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 HUN. Good morning, Gerald.
GER. [Rising.] Good morning, Lady Hunstanton. Good morning, Mrs.
Allonby.
LADY HUN. [Sitting down.] We came to inquire for your dear mother,
Gerald. I hope she is better?
GER. My mother has not come down yet, Lady Hunstanton.
LADY HUN. 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. ALL. It's the same thing, now-a-days.
LADY HUN. 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. ALL. [Surveying the room through her lorgnette.] It looks
quite the happy English home. LADY HUN. 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. ALL. Lord Illingworth says that all influence is bad, but that
a good influence is the worst in the world.
LADY HUN. When Lord Illingworth knows Mrs. Arbuthnot better, he
will change his mind. I must certainly bring him here.
MRS. ALL. I should like to see Lord Illingworth in a happy English
home.
LADY HUN. It would do him a great deal of good, dear. Most women in
London, now-a-days, 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. ALL. But I like blushing.
LADY HUN. 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. ALL. 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 HUN. 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?
GER. I have given up my intention of being Lord Illingworth’s
secretary.
LADY HUN. Surely not, Gerald! It would be most unwise of you. What
reason can you have?
GER. I don’t think I should be suitable for the post.
MRS. ALL. I wish Lord Illingworth would ask me to be his secretary.
But he says I am not serious enough.
LADY HUN. 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. ALL. Ah, that must have been what you thought was thunder in
the air.
LADY HUN. 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?
GER. Lord Illingworth’s views of life and mine are too different.
LADY HUN. 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.
GER. I don’t want to see the world; I’ve seen enough of it.
MRS. ALL. I hope you don’t think you have exhausted life, Mr.
Arbuthnot. When a man says that one knows that life has
exhausted him.
GER. I don’t wish to leave my mother.
LADY HUN. 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 HUN. [Rising.] A bad headache! I am so sorry! Perhaps you'll
bring her up to Hunstanton this afternoon, if she is better,
Gerald.
GER. I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton. LADY HUN. 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. ALL. Good-bye, Mr. Arbuthnot.
GER. Good-bye.
[Exit Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby. Gerald sits downand reads over his letter.]
GER. 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 HUN. [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. ALL. 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.]
GER. Mother, I have just written to him.
MRS. ARB. To whom?
GER. To my father. I have written to tell him to come here at four
o'clock this afternoon.
MRS. ARB. He shall not come here. He shall not cross the threshold
of my house.
GER. He must come.
MRS. ARB. Gerald, if you are going away with Lord Illingworth, go
at once. Go before it kills me; but don't ask me to meet him. GER. Mother, you don’t understand. Nothing in the world would
induce me to go away with Lord Illingworth, or to leave you.
Surely you know me well enough for that. No; I have written to
him to say-
MRS. ARB. What can you have to say to him?
GER. Can’t you guess, mother, what I have written in this letter?
MRS. ARB. No.
GER. Mother, surely you can. Think, think what must be done, now,
at once, within the next few days.
MRS. ARB. There is nothing to be done.
GER. I have written to Lord Illingworth to tell him that he must
marry you.
MRS. ARB. Marry me?
GER. Mother, I will force him to do it. The wrong that has been
done you must be repaired. Atonement must be made. Justice may
be slow, mother, but it comes in the end. In a few days you
shall be Lord Illingworth’s lawful wife.
MRS. ARB. But, Gerald-
GER. I will insist upon his doing it. I will make him do it; he
will not dare to refuse.
MRS. ARB. But, Gerald, it is I who refuse. I will not marry Lord
Illingworth.
GER. Not marry him? Mother!
MRS. ARB. I will not marry him.
GER. But you don’t understand; it is for your sake I am talking,
not for mine. This marriage, this necessary marriage, this
marriage, that, for obvious reasons, must inevitably take place,
will not help me, will not give me a name that will be really,
rightly mine to bear. But surely it will be something for you,
that you, my mother, should, however late, become the wife of
the man who is my father. Will not that be something?
MRS. ARB. I will not marry him.
GER. Mother, you must.
MRS. ARB. I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong done. What
atonement can be made to me? There is no atonement possible. I
am disgraced: he is not. That is all. It is the usual history of
a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it always happens.
And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman suffers. The
man goes free.
GER. I don’t know if that is the ordinary ending, mother: I hope it
is not, but your life, at any rate, shall not end like that. The
man shall make whatever reparation is possible. It is not
enough. It does not wipe out the past, I know that. But at least
it makes the future better, better for you, mother.
MRS. ARB. I refuse to marry Lord Illingworth.
GER. If he came to you himself and asked you to be his wife you
would give him a different answer. Remember, he is my father.
MRS. ARB. If he came himself, which he will not do, my answer would
be the same. Remember I am your mother.
GER. Mother, you make it terribly difficult for me by talking like
that, and I can’t understand why you won’t look at this matter
from the right, from the only proper standpoint. It is to take
away the bitterness out of your life, to take away the shadow
that lies on your name,
