The Title by Arnold Bennett (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

You have--er--jockeyed Mrs.--er--the sex into committing itself quite definitely against titles. Hence I look on your position as impregnable.

CULVER. Good heavens, Tranto! How old are you?

TRANTO. Twenty-five.

CULVER. A quarter of a century--and you haven't learnt that no position is impregnable against--er--the sex! You never know where the offensive will come, nor when, nor how. The offensive is bound to be a surprise. You aren't married. When you are you'll soon find out that being a husband is a whole-time job. That's why so many husbands fail. They can't give their entire attention to it. Tranto, my position must be still further strengthened--during dinner. It can't be strengthened too much. I've brought you into the conspiracy because you're on the spot and I want you to play up.

TRANTO. Certainly, sir.

CULVER. The official letter might come by to-night's post. If it does, a considerable amount of histrionic skill will be needed.

TRANTO. Trust me for that.

CULVER. Oh! I do! Indeed I fancy after all I'm fairly safe. There's only one danger.

TRANTO. Yes?

CULVER. My--I mean the sex, must hear of the offered title from me first. If the news came to her indirectly she'd--

Enter Mrs. Culver rapidly, back.

MRS. CULVER (rushing to him). Darling! Dearest! What a tease you are! You needn't pretend any longer. Lady Prockter has just whispered to me over the telephone that you're to have a baronetcy. Of course she'd be bound to know. She said I might tell you. I never dreamed of a title. I'm so glad. Oh! But you are a tease! (Kisses him enthusiastically.)

CURTAIN.


ACT II



ACT II

The next day after dinner. Culver and Parlourmaid.

CULVER (handing Parlourmaid a letter). That's for the post. Is Miss Starkey here?

PARLOURMAID. Yes, sir. She is waiting.

CULVER. Ask her to be good enough to keep on waiting. She may come in when I ring twice.

PARLOURMAID. Yes, sir.

Enter Mrs. Culver, back.

MRS. CULVER (to Parlourmaid, stopping her as she goes out, dramatically). Give me that letter. (She snatches the letter from the Parlourmaid.) You can go. (Culver rises.) (Exit Parlourmaid.)

MRS. CULVER. I am determined to make a stand this time.

CULVER (soothingly). So I see, darling.

MRS. CULVER. I have given way to you all my life. But I won't give way now. This letter shall not go.

CULVER. As you like, darling.

MRS. CULVER. No. (She tears the envelope open, without having looked at it, and throws the letter into the fire. In doing so she lets fall a cheque.)

CULVER (rising and picking up the cheque). I'll keep the cheque as a memento.

MRS. CULVER. Cheque? What cheque?

CULVER. Darling, once in the old, happy days--I think it was last week--you and I were walking down Bond Street, almost hand in hand, but not quite, and you saw a brooch in a shop window. You simply had to have that brooch. I offered it to you for a Christmas present. You are wearing it now, and very well it suits you. This (indicating the cheque) was to pay the bill.

MRS. CULVER. Arthur!

CULVER. Moral: Look before you burn. Miss Starkey will now have to write a fresh letter.

MRS. CULVER. Arthur! You must forgive me. I'm in a horrid state of nerves, and you said you were positively going to write to Lord Woking to-night to refuse the title.

CULVER. I did say so.

MRS. CULVER (hopefully). But you haven't written?

CULVER. I haven't.

MRS. CULVER. You don't know how relieved I am!

CULVER (sitting down, drawing her to him, and setting her on his knee). Infant! Cherub! Angel! Dove!... Devil! (Caressing her.) Are we friends?

MRS. CULVER. It kills me to quarrel with you. (They kiss.)

CULVER. Darling, we are absurd.

MRS. CULVER. I don't care.

CULVER. Supposing that anyone came in and caught us!

MRS. CULVER. Well, we're married.

CULVER.--But it's so long since. Hildegarde's twenty-one! John, seventeen!

MRS. CULVER. It seems to me like yesterday.

CULVER. Yes, you're incurably a girl.

MRS. CULVER. I'm not.

CULVER. You are. And I'm a boy. I say we are absurd. We're continually absurd. We were absurd all last evening when we pretended before the others, with the most disastrous results, that nothing was the matter. We were still more absurd when we went to our twin beds and argued savagely with each other from bed to bed until four o'clock this morning. Do you know that I had exactly one hour and fifty-five minutes' sleep? (Yawns.) Do you know that owing to extreme exhaustion my behaviour at my office to-day has practically lost the war? But the most absurd thing of all was you trying to do the Roman matron business at dinner to-night. Mind you, I adore you for being absurd, but--

MRS. CULVER (very endearingly, putting her hand on his mouth). Dearest, you needn't continue. I know you're wiser and stronger than me in every way. But I love that. Most women wouldn't; but I do. (Kisses him.) Oh! I'm so glad you've at last seen the force of my arguments about the title.

CULVER (gently warning). Now, now! You're behaving like a journalist.

MRS. CULVER. Like a journalist?

CULVER. Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.

MRS. CULVER. But you do see the force of my arguments!

CULVER. Quite. But I also see the force of mine, and, as an impartial judge, I'm bound to say that yours aren't in it with mine.

MRS. CULVER. Then you've refused the title after all?

CULVER (ingratiatingly). No. I told you I hadn't. But I'm going to. I was just thinking over the terms of the fatal letter to Lord Woking when you came in. Starkey is now waiting for me to dictate it. You see it positively must be posted to-night.

MRS. CULVER (springing from his knee). Arthur, you're playing with me!

CULVER. No doubt. Like a mouse plays with a cat.

MRS. CULVER. Surely it has occurred to you--

CULVER (firmly, but very pleasantly). Stop! You had till four o'clock this morning to deliver all your arguments. You aren't going to begin again. I understand you've stayed in bed all day. Quite right! But if you stayed in bed merely to think of fresh arguments while I've been slaving away at the office for my country, I say you're taking an unfair advantage of me, and I won't have it.

MRS. CULVER (with dignity). No. I haven't any fresh arguments; and if I had, I shouldn't say what they were.

CULVER. Oh! Why?

MRS. CULVER. Because I can see it's useless to argue with a man like you.

CULVER. Now that's what I call better news from the Front.

MRS. CULVER. I was only going to say this. Surely it has occurred to you that on patriotic grounds alone you oughtn't to refuse the title. I quite agree that Honours have been degraded. Quite! The thing surely is to try and make them respectable again. And how are they ever to be respectable if respectable men refuse them?

CULVER. This looks to me suspiciously like an argument.

MRS. CULVER. Not at all. It's simply a question.

CULVER. Well, the answer is, I don't want Honours to be respectable any more. Proverb: When fish has gone bad ten thousand decent men can't take away the stink.

MRS. CULVER. Now you're insulting your country. I know you often pretend your country's the slackest place on earth, but it's only pretence. You don't really think so. The truth is that inside you you're positively conceited about your country. You think it's the greatest country that ever was. And so it is. And yet when your country offers you this honour you talk about bad fish. I say it's an insult to Great Britain.

CULVER. Great Britain hasn't offered me any title. The fact is that there are a couple of shrewd fellows up a devil of a tree in Whitehall, and they're waving a title at me in the hope that I shall come and stand under the tree so that they can get down by putting their dirty boots on my shoulders. Well, I'm not going to be a ladder.

MRS. CULVER. I wish you wouldn't try to be funny.

CULVER. I'm not trying to be funny. I am being funny.

MRS. CULVER. You might be serious for once.

CULVER. I am serious. Beneath this amusing and delightful exterior, there is hidden the most serious, determined, resolute, relentless, inexorable, immovable man that ever breathed. And let me tell you something else, my girl--something I haven't mentioned before because of my nice feelings. What has this title affair got to do with you? What the dickens has it got to do with you? The title isn't offered as a reward for your work; it's offered as a reward for my work. You aren't the Controller of Accounts, I happen to be the Controller of Accounts. I have decided to refuse the title, and I shall refuse it. Nothing will induce me to accept it. Do I make myself clear, or (smiling affectionately) am I lost in a mist of words?

MRS. CULVER (suddenly furious). You are a brute. You always were. You never think of anybody but yourself. My life has been one long sacrifice, and you know it perfectly well. Perfectly well! You talk about your work. What about my work? Why! You'd be utterly useless without me. You can't even look after your own collars. Could you go down to your ridiculous office without a collar? I've done everything for you, everything! And now! (Weeping). I can't even be called 'my lady.' I only wanted to hear the parlourmaid call me 'my lady.' It seems a simple enough thing--

CULVER (persuasively and softly, trying to seize her). You divine little snob!

MRS. CULVER (in a supreme, blazing outbreak escaping him). Let me alone! I told you at the start I should never give way. And I never will. Never! If you send that letter of refusal, do you know what I shall do? I shall go and see the War Cabinet myself. I shall tell them you don't mean it. I'll make the most horrible scandal.... When I think of the Duke of Wellington--

CULVER (surprised and alarmed). The Duke of Wellington?

MRS. CULVER (drawing herself up at the door, L). The Duke of Wellington didn't refuse a title! Hildegarde shall sleep in our room, and you can have hers! (Exit violently, L.)

CULVER (intimidated, as she goes). Look here, hurricane! (He rushes out after her.)

Enter Hildegarde and Tranto, back.

HILDEGARDE (seeing the room empty). Well, I thought I heard them.

TRANTO (catching noise of high words from the boudoir.) I fancy I do hear them.

HILDEGARDE. Perhaps we'd better go.

TRANTO. But I want to speak to you--just for a moment.

HILDEGARDE (moving uneasily). What about?

TRANTO. I don't know. Anything. It doesn't matter what ... I don't hear them now.

HILDEGARDE (listening and hearing nothing; reassured). I should have thought you wouldn't have wanted to come here any more for a long time.

TRANTO. Why?

HILDEGARDE. After the terrible experiences of last night, during dinner and after dinner.

TRANTO. The general constraint?

HILDEGARDE. The general constraint.

TRANTO. The awkwardness? HILDEGARDE. The awkwardness.