Part 5
[_MRS. PATRICK comes in from the hall at the right. She is a “city woman,” a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she is excited and angry._
MRS. PATRICK
You have no right here. This isn’t the life-saving station any more. Just because it used to be--I don’t see why you should think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself!
CAPTAIN
[_Putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway._] Well I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving station when the sea had sent a man to it.
MRS. PATRICK
[_Who has turned away so she cannot see the hand._] I don’t want him here! I--[_Defiant, yet choking_] I must have my house to myself!
CAPTAIN
You’ll get your house to yourself when I’ve made up my mind there’s no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in this house, Mrs. Patrick--I believe that’s your name--and if there’s any chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own the house ain’t goin’ to make a damn bit of difference to me!
MRS. PATRICK
[_In a thin wild way._] I must have my house to myself.
CAPTAIN
Hell with such a woman!
[_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut._
[_As the CAPTAIN says_, “And if there’s any chance of bringing one more back from the dead,” _ALLIE MAYO has appeared outside the wide door which gives on the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things which grow in unfavoring places._
MRS. PATRICK
I--I don’t want them here! I must--
[_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone._
BRADFORD
Well, I couldn’t say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too kind-hearted a lady. What’s the matter with the woman? Does she want folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save a life. What d’ you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that’s what I call the woman. I’ve seen her--day after day--settin’ over there where the dunes meet the woods, just sittin’ there, lookin’. [_Suddenly thinking of it._] I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin’ down on the woods. Pleases her to see somethin’ gettin’ buried, I guess.
[_ALLIE MAYO, who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out._
BRADFORD
Some coffee’d taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no. It might make somebody feel better. [_Opening the door that was slammed shut._] Want me now, Capt’n?
CAPTAIN
No.
BRADFORD
Oh, that boy’s dead, Capt’n.
CAPTAIN
[_Snarling._] Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I don’t want to hear that woman’s voice again, ever.
[_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between the big sliding door and the room where the CAPTAIN is._
BRADFORD
They’re a cheerful pair of women--livin’ in this cheerful place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe Dyer--he’s always talkin’ to summer folks--told ’em the government was goin’ to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard them talkin’ about it. They was sittin’ right down there on the beach, eatin’ their supper. They was goin’ to put in a fire-place and they was goin’ to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk notions. Their bid won it--who’d want it?--a buried house you couldn’t move.
TONY
I see no bright colors.
BRADFORD
Don’t you? How astonishin’! You must be color blind. And I guess _we’re_ the first party. [_Laughs._] I was in Bill Joseph’s grocery store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs. Patrick, from New York. “I’ve come to take the old life-saving station,” says she. “I’m going to sleep over there tonight!” Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said, but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died, and she was runnin’ off to hide herself, I guess. A person’d feel sorry for her if she weren’t so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she wanted somebody to work for her. “Somebody,” says she, “that doesn’t say an unnecessary word!” Well, when Bill come to the back of the store, I said, “Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she’s lookin’ for.” Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes ’em so well she’s savin’ of ’em. She’s not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty years. She’s got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain’t always talkative.
[_The CAPTAIN comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause._
CAPTAIN
Wonder who he was.
BRADFORD
Young. Guess he’s not been much at sea.
CAPTAIN
I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get right back for him. [_A look around._] The old place used to be more friendly. [_Moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this._] Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here.
BRADFORD
Dannie Sears is tendin’ bar in Boston now.
[_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand ALLIE MAYO comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down the coffee pot, looks to the door the CAPTAIN has closed, moves toward it, as if drawn. MRS. PATRICK follows her in._
MRS. PATRICK
They’ve gone?
[_MRS. MAYO nods, facing the closed door._
MRS. PATRICK
And they’re leaving--him? [_Again the other woman nods._] Then he’s--? [_MRS. MAYO just stands there._] They have no right--just because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself!
[_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big door toward the dunes._
ALLIE MAYO
Wait.
[_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held._
ALLIE MAYO
[_To herself._] If I could say that, I can say more. [_Looking at the woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself._] That boy in there--his face--uncovered something--[_Her open hand on her chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years._] For twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it’s not the way. [_Her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at something remote and veiled._] We had been married--two years. [_A start, as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it._] Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two years we’d been married.
[_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._
The day he went away. [_Not spoken, but breathed from pain._] The days after he was gone.
I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to write till on the way home.
[_A wait._
Six months. Another. I did not hear. [_Long wait._] Nobody ever heard.
[_After it seems she is held there, and will not go on._] I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my talking. But they’d come in to talk to me. They’d say--“You may hear _yet_.” They’d talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman who’d been my friend all my life said--“Suppose he was to walk _in_!” I got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I’ve not said a word I didn’t have to say. [_She has become almost wild in telling this. That passes. In a whisper._] The ice that caught Jim--caught me. [_A moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To MRS. PATRICK simply._] It’s not the way. [_A sudden change._] You’re not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead!
MRS. PATRICK
[_With the cry of the hurt._] Dead? My husband’s not _dead_.
ALLIE MAYO
He’s _not_? [_Slowly understands._] Oh.
[_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has fallen to the floor and steps outside._
ALLIE MAYO
[_Almost failing to do it._] Wait.
MRS. PATRICK
Wait? Don’t you think you’ve said enough? They told me you didn’t say an unnecessary word!
ALLIE MAYO
I don’t.
MRS. PATRICK
And you can see, I should think, that you’ve bungled into things you know nothing about!
[_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is doing._
ALLIE MAYO
[_Slowly._] When you keep still for twenty years you know--things you didn’t know you knew. I know why you’re doing that. [_She looks up at her, startled._] Don’t bury the only thing that will grow. Let it grow.
[_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._
ALLIE MAYO
I know where you’re going! [_MRS. PATRICK turns, but not as if she wants to._] What you’ll try to do. Over there. [_Pointing to the line of woods._] Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the woods. But I’ll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!
[_Pointing to the closed door._
MRS. PATRICK
[_With a strange exultation._] And lose the way he lost in there!
ALLIE MAYO
[_Sure, sombre._] They don’t lose.
MRS. PATRICK
Don’t _lose_? [_Triumphant._] I have walked on the tops of buried trees!
ALLIE MAYO
[_Slow, sombre, yet large._] And vines will grow over the sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow above the buried trees.
MRS. PATRICK
I’ve watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out farthest.
ALLIE MAYO
Another vine will reach that spot. [_Under her breath, tenderly._] Strange little things that reach out farthest!
MRS. PATRICK
And will be buried soonest!
ALLIE MAYO
And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood that guards a town.
MRS. PATRICK
I care nothing about a woods to guard a town. This is the outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore where men can’t live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die here have named it that.
ALLIE MAYO
Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here [_Reaches her hand toward the closed door_] and many a one before him. But many another reached the harbor! [_Slowly raises her arm, bends it to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm._] The Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe.
MRS. PATRICK
I’m outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life.
ALLIE MAYO
Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that’s shore to a harbor.
MRS. PATRICK
This is the Outside. Sand. [_Picking some of it up in her hand and letting it fall on the beach grass._] Sand that _covers_--hills of sand that move and cover.
ALLIE MAYO
Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. Provincetown--where they turn when boats can’t live at sea. Did you ever see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back! [_Pointing._] Back to your edge of the woods that’s the _edge of the dunes_.
MRS. PATRICK
The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things not worth a name.
[_Suddenly sits down in the doorway._
ALLIE MAYO
Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside!
[_Big with the sense of the wonder of life._
MRS. PATRICK
[_Lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand._] They’re what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like shapes of blown sand.
ALLIE MAYO
Meeting the Outside. [_Moving nearer; speaking more personally._] I know why you came here. To this house that had been given up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are true beside the things you want to see.
MRS. PATRICK
How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty years?
ALLIE MAYO
Outside. Twenty years. That’s why I know how brave _they_ are. [_Indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different._] You’ll not find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_!
MRS. PATRICK
[_Swiftly rising._] You’re a cruel woman--a hard, insolent woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I didn’t _go_ to the Outside. I was left there. I’m only--trying to get along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to take me--take me to hurt me. That’s why I couldn’t bear--[_She looks at the closed door_] things that made me know I feel. You haven’t felt for so long you don’t know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! And now you’d take _that_ from me--[_Looking now toward the edge of the woods_] the thing that made me know they would be buried in my heart--those things I can’t _live_ and know I feel. You’re more cruel than the sea! “But other things are true beside the things you want to see!” Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring. [_As if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says._] What would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted?
ALLIE MAYO
I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold life behind me--
[_A slight gesture toward MRS. PATRICK._
MRS. PATRICK
[_Stepping back._] You call what you are life? [_Laughs._] Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand!
ALLIE MAYO
[_Under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty._] Ugly!
MRS. PATRICK
[_Passionately._] I have _known_ life. I have known _life_. You’re like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life.
ALLIE MAYO
A harbor far at sea. [_Raises her arm, curves it in as if around something she loves._] Land that encloses and gives shelter from storm.
MRS. PATRICK
[_Facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else out._] Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life.
ALLIE MAYO
Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was ships--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 slowly._
(CURTAIN)
* * * * *
WOMAN’S HONOR
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT
* * * * *
First Performed by the Provincetown Players, April 26, 1918
MR. FOSTER, _The Lawyer_ JUSTUS SHEFFIELD GORDON WALLACE, _The Prisoner_ CLARK BRANYON BOY MURRAY COOPER THE SHIELDED ONE } { MARJORY LACEY THE MOTHERLY ONE } { DOROTHY UPJOHN THE SCORNFUL ONE } The { IDA RAUH THE SILLY ONE } Women { NORMA MILLAY THE MERCENARY ONE } { ALICE MACDOUGAL THE CHEATED ONE } { SUSAN GASPELL
WOMAN’S HONOR
SCENE: _A room in the sheriff’s house which is used for conferences. At the rear is a door into the hall, at the left a door leads to an adjoining room. There is also a door at the right, going to the corridor which connects this house with the jail._
_LAWYER and PRISONER are found in heated conversation. The prisoner, an attractive young man, is seated, and has just turned away from the LAWYER, irritated._
LAWYER
Do you know that murder is no laughing matter?
PRISONER
Well, was I laughing?
LAWYER
[_Shoots it at him._] Where were you on the night of October 25? [_PRISONER sits like one who never means to speak again._] Your silence shields a woman’s honor. Do you know what’s going to be said of you? You’re going to be called old-fashioned! [_A worried look flits over the prisoner’s face._] A man will not tell where he is because it involves a woman’s honor! How quaint! [_In a different voice._] Say, do you think she’s worth it?
[_PRISONER rises angrily._
Yes, get red in the face, I should think you would. Blush. Blush for shame. Shame of having loved a woman who’d let a man face death to shield her own honor!
PRISONER
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
LAWYER
It’s just like a woman, the cowards. That’s what I most despise in women. Afraid they won’t be looked upon as the pure noble sensitive souls they spend their lives trying to make us believe they are. Sickening!
PRISONER
There are things you don’t understand.
LAWYER
Oh, yes, I do. I suppose she’s got a husband. I suppose he’d divorce her. Then she wouldn’t be asked out to tea quite so often. Good Lord--die for something real!
PRISONER
You and I have different ideals, Mr. Foster. There are things we don’t discuss.
LAWYER
There are things we have to discuss. If you insist upon this romantic course, then at least we will have to get something out of _that_.
PRISONER
What do you mean?
LAWYER
Simply that public feeling has got to swing toward you or the jury will say you murdered Erwalt. If we can’t have an alibi, let us by all means have a hero!
PRISONER
[_Outraged._] Have you given out a story to the newspapers?
LAWYER
[_Drawing paper from his pocket._] Very delicately done. “A life for a life.” Isn’t that moving? “While Gordon Wallace languishes in his cell, some woman is safe in a shielded home. Charged with the murder of John Erwalt, young Wallace fails to cut his chain of circumstantial evidence with an alibi. Where was Gordon Wallace on the night of October 25? He maintains a dogged silence. Behind that silence rests a woman’s honor”--and so on, at some length.
PRISONER
You had no right to give out a story without my consent!
LAWYER
Oh, yes, I have. If I can’t get your consent for saving your life, then, my young friend, I shall save it without your consent. Pardon my rudeness.
PRISONER
How will this save it?
LAWYER
How little romantic young men know the romantic sex. Wives--including, I hope, jurors’ wives--will cry, “Don’t let that chivalrous young man die!” Women just love to have their honor shielded. It is very touching to them.
PRISONER
Mr. Foster, I tell you again, I dislike your attitude toward women! Laugh at me if you will, but I have respect and reverence for women. I believe it is perfectly true that men must guard them. Call me a romantic young fool if it pleases you, but I have had a mother--a sister--sweetheart. Yes, I am ready to die to shield a woman’s honor!
[_As he says this the door slowly opens and a woman steps in._
SHIELDED ONE
No! You shall not!
[_Quite taken aback, the men stand looking at her. She has breeding, poise--obviously she has stepped out of a world where women are shielded. She maintains a front of her usual composure, but there is an intensity--an excitement--which indicates she is feeling some big new thing. LAWYER looks from her to the PRISONER, who is staring at the WOMAN._
LAWYER
[_To WOMAN._] Oh--you’ve come?
SHIELDED ONE
[_Firmly, but with emotion._] I have come.
PRISONER
I don’t understand.
LAWYER
You were not willing to let him die?
SHIELDED ONE
No.
LAWYER
Good. This young man--[_He pauses, embarrassed, for it does not seem a thing to say to this lady_] was with you on the night of October 25?
SHIELDED ONE
Yes.
PRISONER
Why, no I wasn’t.
LAWYER
There is no use, Gordon, in trying to keep the lady from doing what she has apparently determined to do.
SHIELDED ONE
No. You cannot keep me from doing what I have determined to do.
LAWYER
For my part, I respect you for it. Then you are prepared to testify that on the night of October 25 Gordon Wallace was with you from twelve o’clock midnight till eight next morning?
SHIELDED ONE
[_A little falteringly, yet fervent._] Yes.
LAWYER
Was with you--continuously?
SHIELDED ONE
Yes.
LAWYER
Your name is--?
[_He takes out his note-book._
PRISONER
[_In distress._] Don’t give him your name! He’ll use it! I tell you this is all a mistake. I don’t know this lady. I never saw her before. [_To the WOMAN._] You mustn’t do this!
SHIELDED ONE
[_Proudly, and with relief._] I _have_ done it!
LAWYER
And as I said, madam, I greatly respect you for doing it. You are, if I may say so, unlike most of your sex. Now--your name?
SHIELDED ONE
[_This is not easy for her._] Mrs. Oscar Duncan.
LAWYER
And Mrs. Duncan you live at--? [_A noise in the hall._] I fear some one is coming in. Will you just step in here?
[_He shows her into the room at the left. They hear the corridor door open and turn. A woman is coming in--rather plump, middle-aged--a pleasant, motherly looking woman. She looks from the LAWYER to the PRISONER, moves to get a better look at the young man, who becomes nervous under this scrutiny; then she seems to have it straight in her mind, nods pleasantly._
MOTHERLY ONE
[_Cheerily._] Good morning.
LAWYER
Good morning.
MOTHERLY ONE
[_To PRISONER._] Good morning.
PRISONER