Plays Part 6

ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea-outer sh.o.r.e, dark with the wood that once was s.h.i.+ps-dunes, strange land not life-woods, town and harbor. The line! Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face-and fights for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing.

MRS PATRICK: It loses.

ALLIE MAYO: It wins.

MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried.

ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (lifted into that; then, as one who states a simple truth with feeling) It will. And Springs will come when you will want to know that it is Spring.

(The CAPTAIN and BRADFORD appear behind the drift of sand. They have a stretcher. To get away from them MRS PATRICK steps farther into the room; ALLIE MAYO shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man away. MRS PATRICK watches them from sight.)

MRS PATRICK: (bitter, exultant) Savers of life! (to ALLIE MAYO) You savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting-(but she cannot say it mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life) Meeting the Outside!

(It grows in her as CURTAIN lowers slowly.)

THE VERGE

First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, 1921.

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ANTHONY

HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband

HATTIE, The maid

CLAIRE

d.i.c.k, Richard Demming

TOM EDGEWORTHY

ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter

ADELAIDE, Claire's sister

DR EMMONS

ACT I

The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save for a shaft of light from below which comes up through an open trap-door in the floor. This slants up and strikes the long leaves and the huge brilliant blossom of a strange plant whose twisted stem projects from right front. Nothing is seen except this plant and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment later a buzzer. It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the buzzer. Then from below-his shadow blocking the light, comes ANTHONY, a rugged man past middle life;-he emerges from the stairway into the darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up a phone.

ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?-I'll see. (he brings a thermometer to the stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns to the phone) It's down to forty-nine. The plants are in danger-(with great relief and approval) Oh, that's fine! (hangs up the receiver) Fine!

(He goes back down the stairway, closing the trap-door upon himself, and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and wind. It opens a moment later on the greenhouse in the suns.h.i.+ne of a snowy morning. The snow piled outside is at times blown through the air. The frost has made patterns on the gla.s.s as if-as Plato would have it-the patterns inherent in abstract nature and behind all life had to come out, not only in the creative heat within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the gla.s.s. And the wind makes patterns of sound around the gla.s.s house.

The back wall is low; the gla.s.s roof slopes sharply up. There is an outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps lead down to it. At left a gla.s.s part.i.tion and a door into the inner room. One sees a little way into this room. At right there is no dividing wall save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle between shelves of plants leads off.

This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor the usual workshop for the growing of them, but a place for experiment with plants, a laboratory.

At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than beautiful. It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a little way up the gla.s.s. You might see the form of a cross in it, if you happened to think it that way. The leaves of this vine are not the form that leaves have been. They are at once repellent and significant.

ANTHONY is at work preparing soil-mixing, sifting. As the wind tries the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods as if rea.s.sured and returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He starts to answer the telephone, remembers something, halts and listens sharply. It does not buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times ANTHONY is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, to which ANTHONY longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up. ANTHONY goes on preparing soil.

A moment later the gla.s.s door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and also MR HARRY ARCHER, wrapped in a rug.)

ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir.

HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (he holds it open to say this)

ANTHONY: But please do. This stormy air is not good for the plants.

HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you mean, Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you?

ANTHONY: Miss Claire-Mrs Archer told me not to.

HARRY: Told you not to answer me?

ANTHONY: Not you especially-n.o.body but her.

HARRY: Well, I like her nerve-and yours.

ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once long and-Well, she buzzes her way, and all other buzzing-

HARRY: May buzz.

ANTHONY: (nodding gravely) She thought it would be better for the flowers.

HARRY: I am not a flower-true, but I too need a little attention-and a little heat. Will you please tell me why the house is frigid?

ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, (patiently explaining it to MISS CLAIRE's speechless husband) You see the roses need a great deal of heat.

HARRY: (reading the thermometer) The roses have seventy-three I have forty-five.

ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three.

HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage!

ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid for the heating plant-but as long as it is defective-Why, Miss Claire would never have done what she has if she hadn't looked out for her plants in just such ways as this. Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about to flower?

HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?-that's what I want to know.

ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the heat turned off from the house.

HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance.