Major Barbara | Page 8

your father to come this evening. [Stephen bounds from his seat] Don't
jump, Stephen: it fidgets me.
STEPHEN [in utter consternation] Do you mean to say that my father
is coming here to-night--that he may be here at any moment?
LADY BRITOMART [looking at her watch] I said nine. [He gasps.
She rises]. Ring the bell, please. [Stephen goes to the smaller writing
table; presses a button on it; and sits at it with his elbows on the table
and his head in his hands, outwitted and overwhelmed]. It is ten
minutes to nine yet; and I have to prepare the girls. I asked Charles
Lomax and Adolphus to dinner on purpose that they might be here.
Andrew had better see them in case he should cherish any delusions as
to their being capable of supporting their wives. [The butler enters:
Lady Britomart goes behind the settee to speak to him]. Morrison: go
up to the drawingroom and tell everybody to come down here at once.
[Morrison withdraws. Lady Britomart turns to Stephen]. Now

remember, Stephen, I shall need all your countenance and authority.
[He rises and tries to recover some vestige of these attributes]. Give me
a chair, dear. [He pushes a chair forward from the wall to where she
stands, near the smaller writing table. She sits down; and he goes to the
armchair, into which he throws himself]. I don't know how Barbara will
take it. Ever since they made her a major in the Salvation Army she has
developed a propensity to have her own way and order people about
which quite cows me sometimes. It's not ladylike: I'm sure I don't know
where she picked it up. Anyhow, Barbara shan't bully me; but still it's
just as well that your father should be here before she has time to refuse
to meet him or make a fuss. Don't look nervous, Stephen, it will only
encourage Barbara to make difficulties. I am nervous enough, goodness
knows; but I don't show it.
Sarah and Barbara come in with their respective young men, Charles
Lomax and Adolphus Cusins. Sarah is slender, bored, and mundane.
Barbara is robuster, jollier, much more energetic. Sarah is fashionably
dressed: Barbara is in Salvation Army uniform. Lomax, a young man
about town, is like many other young men about town. He is affected
with a frivolous sense of humor which plunges him at the most
inopportune moments into paroxysms of imperfectly suppressed
laughter. Cusins is a spectacled student, slight, thin haired, and sweet
voiced, with a more complex form of Lomax's complaint. His sense of
humor is intellectual and subtle, and is complicated by an appalling
temper. The lifelong struggle of a benevolent temperament and a high
conscience against impulses of inhuman ridicule and fierce impatience
bas set up a chronic strain which has visibly wrecked his constitution.
He is a most implacable, determined, tenacious, intolerant person who
by mere force of character presents himself as--and indeed actually
is--considerate, gentle, explanatory, even mild and apologetic, capable
possibly of murder, but not of cruelty or coarseness. By the operation
of some instinct which is not merciful enough to blind him with the
illusions of love, he is obstinately bent on marrying Barbara. Lomax
likes Sarah and thinks it will be rather a lark to marry her.
Consequently he has not attempted to resist Lady Britomart's
arrangements to that end.
All four look as if they bad been having a good deal of fun in the
drawingroom. The girls enter first, leaving the swains outside. Sarah

comes to the settee. Barbara comes in after her and stops at the door.
BARBARA. Are Cholly and Dolly to come in?
LADY BRITOMART [forcibly] Barbara: I will not have Charles called
Cholly: the vulgarity of it positively makes me ill.
BARBARA. It's all right, mother. Cholly is quite correct nowadays.
Are they to come in?
LADY BRITOMART. Yes, if they will behave themselves.
BARBARA [through the door] Come in, Dolly, and behave yourself.
Barbara comes to her mother's writing table. Cusins enters smiling, and
wanders towards Lady Britomart.
SARAH [calling] Come in, Cholly. [Lomax enters, controlling his
features very imperfectly, and places himself vaguely between Sarah
and Barbara].
LADY BRITOMART [peremptorily] Sit down, all of you. [They sit.
Cusins crosses to the window and seats himself there. Lomax takes a
chair. Barbara sits at the writing table and Sarah on the settee]. I don't
in the least know what you are laughing at, Adolphus. I am surprised at
you, though I expected nothing better from Charles Lomax.
CUSINS [in a remarkably gentle voice] Barbara has been trying to
teach me the West Ham Salvation March.
LADY BRITOMART. I see nothing to laugh at in that; nor should you
if you are really converted.
CUSINS [sweetly] You were not present. It