Mrs. Warrens Daughter | Page 7

special pleading that go on in our male courts of _in_justice,
the verdicts of male juries!"
_Norie_: "Just so. But can't you find a little time to be social? Why be
so morose? For instance, why not come and be introduced to Michael
Rossiter? He's a dear--amazingly clever--a kind of prophet--Your one
confidant, Stead, thinks a lot of him."
_Vivie_: "Dear Norie--I can't. I swore two years ago I would drop
Society and run no risk of being found out as 'Mrs. Warren's daughter.'
That beast George Crofts revenged himself because I wouldn't marry
him by letting it be known here and there that I was the daughter of the
'notorious Mrs. Warren'; whereupon several of the people I liked--you
remember?--dropped me--the Burne-Joneses, the Lacrevys. Or if it
wasn't Crofts some other swine did. But for the fact that it would upset
our style as a firm I could change my name: call myself something
quite different....
"D'you know, I've sometimes thought I'd cut my hair short and dress in
men's clothes, and go out into the world as a man ... my voice is almost

a tenor--Such a lark! I'd get admitted to the Bar. But the nuisance about
that would be the references. I'm an outlaw, you see, through no fault of
mine.... I couldn't give you as a reference, and I don't know any man
who would be generous enough to take the risk of participating in the
fraud.... unless it were Praed--good old Praddy. I'm sure it's been done
now and again. They call Judge FitzSimmons 'an old woman.' Well,
d'you know, I believe he is ... a wise old woman."
_Norie_: "Well: bide a wee, till our firm is doing a roaring business: I
can pretend then to take in a male partner, p'raps. Rose and Lilian are
very hard-working and we can't afford to lose them yet. If you appeared
one morning dressed as a young man they might throw up their jobs
and go elsewhere..."
_Vivie_: "You may be quite sure I won't let you down. Moreover I
haven't the money for any vagaries yet, though I have an instinct that it
is coming. You know those Charles Davis shares I bought at 5_s._
3_d._? Well, they rose to 29_s._ whilst you were away; so I sold out.
We had three hundred, and that, less commissions, made about £350
profit; the boldest coup we have had yet. And all because I spotted that
new find of emery powder in Tripoli, saw it in a Consular Report....
"I want to be rich and therefore powerful, Norie! Then people will
forget fast enough about my shameful parentage."
_Norie_: "How is she? Do you ever hear from or of her now?"
_Vivie_: "I haven't heard from her for two years, since I left her letters
unanswered. But I hear of her every now and again. No. Not through
Crofts. I suppose you know--if you take any interest in that wretch--that
since he married the American quakeress he took his name off the
Warren Hotels Company and sold out much of his interest. He is now
living in great respectability, breeding race horses. They even say he
has given up whiskey. He has got a son and has endowed six cots in a
Children's hospital. No. I think it must be mother who has notices
posted to me, probably through that scoundrel, Bax Strangeways ...
generally in the London Argus and the _Vie-de-Paris_--cracking up the
Warren Hotels in Brussels, Berlin, Buda-Pest and Roquebrune. What a

comedy!...
"There's my Aunt Liz at Winchester--Mrs. Canon Burstall--won't know
me--I'm too compromising. But I'm sure her money-bags have been
filled at one time--perhaps are still--out of the profits on mother's
'Hotels.'..."
_Norie_: "I didn't remember your aunt was married ... or rather I
suppose I did, but thought she was a widow, real or _soi-disant_..."
_Vivie_: "So she is, after four years of happy married life! My 'uncle'
Canon Burstall--Oh what a screaming joke the whole thing is!... I doubt
if he was aware he had a niece.... Don't you remember he was killed in
the Alps last autumn?..."
_Norie_: "I remember your going down to see your aunt after you
broke off relations with your mother in--in--1897...?"
_Vivie_: "Yes. I wanted to see how the land lay and not judge any one
unfairly. Besides I--I--didn't like being dependent entirely on you--at
that time--for support: and Praed was in Italy. I knew that Aunt Liz,
like mother, was illegitimate--and guessed she had once made her
living in the higher walks of prostitution--she was a stockbroker's
mistress at one time--. But she had married and settled down at
Winchester ... She met her Canon--the Alpine traveller ... in
Switzerland. I felt if she took no money from mother's 'houses,' I could
perhaps make a