I love fairy tales and I love A.A. Milne. When you put them together, I’m a happy woman. And thankfully Milne used fairy tales – or at least fairy-tale-esque settings – in a number of his writings. I’d already encountered this happy combination in his early novel, Once on a Time, in his one-act play, Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers, and in his uproariously funny play, The Ugly Duckling, so I was delighted to find it again in The Ivory Door, a play from 1928.
We begin with King Hilary and his son, young Prince Perivale, in the throne room having a friendly chat about life. Perivale is eight- or nine-years old and starting to make sense of the world and his place in it. His father, however, is making things a bit difficult by throwing in his king-ly perspective:
PERIVALE. […] Kings are the wisest men, aren’t they?
HILARY .It is commonly said so.
PERIVALE. And the handsomest, and the best swordsmen, and the cleverest painters, and the greatest generals, and – and everything.
HILARY. It is well that the people should think so.
PERIVALE. Shall I be when I grow up?
HILARY. So it will be said.
PERIVALE. But shan’t I be?
HILARY. It is almost too much to expect of one man, Perivale.
PERIVALE. Even if he is the King?
HILARY. The more so if he be the King.
And here we have our theme, ladies and gentleman: the gap between perception and reality, what people desire to be true and what is actually so. It’s hard on a king to try and live up to romantic expectations and legends, as Perivale will discover.
But he will not discover it quite yet. For now, he moves on to questioning his father about the mysterious ivory door in the throne room. He’s been told it leads to hell or at the very least that to enter it means certain death. And his father, wise as he might be (for all kings are wise), cannot tell him differently. He can only tell him that what lies on the other side is unknown but the kings who have passed through the door have never been seen again. It’s a legend that looms large in their kingdom – the Ivory Door that leads to certain death – and for Perivale the need to know the truth is intense. But the key is lost so the door – and what lies on the other side – remains a mystery.
Years pass, good King Hilary dies, and Perivale becomes king. But he has never lost his inquisitive nature and now he finally has the key to the Ivory Door. And on the eve of his wedding, he decides he cannot live with the uncertainty any longer. So he opens the door and goes through.
The legend of the Ivory Door, as one of the characters says, “…is our own; something which joins us together. We talk of it often. We tell each other stories. We could not lose it.” So when Perivale emerges unscathed and alive, having discovered the door merely leads to a passage that ends outside the palace walls, it is deemed impossible. Perivale must be an impostor or some wicked soul switched in hell with the true, good King Perivale. The arrival of his fiancée, Princess Lilia, only complicates matters. After all, everyone in the kingdom knows their great secret: that the two met while in disguise as peasants and fell in love only to then discover one another’s true identities. It is always thus for kings and princesses. Except Perivale and Lilia had never set eyes on one another and the lack of recognition only serves to further condemn Perivale. He may look like their king but King Perivale passed through the Ivory Door and therefore gone forever. It is inconceivable, despite all the evidence, that Perivale could have lived.
On the Milne spectrum of silliness, The Ivory Door should be classed on the more serious side. It has its moments of levity thanks to Milne’s typically snappy dialogue but is primarily a cautionary tale. Perivale’s people had lived for generations with the legend of the Ivory Door. It formed part of their identity. And, as Perivale says, “when I came safely through the Door, I was telling each one of my people that he was a fool and a coward. A fool to believe, a coward to fear.” It is never safe to be the person who makes other feels like fools and cowards. Only bad things can come from that.
Bad things for Perivale, yes, but good things for the reader. I really enjoyed this (as I always enjoy Milne) and loved that it was of a more serious bent than some of his other plays of the era. I love a good comedy of errors about bigamy but a change is nice.