Fanny’s First Play

By George Bernard Shaw.

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Preface

Fanny’s First Play, being but a potboiler, needs no preface. But its lesson is not, I am sorry to say, unneeded. Mere morality, or the substitution of custom for conscience was once accounted a shameful and cynical thing: people talked of right and wrong, of honor and dishonor, of sin and grace, of salvation and damnation, not of morality and immorality. The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car. Nowadays we do not seem to know that there is any other test of conduct except morality; and the result is that the young had better have their souls awakened by disgrace, capture by the police, and a month’s hard labor, than drift along from their cradles to their graves doing what other people do for no other reason than that other people do it, and knowing nothing of good and evil, of courage and cowardice, or indeed anything but how to keep hunger and concupiscence and fashionable dressing within the bounds of good taste except when their excesses can be concealed. Is it any wonder that I am driven to offer to young people in our suburbs the desperate advice: Do something that will get you into trouble? But please do not suppose that I defend a state of things which makes such advice the best that can be given under the circumstances, or that I do not know how difficult it is to find out a way of getting into trouble that will combine loss of respectability with integrity of self-respect and reasonable consideration for other peoples’ feelings and interests on every point except their dread of losing their own respectability. But when there’s a will there’s a way. I hate to see dead people walking about: it is unnatural. And our respectable middle class people are all as dead as mutton. Out of the mouth of Mrs. Knox I have delivered on them the judgment of her God.

The critics whom I have lampooned in the induction to this play under the names of Trotter, Vaughan, and Gunn will forgive me: in fact Mr. Trotter forgave me beforehand, and assisted the makeup by which Mr. Claude King so successfully simulated his personal appearance. The critics whom I did not introduce were somewhat hurt, as I should have been myself under the same circumstances; but I had not room for them all; so I can only apologize and assure them that I meant no disrespect.

The concealment of the authorship, if a secret de Polichinelle can be said to involve concealment, was a necessary part of the play. In so far as it was effectual, it operated as a measure of relief to those critics and playgoers who are so obsessed by my strained legendary reputation that they approach my plays in a condition which is really one of derangement, and are quite unable to conceive a play of mine as anything but a trap baited with paradoxes, and designed to compass their ethical perversion and intellectual confusion. If it were possible, I should put forward all my plays anonymously, or hire some less disturbing person, as Bacon is said to have hired Shakespeare, to father my plays for me.

Fanny’s First Play was performed for the first time at the Little Theatre in the Adelphi, London, on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 19th 1911.

Dramatis Personae

Induction and Epilogue

Servant

Cecil Savoyard

Count O’Dowda

Fanny O’Dowda

Mr. Trotter

Mr. Vaughan

Mr. Gunn

Flawner Bannal

The Play

Robin Gilbey

Maria Gilbey

Juggins

Dora Delaney

Amelia Knox

Joseph Knox

Margaret Knox

Lieutenant Duvallet

Bobby Gilbey

Fanny’s First Play

An Easy Play for a Little Theatre

Induction

The end of a saloon in an old-fashioned country house (Florence Towers, the property of Count O’Dowda) has been curtained off to form a stage for a private theatrical performance. A footman in grandiose Spanish livery enters before the curtain, on its O.P. side.

Footman
Announcing. Mr. Cecil Savoyard. Cecil Savoyard comes in: a middle-aged man in evening dress and a fur-lined overcoat. He is surprised to find nobody to receive him. So is the Footman. Oh, beg pardon, sir: I thought the Count was here. He was when I took up your name. He must have gone through the stage into the library. This way, sir. He moves towards the division in the middle of the curtains.

Savoyard
Half a mo. The Footman stops. When does the play begin? Half-past eight?

Footman
Nine, sir.

Savoyard
Oh, good. Well, will you telephone to my wife at the George that it’s not until nine?

Footman
Right, sir. Mrs. Cecil Savoyard, sir?

Savoyard
No: Mrs. William Tinkler. Don’t forget.

The Footman
Mrs. Tinkler, sir. Right, sir. The Count comes in through the curtains. Here is the Count, sir. Announcing Mr. Cecil Savoyard, sir. He withdraws.

Count O’Dowda
A handsome man of fifty, dressed with studied elegance a hundred years out of date, advancing cordially to shake hands with his visitor. Pray excuse me, Mr. Savoyard. I suddenly recollected that all the bookcases in the library were locked⁠—in fact they’ve never been opened since we came from Venice⁠—and as our literary guests will probably use the library a good deal, I just ran in to unlock everything.

Savoyard
Oh, you mean the dramatic critics. M’yes. I suppose there’s a smoking room?

The Count
My study is available. An old-fashioned house, you understand. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Savoyard?

Savoyard
Thanks. They sit. Savoyard, looking at his host’s obsolete costume, continues, I had no idea you were going to appear in the piece yourself.

The Count
I am not. I wear this costume because⁠—well, perhaps I had better explain the position, if it interests you.

Savoyard
Certainly.

The Count
Well, you see, Mr. Savoyard, I’m rather a stranger in your world. I am not, I hope, a modern man in any sense of the word. I’m not really an Englishman: my family is Irish: I’ve lived all my life in Italy⁠—in Venice mostly⁠—my very title is a foreign one: I am a Count of the Holy Roman Empire.

Savoyard
Where’s that?

The Count
At present, nowhere, except as a memory and an ideal. Savoyard inclines his head respectfully to the ideal. But I am by no means an idealogue. I am not content with beautiful dreams: I want beautiful realities.

Savoyard
Hear, hear! I’m all with you there⁠—when you can get them.

The Count
Why not get them? The difficulty is not that there are no beautiful realities, Mr. Savoyard: the difficulty is that so few of us know them when we see them. We have inherited from the past a vast treasure of beauty⁠—of imperishable masterpieces of poetry, of painting, of sculpture, of architecture, of music, of exquisite fashions in dress, in furniture, in domestic decoration. We can contemplate these treasures. We can reproduce many of them. We can buy a few inimitable originals. We can shut out the nineteenth century⁠—

Savoyard
Correcting him. The twentieth.

The Count
To me the century I shut out will always be the nineteenth century, just as your national anthem will always be God Save the Queen, no matter how many kings may succeed. I found England befouled with industrialism: well, I did what Byron did: I simply refused to live in it. You remember Byron’s words: “I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcase back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”

Savoyard
Did Byron say that?

The Count
He did, sir.

Savoyard
It don’t sound like him. I saw a good deal of him at one time.

The Count
You! But how is that possible? You are too young.

Savoyard
I was quite a lad, of course. But I had a job in the original production of Our Boys.

The Count
My dear sir, not that Byron. Lord Byron, the poet.

Savoyard
Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you were talking of the Byron. So you prefer living abroad?

The Count
I find England ugly and Philistine. Well, I don’t live in it. I find modern houses ugly. I don’t live in them: I have a palace on the grand canal. I find modern clothes prosaic. I don’t wear them, except, of course, in the street. My ears are offended by the Cockney twang: I keep out of hearing of it and speak and listen to Italian. I find Beethoven’s music coarse and restless, and Wagner’s senseless and detestable. I do not listen to them. I listen to Cimarosa, to Pergolesi, to Gluck and Mozart. Nothing simpler, sir.

Savoyard
It’s all right when you can afford it.

The Count
Afford it! My dear Mr. Savoyard, if you are a man with a sense of beauty you can make an earthly paradise for yourself in Venice on 1500 pounds a year, whilst our wretched vulgar industrial millionaires are spending twenty thousand on the amusements of billiard markers. I assure you I am a poor man according to modern ideas. But I have never had anything less than the very best that life has produced. It is my good fortune to have a beautiful and lovable daughter; and that girl, sir, has never seen an ugly sight or heard an ugly sound that I could spare her; and she has certainly never worn an ugly dress or tasted coarse food or bad wine in her life. She has lived in a palace; and her perambulator was a gondola. Now you know the sort of people we are, Mr. Savoyard. You can imagine how we feel here.

Savoyard
Rather out of it, eh?

The Count
Out of it, sir! Out of what?

Savoyard
Well, out of everything.

The Count
Out of soot and fog and mud and east wind; out of vulgarity and ugliness, hypocrisy and greed, superstition and stupidity. Out of all this, and in the sunshine, in the enchanted region of which great artists alone have had the secret, in the sacred footsteps of Byron, of Shelley, of the Brownings, of Turner and Ruskin. Don’t you envy me, Mr. Savoyard?

Savoyard
Some of us must live in England, you know, just to keep the place going. Besides⁠—though, mind you, I don’t say it isn’t all right from the high art point of view and all that⁠—three weeks of it would drive me melancholy mad. However, I’m glad you told me, because it explains why it is you don’t seem to know your way about much in England. I hope, by the way, that everything has given satisfaction to your daughter.

The Count
She seems quite satisfied. She tells me that the actors you sent down are perfectly suited to their parts, and very nice people to work with. I understand she had some difficulties at the first rehearsals with the gentleman you call the producer, because he hadn’t read the play; but the moment he found out what it was all about everything went smoothly.

Savoyard
Haven’t you seen the rehearsals?

The Count
Oh no. I haven’t been allowed even to meet any of the company. All I can tell you is that the hero is a Frenchman: Savoyard is rather scandalized. I asked her not to have an English hero. That is all I know. Ruefully. I haven’t been consulted even about the costumes, though there, I think, I could have been some use.

Savoyard
Puzzled. But there aren’t any costumes.

The Count
Seriously shocked. What! No costumes! Do you mean to say it is a modern play?

Savoyard
I don’t know: I didn’t read it. I handed it to Billy Burjoyce⁠—the producer, you know⁠—and left it to him to select the company and so on. But I should have had to order the costumes if there had been any. There weren’t.

The Count
Smiling as he recovers from his alarm. I understand. She has taken the costumes into her own hands. She is an expert in beautiful costumes. I venture to promise you, Mr. Savoyard, that what you are about to see will be like a Louis Quatorze ballet painted by Watteau. The heroine will be an exquisite Columbine, her lover a dainty Harlequin, her father a picturesque Pantaloon, and the valet who hoodwinks the father and brings about the happiness of the lovers a grotesque but perfectly tasteful Punchinello or Mascarille or Sganarelle.

Savoyard
I see. That makes three men; and the clown and policeman will make five. That’s why you wanted five men in the company.

The Count
My dear sir, you don’t suppose I mean that vulgar, ugly, silly, senseless, malicious and destructive thing, the harlequinade of a nineteenth century English Christmas pantomime! What was it after all but a stupid attempt to imitate the success made by the genius of Grimaldi a hundred years ago? My daughter does not know of the existence of such a thing. I refer to the graceful and charming fantasies of the Italian and French stages of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Savoyard
Oh, I beg pardon. I quite agree that harlequinades are rot. They’ve been dropped at all smart theatres. But from what Billy Burjoyce told me I got the idea that your daughter knew her way about here, and had seen a lot of plays. He had no idea she’d been away in Venice all the time.

The Count
Oh, she has not been. I should have explained that two years ago my daughter left me to complete her education at Cambridge. Cambridge was my own University; and though of course there were no women there in my time, I felt confident that if the atmosphere of the eighteenth century still existed anywhere in England, it would be at Cambridge. About three months ago she wrote to me and asked whether I wished to give her a present on her next birthday. Of course I said yes; and she then astonished and delighted me by telling me that she had written a play, and that the present she wanted was a private performance of it with real actors and real critics.

Savoyard
Yes: that’s what staggered me. It was easy enough to engage a company for a private performance: it’s done often enough. But the notion of having critics was new. I hardly knew how to set about it. They don’t expect private engagements; and so they have no agents. Besides, I didn’t know what to offer them. I knew that they were cheaper than actors, because they get long engagements: forty years sometimes; but that’s no rule for a single job. Then there’s such a lot of them: on first nights they run away with all your stalls: you can’t find a decent place for your own mother. It would have cost a fortune to bring the lot.

The Count
Of course I never dreamt of having them all. Only a few first-rate representative men.

Savoyard
Just so. All you want is a few sample opinions. Out of a hundred notices you won’t find more than four at the outside that say anything different. Well, I’ve got just the right four for you. And what do you think it has cost me?

The Count
Shrugging his shoulders. I cannot guess.

Savoyard
Ten guineas, and expenses. I had to give Flawner Bannal ten. He wouldn’t come for less; and he asked fifty. I had to give it, because if we hadn’t had him we might just as well have had nobody at all.

The Count
But what about the others, if Mr. Flannel⁠—

Savoyard
Shocked. Flawner Bannal.

The Count
—if Mr. Bannal got the whole ten?

Savoyard
Oh, I managed that. As this is a high-class sort of thing, the first man I went for was Trotter.

The Count
Oh indeed. I am very glad you have secured Mr. Trotter. I have read his Playful Impressions.

Savoyard
Well, I was rather in a funk about him. He’s not exactly what I call approachable; and he was a bit standoff at first. But when I explained and told him your daughter⁠—

The Count
Interrupting in alarm. You did not say that the play was by her, I hope?

Savoyard
No: that’s been kept a dead secret. I just said your daughter has asked for a real play with a real author and a real critic and all the rest of it. The moment I mentioned the daughter I had him. He has a daughter of his own. Wouldn’t hear of payment! Offered to come just to please her! Quite human. I was surprised.

The Count
Extremely kind of him.

Savoyard
Then I went to Vaughan, because he does music as well as the drama: and you said you thought there would be music. I told him Trotter would feel lonely without him; so he promised like a bird. Then I thought you’d like one of the latest sort: the chaps that go for the newest things and swear they’re old-fashioned. So I nailed Gilbert Gunn. The four will give you a representative team. By the way looking at his watch they’ll be here presently.

The Count
Before they come, Mr. Savoyard, could you give me any hints about them that would help me to make a little conversation with them? I am, as you said, rather out of it in England; and I might unwittingly say something tactless.

Savoyard
Well, let me see. As you don’t like English people, I don’t know that you’ll get on with Trotter, because he’s thoroughly English: never happy except when he’s in Paris, and speaks French so unnecessarily well that everybody there spots him as an Englishman the moment he opens his mouth. Very witty and all that. Pretends to turn up his nose at the theatre and says people make too much fuss about art the Count is extremely indignant. But that’s only his modesty, because art is his own line, you understand. Mind you don’t chaff him about Aristotle.

The Count
Why should I chaff him about Aristotle?

Savoyard
Well, I don’t know; but its one of the recognized ways of chaffing him. However, you’ll get on with him all right: he’s a man of the world and a man of sense. The one you’ll have to be careful about is Vaughan.

The Count
In what way, may I ask?

Savoyard
Well, Vaughan has no sense of humor; and if you joke with him he’ll think you’re insulting him on purpose. Mind: it’s not that he doesn’t see a joke: he does; and it hurts him. A comedy scene makes him sore all over: he goes away black and blue, and pitches into the play for all he’s worth.

The Count
But surely that is a very serious defect in a man of his profession?

Savoyard
Yes it is, and no mistake. But Vaughan is honest, and don’t care a brass farthing what he says, or whether it pleases anybody or not; and you must have one man of that sort to say the things that nobody else will say.

The Count
It seems to me to carry the principle of division of labor too far, this keeping of the honesty and the other qualities in separate compartments. What is Mr. Gunn’s speciality, if I may ask?

Savoyard
Gunn is one of the intellectuals.

The Count
But aren’t they all intellectuals?

Savoyard
Lord! no: heaven forbid! You must be careful what you say about that: I shouldn’t like anyone to call me an Intellectual: I don’t think any Englishman would! They don’t count really, you know; but still it’s rather the thing to have them. Gunn is one of the young intellectuals: he writes plays himself. He’s useful because he pitches into the older intellectuals who are standing in his way. But you may take it from me that none of these chaps really matter. Flawner Bannal’s your man. Bannal really represents the British playgoer. When he likes a thing, you may take your oath there are a hundred thousand people in London that’ll like it if they can only be got to know about it. Besides, Bannal’s knowledge of the theatre is an inside knowledge. We know him; and he knows us. He knows the ropes: he knows his way about: he knows what he’s talking about.

The Count
With a little sigh. Age and experience, I suppose?

Savoyard
Age! I should put him at twenty at the very outside, myself. It’s not an old man’s job after all, is it? Bannal may not ride the literary high horse like Trotter and the rest; but I’d take his opinion before any other in London. He’s the man in the street; and that’s what you want.

The Count
I am almost sorry you didn’t give the gentleman his full terms. I should not have grudged the fifty guineas for a sound opinion. He may feel shabbily treated.

Savoyard
Well, let him. It was a bit of side, his asking fifty. After all, what is he? Only a pressman. Jolly good business for him to earn ten guineas: he’s done the same job often enough for half a quid, I expect.

Fanny O’Dowda comes precipitately through the curtains, excited and nervous. A girl of nineteen in a dress synchronous with her father’s.

Fanny
Papa, papa, the critics have come. And one of them has a cocked hat and sword like a⁠—she notices Savoyard Oh, I beg your pardon.

The Count
This is Mr. Savoyard, your impresario, my dear.

Fanny
Shaking hands. How do you do?

Savoyard
Pleased to meet you, Miss O’Dowda. The cocked hat is all right. Trotter is a member of the new Academic Committee. He induced them to go in for a uniform like the French Academy; and I asked him to wear it.

The Footman
Announcing. Mr. Trotter, Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Gunn, Mr. Flawner Bannal. The four critics enter. Trotter wears a diplomatic dress, with sword and three-cornered hat. His age is about 50. Vaughan is 40. Gunn is 30. Flawner Bannal is 20 and is quite unlike the others. They can be classed at sight as professional men: Bannal is obviously one of those unemployables of the business class who manage to pick up a living by a sort of courage which gives him cheerfulness, conviviality, and bounce, and is helped out positively by a slight turn for writing, and negatively by a comfortable ignorance and lack of intuition which hides from him all the dangers and disgraces that keep men of finer perception in check. The Count approaches them hospitably.

Savoyard
Count O’Dowda, gentlemen. Mr. Trotter.

Trotter
Looking at the Count’s costume. Have I the pleasure of meeting a confrere?

The Count
No, sir: I have no right to my costume except the right of a lover of the arts to dress myself handsomely. You are most welcome, Mr. Trotter. Trotter bows in the French manner.

Savoyard
Mr. Vaughan.

The Count
How do you do, Mr. Vaughan?

Vaughan
Quite well, thanks.

Savoyard
Mr. Gunn.

The Count
Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Gunn.

Gunn
Very pleased.

Savoyard
Mr. Flawner Bannal.

The Count
Very kind of you to come, Mr. Bannal.

Bannal
Don’t mention it.

The Count
Gentlemen, my daughter. They all bow. We are very greatly indebted to you, gentlemen, for so kindly indulging her whim. The dressing bell sounds. The Count looks at his watch. Ah! The dressing bell, gentlemen. As our play begins at nine, I have had to put forward the dinner hour a little. May I show you to your rooms? He goes out, followed by all the men, except Trotter, who, going last, is detained by Fanny.

Fanny
Mr. Trotter: I want to say something to you about this play.

Trotter
No: that’s forbidden. You must not attempt to souffler the critic.

Fanny
Oh, I would not for the world try to influence your opinion.

Trotter
But you do: you are influencing me very shockingly. You invite me to this charming house, where I’m about to enjoy a charming dinner. And just before the dinner I’m taken aside by a charming young lady to be talked to about the play. How can you expect me to be impartial? God forbid that I should set up to be a judge, or do more than record an impression; but my impressions can be influenced; and in this case you’re influencing them shamelessly all the time.

Fanny
Don’t make me more nervous than I am already, Mr. Trotter. If you knew how I feel!

Trotter
Naturally: your first party: your first appearance in England as hostess. But you’re doing it beautifully. Don’t be afraid. Every nuance is perfect.

Fanny
It’s so kind of you to say so, Mr. Trotter. But that isn’t what’s the matter. The truth is, this play is going to give my father a dreadful shock.

Trotter
Nothing unusual in that, I’m sorry to say. Half the young ladies in London spend their evenings making their fathers take them to plays that are not fit for elderly people to see.

Fanny
Oh, I know all about that; but you can’t understand what it means to Papa. You’re not so innocent as he is.

Trotter
Remonstrating. My dear young lady⁠—

Fanny
I don’t mean morally innocent: everybody who reads your articles knows you’re as innocent as a lamb.

Trotter
What!

Fanny
Yes, Mr. Trotter: I’ve seen a good deal of life since I came to England; and I assure you that to me you’re a mere baby: a dear, good, well-meaning, delightful, witty, charming baby; but still just a wee lamb in a world of wolves. Cambridge is not what it was in my father’s time.

Trotter
Well, I must say!

Fanny
Just so. That’s one of our classifications in the Cambridge Fabian Society.

Trotter
Classifications? I don’t understand.

Fanny
We classify our aunts into different sorts. And one of the sorts is the “I must says.”

Trotter
I withdraw “I must say.” I substitute “Blame my cats!” No: I substitute “Blame my kittens!” Observe, Miss O’Dowda: kittens. I say again in the teeth of the whole Cambridge Fabian Society, kittens. Impertinent little kittens. Blame them. Smack them. I guess what is on your conscience. This play to which you have lured me is one of those in which members of Fabian Societies instruct their grandmothers in the art of milking ducks. And you are afraid it will shock your father. Well, I hope it will. And if he consults me about it I shall recommend him to smack you soundly and pack you off to bed.

Fanny
That’s one of your prettiest literary attitudes, Mr. Trotter; but it doesn’t take me in. You see, I’m much more conscious of what you really are than you are yourself, because we’ve discussed you thoroughly at Cambridge; and you’ve never discussed yourself, have you?

Trotter
I⁠—

Fanny
Of course you haven’t; so you see it’s no good Trottering at me.

Trotter
Trottering!

Fanny
That’s what we call it at Cambridge.

Trotter
If it were not so obviously a stage cliché, I should say Damn Cambridge. As it is, I blame my kittens. And now let me warn you. If you’re going to be a charming healthy young English girl, you may coax me. If you’re going to be an unsexed Cambridge Fabian virago, I’ll treat you as my intellectual equal, as I would treat a man.

Fanny
Adoringly. But how few men are your intellectual equals, Mr. Trotter!

Trotter
I’m getting the worst of this.

Fanny
Oh no. Why do you say that?

Trotter
May I remind you that the dinner-bell will ring presently?

Fanny
What does it matter? We’re both ready. I haven’t told you yet what I want you to do for me.

Trotter
Nor have you particularly predisposed me to do it, except out of pure magnanimity. What is it?

Fanny
I don’t mind this play shocking my father morally. It’s good for him to be shocked morally. It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date. But I know that this play will shock him artistically; and that terrifies me. No moral consideration could make a breach between us: he would forgive me for anything of that kind sooner or later; but he never gives way on a point of art. I daren’t let him know that I love Beethoven and Wagner; and as to Strauss, if he heard three bars of Elektra, it’d part us forever. Now what I want you to do is this. If he’s very angry⁠—if he hates the play, because it’s a modern play⁠—will you tell him that it’s not my fault; that its style and construction, and so forth, are considered the very highest art nowadays; that the author wrote it in the proper way for repertory theatres of the most superior kind⁠—you know the kind of plays I mean?

Trotter
Emphatically. I think I know the sort of entertainments you mean. But please do not beg a vital question by calling them plays. I don’t pretend to be an authority; but I have at least established the fact that these productions, whatever else they may be, are certainly not plays.

Fanny
The authors don’t say they are.

Trotter
Warmly. I am aware that one author, who is, I blush to say, a personal friend of mine, resorts freely to the dastardly subterfuge of calling them conversations, discussions, and so forth, with the express object of evading criticism. But I’m not to be disarmed by such tricks. I say they are not plays. Dialogues, if you will. Exhibitions of character, perhaps: especially the character of the author. Fictions, possibly, though a little decent reticence as to introducing actual persons, and thus violating the sanctity of private life, might not be amiss. But plays, no. I say no. Not plays. If you will not concede this point I can’t continue our conversation. I take this seriously. It’s a matter of principle. I must ask you, Miss O’Dowda, before we go a step further, Do you or do you not claim that these works are plays?

Fanny
I assure you I don’t.

Trotter
Not in any sense of the word?

Fanny
Not in any sense of the word. I loathe plays.

Trotter
Disappointed. That last remark destroys all the value of your admission. You admire these⁠—these theatrical nondescripts? You enjoy them?

Fanny
Don’t you?

Trotter
Of course I do. Do you take me for a fool? Do you suppose I prefer popular melodramas? Have I not written most appreciative notices of them? But I say they’re not plays. They’re not plays. I can’t consent to remain in this house another minute if anything remotely resembling them is to be foisted on me as a play.

Fanny
I fully admit that they’re not plays. I only want you to tell my father that plays are not plays nowadays⁠—not in your sense of the word.

Trotter
Ah, there you go again! In my sense of the word! You believe that my criticism is merely a personal impression; that⁠—

Fanny
You always said it was.

Trotter
Pardon me: not on this point. If you had been classically educated⁠—

Fanny
But I have.

Trotter
Pooh! Cambridge! If you had been educated at Oxford, you would know that the definition of a play has been settled exactly and scientifically for two thousand two hundred and sixty years. When I say that these entertainments are not plays, I don’t mean in my sense of the word, but in the sense given to it for all time by the immortal Stagirite.

Fanny
Who is the Stagirite?

Trotter
Shocked. You don’t know who the Stagirite was?

Fanny
Sorry. Never heard of him.

Trotter
And this is Cambridge education! Well, my dear young lady, I’m delighted to find there’s something you don’t know; and I shan’t spoil you by dispelling an ignorance which, in my opinion, is highly becoming to your age and sex. So we’ll leave it at that.

Fanny
But you will promise to tell my father that lots of people write plays just like this one⁠—that I haven’t selected it out of mere heartlessness?

Trotter
I can’t possibly tell you what I shall say to your father about the play until I’ve seen the play. But I’ll tell you what I shall say to him about you. I shall say that you’re a very foolish young lady; that you’ve got into a very questionable set; and that the sooner he takes you away from Cambridge and its Fabian Society, the better.

Fanny
It’s so funny to hear you pretending to be a heavy father. In Cambridge we regard you as a bel esprit, a wit, an Irresponsible, a Parisian Immoralist, tres chic.

Trotter
I!

Fanny
There’s quite a Trotter set.

Trotter
Well, upon my word!

Fanny
They go in for adventures and call you Aramis.

Trotter
They wouldn’t dare!

Fanny
You always make such delicious fun of the serious people. Your insouciance⁠—

Trotter
Frantic. Stop talking French to me: it’s not a proper language for a young girl. Great heavens! how is it possible that a few innocent pleasantries should be so frightfully misunderstood? I’ve tried all my life to be sincere and simple, to be unassuming and kindly. I’ve lived a blameless life. I’ve supported the Censorship in the face of ridicule and insult. And now I’m told that I’m a centre of Immoralism! of Modern Minxism! a trifler with the most sacred subjects! a Nietzschean!! perhaps a Shavian!!!

Fanny
Do you mean you are really on the serious side, Mr. Trotter?

Trotter
Of course I’m on the serious side. How dare you ask me such a question?

Fanny
Then why don’t you play for it?

Trotter
I do play for it⁠—short, of course, of making myself ridiculous.

Fanny
What! not make yourself ridiculous for the sake of a good cause! Oh, Mr. Trotter. That’s vieux jeu.

Trotter
Shouting at her. Don’t talk French. I will not allow it.

Fanny
But this dread of ridicule is so frightfully out of date. The Cambridge Fabian Society⁠—

Trotter
I forbid you to mention the Fabian Society to me.

Fanny
Its motto is “You cannot learn to skate without making yourself ridiculous.”

Trotter
Skate! What has that to do with it?

Fanny
That’s not all. It goes on, “The ice of life is slippery.”

Trotter
Ice of life indeed! You should be eating penny ices and enjoying yourself. I won’t hear another word.

The Count returns.

The Count
We’re all waiting in the drawing-room, my dear. Have you been detaining Mr. Trotter all this time?

Trotter
I’m so sorry. I must have just a little brush up: I⁠—He hurries out.

The Count
My dear, you should be in the drawing-room. You should not have kept him here.

Fanny
I know. Don’t scold me: I had something important to say to him.

The Count
I shall ask him to take you in to dinner.

Fanny
Yes, papa. Oh, I hope it will go off well.

The Count
Yes, love, of course it will. Come along.

Fanny
Just one thing, papa, whilst we’re alone. Who was the Stagirite?

The Count
The Stagirite? Do you mean to say you don’t know?

Fanny
Haven’t the least notion.

The Count
The Stagirite was Aristotle. By the way, don’t mention him to Mr. Trotter.

They go to the dining-room.

The Play

Act I

In the dining room of a house in Denmark Hill, an elderly lady sits at breakfast reading the newspaper. Her chair is at the end of the oblong dining table furthest from the fire. There is an empty chair at the other end. The fireplace is behind this chair; and the door is next the fireplace, between it and the corner. An armchair stands beside the coal scuttle. In the middle of the back wall is the sideboard, parallel to the table. The rest of the furniture is mostly dining room chairs, ranged against the walls, and including a baby rocking chair on the lady’s side of the room. The lady is a placid person. Her husband, Mr. Robin Gilbey, not at all placid, bursts violently into the room with a letter in his hand.

Gilbey
Grinding his teeth. This is a nice thing. This is a b⁠⸺⁠

Mrs. Gilbey
Cutting him short. Leave it at that, please. Whatever it is, bad language won’t make it better.

Gilbey
Bitterly. Yes, put me in the wrong as usual. Take your boy’s part against me. He flings himself into the empty chair opposite her.

Mrs. Gilbey
When he does anything right, he’s your son. When he does anything wrong he’s mine. Have you any news of him?

Gilbey
I’ve a good mind not to tell you.

Mrs. Gilbey
Then don’t. I suppose he’s been found. That’s a comfort, at all events.

Gilbey
No, he hasn’t been found. The boy may be at the bottom of the river for all you care. Too agitated to sit quietly, he rises and paces the room distractedly.

Mrs. Gilbey
Then what have you got in your hand?

Gilbey
I’ve a letter from the Monsignor Grenfell. From New York. Dropping us. Cutting us. Turning fiercely on her. That’s a nice thing, isn’t it?

Mrs. Gilbey
What for?

Gilbey
Flinging away towards his chair. How do I know what for?

Mrs. Gilbey
What does he say?

Gilbey
Sitting down and grumblingly adjusting his spectacles. This is what he says. “My dear Mr. Gilbey: The news about Bobby had to follow me across the Atlantic: it did not reach me until today. I am afraid he is incorrigible. My brother, as you may imagine, feels that this last escapade has gone beyond the bounds; and I think, myself, that Bobby ought to be made to feel that such scrapes involve a certain degree of reprobation.” “As you may imagine”! And we know no more about it than the babe unborn.

Mrs. Gilbey
What else does he say?

Gilbey
“I think my brother must have been just a little to blame himself; so, between ourselves, I shall, with due and impressive formality, forgive Bobby later on; but for the present I think it had better be understood that he is in disgrace, and that we are no longer on visiting terms. As ever, yours sincerely.” His agitation masters him again. That’s a nice slap in the face to get from a man in his position! This is what your son has brought on me.

Mrs. Gilbey
Well, I think it’s rather a nice letter. He as good as tells you he’s only letting on to be offended for Bobby’s good.

Gilbey
Oh, very well: have the letter framed and hang it up over the mantelpiece as a testimonial.

Mrs. Gilbey
Don’t talk nonsense, Rob. You ought to be thankful to know that the boy is alive after his disappearing like that for nearly a week.

Gilbey
Nearly a week! A fortnight, you mean. Where’s your feelings, woman? It was fourteen days yesterday.

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, don’t call it fourteen days, Rob, as if the boy was in prison.

Gilbey
How do you know he’s not in prison? It’s got on my nerves so, that I’d believe even that.

Mrs. Gilbey
Don’t talk silly, Rob. Bobby might get into a scrape like any other lad; but he’d never do anything low.

Juggins, the footman, comes in with a card on a salver. He is a rather low-spirited man of thirty-five or more, of good appearance and address, and iron self-command.

Juggins
Presenting the salver to Mr. Gilbey. Lady wishes to see Mr. Bobby’s parents, sir.

Gilbey
Pointing to Mrs. Gilbey. There’s Mr. Bobby’s parent. I disown him.

Juggins
Yes, sir. He presents the salver to Mrs. Gilbey.

Mrs. Gilbey
You mustn’t mind what your master says, Juggins: he doesn’t mean it. She takes the card and reads it. Well, I never!

Gilbey
What’s up now?

Mrs. Gilbey
Reading. “Miss D. Delaney. Darling Dora.” Just like that⁠—in brackets. What sort of person, Juggins?

Gilbey
What’s her address?

Mrs. Gilbey
The West Circular Road. Is that a respectable address, Juggins?

Juggins
A great many most respectable people live in the West Circular Road, madam; but the address is not a guarantee of respectability.

Gilbey
So it’s come to that with him, has it?

Mrs. Gilbey
Don’t jump to conclusions, Rob. How do you know? To Juggins. Is she a lady, Juggins? You know what I mean.

Juggins
In the sense in which you are using the word, no, madam.

Mrs. Gilbey
I’d better try what I can get out of her. To Juggins. Show her up. You don’t mind, do you, Rob?

Gilbey
So long as you don’t flounce out and leave me alone with her. He rises and plants himself on the hearthrug.

Juggins goes out.

Mrs. Gilbey
I wonder what she wants, Rob?

Gilbey
If she wants money, she shan’t have it. Not a farthing. A nice thing, everybody seeing her on our doorstep! If it wasn’t that she may tell us something about the lad, I’d have Juggins put the hussy into the street.

Juggins
Returning and announcing. Miss Delaney. He waits for express orders before placing a chair for this visitor.

Miss Delaney comes in. She is a young lady of hilarious disposition, very tolerable good looks, and killing clothes. She is so affable and confidential that it is very difficult to keep her at a distance by any process short of flinging her out of the house.

Dora
Plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room. How d’ye do, both. I’m a friend of Bobby’s. He told me all about you once, in a moment of confidence. Of course he never let on who he was at the police court.

Gilbey
Police court!

Mrs. Gilbey
Looking apprehensively at Juggins. Tch⁠—! Juggins: a chair.

Dora
Oh, I’ve let it out, have I! Contemplating Juggins approvingly as he places a chair for her between the table and the sideboard. But he’s the right sort: I can see that. Buttonholing him. You won’t let on downstairs, old man, will you?

Juggins
The family can rely on my absolute discretion. He withdraws.

Dora
Sitting down genteelly. I don’t know what you’ll say to me: you know I really have no right to come here; but then what was I to do? You know Holy Joe, Bobby’s tutor, don’t you? But of course you do.

Gilbey
With dignity. I know Mr. Joseph Grenfell, the brother of Monsignor Grenfell, if it is of him you are speaking.

Dora
Wide-eyed and much amused. No!!! You don’t tell me that old geezer has a brother a Monsignor! And you’re Catholics! And I never knew it, though I’ve known Bobby ever so long! But of course the last thing you find out about a person is their religion, isn’t it?

Mrs. Gilbey
We’re not Catholics. But when the Samuelses got an Archdeacon’s son to form their boy’s mind, Mr. Gilbey thought Bobby ought to have a chance too. And the Monsignor is a customer. Mr. Gilbey consulted him about Bobby; and he recommended a brother of his that was more sinned against than sinning.

Gilbey
On tenderhooks. She don’t want to hear about that, Maria. To Dora. What’s your business?

Dora
I’m afraid it was all my fault.

Gilbey
What was all your fault? I’m half distracted. I don’t know what has happened to the boy: he’s been lost these fourteen days⁠—

Mrs. Gilbey
A fortnight, Rob.

Gilbey
—and not a word have we heard of him since.

Mrs. Gilbey
Don’t fuss, Rob.

Gilbey
Yelling. I will fuss. You’ve no feeling. You don’t care what becomes of the lad. He sits down savagely.

Dora
Soothingly. You’ve been anxious about him. Of course. How thoughtless of me not to begin by telling you he’s quite safe. Indeed he’s in the safest place in the world, as one may say: safe under lock and key.

Gilbey
Horrified, pitiable. Oh my⁠—His breath fails him. Do you mean that when he was in the police court he was in the dock? Oh, Maria! Oh, great Lord! What has he done? What has he got for it? Desperate. Will you tell me or will you see me go mad on my own carpet?

Dora
Sweetly. Yes, old dear⁠—

Mrs. Gilbey
Starting at the familiarity. Well!

Dora
Continuing. I’ll tell you: but don’t you worry: he’s all right. I came out myself this morning: there was such a crowd! and a band! they thought I was a suffragette: only fancy! You see it was like this. Holy Joe got talking about how he’d been a champion sprinter at college.

Mrs. Gilbey
A what?

Dora
A sprinter. He said he was the fastest hundred yards runner in England. We were all in the old cowshed that night.

Mrs. Gilbey
What old cowshed?

Gilbey
Groaning. Oh, get on. Get on.

Dora
Oh, of course you wouldn’t know. How silly of me! It’s a rather go-ahead sort of music hall in Stepney. We call it the old cowshed.

Mrs. Gilbey
Does Mr. Grenfell take Bobby to music halls?

Dora
No. Bobby takes him. But Holy Joe likes it: fairly laps it up like a kitten, poor old dear. Well, Bobby says to me, “Darling⁠—”

Mrs. Gilbey
Placidly. Why does he call you Darling?

Dora
Oh, everybody calls me Darling: it’s a sort of name I’ve got. Darling Dora, you know. Well, he says, “Darling, if you can get Holy Joe to sprint a hundred yards, I’ll stand you that squiffer with the gold keys.”

Mrs. Gilbey
Does he call his tutor Holy Joe to his face? Gilbey clutches at his hair in his impatience.

Dora
Well, what would he call him? After all, Holy Joe is Holy Joe; and boys will be boys.

Mrs. Gilbey
What’s a squiffer?

Dora
Oh, of course: excuse my vulgarity: a concertina. There’s one in a shop in Green Street, ivory inlaid, with gold keys and Russia leather bellows; and Bobby knew I hankered after it; but he couldn’t afford it, poor lad, though I knew he just longed to give it to me.

Gilbey
Maria: if you keep interrupting with silly questions, I shall go out of my senses. Here’s the boy in gaol and me disgraced forever; and all you care to know is what a squiffer is.

Dora
Well, remember it has gold keys. The man wouldn’t take a penny less than 15 pounds for it. It was a presentation one.

Gilbey
Shouting at her. Where’s my son? What’s happened to my son? Will you tell me that, and stop cackling about your squiffer?

Dora
Oh, ain’t we impatient! Well, it does you credit, old dear. And you needn’t fuss: there’s no disgrace. Bobby behaved like a perfect gentleman. Besides, it was all my fault. I’ll own it: I took too much champagne. I was not what you might call drunk; but I was bright, and a little beyond myself; and⁠—I’ll confess it⁠—I wanted to show off before Bobby, because he was a bit taken by a woman on the stage; and she was pretending to be game for anything. You see you’ve brought Bobby up too strict; and when he gets loose there’s no holding him. He does enjoy life more than any lad I ever met.

Gilbey
Never you mind how he’s been brought up: that’s my business. Tell me how he’s been brought down: that’s yours.

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, don’t be rude to the lady, Rob.

Dora
I’m coming to it, old dear: don’t you be so headstrong. Well, it was a beautiful moonlight night; and we couldn’t get a cab on the nod; so we started to walk, very jolly, you know: arm in arm, and dancing along, singing and all that. When we came into Jamaica Square, there was a young copper on point duty at the corner. I says to Bob: “Dearie boy: is it a bargain about the squiffer if I make Joe sprint for you?” “Anything you like, darling,” says he: “I love you.” I put on my best company manners and stepped up to the copper. “If you please, sir,” says I, “can you direct me to Carrickmines Square?” I was so genteel, and talked so sweet, that he fell to it like a bird. “I never heard of any such Square in these parts,” he says. “Then,” says I, “what a very silly little officer you must be!”; and I gave his helmet a chuck behind that knocked it over his eyes, and did a bunk.

Mrs. Gilbey
Did a what?

Dora
A bunk. Holy Joe did one too all right: he sprinted faster than he ever did in college, I bet, the old dear. He got clean off, too. Just as he was overtaking me halfway down the square, we heard the whistle; and at the sound of it he drew away like a streak of lightning; and that was the last I saw of him. I was copped in the Dock Road myself: rotten luck, wasn’t it? I tried the innocent and genteel and all the rest; but Bobby’s hat done me in.

Gilbey
And what happened to the boy?

Dora
Only fancy! he stopped to laugh at the copper! He thought the copper would see the joke, poor lamb. He was arguing about it when the two that took me came along to find out what the whistle was for, and brought me with them. Of course I swore I’d never seen him before in my life; but there he was in my hat and I in his. The cops were very spiteful and laid it on for all they were worth: drunk and disorderly and assaulting the police and all that. I got fourteen days without the option, because you see⁠—well, the fact is, I’d done it before, and been warned. Bobby was a first offender and had the option; but the dear boy had no money left and wouldn’t give you away by telling his name; and anyhow he couldn’t have brought himself to buy himself off and leave me there; so he’s doing his time. Well, it was two forty shillingses; and I’ve only twenty-eight shillings in the world. If I pawn my clothes I shan’t be able to earn any more. So I can’t pay the fine and get him out; but if you’ll stand 3 pounds I’ll stand one; and that’ll do it. If you’d like to be very kind and nice you could pay the lot; but I can’t deny that it was my fault; so I won’t press you.

Gilbey
Heartbroken. My son in gaol!

Dora
Oh, cheer up, old dear: it won’t hurt him: look at me after fourteen days of it; I’m all the better for being kept a bit quiet. You mustn’t let it prey on your mind.

Gilbey
The disgrace of it will kill me. And it will leave a mark on him to the end of his life.

Dora
Not a bit of it. Don’t you be afraid: I’ve educated Bobby a bit: he’s not the mollycoddle he was when you had him in hand.

Mrs. Gilbey
Indeed Bobby is not a mollycoddle. They wanted him to go in for singlestick at the Young Men’s Christian Association; but, of course, I couldn’t allow that: he might have had his eye knocked out.

Gilbey
To Dora, angrily. Listen here, you.

Dora
Oh, ain’t we cross!

Gilbey
I want none of your gaiety here. This is a respectable household. You’ve gone and got my poor innocent boy into trouble. It’s the like of you that’s the ruin of the like of him.

Dora
So you always say, you old dears. But you know better. Bobby came to me: I didn’t come to him.

Gilbey
Would he have gone if you hadn’t been there for him to go to? Tell me that. You know why he went to you, I suppose?

Dora
Charitably. It was dull for him at home, poor lad, wasn’t it?

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh no. I’m at home on first Thursdays. And we have the Knoxes to dinner every Friday. Margaret Knox and Bobby are as good as engaged. Mr. Knox is my husband’s partner. Mrs. Knox is very religious; but she’s quite cheerful. We dine with them on Tuesdays. So that’s two evenings pleasure every week.

Gilbey
Almost in tears. We done what we could for the boy. Short of letting him go into temptations of all sorts, he can do what he likes. What more does he want?

Dora
Well, old dear, he wants me; and that’s about the long and short of it. And I must say you’re not very nice to me about it. I’ve talked to him like a mother, and tried my best to keep him straight; but I don’t deny I like a bit of fun myself; and we both get a bit giddy when we’re lighthearted. Him and me is a pair, I’m afraid.

Gilbey
Don’t talk foolishness, girl. How could you and he be a pair, you being what you are, and he brought up as he has been, with the example of a religious woman like Mrs. Knox before his eyes? I can’t understand how he could bring himself to be seen in the street with you. Pitying himself. I haven’t deserved this. I’ve done my duty as a father. I’ve kept him sheltered. Angry with her. Creatures like you that take advantage of a child’s innocence ought to be whipped through the streets.

Dora
Well, whatever I may be, I’m too much the lady to lose my temper; and I don’t think Bobby would like me to tell you what I think of you; for when I start giving people a bit of my mind I sometimes use language that’s beneath me. But I tell you once for all I must have the money to get Bobby out; and if you won’t fork out, I’ll hunt up Holy Joe. He might get it off his brother, the Monsignor.

Gilbey
You mind your own concerns. My solicitor will do what is right. I’ll not have you paying my son’s fine as if you were anything to him.

Dora
That’s right. You’ll get him out today, won’t you?

Gilbey
It’s likely I’d leave my boy in prison, isn’t it?

Dora
I’d like to know when they’ll let him out.

Gilbey
You would, would you? You’re going to meet him at the prison door.

Dora
Well, don’t you think any woman would that had the feelings of a lady?

Gilbey
Bitterly. Oh yes: I know. Here! I must buy the lad’s salvation, I suppose. How much will you take to clear out and let him go?

Dora
Pitying him: quite nice about it. What good would that do, old dear? There are others, you know.

Gilbey
That’s true. I must send the boy himself away.

Dora
Where to?

Gilbey
Anywhere, so long as he’s out of the reach of you and your like.

Dora
Then I’m afraid you’ll have to send him out of the world, old dear. I’m sorry for you: I really am, though you mightn’t believe it; and I think your feelings do you real credit. But I can’t give him up just to let him fall into the hands of people I couldn’t trust, can I?

Gilbey
Beside himself, rising. Where’s the police? Where’s the Government? Where’s the Church? Where’s respectability and right reason? What’s the good of them if I have to stand here and see you put my son in your pocket as if he was a chattel slave, and you hardly out of gaol as a common drunk and disorderly? What’s the world coming to?

Dora
It is a lottery, isn’t it, old dear?

Mr. Gilbey rushes from the room, distracted.

Mrs. Gilbey
Unruffled. Where did you buy that white lace? I want some to match a collaret of my own; and I can’t get it at Perry and John’s.

Dora
Knagg and Pantle’s: one and fourpence. It’s machine handmade.

Mrs. Gilbey
I never give more than one and tuppence. But I suppose you’re extravagant by nature. My sister Martha was just like that. Pay anything she was asked.

Dora
What’s tuppence to you, Mrs. Bobby, after all?

Mrs. Gilbey
Correcting her. Mrs. Gilbey.

Dora
Of course, Mrs. Gilbey. I am silly.

Mrs. Gilbey
Bobby must have looked funny in your hat. Why did you change hats with him?

Dora
I don’t know. One does, you know.

Mrs. Gilbey
I never did. The things people do! I can’t understand them. Bobby never told me he was keeping company with you. His own mother!

Dora
Overcome. Excuse me: I can’t help smiling.

Juggins enters.

Juggins
Mr. Gilbey has gone to Wormwood Scrubbs, madam.

Mrs. Gilbey
Have you ever been in a police court, Juggins?

Juggins
Yes, madam.

Mrs. Gilbey
Rather shocked. I hope you had not been exceeding, Juggins.

Juggins
Yes, madam, I had. I exceeded the legal limit.

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, that! Why do they give a woman a fortnight for wearing a man’s hat, and a man a month for wearing hers?

Juggins
I didn’t know that they did, madam.

Mrs. Gilbey
It doesn’t seem justice, does it, Juggins?

Juggins
No, madam.

Mrs. Gilbey
To Dora, rising. Well, goodbye. Shaking her hand. So pleased to have made your acquaintance.

Dora
Standing up. Don’t mention it. I’m sure it’s most kind of you to receive me at all.

Mrs. Gilbey
I must go off now and order lunch. She trots to the door. What was it you called the concertina?

Dora
A squiffer, dear.

Mrs. Gilbey
Thoughtfully. A squiffer, of course. How funny! She goes out.

Dora
Exploding into ecstasies of mirth. Oh my! isn’t she an old love? How do you keep your face straight?

Juggins
It is what I am paid for.

Dora
Confidentially. Listen here, dear boy. Your name isn’t Juggins. Nobody’s name is Juggins.

Juggins
My orders are, Miss Delaney, that you are not to be here when Mr. Gilbey returns from Wormwood Scrubbs.

Dora
That means telling me to mind my own business, doesn’t it? Well, I’m off. Tootle Loo, Charlie Darling. She kisses her hand to him and goes.

Act II

On the afternoon of the same day, Mrs. Knox is writing notes in her drawing room, at a writing table which stands against the wall. Anyone placed so as to see Mrs. Knox’s left profile, will have the door on the right and the window on the left, both further away than Mrs. Knox, whose back is presented to an obsolete upright piano at the opposite side of the room. The sofa is near the piano. There is a small table in the middle of the room, with some gilt-edged books and albums on it, and chairs near it.

Mr. Knox comes in almost furtively, a troubled man of fifty, thinner, harder, and uglier than his partner, Gilbey, Gilbey being a soft stoutish man with white hair and thin smooth skin, whilst Knox has coarse black hair, and blue jaws which no diligence in shaving can whiten. Mrs. Knox is a plain woman, dressed without regard to fashion, with thoughtful eyes and thoughtful ways that make an atmosphere of peace and some solemnity. She is surprised to see her husband at home during business hours.

Mrs. Knox
What brings you home at this hour? Have you heard anything?

Knox
No. Have you?

Mrs. Knox
No. What’s the matter?

Knox
Sitting down on the sofa. I believe Gilbey has found out.

Mrs. Knox
What makes you think that?

Knox
Well, I don’t know: I didn’t like to tell you: you have enough to worry you without that; but Gilbey’s been very queer ever since it happened. I can’t keep my mind on business as I ought; and I was depending on him. But he’s worse than me. He’s not looking after anything; and he keeps out of my way. His manner’s not natural. He hasn’t asked us to dinner; and he’s never said a word about our not asking him to dinner, after all these years when we’ve dined every week as regular as clockwork. It looks to me as if Gilbey’s trying to drop me socially. Well, why should he do that if he hasn’t heard?

Mrs. Knox
I wonder! Bobby hasn’t been near us either: that’s what I can’t make out.

Knox
Oh, that’s nothing. I told him Margaret was down in Cornwall with her aunt.

Mrs. Knox
Reproachfully. Jo! She takes her handkerchief from the writing-table and cries a little.

Knox
Well, I got to tell lies, ain’t I? You won’t. Somebody’s got to tell ’em.

Mrs. Knox
Putting away her handkerchief. It only ends in our not knowing what to believe. Mrs. Gilbey told me Bobby was in Brighton for the sea air. There’s something queer about that. Gilbey would never let the boy loose by himself among the temptations of a gay place like Brighton without his tutor; and I saw the tutor in Kensington High Street the very day she told me.

Knox
If the Gilbeys have found out, it’s all over between Bobby and Margaret, and all over between us and them.

Mrs. Knox
It’s all over between us and everybody. When a girl runs away from home like that, people know what to think of her and her parents.

Knox
She had a happy, respectable home⁠—everything⁠—

Mrs. Knox
Interrupting him. There’s no use going over it all again, Jo. If a girl hasn’t happiness in herself, she won’t be happy anywhere. You’d better go back to the shop and try to keep your mind off it.

Knox
Rising restlessly. I can’t. I keep fancying everybody knows it and is sniggering about it. I’m at peace nowhere but here. It’s a comfort to be with you. It’s a torment to be with other people.

Mrs. Knox
Going to him and drawing her arm through his. There, Jo, there! I’m sure I’d have you here always if I could. But it can’t be. God’s work must go on from day to day, no matter what comes. We must face our trouble and bear it.

Knox
Wandering to the window arm in arm with her. Just look at the people in the street, going up and down as if nothing had happened. It seems unnatural, as if they all knew and didn’t care.

Mrs. Knox
If they knew, Jo, thered be a crowd round the house looking up at us. You shouldn’t keep thinking about it.

Knox
I know I shouldn’t. You have your religion, Amelia; and I’m sure I’m glad it comforts you. But it doesn’t come to me that way. I’ve worked hard to get a position and be respectable. I’ve turned many a girl out of the shop for being half an hour late at night; and here’s my own daughter gone for a fortnight without word or sign, except a telegram to say she’s not dead and that we’re not to worry about her.

Mrs. Knox
Suddenly pointing to the street. Jo, look!

Knox
Margaret! With a man!

Mrs. Knox
Run down, Jo, quick. Catch her: save her.

Knox
Lingering. She’s shaking bands with him: she’s coming across to the door.

Mrs. Knox
Energetically. Do as I tell you. Catch the man before he’s out of sight.

Knox rushes from the room. Mrs. Knox looks anxiously and excitedly from the window. Then she throws up the sash and leans out. Margaret Knox comes in, flustered and annoyed. She is a strong, springy girl of eighteen, with large nostrils, an audacious chin, and a gaily resolute manner, even peremptory on occasions like the present, when she is annoyed.

Margaret
Mother. Mother.

Mrs. Knox draws in her head and confronts her daughter.

Mrs. Knox
Sternly. Well, miss?

Margaret
Oh, mother, do go out and stop father making a scene in the street. He rushed at him and said “You’re the man who took away my daughter” loud enough for all the people to hear. Everybody stopped. We shall have a crowd round the house. Do do something to stop him.

Knox returns with a good-looking young marine officer.

Margaret
Oh, Monsieur Duvallet, I’m so sorry⁠—so ashamed. Mother: this is Monsieur Duvallet, who has been extremely kind to me. Monsieur Duvallet: my mother. Duvallet bows.

Knox
A Frenchman! It only needed this.

Margaret
Much annoyed. Father: do please be commonly civil to a gentleman who has been of the greatest service to me. What will he think of us?

Duvallet
Debonair. But it’s very natural. I understand Mr. Knox’s feelings perfectly. He speaks English better than Knox, having learnt it on both sides of the Atlantic.

Knox
If I’ve made any mistake I’m ready to apologize. But I want to know where my daughter has been for the last fortnight.

Duvallet
She has been, I assure you, in a particularly safe place.

Knox
Will you tell me what place? I can judge for myself how safe it was.

Margaret
Holloway Gaol. Was that safe enough?

Knox and Mrs. Knox
Holloway Gaol!

Knox
You’ve joined the Suffragettes!

Margaret
No. I wish I had. I could have had the same experience in better company. Please sit down, Monsieur Duvallet. She sits between the table and the sofa. Mrs. Knox, overwhelmed, sits at the other side of the table. Knox remains standing in the middle of the room.

Duvallet
Sitting down on the sofa. It was nothing. An adventure. Nothing.

Margaret
Obdurately. Drunk and assaulting the police! Forty shillings or a month!

Mrs. Knox
Margaret! Who accused you of such a thing?

Margaret
The policeman I assaulted.

Knox
You mean to say that you did it!

Margaret
I did. I had that satisfaction at all events. I knocked two of his teeth out.

Knox
And you sit there coolly and tell me this!

Margaret
Well, where do you want me to sit? What’s the use of saying things like that?

Knox
My daughter in Holloway Gaol!

Margaret
All the women in Holloway are somebody’s daughters. Really, father, you must make up your mind to it. If you had sat in that cell for fourteen days making up your mind to it, you would understand that I’m not in the humor to be gaped at while you’re trying to persuade yourself that it can’t be real. These things really do happen to real people every day; and you read about them in the papers and think it’s all right. Well, they’ve happened to me: that’s all.

Knox
Feeble-forcible. But they shouldn’t have happened to you. Don’t you know that?

Margaret
They shouldn’t happen to anybody, I suppose. But they do. Rising impatiently. And really I’d rather go out and assault another policeman and go back to Holloway than keep talking round and round it like this. If you’re going to turn me out of the house, turn me out: the sooner I go the better.

Duvallet
Rising quickly. That is impossible, mademoiselle. Your father has his position to consider. To turn his daughter out of doors would ruin him socially.

Knox
Oh, you’ve put her up to that, have you? And where did you come in, may I ask?

Duvallet
I came in at your invitation⁠—at your amiable insistence, in fact, not at my own. But you need have no anxiety on my account. I was concerned in the regrettable incident which led to your daughter’s incarceration. I got a fortnight without the option of a fine on the ridiculous ground that I ought to have struck the policeman with my fist. I should have done so with pleasure had I known; but, as it was, I struck him on the ear with my boot⁠—a magnificent moulinet, I must say⁠—and was informed that I had been guilty of an act of cowardice, but that for the sake of the entente cordiale I should be dealt with leniently. Yet Miss Knox, who used her fist, got a month, but with the option of a fine. I did not know this until I was released, when my first act was to pay the fine. And here we are.

Mrs. Knox
You ought to pay the gentleman the fine, Jo.

Knox
Reddening. Oh, certainly. He takes out some money.

Duvallet
Oh please! it does not matter. Knox hands him two sovereigns. If you insist⁠—he pockets them Thank you.

Margaret
I’m ever so much obliged to you, Monsieur Duvallet.

Duvallet
Can I be of any further assistance, mademoiselle?

Margaret
I think you had better leave us to fight it out, if you don’t mind.

Duvallet
Perfectly. Madame bow⁠—Mademoiselle bow⁠—Monsieur bow⁠—He goes out.

Mrs. Knox
Don’t ring, Jo. See the gentleman out yourself.

Knox hastily sees Duvallet out. Mother and daughter sit looking forlornly at one another without saying a word. Mrs. Knox slowly sits down. Margaret follows her example. They look at one another again. Mr. Knox returns.

Knox
Shortly and sternly. Amelia: this is your job. To Margaret. I leave you to your mother. I shall have my own say in the matter when I hear what you have to say to her. He goes out, solemn and offended.

Margaret
With a bitter little laugh. Just what the Suffragette said to me in Holloway. He throws the job on you.

Mrs. Knox
Reproachfully. Margaret!

Margaret
You know it’s true.

Mrs. Knox
Margaret: if you’re going to be hardened about it, there’s no use my saying anything.

Margaret
I’m not hardened, mother. But I can’t talk nonsense about it. You see, it’s all real to me. I’ve suffered it. I’ve been shoved and bullied. I’ve had my arms twisted. I’ve been made scream with pain in other ways. I’ve been flung into a filthy cell with a lot of other poor wretches as if I were a sack of coals being emptied into a cellar. And the only difference between me and the others was that I hit back. Yes I did. And I did worse. I wasn’t ladylike. I cursed. I called names. I heard words that I didn’t even know that I knew, coming out of my mouth just as if somebody else had spoken them. The policeman repeated them in court. The magistrate said he could hardly believe it. The policeman held out his hand with his two teeth in it that I knocked out. I said it was all right; that I had heard myself using those words quite distinctly; and that I had taken the good conduct prize for three years running at school. The poor old gentleman put me back for the missionary to find out who I was, and to ascertain the state of my mind. I wouldn’t tell, of course, for your sakes at home here; and I wouldn’t say I was sorry, or apologize to the policeman, or compensate him or anything of that sort. I wasn’t sorry. The one thing that gave me any satisfaction was getting in that smack on his mouth; and I said so. So the missionary reported that I seemed hardened and that no doubt I would tell who I was after a day in prison. Then I was sentenced. So now you see I’m not a bit the sort of girl you thought me. I’m not a bit the sort of girl I thought myself. And I don’t know what sort of person you really are, or what sort of person father really is. I wonder what he would say or do if he had an angry brute of a policeman twisting his arm with one hand and rushing him along by the nape of his neck with the other. He couldn’t whirl his leg like a windmill and knock a policeman down by a glorious kick on the helmet. Oh, if they’d all fought as we two fought we’d have beaten them.

Mrs. Knox
But how did it all begin?

Margaret
Oh, I don’t know. It was boat-race night, they said.

Mrs. Knox
Boat-race night! But what had you to do with the boat race? You went to the great Salvation Festival at the Albert Hall with your aunt. She put you into the bus that passes the door. What made you get out of the bus?

Margaret
I don’t know. The meeting got on my nerves, somehow. It was the singing, I suppose: you know I love singing a good swinging hymn; and I felt it was ridiculous to go home in the bus after we had been singing so wonderfully about climbing up the golden stairs to heaven. I wanted more music⁠—more happiness⁠—more life. I wanted some comrade who felt as I did. I felt exalted: it seemed mean to be afraid of anything: after all, what could anyone do to me against my will? I suppose I was a little mad: at all events, I got out of the bus at Piccadilly Circus, because there was a lot of light and excitement there. I walked to Leicester Square; and went into a great theatre.

Mrs. Knox
Horrified. A theatre!

Margaret
Yes. Lots of other women were going in alone. I had to pay five shillings.

Mrs. Knox
Aghast. Five shillings!

Margaret
Apologetically. It was a lot. It was very stuffy; and I didn’t like the people much, because they didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves; but the stage was splendid and the music lovely. I saw that Frenchman, Monsieur Duvallet, standing against a barrier, smoking a cigarette. He seemed quite happy; and he was nice and sailorlike. I went and stood beside him, hoping he would speak to me.

Mrs. Knox
Gasps. Margaret!

Margaret
Continuing. He did, just as if he had known me for years. We got on together like old friends. He asked me would I have some champagne; and I said it would cost too much, but that I would give anything for a dance. I longed to join the people on the stage and dance with them: one of them was the most beautiful dancer I ever saw. He told me he had come there to see her, and that when it was over we could go somewhere where there was dancing. So we went to a place where there was a band in a gallery and the floor cleared for dancing. Very few people danced: the women only wanted to show off their dresses; but we danced and danced until a lot of them joined in. We got quite reckless; and we had champagne after all. I never enjoyed anything so much. But at last it got spoilt by the Oxford and Cambridge students up for the boat race. They got drunk; and they began to smash things; and the police came in. Then it was quite horrible. The students fought with the police; and the police suddenly got quite brutal, and began to throw everybody downstairs. They attacked the women, who were not doing anything, and treated them just as roughly as they had treated the students. Duvallet got indignant and remonstrated with a policeman, who was shoving a woman though she was going quietly as fast as she could. The policeman flung the woman through the door and then turned on Duvallet. It was then that Duvallet swung his leg like a windmill and knocked the policeman down. And then three policemen rushed at him and carried him out by the arms and legs face downwards. Two more attacked me and gave me a shove to the door. That quite maddened me. I just got in one good bang on the mouth of one of them. All the rest was dreadful. I was rushed through the streets to the police station. They kicked me with their knees; they twisted my arms; they taunted and insulted me; they called me vile names; and I told them what I thought of them, and provoked them to do their worst. There’s one good thing about being hard hurt: it makes you sleep. I slept in that filthy cell with all the other drunks sounder than I should have slept at home. I can’t describe how I felt next morning: it was hideous; but the police were quite jolly; and everybody said it was a bit of English fun, and talked about last year’s boat-race night when it had been a great deal worse. I was black and blue and sick and wretched. But the strange thing was that I wasn’t sorry; and I’m not sorry. And I don’t feel that I did anything wrong, really. She rises and stretches her arms with a large liberating breath. Now that it’s all over I’m rather proud of it; though I know now that I’m not a lady; but whether that’s because we’re only shopkeepers, or because nobody’s really a lady except when they’re treated like ladies, I don’t know. She throws herself into a corner of the sofa.

Mrs. Knox
Lost in wonder. But how could you bring yourself to do it, Margaret? I’m not blaming you: I only want to know. How could you bring yourself to do it?

Margaret
I can’t tell you. I don’t understand it myself. The prayer meeting set me free, somehow. I should never have done it if it were not for the prayer meeting.

Mrs. Knox
Deeply horrified. Oh, don’t say such a thing as that. I know that prayer can set us free; though you could never understand me when I told you so; but it sets us free for good, not for evil.

Margaret
Then I suppose what I did was not evil; or else I was set free for evil as well as good. As father says, you can’t have anything both ways at once. When I was at home and at school I was what you call good; but I wasn’t free. And when I got free I was what most people would call not good. But I see no harm in what I did; though I see plenty in what other people did to me.

Mrs. Knox
I hope you don’t think yourself a heroine of romance.

Margaret
Oh no. She sits down again at the table. I’m a heroine of reality, if you can call me a heroine at all. And reality is pretty brutal, pretty filthy, when you come to grips with it. Yet it’s glorious all the same. It’s so real and satisfactory.

Mrs. Knox
I don’t like this spirit in you, Margaret. I don’t like your talking to me in that tone.

Margaret
It’s no use, mother. I don’t care for you and Papa any the less; but I shall never get back to the old way of talking again. I’ve made a sort of descent into hell⁠—

Mrs. Knox
Margaret! Such a word!

Margaret
You should have heard all the words that were flying round that night. You should mix a little with people who don’t know any other words. But when I said that about a descent into hell I was not swearing. I was in earnest, like a preacher.

Mrs. Knox
A preacher utters them in a reverent tone of voice.

Margaret
I know: the tone that shows they don’t mean anything real to him. They usen’t to mean anything real to me. Now hell is as real to me as a turnip; and I suppose I shall always speak of it like that. Anyhow, I’ve been there; and it seems to me now that nothing is worth doing but redeeming people from it.

Mrs. Knox
They are redeemed already if they choose to believe it.

Margaret
What’s the use of that if they don’t choose to believe it? You don’t believe it yourself, or you wouldn’t pay policemen to twist their arms. What’s the good of pretending? That’s all our respectability is, pretending, pretending, pretending. Thank heaven I’ve had it knocked out of me once for all!

Mrs. Knox
Greatly agitated. Margaret: don’t talk like that. I can’t bear to hear you talking wickedly. I can bear to hear the children of this world talking vainly and foolishly in the language of this world. But when I hear you justifying your wickedness in the words of grace, it’s too horrible: it sounds like the devil making fun of religion. I’ve tried to bring you up to learn the happiness of religion. I’ve waited for you to find out that happiness is within ourselves and doesn’t come from outward pleasures. I’ve prayed oftener than you think that you might be enlightened. But if all my hopes and all my prayers are to come to this, that you mix up my very words and thoughts with the promptings of the devil, then I don’t know what I shall do: I don’t indeed: it’ll kill me.

Margaret
You shouldn’t have prayed for me to be enlightened if you didn’t want me to be enlightened. If the truth were known, I suspect we all want our prayers to be answered only by halves: the agreeable halves. Your prayer didn’t get answered by halves, mother. You’ve got more than you bargained for in the way of enlightenment. I shall never be the same again. I shall never speak in the old way again. I’ve been set free from this silly little hole of a house and all its pretences. I know now that I am stronger than you and Papa. I haven’t found that happiness of yours that is within yourself; but I’ve found strength. For good or evil I am set free; and none of the things that used to hold me can hold me now.

Knox comes back, unable to bear his suspense.

Knox
How long more are you going to keep me waiting, Amelia? Do you think I’m made of iron? What’s the girl done? What are we going to do?

Mrs. Knox
She’s beyond my control, Jo, and beyond yours. I can’t even pray for her now; for I don’t know rightly what to pray for.

Knox
Don’t talk nonsense, woman: is this a time for praying? Does anybody know? That’s what we have to consider now. If only we can keep it dark, I don’t care for anything else.

Margaret
Don’t hope for that, father. Mind: I’ll tell everybody. It ought to be told. It must be told.

Knox
Hold your tongue, you young hussy; or go out of my house this instant.

Margaret
I’m quite ready. She takes her hat and turns to the door.

Knox
Throwing himself in front of it. Here! where are you going?

Mrs. Knox
Rising. You mustn’t turn her out, Jo! I’ll go with her if she goes.

Knox
Who wants to turn her out? But is she going to ruin us? To let everybody know of her disgrace and shame? To tear me down from the position I’ve made for myself and you by forty years hard struggling?

Margaret
Yes: I’m going to tear it all down. It stands between us and everything. I’ll tell everybody.

Knox
Magsy, my child: don’t bring down your father’s hairs with sorrow to the grave. There’s only one thing I care about in the world: to keep this dark. I’m your father. I ask you here on my knees⁠—in the dust, so to speak⁠—not to let it out.

Margaret
I’ll tell everybody.

Knox collapses in despair. Mrs. Knox tries to pray and cannot. Margaret stands inflexible.

Act III

Again in the Gilbeys’ dining room. Afternoon. The table is not laid: it is draped in its ordinary cloth, with pen and ink, an exercise book, and schoolbooks on it. Bobby Gilbey is in the armchair, crouching over the fire, reading an illustrated paper. He is a pretty youth, of very suburban gentility, strong and manly enough by nature, but untrained and unsatisfactory, his parents having imagined that domestic restriction is what they call “bringing up.” He has learnt nothing from it except a habit of evading it by deceit.

He gets up to ring the bell; then resumes his crouch. Juggins answers the bell.

Bobby
Juggins.

Juggins
Sir?

Bobby
Morosely sarcastic. Sir be blowed!

Juggins
Cheerfully. Not at all, sir.

Bobby
I’m a gaol-bird: you’re a respectable man.

Juggins
That doesn’t matter, sir. Your father pays me to call you sir; and as I take the money, I keep my part of the bargain.

Bobby
Would you call me sir if you weren’t paid to do it?

Juggins
No, sir.

Bobby
I’ve been talking to Dora about you.

Juggins
Indeed, sir?

Bobby
Yes. Dora says your name can’t be Juggins, and that you have the manners of a gentleman. I always thought you hadn’t any manners. Anyhow, your manners are different from the manners of a gentleman in my set.

Juggins
They would be, sir.

Bobby
You don’t feel disposed to be communicative on the subject of Dora’s notion, I suppose.

Juggins
No, sir.

Bobby
Throwing his paper on the floor and lifting his knees over the arm of the chair so as to turn towards the footman. It was part of your bargain that you were to valet me a bit, wasn’t it?

Juggins
Yes, sir.

Bobby
Well, can you tell me the proper way to get out of an engagement to a girl without getting into a row for breach of promise or behaving like a regular cad?

Juggins
No, sir. You can’t get out of an engagement without behaving like a cad if the lady wishes to hold you to it.

Bobby
But it wouldn’t be for her happiness to marry me when I don’t really care for her.

Juggins
Women don’t always marry for happiness, sir. They often marry because they wish to be married women and not old maids.

Bobby
Then what am I to do?

Juggins
Marry her, sir, or behave like a cad.

Bobby
Jumping up. Well, I won’t marry her: that’s flat. What would you do if you were in my place?

Juggins
I should tell the young lady that I found I couldn’t fulfil my engagement.

Bobby
But you’d have to make some excuse, you know. I want to give it a gentlemanly turn: to say I’m not worthy of her, or something like that.

Juggins
That is not a gentlemanly turn, sir. Quite the contrary.

Bobby
I don’t see that at all. Do you mean that it’s not exactly true?

Juggins
Not at all, sir.

Bobby
I can say that no other girl can ever be to me what she’s been. That would be quite true, because our circumstances have been rather exceptional; and she’ll imagine I mean I’m fonder of her than I can ever be of anyone else. You see, Juggins, a gentleman has to think of a girl’s feelings.

Juggins
If you wish to spare her feelings, sir, you can marry her. If you hurt her feelings by refusing, you had better not try to get credit for considerateness at the same time by pretending to spare them. She won’t like it. And it will start an argument, of which you will get the worse.

Bobby
But, you know, I’m not really worthy of her.

Juggins
Probably she never supposed you were, sir.

Bobby
Oh, I say, Juggins, you are a pessimist.

Juggins
Preparing to go. Anything else, sir?

Bobby
Querulously. You haven’t been much use. He wanders disconsolately across the room. You generally put me up to the correct way of doing things.

Juggins
I assure you, sir, there’s no correct way of jilting. It’s not correct in itself.

Bobby
Hopefully. I’ll tell you what. I’ll say I can’t hold her to an engagement with a man who’s been in quod. That’ll do it. He seats himself on the table, relieved and confident.

Juggins
Very dangerous, sir. No woman will deny herself the romantic luxury of self-sacrifice and forgiveness when they take the form of doing something agreeable. She’s almost sure to say that your misfortune will draw her closer to you.

Bobby
What a nuisance! I don’t know what to do. You know, Juggins, your cool simple-minded way of doing it wouldn’t go down in Denmark Hill.

Juggins
I daresay not, sir. No doubt you’d prefer to make it look like an act of self-sacrifice for her sake on your part, or provoke her to break the engagement herself. Both plans have been tried repeatedly, but never with success, as far as my knowledge goes.

Bobby
You have a devilish cool way of laying down the law. You know, in my class you have to wrap up things a bit. Denmark Hill isn’t Camberwell, you know.

Juggins
I have noticed, sir, that Denmark Hill thinks that the higher you go in the social scale, the less sincerity is allowed; and that only tramps and riffraff are quite sincere. That’s a mistake. Tramps are often shameless; but they’re never sincere. Swells⁠—if I may use that convenient name for the upper classes⁠—play much more with their cards on the table. If you tell the young lady that you want to jilt her, and she calls you a pig, the tone of the transaction may leave much to be desired; but it’ll be less Camberwellian than if you say you’re not worthy.

Bobby
Oh, I can’t make you understand, Juggins. The girl isn’t a scullery-maid. I want to do it delicately.

Juggins
A mistake, sir, believe me, if you are not a born artist in that line.⁠—Beg pardon, sir, I think I heard the bell. He goes out.

Bobby, much perplexed, shoves his hands into his pockets, and comes off the table, staring disconsolately straight before him; then goes reluctantly to his books, and sits down to write. Juggins returns.

Juggins
Announcing. Miss Knox.

Margaret comes in. Juggins withdraws.

Margaret
Still grinding away for that Society of Arts examination, Bobby? You’ll never pass.

Bobby
Rising. No: I was just writing to you.

Margaret
What about?

Bobby
Oh, nothing. At least⁠—How are you?

Margaret
Passing round the other end of the table and putting down on it a copy of Lloyd’s Weekly and her purse-bag. Quite well, thank you. How did you enjoy Brighton?

Bobby
Brighton! I wasn’t at⁠—Oh yes, of course. Oh, pretty well. Is your aunt all right?

Margaret
My aunt! I suppose so. I haven’t seen her for a month.

Bobby
I thought you were down staying with her.

Margaret
Oh! was that what they told you?

Bobby
Yes. Why? Weren’t you really?

Margaret
No. I’ve something to tell you. Sit down and lets be comfortable.

She sits on the edge of the table. He sits beside her, and puts his arm wearily round her waist.

Margaret
You needn’t do that if you don’t like, Bobby. Suppose we get off duty for the day, just to see what it’s like.

Bobby
Off duty? What do you mean?

Margaret
You know very well what I mean. Bobby: did you ever care one little scrap for me in that sort of way? Don’t funk answering: I don’t care a bit for you⁠—that way.

Bobby
Removing his arm rather huffily. I beg your pardon, I’m sure. I thought you did.

Margaret
Well, did you? Come! Don’t be mean. I’ve owned up. You can put it all on me if you like; but I don’t believe you care any more than I do.

Bobby
You mean we’ve been shoved into it rather by the pars and mars.

Margaret
Yes.

Bobby
Well, it’s not that I don’t care for you: in fact, no girl can ever be to me exactly what you are; but we’ve been brought up so much together that it feels more like brother and sister than⁠—well, than the other thing, doesn’t it?

Margaret
Just so. How did you find out the difference?

Bobby
Blushing. Oh, I say!

Margaret
I found out from a Frenchman.

Bobby
Oh, I say! He comes off the table in his consternation.

Margaret
Did you learn it from a Frenchwoman? You know you must have learnt it from somebody.

Bobby
Not a Frenchwoman. She’s quite a nice woman. But she’s been rather unfortunate. The daughter of a clergyman.

Margaret
Startled. Oh, Bobby! That sort of woman!

Bobby
What sort of woman?

Margaret
You don’t believe she’s really a clergyman’s daughter, do you, you silly boy? It’s a stock joke.

Bobby
Do you mean to say you don’t believe me?

Margaret
No: I mean to say I don’t believe her.

Bobby
Curious and interested, resuming his seat on the table beside her. What do you know about her? What do you know about all this sort of thing?

Margaret
What sort of thing, Bobby?

Bobby
Well, about life.

Margaret
I’ve lived a lot since I saw you last. I wasn’t at my aunt’s. All that time that you were in Brighton, I mean.

Bobby
I wasn’t at Brighton, Meg. I’d better tell you: you’re bound to find out sooner or later. He begins his confession humbly, avoiding her gaze. Meg: it’s rather awful: you’ll think me no end of a beast. I’ve been in prison.

Margaret
You!

Bobby
Yes, me. For being drunk and assaulting the police.

Margaret
Do you mean to say that you⁠—oh! this is a letdown for me. She comes off the table and drops, disconsolate, into a chair at the end of it furthest from the hearth.

Bobby
Of course I couldn’t hold you to our engagement after that. I was writing to you to break it off. He also descends from the table and makes slowly for the hearth. You must think me an utter rotter.

Margaret
Oh, has everybody been in prison for being drunk and assaulting the police? How long were you in?

Bobby
A fortnight.

Margaret
That’s what I was in for.

Bobby
What are you talking about? In where?

Margaret
In quod.

Bobby
But I’m serious: I’m not rotting. Really and truly⁠—

Margaret
What did you do to the copper?

Bobby
Nothing, absolutely nothing. He exaggerated grossly. I only laughed at him.

Margaret
Jumping up, triumphant. I’ve beaten you hollow. I knocked out two of his teeth. I’ve got one of them. He sold it to me for ten shillings.

Bobby
Now please do stop fooling, Meg. I tell you I’m not rotting. He sits down in the armchair, rather sulkily.

Margaret
Taking up the copy of Lloyd’s Weekly and going to him. And I tell you I’m not either. Look! Here’s a report of it. The daily papers are no good; but the Sunday papers are splendid. She sits on the arm of the chair. See! Reading: “Hardened at Eighteen. A quietly dressed, respectable-looking girl who refuses her name”⁠—that’s me.

Bobby
Pausing a moment in his perusal. Do you mean to say that you went on the loose out of pure devilment?

Margaret
I did no harm. I went to see a lovely dance. I picked up a nice man and went to have a dance myself. I can’t imagine anything more innocent and more happy. All the bad part was done by other people: they did it out of pure devilment if you like. Anyhow, here we are, two gaolbirds, Bobby, disgraced forever. Isn’t it a relief?

Bobby
Rising stiffly. But you know, it’s not the same for a girl. A man may do things a woman mayn’t. He stands on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.

Margaret
Are you scandalized, Bobby?

Bobby
Well, you can’t expect me to approve of it, can you, Meg? I never thought you were that sort of girl.

Margaret
Rising indignantly. I’m not. You mustn’t pretend to think that I’m a clergyman’s daughter, Bobby.

Bobby
I wish you wouldn’t chaff about that. Don’t forget the row you got into for letting out that you admired Juggins she turns her back on him quickly⁠—a footman! And what about the Frenchman?

Margaret
Facing him again. I know nothing about the Frenchman except that he’s a very nice fellow and can swing his leg round like the hand of a clock and knock a policeman down with it. He was in Wormwood Scrubbs with you. I was in Holloway.

Bobby
It’s all very well to make light of it, Meg; but this is a bit thick, you know.

Margaret
Do you feel you couldn’t marry a woman who’s been in prison?

Bobby
Hastily. No. I never said that. It might even give a woman a greater claim on a man. Any girl, if she were thoughtless and a bit on, perhaps, might get into a scrape. Anyone who really understood her character could see there was no harm in it. But you’re not the larky sort. At least you usen’t to be.

Margaret
I’m not; and I never will be. She walks straight up to him. I didn’t do it for a lark, Bob: I did it out of the very depths of my nature. I did it because I’m that sort of person. I did it in one of my religious fits. I’m hardened at eighteen, as they say. So what about the match, now?

Bobby
Well, I don’t think you can fairly hold me to it, Meg. Of course it would be ridiculous for me to set up to be shocked, or anything of that sort. I can’t afford to throw stones at anybody; and I don’t pretend to. I can understand a lark; I can forgive a slip; as long as it is understood that it is only a lark or a slip. But to go on the loose on principle; to talk about religion in connection with it; to⁠—to⁠—well, Meg, I do find that a bit thick, I must say. I hope you’re not in earnest when you talk that way.

Margaret
Bobby: you’re no good. No good to me, anyhow.

Bobby
Huffed. I’m sorry, Miss Knox.

Margaret
Goodbye, Mr. Gilbey. She turns on her heel and goes to the other end of the table. I suppose you won’t introduce me to the clergyman’s daughter.

Bobby
I don’t think she’d like it. There are limits, after all. He sits down at the table, as if to to resume work at his books: a hint to her to go.

Margaret
On her way to the door. Ring the bell, Bobby; and tell Juggins to show me out.

Bobby
Reddening. I’m not a cad, Meg.

Margaret
Coming to the table. Then do something nice to prevent us feeling mean about this afterwards. You’d better kiss me. You needn’t ever do it again.

Bobby
If I’m no good, I don’t see what fun it would be for you.

Margaret
Oh, it’d be no fun. If I wanted what you call fun, I should ask the Frenchman to kiss me⁠—or Juggins.

Bobby
Rising and retreating to the hearth. Oh, don’t be disgusting, Meg. Don’t be low.

Margaret
Determinedly, preparing to use force. Now, I’ll make you kiss me, just to punish you. She seizes his wrist; pulls him off his balance; and gets her arm round his neck.

Bobby
No. Stop. Leave go, will you.

Juggins appears at the door.

Juggins
Miss Delaney, Sir. Dora comes in. Juggins goes out. Margaret hastily releases Bobby, and goes to the other side of the room.

Dora
Through the door, to the departing Juggins. Well, you are a Juggins to show me up when there’s company. To Margaret and Bobby. It’s all right, dear: all right, old man: I’ll wait in Juggins’s pantry till you’re disengaged.

Margaret
Don’t you know me?

Dora
Coming to the middle of the room and looking at her very attentively. Why, it’s never No. 406!

Margaret
Yes it is.

Dora
Well, I should never have known you out of the uniform. How did you get out? You were doing a month, weren’t you?

Margaret
My bloke paid the fine the day he got out himself.

Dora
A real gentleman! Pointing to Bobby, who is staring open-mouthed. Look at him. He can’t take it in.

Bobby
I suppose you made her acquaintance in prison, Meg. But when it comes to talking about blokes and all that⁠—well!

Margaret
Oh, I’ve learnt the language; and I like it. It’s another barrier broken down.

Bobby
It’s not so much the language, Meg. But I think⁠—He looks at Dora and stops.

Margaret
Suddenly dangerous. What do you think, Bobby?

Dora
He thinks you oughtn’t to be so free with me, dearie. It does him credit: he always was a gentleman, you know.

Margaret
Does him credit! To insult you like that! Bobby: say that that wasn’t what you meant.

Bobby
I didn’t say it was.

Margaret
Well, deny that it was.

Bobby
No. I wouldn’t have said it in front of Dora; but I do think it’s not quite the same thing my knowing her and you knowing her.

Dora
Of course it isn’t, old man. To Margaret. I’ll just trot off and come back in half an hour. You two can make it up together. I’m really not fit company for you, dearie: I couldn’t live up to you. She turns to go.

Margaret
Stop. Do you believe he could live up to me?

Dora
Well, I’ll never say anything to stand between a girl and a respectable marriage, or to stop a decent lad from settling himself. I have a conscience; though I mayn’t be as particular as some.

Margaret
You seem to me to be a very decent sort; and Bobby’s behaving like a skunk.

Bobby
Much ruffled. Nice language that!

Dora
Well, dearie, men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability. But you can’t blame them for that, can you? I’ve met Bobby walking with his mother; and of course he cut me dead. I won’t pretend I liked it; but what could he do, poor dear?

Margaret
And now he wants me to cut you dead to keep him in countenance. Well, I shan’t: not if my whole family were there. But I’ll cut him dead if he doesn’t treat you properly. To Bobby, with a threatening move in his direction. I’ll educate you, you young beast.

Bobby
Furious, meeting her halfway. Who are you calling a young beast?

Margaret
You.

Dora
Peacemaking. Now, dearies!

Bobby
If you don’t take care, you’ll get your fat head jolly well clouted.

Margaret
If you don’t take care, the policeman’s tooth will only be the beginning of a collection.

Dora
Now, loveys, be good.

Bobby, lost to all sense of adult dignity, puts out his tongue at Margaret. Margaret, equally furious, catches his protended countenance a box on the cheek. He hurls himself her. They wrestle.

Bobby
Cat! I’ll teach you.

Margaret
Pig! Beast! She forces him backwards on the table. Now where are you?

Dora
Calling. Juggins, Juggins. They’ll murder one another.

Juggins
Throwing open the door, and announcing. Monsieur Duvallet.

Duvallet enters. Sudden cessation of hostilities, and dead silence. The combatants separate by the whole width of the room. Juggins withdraws.

Duvallet
I fear I derange you.

Margaret
Not at all. Bobby: you really are a beast: Monsieur Duvallet will think I’m always fighting.

Duvallet
Practising jujitsu or the new Iceland wrestling. Admirable, Miss Knox. The athletic young Englishwoman is an example to all Europe. Indicating Bobby. Your instructor, no doubt. Monsieur⁠—He bows.

Bobby
Bowing awkwardly. How d’y’ do?

Margaret
To Bobby. I’m so sorry, Bobby: I asked Monsieur Duvallet to call for me here; and I forgot to tell you. Introducing. Monsieur Duvallet: Miss Four hundred and seven. Mr. Bobby Gilbey. Duvallet bows. I really don’t know how to explain our relationships. Bobby and I are like brother and sister.

Duvallet
Perfectly. I noticed it.

Margaret
Bobby and Miss⁠—Miss⁠—

Dora
Delaney, dear. To Duvallet, bewitchingly. Darling Dora, to real friends.

Margaret
Bobby and Dora are⁠—are⁠—well, not brother and sister.

Duvallet
With redoubled comprehension. Perfectly.

Margaret
Bobby has spent the last fortnight in prison. You don’t mind, do you?

Duvallet
No, naturally. I have spent the last fortnight in prison.

The conversation drops. Margaret renews it with an effort.

Margaret
Dora has spent the last fortnight in prison.

Duvallet
Quite so. I felicitate Mademoiselle on her enlargement.

Dora
Trop merci, as they say in Boulogne. No call to be stiff with one another, have we?

Juggins comes in.

Juggins
Beg pardon, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbey are coming up the street.

Dora
Let me absquatulate. Making for the door.

Juggins
If you wish to leave without being seen, you had better step into my pantry and leave afterwards.

Dora
Right oh! She bursts into song. Hide me in the meat safe till the cop goes by. Hum the dear old music as his step draws nigh. She goes out on tiptoe.

Margaret
I won’t stay here if she has to hide. I’ll keep her company in the pantry. She follows Dora.

Bobby
Lets all go. We can’t have any fun with the Mar here. I say, Juggins: you can give us tea in the pantry, can’t you?

Juggins
Certainly, sir.

Bobby
Right. Say nothing to my mother. You don’t mind, Mr. Doovalley, do you?

Duvallet
I shall be charmed.

Bobby
Right you are. Come along. At the door. Oh, by the way, Juggins, fetch down that concertina from my room, will you?

Juggins
Yes, sir. Bobby goes out. Duvallet follows him to the door. You understand, sir, that Miss Knox is a lady absolutely comme il faut?

Duvallet
Perfectly. But the other?

Juggins
The other, sir, may be both charitably and accurately described in your native idiom as a daughter of joy.

Duvallet
It is what I thought. These English domestic interiors are very interesting. He goes out, followed by Juggins.

Presently Mr. and Mrs. Gilbey come in. They take their accustomed places: he on the hearthrug, she at the colder end of the table.

Mrs. Gilbey
Did you smell scent in the hall, Rob?

Gilbey
No, I didn’t. And I don’t want to smell it. Don’t you go looking for trouble, Maria.

Mrs. Gilbey
Snuffing up the perfumed atmosphere. She’s been here. Gilbey rings the bell. What are you ringing for? Are you going to ask?

Gilbey
No, I’m not going to ask. Juggins said this morning he wanted to speak to me. If he likes to tell me, let him; but I’m not going to ask; and don’t you either. Juggins appears at the door. You said you wanted to say something to me.

Juggins
When it would be convenient to you, sir.

Gilbey
Well, what is it?

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, Juggins, we’re expecting Mr. and Mrs. Knox to tea.

Gilbey
He knows that. He sits down. Then, to Juggins. What is it?

Juggins
Advancing to the middle of the table. Would it inconvenience you, sir, if I was to give you a month’s notice?

Gilbey
Taken aback. What! Why? Ain’t you satisfied?

Juggins
Perfectly, sir. It is not that I want to better myself, I assure you.

Gilbey
Well, what do you want to leave for, then? Do you want to worse yourself?

Juggins
No, sir. I’ve been well treated in your most comfortable establishment; and I should be greatly distressed if you or Mrs. Gilbey were to interpret my notice as an expression of dissatisfaction.

Gilbey
Paternally. Now you listen to me, Juggins. I’m an older man than you. Don’t you throw out dirty water till you get in fresh. Don’t get too big for your boots. You’re like all servants nowadays: you think you’ve only to hold up your finger to get the pick of half a dozen jobs. But you won’t be treated everywhere as you’re treated here. In bed every night before eleven; hardly a ring at the door except on Mrs. Gilbey’s day once a month; and no other manservant to interfere with you. It may be a bit quiet perhaps; but you’re past the age of adventure. Take my advice: think over it. You suit me; and I’m prepared to make it suit you if you’re dissatisfied⁠—in reason, you know.

Juggins
I realize my advantages, sir; but I’ve private reasons⁠—

Gilbey
Cutting him short angrily and retiring to the hearthrug in dudgeon. Oh, I know. Very well: go. The sooner the better.

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, not until we’re suited. He must stay his month.

Gilbey
Sarcastic. Do you want to lose him his character, Maria? Do you think I don’t see what it is? We’re prison folk now. We’ve been in the police court. To Juggins. Well, I suppose you know your own business best. I take your notice: you can go when your month is up, or sooner, if you like.

Juggins
Believe me, sir⁠—

Gilbey
That’s enough: I don’t want any excuses. I don’t blame you. You can go downstairs now, if you’ve nothing else to trouble me about.

Juggins
I really can’t leave it at that, sir. I assure you I’ve no objection to young Mr. Gilbey’s going to prison. You may do six months yourself, sir, and welcome, without a word of remonstrance from me. I’m leaving solely because my brother, who has suffered a bereavement, and feels lonely, begs me to spend a few months with him until he gets over it.

Gilbey
And is he to keep you all that time? or are you to spend your savings in comforting him? Have some sense, man: how can you afford such things?

Juggins
My brother can afford to keep me, sir. The truth is, he objects to my being in service.

Gilbey
Is that any reason why you should be dependent on him? Don’t do it, Juggins: pay your own way like an honest lad; and don’t eat your brother’s bread while you’re able to earn your own.

Juggins
There is sound sense in that, sir. But unfortunately it is a tradition in my family that the younger brothers should sponge to a considerable extent on the eldest.

Gilbey
Then the sooner that tradition is broken, the better, my man.

Juggins
A Radical sentiment, sir. But an excellent one.

Gilbey
Radical! What do you mean? Don’t you begin to take liberties, Juggins, now that you know we’re loth to part with you. Your brother isn’t a duke, you know.

Juggins
Unfortunately, he is, sir.

Together.

Gilbey
What!

Mrs. Gilbey
Juggins!

Juggins
Excuse me, sir: the bell. He goes out.

Gilbey
Overwhelmed. Maria: did you understand him to say his brother was a duke?

Mrs. Gilbey
Fancy his condescending! Perhaps if you’d offer to raise his wages and treat him as one of the family, he’d stay.

Gilbey
And have my own servant above me! Not me. What’s the world coming to? Here’s Bobby and⁠—

Juggins
Entering and announcing. Mr. and Mrs. Knox.

The Knoxes come in. Juggins takes two chairs from the wall and places them at the table, between the host and hostess. Then he withdraws.

Mrs. Gilbey
To Mrs. Knox. How are you, dear?

Mrs. Knox
Nicely, thank you. Good evening, Mr. Gilbey. They shake hands; and she takes the chair nearest Mrs. Gilbey. Mr. Knox takes the other chair.

Gilbey
Sitting down. I was just saying, Knox, What is the world coming to?

Knox
Appealing to his wife. What was I saying myself only this morning?

Mrs. Knox
This is a strange time. I was never one to talk about the end of the world; but look at the things that have happened!

Knox
Earthquakes!

Gilbey
San Francisco!

Mrs. Gilbey
Jamaica!

Knox
Martinique!

Gilbey
Messina!

Mrs. Gilbey
The plague in China!

Mrs. Knox
The floods in France!

Gilbey
My Bobby in Wormwood Scrubbs!

Knox
Margaret in Holloway!

Gilbey
And now my footman tells me his brother’s a duke!

Knox
No!

Mrs. Knox
What’s that?

Gilbey
Just before he let you in. A duke! Here has everything been respectable from the beginning of the world, as you may say, to the present day; and all of a sudden everything is turned upside down.

Mrs. Knox
It’s like in the book of Revelations. But I do say that unless people have happiness within themselves, all the earthquakes, all the floods, and all the prisons in the world can’t make them really happy.

Knox
It isn’t alone the curious things that are happening, but the unnatural way people are taking them. Why, there’s Margaret been in prison, and she hasn’t time to go to all the invitations she’s had from people that never asked her before.

Gilbey
I never knew we could live without being respectable.

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, Rob, what a thing to say! Who says we’re not respectable?

Gilbey
Well, it’s not what I call respectable to have your children in and out of gaol.

Knox
Oh come, Gilbey! we’re not tramps because we’ve had, as it were, an accident.

Gilbey
It’s no use, Knox: look it in the face. Did I ever tell you my father drank?

Knox
No. But I knew it. Simmons told me.

Gilbey
Yes: he never could keep his mouth quiet: he told me your aunt was a kleptomaniac.

Mrs. Knox
It wasn’t true, Mr. Gilbey. She used to pick up handkerchiefs if she saw them lying about; but you might trust her with untold silver.

Gilbey
My Uncle Phil was a teetotaller. My father used to say to me: Rob, he says, don’t you ever have a weakness. If you find one getting a hold on you, make a merit of it, he says. Your Uncle Phil doesn’t like spirits; and he makes a merit of it, and is chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee. I do like spirits; and I make a merit of it, and I’m the King Cockatoo of the Convivial Cockatoos. Never put yourself in the wrong, he says. I used to boast about what a good boy Bobby was. Now I swank about what a dog he is; and it pleases people just as well. What a world it is!

Knox
It turned my blood cold at first to hear Margaret telling people about Holloway; but it goes down better than her singing used to.

Mrs. Knox
I never thought she sang right after all those lessons we paid for.

Gilbey
Lord, Knox, it was lucky you and me got let in together. I tell you straight, if it hadn’t been for Bobby’s disgrace, I’d have broke up the firm.

Knox
I shouldn’t have blamed you: I’d have done the same only for Margaret. Too much straightlacedness narrows a man’s mind. Talking of that, what about those hygienic corset advertisements that Vines & Jackson want us to put in the window? I told Vines they weren’t decent and we couldn’t show them in our shop. I was pretty high with him. But what am I to say to him now if he comes and throws this business in our teeth?

Gilbey
Oh, put ’em in. We may as well go it a bit now.

Mrs. Gilbey
You’ve been going it quite far enough, Rob. To Mrs. Knox. He won’t get up in the mornings now: he that was always out of bed at seven to the tick!

Mrs. Knox
You hear that, Jo? To Mrs. Gilbey. he’s taken to whisky and soda. A pint a week! And the beer the same as before!

Knox
Oh, don’t preach, old girl.

Mrs. Knox
To Mrs. Gilbey. That’s a new name he’s got for me. To Knox. I tell you, Jo, this doesn’t sit well on you. You may call it preaching if you like; but it’s the truth for all that. I say that if you’ve happiness within yourself, you don’t need to seek it outside, spending money on drink and theatres and bad company, and being miserable after all. You can sit at home and be happy; and you can work and be happy. If you have that in you, the spirit will set you free to do what you want and guide you to do right. But if you haven’t got it, then you’d best be respectable and stick to the ways that are marked out for you; for you’ve nothing else to keep you straight.

Knox
Angrily. And is a man never to have a bit of fun? See what’s come of it with your daughter! She was to be content with your happiness that you’re always talking about; and how did the spirit guide her? To a month’s hard for being drunk and assaulting the police. Did I ever assault the police?

Mrs. Knox
You wouldn’t have the courage. I don’t blame the girl.

Mrs. Gilbey
Oh, Maria! What are you saying?

Gilbey
What! And you so pious!

Mrs. Knox
She went where the spirit guided her. And what harm there was in it she knew nothing about.

Gilbey
Oh, come, Mrs. Knox! Girls are not so innocent as all that.

Mrs. Knox
I don’t say she was ignorant. But I do say that she didn’t know what we know: I mean the way certain temptations get a sudden hold that no goodness nor self-control is any use against. She was saved from that, and had a rough lesson too; and I say it was no earthly protection that did that. But don’t think, you two men, that you’ll be protected if you make what she did an excuse to go and do as you’d like to do if it wasn’t for fear of losing your characters. The spirit won’t guide you, because it isn’t in you; and it never had been: not in either of you.

Gilbey
With ironic humility. I’m sure I’m obliged to you for your good opinion, Mrs. Knox.

Mrs. Knox
Well, I will say for you, Mr. Gilbey, that you’re better than my man here. He’s a bitter hard heathen, is my Jo, God help me! She begins to cry quietly.

Knox
Now, don’t take on like that, Amelia. You know I always give in to you that you were right about religion. But one of us had to think of other things, or we’d have starved, we and the child.

Mrs. Knox
How do you know you’d have starved? All the other things might have been added unto you.

Gilbey
Come, Mrs. Knox, don’t tell me Knox is a sinner. I know better. I’m sure you’d be the first to be sorry if anything was to happen to him.

Knox
Bitterly to his wife. You’ve always had some grudge against me; and nobody but yourself can understand what it is.

Mrs. Knox
I wanted a man who had that happiness within himself. You made me think you had it; but it was nothing but being in love with me.

Mrs. Gilbey
And do you blame him for that?

Mrs. Knox
I blame nobody. But let him not think he can walk by his own light. I tell him that if he gives up being respectable he’ll go right down to the bottom of the hill. He has no powers inside himself to keep him steady; so let him cling to the powers outside him.

Knox
Rising angrily. Who wants to give up being respectable? All this for a pint of whisky that lasted a week! How long would it have lasted Simmons, I wonder?

Mrs. Knox
Gently. Oh, well, say no more, Jo. I won’t plague you about it. He sits down. You never did understand; and you never will. Hardly anybody understands: even Margaret didn’t till she went to prison. She does now; and I shall have a companion in the house after all these lonely years.

Knox
Beginning to cry. I did all I could to make you happy. I never said a harsh word to you.

Gilbey
Rising indignantly. What right have you to treat a man like that? an honest respectable husband? as if he were dirt under your feet?

Knox
Let her alone, Gilbey. Gilbey sits down, but mutinously.

Mrs. Knox
Well, you gave me all you could, Jo; and if it wasn’t what I wanted, that wasn’t your fault. But I’d rather have you as you were than since you took to whisky and soda.

Knox
I don’t want any whisky and soda. I’ll take the pledge if you like.

Mrs. Knox
No: you shall have your beer because you like it. The whisky was only brag. And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr. Gilbey, you’ll get up tomorrow morning at seven.

Gilbey
Defiantly. Damn if I will! There!

Mrs. Knox
With gentle pity. How do you know, Mr. Gilbey, what you’ll do tomorrow morning?

Gilbey
Why shouldn’t I know? Are we children not to be let do what we like, and our own sons and daughters kicking their heels all over the place? To Knox. I was never one to interfere between man and wife, Knox; but if Maria started ordering me about like that⁠—

Mrs. Gilbey
Now don’t be naughty, Rob. You know you mustn’t set yourself up against religion?

Gilbey
Whos setting himself up against religion?

Mrs. Knox
It doesn’t matter whether you set yourself up against it or not, Mr. Gilbey. If it sets itself up against you, you’ll have to go the appointed way: it’s no use quarrelling about it with me that am as great a sinner as yourself.

Gilbey
Oh, indeed! And who told you I was a sinner?

Mrs. Gilbey
Now, Rob, you know we are all sinners. What else is religion?

Gilbey
I say nothing against religion. I suppose we're all sinners, in a manner of speaking; but I don’t like to have it thrown at me as if I’d really done anything.

Mrs. Gilbey
Mrs. Knox is speaking for your good, Rob.

Gilbey
Well, I don’t like to be spoken to for my good. Would anybody like it?

Mrs. Knox
Don’t take offence where none is meant, Mr. Gilbey. Talk about something else. No good ever comes of arguing about such things among the like of us.

Knox
The like of us! Are you throwing it in our teeth that your people were in the wholesale and thought Knox and Gilbey wasn’t good enough for you?

Mrs. Knox
No, Jo: you know I’m not. What better were my people than yours, for all their pride? But I’ve noticed it all my life: we’re ignorant. We don’t really know what’s right and what’s wrong. We’re all right as long as things go on the way they always did. We bring our children up just as we were brought up; and we go to church or chapel just as our parents did; and we say what everybody says; and it goes on all right until something out of the way happens: there’s a family quarrel, or one of the children goes wrong, or a father takes to drink, or an aunt goes mad, or one of us finds ourselves doing something we never thought we’d want to do. And then you know what happens: complaints and quarrels and huff and offence and bad language and bad temper and regular bewilderment as if Satan possessed us all. We find out then that with all our respectability and piety, we’ve no real religion and no way of telling right from wrong. We’ve nothing but our habits; and when they’re upset, where are we? Just like Peter in the storm trying to walk on the water and finding he couldn’t.

Mrs. Gilbey
Piously. Aye! He found out, didn’t he?

Gilbey
Reverently. I never denied that you’ve a great intellect, Mrs. Knox⁠—

Mrs. Knox
Oh get along with you, Gilbey, if you begin talking about my intellect. Give us some tea, Maria. I’ve said my say; and I’m sure I beg the company’s pardon for being so long about it, and so disagreeable.

Mrs. Gilbey
Ring, Rob. Gilbey rings. Stop. Juggins will think we’re ringing for him.

Gilbey
Appalled. It’s too late. I rang before I thought of it.

Mrs. Gilbey
Step down and apologize, Rob.

Knox
Is it him that you said was brother to a⁠—

Juggins comes in with the tea-tray. All rise. He takes the tray to Mrs. Gilbey.

Gilbey
I didn’t mean to ask you to do this, Mr. Juggins. I wasn’t thinking when I rang.

Mrs. Gilbey
Trying to take the tray from him. Let me, Juggins.

Juggins
Please sit down, madam. Allow me to discharge my duties just as usual, sir. I assure you that is the correct thing. They sit down, ill at ease, whilst he places the tray on the table. He then goes out for the curate.

Knox
Lowering his voice. Is this all right, Gilbey? Anybody may be the son of a duke, you know. Is he legitimate?

Gilbey
Good lord! I never thought of that.

Juggins returns with the cakes. They regard him with suspicion.

Gilbey
Whispering to Knox. You ask him.

Knox
To Juggins. Just a word with you, my man. Was your mother married to your father?

Juggins
I believe so, sir. I can’t say from personal knowledge. It was before my time.

Gilbey
Well, but look here you know⁠—He hesitates.

Juggins
Yes, sir?

Knox
I know whatll clinch it, Gilbey. You leave it to me. To Juggins. Was your mother the duchess?

Juggins
Yes, sir. Quite correct, sir, I assure you. To Mrs. Gilbey. That is the milk, madam. She has mistaken the jugs. This is the water.

They stare at him in pitiable embarrassment.

Mrs. Knox
What did I tell you? Here’s something out of the common happening with a servant; and we none of us know how to behave.

Juggins
It’s quite simple, madam. I’m a footman, and should be treated as a footman. He proceeds calmly with his duties, handing round cups of tea as Mrs. Knox fills them.

Shrieks of laughter from below stairs reach the ears of the company.

Mrs. Gilbey
What’s that noise? Is Master Bobby at home? I heard his laugh.

Mrs. Knox
I’m sure I heard Margaret’s.

Gilbey
Not a bit of it. It was that woman.

Juggins
I can explain, sir. I must ask you to excuse the liberty; but I’m entertaining a small party to tea in my pantry.

Mrs. Gilbey
But you’re not entertaining Master Bobby?

Juggins
Yes, madam.

Gilbey
Who’s with him?

Juggins
Miss Knox, sir.

Gilbey
Miss Knox! Are you sure? Is there anyone else?

Juggins
Only a French marine officer, sir, and⁠—er⁠—Miss Delaney. He places Gilbey’s tea on the table before him. The lady that called about Master Bobby, sir.

Knox
Do you mean to say they’re having a party all to themselves downstairs, and we having a party up here and knowing nothing about it?

Juggins
Yes, sir. I have to do a good deal of entertaining in the pantry for Master Bobby, sir.

Gilbey
Well, this is a nice state of things!

Knox
What’s the meaning of it? What do they do it for?

Juggins
To enjoy themselves, sir, I should think.

Mrs. Gilbey
Enjoy themselves! Did ever anybody hear of such a thing?

Gilbey
Knox’s daughter shown into my pantry!

Knox
Margaret mixing with a Frenchman and a footman⁠—Suddenly realizing that the footman is offering him cake. She doesn’t know about⁠—about His Grace, you know.

Mrs. Gilbey
Perhaps she does. Does she, Mr. Juggins?

Juggins
The other lady suspects me, madam. They call me Rudolph, or the Long Lost Heir.

Mrs. Gilbey
It’s a much nicer name than Juggins. I think I’ll call you by it, if you don’t mind.

Juggins
Not at all, madam.

Roars of merriment from below.

Gilbey
Go and tell them to stop laughing. What right have they to make a noise like that?

Juggins
I asked them not to laugh so loudly, sir. But the French gentleman always sets them off again.

Knox
Do you mean to tell me that my daughter laughs at a Frenchman’s jokes?

Gilbey
We all know what French jokes are.

Juggins
Believe me: you do not, sir. The noise this afternoon has all been because the Frenchman said that the cat had whooping cough.

Mrs. Gilbey
Laughing heartily. Well, I never!

Gilbey
Don’t be a fool, Maria. Look here, Knox: we can’t let this go on. People can’t be allowed to behave like this.

Knox
Just what I say.

A concertina adds its music to the revelry.

Mrs. Gilbey
Excited. That’s the squiffer. He’s bought it for her.

Gilbey
Well, of all the scandalous⁠—Redoubled laughter from below.

Knox
I’ll put a stop to this. He goes out to the landing and shouts: Margaret! Sudden dead silence. Margaret, I say!

Margaret’s voice
Yes, father. Shall we all come up? We’re dying to.

Knox
Come up and be ashamed of yourselves, behaving like wild Indians.

Dora’s voice
Screaming. Oh! oh! oh! Don’t Bobby. Now⁠—oh! In headlong flight she dashes into and right across the room, breathless, and slightly abashed by the company. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Gilbey, for coming in like that; but whenever I go upstairs in front of Bobby, he pretends it’s a cat biting my ankles; and I just must scream.

Bobby and Margaret enter rather more shyly, but evidently in high spirits. Bobby places himself near his father, on the hearthrug, and presently slips down into the armchair.

Margaret
How do you do, Mrs. Gilbey? She posts herself behind her mother.

Duvallet comes in behaving himself perfectly. Knox follows.

Margaret
Oh⁠—let me introduce. My friend Lieutenant Duvallet. Mrs. Gilbey. Mr. Gilbey. Duvallet bows and sits down on Mr. Knox’s left, Juggins placing a chair for him.

Dora
Now, Bobby: introduce me: there’s a dear.

Bobby
A little nervous about it; but trying to keep up his spirits. Miss Delaney: Mr. and Mrs. Knox. Knox, as he resumes his seat, acknowledges the introduction suspiciously. Mrs. Knox bows gravely, looking keenly at Dora and taking her measure without prejudice.

Dora
Pleased to meet you. Juggins places the baby rocking-chair for her on Mrs. Gilbey’s right, opposite Mrs. Knox. Thank you. She sits and turns to Mrs. Gilbey. Bobby’s given me the squiffer. To the company generally. Do you know what they’ve been doing downstairs? She goes off into ecstasies of mirth. You’d never guess. They’ve been trying to teach me table manners. The Lieutenant and Rudolph say I’m a regular pig. I’m sure I never knew there was anything wrong with me. But live and learn to Gilbey eh, old dear?

Juggins
Old dear is not correct, Miss Delaney. He retires to the end of the sideboard nearest the door.

Dora
Oh get out! I must call a man something. He doesn’t mind: do you, Charlie?

Mrs. Gilbey
His name isn’t Charlie.

Dora
Excuse me. I call everybody Charlie.

Juggins
You mustn’t.

Dora
Oh, if I were to mind you, I should have to hold my tongue altogether; and then how sorry you’d be! Lord, how I do run on! Don’t mind me, Mrs. Gilbey.

Knox
What I want to know is, what’s to be the end of this? It’s not for me to interfere between you and your son, Gilbey: he knows his own intentions best, no doubt, and perhaps has told them to you. But I’ve my daughter to look after; and it’s my duty as a parent to have a clear understanding about her. No good is ever done by beating about the bush. I ask Lieutenant⁠—well, I don’t speak French; and I can’t pronounce the name⁠—

Margaret
Mr. Duvallet, father.

Knox
I ask Mr. Doovalley what his intentions are.

Margaret
Oh father: how can you?

Duvallet
I’m afraid my knowledge of English is not enough to understand. Intentions? How?

Margaret
He wants to know will you marry me.

Mrs. Gilbey
What a thing to say!

Knox
Silence, miss.

Dora
Well, that’s straight, ain’t it?

Duvallet
But I am married already. I have two daughters.

Knox
Rising, virtuously indignant. You sit there after carrying on with my daughter, and tell me coolly you’re married.

Margaret
Papa: you really must not tell people that they sit there. He sits down again sulkily.

Duvallet
Pardon. Carrying on? What does that mean?

Margaret
It means⁠—

Knox
Violently. Hold your tongue, you shameless young hussy. Don’t you dare say what it means.

Duvallet
Shrugging his shoulders. What does it mean, Rudolph?

Mrs. Knox
If it’s not proper for her to say, it’s not proper for a man to say, either. Mr. Doovalley: you’re a married man with daughters. Would you let them go about with a stranger, as you are to us, without wanting to know whether he intended to behave honorably?

Duvallet
Ah, madam, my daughters are French girls. That is very different. It would not be correct for a French girl to go about alone and speak to men as English and American girls do. That is why I so immensely admire the English people. You are so free⁠—so unprejudiced⁠—your women are so brave and frank⁠—their minds are so⁠—how do you say?⁠—wholesome. I intend to have my daughters educated in England. Nowhere else in the world but in England could I have met at a Variety Theatre a charming young lady of perfect respectability, and enjoyed a dance with her at a public dancing saloon. And where else are women trained to box and knock out the teeth of policemen as a protest against injustice and violence? Rising, with immense elan. Your daughter, madam, is superb. Your country is a model to the rest of Europe. If you were a Frenchman, stifled with prudery, hypocrisy and the tyranny of the family and the home, you would understand how an enlightened Frenchman admires and envies your freedom, your broadmindedness, and the fact that home life can hardly be said to exist in England. You have made an end of the despotism of the parent; the family council is unknown to you; everywhere in these islands one can enjoy the exhilarating, the soul-liberating spectacle of men quarrelling with their brothers, defying their fathers, refusing to speak to their mothers. In France we are not men: we are only sons⁠—grown-up children. Here one is a human being⁠—an end in himself. Oh, Mrs. Knox, if only your military genius were equal to your moral genius⁠—if that conquest of Europe by France which inaugurated the new age after the Revolution had only been an English conquest, how much more enlightened the world would have been now! We, alas, can only fight. France is unconquerable. We impose our narrow ideas, our prejudices, our obsolete institutions, our insufferable pedantry on the world by brute force⁠—by that stupid quality of military heroism which shows how little we have evolved from the savage: nay, from the beast. We can charge like bulls; we can spring on our foes like gamecocks; when we are overpowered by reason, we can die fighting like rats. And we are foolish enough to be proud of it! Why should we be? Does the bull progress? Can you civilize the gamecock? Is there any future for the rat? We can’t even fight intelligently: when we lose battles, it is because we have not sense enough to know when we are beaten. At Waterloo, had we known when we were beaten, we should have retreated; tried another plan; and won the battle. But no: we were too pigheaded to admit that there is anything impossible to a Frenchman: we were quite satisfied when our Marshals had six horses shot under them, and our stupid old grognards died fighting rather than surrender like reasonable beings. Think of your great Wellington: think of his inspiring words, when the lady asked him whether British soldiers ever ran away. “All soldiers run away, madam,” he said; “but if there are supports for them to fall back on it does not matter.” Think of your illustrious Nelson, always beaten on land, always victorious at sea, where his men could not run away. You are not dazzled and misled by false ideals of patriotic enthusiasm: your honest and sensible statesmen demand for England a two-power standard, even a three-power standard, frankly admitting that it is wise to fight three to one: whilst we, fools and braggarts as we are, declare that every Frenchman is a host in himself, and that when one Frenchman attacks three Englishmen he is guilty of an act of cowardice comparable to that of the man who strikes a woman. It is folly: it is nonsense: a Frenchman is not really stronger than a German, than an Italian, even than an Englishman. Sir: if all Frenchwomen were like your daughter⁠—if all Frenchmen had the good sense, the power of seeing things as they really are, the calm judgment, the open mind, the philosophic grasp, the foresight and true courage, which are so natural to you as an Englishman that you are hardly conscious of possessing them, France would become the greatest nation in the world.

Margaret
Three cheers for old England! She shakes hands with him warmly.

Bobby
Hurra-a-ay! And so say all of us.

Duvallet, having responded to Margaret’s handshake with enthusiasm, kisses Juggins on both cheeks, and sinks into his chair, wiping his perspiring brow.

Gilbey
Well, this sort of talk is above me. Can you make anything out of it, Knox?

Knox
The long and short of it seems to be that he can’t lawfully marry my daughter, as he ought after going to prison with her.

Dora
I’m ready to marry Bobby, if that will be any satisfaction.

Gilbey
No you don’t. Not if I know it.

Mrs. Knox
He ought to, Mr. Gilbey.

Gilbey
Well, if that’s your religion, Amelia Knox, I want no more of it. Would you invite them to your house if he married her?

Mrs. Knox
He ought to marry her whether or no.

Bobby
I feel I ought to, Mrs. Knox.

Gilbey
Hold your tongue. Mind your own business.

Bobby
Wildly. If I’m not let marry her, I’ll do something downright disgraceful. I’ll enlist as a soldier.

Juggins
That is not a disgrace, sir.

Bobby
Not for you, perhaps. But you’re only a footman. I’m a gentleman.

Mrs. Gilbey
Don’t dare to speak disrespectfully to Mr. Rudolph, Bobby. For shame!

Juggins
Coming forward to the middle of the table. It is not gentlemanly to regard the service of your country as disgraceful. It is gentlemanly to marry the lady you make love to.

Gilbey
Aghast. My boy is to marry this woman and be a social outcast!

Juggins
Your boy and Miss Delaney will be inexorably condemned by respectable society to spend the rest of their days in precisely the sort of company they seem to like best and be most at home in.

Knox
And my daughter? Whos to marry my daughter?

Juggins
Your daughter, sir, will probably marry whoever she makes up her mind to marry. She is a lady of very determined character.

Knox
Yes: if he’d have her with her character gone. But who would? You’re the brother of a duke. Would⁠—

Bobby
What’s that?

Margaret
Juggins a duke?

Duvallet
Comment!

Dora
What did I tell you?

Knox
Yes: the brother of a duke: that’s what he is. To Juggins. Well, would you marry her?

Juggins
I was about to propose that solution of your problem, Mr. Knox.

Mrs. Gilbey
Well I never!

Knox
D’ye mean it?

Mrs. Knox
Marry Margaret!

Juggins
Continuing. As an idle younger son, unable to support myself, or even to remain in the Guards in competition with the grandsons of American millionaires, I could not have aspired to Miss Knox’s hand. But as a sober, honest, and industrious domestic servant, who has, I trust, given satisfaction to his employer he bows to Mr. Gilbey I feel I am a man with a character. It is for Miss Knox to decide.

Margaret
I got into a frightful row once for admiring you, Rudolph.

Juggins
I should have got into an equally frightful row myself, Miss, had I betrayed my admiration for you. I looked forward to those weekly dinners.

Mrs. Knox
But why did a gentleman like you stoop to be a footman?

Dora
He stooped to conquer.

Margaret
Shut up, Dora: I want to hear.

Juggins
I will explain; but only Mrs. Knox will understand. I once insulted a servant⁠—rashly; for he was a sincere Christian. He rebuked me for trifling with a girl of his own class. I told him to remember what he was, and to whom he was speaking. He said God would remember. I discharged him on the spot.

Gilbey
Very properly.

Knox
What right had he to mention such a thing to you?

Mrs. Gilbey
What are servants coming to?

Mrs. Knox
Did it come true, what he said?

Juggins
It stuck like a poisoned arrow. It rankled for months. Then I gave in. I apprenticed myself to an old butler of ours who kept a hotel. He taught me my present business, and got me a place as footman with Mr. Gilbey. If ever I meet that man again I shall be able to look him in the face.

Mrs. Knox
Margaret: it’s not on account of the duke: dukes are vanities. But take my advice and take him.

Margaret
Slipping her arm through his. I have loved Juggins since the first day I beheld him. I felt instinctively he had been in the Guards. May he walk out with me, Mr. Gilbey?

Knox
Don’t be vulgar, girl. Remember your new position. To Juggins. I suppose you’re serious about this, Mr.⁠—Mr. Rudolph?

Juggins
I propose, with your permission, to begin keeping company this afternoon, if Mrs. Gilbey can spare me.

Gilbey
In a gust of envy, to Bobby. It’ll be long enough before you’ll marry the sister of a duke, you young good-for-nothing.

Dora
Don’t fret, old dear. Rudolph will teach me high-class manners. I call it quite a happy ending: don’t you, lieutenant?

Duvallet
In France it would be impossible. But here⁠—ah! Kissing his hand. la belle Angleterre!

Epilogue

Before the curtain. The Count, dazed and agitated, hurries to the 4 critics, as they rise, bored and weary, from their seats.

The Count
Gentlemen: do not speak to me. I implore you to withhold your opinion. I am not strong enough to bear it. I could never have believed it. Is this a play? Is this in any sense of the word, Art? Is it agreeable? Can it conceivably do good to any human being? Is it delicate? Do such people really exist? Excuse me, gentlemen: I speak from a wounded heart. There are private reasons for my discomposure. This play implies obscure, unjust, unkind reproaches and menaces to all of us who are parents.

Trotter
Pooh! you take it too seriously. After all, the thing has amusing passages. Dismiss the rest as impertinence.

The Count
Mr. Trotter: it is easy for you to play the pococurantist. Trotter, amazed, repeats the first three syllables in his throat, making a noise like a pheasant. You see hundreds of plays every year. But to me, who have never seen anything of this kind before, the effect of this play is terribly disquieting. Sir: if it had been what people call an immoral play, I shouldn’t have minded a bit. Vaughan is shocked. Love beautifies every romance and justifies every audacity. Bannal assents gravely. But there are reticences which everybody should respect. There are decencies too subtle to be put into words, without which human society would be unbearable. People could not talk to one another as those people talk. No child could speak to its parent⁠—no girl could speak to a youth⁠—no human creature could tear down the veils⁠—Appealing to Vaughan, who is on his left flank, with Gunn between them. Could they, sir?

Vaughan
Well, I don’t see that.

The Count
You don’t see it! don’t feel it! To Gunn. Sir: I appeal to you.

Gunn
With studied weariness. It seems to me the most ordinary sort of old-fashioned Ibsenite drivel.

The Count
Turning to Trotter, who is on his right, between him and Bannal. Mr. Trotter: will you tell me that you are not amazed, outraged, revolted, wounded in your deepest and holiest feelings by every word of this play, every tone, every implication; that you did not sit there shrinking in every fibre at the thought of what might come next?

Trotter
Not a bit. Any clever modern girl could turn out that kind of thing by the yard.

The Count
Then, sir, tomorrow I start for Venice, never to return. I must believe what you tell me. I perceive that you are not agitated, not surprised, not concerned; that my own horror (yes, gentlemen, horror⁠—horror of the very soul) appears unaccountable to you, ludicrous, absurd, even to you, Mr. Trotter, who are little younger than myself. Sir: if young people spoke to me like that, I should die of shame: I could not face it. I must go back. The world has passed me by and left me. Accept the apologies of an elderly and no doubt ridiculous admirer of the art of a bygone day, when there was still some beauty in the world and some delicate grace in family life. But I promised my daughter your opinion; and I must keep my word. Gentlemen: you are the choice and master spirits of this age: you walk through it without bewilderment and face its strange products without dismay. Pray deliver your verdict. Mr. Bannal: you know that it is the custom at a Court Martial for the youngest officer present to deliver his judgment first; so that he may not be influenced by the authority of his elders. You are the youngest. What is your opinion of the play?

Bannal
Well, who’s it by?

The Count
That is a secret for the present.

Bannal
You don’t expect me to know what to say about a play when I don’t know who the author is, do you?

The Count
Why not?

Bannal
Why not! Why not!! Suppose you had to write about a play by Pinero and one by Jones! Would you say exactly the same thing about them?

The Count
I presume not.

Bannal
Then how could you write about them until you knew which was Pinero and which was Jones? Besides, what sort of play is this? that’s what I want to know. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? Is it a farce or a melodrama? Is it repertory theatre tosh, or really straight paying stuff?

Gunn
Can’t you tell from seeing it?

Bannal
I can see it all right enough; but how am I to know how to take it? Is it serious, or is it spoof? If the author knows what his play is, let him tell us what it is. If he doesn’t, he can’t complain if I don’t know either. I’m not the author.

The Count
But is it a good play, Mr. Bannal? That’s a simple question.

Bannal
Simple enough when you know. If it’s by a good author, it’s a good play, naturally. That stands to reason. Who is the author? Tell me that; and I’ll place the play for you to a hair’s breadth.

The Count
I’m sorry I’m not at liberty to divulge the author’s name. The author desires that the play should be judged on its merits.

Bannal
But what merits can it have except the author’s merits? Who would you say it’s by, Gunn?

Gunn
Well, who do you think? Here you have a rotten old-fashioned domestic melodrama acted by the usual stage puppets. The hero’s a naval lieutenant. All melodramatic heroes are naval lieutenants. The heroine gets into trouble by defying the law (if she didn’t get into trouble, thered be no drama) and plays for sympathy all the time as hard as she can. Her good old pious mother turns on her cruel father when he’s going to put her out of the house, and says she’ll go too. Then there’s the comic relief: the comic shopkeeper, the comic shopkeeper’s wife, the comic footman who turns out to be a duke in disguise, and the young scapegrace who gives the author his excuse for dragging in a fast young woman. All as old and stale as a fried fish shop on a winter morning.

The Count
But⁠—

Gunn
Interrupting him. I know what you’re going to say, Count. You’re going to say that the whole thing seems to you to be quite new and unusual and original. The naval lieutenant is a Frenchman who cracks up the English and runs down the French: the hackneyed old Shaw touch. The characters are second-rate middle class, instead of being dukes and millionaires. The heroine gets kicked through the mud: real mud. There’s no plot. All the old stage conventions and puppets without the old ingenuity and the old enjoyment. And a feeble air of intellectual pretentiousness kept up all through to persuade you that if the author hasn’t written a good play it’s because he’s too clever to stoop to anything so commonplace. And you three experienced men have sat through all this, and can’t tell me who wrote it! Why, the play bears the author’s signature in every line.

Bannal
Who?

Gunn
Granville Barker, of course. Why, old Gilbey is straight out of The Madras House.

Bannal
Poor old Barker!

Vaughan
Utter nonsense! Can’t you see the difference in style?

Bannal
No.

Vaughan
Contemptuously. Do you know what style is?

Bannal
Well, I suppose you’d call Trotter’s uniform style. But it’s not my style⁠—since you ask me.

Vaughan
To me it’s perfectly plain who wrote that play. To begin with, it’s intensely disagreeable. Therefore it’s not by Barrie, in spite of the footman, who’s cribbed from The Admirable Crichton. He was an earl, you may remember. You notice, too, the author’s offensive habit of saying silly things that have no real sense in them when you come to examine them, just to set all the fools in the house giggling. Then what does it all come to? An attempt to expose the supposed hypocrisy of the Puritan middle class in England: people just as good as the author, anyhow. With, of course, the inevitable improper female: the Mrs. Tanqueray, Iris, and so forth. Well, if you can’t recognize the author of that, you’ve mistaken your professions: that’s all I have to say.

Bannal
Why are you so down on Pinero? And what about that touch that Gunn spotted? the Frenchman’s long speech. I believe it’s Shaw.

Gunn
Rubbish!

Vaughan
Rot! You may put that idea out of your head, Bannal. Poor as this play is, there’s the note of passion in it. You feel somehow that beneath all the assumed levity of that poor waif and stray, she really loves Bobby and will be a good wife to him. Now I’ve repeatedly proved that Shaw is physiologically incapable of the note of passion.

Bannal
Yes, I know. Intellect without emotion. That’s right. I always say that myself. A giant brain, if you ask me; but no heart.

Gunn
Oh, shut up, Bannal. This crude medieval psychology of heart and brain⁠—Shakespeare would have called it liver and wits⁠—is really schoolboyish. Surely we’ve had enough of secondhand Schopenhauer. Even such a played-out old back number as Ibsen would have been ashamed of it. Heart and brain, indeed!

Vaughan
You have neither one nor the other, Gunn. You’re decadent.

Gunn
Decadent! How I love that early Victorian word!

Vaughan
Well, at all events, you can’t deny that the characters in this play were quite distinguishable from one another. That proves it’s not by Shaw, because all Shaw’s characters are himself: mere puppets stuck up to spout Shaw. It’s only the actors that make them seem different.

Bannal
There can be no doubt of that: everybody knows it. But Shaw doesn’t write his plays as plays. All he wants to do is to insult everybody all round and set us talking about him.

Trotter
Wearily. And naturally, here we are all talking about him. For heaven’s sake, let us change the subject.

Vaughan
Still, my articles about Shaw⁠—

Gunn
Oh, stow it, Vaughan. Drop it. What I’ve always told you about Shaw is⁠—

Bannal
There you go, Shaw, Shaw, Shaw! Do chuck it. If you want to know my opinion about Shaw⁠—

Yelling.

Trotter
No, please, we don’t.

Vaughan
Shut your head, Bannal.

Gunn
Oh, do drop it.

The deafened Count puts his fingers in his ears and flies from the centre of the group to its outskirts, behind Vaughan.

Bannal
Sulkily. Oh, very well. Sorry I spoke, I’m sure.

Beginning again simultaneously.

Trotter
Shaw⁠—

Vaughan
Shaw⁠—

Gunn
Shaw⁠—

They are cut short by the entry of Fanny through the curtains. She is almost in tears.

Fanny
Coming between Trotter and Gunn. I’m so sorry, gentlemen. And it was such a success when I read it to the Cambridge Fabian Society!

Trotter
Miss O’Dowda: I was about to tell these gentlemen what I guessed before the curtain rose: that you are the author of the play. General amazement and consternation.

Fanny
And you all think it beastly. You hate it. You think I’m a conceited idiot, and that I shall never be able to write anything decent.

She is almost weeping. A wave of sympathy carries away the critics.

Vaughan
No, no. Why, I was just saying that it must have been written by Pinero. Didn’t I, Gunn?

Fanny
Enormously flattered. Really?

Trotter
I thought Pinero was much too popular for the Cambridge Fabian Society.

Fanny
Oh yes, of course; but still⁠—Oh, did you really say that, Mr. Vaughan?

Gunn
I owe you an apology, Miss O’Dowda. I said it was by Barker.

Fanny
Radiant. Granville Barker! Oh, you couldn’t really have thought it so fine as that.

Bannal
I said Bernard Shaw.

Fanny
Oh, of course it would be a little like Bernard Shaw. The Fabian touch, you know.

Bannal
Coming to her encouragingly. A jolly good little play, Miss O’Dowda. Mind: I don’t say it’s like one of Shakespeare’s⁠—Hamlet or The Lady of Lyons, you know⁠—but still, a first-rate little bit of work. He shakes her hand.

Gunn
Following Bannal’s example. I also, Miss O’Dowda. Capital. Charming. He shakes hands.

Vaughan
With maudlin solemnity. Only be true to yourself, Miss O’Dowda. Keep serious. Give up making silly jokes. Sustain the note of passion. And you’ll do great things.

Fanny
You think I have a future?

Trotter
You have a past, Miss O’Dowda.

Fanny
Looking apprehensively at her father. Sh-sh-sh!

The Count
A past! What do you mean, Mr. Trotter?

Trotter
To Fanny. You can’t deceive me. That bit about the police was real. You’re a Suffragette, Miss O’Dowda. You were on that Deputation.

The Count
Fanny: is this true?

Fanny
It is. I did a month with Lady Constance Lytton; and I’m prouder of it than I ever was of anything or ever shall be again.

Trotter
Is that any reason why you should stuff naughty plays down my throat?

Fanny
Yes: it’ll teach you what it feels like to be forcibly fed.

The Count
She will never return to Venice. I feel now as I felt when the Campanile fell.

Savoyard comes in through the curtains.

Savoyard
To the Count. Would you mind coming to say a word of congratulation to the company? They’re rather upset at having had no curtain call.

The Count
Certainly, certainly. I’m afraid I’ve been rather remiss. Let us go on the stage, gentlemen.

The curtains are drawn, revealing the last scene of the play and the actors on the stage. The Count, Savoyard, the critics, and Fanny join them, shaking hands and congratulating.

The Count
Whatever we may think of the play, gentlemen, I’m sure you will agree with me that there can be only one opinion about the acting.

The critics
Hear, hear! They start the applause.

Ayot St. Lawrence, March 1911.

Colophon

Fanny’s First Play
was published in 1914 by
George Bernard Shaw.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
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Asher Smith,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2004 by
Ron Burkey and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Music Hall Audience,
a painting completed between 1926 and 1945 by
Thérèse Lessore.
The cover and title pages feature the
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This edition was released on
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The first edition of this ebook was released on
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