The Importance of Being Earnest (10 page)

D
UMBY
. It’s no use talking to Tuppy. You might just as well talk to a brick wall.

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. But I like talking to a brick wall—it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me! Tuppy!

L
ORD
A
UGUSTUS
. Well, what is it? What is it?
(Rising and going over to Cecil Graham.)

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. Come over here. I want you particularly.
(Aside.)
Darlington has been moralising and talking about the purity of love, and that sort of thing, and he has got some woman in his rooms all the time.

L
ORD
A
UGUSTUS
. No, really! really!

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
.
(In a low voice.)
Yes, here is her fan.
(Points to the fan.)

L
ORD
A
UGUSTUS
.
(Chuckling.)
By Jove! By Jove!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Up by door.)
I am really off now, Lord Darlington. I am sorry you are leaving England so soon. Pray call on us when you come back! My wife and I will be charmed to see you!

L
ORD
D
ARLINGTON
.
(Up stage with Lord Windermere.)
I am afraid I shall be away for many years. Good-night!

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. Arthur!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. What?

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. I want to speak to you for a moment. No, do come!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Putting on his coat.)
I can’t—I’m off!

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. It is something very particular. It will interest you enormously.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Smiling.)
It is some of your nonsense, Cecil.

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. It isn’t! It isn’t really.

L
ORD
A
UGUSTUS
.
(Going to him.)
My dear fellow, you mustn’t go yet. I have a lot to talk to you about. And Cecil has something to show you.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Walking over.)
Well, what is it?

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. Darlington has got a woman here in his rooms. Here is her fan. Amusing, isn’t it?
(A pause.)

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Good God!
(Seizes the fan—Dumby rises.)

C
ECIL
G
RAHAM
. What is the matter?

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Lord Darlington!

L
ORD
D
ARLINGTON
.
(Turning round.)
Yes!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. What is my wife’s fan doing here in your rooms? Hands off, Cecil. Don’t touch me.

L
ORD
D
ARLINGTON
. Your wife’s fan?

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Yes, here it is!

L
ORD
D
ARLINGTON
.
(Walking towards him.)
I don’t know!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. You must know. I demand an explanation. Don’t hold me, you fool.
(To Cecil Graham.)

L
ORD
D
ARLINGTON
.
(Aside.)
She is here after all!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Speak, sir! Why is my wife’s fan here? Answer me! By God! I’ll search your rooms, and if my wife’s here, I’ll—–
(Moves.)

L
ORD
D
ARLINGTON
. You shall not search my rooms. You have no right to do so. I forbid you!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. You scoundrel! I’ll not leave your room till I have searched every corner of it! What moves behind that curtain?
(Rushes towards the curtain C.)

M
RS
. E
RLYNNE
.
(Enters behind R.)
Lord Windermere!

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Mrs. Erlynne!

(Every one starts and turns round. Lady Windermere slips out from behind the curtain and glides from the room L.)

M
RS
. E
RLYNNE
. I am afraid I took your wife’s fan in mistake for my own, when I was leaving your house to-night. I am so sorry.
(Takes fan from him. Lord Windermere looks at her in contempt. Lord Darlington in mingled astonishment and anger. Lord Augustus turns away. The other men smile at each other.)

ACT DROP

S
CENE
—Same as in Act I
.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
.
(Lying on sofa.)
How can I tell him? I can’t tell him. It would kill me. I wonder what happened after I escaped from that horrible room. Perhaps she told them the true reason of her being there, and the real meaning of that—fatal fan of mine. Oh, if he knows—how can I look him in the face again? He would never forgive me.
(Touches bell.)
How securely one thinks one lives—out of reach of temptation, sin, folly. And then suddenly—Oh! Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.
(Enter Rosalie R.)

R
OSALIE
. Did your ladyship ring for me?

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Yes. Have you found out at what time Lord Windermere came in last night?

R
OSALIE
. His lordship did not come in till five o’clock.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Five o’clock? He knocked at my door this morning, didn’t he?

R
OSALIE
. Yes, my lady—at half-past nine. I told him your ladyship was not awake yet.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Did he say anything?

R
OSALIE
. Something about your ladyship’s fan. I didn’t quite catch what his lordship said. Has the fan been lost, my lady? I can’t find it, and Parker says it was not left in any of the rooms. He has looked in all of them and on the terrace as well.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. It doesn’t matter. Tell Parker not to trouble. That will do.

(Exit Rosalie.)

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
.
(Rising.)
She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously,
recklessly, nobly—and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine? … How strange! I would have publicly disgraced her in my own house. she accepts public disgrace in the house of another to save me There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women. … oh, what a lesson! and what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn’t tell, I must. Oh! the shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless…. Oh!
(Starts as Lord Windermere enters.)

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Kisses her.)
Margaret—how pale you look!

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. I slept very badly.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Sitting on sofa with her.)
I am so sorry. I came in dreadfully late, and didn’t like to wake you. You are crying, dear.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Yes, I am crying, for I have something to tell you, Arthur.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. My dear child, you are not well. You’ve been doing too much. Let us go away to the country. You’ll be all right at selby. The season is almost over. There is no use staying on. Poor darling! We’ll go away to-day, if you like.
(Rises.)
We can easily catch the 3.40. I’ll send a wire to Fannen.
(Crosses and sits down at table to write a telegram.)

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Yes; let us go away to-day. No; I can’t go to-day, Arthur. There is some one I must see before I leave town—some one who has been kind to me.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Rising and leaning over sofa.)
Kind to you?

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Far more than that.
(Rises and goes to him.)
I will tell you, Arthur, but only love me, love me as you used to love me.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Used to? You are not thinking of that wretched woman who came here last night?
(Coming round and sitting R. of her.)
You don’t still imagine—no, you couldn’t.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. I don’t. I know now I was wrong and foolish.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. It was very good of you to receive her last night—but you are never to see her again.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Why do you say that?
(A pause.)

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Holding her hand.)
Margaret, I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place that she had lost by a moment’s folly, to lead again a decent life. I believed what she told me—I was mistaken in her. She is bad—as bad as a woman can be.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Arthur, Arthur, don’t talk so bitterly about any woman. I don’t think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad, as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don’t think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman—I know she’s not.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. My dear child, the woman’s impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. She is inadmissible anywhere.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. But I want to see her. I want her to come here.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. Never!

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. She came here once as
your
guest. She must come now as
mine
. That is but fair.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. She should never have come here.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
.
(Rising.)
It is too late, Arthur, to say that now.

(Moves away.)

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Rising.)
Margaret, if you knew where Mrs. Erlynne went last night, after she left this house, you would not sit in the same room with her. It was absolutely shameless, the whole thing.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Arthur, I can’t bear it any longer. I must tell you. Last night——

(Enter Parker with a tray on which lie Lady Windermere’s fan and a card.)

P
ARKER
. Mrs. Erlynne has called to return your ladyship’s fan which she took away by mistake last night. Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Oh, ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up.
(Reads card.)
Say I shall be very glad to see her.

(Exit Parker.)

She wants to see me, Arthur.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
.
(Takes card and looks at it.)
Margaret, I
beg
you not to. Let me see her first, at any rate. She’s a very dangerous woman. She is the most dangerous woman I know. You don’t realise what you’re doing.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. It is right that I should see her.

L
ORD
W
INDERMERE
. My child, you may be on the brink of a great sorrow. Don’t go to meet it. It is absolutely necessary that I should see her before you do.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Why should it be necessary?

(Enter Parker.)

P
ARKER
. Mrs. Erlynne.

(Enter Mrs. Erlynne.)

M
RS
. E
RLYNNE
.    
(Exit Parker.)
How do you do, Lady Windermere?
(To Lord Windermere.)
How do you do? Do you know, Lady Windermere, I am so sorry about your fan. I can’t imagine how I made such a silly mistake. Most stupid of me. And as I was driving in your direction, I thought I would take the opportunity of returning your property in person with many apologies for my carelessness, and of bidding you good-bye.

L
ADY
W
INDERMERE
. Good-bye?
(Moves towards sofa with Mrs. Erlynne and sits down beside her.)
Are you going away, then, Mrs. Erlynne?

M
RS
. E
RLYNNE
. Yes; I am going to live abroad again. The English climate doesn’t suit me. My—heart is affected here, and that I don’t like. I prefer living in the south. London is too full of fogs and—and serious people, Lord Windermere. Whether the fogs produce the serious people or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don’t know, but the whole thing rather gets on my nerves, and so I’m leaving this afternoon by the Club Train.