The Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Temple
Lord Burnley
Mr. Dundas
Sir Richard Carfax
Mr. Hallam
Sir Malcolm Clark
Lady Dorothy Nugent
Peggy, seven years of age
Galloway
Doctor Gottfried Schiller
Mrs. Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Otto Schiller, twenty years of age
Dr. Hoffmann
Freda Michel
Margaret Schiller
Secretaries of the Minister, Compatriots
of the Schiller family
Residence of the Minister
Apartment of Dr. Schiller in Soho Square
Residence of the Minister
Apartment of Dr. Schiller in Soho Square
Residence of the Minister
A period of one month is supposed to pass between the Prologue and Act I, and of two months between Acts II and III. The action of the rest of the play is continuous. Therefore in performance it is desirable that Acts I and II and Acts III and IV should be played without intervals.
To avoid offence the time of the play is assumed to be in the future.
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Sir Robert Temple |
Mr. C.M. Hallard |
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Scene.—Room in the house of the Minister. Large windows at back. Middle window opened to ground as door to garden. Door open. A clear night. Garden seen without. Beyond garden St. James's Park, with lake, etc. Buckingham Palace in distance. Doors right and left. Fireplace on left. Above mantelpiece a portrait in oils of a young and beautiful woman. A light shining on portrait. Nearer to footlights there is a desk, with electric lamp, etc. It is a night in late summer. Electric light burning.
A round table middle of room. Four gentlemen seated about it. Telephone bells, etc. Sir Robert Temple faces audience. He is about forty-five; has strong clean-shaven face. The others are men of varying ages.
When curtain rises there is a moment of silence. The conference is seen to be one of considerable gravity. Sir Robert touches bell on table. A manservant enters right.
Sir Robert.
Close the window and draw the curtains, Galloway.
Galloway.
Yes, sir.
[All sit without speaking while door at back is closed, curtains drawn, etc.
Sir Robert.
Galloway?
Galloway.
Yes, Sir Robert?
Sir Robert.
Call up Mr. Denham at the Foreign Office. Give
him my compliments and ask if any message has yet
been received from the Embassy.
Galloway.
The Embassy, sir?
Sir Robert.
He'll know which. If not, say I could wish him
to put it through to this room the moment it arrives.
Galloway.
Yes, sir.
Sir Robert.
When Lord Burnley comes bring him up immediately.
Galloway.
Yes, sir. [Manservant goes out.
Sir Robert.
Pity our old colleague isn't here. Something must
have detained him. No doubt he'll come presently.
Others.
Sure to.
Sir Robert.
I particularly wished that we five should be together
to-night.
Others.
Yes, of course, naturally.
Sir Robert.
When the reply to our Ultimatum comes, an
answer may be required at once, and, of course, it
should be agreeable to all.
Others.
Of course! Of course!
Hallam.
But aren't we alarming ourselves unduly, sir? Is
it possible that our neighbours will repeat the blunder
of the last war?
Carfax.
They are again so plainly in the wrong. How can
they defend such conduct?
Dundas.
They can't and they won't; You may be sure
they won't. They've learnt their lesson.
Sir Robert.
My experience is that when a nation has determined
upon a policy it is the easiest thing in the world for
it to become convinced that it is in the right, and
no lesson from the past is sufficient to undeceive it.
Hallam.
True!
Dundas.
Quite true!
Carfax.
Yes, every nation thinks it carries the Ark of the
Covenant.
Sir Robert.
Therefore I cherish no illusions to-night. But
reply or no reply, all that remains to us is to follow
the line of honour.
Others.
Quite so.
Dundas.
So soon after the last war, though!
Hallam.
With all its frightful sorrow and suffering!
Carfax.
Terrible! Terrible!
Enter manservant as before.
Galloway.
Lord Burnley.
Enter Lord Burnley. Elderly man. There are general salutations.
Lord Burnley.
Sorry to be late. Excuse me, Robert. [Nodding
round table.] Carfax! Dundas! Hallam! How
long do you think it has taken me to reach here in
a taxi from my house in Kensington? An hour and
a half! Traffic held up everywhere! People walking
in procession! Mass meetings in Trafalgar
Square! Such unanimity of popular feeling! Have
never seen the like of it!
Others.
Ah!
Hallam.
We've certainly got the country behind us, haven't
we?
Lord Burnley.
Yes, it's always like that to begin with. Every
great war in the history of the world has been heralded
by just such outbursts of popular enthusiasm. But
when the bill comes in, and the price has to be
paid …
Carfax.
True!
Lord Burnley.
Terribly true! The people of yesterday thought
they were seeing the last of war. "A war to end
war," they called it. And yet here we are, so soon
afterwards, as the harvest of hate and revenge
perhaps … ugh!
Dundas.
Yes, reprisals, reprisals, reprisals!
Carfax.
Frightful! If war comes now it will be the most
awful tragedy the world has ever witnessed.
Dundas.
Twenty millions of dead—that's the least we can
look for.
Hallam.
More—far more! Think of the development of
physical force during the years of peace.
Carfax.
Yes, nobody can say what the consequences of
war will be now. All past records are useless.
Dundas.
Utterly useless! Whole continents may be wiped
out in a year, a month, nay, a week for all we know.
Hallam.
Yes, yes! Man has made his Frankenstein, and
now God knows if it will not destroy him.
Sir Robert.
[Who has been listening in silence.] Gentlemen, let
us not lose our strength in sentimentality. War is
always terrible, and it may be even more terrible in
the future than it has ever been in the past. But
are we to buy the temporary ease and safety of our
bodies at the lasting peril of our souls? In this age of the world, are a little handful of arch-egotists and
crowned degenerates to be permitted to plot, intrigue
and gamble in the destinies of hundreds of millions
of people, in life and death, happiness and misery,
with everything God gave us to be ours—on the land,
in the air, on the sea? No, the time has come when
that terror has to die if liberty is to live, and it is
for us to kill it. Therefore we sent our Ultimatum
this morning, and if as a consequence we are called
upon to make the sacrifices of war for the things
that are more to us than life, we must make them—every man, every woman, every child. [There is a moment of silence. Then from within comes the cry of a child. Sir Robert listens, then touches bell. Maidservant enters.] What was that?
Maidservant.
Little Miss Peggy, sir. Awakened from sleep in
a fright. Must have been a nightmare. She's calling
for her father, and Nurse says she cannot be pacified.
Sir Robert.
[Rising.] Excuse me, gentlemen.
[He goes out at right. His colleagues look after him, and then smile.
Carfax.
Isn't that like him?
Dundas.
Isn't it?
Carfax.
How little the world knows him!
Hallam.
How little indeed!
Carfax.
A hard, austere, unyielding nature, without a
touch of sentiment, and yet …
Hallam.
A person of such underlying tenderness that his
highest, gravest, sternest moment may be broken in
upon by the cry of a little child!
Dundas.
Strange contradiction!
Hallam.
Extraordinary combination of conflicting characteristics!
Carfax.
What a victim for the designing man!
Hallam.
Or the scheming woman!
Lord Burnley.
No!
Hallam.
No?
Lord Burnley.
The scheming woman—no! Robert Temple carries
one talisman against that kind of peril [Pointing to portrait over fireplace], the memory of his dead
wife.
Carfax.
Ah! You knew him during his early married life,
didn't you?
Lord Burnley.
Yes, through all the sad and hidden years of it.
Carfax.
Rather a hard time, wasn't it?
Lord Burnley.
Very. When Temple came up from the University
he was poor—very poor.
Carfax.
Hardly had enough to pay his fees for the Bar—isn't that so?
Lord Burnley.
[Nodding.] Then by some chance he came to know
the family of that rich old dunderhead. Lord Nugent.
You remember him, Hallam?
Hallam.
Perfectly. A hard old nut if ever there was one.
Lord Burnley.
The old man had two daughters, and Temple fell
in love with the younger of them [Indicating portrait]—Margaret. When he asked for her, Nugent almost
spat in his face. "The briefless beggar," "the
parvenu," and so forth.
Carfax.
Just so.
Lord Burnley.
Things had gone too far though, and in spite of
her father's refusal the girl married Temple, and was
forthwith cut off for the rest of the old man's life.
Hallam.
She would be.
Lord Burnley.
Then followed ten years of poverty—some say privation. The young wife bore it cheerfully. Never regretted her choice. Always believed in her husband—his talents, his future, his destiny. He would be the first man in England some day.
Others.
Ah!
Lord Burnley.
Then old Nugent died, and not being able to
alienate the whole of his fortune. Temple's wife
became rich.
Hallam.
Jumped in a moment into ten thousand a year,
they say.
Lord Burnley.
[Nodding.] Temple had made some progress, too.
Got into Parliament somehow, and produced a considerable impression. And when the great crisis
came——
Carfax.
The great war you mean?
Lord Burnley.
[Nodding] And reputations were being made—and lost—in a month, Temple was given a place in the
Government.
Hallam.
So that after fifteen years of poverty and obscurity
he and his wife broke into great prosperity.
Lord Burnley.
[Nodding.] Into great happiness also. After many
years of childlessness a child was born to them—the
little girl he has gone upstairs to see. And then the
bolt fell—you know how?
Carfax.
The death of his wife?
Lord Burnley.
Her death-warrant anyway. An incurable malady!
Temple thought it had been accelerated—perhaps
generated—by the long period of their poverty, and
reproached himself accordingly.
Others.
Pitiful! Pitiful!
Lord Burnley.
He did everything that love and care could do.
Time passed—two years, three years, four. At last
he took her to Switzerland.
Hallam.
Yes, up to the Engadine.
Lord Burnley.
No use! Six months later she came back worse than she went, and died, as you remember, in the
spring.
Carfax.
Poor wife!
Dundas.
Poor husband!
Lord Burnley.
All the world heard of his bereavement, but nobody
was allowed to know how much he felt it. Parliament
never knew. Even his colleagues never knew.
Others.
Never!
Lord Burnley.
He had formed his own Ministry in the meantime,
and next day, after the funeral, found him on the
Treasury Bench as usual. Apparently the same man
as ever—proud, austere, reserved, unmoved, and
immovable. He had brought in his wife's sister.
Lady Dorothy, to look after his house and take care
of his little daughter, and … that was all.
Carfax.
All?
Lord Burnley.
All that was visible to the eye of the world, I
mean. Yes, a strange combination of the iron-willed
man and the tender-hearted sentimentalist, I admit.
But in danger from the scheming woman—no!
Under his stern and cold exterior his dead wife still
lives as in a shrine.
[Sir Robert returns to the room.
Sir Robert.
A thousand apologies. It was nothing. My little
daughter's nurse had been telling the child some
foolish stories before she went to bed. Thought some
danger threatened her father, and couldn't be got
to sleep without seeing him. Any answer from the
Foreign Office?
Others.
No—nothing yet.
Sir Robert.
[Looks at watch] Time enough still. The Ultimatum does not expire until midnight. It's only
half-past ten. My sister-in-law has had a little cold
supper laid in the next room. Let us go in to it.
Others.
[Rising.] With pleasure!
Carfax.
[Going up.] An hour and a half yet.
Hallam.
[Going up.] They will be sure to wait until the last
moment.
Dundas
[Going up.] Sure to.
[The men are passing into room on left when a lady enters by door on right. It is Lady Dorothy Nugent, about thirty-five. She has an open letter in her hand.
Lady Dorothy.
Robert!
Sir Robert.
Dorothy!
Lady Dorothy.
May I speak to you for a moment?
Sir Robert.
[To men.] Excuse me. Go in, gentlemen. Sit
down without ceremony. I'll follow you presently.
[To Lady Dorothy.] Well?
Lady Dorothy.
Sorry to trouble you at such a time, but the matter
is urgent. It's about Peggy. Lucy, the nurse, is no
longer a possible person to have charge of such a
nervous, imaginative child. She must have a governess immediately.
Sir Robert.
[Going up.] I agree. Find one as soon as possible.
Lady Dorothy.
Another moment, Robert. Do you remember that
our dear Margaret used to speak of a Swiss governess
whom she wished to engage?
Sir Robert.
[Coming back.] The one she found in the Engadine?
I do.
Lady Dorothy.
Well, this letter has come from the girl to-night.
It was addressed to Margaret, and I thought you
would like me to open it, so I did. Clearly the girl
hasn't heard of our darling's death. She writes to
say she is leaving her situation, and if Margaret still wishes to engage her she can come to England
immediately.
Sir Robert.
[Going up again.] Good! Tell her what has
happened, and let her come as soon as possible.
Lady Dorothy.
Of course we shall be taking a certain risk.
Sir Robert.
A risk?
Lady Dorothy.
We have never seen the girl. We know nothing
about her.
Sir Robert.
But surely Margaret must have known all about
her. In fact, she did. I remember that while she
was at St. Moritz she mentioned the girl in more
than one of her letters. [Coming down to desk.] Let
me see if I can find anything.
Lady Dorothy.
Yes, do. It will be safer.