Chapter 2

AGNES. We've known each other since last November--no longer. Six years of my life unaccounted for, eh? Well, for a couple of years or so I was lecturing.

GERTRUDE. Lecturing?

AGNES. Ah, I'd become an out-and-out child of my father by that time-- spouting, perhaps you'd call it, standing on the identical little platforms he used to speak from, lashing abuses with my tongue as he had done. Oh, and I was fond, too, of warning women.

GERTRUDE. Against what?

AGNES. Falling into the pit.

GERTRUDE. Marriage?

AGNES. The chocked-up, seething pit--until I found my bones almost through my skin and my voice too weak to travel across a room.

GERTRUDE. From what cause?

AGNES. Starvation, my dear. So, after lying in a hospital for a month or two, I took up nursing for a living. Last November I was sent for by Dr. Bickerstaff to go through to Rome to look after a young man who'd broken down there, and who declined to send for his friends. My patient was Mr. Cleeve--[taking up the tray]--and that's where his fortunes join mine. [She crosses the room, and puts the tray upon the cabinet.]

GERTRUDE. And yet, judging from what that girl said yesterday, Mr. Cleeve married quite recently?

AGNES. Less than three years ago. Men don't suffer as patiently as women. In many respects his marriage story is my own, reversed--the man in place of the woman. I endured my hell, though; he broke the gates of his.

GERTRUDE. I have often seen Mr. Cleeve's name in the papers. His future promised to be brilliant, didn't it?

AGNES. [Tidying the table, folding the newspapers, &c.] There's a great career for him still.

GERTRUDE. In Parliament--now?

AGNES. No, he abandons that, and devotes himself to writing. We shall write much together, urging our views on this subject of Marriage. We shall have to be poor, I expect, but we shall be content.

GERTRUDE. Content!

AGNES. Quite content. Don't judge us by my one piece of cowardly folly in keeping the truth from you, Mrs. Thorpe, Indeed, it's our great plan to live the life we have mapped out for ourselves, fearlessly, openly; faithful to each other, helpful to each other, so long as we remain together.

GERTRUDE. But tell me--you don't know how I--how I have liked you!-- tell me, if Mr. Cleeve's wife divorces him, he will marry you?

AGNES. No.

GERTRUDE. No!

AGNES. No. I haven't made you quite understand--Lucas and I don't desire to marry, in your sense.

GERTRUDE. But you are devoted to each other!

AGNES. Thoroughly.

GERTRUDE. What, is that the meaning of "for as long as you are together?" You would go your different ways if ever you found that one of you was making the other unhappy?

AGNES. I do mean that. We remain together only to help, to heal, to console. Why should men and women be so eager to grant to each other the power of wasting life? That is what marriage gives--the right to destroy years and years of life. And the right, once given, it attracts --attracts! We have both suffered from it. So many rich years out of my life have been squandered by it. And out of his life, so much force, energy--spent in battling with the shrew, the termagant he has now fled from; strength never to be replenished, never to be repaid--all wasted, wasted!

GERTRUDE. Your legal marriage with him might not bring further miseries.

AGNES. Too late! We have done with marriage; we distrust it. We are not now among those who regard marriage as indispensable to union. We have done with it!

GERTRUDE. [Advancing to her.] You know that it would be impossible for me, if I would do so, to deceive my brother as to all this.

AGNES. Why, of course, dear.

GERTRUDE. [Looking at her watch.] Amos must be wondering--

AGNES. Run away, then. [GERTRUDE crosses quickly to the door.]

GERTRUDE [Retracing a step or two.] Shall I see you--? Oh!

AGNES. [Shaking her head.] Ah!

GERTRUDE. [Going to her, constrainedly.] When Amos and I have talked this over, perhaps--perhaps--

AGNES. No, I fear not. Come, my dear friend--[with a smile]--give me a shake of the hand.

GERTRUDE. [Taking her hand.] What you've told me is dreadful. [Looking into AGNES' face.] And yet you're not a wicked woman! [Kissing AGNES.] In case we don't meet again. [The women separate quickly, looking towards the door, as LUCAS enters.]

LUCAS. [Shaking hands with GERTRUDE.] How do you do, Mrs Thorpe? I've just had a wave of the hand from your brother.

GERTRUDE. Where is he?

LUCAS. On his back in a gondola, a pipe in his mouth as usual, gazing skywards. [Going on to the balcony.] He's within hail. [GERTRUDE goes quickly to the door, followed by AGNES.] There! By the Palazzo Sforza. [He re-enters the room; GERTRUDE has disappeared. He is going towards the door.] Let me get hold of him, Mrs. Thorpe.

AGNES. [Standing before LUCAS, quietly] She knows, Lucas, dear.

LUCAS. Does she?

AGNES. She overheard some gossip at the Caffe Quadri yesterday, and began questioning me; so I told her.

LUCAS. [Taking off his coat.] Adieu to them, then--eh?

AGNES. [Assisting him.] Adieu.

LUCAS. I intended to write to the brother directly they had left Venice, to explain.

AGNES. Your describing me as "Mrs. Cleeve" at the hotel in Florence helped to lead us into this; after we move from here I must always be, frankly, "Mrs. Ebbsmith."

LUCAS. These were decent people. You and she had formed quite an attachment?

AGNES. Yes.

[She places his coat, &c. on a chair, then fetches her work-basket from the cabinet.]

LUCAS. There's something of the man in your nature, Agnes.

AGNES. I've anathematised my womanhood often enough. [She sits at the table, taking out her work composedly.]

LUCAS. Not that every man possesses the power you have acquired--the power of going through life with compressed lips.

AGNES. [Looking up, smiling.] A propos?

LUCAS. These people--this woman you've been so fond of. You see them shrink away with the utmost composure.

AGNES. [Threading a needle.] You forget, dear, that you and I have prepared ourselves for a good deal of this sort of thing.

LUCAS. Certainly, but at the moment--

AGNES. One must take care that the regret lasts no longer than a moment. Have you seen your uncle?

LUCAS. A glimpse. He hadn't long risen.

AGNES. He adds sluggishness to other vices, then?

LUCAS. [Lighting a cigarette.] He greeted me through six inches of open door. His toilet has its mysteries.

AGNES. A stormy interview?

LUCAS. The reverse. He grasped my hand warmly, declared I looked the picture of health, and said it was evident I had been most admirably nursed.

AGNES. [Frowning.] That's a strange utterance. But he's an eccentric, isn't he?

LUCAS. No man has ever been quite satisfied as to whether his oddities are ingrained or affected.

AGNES. No man. What about women?

LUCAS. Ho! They have had opportunities of closer observation.

AGNES. Hah! And they report--?

LUCAS. Nothing. They become curiously reticent.

AGNES. [Scornfully, as she is cutting a thread.] These noblemen!

LUCAS. [Taking a packet of letters from his pocket.] Finally, he presented me with these, expressed a hope that he'd see much of me during the week, and dismissed me with a fervent God bless you!

AGNES. [Surprised.] He remains here, then?

LUCAS. It seems so.

AGNES. What are those, dear?

LUCAS. The Duke has made himself the bearer of some letters, from friends. I've only glanced at them: reproaches--appeals--

AGNES. Yes, I understand.

[He sits looking through the letters impatiently, then tearing them up and throwing the pieces upon the table.]

LUCAS. Lord Warminster--my godfather: "My dear boy, for God's sake--!" [Tearing up the letter and reading another.] Sir Charles Littlecote: "Your brilliant future . . . blasted . . ." [Another letter.] Lord Froom: "Promise of a useful political career unfulfilled . . . cannot an old friend . . . ?" [Another letter.] Edith Heytesbury. I didn't notice a woman had honoured me. [In an undertone.] Edie--![Slipping the letter into his pocket and opening another.] Jack Brophy: "Your great career--" Major Leete: "Your career--" [Destroying the rest of the letters without reading them.] My career! my career! That's the chorus, evidently. Well, there goes my career! [She lays her work aside and goes to him.]

AGNES. Your career? [Pointing to the destroyed letters.] True that one is over. But there's the other, you know--ours.

LUCAS. [Touching her hand.] Yes, yes, Still, it's just a little saddening, the saying good-bye--[disturbing the scraps of paper]--to all this.

AGNES. Saddening, dear? Why, this political career of yours--think what it would have been at best? Accident of birth sent you to the wrong side of the House; influence of family would always have kept you there.

LUCAS. [Partly to himself.] But I made my mark. I did make my mark.

AGNES. Supporting the Party that retards; the Party that preserves for the rich, palters with the poor. [Pointing to the letters again.] Oh, there's not much to mourn for there!

LUCAS. Still, it was--success.

AGNES. Success!

LUCAS. I was talked about, written about, as a Coming Man--the Coming Man!

AGNES. How many "coming men" has one known? Where on earth do they all go to?

LUCAS. Ah, yes, but I allowed for the failure, and carefully set myself to discover the causes of them. And, as I put my fingers upon the causes and examined them, I congratulated myself and said "Well, I haven't that weak point in my armour, or that;" and Agnes, at last I was fool enough to imagine I had no weak point, none whatever.

AGNES. It was weak enough to believe that.

LUCAS. I couldn't foresee that I was doomed to pay the price all nervous men pay for success; that the greater my success became, the more cancer-like grew the fear of never being able to continue it, to excel it; that the triumph of today was always to be the torture of tomorrow! Oh, Agnes, the agony of success to a nervous, sensitive man; the dismal apprehension that fills his life and gives each victory a voice to cry out "Hear, hear! Bravo, bravo, bravo! But this is to be your last--you'll never overtop it!" Ha, yes! I soon found out the weak spot in my armour--the need of constant encouragement, constant reminder of my powers; [taking her hand] the need of that subtle sympathy which a sacrificing, unselfish woman alone possesses the secret of. [Rising.] Well, my very weakness might have been a source of greatness if, three years ago, it had been to such a woman that I had bound myself--a woman of your disposition; instead of to--! Ah! [She lays her hand upon his arm soothingly.]

LUCAS. Yes, yes. [Taking her in his arms.] I know I have such a companion now.

AGNES. Yes--now--

LUCAS. You must be everything to me, Agnes--a double faculty, as it were. When my confidence in myself is shaken, you must try to keep the consciousness of my poor powers alive in me.

AGNES. I shall not fail you in that, Lucas.

LUCAS. And yet, whenever disturbing recollections come uppermost; when I catch myself mourning for those lost opportunities of mine; it is your love that must grant me oblivion--[kissing her upon the lips]-- your love! [She makes no response, and after a pause gently releases herself and retreats a step or two.]

LUCAS. [His eyes following her.] Agnes, you seem to me to be changing towards me, growing colder to me. At times you seem positively to shrink from me. I don't understand it. Yesterday I thought I saw you look at me as if I--frightened you!

AGNES. Lucas--Lucas dear, for some weeks, now, I've wanted to say this to you.

LUCAS. What?

AGNES. Don't you think that such a union as ours would be much braver, much more truly courageous, if it could but be--be--

LUCAS. If it could but be--what?

AGNES. [Averting her eyes.] Devoid of passion, if passion had no share in it.

LUCAS. Surely this comes a little late, Agnes, between you and me.

AGNES. [Leaning upon the back of a chair, staring before her and speaking in a low, steady voice.] What has been was inevitable, I suppose. Still, we have hardly yet set foot upon the path we've agreed to follow. It is not too late for us, in our own lives, to pit the highest interpretation upon that word--Love. Think of the inner sustaining power it would give us! [More forcibly.] We agree to go through the world together, preaching the lesson taught us by our experiences. We cry out to all people, "Look at us! Man and woman who are in the bondage of neither law nor ritual! Linked simply by mutual trust! Man and wife, but something better than man and wife! Friends, but even something better than friends!" I say there is that which is noble, finely defiant, in the future we have mapped out for ourselves, if only--if only--

LUCAS. Yes?

AGNES. [Turning from him.] If only it could be free from passion!

LUCAS. [In a low voice.] Yes, but--is that possible?

AGNES. [In the same tone, watching him askance, a frightened look in her eyes.] Why not?

LUCAS. Young man and woman . . . you and love . . . ? Scarcely upon this earth, my dear Agnes, such a life as you have pictured.

AGNES. I say it can be, it can be--!

[FORTUNE enters, carrying a letter upon a salver, and a beautiful bouquet of white flowers. He hands the note to LUCAS.]

LUCAS. [Taking the note, glancing at AGNES.] Eh! [To FORTUNE, pointing to the bouquet.] Qu'avez-vous la?

FORTUNE. Ah, excuse. [Presenting the bouquet to AGNES.] Wiz compliment. [AGNES takes the bouquet wonderingly.] Tell Madame ze Duke of St Olphert bring it in person, 'e says.

LUCAS. [Opening the note.] Est-il parti?

FORTUNE. 'E did not get out of 'is gondola.

LUCAS. Bien. [FORTUNE withdraws. Reading the note aloud.] "While brushing my hair, my dear boy, I became possessed of a strong desire to meet the lady with whom you are now improving the shining hour. Why the devil shouldn't I, if I want to. Without prejudice, as my lawyer says, let me turn up this afternoon and chat pleasantly to her of Shakespeare, also the musical glasses. Pray hand her this flag of truce --I mean my poor bunch of flowers--and believe me yours, with a touch of gout, ST. OLPHERTS." [Indignantly crushing the note.] Ah!

AGNES. [Frowning at the flowers.] A taste of the oddities, I suppose?

LUCAS. He is simply making sport of us. [Going on to the balcony, and looking out.] There he is. Damn that smile of his!

AGNES. Where? [She joins him.]

LUCAS. With the two gondoliers.

AGNES. Why--that's a beautiful face! How strange!

LUCAS. [Drawing her back into the room.] Come away. He is looking up at us.

AGNES. Are you sure he sees us?

LUCAS. He did.

AGNES. He will want an answer--[She deliberately flings the bouquet over the balcony into the canal, then returns to the table and picks up her work.]

LUCAS. [Looking out again cautiously.] He throws his head back and laughs heartily. [Re-entering the room.] Oh, of course, his policy is to attempt to laugh me out of my resolves. They send him here merely to laugh at me, Agnes, to laugh at me--[coming to AGNES angrily.] laugh at me!

AGNES. He must be a man of small resources. [Threading her needle.] It is so easy to mock.

END OF THE FIRST ACT

THE SECOND ACT

The Scene is the same as that of the previous Act. Through the windows some mastheads and flapping sails are seen in the distance. The light is that of late afternoon.

AGNES, very plainly dressed, is sitting at the table, industriously copying from a manuscript. After a moment or two, ANTONIO and NELLA enter the room, carrying a dressmaker's box, which is corded and labelled.

NELLA. E permess, Signora (Permit us, Signora.)

ANTONIO. Uno scatolone per la Signora (Am enormous box for the Signora.)

AGNES. [Turning her head.] Eh?

NELLA. E venuto colla ferrovia--(It has come by the railway--)

ANTONIO. [consulting the label.] Da'Firenze. (From Florence.)

AGNES. By railway, from Florence?

NELLA [Reading from the label.] "Emilia Bardini, Via Rondinelli."

AGNES. Bardini? That's the dressmaker. There must be some mistake. Non e per me, Nella. (It isn't for me, Nella.)

[ANTONIO and NELLA carry the box to her animatedly.]

NELLA. Ma guardi, Signora! (But look, Signora!)

ANTONIO. Alla Signora Cleeve!

NELLA. E poi abbiamo pagato il porto della ferrovia. (Besides, we have paid the railway dues upon it.)

AGNES. [Collecting her sheets of paper.] Hush, hush! Don't trouble me just now. Mettez-la n'importe ou. [They place the box upon another table.]

NELLA. La corda intaccherebbe la forbice della Signora. Vuole che Antonio la tagli. (The cord would blunt the Signora's scissors. Shall Antonio cut the cord?)

AGNES. [Pinning her sheets of paper together.] I'll see about it bye and bye. Laissez-moi!

NELLA. [Softly to ANTONIO.] Taglia, taglia! (Cut, cut!) [ANTONIO cuts the cord, whereupon NELLA utters a little scream.]

AGNES. [Turning, startled.] What is it?

NELLA. [Pushing ANTONIO away.] Questo stupido non ha caoito la Signora e ha tagliata la corda. (The stupid fellow misunderstood the Signora, and has severed the cord.)

AGNES. [Rising.] It doesn't matter. Be quiet!

NELLA. [Removing the lid from the box angrily.] Ed ecco la scatola aperta contro voglia della Signora! (And now here is the box open against the Signora's wish) [Inquisitively pushing aside the paper which covers the contents of the box.] O Dio! Si vede tutto quel che vi e! (O God! And all the contents exposed!) [When the paper is removed, some beautiful material trimmed with lace, &c., is seen.]

NELLA. Guardi, guardi, Signora! (Signora, look, look!) [AGNES examines the contents of the box with a puzzled air.] Oh, che bellezza! (How beautiful!)

ANTONIO. [To NELLA.] Il padrone. (The master.) [NELLA curtsies to LUCAS, then withdraws with ANTONIO.]

AGNES. Lucas, the dressmaker in the Via Rondinelli at Florence--the woman who ran up the little gown I have on now--

LUCAS. [With a smile] What of her?

AGNES. This has just come from her. Phuh! What does she mean by sending that showy thing to me?

LUCAS. It is my gift to you.

AGNES. [Producing enough of the contents of the box to reveal a very handsome dress.] This!

LUCAS. I knew Bardini had your measurements; I wrote to her, instructing her to make that. I remember Lady Heytesbury in something similar last season.

AGNES. [Examining the dress.] A mere strap for the sleeve, and sufficiently decolletee, I should imagine.

LUCAS. My dear Agnes, I can't understand your reason fro trying to make yourself a plain-looking woman when nature intended you for a pretty one.

AGNES. Pretty!

LUCAS. [Looking hard at her.] You are pretty.

AGNES. Oh, as a girl I may have been--[disdainfully]--pretty. What good did it do anybody? [Fingering the dress with aversion.] And when would you have me hang this on my bones?

LUCAS. Oh, when we are dining, or--

AGNES. Dining in a public place?

LUCAS. Why not look your best in a public place?

AGNES. Look my best? You know, I don't think of this sort of garment in connection with our companionship, Lucas.

LUCAS. It is not an extraordinary garment for a lady.

AGNES. Rustle of silk, glare of arms and throat--they belong, to my mind, to such a very different order of things from that we have set up.

LUCAS. Shall I appear before you in ill-made clothes, clumsy boots--

AGNES. Why? We are just as we have always been, since we've been together. I don't tell you that your appearance is beginning to offend.

LUCAS. Offend! Agnes, you--you pain me. I simply fail to understand why you should allow our mode of life to condemn you to perpetual slovenliness.

AGNES. Slovenliness!

LUCAS. No, no, shabbiness.

AGNES. [Looking down upon the dress she is wearing.] Shabbiness!

LUCAS. [With a laugh.] Forgive me, dear; I'm forgetting you are wearing a comparatively new afternoon-gown.

AGNES. At any rate, I'll make this brighter tomorrow with some trimmings willingly. [Pointing to the dressmaker's box.] Then you won't insist on my decking myself out in rags of that kind--eh! There's something in the idea--I needn't explain.

LUCAS. [Fretfully.] Insist! I'll not urge you again. [Pointing to the box.] Get rid of it somehow. Are you copying that manuscript of mine?

AGNES. I had just finished it.

LUCAS. Already! [Taking up her copy.] How beautifully you write! [Going to her eagerly.] What do you think of my Essay?

AGNES. It bristles with truth; it is vital.

LUCAS. My method of treating it?

AGNES. Hardly a word out of place.

LUCAS [Chilled.] Hardly a word?

AGNES. Not a word, in fact.

LUCAS. No, dear, I daresay your "hardly" is nearer the mark.

AGNES. I assure you it is brilliant, Lucas.

LUCAS. What a wretch I am ever to find the smallest fault in you! Shall we dine out tonight?

AGNES. As you wish, dear.

LUCAS. At the Grunwald? [He goes to the table to pick up his manuscript; when his back is turned she looks at her watch quickly.] We'll solemnly toast this, shall we, in Montefiascone?

AGNES. [Eyeing him askance.] You are going out for your chocolate this afternoon as usual, I suppose?

LUCAS. Yes, but I'll look through your copy first, so that I can slip it into the post at once. You are not coming out?

AGNES. Not till dinner-time.

LUCAS. [Kissing her on the forehead.] I talked over the points of this --[tapping the manuscript]--with a man this morning; he praised some of the phrases warmly.

AGNES. A man? [In an altered tone.] The Duke?

LUCAS. Er--yes.

AGNES. [With assumed indifference, replacing the lid on the dressmaker's box.] You have seen him again today, then?

LUCAS. We strolled about together for half an hour on the Piazza.

AGNES. [Replacing the cord round the box.] You--you don't dislike him as much as you did?

LUCAS. He's someone to chat to. I suppose one gets accustomed even to a man one dislikes.

AGNES. [Almost inaudibly.] I suppose so.

LUCAS. As a matter of fact, he has the reputation of being rather a pleasant companion; though I--I confess--I--I don't find him very entertaining. [He goes out. She stands staring at the door through which he has disappeared. There is a knock at the opposite door.]

AGNES. [Rousing herself.] Fortune! [Raising her voice.] Fortune! [The door opens, and GERTRUDE enters hurriedly.]

GERTRUDE. Fortune is complacently smoking a cigarette in the Campo.

AGNES. Mrs. Thorpe!

GERTRUDE. [Breathlessly.] Mr Cleeve is out, I conclude?

AGNES. No. He is later than usual going out this afternoon.

GERTRUDE. [Irresolutely.] I don't think I'll wait, then.

AGNES. But do tell me: you have been crossing the streets to avoid me during the past week; what has made you come to see me now?

GERTRUDE. I would come. I've given poor Amos the slip; he believes I am buying beads for the Ketherick school-children.

AGNES. [Shaking her head.] Ah, Mrs. Thorpe!--

GERTRUDE. Of course, it's perfectly brutal to be underhanded. But we're leaving for home tomorrow; I couldn't resist it.

AGNES. [Coldly.] Perhaps I'm very ungracious--

GERTRUDE. [Taking AGNES' hand.] The fact is, Mrs. Cleeve--oh, what do you wish me to call you?

AGNES. [Withdrawing her hand.] Well--you're off tomorrow. Agnes will do.

GETRUDE. Thank you. The fact is, it's been a bad week with me-- restless, fanciful. And I haven't been able to get you out of my head.

AGNES. I'm sorry.

GERTRUDE. Your story, your present life; you, yourself--such a contradiction to what you profess! Well, it all has a sort of fascination for me.

AGNES. My dear, you're simply not sleeping again. [Turning away.] You'd better go back to the ammonia Kirke prescribed for you.

GERTRUDE. [Taking a card from her purse, with a little, light laugh.] You want to physic me, do you, after worrying my poor brain as you've done? [Going to her.] "The Rectory, Daleham, Ketherick Moor." Yorkshire, you know. There can be no great harm in your writing to me sometimes.

AGNES [Refusing the card.] No; under the circumstances I can't promise that.

GERTRUDE. [Wistfully.] Very well.