Lady Windermere's Fan
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 as 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,