Three Plays by Granville-Barker Part 108

FRANCES. [_Turning back enlightened a little._] That's more the trouble then than the Cabinet question?

_He shakes himself to his feet and begins to pace the room; his keenness coming back to him, his brow knitting again with the delight of thought._

TREBELL. Oh . . as to me against the world . . I'm fortified with comic courage. [_Then turning on her like any examining professor._] Now which do you believe . . that Man is the reformer, or that the Time brings forth such men as it needs and lobster-like can grow another claw?

FRANCES. [_Watching this new mood carefully._] I believe that you'll be missed from Lord Horsham's Cabinet.

TREBELL. The hand-made statesman and his hand-made measure! They were out of place in that pretty Tory garden. Those men are the natural growth of the time. Am I?

FRANCES. Just as much. And wasn't your bill going to be such a good piece of work? That can't be thrown away . . wasted.

TREBELL. Can one impose a clever idea upon men and women? I wonder.

FRANCES. That rather begs the question of your very existence, doesn't it?

_He comes to a standstill._

TREBELL. I know.

_His voice shows her that meaning in her words and beyond it a threat.

She goes to him, suddenly shaking with fear._

FRANCES. Henry, I didn't mean that.

TREBELL. You think I've a mind to put an end to that same?

FRANCES. [_Belittling her fright._] No . . for how unreasonable. . .

TREBELL. In view of my promising past. I've stood for success, f.a.n.n.y; I still stand for success. I could still do more outside the Cabinet than the rest of them, inside, will do. But suddenly I've a feeling the work would be barren. [_His eyes s.h.i.+ft beyond her; beyond the room._] What is it in your thoughts and actions which makes them bear fruit? Something that the roughest peasant may have in common with the best of us intellectual men . . something that a dog might have. It isn't successful cleverness.

_She stands . . his trouble beyond her reach._

FRANCES. Come now . . you've done very well with your life.

TREBELL. Do you know how empty I feel of all virtue at this moment?

_He leaves her. She must bring him back to the plane on which she can help him._

FRANCES. We must think what's best to be done . . now . . and for the future.

TREBELL. Why, I could go on earning useless money at the Bar . . think how nice that would be. I could blackmail the next judges.h.i.+p out of Horsham. I think I could even smash his Disestablishment Bill . . and perhaps get into the next Liberal Cabinet and start my own all over again, with necessary modifications. I shan't do any such things.

FRANCES. No one knows about you and poor Amy?

TREBELL. Half a dozen friends. Shall I offer to give evidence at the inquest this morning?

FRANCES. [_With a little s.h.i.+ver._] They'll say bad enough things about her without your blackening her good name.

_Without warning, his anger and anguish break out again._

TREBELL. All she had . . all there is left of her! She was a nothingness . . silly . . vain. And I gave her this power over me!

_He is beaten, exhausted. Now she goes to him, motherlike._

FRANCES. My dear, listen to me for a little. Consider that as a sorrow and put it behind you. And think now . . whatever love there may be between us has neither hatred nor jealousy in it, has it, Henry? Since I'm not a mistress or a friend but just the likest fellow-creature to you . . perhaps.

TREBELL. [_Putting out his hand for hers._] Yes, my sister. What I've wanted to feel for vague humanity has been what I should have felt for you . . if you'd ever made a single demand on me.

_She puts her arms round him; able to speak._

FRANCES. Let's go away somewhere . . I'll make demands. I need refres.h.i.+ng as much as you. My joy of life has been withered in me . .

oh, for a long time now. We must kiss the earth again . . take interest in common things, common people. There's so much of the world we don't know. There's air to breathe everywhere. Think of the flowers in a Tyrol valley in the early spring. One can walk for days, not hurrying, as soon as the pa.s.ses are open. And the people are kind. There's Italy . .

there's Russia full of simple folk. When we've learned to be friends with them we shall both feel so much better.

TREBELL. [_Shaking his head, unmoved._] My dear sister . . I should be bored to death. The life contemplative and peripatetic would literally bore me into a living death.

FRANCES. [_Letting it be a fairy tale._] Is your mother the Wide World nothing to you? Can't you open your heart like a child again?

TREBELL. No, neither to the beauty of Nature nor the particular human animals that are always called a part of it. I don't even see them with your eyes. I'm a son of the anger of Man at men's foolishness, and unless I've that to feed upon . . .! [_Now he looks at her, as if for the first time wanting to explain himself, and his voice changes._]

Don't you know that when a man cuts himself shaving, he swears? When he loses a seat in the Cabinet he turns inward for comfort . . and if he only finds there a spirit which should have been born, but is dead . .

what's to be done then?

FRANCES. [_In a whisper._] You mustn't think of that woman. . .

TREBELL. I've reasoned my way through life. . .

FRANCES. I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall.

TREBELL. [_The wave of his agony rising again._] But here's something in me which no knowledge touches . . some feeling . . some power which should be the beginning of new strength. But it has been killed in me unborn before I had learnt to understand . . and that's killing me.

FRANCES. [_Crying out._] Why . . why did no woman teach you to be gentle? Why did you never believe in any woman? Perhaps even I am to blame. . .

TREBELL. The little fool, the little fool . . why did she kill my child?

What did it matter what I thought her? We were committed together to that one thing. Do you think I didn't know that I was heartless and that she was socially in the wrong? But what did Nature care for that? And Nature has broken us.

FRANCES. [_Clinging to him as he beats the air._] Not you. She's dead, poor girl . . but not you.

TREBELL. Yes . . that's the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped in it. The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her body.

_There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly, never loosing his hand._

FRANCES. Henry, I want your promise that you'll go on living till . .

till . .

TREBELL. Don't cry, f.a.n.n.y, that's very foolish.

FRANCES. Till you've learnt to look at all this calmly. Then I can trust you.

TREBELL _smiles, not at all grimly_.