You Never Can Tell

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VALENTINE. Oh, never mind. Something to put my foot on, to get the
necessary purchase for a good pull. (Crampton looks alarmed in spite of
himself. Valentine stands upright and places the glass with the forceps
in it ready to his hand, chatting on with provoking indifference.) And
so you advise me not to get married, Mr. Crampton? (He stoops to fit
the handle on the apparatus by which the chair is raised and lowered.)

CRAMPTON (irritably). I advise you to get my tooth out and have done
reminding me of my wife. Come along, man. (He grips the arms of the
chair and braces himself.)

VALENTINE (pausing, with his hand on the lever, to look up at him and
say). What do you bet that I don't get that tooth out without your
feeling it?

CRAMPTON. Your six week's rent, young man. Don't you gammon me.

VALENTINE (jumping at the bet and winding him aloft vigorously).
Done! Are you ready? (Crampton, who has lost his grip of the chair in
his alarm at its sudden ascent, folds his arms: sits stiffly upright:
and prepares for the worst. Valentine lets down the back of the chair
to an obtuse angle.)

CRAMPTON (clutching at the arms of the chair as he falls back). Take
care man. I'm quite helpless in this po----

VALENTINE (deftly stopping him with the gag, and snatching up the
mouthpiece of the gas machine). You'll be more helpless presently. (He
presses the mouthpiece over Crampton's mouth and nose, leaning over his
chest so as to hold his head and shoulders well down on the chair.
Crampton makes an inarticulate sound in the mouthpiece and tries to lay
hands on Valentine, whom he supposes to be in front of him. After a
moment his arms wave aimlessly, then subside and drop. He is quite
insensible. Valentine, with an exclamation of somewhat preoccupied
triumph, throws aside the mouthpiece quickly: picks up the forceps
adroitly from the glass: and ---the curtain falls.)

END OF ACT I.

Act II

On the terrace at the Marine Hotel. It is a square flagged platform,
with a parapet of heavy oil jar pilasters supporting a broad stone
coping on the outer edge, which stands up over the sea like a cliff.
The head waiter of the establishment, busy laying napkins on a luncheon
table with his back to the sea, has the hotel on his right, and on his
left, in the corner nearest the sea, the flight of steps leading down to
the beach.

When he looks down the terrace in front of him he sees a little to
his left a solitary guest, a middle-aged gentleman sitting on a chair of
iron laths at a little iron table with a bowl of lump sugar and three
wasps on it, reading the Standard, with his umbrella up to defend him
from the sun, which, in August and at less than an hour after noon, is
toasting his protended insteps. Just opposite him, at the hotel side of
the terrace, there is a garden seat of the ordinary esplanade pattern.
Access to the hotel for visitors is by an entrance in the middle of its
facade, reached by a couple of steps on a broad square of raised
pavement. Nearer the parapet there lurks a way to the kitchen, masked
by a little trellis porch. The table at which the waiter is occupied is
a long one, set across the terrace with covers and chairs for five, two
at each side and one at the end next the hotel. Against the parapet
another table is prepared as a buffet to serve from.

The waiter is a remarkable person in his way. A silky old man,
white-haired and delicate looking, but so cheerful and contented that in
his encouraging presence ambition stands rebuked as vulgarity, and
imagination as treason to the abounding sufficiency and interest of the
actual. He has a certain expression peculiar to men who have been
extraordinarily successful in their calling, and who, whilst aware of
the vanity of success, are untouched by envy.

The gentleman at the iron table is not dressed for the seaside. He
wears his London frock coat and gloves; and his tall silk hat is on the
table beside the sugar bowl. The excellent condition and quality of
these garments, the gold-rimmed folding spectacles through which he is
reading the Standard, and the Times at his elbow overlaying the local
paper, all testify to his respectability. He is about fifty, clean
shaven, and close-cropped, with the corners of his mouth turned down
purposely, as if he suspected them of wanting to turn up, and was
determined not to let them have their way. He has large expansive ears,
cod colored eyes, and a brow kept resolutely wide open, as if, again, he
had resolved in his youth to be truthful, magnanimous, and
incorruptible, but had never succeeded in making that habit of mind
automatic and unconscious. Still, he is by no means to be laughed at.
There is no sign of stupidity or infirmity of will about him: on the
contrary, he would pass anywhere at sight as a man of more than average
professional capacity and responsibility. Just at present he is
enjoying the weather and the sea too much to be out of patience; but he
has exhausted all the news in his papers and is at present reduced to
the advertisements, which are not sufficiently succulent to induce him
to persevere with them.

THE GENTLEMAN (yawning and giving up the paper as a bad job).
Waiter!

WAITER. Sir? (coming down C.)

THE GENTLEMAN. Are you quite sure Mrs. Clandon is coming back before
lunch?

WAITER. Quite sure, sir. She expects you at a quarter to one, sir.
(The gentleman, soothed at once by the waiter's voice, looks at him with
a lazy smile. It is a quiet voice, with a gentle melody in it that
gives sympathetic interest to his most commonplace remark; and he speaks
with the sweetest propriety, neither dropping his aitches nor misplacing
them, nor committing any other vulgarism. He looks at his watch as he
continues) Not that yet, sir, is it? 12:43, sir. Only two minutes
more to wait, sir. Nice morning, sir?

THE GENTLEMAN. Yes: very fresh after London.

WAITER. Yes, sir: so all our visitors say, sir. Very nice family,
Mrs. Clandon's, sir.

THE GENTLEMAN. You like them, do you?

WAITER. Yes, sir. They have a free way with them that is very
taking, sir, very taking indeed, sir: especially the young lady and
gentleman.

THE GENTLEMAN. Miss Dorothea and Mr. Philip, I suppose.

WAITER. Yes, sir. The young lady, in giving an order, or the like
of that, will say, "Remember, William, we came to this hotel on your
account, having heard what a perfect waiter you are." The young
gentleman will tell me that I remind him strongly of his father (the
gentleman starts at this) and that he expects me to act by him as such.
(Soothing, sunny cadence.) Oh, very peasant, sir, very affable and
pleasant indeed!

THE GENTLEMAN. You like his father! (He laughs at the notion.)

WAITER. Oh, we must not take what they say too seriously, sir. Of
course, sir, if it were true, the young lady would have seen the
resemblance, too, sir.

THE GENTLEMAN. Did she?

WAITER. No, sir. She thought me like the bust of Shakespear in
Stratford Church, sir. That is why she calls me William, sir. My real
name is Walter, sir. (He turns to go back to the table, and sees Mrs.
Clandon coming up to the terrace from the beach by the steps.) Here is
Mrs. Clandon, sir. (To Mrs. Clandon, in an unobtrusively confidential
tone) Gentleman for you, ma'am.

MRS. CLANDON. We shall have two more gentlemen at lunch, William.

WAITER. Right, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. (He withdraws into the
hotel. Mrs. Clandon comes forward looking round for her visitor, but
passes over the gentleman without any sign of recognition.)

THE GENTLEMAN (peering at her quaintly from under the umbrella).
Don't you know me?

MRS. CLANDON (incredulously, looking hard at him) Are you Finch
McComas?

McCOMAS. Can't you guess? (He shuts the umbrella; puts it aside;
and jocularly plants himself with his hands on his hips to be
inspected.)

MRS. CLANDON. I believe you are. (She gives him her hand. The
shake that ensues is that of old friends after a long separation.)
Where's your beard?

McCOMAS (with humorous solemnity). Would you employ a solicitor with
a beard?

MRS. CLANDON (pointing to the silk hat on the table). Is that your
hat?

McCOMAS. Would you employ a solicitor with a sombrero?

MRS. CLANDON. I have thought of you all these eighteen years with
the beard and the sombrero. (She sits down on the garden seat. McComas
takes his chair again.) Do you go to the meetings of the Dialectical
Society still?

McCOMAS (gravely). I do not frequent meetings now.

MRS. CLANDON. Finch: I see what has happened. You have become
respectable.

McCOMAS. Haven't you?

MRS. CLANDON. Not a bit.

McCOMAS. You hold to your old opinions still?

MRS. CLANDON. As firmly as ever.

McCOMAS. Bless me! And you are still ready to make speeches in
public, in spite of your sex (Mrs. Clandon nods); to insist on a married
woman's right to her own separate property (she nods again); to champion
Darwin's view of the origin of species and John Stuart Mill's essay on
Liberty (nod); to read Huxley, Tyndall and George Eliot (three nods);
and to demand University degrees, the opening of the professions, and
the parliamentary franchise for women as well as men?

MRS. CLANDON (resolutely). Yes: I have not gone back one inch; and I
have educated Gloria to take up my work where I left it. That is what
has brought me back to England: I felt that I had no right to bury her
alive in Madeira--my St. Helena, Finch. I suppose she will be howled at
as I was; but she is prepared for that.

McCOMAS. Howled at! My dear good lady: there is nothing in any of
those views now-a-days to prevent her from marrying a bishop. You
reproached me just now for having become respectable. You were wrong: I
hold to our old opinions as strongly as ever. I don't go to church; and
I don't pretend I do. I call myself what I am: a Philosophic Radical,
standing for liberty and the rights of the individual, as I learnt to do
from my master Herbert Spencer. Am I howled at? No: I'm indulged as an
old fogey. I'm out of everything, because I've refused to bow the knee
to Socialism.

MRS. CLANDON (shocked). Socialism.

McCOMAS. Yes, Socialism. That's what Miss Gloria will be up to her
ears in before the end of the month if you let her loose here.

MRS. CLANDON (emphatically). But I can prove to her that Socialism
is a fallacy.

McCOMAS (touchingly). It is by proving that, Mrs. Clandon, that I
have lost all my young disciples. Be careful what you do: let her go
her own way. (With some bitterness.) We're old-fashioned: the world
thinks it has left us behind. There is only one place in all England
where your opinions would still pass as advanced.

MRS. CLANDON (scornfully unconvinced). The Church, perhaps?

McCOMAS. No, the theatre. And now to business! Why have you made
me come down here?

MRS. CLANDON. Well, partly because I wanted to see you---

McCOMAS (with good-humored irony). Thanks.

MRS. CLANDON. ---and partly because I want you to explain everything
to the children. They know nothing; and now that we have come back to
England, it is impossible to leave them in ignorance any longer.
(Agitated.) Finch: I cannot bring myself to tell them. I--- (She is
interrupted by the twins and Gloria. Dolly comes tearing up the steps,
racing Philip, who combines a terrific speed with unhurried propriety of
bearing which, however, costs him the race, as Dolly reaches her mother
first and almost upsets the garden seat by the precipitancy of her
arrival.)

DOLLY (breathless). It's all right, mamma. The dentist is coming;
and he's bringing his old man.

MRS. CLANDON. Dolly, dear: don't you see Mr. McComas? (Mr. McComas
rises, smilingly.)

DOLLY (her face falling with the most disparagingly obvious
disappointment). This! Where are the flowing locks?

PHILIP (seconding her warmly). Where the beard? ---the cloak? ---the
poetic exterior?

DOLLY. Oh, Mr. McComas, you've gone and spoiled yourself. Why
didn't you wait till we'd seen you?

McCOMAS (taken aback, but rallying his humor to meet the emergency).
Because eighteen years is too long for a solicitor to go without having
his hair cut.

GLORIA (at the other side of McComas). How do you do, Mr. McComas?
(He turns; and she takes his hand and presses it, with a frank straight
look into his eyes.) We are glad to meet you at last.

McCOMAS. Miss Gloria, I presume? (Gloria smiles assent, and
releases his hand after a final pressure. She then retires behind the
garden seat, leaning over the back beside Mrs. Clandon.) And this young
gentleman?

PHILIP. I was christened in a comparatively prosaic mood. My name
is---

DOLLY (completing his sentence for him declamatorily). "Norval. On
the Grampian hills"---

PHILIP (declaiming gravely). "My father feeds his flock, a frugal
swain"---

MRS. CLANDON (remonstrating). Dear, dear children: don't be silly.
Everything is so new to them here, Finch, that they are in the wildest
spirits. They think every Englishman they meet is a joke.

DOLLY. Well, so he is: it's not our fault.

PHILIP. My knowledge of human nature is fairly extensive, Mr.
McComas; but I find it impossible to take the inhabitants of this island
seriously.

McCOMAS. I presume, sir, you are Master Philip (offering his hand)?

PHILIP (taking McComas's hand and looking solemnly at him). I was
Master Philip---was so for many years; just as you were once Master
Finch. (He gives his hand a single shake and drops it; then turns away,
exclaiming meditatively) How strange it is to look back on our boyhood!
(McComas stares after him, not at all pleased.)

DOLLY (to Mrs. Clandon). Has Finch had a drink?

MRS. CLANDON (remonstrating). Dearest: Mr. McComas will lunch with
us.

DOLLY. Have you ordered for seven? Don't forget the old gentleman.

MRS. CLANDON. I have not forgotten him, dear. What is his name?

DOLLY. Chalkstones. He'll be here at half past one. (To McComas.)
Are we like what you expected?

MRS. CLANDON (changing her tone to a more earnest one). Dolly: Mr.
McComas has something more serious than that to tell you. Children: I
have asked my old friend to answer the question you asked this morning.
He is your father's friend as well as mine: and he will tell you the
story more fairly than I could. (Turning her head from them to Gloria.)
Gloria: are you satisfied?

GLORIA (gravely attentive). Mr. McComas is very kind.

McCOMAS (nervously). Not at all, my dear young lady: not at all. At
the same time, this is rather sudden. I was hardly prepared---er---

DOLLY (suspiciously). Oh, we don't want anything prepared.

PHILIP (exhorting him). Tell us the truth.

DOLLY (emphatically). Bald headed.

McCOMAS (nettled). I hope you intend to take what I have to say
seriously.

PHILIP (with profound mock gravity). I hope it will deserve it, Mr.
McComas. My knowledge of human nature teaches me not to expect too
much.

MRS. CLANDON (remonstrating). Phil---

PHILIP. Yes, mother, all right. I beg your pardon, Mr. McComas:
don't mind us.

DOLLY (in conciliation). We mean well.

PHILIP. Shut up, both.

(Dolly holds her lips. McComas takes a chair from the luncheon
table; places it between the little table and the garden seat with Dolly
on his right and Philip on his left; and settles himself in it with the
air of a man about to begin a long communication. The Clandons match
him expectantly.)

McCOMAS. Ahem! Your father---

DOLLY (interrupting). How old is he?

PHILIP. Sh!

MRS. CLANDON (softly). Dear Dolly: don't let us interrupt Mr.
McComas.

McCOMAS (emphatically). Thank you, Mrs. Clandon. Thank you. (To
Dolly.) Your father is fifty-seven.

DOLLY (with a bound, startled and excited). Fifty-seven! Where does
he live?

MRS. CLANDON (remonstrating). Dolly, Dolly!

McCOMAS (stopping her). Let me answer that, Mrs. Clandon. The
answer will surprise you considerably. He lives in this town. (Mrs.
Clandon rises. She and Gloria look at one another in the greatest
consternation.)

DOLLY (with conviction). I knew it! Phil: Chalkstones is our
father.

McCOMAS. Chalkstones!

DOLLY. Oh, Crampstones, or whatever it is. He said I was like his
mother. I knew he must mean his daughter.

PHILIP (very seriously). Mr. McComas: I desire to consider your
feelings in every possible way: but I warn you that if you stretch the
long arm of coincidence to the length of telling me that Mr. Crampton of
this town is my father, I shall decline to entertain the information for
a moment.

McCOMAS. And pray why?

PHILIP. Because I have seen the gentleman; and he is entirely unfit
to be my father, or Dolly's father, or Gloria's father, or my mother's
husband.

McCOMAS. Oh, indeed! Well, sir, let me tell you that whether you
like it or not, he is your father, and your sister' father, and Mrs.
Clandon's husband. Now! What have you to say to that!

DOLLY (whimpering). You needn't be so cross. Crampton isn't your
father.

PHILIP. Mr. McComas: your conduct is heartless. Here you find a
family enjoying the unspeakable peace and freedom of being orphans. We
have never seen the face of a relative---never known a claim except the
claim of freely chosen friendship. And now you wish to thrust into the
most intimate relationship with us a man whom we don't know---

DOLLY (vehemently). An awful old man! (reproachfully) And you
began as if you had quite a nice father for us.

McCOMAS (angrily). How do you know that he is not nice? And what
right have you to choose your own father? (raising his voice.) Let me
tell you, Miss Clandon, that you are too young to---

DOLLY (interrupting him suddenly and eagerly). Stop, I forgot! Has
he any money?

McCOMAS. He has a great deal of money.

DOLLY (delighted). Oh, what did I always say, Phil?

PHILIP. Dolly: we have perhaps been condemning the old man too
hastily. Proceed, Mr. McComas.

McCOMAS. I shall not proceed, sir. I am too hurt, too shocked, to
proceed.

MRS. CLANDON (urgently). Finch: do you realize what is happening?
Do you understand that my children have invited that man to lunch, and
that he will be here in a few moments?

McCOMAS (completely upset). What! do you mean---am I to understand-
--is it---

PHILIP (impressively). Steady, Finch. Think it out slowly and
carefully. He's coming---coming to lunch.

GLORIA. Which of us is to tell him the truth? Have you thought of
that?

MRS. CLANDON. Finch: you must tell him.

DOLLY Oh, Finch is no good at telling things. Look at the mess he
has made of telling us.

McCOMAS. I have not been allowed to speak. I protest against this.

DOLLY (taking his arm coaxingly). Dear Finch: don't be cross.

MRS. CLANDON. Gloria: let us go in. He may arrive at any moment.

GLORIA (proudly). Do not stir, mother. I shall not stir. We must
not run away.

MRS. CLANDON (delicately rebuking her). My dear: we cannot sit down
to lunch just as we are. We shall come back again. We must have no
bravado. (Gloria winces, and goes into the hotel without a word.)
Come, Dolly. (As she goes into the hotel door, the waiter comes out
with plates, etc., for two additional covers on a tray.)

WAITER. Gentlemen come yet, ma'am?

MRS. CLANDON. Two more to come yet, thank you. They will be here,
immediately. (She goes into the hotel. The waiter takes his tray
to the service table.)

PHILIP. I have an idea. Mr. McComas: this communication should be
made, should it not, by a man of infinite tact?

McCOMAS. It will require tact, certainly.

PHILIP Good! Dolly: whose tact were you noticing only this morning?

DOLLY (seizing the idea with rapture). Oh, yes, I declare! William!

PHILIP. The very man! (Calling) William!

WAITER. Coming, sir.

McCOMAS (horrified). The waiter! Stop, stop! I will not permit
this. I---

WAITER (presenting himself between Philip and McComas). Yes, sir.
(McComas's complexion fades into stone grey; and all movement and
expression desert his eyes. He sits down stupefied.)

PHILIP. William: you remember my request to you to regard me as your
son?

WAITER (with respectful indulgence). Yes, sir. Anything you please,
sir.

PHILIP. William: at the very outset of your career as my father, a
rival has appeared on the scene.

WAITER. Your real father, sir? Well, that was to be expected,
sooner or later, sir, wasn't it? (Turning with a happy smile to
McComas.) Is it you, sir?

McCOMAS (renerved by indignation). Certainly not. My children know
how to behave themselves.

PHILIP. No, William: this gentleman was very nearly my father: he
wooed my mother, but wooed her in vain.

McCOMAS (outraged). Well, of all the---

PHILIP. Sh! Consequently, he is only our solicitor. Do you know
one Crampton, of this town?

WAITER. Cock-eyed Crampton, sir, of the Crooked Billet, is it?

PHILIP. I don't know. Finch: does he keep a public house?

McCOMAS (rising scandalized). No, no, no. Your father, sir, is a
well-known yacht builder, an eminent man here.

WAITER (impressed). Oh, beg pardon, sir, I'm sure. A son of Mr.
Crampton's! Dear me!

PHILIP. Mr. Crampton is coming to lunch with us.

WAITER (puzzled). Yes, sir. (Diplomatically.) Don't usually lunch
with his family, perhaps, sir?

PHILIP (impressively). William: he does not know that we are his
family. He has not seen us for eighteen years. He won't know us. (To
emphasize the communication he seats himself on the iron table with a
spring, and looks at the waiter with his lips compressed and his legs
swinging.)

DOLLY. We want you to break the news to him, William.

WAITER. But I should think he'd guess when he sees your mother,
miss. (Philip's legs become motionless at this elucidation. He
contemplates the waiter raptly.)

DOLLY (dazzled). I never thought of that.

PHILIP. Nor I. (Coming off the table and turning reproachfully on
McComas.) Nor you.

DOLLY. And you a solicitor!

PHILIP. Finch: Your professional incompetence is appalling.
William: your sagacity puts us all to shame.

DOLLY You really are like Shakespear, William.

WAITER. Not at all, sir. Don't mention it, miss. Most happy, I'm
sure, sir. (Goes back modestly to the luncheon table and lays the two
additional covers, one at the end next the steps, and the other so as to
make a third on the side furthest from the balustrade.)

PHILIP (abruptly). Finch: come and wash your hands. (Seizes his arm
and leads him toward the hotel.)

McCOMAS. I am thoroughly vexed and hurt, Mr. Clandon---

PHILIP (interrupting him). You will get used to us. Come, Dolly.
(McComas shakes him off and marches into the hotel. Philip follows with
unruffled composure.)

DOLLY (turning for a moment on the steps as she follows them). Keep
your wits about you, William. There will be fire-works.

WAITER. Right, miss. You may depend on me, miss. (She goes into
the hotel.)

(Valentine comes lightly up the steps from the beach, followed
doggedly by Crampton. Valentine carries a walking stick. Crampton,
either because he is old and chilly, or with some idea of extenuating
the unfashionableness of his reefer jacket, wears a light overcoat. He
stops at the chair left by McComas in the middle of the terrace, and
steadies himself for a moment by placing his hand on the back of it.)

CRAMPTON. Those steps make me giddy. (He passes his hand over his
forehead.) I have not got over that infernal gas yet.

(He goes to the iron chair, so that he can lean his elbows on the
little table to prop his head as he sits. He soon recovers, and begins
to unbutton his overcoat. Meanwhile Valentine interviews the waiter.)

VALENTINE. Waiter!

WAITER (coming forward between them). Yes, sir.

VALENTINE. Mrs. Lanfrey Clandon.

WAITER (with a sweet smile of welcome). Yes, sir. We're expecting
you, sir. That is your table, sir. Mrs. Clandon will be down
presently, sir. The young lady and young gentleman were just talking
about your friend, sir.

VALENTINE. Indeed!

WAITER (smoothly melodious). Yes, sire. Great flow of spirits,
sir. A vein of pleasantry, as you might say, sir. (Quickly, to
Crampton, who has risen to get the overcoat off.) Beg pardon, sir, but
if you'll allow me (helping him to get the overcoat off and taking it
from him). Thank you, sir. (Crampton sits down again; and the waiter
resumes the broken melody.) The young gentleman's latest is that you're
his father, sir.

CRAMPTON. What!

WAITER. Only his joke, sir, his favourite joke. Yesterday, I was to
be his father. To-day, as soon as he knew you were coming, sir, he
tried to put it up on me that you were his father, his long lost father-
--not seen you for eighteen years, he said.

CRAMPTON (startled). Eighteen years!

WAITER. Yes, sir. (With gentle archness.) But I was up to his
tricks, sir. I saw the idea coming into his head as he stood there,
thinking what new joke he'd have with me. Yes, sir: that's the sort he
is: very pleasant, ve--ry off hand and affable indeed, sir. (Again
changing his tempo to say to Valentine, who is putting his stick down
against the corner of the garden seat) If you'll allow me, sir?
(Taking Valentine's stick.) Thank you, sir. (Valentine strolls up to
the luncheon table and looks at the menu. The waiter turns to Crampton
and resumes his lay.) Even the solicitor took up the joke, although he
was in a manner of speaking in my confidence about the young gentleman,
sir. Yes, sir, I assure you, sir. You would never imagine what
respectable professional gentlemen from London will do on an outing,
when the sea air takes them, sir.

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