Books: Heartbreak House
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George Bernard Shaw >> Heartbreak House
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MRS HUSHABYE [hospitably shaking hands]. How good of you to come,
Mr Dunn! You don't mind Papa, do you? He is as mad as a hatter,
you know, but quite harmless and extremely clever. You will have
some delightful talks with him.
MAZZINI. I hope so. [To Ellie]. So here you are, Ellie, dear. [He
draws her arm affectionately through his]. I must thank you, Mrs
Hushabye, for your kindness to my daughter. I'm afraid she would
have had no holiday if you had not invited her.
MRS HUSHABYE. Not at all. Very nice of her to come and attract
young people to the house for us.
MAZZINI [smiling]. I'm afraid Ellie is not interested in young
men, Mrs Hushabye. Her taste is on the graver, solider side.
MRS HUSHABYE [with a sudden rather hard brightness in her
manner]. Won't you take off your overcoat, Mr Dunn? You will find
a cupboard for coats and hats and things in the corner of the
hall.
MAZZINI [hastily releasing Ellie]. Yes--thank you--I had better--
[he goes out].
MRS HUSHABYE [emphatically]. The old brute!
ELLIE. Who?
MRS HUSHABYE. Who! Him. He. It [pointing after Mazzini]. "Graver,
solider tastes," indeed!
ELLIE [aghast]. You don't mean that you were speaking like that
of my father!
MRS HUSHABYE. I was. You know I was.
ELLIE [with dignity]. I will leave your house at once. [She turns
to the door].
MRS HUSHABYE. If you attempt it, I'll tell your father why.
ELLIE [turning again]. Oh! How can you treat a visitor like this,
Mrs Hushabye?
MRS HUSHABYE. I thought you were going to call me Hesione.
ELLIE. Certainly not now?
MRS HUSHABYE. Very well: I'll tell your father.
ELLIE [distressed]. Oh!
MRS HUSHABYE. If you turn a hair--if you take his part against me
and against your own heart for a moment, I'll give that born
soldier of freedom a piece of my mind that will stand him on his
selfish old head for a week.
ELLIE. Hesione! My father selfish! How little you know--
She is interrupted by Mazzini, who returns, excited and
perspiring.
MAZZINI. Ellie, Mangan has come: I thought you'd like to know.
Excuse me, Mrs Hushabye, the strange old gentleman--
MRS HUSHABYE. Papa. Quite so.
MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a little
confused by his manner. He is making Mangan help him with
something in the garden; and he wants me too--
A powerful whistle is heard.
THE CAPTAIN'S VOICE. Bosun ahoy! [the whistle is repeated].
MAZZINI [flustered]. Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me.
[He hurries out].
MRS HUSHABYE. Now MY father is a wonderful man if you like.
ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and
Mr Mangan were boys together. Mr Ma--
MRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if
you are going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at
Ellie's waist, and makes her sit down on the sofa beside her].
Now, pettikins, tell me all about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss
Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon of industry and disgustingly
rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich?
ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His
parents were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they
could not afford to give him a profession.
MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine
frenzy rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business.
Hasn't he succeeded in it?
ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he only had some
capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads
and bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the
same difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to
describe it to you.
MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail.
ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified.
MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't
have pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have
pulled hard--[between her teeth] hard. Well? Go on.
ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr
Mangan did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship
for my father and respect for his character. He asked him how
much capital he wanted, and gave it to him. I don't mean that he
lent it to him, or that he invested it in his business. He just
simply made him a present of it. Wasn't that splendid of him?
MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him?
ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never
even seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely
disinterested. Pure generosity.
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became
of the money?
ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I
went to another school for two years.
MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years?
ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was
utterly ruined.
MRS HUSHABYE. How?
ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But it was
dreadful. When we were poor my father had never been in debt. But
when he launched out into business on a large scale, he had to
incur liabilities. When the business went into liquidation he
owed more money than Mr Mangan had given him.
MRS HUSHABYE. Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose.
ELLIE. I think you are a little unfeeling about it.
MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you mustn't mind my way of talking. I
was quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have
picked up so much slang from the children that I am really hardly
presentable. I suppose your father had no head for business, and
made a mess of it.
ELLIE. Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about
him. The business turned out a great success. It now pays
forty-four per cent after deducting the excess profits tax.
MRS HUSHABYE. Then why aren't you rolling in money?
ELLIE. I don't know. It seems very unfair to me. You see, my
father was made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he
had persuaded several of his friends to put money into the
business. He was sure it would succeed; and events proved that he
was quite right. But they all lost their money. It was dreadful.
I don't know what we should have done but for Mr Mangan.
MRS HUSHABYE. What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after
all his money being thrown away?
ELLIE. He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father.
He bought what was left of the business--the buildings and the
machinery and things--from the official trustee for enough money
to enable my father to pay six-and-eight-pence in the pound and
get his discharge. Everyone pitied Papa so much, and saw so
plainly that he was an honorable man, that they let him off at
six-and-eight-pence instead of ten shillings. Then Mr. Mangan
started a company to take up the business, and made my father a
manager in it to save us from starvation; for I wasn't earning
anything then.
MRS. HUSHABYE. Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the
tender passion?
ELLIE. Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair
one night at a sort of people's concert. I was singing there. As
an amateur, you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs
with three encores. He was so pleased with my singing that he
asked might he walk home with me. I never saw anyone so taken
aback as he was when I took him home and introduced him to my
father, his own manager. It was then that my father told me how
nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great chance
for me, as he is so rich. And--and--we drifted into a sort of
understanding--I suppose I should call it an engagement--[she is
distressed and cannot go on].
MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about]. You may have drifted
into it; but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to
have anything to do with it.
ELLIE [hopelessly]. No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and
gratitude. I will go through with it.
MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her]. You know,
of course, that it's not honorable or grateful to marry a man you
don't love. Do you love this Mangan man?
ELLIE. Yes. At least--
MRS HUSHABYE. I don't want to know about "at least": I want to
know the worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of
impossible people, especially old people.
ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be--
MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing
away intolerantly to starboard]. --grateful to him for his
kindness to dear father. I know. Anybody else?
ELLIE. What do you mean?
MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else?
ELLIE. Of course not.
MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her
eye. She picks it up, and evidently finds the title very
unexpected. She looks at Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure
you're not in love with an actor?
ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head?
MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be
reading Othello?
ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare.
MRS HUSHAYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your
father does seem to be about the limit.
ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That
seems to me so extraordinary. I like Othello.
MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he?
ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is
horrible. But don't you think it must have been a wonderful
experience for Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet
a man who had been out in the world doing all sorts of brave
things and having terrible adventures, and yet finding something
in her that made him love to sit and talk with her and tell her
about them?
MRS HUSHABYE. That's your idea of romance, is it?
ELLIE. Not romance, exactly. It might really happen.
Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. Mrs
Hushabye, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to
the sofa and resumes her seat beside her.
MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those
stories that Othello told Desdemona couldn't have happened--?
ELLIE. Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened.
MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But
they didn't.
ELLIE. Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a
sphinx: I never know what you mean.
MRS HUSHABYE. Desdemona would have found him out if she had
lived, you know. I wonder was that why he strangled her!
ELLIE. Othello was not telling lies.
MRS HUSHABYE. How do you know?
ELLIE. Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are
men who have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of
course, white, and very handsome, and--
MRS HUSHABYE. Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all about him.
I knew there must be somebody, or you'd never have been so
miserable about Mangan: you'd have thought it quite a lark to
marry him.
ELLIE [blushing vividly]. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don't
want to make a secret of it, though of course I don't tell
everybody. Besides, I don't know him.
MRS HUSHABYE. Don't know him! What does that mean?
ELLIE. Well, of course I know him to speak to.
MRS HUSHABYE. But you want to know him ever so much more
intimately, eh?
ELLIE. No, no: I know him quite--almost intimately.
MRS HUSHABYE. You don't know him; and you know him almost
intimately. How lucid!
ELLIE. I mean that he does not call on us. I--I got into
conversation with him by chance at a concert.
MRS HUSHABYE. You seem to have rather a gay time at your
concerts, Ellie.
ELLIE. Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting
for our turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so
splendid. But he was only one of the committee. I happened to
tell him that I was copying a picture at the National Gallery. I
make a little money that way. I can't paint much; but as it's
always the same picture I can do it pretty quickly and get two or
three pounds for it. It happened that he came to the National
Gallery one day.
MRS HUSHABYE. One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble about
through a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day
for nothing and found the floor clear! Quite by accident?
ELLIE [triumphantly]. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He
knows lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are
all in love with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the
National Gallery and persuade me to come with him for a drive
round Richmond Park in a taxi.
MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you have been going it. It's
wonderful what you good girls can do without anyone saying a
word.
ELLIE. I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't make
acquaintances in that way I shouldn't have any at all.
MRS HUSHABYE. Well, no harm if you know how to take care of
yourself. May I ask his name?
ELLIE [slowly and musically]. Marcus Darnley.
MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music]. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid
name!
ELLIE. Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was
afraid it was only a silly fancy of my own.
MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys?
ELLIE. Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique
chest--
MRS HUSHABYE. A what?
ELLIE. An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden,
after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm.
MRS HUSHABYE. What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get
into it because he was afraid of the lightning?
ELLIE. Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was
embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold.
MRS HUSHABYE [Looking hard at her]. Ellie!
ELLIE. The garden of the Viscount--
MRS HUSHABYE. --de Rougemont?
ELLIE [innocently]. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A
vicomte. His life has been one long romance. A tiger--
MRS HUSHABYE. Slain by his own hand?
ELLIE. Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the
tiger from a hunting party: one of King Edward's hunting parties
in India. The King was furious: that was why he never had his
military services properly recognized. But he doesn't care. He is
a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in three revolutions
fighting on the barricades.
MRS HUSHABYE. How can you sit there telling me such lies? You,
Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple,
straightforward, good girl.
ELLIE [rising, dignified but very angry]. Do you mean you don't
believe me?
MRS HUSHABYE. Of course I don't believe you. You're inventing
every word of it. Do you take me for a fool?
Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs Hushabye
is puzzled.
ELLIE. Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see now that it sounds
very improbable as I tell it. But I can't stay if you think that
way about me.
MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress]. You shan't go. I couldn't be
so mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has
really told you all this.
ELLIE [flushing]. Hesione, don't say that you don't believe him.
I couldn't bear that.
MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her]. Of course I believe him, dearest.
But you should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back
to her seat]. Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with
him?
ELLIE. Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in love with
people. I'm not so silly as you think.
MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Only something to think about--to give some
interest and pleasure to life.
ELLIE. Just so. That's all, really.
MRS HUSHABYE. It makes the hours go fast, doesn't it? No tedious
waiting to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will
have a bad night. How delightful it makes waking up in the
morning! How much better than the happiest dream! All life
transfigured! No more wishing one had an interesting book to
read, because life is so much happier than any book! No desire
but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be alone
and just think about it.
ELLIE [embracing her]. Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know?
Oh, you are the most sympathetic woman in the world!
MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her]. Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy
you! and how I pity you!
ELLIE. Pity me! Oh, why?
A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches,
wearing a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an
elaborate walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and
stops short at sight of the women on the sofa.
ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this
is Mr Marcus Darnley.
MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband.
ELLIE. But now--[she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways].
MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the
sofa]. Steady, my pettikins.
THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing
his hat and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is
Hector Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any
sensitive man would care to confess to. I never use it when I can
possibly help it. I have been away for nearly a month; and I had
no idea you knew my wife, or that you were coming here. I am none
the less delighted to find you in our little house.
ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I
speak to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it.
MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector.
HECTOR. I--
MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out.
HECTOR. If you think it better--[he goes out, taking his hat with
him but leaving the stick on the table].
MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now,
pettikins, he is gone. There's nobody but me. You can let
yourself go. Don't try to control yourself. Have a good cry.
ELLIE [raising her head]. Damn!
MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were
going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again.
ELLIE. I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a
fool. [Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She
begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously
older and harder].
MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young
women can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is
really rather splendid, you know.
ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of
course. But how can you love a liar?
MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise
there wouldn't be much love in the world.
ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward!
MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you
please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he
will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to
convince himself that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick
of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at
another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of
Albert Medals for saving people's lives.
ELLIE. He never told me that.
MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't
bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his
stories are made-up stories.
ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and
really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he
never did and that never happened?
MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their
virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.
ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully]. There's something odd about
this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm
talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is
broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I thought it must
be.
MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her]. It's only life educating you,
pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now?
ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh,
how can you remind me of him, Hesione?
MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You
don't mind now, do you, dear?
ELLIE. Not in the least. I am quite cured.
Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall.
HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass in]. One
second more, and she would have been a dead woman!
MAZZINI. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye
has just been telling me the most extraordinary--
ELLIE. Yes, I've heard it [she crosses to the other side of the
room].
HECTOR [following her]. Not this one: I'll tell it to you after
dinner. I think you'll like it. The truth is I made it up for
you, and was looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to
you. But in a moment of impatience at being turned out of the
room, I threw it away on your father.
ELLIE [turning at bay with her back to the carpenter's bench,
scornfully self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes
it. I should not have believed it.
MAZZINI [benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of
course she does not really think that. [He goes to the
bookshelves, and inspects the titles of the volumes].
Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain.
Mangan, carefully frock-coated as for church or for a diHECTORs'
meeting, is about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful
expression, standing a little on an entirely imaginary dignity,
with a dull complexion, straight, lustreless hair, and features
so entirely commonplace that it is impossible to describe them.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mrs Hushabye, introducing the newcomer].
Says his name is Mangan. Not able-bodied.
MRS HUSHABYE [graciously]. How do you do, Mr Mangan?
MANGAN [shaking hands]. Very pleased.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his
nerve. Men seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he
goes into the pantry].
MRS HUSHABYE. I congratulate you, Mr Dunn.
MAZZINI [dazed]. I am a lifelong teetotaler.
MRS HUSHABYE. You will find it far less trouble to let papa have
his own way than try to explain.
MAZZINI. But three attacks of delirium tremens, really!
MRS HUSHABYE [to Mangan]. Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she
indicates Hector].
MANGAN [going to Hector, who meets him with outstretched hand].
Very pleased. [Turning to Ellie]. I hope, Miss Ellie, you have
not found the journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands].
MRS HUSHABYE. Hector, show Mr Dunn his room.
HECTOR. Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes Mazzini out].
ELLIE. You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione.
MRS HUSHABYE. How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite
at home, Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the
captain in the pantry]. Papa, come and explain the house to Mr
Mangan.
She goes out with Ellie. The captain comes from the pantry.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You're going to marry Dunn's daughter. Don't.
You're too old.
MANGAN [staggered]. Well! That's fairly blunt, Captain.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's true.
MANGAN. She doesn't think so.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. She does.
MANGAN. Older men than I have--
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him].--made fools of
themselves. That, also, is true.
MANGAN [asserting himself]. I don't see that this is any business
of yours.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is everybody's business. The stars in their
courses are shaken when such things happen.
MANGAN. I'm going to marry her all the same.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. How do you know?
MANGAN [playing the strong man]. I intend to. I mean to. See? I
never made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it
off. That's the sort of man I am; and there will be a better
understanding between us when you make up your mind to that,
Captain.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You frequent picture palaces.
MANGAN. Perhaps I do. Who told you?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Talk like a man, not like a movie. You mean
that you make a hundred thousand a year.
MANGAN. I don't boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred
thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out
my hand to him and call him brother.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Then you also make a hundred thousand a year,
hey?
MANGAN. No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. His half brother only [he turns away from
Mangan with his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups
on the Chinese tray].
MANGAN [irritated]. See here, Captain Shotover. I don't quite
understand my position here. I came here on your daughter's
invitation. Am I in her house or in yours?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the
house of God. What is true within these walls is true outside
them. Go out on the seas; climb the mountains; wander through the
valleys. She is still too young.
MANGAN [weakening]. But I'm very little over fifty.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan,
you will not marry the pirate's child [he carries the tray away
into the pantry].
MANGAN [following him to the half door]. What pirate's child?
What are you talking about?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry]. Ellie Dunn. You will not marry
her.
MANGAN. Who will stop me?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging]. My daughter [he makes for the door
leading to the hall].
MANGAN [following him]. Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she
brought me down here to break it off?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him]. I know nothing
more than I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my
advice: marry a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I
was married to one myself for two years.
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