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, and all that kind of thing. I have no ambition to play the part of a mother. Only once in my life have I known a mother’s feelings. That was last night. They were terrible – they made me suffer – they made me suffer too much. For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless – I want to live childless still. (Hiding her feelings with a trivial laugh.) Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could I pose as a mother with a grown-up daughter? Margaret is twenty-one, and I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not. So you see what difficulties it would involve. No, as far as I am concerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother. Why should I interfere with her illusions? I find it hard enough to keep my own. I lost one illusion last night. I thought I had no heart. I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old. (Takes up hand-mirror from table and looks into it.) And it spoils one’s career at critical moments.
LORD WINDERMERE: You fill me with horror – with absolute horror.
MRS. ERLYNNE (rising): I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don’t do such things – not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No – what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake – I discovered that last night.
LORD WINDERMERE: A fatal mistake.
MRS. ERLYNNE (smiling): Almost fatal.
LORD WINDERMERE: I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at once.
MRS. ERLYNNE: I regret my bad actions. You regret your good ones – that is the difference between us.
LORD WINDERMERE: I don’t trust you. I will tell my wife. It’s better for her to know, and from me. It will cause her infinite pain – it will humiliate her terribly, but it’s right that she should know.
MRS. ERLYNNE: You propose to tell her?
LORD WINDERMERE: I am going to tell her.
MRS. ERLYNNE (going up to him): If you do, I will make my name so infamous that it will mar every moment of her life. It will ruin her, and make her wretched. If you dare to tell her, there is no depth of degradation I will not sink to, no pit of shame I will not enter. You shall not tell her – I forbid you.
LORD WINDERMERE: Why?
MRS. ERLYNNE (after a pause): If I said to you that I cared for her, perhaps loved her even – you would sneer at me, wouldn’t you?
LORD WINDERMERE: I should feel it was not true. A mother’s love means devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice. What could you know of such things?
MRS. ERLYNNE: You are right. What could I know of such things? Don’t let us talk any more about it – as for telling my daughter who I am, that I do not allow. It is my secret, it is not yours. If I make up my mind to tell her, and I think I will, I shall tell her before I leave the house – if not, I shall never tell her.
LORD WINDERMERE (angrily): Then let me beg of you to leave our house at once. I will make your excuses to Margaret.
Enter LADY WINDERMERE R. She goes over to MRS. ERLYNNE with the photograph in her hand. LORD WINDERMERE moves to back of sofa, and anxiously watches MRS. ERLYNNE as the scene progresses.
LADY WINDERMERE: I am so sorry, Mrs. Erlynne, to have kept you waiting. I couldn’t find the photograph anywhere. At last I discovered it in my husband’s dressing-room – he had stolen it.
MRS. ERLYNNE (takes the photograph from her and looks at it): I am not surprised – it is charming. (Goes over to sofa with LADY WINDERMERE, and sits down beside her. Looks again at the photograph.) And so that is your little boy! What is he called?
LADY WINDERMERE: Gerard, after my dear father.
MRS. ERLYNNE (laying the photograph down): Really?
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. It if had been a girl, I would have called it after my mother. My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret.
MRS. ERLYNNE: My name is Margaret too.
LADY WINDERMERE: Indeed!
MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes. (Pause.) You are devoted to your mother’s memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.
LADY WINDERMERE: We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.
MRS. ERLYNNE: Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they’re better.
LADY WINDERMERE (shaking her head): If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE: Everything?
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. (Pause.)
MRS. ERLYNNE: Did your father often speak to you of your mother?
LADY WINDERMERE: No, it gave him too much pain. He told me how my mother had died a few months after I was born. His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. Then he begged me never to mention her name to him again. It made him suffer even to hear it. My father – my father really died of a broken heart. His was the most ruined life I know.
MRS. ERLYNNE (rising): I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE (rising): Oh no, don’t.
MRS. ERLYNNE: I think I had better. My carriage must have come back by this time. I sent it to Lady Jedburgh’s with a note.
LADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, would you mind seeing if Mrs. Erlynne’s carriage has come back?
MRS. ERLYNNE: Pray don’t trouble, Lord Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes, Arthur, do go, please.
LORD WINDERMERE hesitates for a moment and looks at MRS. ERLYNNE. She remains quite impassive. He leaves the room.
(To MRS. ERLYNNE): Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night. (Goes towards her.)
MRS. ERLYNNE: Hush – don’t speak of it.
LADY WINDERMERE: I must speak of it. I can’t let you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty.
MRS. ERLYNNE: It is not your duty – at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something?
LADY WINDERMERE: I owe you everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE: Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don’t spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband’s life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh! How easily love is killed. Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it.
LADY WINDERMERE (with bowed head): It is your will, not mine.
MRS. ERLYNNE: Yes, it is my will. And never forget your child – I like to think of you as a mother. I