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until now – that
Caroline has come into a fortune. She scornfully rejects his offer and leaves him to sleep off his drunkenness in the scullery. The vicar enters, proposes marriage and is refused. On hearing someone approaching, he takes refuge in the larder. The new arrival is the captain, whose honest admiration touches Caroline. A third arrival – the vicar's sister – sends Dorvaston into hiding in a broom cupboard, where she discovers him and will hear no explanations. The act ends with the Captain, at Caroline's request, carrying out the sleeping Lord Huntworth to put him in a dry ditch at the bottom of the garden.
200:. He is not in love with Lucy, nor she with him. She loves the Rev Henry Thoresby, her father's mild young curate, and is resolved to marry him despite her family's wishes. The vicar, Gandy (his manservant), and the captain are all much taken with Caroline, and each plans to meet her in her kitchen on an evening when her fellow-servants are absent and the other inmates of the house have gone to a
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Thrown on her own resources, she has assumed a new identity and made use of her chief talent, which is for cooking. Also in the vicarage are
Pillenger's sister, Hannah, and their niece, Lucy. The latter is betrothed, at her family's behest, to Captain Dorvaston, a genial, honest and not overbright officer retired from the
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Caroline
Rayward, cook to the Rev Audley Pillenger, vicar of Stillford, is in fact Lady Huntworth. She was married to a drunken and abusive husband and endured eleven years of matrimonial misery before Lord Huntworth divorced her on a spurious charge of adultery so that he could pursue a rich widow.
207:
After
Caroline has discouraged Gandy's hopes, and before the vicar and Dorvaston arrive, a "Mr Crayll" intrudes. He is in fact Lord Huntworth, in his usual drunken state; he has come to ask his former wife to return to him. The reason for his pretended repentance is that he knows – as she does not,
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said, "The humour of the dialogue is delightful, the drollery of the situations is irresistible, but what we like even more are the touches of true sentiment and the evidences of observation which are striking and frequent". When the play opened on
Broadway,
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thought the plot predictable towards the denouement, but praised the dialogue "liberally sprinkled with very passable witticisms", "little touches of genuine observation" in the characterisation, and the general air of "frankness, freshness and good humour".
215:, Brussels", where a letter will find her. Lucy and Thoresby return, having been made man and wife; Dorvaston, now free from his engagement to Lucy, joyfully prepares to follow Caroline to the continent.
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In the last act
Caroline appears in fashionable walking-dress, declares her true identity to the vicar and his sister, and takes leave of them. Before she goes, she gives Dorvaston the address "
38:, first presented in London in 1900. It depicts an aristocrat working under an assumed name as a cook, and finding happiness with a retired military man. After its
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found it "new and exceptionally bright and entertaining", and commented that it contained "passages of pure farce" and others of "dignity and feeling".
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as Lord
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The piece was revived in London in 1907; Compton reprised her role of
Caroline, and was joined by
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Later in 1900 two touring companies presented the play in the
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run, it was played by touring companies around
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judged the play to be the work of "a dramatist with a master hand".
62:. It ran for 163 performances, from 26 April to 13 October 1900.
168:, ran from December 1900 to March 1901, for 86 performances.
438:
The London Stage, 1900–1909: A Calendar of Plays and Players
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presented the play in Australia and New Zealand in 1901.
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as Caroline Rayward/Lady Huntworth, 1907 London revival
104:Hannah Pillenger (Audley's sister) – Fanny Coleman
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89:Gandy (manservant at vicarage) – Ernest Hendrie
187:, and was revived in the provinces in 1918.
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379:"Lady Huntworth's Experiment",
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440:. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press.
333:"The Stage from the Stalls",
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132:The London Stage, 1900–1909
31:Lady Huntworth's Experiment
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283:, 10 September 1900, p. 14
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418:"Dramatic and Musical",
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337:, 23 January 1907, p. 44
308:, 6 November 1901, p. 10
436:Wearing, J. P. (1981).
361:The Manchester Guardian
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77:Rev Audley Pillenger –
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318:"Musical and Dramatic"
250:References and sources
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473:Plays by R. C. Carton
409:, 27 April 1900, p. 4
405:"Criterion Theatre",
346:"Dramatis Personae",
164:production, starring
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468:Plays set in England
396:, 5 May 1900, p. 662
350:, 13 June 1915, p. 7
152:as Lady Huntworth,
100:Dion Boucicault Jr.
420:The New York Times
322:New Zealand Herald
243:The New York Times
219:Critical reception
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141:Production history
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121:Katherine Compton
56:Criterion Theatre
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394:The Graphic
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198:Indian Army
166:Hilda Spong
150:Hilda Spong
463:1900 plays
457:Categories
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335:The Sketch
255:References
79:Eric Lewis
50:Production
407:The Times
229:The Times
162:Broadway
154:Broadway
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381:The Era
306:The Age
281:The Era
236:The Era
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156:, 1900
442:OCLC
191:Plot
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