Getting Married

you think. Leo Struck by this. Well, that’s very true of Rejjy: In fact, that’s why I had to divorce him. The Bishop Condoling. Yes: he repeats himself dreadfully, doesn’t he? Reginald Look here, Alfred. If I have my faults, let her find them out for herself without your help. The Bishop She has found them all out already, Reginald. Leo A little huffily. After all, there are worse men than Reginald. I daresay he’s not so clever as you; but still he’s not such a fool as you seem to think him! The Bishop Quite right, dear: stand up for your husband. I hope you will always stand up for all your husbands. He rises and goes to the hearth, where he stands complacently with his back to the fireplace, beaming at them all as at a roomful of children. Leo Please don’t talk as if I wanted to marry a whole regiment. For me there can never be more than two. I shall never love anybody but Rejjy and Sinjon. Reginald A man with a face like a⁠— Leo I won’t have it, Rejjy. It’s disgusting. The Bishop You see, my dear, you’ll exhaust Sinjon’s conversation too in a week or so. A man is like a phonograph with half-a-dozen records. You soon get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor. In the end you have to be content with his common humanity; and when you come down to that, you find out about men what a great English poet of my acquaintance used to say about women: that they all taste alike. Marry whom you please: at the end of a month he’ll be Reginald over again. It wasn’t worth changing: indeed it wasn’t. Leo Then it’s a mistake to get married. The Bishop It is, my dear; but it’s a much bigger mistake not to get married. The General Rising. Ha! You hear that, Lesbia? He joins her at the garden door. Lesbia That’s only an epigram, Boxer. The General Sound sense, Lesbia. When a man talks rot, that’s epigram: when he talks sense, then I agree with him. Reginald Coming off the oak chest and looking at his watch. It’s getting late. Where’s Edith? Hasn’t she got into her veil and orange blossoms yet? Mrs. Bridgenorth Do go and hurry her, Lesbia. Lesbia Going out through the tower. Come with me, Leo. Leo Following Lesbia out. Yes, certainly. The Bishop goes over to his wife and sits down, taking her hand and kissing it by way of beginning a conversation with her. The Bishop Alice: I’ve had another letter from the mysterious lady who can’t spell. I like that woman’s letters. There’s an intensity of passion in them that fascinates me. Mrs. Bridgenorth Do you mean Incognita Appassionata? The Bishop Yes. The General Turning abruptly; he has been looking out into the garden. Do you mean to say that women write love-letters to you? The Bishop Of course. The General They never do to me. The Bishop The army doesn’t attract women: the Church does. Reginald Do you consider it right to let them? They may be married women, you know. The Bishop They always are. This one is. To Mrs. Bridgenorth. Don’t you think her letters are quite the best love-letters I get? To the two men. Poor Alice has to read my love-letters aloud to me at breakfast, when they’re worth it. Mrs. Bridgenorth There really is something fascinating about Incognita. She never gives her address. That’s a good sign. The General Mf! No assignations, you mean? The Bishop Oh yes: she began the correspondence by making a very curious but very natural assignation. She wants me to meet her in heaven. I hope I shall. The General Well, I must say I hope not, Alfred. I hope not. Mrs. Bridgenorth She says she is happily married, and that love is a necessary of life to her, but that she must have, high above all her lovers⁠— The Bishop She has several apparently⁠— Mrs. Bridgenorth —some great man who will never know her, never touch her, as she is on earth, but whom she can meet in Heaven when she has risen above all the everyday vulgarities of earthly love. The Bishop Rising. Excellent. Very good for her; and no trouble to me. Everybody ought to have one of these idealizations, like Dante’s Beatrice. He clasps his hands behind him, and strolls to the hearth and back, singing. Lesbia appears in the tower, rather perturbed. Lesbia Alice: will you come upstairs? Edith is not dressed. Mrs. Bridgenorth Rising. Not dressed! Does she know what hour it is? Lesbia She has locked herself into her room, reading. The Bishop’s song ceases; he stops dead in his stroll. The General Reading! The Bishop What is she reading? Lesbia Some pamphlet that came by the eleven o’clock post. She won’t come out. She won’t open the door. And she says she doesn’t know whether she’s going to be married or not till she’s finished the pamphlet. Did you ever hear such a thing? Do come and speak to her. Mrs. Bridgenorth Alfred: you had better go. The Bishop Try Collins. Lesbia Weve tried Collins already. He got all that I’ve told you out of her through the keyhole. Come, Alice. She vanishes. Mrs. Bridgenorth hurries after her. The Bishop This means a delay. I shall go back to my work. He makes for the study door. Reginald What are you working at now? The Bishop Stopping. A chapter in my history of marriage. I’m just at the Roman business, you know. The General Coming from the garden door to the chair Mrs. Bridgenorth has just left, and sitting down. Not more Ritualism, I hope, Alfred? The Bishop Oh no. I mean ancient Rome. He seats himself on the edge of the table. I’ve just come to the period when the propertied classes refused to get married and went in for marriage settlements instead. A few of the oldest families stuck to the marriage tradition so