60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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      LADY CICELY (naively). Bless me, that’s quite true; and I never thought of it! Oh, after that you really must do all you can to help Captain Brassbound.

      RANKIN (reservedly). No: I cannot say that, Leddy Ceecily. I doubt he has imposed on your good nature and sweet disposeetion. I had a crack with the Cadi as well as with Sir Howrrd; and there is little question in my mind but that Captain Brassbound is no better than a breegand.

      LADY CICELY (apparently deeply impressed). I wonder whether he can be, Mr. Rankin. If you think so, that’s heavily against him in my opinion, because you have more knowledge of men than anyone else here. Perhaps I’m mistaken. I only thought you might like to help him as the son of your old friend.

      RANKIN (startled). The son of my old friend! What d’ye mean?

      LADY CICELY. Oh! Didn’t Sir Howard tell you that? Why, Captain Brassbound turns out to be Sir Howard’s nephew, the son of the brother you knew.

      RANKIN (overwhelmed). I saw the likeness the night he came here! It’s true: it’s true. Uncle and nephew!

      LADY CICELY. Yes: that’s why they quarrelled so.

      RANKIN (with a momentary sense of ill usage). I think Sir Howrrd might have told me that.

      LADY CICELY. Of course he OUGHT to have told you. You see he only tells one side of the story. That comes from his training as a barrister. You mustn’t think he’s naturally deceitful: if he’d been brought up as a clergyman, he’d have told you the whole truth as a matter of course.

      RANKIN (too much perturbed to dwell on his grievance). Leddy Ceecily: I must go to the prison and see the lad. He may have been a bit wild; but I can’t leave poor Miles’s son unbefriended in a foreign gaol.

      LADY CICELY (rising, radiant). Oh, how good of you! You have a real kind heart of gold, Mr. Rankin. Now, before you go, shall we just put our heads together, and consider how to give Miles’s son every chance — I mean of course every chance that he ought to have.

      RANKIN (rather addled). I am so confused by this astoanishing news —

      LADY CICELY. Yes, yes: of course you are. But don’t you think he would make a better impression on the American captain if he were a little more respectably dressed?

      RANKIN. Mebbe. But how can that be remedied here in Mogador?

      LADY CICELY. Oh, I’ve thought of that. You know I’m going back to England by way of Rome, Mr. Rankin; and I’m bringing a portmanteau full of clothes for my brother there: he’s ambassador, you know, and has to be VERY particular as to what he wears. I had the portmanteau brought here this morning. Now WOULD you mind taking it to the prison, and smartening up Captain Brassbound a little. Tell him he ought to do it to show his respect for me; and he will. It will be quite easy: there are two Krooboys waiting to carry the portmanteau. You will: I know you will. (She edges him to the door.) And do you think there is time to get him shaved?

      RANKIN (succumbing, half bewildered). I’ll do my best.

      LADY CICELY. I know you will. (As he is going out) Oh! one word, Mr. Rankin. (He comes back.) The Cadi didn’t know that Captain Brassbound was Sir Howard’s nephew, did he?

      RANKIN. No.

      LADY CICELY. Then he must have misunderstood everything quite dreadfully. I’m afraid, Mr. Rankin — though you know best, of course — that we are bound not to repeat anything at the inquiry that the Cadi said. He didn’t know, you see.

      RANKIN (cannily). I take your point, Leddy Ceecily. It alters the case. I shall certainly make no allusion to it.

      LADY CICELY (magnanimously). Well, then, I won’t either. There! They shake hands on it. Sir Howard comes in.

      SIR HOWARD. Good morning Mr. Rankin. I hope you got home safely from the yacht last night.

      RANKIN. Quite safe, thank ye, Sir Howrrd.

      LADY CICELY. Howard, he’s in a hurry. Don’t make him stop to talk.

      SIR HOWARD. Very good, very good. (He comes to the table and takes Lady Cicely’s chair.)

      RANKIN. Oo revoir, Leddy Ceecily.

      LADY CICELY. Bless you, Mr. Rankin. (Rankin goes out. She comes to the other end of the table, looking at Sir Howard with a troubled, sorrowfully sympathetic air, but unconsciously making her right hand stalk about the table on the tips of its fingers in a tentative stealthy way which would put Sir Howard on his guard if he were in a suspicious frame of mind, which, as it happens, he is not.) I’m so sorry for you, Howard, about this unfortunate inquiry.

      SIR HOWARD (swinging round on his chair, astonished). Sorry for ME! Why?

      LADY CICELY. It will look so dreadful. Your own nephew, you know.

      SIR HOWARD. Cicely: an English judge has no nephews, no sons even, when he has to carry out the law.

      LADY CICELY. But then he oughtn’t to have any property either. People will never understand about the West Indian Estate. They’ll think you’re the wicked uncle out of the Babes in the Wood. (With a fresh gush of compassion) I’m so SO sorry for you.

      SIR HOWARD (rather stiffly). I really do not see how I need your commiseration, Cicely. The woman was an impossible person, half mad, half drunk. Do you understand what such a creature is when she has a grievance, and imagines some innocent person to be the author of it?

      LADY CICELY (with a touch of impatience). Oh, quite. THAT’ll be made clear enough. I can see it all in the papers already: our half mad, half drunk sister-in-law, making scenes with you in the street, with the police called in, and prison and all the rest of it. The family will be furious. (Sir Howard quails. She instantly follows up her advantage with) Think of papa!

      SIR HOWARD. I shall expect Lord Waynflete to look at the matter as a reasonable man.

      LADY CICELY. Do you think he’s so greatly changed as that, Howard?

      SIR HOWARD (falling back on the fatalism of the depersonalized public man). My dear Cicely: there is no use discussing the matter. It cannot be helped, however disagreeable it may be.

      LADY CICELY. Of course not. That’s what’s so dreadful. Do you think people will understand?

      SIR HOWARD. I really cannot say. Whether they do or not, I cannot help it.

      LADY CICELY. If you were anybody but a judge, it wouldn’t matter so much. But a judge mustn’t even be misunderstood. (Despairingly) Oh, it’s dreadful, Howard: it’s terrible! What would poor Mary say if she were alive now?

      SIR HOWARD (with emotion). I don’t think, Cicely, that my dear wife would misunderstand me.

      LADY CICELY. No: SHE’D know you mean well. And when you came home and said, “Mary: I’ve just told all the world that your sister-in-law was a police court criminal, and that I sent her to prison; and your nephew is a brigand, and I’m sending HIM to prison.” she’d have thought it must be all right because you did it. But you don’t think she would have LIKED it, any more than papa and the rest of us, do you?

      SIR HOWARD (appalled). But СКАЧАТЬ