Books: How He Lied to Her Husband
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GEORGE BERNARD SHAW >> How He Lied to Her Husband
SHE. And what about Teddy? Do you mean to tell me that you are
going to beat Teddy before my face like a brutal prizefighter?
HE. All this alarm is needless, dearest. Believe me, nothing will
happen. Your husband knows that I am capable of defending myself.
Under such circumstances nothing ever does happen. And of course
I shall do nothing. The man who once loved you is sacred to me.
SHE [suspiciously] Doesn't he love me still? Has he told you
anything?
HE. No, no. [He takes her tenderly in his arms]. Dearest,
dearest: how agitated you are! how unlike yourself! All these
worries belong to the lower plane. Come up with me to the higher
one. The heights, the solitudes, the soul world!
SHE [avoiding his gaze] No: stop: it's no use, Mr Apjohn.
HE [recoiling] Mr Apjohn!!!
SHE. Excuse me: I meant Henry, of course.
HE. How could you even think of me as Mr Apjohn? I never think of
you as Mrs Bompas: it is always Cand-- I mean Aurora, Aurora,
Auro--
SHE. Yes, yes: that's all very well, Mr Apjohn [He is about to
interrupt again: but she won't have it] no: it's no use: I've
suddenly begun to think of you as Mr Apjohn; and it's ridiculous
to go on calling you Henry. I thought you were only a boy, a
child, a dreamer. I thought you would be too much afraid to do
anything. And now you want to beat Teddy and to break up my home
and disgrace me and make a horrible scandal in the papers. It's
cruel, unmanly, cowardly.
HE [with grave wonder] Are you afraid?
SHE. Oh, of course I'm afraid. So would you be if you had any
common sense. [She goes to the hearth, turning her back to him,
and puts one tapping foot on the fender].
HE [watching her with great gravity] Perfect love casteth out
fear. That is why I am not afraid. Mrs Bompas: you do not love
me.
SHE [turning to him with a gasp of relief] Oh, thank you, thank
you! You really can be very nice, Henry.
HE. Why do you thank me?
SHE [coming prettily to him from the fireplace] For calling me
Mrs Bompas again. I feel now that you are going to be reasonable
and behave like a gentleman. [He drops on the stool; covers his
face with his hand; and groans]. What's the matter?
HE. Once or twice in my life I have dreamed that I was
exquisitely happy and blessed. But oh! the misgiving at the first
stir of consciousness! the stab of reality! the prison walls of
the bedroom! the bitter, bitter disappointment of waking! And
this time! oh, this time I thought I was awake.
SHE. Listen to me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that
sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had
pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a
powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little
table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with the top
of your head.
HE [with fierce politeness] I beg your pardon. What is it you
want me to do? I am at your service. I am ready to behave like a
gentleman if you will be kind enough to explain exactly how.
SHE [a little frightened] Thank you, Henry: I was sure you would.
You're not angry with me, are you?
HE. Go on. Go on quickly. Give me something to think about, or I
will--I will--[he suddenly snatches up her fan and it about to
break it in his clenched fists].
SHE [running forward and catching at the fan, with loud
lamentation] Don't break my fan--no, don't. [He slowly relaxes
his grip of it as she draws it anxiously out of his hands].
No, really, that's a stupid trick. I don't like that. You've no
right to do that. [She opens the fan, and finds that the sticks
are disconnected]. Oh, how could you be so inconsiderate?
HE. I beg your pardon. I will buy you a new one.
SHE [querulously] You will never be able to match it. And it was
a particular favorite of mine.
HE [shortly] Then you will have to do without it: that's all.
SHE. That's not a very nice thing to say after breaking my pet
fan, I think.
HE. If you knew how near I was to breaking Teddy's pet wife and
presenting him with the pieces, you would be thankful that you
are alive instead of--of--of howling about five shillings worth
of ivory. Damn your fan!
SHE. Oh! Don't you dare swear in my presence. One would think you
were my husband.
HE [again collapsing on the stool] This is some horrible dream.
What has become of you? You are not my Aurora.
SHE. Oh, well, if you come to that, what has become of you? Do
you think I would ever have encouraged you if I had known you
were such a little devil?
HE. Don't drag me down--don't--don't. Help me to find the way
back to the heights.
SHE [kneeling beside him and pleading] If you would only be
reasonable, Henry. If you would only remember that I am on the
brink of ruin, and not go on calmly saying it's all quite simple.
HE. It seems so to me.
SHE [jumping up distractedly] If you say that again I shall do
something I'll be sorry for. Here we are, standing on the edge of
a frightful precipice. No doubt it's quite simple to go over and
have done with it. But can't you suggest anything more agreeable?
HE. I can suggest nothing now. A chill black darkness has
fallen: I can see nothing but the ruins of our dream. [He rises
with a deep sigh].
SHE. Can't you? Well, I can. I can see Georgina rubbing those
poems into Teddy. [Facing him determinedly] And I tell you, Henry
Apjohn, that you got me into this mess; and you must get me out
of it again.
HE [polite and hopeless] All I can say is that I am entirely at
your service. What do you wish me to do?
SHE. Do you know anybody else named Aurora?
HE. No.
SHE. There's no use in saying No in that frozen pigheaded way.
You must know some Aurora or other somewhere.
HE. You said you were the only Aurora in the world. And [lifting
his clasped fists with a sudden return of his emotion] oh God!
you were the only Aurora in the world to me. [He turns away from
her, hiding his face].
SHE [petting him] Yes, yes, dear: of course. It's very nice of
you; and I appreciate it: indeed I do; but it's not reasonable
just at present. Now just listen to me. I suppose you know all
those poems by heart.
HE. Yes, by heart. [Raising his head and looking at her, with a
sudden suspicion] Don't you?
SHE. Well, I never can remember verses; and besides, I've been so
busy that I've not had time to read them all; though I intend to
the very first moment I can get: I promise you that most
faithfully, Henry. But now try and remember very particularly.
Does the name of Bompas occur in any of the poems?
HE [indignantly] No.
SHE. You're quite sure?
HE. Of course I am quite sure. How could I use such a name in a
poem?
SHE. Well, I don't see why not. It rhymes to rumpus, which seems
appropriate enough at present, goodness knows! However, you're a
poet, and you ought to know.
HE. What does it matter--now?
SHE. It matters a lot, I can tell you. If there's nothing about
Bompas in the poems, we can say that they were written to some
other Aurora, and that you showed them to me because my name was
Aurora too. So you've got to invent another Aurora for the
occasion.
HE [very coldly] Oh, if you wish me to tell a lie--
SHE. Surely, as a man of honor--as a gentleman, you wouldn't tell
the truth, would you?
HE. Very well. You have broken my spirit and desecrated my
dreams. I will lie and protest and stand on my honor: oh, I will
play the gentleman, never fear.
SHE. Yes, put it all on me, of course. Don't be mean, Henry.
HE [rousing himself with an effort] You are quite right, Mrs
Bompas: I beg your pardon. You must excuse my temper. I have got
growing pains, I think.
SHE. Growing pains!
HE. The process of growing from romantic boyhood into cynical
maturity usually takes fifteen years. When it is compressed into
fifteen minutes, the pace is too fast; and growing pains are the
result.
SHE. Oh, is this a time for cleverness? It's settled, isn't it,
that you're going to be nice and good, and that you'll brazen it
out to Teddy that you have some other Aurora?
HE. Yes: I'm capable of anything now. I should not have told him
the truth by halves; and now I will not lie by halves. I'll
wallow in the honor of a gentleman.
SHE. Dearest boy, I knew you would. I--Sh! [she rushes to the
door, and holds it ajar, listening breathlessly].
HE. What is it?
SHE [white with apprehension] It's Teddy: I hear him tapping the
new barometer. He can't have anything serious on his mind or he
wouldn't do that. Perhaps Georgina hasn't said anything. [She
steals back to the hearth]. Try and look as if there was nothing
the matter. Give me my gloves, quick. [He hands them to her. She
pulls on one hastily and begins buttoning it with ostentatious
unconcern]. Go further away from me, quick. [He walks doggedly
away from her until the piano prevents his going farther]. If I
button my glove, and you were to hum a tune, don't you think
that--
HE. The tableau would be complete in its guiltiness. For Heaven's
sake, Mrs Bompas, let that glove alone: you look like a
pickpocket.
Her husband comes in: a robust, thicknecked, well groomed city
man, with a strong chin but a blithering eye and credulous mouth.
He has a momentous air, but shows no sign of displeasure: rather
the contrary.
HER HUSBAND. Hallo! I thought you two were at the theatre.
SHE. I felt anxious about you, Teddy. Why didn't you come home to
dinner?
HER HUSBAND. I got a message from Georgina. She wanted me to go
to her.
SHE. Poor dear Georgina! I'm sorry I haven't been able to call on
her this last week. I hope there's nothing the matter with her.
HER HUSBAND. Nothing, except anxiety for my welfare and yours.
[She steals a terrified look at Henry]. By, the way, Apjohn, I
should like a word with you this evening, if Aurora can spare you
for a moment.
HE [formally] I am at your service.
HER HUSBAND. No hurry. After the theatre will do.
HE. We have decided not to go.
HER HUSBAND. Indeed! Well, then, shall we adjourn to my snuggery?
SHE. You needn't move. I shall go and lock up my diamonds since
I'm not going to the theatre. Give me my things.
HER HUSBAND [as he hands her the cloud and the mirror] Well, we
shall have more room here.
HE [looking about him and shaking his shoulders loose] I think I
should prefer plenty of room.
HER HUSBAND. So, if it's not disturbing you, Rory--?
SHE. Not at all. [She goes out].
When the two men are alone together, Bompas deliberately takes
the poems from his breast pocket; looks at them reflectively;
then looks at Henry, mutely inviting his attention. Henry refuses
to understand, doing his best to look unconcerned.
HER HUSBAND. Do these manuscripts seem at all familiar to you,
may I ask?
HE. Manuscripts?
HER HUSBAND. Yes. Would you like to look at them a little closer?
[He proffers them under Henry's nose].
HE [as with a sudden illumination of glad surprise] Why, these
are my poems.
HER HUSBAND. So I gather.
HE. What a shame! Mrs Bompas has shown them to you! You must
think me an utter ass. I wrote them years ago after reading
Swinburne's Songs Before Sunrise. Nothing would do me then but I
must reel off a set of Songs to the Sunrise. Aurora, you know:
the rosy fingered Aurora. They're all about Aurora. When Mrs
Bompas told me her name was Aurora, I couldn't resist the
temptation to lend them to her to read. But I didn't bargain for
your unsympathetic eyes.
HER HUSBAND [grinning] Apjohn: that's really very ready of you.
You are cut out for literature; and the day will come when Rory
and I will be proud to have you about the house. I have heard far
thinner stories from much older men.
HE [with an air of great surprise] Do you mean to imply that you
don't believe me?
HER HUSBAND. Do you expect me to believe you?
HE. Why not? I don't understand.
HER HUSBAND. Come! Don't underrate your own cleverness, Apjohn. I
think you understand pretty well.
HE. I assure you I am quite at a loss. Can you not be a little
more explicit?
HER HUSBAND. Don't overdo it, old chap. However, I will just be
so far explicit as to say that if you think these poems read as
if they were addressed, not to a live woman, but to a shivering
cold time of day at which you were never out of bed in your life,
you hardly do justice to your own literary powers--which I admire
and appreciate, mind you, as much as any man. Come! own up. You
wrote those poems to my wife. [An internal struggle prevents
Henry from answering]. Of course you did. [He throws the poems on
the table; and goes to the hearthrug, where he plants himself
solidly, chuckling a little and waiting for the next move].
HE [formally and carefully] Mr Bompas: I pledge you my word you
are mistaken. I need not tell you that Mrs Bompas is a lady of
stainless honor, who has never cast an unworthy thought on me.
The fact that she has shown you my poems--
HER HUSBAND. That's not a fact. I came by them without her
knowledge. She didn't show them to me.
HE. Does not that prove their perfect innocence? She would have
shown them to you at once if she had taken your quite unfounded
view of them.
HER HUSBAND [shaken] Apjohn: play fair. Don't abuse your
intellectual gifts. Do you really mean that I am making a fool of
myself?
HE [earnestly] Believe me, you are. I assure you, on my honor as
a gentleman, that I have never had the slightest feeling for Mrs
Bompas beyond the ordinary esteem and regard of a pleasant
acquaintance.
HER HUSBAND [shortly, showing ill humor for the first time] Oh,
indeed. [He leaves his hearth and begins to approach Henry
slowly, looking him up and down with growing resentment].
HE [hastening to improve the impression made by his mendacity] I
should never have dreamt of writing poems to her. The thing is
absurd.
HER HUSBAND [reddening ominously] Why is it absurd?
HE [shrugging his shoulders] Well, it happens that I do not
admire Mrs Bompas--in that way.
HER HUSBAND [breaking out in Henry's face] Let me tell you that
Mrs Bompas has been admired by better men than you, you soapy
headed little puppy, you.
HE [much taken aback] There is no need to insult me like this. I
assure you, on my honor as a--
HER HUSBAND [too angry to tolerate a reply, and boring Henry more
and more towards the piano] You don't admire Mrs Bompas! You
would never dream of writing poems to Mrs Bompas! My wife's not
good enough for you, isn't she. [Fiercely] Who are you, pray,
that you should be so jolly superior?
HE. Mr Bompas: I can make allowances for your jealousy--
HER HUSBAND. Jealousy! do you suppose I'm jealous of YOU? No, nor
of ten like you. But if you think I'll stand here and let you
insult my wife in her own house, you're mistaken.
HE [very uncomfortable with his back against the piano and Teddy
standing over him threateningly] How can I convince you? Be
reasonable. I tell you my relations with Mrs Bompas are relations
of perfect coldness--of indifference--
HER HUSBAND [scornfully] Say it again: say it again. You're proud
of it, aren't you? Yah! You're not worth kicking.
Henry suddenly executes the feat known to pugilists as dipping,
and changes sides with Teddy, who it now between Henry and the
piano.
HE. Look here: I'm not going to stand this.
HER HUSBAND. Oh, you have some blood in your body after all! Good
job!
HE. This is ridiculous. I assure you Mrs. Bompas is quite--
HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll
tell you what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the
smartest set in South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the
cleverest, and the most fetching to experienced men who know a
good thing when they see it, whatever she may be to conceited
penny-a-lining puppies who think nothing good enough for them.
It's admitted by the best people; and not to know it argues
yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers have offered
her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they start a
repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as
well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you
might call a handsome man has neglected the business of the
country to dance with her, though he don't belong to our set as a
regular thing. One of the first professional poets in Bedford
Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth all your amateur trash. At
Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke excused himself from
calling on me on the ground that his feelings for Mrs Bompas were
not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did him honor
and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough for
you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference;
and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two
pins I'd flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a
fine woman to you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him]
before SWINE! d'ye hear?
HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again
and I'll land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for
a week.
HER HUSBAND [exploding] What--!
He charges at Henry with bull-like fury. Henry places himself on
guard in the manner of a well taught boxer, and gets away
smartly, but unfortunately forgets the stool which is just behind
him. He falls backwards over it, unintentionally pushing it
against the shins of Bompas, who falls forward over it. Mrs
Bompas, with a scream, rushes into the room between the sprawling
champions, and sits down on the floor in order to get her right
arm round her husband's neck.
SHE. You shan't, Teddy: you shan't. You will be killed: he is a
prizefighter.
HER HUSBAND [vengefully] I'll prizefight him. [He struggles
vainly to free himself from her embrace].
SHE. Henry: don't let him fight you. Promise me that you won't.
HE [ruefully] I have got a most frightful bump on the back of my
head. [He tries to rise].
SHE [reaching out her left hand to seize his coat tail, and
pulling him down again, whilst keeping fast hold of Teddy with
the other hand] Not until you have promised: not until you both
have promised. [Teddy tries to rise: she pulls him back again].
Teddy: you promise, don't you? Yes, yes. Be good: you promise.
HER HUSBAND. I won't, unless he takes it back.
SHE. He will: he does. You take it back, Henry?--yes.
HE [savagely] Yes. I take it back. [She lets go his coat. He gets
up. So does Teddy]. I take it all back, all, without reserve.
SHE [on the carpet] Is nobody going to help me up? [They each
take a hand and pull her up]. Now won't you shake hands and be
good?
HE [recklessly] I shall do nothing of the sort. I have steeped
myself in lies for your sake; and the only reward I get is a lump
on the back of my head the size of an apple. Now I will go back
to the straight path.
SHE. Henry: for Heaven's sake--
HE. It's no use. Your husband is a fool and a brute--
HER HUSBAND. What's that you say?
HE. I say you are a fool and a brute; and if you'll step outside
with me I'll say it again. [Teddy begins to take off his coat for
combat]. Those poems were written to your wife, every word of
them, and to nobody else. [The scowl clears away from Bompas's
countenance. Radiant, he replaces his coat]. I wrote them because
I loved her. I thought her the most beautiful woman in the world;
and I told her so over and over again. I adored her: do you hear?
I told her that you were a sordid commercial chump, utterly
unworthy of her; and so you are.
HER HUSBAND [so gratified, he can hardly believe his ears] You
don't mean it!
HE. Yes, I do mean it, and a lot more too. I asked Mrs Bompas to
walk out of the house with me--to leave you--to get divorced from
you and marry me. I begged and implored her to do it this very
night. It was her refusal that ended everything between us.
[Looking very disparagingly at him] What she can see in you,
goodness only knows!
HER HUSBAND [beaming with remorse] My dear chap, why didn't you
say so before? I apologize. Come! Don't bear malice: shake hands.
Make him shake hands, Rory.
SHE. For my sake, Henry. After all, he's my husband. Forgive him.
Take his hand. [Henry, dazed, lets her take his hand and place it
in Teddy's].
HER HUSBAND [shaking it heartily] You've got to own that none of
your literary heroines can touch my Rory. [He turns to her and
claps her with fond pride on the shoulder]. Eh, Rory? They can't
resist you: none of em. Never knew a man yet that could hold out
three days.
SHE. Don't be foolish, Teddy. I hope you were not really hurt,
Henry. [She feels the back of his head. He flinches]. Oh, poor
boy, what a bump! I must get some vinegar and brown paper. [She
goes to the bell and rings].
HER HUSBAND. Will you do me a great favor, Apjohn. I hardly like
to ask; but it would be a real kindness to us both.
HE. What can I do?
HER HUSBAND [taking up the poems] Well, may I get these printed?
It shall be done in the best style. The finest paper, sumptuous
binding, everything first class. They're beautiful poems. I
should like to show them about a bit.
SHE [running back from the bell, delighted with the idea, and
coming between them] Oh Henry, if you wouldn't mind!
HE. Oh, I don't mind. I am past minding anything. I have grown
too fast this evening.
SHE. How old are you, Henry?
HE. This morning I was eighteen. Now I am--confound it! I'm
quoting that beast of a play [he takes the Candida tickets out of
his pocket and tears them up viciously].
HER HUSBAND. What shall we call the volume? To Aurora, or
something like that, eh?
HE. I should call it How He Lied to Her Husband.