Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (327 page)

[JAWBONES, having received his instructions from PHOEBE, has slipped out unobserved. He has beckoned to GINGER; she has followed him. PHOEBE has joined the group.]

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS. There’s something in that.

JANET Is Mr. Chilvers still in sympathy with us?

PHOEBE Of course he is. A bit rubbed up the wrong way just at present; that’s our fault. When Annys goes down, early next mouth, to fight the Exchange Division of Manchester, we shall have him with us.

[A moment.]

LADY MOGTON Where do you get that from?

PHOEBE From St. Herbert. The present member is his cousin. They say he can’t live more than a week.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS It really seems like Providence.

ANNYS [Has taken the opportunity of giving PHOEBE a grateful squeeze of the hand.].

LADY MOGTON You will fight Manchester?

ANNYS Yes. [Laughs.] And make myself a public nuisance if I win.

LADY MOGTON Well, must be content with that, I suppose. Better not come in; the room’s rather crowded. I’ll keep you informed how things are going.

[She goes out, followed by JANET.]

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS I’ll stay with you, dear.

PHOEBE I want you to come and be photographed for the Daily
Mirror. The man’s waiting downstairs.

ELIZABETH I’ll stop with Annys.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS I’m not quite sure, you know, that I take well by flashlight.

PHOEBE You wait till you’ve seen mamma! We must have you. They want you for the centre of the page.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS Well, if it’s really -

PHOEBE [To the others.] Shall see you again. [She winks. Then to MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS.] We mustn’t keep them waiting. They are giving us a whole page.

[PHOEBE takes MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS out. ELIZABETH has followed to the door; she closes it. ANNYS has reseated herself, facing the fire.]

ELIZABETH When did you see your husband last?

ANNYS Not since — Tuesday, wasn’t it, that we went round to his rooms. Why?

ELIZABETH I’m thinking about Manchester. What was it he said to you?

ANNYS Oh, we were, both of us, a little over-excited, I suppose. He has — [she hesitates, finally answers] — he has always been so eager for children.

ELIZABETH Yes. So many men are; not having to bear the pain and inconvenience themselves.

ANNYS Oh, well, they have to provide for them when they do come.
That’s fair enough division, I su- [Suddenly she turns fiercely.]
Why do you talk like that? As if we women were cowards. Do you
think if God sent me a child I should grudge Him the price!

ELIZABETH Do you want Him to?

ANNYS I don’t know; prayed Him to, once.

ELIZABETH [She lays her hand upon her.] It isn’t a few more mothers that the world has need of. It is the women whom God has appointed — to whom He has given freedom, that they may champion the cause of the mothers, helpless by reason of their motherhood.

[A moment. GEOFFREY enters.]

GEOFFREY Good evening.

ANNYS [Rises; a smile struggles for possession. But he only shakes hands, and it dies away.]

ELIZABETH Good evening.

[They shake hands.]

GEOFFREY You are not interested in the counting?

ANNYS The room is rather crowded. Mamma thought I would be better out here. How have you been?

GEOFFREY Oh, all right. It’s going to be a very near thing, they tell me.

ANNYS Yes, I shall be glad when it’s over.

GEOFFREY It’s always a trying time. What are you going to do, if you win?

[LADY MOGTON looks in.]

LADY MOGTON [Seeing GEOFFREY.] Oh, good evening.

GEOFFREY Good evening.

LADY MOGTON Chilvers, 2,960 — Annys Chilvers, 2,874.

[She disappears — closes door.]

ANNYS Perhaps I’m not going to win. [She goes to him, smiling.]
I hope you’ll win. I would so much rather you won.

GEOFFREY Very kind of you. I’m afraid that won’t make it a certainty.

ANNYS [His answer has hardened her again.] How can I? It would not be fair. Without your consent I should never have entered upon it. It was understood that the seat, in any case, would be yours.

GEOFFREY I would rather you considered yourself quite free. In warfare it doesn’t pay to be “fair” to one’s enemy.

ANNYS [Still hardening.] Besides, there is no need. There will be other opportunities. I can contest some other constituency. If I win, claim the seat for that.

[A moment.]

GEOFFREY So this is only the beginning? You have decided to devote yourself to a political career?

ANNYS Why not?

GEOFFREY If I were to ask you to abandon it, to come back to your place at my side — helping me, strengthening me?

ANNYS You mean you would have me abandon my own task — merge myself in you?

GEOFFREY Be my wife.

ANNYS It would not be right. I, too, have my work.

GEOFFREY If it takes you away from me?

ANNYS Why need it take me away from you? Why cannot we work together for common ends, each in our own way?

GEOFFREY We talked like that before we tried it. Marriage is not a partnership; it is a leadership.

ANNYS [She looks at him.] You mean — an ownership.

GEOFFREY Perhaps you’re right. I didn’t make it. I’m only — beginning to understand it.

ANNYS And I too. It is not what I want.

GEOFFREY You mean its duties have become irksome to you.

ANNYS I mean I want to be the judge myself of what are my duties.

GEOFFREY I no longer count. You will go your way without me?

ANNYS I must go the way I think right.

GEOFFREY [He flings away.] If you win to-night you will do well to make the most of it. Take my advice and claim the seat.

ANNYS [Looks at him puzzled.]

ELIZABETH Why?

GEOFFREY Because [with a short, ugly laugh] the Lord only knows when you’ll get another opportunity.

ELIZABETH You are going to stop us?

GEOFFREY To stop women from going to the poll. The Bill will be introduced on Monday. Carried through all its stages the same week.

ELIZABETH You think it will pass?

GEOFFREY The Whips assure me that it will.

ANNYS But they cannot, they dare not, without your assent. The —
[The light breaks in upon her.] Who is bringing it in?

GEOFFREY I am.

ANNYS [Is going to speak.]

GEOFFREY [He stops her.] Oh, I’m prepared for all that — ridicule, abuse. “Chilvers’s Bill for the Better Regulation of Mrs. Chilvers,” they’ll call it. I can hear their laughter. Yours won’t be among it.

ANNYS But, Geoffrey! What is the meaning? Merely to spite me, are you going to betray a cause that you have professed belief in — that you have fought for?

GEOFFREY Yes — if it is going to take you away from me. I want you. No, I don’t want a friend—”a fellow-worker” — some interesting rival in well doing. I can get all that outside my home. I want a wife. I want the woman I love to belong to me — to be mine. I am not troubling about being up to date; I’m talking what I feel — what every male creature must have felt since the protoplasmic cell developed instincts. I want a woman to love — a woman to work for — a woman to fight for — a woman to be a slave to. But mine — mine, and nothing else. All the rest [he makes a gesture] is talk.

[He closes the window, shutting out the hubbub of the crowd.]

ANNYS [A strange, new light has stolen in. She is bewildered, groping.] But — all this is new between us. You have not talked like this for — not since — We were just good friends — comrades.

GEOFFREY And might have remained so, God knows! I suppose we’re made like that. So long as there was no danger passion slept. I cannot explain it. I only know that now, beside the thought of losing you, all else in the world seems meaningless. The Woman’s Movement! [He makes a gesture of contempt.] Men have wrecked kingdoms for a woman before now — and will again. I want you! [He comes to her.] Won’t you come back to me, that we may build up the home we used to dream of? Wasn’t the old love good? What has this new love to give you? Work that man can do better. The cause of the women — the children! Has woman loved woman better than man? Will the world be better for the children, man and woman contending? Come back to me. Help me. Help me to fight for all good women. Teach me how I may make the world better — for our children.

ANNYS [The light is in her eyes. She stands a moment. Her hands are going out to him.]

ELIZABETH [She comes between them.] Yes, go to him. He will be very good to you. Good men are kind to women, kind even to their dogs. You will be among the pampered few! You will be happy. And the others! What does it matter?

[They draw apart. She stands between them, the incarnation of the spirit of sex war.]

The women that have not kind owners — the dogs that have not kind masters — the dumb women, chained to their endless, unpaid drudgery! Let them be content. What are they but man’s chattel? To be honoured if it pleases him, or to be cast into the dust. Man’s pauper! Bound by his laws, subject to his whim; her every hope, her every aspiration, owed to his charity. She toils for him without ceasing: it should be her “pleasure.” She bears him children, when he chooses to desire them. They are his to do as he will by. Why seek to change it? Our man is kind. What have they to do with us: the women beaten, driven, overtasked — the women without hope or joy, the livers of grey lives that men may laugh and spend — the women degraded lower than the beasts to pander to the beast in man — the women outraged and abandoned, bearing to the grave the burden of man’s lust? Let them go their way. They are but our sisters of sorrow. And we who could help them — we to whom God has given the weapons: the brain, and the courage — we make answer: “I have married a husband, and I cannot come.”

[A silence.]

GEOFFREY Well, you have heard. [He makes a gesture.] What is your answer?

ANNYS [She comes to him.] Don’t you love me enough to humour me a little — to put up with my vexing ways? I so want to help, to feel I am doing just a little, to make the world kinder. I know you can do it better, but I want so to be “in it.” [She laughs.] Let us forget all this. Wake up to-morrow morning with fresh hearts. You will be Member for East Poplar. And then you shall help me to win Manchester. [She puts her hands upon his breast: she would have him take her in his arms.] I am not strong enough to fight alone.

GEOFFREY I want you. Let Manchester find some one else.

ANNYS [She draws away from him.] And if I cannot — will not?

GEOFFREY I bring in my Bill on Monday. We’ll be quite frank about it. That is my price — you. I want you!

ANNYS You mean it comes to that: a whole cause dependent on a man and a woman!

GEOFFREY Yes, that is how the world is built. On each man and woman. “How does it shape my life, my hopes?” So will each make answer.

[LADY MOGTON enters. She stands silent.]

ELIZABETH Is it over?

LADY MOGTON Annys Chilvers, 3,604 — Geoffrey Chilvers, 3,590.

[JANET enters.]

JANET [She rushes to ANNYS, embraces her.] You’ve won, you’ve won! [She flies to the window, opens it, and goes out on to the balcony.]

[PHOEBE enters, followed by MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS.]

PHOEBE Is it true?

LADY MOGTON Pretty close. Majority of 14.

MRS. MOUNTCALM-VILLIERS For us?

LADY MOGTON For us.

[JANET by this time has announced the figures. There is heard a great burst of cheering, renewed again and again.]

JANET [Re-entering.] They want you! They want you!

[Mingled with the cheering come cries of “Speech! Speech!”]

LADY MOGTON You must say something.

[The band strikes up “The Conquering Hero.” The women crowd round
ANNYS, congratulating her. GEOFFREY stands apart.]

PHOEBE [Screaming above the din.] Put on your cloak.

JANET [Rushes and gets it.]

[They wrap it round her.]

[ANNYS goes out on to the balcony, followed by the other women.
ELIZABETH, going last, fires a parting smile of triumph at
GEOFFREY.]

[A renewed burst of cheering announces their arrival on the balcony. The crowd bursts into “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” — the band, making a quick change, joins in. GEOFFREY remains centre.]

[JAWBONES enters unobserved. The singing ends with three cheers.
ANNYS is speaking. GEOFFREY turns and sees JAWBONES.]

GEOFFREY [With a smile.] Give me down my coat, will you?

JAWBONES [He is sympathetic. He helps him on with it.] Shall I get you a cab, sir?

GEOFFREY No, thanks. I’ll pick one up. [He goes towards the door, then stops.] Is there any other way out — not through the main entrance?