Lady Stutfield. I don’t think one should know of these things. It is not very, very nice, is it?
Lady Hunstanton. My dear Miss Worsley, I thought you liked English society so much. You were such a success in it. And you were so much admired by the best people. I quite forget what Lord Henry Weston said of you—but it was most complimentary, and you know what an authority he is on beauty.
Hester. Lord Henry Weston! I remember him, Lady Hunstanton. A man with a hideous smile and a hideous past. He is asked everywhere. No dinner-party is complete without him. What of those whose ruin is due to him? They are outcasts. They are nameless. If you met them in the street you would turn your head away. I don’t complain of their punishment. Let all women who have sinned be punished.
[Mrs. Arbuthnot enters from terrace behind in a cloak with a lace veil over her head. She hears the last words and starts.]
Lady Hunstanton. My dear young lady!
Hester. It is right that they should be punished, but don’t let them be the only ones to suffer. If a man and woman have sinned, let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don’t punish the one and let the other go free. Don’t have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be an infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not regarded.
Lady Caroline. Might I, dear Miss Worsley, as you are standing up, ask you for my cotton that is just behind you? Thank you.
Lady Hunstanton. My dear Mrs. Arbuthnot! I am so pleased you have come up. But I didn’t hear you announced.
Mrs. Allonby. Oh, I came straight in from the terrace, Lady Hunstanton, just as I was. You didn’t tell me you had a party.
Lady Hunstanton. Not a party. Only a few guests who are staying in the house, and whom you must know. Allow me. [Tries to help her. Rings bell.] Caroline, this is Mrs. Arbuthnot, one of my sweetest friends. Lady Caroline Pontefract, Lady Stutfield, Mrs. Allonby, and my young American friend, Miss Worsley, who has just been telling us all how wicked we are.
Hester. I am afraid you think I spoke too strongly, Lady Hunstanton. But there are some things in England—
Lady Hunstanton. My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important, Lord Illingworth would tell us. The only point where I thought you were a little hard was about Lady Caroline’s brother, about poor Lord Henry. He is really such good company.
[Enter Footman.]
Take Mrs. Arbuthnot’s things.
[Exit Footman with wraps.]
Hester. Lady Caroline, I had no idea it was your brother. I am sorry for the pain I must have caused you—I—
Lady Caroline. My dear Miss Worsley, the only part of your little speech, if I may so term it, with which I thoroughly agreed, was the part about my brother. Nothing that you could possibly say could be too bad for him. I regard Henry as infamous, absolutely infamous. But I am bound to state, as you were remarking, Jane, that he is excellent company, and he has one of the best cooks in London, and after a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.
Lady Hunstanton [to Miss Worsley] Now, do come, dear, and make friends with Mrs. Arbuthnot. She is one of the good, sweet, simple people you told us we never admitted into society. I am sorry to say Mrs. Arbuthnot comes very rarely to me. But that is not my fault.
Mrs. Allonby. What a bore it is the men staying so long after dinner! I expect they are saying the most dreadful things about us.
Lady Stutfield. Do you really think so?
Mrs. Allonby. I was sure of it.
Lady Stutfield. How very, very horrid of them! Shall we go onto the terrace?
Mrs. Allonby. Oh, anything to get away from the dowagers and the dowdies. [Rises and goes with Lady Stutfield to door L.C.] We are only going to look at the stars, Lady Hunstanton.
Lady Hunstanton. You will find a great many, dear, a great many. But don’t catch cold. [To Mrs. Arbuthnot.] We shall all miss Gerald so much, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. But has Lord Illingworth really offered to make Gerald his secretary?
Lady Hunstanton. Oh, yes! He has been most charming about it. He has the highest possible opinion of your boy. You don’t know Lord Illingworth, I believe, dear.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I have never met him.
Lady Hunstanton. You know him by name, no doubt?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I am afraid I don’t. I live so much out of the world, and see so few people. I remember hearing years ago of an old Lord Illingworth who lived in Yorkshire, I think.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah, yes. That would be the last Earl but one. He was a very curious man. He wanted to marry beneath him. Or wouldn’t, I believe. There was some scandal about it. The present Lord Illingworth is quite different. He is very distinguished. He does—well, he does nothing, which I am afraid our pretty American visitor here thinks very wrong of anybody, and I don’t know that he cares much for the subjects in which you are so interested, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. Do you think, Caroline, that Lord Illingworth is interested in the Housing of the Poor?
Lady Caroline. I should fancy not at all, Jane.
Lady Hunstanton. We all have our different tastes, have we not? But Lord Illingworth has a very high position, and there is nothing he couldn’t get if he chose to ask for it. Of course, he is comparatively a young man still, and he has only come to his title within—how long exactly is it, Caroline, since Lord Illingworth succeeded?
Lady Caroline. About four years, I think, Jane. I know it was the same year in which my brother had his last exposure in the evening newspapers.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah, I remember. That would be about four years ago. Of course, there were a great many people between the present Lord Illingworth and the title, Mrs. Arbuthnot. There was—who was there, Caroline?
Lady Caroline. There was poor Margaret’s baby. You remember how anxious she was to have a boy, and it was a boy, but it died, and her husband died shortly afterwards, and she married almost immediately one of Lord Ascot’s sons, who, I am told, beats her.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah, that is in the family, dear, that is in the family. And there was also, I remember, a clergyman who wanted to be a lunatic, or a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, I forget which, but I know the Court of Chancery investigated the matter, and decided that he was quite sane. And I saw him afterwards at poor Lord Plumstead’s with straws in his hair, or something very odd about him. I can’t recall what. I often regret, Lady Caroline, that dear Lady Cecilia never lived to see her son get the title.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Lady Cecilia?
Lady Hunstanton. Lord Illingworth’s mother, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, was one of the Duchess of Jerningham’s pretty daughters, and she married Sir Thomas Harford, who wasn’t considered a very good match for her at the time, though he was said to be the handsomest man in London. I knew them all quite intimately, and both the sons, Arthur and George.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. It was the eldest son who succeeded, of course, Lady Hunstanton?
Lady Hunstanton. No, dear, he was killed in the hunting field. Or was it fishing, Caroline? I forget. But George came in for everything. I always tell him that no younger son has ever had such good luck as he has had.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Lady Hunstanton, I want to speak to Gerald at once. Might I see him? Can he be sent for?
Lady Hunstanton. Certainly, dear. I will send one of the servants into the dining-room to fetch him. I don’t know what keeps the gentlemen so long. [Rings bell.] When I knew Lord Illingworth first as plain George Harford, he was simply a very brilliant young man about town, with not a penny of money except what poor dear Lady Cecilia gave him. She was quite devoted to him. Chiefly, I fancy, because he was on bad terms with his father. Oh, here is the dear Archdeacon. [To Servant.] It doesn’t matter.
[Enter Sir John and Doctor Daubeny. Sir John goes over to Lady Stutfield, Doctor Daubeny to Lady Hunstanton.]
The Archdeacon. Lord Illingworth has been most entertaining. I have never enjoyed myself more. [Sees Mrs. Arbuthnot.] Ah, Mrs. Arbuthnot.
Lady Hunstanton. [To Doctor Daubeny.] You see I have got Mrs. Arbuthnot to come to me at last.
The Archdeacon. That is a great honour, Lady Hunstanton. Mrs. Daubeny will be quite jealous of you.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah, I am so sorry Mrs. Daubeny could not come with you to-night. Headache as usual, I suppose.
The Archdeacon. Yes, Lady Hunstanton; a perfect martyr. But she is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.
Lady Caroline. [To her husband.] John! [Sir John goes over to his wife. Doctor Daubeny talks to Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Arbuthnot.]
[Mrs. Arbuthnot watches Lord Illingworth the whole time. He has passed across the room without noticing her, and approaches Mrs. Allonby, who with Lady Stutfield is standing by the door looking on to the terrace.]
Lord Illingworth. How is the most charming woman in the world?
Mrs. Allonby. [Taking Lady Stutfield by the hand.] We are both quite well, thank you, Lord Illingworth. But what a short time you have been in the dining-room! It seems as if we had only just left.
Lord Illingworth. I was bored to death. Never opened my lips the whole time. Absolutely longing to come in to you.
Mrs. Allonby. You should have. The American girl has been giving us a lecture.
Lord Illingworth. Really? All Americans lecture, I believe. I suppose it is something in their climate. What did she lecture about?
Mrs. Allonby. Oh, Puritanism, of course.
Lord Illingworth. I am going to convert her, am I not? How long do you give me?
Mrs. Allonby. A week.
Lord Illingworth. A week is more than enough.
[Enter Gerald and Lord Alfred.]
Gerald. [Going to Mrs. Arbuthnot.] Dear mother!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald, I don’t feel at all well. See me home, Gerald. I shouldn’t have come.
Gerald. I am so sorry, mother. Certainly. But you must know Lord Illingworth first. [Goes across room.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Not to-night, Gerald.
Gerald. Lord Illingworth, I want you so much to know my mother.
Lord Illingworth. With the greatest pleasure. [To Mrs. Allonby.] I’ll be back in a moment. People’s mothers always bore me to death. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
Mrs. Allonby. No man does. That is his.
Lord Illingworth. What a delightful mood you are in to-night! [Turns round and goes across with Gerald to Mrs. Arbuthnot. When he sees her, he starts back in wonder. Then slowly his eyes turn towards Gerald.]
Gerald. Mother, this is Lord Illingworth, who has offered to take me as his private secretary. [Mrs. Arbuthnot bows coldly.] It is a wonderful opening for me, isn’t it? I hope he won’t be disappointed in me, that is all. You’ll thank Lord Illingworth, mother, won’t you?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Lord Illingworth is very good, I am sure, to interest himself in you for the moment.
Lord Illingworth. [Putting his hand on Gerald’s shoulder.] Oh, Gerald and I are great friends already, Mrs . . . Arbuthnot.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. There can be nothing in common between you and my son, Lord Illingworth.
Gerald. Dear mother, how can you say so? Of course Lord Illingworth is awfully clever and that sort of thing. There is nothing Lord Illingworth doesn’t know.
Lord Illingworth. My dear boy!
Gerald. He knows more about life than any one I have ever met. I feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn’t seem to mind that. He has been awfully good to me, mother.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Lord Illingworth may change his mind. He may not really want you as his secretary.
Gerald. Mother!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. You must remember, as you said yourself, you have had so few advantages.
Mrs. Allonby. Lord Illingworth, I want to speak to you for a moment. Do come over.
Lord Illingworth. Will you excuse me, Mrs. Arbuthnot? Now, don’t let your charming mother make any more difficulties, Gerald. The thing is quite settled, isn’t it?
Gerald. I hope so. [Lord Illingworth goes across to Mrs. Arbuthnot.]
Mrs. Allonby. I thought you were never going to leave the lady in black velvet.
Lord Illingworth. She is excessively handsome. [Looks at Mrs. Arbuthnot.]
Lady Hunstanton. Caroline, shall we all make a move to the music-room? Miss Worsley is going to play. You’ll come too, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, won’t you? You don’t know what a treat is in store for you. [To Doctor Daubeny.] I must really take Miss Worsley down some afternoon to the rectory. I should so much like dear Mrs. Daubeny to hear her on the violin. Ah, I forgot. Dear Mrs. Daubeny’s hearing is a little defective, is it not?
The Archdeacon. Her deafness is a great privation to her. She can’t even hear my sermons now. She reads them at home. But she has many resources in herself, many resources.
Lady Hunstanton. She reads a good deal, I suppose?
The Archdeacon. Just the very largest print. The eyesight is rapidly going. But she’s never morbid, never morbid.
Gerald. [To Lord Illingworth.] Do speak to my mother, Lord Illingworth, before you go into the music-room. She seems to think, somehow, you don’t mean what you said to me.
Mrs. Allonby. Aren’t you coming?
Lord Illingworth. In a few moments. Lady Hunstanton, if Mrs. Arbuthnot would allow me, I would like to say a few words to her, and we will join you later on.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah, of course. You will have a great deal to say to her, and she will have a great deal to thank you for. It is not every son who gets such an offer, Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I know you appreciate that, dear.
Lady Caroline. John!
Lady Hunstanton. Now, don’t keep Mrs. Arbuthnot too long, Lord Illingworth. We can’t spare her.
[Exit following the other guests. Sound of violin heard from music-room.]
Lord Illingworth. So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very proud of him. He is a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why Arbuthnot, Rachel?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. One name is as good as another, when one has no right to any name.
Lord Illingworth. I suppose so—but why Gerald?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. After a man whose heart I broke—after my father.
Lord Illingworth. Well, Rachel, what is over is over. All I have got to say now in that I am very, very much pleased with our boy. The world will know him merely as my private secretary, but to me he will be something very near, and very dear. It is a curious thing, Rachel; my life seemed to be quite complete. It was not so. It lacked something, it lacked a son. I have found my son now, I am glad I have found him.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. You have no right to claim him, or the smallest part of him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.
Lord Illingworth. My dear Rachel, you have had him to yourself for over twenty years. Why not let me have him for a little now? He is quite as much mine as yours.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Are you talking of the child you abandoned? Of the child who, as far as you are concerned, might have died of hunger and of want?
Lord Illingworth. You forget, Rachel, it was you who left me. It was not I who left you.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I left you because you refused to give the child a name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.
Lord Illingworth. I had no expectations then. And besides, Rachel, I wasn’t much older than you were. I was only twenty-two. I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your father’s garden.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.
Lord Illingworth. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a year. But you wouldn’t take anything. You simply disappeared, and carried the child away with you.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I wouldn’t have accepted a penny from her. Your father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.
Lord Illingworth. Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my mother. Every man is when he is young.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall certainly not go away with you.
Lord Illingworth. What nonsense, Rachel!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Do you think I would allow my son—
Lord Illingworth. Our son.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. My son [Lord Illingworth shrugs his shoulders]—to go away with the man who spoiled my youth, who ruined my life, who has tainted every moment of my days? You don’t realise what my past has been in suffering and in shame.
Lord Illingworth. My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald’s future considerably more important than your past.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.
Lord Illingworth. That is exactly what he should do. That is exactly what you should help him to do. What a typical woman you are! You talk sentimentally, and you are thoroughly selfish the whole time. But don’t let us have a scene. Rachel, I want you to look at this matter from the common-sense point of view, from the point of view of what is best for our son, leaving you and me out of the question. What is our son at present? An underpaid clerk in a small Provincial Bank in a third-rate English town. If you imagine he is quite happy in such a position, you are mistaken. He is thoroughly discontented.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. He was not discontented till he met you. You have made him so.
Lord Illingworth. Of course, I made him so. Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. But I did not leave him with a mere longing for things he could not get. No, I made him a charming offer. He jumped at it, I need hardly say. Any young man would. And now, simply because it turns out that I am the boy’s own father and he my own son, you propose practically to ruin his career. That is to say, if I were a perfect stranger, you would allow Gerald to go away with me, but as he is my own flesh and blood you won’t. How utterly illogical you are!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I will not allow him to go.
Lord Illingworth. How can you prevent it? What excuse can you give to him for making him decline such an offer as mine? I won’t tell him in what relations I stand to him, I need hardly say. But you daren’t tell him. You know that. Look how you have brought him up.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I have brought him up to be a good man.
Lord Illingworth. Quite so. And what is the result? You have educated him to be your judge if he ever finds you out. And a bitter, an unjust judge he will be to you. Don’t be deceived, Rachel. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. George, don’t take my son away from me. I have had twenty years of sorrow, and I have only had one thing to love me, only one thing to love. You have had a life of joy, and pleasure, and success. You have been quite happy, you have never thought of us. There was no reason, according to your views of life, why you should have remembered us at all. Your meeting us was a mere accident, a horrible accident. Forget it. Don’t come now, and rob me of . . . of all I have in the whole world. You are so rich in other things. Leave me the little vineyard of my life; leave me the walled-in garden and the well of water; the ewe-lamb God sent me, in pity or in wrath, oh! leave me that. George, don’t take Gerald from me.
Lord Illingworth. Rachel, at the present moment you are not necessary to Gerald’s career; I am. There is nothing more to be said on the subject.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I will not let him go.
Lord Illingworth. Here is Gerald. He has a right to decide for himself.
[Enter Gerald.]
Gerald. Well, dear mother, I hope you have settled it all with Lord Illingworth?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I have not, Gerald.
Lord Illingworth. Your mother seems not to like your coming with me, for some reason.
Gerald. Why, mother?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I thought you were quite happy here with me, Gerald. I didn’t know you were so anxious to leave me.
Gerald. Mother, how can you talk like that? Of course I have been quite happy with you. But a man can’t stay always with his mother. No chap does. I want to make myself a position, to do something. I thought you would have been proud to see me Lord Illingworth’s secretary.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I do not think you would be suitable as a private secretary to Lord Illingworth. You have no qualifications.
Lord Illingworth. I don’t wish to seem to interfere for a moment, Mrs. Arbuthnot, but as far as your last objection is concerned, I surely am the best judge. And I can only tell you that your son has all the qualifications I had hoped for. He has more, in fact, than I had even thought of. Far more. [Mrs. Arbuthnot remains silent.] Have you any other reason, Mrs. Arbuthnot, why you don’t wish your son to accept this post?
Gerald. Have you, mother? Do answer.
Lord Illingworth. If you have, Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray, pray say it. We are quite by ourselves here. Whatever it is, I need not say I will not repeat it.
Gerald. Mother?
Lord Illingworth. If you would like to be alone with your son, I will leave you. You may have some other reason you don’t wish me to hear.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I have no other reason.
Lord Illingworth. Then, my dear boy, we may look on the thing as settled. Come, you and I will smoke a cigarette on the terrace together. And Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray let me tell you, that I think you have acted very, very wisely.
[Exit with Gerald. Mrs. Arbuthnot is left alone. She stands immobile with a look of unutterable sorrow on her face.]
Act Drop
THIRD ACT
SCENE
The Picture Gallery at Hunstanton. Door at back leading on to terrace.
[Lord Illingworth and Gerald, R.C. Lord Illingworth lolling on a sofa. Gerald in a chair.]
Lord Illingworth. Thoroughly sensible woman, your mother, Gerald. I knew she would come round in the end.
Gerald. My mother is awfully conscientious, Lord Illingworth, and I know she doesn’t think I am educated enough to be your secretary. She is perfectly right, too. I was fearfully idle when I was at school, and I couldn’t pass an examination now to save my life.
Lord Illingworth. My dear Gerald, examinations are of no value whatsoever. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
Gerald. But I am so ignorant of the world, Lord Illingworth.
Lord Illingworth. Don’t be afraid, Gerald. Remember that you’ve got on your side the most wonderful thing in the world—youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in life’s lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile, like most kings. To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn’t do—except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.
Gerald. But you don’t call yourself old, Lord Illingworth?
Lord Illingworth. I am old enough to be your father, Gerald.
Gerald. I don’t remember my father; he died years ago.
Lord Illingworth. So Lady Hunstanton told me.
Gerald. It is very curious, my mother never talks to me about my father. I sometimes think she must have married beneath her.
Lord Illingworth. [Winces slightly.] Really? [Goes over and puts his hand on Gerald’s shoulder.] You have missed not having a father, I suppose, Gerald?
Gerald. Oh, no; my mother has been so good to me. No one ever had such a mother as I have had.
Lord Illingworth. I am quite sure of that. Still I should imagine that most mothers don’t quite understand their sons. Don’t realise, I mean, that a son has ambitions, a desire to see life, to make himself a name. After all, Gerald, you couldn’t be expected to pass all your life in such a hole as Wrockley, could you?
Gerald. Oh, no! It would be dreadful!
Lord Illingworth. A mother’s love is very touching, of course, but it is often curiously selfish. I mean, there is a good deal of selfishness in it.
Gerald. [Slowly.] I suppose there is.
Lord Illingworth. Your mother is a thoroughly good woman. But good women have such limited views of life, their horizon is so small, their interests are so petty, aren’t they?
Gerald. They are awfully interested, certainly, in things we don’t care much about.
Lord Illingworth. I suppose your mother is very religious, and that sort of thing.
Gerald. Oh, yes, she’s always going to church.
Lord Illingworth. Ah! she is not modern, and to be modern is the only thing worth being nowadays. You want to be modern, don’t you, Gerald? You want to know life as it really is. Not to be put off with any old-fashioned theories about life. Well, what you have to do at present is simply to fit yourself for the best society. A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule.
Gerald. I should like to wear nice things awfully, but I have always been told that a man should not think too much about his clothes.
Lord Illingworth. People nowadays are so absolutely superficial that they don’t understand the philosophy of the superficial. By the way, Gerald, you should learn how to tie your tie better. Sentiment is all very well for the button-hole. But the essential thing for a necktie is style. A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.
Gerald. [Laughing.] I might be able to learn how to tie a tie, Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. I don’t know how to talk.
Lord Illingworth. Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.
Gerald. But it is very difficult to get into society isn’t it?
Lord Illingworth. To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people—that is all!
Gerald. I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!
Lord Illingworth. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy. Society is a necessary thing. No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and women rule society. If you have not got women on your side you are quite over. You might just as well be a barrister, or a stockbroker, or a journalist at once.
Gerald. It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?
Lord Illingworth. You should never try to understand them. Women are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means—which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do—look at her, don’t listen to her.
Gerald. But women are awfully clever, aren’t they?
Lord Illingworth. One should always tell them so. But, to the philosopher, my dear Gerald, women represent the triumph of matter over mind—just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
Gerald. How then can women have so much power as you say they have?
Lord Illingworth. The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.
Gerald. But haven’t women got a refining influence?
Lord Illingworth. Nothing refines but the intellect.
Gerald. Still, there are many different kinds of women, aren’t there?
Lord Illingworth. Only two kinds in society: the plain and the coloured.
Gerald. But there are good women in society, aren’t there?
Lord Illingworth. Far too many.
Gerald. But do you think women shouldn’t be good?
Lord Illingworth. One should never tell them so, they’d all become good at once. Women are a fascinatingly wilful sex. Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
Gerald. You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?
Lord Illingworth. Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
Gerald. But don’t you think one can be happy when one is married?
Lord Illingworth. Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married.
Gerald. But if one is in love?
Lord Illingworth. One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
Gerald. Love is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Lord Illingworth. When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. But a really grande passion is comparatively rare nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes in a country, and the only possible explanation of us Harfords.
Gerald. Harfords, Lord Illingworth?
Lord Illingworth. That is my family name. You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done. And now, Gerald, you are going into a perfectly new life with me, and I want you to know how to live. [Mrs. Arbuthnot appears on terrace behind.] For the world has been made by fools that wise men should live in it!
[Enter L.C. Lady Hunstanton and Dr. Daubeny.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! here you are, dear Lord Illingworth. Well, I suppose you have been telling our young friend, Gerald, what his new duties are to be, and giving him a great deal of good advice over a pleasant cigarette.
Lord Illingworth. I have been giving him the best of advice, Lady Hunstanton, and the best of cigarettes.
Lady Hunstanton. I am so sorry I was not here to listen to you, but I suppose I am too old now to learn. Except from you, dear Archdeacon, when you are in your nice pulpit. But then I always know what you are going to say, so I don’t feel alarmed. [Sees Mrs. Arbuthnot.] Ah! dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, do come and join us. Come, dear. [Enter Mrs. Arbuthnot.] Gerald has been having such a long talk with Lord Illingworth; I am sure you must feel very much flattered at the pleasant way in which everything has turned out for him. Let us sit down. [They sit down.] And how is your beautiful embroidery going on?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.
Lady Hunstanton. Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn’t she?
The Archdeacon. She was very deft with her needle once, quite a Dorcas. But the gout has crippled her fingers a good deal. She has not touched the tambour frame for nine or ten years. But she has many other amusements. She is very much interested in her own health.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! that is always a nice distraction, is it not? Now, what are you talking about, Lord Illingworth? Do tell us.
Lord Illingworth. I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that, consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to the comedy side of things.
Lady Hunstanton. Now I am quite out of my depth. I usually am when Lord Illingworth says anything. And the Humane Society is most careless. They never rescue me. I am left to sink. I have a dim idea, dear Lord Illingworth, that you are always on the side of the sinners, and I know I always try to be on the side of the saints, but that is as far as I get. And after all, it may be merely the fancy of a drowning person.
Lord Illingworth. The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! that quite does for me. I haven’t a word to say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can’t follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid. To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I should be sorry to follow Lord Illingworth in any of his opinions.
Lady Hunstanton. You are quite right, dear.
[Gerald shrugs his shoulders and looks irritably over at his mother. Enter Lady Caroline.]
Lady Caroline. Jane, have you seen John anywhere?
Lady Hunstanton. You needn’t be anxious about him, dear. He is with Lady Stutfield; I saw them some time ago, in the Yellow Drawing-room. They seem quite happy together. You are not going, Caroline? Pray sit down.
Lady Caroline. I think I had better look after John.
[Exit Lady Caroline.]
Lady Hunstanton. It doesn’t do to pay men so much attention. And Caroline has really nothing to be anxious about. Lady Stutfield is very sympathetic. She is just as sympathetic about one thing as she is about another. A beautiful nature.
[Enter Sir John and Mrs. Allonby.]
Ah! here is Sir John! And with Mrs. Allonby too! I suppose it was Mrs. Allonby I saw him with. Sir John, Caroline has been looking everywhere for you.
Mrs. Allonby. We have been waiting for her in the Music-room, dear Lady Hunstanton.
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! the Music-room, of course. I thought it was the Yellow Drawing-room, my memory is getting so defective. [To the Archdeacon.] Mrs. Daubeny has a wonderful memory, hasn’t she?
The Archdeacon. She used to be quite remarkable for her memory, but since her last attack she recalls chiefly the events of her early childhood. But she finds great pleasure in such retrospections, great pleasure.
[Enter Lady Stutfield and Mr. Kelvil.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! dear Lady Stutfield! and what has Mr. Kelvil been talking to you about?
Lady Stutfield. About Bimetallism, as well as I remember.
Lady Hunstanton. Bimetallism! Is that quite a nice subject? However, I know people discuss everything very freely nowadays. What did Sir John talk to you about, dear Mrs. Allonby?
Mrs. Allonby. About Patagonia.
Lady Hunstanton. Really? What a remote topic! But very improving, I have no doubt.
Mrs. Allonby. He has been most interesting on the subject of Patagonia. Savages seem to have quite the same views as cultured people on almost all subjects. They are excessively advanced.
Lady Hunstanton. What do they do?
Mrs. Allonby. Apparently everything.
Lady Hunstanton. Well, it is very gratifying, dear Archdeacon, is it not, to find that Human Nature is permanently one.—On the whole, the world is the same world, is it not?
Lord Illingworth. The world is simply divided into two classes—those who believe the incredible, like the public—and those who do the improbable—
Mrs. Allonby. Like yourself?
Lord Illingworth. Yes; I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.
Lady Stutfield. And what have you been doing lately that astonishes you?
Lord Illingworth. I have been discovering all kinds of beautiful qualities in my own nature.
Mrs. Allonby. Ah! don’t become quite perfect all at once. Do it gradually!
Lord Illingworth. I don’t intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I shan’t. It would be most inconvenient. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
Mrs. Allonby. It is premature to ask us to forgive analysis. We forgive adoration; that is quite as much as should be expected from us.
[Enter Lord Alfred. He joins Lady Stutfield.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! we women should forgive everything, shouldn’t we, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot? I am sure you agree with me in that.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I do not, Lady Hunstanton. I think there are many things women should never forgive.
Lady Hunstanton. What sort of things?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. The ruin of another woman’s life.
[Moves slowly away to back of stage.]
Lady Hunstanton. Ah! those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.
Mrs. Allonby. The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.
Lady Stutfield. The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
Kelvil. The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.
Lord Illingworth. There is no secret of life. Life’s aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.
Lady Hunstanton. [Shakes her fan at him.] I don’t know how it is, dear Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said to-day seems to me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to you.
Lord Illingworth. All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.
Lady Hunstanton. I don’t understand a word, Lord Illingworth. But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don’t believe in women thinking too much. Women should think in moderation, as they should do all things in moderation.
Lord Illingworth. Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Lady Hunstanton. I hope I shall remember that. It sounds an admirable maxim. But I’m beginning to forget everything. It’s a great misfortune.
Lord Illingworth. It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.
Lady Hunstanton. How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s most important virtue. You have the most comforting views of life.
[Enter Farquhar.]
Farquhar. Doctor Daubeny’s carriage!
Lady Hunstanton. My dear Archdeacon! It is only half-past ten.
The Archdeacon. [Rising.] I am afraid I must go, Lady Hunstanton. Tuesday is always one of Mrs. Daubeny’s bad nights.
Lady Hunstanton. [Rising.] Well, I won’t keep you from her. [Goes with him towards door.] I have told Farquhar to put a brace of partridge into the carriage. Mrs. Daubeny may fancy them.
The Archdeacon. It is very kind of you, but Mrs. Daubeny never touches solids now. Lives entirely on jellies. But she is wonderfully cheerful, wonderfully cheerful. She has nothing to complain of.
[Exit with Lady Hunstanton.]
Mrs. Allonby. [Goes over to Lord Illingworth.] There is a beautiful moon to-night.
Lord Illingworth. Let us go and look at it. To look at anything that is inconstant is charming nowadays.
Mrs. Allonby. You have your looking-glass.
Lord Illingworth. It is unkind. It merely shows me my wrinkles.
Mrs. Allonby. Mine is better behaved. It never tells me the truth.
Lord Illingworth. Then it is in love with you.
[Exeunt Sir John, Lady Stutfield, Mr. Kelvil and Lord Alfred.]
Gerald. [To Lord Illingworth] May I come too?
Lord Illingworth. Do, my dear boy. [Moves towards door with Mrs. Allonby and Gerald.]
[Lady Caroline enters, looks rapidly round and goes off in opposite direction to that taken by Sir John and Lady Stutfield.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald!
Gerald. What, mother!
[Exit Lord Illingworth with Mrs. Allonby.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. It is getting late. Let us go home.
Gerald. My dear mother. Do let us wait a little longer. Lord Illingworth is so delightful, and, by the way, mother, I have a great surprise for you. We are starting for India at the end of this month.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Let us go home.
Gerald. If you really want to, of course, mother, but I must bid good-bye to Lord Illingworth first. I’ll be back in five minutes. [Exit.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Let him leave me if he chooses, but not with him—not with him! I couldn’t bear it. [Walks up and down.]
[Enter Hester.]
Hester. What a lovely night it is, Mrs. Arbuthnot.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Is it?
Hester. Mrs. Arbuthnot, I wish you would let us be friends. You are so different from the other women here. When you came into the Drawing-room this evening, somehow you brought with you a sense of what is good and pure in life. I had been foolish. There are things that are right to say, but that may be said at the wrong time and to the wrong people.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I heard what you said. I agree with it, Miss Worsley.
Hester. I didn’t know you had heard it. But I knew you would agree with me. A woman who has sinned should be punished, shouldn’t she?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Yes.
Hester. She shouldn’t be allowed to come into the society of good men and women?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. She should not.
Hester. And the man should be punished in the same way?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. In the same way. And the children, if there are children, in the same way also?
Hester. Yes, it is right that the sins of the parents should be visited on the children. It is a just law. It is God’s law.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. It is one of God’s terrible laws.
[Moves away to fireplace.]
Hester. You are distressed about your son leaving you, Mrs. Arbuthnot?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Yes.
Hester. Do you like him going away with Lord Illingworth? Of course there is position, no doubt, and money, but position and money are not everything, are they?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. They are nothing; they bring misery.
Hester. Then why do you let your son go with him?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. He wishes it himself.
Hester. But if you asked him he would stay, would he not?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. He has set his heart on going.
Hester. He couldn’t refuse you anything. He loves you too much. Ask him to stay. Let me send him in to you. He is on the terrace at this moment with Lord Illingworth. I heard them laughing together as I passed through the Music-room.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Don’t trouble, Miss Worsley, I can wait. It is of no consequence.
Hester. No, I’ll tell him you want him. Do—do ask him to stay. [Exit Hester.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. He won’t come—I know he won’t come.
[Enter Lady Caroline. She looks round anxiously. Enter Gerald.]
Lady Caroline. Mr. Arbuthnot, may I ask you is Sir John anywhere on the terrace?
Gerald. No, Lady Caroline, he is not on the terrace.
Lady Caroline. It is very curious. It is time for him to retire.
[Exit Lady Caroline.]
Gerald. Dear mother, I am afraid I kept you waiting. I forgot all about it. I am so happy to-night, mother; I have never been so happy.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. At the prospect of going away?
Gerald. Don’t put it like that, mother. Of course I am sorry to leave you. Why, you are the best mother in the whole world. But after all, as Lord Illingworth says, it is impossible to live in such a place as Wrockley. You don’t mind it. But I’m ambitious; I want something more than that. I want to have a career. I want to do something that will make you proud of me, and Lord Illingworth is going to help me. He is going to do everything for me.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald, don’t go away with Lord Illingworth. I implore you not to. Gerald, I beg you!
Gerald. Mother, how changeable you are! You don’t seem to know your own mind for a single moment. An hour and a half ago in the Drawing-room you agreed to the whole thing; now you turn round and make objections, and try to force me to give up my one chance in life. Yes, my one chance. You don’t suppose that men like Lord Illingworth are to be found every day, do you, mother? It is very strange that when I have had such a wonderful piece of good luck, the one person to put difficulties in my way should be my own mother. Besides, you know, mother, I love Hester Worsley. Who could help loving her? I love her more than I have ever told you, far more. And if I had a position, if I had prospects, I could—I could ask her to—Don’t you understand now, mother, what it means to me to be Lord Illingworth’s secretary? To start like that is to find a career ready for one—before one—waiting for one. If I were Lord Illingworth’s secretary I could ask Hester to be my wife. As a wretched bank clerk with a hundred a year it would be an impertinence.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I fear you need have no hopes of Miss Worsley. I know her views on life. She has just told them to me. [A pause.]
Gerald. Then I have my ambition left, at any rate. That is something—I am glad I have that! You have always tried to crush my ambition, mother—haven’t you? You have told me that the world is a wicked place, that success is not worth having, that society is shallow, and all that sort of thing—well, I don’t believe it, mother. I think the world must be delightful. I think society must be exquisite. I think success is a thing worth having. You have been wrong in all that you taught me, mother, quite wrong. Lord Illingworth is a successful man. He is a fashionable man. He is a man who lives in the world and for it. Well, I would give anything to be just like Lord Illingworth.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I would sooner see you dead.
Gerald. Mother, what is your objection to Lord Illingworth? Tell me—tell me right out. What is it?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. He is a bad man.
Gerald. In what way bad? I don’t understand what you mean.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I will tell you.
Gerald. I suppose you think him bad, because he doesn’t believe the same things as you do. Well, men are different from women, mother. It is natural that they should have different views.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. It is not what Lord Illingworth believes, or what he does not believe, that makes him bad. It is what he is.
Gerald. Mother, is it something you know of him? Something you actually know?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. It is something I know.
Gerald. Something you are quite sure of?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Quite sure of.
Gerald. How long have you known it?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. For twenty years.
Gerald. Is it fair to go back twenty years in any man’s career? And what have you or I to do with Lord Illingworth’s early life? What business is it of ours?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. What this man has been, he is now, and will be always.
Gerald. Mother, tell me what Lord Illingworth did? If he did anything shameful, I will not go away with him. Surely you know me well enough for that?
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald, come near to me. Quite close to me, as you used to do when you were a little boy, when you were mother’s own boy. [Gerald sits down beside his mother. She runs her fingers through his hair, and strokes his hands.] Gerald, there was a girl once, she was very young, she was little over eighteen at the time. George Harford—that was Lord Illingworth’s name then—George Harford met her. She knew nothing about life. He—knew everything. He made this girl love him. He made her love him so much that she left her father’s house with him one morning. She loved him so much, and he had promised to marry her! He had solemnly promised to marry her, and she had believed him. She was very young, and—and ignorant of what life really is. But he put the marriage off from week to week, and month to month.—She trusted in him all the while. She loved him.—Before her child was born—for she had a child—she implored him for the child’s sake to marry her, that the child might have a name, that her sin might not be visited on the child, who was innocent. He refused. After the child was born she left him, taking the child away, and her life was ruined, and her soul ruined, and all that was sweet, and good, and pure in her ruined also. She suffered terribly—she suffers now. She will always suffer. For her there is no joy, no peace, no atonement. She is a woman who drags a chain like a guilty thing. She is a woman who wears a mask, like a thing that is a leper. The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish. Nothing can heal her! no anodyne can give her sleep! no poppies forgetfulness! She is lost! She is a lost soul!—That is why I call Lord Illingworth a bad man. That is why I don’t want my boy to be with him.
Gerald. My dear mother, it all sounds very tragic, of course. But I dare say the girl was just as much to blame as Lord Illingworth was.—After all, would a really nice girl, a girl with any nice feelings at all, go away from her home with a man to whom she was not married, and live with him as his wife? No nice girl would.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. [After a pause.] Gerald, I withdraw all my objections. You are at liberty to go away with Lord Illingworth, when and where you choose.
Gerald. Dear mother, I knew you wouldn’t stand in my way. You are the best woman God ever made. And, as for Lord Illingworth, I don’t believe he is capable of anything infamous or base. I can’t believe it of him—I can’t.
Hester. [Outside.] Let me go! Let me go! [Enter Hester in terror, and rushes over to Gerald and flings herself in his arms.]
Hester. Oh! save me—save me from him!
Gerald. From whom?
Hester. He has insulted me! Horribly insulted me! Save me!
Gerald. Who? Who has dared—?
[Lord Illingworth enters at back of stage. Hester breaks from Gerald’s arms and points to him.]
Gerald [He is quite beside himself with rage and indignation.] Lord Illingworth, you have insulted the purest thing on God’s earth, a thing as pure as my own mother. You have insulted the woman I love most in the world with my own mother. As there is a God in Heaven, I will kill you!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. [Rushing across and catching hold of him] No! no!
Gerald. [Thrusting her back.] Don’t hold me, mother. Don’t hold me—I’ll kill him!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald!
Gerald. Let me go, I say!
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Stop, Gerald, stop! He is your own father!
[Gerald clutches his mother’s hands and looks into her face. She sinks slowly on the ground in shame. Hester steals towards the door. Lord Illingworth frowns and bites his lip. After a time Gerald raises his mother up, puts his arm round her, and leads her from the room.]
Act Drop