As the curtain rises, the scene and situation remain unchanged.
After a moment, Mary comes down to the settee, left, and buries her
face in the cushions, weeping. Shortly, the handle of the
drawing-room door is turned, and from within there emerges a murmur
of voices, the Vicar's uppermost.
VICAR [within]. Very well, then, after you have finished your
letters! . . .
[The voices continue confusedly: MARY rises quickly and goes into
the garden.]
[The VICAR enters and goes to the mantel-piece weariedly: a moment
later, AUNTIE.]
BISHOP [within], I shall only be about twenty minutes.
AUNTIE [entering]. All right, don't hurry, James: you have all the
morning.
[She closes the door upon the BISHOP'S grunts, and comes, to the
middle of the room.]
VICAR. Hm! When he has finished his letters!
AUNTIE. Yes, things seem to be shaping better than we thought,
William. Perhaps we have a little misjudged him.
[He looks at her curiously.]
To think, my dear, that the rebuilding of the church is becoming
possible at last! All your hopes, all your enthusiasms, about to
be realised! Now, it only remains to gain your brother Joshua's
approval and help, and the scheme is complete!
VICAR. Supposing he--doesn't approve of the scheme?
AUNTIE. My dear, he must approve: he will see the advantages at
once. I think James made that perfectly clear! . . .
And then, look at the opportunities it creates for _you_! Not only
the church, William, the beautiful big church of your dreams, with
the great spires and flashing crosses and glorious windows; but a
much larger sphere of usefulness than you ever dared to dream!
Think of your work, William, of your great gifts--even James had to
acknowledge them, didn't he?--Think of the influence for good you
will be able to wield! Ah! And then I shall see my beloved,
_himself_ again--No more worry, no more feverish nights and days,
none of the wretched frets and fancies that have been troubling him
all this morning; but the great Scholar and Saint again, the master
of men's souls, the priest in the congregation!
VICAR. Suppose you try and forget me for a moment. Do you think
you can?
AUNTIE. William, that's unkind! Of course I can't.
VICAR. It might mean the salvation of my soul.
AUNTIE. Oh, William! Now you're going to begin to worry again!
VICAR. Oh no: I'm quite calm. Your brother's powers of reasoning
have left me philosophical. . . .
Tell me, are you quite sure that you have grasped the full meaning
of his project?
AUNTIE. Of course! You think no one can understand a simple
business dealing but men! Women are every bit as clever!
VICAR. Well, then, this project: what was it?
AUNTIE. James explained clearly enough: the affiliation of your
brother's scheme with that of the society he mentioned.
VICAR. Yes--_what_ society?
AUNTIE. _The Society for the Extension of Greater Usefulness among
the Clergy_. . . . It was an admirable suggestion--one that ought
to appeal particularly to you. Haven't you always said, yourself,
that if only you had enough money to . . .
VICAR. Did you happen to realise his explanation as to the
constitution of the society?
AUNTIE. To tell the truth, I wasn't listening just then: I was
thinking of you.
VICAR. The _financial_ possibilities of the scheme--Did his
eloquence on that point escape you?
AUNTIE. Figures always bore me, and James uses dreadfully long
words.
VICAR. Did you hear nothing of _profits_?
AUNTIE. I only heard him say that you were to . . .
VICAR. Well, didn't it strike you that throughout the entire
discussion he spoke rather like a _tradesman_?
AUNTIE. My dear, you can't expect everybody to be an idealist!
Remember, he's a practical man: he's a bishop.
VICAR. Didn't it strike you that there are some things in this
world which are not to be bought at _any_ price?
AUNTIE. My dear William, bricks and mortar require money: you
can't run a society without funds!
VICAR. Yes, but what of flesh and blood? What of reputation?
What of a man's name?
AUNTIE. Whatever do you mean now?
VICAR. Didn't his proposal practically amount to this: that we
should turn my brother Joshua's name and reputation into a bogus
Building Society, of which the funds were to be scraped together
from all the naked bodies and the starving bellies of the world,
whilst _we_ and our thieving co-directors should collar all the
swag?
AUNTIE. Now, that's exactly where I think you are so unjust!
Didn't you yourself refuse, before he spoke a word, to let him put
a penny of his own into the concern? I must say, you were
unnecessarily rude to him about that, William!
VICAR. Yes, and didn't he jump at the suggestion!
AUNTIE. He offers to give his patronage, his influence, his time.
All he asks of your brother is his bare name.
VICAR. Yes, and all he asks of me is simply my eloquence, my gift
of words, my power of lying plausibly!
AUNTIE. William, he is offering you the opportunity of your life!
VICAR. Damnation take my life!
AUNTIE. William, why are you so violent?
VICAR. Because violence is the only way of coming to the truth
between you and me!
AUNTIE [now thoroughly afraid]. What do you mean by the truth,
William?
VICAR. I mean this: What is the building of this church to you?
Are you so mightily interested in architecture, in clerical
_usefulness_, in the furtherance of God's work?
AUNTIE. I am interested in your work, William. Do you take me for
an atheist?
VICAR. No: far worse--for an idolater!
AUNTIE. William . . .
VICAR. What else but idolatry is this precious husband-worship you
have set up in your heart--you and all the women of your kind? You
barter away your own souls in the service of it: you build up your
idols in the fashion of your own respectable desires: you struggle
silently amongst yourselves, one against another, to push your own
god foremost in the miserable little pantheon of prigs and
hypocrites you have created!
AUNTIE [roused]. It is for your own good we do it!
VICAR. Our own good! What have you made of me? You have plucked
me down from whatever native godhead I had by gift of heaven, and
hewed and hacked me into the semblance of your own idolatrous
imagination! By God, it shall go on no longer! If you have made
me less than a man, at least I will prove myself to be a priest!
AUNTIE. Do you call it a priest's work to . . .
VICAR. It is _my_ work to deliver you and me from the bondage of
lies! Can't you see, woman, that God and Mammon are about us,
fighting for our souls?
AUNTIE [determinedly]. Listen to me, William, listen to me . . .
VICAR. I have listened to you too long!
AUNTIE. You would always take my counsel before . . .
VICAR. All that is done with! I am resolved to be a free man from
this hour--free of lies, free of love if needs be, free even of
you, free of everything that clogs and hinders me in the work I
have to do! I will do my own deed, not yours!
AUNTIE [with deadly quietness]. If I were not certain of one
thing, I could never forgive you for those cruel words: William,
this is some madness of sin that has seized you: it is the
temptation of the devil!
VICAR. It is the call of God!
AUNTIE [still calmly]. That's blasphemy, William! But I will save
you--yes, I will--in spite of yourself. I am stronger than you.
[They look at each other steadily for a moment, neither yielding,]
VICAR. Then I accept the challenge! It is God and I against you,
Martha!
AUNTIE. God and I against _you_, William.
VICAR. So now--for my work!
AUNTIE [quietly]. Yes: what are you going to do?
VICAR. Three things.
AUNTIE. Yes--and they? . . .
VICAR. Tell Mary everything: send for my brother, Robert: and
then--answer that monster in there.
AUNTIE [fearfully]. William, you would never dare! . . .
VICAR. Look! . . .
[MARY re-enters from the garden.]
MARY. Auntie! Uncle! I want to speak to you at once--both of you!
VICAR. You are just in time: I wanted to speak to _you_ at once.
MARY. Is it important, uncle? Mine's dreadfully important.
VICAR. So is mine.
AUNTIE [quickly]. Let the child speak, William. Perhaps . . .
MARY. I hardly know how to begin. Perhaps it's only my cowardice.
Perhaps it isn't really dreadful, after all . . .
AUNTIE [troubled]. Why, what are you thinking of, Mary?
MARY. It's about something we have never spoken of before;
something I've never been told.
VICAR [searchingly]. Yes? . . .
AUNTIE [falteringly]. Yes? . . .
MARY. I want to know about my father.
[There is a short silence. The VICAR looks at AUNTIE.]
VICAR. Now: is God with you or me, Martha?
MARY. What do you mean by that? Is it very terrible, uncle?
[He stands silent, troubled. MARY crosses him, going to AUNTIE.]
Auntie . . .
AUNTIE. Don't ask me, child: I have nothing to tell you about your
father.
MARY. Why, isn't he . . .
AUNTIE. I have nothing to tell you.
VICAR. I have.
AUNTIE. William! . . .
VICAR. I have, I say! Come, sit here, Mary.
[She sits to left of him, on the settee. AUNTIE is down stage on
the other side of him.]
Now! What do you want to know about your father?
MARY [passionately]. Everything there is to know!
AUNTIE. William, this is brutal! . . .
VICAR. It is _my work_, Martha!--God's work! Haven't I babbled in
the pulpit long enough about fatherhood and brotherhood, that I
should shirk His irony when He takes me at my word!
Now: what put this thought into your head to-day?
MARY. I don't know. I've been puzzling about something all the
morning; but there was nothing clear. It only came clear a few
minutes ago--just before I went into the garden. But I think it
must have begun quite early--before breakfast, when I was talking
to my--to Manson,
AUNTIE. Manson! . . .
MARY. And then, all of a sudden, as I was sitting there by the
fireplace, _it came_--all in a flash, you understand! I found
myself wishing for my father: wondering why I had never seen him:
despising myself that I had never thought of him before.
VICAR. Well, what then?
MARY. I tried to picture him to myself. I imagined all that he
must be. I thought of you. Uncle William, and Uncle Joshua, and
of all the good and noble men I had ever seen or heard of in my
life; but still--that wasn't quite like a father, was it? I
thought a father must be much, much better than anything else in
the world! He must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be
good! I kept on saying it over and over to myself like a little
song: he must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good!
[Anxiously.] That's true of fathers, isn't it, uncle? Isn't it?
VICAR. A father ought to be all these things.
MARY. And then . . . then . . .
VICAR. Yes? . . .
MARY. I met a man, a poor miserable man--it still seems like a
dream, the way I met him--and he said something dreadful to me,
something that hurt me terribly. He seemed to think that my
father--that perhaps my father--might be nothing of the sort!
AUNTIE. Why, who was he--the man?
MARY. He wouldn't tell me his name: I mistook him for a thief at
first; but afterwards I felt very, very sorry for him. You see,
his case was rather like my own. _He was wishing for his little
girl_.
[There is a short silence.]
VICAR. Where did you meet with him?
MARY. Here, in this room.
AUNTIE. When was this?
MARY. A few minutes ago--just before you came in.
AUNTIE. Where is he now?
MARY. He said good-bye. He has gone away.
AUNTIE. For good?
MARY. Yes, I think so: I understood him to mean that.
VICAR. Was he--a rough-looking man?
MARY. Dreadfully; and he swore once--but afterwards he said he was
sorry for that.
VICAR. Did he frighten you at all?
MARY. No, not exactly frighten: you see, I felt sorry for him.
VICAR [slowly]. _And he wouldn't tell you his name_? . . .
MARY. No: I asked him, but he wouldn't.
[The VICAR ponders this for a moment.]
AUNTIE. Now, is it God with you or with me, William?
[For a moment this unnerves him. Then setting his teeth together,
he faces his task stubbornly.]
VICAR. Have you any idea about this man?
MARY. How do you mean--any idea?
VICAR. As to why he put this doubt into your head about your
father.
MARY. He seemed to be thinking about himself, and how unworthy he
was of his own little girl.
VICAR. Did he say--unworthy?
MARY. That's what I think he meant. What he said was that perhaps
my father wasn't good enough to be your brother, uncle. That's not
true, is it?
VICAR. No, by Heaven! That's not true!
MARY [rapturously]. Oh, I knew it, I knew it!
VICAR [in an agony]. Stop! You don't understand!
MARY. I understand quite enough! That's all I wanted to know!
VICAR. Listen, child! Listen! I mean that it is I who am not
worthy to be called his brother.
AUNTIE. William, this is absurd!
MARY [snuggling up to him]. Isn't he a dear?
VICAR [freeing himself]. Listen to me, Mary: I have something
awful to tell you: try and bear it bravely. You will hate me for
it--never love me again! . . . No, listen! . . .
Supposing your father were--not what you imagine him to be? . . .
MARY. Uncle, didn't you just say . . .
VICAR. Supposing that wretched man you spoke with just now were
right, after all! What would you say?
MARY. Uncle! . . .
VICAR. Supposing he were one upon whom a11 the curses of the world
had been most cruelly visited--his poor body scarred and graven out
of human semblance; his soul the prey of hate and bitterness; his
immortal spirit tortured and twisted away from every memory of God!
What would you say?
MARY. Uncle, it would be terrible--terrible!
VICAR. What will you say, then, to the man who has brought him to
such ruin? What will you say to that man being God's priest? What
word of loathing have you for the thief who has stolen the love of
another man's child, for the murderer who has slain his brother's
soul?
MARY. Uncle, do you mean . . . do you mean . . .
VICAR. I mean that I am the man!
MARY. You! . . .
AUNTIE [passionately]. It is not true! It is a lie! It's
entirely your father's own fault!
MARY. I don't understand. Why should Uncle William lie to me?
AUNTIE. He is overwrought: he is ill. It is like your uncle
William to take upon himself another man's wickedness!
MARY. Then, _that_ is true, at least: my father is a wicked
man! . . .
AUNTIE. I don't want to speak about your father!
MARY. He is nothing that I have wished him to be: not _brave_ . . .
VICAR. Yes--_that_ at least!
MARY [turning towards him]. _Beautiful_? . . .
VICAR. What do you mean by beautiful?
MARY. You know what I mean: What you once said God was, when you
called _Him_ beautiful.
VICAR. I have no right to judge your father.
[She perceives the evasion.]
MARY. Not even--_good_? . . .
VICAR. He is what I have made him. I and no other!
[She stands looking at him piteously.]
AUNTIE. There is another--I! I kept them apart: I poisoned your
uncle against him: I took you away from him: It was I who kept you
in ignorance of your father!
MARY. Why? . . .
AUNTIE. Because he stands in the way of my husband's happiness!
Because, even, he is your father! Because I hate him! I could
almost _wish him dead_!
VICAR. Martha! . . .
[There is a long pause.]
MARY. Then I have nobody, now. It's no use wishing any more.
AUNTIE. Mary . . .
MARY. No! . . . I want to be alone.
[She goes out into the garden. They follow her out with their
eyes.]
VICAR. So! God has revealed His partisanship!--He has beggared us
both!
[AUNTIE considers this for a moment. Then, with sudden
determination, she rises.]
AUNTIE. I am not going to be beggared without a struggle for it,
William!
[She moves briskly across to the bell.]
VICAR. What are you going to do, Martha?
AUNTIE, [flashing round passionately, before she can ring the
bell]. Do you think I am going to stand by and see your life
wrecked--yours and that child's?
VICAR. We are not the only persons concerned, Martha.
AUNTIE. As far as I care, you are!
VICAR. And what of Robert? . . .
AUNTIE. Robert! That's what I'm going to see to now!
[She rings the bell.]
There's only one way of dealing with a brute like that!
VICAR. What's that?
AUNTIE. Pack him off to Australia, Africa--anywhere, so long as we
are never pestered with him again!
VICAR, Do you think you'll get him to go?
AUNTIE. Oh, I'll find the money! A drunkard like that will do
anything for money! Well, he shall have plenty: perhaps he'll
drink himself to . . .
VICAR. By Heaven, but I say no!
AUNTIE. By Heaven, but I say yes! It's about time I took things
in hand again! Do you think I'm going to risk that child learning
everything? She knows more than enough already! Providentially,
she does not know the worst!
VICAR. And what knowledge do you consider Providence has so kindly
spared her?
AUNTIE. The knowledge who that man was! She shall never know, if
I can have my way! [She rings the bell again, impatiently.] Why
doesn't he come? Why doesn't he come?
VICAR. Who?
AUNTIE. Manson.
[Enter MANSON by the main door. There is a subtle change in the
manner of him, a look in his eye, as of the servant merging in the
master.]
MANSON. You rang.
AUNTIE. Yes, come in, Manson. I want to have a little
confidential talk with you--confidential, you understand.
MANSON [eying her]. If you please. I expected this.
[He has the air of a judge. She hurries on, unheeding.]
AUNTIE. Manson, you saw everything. You were here when that
dreadful creature arrived.
MANSON. Which?
AUNTIE. Why, my husband's brother, Robert. Didn't you tell me,
William, that Manson heard everything he said?
VICAR. Yes.
AUNTIE. Then you will know the wretched plight we are in. Manson,
it's terrible. I want your help. By-the-way, you have not spoken
about it to the other servants?
MANSON. I am always most discreet.
AUNTIE [touched]. Thank you, Manson, thank you: I felt that I
could trust you. It's to prove my trust that I've sent for you
now. Perhaps I'd better begin by explaining everything quite
clearly, so that you . . .
MANSON. There is no need. I know everything already.
AUNTIE, Everything! How? . . .
MANSON. A certain gift of divination--mine by birth. And,
besides, you forget that I had a long conversation with your
brother-in-law after master left the room.
AUNTIE. What! Whilst my brother was here?
MANSON. Yes: we all three had breakfast together.
AUNTIE. Breakfast together! Then James has heard all!
MANSON. Not quite all. You may have observed that your brother is
a little deaf.
AUNTIE. But surely-- What did he think?
MANSON. He mistook him for your husband.
AUNTIE. My husband!
MANSON. Your brother is also a little blind, remember.
AUNTIE [delighted]. Then James never found out? . . .
MANSON. Oh yes: I took care to undeceive him on the point.
AUNTIE. Good gracious! How did he take it?
MANSON. At first, a little angrily; but, after a while, some few
poor words of my own chanced to move him to more--_profitable_
meditation.
AUNTIE. Manson, you're perfectly wonderful! I respect you very,
very much!
MANSON. It is not enough. I shall require more.
AUNTIE [embarrassed]. Oh, of course, I shall be glad to do
anything that . . .
Why, what do you mean? . . .
MANSON. I mean that service such as mine demands a greater
recompense!
AUNTIE. You may be sure that anything in reason . . .
MANSON. It must go beyond that!
AUNTIE. Well, what do you ask?
MANSON. The uttermost obedience, loyalty, and love!
AUNTIE. Manson, how dare you! By what right . . .
MANSON. By my own right!
AUNTIE. This is insolence! What right do you mean?
MANSON. The right of understanding, the right of purpose, and the
right of will!
AUNTIE. You force me to speak angrily to you! Do you forget that
you are my servant?
MANSON. No! And, therefore, it is my office to command you now!
Sit down, and hear me speak!
VICAR. He has been sent to help us! Martha, this is God!