The Yellow Book Volume I Part 24

Lord Doldrummond Cyril, _his Son_ (Viscount Aprile) Sir Digby Soame Charles Mandeville, _a tenor_ Mr. Banish, _a banker_ The Hon. Arthur Featherleigh Mr. Samuel Benjamin, _a money-lender_ Lady Doldrummond Julia, _an heiress_ The Hon. Mrs. Howard de Trappe, _her mother, a widow_ Sarah Sparrow, _an American prima donna_

Act I

Scene--_The Library in_ Lord Doldrummond's _house at Brighton. The scene represents a richly-furnished but somewhat oppressive room. The chairs and tables are all narrow, the lamp-shades stiff, the windows have double gla.s.ses._ Lord Doldrummond, _a man of middle-age, handsome, but with a dejected, browbeaten air, sits with a rug over his knees, reading "The Church Times." The_ Butler _announces_ "Sir Digby Soame." Sir Digby _is thin and elderly; has an easy smile and a sharp eye; dresses well; has two manners--the abrupt with men, the suave with women; smiles into his beard over his own witticisms._

_Lord Dol._ Ah, Soame, so you are here at last?

_Soame._ [_Looking at his watch._] I am pretty punctual, only a few minutes late.

_Lord Dol._ I am worried, anxious, irritable, and that has made the time seem long.

_Soame._ Worried, anxious? And what about? Are you not well? Have you found that regularity of life ruins the const.i.tution?

_Lord Dol._ No, my dear Soame, no. But I am willing to own that the existence which my wife enjoys, and which I have learnt to endure, would not suit everyone.

_Soame._ I am glad to find you more tolerant. You used to hold the very harshest and most crude opinions. I remember when we were boys, I could never persuade you to accept the admirable doctrine that a reformed rake makes the best husband!

_Lord Dol._ [_Timidly._] Repentance does not require so large an income as folly! This may explain that paradox. You know, in my way, I, too, am something of a philosopher! I married very young, whereas you entered the Diplomatic Service and resolved to remain single: you wished to study women. I have lived with one for five-and-twenty years. [_Sighs._]

_Soame._ Oh, I admit at once that yours is the greater achievement and was the more daring ambition.

_Lord Dol._ I know all I wish to know about women, but men puzzle me extremely. So I have sent for you. I want your advice. It is Cyril who is the cause of my uneasiness. I am afraid that he is not happy.

_Soame._ Cyril not happy? What is he unhappy about? You have never refused him anything?

_Lord Dol._ Never! No man has had a kinder father! When he is unreasonable I merely say "You are a fool, but please yourself!" No man has had a kinder father!

_Soame._ Does he complain?

_Lord Dol._ He has hinted that his home is uncongenial--yet we have an excellent cook! Ah, thank heaven every night and morning, my dear Digby, that you are a bachelor. Praying for sinners and breeding them would seem the whole duty of man. I was no sooner born than my parents were filled with uneasiness lest I should not live to marry and beget an heir of my own. Now I have an heir, his mother will never know peace until she has found him a wife!

_Soame._ And will you permit Lady Doldrummond to use the same method with Cyril which your mother adopted with such appalling results in your own case?

_Lord Dol._ It does not seem my place to interfere, and love-affairs are not a fit subject of conversation between father and son!

_Soame._ But what does Cyril say to the matrimonial prospect?

_Lord Dol._ He seems melancholy and eats nothing but oranges. Yes, Cyril is a source of great uneasiness.

_Soame._ Does Lady Doldrummond share this uneasiness?

_Lord Dol._ My wife would regard a second thought on any subject as a most dangerous form of temptation. She insists that Cyril has everything which a young man could desire, and when he complains that the house is dull, she takes him for a drive!

_Soame._ But _you_ understand him?

_Lord Dol._ I think I do. If I were young again----

_Soame._ Ah, you regret! I always said you would regret it if you did not take your fling! The pleasures we imagine are so much more alluring, so much more dangerous, than those we experience. I suppose you recognise in Cyril the rascal you might have been, and feel that you have missed your vocation?

_Lord Dol._ [_Meekly._] I was never unruly, my dear Soame. We all have our moments, I own, yet--well, perhaps Cyril has inherited the tastes which I possessed at his age, but lacked the courage to obey.

_Soame._ And so you wish me to advise you how to deal with him! Is he in love? I have constantly observed that when young men find their homes unsympathetic, it is because some particular lady does not form a member of the household. It is usually a lady, too, who would not be considered a convenient addition to any mother's visiting-list!

_Lord Dol._ Lady Doldrummond has taught him that women are the scourges of creation. You, perhaps, do not share that view!

_Soame._ Certainly not. I would teach him to regard them as the reward, the compensation, the sole delight of this dreariest of all possible worlds.

_Lord Dol._ [_Uneasily._] Reward! Compensation! Delight! I beg you will not go so far as that. What notion would be more upsetting? Pray do not use such extreme terms!

_Soame._ Ha! ha! But tell me, Doldrummond, is it true that your wife insists on his retiring at eleven and rising at eight? I hear that she allows him nothing stronger than ginger ale and lemon; that she selects his friends, makes his engagements, and superintends his amus.e.m.e.nts?

Should he marry, I am told she will even undertake the office of best man!

_Lord Dol._ Poor soul! she means well; and if devotion could make the boy a saint he would have been in heaven before he was out of his long clothes. As it is, I fear that nothing can save him.

_Soame._ Save him? You speak as though you suspected that he was not such a saint as his mother thinks him.

_Lord Dol._ I suspect nothing. I only know that my boy is unhappy. You might speak to him, and draw him out if occasion should offer--but do not say a word about this to Lady Doldrummond.

[_Enter_ Lady Doldrummond.--_She is a tall, slight, but not angular woman. Her hair is brown, and brushed back from her temples in the simplest possible fas.h.i.+on. Self-satisfaction (of a gentle and ladylike sort) and eminent contentment with her lot are the only writings on her smooth, almost girlish countenance. She has a prim tenderness and charm of manner which soften her rather cutting voice._]

_Lady Dol._ What! Cyril not here? How do you do, Sir Digby? I am looking for my tiresome boy. I promised to take him to pay some calls this afternoon, and as he may have to talk I must tell him what to say. He has no idea of making himself pleasant to women, and is the shyest creature in the world!

_Soame._ You have always been so careful to s.h.i.+eld him from all responsibility, Lady Doldrummond. Who knows what eloquence, what decision, what energy he might display, if you did not possess these gifts in so pre-eminent a degree as to make any exertion on his part unnecessary, and perhaps disrespectful.

_Lady Dol._ Ah! mothers are going out of fas.h.i.+on. Even Cyril occasionally shows a certain impatience when I venture to correct him.

As if I would hurt anyone's feelings unless from a sense of duty! And pray, where is the pleasure of having a son if you may not direct his life?

_Lord Dol._ Cyril might ask, where is the pleasure of having parents if you may not disobey them.

_Lady Dol._ [_To_ Soame.] When Herbert is alone with me he never makes flippant remarks of this kind. [_To_ Lord Doldrummond.] I wonder that you like to give your friends such a wrong impression of your character.

[_Turning to_ Sir Digby.] But I think I see your drift, Sir Digby. You wish to remind me that Cyril is now at an age when I must naturally desire to see him established in a home of his own.

_Soame._ You have caught my meaning. As he is now two-and-twenty, I think he should be allowed more freedom than may have been expedient when he was--say, six months old.

_Lady Dol._ I quite agree with you, and I trust you will convince Herbert that women understand young men far better than their fathers ever could. I have found the very wife for Cyril, and I hope I may soon have the pleasure of welcoming her as a daughter.

_Soame._ A wife! Good heavens! I was suggesting that the boy had more liberty. Marriage is the prison of all emotions, and I should be very sorry to ask any young girl to be a man's gaol-keeper.

_Lord Dol._ Sir Digby is right.

_Lady Dol._ The presence of a third person has the strangest effect on Herbert's moral vision. As I have trained my son with a care and tenderness rarely bestowed nowadays even on a girl, I think I may show some resentment when I am asked to believe him a being with the instincts of a ruffian and the philosophy of a middle-aged bachelor. No, Sir Digby, Cyril is not _my_ child if he does not make his home and his family the happiest in the world!

_Soame._ Yes?