FRANCES. It's from somebody whose son can't get into something.
TREBELL. The third heap ... Kent's ... the preposterous. [_Talking on with
steady monotony._] But I saw it would not do to interrupt that logical train
of thought which reached definition about half past six. I had then been
gleaning until you came in.
FRANCES. [_Turning the neat little note in her hand._] This is from Lord
Horsham. He writes his name small at the bottom of the envelope.
TREBELL. [_Without a tremor._] Ah ... give it me.
_He opens this as he has opened the others, carefully putting the
envelope to one side._ FRANCES _has ceased for the moment to watch
him._
FRANCES. That's Cousin Robert's handwriting. [_She puts a square envelope at
his hand._] Is a letter marked private from the Education Office political
or personal?
_By this he has read_ HORSHAM'S _letter twice. So he tears it up and
speaks very coldly._
TREBELL. Either. It doesn't matter.
_In the silence her fears return._
FRANCES. Henry, it's a foolish idea ... I suppose I have it because I hardly
slept for thinking of her. Your trouble is nothing to do with Amy O'Connell,
is it?
TREBELL. [_His voice strangled in his throat._] Her child should have been
my child too.
FRANCES. [_Her eyes open, the whole landscape of her mind suddenly clear._]
Oh, I ... no, I didn't think so ... but....
TREBELL. [_Dealing his second blow as remorselessly as dealt to him._] Also
I'm not joining the new Cabinet, my dear sister.
FRANCES. [_Her thoughts rushing now to the present--the future._] Not!
Because of...? Do people know? Will they...? You didn't...?
_As mechanically as ever he has taken up_ COUSIN ROBERT'S _letter and,
in some sense, read it. Now he recapitulates, meaninglessly, that his
voice may just deaden her pain and his own._
TREBELL. Robert says ... that we've not been to see them for some time ...
but that now I'm a greater man than ever I must be very busy. The vicarage
has been painted and papered throughout and looks much fresher. Mary sends
you her love and hopes you have no return of the rheumatism. And he would
like to send me the proof sheets of his critical commentary on First Timothy
... for my alien eye might possibly detect some logical lapses. Need he
repeat to me his thankfulness at my new attitude upon Disestablishment ...
or assure me again that I have his prayers. Could we not go and stay there
only for a few days? Possibly his opinion--
_She has borne this cruel kindness as long as she can and she breaks
out...._
FRANCES. Oh ... don't ... don't!
_He falls from his seeming callousness to the very blankness of
despair._
TREBELL. No, we'll leave that ... and the rest ... and everything.
_Her agony passes._
FRANCES. What do you mean to do?
TREBELL. There's to be no public scandal.
FRANCES. Why has Lord Horsham thrown you over then ... or hasn't that
anything to do with it?
TREBELL. It has to do with it.
FRANCES. [_Lifting her voice; some tone returning to it._] Unconsciously ...
I've known for years that this sort of thing might happen to you.
TREBELL. Why?
FRANCES. Power over men and women and contempt for them! Do you think they
don't take their revenge sooner or later?
TREBELL. Much good may it do them!
FRANCES. Human nature turns against you ... by instinct ... in self-defence.
TREBELL. And my own human-nature!
FRANCES. [_Shocked into great pity, by his half articulate pain._] Yes ...
you must have loved her, Henry ... in some odd way. I'm sorry for you both.
TREBELL. I'm hating her now ... as a man can only hate his own silliest
vices.
FRANCES. [_Flashing into defence._] That's wrong of you. If you thought of
her only as a pretty little fool.... Bearing your child ... all her womanly
life belonged to you ... and for that time there was no other sort of life
in her. So she became what you thought her.
TREBELL. That's not true.
FRANCES. It's true enough ... it's true of men towards women. You can't
think of them through generations as one thing and then suddenly find them
another.
TREBELL. [_Hammering at his fixed idea._] She should have brought that child
into the world.
FRANCES. You didn't love her enough!
TREBELL. I didn't love her at all.
FRANCES. Then why should she value your gift?
TREBELL. For its own sake.
FRANCES. [_Turning away._] It's hopeless ... you don't understand.
TREBELL. [_Helpless; almost like a deserted child._] I've been trying to ...
all through the night.
FRANCES. [_Turning back enlightened a little._] That's more the trouble then
than the Cabinet question?
_He shakes himself to his feet and begins to pace the room; his
keenness coming back to him, his brow knitting again with the delight
of thought._
TREBELL. Oh ... as to me against the world ... I'm fortified with comic
courage. [_Then turning on her like any examining professor._] Now which do
you believe ... that Man is the reformer, or that the Time brings forth such
men as it needs and lobster-like can grow another claw?
FRANCES. [_Watching this new mood carefully._] I believe that you'll be
missed from Lord Horsham's Cabinet.
TREBELL. The hand-made statesman and his hand-made measure! They were out of
place in that pretty Tory garden. Those men are the natural growth of the
time. Am I?
FRANCES. Just as much. And wasn't your bill going to be such a good piece of
work? That can't be thrown away ... wasted.
TREBELL. Can one impose a clever idea upon men and women? I wonder.
FRANCES. That rather begs the question of your very existence, doesn't it?
_He comes to a standstill._
TREBELL. I know.
_His voice shows her that meaning in her words and beyond it a threat.
She goes to him, suddenly shaking with fear._
FRANCES. Henry, I didn't mean that.
TREBELL. You think I've a mind to put an end to that same?
FRANCES. [_Belittling her fright._] No ... for how unreasonable....
TREBELL. In view of my promising past. I've stood for success, Fanny; I
still stand for success. I could still do more outside the Cabinet than the
rest of them, inside, will do. But suddenly I've a feeling the work would be
barren. [_His eyes shift beyond her; beyond the room._] What is it in your
thoughts and actions which makes them bear fruit? Something that the
roughest peasant may have in common with the best of us intellectual men ...
something that a dog might have. It isn't successful cleverness.
_She stands ... his trouble beyond her reach._
FRANCES. Come now ... you've done very well with your life.
TREBELL. Do you know how empty I feel of all virtue at this moment?
_He leaves her. She must bring him back to the plane on which she can
help him._
FRANCES. We must think what's best to be done ... now ... and for the
future.
TREBELL. Why, I could go on earning useless money at the Bar ... think how
nice that would be. I could blackmail the next judgeship out of Horsham. I
think I could even smash his Disestablishment Bill ... and perhaps get into
the next Liberal Cabinet and start my own all over again, with necessary
modifications. I shan't do any such things.
FRANCES. No one knows about you and poor Amy?
TREBELL. Half a dozen friends. Shall I offer to give evidence at the inquest
this morning?
FRANCES. [_With a little shiver._] They'll say bad enough things about her
without your blackening her good name.
_Without warning, his anger and anguish break out again._
TREBELL. All she had ... all there is left of her! She was a nothingness ...
silly ... vain. And I gave her this power over me!
_He is beaten, exhausted. Now she goes to him, motherlike._
FRANCES. My dear, listen to me for a little. Consider that as a sorrow and
put it behind you. And think now ... whatever love there may be between us
has neither hatred nor jealousy in it, has it, Henry? Since I'm not a
mistress or a friend but just the likest fellow-creature to you ... perhaps.
TREBELL. [_Putting out his hand for hers._] Yes, my sister. What I've wanted
to feel for vague humanity has been what I should have felt for you ... if
you'd ever made a single demand on me.
_She puts her arms round him; able to speak._
FRANCES. Let's go away somewhere ... I'll make demands. I need refreshing as
much as you. My joy of life has been withered in me ... oh, for a long time
now. We must kiss the earth again ... take interest in common things, common
people. There's so much of the world we don't know. There's air to breathe
everywhere. Think of the flowers in a Tyrol valley in the early spring. One
can walk for days, not hurrying, as soon as the passes are open. And the
people are kind. There's Italy ... there's Russia full of simple folk. When
we've learned to be friends with them we shall both feel so much better.
TREBELL. [_Shaking his head, unmoved._] My dear sister ... I should be bored
to death. The life contemplative and peripatetic would literally bore me
into a living death.
FRANCES. [_Letting it be a fairy tale._] Is your mother the Wide World
nothing to you? Can't you open your heart like a child again?
TREBELL. No, neither to the beauty of Nature nor the particular human
animals that are always called a part of it. I don't even see them with your
eyes. I'm a son of the anger of Man at men's foolishness, and unless I've
that to feed upon...! [_Now he looks at her, as if for the first time
wanting to explain himself, and his voice changes._] Don't you know that
when a man cuts himself shaving, he swears? When he loses a seat in the
Cabinet he turns inward for comfort ... and if he only finds there a spirit
which should have been born, but is dead ... what's to be done then?
FRANCES. [_In a whisper._] You mustn't think of that woman....
TREBELL. I've reasoned my way through life....
FRANCES. I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall.
TREBELL. [_The wave of his agony rising again._] But here's something in me
which no knowledge touches ... some feeling ... some power which should be
the beginning of new strength. But it has been killed in me unborn before I
had learnt to understand ... and that's killing me.
FRANCES. [_Crying out._] Why ... why did no woman teach you to be gentle?
Why did you never believe in any woman? Perhaps even I am to blame....
TREBELL. The little fool, the little fool ... why did she kill my child?
What did it matter what I thought her? We were committed together to that
one thing. Do you think I didn't know that I was heartless and that she was
socially in the wrong? But what did Nature care for that? And Nature has
broken us.
FRANCES. [_Clinging to him as he beats the air._] Not you. She's dead, poor
girl ... but not you.
TREBELL. Yes ... that's the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped
in it. The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her
body.
_There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly,
never loosing his hand._
FRANCES. Henry, I want your promise that you'll go on living till ...
till....
TREBELL. Don't cry, Fanny, that's very foolish.
FRANCES. Till you've learnt to look at all this calmly. Then I can trust
you.