Fanny’s First Play · The Play · Act II (2/2) (1/2)
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!