1914

ARTES
1817
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SE PLURIEJUS UNUM C
TUEBOR
51 QUÆRIS PENINSULAM·AMŒNAM
CIRCUMSPICE
:
A.75
822.8
5535mi
1914
627

MRS. WARREN'S
PROFESSION
AN UNPLEASANT PLAY
George
By
BERNARD SHAW
-

NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
1914
300 976
Copyright, 1898, by George Bernard Shaw
Copyright, 1898, by Herbert S. Stone & Co.
Copyright, 1905, by Brentano's
82218
5535 mi
1914
Call

Replacement
Slater
1-15-30
21061
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION
ACT I
Summer afternoon in a cottage garden on the eastern slope
of a bill a little south of Haslemere in Surrey. Looking up
the hill, the cottage is seen in the left hand corner of the garden,
with its thatched roof and porch, and a large latticed window
to the left of the porch. Farther back a little wing is
built out, making an angle with the right side wall. From
the end of this wing a paling curves across and forward,
completely shutting in the garden, except for a gate on the
right. The common rises uphill beyond the paling to the
sky line.
Some folded canvas garden chairs are leaning
against the side bench in the porch. A lady's bicycle is
propped against the wall, under the window. A little to the
right of the porch a hammock is slung from two posts. A big
canvas umbrella, stuck in the ground, keeps the sun off the
hammock, in which a young lady lies reading and making notes,
her head towards the cottage and her feet towards the gate.
In front of the hammock, and within reach of her hand, is a
common kitchen chair, with a pile of serious-looking books and
a supply of writing paper upon it.
A gentleman walking on the common comes into sight from
behind the cottage. He is hardly past middle age, with some-
thing of the artist about him, unconventionally but carefully
dressed, and clean-shaven except for a moustache, with an
6
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act I
eager, susceptible face and very amiable and considerate man-
ners. He has silky black hair, with waves of grey and white
in it. His eyebrows are white, his moustache black. He
seems not certain of his way. He looks over the paling; takes
stock of the place; and sees the young lady.
THE GENTLEMAN (taking off his hat). I beg your pardon.
Can you direct me to Hindhead View-Mrs. Alison's?
THE YOUNG LADY (glancing up from her book).
Mrs. Alison's. (She resumes her work.)
This is
THE GENTLEMAN. Indeed! Perhaps may I ask are you
Miss Vivie Warren?
THE YOUNG LADY (sharply, as she turns on her elbow to get
a good look at him). Yes.
THE GENTLEMAN (daunted and conciliatory). I'm afraid I
appear intrusive. My name is Praed.
My name is Praed. (Vivie at once
throws her books upon the chair, and gets out of the hammock.)
Oh, pray don't let me disturb you.
VIVIE (striding to the gate and opening it for him). Come
in, Mr. Praed. (He comes in.) Glad to see you. (She
proffers her hand and takes his with a resolute and hearty grip.
She is an attractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-
educated young middle-class Englishwoman. Age 22. Prompt,
strong, confident, self-possessed. Plain, business-like dress,
but not dowdy. She wears a chatelaine at her belt, with a
fountain pen and a paper knife among its pendants.)
PRAED. Very kind of you indeed, Miss Warren. (She
shuts the gate with a vigorous slam: he passes in to the
middle of the garden, exercising his fingers, which are
slightly numbed by her greeting.) Has your mother ar-
rived?
VIVIE (quickly, evidently scenting aggression).
coming?
PRAED (surprised). Didn't you expect us?
VIVIE. NO.
Is she
Act I
7
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Your
PRAED. Now, goodness me, I hope I've not mistaken
the day. That would be just like me, you know.
mother arranged that she was to come down from London
and that I was to come over from Horsham to be intro-
duced to you.
VIVIE (not at all pleased). Did she? H'm! My mother
has rather a trick of taking me by surprise-to see how I
behave myself when she's away, I suppose. I fancy I
shall take my mother very much by surprise one of these
days, if she makes arrangements that concern me without
consulting me beforehand. She hasn't come.
PRAED (embarrassed). I'm really very sorry.
VIVIE (throwing off her displeasure). It's not your fault,
Mr. Praed, is it? And I'm very glad you've come, be-
lieve me.
You are the only one of my mother's friends I
have asked her to bring to see me.
PRAED (relieved and delighted). Oh, now this is really
very good of you, Miss Warren!
VIVIE. Will you come indoors; or would you rather sit
out here whilst we talk?
PRAED. It will be nicer out here, don't you think?
VIVIE, Then I'll go and get you a chair. (She goes to
the porch for a garden chair.)
PRAED (following her). Oh, pray, pray! Allow me.
(He lays hands on the chair.)
VIVIE (letting him take it). Take care of your fingers:
they're rather dodgy things, those chairs. (She goes across
to the chair with the books on it; pitches them into the ham-
mock; and brings the chair forward with one swing.)
PRAED (who has just unfolded his chair). Oh, now do let
me take that hard chair! I like hard chairs.
VIVIE. So do I. (She sits down.) Sit down, Mr. Praed.
(This invitation is given with genial peremptoriness, his anx-
iety to please her clearly striking her as a sign of weakness of
character on his part.)
8
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act I
PRAED. By the way, though, hadn't we better go to the
station to meet your mother?
VIVIE (Coolly). Why? She knows the way. (Praed
hesitates, and then sits down in the garden chair, rather dis-
concerted.) Do you know, you are just like what I ex-
pected. I hope you are disposed to be friends with me?
PRAED (again beaming). Thank you, my dear Miss War-
ren; thank you. Dear me! I'm so glad your mother hasn't
spoilt you!
VIVIE. HOW?
How?
You
I
PRAED. Well, in making you too conventional.
know, my dear Miss Warren, I am a born anarchist.
hate authority. It spoils the relations between parent and
child-even between mother and daughter. Now I was
always afraid that your mother would strain her authority to
make you very conventional. It's such a relief to find that
she hasn't.
VIVIE. Oh! have I been behaving unconventionally?
PRAED. Oh, no: oh, dear no. At least not convention-
ally unconventionally, you understand. (She nods. He goes
on, with a cordial outburst.) But it was so charming of
you to say that you were disposed to be friends with
me! You modern young ladies are splendid-perfectly
splendid!
VIVIE (dubiously). Eh? (watching him with dawning_dis-
appointment as to the quality of his brains and character.)
PRAED. When I was your age, young men and women
were afraid of each other: there was no good fellowship-
nothing real-only gallantry copied out of novels, and ast
vulgar and affected as it could be. Maidenly reserve !—
gentlemanly chivalry !-always saying no when you meant.
yes!-- simple purgatory for shy and sincere souls!
VIVIE. Yes, I imagine there must have been a frightful
waste of time—especially women's time.
PRAED.
Oh, waste of life, waste of everything. But
Act I
9
Mrs. Warren's Profession
things are improving. Do you know, I have been in a
positive state of excitement about meeting you ever since
your magnificent achievements at Cambridge-a thing
unheard of in my day. It was perfectly splendid, your
tieing with the third wrangler. Just the right place, you
know. The first wrangler is always a dreamy, morbid
fellow, in whom the thing is pushed to the length of a
disease.
VIVIE. It doesn't pay. I wouldn't do it again for the
same money.
PRAED. (aghast). The same money!
it was.
VIVIE. I did it for £50. Perhaps you don't know how
Mrs. Latham, my tutor at Newnham, told my
mother that I could distinguish myself in the mathematical
tripos if I went for it in earnest. The papers were full
just then of Phillipa Summers beating the senior wrangler-
you remember about it; and nothing would please my mother
but that I should do the same thing. I said flatly that it
was not worth my while to face the grind since I was not
going in for teaching; but I offered to try for fourth wrangler
or thereabouts for £50. She closed with me at that, after
a little grumbling; and I was better than my bargain. But
I wouldn't do it again for that. £200 would have been
nearer the mark.
Lord bless me! That's a very
PRAED (much damped).
practical way of looking at it.
VIVIE. Did you expect to find me an unpractical person?
PRAED. No, no. But surely it's practical to consider
not only the work these honors cost, but also the culture
they bring.
VIVIE. Culture! My dear Mr. Praed: do you know
what the mathematical tripos means? It means grind,
grind, grind, for six to eight hours a day at mathematics, and
nothing but mathematics. I'm supposed to know some-
thing about science; but I know nothing except the mathe-
10
Act I
Mrs. Warren's Profession
matics it involves. I can make calculations for engineers,
electricians, insurance companies, and so on; but I know
next to nothing about engineering or electricity or insurance.
I don't even know arithmetic well. Outside mathematics,
lawn-tennis, eating, sleeping, cycling, and walking, I'm a
more ignorant barbarian than any woman could possibly be
who hadn't gone in for the tripos.
PRAED (revolted). What a monstrous, wicked, rascally
system! I knew it! I felt at once that it meant destroying
all that makes womanhood beautiful.
VIVIE. I don't object to it on that score in the least. I
shall turn it to very good account, I assure you.
PRAED. Pooh! In what way?
VIVIE. I shall set up in chambers in the city and work at
actuarial calculations and conveyancing.
Under cover of
that I shall do some law, with one eye on the Stock
Exchange all the time. I've come down here by myself
to read law-not for a holiday, as my mother imagines. I
hate holidays.
PRAED. You make my blood run cold.
no romance, no beauty in your life?
Are you to have
VIVIE. I don't care for either, I assure you.
PRAED. You can't mean that.
VIVIE. Oh yes I do. I like working and getting paid for
it. When I'm tired of working, I like a comfortable chair,
a cigar, a little whisky, and a novel with a good detective
story in it.
PRAED (in a frenzy of repudiation). I don't believe it.
I am an artist; and I can't believe it: I refuse to believe
it. (Enthusiastically.) Ah, my dear Miss Warren, you
haven't discovered yet, I see, what a wonderful world art
can open up to you.
VIVIE. Yes, I have. Last May I spent six weeks in
London with Honoria Fraser. Mamma thought we were
doing a round of sight-seeing together; but I was really at
Act I Mrs. Warren's Profession
11
Honoria's chambers in Chancery Lane every day, working
away at actuarial calculations for her, and helping her as
well as a greenhorn could. In the evenings we smoked
and talked, and never dreamt of going out except for exer-
cise. And I never enjoyed myself more in my life.
cleared all my expenses and got initiated into the business
without a fee into the bargain.
PRAED. But bless my heart and soul, Miss Warren, do
you call that trying art?)
VIVIE. Wait a bit. That wasn't the beginning. I went
up to town on an invitation from some artistic people in
Fitzjohn's Avenue: one of the girls was a Newnham chum.
They took me to the National Gallery, to the Opera, and
to a concert where the band played all the evening-
Beethoven and Wagner and so on. I wouldn't go through
that experience again for anything you could offer me. I
held out for civility's sake until the third day; and then I
said, plump out, that I couldn't stand any more of it, and
went off to Chancery Lane. Now you know the sort of
perfectly splendid modern young lady I am.
How do you
think I shall get on with my mother?
PRAED (startled). Well, I hope—er—
VIVIE. It's not so much what you hope as what you
believe, that I want to know.
PRAED. Well, frankly, I am afraid your mother will be a
little disappointed. Not from any shortcoming on your
part-I don't mean that. But you are so different from
her ideal.
VIVIE. What is her ideal like?
PRAED. Well, you must have observed, Miss Warren,
that people who are dissatisfied with their own bringing up
generally think that the world would be all right if every-
body were to be brought up quite differently. Now your
mother's life has been-er-I suppose you know-
VIVIE. I know nothing. (Praed is appalled. His conster-
I
12
Mrs. Warren's Profession Act I
nation grows as she continues.) That's exactly my difficulty.
You forget, Mr. Praed, that I hardly know my mother.
Since I was a child I have lived in England, at school or
college, or with people paid to take charge of me.
I have
been boarded out all my life; and my mother has lived in
Brussels or Vienna and never let me go to her. I only see
her when she visits England for a few days. I don't com-
plain: it's been very pleasant; for people have been very
good to me; and there has always been plenty of money to
make things smooth. But don't imagine I know anything
about my mother.
I know far less than you do.
PRAED (very ill at ease). In that case— (He stops, quite at
a loss. Then, with a forced attempt at gaiety.) But what
nonsense we are talking! Of course you and your mother
will get on capitally. (He rises, and looks abroad at the
view.) What a charming little place you have here!
VIVIE (unmoved). If you think you are doing anything
but confirming my worst suspicions by changing the subject
like that, you must take me for a much greater fool than I
hope I am.
PRAED. Your worst suspicions! Oh, pray don't say that.
Now don't.
VIVIE. Why won't my mother's life bear being talked
about?
PRAED. Pray think, Miss Vivie. It is natural that I
should have a certain delicacy in talking to my old friend's
daughter about her behind her back. You will have plenty
of opportunity of talking to her about it when she comes.
(Anxiously.) I wonder what is keeping her.
I
VIVIE. NO: she won't talk about it either. (Rising.) How-
ever, I won't press you. Only mind this, Mr. Praed.
strongly suspect there will be a battle royal when my mother
hears of my Chancery Lane project.
PRAED (ruefully). I'm afraid there will.
Act I
13
Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE. I shall win the battle, because I want nothing but
my fare to London to start there to-morrow earning my own
living by devilling for Honoria. Besides, I have no mysteries.
to keep up; and it seems she has. I shall use that advantage
over her if necessary.
PRAED (greatly shocked). Oh, no. No, pray. You'd not
do such a thing.
VIVIE. Then tell me why not.
PRAED. I really cannot. I appeal to your good feeling.
(She smiles at his sentimentality.) Besides, you may be too
bold. Your mother is not to be trifled with when she's
angry.
VIVIE. You can't frighten me, Mr. Praed. In that month
at Chancery Lane I had opportunities of taking the measure
of one or two women, very like my mother who came to
consult Honoria. You may back me to win. But if I hit
harder in my ignorance than I need, remember that it is you
who refuse to enlighten me. Now let us drop the subject.
(She takes her chair and replaces it near the hammock with
the same vigorous swing as before.)
PRAED (taking a desperate resolution). One word, Miss
Warren. I had better tell you.
It's very difficult; but
(Mrs. Warren and Sir George Crofts arrive at the gate.\
Mrs. Warren is a woman between 40 and 50, good-looking,
showily dressed in a brilliant hat and a gay blouse fitting
tightly over her bust and flanked by fashionable sleeves.
Rather spoiled and domineering, but, on the whole, a genial
and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman.
Crofts is a tall, powerfully-built man of about 50, fash-
ionably dressed in the style of a young man.
Nasal voice,
reedier than might be expected from his strong frame. Clean-
shaven, bull-dog jaws, large flat ears, and thick neck, gentle-
manly combination of the most brutal types of city man,
sporting man, and man about town.)

14
Act I
Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE. Here they are. (Coming to them as they enter the
garden.) How do, mater.
half hour, waiting for you.
Mr. Praed's been here this
MRS. WARREN. Well, if you've been waiting, Praddy,
it's your own fault: I thought you'd have had the gumption
to know I was coming by the 3:10 train. Vivie, put your
hat on, dear: you'll get sunburnt. Oh, forgot to introduce
you. Sir George Crofts, my little Vivie.
(Crofts advances to Vivie with his most courtly manner.
She nods, but makes no motion to shake hands.)
CROFTS. May I shake hands with a young lady whom. I
have known by reputation very long as the daughter of one
of my oldest friends?
VIVIE (who has been looking him up and down sharply).
If you like. (She takes his tenderly proffered hand and
gives it a squeeze that makes him open his eyes; then turns
away and says to her mother) Will you come in, or shall
I get a couple more chairs? (She goes into the porch for
the chairs.)
MRS. WARREN. Well, George, what do you think of her?
CROFTS (ruefully).
shake hands with her,
PRAED. Yes: it will
She has a powerful fist. Did you
Praed?
pass
off presently.
CROFTS. I hope so. (Vivie reappears with two more chairs.
He burries to her assistance.) Allow me.
MRS. WARREN (patronizingly). Let Sir George help you
with the chairs, dear.
VIVIE (almost pitching two into his arms). Here you are.
(She dusts her hands and turns to Mrs. Warren.) You'd
like some tea, wouldn't you?
MRS. WARREN (sitting in Praed's chair and fanning her-
self). I'm dying for a drop to drink.
Sir
VIVIE I'll see about it. (She goes into the cottage.
George has by this time managed to unfold a chair and plant
it beside Mrs. Warren, on her left. He throws the other on
Act I
Mrs. Warren's Profession
15
the grass and sits down, looking dejected and rather foolish,
with the handle of his stick in his mouth. Praed, still very
uneasy, fidgets about 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 shewn 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 say-
ing 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 a 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

16
Act 1
Mrs. Warren's Profession
afraid of you, anyhow. If you can't make yourself agree-
able, 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 tender-heartedness. 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 notice now?
you
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 up to my room and take
your bonnet off before tea?
MRS. WARREN. Yes, dearie. (She laughs indulgently at
Praed and pats him on the cheek as she passes him on her way
to the porch. 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 win-
dow. 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 any.
Act I
17
Mrs. Warren's Profession
thing 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. 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
18
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act I
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. No: there's nothing to be got out of her-nothing
that one can believe, anyhow. I'm thoroughly uncom-
fortable 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
whom we are bound to protect and help. All the more,
as the real father, whoever he was, was probably a black-
guard. 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 burries 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, and entirely good-for-nothing young
fellow, not long turned 20, 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.
Act I
19
Mrs. Warren's Profession
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
(shewing 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 ex-
claims) It's ever so jolly to find you here, Praed. Ain't
it, now?
PRAED. I'm an old friend of her mother's. Mrs. War-
ren 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 tea-cake'll be cold.
PRAED (calling). Yes, Mrs. Warren.
I've just met a friend here.
MRS. WARREN. A what?
PRAED (louder). A friend.
MRS. WARREN. Bring him up.
In a moment.
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
fike me?
PRAED. I've no doubt you'll make yourself popular, as
Come in and try (moving towards the house).
usual.
}
20
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act I
FRANK. Stop a bit. (Seriously.) I want to take you into
my confidence.
PRAED. Pray don't.
barmaid at Redhill.
It's only some fresh folly, like the
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.
Do come along. (He dis-
appears.)
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. War-
ren'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 look-
ing 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 50. He
is a pretentious, booming, noisy person, hopelessly asserting him-
self as a father and a clergyman without being able to command
respect in either capacity.)
1
Act I
21
Mrs. Warren's Profession
REV. S. Well, sir. Who are your friends here, if I
ask?
FRANK. Oh, it's all right, gov'nor! Come in.
may
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 ?
in.
REV. s. Don't be disrespectful, sir.
FRANK. Oh, it don't matter: nobody hears us.
Come
(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 honor-
able 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 somebody 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.
Any-
how, she has what amounts to a high Cambridge degree;
and she seems to have as much money as she wants.
22
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act I
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 £50 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 con-
fided 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 £50-
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 her 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.
""
Act I
23
Mrs. Warren's Profession
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 goes
towards the cottage door and is met by Vivie coming out, fol-
lowed 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
bat. 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 balts 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 exclama-
tion 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.
ber me?
REV. s. (very red). I really-er-
Mrs. Warren. Of course you do.
album of your letters still: I came
other day.
Don't
Don't you remem-

Why, I have a whole
across them only the
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?
ACT II
Inside the cottage after nightfall. Looking eastward from
within instead of westward from without, the latticed window,
with its curtains drawn, is now seen in the middle of the front
wall of the cottage, with the porch door to the left of it. In
the left-hand side wall is the door leading to the wing. Farther
back against the same wall is a dresser with a candle and
matches on it, and Frank's rifle standing beside them, with
the barrel resting in the plate-rack. In the centre a table
stands with a lighted lamp on it.
Vivie's books and writing
materials are on a table to the right of the window, against
the wall. The fireplace is on the right, with a settle: there is
no fire. Two of the chairs are set right and left of the table.
The cottage door opens, shewing a fine starlit night with-
out; and Mrs. Warren, her shoulders wrapped in a shawl
borrowed from Vivie, enters, followed by Frank. She has
had enough of walking, and gives a gasp of relief as she
unpins her hat; takes it off; sticks the pin through the crown;
and puts it on the table.
MRS. WARREN. O Lord! I don't know which is the
worst of the country, the walking or the sitting at home
with nothing to do: I could do a whisky and soda now
very well, if only they had such a thing in this place.
FRANK (helping her to take off her shawl, and giving her
shoulders the most delicate possible little caress with his fingers
as he does so). Perhaps Vivie's got some.
MRS. WARREN (glancing back at him for an instant from the
Act II Mrs. Warren's Profession
25
corner of her eye as she detects the pressure). Nonsense!
What would a young girl like her be doing with such things!
Never mind: it don't matter. (She throws herself wearily
into a chair at the table.) I wonder how she passes her
time here! I'd a good deal rather be in Vienna.
FRANK. Let me take you there. (He folds the shawl
neatly; hangs it on the back of the other chair; and sits down
opposite Mrs. Warren.)
MRS. WARREN. Get out! I'm beginning to think you're
a chip of the old block.
FRANK. Like the gov'nor, eh?
MRS. WARREN. Never you mind.
about such things? You're only a boy.
What do you know
FRANK. Do come to Vienna with me? It'd be ever
such larks.
you
MRS. WARREN. No, thank you. Vienna is no place for
—at least not until you're a little older. (She nods at him
to emphasize this piece of advice. He makes a mock-piteous
face, belied by his laughing eyes. She looks at him; then
rises and goes to him.) Now, look here, little boy (taking
his face in her hands and turning it up to her): I know you
through and through by your likeness to your father, better
than you know yourself. Don't you go taking any silly
ideas into your head about me. Do you hear?
FRANK (gallantly wooing her with his voice).
it, my dear Mrs. Warren: it runs in the family. (She pre-
tends to box his ears; then looks at the pretty, laughing,
upturned face for a moment, tempted. At last she kisses him
Can't help
and immediately turns away, out of patience with herself.)
MRS. WARREN. There! I shouldn't have done that. I
am wicked. Never you mind, my dear: it's only a moth-
erly kiss. Go and make love to Vivie.
FRANK. So I have.
MRS. WARREN (turning on him with a sharp note of alarm
in her voice). What!
26
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
FRANK. Vivie and and I are ever such chums.
MRS. WARREN. What do you mean? Now, see here:
I won't have any young scamp tampering with my little
girl. Do you hear? I won't have it.
FRANK (quite unabashed). My dear Mrs. Warren: don't
you be alarmed. My intentions are honorable—ever so
honorable; and your little girl is jolly well able to take care
of herself. She don't need looking after half so much as
her mother. She ain't so handsome, you know.
MRS. WARREN (taken aback by his assurance). Well, you
have got a nice, healthy two inches thick of cheek all over
you. I don't know where you got it—not from your father,
anyhow. (Voices and footsteps in the porch). Sh! I hear
the others coming in. (She sits down hastily.) Remember:
you've got your warning. (The Rev. Samuel comes in,
followed by Crofts.) Well, what became of you two?
And where's Praddy and Vivie?
CROFTS (putting his ban the settle and his stick in the
chimney corner). They nt up the hill.
nt up the hill. We went to
the village. I wanted a drink. (He sits down on the settle,
putting his legs up along the seat.)
MRS. WARREN. Well, she oughtn't to go off like that
without telling me. (To Frank.) Get your father a chair,
Frank: where are your manners? (Frank springs up and
gracefully offers his father his chair; then takes another from
the wall and sits down at the table, in the middle, with his
father on his right and Mrs. Warren on his left.) George:
where are you going to stay to-night? You can't stay here.
And what's Praddy going to do?
CROFTS. Gardner'll put me up.
MRS. WARREN. Oh, no doubt you've taken care of your-
self! But what about Praddy?
CROFTS. Don't know. I suppose he can sleep at the inn.
MRS. WARREN. Haven't you room for him, Sam?
REV. S. Well, er-you see, as rector here, I am not free
Act II
27
Mrs. Warren's Profession
to do as I like exactly.
position?
Er-what is Mr. Praed's social
MRS. WARREN. Oh, he's all right: he's an architect.
What an old-stick-in-the-mud you are, Sam!
FRANK. Yes, it's all right, gov'nor. He built that place
down in Monmouthshire for the Duke of Beaufort-Tintern
Abbey they call it. You must have heard of it. (He
winks with lightning smartness at Mrs. Warren, and regards
his father blandly.)
REV. S. Oh, in that case, of course we shall only be
too happy. I suppose he knows the Duke of Beaufort
personally.
FRANK. Oh, ever so intimately! We can stick him in
Georgina's old room.
MRS. WARREN. Well, that's settled. Now, if those
two would only come in and let us have supper. They've
no right to stay out after dark like this.
CROFTS (aggressively). What harm are they doing you?
MRS. WARREN. Well, harm or not, I don't like it.
FRANK. Better not wait for them, Mrs. Warren. Praed
will stay out as long as possible. He has never known
before what it is to stray over the heath on a summer night
with my Vivie.
CROFTS (sitting up in some consternation). I say, you
know. Come!
REV. S. (startled out of his professional manner into real
force and sincerity). Frank, once for all, it's out of the
question. Mrs. Warren will tell you that it's not to be
thought of.
Crofts. Of course not.
FRANK (with enchanting placidity). Is that so, Mrs.
Warren?
MRS. WARREN (reflectively). Well, Sam, I don't know.
If the girl wants to get married, no good can come of
keeping her unmarried.
28
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
REV. s. (astounded). But married to him!-your daugh-
ter to my son! Only think: it's impossible.
CROFTS. Of course it's impossible. Don't be a fool,
Kitty.
MRS. WARREN (nettled).
good enough for your son?
Why not? Isn't my daughter
REV. S. But surely, my dear Mrs. Warren, you know
the reason-
If you
MRS. WARREN (defiantly). I know no reasons.
know any, you can tell them to the lad, or to the girl, or to
your congregation, if you like.
REV. s. (helplessly). You know very well that I couldn't
tell anyone the reasons. But my boy will believe me when
I tell him there are reasons.
FRANK. Quite right, Dad: he will. But has your boy's
conduct ever been influenced by your reasons?
CROFTS. You can't marry her; and that's all about it.
(He gets up and stands on the hearth, with his back to the
fireplace, frowning determinedly.)
MRS. WARREN (turning on him sharply). What have you
got to do with it, pray?
FRANK (with his prettiest lyrical cadence). Precisely what
I was going to ask, myself, in my own graceful fashion.
CROFTS (to Mrs. Warren). I suppose you don't want
to marry the girl to a man younger than herself and without
either a profession or twopence to keep her on.
Ask Sam,
if you don't believe me. (To the Rev. S.) How much
more money are you going to give him?
REV. S. Not another penny. He has had his patrimony;
and he spent the last of it in July. (Mrs. Warren's face
falls.)
CROFTS (watching her). There! I told you. (He resumes
bis place on the settle and puts up his legs on the seat again,
as if the matter were finally disposed of.)
Frank (plaintively). This is ever so mercenary. Do
Act II
29
Mrs. Warren's Profession
you suppose Miss_Warren's going to marry for money? If
we love one another—
MRS. WARREN.
Thank
you.
Your love's a pretty cheap
commodity, my lad. If you have no means of keeping a
wife, that settles it: you can't have Vivie.
FRANK (much amused). What do you say, gov'nor, eh?
REV. s. I agree with Mrs. Warren.
FRANK. And good old Crofts has already expressed his
opinion.
CROFTS (turning angrily on his elbow). Look here: I
want none of your cheek.
FRANK (pointedly). I'm ever so sorry to surprise you,
Crofts; but you allowed yourself the liberty of speaking to
me like a father a moment ago. One father is enough,
thank you.
CROFTS (contemptuously). Yah! (He turns away again.)
FRANK (rising). Mrs. Warren: I cannot give my Vivie
up even for your sake.
MRS. WARREN (muttering). Young scamp!
FRANK (continuing). And as you no doubt intend to hold
out other prospects to her, I shall lose no time in placing
my case before her. (They stare at him; and he begins to
declaim gracefully)
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.
(The cottage door opens whilst he is reciting; and Vivie
and Praed come in. He breaks off. Praed puts his hat on
the dresser. There is an immediate improvement in the
company's behaviour. Crofts takes down his legs from the
settle and pulls himself together as Praed joins him at the
fireplace.
Mrs. Warren loses her ease of manner, and
takes refuge in querulousness.)
MRS. WARREN. Wherever have you been, Vivie?
30
Mrs. Warren's Profession Act II
VIVIE (taking off her hat and throwing it carelessly on the
table). On the hill.
MRS. WARREN. Well, you shouldn't go off like that with-
out letting me know. How could I tell what had become
of you-and night coming on, too!
VIVIE (going to the door of the inner room and opening it,
ignoring her mother). Now, about supper? We shall be
rather crowded in here, I'm afraid.
Mrs. Warren. Did you hear what I said, Vivie ?
VIVIE (quietly). Yes, mother. (Reverting to the supper
difficulty.) How many are we? (Counting.) One, two,
three, four, five, six. Well, two will have to wait until
the rest are done: Mrs. Alison has only plates and knives
for four.
hungry, Mr.
PRAED. Oh, it doesn't matter about me. I-
VIVIE. You have had a long walk and are
Praed: you shall have your supper at once.
myself. I want one person to wait with me.
you hungry?
I can wait
Frank: are
FRANK. Not the least in the world-completely off my
peck, in fact.
MRS. WARREN (to Crofts). Neither are you, George.
You can wait.
CROFTS. Oh, hang it, I've eaten nothing since tea-time.
Can't Sam do it?
FRANK. Would you starve my poor father?
REV. S. (testily). Allow me to speak for myself, sir. I
am perfectly willing to wait.
VIVIE (decisively). There's no need. Only two are
wanted. (She opens the door of the inner room.) Will you
take my mother in, Mr. Gardner. (The Rev. S. takes
Mrs. Warren; and they pass into the next room. Praed and
Crofts follow. All except Praed clearly disapprove of the
arrangement, but do not know how to resist it. Vivie stands
at the door looking in at them.) Can you squeeze past to that
Act II
31
Mrs. Warren's Profession
corner, Mr. Praed: it's rather a tight fit.
Take care of
your coat against the white-wash-that's right. Now, are
you all comfortable?
PRAED (within).
Quite, thank you.
MRS. WARREN (within). Leave the door open, dearie.
Frank looks at Vivie; then steals to the cottage door and
softly sets it wide open.) Oh, Lor', what a draught! You'd
better shut it, dear. (Vivie shuts it promptly. Frank noise-
lessly shuts the cottage door.)
FRANK (exulting). Aha! Got rid of 'em. Well,
Vivvums: what do you think of my governor!
VIVIE (preoccupied and serious). I've hardly spoken to
him. He doesn't strike me as being a particularly able person.
FRANK. Well, you know, the old man is not altogether
such a fool as he looks. You see, he's rector here; and in
trying to live up to it he makes a much bigger ass of him-
self than he really is. No, the gov'nor ain't so bad, poor
old chap; and I don't dislike him as much as you might
expect. He means well.
on with him?
How do you think you'll get
VIVIE (rather grimly). I don't think my future life will
be much concerned with him, or with any of that old circle
of my mother's, except perhaps Praed. What do you think
of my mother?
FRANK. Really and truly?
VIVIE. Yes, really and truly.
FRANK. Well, she's ever so jolly. But she's rather a
caution, isn't she? And Crofts! Oh, my eye, Crofts!
VIVIE. What a lot, Frank!
FRANK. What a crew!
VIVIE (with intense contempt for them). If I thought that
I was like that-that I was going to be a waster, shifting
along from one meal to another with no purpose, and no
character, and no grit in me, I'd open an artery and bleed
to death without one moment's hesitation.
32
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
FRANK. Oh, no, you wouldn't. Why should they take
any grind when they can afford not to? I wish I had their
luck. No: what I object to is their form.
their form. It isn't the
thing: it's slovenly, ever so slovenly.
VIVIE. Do you think your form will be any better when
you're as old as Crofts, if you don't work?
FRANK. Of course I do-ever so much better. Vivvums
mustn't lecture: her little boy's incorrigible. (He attempts to
take her face caressingly in his hands.)
VIVIE (striking his hands down sharply). Off with you:
Vivvums is not in a humor for petting her little boy this
evening.
FRANK. How unkind!
VIVIE (stamping at him). Be serious.
I'm serious.
FRANK. Good. Let us talk learnedly. Miss Warren:
do you know that all the most advanced thinkers are agreed
that half the diseases of modern civilization are due to
starvation of the affections in the young. Now, I-
VIVIE (cutting him short). You are getting tiresome.
(She opens the inner door.) Have you room for Frank there?
He's complaining of starvation.
MRS. WARREN (within). Of course there is (clatter of
knives and glasses as she moves the things on the table).
Here: there's room now beside me. Come along, Mr.
Frank.
FRANK (aside to Vivie, as he goes). Her little boy will be
ever so even with his Vivvums for this. (He goes into the
other room.)
MRS. WARREN (within). Here, Vivie: come on, you too,
child. You must be famished. (She enters, followed by
Crofts, who holds the door open for Vivie with marked defer-
She goes out without looking at him; and he shuts the
door after her.) Why, George, you can't be done: you've
eaten nothing.
ence.
•
CROFTS. Oh, all I wanted was a drink. (He thrusts his
Act II Mrs. Warren's Profession
33
hands in his pockets and begins prowling about the room, restless
and sulky.)
MRS. WARREN. Well, I like enough to eat. But a little of
that cold beef and cheese and lettuce goes a long way.
(With a sigh of only half repletion she sits down lazily at the
table.)
CROFTS. What do you go encouraging that young pup
for?
MRS. WARREN (on the alert at once). Now see here, George:
what are you up to about that girl? I've been watching
your way of looking at her. Remember: I know you and
what your looks mean.
CROFTS. There's no harm in looking at her, is there?
MRS. WARREN. I'd put you out and pack you back to
London pretty soon if I saw
saw any
of your nonsense. My
girl's little finger is more to me than your whole body and
soul. (Crofts receives this with a sneering grin. Mrs.
Warren, flushing a little at her failure to impose on him in the
character of a theatrically devoted mother, adds in a lower key.)
Make your mind easy: the young pup has no more chance
than you have.
CROFTS. Mayn't a man take an interest in a girl?
MRS. WARREN. Not a man like you.
CROFTS. How old is she?
MRS. WARREN. Never you mind how old she is.
CROFTS. Why do you make such a secret of it?
MRS. WARREN. Because I choose.
CROFTS. Well, I'm not fifty yet; and my property is as
good as ever it was-
MRS. WARREN (interrupting him). Yes; because you're
as stingy as you're vicious.
CROFTS (continuing). And a baronet isn't to be picked up
every day. No other man in my position would put up
with you for a mother-in-law. Why shouldn't she marry
me?
34
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
MRS. WARREN. You!
CROFTS. We three could live together quite comfortably.
I'd die before her and leave her a bouncing widow with
plenty of money. Why not? It's been growing in my
mind all the time I've been walking with that fool inside.
there.
MRS. WARREN (revolted). Yes; it's the sort of thing that
would grow in your mind. (He halts in his prowling; and
the two look at one another, she steadfastly, with a sort of
awe behind her contemptuous disgust: he stealthily, with a
carnal gleam in his eye and a loose grin, tempting her.)
I'll ask no
CROFTS (suddenly becoming anxious and urgent as he sees no
sign of sympathy in her). Look here, Kitty: you're a sensible.
woman: you needn't put on any moral airs.
more questions; and you need answer none. I'll settle the
whole property on her; and if you want a cheque for your-
self on the wedding day, you can name any figure you like-
in reason.
MRS. WARREN. Faugh! So it's come to that with you,
George, like all the other worn out old creatures.
CROFTS (savagely). Damn you! (She rises and turns
fiercely on him; but the door of the inner room is opened just
then; and the voices of the others are heard returning.
Crofts, unable to recover his presence of mind, hurries out
of the cottage. The clergyman comes back.)
REV. S. (looking round). Where is Sir George?
MRS. WARREN. Gone out to have a pipe. (She goes to
the fireplace, turning her back on him to compose herself.
The clergyman goes to the table for his hat. Meanwhile Vivie
comes in, followed by Frank, who collapses into the nearest
chair with an air of extreme exhaustion.
Mrs. Warren
looks round at Vivie and says, with her affectation of
maternal patronage even more forced than usual.) Well,
dearie: have you had a good supper?
VIVIE. You know what Mrs. Alison's suppers are.
(She
Act II
35
Mrs. Warren's Profession
turns to Frank and pets him.)
Poor Frank! was all the
beef gone? did it get nothing but bread and cheese and
ginger beer? (Seriously, as if she had done quite enough
trifling for one evening.) Her butter is really awful.
must get some down from the stores.
FRANK. Do, in Heaven's name!
(Vivie goes to the writing-table and makes a memorandum
to order the butter. Praed comes in from the inner room,
putting up his handkerchief, which he has been using as a
napkin.)
REV. S. Frank, my boy: it is time for us to be thinking
of home. Your mother does not know yet that we have
visitors.
PRAED. I'm afraid we're giving trouble.
FRANK. Not the least in the world, Praed: my mother
will be delighted to see you. She's a genuinely intellectual,
artistic woman; and she sees nobody here from one year's
end to another except the gov'nor; so you can imagine how
jolly dull it pans out for her. (To the Rev. S.) You're
not intellectual or artistic, are you, pater? So take Praed
home at once; and I'll stay here and entertain Mrs.
Warren. You'll pick up Crofts in the garden. He'll be
excellent company for the bull-pup.
PRAED (taking his hat from the dresser, and coming close to
Frank). Come with us, Frank. Mrs. Warren has not
seen Miss Vivie for a long time; and we have prevented
them from having a moment together yet.
FRANK (quite softened, and looking at Praed with romantic
admiration). Of course: I forgot. Ever so thanks for
reminding me. Perfect gentleman, Praddy. Always were—
my ideal through life. (He rises to go, but pauses a moment
between the two older men, and puts his hand on Praed's
shoulder.) Ah, if you had only been my father instead
of this unworthy old man! (He puts his other hand on
his father's shoulder).
I
36
Act Il
Mrs. Warren's Profession
REV. S. (blustering). Silence, sir, silence: you are
profane.
MRS. WARREN (laughing heartily). You should keep him.
in better order, Sam. Good-night. Here: take George his
hat and stick with my compliments.
s.
REV. S. (taking them). Good-night. (They shake hands.
As he passes Vivie he shakes hands with her also and bids her
good-night. Then, in booming commaad, to Frank.) Come
along, sir, at once. (He goes out. Meanwhile Frank has
taken his cap from the dresser and his rifle from the rack.
Praed shakes hands with Mrs. Warren and Vivie and goes
out, Mrs. Warren accompanying him idly to the door, and
looking out after him as he goes across the garden. Frank
silently begs a kiss from Vivie; but she, dismissing him with
a stern glance, takes a couple of books and some paper from
the writing-table, and sits down with them at the middle
table, so as to have the benefit of the lamp.)
FRANK (at the door, taking Mrs. Warren's hand). Good
night, dear Mrs. Warren. (He squeezes her hand. She
snatches it away, her lips tightening, and looks more than half
disposed to box his ears. He laughs mischievously and runs
off, clapping-to the door behind him.)
MRS. WARREN (coming back to her place at the table, oppo-
site Vivie, resigning herself to an evening of boredom now
that the men are gone). Did you ever in your life hear any-
one rattle on so? Isn't he a tease? (She sits down.)
Now that I think of it, dearie, don't you go encouraging
him. I'm sure he's a regular good-for-nothing.
{
VIVIE. Yes: I'm afraid poor Frank is a thorough good-
for-nothing. I shall have to get rid of him; but I shall
feel sorry for him, though he's not worth it, poor lad.
'That man Crofts does not seem to me to be good for much
either, is he?
MRS. WARREN (galled by Vivie's cool tone). What do you
know of men, child, to talk that way about them? You'll
Act II
37
Mrs. Warren's Profession
have to make up your mind to see a good deal of Sir George
Crofts, as he's a friend of mine.
VIVIE (quite unmoved). Why? Do you expect that we
shall be much together you and I, I mean?
MRS. WARREN (staring at her). Of course—until you're
married. You're not going, back to college again.
VIVIE. Do you think my way of life would suit you? 1
doubt it.
MRS. WARREN. Your way of life! What do you mean?
VIVIE (cutting a page of her book with the paper knife on
her chatelaine). Has it really never occurred to you, mother,
that I have a way of life like other people?
MRS. WARREN. What nonsense is this you're trying to
talk? Do you want to shew your independence, now
that you're a great little person at school? Don't be a fool,
child.
سمجھ
VIVIE (indulgently). That's all you have to say on the
subject, is it, mother?
MRS. WARREN (puzzled, then angry). Don't you keep on
asking me questions like that. (Violently.) Hold your
tongue. (Vivie works on, losing no time, and saying nothing.)
You and your way of life, indeed! What next? (She looks
at Vivie again. No reply.) Your way of life will be what
I please, so it will. (Another pause.) I've been noticing
these airs in you ever since you got that tripos or whatever
you call it.
If you think I'm going to put up with them
you're mistaken; and the sooner you find it out, the better.
(Muttering.) (All I have to say on the subject, indeed!
(Again raising her voice angrily.) Do you know who
you're speaking to, Miss?
VIVIE (looking across at her without raising her head from
her book). No. Who are you? What are you?
MRS WARREN (rising breathless). You young imp!
VIVIE. Everybody knows my reputation, my social_stand-
ing, and the profession I intend to pursue. I know nothing.
38
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
about you.
What is that way of life which you invite me
to share with you and Sir George Crofts, pray?
MRS. WARREN. Take care. I shall do something I'll be
sorry for after, and you, too.
You are
VIVIE (putting aside her books with cool decision). Well,
let us drop the subject until you are better able to face it.
(Looking critically at her mother.) You want some good.
walks and a little lawn tennis to set you up.
shockingly out of condition: you were not able to manage
twenty yards uphill to-day without stopping to pant; and
your wrists are mere rolls of fat. Look at mine. (She holds
out her wrists.)
MRS. WARREN (after looking at her helplessly, begins to
whimper). Vivie
VIVIE (springing up sharply). Now pray don't begin to
cry. Anything but that. I really cannot stand whimper-
ing. I will go out of the room if you do.
MRS. WARREN (piteously). Oh, my darling, how can you
be so hard on me? Have I no rights over you as your
mother? Y
VIVIE. Are you my mother?
MRS. WARREN (appalled). Am I your mother!
Vivie!
Oh,
VIVIE. Then where are our relatives-my father—our
family friends? You claim the rights of a mother: the
right to call me fool and child; to speak to me as no woman
in authority over me at college dare speak to me; to dictate
my way of life; and to force on me the acquaintance of a
brute whom anyone can see to be the most vicious sort of
London man about town. Before I give myself the trouble
to resist such claims, I may as well find out whether they
have any real existence.
MRS. WARREN (distracted, throwing herself on her knees).
Oh, no, no. Stop, stop. I am your mother: I swear it.
Act II Mrs. Warren's Profession
39
Oh, you can't mean to turn on me-my own child: it's
not natural. You believe me, don't you? Say you be-
lieve me.
VIVIE. Who was my father?
MRS. WARREN. You don't know what you're asking. I
can't tell you.
I
VIVIE (determinedly). Oh, yes, you can, if you like.
have a right to know; and you know very well that I have
that right. You can refuse to tell me, if you please; but if
you do, you will see the last of me to-morrow morning.
mrs. warren. Oh, it's too horrible to hear you talk like
that. You wouldn't—you couldn't leave me.
VIVIE (ruthlessly). Yes, without a moment's hesitation, if
you trifle with me about this. (Shivering with disgust.)
How can I feel sure that I may not have the contaminated
blood of that brutal waster in my veins ?
MRS. WARREN. No, no. On my oath it's not he, nor
any of the rest that you have ever met. I'm certain of
that, at least. (Vivie's eyes fasten sternly on her mother as
the significance of this flashes on her.)
VIVIE (slowly). You are certain of that, at least. Ah!
You mean that that is all you are certain of. (Thought-
fully.) I see. (Mrs. Warren buries her face in her hands.)
Don't do that, mother: you know you don't feel it a bit.
(Mrs. Warren takes down her hands and looks up deplor-
ably at Vivie, who takes out her watch and says) Well, that
is enough for to-night. At what hour would you like break-
fast? Is half-past eight too early for you?
MRS. WARREN (wildly). My God, what sort of woman
are you?
VIVIE (Coolly). The sort the world is mostly made of, I
should hope. Otherwise I don't understand how it gets its
business done. Come (taking her mother by the wrist, and
pulling her up pretty resolutely): pull yourself together.
That's right.
40
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
MRS. WARREN (querulously). You're very rough with me,
Vivie.
VIVIE. Nonsense.
What about bed? It's past ten.
MRS. WARREN (passionately). What's the use of my going
to bed? Do you think I could sleep?
VIVIE. Why not? I shall.
MRS. WARREN. You! you've no heart. (She suddenly breaks
out vehemently in her natural tongue-the dialect of a woman
of the people with all her affectations of maternal authority
and conventional manners gone, and an overwhelming inspira-
tion of true conviction and scorn in her.) Oh, I won't bear
it: I won't put up with the injustice of it.
What_right
have you to set yourself up above me like this
of what you are to me-to me, who gave you the chance of
being what you are. What chance had I?
What chance had I? Shame on you
for a bad daughter and a stuck-up prude!
You boast
VIVIE (cool and determined, but no longer confident; for her
replies, which have sounded convincingly sensible and strong to
her so far, now begin to ring rather woodenly and even prig-
gishly against the new tone of her mother). Don't think for a
moment I set myself above you in any way. You attacked
me with the conventional authority of a mother: I defended
myself with the conventional superiority of a respectable
woman. Frankly, I am not going to stand any of your
nonsense; and when you drop it I shall not expect you to
stand any of mine. I shall always respect your right to
your own opinions and your own way of life.
MRS. WARREN My own opinions and my own way of
life! Listen to her talking! Do you think I was brought
up like you-able to pick and choose my own way of life?
Do you think
think I did what I did because I liked it, or thought
it right, or wouldn't rather have gone to college and been a
lady if I'd had the chance?
VIVIE. Everybody has some choice, mother. The poorest
girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen
Act II Mrs. Warren's Profession
41
of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose
between ragpicking and flowerselling, according to her
taste. People are always blaming their circumstances for
what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The
people who get on in this world are the people who get up
and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't
find them, make them.
MRS. WARREN. Oh, it's easy to talk, very easy, isn't it?
Here! would you like to know what my circumstances
were?
VIVIE. Yes:
Won't you sit
down?
you
had better tell me.
MRS. WARREN. Oh, I'll sit down: don't you be afraid.
(She plants her chair farther forward with brazen energy,
and sits down. Vivie is impressed in spite of herself.)
D'you known what your gran'mother was?
VIVIE. No.
MRS. WARREN. No, you don't. I do. She called herself
a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and
kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were
sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-
looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well-
fed man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but
I don't know. The other two were only half sisters-
undersized, ugly, starved looking, hard working, honest
poor creatures Liz and I would have half-murdered them
if mother hadn't half-murdered us to keep our hands off
them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did
they get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of
them worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for
nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She
only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she
died. The other was always held up to us as a model
because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford
victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children
42
Act II
Mrs. Warren's Profession
neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week-until he took to
drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn't it?
VIVIE (now thoughtfully attentive). Did you and your
sister think so?
MRS. WARREN. Liz didn't, I can tell you: she had more
spirit. We both went to a church school-that was part
of the ladylike airs we gave ourselves to be superior to the
children that knew nothing and went nowhere—and we
stayed there until Liz went out one night and never came
back. I know the schoolmistress thought I'd soon follow
her example; for the clergyman was always warning me
that Lizzie'd end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge. Poor
fool: that was all he knew about it! But I was more
afraid of the whitelead factory than I was of the river; and
so would you have been in my place. That clergyman got
me a situation as scullery maid in a temperance restaurant
where they sent out for anything you liked. Then I was
waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo station--
fourteen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for
four shillings a week and my board. That was considered
a great promotion for me.) Well, one cold, wretched night,
when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who
should come up for a half of Scotch but Lizzie, in a long
fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with a lot of sovereigns
in her purse.)
VIVIE (grimly). My aunt Lizzie!
MRS. WARREN. Yes: and a very good aunt to have,
too. She's living down at Winchester now, close to the
cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there
chaperones girls at the county ball, if you please. No
river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little:
she was a first-rate business woman-saved money from the
beginning never let herself look too like what she was-
never lost her head or threw away a chance. When she
saw I'd grown up good-looking she said to me across the
Act II
43
Mrs. Warren's Profession
bar: What are you doing there, you little fool? wearing
out your health and your appearance for other people's
profit!" Liz was saving money then to take a house for
herself in Brussels: and she thought we two could save
faster than one. So she lent me some money and gave me
a start; and I saved steadily and first paid her back, and then
went into business with her as her partner. Why shouldn't,
I have done it? The house in Brussels was real high class-
a much better place for a woman to be in than the factory
where Anne Jane got poisoned. None of our girls were
ever treated as I was treated in the scullery of that temper-
ance place, or at the Waterloo bar, or at home. Would
you have had me stay in them and become a worn out old
drudge before I was forty?
VIVIE (intensely interested by this time). No; but why
did you choose that business? Saving money and good
management will succeed in any business.
MRS. WARREN.
Yes, saving money.
But where can a
woman get the money to save in any other business?
Could you save out of four shillings a week and keep your-
self dressed as well? Not you. Of course, if you're a
plain woman and can't earn anything more; or if you have
a turn for music, or the stage, or newspaper-writing: that's
different. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such
things: all we had was our appearance and our turn for
pleasing men. Do you think we were such fools as to let
other people trade in our good looks by employing us as
shopgirls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could trade
in them ourselves and get all the profits instead of starvation
wages? Not likely.
VIVIE. You were certainly quite justified-from the busi-
ness point of view.
MRS. WARREN. Yes; or any other point of view. What
is any respectable girl brought up to do but to catch some
rich man's fancy and get the benefit of his money by mar-
44
Mrs. Warren's Profession Act I
rying him?-as if a marriage ceremony could make any
difference in the right or wrong of the thing! Oh, the
hypocrisy of the world makes me sick! Liz and I had to
work and save and calculate just like other people; elseways
we should be as poor as any good-for-nothing, drunken
waster of a woman that thinks her luck will last for ever.
(With great energy.) I despise such people: they've no
character; and if there's a thing I hate in a woman, it's
want of character.
VIVIE. Come, now, mother: frankly! Isn't it part of
what you call character in a woman that she should greatly
dislike such a way of making money?
MRS. WARREN. Why, of course. Everybody dislikes
having to work and make money; but they have to do it
all the same. I'm sure I've often pitied a poor girl, tired
out and in low spirits, having to try to please some man
that she doesn't care two straws for -some half-drunken
fool that thinks he's making himself agreeable when he's
teasing and worrying and disgusting a woman so that hardly
any money could pay her for putting up with it. But she
has to bear with disagreeables and take the rough with the
smooth, just like a nurse in a hospital or anyone else. It's
not work that any woman would do for pleasure, goodness
knows; though to hear the pious people talk you would
suppose it was a bed of roses.
It pays.
VIVIE. Still you consider it worth while.
MRS. WARREN. Of course it's worth while to a poor girl
if she can resist temptation and is good-looking and well
conducted and sensible. It's far better than any other
employment open to her I always thought that oughtn't
to be.
It can't be right, Vivie, that there shouldn't
be better opportunities for women. I stick to that: it's
wrong. But it's so, right or wrong; and a girl must inake
the best of it. But, of course, it's not worth while for a
Act Il
45
Mrs. Warren's Profession
lady. If you took to it you'd be a fool; but I should have
been a fool if I'd taken to anything else.
VIVIE (more and more deeply moved). Mother: suppose
we were both as poor as you were in those wretched old
days, are you quite sure that you wouldn't advise me to try
the Waterloo bar, or marry a labourer, or even go into the
factory?
What sort
Of course not.
How could you keep your
MRS. WARREN (indignantly).
of mother do you take me for!
self-respect in such starvation and slavery? And what's a
woman worth? what's life worth? without self-respect!
Why am I independent and able to give my daughter a
first-rate education, when other women that had just as
good opportunities are in the gutter? Because I always
knew how to respect myself and control myself. Why is
Liz looked up to in a cathedral town? The same reason.
Where would we be now if we'd minded the clergyman's
foolishness? Scrubbing floors for one and sixpence a day
and nothing to look forward to but the workhouse infirmary.
Don't you be led astray by people who don't know the
world, my girl. The only way for a woman to provide
for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that
can afford to be good to her. If she's in his own station of
life, let her make him marry her; but if she's far beneath
him she can't expect it-why should she? It wouldn't be
for her own happiness. Ask any lady in London society
that has daughters; and she'll tell you the same, except
that I tell you straight and she'll tell you crooked. That's
all the difference.
VIVIE (fascinated, gazing at her). My dear mother: you
are a wonderful woman-you are stronger than all England.
And are you really and truly not one wee bit doubtful-
or--or-ashamed?
MRS. WARREN. Well, of course, dearie, it's only good
46
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act II
manners to be ashamed of it it's expected from a woman.
Women have to pretend to feel a great deal that they don't
feel. Liz used to be angry with me for plumping out the
truth about it. She used to say that when every woman
could learn enough from what was going on in the world
before her eyes, there was no need to talk about it to her.
But then Liz was such a perfect lady! She had the true
instinct of it; while I was always a bit of a vulgarian.
I used to be so pleased when you sent me your photographs
to see that you were growing up like Liz: you've just her
ladylike, determined way. But I can't stand saying one
thing when everyone knows I mean another. What's the
use in such hypocrisy? If people arrange the world that
way for women, there's
there's no good pretending that it's
arranged the other way. I never was a bit ashamed really.
I consider that I had a right to be proud that we managed
everything so respectably, and never had a word against us,
and that the girls were so well taken care of. Some of
them did very well: one of them married an ambassador.
But of course now I daren't talk about such things: what-
ever would they think of us! (She yawns.) Oh, dear!
I do believe I'm getting sleepy after all. (She stretches
herself lazily, thoroughly relieved by her explosion, and
placidly ready for her night's rest.)
VIVIE. I believe it is I who will not be able to sleep now.
(She goes to the dresser and lights the candle. Then she,
Extinguishes the lamp, darkening the room a good deal.)
Better let in some fresh air before locking up. (She opens
the cottage door, and finds that it is broad moonlight.) What
a beautiful night! Look! (She draws aside the curtains of
the window. The landscape is seen bathed in the radiance
of the harvest moon rising over Blackdown.)
MRS. WARREN (with a perfunctory glance at the scene).
Yes, dear: but take care you don't catch your death of cold
from the night air.
Act II Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE (contemptuously). Nonsense.
47
MRS. WARREN (querulously). Oh, yes: everything I say
is nonsense, according to you.
VIVIE (turning to her quickly). No: really that is not so,
mother. You have got completely the better of me to-night,
though I intended it to be the other way. Let us be good
friends now.
Mrs. Warren (shaking her head a little ruefully). So it
has been the other way. But I suppose I must give in to
it. I always got the worst of it from Liz; and now I
suppose it'll be the same with you.`)
VIVIE. Well, never mind. Come; good-night, dear old
mother. (She takes her mother in her arms.)
MRS. WARREN (fondly). I brought you up well, didn't
I, dearie?
VIVIE. You did.
MRS. WARREN. And you'll be good to your poor old
mother for it, won't you?
VIVIE. I will, dear. (Kissing her.) Good-night.
MRS. WARREN (with unction). Blessings on my own
dearie darling-a mother's blessing! (She embraces her
daughter protectingly, instinctively looking upward as if to
call down a blessing.)
ACT III
In the Rectory garden next morning, with the sun shining
and the birds in full song. The garden wall has a five-
barred wooden gate, wide enough to admit a carriage, in the
middle. Beside the gate hangs a bell on a coiled spring,
communicating with a pull outside. The carriage drive comes
down the middle of the garden and then swerves to its left,
where it ends in a little gravelled circus opposite the rectory
porch. Beyond the gate is seen the dusty high road, parallel
with the wall, bounded on the farther side by a strip
of turf and an unfenced pine wood. On the lawn, between
the house and the drive, is a clipped yew tree, with a garden
bench in its shade. On the opposite side the garden is shut
in by a box hedge; and there is a sundial on the turf, with
an iron chair near it. A little path leads off through the
box hedge, behind the sundial.
Frank, seated on the chair near the sundial, on which he
has placed the morning papers, is reading the Standard. His
father comes from the house, red-eyed and shivery, and meets
Frank's eye with misgiving.
FRANK (looking at his watch).
Half-past eleven. Nice
hour for a rector to come down to breakfast!
REV. s. Don't mock, Frank: don't mock. I'm a little-
er—(Shivering.)-
FRANK. Off colour?
REV. s. (repudiating the expression). No, sir: unwell
this morning. Where's your mother?
Act III Mrs. Warren's Profession
49
FRANK. Don't be alarmed: she's not here. Gone to
town by the 11:13 with Bessie. She left several messages
Do you feel equal to receiving them now, or shall
I wait till you've breakfasted?
for you.
REV. s. I have breakfasted, sir. I am surprised at your
mother going to town when we have people staying with
us. They'll think it very strange.
FRANK. Possibly she has considered that.
At all events,
if Crofts is going to stay here, and you are going to sit up
every night with him until four, recalling the incidents of
your fiery youth, it is clearly my mother's duty, as a
prudent housekeeper, to go up to the stores and order a
barrel of whisky and a few hundred siphons.
REV. s. I did not observe that Sir George drank excess-
ively.
1
FRANK. You were not in a condition to, gov'nor.
REV. s. Do you mean to say that I—
FRANK (calmly). I never saw a beneficed clergyman less
cober. The anecdotes you told about your past career were
so awful that I really don't think Praed would have passed
the night under your roof if it hadn't been for the way my
mother and he took to one another.
REV. S. Nonsense, sir. I am Sir George Crofts' host.
I must talk to him about something; and he has only one
subject. Where is Mr. Praed now?
FRANK. He is driving my mother and Bessie to the
station.
REV. S. Is Crofts up yet?
FRANK. Oh, long ago. He hasn't turned a hair: he's in
much better practice than you-has kept it up ever since,
probably. He's taken himself off somewhere to smoke.
(Frank resumes his paper. The Rev. S. turns disconsolately
towards the gate; then comes back irresolutely.)
RLV. S. Er-Frank.
FRANK. Yes.
50
Mrs. Warren's Profession Act III
REV. s. Do you think the Warrens will expect to be
asked here after yesterday afternoon?
FRANK. They've been asked already. Crofts informed
us at breakfast that you told him to bring Mrs. Warren
and Vivie over here to-day, and to invite them to make this
house their home. It was after that communication that
my mother found she must go to town by the 11:1
train.
REV. s. (with despairing vehemence). I never gave any
such invitation. I never thought of such a thing.
FRANK (compassionately). How do you know, gov'nor,
what you said and thought last night? Hallo! here's Praed
back again.
PRAED (coming in through the gate). Good morning.
REV. s. Good morning. I must apologize for not having
met you at breakfast. I have a touch of-of-
FRANK. Clergyman's sore throat, Praed. Fortunately
not chronic.
Well, I must say your
Really most charming.
Frank will take you for a
PRAED (changing the subject).
house is in a charming spot here.
REV. S. Yes: it is indeed.
walk, Mr. Praed, if
you like.
I'll ask you to excuse me:
I must take the opportunity to write my sermon while Mrs.
Gardner is away and you are all amusing yourselves. You
won't mind, will you?
PRAED. Certainly not. Don't stand on the slightest
ceremony with me.
REV. S. Thank you.
I'll er er -(He stammers his
way to the porch and vanishes into the house).
PRAED (sitting down on the turf near Frank, and hugging
his ankles). Curious thing it must be writing a sermon
every week.
FRANK. Ever so curious, if he did it. He buys 'em.
He's gone for some soda water.
PRAED. My dear boy: I wish you would be more
Act III
51
Mrs. Warren's Profession
respectful to your father. You know you can be so nice
when you like.
FRANK. My dear Praddy: you forget that I have to
live with the governor.
When two people live together-
it don't matter whether they're father and son, husband
and wife, brother and sister-they can't keep up the polite.
humbug which comes so easy for ten minutes on an
afternoon call. Now the governor, who unites to many
admirable domestic qualities the irresoluteness of a sheep
and the pompousness and aggressiveness of a jackass—
PRAED. No, pray, pray, my dear Frank, remember! He
is your father.
FRANK. I give him due credit for that. But just imagine
his telling Crofts to bring the Warrens over here! He
must have been ever so drunk. You know, my dear
Praddy, my mother wouldn't stand Mrs. Warren for a
moment. Vivie mustn't come here until she's gone back
to town.
PRAED. But your mother doesn't know anything about
Mrs. Warren, does she?
FRANK. I don't know. Her journey to town looks as
if she did. Not that my mother would mind in the
ordinary way: she has stuck like a brick to lots of women
who had got into trouble. But they were all nice women.
That's what makes the real difference. Mrs. Warren, no
doubt, has her merits; but she's ever so rowdy; and my
mother simply wouldn't put up with her. So - hallo!
(This exclamation is provoked by the reappearance of the
clergyman, who comes out of the house in haste and dismay.)
REV. S. Frank: Mrs. Warren and her daughter are coming
across the heath with Crofts: I saw them from the study
windows. What am I to say about your mother?
FRANK (jumping up energetically). Stick on your hat and
go out and say how delighted you are to see them; and
that Frank's in the garden; and that mother and Bessie
52
Act III
Mrs. Warren's Profession
have been called to the bedside of a sick relative, and were
ever so sorry they couldn't stop; and that you hope Mrs.
Warren slept well; and-and-say any blessed thing except
the truth, and leave the rest to Providence.
REV. S. But how are we to get rid of them afterwards?
FRANK. There's no time to think of that now. Here!
(He bounds into the porch and returns immediately with a
clerical felt hat, which he claps on his father's head.) Now:
off with you.
Praed and I'll wait here, to give the thing
an unpremeditated air. (The clergyman, dazed, but obedi-
ent, burries off through the gate. Praed gets up from the
turf, and dusts himself.)
FRANK. We must get that old lady back to town some-
how, Praed. Come! honestly, dear Praddy, do you like
seeing them together-Vivie and the old lady?
PRAED. Oh, why not?
FRANK (his teeth on edge). Don't it make your flesh creep
ever so little?-that wicked old devil, up to every villainy
under the sun, I'll swear, and Vivie―ugh!
PRAED. Hush, pray. They're coming. (The clergyman
and Crofts are seen coming along the road, followed by Mrs.
Warren and Vivie walking affectionately together.)
FRANK. Look: she actually has her arm round the old
woman's waist. It's her right arm: she began it. She's
gone sentimental, by God! Ugh! ugh! Now do you feel
the creeps? (The clergyman opens the gate; and Mrs.
Warren and Vivie pass him and stand in the middle of the
garden looking at the house. Frank, in an ecstasy of dissimu-
lation, turns gaily to Mrs. Warren, exclaiming) Ever so
delighted to see you, Mrs. Warren. This quiet old rectory
garden becomes you perfectly.
MRS. WARREN. Well, I never! Did you hear that,
George? He says I look well in a quiet old rectory
garden.
REV. S. (still holding the gate for Crofts, who loafs through
Act III Mrs. Warren's Profession
53
it, heavily bored). You look well everywhere, Mrs.
Warren.
FRANK. Bravo, gov'nor! Now look here: let's have an
awful jolly time of it before lunch. First let's see the
church. Everyone has to do that. It's a regular old thir-
teenth century church, you know: the gov'nor's ever so
fond of it, because he got up a restoration fund and had it
completely rebuilt six years ago.
Praed will be able to
show its points.
REV. s. (mooning hospitably at them). I shall be pleased,
I'm sure, if Sir George and Mrs. Warren really care
about it.
MRS. WARREN. Oh, come along and get it over. It'll
do George good: I'll lay he doesn't trouble church much.
CROFTS (turning back towards the gate). I've no objec-
tion.
REV. S. Not that way. We go through the fields, if you
don't mind. Round here. (He leads the way by the little
path through the box hedge.)
CROFTS. Oh, all right. (He goes with the parson. Praed
follows with Mrs. Warren. Vivie does not stir, but watches
them until they have gone, with all the lines of purpose in her
face marking it strongly.)
FRANK. Ain't you coming.
VIVIE. No. I want to give you a warning, Frank. You
were making fun of my mother just now when you said
that about the rectory garden. That is barred in future.
Please treat my mother with as much respect as you treat
your own.
FRANK. My dear Viv: she wouldn't appreciate it. She's
not like my mother: the same treatment wouldn't do for
both cases. But what on earth has happened to you? Last
night we were perfectly agreed as to your mother and her
set. This morning I find you attitudinizing sentimentally
with your arm round your parent's waist.
54
Act III
Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE (flushing). Attitudinizing!
FRANK. That was how it struck me.
saw you do a second-rate thing.
First time I ever
VIVIE (controlling herself). Yes, Frank: there has been a
change; but I don't think it a change for the worse. Yes-
terday I was a little prig.
FRANK. And to-day?
VIVIE (wincing; then looking at him steadily). To-day I
know my mother better than you do.
FRANK. Heaven forbid!
VIVIE. What do you mean?
FRANK. Viv; there's a freemasonry among thoroughly
immoral people that you know nothing of. You've too
much character. That's the bond between your mother
and me: that's why I know her better than you'll ever
know her.
VIVIE. You are wrong: you know nothing about her. If
you knew the circumstances against which my mother had
to struggle-
FRANK (adroitly finishing the sentence for her). I should
know why she is what she is, shouldn't I? What difference
would that make? Circumstances or no circumstances, Viv,
you won't be able to stand your mother.
VIVIE (very angry). Why not?
FRANK. Because she's an old wretch, Viv. If you ever
put your arm round her waist in my presence again, I'll
shoot myself there and then as a protest against an exhibi-
tion which revolts me.
VIVIE. Must I choose between dropping your acquaint-
ance and dropping my mother's?
FRANK (gracefully). That would put the old lady at ever
such a disadvantage. No, Viv: your infatuated little boy
will have to stick to you in any case. But he's all the more
anxious that you shouldn't make mistakes.
It's no use,
Act III Mrs. Warren's Profession
55
Viv: your mother's impossible.
but she's a bad lot, a very bad lot.
She may be a good sort;
VIVIE (botly). Frank-! (He stands his ground. She
turns away and sits down on the bench under the yew tree,
struggling to recover her self-command. Then she says) Is
she to be deserted by all the world because she's what
call a bad lot? Has she no right to live?
you
FRANK. No fear of that, Viv: she won't ever be deserted.
(He sits on the bench beside her.)
VIVIE. But I am to desert her, I suppose.
FRANK (babyishly, lulling her and making love to her with
his voice). Mustn't go live with her. Little family group of
mother and daughter wouldn't be a success. Spoil our
little group.
VIVIE (falling under the spell). What little group?
FRANK. The babes in the wood: Vivie and little Frank.
(He slips his arm round her waist and nestles against her like
a weary child.) Let's go and get covered up with leaves.
VIVIE (rhythmically, rocking him like a nurse). Fast asleep,
hand in hand, under the trees.
FRANK. The wise little girl with her silly little boy.
VIVIE. The dear little boy with his dowdy little girl.
FRANK. Ever so peaceful, and relieved from the imbe-
cility of the little boy's father and the questionableness of
the little girl's-
VIVIE (smothering the word against her breast). Sh-sh-
sh-sh! little girl wants to forget all about her mother. (They
are silent for some moments, rocking one another. Then
Vivie wakes up with a shock, exclaiming) What a pair of
fools we are! Come: sit up. Gracious! your hair. (She
smooths it.) I wonder do all grown up people play in that
childish way when nobody is looking. I never did it when
I was a child.
FRANK. Neither did I. You are my first playmate. (He
}
56
Act III
Mrs. Warren's Profession
catches her hand to kiss it, but checks himself to look round
first. Very unexpectedly he sees Crofts emerging from the
box hedge.) Oh, damn!
VIVIE. Why damn, dear?
FRANK (whispering). Sh! Here's this brute Crofts. (He
sits farther away from her with an unconcerned air.)
VIVIE. Don't be rude to him, Frank. I particularly wish
to be polite to him. It will please my mother. (Frank
makes a wry face.)
CROFTS. Could I have a few words with you, Miss Vivie?
VIVIE. Certainly.
CROFTS (to Frank). You'll excuse me, Gardner. They're
waiting for you in the church, if you don't mind.
FRANK (rising). Anything to oblige you, Crofts-except
church. If you want anything, Vivie, ring the gate bell,
and a domestic will appear. (He goes into the house with
unruffled suavity.)
CROFTS (watching him with a crafty air as he disappears,
and speaking to Vivie with an assumption of being on privi-
leged terms with her). Pleasant young fellow that, Miss
Vivie. Pity he has no money, isn't it?
VIVIE. Do you think so?
CROFTS. Well, what's he to do? No profession, no prop-
erty. What's he good for?
VIVIE. I realize his disadvantages, Sir George.
CROFTS (a little taken aback at being so precisely interpreted).
Oh, it's not that. But while we're in this world we're in
it; and money's money. (Vivie does not answer.) Nice
day, isn't it?
VIVIE (with scarcely veiled contempt for this effort at conver-
sation.) Very.
CROFTS (with brutal good humor, as if he liked her pluck).
Well, that's not what I came to say. (Affecting frankness.)
Now listen, Miss Vivie. I'm quite aware that I'm not a
young lady's man.
Act III Mrs. Warren's Profession
57
VIVIE. Indeed, Sir George?
CROFTS. NO; and to tell you the honest truth, I don't
want to be either. But when I say a thing I mean it;
when I feel sentiment I feel it in earnest; and what I yalue
I pay hard money for. That's the sort of man I am.
VIVIE. It does you great credit, I'm sure.
CROFTS. Oh, I don't mean to praise myself. I have my
faults, Heaven knows: no man is more sensible of that than
I am.
I know I'm not perfect: that's one of the advantages
of being a middle-aged man; for I'm not a young man, and
I know it. But my code is a simple one, and, I think, a
good one. Honor between man and man; fidelity between
man and woman; and no cant about this religion, or that
religion, but an honest belief that things are making for good
on the whole.
VIVIE (with biting irony). "A power, not ourselves, that
makes for righteousness,
eh?
CROFTS (taking her seriously). Oh, certainly, not our-
selves, of course. You understand what I mean. (He sits
down beside her, as one who has found a kindred spirit.)
Well, now as to practical matters. You may have an idea
that I've flung my money about; but I haven't: I'm richer
to-day than when I first came into the property.
I've used
د
my knowledge of the world to invest my money in ways
that other men have overlooked; and whatever else I may
be, I'm a safe man from the money point of view.
VIVIE. It's very kind of you to tell me all this.
CROFTS. Oh, well, come, Miss Vivie: you needn't pre-
tend you don't see what I'm driving at. I want to settle
down with a Lady Crofts. I suppose you think me very
blunt, eh?
VIVIE. Not at all: I am much obliged to you for being
so definite and business-like. I quite appreciate the offer:
the money, the position, Lady Crofts, and so on. But I
think I will say no, if you don't mind. I'd rather not.
58
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act III
(She rises, and strolls across to the sundial to get out of his
immediate neighborhood.)
CROFTS (not at all discouraged, and taking advantage of the
additional room left him on the seat to spread himself com-
fortably, as if a few preliminary refusals were part of the
inevitable routine of courtship). I'm in no hurry. It was
only just to let you know in case young Gardner should try
to trap you. Leave the question open.
VIVIE (sharply). My no is final. I won't go back from
it. (She looks authoritatively at him. He grins; leans for-
ward with his elbows on his knees to prod with his stick at
some unfortunate insect in the grass; and looks cunningly at her.
She turns away impatiently.)
CROFTS. I'm a good deal older than you-twenty-five
years-quarter of a century. I shan't live for ever; and
I'll take care that you shall be well off when I'm gone.
VIVIE. I am proof against even that inducement, Sir
George. Don't you think you'd better take your answer?
There is not the slightest chance of my altering it.
CROFTS (rising, after a final slash at a daisy, and beginning
to walk to and fro). Well, no matter.
I could tell you
some things that would change your mind fast enough; but
I won't, because I'd rather win you by honest affection. I
was a good friend to your mother: ask her whether I wasn't.
She'd never have made the money that paid for your educa-
tion if it hadn't been for my advice and help, not to mention
the money I advanced her. There are not many men
would have stood by her as I have. I put not less than
£40,000 into it, from first to last.
VIVIE (staring at him). Do you mean to say you were my
mother's business partner?
CROFTS. Yes. Now just think of all the trouble and the
explanations it would save if we were to keep the whole
thing in the family, so to speak. Ask your mother whether
she'd like to have to explain all her affairs to a perfect stranger.
Act III
59
Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE. I see no difficulty, since I understand that the
business is wound up, and the money invested.
CROFTS (stopping short, amazed). Wound up! Wind up
a business that's paying 35 per cent in the worst years!
Not likely. Who told you that?
VIVIE (her colour quite gone). Do you mean that it is still-?
(She stops abruptly, and puts her hand on the sundial to sup-
port herself. Then she gets quickly to the iron chair and sits
down.) What business are you talking about?
CROFTS. Well, the fact is, it's not what would be con-
sidered exactly a high-class business in my set-the county
set, you know—our set it will be if you think better of my
offer. Not that there's any mystery about it: don't think
that. Of course you know by your mother's being in it that
it's perfectly straight and honest.
I've known her for many
years; and I can say of her that she'd cut off her hands
sooner than touch anything that was not what it ought to
be. I'll tell you all about it if you like. I don't know
whether you've found in travelling how hard it is to find a
really comfortable private hotel.
VIVIE (sickened, averting her face). Yes: go on.
CROFTS. Well, that's all it is.
Your mother has a genius
for managing such things. We've got two in Brussels, one
in Berlin, one in Vienna, and two in Buda- Pesth. Of
course there are others besides ourselves in it; but we hold
most of the capital; and your mother's indispensable as
managing director. You've noticed, I daresay, that she
travels a good deal. But you see you can't mention such
things in society. Once let out the word hotel and every-
body says you keep a public-house. You wouldn't like
people to say that of your mother, would you? That's
why we're so reserved about it. By the bye, you'll keep
it to yourself, won't you? Since it's been a secret so long,
it had better remain so.
VIVIE. And this is the business you invite me to join you in?
60
Act III
Mrs. Warren's Profession
3
CROFTS. Oh, no. My wife shan't be troubled with busi-
ness. You'll not be in it more than you've always been.
VIVIE. I always been! What do
What do you mean?
CROFTS. Only that you've always lived on it. It paid
for your education and the dress you have on your back.
Don't turn up your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where
would your Newnhams and Girtons be without it?
VIVIE (rising, almost beside herself). Take care.
what this business is.
CROFTS (starting, with a suppressed oath).
VIVIE. Your partner-my mother.
I know
Who told you?
CROFTS (black with rage). The old-(Vivie looks quickly
at him. He swallows the epithet and stands swearing and
raging foully to himself. But he knows that his cue is to be
sympathetic. He takes refuge in generous indignation.) She
ought to have had more consideration for you.
I'd never
have told you.
VIVIE. I think you would probably have told me when
we were married: it would have been a convenient weapon
to break me in with.
CROFTS (quite sincerely). I never intended that. On my
word as a gentleman I didn't.
(Vivie wonders at him.
protest cools and braces her.
self-possession).
VIVIE. It does not matter.
Her sense of the irony of his
She replies with contemptuous
I
suppose you understand that
when we leave here to-day our acquaintance ceases.
CROFTS. Why? Is it for helping your mother?
VIVIE. My mother was a very poor woman who had no
reasonable choice but to do as she did. You were a rich
gentleman; and you did the same for the sake of 35 per
cent. You are a pretty common sort of scoundrel, I think.
That is my opinion of you.
CROFTS (after a stare—not at all displeased, and much more
at his ease on these frank terms than on their former ceremo-
Act III
61
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Go it, little missie, go it: it
Why the devil shouldn't
nious ones). Ha, ha, ha, ha!
doesn't hurt me and it amuses you.
I invest my money that way? I take the interest on my
capital like other people: I hope you don't think I dirty my
own hands with the work. Come: you wouldn't refuse the
acquaintance of my mother's cousin, the Duke of Belgravia,
because some of the rents he gets are earned in queer ways.
You wouldn't cut the Archbishop of Canterbury, I suppose,
because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans
and sinners among their tenants? Do you remember your
Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded
by my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent out of
a factory with 600 girls in it, and not one of them getting
wages enough to live on. How d'ye suppose most of them
manage? Ask your mother. And do you expect me to
turn my back on 35 per cent when all the rest are pocket-
ing what they can, like sensible men? No such fool!
you're going to pick and choose your acquaintances on
moral principles, you'd better clear out of this country,
unless you want to cut yourself out of all decent society.
If
VIVIE (conscience stricken). You might go on to point out.
that I myself never asked where the money I spent came
from. I believe I am just as bad as you.
CROFTS (greatly reassured). Of course you are; and a very
good thing, too! What harm does it do after all? (Rally-
ing her jocularly.) So you don't think me such a scoundrel
now you come to think it over. Eh?
VIVIE. I have shared profits with you; and I admitted
you just now to the familiarity of knowing what I think of
you.
CROFTS (with serious friendliness). To be sure you did.
You won't find me a bad sort: I don't go in for being super-
fine intellectually; but I've plenty of honest human feeling;
and the old Crofts breed comes out in a sort of instinctive
hatred of anything low, in which I'm sure you'll sympathize
62
Act III
Mrs. Warren's Profession
with me.
Believe me, Miss Vivie, the world isn't such a
bad place as the croakers make out. So long as you don't
fly openly in the face of society, society doesn't ask any in-
convenient questions; and it makes precious short work of
the cads who do. There are no secrets better kept than the
secrets that everybody guesses. In the society
In the society I can intro-
duce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far forget them-
selves as to discuss my business affairs or your mother's.
No man can offer you a safer position.
VIVIE (studying him curiously). I suppose you really think
you're getting on famously with me.
CROFTS. Well, I hope I may flatter myself that you think
better of me than you did at first.
VIVIE (quietly). I hardly find you worth thinking about at
all now.
(She rises and turns towards the gate, pausing on
her way to contemplate him and say almost gently, but with
intense conviction.) When I think of the society that tolerates
you, and the laws that protect you-when I think of how
helpless nine out of ten young girls would be in the hands of
you and my mother-the unmentionable woman and her
capitalist bully-
CROFTS (livid). Damn you!
VIVIE. You need not. I feel among the damned already.
(She raises the latch of the gate to open it and go out. He
follows her and puts his hand heavily on the top bar to prevent
its opening.)
CROFTS (panting with fury). Do you think I'll put up
with this from you, you young devil, you?
VIVIE (unmoved). Be quiet. Some one will answer the
bell. (Without flinching a step she strikes the bell with the
back of her hand. It clangs harshly; and he starts back in-
voluntarily. Almost immediately Frank appears at the porch
with his rifle.)
FRANK (with cheerful politeness). Will you have the rifle,
Viv; or shall I operate?
Act III Mrs. Warren's Profession
63
VIVIE. Frank: have you been listening?
FRANK. Only for the bell, I assure you; so that you
shouldn't have to wait. I think I showed great insight into
your character, Crofts.
CROFTS. For two pins I'd take that gun from you and
break it across your head.
FRANK (stalking him cautiously). Pray don't. I'm ever
so careless in handling firearms. Sure to be a fatal accident,
with a reprimand from the coroner's jury for my negligence.
VIVIE. Put the rifle away, Frank: it's quite unnecessary.
FRANK. Quite right, Viv. Much more sportsmanlike to
catch him in a trap. (Crofts, understanding the insult, makes
a threatening movement.) Crofts: there are fifteen cartridges
in the magazine here; and I am a dead shot at the present
distance at an object of your size.
CROFTS. Oh, you needn't be afraid.
touch you.
I'm not going to
FRANK. Ever so magnanimous of you under the circum-
stances! Thank you.
It may inter-
Allow me,
CROFTS. I'll just tell you this before I go.
est you, since you're so fond of one another.
Mister Frank, to introduce you to your half-sister, the eldest
daughter of the Reverend Samuel Gardner. Miss Vivie:
your half-brother. Good morning. (He goes out through
the gate and along the road.)
FRANK (after a pause of stupefaction, raising the rifle).
You'll testify before the coroner that it's an accident, Viv.
(He takes aim at the retreating figure of Crofts. Vivie
seizes the muzzle and pulls it round against her breast.)
VIVIE. Fire now.
You may.
FRANK (dropping his end of the rifle hastily). Stop! take
care. (She lets it go. It falls on the turf.) Oh, you've
given your little boy such a turn. Suppose it had gone off--
ugh! (He sinks on the garden seat, overcome.)
VIVIE. Suppose it had: do you think it would not have
64
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act III
been a relief to have some sharp physical pain tearing through
me?
FRANK (coaxingly). Take it ever so easy, dear Viv.
Remember: even if the rifle scared that fellow into telling
the truth for the first time in his life, that only makes us the
babes in the wood in earnest. (He holds out his arms to
ber.) Come and be covered up with leaves again.
VIVIE (with a cry of disgust). Ah, not that, not that.
You make all my flesh creep.
FRANK. Why, what's the matter?
VIVIE. Good-bye. (She makes for the gate.)
FRANK (jumping up).
turns in the gateway.)
shall we find you?
Hallo! Stop! Viv! Viv! (She
Where are you going to? Where
/ VIVIE. At Honoria Fraser's chambers, 67 Chancery Lane,
for the rest of my life. (She goes off quickly in the opposite
direction to that taken by Crofts.)
FRANK. But I say—wait-dash it! (He runs after her).
ACT IV
Honoria Fraser's chambers in Chancery Lane. An office
at the top of New Stone Buildings, with a plate-glass window,
distempered walls, electric light, and a patent stove. Satur-
day afternoon. The chimneys of Lincoln's Inn and the west-
ern sky beyond are seen through the window. There is a
double writing table in the middle of the room, with a cigar
box, ash pans, and a portable electric reading lamp almost
snowed up in heaps of papers and books. This table has knee
holes and chairs right and left and is very untidy. The
clerk's desk, closed and tidy, with its high stool, is against the
wall, near a door communicating with the inner rooms.
the opposite wall is the door leading to the public corridor.
Its upper panel is of opaque glass, lettered in black on the out-
side, "Fraser and Warren." A baize screen hides the
corner between this door and the window.
In
Frank, in a fashionable light-colored coaching suit, with his
stick, gloves, and white hat in his hands, is pacing up and
down the office. Somebody tries the door with a key.
FRANK (calling). Come in. It's not locked.
(Vivie comes in, in her hat and jacket. She stops and stares
at him.)
VIVIE (sternly). What are you doing here?
FRANK. Waiting to see you.
I've been here for hours.
Is this the way you attend to your business? (He puts his
hat and stick on the table, and perches himself with a vault on
the clerk's stool, looking at her with every appearance of being
in a specially restless, teasing, flippant mood.)
66
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE. I've been away exactly twenty minutes for a cup
of tea. (She takes off her hat and jacket and hangs them up
behind the screen.) How did you get in?
FRANK. The staff had not left when I arrived. He's
gone to play football on Primrose Hill. Why don't you
employ a woman, and give your sex a chance?
VIVIE. What have you come for?
FRANK (springing off the stool and coming close to her).
Viv: let's go and enjoy the Saturday half-holiday some-
where, like the staff. What do you say to Richmond, and
then a music hall, and a jolly supper?
VIVIE. Can't afford it. I shall put in another six hours'
work before I go to bed.
FRANK. Can't afford it, can't we? Aha! Look here.
(He takes out a handful of sovereigns and makes them chink.)
Gold, Viv, gold!
VIVIE. Where did you get it?
FRANK. Gambling, Viv, gambling. Poker.
VIVIE. Pah! It's meaner than stealing it. No: I'm not
coming. (She sits down to work at the table, with her back
to the glass door, and begins turning over the papers.)
FRANK (remonstrating piteously). But, my dear Viv, I
want to talk to you ever so seriously.
VIVIE. Very well: sit down in Honoria's chair and talk
here. I like ten minutes' chat after tea. (He murmurs.)
No use groaning: I'm inexorable. (He takes the opposite
seat disconsolately.) Pass that cigar box, will you?
FRANK (pushing the cigar box across).
habit. Nice men don't do it any longer.
Nasty womanly
VIVIE. Yes: they object to the smell in the office; and
we've had to take to cigarets. See! (She opens the box
and takes out a cigaret, which she lights. She offers him one;
but he shakes his head with a wry face. She settles herself
comfortably in her chair, smoking.) Go ahead.
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
67
FRANK. Well, I want to know what you've done—what
arrangements you've made.
VIVIE. Everything was settled twenty minutes after I
arrived here. Honoria has found the business too much for
her this year; and she was on the point of sending for me
and proposing a partnership when I walked in and told her
I hadn't a farthing in the world. So I installed myself and
packed her off for a fortnight's holiday. What happened
at Haslemere when I left?
FRANK. Nothing at all. I said you'd gone to town on
particular business.
VIVIE. Well?
FRANK. Well, either they were too flabbergasted to say
anything, or else Crofts had prepared your mother. Any-
how, she didn't say anything; and Crofts didn't say anything;
and Praddy only stared. After tea they got up and went;
and I've not seen them since.
VIVIE (nodding placidly with one eye on a wreath of smoke).
That's all right.
FRANK (looking round disparagingly). Do you intend to
stick in this confounded place?
VIVIE (blowing the wreath decisively away and sitting
straight up). Yes. These two days have given me back
all my strength and self-possession. I will never take a
holiday again as long as I live.
FRANK (with a very wry face). Mps! You look quite
happy-and as hard as nails.
VIVIE (grimly). Well for me that I am!
FRANK (rising). Look here, Viv: we must have an expla-
nation. We parted the other day under a complete misun-
derstanding.
VIVIE (putting away the cigaret). Well: clear it up.
FRANK. You remember what Crofts said?
VIVIE. Yes.
68
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
FRANK. That revelation was supposed to bring about a
complete change in the nature of our feeling for one another.
It placed us on the footing of brother and sister.
VIVIE. Yes.
FRANK. Have you ever had a brother?
VIVIE. No.
FRANK. Then you don't know what being brother and
sister feels like? Now I have lots of sisters: Jessie and
Georgina and the rest. The fraternal feeling is quite fa-
miliar to me; and I assure you my feeling for you is not the
least in the world like it. The girls will go their way; I
will go mine; and we shan't care if we
another again. That's brother and sister.
I can't be easy if I have to pass a week without seeing you.
That's not brother and sister. It's exactly what I felt
an hour before Crofts made his revelation. In short, dear
Viv, it's love's young dream.

never see one
But as to you,
VIVIE (bitingly). The same feeling, Frank, that brought
your father to my mother's feet. Is that it?
FRANK (revolted). I very strongly object, Viv, to have
my feelings compared to any which the Reverend Samuel is
capable of harboring; and I object still more to a comparison
of you to your mother. Besides, I don't believe the story.
I have taxed my father with it, and obtained from him what
I consider tantamount to a denial.
VIVIE. What did he say?
FRANK. He said he was sure there must be some mistake.
VIVIE. Do you believe him?
FRANK. I am prepared to take his word as against Crofts'.
VIVIE. Does it make any difference? I mean in your
imagination or conscience; for of course it makes no real
difference.
FRANK (shaking his head). None whatever to me.
VIVIE. Nor to me.
FRANK (staring). But this is ever so surprising! I thought
Act IV Mrs. Warren's Profession
69
our whole relations were altered in your imagination and
conscience, as you put it, the moment those words were out
of that brute's muzzle.
VIVIE. No: it was not that. I didn't believe him. I
only wish I could.
FRANK. Eh?
VIVIE. I think brother and sister would be a very suitable
relation for us.
FRANK. You really mean that?
VIVIE. Yes. It's the only relation I care for, even if we
could afford any other. I mean that.
FRANK (raising his eyebrows like one on whom a new light
bas dawned, and speaking with quite an effusion of chivalrous
sentiment). My dear Viv: why didn't you say so before? I
am ever so sorry for persecuting you. I understand, of
course.
VIVIE (puzzled). Understand what?
FRANK. Oh, I'm not a fool in the ordinary sense-only
in the Scriptural sense of doing all the things the wise man
declared to be folly, after trying them himself on the most
extensive scale. I see I am no longer Vivvums' little boy.
Don't be alarmed: I shall never call you Vivvums again-
at least unless you get tired of your new little boy, whoever
he may be.
VIVIE. My new little boy!
FRANK (with conviction). Must be a new little boy.
Always happens that way. No other way, in fact.
VIVIE. None that you know of, fortunately for you.
(Someone knocks at the door.)
FRANK. My curse upon yon caller, whoe'er he be!
VIVIE. It's Praed. He's going to Italy and wants to say
good-bye. I asked him to call this afternoon.
him in.
Go and let
FRANK. We can continue our conversation after his de-
parture for Italy. I'll stay him out. (He goes to the door
70
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act IV
and opens it.) How are you, Praddy? Delighted to see
you. Come in. (Praed, dressed for travelling, comes in,
in high spirits, excited by the beginning of his journey.)
PRAED. How do you do, Miss Warren. (She presses his
hand cordially, though a certain sentimentality in his high
spirits jars on her.) I start in an hour from Holborn Via-
duct. I wish I could persuade you to try Italy.
VIVIE. What for?
PRAED. Why, to saturate yourself with beauty and
romance, of course. (Vivie, with a shudder, turns her chair
to the table, as if the work waiting for her there were a
consolation and support to her. Praed sits opposite to her.
Frank places a chair just behind Vivie, and drops lazily and
carelessly into it, talking at her over his shoulder.)
FRANK. No use, Praddy. Viv is a little Philistine. She
is indifferent to my romance, and insensible to my beauty.
VIVIE. Mr. Praed: once for all, there is no beauty and
no romance in life for me. Life is what it is; and I am
prepared to take it as it is.
PRAED (enthusiastically). You will not say that if you
come to Verona and on to Venice. You will cry with
Keep
Keep it up.
delight at living in such a beautiful world.
FRANK. This is most eloquent, Praddy.
PRAED. Oh, I assure you I have cried-I shall cry again,
I hope at fifty! At your age, Miss Warren, you would
not need to go so far as Verona. Your spirits would abso-
lutely fly up at the mere sight of Ostend. You would be
charmed with the gaiety, the vivacity, the happy air of
Brussels. (Vivie recoils.) What's the matter?
FRANK. Hallo, Viv!
VIVIE (to Praed with deep reproach).
Can you find no
better example of your beauty and romance than Brussels
to talk to me about?
PRAED (puzzled). Of course it's very different from
Verona. I don't suggest for a moment that----
Act IV Mrs. Warren's Profession
71
VIVIE (bitterly). Probably the beauty and romance come
to much the same in both places.
PRAED (completely sobered and much concerned). My dear
Miss Warren: I-(looking enquiringly at Frank) Is any-
thing the matter?
FRANK. She thinks your enthusiasm frivolous, Praddy.
She's had ever such a serious call.
VIVIE (sharply). Hold your tongue, Frank. Don't be
silly.
FRANK (calmly). Do you call this good manners, Praed?
PRAED (anxious and considerate). Shall I take him away,
Miss Warren? I feel sure we have disturbed you at your
work. (He is about to rise.)
VIVIE. Sit down: I'm not ready to go back to work yet.
You both think I have an attack of nerves. Not a bit of
it. But there are two subjects I want dropped, if you don't
mind. One of them (to Frank) is love's young dream in
any shape or form: the other (to Praed) is the romance and
beauty of life, especially as exemplified by the gaiety of
Brussels. You are welcome to any illusions you may have
left on these subjects: I have none. If we three are to
remain friends, I must be treated as a woman of business,
permanently single (to Frank) and permanently unromantic
(to Praed).
FRANK. I also shall remain permanently single until you
change your mind. Praddy: change the subject. Be eloquent
about something else.
PRAED (diffidently). I'm afraid there's nothing else in the
world that I can talk about. The Gospel of Art is the
only one I can preach. I know Miss Warren is a great
devotee of the Gospel of Getting On; but we can't discuss.
that without hurting your feelings, Frank, since you are
determined not to get on.
FRANK. Oh, don't mind my feelings. Give me some
improving advice by all means; it does me ever so much
72
Mrs. Warren's Profession Act IV
good. Have another try to make a successful man of me,
Viv. Come: let's have it all: energy, thrift, foresight,
self-respect, character. Don't you hate people who have
no character, Viv?
VIVIE (wincing).
of that horrible cant.
Oh, stop: stop: let us have no more
Mr. Praed: if there are really only
those two gospels in the world, we had better all kill our-
selves; for the same taint is in both, through and through.
FRANK (looking critically at her). There is a touch of
poetry about you to-day, Viv, which has hitherto been
lacking.
PRAED (remonstrating). My dear Frank: aren't you a
little unsympathetic?
VIVIE (merciless to herself). No: it's good for me. It
keeps me from being sentimental.
FRANK (bantering her). Checks your strong natural pro-
pensity that way, don't it?
VIVIE (almost hysterically). Oh, yes: go on: don't spare
me. I was sentimental for one moment in my life-beau-
tifully sentimental-by moonlight; and now-
FRANK (quickly). I say, Viv: take care. Don't give your-
self away.
You had better
You are very old-
VIVIE. Oh, do you think Mr. Praed does not know all
about my mother? (Turning on Praed.)
have told me that morning, Mr. Praed.
fashioned in your delicacies, after all.
PRAED. Surely it is you who are a little old-fashioned in
your prejudices, Miss Warren. I feel bound to tell you,
speaking as an artist, and believing that the most intimate
human relationships are far beyond and above the scope of
the law, that though I know that your mother is an unmar-
ried woman, I do not respect her the less on that account.
I respect her more.
FRANK (airily). Hear, hear!
VIVIE (staring at him). Is that all you know?.
Act IV Mrs. Warren's Profession
73
PRAED. Certainly that is all.
VIVIE. Then you neither of you know anything. Your
guesses are innocence itself compared to the truth.
PRAED (startled and indignant, preserving his politeness
with an effort). I hope not. (More emphatically.) I hope
not, Miss Warren. (Frank's face shows that he does not
share Praed's incredulity. Vivie utters an exclamation of
impatience. Praed's chivalry droops before their conviction.
He adds, slowly) If there is anything worse-that is, any-
thing else are you sure you are right to tell us, Miss
Warren?
VIVIE. I am sure that if I had the courage I should spend
the rest of my life in telling it to everybody-in stamping
and branding it into them until they felt their share in its
shame and horror as I feel mine. There is nothing I
despise more than the wicked convention that protects these
things by forbidding a woman to mention them.
And yet I
can't tell you.
The two infamous words that describe what
my mother is are ringing in my ears and struggling on my
tongue; but I can't utter them: my instinct is too strong
me. (She buries her face in her hands.
The two men,
astonished, stare at one another and then at her. She raises
her head again desperately and takes a sheet of paper and a
pen.) Here: let me draft you a prospectus.
for
FRANK. Oh, she's mad. Do you hear, Viv, mad. Come:
pull yourself together.
VIVIE. You shall see. (She writes.)
"Paid up capital:
not less than £40,000 standing in the name of Sir George
Crofts, Baronet, the chief shareholder."
What comes
next?—I forget. Oh, yes: "Premises at Brussels, Berlin,
Vienna and Buda-Pesth. Managing director: Mrs. War-
ren;" and now don't let us forget her qualifications: the
two words. There! (She pushes the paper to them.) Oh,
no: don't read it: don't! (She snatches it back and tears it
to pieces; then seizes her head in her hands and hides her face
74
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
on the table.
Frank, who has watched the writing carefully
over her shoulder, and opened his eyes very widely at it, takes
a card from his pocket; scribbles a couple of words; and silently
hands it to Praed, who looks at it with amazement. Frank
then remorsefully stoops over Vivie.)
FRANK (whispering tenderly). Viv, dear: that's all right.
I read what you wrote: so did Praddy.
We understand.
And we remain, as this leaves us at present, yours ever so
devotedly. (Vivie slowly raises her head.)
PRAED. We do, indeed, Miss Warren.
I declare you are
the most splendidly courageous woman I ever met. (This
sentimental compliment braces Vivie. She throws it away
from her with an impatient shake, and forces herself to stand
up, though not without some support from the table.)
FRANK. Don't stir, Viv, if you don't want to. Take it
easy.
VIVIE. Thank you. You can always depend on me for
two things, not to cry and not to faint. (She moves a few
steps towards the door of the inner rooms, and stops close to
Praed to say) I shall need much more courage than that
when I tell my mother that we have come to the parting of
the ways.
Now I must go into the next room for a
moment to make myself neat again, if you don't mind.
PRAED. Shall we go away?
VIVIE. No: I'll be back presently. Only for a moment.
(She goes into the other room, Praed opening the door for her.)
PRAED. What an amazing revelation! I'm extremely dis-
appointed in Crofts: I am indeed.
FRANK. I'm not in the least. I feel he's perfectly accounted
for at last. But what a facer for me, Praddy! I can't
marry her now.
PRAED (sternly). Frank! (The two look at one another,
Frank unruffled, Praed deeply indignant.) Let me tell you,
Gardner, that if you desert her now you will behave very
despicably.
Act IV Mrs. Warren's Profession
75
FRANK. Good old Praddy! Ever chivalrous! But you
mistake: it's not the moral aspect of the case: it's the money
aspect. I really can't bring myself to touch the old woman's
money now?
PRAED. And was that what you were going to marry on?
FRANK. What else? I haven't any money, nor the small-
If I married Viv now she would
est turn for making it.
have to support me; and I should cost her more than I am
worth,
PRAED. But surely a clever, bright fellow like you can
make something by your own brains.
FRANK. Oh, yes, a little. (He takes out his money again.)
I made all that yesterday-in an hour and a half. But I
made it in a highly speculative business. No, dear Praddy:
even if Jessie and Georgina marry millionaires and the gov-
ernor dies after cutting them off with a shilling, I shall have
only four hundred a year. And he won't die until he's
three score and ten: he hasn't originality enough. I shall
be on short allowance for the next twenty years.
No short
allowance for Viv, if I can help it. I withdraw gracefully
and leave the field to the gilded youth of England. So that's
settled. I shan't worry her about it: I'll just send her
a little note after we're gone.
She'll understand.
PRAED (grasping his hand). Good fellow, Frank!
heartily beg your pardon. But must you never see her again?
FRANK. Never see her again! Hang it all, be reasonable.
I shall come along as often as possible, and be her brother.
I cannot understand the absurd consequences you romantic
people expect from the most ordinary transactions. (A
knock at the door.) I wonder who this is.
Would you
mind opening the door? If it's a client
If it's a client it will look more
respectable than if I appeared.
I
PRAED. Certainly. (He goes to the door and opens it.
Frank sits down in Vivie's chair to scribble a note.) My
dear Kitty: come in, come in.
76
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
(Mrs. Warren comes in, looking apprehensively round for
Vivie. She has done her best to make herself matronly and
dignified. The brilliant hat is replaced by a sober bonnet,
and the gay blouse covered by a costly black silk mantle. She
is pitiably anxious and ill at ease-evidently panic-stricken.)
MRS. WARREN (to Frank). What! You're here, are
you?
FRANK (turning in his chair from his
rising.) Here, and charmed to see you.
breath of spring.
writing, but not
You come like a
MRS. Warren. Oh, get out with your nonsense. (In a
low voice.) Where's Vivie?
(Frank points expressively to the door of the inner room, but
says nothing.)
MRS. WARREN (sitting down suddenly and almost beginning
to cry). Praddy: won't she see me, don't you think?
PRAED. My dear Kitty: don't distress yourself. Why
should she not?
MRS. WARREN. Oh, you never can see why not: you're
too amiable. Mr. Frank: did she say anything to you?
frank (folding his note). She must see you, if (very
expressively) you wait until she comes in.
MRS. WARREN (frightened). Why shouldn't I wait?
(Frank looks quizzically at her; puts his note carefully on
the ink-bottle, so that Vivie cannot fail to find it when next
she dips her pen; then rises and devotes his attention entirely
to her.)
FRANK. My dear Mrs. Warren: suppose you were a
sparrow-ever so tiny and pretty a sparrow hopping in the
roadway - and you saw
and you saw a steam roller coming in your
direction, would you wait for it?
MRS. WARREN. Oh, don't bother me with your sparrows.
What did she run away from Haslemere like that for?
FRANK. I'm afraid she'll tell you if you wait until she
comes back.
Act IV
77
Mrs. Warren's Profession
MRS. WARREN. Do you want me to go away?
FRANK. No. I always want you to stay. But I advise
you to go away.
MRS. WARREN. What! And never see her again!
FRANK. Precisely.
MRS. WARREN (crying again). Praddy: don't let him be
cruel to me. (She hastily checks her tears and wipes her
eyes.) She'll be so angry if she sees I've been crying.
FRANK (with a touch of real compassion in his airy tender-
ness). You know that Praddy is the soul of kindness, Mrs.
Warren. Praddy: what do you say? Go or stay?
PRAED (to Mrs. Warren). I really should be very sorry
to cause you unnecessary pain; but I think perhaps you
had better not wait. The fact is~(Vivie is heard at the
inner door.)
FRANK. Sh! Too late. She's coming.
MRS. WARREN. Don't tell her I was crying. (Vivie comes
in. She stops gravely on seeing Mrs. Warren, who greets
her with hysterical cheerfulness.) Well, dearie. So here
you are at last.
VIVIE. I am glad you have come: I want to speak to you.
You said you were going, Frank, I think.
FRANK. Yes. Will you come with me, Mrs. Warren?
What do you say to a trip to Richmond, and the theatre
in the evening? There is safety in Richmond.
No steam
roller there.
go.
VIVIE. Nonsense, Frank. My mother will stay here.
MRS. WARREN (scared). I don't know: perhaps I'd better
We're disturbing you at your work.
VIVIE (with quiet decision).
away. Sit down, mother.
PRAED. Come, Frank.
VIVIE (shaking hands).
Mr. Praed: please take Frank
(Mrs. Warren obeys helplessly.)
Good-bye, Miss Vivie.
Good-bye. A pleasant trip.
PRAED. Thank you: thank you. I hope so.
FRANK (to Mrs. Warren). Good-bye: you'd ever so
78
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
much better have taken my advice. (He shakes hands with
ber. Then airily to Vivie) Bye-bye, Viv.
/VIVIE. Good-bye. (He goes out gaily without shaking
bands with her. Praed follows. Vivie, composed and ex-
tremely grave, sits down in Honoria's chair, and waits for
her mother to speak. Mrs. Warren, dreading a pause, loses
no time in beginning.)
MRS. WARREN. Well, Vivie, what did you go away like
that for without saying a word to me? How could you do
such a thing! And what have you done to poor George?
I wanted him to come with me; but he shuffled out of it.
I could see that he was quite afraid of you. Only fancy:
he wanted me not to come. As if (trembling) I should be
afraid of you, dearie. (Vivie's gravity deepens.) But of
course I told him it was all settled and comfortable between
us, and that we were on the best of terms. (She breaks
down.) Vivie: what's the meaning of this? (She produces
a paper from an envelope; comes to the table; and hands it
across.) I got it from the bank this morning.
VIVIE. It is my month's allowance. They sent it to me
as usual the other day. I simply sent it back to be placed
to your credit, and asked them to send you the lodgment
receipt. In future I shall support myself.
MRS.
Wasn't it
WARREN (not daring to understand).
enough? Why didn't you tell me? (With a cunning gleam
in her eye.) I'll double it: I was intending to double it.
Only let me know how much you want.
VIVIE. You know very well that that has nothing to do
with it. From this time I go my own way in my own
business and among my own friends. And you will go
yours. (She rises.) Good-bye.
MRS. WARREN (appalled). Good-bye?
VIVIE. Yes: good-bye. Come: don't let us make a use-
less scene: you understand perfectly well. Sir George Crofts
has told me the whole business.
Act IV
79
Mrs. Warren's Profession
1
MRS. WARREN (angrily). Silly old- (She swallows an
epithet, and turns white at the narrowness of her escape from
uttering it.) He ought to have his tongue cut out. But I
explained it all to you; and you said you didn't mind.
You ex-
VIVIE (steadfastly). Excuse me: I do mind.
plained how it came about. That does not alter it.
(Mrs. Warren, silenced for a moment, looks forlornly at
Vivie, who waits like a statue, secretly hoping that the combat
is over. But the cunning expression comes back into Mrs.
Warren's face; and she bends across the table, sly and urgent,
half whispering.)
MRS. WARREN. Vivie: do you know how rich I am?
VIVIE. I have no doubt you are very rich.
MRS. WARREN. But you don't know all that that means:
you're too young. It means a new dress every day; it
means theatres and balls every night; it means having the
pick of all the gentlemen in Europe at your feet; it means a
lovely house and plenty of servants; it means the choicest of
eating and drinking; it means everything you like, every-
thing you want, everything you can think of. And what
are you here? A mere drudge, toiling and moiling early
and late for your bare living and two cheap dresses a year.
Think over it. (Soothingly.) You're shocked, I know. I
can enter into your feelings; and I think they do you credit;
but trust me, nobody will blame you: you may take my
word for that. I know what young girls are; and I know
you'll think better of it when you've turned it over in your
mind.
VIVIE. So that's how it's done, is it? You must have said
all that to many a woman, mother, to have it so pat.
MRS. WARREN (passionately). What harm am I asking you
to do? (Vivie turns away contemptuously.
Mrs. Warren
follows her desperately.) Vivie: listen to me: you don't
understand: you've been taught wrong on purpose: you
don't know what the world is really like.
80
Mrs. Warren's Profession
VIVIE (arrested). Taught wrong on purpose!
you mean?
Act IV
What do
MRS. WARREN. I mean that you're throwing away all your
chances for nothing. You think that people are what they
pretend to be—that the way you were taught at school and
college to think right and proper is the way things really are.
But it's not: it's all only a pretence, to keep the cowardly,
slavish, common run of people quiet. Do you want to find
that out, like other women, at forty, when you've thrown
yourself away and lost your chances; or won't you take it in
good time now from your own mother, that loves you and
swears to you that it's truth-gospel truth? (Urgently.)
Vivie: the big people, the clever people, the managing
people, all know it. They do as I do, and think what I
think. I know plenty of them. I know them to speak to,
to introduce you to, to make friends of for you. I don't
mean anything wrong: that's what you don't understand:
your head is full of ignorant ideas about me. What do the
people that taught you know about life or about people like
me? When did they ever meet me, or speak to me, or let
anyone tell them about me?-the fools! Would they ever
have done anything for you if I hadn't paid them? Haven't
I told you that I want you to be respectable? Haven't I
brought you up to be respectable? And how can you keep
it up without my money and my influence and Lizzie's
friends? Can't you see that you're cutting your own throat
as well as breaking my heart in turning your back on me?
VIVIE. I recognise the Crofts philosophy of life, mother.
I heard it all from him that day at the Gardners'.
MRS. WARREN. You think I want to force that played-out
old sot on you! I don't, Vivie: on my oath I don't.
VIVIE. It would not matter if you did: you would not
succeed. (Mrs. Warren winces, deeply hurt by the implied
indifference towards her affectionate intention. Vivie, neither
understanding this nor concerning herself about it, goes on
Act IV Mrs. Warren's Profession
81
I am.
calmly) Mother: you don't at all know the sort of person
I don't object to Crofts more than to any other
coarsely built man of his class. To tell you the truth, I
rather admire him for being strong-minded enough to enjoy
himself in his own way and make plenty of money instead
of living the usual shooting, hunting, dining-out, tailoring,
loafing life of his set merely because all the rest do it. And
I'm perfectly aware that if I'd been in the same circum-
stances as my aunt Liz, I'd have done exactly what she did.
I don't think I'm more prejudiced or straitlaced than you:
I think I'm less. I'm certain I'm less sentimental.
know very well that fashionable morality is all a pretence:
and that if I took your money and devoted the rest of my
life to spending it fashionably, I might be as worthless and
vicious as the silliest woman could possibly want to be with-
out having a word said to me about it. But I don't want
to be worthless. I shouldn't enjoy trotting about the park to
advertise my dressmaker and carriage builder, or being bored
at the opera to show off a shop windowful of diamonds.
MRS. WARREN (bewildered). But—
I
VIVIE. Wait a moment: I've not done. Tell me why
you continue your business now that you are independent
of it. Your sister, you told me, has left all that behind
her. Why don't you do the same?
MRS. WARREN. Oh, it's all very easy for Liz: she likes
good society, and has the air of being a lady. Imagine me
in a cathedral town! Why, the very rooks in the trees
would find me out even if I could stand the dulness of it.
I must have work and excitement, or I should go melan-
choly mad.
And what else is there for me to do? The
life suits me: I'm fit for it and not for anything else. If I
didn't do it somebody else would; so I don't do any real
harm by it. And then it brings in money; and I like
making money. No: it's no use: I can't give it up-not
for anybody. But what need you know about it? I'll
82
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Act IV
never mention it. I'll keep Crofts away. I'll not trouble
you much: you see I have to be constantly running about
from one place to another. You'll be quit of me altogether
when I die.
VIVIE. No: I am my mother's daughter. I am like you:
I must have work, and must make more money than I
spend. But my work is not your work, and my way not
your way. We must part.
It will not make much differ-
ence to us: instead of meeting one another for perhaps a
few months in twenty years, we shall never meet: that's all.
MRS. WARREN (her voice stifled in tears). Vivie: I meant
to have been more with you: I did indeed.
VIVIE. It's no use, mother: I am not to be changed by a
few cheap tears and entreaties any more than you are, I
dare say.
MRS. WARREN (wildly). Oh, you call a mother's tears
cheap.
VIVIE. They cost you nothing; and you ask me to give
you the peace and quietness of my whole life in exchange
for them. What use would my company be to you if you
could get it? What have we two in common that could
make either of us happy together?
MRS. WARREN (lapsing_recklessly into her dialect). We're
mother and daughter. I want my daughter. I've a right
to you.
Who is to care for me when I'm old? Plenty of
girls have taken to me like daughters and cried at leaving
me; but I let them all go because I had you to look forward
to. I kept myself lonely for you. You've no right to turn
on me now and refuse to do your duty as a daughter.
VIVIE (jarred and antagonized by the echo of the slums in
her mother's voice). My duty as a daughter! I thought we
should come to that presently. Now once for all, mother,
you want a daughter and Frank wants a wife. I don't want
a mother; and I don't want a husband. I have spared
(
Act IV
83
Mrs. Warren's Profession
neither Frank nor myself in sending him about his business.
Do you think I will spare you?
MRS. WARREN (violently). Oh, I know the sort you are
no mercy for yourself or anyone else. I know. My ex-
perience has done that for me anyhow: I can tell the pious,
canting, hard, selfish woman when I meet her. Well,
keep yourself to yourself: I don't want you. But listen to
this. Do you know what I would do with you if you were
a baby again—aye, as sure as there's a Heaven above us?
VIVIE. Strangle me, perhaps.
MRS. WARREN. No: I'd bring you up to be a real daughter
to me, and not what you are now, with your pride and your
prejudices and the college education you stole from me-
yes, stole: deny it if you can: what was it but stealing? I'd
bring you up in my own house, so I would.
VIVIE (quietly). In one of your own houses.
MRS. WARREN (screaming). Listen to her! listen to how she
spits on her mother's grey hairs! Oh, may you live to have
your own daughter tear and trample on you as you have
trampled on me. And you will: you will. No woman
It only hardens
ever had luck with a mother's curse on her.
VIVIE. I wish you wouldn't rant, mother.
Come: I suppose I am the only young
ever had in your power that you did good to.
it all now.
me.
woman you
Don't spoil
MRS. WARREN. Yes. Heaven forgive me, it's true; and
you are the only one that ever turned on me. Oh, the
injustice of it, the injustice, the injustice! I always wanted
to be a good woman. I tried honest work; and I was
slave-driven until I cursed the day I ever heard of honest
work. I was a good mother; and because I made my
daughter a good woman she turns me out as if I was a leper.
Oh, if I only had my life to live over again! I'd talk to
that lying clergyman in the school. From this time forth,
84
Act IV
Mrs. Warren's Profession
so help me Heaven in my last hour, I'll do wrong and
nothing but wrong. And I'll prosper on it.
VIVIE. Yes: it's better to choose your line and go through
with it. If I had been you, mother, I might have done as
you did; but I should not have lived one life and believed
in another. You are a conventional woman at heart. That
is why I am bidding you good-bye now. I am right, am I
not?
MRS. WARREN (taken aback). Right to throw away all my
money!
VIVIE. No: right to get rid of you? I should be a fool
not to? Isn't that so?
MRS. WARREN (sulkily). Oh, well, yes, if you come to
that, I suppose you are. But Lord help the world if every-
body took to doing the right thing! And now I'd better go
than stay where I'm not wanted. (She turns to the door.)
VIVIE (kindly). Won't you shake hands?
MRS. WARREN (after looking at her fiercely for a moment
with a savage impulse to strike her). No, thank you.
Good-bye.
VIVIE (matter-of-factly). Good-bye. (Mrs. Warren goes
out, slamming the door behind her. The strain on Vivie's
face relaxes; her grave expression breaks up into one of joyous
content; her breath goes out in a half sob, half laugh of
intense relief. She goes buoyantly to her place at the writing-
table; pushes the electric lamp out of the way; pulls over a
great sheaf of papers; and is in the act of dipping her pen in
the ink when she finds Frank's note. She opens it unconcern-
edly and reads it quickly, giving a little laugh at some quaint
turn of expression in it.) And good-bye, Frank. (She
tears the note up and tosses the pieces into the wastepaper basket
without a second thought. Then she goes at her work with a
plunge, and soon becomes absorbed in her figures.)
THE END of Volume 1.
TWO WEEK BOOK

3 9015 00230 0476
Mamimi
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SEP
1988
: