>R 6005 .fl48 E8 1920 Copy 1 EVERYBODY'S HUSBAND 4 play hy .GILBERT CANNAN PUBLISHED BY B. W. HUEBSCH NEW YORK EVERYBODY'S HUSBAND BY THE SAME AUTHOR NOVELS Peter Homunculus Little Brother Round the Corner Young Earnest Old Mole Three Pretty Men Mendel The Stucco House Mummery Pink Roses Windmills Samuel Butler: A Critical Study Satire The Joy of the Theatre Four Plays Freedom TRANSLATION Jean Christophe. By Remain Rolland BY GILBERT CANNAN Everybody's Husband NEW YORK : B. W. HUEBSCH COPYRIGHT, 1920 BY B. W. HUEBSCH Ma' o^i ©CU571316 TO JOHN DRINKWATER IN RETURN FOR MUCH PREFACE Like Bernard Shaw I find that when I venture to talk of my plays I am confronted with the in- credulous question, 'Tlays? What Plays?" as though a writer with a reputation as a novelist and critic had no business even to think of the theatre. The secret of it is that I think of very little else and even when my discourse is of poli- tics or women or marriage or prohibition or any of the other topics that so plentifully obscure life and thought, I am thinking and working in terms of the theatre. A subtle critic would have discovered that in my books long ago but critics have rarely time to be subtle nowadays. There seems to be a law in life that if a man cares really deeply about anything he must go into the wilderness to find it, and accordingly I have had to obey that law in my search for the drama. I arrived in London in 1905 with the habit of writing plays full on me and men like Galsworthy, Barker, Hankin and Shaw discov- ered promise in my juvenilia — of which for- tunately not a word remains. Certain small [7] works were produced in different theatres but I had the sense to realise that plays are only writ- ten by men in their maturity. The discovery of J. M. Synge settled the matter for me. Here was the one real dramatist of modern times. One whom there is only Tchekov to equal and he had lounged through life until he was mature enough to express himself in the form native to him. That I think is how dramatists are made. They spend their youth like Br'er Terrapin in "loungin' round and sufferin'." So for ten years and more I have ''lounged and suffered" through pretty well the whole field of literature, producing novels, poems, essays, satires, but all the time absorbing material for the work I hoped to do when the season of maturity should come. Not being a super-man the habit of writing plays remained with me as a secret vice, but I don't think plays can be written without contact with the theatre and I was exiled from the theatre. After a serious illness in 1916 my Doctor en- tered into discussion as to the proper place for my convalescence. I declared for Birmingham, and his jaw dropped as he had never considered Birmingham as a health resort. I explained that Birmingham contained the only healthy theatre in England and that the theatre is the one place to go to for one's health. I don't think he under- [8] stood me, but, having attended me for some months he had discovered that I am so consti- tuted that I do things my own way or not at all and he humoured my whim, as he must have thought it. I wrote to John Drinkwater who, thinking I had taken leave of my senses, came rushing up to London, saw me, humoured me, consented — solemnly, for John like so many of my friends, has the mistaken notion that I am a tragic character. Hence much confusion. I am much more serious than that. I arrived in Birmingham, my chosen health resort, to find everybody forewarned to sympa- thise with the tragedy of my broken health, whereas in fact, I had never been so well in my life, also honest John in the throes of composi- tion. He had written a war-play about Greeks and Trojans and the ladies of the company were complaining that there were no parts for them in it. To soothe them I promised to produce a play in which there should be only women and in a day or two I was ready with that small fantasy: Everybody's Husband (Birmingham thought the title shocking!). Drinkwater's play Z = and my own were produced on the same night: I had left a good deal behind me in London, including my dress clothes, and John insisted that if my play was a [9] success I must take a call. I pointed out the im- possibility of my doing any such thing since it is well known that dramatic authors live and work and sleep in their dress clothes. He insisted even to the point of offering me the use of his after he had done with them, and that appealed to my sense of humour. John's play was a suc- cess and the mood of success settled over the evening so that I knew I was safe in pelting into his clothes. My play was a success, people said ''Bravo" and I appeared like a real dramatic author with an expanse of white shirt front (John Drinkwater's) . So that now when people ask me incredulously, "What Plays?" I can point to Everybodi/s Husband and say that I am the only man alive who has worn the dress-clothes of the author of Abraham Lincoln. That is fame, and the anecdote is to be taken seriously. So indeed is the play, because it opens up a vein which I hope to work for all it is worth. Most of the trouble in the theatre at present is due to its being taken so solemnly — a very dif- ferent matter from its being taken seriously. Ibsen for instance has been made impossible in the Anglo-Saxon theatre and the failure of the Barker-Shaw-Galsworthy revival to establish any real hold on the people of England and America is due to their well-meaning disciples [10] who took them so solemnly that while applauding their generalities they forgot to laugh at their defects. In the theatre there should always be a sub-current of laughter. (It is always there in Shakespeare's tragedy) and if this is forgot- ten the drama is left stagnant. If it be remem- bered there is some hope of achievement. That at present is as much as we can look for and 1, for one, hope to produce plays that shall be as blithe dramatically as Mozart's operas are musi- cally. If I don't do it someone else will — but I should like to do it myself. This play then is important to me, both in itself and because it played a great part in my convalescence of three years ago, just as I hope its successor may play some part in the present convalescence of humanity. Gilbert Cannan New York, November, 1919 [11] This Play was first produced at the Birmingham Repetory Theatre on Saturday, lUh April 1917, under the direction of the Author with the following cast: A Girl, Cecily Byrne Her Mother, Mary Raby Her Grandmother, Cathleen Oxford Her Great-Grandmother, Margaret Chatwin A Maid, Helena Pickard A Domino, Felix Aylmer 12] EVERYBODY'S HUSBAND The scene is a girVs bed-chamber, with a door to the right and a wide-open window to the left A charming bed is to the right in an alcove. A sofa is to the right of the stage, and three chairs are arranged to the left. The moon- light streams in through the window and the nightingale is heard singing. The Girl enters. She is clad in a bridal gown. She stands looking out through the window and sighs, opens her arms and blows kisses to the moon. Girl Delicious, delicious dream! Good-bye! Good- bye! [The nightingale sings.] The last song of my dream. [The Maid enters from the door and stands waiting. Girl I have been asleep in the garden, dreaming; yet it was no longer my garden, but a place high [13] above the sea, with terraced groves of oranges ' and lemons; and in the darkness fireflies danced above the water. [She looks round the room.] Am I still dreaming? Maid Yes, miss. Girl This is my room? Yet it is not the same. . . . Are you my maid, Lisette? Maid Yes, miss. Girl I am to be married to-morrow. Maid Yes, miss. Shall I put away your wedding dress? It would be a pity to spoil it. Girl Please, Lisette. [The Maid helps the Girl to disrobe, and the Girl then sits on the bed. Girl When I say ''You can go," I wonder, do you always want to go? [14] Maid Not always, miss. There are times when I should like to talk. Girl And to say what you think of me? You may. Maid I am sorry you are going to be married. Girl Are you? Why should you be sorry? Maid Because it is a shame that you should have to be for ever what one man thinks you are. Girl Did you say that or did I think it? Maid You thought it, and like a good servant I re- peated it. Girl I think I shall run away. It would be lovely to run away into my dreams, where I should [15] always be young, always happy, always be- loved — as I was just now in the garden. [Silence. The nightingale sings.] Eternity was in my dream, eternity in one moment, and I felt sure then that to-morrow would never come. Maid Will you require anything else, miss? [Silence. Maid Will you require anything else, miss? Girl No tea in the morning because to-morrow will never come. Maid If you do not wish it, of course, miss. [The Maid goes out. The moon shines more brightly through the window and the nightingale sings more loudly. Girl What did he say? Oh I cannot remember! I cannot remember ! [She begins to cry as though her heart were breaking.] To-morrow shall not come! To-morrow shall not come! I hate to- [16] morrow! To-morrow brings age and the spell that creeps over women and breaks their dreams. I will keep my dream. I will keep my dream. [She rises from the bed and creeps over to the window, and stands for a moment looking wistfully out. Music sounds. She is drawn out as by a spell and pres- ently dances in in a carnival costume with a man dressed in a domino. They kiss and stand entranced with each other. There is a loud knock at the door. The domino disappears and presently flings a red rose in through the window. The Girl picks this up and places it in her bosom. The knocking at the door grows louder. Girl Who is there? But I know who is there. I know everything. [The door swings open and the Girl's Mother appears dressed in the fashion of 1890. A golden light floods the centre of the room. Mother I heard you crying. I have been waiting for years to hear you crying. [17] Girl Was I? I had forgotten. I am glad you came, for I have been waitmg to talk to you. You think I am going to be married to-morrow, but I am not. Mother Not married? But girls must get married. [The Girl lies on the sofa, with her hand to the rose in her bosom. Girl Why must they? Mother Men must be looked after. Girl They get on very well before they are married, don't they? I don't want to spend my life look- ing after a man. Were you happy with your husband, mother? Mother He thought I was. Oh yes. I enjoyed pre- tending to be happy to please him. It was like having two lives, one to keep him satisfied and r 18 1 content, and another all alone that nobody knew anything about. Girl [Impulsively.] Oh! you poor little mother! Mother I'll trouble you not to pity me. I enjoyed it. Why were you crying just now? Girl Why was I crying? Because I don't want to have two lives. I want one life, simple and clean and glorious. Why did you have to please your husband? Mother He would not have paid the bills if I did not. Girl Did you dress like that to please him? Mother Oh no. It was the fashion. I had to be in the fashion or he would have been ashamed of me. Girl Did you cry before you were married? [19] Mother Oh no. I knew very little about it. I re- member I slept particularly well, and I could not understand why my mother was so anxious for me. Girl You were always a darling fool, mother. Mother Was I? I never had any brains. Cotton- wool your father used to say I had. Girl I know perfectly well why you are anxious for me. Because you know I am quite likely to run away at the church door. Mother My darling, you must not say such things. Girl Oh! but I must. I can say everything now, everything, because of my dream. It was a dream within a dream, like a Chinese box, and in the very tiniest and most beautiful of all was a shining grain of truth. That is why I see [20] you as you are, a dear silly in a bustle and ham sleeves — a married woman. Married ! Married ! Never will I look so completely married; for if I am unhappy my man shall know it, and if I am lonely he shall know it. He shall know the worst and the best of me, and I will never wither away into a housewife for his appetites and a nurse to his children. There! That's revolt. That's rebellion. Now you know why I was cry- ing, out of happiness because I have rebelled. [The Domino comes dancing in through the window. The Girl flies into his arms and they dance away into the moonlight. Mother [Weeping.] Come back! Oh! come back, my darling. You can keep your dream. You can keep it always and creep away into it when life becomes too empty — as I have done. Oh! come back. I have always dreaded that clever brain of yours. I have dreaded it, hated it, hated it. For girls must be married; they must accept what their husbands give them and be grateful though it be never so little. That is one of the things that never, never change. [She goes to the window. The nightingale sings and music comes up from a distance.] She is gone. They [21] have stolen her heart away; and she will never believe that I can understand. [From the garden enters the Grandmother: a hard-featured lady of the 1860 period with smooth, braided hair, pork-pie hat and crinoline. She carries a Bible. Grandmother Still at your moon-gazing! You should go to church three times on a Sunday. I always said that husband of yours had no religion and would come to no good. Mother They have stolen her heart away. Grandmother Fiddlesticks ends ! That comes of your poetry and your theatre-going. In my day young girls were never allowed to go to the theatre. Mother Yes, mamma. [They move into the room and sit. Grandmother The old ways are best. Stick to them. Marry [22] your girls quickly and get them settled. There is no shilly-shallying in the Bible. Mother No, mamma. But the world has not been the same since bicycles came in. Grandmother Bi-cyclesi Bi-cycles! [She opens her Bible. Mother There are no bicycles in the Bible, mamma. Grandmother I should think not, indeed. No nice woman would propel herself on wheels with the use of her own Mother Legs, manoma? Grandmother Hold your tongue, girl. Mother I am a married woman, mamma. Grandmother Humph! [She looks round the room disap- provingly.] Whose room is this? [23] Mother My daughter's. It's her own taste! Grandmother Taste? Taste? You bring up your daughter to have taste? Please close the window. I feel a draught. Mother But we sleep with the windows open nowadays. Grandmother Most dangerous. [Silence. Mother Mamma, were you happy with your husband? Grandmother Will you please close the window and draw the blind. I consider your costume most friv- olous, almost French. Mother We never did get on, mamma, did we? Were you happy with your husband? [24] Grandmother He thought I was. . . . Why don't you close that window? [The Mother goes to the window and closes one side of it. Mother No. I cannot. Grandmother [With great satisfaction.] Then I shall be laid up for weeks. Mother If I close the window I shall shut out my poor girl's happiness for ever. She has gone out into her dreams into the inmost dream of all to win the brightness of it for her joy. [Lamely.] I think that was what she said. Grandmother You're a fool. Mother A soft, bewildered fool. You forbade me to have my dream. I let my girl have her way, but she never thought that I could imderstand her. Did you never dream? [25] Grandmother I was a lonely girl. . . . Once by a lake in the star-light, with the water sucking at the pebbles on the shore, I saw the fin-backed line of the hills and the starry sky beyond through the eyes of a man's imagination, and after that I could have no other dreams. He left me there on the shore, and he walked slowly away, and the stones came rolling down the hill-side into the water. ... I was very young then, and soon after that I was married. Mother You should have told me that when I was young. I could have understood you. I could have loved you. Grandmother You need not close the window. Mother Are not all women sisters? Grandmother Except where men are concerned; and what else is there? [26] Mother [Coming down.] Oh, mamma, I wish you had told me before. Grandmother [Tartly.] How could I? I could not give your father away. Mother What were you to your mother? Grandmother I never knew her. She ran away from my father when I was a child. Mother Oh! 7 ran away once — for three hours. I had two children then. I put them into the peram- bulator, marched them off to the station and went up to London — and came back by the next train. Grandmother Nice goings on, indeed! And what did he say to that? Mother It was one of the things I never told him. I [27] always found it very hard to tell him the truth. It seemed to hurt him when I did. Grandmother They don't expect it of us. Mother I wish you had told me what men do expect. Grandmother Heaven knows ! I am sure they don't. Mother [Wistfully.] I should like to tell my girl. Grandmother She must read her Bible and pray for guidance like the rest of us. Who is she, pray, to escape the common destiny? Let her go like the rest of us to her husband, find out his weakness and keep it to herself. ... I think it is quite time she came in. [The Girl comes running in. Girl Mother! Mother! [28] Mother My darling. You are safe ! Now do go to bed and let me tuck you up for the last time. Girl No. No. No. No. If I went to bed my bed would turn into a barge with silken sails like Cleopatra's, and I should go floating down the burnished river Grandmother Don't talk nonsense, child. Do as your mother tells youl Girl Silly old woman you are in your crinoline. I don't wonder you have forgotten that you have legs, walking about with a five-barred fence all round you. Grandmother Manners! Manners! Is this the effect of bi- cycles? Gibl And motor cycles, and cars, and aeroplanes. Certainly I have legs. Look at them ! To walk with and dance with and run away with. [She takes a flying leap into the bed. [29] Grandmother I am more shocked than I can say. Girl Pooh I Shocked! Nobody is shocked nowa- days, and nobody is shocking. It is just as it was in my great-grandmother's days. She told me all about it. She ran away too. She is out there in the garden. I think you ought to have told me. When you have a jolly good story like that in the family, why be ashamed of it? Grandmother Did you go to school, child? Girl I did. I went to five schools and had to leave every one of them. Grandmother Did they not teach you to speak English? Jolly is not an adverb ! Girl They taught me French, history, geography, mathematics, calisthenics and deportment, cook- ery and domestic science, botany and English literature. [30] Grandmother I am deeply pained by the frivolity of your manner. I disapprove. [The Great-Grandmother appears at the window. She is charmingly dressed in the fashion of 1830. Great-Grandmother Stuff and nonsense! The girl is charming. [All turn to her.] May I come in? I am the black sheep of the family. Grandmother I was taught to pray for you. Great-Grandmother Oh ! I am long past that. [She comes down to the empty chair at the front. Girl I think you are lovely. I tried to tell them about you just now, but they would not listen. Great-Grandmother Virtue! Virtue! Thy name is cruelty! [31] Girl Tell me, were you happy with your husband! Great-Grandmother Which? I had four. They all thought I was happy until I bolted. Can you read me this riddle? I was married four times but I had only one husband! [The Grandmother bursts into tears. Mother [To the Girl.] I don't think you should stay, darling. Great-Grandmother Pooh! Isn't she to be married to-morrow? Girl It is my own room. Great-Grandmother And most pretty too. . . . [She looks quizzi- cally at the Mother and the Grandmother.] What quaint clothes you are wearing. Grandmother They are at any rate modest. [32 1 Girl [To Great-Grandmother.] I do want to hear about your husbands. Great-Grandmother Lovers, my dear. Did you never hear of the great Lord Byron? Girl "There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her beauty and her chivalry. ..." Great-Grandmother He did better than that. Did you never read Don Juan? Mother, Grandmother Don Juan! Great-Grandmother [declaims] "They were alone, but not alone as they Who shut in chambers think it loneliness; The silent "bcean, and the starlight bay. The twilight glow which momently grew less. The voiceless sands and dropping caves that lay Around them, made them to each other press, [33] As if there were no life beneath the sky Save theirs, and that their life could never die." Girl How glorious! Grandmother How profane! Great-Grandmother I was forbidden to read Lord Byron, so of course I devoured him. Girl [Excited.] Did you? Were you? Great-Grandmother Alas! He was dead at Missolonghi in the Greek wars before I travelled up to London for my first season. Girl Were you very young when you married? Great-Grandmother I was eighteen. ... I was trwenty-two when I [34] ran away. I was twenty-nine when I made my great discovery and compounded my riddle. Girl I have run away too. ... I have run away into my dreams. I am never coming back until I have guessed your riddle. Mother My darling, my darling, think of to-morrow. Girl It is because I am thinking of to-morrow that I have run away. What does to-morrow mean for me? The end of everything — everything. He will look smug and fatuous and self-conscious in his frock coat and grey trousers at the church, and you will all weep over me. We shall drive away in a borrowed car and spend half a year's income in travelling in overheated Continental trains to look at tourists going the rounds, accord- ing to Baedeker. We shall make idiotic attempts to look as if we were used to each other, and I shall be dazed and unhappy because it is nothing at all like my dream, and he will never know that the best of me is in my dream and hidden away from him. I shall know that for the rest of my life I shall be a married woman — ^married [35] — married — ^married — with the love dying from my eyes and the dream in my heart crumbling away. Grandmother [To Mother.] If you had brought the child up as I bred you this could never have hap- pened. Mother [Weeping.] I don't understand! I don't understand! Her father always spoiled her. [The Girl goes over to her Great-Grand- mother. Girl You understand! Why do you understand? Great-Grandmother Perhaps because I am a wicked woman and have suffered. Girl Oh no. You were never wicked. You were never cruel. Great-Grandmother Never to young and delicate and generous hearts, but to hearts that were cold and dry, to [36] hearts from which all dreams had faded, I was — ruthless. Grandmother Shame on you ! Shame ! Great-Grandmother I was never ashamed. I was an abandoned woman and I enjoyed it, enjoyed even coming to grief, and picking up again, and again coming to grief. . . . Run away, pretty child, run away into your dream, and keep it for ever. It is bet- ter so. You could never fight for it as I did. You could never lose and smile as I did. . . . Girl Oh yes, I could. I'm sure I could. Tell me how, only tell me how! [The Domino comes to the window and stands silently. Great-Grandmother Dear child, we cannot learn from the suffer- ings of others or these two would have learned from mine. . . . Grandmother I refuse to hear another word. [37] Mother Not another word! [They sit primly upright. [The Girl moves across towards the bed, takes the rose from her bosom and kisses it, and stands looking from the prim pair to the Domino. She throws the rose to him. He catches it and presses it to his lips. Girl I shall go then into my dream, and from dream to dream without end. I will go with you, my heart, and you will understand me in every- thing, in joy and in pain, in the joy of suffering and in the pain of delight, and I shall under- stand you. ... In you and in me there will be holy things that can never be said, a joy that can only be sung through silence, like night sounds through the still moonlit air. [The Domino moves into the room towards her, she towards him. As they approach each other the Great-Grandmother gives a harsh, bitter laugh. Great-Grandmother Stop, you little fool, stop! You can't escape. No one can escape. In the heart of every lover lurks the husband, and one husband is as like [38] another as two buttons on one coat. You can't escape. No one can escape. That is why we weep at wedding feasts, we women. We can see the husband in the lover. Look at us now, we three old wives, in foolish tears because we know that even in your dreams Girl There is no music and no birds sing. [To the Domino.] If I went with you, would the fire- flies put out their lights, would the moon sink down into the sea, would the oranges and lemons fall from the trees, and the whispering lovers in the groves, would they steal away? Should I even in my dreams, even in you, find one who would wash the love from my eyes with tears and break the dream in my heart with longing? Mother [Half to herself.] My darling, I must save you! I must save you! Grandmother Don't sit muttering there! Can't you do something? Do at least find out if the man's in- tentions are honourable! [The Great-Grandmother walks up to the Domino. [39] Geeat-Grandmother [To Girl.] You poor child! They are too strong for us. They have stripped us of our illusions. Look ! [The Great-Grandmother snatches the Domino away and reveals a perfect type of Victorian husband standing with his legs straddled and his arms under his coat-tails. The Domino [Speaking mechanically.] I have already told you three times this week that I detest kidneys for breakfast. ... I distinctly mentioned this morning as I left the house that I did not wish you to return Mrs. Taylor's call. . . . How many more times am I to tell you that you should not send for the doctor unless there is some cause for genuine alarm? . . . There is plenty of room in this house. If you want to change you should go out more. I am sure I do not understand what a woman can find to do in the house all day long. . . . Here am I working myself to skin and bone and you do nothing to help me to make some provision for our old age. You seem to think I am made of money. . . . Just for this once I do not mind making out a cheque for half [40] the amount. ... Of course I still love you, my darling, but I am very busy. [He turns and walks out through the win- dow. The four women are left staring at each other in horror. The Great-Grand- mother throws up her head and laughs. Henry I George ! Mother Grandmother Great-Grandmother All of them. There is only one husband in the world, one eternal husband, everybody's hus- band. Girl [Tottering back towards her bed.] No. No. No. I will not. I will not. Oh! it is you, you, you wives who have made him like that, you who will pretend and pretend and be content that he should think you happy. No. No. No. I will not. I will not. [The stage is completely darkened for a moment or two. It is slowly lighted up again to show the [41] window closed and the curtains drawn. The Girl is asleep. The Maid enters with a tray in her hands which she lays by the bedside. Then she goes over and draws the curtains. The Girl is awakened and looks appre- hensively towards the window. Girl What time is it, Lisette? Maid Half-past seven, miss. Girl What a lovely day, Lisette ! Open the windows wide. [The Girl notices a bunch of red roses on the tray.] Letters! Oh! and roses! Maid I gathered them in the garden for you, miss! The dew is still on them. I wanted to be the first to wish you every happiness. Girl How sweet of you, Lisette! [Lisette goes out. [ The Girl takes up the roses and buries her [42] face in them. Then she opens one of her letters, smiles happily over it, and kisses it passionately. A thrush sings gaily out in the garden. [Curtain] [43