Touch and Go

  (ANABEL joins in; the three dance and move in rhythm.)

  WINIFRED. I love it--I love it! Do _Ma capote a trois boutons_--you

  know it, don't you, Anabel? Ready--now---

  (They begin to dance to a quick little march-rhythm, all singing and

  dancing till they are out of breath.)

  OLIVER. Oh!--tired!--let us sit down.

  WINIFRED. Oliver!--oh, Oliver!--I LOVE you and Anabel.

  OLIVER. Oh, Winifred, I brought you a present--you'll love me more

  now.

  WINIFRED. Yes, I shall. Do give it me.

  OLIVER. I left it in the morning-room. I put it on the mantel-piece

  for you.

  WINIFRED. Shall I go for it?

  OLIVER. There it is, if you want it.

  WINIFRED. Yes--do you mind? I won't be long. (Exit.)

  OLIVER. She's a nice child.

  ANABEL. A VERY nice child.

  OLIVER. Why did you come back, Anabel?

  ANABEL. Why does the moon rise, Oliver?

  OLIVER. For some mischief or other, so they say.

  ANABEL. You think I came back for mischief's sake?

  OLIVER. Did you?

  ANABEL. No.

  OLIVER. Ah!

  ANABEL. Tell me, Oliver, how is everything now?--how is it with you?

  --how is it between us all?

  OLIVER. How is it between us all?--How ISN'T it, is more the mark.

  ANABEL. Why?

  OLIVER. You made a fool of us.

  ANABEL. Of whom?

  OLIVER. Well--of Gerald particularly--and of me.

  ANABEL. How did I make a fool of you, Oliver?

  OLIVER. That you know best, Anabel.

  ANABEL. No, I don't know. Was it ever right between Gerald and me,

  all the three years we knew each other--we were together?

  OLIVER. Was it all wrong?

  ANABEL. No, not all. But it was terrible. It was terrible, Oliver.

  You don't realise. You don't realise how awful passion can be, when

  it never resolves, when it never becomes anything else. It is hate,

  really.

  OLIVER. What did you want the passion to resolve into?

  ANABEL. I was blinded--maddened. Gerald stung me and stung me till

  I was mad. I left him for reason's sake, for sanity's sake. We

  should have killed one another.

  OLIVER. You, stung him, too, you know--and pretty badly, at the last:

  you dehumanised him.

  ANABEL. When? When I left him, you mean?

  OLIVER. Yes, when you went away with that Norwegian--playing your

  game a little too far.

  ANABEL. Yes, I knew you'd blame me. I knew you'd be against me.

  But don't you see, Oliver, you helped to make it impossible for us.

  OLIVER. Did I? I didn't intend to.

  ANABEL. Ha, ha, Oliver! Your good intentions! They are too good to

  bear investigation, my friend. Ah, but for your good and friendly

  intentions---

  OLIVER. You mean my friendship with Gerald went against you?

  ANABEL. Yes. And your friendship with me went against Gerald.

  OLIVER. So I am the devil in the piece.

  ANABEL. You see, Oliver, Gerald loved you far too well ever to love

  me altogether. He loved us both. But the Gerald that loved you so

  dearly, old, old friends as you were, and TRUSTED you, he turned a

  terrible face of contempt on me. You don't know, Oliver, the cold

  edge of Gerald's contempt for me--because he was so secure and strong

  in his old friendship with you. You don't know his sneering attitude

  to me in the deepest things with you. He had a passion for me. But

  he loved you.

  OLIVER. Well, he doesn't any more. We went apart after you had gone.

  The friendship has become almost casual.

  ANABEL. You see how bitterly you speak.

  OLIVER. Yet you didn't hate me, Anabel.

  ANABEL. No, Oliver--I was AWFULLY fond of you. I trusted you--and I

  trust you still. You see I knew how fond Gerald was of you. And I

  had to respect this feeling. So I HAD to be aware of you: and I HAD

  to be conscious of you: in a way, I had to love you. You understand

  how I mean? Not with the same fearful love with which I loved Gerald.

  You seemed to me warm and protecting--like a brother, you know--but a

  brother one LOVES.

  OLIVER. And then you hated me?

  ANABEL. Yes, I had to hate you.

  OLIVER. And you hated Gerald?

  ANABEL. Almost to madness--almost to madness.

  OLIVER. Then you went away with that Norwegian. What of him?

  ANABEL. What of him? Well, he's dead.

  OLIVER. Ah! That's why you came back?

  ANABEL. No, no. I came back because my only hope in life was in

  coming back. Baard was beautiful--and awful. You know how

  glisteningly blond he was. Oliver, have you ever watched the polar

  bears? He was cold as iron when it is so cold that it burns you.

  Coldness wasn't negative with him. It was positive--and awful

  beyond expression--like the aurora borealis.

  OLIVER. I wonder you ever got back.

  ANABEL. Yes, so do I. I feel as if I'd fallen down a fissure in the

  ice. Yet I have come back, haven't I?

  OLIVER. God knows! At least, Anabel, we've gone through too much

  ever to start the old game again. There'll be no more sticky love

  between us.

  ANABEL. No, I think there won't, either.

  OLIVER. And what of Gerald?

  ANABEL. I don't know. What do you think of him?

  OLIVER. I can't think any more. I can only blindly go from day to

  day, now.

  ANABEL. So can I. Do you think I was wrong to come back? Do you

  think I wrong Gerald?

  OLIVER. No. I'm glad you came. But I feel I can't KNOW anything.

  We must just go on.

  ANABEL. Sometimes I feel I ought never to have come to Gerald again--

  never--never--never.

  OLIVER. Just left the gap?--Perhaps, if everything has to come

  asunder. But I think, if ever there is to be life--hope,--then you

  had to come back. I always knew it. There is something eternal

  between you and him; and if there is to be any happiness, it depends

  on that. But perhaps there is to BE no happiness--for our part of

  the world.

  ANABEL (after a pause). Yet I feel hope--don't you?

  OLIVER. Yes, sometimes.

  ANABEL. It seemed to me, especially that winter in Norway,--I can

  hardly express it,--as if any moment life might give way under one,

  like thin ice, and one would be more than dead. And then I knew my

  only hope was here--the only hope.

  OLIVER. Yes, I believe it. And I believe---

  (Enter MRS. BARLOW.)

  MRS. BARLOW. Oh, I wanted to speak to you, Oliver.

  OLIVER. Shall I come across?

  MRS. BARLOW. No, not now. I believe father is coming here with

  Gerald.

  OLIVER. Is he going to walk so far?

  MRS. BARLOW. He will do it.--I suppose you know Oliver?

  ANABEL. Yes, we have met before.

  MRS. BARLOW (to OLIVER). You didn't mention it. Where have you met

  Miss Wrath? She's been about the world, I believe.

  ANABEL. About the world?--no, Mrs. Barlow. If one happens to know

  Paris and London---

  MRS. BARLOW. Paris and London! Well, I don't say you are all
br />   together an adventuress. My husband seems very pleased with you--

  for Winifred's sake, I suppose--and he's wrapped up in Winifred.

  ANABEL. Winifred is an artist.

  MRS. BARLOW. All my children have the artist in them. They get it

  from my family. My father went mad in Rome. My family is born with

  a black fate--they all inherit it.

  OLIVER. I believe one is master of one's fate sometimes, Mrs. Barlow.

  There are moments of pure choice.

  MRS. BARLOW. Between two ways to the same end, no doubt. There's no

  changing the end.

  OLIVER. I think there is.

  MRS. BARLOW. Yes, you have a _parvenu's_ presumptuousness somewhere

  about you.

  OLIVER. Well, better than a blue-blooded fatalism.

  MRS. BARLOW. The fate is in the blood: you can't change the blood.

  (Enter WINIFRED.)

  WINIFRED. Oh, thank you, Oliver, for the wolf and the goat, thank

  you so much!--The wolf has sprung on the goat, Miss Wrath, and has

  her by the throat.

  ANABEL. The wolf?

  OLIVER. It's a little marble group--Italian--in hard marble.

  WINIFRED. The wolf--I love the wolf--he pounces so beautifully.

  His backbone is so terribly fierce. I don't feel a bit sorry for

  the goat, somehow.

  OLIVER. I didn't. She is too much like the wrong sort of clergyman.

  WINIFRED. Yes--such a stiff, long face. I wish he'd kill her.

  MRS. BARLOW. There's a wish!

  WINIFRED. Father and Gerald are coming. That's them, I suppose.

  (Enter MR. BARLOW and GERALD.)

  MR. BARLOW. Ah, good morning--good morning--quite a little gathering!

  Ah---

  OLIVER. The steps tire you, Mr. Barlow.

  MR. BARLOW. A little--a little--thank you.--Well, Miss Wrath, are

  you quite comfortable here?

  ANABEL. Very comfortable, thanks.

  GERALD. It was clever of you, father, to turn this place into a

  studio.

  MR. BARLOW. Yes, Gerald. You make the worldly schemes, and I the

  homely. Yes, it's a delightful place. I shall come here often if

  the two young ladies will allow me.--By the way, Miss Wrath, I don't

  know if you have been introduced to my son Gerald. I beg your

  pardon. Miss Wrath, Gerald--my son, Miss Wrath. (They bow.) Well,

  we are quite a gathering, quite a pleasant little gathering. We

  never expected anything so delightful a month ago, did we, Winifred,

  darling?

  WINIFRED. No, daddy, it's much nicer than expectations.

  MR. BARLOW. So it is, dear--to have such exceptional companionship

  and such a pleasant retreat. We are very happy to have Miss Wrath

  with us--very happy.

  GERALD. A studio's awfully nice, you know; it is such a retreat. A

  newspaper has no effect in it--falls quite flat, no matter what the

  headlines are.

  MR. BARLOW. Quite true, Gerald, dear. It is a sanctum the world

  cannot invade--unlike all other sanctuaries, I am afraid.

  GERALD. By the way, Oliver--to go back to profanities--the colliers

  really are coming out in support of the poor, ill-used clerks.

  MR. BARLOW. No, no, Gerald--no, no! Don't be such an alarmist. Let

  us leave these subjects before the ladies. No, no: the clerks will

  have their increase quite peacefully.

  GERALD. Yes, dear father--but they can't have it peacefully now.

  We've been threatened already by the colliers--we've already received

  an ultimatum.

  MR. BARLOW. Nonsense, my boy--nonsense! Don't let us split words.

  You won't go against the clerks in such a small matter. Always avoid

  trouble over small matters. Don't make bad feeling--don't make bad

  blood.

  MRS. BARLOW. The blood is already rotten in the neighbourhood. What

  it needs is letting out. We need a few veins opening, or we shall

  have mortification setting in. The blood is black.

  MR. BARLOW. We won't accept your figure of speech literally, dear.

  No, Gerald, don't go to war over trifles.

  GERALD. It's just over trifles that one must make war, father. One

  can yield gracefully over big matters. But to be bullied over trifles

  is a sign of criminal weakness.

  MR. BARLOW. Ah, not so, not so, my boy. When you are as old as I am,

  you will know the comparative insignificance of these trifles.

  GERALD. The older _I_ get, father, the more such trifles stick in my

  throat.

  MR. BARLOW. Ah, it is an increasingly irritable disposition in you,

  my child. Nothing costs so bitterly, in the end, as a stubborn pride.

  MRS. BARLOW. Except a stubborn humility--and that will cost you more.

  Avoid humility, beware of stubborn humility: it degrades. Hark,

  Gerald--fight! When the occasion comes, fight! If it's one against

  five thousand, fight! Don't give them your heart on a dish! Never!

  If they want to eat your heart out, make them fight for it, and then

  give it them poisoned at last, poisoned with your own blood.--What do

  you say, young woman?

  ANABEL. Is it for me to speak, Mrs. Barlow?

  MRS. BARLOW. Weren't you asked?

  ANABEL. Certainly I would NEVER give the world my heart on a dish.

  But can't there ever be peace--real peace?

  MRS. BARLOW. No--not while there is devilish enmity.

  MR. BARLOW. You are wrong, dear, you are wrong. The peace can come,

  the peace that passeth all understanding.

  MRS. BARLOW. That there is already between me and Almighty God. I am

  at peace with the God that made me, and made me proud. With men who

  humiliate me I am at war. Between me and the shameful humble there

  is war to the end, though they are millions and I am one. I hate the

  people. Between my race and them and my children--for ever war, for

  ever and ever.

  MR. BARLOW. Ah, Henrietta--you have said all this before.

  MRS. BARLOW. And say it again. Fight, Gerald. You have my blood in

  you, thank God. Fight for it, Gerald. Spend it as if it were costly,

  Gerald, drop by drop. Let no dogs lap it.--Look at your father. He

  set his heart on a plate at the door, for the poorest mongrel to eat

  up. See him now, wasted and crossed out like a mistake--and swear,

  Gerald, swear to be true to my blood in you. Never lie down before

  the mob, Gerald. Fight it and stab it, and die fighting. It's a

  lost hope--but fight!

  GERALD. Don't say these things here, mother.

  MRS. BARLOW. Yes, I will--I will. I'll say them before you, and the

  child Winifred--she knows. And before Oliver and the young woman--

  they know, too.

  MR. BARLOW. You see, dear, you can never understand that, although I

  am weak and wasted, although I may be crossed out from the world like

  a mistake, I still have peace in my soul, dear, the peach that passeth

  all understanding.

  MRS. BARLOW. And what right have you to it? All very well for you

  to take peace with you into the other world. What do you leave for

  your sons to inherit?

  MR. BARLOW. The peace of God, Henrietta, if there is no peace among

  men.

  MRS. BARLOW. Then why did you have children? Why weren't you

  celibate?
They have to live among men. If they have no place among

  men, why have you put them there? If the peace of God is no more

  than the peace of death, why are your sons born of you? How can you

  have peace with God, if you leave no peace for your sons--no peace,

  no pride, no place on earth?

  GERALD. Nay, mother, nay. You shall never blame father on my behalf.

  MRS. BARLOW. Don't trouble--he is blameless--I, a hulking, half-

  demented woman, I am GLAD when you blame me. But don't blame me when

  I tell you to fight. Don't do that, or you will regret it when you

  must die. Ah, your father was stiff and proud enough before men of

  better rank than himself. He was overbearing enough with his equals

  and his betters. But he humbled himself before the poor, he made me

  ashamed. He must hear it--he must hear it! Better he should hear it

  than die coddling himself with peace. His humility, and my pride,

  they have made a nice ruin of each other. Yet he is the man I wanted

  to marry--he is the man I would marry again. But never, never again

  would I give way before his goodness. Gerald, if you must be true to

  your father, be true to me as well. Don't set me down at nothing

  because I haven't a humble case.

  GERALD. No, mother--no, dear mother. You see, dear mother, I have

  rather a job between the two halves of myself. When you come to have

  the wild horses in your own soul, mother, it makes it difficult.

  MRS. BARLOW. Never mind, you'll have help.

  GERALD. Thank you for the assurance, darling.--Father, you don't mind

  what mother says, I hope. I believe there's some truth in it--don't

  you?

  MR. BARLOW. I have nothing to say.

  WINIFRED. _I_ think there's some truth in it, daddy. You were always

  worrying about those horrid colliers, and they didn't care a bit about

  you. And they OUGHT to gave cared a million pounds.

  MR. BARLOW. You don't understand, my child.

  (Curtain.)

  ACT II

  SCENE: Evening of the same day. Drawing-room at Lilly Close. MR.

  BARLOW, GERALD, WINIFRED, ANABEL OLIVER present. Butler pours

  coffee.

  MR. BARLOW. And you are quite a stranger in these parts, Miss Wrath?

  ANABEL. Practically. But I was born at Derby.

  MR. BARLOW. I was born in this house--but it was a different affair

  then: my father was a farmer, you know. The coal has brought us what

  moderate wealth we have. Of course, we were never poor or needy--

  farmers, substantial farmers. And I think we were happier so--yes.--

  Winnie, dear, hand Miss Wrath the sweets. I hope they're good. I

  ordered them from London for you.--Oliver, my boy, have you everything

  you like? That's right.--It gives me such pleasure to see a little

  festive gathering in this room again. I wish Bertie and Elinor might

  be here. What time is it, Gerald?

  GERALD. A quarter to nine, father.

  MR. BARLOW. Not late yet. I can sit with you another half-hour. I

  am feeling better to-day. Winifred, sing something for us.

  WINIFRED. Something jolly, father?

  MR. BARLOW. Very jolly, darling.

  WINIFRED. I'll sing "The Lincolnshire Poacher," shall I?

  MR. BARLOW. Do, darling, and we'll all join in the chorus.--Will you

  join in the chorus, Miss Wrath?

  ANABEL. I will. It is a good song.

  MR. BARLOW. Yes, isn't it!

  WINIFRED. All dance for the chorus, as well as singing.

  (They sing; some pirouette a little for the chorus.)