You Never Can Tell
by [George] Bernard Shaw
Act I
In a dentist's operating room on a fine August morning in 1896. Not
the usual tiny London den, but the best sitting room of a furnished
lodging in a terrace on the sea front at a fashionable watering place.
The operating chair, with a gas pump and cylinder beside it, is half way
between the centre of the room and one of the corners. If you look into
the room through the window which lights it, you will see the fireplace
in the middle of the wall opposite you, with the door beside it to your
left; an M.R.C.S. diploma in a frame hung on the chimneypiece; an easy
chair covered in black leather on the hearth; a neat stool and bench,
with vice, tools, and a mortar and pestle in the corner to the right.
Near this bench stands a slender machine like a whip provided with a
stand, a pedal, and an exaggerated winch. Recognising this as a dental
drill, you shudder and look away to your left, where you can see another
window, underneath which stands a writing table, with a blotter and a
diary on it, and a chair. Next the writing table, towards the door, is a
leather covered sofa. The opposite wall, close on your right, is
occupied mostly by a bookcase. The operating chair is under your nose,
facing you, with the cabinet of instruments handy to it on your left.
You observe that the professional furniture and apparatus are new, and
that the wall paper, designed, with the taste of an undertaker, in
festoons and urns, the carpet with its symmetrical plans of rich,
cabbagy nosegays, the glass gasalier with lustres; the ornamental gilt
rimmed blue candlesticks on the ends of the mantelshelf, also glass-
draped with lustres, and the ormolu clock under a glass-cover in the
middle between them, its uselessness emphasized by a cheap American
clock disrespectfully placed beside it and now indicating 12 o'clock
noon, all combine with the black marble which gives the fireplace the
air of a miniature family vault, to suggest early Victorian commercial
respectability, belief in money, Bible fetichism, fear of hell always at
war with fear of poverty, instinctive horror of the passionate character
of art, love and Roman Catholic religion, and all the first fruits of
plutocracy in the early generations of the industrial revolution.
There is no shadow of this on the two persons who are occupying the
room just now. One of them, a very pretty woman in miniature, her tiny
figure dressed with the daintiest gaiety, is of a later generation,
being hardly eighteen yet. This darling little creature clearly does
not belong to the room, or even to the country; for her complexion,
though very delicate, has been burnt biscuit color by some warmer sun
than England's; and yet there is, for a very subtle observer, a link
between them. For she has a glass of water in her hand, and a rapidly
clearing cloud of Spartan obstinacy on her tiny firm set mouth and
quaintly squared eyebrows. If the least line of conscience could be
traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical might cherish some faint
hope of finding her a sheep in wolf's clothing - for her frock is
recklessly pretty - but as the cloud vanishes it leaves her frontal
sinus as smoothly free from conviction of sin as a kitten's.
The dentist, contemplating her with the self-satisfaction of a
successful operator, is a young man of thirty or thereabouts. He does
not give the impression of being much of a workman: his professional
manner evidently strikes him as being a joke, and is underlain by a
thoughtless pleasantry which betrays the young gentleman still unsettled
and in search of amusing adventures, behind the newly set-up dentist in
search of patients. He is not without gravity of demeanor; but the
strained nostrils stamp it as the gravity of the humorist. His eyes are
clear, alert, of sceptically moderate size, and yet a little rash; his
forehead is an excellent one, with plenty of room behind it; his nose
and chin cavalierly handsome. On the whole, an attractive, noticeable
beginner, of whose prospects a man of business might form a tolerably
favorable estimate.
THE YOUNG LADY (handing him the glass). Thank you. (In spite of the
biscuit complexion she has not the slightest foreign accent.)
THE DENTIST (putting it down on the ledge of his cabinet of
instruments). That was my first tooth.
THE YOUNG LADY (aghast). Your first! Do you mean to say that you
began practising on me?
THE DENTIST. Every dentist has to begin on somebody.
THE YOUNG LADY. Yes: somebody in a hospital, not people who pay.
THE DENTIST (laughing). Oh, the hospital doesn't count. I only meant
my first tooth in private practice. Why didn't you let me give you gas?
THE YOUNG LADY. Because you said it would be five shillings extra.
THE DENTIST (shocked). Oh, don't say that. It makes me feel as if I
had hurt you for the sake of five shillings.
THE YOUNG LADY (with cool insolence). Well, so you have! (She gets
up.) Why shouldn't you? it's your business to hurt people. (It amuses
him to be treated in this fashion: he chuckles secretly as he proceeds
to clean and replace his instruments. She shakes her dress into order;
looks inquisitively about her; and goes to the window.) You have a good
view of the sea from these rooms! Are they expensive?
THE DENTIST. Yes.
THE YOUNG LADY. You don't own the whole house, do you?
THE DENTIST. No.
THE YOUNG LADY (taking the chair which stands at the writing-table
and looking critically at it as she spins it round on one leg.) Your
furniture isn't quite the latest thing, is it?
THE DENTIST. It's my landlord's.
THE YOUNG LADY. Does he own that nice comfortable Bath chair?
(pointing to the operating chair.)
THE DENTIST. No: I have that on the hire-purchase system.
THE YOUNG LADY (disparagingly). I thought so. (Looking about her
again in search of further conclusions.) I suppose you haven't been here
long?
THE DENTIST. Six weeks. Is there anything else you would like to
know?
THE YOUNG LADY (the hint quite lost on her). Any family?
THE DENTIST. I am not married.
THE YOUNG LADY. Of course not: anybody can see that. I meant
sisters and mother and that sort of thing.
THE DENTIST. Not on the premises.
THE YOUNG LADY. Hm! If you've been here six weeks, and mine was
your first tooth, the practice can't be very large, can it?
THE DENTIST. Not as yet. (He shuts the cabinet, having tidied up
everything.)
THE YOUNG LADY. Well, good luck! (She takes our her purse.) Five
shillings, you said it would be?
THE DENTIST. Five shillings.
THE YOUNG LADY (producing a crown piece). Do you charge five
shillings for everything?
THE DENTIST. Yes.
THE YOUNG LADY. Why?
THE DENTIST. It's my system. I'm what's called a five shilling
dentist.
THE YOUNG LADY. How nice! Well, here! (holding up the crown piece) a
nice new five shilling piece! your first fee! Make a hole in it with
the thing you drill people's teeth with and wear it on your watch-chain.
THE DENTIST. Thank you.
THE PARLOR MAID (appearing at the door). The young lady's brother,
sir.
A handsome man in miniature, obviously the young lady's twin, comes
in eagerly. He wears a suit of terra-cotta cashmere, the elegantly cut
frock coat lined in brown silk, and carries in his hand a brown tall hat
and tan gloves to match. He has his sister's delicate biscuit
complexion, and is built on the same small scale; but he is elastic and
strong in muscle, decisive in movement, unexpectedly deeptoned and
trenchant in speech, and with perfect manners and a finished personal
style which might be envied by a man twice his age. Suavity and self-
possession are points of honor with him; and though this, rightly
considered, is only the modern mode of boyish self-consciousness, its
effect is none the less staggering to his elders, and would be
insufferable in a less prepossessing youth. He is promptitude itself,
and has a question ready the moment he enters.
THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Am I on time?
THE YOUNG LADY. No: it's all over.
THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Did you howl?
THE YOUNG LADY. Oh, something awful. Mr. Valentine: this is my
brother Phil. Phil: this is Mr. Valentine, our new dentist. (Valentine
and Phil bow to one another. She proceeds, all in one breath.) He's
only been here six weeks; and he's a bachelor. The house isn't his; and
the furniture is the landlord's; but the professional plant is hired.
He got my tooth out beautifully at the first go; and he and I are great
friends.
PHILIP. Been asking a lot of questions?
THE YOUNG LADY (as if incapable of doing such a thing). Oh, no.
PHILIP. Glad to hear it. (To Valentine.) So good of you not to
mind us, Mr. Valentine. The fact is, we've never been in England
before; and our mother tells us that the people here simply won't stand
us. Come and lunch with us. (Valentine, bewildered by the leaps and
bounds with which their acquaintanceship is proceeding, gasps; but he
has no opportunity of speaking, as the conversation of the twins is
swift and continuous.)
THE YOUNG LADY. Oh, do, Mr. Valentine.
PHILIP. At the Marine Hotel - half past one.
THE YOUNG LADY. We shall be able to tell mamma that a respectable
Englishman has promised to lunch with us.
PHILIP. Say no more, Mr. Valentine: you'll come.
VALENTINE. Say no more! I haven't said anything. May I ask whom I
have the pleasure of entertaining? It's really quite impossible for me
to lunch at the Marine Hotel with two perfect strangers.
THE YOUNG LADY (flippantly). Ooooh! what bosh! One patient in six
weeks! What difference does it make to you?
PHILIP (maturely). No, Dolly: my knowledge of human nature confirms
Mr. Valentine's judgment. He is right. Let me introduce Miss Dorothy
Clandon, commonly called Dolly. (Valentine bows to Dolly. She nods to
him.) I'm Philip Clandon. We're from Madeira, but perfectly
respectable, so far.
VALENTINE. Clandon! Are you related to ---
DOLLY (unexpectedly crying out in despair). Yes, we are.
VALENTINE (astonished). I beg your pardon?
DOLLY. Oh, we are, we are. It's all over, Phil: they know all about
us in England. (To Valentine.) Oh, you can't think how maddening it is
to be related to a celebrated person, and never be valued anywhere for
our own sakes.
VALENTINE. But excuse me: the gentleman I was thinking of is not
celebrated.
DOLLY (staring at him). Gentleman! (Phil is also puzzled.)
VALENTINE. Yes. I was going to ask whether you were by any chance a
daughter of Mr. Densmore Clandon of Newbury Hall.
DOLLY (vacantly). No.
PHILIP. Well come, Dolly: how do you know you're not?
DOLLY (cheered). Oh, I forgot. Of course. Perhaps I am.
VALENTINE. Don't you know?
PHILIP. Not in the least.
DOLLY. It's a wise child ---
PHILIP (cutting her short). Sh! (Valentine starts nervously; for
the sound made by Philip, though but momentary, is like cutting a sheet
of silk in two with a flash of lightning. It is the result of long
practice in checking Dolly's indiscretions.) The fact is, Mr.
Valentine, we are the children of the celebrated Mrs. Lanfrey Clandon,
an authoress of great repute - in Madeira. No household is complete
without her works. We came to England to get away from them. The are
called the Twentieth Century Treatises.
DOLLY. Twentieth Century Cooking.
PHILIP. Twentieth Century Creeds.
DOLLY. Twentieth Century Clothing.
PHILIP. Twentieth Century Conduct.
DOLLY. Twentieth Century Children.
PHILIP. Twentieth Century Parents.
DOLLY. Cloth limp, half a dollar.
PHILIP. Or mounted on linen for hard family use, two dollars. No
family should be without them. Read them, Mr. Valentine: they'll
improve your mind.
DOLLY. But not till we've gone, please.
PHILIP. Quite so: we prefer people with unimproved minds. Our own
minds are in that fresh and unspoiled condition.
VALENTINE (dubiously). Hm!
DOLLY (echoing him inquiringly). Hm? Phil: he prefers people whose
minds are improved.
PHILIP. In that case we shall have to introduce him to the other
member of the family: the Woman of the Twentieth Century; our sister
Gloria!
DOLLY (dithyrambically). Nature's masterpiece!
PHILIP. Learning's daughter!
DOLLY. Madeira's pride!
PHILIP. Beauty's paragon!
DOLLY (suddenly descending to prose). Bosh! No complexion.
VALENTINE (desperately). May I have a word?
PHILIP (politely). Excuse us. Go ahead.
DOLLY (very nicely). So sorry.
VALENTINE (attempting to take them paternally). I really must give a
hint to you young people---
DOLLY (breaking out again). Oh, come: I like that. How old are you?
PHILIP. Over thirty.
DOLLY. He's not.
PHILIP (confidently). He is.
DOLLY (emphatically). Twenty-seven.
PHILIP (imperturbably). Thirty-three.
DOLLY. Stuff!
PHILIP (to Valentine). I appeal to you, Mr. Valentine.
VALENTINE (remonstrating). Well, really---(resigning himself.)
Thirty-one.
PHILIP (to Dolly). You were wrong.
DOLLY. So were you.
PHILIP (suddenly conscientious). We're forgetting our manners,
Dolly.
DOLLY (remorseful). Yes, so we are.
PHILIP (apologetic). We interrupted you, Mr. Valentine.
DOLLY. You were going to improve our minds, I think.
VALENTINE. The fact is, your---
PHILIP (anticipating him). Our appearance?
DOLLY. Our manners?
VALENTINE (ad misericordiam). Oh, do let me speak.
DOLLY. The old story. We talk too much.
PHILIP. We do. Shut up, both. (He seats himself on the arm of the
opposing chair.)
DOLLY. Mum! (She sits down in the writing-table chair, and closes
her lips tight with the tips of her fingers.)
VALENTINE. Thank you. (He brings the stool from the bench in the
corner; places it between them; and sits down with a judicial air. They
attend to him with extreme gravity. He addresses himself first to
Dolly.) Now may I ask, to begin with, have you ever been in an English
seaside resort before? (She shakes her head slowly and solemnly. He
turns to Phil, who shakes his head quickly and expressively.) I thought
so. Well, Mr. Clandon, our acquaintance has been short; but it has been
voluble; and I have gathered enough to convince me that you are neither
of you capable of conceiving what life in an English seaside resort is.
Believe me, it's not a question of manners and appearance. In those
respects we enjoy a freedom unknown in Madeira. (Dolly shakes her head
vehemently.) Oh, yes, I assure you. Lord de Cresci's sister bicycles
in knickerbockers; and the rector's wife advocates dress reform and
wears hygienic boots. (Dolly furtively looks at her own shoe: Valentine
catches her in the act, and deftly adds) No, that's not the sort of
boot I mean. (Dolly's shoe vanishes.) We don't bother much about dress
and manners in England, because, as a nation we don't dress well and
we've no manners. But - and now will you excuse my frankness? (They
nod.) Thank you. Well, in a seaside resort there's one thing you must
have before anybody can afford to be seen going about with you; and
that's a father, alive or dead. (He looks at them alternately, with
emphasis. They meet his gaze like martyrs.) Am I to infer that you
have omitted that indispensable part of your social equipment? (They
confirm him by melancholy nods.) Them I'm sorry to say that if you are
going to stay here for any length of time, it will be impossible for me
to accept your kind invitation to lunch. (He rises with an air of
finality, and replaces the stool by the bench.)
PHILIP (rising with grave politeness). Come, Dolly. (He gives her
his arm.)
DOLLY. Good morning. (They go together to the door with perfect
dignity.)
VALENTINE (overwhelmed with remorse). Oh, stop, stop. (They halt
and turn, arm in arm.) You make me feel a perfect beast.
DOLLY. That's your conscience: not us.
VALENTINE (energetically, throwing off all pretence of a professional
manner). My conscience! My conscience has been my ruin. Listen to me.
Twice before I have set up as a respectable medical practitioner in
various parts of England. On both occasions I acted conscientiously,
and told my patients the brute truth instead of what they wanted to be
told. Result, ruin. Now I've set up as a dentist, a five shilling
dentist; and I've done with conscience forever. This is my last chance.
I spent my last sovereign on moving in; and I haven't paid a shilling of
rent yet. I'm eating and drinking on credit; my landlord is as rich as
a Jew and as hard as nails; and I've made five shillings in six weeks.
If I swerve by a hair's breadth from the straight line of the most rigid
respectability, I'm done for. Under such a circumstance, is it fair to
ask me to lunch with you when you don't know your own father?
DOLLY. After all, our grandfather is a canon of Lincoln Cathedral.
VALENTINE (like a castaway mariner who sees a sail on the horizon).
What! Have you a grandfather?
DOLLY. Only one.
VALENTINE. My dear, good young friends, why on earth didn't you tell
me that before? A cannon of Lincoln! That makes it all right, of
course. Just excuse me while I change my coat. (He reaches the door in
a bound and vanishes. Dolly and Phil stare after him, and then stare at
one another. Missing their audience, they droop and become commonplace
at once.)
PHILIP (throwing away Dolly's arm and coming ill-humoredly towards
the operating chair). That wretched bankrupt ivory snatcher makes a
compliment of allowing us to stand him a lunch - probably the first
square meal he has had for months. (He gives the chair a kick, as if it
were Valentine.)
DOLLY. It's too beastly. I won't stand it any longer, Phil. Here
in England everybody asks whether you have a father the very first
thing.
PHILIP. I won't stand it either. Mamma must tell us who he was.
DOLLY. Or who he is. He may be alive.
PHILIP. I hope not. No man alive shall father me.
DOLLY. He might have a lot of money, though.
PHILIP. I doubt it. My knowledge of human nature leads me to
believe that if he had a lot of money he wouldn't have got rid of his
affectionate family so easily. Anyhow, let's look at the bright side of
things. Depend on it, he's dead. (He goes to the hearth and stands
with his back to the fireplace, spreading himself. The parlor maid
appears. The twins, under observation, instantly shine out again with
their former brilliancy.)
THE PARLOR MAID. Two ladies for you, miss. Your mother and sister,
miss, I think.
Mrs. Clandon and Gloria come in. Mrs. Clandon is between forty and
fifty, with a slight tendency to soft, sedentary fat, and a fair
remainder of good looks, none the worse preserved because she has
evidently followed the old tribal matronly fashion of making no
pretension in that direction after her marriage, and might almost be
suspected of wearing a cap at home. She carries herself artificially
well, as women were taught to do as a part of good manners by dancing
masters and reclining boards before these were superseded by the modern
artistic cult of beauty and health. Her hair, a flaxen hazel fading
into white, is crimped, and parted in the middle with the ends plaited
and made into a knot, from which observant people of a certain age infer
that Mrs. Clandon had sufficient individuality and good taste to stand
out resolutely against the now forgotten chignon in her girlhood. In
short, she is distinctly old fashioned for her age in dress and manners.
But she belongs to the forefront of her own period (say 1860-80) in a
jealously assertive attitude of character and intellect, and in being a
woman of cultivated interests rather than passionately developed
personal affections. Her voice and ways are entirely kindly and humane;
and she lends herself conscientiously to the occasional demonstrations
of fondness by which her children mark their esteem for her; but
displays of personal sentiment secretly embarrass her: passion in her is
humanitarian rather than human: she feels strongly about social
questions and principles, not about persons. Only, one observes that
this reasonableness and intense personal privacy, which leaves her
relations with Gloria and Phil much as they might be between her and the
children of any other woman, breaks down in the case of Dolly. Though
almost every word she addresses to her is necessarily in the nature of a
remonstrance for some breach of decorum, the tenderness in her voice is
unmistakable; and it is not surprising that years of such remonstrance
have left Dolly hopelessly spoiled.
Gloria, who is hardly past twenty, is a much more formidable person
than her mother. She is the incarnation of haughty highmindedness,
raging with the impatience of an impetuous, dominative character
paralyzed by the impotence of her youth, and unwillingly disciplined by
the constant danger of ridicule from her lighter-handed 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 an attractive woman. Her deep chestnut hair, olive brown
skin, long eyelashes, shaded grey eyes that often flash like stars,
delicately turned full lips, and compact and supple, but muscularly
plump figure appeal with disdainful frankness to the senses and
imagination. A very dangerous girl, one would say, if the moral
passions were not also marked, and even nobly marked, in a fine brow.
Her tailor-made 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 upsets 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 with
her thoughts far away. The parlor maid, instead of withdrawing, shuts
the door and waits at it.
MRS. CLANDON. Well, children? How is the toothache, Dolly?
DOLLY. Cured, thank Heaven. I've 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 PARLOR MAID. Beg pardon, ma'am. I'm waiting for Mr. Valentine.
I have a message for him.
DOLLY. Who from?
MRS. CLANDON (shocked). Dolly! (Dolly catches her lips with her
finger tips, suppressing a little splutter of mirth.)
THE PARLOR MAID. Only the landlord, ma'am.
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 freezing 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 in love at
first sight and is miserably confused. 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 to-day, Mr. Valentine.
VALENTINE. Thank you--er--if you don't mind--I mean if you will be
so kind -- (to the parlor maid testily) What is it?
THE PARLOR MAID. 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 wouldn't mind
waiting just two minutes, I--I'll slip down and see him for a moment.
(Throwing himself confidentially on her sense of the position.) Say I'm
busy, but that I want to see him.
THE PARLOR MAID (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 week's rent; and I've had
no patients until to-day. 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 we've
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. Thank you, 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. Don't be long. We're hungry.
MRS. CLANDON (again remonstrating). Dolly, dear!
VALENTINE (to Dolly). All right. (To Mrs. Clandon.) Thank you: I
shan't 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. You can add his scalp to your collection, Gloria.
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, taking a leaf out of Valentine's
book. Dolly, feeling that her position on the step of the operating
chair is unworthy of the dignity of the occasion, rises, looking
important and determined; 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. Philip 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 don't think, judging from
my knowledge of human nature--we don't think that you (speaking very
staccato, with the words detached) quite appreciate the fact ---
DOLLY (seating herself on the end of the table with a spring). That
we've 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
broken up; and a curious hard excitement, dignified but dogged, ladylike
but implacable--the manner of the Old Guard of the Women's Rights
movement--coming upon her). Phil: take care. Remember what I have
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 don't 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. Gloria has
listened to her with flashing eyes, sharing all her indignation.)
DOLLY (inaccessible to rhetoric). See Twentieth Century Parents,
chapter on Liberty, passim.
MRS. CLANDON (touching her shoulder affectionately, soothed 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 Philip.) 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 can't 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 the we didn't
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 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 didn't think you'd mind. I don't want to know.
DOLLY (coming off the table). I'm sure I don't. Oh, don't look like
that, mamma. (She looks angrily at Gloria.)
MRS. CLANDON (touching her eyes hastily with her handkerchief and
sitting down again). Thank you, my dear. Thanks, Phil.
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, don't. 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 } (all { What do you mean?
DOLLY } together). { Oh, tell us.
PHILIP } { What happened to you?
GLORIA. Oh, nothing of any consequence. (She turns away from them
and goes 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 } (all crying { Accepted him!
MRS. CLANDON } out { Dolly!
PHILIP } together) { Oh, I say!
DOLLY (naively). 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.
You'd 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 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 did not say that you were too young to
know. I said you were too young to be taken into my confidence. You
are very bright children, all of you; but I am glad for your sakes that
you are still very inexperienced and consequently very unsympathetic.
There are some 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. But I will take care that
you shall learn all you want to know. Will that satisfy you?
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. Do you think I
don't 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: Philip and Dolly are disagreeably shocked; all three
start at her, revolted as she continues)--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 turns away
and pretends to occupy herself looking at the names of the books in the
bookcase. Mrs. Clandon sits down on the sofa. Valentine returns.).
VALENTINE. I hope I've 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 bad manners). Dolly, Dolly,
Dolly dear! You must not ask questions.
DOLLY (demurely). So sorry. You'll tell us, won't you, Mr.
Valentine?
VALENTINE. He doesn't 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 daresay 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 can't
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 out.)
PHILIP (significantly--to Dolly). Hmhm!
DOLLY (significantly to Philip). Ahah! (The parlor maid answers the
bell.)
DOLLY. Show the old gentleman up.
THE PARLOR MAID (puzzled). Madam?
DOLLY. The old gentleman with the toothache.
PHILIP. The landlord.
THE PARLOR MAID. Mr. Crampton, Sir?
PHILIP. Is his name Crampton?
DOLLY (to Philip). Sounds rheumaticky, doesn't it?
PHILIP. Chalkstones, probably.
DOLLY (over her shoulder, to the parlor maid). Show Mr. Crampstones
up. (Goes R. to writing-table chair).
THE PARLOR MAID (correcting her). Mr. Crampton, miss. (She goes.)
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 Chalice used
to thrash his wife and daughters with a cartwhip.
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 hearthrug
with an elderly and responsible air.)
GLORIA (with angered remorse). I don't 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. Philip
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.
(Valentine comes back with his landlord. Mr. Fergus Crampton is a
man of about sixty, tall, hard and stringy, with an atrociously
obstinate, ill tempered, grasping mouth, and a querulously dogmatic
voice. Withal he is highly nervous and sensitive, judging by his thin
transparent skin marked with multitudinous lines, and his slender
fingers. His consequent capacity for suffering acutely from all the
dislike that his temper and obstinacy can bring upon him is proved by
his wistful, wounded eyes, by a plaintive note in his voice, a painful
want of confidence in his welcome, and a constant but indifferently
successful effort to correct his natural incivility of manner and
proneness to take offence. By his keen brows and forehead he is clearly
a shrewd man; and there is no sign of straitened means or commercial
diffidence about him: he is well dressed, and would be classed at a
guess as a prosperous master manufacturer in a business inherited from
an old family in the aristocracy of trade. His navy blue coat is not of
the usual fashionable pattern. It is not exactly a pilot's coat; but it
is cut that way, double breasted, and with stout buttons and broad
lappels, a coat for a shipyard rather than a counting house. He has
taken a fancy to Valentine, who cares nothing for his crossness of grain
and treats him with a sort of disrespectful humanity, for which he is
secretly grateful.)
VALENTINE. May I introduce---this is Mr. Crampton---Miss Dorothy
Clandon, Mr. Philip Clandon, Miss Clandon. (Crampton stands nervously
bowing. They all bow.) Sit down, Mr. Crampton.
DOLLY (pointing to the operating chair). That is the most
comfortable chair, Mr. Ch--crampton.
CRAMPTON. Thank you; but won't this young lady---(indicating Gloria,
who is close to the chair)?
GLORIA. Thank you, Mr. Crampton: we are just going.
VALENTINE (bustling him across to the chair with good-humored
peremptoriness). Sit down, sit down. You're tired.
CRAMPTON. Well, perhaps as I am considerably the oldest person
present, I--- (He finishes the sentence by sitting down a little
rheumatically in the operating chair. Meanwhile, Philip, having studied
him critically during his passage across the room, nods to Dolly; and
Dolly nods to Gloria.)
GLORIA. Mr. Crampton: we understand that we are preventing Mr.
Valentine from lunching with you by taking him away ourselves. My
mother would be very glad, indeed, if you would come too.
CRAMPTON (gratefully, after looking at her earnestly for a moment).
Thank you. I will come with pleasure.
GLORIA } (politely { Thank you very much--er---
DOLLY } murmuring).{ So glad--er---
PHILIP } { Delighted, I'm sure--er---
(The conversation drops. Gloria and Dolly look at one another; then
at Valentine and Philip. Valentine and Philip, unequal to the occasion,
look away from them at one another, and are instantly so disconcerted by
catching one another's eye, that they look back again and catch the eyes
of Gloria and Dolly. Thus, catching one another all round, they all
look at nothing and are quite at a loss. Crampton looks about him,
waiting for them to begin. The silence becomes unbearable.)
DOLLY (suddenly, to keep things going). How old are you, Mr.
Crampton?
GLORIA (hastily). I am afraid we must be going, Mr. Valentine. It
is understood, then, that we meet at half past one. (She makes for the
door. Philip goes with her. Valentine retreats to the bell.)
VALENTINE. Half past one. (He rings the bell.) Many thanks. (He
follows Gloria and Philip to the door, and goes out with them.)
DOLLY (who has meanwhile stolen across to Crampton). Make him give
you gas. It's five shillings extra: but it's worth it.
CRAMPTON (amused). Very well. (Looking more earnestly at her.) So
you want to know my age, do you? I'm fifty-seven.
DOLLY (with conviction). You look it.
CRAMPTON (grimly). I dare say I do.
DOLLY. What are you looking at me so hard for? Anything wrong?
(She feels whether her hat is right.)
CRAMPTON. You're like somebody.
DOLLY. Who?
CRAMPTON. Well, you have a curious look of my mother.
DOLLY (incredulously). Your mother!!! Quite sure you don't mean
your daughter?
CRAMPTON (suddenly blackening with hate). Yes: I'm quite sure I
don't mean my daughter.
DOLLY (sympathetically). Tooth bad?
CRAMPTON. No, no: nothing. A twinge of memory, Miss Clandon, not of
toothache.
DOLLY. Have it out. "Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow:" with
gas, five shillings extra.
CRAMPTON (vindicatively). No, not a sorrow. An injury that was done
me once: that's all. I don't forget injuries; and I don't want to
forget them. (His features settle into an implacable frown.)
(re-enter Philip: to look for Dolly. He comes down behind her
unobserved.)
DOLLY (looking critically at Crampton's expression). I don't think
we shall like you when you are brooding over your sorrows.
PHILIP (who has entered the room unobserved, and stolen behind her).
My sister means well, Mr. Crampton: but she is indiscreet. Now Dolly,
outside! (He takes her towards the door.)
DOLLY (in a perfectly audible undertone). He says he's only fifty-
seven; and he thinks me the image of his mother; and he hates his
daughter; and--- (She is interrupted by the return of Valentine.)
VALENTINE. Miss Clandon has gone on.
PHILIP. Don't forget half past one.
DOLLY. Mind you leave Mr. Crampton with enough teeth to eat with.
(They go out. Valentine comes down to his cabinet, and opens it.)
CRAMPTON. That's a spoiled child, Mr. Valentine. That's one of your
modern products. When I was her age, I had many a good hiding fresh in
my memory to teach me manners.
VALENTINE (taking up his dental mirror and probe from the shelf in
front of the cabinet). What did you think of her sister?
CRAMPTON. You liked her better, eh?
VALENTINE (rhapsodically). She struck me as being--- (He checks
himself, and adds, prosaically) However, that's not business. (He
places himself behind Crampton's right shoulder and assumes his
professional tone.) Open, please. (Crampton opens his mouth.
Valentine puts the mirror in, and examines his teeth.) Hm! You have
broken that one. What a pity to spoil such a splendid set of teeth!
Why do you crack nuts with them? (He withdraws the mirror, and comes
forward to converse with Crampton.)
CRAMPTON. I've always cracked nuts with them: what else are they
for? (Dogmatically.) The proper way to keep teeth good is to give them
plenty of use on bones and nuts, and wash them every day with soap---
plain yellow soap.
VALENTINE. Soap! Why soap?
CRAMPTON. I began using it as a boy because I was made to; and I've
used it ever since. And I never had toothache in my life.
VALENTINE. Don't you find it rather nasty?
CRAMPTON. I found that most things that were good for me were nasty.
But I was taught to put up with them, and made to put up with them. I'm
used to it now: in fact, I like the taste when the soap is really good.
VALENTINE (making a wry face in spite of himself). You seem to have
been very carefully educated, Mr. Crampton.
CRAMPTON (grimly). I wasn't spoiled, at all events.
VALENTINE (smiling a little to himself). Are you quite sure?
CRAMPTON. What d'y' mean?
VALENTINE. Well, your teeth are good, I admit. But I've seen just
as good in very self-indulgent mouths. (He goes to the ledge of cabinet
and changes the probe for another one.)
CRAMPTON. It's not the effect on the teeth: it's the effect on the
character.
VALENTINE (placably). Oh, the character, I see. (He recommences
operations.) A little wider, please. Hm! That one will have to come
out: it's past saving. (He withdraws the probe and again comes to the
side of the chair to converse.) Don't be alarmed: you shan't feel
anything. I'll give you gas.
CRAMPTON. Rubbish, man: I want none of your gas. Out with it.
People were taught to bear necessary pain in my day.
VALENTINE. Oh, if you like being hurt, all right. I'll hurt you as
much as you like, without any extra charge for the beneficial effect on
your character.
CRAMPTON (rising and glaring at him). Young man: you owe me six
weeks' rent.
VALENTINE. I do.
CRAMPTON. Can you pay me?
VALENTINE. No.
CRAMPTON (satisfied with his advantage). I thought not. How soon
d'y' think you'll be able to pay me if you have no better manners than
to make game of your patients? (He sits down again.)
VALENTINE. My good sir: my patients haven't all formed their
characters on kitchen soap.
CRAMPTON (suddenly gripping him by the arm as he turns away again to
the cabinet). So much the worse for them. I tell you you don't
understand my character. If I could spare all my teeth, I'd make you
pull them all out one after another to shew you what a properly hardened
man can go through with when he's made up his mind to do it. (He nods
at him to enforce the effect of this declaration, and releases him.)
VALENTINE (his careless pleasantry quite unruffled). And you want to
be more hardened, do you?
CRAMPTON. Yes.
VALENTINE (strolling away to the bell). Well, you're quite hard
enough for me already---as a landlord. (Crampton receives this with a
growl of grim humor. Valentine rings the bell, and remarks in a
cheerful, casual way, whilst waiting for it to be answered.) Why did
you never get married, Mr. Crampton? A wife and children would have
taken some of the hardness out of you.
CRAMPTON (with unexpected ferocity). What the devil is that to you?
(The parlor maid appears at the door.)
VALENTINE (politely). Some warm water, please. (She retires: and
Valentine comes back to the cabinet, not at all put out by Crampton's
rudeness, and carries on the conversation whilst he selects a forceps
and places it ready to his hand with a gag and a drinking glass.) You
were asking me what the devil that was to me. Well, I have an idea of
getting married myself.
CRAMPTON (with grumbling irony). Naturally, sir, naturally. When a
young man has come to his last farthing, and is within twenty-four hours
of having his furniture distrained upon by his landlord, he marries.
I've noticed that before. Well, marry; and be miserable.
VALENTINE. Oh, come, what do you know about it?
CRAMPTON. I'm not a bachelor.
VALENTINE. Then there is a Mrs. Crampton?
CRAMPTON (wincing with a pang of resentment). Yes---damn her!
VALENTINE (unperturbed). Hm! A father, too, perhaps, as well as a
husband, Mr. Crampton?
CRAMPTON. Three children.
VALENTINE (politely). Damn them?--eh?
CRAMPTON (jealously). No, sir: the children are as much mine as
hers. (The parlor maid brings in a jug of hot water.)
VALENTINE. Thank you. (He takes the jug from her, and brings it to
the cabinet, continuing in the same idle strain) I really should like
to know your family, Mr. Crampton. (The parlor maid goes out: and he
pours some hot water into the drinking glass.)
