OLIVER. That isn’t fair, Tim. An extreme case makes anything seem absurd. (Earnestly to ISOBEL) You know, I do see what you mean and I do sympathise. But even if we kept all the money, would that matter very much? All this man Jenkins wanted was to leave an immortal name behind him. You’ve just told us that nothing else interested him. Jenkins—I don’t say it’s much of a name, but neither was Keats for that matter. Well, Grandfather robbed him of that, and a damned shame too, but now we are giving it back to him. So all that’s happened is that he’s had seventy years less immortality than he expected. But he can’t worry seriously about that, any more than Wordsworth can worry because he was born two hundred years after Shakespeare. They are all equally immortal.
MARION (to ISOBEL). You see, dear, that’s quite fair to everybody.
ISOBEL. One can’t argue about it; you feel it or you don’t. And I give up my share of the money, so there should be plenty for all of you, even after you have been “fair” to the others.
WILLIAM (who has felt ISOBEL’S scorn deeply). Isobel! I don’t think you can realise how much you have hurt [239]me by your words. After the first shock of your revelation it has been my one object to keep my real feelings, my very deep feelings, under control. I suppose that this revelation, this appalling revelation, has meant more to me than to any one in this room. Put quite simply, it means the end of my life work, the end of a career.... I think you know how I devoted myself to Oliver Blayds——
MARION. Simply devoted himself, dear.
WILLIAM. I gave up whatever other ambitions I may have had—
MARION (to the children). I always said that Father could have done anything.
WILLIAM. —And I set myself from that day on to live for one thing only, Oliver Blayds. It was a great pride to me to be his son-in-law, a great pride to be his secretary, but the greatest pride of all was the thought that I was helping others to know and to love, as I knew and loved him, that very great poet, that very great man, Oliver Blayds. You tell me now that he is—(he snaps his fingers)—nothing. A hollow mask. (His voice rises) I think I have some right to be angry; I think I have some right to bear resentment against this man who has tricked me, who has been making a fool of me for all these years. When I think of the years of labour which I have spent already in getting the materials together for this great man’s life; when I think how I have listened to him and taken down eagerly his every word; when I think that to-morrow I am to be held up to the derision of the world for the gullible fool I have shown myself to be, I think I have a right to be angry. (With a great effort he controls himself and goes on more quietly) But I have tried to control my feelings. I have remembered that he was your father and Marion’s father, and I have tried to [240]control myself. To forget my own feelings, and to consider only how best to clear up this wreckage that Oliver Blayds has left behind. It is not for you to scorn me, me who have been the chief one to suffer.
MARION. Poor Father! (She puts out a hand.)
WILLIAM (patting it). That’s all right. I don’t want pity. I just want Isobel to try to realise what it means to me.