George Bernard Shaw. MAN AND SUPERMAN |
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TANNER. Ramsden: do you know what that is? RAMSDEN. [loftily] No, Sir. TANNER. It's a copy of Whitefield's will. Ann got it this morning. RAMSDEN. When you say Ann, you mean, I presume, Miss Whitefield. TANNER. I mean our Ann, your Ann, Tavy's Ann, and now, Heaven help me, my Ann! OCTAVIUS. [rising, very pale] What do you mean? TANNER. Mean! [He holds up the will]. Do you know who is appointed Ann's guardian by this will? RAMSDEN. [coolly] I believe I am. TANNER. You! You and I, man. I! I!! I!!! Both of us! [He flings the will down on the writing table]. RAMSDEN. You! Impossible. TANNER. It's only too hideously true. [He throws himself into Octavius's chair]. Ramsden: get me out of it somehow. You don't know Ann as well as I do. She'll commit every crime a respectable woman can; and she'll justify every one of them by saying that it was the wish of her guardians. She'll put everything on us; and we shall have no more control over her than a couple of mice over a cat. OCTAVIUS. Jack: I wish you wouldn't talk like that about Ann. TANNER. This chap's in love with her: that's another complication. Well, she'll either jilt him and say I didn't approve of him, or marry him and say you ordered her to. I tell you, this is the most staggering blow that has ever fallen on a man of my age and temperament. RAMSDEN. Let me see that will, sir. [He goes to the writing table and picks it up]. I cannot believe that my old friend Whitefield would have shown such a want of confidence in me as to associate me with— [His countenance falls as he reads]. TANNER. It's all my own doing: that's the horrible irony of it. He told me one day that you were to be Ann's guardian; and like a fool I began arguing with him about the folly of leaving a young woman under the control of an old man with obsolete ideas. RAMSDEN. [stupended] My ideas obsolete!!!!! TANNER. Totally. I had just finished an essay called Down with Government by the Greyhaired; and I was full of arguments and illustrations. I said the proper thing was to combine the experience of an old hand with the vitality of a young one. Hang me if he didn't take me at my word and alter his will—it's dated only a fortnight after that conversation—appointing me as joint guardian with you! RAMSDEN. [pale and determined] I shall refuse to act. TANNER. What's the good of that? I've been refusing all the way from Richmond; but Ann keeps on saying that of course she's only an orphan; and that she can't expect the people who were glad to come to the house in her father's time to trouble much about her now. That's the latest game. An orphan! It's like hearing an ironclad talk about being at the mercy of the winds and waves. OCTAVIUS. This is not fair, Jack. She is an orphan. And you ought to stand by her. TANNER. Stand by her! What danger is she in? She has the law on her side; she has popular sentiment on her side; she has plenty of money and no conscience. All she wants with me is to load up all her moral responsibilities on me, and do as she likes at the expense of my character. I can't control her; and she can compromise me as much as she likes. I might as well be her husband. RAMSDEN. You can refuse to accept the guardianship. I shall certainly refuse to hold it jointly with you. TANNER. Yes; and what will she say to that? what does she say to it? Just that her father's wishes are sacred to her, and that she shall always look up to me as her guardian whether I care to face the responsibility or not. Refuse! You might as well refuse to accept the embraces of a boa constrictor when once it gets round your neck. OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is not kind to me, Jack. TANNER. [rising and going to Octavius to console him, but still lamenting] If he wanted a young guardian, why didn't he appoint Tavy? RAMSDEN. Ah! why indeed? OCTAVIUS. I will tell you. He sounded me about it; but I refused the trust because I loved her. I had no right to let myself be forced on her as a guardian by her father. He spoke to her about it; and she said I was right. You know I love her, Mr Ramsden; and Jack knows it too. If Jack loved a woman, I would not compare her to a boa constrictor in his presence, however much I might dislike her [he sits down between the busts and turns his face to the wall]. RAMSDEN. I do not believe that Whitefield was in his right senses when he made that will. You have admitted that he made it under your influence. TANNER. You ought to be pretty well obliged to me for my influence. He leaves you two thousand five hundred for your trouble. He leaves Tavy a dowry for his sister and five thousand for himself. OCTAVIUS. [his tears flowing afresh] Oh, I can't take it. He was too good to us. TANNER. You won't get it, my boy, if Ramsden upsets the will. RAMSDEN. Ha! I see. You have got me in a cleft stick. TANNER. He leaves me nothing but the charge of Ann's morals, on the ground that I have already more money than is good for me. That shows that he had his wits about him, doesn't it? RAMSDEN. [grimly] I admit that. OCTAVIUS. [rising and coming from his refuge by the wall] Mr Ramsden: I think you are prejudiced against Jack. He is a man of honor, and incapable of abusing— TANNER. Don't, Tavy: you'll make me ill. I am not a man of honor: I am a man struck down by a dead hand. Tavy: you must marry her after all and take her off my hands. And I had set my heart on saving you from her! OCTAVIUS. Oh, Jack, you talk of saving me from my highest happiness. TANNER. Yes, a lifetime of happiness. If it were only the first half hour's happiness, Tavy, I would buy it for you with my last penny. But a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth. RAMSDEN. [violently] Stuff, sir. Talk sense; or else go and waste someone else's time: I have something better to do than listen to your fooleries [he positively kicks his way to his table and resumes his seat]. |
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