by Oscar Wilde
LADY WINDERMERE (rising): Oh no, don’t.
MRS. ERLYNNE: I think I had better. My carriage must have come back by this time. I sent it to Lady Jedburgh’s with a note.
LADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, would you mind seeing if Mrs. Erlynne’s carriage has come back?
MRS. ERLYNNE: Pray don’t trouble, Lord Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes, Arthur, do go, please.
LORD WINDERMERE hesitates for a moment and looks at MRS. ERLYNNE. She remains quite impassive. He leaves the room.
(To MRS. ERLYNNE): Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night. (Goes towards her.)
MRS. ERLYNNE: Hush – don’t speak of it.
LADY WINDERMERE: I must speak of it. I can’t let you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty.
MRS. ERLYNNE: It is not your duty – at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something?
LADY WINDERMERE: I owe you everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE: Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don’t spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband’s life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh! How easily love is killed. Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it.
LADY WINDERMERE (with bowed head): It is your will, not mine.
MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes, it is my will. And never forget your child – I like to think of you as a mother. I like you to think of yourself as one.
LADY WINDERMERE (looking up): I always will now. Only once in my life I have forgotten my own mother – that was last night. Oh, if I had remembered her I should not have been so foolish, so wicked.
MRS. ERLYNNE (with a slight shudder): Hush, last night is quite over.
Enter LORD WINDERMERE.
LORD WINDERMERE: Your carriage has not come back yet, Mrs. Erlynne.
MRS. ERLYNNE: It makes no matter. I’ll take a hansom. There is nothing in the world so respectable as a good Shrewsbury and Talbot. And now, dear Lady Windermere, I am afraid it is really good-bye. (Moves up C.) Oh, I remember. You’ll think me absurd, but do you know I’ve taken a great fancy to this fan that I was silly enough to run away with last night from your ball. Now, I wonder would you give it to me? Lord Windermere says you may. I know it is his present.
LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, certainly, if it will give you any pleasure. But it has my name on it. It has ‘Margaret’ on it.
MRS. ERLYNNE: But we have the same Christian name.
LADY WINDERMERE: Oh, I forgot. Of course, do have it. What a wonderful chance our names being the same!
MRS. ERLYNNE: Quite wonderful. Thanks – it will always remind me of you. (Shakes hands with her.)
Enter PARKER.
PARKER: Lord Augustus Lorton. Mrs. Erlynne’s carriage has come.
Enter LORD AUGUSTUS.
LORD AUGUSTUS: Good-morning, dear boy. Good-morning, Lady Windermere. (Sees MRS. ERLYNNE.) Mrs. Erlynne!
MRS. ERLYNNE: How do you do, Lord Augustus? Are you quite well this morning?
LORD AUGUSTUS (coldly): Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Erlynne.
MRS. ERLYNNE: You don’t look at all well, Lord Augustus. You stop up too late – it is so bad for you. You really should take more care of yourself. Good-bye, Lord Windermere. (Goes towards door with a bow to LORD AUGUSTUS. Suddenly smiles and looks back at him.) Lord Augustus! Won’t you see me to my carriage? You might carry the fan.
LORD WINDERMERE: Allow me!
MRS. ERLYNNE: No; I want Lord Augustus. I have a special message for the dear Duchess. Won’t you carry the fan, Lord Augustus?
LORD AUGUSTUS: If you really desire it, Mrs. Erlynne.
MRS. ERLYNNE (laughing): Of course I do. You’ll carry it so gracefully. You would carry off anything gracefully, dear Lord Augustus. (When she reaches the door she looks back for a moment at LADY WINDERMERE. Their eyes meet. Then she turns, and exit C. followed by LORD AUGUSTUS.)
LADY WINDERMERE: You will never speak against Mrs. Erlynne again, Arthur, will you?
LORD WINDERMERE (gravely): She is better than one thought her.
LADY WINDERMERE: She is better than I am.
LORD WINDERMERE (smiling as he strokes her hair): Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered.
LADY WINDERMERE: Don’t say that, Arthur. There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one’s eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.
LORD WINDERMERE (moves down with her): Darling, why do you say that?
LADY WINDERMERE (sits on sofa): Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated us –
LORD WINDERMERE: We were never separated.
LADY WINDERMERE: We never must be again. O Arthur, don’t love me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby the roses are white and red.
Enter LORD AUGUSTUS C.
LORD AUGUSTUS: Arthur, she has explained everything!
LADY WINDERMERE looks horribly frightened at this. LORD WINDERMERE starts. LORD AUGUSTUS takes WINDERMERE by the arm and brings him to front of stage. He talks rapidly and in a low voice. LADY WINDERMERE stands watching them in terror.
My dear fellow, she has explained every demmed thing. We all wronged her immensely. It was entirely for my sake she went to Darlington’s rooms. Called first at the Club – fact is, wanted to put me out of suspense – and being told I had gone on – followed – naturally frightened when she heard a lot of us coming in – retired to another room – I assure you, most gratifying to me, the whole thing. We all behaved brutally to her. She is just the woman for me. Suits me down to the ground. All the conditions she makes are that we live entirely out of England. A very good thing too. Demmed clubs, demmed climate, demmed cooks, demmed everything. Sick of it all!
LADY WINDERMERE (frightened): Has Mrs. Erlynne –?
LORD AUGUSTUS (advancing towards her with a low bow): Yes, Lady Windermere – Mrs. Erlynne has done me the honour of accepting my hand.
LORD WINDERMERE: Well, you are certainly marrying a very clever woman!
LADY WINDERMERE (taking her husband’s hand): Ah, you’re marrying a very good woman!
CURTAIN
A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
The persons of the play
LORD ILLINGWORTH FRANCIS, FOOTMAN
SIR JOHN PONTEFRACT LADY HUNSTANTON
LORD ALFRED RUFFORD LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT
MR. KELVIL, M.P. LADY STUTFIELD
THE VEN. ARCHDEACON MRS. ALLONBY
DAUBENY, D.D. MISS HESTER WORSLEY
GERALD ARBUTHNOT ALICE, MAID
FARQUHAR, BUTLER MRS. ARBUTHNOT
ACT ONE
SCENE: Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton Chase. The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours. TIME: The present.
SIR JOHN and LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, MISS WORSELY, on chairs under large yew tree.
LADY CAROLINE: I believe this is the first English country house you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?
HESTER: Yes, Lady Caroline.
LADY CAROLINE: You have no country houses, I am told, in America?
HESTER: We have not many.
LADY CAROLINE: Have you any country? What we should call country?
HESTER (smiling): We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline. They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together.
LADY CAROLINE: Ah! You must find it very draughty, I should fancy. (To SIR JOHN): John, you should have your muffler. What is the use of my always knitting muffler
s for you if you won’t wear them?
SIR JOHN: I am quite warm, Caroline, I assure you.
LADY CAROLINE: I think not, John. Well, you couldn’t come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. (To SIR JOHN): Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle –
SIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.
LADY CAROLINE: He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. But Mrs. Allonby is hardly a very suitable person.
HESTER: I dislike Mrs. Allonby. I dislike her more than I can say.
LADY CAROLINE: I am not sure, Miss Worsley, that foreigners like yourself should cultivate likes or dislikes about the people they are invited to meet. Mrs. Allonby is very well born. She is a niece of Lord Brancaster’s. It is said, of course, that she ran away twice before she was married. But you know how unfair people often are. I myself don’t believe she ran away more than once.
HESTER: Mr. Arbuthnot is very charming.
LADY CAROLINE: Ah, yes! The young man who has a post in a bank. Lady Hunstanton is most kind in asking him here, and Lord Illingworth seems to have taken quite a fancy to him. I am not sure, however, that Jane is right in taking him out of his position. In my young days, Miss Worsley, one never met any one in society who worked for their living. It was not considered the thing.
HESTER: In America those are the people we respect most.
LADY CAROLINE: I have no doubt of it.
HESTER: Mr. Arbuthnot has a beautiful nature! He is so simple, so sincere. He has one of the most beautiful natures I have ever come across. It is a privilege to meet him.
LADY CAROLINE: It is not customary in England, Miss Worsley, for a young lady to speak with such enthusiasm of any person of the opposite sex. English women conceal their feelings till after they are married. They show them then.
HESTER: Do you, in England, allow no friendship to exist between a young man and a young girl?
Enter LADY HUNSTANTON, followed by FOOTMAN with shawls and a cushion.
LADY CAROLINE: We think it very inadvisable. Jane, I was just saying what a pleasant party you have asked us to meet. You have a wonderful power of selection. It is quite a gift.
LADY HUNSTANTON: Dear Caroline, how kind of you! I think we all do fit in very nicely together. And I hope our charming American visitor will carry back pleasant recollections of our English country life. (To Footman): The cushion, there, Francis. And my shawl. The Shetland. Get the Shetland.
Exit Footman for shawl. Enter GERALD ARBUTHNOT.
GERALD: Lady Hunstanton, I have such good news to tell you. Lord Illingworth has just offered to make me his secretary.
LADY HUNSTANTON: His secretary? That is good news indeed, Gerald. It means a very brilliant future in store for you. Your dear mother will be delighted. I really must try and induce her to come up here to-night. Do you think she would, Gerald? I know how difficult it is to get her to go anywhere.
GERALD: Oh! I am sure she would, Lady Hunstanton, if she knew Lord Illingworth had made me such an offer.
Enter Footman with shawl.
LADY HUNSTANTON: I will write and tell her about it, and ask her to come up and meet him. (To Footman): Just wait, Francis. (Writes letter.)
LADY CAROLINE: That is a very wonderful opening for so young a man as you are, Mr. Arbuthnot.
GERALD: It is indeed, Lady Caroline. I trust I shall be able to show myself worthy of it.
LADY CAROLINE: I trust so.
GERALD (to HESTER): You have not congratulated me yet, Miss Worsley.
HESTER: Are you very pleased about it?
GERALD: Of course I am. It means everything to me – things that were out of the reach of hope before may be within hope’s reach now.
HESTER: Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.
LADY HUNSTANTON: I fancy, Caroline, that Diplomacy is what Lord Illingworth is aiming at. I heard that he was offered Vienna. But that may not be true.
LADY CAROLINE: I don’t think that England should be represented abroad by an unmarried man, Jane. It might lead to complications.
LADY HUNSTANTON: You are too nervous, Caroline. Believe me, you are too nervous. Besides, Lord Illingworth may marry any day. I was in hopes he would have married Lady Kelso. But I believe he said her family was too large. Or was it her feet? I forget which. I regret it very much. She was made to be an ambassador’s wife.
LADY CAROLINE: She certainly has a wonderful faculty of remembering people’s names, and forgetting their faces.
LADY HUNSTANTON: Well, that is very natural, Caroline, is it not? (To Footman): Tell Henry to wait for an answer. I have written a line to your dear mother, Gerald, to tell her your good news, and to say she really must come to dinner.
Exit Footman.
GERALD: That is awfully kind of you, Lady Hunstanton. (To HESTER): Will you come for a stroll, Miss Worsley?
HESTER: With pleasure. (Exit with GERALD.)
LADY HUNSTANTON: I am very much gratified at Gerald Arbuthnot’s good fortune. He is quite a protege of mine. And I am particularly pleased that Lord Illingworth should have made the offer of his own accord without my suggesting anything. Nobody likes to be asked favours. I remember poor Charlotte Pagden making herself quite unpopular one season, because she had a French governess she wanted to recommend to every one.
LADY CAROLINE: I saw the governess, Jane. Lady Pagden sent her to me. It was before Eleanor came out. She was far too good-looking to be in any respectable household. I don’t wonder Lady Pagden was so anxious to get rid of her.
LADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, that explains it.
LADY CAROLINE: John, the grass is too damp for you. You had better go and put on your overshoes at once.
SIR JOHN: I am quite comfortable, Caroline, I assure you.
LADY CAROLINE: You must allow me to be the best judge of that, John. Pray do as I tell you.
SIR JOHN gets up and goes off.
LADY HUNSTANTON: You spoil him, Caroline, you do indeed!
Enter MRS. ALLONBY and LADY STUTFIELD.
(To MRS. ALLONBY): Well, dear, I hope you like the park. It is said to be well timbered.
MRS. ALLONBY: The trees are wonderful, Lady Hunstanton.
LADY STUTFIELD: Quite, quite wonderful.
MRS. ALLONBY: But somehow, I feel sure that if I lived in the country for six months, I should become so unsophisticated that no one would take the slightest notice of me.
LADY HUNSTANTON: I assure you, dear, that the country has not that effect at all. Why, it was from Melthorpe, which is only two miles from here, that Lady Belton eloped with Lord Fethersdale. I remember the occurrence perfectly. Poor Lord Belton died three days afterwards of joy, or gout. I forget which. We had a large party staying here at the time, so we were all very much interested in the whole affair.
MRS. ALLONBY: I think to elope is cowardly. It’s running away from danger. And danger has become so rare in modern life.
LADY CAROLINE: As far as I can make out, the young women of the present day seem to make it the sole object of their lives to be always playing with fire.
MRS. ALLONBY: The one advantage of playing with fire, Lady Caroline, is that one never gets even singed: It is the people who don’t know how to play with it who get burned up.
LADY STUTFIELD: Yes; I see that. It is very, very helpful.
LADY HUNSTANTON: I don’t know how the world would get on with such a theory as that, dear Mrs. Allonby.
LADY STUTFIELD: Ah! The world was made for men and not for women.
MRS. ALLONBY: Oh, don’t say that, Lady Stutfield. We have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them.
LADY STUTFIELD: Yes
; that is quite, quite true. I had not thought of that.
Enter SIR JOHN and MR. KELVIL.
LADY HUNSTANTON: Well, Mr. Kelvil, have you got through your work?
KELVIL: I have finished my writing for the day, Lady Hunstanton. It has been an arduous task. The demands on the time of a public man are very heavy nowadays, very heavy indeed. And I don’t think they meet with adequate recognition.
LADY CAROLINE: John, have you got your overshoes on?
SIR JOHN: Yes, my love.
LADY CAROLINE: I think you had better come over here, John. It is more sheltered.
SIR JOHN: I am quite comfortable, Caroline.
LADY CAROLINE: I think not, John. You had better sit beside me.
SIR JOHN rises and goes across.
LADY STUTFIELD: And what have you been writing about this morning, Mr. Kelvil?
KELVIL: On the usual subject, Lady Stutfield. On Purity.
LADY STUTFIELD: That must be such a very, very interesting thing to write about.
KELVIL: It is the one subject of really national importance, nowadays, Lady Stutfield. I purpose addressing my constituents on the question before Parliament meets. I find that the poorer classes of this country display a marked desire for a higher ethical standard.
LADY STUTFIELD: How quite, quite nice of them.
LADY CAROLINE: Are you in favour of women taking part in politics, Mr. Kettle?
SIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.
KELVIL: The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life, Lady Caroline. Women are always on the side of morality, public and private.
LADY STUTFIELD: It is so very, very gratifying to hear you say that.
LADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, yes! The moral qualities in women – that is the important thing. I am afraid, Caroline, that dear Lord Illingworth doesn’t value the moral qualities in women as much as he should.
Enter LORD ILLINGWORTH.
