A Woman of No Importance

Scene: Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton.

Sir John and Lady Caroline Pontefract, Miss Worsley, on chairs under large yew tree.

Lady Caroline

I believe this is the first English country house you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?

Hester

Yes, Lady Caroline.

Lady Caroline

You have no country houses, I am told, in America?

Hester

We have not many.

Lady Caroline

Have you any country? What we should call country?

Hester

Smiling. We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline. They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together.

Lady Caroline

Ah! you must find it very draughty, I should fancy. To Sir John. John, you should have your muffler. What is the use of my always knitting mufflers for you if you won’t wear them?

Sir John

I am quite warm, Caroline, I assure you.

Lady Caroline

Why do you threaten me?

Mrs. Allonby

I will tell you when you have kissed the Puritan.

Enter Footman.

Francis

Tea is served in the Yellow Drawing-room, my lord.

Lord Illingworth

Tell her ladyship we are coming in.

Francis

Yes, my lord. Exit.

Lord Illingworth

Shall we go in to tea?

Mrs. Allonby

Do you like such simple pleasures?

Lord Illingworth

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.

Mrs. Allonby

It ends with Revelations.

Lord Illingworth

You fence divinely. But the button has come off your foil.

Mrs. Allonby

I have still the mask.

Lord Illingworth

It makes your eyes lovelier.

Mrs. Allonby

Thank you. Come.

Lord Illingworth

Sees Mrs. Arbuthnot’s letter on table, and takes it up and looks at envelope. What a curious handwriting! It reminds me of the handwriting of a woman I used to know years ago.

Mrs. Allonby

Who?

Lord Illingworth

Oh! no one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance. Throws letter down, and passes up the steps of the terrace with Mrs. Allonby. They smile at each other.

Mrs. Allonby

The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

Lady Hunstanton

But how could he do both, dear?

Mrs. Allonby

He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow they don’t attract him.

Lady Stutfield

Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear about other women.

Mrs. Allonby

Lord Henry Weston! I remember him, Lady Hunstanton. A man with a hideous smile and a hideous past. He is asked everywhere. No dinner-party is complete without him. What of those whose ruin is due to him? They are outcasts. They are nameless. If you met them in the street you would turn your head away. I don’t complain of their punishment. Let all women who have sinned be punished.

Mrs. Arbuthnot enters from terrace behind in a cloak with a lace veil over her head. She hears the last words and starts.

Lady Hunstanton

My dear young lady!

Hester

It is right that they should be punished, but don’t let them be the only ones to suffer. If a man and woman have sinned, let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don’t punish the one and let the other go free. Don’t have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be an infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not regarded.

Lady Caroline

So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very proud of him. He is a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why Arbuthnot, Rachel?

Mrs. Arbuthnot

One name is as good as another, when one has no right to any name.

Lord Illingworth

I suppose so⁠—but why Gerald?

Mrs. Arbuthnot

After a man whose heart I broke⁠—after my father.

Lord Illingworth

Well, Rachel, what is over is over. All I have got to say now in that I am very, very much pleased with our boy. The world will know him merely as my private secretary, but to me he will be something very near, and very dear. It is a curious thing, Rachel; my life seemed to be quite complete. It was not so. It lacked something, it lacked a son. I have found my son now, I am glad I have found him.

Mrs. Arbuthnot

You have no right to claim him, or the smallest part of him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.

Lord Illingworth

My dear Rachel, you have had him to yourself for over twenty years. Why not let me have him for a little now? He is quite as much mine as yours.