Arthur Wing Pinero

“ Leslie.
Oh, Irene!
Irene.
You have done your utmost to save me——!
Leslie.
No! I have not yet done my utmost. Janet! Janet!
[Janet rises from the sofa with an effort, and Leslie takes her by the hand.]
Leslie.
Look here! This poor child is a living sacrifice to a man whose history is a horrible chapter of dishonour. He is a man who preys upon the weak under [99] the mask of a false name; who stabs but has not the mercy to kill; and who leaves his victims to bleed to death in their hearts, slowly but surely.
Mrs. Stonehay.
I always feared this was a worthless girl. ”

“ Dunstan Renshaw.
Then everything altered. I love you—I love you! In all the world there is nothing for me but you—you make my day or my night by the opening or the closing of your eyes. There is nothing for me but you! I worship you!
[The man is heard again singing to the mandolin. Leslie shudders and tries to go.]
Dunstan Renshaw.
Don’t leave me! You won’t leave me! I can’t live away from you. Have mercy on me! Have mercy on me! Mercy! [He kneels to her.] I repent! [104] Help me to begin a new life! I’m young; I won’t die till I’ve made amends. ”

“ Murray, I am not laughing at Renshaw’s marriage, but it tickles me confoundedly to think that you, my Quixotic young friend, are to assist at laying the marble slab upon dear old Dunstan’s bachelor days—and nights.
Hugh Murray.
You mean that Mr. Renshaw is not, according to my qualification, an eligible husband for a pure honest-hearted woman?
Lord Dangars.
Oh, come, come, Mr. Murray, let us be men of the world. Renshaw’s a good fellow, just one of my own sort; that’s all I mean. [Hugh turns away impatiently.] May I beg to know who’s the lady? ”

“ Wilfrid Brudenell.
The older I grow the more positive I am that nothing in life takes any time to speak of. You’re born in no time, you’re married in no time, you live no time, you die in no time, you’re forgotten in no time——
Hugh Murray.
But you suffer all the time.
Wilfrid Brudenell.
Suffer! Leslie and I intend never to suffer. We sat up together late last night, hand in hand, and we entered into a compact that we’ll remain to each other simple, light-hearted boy and girl for ever and ever. That’s the way to be happy. Hark! [He opens the door.] Here they are! Hallo, Dunstan! ”

“ Do you think there is no moment when the accursed crop begins to rear its millions of heads above ground; when the rich man would give his wealth to be able to tread them back into the earth which rejects the foul load? To-day, you have robbed some honest man of a sweet companion!
Dunstan Renshaw.
Look here, Mr. Murray——!
Hugh Murray.
To-morrow, next week, next month, you may be happy—but what of the time when those wild oats thrust their ears through the very seams of the floor trodden by the wife whose respect you will have learned to covet! ”

“ Hugh Murray.
A man is a fool to bind himself to one who sooner or later must learn what little need there is to respect her husband.
Lord Dangars.
Why, my dear Mr. Murray, you’re actually putting men on a level with ladies. Ladies, I admit, are like nations—to be happy they should have no histories. But don’t you know that Marriage is the tomb of the Past, as far as a man is concerned? ”

“ Pinero succeeded in carrying out his idea or not, even the severest of his critics could not deny this play respectful consideration. “A real play at last,” cried one; “a faulty play with one faultless act,” was another’s summing-up after his first enthusiasm had cooled in the refrigerator of time; while yet a third recorded that “no original English play [xiv] produced on our stage for many a day has stirred its audience so deeply at the time of its representation, or has sent them home with so much to think over, to discuss and to remember.” ”

“ Dunstan Renshaw.
I’m very sorry. Shall we restore the perfection of our appearance before looking for Mrs. Renshaw?
[They go into the villa.]
Leslie.
Janet! Do you know that this is the man to whom Irene Stonehay is engaged to be married?
Janet Preece.
I—I’ve heard them speak of him; I never suspected who he was. Heaven pity her! He’ll kill her, body and soul.
Leslie.
No, no. It is you who must help me to save her.
Janet Preece.
I!
Leslie.
You must. If you do your utmost to rescue this weak woman from the dreadful life that is before her you’ll do something to make you happier in the future. ”

“ You may drag her into the crowded streets—there is the same vile growth [39] springing up from the chinks of the pavement! In your house or in the open, the scent of the mildewed grain always in your nostrils, and in your ears no music but the wind’s rustle amongst the fat sheaves! And, worst of all, your wife’s heart a granary bursting with the load of shame your profligacy has stored there! I warn you—Mr. Lawrence Kenward!
Dunstan Renshaw.
What! Hold your tongue, man; d——n you, hold your tongue!
[Leslie enters with Wilfrid and Cheal.] ”

“ Stonehay.
All new wives who have money and many domestic servants say that.
Leslie.
Ah, but I would, truly. Do you know what it is to suffer keenly from over-kindness?
Irene.
I thought that was a malady the Faculty had succeeded in stamping out.
Leslie.
I suppose it lingers yet in some odd old-world corners; it is within the crumbling walls of this Villa, for instance. My husband is too devoted to me. I fear to have a wish because I know he cannot rest till it is gratified. If I look here, or there, his dear eyes imitate mine; if I rise, he starts up; if I walk on, he follows me. ”

“ Stonehay.
Leaving this delightful villa!
Dunstan Renshaw.
Yes, the Villa Colobiano is delightful. At any rate Michael Angelo must have thought so at one time, when, in a moment of misapplied artistic ecstacy, he made his mark upon our wall.
Leslie.
Oh, yes, we’ve suffered dreadfully. Dunstan didn’t know when he took the Villa that it is honourably mentioned in Baedeker.
Dunstan Renshaw.
The irrepressible Tourists have made our life a martyrdom. With guide-book, green spectacles, and sun-umbrella, they look for traces of Michael Angelo in every corner of the house. ”

“ It was further urged that any right-minded young wife would have submissively accepted the situation in the true wisdom of modern cynicism, or that Dunstan Renshaw would have turned round upon her and with brutal frankness revealed to her that her disillusioning was only the common experience of all wives, and that she must bow to the inevitable and make no fuss. It was [xiii] laid down as law moreover that, as a leopard cannot change its spots, so can no man who has once lived evilly be influenced to a better, a purer life; that profligate once, profligate he must remain for evermore. ”

“ Leslie.
Say nothing, please, nothing.
Mrs. Stonehay.
We will say nothing. The passing ill-humours of a crochetty but not unamiable old woman are best forgotten. Ah, my dear, remember I am about to lose my daughter. But I have yet to make my [96] peace with our little friend here. You have been indisposed, my poor Janet? Let it be a lesson to you—never mistake firmness for unkindness. Don’t stand, in your weak state. [Janet sinks back upon the sofa.] I am positively in ecstasies, dear Mrs. Renshaw, to learn that Lord Dangars is to be a guest at the Villa Colobiano. ”

“ Blumenthal has shifted the action of the story into the salons of aristocratic Parisian society, and the strongly perfumed atmosphere of the bons-vivants and the grisettes of Paris, where comfort-loving fathers and guardians compare their marriage-hunting daughters or wards to ‘freckles,’ which (as the German Hugh Murray says) ‘scarcely got rid of, make their reappearance.’ The ornaments of the Boulevards are the main characters of the play, but the author (Blumenthal) nowhere disgusts a sensitive listener. ”

“ But the Manchester critics, though respectful in their attitude, were sparing in their praise. They complained that Mr. Pinero was neither Dumas nor Augior, compared him with Georges Ohnet, and found fault with his metaphors. And the playgoers of Cottonopolis were depressed, and bestowed such scant favour upon the play that Mr. Hare determined to occupy the last three nights of his engagement with a mirthful adaptation of “Les Surprises du Divorce,” and the Manchester folk then attended the theatre in their numbers, and laughed, and were happy again. ”

“ Janet Preece.
[To herself.] That’s with his mocking look as I last saw him. He is always mocking me now.
Hugh Murray.
[To himself.] I could do nothing—it’s too late—nothing. Shall I look now? No. What a coward I am! Yes. [He looks over Janet’s shoulder.] Renshaw! [He struggles against his agitation.] The wife! I must think of the wife. [To Janet.] My poor child, the most accurate portrait in the world is poor material towards hunting for a man in this labyrinth of London. ”

“ Then Hugh Murray, the serious-minded, lofty-natured lawyer, who can never restrain his tongue when he sees wrong-doing, but can be nobly, piteously silent when he must bury his love deep down in his lonely life until it nearly breaks the heart of him—he was found by certain critics to be impossibly unreal and even comic. It was discovered, too, that the office of Messrs. Cheal and Murray was in Furnival’s Inn, Fairyland—that such proceedings as were witnessed in that office could never have been possible in Holborn. ”

“ Hugh Murray.
I—I can’t undertake this search. It’s useless—it’s useless.
Janet Preece.
No, no—don’t refuse to help me! Your face says you are clever—it’s easy work for you. He isn’t in hiding; he is flaunting about in broad sunlight in your fine parks, maybe with another poor simple girl on his arm. Find him for me! He isn’t a murderer stealing along in the shadow of walls at night-time—he is only a betrayer of women, and men don’t hide for that!
Hugh Murray.
I—I’ll look through this bundle of papers. You shall hear from me to-morrow.
[He is showing Janet to the door when Wilfrid enters.] ”

“ Hugh Murray.
The license it permits itself!
Mr. Cheal.
You are bullying the world, Mr. Murray. I don’t attempt, sir, to be much wiser than the world.
Hugh Murray.
But it costs so small an effort to be a little better. I tell you I have stood by and heard this man Renshaw laughing over his excesses with the airs of a vicious school-boy.
Mr. Cheal.
Tut, tut, that’s all past. Marriage is the real beginning of a man’s life.
Hugh Murray.
No, sir, it is the end of it—what comes after is either heaven or hell.
[Ephgraves enters.]
Ephgraves.
Miss Brudenell is here with her maid and Mr. Wilfrid. ”

“ Stonehay.
Girl, do you mean that you know Mr. Renshaw?
[Dangars and Leslie turn to Dunstan, who is staring blankly before him with his hands clenched.]
[102]
Leslie.
Janet! Janet! [As the truth dawns upon her.] Oh!
Janet Preece.
Ah! What have I done to you! I’d have died to save you this. God forgive me! I’m not fit to live! Kill me! Kill me! Ah!
[She rushes down the garden steps, past Leslie, who is as one turned to stone.]
Mrs. Stonehay.
Lord Dangars, may I trespass upon your good nature so far as to beg your escort home? Poor Irene is naturally much distressed. ”

“ Pinero, in essaying to deal dramatically with a moral problem in a manner which, while neither cynical nor commonplace, should still be in touch with human sympathy and possible experience, appears to have deliberately set himself to conceive a group of characters, natural yet not ordinary, which should embody his ideals, and with a sufficient sense of actuality evolve the tragic recoil of sin, the dramatic pathos of innocence in contact with the irony of life, the exquisite influence of purity. ”

“ How dull sleeplessness makes me! How much could I regain of what I’ve lost! Why, she knows me—nothing can ever undo that—she knows me. Every day would be a dreary, hideous masquerade; every night a wakeful, torturing retrospect. ”

“ Stonehay.
[Rejoining them with Wilfrid.] Irene, we are forgetting our drive to Fiesole.
Dunstan Renshaw.
[To Leslie.] What’s the matter? Have I been away too long?
Leslie.
It is always too long when you are away.
[59]
Mrs. Stonehay.
Good-bye, dear Mrs. Renshaw.
Leslie.
[Distantly.] Good-bye.
Mrs. Stonehay.
My dear Mr. Renshaw, everything here is too charming!
Irene.
[To Leslie.] Forgive me. My life has made me bitter. Sometimes I am nearly mad.
Leslie.
Come and see me again, Irene. When you know my husband better you will realize how little your world has taught you. ”

“ Hugh Murray.
Yes. Why?
Wilfrid Brudenell.
To have the best fellow in the world for her husband.
Hugh Murray.
Look—they’re waiting for me. Good-bye.
Wilfrid Brudenell.
Good-bye. [He shakes hands with Hugh, who descends the steps.] No, I sha’n’t assist at Dun’s departure. [71] I’m afraid Les will cry, and I can’t bear to see a girl cry; it makes me feel so dreadfully queer in the chest. Dun is saying good-bye to her now. Oh, well now, she is a brick! She’s rolled her handkerchief into a ball and put it in her pocket. There’s Murray. In he gets! Away they go! Poor Leslie’s head is drooping. ”

“ Well, every man does on his wedding morning.
Lord Dangars.
All right. Do you think I want to assist at your wedding? You never came to hear my divorce case.
[Dangars leaves the office followed by Dunstan.]
Mr. Cheal.
Really, Mr. Murray, this is scarcely business-like.
Hugh Murray.
I think it is all cruelly business-like. Mr. Cheal, don’t you think it possible, even at this moment, to stop this marriage?
Mr. Cheal.
Stop the marriage! Good gracious, sir, for what reason?
Hugh Murray.
The marriage of a simple-minded trustful school-girl to a man of whom you know either too little or too much. ”