MRS TARLETON. _[shocked]_ Hypatia! How can you! The things that girls say nowadays!
HYPATIA. Well, what else can you call him? If I"d been deaf or he"d been dumb, I could have married him. But living with father, Ive got accustomed to cleverness. Jerry would drive me mad: you know very well hes a fool: even Johnny thinks him a fool.
MRS TARLETON. _[up in arms at once in defence of her boy]_ Now dont begin about my Johnny. You know it annoys me. Johnny"s as clever as anybody else in his own way. I dont say hes as clever as you in some ways; but hes a man, at all events, and not a little squit of a thing like your Bunny.
HYPATIA. Oh, I say nothing against your darling: we all know Johnny"s perfection.
MRS TARLETON. Dont be cross, dearie. You let Johnny alone; and I"ll let Bunny alone. I"m just as bad as you. There!
HYPATIA. Oh, I dont mind your saying that about Bentley. It"s true.
He is a little squit of a thing. I wish he wasnt. But who else is there? Think of all the other chances Ive had! Not one of them has as much brains in his whole body as Bentley has in his little finger.
Besides, theyve no distinction. It"s as much as I can do to tell one from the other. They wouldnt even have money if they werent the sons of their fathers, like Johnny. Whats a girl to do? I never met anybody like Bentley before. He may be small; but hes the best of the bunch: you cant deny that.
MRS TARLETON. _[with a sigh]_ Well, my pet, if you fancy him, theres no more to be said.
_A pause follows this remark: the two women sewing silently._
HYPATIA. Mother: do you think marriage is as much a question of fancy as it used to be in your time and father"s?
MRS TARLETON. Oh, it wasnt much fancy with me, dear: your father just wouldnt take no for an answer; and I was only too glad to be his wife instead of his shop-girl. Still, it"s curious; but I had more choice than you in a way, because, you see, I was poor; and there are so many more poor men than rich ones that I might have had more of a pick, as you might say, if John hadnt suited me.
HYPATIA. I can imagine all sorts of men I could fall in love with; but I never seem to meet them. The real ones are too small, like Bunny, or too silly, like Jerry. Of course one can get into a state about any man: fall in love with him if you like to call it that.
But who would risk marrying a man for love? _I_ shouldnt. I remember three girls at school who agreed that the one man you should never marry was the man you were in love with, because it would make a perfect slave of you. Theres a sort of instinct against it, I think, thats just as strong as the other instinct. One of them, to my certain knowledge, refused a man she was in love with, and married another who was in love with her; and it turned out very well.
MRS TARLETON. Does all that mean that youre not in love with Bunny?
HYPATIA. Oh, how could anybody be in love with Bunny? I like him to kiss me just as I like a baby to kiss me. I"m fond of him; and he never bores me; and I see that hes very clever; but I"m not what you call gone about him, if thats what you mean.
MRS TARLETON. Then why need you marry him?
HYPATIA. What better can I do? I must marry somebody, I suppose.
Ive realized that since I was twenty-three. I always used to take it as a matter of course that I should be married before I was twenty.
BENTLEY"S VOICE. _[in the garden]_ Youve got to keep yourself fresh: to look at these things with an open mind.
JOHN TARLETON"S VOICE. Quite right, quite right: I always say so.
MRS TARLETON. Theres your father, and Bunny with him.
BENTLEY. Keep young. Keep your eye on me. Thats the tip for you.
_Bentley and Mr Tarleton (an immense and genial veteran of trade) come into view and enter the pavilion._
JOHN TARLETON. You think youre young, do you? You think I"m old?
_[energetically shaking off his motoring coat and hanging it up with his cap]._
BENTLEY. _[helping him with the coat]_ Of course youre old. Look at your face and look at mine. What you call your youth is nothing but your levity. Why do we get on so well together? Because I"m a young cub and youre an old josser. _[He throws a cushion at Hypatia"s feet and sits down on it with his back against her knees]._
TARLETON. Old! Thats all you know about it, my lad. How do, Patsy!
_[Hypatia kisses him]._ How is my Chickabiddy? _[He kisses Mrs Tarleton"s hand and poses expansively in the middle of the picture]._ Look at me! Look at these wrinkles, these gray hairs, this repulsive mask that you call old age! What is it? _[Vehemently]_ I ask you, what is it?
BENTLEY. Jolly nice and venerable, old man. Dont be discouraged.
TARLETON. Nice? Not a bit of it. Venerable? Venerable be blowed!
Read your Darwin, my boy. Read your Weismann. _[He goes to the sideboard for a drink of lemonade]._
MRS TARLETON. For shame, John! Tell him to read his Bible.
TARLETON. _[manipulating the syphon]_ Whats the use of telling children to read the Bible when you know they wont. I was kept away from the Bible for forty years by being told to read it when I was young. Then I picked it up one evening in a hotel in Sunderland when I had left all my papers in the train; and I found it wasnt half bad.
_[He drinks, and puts down the gla.s.s with a smack of enjoyment]._ Better than most halfpenny papers, anyhow, if only you could make people believe it. _[He sits down by the writing-table, near his wife]._ But if you want to understand old age scientifically, read Darwin and Weismann. Of course if you want to understand it romantically, read about Solomon.
MRS TARLETON. Have you had tea, John?
TARLETON. Yes. Dont interrupt me when I"m improving the boy"s mind.
Where was I? This repulsive mask--Yes. _[Explosively]_ What is death?
MRS TARLETON. John!
HYPATIA. Death is a rather unpleasant subject, papa.
TARLETON. Not a bit. Not scientifically. Scientifically it"s a delightful subject. You think death"s natural. Well, it isnt. You read Weismann. There wasnt any death to start with. You go look in any ditch outside and youll find swimming about there as fresh as paint some of the identical little live cells that Adam christened in the Garden of Eden. But if big things like us didnt die, we"d crowd one another off the face of the globe. Nothing survived, sir, except the sort of people that had the sense and good manners to die and make room for the fresh supplies. And so death was introduced by Natural Selection. You get it out of your head, my lad, that I"m going to die because I"m wearing out or decaying. Theres no such thing as decay to a vital man. I shall clear out; but I shant decay.
BENTLEY. And what about the wrinkles and the almond tree and the gra.s.shopper that becomes a burden and the desire that fails?
TARLETON. Does it? by George! No, sir: it spiritualizes. As to your gra.s.shopper, I can carry an elephant.
MRS TARLETON. You do say such things, Bunny! What does he mean by the almond tree?
TARLETON. He means my white hairs: the repulsive mask. That, my boy, is another invention of Natural Selection to disgust young women with me, and give the lads a turn.
MRS TARLETON. John: I wont have it. Thats a forbidden subject.
TARLETON. They talk of the wickedness and vanity of women painting their faces and wearing auburn wigs at fifty. But why shouldnt they?
Why should a woman allow Nature to put a false mask of age on her when she knows that shes as young as ever? Why should she look in the gla.s.s and see a wrinkled lie when a touch of fine art will shew her a glorious truth? The wrinkles are a dodge to repel young men. Suppose she doesnt want to repel young men! Suppose she likes them!
MRS TARLETON. Bunny: take Hypatia out into the grounds for a walk: theres a good boy. John has got one of his naughty fits this evening.
HYPATIA. Oh, never mind me. I"m used to him.
BENTLEY. I"m not. I never heard such conversation: I cant believe my ears. And mind you, this is the man who objected to my marrying his daughter on the ground that a marriage between a member of the great and good middle cla.s.s with one of the vicious and corrupt aristocracy would be a misalliance. A misalliance, if you please!
This is the man Ive adopted as a father!
TARLETON. Eh! Whats that? Adopted me as a father, have you?
BENTLEY. Yes. Thats an idea of mine. I knew a chap named Joey Percival at Oxford (you know I was two months at Balliol before I was sent down for telling the old woman who was head of that silly college what I jolly well thought of him. He would have been glad to have me back, too, at the end of six months; but I wouldnt go: I just let him want; and serve him right!) Well, Joey was a most awfully clever fellow, and so nice! I asked him what made such a difference between him and all the other pups--they were pups, if you like. He told me it was very simple: they had only one father apiece; and he had three.
MRS TARLETON. Dont talk nonsense, child. How could that be?
BENTLEY. Oh, very simple. His father--