:iiliiiitiiiili i 1 !l!lii!i!ll!l!illl!itl1lll ii:niiiiKiiiiii!ii!ii:i;;r)'i::iii!iiii'iii!!;5;i!;:ii!i!!H!i!!!!!!:::iiii!!;;ii!^i^^^ i' ' J?ftii-;:i!iiiii;iiiiiiiii;;;i!!i|nii;;:ii!i;;;i^ pm s^iiiSP'--'- '^^^^^ ' , iii i j^ f} ;;;;;i!i!. ;!;;;:;nl;!!,!!!!liiiiii;.i!im„!l;;;;;iii !;;;::;;ii;mi!lifi,il!!.!!!!!!!iiiiiiiii!u§X^H; ^iijllj il THE NEXT REl ;;i THE NEH REL w^mmm iiii iiin! nni ii ! I ' M i I i I '' ■ M .-:,:>:'l^;;lJ!i 'n'*;iill! nil hill'lltnlltlllili'lll'Miilllil'.H.illlV ISRAELZANQMILL |;j'i;;;;ililiiiiiiiii!i!f'jiillli; i:inii;;:i..iiiM BURR [Opening eyes] Joanna ! . . . Why, where be \l MARY Thank God I STEPHEN You're here — in my house. BURR [Rubbing his forehead] I feel fuzzy . . . Hairy flukes, did you say, in my brain-pan ? OAKSHOTT [Starting forward with raised hammer] You son of Belial ! [Agitation in crowd.] 6i MARY [Springing up] Back ! [His hammer falls slowly under her gaze.] BURR [Sitting up] Ah, I mind me now. [Looks at his dragging watch, and puts it in the fob in the zuaistband of his trousers.] Eli there thought he was God. STEPHEN Yes, Thor with his hammer. SQUIRE God can do His own work, Eli Oakshott. Think yourself lucky you've escaped the gallows. OAKSHOTT I'd go to the gallows for God any day. SQUIRE You'll have to go to gaol for assault this day. BURR [Struggling to his feet] And what good will that do me ? I won't prosecute the village idiot, [blacksmith maizes menacing move.] And what else be you in a manner of speaking ? There's always summat wanting in a bachelor-man — he's got no troubles so he has to make 'em. Where's my hat ? AN OLD GAFFER Here it be ! [Hands forzuard the high hat, an inglorious wreck, with a great gash in the middle. Titter of crowd.] 62 BURR [Surveying it ruefully] Holey ! . . . ' Like the blacksmith's Bible. SQUIRE Silence, man ! After Mrs. Trame has OAKSHOTT I wish I'd bashed his brains out. BURR You agree with Squire — this bain't no place for a man with brains ! SQUIRE [To oakshott] You'll buy him a new hat at least. BURR I wouldn't take his hat. I'll keep this as a trophy of Christian love in a manner of speaking — hand it down to my childer's childer — [Sticks his fi?iger through iti to keep it holey. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! [Exit, twirling it on his finger."] SQUIRE Get along, you pack of idlers. [Crowd vanishes with curtseying and fulling of locks.] Well, blacksmith, what are you waiting for ? OAKSHOTT For the handcuffs. I made 'em myself. SQUIRE Go back to your forge. 63 OAKSHOTT As you please. But I tell you, Squire, every spark I beat out will seem a soul sent to hell through that Satan-serpent. [Exit by casement.'] STEPHEN Oh, this cursed theology. [Exit abruptly into his room.] SQUIRE What's the matter with your husband ? MARY He — [Picks up cushion from floor] he's been over- working. SQUIRE Send him out with the guns. We begin to-morrow on the pheasants and my dogs'll MARY No, no, he can't bear hurting things. [Replaces cushion.] SQUIRE Fiddlesticks. What did God Almighty make phea- sants for ? WILFRED Squire ! [Pulls his coat.] SQUIRE Yes, my lad. [Patting his head.] 64 WILFRED Why won't you be happy xu heaven unless the cherubs curtsey ? SQUIRE [Reddening] Why — what ? MARY [Blushing, confused] You silly boy. Here — eat a banana. [Hastily.] And then you see my husband's eyes are not much use for shooting. SQUIRE Well, he wants something for his liver. [Paternally.] Try squills [Shakes her hand in genial farewell. At window] or sarsaparilla. [^atz/.] MARY You naughty boy ! And to go again to that forge ! [His face gets distorted?^ No, don't cry. My petsy played the organ beautifully. [Snatches him to her breast.] Oh, Wilfred, promise me you will always say your prayers ! WILFRED [Munching banana] Of course, mummy. MARY My sweetest ! Say them now. WILFRED [Mu7iching] But I said them this morning. 65 E MARY Then say to-night's prayers* WILFRED [Munching] But it's morning. MARY Oh, say them 1 WILFRED [In a breathless murjnur] Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation ; But deliver us from evil : For Thine is the kingdom, The power and the glory, For ever and ever [Resumes banana.] MARY [fVho has followed with her lips, especially emphasising " tetnptationy^^ ends with hifn, sobbingly] Amen ! [Catches hi?n up and covering him zviih kisses carries hi?n towards r. door.] WILFRED [In tearful alarm] But I'm not going to bed P MARY No, no, pet — but your hair wants brushing. It's like Struwwelpeter's. 66 WILFRED [Jt exit] But I won't say 'em again to-night. \_Exeunt. After a brief -pause door l. opens and STEPHEN peeps in. Reassured he lets the door dose, then returns somezuhat stealthily with a shabby kit-bag, takes a book here and there and throws it in.] STEPHEN Ah, my spare glasses ! [Picks up case from table, then starts as at a creaking door. Again reassured, he throws in a little box.] Paper pins are always useful. [Peers around.] There'' s my slippers ! [Picks them up under a chair. Re-enter mary door R.] MARY Stephen ! What areyoAX doing ? STEPHEN [Disconcerted, slippers in hand] I meant to spare you the pain of parting. MARY You are going away? STEPHEN I can bear it no longer. MARY [Hysterically] You don't love me ! 67 STEPHEN You know it isn't that. You'll have Wilfred to love. Sell what you like and I'll send you all I can. MARY Because the blacksmith struck Farmer Burr ! You want to pretend that's Christianity ! STEPHEN It's one sort of Christianity ! MARY Have / ever struck anybody with hammers ? STEPHEN Don't be childish. In my heart of hearts I envied the blacksmith. MARY Envied him ? STEPHEN Dare / strike a blow for God ? MARY God forbid ! I'd rather see you struck down like Farmer Burr. STEPHEN Yes, Mary, if I could be struck down like him — in defence of my real belief. [^Puts slippers in bagJ\ A small farmer and a blacksmith — and they put me to shame ! 68 MARY You shall not go, \_She snatches at the hag."] STEPHEN I follow the Holy Ghost, MARY And break your marriage vow. STEPHEN No — you break that. MARY I? STEPHEN Didn't you quote St. Paul ? MARY {Wincing\ Stephen, do you remember that day in Madrid — the day you bought me the mantilla I STEPHEN How can I forget our honeymoon ? MARY And now I and the child are nothing to you. STEPHEN " Unless a man hateth his father and his mother ! " 69 MARY That's what our Lord said. But you don't believe in Him. STEPHEN I do more — I repeat his experience, however humbly. I see that every reformer must repeat his Passion. MARY And what about my suffering t STEPHEN It is part of the price. MARY The price of what ? STEPHEN Of establishing the next religion. MARY You establish the next religion ! You can't even pack your bag. Look at it ! STEPHEN Oh, it'll do. MARY One sock ; where's the other? STEPHEN It's there somewhere. 70 MARY [Feeling] Where ? [Pulls out a book.'] What do you want with that ? STEPHEN [Fretfully] My Pilgrim's Progress ! Let it be. MARY Pilgrim'' s Progress ! My crochet-patterns. [Throws it out half in laughter,, half in tears. Feeling further.] I don't see that sock. [Seriotisly] Good heavens ! Your sponge has sopped your nightshirt. [Brings shirt out.] You can't wear that ! STEPHEN Yes, I can. [Takes it from her and thrusts it back.] My landlady will dry it. MARY And who's she ? STEPHEN How should I know ? Somebody in Bloomsbury, I suppose, near the British Museum. MARY That's all you're fit for — a museum ! [Brings out the tin trumpet.] And that ought to be exhibited, too ! STEPHEN What's the matter with my shoe-horn ? 71 MARY [Blozos it with a wan smile] Wilfred's trumpet. I thought it was for the next religion — to call the faithful together. [Throws it aside.] And ^^(fr^f'j the comb I lost last Christmas! I suppose thafs for the Bloomsbury landlady. I wonder you didn't pack these bananas for her table. And where's your eye-medicine I STEPHEN [Sullenly] I forgot about tliat. MARY Packs Wilfy's trumpet and forgets his eyes ! [Finds phial on mantel.] And who'll drop it in ? The Bloomsbury landlady ? She'll have a pack of more paying lodgers. [Puts phial in bag.] You'll be lucky if she doesn't pour it into your soup. STEPHEN Don't let us talk of such trifles. MARY [Hysterically] Trifles ! [Pulls out wet sponge and goes to window to squeeze it.] STEPHEN [Sullenly] After all I did travel before I was married. MARY But I hope you travelled with clothes on ? 72 STEPHEN With clothes ? MARY What are you going to wear on the journey ? STEPHEN But I've got clothes on. MARY Yes, the livery of the last religion. \He starts and feels his coat.'] Are you going to wear the clothes of hypocrisy ? STEPHEN I never thought of that. MARY What have you thought of ? [Vicious squeeze of sponge.'] Have you thought of me left alone with an intoxicated cook ? \Wrings sponge.] STEPHEN [Embarrassed] I— I MARY Have you thought of to-night's congregation waiting for their pastor ? [Final squeeze of sponge.] There ! Dry and gritty and small — much better sometimes. [Packs sponge in bag.] Have you thought of how 73 Pm to explain you've eloped with a new religion ? Even if you're a prophet you can be a gentleman ! [Closes bag with vicious snap and gives it to him.] STEPHEN [0?ily half taking it] But what else can I do ? MARY Do ? If you must go away, let us do it as St. Paul teaches — in a seemly and due order. STEPHEN [Drops bag] Let us do it ? Then you will come ? MARY [With a half-sob] I took you for better or worse — for wiser or silHer ! STEPHEN My saint ! My angel ! MARY [Evading his embrace] Hush ! No played-out theatrical words. STEPHEN You give them fresh meaning, [mary sits down at table and types rapidly.] What are you typing ? MARY The text of your harvest sermon. STEPHEN [Peering down curiously] " That Thou givest them they gather : Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled with good." 74 MARY Psalm 104. Won't that be a splendid text ? Come along now, dictate the heads. STEPHEN The heads ? [Passes hand wearily over brow.] My head is splitting. MARY [Half rising] Oh, poor darling ; go in and lie down. [He moves towards l. As she sees him safely passing through his door she drops into her seat. Click ! Click / Click ! Click ! Click I of typewriter, writing his sermon.] CURTAIN 75 Act II A November morning over two years later. A poorly Jurnished room over a tobacconist'' s shop in the Whitechapel Road, giving on a bedroom to the right and on a staircase to the left. In the back wall are two windows., cheaply curtained., with a fireplace in between. The grate is empty and over the mantel are china dogs and a pen and ink. As the curtain rises., a church clock strikes eleven and STEPHEN in shabby lay attire is discovered sitting disconsolately with his head on a dirty table-cloth^ still littered with the remains of breakfast. He has grown an untrimmed beard. The typewriter on the floor near door r, is the sole remainder and reminder of the old household goods. There is a knock just before the church bell finishes, of which he takes no notice ; it is repeated more loudly, and MRS. BURR, a buxom, rosy-faced woman, looks in with a tray and draws back a little at the sight of him. STEPHEN Oh, come in, Mrs. Burr. MRS. BURR Excuse me coming up so terrible late, but there's the Monday washing, and half the childer be in bed with colds. STEPHEN [Abstracted, rubbing his hands'] Yes, very cold. 76 MRS. BURR [Clearing table] My man says as we shall have snow, and London snow, says Silas, be the same colour as London fog. Gracious, but the cold's given you an appetite ! Don't want me to clear away the breakfast ! Not even a lump of sugar. [Shozus empty basin.'] STEPHEN [Uneasily] Wilfred must have pocketed them when he went to school. I hope Farmer Burr's dyspepsia is better. MRS. BURR Oh, it bain't Silas's stomach, bless you, 'tis the man's heart. STEPHEN His heart ? I thought MRS. BURR Oh, I don't mean the heart as doctors thumps with a telescope : I mean the heart as we can only hear from inside. Silas's heart be a-pining for his farm ; he wasn't brought up to sell pipes and 'baccy in a poky Whitechapel shop. STEPHEN He would come to London. MRS. BURR He's not the only donkey. STEPHEN [Naively] What do you mean ? 77 MRS. BURR Them as the skin fits can wear it. [Goes to staircase door^ clattering tray!] STEPHEN [Flushing] I strongly advised Farmer Burr to take another farm. MRS. BURR As if he'd give up being near you ! Calls you Seer and Master, the loony, and jabbers about hairy flukes in his liver. [Of ens door.] STEPHEN In the sheep's liver, you mean. MRS. BURR The sheep or the donkey's, what's the difference ? First the jackass gets his headpiece cracked for braying as there bain't no God, now he keeps trumpeting as God be that gigantic the blacksmith's God be a baby by comparison. Poor Silas ! That blow on the brain-pan was the finish of him ! [Exit with tray. During her momentary absence a few flakes of snow are seen through the windows ; they very gradually increase. She returns with a broom and dust-pan.'\ Ah, here be the snow. Shan't I light a fire I STEPHEN No, no, it's quite warm. . . , MRS. BURR And not a single lump of coal in the scuttle. [Waving it.] 78 STEPHEN {Pretending surprise'] Isn't there ? MRS. BURR [Severely] I suppose Master Wilfred pocketed 'em ! [Sets down scuttle with a bang.] Oh, it bain't no use, Parson. It don't need half an eye to see what's happening and I've got four half -eyes. I shall bring up some sausages. STEPHEN [Distressed] Nonsense ! I forbid you ! Mrs. Trame will be marketing on her way home. MRS. BURR Oh, it's bitter hard the way us women be dragged at the heels of our donkeys. There was I, milking my cows and curing my bacon, when smack ! jolt . off goes the donkey-cart to the New Jerusalem ! BURR [Outside, below] Come down, Joanna ! You'm disturbing the Seer ! MRS. BURR Nothing of the sort, Silas. BURR What be all that jaw about donkeys ? MRS. BURR And mayn't I talk about my own husband ? 79 BURR Come down ! The Master's got holier things to think about. MRS. BURR You mind your pipes and pouches. If you hadn't sold your bees for silver [Bangs door and starts sweeping viciously. "l STEPHEN [Coughing at the dust] I'd better go into the bedroom. [Exit by door r., stumbling over the typewriter on the floor.] MRS. BURR Seery indeed ! [Sweeps still more furiously, A knock comes at the door.] Be that Silas I ANDREWS [Outside] No! MRS. BURR Then come in ! [Enter distractedly Andrews, a young man with an earnest intelligent face. There are a few flakes of snow on his neat black overcoat^ ANDREWS I want to see the Master. MRS. BURR Here's another of 'em ! Excuse me, sir, did any one hit you with a hammer ? 80 ANDREWS Worse. MRS. BURR I thought so. \Szveeps viciously.'] ANDREWS [Brushing off the few flakes] I'm Wilfred Trame's teacher at the Board School — at least I was. STEPHEN [Reaff earing at bedroom door, surprised] Do I hear Andrews I ANDREWS Yes, Master ! STEPHEN In school hours ? ANDREWS I'm dismissed. STEPHEN Dismissed ? ANDREWS A month's salary in lieu of notice, STEPHEN My poor boy ! Not because of — ? [andrews nods.] Oh, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have 8i ^ ANDREWS I had to, Master. The Holy Ghost wouldn't let me rot in cowardice and lying. There isn't a teacher at the school — no, not the Headmaster himself — who believes in the Fall of Man, and every single one I've lent your book to agrees that the Rise of Man is a far better religion. But they all lie low, and I'm left as the black sheep. STEPHEN {With clenched jist] Oh, it is scandalous the way untruth — [Enter mary in bonnet as from street, her cloak just spotted with snow.] Oh, Mary, do you hear this ? Andrews has been — Why you're all snowy ! MARY [Brushing her cloak with her hand] It's nothing, it's only just started. What has happened ? STEPHEN Andrews has been dismissed by people of your religion for professing ??iine. MARY [To ANDREWS] But surely under the Code you have liberty of con- science. ANDREWS The School Managers pretended I fought in Victoria Park. MARY And didn't you ? 82 STEPHEN It was to save me from the hooligans who were guying my open-air preaching. He got a black eye. MARY Well, liberty to get a black eye hardly suits a school teacher. STEPHEN You defend them ! Don't you see that it is all one great conspiracy to bolster up their creed, a remorseless use of every social weapon to stifle [Chokes with rage:] MRS. BURR [Who since mary's entrance has been sweeping unobtrusively at back] Don't you stifle, Parson. STEPHEN Oh, it's too dreadful. [To Andrews] And all because you were so kind to Wilfred that I sent you my book. ANDREWS Don't worry about me. Master. Don't you always say that suffering is the price of truth? Well, I'm glad to pay my share. MARY And your wife and child — are they glad to pay ? [ANDREWS hangs his head.] Why did you marry if you wanted to fight the world ? [STEPHEN buries his face in his hands.] 83 MRS. BURR Ay, that's what I tell my zany. [Exit angrily with broom and dust-fan.'] MARY \To Andrews] But if you promised not to attend open-air meetings ? ANDREWS They'd find some other excuse. You don't know these Christians. MARY I am one. ANDREWS Yes, one in a thousand. Oh, Master . . . ! [stephen does not raise his head. To mary] Tell the Master we'll struggle through. We've got a month to look round. [Abrupt exit.] STEPHEN [Groaning] My one follower. MARY No, dear, there's Farmer Burr, STEPHEN I don't count him. The ground was ready. The old religion was weeded out. After two years' work — one follower. MARY Yes, dear, but two eyes still — and I've been so afraid STEPHEN I know I've that to be thankful for — but only to you. If I had had to write out my book MARY [Smiling] Then not even the printers could have understood a word of " The Next Religion.'* STEPHEN Laugh at me as you like — I shall never forget your goodness in typing what you disapproved of MARY ^ It's not the only book I've typed that I disapprove of. The trouble is I can't get more to disapprove of. [Drops dejectedly into a chair.l STEPHEN What ! They didn't give you that socialist novel after all ! MARY I oughtn't to have stood out on Saturday for sixpence a thousand ; the moment I left it was snapped up at fivepence halfpenny. STEPHEN How horrible ! The labour market is a jungle of wild beasts. MARY I've often explained to you, dear, that typing is a job poor gentlewomen can do in their spare time. I've been a blackleg myself. [Rises.] 85 STEPHEN Where are you going ? MARY I must pawn this cloak. STEPHEN [Horrified] With winter on us ? MARY What else is left ? Wilfy must find something to eat when he comes home from that horrid school. I was hoping the second post would have brought you the publisher's account. There's the typewriter — but we must keep that to the last. [Feels cloak.'] Yes, this cloak will cover a multitude of meals. STEPHEN No ! No ! MARY [With forced smile] What do you know of pawnbrokers' prices ? Why, we shall gorge on this for days — like great nioths. I only wish I had pledged it last week instead of the mantilla. STEPHEN I'm glad you didn't. MARY [Coming to him and stroking his face] Silly Stephen ! Growing a beard hasn't made you any wiser. Will you never understand that the 86 mantilla you gave me on our honeymoon warms me more than all the cloaks in — Your teeth are chatter- ing — let me wrap it round you. STEPHEN No ! [Fending her off] I am aflame — aflame with ^nger against the world — publisher, public, and reviewers alike. MARY There were fifteen thousand books published last year, de^r, in England alone. STEPHEN I doubt if there were fifteen — real books I mean. But I was blind and fooHsh to use up our money in paying the publisher to publish mine — why did you let me ? MARY You would have gone melancholy mad if I hadn't. But there must be some sales. STEPHEN If only I could get the account out of the publisher ; even my threats of legal proceedings produce, you see, no reply. [J knock at the door.] MARY Come in ! [Enter farmer burr with a letter.] BURR An express letter, Master ! I signed for it. 87 STEPHEN [Taking it] Thank you ! My publisher ! ! [Opening it.] MARY [Smiling joyously] Talk of the devil ! BURR Excuse me not bringing it up on a tea-tray, but Joanna's in a tantrum. MARY [Her eyes eagerly on the letter] What has the tantrum to do with the tray ? BURR Well, the trays be in the kitchen, and so be Joanna. She's frying sausages like Old Scratch — in a manner of speaking. Any answer, Master \ STEPHEN [With ecstatic face] No, thank you. Mary, read this ! [Exit FARMER BURR.] MARY [Reading] " John Skewton, in account with Stephen Trame, Esq. ' The Next Religion.' Printed looo cop— 5) STEPHEN [Eagerly interrupting] And none left ! ! Truth will out, even in England. MARY [Reading] *' Reviewers' copies, 71, author's copies 6, Royalty on 923 copies at is. a copy, 13 taken as 12, £^2. 12s" 88 STEPHEN [Rapturously] Oh, Mary ! [Takes her hand] We are saved ! MARY [Reading on dryly] " Accounts payable six months after statement." STEPHEN What ! [Peers at paper.] Oh, but this is absurd ! I'll go to him at once — she'll surely advance me five pounds out of the hundreds I paid him. MARY But you can't walk In this weather. Telephone to him from the post office. STEPHEN What a good idea ! . . . [Feeling in pockets.] Have you got twopence ? MARY Not a farthing. STEPHEN Well, I don't mind borrowing of Farmer Burr now. [Throws open door.] MARY Wait ! Your scarf ! [Gets it and wraps it round his throat!] STEPHEN Courage, Mary ! [Exit excitedly^ forgetting to close door.] 89 MARY Courage ? [Falls into a chair.'] When only the success of an anti-Christian book stands between us and starvation. O God ! [Repressing a sob, she rises, takes off her bonnet, and lifts the typewriter strainingly on to the table. The sound 0/ Wilfred's laughter turns her head towards the open door in surprise.] WILFRED [From below] Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Caught you, Farmer Burr ! BURR [Below] No, no, Master Wilfred — put down that snowball ! You'll smash the clay pipes. [A little clatter oj smashing pipes is duly heard!] WILFRED [Below] Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! You can send daddy the bill. \He is heard running merrily up the stairs and hursts in, an impetuGtis schoolboy, far better dressed than his parents, with a smart new overcoat spotted with snow, satchel on shoulder.] Isn't it jolly, the snow ? Why, where's daddy t MARY Just gone out, dear. How is it you're so early ? WILFRED Bonynose — I mean the Headmaster — dismissed our class ; we had a new teacher, a smug who couldn't keep discipline. We all want Boggles back. [Throws off satchel.] 90 MARY Boggles ? WILFRED [PVtth lofty superiority] Tou call him Andrews. [Unbuttons overcoat.'] MARY No, don't take that off — unless it's wet. [Brushes off the dry snow.] You'll catch cold. WILFRED What ! No fire ? MARY We've been out. WILFRED I call it beastly. And that piano of ours is a jolly long time mending ; really there's nothing for a fellow to come home /or. MARY I wish, dear, you wouldn't use those common words. WILFRED Well, not even daddy to talk to — it does give a chap the 'ump. MARY Hump, dear. You drop the " h," and I wish you'd drop the " u, m, p," too. 91 WILFRED Well, Bonynose drops his h's — " 'Old out your 'and," he screams. MARY [Alarmed] The Headmaster has not been caning you again ? WILFRED I don^t think. Why, he lets me play the harmonium for the hymns. Will the grub be ready soon ? MARY Well, you see you're so early, dear. [Lifts his chin.'] Why, you've cut your lip ! [He jerks his head away.] You've been fighting ! WILFRED Well, I can't let the chaps say Boggles got the sack through daddy's dirty books. [A knock at the door.] MARY Yes ? [mrs. burr appears at door with dish of fried sausages.] MRS. BURR [Advancing apologetically] Seeing the young gentleman come home before the meal was ready, I thought as a few sausages MARY [Taken aback] It's very kind of you, Mrs. Burr, but 92 WILFRED [Alarmed, fulling her dress] Oh, but sausages are scrumptious. [farmer burr rushes in excitedly and nearly over* turns the dish.] MRS. BURR [Angrily] Gawkim ! BURR [Ignoring her] There's a blooming Bishop to see you ! mary' A blooming ? BURR Excuse my language, but 'tis as weak as I can make it when I see blackbeetles in gaiters. MARY [Faintly smiling] Well, you might have said a blessed Bishop. BURR Not when I see sanctimonious side-whiskers riding in carriages. MARY Side-whiskers ? BURR And a mothers' meeting kind of old lady with a face like a harvest moon. 93 MARY [Dazed] It can't be my . . . Mrs. Burr, do you mind giving Master Wilfred the sausages in the kitchen ? WILFRED But I want to see the side-whiskers. MRS. BURR [Taking wilfred by one hand and holding the dish in the other] Well, it's side-whiskers or sausages — ^you can't have both. WILFRED I did have whiskers once in a sausage. MRS. BURR [Leading him out] A London sausage, I'll go bail. [Fiercely] Silas ! You'm leaving the shop unguarded ! [Exit with WILFRED.] BURR [Humorously] Good heavens ! And a Bishop about ! Shall 1 send the blessed blackbeetle up ? MARY Yes, but not rudely, please — you must call him " my lord." t BURR [Jocosely] My lord / [Exit] [mary hurriedly tidies Stephen's papers, takes Wilfred's satchel off chair and puts it in bedroom, A knock at the door.] 94 MARY Come in ! [Enter the bishop of the soudan, a stern sun- brofized ecclesiastic, imposing in episcopal costume, with grey side-whiskers, and with earnest eyes that redeem the narrow fanatical forehead. With him is his wife^ mrs. malling, a stout comfortable old lady with a tawny round face, mary advances half incredulously to meet them.] Father ! Mother I You in England ! [Goes towards them."] BISHOP And you in Whitechapel ! [Fends her off.] No Judas kisses ! First tell me, are you still a Christian I MARY Because I'm in Whitechapel I BISHOP [Angrily] She prevaricates 1 MRS. MALLING Now, now, petsicums, you promised not to bang the tom-tom. BISHOP [More angrily] Who is banging the tom-tom ? I only ask if MRS. MALLING The idea of Mary being a heathen ! How are you dear ? [Kisses her.] And how is httle Wilfred ? 95 MARY Wilfred is quite big now. He's in the — the dining- room. When did you get back from Africa ? MRS. MALLING Friday. — And how delightful to see snow after the glare and the mosquitoes ! BISHOP [In sincere reproof] Always forgetting, Claribel, the joy of salvation. MRS. MALLING Tou see the Christians, / see the crocodiles. MARY Has father been making many Christians ? MRS. MALLING Yes, and braving many crocodiles. While his clergy were snoring through the hot season, he went up a backwater of the Niger into unexplored cannibal country, all alone. MARY That's like my father ! [She goes and takes his hand, he strokes hers half unconsciously.] MRS. MALLING Yes, he has practically won a new territory for Christ and the British flag. 96 BISHOP Under Providence. Not that I meant to enlarge our Empire. MRS. MALLING Nor your liver. But you've done both, I'm afraid, BISHOP We are in the Lord's hands. MRS. MALLING Stuff and nonsense. If you had worn your cholera-belt and changed your wet socks MARY But he's looking all right, MRS. MALLING Yes, after the sea-voyage. If we can only stay here ! Luckily they're thinking of making him a home Bishop. That was why we hurried back. BISHOP Pardon me, Claribel. That was why you hurried back. It's Stephen's and Mary's souls that drew me. [^Re- leases mart's hands as with stern remembrance.^ Mary, some two years ago you wrote me you were leaving Dymthorpe. Your husband was going into journalism and literature. MARY Yes. 97 C BISHOP Pained as I was to think of his giving up the Lord's work MRS. MALLING We thought he might be bettering himself, [bishop glares.] Well, the living was very poor. BISHOP But now — what do I find ? Scandal, deceit, godless- ness ! MRS. MALLING Impecuniosity ! ! BISHOP Blasphemy ! ! ! [Produces book.] MARY Stephen's book ? Who sent you that ? BISHOP My publisher — John Skewton. MARY John Skewton ? Did he publish your sermons, too ? BISHOP Handsomely. MARY How much did you pay him ? 98 BISHOP Eh ? MRS. MALLING Handsomely, Mary. Handsomely. BISHOP We are not talking of sermons but of Stephen ! My son-in-law ! What a tit-bit for the Free-thinkers to get hold of ! MRS. MALLING Or his rivals for the home bishopric ! BISHOP Only this morning Canon Jenkins, who is a School Manager in Whitechapel, told me they had sacked a teacher for circulating a filthy book by an unfrocked clergyman, called Trame. Fortunately he did not remember a daughter of mine had married a Trame. MRS. MALLING Yes, it's lucky we had ten daughters. BISHOP I rushed off to John Skewton — it was from him I got your address — and besought him to suppress the book, the nature of which he could not have realised. But that wouldn't be fair to the author, he said, and with an obduracy that I did not expect in a Churchman and a subscriber to missions, he insisted I must buy up the edition. 99 MARY So it was you who bought it up ! What for ? BISHOP For a bonfire, of course. MARY Oh no, no — is that fair to the author ? You must not — you shall not BISHOP Surely a bonfire of books is better than a bonfire of souls MRS. MALLING And its getting into the hands of his rivals. MARY But this book — it is written with his heart's blood. BISHOP So, according to tradition, are all contracts with the Evil One. MARY You don't understand. It is his life. BISHOP You mean his damnation. MARY No, no. Full of heresies as it is, even blasphemies if lOO you will, it is also full of noble thoughts. Christ will yet redeem him. BISHOP Then you still believe ! Thank God ! MARY Yes, I believe. But my husband too believes, though it is in some strange glacial God whose love cannot overcome His law ; believes, though his belief is a sword between his soul and mine ; believes, though he is a voice crying in the wilderness. Oh, father, you are a brave man, who have never valued your life when there were souls to be saved, cannot you respect another brave man, who dares to preach here amid street-hooligans as you among savages I BISHOP Respect an atheist ? MARY He is not an atheist ! BISHOP A man who mocks at my Master ! MARY He does not mock at our Master. BISHOP On every page. lOI MARY Not in a single line. BISHOP You've read this blasphemy ? MARY I wrote it ! BISHOP [Overwhelmed] You wrote it ! ! MARY On this typewriter. BISHOP On this ! [Seizes it as if to dash it down.] MRS. MALLING Now, petsicums, that's delicate. BISHOP I — I — [Takes hook freriziedly.] Where is your fire ? Why haven't you a fire ? MARY Because of Stephen's belief — ^he goes cold and hungry ; soon he will have no place to lay his head. MRS. MALLING Oh, Mary, you must come to us. We're in our old rooms off Piccadilly. 102 BISHOP Not with that man ! MARY I will not come without him. BISHOP But how can I harbour him ? Think of the scandal. MARY How can I leave him ? He is my husband. BISHOP St. Paul says " Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." MARY St. Paul says : " But the greatest of these is Charity." His eyes are failing — who will look after him f MRS. MALLING Oh, poor Stephen ! BISHOP Let him throw himself upon the Bosom that bled for him — let him recant his blasphemies. MARY They are too new. You must give him time. BISHOP Then do you expect me, a Bishop, to consort publicly with sinners ? 103 MARY Your Master did. BISHOP My Master said : " I came not to send peace but a sword." We are here to fight Satan not to feed him. MARY Who asks for your food ? Pd sooner starve. Oh, I hadn't reahsed what your sort of Christianity [STEPHEN abruptly opens door and enters — his scarf has worked up uncouthly round his neck.'\ STEPHEN My poor Mary ! The pubhsher is in Paris. MARY He's a liar. My father saw him this morning. STEPHEN [Amazed] Your father ? [Peering.] Oh, ah, ah — I wondered at the carriage ! . . . How do you do ? [Extends hand.] BISHOP [Ignoring it and producing book] What have you to say for yourself, sir ? MRS. MALLING [Seizing and shaking Stephen's hand] There ! Don't get angry, Stephen ! BISHOP Don't call him by his Christian name. He has dis- honoured it — and us. 104 STEPHEN Ah, so that's what's brought you. BISHOP Yes, sir, that's what's brought us. [Thumps the hook.] " The Next Religion," forsooth ! You, the nurseHng of Christ's Hospital, the pet pupil, have the blas- phemous audacity to teach the next religion. STEPHEN And pray, my lord, what are you teaching in Africa ? BISHOP The Gospel, sir, of course. STEPHEN Well, isn'.t that the next religion — in Africa ? BISHOP 1 sincerely hope so — though these miserable Moham- medan missionaries are fighting every inch of the ground. And they got in a thousand years ahead of MARY You miss Stephen's point, father. He means why should he not missionarise here as you do in Africa I BISHOP What ! Are we savages ? 105 STEPHEN Yes, my lord ! Precisely what you are in my eyes. As sunk in superstitions, in fetishes and taboos as the blackest African. BISHOP [Smiling loftily'] At least we're not cannibals. STEPHEN Not in the flesh — Pm not so sure as to the spirit. MARY This is nonsense, Stephen. Let me fix your scarf. STEPHEN I'm too hot. [Pulls it off and throws it down.] Your father ought to know that the cannibals of his diocese only eat human flesh to acquire the virtues of the victim ; it's not a mere meal, it's a sacrament — as solemn to them as MARY Oh hush, Stephen BISHOP You dare suggest- STEPHEN Your own black proselyte, the Director of the Niger Delta Mission, confessed at the Congress of Races here in London how uneasy he feels when he has to say to converted cannibals : " Take, eat, this is My body ! '* io6 BISHOP Tell that to the Roman idolaters — you know very well that our Twenty-Eighth Article STEPHEN Yes, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. BISHOP Oh, this is too horrible. While we sweat and fever in the tropics to wrestle with Islam and iniquity, infidelity ramps and rages at home. MARY Then why don't you stay at home, father ? MRS. MALLING That's what / say, Mary — cholera, crocodiles, white ants [Grumbles on.] BISHOP There are three hundred millions in Africa, Mary, perishing for want of light. Three hundred millions. The number weighs on me as I go to sleep, and when I open my eyes, my lips murmur, " Three hundred millions." MARY Well, father, three millions is more than any one man can convert — and that number of heathens you'll find easily enough in England. The sights one sees in Whitechapel alone ! 107 STEPHEN Or Piccadilly. BISHOP I know, Mary, that the devil does not neglect England. It is thoughts like these, Claribel, that reconcile me to the home bishopric. But wherever the Lord calls His servant I will go. MRS. MALLING Well, I hope the Lord will call you where / can get servants. MARY Servants, mother ? With all those millions of tame natives ? MRS. MALLING Your father won't have one in the house. BISHOP Don't make me out a tyrant ! You know they're all thieves and liars. MRS. MALLING Yes, I don't know which are worse — the Christians or the crocodiles. STEPHEN Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! BISHOP [In dignified rebuke] To me, sir, that seems a sad state of things. io8 STEPHEN And to me, my lord, a mad one. You make millions of Christians and they're all thieves and liars. BISHOP We — we — ^we can't raise them in one generation. STEPHEN [Vehemently] No, but we can lower them. That's what we do. Destroy all their race-pride and traditions and local loyalties and moral standards, corrupt their physique with gin and their innocence with clothes, and teach them to call the whole past of their people " debbil- debbil." BISHOP It is debbil-debbil — and our Lord died to save them from it. STEPHEN Well, it has taken nineteen hundred years for the news to reach them. BISHOP The more reason then we should speed up salvation. MARY Father, you don't mean that ail the generations in between were lost ! BISHOP If they were saved, where would be the need of us ? 109 STEPHEN Hear, hear ! ATARY But how could they believe ? They were ignorant ! BISHOP Ignorance is no excuse. STEPHEN It is the only one I can allow you. And for spreading such libels on the universe you are the hero of the collecting-box. And every cottage home in England has its little bookshelf stuffed full of you and your likes. The grotesque vanity of it ! These village brains exporting their narrow creed to save the world. BISHOP Come, Claribel. Ephraim is joined to idols. MRS. MALLING But I want to see Wilfred. BISHOP Let them alone, I say. They are dead to us. MRS. MALLING Don't be silly, petsicums. BISHOP [Thunderously] Woman, hold your peace ! no MRS. MALLING Now he's going up the Niger. Nobody can hold him now. I'll come to-morrow. BISHOP You will not come to-morrow, MRS. MALLING Don't bang your tom-toms at me. BISHOP I forbid it ! [Opens door.] MARY Go, mother, and I won't let you in to-morrow. You shan't quarrel on my account. BISHOP I'm not quarrelling. I'm commanding. MRS. MALLING Hoity-toity ! I'm not your chaplain. I wish I hadn't ordered my Court gown ! BISHOP You mean you won't go with me to my sovereign ? MRS. MALLING I mean I could have sent Mary a cheque. Ill BISHOP r [Speaking \ You shall do nothing of STEPHEN - all \ We are not beggars MARY \ together'] J Oh no, mother, you [farmer burr af -pears at the open door. He carries a hat-box.] BURR [Respectfully] My lord ! BISHOP What's this ? « BURR [Coming forward^ I've brought your lordship a trophy of Christian love. BISHOP [Taking it wonderingly] A trophy of Christian love ? BURR In a manner of speaking. BISHOP [Drawing out the battered high hat, grows pale with passion] What do you mean, sir f How dare you I [Dashes hat on ground.] MARY [Reproachfully] Farmer Burr ! BURR [Picking up hat, sticking his finger in hole and twisting it round] Holey ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! 112 BISHOP [Bashing in hat-box with his foot'] Claribel, if you had come at once, I should not have had to keep this command over my temper. [Drags her out and bangs doorJ] BURR [Twirling hat] Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! MARY Hush, Mr. Burr, I told you not to be rude. That was my father. BURR [Suddenly frozen] Well, I'm — blest ! [Recovering.] But you can't deny this be a trophy of Christian love. MARY I do deny it — the blacksmith was a religious maniac. BURR That's what I tell him. STEPHEN [Puzzled] You tell him ? BURR In my letters. [Picks up and straightens out the hat-box.] MARY You write to Eli Oakshott f Why ? BURR To convert him, of course. I sent him " The Next Religion." "3 H MARY You know you'll never convert him and you are very silly to provoke him. STEPHEN And it certainly won't conduce to his conversion to call him a maniac. BURR I'm sorry, Master. [Puts hat in boxJ] But I did reckon your book would take the flukes out of his brain, in a manner of speaking. MARY Nonsense, Farmer Burr, you will only scandalise the village. I hope he doesn't answer you according to your folly. BURR [Meekly'[ No, ma'am. Nothing but silly texts like " Flee from the wrath to come " and " They shall lick the dust like a serpent," all written in red ink. MARY Let sleeping dogs lie. And throw that hat into the dustbin. BURR [Outraged'] Into the dustbin, ma'am ? MARY That's all it's fit for. 114 BURR Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But this hat be a martyr's crown in a manner of speaking — a sign and symbol of persecution. STEPHEN The very reason for the dustbin. Let the old religions brood over the past — the next looks to the future. BURR, I see, Master. Then I'll give it to your boy for a cockshy. 'Twill save my pipes. MARY Ah yes, he broke some, didn't he ? Put it down to our accounts BURR Oh, 'twas only two churchwardens crossed. Look on the smashed cross as a sign and symbol of Christianity and I can rejoice in the lad's being one of us — in a manner of speaking. MARY Oh no ! no ! You must not say such things. And never, please, do anything to upset Master Wilfred's faith. BURR Never fear, ma'am, 'tis for his faither to do that. STEPHEN [Uneasily] Your shop must be wanting you, surely. BURR Yes, Master. [Takes out little notebook.'] Then I'll mark you down thrippence for the pipes and your lad can stick the pieces in a snow-man's mouth with this old goss [taps box] on top ! MARY Thank you — and how much do we owe you altogether ? BURR [Putting book away hurriedly] Oh, it hain't the price of a pedigree bull ! MARY But I'm sure you're needing it. I never see many customers in the shop. BURR [Shifting hat-box uneasily] Lots come in for a light. MARY That's not business. BURR It sometimes leads to it — when Joanna's around. MARY Well, may I ask how much you've taken this morning ? ii6 BURR I — I — [Tzvirls hat-hox] I've sold two pipes. MARY Yes — as we've sold a thousand books. I'm afraid your little savings won't last much longer. BURR Oh well, the rent bain't due till Christmas. And we've got to go anyway then. MARY Go? BURR- Oh, I didn't mean to blab — my tongue wants a sheep- dog. [Looks anxiously at Stephen.] STEPHEN [Raising his head] You've got to go ? BURR Well, you see, Master, it's the big 'baccy firm, Sampson and Steinberg, that stocks thousands of these here little shops on spec, and I'm only the agent in a manner of speaking. And they say I've got to run a 'baccy-shop not a book-shop. STEPHEN [Puzzled] A book-shop ? 117 MARY You mean you will display my husband's book in your window. BURR It's my big placard they object to most — " A Religion Without Smoke." You see, ma'am, that blooming Canon Jenkins — I mean that blessed Canon Jenkins — went to them and complained I was spreading the gospel of antichrist. MARY But aren't Sampson and Steinberg Jews f BURR In a manner of speaking. MARY Well, but Jews don't worship Christ, BURR No, ma'am, but they worships Christians. STEPHEN But why didn't you promise to remove the book and the placard ? BURR . Oh, Master ! [Exit in silent dignity.'] MARY Now you've ruined him too : iiS STEPHEN He was pining to get back to the land, Mrs. Burr says. MARY But what land has he to get back to ? Unless you mean his grave. STEPHEN He'd be happier as a shepherd. MARY. His only happiness is to be near you. You've hypno- tised what little brain he has. [The windows shake in the swelling storm and snowjiakes drive fast quickly.'] Oh, but what am I babbling about when winter is howHng at the door ? What is to become of us all ? Even our chance of sponging on these poor people will be over at Christmas. [She goes to the door.] STEPHEN [Springing up] You can't go out in this storm. MARY You can't be without food. [Turns door-handle.] STEPHEN [Catching hold of her cloak] You shan't pawn it — ^you and the boy must go to your father. MARY How can I — after defying him ? 119 STEPHEN I defied him — not you ! MARY Before you came — we Had a scene. STEPHEN You defended me ? MARY Of course not. But I wouldn't have him call you an atheist. STEPHEN Dear Mary — \_1akes k r hand] — you are broadening. MARY [Snatching her hand away] No, I am not. It's father that must have narrowed — cut off from civilised thought. He is a hero and I respect him — but I couldn't live with him. STEPHEN Well, some of your sisters live in England. MARY Only the two who are married to curates — and they've both got large families. STEPHEN But you could take your typewriter with you — work must turn up. 1 20 MARY Every meal would be spiced with sniffs at my godless spouse — their food would choke me. Besides, what would become of you F STEPHEN I shall manage. MARY So you said when you dragged us from Dymthorpe. > STEPHEN There are forty-two pounds twelve. MARY In six months — or six centuries. STEPHEN In either case I shall be all right. MARY I have no patience with you. One would think you believed in a Providence after all. STEPHEN I believe in my book. All those thousand seeds flowering ! MARY Those thousand seeds ! Oh, my poor Stephen — flaring not flowering. 121 STEPHEN [Dazed] Flaring ? MARY Like stubble — it was father who bought them up to make a bonfire. STEPHEN [Tragically] What ! [Pulls out publisher's account.] MARY He told me so. Father never lies. STEPHEN But this is worse than lying — it is criminal. MARY Surely the purchaser of a book can do what he likes with it. STEPHEN No he can't. He dare not destroy my work. MARY There's always the copy in the British Museum. STEPHEN [Eagerly] Yes, and at Oxford and Cambridge ! And there were seven copies sold on the day of publication — don't you remember ? Your father couldn't have bought those, 122 MARY No, but in all probability Farmer Burr did. STEPHEN An auspicious omen ! It's the farmer that plants the seeds. MARY He isn't a farmer, he's a tobacconist — it'll end in smoke — that's the real omen — the smoke of the bonfire. > STEPHEN No ! ! Seven seeds are saved from the burning. They will take root, they will germinate. Do you reahse, Mary, the power of a little seed ? To under- mine buildings, to throw off the weight of earth, to shoot up living branches towards the sky ? And I have seven seeds scattered. MARY \_^cepically\ What faith ! STEPHEN Yes — that is my faith. MARY It seems to me as insane as Eli Oakshott's. STEPHEN On the contrary, it rests on reason — on the fact that a spiritual truth is indestructible. 123 MARY If yours is a truth. STEPHEN It is — by every law of earth and heaven it //. MARY Well, anyhow, you^re not indestructible. STEPHEN What does that matter ? MARY A great deal. Before the seed has flowered you'll be frozen. STEPHEN What does that matter ? MARY And if the seed never flowers ? STEPHEN It will flower. [The windows rattle again.] MARY Oh, my poor Stephen ! [She goes to a window that shows only a blinding whirl of snozvflakes.] Look at these endless people, like white regiments marching and counter-marching, urged along by affairs that even this storm cannot interrupt ; look how the snow-crusted umbrellas scurry and swirl, each covering a head full of 124 its own business ; look at the packed omnibuses with their struggling spotty-white horses, the ugly, muffled- up crowds fighting for the tramcars, the hurrying, jostling traffic. And you think that in this mad rush and roar there is room for the still small voice of Stephen Trame ! STEPHEN Yes ! Beneath all the roar and rush, there is an emptiness, a spiritual hunger. Their old creeds fade. They must listen to me. MARY *^^ I tell you, Stephen, that compared to you Eli Oakshott^ is sane and sober. There are moments when, coming home heart-sick from the vain quest for work, I stand at this window, gazing at this grim street as a little bird gazes at the serpent that is to swallow it up. In those moments I feel that we count as Httle in this great inexorable London as the sparrows that must find food or freeze. And in those moments your striving to alter the world's religion appears to me so puny, so pitiful, so hopeless, that I cry over you more as over a baby than a blasphemer. STEPHEN Then it is you who have lost faith, not I. Your religion claims that the very hairs of our heads are numbered. MARY [Staring into vacancy] Did I ever have faith ? I lived so sheltered, so 125 #: c \ protected. Was my faith more than words ? Now, \when T have lived for months with the naked reahties, /with the pitiless earth and the deaf sky, fighting to ^''^keep off hunger and cold, and seeing Wilfy growing \ coarser and coarser in that dreadful school, pray as I j will to a Power above, I feel as if only I — this frail j body — stood between my boy and the abyss, and that I if my foot should fail, we shall all go down into that \ human underworld where the sound of children \ weeping is the worst horror of the darkness. STEPHEN You have not really lost faith, Mary — you are gaining it — faith in the true Power that is not only above us but in us and around us, fulfilling Its boundless Being in that eternal and universal order which is our security. MARY [Shivering'] Such a God ! A glacier, rather. A God who would not move a finger to save me from seeking our bread on that street — among the other women. STEPHEN Hush, Mary ! What a thought ! MARY You are outraged. So was I the first time the thought burnt through me. But one gets used to strange thoughts when one is at bay. And some day — who knows ? — when Wilfy is crying for bread 126 STEPHEN For God's sake, Mary, pull yourself together. Re- member you are a Christian. MARY I am a mother ! STEPHEN This is madness ! MARY> Yes it is, it is madness. The blacksmith and I are a pair. And you — you make the trinity. We are all mad together. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Oh, my God, forgive these horrible thoughts, these dreadful doubts. Help us, oh, help us ! [Falls on her knees.'] Send us deliver- ance from these evil straits, grant us STEPHEN What are you praying for ? MARY [Fiercely'] For bread. STEPHEN That is just as mad. MARY [Frenziedly] Grant us this day our daily bread — why is not my faith as sane as yours ? 127 STEPHEN Because mine rests on reason ; yours contradicts it. If bread could come by prayer, why trouble to plough ? I thought you were learning that this is a universe of law. MARY The Power that made the law can break it. STEPHEN That would break up the universe. We must have stability. MARY Yes — the confidence of being in God's hands. STEPHEN God's hands uphold the law, not the individual. What of the sparrows that must find food or freeze ? MARY I blasphemed. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. [Folds her hands again in prayer.'] O Father, which art in heaven, look down upon us, Thy suffering children, send us a redeemer, send us a redeemer STRANGER [Outside, in a great hearty voice with a somewhat Scotch accent] Thank you, I'll find my way. [A masterful knock at the door, mary looks up transfigured.] 128 STEPHEN [Murmuring to mary] Who's that ? STRANGER [Outside] Can I come in ? STEPHEN [Whispering] Get up, Mary. [She remains dazed with ecstasy — he helps her to her feet.] Yes, come in ! [Enter a burly white-haired presence in a fur over- coat, overflowing with geniality and the sense of power. The whole atmosphere instaritly changes to sutininess and security, mary remains tranced, not speaking for some time.] STRANGER [Inquiringly] Mr. Stephen Trame, author of " The Next Religion " i STEPHEN [Rather dazed] Yes — and my wife. STRANGER Sir ! Ma'am ! [Shoots out a hand to each.] This is the proudest moment of my life. [Pumps at their hands.] You see before you a man as free from super- stition as his smelted iron from slag ; a man absolutely without prejudice — a man who inherited neither his opinions nor his millions but has made both by the sweat of his brow. Can you wonder if your book fell on me as seed on fruitful soil ? 129 ^. z STEPHEN [Still more dazed, murmurs] Seed ? [mary's hajid drops the stranger's ; her ecstasy is shot with bewilderment.] STRANGER Sir, I have the honour to beg you to enrol me as your first disciple I [Pumps again at Stephen's hand.] STEPHEN I fear I can't do that. STRANGER [Disconcerted, dropping his hand] And why not ? STEPHEN There's a farmer and a school-teacher before you. STRANGER [Reassured] Oh, that calibre ! They don't count ; they can't scrap Christianity and limber up your religion for quick firing, eh ? STEPHEN They do their best. STRANGER Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! And their best leaves you over a Whitechapel tobacconist's. No, sir ! The next reli- gion has got to hum, as the Yankees say. [Takes both their hands again.] To-night you sleep in Belgravia, the honoured guests of Sir Thomas McFadden. 130 *■ MARY Sir Thomas McFadden ? SIR THOMAS Yes, ma'am. STEPHEN Not the inventor of guns — ^Hal's father ? SIR THOMAS [Dropping their hands'] Don't mention that scallawag ! STEPHEN Why, what has he done f SIR THOMAS Done, sir ? Haven't you heard ? STEPHEN No, he never even acknowledged my book. SIR THOMAS I don't wonder ! After the thousands I've spent to make a decent modern man of him ! Takes advan- tage of my absence in the States to bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. MARY [Half to herself] I felt something shifty about him. STEPHEN But what has he done ? 131 SIR THOMAS He's become a Christian ! ! STEPHEN Is it possible ? . . . But he was always such a sophist. SIR THOMAS Oh, I knew that if he married that hymn-screeching Helen he would be a lost soul. First the cat gets him to marry in a church, then she gets the baby baptized, and thenfacilis descensus — down he slides into the pit. STEPHEN I think it only fair, Sir Thomas, to tell you that my wife MARY Oh, leave me out, flease. I agree with Sir Thomas. A man who only becomes a Christian to please his wife is contemptible. SIR THOMAS Contemptible isn't the word for him, ma'am. Every Christian is that. But look at the advantages Hal has had — the chance of growing up as free from prejudice as his father. However, he'll have to pay dearly for his pew. Three millions. MARY [Puzzled] Three millions ? 132 SIR THOMAS Three million pounds, ma'am. Fifteen million dollars, in Yankee lingo. That's the fortune I've cut him out of. And it would have been bigger if I hadn't had to sell my guns to Christian Governments ; millions they've done me out of. Ah, ma'am, if I could have my life over again, I'd deal very differently, I assure you. STEPHEN I hope you wouldn't make guns at all. SIR THOMAS You bet your boots I wouldn't ; there's much more money in motor-cars. However, with three millions we can give Truth a pretty good leg-up, eh ? That miserable Popish Cathedral in Westminster only cost one million. STEPHEN But I hope Hal won't starve, SIR THOMAS Starve ? No such luck ! That Christian cat of his has more dollars than I — Munro's millinery, you know. And now the scoundrel has started practising his profession and earning thousands ; just to spite me. However, /'ve no prejudice against him — I shall always be grateful to him for sending me your book, though when the New York Custom House charged me a dollar on it, I cussed like a Christian. [Smiles.'] 133 STEPHEN Was it Hal sent it ? SIR THOMAS It was, sir. With your inscription to him in it. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! No doubt the cat wouldn't let him have it in the house. " In return for the shilHng you cut me off with," he added on sarcastically. A shilling, indeed ! Sir, as I told your publisher just now, when he gave me your address, all the Church plate in the world couldn't pay for that book — though I'd like to see it all melted down. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! [Beams, and begins looking through his pocket-book.'] My precious offspring little thought he was sending me a mission for my declining years. MARY [Dazedly] Do I understand. Sir Thomas, you wish to devote your fortune to my husband's religion f SIR THOMAS A double-acting steam-hammer couldn't have hit the rivet more precisely. I've got nobody to leave it to — I can't take it with me — and I want to enjoy seeing it work before I fizzle out in the crematorium. / had to work for it — now let it work for me. Ha ! Ha ! Ha! MARY You mean, work at remoulding Christianity ? 134 SIR THOMAS Remoulding, ma'am ? [Searching in his -pockets.'] If you'll come to my blast-furnaces you'll see that to run into new moulds things have got to have some substance to 'em. [Looking through his pocket-book again.] Dear me ! What can I have done with it ? MARY Have you lost anything ? SIR THOMAS It must have got among my business papers. Will you excuse me while I look through the hand-bags in my car ? STEPHEN Can't / bring them up ? [Going politely to door.] SIR THOMAS [Hurrying in front of him] I couldn't dream of it, Master. You don't mind my calling you Master ? [Exit.] MARY [With shining eyes] O Stephen ! How happy you must be ! STEPHEN Happy ? When the devil takes me up to a high mountain MARY [Murmurs] The devil ? 135 STEPHEN And shows me all the kingdoms of the world ? MARY [Alarmed] You are not going to refuse his millions ? STEPHEN How can I accept them ? The man doesn't under- stand the next religion one iota. MARY How can you say that ? STEPHEN Didn't you hear the allusion to the Roman Catholic Cathedral ? His only idea is to build buildings, with paid priests no doubt, and a ritual that will run as mechanically as his steam-rollers. MARY But how else can a religion ? STEPHEN And you have typed my book ! MARY If / haven't understood it, how do you expect tne world ? STEPHEN Haven't I devoted two chapters to show the corrup- tions that creep into all religions, and another chapter 136 to show how alone they can be avoided ? The Temple must be of the spirit, not built by hands ; even the religion must be more of a groping than a grasping, it can't be crystallised to suit a congregation, it must be for the individual soul. Paid priests would bring back hypocrisy or — worse ! — dogmas ; cast-iron dogmas ap- propriately blasted in Sir Thomas's furnaces and run into his moulds. A pretty reform ! MARY But you believe something, STEPHEN Yes — something flowing, like life, not fixed — like death : the continuous inspiration of the Holy Ghost broadening from age to age with the growth of know- ledge and civilisation. MARY But even if the faith is not fixed, the believers must be. They must be organised round a centre and they must stand shoulder to shoulder, if only against persecution. Think of poor Andrews. STEPHEN And who is to guarantee the believers won't persecute in their turn ? MARY That is your look-out. Keep the Holy Ghost alive in them. But there must be a Church Visible. Organised, 137 too, they can do some of that swamp-cle-^ning you talk of. Single scavengers with brooms won't do much — you want gangs and stcam-dredgere, STEPHEN [Stubbornly] Works can be organised, not faith. MARY Then go ahead with the works. And you are responsible for Andrews — ^you can give him a post, save his wife and child. STEPHEN He wouldn't want to be saved — at the cost of the religion. MARY But he'd want your book saved — It would rise like a phoenix from father's bonfire. You could publish tens of thousands m every language, scatter your seeds through the world. STEPHEN There's something in that. MARY And Andrews is a born preacher. You owe him a better pulpit than Victoria Park. STEPHEN But / should be the preacher. 138 MARY Yes, but you will want assistants. And there'll be your Training College for your clergy. STEPHEN [In horror] Build up a new priestcraft ? MARY You can't organise the believers without a building, and the building must have ministers as much as charwomen and doorkeepers. STEPHEN Paid priests are the curse of religion. Every man must be his own priest. MARY And a pretty job the amateurs will malce of it. I know those sects with their drab decorations and dull orations. Think of those weird Dissenters at Dymthorpe with their little tin chapel — you never went in or you'd know what inspired greengrocers are like. Surely religion needs the noblest words and the finest music. STEPHEN If the words are true J MARY That is your affair. No, my dear Stephen, the fact is, you haven't thought out the next religion one bit. 139 STEPHEN Not thought it out ? With a book of four hundred pages ! MARY Pure theory ! When it comes to practice you're as much a baby in religion as in business. Because institutions grow corrupt if not looked after, you cry, " Away with institutions ! " As well say, " Away with families — there's so much sickness it's healthier not to be born." STEPHEN But even granting institutions are unavoidable, I'm not going to found my Church on guns. MARY What finer foundation ? " And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares " — that's holy prophecy. STEPHEN You're as terrible a sophist as Hal himself. But I'll be no party to disinheriting him. MARY He was disinherited before Sir Thomas ever heard of you. STEPHEN Anyhow I won't be backed by a gunmaker. 140 MARY Weren't the Nobel prizes founded by the inventor of dynamite ? Sir Thomas made guns as he'd make mow- ing machines. What would you have him do with his money ? The poor man perhaps wishes to atone for having made man-mowing machines. And you — a religious teacher — Here he comes. Better let me arrange with him. STEPHEN [Dazed] You ? [Enter sir thomas, flourishing a cheque ; he hands it to STEPHEN.] SIR THOMAS There, Master ! That's for the first expenses. STEPHEN Ten thousand pounds ! Oh, but this is too MARY Give it to me, Stephen, and I'll open an account with it. [Takes it from him.] Oh, just sign it on the back. [She brings the fen and ink from the mantelpiece and he signs dazedly.] And how, Sir Thomas, do you wish this expended ? SIR THOMAS Well, what I figured was half of it for your husband's first year's salary as general organiser STEPHEN [In horror] No! No! 141 SIR THOMAS [In apologetic misimderstanding] Well, call it High Priest — Pve no prejudices. My tongue fires off business words — that's all. MARY [Hastily] And the other five thousand ? SIR THOMAS Well, you see I calculated that a Temple tip-top enough to wipe out that shrine of superstition in Westminster would take years. So while the archi- tects and artists and painters and paperhangers are planning and perspiring — and we'll get all the eighty- ton talent in Europe, you bet — I concluded we had best buy up an old church or hall to start our services slap-bang. I've got my eye on a workmanlike little place in a commanding position with a ten-year lease — it was in the Baptist line before but I'm a man without prejudices. And if your husband will come right along with me and look at it MARY Yes — ^yes — go, Stephen. [She picks up his scarf.] SIR THOMAS [Intervening] Allow me, Master. [Takes off his fur coat and puts it reverently round STEPHEN.] STEPHEN [Resisting] But what will you do ? 142 SIR THOMAS Oh, there's always a coat in the car. There ! Makes you look twice the prophet. Come along, Master, good-bye, Mrs. Trame — this is a great day in history ! [As they near the door it f-ies open.] WILFRED [Bursting in] Where's my satchel ? SIR THOMAS [Catching him in his arms] And who's this ? [wiLFRED hangs his head, surprised into bashful silence.] STEPHEN That's my little boj'. SIR THOMAS [Lifting up Wilfred's chin] What a bright little chap 1 We'll bring him up to follow his father in the Temple. Good-bye, little High Priest. [Exeunt sir thomas and Stephen.] MARY [Hoarsely, as the door closes] No ! No ! [She snatches wilfred to her breast.] Oh, Wilfy, what have I done ? What have I done ? But it was for your sake, dear, for your sake and your father's ! [She bursts into a fit of sobbing over the bewildered WILFRED as the Curtain falls.] 143 Act III An October after?ioon nearly ten years later. The vestry of St. Thomases Temple, a spacious, ha^idsome, brand-7iezv room, with coloured windows in which Mazzini, Emerson, and Swinburne appear like saints, and brand-new carved oaken presses for the clerical robes, and brand-new oakeji chairs, and all along the wall at back a great table completely covered by a brand-?iew richly dyed cloth, reaching to the ground, on which stand imlit many tall wax candles in newly wrought golden candlesticks. A perpetually lit taper burns before a portrait of sir THOMAS. There is a door r. down stage, which swings towards the Cathedral i?i opening, and a door l. in the middle of the wall, giving on the street and swinging towards the vestry, but now locked and bolted. SILAS BURR, the Sacristan, in an imposing gown of blue with silver spots and carrying a great staf of office stands by the table looking towards door r. His hair and beard are sprinkled with grey and his face like that of all the characters bears marks of the passage of ten years. As the curtain rises, there comes from the Temple the singing of " Amen — Amen — Amen " in long-drawn fugal melody to the accompaniment of the organ, and ere the last " Amen^^ dies away burr throws open door r. and there enters from the Temple a procession of youths in golden mantles bearing palms, each youth alternating with a maiden in white carrying Madonna lilies, burr goes hack to the great table and the procession moves across front of stage to l., then curves round towards 144 the table and as each memher -passes burr, he or she gives him the •palms or lilies and he lays them between the candlesticks ; the procession then winds rou?id to the door of entry and goes out, the organ still playing the Finale. At the rear of the procession enters Stephen, now a white-bearded prophetic jigure in ample and flowing robes of creamy satin, with a long train borne by wilfred, nozv a youth of eighteen or so, and Andrews, now in maturer man- hood. Both WILFRED and Andrews wear gold fillets on their heads and Greek togas. These three figures do not curve round with the procession, hut Stephen, who has now discarded spectacles, being blind, leads the way with firm step to a chair and sits on it. Then, while wilfred kneels by his side lovingly, and he holds and smooths Wilfred's hand, Andrews goes to a press and gets a purple robe which he brings hack on his arm. By this time the procession has gone back to the Temple, burr closes the door, and the organ winds up the Finale. WILFRED [His face shining with enthusiasm"] Well, father, didn't the Dedication go splendidly ? STEPHEN Thanks to your music, my dear Wilfred. ANDREWS Oh, Master, but if you could have seen it all ! STEPHEN I did see it all, dear Andrews, with my inner eye. 145 K Nay, I almost think that being blind made me realise all the wonder and holiness of it more than if I had been distracted hy the sight of the ladies' bonnets or the men's neckties. I saw only the souls — the souls united in the divine ecstasy of consecrating this Temple of the future. BURR Ay, Master, and such thousands of souls and all their faces wet as you pronounced the Benediction. Do you know I had to bolt yon door against the crowd in the street — they would have invaded the vestry. Ah, if only Eli Oakshott could have seen it ! WILFRED [Smiling] You've still got the blacksmith on the brain. BURR Well, didn't he hammer himself on my brain, in a manner of speaking ? \At door r., opening it.] Shall I tell you. Master, when the five minutes are up ? ANDREWS Ten minutes this morning, Burr, for the silent com- munion with the Infinite. We must mark the day. WILFRED And give father a little time to rest and meditate his sermon. STEPHEN My sermon needs no meditation. The True Immor- 146 tality is a theme that sets all my blood aglow. Ah, friend Burr, if only he could have seen it all ! BURR You mean Sir Thomas. \Sighs as he goes into the Temple.'] STEPHEN Yes, that is the man who should be in all our minds to-day — our great Founder ; not a crack-brained blacksmith. Fortunately my memorial sermon will bring him back to us all. ANDREWS The name of our Temple surely does that. STEPHEN Words grow so meaningless. Thousands will talk of St. Thomas's with no grateful vision of that large genial figure. WILFRED Does that matter, father ? Why should we want to live on in people's memories any more than in a future world ? Enough that Sir Thomas lives on in all the high thoughts and deeds inspired by this holy building. STEPFIEN [Playfully pinching his ear] My successor anticipates my sermon. Would he like to preach it instead of me ? [wilfred shudders.] Well, you'll have to some day. 147 WILFRED [Rising] Don't, father. Andrews is waiting with your pulpit robe. ANDREWS [Smiling] And it's rather large for Wilfred. STEPHEN [Smiling] And besides, Wilfred will want something more deco- rative. WILFRED Oh no, father. We must keep to a tradition. STEPHEN I'm only jesting. Really, Wilfred, you've quite con- verted me to the value of decoration and symbolism. [They slowly take off his Dedication robe.] Changing into my ordinary robe now — like the choir putting away their palms and lilies — how well it symbolises the fact that St. Thomas's is now consecrated and the plain everyday work must begin. Not to mention that in ascending the pulpit I should probably have tripped over that train. WILFRED [Js they put the purple robe on him] Hadn't we better lead you, in any case ? STEPHEN Lead me ? When I know every inch of my new Temple as though I had never preached anywhere else ! How proudly and thankfully I've paced every 148 corridor, every stairway. Give me the Consecration robe, I will put it away myself. [Walks firmly to an oaken -press and hangs it u-p.^ You see ! ANDREWS Then we will leave you. STEPHEN Let Wilfred stay with me. [Feels for Wilfred's hand and holds it.'\ WILFRED [To ANDREWS] Then will you see that the organist starts my Requiem the moment father comes in ? ANDREWS You mean " Rejoice, the righteous cannot die." WILFRED Yes — the prelude to his sermon. ANDREWS [Going into the Temple] I'll arrange a signal. WILFRED Thank you, Boggles. [Exit Andrews.] STEPHEN And thank you, my dear son. [Kisses him.] Your jubilant music will lift me to the pulpit. 149 WILFRED Dear father ! Now at last your religion is built on a rock. This glorious Temple guarantees permanence. STEPHEN No. Tou guarantee that. WILFRED I sometimes tremble at the responsibility, far off though it is. STEPHEN Do not tremble. [Lays his hand on Wilfred's head.'] I say to you, as Moses said to Joshua, be strong and of a good courage. WILFRED But perhaps Andrews would make a stronger successor. STEPHEN [Uneasily'] Andrews ? You don't think he was jealous in saying the robe was too large for you ? WILFRED Oh no ! He's quite satisfied with his position as head of the Training College. Still the robe would fit him better. STEPHEN Well, you've time to grow — like our religion. You won't be always eighteen. Oh dear ! [Siiafs fingers.] 150 WILFRED What is it ? STEPHEN I left those cables in my Consecration robe. WILFRED [Going to the oaken press] What do you want with them ? You can't read them. STEPHEN No, but I can finger them as I preach — my pores can suck in their electric stimulus. Ah ! [Clutches the sheaf of cables from Wilfred's hand as a miser clutches bank-Jiotes.] Think of it, Wilfred. Hardly a capital in civilisation without a branch or a cognate church or at least a disciple ! [Cramming them into a pocket of the robe.] Fermentation everywhere. Everywhere the old thought decays and dies, the new is burgeoning and blossoming. I can only see the start, you will live to see all civilisation under your banner. WILFRED But am I not rather the artist of the movement — the banner-weaver, not the banner-bearer ? STEPHEN Because you show us the holiness ot beauty, cannot you also show us the beauty of holiness ? No, no, dear Wilfred [Patting his head], I am quite happy about you. 151 WILFRED And about everything, I hope. STEPHEN Well, you know the one cloud. WILFRED You mean mother. STEPHEN I suppose I ought to be thankful she joins in our social work. But her standing out all these years against our religion is like a deadening symbol of the forces we have still to subdue. If only she could have been here to-day ! WILFRED She is here ! [stephen starts convulsively.'\ Oh, but perhaps I oughtn't to have spoiled the surprise. STEPHEN [Transfigured] Here ! Mother here ! WILFRED Yes, sitting just by this door. STEPHEN But she said she was going to the Church Bazaar. WILFRED At the last moment she came here, 152 STEPHEN [Depressed again] Ah, I understand — to hear your new music. WILFRED Not entirely, I think. STEPHEN Then it was to see the Temple ! WILFRED [Shaking his head] As you passed her just now, she caught the end of your robe that I was bearing and kissed it. STEPHEN Wilfred ! Is there some dazzling light here, or am I still blind ? WILFRED I could read in her face she would have liked to follow you in but feared to tire you. STEPHEN Your angel-mother ! As if anything could quicken me more than to hear from her lips the confession of our faith. But no ! it cannot be true. WILFRED [Opening door, whispers and beckons] Mother ! [mary glides in, her head covered by a black man- tilla, and clasps wilfred in a swift loving embrace.^ 153 MARY [Cooingly] My little musician ! [She releases him and he glides into the Temple.'] STEPHEN [Teaming towards her] Mary ! [Opens arms gropingly ; m\ky falls into them.] MARY Stephen ! STEPHEN Then it is true ? You have come to us ? MARY How could I hold back any longer ? STEPHEN [Releasing her, hurt] You mean because the Temple is built, my faith made visible in stone. MARY Oh, Stephen, I feared you would think that, and it has kept me from you — all this newspaper noise, this blare and flare of glory. But I nerved myself to face your contempt — I felt I owed you the truth. STEPHEN Forgive my doubting, dearest — the truth was so dazzling. MARY No, I deserve your doubt — oh, why did I not come 154 over to you when you were starving in Whitechapel — when you stood alone against the world ? What com- fort my conversion would have brought you then ! How shall I ever forgive myself ? STEPHEN Darling, your coming over to us to-day is such a consummation, such a climax, that I almost feel I would not have had it earlier. Oh, Mary, to think I have converted you at last. MARY No, Stephen — it is not you who have converted me. STEPHEN Not / P Why, who then ? MARY Wilfy. STEPHEN Wilfred ? MARY Didn't you magnanimously leave his religious training to me ? STEPHEN Because I felt that the woman who has all the suffering in the birth of a child has the real parental right. 155 MARY I know your reason, dear. Well, you have your reward. Despite all my pious lessons and catechisms, despite all Wilfy's church-going, you know how his heart turned more and more to your teaching. STEPHEN I knew it was a great grief to you, though you said nothing. MARY Yes, it was a great grief, but it was also one of those sorrows that educate. For I said to myself, if the heart of youth goes towards this religion, then surely this religion is blessed of God to be the next religion, and we that are old and set must cast off our prejudices, we must try to look through the eyes of youth. STEPHEN Excellently argued, dearest. Yes, children train us more than we them, and through Wilfred's eyes you have seen what these old blind ones could not show you. MARY But they are wonderful eyes. [Kisses them."] They saw the young truth such years and years ago. Oh, I could go down on my knees to you — I stood out against you, I fought you, I embittered you, perhaps it was I who stole the light from you. 156 STEPHEN Hush — never say that ! But for you the light would have faded years before. MARY But I lived with a king of men and did not know his greatness — I worried when I should have worshipped. Oh, it was right of you to reproach me ! Now that the world is at your feet, now that your star has risen over mankind, I come fawning and grovelling. [Sijiks at his feet J\ But do not cast me off — let me, too, call you Master ! [Clings to his kneesJ] STEPHEN [Raising her] Dearest, dearest, but for you it could all never have been. MARY That's what I sometimes dare to tell myself — it was in answer to 7ny prayer that poor Sir Thomas came. STEPHEN [Releasing her, more coldly] I did not mean that. Our religion acknowledges no such answers to prayer. MARY But surely the answer did come — and it has worked in my mind that God wished your religion to be. STEPHEN You must hear my sermon, Mary, you must learn more of your new religion. 157 MARY [Humbly] Yes, yes, I will go back. [Turns to the Tetnple door.] STEPHEN Dear Mary [Takes her hand again], don't you see that the only prayer is work ? It is just because there is no caprice in God's universe, just because the hammer will always hit the anvil if the hand is steady, that our Church can look forward to beating our planet into the shape of our yearning — a world of purity, peace, and brotherhood. MARY I see, Master. STEPHEN Good-bye for a little, then. [He lays his hands on her head in silent blessing.] MARY Good-bye . . . [She goes. At the door she turns with a soh^ And you never noticed what I was wearing ! STEPHEN How could I, dear ? MARY Your hands were upon it. STEPHEN Do you mean your mantilla ? 158 MARY [Comes nearer] Tour mantilla, Stephen — the mantilla you bought me in Madrid — on our honeymoon. [Sadly.] You don't remember. STEPHEN Of course I remember. MARY [Eagerly going to him] And you understand why I put it on to-day ? STEPHEN Yes, dearest, and I kiss my saint's aureole. [He kisses the mantilla.] MARY [Smiling happily] Aureoles are golden. [Enter burr.] STEPHEN [Pricking up his ears] Is it time ? BURR Nearly, Master. But there's a new worshipper who takes me for the Infinite, in a manner of speaking. STEPHEN What do you mean I BURR Keeps communing with me. Wants me to bring him to you. There's his card. 159 MARY [Taking card and reading it\ " Must run away — give me one minute. Hal McFadden, M.D., M.R.C.S., &c." That dreadful man ! You must not see him. STEPHEN The son of our Founder ! I can hardly refuse. MARY Not now — after the service. He will tire you. STEPHEN But suppose he too has joined us ! What a wonderful climax and inspiration ! MARY If he had joined us, why should he be running away ? STEPHEN Doctors are not their own masters. ... But strictly for a minute, tell him, Burr. MARY And then you must rest a few moments — don't come sooner. Wilfy shall summon you — I'll tell him. And meantime Andrews can read a Psalm. STEPHEN No, no, not a Psalm. MARY [Quietly] Psalm 104 — the one I took a text from for your harvest 160 sermon. It just suits our religion — not a word about prayer, nor a future life. STEPHEN No more there is ! A great cosmic poem ! MARY [Smiling] And long, too. STEPHEN [Smiling hack] Wonderful woman ! You've only just joined us and already you're running the service. You'll soon be in my pulpit. MARY Why not ? Since you have sex-equality ! [Door opens ; HAL appears with burr.] Here comes your friend. [She hozus to hal, who bows back, and she goes out with BURR, while hal comes forward and the door closes. His face has grown far finer with maturity ; a touch of grey in the hair makes it almost spiritual^ HAL [Semi- sarcastic ally] Well, Stephen ! STEPHEN Glad to see you, Hal — sit down ! HAL No, thanks — I must fly to my wife ; I promised to pick her up at the Church Bazaar and take her to Evensong. i6i I, STEPHEN [Disappointed] Ha ! Then you haven't come over to us ? HAL I ? God forbid ! I came out of curiosity. STEPHEN To see the Temple ? HAL To see what had become of my money ! STEPHEN Ah yes — I had almost forgotten. Well — ^you have seen. HAL That's just what I haven't. STEPHEN I'm afraid I don't understand, HAL Seen nothing, I mean, to justify all the trumpeting and squandering. STEPHEN To justify it ? Of course not. Not if you really turned Christian. HAL Oh, it isn't so much as a Christian that I grumble, 162 it's as a man who sees his millions wasted — millions that might have served some great purpose. STEPHEN [Coldly] I beg to think ours is a great purpose. HAL No — only a great mistake. Unless to split the Church wantonly be a great purpose. STEPHEN [Angrily] Wantonly ? HAL A.nd unjustifiably. You have a Temple beautiful indeed, but not so beautiful as St. Paul's or the Abbey. I see priests and choristers, pomp and pageantry, but your ritual, like your building and your furniture, lacks the historic glamour which comes with centuries of tradition. STEPHEN [Hotly] And the historic error ! HAL Let me finish. I see a hymn-book, but free as it is from the crudities which unfortunately disfigure our Christian hymn-book, your liturgy cannot compare with the massive majesty of the Bible. STEPHEN Now you have caught yourself out. Though we draw 163 on all the great writers, we preserve wherever possible the language of the Bible. HAL The less reason, then, for cutting away from us. As for your music STEPHEN [Murmuring] Wilfred's music HAL Wilfred is a genius, I don't question. But even you would scarcely class his work with Bach's Passion music. STEPHEN [Sternly] At least we do not glorify the Passion. - HAL You glorify self-sacrifice — is there so much difference ? STEPHEN You can't be a very orthodox Christian if you say that. HAL Was Christ such an orthodox Christian ? STEPHEN I am not talking of Christ's Christianity, but of Christianity as it really is : your wife's Christianity, for example. 164 n. HAL [Quietly] ! You thought Helen had converted me. I STEPHEN ; So your father understood. \ HAL I My father understood nothing — well, to give the dead ] their due, nothing but mechanics. I don't say Helen didn't influence me — one can't live with a reverential nature like hers and remain spiritually untouched — ! but what really turned me back to the fatherhood of j God was my own experience of fatherhood. | I STEPHEN i It was just that experience that drove me to the next ; religion. ' HAL i The next religion ? Before we've worked out the ; last ? What have you found more beautiful or uplift- V ing than the words of Christ ? And this religion has the advantage of being -already organised — it carries | the inspiration and consecration of the centuries. STEPHEN And their encrustation of error ! And their petrifac- tions ! , HAL i Then vivify it, scour it, bring it back to the Founder. \ i6s ! Perhaps Christ's own religion has never had a chance — perhaps that's the next religion. STEPHEN I prefer Truth, fresh and living, new-risen from the well. HAL New-risen ? Oh, my dear Stephen, what is there new that is true ? Time, Space, Life, Death, Soul, Body — what old, old mysteries, what terrible brand-new realities, as strange under the electric light as they were under the stars of the ancient East. Think what Science shouted when you and I were at Oxford, and how one dogma after another has broken down. How much is left even of Darwin and Herbert Spencer ? STEPHEN Their spirit is left — the revelation of Science is a method, not a dogma. HAL [Sneeringly] The revelation of Science ! I, a man of science, and a doctor, tell you that we know nothing. STEPHEN I don't wonder any longer you turned Christian. My only wonder is you don't turn Catholic. HAL I am not so near Catholicism as you ! 166 STEPHEN As I? HAL These palms, lilies, candles, canticles- STEPHEN Things of beauty are joys for ever — and for everybody ! Why should false religions monopolise them ? HAL ^ Yes, or make a corner in Saints ? St. Thomas ! Ha ! Ha! Ha! .My blessed father ! STEPHEN I wanted it called the Minster of the Holy Ghost — it was my congregation that wanted St. Thomas HAL Yes — and one day they'll want St. Stephen. STEPHEN That I shall forbid. HAL They will only think you all the greater Saint. STEPHEN Even so they will be thinking of my life, not of my dead bones performing miracles. 167 HAL [Grimly] Wait ! You haven't died yet. STEPHEN Don't talk nonsense ! My followers follow Truth, not me. HAL [Sarcastically'] So you actually think your triumph has been the triumph of Truth ! STEPHEN Of what else ? Ah, you mean your money. HAL No. Money alone can do little. With millions behind them newspapers and theatres fail — so why not churches ? STEPHEN Then it zvas my vision of the Truth HAL On the contrary. It was your blindness — ^your sheer physical blindness. STEPHEN ' Eh? HAL Oh, I've watched your career. Your eloquence and my money brought you a decent crowd. But it wasn't i68 till you stood in the pulpit, blind, that you were a sensation. That made you a sort of martyr — and the more you denounced Christianity the more you illustrated its principle of suffering and self-sacrifice. STEPHEN [Sneering] What wonderful sophistry ! Then according to you I might as well have remained a Christian. HAL [Cheerfully] Precisely. But on second thoughts I don't regret my millions. You have shown that Christianity can't be improved on — the lesson was cheap at the price. Good-bye. [Clasps Stephen's band,'] STEPHEN [Detaining his hand] No — I can't let you go, saying that. WILFRED [Opening the temple door] The Psalm is over, father. STEPHEN [Impatiently] Just a moment, [wilfred disappears, the door closes.] With the same Satanic sophistry that in your Oxford days sapped my old belief, you now try to show that I have nothing new to teach. You forget that I have thrown overboard the Christian demand for personal immortality and taught mankind to meet life with love and death with dignity. HAL To do good without hope of reward makes you even more Christian than the Christians. 169 STEPHEN More quibbling ! To give up a heaven is to give up Christianity. HAL How about "The Kingdom of God is within you" ? That doesn't say much about 2l future heaven. STEPHEN You are incorrigible ! HAL {Going to the street door"] So Helen will say if I don't turn up at the Church Bazaar. Can I get out through this door ? I don't want to disturb the congregation. STEPHEN You'll have to unbolt it, I think. HAL [Shooting back the bolt] Thank you. [Turns back the key.] STEPHEN But surely you ought to stay for my sermon. It's a tribute to your father. HAL To my father ? STEPHEN A memorial sermon — could I do less on this Day of 170 Dedication ? And Wilfred has written a Requiem — but of jubilation : " Rejoice, the righteous cannot die." HAL [Slightly opening the street door'] You and Wilfred owe a tribute to my father. But what do / owe him ? STEPHEN [Sternly] Christian charity ! HAL [Closing the street door] I am rebuked. [He goes back silently to door r., opens it, and returns to the temple. As the Temple door swings to, the street-door l. is thrown open from without, and ELI oakshott's frenzied fig^ire appears with his hammer ; he is older and greyer and fiercer, and without his apron, but essentially unchanged. He slams the door behind him.] STEPHEN [Wheeling at the sou?td] Who's there ? OAKSHOTT The Lord has delivered you into my hands ! [He raises his hammer] . . . Why don't you flinch, curse you ? . . . Ah, you are blind ! I can't strike a man who is blind. [Lowers hammer.] STEPHEN Why should you strike any man ? 171 OAKSHOTT Tou ask me that ! You Judas, who have built this Temple of antichrist. STEPHEN Ha ! You are Eli Oakshott. OAKSHOTT Yes, curse you. STEPHEN I thought I knew the voice. OAKSHOTT I've waited here for hours to bash your brains out, and now the Lord has paralysed my hand. STEPHEN Then down on your knees and thank Him. OAKSHOTT Yes, when that serpent Burr has Hcked the dust. STEPHEN Go home ; go back to Dymthorpe. Farmer Burr is not here. OAKSHOTT Farmer Burr be here. He goaded me to come. And every spark that flew up from my anvil cried out : Go up — go up, for this is the day of the Lord God of Hosts, a day of vengeance. 172 WILFRED [Looking in] Father, you must come — OAKSHOTT A-a-ah ! The son of Belial ! [With a great raucous cry he raises his hammer and darts at the astonished wilfred, €^/6o flees hack hut \cannot close the door before the blacksmith is through. As it closes on the couple, Wilfred's voice rings out in a scream of alarm.] WILFRED [Outside] Mother ! [^here is a responsive shriek in mart's voice, the thud of a falling body, a great panic-stricken hubbub.] STEPHEN Mary ! Who is hurt ? Wilfred ! Mary ! [He hurries towards the door, but in his distraction strikes against an obstacle and remains groping.] VOICES [Shouting^ outside] Hold him ! Tie his arms 1 HAL [Shouting outside] No violence ! Take him out to a constable. [The hubbub and the sound of the struggle go on for a few moments, then the door half opens ^ HAL [At door] Make room, please ; carry him in here, 173 MARY [Outside, in a tragic but firm voice] Wait, let me cover his face. \A -pause ; then the sound of another fall.] HAL [At door] She has fainted. Carry her to a window. Bring him through here ! STEPHEN [Groping] Wilfred ! Where is Wilfred ? [ANDREWS and BURR, Weeping, carry in the body of WILFRED, a black mantilla thrown over the face. A noise of voices and of weeping comes from the congregation ; the door closes, shutting it out.] HAL Set him down here. [They lay the body in the centre of the floor.] STEPHEN Hal ! Hal ! What is happening ? HAL Your wife has fainted. STEPHEN She's not hurt ? HAL No. She was very brave. STEPHEN Put Wilfred ? 174 HAL M7 poor Stephen ! [He takes his hand-l Your boy is sorely stricken. STEPHEN [Hoarsely'] Not dead ? HAL His skull is fractured ; he is unconscious. STEPHEN [Frantically] But not dead ? HAL I will feel his pulse again. [Kneels hy body ; a pause.] STEPHEN [Frenziedly] Not dead ? HAL [Rising] God give you strength ! STEPHEN Wilfred ! Where are you ? Take me to him ! [Gropes.] ANDREWS Oh, Master ! [Guides him.] HAL He died instantaneously ; that's a mercy. STEPHEN [Falling sobbing on body] Oh, my son, my son ! [Feels mantilla^ but does not lift it.'\ 17s HAL I must see to your wife, and then I must notify the death. Christ comfort you, Stephen. [Exit to Temple.] BURR [Sobbing] Eli will be hanged, but the crime was mine in a manner of speaking. I wish I could die instead of him. ANDREWS [Checking his own sobs] Tears are useless now. Burr. Throw open the great doors ; let the congregation go ! STEPHEN No ! [Rises in majestic stoicism.] The service must go on — as the world must go on. Let the youths make the choir-circuits for the dead. Andrews — you know where the candles are. Otherwise change nothing. The Requiem to begin when I enter [His voice breaks.] — it will be his own Requiem now. \F irmly again.] Then I shall preach. ANDREWS As you will, Master. [Exit to Temple.] [burr, weeping more restrainedly, takes the per- petually burning taper y and lights up all the candles in the great golden ca?idlesticks.] STEPHEN [Half collapsing again] If I had only listened to Mary, and not let Hal come ! [Unconsciously his hands pull the congratulatory cables from the pocket of his robe, and crumple them. BURR, the taper still in his hand, goes to the 176 door and of ens it for the procession and Stephen draws himself up rigidly, but his hands continue to crumple the cables into a smaller and smaller hall. The youths in their golden mantles re-enter, each carrying a tall lighted candle. The door remains open so that the noise of outside wailing is heard as a ground bass for the chant. They circle slowly once round the body and back to the Temple?^ ANDREWS lAs he enters] i^an tljat is torn of a looman f)at$ tut a si^ort time to Ube anti is full of miscrg. YOUTHS ^t cometf) up mti is cut tioton like a flotoer. ^t Utttf^ as it b3c« a statioto, anti nebcr continuetf) in one stag. ANDREWS ?Sut Cl)ou, (B (Stetnal, toert, fiefore tte mountains toere irougfjt fort}). YOUTHS <©r eber tt)e eartf) an^ tiie toorlti toere mate* ANDREWS dTor a tJjousant gears in Cfig sigfit are iut as sestertiag : YOUTHS Seeing tfjat is past as a toatc^ in t^e nigfit. 177 u ANDREWS i?ct in tlje fiiifffst life of man map fie itbine flreatness an^ glorg. YOUTHS antj in sijort mrasiires life mag perfect fie. [T/6^ procession has now arrived at door r.] ANDREWS {Leading it hack into the Temple] JHan tljat is torn of a Uioman— [The litany is repeated till the door closes on them with BURR bringi^ig up the rear ; the sounds from without sink to an inarticulate chanting on a ground bass of sobbing which goes like a musical accompani- ment through the scene^ only rising to articulate- ness as the procession in its ambit passes near the door.] STEPHEN [Relaxing his rigidity as the door closes] Oh, why was I not stricken down instead ! [His head sinks on his breast, he is shaken with sobs. After a moment or two the Temple door slightly reopens.] HAL [Outside] No, no, Mrs. Trame, don't go in. MARY I am better, I tell you. Let go the handle. I must go in. 178 HAL [Pulling the door to] You will only faint again. [Key heard turning outside.'] MARY [Shrieking outside] How dare you keep me from him ? STEPHEN [Murmurs] God help her ! [Moves half-consciously towards door.] [A weird silence. Then three great bangs at the door witJ^ a fist.] MARY [Without] Wilfy ! Let me in ! STEPHEN [Near door, loudly] She must come to her dead ! [The door opens a?id closes again, mary with the tearless look of a somnambulist comes through and seeing her husband''s agonised Jace goes straight to him.] MARY Oh, Stephen ! My poor Stephen. [Embraces him, -pressing her face to his. STEPHEN Don't think of me I MARY All your pride and happiness gone, all the glory of the day destroyed. 179 STEPHEN Your face is dry and burning — cry, Mary, cry your heart out on mine. MARY He called out " Mother " when the blow fell. Didn't you hear it ? Just like when he was a little boy and something frightened him. That was his last word — " Mother ! " STEPHEN Yes, yes ; I heard. MARY I've put my mantilla over his face, do you see ? I used to put it over his cradle at Dymthorpe to keep off the mosquitoes. When you bought it on our honeymoon, you never thought of the use it would be put to — as a mosquito curtain, did you ? [Smiling wa7ily.'\ ANDREWS \^As the procession is passing outside] Mm t^at is fiorn of a tooman f)at]^ but a sfjott time to libf anij 133 full of misctg. MARY \Her smile dying] What is he saying ? YOUTHS ?l?c cometf) up anti is rut tioton lifee a flotoer. |^e fitttff . . . [The chant dies inarticulately away.] MARY [Tragically, and as though struggling to awake] Cut down ? Who else is cut down ? STEPHEN Nobody else, dear. They are going round the choir. Didn't you see them ? MARY I saw nothing but a closed door. What are they going round for ? STEPHEN It is one of our ceremonies. The death-circuit. MARY [As if awaking] For Wilfred ? And they will hury him ? [^creams terribly] A-h-h-h ! Wilfy is dead ! My little son is dead ! They will take him from me ! STEPHEN No, no ! [flakes her hands.] They will not bury him yet. [She frees her hands.] Yes, go to him ; you can still hold him in your arms. MARY [Kneeling beside the body] Wilfy ! [She takes the passive hand, then drops it with a shudder as of mortal cold. Her hand hovers over the mantilla, but unable to bear to unveil the face, she draws her hand back and covers her own face instead. Then she rises resolutely and walks to the table.] i8i STEPHEN Where are you going ? MARY God has not given me your merciful blindness. [She gathers up palms and lilies."] STEPHEN What is that rustling ? MARY I am covering him up with palms and lilies. [Lays them on the body.'\ STEPHEN I understand. You wish to keep the face you knew. MARY Yes ; all his faces but this. STEPHEN ^11 his faces ? MARY You do not know them ? [Arranges pahns and lilies as she speaks in happy dreamy retrospection.'] First, the teeny tiny face with shut eyes, and hair like a faint golden dust ; then the merry-eyed little mite of a face with curls ; then the sweet serious face of the little musician up in the church-loft, playing the organ ; then the schoolboy face, roguish and studious by turns, then — but they float and mingle before me, dear kissable uncountable faces, and how could I ever choose among them all, which to have in heaven ? 182 But God has chosen for me — Wilfy's immortal shape will be that of an eager and beautiful youth, with a golden halo round his head, ever making holy music. STEPHEN Yes ; that is the shape in which our beloved will always live before this congregation. And now, dear, that you are calm, I will go to my pulpit and preach of the True Immortality. Come ! [Draws her hand."] MARY {Again awaking^ fiercely] Leave me with my dead ! STEPHEN Your dead is not here, dear ; but as you have just said, in your heart and soul. Come ! I was to speak of our Founder's immortality ; now I must speak even more of Wilfred's. MARY [Eagerly'] And you will tell them he lives with God ? STEPHEN With the God in us. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, and our dear son's death will be transmuted to a higher form of life in the gene- rations that his memory will inspire and his music uplift. MARY [As if dazed] In the generations ? 183 y STEPHEN Yes, I planned that he should succeed me. Fate has planned for him a truer apostolate. Sometimes, do you know, dear, the fear crossed my mind that I was unduly preferring Wilfred to Andrews, even preparing that worst of evils, an hereditary priesthood. Fate has set the balance just. MARY And you can think of such things ! STEPHEN Now is the moment for thinking of them. MARY [Screaming] When Wilfy lies dead ! ANDREWS [Passing outside] dTor a tljousantj ccars m Cl)g sig^t are fiut as pestertraj?. YOUTHS [Outside] Sfeiitfl tljat is past as a loatrf) in tfje mt^^^X, [Their voices grow inarticulate again.] MARY Don't you hear them ? Wilfy is dead, I tell you. And you can still talk words J STEPHEN But he is not dead, Mary, he will live in his music and his 1.84 MARY Stop your words ! Can I embrace his music, and feel its heart beating against mine ? Will it give me kiss for kiss and pet word for pet word \ STEPHEN Death takes much : let us be thankful it cannot take all. MARY Thankful ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Thankful because it takes our beautiful boy and gives us a log 1 STEPHEN We had the joy of his rearing. MARY And the pain. How many nights have I sat at his bedside, sick with fear ! And now, after eighteen years of anxious growth, you tell me that all the glow and genius of his young soul, all the love in his gentle eyes, have faded to — this ! STEPHEN What else can we conceive ? That he will live on in a heaven, eternally eighteen ? MARY And why not ? There must be people of all ages in heaven. [Her face shines with a new hofe.^ Yes, that is why children die — I never understood it before — that heaven may not lack little ones and so be less heaven ; i8s that there shall be croonings and Growings and the smiles of babies in all that ineffable splendour. STEPHEN M7 poor Mary ! Then your heaven is mere earth over again, and all the people who have once blundered into being are to be for ever. Eli Oakshott for example. Insanity is to be immortalised. MARY [Passionately'] And is there not Time enough and Space enough and Power enough to set all these blunders straight ? Aren't you always talking of the infinities and the eternities ? Are there not stars enough, universes enough ? Or do you think I cannot wait a million years and journey a million million miles, if only it was to hear Wilfred say once again — " Mother ! " STEPHEN Such faith should move mountains. But alas ! only earthquake moves them. ANDREWS [Passing outside] ISut tfjou, (H^ iJBtfinal, U)f rt, fif foif tfje mounfams toere firouni^t fortf). YOUTHS [Outside] ft in t\)t MtU^t Hit of man mag fie tiibine grcatncsg anti filOCg, YOUTHS [Outside] ^nti in sijott measures life mag perfect tie. STEPHEN Th circuits are over. [He moves resolutely towards the Temple door.] MARY [Frenziedly] And you are going to kill their hope ! No ! No ! They have children too, husbands, wives, brothers, 192 sisters ! You shall not ! [Throws her arms rouni him.'] I will not let you. STEPHEN [Freezmgly, not struggling] Mary ! Remember, I am blind. MARY [Letting him go] Yes — blind indeed ! But I forbid you to infect others with your blindness. STEPHEN [Coldly] You forbid me ? MARY I forbid you to make this dark world darker. Blow out the last star and I will follow you into the pulpit. STEPHEN You ? MARY Yes, I. Let them hear a woman for once. You and your dried-up thinkers ! I tell you that the great live world will never take your religion, and that even if you deluded all male humanity, the mothers would rise up and tear it to pieces, [stephen turns silently and resumes his walk to the door.] Go into your pulpit then. But — over the body of our boy — I dare you to tell them he is dead. 193 N STEPHEN [Turning, as at bay] And will you dare tell them he is alive ? MARY [In trumpet tones] I will tell them that this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal immortality, and I will cry, O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? [STEPHEN, his head bowed as beneath the storm, opens the door. The triumphant Requiem bursts out from organ and choir : " Rejoice, the righteous cannot die.^^] STEPHEN [Raising his head] Wilfred's music ! [He goes in -firmly.] MARY [Snatching up a great lily, and uplifting it, her face ecstatically transfigured, her voice dominant even over the organ] The Resurrection and the Life ! [She stands over the body that is hidden by palms and lilies. The music swells out in loftier jubilation^ the Curtain slowly falls .] ' I ''HE following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or on kindred subjects. "Of the original plays presented in London in 191 1 the finest was Mr. Israel Zangwill's ' The War God.' " — Pall Mall Gazette. The War God A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS BY ISRAEL ZANGWILL Decorated doth, ismo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.34 Some Expert Opinions "A very great tragedy, full of genius. Its language moves in blank verse as the appropriate ritual of this momentous theme." — Afrs. Alice Meynell. <' Mr. Zangwill is a man of genius. He has put on the stage a play which grapples with reality in its grimmest form. . . . The play is big with the fate of nations. ... No play of our time cuts deeper into the flesh of reality." — Mr. James Douglas. " I admire the courage which led Mr. Zangwill to essay this task of high emprise. . . . 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