Part 5
ROSIE (_with a ghost of a smile, as she goes_): That cook! She’s a one!
[_When she is gone, there is a short silence. Then:_
GWEN: It must be awful.
JOHN: Does this frighten you?
GWEN: It’s a bit of a red light.
JOHN: How?
GWEN: Well ... you’ve got to remember when you talk about all this, it _does_ happen to people. It happened to the eldest Gillingham girl.... I didn’t know much about it; but she had the most terrible time.... You can imagine ... what Rosie said--_helpless_ ... awful. (_She thinks for a while; then her eyes, wandering, light on the tea-things._) Do you want some tea?
JOHN: Yes ... thanks.
[_GWEN pours out his tea and gives it to him; and pours out her own and, sitting, stirs it, reflectively. These two are very fond of one another, and at ease together; there is a quality of gentleness in their bearing to each other._
GWEN: ... It doesn’t frighten me ... really ... not if you stop to think ... you needn’t have a baby, need you?
JOHN: Nearly everybody, in our class, limits their families.
GWEN: If you make up your mind it’s not wrong to love without having children, it’s awfully _weak_ to change your mind just because someone else has one by mistake, isn’t it?
JOHN: That’s true.
GWEN: But, Jacko ... you know ... all the same ... the people who are against you would pick on Rosie; they’d say, there’s a girl with her life ruined, and her baby’s life ruined; and if you had your way, there’d be more and more like her....
JOHN: Fools!!
GWEN: Yes, but what’s the answer, Jacko?
[_She speaks, and listens, always, with a simple direct eagerness for understanding, and points of view._
JOHN: The answer!
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: ... Well ... in the first place: there are plenty of Roses, now, aren’t there?
GWEN: I suppose so.
JOHN: Thousands. The streets are strewn with their petals; and the winds that strew them, blow out of unhappy homes.
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: Out of unsuccessful marriages; and lonely separations. They can’t boast such a success with their Roses, as things _are_.
GWEN: No.
JOHN: And in the second place, if Rosie’d been _your_ daughter, or mine, she’d have had a different education about it all.... Wouldn’t she?
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: What Rosie knows, she knows from cinemas, and giggling talks with other girls and occasional young men. Whatever “teaching” she’s had, has been just _Don’t_.
GWEN: Yes. Just “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t; it’s wicked,” all the time.
JOHN: Exactly; about its real possibilities, and its real dangers, she knew nothing; and along comes this man; and over she goes!... If she’d belonged to us, she’d have known what she was doing; either she wouldn’t have had an affair with this man at all--he’s apparently left her in the lurch--or, if it was a thing of real value in their lives, she wouldn’t have had a child; unless she wanted it; and was prepared to face up to the whole business.
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: And in the third place, now that it _has_ happened, half her trouble is her _fear_; the disgrace of it. If instead of cursing her, and blaming her, and pushing her away, people would help her, it wouldn’t be so very terrible.
GWEN: There’s her baby....
JOHN: Gwen; an epileptic woman in a slum can have twelve children by a confirmed drunkard. Which is worse? That; or this baby of Rosie’s? But as long as it’s in “holy matrimony,” people can have dozens of children with no earthly chance of looking after them--and your moralists make no objection; but they’ll torture young Rosie till she thinks of suicide.... The whole question of children--I’m sure it’s a matter of _clear thinking_. It’s so damned important we should think clearly.... Love between two people is a personal relationship.
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: I can’t see that anybody has a right to interfere.
GWEN: No.
JOHN: But as soon as you have a child, it’s more than personal; it’s a social relationship.
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: And the Law oughtn’t to be concerned with the personal side of it at all; but with the social--with the obligations to the children.
GWEN: Yes.... What would you do about children in your trial marriages?
JOHN: There oughtn’t to be any; not until they’ve set out to be permanent.
[_Up to this point the talk has been quiet; they have been helping themselves, and each other, to their teas._
[_Now, JOHN is impelled from within to move. His own convictions, with the sense of a world in opposition, trouble him; his sentences jerk out: all underlined, as it were._
JOHN: But it’s just because as many permanent happy marriages as possible seems the best way it’s so damned important for people to make a good choice ... with full knowledge ... and so, with a real hope of being lasting and happy; and to help them _out_ when they’ve made a mistake ... it wouldn’t be so difficult if people would be open-minded and sane about it ... people just point out difficulties and dangers, and think they’ve smashed our case ... of course there’d be difficulties and unhappiness; love’s not simple ... but look at it all _now_. That’s what they forget. Look at it _now_....
When one thinks of the Prejudices, and Intolerance; of all the _Righteousness_ that stands between us and a happier world, it drives one mad.... Have you walked through a slum lately?
GWEN: No.
JOHN: I did; yesterday; ... thousands of babies rolling about in filth; and you only see them outside, where at least there’s a square inch of open sky above them.
Think of them inside. Whole families in one room. The mothers and fathers, growing brothers and sisters, and new-born babies; all together; day and night; in every city in the civilised world.... Think of it, for a moment ... _intimately_.... Good God! Talk about leading little children astray. A civilisation that tolerates it ought to have a millstone round its neck; ... as a matter of fact, it has; the thing itself is a millstone; dragging us down; fast.
GWEN: How?
JOHN: How! Why: if anybody has the quality to rise out of it, he gets on at his job, marries above him and doesn’t have children. The worst are pouring out children, the best are more or less barren.
GWEN: But, John, if the worst are increasing so much the fastest, things may get worse and worse.
JOHN: Of course.
GWEN: Then why doesn’t somebody _do_ something!
JOHN: For various reasons.
GWEN: What?
JOHN: Religion doesn’t do anything because it thinks Birth Control wicked. Big Business doesn’t do anything, because it wants cheap Labour; the Governments don’t do anything because they want soldiers for the next war.
GWEN: The next war!
JOHN: The next war.
GWEN: Jacko, do you think there is going to be a next war?
JOHN: Who’s going to stop it? We’re all arming again as fast as we can go. Submarines and aeroplanes; blockade and starvation; bombs and poison gas from the air that’ll exterminate whole cities at a go! (_He is speaking with great emphasis._) D’you realise one of the leading scientists of the world has said that the millions of London could be blotted out in three hours! You may say that’s an exaggeration; it may be; but at the rate science is going it won’t be in a few years. “Easy and inexpensive”--that’s what a Cabinet Minister said about poison gas; and they’re all making it; as fast as they can go; and fleets of aeroplanes to drop it.
GWEN: Do you mean that the children I may have, or you may have, may be just wiped out in another war, more terrible than the last?
JOHN: Why not? When nations are armed to the teeth, the arms go off, sooner or later. It always has been so; there’s no reason why it should be any different now; unless there was a change of spirit; and there’s no sign of that. Why should there be? The old ideas are still in power; all over the world; the very same men mostly; you see, _they_ survive wars!
GWEN: But can’t _we_ do something? Why should we have children for that?
JOHN: My dear, they laugh at _us_. And at anybody else who suggests they aren’t wisdom incarnate ... unless we ever became effective against them; then they’d find a way of downing us. You’ve only got to read the newspapers: speeches by generals, and admirals--and bishops; threatenings by politicians; in every country; the old financial interests at work under it all; and the great mass of the people, in every country, struggling all day just to exist, absolutely incapable of independent thought, and ready to believe what any newspaper tells them three days running.
GWEN: John! ... if it’s like that, what’s the good of anything! It doesn’t seem worth going on, or trying.
JOHN: Oh yes, it’s worth it. If the smash comes the few ideals that are left will float upward, and have some influence on what comes next. Something’s got to come next!... Men _could_ free themselves from war.
GWEN: Could they?
JOHN: And from all the other forces that make them suffer so. They’re not natural forces; they’re forces men have made.
GWEN: Then why don’t they?
JOHN: ... And it isn’t for want of courage or nobility.
GWEN: Then why?
JOHN: There’s no _will_ to do it, and that’s because there’s no understanding.... I often think, now, of being in the trenches.
GWEN: Do you?
JOHN: There was a joy in it; at first, anyhow.
GWEN: _You_ say that!
JOHN: Comradeship.
GWEN: The friends you made....
JOHN: No. The strangers on the road, day and night, at the same task; one’s rest and play only to give one strength for it; a _purpose_ that gave meaning to every moment.
GWEN: Oh, Jacko, something in me leaps to that.
JOHN: For five years the men under forty worked together, sacrificed everything they had in life, every hope, prospect, comfort; they underwent suffering, physical suffering and moral suffering, absolutely inconceivable to those who stayed at home, so that to give their lives at the end of it was often a relief ... and they won! By God, Gwen, if the men over forty with the money and the power would get together and work _one-twentieth_ as well, and sacrifice _one-hundredth_ of their personal comfort, what mightn’t they make of the victory--but they won’t! They won’t, because they see no reason why they should. They’ve got no _faith_ to make them. They’ve got nothing great to _believe in_.... To-day, the wisest of men are cynical, and the cleverest are rich, and none are happy.... There’s no great purpose outside our own lives to give them harmony and meaning. Ask the ordinary people, in the streets, and tubes, and ’buses ... what they’re living _for_; they don’t know.... All the old _duties_--our duty to our parents; to our country; to God; they’ve been prostituted; they demanded our blood; and took it; and gave us nothing in return but a dreadful sense of futility ... we’ve got to find something truer to believe in....
GWEN: Can we find something?
JOHN: I believe so.
GWEN: What?
JOHN: ... Why not, just ... our duty to our fellows.... Suppose we all started in with that as a _Religion_; with half the will we went to war; a common purpose so deeply felt that everybody was ready to spend their lives for it, and make any sacrifices that were called for; I’d be a parson if that was religion, teaching that common purpose--just to clear up the mess a bit; so that the generation that’s waiting just outside the doors of existence, should come in and find it a happier place; it ’ud be a dam’ sight happier place for those in it _now_, anyhow! and we’d soon do away with any fear of another war; that ’ud be something.
GWEN: John, do you think there’s a hope?
JOHN: There’s always hope--in the young people.
GWEN: Do you believe that?
JOHN: What other hope is there? There are millions and millions waiting to be born; they haven’t got all the prejudices and hatreds that cause the trouble; they get ’em from us; we’ve got to give ’em something better.
GWEN: And shall we?
JOHN: If we don’t, they’ll go through all the hell that we’ve been through, probably a worse hell than anything we’ve known yet--in this country, anyhow--and then their children, and their children’s children, will try again.
GWEN: But _now_! Can’t we do anything now?
JOHN: I don’t know.
GWEN: We ought to try.
JOHN: That’s what I feel. That’s why I’m chucking the business.
GWEN: What are you going to do?
JOHN: Follow my urge! That’s all I can do.
GWEN: What’s that mean?
JOHN: I’ve got a few hundred pounds in the bank; and I’m selling my piano, and everything else I can. I’m going to write; and think and read; and get into touch with any others I can, who feel as we do.
GWEN: Yes. What are you going to write?
JOHN: I want to try and write something for the ordinary sort of person, who’s just lost and discontented. There _are_ some.
GWEN: Heaps and heaps.
JOHN: That might be my job; it’s not much; when one talks of _doing_, what can one _do_, oneself, seems so inadequate. But it would have been a poor excuse before a tribunal: “I’m not going to join up.” “Why?” “I don’t see myself winning the war single-handed” ... plenty only stopped a bullet going into something else. I may only encourage somebody else to do something.
GWEN: You’re lucky having something you know you ought to do. I wish I had.
JOHN: You have!
GWEN: What?
JOHN: There’s one way all our lot can help: it’s probably the best way, too.
GWEN: What is it?
JOHN: To live by what you believe, which is difficult ... and not by what you don’t believe, which is easy.
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: If you can, you’re a fanatic! But I believe you’ve got to have something of a fanatic in you to do anything worth while these days. The thing is to keep one’s fanaticism, and to keep one’s humanity.
GWEN: Jacko! It _is_ important to live what you believe, isn’t it?
JOHN: _I_ think so; tremendously; I think, if this generation misses its opportunity, _which it may_, it’s because we’ve lost the old beliefs and haven’t taken the trouble to get a new one for ourselves.
GWEN: Yes. Oh, there are such heaps of people “lost and discontented”; I know such heaps of girls like that. They just don’t know where they are; they make an awful mess of things sometimes.
JOHN: You do, if you don’t know where you are. You know, if we’re not careful, there’ll be a period of aimless licence, and then reaction. It’s a critical time all right. A puritan reaction; and all the old inhibitions and denials and secrecies _clamped down_ on our children again.
GWEN: It makes everything seem unimportant except doing one’s bit; doesn’t it?
JOHN: Yes.
GWEN: It’s funny that just when I’m beginning to feel like that, there _is_ something in my life that’s important.
JOHN: What?
GWEN: You won’t laugh!
JOHN: Of course not.
GWEN: I only wish it didn’t seem so important ... you won’t laugh?
JOHN: You’ll get a clump on the head in a minute, if you keep on asking me not to laugh ... what is it?
GWEN: I’m in love.
JOHN: Colin?
GWEN: Oh damn! Is it so obvious?
JOHN: ’Tisn’t obvious a bit; up to a second ago I hadn’t a notion; but you’ve seen a good deal of him these last two weeks, haven’t you?
GWEN: He’s taken me out nearly every day; theatres and dinners; I’ve never had such a time.
JOHN: Does he love you?
GWEN: I don’t think so; I don’t think he cares a bit more for me than for all the others he takes about. I’m a fool! I dread every time I see him in case I should find out it’s no good; but every time he goes away, life’s just waiting for the next time I see him!
JOHN: Are you sure?
GWEN: _Sure?_ How?
JOHN: That you love him?
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: Enough to marry him?
GWEN: Yes.
JOHN: By jove, Gwen, I’d like you to.
GWEN (_brokenly_): Oh, Jacko....
[_A knock at the door._
JOHN: Come in.... Hullo, Colin!
COLIN (_coming in_): Hullo.... Hullo, Gwen. Good afternoon.
JOHN: Have some tea? It’s quite cold.
COLIN: No, thanks.
GWEN: I’ll make some in a moment.
COLIN: You’ve had yours....
GWEN (_rising_): I’ll make some more.
COLIN: No. Don’t you go.... (_To JOHN._) Can _you_ make tea?
JOHN: Yes.
COLIN: I’ll have some if _you_ make it.
JOHN: I don’t make it in this house; I don’t know where the things are kept.
COLIN: Well, could you go and buy some cigarettes?
JOHN: I’ve got some!
COLIN: Could you run out and post a letter?
JOHN (_with a grin_): I haven’t got any to post!
COLIN: Then go out into the street, and go up to the first person you meet, and ask them to teach you to take a hint.
JOHN: You want to be left alone!
COLIN: You’re very bright this afternoon.
[_JOHN goes straight out of the room.... A sudden silence falls.... COLIN takes out his cigarette-case, and helps himself to one; and puts it back ... and takes it out again._
I beg your pardon ... will you?
GWEN: No, thanks.
[_He puts it back, and lights his cigarette ... the silence grows again._
GWEN: I think I will.
[_He takes out his case; she takes a cigarette, and he lights it for her._
COLIN: ... lovely day it’s been.
GWEN: Yes.
COLIN (_suddenly_): _I say, Gwen!_----
[_A knock at the door._
Come in.
JOHN: Sorry! It’s raining! I’ll be upstairs. Give me a blow when I can come down.
COLIN: Seems a bit changeable!!
GWEN: Yes.
COLIN (_throwing away his cigarette, he starts again with the same suddenness of tone_): _Gwen!_... What would you say if I asked you to marry me?
GWEN: ... are you being serious?
COLIN: Yes.
[_He comes quickly to her where she is sitting; he speaks crisply._
I want to kneel down, but I can’t. Stand up.
[_She does. They are standing close ... they remain so for a moment, and then kiss._
COLIN: Then it’s all right?
GWEN: Yes.
COLIN: Thank God. I wish I’d said this days ago.
GWEN: So do I.
COLIN: Do you?
GWEN: No I don’t. I don’t want anything to be different. Oh, Colin, you’ve taken such a load off my mind!...
COLIN (_roughly_): Come here!
[_He takes her and kisses her again; they part; he strides away from her._
Oh my God! I am happy! (_His eyes fall on the tea-tray._) Have some cold tea?
[_She shakes her head; he pours himself out some._
My throat’s as dry as a bone. (_He drinks._) Come to dinner to-night?
GWEN: Yes.
COLIN: And to-morrow?
GWEN: Yes.
COLIN: And lunch?
GWEN: You’re lunching with someone.
COLIN: I’ll put ’em off.
GWEN: You oughtn’t to.
COLIN: Yes, I ought.
GWEN: I’m so glad you will.
COLIN: Oh, my dear!--it’s difficult to talk sense. Let’s try. I don’t want to wait. Do you?
GWEN: I don’t think I could.
COLIN: When shall we get married?
GWEN: Not yet.
COLIN: But we don’t want to wait.
GWEN: No.
COLIN: Then what do you mean?
GWEN: Don’t let’s get married yet.
COLIN: Oh don’t let’s have any more of that _rot_! (_And, because his nerves are on edge, he makes it sound more explosive than he meant. Realising, he adds, mitigatingly:_) I mean, it may be all right when you’re not serious, but when you are, it’s no good.
GWEN: It’s not “rot” to me.
COLIN: Well--perhaps not; but _we_ needn’t be mixed up in it.
GWEN: Leave it to somebody else.
COLIN: Yes! pray God, yes! Look here, I love you. Please understand that. Quite certainly. With everything in me, for always.
GWEN (_very gently, to herself_): Oh, Colin!
COLIN: I’ve been very lonely; with everything I wanted--unhappy. You’ve changed all that. I want everything now, for you.
GWEN (_softly_): It’s a miracle!
COLIN: It’s a fact. But I know what I want; d’you see? ... that’s going to give me the power to get it--for both of us. All this experimenting business. It’s no good. I’ve finished with it!
GWEN: You’ve _finished_ with it!
COLIN: Yes.
[_She gives a little laugh._
COLIN: Now, look here, Gwen; people who _shilly-shally_ round and get someone in their lives, and then look round and wonder whether someone else wouldn’t give them a fuller life! I’ve no use for it. I know a good deal about life.
GWEN: You mean you’ve had a lot of ... of lovers?
COLIN: You know that. I don’t want to pretend. Not an abnormal amount! Nothing out of the ordinary, but _because_ this isn’t new to me, I haven’t a doubt. This thing’s permanent. I _know_.
GWEN: It’s all new to me.
COLIN: Can’t you trust me?
GWEN: To teach me love. Yes.
COLIN: Gwen, I’ve seen my children in your eyes.
GWEN (_with a little cry_): Oh, why did you say that? You know I want them, too; but not yet.
COLIN: My dear love; if you want to see life, or the world, a bit first--of course--there’s nowhere you can’t go; nothing you can’t have for the asking; I’m going to give the rest of my life to give you everything you want.
GWEN: I only want you.
COLIN: That’s all right then. Now; when are we going to get married?...
[_She is silent._
Has John been putting you up to this?
GWEN: To what?
COLIN: This refusing-to-marry stunt!
GWEN: No.
COLIN: Yes; he has; you’ve been listening to him.
GWEN: Well, why not?
COLIN: Why not?
GWEN: Yes.
COLIN: Because ... because I won’t stand for it!
GWEN: You won’t stand for it?
COLIN: No. Why should I? Your head’s full of his stuff.
GWEN: It’s full of his stuff because I believe it’s true.
COLIN: Oh, damn it all, Gwen; what d’you believe’s true?
GWEN: I believe with all my soul to marry you now, straight off, would be a wrong thing to do. (_She is passionately sincere._) Really! Really! I don’t believe it would be _right_! If I did, it would only be to save bother. I want to do what’s right. Oh, I can’t talk; I can’t say what I mean; I feel it; it isn’t only myself ... it’s the others.
COLIN: The others?
GWEN: Yes; we’re supposed to; it isn’t easy to hold out; some girls are; I want to be on their side; I want to keep hold of my part in the future; if I give in right at the beginning, how can I ever take any part, or interest ever again, without being ashamed ... if that’s a “stunt”; if it’s all “rot” to you ... it’s no good; you’d better go!
COLIN: And you say you love me!
GWEN: Yes; I love you; make no mistake about that. I don’t know what I shall do, if you go.... I love you so much, I don’t want our first love to be spoiled by feeling I’m doing wrong.
COLIN: You’re obstinate.
GWEN: I can’t help it.... Oh, Colin, please, don’t you see ... if _you’re_ certain, it’ll make no difference in the end.
COLIN: Oh, it’ll make a difference all right!
GWEN: What difference?
COLIN: It’s going to be very unpleasant for me.