CHARTERIS
. My heart's love. [
He sighs happily, and takes her hands in his, looking quaintly at her
]. That must positively be my last kiss, Grace; or I shall become downright silly. Let us talk. [
He releases her and sits a little apart
]. Grace: is this your first love affair?