GWENDOLEN [Drawing back.] A moment! May I ask if you are engaged to be married to this young lady? [Points to CECILY.]
JACK [Laughing.] To dear little Cecily! Of course not! What could have put such an idea into your pretty head?
GWENDOLEN Thank you. You may! [Offers her cheek.]
CECILY [Very sweetly.] I knew there must be some misunderstanding, Miss Fairfax. The gentleman whose arm is at present round your waist is my guardian, Mr. John Worthing.
GWENDOLEN I beg your pardon?
CECILY This is Uncle Jack.
GWENDOLEN [Receding.] Jack! Oh!
[Enter ALGERNON.]
CECILY Here is Ernest.
ALGERNON [Goes straight over to CECILY without noticing any one else.] My own love! [Offers to kiss her.]
CECILY [Drawing back.] A moment, Ernest! May I ask you – are you engaged to be married to this young lady?
ALGERNON [Looking round.] To what young lady? Good heavens! Gwendolen!
CECILY Yes! to good heavens, Gwendolen, I mean to Gwendolen.
ALGERNON [Laughing.] Of course not! What could have put such an idea into your pretty little head?
CECILY Thank you. [Presenting her cheek to be kissed.] You may.
[ALGERNON kisses her.]
GWENDOLEN I felt there was some slight error, Miss Cardew. The gentleman who is now embracing you is my cousin, Mr. Algernon Moncrieff.
CECILY [Breaking away from ALGERNON.] Algernon Moncrieff! Oh! [The two girls move towards each other and put their arms round each other’s waists as if for protection.]
EXTRACT B
What’s in a name?
LADY BRACKNELL [In a severe, judicial voice.] Prism! [MISS PRISM bows her head in shame.] Come here. Prism! [MISS PRISM approaches in a humble manner.] Prism! Where is that baby? [General consternation. The CANON starts back in horror. ALGERNON and JACK pretend to be anxious to shield CECILY and GWENDOLEN from hearing the details of a terrible public scandal.] Twenty-eight years ago, Prism, you left Lord Bracknell’s house, Number 104, Upper Grosvenor Street, in charge of a perambulator that contained a baby of the male sex. You never returned. A few weeks later, through the elaborate investigations of the Metropolitan police, the perambulator was discovered at midnight, standing by itself in a remote corner of Bayswater. It contained the manuscript of a three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality. [MISS PRISM starts in involuntary indignation.] But the baby was not there! [Every one looks at MISS PRISM.] Prism! Where is the baby? [A pause.]
MISS PRISM Lady Bracknell, I admit with shame that I do not know. I only wish I did. The plain facts of the case are these. On the morning of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory, I prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator. I had also with me a somewhat old, but capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my few unoccupied hours. In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I never can forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the basinette, and placed the baby in the hand-bag.
JACK [Who has been listening attentively.] But where did you deposit the hand-bag?
MISS PRISM Do not ask me, Mr. Worthing.
JACK Miss Prism, this is a matter of no small importance to me. I insist on knowing where you deposited the hand-bag that contained that infant.
MISS PRISM I left it in the cloak-room of one of the larger railway stations in
London.
JACK What railway station?
MISS PRISM [Quite crushed.] Victoria. The Brighton line. [Sinks into a chair.]
JACK I must retire to my room for a moment. Gwendolen, wait here for me.
GWENDOLENIf you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life. [Exit JACK in great excitement.]
EXTRACT C
What’s in a name?
LADY BRACKNELLAre your parents living?
JACK I have lost both my parents.
LADY BRACKNELL To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?
JACK I am afraid I really don’t know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me... I don’t actually know who I am by birth. I was... well, I was found.
LADY BRACKNELL Found?
JACK The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.
LADY BRACKNELL Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?
JACK [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.
LADY BRACKNELL In a hand-bag?
JACK [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag – a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it – an ordinary hand-bag in fact.
LADY BRACKNELL In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?
JACK In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.
LADY BRACKNELL The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
JACK Yes. The Brighton line.
(from Making Headway Literature. Advanced, by B.Bowler, S.Parminter. Un.13)