Oscar Wilde Part 11

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ That it was necessary, vitally necessary.

_Lady Chiltern._ It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable.... Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing?

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than that.

But Lady Chiltern is not to be so easily put off as that. Her suspicions are aroused. She says she knows that there are "men with horrible secrets in their lives--men who had done some shameful thing, and who, in some critical moment, have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame." She asks him boldly, is he one of these? Then, driven to bay, he tells her the one lie of his life.

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you might not know.

She is satisfied. But he must write a letter to Mrs Cheveley, taking back any promise he may have given her, and that letter must be written at once. He tries to gain time, offers to go and see Mrs Cheveley to-morrow; it is too late to-night. But Lady Chiltern is inexorable, and so Sir Robert yields, and the missive is despatched to Claridge's Hotel.

Then, seized with a sudden terror of what the consequences may be, he turns, with nerves all a-quiver, to his wife, pleadingly--

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ O, love me always, Gertrude, love me always.

_Lady Chiltern._ I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it!

(_Kisses him, rises and goes out._)

And the curtain falls upon this intensely emotional situation.

If I may seem to have quoted too freely from the dialogue, it is in part to refute the charge, so often urged by the critics, that Oscar Wilde's "talk is often an end in itself, it has no vital connection with the particular play of which it forms a part, it might as well be put into the mouth of one character as another...." Now in the first act of "The Ideal Husband," when the action of the piece is being carried on at high pressure, there is not a word of the dialogue that is not pertinent, no sentence that is not significant. Whatever of wit the author may have allowed himself to indulge in springs spontaneously from the woof of the story, it is not, as was suggested in his earlier plays, "a mere parasitic growth attached to it," in which this particular comedy under consideration marks an immense advance on the methods of "The Woman Of No Importance." Here is strenuous drama, treated strenuously, and dealing with the whole gamut of human emotions. The playwright, as he progresses in his art, does not here permit himself to endanger the interest of the plot by any advent.i.tious pleasantries on the part of the characters.

In the second act we are again in Grosvenor Square, this time in a morning-room, where Sir Robert Chiltern and Lord Goring are discussing the awkward state of affairs. To Lord Goring the action of Sir Robert appears inexcusable.

_Lord Goring._ Robert, how could you have sold yourself for money?

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ (_Excitedly._) I did not sell myself for money. I bought success at a great price. That is all.

Such was his point of view. Lord Goring's now is that he should have told his wife. But Sir Robert a.s.sures him that such a confession to such a woman would mean a lifelong separation. She must remain in ignorance.

But now the vital question is--how is he to defend himself against Mrs Cheveley? Lord Goring answers that he must fight her.

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ But how?

_Lord Goring._ I can't tell you how at present. I have not the smallest idea. But everyone has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us.

The conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Lady Chiltern. Sir Robert goes out and leaves Lord Goring and his wife together. And there follows a scene, brief, but as fine as any in the play, in which Lord Goring endeavours to prepare Lady Chiltern very skilfully for the blow that may possibly fall upon her. He deals in generalities: "I think that in practical life there is something about success that is a little unscrupulous, something about ambition that is unscrupulous always." And again: "In every nature there are elements of weakness, or worse than weakness. Supposing, for instance, that--that any public man, my father or Lord Merton, or Robert, say, had, years ago, written some foolish letter to someone...."

_Lady Chiltern._ What do you mean by a foolish letter?

_Lord Goring._ A letter gravely compromising one's position. I am only putting an imaginary case.

_Lady Chiltern._ Robert is as incapable of doing a foolish thing, as he is of doing a wrong thing.

She is still unshaken in the belief of her husband's rect.i.tude. And Lord Goring departs sorrowing, but not before he has a.s.sured her of his friends.h.i.+p that would serve her in any crisis.

_Lord Goring._ ... And if you are ever in trouble, Lady Chiltern, trust me absolutely, and I will help you in every way I can. If you ever want me ... come at once to me.

Then on the scene arrives Mrs Cheveley, accompanied by Lady Markby (for whose amusing _bavardage_ I wish I could find s.p.a.ce) evidently to revenge herself somehow for her rebuff, ostensibly to inquire after a "diamond snake-brooch with a ruby," which she has lost, probably at Lady Chiltern's. Now the audience knows all about this "brooch-bracelet," for has not Lord Goring found it on the sofa last night, when flirting with Mabel Chiltern, and recognising it as an old and somewhat ominous friend, quietly put it in his pocket, at the same time enjoining Mabel to say nothing about the incident. So, of course, the jewel has not been found in Grosvenor Square. But when the two women are left alone, Mrs Cheveley discovers that it was Lady Chiltern who dictated Sir Robert's letter to her. A bitter pa.s.sage of arms occurs between them, when Lady Chiltern discusses her adversary, who boasts herself the ally of her husband.

_Lady Chiltern._ How dare you cla.s.s my husband with yourself?...

Leave my house. You are unfit to enter it. (_Sir Robert enters from behind. He hears his wife's last words, and sees to whom they are addressed. He grows deadly pale._)

_Mrs Cheveley._ Your house! A house bought with the price of dishonour. A house everything in which has been paid for by fraud.

(_Turns round and sees Sir Robert Chiltern._) Ask him what the origin of his fortune is! Get him to tell you how he sold to a stockbroker a Cabinet secret. Learn from him to what you owe your position.

_Lady Chiltern._ It is not true! Robert! It is not true!

But Sir Robert cannot deny the accusation, and Mrs Cheveley departs, the winner of the contest. The act concludes with a terrible denunciation on the part of Sir Robert of his wife, whom he blindly accuses of having wrecked his life, by not allowing him to accept the comfortable offer made by Mrs Cheveley of absolute security from all future knowledge of the sin he had committed in his youth.

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You prevented me.... Let women make no more ideals of men! Let them not put them on altars and bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you--you whom I have so wildly loved--have ruined mine!

Here is the sincere note of Tragedy! Surely, Oscar Wilde is among the dramatists!

The action of the third act takes place in the library of Lord Goring's house. It is inspired in the very best spirit of intrigue. Lady Chiltern, mindful of Lord Goring's friends.h.i.+p, has, in the first bewilderment of her discovery, written a note to him,--"I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude." Lord Goring is about to make preparations to receive her, when his father, Lord Caversham, most inconveniently looks in to pay him a visit, the object of which is to discuss his son's matrimonial prospects. The visit, therefore, promises to be a lengthy one, and Lord Goring proposes they should adjourn to the smoking-room, advising his servant, Phipps, at the same time that he is expecting a lady to see him on particular business, and who is to be shown, on her arrival, into the drawing-room. A lady does arrive, only she is not Lady Chiltern, but Mrs Cheveley, who has not announced her advent in any way. Surprised to hear that Lord Goring is expecting a lady, and while Phipps is lighting the candles in the drawing-room, she occupies her spare moments in running through the letters on the writing-table, and comes across Lady Chiltern's note. Here, indeed, is her opportunity. She is just about to purloin it, when Phipps returns, and she slips it under a silver-cased blotting-book that is lying on the table. She is, perforce, obliged to go into the drawing-room, from which presently she emerges, and creeps stealthily towards the writing-table.

But suddenly voices are heard from the smoking-room, and she is constrained to return to her hiding-place. Lord Caversham and his son re-enter and Lord Goring puts his father's cloak on for him, and with much relief sees him depart. But a shock is in store for him, for no sooner has Lord Caversham vanished, than no less a personage than Sir Robert Chiltern appears. In vain does Lord Goring try to get rid of his most unwelcome visitor. Sir Robert has come to talk over his trouble, and means to stay. Lady Chiltern must on no account be admitted. So he says to Phipps:

_Lord Goring._ 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?

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

Lord Goring realises that things are getting a little uncomfortable, and again tries to send Sir Robert away. But Sir Robert pleads for five minutes more. He is on his way to the House of Commons. "The debate on the Argentine Ca.n.a.l is to begin at eleven." As he makes this announcement a chair is heard to fall in the drawing-room. He suspects a listener, and, despite Lord Goring's word of honour to the contrary, determines to see for himself, and goes into the room, leaving Lord Goring in a fearful state of mind. He soon returns, however, "with a look of scorn on his face."

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ What explanation have you to give me for the presence of that woman here?

_Lord Goring._ Robert, I swear to you on my honour that that lady is stainless and guiltless of all offence towards you.

_Sir Robert Chiltern._ She is a vile, an infamous thing!

After a few more speeches, in which the _malentendu_ is well kept up, Sir Robert goes out, and Lord Goring rushes to the drawing-room to meet--Mrs Cheveley.

And now this woman is going to have another duel, but this time with an enemy who is proof against her attacks. The whole of this scene is imagined and written in a masterly manner. After a little airy sparring, Lord Goring opens the match.

_Lord Goring._ You have come here to sell me Robert Chiltern's letter, haven't you?

_Mrs Cheveley._ To offer it you on conditions. How did you guess that?

_Lord Goring._ Because you haven't mentioned the subject. Have you got it with you?

_Mrs Cheveley._ (_Sitting down._) Oh, no! A well-made dress has no pockets.

_Lord Goring._ What is your price for it?

Then, Mrs Cheveley tells him that the price is--herself. She is tired of living abroad, and wants to come to London and have a salon. She vows to him that he is the only person she has ever cared for, and that on the morning of the day he marries her she will give him Sir Robert's letter.

Naturally he refuses her offer. Naturally she is furious. But she still possesses the incriminating doc.u.ment and hurls her venomous words at his head.

_Mrs Chiltern._ For the privilege of being your wife I was ready to surrender a great prize, the climax of my diplomatic career. You decline. Very well. If Sir Robert doesn't uphold my Argentine Scheme, I expose him. _Voila tout!_

But he cares not for her threats. He hasn't done with her yet, for he has got in his possession the diamond snake-brooch with a ruby! This scene is most skilfully managed. Quite innocently he offers to return it to her--he had found it accidentally last night. And then in a moment he clasps it on her arm.

_Mrs Cheveley._ I never knew it could be worn as a bracelet ... it looks very well on me as a bracelet, doesn't it?