Plays Part 15

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 bra.s.s 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 bra.s.s 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. d.i.c.k-you know what I mean. At least you ought to. (her ruthless way of not letting anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth) Then destroy it for me! It's hard to do it-with the hands that made it.

d.i.c.k: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire?

CLAIRE: (impatiently) I've told you. It cannot create.

d.i.c.k: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in form.

CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in-with different life-that can't creep on? (after trying to put destroying hands upon it) It's hard to-get past what we've done. Our own dead things-block the way.

TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (nodding to the inner room.) In there!

CLAIRE: (turning to that room) I'm not sure.

TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't that show it has brought life from the life it left?

CLAIRE: But timidly, rather-wistfully. A little homesick. If it is less sure this time, then it is going back to-Miss Lane. But if the pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of life that waits. I'll know to-morrow.

ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is wrong.

CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up.

ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother but-

CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my G.o.d, to Thee: Nearer to-'

ELIZABETH: (laughingly breaking in) Well, I don't care. Of course you can make fun at me, but something does tell me this is wrong. To do what-what-

d.i.c.k: What G.o.d did?

ELIZABETH: Well-yes. Unless you do it to make them better-to do it just to do it-that doesn't seem right to me.

CLAIRE: (roughly) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know of adventure-and of anguish. Do you know it is you-world of which you're so true a flower-makes me have to leave? You're there to hold the door shut! Because you're young and of a gayer world, you think I can't see them-those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of yourself? Because you can't feel. Can't feel-the limitless-out there-a sea just over the hill. I will not stay with you! (buries her hands in the earth around the Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with you! (grasps it as we grasp what we would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward in horror. ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant)

ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years!

CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (struggling with HARRY, who is trying to stop her) You think I too will die on the edge? (she has thrown him away, is now struggling with the vine) Why did I make you? To get past you! (as she twists it) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine should have thorns, (with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she has it up. As she holds the torn roots) Oh, I have loved you so! You took me where I hadn't been.

ELIZABETH: (who has been looking on with a certain practical horror) Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there!

CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (flings her arm back to strike ELIZABETH with the Edge Vine)

HARRY: (wresting it from her) Claire! Are you mad?

CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm-too sane! (pointing to ELIZABETH-and the words come from mighty roots) To think that object ever moved my belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH hides her face as if struck)

HARRY: (going to ELIZABETH, turning to CLAIRE) This is atrocious! You're cruel.

(He leads ELIZABETH to the door and out. After an irresolute moment in which he looks from CLAIRE to TOM, d.i.c.k follows. ANTHONY cannot bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor. CLAIRE's gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room.)

CLAIRE: (kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep breaths, smiling) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (a movement as if she could fly) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say something pleasant-about G.o.d. But be very careful what you say about him! I have a feeling-he's not far off.

(CURTAIN)

ACT II

Late afternoon of the following day. CLAIRE is alone in the tower-a tower which is thought to be round but does not complete the circle. The back is curved, then jagged lines break from that, and the front is a queer bulging window-in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as if given a twist by some terrific force-like something wrong. It is lighted by an old-fas.h.i.+oned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling; the innumerable p.r.i.c.ks and slits in the metal throw a marvellous pattern on the curved wall-like some masonry that hasn't been.

There are no windows at back, and there is no door save an opening in the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a spiral staircase winds up from below. CLAIRE is seen through the huge ominous window as if shut into the tower. She is lying on a seat at the back looking at a book of drawings. To do this she has left the door of her lantern a little open-and her own face is clearly seen.

A door is heard opening below; laughing voices, CLAIRE listens, not pleased.

ADELAIDE: (voice coming up) Dear-dear, why do they make such twisting steps.

HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY's head appears, he looks back.) Making it all right?