Complete Works of J. M. Barrie

by Unknown

  (LORD CARLTON coughs, controls his sense of humour. Exit LADY GEORGY. CECIL folds his arms in Napoleonic manner, and speaks with biting severity. When CECIL folds his arms LORD CARLTON retreats a little in mock terror.)

  Father, you gave me birth.

  LORD CARLTON (bows). Oh, not at all.

  CECIL. I never thanked you for that — I do so now. (He is pleased with this and assumes another Napoleonic pose.)

  LORD CARLTON. Do you know, Cecil, I think I shall have to have you painted as Napoleon.

  (CECIL drops his Napoleon in annoyance.)

  Come, Cecil, old man, we mustn’t quarrel.

  CECIL. I have no wish to quarrel, but you must own, father, that you are a little trying.

  LORD CARLTON. Well, perhaps I am, but you see it’s rather trying to have such a strapping son.

  CECIL. Well, I can’t help you being a little chap.

  LORD CARLTON (wincing). Well, I suppose you can’t. I don’t think you and I have ever had a square talk together. Why shouldn’t we? (Gets him to sit.) Have you ever wondered, Cecil, what sort of a fellow I am?

  CECIL (wistfully). Often!

  LORD CARLTON. I have often wondered what sort of a fellow you are. I suppose that is what makes a father and son so uncomfortable in each other’s presence.

  CECIL. Do you ever get the creeps when you ‘re left alone with me?

  LORD CARLTON. Mortally! My first instinct is to steal away.

  CECIL. So is mine.

  LORD CARLTON. And the worst of it is that I know that you know how I am feeling and that you know that I know how you are feeling.

  CECIL (gloomy). Yes.

  LORD CARLTON. They tell me you are quite bright and witty in the society of others.

  CECIL. I have heard the same of you.

  LORD CARLTON. It’s an awkward relationship, Cecil.

  (Looking at one another.)

  CECIL (leaning forward). Oh well, we’ve got to go through with it.

  LORD CARLTON. And yet I suppose we are fond of each other.

  CECIL (like a true Englishman is uneasy at the introduction of sentiment). That’s not a thing to speak about, surely.

  LORD CARLTON (determinedly). I tell you bluntly, my boy, I’m fond of you.

  CECIL (raising himself up — looking round). Good lord, father, if anyone were to hear you.

  LORD CARLTON. Well, have you got anything civil to say to me?

  CECIL (cautious tone). Oh, I don’t know — I sometimes bragged about you at Eton.

  LORD CARLTON (quite moved). Did you? What sort of things?

  CECIL (almost sulky through having to talk about it). I don’t know. I told them about that time when you saved the street boy from the fire and got so burned.

  LORD CARLTON. Did you tell them how you sat up with me for three nights running?

  CECIL. No. Did I? I had forgotten.

  LORD CARLTON. I haven’t. You held my hand, Cecil.

  CECIL (raising himself). Is it fair, father, to cast these things up against a fellow?

  LORD CARLTON. I only want to hear you say for once that you like me. Come on, Cecil, and we’ll never allude to this unpleasant subject again. If you feel a shyness about saying it put your hand on my knee, and I’ll take that in lieu of speech.

  (CECIL ultimately puts hand on knee and quickly withdraws it.)

  Come, that’s over.

  CECIL (becoming haughty — rising). It’s Eleanor I want to speak of.

  LORD CARLTON. Oh yes! (Pulls him down.) We are coming to her, we are coming to her. How like me you are, Cecil!

  (With a sigh) Yet I don’t want you to be too like me. I have been a lazy dog all my life, my boy, and I want to see you a better man than your father.

  CECIL. Oh well, I don’t complain of your wanting me to work.

  LORD CARLTON. But you don’t do it.

  CECIL. That’s another question.

  LORD CARLTON. I want to see you shine, Cecil.

  CECIL. Oh, yes — father! It’s all very well to say that, but when it comes to the point who is it that prevents me shining! You!

  LORD CARLTON (ashamed — yet half gleeful). Do I?

  CECIL. Yes. At the critical moment you go and shine yourself.

  (LORD CARLTON laughs.)

  It has been so as far back as I can remember. Whatever your intention may be the result is that you always score off me. When we practised at cricket I could hit you out of the field, but when it came to a match, who was it that bowled me in the first over? My own father!

  LORD CARLTON (properly ashamed). I couldn’t resist it, Cecil, I couldn’t resist it.

  CECIL. There’s a good deal of the old Adam in you yet. At my comingof-age ball, who was it went off dancing with all the prettiest girls?

  LORD CARLTON. Ah! I meant to leave them to you, Cecil, but — you see it seemed such a short time since my own comingof-age ball, and then you young chappies always seem to expect to keep all the pretty girls to yourselves. There’s nothing upsets an old boy like that. But never again, my boy, never again.

  CECIL (turns to LORD CARLTON). No, for I am a boy no longer. At last we meet as man to man.

  LORD CARLTON. That’s what I desire. I wish you to know, Cecil, how anxious I am to be your friend to-day — in this affair between you and Eleanor.

  CECIL. Is friendship possible between father and son?

  LORD CARLTON. Let us prove that it is.

  (Holds out hand — CECIL takes it doubtfully, LORD CARLTON pulls CECIL to him.)

  You know you’ve been in love before, Cecil.

  CECIL (sternly — dropping his father’s hand and stepping back). Father! — if you really want my friendship not one word about those trumpery affairs.

  LORD CARLTON. Oh, very good, sir, very good.

  CECIL. All I ask is common-sense. Eleanor and I have been talking you over.

  LORD CARLTON. Oh, have you!

  CECIL. She asked me to give you another chance.

  LORD CARLTON. That was sweet of her.

  CECIL. She says — you don’t mean to be cruel but that you have forgotten that you once had a love story yourself. The trouble is that as the son grows up the father grows old — I don’t know if you have noticed it, father, but you ‘re not the man you were.

  LORD CARLTON (stung). Poof! I’m only forty-five.

  CECIL. Well, it is now acknowledged that after forty a man’s only blocking the way.

  LORD CARLTON. A little more of this, Cecil, and I shall block the way by walking off with Eleanor myself. I can play Napoleon too. (He copies CECIL’S pose à la Napoleon.)

  (CECIL is genuinely alarmed.)

  CECIL. I only said so because Eleanor was so nice about your age.

  LORD CARLTON. Was she?

  CECIL. Oh yes. (Thinking he is making a good impression)

  She said an awfully pretty thing, father.

  LORD CARLTON. Yes!

  CECIL. About wanting to be a staff on which you might lean as you went downhill.

  LORD CARLTON. What!

  CECIL (his manner changing to boyish appeal). I say, dad!

  (LORD CARLTON is really touched, but moves away signifying that he is not to be got round, CECIL goes to him wistfully.)

  I’m awfully fond of her, dad, and she’s awfully fond of me — and she’s waiting behind that hedge.

  LORD CARLTON (amused and touched). Oh, is she, Cecil?

  CECIL. Come, dad, if you like me as you say you do you’ll understand, you must have been in love with an actress yourself once.

  (LORD CARLTON smiles to himself and in a reverie remembers a pleasant time he once had, then frowns as if they had quarrelled, smiles as if he had forgiven, shakes head as if remembering that it ended sadly — then sighs, CECIL has been watching him.)

  CECIL. What was her name, dad?

  LORD CARLTON (wakening up). Whose name?

  CECIL. The actress you were thinking of.

  LORD CARLTON (severely). How dare you?

  CECIL (
laughing). Come, dad —

  LORD CARLTON. It’s no good, Cecil — but you may bring her to me.

  (CECIL exits and returns — brings in ELEANOR, a pretty, timid girl; she is a lady.)

  CECIL (a little grandly). Dad — this — this is Eleanor.

  LORD CARLTON (to ELEANOR who is afraid). Please don’t look on me as an ogre, Eleanor. (Taking her hand) I could say some pretty things to you — if Cecil were some other man’s son.

  ELEANOR (faintly, but courageously). The stage is the noblest profession in the world.

  LORD CARLTON. I know — I know.

  ELEANOR (timidly). Did you see our show?

  (LORD CARLTON winces.)

  CECIL. If you had seen her in the ‘Bayswater Girl,’ father!

  LORD CARLTON. Ah, I missed that.

  ELEANOR. It was beautifully put on. Five thousand pounds if a penny.

  LORD CARLTON. The ancient Greeks spent less on their plays, Eleanor.

  ELEANOR. Yes. They were easily pleased. (Proudly.)

  CECIL. It was a success, but it was you who made it the hit, dearest.

  ELEANOR. And it wasn’t a fat part either, Cecil.

  CECIL. It was what she did with it, dad.

  LORD CARLTON. That this young lady has genius I have no doubt.

  CECIL. The D.T. said ‘This charming little lady.’ LORD CARLTON. The Pink One said, ‘What ho! Eleanor’!

  ELEANOR (modestly). Every one has been very kind.

  CECIL (going to him). Dad, if you could see her die.

  LORD CARLTON (hastily). Oh yes, some other time, my boy. Some other time.

  CECIL. You see she has never had her chance yet. But if one of those brutes of dramatists were to write a human play round her, I don’t mean a sort of play that makes you think — thank goodness ours is a healthy-minded public, and declines to think.

  ELEANOR. Cecil, a tragedy with a happy ending!

  CECIL. Colossal — that’s what she would be, sir — simply colossal.

  LORD CARLTON (craftily). But why shouldn’t we have it done, my boy?

  CECIL. You mean it?

  LORD CARLTON. Why not? A play something like ‘Much Ado about Nothing.’ ELEANOR. Yes, that’s a pretty little play.

  LORD CARLTON. Yes.

  CECIL. Dad! As soon as we are married!

  LORD CARLTON. Instead of being married — it would be a much bigger thing, Eleanor.

  ELEANOR. Oh, Cecil!

  CECIL. How dare you!

  LORD CARLTON. Ah, well, well! Miss Gray, I have no wish to appear ungallant, but you must have known for some weeks my feeling with regard to this engagement. I have other views for my son. If it were in my power I should lock Cecil up, but he is of age and can disregard my wishes. I have no wish to play the heavy father, I shall not curtail his allowance nor order him out of my sight, but there would be neither pleasure nor benefit to either of us in our seeing much of each other in future. He will doubtless get on quite well without me — better, Cecil, than I shall get on without you.

  CECIL. That is your ultimatum?

  LORD CARLTON. Yes.

  CECIL (takes ELEANOR’S hand). Then this is mine. I shall not only marry this lady, but I shall go on the stage myself.

  LORD CARLTON. Good heavens!

  CECIL. What more splendid career than to hold as ‘‘twere the mirror up to nature’? Come, Eleanor.

  LORD CARLTON. Cecil, you are joking!

  CECIL (turns, coming back again, still holding ELEANOR’S hand). It is you who are miserably narrow. Do you think that Eleanor will be the first actress to marry a lord?

  ELEANOR. It is almost expected of us nowadays.

  (CECIL shakes her hand approvingly and lets it go, steps towards LORD CARLTON.)

  LORD CARLTON (in disgust). Ah!

  CECIL. It is the very calling for our set, sir — mark my words, in ten years’ time we shall all be on the stage — all the brainy ones. Your sneers do not excite me, sir, it is a wellknown saying that no man is a hero to his father.

  (Exit haughtily with ELEANOR.)

  LORD CARLTON (after a moment of exasperation). Idiot!

  (Exit through french windows, DEIGHTON the butler comes carrying bag, shows in MOIRA. She is now eighteen, but has the old serious face and ways; she is quietly dressed.)

  DEIGHTON. I thought her ladyship was here, but I shall find her, madam. (Turns as though to go through window with bag.)

  MOIRA (quickly). My bag, please.

  DEIGHTON. It will be quite safe, I assure you.

  MOIRA. Please give me my bag.

  (He gives it and she puts it on sundial.)

  DEIGHTON. Her ladyship instructed me that you would be accompanied by another lady.

  MOIRA (sitting primly). I came alone.

  DEIGHTON (follows her to seat). May I inquire if your friend is to follow, madam? I ask, that a carriage may meet her.

  MOIRA. Oh, she will not require a carriage.

  DEIGHTON. The luggage.

  MOIRA. She has no luggage.

  DEIGHTON. I beg your pardon — I — I understood you were both here for some weeks.

  MOIRA. Yes, probably.

  DEIGHTON. The lady — her ladyship called her — Miss Mary —

  MOIRA. Did she not say Little Mary?

  DEIGHTON. Yes, madam, she did. Her ladyship instructed the housekeeper to give Miss — Little Mary — the room next to yours.

  MOIRA. She will not require a room.

  DEIGHTON (thinking he has solved it). She will share your room.

  MOIRA. Oh no.

  (Exit DEIGHTON correctly, but puzzled and scandalised.

  MOIRA rises and goes to bag, is nervous and ill at ease — speaks to bag.)

  Oh, Grandpa, I’m so frightened.

  (She looks and is enraptured by what she sees; she controls herself as enters the object of her joy, LORD CARLTON. He is still fuming after CECIL, but stops abruptly on seeing a lady.)

  LORD CARLTON. I beg your pardon, madam — my sister Lady Plumleigh — may I introduce myself, Lord Carlton, her brother?

  (She bows timidly — he has a vague recollection of her.)

  Do you know, I think we have met before, haven’t we?

  MOIRA (pained). You don’t remember?

  LORD CARLTON. Yes, yes, of course. Delighted. And how is everybody?

  MOIRA. You have forgotten me?

  LORD CARLTON. My dear young lady, how can you say such a thing! My sister said she was expecting friends, but didn’t say whom. Well, are they all — pretty fit?

  MOIRA. Who?

  LORD CARLTON. Our friends, of course!

  MOIRA. Where?

  LORD CARLTON. At — the old place. (He can’t face her reproachful eyes.) I give it up.

  MOIRA (sighing). Yes, it is best to be honest!

  LORD CARLTON. And yet I seem to know your face!

  MOIRA. It was long ago. I was only —— ——

  LORD CARLTON (excited). Stop! (He is beginning to remember; she waits eagerly.) A little room — somewhere — a bookseller’s shop!

  MOIRA (disappointed). No.

  LORD CARLTON. A shop!

  MOIRA. Yes.

  LORD CARLTON. Your name —

  MOIRA. We didn’t know each other’s names, we —

  LORD CARLTON. I called you — (Can’t get it.)

  MOIRA (carried away by excitement). Lord!

  LORD CARLTON (triumphantly). Mother!

  (He takes her hands delighted, she is joyous, then suddenly weeps, sits.)

  MOIRA. Please forgive me, it is because you remembered. I haven’t been called by that name for six years.

  LORD CARLTON. Not even by the occupants of the boxes?

  MOIRA. No, they were taken away.