Misalliance

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Misalliance

by George Bernard Shaw

Notes on the editing: Italicized text is delimited with underlines
("_"). Punctuation and spelling are retained as in the printed text.
Shaw used a non-standard system of spelling and punctuation. For
example, contractions usually have no apostrophe: "don't" is given as
"dont", "you've" as "youve", and so on. Abbreviated honorifics have
no trailing period: "Dr." is given as "Dr", "Mrs." as "Mrs", and so
on. "Shakespeare" is given as "Shakespear". Where several characters
in the play are speaking at once, I have indicated it with vertical
bars ("|"). The pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word
"pounds".

MISALLIANCE

BY BERNARD SHAW

_Johnny Tarleton, an ordinary young business man of thirty or less, is
taking his weekly Friday to Tuesday in the house of his father, John
Tarleton, who has made a great deal of money out of Tarleton's
Underwear. The house is in Surrey, on the slope of Hindhead; and
Johnny, reclining, novel in hand, in a swinging chair with a little
awning above it, is enshrined in a spacious half hemisphere of glass
which forms a pavilion commanding the garden, and, beyond it, a barren
but lovely landscape of hill profile with fir trees, commons of
bracken and gorse, and wonderful cloud pictures._

_The glass pavilion springs from a bridgelike arch in the wall of the
house, through which one comes into a big hall with tiled flooring,
which suggests that the proprietor's notion of domestic luxury is
founded on the lounges of week-end hotels. The arch is not quite in
the centre of the wall. There is more wall to its right than to its
left, and this space is occupied by a hat rack and umbrella stand in
which tennis rackets, white parasols, caps, Panama hats, and other
summery articles are bestowed. Just through the arch at this corner
stands a new portable Turkish bath, recently unpacked, with its crate
beside it, and on the crate the drawn nails and the hammer used in
unpacking. Near the crate are open boxes of garden games: bowls and
croquet. Nearly in the middle of the glass wall of the pavilion is a
door giving on the garden, with a couple of steps to surmount the
hot-water pipes which skirt the glass. At intervals round the
pavilion are marble pillars with specimens of Viennese pottery on
them, very flamboyant in colour and florid in design. Between them
are folded garden chairs flung anyhow against the pipes. In the side
walls are two doors: one near the hat stand, leading to the interior
of the house, the other on the opposite side and at the other end,
leading to the vestibule._

_There is no solid furniture except a sideboard which stands against
the wall between the vestibule door and the pavilion, a small writing
table with a blotter, a rack for telegram forms and stationery, and a
wastepaper basket, standing out in the hall near the sideboard, and a
lady's worktable, with two chairs at it, towards the other side of the
lounge. The writing table has also two chairs at it. On the
sideboard there is a tantalus, liqueur bottles, a syphon, a glass jug
of lemonade, tumblers, and every convenience for casual drinking.
Also a plate of sponge cakes, and a highly ornate punchbowl in the
same style as the keramic display in the pavilion. Wicker chairs and
little bamboo tables with ash trays and boxes of matches on them are
scattered in all directions. In the pavilion, which is flooded with
sunshine, is the elaborate patent swing seat and awning in which
Johnny reclines with his novel. There are two wicker chairs right and
left of him._

_Bentley Summerhays, one of those smallish, thinskinned youths, who
from 17 to 70 retain unaltered the mental airs of the later and the
physical appearance of the earlier age, appears in the garden and
comes through the glass door into the pavilion. He is unmistakably a
grade above Johnny socially; and though he looks sensitive enough, his
assurance and his high voice are a little exasperating._

JOHNNY. Hallo! Wheres your luggage?

BENTLEY. I left it at the station. Ive walked up from Haslemere.
_[He goes to the hat stand and hangs up his hat]._

JOHNNY _[shortly]_ Oh! And who's to fetch it?

BENTLEY. Dont know. Dont care. Providence, probably. If not, your
mother will have it fetched.

JOHNNY. Not her business, exactly, is it?

BENTLEY. _[returning to the pavilion]_ Of course not. Thats why one
loves her for doing it. Look here: chuck away your silly week-end
novel, and talk to a chap. After a week in that filthy office my
brain is simply blue-mouldy. Lets argue about something intellectual.
_[He throws himself into the wicker chair on Johnny's right]._

JOHNNY. _[straightening up in the swing with a yell of protest]_ No.
Now seriously, Bunny, Ive come down here to have a pleasant week-end;
and I'm not going to stand your confounded arguments. If you want to
argue, get out of this and go over to the Congregationalist
minister's. He's a nailer at arguing. He likes it.

BENTLEY. You cant argue with a person when his livelihood depends on
his not letting you convert him. And would you mind not calling me
Bunny. My name is Bentley Summerhays, which you please.

JOHNNY. Whats the matter with Bunny?

BENTLEY. It puts me in a false position. Have you ever considered
the fact that I was an afterthought?

JOHNNY. An afterthought? What do you mean by that?

BENTLEY. I--

JOHNNY. No, stop: I dont want to know. It's only a dodge to start
an argument.

BENTLEY. Dont be afraid: it wont overtax your brain. My father was
44 when I was born. My mother was 41. There was twelve years between
me and the next eldest. I was unexpected. I was probably
unintentional. My brothers and sisters are not the least like me.
Theyre the regular thing that you always get in the first batch from
young parents: quite pleasant, ordinary, do-the-regular-thing sort:
all body and no brains, like you.

JOHNNY. Thank you.

BENTLEY. Dont mention it, old chap. Now I'm different. By the time
I was born, the old couple knew something. So I came out all brains
and no more body than is absolutely necessary. I am really a good
deal older than you, though you were born ten years sooner. Everybody
feels that when they hear us talk; consequently, though it's quite
natural to hear me calling you Johnny, it sounds ridiculous and
unbecoming for you to call me Bunny. _[He rises]._

JOHNNY. Does it, by George? You stop me doing it if you can: thats
all.

BENTLEY. If you go on doing it after Ive asked you not, youll feel an
awful swine. _[He strolls away carelessly to the sideboard with his
eye on the sponge cakes]._ At least I should; but I suppose youre not
so particular.

JOHNNY _[rising vengefully and following Bentley, who is forced to
turn and listen]_ I'll tell you what it is, my boy: you want a good
talking to; and I'm going to give it to you. If you think that
because your father's a K.C.B., and you want to marry my sister, you
can make yourself as nasty as you please and say what you like, youre
mistaken. Let me tell you that except Hypatia, not one person in this
house is in favor of her marrying you; and I dont believe shes happy
about it herself. The match isnt settled yet: dont forget that.
Youre on trial in the office because the Governor isnt giving his
daughter money for an idle man to live on her. Youre on trial here
because my mother thinks a girl should know what a man is like in the
house before she marries him. Thats been going on for two months now;
and whats the result? Youve got yourself thoroughly disliked in the
office; and youre getting yourself thoroughly disliked here, all
through your bad manners and your conceit, and the damned impudence
you think clever.

BENTLEY. _[deeply wounded and trying hard to control himself]_ Thats
enough, thank you. You dont suppose, I hope, that I should have come
down if I had known that that was how you felt about me. _[He makes
for the vestibule door]._

JOHNNY. _[collaring him]._ No: you dont run away. I'm going to
have this out with you. Sit down: d'y' hear? _[Bentley attempts to
go with dignity. Johnny slings him into a chair at the writing table,
where he sits, bitterly humiliated, but afraid to speak lest he should
burst into tears]._ Thats the advantage of having more body than
brains, you see: it enables me to teach you manners; and I'm going to
do it too. Youre a spoilt young pup; and you need a jolly good
licking. And if youre not careful youll get it: I'll see to that
next time you call me a swine.

BENTLEY. I didnt call you a swine. But _[bursting into a fury of
tears]_ you are a swine: youre a beast: youre a brute: youre a
cad: youre a liar: youre a bully: I should like to wring your
damned neck for you.

JOHNNY. _[with a derisive laugh]_ Try it, my son. _[Bentley gives
an inarticulate sob of rage]._ Fighting isnt in your line. Youre too
small and youre too childish. I always suspected that your cleverness
wouldnt come to very much when it was brought up against something
solid: some decent chap's fist, for instance.

BENTLEY. I hope your beastly fist may come up against a mad bull or a
prizefighter's nose, or something solider than me. I dont care about
your fist; but if everybody here dislikes me-- _[he is checked by a
sob]._ Well, I dont care. _[Trying to recover himself]_ I'm sorry I
intruded: I didnt know. _[Breaking down again]_ Oh you beast! you
pig! Swine, swine, swine, swine, swine! Now!

JOHNNY. All right, my lad, all right. Sling your mud as hard as you
please: it wont stick to me. What I want to know is this. How is it
that your father, who I suppose is the strongest man England has
produced in our time--

BENTLEY. You got that out of your halfpenny paper. A lot you know
about him!

JOHNNY. I dont set up to be able to do anything but admire him and
appreciate him and be proud of him as an Englishman. If it wasnt for
my respect for him, I wouldnt have stood your cheek for two days, let
alone two months. But what I cant understand is why he didnt lick it
out of you when you were a kid. For twenty-five years he kept a place
twice as big as England in order: a place full of seditious
coffee-colored heathens and pestilential white agitators in the middle
of a lot of savage tribes. And yet he couldnt keep you in order. I
dont set up to be half the man your father undoubtedly is; but, by
George, it's lucky for you you were not my son. I dont hold with my
own father's views about corporal punishment being wrong. It's
necessary for some people; and I'd have tried it on you until you
first learnt to howl and then to behave yourself.

BENTLEY. _[contemptuously]_ Yes: behavior wouldnt come naturally to
your son, would it?

JOHNNY. _[stung into sudden violence]_ Now you keep a civil tongue
in your head. I'll stand none of your snobbery. I'm just as proud of
Tarleton's Underwear as you are of your father's title and his K.C.B.,
and all the rest of it. My father began in a little hole of a shop in
Leeds no bigger than our pantry down the passage there. He--

BENTLEY. Oh yes: I know. Ive read it. "The Romance of Business, or
The Story of Tarleton's Underwear. Please Take One!" I took one the
day after I first met Hypatia. I went and bought half a dozen
unshrinkable vests for her sake.

JOHNNY. Well: did they shrink?

BENTLEY. Oh, dont be a fool.

JOHNNY. Never mind whether I'm a fool or not. Did they shrink?
Thats the point. Were they worth the money?

BENTLEY. I couldnt wear them: do you think my skin's as thick as
your customers' hides? I'd as soon have dressed myself in a nutmeg
grater.

JOHNNY. Pity your father didnt give your thin skin a jolly good
lacing with a cane--!

BENTLEY. Pity you havnt got more than one idea! If you want to know,
they did try that on me once, when I was a small kid. A silly
governess did it. I yelled fit to bring down the house and went into
convulsions and brain fever and that sort of thing for three weeks.
So the old girl got the sack; and serve her right! After that, I was
let do what I like. My father didnt want me to grow up a
broken-spirited spaniel, which is your idea of a man, I suppose.

JOHNNY. Jolly good thing for you that my father made you come into
the office and shew what you were made of. And it didnt come to much:
let me tell you that. When the Governor asked me where I thought we
ought to put you, I said, "Make him the Office Boy." The Governor
said you were too green. And so you were.

BENTLEY. I daresay. So would you be pretty green if you were shoved
into my father's set. I picked up your silly business in a fortnight.
Youve been at it ten years; and you havnt picked it up yet.

JOHNNY. Dont talk rot, child. You know you simply make me pity you.

BENTLEY. "Romance of Business" indeed! The real romance of
Tarleton's business is the story that you understand anything about
it. You never could explain any mortal thing about it to me when I
asked you. "See what was done the last time": that was the beginning
and the end of your wisdom. Youre nothing but a turnspit.

JOHNNY. A what!

BENTLEY. A turnspit. If your father hadnt made a roasting jack for
you to turn, youd be earning twenty-four shillings a week behind a
counter.

JOHNNY. If you dont take that back and apologize for your bad
manners, I'll give you as good a hiding as ever--

BENTLEY. Help! Johnny's beating me! Oh! Murder! _[He throws
himself on the ground, uttering piercing yells]._

JOHNNY. Dont be a fool. Stop that noise, will you. I'm not going to
touch you. Sh--sh--

_Hypatia rushes in through the inner door, followed by Mrs Tarleton,
and throws herself on her knees by Bentley. Mrs Tarleton, whose knees
are stiffer, bends over him and tries to lift him. Mrs Tarleton is a
shrewd and motherly old lady who has been pretty in her time, and is
still very pleasant and likeable and unaffected. Hypatia is a typical
English girl of a sort never called typical: that is, she has an
opaque white skin, black hair, large dark eyes with black brows and
lashes, curved lips, swift glances and movements that flash out of a
waiting stillness, boundless energy and audacity held in leash._

HYPATIA. _[pouncing on Bentley with no very gentle hand]_ Bentley:
whats the matter? Dont cry like that: whats the use? Whats
happened?

MRS TARLETON. Are you ill, child? _[They get him up. There, there,
pet! It's all right: dont cry _[they put him into a chair]_: there!
there! there! Johnny will go for the doctor; and he'll give you
something nice to make it well.

HYPATIA. What has happened, Johnny?

MRS TARLETON. Was it a wasp?

BENTLEY. _[impatiently]_ Wasp be dashed!

MRS TARLETON. Oh Bunny! that was a naughty word.

BENTLEY. Yes, I know: I beg your pardon. _[He rises, and extricates
himself from them]_ Thats all right. Johnny frightened me. You know
how easy it is to hurt me; and I'm too small to defend myself against
Johnny.

MRS TARLETON. Johnny: how often have I told you that you must not
bully the little ones. I thought youd outgrown all that.

HYPATIA. _[angrily]_ I do declare, mamma, that Johnny's brutality
makes it impossible to live in the house with him.

JOHNNY. _[deeply hurt]_ It's twenty-seven years, mother, since you
had that row with me for licking Robert and giving Hypatia a black eye
because she bit me. I promised you then that I'd never raise my hand
to one of them again; and Ive never broken my word. And now because
this young whelp begins to cry out before he's hurt, you treat me as
if I were a brute and a savage.

MRS TARLETON. No dear, not a savage; but you know you must not call
our visitor naughty names.

BENTLEY. Oh, let him alone--

JOHNNY. _[fiercely]_ Dont you interfere between my mother and me:
d'y' hear?

HYPATIA. Johnny's lost his temper, mother. We'd better go. Come,
Bentley.

MRS TARLETON. Yes: that will be best. _[To Bentley]_ Johnny doesnt
mean any harm, dear: he'll be himself presently. Come.

_The two ladies go out through the inner door with Bentley, who turns
at the door to grin at Johnny as he goes out._

_Johnny, left alone, clenches his fists and grinds his teeth, but can
find no relief in that way for his rage. After choking and stamping
for a moment, he makes for the vestibule door. It opens before he
reaches it; and Lord Summerhays comes in. Johnny glares at him,
speechless. Lord Summerhays takes in the situation, and quickly takes
the punchbowl from the sideboard and offers it to Johnny._

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Smash it. Dont hesitate: it's an ugly thing.
Smash it: hard. _[Johnny, with a stifled yell, dashes it in pieces,
and then sits down and mops his brow]._ Feel better now? _[Johnny
nods]._ I know only one person alive who could drive me to the point
of having either to break china or commit murder; and that person is
my son Bentley. Was it he? _[Johnny nods again, not yet able to
speak]._ As the car stopped I heard a yell which is only too familiar
to me. It generally means that some infuriated person is trying to
thrash Bentley. Nobody has ever succeeded, though almost everybody
has tried. _[He seats himself comfortably close to the writing table,
and sets to work to collect the fragments of the punchbowl in the
wastepaper basket whilst Johnny, with diminishing difficulty, collects
himself]._ Bentley is a problem which I confess I have never been
able to solve. He was born to be a great success at the age of fifty.
Most Englishmen of his class seem to be born to be great successes at
the age of twenty-four at most. The domestic problem for me is how to
endure Bentley until he is fifty. The problem for the nation is how
to get itself governed by men whose growth is arrested when they are
little more than college lads. Bentley doesnt really mean to be
offensive. You can always make him cry by telling him you dont like
him. Only, he cries so loud that the experiment should be made in the
open air: in the middle of Salisbury Plain if possible. He has a
hard and penetrating intellect and a remarkable power of looking facts
in the face; but unfortunately, being very young, he has no idea of
how very little of that sort of thing most of us can stand. On the
other hand, he is frightfully sensitive and even affectionate; so that
he probably gets as much as he gives in the way of hurt feelings.
Youll excuse me rambling on like this about my son.

JOHNNY. _[who has pulled himself together]_ You did it on purpose.
I wasnt quite myself: I needed a moment to pull round: thank you.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Not at all. Is your father at home?

JOHNNY. No: he's opening one of his free libraries. Thats another
nice little penny gone. He's mad on reading. He promised another
free library last week. It's ruinous. Itll hit you as well as me
when Bunny marries Hypatia. When all Hypatia's money is thrown away
on libraries, where will Bunny come in? Cant you stop him?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. I'm afraid not. Hes a perfect whirlwind.
Indefatigable at public work. Wonderful man, I think.

JOHNNY. Oh, public work! He does too much of it. It's really a sort
of laziness, getting away from your own serious business to amuse
yourself with other people's. Mind: I dont say there isnt another
side to it. It has its value as an advertisement. It makes useful
acquaintances and leads to valuable business connections. But it
takes his mind off the main chance; and he overdoes it.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. The danger of public business is that it never ends.
A man may kill himself at it.

JOHNNY. Or he can spend more on it than it brings him in: thats how
I look at it. What I say is that everybody's business is nobody's
business. I hope I'm not a hard man, nor a narrow man, nor unwilling
to pay reasonable taxes, and subscribe in reason to deserving
charities, and even serve on a jury in my turn; and no man can say I
ever refused to help a friend out of a difficulty when he was worth
helping. But when you ask me to go beyond that, I tell you frankly I
dont see it. I never did see it, even when I was only a boy, and had
to pretend to take in all the ideas the Governor fed me up with. I
didnt see it; and I dont see it.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. There is certainly no business reason why you should
take more than your share of the world's work.

JOHNNY. So I say. It's really a great encouragement to me to find
you agree with me. For of course if nobody agrees with you, how are
you to know that youre not a fool?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Quite so.

JOHNNY. I wish youd talk to him about it. It's no use my saying
anything: I'm a child to him still: I have no influence. Besides,
you know how to handle men. See how you handled me when I was making
a fool of myself about Bunny!

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Not at all.

JOHNNY. Oh yes I was: I know I was. Well, if my blessed father had
come in he'd have told me to control myself. As if I was losing my
temper on purpose!

_Bentley returns, newly washed. He beams when he sees his father, and
comes affectionately behind him and pats him on the shoulders._

BENTLEY. Hel-lo, commander! have you come? Ive been making a filthy
silly ass of myself here. I'm awfully sorry, Johnny, old chap: I beg
your pardon. Why dont you kick me when I go on like that?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. As we came through Godalming I thought I heard some
yelling--

BENTLEY. I should think you did. Johnny was rather rough on me,
though. He told me nobody here liked me; and I was silly enough to
believe him.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. And all the women have been kissing you and pitying
you ever since to stop your crying, I suppose. Baby!

BENTLEY. I did cry. But I always feel good after crying: it
relieves my wretched nerves. I feel perfectly jolly now.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Not at all ashamed of yourself, for instance?

BENTLEY. If I started being ashamed of myself I shouldnt have time
for anything else all my life. I say: I feel very fit and spry.
Lets all go down and meet the Grand Cham. _[He goes to the hatstand
and takes down his hat]._

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Does Mr Tarleton like to be called the Grand Cham,
do you think, Bentley?

BENTLEY. Well, he thinks hes too modest for it. He calls himself
Plain John. But you cant call him that in his own office: besides,
it doesnt suit him: it's not flamboyant enough.

JOHNNY. Flam what?

BENTLEY. Flamboyant. Lets go and meet him. Hes telephoned from
Guildford to say hes on the road. The dear old son is always
telephoning or telegraphing: he thinks hes hustling along like
anything when hes only sending unnecessary messages.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Thank you: I should prefer a quiet afternoon.

BENTLEY. Right O. I shant press Johnny: hes had enough of me for
one week-end. _[He goes out through the pavilion into the grounds]._

JOHNNY. Not a bad idea, that.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. What?

JOHNNY. Going to meet the Governor. You know you wouldnt think it;
but the Governor likes Bunny rather. And Bunny is cultivating it. I
shouldnt be surprised if he thought he could squeeze me out one of
these days.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. You dont say so! Young rascal! I want to consult
you about him, if you dont mind. Shall we stroll over to the Gibbet?
Bentley is too fast for me as a walking companion; but I should like a
short turn.

JOHNNY. _[rising eagerly, highly flattered]_ Right you are. Thatll
suit me down to the ground. _[He takes a Panama and stick from the
hat stand]._

_Mrs Tarleton and Hypatia come back just as the two men are going out.
Hypatia salutes Summerhays from a distance with an enigmatic lift of
her eyelids in his direction and a demure nod before she sits down at
the worktable and busies herself with her needle. Mrs Tarleton,
hospitably fussy, goes over to him._

MRS TARLETON. Oh, Lord Summerhays, I didnt know you were here. Wont
you have some tea?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. No, thank you: I'm not allowed tea. And I'm
ashamed to say Ive knocked over your beautiful punch-bowl. You must
let me replace it.

MRS TARLETON. Oh, it doesnt matter: I'm only too glad to be rid of
it. The shopman told me it was in the best taste; but when my poor
old nurse Martha got cataract, Bunny said it was a merciful provision
of Nature to prevent her seeing our china.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. _[gravely]_ That was exceedingly rude of Bentley,
Mrs Tarleton. I hope you told him so.

MRS TARLETON. Oh, bless you! I dont care what he says; so long as he
says it to me and not before visitors.

JOHNNY. We're going out for a stroll, mother.

MRS TARLETON. All right: dont let us keep you. Never mind about
that crock: I'll get the girl to come and take the pieces away.
_[Recollecting herself]_ There! Ive done it again!

JOHNNY. Done what?

MRS TARLETON. Called her the girl. You know, Lord Summerhays, its a
funny thing; but now I'm getting old, I'm dropping back into all the
ways John and I had when we had barely a hundred a year. You should
have known me when I was forty! I talked like a duchess; and if
Johnny or Hypatia let slip a word that was like old times, I was down
on them like anything. And now I'm beginning to do it myself at every
turn.

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