Waste Part 36

FRANCES. No one knows about you and poor Amy?

TREBELL. Half a dozen friends. Shall I offer to give evidence at the inquest this morning?

FRANCES. [_With a little shiver._] They'll say bad enough things about her without your blackening her good name.

_Without warning, his anger and anguish break out again._

TREBELL. All she had ... all there is left of her! She was a nothingness ...

silly ... vain. And I gave her this power over me!

_He is beaten, exhausted. Now she goes to him, motherlike._

FRANCES. My dear, listen to me for a little. Consider that as a sorrow and put it behind you. And think now ... whatever love there may be between us has neither hatred nor jealousy in it, has it, Henry? Since I'm not a mistress or a friend but just the likest fellow-creature to you ... perhaps.

TREBELL. [_Putting out his hand for hers._] Yes, my sister. What I've wanted to feel for vague humanity has been what I should have felt for you ... if you'd ever made a single demand on me.

_She puts her arms round him; able to speak._

FRANCES. Let's go away somewhere ... I'll make demands. I need refreshing as much as you. My joy of life has been withered in me ... oh, for a long time now. We must kiss the earth again ... take interest in common things, common people. There's so much of the world we don't know. There's air to breathe everywhere. Think of the flowers in a Tyrol valley in the early spring. One can walk for days, not hurrying, as soon as the pa.s.ses are open. And the people are kind. There's Italy ... there's Russia full of simple folk. When we've learned to be friends with them we shall both feel so much better.

TREBELL. [_Shaking his head, unmoved._] My dear sister ... I should be bored to death. The life contemplative and peripatetic would literally bore me into a living death.

FRANCES. [_Letting it be a fairy tale._] Is your mother the Wide World nothing to you? Can't you open your heart like a child again?

TREBELL. No, neither to the beauty of Nature nor the particular human animals that are always called a part of it. I don't even see them with your eyes. I'm a son of the anger of Man at men's foolishness, and unless I've that to feed upon...! [_Now he looks at her, as if for the first time wanting to explain himself, and his voice changes._] Don't you know that when a man cuts himself shaving, he swears? When he loses a seat in the Cabinet he turns inward for comfort ... and if he only finds there a spirit which should have been born, but is dead ... what's to be done then?

FRANCES. [_In a whisper._] You mustn't think of that woman....

TREBELL. I've reasoned my way through life....

FRANCES. I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall.

TREBELL. [_The wave of his agony rising again._] But here's something in me which no knowledge touches ... some feeling ... some power which should be the beginning of new strength. But it has been killed in me unborn before I had learnt to understand ... and that's killing me.

FRANCES. [_Crying out._] Why ... why did no woman teach you to be gentle?

Why did you never believe in any woman? Perhaps even I am to blame....

TREBELL. The little fool, the little fool ... why did she kill my child?

What did it matter what I thought her? We were committed together to that one thing. Do you think I didn't know that I was heartless and that she was socially in the wrong? But what did Nature care for that? And Nature has broken us.

FRANCES. [_Clinging to him as he beats the air._] Not you. She's dead, poor girl ... but not you.

TREBELL. Yes ... that's the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped in it. The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her body.

_There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly, never loosing his hand._

FRANCES. Henry, I want your promise that you'll go on living till ...

till....

TREBELL. Don't cry, f.a.n.n.y, that's very foolish.

FRANCES. Till you've learnt to look at all this calmly. Then I can trust you.

TREBELL _smiles, not at all grimly._

TREBELL. But, you see, it would give Horsham and Blackborough such a shock if I shot myself ... it would make them think about things.

FRANCES. [_With one catch of wretched laughter._] Oh, my dear, if shooting's wanted ... shoot them. Or I'll do it for you.

_He sits in his chair just from weariness. She stands by him, her hand still grasping his._

TREBELL. You see, f.a.n.n.y, as I said to Gilbert last night ... our lives are our own and yet not our own. We understand living for others and dying for others. The first is easy ... it's a way out of boredom. To make the second popular we had to invent a belief in personal resurrection. Do you think we shall ever understand dying in the sure and certain hope that it really doesn't matter ... that G.o.d is infinitely economical and wastes perhaps less of the power in us after our death than men do while we live?

FRANCES. I want your promise, Henry.

TREBELL. You know I never make promises ... it's taking oneself too seriously. Unless indeed one has the comic courage to break them too. I've upset you very much with my troubles. Don't you think you'd better go and finish dressing? [_She doesn't move._] My dear ... you don't propose to hold my right hand so safely for years to come. Even so, I still could jump out of a window.

FRANCES. I'll trust you, Henry.

_She looks into his eyes and he does not flinch. Then, with a final grip she leaves him. When she is at the door he speaks more gently than ever._

TREBELL. Your own life is sufficient unto itself, isn't it?

FRANCES. Oh yes. I can be pleasant to talk to and give good advice through the years that remain. [_Instinctively she rectifies some little untidiness in the room._] What fools they are to think they can run that government without you!

TREBELL. Horsham will do his best. [_Then, as for the second time she reaches the door._] Don't take away my razors, will you? I only use them for shaving.

FRANCES. [_Almost blushing._] I half meant to ... I'm sorry. After all, Henry, just because they are forgetting in personal feelings what's best for the country ... it's your duty not to. You'll stand by and do what you can, won't you?

TREBELL. [_His queer smile returning, in contrast to her seriousness._]

Disestablishment. It's a very interesting problem. I must think it out.

FRANCES. [_Really puzzled._] What do you mean?

_He gets up with a quick movement of strange strength, and faces her.

His smile changes into a graver gladness._

TREBELL. Something has happened ... in spite of me. My heart's clean again.

I'm ready for fresh adventures.

FRANCES. [_With a nod and answering gladness._] That's right.

_So she leaves him, her mind at rest. For a minute he does not move.

When his gaze narrows it falls on the heaps of letters. He carries them carefully into_ WALTER KENT'S _room and arranges them as carefully on his table. On his way out he stops for a moment; then with a sudden movement bangs the door._

_Two hours later the room has been put in order. It is even more full of light and the shadows are harder than usual. The doors are open, showing you_ KENT'S _door still closed. At the big writing table in_ TREBELL'S _chair sits_ WEDGECROFT, _pale and grave, intent on finishing a letter._ FRANCES _comes to find him. For a moment she leans on the table silently, her eyes half closed. You would say a broken woman. When she speaks it is swiftly, but tonelessly._