“The Ideal Husband”
(First produced at the Haymarket Theatre, under the management of Mr Lewis Waller and Mr H. H. Morell on 3rd January 1895)
This, the third of Oscar Wilde’s plays in their order of production, is undoubtedly the most dramatic. The action is rapid, the interest of the story sustained to the very end, and the dialogue always to the point. Each of the principal characters concerned in the carrying out of the plot is a distinct individualised type. What each one says or does is entirely in keeping with his, or her, personality. And that personality is in each case a well-marked and skilfully drawn one. The four personæ who are engaged in conducting the intrigue of this comedy are Sir Robert Chiltern, Lady Chiltern (his wife), Lord Goring, and Mrs Cheveley. A charming ingénue in the person of Miss Mabel Chiltern (Sir Robert’s sister) is also instrumental in bringing the love-interest to a happy hymeneal issue. The author of their being has handed down to us, in his own inimitable way, his conception of them. Here it is:
“Sir Robert Chiltern. A man of forty, but looking somewhat younger. Clean-shaven, with finely-cut features, dark-haired and dark-eyed. A personality of mark. Not popular—few personalities are. But intensely admired by the few, and deeply respected of the many. The note of his manner is that of perfect distinction, with a slight touch of pride. One feels that he is conscious of the success he has made in life. A nervous temperament, with a tired look. The firmly-chiselled mouth and chin contrast strikingly with the romantic expression in the deep-set eyes. The variance is suggestive of an almost complete separation of passion and intellect, as though thought and emotion were each isolated in its own sphere through some violence of will-power. There is no nervousness in the nostrils, and in the pale, thin, pointed hands. It would be inaccurate to call him picturesque. Picturesqueness cannot survive the House of Commons. But Vandyck would have liked to paint his head.”
Of Lady Chiltern we do not get more than that she is “a woman of grave Greek beauty about twenty-seven years of age.”
This is Lord Goring: “Thirty-four, but always says he is younger. A well-bred expressionless face. He is clever, but would not like to be thought so. A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.”
Mrs Cheveley, the âme damée of the plot, is thus portrayed: “Tall, and rather slight. Lips very thin and highly coloured, a line of scarlet on a pallid face. Venetian red hair, aquiline nose, a long throat. Rouge accentuates the natural paleness of her complexion. Grey-green eyes that move restlessly. She is in heliotrope, with diamonds. She looks rather like an orchid, and makes great demands on one’s curiosity. In all her movements she is extremely graceful. A work of art on the whole, but showing the influence of too many schools.”
In these delicious word-pictures we gain for once an idea as to how the author considered his characters, both physically and psychically. It is interesting to note that of the four published plays this is the only one in which such intimate directions are to be found. Was the author, for once in a way, allowing himself a measure of poetic licence, and giving free but eminently unpractical play to his imagination? Who may tell? At anyrate, however high he may have soared in his requirements of the performers, he comes down steadily to earth in his management of the plot, which is acted out on these lines.
In the first act we find Lady Chiltern, whose husband is Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, giving a party at her house in Grosvenor Square. Here, among other fashionable folk who flit across the scene, we are introduced to Lord Goring, between whom and Mabel Chiltern there is evidently a more or less serious flirtation going on, especially on the young lady’s side. Shortly after his first entrance Lord Goring “saunters over to Mabel Chiltern.”
Mabel Chiltern. You are very late!
Lord Goring. Have you missed me?
Mabel Chiltern. Awfully!
Lord Goring. Then I am sorry I did not stay away longer. I like being missed.
Mabel Chiltern. How very selfish of you.
Lord Goring. I am very selfish.
Mabel Chiltern. You are always telling me of your bad qualities, Lord Goring.
Lord Goring. I have only told you half of them as yet, Miss Mabel....
Mabel Chiltern. Well, I delight in your bad qualities. I wouldn’t have you part with one of them.
Lord Goring. How very nice of you! But then you are always nice. By the way, I want to ask you a question, Miss Mabel. Who brought Mrs Cheveley here? That woman in heliotrope who has just gone out of the room with your brother?
Mabel Chiltern. Oh, I think Lady Markby brought her. Why do you ask?
Lord Goring. I hadn’t seen her for years, that is all.
But Lord Goring did not say, of course, all he knew about the brilliant Mrs Cheveley, who is very répondue in the diplomatic world at Vienna, and has, in her day, been the heroine of much pretty gossip. The object of her present visit to London is to obtain an introduction to Sir Robert Chiltern, and it is when they first meet that the dramatic interest of the story commences. The lady, it appears, has invested largely, too largely, in a great political and financial scheme called the Argentine Canal Company, acting on the advice of a certain Baron Arnheim, now dead, who was also a friend of Sir Robert Chiltern’s. When Mrs Cheveley informs Sir Robert what her position is, he denounces the scheme as “a commonplace Stock Exchange swindle.”
Sir Robert Chiltern. Believe me, Mrs Cheveley, it is a swindle.... I sent out a special commission to inquire into the matter privately and they report that the works are hardly begun, and as for the money already subscribed, no one seems to know what has become of it.
A little later on he says “the success of the Canal depends of course on the attitude of England, and I am going to lay the report of the Commissioners before the House of Commons.”
Mrs Cheveley. That you must not do. In your own interests, Sir Robert, to say nothing of mine, you must not do that.
Sir Robert Chiltern. (Looking at her in wonder.) In my own interests? My dear Mrs Cheveley, what do you mean? (Sits down beside her.)
Mrs Cheveley. Sir Robert, I will be quite frank with you. I want you to withdraw the report that you had intended to lay before the House, on the ground that you have reason to believe that the Commissioners had been prejudiced or misinformed or something.... Will you do that for me? (Naturally Sir Robert is indignant at the proposition, and proposes to call the lady’s carriage for her.)
Sir Robert Chiltern. You have lived so long abroad, Mrs Cheveley, that you seem to be unable to realise that you are talking to an English gentleman.
Mrs Cheveley. (Detains him by touching his arm with her fan, and keeping it there while she is talking.) I realise that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.
This is unfortunately only too true. For, years ago, when secretary to Lord Radley, “a great important minister,” Sir Robert has written to Baron Arnheim a letter telling the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares—a letter written three days before the Government announced its own purchase, and which letter also is in Mrs Cheveley’s possession! Here is a fine situation with a vengeance! By threatening to publish the scandal and the proofs of it in some leading newspaper, Mrs Cheveley induces the unfortunate Sir Robert to consent to withdraw the report, and state in the House that he believes there are possibilities in the scheme. In return for which she will give him back the compromising letter. So far, so good. She has won her cause. But, true woman as she is, she cannot conceal her triumph from Lady Chiltern as she is leaving the party.
Lady Chiltern. Why did you wish to meet my husband, Mrs Cheveley?
Mrs Cheveley. Oh, I will tell you. I wanted to interest him in this Argentine Canal Scheme, of which I daresay you have heard. And I found him most susceptible—susceptible to reason,—I mean. A rare thing in a man. I converted him in ten minutes. He is going to make a speech in the House to-morrow night, in favour of the idea. We must go to the Ladies’ Gallery and hear him. It will be a great occasion.
And so she goes gaily away, leaving her hostess perplexed and troubled. But in weaving her web round the hapless husband, she had not reckoned on the influence of the wife to disentangle it, and set the victim free. Yet, in a finely-conceived, and equally well-written, scene this is what actually happened. The company have all departed and they are alone together.
Lady Chiltern. Robert, it is not true, is it? You are not going to lend your support to this Argentine speculation? You couldn’t.
Sir Robert Chiltern. (Starting.) Who told you I intended to do so?
Lady Chiltern. That woman who has just gone out.... Robert, I know this woman. You don’t. We were at school together.... She was sent away for being a thief. Why do you let her influence you?
Then after much painful probing as to why he has so suddenly changed his attitude towards the scheme, she elicits the reason.
Sir Robert Chiltern. But if I told you——
Lady Chiltern. What?
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 adventitious 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 assures 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 rectitude. And Lord Goring departs sorrowing, but not before he has assured her of his friendship 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 space) 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 passage of arms occurs between them, when Lady Chiltern discusses her adversary, who boasts herself the ally of her husband.
Lady Chiltern. How dare you class 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 friendship, 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 Canal 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 document 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. Voilà 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?
Lord Goring. Yes, much better than when I saw it last.
Mrs Cheveley. When did you see it last?
Lord Goring. (Calmly.) Oh! ten years ago, on Lady Berkshire, from whom you stole it.
Now, he has her in his power. The bracelet cannot be unclasped unless she knows the secret of the spring, and she is at his mercy, a convicted thief. He moves towards the bell to summon his servant to fetch the police. “To-morrow the Berkshires will prosecute you.” What is she to do? She will do anything in the world he wants.
Lord Goring. Give me Robert Chiltern’s letter.
Mrs Cheveley. I have not got it with me. I will give it you to-morrow.
Lord Goring. You know you are lying. Give it me at once. (Mrs Cheveley pulls the letter out and hands it to him. She is horribly pale.) This is it?
Mrs Cheveley. (In a hoarse voice.) Yes.
Whereupon he burns it over the lamp. So letter number one is got out of the way. But there is letter number two: Lady Chiltern’s to Lord Goring. The accomplished thief sees it just showing from under the blotting-book; asks Lord Goring for a glass of water, and while his back is turned steals it. So, though she has lost the day on one count she has gained it on another. With a bitter note of triumph in her voice she tells Lord Goring that she is going to send Lady Chiltern’s “love-letter” to him to Sir Robert. He tries to wrest it from her, but she is too quick for him, and rings the electric bell. Phipps appears, and she is safe.
Mrs Cheveley. (After a pause.) Lord Goring merely rang that you should show me out. Good-night, Lord Goring.
And on this fine situation the curtain falls.
Space does not permit me more than to indicate how, in the fourth and last act, Sir Robert Chiltern has roundly denounced the Argentine Canal Scheme in the House of Commons, and with it the whole system of modern political finance. How Lady Chiltern’s letter to Lord Goring does reach her husband, and is by him supposed to be addressed to him. How Lady Chiltern undeceives him, and confesses the truth. How Lord Goring becomes engaged to Mabel, and Sir Robert Chiltern accepts, after some hesitation, a vacant seat in the Cabinet, and peace is restored all round. These episodes, cleverly and naturally handled, bring “The Ideal Husband” to a satisfactory conclusion. It is certainly the most dramatic of all Oscar Wilde’s comedies, and could well bear revival.