Prologue
The tableau curtains are closed. An English Archdeacon comes through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks through the curtains to someone behind them.
The Archdeacon
Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling. An English clergyman’s daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of £150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from the domestic budget.
Ermyntrude
You are not a common clergyman: you are an archdeacon.
The Archdeacon
Angrily. That does not affect my emoluments to the extent of enabling me to support a daughter whose extravagance would disgrace a royal personage. Scrambling to his feet and scolding at her. What do you mean by it, Miss?
Ermyntrude
Oh really, father! Miss! Is that the way to talk to a widow?
The Archdeacon
Is that the way to talk to a father? Your marriage was a most disastrous imprudence. It gave you habits that are absolutely beyond your means—I mean beyond my means: you have no means. Why did you not marry Matthews: the best curate I ever had?
Ermyntrude
I wanted to; and you wouldn’t let me. You insisted on my marrying Roosenhonkers-Pipstein.
The Archdeacon
I had to do the best for you, my child. Roosenhonkers-Pipstein was a millionaire.
Ermyntrude
How did you know he was a millionaire?
The Archdeacon
He came from America. Of course he was a millionaire. Besides, he proved to my solicitors that he had fifteen million dollars when you married him.
Ermyntrude
His solicitors proved to me that he had sixteen millions when he died. He was a millionaire to the last.
The Archdeacon
O Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing the knee to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty thousand dollars a year it secured to you, as we all thought. Only half the securities could be called speculative. The other half were gilt-edged. What has become of it all?
Ermyntrude
The speculative ones were not paid up; and the gilt-edged ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show burst up.
The Archdeacon
Ermyntrude: what expressions!
Ermyntrude
Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short of it is that I can’t live in the squalid way you are accustomed to.
The Archdeacon
Squalid!
Ermyntrude
I have formed habits of comfort.
The Archdeacon
Comfort!!
Ermyntrude
Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, if you insist. Call it what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred thousand dollars a year to run is intolerable to me.
The Archdeacon
Then, my dear, you had better become lady’s maid to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you.
Ermyntrude
That’s an idea. I will. She vanishes through the curtains.
The Archdeacon
What! Come back. Come back this instant. The lights are lowered. Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say. He descends the steps into the auditorium and makes for the door, grumbling all the time. Insane, senseless extravagance! Barking. Worthlessness!! Muttering. I will not bear it any longer. Dresses, hats, furs, gloves, motor rides: one bill after another: money going like water. No restraint, no self-control, no decency. Shrieking. I say, no decency! Muttering again. Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty world! But I simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash my hands of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner that is understood by everybody the better for all par—He is by this time out of hearing in the corridor.