An Ideal Husband - Oscar Wilde (phonics story books .txt) 📗
- Author: Oscar Wilde
- Performer: 048641423X
Book online «An Ideal Husband - Oscar Wilde (phonics story books .txt) 📗». Author Oscar Wilde
MABEL CHILTERN. It is too late now, I suppose
LORD GORING. [Smiling.] I am not so sure.
MABEL CHILTERN. Will you ride to-morrow morning?
LORD GORING. Yes, at ten.
MABEL CHILTERN. Don’t forget
LORD GORING. Of course I shan’t. By the way, Lady Chiltern, there
is no list of your guests in THE MORNING POST of to-day. It has
apparently been crowded out by the County Council, or the Lambeth
Conference, or something equally boring. Could you let me have a
list? I have a particular reason for asking you.
LADY CHILTERN. I am sure Mr. Trafford will be able to give you one.
LORD GORING. Thanks, so much.
MABEL CHILTERN. Tommy is the most useful person in London.
LORD GORING [Turning to her.] And who is the most ornamental?
MABEL CHILTERN [Triumphantly.] I am.
LORD GORING. How clever of you to guess it! [Takes up his hat and
cane.] Good-bye, Lady Chiltern! You will remember what I said to
you, won’t you?
LADY CHILTERN. Yes; but I don’t know why you said it to me.
LORD GORING. I hardly know myself. Good-bye, Miss Mabel!
MABEL CHILTERN [With a little moue of disappointment.] I wish you
were not going. I have had four wonderful adventures this morning;
four and a half, in fact. You might stop and listen to some of them.
LORD GORING. How very selfish of you to have four and a half! There
won’t be any left for me.
MABEL CHILTERN. I don’t want you to have any. They would not be
good for you.
LORD GORING. That is the first unkind thing you have ever said to
me. How charmingly you said it! Ten to-morrow.
MABEL CHILTERN. Sharp.
LORD GORING. Quite sharp. But don’t bring Mr. Trafford.
MABEL CHILTERN. [With a little toss of the head.] Of course I
shan’t bring Tommy Trafford. Tommy Trafford is in great disgrace.
LORD GORING. I am delighted to hear it. [Bows and goes out.]
MABEL CHILTERN. Gertrude, I wish you would speak to Tommy Trafford.
LADY CHILTERN. What has poor Mr. Trafford done this time? Robert
says he is the best secretary he has ever had.
MABEL CHILTERN. Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really
does nothing but propose to me. He proposed to me last night in the
music-room, when I was quite unprotected, as there was an elaborate
trio going on. I didn’t dare to make the smallest repartee, I need
hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once.
Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to
be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be
absolutely deaf. Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this
morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles. Really, the
things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling.
The police should interfere. At luncheon I saw by the glare in his
eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check
him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I
don’t know what bimetallism means. And I don’t believe anybody else
does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He
looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he
proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should not mind
so much. That might produce some effect on the public. But he does
it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he
talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his
methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you
would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often
enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a
manner that attracts some attention.
LADY CHILTERN. Dear Mabel, don’t talk like that. Besides, Robert
thinks very highly of Mr. Trafford. He believes he has a brilliant
future before him.
MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! I wouldn’t marry a man with a future before him
for anything under the sun.
LADY CHILTERN. Mabel!
MABEL CHILTERN. I know, dear. You married a man with a future,
didn’t you? But then Robert was a genius, and you have a noble,
self-sacrificing character. You can stand geniuses. I have no,
character at all, and Robert is the only genius I could ever bear.
As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much,
don’t they? Such a bad habit! And they are always thinking about
themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me. I must go
round now and rehearse at Lady Basildon’s. You remember, we are
having tableaux, don’t you? The Triumph of something, I don’t know
what! I hope it will be triumph of me. Only triumph I am really
interested in at present. [Kisses LADY CHILTERN and goes out; then
comes running back.] Oh, Gertrude, do you know who is coming to see
you? That dreadful Mrs. Cheveley, in a most lovely gown. Did you
ask her?
LADY CHILTERN. [Rising.] Mrs. Cheveley! Coming to see me?
Impossible!
MABEL CHILTERN. I assure you she is coming upstairs, as large as
life and not nearly so natural.
LADY CHILTERN. You need not wait, Mabel. Remember, Lady Basildon is
expecting you.
MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! I must shake hands with Lady Markby. She is
delightful. I love being scolded by her.
[Enter MASON.]
MASON. Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.
[Enter LADY MARKBY and MRS. CHEVELEY.]
LADY CHILTERN. [Advancing to meet them.] Dear Lady Markby, how nice
of you to come and see me! [Shakes hands with her, and bows somewhat
distantly to MRS. CHEVELEY.] Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Cheveley?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Thanks. Isn’t that Miss Chiltern? I should like so
much to know her.
LADY CHILTERN. Mabel, Mrs. Cheveley wishes to know you.
[MABEL CHILTERN gives a little nod.]
MRS. CHEVELEY [Sitting down.] I thought your frock so charming last
night, Miss Chiltern. So simple and … suitable.
MABEL CHILTERN. Really? I must tell my dressmaker. It will be such
a surprise to her. Good-bye, Lady Markby!
LADY MARKBY. Going already?
MABEL CHILTERN. I am so sorry but I am obliged to. I am just off to
rehearsal. I have got to stand on my head in some tableaux.
LADY MARKBY. On your head, child? Oh! I hope not. I believe it is
most unhealthy. [Takes a seat on the sofa next LADY CHILTERN.]
MABEL CHILTERN. But it is for an excellent charity: in aid of the
Undeserving, the only people I am really interested in. I am the
secretary, and Tommy Trafford is treasurer.
MRS. CHEVELEY. And what is Lord Goring?
MABEL CHILTERN. Oh! Lord Goring is president.
MRS. CHEVELEY. The post should suit him admirably, unless he has
deteriorated since I knew him first.
LADY MARKBY. [Reflecting.] You are remarkably modern, Mabel. A
little too modern, perhaps. Nothing is so dangerous as being too
modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly. I have
known many instances of it
MABEL CHILTERN. What a dreadful prospect!
LADY MARKBY. Ah! my dear, you need not be nervous. You will always
be as pretty as possible. That is the best fashion there is, and the
only fashion that England succeeds in setting.
MABEL CHILTERN. [With a curtsey.] Thank you so much, Lady Markby,
for England … and myself. [Goes out.]
LADY MARKBY. [Turning to LADY CHILTERN.] Dear Gertrude, we just
called to know if Mrs. Cheveley’s diamond brooch has been found.
LADY CHILTERN. Here?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. I missed it when I got back to Claridge’s, and
I thought I might possibly have dropped it here.
LADY CHILTERN. I have heard nothing about it. But I will send for
the butler and ask. [Touches the bell.]
MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh, pray don’t trouble, Lady Chiltern. I dare say I
lost it at the Opera, before we came on here.
LADY MARKBY. Ah yes, I suppose it must have been at the Opera. The
fact is, we all scramble and jostle so much nowadays that I wonder we
have anything at all left on us at the end of an evening. I know
myself that, when I am coming back from the Drawing Room, I always
feel as if I hadn’t a shred on me, except a small shred of decent
reputation, just enough to prevent the lower classes making painful
observations through the windows of the carriage. The fact is that
our Society is terribly over-populated. Really, some one should
arrange a proper scheme of assisted emigration. It would do a great
deal of good.
MRS. CHEVELEY. I quite agree with you, Lady Markby. It is nearly
six years since I have been in London for the Season, and I must say
Society has become dreadfully mixed. One sees the oddest people
everywhere.
LADY MARKBY. That is quite true, dear. But one needn’t know them.
I’m sure I don’t know half the people who come to my house. Indeed,
from all I hear, I shouldn’t like to.
[Enter MASON.]
LADY CHILTERN. What sort of a brooch was it that you lost, Mrs.
Cheveley?
MRS. CHEVELEY. A diamond snake-brooch with a ruby, a rather large
ruby.
LADY MARKBY. I thought you said there was a sapphire on the head,
dear?
MRS. CHEVELEY [Smiling.] No, lady Markby - a ruby.
LADY MARKBY. [Nodding her head.] And very becoming, I am quite
sure.
LADY CHILTERN. Has a ruby and diamond brooch been found in any of
the rooms this morning, Mason?
MASON. No, my lady.
MRS. CHEVELEY. It really is of no consequence, Lady Chiltern. I am
so sorry to have put you to any inconvenience.
LADY CHILTERN. [Coldly.] Oh, it has been no inconvenience. That
will do, Mason. You can bring tea.
[Exit MASON.]
LADY MARKBY. Well, I must say it is most annoying to lose anything.
I remember once at Bath, years ago, losing in the Pump Room an
exceedingly handsome cameo bracelet that Sir John had given me. I
don’t think he has ever given me anything since, I am sorry to say.
He has sadly degenerated. Really, this horrid House of Commons quite
ruins our husbands for us. I think the Lower House by far the
greatest blow to a happy married life that there has been since that
terrible thing called the Higher Education of Women was invented.
LADY CHILTERN. Ah! it is heresy to say that in this house, Lady
Markby. Robert is a great champion of the Higher Education of Women,
and so, I am afraid, am I.
MRS. CHEVELEY. The higher education of men is what I should like to
see. Men need it so sadly.
LADY MARKBY. They do, dear. But I am afraid such a scheme would be
quite unpractical. I don’t think man has much capacity for
development. He has got as far as he can, and that is not far, is
it? With regard to women, well, dear Gertrude, you belong to the
younger generation, and I am sure it is all right if you approve of
it. In my time, of course, we were taught not to understand
anything. That was the old system, and wonderfully interesting it
was. I assure you that the amount of things I and my poor dear
sister were taught not to understand was quite extraordinary. But
modern women understand everything, I am
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