What Every Woman Knows - Sir James Matthew Barrie (top books to read .txt) 📗

general idea of it. Just see, Maggie, if I know the peroration. 'In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, these are the reasonable demands of every intelligent Englishwoman'-- I had better say British woman--'and I am proud to nail them to my flag'---

[The visitor is properly impressed.]

COMTESSE. Oho! defies his leaders!

JOHN. 'So long as I can do so without embarrassing the Government.'

COMTESSE. Ah, ah, Mr. Shand!

JOHN. 'I call upon the Front Bench, sir, loyally but firmly'--

COMTESSE. Firm again!

JOHN. --'either to accept my Bill, or to promise WITHOUT DELAY to bring in one of their own; and if they decline to do so I solemnly warn them that though I will not press the matter to a division just now'--

COMTESSE. Ahem!

JOHN. 'I will bring it forward again in the near future.' And now Comtesse, you know that I'm not going to divide--and not another soul knows it.

COMTESSE. I am indeed flattered by your confidence.

JOHN. I've only told you because I don't care who knows now.

COMTESSE. Oh!

[Somehow MAGGIE seems to be dissatisfied.]

MAGGIE. But why is that, John?

JOHN. I daren't keep the Government in doubt any longer about what I mean to do. I'll show the whips the speech privately to-night.

MAGGIE [who still wants to know]. But not to go to a division is hedging, isn't it? Is that strong?

JOHN. To make the speech at all, Maggie, is stronger than most would dare. They would do for me if I went to a division.

MAGGIE. Bark but not bite?

JOHN. Now, now, Maggie, you're out of your depth.

MAGGIE. I suppose that's it.

[The COMTESSE remains in the shallows.]

COMTESSE. But what will the ladies say, Mr. Shand?

JOHN. They won't like it, Comtesse, but they've got to lump it.

[Here the maid appears with a card for MAGGIE, who considers it quietly.]

JOHN. Any one of importance?

MAGGIE. No.

JOHN. Then I'm ready, Maggie.

[This is evidently an intimation that she is to open the folding-doors, and he makes an effective entrance into the dining-room, his thumb in his waistcoat. There is a delicious clapping of hands from the committee, and the door closes. Not till then does MAGGIE, who has grown thoughtful, tell her maid to admit the visitor.]

COMTESSE. Another lady, Mrs. Shand?

MAGGIE. The card says 'Mr. Charles Venables.'

[The COMTESSE is really interested at last.]

COMTESSE. Charles Venables! Do you know him?

MAGGIE. I think I call to mind meeting one of that name at the Foreign Office party.

COMTESSE. One of that name! He who is a Minister of your Cabinet. But as you know him so little why should he call on you?

MAGGIE. I wonder.

[MAGGIE's glance wanders to the drawer in which she has replaced JOHN's speech.]

COMTESSE. Well, well, I shall take care of you, petite.

MAGGIE. Do you know him?

COMTESSE. Do I know him! The last time I saw him he asked me to--to-- hem!--ma cherie, it was thirty years ago.

MAGGIE. Thirty years!

COMTESSE. I was a pretty woman then. I dare say I shall detest him now; but if I find I do not--let us have a little plot--I shall drop this book; and then perhaps you will be so charming as--as not to be here for a little while?

[MR. VENABLES, who enters, is such a courtly seigneur that he seems to bring the eighteenth century with him; you feel that his sedan chair is at the door. He stoops over MAGGIE's plebeian hand.]

VENABLES. I hope you will pardon my calling, Mrs. Shand; we had such a pleasant talk the other evening.

[MAGGIE, of course, is at once deceived by his gracious manner.]

MAGGIE. I think it's kind of you. Do you know each other? The Comtesse de la Briere.

[He repeats the name with some emotion, and the COMTESSE, half mischievously, half sadly, holds a hand before her face.]

VENABLES. Comtesse.

COMTESSE. Thirty years, Mr. Venables.

[He gallantly removes the hand that screens her face.]

VENABLES. It does not seem so much.

[She gives him a similar scrutiny.]

COMTESSE. Mon Dieu, it seems all that.

[They smile rather ruefully. MAGGIE like a kind hostess relieves the tension.]

MAGGIE. The Comtesse has taken a cottage in Surrey for the summer.

VENABLES. I am overjoyed.

COMTESSE. No, Charles, you are not. You no longer care. Fickle one! And it is only thirty years.

[He sinks into a chair beside her.]

VENABLES. Those heavenly evenings, Comtesse, on the Bosphorus.

COMTESSE. I refuse to talk of them. I hate you.

[But she drops the book, and MAGGIE fades from the room. It is not a very clever departure, and the old diplomatist smiles. Then he sighs a beautiful sigh, for he does all things beautifully.]

VENABLES. It is moonlight, Comtesse, on the Golden Horn.

COMTESSE. Who are those two young things in a caique?

VENABLES. Is he the brave Leander, Comtesse, and is she Hero of the Lamp?

COMTESSE. No, she is the foolish wife of the French Ambassador, and he is a good-for-nothing British attache trying to get her husband's secrets out of her.

VENABLES. Is it possible! They part at a certain garden gate.

COMTESSE. Oh, Charles, Charles!

VENABLES. But you promised to come back; I waited there till dawn. Blanche, if you HAD come back--

COMTESSE. How is Mrs. Venables?

VENABLES. She is rather poorly. I think it's gout.

COMTESSE. And you?

VENABLES. I creak a little in the mornings.

COMTESSE. So do I. There is such a good man at Wiesbaden.

VENABLES. The Homburg fellow is better. The way he patched me up last summer--Oh, Lord, Lord!

COMTESSE. Yes, Charles, the game is up; we are two old fogies. [They groan in unison; then she raps him sharply on the knuckles.] Tell me, sir, what are you doing here?

VENABLES. Merely a friendly call.

COMTESSE. I do not believe it.

VENABLES. The same woman; the old delightful candour.

COMTESSE. The same man; the old fibs. [She sees that the door is asking a question.] Yes, come, Mrs. Shand, I have had quite enough of him; I warn you he is here for some crafty purpose.

MAGGIE [drawing back timidly]. Surely not?

VENABLES. Really, Comtesse, you make conversation difficult. To show that my intentions are innocent, Mrs. Shand, I propose that you choose the subject.

MAGGIE [relieved]. There, Comtesse.

VENABLES. I hope your husband is well?

MAGGIE. Yes, thank you. [With a happy thought] I decide that we talk about him.

VENABLES. If you wish it.

COMTESSE. Be careful; HE has chosen the subject.

MAGGIE. _I_ chose it, didn't I?

VENABLES. You know you did.

MAGGIE [appealingly]. You admire John?

VENABLES. Very much. But he puzzles me a little. You Scots, Mrs. Shand, are such a mixture of the practical and the emotional that you escape out of an Englishman's hand like a trout.

MAGGIE [open-eyed]. Do we?

VENABLES. Well, not you, but your husband. I have known few men make a worse beginning in the House. He had the most atrocious bow-wow public-park manner---

COMTESSE. I remember that manner!

MAGGIE. No, he hadn't.

VENABLES [soothingly]. At first. But by his second session he had shed all that, and he is now a pleasure to listen to. By the way, Comtesse, have you found any dark intention in that?

COMTESSE. You wanted to know whether he talks over these matter with his wife; and she has told you that he does not.

MAGGIE [indignantly]. I haven't said a word about it, have I?

VENABLES. Not a word. Then, again, I admire him for his impromptu speeches.

MAGGIE. What is impromptu?

VENABLES. Unprepared. They have contained some grave blunders not so much of judgment as of taste---

MAGGIE [hotly]. _I_ don't think so.

VENABLES. Pardon me. But he has righted himself subsequently in the neatest way. I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching. Well, Comtesse, I see you have something to say.

COMTESSE. You are wondering whether she can tell you who gives him his second thoughts.

MAGGIE. Gives them to John? I would like to see anybody try to give thoughts to John.

VENABLES. Quite so.

COMTESSE. Is there anything more that has roused your admiration Charles?

VENABLES [purring]. Let me see. Yes, we are all much edified by his humour.

COMTESSE [surprised indeed]. His humour? That man!

MAGGIE [with hauteur]. Why not?

VENABLES. I assure you, Comtesse, some of the neat things in his speeches convulse the house. A word has even been coined for them-- Shandisms.

COMTESSE [slowly recovering from a blow]. Humour!

VENABLES. In conversation, I admit, he strikes one as being--ah-- somewhat lacking in humour.

COMTESSE [pouncing]. You are wondering who supplies his speeches with the humour.

MAGGIE. Supplies John?

VENABLES. Now that you mention it, some of his Shandisms do have a curiously feminine quality.

COMTESSE. You have thought it might be a woman.

VENABLES. Really, Comtesse--

COMTESSE. I see it all. Charles, you thought it might be the wife!

VENABLES [flinging up his hands]. I own up.

MAGGIE [bewildered]. Me?

VENABLES. Forgive me, I see I was wrong.

MAGGIE [alarmed]. Have I been doing John any harm?

VENABLES. On the contrary, I am relieved to know that there are no hairpins in his speeches. If he is at home, Mrs. Shand, may I see him? I am going to be rather charming to him.

MAGGIE [drawn in two directions]. Yes, he is--oh yes--but--

VENABLES. That is to say, Comtesse, if he proves himself the man I believe him to be.

[This arrests MAGGIE almost as she has reached the dining-room door.]

MAGGIE [hesitating]. He is very busy just now.

VENABLES [smiling]. I think he will see me.

MAGGIE. Is it something about his speech?

VENABLES [the smile hardening]. Well, yes, it is.

MAGGIE. Then I dare say I could tell you what you want to know without troubling him, as I've been typing it.

VENABLES [with a sigh]. I don't acquire information in that way.

COMTESSE. I trust not.

MAGGIE. There's no secret about it. He is to show it to the whips tonight.

VENABLES [sharply]. You are sure of that?

COMTESSE. It is quite true, Charles. I heard him say so; and indeed he repeated what he called the 'peroration' before me.

MAGGIE. I know it by heart. [She plays a bold game.] 'These are the demands of all intelligent British women, and I am proud to nail them to my flag'--

COMTESSE. The very words, Mrs. Shand.

MAGGIE [looking at her imploringly]. 'And I don't care how they may embarrass the Government.' [The COMTESSE is bereft of speech, so suddenly has she been introduced to the real MAGGIE SHAND]. 'If the right honourable gentleman will give us his pledge to introduce a similar Bill this session I will willingly withdraw mine; but otherwise I solemnly warn him that I will press the matter now to a division.'

[She turns her face from the great man; she has gone white.]

VENABLES [after a pause]. Capital.

[The blood returns to MAGGIE's heart.]

COMTESSE [who is beginning to