Three Plays by Granville-Barker Part 39

EDWARD. I!

MR. VOYSEY. And put everything right with a stroke of the pen, if it's so easy!

EDWARD. I!

MR. VOYSEY. You're my partner and my son, and you'll inherit the business.

EDWARD. [_realizing at last that he has been led to the edge of this abyss._] Oh no, father.

MR. VOYSEY. Why else have I had to tell you all this?

EDWARD. [_very simply._] Father, I can't. I can't possibly. I don't think you've any right to ask me.

MR. VOYSEY. Why not, pray?

EDWARD. It's perpetuating the dishonesty.

MR. VOYSEY _hardens at the unpleasant word_.

MR. VOYSEY. You don't believe that I've told you the truth.

EDWARD. I wish to believe it.

MR. VOYSEY. It's no proof . . that I've earned these twenty or thirty people their incomes for the last--how many years?

EDWARD. Whether what you have done and are doing is wrong or right . . I can't meddle in it.

_For the moment_ MR. VOYSEY _looks a little dangerous_.

MR. VOYSEY. Very well. Forget all I've said. Go back to your room. Get back to your own mean drudgery. My life's work--my splendid life's work--ruined! What does that matter?

EDWARD. Whatever did you expect of me?

MR. VOYSEY. [_making a feint at his papers._] Oh, nothing, nothing.

[_Then he slams them down with great effect._] Here's a great edifice built up by years of labour and devotion and self sacrifice . . a great arch you may call it . . a bridge which is to carry our firm to safety with honour. [_This variation of Disraeli pa.s.ses unnoticed._] My work!

And now, as I near the end of my life, it still lacks the key-stone.

Perhaps I am to die with my work just incomplete. Then is there nothing that a son might do? Do you think I shouldn't be proud of you, Edward . .

that I shouldn't bless you from--wherever I may be, when you completed my life's work . . with perhaps just one kindly thought of your father?

_In spite of this oratory, the situation is gradually impressing_ EDWARD.

EDWARD. What will happen if I . . if I desert you?

MR. VOYSEY. I'll protect you as best I can.

EDWARD. I wasn't thinking of myself, sir.

MR. VOYSEY. [_with great nonchalance_.] Well, I shan't mind the exposure, you know. It won't make me blush in my coffin . . and you're not so foolish I hope as to be thinking of the feelings of your brothers and sisters. Considering how simple it would have been for me to go to my grave in peace and quiet and let you discover the whole thing afterwards, the fact that I didn't, that I have taken some thought for the future of all of you might perhaps have convinced you that I . . !

But there . . consult your own safety.

EDWARD _has begun to pace the room; indecision growing upon him_.

EDWARD. This is a queer thing to have to make up one's mind about, isn't it, father?

MR. VOYSEY. [_watching him closely and modulating his voice._] My dear boy, I understand the shock to your feelings that this disclosure must have been.

EDWARD. Yes, I thought this morning that next week would see us in the dock together.

MR. VOYSEY. And I suppose if I'd broken down and begged your pardon for my folly, you'd have done anything for me, gone to prison smiling, eh?

EDWARD. I suppose so.

MR. VOYSEY. Yes, it's easy enough to forgive. I'm sorry I can't go in sack cloth and ashes to oblige you. [_Now he begins to rally his son; easy in his strength._] My dear Edward, you've lived a quiet humdrum life up to now, with your books and your philosophy and your agnosticism and your ethics of this and your ethics of that . . dear me, these are the sort of garden oats which young men seem to sow now-a-days! . . and you've never before been brought face to face with any really vital question. Now don't make a fool of yourself just through inexperience.

Try and give your mind freely and unprejudicedly to the consideration of this very serious matter. I'm not angry at what you've said to me. I'm quite willing to forget it. And it's for your own sake and not for mine, Edward, that I do beg you to--to--to be a man and try and take a practical common sense view of the position you find yourself in. It's not a pleasant position I know, but it's unavoidable.

EDWARD. You should have told me before you took me into partnership.

[_Oddly enough it is this last flicker of rebellion which breaks down_ MR. VOYSEY'S _caution. Now he lets fly with a vengeance._]

MR. VOYSEY. Should I be telling you at all if I could possibly help it?

Don't I know that you're about as fit for this job as a babe unborn?

Haven't I been worrying over that for these last three years? But I'm in a corner . . and I won't see all this work of mine come to smash simply because of your scruples. If you're a son of mine you'll do as I tell you. Hadn't I the same choice to make? . . and this is a safer game for you than it was for me then. D'you suppose I didn't have scruples? If you run away from this, Edward, you're a coward. My father was a coward and he suffered for it to the end of his days. I was sick-nurse to him here more than partner. Good lord! . . of course it's pleasant and comfortable to keep within the law . . then the law will look after you.

Otherwise you have to look pretty sharp after yourself. You have to cultivate your own sense of right and wrong; deal your own justice. But that makes a bigger man of you, let me tell you. How easily . . how easily could I have walked out of my father's office and left him to his fate; no one would have blamed me! But I didn't. I thought it my better duty to stay and . . yes, I say it with all reverence . . to take up my cross. Well, I've carried that cross pretty successfully. And what's more, it's made a happy man of me . . a better, stronger man than skulking about in shame and in fear of his life ever made of my poor dear father. [_Relieved at having let out the truth, but doubtful of his wisdom in doing so, he changes his tone._] I don't want what I've been saying to influence you, Edward. You are a free agent . . and you must decide upon your own course of action. Now don't let's discuss the matter any more for the moment.

EDWARD _looks at his father with clear eyes_.

EDWARD. Don't forget to put these papers away.

_He restores them to their bundles and hands them back: it is his only comment._ MR. VOYSEY _takes them and his meaning in silence_.

MR. VOYSEY. Are you coming down to Chislehurst soon? We've got Hugh and his wife, and Booth and Emily, and Christopher for two or three days, till he goes back to school.

EDWARD. How is Chris?

MR. VOYSEY. All right again now . . grows more like his father. Booth's very proud of him. So am I.

EDWARD. I think I can't face them all just at present.

MR. VOYSEY. Nonsense.

EDWARD. [_a little wave of emotion going through him._] I feel as if this thing were written on my face. How I shall get through business I don't know!

MR. VOYSEY. You're weaker than I thought, Edward.

EDWARD. [_a little ironically._] A disappointment to you, father?

MR. VOYSEY. No, no.

EDWARD. You should have brought one of the others into the firm . .

Trenchard or Booth.