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Lady Windermere's Fan
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 one 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. [Upstage 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
FOURTH ACT
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.]
Lady Windermere. Yes; let us go away to-day. No; I can’t go to-day, Arthur. There is some one I must see before I leave town – some one who has been kind to me.
Lord Windermere. [Rising and leaning over sofa.] Kind to you?
Lady Windermere. Far more than that. [Rises and goes to him.] I will tell you, Arthur, but only love me, love me as you used to love me.
Lord Windermere. Used to? You are not thinking of that wretched woman who came here last night? [Coming round and sitting R. of her.] You don’t still imagine – no, you couldn’t.
Lady Windermere. I don’t. I know now I was wrong and foolish.
Lord Windermere. It was very good of you to receive her last night – but you are never to see her again.
Lady Windermere. Why do you say that? [A pause.]
Lord Windermere. [Holding her hand.] Margaret, I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place that she had lost by a moment’s folly, to lead again a decent life. I believed what she told me – I was mistaken in her. She is bad – as bad as a woman can be.
Lady Windermere. Arthur, Arthur, don’t talk so bitterly about any woman. I don’t think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don’t think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman – I know she’s not.
Lord Windermere. My dear child, the woman’s impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. She is inadmissible anywhere.
Lady Windermere. But I want to see her. I want her to come here.
Lord Windermere. Never!
Lady Windermere. She came here once as your guest. She must come now as mine. That is but fair.
Lord Windermere. She should never have come here.
Lady Windermere. [Rising.] It is too late, Arthur, to say that now. [Moves away.]
Lord Windermere. [Rising.] Margaret, if you knew where Mrs. Erlynne went last night, after she left this house, you would not sit in the same room with her. It was absolutely shameless, the whole thing.
Lady Windermere. Arthur, I can’t bear it any longer. I must tell you. Last night —
[Enter Parker with a tray on which lie Lady Windermere’s fan and a card.]
Parker. Mrs. Erlynne has called to return your ladyship’s fan which she took away by mistake last night. Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card.
Lady Windermere. Oh, ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up. [Reads card.] Say I shall be very glad to see her.
[Exit Parker.]
She wants to see me, Arthur.
Lord Windermere. [Takes card and looks at it.] Margaret, I beg you not to. Let me see her first, at any rate. She’s a very dangerous woman. She is the most dangerous woman I know. You don’t realise what you’re doing.
Lady Windermere. It is right that I should see her.
Lord Windermere. My child, you may be on the brink of a great sorrow. Don’t go to meet it. It is absolutely necessary that I should see her before you do.
Lady Windermere. Why should it be necessary?
[Enter Parker.]
Parker. Mrs. Erlynne.
[Enter Mrs. Erlynne.]
[Exit Parker.]
Mrs. Erlynne. How do you do, Lady Windermere? [To Lord Windermere.] How do you do? Do you know, Lady Windermere, I am so sorry about your fan. I can’t imagine how I made such a silly mistake. Most stupid of me. And as I was driving in your direction, I thought I would take the opportunity of returning your property in person with many apologies for my carelessness, and of bidding you good-bye.
Lady Windermere. Good-bye? [Moves towards sofa with Mrs. Erlynne and sits down beside her.] Are you going away, then, Mrs. Erlynne?
Mrs. Erlynne. Yes; I am going to live abroad again. The English climate doesn’t suit me. My – heart is affected here, and that I don’t like. I prefer living in the south. London is too full of fogs and – and serious people, Lord Windermere. Whether the fogs produce the serious people or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don’t know, but the whole thing rather gets on my nerves, and so I’m leaving this afternoon by the Club Train.
Lady Windermere. This afternoon? But I wanted so much to come and see you.
Mrs. Erlynne. How kind of you! But I am afraid I have to go.
Lady Windermere. Shall I never see you again, Mrs. Erlynne?
Mrs. Erlynne. I am afraid not. Our lives lie too far apart. But there is a little thing I would like you to do for me. I want a photograph of you, Lady Windermere – would you give me one? You don’t know how gratified I should be.
Lady Windermere. Oh, with pleasure. There is one on that table. I’ll show it to you. [Goes across to the table.]
Lord Windermere. [Coming up to Mrs. Erlynne and speaking in a low voice.] It is monstrous your intruding yourself here after your conduct last night.
Mrs. Erlynne. [With an amused smile.] My dear Windermere, manners before morals!
Lady Windermere. [Returning.] I’m afraid it is very flattering – I am not so pretty as that. [Showing photograph.]
Mrs. Erlynne. You are much prettier. But haven’t you got one of yourself with your little boy?
Lady Windermere. I have. Would you prefer one of those?
Mrs. Erlynne. Yes.
Lady Windermere. I’ll go and get it for you, if you’ll excuse me for a moment. I have one upstairs.
Mrs. Erlynne. So sorry, Lady Windermere, to give you so much trouble.
Lady Windermere. [Moves to door R.] No trouble at all, Mrs. Erlynne.
Mrs. Erlynne. Thanks so much.
[Exit Lady Windermere R.] You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.
Lord Windermere. I can’t bear to see you with her. Besides, you have not told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne.
Mrs. Erlynne. I have not told her the truth, you mean.
Lord Windermere. [Standing C.] I sometimes wish you had. I should have been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance of the last six months. But rather than my wife should know – that the mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom she has mourned as dead, is living – a divorced woman, going about under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you now to be – rather than that, I was ready to supply you with money to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance, to risk what occurred yesterday, the first quarrel I have ever had with my wife. You don’t understand what that means to me. How could you? But I tell you that the only bitter words that ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account, and I hate to see you next her. You sully the innocence that is in her. [Moves L.C.] And then I used to think that with all your faults you were frank and honest. You are not.
Mrs. Erlynne. Why do you say that?
Lord Windermere. You made me get you an invitation to my wife’s ball.
Mrs. Erlynne. For my daughter’s ball – yes.
Lord Windermere. You came, and within an hour of your leaving the house you are found in a man’s rooms – you are disgraced before every one. [Goes up stage C.]
Mrs. Erlynne. Yes.
Lord Windermere. [Turning round on her.] Therefore I have a right to look upon you as what you are – a worthless, vicious woman. I have the right to tell you never to enter this house, never to attempt to come near my wife —
Mrs. Erlynne. [Coldly.] My daughter, you mean.
Lord Windermere. You have no right to claim her as your daughter. You left her, abandoned her when she was but a child in the cradle, abandoned her for your lover, who abandoned you in turn.
Mrs. Erlynne. [Rising.] Do you count that to his credit, Lord Windermere – or to mine?
Lord Windermere. To his, now that I know you.
Mrs. Erlynne. Take care – you had better be careful.
Lord Windermere. Oh, I am not going to mince words for you. I know you thoroughly.
Mrs. Erlynne. [Looks steadily at him.] I question that.
Lord Windermere. I do know you. For twenty years of your life you lived without your child, without a thought of your child. One day you read in the papers that she had married a rich man. You saw your hideous chance. You knew that to spare her the ignominy of learning that a woman like you was her mother, I would endure anything. You began your blackmailing.
Mrs. Erlynne. [Shrugging her shoulders.] Don’t use ugly words, Windermere. They are vulgar. I saw my chance, it is true, and took it.
Lord Windermere. Yes, you took it – and spoiled it all last night by being found out.
Mrs. Erlynne. [With a strange smile.] You are quite right, I spoiled it all last night.
Lord Windermere. And as for your blunder in taking my wife’s fan from here and then leaving it about in Darlington’s rooms, it is unpardonable. I can’t bear the sight of it now. I shall never let my wife use it again. The thing is soiled for me. You should have kept it and not brought it back.
Mrs. Erlynne. I think I shall keep it. [Goes up.] It’s extremely pretty. [Takes up fan.] I shall ask Margaret to give it to me.
Lord Windermere. I hope my wife will give it you.
Mrs. Erlynne. Oh, I’m sure she will have no objection.
Lord Windermere. I wish that at the same time she would give you a miniature she kisses every night before she prays – It’s the miniature of a young innocent-looking girl with beautiful dark hair.
Mrs. Erlynne. Ah, yes, I remember. How long ago that seems! [Goes to sofa and sits down.] It was done before I was married. Dark hair and an innocent expression were the fashion then, Windermere! [A pause.]
Lord Windermere. What do you mean by coming here this morning? What is your object? [Crossing L.C. and sitting.]
Mrs. Erlynne. [With a note of irony in her voice.] To bid good-bye to my dear daughter, of course. [Lord Windermere bites his under lip in anger. Mrs. Erlynne looks at him, and her voice and manner become serious. In her accents at she talks there is a note of deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself.] Oh, don’t imagine I am going to have a pathetic scene with her, weep on her neck and tell her who I am, and all that kind of thing. I have no ambition to play the part of a mother. Only once in my life have I known a mother’s feelings. That was last night. They were terrible – they made me suffer – they made me suffer too much. For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless, – I want to live childless still. [Hiding her feelings with a trivial laugh.] Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could I pose as a mother with a grown-up daughter? Margaret is twenty-one, and I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not. So you see what difficulties it would involve. No, as far as I am concerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother. Why should I interfere with her illusions? I find it hard enough to keep my own. I lost one illusion last night. I thought I had no heart. I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old. [Takes up hand-mirror from table and looks into it.] And it spoils one’s career at critical moments.
Lord Windermere. You fill me with horror – with absolute horror.
Mrs. Erlynne. [Rising.] I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don’t do such things – not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No – what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake – I discovered that last night.
