A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde [an ebook reader TXT] 📗

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 betide 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 am round her, and leads her from the room.]

ACT DROP FOURTH ACT SCENE

Sitting-room at Mrs. Arbuthnot’s. Large open French window at back, looking on to garden. Doors R.C. and L.C.

[GERALD ARBUTHNOT writing at table.]

[Enter ALICE R.C. followed by LADY HUNSTANTON and MRS. ALLONBY.]

ALICE. Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby.

[Exit L.C.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. Good morning, Gerald.

GERALD. [Rising.] Good morning, Lady Hunstanton. Good morning, Mrs. Allonby.

LADY HUNSTANTON. [Sitting down.] We came to inquire for your dear mother, Gerald. I hope she is better?

GERALD. My mother has not come down yet, Lady Hunstanton.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, I am afraid the heat was too much for her last night. I think there must have been thunder in the air. Or perhaps it was the music. Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one’s nerves.

MRS. ALLONBY. It’s the same thing, nowadays.

LADY HUNSTANTON. I am so glad I don’t know what you mean, dear. I am afraid you mean something wrong. Ah, I see you’re examining Mrs. Arbuthnot’s pretty room. Isn’t it nice and old-fashioned?

MRS. ALLONBY. [Surveying the room through her lorgnette.] It looks quite the happy English home.

LADY HUNSTANTON. That’s just the word, dear; that just describes it. One feels your mother’s good influence in everything she has about her, Gerald.

MRS. ALLONBY. Lord Illingworth says that all influence is bad, but that a good influence is the worst in the world.

LADY HUNSTANTON. When Lord Illingworth knows Mrs. Arbuthnot better he will change his mind. I must certainly bring him here.

MRS. ALLONBY. I should like to see Lord Illingworth in a happy English home.

LADY HUNSTANTON. It would do him a great deal of good, dear. Most women in London, nowadays, seem to furnish their rooms with nothing but orchids, foreigners, and French novels. But here we have the room of a sweet saint. Fresh natural flowers, books that don’t shock one, pictures that one can look at without blushing.

MRS. ALLONBY. But I like blushing.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Well, there IS a good deal to be said for blushing, if one can do it at the proper moment. Poor dear Hunstanton used to tell me I didn’t blush nearly often enough. But then he was so very particular. He wouldn’t let me know any of his men friends, except those who were over seventy, like poor Lord Ashton: who afterwards, by the way, was brought into the Divorce Court. A most unfortunate case.

MRS. ALLONBY. I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime. I think seventy an ideal age for a man.

LADY HUNSTANTON. She is quite incorrigible, Gerald, isn’t she? By-the-by, Gerald, I hope your dear mother will come and see me more often now. You and Lord Illingworth start almost immediately, don’t you?

GERALD. I have given up my intention of being Lord Illingworth’s secretary.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Surely not, Gerald! It would be most unwise of you. What reason can you have?

GERALD. I don’t think I should be suitable for the post.

MRS. ALLONBY. I wish Lord Illingworth would ask me to be his secretary. But he says I am not serious enough.

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear, you really mustn’t talk like that in this house. Mrs. Arbuthnot doesn’t know anything about the wicked society in which we all live. She won’t go into it. She is far too good. I consider it was a great honour her coming to me last night. It gave quite an atmosphere of respectability to the party.

MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, that must have been what you thought was thunder in the air.

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear, how can you say that? There is no resemblance between the two things at all. But really, Gerald, what do you mean by not being suitable?

GERALD. Lord Illingworth’s views of life and mine are too different.

LADY HUNSTANTON. But, my dear Gerald, at your age you shouldn’t have any views of life. They are quite out of place. You must be guided by others in this matter. Lord Illingworth has made you the most flattering offer, and travelling with him you would see the world - as much of it, at least, as one should look at - under the best auspices possible, and stay with all the right people, which is so important at this solemn moment in your career.

GERALD. I don’t want to see the world: I’ve seen enough of it.

MRS. ALLONBY. I hope you don’t think you have exhausted life, Mr. Arbuthnot. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him.

GERALD. I don’t wish to leave my mother.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Now, Gerald, that is pure laziness on your part. Not leave your mother! If I were your mother I would insist on your going.

[Enter ALICE L.C.]

ALICE. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s compliments, my lady, but she has a bad headache, and cannot see any one this morning. [Exit R.C.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. [Rising.] A bad headache! I am so sorry! Perhaps you’ll bring her up to Hunstanton this afternoon, if she is better, Gerald.

GERALD. I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Well, to-morrow, then. Ah, if you had a father, Gerald, he wouldn’t let you waste your life here. He would send you off with Lord Illingworth at once. But mothers are so weak. They give up to their sons in everything. We are all heart, all heart. Come, dear, I must call at the rectory and inquire for Mrs. Daubeny, who, I am afraid, is far from well. It is wonderful how the Archdeacon bears up, quite wonderful. He is the most sympathetic of husbands. Quite a model. Good-bye, Gerald, give my fondest love to your mother.

MRS. ALLONBY. Good-bye, Mr. Arbuthnot.

GERALD. Good-bye.

[Exit LADY HUNSTANTON and MRS. ALLONBY. GERALD sits down and reads over his letter.]

GERALD. What name can I sign? I, who have no right to any name. [Signs name, puts letter into envelope, addresses it, and is about to seal it, when door L.C. opens and MRS. ARBUTHNOT enters. GERALD lays down sealing-wax. Mother and son look at each other.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. [Through French window at the back.] Good-bye again, Gerald. We are taking the short cut across your pretty garden. Now, remember my advice to you - start at once with Lord Illingworth.

MRS. ALLONBY. AU REVOIR, Mr. Arbuthnot. Mind you bring me back something nice from your travels - not an Indian shawl - on no account an Indian shawl.

[Exeunt.]

GERALD. Mother, I have just written to him.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. To whom?

GERALD. To my father. I have written to tell him to come here at four o’clock this afternoon.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT.