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"Grace"
By W. Somerset Maugham.
Produced at the Duke of York's Theatre on 15th October, 1910.
Misses Irene Vanbrugh, Lillah McCarthy, Mary Barton, Nina Sevening, Gertrude Lang, Lady Tree, Messrs. Dennis Eadie, Leslie Faber, Arthur Wontner, Edmund Gwenn, and Horton Cooper.
If we are to take Mr. Somerset Maugham seriously, they must be a very peculiar lot of people down in Somerset. But don't believe him, gentle reader; he's only pulling your leg. There are not more snobs in Somerset than in any other county. Some of the characters in "Grace" may be exceptions. Let's hope they are. Grace is the young wife of a Somerset squire, Claude Insole. She's a charming girl, but not "county." So she finds herself snubbed by her husband's county friends. In a spirit of revolt she carries on an "affair" with a lover, Henry Cobbet, in her husband's house. Why, I don't know, but she does! Her conscience is quiet until she hears her husband dismissing his gamekeeper unless he sends his daughter, Peggy, from the village. The daughter has "disgraced herself," and the rules of the estate demand her expulsion. Grace's sin confronts her when she hears this, and she pleads for Peggy, to the astonishment of the whole family. To save further trouble, I suppose, Peggy puts the lid on the matter by committing suicide. Poor Grace is terribly upset. Her lover, finding that she loves him not, has departed, and Grace discovers that Peggy's death has taught her to love her husband. A friend of the family probes her heart and finds out her secret. What is she to do? That is the problem for Grace. To confess to Claude, whose reason for dismissing Peggy was to avoid contamination with his own wife, would be to kill him with grief, and his wife loves him now! The friend's advice is to let ignorance still be bliss; to keep her secret and suffer punishment in knowing that she is keeping an awful truth from him. Grace looks at the matter in this light, too, and resolves to make amends for past misdeeds by future devotion.
We all come out of the theatre wondering what sort of a life Grace would have in the future. It looked pretty bad for her before she loved her husband, and what she must be going through now, heaven only knows! Poor Grace! If it were not for the charming personality of Miss Irene Vanbrugh in the name-part, and the excellent acting of a very strong company, "Grace" would be too chilly for this weather.
Playgoer and Society Illustrated, Vol III No 14, November 1910.