Plays
too am worried about Claire--and this, (_looking at the plants_)
TOM: It's her best chance.
DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India--for ever--leaving Claire's
future uncertain?
TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being cruel.
DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer.
TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering--I don't like
them.
DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation.
TOM: I grant you it may be. (_They are silent_) I had an odd feeling
that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that we were plants.
And you were a beautiful plant, and I--I was a very ugly plant. I
confess it surprised me--finding myself so ugly a plant.
(_A young girl is seen outside_. HARRY _gets the door open for her and
brings_ ELIZABETH _in_.)
HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr
Demming--Richard Demming--the artist--and I think you and Mr Edgeworthy
are old friends.
(ELIZABETH _comes forward. She is the creditable young American--well
built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an expression of the usual as to
be able to meet the world with assurance--assurance which training has
made rather graceful. She is about seventeen--and mature. You feel solid
things behind her_.)
TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great deal
then.
ELIZABETH: (_laughing, with ease_) And scream, I haven't a doubt. But
I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you who gave me the
idol.
TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid.
ELIZABETH: I beg--? Oh--_yes (laughing cordially_) I _see. (she
doesn't_) I dressed the idol up in my doll's clothes. They fitted
perfectly--the idol was just the size of my doll Ailine. But mother
didn't like the idol that way, and tore the clothes getting them off.
(_to_ HARRY, _after looking around_) Is mother here?
HARRY: (_crossly_) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. And she must
know you're here, (_after looking in the inner room he goes to the
trap-door and makes a great noise_)
ELIZABETH: Oh--_please_. Really--it doesn't make the least difference.
HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your
mother's.
ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I have to
have good manners. (_lightly, but leaving the impression there is a
certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. Turning cordially
to_ DICK) My father was an artist.
DICK: Yes, I know.
ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits?
DICK: Well, not the kind people buy.
ELIZABETH: They bought father's.
DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind.
HARRY: (_still irritated_) Why, you don't do portraits.
DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a milk-can.
ELIZABETH: (_laughing delightedly_) No? Not really? Did you think--How
could you think--(_as_ HARRY _does not join the laugh_) Oh, I beg your
pardon. I--Does mother grow beautiful roses now?
HARRY: No, she does not.
(_The trap-door begins to move_. CLAIRE's _head appears_.)
ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long--(_she tries to overcome the
difficulties and embrace her mother_)
CLAIRE: (_protecting a box she has_) Careful, Elizabeth. We mustn't
upset the lice.
ELIZABETH: (_retreating_) Lice? (_but quickly equal even to lice_)
Oh--yes. You take it--them--off plants, don't you?
CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants.
ELIZABETH: (_weakly_) Oh, I thought you took them off.
CLAIRE: (_calling_) Anthony! (_he comes_) The lice. (_he takes them from
her_) (CLAIRE, _who has not fully ascended, looks at_ ELIZABETH,
_hesitates, then suddenly starts back down the stairs_.)
HARRY: (_outraged_) Claire! (_slowly she re-ascends--sits on the top
step. After a long pause in which he has waited for_ CLAIRE _to open a
conversation with her daughter_.) Well, and what have you been doing at
school all this time?
ELIZABETH: Oh--studying.
CLAIRE: Studying what?
ELIZABETH: Why--the things one studies, mother.
CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (_looks down cellar again_)
DICK: (_after another wait_) And what have you been doing besides
studying?
ELIZABETH: Oh--the things one does. Tennis and skating and dancing and--
CLAIRE: The things one does.
ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The--the things one does. Though I
haven't been in school these last few months, you know. Miss Lane took
us to Europe.
TOM: And how did you like Europe?
ELIZABETH: (_capably_) Oh, I thought it was awfully amusing. All the
girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm glad I'm an American.
CLAIRE: Why?
ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Why--mother! Of course one is glad one is an
American. All the girls--
CLAIRE: (_turning away_) O--h! (_a moan under the breath_)
ELIZABETH: Why, mother--aren't you well?
HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this.
ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can help
you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing something. One
does nowadays, doesn't one?--if you know what I mean. It was the war,
wasn't it, made it the thing to do something?
DICK: (_slyly_) And you thought, Claire, that the war was lost.
ELIZABETH: The _war? Lost!_ (_her capable laugh_) Fancy our losing a
war! Miss Lane says we should give _thanks_. She says we should each do
some expressive thing--you know what I mean? And that this is the
_keynote_ of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like
mother--growing flowers.
CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing?
ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. All the
girls--
CLAIRE: (_shaking her head as if to get something out_) S-hoo.
ELIZABETH: What is it, mother?
CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear--'All the girls!'
ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Mother was always so amusing. So _different_--if
you know what I mean. Vacations I've lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide,
you know.
CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children.
HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it.
ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to be
awfully amusing to be around with mother now--and help her with her
work. Help do some useful beautiful thing.
CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing.
ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane says
so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this impulse to do a
beautiful thing for the race. She says you are doing in your way what
the great teachers and preachers behind you did in theirs.
CLAIRE: (_who is good for little more_) Well, all I can say is, Miss
Lane is stung.
ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (_from this
slipping into more of a little girl manner_) Oh, she gave me a spiel one
day about living up to the men I come from.
(CLAIRE _turns and regards her daughter_.)
CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, I'd
have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be a stuffy
person. But now that--(_she here becomes the product of a superior
school_) values have shifted and such sensitive new things have been
liberated in the world--
CLAIRE: (_low_) Don't use those words.
ELIZABETH: Why--why not?
CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean.
ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean!
CLAIRE: (_turning away_) You're--stepping on the plants.
HARRY: (_hastily_) Your mother has been working awfully hard at all
this.
ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't you,
mother?
CLAIRE: (_trying for control_) You needn't--bother.
ELIZABETH: But I _want_ to. Help add to the wealth of the world.
CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding to the
wealth of the world!
ELIZABETH: But, mother--of course you are. To produce a new and better
kind of plant--
CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're better.
ELIZABETH: But--but what are they then?
CLAIRE: (_as if choked out of her_) They're different.
ELIZABETH: (_thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly_) But what's the
use of making them different if they aren't better?
HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer it?
CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it.
HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you know.
Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're doing?
CLAIRE: She is not interested.
ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to
understand what you are doing, and help you.
CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth.
HARRY: Why not let her try?
CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why do you
make me feel I should--(_goes to_ ELIZABETH) I will be good to you,
Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't done it, but--you'll see.
We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot of beaus around for you. Anything
else. Not--this is--Not this.
ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have been so
glad to--to share the thing that interests you. (_hurt borne with good
breeding and a smile_)
HARRY: Claire! (_which says, 'How can you?'_)
CLAIRE: (_who is looking at_ ELIZABETH) Yes, I will try.
TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says--anything else.
ELIZABETH: Why, of course--I don't at all want to intrude.
HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to brass
tacks and actually say what she's driving at.
CLAIRE: Oh--_Harry_. But yes--I will try. (_does try, but no words come.
Laughs_) When you come to say it it's not--One would rather not nail it
to a cross of words--(_laughs again_) with brass tacks.
HARRY: (_affectionately_) But I want to see you put things into words,
Claire, and realize just where you are.
CLAIRE: (_oddly_) You think that's a--good idea?
ELIZABETH: (_in her manner of holding the world capably in her hands_)
Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least idea of making
mother feel badly.
CLAIRE: (_desperately_) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know--where
we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants--(_beginning
flounderingly_) Perhaps they are less beautiful--less sound--than the
plants from which they diverged. But they have found--otherness,
(_laughs a little shrilly_) If you know--what I mean.
TOM: Claire--stop this! (_To_ HARRY) This is wrong.
CLAIRE: (_excitedly_) No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of
what they were--into something they were not; they've broken from the
forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's
it, outside; if you--know what I mean.
ELIZABETH: (_not shocked from what she is_) But of course, the object of
it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense
of doing it?
CLAIRE: (_not reached by_ ELIZABETH) Out there--(_giving it with her
hands_) lies all that's not been touched--lies life that waits. Back
here--the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it
doesn't even know itself for a pattern--in immensity. But this--has
invaded. Crept a little way into--what wasn't. Strange lines in life
unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with
life. And then you know that anything may be--if only you know how to
reach it. (_this has taken form, not easily, but with great struggle
between feeling and words_)
HARRY: (_cordially_) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I never knew before
why you called it the Edge Vine.
CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't--over the edge. It's
running, back to--'all the girls'. It's a little afraid of Miss Lane,
(_looking sombrely at it_) You are out, but you are not alive.
ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother.
CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. Dick--you know