Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde

  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 important virtue. You have the most comforting view of life.

  Enter FARQUHAR.

  FARQUHAR: Doctor Daubeny’s carriage!

  Exit FARQUHAR.

  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 out 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 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 ever have 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 Worsely. 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 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

  ACT FOUR

  SCENE: Sitting-room at Mrs. Arbuthnot’s house at Wrockley. 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? Bythe-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 HUNTSTATON: 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 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.