Читать книгу Why Marry? - Jesse Lynch Williams - Страница 11

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Up from the fragrant garden comes a girl, running. She takes the broad terrace steps two at a stride, laughing, breathless, fleet as a fawn, sweet as a rose. She is hotly pursued by a boy, handsome, ardent, attractively selfish, and just now blindly determined to catch the pretty creature before she gains the protecting shelter of home. She is determined to let him but not to let him know it. … There, she might have darted in through the open door, but it is such a cold, formal entrance; she pretends to be exhausted, dodges behind a stone tea-table, and, turning, faces him, each panting and laughing excitedly; she alluring and defiant, he merry and dominant.

She is twenty-five and he is a year or two older, but they are both children; in other words, unmarried.

Rex

Think I'll let you say that to me?

Jean

[making a face at him]

Think I'm afraid of you!

Rex

Take it back, I tell you.

Jean

I won't.

Rex

I'll make you.

Jean

[with a dance step]

Think so, do you?

Rex

I warn you.

Jean

Booh-woo!

[He makes a feint to the right, then dashes to the left and catches her.

Rex

[triumphantly]

Now! … You would, would you?

Jean

[struggling]

Let me go.

Rex

I couldn't think of it.

Jean

[seizes his hands to free herself—can't]

You're so strong—it isn't fair.

Rex

You're so sweet—it isn't fair.

[Smiling down at her struggles, rejoicing in his strength, her weakness, he gently draws her near.

Jean

[knows what is coming]

No, Rex.

Rex

Yes.

Jean

You mustn't.

Rex

But I will.

[He laughs and kisses her lightly on the cheek. Therefore she struggles furiously. Therefore he does it again. And again. Suddenly he enfolds her completely and kisses her passionately—cheeks, mouth, eyes—until she gasps in alarm. Laughter has gone from them now.

Jean

Oh, please! … some one will come.

Rex

[with the intoxication of such moments]

I don't care who comes—I love you.

Jean

No … let me go.

Rex

Not till you kiss me, Jean. [Jean hesitates, brushes his cheek lightly with her lips, and in pretty confusion tries to escape.] Not till you say you love me, Jean. [Eyes hidden in his coat, she bobs her head. He laughs and loves it.] Say it!

Jean

I—er—do.

Rex

Do what? … Say it! …

[She cannot. He swings her about, bringing her face close to his.

Jean

I love you, Rex. Are you sure you love me?

Rex

Am I sure! You irresistible little—

[Begins to kiss her. Masculine triumph.

Jean

And want to marry me, Rex?

Rex

[stops—startled—had not thought of that]

Why—er—of course. What did you suppose!

[Drops his eyes, sobered.

Jean

[feminine triumph]

And me "a penniless orphing"?

Rex

[fascinated by the way she says it, he laughs. Then, his honor touched]

Why, what kind of a man do you take me for!

[And wants her lips again.

Jean

[giving herself to him, head sinks upon his shoulder]

Then, oh, Rex, love me and be nice to me and—and take me away from all this!

[She covers her face with her hands and sobs. He pats her tenderly, with a manly look on his face.

Lucy comes up from the garden. She is dressed in white with a garden hat, a garden basket filled with flowers in one hand, long scissors in the other. She is John's wife, the mistress of the house, sister-in-law to Jean; conspicuously a "sweet" woman, affectedly so, a contrast with Jean's more modern, less delicate charm. Jean is frank and brave, Lucy indirect and timid, pretty but fading, forty but fighting it.

Jean

[laughing]

It's all right, Lucy—we're engaged!

Lucy

Well, I should hope so!

[Shoots a look at Jean, "So?"

Rex

[recovering himself]

I have often tried to thank you and good old John for letting me come over here so much, but now! How can I ever thank you? See-what-I-mean?

Lucy

I'll tell you how. Behave yourself after you are married to John's little sister.

Jean

Rex, have you had a fearful past? How fascinating!

Rex

I'm going to have a glorious future, all right.

Jean

Not unless you do as I tell you. Going to obey me, Rex?

Rex

You bet I am.

Jean

Then begin now. Go! … Get out! [She pushes Rex, laughing and protesting, toward the garden.] I want to tell Lucy how nice you are. Run along over to the golf club, and by and by—if you are a good boy—you can take me out in your new car. [Rex kisses the hand on his arm and leaves, laughing.] My dear, he has five cars! Thank you so much.

[Alone, they throw off the mask worn before men.

Lucy

Now, deary, tell me all about it. How did it happen?

Jean

Oh, I simply followed your advice.

Lucy

Picked a quarrel with him?

Jean

[laughing]

Yes. I pretended to believe in woman suffrage!

Lucy

Good! They hate that.

Jean

I told him all men were bullying brutes!

Lucy

They are! And then you ran away?

Jean

Of course.

Lucy

And he after you?

Jean

Of course.

Lucy

And you let him catch you?

Jean

Of cour—well … he caught me.

[They both laugh.

Lucy

I can guess the rest.

Jean

Why, it didn't take five minutes.

Lucy

And now it's to last through all eternity. … Isn't love wonderful?

Jean

Um-hum. Wonderful.

[They begin to cull out the flowers.

Lucy

But you do love him, dear, don't you?

Jean

[arranging flowers]

I did then. I don't now. Why is that, Lucy?

Lucy

Oh, but you will learn to love him. [Jean shrugs, drops flowers, and turns away.] Now, now! no worrying—it brings wrinkles! [Patting Jean's shoulder.] Rex is just the sort to give the woman he adores everything in the world.

Jean

[wriggling out of Lucy's embrace]

I am not the woman he adores.

Lucy

Why, Jean! He's engaged to you.

Jean

But he's in love with my sister. You know that as well as I do.

Lucy

[uncomfortably]

Oh, well, he was once, but not now. Men admire these independent women, but they don't marry them. Nobody wants to marry a sexless freak with a scientific degree.

Jean

Oh, what's the use, Lucy? He's still wild about Helen, and she still laughs at him. So you and John have trotted out the little sister. Why not be honest about it.

Lucy

Well, I may be old-fashioned, but I don't think it's nice to talk this way when you're just engaged.

Jean

Here comes your "sexless freak"—not with a degree, either.

Lucy

[following Jean's gaze]

With a man!

Jean

[smiling]

With my man.

[Helen, with Rex bending toward her eagerly, appears. She is a beautiful woman of twenty-nine, tall, strong, glorious—plenty of old-fashioned charm, despite her new-fashioned ideas. She is dressed in a tennis costume and is swinging a racquet.

Rex

But they told me you were going to stay abroad all winter.

Helen

My work, Rex—I had to get back to work.

Rex

Work! … You are too good to work.

Jean

[amused, not jealous]

Is this your high-powered car, Rex? Have you learned to run it yet?

Rex

[startled]

But … well … you see, I met Helen on the way. See-what-I-mean?

Jean

[laughing]

Oh, we see.

Rex

But I hadn't seen her for so long. I thought—[Looks from Helen to Jean] … wait, I'll get the car.

[He hurries off.

Lucy

[to Jean]

Why couldn't she have stayed abroad!

Jean

Helen, don't talk about your work before Lucy—it shocks her.

Helen

Oh, very well; make it my 'career'!

Jean

[arm around Helen]

Sssh!—that's worse.

Lucy

Helen, dear, I deem it my duty to tell you that you are being talked about.

Helen

Lucy, dear, do you always find your true happiness in duty?

Lucy

Well, if you think you are going back to that horrid place again … after what happened that night? John won't hear of it.

Helen

If the Baker Institute of Medical Experiment is not a respectable place you should make John resign as trustee.

[She laughs it off.

Lucy

John is trustee of—oh, nearly everything. That makes it all the worse. It isn't as if you had to work.

Helen

Oh, but John is so rich now, his credit can stand it. And you oughtn't to mind! Why, some of our most fashionable families now contain freaks like me. It's becoming quite smart, just as in former days one of the sons would go into the Church or the navy.

Lucy

Well, of course, I am old-fashioned, but going down-town every day with the men—it seems so unwomanly.

Helen

But wasn't I womanly for years? Instead of going down-town and working with highbrows, I stayed up-town and played with lowbrows—until I was bored to death.

Lucy

[sighs]

Yes, that's what comes of going to college, leaving the home, getting these new ideas. All the same, Helen, the men, really nice men, don't like it.

Helen

Well, you see, I don't like really nice men, so that makes it agreeable all around.

Lucy

If it were only art or music or something feminine, but that awful laboratory! How can a lady poison poor, innocent little monkeys?

Helen

If I were a lady I'd dine with monkeys. … Do you know what the word means, Lucy? In Anglo-Saxon times "lady" meant "one who gives loaves"; now, one who takes a loaf.

Lucy

Very clever, my dear, but some day you'll be sorry. No man, Helen, likes a woman to have independent views.

Jean

Helen can afford to have independent views; she has an independent income—she earns it.

Lucy

Independent income! Her salary wouldn't pay for your hats.

Jean

All the same, I wish I had gone to college; I wish I had learned a profession.

Lucy

What have these New Women accomplished? Just one thing: they are destroying chivalry!

Helen

Not entirely, Lucy, not entirely. For instance, I am the best assistant Ernest Hamilton has, but the worst paid; the others are all men. Hurray for chivalry!

Lucy

Well, I'm just an old-fashioned wife. Woman's sphere is the home. My husband says so.

Helen

But suppose you haven't any husband! What can a spinster do in the home?

Lucy

Stay in it—till she gets one! That's what the old-fashioned spinster used to do.

Helen

The old-fashioned spinster used to spin.

Lucy

At any rate, the old-fashioned spinster did not stay out of her home all night and get herself compromised, talked about, sent abroad! Or, if she did, she knew enough to remain abroad until the gossip blew over.

[Lucy turns to leave.

Helen

[mischievously]

Ah, that wonderful night! [Lucy turns back, amazed.] The night we discovered the Hamilton antitoxin, the night that made the Baker Institute famous! And, just think, I had a hand in it, Lucy, a hand in the unwomanly work of saving children's lives! But, of course, an old-fashioned spinster would have blushed and said: "Excuse me, Doctor Hamilton, but we must now let a year's work go to waste because you are a man and I am a woman, and it's dark outdoors!" … That's the way to preserve true chivalry.

Lucy

You think we can't see through all this? Science—fiddlesticks! The good-looking young scientist—that's why you couldn't stay abroad. We see it, John sees it, and now every one will see it. Then how will you feel?

Helen

Ernest is rather good-looking, isn't he?

Lucy

Do you think your brother will let you marry a mere scientist! … Oh, well, Doctor Hamilton is in love with his work—fortunately. … Besides, he's a thoroughbred; he wouldn't even look at a girl who throws herself at his head.

Helen

So I needn't try any longer? Too bad.

Lucy

[losing her temper and going]

Oh, you New Women are quite superior, aren't you? … Thank heavens, little Jean didn't elbow her way into men's affairs; she had no unwomanly ambitions for a career! But she is engaged to Rex Baker!

Helen

Jean, is this true?

Lucy

[triumphantly]

Marriage is woman's only true career.

Helen

Jean! You can't, you won't, you mustn't marry Rex!

Lucy

[flouncing out]

"She who will not when she may," my dear!

Jean

[avoiding Helen's eyes]

Lucy hears John coming—he'd take her head off if she weren't there to meet him. [Helen only looks at her.] He bullies and browbeats her worse than ever. I can't stand it here much longer. It's getting on my nerves.

Helen

Jean! You care for Rex no more than I do.

Jean

[still evasive]

John's bringing out Uncle Everett and Cousin Theodore. My dear, the whole family is up in the air about you.

Helen

Oh, I can take care of myself, but you! … Jean, you're not the sort to marry Rex or any other man, unless you simply can't live without him.

Jean

[after a little pause]

Well … how can I live without him—without some man? You can support yourself. I can't.

Helen

But you wouldn't live on a man you didn't really love!

Jean

Why not? Lucy does; most wives live on men they don't really love. To stop doing so and get divorced is wrong, you know.

Helen

Jean, Jean, poor little Jean!

Jean

Well, I'd rather have domestic unhappiness of my own than watch other people's all my life.

Helen

I don't like to hurt you, dear, but—[Takes Jean's face and raises it.] How about that nice boy at the Harvard Law School?

Jean

Don't! [Controls herself, then, in a low voice] Bob is still at the Law School, Helen.

Helen

Can't you wait, dear?

Jean

He never asked me to, Helen.

Helen

He would, if you let him.

Jean

It wouldn't be fair. It takes so long to get started. Everything costs so much. Why, nowadays, men in the professions, unless they have private means, can't marry until nearly forty. When Bob is forty I'll be forty, Helen.

Helen

Ah, but when a girl really cares!

Jean

Helen, do you know?

Helen

Never mind about me—you!

Jean

Oh, we'll get over it, I suppose. … People do! Some day, perhaps, he'll smile and say: "Just think, I once loved that fat old thing!" [Suddenly changes to sobbing.] Helen! when Rex caught me and kissed me I shut my eyes and tried to think it was Bob.

Helen

[takes Jean in her arms]

You can't keep on thinking so, dear.

Jean

But that isn't the worst! When he held me fast and I couldn't get away, I began … to forget Bob … to forget everything … [Breaks off, overcome with shame.] But not now, not now! It's not the same thing at all. [Buries face in Helen's breast and sobs it out.] Oh, I feel like the devil, dear. … And all this time he doesn't really want me—he wants you, you! I trapped him into it; I trapped him!

Helen

And I know Rex—he's a good sport; he'll stick to it, if you do, dear—only you won't! You've caught him by playing on his worst—don't hold him by playing on his best!

Jean

But what shall I do? I'm nearly twenty-six. I've got to escape from home in some way.

Helen

But what a way!

[Rex returns.

Rex

Ready, Jean? [To Helen.] Lucy and John and your Cousin Theodore are in there having a fine, old-fashioned family fight with the judge.

Helen

With Uncle Everett? What about?

Rex

They shut up when they saw me. All I heard was the parson—"Marriage is a social institution." Grand old row, though. [A Butler and Footman appear, wheeling a tea-wagon.] Looks as if they were coming out here.

Helen

Then I am going in. [Detaining Jean.] You will follow my advice?

Jean

[apart to Helen]

Oh, I don't know. Soon or late I must follow the only profession I have learned.