A Bill of Divorcement: A Play in Three Acts

SCENE.--_A small house in the country. The action passes on Christmas Day, 1933. The audience is asked to imagine that the recommendations of the_ Majority Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce v. Matrimonial Causes have become the law of the land.

ACT I.--THE HALL. MORNING.

ACT II.--THE DRAWING ROOM. EARLY AFTERNOON.

ACT III.--THE HALL. LATE AFTERNOON.

ACT I.

The curtain rises on the hall, obviously used as the common-room of a country house. On the right (of the audience) is the outer door and a staircase that runs down from an upper landing towards the middle of the room, half hiding what has once been a separate smaller room with a baize door at the back. In the corner a French window opens on to a snowbound garden. On the left, facing the entrance, a log fire is blazing. Staircase, pictures, grandfather clock, etc., are wreathed with holly and mistletoe. At the breakfast table, which is laid for three and littered with paper and string, sit MISS HESTER FAIRFIELD and MARGARET FAIRFIELD, her niece by marriage. The third chair has two or three parcels piled up on it.

HESTER FAIRFIELD is one of those twitching, high-minded, elderly ladies in black, who keep a grievance as they might keep a pet dog--as soon as it dies they replace it by another. The grievance of the moment seems to be the empty third chair, and MARGARET FAIRFIELD is, as usual, on the defensive. Such a little, pretty, helpless-looking woman as MARGARET has generally half a dozen big sons and a husband to bully; but MARGARET has only a daughter, and her way of looking at even the chair on which that daughter ought to be sitting, is the way of a child whose doll has suddenly come to life. For the rest, she is so youthfully anxious and simple and charming that the streak of grey in her hair puzzles you. You wonder what trouble has fingered it. It does not occur to you that she is quite thirty-five.

MARGARET. [_Apologising_] Yes, she is late.

MISS FAIRFIELD. As usual!

MARGARET. Oh, well, she was dancing till three. I hadn’t the heart to wake her.

MISS FAIRFIELD. Till three, was she? Who brought her home?

MARGARET. Kit, of course.

MISS FAIRFIELD. Three o’clock on Christmas morning! I wonder what the Rector said to that.

MARGARET. Oh, Kit’s on holiday.

MISS FAIRFIELD. I heard you tell her myself to be in by twelve. If anything could make me approve of this marriage of yours--

MARGARET. Oh, don’t begin it again, Auntie!

MISS FAIRFIELD.--it’s that the child will have a strong hand over her at last. A step-father’s better than nothing--if you can call him a step-father when her father’s still alive.

MARGARET. Oh, don’t!

MISS FAIRFIELD. What’s the use of saying “don’t”? He is alive. You can’t get away from that.

MARGARET. Aunt Hester--_please_!

MISS FAIRFIELD. Well, I’m only telling you--if it’s got to be, I’m not sorry it’s Gray Meredith.

MARGARET. [_Smiling_] Yes, Sydney knows just how far she may go with Gray.

MISS FAIRFIELD. I see nothing to laugh at in that.

MARGARET. It’s so funny to think how circumspect you all are with him. He’s the one person I’ve always felt perfectly safe with. I’d ask anything of Gray.

MISS FAIRFIELD. [_Grimly_] You always have, my dear!

MARGARET. I don’t know why you should be unkind to me on Christmas morning.

MISS FAIRFIELD. [_With a sort of grudging affection_] I suppose it’s because I’ve only got another week to be unkind to you in.

MARGARET. [_Restlessly_] Oh, I wish you didn’t hate it so.

MISS FAIRFIELD. My dear, when you see a person you care for, and she your own nephew’s wife, on the brink of deadly sin--

MARGARET. Must we begin it again?

MISS FAIRFIELD. I do my duty. If you’d done yours your daughter wouldn’t be late for breakfast, and I shouldn’t be given the opportunity.

MARGARET. Perhaps I had better call her.

MISS FAIRFIELD. Everything getting cold--and so disrespectful! She ought to be taught.

MARGARET. [_Rising with a sigh_] You’re quite right. [_Calling at the foot of the stairs_] Sydney, darling, shall I bring you up your coffee?

SYDNEY’S VOICE. [_Answering_] It’s all right, Mother! I’m coming.

MISS FAIRFIELD. And I suppose that’s all you’ll say.

SYDNEY comes out of her room. She is physically a bigger, fairer edition of MARGARET, but there the likeness ends. Her manner is brisk and decided. She is very sure of herself, but when she loses her temper, as she often does, she loses her aplomb and reveals the schoolgirl. Her attitude to the world is that of justice, untempered, except where her mother is in question, by mercy. But she is very fond of her mother.

SYDNEY. [_Running down the stairs_] Merry Christmas, everyone! I’m not late, am I? Morning, Auntie! What, no post?

MARGARET. It gets later every year.

MISS FAIRFIELD. I’m very much obliged to you, Sydney, for the--card-case.