The Circle

By W Somerset Maugham

The prim Arnold is dreading the first visit of his mother, Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney, and her partner, Lord Porteus. She had caused scandal by eloping with Porteus thirty years earlier, leaving her husband and only child. Arnold's wife, Elizabeth, is looking forward to meeting Catherine, whom she sees as a romantic figure for sacrificing her social position in England for love. In reality the older couple are not romantic figures: Catherine hates being rejected by polite society, dresses and makes up too young for her years, "a ridiculous caricature of a pretty woman grown old", and regards her partner as "simply a testy, crotchety old gentleman who makes himself a nuisance at the bridge table". Nonetheless, they remain bound together by reluctant affection. Their visit is complicated by the unexpected arrival of Arnold's father, the deserted Clive Champion-Cheney, but he is quite friendly to the couple. Elizabeth is tempted to repeat history by eloping with Edward Luton, a friend of her husband, aware that in doing so she would be sacrificing a comfortable life in England for the probable hardships of life as a planter's wife in Malaya. Arnold, to whom she confesses her emotions, gives her his blessing to leave him if she wishes. This calculated ploy, suggested to him by his father, makes her feel so guilty that she almost resolves to end her relationship with Edward, but the latter tells her candidly that he offers her love and not necessarily happiness. This decides her in his favour, and Porteus and Lady Catherine lend them their car to elope in. Clive, unaware that his ploy has failed, joins Porteus and Catherine, boasts of his clever plan, and the play ends with "all three in fits of laughter"

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