Catherine Winslow Character Analysis

GRACE: You’re such a funny girl. You never show your feelings much, do you? You don’t behave as if you were in love.

CATHERINE: How does one behave as if one is in love?

ARTHUR: One doesn’t read Len Rogers. One reads Byron.

CATHERINE: I do both.

ARTHUR: An odd combination.

CATHERINE: A satisfying one.

JOHN: The annoying thing was that I had a whole lot of neatly turned phrases ready for him and he wouldn’t let me use them.

CATHERINE: Such as?

JOHN: Oh – how proud and honoured I was by your acceptance of me, and how determined I was to make you a loyal and devoted husband – and to maintain you in the state to which you were accustomed – all that sort of thing. All very sincerely meant.

CATHERINE: Anything about loving me a little?

JOHN: That I thought we could take for granted. So did your father, incidentally.

DICKIE: Who’s going to break the news to him eventually? I mean, someone’ll have to.

CATHERINE: Don’t let’s worry about that now.

DICKIE: Well, you can count me out. In fact, I don’t want to be within a thousand miles of that explosion.

I wish I had someone to take me out. In your new feminist world do you suppose women will be allowed to do some of the paying?

DICKIE: Suppress your opinions. Men don’t like ‘em in their lady friends, even if they agree with ‘em. And if they don’t – it’s fatal. Pretend to be half-witted, then he’ll adore you.

CATHERINE: I know. I do, sometimes, and then I forget. Still, you needn’t worry. If there’s ever a clash between what I believe and what I feel, there’s not much doubt about which will win.

CATHERINE: I suppose you heard that he committed suicide a few months ago?

SIR ROBERT: Yes. I had heard.

CATHERINE: Many people believed him innocent, you know.

SIR ROBERT: So I understand. As it happens, however, he was guilty.

CATHERINE: Not a verbal protest. Something far more spectacular and dramatic. He’d had his feet on the Treasury table and his hat over his eyes during most of the First Lord’s speech – and he suddenly got up very deliberately, glared at the First Lord, threw a whole bundle of notes on the floor, and stalked out of the House. It made a magnificent effect. If I hadn’t known I could have sworn he was genuinely indignant –

ARTHUR: Of course he was genuinely indignant. So would any man of feeling be –

CATHERINE: Sir Robert, Father dear, is not a man of feeling. I don’t think any emotion at all can stir that fishy heart –

SIR ROBERT: It seems decidedly wrong to me that a lady of your political persuasion should be allowed to adorn herself with such a very feminine allurement. It really looks so awfully like trying to have the best of both worlds –

CATHERINE: I’m not a militant, you know, Sir Robert. I don’t go about breaking shop windows with a hammer or pouring acid down pillar boxes.

JOHN: But people do find the case a bit ridiculous, you know. I mean, I get chaps coming up to me in the mess all the time and saying: “I say, is it true you’re going to marry the Winslow girl? You’d better be careful. You’ll find yourself up in the front of the House of Lords for pinching the Adjutant’s bath.” Things like that. They’re not awfully funny –

CATHERINE: That’s nothing. They’re singing a verse about us in the Alhambra.

SIR ROBERT: What are my instructions, Miss Winslow?

CATHERINE: (In a flat voice.) Do you need my instructions, Sir Robert? Aren’t they already on the Petition? Doesn’t it say: Let Right be done?

CATHERINE: You don’t think the work I’m doing at the W.S.A. is useful?

ARTHUR is silent.

You may be right. But it’s the only work I’m fitted for, all the same. (Pause.) No, Father. The choice is quite simple. Either I marry Desmond and settle down into quite a comfortable and not really useless existence – or I go on for the rest of my life earning two pounds a week in the service of a hopeless cause.

ARTHUR: It would appear, then, that we’ve won.

CATHERINE: Yes, Father, it would appear that we’ve won.

SIR ROBERT: Goodbye, Miss Winslow. Shall I see you in the House then, one day?

CATHERINE: (With a smile.) Yes, Sir Robert. One day. But not in the Gallery. Across the floor.

SIR ROBERT: (With a faint smile.) Perhaps, Goodbye.

GRACE: You’re such a funny girl. You never show your feelings much, do you? You don’t behave as if you were in love.

CATHERINE: How does one behave as if one is in love?

ARTHUR: One doesn’t read Len Rogers. One reads Byron.

CATHERINE: I do both.

ARTHUR: An odd combination.

CATHERINE: A satisfying one.

JOHN: The annoying thing was that I had a whole lot of neatly turned phrases ready for him and he wouldn’t let me use them.

CATHERINE: Such as?

JOHN: Oh – how proud and honoured I was by your acceptance of me, and how determined I was to make you a loyal and devoted husband – and to maintain you in the state to which you were accustomed – all that sort of thing. All very sincerely meant.

CATHERINE: Anything about loving me a little?

JOHN: That I thought we could take for granted. So did your father, incidentally.

DICKIE: Who’s going to break the news to him eventually? I mean, someone’ll have to.

CATHERINE: Don’t let’s worry about that now.

DICKIE: Well, you can count me out. In fact, I don’t want to be within a thousand miles of that explosion.

I wish I had someone to take me out. In your new feminist world do you suppose women will be allowed to do some of the paying?

DICKIE: Suppress your opinions. Men don’t like ‘em in their lady friends, even if they agree with ‘em. And if they don’t – it’s fatal. Pretend to be half-witted, then he’ll adore you.

CATHERINE: I know. I do, sometimes, and then I forget. Still, you needn’t worry. If there’s ever a clash between what I believe and what I feel, there’s not much doubt about which will win.

CATHERINE: I suppose you heard that he committed suicide a few months ago?

SIR ROBERT: Yes. I had heard.

CATHERINE: Many people believed him innocent, you know.

SIR ROBERT: So I understand. As it happens, however, he was guilty.

CATHERINE: Not a verbal protest. Something far more spectacular and dramatic. He’d had his feet on the Treasury table and his hat over his eyes during most of the First Lord’s speech – and he suddenly got up very deliberately, glared at the First Lord, threw a whole bundle of notes on the floor, and stalked out of the House. It made a magnificent effect. If I hadn’t known I could have sworn he was genuinely indignant –

ARTHUR: Of course he was genuinely indignant. So would any man of feeling be –

CATHERINE: Sir Robert, Father dear, is not a man of feeling. I don’t think any emotion at all can stir that fishy heart –

SIR ROBERT: It seems decidedly wrong to me that a lady of your political persuasion should be allowed to adorn herself with such a very feminine allurement. It really looks so awfully like trying to have the best of both worlds –

CATHERINE: I’m not a militant, you know, Sir Robert. I don’t go about breaking shop windows with a hammer or pouring acid down pillar boxes.

JOHN: But people do find the case a bit ridiculous, you know. I mean, I get chaps coming up to me in the mess all the time and saying: “I say, is it true you’re going to marry the Winslow girl? You’d better be careful. You’ll find yourself up in the front of the House of Lords for pinching the Adjutant’s bath.” Things like that. They’re not awfully funny –

CATHERINE: That’s nothing. They’re singing a verse about us in the Alhambra.

SIR ROBERT: What are my instructions, Miss Winslow?

CATHERINE: (In a flat voice.) Do you need my instructions, Sir Robert? Aren’t they already on the Petition? Doesn’t it say: Let Right be done?

CATHERINE: You don’t think the work I’m doing at the W.S.A. is useful?

ARTHUR is silent.

You may be right. But it’s the only work I’m fitted for, all the same. (Pause.) No, Father. The choice is quite simple. Either I marry Desmond and settle down into quite a comfortable and not really useless existence – or I go on for the rest of my life earning two pounds a week in the service of a hopeless cause.

ARTHUR: It would appear, then, that we’ve won.

CATHERINE: Yes, Father, it would appear that we’ve won.

SIR ROBERT: Goodbye, Miss Winslow. Shall I see you in the House then, one day?

CATHERINE: (With a smile.) Yes, Sir Robert. One day. But not in the Gallery. Across the floor.

SIR ROBERT: (With a faint smile.) Perhaps, Goodbye.