Synopsis
ACT ONE
Scene 1 Living Room of the Wright-Dobie School. Late afternoon in April.
ACT TWO
Scene 1 Living Room at Mrs Tilford's House. A few hours later.
Scene 2 The same. Later that evening.
ACT THREE
Scene 1 Living Room of the Wright-Dobie School. November.
One day, when Mary feigns illness and is being examined by Dr. Joe Cardin, a physician who is Mary's cousin and also Karen's fiancé, Martha asks Lily whether she would like to go back to traveling to the places she misses now that they can afford it. Lily becomes angry and starts shouting about how, whenever Joe is around, Martha becomes irritable, unreasonable and jealous, taking her jealousy out on Karen. Two of Mary's friends, who are listening at the door trying to discover Mary's condition, overhear Lily's outburst.
Mary is found healthy and is sent to her room and squeezes the information out of the girls. Mary plans to ask her grandmother, Amelia Tilford—who not only indulges her but who also helped Karen and Martha a great deal in setting up the school—to allow her not to return. When Amelia refuses, Mary cleverly twists what the girls had overheard. With the help of several well-crafted lies and a book that the girls have been reading in secret, Mary convinces her grandmother that Karen and Martha are having a lesbian affair. On hearing this, Amelia Tilford begins contacting the parents of Mary's classmates. Shortly, most of Mary's friends have been pulled out of school. Rosalie Wells, a student whose mother is abroad, stays with Mary.
On discovering that Rosalie is vulnerable, Mary blackmails her into corroborating everything she says. When Karen and Martha realize why all their pupils were pulled out of their school in a single night, they go to Mrs. Tilford's residence to confront her. Amelia tells Mary to repeat her story. When Karen points out an inconsistency, Mary pretends to have been covering for Rosalie, who reluctantly corroborates Mary's story for fear of being exposed herself. Resolving to take Amelia to court, Martha and Karen leave.
Seven months later, after Martha and Karen have lost the case, everyone still believes that they were lovers. When Lily returns from abroad to take care of her niece, the women are angry with her for not having stayed in the country in order to testify to their innocence. Meanwhile Joe, who has remained loyal throughout, has found a job in a distant location. He tries to convince Karen and Martha to come with him and start over. As Martha goes to prepare dinner, Joe continues his attempts to persuade Karen, who now believes that she has ruined his life and destroyed everything that she and Martha had worked so hard to achieve.
At Karen's insistence, Joe reluctantly asks her whether she and Martha had ever been lovers. When Karen says that they were not, he readily believes her. Nevertheless, Karen decides that she and Joe must part. She explains that things can never be the same between them after all that they have been through. She asks Joe to leave and he refuses. He agrees to leave if Karen will think things through before finalizing the break-up. When Martha returns and finds out from Karen what has happened, she is consumed with guilt. Her discovery that she might indeed have feelings for Karen overwhelms and terrifies her. Before Martha tells Karen how she feels, Karen tells Martha that she would like to relocate in the morning and wants her to come with her. Martha says it's impossible for them to live comfortably again and eventually admits her feelings for Karen. Karen responds dismissively, saying that they never felt this way for each other. Martha continues, but Karen tells Martha that she is tired and they can talk about it in the morning. As Karen sits in her room, she hears a shot. Martha has killed herself. Shortly after, Amelia Tilford arrives to beg Karen's forgiveness, since Mary's lies have now been uncovered. Karen explains to her that it is too late: Mary's lies, together with the community's willingness to believe and spread malicious gossip, have destroyed three innocent lives.
Read more about this topic: The Children's Hour (play)