(_He spreads his arms and rises up through the looking-glass; you
see his violet frock-coaty his check trousers, his white spats, and
patent-leather boots ascending into and passing from view. He twiddles his
feet at them and vanishes_.)
JULIA. And now I hope you are satisfied, Laura?
MARTHA. Where's Mamma gone?
JULIA. So you've driven her away, too. Well, that finishes it.
(_Apparently it does. Robbed of her parental prey, Mrs. James reverts to
the next dearest possession she is concerned about_.)
LAURA. Martha, where is the silver tea-pot?
MARTHA. I don't know, Laura.
LAURA. You said Julia had it.
MARTHA. I didn't say anything of the sort! You said--you supposed Julia
had it; and I said--suppose she had! And I left it at that.
LAURA. Julia says she hasn't got it, so you _must_ have it.
MARTHA. I haven't!
LAURA. Then where is it?
MARTHA. I don't know any more than Julia knows.
LAURA. Then one of you is not telling the truth. ... (_Very judicially
she begins to examine the two culprits.)_ Julia, when did you last see
it?
JULIA. On the day, Laura, when we shared things between us. It became
Martha's: and I never saw it again.
LAURA. Martha, when did you last see it?
MARTHA. I have not seen it--for I don't know how long.
LAURA. That is no answer to my question.
MARTHA (_vindictively)._ Well, if you want to know, it's at the
bottom of the sea.
LAURA (_deliberately)._ Don't talk--nonsense.
MARTHA. Unless a shark has eaten it.
LAURA. When I ask a reasonable question, Martha, I expect a reasonable
answer.
MARTHA. I've given you a reasonable answer! And I wish the Judgment Day
would come, and the sea give up its dead, and then--(_At the end of her
resources, the poor lady begins to gather herself up, so as once for all
to have done with it_.) Now, I am going downstairs to talk to Hannah.
LAURA. You will do nothing of the kind, Martha.
MARTHA. I'm not going to be bullied--not by you or anyone.
LAURA. I must request you to wait and hear what I've got to say.
MARTHA. I don't want to hear it.
LAURA. Julia, are we not to discuss this matter, pray?
(_Julia, who has her eye on Martha, and is quite enjoying this tussle of
the two, says nothing_)
MARTHA. You and Julia can discuss it. I am going downstairs.
(_Mrs. James crosses the room, locks the door, and, standing mistress of
all she surveys, inquires with grim humour_.)
LAURA. And where are you going to be, Julia?
JULIA. I am where I am, Laura. I'm not going out of the window, or up the
chimney, if that's what you mean.
(_She continues gracefully to do her crochet._)
LAURA. Now, Martha, if you please.
MARTHA (_goaded into victory_). I'm sorry, Julia. You'd better
explain. I'm going downstairs.
(_Suiting the action to the word, she commits herself doggedly to the
experiment, descending bluntly and without grace through the carpet into
the room below. Mrs. James stands stupent._)
LAURA. Martha!... Am I to be defied in this way?
JULIA. You brought it on yourself, Laura.
LAURA. You told her to do it!
JULIA. She would have soon found out for herself.
(_Collectedly, she folds up her work and rises_.) And now,
I think, I will go to my room and wash my hands for supper.
(_As she makes her stately move, her ear is attracted by a curious
metallic sound repeated at intervals. Turning about, she perceives, indeed
they both perceive, in the centre of the small table, a handsome silver
tea-pot which opens and shuts its lid at them, as if trying to speak_.)
JULIA. Oh, look, Laura! Martha's tea-pot has arrived.
LAURA. She told a lie, then.
JULIA. No, it was the truth. She wished for it. The sea has given up its
dead.
LAURA. Then now I _have_ got it at last!
(_But, as she goes to seize the disputed possession, Martha rises
through the floor, grabs the tea-pot, and descends to the nether regions
once more_.)
LAURA (_glaring at her sister with haggard eye_). Julia, where
_are_ we?
JULIA. I don't know what you mean, Laura. (_She reaches out a polite
hand_) The key?
(_Mrs. James delivers up the key as one glad to be rid of it_.)
LAURA. What is this place we've come to?
JULIA (_persuasively)._ Our home.
LAURA. I think we are in Hell!
JULIA (_going to the door, which she unlocks with soft triumph)._ We
are all where we wish to be, Laura. (_A gong sounds_.) That's supper.
(_The gong continues its metallic bumbling_)
(_Julia departs, leaving Mrs. James in undisputed possession of the
situation she has made for herself_.)
CURTAIN
Part Three
Dethronements
IMAGINARY PORTRAITS OF POLITICAL CHARACTERS,
DONE IN DIALOGUE
Preface
The written dialogue, as interpretative of character, is but a form of
portraiture, no more personally identified with its subject than drawing
or painting; nor can it claim to have more verisimilitude until it finds
embodiment on the stage. Why then, in this country at any rate, is its
application to living persons only considered legitimate when associated
with caricature? So sponsored, in the pages of _Punch_ and the
composition of Mr. Max Beerbohm, it has become an accepted convention too
habitual for remark. Yet caricature and verbal parody may be as critical
both of personality and character as dialogue more seriously designed, and
may have as important an influence not merely upon a public opinion, but
upon its moral judgment as well.
The defection of _Punch_ was felt by Gladstone to be a serious
set-back to the fortunes of his Home Rule policy; and Tenniel's cartoon
of "the Grand old Janus," saying "Quite right!" to the police who were
bludgeoning an English mob, and "Quite wrong!" to the police who were
bludgeoning an Irish one, was a personal jibe which hit him hard.
The customary device, where contemporaries are concerned, of
disembowelling the victim's name, and leaving it a skeleton of consonants,
is a formal concession which in effect concedes nothing. Nor is there any
reason why it should; for the only valid objection to the medium of
dialogue is in cases where its form might mislead the reader into
mistaking fiction for fact, and the author's invention for the
_ipsissima verba_ of the characters he portrays. I hope that this
book will attract no readers so unintelligent. Having chosen dialogue for
these studies of historical events because I find in it a natural and
direct means to the interpretation of character, my main scruple is
satisfied when I have made it plain that they have no more authenticity
because they happen to be written in dramatic form, than they would have
were they written as political essays. These are imaginary conversations
which never actually took place; and though I think they have a nearer
relation to the minds of the supposed speakers than have King's speeches
to the person who utters them, they must merely be taken as a personal
reading of characters and events, tributes to men for all of whom I have,
in one way or another, a very great respect and admiration; and not least
for the one whom, with a reticence that is symbolical of the part he
played in the downfall of "The Man of Business," I have here left
nameless.
The King-maker
Note
Readers of this dialogue may need to be reminded, for clearer
understanding, of the following sequence of events. On November 15th,
1890, a _decree nisi_ was pronounced in the undefended divorce suit
O'Shea _v_. O'Shea and Parnell. On November 24th, Gladstone, in a
letter to John Morley, stated that Parnell's retention of the Irish
leadership would be fatal to his own continued advocacy of the Irish
cause. In December, the majority of the Irish Party threw over Parnell
in order to placate the "Nonconformist conscience," and retain the
co-operation of the Liberal Party under Gladstone's leadership. During
the months following, Parnell and his adherents suffered a series of
defeats at by-elections in Ireland. In June 1891, immediately on the
_decree nisi_ being made absolute, Parnell married Katharine O'Shea.
On October 6th he died.
Dramatis Personae.
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL (_Dethroned "King" of Ireland_)
KATHARINE PARNELL (_His wife: divorced wife of Captain O'Shea_)
A MAN (_Ex-valet to Captain O'Shea_)
A SERVANT
The King-maker
_Brighton. October_ 1891.
_In a comfortably furnished sitting-room, with windows looking upon the
sea-parade, a Woman of distinguished beauty sits reading beside the fire,
so intently occupied that she pays no heed to the entry of the Servant,
who unobtrusively lights the gas, draws down the blinds, and closes the
curtains. Then taking up a tea-tray, served for two, she retires, and the
reader is left alone. But not for long. The slam of the street-door causes
an attention which the coming and going of the Servant has failed to
arouse; and now, as the door opens, the brightened interest of her face
tells that, without seeing, she knows who is there. Quietly, almost
furtively, she lets fall the paper she has been reading, and turns to her
husband eyes of serene welcome, meeting confidently the sharp
interrogation of his glance_.
PARNELL. What are you doing?
KATHARINE. I was reading.
PARNELL. Yes? What?
KATHARINE. Those papers you just brought in.
PARNELL. And I told you not to.
KATHARINE (_smiling_). I was wilful and disobeyed.
PARNELL (_picking up the paper, and looking at it with contemptuous
disgust_). Why did you?
KATHARINE. Isn't "wilful" a sufficient answer, my dear?
(_And with a covert look of amusement she watches him tear and throw the
paper into the fire_.)
Why do you try to make me a coward? You aren't one yourself.
PARNELL. That gutter-stuff! (_And the second paper joins its fellow in
the flames_.)
KATHARINE. Now wasn't that just a bit unnecessary? After all, they are
helping to make history. That is public opinion--the voice of the people,
you know.
PARNELL. Not _our_ people!
KATHARINE. Oh? Have you brought back any better news--from there?
PARNELL. Nothing special. The result of the election was out.
KATHARINE. You didn't wire it. How much were we to the bad?
PARNELL. A few hundred. What does more or less matter? It's--it's the
priests who are winning now.
KATHARINE. With divided congregations as the result.
PARNELL. Yes. But I'd rather they won than the politicians. They are
honest, at any rate. Poor fools!
KATHARINE. So it's the real country we are seeing now?
PARNELL. Yes. That's the material I've had to work with!
KATHARINE. Wonderful--considering.
PARNELL. And now--now one gets to the root! But I always knew it.
KATHARINE. So you are not disappointed?
PARNELL. No; only defeated. Yet I did think once that I was going to win.
KATHARINE. So you will.
PARNELL. When I'm dead, no doubt ... some day. You can't fight for a
winning cause, and not know that.
KATHARINE. But you are not going to die yet, dearest.
PARNELL (_with a deep sigh of dejection_). Oh! Wifie, I'm so tired,
so tired!
KATHARINE. Well, who has a better right? Be tired, my dear! Give yourself
up to it: let everything else go, and just rest! You _are_ tired out.
That's what I've been telling you.
PARNELL. Too much to do yet. Even dying would take more time than I can
spare just now.
KATHARINE. But you must spare time to live, my dear--if you really wish
to.
PARNELL. Wish? I never wished it more--for now I _am_ living. I'm
awake. Doubts are over.
KATHARINE. King ... look at me! Don't take your eyes away, till I've
done.... One of those papers said (what others have been saying) that it
was I ... I ... need I go on?
PARNELL (_with grim tenderness_). Till you've done: you said ...
KATHARINE. I--that have ruined you.
PARNELL. That's just what they would say, of course. It's so easy: and
pleases--so many.
KATHARINE. All the same--by mere accident--mayn't it be true? It
_has_ happened, you know, sometimes, that love and politics haven't
quite gone together.
PARNELL. Love and politics never do. Do you think I've loved any of my
party-followers: that any of them have loved me?
KATHARINE. Doesn't--O'Kelly?
PARNELL. He's gone now--with the rest.
KATHARINE. Didn't Mr. Biggar?
PARNELL. Dead.... No.
KATHARINE. Still, you love--Ireland.
PARNELL. Not as she is to-day--so narrow and jealous, so stupid, so blind!
Has she anything alive in her now worth saving? That Ireland has got to
die; and, though it doesn't sound like it, this is the death-rattle
beginning. Ireland is going to fail, and deserves to fail. But another
Ireland won't fail. She's learning her lesson--or _will_ learn it, in
the grave. Something like this was bound to come; but if it were to come
again twenty years on, it wouldn't count. She'd know better.
KATHARINE. Twenty years! We shall be an old couple by then.
PARNELL. In the life of a nation twenty years is nothing. No. Ireland was
shaped for failure: she has it in her. It had got to come out. Subjection,
oppression, starvation, haven't taught her enough: she must face betrayal
too, of the most mischievous kind--the betrayal of well-meaning fools.
After that, paralysis, loss of confidence, loss of will, loss of faith--in
false leaders. Then she'll begin to learn.
KATHARINE. Do you mean that everything _has_ failed now?
PARNELL. Yes; if _I_ fail. I'm not thinking of myself as
indispensable: it's the principle. That's what I've been trying to make
them understand. But they won't, they won't! Independence, defiance-they
don't see it as a principle, only as an expedient. They may make it a cry,
they may feel it as their right; but when to insist on it looks like
losing a point in the game--then they give up the principle, to become
parasites! That's what is happening now. It's the slave in the blood
coming out--the crisis of the disease. That's why I'm fighting it: and
will, to the death! And when--when we are dead--some day: she'll come to
her senses again--and see! Then--this will have helped.
KATHARINE. But will it?
PARNELL. Why? Don't you believe that Ireland will be free some day?
KATHARINE. I did when she chose you for her leader.
PARNELL (_bitterly_). A dead leader, one whom she can't hurt, may do
better for her.
KATHARINE. Don't say "dead"!
PARNELL. I shan't be alive in twenty years, my dear. And it may take all
that.
KATHARINE. Without you it will take more.
PARNELL. It won't be "without me." That's what I mean. They may beat me
to-day; but I shall still count. Think of all Ireland's failures!
Grattan's Parliament counts; "Ninety-eight" counts; Fitzgerald counts;
O'Connell counts; her famines, her emigrations, her rebellions--all count.
KATHARINE. Does Butt count?
PARNELL. He wasn't a failure: he didn't try to do anything. If Ireland
needs more failures, to make a case for her conviction, shall I grudge
mine? Yes, all her failures count: they get into the blood! Why, even the
silly statues in her streets mean more than statues can mean here.
Prosperity forgets; adversity remembers. Even hatred has its use: it
grips, and drives men on.
KATHARINE. Did you need--hatred, to do that for you?
PARNELL. Yes: till I got love!... Reason, conviction aren't enough. Morley
said a good thing the other day. The English, he said, meant well by
Ireland: but they didn't mean it much.
KATHARINE. I suppose that's true of some?
PARNELL. Quite true: and what is the most that it amounts to? Compromise.
Morley's an authority on compromise. And yet I like him: I get on with
him. But he's too thick with Gladstone to be honest over this. Curious
_his_ having to back the conventions, eh?
KATHARINE. Why does he?
PARNELL. Because the political salvation of his party and its leader comes
before Ireland. He means well by her: but he doesn't mean it so much as
all that. Still he's the only one of them who doesn't pretend to look on
me as a black sheep. He too has to work with his material. That's
politics. The Nonconformist conscience means votes--so it decides him:
just as the priests decide me.... They would decide him in any case, I
mean. And so-so it goes on.... "Look here upon this picture, and on this":
Ireland trying to please England; England trying, now and then, to please
Ireland! I don't know which is the more ludicrous; but I know that both
equally must fail. And they've got to see it!--and some day they will. It
won't be "Home Rule" then....
(_So for a while he sits and thinks, his hand in hers. Then he
resumes._)
My ruin? What would my ruin matter anyway? Put it, that the making public
of our claim--our right to each other--is to be allowed by any possibility
to affect the cause of a nation--the justice of that cause: doesn't that
fact, if true, show that the whole basis of the political principles they
have so boasted, and on which we have so blindly relied, was utterly and
fantastically false and rotten? Haven't we, providentially, given the
world the proof that it needed of its own lie?
KATHARINE. We didn't give it, my dear.
PARNELL. Well, their proof has satisfied them, anyhow: as they are acting
on it. Oh! When I see what poor, weak things nations really are--so
inadequately equipped for the shaping of their own destinies--I wonder
whether in truth the history we read is not the wrong history--mere side
history, to which a false significance has been given, because so much
blood and treasure have been expended on it, which just a little
expenditure of common sense might have spared.... Think of all the silly
accidents and blunders, in Ireland's great chapter of accidents, which
have counted for so much--even in these last few years!... The Phoenix
Park business--an assassination, for which perhaps only a dozen men were
responsible--and at once, for that one act, more suppression and hatred
and coercion are directed against a whole nation: Crimes Acts, packed
juries, judges without juries, arrests without charge, imprisonments
without trial. So logical, isn't it? What a means for putting a foreign
Government right in the eyes of the people who deny its moral
authority!... And then--Pigott, that shallow fraud, driven to suicide by
those who were at first so eager to believe him: and the exposure of his
silly forgery turns elections, makes Home Rule popular! Coming by such
means, would it be worth it?... Gladstone, honourably hoodwinking himself
all those years, accepting you as our secret go-between--and you making no
pretence, my dear! Oh, I suppose it was the right and gentlemanly thing
for him to pretend not to know. It was also, it seems, good politics.
Chamberlain knew too--must have known; for Chamberlain's no fool; and yet
to his friend, the deceived husband, said nothing! It wasn't politics; not
then. Now--now it's the great stroke, and Home Rule goes down under it....
Is that history, or is it "Alice in Wonderland"?... If you are my ruin
now, you were also my ruin then, when you were helping me to think that I
could win justice for a nation from politicians like these: win it by any
means except by beating them, bringing them to their knees, making them
red with the blood of a people always in revolt, till their reputation
stinks to the whole world! And when they do at last climb down and accept
the inevitable, then their main thought will be only how to save their own
face--and make it look a little less like the defeat they know it to be!
KATHARINE. My dear, you are so tired. Do rest!
PARNELL. I _am_ resting: for now--thanks to you--I have got at the
truth! Political history is a thing made up of accidents; but not so the
fate of men or of nations whose will is set to be free. No accident there!
That you were tied to a man you wouldn't live with, who wouldn't live with
you--was an accident. But our love was no accident; it was waiting for us
before we knew anything. You and I had each a star which shone at the
other's birth.
KATHARINE. Your star was mine, dearest. I hadn't one of my own.
PARNELL. Well, if nations wish to be fooled, let them go to the devil
their own way, not laying the blame of their own folly on others! But
having got _you_--would I ever have let you go for any power under
Heaven? Why (as soon as you were free) did I marry you? I knew that,
politically, it was a blunder: that over there it would go against us--
prove the case. Half Ireland cared nothing for the verdict of an English
jury. But when we married, they had to believe it then.... Well, I wanted
them to believe it. I know my love would have waited, had I asked her. And
it wasn't--it wasn't honour, my dear; it was much more pride: for I am a
proud man, that I own: and not less since I have won you.
KATHARINE. If you hadn't been proud, dearest, you would never have got my
love.
PARNELL. Oh, yes, I should. Those who love, don't love for qualities good
or bad. They love them in the person they love--that's all. You have
qualities which I didn't care about till I found them in you. To love is
to see life--new!
KATHARINE. And whole. Some day--alone by ourselves--we will!
PARNELL. Don't we already?
KATHARINE. Yes, if only--these other things didn't interfere. But I
promised; so they must.
PARNELL. My dear, when they have quite broken me--they will in time--then
I'll come.
KATHARINE. You promise to go right away?
PARNELL. I promise, sweetheart.
(_Moving toward each other they are about to embrace, when the door
opens, and the Servant enters carrying a card upon a tray_.)
SERVANT. If you please, sir.
(_Parnell takes the card; there is a pause while he looks at the
name_)
PARNELL. Will you say I am engaged.
(_The Servant goes. Parnell hands the card to his wife_.)
I don't know the man. Do you?
KATHARINE. No. And yet I seem to remember. Yes; Willie had a man-servant
of that name.
(_The Servant returns, bearing a folded note upon her tray_)
SERVANT. If you please, sir, I was to give you this.
PARNELL (_having read the note_). Is the man still there?
SERVANT. Yes, sir.
(_There is a pause_.)
PARNELL. Show him in.
(_As the Servant goes he hands the note to Katharine, and watches while
she reads it_.)
So--you remember him?
KATHARINE. Only the name.... I may have seen him, now and then.
(_And then enters a smooth-shaven man, sprucely dressed, with the
irreproachable manners of a well-trained servant. First, with a murmured
apology, he bows to the lady; then, having respectfully waited till the
silence becomes marked, says_:)
MAN. Good evening, sir.
PARNELL (_glancing again at the note_). You are a valet?
MAN. Yes, sir.
PARNELL. Are you wanting a place?
MAN. No, sir. I have a place.
PARNELL. Well?
MAN. That gentleman, sir--my last employer, dismissed me without a
character.
(_His reference is to the note which Parnell still holds open in his
hand_.)
PARNELL. Well?
MAN. That's all, sir.
PARNELL. Then what have you come here for?
MAN. To give you this, sir.
(_He draws out and presents a letter, rather soiled by keeping, which
has already been opened. There is a pause, while Parnell looks first at
the address, then runs his eye over the contents_)
PARNELL. May I show it to--this lady?
MAN. Oh, yes, sir.
PARNELL. Whom, I take it, you recognise?
MAN. Yes, sir. (_And meeting her glance, he bows once more_)
(_Parnell hands over the letter, and while Katharine reads there is a
pause_.)
PARNELL. Did you bring me this expecting money for it?
MAN. No, sir.
PARNELL. I see it has a date. You could have let me have it before?
MAN. Yes, sir.
PARNELL. More than--six months ago?
MAN. More than a year ago, sir.
PARNELL. Quite so. And you did not?
MAN (_eyeing him steadfastly_). No, sir. I was still comfortable in
his service then, sir.
PARNELL (_ironically, after a pause of scrutiny eye to eye_). I am
singularly obliged to you.... How did you come by it, may I ask?
MAN. Well, sir, he'd been dining out, sir. Left it in his pocket--hadn't
posted it.
PARNELL. I see.... Had your dismissal anything to do with this?
MAN. Oh, no, sir. That only happened quite recently.
PARNELL. And then--he dismissed you without a character, you say? Do you
think you deserved one?
MAN. From him, sir?--yes, sir.
PARNELL (_coldly amused_). That is a good answer. Have you been put
to any expense coming here?
MAN. Just my return fare, sir.
PARNELL. And were you expecting me to--?
MAN. No, sir; I could have sent it in the post, if I'd wished.
PARNELL (_surprised_). Do you mean, then, that I may keep this
letter?
MAN. Yes, sir.
PARNELL. I may do what I like with it?
MAN. Just what you like, sir.
PARNELL. Thank you.