What Every Woman Knows Part 23

DAVID. I suppose you understand that you'll have to resign your seat.

JOHN [his underlip much in evidence]. There are hundreds of seats, but there's only one John Shand.

MAGGIE [but we don't hear her]. That's how I like to hear him speak.

DAVID [the ablest person in the room]. Think, man, I'm old by you, and for long I've had a pride in you. It will be beginning the world again with more against you than there was eight years ago.

JOHN. I have a better head to begin it with than I had eight years ago.

ALICK [hoping this will bite]. She'll have her own money, David!

JOHN. She's as poor as a mouse.

JAMES [thinking possibly of his Elizabeth's mother]. We'll go to her friends, and tell them all. They'll stop it.

JOHN. She's of age.

JAMES. They'll take her far away.

JOHN. I'll follow, and tear her from them.

ALICK. Your career---

JOHN [to his credit]. To h.e.l.l with my career. Do you think I don't know I'm on the rocks? What can you, or you, or you, understand of the pa.s.sions of a man! I've fought, and I've given in. When a ship founders, as I suppose I'm foundering, it's not a thing to yelp at. Peace, all of you. [He strides into the dining-room, where we see him at times pacing the floor.]

DAVID [to JAMES, who gives signs of a desire to take off his coat]. Let him be. We can't budge him. [With bitter wisdom] It's true what he says, true at any rate about me. What do I know of the pa.s.sions of a man! I'm up against something I don't understand.

ALICK. It's something wicked.

DAVID. I dare say it is, but it's something big.

JAMES. It's that d.a.m.ned charm.

MAGGIE [still by the fire]. That's it. What was it that made you fancy Elizabeth, James?

JAMES [sheepishly]. I can scarcely say.

MAGGIE. It was her charm.

DAVID. HER charm!

JAMES [pugnaciously]. Yes, HER charm.

MAGGIE. She had charm for James.

[This somehow breaks them up. MAGGIE goes from one to another with an odd little smile flickering on her face.]

DAVID. Put on your things, Maggie, and we'll leave his house.

MAGGIE [patting his kind head]. Not me, David.

[This is a MAGGIE they have known but forgotten; all three brighten.]

DAVID. You haven't given in!

[The smile flickers and expires.]

MAGGIE. I want you all to go upstairs, and let me have my try now.

JAMES. Your try?

ALICK. Maggie, you put new life into me.

JAMES. And into me.

[DAVID says nothing; the way he grips her shoulder says it for him.]

MAGGIE. I'll save him, David, if I can.

DAVID. Does he deserve to be saved after the way he has treated you?

MAGGIE. You stupid David. What has that to do with it.

[When they have gone, JOHN comes to the door of the dining-room. There is welling up in him a great pity for MAGGIE, but it has to subside a little when he sees that the knitting is still in her hand. No man likes to be so soon supplanted. SYBIL follows, and the two of them gaze at the active needles.]

MAGGIE [perceiving that she has visitors]. Come in, John. Sit down, Lady Sybil, and make yourself comfortable. I'm afraid we've put you about.

[She is, after all, only a few years older than they and scarcely looks her age; yet it must have been in some such way as this that the little old woman who lived in a shoe addressed her numerous progeny.]

JOHN. I'm mortal sorry, Maggie.

SYBIL [who would be more courageous if she could hold his hand]. And I also.

MAGGIE [soothingly]. I'm sure you are. But as it can't be helped I see no reason why we three shouldn't talk the matter over in a practical way.

[SYBIL looks doubtful, but JOHN hangs on desperately to the word practical.]

JOHN. If you could understand, Maggie, what an inspiration she is to me and my work.

SYBIL. Indeed, Mrs. Shand, I think of nothing else.

MAGGIE. That's fine. That's as it should be.

SYBIL [talking too much]. Mrs. Shand, I think you are very kind to take it so reasonably.

MAGGIE. That's the Scotch way. When were you thinking of leaving me, John?

[Perhaps this is the Scotch way also; but SYBIL is English, and from the manner in which she starts you would say that something has fallen on her toes.]