Sydney Grundy

“ Not with laborious thought; but in one vivid flash I learned more than I ever learned at Oxford.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Really?
GERALD.
A woman! that is what one wants—that’s all. Birth, brains, accomplishments—pshaw! vanities! community of interest—sympathy of soul? mere dialectics! That’s not love.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
What is, then?
GERALD.
It defies analysis. You can’t put love into a crucible. You only know that there is something empty in you; and you don’t know what fills it; but that’s love. There’s no mistake about the real thing. ”

“ GERALD.
Not till I’ve told you how I love you, Margery. Seeing you again is breathing the pure air. It seems a younger and a sweeter world, now you have come again. Nothing else matters. All my life beside appears a folly and a waste of time. My real life was lived with you down yonder, out in the fields, and rambling through the woods and listening to the music of the weir. The life that we began together so pleasantly, cannot we live together to the end? I was quite honest when I said I loved you. And couldn’t you love me,—just a little bit? ”

“ GERALD.
Surely it is a promise.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
To an empty phrase must one sacrifice one’s life? Must one stake everything on the judgment of one’s youth? By the decision of a moment must one be bound for ever? Must one go through the world “with quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth?” Does one not owe a duty to oneself? There can be but one answer!
GERALD [absently] .
Margery! [Margery winces as if struck—quite serious now. Then with energy.] But, Agnes, Margery is impossible! She’s no companion to me! I am all alone! ”

“ MARGERY.
What chance have we? we, who love with our hearts! we, who are simply what God made us—women! we, to whom love is not a cult—a problem, but just as vital as the air we breathe. Take love away from us, and you take life itself. You have your books, your sciences, your brains! What have we?—nothing but our broken hearts!
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Broken hearts heal! The things that you call hearts! One love is dead, another takes its place; one man is lost, another man is found. What is the difference to a love like yours? Oh, there are always men for such women as you! ”

“ What! Captain Sylvester! you here, and Agnes not?
MARGERY.
Mrs. Sylvester is coming!
VICTORIA.
No need to apologize! A wife is just as much entitled to entertain another woman’s husband as a husband to entertain another man’s wife. You’re getting on, dear. That’s philosophy!
MARGERY.
Gerald is in the next room!
VICTORIA.
Then it’s not philosophy!
MARGERY.
I’ll go and wake him up.
[Exit, R.
VICTORIA.
Humph! [Sits.] Well, how long do you give it?
SYLVESTER.
Do you mean philosophy?
VICTORIA.
The Cazenove ménage. Another six months? These love-matches are honeymoon affairs. ”

“ MRS. SYLVESTER.
Oh, frankness, by all means.
GERALD.
Forgive me; but we’re face to face with truth. Don’t let us flinch from it. We have both made the same mistake—not in our marriages, but in despising them. What we want in a partner is what we lack in ourselves. [Pg 79] Not sympathy only, but sex. Strength requires gentleness, sweetness asks for light; and all that is womanly in woman wants all that is manly in man. You think your husband is no mate for you. What I have missed in Margery, have you not missed in him? ”

“ Oh, everything’s a question nowadays! Nothing is sacred to a young man fresh from Oxford. Existence is a problem to be investigated; in my youth, it was a life to be lived; and, I thank Heaven, I lived it. Ah, the nights I had!
SYLVESTER.
Would it be impertinent to inquire upon what subject my wife is engaged?
GERALD.
Our subject is the Ethics of Marriage.
SYLVESTER.
Of my marriage?
GERALD.
Of marriage in the abstract.
COLONEL.
As if people married for ethics! There is no such thing, sir. There are no ethics in marriage. ”

“ VICTORIA.
Why should a woman have children and a man have none?
ENID.
But a man has children!
DOCTOR.
Only vicariously.
VICTORIA.
Here’s Dr. Mary!
[Rushing up to Doctor. Enid has rushed up to the other side of her.
DOCTOR [pragmatically] .
But I am not without hope that, when the attention of science is directed to the unequal incidence of the burden of maternity, some method of re-adjustment may be devised.
LADY WARGRAVE [who has risen] .
Pardon me, ladies; but if you are about to consult your physician, you would no doubt prefer to be alone. ”

“ No, no; my love was real enough, and I love Margery still; but love doesn’t seem to bear the wear and tear of marriage—the hourly friction—the continual jar.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
There is no friction in true marriage, Gerald. You say you love your wife, and it is good and loyal of you to deceive yourself; but you can’t deceive me. Haven’t I made the same mistake myself? I was a thoughtless, inexperienced girl, Jack was a handsome, easy-going man. We married, and for a year or two we jogged along. But I grew up—the girl became a woman. ”

“ LADY WARGRAVE.
Remember, you are my niece.
MARGERY.
That’s what I do remember! [Murmurs continue.] I am Gerald’s wife! That’s what she doesn’t forgive me! [Addressing Mrs. Sylvester.] You call yourself a New [Pg 90] Woman—you’re not New at all. You’re just as old as Eve. You only want one thing—the one thing every woman wants—the one thing that no woman’s life’s worth living without! A true man’s love! Ah, if we all had that, there’d be no problem of the sexes then. ”

“ SYLVESTER.
Is it a challenge?
MARGERY.
Challenge or not, you shall! It is ignoble to desert her so! You are a coward to make love to me! If her love was unworthy, what is yours? Is it for you to cast a [Pg 96] stone at her? See! Read your letters! [Producing a packet.] Letters to me—love-letters! Letters to a woman you didn’t respect in her grief and persecuted in her loneliness—a woman who would have none of you—who tells you to your face you’re not a man! Your love’s an insult! ”

“ SYLVESTER.
I don’t think his wife is.
[Pg 49]
VICTORIA.
Ah, that will come in time; and when it does, I mean to take Margery in hand. She is neglected shamefully. She hasn’t discovered it yet, but all her friends have.
SYLVESTER.
They’re generally first in the field.
VICTORIA.
If a husband ignores his wife, the wife is entitled to ignore her husband. What would a man do under the same circumstances?
SYLVESTER.
Is not the question rather, what a man ought to do?
VICTORIA.
That is Utopian. We must take the world as we find it. ”

“ Oh, this eternal babble of the sexes! [Throws book down.] Why can’t a woman be content to be a woman? What does she want to make a beastly man of herself for?
SYLVESTER.
But my wife isn’t a woman.
COLONEL.
None of them are, my boy. A woman, who is a woman, doesn’t want to be anything else. These people are a sex of their own, Sylvester. They have invented a new gender. And to think my nephew’s one of them!
[Strides up and down, seizes another antimacassar and flings it into another corner.
[Pg 10]
SYLVESTER.
Oh, he’s young. Don’t despair! ”

“ GERALD.
Free to say how I love you—how I have always loved you! Yes, Margery, I loved you even then—then when I spoke those unjust, cruel words; but love’s so weird a thing it sometimes turns us against those we love. ”

“ GERALD.
Simplicity itself.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Of course you think so; but you don’t know women. The simple woman hasn’t yet been born. This isn’t love, Mr. Cazenove. This is the temporary victory of the baser side of your nature. The true alliance is the union of souls. ”

“ By degrees re-enter omnes, R., L., and C., gradually, except Gerald.
MARGERY.
But if the love is not dead? if it’s stolen? what is our lot then—ours, whose love’s alive? We, who’re not skilled to steal—who only want our own——
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Not skilled to steal! have you not stolen mine?
MARGERY.
I have one husband, and I want no other!
[Murmurs.
LADY WARGRAVE [restraining her] . ”

“ ENID.
Men always stand by one another, so should women. Agnes must be protected against herself!
COLONEL.
Then it’s herself, after all? I thought you meant my nephew.
ENID.
So I do. She is the moth—he is the candle.
COLONEL.
Really!——
ENID.
Oh, you men, you men! You’re all alike—at least, I won’t say all!
COLONEL.
Say all, say all! It really doesn’t matter!
ENID.
No, no, I won’t say all!
COLONEL.
You say so in your book!
ENID [pleased] .
You’ve read my book?
COLONEL [evading the question] .
“Man, the Betrayer?”
ENID.
Well, you know, Colonel, one has to paint with a broad brush. ”

“ After all, he’s my nephew, and I mean to knock the nonsense out of him.
SYLVESTER.
Colonel, you’re very proud of him; and you have every reason to be. From all I hear, few men have won more distinction at Oxford.
COLONEL [pleased] .
Proud of him? My dear Sylvester, that boy has more brains in his little finger than I have—gout. He takes after his aunt Caroline. You remember Caroline?
SYLVESTER.
Oh, I remember Lady Wargrave well.
COLONEL.
Wonderful woman, sir—a heart of gold—and a head—phew! Gerald takes after her. At Oxford, he carried everything before him.
SYLVESTER [laughing] . ”

“ LADY WARGRAVE.
Or isn’t!
The door L. is thrown open, and re-enter Dr. Mary, Enid, and Victoria, all talking, followed by Margery, who takes up her original position at the back.
DOCTOR.
“Obey,” forsooth!
VICTORIA.
To promise to love is ridiculous, for how can one control the mysterious expansions of the heart?
DOCTOR.
It is the brain that loves. A still more complicated mechanism. ”

“ MRS. SYLVESTER.
That is so like a man! Doesn’t say he’s coming home, and then expects six courses and a savoury!
GERALD.
There is a difference between cold mutton and six courses, to say nothing of the savoury.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
It is a fine distinction, and in no way affects the validity of my argument.
GERALD [smiling] .
You mean, of your statement.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Husbands are all alike. The ancient regarded his wife as a slave, the modern regards her as a cook.
GERALD.
Then they are not alike.
MRS. SYLVESTER [emphatically] .
A man thinks of nothing but his stomach. ”

“ LADY WARGRAVE.
There is another ceremony which, during a somewhat long career, you have systematically avoided.
COLONEL.
A mere sin of omission, which even now it is not too late to repair. I am a young man still——
LADY WARGRAVE.
Young man?
COLONEL.
Comparatively. And everything in the world is comparative. What cannot be undone in the past can at least be avoided in the future.
LADY WARGRAVE.
What is the matter with you, Theodore? You have suddenly become quite a moral martinet, and have developed such a severity of aspect that I scarcely know my own brother. ”

“ ENID.
I simply don’t believe it! You men exaggerate so! You make yourselves out to be so much worse than you are. Whereas we women pretend to be so much better. That’s the worst of us! We are such hypocrites! Oh, if you knew as much about women as I do——
[Pg 59]
COLONEL [aside, much interested] .
Now I’m going to hear something. [Meanwhile Margery has crept in, R., behind them. She flings her handkerchief over the Colonel’s eyes, and ties it in a knot behind his head, then skips away from him. Rising.] You rascal! It’s that Margery! I know it is! Where are you? ”

“ Sylvester’s husband. I belong to my wife, but my wife doesn’t belong to me. She is the property of the public. Directly I saw her photograph in a shop-window I realized the situation. People tell me I’ve a wife to be proud of; but they’re wrong. Mrs. Sylvester is not my wife; I am her husband.
COLONEL [taking up a book] .
This is what comes of educating women. We have created a Frankenstein. “Man, the Betrayer—A Study of the Sexes—By Enid Bethune.” ”

“ Miss Bethune, Miss Vivash.
Enter Enid and Victoria, in hot argument. They take opposite sides of the stage and continue the discussion without taking the slightest notice of anybody. Lady Wargrave looks from the one to the other in amazement. Exit Wells, door in flat.
ENID.
I can’t agree with you! Say what you will, I can’t agree with you!
VICTORIA.
That doesn’t alter the fact. A woman has just as much right to a latchkey as a man.
ENID.
But a man has no right to a latchkey. ”

“ But to pretend you loved me, when you didn’t—to let me go on thinking you were happy, when all the time you were regretting your mistake—not to tell me, and to tell someone else—oh, it was cruel, when I loved you so! ”

“ I beg your pardon. [Sits on the antimacassar, instantly springs up, and flings it into a corner. Points to that covering Sylvester’s chair.] Throw that thing away!
SYLVESTER.
All right. I’m used to ’em. We grow ’em at our house. [Looks round.] I might be sitting in my wife’s boudoir! Same furniture, same flowers, same photographs—hallo, that’s rather a pretty woman over there! ”

“ SYLVESTER.
They bring him to our house.
GERALD.
Nobody has done more for the Advancement of Woman.
SYLVESTER.
By making a public exhibition of the Decay of Man.
GERALD.
Sylvester, you’re a Philistine. I won’t ask you to stay.
[Pg 13]
SYLVESTER.
Man the Betrayer might be dangerous, amongst such foolish virgins.
COLONEL.
The danger would be all the other way. I am not sorry I shall have protection. My sister, Caroline, will be here at five.
GERALD.
Aunt Caroline! [A little nervously.]
COLONEL.
I came to announce her visit.
SYLVESTER.
Lady Wargrave has returned to England? ”

“ VICTORIA.
Pray, don’t move.
GERALD.
My aunt, Lady Wargrave. Colonel Cazenove.
DOCTOR.
These matters are best discussed openly. A morbid modesty has too long closed our eyes. But the day of awakening has come. Sylvester, in her “Aspirations after a Higher Morality,” Bethune, in her “Man, the Betrayer,” Vivash, in her “Foolish Virgins,” have postulated the sexual problem from every conceivable point of view ”