Act
III
Next day after lunch Lady Britomart is writing in the library in Wilton Crescent. Sarah is reading in the armchair near the window. Barbara, in ordinary dress, pale and brooding, is on the settee. Charley Lomax enters. Coming forward between the settee and the writing table, he starts on seeing Barbara fashionably attired and in low spirits.
Lomax
You’ve left off your uniform!
Barbara says nothing; but an expression of pain passes over her face.
Lady Britomart
Warning him in low tones to be careful. Charles!
Lomax
Much concerned, sitting down sympathetically on the settee beside Barbara. I’m awfully sorry, Barbara. You know I helped you all I could with the concertina and so forth. Momentously. Still, I have never shut my eyes to the fact that there is a certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army. Now the claims of the Church of England—
Lady Britomart
That’s enough, Charles. Speak of something suited to your mental capacity.
Lomax
But surely the Church of England is suited to all our capacities.
Barbara
Pressing his hand. Thank you for your sympathy, Cholly. Now go and spoon with Sarah.
Lomax
Rising and going to Sarah. How is my ownest today?
Sarah
I wish you wouldn’t tell Cholly to do things, Barbara. He always comes straight and does them. Cholly: we’re going to the works at Perivale St. Andrews this afternoon.
Lomax
What works?
Sarah
The cannon works.
Lomax
What! Your governor’s shop!
Sarah
Yes.
Lomax
Oh I say!
Cusins enters in poor condition. He also starts visibly when he sees Barbara without her uniform.
Barbara
I expected you this morning, Dolly. Didn’t you guess that?
Cusins
Sitting down beside her. I’m sorry. I have only just breakfasted.
Sarah
But we’ve just finished lunch.
Barbara
Have you had one of your bad nights?
Cusins
No: I had rather a good night: in fact, one of the most remarkable nights I have ever passed.
Barbara
The meeting?
Cusins
No: after the meeting.
Lady Britomart
You should have gone to bed after the meeting. What were you doing?
Cusins
Drinking.
Lady Britomart
Adolphus!
Sarah
Dolly!
Barbara
Dolly!
Lomax
Oh I say!
Lady Britomart
What were you drinking, may I ask?
Cusins
A most devilish kind of Spanish burgundy, warranted free from added alcohol: a Temperance burgundy in fact. Its richness in natural alcohol made any addition superfluous.
Barbara
Are you joking, Dolly?
Cusins
Patiently. No. I have been making a night of it with the nominal head of this household: that is all.
Lady Britomart
Andrew made you drunk!
Cusins
No: he only provided the wine. I think it was Dionysos who made me drunk. To Barbara. I told you I was possessed.
Lady Britomart
You’re not sober yet. Go home to bed at once.
Cusins
I have never before ventured to reproach you, Lady Brit; but how could you marry the Prince of Darkness?
Lady Britomart
It was much more excusable to marry him than to get drunk with him. That is a new accomplishment of Andrew’s, by the way. He usen’t to drink.
Cusins
He doesn’t now. He only sat there and completed the wreck of my moral basis, the rout of my convictions, the purchase of my soul. He cares for you, Barbara. That is what makes him so dangerous to me.
Barbara
That has nothing to do with it, Dolly. There are larger loves and diviner dreams than the fireside ones. You know that, don’t you?
Cusins
Yes: that is our understanding. I know it. I hold to it. Unless he can win me on that holier ground he may amuse me for a while; but he can get no deeper hold, strong as he is.
Barbara
Keep to that; and the end will be right. Now tell me what happened at the meeting?
Cusins
It was an amazing meeting. Mrs. Baines almost died of emotion. Jenny Hill went stark mad with hysteria. The Prince of Darkness played his trombone like a madman: its brazen roarings were like the laughter of the damned. 117 conversions took place then and there. They prayed with the most touching sincerity and gratitude for Bodger, and for the anonymous donor of the 5,000 pounds. Your father would not let his name be given.
Lomax
That was rather fine of the old man, you know. Most chaps would have wanted the advertisement.
Cusins
He said all the charitable institutions would be down on him like kites on a battlefield if he gave his name.
Lady Britomart
That’s Andrew all over. He never does a proper thing without giving an improper reason for it.
Cusins
He convinced me that I have all my life been doing improper things for proper reasons.
Lady Britomart
Adolphus: now that Barbara has left the Salvation Army, you had better leave it too. I will not have you playing that drum in the streets.
Cusins
Your orders are already obeyed, Lady Brit.
Barbara
Dolly: were you ever really in earnest about it? Would you have joined if you had never seen me?
Cusins
Disingenuously. Well—er—well, possibly, as a collector of religions—
Lomax
Cunningly. Not as a drummer, though, you know. You are a very clearheaded brainy chap, Dolly; and it must have been apparent to you that there is a certain amount of tosh about—
Lady Britomart
Charles: if you must drivel, drivel like a grownup man and not like a schoolboy.
Lomax
Out of countenance. Well, drivel is drivel, don’t you know, whatever a man’s age.
Lady Britomart
In good society in England, Charles, men drivel at all ages by repeating silly formulas with an air of wisdom. Schoolboys make their own formulas out of slang, like you. When they reach your age, and get political private secretaryships and things of that sort, they drop slang and get their formulas out of The Spectator or The Times. You had better confine yourself to The Times. You will find that there is a certain amount of tosh about The Times; but at least its language is reputable.
Lomax
Overwhelmed. You are so awfully strong-minded, Lady Brit—
Lady Britomart
Rubbish! Morrison comes in. What is it?
Morrison
If you please, my lady, Mr. Undershaft has just drove up to the door.
Lady Britomart
Well, let him in. Morrison hesitates. What’s the matter with you?
Morrison
Shall I announce him, my lady; or is he at home here, so to speak, my lady?
Lady Britomart
Announce him.
Morrison
Thank you, my lady. You won’t mind my asking, I hope. The occasion is in a manner of speaking new to me.
Lady Britomart
Quite right. Go and let him in.
Morrison
Thank you, my lady. He withdraws.
Lady Britomart
Children: go and get ready. Sarah and Barbara go upstairs for their out-of-door wrap. Charles: go and tell Stephen to come down here in five minutes: you will find him in the drawing room. Charles goes. Adolphus: tell them to send round the carriage in about fifteen minutes. Adolphus goes.
Morrison
At the door. Mr. Undershaft.
Undershaft comes in. Morrison goes out.
Undershaft
Alone! How fortunate!
Lady Britomart
Rising. Don’t be sentimental, Andrew. Sit down. She sits on the settee: he sits beside her, on her left. She comes to the point before he has time to breathe. Sarah must have 800 pounds a year until Charles Lomax comes into his property. Barbara will need more, and need it permanently, because Adolphus hasn’t any property.
Undershaft
Resignedly. Yes, my dear: I will see to it. Anything else? for yourself, for instance?
Lady Britomart
I want to talk to you about Stephen.
Undershaft
Rather wearily. Don’t, my dear. Stephen doesn’t interest me.
Lady Britomart
He does interest me. He is our son.
Undershaft
Do you really think so? He has induced us to bring him into the world; but he chose his parents very incongruously, I think. I see nothing of myself in him, and less of you.
Lady Britomart
Andrew: Stephen is an excellent son, and a most steady, capable, highminded young man. You are simply trying to find an excuse for disinheriting him.
Undershaft
My dear Biddy: the Undershaft tradition disinherits him. It would be dishonest of me to leave the cannon foundry to my son.
Lady Britomart
It would be most unnatural and improper of you to leave it to anyone else, Andrew. Do you suppose this wicked and immoral tradition can be kept up forever? Do you pretend that Stephen could not carry on the foundry just as well as all the other sons of the big business houses?
Undershaft
Yes: he could learn the office routine without understanding the business, like all the other sons; and the firm would go on by its own momentum until the real Undershaft—probably an Italian or a German—would invent a new method and cut him out.
Lady Britomart
There is nothing that any Italian or German could do that Stephen could not do. And Stephen at least has breeding.
Undershaft
The son of a foundling! nonsense!
Lady Britomart
My son, Andrew! And even you may have good blood in your veins for all you know.
Undershaft
True. Probably I have. That is another argument in favor of a foundling.
Lady Britomart
Andrew: don’t be aggravating. And don’t be wicked. At present you are both.
Undershaft
This conversation is part of the Undershaft tradition, Biddy. Every Undershaft’s wife has treated him to it ever since the house was founded. It is mere waste of breath. If the tradition be ever broken it will be for an abler man than Stephen.
Lady Britomart
Pouting. Then go away.
Undershaft
Deprecatory. Go away!
Lady Britomart
Yes: go away. If you will do nothing for Stephen, you are not wanted here. Go to your foundling, whoever he is; and look after him.
Undershaft
The fact is, Biddy—
Lady Britomart
Don’t call me Biddy. I don’t call you Andy.
Undershaft
I will not call my wife Britomart: it is not good sense. Seriously, my love, the Undershaft tradition has landed me in a difficulty. I am getting on in years; and my partner Lazarus has at last made a stand and insisted that the succession must be settled one way or the other; and of course he is quite right. You see, I haven’t found a fit successor yet.
Lady Britomart
Obstinately. There is Stephen.
Undershaft
That’s just it: all the foundlings I can find are exactly like Stephen.
Lady Britomart
Andrew!!
Undershaft
I want a man with no relations and no schooling: that is, a man who would be out of the running altogether if he were not a strong man. And I can’t find him. Every blessed foundling nowadays is snapped up in his infancy by Barnardo homes, or School Board officers, or Boards of Guardians; and if he shows the least ability, he is fastened on by schoolmasters; trained to win scholarships like a racehorse; crammed with secondhand ideas; drilled and disciplined in docility and what they call good taste; and lamed for life so that he is fit for nothing but teaching. If you want to keep the foundry in the family, you had better find an eligible foundling and marry him to Barbara.
Lady Britomart
Ah! Barbara! Your pet! You would sacrifice Stephen to Barbara.
Undershaft
Cheerfully. And you, my dear, would boil Barbara to make soup for Stephen.
Lady Britomart
Andrew: this is not a question of our likings and dislikings: it is a question of duty. It is your duty to make Stephen your successor.
Undershaft
Just as much as it is your duty to submit to your husband. Come, Biddy! these tricks of the governing class are of no use with me. I am one of the governing class myself; and it is waste of time giving tracts to a missionary. I have the power in this matter; and I am not to be humbugged into using it for your purposes.
Lady Britomart
Andrew: you can talk my head off; but you can’t change wrong into right. And your tie is all on one side. Put it straight.
Undershaft
Disconcerted. It won’t stay unless it’s pinned He fumbles at it with childish grimaces.—
Stephen comes in.
Stephen
At the door. I beg your pardon about to retire.
Lady Britomart
No: come in, Stephen. Stephen comes forward to his mother’s writing table.
Undershaft
Not very cordially. Good afternoon.
Stephen
Coldly. Good afternoon.
Undershaft
To Lady Britomart. He knows all about the tradition, I suppose?
Lady Britomart
Yes. To Stephen. It is what I told you last night, Stephen.
Undershaft
Sulkily. I understand you want to come into the cannon business.
Stephen
I go into trade! Certainly not.
Undershaft
Opening his eyes, greatly eased in mind and manner. Oh! in that case—!
Lady Britomart
Cannons are not trade, Stephen. They are enterprise.
Stephen
I have no intention of becoming a man of business in any sense. I have no capacity for business and no taste for it. I intend to devote myself to politics.
Undershaft
Rising. My dear boy: this is an immense relief to me. And I trust it may prove an equally good thing for the country. I was afraid you would consider yourself disparaged and slighted. He moves towards Stephen as if to shake hands with him.
Lady Britomart
Rising and interposing. Stephen: I cannot allow you to throw away an enormous property like this.
Stephen
Stiffly. Mother: there must be an end of treating me as a child, if you please. Lady Britomart recoils, deeply wounded by his tone. Until last night I did not take your attitude seriously, because I did not think you meant it seriously. But I find now that you left me in the dark as to matters which you should have explained to me years ago. I am extremely hurt and offended. Any further discussion of my intentions had better take place with my father, as between one man and another.
Lady Britomart
Stephen! She sits down again; and her eyes fill with tears.
Undershaft
With grave compassion. You see, my dear, it is only the big men who can be treated as children.
Stephen
I am sorry, mother, that you have forced me—
Undershaft
Stopping him. Yes, yes, yes, yes: that’s all right, Stephen. She won’t interfere with you any more: your independence is achieved: you have won your latchkey. Don’t rub it in; and above all, don’t apologize. He resumes his seat. Now what about your future, as between one man and another—I beg your pardon, Biddy: as between two men and a woman.
Lady Britomart
Who has pulled herself together strongly. I quite understand, Stephen. By all means go your own way if you feel strong enough. Stephen sits down magisterially in the chair at the writing table with an air of affirming his majority.
Undershaft
It is settled that you do not ask for the succession to the cannon business.
Stephen
I hope it is settled that I repudiate the cannon business.
Undershaft
Come, come! Don’t be so devilishly sulky: it’s boyish. Freedom should be generous. Besides, I owe you a fair start in life in exchange for disinheriting you. You can’t become prime minister all at once. Haven’t you a turn for something? What about literature, art and so forth?
Stephen
I have nothing of the artist about me, either in faculty or character, thank Heaven!
Undershaft
A philosopher, perhaps? Eh?
Stephen
I make no such ridiculous pretension.
Undershaft
Just so. Well, there is the army, the navy, the Church, the Bar. The Bar requires some ability. What about the Bar?
Stephen
I have not studied law. And I am afraid I have not the necessary push—I believe that is the name barristers give to their vulgarity—for success in pleading.
Undershaft
Rather a difficult case, Stephen. Hardly anything left but the stage, is there? Stephen makes an impatient movement. Well, come! is there anything you know or care for?
Stephen
Rising and looking at him steadily. I know the difference between right and wrong.
Undershaft
Hugely tickled. You don’t say so! What! no capacity for business, no knowledge of law, no sympathy with art, no pretension to philosophy; only a simple knowledge of the secret that has puzzled all the philosophers, baffled all the lawyers, muddled all the men of business, and ruined most of the artists: the secret of right and wrong. Why, man, you’re a genius, master of masters, a god! At twenty-four, too!
Stephen
Keeping his temper with difficulty. You are pleased to be facetious. I pretend to nothing more than any honorable English gentleman claims as his birthright he sits down angrily.
Undershaft
Oh, that’s everybody’s birthright. Look at poor little Jenny Hill, the Salvation lassie! she would think you were laughing at her if you asked her to stand up in the street and teach grammar or geography or mathematics or even drawing-room dancing; but it never occurs to her to doubt that she can teach morals and religion. You are all alike, you respectable people. You can’t tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter; but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren’t handle high explosives; but you’re all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! what a world!
Lady Britomart
Uneasily. What do you think he had better do, Andrew?
Undershaft
Oh, just what he wants to do. He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. Get him a private secretaryship to someone who can get him an Under Secretaryship; and then leave him alone. He will find his natural and proper place in the end on the Treasury bench.
Stephen
Springing up again. I am sorry, sir, that you force me to forget the respect due to you as my father. I am an Englishman; and I will not hear the government of my country insulted. He thrusts his hands in his pockets, and walks angrily across to the window.
Undershaft
With a touch of brutality. The government of your country! I am the government of your country: I, and Lazarus. Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you, sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you will do what pays us. You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it doesn’t. You will find out that trade requires certain measures when we have decided on those measures. When I want anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a national need. When other people want something to keep my dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in return you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers, and the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman. Government of your country! Be off with you, my boy, and play with your caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys. I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call the tune.
Stephen
Actually smiling, and putting his hand on his father’s shoulder with indulgent patronage. Really, my dear father, it is impossible to be angry with you. You don’t know how absurd all this sounds to me. You are very properly proud of having been industrious enough to make money; and it is greatly to your credit that you have made so much of it. But it has kept you in circles where you are valued for your money and deferred to for it, instead of in the doubtless very old-fashioned and behind-the-times public school and university where I formed my habits of mind. It is natural for you to think that money governs England; but you must allow me to think I know better.
Undershaft
And what does govern England, pray?
Stephen
Character, father, character.
Undershaft
Whose character? Yours or mine?
Stephen
Neither yours nor mine, father, but the best elements in the English national character.
Undershaft
Stephen: I’ve found your profession for you. You’re a born journalist. I’ll start you with a high-toned weekly review. There!
Stephen goes to the smaller writing table and busies himself with his letters.
Sarah, Barbara, Lomax, and Cusins come in ready for walking. Barbara crosses the room to the window and looks out. Cusins drifts amiably to the armchair, and Lomax remains near the door, whilst Sarah comes to her mother.
Sarah
Go and get ready, mamma: the carriage is waiting. Lady Britomart leaves the room.
Undershaft
To Sarah. Good day, my dear. Good afternoon, Mr. Lomax.
Lomax
Vaguely. Ahdedoo.
Undershaft
To Cusins. quite well after last night, Euripides, eh?
Cusins
As well as can be expected.
Undershaft
That’s right. To Barbara. So you are coming to see my death and devastation factory, Barbara?
Barbara
At the window. You came yesterday to see my salvation factory. I promised you a return visit.
Lomax
Coming forward between Sarah and Undershaft. You’ll find it awfully interesting. I’ve been through the Woolwich Arsenal; and it gives you a ripping feeling of security, you know, to think of the lot of beggars we could kill if it came to fighting. To Undershaft, with sudden solemnity. Still, it must be rather an awful reflection for you, from the religious point of view as it were. You’re getting on, you know, and all that.
Sarah
You don’t mind Cholly’s imbecility, papa, do you?
Lomax
Much taken aback. Oh I say!
Undershaft
Mr. Lomax looks at the matter in a very proper spirit, my dear.
Lomax
Just so. That’s all I meant, I assure you.
Sarah
Are you coming, Stephen?
Stephen
Well, I am rather busy—er—Magnanimously. Oh well, yes: I’ll come. That is, if there is room for me.
Undershaft
I can take two with me in a little motor I am experimenting with for field use. You won’t mind its being rather unfashionable. It’s not painted yet; but it’s bullet proof.
Lomax
Appalled at the prospect of confronting Wilton Crescent in an unpainted motor. Oh I say!
Sarah
The carriage for me, thank you. Barbara doesn’t mind what she’s seen in.
Lomax
I say, Dolly old chap: do you really mind the car being a guy? Because of course if you do I’ll go in it. Still—
Cusins
I prefer it.
Lomax
Thanks awfully, old man. Come, Sarah. He hurries out to secure his seat in the carriage. Sarah follows him.
Cusins
Moodily walking across to Lady Britomart’s writing table. Why are we two coming to this Works Department of Hell? that is what I ask myself.
Barbara
I have always thought of it as a sort of pit where lost creatures with blackened faces stirred up smoky fires and were driven and tormented by my father. Is it like that, dad?
Undershaft
Scandalized. My dear! It is a spotlessly clean and beautiful hillside town.
Cusins
With a Methodist chapel? Oh do say there’s a Methodist chapel.
Undershaft
There are two: a primitive one and a sophisticated one. There is even an Ethical Society; but it is not much patronized, as my men are all strongly religious. In the High Explosives Sheds they object to the presence of Agnostics as unsafe.
Cusins
And yet they don’t object to you!
Barbara
Do they obey all your orders?
Undershaft
I never give them any orders. When I speak to one of them it is “Well, Jones, is the baby doing well? and has Mrs. Jones made a good recovery?” “Nicely, thank you, sir.” And that’s all.
Cusins
But Jones has to be kept in order. How do you maintain discipline among your men?
Undershaft
I don’t. They do. You see, the one thing Jones won’t stand is any rebellion from the man under him, or any assertion of social equality between the wife of the man with 4 shillings a week less than himself and Mrs. Jones! Of course they all rebel against me, theoretically. Practically, every man of them keeps the man just below him in his place. I never meddle with them. I never bully them. I don’t even bully Lazarus. I say that certain things are to be done; but I don’t order anybody to do them. I don’t say, mind you, that there is no ordering about and snubbing and even bullying. The men snub the boys and order them about; the carmen snub the sweepers; the artisans snub the unskilled laborers; the foremen drive and bully both the laborers and artisans; the assistant engineers find fault with the foremen; the chief engineers drop on the assistants; the departmental managers worry the chiefs; and the clerks have tall hats and hymnbooks and keep up the social tone by refusing to associate on equal terms with anybody. The result is a colossal profit, which comes to me.
Cusins
Revolted. You really are a—well, what I was saying yesterday.
Barbara
What was he saying yesterday?
Undershaft
Never mind, my dear. He thinks I have made you unhappy. Have I?
Barbara
Do you think I can be happy in this vulgar silly dress? I! who have worn the uniform. Do you understand what you have done to me? Yesterday I had a man’s soul in my hand. I set him in the way of life with his face to salvation. But when we took your money he turned back to drunkenness and derision. With intense conviction. I will never forgive you that. If I had a child, and you destroyed its body with your explosives—if you murdered Dolly with your horrible guns—I could forgive you if my forgiveness would open the gates of heaven to you. But to take a human soul from me, and turn it into the soul of a wolf! that is worse than any murder.
Undershaft
Does my daughter despair so easily? Can you strike a man to the heart and leave no mark on him?
Barbara
Her face lighting up. Oh, you are right: he can never be lost now: where was my faith?
Cusins
Oh, clever clever devil!
Barbara
You may be a devil; but God speaks through you sometimes. She takes her father’s hands and kisses them. You have given me back my happiness: I feel it deep down now, though my spirit is troubled.
Undershaft
You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.
Barbara
Well, take me to the factory of death, and let me learn something more. There must be some truth or other behind all this frightful irony. Come, Dolly. She goes out.
Cusins
My guardian angel! To Undershaft. Avaunt! He follows Barbara.
Stephen
Quietly, at the writing table. You must not mind Cusins, father. He is a very amiable good fellow; but he is a Greek scholar and naturally a little eccentric.
Undershaft
Ah, quite so. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. He goes out.
Stephen smiles patronizingly; buttons his coat responsibly; and crosses the room to the door. Lady Britomart, dressed for out-of-doors, opens it before he reaches it. She looks round for the others; looks at Stephen; and turns to go without a word.
Stephen
Embarrassed. Mother—
Lady Britomart
Don’t be apologetic, Stephen. And don’t forget that you have outgrown your mother. She goes out.