Windermere

“ Lady Windermere. It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell me all this. But I can’t believe that my husband is untrue to me.
Duchess of Berwick. Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. [Lady Windermere rings bell.] The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry?
Lady Windermere. You needn’t be afraid, Duchess, I never cry.
Duchess of Berwick. That’s quite right, dear. Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. Agatha, darling! ”

“ Windermere is distinguished from all the other lakes of this country by its superior length and breadth, by the gentle hills, cultivated and enclosed nearly to their summits, that generally bind its shores, by the gradual distance and fine disposition of the northern mountains, by the bold sweeps of its numerous bays, by the villas that speckle and rich plantations, that wind them, and by one large island, surrounded by many islets, which adds dignity to its bosom. ”

“ Lord Windermere. [Moves down with her.] Darling, why do you say that?
Lady Windermere. [Sits on sofa.] Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated us—
Lord Windermere. We were never separated.
Lady Windermere. We never must be again. O Arthur, don’t love me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby the roses are white and red.
[Enter Lord Augustus C.]
Lord Augustus. Arthur, she has explained everything! ”

“ Windermere, with its wide expanse of waters, its fairy islands, its noble hills, allures his steps in one direction; while the sweet little lake of Rydal, with its heronry and its fine background of rocks, invites him in another. In this direction the vale of Grasmere, the scene of his early married life, opens before him, and Dunmail-raise and Langdale-pikes lift their naked corky summits, as hailing him to the pleasures of old companionship. Into no quarter of this region of lakes, and mountains, and vales of primitive life, can he penetrate without coming upon ground celebrated by his muse. ”

“ DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Don’t you really know? I assure you we’re all so distressed about it. Only last night at dear Lady Jansen’s every one was saying how extraordinary it was that, of all men in London, Windermere should behave in such a way.
LADY WINDERMERE. My husband - what has he got to do with any woman of that kind?
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Ah, what indeed, dear? That is the point. He goes to see her continually, and stops for hours at a time, and while he is there she is not at home to any one. ”

“ Lord Windermere. How hard good women are!
Lady Windermere. How weak bad men are!
Lord Windermere. Margaret, none of us men may be good enough for the women we marry—that is quite true—but you don’t imagine I would ever—oh, the suggestion is monstrous!
Lady Windermere. Why should you be different from other men? I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over some shameful passion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lady Windermere. That woman is not coming here to-night!
Lord Windermere. [R.C.] Mrs. Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way annoy or wound her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both. Remember that! Ah, Margaret! only trust me! A wife should trust her husband!
Lady Windermere. [C.] London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognise them. They look so thoroughly unhappy. I am not going to be one of them. [Moves up.] Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please? Thanks. . . . A useful thing a fan, isn’t it? ”

“ Lord Windermere. [Holding her hand.] Margaret, I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place that she had lost by a moment’s folly, to lead again a decent life. I believed what she told me—I was mistaken in her. She is bad—as bad as a woman can be.
Lady Windermere. Arthur, Arthur, don’t talk so bitterly about any woman. I don’t think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. ”

“ LORD AUGUSTUS. Your wife has sent her a card?
LORD WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne has received a card.
LORD AUGUSTUS. Then she’s all right, dear boy.
But why didn’t you tell me that before? It would have saved me a heap of worry and demmed misunderstandings!
[LADY AGATHA and MR. HOPPER cross and exit on terrace L.U.E.]
PARKER. Mr. Cecil Graham!
[Enter MR. CECIL GRAHAM.]
CECIL GRAHAM. [Bows to LADY WINDERMERE, passes over and shakes hands with LORD WINDERMERE.] Good evening, Arthur. Why don’t you ask me how I am? I like people to ask me how I am. It shows a wide-spread interest in my health. ”

“ You—why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven’t got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn’t stand dishonour! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. [Lady Windermere rises.] God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? ”

“ 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 like you to think of yourself as one. ”

“ DUMBY. I am - to myself. I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly; but I don’t see any chance of it just at present.
[They pass into the ball-room, and LADY WINDERMERE and LORD DARLINGTON enter from the terrace.]
LADY WINDERMERE. Yes. Her coming here is monstrous, unbearable. I know now what you meant to-day at tea-time. Why didn’t you tell me right out? You should have!
LORD DARLINGTON. I couldn’t! A man can’t tell these things about another man! ”

“ BOWNESS-ON-WINDERMERE, an urban district in the Appleby parliamentary division of Westmorland, England, on the east shore of Windermere, 11/4 m. S.W. of Windermere station on the London & North-Western railway. Together with the town of Windermere it forms an urban district (pop. 5061 in 1901) , but the two towns were separate until 1905. Its situation is fine, the lake-shore here rising sharply, while at this point the lake narrows and is studded with islands. The low surrounding hills are richly wooded, and a number of country seats stand upon them. ”

“ My dear nieces—you know the Saville girls, don’t you?—such nice domestic creatures—plain, dreadfully plain, but so good—well, they’re always at the window doing fancy work, and making ugly things for the poor, which I think so useful of them in these dreadful socialistic days, and this terrible woman has taken a house in Curzon Street, right opposite them—such a respectable street, too! I don’t know what we’re coming to! And they tell me that Windermere goes there four and five times a week—they see him. ”

“ Something about your ladyship’s fan. I didn’t quite catch what his lordship said. Has the fan been lost, my lady? I can’t find it, and Parker says it was not left in any of the rooms. He has looked in all of them and on the terrace as well.
Lady Windermere. It doesn’t matter. Tell Parker not to trouble. That will do.
[Exit Rosalie.]
Lady Windermere. [Rising.] She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously, recklessly, nobly—and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine? . . . ”

“ Lord Darlington. [Smiling.] Ah! you are beginning to reform me. It is a dangerous thing to reform any one, Lady Windermere. [Bows, and exit C.]
Duchess of Berwick. [Who has risen, goes C.] What a charming, wicked creature! I like him so much. I’m quite delighted he’s gone! How sweet you’re looking! Where do you get your gowns? And now I must tell you how sorry I am for you, dear Margaret. [Crosses to sofa and sits with Lady Windermere.] Agatha, darling!
Lady Agatha. Yes, mamma. [Rises.]
Duchess of Berwick. Will you go and look over the photograph album that I see there? ”

“ He was pre-eminently a revealer of the kingdom of Nature, as seen in the mountains and lakes, the birds, the flowers, the peasantry of the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, and the over-sea portion of Lancashire. Not only did he write an admirable guide for travellers and tourists in these regions, but there is scarcely a section of this land that he has not rendered classic ground by connecting with it some incident, some allusion, some poetical idealizing. Where shall I begin? With Windermere, of course. ”

“ When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. But seriously, what do you say to £2000? £2500, I think. In modern life margin is everything. Windermere, don’t you think the world an intensely amusing place? I do!
[Exit on terrace with Lord Windermere. Music strikes up in ball-room.]
Lady Windermere. To stay in this house any longer is impossible. To-night a man who loves me offered me his whole life. ”

“ Erlynne.
Lady Plymdale. That woman!
Dumby. Yes; that is what every one calls her.
Lady Plymdale. How very interesting! How intensely interesting! I really must have a good stare at her. [Goes to door of ball-room and looks in.] I have heard the most shocking things about her. They say she is ruining poor Windermere. And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing. You are to lunch there on Friday!
Dumby. Why?
Lady Plymdale. Because I want you to take my husband with you. ”

“ All London will know why you did it; and who will blame you? No one. If they do, what matter? Wrong? What is wrong? It’s wrong for a man to abandon his wife for a shameless woman. It is wrong for a wife to remain with a man who so dishonours her. You said once you would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave! Be yourself!
Lady Windermere. I am afraid of being myself. Let me think! Let me wait! My husband may return to me. [Sits down on sofa.]
Lord Darlington. And you would take him back! You are not what I thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. ”

“ At the distance of two or three miles beyond Culgarth, from a hill advancing towards the water, the whole of Windermere is seen; to the right, is the white mansion at Culgarth, among wood, on a gentle eminence of the shore, with the lake spreading wide beyond, crowned by the fells half obscured in clouds. To the south, the hills of the eastern shore, sloping gradually, run out in elegant and often well wooded points into the water, and are spotted with villas and varied above with enclosures. ”

“ They can’t help it—and although they never talk scandal, they—well, of course—they remark on it to every one. And the worst of it all is that I have been told that this woman has got a great deal of money out of somebody, for it seems that she came to London six months ago without anything at all to speak of, and now she has this charming house in Mayfair, drives her ponies in the Park every afternoon and all—well, all—since she has known poor dear Windermere. ”

“ It’s extremely pretty. [Takes up fan.] I shall ask Margaret to give it to me.
LORD WINDERMERE. I hope my wife will give it you.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh, I’m sure she will have no objection.
LORD WINDERMERE. I wish that at the same time she would give you a miniature she kisses every night before she prays - It’s the miniature of a young innocent-looking girl with beautiful dark
hair.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Ah, yes, I remember. How long ago that seems! [Goes to sofa and sits down.] It was done before I was married. Dark hair and an innocent expression were the fashion then, Windermere! [A pause.] ”

“ 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. ”