Eliza Doolittle, Lily Bouwmeester, is at the heart of a lively incident in Covent Garden when linguist Professor Higgins, Johan De Meester, is mistaken for a policeman by passers-by and bystanders, while the flower seller protests the disruption. In the aftermath, Higgins chats with Colonel Pickering, Eduard Verkade, a fellow scholar who has just arrived from India to meet him. Higgins argues that if Eliza could be taught to speak with precision and confidence, she could sculpt a brighter future for herself and even pass as a duchess.
The next morning, Eliza arrives at Higgins’ house to request elocution lessons. Colonel Pickering makes a friendly bet, offering to cover all expenses if Higgins can back up his boast. Eliza is escorted upstairs for a bath by Mrs Pearce, the housekeeper, just as Alfred Doolittle—the dustman and Eliza’s father—stumbles in to demand compensation for losing his daughter. Amused by Doolittle’s roguish charm, Higgins offers him £10, but Doolittle insists on £5, explaining that as one of the “undeserving poor” he only wants enough for a drunken weekend.
After a rigorous training period, Eliza is sent to an at-home gathering hosted by Mrs Higgins, the professor’s mother. There, even though she speaks with a refined accent, her slang-filled chatter and profanity scandalize the guests. Yet one guest, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, is captivated by her presence. After the guests depart, Mrs Higgins voices her disapproval that Eliza’s two protectors treat her more like a plaything than a person deserving respect.
Weeks of coaching lead to a public test at an embassy reception. Higgins and Pickering bring Eliza along, and Higgins encounters a former pupil, Count Aristid Karpathy, a Hungarian who has become famous for teaching American heiresses how to master elocution and for spotting social origins from speech. Fearing exposure, Higgins and Pickering worry that Karpathy might expose Eliza, but she manages to deceive him so convincingly that he mistakes her for a Hungarian princess—the result is that her English sounds so impeccable that it seems inauthentically native.
On the return from the reception, Higgins and Pickering congratulate each other on their success, yet they overlook Eliza’s own contribution and, more importantly, her feelings. Wounded by their indifference, Eliza quarrels with Higgins, even throwing his slippers in his face when he asks for them, and laments that she may be unsuited to the life she dreamed of. She seeks refuge at Mrs Higgins’s home, seeking a little warmth and guidance.
The next morning, Higgins visits his mother and learns that Eliza is staying with her, but before they can meet, Mr Doolittle arrives to complain about the upheaval Higgins has caused in his life. Higgins had once joked to an American millionaire that Doolittle was England’s most original moralist, and that whim of a bequest has now placed Doolittle on a path to respectability—an obligation he cannot ignore. He prepares to attend a fashionable London church wedding to his unwed partner, and he asks for Eliza, Pickering, and Mrs Higgins to support him through the ordeal.
Higgins and Eliza are left alone for a moment, and he tries to coax her back into his life, but she resists, insisting that she would rather marry Freddy, who is charming though financially precarious. When Higgins scoffs at that idea, Eliza reveals her resolve: she could use her newly acquired talents to offer elocution lessons herself and gain financial independence.
As the wedding party departs, Higgins wanders home in a contemplative mood and discovers a recording of Eliza’s first visit playing in his study. He then hears a knock at the door and, to his astonishment, Eliza returns, her voice now mocking her former self as she repeats, “I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.” He turns away, asking for his slippers, leaving their future together shrouded in ambiguity and possibility.
> I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.
