Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  TANNER. Don’t, Tavy: you’ll make me ill. I am not a man of honor: I am a man struck down by a dead hand. Tavy: you must marry her after all and take her off my hands. And I had set my heart on saving you from her!

  OCTAVIUS. Oh, Jack, you talk of saving me from my highest happiness.

  TANNER. Yes, a lifetime of happiness. If it were only the first half hour’s happiness, Tavy, I would buy it for you with my last penny. But a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

  RAMSDEN. [violently] Stuff, sir. Talk sense; or else go and waste someone else’s time: I have something better to do than listen to your fooleries [he positively kicks his way to his table and resumes his seat].

  TANNER. You hear him, Tavy! Not an idea in his head later than eighteen-sixty. We can’t leave Ann with no other guardian to turn to.

  RAMSDEN. I am proud of your contempt for my character and opinions, sir. Your own are set forth in that book, I believe.

  TANNER. [eagerly going to the table] What! You’ve got my book! What do you think of it?

  RAMSDEN. Do you suppose I would read such a book, sir?

  TANNER. Then why did you buy it?

  RAMSDEN. I did not buy it, sir. It has been sent me by some foolish lady who seems to admire your views. I was about to dispose of it when Octavius interrupted me. I shall do so now, with your permission. [He throws the book into the waste paper basket with such vehemence that Tanner recoils under the impression that it is being thrown at his head].

  TANNER. You have no more manners than I have myself. However, that saves ceremony between us. [He sits down again]. What do you intend to do about this will?

  OCTAVIUS. May I make a suggestion?

  RAMSDEN. Certainly, Octavius.

  OCTAVIUS. Aren’t we forgetting that Ann herself may have some wishes in this matter?

  RAMSDEN. I quite intend that Annie’s wishes shall be consulted in every reasonable way. But she is only a woman, and a young and inexperienced woman at that.

  TANNER. Ramsden: I begin to pity you.

  RAMSDEN. [hotly] I don’t want to know how you feel towards me, Mr Tanner.

  TANNER. Ann will do just exactly what she likes. And what’s more, she’ll force us to advise her to do it; and she’ll put the blame on us if it turns out badly. So, as Tavy is longing to see her —

  OCTAVIUS. [shyly] I am not, Jack.

  TANNER. You lie, Tavy: you are. So let’s have her down from the drawing-room and ask her what she intends us to do. Off with you, Tavy, and fetch her. [Tavy turns to go]. And don’t be long for the strained relations between myself and Ramsden will make the interval rather painful [Ramsden compresses his lips, but says nothing — ].

  OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Mr Ramsden. He’s not serious. [He goes out].

  RAMSDEN [very deliberately] Mr Tanner: you are the most impudent person I have ever met.

  TANNER. [seriously] I know it, Ramsden. Yet even I cannot wholly conquer shame. We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins. Good Lord, my dear Ramsden, we are ashamed to walk, ashamed to ride in an omnibus, ashamed to hire a hansom instead of keeping a carriage, ashamed of keeping one horse instead of two and a groom-gardener instead of a coachman and footman. The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. Why, you’re ashamed to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only thing you’re not ashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it; and even that only means that you’re ashamed to have heterodox opinions. Look at the effect I produce because my fairy godmother withheld from me this gift of shame. I have every possible virtue that a man can have except —

  RAMSDEN. I am glad you think so well of yourself.

  TANNER. All you mean by that is that you think I ought to be ashamed of talking about my virtues. You don’t mean that I haven’t got them: you know perfectly well that I am as sober and honest a citizen as yourself, as truthful personally, and much more truthful politically and morally.

  RAMSDEN. [touched on his most sensitive point] I deny that. I will not allow you or any man to treat me as if I were a mere member of the British public. I detest its prejudices; I scorn its narrowness; I demand the right to think for myself. You pose as an advanced man. Let me tell you that I was an advanced man before you were born.

  TANNER. I knew it was a long time ago.

  RAMSDEN. I am as advanced as ever I was. I defy you to prove that I have ever hauled down the flag. I am more advanced than ever I was. I grow more advanced every day.

  TANNER. More advanced in years, Polonius.

  RAMSDEN. Polonius! So you are Hamlet, I suppose.

  TANNER. No: I am only the most impudent person you’ve ever met. That’s your notion of a thoroughly bad character. When you want to give me a piece of your mind, you ask yourself, as a just and upright man, what is the worst you can fairly say of me. Thief, liar, forger, adulterer, perjurer, glutton, drunkard? Not one of these names fit me. You have to fall back on my deficiency in shame. Well, I admit it. I even congratulate myself; for if I were ashamed of my real self, I should cut as stupid a figure as any of the rest of you. Cultivate a little impudence, Ramsden; and you will become quite a remarkable man.

  RAMSDEN. I have no —

  TANNER. You have no desire for that sort of notoriety. Bless you, I knew that answer would come as well as I know that a box of matches will come out of an automatic machine when I put a penny in the slot: you would be ashamed to say anything else.

  The crushing retort for which Ramsden has been visibly collecting his forces is lost for ever; for at this point Octavius returns with Miss Ann Whitefield and her mother; and Ramsden springs up and hurries to the door to receive them. Whether Ann is good-looking or not depends upon your taste; also and perhaps chiefly on your age and sex. To Octavius she is an enchantingly beautiful woman, in whose presence the world becomes transfigured, and the puny limits of individual consciousness are suddenly made infinite by a mystic memory of the whole life of the race to its beginnings in the east, or even back to the paradise from which it fell. She is to him the reality of romance, the leaner good sense of nonsense, the unveiling of his eyes, the freeing of his soul, the abolition of time, place and circumstance, the etherealization of his blood into rapturous rivers of the very water of life itself, the revelation of all the mysteries and the sanctification of all the dogmas. To her mother she is, to put it as moderately as possible, nothing whatever of the kind. Not that Octavius’s admiration is in any way ridiculous or discreditable. Ann is a well formed creature, as far as that goes; and she is perfectly ladylike, graceful, and comely, with ensnaring eyes and hair. Besides, instead of making herself an eyesore, like her mother, she has devised a mourning costume of black and violet silk which does honor to her late father and reveals the family tradition of brave unconventionality by which Ramsden sets such store.

  But all this is beside the point as an explanation of Ann’s charm. Turn up her nose, give a cast to her eye, replace her black and violet confection by the apron and feathers of a flower girl, strike all the aitches out of her speech, and Ann would still make men dream. Vitality is as common as humanity; but, like humanity, it sometimes rises to genius; and Ann is one of the vital geniuses. Not at all, if you please, an oversexed person: that is a vital defect, not a true excess. She is a perfectly respectable, perfectly self-controlled woman, and looks it; though her pose is fashionably frank and impulsive. She inspires confidence as a person who will do nothing she does not mean to do; also some fear, perhaps, as a woman who will probably do everything she means to do without taking more account of other people than may be necessary and what she calls right. In short, what the weaker of her own sex sometimes call a cat.

  Nothing can be more decorous than her entry and her reception by Ramsden, whom she kisses. The late Mr Whitefield would be gratified almost to
impatience by the long faces of the men (except Tanner, who is fidgety), the silent handgrasps, the sympathetic placing of chairs, the sniffing of the widow, and the liquid eye of the daughter, whose heart, apparently, will not let her control her tongue to speech. Ramsden and Octavius take the two chairs from the wall, and place them for the two ladies; but Ann comes to Tanner and takes his chair, which he offers with a brusque gesture, subsequently relieving his irritation by sitting down on the corner of the writing table with studied indecorum. Octavius gives Mrs Whitefield a chair next Ann, and himself takes the vacant one which Ramsden has placed under the nose of the effigy of Mr Herbert Spencer.

  Mrs Whitefield, by the way, is a little woman, whose faded flaxen hair looks like straw on an egg. She has an expression of muddled shrewdness, a squeak of protest in her voice, and an odd air of continually elbowing away some larger person who is crushing her into a corner. One guesses her as one of those women who are conscious of being treated as silly and negligible, and who, without having strength enough to assert themselves effectually, at any rate never submit to their fate. There is a touch of chivalry in Octavius’s scrupulous attention to her, even whilst his whole soul is absorbed by Ann.

  Ramsden goes solemnly back to his magisterial seat at the writing table, ignoring Tanner, and opens the proceedings.

  RAMSDEN. I am sorry, Annie, to force business on you at a sad time like the present. But your poor dear father’s will has raised a very serious question. You have read it, I believe?

  [Ann assents with a nod and a catch of her breath, too much affected to speak].

  I must say I am surprised to find Mr Tanner named as joint guardian and trustee with myself of you and Rhoda. [A pause. They all look portentous; but they have nothing to say. Ramsden, a little ruffled by the lack of any response, continues] I don’t know that I can consent to act under such conditions. Mr Tanner has, I understand, some objection also; but I do not profess to understand its nature: he will no doubt speak for himself. But we are agreed that we can decide nothing until we know your views. I am afraid I shall have to ask you to choose between my sole guardianship and that of Mr Tanner; for I fear it is impossible for us to undertake a joint arrangement.

  ANN. [in a low musical voice] Mamma —

  MRS WHITEFIELD. [hastily] Now, Ann, I do beg you not to put it on me. I have no opinion on the subject; and if I had, it would probably not be attended to. I am quite with whatever you three think best.

  Tanner turns his head and looks fixedly at Ramsden, who angrily refuses to receive this mute communication.

  ANN. [resuming in the same gentle voice, ignoring her mother’s bad taste] Mamma knows that she is not strong enough to bear the whole responsibility for me and Rhoda without some help and advice. Rhoda must have a guardian; and though I am older, I do not think any young unmarried woman should be left quite to her own guidance. I hope you agree with me, Granny?

  TANNER. [starting] Granny! Do you intend to call your guardians Granny?

  ANN. Don’t be foolish, Jack. Mr Ramsden has always been Grandpapa Roebuck to me: I am Granny’s Annie; and he is Annie’s Granny. I christened him so when I first learned to speak.

  RAMSDEN. [sarcastically] I hope you are satisfied, Mr Tanner. Go on, Annie: I quite agree with you.

  ANN. Well, if I am to have a guardian, CAN I set aside anybody whom my dear father appointed for me?

  RAMSDEN. [biting his lip] You approve of your father’s choice, then?

  ANN. It is not for me to approve or disapprove. I accept it. My father loved me and knew best what was good for me.

  RAMSDEN. Of course I understand your feeling, Annie. It is what I should have expected of you; and it does you credit. But it does not settle the question so completely as you think. Let me put a case to you. Suppose you were to discover that I had been guilty of some disgraceful action — that I was not the man your poor dear father took me for. Would you still consider it right that I should be Rhoda’s guardian?

  ANN. I can’t imagine you doing anything disgraceful, Granny.

  TANNER. [to Ramsden] You haven’t done anything of the sort, have you?

  RAMSDEN. [indignantly] No sir.

  MRS. WHITEFIELD. [placidly] Well, then, why suppose it?

  ANN. You see, Granny, Mamma would not like me to suppose it.

  RAMSDEN. [much perplexed] You are both so full of natural and affectionate feeling in these family matters that it is very hard to put the situation fairly before you.

  TANNER. Besides, my friend, you are not putting the situation fairly before them.

  RAMSDEN. [sulkily] Put it yourself, then.

  TANNER. I will. Ann: Ramsden thinks I am not fit be your guardian; and I quite agree with him. He considers that if your father had read my book, he wouldn’t have appointed me. That book is the disgraceful action he has been talking about. He thinks it’s your duty for Rhoda’s sake to ask him to act alone and to make me withdraw. Say the word and I will.

  ANN. But I haven’t read your book, Jack.

  TANNER. [diving at the waste-paper basket and fishing the book out for her] Then read it at once and decide.

  RAMSDEN. If I am to be your guardian, I positively forbid you to read that book, Annie. [He smites the table with his fist and rises].

  ANN. Of course, if you don’t wish it. [She puts the book on the table].

  TANNER. If one guardian is to forbid you to read the other guardian’s book, how are we to settle it? Suppose I order you to read it! What about your duty to me?

  ANN. [gently] I am sure you would never purposely force me into a painful dilemma, Jack.

  RAMSDEN. [irritably] Yes, yes, Annie: this is all very well, and, as I said, quite natural and becoming. But you must make a choice one way or the other. We are as much in a dilemma as you.

  ANN. I feel that I am too young, too inexperienced, to decide. My father’s wishes are sacred to me.

  MRS WHITEFIELD. If you two men won’t carry them out I must say it is rather hard that you should put the responsibility on Ann. It seems to me that people are always putting things on other people in this world.

  RAMSDEN. I am sorry you take it that way.

  ANN. [touchingly] Do you refuse to accept me as your ward, Granny?

  RAMSDEN. No: I never said that. I greatly object to act with Mr Tanner: that’s all.

  MRS. WHITEFIELD. Why? What’s the matter with poor Jack?

  TANNER. My views are too advanced for him.

  RAMSDEN. [indignantly] They are not. I deny it.

  ANN. Of course not. What nonsense! Nobody is more advanced than Granny. I am sure it is Jack himself who has made all the difficulty. Come, Jack! Be kind to me in my sorrow. You don’t refuse to accept me as your ward, do you?

  TANNER. [gloomily] No. I let myself in for it; so I suppose I must face it. [He turns away to the bookcase, and stands there, moodily studying the titles of the volumes].

  ANN. [rising and expanding with subdued but gushing delight] Then we are all agreed; and my dear father’s will is to be carried out. You don’t know what a joy that is to me and to my mother! [She goes to Ramsden and presses both his hands, saying] And I shall have my dear Granny to help and advise me. [She casts a glance at Tanner over her shoulder]. And Jack the Giant Killer. [She goes past her mother to Octavius]. And Jack’s inseparable friend Ricky-ticky-tavy [he blushes and looks inexpressibly foolish].

  MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising and shaking her widow’s weeds straight] Now that you are Ann’s guardian, Mr Ramsden, I wish you would speak to her about her habit of giving people nicknames. They can’t be expected to like it. [She moves towards the door].

  ANN. How can you say such a thing, Mamma! [Glowing with affectionate remorse] Oh, I wonder can you be right! Have I been inconsiderate? [She turns to Octavius, who is sitting astride his chair with his elbows on the back of it. Putting her hand on his forehead the turns his face up suddenly]. Do you want to be treated like a grown up man? Must I call you Mr Robinson in future?

  OCTAVIUS.
[earnestly] Oh please call me Ricky-ticky — tavy, “Mr Robinson” would hurt me cruelly. [She laughs and pats his cheek with her finger; then comes back to Ramsden]. You know I’m beginning to think that Granny is rather a piece of impertinence. But I never dreamt of its hurting you.

  RAMSDEN. [breezily, as he pats her affectionately on the back] My dear Annie, nonsense. I insist on Granny. I won’t answer to any other name than Annie’s Granny.

  ANN. [gratefully] You all spoil me, except Jack.

  TANNER. [over his shoulder, from the bookcase] I think you ought to call me Mr Tanner.

  ANN. [gently] No you don’t, Jack. That’s like the things you say on purpose to shock people: those who know you pay no attention to them. But, if you like, I’ll call you after your famous ancestor Don Juan.

  RAMSDEN. Don Juan!

  ANN. [innocently] Oh, is there any harm in it? I didn’t know. Then I certainly won’t call you that. May I call you Jack until I can think of something else?

  TANKER. Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t try to invent anything worse. I capitulate. I consent to Jack. I embrace Jack. Here endeth my first and last attempt to assert my authority.

  ANN. You see, Mamma, they all really like to have pet names.

  MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, I think you might at least drop them until we are out of mourning.

  ANN. [reproachfully, stricken to the soul] Oh, how could you remind me, mother? [She hastily leaves the room to conceal her emotion].

  MRS WHITEFIELD. Of course. My fault as usual! [She follows Ann].

  TANNER. [coming from the bockcase] Ramsden: we’re beaten — smashed — nonentitized, like her mother.

  RAMSDEN. Stuff, Sir. [He follows Mrs Whitefield out of the room].

  TANNER. [left alone with Octavius, stares whimsically at him] Tavy: do you want to count for something in the world?

  OCTAVIUS. I want to count for something as a poet: I want to write a great play.

  TANNER. With Ann as the heroine?

  OCTAVIUS. Yes: I confess it.

  TANNER. Take care, Tavy. The play with Ann as the heroine is all right; but if you’re not very careful, by Heaven she’ll marry you.