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

| 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. |