D H Lawrence

The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd D H Lawrence

This play by the English writer D. H. Lawrence is the dramatised version of the author s short story Odour of Chrysanthemums. An entertaining play that is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of all Lawrence lovers. The kitchen of a miner's small cottage. On the left is the fireplace, with a deep, full red fire. At the back is a white-curtained window, and beside it the outer door of the room. On the right, two white wooden stairs intrude into the kitchen below the closed stair foot door. On the left, another door. The room is furnished with a chintz-backed sofa under the window, a glass-knobbed painted dresser on the right, and in the centre, toward the fire, a table with a red and blue check tablecloth. On one side of the hearth is a wooden rocking-chair, on the other an armchair of round staves. An unlighted copper-shaded lamp hangs from the raftered ceiling. It is dark twilight, with the room full of warm fireglow. A woman enters from the outer door. As she leaves the door open behind her, the colliery rail can be seen not far from the threshold, and, away back, the headstocks of a pit. The woman is tall and voluptuously built. She carries a basket heaped full of washing, which she has just taken from the clotheslines outside. Setting down the basket heavily, she feels among the clothes. She lifts out a white heap of sheets and other linen, setting it on the table; then she takes a woollen shirt in her hand. MRS. HOLROYD (aloud, to herself) You know they're not dry even now, though it's been as fine as it has. (She spreads the shirt on the back of her rocking-chair, which she turns to the fire) VOICE (calling from outside) Well, have you got them dry?[Mrs. Holroyd starts up, turns and flings her hand in the direction of the open door, where appears a man in blue overalls, swarfed and greased. He carries a dinner-basket. MRS. HOLROYDYou-you-I don't know what to call you! The idea of shouting at me like that-like the Evil One out of the darkness!BLACKMOREI ought to have remembered your tender nerves. Shall I come in?MRS. HOLROYDNo-not for your impudence. But you're late, aren't you?BLACKMOREIt's only just gone six. We electricians, you know, we're the gentlemen on a mine: ours is gentlemen's work. But I'll bet Charles Holroyd was home before four.