Morning Post at the Manor House by Terrence Gordon
CHARACTERS
(in order of appearance)
KATE Thirty-three, a dreamer but surprisingly insightful.
JENN Thirty-five, relentless trickster, contrarian, but
emotionally balanced.
GERALDINE Thirty-seven, authoritarian, self-denying.
THE MAID (MARGARET) Fifty, self-effacing.
Monsieur de GOUDRON Fortyish, flamboyant, self-assured.
CHARLIE HOLLAND Thirty-three, earnest, straight-laced.
DR. McVEIGH Thirty-seven, dignified, earnest, courteous, kind.
SETTING
The action of the play is set in 1902.
ACT ONE
Takes place in the parlor of Bedford, Nova Scotia's Scott
Manor House.
ACT TWO
The same
ACT THREE
Empty stage divided into compartments.
MORNING POST AT THE MANOR HOUSE
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE.
CHARACTERS: KATE, JENN, GERALDINE. MORNING. THE PARLOR OF THE MANOR
HOUSE.
Kate and Jenn are seated drinking tea. Jenn looks up and turns an ear
in the direction of the door to the parlor, where the sound of another
door closing can be heard faintly. She stands and waits for a moment,
still looking toward the door before she pours more tea for both of
them and sits down again. They both take a sip.
KATE: Geraldine will be back with the morning post soon.
JENN: I thought I heard her go directly upstairs, just now. Why would
she take all the mail to her study?
KATE: Perhaps there was no mail, Jenn.
JENN: (Ignoring Kate's remark.) I think I know why she would take
all the mail to her study.
KATE: (Surprised.) Why then?
JENN: You are the very model of trusting innocence, Kate.
KATE: I don't understand.
JENN: That's what I just said.
Enter Geraldine holding one letter.
JENN: Ah, there you are, I thought you were back before now.
GERALDINE: (She holds up the letter.) For you, Kate.
JENN: Nothing else, then?
Geraldine, avoiding eye contact with Jenn, shakes her head vaguely and
hands the letter to Kate, who tears it open eagerly. Geraldine takes
a seat and says nothing for a moment, as Kate reads her letter
silently.
JENN: (Under her breath.) Nothing elseapparently.
GERALDINE: (Moving to the desk, where she begins to shuffle some
papers.) Read us your letter, Kate.
KATE:(Cheerfully.) At long last, news from my friend Amelia Yates in
Portsmouth. I have written to her but not heard back for months.
KATE: (Reading and summarizing.) She is well The winter was
colder than usual in Portsmouth splendid Christmas all the same
she is already spending much time working in the garden planting
new hibiscus, gloxinia her family is well and all send their
regards.
JENN: Not that interesting as letters go. A bit boring, really.
GERALDINE: (Looking up from her papers.) My mind is made up. Enough
of study. I have so many reading notes about Prince Edward, the Duke
of Kent, and his Julie. It's time to gather up all I have and write
their full story.
KATE: Full, heart-breaking story of the noble Julie, after years at
his side, banished, so that he could marry royalty and father Queen
Victoria.
GERALDINE: The story is love, but the lesson is duty.
JENN: Love or duty, just be sure that you tell their true story.
GERALDINE: What do you mean?
JENN: From what I have read myself, about a work of just last year by
a certain (pronounced with a flourish:) monsieur de Goudron, it seems
that there is as much mystery as history in their story.
KATE: Really?
JENN: And the biggest mystery may be why she came to be known as
Madame Julie de St. Laurent. The prince's lady, it seems, was in
reality a certain ThereseI forget the rest long name.
GERALDINE: What are you saying!?! You must be mistaken.
(Reflectively.) But if it is true, I must know before I can go on with
writing their story.
JENN: (Shrugs philosophically.) What's in a name?
GERALDINE: In a high ancestral name.
JENN: Time has tricked us into believing that Julie was Julie.
KATE: But Edward was Edward. A prince. To find such a manTheir
story is the purest, highest romance!
JENN: (Drily.) It has all the makings of a melodrama, and not so high
or so pure, for that matter.
GERALDINE: It is history our history. The past is our wise guide.
JENN: If we cherish the past more than we embrace the present, we can
distort it, control it, and let it control us, and there is nothing
wise about that. Every fantasy is nourished by a history of some
sort. The swashbuckler in every story is rooted in flesh and blood,
warts and all. And some of the William Whatsisname Wartsnall
Worsethanall III did not even have a swash to buckle or a buckle to
swash! Prince Edward and Julie belong to the annals of Bedford Basin,
to be sure, but their story is not our history, not a history of the
Ternans, not a history of when, why, or where the name Brefni came to
be linked with ours.
KATE: She cannot stop dreaming about Edward and Julie.) The purest,
highest romance. A dream come true.
GERALDINE: Don't fall in love with Prince Edward, Kate.
JENN: Perhaps it is you, Geraldine, who have fallen in love with the
small part of the story you know. (Sharply, as if to shake Kate from
her reverie.) Katherine, dearest
KATE: You only call me Katherine when you want something from me.
Perhaps Edward only called
JENN: Therese.
KATE: called Therese Julie when he wanted something from her.
JENN: He must have wanted something constantly, because it seems that
is the only name she ever got. At any rate, dear sister, you never
call me Jane, which is my actual, factual name.
KATE: (With affected sweetness.) All right then, Jennie Jane you
called Katherine Mary?
JENN: I only wanted to bring you back to us from the shore of Prince's
Lodge But while we are still on the subject of names… How is it
that four of our five brothers carry the Brefni name? Patrick Brefni,
Gerald Brefni, Terence Brefni, John Brefni, but I am plain Jane, even
if you two are Katherine Mary and Mary Geraldine?
KATE: And Eleanor is Eleanor Gertrude.
JENN: It only strengthens my point that we have no explanation of why
I am the only one in the family to be short one name. But did father
ever explain why Brefni is such a common name in our family?
GERALDINE: (Suddenly absorbed with Jenn's question.) I don't think
so. Not that I can recall. I must read (She stops herself.)
JENN: Read what?
GERALDINE: (Evasively.) Some documents
KATE: What documents?
GERALDINE: (Reluctantly.) I received some documents
JENN: (Softly and suspiciously.) You have received some documents.
Documents or letters? Historical or personal? (She moves to the
writing table to inspect Geraldine's papers.)
GERALDINE: These are not the documents in question.
JENN: Question indeed! What are you not telling us? That is the
question. I suspected you had mail that you were not sharing with us.
(After a pause.) Geraldine, dear, is it possible that you are so
taken with Edward and Julie because a certain someone from
yesteryear a certain young doctor
GERALDINE: (Very firmly.) I will not have you go on about that,
Jennie, I will not!
KATE: Clandestine correspondence? Will there be a confession? A
mystery to untangle!
JENN: To be sure! And I will untangle it, but the question is a
mystery about whom, with an M as in j'aime, as in EM-OUR, AMOUR,
J'ADORE!
GERALDINE: Stop that, Jenn!
JENN: (Mercilessly.) Was that 'stop that Jenn' or 'stop that
"j'aime"?' No, just M, capital M, I do believe! (Very
dramatically) The mystery will unravel around Monsieur M.
KATE: I think I know! I do know! (Softly but intensely.) He is a
handsome man, a very handsome man. A prince in his own rightand
deserving of his own Julie or Therese, was it?
JENN: Oui, monsieur M. monsieur McV [to be pronounced like "Mac
Vay"].
GERALDINE: (Exasperated.) Ah!
KATE: Secrets or not, Father would be pleased to know that his money
was well spent on our French lessons.
SCENE TWO. (THE NEXT DAY.)
THE SAME CHARACTERS. THE PARLOR OF THE MANOR HOUSE.
Jenn and Kate are seated. Enter Geraldine.
KATE: (Excitedly.) Is there news from London?
GERALDINE: Yes, but not from Eleanor. Letters for you, Kate, for
Mother, and for John. (She hands Kate her letter and one of the
others.) Leave this where Mother will find it. She will soon be back
from visiting Uncle Pitts.
Exit Kate with letters for her and Mother.
GERALDINE: I'll give this to John when he comes in. He has begun to
feel unwell of late, poor dear, but he went out early this morning all
the same.
JENN: I was so certain we would get our first letter from Eleanor by
now. Kate and I have both written to her already.
GERALDINE: Perhaps it is still a little too early for her to write.
She needs time to get settled.
JENN: Is it a full month yet since she sailed?
GERALDINE: I don't think so, but Kate will remember the exact date
that we saw her off.
JENN: Yes, I don't think she ever forgets anything. In fact, I am
quite certain that she doesn't.
As Kate re-enters, she is reading her letter, then folds it with a
disappointed look.
KATE: From London, my friend Cynthia Martin. She talks about her
family, her cousin Oriel visiting from Devon, their trip to Kew
Gardens, looking forward to swan upping in a month or so, and perhaps
repaying Oriel's visit before the summer is over.
JENN: That is all?
KATE: There was something else. (She begins to unfold the letter.)
JENN: (With a dismissive wave.) Quite all right.
Kate refolds the letter.
JENN: You would think that in that great metropolis of London there
would be something more scintillating for the mind and the spirit
than public gardens and following swans. We must count on Eleanor to
send us gripping news. Genuinely gripping news. In the meantime, if
only Miss Storey could conspire to have some interesting letters
waiting for us, for a change.
GERALDINE: (Taking Jenn's words literally.) Conspire? Her name is
Louisa Storey, not storyteller. It is hardly the job of the Bedford
postmistress to invent fantastic tales and seal them up as bogus
letters for those who find the real world too pedestrian.
JENN: (Standing suddenly, she turns away from Kate and Geraldine.) A
really good letter, that is what is wanting and wanted.
Geraldine and Kate exit.
JENN: Moves downstage center.) A really good letter is what we need,
and a really good letter
SCENE THREE. (LATER THE SAME DAY.)
THE SAME CHARACTERS. THE PARLOR.
JENN: Enters quickly clutching two sheets of folded writing paper.)
Geraldine! Kate! Kate! Geraldine!
Geraldine and Kate enter, talking.
GERALDINE: Yes! Yes! Here we are.
JENN: (Very excited.) You will forget all about the morning post,
when I read you what I have found! (She holds up her two sheets of
paper.)
KATE: Found? Where?
JENN: In the attic!
KATE: Where exactly?
JENN: What does it matter!?! Oh, very well then in a damp and
dusty old chest, full of letters, all of our family, but then
this! (Again she holds up her pages.)
GERALDINE: Yes, I have seen that chest with letters of Father's and
Mother's. Let me see what you have found in it now.
JENN: No! (Holding the pages in one hand and covering them with the
other.) It's just that I want to read it to you. It is so curious.
(She begins to read.) "My Darling Kathleen."
KATE: Katherine!?!
JENN: No, "Kathleen." "My Darling Kathleen. I wake filled with
thoughts of you alone. Sweet, incomparable Kathleen. How you make my
heart soar on eagles' wings. My profound feelings overwhelm me, and I
draw from your” (She looks up at Kate and Geraldine and begins to
read with increased dramatic intensity.) “ lips, from your heart,
a love which consumes me as an unquenchable fire."
Geraldine and Kate look at each other. Geraldine sits down. Kate
walks to the window and stares out, clutching one hand to her chest.
JENN: "I have a thousand images of you in my mind every hour, all
different, all coming back to our love, to our understandings to
our secrets"
Kate turns from the window.
KATE: Secrets.
JENN: (Turning to the window.) Secrets.
GERALDINE: (Looking dazed.) (Softly.) Yes.
[end of extract]