Five Little Plays — The Open Door
THE OPEN DOOR
SCENE: _The drawing-room of_ LORD TORMINSTER'S _cottage by the sea.
It is 2 a. m.
of a fine July night; the French windows are open on to the lawn.
The room is dark; in an armchair,_ SIR GEOFFREY TRANSOM, _a man of forty, with a frank, pleasant face, is seated, deep in thought.
Suddenly the door opens, and_ LADY TORMINSTER _appears and switches on the light.
She starts at seeing_ SIR GEOFFREY.
LADY TORMINSTER.
Oh!
SIR GEOFFREY.
[_Rising.
_] Hullo!
Don't be afraid--it's only I!
LADY TORMINSTER.
What a start you gave me Why haven't you gone to bed?
SIR GEOFFREY.
I'm tired of going to bed.
One always has to get up again, and it becomes monotonous.
Why haven't you gone to sleep?
LADY TORMINSTER.
I don't know--it's too hot, or something.
I've come for a book.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Let me choose one for you.
[_He goes to the table.
_ LADY TORMINSTER.
Why were you sitting in the dark?
SIR GEOFFREY.
Because the light annoyed me.
What sort of book will you have?
A red one or a green one?
LADY TORMINSTER.
Is there a virtue in the colour of the binding?
SIR GEOFFREY.
Why not?
They're all the same inside.
There are three hundred ways, they say, of cooking a potato--there are as many of dressing up a lie, and calling it a novel.
But it's always the same old lie.
Here take this.
[_He hands her a book.
_] Popular Astronomy.
That will send you to sleep.
LADY TORMINSTER.
The stars frighten me.
But I'll try it.
Good-night.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Good-night.
LADY TORMINSTER.
And you really had better go to bed.
SIR GEOFFREY.
I move as an amendment that you sit down and talk.
LADY TORMINSTER.
At this time of night!
SIR GEOFFREY.
Why not?
It's day in the Antipodes.
LADY TORMINSTER.
And in this attire!
[_She glances at her peignoir.
_ SIR GEOFFREY.
Pooh!
You are more dressed than you were at dinner.
That's awfully rude, isn't it?
But then, you see, you're not my hostess now--you're a spirit, walking in the night.
One can't be polite to spirits.
Sit down, oh shade, and let us converse.
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Hesitating.
_] I don't know-- SIR GEOFFREY.
The household have all retired; and we will make this concession to Mrs. Grundy--we will leave the door open.
There!
[_He flings it open.
_] The Open Door!
Centuries ago, when I was alive, I remember paragraphs with that heading.
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Laughing.
_] So you're not alive now?
SIR GEOFFREY.
Sir Geoffrey Transom ceased to be when he said good-night to Lady Torminster.
Sir Geoffrey is upstairs asleep.
So is her ladyship.
We are their souls.
Let us talk.
LADY TORMINSTER.
You are in your whimsical mood.
SIR GEOFFREY.
And you in your wrapper--peignoir--tea gown--it don't matter what you call it.
You look--jolly.
Ridiculous word--I don't mean that at all.
You look--you.
More you than I've seen you for years.
Sh--don't interrupt.
Shades never do that.
By the way, do you know that the old lumber-room, my owner--my corporeal sheath--means to go away in the morning, before you are up?
LADY TORMINSTER.
Sir Geoffrey!
What nonsense!
You've promised to stay a month!
SIR GEOFFREY.
I assure you I have been charged to invent fitting and appropriate lies to account for the ridiculous creature's abrupt departure.
The man Transom is a poor liar.
LADY TORMINSTER.
You are making me giddy.
Would you mind putting on your body?
I've not been introduced to your soul.
SIR GEOFFREY.
[_Springing up with a flourish.
_] How very remiss of me!
Permit me.
Gertrude this is Geoffrey.
You have often heard me speak of him.
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Rising.
_] I think I'll go to bed.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Now that is preposterous.
Jack, my dear old friend--the best and only friend I have in the world--is slumbering peacefully upstairs, and Jack's wife is reluctant to talk to Jack's old pal because the sun happens to be hidden on the other side of the globe.
Lady Torminster, sit down.
If you're good you shall have a cigarette.
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Sitting.
_] Well, just one.
And when I've finished it, I'll go.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Agreed.
[_He hands her the box; she takes a cigarette; he strikes a match and holds it for her; he then takes a cigarette himself, and lights it.
_ SIR GEOFFREY.
And, while smoking it, remember Penelope's web.
For I've heaps of things to tell you.
LADY TORMINSTER.
They'll keep till to-morrow.
SIR GEOFFREY.
That's a fearful delusion.
Nothing keeps.
There is one law in the universe: NOW.
LADY TORMINSTER.
I want to know what you mean by this nonsense about your going.
SIR GEOFFREY.
[_Puffing out smoke.
_] Yes--I'm off in the morning.
It has occurred to me that I haven't been to China.
Now that is a serious omission.
How can I face my forefathers, and confess to them that I haven't seen the land where the Yellow Labour comes from?
LADY TORMINSTER.
China has waited a long time--a month more or less will make no difference.
They are a patient race.
SIR GEOFFREY.
There is gipsy blood in my veins--I must wander--I'm restless....
Not like Jack--he's untroubled--he can sleep.
Jack's a fine sleeper, isn't he?
LADY TORMINSTER.
Yes.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Calm, serene, untroubled, with the conscience of a babe--one, two, three, he sleeps.
He and I have had some rare times together.
I've been roped to him on the Andes--he shot a tiger that was about to scrunch me--I rubbed his nose when it was frost-bitten.
He saved my life--I saved his nose.
I always maintain that the balance of gratitude is on his side--for where would he have been without his nose?
LADY TORMINSTER.
You _are_ absurd.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Would you have married him without a nose?
LADY TORMINSTER.
I might have.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Now you know you wouldn't. You'd have been afraid of what people would say.
And what would he have done when he became short-sighted, and had to wear glasses?
LADY TORMINSTER.
My cigarette has gone out.
SIR GEOFFREY.
[_Jumping up and handing her the box.
_] Take another.
Never re-light a cigarette--it's like dragging up the past.
Here.
LADY TORMINSTER.
I said only one.
SIR GEOFFREY.
This is not the hour for inflexibility.
The Medes and Persians have all gone to bed.
[_She takes the cigarette; he lights it for her.
_ LADY TORMINSTER.
Tell me why you mean to leave us.
And remember--I shan't let _this_ one go out.
SIR GEOFFREY.
My explanation will be handed to you with your cup of tea in the morning.
LADY TORMINSTER.
And you will be gone?
SIR GEOFFREY.
I shall be gone.
There is a train at 7. 45--which will be packed with husbands.
I shall breakfast in town.
LADY TORMINSTER.
Why?
SIR GEOFFREY.
Well, one must breakfast somewhere.
It's a convention.
LADY TORMINSTER.
Sir Geoffrey, I want you to tell me what this means.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Give your decision, said the judge to the arbitrator, but never your reasons.
I go, because I go.
Besides, has one reasons?
Why do people die, or get married, or buy umbrellas?
Because of typhoid, love, or the rain?
Not at all.
Isn't that so?
LADY TORMINSTER.
I wish you'd be serious.
SIR GEOFFREY.
I'm fearfully serious.
When Jack shot that tiger he had to go so near the brute that he held his life in his hands.
Do you know what was my chief impression as I lay there, with the ugly cat's paw upon my chest, beginning to rip me?
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Shuddering.
_] Horrible!
What?
SIR GEOFFREY.
I resented his having eaten something that smelt like onions.
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Smiling.
_] A tiger!
SIR GEOFFREY.
Onions may have been his undoing.
That's the beggar's skin on the floor.
But you should have seen me rub Jack's nose!
LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Warningly.
_] Sir Geoffrey, there's very little cigarette left-- SIR GEOFFREY.
There are lots more in the box--and dawn is a long way off.
Hang it, Lady Torminster, don't be in a hurry!
Do you hear the sea out there?
It's breathing as regularly as old Jack.
And don't you think this is fine?
Here we are, we two, meeting just as we shall meet on the other side of the Never-Never Land.
It's a chance for a man to speak to a woman, and tell her things.
LADY TORMINSTER.
What things!
SIR GEOFFREY.
That's just it--what things?
What have I to say, after all?
I am going to-morrow because I am a fantastic, capricious ass.
Also because I'm lonely.
LADY TORMINSTER.
How will China help you?
SIR GEOFFREY.
They colour it green on the map--and there _is_ such a lot of it!
LADY TORMINSTER.
You should get married.
SIR GEOFFREY.
[_With a sudden burst of passion.
_] _You_ say that--you!
[_He starts back, ashamed, and hangs his head.
_ LADY TORMINSTER
_throws a quick glance at him, then looks ahead of her, puffing quietly at her cigarette.
_ LADY TORMINSTER.
[_Quietly.
_] So that is why you are going?
SIR GEOFFREY.
[_With a great sigh of relief.
_] Now, that really is fine of you!
Every other woman in the world would have seized that chance for a melodramatic exit.
"Good-night, Sir Geoffrey; I must go to my husband."
"Good-night, Lady Torminster."
A clasp of the hand--a hot tear--mine--on your wrist.
But you sit there.
Splendid!
LADY TORMINSTER.
I ask you again--is that truly why you are going?
SIR GEOFFREY.
Well, yes, that's the fact.
I apologise humbly--it's so conventional.
Isn't it?
LADY TORMINSTER.
I suppose it's difficult for human beings to invent new situations.
SIR GEOFFREY.
You've known it, of course, all the time; you've known it ever since Jack brought me to you, the day after you were engaged.
And that's nine years ago.
It's the usual kind of fatality.
LADY TORMINSTER.
These things happen.
SIR GEOFFREY.
Yes.
Well, I thought I was cured.
I've been here five days, and I find I am not.
So I go.
That's best, isn't it?
LADY TORMINSTER.
Yes.
SIR GEOFFREY.
It's so infernally stupid.
You're a beautiful woman, of course; but there are heaps of beautiful women.
You've qualities--well, so have other women, too.
I'm only forty-one--and, as you say, why don't I marry?
Simply because of you.
Because you've an uncomfortable knack of intruding between me and the other lady.
LADY TORMINSTER.
That is a great misfortune.
SIR GEOFFREY.
It's most annoying.
