LITMIR.BIZ

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in for it in earnest. The papers were full just then of Phillipa Summers beating the senior wrangler. You remember about it, and nothing would please my mother but that I should do the same thing. I said flatly that it was not worth my while to face the grind since I was not going in for teaching; but I offered to try for fourth wrangler or thereabouts for fifty pounds. She closed with me at that, after a little grumbling; and I was better than my bargain. But I wouldn’t do it again for that. Two hundred pounds would have been nearer the mark.

      PRAED. [Much damped.] Lord bless me! That’s a very practical way of looking at it.

      VIVIE. Did you expect to find me an unpractical person?

      PRAED. But surely it’s practical to consider not only the work these honors cost, but also the culture they bring.

      VIVIE. Culture! My dear Mr. Praed: do you know what the mathematical tripos means? It means grind, grind, grind for six to eight hours a day at mathematics, and nothing but mathematics. I’m supposed to know something about science; but I know nothing except the mathematics it involves. I can make calculations for engineers, electricians, insurance companies, and so on; but I know next to nothing about engineering or electricity or insurance. I don’t even know arithmetic well. Outside mathematics, lawn-tennis, eating, sleeping, cycling, and walking, I’m a more ignorant barbarian than any woman could possibly be who hadn’t gone in for the tripos.

      PRAED. [Revolted.] What a monstrous, wicked, rascally system! I knew it! I felt at once that it meant destroying all that makes womanhood beautiful!

      VIVIE. I don’t object to it on that score in the least. I shall turn it to very good account, I assure you.

      PRAED. Pooh! In what way?

      VIVIE. I shall set up chambers in the City, and work at actuarial calculations and conveyancing. Under cover of that I shall do some law, with one eye on the Stock Exchange all the time. I’ve come down here by myself to read law: not for a holiday, as my mother imagines. I hate holidays.

      PRAED. You make my blood run cold. Are you to have no romance, no beauty in your life?

      VIVIE. I don’t care for either, I assure you.

      PRAED. You can’t mean that.

      VIVIE. Oh yes I do. I like working and getting paid for it. When I’m tired of working, I like a comfortable chair, a cigar, a little whisky, and a novel with a good detective story in it.

      PRAED. [In a frenzy of repudiation.] I don’t believe it. I am an artist; and I can’t believe it: I refuse to believe it. It’s only that you haven’t discovered yet what a wonderful world art can open up to you.

      VIVIE. Yes I have. Last May I spent six weeks in London with Honoria Fraser. Mamma thought we were doing a round of sightseeing together; but I was really at Honoria’s chambers in Chancery Lane every day, working away at actuarial calculations for her, and helping her as well as a greenhorn could. In the evenings we smoked and talked, and never dreamt of going out except for exercise. And I never enjoyed myself more in my life. I cleared all my expenses and got initiated into the business without a fee in the bargain.

      PRAED. But bless my heart and soul, Miss Warren, do you call that discovering art?

      VIVIE. Wait a bit. That wasn’t the beginning. I went up to town on an invitation from some artistic people in Fitzjohn’s Avenue: one of the girls was a Newnham chum. They took me to the National Gallery, to the Opera, and to a concert where the band played all the evening: Beethoven and Wagner and so on. I wouldn’t go through that experience again for anything you could offer me. I held out for civility’s sake until the third day; and then I said, plump out, that I couldn’t stand any more of it, and went off to Chancery Lane. N o w you know the sort of perfectly splendid modern young lady I am. How do you think I shall get on with my mother?

      PRAED. [Startled.] Well, I hope—er—

      VIVIE. It’s not so much what you hope as what you believe, that I want to know.

      PRAED. Well, frankly, I am afraid your mother will be a little disappointed. Not from any shortcoming on your part, you know: I don’t mean that. But you are so different from her ideal.

      VIVIE. What is her ideal like?

      PRAED. Well, you must have observed, Miss Warren, that people who are dissatisfied with their own bringing-up generally think that the world would be all right if everybody were to be brought up quite differently. Now your mother’s life has been—er—I suppose you know—

      VIVIE. I know nothing. [Praed is appalled. His consternation grows as she continues.] That’s exactly my difficulty. You forget, Mr. Praed, that I hardly know my mother. Since I was a child I have lived in England, at school or at college, or with people paid to take charge of me. I have been boarded out all my life; and my mother has lived in Brussels or Vienna and never let me go to her. I only see her when she visits England for a few days. I don’t complain: it’s been very pleasant; for people have been very good to me; and there has always been plenty of money to make things smooth. But don’t imagine I know anything about my mother. I know far less than you do.

      PRAED. [Very ill at ease.] In that case—[He stops, quite at a loss. Then, with a forced attempt at gaiety.] But what nonsense we are talking! Of course you and your mother will get on capitally. [He rises, and looks abroad at the view.] What a charming little place you have here!

      VIVIE. [Unmoved.] If you think you are doing anything but confirming my worst suspicions by changing the subject like that, you must take me for a much greater fool than I hope I am.

      PRAED. Your worst suspicions! Oh, pray don’t say that. Now don’t.

      VIVIE Why won’t my mother’s life bear being talked about?

      PRAED. Pray think, Miss Vivie. It is natural that I should have a certain delicacy in talking to my old friend’s daughter about her behind her back. You will have plenty of opportunity of talking to her about it when she comes. [Anxiously.] I wonder what is keeping her.

      VIVIE. No: she won’t talk about it either. [Rising.] However, I daresay you have good reasons for telling me nothing. Only, mind this, Mr. Praed, I expect there will be a battle royal when my mother hears of my Chancery Lane project.

      PRAED. [Ruefully.] I’m afraid there will.

      VIVIE. Well, I shall win because I want nothing but my fare to London to start there to-morrow earning my own living by devilling for Honoria. Besides, I have no mysteries to keep up; and it seems she has. I shall use that advantage over her if necessary.

      PRAED. [Greatly shocked.] Oh no! No, pray. You’d not do such a thing.

      VIVIE. Then tell me why not.

      PRAED. I really cannot. I appeal to your good feeling. [She smiles at his sentimentality.] Besides, you may be too bold. Your mother is not to be trifled with when she’s angry.

      VIVIE. You can’t frighten me, Mr. Praed. In that month at Chancery Lane I had opportunities of taking the measure of one or two women very like my mother. You may back me to win. But if I hit harder in my ignorance than I need, remember it is you who refuse to enlighten me. Now, let us drop the subject. [She takes her chair and replaces it near the hammock with the same vigorous swing as before.]

      PRAED. [Taking a desperate resolution.] One word, Miss Warren. I had better tell you. It’s very difficult; but—[Mrs. Warren and Sir George Crofts arrive at the gate. Mrs. Warren is between 40 and 50, formerly pretty, showily dressed in a brilliant hat and a gay blouse fitting tightly over her bust and flanked by fashionable sleeves. Rather spoilt and domineering, and decidedly vulgar, but, on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman.

      CROFTS is a tall powerfully-built man of about 50, fashionably dressed in the style of a young man. Nasal voice, reedier than might be expected from his strong frame. Clean-shaven bulldog jaws, large flat ears, and thick neck: gentlemanly combination of the most brutal types of city man, sporting man, and man about town.]

      VIVIE. Here they are.

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