Lady Windermere's Fan (7 page)

LORD AUGUSTUS.
(Puffing a cigar.)
Mrs. Erlynne has a future
before her.

DUMBY. Mrs. Erlynne has a past before her.

LORD AUGUSTUS. I prefer women with a past. They're always so
demmed amusing to talk to.

CECIL GRAHAM. Well, you'll have lots of topics of conversation
with HER, Tuppy.
(Rising and going to him.)

LORD AUGUSTUS. You're getting annoying, dear-boy; you're getting
demmed annoying.

CECIL GRAHAM.
(Puts his hands on his shoulders.)
Now, Tuppy,
you've lost your figure and you've lost your character. Don't lose
your temper; you have only got one.

LORD AUGUSTUS. My dear boy, if I wasn't the most good-natured man
in London -

CECIL GRAHAM. We'd treat you with more respect, wouldn't we,
Tuppy?
(Strolls away.)

DUMBY. The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They
have absolutely no respect for dyed hair.
(LORD AUGUSTUS looks
round angrily.)

CECIL GRAHAM. Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear
Tuppy.

DUMBY. Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of
her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women nowadays behave
to men who are not their husbands.

LORD WINDERMERE. Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let
your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone.
You don't really know anything about her, and you're always talking
scandal against her.

CECIL GRAHAM.
(Coming towards him L.C.)
My dear Arthur, I never
talk scandal.
I
only talk gossip.

LORD WINDERMERE. What is the difference between scandal and
gossip?

CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip.
But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never
moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman
who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole
world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And
most women know it, I'm glad to say.

LORD AUGUSTUS. Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.

CECIL GRAHAM. Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with
me, I always feel I must be wrong.

LORD AUGUSTUS. My dear boy, when I was your age -

CECIL GRAHAM. But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be.
(Goes up C.)
I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You'll
play, Arthur, won't you?

LORD WINDERMERE. No, thanks, Cecil.

DUMBY.
(With a sigh.)
Good heavens! how marriage ruins a man!
It's as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.

CECIL GRAHAM. You'll play, of course, Tuppy?

LORD AUGUSTUS.
(Pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table.)
Can't, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink
again.

CECIL GRAHAM. Now, my dear Tuppy, don't be led astray into the
paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That
is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we
are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like
to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite
unattractively good.

LORD DARLINGTON.
(Rising from R. table, where he has been writing
letters.)
They always do find us bad!

DUMBY. I don't think we are bad. I think we are all good, except
Tuppy.

LORD DARLINGTON. No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are
looking at the stars.
(Sits down at C. table.)

DUMBY. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the
stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.

CECIL GRAHAM. Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the
girl?

LORD DARLINGTON. The woman I love is not free, or thinks she
isn't.
(Glances instinctively at LORD WINDERMERE while he speaks.)

CECIL GRAHAM. A married woman, then! Well, there's nothing in the
world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no
married man knows anything about.

LORD DARLINGTON. Oh! she doesn't love me. She is a good woman.
She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.

CECIL GRAHAM. The only good woman you have ever met in your life?

LORD DARLINGTON. Yes!

CECIL GRAHAM.
(Lighting a cigarette.)
Well, you are a lucky
fellow! Why, I have met hundreds of good women. I never seem to
meet any but good women. The world is perfectly packed with good
women. To know them is a middle-class education.

LORD DARLINGTON. This woman has purity and innocence. She has
everything we men have lost.

CECIL GRAHAM. My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going
about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out
buttonhole is much more effective.

DUMBY. She doesn't really love you then?

LORD DARLINGTON. No, she does not!

DUMBY. I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there
are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the
other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a
real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not love you.
How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil?

CECIL GRAHAM. A woman who didn't love me? Oh, all my life!

DUMBY. So could I. But it's so difficult to meet one.

LORD DARLINGTON. How can you be so conceited, DUMBY?

DUMBY. I didn't say it as a matter of conceit. I said it as a
matter of regret. I have been wildly, madly adored. I am sorry I
have. It has been an immense nuisance. I should like to be
allowed a little time to myself now and then.

LORD AUGUSTUS.
(Looking round.)
Time to educate yourself, I
suppose.

DUMBY. No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more
important, dear Tuppy.
(LORD AUGUSTUS moves uneasily in his
chair.)

LORD DARLINGTON. What cynics you fellows are!

CECIL GRAHAM. What is a cynic?
(Sitting on the back of the sofa.)

LORD DARLINGTON. A man who knows the price of everything and the
value of nothing.

CECIL GRAHAM. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man
who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market
price of any single thing.

LORD DARLINGTON. You always amuse me, Cecil. You talk as if you
were a man of experience.

CECIL GRAHAM. I am.
(Moves up to front off fireplace.)

LORD DARLINGTON. You are far too young!

CECIL GRAHAM. That is a great error. Experience is a question of
instinct about life. I have got it. Tuppy hasn't. Experience is
the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes. That is all.
(LORD AUGUSTUS
looks round indignantly.)

DUMBY. Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

CECIL GRAHAM.
(Standing with his back to the fireplace.)
One
shouldn't commit any.
(Sees LADY WINDERMERE'S fan on sofa.)

DUMBY. Life would be very dull without them.

CECIL GRAHAM. Of course you are quite faithful to this woman you
are in love with, Darlington, to this good woman?

LORD DARLINGTON. Cecil, if on really loves a woman, all other
women in the world become absolutely meaningless to one. Love
changes one—
I
am changed.

CECIL GRAHAM. Dear me! How very interesting! Tuppy, I want to
talk to you.
(LORD AUGUSTUS takes no notice.)

DUMBY. It's no use talking to Tuppy. You might just as well talk
to a brick wall.

CECIL GRAHAM. But I like talking to a brick wall—it's the only
thing in the world that never contradicts me! Tuppy!

LORD AUGUSTUS. Well, what is it? What is it?
(Rising and going
over to CECIL GRAHAM.)

CECIL GRAHAM. 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.

LORD AUGUSTUS. No, really! really!

CECIL GRAHAM.
(In a low voice.)
Yes, here is her fan.
(Points to
the fan.)

LORD AUGUSTUS.
(Chuckling.)
By Jove! By Jove!

LORD WINDERMERE.
(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!

LORD DARLINGTON.
(Up sage with LORD WINDERMERE.)
I am afraid I
shall be away for many years. Good-night!

CECIL GRAHAM. Arthur!

LORD WINDERMERE. What?

CECIL GRAHAM. I want to speak to you for a moment. No, do come!

LORD WINDERMERE.
(Putting on his coat.)
I can't—I'm off!

CECIL GRAHAM. It is something very particular. It will interest
you enormously.

LORD WINDERMERE.
(Smiling.)
It is some of your nonsense, Cecil.

CECIL GRAHAM. It isn't! It isn't really.

LORD AUGUSTUS.
(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.

LORD WINDERMERE.
(Walking over.)
Well, what is it?

CECIL GRAHAM. Darlington has got a woman here in his rooms. Here
is her fan. Amusing, isn't it?
(A pause.)

LORD WINDERMERE. Good God!
(Seizes the fan—DUMBY rises.)

CECIL GRAHAM. What is the matter?

LORD WINDERMERE. Lord Darlington!

LORD DARLINGTON.
(Turning round.)
Yes!

LORD WINDERMERE. What is my wife's fan doing here in your rooms?
Hands off, Cecil. Don't touch me.

LORD DARLINGTON. Your wife's fan?

LORD WINDERMERE. Yes, here it is!

LORD DARLINGTON.
(Walking towards him.)
I don't know!

LORD WINDERMERE. You must know. I demand an explanation. Don't
hold me, you fool.
(To CECIL GRAHAM.)

LORD DARLINGTON.
(Aside.)
She is here after all!

LORD WINDERMERE. 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.)

LORD DARLINGTON. You shall not search my rooms. You have no right
to do so. I forbid you!

LORD WINDERMERE. 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.)

MRS. ERLYNNE.
(Enters behind R.)
Lord Windermere!

LORD WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne!

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

MRS. ERLYNNE. 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.

SCENE—Same as in Act I.

LADY WINDERMERE.
(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.)

ROSALIE. Did your ladyship ring for me?

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes. Have you found out at what time Lord
Windermere came in last night?

ROSALIE. His lordship did not come in till five o'clock.

LADY WINDERMERE. Five o'clock? He knocked at my door this
morning, didn't he?

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

LADY WINDERMERE. Did he say anything?

ROSALIE. 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.

LADY WINDERMERE. It doesn't matter. Tell Parker not to trouble.
That will do.

(Exit ROSALIE.)

LADY WINDERMERE.
(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.)

LORD WINDERMERE.
(Kisses her.)
Margaret—how pale you look!

LADY WINDERMERE. I slept very badly.

LORD WINDERMERE.
(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.

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes, I am crying, for I have something to tell
you, Arthur.

LORD WINDERMERE. 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.)