Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw [bookstand for reading txt] 📗

degree, and withal a very typical managing matron of the upper class, treated as a naughty child until she grew into a scolding mother, and finally settling down with plenty of practical ability and worldly experience, limited in the oddest way with domestic and class limitations, conceiving the universe exactly as if it were a large house in Wilton Crescent, though handling her corner of it very effectively on that assumption, and being quite enlightened and liberal as to the books in the library, the pictures on the walls, the music in the portfolios, and the articles in the papers. Her son, Stephen, comes in. He is a gravely correct young man under 25, taking himself very seriously, but still in some awe of his mother, from childish habit and bachelor shyness rather than from any weakness of character. Stephen What’s the matter? Lady Britomart Presently, Stephen. Stephen submissively walks to the settee and sits down. He takes up The Speaker. Lady Britomart Don’t begin to read, Stephen. I shall require all your attention. Stephen It was only while I was waiting⁠— Lady Britomart Don’t make excuses, Stephen. He puts down The Speaker. Now! She finishes her writing; rises; and comes to the settee. I have not kept you waiting very long, I think. Stephen Not at all, mother. Lady Britomart Bring me my cushion. He takes the cushion from the chair at the desk and arranges it for her as she sits down on the settee. Sit down. He sits down and fingers his tie nervously. Don’t fiddle with your tie, Stephen: there is nothing the matter with it. Stephen I beg your pardon. He fiddles with his watch chain instead. Lady Britomart Now are you attending to me, Stephen? Stephen Of course, mother. Lady Britomart No: it’s not of course. I want something much more than your everyday matter-of-course attention. I am going to speak to you very seriously, Stephen. I wish you would let that chain alone. Stephen Hastily relinquishing the chain. Have I done anything to annoy you, mother? If so, it was quite unintentional. Lady Britomart Astonished. Nonsense! With some remorse. My poor boy, did you think I was angry with you? Stephen What is it, then, mother? You are making me very uneasy. Lady Britomart Squaring herself at him rather aggressively. Stephen: may I ask how soon you intend to realize that you are a grownup man, and that I am only a woman? Stephen Amazed. Only a⁠— Lady Britomart Don’t repeat my words, please: It is a most aggravating habit. You must learn to face life seriously, Stephen. I really cannot bear the whole burden of our family affairs any longer. You must advise me: you must assume the responsibility. Stephen I! Lady Britomart Yes, you, of course. You were 24 last June. You’ve been at Harrow and Cambridge. You’ve been to India and Japan. You must know a lot of things now; unless you have wasted your time most scandalously. Well, advise me. Stephen Much perplexed. You know I have never interfered in the household⁠— Lady Britomart No: I should think not. I don’t want you to order the dinner. Stephen I mean in our family affairs. Lady Britomart Well, you must interfere now; for they are getting quite beyond me. Stephen Troubled. I have thought sometimes that perhaps I ought; but really, mother, I know so little about them; and what I do know is so painful⁠—it is so impossible to mention some things to you⁠—He stops, ashamed. Lady Britomart I suppose you mean your father. Stephen Almost inaudibly. Yes. Lady Britomart My dear: we can’t go on all our lives not mentioning him. Of course you were quite right not to open the subject until I asked you to; but you are old enough now to be taken into my confidence, and to help me to deal with him about the girls. Stephen But the girls are all right. They are engaged. Lady Britomart Complacently. Yes: I have made a very good match for Sarah. Charles Lomax will be a millionaire at 35. But that is ten years ahead; and in the meantime his trustees cannot under the terms of his father’s will allow him more than 800 pounds a year. Stephen But the will says also that if he increases his income by his own exertions, they may double the increase. Lady Britomart Charles Lomax’s exertions are much more likely to decrease his income than to increase it. Sarah will have to find at least another 800 pounds a year for the next ten years; and even then they will be as poor as church mice. And what about Barbara? I thought Barbara was going to make the most brilliant career of all of you. And what does she do? Joins the Salvation Army; discharges her maid; lives on a pound a week; and walks in one evening with a professor of Greek whom she has picked up in the street, and who pretends to be a Salvationist, and actually plays the big drum for her in public because he has fallen head over ears in love with her. Stephen I was certainly rather taken aback when I heard they were engaged. Cusins is a very nice fellow, certainly: nobody would ever guess that he was born in Australia; but⁠— Lady Britomart Oh, Adolphus Cusins will make a very good husband. After all, nobody can say a word against Greek: it stamps a man at once as an educated gentleman. And my family, thank Heaven, is not a pigheaded Tory one. We are Whigs, and believe in liberty. Let snobbish people say what they please: Barbara shall marry, not the man they like, but the man I like. Stephen Of course I was thinking only of his income. However, he is not likely to be extravagant. Lady Britomart Don’t be too sure of that, Stephen. I know your quiet, simple, refined, poetic people like Adolphus⁠—quite content with the best of everything! They cost more than your extravagant people, who are always as mean as they