The Collected Dramas of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
top of the house. No, no, you must invent some thumping lie. I can’t think of one: you can, Julia. Exercise all your genius. I’ll back you up.
JULIA. But —— —
CHARTERIS. Sh-sh! Here they are. Sit down and look at home. (Julia tears off her bonnet and mantle; throws them on the table; and darts to the piano at which she seats herself.)
JULIA. Come and sing. (She plays the symphony to “When other lips.” He stands at the piano, as if about to sing. Two elderly gentlemen enter. Julia stops playing.)
The elder of the two gentlemen, Colonel Daniel Craven, affects the bluff, simple veteran, and carries it off pleasantly and well, having a fine upright figure, and being, in fact, a goodnaturedly impulsive, credulous person who, after an entirely thoughtless career as an officer and a gentleman, is now being startled into some sort of self-education by the surprising proceedings of his children.
His companion, Mr. Joseph Cuthbertson, Grace’s father, has none of the Colonel’s boyishness. He is a man of fervent idealistic sentiment, so frequently outraged by the facts of life, that he has acquired an habitually indignant manner, which unexpectedly becomes enthusiastic or affectionate when he speaks.
The two men differ greatly in expression. The Colonel’s face is lined with weather, with age, with eating and drinking, and with the cumulative effects of many petty vexations, but not with thought: he is still fresh, and he has by no means full expectations of pleasure and novelty. Cuthbertson has the lines of sedentary London brain work, with its chronic fatigue and longing for rest and recreative emotion, and its disillusioned indifference to adventure and enjoyment, except as a means of recuperation.
They are both in evening dress; and Cuthbertson wears his fur collared overcoat, which, with his vigilant, irascible eye, piled up hair, and the honorable earnestness with which he takes himself, gives him an air of considerable consequence.
CUTHBERTSON (with a hospitable show of delight at finding visitors). Don’t stop, Miss Craven. Go on, Charteris. (He comes down behind the sofa, and hangs his overcoat on it, after taking an opera glass and a theatre programme from the pockets, and putting them down on the piano. Craven meanwhile goes to the fireplace and stands on the hearthrug.)
CHARTERIS. No, thank you. Miss Craven has just been taking me through an old song; and I’ve had enough of it. (He takes the song off the piano desk and lays it aside; then closes the lid over the keyboard.)
JULIA (passing between the sofa and piano to shake hands with Cuthbertson). Why, you’ve brought Daddy! What a surprise! (Looking across to Craven.) So glad you’ve come, Dad. (She takes a chair near the window, and sits there.)
CUTHBERTSON. Craven: let me introduce you to Mr. Leonard Charteris, the famous Ibsenist philosopher.
CRAVEN. Oh, we know one another already. Charteris is quite at home at our house, Jo.
CUTHBERTSON. I beg both your pardons. (Charteris sits down on the piano stool.) He’s quite at home here too. By the bye, where’s Grace?
JULIA and CHARTERIS. Er — (They stop and look at one another.)
JULIA (politely). I beg your pardon, Mr. Charteris: I interrupted you.
CHARTERIS. Not at all, Miss Craven. (An awkward pause.)
CUTHBERTSON (to help them out). You were going to tell about Grace, Charteris.
CHARTERIS. I was only going to say that I didn’t know that you and Craven were acquainted.
CRAVEN. Why, I didn’t know it until tonight. It’s a most extraordinary thing. We met by chance at the theatre; and he turns out to be my oldest friend.
CUTHBERTSON (energetically). Yes, Craven; and do you see how this proves what I was saying to you about the breaking up of family life? Here are all our young people — Grace and Miss Julia and the rest — bosom friends, inseparables; and yet we two, who knew each other before they were born, might never have met again if you hadn’t popped into the stall next to mine tonight by pure chance. Come, sit down (bustling over to him affectionately and pushing him into the arm chair above the fire): there’s your place, by my fireside, whenever you choose to fill it. (He posts himself at the right end of the sofa, leaning against it and admiring Craven.) Just imagine your being Dan Craven!
CRAVEN. Just imagine your being Jo Cuthbertson, though! That’s a far more extraordinary coincidence, because I’d got it into my head that your name was Tranfield.
CUTHBERTSON. Oh, that’s my daughter’s name. She’s a widow, you know. How uncommonly well you look, Dan! The years haven’t hurt you much.
CRAVEN (suddenly becoming unnaturally gloomy). I look well. I even feel well. But my days are numbered.
CUTHBERTSON (alarmed). Oh don’t say that, my dear fellow. I hope not.
JULIA (with anguish in her voice). Daddy! (Cuthbertson looks inquiringly around at her.)
CRAVEN. There, there, my dear: I was wrong to talk of it. It’s a sad subject. But it’s better that Cuthbertson should know. We used to be very close friends, and are so still, I hope. (Cuthbertson goes to Craven and presses his hand silently; then returns to sofa and sits, pulling out his handkerchief and displaying some emotion. )
CHARTERIS (a little impatiently). The fact is, Cuthbertson, Craven’s a devout believer in the department of witchcraft called medical science. He’s celebrated in all the medical schools as an example of the newest sort of liver complaint. The doctors say he can’t last another year; and he has fully made up his mind not to survive next Easter, just to oblige them.
CRAVEN (with military affectation). It’s very kind of you to try to keep up my spirits by making light of it, Charteris. But I shall be ready when my time comes. I’m a soldier. (A sob from Julia.) Don’t cry, Julia.
CUTHBERTSON (huskily). I hope you may long be spared, Dan.
CRAVEN. To oblige me, Jo, change the subject. (He gets up and again posts himself on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.)
CHARTERIS. Try and persuade him to join our club, Cuthbertson. He mopes.
JULIA. It’s no use. Sylvia and I are always at him to join; but he won’t.
CRAVEN. My child, I have my own club.
CHARTERIS (contemptuously). Yes, the Junior Army and Navy! Do you call that a club? Why, they daren’t let a woman cross the doorstep!
CRAVEN (a little ruffled). Clubs are a matter of taste, Charteris. You like a cock and hen club: I don’t. It’s bad enough to have Julia and her sister — a girl under twenty — spending half their time at such a place. Besides, now really, such a name for a club! The Ibsen club! I should be laughed out of London. The Ibsen club! Come, Cuthbertson, back me up. I’m sure you agree with me.
CHARTERIS. Cuthbertson’s a member.
CRAVEN (amazed). No! Why, he’s been talking to me all the evening about the way in which everything is going to the dogs through advanced ideas in the younger generation.
CHARTERIS. Of course. He’s been studying it in the club. He’s always there.
CUTHBERTSON (warmly). Not always. Don’t exaggerate, Charteris. You know very well that though I joined the club on Grace’s account, thinking that her father’s presence there would be a protection and a — a sort of sanction, as it were — I never approved of it.
CRAVEN (tactlessly harping on Cuthbertson’s inconsistency). Well, you know, this is unexpected: now it’s really very unexpected. I should never have thought it from hearing you talk, Jo. Why, you said the whole modern movement was abhorrent to you because your life had been passed in witnessing scenes of suffering nobly endured and sacrifice willingly rendered by womanly women and manly men and deuce knows what else. Is it at the Ibsen club that you see all this manliness and womanliness?
CHARTERIS. Certainly not: the rules of the club forbid anything of that sort. Every candidate for membership must be nominated by a man and a woman, who both guarantee