Touch and Go Part 6

OLIVER. I think there is.

MRS. BARLOW. Yes, you have a _parvenu's_ presumptuousness somewhere about you.

OLIVER. Well, better than a blue-blooded fatalism.

MRS. BARLOW. The fate is in the blood: you can't change the blood.

(Enter WINIFRED.)

WINIFRED. Oh, thank you, Oliver, for the wolf and the goat, thank you so much!--The wolf has sprung on the goat, Miss Wrath, and has her by the throat.

ANABEL. The wolf?

OLIVER. It's a little marble group--Italian--in hard marble.

WINIFRED. The wolf--I love the wolf--he pounces so beautifully. His backbone is so terribly fierce. I don't feel a bit sorry for the goat, somehow.

OLIVER. I didn't. She is too much like the wrong sort of clergyman.

WINIFRED. Yes--such a stiff, long face. I wish he'd kill her.

MRS. BARLOW. There's a wish!

WINIFRED. Father and Gerald are coming. That's them, I suppose.

(Enter MR. BARLOW and GERALD.)

MR. BARLOW. Ah, good morning--good morning--quite a little gathering!

Ah---

OLIVER. The steps tire you, Mr. Barlow.

MR. BARLOW. A little--a little--thank you.--Well, Miss Wrath, are you quite comfortable here?

ANABEL. Very comfortable, thanks.

GERALD. It was clever of you, father, to turn this place into a studio.

MR. BARLOW. Yes, Gerald. You make the worldly schemes, and I the homely.

Yes, it's a delightful place. I shall come here often if the two young ladies will allow me.--By the way, Miss Wrath, I don't know if you have been introduced to my son Gerald. I beg your pardon. Miss Wrath, Gerald--my son, Miss Wrath. (They bow.) Well, we are quite a gathering, quite a pleasant little gathering. We never expected anything so delightful a month ago, did we, Winifred, darling?

WINIFRED. No, daddy, it's much nicer than expectations.

MR. BARLOW. So it is, dear--to have such exceptional companionship and such a pleasant retreat. We are very happy to have Miss Wrath with us--very happy.

GERALD. A studio's awfully nice, you know; it is such a retreat. A newspaper has no effect in it--falls quite flat, no matter what the headlines are.

MR. BARLOW. Quite true, Gerald, dear. It is a sanctum the world cannot invade--unlike all other sanctuaries, I am afraid.

GERALD. By the way, Oliver--to go back to profanities--the colliers really are coming out in support of the poor, ill-used clerks.

MR. BARLOW. No, no, Gerald--no, no! Don't be such an alarmist. Let us leave these subjects before the ladies. No, no: the clerks will have their increase quite peacefully.

GERALD. Yes, dear father--but they can't have it peacefully now. We've been threatened already by the colliers--we've already received an ultimatum.

MR. BARLOW. Nonsense, my boy--nonsense! Don't let us split words. You won't go against the clerks in such a small matter. Always avoid trouble over small matters. Don't make bad feeling--don't make bad blood.

MRS. BARLOW. The blood is already rotten in the neighbourhood. What it needs is letting out. We need a few veins opening, or we shall have mortification setting in. The blood is black.

MR. BARLOW. We won't accept your figure of speech literally, dear. No, Gerald, don't go to war over trifles.

GERALD. It's just over trifles that one must make war, father. One can yield gracefully over big matters. But to be bullied over trifles is a sign of criminal weakness.

MR. BARLOW. Ah, not so, not so, my boy. When you are as old as I am, you will know the comparative insignificance of these trifles.

GERALD. The older _I_ get, father, the more such trifles stick in my throat.

MR. BARLOW. Ah, it is an increasingly irritable disposition in you, my child. Nothing costs so bitterly, in the end, as a stubborn pride.

MRS. BARLOW. Except a stubborn humility--and that will cost you more. Avoid humility, beware of stubborn humility: it degrades. Hark, Gerald--fight! When the occasion comes, fight! If it's one against five thousand, fight! Don't give them your heart on a dish! Never! If they want to eat your heart out, make them fight for it, and then give it them poisoned at last, poisoned with your own blood.--What do you say, young woman?

ANABEL. Is it for me to speak, Mrs. Barlow?

MRS. BARLOW. Weren't you asked?

ANABEL. Certainly I would NEVER give the world my heart on a dish. But can't there ever be peace--real peace?

MRS. BARLOW. No--not while there is devilish enmity.

MR. BARLOW. You are wrong, dear, you are wrong. The peace can come, the peace that pa.s.seth all understanding.

MRS. BARLOW. That there is already between me and Almighty G.o.d. I am at peace with the G.o.d that made me, and made me proud. With men who humiliate me I am at war. Between me and the shameful humble there is war to the end, though they are millions and I am one. I hate the people. Between my race and them and my children--for ever war, for ever and ever.

MR. BARLOW. Ah, Henrietta--you have said all this before.

MRS. BARLOW. And say it again. Fight, Gerald. You have my blood in you, thank G.o.d. Fight for it, Gerald. Spend it as if it were costly, Gerald, drop by drop. Let no dogs lap it.--Look at your father. He set his heart on a plate at the door, for the poorest mongrel to eat up. See him now, wasted and crossed out like a mistake--and swear, Gerald, swear to be true to my blood in you. Never lie down before the mob, Gerald. Fight it and stab it, and die fighting. It's a lost hope--but fight!

GERALD. Don't say these things here, mother.

MRS. BARLOW. Yes, I will--I will. I'll say them before you, and the child Winifred--she knows. And before Oliver and the young woman--they know, too.

MR. BARLOW. You see, dear, you can never understand that, although I am weak and wasted, although I may be crossed out from the world like a mistake, I still have peace in my soul, dear, the peach that pa.s.seth all understanding.

MRS. BARLOW. And what right have you to it? All very well for you to take peace with you into the other world. What do you leave for your sons to inherit?