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Title: Release
A one-act play
Author: Helen R. Hull
Release date: November 4, 2026 [eBook #79918]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Mary Fanton Roberts, Inc., 1919
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79918
Credits: Jens Sadowski. This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELEASE ***
Release
A One-Act Play
Helen R. Hull
The Touchstone, vol. 6, Dec. 1919, pp. 122-127.
The scene: A small study, with plain oak desk, many low book shelves,
filled with ponderous volumes and filing cases. Beside the desk, a heavy
chaise longue, upholstered in flowered green stuff. The wide doors at
the rear of the room are closed; the door leading off at the right is
also closed. It is a plain, serious room, except for the bright chaise
longue and the black bowl filled with calendulas on the corner of the
desk next the longue.
GEOFFREY MARCH is sitting behind the desk, going rapidly through papers
he has poured out of one of the files. He is a man of forty, ruddy,
inclined toward baldness; his bright blue eyes have an harassed look
which seems out of character. The lines of his smooth face, his square
shoulders, his quick steady hands, suggest a sanguine, easily expressed
individual.
As he sorts the papers and places some of them in a handbag on the desk
beside him, he turns his head often toward the folding doors at the
rear, his harassed look deepening. Finally he rises, brushes the
discarded papers into the file, slips it into its place on the shelf,
and, closing the handbag, tiptoes across the room to the door at the
right. He picks up his hat and coat and, hugging them under his arm,
lays his fingers on the door-knob. Slowly, without a sound, he turns the
knob. The door swings open, and Geoffrey, with a last glance at the
folding doors, sets one foot across the threshold. He hesitates,
withdraws his foot, and stands, frowning. Suddenly, from behind the
closed doors, comes a woman’s voice, clear, penetrating, plaintive.
“Geoffrey, dear!” He wavers an instant; then, with a shrug, he pulls the
door shut as gently as he had opened it, drops his hat and coat, and
goes to the desk, where he thrusts the handbag out of sight. The voice
repeats his name, plaintively. He goes to the doors at the rear and
pushes them apart. The room behind is dimly lighted.
GEOFFREY
What is it, Eunice?
THE VOICE
Are you working? I have been alone for hours.
GEOFFREY
No. Is there anything you wish?
THE VOICE
I should like to come in, dear, unless you are too busy.
GEOFFREY
(Enters the room and returns, carrying in his arms his wife, EUNICE
MARCH. Her fragile white arms cling to him tenaciously as he places her
on the chaise lounge. He kneels beside her to adjust her soft yellow
draperies.) There. Comfortable?
EUNICE
(Releasing him with a sigh, her black eyes, over-prominent in the small
blanched oval of her face, following him as he goes to his seat behind
the desk.) Yes. Quite. I had stared at those ugly shut doors until I
thought I should scream! Just let me lie here where I can watch you.
GEOFFREY
I haven’t been in here a half hour!
EUNICE
You don’t know how long that is, by seconds! I began to have dreadful
fancies about you—what you might be doing behind those closed doors.
(Her lids droop over her eyes, warily.)
GEOFFREY
(Looks up, startled.) What kind of fancies?
EUNICE
(With along shudder.) I can’t tell you. Don’t make me think of them.
(She turns her body slightly, resting one hand beneath her cheeks,
extending the other to touch the bright orange flowers in the black bowl
near her.) Make me forget them!
GEOFFREY
If you would have someone come in to sit with you when I am working—
EUNICE
Whom? You know I wish no one. No one—but you! (Her intensity leaps out
like the spurt of a match.)
GEOFFREY
(He picks up a square envelope from the desk in front of him and
revolves it in his fingers as he speaks.) If you would go out—there’s
the car. The Doctor says there is no reason why you shouldn’t.
EUNICE
(Her hand dropping, pallid, into the soft chiffons of her robe.) I don’t
wish to go.
GEOFFREY
(Quietly.) That’s it. You don’t wish to go. (He drops the letter, his
hands clenching on the desk.)
EUNICE
Can’t you just go on working, Jeff? I ask nothing but to lie here. You
used to like to have me here—while you worked. (Her voice drops into a
whisper.)
GEOFFREY
I’ve not been working. My last experiment was ruined because I did not
go to the laboratory in time. (He lifts his head and gazes at her with
sombre eyes.) I have no work to do.
EUNICE
(With a low cry.) Oh, because I was ill, Jeff!
GEOFFREY
Eunice, will you talk with me a little? Without crying, I mean? or
worse?
EUNICE
What do you mean? Why do you look at me that way?
GEOFFREY
I had not intended to say anything. But perhaps—
EUNICE
What is it? I am frightened! Come nearer, Jeff! Let me touch your
hand—you are so far away!
GEOFFREY
No. I wish to talk with you. Did you know that Liggett has been
appointed professor over me, because my contributions the last five
years have been so slight! A man ten years my junior! Do you know that
the manuscript of my book must wait another year now, because I lost the
results of that long experiment? Do you know—
EUNICE
You are blaming me! That I was ill—and needed you—(Her voice shrills.)
GEOFFREY
(Sternly.) If you won’t listen, Eunice, I shall—(He stops as she shrinks
into her cushions, her eyes widening.) For years you have kept me silent
when I would speak. Today I must speak.
EUNICE
You are cruel!
GEOFFREY
I see no other way.
EUNICE
When we married, Jeff, you did not care—about a professorship—or books.
You loved me! That was enough! If the rest has slipped away, does it
matter!
GEOFFREY
When we married, I loved you. We built us a house for our love. To me,
it was a place where friends could come, where we could work and play.
What was it to you? A place to shut out all the world. And I loved you
so much that I tried, clumsily, to give you what you wished. You were
restrained, shy, quiet—that you loved me was a miracle.
EUNICE
I love you now in ways to which that is nothing but a shadow.
GEOFFREY
(He does not look at her as he speaks, but down at his clenched, square
hands.) You did not like my friends. You closed the house to them. You
were unhappy when I sought them outside our house.
EUNICE
You were the world and more to me. What need had I of other people,
stupid blundering folk, coming between you and me!
GEOFFREY
I thought that when the child came, it would be different. But it died.
And you told me you were almost glad, because we were still alone
together! (His voice has horror in it, and a stubborn determination.)
You have narrowed the walls of this house until it is smaller, closer
than a grave! I have tried to tell you how I suffocated in it, and you
would not hear me.
EUNICE
(Her hand clutched to her heart.) You mean—you do not love me! You are
tired of me—because I am sick! You have found some woman who is
beautiful and strong!
GEOFFREY
I am through with love. You know there is no other woman.
EUNICE
You are killing me! (She wrenches herself higher on her cushions, her
hand beating at her breast.) What have I done? What do you want? I have
given you all I had—
GEOFFREY
You have taken from me all I had or was. I have tried to make you see,
and you have closed your eyes and ears against me. You are clever. You
can twist my clumsy words so that I am confounded, and am silent out of
despair that you will not hear me.
EUNICE
Geoffrey, have you forgotten that first summer, you and I alone in the
mountains? No one else, nothing else in the world. You had no need for
anything but me!
GEOFFREY
I have not forgotten. Have you forgotten that first winter, when I
plunged into work with all the energy and hope a man can have, and you
dragged me back, enmeshing me in a net so fine I did not see it—your
loneliness, your fear of strangers, your lack of strength. And I loved
you so much I could not stand against you. I thought: perhaps that is a
woman’s way of love, at first? I tried to bring things to you, my work,
or friends, or pleasure, and you shut yourself up, icy, hurt, so that I
reviled myself for a brute.
EUNICE
(She is lying high on her pillows, her body contracted, her cheeks
flaring, her breath quickened. Her voice is strangled a little, as
though her throat had become too rigid for words to pass.) That is a
man’s way of love, perhaps! To throw it aside for casual, dull things,
once he has tasted it! I wanted to keep it, beautiful, wonderful, as we
had planned and dreamed it.
GEOFFREY
So you shut it up where it had nothing to feed on but itself. Love
cannot last like that! You grew almost to hate me! You said bitter
things, and then you cried and kissed me. And—well, loving you, I tried
to give you what you wished. Then, two years ago, you may remember, I
had that chance to go with Liggett to perfect and try out the instrument
we had devised. You consented, reluctantly. The night I was to leave,
and only for a month, you were taken ill. I had to give my designs to
Liggett. The instrument is his now.
EUNICE
Are you blaming me for illness! Oh, you are—
GEOFFREY
I am not blaming you. I blame myself for my long folly. I am trying to
show you—A year ago, when poor Thompson was dying, and sent for me, I
wished to go. You said it was too far, that I could not spare the time,
the money. I meant to go. Perhaps I meant never to come back. You
couldn’t have known that, but again, the day I was to go, you had that
terrible attack of heart trouble. When you were well enough so that I
might have gone, Thompson was dead. He was the finest friend I had.
(Geoffrey glances up, unexpectedly, and starts back at a faint, satiric
smile on Eunice’s tense face.) Good God, did you know—you knew I meant
to go!
EUNICE
(Slowly.) And if I did!
GEOFFREY
(Thrusts back his chair and stands, his hands on the desk, his body
crouched.) You knew! Perhaps you know, now, what I mean to do!
EUNICE
(In a high, thin voice.) Your bag is there, at your feet, packed! That
letter on your desk is written to me! (She wrests herself out of her
chair. Her loose sleeve catches the bowl of flowers, crashing it to the
floor. She stumbles across it and reaches Geoffrey. Her arms cling to
his shoulders, slip down his body to his waist and twist there as she
flings herself at his feet.) Jeff! Jeff! You can’t go! You can’t!
(Geoffrey straightens himself, his arms clenched above his head, against
his chest.) Jeff, you are all I have! I won’t let you go. I—I will try
to let you do whatever you wish. But I love you! I won’t—(She breaks
into sobbing. Geoffrey lifts her from the floor and carries her back to
the longue. He pulls her arms away and stands beside her. After a
moment, her sobs become long, tearing breaths. She reaches for his hand,
but he steps back.)
GEOFFREY
It is too late, Eunice. Neither of us can manage things that way, now. I
have made every arrangement. There is money enough. The Doctor has
engaged a woman.
EUNICE
(With a cry.) Then I shall kill myself! If you go, I shall kill myself
tonight!
GEOFFREY
You have told me that before. Perhaps you mean it. I have had to think
of that.
EUNICE
(Sits up, bracing herself with her hands at the edges of her couch.) I
have a pistol, Jeff. I have had it, oh, a long time. You think I only
threaten you!
GEOFFREY
(Dully.) I don’t know. I only know that if I stay another day in this
terrible house, I shall go crazy. You can not frighten me now. I have
seen things more horrible than death.
EUNICE
Geoffrey, I shall shoot myself tonight!
GEOFFREY
I have left you an address, in that note, where letters can reach me. If
you need anything—
EUNICE
(In a whisper.) I shall shoot myself, tonight!
GEOFFREY
I thought—but it was only a weak phantasy—that someday when I had built
up my life again, you might come—and share it with me.
(With a quick movement, he picks up his bag, seizes his hat and coat,
and pushes open the door. Eunice has fallen sidewise on her couch, her
arms flung up across her face. Geoffrey looks at her, his face
quivering, as though he fought with himself against a storm of tears.
Then he closes the door.)
Transcriber’s Notes
Transcribed from The Touchstone, vol. 6, Dec. 1919, pp. 122-127.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public
domain.
The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved.
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