ACT II
Upstairs
The attic that has been in turn John’s nursery, his school-room, and is now his flat. Plain distempered walls; a few pictures—some reproductions of Orpen and Augustus John, and of a Nevinson war picture called “The Doctor”; books; some statuettes; a baby grand piano, littered with manuscript music; two tennis racquets and plenty of comfortable places to sit. The fire-place, which has been converted to a gas-stove, is in the middle of the footlights—that is to say it is imagined—but the chairs are placed so that a group sitting round the imagined gas-fire, sit directly facing the audience, and quite intimately close to the footlights. Two doors; one into his bedroom, the other on to the landing at the head of the staircase.
Rosie shows in Toby. Toby is in the chorus of a musical comedy in a West End theatre. Slight and very pretty, with fair hair and large blue eyes. If you were to talk to her at all confidentially, she would tell you that she thought musical comedy silly, and the other girls in the chorus awfully empty; indeed she has a good deal of sense—but not of her own. Often she could have “got off” with middle-aged business men with money, or with young men with well-brushed hair and incomes; but such were of “no use” to her. Through a curious quality in her she attracts, and is attracted by artists; her life has been mostly in studios and cafés, and from her surroundings, and from the artists that have been in her life, she has acquired her sense and taste.
Rosie: This is what we call Mr. John’s attic ... you’ve got to wait here. I’ll tell him. (She is going; as she reaches the door.)
Toby: I say!
[Rosie turns.
Isn’t there a glass here?
Rosie: A glass?
Toby: Something to see yourself in.
Rosie: Oh! ... in ’is bedroom.
Toby: In there?
Rosie: Yes.
[Toby goes into the bedroom. Rosie has never seen her before; she looks after her; the tiniest wrinkle of her nose at the door through which Toby has disappeared is her criticism. She goes out of the room on to the landing and downstairs ... somebody is heard on the attic stairs, and John comes hurriedly into the room. He stops in the doorway surprised.
John: Toby!
[Toby appears at the door having taken off her hat and coat.
I couldn’t think where you’d got to.
Toby: I like your bedroom.
John: Do you?
Toby: Who was that I met outside?
John (with patent anxiety): Did you meet anybody?
Toby: Yes.
John: Where?
Toby: On the doorstep; Gwen they called her.
John (with patent relief): Oh! She’s all right ... she’s my sister.
Toby: It’s nice here. Why haven’t you asked me here before?
John: It’s nicer in your room—because it’s yours.
Toby: I hate you sometimes.
John: Why?
Toby: When you say things you don’t mean ... you never wanted me to come here ... you don’t want me now.... If you think I don’t know ... that’s why I’ve come. If you’d had the courage to say out you didn’t want me here, I wouldn’t of....
[He has no answer.
... I wish I hadn’t now; coming all up through a great horrid strange house; I nearly went away again.
John: I’m glad you didn’t.
Toby: Why?
John: I’m worried to-night—it’s good to be near you. (He is sincere.)
Toby: Is it?
John: Yes.
Toby: Then I’m glad I came.
John (getting happier): Also ... if you hadn’t come, I shouldn’t be able to give you something I’ve got for you.
Toby: A present?
John: Yes. Only I can’t give it to you now ’cos you’re cross.
Toby: Oh yes, you can.
John: No!
Toby: You’ll make me feel a beast for being cross ... where is it?
John: Shan’t tell you.
Toby: What is it?
[He shakes his head.
How large is it?... Is it little?
John: No.
Toby: Is it big?
John: Yes.
Toby: How big?
John: Middling.
Toby: Please; I’m not cross any more. (Whispering very prettily.) Where is it?
John: Kiss. (She does.) Turn round. (She does.) On that chair.
[She sees a milliner’s box, and going to it, undoes it, and extracts an attractive little frock.
Toby: Oh, you dear! It’s the one I saw in Shaftesbury Avenue ... isn’t it sweet? ... it cost a terrible lot ... you are awful to spend so much money on me. I love it. (She puts it in a chair to look at it.) Think I’ll look nice in it?
John: Shouldn’t be surprised.
[She undoes a button or two in the frock she has on, it slips from her, and there she stands half-naked and unashamed in the scantiest and daintiest of under-garments. She is going to try on her present, but:
John: Come here.
[She does. He puts his arms round her again; she snuggles her head on his shoulder and says softly:
Toby: Thank you. I’m sorry I was cross.
John: Do you hate me?
Toby: Sometimes.
John: Do you hate me now?
Toby: No.
John: Do you love me?
[For answer she looks up and her lips seek his—they kiss as lovers ... uncannily there is a shrill whistle in the room. Toby disentangles herself with wide-open eyes.
John: Sssssssh!
[A second whistle ... and a third, louder ... then silence; downstairs the enraged Mr. Freeman has banged the tube back on its hook.
Toby: Whatever is it?
John: A speaking-tube.
Toby: A speaking-tube? ... who taught it? ... what’s it say?
John: All clear.
Toby: Doesn’t it want to be answered?
John: No. But it means we’re alone here—you and I.
Toby: Oh!
[She is near the speaking-tube; John has gone to a big chair by the fire.
John: Put the light out ... the switch is there by the door ... there, silly ... just in front of you ... that’s right.
[She works the switch; the lights go out—except one softly shaded one.
Toby: Oooooooh! Nice.
[Meanwhile John lights the gas-fire.
[He holds a match where it should be and there is a terrific bang.
John: Good lord! These gas fires’ll be the death of me.
[He tries another match—this time with the normal and successful result. He throws a big cushion on the ground beside his chair now in the soft half-light; she comes and makes herself comfortable upon it, leaning against him. They are quiet ... he caressing her, she gazing into the fire.
Toby: It’s a funny gas-stove ... Mabel Claridge has got one like that in her room ... that man gave her another ring yesterday ... must of cost hundreds. She says there is nothing in it ... I don’t think.
[Her conversation trails off ... the cushion is comfortable, the heat is pleasant through the flimsy things she has on, and she likes his fingers through her hair.
It’s lovely....
[She leans luxuriously back towards him ... he kisses her.
John: You dear——
Toby: Thank you.
[He puts an arm round her, and their heads close, they both for a moment gaze into the fire.
John: You know ... I owe you an awful lot.
Toby: Do you?
John: Yes.
Toby: How much?
John: Let me think of a few of the things ... to begin with, everything on the piano’s yours.
Toby (screwing her head back): What’s on the piano?
John: All my songs.
Toby: Oh them—yes?
John: And you give me peace ... like nobody else in the whole world gives me.
Toby: Why?
John: Oh, why!... ’Cos there’s nobody else in the whole world with whom I can be quiet and effortless with all the barriers down.
Toby: Funny.
John: Just because you can slip out of your frock, like you did, as if I wasn’t there and come close into my arms when I ask you, without any fuss.
Toby (her face very close to him—her very low voice a lover’s): ’Course there isn’t any fuss—’cos I want to come close into your arms.
John: That’s the wonder of you.
[Suddenly she shifts her position; kneeling on the cushion she faces him; she shakes her hair with a throw of her head; there is a queer fierce laugh in her eyes—he catches it.
John: My dear, it’s such fun loving you.
Toby: Is it?
John: However much you’re loving me I can always see the fun of it dancing behind your eyes ... you’ve taught me that ... whatever happens I shall be eternally grateful.
Toby: What is going to happen?
John: I don’t know.... I don’t want anything to happen any more ever.... I want to sit here like this for ever and ever Amen.
[Down in the house there is a little noise—as it were a cloud the size of a man’s hand on the horizon—but it grows.
Toby: What’s that?
John: I don’t know.
Toby: Somebody coming up——
John: It can’t be.
[And the noise grows, as Mr. Freeman falls up the attic stairs ... there is a knocking at the door.
Good God!
[Toby leaps up; Mr. Freeman getting no answer comes in, and switches on the light.... Tableau! Mr. Freeman, John, Toby.
Mr. Freeman (after an appalling hiatus of silence, failing to cope with this new situation and throwing the scented letter on to the table): Yours.... Found it among mine.
John (rattled): Er ... thanks.... (Feebly) This is my father, my father—Miss Clyde.
[Mr. Freeman glares speechless. Toby is as if turned to stone.
Mr. Freeman: I’ll see you about this in the morning. (At the door he turns and starts to speak.) Frankie—— (He gets Toby in his vision again and collapses.) No, never mind ... I’ll see you in the morning.
[Even after the door has shut behind him the situation is beyond words; Toby is still motionless, but there is an ugly look in her face.... John is the first to speak.
John: I’m awfully sorry.
Toby: I’m going home.
John: I’m awfully sorry....
Toby: My things are in there. (She makes for his room.)
John (between her and the door): Toby!
Toby: Let me go ... I feel dirty all over.
John: Let me come with you—please.
Toby: All right, only let me get out of this bloody house.
[She disappears into the bedroom ... he is staring into the fire when there is a timid knock at the door ... it is repeated.
John (hurrying to the door): ... Hullo? Who’s there?
[The door opens before he reaches it and Gwen comes in.
Hullo, Gwen.
Gwen: I say, did I put my foot in it downstairs with father? I’m sorry.
John: Oh, that’s all right.
Gwen: I thought you wouldn’t mind me coming up—father told me you were alone.
John: Did he?
Gwen: Can Frankie come up?
John: Frankie!
Gwen: She’s staying the night ... she telephoned home.
John: Where is she?
Frankie (just outside): Here I am!
Gwen: It’s all right ... he’s all alone.
Frankie (her head in at the door): Can I come in?
[John gives a glance at the bedroom door which is shut ... and Frankie comes in.
John ... can I speak to you?
Gwen (tactful): I’ll be in my room.... I shan’t go to bed; I wish you’d give me a call later.
[She is gone.
Frankie: I couldn’t go home without seeing you.
[From the bedroom comes Toby’s voice.
Toby’s Voice: John!... John!
Frankie (going to the other door and calling): Gwen!!
Gwen’s Voice (half-way down the attic stairs): Hullo!
Frankie: Come back, please.
Toby’s Voice: I’m sorry I was cross ... it wasn’t your fault. I’ve got something to show you ... wait a sec....
[Gwen comes back....
Gwen: What is it?
[Silence.... Then:——Toby comes leaping into the room in John’s pyjamas and strikes an attitude.
Toby: TA—RA!!!!
[Again she is struck still and dumb by these two strangers; after a moment’s silence, with a real big explosive angry “Damn,” she goes back into the bedroom.... John follows her.
Gwen: I think it would be better if we went downstairs.
Frankie: I’m going to stay here ... have you ever seen her before?
Gwen: No.
Frankie: Do you know who she is?
Gwen: No.
Frankie: She’s common, isn’t she?
Gwen: I didn’t notice.... Frankie, I’m sure we’d better go downstairs.
Frankie: I’m not going.
[John comes in and begins hunting about.
Gwen: What is it?
John: Have you seen a dress about?
Frankie: A dress! What sort of a dress?
John: A little blue one.
Frankie (holding it out at arm’s length): This?
John: Yes. Thank you.
[He takes it from her and retires again with it.... Gwen hovers miserably. Frankie is rock-like.
Gwen (by the door—persuasively): Come on.
[The other shakes her head.... John comes back, shutting the door after him.
John: ... I’d rather you didn’t say anything about it till she’s gone, please.
[No answer. Toby comes in dressed again.
Toby: Show me down to the front door, please. (She crosses at once to the other door; John following.)
John (low to her): I can’t come with you at once.
Toby: I don’t want you to ... I don’t want you to come any more—ever.
John: Toby!
Gwen (by the open door into the bedroom): Frankie!
[She makes an enticing movement, and this time Frankie, more tractable, follows her into the bedroom.
Toby: I don’t want ever to see you again.
John: It’s been damnable for you ... you make me feel a brute.
Toby: Damned good thing—you are.
John: But who’ll look after you?
Toby: Thanks, I can look after myself. Don’t you worry ... show me downstairs in case I meet anybody....
John: You’re leaving your new frock.
Toby: Keep it ... you can give it to the next one.
[She goes ... John hesitates; then calls into his bedroom.
John: Gwen.
Gwen’s Voice: Yes?
John: I’ll be back in a minute.
[He follows Toby.... Gwen comes back into the room.
Gwen: They’ve gone.
[Frankie comes back; she is blazing.
Frankie: Oh, I am angry. It makes you wonder whether there are any decent men in the world. I didn’t know John was a cad.... (In a burst of rage) Oh, the beast! the beast! Oh, it makes me furious.... While that—girl was waiting up here for him he wanted to kiss me.
Gwen: Did he?
Frankie: Yes.
Gwen: But did he?
Frankie: What?
Gwen: Kiss you.
Frankie: No, he didn’t.
Gwen: Why not?
Frankie: I don’t know, he didn’t.
Gwen: Why didn’t he?
Frankie: He didn’t.
Gwen: You mean you wouldn’t let him?
Frankie: He came straight up here to her.... Oh, it’s so humiliating....
Gwen: D’you think it’s altogether his fault?
Frankie: Oh, I daresay she had plenty to do with it—you can easily see what sort she is.
Gwen (ominously quiet): I didn’t mean her.
Frankie (with fine ironic scorn): Oh, if it wasn’t her fault, I suppose you’ll say it’s mine next.
Gwen: Yes.
Frankie: Oh, don’t be ridiculous.
Gwen: If I was engaged to a man, and he wouldn’t let me kiss him, I’d jolly well go and kiss somebody else.
Frankie: Gwen!
Gwen: I would. There are times when you must be kissed.
Frankie: Gwen!
Gwen: Well, there are—don’t you ever feel like that?
Frankie: No; besides her; she’d kiss anyone.
Gwen: I don’t see why you should say that—perhaps they’re in love.
Frankie: Love! What he feels for her isn’t love.
Gwen: It’s what I’d want my man to feel for me ... if ever I have a man in love with me again that I want, I ... (But Frankie is crying.) Oh, Frankie. (She goes to her.) Don’t cry ... I didn’t mean what I said ... yes I did ... but not to say it like that ... Frankie ... it isn’t a bit simple.
Frankie: Yes, it is. Quite simple. He’s been a beast; nothing can alter that.
Gwen: I don’t know.
Frankie: I do.
Gwen: Such heaps of things are uncertain—that seemed certain——
[John comes back.
John (speaking at once): Will you talk to me, Frankie?
Frankie: I suppose so.
John: Leave us alone, Sis, for a bit.
Gwen: Are they up, downstairs?
John: There’s a light in the drawing-room.
Gwen: Can I go in there (indicating his bedroom)? I should be cross-examined, and I feel all wrong for them downstairs to-night.
[John opens the bedroom door for her, and she passes into the room; he shuts the door after her ... there is a little silence between John and Frankie.
John (quietly, almost tonelessly, speaking facts): I met her during the war when I was on leave ... we had supper after the theatre, and I went back to her flat—and stayed there ... and I’ve been there, sometimes, ever since.
[She doesn’t answer.
... I’m very sorry it should have happened like this.
Frankie: I never dreamed of anything like it.... I trusted you ... I hate being deceived ... it’s been going on all this time and I never knew it ... all the time you were with me.
John (quickly): But I never made love to you ... it’s been absolutely apart from the rest of my life here. She’s never been here before.
Frankie: Hasn’t she?
John: No.... They were two quite distinct relationships, mine with you—and with her.
Frankie: I should hope so!
John: I’ve not made love to you, not because I haven’t wanted to, but because you didn’t want me to....
Frankie: I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t want to share that sort of thing, thank you.
John: You wouldn’t have done.
Frankie: What do you mean?
John: If you’d wanted to make love, I shouldn’t have wanted anybody else.
Frankie: That’s easy enough to say now.
John: I’ve been wrong. I’ve let things drift.
Frankie: Why?
John: All this time, I’ve hoped something would flare up between us, and then it would have been perfect—but it hasn’t.
Frankie: You say it’s my fault too!
John: It’s nobody’s fault. We’re different—that’s all.
Frankie: Do you want to marry this girl?
John: No.
Frankie: I don’t understand——
John: Frankie, don’t cry.
Frankie (through her tears): And this morning I was talking to mother about furnishing ... and the little house ... it’s arranged, nearly ... what’ll everybody say? Oh, it’s too bad of you!
John: I’m awfully sorry; I ought to have had it out before; I’m sorry; don’t cry....
Frankie: Don’t talk then.
[But she cannot stop the tears and escapes from the room. The unhappy John remaining, throws himself into the depths of his chair; there is a knock at the door.
John: Come in.
[It is the little housemaid.
Rosie: Please, Mr. John, there’s a lady to see you.
John: Oh, my God! Where?
Rosie: Downstairs—in the morning-room. She’s waiting.
John: I’ll come.
Rosie: ... Please, Mr. John.
John: Yes?
Rosie: About that blow-pipe ... it wasn’t my fault ... ’e blowed; I couldn’t stop him.
John: That’s all right, Rosie.... In the morning-room?
Rosie: Yes, please, Mr. John.
[John goes out—Rosie following ... the silence in the room is broken by Gwen’s voice from the bedroom.
Gwen’s Voice: You’re very quiet! ... can I come back? Can I...? John!... Frankie!...
[Gwen’s head comes round the corner of the door ... and is so surprised at the emptiness that she apologises to it.
Oh, I beg your pardon!... I mean.... (She comes into the room with a laugh.)...
[Colin comes up from downstairs.
Colin: Hullo.
Gwen: Hullo.
Colin: I was told I’d find you up here.
Gwen: Do you know where John is?
Colin: I met him on the stairs. Margaret refused to come up till she’d heard from his own lips that we were wanted: I came up.
Gwen: ... Yes.
Colin: I’ve got those tickets.
Gwen: Oh, thank you.
Colin: For to-morrow night.
Gwen: Thank you.
[Unexpectedly there is an awkward little silence between them ... it grows uncomfortably.
Gwen: ... Won’t you have a cigarette?
Colin (gratefully): Thank you.
[He takes and lights one; she does the same; the horrid little silence hasn’t been killed.
Gwen: It’s a long time since I went to the theatre. It is kind of you.
Colin: I’m looking forward to to-morrow night.
Gwen: So am I.
[The door opens cautiously and Margaret Heal appears; a woman of about thirty-five; attractive without being strikingly beautiful or pretty; she is looking her best now, in evening dress and cloak.
Margaret: Anybody here?
Gwen: Hullo, Margaret. Come along in. What have you done with John?
Margaret: He’s walking round the square.
Colin: Sounds mathematical.
Margaret: Yes, it’s impossible.
Colin: Why?
Margaret: It’s raining; and he’s got no coat, and slippers. (To Colin.) You ought to go and fetch him in.
Gwen: It would be kind of you.
Colin: Certainly I will; if I may come back.
Gwen: Of course.
[Colin goes.
Margaret: There’s been trouble; I’m sure you don’t want us.
Gwen: Oh yes I do. I’m glad you came.
Margaret: It’s dreadfully late to call; but Colin was so anxious to come back here.
Gwen: Was he?
Margaret: Something’s happened to him since dinner.
Gwen: Oh?
Margaret: He’s unusually easy enough to manage; to-night he was as obstinate as a pig. He would come; said he wanted to see John particularly. And there was only the most expensive box left for to-morrow night. He would get it. It cost him about twelve guineas. I wonder who he’s going to take.
[She has taken off her cloak. Gwen takes it.
Thank you.
[Margaret sits.
What are you doing with yourself these days?
Gwen: Nothing special.
Margaret: Have you kept on your nursing at all, since the war?
Gwen: No. And then I only ran errands for the nurses.
Margaret: Did you like it?
Gwen: Rather. It was something outside home I wasn’t cross-examined about. I often envy you.
Margaret: Me?
Gwen: John often tells me about you, and your office.
Margaret: Oh!
Gwen: It’s a kind of a literary agency, isn’t it?
Margaret: That’s the sort of thing.
Gwen: It must have been awfully adventurous—starting on your own.
Margaret: I had a good training as a secretary. Then an election came and I had a girl to help me, and I found I could boss her. So I got three girls and bossed them—made them work for me, instead of me working for somebody else. Now I’ve got ten in the office—and several young men.
Gwen: It must be splendid to have built up something like that for yourself.
Margaret: It’s very interesting. The girls are interesting, too; they bring all their troubles to me.
Gwen: What sort of troubles?
Margaret: Men—mostly!
Gwen: Are you a good sort of person to bring your troubles to?
Margaret: I’ve had some of my own—so perhaps I am.
[Frankie comes in.
Gwen (surprised): Hullo, Frankie! ... you know Margaret.
Frankie: Of course.
Margaret: Good evening.
Frankie: I thought I’d go to bed, and then I thought I wouldn’t. I should just lie and think; and I heard you come up.
[The other two have nothing to say. She goes on; to Margaret:
Do you know what’s happened to-night?
Margaret: Vaguely.
Frankie: Did you know this girl?
Margaret: Vaguely.
Frankie: Everybody seems to think it’s my fault!
Gwen: Frankie! I didn’t say....
Frankie: Yes you did. So did John.
[Again a silence; again she continues:
I’ve been crying; I’ve got that over, now I’ve got used to the idea. John says he doesn’t love me.
[Again they have nothing to say; but she encourages them.
You can say what you like; I shan’t cry again.
Gwen (gently): He did: I don’t think he does now.
Frankie (unexpectedly defiant): Well, I’m quite sure I don’t love him! I was sobbing away upstairs, but I found it was for the drawing-room curtains I’m not going to buy; not for him. Of course, I’m angry and hurt at being deceived. And I don’t see why I shouldn’t be!... But you can say what you like.
Gwen (suddenly): Margaret!
Margaret: Yes?
Gwen: If I ask you some questions—things that’ll help me if I know—will you answer them?
Margaret: If I can.
Gwen: You’re not married?
Margaret: No.
Gwen: Have you ever let anybody love you? You know what I mean. Words are difficult—I don’t want to be frightened by them.... Have you?
Margaret: Yes.
Gwen: Just one man, or more than one?
Margaret: More than one.
Gwen: Tell me about it, with all of them, please!
[A little smile breaks on Margaret’s lips, and the tiniest laugh. Perhaps the audience laughs louder; so much the better, for Gwen answers——
Gwen: Don’t laugh, please. I don’t mean it to be anything to laugh at. I ask because I want to know. Not about you, but about love. I’m ashamed to be as old as I am, and not know—You have knowledge, and I haven’t.... So will you tell me, please?
Margaret: Ask away.
Gwen: When you didn’t know anything at all, how did it first happen?
[A pause. Then:
Margaret (beginning slowly in recollection): A man I was doing some work for asked me to join a walking party in the Lakes. We started all together. Half-way through, he and I branched off to walk across a pass and meet the others on the other side. I don’t know whether he meant to meet them. I meant to. But we didn’t.
Gwen: What sort of a man was he?
Margaret: An enthusiast about freedom.
Gwen: How old?
Margaret: About thirty. We walked among mountains and talked a great deal, and when it was getting dark, we reached an inn. And there we had dinner, and there we stopped.
Gwen: Did you love him very much?
Margaret: No. I was curious.
Gwen: Yes.
Margaret: It’s queer. We hadn’t got love, which nowadays seems to me the only justification—yet I’ve never had any regrets.
Frankie: Haven’t you?
Margaret: We were full of air and sky, and ideas for making the world better; probably very silly, but quite genuine. And he was very gentle and understanding.
Frankie: What happened when you did meet the others?
Margaret: We didn’t. We walked in the other direction for a week. Then we came back to London.
Frankie: And then?
Margaret: Then he fell in love with another girl. I daresay he taught her what he taught me. That seems to be his mission in life!
Frankie (indignant): That’s what always happens—weren’t you furious and ashamed?
Margaret: I was awfully pleased with myself! I was living in a boarding-house in Bloomsbury. I couldn’t afford a room of my own, or to go out in the evenings. I used to have to sit in the drawing-room with a lot of old spinster ladies, knitting and playing patience and talking scandal. Before the Lakes, I used to think I should go mad, sometimes; but afterwards, when I looked round at them all, there was a sort of triumphant glee in me. I used to say to myself, “I know more about life than you do. Poor old things!”
Gwen: That must have been topping.
Margaret: It was rather.
Gwen: ... Who was the next?
Margaret: I fell in love; so it’s not easy to talk about. I lived with him. For three years. The best time of my life. That’s all.
Gwen: D’you mind my asking?
Margaret: Of course not. Most people like talking about themselves.
Gwen: Why didn’t you marry?
Margaret (painfully): We meant to get married ... when we could afford children. And then I ended it.
Frankie: You?
Gwen: How?
Margaret: At least it was my fault. My man was away; and a boy fell in love with me; it was in the middle of the war when it seemed it would go on for ever. We met at a friend’s house; he was in khaki; at a house party. And then he came to have tea with me at my flat.
Gwen: Were you in love with him?
Margaret: I couldn’t have married him. But he was very strong, and good-looking ... and going back to the front. They knew what they were going back to, and they laughed. He was the first man younger than I was who told me that he loved me; and on his last night in England, as if he was my child, I wanted to give him everything he asked for. And he asked for me and—I was glad.
Gwen: I’m glad you were. Did he stop at your flat?
Margaret: We went to an hotel. We had dinner in the West End. Across the little table—with a shaded light on it—I kept catching him looking at me.... One evening when nothing mattered but our happiness. Then he went back to France, and I went home and told my man—and my life smashed.
Gwen: Didn’t he understand?
Margaret: Oh yes, he understood. We went to the Queen’s Hall the night I told him, and when we got home talked till five in the morning; it didn’t smash all at once—it just made a difference.
Gwen: I don’t understand.
Margaret: Nor do I—altogether. He had an affair soon afterwards. You see, he’d given up everything of that sort for me, and I didn’t ... so he didn’t ... it broke up our life together. Freedom’s a devastating thing ... a few hours I shall never forget, and a year of hell afterwards, and I’ve never really made up my mind whether I’m glad or sorry.... (To Frankie) Do you disapprove of me very much?
Frankie: Disapprove? No. But I don’t think it’s right.
Gwen (a quick challenge): What’s right?
Frankie: When I marry I shall have kept myself for him, whoever he is. And I hope he will, too.
Margaret: Oh, my dear!
Gwen (alert): Why did you say “Oh, my dear” like that?
Margaret: Another young man fell in love with me. (She turns to Frankie with a smile.) I’m sorry! I know it sounds dreadful saying them one after the other, quickly, like this! But there was a year of being lonely—desperately lonely. And it hurt the young man, too; so I let him take me away.
[A pause.
Gwen: ... Well?
Margaret (to Frankie): He was one of your ideal young men.
Frankie: Yes?
Margaret: And not only innocent; ignorant. He knew his own needs, vaguely; not mine, at all. I suffered from his ignorance.... But he taught me something.
Gwen: What?
Margaret: Why so many married women go on regarding love-making as horrid.
Gwen: Why?
Margaret: They’re married to men who don’t know how to make love. You see, without gentleness and sensitiveness and consideration—and much that comes from knowledge, what ought to be complete harmony can be very disharmonious, what ought to be utterly satisfying to body and soul can be utterly nerve-racking and unsatisfactory.... Somebody said that a man who can’t make love is like an Orang-Utang playing the fiddle.... It wants learning—the fiddle.
Frankie: It seems so horrid to make that part of it so important.
Margaret: I daresay it’s not so important if it’s right. It’s all-important if it’s wrong.
Gwen: How?
Margaret: If you can’t make love beautiful for your man, sooner or later, he’ll go to someone who can; or he’ll want to, which is as bad.
Frankie: Are you happy?
Margaret: I suppose not, really.
Frankie: What do you want?
Margaret: A man of my own, and children.
Frankie: Doesn’t that prove your way’s wrong?
Margaret: I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. Gwen asked me. I’ve told you.
Gwen: Thank you.
[Colin and John come in.
Come in and sit down.
Margaret: If she asks any questions, don’t you answer!
Colin: What sort of questions?
Margaret: Don’t ask me.
Gwen: I wish somebody’d tell me what love is.
John (sotto voce, getting out of his wet coat, disappearing into his bedroom with it): A damned nuisance.
Colin: I’ll tell you.
Gwen (eagerly): I should like to know what you think.
[Thus challenged, Colin collects himself; he joins the group round the fire.
Colin: As one gets older, and loses one’s illusions——
Margaret: They’re off.
Colin: And realises half one’s life has gone, and there’s an end to it some day, one is apt to get lonely. A lost atom in an infinity of blackness. In that blackness is despair. Only one thing can dispel it—Love. Real love. None of your free sort, John!
Gwen: What d’you mean?
Colin: I mean that love between two people that doesn’t need anything else, that won’t tolerate anything else, that’s lasting and tyrannical and jealous, is the only kind that’s worth while.
John (reappearing): What he really means is, he’s getting middle-aged.
Colin: Real love isn’t free.
John: Now listen, Grandpa; you’re nearly forty.
Colin: Shut up.
John: You’ve been at it twenty years. Have you ever had an experience which might be called free?
Colin: Don’t be silly.
John: You’ve passed the years of adventure, and you want to settle down. So you say: “Ah, I’m wise and sane and right, and all you poor young people are wrong.”
Frankie (very much at John): Do you think you know all about it because you’re wrong?
John: We couldn’t very well make a worse mess than they have, could we?
Frankie: I’m not so sure.
John: Oh, Frankie! If we sat down with a pencil and paper and tried to work out a really unclean, intolerant, silly system, we couldn’t work out a worse one than exists to-day. Do you realise that?
Frankie: No, I don’t.
John: I could make you.
Gwen: Try—go on.
John: Well—to start with ... the obvious things. (He talks without difficulty, speaking what he has thought about.) Hundreds of thousands of girls on the streets; and an incredible amount of sex disease. One in every five infected! A million or so girls more than men doomed to a life without love. Some millions of separated people living without love and not allowed to marry again. Thousands of marriages where only distaste, and hate, remain. Ugliness, and cruelty, and intolerance about the whole subject that makes the sum of unnecessary suffering almost incredible. Does all that sound like a success? After all, we’re responsible to the next generation for the sort of world they’ll find. Have we any right to say, “Oh, that’s all right; we can’t do better than that. We needn’t bother”? Look at all the girls in the world, Frankie—one lot selling themselves to any man who can pay them; the rest brought up in a sort of prison of asceticism, as candidates for the privilege of becoming a man’s married housekeeper.
Colin: Oh, come, John! Nowadays there are a great many “betwixt and betweeners,” as it were!
John: The whole thing’s breaking up.
Colin: Then why bother?
John: The break-up is all so undirected and casual.
Margaret: Are you so sure it is breaking up?
John: Yes. Quite.
Gwen: Why?
John (definitely, and as the result of previous thought): The Church is losing its influence.
Colin: I shouldn’t have thought that mattered tuppence.
John: It’s fundamental.
Colin: How?
John: For hundreds of years the Church has had the most enormous influence by its hold over the lives of men and women in this way. Hasn’t it?
Colin: Yes.
John: Obviously its attitude towards the whole thing is fundamental.
Colin: Yes.
John: It regards sex as sin. It’s holy when the Church permits it in matrimony; and then it’s got to remain holy, for ever and ever Amen.
Gwen: As if it did.
John: They couldn’t stop people loving outside their rules; but they’ve made them ashamed of it. They’ve made sex a secret furtive thing. Well, anyhow, we’ve got our chance now.
Margaret: Why now, particularly?
John: The Church built the system, and as a binding force it’s no longer effective. Here’s your society—in a certain mould; but the power that did the moulding, that held it together, has gone. It’s vaguely keeping its shape, at present—but it’s crumbling. It must crumble; and it’ll have to be remodelled. That was going on, anyhow. Then the war came. Everything shaken to its foundations. Personal beliefs, institutions—everything. The world’s fluid. That’s why it’s all so damnably important now.
Frankie: If it’s all as bad as you say, surely if people lived as Religion tells them, all these terrible things wouldn’t happen?
John: That’s exactly what the Church says. “Society must be purified. Men and women must be taught not to sin.” But what they mean by purifying society is simply forcing it back under the old rules; what they mean by Sin is any infringement of those rules. What we say is: it’s the very narrowness of their rules that has made the mess, it’s the reverse side of their mistakenness ... “they make of their bodies a rampart for the protection of respectable families”—that’s what Balzac says of prostitutes. “Sacrifices on the altar of monogamy”—Schopenhauer. Prostitution means disease. You can’t do away with these things by the old rules. The old rules are the cause of them. Practice proves it: the countries with easier divorce laws don’t have more promiscuity; less. You must tackle the business with new ideas—anyhow, it’s happening——
Gwen: What’s happening?
John: Compare the world of to-day and the Christian ideal of morality; a man must love one woman and one woman only; a woman must love one man and one man only; there must be no sex experience of any kind before or after marriage. That’s the ideal. And it’s tremendously important to realise it is the ideal; because either you agree with it and you’ve got to strive ruthlessly towards it, or you don’t agree with it, and you’ve got to find another.
Frankie: Are you so certain decent people don’t live according to it?
John: Yes.
Frankie: I’m not.
John: Take any average collection of people—take any ordinary audience at a theatre! How many men do you suppose have loved only their wives?
Colin: One or two, with luck.
John: How many women do you suppose have loved only their husbands?
Frankie: All of them. There may be just one or two who haven’t.
Margaret: You’re an optimist.
John: Anyhow, there are more of them every day; it’s a matter of mathematics.
Gwen: What do you mean?
John: Decent men don’t pick up girls off the streets. They love decent women. But if decent men love decent women—where are the decent women? All over the place.
Colin: If you had the rearranging of the world to-morrow what would you do?
Margaret: I’m going home.
Gwen: Not for a minute. Go on, John. What would you do?
Colin: A minute to recreate the world, John. Hurry up.
John: It comes down to a question of personal responsibility. When outside rules go, inside rules have got to take their places.
Gwen: Yes.
John: I mean, life was probably fairly simple to the early Victorian girl. She was brought up entirely without any sex in her life, waiting for a man to marry her. Anything else was so unthinkable that she didn’t think about it. The rules of her conduct were imposed from without. She had no decisions to make. So she didn’t worry. It’s different now.
Gwen: It is.
John: She’s got no respect for the outside rules; she’s got to find her inside ones. She is worrying. Whether you like it or not, she is. A great deal. Talking, thinking, deciding. Not always as her elders would like. But there are some fine people among ’em; they’ll do the devil of a lot to make a better world.
Gwen: I hope that’s true.
Margaret: They’re claiming a good deal more out of life.
John: Why shouldn’t they?
Gwen: Hear, hear!
Colin: You’re a dangerous influence, young man.
John: To you old men; I hope so; you’ve been damned dangerous to us!
Frankie: If Religion’s going to have nothing to do with your new world, what is?
John: You’re mixing up religion and the Church. There’s got to be a religious spirit; that’s essential; I mean the spirit that makes you strive to do the best with your life. I believe some young people to-day want to live according to their beliefs with a sincerity that’s religious—anyhow it’s causing nearly as much trouble.
Colin: A lot of conscientious consenters, that’s what you are.
Gwen: Now let’s be personal.
John: Go ahead.
Margaret: Must we!
Frankie: You needn’t talk.
Margaret: Needn’t! But I did.
Gwen: I know I’m sick of living at home; I know I’m sick of living alone. The obvious way out is to get married. But I don’t see how I can ever be certain of wanting to live all alone with the same person for the rest of my life.
Colin: When you’re in love, you’ll know all right.
John: That’s easy to say when you’re forty.
Colin: You’re being very unpleasant to me to-night.
John: I agree with Gwen. Nobody can know until they’ve tried.
Gwen: What d’you mean, “tried”?
Colin: Oh, my God, where’s a drink?
[He gets up to help himself to one.
John: Frankie, it’s been on the tip of my tongue during these last months to ask you where you wanted to go most in all the world: and then to ask you to come with me there, straight away.
Gwen: What fun! Would you have gone?
Frankie: Of course not.
Gwen: I don’t see why. A sort of trial affair.
John: No, Gwen. Much more respectable than that. Not a trial “affair.” A trial marriage. We should have gone definitely to find out whether we were suited for life.
Frankie: That would have been all very nice for you!
John: You flatter yourself. It might have been nice for you, too!
Frankie: Supposing you’d taken me away and left me—where should I be then?
Colin (with his drink): That depends where you went to.
Gwen: Answer, John.
John: If we parted it would mean it wasn’t successful. It would be a very good thing for both of us that we weren’t tied up for life.
Frankie: Anyhow, you’d see a good deal of the world, John!
John: What do you mean?
Frankie: You’d always be going away with different people all over the place.
John: This is becoming too personal.
Frankie: You began it.
John: Somebody asked me to rearrange the world; and I’m doing it. I certainly wouldn’t sweep away all existing marriage laws all at once——
Colin: When are we coming to what you would do?
John: I should go all out for a much larger tolerance; I should allow certain special relationships, within the present system, to be open and decent and honourable.
Frankie: There is something else.
Gwen: What?
Frankie: ... It’s difficult to say.
Colin: Good heavens! Somebody’s found something they can’t say. It must be awful.
Gwen: Go on, Frankie.
Frankie: Well—if you go away with somebody—and it’s a failure, and you part, for the girl it’s not just as you were, is it?
John: No. I see what you mean ... it seems to me, chastity is a thing nobody has any right to inflict upon anybody else.
Gwen: Hear hear.
John: It may be fine when it’s undertaken from real personal belief, but it’s not worth tuppence when it’s meant a tremendous effort of starvation that achieves nothing but starvation.
Margaret: You know a lot of girls are quite tranquil and untouched by all this, until it’s thrust under their noses.
Frankie: That’s it. That’s where you’re so wrong, John. You don’t save girls from trouble, you make it for them.
Gwen: Quite a lot aren’t tranquil. It’s wicked to keep people from love, when you needn’t.
John: Surely you have to deal with every case on its merits. When I have a daughter——
Frankie: When you have a daughter, you won’t be talking like this.
John: I shall want my daughter to be happily married; and this is the real answer to you, Frankie. If you want a happy, lasting marriage, the love-making part of it has got to be successful.
Margaret: Yes.
John: It’s fundamental. Bed-rock. The rock on which most marriages split, and up to now it’s been just left to chance ... a girl must have absolutely no real emotional experience until she’s married. Her first real experience may alter her whole being, yet by the time she’s allowed that first experience she must have tied herself up for life. Now I don’t think that’s merely silly. I think it’s definitely wrong.
Colin: I agree with you.
John: Grandpa agrees with me. I must be right.
Colin: Yes, my child, but I think you’ve got to be extremely careful over this experimenting business of yours.
John: Why?
Colin: You’ve got the artistic temperament, God help you. Most people haven’t. The majority of ordinary respectable human beings just want quiet, uneventful, peaceful lives.
Frankie: Yes.
Colin: You can just as easily wreck people’s happiness by persuading them to go experimenting all over the place, as by denying them the right to do it.
Gwen: Don’t just say “Don’t, don’t, don’t.” That’s negative ... a denial of things. We can’t live by that.
Colin: My dear—Miss Freeman, I’m not denying the years of adventure, as John calls them. Anyhow, they’ll remain for a good many, whatever we say. But when it comes to arranging a new system, keep adventure for adventure’s sake for the unfortunate artistic people. They’ll hurt themselves. And make a song about it. But if ordinary people get into the habit of fluttering from experience to experience they damned easily lose the stability or the capacity for happiness. And undisturbed love between two people is the highest happiness.
Gwen: But supposing you don’t find it, or make a mistake the first time?
Colin: I’m not denying the right of the ordinary person to experiment, but it ought to be for the definite object of discovering a true lover, and making a lasting marriage.
John: And if you help people to find their real mates, and when they’ve made a mistake, help them out of it quietly and decently, you’ll have many more happy marriages and much less beastliness.
Colin: Yes, I agree.
Margaret (rising): Well, I’m glad we’ve settled that!! Now I’m going home. Good night, Gwen.
Gwen: Good night.
Margaret (to Frankie): Good night ... don’t think me an abandoned woman——
Frankie: I don’t.
Margaret: Good night, John.
John: I’ll come down.
Colin: Got a cigarette, John?
John: There’s a new box on the table by the bed.
[Colin goes into the bedroom.
Margaret (at the door): It is dark.
Gwen: I’ll put on the light; it’s just at the bottom of the stairs.
[They both disappear.
John (alone with Frankie): Please ... will you forgive me?
Frankie: I hope you’ll find someone and be very happy.
John: I hope you will, too.
[Colin comes back into the room.
Frankie: Good night, Mr. Mackenzie.
Colin: Good night.
John: I’m just going to see Margaret out.
[He follows Frankie from the room. Colin alone. Gwen returns.
Colin: Hullo!
Gwen: Hullo!
Colin: I’m glad you’ve come back.
Gwen: Are you?
Colin: I suppose you wouldn’t care to come for a walk with me to-morrow afternoon?
Gwen: Yes.
Colin: Where can we go in an afternoon?
Gwen: Anywhere.
Colin: If I came for you in a car about ten, we might get down to the sea and back in time to dress for dinner and the ballet.
Gwen: That would be lovely.
Colin: Will you be ready at ten?
Gwen: Yes.
Colin: Ten o’clock then, to-morrow morning.
[John comes back.
Colin: I’ll be getting along. Don’t come down. Good night, John.
John: Good night.
Colin (to Gwen): Good night.
Gwen: Good night.
[Colin goes.
John: I wish they’d stayed. We might have had a decent talk! I’m going to do some work.
Gwen: I’m going to bed.
[As she goes, she takes an enormous handful of cigarettes from the new box which Colin had brought in from the bedroom.
John (noticing): Have a cigarette?
Gwen: No, thanks. I don’t smoke. Good night, dear.
John: Good night. Bless you.
[Gwen goes. John settled down in a comfortable chair to a book, he gets up to find sheets of manuscript paper, a pipe and tobacco, and throws the lot down beside the chair, and gets into it again ... his father comes into the room.
Mr. Freeman: There you are.
John: Yes?
Mr. Freeman: There’s just one thing I want to say to you to-night.
John: Yes?
Mr. Freeman: Not a word of all this business to your sister.
Curtain
End of Act II
ACT III