第26章

DOLLY.Chapter seventeen or thereabouts, I should imagine.

VALENTINE (much put out by this pleasantry).No: don't say things like that.That's just the sort of thoughtless remark that makes a lot of mischief.

DOLLY.Oh, indeed.Hmhm!

PHILIP.Ahah! (He goes to the hearth and plants himself there in his best head-of-the-family attitude.)McComas, looking very serious, comes in quickly with Mrs.Clandon, whose first anxiety is about Gloria.She looks round to see where she is, and is going to join her at the window when Gloria comes down to meet her with a marked air of trust and affection.Finally, Mrs.

Clandon takes her former seat, and Gloria posts herself behind it.

McComas, on his way to the ottoman, is hailed by Dolly.

DOLLY.What cheer, Finch?

McCOMAS (sternly).Very serious news from your father, Miss Clandon.

Very serious news indeed.(He crosses to the ottoman, and sits down.

Dolly, looking deeply impressed, follows him and sits beside him on his right.)VALENTINE.Perhaps I had better go.

McCOMAS.By no means, Mr.Valentine.You are deeply concerned in this.(Valentine takes a chair from the table and sits astride of it, leaning over the back, near the ottoman.) Mrs.Clandon: your husband demands the custody of his two younger children, who are not of age.

(Mrs.Clandon, in quick alarm, looks instinctively to see if Dolly is safe.)DOLLY (touched).Oh, how nice of him! He likes us, mamma.

McCOMAS.I am sorry to have to disabuse you of any such idea, Miss Dorothea.

DOLLY (cooing ecstatically).Dorothee-ee-ee-a! (Nestling against his shoulder, quite overcome.) Oh, Finch!

McCOMAS (nervously, moving away).No, no, no, no!

MRS.CLANDON (remonstrating).D e a r e s t Dolly! (To McComas.)The deed of separation gives me the custody of the children.

McCOMAS.It also contains a covenant that you are not to approach or molest him in any way.

MRS.CLANDON.Well, have I done so?

McCOMAS.Whether the behavior of your younger children amounts to legal molestation is a question on which it may be necessary to take counsel's opinion.At all events, Mr.Crampton not only claims to have been molested; but he believes that he was brought here by a plot in which Mr.Valentine acted as your agent.

VALENTINE.What's that? Eh?

McCOMAS.He alleges that you drugged him, Mr.Valentine.

VALENTINE.So I did.(They are astonished.)McCOMAS.But what did you do that for?

DOLLY.Five shillings extra.

McCOMAS (to Dolly, short-temperedly).I must really ask you, Miss Clandon, not to interrupt this very serious conversation with irrelevant interjections.(Vehemently.) I insist on having earnest matters earnestly and reverently discussed.(This outburst produces an apologetic silence, and puts McComas himself out of countenance.He coughs, and starts afresh, addressing himself to Gloria.) Miss Clandon:

it is my duty to tell you that your father has also persuaded himself that Mr.Valentine wishes to marry you---VALENTINE (interposing adroitly).I do.

McCOMAS (offended).In that case, sir, you must not be surprised to find yourself regarded by the young lady's father as a fortune hunter.

VALENTINE.So I am.Do you expect my wife to live on what I earn?

ten-pence a week!

McCOMAS (revolted).I have nothing more to say, sir.I shall return and tell Mr.Crampton that this family is no place for a father.(He makes for the door.)MRS.CLANDON (with quiet authority).Finch! (He halts.) If Mr.

Valentine cannot be serious, you can.Sit down.(McComas, after a brief struggle between his dignity and his friendship, succumbs, seating himself this time midway between Dolly and Mrs.Clandon.) You know that all this is a made up case---that Fergus does not believe in it any more than you do.Now give me your real advice---your sincere, friendly advice: you know I have always trusted your judgment.I promise you the children will be quiet.

McCOMAS (resigning himself).Well, well! What I want to say is this.In the old arrangement with your husband, Mrs.Clandon, you had him at a terrible disadvantage.

MRS.CLANDON.How so, pray?

McCOMAS.Well, you were an advanced woman, accustomed to defy public opinion, and with no regard for what the world might say of you.

MRS.CLANDON (proud of it).Yes: that is true.(Gloria, behind the chair, stoops and kisses her mother's hair, a demonstration which disconcerts her extremely.)McCOMAS.On the other hand, Mrs.Clandon, your husband had a great horror of anything getting into the papers.There was his business to be considered, as well as the prejudices of an old-fashioned family.

MRS.CLANDON.Not to mention his own prejudices.

McCOMAS.Now no doubt he behaved badly, Mrs.Clandon---MRS.CLANDON (scornfully).No doubt.

McCOMAS.But was it altogether his fault?

MRS.CLANDON.Was it mine?

McCOMAS (hastily).No.Of course not.

GLORIA (observing him attentively).You do not mean that, Mr.

McComas.

McCOMAS.My dear young lady, you pick me up very sharply.But let me just put this to you.When a man makes an unsuitable marriage (nobody's fault, you know, but purely accidental incompatibility of tastes); when he is deprived by that misfortune of the domestic sympathy which, I take it, is what a man marries for; when in short, his wife is rather worse than no wife at all (through no fault of his own, of course), is it to be wondered at if he makes matters worse at first by blaming her, and even, in his desperation, by occasionally drinking himself into a violent condition or seeking sympathy elsewhere?

MRS.CLANDON.I did not blame him: I simply rescued myself and the children from him.

McCOMAS.Yes: but you made hard terms, Mrs.Clandon.You had him at your mercy: you brought him to his knees when you threatened to make the matter public by applying to the Courts for a judicial separation.