The Cottage - Sylvia (Act I)

(Top of Show)

S: Beau, are you nearly through?... Beau, are you nearly through?

B: What?

S: I say, are you nearly through?

B: Quite.

S: Good. I miss you!

B: What?

S: I say, I miss you!

B: Ah- just as I left you. Gorgeous. My gorgeous tulip.

S: Am I?

B: You know you are, darling. Why just now, you've set yourself up perfectly to look coy and lovely, so that it would be exceedingly difficult for me to get properly dressed without distraction.

S: Ah, darling. How well you know me.

B: Do I?

S: I love it when you call me Tulip.

B: Tulip.

S: Ahhh. Don't.

B: Don't what?

S: Please don't get dressed. We've only just begun.

B: Just begun? Good lord, Sylvia, if that was just the beginning, I'm afraid I'm not quite up to the task of making it to the end.

S: Let's test you and find out. I wish you were my husband.

B: No you don't.

S: Yes I do.

B: If I were your husband you would despise me just as you despise Clarke and you would spend your evenings wishing to make love to him and not me.

S: Do you really think so?

B: I do.

S: Well that's not very romantic, is it?

B: Romance, my dear, is for fairy tales. This is not a romance. This is sex.

S: Passionate, wildly erotic sex.

B: Un-wifely sex.

S: Haven't you ever had wild sex with Marjorie?

B: Marjorie's not in the mood for wild sex.

S: Ever?

B: Well, I suppose once when we were in the South of France, she let me...

S: Never mind, darling, I don't want to know. Do you feel guilty?

B: For sleeping with you?

S: Yes.

B: No.

S: Neither do I! I feel like I deserve to make love like I make love to you. And Clarke certainly doesn't do it, so I have no other choice but to turn to you.

B: Is that a compliment?

S: I'd say. If I really want to be made love to, Beau, I must come to you. And so I have- for one night, every summer, for seven summers.

B: Has it been seven already. This looks lovely. Thank you Sylvie.

S: Coffee?

B: Please.

S: Somehow it last me, you know? This one night of spectacular lovemaking will see me through another year of rare and mediocre sex with Clarke.

B: I don't take sugar.

S: Don't you?

B: 'Fraid not.

S: Of course. Sorry. It's been so long.

B: You were saying?

S: Ah yes. That our one night together will make up for all our nights apart.

B: Will it?

S: Of course. When I've no choice but to lie in bed with Clarke, I simply close my eyes and imagine us- here, at this perfect cottage. My most favorite place in all the world.

B: You sound like Mama.

S: Do I? Oh, I love it here. I always feel like I belong.

B: As do I.

S: I picture us in that bed of satin sheets, with window boxes of tulips; and that lone will bring me to climax.

B: Will it?

S: Will you stop saying "will it" like that? You make me feel foolish?

B: Not at all. You're not a bit foolish. You're wonderful and beautiful. When did you put that flower in your hair?

S: While you were washing up. I thought it would make me look fetching.

B: It does. What else do you do while I'm washing up?

S: Ciggy?

B: No thank you, darling, I'm through with smoking.

S: But you smoked last night.

B: I know, but this morning I'm through with it. It's exhausting as a practice.

S: Exhausting how?

B: Just the planning of it all. --- A sincere laugh. Without pretense.

S: Good lord, Beau, you make me self-conscious.

B: Sorry, sweetheart.

S: Am I?

B: What?

S: Am I your sweetheart?

B: Indeed.

S: Do you ever wonder what would happened had I met you first?

BEAU: I don't need to wonder. I know.

Oh good! I'm so curious. Tell me.

B: We would have married.

S: I knew it! If we had married, we'd be the picture of happiness!

B: I don't know.

S: Don't you?

B: Well, it could be that if we married, you'd be here now having this conversation with Clarke instead of me.

S: You think I was destined to have a lover?

B: Anything's possible I suppose, though I'm not one to speak of destiny; too magical a topic for the likes of me.

S: But isn't that what we're discussing now? Destiny? Fate?

B: ...I do however, know about late.

S: Late?

B: Yes, darling you're late.

S: Oh!

B: ... Sooner or later, I've got to get to work.

S: But I don't want our night to end!

B: And yet it has, darling.

S: I've been having such fun pretending to be your wife.

B: Is that what you're doing?

S: I've been imagining us forever happy in this cottage, making love every night like husbands and wives.

B: Do you make love to Clarke every night?

S: Heavens no! I mean happy husbands and wives.

B: Ah. I see. You're sweet Sylvie. Come here.

S: Oh, what a perfect Monday!

B: I really must get dressed.

S: Alas. So you must. Beau, I've made a decision, darling.

B: Mmmm?

S: A decision about us.

B: Is it so serious we must have silence?

S: I'm leaving Clarke! Don't laugh. I'm leaving him, Beau. I can't bear it another moment.

B: Oh, Sylvie. You are adorable.

S: I love you, Beau! I've sent him a telegram.

B: Sorry?

S: Last night, after supper, you went to take a bath.

B: Yes.

S: I sent a wire.

B: You really are busy while I'm in the loo.

S: Kiss me!

B: Saying what, precisley?

S: What?

B: The telegram?

S: Ah yes. I said, "Clarke. Stop. In love with Beau. Stop. I'm leaving. Stop. Sorry, darling. Stop."

B: What?

S: It said, "Clarke. Stop. In love with Beau. Stop-

B: No, no, I heard you the first time I just-

S: I feel so free! Haven't you noticed how free I've been? Last night? And this morning?

B: Yes, but I had attributed that to my new cologne.

S: It is rather divine.

B: Thank you. A telegram?

S: Mmm-hmm.

B: Really?

S: It's true.

B: You know, I think I will take a cigarette.

S: I love it when you smoke. You look the picture of health.

B: What time was it when I took a bath?

S: Nearly ten, I'd say.

B: So you think Clarke's received the telegram by now?

S: I'd say so.

B: He'll se red, Sylvia.

S: Will he?

B: A Baldwin Conservative. A believer in convention, finance, and God...

S: I'm not sure he'll really mind.

B: You're rather apathetic.

S: No. I don't feel apathetic. I feel alive!

B: You don't think your husband will mind that you've declared your love for another man- his brother?

S: Well, when you put it like that.

B: Is there another way to put it?

S: Look, he might be a bit miffed, I'll give you that. But I doubt he'll truly mind.

B: Doesn't he love you at all?

S: Isn't it all or nothing?

B: I'm not sure.

S: Well then neither am I.

B: Still, darling...a telegram?

S: I can't live without you, Beau. I don't want to go another three hundred and sixty four days dreaming of you, only to have one short loved night over all too soon.

B: How poetic.

S: I know you want more than just one day with me per year.

B: How well you know me.

S: Beau, darling, you and I have been stuck in the wrong marriages.

B: That may be so, Sylvie, but they are marriages nonetheless.

S: True, but they needn't be an obstacle.

B: You seem so sure.

S: We're in love! What could be surer than that?

B: Even still, a telegram's a rather cold way to make such an announcement, Sylvie.

S: Oh I could never face Clarke. He gets all sweaty and pathetic looking when he's upset.

B: Ah! So you admit, he'll be upset.

S: Perhaps a trifle. But darling, really it's you I can't bear to see upset.

B: Well, darling, then perhaps you could have mentioned this telegram to me before you'd sent it.

S: You told me last night you like it when I "take charge."

B: Context, darling.

S: This is perfect context! I'm taking charge of my life! I'm starting our lives anew!

B: I'd argue that when Clarke arrives, our lives will be quite ended.

S: But Clarke won't come here.

B: Won't he?

S: How could he? He's no idea where we are.

B: Hasn't he?

S: I told him I was going to my aunt's in London.

B: Ah. Did it occur to you that perhaps I speak to Clarke occasionally.

S: Sorry?

B: I speak to my brother, occasionally. For example, Friday. He phoned to tell me about Mama's condition-

S: Poor dear-

B: Awful. And as we were hanging up he inquired about my weekend plans.

S: Well surely, you didn't.

B: "I'll be at the cottage," I told him. I assume he assumed I meant with Marjorie.

S: I see. So you think that means he'll-

B: I do.

S: Oh dear.

B: And the pair of us still in our skivvies.

S: Hide me! Where shall I hide?

B: But why should he be upset if he doesn't love you?

S: Because he's a man!

B: I thought you said he won't mind.

S: I thought you stopped smoking!

B: Marjorie? But how is she here?!

S: I may have sent a telegram to her as well.

B: Oh, Sylvia.

S: As your mother always says: "Best to kill two birds with one stone."

B: My mother says a lot of things, Sylvia!

S: Yes, but I'm the only one who listens.

B: You've really upset the apple cart, haven't you?

S: It needed upsetting, Beau.

M: Beau?! Open this door!

S: Do you think she's cross?

B: It's quite possible.

S: I do hate confrontation.

M: I say, open this door!!!

S: Where shall I go?!