Mrs. Warren’s Profession

mother by the wrist and pulling her up pretty resolutely pull yourself together. That’s right. Mrs. Warren Querulously. You’re very rough with me, Vivie. Vivie Nonsense. What about bed? It’s past ten. Mrs. Warren Passionately. What’s the use of my going to bed? Do you think I could sleep? Vivie Why not? I shall. Mrs. Warren You! you’ve no heart. She suddenly breaks out vehemently in her natural tongue⁠—the dialect of a woman of the people⁠—with all her affectations of maternal authority and conventional manners gone, and an overwhelming inspiration of true conviction and scorn in her. Oh, I wont bear it: I won’t put up with the injustice of it. What right have you to set yourself up above me like this? You boast of what you are to me⁠—to me, who gave you the chance of being what you are. What chance had I? Shame on you for a bad daughter and a stuck-up prude! Vivie Cool and determined, but no longer confident; for her replies, which have sounded convincingly sensible and strong to her so far, now begin to ring rather woodenly and even priggishly against the new tone of her mother. Don’t think for a moment I set myself above you in any way. You attacked me with the conventional authority of a mother: I defended myself with the conventional superiority of a respectable woman. Frankly, I am not going to stand any of your nonsense; and when you drop it I shall not expect you to stand any of mine. I shall always respect your right to your own opinions and your own way of life. Mrs. Warren My own opinions and my own way of life! Listen to her talking! Do you think I was brought up like you⁠—able to pick and choose my own way of life? Do you think I did what I did because I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn’t rather have gone to college and been a lady if I’d had the chance? Vivie Everybody has some choice, mother. The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between ragpicking and flowerselling, according to her taste. People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. Mrs. Warren Oh, it’s easy to talk, isn’t it? Here!⁠—would you like to know what my circumstances were? Vivie Yes: you had better tell me. Won’t you sit down? Mrs. Warren 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. We both went to a church school⁠—that was part of the ladylike airs we gave ourselves to be superior to the children that knew nothing and went nowhere⁠—and we stayed there until Liz went out one night and never came back. I know the schoolmistress thought I’d soon follow her example; for the clergyman was always warning me that Lizzie’d end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all he knew about it! But I was more afraid of the white lead factory than I was of the river; and so would you have been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation as scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they sent out for anything you liked. Then I was waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo station⁠—fourteen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a week and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with a lot of sovereigns in her purse. Vivie Grimly. My aunt Lizzie! Mrs. Warren Yes: and a very good aunt to have, too. She’s living down at Winchester now, close to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there⁠—chaperones girls at the county ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman⁠—saved money from the beginning⁠—never let herself look too like what she was⁠—never lost her head or threw away a chance. When she saw I’d grown up good-looking she said to me across the bar: “What are you doing there, you little