Part 17

TREBELL. Perhaps not. If there were anything to be gained . . for the child. I'll see that he has his chance as a human being.

AMY. How hopeful! [_Now her voice drops. She is looking back, perhaps at a past self._] If you loved me . . perhaps I might learn to love the thought of your child.

TREBELL. [_As if half his life depended on her answer._] Is that true?

AMY. [_Irritably._] Why are you picking me to pieces? I think that is true. If you had been loving me for a long, long time-- [_The agony rushes back on her._] But now I'm only afraid. You might have some pity for me . . I'm so afraid.

TREBELL. [_Touched._] Indeed . . indeed, I'll take what share of this I can.

_She shrinks from him unforgivingly._

AMY. No, let me alone. I'm nothing to you. I'm a sick beast in danger of my life, that's all . . cancerous!

_He is roused for the first time, roused to horror and protest._

TREBELL. Oh, you unhappy woman! . . . if life is like death to you . . .

AMY. [_Turning on him._] Don't lecture me! If you're so clever put a stop to this horror. Or you might at least say you're sorry.

TREBELL. Sorry! [_The bell on the table rings jarringly._] Cantelupe!

_He goes to the telephone. She gets up cold and collected, steadied merely by the unexpected sound._

AMY. I mustn't keep you from governing the country. I'm sure you'll do it very well.

TREBELL. [_At the telephone._] Yes, bring him up, of course . . isn't Mr. Kent there? [_then to her._] I may be ten minutes with him or half an hour. Wait and we'll come to a conclusion.

KENT _comes in, an open letter in his hand_.

KENT. This note, sir. Had I better go round myself and see him?

TREBELL. [_As he takes the note._] Cantelupe's come.

KENT. [_Glancing at the telephone._] Oh, has he!

TREBELL. [_As he reads._] Yes I think you had.

KENT. Evans was very serious.

_He goes back into his room._ AMY _moves swiftly to where_ TREBELL _is standing and whispers_.

AMY. Won't you tell me whom to go to?

TREBELL. No.

AMY. Oh, really . . what unpractical sentimental children you men are! You and your consciences . . you and your laws. You drive us to distraction and sometimes to death by your stupidities. Poor women--!

_The Maid comes in to announce_ LORD CHARLES CANTELUPE, _who follows her_. CANTELUPE _is forty, unathletic, and a gentleman in the best and worst sense of the word. He moves always with a caution which may betray his belief in the personality of the Devil. He speaks cautiously too, and as if not he but something inside him were speaking. One feels that before strangers he would not if he could help it move or speak at all. A pale face: the mouth would be hardened by fanaticism were it not for the elements of Christianity in his religion: and he has the limpid eye of the enthusiast._

TREBELL. Glad to see you. You know Mrs. O'Connell.

CANTELUPE _bows in silence_.

AMY. We have met.

_She offers her hand. He silently takes it and drops it._

TREBELL. Then you'll wait for Frances.

AMY. Is it worth while?

KENT _with his hat on leaves his room and goes downstairs_.

TREBELL. Have you anything better to do?

AMY. There's somewhere I can go. But I mustn't keep you chatting of my affairs. Lord Charles is impatient to disestablish the Church.

CANTELUPE. [_Unable to escape a remark._] Forgive me, since that is also your affair.

AMY. Oh . . but I was received at the Oratory when I was married.

CANTELUPE. [_With contrition._] I beg your pardon.

_Then he makes for the other side of the room._ TREBELL _and_ MRS. O'CONNELL _stroll to the door, their eyes full of meaning_.

AMY. I think I'll go on to this place that I've heard of. If I wait . . for your sister . . she may disappoint me again.

TREBELL. Wait.

KENT'S _room is vacant_.

AMY. Well . . in here?

TREBELL. If you like law-books.

AMY. I haven't been much of an interruption now, have I?

TREBELL. Please wait.

AMY. Thank you.

TREBELL _shuts her in, for a moment seems inclined to lock her in, but he comes back into his own room and faces_ CANTELUPE, _who having primed and trained himself on his subject like a gun, fires off a speech, without haste, but also apparently without taking breath_.

CANTELUPE. I was extremely thankful, Mr. Trebell, to hear last week from Horsham that you will see your way to join his cabinet and undertake the disestablishment bill in the House of Commons. Any measure of mine, I have always been convinced, would be too much under the suspicion of blindly favouring Church interests to command the allegiance of that heterogeneous mass of thought . . in some cases, alas, of free thought . . which now-a-days composes the Conservative party. I am more than content to exercise what influence I may from a seat in the cabinet which will authorise the bill.

TREBELL. Yes. That chair's comfortable.

CANTELUPE _takes another_.

CANTELUPE. Horsham forwarded to me your memorandum upon the conditions you held necessary and I incline to think I may accept them in principle on behalf of those who honour me with their confidences.

_He fishes some papers from his pocket._ TREBELL _sits squarely at his table to grapple with the matter_.

TREBELL. Horsham told me you did accept them . . it's on that I'm joining.

CANTELUPE. Yes . . in principle.

TREBELL. Well . . we couldn't carry a bill you disapproved of, could we?

CANTELUPE. [_With finesse._] I hope not.

TREBELL. [_A little dangerously._] And I have no intention of being made the scapegoat of a wrecked Tory compromise with the Nonconformists.

CANTELUPE. [_Calmly ignoring the suggestion._] So far as I am concerned I meet the Nonconformists on their own ground . . that Religion had better be free from all compromise with the State.

TREBELL. Quite so . . if you're set free you'll look after yourselves. My discovery must be what to do with the men who think more of the state than their Church . . the majority of parsons, don't you think? . . if the question's really put and they can be made to understand it.

CANTELUPE. [_With sincere disdain._] There are more profitable professions.

TREBELL. And less. Will you allow me that it is statecraft to make a profession profitable?

CANTELUPE _picks up his papers, avoiding theoretical discussion_.

CANTELUPE. Well now . . will you explain to me this project for endowing Education with your surplus?

TREBELL. Putting Appropriation, the Buildings and the Representation question on one side for the moment?

CANTELUPE. Candidly, I have yet to master your figures . . .

TREBELL. The roughest figures so far.

CANTELUPE. Still I have yet to master them on the first two points.

TREBELL. [_Firmly premising._] We agree that this is not diverting church money to actually secular uses.

CANTELUPE. [_As he peeps from under his eyelids._] I can conceive that it might not be. You know that we hold Education to be a Church function. But . . .

TREBELL. Can you accept thoroughly now the secular solution for all Primary Schools?

CANTELUPE. Haven't we always preferred it to the undenominational? Are there to be facilities for any of the teachers giving dogmatic instruction?

TREBELL. I note your emphasis on any. I think we can put the burden of that decision on local authorities. Let us come to the question of Training Colleges for your teachers. It's on that I want to make my bargain.

CANTELUPE. [_Alert and cautious._] You want to endow colleges?

TREBELL. Heavily.

CANTELUPE. Under public control?

TREBELL. Church colleges under Church control.

CANTELUPE. There'd be others?

TREBELL. To preserve the necessary balance in the schools.

CANTELUPE. Not founded with church money?

TREBELL. Think of the grants in aid that will be released. I must ask the Treasury for a further lump sum and with that there may be sufficient for secular colleges . . if you can agree with me upon the statutes of those over which you'd otherwise have free control.

TREBELL _is weighing his words_.

CANTELUPE. "You" meaning, for instance . . what authorities in the Church?

TREBELL. Bishops, I suppose . . and others. [CANTELUPE _permits himself to smile._] On that point I shall be weakness itself and . . may I suggest . . your seat in the cabinet will give you some control.

CANTELUPE. Statutes?

TREBELL. To be framed in the best interests of educational efficiency.

CANTELUPE. [_Finding an opening._] I doubt if we agree upon the meaning to be attached to that term.

TREBELL. [_Forcing the issue._] What meaning do you attach to it?

CANTELUPE. [_Smiling again._] I have hardly a sympathetic listener.

TREBELL. You have an unprejudiced one . . the best you can hope for. I was not educated myself. I learnt certain things that I desired to know . . from reading my first book--Don Quixote it was--to mastering Company Law. You see, as a man without formulas either for education or religion, I am perhaps peculiarly fitted to settle the double question. I have no grudges . . no revenge to take.

CANTELUPE. [_Suddenly congenial._] Shelton's translation of Don Quixote I hope . . the modern ones have no flavour. And you took all the adventures as seriously as the Don did?

TREBELL. [_Not expecting this._] I forget.

CANTELUPE. It's the finer attitude . . the child's attitude. And it would enable you immediately to comprehend mine towards an education consisting merely of practical knowledge. The life of Faith is still the happy one. What is more crushingly finite than knowledge? Moral discipline is a nation's only safety. How much of your science tends in support of the great spiritual doctrine of sacrifice!

TREBELL _returns to his subject as forceful as ever_.

TREBELL. The Church has assimilated much in her time. Do you think it wise to leave agnostic science at the side of the plate? I think, you know, that this craving for common knowledge is a new birth in the mind of man; and if your church won't recognise that soon, by so much will she be losing her grip for ever over men's minds. What's the test of godliness, but your power to receive the new idea in whatever form it comes and give it life? It is blasphemy to pick and choose your good. [_For a moment his thoughts seem to be elsewhere._] That's an unhappy man or woman or nation . . I know it if it has only come to me this minute . . and I don't care what their brains or their riches or their beauty or any of their triumph may be . . they're unhappy and useless if they can't tell life from death.

CANTELUPE. [_Interested in the digression._] Remember that the Church's claim has ever been to know that difference.

TREBELL. [_Fastening to his subject again._] My point is this: A man's demand to know the exact structure of a fly's wing, and his assertion that it degrades any child in the street not to know such a thing, is a religious revival . . a token of spiritual hunger. What else can it be? And we commercialise our teaching!

CANTELUPE. I wouldn't have it so.

TREBELL. Then I'm offering you the foundation of a new Order of men and women who'll serve God by teaching his children. Now shall we finish the conversation in prose?

CANTELUPE. [_Not to be put down._] What is the prose for God?

TREBELL. [_Not to be put down either._] That's what we irreligious people are giving our lives to discover. [_He plunges into detail._] I'm proposing to found about seventy-two new colleges, and of course, to bring the ones there are up to the new standard. Then we must gradually revise all teaching salaries in government schools . . to a scale I have in mind. Then the course must be compulsory and the training time doubled--

CANTELUPE. Doubled! Four years?

TREBELL. Well, a minimum of three . . a university course. Remember we're turning a trade into a calling.

CANTELUPE. There's more to that than taking a degree.

TREBELL. I think so. You've fought for years for your tests and your atmosphere with plain business men not able to understand such lunacy. Quite right . . atmosphere's all that matters. If one and one don't make two by God's grace . . .

CANTELUPE. Poetry again!

TREBELL. I beg your pardon. Well . . you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do away with text-book teachers.

CANTELUPE _is opening out a little in spite of himself_.

CANTELUPE. I'm waiting for our opinions to differ.

TREBELL. [_Businesslike again._] I'll send you a draft of the statutes I propose within a week. Meanwhile shall I put the offer this way. If I accept your tests will you accept mine?

CANTELUPE. What are yours?

TREBELL. I believe if one provides for efficiency one provides for the best part of truth . . honesty of statement. I shall hope for a little more elasticity in your dogmas than Becket or Cranmer or Laud would have allowed. When you've a chance to re-formulate the reasons of your faith for the benefit of men teaching mathematics and science and history and political economy, you won't neglect to answer or allow for criticisms and doubts. I don't see why . . in spite of all the evidence to the contrary . . such a thing as progress in a definite religious faith is impossible.

CANTELUPE. Progress is a soiled word. [_And now he weighs his words._] I shall be very glad to accept on the Church's behalf control of the teaching of teachers in these colleges.

TREBELL. Good. I want the best men.

CANTELUPE. You are surprisingly inexperienced if you think that creeds can ever become mere forms except to those who have none.

TREBELL. But teaching--true teaching--is learning, and the wish to know is going to prevail against any creed . . so I think. I wish you cared as little for the form in which a truth is told as I do. On the whole, you see, I think I shall manage to plant your theology in such soil this spring that the garden will be fruitful. On the whole I'm a believer in Churches of all sorts and their usefulness to the State. Your present use is out-worn. Have I found you in this the beginnings of a new one?

CANTELUPE. The Church says: Thank you, it is a very old one.

TREBELL. [_Winding up the interview._] To be sure, for practical politics our talk can be whittled down to your accepting the secular solution for Primary Schools, if you're given these colleges under such statutes as you and I shall agree upon.

CANTELUPE. And the country will accept.

TREBELL. The country will accept any measure if there's enough money in it to bribe all parties fairly.

CANTELUPE. You expect very little of the constancy of my Church to her Faith, Mr. Trebell.

TREBELL. I have only one belief myself. That is in human progress--yes, progress--over many obstacles and by many means. I have no ideals. I believe it is statesmanlike to use all the energy you find . . turning it into the nearest channel that points forward.

CANTELUPE. Forward to what?

TREBELL. I don't know . . and my caring doesn't matter. We do know . . and if we deny it it's only to be encouraged by contradiction . . that the movement is forward and with some gathering purpose. I'm friends with any fellow traveller.

CANTELUPE _has been considering him very curiously. Now he gets up to go._

CANTELUPE. I should like to continue our talk when I've studied your draft of the statutes. Of course the political position is favourable to a far more comprehensive bill than we had ever looked for . . and you've the advantage now of having held yourself very free from party ties. In fact not only will you give us the bill we shall most care to accept, but I don't know what other man would give us a bill we and the other side could accept at all.

TREBELL. I can let you have more Appropriation figures by Friday. The details of the Fabrics scheme will take a little longer.

CANTELUPE. In a way there's no such hurry. We're not in office yet.

TREBELL. When I'm building with figures I like to give the foundations time to settle. Otherwise they are the inexactest things.

CANTELUPE. [_Smiling to him for the first time._] We shall have you finding Faith the only solvent of all problems some day.

TREBELL. I hope my mind is not afraid . . even of the Christian religion.

CANTELUPE. I am sure that the needs of the human soul . . be it dressed up in whatever knowledge . . do not alter from age to age . .

_He opens the door to find_ WEDGECROFT _standing outside, watch in hand_.

TREBELL. Hullo . . . waiting?

WEDGECROFT. I was giving you two minutes by my watch. How are you, Cantelupe?

CANTELUPE, _with a gesture which might be mistaken for a bow, folds himself up_.

TREBELL. Shall I bring you the figures on Friday . . that might save time.

CANTELUPE, _by taking a deeper fold in himself seems to assent_.

TREBELL. Will the afternoon do? Kent shall fix the hour.

CANTELUPE. [_With an effort._] Kent?

TREBELL. My secretary.

CANTELUPE. Friday. Any hour before five. I know my way.

_The three phrases having meant three separate efforts_, CANTELUPE _escapes_. WEDGECROFT _has walked to the table, his brows a little puckered. Now_ TREBELL _notices that_ KENT'S _door is open; he goes quickly into the room and finds it empty. Then he stands for a moment irritable and undecided before returning._

TREBELL. Been here long?

WEDGECROFT. Five minutes . . more, I suppose.

TREBELL. Mrs. O'Connell gone?

WEDGECROFT. To her dressmaker's.

TREBELL. Frances forgot she was coming and went out.

WEDGECROFT. Pretty little fool of a woman! D'you know her husband?

TREBELL. No.

WEDGECROFT. Says she's been in Ireland with him since we met at Shapters. He has trouble with his tenantry.

TREBELL. Won't he sell or won't they purchase?

WEDGECROFT. Curious chap. A Don at Balliol when I first knew him. Warped of late years . . perhaps by his marriage.

TREBELL. [_Dismissing that subject._] Well . . how's Percival?

WEDGECROFT. Better this morning. I told him I'd seen you . . and in a little calculated burst of confidence what I'd reason to think you were after. He said you and he could get on though you differed on every point; but he didn't see how you'd pull with such a blasted weak-kneed lot as the rest of the Horsham's cabinet would be. He'll be up in a week or ten days.

TREBELL. Can I see him?

WEDGECROFT. You might. I admire the old man . . the way he sticks to his party, though they misrepresent now most things he believes in!

TREBELL. What a damnable state to arrive at . . doubly damned by the fact you admire it.

WEDGECROFT. And to think that at this time of day you should need instructing in the ethics of party government. But I'll have to do it.

TREBELL. Not now. I've been at ethics with Cantelupe.

WEDGECROFT. Certainly not now. What about my man with the stomach-ache at twelve o'clock sharp! Good-bye.

_He is gone._ TREBELL _battles with uneasiness and at last mutters_. "Oh . . why didn't she wait?" _Then the telephone bell rings. He goes quickly as if it were an answer to his anxiety._ "Yes?" _Of course, it isn't . ._ "Yes." _He paces the room, impatient, wondering what to do. The Maid comes in to announce_ MISS DAVENPORT. LUCY _follows her. She has gained lately perhaps a little of the joy which was lacking and at least she brings now into this room a breath of very wholesome womanhood._

LUCY. It's very good of you to let me come; I'm not going to keep you more than three minutes.

TREBELL. Sit down.

_Only women unused to busy men would call him rude._

LUCY. What I want to say is . . don't mind my being engaged to Walter. It shan't interfere with his work for you. If you want a proof that it shan't . . it was I got Aunt Julia to ask you to take him . . Though he didn't know . . so don't tell him that.

TREBELL. You weren't engaged then.

LUCY. I . . thought that we might be.

TREBELL. [_With cynical humour._] Which I'm not to tell him either?

LUCY. Oh, that wouldn't matter.

TREBELL. [_With decision._] I'll make sure you don't interfere.

LUCY. [_Deliberately . . not to be treated as a child._] You couldn't, you know, if I wanted to.

TREBELL. Why, is Walter a fool?

LUCY. He's very fond of me, if that's what you mean?

TREBELL _looks at her for the first time and changes his tone a little_.

TREBELL. If it was what I meant . . I'm disposed to withdraw the suggestion.

LUCY. And, because I'm fond of his work as well, I shan't therefore ask him to tell me things . . secrets.

TREBELL. [_Reverting to his humour._] It'll be when you're a year or two married that danger may occur . . in his desperate effort to make conversation.

LUCY _considers this and him quite seriously_.

LUCY. You're rather hard on women, aren't you . . just because they don't have the chances men do.

TREBELL. Do you want the chances?

LUCY. I think I'm as clever as most men I meet, though I know less, of course.

TREBELL. Perhaps I should have offered you the secretaryship instead.

LUCY. [_Readily._] Don't you think I'm taking it in a way . . by marrying Walter? That's fanciful of course. But marriage is a very general and complete sort of partnership, isn't it? At least, I'd like to make mine so.

TREBELL. He'll be more under your thumb in some things if you leave him free in others.

_She receives the sarcasm in all seriousness and then speaks to him as she would to a child._

LUCY. Oh . . I'm not explaining what I mean quite well perhaps. Walter has been everywhere and done everything. He speaks three languages . . which all makes him an ideal private secretary.

TREBELL. Quite.

LUCY. Do you think he'd develop into anything else . . but for me?

TREBELL. So I have provided just a first step, have I?

LUCY. [_With real enthusiasm._] Oh, Mr. Trebell, it's a great thing for us. There isn't anyone worth working under but you. You'll make him think and give him ideas instead of expecting them from him. But just for that reason he'd get so attached to you and be quite content to grow old in your shadow . . if it wasn't for me.

TREBELL. True . . I should encourage him in nothingness. What's more, I want extra brains and hands. It's not altogether a pleasant thing, is it . . the selfishness of the hard worked man?

LUCY. If you don't grudge your own strength, why should you be tender of other people's?

_He looks at her curiously._

TREBELL. Your ambition is making for only second-hand satisfaction though.

LUCY. What's a woman to do? She must work through men, mustn't she?

TREBELL. I'm told that's degrading . . the influencing of husbands and brothers and sons.

LUCY. [_Only half humorously._] But what else is one to do with them? Of course, I've enough money to live on . . so I could take up some woman's profession. . . What are you smiling at?

TREBELL. [_Who has smiled very broadly._] As you don't mean to . . don't stop while I tell you.

LUCY. But I'd sooner get married. I want to have children. [_The words catch him and hold him. He looks at her reverently this time. She remembers she has transgressed convention; then, remembering that it is only convention, proceeds quite simply._] I hope we shall have children.

TREBELL. I hope so.

LUCY. Thank you. That's the first kind thing you've said.

TREBELL. Oh . . you can do without compliments, can't you?

_She considers for a moment._

LUCY. Why have you been talking to me as if I were someone else?

TREBELL. [_Startled._] Who else?

LUCY. No one particular. But you've shaken a moral fist so to speak. I don't think I provoked it.

TREBELL. It's a bad parliamentary habit. I apologise.

_She gets up to go._

LUCY. Now I shan't keep you longer . . you're always busy. You've been so easy to talk to. Thank you very much.

TREBELL. Why . . I wonder?

LUCY. I knew you would be or I shouldn't have come. You think Life's an important thing, don't you? That's priggish, isn't it? Good-bye. We're coming to dinner . . Aunt Julia and I. Miss Trebell arrived to ask us just as I left.

TREBELL. I'll see you down.

LUCY. What waste of time for you. I know how the door opens.