Act
II
On the afternoon of the same day, Mrs. Knox is writing notes in her drawing room, at a writing table which stands against the wall. Anyone placed so as to see Mrs. Knox’s left profile, will have the door on the right and the window on the left, both further away than Mrs. Knox, whose back is presented to an obsolete upright piano at the opposite side of the room. The sofa is near the piano. There is a small table in the middle of the room, with some gilt-edged books and albums on it, and chairs near it.
Mr. Knox comes in almost furtively, a troubled man of fifty, thinner, harder, and uglier than his partner, Gilbey, Gilbey being a soft stoutish man with white hair and thin smooth skin, whilst Knox has coarse black hair, and blue jaws which no diligence in shaving can whiten. Mrs. Knox is a plain woman, dressed without regard to fashion, with thoughtful eyes and thoughtful ways that make an atmosphere of peace and some solemnity. She is surprised to see her husband at home during business hours.
Mrs. Knox
What brings you home at this hour? Have you heard anything?
Knox
No. Have you?
Mrs. Knox
No. What’s the matter?
Knox
Sitting down on the sofa. I believe Gilbey has found out.
Mrs. Knox
What makes you think that?
Knox
Well, I don’t know: I didn’t like to tell you: you have enough to worry you without that; but Gilbey’s been very queer ever since it happened. I can’t keep my mind on business as I ought; and I was depending on him. But he’s worse than me. He’s not looking after anything; and he keeps out of my way. His manner’s not natural. He hasn’t asked us to dinner; and he’s never said a word about our not asking him to dinner, after all these years when we’ve dined every week as regular as clockwork. It looks to me as if Gilbey’s trying to drop me socially. Well, why should he do that if he hasn’t heard?
Mrs. Knox
I wonder! Bobby hasn’t been near us either: that’s what I can’t make out.
Knox
Oh, that’s nothing. I told him Margaret was down in Cornwall with her aunt.
Mrs. Knox
Reproachfully. Jo! She takes her handkerchief from the writing-table and cries a little.
Knox
Well, I got to tell lies, ain’t I? You won’t. Somebody’s got to tell ’em.
Mrs. Knox
Putting away her handkerchief. It only ends in our not knowing what to believe. Mrs. Gilbey told me Bobby was in Brighton for the sea air. There’s something queer about that. Gilbey would never let the boy loose by himself among the temptations of a gay place like Brighton without his tutor; and I saw the tutor in Kensington High Street the very day she told me.
Knox
If the Gilbeys have found out, it’s all over between Bobby and Margaret, and all over between us and them.
Mrs. Knox
It’s all over between us and everybody. When a girl runs away from home like that, people know what to think of her and her parents.
Knox
She had a happy, respectable home—everything—
Mrs. Knox
Interrupting him. There’s no use going over it all again, Jo. If a girl hasn’t happiness in herself, she won’t be happy anywhere. You’d better go back to the shop and try to keep your mind off it.
Knox
Rising restlessly. I can’t. I keep fancying everybody knows it and is sniggering about it. I’m at peace nowhere but here. It’s a comfort to be with you. It’s a torment to be with other people.
Mrs. Knox
Going to him and drawing her arm through his. There, Jo, there! I’m sure I’d have you here always if I could. But it can’t be. God’s work must go on from day to day, no matter what comes. We must face our trouble and bear it.
Knox
Wandering to the window arm in arm with her. Just look at the people in the street, going up and down as if nothing had happened. It seems unnatural, as if they all knew and didn’t care.
Mrs. Knox
If they knew, Jo, thered be a crowd round the house looking up at us. You shouldn’t keep thinking about it.
Knox
I know I shouldn’t. You have your religion, Amelia; and I’m sure I’m glad it comforts you. But it doesn’t come to me that way. I’ve worked hard to get a position and be respectable. I’ve turned many a girl out of the shop for being half an hour late at night; and here’s my own daughter gone for a fortnight without word or sign, except a telegram to say she’s not dead and that we’re not to worry about her.
Mrs. Knox
Suddenly pointing to the street. Jo, look!
Knox
Margaret! With a man!
Mrs. Knox
Run down, Jo, quick. Catch her: save her.
Knox
Lingering. She’s shaking bands with him: she’s coming across to the door.
Mrs. Knox
Energetically. Do as I tell you. Catch the man before he’s out of sight.
Knox rushes from the room. Mrs. Knox looks anxiously and excitedly from the window. Then she throws up the sash and leans out. Margaret Knox comes in, flustered and annoyed. She is a strong, springy girl of eighteen, with large nostrils, an audacious chin, and a gaily resolute manner, even peremptory on occasions like the present, when she is annoyed.
Margaret
Mother. Mother.
Mrs. Knox draws in her head and confronts her daughter.
Mrs. Knox
Sternly. Well, miss?
Margaret
Oh, mother, do go out and stop father making a scene in the street. He rushed at him and said “You’re the man who took away my daughter” loud enough for all the people to hear. Everybody stopped. We shall have a crowd round the house. Do do something to stop him.
Knox returns with a good-looking young marine officer.
Margaret
Oh, Monsieur Duvallet, I’m so sorry—so ashamed. Mother: this is Monsieur Duvallet, who has been extremely kind to me. Monsieur Duvallet: my mother. Duvallet bows.
Knox
A Frenchman! It only needed this.
Margaret
Much annoyed. Father: do please be commonly civil to a gentleman who has been of the greatest service to me. What will he think of us?
Duvallet
Debonair. But it’s very natural. I understand Mr. Knox’s feelings perfectly. He speaks English better than Knox, having learnt it on both sides of the Atlantic.
Knox
If I’ve made any mistake I’m ready to apologize. But I want to know where my daughter has been for the last fortnight.
Duvallet
She has been, I assure you, in a particularly safe place.
Knox
Will you tell me what place? I can judge for myself how safe it was.
Margaret
Holloway Gaol. Was that safe enough?
Knox and Mrs. Knox
Holloway Gaol!
Knox
You’ve joined the Suffragettes!
Margaret
No. I wish I had. I could have had the same experience in better company. Please sit down, Monsieur Duvallet. She sits between the table and the sofa. Mrs. Knox, overwhelmed, sits at the other side of the table. Knox remains standing in the middle of the room.
Duvallet
Sitting down on the sofa. It was nothing. An adventure. Nothing.
Margaret
Obdurately. Drunk and assaulting the police! Forty shillings or a month!
Mrs. Knox
Margaret! Who accused you of such a thing?
Margaret
The policeman I assaulted.
Knox
You mean to say that you did it!
Margaret
I did. I had that satisfaction at all events. I knocked two of his teeth out.
Knox
And you sit there coolly and tell me this!
Margaret
Well, where do you want me to sit? What’s the use of saying things like that?
Knox
My daughter in Holloway Gaol!
Margaret
All the women in Holloway are somebody’s daughters. Really, father, you must make up your mind to it. If you had sat in that cell for fourteen days making up your mind to it, you would understand that I’m not in the humor to be gaped at while you’re trying to persuade yourself that it can’t be real. These things really do happen to real people every day; and you read about them in the papers and think it’s all right. Well, they’ve happened to me: that’s all.
Knox
Feeble-forcible. But they shouldn’t have happened to you. Don’t you know that?
Margaret
They shouldn’t happen to anybody, I suppose. But they do. Rising impatiently. And really I’d rather go out and assault another policeman and go back to Holloway than keep talking round and round it like this. If you’re going to turn me out of the house, turn me out: the sooner I go the better.
Duvallet
Rising quickly. That is impossible, mademoiselle. Your father has his position to consider. To turn his daughter out of doors would ruin him socially.
Knox
Oh, you’ve put her up to that, have you? And where did you come in, may I ask?
Duvallet
I came in at your invitation—at your amiable insistence, in fact, not at my own. But you need have no anxiety on my account. I was concerned in the regrettable incident which led to your daughter’s incarceration. I got a fortnight without the option of a fine on the ridiculous ground that I ought to have struck the policeman with my fist. I should have done so with pleasure had I known; but, as it was, I struck him on the ear with my boot—a magnificent moulinet, I must say—and was informed that I had been guilty of an act of cowardice, but that for the sake of the entente cordiale I should be dealt with leniently. Yet Miss Knox, who used her fist, got a month, but with the option of a fine. I did not know this until I was released, when my first act was to pay the fine. And here we are.
Mrs. Knox
You ought to pay the gentleman the fine, Jo.
Knox
Reddening. Oh, certainly. He takes out some money.
Duvallet
Oh please! it does not matter. Knox hands him two sovereigns. If you insist—he pockets them Thank you.
Margaret
I’m ever so much obliged to you, Monsieur Duvallet.
Duvallet
Can I be of any further assistance, mademoiselle?
Margaret
I think you had better leave us to fight it out, if you don’t mind.
Duvallet
Perfectly. Madame bow—Mademoiselle bow—Monsieur bow—He goes out.
Mrs. Knox
Don’t ring, Jo. See the gentleman out yourself.
Knox hastily sees Duvallet out. Mother and daughter sit looking forlornly at one another without saying a word. Mrs. Knox slowly sits down. Margaret follows her example. They look at one another again. Mr. Knox returns.
Knox
Shortly and sternly. Amelia: this is your job. To Margaret. I leave you to your mother. I shall have my own say in the matter when I hear what you have to say to her. He goes out, solemn and offended.
Margaret
With a bitter little laugh. Just what the Suffragette said to me in Holloway. He throws the job on you.
Mrs. Knox
Reproachfully. Margaret!
Margaret
You know it’s true.
Mrs. Knox
Margaret: if you’re going to be hardened about it, there’s no use my saying anything.
Margaret
I’m not hardened, mother. But I can’t talk nonsense about it. You see, it’s all real to me. I’ve suffered it. I’ve been shoved and bullied. I’ve had my arms twisted. I’ve been made scream with pain in other ways. I’ve been flung into a filthy cell with a lot of other poor wretches as if I were a sack of coals being emptied into a cellar. And the only difference between me and the others was that I hit back. Yes I did. And I did worse. I wasn’t ladylike. I cursed. I called names. I heard words that I didn’t even know that I knew, coming out of my mouth just as if somebody else had spoken them. The policeman repeated them in court. The magistrate said he could hardly believe it. The policeman held out his hand with his two teeth in it that I knocked out. I said it was all right; that I had heard myself using those words quite distinctly; and that I had taken the good conduct prize for three years running at school. The poor old gentleman put me back for the missionary to find out who I was, and to ascertain the state of my mind. I wouldn’t tell, of course, for your sakes at home here; and I wouldn’t say I was sorry, or apologize to the policeman, or compensate him or anything of that sort. I wasn’t sorry. The one thing that gave me any satisfaction was getting in that smack on his mouth; and I said so. So the missionary reported that I seemed hardened and that no doubt I would tell who I was after a day in prison. Then I was sentenced. So now you see I’m not a bit the sort of girl you thought me. I’m not a bit the sort of girl I thought myself. And I don’t know what sort of person you really are, or what sort of person father really is. I wonder what he would say or do if he had an angry brute of a policeman twisting his arm with one hand and rushing him along by the nape of his neck with the other. He couldn’t whirl his leg like a windmill and knock a policeman down by a glorious kick on the helmet. Oh, if they’d all fought as we two fought we’d have beaten them.
Mrs. Knox
But how did it all begin?
Margaret
Oh, I don’t know. It was boat-race night, they said.
Mrs. Knox
Boat-race night! But what had you to do with the boat race? You went to the great Salvation Festival at the Albert Hall with your aunt. She put you into the bus that passes the door. What made you get out of the bus?
Margaret
I don’t know. The meeting got on my nerves, somehow. It was the singing, I suppose: you know I love singing a good swinging hymn; and I felt it was ridiculous to go home in the bus after we had been singing so wonderfully about climbing up the golden stairs to heaven. I wanted more music—more happiness—more life. I wanted some comrade who felt as I did. I felt exalted: it seemed mean to be afraid of anything: after all, what could anyone do to me against my will? I suppose I was a little mad: at all events, I got out of the bus at Piccadilly Circus, because there was a lot of light and excitement there. I walked to Leicester Square; and went into a great theatre.
Mrs. Knox
Horrified. A theatre!
Margaret
Yes. Lots of other women were going in alone. I had to pay five shillings.
Mrs. Knox
Aghast. Five shillings!
Margaret
Apologetically. It was a lot. It was very stuffy; and I didn’t like the people much, because they didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves; but the stage was splendid and the music lovely. I saw that Frenchman, Monsieur Duvallet, standing against a barrier, smoking a cigarette. He seemed quite happy; and he was nice and sailorlike. I went and stood beside him, hoping he would speak to me.
Mrs. Knox
Gasps. Margaret!
Margaret
Continuing. He did, just as if he had known me for years. We got on together like old friends. He asked me would I have some champagne; and I said it would cost too much, but that I would give anything for a dance. I longed to join the people on the stage and dance with them: one of them was the most beautiful dancer I ever saw. He told me he had come there to see her, and that when it was over we could go somewhere where there was dancing. So we went to a place where there was a band in a gallery and the floor cleared for dancing. Very few people danced: the women only wanted to show off their dresses; but we danced and danced until a lot of them joined in. We got quite reckless; and we had champagne after all. I never enjoyed anything so much. But at last it got spoilt by the Oxford and Cambridge students up for the boat race. They got drunk; and they began to smash things; and the police came in. Then it was quite horrible. The students fought with the police; and the police suddenly got quite brutal, and began to throw everybody downstairs. They attacked the women, who were not doing anything, and treated them just as roughly as they had treated the students. Duvallet got indignant and remonstrated with a policeman, who was shoving a woman though she was going quietly as fast as she could. The policeman flung the woman through the door and then turned on Duvallet. It was then that Duvallet swung his leg like a windmill and knocked the policeman down. And then three policemen rushed at him and carried him out by the arms and legs face downwards. Two more attacked me and gave me a shove to the door. That quite maddened me. I just got in one good bang on the mouth of one of them. All the rest was dreadful. I was rushed through the streets to the police station. They kicked me with their knees; they twisted my arms; they taunted and insulted me; they called me vile names; and I told them what I thought of them, and provoked them to do their worst. There’s one good thing about being hard hurt: it makes you sleep. I slept in that filthy cell with all the other drunks sounder than I should have slept at home. I can’t describe how I felt next morning: it was hideous; but the police were quite jolly; and everybody said it was a bit of English fun, and talked about last year’s boat-race night when it had been a great deal worse. I was black and blue and sick and wretched. But the strange thing was that I wasn’t sorry; and I’m not sorry. And I don’t feel that I did anything wrong, really. She rises and stretches her arms with a large liberating breath. Now that it’s all over I’m rather proud of it; though I know now that I’m not a lady; but whether that’s because we’re only shopkeepers, or because nobody’s really a lady except when they’re treated like ladies, I don’t know. She throws herself into a corner of the sofa.
Mrs. Knox
Lost in wonder. But how could you bring yourself to do it, Margaret? I’m not blaming you: I only want to know. How could you bring yourself to do it?
Margaret
I can’t tell you. I don’t understand it myself. The prayer meeting set me free, somehow. I should never have done it if it were not for the prayer meeting.
Mrs. Knox
Deeply horrified. Oh, don’t say such a thing as that. I know that prayer can set us free; though you could never understand me when I told you so; but it sets us free for good, not for evil.
Margaret
Then I suppose what I did was not evil; or else I was set free for evil as well as good. As father says, you can’t have anything both ways at once. When I was at home and at school I was what you call good; but I wasn’t free. And when I got free I was what most people would call not good. But I see no harm in what I did; though I see plenty in what other people did to me.
Mrs. Knox
I hope you don’t think yourself a heroine of romance.
Margaret
Oh no. She sits down again at the table. I’m a heroine of reality, if you can call me a heroine at all. And reality is pretty brutal, pretty filthy, when you come to grips with it. Yet it’s glorious all the same. It’s so real and satisfactory.
Mrs. Knox
I don’t like this spirit in you, Margaret. I don’t like your talking to me in that tone.
Margaret
It’s no use, mother. I don’t care for you and Papa any the less; but I shall never get back to the old way of talking again. I’ve made a sort of descent into hell—
Mrs. Knox
Margaret! Such a word!
Margaret
You should have heard all the words that were flying round that night. You should mix a little with people who don’t know any other words. But when I said that about a descent into hell I was not swearing. I was in earnest, like a preacher.
Mrs. Knox
A preacher utters them in a reverent tone of voice.
Margaret
I know: the tone that shows they don’t mean anything real to him. They usen’t to mean anything real to me. Now hell is as real to me as a turnip; and I suppose I shall always speak of it like that. Anyhow, I’ve been there; and it seems to me now that nothing is worth doing but redeeming people from it.
Mrs. Knox
They are redeemed already if they choose to believe it.
Margaret
What’s the use of that if they don’t choose to believe it? You don’t believe it yourself, or you wouldn’t pay policemen to twist their arms. What’s the good of pretending? That’s all our respectability is, pretending, pretending, pretending. Thank heaven I’ve had it knocked out of me once for all!
Mrs. Knox
Greatly agitated. Margaret: don’t talk like that. I can’t bear to hear you talking wickedly. I can bear to hear the children of this world talking vainly and foolishly in the language of this world. But when I hear you justifying your wickedness in the words of grace, it’s too horrible: it sounds like the devil making fun of religion. I’ve tried to bring you up to learn the happiness of religion. I’ve waited for you to find out that happiness is within ourselves and doesn’t come from outward pleasures. I’ve prayed oftener than you think that you might be enlightened. But if all my hopes and all my prayers are to come to this, that you mix up my very words and thoughts with the promptings of the devil, then I don’t know what I shall do: I don’t indeed: it’ll kill me.
Margaret
You shouldn’t have prayed for me to be enlightened if you didn’t want me to be enlightened. If the truth were known, I suspect we all want our prayers to be answered only by halves: the agreeable halves. Your prayer didn’t get answered by halves, mother. You’ve got more than you bargained for in the way of enlightenment. I shall never be the same again. I shall never speak in the old way again. I’ve been set free from this silly little hole of a house and all its pretences. I know now that I am stronger than you and Papa. I haven’t found that happiness of yours that is within yourself; but I’ve found strength. For good or evil I am set free; and none of the things that used to hold me can hold me now.
Knox comes back, unable to bear his suspense.
Knox
How long more are you going to keep me waiting, Amelia? Do you think I’m made of iron? What’s the girl done? What are we going to do?
Mrs. Knox
She’s beyond my control, Jo, and beyond yours. I can’t even pray for her now; for I don’t know rightly what to pray for.
Knox
Don’t talk nonsense, woman: is this a time for praying? Does anybody know? That’s what we have to consider now. If only we can keep it dark, I don’t care for anything else.
Margaret
Don’t hope for that, father. Mind: I’ll tell everybody. It ought to be told. It must be told.
Knox
Hold your tongue, you young hussy; or go out of my house this instant.
Margaret
I’m quite ready. She takes her hat and turns to the door.
Knox
Throwing himself in front of it. Here! where are you going?
Mrs. Knox
Rising. You mustn’t turn her out, Jo! I’ll go with her if she goes.
Knox
Who wants to turn her out? But is she going to ruin us? To let everybody know of her disgrace and shame? To tear me down from the position I’ve made for myself and you by forty years hard struggling?
Margaret
Yes: I’m going to tear it all down. It stands between us and everything. I’ll tell everybody.
Knox
Magsy, my child: don’t bring down your father’s hairs with sorrow to the grave. There’s only one thing I care about in the world: to keep this dark. I’m your father. I ask you here on my knees—in the dust, so to speak—not to let it out.
Margaret
I’ll tell everybody.
Knox collapses in despair. Mrs. Knox tries to pray and cannot. Margaret stands inflexible.