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Page 42
LADY BRITOMART. Announce him.
MORRISON. Thank you, my lady. You won't mind my asking, I hope.
The occasion is in a manner of speaking new to me.
LADY BRITOMART. Quite right. Go and let him in.
MORRISON. Thank you, my lady. [He withdraws].
LADY BRITOMART. Children: go and get ready. [Sarah and Barbara go
upstairs for their out-of-door wrap]]. Charles: go and tell
Stephen to come down here in five minutes: you will find him in
the drawing room. [Charles goes]. Adolphus: tell them to send
round the carriage in about fifteen minutes. [Adolphus goes].
MORRISON [at the door] Mr Undershaft.
Undershaft comes in. Morrison goes out.
UNDERSHAFT. Alone! How fortunate!
LADY BRITOMART [rising] Don't be sentimental, Andrew. Sit down.
[She sits on the settee: he sits beside her, on her left. She
comes to the point before he has time to breathe]. Sarah must
have 800 pounds a year until Charles Lomax comes into his
property. Barbara will need more, and need it permanently,
because Adolphus hasn't any property.
UNDERSHAFT [resignedly] Yes, my dear: I will see to it. Anything
else? for yourself, for instance?
LADY BRITOMART. I want to talk to you about Stephen.
UNDERSHAFT [rather wearily] Don't, my dear. Stephen doesn't
interest me.
LADY BRITOMART. He does interest me. He is our son.
UNDERSHAFT. Do you really think so? He has induced us to bring
him into the world; but he chose his parents very incongruously,
I think. I see nothing of myself in him, and less of you.
LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: Stephen is an excellent son, and a most
steady, capable, highminded young man. YOU are simply trying to
find an excuse for disinheriting him.
UNDERSHAFT. My dear Biddy: the Undershaft tradition disinherits
him. It would be dishonest of me to leave the cannon foundry to
my son.
LADY BRITOMART. It would be most unnatural and improper of you to
leave it to anyone else, Andrew. Do you suppose this wicked and
immoral tradition can be kept up for ever? Do you pretend that
Stephen could not carry on the foundry just as well as all the
other sons of the big business houses?
UNDERSHAFT. Yes: he could learn the office routine without
understanding the business, like all the other sons; and the firm
would go on by its own momentum until the real Undershaft--
probably an Italian or a German--would invent a new method and
cut him out.
LADY BRITOMART. There is nothing that any Italian or German could
do that Stephen could not do. And Stephen at least has breeding.
UNDERSHAFT. The son of a foundling! nonsense!
LADY BRITOMART. My son, Andrew! And even you may have good blood
in your veins for all you know.
UNDERSHAFT. True. Probably I have. That is another argument in
favor of a foundling.
LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: don't be aggravating. And don't be
wicked. At present you are both.
UNDERSHAFT. This conversation is part of the Undershaft
tradition, Biddy. Every Undershaft's wife has treated him to it
ever since the house was founded. It is mere waste of breath. If
the tradition be ever broken it will be for an abler man than
Stephen.
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