Fanny’s First Play

the world: to keep this dark. I’m your father. I ask you here on my knees⁠—in the dust, so to speak⁠—not to let it out. Margaret I’ll tell everybody. Knox collapses in despair. Mrs. Knox tries to pray and cannot. Margaret stands inflexible.

Act III

Again in the Gilbeys’ dining room. Afternoon. The table is not laid: it is draped in its ordinary cloth, with pen and ink, an exercise book, and schoolbooks on it. Bobby Gilbey is in the armchair, crouching over the fire, reading an illustrated paper. He is a pretty youth, of very suburban gentility, strong and manly enough by nature, but untrained and unsatisfactory, his parents having imagined that domestic restriction is what they call “bringing up.” He has learnt nothing from it except a habit of evading it by deceit.

He gets up to ring the bell; then resumes his crouch. Juggins answers the bell.

Bobby	Juggins.
Juggins	Sir?
Bobby	Morosely sarcastic. Sir be blowed!
Juggins	Cheerfully. Not at all, sir.
Bobby	I’m a gaol-bird: you’re a respectable man.
Juggins	That doesn’t matter, sir. Your father pays me to call you sir; and as I take the money, I keep my part of the bargain.
Bobby	Would you call me sir if you weren’t paid to do it?
Juggins	No, sir.
Bobby	I’ve been talking to Dora about you.
Juggins	Indeed, sir?
Bobby	Yes. Dora says your name can’t be Juggins, and that you have the manners of a gentleman. I always thought you hadn’t any manners. Anyhow, your manners are different from the manners of a gentleman in my set.
Juggins	They would be, sir.
Bobby	You don’t feel disposed to be communicative on the subject of Dora’s notion, I suppose.
Juggins	No, sir.
Bobby	Throwing his paper on the floor and lifting his knees over the arm of the chair so as to turn towards the footman. It was part of your bargain that you were to valet me a bit, wasn’t it?
Juggins	Yes, sir.
Bobby	Well, can you tell me the proper way to get out of an engagement to a girl without getting into a row for breach of promise or behaving like a regular cad?
Juggins	No, sir. You can’t get out of an engagement without behaving like a cad if the lady wishes to hold you to it.
Bobby	But it wouldn’t be for her happiness to marry me when I don’t really care for her.
Juggins	Women don’t always marry for happiness, sir. They often marry because they wish to be married women and not old maids.
Bobby	Then what am I to do?
Juggins	Marry her, sir, or behave like a cad.
Bobby	Jumping up. Well, I won’t marry her: that’s flat. What would you do if you were in my place?
Juggins	I should tell the young lady that I found I couldn’t fulfil my engagement.
Bobby	But you’d have to make some excuse, you know. I want to give it a gentlemanly turn: to say I’m not worthy of her, or something like that.
Juggins	That is not a gentlemanly turn, sir. Quite the contrary.
Bobby	I don’t see that at all. Do you mean that it’s not exactly true?
Juggins	Not at all, sir.
Bobby	I can say that no other girl can ever be to me what she’s been. That would be quite true, because our circumstances have been rather exceptional; and she’ll imagine I mean I’m fonder of her than I can ever be of anyone else. You see, Juggins, a gentleman has to think of a girl’s feelings.
Juggins	If you wish to spare her feelings, sir, you can marry her. If you hurt her feelings by refusing, you had better not try to get credit for considerateness at the same time by pretending to spare them. She won’t like it. And it will start an argument, of which you will get the worse.
Bobby	But, you know, I’m not really worthy of her.
Juggins	Probably she never supposed you were, sir.
Bobby	Oh, I say, Juggins, you are a pessimist.
Juggins	Preparing to go. Anything else, sir?
Bobby	Querulously. You haven’t been much use. He wanders disconsolately across the room. You generally put me up to the correct way of doing things.
Juggins	I assure you, sir, there’s no correct way of jilting. It’s not correct in itself.
Bobby	Hopefully. I’ll tell you what. I’ll say I can’t hold her to an engagement with a man who’s been in quod. That’ll do it. He seats himself on the table, relieved and confident.
Juggins	Very dangerous, sir. No woman will deny herself the romantic luxury of self-sacrifice and forgiveness when they take the form of doing something agreeable. She’s almost sure to say that your misfortune will draw her closer to you.
Bobby	What a nuisance! I don’t know what to do. You know, Juggins, your cool simple-minded way of doing it wouldn’t go down in Denmark Hill.
Juggins	I daresay not, sir. No doubt you’d prefer to make it look like an act of self-sacrifice for her sake on your part, or provoke her to break the engagement herself. Both plans have been tried repeatedly, but never with success, as far as my knowledge goes.
Bobby	You have a devilish cool way of laying down the law. You know, in my class you have to wrap up things a bit. Denmark Hill isn’t Camberwell, you know.
Juggins	I have noticed, sir, that Denmark Hill thinks that the higher you go in the social scale, the less sincerity is allowed; and that only tramps and riffraff are quite sincere. That’s a mistake. Tramps are often shameless; but they’re never sincere. Swells⁠—if I may use that convenient name for the upper classes⁠—play much more with their cards on the table. If you tell the young lady that you want to jilt her, and she calls you a pig, the tone of the transaction may leave much to be desired; but it’ll be less Camberwellian than if you say you’re not worthy.
Bobby	Oh, I can’t make you understand, Juggins. The girl isn’t a scullery-maid. I want to do