Part 7

MISS L. It isn't that. It's simply that they find a man can't keep a rowdy meeting in order as well as a woman.

(_He stares._)

LADY JOHN. You aren't serious?

MISS L. (_to_ TRENT). Haven't you noticed that all their worst disturbances come when men are in charge?

TRENT. Well--a--(_laughs a little ruefully as he moves to the door_) I hadn't connected the two ideas. Goodbye.

MISS L. Goodbye.

(JEAN _takes him downstairs, right centre._)

LADY JOHN (_as_ TRENT _disappears_). That nice boy's in love with you.

(MISS LEVERING _simply looks at her._)

LADY JOHN. Goodbye. (_They shake hands._) I wish you hadn't been so unkind to that nice boy!

MISS L. Do you?

LADY JOHN. Yes, for then I would be more certain of your telling Geoffrey Stonor that intelligent women don't nurse their wrongs and lie in wait to punish them.

MISS L. You are _not_ certain?

LADY JOHN (_goes close up to_ VIDA). Are you?

(VIDA _stands with her eyes on the ground, silent, motionless._ LADY JOHN, _with a nervous glance at her watch and a gesture of extreme perturbation, goes hurriedly out._ VIDA _shuts the door. She comes slowly back, sits down and covers her face with her hands. She rises and begins to walk up and down, obviously trying to master her agitation. Enter_ GEOFFREY STONOR.)

MISS L. Well, have they primed you? Have you got your lesson (_with a little broken laugh_) _by heart_ at last?

STONOR (_looking at her from immeasurable distance_). I am not sure I understand you. (_Pause._) However unpropitious your mood may be--I shall discharge my errand. (_Pause. Her silence irritates him._) I have promised to offer you what I believe is called "amends."

MISS L. (_quickly_). You've come to realise, then--after all these years--that you owed me something?

STONOR (_on the brink of protest, checks himself_). I am not here to deny it.

MISS L. (_fiercely_). Pay, then--_pay_.

STONOR (_a moment's dread as he looks at her, his lips set. Then stonily_). I have promised that, if you exact it, I will.

MISS L. Ah! If I insist you'll "make it all good"! (_Quite low._) Then don't you know you must pay me in kind?

STONOR. What do you mean?

MISS L. Give me back what you took from me: my old faith. Give me that.

STONOR. Oh, if you mean to make phrases---- (_A gesture of scant patience._)

MISS L. (_going closer_). Or give me back mere kindness--or even tolerance. Oh, I don't mean _your_ tolerance! Give me back the power to think fairly of my brothers--not as mockers--thieves.

STONOR. I have not mocked you. And I have asked you----

MISS L. Something you knew I should refuse! Or (_her eyes blaze_) did you dare to be afraid I wouldn't?

STONOR. I suppose, if we set our teeth, we could----

MISS L. I couldn't--not even if I set my teeth. And you wouldn't dream of asking me, if you thought there was the smallest chance.

STONOR. I can do no more than make you an offer of such reparation as is in my power. If you don't accept it---- (_He turns with an air of "That's done."_)

MISS L. Accept it? No!... Go away and live in debt! Pay and pay and pay--and find yourself still in debt!--for a thing you'll never be able to give me back. (_Lower._) And when you come to die, say to yourself, "I paid all creditors but one."

STONOR. I'm rather tired, you know, of this talk of debt. If I hear that you persist in it I shall have to----

MISS L. What? (_She faces him._)

STONOR. No. I'll keep to my resolution. (_Turning to the door._)

MISS L. (_intercepting him_). What resolution?

STONOR. I came here, under considerable pressure, to speak of the future--not to re-open the past.

MISS L. The Future and the Past are one.

STONOR. You talk as if that old madness was mine alone. It is the woman's way.

MISS L. I know. And it's not fair. Men suffer as well as we by the woman's starting wrong. We are taught to think the man a sort of demigod. If he tells her: "go down into Hell"--down into Hell she goes.

STONOR. Make no mistake. Not the woman alone. _They go down together._

MISS L. Yes, they go down together, but the man comes up alone. As a rule. It is more convenient so--for him. And for the Other Woman.

(_The eyes of both go to_ JEAN'S _door._)

STONOR (_angrily_). My conscience is clear. I know--and so do you--that most men in my position wouldn't have troubled themselves. I gave myself endless trouble.

MISS L. (_with wondering eyes_). So you've gone about all these years feeling that you'd discharged every obligation.

STONOR. Not only that. I stood by you with a fidelity that was nothing short of Quixotic. If, woman like, you _must_ recall the Past--I insist on your recalling it correctly.

MISS L. (_very low_). You think I don't recall it correctly?

STONOR. Not when you make--other people believe that I deserted you. (_With gathering wrath._) It's a curious enough charge when you stop to consider---- (_Checks himself, and with a gesture of impatience sweeps the whole thing out of his way._)

MISS L. Well, when we _do_--just for five minutes out of ten years--when we do stop to consider----

STONOR. We remember it was _you_ who did the deserting! Since you had to rake the story up, you might have had the fairness to tell the facts.

MISS L. You think "the facts" would have excused you! (_She sits._)

STONOR. No doubt you've forgotten them, since Lady John tells me you wouldn't remember my existence once a year if the newspapers didn't----

MISS L. Ah, you minded that!

STONOR (_with manly spirit_). I minded your giving false impressions. (_She is about to speak, he advances on her._) Do you deny that you returned my letters unopened?

MISS L. (_quietly_). No.

STONOR. Do you deny that you refused to see me--and that, when I persisted, you vanished?

MISS L. I don't deny any of those things.

STONOR. Why, I had no trace of you for years!

MISS L. I suppose not.

STONOR. Very well, then. What _could_ I do?

MISS L. Nothing. It was too late to do anything.

STONOR. It wasn't too late! You knew--since you "read the papers"--that my father died that same year. There was no longer any barrier between us.

MISS L. Oh yes, there was a barrier.

STONOR. Of your own making, then.

MISS L. I had my guilty share in it--but the barrier (_her voice trembles_)--the barrier was your invention.

STONOR. It was no "invention." If you had ever known my father----

MISS L. Oh, the echoes! The echoes! How often you used to say, if I "knew your father!" But you said, too (_lower_)--you called the greatest barrier by another name.

STONOR. What name?

MISS L. (_very low_). The child that was to come.

STONOR (_hastily_). That was before my father died. While I still hoped to get his consent.

MISS L. (_nods_). How the thought of that all-powerful personage used to terrorise me! What chance had a little unborn child against "the last of the great feudal lords," as you called him.

STONOR. You _know_ the child would have stood between you and me!

MISS L. I know the child _did_ stand between you and me!

STONOR (_with vague uneasiness_). It _did_ stand----

MISS L. Happy mothers teach their children. Mine had to teach me.

STONOR. You talk as if----

MISS L.--teach me that a woman may do a thing for love's sake that shall kill love.

(_A silence._)

STONOR (_fearing and putting from him fuller comprehension, rises with an air of finality_). You certainly made it plain you had no love left for me.

MISS L. I had need of it all for the child.

STONOR (_stares--comes closer, speaks hurriedly and very low_). Do you mean then that, after all--it lived?

MISS L. No; I mean that it was sacrificed. But it showed me no barrier is so impassable as the one a little child can raise.

STONOR (_a light dawning_). Was that why you ... was _that_ why?

MISS L. (_nods, speechless a moment_). Day and night there it was!--between my thought of you and me. (_He sits again, staring at her._) When I was most unhappy I would wake, thinking I heard it cry. It was my own crying I heard, but I seemed to have it in my arms. I suppose I was mad. I used to lie there in that lonely farmhouse pretending to hush it. It was so I hushed myself.

STONOR. I never knew----

MISS L. I didn't blame you. You couldn't risk being with me.

STONOR. You agreed that for both our sakes----

MISS L. Yes, you had to be very circumspect. You were so well known. Your autocratic father--your brilliant political future----

STONOR. Be fair. _Our_ future--as I saw it then.

MISS L. Yes, it all hung on concealment. It must have looked quite simple to you. You didn't know that the ghost of a child that had never seen the light, the frail thing you meant to sweep aside and forget--_have_ swept aside and forgotten--you didn't know it was strong enough to push you out of my life. (_Lower with an added intensity._) It can do more. (_Leans over him and whispers._) It can push that girl out. (STONOR'S _face changes._) It can do more still.

STONOR. Are you threatening me?

MISS L. No, I am preparing you.

STONOR. For what?

MISS L. For the work that must be done. Either with _your help_--or _that girl's_.

(STONOR _lifts his eyes a moment._)

MISS L. One of two things. Either her life, and all she has, given to this new service--or a Ransom, if I give her up to you.

STONOR. I see. A price. Well----?

MISS L. (_looks searchingly in his face, hesitates and shakes her head_). Even if I could trust you to pay--no, it would be a poor bargain to give her up for anything you could do.

STONOR (_rising_). In spite of your assumption--she may not be your tool.

MISS L. You are horribly afraid she is! But you are wrong. Don't think it's merely I that have got hold of Jean Dunbarton.

STONOR (_angrily_). Who else?

MISS L. The New Spirit that's abroad.

(STONOR _turns away with an exclamation and begins to pace, sentinel-like, up and down before_ JEAN'S _door._)

MISS L. How else should that inexperienced girl have felt the new loyalty and responded as she did?

STONOR (_under his breath_). "New" indeed--however little loyal.

MISS L. Loyal above all. But no newer than electricity was when it first lit up the world. It had been there since the world began--waiting to do away with the dark. _So has the thing you're fighting._

STONOR (_his voice held down to its lowest register_). The thing I'm fighting is nothing more than one person's hold on a highly sensitive imagination. I consented to this interview with the hope---- (_A gesture of impotence._) It only remains for me to show her your true motive is revenge.

MISS L. Once say that to her and you are lost!

(STONOR _motionless; his look is the look of a man who sees happiness slipping away._)

MISS L. I know what it is that men fear. It even seems as if it must be through fear that your enlightenment will come. That is why I see a value in Jean Dunbarton far beyond her fortune.

(STONOR _lifts his eyes dully and fixes them on_ VIDA'S _face._)

MISS L. More than any girl I know--if I keep her from you--that gentle, inflexible creature could rouse in men the old half-superstitious fear----

STONOR. "Fear?" I believe you are mad.

MISS L. "Mad." "Unsexed." These are the words to-day. In the Middle Ages men cried out "Witch!" and burnt her--the woman who served no man's bed or board.

STONOR. You want to make that poor child believe----

MISS L. She sees for herself we've come to a place where we find there's a value in women apart from the value men see in them. You teach us not to look to you for some of the things we need most. If women must be freed by women, we have need of such as--(_her eyes go to_ JEAN'S _door_)--who knows? She may be the new Joan of Arc.

STONOR (_aghast_). That _she_ should be the sacrifice!

MISS L. You have taught us to look very calmly on the sacrifice of women. Men tell us in every tongue it's "a necessary evil."

(STONOR _stands rooted, staring at the ground._)

MISS L. One girl's happiness--against a thing nobler than happiness for thousands--who can hesitate?--_Not Jean._

STONOR. Good God! Can't you see that this crazed campaign you'd start her on--even if it's successful, it can only be so through the help of men? What excuse shall you make your own soul for not going straight to the goal?

MISS L. You think we wouldn't be glad to go straight to the goal?

STONOR. I do. I see you'd much rather punish me and see her revel in a morbid self-sacrifice.

MISS L. You say I want to punish you only because, like most men, you won't take the trouble to understand what we do want--or how determined we are to have it. You can't kill this new spirit among women. (_Going nearer._) And you couldn't make a greater mistake than to think it finds a home only in the exceptional, or the unhappy. It's so strange, Geoffrey, to see a man like you as much deluded as the Hyde Park loafers who say to Ernestine Blunt, "Who's hurt _your_ feelings?" Why not realise (_going quite close to him_) this is a thing that goes deeper than personal experience? And yet (_lowering her voice and glancing at the door_), if you take only the narrowest personal view, a good deal depends on what you and I agree upon in the next five minutes.

STONOR (_bringing her farther away from the door_). You recommend my realising the larger issues. But in your ambition to attach that girl to the chariot wheels of "Progress," you quite ignore the fact that people fitter for such work--the men you look to enlist in the end--are ready waiting to give the thing a chance.

MISS L. Men are ready! What men?

STONOR (_avoiding her eyes, picking his words_). Women have themselves to blame that the question has grown so delicate that responsible people shrink--for the moment--from being implicated in it.

MISS L. We have seen the "shrinking."

STONOR. Without quoting any one else, I might point out that the New Antagonism seems to have blinded you to the small fact that I, for one, am not an opponent.

MISS L. The phrase _has_ a familiar ring. We have heard it from four hundred and twenty others.

STONOR. I spoke, if I may say so, of some one who would count. Some one who can carry his party along with him--or risk a seat in the Cabinet.

MISS L. (_quickly_). Did you mean you are ready to do that?

STONOR. An hour ago I was.

MISS L. Ah!... an hour ago.

STONOR. Exactly. You don't understand men. They can be led. They can't be driven. Ten minutes before you came into the room I was ready to say I would throw in my political lot with this Reform.

MISS L. And now...?

STONOR. Now you block my way by an attempt at coercion. By forcing my hand you give my adherence an air of bargain-driving for a personal end. Exactly the mistake of the ignorant agitators of your "Union," as you call it. You have a great deal to learn. This movement will go forward, not because of the agitation, but in spite of it. There are men in Parliament who would have been actively serving the Reform to-day ... as actively as so vast a constitutional change----

MISS L. (_smiles faintly_). And they haven't done it because----

STONOR. Because it would have put a premium on breaches of decent behaviour. (_He takes a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket._) Look here!

MISS L. (_flushes with excitement as she reads the telegram_). This is very good. I see only one objection.

STONOR. Objection!

MISS L. You haven't sent it.

STONOR. _That_ is your fault.

MISS L. When did you write this?

STONOR. Just before you came in--when----(_He glances at the door._)

MISS L. Ah! It must have pleased Jean--that message. (_Offers him back the paper._)

(STONOR _astonished at her yielding it up so lightly, and remembering_ JEAN _had not so much as read it. He throws himself heavily into a chair and drops his head in his hands._)

MISS L. I could drive a hard-and-fast bargain with you, but I think I won't. If _both_ love and ambition urge you on, perhaps----(_She gazes at the slack, hopeless figure with its sudden look of age--goes over silently and stands by his side._) After all, life hasn't been quite fair to you----

(_He raises his heavy eyes._)

You fall out of one ardent woman's dreams into another's.

STONOR. You may as well tell me--do you mean to----?

MISS L. To keep you and her apart? No.

STONOR (_for the first time tears come into his eyes. After a moment he holds out his hand_). What can I do for you?

(MISS LEVERING _shakes her head--speechless._)

STONOR. For the real you. Not the Reformer, or the would-be politician--for the woman I so unwillingly hurt. (_As she turns away, struggling with her feeling, he lays a detaining hand on her arm._) You may not believe it, but now that I understand, there is almost nothing I wouldn't do to right that old wrong.

MISS L. There's nothing to be done. You can never give me back my child.

STONOR (_at the anguish in_ VIDA'S _face his own has changed_). Will that ghost give you no rest?

MISS L. Yes, oh, yes. I see life is nobler than I knew. There is work to do.

STONOR (_stopping her as she goes towards the folding doors_). Why should you think that it's only you, these ten years have taught something to? Why not give even a man credit for a willingness to learn something of life, and for being sorry--profoundly sorry--for the pain his instruction has cost others? You seem to think I've taken it all quite lightly. That's not fair. All my life, ever since you disappeared, the thought of you has hurt. I would give anything I possess to know you--were happy again.

MISS L. Oh, happiness!

STONOR (_significantly_). Why shouldn't you find it still.

MISS L. (_stares an instant_). I see! She couldn't help telling about Allen Trent--Lady John couldn't.

STONOR. You're one of the people the years have not taken from, but given more to. You are more than ever.... You haven't lost your beauty.

MISS L. The gods saw it was so little effectual, it wasn't worth taking away. (_She stands looking out into the void._) One woman's mishap?--what is that? A thing as trivial to the great world as it's sordid in most eyes. But the time has come when a woman may look about her, and say, "What general significance has my secret pain? Does it 'join on' to anything?" And I find it does. I'm no longer merely a woman who has stumbled on the way. I'm one (_she controls with difficulty the shake in her voice_) who has got up bruised and bleeding, wiped the dust from her hands and the tears from her face, and said to herself not merely, "Here's one luckless woman! but--here is a stone of stumbling to many. Let's see if it can't be moved out of other women's way." And she calls people to come and help. No mortal man, let alone a woman, _by herself_, can move that rock of offence. But (_with a sudden sombre flame of enthusiasm_) if many help, Geoffrey, the thing can be done.

STONOR (_looks at her with wondering pity_). Lord! how you care!

MISS L. (_touched by his moved face_). Don't be so sad. Shall I tell you a secret? Jean's ardent dreams needn't frighten you, if she has a child. _That_--from the beginning, it was not the strong arm--it was the weakest--the little, little arms that subdued the fiercest of us.

(STONOR _puts out a pitying hand uncertainly towards her. She does not take it, but speaks with great gentleness._)

You will have other children, Geoffrey--for me there was to be only one. Well, well--(_she brushes her tears away_)--since men alone have tried and failed to make a decent world for the little children to live in--it's as well some of us are childless. (_Quietly taking up her hat and cloak._) Yes, _we_ are the ones who have no excuse for standing aloof from the fight.

STONOR. Vida!

MISS L. What?

STONOR. You've forgotten something. (_As she looks back he is signing the message._) _This._

(_She goes out silently with the "political dynamite" in her hand._)

CURTAIN.

The Gresham Press,

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, WOKING AND LONDON.

Corrections.

The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.

p. 43:

we all realise it was a perfectiy lunatic proceeding we all realise it was a perfectly lunatic proceeding

p. 73:

the unemployed in the condition they' e the unemployed in the condition they're

p. 92:

you aren't going away lik that. you aren't going away like that.