*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79918 *** Release A One-Act Play Helen R. Hull The Touchstone, vol. 6, Dec. 1919, pp. 122-127. The scene: A small study, with plain oak desk, many low book shelves, filled with ponderous volumes and filing cases. Beside the desk, a heavy chaise longue, upholstered in flowered green stuff. The wide doors at the rear of the room are closed; the door leading off at the right is also closed. It is a plain, serious room, except for the bright chaise longue and the black bowl filled with calendulas on the corner of the desk next the longue. GEOFFREY MARCH is sitting behind the desk, going rapidly through papers he has poured out of one of the files. He is a man of forty, ruddy, inclined toward baldness; his bright blue eyes have an harassed look which seems out of character. The lines of his smooth face, his square shoulders, his quick steady hands, suggest a sanguine, easily expressed individual. As he sorts the papers and places some of them in a handbag on the desk beside him, he turns his head often toward the folding doors at the rear, his harassed look deepening. Finally he rises, brushes the discarded papers into the file, slips it into its place on the shelf, and, closing the handbag, tiptoes across the room to the door at the right. He picks up his hat and coat and, hugging them under his arm, lays his fingers on the door-knob. Slowly, without a sound, he turns the knob. The door swings open, and Geoffrey, with a last glance at the folding doors, sets one foot across the threshold. He hesitates, withdraws his foot, and stands, frowning. Suddenly, from behind the closed doors, comes a woman’s voice, clear, penetrating, plaintive. “Geoffrey, dear!” He wavers an instant; then, with a shrug, he pulls the door shut as gently as he had opened it, drops his hat and coat, and goes to the desk, where he thrusts the handbag out of sight. The voice repeats his name, plaintively. He goes to the doors at the rear and pushes them apart. The room behind is dimly lighted. GEOFFREY What is it, Eunice? THE VOICE Are you working? I have been alone for hours. GEOFFREY No. Is there anything you wish? THE VOICE I should like to come in, dear, unless you are too busy. GEOFFREY (Enters the room and returns, carrying in his arms his wife, EUNICE MARCH. Her fragile white arms cling to him tenaciously as he places her on the chaise lounge. He kneels beside her to adjust her soft yellow draperies.) There. Comfortable? EUNICE (Releasing him with a sigh, her black eyes, over-prominent in the small blanched oval of her face, following him as he goes to his seat behind the desk.) Yes. Quite. I had stared at those ugly shut doors until I thought I should scream! Just let me lie here where I can watch you. GEOFFREY I haven’t been in here a half hour! EUNICE You don’t know how long that is, by seconds! I began to have dreadful fancies about you—what you might be doing behind those closed doors. (Her lids droop over her eyes, warily.) GEOFFREY (Looks up, startled.) What kind of fancies? EUNICE (With along shudder.) I can’t tell you. Don’t make me think of them. (She turns her body slightly, resting one hand beneath her cheeks, extending the other to touch the bright orange flowers in the black bowl near her.) Make me forget them! GEOFFREY If you would have someone come in to sit with you when I am working— EUNICE Whom? You know I wish no one. No one—but you! (Her intensity leaps out like the spurt of a match.) GEOFFREY (He picks up a square envelope from the desk in front of him and revolves it in his fingers as he speaks.) If you would go out—there’s the car. The Doctor says there is no reason why you shouldn’t. EUNICE (Her hand dropping, pallid, into the soft chiffons of her robe.) I don’t wish to go. GEOFFREY (Quietly.) That’s it. You don’t wish to go. (He drops the letter, his hands clenching on the desk.) EUNICE Can’t you just go on working, Jeff? I ask nothing but to lie here. You used to like to have me here—while you worked. (Her voice drops into a whisper.) GEOFFREY I’ve not been working. My last experiment was ruined because I did not go to the laboratory in time. (He lifts his head and gazes at her with sombre eyes.) I have no work to do. EUNICE (With a low cry.) Oh, because I was ill, Jeff! GEOFFREY Eunice, will you talk with me a little? Without crying, I mean? or worse? EUNICE What do you mean? Why do you look at me that way? GEOFFREY I had not intended to say anything. But perhaps— EUNICE What is it? I am frightened! Come nearer, Jeff! Let me touch your hand—you are so far away! GEOFFREY No. I wish to talk with you. Did you know that Liggett has been appointed professor over me, because my contributions the last five years have been so slight! A man ten years my junior! Do you know that the manuscript of my book must wait another year now, because I lost the results of that long experiment? Do you know— EUNICE You are blaming me! That I was ill—and needed you—(Her voice shrills.) GEOFFREY (Sternly.) If you won’t listen, Eunice, I shall—(He stops as she shrinks into her cushions, her eyes widening.) For years you have kept me silent when I would speak. Today I must speak. EUNICE You are cruel! GEOFFREY I see no other way. EUNICE When we married, Jeff, you did not care—about a professorship—or books. You loved me! That was enough! If the rest has slipped away, does it matter! GEOFFREY When we married, I loved you. We built us a house for our love. To me, it was a place where friends could come, where we could work and play. What was it to you? A place to shut out all the world. And I loved you so much that I tried, clumsily, to give you what you wished. You were restrained, shy, quiet—that you loved me was a miracle. EUNICE I love you now in ways to which that is nothing but a shadow. GEOFFREY (He does not look at her as he speaks, but down at his clenched, square hands.) You did not like my friends. You closed the house to them. You were unhappy when I sought them outside our house. EUNICE You were the world and more to me. What need had I of other people, stupid blundering folk, coming between you and me! GEOFFREY I thought that when the child came, it would be different. But it died. And you told me you were almost glad, because we were still alone together! (His voice has horror in it, and a stubborn determination.) You have narrowed the walls of this house until it is smaller, closer than a grave! I have tried to tell you how I suffocated in it, and you would not hear me. EUNICE (Her hand clutched to her heart.) You mean—you do not love me! You are tired of me—because I am sick! You have found some woman who is beautiful and strong! GEOFFREY I am through with love. You know there is no other woman. EUNICE You are killing me! (She wrenches herself higher on her cushions, her hand beating at her breast.) What have I done? What do you want? I have given you all I had— GEOFFREY You have taken from me all I had or was. I have tried to make you see, and you have closed your eyes and ears against me. You are clever. You can twist my clumsy words so that I am confounded, and am silent out of despair that you will not hear me. EUNICE Geoffrey, have you forgotten that first summer, you and I alone in the mountains? No one else, nothing else in the world. You had no need for anything but me! GEOFFREY I have not forgotten. Have you forgotten that first winter, when I plunged into work with all the energy and hope a man can have, and you dragged me back, enmeshing me in a net so fine I did not see it—your loneliness, your fear of strangers, your lack of strength. And I loved you so much I could not stand against you. I thought: perhaps that is a woman’s way of love, at first? I tried to bring things to you, my work, or friends, or pleasure, and you shut yourself up, icy, hurt, so that I reviled myself for a brute. EUNICE (She is lying high on her pillows, her body contracted, her cheeks flaring, her breath quickened. Her voice is strangled a little, as though her throat had become too rigid for words to pass.) That is a man’s way of love, perhaps! To throw it aside for casual, dull things, once he has tasted it! I wanted to keep it, beautiful, wonderful, as we had planned and dreamed it. GEOFFREY So you shut it up where it had nothing to feed on but itself. Love cannot last like that! You grew almost to hate me! You said bitter things, and then you cried and kissed me. And—well, loving you, I tried to give you what you wished. Then, two years ago, you may remember, I had that chance to go with Liggett to perfect and try out the instrument we had devised. You consented, reluctantly. The night I was to leave, and only for a month, you were taken ill. I had to give my designs to Liggett. The instrument is his now. EUNICE Are you blaming me for illness! Oh, you are— GEOFFREY I am not blaming you. I blame myself for my long folly. I am trying to show you—A year ago, when poor Thompson was dying, and sent for me, I wished to go. You said it was too far, that I could not spare the time, the money. I meant to go. Perhaps I meant never to come back. You couldn’t have known that, but again, the day I was to go, you had that terrible attack of heart trouble. When you were well enough so that I might have gone, Thompson was dead. He was the finest friend I had. (Geoffrey glances up, unexpectedly, and starts back at a faint, satiric smile on Eunice’s tense face.) Good God, did you know—you knew I meant to go! EUNICE (Slowly.) And if I did! GEOFFREY (Thrusts back his chair and stands, his hands on the desk, his body crouched.) You knew! Perhaps you know, now, what I mean to do! EUNICE (In a high, thin voice.) Your bag is there, at your feet, packed! That letter on your desk is written to me! (She wrests herself out of her chair. Her loose sleeve catches the bowl of flowers, crashing it to the floor. She stumbles across it and reaches Geoffrey. Her arms cling to his shoulders, slip down his body to his waist and twist there as she flings herself at his feet.) Jeff! Jeff! You can’t go! You can’t! (Geoffrey straightens himself, his arms clenched above his head, against his chest.) Jeff, you are all I have! I won’t let you go. I—I will try to let you do whatever you wish. But I love you! I won’t—(She breaks into sobbing. Geoffrey lifts her from the floor and carries her back to the longue. He pulls her arms away and stands beside her. After a moment, her sobs become long, tearing breaths. She reaches for his hand, but he steps back.) GEOFFREY It is too late, Eunice. Neither of us can manage things that way, now. I have made every arrangement. There is money enough. The Doctor has engaged a woman. EUNICE (With a cry.) Then I shall kill myself! If you go, I shall kill myself tonight! GEOFFREY You have told me that before. Perhaps you mean it. I have had to think of that. EUNICE (Sits up, bracing herself with her hands at the edges of her couch.) I have a pistol, Jeff. I have had it, oh, a long time. You think I only threaten you! GEOFFREY (Dully.) I don’t know. I only know that if I stay another day in this terrible house, I shall go crazy. You can not frighten me now. I have seen things more horrible than death. EUNICE Geoffrey, I shall shoot myself tonight! GEOFFREY I have left you an address, in that note, where letters can reach me. If you need anything— EUNICE (In a whisper.) I shall shoot myself, tonight! GEOFFREY I thought—but it was only a weak phantasy—that someday when I had built up my life again, you might come—and share it with me. (With a quick movement, he picks up his bag, seizes his hat and coat, and pushes open the door. Eunice has fallen sidewise on her couch, her arms flung up across her face. Geoffrey looks at her, his face quivering, as though he fought with himself against a storm of tears. Then he closes the door.) Transcriber’s Notes Transcribed from The Touchstone, vol. 6, Dec. 1919, pp. 122-127. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79918 ***