The Importance of Being Earnest (17 page)

L
ORD
G
ORING
. It is a handsome bracelet.

M
ABEL
C
HILTERN
. It isn’t a bracelet. It’s a brooch.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. It can be used as a bracelet.
(Takes it from her, and, pulling out a green letter-case, puts the ornament carefully in it, and replaces the whole thing in his breast-pocket with the most perfect sangfroid.)

M
ABEL
C
HILTERN
. What are you doing?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Miss Mabel, I am going to make a rather strange request to you.

M
ABEL
C
HILTERN
.
(Eagerly.)
Oh, pray do! I have been waiting for it all the evening.

L
ORD
G
ORING
.
(Is a little taken aback, but recovers himself.)
Don’t mention to anybody that I have taken charge of this brooch. should anyone write and claim it, let me know at once.

M
ABEL
C
HILTERN
. That is a strange request.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Well, you see I gave this brooch to somebody once, years ago.

M
ABEL
C
HILTERN
. You did?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes.

(Lady Chiltern enters alone. The other guests have gone.)

M
ABEL
C
HILTERN
. Then I shall certainly bid you good-night. Good-night, Gertrude!
(Exit.)

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Good-night, dear!
(To Lord Goring.)
You saw whom Lady Markby brought here to-night.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes. It was an unpleasant surprise. What did she come here for?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Apparently to try and lure Robert to uphold some fraudulent scheme in which she is interested. The Argentine Canal, in fact.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. She has mistaken her man, hasn’t she?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. She is incapable of understanding an upright nature like my husband’s!

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes. I should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get Robert into her toils. It is extraordinary what astounding mistakes clever women make.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. I don’t call women of that kind clever. I call them stupid!

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Same thing often. Good-night, Lady Chiltern!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Good-night!

(Enter Sir Robert Chiltern.)

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. My dear Arthur, you are not going? Do stop a little!

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Afraid I can’t, thanks. I have promised to look in at the Hartlocks. I believe they have got a mauve Hungarian band that plays mauve Hungarian music. See you soon. Good-bye!

(Exit.)

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. How beautiful you look to-night, Gertrude!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Robert, it is not true, is it? You are not going to lend your support to this Argentine speculation? You couldn’t!

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Starting.)
Who told you I intended to do so?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. That woman who has just gone out, Mrs. Cheveley, as she calls herself now. She seemed to taunt me with it. Robert, I know this woman. You don’t. We were at school together. She was untruthful, dishonest, an evil influence on everyone whose trust or friendship she could win. I hated, I despised her. She stole things, she was a thief. She was sent away for being a thief. Why do you let her influence you?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Gertrude, what you tell me may be true, but it happened many years ago. It is best forgotten! Mrs. Cheveley may have changed since then. No one should be entirely judged by their past.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
.
(Sadly.)
One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. That is a hard saying, Gertrude!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. It is a true saying, Robert. And what did she mean by boasting that she had got you to lend your support, your name to a thing I have heard you describe as the most dishonest and fraudulent scheme there has ever been in political life?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Biting his lip.)
I was mistaken in the view I took. We all may make mistakes.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. But you told me yesterday that you had received
the report from the Commission, and that it entirely condemned the whole thing.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Walking up and down.)
I have reasons now to believe that the Commission was prejudiced, or, at any rate, misinformed. Besides, Gertrude, public and private life are different things. They have different laws, and move on different lines.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. They should both represent man at his highest. I see no difference between them.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Stopping.)
In the present case, on a matter of practical politics, I have changed my mind. That is all.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. All!

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Sternly.)
Yes!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Robert! Oh! it is horrible that I should have to ask you such a question—Robert, are you telling me the whole truth?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Why do you ask me such a question?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
.
(After a pause.)
Why do you not answer it?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Sitting down.)
Gertrude, truth is a very complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels within wheels. one may be under certain obligations to people that one must pay. Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise. Everyone does.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Compromise? Robert, why do you talk so differently to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you changed?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. I am not changed. But circumstances alter things.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Circumstances should never alter principles!

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. But if I told you——

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. What?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. That it was necessary, vitally necessary.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be? What gain would you get? Money? We have no need of that! And money that comes from a tainted source is a degradation. Power? But
power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine—that, and that only. What is it, then? Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than that.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not for you. You are different. All your life you have stood apart from others. You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal still. That great inheritance throw not away—that tower of ivory do not destroy. Robert, men can love what is beneath them—things unworthy, stained, dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and when we lose our worship, we lose everything. Oh! don’t kill my love for you, don’t kill that!

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Gertrude!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. I know that there are men with horrible secrets in their lives—men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some critical moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame—oh! don’t tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in your life any secret dishonour or disgrace? Tell me, tell me at once, that——

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. That what?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
.
(Speaking very slowly.)
That our lives may drift apart.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Drift apart?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. That they may be entirely separate. It would be better for us both.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you might not know.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. I was sure of it, Robert. I was sure of it. But why did you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don’t let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won’t you, to Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back, that is all!

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Must I write and tell her that?

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. I might see her personally. It would be better.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. You must never see her again, Robert. She is not a woman you should ever speak to. She is not worthy to talk to a man like you. No; you must write to her at once, now, this moment, and let your letter show her that your decision is quite irrevocable!

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Write this moment!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. Yes.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. But it is too late. It is close on twelve.

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means.
(Sir Robert Chiltern sits down and writes a letter. His wife takes it up and reads it.)
Yes; that will do.
(Rings bell.)
And now the envelope.
(He writes the envelope slowly. Enter Mason.)
Have this letter sent at once to Claridge’s Hotel. There is no answer.
(Exit Mason
. L
ADY
C
HILTERN
kneels down beside her husband and puts her arms round him.)
Robert, love gives one a sort of instinct to things. I feel to-night that I have saved you from something that might have been a danger to you, from something that might have made men honour you less than they do. I don’t think you realize sufficiently, Robert, that you have brought into the political life of our time a nobler atmosphere, a finer attitude towards life, a freer air of purer aims and higher ideals—I know it, and for that I love you, Robert.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!

L
ADY
C
HILTERN
. I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it!

(Kisses him and rises and goes out.) (Sir Robert Chiltern walks up and down for a moment; then sits down and
buries his face in his hands. The Servant enters and begins putting out the lights. Sir Robert Chiltern looks up.)

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!
(The Servant puts out the lights. The room becomes almost dark. The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love.)

ACT-DROP

S
CENE
: Morning-room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house. Lord Goring, dressed in the height of fashion, in lounging in an armchair. Sir Robert Chiltern is standing in front of the fireplace. He is evidently in a state of great mental excitement and distress. As the scene progresses he paces nervously up and down the room
.