Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (57 page)

HIGGINS Shes coming to see you.

MRS. HIGGINS I dont remember asking her.

HIGGINS You didnt.
I
asked her. If youd known her you wouldnt have asked her.

MRS. HIGGINS Indeed! Why?

HIGGINS Well, it’s like this. Shes a common flower girl. I picked her off the kerbstone.

MRS . HIGGINS And invited her to my at-home !

HIGGINS [
rising and coming to her to coax her
] Oh, thatll be all right. Ive taught her to speak properly; and she has strict orders as to her behavior. Shes to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody’s health—Fine day and How do you do, you know—and not to let herself go on things in general. That will be safe.

MRS. HIGGINS Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides ! perhaps about our outsides! How could you be so silly, Henry?

HIGGINS [
impatiently
] Well, she must talk about something. [
He controls himself and sits down again
]
.
Oh, she’ll be all right: dont you fuss. Pickering is in it with me. Ive a sort of bet on that I’ll pass her off as a duchess in six months. I started on her some months ago; and shes getting on like a house on fire. I shall win my bet. She has a quick ear; and shes been easier to teach than my middle-class pupils because shes had to learn a complete new language. She talks English almost as you talk French.

MRS. HIGGINS Thats satisfactory, at all events.

HIGGINS Well, it is and it isnt.

MRS. HIGGINS What does that mean?

HIGGINS You see, Ive got her pronunciation all right; but you have to consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces; and thats where—
They are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.

THE PARLOR-MAID Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill. [
She withdraws
].

HIGGINS Oh Lord
! [He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and makes for the door; but before he reaches it his mother introduces him].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to MRS. HIGGINS] How do you do?
[They shake hands].

MISS EYNSFORD HILL How d‘you do? [She shakes].

MRS. HIGGINS
[introducing]
My son Henry.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS [
glumly, making no movement in her direction
] Delighted. [
He backs against the piano and bows brusquely
].

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [
going to him with confident familiarity
] How do you do?

HIGGINS [
staring at her
] Ive seen you before somewhere. I havnt the ghost of a notion where; but Ive heard your voice. [
Drearily
] It doesnt matter. Youd better sit down.

MRS. HIGGINS I’m sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustnt mind him.

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [
gaily
] I dont.
[She sits in the Elizabethan chair
].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL
[a little bewildered]
Not at all. [She sits
on the ottoman between her daughter and MRS. HIGGINS, who has turned her chair away from the writing-table
].

HIGGINS Oh, have I been rude? I didnt mean to be.

THE PARLOR-MAID Colonel Pickering
[she withdraws].

PICKERING How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?

MRS. HIGGINS So glad youve come. Do you know Mrs.
Eynsford Hill—Miss Eynsford Hill? [Exchange of bows. The Colonel brings the Chippendale chair a little forward between MRS. HILL and MRS. HIGGINS, and sits down].

PICKERING Has Henry told you what weve come for?

HIGGINS
[over his shoulder
] We were interrupted: damn it!

MRS. HIGGINS Oh Henry, Henry, really!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
half rising
] Are we in the way?

MRS. HIGGINS
[rising and mahing her sit down again]
No, no. You couldnt have come more fortunately: we want you to meet a friend of ours.

HIGGINS
[turning hopefully
] Yes, by George! We want two or three people. Youll do as well as anybody else.

THE PARLOR-MAID Mr. Eynsford Hill.

HIGGINS [
almost audibly, past endurance
] God of Heaven! another of them.

FREDDY [
shaking ha
nds with MRS. HIGGINS
] Ahdedo?
^hd

MRS. HIGGINS Very good of you to come. [
Introducing
] Colonel Pickering.

FREDDY [
bowing
] Ahdedo?

MRS. HIGGINS I dont think you know my son, Professor Higgins.

FREDDY [
going to Higgins
] Ahdedo?

HIGGINS [
looking at him much as if he were a pickpocket
] I’ll take my oath Ive met you before somewhere. Where was it?

FREDDY I dont think so.

HIGGINS [
resignedly
] It dont matter, anyhow. Sit down.

HIGGINS Well, here we are, anyhow!
[He sits down on the ottoman next MRS. EYNSFORD HILL, on her left]. And now, what
the devil are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?

MRS. HIGGINS Henry: you are the life and soul of the Royal Society’s soirees; but really youre rather trying on more commonplace occasions.

HIGGINS Am I? Very sorry.
[Beaming suddenly
] I suppose I am, you know. [
Uproariously
] Ha, ha!

MISS EYNSFORD HILL
[who considers HIGGINS quite eligible matrimonially
] I sympathize.
I
havnt any small talk. If people would only be frank and say what they really think!

HIGGINS [
relapsing into gloom
] Lord forbid!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
taking up her daughter’s cue
] But why?

HIGGINS What they think they ought to think is bad enough, Lord knows; but what they really think would break up the whole show. Do you suppose it would be really agreeable if I were to come out now with what
I
really think?

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [
gaily
] Is it so very cynical?

HIGGINS Cynical! Who the dickens said it was cynical? I mean it wouldnt be decent.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
seriously
] Oh! I’m sure you dont mean that, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS You see, we’re all savages, more or less. We’re supposed to be civilized and cultured—to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names?
[To MISS HILL]
What do you know of poetry? [
To MRS. HILL
] What do you know of science?
[Indicating FREDDY]
What does he know of art or science or anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of philosophy?

MRS. HIGGINS [
warningly
] Or of manners, Henry?

THE PARLOR-MAID
[opening the door]
Miss Doolittle. [
She withdraws
].

HIGGINS [
rising hastily and running to MRS. HIGGINS
] Here she is, mother. [
He stands on tiptoe and makes signs over his mother’s head to ELIZA to indicate to her which lady is her hostess
]
.

ELIZA, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression of such remarkable distinction and beauty as she enters that they all rise, quite fluttered. Guided by HIGGINS’s signals, she comes to MRS. HIGGINS
with studied grace.

LIZA [speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and great beauty of tone] How do you do, Mrs.
Higgins?
[She gasps slightly in making sure of the H in Higgins, but is quite successful].
Mr. Higgins told me I might come.

MRS. HIGGINS
[cordially]
Quite right: I’m very glad indeed to see you.

PICKERING How do you do, Miss Doolittle?

LIZA
[shaking hands with him]
Colonel Pickering, is it not?

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL I feel sure we have met before, Miss Doolittle. I remember your eyes.

LIZA How do you do?
[She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in the place just left vacant by Higgins
].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
introducing
My daughter Clara.

LIZA How do you do?

CLARA [
impulsively
] How do you do?
[She sits down on the ottoman beside Eliza, devouring her with her eyes].

FREDDY [
coming to their side of the ottoman
] Ive certainly had the pleasure.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
introducing
] My son Freddy.

LIZA How do you do?

HIGGINS
[suddenly]
By George, yes: it all comes back to me! [
They stare at him
]. Covent Garden! [
Lamentably
] What a damned thing!

MRS. HIGGINS Henry, please! [
He is about to sit on the edge of the table].
Dont sit on my writing-table: youll break it.

HIGGINS
[sulkily]
Sorry.

MRS. HIGGINS [
at last, conversationally
] Will it rain, do you think?

LIZA The shallow depression
^he
in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.

FREDDY Ha! ha! how awfully funny!

LIZA What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.

FREDDY Killing!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL I’m sure I hope it wont turn cold. Theres so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.

LIZA [
darkly
] My aunt died of influenza: so they said.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL
[clicks her tongue sympathetically
]!!!

LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.

MRS. HIGGINS [
puzzled
] Done her in?

LIZA Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza ? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
startled
] Dear me!

LIZA [
piling up the indictment
] What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL What does doing her in mean?

HIGGINS [
hastily
] Oh, thats the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [
to ELIZA, horrified
] You surely dont believe that your aunt was killed?

LIZA Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL But it cant have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed her.

LIZA Not her. Gin was mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’d poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL Do you mean that he drank?

LIZA Drank! My word! Something chronic.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL How dreadful for you!

LIZA Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. [
Cheerfully
] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he’d drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. Theres lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [
Now quite at her ease
] You see, it’s like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he’s sober; and then it makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy. [To
FREDDY, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter
] Here! what are you sniggering at?

FREDDY The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.

LIZA If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? [To
HIGGINS
] Have I said anything I oughtnt?

MRS. HIGGINS
[interposing]
Not at all, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA Well, thats a mercy, anyhow. [Expansively] What I always say is—

HIGGINS
[
rising and looking at his watch] Ahem!

LIZA
[
looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising] Well: I
must go
.
[
They all rise. FREDDY goes to the door]. So pleased to
have met you. Good-bye. [
She shakes hands with MRS. HIGGINS
].

MRS. HIGGINS Good-bye.