A to Z Classics - Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde (Best Navigation) (A to Z Classics)

lady hunstanton

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?

gerald

I have given up my intention of being Lord Illingworth’s secretary.

lady hunstanton

Surely not, Gerald! It would be most unwise of you. What reason can you have?

gerald

I don’t think I should be suitable for the post.

mrs. allonby

I wish Lord Illingworth would ask me to be his secretary. But he says I am not serious enough.

·125· lady hunstanton

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. allonby

Ah, that must have been what you thought was thunder in the air.

lady hunstanton

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?

gerald

Lord Illingworth’s views of life and mine are too different.

lady hunstanton

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 ·126· with all the right people, which is so important at this solemn moment in your career.

gerald

I don’t want to see the world: I’ve seen enough of it.

mrs. allonby

I hope you don’t think you have exhausted life, Mr. Arbuthnot. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him.

gerald

I don’t wish to leave my mother.

lady hunstanton

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 hunstanton

[ Rising .] A bad headache! I am so sorry! Perhaps you’ll bring her up to Hunstanton this afternoon, if she is better, Gerald.

·127· gerald

I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton.

lady hunstanton

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. allonby

Good-bye, Mr. Arbuthnot.

gerald

Good-bye.

[ Exit Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby. Gerald sits down and reads over his letter .]

gerald

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 .]

·128· lady hunstanton

[ 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. allonby

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 .]

gerald

Mother, I have just written to him.

mrs. arbuthnot

To whom?

gerald

To my father. I have written to tell him to come here at four o’clock this afternoon.

mrs. arbuthnot

He shall not come here. He shall not cross the threshold of my house.

gerald

He must come.

mrs. arbuthnot

Gerald, if you are going away with Lord Illingworth, ·129· go at once. Go before it kills me: but don’t ask me to meet him.

gerald

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. arbuthnot

What can you have to say to him?

gerald

Can’t you guess, mother, what I have written in this letter?

mrs. arbuthnot

No.

gerald

Mother, surely you can. Think, think what must be done, now, at once, within the next few days.

mrs. arbuthnot

There is nothing to be done.

gerald

I have written to Lord Illingworth to tell him that he must marry you.

·130· mrs. arbuthnot

Marry me?

gerald

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. arbuthnot

But, Gerald——

gerald

I will insist upon his doing it. I will make him do it: he will not dare to refuse.

mrs. arbuthnot

But, Gerald, it is I who refuse. I will not marry Lord Illingworth.

gerald

Not marry him? Mother!

mrs. arbuthnot

I will not marry him.

gerald

But you don’t understand: it is for your sake I am talking, not for mine. This marriage, this ·131· 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. arbuthnot

I will not marry him.

gerald

Mother, you must.

mrs. arbuthnot

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.

gerald

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.

·132· mrs. arbuthnot

I refuse to marry Lord Illingworth.

gerald

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. arbuthnot

If he came himself, which he will not do, my answer would be the same. Remember I am your mother.

gerald

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, that this marriage must take place. There is no alternative: and after the marriage you and I can go away together. But the marriage must take place first. It is a duty that you owe, not merely to yourself, but to all other women—yes: to all the other women in the world, lest he betray more.

mrs. arbuthnot

I owe nothing to other women. There is not one of them to help me. There is not one woman in the world to whom I could go for pity, if ·133· I would take it, or for sympathy, if I could win it. Women are hard on each other. That girl, last night, good though she is, fled from the room as though I were a tainted thing. She was right. I am a tainted thing. But my wrongs are my own, and I will bear them alone. I must bear them alone. What have women who have not sinned to do with me, or I with them? We do not understand each other.