The Master of Mrs. Chilvers: An Improbable Comedy

Hake. Well, miss, unfortunately, just as she was starting, Mrs. Comerford – that’s the wife of the party that keeps the shop downstairs – looked in with an order for the theatre.

Phoebe. Oh!

Hake. So I thought it best to ask no questions.

Phoebe. Thank you.

Hake. Thank you, miss.

    (He goes out.)

Elizabeth. Can nothing be done to rouse the working-class woman out of her apathy?

Phoebe. Well, if you ask me, I think a good deal has been done.

Elizabeth. Oh, what’s the use of our deceiving ourselves? The great mass are utterly indifferent.

Janet (She is seated in an easy-chair near the fire.) I was talking to a woman only yesterday – in Bethnal Green. She keeps a husband and three children by taking in washing. “Lord, miss,” she laughed, “what would we do with the vote if we did have it? Only one thing more to give to the men.”

Phoebe. That’s rather good.

Elizabeth. The curse of it is that it’s true. Why should they put themselves out merely that one man instead of another should dictate their laws to them?

Phoebe. My dear girl, precisely the same argument was used against the Second Reform Bill. What earthly difference could it make to the working men whether Tory Squire or Liberal capitalist ruled over them? That was in 1868. To-day, fifty-four Labour Members sit in Parliament. At the next election they will hold the balance.

Elizabeth. Ah, if we could only hold out that sort of hope to them!

(Annys enters. She is in outdoor costume. She kisses Phoebe, shakes hands with the other two. Annys’s age is about twenty-five. She is a beautiful, spiritual-looking creature, tall and graceful, with a manner that is at the same time appealing and commanding. Her voice is soft and caressing, but capable of expressing all the emotions. Her likeness to her younger sister Phoebe is of the slightest: the colouring is the same, and the eyes that can flash, but there the similarity ends. She is simply but well dressed. Her soft hair makes a quiet but wonderfully effective frame to her face.)

Annys. (She is taking off her outdoor things.) Hope I’m not late. I had to look in at Caxton House. Why are we holding it here?

Phoebe. Mamma’s instructions. Can’t tell you anything more except that I gather the matter’s important, and is to be kept secret.

Annys. Mamma isn’t here, is she?

Phoebe. (Shakes her head.) Reaches St. Pancras at two-forty. (Looks at her watch.) Train’s late, I expect.

(Hake has entered.)

Annys. (She hands Hake her hat and coat.) Have something ready in case Lady Mogton hasn’t lunched. Is your master in?

Hake. A messenger came for him soon after you left, ma’am. I was to tell you he would most likely be dining at the House.

Annys. Thank you.

(Hake goes out.)

Annys. (To Elizabeth.) I so want you to meet Geoffrey. He’ll alter your opinion of men.

Elizabeth. My opinion of men has been altered once or twice – each time for the worse.

Annys. Why do you dislike men?

Elizabeth. (With a short laugh.) Why does the slave dislike the slave-owner?

Phoebe. Oh, come off the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We’d all be slaves at that price.

Elizabeth. The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.

Annys. But men like Geoffrey – men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?

Elizabeth. Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility. When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we shall have to get on without the male sympathiser.

(A pause.)

Annys. What do you understand is the true meaning of the woman’s movement?

Elizabeth. The dragging down of man from his position of supremacy. What else can it mean?

Annys. Something much better. The lifting up of woman to be his partner.

Elizabeth. My dear Annys, the men who to-day are advocating votes for women are doing so in the hope of securing obedient supporters for their own political schemes. In New Zealand the working man brings his female relations in a van to the poll, and sees to it that they vote in accordance with his orders. When man once grasps the fact that woman is not going to be his henchman, but his rival, men and women will face one another as enemies.

(The door opens. Hake announces Lady Mogton and Dorian St. Herbert. Lady Mogton is a large, strong-featured woman, with a naturally loud voice. She is dressed with studied carelessness. Dorian St. Herbert, K.C., is a tall, thin man, about thirty. He is elegantly, almost dandily dressed.)

Annys. (Kissing her mother.) Have you had lunch?

Lady Mogton. In the train.

Phoebe. (Who has also kissed her mother and shaken hands with St. Herbert.) We are all here except Villiers. She’s coming. Did you have a good meeting?

Lady Mogton. Fairly. Some young fool had chained himself to a pillar and thrown the key out of window.

Phoebe. What did you do?

Lady Mogton. Tied a sack over his head and left him there.

(She turns aside for a moment to talk to St. Herbert, who has taken some papers from his despatch-box.)

Annys. (To Elizabeth.) We must finish out our talk some other time. You are quite wrong.

Elizabeth. Perhaps.

Lady Mogton. We had better begin. I have only got half an hour.

Janet. I saw Mrs. Villiers. She promised she’d come.

Lady Mogton. You should have told her we were going to be photographed. Then she’d have been punctual. (She has taken her seat at the table. St. Herbert at her right.) Better put another chair in case she does turn up.