Delphi complete works of.., p.42
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 42
He sees his wife’s attitude and hears her say “Riviera, Amalfi, Orangieri, Contadini and Capello Santo.” It is enough. He drops his parliamentary papers. They fall against the fire irons with a crash. These in falling upset a small table with one leg. The ball of wool that is on it falls to the floor. The noise of this disturbs the lovers.
They turn. All three look at one another. For a moment they make a motion as if to ring for tea. Then they stand petrified.
“You!” gasps Lady Cicely. She does this awfully well. Everybody says afterward that it was just splendid when she said “You.”
Sir John stands gazing in horror. “Him! My God! He!” Mr. Harding says nothing. He looks very weak.
Lady Cicely unpetrifies first.
She breaks out, speaking through her nostrils. “Yes, I love him, I love him. I’m not ashamed of it. What right have you to deny it me? You gave me nothing. You made me a chattel, a thing — —”
You can feel the rustle of indignation through the house at this. To make a woman a thing is the crowning horror of a problem play.
“You starved me here. You throttled me.” Lady Cicely takes herself by the neck and throttles herself a little to show how.
“You smothered me. I couldn’t breathe — and now I’m going, do you hear, going away, to life, to love, behind the beyond!” She gathers up Mr. Harding (practically) and carries him passionately away. He looks back weakly as he goes.
Sir John has sunk down upon a chair. His face is set.
“Jack,” he mutters, “my God, Jack!”
As he sits there, the valet enters with a telegram on a tray.
“A telegram, Sir John.”
Sir John (dazed and trying to collect himself), “What?”
“A telegram, sir, — a cablegram.”
Sir John takes it, opens it and reads aloud:
“He is dead. My duty is ended. I am coming home — Margaret Harding.”
“Margaret coming home. It only needed that — my God.”
. . . . . . .
As he says it, the curtain falls.
The lights flick up. There is a great burst of applause. The curtain rises and falls. Lady Cicely and Mr. Harding and Sir John all come out and bow charmingly. There is no trace of worry on their faces, and they hold one another’s hands. Then the curtain falls and the orchestra breaks out into a Winter Garden waltz. The boxes buzz with discussion. Some of the people think that Lady Cicely is right in claiming the right to realize herself: others think that before realizing herself she should have developed herself. Others ask indignantly how she could know herself if her husband refused to let her be herself. But everybody feels that the subject is a delicious one.
Those of the people who have seen the play before very kindly explain how it ends, so as to help the rest to enjoy it. But the more serious-minded of the men have risen, very gently, and are sneaking up the aisles. Their expression is stamped with deep thought as if pondering over the play. But their step is as that of leopards on the march, and no one is deceived as to their purpose.
The music continues. The discussion goes on.
The leopards come stealing back. The orchestra boils over in a cadence and stops. The theater is darkened again. The footlights come on with a flash. The curtain silently lifts, and it is —
Act II. — Six Months Later
THE PROGRAMS RUSTLE. The people look to see where it is. And they find that it is “An Apartment in Paris.” Notice that this place which is used in every problem play is just called An Apartment. It is not called Mr. Harding’s Apartment, or an Apartment for which Mr. Harding pays the Rent. Not a bit. It is just an Apartment. Even if it were “A Apartment” it would feel easier. But “An Apartment”!! The very words give the audience a delicious shiver of uncomfortableness.
When the curtain rises it discloses a French maid moving about the stage in four-dollar silk stockings. She is setting things on a little table, evidently for supper. She explains this in French as she does it, so as to make it clear.[Illus]
Their expression is stamped with deep thought.
“Bon! la serviette de monsieur! bon! la serviette de madame, bien — du champagne, bon! langouste aux champignons, bien, bon.—” This is all the French she knows, poor little thing, but langouste aux champignons beats the audience, so she is all right.
Anyway, this supper scene has to come in. It is symbolical. You can’t really show Amalfi and Fiesole and the orange trees, so this kind of supper takes their place.
As the maid moves about there is a loud knock at the cardboard door of the apartment. A man in official clothes sticks his head in. He is evidently a postal special messenger because he is all in postal attire with a postal glazed hat.
“Monsieur Arrding?” he says.
“Oui.”
“Bon! Une lettre.”
“Merci, monsieur.” He goes out. The audience feel a thrill of pride at having learned French and being able to follow the intense realism of this dialogue. The maid lays the letter on the supper table.
Just as she does it the door opens and there enter Mr. Harding and Lady Cicely. Yes, them. Both of them. The audience catches it like a flash. They live here.
Lady Cicely throws aside her cloak. There is great gaiety in her manner. Her face is paler. There is a bright spot in each cheek. Her eyes are very bright.
There follows the well-known supper scene. Lady Cicely is very gay. She pours champagne into Mr. Harding’s glass. They both drink from it. She asks him if he is a happy boy now. He says he is. She runs her fingers through his hair. He kisses her on the bare shoulder. This is also symbolic.
Lady Cicely rattles on about Amalfi and Fiesole. She asks Mr. Harding if he remembers that night in the olive trees at Santa Clara, with just one thrush singing in the night sky. He says he does. He remembers the very thrush. You can see from the talk that they have been all over Baedeker’s guide to the Adriatic.
At times Lady Cicely’s animation breaks. She falls into a fit of coughing and presses her hand to her side. Mr. Harding looks at her apprehensively. She says, “It is nothing, silly boy, it will be gone in a moment.” It is only because she is so happy.
He kisses her on the bare shoulder.
[Illus]Then, quite suddenly, she breaks down and falls at Mr. Harding’s knees.
“Oh, Jack, Jack, I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it any longer. It is choking me!”
“My darling, what is it?”
“This, all this, it is choking me — this apartment, these pictures, the French maid, all of it. I can’t stand it. I’m being suffocated. Oh, Jack, take me away — take me somewhere where it is quiet, take me to Norway to the great solemn hills and the fjords — —”
Then suddenly Mr. Harding sees the letter in its light blue envelope lying on the supper table. It has been lying right beside him for ten minutes. Everybody in the theater could see it and was getting uncomfortable about it. He clutches it and tears it open. There is a hunted look in his face as he reads.
“What is it?”
“My mother — good God, she is coming. She is at the Bristol and is coming here. What can I do?”
Lady Cicely is quiet now.
“Does she know?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“How did she find you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine. I knew when I saw in the papers that my father was dead that she would come home. But I kept back the address. I told the solicitors, curse them, to keep it secret.”
Mr. Harding paces the stage giving an imitation of a weak man trapped. He keeps muttering, “What can I do?”
Lady Cicely speaks very firmly and proudly. “Jack.”
“What?”
“There is only one thing to do. Tell her.”
Mr. Harding, aghast, “Tell her?”
“Yes, tell her about our love, about everything. I am not ashamed. Let her judge me.”
Mr. Harding sinks into a chair. He keeps shivering and saying, “I tell you, I can’t; I can’t. She wouldn’t understand.” The letter is fluttering in his hand. His face is contemptible. He does it splendidly. Lady Cicely picks the letter from his hand. She reads it aloud, her eyes widening as she reads:
Hotel Bristol, Paris.
My Darling Boy:
I have found you at last — why have you sought to avoid me? God grant there is nothing wrong. He is dead, the man I taught you to call your father, and I can tell you all now. I am coming to you this instant.
Margaret Harding.
Lady Cicely reads, her eyes widen and her voice chokes with horror.
She advances to him and grips his hand. “What does it mean, Jack, tell me what does it mean?”
“Good God, Cicely, don’t speak like that.”
“This — these lines — about your father.”
“I don’t know what it means — I don’t care — I hated him, the brute. I’m glad he’s dead. I don’t care for that. But she’s coming here, any minute, and I can’t face it.”
Lady Cicely, more quietly, “Jack, tell me, did my — did Sir John Trevor ever talk to you about your father?”
“No. He never spoke of him.”
“Did he know him?”
“Yes — I think so — long ago. But they were enemies — Trevor challenged him to a duel — over some woman — and he wouldn’t fight — the cur.”
Lady Cicely (dazed and aghast)— “I — understand — it — now.” She recovers herself and speaks quickly.
“Listen. There is time yet. Go to the hotel. Go at once. Tell your mother nothing. Nothing, you understand. Keep her from coming here. Anything, but not that. Ernestine,” — She calls to the maid who reappears for a second— “a taxi — at once.”
She hurriedly gets Harding’s hat and coat. The stage is full of bustle. There is a great sense of hurry. The audience are in an agony for fear Ernestine is too slow, or calls a four-wheel cab by mistake. If the play is really well put on, you can presently hear the taxi buzzing outside. Mr. Harding goes to kiss Lady Cicely. She puts him from her in horror and hastens him out.
She calls the maid. “Ernestine, quick, put my things, anything, into a valise.”
“Madame is going away!”
“Yes, yes, at once.”
“Madame will not eat?”
“No, no.”
“Madame will not first rest?” (The slow comprehension of these French maids is something exasperating.) “Madame will not await monsieur?
“Madame will not first eat, nor drink — no? Madame will not sleep?”
“No, no — quick, Ernestine. Bring me what I want. Summon a fiacre. I shall be ready in a moment.” Lady Cicely passes through a side door into an inner room.
She is scarcely gone when Mrs. Harding enters. She is a woman about forty-five, still very beautiful. She is dressed in deep black.
(The play is now moving very fast. You have to sit tight to follow it all.)
She speaks to Ernestine. “Is this Mr. Harding’s apartment?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Is he here?” She looks about her.
“No, madame, he is gone this moment in a taxi — to the Hotel Bristol, I heard him say.”
Mrs. Harding, faltering. “Is — any one — here?”
“No, madame, no one — milady was here a moment ago. She, too, has gone out.” (This is a lie but of course the maid is a French maid.)
“Then it is true — there is some one — —” She is just saying this when the bell rings, the door opens and there enters — Sir John Trevor.
“You!” says Mrs. Harding.
“I am too late!” gasps Sir John.
She goes to him tremblingly— “After all these years,” she says.
“It is a long time.”
“You have not changed.”
She has taken his hands and is looking into his face, and she goes on speaking. “I have thought of you so often in all these bitter years — it sustained me even at the worst — and I knew, John, that it was for my sake that you had never married — —”
Then, as she goes on talking, the audience realize with a thrill that Mrs. Harding does not know that Sir John married two years ago, that she has come home, as she thought, to the man who loved her, and, more than that, they get another thrill when they realize that Lady Cicely is learning it too. She has pushed the door half open and is standing there unseen, listening. She wears a hat and cloak; there is a folded letter in her hand — her eyes are wide. Mrs. Harding continues:
“And now, John, I want your help, only you can help me, you are so strong — my Jack, I must save him.” She looks about the room. Something seems to overcome her. “Oh, John, this place — his being here like this — it seems a judgment on us.”
The audience are getting it fast now. And when Mrs. Harding speaks of “our awful moment of folly,” “the retribution of our own sins,” they grasp it and shiver with the luxury of it.
After that when Mrs. Harding says: “Our wretched boy, we must save him,” — they all know why she says “our.”
She goes on more calmly. “I realized. I knew — he is not alone here.”
Sir John’s voice is quiet, almost hollow. “He is not alone.”
“But this woman — can you not deal with her — persuade her — beg her for my sake — bribe her to leave my boy?”
Lady Cicely steps out. “There is no bribe needed. I am going. If I have wronged him, and you, it shall be atoned.”
Sir John has given no sign. He is standing stunned. She turns to him. “I have heard and know now. I cannot ask for pity. But when I am gone — when it is over — I want you to give him this letter — and I want you, you two, to — to be as if I had never lived.”
She lays the letter in his hand. Then without a sign, Lady Cicely passes out. There is a great stillness in the house. Mrs. Harding has watched Lady Cicely and Sir John in amazement. Sir John has sunk into a chair. She breaks out, “John, for God’s sake what does it mean — this woman — speak — there is something awful, I must know.”
“Yes, you must know. It is fate. Margaret, you do not know all. Two years ago I married — —”
“But this woman, this woman — —”
“She is — she was — my wife.”
. . . . . . .
And at this moment Harding breaks into the room. “Cicely, Cicely, I was too late — —” He sees the others. “Mother,” he says in agony, “and you — —” He looks about. “Where is she? What is happening? I must know — —”
Sir John, as if following a mechanical impulse, has handed Harding the letter. He tears it open and reads:
“Dearest, I am going away, to die. It cannot be long now. The doctor told me to-day. That was why I couldn’t speak or explain it to you and was so strange at supper. But I am glad now. Good-by.”
Harding turns upon Sir John with the snarl of a wolf. “What have you done? Why have you driven her away? What right had you to her, you devil? I loved her — She was mine — —”
He had seized a pointed knife from the supper table. His shoulders are crouched — he is about to spring on Sir John. Mrs. Harding has thrown herself between them.
“Jack, Jack, you mustn’t strike.”
“Out of the way, I say, I’ll — —”
“Jack, Jack, you mustn’t strike. Can’t you understand? Don’t you see — what it is. . . .”
“What do you mean — stand back from me.”
“Jack he — is — your — father.”
The knife clatters to the floor. “My God!”
And then the curtain falls — and there’s a burst of applause and, in accordance with all the best traditions of the stage, one moment later, Lady Cicely and Mr. Harding and Sir John and Mrs. Harding are all bowing and smiling like anything, and even the little French maid sneaks on in a corner of the stage and simpers.
Then the orchestra plays and the leopards sneak out and the people in the boxes are all talking gayly to show that they’re not the least affected. And everybody is wondering how it will come out, or rather how it can possibly come out at all, because some of them explain that it’s all wrong, and just as they are making it clear that there shouldn’t be any third act, the curtain goes up and it’s ——
Act III. Three Months Later
THE CURTAIN RISES on a drawing-room in Mrs. Harding’s house in London. Mrs. Harding is sitting at a table. She is sorting out parcels. There is a great air of quiet about the scene. The third act of a problem play always has to be very quiet. It is like a punctured football with the wind going out of it. The play has to just poof itself out noiselessly.
For instance, this is the way it is done.
Does Mrs. Harding start to talk about Lady Cicely and Jack, and Paris? Not a bit. She is simply looking over the parcels and writing names and talking to herself so that the audience can get the names.
“For the Orphans’ Home — poor little things. For the Foundlings’ Protection Society. For the Lost Infants’ Preservation League” (a deep sigh)— “poor, poor children.”
Now what is all this about? What has this to do with the play? Why, don’t you see that it is the symbol of philanthropy, of gentleness, of melancholy sadness? The storm is over and there is nothing in Mrs. Harding’s heart but pity. Don’t you see that she is dressed in deeper black than ever, and do you notice that look on her face — that third-act air — that resignation?
Don’t you see that the play is really all over? They’re just letting the wind out of it.
A man announces “Sir John Trevor.”
Sir John steps in. Mrs. Harding goes to meet him with both hands out.
“My dear, dear friend,” she says in rich, sad tones.
Sir John is all in black. He is much aged, but very firm and very quiet. You can feel that he’s been spending the morning with the committee of the Homeless Newsboys’ League or among the Directorate of the Lost Waifs’ Encouragement Association. In fact he begins to talk of these things at once. The people who are not used to third acts are wondering what it is all about. The real playgoers know that this is atmosphere.
