The Importance of Being Earnest (24 page)

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Thanks! I don’t know what to do, Arthur, I don’t know what to do, and you are my only friend. But what a friend you are—the one friend I can trust. I can trust you absolutely, can’t I?

(Enter Phipps.)

L
ORD
G
ORING
. My dear Robert, of course. Oh!
(To Phipps.)
Bring some hock and seltzer.

P
HIPPS
. Yes, my lord.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. And Phipps!

P
HIPPS
. Yes, my lord.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Will you excuse me for a moment, Robert? I want to give some directions to my servant.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Certainly.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. When that lady calls, tell her that I am not expected home this evening. Tell her that I have been suddenly called out of town. You understand?

P
HIPPS
. The lady is in that room, my lord. You told me to show her into that room, my lord.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. You did perfectly right.
(Exit Phipps.)

What a mess I am in. No; I think I shall get through it. I’ll give her a lecture through the door. Awkward thing to manage, though.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Arthur, tell me what I should do. My life seems to have crumbled about me. I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Robert, you love your wife, don’t you?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. I love her more than anything in the world. I used to think ambition the great thing. It is not. Love is the great thing in the world. There is nothing but love, and I love her. But I am defamed in her eyes. I am ignoble in her eyes. There is a wide gulf between us now. She has found me out, Arthur, she has found me out.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Has she never in her life done some folly—some indiscretion—that she should not forgive your sin?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. My wife! Never! She does not know what
weakness or temptation is. I am of clay like other men. She stands apart as good women do—pitiless in her perfection—cold and stern and without mercy. But I love her, Arthur. We are childless, and I have no one else to love, no one else to love me. Perhaps if God had sent us children she might have been kinder to me. But God has given us a lonely house. And she has cut my heart in two. Don’t let us talk of it. I was brutal to her this evening. But I suppose when sinners talk to saints they are brutal always. I said to her things that were hideously true, on my side, from my standpoint, from the standpoint of men. But don’t let us talk of that.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Your wife will forgive you. Perhaps at this moment she is forgiving you. She loves you, Robert. Why should she not forgive?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. God grant it! God grant it!
(Buries his face in his hands.)
But there is something more I have to tell you, Arthur.
(Enter Phipps with drinks.)

P
HIPPS
.
(Hands hock and seltzer to Sir Robert Chiltern.)
Hock and seltzer, sir.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Thank you.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Is your carriage here, Robert?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. No; I walked from the club.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Sir Robert will take my cab, Phipps.

P
HIPPS
. Yes, my lord.
(Exit.)

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Robert, you don’t mind my sending you away?

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Arthur, you must let me stay for five minutes. I have made up my mind what I am going to do to-night in the House. The debate on the Argentine Canal is to begin at eleven.
(A chair falls in the drawing-room.)
What is that?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Nothing.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. I heard a chair fall in the next room. Some one has been listening.
LORD GORING. NO
, no; there is no one there.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. There is some one. There are lights in the room, and the door is ajar. Some one has been listening to every secret of my life. Arthur, what does this mean?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Robert, you are excited, unnerved. I tell you there is no one in that room. Sit down, Robert.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Do you give me your word that there is no one there?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Your word of honour?
(Sits down.)

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Rises.)
Arthur, let me see for myself.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. No, no.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. If there is no one there why should I not look in that room? Arthur, you must let me go into that room and satisfy myself. Let me know that no eavesdropper has heard my life’s secret. Arthur, you don’t realize what I am going through.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Robert, this must stop. I have told you that there is no one in that room—that is enough.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
.
(Rushes to the door of the room.)
It is not enough. I insist on going into this room. You have told me there is no one there, so what reason can you have for refusing me?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. For God’s sake, don’t! There is some one there. Some one whom you must not see.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Ah, I thought so!

L
ORD
G
ORING
. I forbid you to enter that room.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Stand back. My life is at stake. And I don’t care who is there. I will know who it is to whom I have told my secret and my shame.
(Enters room.)

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Great Heavens! his own wife!

(Sir Robert Chiltern comes back, with a look of scorn and anger on his face.)

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. What explanation have you to give me for the presence of that woman here?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Robert, I swear to you on my honour that that lady is stainless and guiltless of all offence towards you.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. She is a vile, an infamous thing!

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Don’t say that Robert! It was for your sake she came here. It was to try and save you she came here. She loves you and no one else.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. You are mad. What have I to do with her intrigues with you? Let her remain your mistress! You are well suited to each other. She, corrupt and shameful—you, false as a friend, treacherous as an enemy even——

L
ORD
G
ORING
. It is not true, Robert. Before heaven, it is not true. In her presence and in yours I will explain all.

S
IR
R
OBERT
C
HILTERN
. Let me pass, sir. You have lied enough upon your word of honour.

(Sir Robert Chiltern goes out. Lord Goring rushes to the door of the drawing-room, when Mrs. Cheveley comes out, looking radiant and much amused.)

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
.
(With a mock curtsey.)
Good evening, Lord Goring!

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Mrs. Cheveley! Great Heavens! … May I ask what you were doing in my drawing-room?

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Merely listening. I have a perfect passion for listening through keyholes. One always hears such wonderful things through them.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Doesn’t that sound rather like tempting Providence?

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Oh! surely Providence can resist temptation by this time.
(Makes a sign to him to take her cloak off, which he does.)

L
ORD
G
ORING
. I am glad you have called. I am going to give you some good advice.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Oh! pray don’t. One should never give a woman anything that she can’t wear in the evening.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. I see you are quite as wilful as you used to be.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Far more! I have greatly improved. I have had more experience.

LORD GORING. TOO
much experience is a dangerous thing. Pray have a cigarette. Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes. Personally I prefer the other half.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Thanks. I never smoke. My dressmaker wouldn’t like it, and a woman’s first duty in life is to her dressmaker, isn’t it? What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. You have come here to sell me Robert Chiltern’s letter, haven’t you?

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. To offer it to you on conditions. How did you guess that?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Because you haven’t mentioned the subject. Have you got it with you?

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
.
(Sitting down.)
Oh, no! A well-made dress has no pockets.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. What is your price for it?

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. How absurdly English you are! The English think that a cheque-book can solve every problem in life. Why, my dear Arthur, I have very much more money than you have, and quite as much as Robert Chiltern has got hold of. Money is not what I want.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. What do you want then, Mrs. Cheveley?

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Why don’t you call me Laura?

L
ORD
G
ORING
. I don’t like the name.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. You used to adore it.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes: that’s why.
(Mrs. Cheveley motions to him to sit down beside her. He smiles, and does so.)

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. Arthur, you loved me once.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. And you asked me to be your wife.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. That was the natural result of my loving you.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. And you threw me over because you saw, or said you saw, poor old Lord Mortlake trying to have a violent flirtation with me in the conservatory at Tenby.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. I am under the impression that my lawyer settled that matter with you on certain terms … dictated by yourself.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. At that time I was poor; you were rich.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Quite so. That is why you pretended to love me.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
.
(Shrugging her shoulders.)
Poor old Lord Mortlake, who had only two topics of conversation, his gout and his wife! I never could quite make out which of the two he was talking about. He used the most horrible language about them both. Well, you were silly, Arthur. Why, Lord Mortlake was never anything more to me than an amusement. one of those utterly tedious amusements one only finds at an English country house
on an English country Sunday. I don’t think anyone at all morally responsible for what he or she does at an English country house.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. Yes. I know lots of people think that.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. I loved you, Arthur.

L
ORD
G
ORING
. My dear Mrs. Cheveley, you have always been far too clever to know anything about love.

M
RS
. C
HEVELEY
. I did love you. And you loved me. You know you loved me; and love is a very wonderful thing. I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her?
(Puts her hand on his.)