this man to whom I am giving my life? What do I bring him? Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. I must go back - no; I can’t go back, my letter has put me in their power - Arthur would not take me back! That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England tomorrow. I will go with him - I have no choice. [Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak.] No, no! I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. I can’t wait here. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington - Oh! here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible … Oh! [Hides her face in her hands.]
[Enter MRS. ERLYNNE L.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Lady Windermere! [LADY WINDERMERE starts and looks up. Then recoils in contempt.] Thank Heaven I am in time. You must go back to your husband’s house immediately.
LADY WINDERMERE. Must?
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Authoritatively.] Yes, you must! There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.
LADY WINDERMERE. Don’t come near me!
MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice. You must leave this place at once, my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street. You must come with me and drive straight home.
[LADY WINDERMERE throws off her cloak and flings it on the sofa.]
What are you doing?
LADY WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne - if you had not come here, I would have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere. You fill me with horror. There is something about you that stirs the wildest - rage within me. And I know why you are here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You don’t think that - you can’t.
LADY WINDERMERE. Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne. He belongs to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world’s tongue. But he had better prepare himself. He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard.
MRS. ERLYNNE. No - no -
LADY WINDERMERE. Yes! he shall. Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me - I was going back - but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger - oh! it was infamous - infamous.
MRS. ERLYNNE. [C.] Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly - you wrong your husband horribly. He doesn’t know you are here - he thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!
LADY WINDERMERE. [R.] Never read it!
MRS. ERLYNNE. No - he knows nothing about it.
LADY WINDERMERE. How simple you think me! [Going to her.] You are lying to me!
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Restraining herself.] I am not. I am telling you the truth.
LADY WINDERMERE. If my husband didn’t read my letter, how is it that you are here? Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. [Crosses L.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [R.C.] Your husband has never seen the letter. I - saw it, I opened it. I - read it.
LADY WINDERMERE. [Turning to her.] You opened a letter of mine to my husband? You wouldn’t dare!
MRS. ERLYNNE. Dare! Oh! to save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it. [Going to fireplace.] It should never have been written. [Tears it and throws it into the fire.]
LADY WINDERMERE. [With infinite contempt in her voice and look.] How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think the commonest device can take me in!
MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now was your letter. I swear it to you!
LADY WINDERMERE. [Slowly.] You took good care to burn it before I had examined it. I cannot trust you. You, whose whole life is a lie, could you speak the truth about anything? [Sits down.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Hurriedly.] Think as you like about me - say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love.
LADY WINDERMERE. [Sullenly.] I do not love him!
MRS. ERLYNNE. You do, and you know that he loves you.
LADY WINDERMERE. He does not understand what love is. He understands it as little as you do - but I see what you want. It would be a great advantage for you to get me back. Dear Heaven! what a life I would have then! Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!
MRS. ERLYNNE. [With a gesture of despair.] Lady Windermere, Lady Windermere, don’t say such terrible things. You don’t know how terrible they are, how terrible and how unjust. Listen, you must listen! Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext - never to see him - never to have anything to do with his life or yours. The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt. The hold I have over him -
LADY WINDERMERE. [Rising.] Ah! you admit you have a hold!
MRS. ERLYNNE. Yes, and I will tell you what it is. It is his love for you, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE. You expect me to believe that?
MRS. ERLYNNE. You must believe it! It is true. It is his love for you that has made him submit to - oh! call it what you like, tyranny, threats, anything you choose. But it is his love for you. His desire to spare you - shame, yes, shame and disgrace.
LADY WINDERMERE. What do you mean? You are insolent! What have I to do with you?
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Humbly.] Nothing. I know it - but I tell you that your husband loves you - that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life - that such love you will never meet - and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you - Oh! Arthur loves you!
LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur? And you tell me there is nothing between you?
MRS. ERLYNNE. Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you! And I - I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind, I would have died rather than have crossed your life or his - oh! died, gladly died! [Moves away to sofa R.]
LADY WINDERMERE. You talk as if you had a heart. Women like you have no hearts. Heart is not in you. You are bought and sold. [Sits L.C.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Starts, with a gesture of pain. Then restrains herself, and comes over to where LADY WINDERMERE is sitting. As she speaks, she stretches out her hands towards her, but does not dare to touch her.] Believe what you choose about me. I am not worth a moment’s sorrow. But don’t spoil your beautiful young life on my account! You don’t know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at - to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one’s face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has