Mrs. Warren’s Profession · Act I (2/2) (2/2)

| Vivie | I’ll see about it. She goes into the cottage. Sir George has by this time managed to unfold a chair and plant it by Mrs. Warren, on her left. He throws the other on the grass and sits down, looking dejected and rather foolish, with the handle of his stick in his mouth. Praed, still very uneasy, fidgets around the garden on their right. | | Mrs. Warren | To Praed, looking at Crofts. Just look at him, Praddy: he looks cheerful, don’t he? He’s been worrying my life out these three years to have that little girl of mine shown to him; and now that I’ve done it, he’s quite out of countenance. Briskly. Come! sit up, George; and take your stick out of your mouth. Crofts sulkily obeys. | | Praed | I think, you know⁠—if you don’t mind my saying so⁠—that we had better get out of the habit of thinking of her as a little girl. You see she has really distinguished herself; and I’m not sure, from what I have seen of her, that she is not older than any of us. | | Mrs. Warren | Greatly amused. Only listen to him, George! Older than any of us! Well, she has been stuffing you nicely with her importance. | | Praed | But young people are particularly sensitive about being treated in that way. | | Mrs. Warren | Yes; and young people have to get all that nonsense taken out of them, and good deal more besides. Don’t you interfere, Praddy: I know how to treat my own child as well as you do. Praed, with a grave shake of his head, walks up the garden with his hands behind his back. Mrs. Warren pretends to laugh, but looks after him with perceptible concern. Then she whispers to Crofts: What’s the matter with him? What does he take it like that for? | | Crofts | Morosely. You’re afraid of Praed. | | Mrs. Warren | What! Me! Afraid of dear old Praddy! Why, a fly wouldn’t be afraid of him. | | Crofts | You’re afraid of him. | | Mrs. Warren | Angry. I’ll trouble you to mind your own business, and not try any of your sulks on me. I’m not afraid of you, anyhow. If you can’t make yourself agreeable, you’d better go home. She gets up, and, turning her back on him, finds herself face to face with Praed. Come, Praddy, I know it was only your tenderheartedness. You’re afraid I’ll bully her. | | Praed | My dear Kitty: you think I’m offended. Don’t imagine that: pray don’t. But you know I often notice things that escape you; and though you never take my advice, you sometimes admit afterwards that you ought to have taken it. | | Mrs. Warren | Well, what do you notice now? | | Praed | Only that Vivie is a grown woman. Pray, Kitty, treat her with every respect. | | Mrs. Warren | With genuine amazement. Respect! Treat my own daughter with respect! What next, pray! | | Vivie | Appearing at the cottage door and calling to Mrs. Warren. Mother: will you come to my room before tea? | | Mrs. Warren | Yes, dearie. She laughs indulgently at Praed’s gravity, and pats him on the cheek as she passes him on her way to the porch. Don’t be cross, Praddy. She follows Vivie into the cottage. | | Crofts | Furtively. I say, Praed. | | Praed | Yes. | | Crofts | I want to ask you a rather particular question. | | Praed | Certainly. He takes Mrs. Warren’s chair and sits close to Crofts. | | Crofts | That’s right: they might hear us from the window. Look here: did Kitty ever tell you who that girl’s father is? | | Praed | Never. | | Crofts | Have you any suspicion of who it might be? | | Praed | None. | | Crofts | Not believing him. I know, of course, that you perhaps might feel bound not to tell if she had said anything to you. But it’s very awkward to be uncertain about it now that we shall be meeting the girl every day. We don’t exactly know how we ought to feel towards her. | | Praed | What difference can that make? We take her on her own merits. What does it matter who her father was? | | Crofts | Suspiciously. Then you know who he was? | | Praed | With a touch of temper. I said no just now. Did you not hear me? | | Crofts | Look here, Praed. I ask you as a particular favor. If you do know⁠—movement of protest from Praed⁠—I only say, if you know, you might at least set my mind at rest about her. The fact is, I feel attracted towards her. Oh, don’t be alarmed: it’s quite an innocent feeling. That’s what puzzles me about it. Why, for all I know, I might be her father. | | Praed | You! Impossible! Oh, no, nonsense. | | Crofts | Catching him up cunningly. You know for certain that I’m not? | | Praed | I know nothing about it, I tell you, any more than you. But really, Crofts⁠—oh no, it’s out of the question. There’s not the least resemblance. | | Crofts | As to that, there’s no resemblance between her and her mother that I can see. I suppose she’s not your daughter, is she? | | Praed | He meets the question with an indignant stare; then recovers himself with an effort and answers gently and gravely. Now listen to me, my dear Crofts. He sits down again. I have nothing to do with that side of Mrs. Warren’s life, and never had. She has never spoken to me about it; and of course I have never spoken to her about it. Your delicacy will tell you that a handsome woman needs some friends who are not⁠—well, not on that footing with her. The effect of her own beauty would become a torment to her if she could not escape from it occasionally. You are probably on much more confidential terms with Kitty than I am. Surely you can ask her the question yourself. | | Crofts | Rising impatiently. I have asked her, often enough. But she’s so determined to keep the child all to herself that she would deny that it ever had a father if she could. Rising. I’m thoroughly uncomfortable about it, Praed. | | Praed | Rising also. Well, as you are, at all events, old enough to be her father, I don’t mind agreeing that we both regard Miss Vivie in a parental way, as a young girl who we are bound to protect and help. What do you say? | | Crofts | Aggressively. I’m no older than you, if you come to that. | | Praed | Yes, you are, my dear fellow: you were born old. I was born a boy: I’ve never been able to feel the assurance of a grown-up man in my life. | | Mrs. Warren | Calling from within the cottage. Prad‑dee! George! Tea‑ea‑ea‑ea! | | Crofts | Hastily. She’s calling us. He hurries in. Praed shakes his head bodingly, and is following slowly when he is hailed by a young gentleman who has just appeared on the common, and is making for the gate. He is a pleasant, pretty, smartly dressed, cleverly good-for-nothing young fellow, not long turned twenty, with a charming voice and agreeably disrespectful manner. He carries a very light sporting magazine rifle.* | | The Young Gentleman | Hallo! Praed! | | Praed | Why, Frank Gardner! Frank comes in and shakes hands cordially. What on earth are you doing here? | | Frank | Staying with my father. | | Praed | The Roman father? | | Frank | He’s rector here. I’m living with my people this autumn for the sake of economy. Things came to a crisis in July: the Roman father had to pay my debts. He’s stony broke in consequence; and so am I. What are you up to in these parts? Do you know the people here? | | Praed | Yes: I’m spending the day with a Miss Warren. | | Frank | Enthusiastically. What! Do you know Vivie? Isn’t she a jolly girl? I’m teaching her to shoot⁠—you see! Showing the rifle. I’m so glad she knows you: you’re just the sort of fellow she ought to know. He smiles, and raises the charming voice almost to a singing tone as he exclaims: It’s ever so jolly to find you here, Praed. Ain’t it, now? | | Praed | I’m an old friend of her mother. Mrs. Warren brought me over to make her daughter’s acquaintance. | | Frank | The mother! Is she here? | | Praed | Yes⁠—inside at tea. | | Mrs. Warren | Calling from within. Prad‑dee‑ee‑ee‑eee! The teacake’ll be cold. | | Praed | Calling. Yes, Mrs. Warren. In a moment. I’ve just met a friend here. | | Mrs. Warren | A what? | | Praed | Louder. A friend. | | Mrs. Warren | Bring him up. | | Praed | All right. To Frank. Will you accept the invitation? | | Frank | Incredulous, but immensely amused. Is that Vivie’s mother? | | Praed | Yes. | | Frank | By Jove! What a lark! Do you think she’ll like me? | | Praed | I’ve no doubt you’ll make yourself popular, as usual. Come in and try. Moving towards the house. | | Frank | Stop a bit. Seriously. I want to take you into my confidence. | | Praed | Pray don’t. It’s only some fresh folly, like the barmaid at Redhill. | | Frank | It’s ever so much more serious than that. You say you’ve only just met Vivie for the first time? | | Praed | Yes. | | Frank | Rhapsodically. Then you can have no idea what a girl she is. Such character! Such sense! And her cleverness! Oh, my eye, Praed, but I can tell you she is clever! And the most loving little heart that⁠— | | Crofts | Putting his head out of the window. I say, Praed: what are you about? Do come along. He disappears. | | Frank | Hallo! Sort of chap that would take a prize at a dog show, ain’t he? Who’s he? | | Praed | Sir George Crofts, an old friend of Mrs. Warren’s. I think we had better come in. | | | On their way to the porch they are interrupted by a call from the gate. Turning, they see an elderly clergyman looking over it. | | The Clergyman | Calling. Frank! | | Frank | Hallo! To Praed. The Roman father. To the clergyman. Yes, gov’nor: all right: presently. To Praed. Look here, Praed: you’d better go in to tea. I’ll join you directly. | | Praed | Very good. He raises his hat to the Clergyman, who acknowledges the salute distantly. Praed goes into the cottage. The Clergyman remains stiffly outside the gate, with his hands on the top of it. The Rev. Samuel Gardner, a beneficed clergyman of the Established Church, is over fifty. He is a pretentious, booming, noisy person, hopelessly asserting himself as a father and a clergyman without being able to command respect in either capacity. | | Rev. S. | Well, sir. Who are your friends here, if I may ask? | | Frank | Oh, it’s all right, gov’nor! Come in. | | Rev. S. | No, sir; not until I know whose garden I am entering. | | Frank | It’s all right. It’s Miss Warren’s. | | Rev. S. | I have not seen her at church since she came. | | Frank | Of course not: she’s a third wrangler⁠—ever so intellectual!⁠—took a higher degree than you did; so why should she go to hear you preach? | | Rev. S. | Don’t be disrespectful, sir. | | Frank | Oh, it don’t matter: nobody hears us. Come in. He opens the gate, unceremoniously pulling his father with it into the garden. I want to introduce you to her. She and I get on rattling well together: she’s charming. Do you remember the advice you gave me last July, gov’nor? | | Rev. S. | Severely. Yes. I advised you to conquer your idleness and flippancy, and to work your way into an honorable profession and live on it and not upon me. | | Frank | No: that’s what you thought of afterwards. What you actually said was that since I had neither brains nor money, I’d better turn my good looks to account by marrying someone with both. Well, look here. Miss Warren has brains: you can’t deny that. | | Rev. S. | Brains are not everything. | | Frank | No, of course not: there’s the money⁠— | | Rev. S. | Interrupting him austerely. I was not thinking of money, sir. I was speaking of higher things⁠—social position, for instance. | | Frank | I don’t care a rap about that. | | Rev. S. | But I do, sir. | | Frank | Well, nobody wants you to marry her. Anyhow, she has what amounts to a high Cambridge degree; and she seems to have as much money as she wants. | | Rev. S. | Sinking into a feeble vein of humor. I greatly doubt whether she has as much money as you will want. | | Frank | Oh, come: I haven’t been so very extravagant. I live ever so quietly; I don’t drink; I don’t bet much; and I never go regularly on the razzle-dazzle as you did when you were my age. | | Rev. S. | Booming hollowly. Silence, sir. | | Frank | Well, you told me yourself, when I was making ever such an ass of myself about the barmaid at Redhill, that you once offered a woman fifty pounds for the letters you wrote to her when⁠— | | Rev. S. | Terrified. Sh‑sh‑sh, Frank, for Heaven’s sake! He looks round apprehensively. Seeing no one within earshot he plucks up courage to boom again, but more subduedly. You are taking an ungentlemanly advantage of what I confided to you for your own good, to save you from an error you would have repented all your life long. Take warning by your father’s follies, sir; and don’t make them an excuse for your own. | | Frank | Did you ever hear the story of the Duke of Wellington and his letters? | | Rev. S. | No, sir; and I don’t want to hear it. | | Frank | The old Iron Duke didn’t throw away fifty pounds⁠—not he. He just wrote: “My dear Jenny: Publish and be damned! Yours affectionately, Wellington.” That’s what you should have done. | | Rev. S. | Piteously. Frank, my boy: when I wrote those letters I put myself into that woman’s power. When I told you about them I put myself, to some extent, I am sorry to say, in your power. She refused my money with these words, which I shall never forget. “Knowledge is power,” she said; “and I never sell power.” That’s more than twenty years ago; and she has never made use of her power or caused me a moment’s uneasiness. You are behaving worse to me than she did, Frank. | | Frank | Oh, yes, I dare say! Did you ever preach at her the way you preach at me every day? | | Rev. S. | Wounded almost to tears. I leave you, sir. You are incorrigible. He turns towards the gate. | | Frank | Utterly unmoved. Tell them I shan’t be home to tea, will you, gov’nor, like a good fellow? He moves towards the cottage door and is met by Vivie coming out, followed by Praed, Crofts, and Mrs. Warren. | | Vivie | To Frank. Is that your father, Frank? I do so want to meet him. | | Frank | Certainly. Calling after his father. Gov’nor. The Rev. S. turns at the gate, fumbling nervously at his hat. Praed comes down the garden on the opposite side, beaming in anticipation of civilities. Crofts prowls about near the hammock, poking it with his stick to make it swing. Mrs. Warren halts on the threshold, staring hard at the clergyman. Let me introduce⁠—my father: Miss Warren. | | Vivie | Going to the clergyman and shaking his hand. Very glad to see you here, Mr. Gardner. Let me introduce everybody. Mr. Gardner⁠—Mr. Frank Gardner⁠—Mr. Praed⁠—Sir George Crofts, and⁠—As the men are raising their hats to one another, Vivie is interrupted by an exclamation from her mother, who swoops down on the Reverend Samuel*. | | Mrs. Warren | Why, it’s Sam Gardner, gone into the church! Don’t you know us, Sam? This is George Crofts, as large as life and twice as natural. Don’t you remember me? | | Rev. S. | Very red. I really⁠—er⁠— | | Mrs. Warren | Of course you do. Why, I have a whole album of your letters still: I came across them only the other day. | | Rev. S. | Miserably confused. Miss Vavasour, I believe. | | Mrs. Warren | Correcting him quickly in a loud whisper. Tch! Nonsense!⁠—Mrs. Warren: don’t you see my daughter there? |