You Never Can Tell

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CRAMPTON. No, thank you. (With bitter humility.) I suppose that's
no objection to my sitting here for a while: I can't disturb the party
on the beach here.

WAITER (with emotion). Very kind of you, sir, to put it as if it was
not a compliment and an honour to us, Mr. Crampton, very kind indeed.
The more you are at home here, sir, the better for us.

CRAMPTON (in poignant irony). Home!

WAITER (reflectively). Well, yes, sir: that's a way of looking at
it, too, sir. I have always said that the great advantage of a hotel is
that it's a refuge from home life, sir.

CRAMPTON. I missed that advantage to-day, I think.

WAITER. You did, sir, you did. Dear me! It's the unexpected that
always happens, isn't it? (Shaking his head.) You never can tell, sir:
you never can tell. (He goes into the hotel.)

CRAMPTON (his eyes shining hardly as he props his drawn, miserable
face on his hands). Home! Home!! (He drops his arms on the table and
bows his head on them, but presently hears someone approaching and
hastily sits bolt upright. It is Gloria, who has come up the steps
alone, with her sunshade and her book in her hands. He looks defiantly
at her, with the brutal obstinacy of his mouth and the wistfulness of
his eyes contradicting each other pathetically. She comes to the corner
of the garden seat and stands with her back to it, leaning against the
end of it, and looking down at him as if wondering at his weakness: too
curious about him to be cold, but supremely indifferent to their
kinship.) Well?

GLORIA. I want to speak with you for a moment.

CRAMPTON (looking steadily at her). Indeed? That's surprising. You
meet your father after eighteen years; and you actually want to speak to
him for a moment! That's touching: isn't it? (He rests his head on his
hands, and looks down and away from her, in gloomy reflection.)

GLORIA. All that is what seems to me so nonsensical, so uncalled
for. What do you expect us to feel for you---to do for you? What is it
you want? Why are you less civil to us than other people are? You are
evidently not very fond of us---why should you be? But surely we can
meet without quarrelling.

CRAMPTON (a dreadful grey shade passing over his face). Do you
realize that I am your father?

GLORIA. Perfectly.

CRAMPTON. Do you know what is due to me as your father?

GLORIA. For instance----?

CRAMPTON (rising as if to combat a monster). For instance! For
instance!! For instance, duty, affection, respect, obedience---

GLORIA (quitting her careless leaning attitude and confronting him
promptly and proudly). I obey nothing but my sense of what is right. I
respect nothing that is not noble. That is my duty. (She adds, less
firmly) As to affection, it is not within my control. I am not sure
that I quite know what affection means. (She turns away with an evident
distaste for that part of the subject, and goes to the luncheon table
for a comfortable chair, putting down her book and sunshade.)

CRAMPTON (following her with his eyes). Do you really mean what you
are saying?

GLORIA (turning on him quickly and severely). Excuse me: that is an
uncivil question. I am speaking seriously to you; and I expect you to
take me seriously. (She takes one of the luncheon chairs; turns it away
from the table; and sits down a little wearily, saying) Can you not
discuss this matter coolly and rationally?

CRAMPTON. Coolly and rationally! No, I can't. Do you understand
that? I can't.

GLORIA (emphatically). No. That I c a n n o t understand. I have
no sympathy with---

CRAMPTON (shrinking nervously). Stop! Don't say anything more yet;
you don't know what you're doing. Do you want to drive me mad? (She
frowns, finding such petulance intolerable. He adds hastily) No: I'm
not angry: indeed I'm not. Wait, wait: give me a little time to think.
(He stands for a moment, screwing and clinching his brows and hands in
his perplexity; then takes the end chair from the luncheon table and
sits down beside her, saying, with a touching effort to be gentle and
patient) Now, I think I have it. At least I'll try.

GLORIA (firmly). You see! Everything comes right if we only think
it resolutely out.

CRAMPTON (in sudden dread). No: don't think. I want you to feel:
that's the only thing that can help us. Listen! Do you---but first---I
forgot. What's your name? I mean you pet name. They can't very well
call you Sophronia.

GLORIA (with astonished disgust). Sophronia! My name is Gloria. I
am always called by it.

CRAMPTON (his temper rising again). Your name is Sophronia, girl:
you were called after your aunt Sophronia, my sister: she gave you your
first Bible with your name written in it.

GLORIA. Then my mother gave me a new name.

CRAMPTON (angrily). She had no right to do it. I will not allow
this.

GLORIA. You had no right to give me your sister's name. I don't
know her.

CRAMPTON. You're talking nonsense. There are bounds to what I will
put up with. I will not have it. Do you hear that?

GLORIA (rising warningly). Are you resolved to quarrel?

CRAMPTON (terrified, pleading). No, no: sit down. Sit down, won't
you? (She looks at him, keeping him in suspense. He forces himself to
utter the obnoxious name.) Gloria. (She marks her satisfaction with a
slight tightening of the lips, and sits down.) There! You see I only
want to shew you that I am your father, my---my dear child. (The
endearment is so plaintively inept that she smiles in spite of herself,
and resigns herself to indulge him a little.) Listen now. What I want
to ask you is this. Don't you remember me at all? You were only a tiny
child when you were taken away from me; but you took plenty of notice of
things. Can't you remember someone whom you loved, or (shyly) at least
liked in a childish way? Come! someone who let you stay in his study
and look at his toy boats, as you thought them? (He looks anxiously
into her face for some response, and continues less hopefully and more
urgently) Someone who let you do as you liked there and never said a
word to you except to tell you that you must sit still and not speak?
Someone who was something that no one else was to you---who was your
father.

GLORIA (unmoved). If you describe things to me, no doubt I shall
presently imagine that I remember them. But I really remember nothing.

CRAMPTON (wistfully). Has your mother never told you anything about
me?

GLORIA. She has never mentioned your name to me. (He groans
involuntarily. She looks at him rather contemptuously and continues)
Except once; and then she did remind me of something I had forgotten.

CRAMPTON (looking up hopefully). What was that?

GLORIA (mercilessly). The whip you bought to beat me with.

CRAMPTON (gnashing his teeth). Oh! To bring that up against me! To
turn from me! When you need never have known. (Under a grinding,
agonized breath.) Curse her!

GLORIA (springing up). You wretch! (With intense emphasis.) You
wretch!! You dare curse my mother!

CRAMPTON. Stop; or you'll be sorry afterwards. I'm your father.

GLORIA. How I hate the name! How I love the name of mother! You
had better go.

CRAMPTON. I---I'm choking. You want to kill me. Some---I--- (His
voice stifles: he is almost in a fit.)

GLORIA (going up to the balustrade with cool, quick resourcefulness,
and calling over to the beach). Mr. Valentine!

VALENTINE (answering from below). Yes.

GLORIA. Come here a moment, please. Mr. Crampton wants you. (She
returns to the table and pours out a glass of water.)

CRAMPTON (recovering his speech). No: let me alone. I don't want
him. I'm all right, I tell you. I need neither his help nor yours.
(He rises and pulls himself together.) As you say, I had better go.
(He puts on his hat.) Is that your last word?

GLORIA. I hope so. (He looks stubbornly at her for a moment; nods
grimly, as if he agreed to that; and goes into the hotel. She looks at
him with equal steadiness until he disappears, when she makes a gesture
of relief, and turns to speak to Valentine, who comes running up the
steps.)

VALENTINE (panting). What's the matter? (Looking round.) Where's
Crampton?

GLORIA. Gone. (Valentine's face lights up with sudden joy, dread,
and mischief. He has just realized that he is alone with Gloria. She
continues indifferently) I thought he was ill; but he recovered
himself. He wouldn't wait for you. I am sorry. (She goes for her book
and parasol.)

VALENTINE. So much the better. He gets on my nerves after a while.
(Pretending to forget himself.) How could that man have so beautiful a
daughter!

GLORIA (taken aback for a moment; then answering him with polite but
intentional contempt). That seems to be an attempt at what is called a
pretty speech. Let me say at once, Mr. Valentine, that pretty speeches
make very sickly conversation. Pray let us be friends, if we are to be
friends, in a sensible and wholesome way. I have no intention of
getting married; and unless you are content to accept that state of
things, we had much better not cultivate each other's acquaintance.

VALENTINE (cautiously). I see. May I ask just this one question?
Is your objection an objection to marriage as an institution, or merely
an objection to marrying me personally?

GLORIA. I do not know you well enough, Mr. Valentine, to have any
opinion on the subject of your personal merits. (She turns away from
him with infinite indifference, and sits down with her book on the
garden seat.) I do not think the conditions of marriage at present are
such as any self-respecting woman can accept.

VALENTINE (instantly changing his tone for one of cordial sincerity,
as if he frankly accepted her terms and was delighted and reassured by
her principles). Oh, then that's a point of sympathy between us
already. I quite agree with you: the conditions are most unfair. (He
takes off his hat and throws it gaily on the iron table.) No: what I
want is to get rid of all that nonsense. (He sits down beside her, so
naturally that she does not think of objecting, and proceeds, with
enthusiasm) Don't you think it a horrible thing that a man and a woman
can hardly know one another without being supposed to have designs of
that kind? As if there were no other interests---no other subjects of
conversation---as if women were capable of nothing better!

GLORIA (interested). Ah, now you are beginning to talk humanly and
sensibly, Mr. Valentine.

VALENTINE (with a gleam in his eye at the success of his hunter's
guile). Of course!---two intelligent people like us. Isn't it
pleasant, in this stupid, convention-ridden world, to meet with someone
on the same plane---someone with an unprejudiced, enlightened mind?

GLORIA (earnestly). I hope to meet many such people in England.

VALENTINE (dubiously). Hm! There are a good many people here---
nearly forty millions. They're not all consumptive members of the
highly educated classes like the people in Madeira.

GLORIA (now full of her subject). Oh, everybody is stupid and
prejudiced in Madeira---weak, sentimental creatures! I hate weakness;
and I hate sentiment.

VALENTINE. That's what makes you so inspiring.

GLORIA (with a slight laugh). Am I inspiring?

VALENTINE Yes. Strength's infectious.

GLORIA. Weakness is, I know.

VALENTINE (with conviction). Y o u're strong. Do you know that you
changed the world for me this morning? I was in the dumps, thinking of
my unpaid rent, frightened about the future. When you came in, I was
dazzled. (Her brow clouds a little. He goes on quickly.) That was
silly, of course; but really and truly something happened to me.
Explain it how you will, my blood got--- (he hesitates, trying to think
of a sufficiently unimpassioned word) ---oxygenated: my muscles braced;
my mind cleared; my courage rose. That's odd, isn't it? considering
that I am not at all a sentimental man.

GLORIA (uneasily, rising). Let us go back to the beach.

VALENTINE (darkly---looking up at her). What! you feel it, too?

GLORIA. Feel what?

VALENTINE. Dread.

GLORIA. Dread!

VALENTINE. As if something were going to happen. It came over me
suddenly just before you proposed that we should run away to the others.

GLORIA (amazed). That's strange---very strange! I had the same
presentiment.

VALENTINE. How extraordinary! (Rising.) Well: shall we run away?

GLORIA. Run away! Oh, no: that would be childish. (She sits down
again. He resumes his seat beside her, and watches her with a gravely
sympathetic air. She is thoughtful and a little troubled as she adds)
I wonder what is the scientific explanation of those fancies that cross
us occasionally!

VALENTINE. Ah, I wonder! It's a curiously helpless sensation: isn't
it?

GLORIA (rebelling against the word). Helpless?

VALENTINE. Yes. As if Nature, after allowing us to belong to
ourselves and do what we judged right and reasonable for all these
years, were suddenly lifting her great hand to take us---her two little
children---by the scruff's of our little necks, and use us, in spite of
ourselves, for her own purposes, in her own way.

GLORIA. Isn't that rather fanciful?

VALENTINE (with a new and startling transition to a tone of utter
recklessness). I don't know. I don't care. (Bursting out
reproachfully.) Oh, Miss Clandon, Miss Clandon: how could you?

GLORIA. What have I done?

VALENTINE. Thrown this enchantment on me. I'm honestly trying to be
sensible---scientific---everything that you wish me to be. But---but---
oh, don't you see what you have set to work in my imagination?

GLORIA (with indignant, scornful sternness). I hope you are not
going to be so foolish---so vulgar---as to say love.

VALENTINE (with ironical haste to disclaim such a weakness). No, no,
no. Not love: we know better than that. Let's call it chemistry. You
can't deny that there is such a thing as chemical action, chemical
affinity, chemical combination---the most irresistible of all natural
forces. Well, you're attracting me irresistibly---chemically.

GLORIA (contemptuously). Nonsense!

VALENTINE. Of course it's nonsense, you stupid girl. (Gloria
recoils in outraged surprise.) Yes, stupid girl: t h a t's a
scientific fact, anyhow. You're a prig---a feminine prig: that's what
you are. (Rising.) Now I suppose you've done with me for ever. (He
goes to the iron table and takes up his hat.)

GLORIA (with elaborate calm, sitting up like a High-school-mistress
posing to be photographed). That shows how very little you understand
my real character. I am not in the least offended. (He pauses and puts
his hat down again.) I am always willing to be told of my own defects,
Mr. Valentine, by my friends, even when they are as absurdly mistaken
about me as you are. I have many faults---very serious faults---of
character and temper; but if there is one thing that I am not, it is
what you call a prig. (She closes her lips trimly and looks steadily
and challengingly at him as she sits more collectedly than ever.)

VALENTINE (returning to the end of the garden seat to confront her
more emphatically). Oh, yes, you are. My reason tells me so: my
knowledge tells me so: my experience tells me so.

GLORIA. Excuse my reminding you that your reason and your knowledge
and your experience are not infallible. At least I hope not.

VALENTINE. I must believe them. Unless you wish me to believe my
eyes, my heart, my instincts, my imagination, which are all telling me
the most monstrous lies about you.

GLORIA (the collectedness beginning to relax). Lies!

VALENTINE (obstinately). Yes, lies. (He sits down again beside
her.) Do you expect me to believe that you are the most beautiful woman
in the world?

GLORIA. That is ridiculous, and rather personal.

VALENTINE. Of course it's ridiculous. Well, that's what my eyes
tell me. (Gloria makes a movement of contemptuous protest.) No: I'm
not flattering. I tell you I don't believe it. (She is ashamed to find
that this does not quite please her either.) Do you think that if you
were to turn away in disgust from my weakness, I should sit down here
and cry like a child?

GLORIA (beginning to find that she must speak shortly and pointedly
to keep her voice steady). Why should you, pray?

VALENTINE (with a stir of feeling beginning to agitate his voice).
Of course not: I'm not such an idiot. And yet my heart tells me I
should---my fool of a heart. But I'll argue with my heart and bring it
to reason. If I loved you a thousand times, I'll force myself to look
the truth steadily in the face. After all, it's easy to be sensible:
the facts are the facts. What's this place? it's not heaven: it's the
Marine Hotel. What's the time? it's not eternity: it's about half past
one in the afternoon. What am I? a dentist---a five shilling dentist!

GLORIA. And I am a feminine prig.

VALENTINE. (passionately). No, no: I can't face that: I must have
one illusion left---the illusion about you. I love you. (He turns
towards her as if the impulse to touch her were ungovernable: she rises
and stands on her guard wrathfully. He springs up impatiently and
retreats a step.) Oh, what a fool I am!---an idiot! You don't
understand: I might as well talk to the stones on the beach. (He turns
away, discouraged.)

GLORIA (reassured by his withdrawal, and a little remorseful). I am
sorry. I do not mean to be unsympathetic, Mr. Valentine; but what can I
say?

VALENTINE (returning to her with all his recklessness of manner
replaced by an engaging and chivalrous respect). You can say nothing,
Miss Clandon. I beg your pardon: it was my own fault, or rather my own
bad luck. You see, it all depended on your naturally liking me. (She
is about to speak: he stops her deprecatingly.) Oh, I know you mustn't
tell me whether you like me or not; but---

GLORIA (her principles up in arms at once). Must not! Why not? I
am a free woman: why should I not tell you?

VALENTINE (pleading in terror, and retreating). Don't. I'm afraid
to hear.

GLORIA (no longer scornful). You need not be afraid. I think you
are sentimental, and a little foolish; but I like you.

VALENTINE (dropping into the iron chair as if crushed). Then it's
all over. (He becomes the picture of despair.)

GLORIA (puzzled, approaching him). But why?

VALENTINE. Because liking is not enough. Now that I think down into
it seriously, I don't know whether I like you or not.

GLORIA (looking down at him with wondering concern). I'm sorry.

VALENTINE (in an agony of restrained passion). Oh, don't pity me.
Your voice is tearing my heart to pieces. Let me alone, Gloria. You go
down into the very depths of me, troubling and stirring me---I can't
struggle with it---I can't tell you---

GLORIA (breaking down suddenly). Oh, stop telling me what you feel:
I can't bear it.

VALENTINE (springing up triumphantly, the agonized voice now solid,
ringing, and jubilant). Ah, it's come at last---my moment of courage.
(He seizes her hands: she looks at him in terror.) Our moment of
courage! (He draws her to him; kisses her with impetuous strength; and
laughs boyishly.) Now you've done it, Gloria. It's all over: we're in
love with one another. (She can only gasp at him.) But what a dragon
you were! And how hideously afraid I was!

PHILIP'S VOICE (calling from the beach). Valentine!

DOLLY'S VOICE. Mr. Valentine!

VALENTINE. Good-bye. Forgive me. (He rapidly kisses her hands, and
runs away to the steps, where he meets Mrs. Clandon, ascending. Gloria,
quite lost, can only start after him.)

MRS. CLANDON. The children want you, Mr. Valentine. (She looks
anxiously around.) Is he gone?

VALENTINE (puzzled). He? (Recollecting.) Oh, Crampton. Gone this
long time, Mrs. Clandon. (He runs off buoyantly down the steps.)

GLORIA (sinking upon the seat). Mother!

MRS. CLANDON (hurrying to her in alarm). What is it, dear?

GLORIA (with heartfelt, appealing reproach). Why didn't you educate
me properly?

MRS. CLANDON (amazed). My child: I did my best.

GLORIA. Oh, you taught me nothing---nothing.

MRS. CLANDON. What is the matter with you?

GLORIA (with the most intense expression). Only shame---shame---
shame. (Blushing unendurably, she covers her face with her hands and
turns away from her mother.)

END OF ACT II.

Act III

The Clandon's sitting room in the hotel. An expensive apartment on
the ground floor, with a French window leading to the gardens. In the
centre of the room is a substantial table, surrounded by chairs, and
draped with a maroon cloth on which opulently bound hotel and railway
guides are displayed. A visitor entering through the window and coming
down to this central table would have the fireplace on his left, and a
writing table against the wall on his right, next the door, which is
further down. He would, if his taste lay that way, admire the wall
decoration of Lincrusta Walton in plum color and bronze lacquer, with
dado and cornice; the ormolu consoles in the corners; the vases on
pillar pedestals of veined marble with bases of polished black wood, one
on each side of the window; the ornamental cabinet next the vase on the
side nearest the fireplace, its centre compartment closed by an inlaid
door, and its corners rounded off with curved panes of glass protecting
shelves of cheap blue and white pottery; the bamboo tea table, with
folding shelves, in the corresponding space on the other side of the
window; the pictures of ocean steamers and Landseer's dogs; the
saddlebag ottoman in line with the door but on the other side of the
room; the two comfortable seats of the same pattern on the hearthrug;
and finally, on turning round and looking up, the massive brass pole
above the window, sustaining a pair of maroon rep curtains with
decorated borders of staid green. Altogether, a room well arranged to
flatter the occupant's sense of importance, and reconcile him to a
charge of a pound a day for its use.

Mrs. Clandon sits at the writing table, correcting proofs. Gloria is
standing at the window, looking out in a tormented revery.

The clock on the mantelpiece strikes five with a sickly clink, the
bell being unable to bear up against the black marble cenotaph in which
it is immured.

MRS. CLANDON. Five! I don't think we need wait any longer for the
children. The are sure to get tea somewhere.

GLORIA (wearily). Shall I ring?

MRS. CLANDON. Do, my dear. (Gloria goes to the hearth and rings.)
I have finished these proofs at last, thank goodness!

GLORIA (strolling listlessly across the room and coming behind her
mother's chair). What proofs?

MRS. CLANDON The new edition of Twentieth Century Women.

GLORIA (with a bitter smile). There's a chapter missing.

MRS. CLANDON (beginning to hunt among her proofs). Is there? Surely
not.

GLORIA. I mean an unwritten one. Perhaps I shall write it for you--
-when I know the end of it. (She goes back to the window.)

MRS. CLANDON. Gloria! More enigmas!

GLORIA. Oh, no. The same enigma.

MRS. CLANDON (puzzled and rather troubled; after watching her for a
moment). My dear.

GLORIA (returning). Yes.

MRS. CLANDON. You know I never ask questions.

GLORIA (kneeling beside her chair). I know, I know. (She suddenly
throws her arms about her mother and embraces her almost passionately.)

MRS. CLANDON. (gently, smiling but embarrassed). My dear: you are
getting quite sentimental

GLORIA (recoiling). Ah, no, no. Oh, don't say that. Oh! (She
rises and turns away with a gesture as if tearing herself.)

MRS. CLANDON (mildly). My dear: what is the matter? What--- (The
waiter enters with the tea tray.)

WAITER (balmily). This was what you rang for, ma'am, I hope?

MRS. CLANDON. Thank you, yes. (She turns her chair away from the
writing table, and sits down again. Gloria crosses to the hearth and
sits crouching there with her face averted.)

WAITER (placing the tray temporarily on the centre table). I thought
so, ma'am. Curious how the nerves seem to give out in the afternoon
without a cup of tea. (He fetches the tea table and places it in front
of Mrs. Cladon, conversing meanwhile.) the young lady and gentleman
have just come back, ma'am: they have been out in a boat, ma'am. Very
pleasant on a fine afternoon like this---very pleasant and invigorating
indeed. (He takes the tray from the centre table and puts it on the tea
table.) Mr. McComas will not come to tea, ma'am: he has gone to call
upon Mr. Crampton. (He takes a couple of chairs and sets one at each
end of the tea table.)

GLORIA (looking round with an impulse of terror). And the other
gentleman?

WAITER (reassuringly, as he unconsciously drops for a moment into the
measure of "I've been roaming," which he sang as a boy.) Oh, he's
coming, miss, he's coming. He has been rowing the boat, miss, and has
just run down the road to the chemist's for something to put on the
blisters. But he will be here directly, miss---directly. (Gloria, in
ungovernable apprehension, rises and hurries towards the door.)

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