Chapter 3

AGNES. [Facing her.] Oh, can't you understand that it can only be-- disturbing to both of us for an impulsive, emotional creature like yourself to keep up acquaintanceship with a woman who takes life as I do? We'll drop each other, leave each other alone. [She walks away, and stands leaning upon the stove, her back towards GERTRUDE.]

GERTRUDE. [Replacing the card in her purse.] As you please. Picture me, sometimes, in that big, hollow shell of a rectory at Ketherick, strolling about my poor dead little chap's empty room.

AGNES. [Under her breath.] Oh!

GERTRUDE. [Turning to go.] God bless you.

AGNES. Gertrude! [With altered manner.] You--you have the trick of making me lonely also. [Going to GERTRUDE, taking her hands and fondling them.] I'm tired of talking to the walls! And your blood is warm to me! Shall I tell you, or not--or not?

GERTRUDE. Do tell me.

AGNES. There is a man here, in Venice, who is torturing me--flaying me alive.

GERTRUDE. Torturing you?

AGNES. He came here about a week ago; he is trying to separate us.

GERTRUDE. You and Mr. Cleeve?

AGNES. Yes.

GERTRUDE. You are afraid he will succeed?

AGNES. Succeed! What nonsense you talk!

GERTRUDE. What upsets you, then?

AGNES. After all, it's difficult to explain--the feeling is so indefinite. It's like--something in the air. This man is influencing us both oddly. Lucas is as near illness again as possible; I can hear his nerves vibrating. And I--you know what a fish-like thing I am as a rule--just look at me now, as I'm speaking to you.

GERTRUDE. But don't you and Mr. Cleeve--talk to each other?

AGNES. As children do when the lights are put out--of everything but what's uppermost in their minds.

GERTRUDE. You have met the man?

AGNES. I intend to meet him.

GERTRUDE. Who is he?

AGNES. A relation of Lucas's--the Duke of St. Olpherts

GERTRUDE. He has right on his side, then?

AGNES. If you choose to think so.

GERTRUDE. Supposing he does succeed in taking Mr. Cleeve away from you?

AGNES. [Staring at GERTRUDE.] What, now, do you mean?

GERTRUDE. Yes.

[There is a brief pause; then AGNES walks across the room, wiping her brow with her handkerchief.]

AGNES. I tell you, that idea's--preposterous.

GERTRUDE. Oh, I can't understand you.

AGNES. You'll respect my confidence?

GERTRUDE. Agnes!

AGNES. [Sitting.] Well, I fancy this man's presence here has simply started me thinking of a time--oh, it may never come!--a time when I may cease to be--necessary to Mr. Cleeve. Do you understand?

GERTRUDE. I remember what you told me of your being prepared to grant each other freedom if--

AGNES. Yes, yes; and for the past few days this idea has filled me with a fear of the most humiliating kind.

GERTRUDE. What fear?

AGNES. The fear lest, after all my beliefs and protestations, I should eventually find myself loving Lucas in the helpless, common way of women--

GERTRUDE. [Under her breath.] I see.

AGNES. The dread that the moment may arrive some day when should it be required of me, I shan't feel myself able to give him up easily. [Her head drooping, uttering a low moan.] Oh!--

[LUCAS, dressed for going out, enters, carrying AGNES'S copy of his manuscript, rolled and addressed for the post. AGNES rises.]

AGNES. [To LUCAS.] Mrs. Thorpe starts for home tomorrow; she has called to say good-bye.

LUCAS. [To GERTRUDE.] It is very kind. Is your brother quite well?

GERTRUDE. [Embarrassed.] Thanks: quite.

LUCAS. [Smiling.] I believe I have added to his experience of the obscure corners of Venice during the past week.

GERTRUDE. I--I don't--Why?

LUCAS. By so frequently putting him to the inconvenience of avoiding me.

GERTRUDE. Oh, Mr. Cleeve, we--I--I--

LUCAS. Please tell your brother that I asked after him.

GERTRUDE. I--I can't; he--doesn't know I've--I've--

LUCAS. Ah! Really? [With a bow.] Good-bye. [He goes out, AGNES accompanying him to the door.]

GERTRUDE. [To herself.] Brute! [To AGNES.] Oh, I suppose Mr. Cleeve has made me look precisely as I feel.

AGNES. How?

GERTRUDE. Like people deserve to feel who do godly, mean things.

[FORTUNE appears.]

FORTUNE. [To AGNES, significantly.] Mr. Cleeve 'as jus' gone out.

AGNES. Vous savez, n'est-ce pas?

FORTUNE. [Glancing at GERTRUDE.] But Madame is now engage.

GERTRUDE. [To AGNES.] Oh, I am going.

AGNES. [To GERTRUDE.] Wait. [Softly to her.] I want you to hear this little comedy. Fortune shall repeat my instructions. [To FORTUNE.] Les ordres que je vous ai donnes, repetez-les.

FORTUNE. [Speaking in an undertone.] On ze left 'and side of ze Campo--

AGNES. Non, non--tout haut.

FORTUNE. [Aloud, with a slight shrug of the shoulders.] On ze left 'and side of ze Campo--

AGNES. Yes.

FORTUNE. In one of ze doorways between Fiorentini's and ze leetle lamp-shop--ze--ze--h'm--ze person.

AGNES. Precisely. Depechez-vous. [FORTUNE bows and retires.] Fortune flatters himself he is engaged in some horrid intrigue. You guess whom I am expecting?

GERTRUDE. The Duke?

AGNES. [Ringing a bell.] I've written to him asking him to call upon me this afternoon while Lucas is at Florian's. [Referring to her watch.] He is to kick his heels about the Campo till I let him know I am alone.

GERTRUDE. Will he obey you?

AGNES. A week ago he was curious to see the sort of animal I am. If he holds off now, I'll hit upon some other plan. I will come to close quarters with him, if only for five minutes.

GERTRUDE. Good-bye. [They embrace, then walk together to the door.] You still refuse my address?

AGNES. You bat! Didn't you see me make a note of it?

GERTRUDE. You!

AGNES. [Her hand on her heart.] Here.

GERTRUDE. [Gratefully.] Ah! [She goes out.]

AGNES. [At the open door.] Gertrude!

GERTRUDE. [Outside.] Yes?

AGNES. [In a low voice.] Remember, in my thoughts I pace that lonely little room of yours with you. [As if to stop GERTRUDE from re-entering.] Hush! No, no. [She closes the door sharply. NELLA appears.]

AGNES. [Pointing to the box on the table.] Portez ce carton dans ma chambre.

NELLA. [Trying to peep into the box as she carries it.] Signora, se Ella si mettesse questo magnifico abito! Oh! Quanto sarebbe piu bella! (Signora, if you were to wear this magnificent dress, oh how much more beautiful you would be!)

AGNES. Sssh! Sssh! [NELLA goes out. FORTUNE enters.] Eh, bien?

[FORTUNE glances over his shoulder. The DUKE OF ST. OLPHERTS enters; the wreck of a very handsome man, with delicate features, a polished manner, and a smooth, weary voice. He limps, walking with the aid of a cane. FORTUNE retires.]

AGNES. Duke of St. Olpherts?

ST. OLPHERTS. [Bowing.] Mrs. Ebbsmith?

AGNES. Mr. Cleeve would have opposed this rather out-of-the-way proceeding of mine. He doesn't know I have asked you to call on me today.

ST. OLPHERTS. So I conclude. It gives our meeting a pleasant air of adventure.

AGNES. I shall tell him directly he returns.

ST. OLPHERTS. [Gallantly.] And destroy a cherished secret.

AGNES. You are an invalid. [Motioning him to be seated.] Pray don't stand. [Sitting.] Your Grace is a man who takes life lightly. It will relieve you to hear that I wish to keep sentiment out of any business we have together.

ST. OLPHERTS. I believe I haven't the reputation of being a sentimental man. [Seating himself.] You send for me, Mrs. Ebbsmith--

AGNES. To tell you I have come to regard the suggestion you were good enough to make a week ago--

ST. OLPHERTS. Suggestion?

AGNES. Shakespeare, the musical glasses, you know--

ST. OLPHERTS. Oh, yes. Ha! Ha!

AGNES. I've come to think it a reasonable one. At the moment I considered it a gross impertinence.

ST. OLPHERTS. Written requests are so dependent on a sympathetic reader.

AGNES. That meeting might have saved you time and trouble.

ST. OLPHERTS. I grudge neither.

AGNES. It might perhaps have shown your Grace that your view of life is too narrow; that your method of dealing with its problems wants variety; that, in point of fact, your employment upon your present mission is distinctly inappropriate. Our meeting today may serve the same purpose.

ST. OLPHERTS. My view of life?

AGNES. That all men and women may safely be judged by the standards of the casino and the dancing-garden.

ST. OLPHERTS. I have found those standards not altogether untrustworthy. My method--?

AGNES. To scoff, to sneer, to ridicule.

ST. OLPHERTS. Ah! And how much is there, my dear Mrs. Ebbsmith, belonging to humanity that survives being laughed at?

AGNES. More than you credit, Duke. For example, I--I think it possible you may not succeed in grinning away the compact between Mr. Cleeve and myself?

ST. OLPHERTS. Compact?

AGNES. Between serious man and woman.

ST. OLPHERTS. Serious woman.

AGNES. Ah! At least you must see that--serious woman. [Rising, facing him.] You can't fail to realise, even from this slight personal knowledge of me, that you are not dealing just now with some poor, feeble ballet-girl.

ST. OLPHERTS. But how well you put it! [Rising.] And how frank of you to furnish, as it were, a plan of the fortifications to the--the--

AGNES. Why do you stick at "enemy"?

ST. OLPHERTS. It's not the word. Opponent! For the moment, perhaps, opponent. I am never an enemy, I hope, where your sex is concerned.

AGNES. No, I am aware that you are not over-nice in the bestowal of your patronage--where my sex is concerned.

ST. OLPHERTS. You regard my appearance in an affair of morals as a quaint one?

AGNES. Your Grace is beginning to know me.

ST. OLPHERTS. Dear lady, you take pride, I hear, in belonging to--The People. You would delight me amazingly by giving me an inkling of the popular notion of my career.

AGNES. [Walking away.] Excuse me.

ST. OLPHERTS. [Following her.] Please! It would be instructive, perhaps chastening. I entreat.

AGNES. No.

ST OLPHERTS. You are letting sentiment intrude itself. [Sitting, in pain.] I challenge you.

AGNES. At Eton you were curiously precocious. The head-master, referring to your aptitude with books, prophesied a brilliant future for you; your tutor, alarmed by your attachment to a certain cottage at Ascot which was minus a host, thanked his stars to be rid of you. At Oxford you closed all books, except, of course, betting-books.

ST. OLPHERTS. I detected the tendency of the age--scholarship for the masses. I considered it my turn to be merely intuitively intelligent.

AGNES. You left Oxford a gambler and a spendthrift. A year or two in town established you as an amiable, undisguised debauchee. The rest is modern history.

ST. OLPHERTS. Complete your sketch. Don't stop at the--rude outline.

AGNES. Your affairs falling into disorder, you promptly married a wealthy woman--the poor, rich lady who has for some years honoured you by being your duchess at a distance. This burlesque of a marriage helped to reassure your friends, and actually obtained for you an ornamental appointment for which an over-taxed nation provides a handsome stipend. But, to sum up, you must always remain an irritating source of uneasiness to your own order, as, luckily, you will always be a sharp-edged weapon in the hands of mine.

ST. OLPHERTS. [With a polite smile.] Yours! Ah, to that small, unruly section to which I understand you particularly attach yourself. To the--

AGNES. [With changed manner, flashing eyes, harsh voice, and violent gestures.] The sufferers, the toilers; that great crowd of old and young--old and young stamped by excessive labour and privation all of one pattern--whose backs bend under burdens, whose bones ache and grow awry, whose skins, in youth and in age, are wrinkled and yellow; those from whom a fair share of the earth's space and of the light of day is withheld. [Looking down at him fiercely.] The half-starved who are bidden to stand with their feet in the kennel to watch gay processions in which you and your kind are borne high. Those who would strip the robes from a dummy aristocracy and cast the broken dolls into the limbo of a nation's discarded toys. Those who--mark me!--are already upon the highway, marching, marching; whose time is coming as surely as yours is going!

ST. OLPHERTS. [Clapping his hands gently.] Bravo! Bravo! Really a flash of the old fire. Admirable! [She walks away to the window with an impatient exclamation.] Your present affaire du coeur does not wholly absorb you, then, Mrs. Ebbsmith. Even now the murmurings of love have not entirely superseded the thunderous denunciations of--h'm--You once bore a nickname, my dear.

AGNES. [Turning sharply.] Ho! So you've heard that, have you?

ST. OLPHERTS. Oh, yes.

AGNES. Mad--Agnes? [He bows deprecatingly.] We appear to have studied each other's history pretty closely.

ST. OLPHERTS. Dear lady, this is not the first time the same roof has covered us.

AGNES. No?

ST. OLPHERTS. Five years ago, on a broiling night in July, I joined a party of men who made an excursion from a club-house in St James's Street to the unsavoury district of St. Luke's.

AGNES. Oh, yes.

ST. OLPHERTS. A depressin' building; the Iron Hall, Barker Street--no--Carter Street.

AGNES. Precisely.

ST. OLPHERTS. We took our places amongst a handful of frowsy folks who cracked nuts and blasphemed. On the platform stood a gaunt, white-faced young lady resolutely engaged in making up by extravagance of gesture for the deficiencies of an exhausted voice. "There," said one of my companions, "that is the notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith." Upon which a person near us, whom I judged from his air of leaden laziness to be a British working man, blurted out, "Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith! Mad Agnes! That's the name her sanguinary friends give her--Mad Agnes!" At that moment the eye of the panting oratress caught mine for an instant, and you and I first met.

AGNES. [Passing her hand across her brow, thoughtfully.] Mad--Agnes . . . [To him, with a grim smile.] We have both been criticised, in our time, pretty sharply, eh, Duke?

ST. OLPHERTS. Yes. Let that reflection make you more charitable to a poor peer. [A knock at the door.]

AGNES. Entrez!

[FORTUNE and ANTONIO enter, ANTONIO carrying tea, &c., upon a tray.]

AGNES. [To ST. OLPHERTS.] You drink tea--fellow sufferer? [He signifies assent. FORTUNE places the tray on the table, then withdraws with ANTONIO. AGNES pours out tea.]

ST. OLPHERTS. [Producing a little box from his waistcoat pocket.] No milk, dear lady. And may I be allowed--saccharine? [She hands him his cup of tea; their eyes meet.]

AGNES. [Scornfully.] Tell me now--really--why do the Cleeves send a rip like you to do their serious work?

ST. OLPHERTS. [Laughing heartily.] Ha, ha, ha! Rip! ha, ha! Poor solemn family! Oh, set a thief to catch a thief, you know. That, I presume, is their motive.

AGNES. [Pausing in the act of pouring out, and staring at him.] What do you mean?

ST OLPHERTS. [Sipping his tea.] Set a thief to catch a thief. And by deduction, set one sensualist--who, after all, doesn't take the trouble to deceive himself--to rescue another who does.

AGNES. If I understand you, that is an insinuation against Mr. Cleeve.

ST. OLPHERTS. Insinuation!--

AGNES. [Looking at him fixedly.] Make yourself clearer.

ST. OLPHERTS. You have accused me, Mrs. Ebbsmith, of narrowness of outlook. In the present instance, dear lady, it is your judgement which is at fault.

AGNES. Mine?

ST. OLPHERTS. It is not I who fall into the error of confounding you with the designing danseuse of commerce; it is, strangely enough, you who have failed in your estimate of Mr. Lucas Cleeve.

AGNES. What is my estimate?

ST. OLPHERTS. I pay you the compliment of believing that you have looked upon my nephew as a talented young gentleman whose future was seriously threatened by domestic disorder; a young man of a certain courage and independence, with a share of the brain and spirit of those terrible human pests called reformers; the one gentleman, in fact, most likely to aid you in advancing your vivacious social and political tenets. You have such thoughts in your mind?

AGNES. I can't deny it.

ST. OLPHERTS. Ah! But what is the real, the actual Lucas Cleeve?

AGNES. Well--what is the real Lucas Cleeve?

ST OLPHERTS. Poor dear fellow! I'll tell you. [Going to the table to deposit his cup there; while she watches him, her hand tightly clasped, a frightened look in her eyes.] The real Lucas Cleeve. [Coming back to her.] An egoist. An egoist.

AGNES. An egoist, Yes.

ST. OLPHERTS. Possessing ambition without patience, self-esteem without self-confidence.

AGNES. Well?

ST. OLPHERTS. Afflicted with a desperate craving for the opium-like drug, adulation; persistently seeking the society of those whose white, pink-tipped fingers fill the pernicious pipe most deftly and delicately. Eh?

AGNES. I didn't--Pray, go on.

ST. OLPHERTS. Ha! I remember they looked to his marriage to check his dangerous fancy for the flutter of lace, the purr of pretty women. And now, here, he is--loose again.

AGNES. [Suffering.] Oh!--

ST. OLPHERTS. In short, in intellect still nothing but a callow boy; in body, nervous, bloodless, hysterical; in morals--an epicure.

AGNES. Have done! Have done!

ST. OLPHERTS. "Epicure" offends you. A vain woman would find consolation in the word.

AGNES. Enough of it! Enough! Enough! [She turns away, beating her hands together. The light in the room has gradually become subdued; the warm tinge of sunset now colours the scene outside the window.]

ST. OLPHERTS. [With a shrug of his shoulders.] The real Lucas Cleeve.

AGNES. No, no! Untrue, untrue! [LUCAS enters. The three remain silent for a moment.] The Duke of St. Olpherts calls in answer to a letter I wrote to him yesterday. I wanted to make his acquaintance. [She goes out.]

LUCAS. [After a brief pause.] By a lucky accident the tables were crowded at Florian's; I might have missed the chance of welcoming you. In God's name, Duke, why must you come here?

ST. OLPHERTS. [Fumbling in his pocket for a note.] In God's name? You bring the orthodoxy into this queer firm, then, Lucas? [Handing the note to LUCAS.] A peremptory summons.

LUCAS. You need not have obeyed it. [ST. OLPHERTS takes a cigarette from his case and limps away.] I looked about for you just now. I wanted to see you.

ST. OLPHERTS. How fortunate--

LUCAS. To tell you that this persecution must come to an end. It has made me desperately wretched for a whole week.

ST. OLPHERTS. Persecution?

LUCAS. Temptation.

ST. OLPHERTS. Dear Lucas, the process of inducing a man to return to his wife isn't generally described as temptation.

LUCAS. Ah, I won't hear another word of that proposal. [ST. OLPHERTS shrugs his shoulders.] I say my people are offering me, through you, a deliberate temptation to be a traitor. To which of these two women--my wife or--[pointing to the door]--to her--am I really bound now? It may be regrettable, scandalous, but the common rules of right and wrong have ceased to apply here. Finally, Duke--and this is my message--I intend to keep faith with the woman who sat by my bedside in Rome, the woman to whom I shouted my miserable story in my delirium, the woman whose calm, resolute voice healed me, hardened me, renewed in me the desire to live.

ST. OLPHERTS. Ah! Oh, these modern nurses, in their greys, or browns, and snowy bibs! They have much to answer for, dear Lucas.

LUCAS. No, no! Why will you persist, all of you, in regarding this as a mere morbid infatuation, bred in the fumes of pastilles? It isn't so! Laugh, if you care to; but this is a meeting of affinities, of the solitary man and the truly sympathetic woman.

ST. OLPHERTS. And oh--oh these sympathetic women!

LUCAS. No! Oh, the unsympathetic women! There you have the cause of half the world's misery. The unsympathetic women--you should have loved one of them.

ST. OLPHERTS. I dare say I've done that in my time.

LUCAS. Love one of these women--I know!--worship here, yield yourself to the intoxicating day-dreams that make the grimy world sweeter than any heaven ever imagined. How you heart leaps with gratitude for your good fortune! How compassionately you regard your unblest fellow men! What may you not accomplish with such a mate beside you; how high will be your aims, how paltry every obstacle that bars your way to them; how sweet is to be the labour, how divine the rest! Then--you marry her. Marry her, and in six months, if you've pluck enough to do it, lag behind your shooting party and blow your brains out, by accident, at the edge of a turnip-field. You have found out by that time all that there is to look for--the daily diminishing interest in your doings, the poorly assumed attention as you attempt to talk over some plan for the future; then the yawn, and by degrees, the covert sneer, the little sarcasm, and finally, the frank, open stare of boredom. Ah, Duke, when you all carry out your repressive legislation against women of evil lives, don't fail to include in your schedule the Unsympathetic Wives. They are the women whose victims show the sorriest scars; they are the really "bad women" of the world: all the others are snow-white in comparison!

ST. OLPHERTS. Yes, you've got a good deal of this in that capital Essay you quoted from this morning. Dear fellow, I admit your home discomforts; but to jump out of the frying pan into this confounded-- what does she call it?--compact!

LUCAS. Compact?

ST. OLPHERTS. A vague reference, as I understand, to your joint crusade against the blessed institution of Marriage.

LUCAS. [An alteration in his manner.] Oh--ho, that idea! What--what has she been saying to you?

ST. OLPHERTS. Incidentally she pitched into me, dear Lucas; she attacked my moral character. You must have been telling tales.

LUCAS. Oh, I--I hope not. Of course, we--

ST. OLPHERTS. Yes, yes--a little family gossip, to pass the time while she has been dressing her hair or--By the bye, she doesn't appear to spend much time in dressing her hair.

LUCAS. [Biting his lip.] Really?

ST. OLPHERTS. Then she denounced the gilded aristocracy generally. Our day is over; we're broken wooden dolls, and are going to be chucked. The old tune; but I enjoyed the novelty of being so near the instrument. I assure you, dear fellow, I was within three feet of her when she deliberately Trafalgar Squared me.

LUCAS. [With an uneasy laugh.] You're the red rag, Duke. This spirit of revolt in her--it's ludicrously extravagant; but it will die out in time, when she has become used to being happy and cared for--[partly to himself, with clenched hands]--yes, cared for.

ST. OLPHERTS. Die out? Bred in the bone, dear Lucas.

LUCAS. On some topics she's a mere echo of her father, if you mean that?

ST. OLPHERTS. The father--one of those public park vermin, eh?

LUCAS. Dead years ago.

ST. OLPHERTS. I once heard her bellowing in a dirty little shed in St. Luke's. I told you?

LUCAS. Yes, you've told me.

ST. OLPHERTS. I sat there again, it seemed, this afternoon. The orator not quite so lean, perhaps--a little less witch-like; but--

LUCAS. She was actually in want of food in those days! Poor girl! [Partly to himself.] I mean to remind myself of that constantly. Poor girl!

ST. OLPHERTS. Girl! Let me see--you're considerably her junior?

LUCAS. No, no; a few months, perhaps.

ST. OLPHERTS. Oh, come!

LUCAS. Well, years--two or three.

ST. OLPHERTS. The voice remains rather raucous.

LUCAS. By God, the voice is sweet!

ST. OLPHERTS. Well--considering the wear and tear. Really, my dear fellow, I do believe this--I do believe that if you gowned her respectably--

LUCAS. [Impulsively.] Yes, yes, I say so. I tell her that.

ST. OLPHERTS. [With a smile.] Do you? That's odd, now.

LUCAS. What a topic. Poor Agnes's dress!

ST. OLPHERTS. Your taste used to be rather aesthetic. Even your own wife is one of the smartest women in London.

LUCAS. Ha, well I must contrive to smother these aesthetic tastes of mine.

ST. OLPHERTS. It's a pity that other people will retain their sense of the incongruous.

LUCAS. [Snapping his fingers.] Other people!--

ST. OLPHERTS. The public.

LUCAS. The public?