The Philanderer

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Produced by Jim Tinsley

THE PHILANDERER

ACT I

A lady and gentleman are making love to one another in
the drawing-room of a flat in Ashly Gardens in the
Victoria district of London. It is past ten at night.
The walls are hung with theatrical engravings and
photographs--Kemble as Hamlet, Mrs. Siddons as Queen
Katharine pleading in court, Macready as Werner (after
Maclise), Sir Henry Irving as Richard III (after Long),
Miss Ellen Terry, Mrs. Kendal, Miss Ada Rehan, Madame
Sarah Bernhardt, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. A. W.
Pinero, Mr. Sydney Grundy, and so on, but not the
Signora Duse or anyone connected with Ibsen. The room
is not a perfect square, the right hand corner at the
back being cut off diagonally by the doorway, and the
opposite corner rounded by a turret window filled up
with a stand of flowers surrounding a statue of
Shakespear. The fireplace is on the right, with an
armchair near it. A small round table, further forward
on the same side, with a chair beside it, has a
yellow-backed French novel lying open on it. The piano,
a grand, is on the left, open, with the keyboard in
full view at right angles to the wall. The piece of
music on the desk is "When other lips." Incandescent
lights, well shaded, are on the piano and mantelpiece.
Near the piano is a sofa, on which the lady and
gentleman are seated affectionately side by side, in
one another's arms.

The lady, Grace Tranfield, is about 32, slight of
build, delicate of feature, and sensitive in
expression. She is just now given up to the emotion of
the moment; but her well closed mouth, proudly set
brows, firm chin, and elegant carriage show plenty of
determination and self respect. She is in evening
dress.

The gentleman, Leonard Charteris, a few years older, is
unconventionally but smartly dressed in a velvet jacket
and cashmere trousers. His collar, dyed Wotan blue, is
part of his shirt, and turns over a garnet coloured
scarf of Indian silk, secured by a turquoise ring. He
wears blue socks and leather sandals. The arrangement
of his tawny hair, and of his moustaches and short
beard, is apparently left to Nature; but he has taken
care that Nature shall do him the fullest justice. His
amative enthusiasm, at which he is himself laughing,
and his clever, imaginative, humorous ways, contrast
strongly with the sincere tenderness and dignified
quietness of the woman.

CHARTERIS (impulsively clasping Grace). My dearest love.

GRACE (responding affectionately). My darling. Are you happy?

CHARTERIS. In Heaven.

GRACE. My own.

CHARTERIS. My heart's love. (He sighs happily, and takes her hands in
his, looking quaintly at her.) That must positively be my last kiss,
Grace, or I shall become downright silly. Let us talk. (Releases her
and sits a little apart from her.) Grace: is this your first love
affair?

GRACE. Have you forgotten that I am a widow? Do you think I married
Tranfield for money?

CHARTERIS. How do I know? Besides, you might have married him not
because you loved him, but because you didn't love anybody else. When
one is young, one marries out of mere curiosity, just to see what it's
like.

GRACE. Well, since you ask me, I never was in love with Tranfield,
though I only found that out when I fell in love with you. But I used
to like him for being in love with me. It brought out all the good in
him so much that I have wanted to be in love with some one ever since.
I hope, now that I am in love with you, you will like me for it just
as I liked Tranfield.

CHARTERIS. My dear, it is because I like you that I want to marry you.
I could love anybody--any pretty woman, that is.

GRACE. Do you really mean that, Leonard?

CHARTERIS. Of course. Why not?

GRACE (reflecting). Never mind why. Now tell me, is this your first
love affair?

CHARTERIS (amazed at the simplicity of the question). No, bless my
soul. No--nor my second, nor my third.

GRACE. But I mean your first serious one.

CHARTERIS (with a certain hesitation). Yes. (There is a pause. She is
not convinced. He adds, with a very perceptible load on his
conscience.) It is the first in which _I_ have been serious.

GRACE (searchingly). I see. The other parties were always serious.

CHARTERIS. No, not always--heaven forbid!

GRACE. How often?

CHARTERIS. Well, once.

GRACE. Julia Craven?

CHARTERIS (recoiling). Who told you that? (She shakes her head
mysteriously, and he turns away from her moodily and adds) You had
much better not have asked.

GRACE (gently). I'm sorry, dear. (She puts out her hand and pulls
softly at him to bring him near her again.)

CHARTERIS (yielding mechanically to the pull, and allowing her hand to
rest on his arm, but sitting squarely without the least attempt to
return the caress). Do I feel harder to the touch than I did five
minutes ago?

GRACE. What nonsense!

CHARTERIS. I feel as if my body had turned into the toughest of
hickory. That is what comes of reminding me of Julia Craven.
(Brooding, with his chin on his right hand and his elbow on his knee.)
I have sat alone with her just as I am sitting with you--

GRACE (shrinking from him). Just!

CHARTERIS (sitting upright and facing her steadily). Just exactly. She
has put her hands in mine, and laid her cheek against mine, and
listened to me saying all sorts of silly things. (Grace, chilled to
the soul, rises from the sofa and sits down on the piano stool, with
her back to the keyboard.) Ah, you don't want to hear any more of the
story. So much the better.

GRACE (deeply hurt, but controlling herself). When did you break it
off?

CHARTERIS (guiltily). Break it off?

GRACE (firmly). Yes, break it off.

CHARTERIS. Well, let me see. When did I fall in love with you?

GRACE. Did you break it off then?

CHARTERIS (mischievously, making it plainer and plainer that it has
not been broken off). It was clear then, of course, that it must be
broken off.

GRACE. And did you break it off?

CHARTERIS. Oh, yes: _I_ broke it off,

GRACE. But did she break it off?

CHARTERIS (rising). As a favour to me, dearest, change the subject.
Come away from the piano: I want you to sit here with me. (Takes a
step towards her.)

GRACE. No. I also have grown hard to the touch--much harder than
hickory for the present. Did she break it off?

CHARTERIS. My dear, be reasonable. It was fully explained to her that
it was to be broken off.

GRACE. Did she accept the explanation?

CHARTERIS. She did what a woman like Julia always does. When I
explained personally, she said it was not not my better self that was
speaking, and that she knew I still really loved her. When I wrote it
to her with brutal explicitness, she read the letter carefully and
then sent it back to me with a note to say that she had not had the
courage to open it, and that I ought to be ashamed of having written
it. (Comes beside Grace, and puts his left hand caressingly round her
neck.) You see, dearie, she won't look the situation in the face.

GRACE. (shaking off his hand and turning a little away on the stool).
I am afraid, from the light way in which you speak of it, you did not
sound the right chord.

CHARTERIS. My dear, when you are doing what a woman calls breaking her
heart, you may sound the very prettiest chords you can find on the
piano; but to her ears it is just like this--(Sits down on the bass
end of the keyboard. Grace puts her fingers in her ears. He rises and
moves away from the piano, saying) No, my dear: I've been kind; I've
been frank; I've been everything that a goodnatured man could be: she
only takes it as the making up of a lover's quarrel. (Grace winces.)
Frankness and kindness: one is as the other--especially frankness.
I've tried both. (He crosses to the fireplace, and stands facing the
fire, looking at the ornaments on the mantelpiece and warming his
hands.)

GRACE (Her voice a little strained). What are you going to try now?

CHARTERIS (on the hearthrug, turning to face her). Action, my dear!
Marriage!! In that she must believe. She won't be convinced by
anything short of it, because, you see, I have had some tremendous
philanderings before and have gone back to her after them.

GRACE. And so that is why you want to marry me?

CHARTERIS. I cannot deny it, my love. Yes: it is your mission to
rescue me from Julia.

GRACE (rising). Then, if you please, I decline to be made use of for
any such purpose. I will not steal you from another woman. (She begins
to walk up and down the room with ominous disquiet.)

CHARTERIS. Steal me! (Comes towards her.) Grace: I have a question to
put to you as an advanced woman. Mind! as an advanced woman. Does
Julia belong to me? Am I her owner--her master?

GRACE. Certainly not. No woman is the property of a man. A woman
belongs to herself and to nobody else.

CHARTERIS. Quite right. Ibsen for ever! That's exactly my opinion. Now
tell me, do I belong to Julia; or have I a right to belong to myself?

GRACE (puzzled). Of course you have; but--

CHARTERIS (interrupting her triumphantly). Then how can you steal me
from Julia if I don't belong to her? (Catching her by the shoulders
and holding her out at arm's length in front of him.) Eh, little
philosopher? No, my dear: if Ibsen sauce is good for the goose, it's
good for the gander as well. Besides (coaxing her) it was nothing but
a philander with Julia--nothing else in the world, I assure you.

GRACE (breaking away from him). So much the worse! I hate your
philanderings: they make me ashamed of you and of myself. (Goes to the
sofa and sits in the right hand corner of it, leaning gloomily on her
elbow with her face averted.)

CHARTERIS. Grace: you utterly misunderstand the origin of my
philanderings. (Sits down beside her.) Listen to me: am I a
particularly handsome man?

GRACE (turning to him as if astonished at his conceit). No!

CHARTERIS (triumphantly). You admit it. Am I a well dressed man?

GRACE. Not particularly.

CHARTERIS. Of course not. Have I a romantic mysterious charm about
me?--do I look as if a secret sorrow preyed on me?--am I gallant
to women?

GRACE. Not in the least.

CHARTERIS. Certainly not. No one can accuse me of it. Then whose fault
is it that half the women I speak to fall in love with me? Not mine:
I hate it: it bores me to distraction. At first it flattered
me--delighted me--that was how Julia got me, because she was the first
woman who had the pluck to make me a declaration. But I soon had
enough of it; and at no time have I taken the initiative and
persecuted women with my advances as women have persecuted me. Never.
Except, of course, in your case.

GRACE. Oh, you need not make any exception. I had a good deal of
trouble to induce you to come and see us. You were very coy.

CHARTERIS (fondly, taking her hand). With you, dearest, the coyness
was sheer coquetry. I loved you from the first, and fled only that you
might pursue. But come! let us talk about something really
interesting. (Takes her in his arms.) Do you love me better than
anyone else in the world?

GRACE. I don't think you like to be loved too much.

CHARTERIS. That depends on who the person is. You (pressing her to his
heart) cannot love me too much: you cannot love me half enough. I
reproach you every day for your coldness--your-- (Violent double knock
heard without. They start and listen, still in one another's arms,
hardly daring to breathe.) Who the deuce is calling at this hour?

GRACE. I can't imagine. (They listen guiltily. The door of the flat is
opened without. They hastily get away from one another.)

A WOMAN'S VOICE OUTSIDE. Is Mr. Charteris here?

CHARTERIS (springing up). Julia! The devil! (Stands at the left of the
sofa with his hands on it, bending forward with his eyes fixed on the
door.)

GRACE (rising also). What can she want?

THE VOICE. Never mind: I will announce myself. (A beautiful, dark,
tragic looking woman, in mantle and bonnet, appears at the door,
raging furiously.) Oh, this is charming. I have interrupted a pretty
tete-a-tete. Oh, you villain! (She comes straight at Grace. Charteris
runs across behind the sofa and stops her. She struggles furiously
with him. Grace preserves her self possession, but retreats quietly to
the piano. Julia, finding Charteris too strong for her, gives up her
attempt to get at Grace, but strikes him in the face as she frees
herself.)

CHARTERIS (shocked). Oh, Julia, Julia! This is too bad.

JULIA. Is it, indeed, too bad? What are you doing up here with that
woman? You scoundrel! But now listen to me; Leonard: you have driven
me to desperation; and I don't care what I do, or who hears me. I'll
not bear it. She shall not have my place with you--

CHARTERIS. Sh-sh!

JULIA. No, no: I don't care: I will expose her true character before
everybody. You belong to me: you have no right to be here; and she
knows it.

CHARTERIS. I think you had better let me take you home, Julia.

JULIA. I will not. I am not going home: I am going to stay
here--here--until I have made you give her up.

CHARTERIS. My dear, you must be reasonable. You really cannot stay in
Mrs. Tranfield's house if she objects. She can ring the bell and have
us both put out.

JULIA. Let her do it then. Let her ring the bell if she dares. Let us
see how this pure virtuous creature will face the scandal of what I
will declare about her. Let us see how you will face it. I have
nothing to lose. Everybody knows how you have treated me: you have
boasted of your conquests, you poor pitiful, vain creature--I am the
common talk of your acquaintances and hers. Oh, I have calculated my
advantage (tearing off her mantle): I am a most unhappy and injured
woman; but I am not the fool you take me to be. I am going to
stay--see! (She flings the mantle on the round table; puts her bonnet
on it, and sits down.) Now, Mrs. Tranfield: there is the bell:
(pointing to the button beside the fireplace) why don't you ring?
(Grace, looking attentively at Charteris, does not move.) Ha! ha! I
thought so.

CHARTERIS (quietly, without relaxing his watch on Julia). Mrs.
Tranfield: I think you had better go into another room. (Grace makes a
movement towards the door, but stops and looks inquiringly at
Charteris as Julia springs up. He advances a step so as to prevent her
from getting to the door.)

JULIA. She shall not. She shall stay here. She shall know what you
are, and how you have been in love with me--how it is not two days
since you kissed me and told me that the future would be as happy as
the past. (Screaming at him) You did: deny it if you dare.

CHARTERIS (to Grace in a low voice). Go!

GRACE (with nonchalant disgust--going). Get her away as soon as you
can, Leonard.

(Julia, with a stifled cry of rage, rushes at Grace, who is crossing
behind the sofa towards door. Charteris seizes her and prevents her
from getting past the sofa. Grace goes out. Charteris, holding Julia
fast, looks around to the door to see whether Grace is safely out of
the room.)

JULIA (suddenly ceasing to struggle and speaking with the most
pathetic dignity). Oh, there is no need to be violent. (He passes her
across to the left end of the sofa, and leans against the right end,
panting and mopping his forehead). That is worthy of you!--to use
brute force--to humiliate me before her! (She breaks down and bursts
into tears.)

CHARTERIS (to himself with melancholy conviction). This is going to be
a cheerful evening. Now patience, patience, patience! (Sits on a chair
near the round table.)

JULIA (in anguish). Leonard, have you no feeling for me?

CHARTERIS. Only an intense desire to get you safely out of this.

JULIA (fiercely). I am not going to stir.

CHARTERIS (wearily). Well, well. (Heaves a long sigh. They sit silent
for awhile, Julia struggling, not to regain her self control, but to
maintain her rage at boiling point.)

JULIA (rising suddenly). I am going to speak to that woman.

CHARTERIS (jumping up). No, no. Hang it, Julia, don't let's have
another wrestling match. I have the strength, but not the wind: you're
too young for me. Sit down or else let me take you home. Suppose her
father comes in.

JULIA. I don't care. It rests with you. I am ready to go if she will
give you up: until then I stay. Those are my terms: you owe me that,
(She sits down determinedly. Charteris looks at her for a moment;
then, making up his mind, goes resolutely to the couch, sits down near
the right hand end of it, she being at the left; and says with biting
emphasis)--

CHARTERIS. I owe you just exactly nothing.

JULIA (reproachfully). Nothing! You can look me in the face and say
that? Oh, Leonard!

CHARTERIS. Let me remind you, Julia, that when first we became
acquainted, the position you took up was that of a woman of advanced
views.

JULIA. That should have made you respect me the more.

CHARTERIS (placably). So it did, my dear. But that is not the point.
As a woman of advanced views, you were determined to be free. You
regarded marriage as a degrading bargain, by which a woman sold
herself to a man for the social status of a wife and the right to be
supported and pensioned in old age out of his income. That's the
advanced view--our view. Besides, if you had married me, I might have
turned out a drunkard, a criminal, an imbecile, a horror to you; and
you couldn't have released yourself. Too big a risk, you see. That's
the rational view--our view. Accordingly, you reserved the right to
leave me at any time if you found our companionship incompatible
with--what was the expression you used?--with your full development as
a human being: I think that was how you put the Ibsenist view--our
view. So I had to be content with a charming philander, which taught
me a great deal, and brought me some hours of exquisite happiness.

JULIA. Leonard: you confess then that you owe me something?

CHARTERIS (haughtily). No: what I received, I paid. Did you learn
nothing from me?--was there no delight for you in our friendship?

JULIA (vehemently and movingly; for she is now sincere). No. You made
me pay dearly for every moment of happiness. You revenged yourself on
me for the humiliation of being the slave of your passion for me. I
was never sure of you for a moment. I trembled whenever a letter came
from you, lest it should contain some stab for me. I dreaded your
visits almost as much as I longed for them. I was your plaything, not
your companion. (She rises, exclaiming) Oh, there was such suffering
in my happiness that I hardly knew joy from pain. (She sinks on the
piano stool, and adds, as she buries her face in her hands and turns
away from him) Better for me if I had never met you!

CHARTERIS (rising indignantly). You ungenerous wretch! Is this your
gratitude for the way I have just been flattering you? What have I not
endured from you--endured with angelic patience? Did I not find out,
before our friendship was a fortnight old, that all your advanced
views were merely a fashion picked up and followed like any other
fashion, without understanding or meaning a word of them? Did you
not, in spite of your care for your own liberty, set up claims on me
compared to which the claims of the most jealous wife would have been
trifles. Have I a single woman friend whom you have not abused as old,
ugly, vicious--

JULIA (quickly looking up). So they are.

CHARTERIS. Well, then, I'll come to grievances that even you can
understand. I accuse you of habitual and intolerable jealousy and ill
temper; of insulting me on imaginary provocation: of positively
beating me; of stealing letters of mine--

JULIA (rising). Yes, nice letters.

CHARTERIS. --of breaking your solemn promises not to do it again; of
spending hours--aye, days! piecing together the contents of my waste
paper basket in your search for more letters; and then representing
yourself as an ill used saint and martyr wantonly betrayed and
deserted by a selfish monster of a man.

JULIA. I was justified in reading your letters. Our perfect confidence
in one another gave me the right to do it.

CHARTERIS. Thank you. Then I hasten to break off a confidence which
gives such rights. (Sits down sulkily on sofa.)

JULIA (with her right hand on the back of the sofa, bending over him
threateningly). You have no right to break it off.

CHARTERIS. I have. You refused to marry me because--

JULIA. I did not. You never asked me. If we were married, you would
never dare treat me as you are doing now.

CHARTERIS (laboriously going back to his argument). It was understood
between us as people of advanced views that we were not to marry
because, as the law stands, I might have become a drunkard, a--

JULIA. --a criminal, an imbecile or a horror. You said that before.
(Sits down beside him with a fling.)

CHARTERIS (politely). I beg your pardon, my dear. I know I have a
habit of repeating myself. The point is that you reserved your freedom
to give me up when you pleased.

JULIA. Well, what of that? I do not please to give you up; and I will
not. You have not become a drunkard or a criminal.

CHARTERIS. You don't see the point yet, Julia. You seem to forget that
in reserving your freedom to leave me in case I should turn out badly,
you also reserved my freedom to leave you in case you should turn out
badly.

JULIA. Very ingenious. And pray, have _I_ become a drunkard, or a
criminal, or an imbecile?

CHARTERIS (rising). You have become what is infinitely worse than all
three together--a jealous termagant.

JULIA (shaking her head bitterly). Yes, abuse me--call me names.

CHARTERIS. I now assert the right I reserved--the right of breaking
with you when I please. Advanced views, Julia, involve advanced
duties: you cannot be an advanced woman when you want to bring a man
to your feet, and a conventional woman when you want to hold him there
against his will. Advanced people form charming friendships:
conventional people marry. Marriage suits a good deal of people; and
its first duty is fidelity. Friendship suits some people; and its
first duty is unhesitating, uncomplaining acceptance of a notice of a
change of feeling from either side. You chose friendship instead of
marriage. Now do your duty, and accept your notice.

JULIA. Never! We are engaged in the eye of--the eye of--

CHARTERIS (sitting down quickly beside her). Yes, Julia. Can't you get
it out? In the eye of something that advanced women don't believe in,
en?

JULIA (throwing herself at his feet). O Leonard, don't be cruel. I am
too miserable to argue--to think. I only know I love you. You reproach
me with not wanting to marry you. I would have married you at any time
after I came to love you, if you had asked me. I will marry you now if
you will.

CHARTERIS. I won't, my dear. That's flat. We're intellectually
incompatible.

JULIA. But why? We could be so happy. You love me--I know you love
me--I feel it. You say "My dear" to me: you have said it several times
this evening. I know I have been wicked, odious, bad. I say nothing in
defence of myself. But don't be hard on me. I was distracted by the
thought of losing you. I can't face life without you Leonard. I was
happy when I met you: I had never loved anyone; and if you had only
let me alone I could have gone on contentedly by myself. But I can't
now. I must have you with me. Don't cast me off without a thought of
all I have at stake. I could be a friend to you if you would only let
me--if you would only tell me your plans--give me a share in your
work---treat me as something more than the amusement of an idle hour.
Oh Leonard, Leonard, you've never given me a chance: indeed you
haven't. I'll take pains; I'll read; I'll try to think; I'll conquer
my jealousy; I'll-- (She breaks down, rocking her head desperately on
his knee and writhing.) Oh, I'm mad: I'm mad: you'll kill me if you
desert me.

CHARTERIS (petting her). My dear love, don't cry--don't go on in this
way. You know I can't help it.

JULIA (sobbing as he rises and coaxingly lifts her with him). Oh, you
can, you can. One word from you will make us happy for ever.

CHARTERIS (diplomatically). Come, my dear: we really must go. We can't
stay until Cuthbertson comes. (Releases her gently and takes her
mantle from the table.) Here is your mantle: put it on and be good.
You have given me a terrible evening: you must have some consideration
for me.

JULIA (dangerous again). Then I am to be cast off.

CHARTERIS (coaxingly). You are to put on your bonnet, dearest. (He
puts the mantle on her shoulders.)

JULIA (with a bitter half laugh, half sob). Well, I suppose I must do
what I am told. (She goes to the table, and looks for her bonnet. She
sees the yellow-backed French novel.) Ah, look at that! (holds it out
to him.) Look--look at what the creature reads--filthy, vile French
stuff that no decent woman would touch. And you--you have been reading
it with her.

CHARTERIS. You recommended that book to me yourself.

JULIA. Faugh! (Dashes it on the floor.)

CHARTERIS (running anxiously to the book). Don't damage property,
Julia. (He picks it up and dusts it.) Making scenes is an affair of
sentiment: damaging property is serious. (Replaces it on the table.)
And now do pray come along.

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