Plays Pleasant

by George Bernard Shaw

  Gloria, who is hardly past twenty, is a much more formidable person than her mother. She is the incarnation of haughty high-mindedness, raging with the impatience of a mettlesome dominative character paralysed by the inexperience of her youth, and unwillingly disciplined by the constant danger of ridicule from her irreverent juniors. Unlike her mother, she is all passion; and the conflict of her passion with her obstinate pride and intense fastidiousness results in a freezing coldness of manner. In an ugly woman all this would be repulsive; but Gloria is attractive. A dangerous girl, one would say, if the moral passions were not also marked, and even nobly marked, in a fine brow. Her tailormade skirt-and-jacket dress, of saffron brown cloth, seems conventional when her back is turned; but it displays in front a blouse of sea-green silk which scatters its conventionality with one stroke, and sets her apart as effectually as the twins from the ordinary run of fashionable seaside humanity.

  Mrs Clandon comes a little way into the room looking round to see who is present. Gloria, who studiously avoids encouraging the twins by betraying any interest in them, wanders to the window and looks out to sea with her thoughts far away. The parlormaid, instead of withdrawing, shuts the door and waits at it.

  MRS CLANDON. Well, children? How is the toothache, Dolly?

  DOLLY. Cured, thank Heaven. Ive had it out. [She sits down on the step of the operating chair].

  Mrs Clandon takes the writing-table chair.

  PHILIP [striking in gravely from the hearth] And the dentist, a first rate professional man of the highest standing, is coming to lunch with us.

  MRS CLANDON [looking round apprehensively at the servant] Phil!

  THE PARLORMAID. Beg pardon, maam. I’m waiting for Mr Valentine. I have a message for him.

  DOLLY. Who from?

  MRS CLANDON [shocked] Dolly!

  Dolly catches her lips suppressively with her finger tips.

  THE PARLORMAID. Only the landlord, maam.

  Valentine, in a blue serge suit, with a straw hat in his hand, comes back in high spirits, out of breath with the haste he has made. Gloria turns from the window and studies him with chilling attention.

  PHILIP. Let me introduce you, Mr Valentine. My mother, Mrs Lanfrey Clandon. [Mrs Clandon bows. Valentine bows, self-possessed and quite equal to the occasion.] My sister Gloria. [Gloria bows with cold dignity and sits down on the sofa].

  Valentine falls abjectly in love at first sight. He fingers his hat nervously, and makes her a sneaking bow.

  MRS CLANDON. I understand that we are to have the pleasure of seeing you at luncheon today, Mr Valentine.

  VALENTINE. Thank you – er – if you dont mind – I mean if you will be so kind – [to the parlormaid, testily] What is it?

  THE PARLORMAID. The landlord, sir, wishes to speak to you before you go out.

  VALENTINE. Oh, tell him I have four patients here. [The Clandons look surprised, except Phil, who is imperturbable]. If he wouldnt mind waiting just two minutes, I – I’ll slip down and see him for a moment. [Throwing himself confidentially on her sense of position] Say I’m busy, but that I want to see him.

  THE PARLORMAID [reassuringly] Yes, sir. [She goes].

  MRS CLANDON [on the point of rising] We are detaining you, I am afraid.

  VALENTINE. Not at all, not at all. Your presence here will be the greatest help to me. The fact is, I owe six weeks rent; and Ive had no patients until today. My interview with my landlord will be considerably smoothed by the apparent boom in my business.

  DOLLY [vexed] Oh, how tiresome of you to let it all out! And weve just been pretending that you were a respectable professional man in a first rate position.

  MRS CLANDON [horrified] Oh Dolly! Dolly! My dearest: how can you be so rude? [To Valentine] Will you excuse these barbarian children of mine, Mr Valentine?

  VALENTINE. Dont mention it: I’m used to them. Would it be too much to ask you to wait five minutes while I get rid of my landlord downstairs?

  DOLLY. Dont be long. We’re hungry.

  MRS CLANDON [again remonstrating] Dolly, dear!

  VALENTINE [to Dolly] All right. [To Mrs Clandon] Thank you: I shant be long. [He steals a look at Gloria as he turns to go. She is looking gravely at him. He falls into confusion]. I – er – er – yes – thank you [he succeeds at last in blundering himself out of the room; but the exhibition is a pitiful one].

  PHILIP. Did you observe? [Pointing to Gloria] Love at first sight. Another scalp for your collection, Gloria. Number fifteen.

  MRS CLANDON. Sh – sh pray, Phil. He may have heard you.

  PHILIP. Not he. [Bracing himself for a scene] And now look here, mamma. [He takes the stool from the bench; and seats himself majestically in the middle of the room, copying Valentine’s recent demonstration. Dolly, feeling that her position on the step of the operating chair is unworthy the dignity of the occasion, rises, looking important and uncompromising. She crosses to the window, and stands with her back to the end of the writing-table, her hands behind her and on the table. Mrs Clandon looks at them, wondering what is coming. Gloria becomes attentive. Phil straightens his back; places his knuckles symmetrically on his knees; and opens his case]. Dolly and I have been talking over things a good deal lately; and I dont think, judging from my knowledge of human nature – we dont think that you [speaking very pointedly, with the words detached] quite. Appreciate. The fact –

  DOLLY [seating herself on the end of the table with a spring] That weve grown up.

  MRS CLANDON. Indeed? In what way have I given you any reason to complain?

  PHILIP. Well, there are certain matters upon which we are beginning to feel that you might take us a little more into your confidence.

  MRS CLANDON [rising, with all the placidity of her age suddenly breaking up into a curious hard excitement, dignified but dogged, ladylike but implacable: the manner of the Old Guard] Phil: take care. What have I always taught you? There are two sorts of family life, Phil; and your experience of human nature only extends, so far, to one of them. [Rhetorically] The sort you know is based on mutual respect, on recognition of the right of every member of the household to independence and privacy [her emphasis on ‘privacy’ is intense] in their personal concerns. And because you have always enjoyed that, it seems such a matter of course to you that you dont value it. But [with biting acrimony] there is another sort of family life: a life in which husbands open their wives’ letters, and call on them to account for every farthing of their expenditure and every moment of their time; in which women do the same to their children; in which no room is private and no hour sacred; in which duty, obedience, affection, home, morality and religion are detestable tyrannies, and life is a vulgar round of punishments and lies, coercion and rebellion, jealousy, suspicion, recrimination – Oh! I cannot describe it to you: fortunately for you, you know nothing about it. [She sits down, panting].

  DOLLY [inaccessible to rhetoric] See Twentieth Century Parents, chapter on Liberty, passim.

  MRS CLANDON [touching her shoulder affectionately, softened even by a gibe from her] My dear Dolly: if you only knew how glad I am that it is nothing but a joke to you, though it is such bitter earnest to me. [More resolutely, turning to Phil] Phil: I never ask you questions about your private concerns. You are not going to question me, are you?

  PHILIP. I think it due to ourselves to say that the question we wanted to ask is as much our business as yours.

  DOLLY. Besides, it cant be good to keep a lot of questions bottled up inside you. You did it, mamma; but see how awfully it’s broken out again in me.

  MRS CLANDON. I see you want to ask your question. Ask it.

  DOLLY AND PHILIP [beginning simultaneously] Who – [They stop].

  PHILIP. Now look here, Dolly: am I going to conduct this business or are you?

  DOLLY. You.

  PHILIP. Then hold your mouth. [Dolly does so, literally]. The question is a simple one. When the ivory snatcher –

  MRS CLANDON [remonstrating] Phil!

  PHILIP. Dentist
is an ugly word. The man of ivory and gold asked us whether we were the children of Mr Densmore Clandon of Newbury Hall. In pursuance of the precepts in your treatise on Twentieth Century Conduct, and your repeated personal exhortations to us to curtail the number of unnecessary lies we tell, we replied truthfully that we didnt know.

  DOLLY. Neither did we.

  PHILIP. Sh! The result was that the gum architect made considerable difficulties about accepting our invitation to lunch, although I doubt if he has had anything but tea and bread and butter for a fortnight past. Now my knowledge of human nature leads me to believe that we had a father, and that you probably know who he was.

  MRS CLANDON [her agitation returning] Stop, Phil. Your father is nothing to you, nor to me. [Vehemently] That is enough.

  The twins are silenced, but not satisfied. Their faces fall. But Gloria, who has been following the altercation attentively, suddenly intervenes.

  GLORIA [advancing] Mother: we have a right to know.

  MRS CLANDON [rising and facing her] Gloria! ‘We’! Who is ‘we’?

  GLORIA [steadfastly] We three. [Her tone is unmistakable: she is pitting her strength against her mother’s for the first time. The twins instantly go over to the enemy].

  MRS CLANDON [wounded] In your mouth ‘we’ used to mean you and I, Gloria.

  PHILIP [rising decisively and putting away the stool] We’re hurting you: let’s drop it. We didnt think youd mind. I dont want to know.

  DOLLY [coming off the table] I’m sure I dont. Oh, dont look like that, mamma. [She looks angrily at Gloria and flings her arms round her mother’s neck].

  MRS CLANDON. Thank you, my dear. Thanks, Phil. [She detaches Dolly gently and sits down again].

  GLORIA [inexorably] We have a right to know, mother.

  MRS CLANDON [indignantly] Ah! You insist.

  GLORIA. Do you intend that we shall never know?

  DOLLY. Oh Gloria, dont. It’s barbarous.

  GLORIA [with quiet scorn] What is the use of being weak? You see what has happened with this gentleman here, mother. The same thing has happened to me.

  MRS CLANDON DOLLY PHILIP } [all together] { What do you mean? Oh, tell us! What happened to you?

  GLORIA. Oh, nothing of any consequence. [She turns away from them and strolls up to the easy chair at the fireplace, where she sits down, almost with her back to them. As they wait expectantly, she adds, over her shoulder, with studied indifference] On board the steamer, the first officer did me the honor to propose to me.

  DOLLY. No: it was to me.

  MRS CLANDON. The first officer! Are you serious, Gloria? What did you say to him? [Correcting herself] Excuse me: I have no right to ask that.

  GLORIA. The answer is pretty obvious. A woman who does not know who her father was cannot accept such an offer.

  MRS CLANDON. Surely you did not want to accept it!

  GLORIA [turning a little and raising her voice] No; but suppose I had wanted to!

  PHILIP. Did that difficulty strike you, Dolly?

  DOLLY. No. I accepted him.

  GLORIA MRS CI ANDON PHILIP} [all crying out together] {Accepted him! Dolly! Oh, I say!

  DOLLY [naïvely] He did look such a fool!

  MRS CLANDON. But why did you do such a thing, Dolly?

  DOLLY. For fun, I suppose. He had to measure my finger for a ring. Youd have done the same thing yourself.

  MRS CLANDON. No, Dolly, I would not. As a matter of fact the first officer did propose to me; and I told him to keep that sort of thing for women who were young enough to be amused by it. He appears to have acted on my advice. [She rises and goes to the hearth]. Gloria: I am sorry you think me weak; but I cannot tell you what you want. You are all too young.

  PHILIP. This is rather a startling departure from Twentieth Century principles.

  DOLLY [quoting] ‘Answer all your children’s questions, and answer them truthfully, as soon as they are old enough to ask them.’ See Twentieth Century Motherhood –

  PHILIP. Page one.

  DOLLY. Chapter one.

  PHILIP. Sentence one.

  MRS CLANDON. My dears: I do not mean that you are too young to know. I mean that you are too young to be taken into my confidence. You are very bright children, all of you; but you are still very inexperienced and consequently sometimes very unsympathetic. There are experiences of mine that I cannot bear to speak of except to those who have gone through what I have gone through. I hope you will never be qualified for such confidences.

  PHILIP. Another grievance, Dolly!

  DOLLY. We’re not sympathetic.

  GLORIA [leaning forward in her chair and looking earnestly up at her mother] Mother: I did not mean to be unsympathetic.

  MRS CLANDON [affectionately] Of course not, dear. I quite understand!

  GLORIA [rising] But, mother –

  MRS CLANDON [drawing back a little] Yes?

  GLORIA [obstinately] It is nonsense to tell us that our father is nothing to us.

  MRS CLANDON [provoked to sudden resolution] Do you remember your father?

  GLORIA [meditatively, as if the recollection were a tender one] I am not quite sure. I think so.

  MRS CLANDON [grimly] You are not sure?

  GLORIA. No.

  MRS CLANDON [with quiet force] Gloria: if I had ever struck you [Gloria recoils: Phil and Dolly are disagreeably shocked: all three stare at her, revolted, as she continues mercilessly] – struck you purposely, deliberately, with the intention of hurting you, with a whip bought for the purpose! would you remember that, do you think? [Gloria utters an exclamation of indignant repulsion]. That would have been your last recollection of your father, Gloria, if I had not taken you away from him. I have kept him out of your life: keep him now out of mine by never mentioning him to me again.

  Gloria, with a shudder, covers her face with her hands until, hearing someone at the door, she recomposes herself Mrs Clandon sits down on the sofa. Valentine returns.

  VALENTINE. I hope Ive not kept you waiting. That landlord of mine is really an extraordinary old character.

  DOLLY [eagerly] Oh, tell us. How long has he given you to pay?

  MRS CLANDON [distracted by her child’s manners] Dolly, Dolly, Dolly dear! You must not ask questions.

  DOLLY [demurely] So sorry. Youll tell us, wont you, Mr Valentine.

  VALENTINE. He doesnt want his rent at all. He’s broken his tooth on a Brazil nut; and he wants me to look at it and to lunch with him afterwards.

  DOLLY. Then have him up and pull his tooth out at once; and we’ll bring him to lunch too. Tell the maid to fetch him along. [She runs to the bell and rings it vigorously. Then, with a sudden doubt, she turns to Valentine and adds] I suppose he’s respectable? really respectable?

  VALENTINE. Perfectly. Not like me.

  DOLLY. Honest Injun?

  Mrs Clandon gasps faintly; but her powers of remonstrance are exhausted.

  VALENTINE. Honest Injun!

  DOLLY. Then off with you and bring him up.

  VALENTINE [looking dubiously at Mrs Clandon] I dare say he’d be delighted if – er –?

  MRS CLANDON [rising and looking at her watch] I shall be happy to see your friend at lunch if you can persuade him to come; but I cant wait to see him now: I have an appointment at the hotel at a quarter to one with an old friend whom I have not seen since I left England eighteen years ago. Will you excuse me?

  VALENTINE. Certainly, Mrs Clandon.

  GLORIA. Shall I come?

  MRS CLANDON. No, dear. I want to be alone. [She goes out, evidently still a good deal troubled].

  Valentine opens the door for her and follows her.

  PHILIP [significantly to Dolly] Hmhm!

  DOLLY [significantly to Phil] Ahah!

  The parlormaid answers the bell.

  DOLLY. Shew the old gentleman up.

  THE PARLORMAID [puzzled] Madam?

  DOLLY. The old gentleman with the toothache.

  PHILIP. The landlord.

  THE PARLORMAID. Mr Cram
pton, sir?

  PHILIP. Is his name Crampton?

  DOLLY [to Phil] Sounds rheumaticky, doesnt it?

  PHILIP. Chalkstones, probably.

  DOLLY. Shew Mr Crampstones up.

  THE PARLORMAID [going out] Mr Crampton, miss.

  DOLLY [repeating it to herself like a lesson] Crampton, Crampton, Crampton, Crampton, Crampton. [She sits down studiously at the writing-table] I must get that name right, or Heaven knows what I shall call him.

  GLORIA. Phil: can you believe such a horrible thing as that about our father? what mother said just now.

  PHILIP. Oh, there are lots of people of that kind. Old Chamico used to thrash his wife and daughters with a cart whip.

  DOLLY [contemptuously] Yes, a Portuguese!

  PHILIP. When you come to men who are brutes, there is much in common between the Portuguese and the English variety. Doll. Trust my knowledge of human nature. [He resumes his position on the hearth-rug with an elderly and responsible air].

  GLORIA [with angered remorse] I dont think we shall ever play again at our old game of guessing what our father was to be like. Dolly: are you sorry for your father? the father with lots of money!

  DOLLY. Oh come! What about your father? the lonely old man with the tender aching heart! He’s pretty well burst up, I think.

  PHILIP. There can be no doubt that the governor is an exploded superstition. [Valentine is heard talking to somebody outside the door]. But hark! he comes.

  GLORIA [nervously] Who?

  DOLLY. Chalkstones.

  PHILIP. Sh! Attention! [They put on their best manners. Phil adds in a lower voice to Gloria] If he’s good enough for the lunch, I’ll nod to Dolly; and if she nods to you, invite him straight away.