No More Learning

What did she say?

OCTAVIUS. She asked me how she could think of anything now but her dear
father. She stifled a sob--[he breaks down].

TANNER. [patting him on the back] Bear it like a man, Tavy, even if you
feel it like an ass. It's the old game: she's not tired of playing with
you yet.

OCTAVIUS. [impatiently] Oh, don't be a fool, Jack. Do you suppose this
eternal shallow cynicism of yours has any real bearing on a nature like
hers?

TANNER. Hm! Did she say anything else?

OCTAVIUS. Yes; and that is why I expose myself and her to your ridicule
by telling you what passed.

TANNER. [remorsefully] No, dear Tavy, not ridicule, on my honor!
However, no matter. Go on.

OCTAVIUS. Her sense of duty is so devout, so perfect, so--

TANNER. Yes: I know. Go on.

OCTAVIUS. You see, under this new arrangement, you and Ramsden are her
guardians; and she considers that all her duty to her father is now
transferred to you. She said she thought I ought to have spoken to you
both in the first instance. Of course she is right; but somehow it seems
rather absurd that I am to come to you and formally ask to be received
as a suitor for your ward's hand.

TANNER. I am glad that love has not totally extinguished your sense of
humor, Tavy.

OCTAVIUS. That answer won't satisfy her.

TANNER. My official answer is, obviously, Bless you, my children: may
you be happy!

OCTAVIUS. I wish you would stop playing the fool about this. If it is
not serious to you, it is to me, and to her.

TANNER. You know very well that she is as free to choose as you. She
does not think so.

TANNER. Oh, doesn't she! just! However, say what you want me to do.

OCTAVIUS. I want you to tell her sincerely and earnestly what you think
about me. I want you to tell her that you can trust her to me--that is,
if you feel you can.

TANNER. I have no doubt that I can trust her to you. What worries me is
the idea of trusting you to her. Have you read Maeterlinck's book about
the bee?

OCTAVIUS. [keeping his temper with difficulty] I am not discussing
literature at present.

TANNER. Be just a little patient with me. I am not discussing
literature: the book about the bee is natural history. It's an awful
lesson to mankind. You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the
pursuer and she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade,
to prevail, to overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked
down quarry, the destined prey. You need not sit looking longingly
at the bait through the wires of the trap: the door is open, and will
remain so until it shuts behind you for ever.

OCTAVIUS. I wish I could believe that, vilely as you put it.

TANNER. Why, man, what other work has she in life but to get a husband?
It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a
man's to keep unmarried as long as he can. You have your poems and your
tragedies to work at: Ann has nothing.

OCTAVIUS. I cannot write without inspiration. And nobody can give me
that except Ann.

TANNER. Well, hadn't you better get it from her at a safe distance?
Petrarch didn't see half as much of Laura, nor Dante of Beatrice, as you
see of Ann now; and yet they wrote first-rate poetry--at least so
I'm told. They never exposed their idolatry to the test of domestic
familiarity; and it lasted them to their graves. Marry Ann and at
the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration than in a plate of
muffins.

OCTAVIUS. You think I shall tire of her.

TANNER. Not at all: you don't get tired of muffins. But you don't find
inspiration in them; and you won't in her when she ceases to be a poet's
dream and becomes a solid eleven stone wife. You'll be forced to dream
about somebody else; and then there will be a row.

OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is no use, Jack. You don't understand. You
have never been in love.

TANNER. I! I have never been out of it. Why, I am in love even with Ann.
But I am neither the slave of love nor its dupe. Go to the bee, thou
poet: consider her ways and be wise. By Heaven, Tavy, if women could do
without our work, and we ate their children's bread instead of making
it, they would kill us as the spider kills her mate or as the bees kill
the drone. And they would be right if we were good for nothing but love.

OCTAVIUS. Ah, if we were only good enough for Love! There is nothing
like Love: there is nothing else but Love: without it the world would be
a dream of sordid horror.

TANNER. And this--this is the man who asks me to give him the hand of my
ward! Tavy: I believe we were changed in our cradles, and that you are
the real descendant of Don Juan.

OCTAVIUS. I beg you not to say anything like that to Ann.

TANNER. Don't be afraid. She has marked you for her own; and nothing
will stop her now. You are doomed. [Straker comes back with a
newspaper]. Here comes the New Man, demoralizing himself with a
halfpenny paper as usual.

STRAKER. Now, would you believe it: Mr Robinson, when we're out motoring
we take in two papers, the Times for him, the Leader or the Echo for me.
And do you think I ever see my paper? Not much. He grabs the Leader and
leaves me to stodge myself with his Times.

OCTAVIUS. Are there no winners in the Times?

TANNER. Enry don't old with bettin, Tavy. Motor records are his
weakness. What's the latest?

STRAKER. Paris to Biskra at forty mile an hour average, not countin the
Mediterranean.

TANNER. How many killed?

STRAKER. Two silly sheep. What does it matter? Sheep don't cost such a
lot: they were glad to ave the price without the trouble o sellin em
to the butcher. All the same, d'y'see, there'll be a clamor agin it
presently; and then the French Government'll stop it; an our chance will
be gone see? That what makes me fairly mad: Mr Tanner won't do a good
run while he can.

TANNER. Tavy: do you remember my uncle James?

OCTAVIUS. Yes. Why?

TANNER. Uncle James had a first rate cook: he couldn't digest anything
except what she cooked. Well, the poor man was shy and hated society.
But his cook was proud of her skill, and wanted to serve up dinners to
princes and ambassadors. To prevent her from leaving him, that poor
old man had to give a big dinner twice a month, and suffer agonies of
awkwardness. Now here am I; and here is this chap Enry Straker, the New
Man. I loathe travelling; but I rather like Enry. He cares for nothing
but tearing along in a leather coat and goggles, with two inches of dust
all over him, at sixty miles an hour and the risk of his life and mine.
Except, of course, when he is lying on his back in the mud under the
machine trying to find out where it has given way. Well, if I don't give
him a thousand mile run at least once a fortnight I shall lose him. He
will give me the sack and go to some American millionaire; and I shall
have to put up with a nice respectful groom-gardener-amateur, who will
touch his hat and know his place. I am Enry's slave, just as Uncle James
was his cook's slave.

STRAKER. [exasperated] Garn! I wish I had a car that would go as fast
as you can talk, Mr Tanner. What I say is that you lose money by a motor
car unless you keep it workin. Might as well ave a pram and a nussmaid
to wheel you in it as that car and me if you don't git the last inch out
of us both.

TANNER. [soothingly] All right, Henry, all right. We'll go out for half
an hour presently.

STRAKER. [in disgust] Arf an ahr! [He returns to his machine; seats
himself in it; and turns up a fresh page of his paper in search of more
news].

OCTAVIUS. Oh, that reminds me. I have a note for you from Rhoda. [He
gives Tanner a note].

TANNER. [opening it] I rather think Rhoda is heading for a row with Ann.
As a rule there is only one person an English girl hates more than she
hates her mother; and that's her eldest sister. But Rhoda positively
prefers her mother to Ann. She--[indignantly] Oh, I say!

OCTAVIUS. What's the matter?

TANNER. Rhoda was to have come with me for a ride in the motor car. She
says Ann has forbidden her to go out with me.

Straker suddenly begins whistling his favorite air with remarkable
deliberation. Surprised by this burst of larklike melody, and jarred by
a sardonic note in its cheerfulness, they turn and look inquiringly at
him. But he is busy with his paper; and nothing comes of their movement.

OCTAVIUS. [recovering himself] Does she give any reason?

TANNER. Reason! An insult is not a reason. Ann forbids her to be alone
with me on any occasion. Says I am not a fit person for a young girl to
be with. What do you think of your paragon now?

OCTAVIUS. You must remember that she has a very heavy responsibility now
that her father is dead. Mrs Whitefield is too weak to control Rhoda.

TANNER. [staring at him] In short, you agree with Ann.

OCTAVIUS. No; but I think I understand her. You must admit that your
views are hardly suited for the formation of a young girl's mind and
character.

TANNER. I admit nothing of the sort. I admit that the formation of a
young lady's mind and character usually consists in telling her lies;
but I object to the particular lie that I am in the habit of abusing the
confidence of girls.

OCTAVIUS. Ann doesn't say that, Jack.

TANNER. What else does she mean?

STRAKER. [catching sight of Ann coming from the house] Miss Whitefield,
gentlemen. [He dismounts and strolls away down the avenue with the air
of a man who knows he is no longer wanted].

ANN. [coming between Octavius and Tanner]. Good morning, Jack.
I have
come to tell you that poor Rhoda has got one of her headaches and cannot
go out with you to-day in the car. It is a cruel disappointment to her,
poor child!

TANNER. What do you say now, Tavy.

OCTAVIUS. Surely you cannot misunderstand, Jack. Ann is showing you the
kindest consideration, even at the cost of deceiving you.

ANN. What do you mean?

TANNER. Would you like to cure Rhoda's headache, Ann?

ANN. Of course.

TANNER. Then tell her what you said just now; and add that you arrived
about two minutes after I had received her letter and read it.

ANN. Rhoda has written to you!

TANNER. With full particulars.

OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Ann. You were right, quite right. Ann was only
doing her duty, Jack; and you know it. Doing it in the kindest way, too.

ANN. [going to Octavius] How kind you are, Tavy! How helpful! How well
you understand!

Octavius beams.

TANNER. Ay: tighten the coils. You love her, Tavy, don't you?

OCTAVIUS. She knows I do.

ANN. Hush. For shame, Tavy!

TANNER. Oh, I give you leave. I am your guardian; and I commit you to
Tavy's care for the next hour.

ANN. No, Jack. I must speak to you about Rhoda. Ricky: will you go back
to the house and entertain your American friend? He's rather on Mamma's
hands so early in the morning. She wants to finish her housekeeping.

OCTAVIUS. I fly, dearest Ann [he kisses her hand].

ANN. [tenderly] Ricky Ticky Tavy!

He looks at her with an eloquent blush, and runs off.

TANNER. [bluntly] Now look here, Ann. This time you've landed yourself;
and if Tavy were not in love with you past all salvation he'd have found
out what an incorrigible liar you are.

ANN. You misunderstand, Jack. I didn't dare tell Tavy the truth.

TANNER. No: your daring is generally in the opposite direction. What the
devil do you mean by telling Rhoda that I am too vicious to associate
with her? How can I ever have any human or decent relations with her
again, now that you have poisoned her mind in that abominable way?

ANN. I know you are incapable of behaving badly.

TANNER. Then why did you lie to her?

ANN. I had to.

TANNER. Had to!

ANN. Mother made me.

TANNER. [his eye flashing] Ha! I might have known it. The mother! Always
the mother!

ANN. It was that dreadful book of yours. You know how timid mother is.
All timid women are conventional: we must be conventional, Jack, or we
are so cruelly, so vilely misunderstood. Even you, who are a man, cannot
say what you think without being misunderstood and vilified--yes: I
admit it: I have had to vilify you. Do you want to have poor Rhoda
misunderstood and vilified to the same way? Would it be right for mother
to let her expose herself to such treatment before she is old enough to
judge for herself?

TANNER. In short, the way to avoid misunderstanding is for everybody to
lie and slander and insinuate and pretend as hard as they can. That is
what obeying your mother comes to.

ANN. I love my mother, Jack.

TANNER. [working himself up into a sociological rage] Is that any reason
why you are not to call your soul your own? Oh, I protest against this
vile abjection of youth to age! look at fashionable society as you know
it. What does it pretend to be? An exquisite dance of nymphs. What is
it? A horrible procession of wretched girls, each in the claws of a
cynical, cunning, avaricious, disillusioned, ignorantly experienced,
foul-minded old woman whom she calls mother, and whose duty it is
to corrupt her mind and sell her to the highest bidder. Why do these
unhappy slaves marry anybody, however old and vile, sooner than not
marry at all? Because marriage is their only means of escape from these
decrepit fiends who hide their selfish ambitions, their jealous hatreds
of the young rivals who have supplanted them, under the mask of maternal
duty and family affection. Such things are abominable: the voice of
nature proclaims for the daughter a father's care and for the son a
mother's. The law for father and son and mother and daughter is not
the law of love: it is the law of revolution, of emancipation, of final
supersession of the old and worn-out by the young and capable. I
tell you, the first duty of manhood and womanhood is a Declaration of
Independence: the man who pleads his father's authority is no man: the
woman who pleads her mother's authority is unfit to bear citizens to a
free people.

ANN. [watching him with quiet curiosity] I suppose you will go in
seriously for politics some day, Jack.

TANNER. [heavily let down] Eh? What? Wh--? [Collecting his scattered
wits] What has that got to do with what I have been saying?

ANN. You talk so well.

TANNER. Talk! Talk! It means nothing to you but talk. Well, go back
to your mother, and help her to poison Rhoda's imagination as she has
poisoned yours. It is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wild
ones.

ANN. I am getting on. Yesterday I was a boa constrictor: to-day I am an
elephant.

TANNER. Yes. So pack your trunk and begone; I have no more to say to
you.

ANN. You are so utterly unreasonable and impracticable. What can I do?

TANNER. Do! Break your chains. Go your way according to your own
conscience and not according to your mother's. Get your mind clean
and vigorous; and learn to enjoy a fast ride in a motor car instead of
seeing nothing in it but an excuse for a detestable intrigue. Come with
me to Marseilles and across to Algiers and to Biskra, at sixty miles
an hour. Come right down to the Cape if you like. That will be a
Declaration of Independence with a vengeance. You can write a book about
it afterwards. That will finish your mother and make a woman of you.

ANN. [thoughtfully] I don't think there would be any harm in that, Jack.
You are my guardian: you stand in my father's place, by his own wish.
Nobody could say a word against our travelling together. It would be
delightful: thank you a thousand times, Jack. I'll come.

TANNER. [aghast] You'll come! ! !

ANN. Of course.

TANNER. But-- [he stops, utterly appalled; then resumes feebly] No: look
here, Ann: if there's no harm in it there's no point in doing it.

ANN. How absurd you are! You don't want to compromise me, do you?

TANNER. Yes: that's the whole sense of my proposal.

ANN. You are talking the greatest nonsense; and you know it. You would
never do anything to hurt me.

TANNER. Well, if you don't want to be compromised, don't come.

ANN. [with simple earnestness] Yes, I will come, Jack, since you wish
it. You are my guardian; and think we ought to see more of one another
and come to know one another better. [Gratefully] It's very thoughtful
and very kind of you, Jack, to offer me this lovely holiday, especially
after what I said about Rhoda. You really are good--much better than you
think. When do we start?

TANNER. But--

The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Whitefield from
the house. She is accompanied by the American gentleman, and followed by
Ramsden and Octavius.

Hector Malone is an Eastern American; but he is not at all ashamed of
his nationality. This makes English people of fashion think well of
him, as of a young fellow who is manly enough to confess to an obvious
disadvantage without any attempt to conceal or extenuate it. They feel
that he ought not to be made to suffer for what is clearly not his
fault, and make a point of being specially kind to him. His chivalrous
manners to women, and his elevated moral sentiments, being both
gratuitous and unusual, strike them as being a little unfortunate;
and though they find his vein of easy humor rather amusing when it has
ceased to puzzle them (as it does at first), they have had to make
him understand that he really must not tell anecdotes unless they
are strictly personal and scandalous, and also that oratory is an
accomplishment which belongs to a cruder stage of civilization than that
in which his migration has landed him. On these points Hector is not
quite convinced: he still thinks that the British are apt to make merits
of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as
points of good breeding. English life seems to him to suffer from a lack
of edifying rhetoric (which he calls moral tone); English behavior to
show a want of respect for womanhood; English pronunciation to fail
very vulgarly in tackling such words as world, girl, bird, etc. ; English
society to be plain spoken to an extent which stretches occasionally to
intolerable coarseness; and English intercourse to need enlivening by
games and stories and other pastimes; so he does not feel called upon to
acquire these defects after taking great paths to cultivate himself in a
first rate manner before venturing across the Atlantic. To this culture
he finds English people either totally indifferent as they very commonly
are to all culture, or else politely evasive, the truth being that
Hector's culture is nothing but a state of saturation with our literary
exports of thirty years ago, reimported by him to be unpacked at a
moment's notice and hurled at the head of English literature, science
and art, at every conversational opportunity. The dismay set up by
these sallies encourages him in his belief that he is helping to educate
England. When he finds people chattering harmlessly about Anatole France
and Nietzsche, he devastates them with Matthew Arnold, the Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table, and even Macaulay; and as he is devoutly religious
at bottom, he first leads the unwary, by humorous irreverences, to wave
popular theology out of account in discussing moral questions with him,
and then scatters them in confusion by demanding whether the carrying
out of his ideals of conduct was not the manifest object of God Almighty
in creating honest men and pure women. The engaging freshness of his
personality and the dumbfoundering staleness of his culture make it
extremely difficult to decide whether he is worth knowing; for
whilst his company is undeniably pleasant and enlivening, there is
intellectually nothing new to be got out of him, especially as he
despises politics, and is careful not to talk commercial shop, in which
department he is probably much in advance of his English capitalist
friends. He gets on best with romantic Christians of the amoristic sect:
hence the friendship which has sprung up between him and Octavius.

In appearance Hector is a neatly built young man of twenty-four, with
a short, smartly trimmed black beard, clear, well shaped eyes, and an
ingratiating vivacity of expression. He is, from the fashionable point
of view, faultlessly dressed. As he comes along the drive from the
house with Mrs Whitefield he is sedulously making himself agreeable
and entertaining, and thereby placing on her slender wit a burden it is
unable to bear. An Englishman would let her alone, accepting boredom and
indifference of their common lot; and the poor lady wants to be either
let alone or let prattle about the things that interest her.

Ramsden strolls over to inspect the motor car. Octavius joins Hector.

ANN. [pouncing on her mother joyously] Oh, mamma, what do you think!
Jack is going to take me to Nice in his motor car. Isn't it lovely? I am
the happiest person in London.

TANNER. [desperately] Mrs Whitefield objects. I am sure she objects.
Doesn't she, Ramsden?

RAMSDEN. I should think it very likely indeed.

ANN. You don't object, do you, mother?

MRS WHITEFIELD. I object!