An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde [free ebook reader TXT] 📗

GORING. I am so sorry you didn’t.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. It is too late now, I suppose

 

LORD GORING. [Smiling.] I am not so sure.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Will you ride to-morrow morning?

 

LORD GORING. Yes, at ten.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Don’t forget

 

LORD GORING. Of course I shan’t. By the way, Lady Chiltern, there

is no list of your guests in THE MORNING POST of to-day. It has

apparently been crowded out by the County Council, or the Lambeth

Conference, or something equally boring. Could you let me have a

list? I have a particular reason for asking you.

 

LADY CHILTERN. I am sure Mr. Trafford will be able to give you one.

 

LORD GORING. Thanks, so much.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Tommy is the most useful person in London.

 

LORD GORING [Turning to her.] And who is the most ornamental?

 

MABEL CHILTERN [Triumphantly.] I am.

 

LORD GORING. How clever of you to guess it! [Takes up his hat and

cane.] Good-bye, Lady Chiltern! You will remember what I said to

you, won’t you?

 

LADY CHILTERN. Yes; but I don’t know why you said it to me.

 

LORD GORING. I hardly know myself. Good-bye, Miss Mabel!

 

MABEL CHILTERN [With a little moue of disappointment.] I wish you

were not going. I have had four wonderful adventures this morning;

four and a half, in fact. You might stop and listen to some of them.

 

LORD GORING. How very selfish of you to have four and a half! There

won’t be any left for me.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. I don’t want you to have any. They would not be

good for you.

 

LORD GORING. That is the first unkind thing you have ever said to

me. How charmingly you said it! Ten to-morrow.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Sharp.

 

LORD GORING. Quite sharp. But don’t bring Mr. Trafford.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. [With a little toss of the head.] Of course I

shan’t bring Tommy Trafford. Tommy Trafford is in great disgrace.

 

LORD GORING. I am delighted to hear it. [Bows and goes out.]

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Gertrude, I wish you would speak to Tommy Trafford.

 

LADY CHILTERN. What has poor Mr. Trafford done this time? Robert

says he is the best secretary he has ever had.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really

does nothing but propose to me. He proposed to me last night in the

music-room, when I was quite unprotected, as there was an elaborate

trio going on. I didn’t dare to make the smallest repartee, I need

hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once.

Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to

be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be

absolutely deaf. Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this

morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles. Really, the

things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling.

The police should interfere. At luncheon I saw by the glare in his

eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check

him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I

don’t know what bimetallism means. And I don’t believe anybody else

does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He

looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he

proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should not mind

so much. That might produce some effect on the public. But he does

it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he

talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his

methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you

would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often

enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a

manner that attracts some attention.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Dear Mabel, don’t talk like that. Besides, Robert

thinks very highly of Mr. Trafford. He believes he has a brilliant

future before him.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! I wouldn’t marry a man with a future before him

for anything under the sun.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Mabel!

 

MABEL CHILTERN. I know, dear. You married a man with a future,

didn’t you? But then Robert was a genius, and you have a noble,

self-sacrificing character. You can stand geniuses. I have no,

character at all, and Robert is the only genius I could ever bear.

As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much,

don’t they? Such a bad habit! And they are always thinking about

themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me. I must go

round now and rehearse at Lady Basildon’s. You remember, we are

having tableaux, don’t you? The Triumph of something, I don’t know

what! I hope it will be triumph of me. Only triumph I am really

interested in at present. [Kisses LADY CHILTERN and goes out; then

comes running back.] Oh, Gertrude, do you know who is coming to see

you? That dreadful Mrs. Cheveley, in a most lovely gown. Did you

ask her?

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Rising.] Mrs. Cheveley! Coming to see me?

Impossible!

 

MABEL CHILTERN. I assure you she is coming upstairs, as large as

life and not nearly so natural.

 

LADY CHILTERN. You need not wait, Mabel. Remember, Lady Basildon is

expecting you.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! I must shake hands with Lady Markby. She is

delightful. I love being scolded by her.

 

[Enter MASON.]

 

MASON. Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.

 

[Enter LADY MARKBY and MRS. CHEVELEY.]

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Advancing to meet them.] Dear Lady Markby, how nice

of you to come and see me! [Shakes hands with her, and bows somewhat

distantly to MRS. CHEVELEY.] Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Cheveley?

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. Thanks. Isn’t that Miss Chiltern? I should like so

much to know her.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Mabel, Mrs. Cheveley wishes to know you.

 

[MABEL CHILTERN gives a little nod.]

 

MRS. CHEVELEY [Sitting down.] I thought your frock so charming last

night, Miss Chiltern. So simple and … suitable.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Really? I must tell my dressmaker. It will be such

a surprise to her. Good-bye, Lady Markby!

 

LADY MARKBY. Going already?

 

MABEL CHILTERN. I am so sorry but I am obliged to. I am just off to

rehearsal. I have got to stand on my head in some tableaux.

 

LADY MARKBY. On your head, child? Oh! I hope not. I believe it is

most unhealthy. [Takes a seat on the sofa next LADY CHILTERN.]

 

MABEL CHILTERN. But it is for an excellent charity: in aid of the

Undeserving, the only people I am really interested in. I am the

secretary, and Tommy Trafford is treasurer.

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. And what is Lord Goring?

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! Lord Goring is president.

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. The post should suit him admirably, unless he has

deteriorated since I knew him first.

 

LADY MARKBY. [Reflecting.] You are remarkably modern, Mabel. A

little too modern, perhaps. Nothing is so dangerous as being too

modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly. I have

known many instances of it

 

MABEL CHILTERN. What a dreadful prospect!

 

LADY MARKBY. Ah! my dear, you need not be nervous. You will always

be as pretty as possible. That is the best fashion there is, and the

only fashion that England succeeds in setting.

 

MABEL CHILTERN. [With a curtsey.] Thank you so much, Lady Markby,

for England … and myself. [Goes out.]

 

LADY MARKBY. [Turning to LADY CHILTERN.] Dear Gertrude, we just

called to know if Mrs. Cheveley’s diamond brooch has been found.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Here?

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. I missed it when I got back to Claridge’s, and

I thought I might possibly have dropped it here.

 

LADY CHILTERN. I have heard nothing about it. But I will send for

the butler and ask. [Touches the bell.]

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh, pray don’t trouble, Lady Chiltern. I dare say I

lost it at the Opera, before we came on here.

 

LADY MARKBY. Ah yes, I suppose it must have been at the Opera. The

fact is, we all scramble and jostle so much nowadays that I wonder we

have anything at all left on us at the end of an evening. I know

myself that, when I am coming back from the Drawing Room, I always

feel as if I hadn’t a shred on me, except a small shred of decent

reputation, just enough to prevent the lower classes making painful

observations through the windows of the carriage. The fact is that

our Society is terribly over-populated. Really, some one should

arrange a proper scheme of assisted emigration. It would do a great

deal of good.

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. I quite agree with you, Lady Markby. It is nearly

six years since I have been in London for the Season, and I must say

Society has become dreadfully mixed. One sees the oddest people

everywhere.

 

LADY MARKBY. That is quite true, dear. But one needn’t know them.

I’m sure I don’t know half the people who come to my house. Indeed,

from all I hear, I shouldn’t like to.

 

[Enter MASON.]

 

LADY CHILTERN. What sort of a brooch was it that you lost, Mrs.

Cheveley?

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. A diamond snake-brooch with a ruby, a rather large

ruby.

 

LADY MARKBY. I thought you said there was a sapphire on the head,

dear?

 

MRS. CHEVELEY [Smiling.] No, lady Markby - a ruby.

 

LADY MARKBY. [Nodding her head.] And very becoming, I am quite

sure.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Has a ruby and diamond brooch been found in any of

the rooms this morning, Mason?

 

MASON. No, my lady.

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. It really is of no consequence, Lady Chiltern. I am

so sorry to have put you to any inconvenience.

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Coldly.] Oh, it has been no inconvenience. That

will do, Mason. You can bring tea.

 

[Exit MASON.]

 

LADY MARKBY. Well, I must say it is most annoying to lose anything.

I remember once at Bath, years ago, losing in the Pump Room an

exceedingly handsome cameo bracelet that Sir John had given me. I

don’t think he has ever given me anything since, I am sorry to say.

He has sadly degenerated. Really, this horrid House of Commons quite

ruins our husbands for us. I think the Lower House by far the

greatest blow to a happy married life that there has been since that

terrible thing called the Higher Education of Women was invented.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Ah! it is heresy to say that in this house, Lady

Markby. Robert is a great champion of the Higher Education of Women,

and so, I am afraid, am I.

 

MRS. CHEVELEY. The higher education of men is what I should like to

see. Men need it so sadly.

 

LADY MARKBY. They do, dear. But I am afraid such a scheme would be

quite unpractical. I don’t think man has much capacity for

development. He has got as far as he can, and that is not far, is

it? With regard to women, well, dear Gertrude, you belong to the

younger generation, and I am sure it is all right if you approve of

it. In my time, of course, we were taught not to understand

anything. That was the old system, and wonderfully interesting it

was. I assure you that the amount of things I and my poor dear

sister were taught not to understand was quite extraordinary. But

modern women understand everything, I am