door open too. No wonder it was cold. [_Calling at an outer door._]
Abbie! [_Sound of the door closing. Again the sound of dishes being
moved._] Well, I don’t know where they can have put--
MARGARET
[_Covering her face._] Don’t _look_ for things. [_More quietly._] Bring
anything, Craig, there must be something there.
CRAIG
[_Coming in with cups._] Things have been moved around. I stumbled over
things that didn’t used to be there. You’ll have a little, Margaret?
It--we need something.
MARGARET
I don’t--oh, I don’t care.
[_He pours the drinks and drinks his._
CRAIG
[_Abruptly shoving his cup away._] Margaret, I loved Bernice. I suppose
you don’t believe that! And I thought Bernice knew I loved her, in
spite of--other things. What do you think it is is the matter with me,
Margaret, that I--[_Saying it as if raw_] miss things. You can tell me.
I’d be glad to feel some one knew. Only--don’t leave me alone while
you’re telling me!
MARGARET
I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, Craig. I thought I knew Bernice.
And now--I _did_ know Bernice! [_Gropingly._] I feel something we don’t
get to.
CRAIG
And Bernice can’t help us.
MARGARET
I think she would expect us to--find our way. She could always find her
way. She had not meant to leave us _here_. Bernice was so kind.
CRAIG
She was kind.
MARGARET
Such a sensitive kindness. The kindness that divined feeling and was
there ahead--to meet it. This is the very thing she would _not_ do.
CRAIG
[_Slowly, as if feeling his way._] Margaret, I wish I could tell
you about me and Bernice. I loved her. She loved me. But there was
something in her that had almost nothing to do with our love.
MARGARET
Yes.
CRAIG
Well, that isn’t right, Margaret. You want to feel that you _have_ the
woman you love. Yes--completely. Yes, every bit of her!
MARGARET
So you turned to women whom you could have.
CRAIG
Yes.
MARGARET
But you “had” all of them simply because there was less to have. You
want no baffling sense of something beyond you. [_He looks at her
reproachfully._] You wanted me to help you find the truth. I don’t
believe you can stand truth, Craig.
CRAIG
It’s hard tonight.
MARGARET
[_Intensely._] But perhaps it is tonight or not at all. It’s a strange
thing this has done. A light trying to find its way through a fog. [_In
her mind the light tries to do this._] Craig, why do you write the
things you do?
CRAIG
Oh, Margaret, is this any time to talk of work?
MARGARET
It seems to be. Tonight it’s all part of the same thing. Laura and
I were talking of work--quarreling about it: you were talking of
Bernice’s father. The light--just goes there. That poor sad old
man--why didn’t he go on? You said he was a wreck of the Darwinian
theory. Then me--a wreck of free speech.
CRAIG
Oh I didn’t mean you were, Margaret.
MARGARET
But I might be. I can see that. We give ourselves in fighting for a
thing that seems important and in that fight we get out of the flow of
life. We had meant it to deepen the flow--but we get caught. I know
people like that. People who get at home in their fight--and stay
there--and are left there when the fight’s over--like this old man. How
many nights Bernice and I have sat in this room and talked of things!
And I had thought--[_With sudden angry passion._] If you had been good
to her, she would be in this room now. [_After a look at him._] I’m
sorry. But can I help feeling it?
CRAIG
I didn’t know.
MARGARET
No; you didn’t know. We don’t know. When you think what a writer
might do for life--for we _don’t_ know. You write so well, Craig,
but--what of it? What is it is the matter with you--with all you
American writers--’most all of you. A well-put-up light--but it doesn’t
penetrate anything. It never makes the fog part. Just shows itself
off--a well-put-up light. [_Growing angry._] It would be better if we
didn’t have you at all! Can’t you see that it would? Lights which--only
light themselves keep us from having light--from knowing what the
darkness is. [_After thinking._] Craig, as you write these things are
there never times when you sit there _dumb_ and know that you are glib
and empty?
CRAIG
Did you ever try to write, Margaret?
MARGARET
No.
CRAIG
I suppose you think it’s very simple to be real. I suppose you think we
could do it--if we just wanted to do it. Try it. You try.
MARGARET
So you do this just to cover the fact that you _can’t_ do anything?
Your skill--a mask for your lack of power?
CRAIG
I should think you’d want to be good to me tonight, Margaret.
MARGARET
Be good to you! Keep you from seeing. That’s the way we’re good to each
other. There’s only one thing I could do for you tonight, Craig. You
don’t want that. So--
[_Moves as if to rise._
CRAIG
No, don’t go away. My brain won’t keep still either. What I think is
just as bad as what you say. Well, why do you think it is I--miss
things--never get anywhere?
MARGARET
I don’t know. And it’s true of all of us. Of me too. I do things that
to me seem important, and yet I just do _them_--I don’t get to the
thing I’m doing them for--to life itself. I don’t simply and profoundly
get to _life_. Bernice did.
CRAIG
Yes. Bernice did.
MARGARET
And yet you had to--shy away from Bernice. Into a smaller world
that could be all your world. No, Craig, you haven’t power. It’s
true. And for one hour in our lives let’s try to--Those love affairs
of yours--they’re like your false writing--to keep yourself from
knowing you haven’t power. Did you ever see a child try to do a
thing--fail--then turn to something he could do and make a great show
of doing that? That’s what most of our lives are like.
CRAIG
[_Rudely._] Well, why _haven’t_ I power? If you are going to be any
good to me--tell me that.
MARGARET
[_Shaking her head._] I can’t tell you that. I haven’t any light
that--goes there. But isn’t it true? Isn’t your life this long attempt
to appear effective--to persuade yourself that you _are_ something?
What a way to spend the little time there is for living.
CRAIG
I fancy it’s the way most lives are spent.
MARGARET
That only makes it infinitely sadder.
CRAIG
[_As if he can stay in this no longer._] As to writing, Margaret, the
things that interest you wouldn’t interest most people.
MARGARET
“Wouldn’t interest most people!” Oh, Craig, don’t slide away from
that one honest moment. Say you haven’t got it. Don’t say they
wouldn’t want it. Why, if now--in this our day--our troubled day of
many shadows--came a light--a light to reach those never lighted
places--wouldn’t _want_ it? I wish some one could try them! No, Craig,
they all have their times of suspecting their lives are going by in
a fog. They’re _pitifully_ anxious for a little light. Why--they
continue to look to _writers_. You know, Craig, what living makes of
us--it’s a rim--a bounded circle--and yet we know--have our times
of suspecting--that if we could break through _that_. [_Seeing._]
O-h. It’s like living in the mountains--those high vast places of
Colorado--in a little house with shaded windows. You’d _suspect_ what
was there! A little sunshine through the cracks--mountain smells--and
at times the house would shake--and you’d wonder--and be fretted in
your little room. And if some day you could put up the shade and--_see
where you were_. Life would never be so small a thing again. Bernice
could do that. Her own life did not bound her.
CRAIG
No. That was what--
MARGARET
Hurt your vanity?
CRAIG
I don’t know. I’m trying to be honest. I honestly don’t know.
MARGARET
No. We don’t know. That’s why--oh, Craig, it would be so wonderful
to be a writer--something that gets a little farther than others can
get--gets at least the edge of the shadow. [_After her own moment on
the edge of the shadow._] If you ever felt the shock of reality, and
_got_ that back in you--you wouldn’t be thinking of whom it would
“interest”! But, Craig--_this_. [_A movement toward the closed room._]
Doesn’t _this_ give you that shock of reality?
CRAIG
What of _you_? Doesn’t it give it to you? You’re speaking as if this
hadn’t happened! You leave it out--what Bernice did because of me.
You’re talking of my having no power. What of _this_? _Had_ I no power?
[_After her look at him._] Oh, yes--I know I used it terribly--plenty
of years for my heart to break over that. But can you say I didn’t
_have_ it?
MARGARET
I do leave it out. It isn’t right there should be anything in Bernice
not Bernice. And she had a great rightness--rightness without
effort--that rare, rare thing.
CRAIG
You say it isn’t right--and so you leave it out? And then _you_ talk
about the shock of reality.
MARGARET
I don’t say it isn’t fact. I say it isn’t--_in the rightness_.
CRAIG
“In the rightness!” Is that for you to say? Is rightness what you
think? What you can see? No. You didn’t know Bernice. You didn’t know
she loved me--_that way_. And I didn’t know. But she did! How _could_ I
have had that--and not _known_? But I _did_ have it! I did _have_ it!
You say life broke through her--the whole of life. But Bernice didn’t
want--the whole of life. She wanted _me_. [_He goes to the door, bows
against it, all sorrow and need._] I want to talk to _her_--not you. I
want her _now_--_knowing_.
[_He opens that door and goes in to Bernice. MARGARET stands
motionless, searching, and as if something is coming to her from
the rightness. When she speaks it is a denial from that inner
affirmation._
MARGARET
No! I say--No! [_Feeling some one behind her, swiftly turning she sees
ABBIE outside, looking through the not quite drawn curtains of the
door. She goes to the door and draws ABBIE in._] Yes, I _am_ here--and
I say _no_. [_She has hold of her, drawing her in as she says it._]
You understand--I say _no_. _I don’t believe it._ What you told me--_I
don’t believe it_.
ABBIE
[_At first it is horror--then strange relief, as if nothing could be so
bad as this has been._] Well, I’m glad you know.
MARGARET
[_Very slowly, knowing now it is fact she has come to._] Glad I know
_what_?
ABBIE
That it isn’t true. That she didn’t do it.
MARGARET
Didn’t do it? Did _not_ take her own life?
ABBIE
No. Of course she didn’t.
MARGARET
[_Still very slowly, as if much more is coming than she can take in._]
Then _why_--did you say she did?
ABBIE
Because she said I must. Oh--look at me! Look at me! But you knew
her. You know the strength of her. If she’d told you the way she told
me--_you’d have done it too_. You would!
MARGARET
[_Saying each word by itself._] I can not understand one word you’re
saying. Something is wrong with you. [_Changing, and roughly taking
hold of ABBIE._] Tell me. Quick, the truth.
ABBIE
Wednesday night, about eight o’clock, about an hour after she told me
to telegraph you, she said, “Why, Abbie, I believe I’m going to die.” I
said no, but she said, “I think so.” I said we’d send for Mr. Norris.
She said no, and not to frighten her father. I--_I_ didn’t think she
was going to die. All the time I was trying to get the doctor. There
were two hours when she was--quiet. Quiet--not like any quiet I ever
knew. Thinking. You could see thinking in her eyes--stronger than
sickness. Then, after ten, she called me to her. She took my hands.
She said, “Abbie, you’ve lived with me all my life.” “Yes,” I said.
“You love me.” “Oh, yes,” I said. “Will you do something for me?” “You
know I will,” I told her. “Abbie,” she said, looking right at me,
_all_ of her looking right at me, “if I die, I want you to tell my
husband I killed myself.” [_MARGARET falls back._] Yes, I did that
too. Then I thought it was her mind. But I looked at her, and oh, her
mind was there! It was terrible--how it was all _there_. She said--and
then she [_The sobs she has been holding back almost keep ABBIE from
saying this_]--held out her hands to me--“Oh, Abbie, do this last
thing for me! After all there has been, I have a _right_ to do it.
If my life is going--let me have _this_ much from it!” And as still
I couldn’t--_couldn’t_--the tears ran down her face and she said, “I
want to rest before pain comes again. Promise me so I can rest.” And I
promised. And you would have too!
MARGARET
You don’t know what you’re _telling_ me! You don’t know _what_ you’re
doing. You do this _now_--after she can do nothing? [_Holding out her
hands._] Abbie! Tell me it isn’t true!
ABBIE
It’s true.
MARGARET
You are telling me her life was _hate_? [_Stops, half turns to the room
where CRAIG is with Bernice._] You are telling me she covered hate
with--with the beauty that was like nothing else? Abbie! _You_ are
telling me that as Bernice left life she _held out her hands_ and asked
you to take _this_ back for her?
ABBIE
There are things we can’t understand. There’s no use trying.
[_She turns to go._
MARGARET
You can’t leave me like this!
ABBIE
[_More gently._] You shouldn’t have tried to know. But--if you have
_got_ to know things--you have got to take them.
[_CRAIG comes out; ABBIE goes._
CRAIG
Go in there, Margaret. There’s something wonderful there.
MARGARET
[_Turned from him, her face buried in her hands._] Oh no--no--no. I can
_never_ go in there. I--I never _was_--in there.
[_Her other words are lost in wild sobbing. He stands regarding her
in wonder, but not losing what he himself has found._
(CURTAIN)
ACT THREE
SCENE: _The same as in Acts One and Two; it is early afternoon of the
next day; the door leading outdoors is a little open; when the curtain
is drawn CRAIG is seen outside, just passing the window, as one who
is walking back and forth in thinking. In the room are LAURA and the
FATHER--the FATHER sitting at the table by the stairs--LAURA, standing,
watches CRAIG pass the door; she has in her hand a paper on which are
some memoranda. After watching CRAIG she sighs, looks at her notes,
sits down._
LAURA
I’m sorry to be troubling you, Mr. Allen. Certainly you should not be
asked to discuss these matters about--arrangements. But really, you and
I seem the only people who are capable of going on with things. I must
say, I don’t know what to make of everyone else. They all seem to be
trying to--keep away from one. I think that’s a little unnecessary. Of
course I know what grief does, and I’m sure I have every consideration
for that, but really--I’m sorry Craig keeps his own sister out. When
I’m here to help him. And Abbie--why she seems to have lost her head.
Just when it’s so important that she look after things. And as to
Margaret Pierce--she certainly is worse than useless. I don’t see what
she came for if she didn’t want to be helpful.
FATHER
Margaret and Bernice were very dear friends, Laura.
LAURA
Is that any reason for not being helpful in Bernice’s household at
a time like this? Really I do like control. [_After looking at her
notes._] Then the minister will come here at three, Mr. Allen. Why that
will be little more than an hour! Think of things having been neglected
like this! [_As CRAIG, having turned in his walk, is again passing the
door._] Craig! [_He steps to the door._] The minister, Mr. Howe, will
come here, Craig, at three.
CRAIG
What for?
LAURA
Craig! What _for_?
CRAIG
I don’t see why he comes here. Why Bernice scarcely knew him. [_To her
father._] Did Bernice know him?
FATHER
Well, I don’t know whether she knew him, but--
LAURA
It is not a personal matter, Craig.
CRAIG
I think it is. Very personal.
LAURA
You mean to say you are not going to have any _service_?
CRAIG
I haven’t thought anything about it. Oh, Laura! How can I think of such
things now?
LAURA
Well, I will think of them for you, dear.
CRAIG
Don’t bring him here. He can go--[_Stops_] there, if he wants to.
Where--we have to go. Not here. In her own house. The very last thing.
FATHER
I’m afraid it will seem strange, Craig.
CRAIG
Strange? Do I care if it seems strange? Bernice seemed strange too.
But she wasn’t strange. She was wonderful. [_Putting out his hand
impatiently._] Oh, _no_, Laura. There’s so much else to think of--now.
[_He steps out of the door and stands there, his back to the room._
FATHER
[_In a low voice._] I wonder--could we go somewhere else? Into my room,
perhaps. I’m afraid we are keeping Craig out of here. And I think he
wants to be here--near Bernice. We will be undisturbed in my room.
[_He gets up and goes to the door of his room, LAURA turns to follow.
Outside CRAIG passes from sight._
LAURA
I think it’s too bad things have to be made so--complicated.
FATHER
[_After opening the door._] Oh, Margaret is in here.
MARGARET
[_From the other room._] I was just going out. I just came in here
to--[_Enters._] I just went in there--I didn’t think about it being
your room.
FATHER
Why that was quite all right, Margaret. I’m only sorry to disturb you.
MARGARET
No. That doesn’t matter. I--wasn’t doing anything.
LAURA
There is a great deal to do.
[_She follows the FATHER into his room. MARGARET walks across the
room, walks back, stands still, head bent, hands pressing her
temples. ABBIE comes part way down the stairs, sees MARGARET,
stands still as if not to be heard, turns to go back upstairs._
MARGARET
[_Hearing her, looking up._] Abbie! [_ABBIE comes slowly down._] Where
is he, Mr. Norris? Where is he?
ABBIE
I don’t know. He was here a little while ago. Perhaps he went out.
[_Indicating the open door._
MARGARET
I have to tell him!
ABBIE
[_After an incredulous moment._] Tell _him_ what you made me tell you?
MARGARET
Of course I have to tell him! You think I can leave that on him? And
the things I said to him--they were not just.
ABBIE
And you’d rather be “just” than leave it as she wanted it?
MARGARET
Oh, but Abbie--what she _wanted_--[_Holds up her hand as if to shut
something from her eyes._] No. You can’t put that on anyone. I couldn’t
_live_--feeling I had left on him what shouldn’t be there.
ABBIE
But you wouldn’t tell him _now_?
MARGARET
I must tell him now. Or I won’t tell him. And I must go away. I can’t
stay. I can’t stay here.
ABBIE
But what will they think--your leaving? You mean--before we’ve taken
_her_ away?
MARGARET
Oh, I don’t know. How can I--plan it out? I’m going as soon as I can
tell him. All night--all day--I’ve been trying to tell him--and when I
get near him--I run away. _Why did you tell me?_
ABBIE
[_Harshly._] Why did you _know_--what you weren’t to know? But if you
have some way of knowing what you aren’t told--you think you have the
right to do _your_ thing with that? Undo what she did? What _I_ did? Do
you know what it took _out_ of me to do this? There’s nothing left of
me.
MARGARET
[_With a laugh. Right on the verge of being not herself._] No. You’re a
wreck. Another wreck. It’s your Darwinian theory. Your free speech.
ABBIE
Oh, I was afraid of you. I didn’t want you to come. I knew you’d--get
_to_ things.
[_ABBIE goes to the door and looks out._
MARGARET
He is out there?
ABBIE
Yes.
[_MARGARET tries to go; moves just a little._] And you’d go to him
and--what _for_?
MARGARET
Because I can’t _live_--leaving that on him--having him think--when I
know he didn’t. I can’t leave that on him one more hour.
ABBIE
[_Standing in the door to block her going._] And when you take that
from him--_what do you give to him?_
[_They stare at one another; MARGARET falls back._
MARGARET
Don’t ask me to see so many things, Abbie. I can only see this thing.
I’ve grown afraid of seeing.
ABBIE
[_After looking at her, seeing something of her suffering._] Miss
Margaret, why did you do what you did last night? How did you know?
MARGARET
I don’t know.
ABBIE
But you knew.
MARGARET
No. I didn’t _know_. I didn’t know. It didn’t come from me. It
came--from the rightness.
[_A laugh._
ABBIE
If you could get that without being told--why don’t you get more
without being told? [_MARGARET gives her a startled look._] For you
will never be told.
MARGARET
You know _more_?
ABBIE
No. My knowing stops with what you got from me last night. But I knew
her. I thought maybe, as you have some way of knowing what you aren’t
told, you could--see into this. _See._
MARGARET
I’ve lost my seeing. It was through her I saw. It was through Bernice
I could see. And now it’s dark. [_Slowly turning toward the closed
room._] Oh, how still death is.
[_The two women are as if caught into this stillness._
ABBIE
[_Looking from the door._] He turned this way. [_Swiftly turning back
to MARGARET._] But you _couldn’t_ tell him.
MARGARET
No, I can’t. Yes, I must! I tell you there’s something in me can’t
_stand_ it to see any one go down under a thing he shouldn’t have to
bear. Why that feeling has made my life! Do you think I’ve _wanted_ to
do the kind of work I do? Don’t you think I’d like to be doing--happier
things? But there’s something in my blood _drives_ me to--what’s right.
ABBIE
And something in _my_ blood drives me to what’s right! And I went
against it--went against my whole life--so she could rest. I did it
because I loved her. But you didn’t love her.
MARGARET
Oh--Abbie!
ABBIE
Not as you love--what’s right. If you loved her, don’t you want to
protect her--now that she lies dead in there? [_Her voice breaking._]
Oh, Miss Margaret, it was right at the very _end_ of her life. Maybe
when we’re going to die things we’ve borne all our lives are things we
can’t bear any longer. Just--don’t count that last hour.
MARGARET
[_After a moment of being swayed by this._] Yet you counted it, Abbie.
You did what she said--because of the strength of her. You told me last
night--her mind was there. Terrible the way it was right _there_. She
hadn’t left her life.
ABBIE
Well, and if she hadn’t left her life! If all those years with him
there was something she hid, and if she seemed to feel--what she
didn’t feel. She did it well, didn’t she?--and almost to the last.
Shan’t we hide it now? For her? You and me, who loved her--isn’t she
_safe_--with us? [_Going nearer MARGARET._] Perhaps if you would go in
there now--
MARGARET
Oh no--no.
ABBIE
[_In a last deeply emotional appeal._] Miss Margaret, didn’t she do a
good deal for you?
MARGARET
_Do_ a good deal for me? Yes. Yes!
ABBIE
Yes. She did for me. I--I’m something _more_ on account of her. Aren’t
you?
MARGARET
Yes.
ABBIE
Yes, I think you are too. I can see myself as I’d have been if my life
hadn’t been lived round her. [_Thinks, shakes her head._] It would be
left you--what feels and knows it feels. And you said it was through
Bernice you could see. Well, lets forget what we don’t want to know!
On account of what we are that we wouldn’t have been--lets put it out
of our minds! One ugly thing in a whole beautiful life! Let it go! And
let all the rest live! [_They can see CRAIG outside._] Oh--do this for
_her_. _Make_ yourself do it. Let _that_ be what’s dead--and let all
the rest live! You were _her_ friend not his.
[_CRAIG turns to the house, but when about to come in, turns away,
covering his face._
MARGARET
[_Taking hold of ABBIE._] You see? He thinks she loved him and he
killed her. He might do what he thinks she did!
ABBIE
[_Falling back._] O-h.
[_CRAIG comes in, stands by the door; MARGARET has drawn ABBIE
over near the stairway. He sees them, but gives no heed to them,
immersed in what he is living through. While he stands there
MARGARET does not move. He turns toward the room where Bernice is;
when he moves MARGARET goes a little toward him--his back is to
her; ABBIE moves to step between CRAIG and MARGARET; MARGARET puts
her aside. But when CRAIG comes to the closed door, and stands
there an instant before it, not opening it, MARGARET too stops, as
if she cannot come nearer him. It is only after he has opened the
door and closed it behind him that she goes to it. She puts out her
hands, but she does not even touch the door and when she cannot do
this she covers her face and, head bent, stands there before the
closed door. LAURA and the FATHER come out from the room where they
have been. As they enter ABBIE slowly goes out, toward the kitchen._
LAURA
[_After looking at MARGARET, who has not moved._] We are going in an
hour, Margaret.
MARGARET
Going?
LAURA
Taking Bernice to the cemetery.
MARGARET
Oh. Are we?
[_After a look which shows her disapproval LAURA goes out, following
ABBIE._
FATHER
[_Sitting._] I can’t believe that, Margaret.
MARGARET
No. [_MARGARET sits in the window seat, by which she has been standing.
As if she is just realizing what they have said._] You say--we are
taking Bernice away from here--in an hour?
FATHER
Yes. Think of it, Margaret. I just can’t--take it in.
MARGARET
No.
FATHER