Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Summer afternoon in a cottage garden on the eastern slope of a hill a little south of Haslemere in Surrey. Looking up the hill, the cottage is seen in the left hand corner of the garden, with its thatched roof and porch, and a large latticed window to the left of the porch. A paling completely shuts in the garden, except for a gate on the right. The common rises uphill beyond the paling to the sky line. Some folded canvas garden chairs are leaning against the side bench in the porch. A lady’s bicycle is propped against the wall, under the window. A little to the right of the porch a hammock is slung from two posts. A big canvas umbrella, stuck in the ground, keeps the sun off the hammock, in which a young lady is reading and making notes, her head towards the cottage and her feet towards the gate. In front of the hammock, and within reach of her hand, is a common kitchen chair, with a pile of serious-looking books and a supply of writing paper on it.

A gentleman walking on the common comes into sight from behind the cottage. He is hardly past middle age, with something of the artist about him, unconventionally but carefully dressed, and clean-shaven except for a moustache, with an eager susceptible face and very amiable and considerate manners.

Rev. S.

Booming hollowly. Silence, sir.

Frank

Well, you told me yourself, when I was making ever such an ass of myself about the barmaid at Redhill, that you once offered a woman fifty pounds for the letters you wrote to her when⁠—

Rev. S.

Terrified. Sh‑sh‑sh, Frank, for Heaven’s sake! He looks round apprehensively. Seeing no one within earshot he plucks up courage to boom again, but more subduedly. You are taking an ungentlemanly advantage of what I confided to you for your own good, to save you from an error you would have repented all your life long. Take warning by your father’s follies, sir; and don’t make them an excuse for your own.

Frank

Did you ever hear the story of the Duke of Wellington and his letters?

Rev. S.

No, sir; and I don’t want to hear it.

Frank

The old Iron Duke didn’t throw away fifty pounds⁠—not he. He just wrote: “My dear Jenny: Publish and be damned! Yours affectionately, Wellington.” That’s what you should have done.

Rev. S.

Piteously. Frank, my boy: when I wrote those letters I put myself into that woman’s power. When I told you about them I put myself, to some extent, I am sorry to say, in your power. She refused my money with these words, which I shall never forget. “Knowledge is power,” she said; “and I never sell power.” That’s more than twenty years ago; and she has never made use of her power or caused me a moment’s uneasiness. You are behaving worse to me than she did, Frank.

Frank

Oh, yes, I dare say! Did you ever preach at her the way you preach at me every day?

Cutting a page of her book with the paper knife on her chatelaine. Has it really never occurred to you, mother, that I have a way of life like other people?

Mrs. Warren

What nonsense is this you’re trying to talk? Do you want to show your independence, now that you’re a great little person at school? Don’t be a fool, child.

Vivie

Indulgently. That’s all you have to say on the subject, is it, mother?

Mrs. Warren

Puzzled, then angry. Don’t you keep on asking me questions like that. Violently. Hold your tongue. Vivie works on, losing no time, and saying nothing. You and your way of life, indeed! What next? She looks at Vivie again. No reply. Your way of life will be what I please, so it will. Another pause. I’ve been noticing these airs in you ever since you got that tripos or whatever you call it. If you think I’m going to put up with them you’re mistaken; and the sooner you find it out, the better. Muttering. All I have to say on the subject, indeed! Again raising her voice angrily. Do you know who you’re speaking to, Miss?

Vivie

Looking across at her without raising her head from her book. No. Who are you? What are you?

Mrs. Warren

Rising breathless. You young imp!

Vivie

Everybody knows my reputation, my social standing, and the profession I intend to pursue. I know nothing about you. What is that way of life which you invite me to share with you and Sir George Crofts, pray?

Mrs. Warren

Piteously. Oh, my darling, how can you be so hard on me? Have I no rights over you as your mother?

Vivie

Are you my mother?

Mrs. Warren

Appalled. Am I your mother! Oh, Vivie!

Vivie

Then where are our relatives⁠—my father⁠—our family friends? You claim the rights of a mother: the right to call me fool and child; to speak to me as no woman in authority over me at college dare speak to me; to dictate my way of life; and to force on me the acquaintance of a brute whom anyone can see to be the most vicious sort of London man about town. Before I give myself the trouble to resist such claims, I may as well find out whether they have any real existence.

Mrs. Warren

Distracted, throwing herself on her knees. Oh, no, no. Stop, stop. I am your mother: I swear it. Oh, you can’t mean to turn on me⁠—my own child: it’s not natural. You believe me, don’t you? Say you believe me.

Vivie

Who was my father?

Mrs. Warren

You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t tell you.

Vivie

Determinedly. Oh, yes, you can, if you like. I have a right to know; and you know very well that I have that right. You can refuse to tell me, if you please; but if you do, you will see the last of me tomorrow morning.

Mrs. Warren

Oh, it’s too horrible to hear you talk like that. You wouldn’t⁠—you couldn’t leave me.

Oh, I’ll sit down: don’t you be afraid. She plants her chair farther forward with brazen energy, and sits down. Vivie is impressed in spite of herself. D’you know what your gran’mother was?

Vivie

No.

Mrs. Warren

No, you don’t. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well-fed man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don’t know. The other two were only half sisters⁠—undersized, ugly, starved looking, hardworking, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have half-murdered them if mother hadn’t half-murdered us to keep our hands off them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability? I’ll tell you. One of them worked in a white lead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week⁠—until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn’t it?

Vivie

Now thoughtfully attentive. Did you and your sister think so?

Mrs. Warren

Liz didn’t, I can tell you: she had more spirit.