Fanny’s First Play

The end of a saloon in an old-fashioned country house (Florence Towers, the property of Count O’Dowda) has been curtained off to form a stage for a private theatrical performance. A footman in grandiose Spanish livery enters before the curtain, on its O.P. side.

Footman

Announcing. Mr. Cecil Savoyard. Cecil Savoyard comes in: a middle-aged man in evening dress and a fur-lined overcoat. He is surprised to find nobody to receive him. So is the Footman. Oh, beg pardon, sir: I thought the Count was here. He was when I took up your name. He must have gone through the stage into the library. This way, sir. He moves towards the division in the middle of the curtains.

Savoyard

Half a mo. The Footman stops. When does the play begin? Half-past eight?

Footman

Nine, sir.

Savoyard

Oh, good. Well, will you telephone to my wife at the George that it’s not until nine?

Footman

Right, sir. Mrs. Cecil Savoyard, sir?

Savoyard

No: Mrs. William Tinkler. Don’t forget.

The Footman

Mrs. Tinkler, sir. Right, sir. The Count comes in through the curtains. Here is the Count, sir. Announcing Mr. Cecil Savoyard, sir. He withdraws.

Plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room. How d’ye do, both. I’m a friend of Bobby’s. He told me all about you once, in a moment of confidence. Of course he never let on who he was at the police court.

Gilbey

Police court!

Mrs. Gilbey

Looking apprehensively at Juggins. Tch⁠—! Juggins: a chair.

Dora

Oh, I’ve let it out, have I! Contemplating Juggins approvingly as he places a chair for her between the table and the sideboard. But he’s the right sort: I can see that. Buttonholing him. You won’t let on downstairs, old man, will you?

Juggins

The family can rely on my absolute discretion. He withdraws.

Dora

Sitting down genteelly. I don’t know what you’ll say to me: you know I really have no right to come here; but then what was I to do? You know Holy Joe, Bobby’s tutor, don’t you? But of course you do.

Gilbey

With dignity. I know Mr. Joseph Grenfell, the brother of Monsignor Grenfell, if it is of him you are speaking.

Dora

Wide-eyed and much amused. No!!! You don’t tell me that old geezer has a brother a Monsignor! And you’re Catholics! And I never knew it, though I’ve known Bobby ever so long! But of course the last thing you find out about a person is their religion, isn’t it?

Mrs. Gilbey

Mrs. Gilbey

Oh, don’t be rude to the lady, Rob.

Dora

I’m coming to it, old dear: don’t you be so headstrong. Well, it was a beautiful moonlight night; and we couldn’t get a cab on the nod; so we started to walk, very jolly, you know: arm in arm, and dancing along, singing and all that. When we came into Jamaica Square, there was a young copper on point duty at the corner. I says to Bob: “Dearie boy: is it a bargain about the squiffer if I make Joe sprint for you?” “Anything you like, darling,” says he: “I love you.” I put on my best company manners and stepped up to the copper. “If you please, sir,” says I, “can you direct me to Carrickmines Square?” I was so genteel, and talked so sweet, that he fell to it like a bird. “I never heard of any such Square in these parts,” he says. “Then,” says I, “what a very silly little officer you must be!”; and I gave his helmet a chuck behind that knocked it over his eyes, and did a bunk.

Mrs. Gilbey

Did a what?

Dora

A bunk. Holy Joe did one too all right: he sprinted faster than he ever did in college, I bet, the old dear. He got clean off, too. Just as he was overtaking me halfway down the square, we heard the whistle; and at the sound of it he drew away like a streak of lightning; and that was the last I saw of him.

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.

Juggins

Yes, sir.

Bobby

Well, can you tell me the proper way to get out of an engagement to a girl without getting into a row for breach of promise or behaving like a regular cad?

Juggins

No, sir. You can’t get out of an engagement without behaving like a cad if the lady wishes to hold you to it.

Bobby

But it wouldn’t be for her happiness to marry me when I don’t really care for her.

Juggins

Women don’t always marry for happiness, sir. They often marry because they wish to be married women and not old maids.

Bobby

Then what am I to do?

Juggins

Marry her, sir, or behave like a cad.

Bobby

Jumping up. Well, I won’t marry her: that’s flat. What would you do if you were in my place?

Juggins

I should tell the young lady that I found I couldn’t fulfil my engagement.

Bobby

But you’d have to make some excuse, you know. I want to give it a gentlemanly turn: to say I’m not worthy of her, or something like that.

Juggins

That is not a gentlemanly turn, sir. Quite the contrary.

Bobby

I don’t see that at all. Do you mean that it’s not exactly true?

Juggins

Not at all, sir.