Misalliance Part 13

PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless.

Youre a woman: you can say what you like.

HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival!

Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I d.a.m.ned you?

PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton--

HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like.

PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like?

HYPATIA. Dont you?

PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free.

HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free.

PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen.

HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them.

I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do?

PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._

HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._

_During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._

TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath.

He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._

THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man.

TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath?

THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda t.i.tmus.

TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh?

THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my G.o.d! and youre alive.

TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it.

THE MAN. Much you care, d.a.m.n you!

TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman.

THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her?

TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was?

THE MAN. Lucinda t.i.tmus.

TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything?

THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim!

TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she?

THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph.

TARLETON. Good.

THE MAN. Ive two photographs.

TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy!

THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old woman.

TARLETON. She'd have done that anyhow, my lad. We all grow old.

Look at me! _[Seeing that the man is embarra.s.sed by his pistol in fumbling for the photographs with his left hand in his breast pocket]_ Let me hold the gun for you.

THE MAN. _[retreating to the worktable]_ Stand back. Do you take me for a fool?

TARLETON. Well, youre a little upset, naturally. It does you credit.

THE MAN. Look here, upon this picture and on this. _[He holds out the two photographs like a hand at cards, and points to them with the pistol]._

TARLETON. Good. Read Shakespear: he has a word for every occasion.

_[He takes the photographs, one in each hand, and looks from one to the other, pleased and interested, but without any sign of recognition]_ What a pretty girl! Very pretty. I can imagine myself falling in love with her when I was your age. I wasnt a bad-looking young fellow myself in those days. _[Looking at the other]_ Curious that we should both have gone the same way.

THE MAN. You and she the same way! What do you mean?

TARLETON. Both got stout, I mean.

THE MAN. Would you have had her deny herself food?

TARLETON. No: it wouldnt have been any use. It's const.i.tutional.

No matter how little you eat you put on flesh if youre made that way.

_[He resumes his study of the earlier photograph]._

THE MAN. Is that all the feeling that rises in you at the sight of the face you once knew so well?

TARLETON. _[too much absorbed in the portrait to heed him]_ Funny that I cant remember! Let this be a lesson to you, young man. I could go into court tomorrow and swear I never saw that face before in my life if it wasnt for that brooch _[pointing to the photograph]._ Have you got that brooch, by the way? _[The man again resorts to his breast pocket]._ You seem to carry the whole family property in that pocket.

THE MAN. _[producing a brooch]_ Here it is to prove my bona fides.

TARLETON. _[pensively putting the photographs on the table and taking the brooch]_ I bought that brooch in Cheapside from a man with a yellow wig and a cast in his left eye. Ive never set eyes on him from that day to this. And yet I remember that man; and I cant remember your mother.