Misalliance | Page 6

JOHNNY. Dont talk rot, child. You know you simply make me pity
you.
BENTLEY. "Romance of Business" indeed! The real romance of
Tarleton's business is the story that you understand anything about it.
You never could explain any mortal thing about it to me when I asked
you. "See what was done the last time": that was the beginning and the
end of your wisdom. Youre nothing but a turnspit.
JOHNNY. A what!
BENTLEY. A turnspit. If your father hadnt made a roasting jack for
you to turn, youd be earning twenty-four shillings a week behind a
counter.
JOHNNY. If you dont take that back and apologize for your bad
manners, I'll give you as good a hiding as ever--
BENTLEY. Help! Johnny's beating me! Oh! Murder! _[He throws
himself on the ground, uttering piercing yells]._
JOHNNY. Dont be a fool. Stop that noise, will you. I'm not going to
touch you. Sh--sh--
_Hypatia rushes in through the inner door, followed by Mrs Tarleton,
and throws herself on her knees by Bentley. Mrs Tarleton, whose knees
are stiffer, bends over him and tries to lift him. Mrs Tarleton is a
shrewd and motherly old lady who has been pretty in her time, and is
still very pleasant and likeable and unaffected. Hypatia is a typical
English girl of a sort never called typical: that is, she has an opaque

white skin, black hair, large dark eyes with black brows and lashes,
curved lips, swift glances and movements that flash out of a waiting
stillness, boundless energy and audacity held in leash._
HYPATIA. [pouncing on Bentley with no very gentle hand] Bentley:
whats the matter? Dont cry like that: whats the use? Whats happened?
MRS TARLETON. Are you ill, child? _[They get him up. There, there,
pet! It's all right: dont cry [they put him into a chair]: there! there! there!
Johnny will go for the doctor; and he'll give you something nice to
make it well.
HYPATIA. What has happened, Johnny?
MRS TARLETON. Was it a wasp?
BENTLEY. [impatiently] Wasp be dashed!
MRS TARLETON. Oh Bunny! that was a naughty word.
BENTLEY. Yes, I know: I beg your pardon. _[He rises, and extricates
himself from them]_ Thats all right. Johnny frightened me. You know
how easy it is to hurt me; and I'm too small to defend myself against
Johnny.
MRS TARLETON. Johnny: how often have I told you that you must
not bully the little ones. I thought youd outgrown all that.
HYPATIA. [angrily] I do declare, mamma, that Johnny's brutality
makes it impossible to live in the house with him.
JOHNNY. [deeply hurt] It's twenty-seven years, mother, since you had
that row with me for licking Robert and giving Hypatia a black eye
because she bit me. I promised you then that I'd never raise my hand to
one of them again; and Ive never broken my word. And now because
this young whelp begins to cry out before he's hurt, you treat me as if I
were a brute and a savage.
MRS TARLETON. No dear, not a savage; but you know you must not

call our visitor naughty names.
BENTLEY. Oh, let him alone--
JOHNNY. [fiercely] Dont you interfere between my mother and me:
d'y' hear?
HYPATIA. Johnny's lost his temper, mother. We'd better go. Come,
Bentley.
MRS TARLETON. Yes: that will be best. [To Bentley] Johnny doesnt
mean any harm, dear: he'll be himself presently. Come.
_The two ladies go out through the inner door with Bentley, who turns
at the door to grin at Johnny as he goes out._
_Johnny, left alone, clenches his fists and grinds his teeth, but can find
no relief in that way for his rage. After choking and stamping for a
moment, he makes for the vestibule door. It opens before he reaches it;
and Lord Summerhays comes in. Johnny glares at him, speechless.
Lord Summerhays takes in the situation, and quickly takes the
punchbowl from the sideboard and offers it to Johnny._
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Smash it. Dont hesitate: it's an ugly thing.
Smash it: hard. _[Johnny, with a stifled yell, dashes it in pieces, and
then sits down and mops his brow]. Feel better now? [Johnny nods]._ I
know only one person alive who could drive me to the point of having
either to break china or commit murder; and that person is my son
Bentley. Was it he? _[Johnny nods again, not yet able to speak]._ As
the car stopped I heard a yell which is only too familiar to me. It
generally means that some infuriated person is trying to thrash Bentley.
Nobody has ever succeeded, though almost everybody has tried. _[He
seats himself comfortably close to the writing table, and sets to work to
collect the fragments of the punchbowl in the wastepaper basket whilst
Johnny, with