Mrs. Warren

“ My old Independent Theatre manager, Mr Grein, besides that reproach to me for shattering his ideals, complains that Mrs Warren is not wicked enough, and names several romancers who would have clothed her black soul with all the terrors of tragedy. I have no doubt they would; but if you please, my dear Grein, that is just what I did not want to do. Nothing would please our sanctimonious British public more than to throw the whole guilt of Mrs Warren's profession on Mrs Warren herself. Now the whole aim of my play is to throw that guilt on the British public itself. ”

“ 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? [He picks up the paper and sits down to read it] .
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. Thats what makes the real difference. Mrs Warren, no doubt, has her merits; but she’s ever so rowdy ”

“ These critics must know, too, from history if not from experience, that women as unscrupulous as Mrs Warren have distinguished themselves as administrators and rulers, both commercially and politically. But both observation and knowledge are left behind when journalists go to the theatre. Once in their stalls, they assume that it is “natural” for clergymen to be saintly, for soldiers to be heroic, for lawyers to be hard-hearted, for sailors to be simple and generous, for doctors to perform miracles with little bottles, and for Mrs Warren to be a beast and a demon. ”

“ 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 thats 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. ”

“ PRAED. Hush, pray. Theyre 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 dissimulation, turns gaily to Mrs Warren, exclaiming] Ever so delighted to see you, Mrs Warren. ”

“ MRS WARREN. Bring him in.
PRAED. All right. [To Frank] Will you accept the invitation?
FRANK [incredulous, but immensely amused] Is that Vivie’s mother?
PRAED. Yes.
FRANK. By Jove! What a lark! Do you think she’ll like me?
PRAED. I’ve no doubt youll make yourself popular, as usual. Come in and try [moving towards the house] .
FRANK. Stop a bit. [Seriously] I want to take you into my confidence.
PRAED. Pray don’t. It’s only some fresh folly, like the barmaid at Redhill.
FRANK. It’s ever so much more serious than that. You say you’ve only just met Vivie for the first time? ”

“ Warren it was going for her to be the last hour of fully conscious life—fully conscious and yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever, when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. ”

“ All that answer is quoted from Professor Rossiter's little book (Home University Library, "The Growth of the Human Mind") ."
Mrs. Warren: "Rossiter! Is that the man you're sweet on?"
Vivie: "Don't put it so coarsely. There is a great friendship between us. We belong to a later generation than you. A man and a woman can be friends now without becoming lovers."
Mrs. Warren: "Go on! Don't humbug me. Men and women's the same as when I was young. I'm sorry, all the same, dear girl. ”

“ Mrs Warren and Sir George Crofts arrive at the gate. Mrs Warren is between 40 and 50, formerly pretty, showily dressed in a brilliant hat and a gay blouse fitting tightly over her bust and flanked by fashionable sleeves. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 his place on the settle and puts his legs on the seat again, as if the matter were finally disposed of] .
FRANK [plaintively] This is ever so mercenary. Do 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. ”

“ The notion that Mrs Warren must be a fiend is only an example of the violence and passion which the slightest reference to sex arouses in undisciplined minds, and which makes it seem natural for our lawgivers to punish silly and negligible indecencies with a ferocity unknown in dealing with, for example, ruinous financial swindling. Had my play been titled Mr Warren’s Profession, and Mr Warren been a bookmaker, nobody would have expected me to make him a villain as well. Yet gambling is a vice, and bookmaking an institution, for which there is absolutely nothing to be said. ”

“ 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 his father] Youre not intellectual or artistic: are you pater? So take Praed home at once; and I'll stay here and entertain Mrs Warren. Youll 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 ”

“ She was an English lady who for purposes of business and may be of la haute politique chose to live in Belgium. She was a kind mistress and a generous patronne. Vivie as her daughter was assured of their respect, and by her polite behaviour won their liking as well.
"You know, Viv, old girl," said Mrs. Warren one day, "if you played your cards all right, this pretty place might be yours after I'd gone. Why don't yer pick up a decent husband somewhere and drop all this foolishness about the Suffragettes? ”

“ Warren's suggestion.
"Of that kind," with a troubled look; "but she is a married woman."
"She says she is a married woman."
"No. She does not say so, but she looks it. That's the chief feature of the case. Any woman bearing more obviously the stamp of respectable British matrimony than this one does, it has not fallen to me to look upon."
Mrs. Warren's expression was intriguée in the extreme. There was a freshness in this, at least. ”

“ I became his wife, only for protection from the insults of his people and the power of my people. But, I supposed you dead, Warren. Your servant told me he had seen you dashed to pieces over the Devil’s Tarn. Never, until the night you rescued Silvia from Black Bear, did I know you lived. And now you know my secret, my disgrace, Warren; so let me go.”
“No, Florence, you are mine. What you have done makes me love you all the stronger. It is no disgrace, it is only what a strong, brave and sensible woman would, and should have done under such trying circumstances.” ”

“ My dear Mrs. Warren, I am very sorry to tell you ... but I feel that it is my duty, as wife of your pastor ... to tell you that your daughter Betty has been seen very often,—that is, at least once—walking with this Doctor Hunter. Also, my dear Mrs. Warren, she accepts presents from him ... flowers and that sort of thing.
Mrs. Warren. Why, Betty hardly knows him!
Mrs. Pickering. That is just it. She hardly knows him ... nor do any of us. Also remember he is a married man, my dear Mrs. Warren, and very good looking ... and I really believe all good-looking people are bad, thoroughly bad. ”

“ Mrs Warren is not a whit a worse woman than the reputable daughter who cannot endure her. Her indifference to the ultimate social consequences of her means of making money, and her discovery of that means by the ordinary method of taking the line of least resistance to getting it, are too common in English society to call for any special remark. ”

“ 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 laborer, or even go into the factory?
MRS WARREN [indignantly] Of course not. What sort of mother do you take me for! How could you keep your self-respect in such starvation and slavery? And whats a woman worth? whats 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? ”

“ Are you equal to walking? If not perhaps this kind man would try to get us a cab...?"
But Mrs. Warren said it was no distance, only round the corner, and she could well walk. When they got back she would go and lie down. Vivie, reading her mother's thoughts, pressed a five-franc note into the gardener's not reluctant palm, and they regained the Rue Royale.
But just as they were passing through the revolving door of the Hotel Impérial, a German who had been installed as manager came up with two soldiers and said explosively: "Heraus! Foutez-nous le camp! Aout you go! ”

“ The degrees in infamy are as numerous and as scrupulously observed as the degrees in the peerage: the moralist’s notion that there are depths at which the moral atmosphere ceases is as delusive as the rich man’s notion that there are no social jealousies or snobberies among the very poor. No: had I drawn Mrs Warren as a fiend in human form, the very people who now rebuke me for flattering her would probably be the first to deride me for deducing her character logically from occupation instead of observing it accurately in society. ”

“ PRAED. But young people are particularly sensitive about being treated in that way.
MRS WARREN. Yes; and young people have to get all that nonsense taken out of them, and good deal more besides. Don't you interfere, Praddy: I know how to treat my own child as well as you do. [Praed, with a grave shake of his head, walks up the garden with his hands behind his back. Mrs Warren pretends to laugh, but looks after him with perceptible concern. Then, she whispers to Crofts] Whats the matter with him? ”

“ My good Mary, it was a ruby, of a size and colour which recalled the Arabian Nights."
Mrs. Warren began to resign herself.
"No," she said, "there is no respectable conclusion to be drawn. It is tragic, but prosaic. She has been governess or companion in some great house. She may be a well-born woman. It is ten times more hideous for her than if she were a girl. She has to writhe under knowing that both her friends and her enemies are saying that she had not the excuse of not having been old enough to know better." ”

“ VIVIE. You were certainly quite justified—from the business 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 marrying 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. ”

“ PRAED. How do you do, Miss Warren? [She presses his hand cordially, though a certain sentimentality in his high spirits jars upon her] . I start in an hour from Holborn Viaduct. 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 support to her. Praed sits opposite to her. Frank places a chair near Vivie, and drops lazily and carelessly into it, talking at her over his shoulder.]
FRANK. No use, Praddy. ”