GEORGE SHAW - Collected Works

MORELL. What have I done—or not done—my love?

CANDIDA (with serious vexation). My own particular pet scrubbing brush has been used for blackleading. (A heart-breaking wail bursts from Marchbanks. Burgess looks round, amazed. Candida hurries to the sofa.) What's the matter? Are you ill, Eugene?

MARCHBANKS. No, not ill. Only horror, horror, horror! (He bows his head on his hands.)

BURGESS (shocked). What! Got the 'orrors, Mr. Morchbanks! Oh, that's bad, at your age. You must leave it off grajally.

CANDIDA (reassured). Nonsense, papa. It's only poetic horror, isn't it, Eugene? (Petting him.)

BURGESS (abashed). Oh, poetic 'orror, is it? I beg your pordon, I'm shore. (He turns to the fire again, deprecating his hasty conclusion.)

CANDIDA. What is it, Eugene—the scrubbing brush? (He shudders.) Well, there! never mind. (She sits down beside him.) Wouldn't you like to present me with a nice new one, with an ivory back inlaid with mother-of-pearl?

MARCHBANKS (softly and musically, but sadly and longingly). No, not a scrubbing brush, but a boat—a tiny shallop to sail away in, far from the world, where the marble floors are washed by the rain and dried by the sun, where the south wind dusts the beautiful green and purple carpets. Or a chariot—to carry us up into the sky, where the lamps are stars, and don't need to be filled with paraffin oil every day.

MORELL (harshly). And where there is nothing to do but to be idle, selfish and useless.

CANDIDA (jarred). Oh, James, how could you spoil it all!

MARCHBANKS (firing up). Yes, to be idle, selfish and useless: that is to be beautiful and free and happy: hasn't every man desired that with all his soul for the woman he loves? That's my ideal: what's yours, and that of all the dreadful people who live in these hideous rows of houses? Sermons and scrubbing brushes! With you to preach the sermon and your wife to scrub.

CANDIDA (quaintly). He cleans the boots, Eugene. You will have to clean them to-morrow for saying that about him.

MARCHBANKS. Oh! don't talk about boots. Your feet should be beautiful on the mountains.

CANDIDA. My feet would not be beautiful on the Hackney Road without boots.

BURGESS (scandalized). Come, Candy, don't be vulgar. Mr. Morchbanks ain't accustomed to it. You're givin' him the 'orrors again. I mean the poetic ones.

(Morell is silent. Apparently he is busy with his letters: really he is puzzling with misgiving over his new and alarming experience that the surer he is of his moral thrusts, the more swiftly and effectively Eugene parries them. To find himself beginning to fear a man whom he does not respect affects him bitterly.)

(Miss Garnett comes in with a telegram.)

PROSERPINE (handing the telegram to Morell). Reply paid. The boy's waiting. (To Candida, coming back to her machine and sitting down.) Maria is ready for you now in the kitchen, Mrs. Morell. (Candida rises.) The onions have come.

MARCHBANKS (convulsively). Onions!

CANDIDA. Yes, onions. Not even Spanish ones—nasty little red onions. You shall help me to slice them. Come along.

(She catches him by the wrist and runs out, pulling him after her. Burgess rises in consternation, and stands aghast on the hearth-rug, staring after them.)

BURGESS. Candy didn't oughter 'andle a peer's nevvy like that. It's goin' too fur with it. Lookee 'ere, James: do 'e often git taken queer like that?

MORELL (shortly, writing a telegram). I don't know.

BURGESS (sentimentally). He talks very pretty. I allus had a turn for a bit of potery. Candy takes arter me that-a-way: huse ter make me tell her fairy stories when she was on'y a little kiddy not that 'igh (indicating a stature of two feet or thereabouts).

MORELL (preoccupied). Ah, indeed. (He blots the telegram, and goes out.)

PROSERPINE. Used you to make the fairy stories up out of your own head?

(Burgess, not deigning to reply, strikes an attitude of the haughtiest disdain on the hearth-rug.)

PROSERPINE (calmly). I should never have supposed you had it in you. By the way, I'd better warn you, since you've taken such a fancy to Mr. Marchbanks. He's mad.

BURGESS. Mad! Wot! 'Im too!!

PROSERPINE. Mad as a March hare. He did frighten me, I can tell you just before you came in that time. Haven't you noticed the queer things he says?

BURGESS. So that's wot the poetic 'orrors means. Blame me if it didn't come into my head once or twyst that he must be off his chump! (He crosses the room to the door, lifting up his voice as he goes.) Well, this is a pretty sort of asylum for a man to be in, with no one but you to take care of him!

PROSERPINE (as he passes her). Yes, what a dreadful thing it would be if anything happened to YOU!

BURGESS (loftily). Don't you address no remarks to me. Tell your hemployer that I've gone into the garden for a smoke.

PROSERPINE (mocking). Oh!

(Before Burgess can retort, Morell comes back.)

BURGESS (sentimentally). Goin' for a turn in the garden to smoke, James.

MORELL (brusquely). Oh, all right, all right. (Burgess goes out pathetically in the character of the weary old man. Morell stands at the table, turning over his papers, and adding, across to Proserpine, half humorously, half absently) Well, Miss Prossy, why have you been calling my father-in-law names?

PROSERPINE (blushing fiery red, and looking quickly up at him, half scared, half reproachful). I— (She bursts into tears.)

MORELL (with tender gaiety, leaning across the table towards her, and consoling her). Oh, come, come, come! Never mind, Pross: he IS a silly old fathead, isn't he?

(With an explosive sob, she makes a dash at the door, and vanishes, banging it. Morell, shaking his head resignedly, sighs, and goes wearily to his chair, where he sits down and sets to work, looking old and careworn.)

(Candida comes in. She has finished her household work and taken of the apron. She at once notices his dejected appearance, and posts herself quietly at the spare chair, looking down at him attentively; but she says nothing.)

MORELL (looking up, but with his pen raised ready to resume his work). Well? Where is Eugene?

CANDIDA. Washing his hands in the scullery—under the tap. He will make an excellent cook if he can only get over his dread of Maria.

MORELL (shortly). Ha! No doubt. (He begins writing again.)

CANDIDA (going nearer, and putting her hand down softly on his to stop him, as she says). Come here, dear. Let me look at you. (He drops his pen and yields himself at her disposal. She makes him rise and brings him a little away from the table, looking at him critically all the time.) Turn your face to the light. (She places him facing the window.) My boy is not looking well. Has he been overworking?

MORELL. Nothing more than usual.

CANDIDA. He looks very pale, and grey, and wrinkled, and old. (His melancholy deepens; and she attacks it with wilful gaiety.) Here (pulling him towards the easy chair) you've done enough writing for to-day. Leave Prossy to finish it and come and talk to me.

MORELL. But—

CANDIDA. Yes, I MUST be talked to sometimes. (She makes him sit down, and seats herself on the carpet beside his knee.) Now (patting his hand) you're beginning to look better already. Why don't you give up all this tiresome overworking—going out every night lecturing and talking? Of course what you say is all very true and very right; but it does no good: they don't mind what you say to them one little bit. Of course they agree with you; but what's the use of people agreeing with you if they go and do just the opposite of what you tell them the moment your back is turned? Look at our congregation at St. Dominic's! Why do they come to hear you talking about Christianity every Sunday? Why, just because they've been so full of business and money-making for six days that they want to forget all about it and have a rest on the seventh, so that they can go back fresh and make money harder than ever! You positively help them at it instead of hindering them.