Part 5

TOM: She's left so--open. Too exposed, (_as_ HARRY _moves impatiently_) Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm doing my best at saying it. You see Claire isn't hardened into one of those forms she talks about. She's too--aware. Always pulled toward what could be--tormented by the lost adventure.

HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's danger.

TOM: But you can't help that.

HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet--at times.

TOM: Let her be--at times. As much as she can and will. She does need that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're holding her in it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing here. If she can do it with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it with herself.

HARRY: Do what?

TOM: (_low, after a pause_) Break up what exists. Open the door to destruction in the hope of--a door on the far side of destruction.

HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (_moves around in irritation, troubled. To_ ANTHONY, _who is passing through with a sprayer_) Anthony, have any arrangements been made about Miss Claire's daughter?

ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements.

HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't all live out here.

ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants.

HARRY: I'm going where I can _smoke_, (_goes out_)

DICK: (_lightly, but fascinated by the idea_) You think there is a door on the--hinter side of destruction?

TOM: How can one tell--where a door may be? One thing I want to say to you--for it is about you. (_regards_ DICK _and not with his usual impersonal contemplation_) I don't think Claire should have--any door closed to her. (_pause_) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you can guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's--mere escape within,--rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of that door through, it's--(_suddenly all human_) Be good to her! (_after a difficult moment, smiles_) Going away for ever is like dying, so one can say things.

DICK: Why do you do it--go away for ever?

TOM: I haven't succeeded here.

DICK: But you've tried the going away before.

TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going away. My hope is that this will be like looking at life from outside life.

DICK: But then you'll not be in it.

TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it.

DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at it?

TOM: Not what I mean by look.

DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of--loving Claire and going away from her for ever.

TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of.

DICK: Then why do it?

TOM: It's my only way of keeping her.

DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you.

TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (_with calm, with sadness--not with malice_) But I shall have her longer. And from deeper.

DICK: I know that.

TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (_the buzzer_. TOM _looks around to see if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the phone_) Yes?... I'll see if I can get her. (_to_ DICK) Claire's daughter has arrived, (_looking in the inner room--returns to phone_) I don't see her. (_catching a glimpse of ANTHONY off right_) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss Claire? Her daughter has arrived.

ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her experiments.

DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments?

ANTHONY: (_after a baffled moment_) Her daughter is finished.

TOM: (_at the phone_) Sorry--but I can't get to Claire. She appears to have gone below. (ANTHONY _closes the trap-door_) I did speak to Anthony, but he says that Claire is working at one of her experiments and that her daughter is finished. I don't know how to make her hear--I took the revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire doesn't answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't want to be reached. Why, of course--a daughter is very important, but oh, that's too bad. (_putting down the receiver_) He says the girl's feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (_gingerly pounds on the trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits_. ANTHONY _has a gentle smile for the gentle tapping--nods approval as,_ TOM _returns to the phone_) She doesn't come up. Indeed I did--with both fists--Sorry.

ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, will you?

DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her daughter for a year.

ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a year--(_goes back to his work_)

DICK: (_smiling after_ ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps it's _safer_ to do it with pencil (_regards_ TOM)--or with pure thought. Things that grow in the earth--

TOM: (_nodding_) I suppose because we grew in the earth.

DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, but I 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 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.

DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire?

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

DICK: 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 God, 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--

DICK: What God 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, DICK _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 God. 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-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling; the innumerable pricks 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?

ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (_laughingly_) No, I don't think so.

HARRY: (_reaching back a hand for her_) The last lap--is the bad lap. (ADELAIDE _is up, and occupied with getting her breath._)

HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd come up.

ADELAIDE: (_as_ CLAIRE _does not greet her_) I'm sorry to intrude, but I have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE _volunteering nothing about arrangements,_ ADELAIDE _surveys the tower. An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge. Then she looks from the window_) Well, at least you have a view.

HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here?

ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was never asked up here before.

CLAIRE: (_amiably enough_) You weren't asked up here now.

ADELAIDE: Harry asked me.

CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind--since you don't like it--it's all right.

ADELAIDE: (_her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the tower_) No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should go on being round.

HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the house because of it. (_going over and sitting by her, his hand on her ankle_) Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have known the architect.

ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a perfect tower.

CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next?