The Master of Mrs. Chilvers Part 22

GEOFFREY So this is only the beginning? You have decided to devote yourself to a political career?

ANNYS Why not?

GEOFFREY If I were to ask you to abandon it, to come back to your place at my side--helping me, strengthening me?

ANNYS You mean you would have me abandon my own task--merge myself in you?

GEOFFREY Be my wife.

ANNYS It would not be right. I, too, have my work.

GEOFFREY If it takes you away from me?

ANNYS Why need it take me away from you? Why cannot we work together for common ends, each in our own way?

GEOFFREY We talked like that before we tried it. Marriage is not a partnership; it is a leadership.

ANNYS [She looks at him.] You mean--an ownership.

GEOFFREY Perhaps you're right. I didn't make it. I'm only-- beginning to understand it.

ANNYS And I too. It is not what I want.

GEOFFREY You mean its duties have become irksome to you.

ANNYS I mean I want to be the judge myself of what are my duties.

GEOFFREY I no longer count. You will go your way without me?

ANNYS I must go the way I think right.

GEOFFREY [He flings away.] If you win to-night you will do well to make the most of it. Take my advice and claim the seat.

ANNYS [Looks at him puzzled.]

ELIZABETH Why?

GEOFFREY Because [with a short, ugly laugh] the Lord only knows when you'll get another opportunity.

ELIZABETH You are going to stop us?

GEOFFREY To stop women from going to the poll. The Bill will be introduced on Monday. Carried through all its stages the same week.

ELIZABETH You think it will pa.s.s?

GEOFFREY The Whips a.s.sure me that it will.

ANNYS But they cannot, they dare not, without your a.s.sent. The-- [The light breaks in upon her.] Who is bringing it in?

GEOFFREY I am.

ANNYS [Is going to speak.]

GEOFFREY [He stops her.] Oh, I'm prepared for all that--ridicule, abuse. "Chilvers's Bill for the Better Regulation of Mrs.

Chilvers," they'll call it. I can hear their laughter. Yours won't be among it.

ANNYS But, Geoffrey! What is the meaning? Merely to spite me, are you going to betray a cause that you have professed belief in-- that you have fought for?

GEOFFREY Yes--if it is going to take you away from me. I want you. No, I don't want a friend--"a fellow-worker"--some interesting rival in well doing. I can get all that outside my home. I want a wife. I want the woman I love to belong to me--to be mine. I am not troubling about being up to date; I'm talking what I feel--what every male creature must have felt since the protoplasmic cell developed instincts. I want a woman to love--a woman to work for--a woman to fight for--a woman to be a slave to.

But mine--mine, and nothing else. All the rest [he makes a gesture] is talk.

[He closes the window, shutting out the hubbub of the crowd.]

ANNYS [A strange, new light has stolen in. She is bewildered, groping.] But--all this is new between us. You have not talked like this for--not since-- We were just good friends--comrades.

GEOFFREY And might have remained so, G.o.d knows! I suppose we're made like that. So long as there was no danger pa.s.sion slept. I cannot explain it. I only know that now, beside the thought of losing you, all else in the world seems meaningless. The Woman's Movement! [He makes a gesture of contempt.] Men have wrecked kingdoms for a woman before now--and will again. I want you! [He comes to her.] Won't you come back to me, that we may build up the home we used to dream of? Wasn't the old love good? What has this new love to give you? Work that man can do better. The cause of the women--the children! Has woman loved woman better than man?

Will the world be better for the children, man and woman contending? Come back to me. Help me. Help me to fight for all good women. Teach me how I may make the world better--for our children.

ANNYS [The light is in her eyes. She stands a moment. Her hands are going out to him.]

ELIZABETH [She comes between them.] Yes, go to him. He will be very good to you. Good men are kind to women, kind even to their dogs. You will be among the pampered few! You will be happy. And the others! What does it matter?

[They draw apart. She stands between them, the incarnation of the spirit of s.e.x war.]

The women that have not kind owners--the dogs that have not kind masters--the dumb women, chained to their endless, unpaid drudgery!

Let them be content. What are they but man's chattel? To be honoured if it pleases him, or to be cast into the dust. Man's pauper! Bound by his laws, subject to his whim; her every hope, her every aspiration, owed to his charity. She toils for him without ceasing: it should be her "pleasure." She bears him children, when he chooses to desire them. They are his to do as he will by. Why seek to change it? Our man is kind. What have they to do with us: the women beaten, driven, overtasked--the women without hope or joy, the livers of grey lives that men may laugh and spend--the women degraded lower than the beasts to pander to the beast in man--the women outraged and abandoned, bearing to the grave the burden of man's l.u.s.t? Let them go their way. They are but our sisters of sorrow. And we who could help them--we to whom G.o.d has given the weapons: the brain, and the courage--we make answer: "I have married a husband, and I cannot come."

[A silence.]

GEOFFREY Well, you have heard. [He makes a gesture.] What is your answer?

ANNYS [She comes to him.] Don't you love me enough to humour me a little--to put up with my vexing ways? I so want to help, to feel I am doing just a little, to make the world kinder. I know you can do it better, but I want so to be "in it." [She laughs.] Let us forget all this. Wake up to-morrow morning with fresh hearts. You will be Member for East Poplar. And then you shall help me to win Manchester. [She puts her hands upon his breast: she would have him take her in his arms.] I am not strong enough to fight alone.

GEOFFREY I want you. Let Manchester find some one else.

ANNYS [She draws away from him.] And if I cannot--will not?

GEOFFREY I bring in my Bill on Monday. We'll be quite frank about it. That is my price--you. I want you!

ANNYS You mean it comes to that: a whole cause dependent on a man and a woman!

GEOFFREY Yes, that is how the world is built. On each man and woman. "How does it shape my life, my hopes?" So will each make answer.

[LADY MOGTON enters. She stands silent.]

ELIZABETH Is it over?

LADY MOGTON Annys Chilvers, 3,604--Geoffrey Chilvers, 3,590.