Because that really WASN'T my fault. I never even saw her. 'Twas the winter we spent in Rome. She bolted before we got back. Never gave me a chance.
FANNY. I accept the excuse. [Laughs.] No, I was merely wondering what the "County" would have done if by any chance you had married HER. Couldn't have said you were marrying into your own kitchen in her case, because she was never IN your kitchen--absolutely refused to enter it, I'm told.
VERNON [laughs]. It would have been a "nice point," as they say in legal circles. If people had liked her, they'd have tried to forget that her cousins had ever been scullery-maids. If not, they'd have taken good care that nobody did.
Bennet enters. He brings some cut flowers, with the "placing" of which he occupies himself.
BENNET. I did not know your lordship had returned.
VERNON. Found a telegram waiting for me in the village. What's become of that niece of yours, Bennet--your sister Rose's daughter, who was here for a short time and ran away again? Ever hear anything about her?
BENNET [very quietly he turns, lets his eyes for a moment meet Fanny's. Then answers as he crosses to the windows]. The last I heard about her was that she was married.
VERNON. Satisfactorily?
BENNET. Looking at it from her point of view--most satisfactorily.
VERNON [laughs]. But looking at it from his--more doubtful?
BENNET. She was not without her attractions. Her chief faults, I am inclined to think, were those arising from want of discipline in youth. I have hopes that it is not even yet too late to root out from her nature the weeds of indiscretion.
VERNON. And you think he is the man to do it?
BENNET. Perhaps not. But fortunately there are those about her fully alive to the duty devolving upon them.
VERNON. Um. Sounds a little bit like penal servitude for the poor girl, the way you put it, Bennet.
BENNET. Even penal servitude may be a blessing, if it serves to correct a stubborn spirit.
VERNON. We'll have to make you a J.P., Bennet. Must be jolly careful I don't ever get tried before you. [Laughs.] Is that the cart?
BENNET [he looks out through the window]. Yes, your lordship.
VERNON [he takes up his cap]. I may be bringing someone back with me. [To Fanny, who throughout has remained seated.] Why not put on your hat--come with me?
FANNY [she jumps up, delighted]. Shall I?
BENNET. Your ladyship is not forgetting that to-day is Wednesday?
FANNY. What's the odds. There's nobody to call. Everybody is still in town.
BENNET. It has always been the custom of the Lady Bantocks, when in residence, to be at home on Wednesdays.
VERNON. Perhaps better not. It may cause talk; if, by chance, anybody does come. I was forgetting it was Wednesday. [Fanny sits again.] I shan't do anything without consulting you. Good-bye.
FANNY. Good-bye.
Vernon goes out.
BENNET. You think it wise, discussing with his lordship the secret history of the Bennet family?
FANNY. What do you mean by telling him my father was an organ- grinder? If the British public knew the difference between music and a hurdy-gurdy, he would have kept a butler of his own.
BENNET. I am not aware of having mentioned to his lordship that you ever to my knowledge even had a father. It is not my plan--for the present at all events--to inform his lordship anything about your family. Take care I am not forced to.
FANNY. Because my father, a composer who had his work performed at the Lamoureux Concerts--as I can prove, because I've got the programme--had the misfortune to marry into a family of lackeys--I'm not talking about my mother: she was never really one of you. SHE had the soul of an artist.
BENNET [white with suppressed fury; he is in front of her; his very look is enough to silence her]. Now you listen to me, my girl, once and for all. I told you the night of your arrival that whether this business was going to prove a pleasant or an unpleasant one depended upon you. You make it an easy one--for your own sake. With one word I can bring your house of cards about your ears. I've only to tell him the truth for him to know you as a cheat and liar. [She goes to speak; again he silences her.] You listen to me. You've seen fit to use strong language; now I'm using strong language. This BOY, who has married you in a moment of impulse, what does HE know about the sort of wife a man in his position needs? What do YOU? made to sing for your living on the Paris boulevards--whose only acquaintance with the upper classes has been at shady restaurants.
FANNY. He didn't WANT a woman of his own class. He told me so. It was because I wasn't a colourless, conventional puppet with a book of etiquette in place of a soul that he was first drawn towards me.
BENNET. Yes. At twenty-two, boys like unconventionality. Men don't: they've learnt its true name, vulgarity. Do you think I've stood behind English society for forty years without learning anything about it! What you call a colourless puppet is what WE call an English lady. And that you've got to learn to be. You talk of "lackeys." If your mother, my poor sister Rose, came from a family of "lackeys" there would be no hope for you. With her blood in your veins the thing can be done. We Bennets--[he draws himself up]--we serve. We are not lackeys.
FANNY. All right. Don't you call my father an organ-grinder, and I won't call you lackeys. Unfortunately that doesn't end the trouble.
BENNET. The trouble can easily be ended.
FANNY. Yes. By my submitting to be ruled in all things for the remainder of my life by my own servants.
BENNET. Say "relations," and it need not sound so unpleasant.
