ACT II
SCENE: _The same room a few days later._
_OLIVER comes in dressed in the deepest black, having just returned from the funeral of OLIVER BLAYDS. He looks round the room, and then up at the old gentleman who has now left it for ever, and draws his first deep breath of freedom. Then, sitting at his ease on the sofa, he takes out a cigarette and lights it._
* * * * *
OLIVER (_blowing out smoke_). Ah!
_SEPTIMA comes in._
SEPTIMA (_seeing the cigarette_). Hallo!
OLIVER (_a little on the defensive_). Hallo!
SEPTIMA. I think I’ll join you. Got one?
OLIVER. I expect so. (_He offers her one._)
SEPTIMA. Thanks. (_He lights it for her._) Thanks. (_She also takes her first deep breath._) Well, that’s that.
OLIVER. What did you think of it?
SEPTIMA. It’s rather awful, isn’t it? I mean awe-inspiring.
OLIVER. Yes. I don’t know why it should be. Did you cry? You looked like it once or twice.
SEPTIMA. Yes. Not because it was Grandfather. Not because it was Oliver Blayds. But—just because.
OLIVER. Because it was the last time.
SEPTIMA. Yes.... I suppose that’s why one cries at weddings. Or at—no, I’ve never been to a christening.
OLIVER. You have. And I bet you cried.
SEPTIMA. Oh, my own, yes....
OLIVER. Wonderful crowd of people. I don’t think I ever realised before what a great man he was.
SEPTIMA. No, one doesn’t....
OLIVER (_after a pause_). You know there’s a lot of rot talked about death.
SEPTIMA. A lot of rot talked about everything.
OLIVER. Here was Oliver Blayds—the greatest man of his day—seen everything, known everybody, ninety years old, honoured by all—and then he goes out. Well!
SEPTIMA. Nothing is here for tears, in fact.
OLIVER. Not only nothing for tears, but everything for rejoicings. I don’t understand these religious people. They’re quite certain that there’s an after life, and that this life is only a preparation for it—like a cold bath in the morning to the rest of the day. And yet they are always the people who make the most fuss, and cover themselves with black, and say, “Poor Grandfather!” ever after. Why poor? He is richer than ever according to them.
SEPTIMA. Can’t you _see_ Oliver Blayds in Heaven enjoying it all? What poetry he would make of it!
OLIVER. “A Child’s Thoughts on Waking”—eh? I’ve laughed at it, and loathed it, but it was the real stuff, you know. What’s the text—“Except ye be born again as a little child, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven”—is that right? _His_ thoughts—on waking in Heaven.
SEPTIMA (_thoughtfully_). Septima Blayds-Conway. It’s rather a thing to be, you know.
OLIVER. I used to think once that, when the old boy died, I’d chuck the Blayds and just be plain Oliver Conway. I’m beginning to think I was wrong.... Oliver Blayds-Conway.
SEPTIMA. The well-known statesman. Sorry—I mean engineer.
OLIVER. Well, I wonder about that.
SEPTIMA. What sort of wondering?
OLIVER. Things will be a bit different now. I’m the only genuine Blayds left——
SEPTIMA. Oh, indeed!
OLIVER. You know what I mean—male Blayds. And it’s rather up to me not to let the old man down. Oliver Blayds-Conway, M.P. There’s something in it, you know. I was thinking about it in the church. Or should I drop the Conway and just be Blayds? Or Conway Blayds and drop the Oliver? It’s a bit of a problem.
SEPTIMA. I shall keep the Blayds when I marry. Drop the Conway, of course.
OLIVER. It’s a dirty game, politics, but that’s all the more reason why there should be some really good people in it. Irreproachable people, I mean. Conway Blayds.... (_And the Duke of Devonshire, and so forth_).
SEPTIMA (_after a pause_). I wonder what Aunt Isobel wants to talk to us all about.
OLIVER. The old man’s last dying instructions or something. I was rather hoping to get down to the Oval. I’ve got the day off. Bit of a change to go to the Oval when you really _have_ buried your grandfather. But perhaps I ought to be careful if I’m going in seriously for politics.
SEPTIMA. Noll, have you realised that it’s all going to be rather interesting now?
OLIVER. Of course it is. But why particularly?
SEPTIMA. Father.
OLIVER. You mean he’s lost his job.
SEPTIMA. Yes. It’s terribly exciting when your father’s out of work.
OLIVER. He’ll have more work than ever. He’ll write Blayds’ life. That’ll take him years.
SEPTIMA. Yes; but, don’t you see, he hasn’t any real standing now. Who is he? Only Blayds’ late secretary. Whose house is this now, do you think?
OLIVER. Depends how the old man left it.
SEPTIMA. Of course it does. But you can be quite sure he didn’t leave it to father. I think it’s all going to be rather exciting.
OLIVER. Well, you won’t be here to see it, my child.
SEPTIMA. Why not?
OLIVER. I thought you were going to live with that Ferguson girl.
SEPTIMA. Not so sure now. There’s no hurry anyway. I think I’ll wait here a bit, and see what happens. It’s all going to be so different.
OLIVER. It is. (_He smiles at his thoughts._)
SEPTIMA. What?
OLIVER (_smiling broadly_). It’s just on the cards that it’s my house now. (_Looking round the room._) I don’t think I shall let father smoke in here.
SEPTIMA. What fun that would be!... I hope he’s left Aunt Isobel something.
OLIVER. Yes, poor dear, she’s rather in the air, isn’t she?
SEPTIMA. It’s funny how little we know _her_.
OLIVER. We’ve hardly ever seen her, apart from the old man. I don’t suppose there’s much to know. A born nurse, and that’s all there is to it.
SEPTIMA. Perhaps you’re right.
OLIVER. I’m sure I am.
_WILLIAM and MARION come on._
WILLIAM (_continuing a conversation which has obviously been going on since BLAYDS died_). I say again, Oliver Blayds ought to have been buried in the Abbey. The nation expected it. The nation had the right to it.
MARION. Yes, dear, but we couldn’t go against his own wish. His last wish.
WILLIAM. If it was his wish, why did he not express it to me?
MARION. He told Isobel, dear.
WILLIAM. So we are to believe. And of course I was careful to let the public understand that this was so in my letter to the _Times_. But in what circumstances did he express the wish? (_He suddenly realises OLIVER’S cigarette and says sharply_) Oliver, you know quite well that your grandfather—— (_But then he remembers where grandfather is._)
OLIVER (_not understanding_). Yes?
MARION. I think Father meant—of course Grandfather can’t see you now—not to mind.
WILLIAM. I should have thought your instinct would have told you that this is hardly the moment, when Oliver Blayds is just laid to rest——
MARION. Your cigarette, dear.
OLIVER. Oh! (_He throws it away._) Sorry, Mother, if you mind. I didn’t think it would matter either way—now.
MARION. That’s all right, dear.
WILLIAM. As I was saying, in what circumstances did he express the wish?
MARION. What, dear?
WILLIAM. On his death-bed, his faculties rapidly going, he may have indicated preference for a simple ceremony. But certainly up to a few weeks of his passing, although it was naturally a subject which I did not care myself to initiate, he always gave me the impression that he anticipated an interment in the Abbey.
MARION. Yes, dear. I daresay I shall feel it more later, but just now I like to think of him where he wanted to be himself.
SEPTIMA. After all, Shakespeare isn’t buried in the Abbey.
WILLIAM. I don’t think that that has anything to do with it, Septima. I am not saying that the reputation of Oliver Blayds will suffer by reason of his absence from the national Valhalla—he has built his own monument in a thousand deathless lines; but speaking as an Englishman, I say that the Abbey had a right to him.
MARION. Well, it’s too late now, dear.
WILLIAM. I shall speak to Isobel again; I still feel sure she was mistaken.
MARION. Very well, dear. But don’t worry her more than you need. I feel rather uneasy about her. She has been so strange since he died.
WILLIAM. She will be worried enough as it is. Of all the extraordinary wills to make!
(_OLIVER and SEPTIMA exchange glances._)
OLIVER. Why, what’s he done? We were wondering about that.
WILLIAM. Yes, yes, yes, you will know in good time, my boy.
OLIVER. Why not now? This seems a very good time.
SEPTIMA. Are we too young to be told?
WILLIAM (_ignoring them_). Marion, don’t let me forget that message to the public—returning thanks for their sympathy, and so on. (_Moving to the desk._) We might draft that now.
MARION. Yes, dear.
SEPTIMA. Oliver was asking you about the will, Father.
WILLIAM. Yes, yes, another time. Marion——
OLIVER. I suppose I am mentioned in it?
WILLIAM. Of course, of course.
OLIVER. To what extent?
(_WILLIAM is too busy to answer._)
SEPTIMA. Father, don’t be so childish.
WILLIAM (_outraged_). Septima!
MARION. Septima dear, you oughtn’t to talk to your father like that.
WILLIAM (_with dignity_). I think you had better go to your room.
SEPTIMA (_unmoved_). But that’s the whole point. Is it my room? (_WILLIAM looks bewildered._) Or is it Oliver’s, or Mother’s, or Aunt Isobel’s?
OLIVER. I believe he has left everything to Aunt Isobel.
MARION. Oh no, dear, he wouldn’t do that. He would never have favourites. Share and share alike.
SEPTIMA. Half for you and half for Aunt Isobel?
MARION. Of course, dear. And all to you and Oliver after our death. And something down to you now. I forget how much. (_To WILLIAM_) What was it, dear?
WILLIAM (_sulkily_). A thousand pounds each.
OLIVER. Sportsman! What about you, Father? Do you get anything?
MARION. Father gets a thousand too.
SEPTIMA. Then why “of all the extraordinary wills——”?
MARION. It’s because of Aunt Isobel being made sole executor—literary executor too—isn’t that it, dear?
WILLIAM (_mumbling_). Yes.
OLIVER. Oho! Meaning that _she_ runs Blayds now? New editions, biographies, unpublished fragments, and all the rest of it?
MARION. Naturally she will leave it in Father’s hands. But, of course, Father is a little hurt that Grandfather didn’t think of that for himself.
OLIVER. Oh, well, I don’t suppose it matters much. Then that’s why she wants to see us all now.
(_WILLIAM grunts assent; and stands up as ISOBEL comes in._)
WILLIAM. Ah, here you are.
ISOBEL. I’m sorry if I have kept you waiting.
MARION. It’s all right, dear.
WILLIAM. I was just telling Marion that I am more than ever convinced that Oliver Blayds’ rightful resting-place was the Abbey.
ISOBEL (_shaking her head wearily_). No.
WILLIAM. I was saying to Marion, even if he expressed the wish in his last moments for a quiet interment——
ISOBEL. He never expressed the wish, one way or the other.
WILLIAM. My dear Isobel! You distinctly told us——
MARION. You did say, dear.
ISOBEL. Yes, I owe you an apology about that.
WILLIAM (_indignantly_). An apology!
ISOBEL. There is something I have to tell you all. Will you please listen, all of you? Won’t you sit down, William? (_They sit down._)
MARION. What is it, dear?
WILLIAM. You’ve been very mysterious these last few days.
ISOBEL. I didn’t want to say anything until he had been buried. I shall not be mysterious now; I shall be only too plain.
SEPTIMA (_to OLIVER_). I say, what’s up?
(_OLIVER shrugs his shoulders._)
WILLIAM. Well?
ISOBEL. I told you that Father didn’t want to be buried in the Abbey, not because he had said so, but because it was quite impossible that he should be buried in the Abbey.
WILLIAM. Impossible!
MARION. I’m sure the Dean would have been only——
ISOBEL. Impossible because he had done nothing to make him worthy of that honour.
WILLIAM. Well!
OLIVER. Oh no, Aunt Isobel, you’re wrong there. I mean when you think of some of the people——
ISOBEL. Will you listen to me, please? And ask any questions afterwards. You may think I’m mad; I’m not.... I wish I were.
WILLIAM. Well, what is it?
(_She tells them; it is almost as if she were repeating a lesson which she had learnt by heart. BLAYDS, you may be sure, made a story of it when he told her—we seem to hear snatches of that story now._)
ISOBEL. Nearly seventy years ago there were two young men, boys almost, twenty-three, perhaps, living together in rooms in Islington. Both poor, both eager, ambitious, certain of themselves, very certain of their destiny. But only one of them was a genius. He was a poet, this one; perhaps the greater poet because he knew that he had not long to live. The poetry came bubbling out of him, and he wrote it down feverishly, quick, quick before the hand became cold and the fingers could no longer write. That was all his ambition. He had no thoughts of present fame; there was no time for it. He was content to live unknown, so that when dead he might live for ever. His friend was ambitious in a different way. He wanted the present delights of fame. So they lived together there, one writing and writing, always writing; the other writing and then stopping to think how famous he was going to be, and envying those who were already famous, and then regretfully writing again. A time came when the poet grew very ill, and lay in bed, but still writing, but still hurrying, hurrying to keep pace with the divine music in his brain. Then one day there was no more writing, no more music. The poet was dead. (_She is silent for a little._)
WILLIAM (_as her meaning slowly comes to him_). Isobel, what are you saying?
MARION. I don’t understand. Who was it?
OLIVER. Good Lord!
ISOBEL (_in the same quiet voice_). The friend was left—with the body of the poet—and all that great monument which the dead man had raised for himself. The poet had no friends but this one; no relations of whom he had ever spoken or who claimed him now. He was dead, and it was left to his friend to see that he won now that immortality for which he had given his life.... His friend betrayed him.
SEPTIMA. I say!
WILLIAM. I _won’t_ believe it! It’s monstrous!
MARION. I don’t understand.
ISOBEL (_wearily_). One can see the temptation. There he was, this young man of talent, of great ambition, and there were these works of genius lying at his feet, waiting to be picked up—and fathered by him. I suppose that, like every other temptation, it came suddenly. He writes out some of the verses, scribbled down anyhow by the poet in his mad hurry, and sends them to a publisher; one can imagine the publisher’s natural acceptance of the friend as the true author, the friend’s awkwardness in undeceiving him, and then his sudden determination to make the most of the opportunity given him.... Oh, one can imagine many things—but what remains? Always and always this. That Oliver Blayds was not a poet; that he did not write the works attributed to him; and that he betrayed his friend. (_She stops and then says in an ordinary matter-of-fact voice_) That was why I thought that he ought not to be buried in the Abbey.
OLIVER. Good Lord!
WILLIAM (_sharply_). Is this true, Isobel?
ISOBEL. It isn’t the sort of story that I should make up.
MARION. I don’t understand. (_To WILLIAM_) What is it? I don’t understand.
WILLIAM. Isobel is telling us that Oliver Blayds stole all his poetry from another man.
MARION. Stole it!
WILLIAM. Passed it off as his own.
MARION (_firmly to ISOBEL_). Oh no, dear, you must be wrong. Why should Grandfather want to steal anybody else’s poetry when he wrote so beautifully himself?
SEPTIMA. That’s just the point, Mother. Aunt Isobel says that he didn’t write anything himself.
MARION. But there are the books with his name on them!
ISOBEL. Stolen—from his friend.
MARION (_shocked_). Isobel, how can you? Your own father!
WILLIAM. I don’t believe it. I had the privilege of knowing Oliver Blayds for nearly thirty years and I say that I don’t believe it.
ISOBEL. I knew him for some time too. He was my father.
WILLIAM. When did he tell you this?
OLIVER. It’s a dashed funny thing that——
WILLIAM. If you will allow me, Oliver. I want to get to the bottom of this. When did he tell you?
ISOBEL. That last evening. His birthday.
WILLIAM. How? Why? Why should he tell you?
ISOBEL. He seemed frightened suddenly—of dying. I suppose he’d always meant to tell somebody before he died.
MARION. Why didn’t you tell us before, dear?
WILLIAM (_holding up his hand_). Please. Let me. (_To ISOBEL_) Why didn’t you tell us before?
ISOBEL. I promised not to say anything until he was dead. Then I thought I would wait until he was buried.
MARION. You couldn’t have made a mistake? You couldn’t have misunderstood him?
ISOBEL (_smiling sadly_). No.
WILLIAM. You say that this other man died—how many years ago?
ISOBEL. Sixty, seventy.
WILLIAM. Ah! (_Sarcastically_) And sixty years after he was dead he was apparently still writing poetry for Oliver Blayds to steal?
ISOBEL. He had already written it—sixty years ago—for Oliver Blayds to steal.
OLIVER. Good Lord! What a man!
SEPTIMA. You mean that his last volume——
WILLIAM (_holding up his hand_). Please, Septima.... Take this last volume published when he was over eighty. You say that everything there had been written by this other man sixty years ago?
ISOBEL. Yes.
WILLIAM. And the manuscripts were kept by Oliver Blayds for sixty years, written out again by him and published in his old age as his own?
ISOBEL. Yes.
WILLIAM (_triumphantly_). And can you explain how it was that he didn’t publish them earlier if he had had them in his possession all those years?
ISOBEL. He didn’t dare to. He was afraid of being left with nothing to publish. He took care always to have something in reserve. And that’s why everybody said how wonderfully vigorous and youthful his mind was at eighty, how amazing that the spirit and fire of youth had remained with him so long. Yes, it was the spirit and fire of youth, but of a youth who died seventy years ago.
OLIVER (_impressed_). Gad, you know, fancy the old chap keeping it up like that. Shows how little one really knows people. I had no idea he was such a sportsman.
SEPTIMA. Such a liar.
OLIVER. Same thing, sometimes.
SEPTIMA. I call it perfectly disgusting.
WILLIAM. Please, please! We shan’t arrive at the truth like that. (_To ISOBEL_) You want me to understand that Oliver Blayds has never written a line of his own poetry in his life?
MARION. Why, Grandfather was always writing poetry. Even as a child I remember——
SEPTIMA (_impatiently_). Mother, can’t you understand that the Oliver Blayds we thought we knew never existed?
MARION. But I was telling you, dear, that even as a child——
SEPTIMA (_to OLIVER_). It’s no good, she’s hopelessly muddled.
WILLIAM. Yes, yes.... Do you wish me to understand——
ISOBEL. I wish you to know the truth. We’ve been living in a lie, all of us, all our lives, and now at last we have found the truth. You talk as if, for some reason, I wanted to spread slanders about Oliver Blayds now that he is dead; as if in some way all this great lie were my doing; as if it were no pain but a sort of a pleasure to me to find out what sort of man my father really was. Ask me questions—I want you to know everything; but don’t cross-examine me as if I were keeping back the truth.
WILLIAM (_upset and apologetic_). Quite so, quite so. It’s the truth which we want.
MARION. As Grandfather said so beautifully himself in his “Ode to Truth”—What are the lines?
SEPTIMA (_hopelessly_). Oh, Mother!
MARION. Yes, and that was what I was going to say—could a man who wrote so beautifully about Truth as Grandfather did tell lies and deceive people as Isobel says he did? (_To ISOBEL_) I’m sure you must have made a mistake, dear.
OLIVER. You never told us—what was the other fellow’s name?
WILLIAM. I am coming to that directly. What I am asking you now is this. Did Oliver Blayds write no line of poetry himself at all?
ISOBEL. He wrote the 1863 volume.
WILLIAM (_staggered_). Oh!
OLIVER. The wash-out? By Jove! Then _that_ explains it!
ISOBEL. Yes, that explains it. He tried to tell himself that he was a poet too; that he had only used the other man in order to give himself a start. So he brought out a volume of his own poems. And then when everybody said “Blayds is finished,” he went back hastily to his friend and never ventured by himself again. And that explains why he resented the criticism of that volume, why he was so pleased when it was praised. It was all that he had written.
WILLIAM (_defeated now_). Yes, that would explain it. (_To himself_) Oliver Blayds!...
(_They are all silent for a little._)
SEPTIMA. Then he didn’t write “Septima.”
OLIVER. Of course he didn’t. You’re illegitimate, old girl.
SEPTIMA. Who did?
ISOBEL. The other man’s name was Jenkins.
SEPTIMA (_in disgust_). Christened after Jenkins!
OLIVER. Oliver Jenkins-Conway, M.P. Good Lord!
SEPTIMA. It will have to be Oliver Conway now.
OLIVER (_gloomily_). Yes, I suppose so. But everybody will know.
WILLIAM (_still fighting_). His friends, Isobel. The great friends he had had. The stories he has told us about them—were those all lies too? No, they couldn’t have been. I’ve seen them here myself.
MARION. Why, I remember going to see Uncle Thomas once when I was a little girl—Carlyle—Uncle Thomas I called him.
OLIVER. Well, if it comes to that, _I_ can remember——
ISOBEL. Oh, the friends were there. They accepted him for what he seemed to be, just as we did. He deceived them as cleverly as he deceived us.
WILLIAM. Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne——
ISOBEL (_bitterly_). Oh, he had his qualities. He talked well. There were his books. Why should they doubt him?
WILLIAM. Yes.... Yes.
(_There is silence for a little._)
MARION (_going over to ISOBEL and shaking her by the arm_). Is it really true what you’ve been saying?
ISOBEL. Oh, how I wish it weren’t.
MARION (_to WILLIAM_). _Is_ it true?
WILLIAM. He told her. She wouldn’t make it up.
MARION. But there’s all that beautiful poetry. I’ve been brought up to believe in it all my life. I’ve lived on it. And now you’ve taken it away, and you’ve left—nothing.
ISOBEL. Nothing.
MARION (_quite lost_). I don’t understand. (_She goes back in a vague, bewildered way to her chair...._)
SEPTIMA (_defiantly_). The poetry is still there—and Jenkins.
OLIVER (_shouting_). Shut up, Tim!
SEPTIMA (_angrily_). Shut up about what?
OLIVER. Jenkins. Don’t rub it in. It’s much worse for Mother than it is for us.
SEPTIMA. Oh, all right! But you don’t gain anything by not being frank about it.
(_The little storm dies down as suddenly as it began. There is another silence._)
OLIVER. Good Lord! I’ve just thought of something. (_They look at him._) The money.
WILLIAM. The money?
OLIVER. All this. (_He indicates the room_) Who does it belong to?
WILLIAM. According to the provisions of your Grandfather’s will——
OLIVER. Yes, but it wasn’t his to leave.
WILLIAM. Not his to——
OLIVER. No, Jenkins.
SEPTIMA. I thought we weren’t going to mention Mr. Jenkins.
OLIVER. Shut up, Tim, that’s different. (_To the others_) All the money comes from the books—at least I suppose it does—and the books aren’t his, so the money isn’t either.
WILLIAM (_turning in a bewildered way to ISOBEL_). Is that so?
ISOBEL (_with a shrug_). I suppose so.
WILLIAM. You say he had no family, this other man.
ISOBEL. None who bothered about him. But there must be relations somewhere.
WILLIAM. We shall have to find that out.
ISOBEL. Anyhow, as Oliver says, the money isn’t ours. (_Bitterly_) I wouldn’t touch a penny.
WILLIAM. Some of the money would be rightfully his. There was that one volume anyhow. It may not have been praised, but it was bought. Then there’s the question of his investments. It may prove that some of his most profitable investments were made about that time—with that very money. In which case, if it could be established——
ISOBEL (_indignantly_). Oh, how can you talk like that! As if it mattered. It’s tainted money, all of it.
WILLIAM. I think that is going too far. Very much too far. I recognise, of course, that we have certain obligations towards the relatives of this man—er—Jenkins. Obviously we must fulfil those obligations. But when that is done——
MARION (_to ISOBEL_). We shall be generous, of course, dear, that’s only fair.
OLIVER. Yes, but what are you going to do if no relations turn up?
WILLIAM (_turning doubtfully to ISOBEL_). Well, there is that, of course.
MARION. In that case we couldn’t do anything, could we, dear?
ISOBEL. We could throw the money into the sea; we could bury it deep in the ground; we could even give it away, Marion.
WILLIAM. That’s going much too far.
OLIVER. It’s rather a problem, you know.
SEPTIMA. It isn’t a problem at all. May I speak for a moment? I really think I have a right to say something.
WILLIAM. Well?
SEPTIMA. I want to say this. Oliver and I have been brought up in a certain way to expect certain things. Oliver wanted to be an engineer; he wasn’t allowed to, as Grandfather wanted him to go into politics. I wanted to share a studio with a friend and try and get on with my painting; I wasn’t allowed to, as Grandfather wanted me at home. Perhaps if Oliver had been an engineer, he would have been doing well by now. Perhaps if I had had my way, I might have been earning my living by now. As it is, we have been brought up as the children and grandchildren of rich people; I can’t earn my own living, and Oliver is in a profession in which money means success. Aunt Isobel has been telling us how a young man of Oliver’s age, seventy years ago, was cheated out of his rights. Apparently she thinks that the best way now of making up for that is to cheat Oliver and me out of our rights. I don’t agree with her.
OLIVER. Yes, there’s a good deal in that. Well done, Tim.
ISOBEL. It’s hard on you, I know. But you are young; you still have your lives in front of you, to make what you will of them.
SEPTIMA. That’s what old people always say to people of our age, and they seem to think that it excuses any injustice.
MARION. Poor Grandfather!
SEPTIMA. Yes, but I don’t see why it should be “Poor Oliver” and “Poor Septima” too. Suppose any relation did turn up—(_to WILLIAM_)—suppose they do, Father. Well, what will they all be? Grand-nephews, or fifth cousins twice removed or something, who have never heard of Jenkins, who never did anything _for_ Jenkins, and on whose lives Jenkins has had no effect whatever. Is there any sort of justice which says that they ought to have the money? But Noll and I have given up a good deal for Oliver Blayds, and he owes us something.
ISOBEL (_with ironic sadness_). Oh yes, you have given up a good deal for Oliver Blayds. It ought to be paid back to you.
WILLIAM (_still trying to be fair_). There’s another thing we must remember. Even if this other man——
SEPTIMA. Jenkins.
WILLIAM. Yes, even if he wrote all the books—always excepting the 1863 volume—even so, it was Oliver Blayds who arranged for their publication. He could fairly claim, therefore, an agent’s commission on all moneys received. Ten per cent.
ISOBEL (_scornfully_). Oliver Blayds, the well-known commission agent!
WILLIAM. Ten per cent of all moneys, therefore, is, in any case, rightfully ours.
MARION. Only ten per cent, dear. That seems very little.
WILLIAM. I am working on a minimum basis. Isobel says, “Throw all the money into the sea; it doesn’t belong to us.” I say no, that is going too far. We have one volume which is certainly ours. We have the ten per cent commission which is certainly ours. There may be other sums due to us, such as the profits of certain of the investments. We can look into the matter carefully at our leisure. The great point, I take it, is that we want to be fair to the relatives of this man Jenkins, but also fair to the relatives of Oliver Blayds, who, as Septima points out, have at least done something to earn any money that comes to them.
MARION (_to ISOBEL_). We want to be fair to everybody, dear.
SEPTIMA. Well, I think you are going to give the Jenkinses much too much. What right have the Jenkinses got to _any_ of the money which Grandfather made by investing?
OLIVER. Well, it was Jenkins’ money which was invested.
MARION. We shouldn’t like to think of them starving because we weren’t quite fair.
SEPTIMA. They let Jenkins starve. They didn’t worry about _him_.
OLIVER. Of course they didn’t, they weren’t even born.
WILLIAM. The whole question is extremely difficult. We may require an arbitrator, or, at any rate, a qualified chartered accountant.
MARION. Yes, that would be better, dear. To let somebody else decide what is fair and what isn’t.
ISOBEL (_in a low voice_). Oh, it’s horrible ... horrible.
MARION. What, dear?
ISOBEL. The way you talk—about the money. As if all that we had lost was so much money. As if you could estimate the wrong that Oliver Blayds did to his friend in the terms of money. I said the money was tainted. It is. How can you bear to touch it? How can you bear to profit by such a betrayal?
SEPTIMA. That’s pure sentiment, Aunt Isobel. Quite apart from not being reasonable, it isn’t even practical. Where are you going to draw the line? If you’re going to throw the money away, then you’ve got to throw the house away and everything in the house away—all our clothes to begin with. Because everything—everything that belongs to us owes itself to that betrayal of seventy years ago.... We should look very funny, the five of us, walking out of the house to-morrow, with nothing on, and starting life all over again.
MARION. Septima, dear, I don’t think that’s quite——
(_SEPTIMA begins to laugh to herself at the picture of them._)
OLIVER. That isn’t fair, Tim. An extreme case makes anything seem absurd. (_Earnestly to ISOBEL_) You know, I do see what you mean and I do sympathise. But even if we kept all the money, would that matter very much? All this man Jenkins wanted was to leave an immortal name behind him. You’ve just told us that nothing else interested him. Jenkins—I don’t say it’s much of a name, but neither was Keats for that matter. Well, Grandfather robbed him of that, and a damned shame too, but now we are giving it back to him. So all that’s happened is that he’s had seventy years less immortality than he expected. But he can’t worry seriously about that, any more than Wordsworth can worry because he was born two hundred years after Shakespeare. They are all equally immortal.
MARION (_to ISOBEL_). You see, dear, that’s quite fair to everybody.
ISOBEL. One can’t argue about it; you feel it or you don’t. And I give up my share of the money, so there should be plenty for all of you, even after you have been “fair” to the others.
WILLIAM (_who has felt ISOBEL’S scorn deeply_). Isobel! I don’t think you can realise how much you have hurt me by your words. After the first shock of your revelation it has been my one object to keep my real feelings, my very deep feelings, under control. I suppose that this revelation, this appalling revelation, has meant more to me than to any one in this room. Put quite simply, it means the end of my life work, the end of a career.... I think you know how I devoted myself to Oliver Blayds——
MARION. Simply devoted himself, dear.
WILLIAM. I gave up whatever other ambitions I may have had—
MARION (_to the children_). I always said that Father could have done anything.
WILLIAM. —And I set myself from that day on to live for one thing only, Oliver Blayds. It was a great pride to me to be his son-in-law, a great pride to be his secretary, but the greatest pride of all was the thought that I was helping others to know and to love, as I knew and loved him, that very great poet, that very great man, Oliver Blayds. You tell me now that he is—(_he snaps his fingers_)—nothing. A hollow mask. (_His voice rises_) I think I have some right to be angry; I think I have some right to bear resentment against this man who has tricked me, who has been making a fool of me for all these years. When I think of the years of labour which I have spent already in getting the materials together for this great man’s life; when I think how I have listened to him and taken down eagerly his every word; when I think that to-morrow I am to be held up to the derision of the world for the gullible fool I have shown myself to be, I think I have a right to be angry. (_With a great effort he controls himself and goes on more quietly_) But I have tried to control my feelings. I have remembered that he was your father and Marion’s father, and I have tried to control myself. To forget my own feelings, and to consider only how best to clear up this wreckage that Oliver Blayds has left behind. It is not for you to scorn me, me who have been the chief one to suffer.
MARION. Poor Father! (_She puts out a hand._)
WILLIAM (_patting it_). That’s all right. I don’t want pity. I just want Isobel to try to realise what it means to me.
OLIVER. Yes, by Jove, it is a bit rough on the governor.
SEPTIMA. Rough on all of us.
MARION. But your father has suffered most. You must always remember that.
ISOBEL. Poor William! Yes, it is hard on you. Your occupation’s gone.
WILLIAM. It is a terrible blow to us all, this dreadful news that you have given us. But you can understand that to me it is absolutely crushing.
ISOBEL (_in a whisper_). And to me? (_They look at her in surprise._) What has it been to me?
WILLIAM. Well, as I was saying——
ISOBEL. You have enjoyed your life here, yes, every moment of it. If you hadn’t been secretary to Oliver Blayds, you would have been secretary to somebody else—it’s what you’re best fitted for. Yes, you have lived your life; you have had interests, a hundred interests every day to keep you active and eager.... (_Almost to herself_) But I say, what of me? What has my life been? Look at me now—what am I?—a wasted woman. I might have been a wife, a mother—with a man of my own, children of my own, in my own home. Look at me now...!
MARION. My dear, I never dreamt——
ISOBEL (_eighteen years away from them all_). He asked me to marry him. Tall and straight and clean he was, and he asked me to marry him. Ah, how happy we should have been together, he and I—should we not have been happy? He asked me to marry him.
MARION. Isobel!
ISOBEL. Such a long time ago. I was young then, and pretty then, and the world was very full then of beautiful things. I used to laugh then—we laughed together—such a gay world it was all those years ago. And he asked me to marry him.... (_In a hard voice_) I didn’t. I sent him away. I said that I must stay with my father, Oliver Blayds, the great poet. Yes, I was helping the great poet. (_With a bitter laugh_) Helping!... And I sent my man away.
SEPTIMA (_distressed_). Oh, don’t!
ISOBEL. You thought I liked nursing. “A born nurse”—I can hear you saying it. (_Fiercely it bursts out after all these years_) I hated it! Do you know what it’s like nursing a sick old man—day after day, night after night? And then year after year. Always a little older, a little more difficult. Do you know what it is to live with an old man when you are young, as I was young once, to live always with old age and never with youth, and to watch your own youth gradually creeping up to join his old age? Ah, but I was doing it for Blayds, for the sake of his immortal poetry. (_She laughs—such a laugh_) And look at me now, all wasted. The wife I might have been, the mother I might have been. (_In a whisper_) How beautiful the world was, all those years ago!
(_They say nothing, for there is nothing to say. ISOBEL looks in front of her, seeing nothing which they can see. Very gently they go out, leaving her there with her memories...._)