Act IV  scene 1-a imagined continued act for “the importance of being earnest” by aemelia

Dramatis personae

Algernon, Jack, Dr. Chasuble, Lane

Algernon  (lounges upon a silk-laid chaise longue):
Lane, pray, let us serve our guests our specialty, the Eucharist of Bunbury Ernest. A decadent celebration of His holiness, Bunbury Ernst’s canonization and a sharing of his flesh and blood in the form of sandwiches and liquor.
 

Lane: Yes sir. (disappears, reappears moments with a bottle of golden,
bubbling champagne, three cups filled with the substance, an uncorked, cellar-temperatured bottle of sherry, and 13 cucumber sandwiches, all delivered on a salver)

Algernon: That’ll do perfectly. (takes a cup of champagne before settling down on the sofa) To our new saint-invalid, the Earnest who has never once been not Ernest or earnest, hereby canonized in the art of Bunbury, and who shall now be the patron of all our defection from Society’s bore. (raises his glass to Jack’s direction)(takes out a sandwich and mock prays like he is offering blessings to the invalid friend, then puts the sandwich alongside a small cup of new-corked sherry upon the window-still as if expecting the friend to descend from the panes and feast)

Ah, good gentlemen, one must be Ernest to afford not to be earnest!

Jack: Ha! what irony! (clinks his glass with Algernon before)

Dr. Chasuble: (also raises glass) (takes out a small gold flecked rosewood box from his lap, unlocks to reveal scented tobacco leaves inside, hands them around for all to stuff their pipes, then reclines upon another chaise longue) I don’t smoke a lot myself but, good gentlemen, this sacred union with your beloved folk and favorable turn of events is indeed worth celebrating.

Algernon: (straightens up posture and laces fingers) So, good sirs, I have sent you invitations under our good salvation, Mr Bunbury’s name for something more.. serious. (takes another sandwich and delicately toys with it) I propose that we now ascend into the Earnest society. (takes puff of smoke from pipe to produce a small smoke cirlcle) Here, we shall share our shared invalid friend and heed his advice in dealing with Life: one must play at marriage as one plays the twin ivory and ebony keys of pianos-with sentiment and disdain for accuracy or piety to truth and morality, for music is played with your heart’s whims.

Jack: (chuckles) all hail the keys to Holy Ernest’s jovial psalms and sandwich-wafers, indeed! (puffs out smoke. the air smells like flower-wine)

Dr Chasuble: Holy Ernest? has he been baptized yet?

Algernon(deadpan): Yes, indeed. Long, long ago. and he has now been canonized as a saint of our gatherings.

Dr Chasuble: ah, a most noble man, i see.

Algernon: indeed-one may call him a repentant son who has achieved salvation through insincerity and has went around to perfect moral strength again. And we shall be his little cult- he shall be the thirteenth saint to replace Judas’s place!

Jack: Ha! That explains our offering by the window-still.

Algernon: And this is why life after marriage without knowing Bunbury would be uninteresting at all. Knowing Bunbury Ernst-most appropriate for impressing upon our heart’s interests! And now, under his wing, we decadent invalids shall be, by the good hands of Euchrist, transformed into Earnests.

Jack: But must we continue this descent into recursive and decadent Bunburying?

Algernon(sad smile) Ah, it is impolite to call our great church by such a name. But ah, you will see that our lounging-wont joys, though they are as non-character building as our smoke, will become a relief of air from marriage’s dull. (puffs out smoke)

Dr. Chasuble: Oh dear sir, I really do hope that matrimony is not as dull as we suspect.

Algernon: Amen. Now, now, let us raise our glasses to the name of Bunbury Ernst. Lane, pray, do bring us the Scripture of Being Earnest. (Lane produces Algernon’s leather notebook, in which he had jotted down the “tales” of Bunbury so the art of Bunburying does not collapse in self contradictions), then retreats to the shadows behind Algernon’s chair) Come, dear gentlemen, let us spend our spare time each making a tale about our dear patron saint and telling it after(checks waistwatch) 13 minutes. And pray, make it improbable but not too illogical as to be obvious.

Lane: (steps out of the shadow) S-sir, I believe Doctor Chasuble has an invite from Ms Prism as of now!

Algernon: I see. Mr Chasuble, may the new-built ship of your relations fare well upon the waters of Time.

Dr. Chasuble: Thank you. (sneaks his own sandwich to Lane quietly as a nicety; Algernon pretends not to see it)

scene 2
Dramatis Personae: Ms Prism, Cecily, Dr. Chasuble, Lady Bracknell, Cornelia
Bracknell: (reclining in Ms Prism’s velvet sofa by the ebony tea-table) Dear ladies, I heard that you hoped to join me in luncheon for a most…Earnest matter? Why, has this anything to do with Algernon’s…. revelations?

Ms Prism: Indeed. I should think we ladies could use more… earnestness in our discussion of life. Though Algy is certainly lacking reform, we may study his recent Earnesty and perhaps speak with less pretense about the rote courtship rites we must perform to select a good partner.

Bracknell: Mrs.Chasuble! It is unseemly for us to speak of Society as if it has abandoned us! I should think we ought to be more… courteous.

Cecily(leans forward with a less jovial complexion): Ms Bracknell! The men get to openly disregard the stifling social events as dull as our textbooks like they were mere; why can’t we? I’ve been thinking after my marriage: are marrying into earnest families and sifting them truly our only way to a better life?  And why are the noble madams around us living so interestingly in pain, tied by lace or sometimes by toil?

Ms Prism: Indeed. A lady in our present society is like a frail blossom collected by the vases of the gentlemen: once our petals shrank into brown wrinkles and our golden nectar runs dry, we are left alone in misery by our husbandry. And so, it is necessary for us ladies to find some other path in society, one where we may grow into proper trees instead of being frail flowers pruned like bonsais. Cecily, you have read Political economy; pray, do tell us thy opinion.


Cecily (serious and grave): Dear miss, I read the chapter on the fall of the rupee while you were on a stroll; t’was not really as sensational as you say. Indeed, I think this is one of the more interesting tales I have read. I heard horrid things are happening to the Indians who the textbooks claim were being “civilized”! Finally, a tale that doesn’t have a plain old good ending! Ms Prism, thanks to you I have met your friend, Miss Cornelia, and I saw her living compassion while in in pains; she is a most wise, kind lady, quite the good acquaintance, and she is occupied working the looms with diligence, but yet she doesn’t fare well, nor do her friends in the new factories; really, many have been cast out for being hurt by the spinning mechanisms or passed with cotton in their lungs, swept out of the doors and left out to die, not even allowed to have the meager salary they’ve earnt! She has spoken with sadness of India’s metallic issues; she had a fellow weaver correspondence in the colonies there, upon that land, said to be the imperial crown jewel. Her friend listed quite the grievance; they were toiling even more these days just to make a living, and the officers extracted their feeble savings every so often to pay the so-called glories of war! The metallic article made no melodramatic flourish after all! I once only thought it was intrigue beyond the plain tales of the textbook-but ah, a grave chasm in civil society has revealed its gaping mouth to me and my dear teacher!

Ms Prism: (stoking stove) Indeed, dear Cecilia. When you were young, Mrs Bracknell, you spoke highly of a certain Cornelia, one of your less well-off acquaintances in the country. I should think it is her! So I invited her to our little luncheon to see what she may share about our society.

(enter Cornelia in plain, thick but disheveled coat, right hand curled into the sleeve; Ms. Bracknell frowns a little like she knows that complexion and is unpleasantly surprised by it’s owner’s present state)

Cornelia: Good day, honorable ladies! (cheerily greets the people with a curtsy and carefully folds away the coat to reveal slightly threadbare and overwashed-pale long sleeve garb)

Ms Prism: (very joyful expression takes out a mug of red wine with warm oranges inside, some cherry jam and butter, and a warm sandwich made of white bread and leftover cold cuts) Dear Cora, come sit, come sit! Welcome!

Ms Bracknell: ( frowning out of disbelief, trying to be kind and civil out of recognition)  Cornelia! My goodness, I certainly didn’t expect you, a rather talented fellow student, to end up in such a hassle!

Cornelia: (sighs tiredly) Ms Bracknell, the golden fruits life has given you may induce you to forget-as they say, the noble and the fortunate forget often-but my artisan family in the countryside has a rather dwindling revenue source thanks to the smoke-pouting machines that fill our world now, and we are in quite a lack for funds as our owned lands shrink from sales, forcing me to take on a new profession in the mills. The papers says it is an opportunity, but really it’s an unsanitized factory that squeezes our time and energy dry. Perfectly good folk go into this dusty, uncleanable conveyor belt of a workplace and come out missing fingers or sometimes entire limbs. And meanwhile, the foremen drive us on like slaves. I heard our wages were not even half as much as our male bretheren in the other factories!
Ms Prism(with genuine concern): How have things been these days, my dear Cora?

 Cornelia: (crosses herself with left hand) (takes out trembling right hand from sleeve, wrapped in greyish gauze, and the vague silhouette misses an index finger) I, too, had been injured by these mechanisms. One of my older friends recently lost her left foot to the looms and their iron teeth by accident. Her bleed blossomed into fountains of rust, and she was fortunate to have been bandaged soon enough. And she prayed to Christ with joy when she recovered alive-she thanked Him for letting her be able to continue work, to continue being paid…

Ms Bracknell: (pale) Mon Dieu!(sips warm wine to recover from the fright

Cornelia(sips a little more warm wine): Good ladies. This isn’t the half of it. I’ve seen my friends, proper ladies of virtue, hair tattered and clothes stained shades of dust, belly-crawling to draw up carts of coal from narrow, cold mine shafts. And for this they are paid a quarter of the male worker’s wages and laughed at by the foremen. Their husbands are toiling in the mines, lungs troubled by the damp dust, haunted by underground fires and excessive labor, digging from before sunrise to long after sunset just to earn enough to feed their families. Their abodes are lacking in warmth-ironic, no? (bitter smile) And faraway, our looms are fed by the work of hands like my correspondence’s, who are bearing a heavy financial burden from the Britannia we were told to take pride from and must tribute their priceless silk-threads to the machines we work at a loss of wealth, for those are the orders. Their men, too, must engage in trades profitable to the empire and to little benefit for themselves…
(ms Prism sheds tears. Cecilia is praying while counting worn rosewood beads. Ms Bracknell has taken out her silk napkin and is dabbing away at her tear)

Ms Bracknell(sips several sips of warm wine to recover her complexion): Poor Cora! How did you survive this grand intransigence?

Cornelia: (smiles more proudly) We in the weaving factory now know each other well and help each other around. We’ve formed an association for us working women, ma’am, and we’ve had the help of Ms Cecily and ms Prism

Ms Bracknell: (drops napkin in shock) : E-excuse me, a what?

Ms Cecily(beaming!): An association, dear ma’am, one that seeks rights for laborers and us women. An international one at that, too. We have invited ms Cornelia’s correspondence in India and proposed the idea. She was most open to the suggestion and helped us organize her friends at her factory and neighborhood!

Ms Prism(beaming<3): And we’ve been hoping, dear Ms Bracknell, that perchance you’d be interested in patroning us, transforming us into a proper organization?

Ms bracknell: (in shock, again): O fortune! O death! (daintily extends a trembling pale finger to touch Cecily’s forehead)(lowers voice) Have you caught the Red fever? God forbid- is this what times have come to? Associations formed by us? What would your husband say, honorable Ms Prism? What would the noble women speculate about us at the next fashionable tea party?