27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (11 page)

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
(
going to the mantel
)
This one here, Miss Collins?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
Yes. Of the Sunday School faculty picnic. I had the little kindergardeners that year and he had the older boys. We rode in the cab of a railroad locomotive from Webb to Crystal Springs. (
She covers her ears with a girlish grimace and toss of her curls.
)
Oh, how the steam-whistle blew! Blew! (
giggling
)
Blewwwww!
It frightened me so, he put his arm round my shoulders! But she was there, too, though she had no business being. She grabbed his hat and stuck it on the back of her head and they—they
rassled
for it, they actually
rassled
together! Everyone said it was
shameless!
Don’t you think that it was?

P
ORTER:
Yes, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
That’s the picture, the one in the silver frame up there on the mantel. We cooled the watermelon in the springs and afterwards played games. She hid somewhere and he took ages to find her. It got to be dark and he hadn’t found her yet and everyone whispered and giggled about it and finally they came back together—her hangin’ on to his arm like a common little strumpet—and Daisy Belle Huston shrieked out, “Look, everybody, the seat of Evelyn’s skirt!” It was—covered with—grass-stains! Did you ever hear of anything as outrageous? It didn’t faze her, though, she laughed like it was something very, very amusing! Rather
triumphant
she was!

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Which one is him, Miss Collins?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
The tall one in the blue shirt holding onto one of my curls. He loved to play with them.

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Quite a Romeo—1910 model, huh?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
(
vaguely
)
Do you? It’s nothing, really, but I like the lace on the collar. I said to Mother, “Even if I don’t wear it, Mother, it will be
so
nice for my hope-chest!”

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
How was he dressed tonight when he climbed into your balcony, Miss Collins?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
Pardon?

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Did he still wear that nifty little stick-candy-striped blue shirt with the celluloid collar?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
He hasn’t changed.

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Oughta be easy to pick him up in that. What color pants did he wear?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
(
vaguely
)
I don’t remember.

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Maybe he didn’t wear any. Shimmied out of ‘em on the way up the wall! You could get him on grounds of indecent exposure, Miss Collins!

P
ORTER:
(
grasping his arm
)
Cut that or git back in your cage! Understand?

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
(
snickering
)
Take it easy. She don’t hear a thing.

P
ORTER:
Well, you keep a decent tongue or get to hell out. Miss Collins here is a lady. You understand that?

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Okay. She’s Shoiley Temple.

P
ORTER:
She’s a
lady!

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
Yeah! (
He returns to the gramophone and looks through the records.
)

M
ISS
COLLINS:
I really shouldn’t have created this disturbance. When the officers come I’ll have to explain that to them. But you can understand my feelings, can’t you?

P
ORTER:
Sure, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
When men take advantage of common white-trash
women who smoke in public there is probably some excuse for it, but when it occurs to a lady who is single and always com
-pletely
above reproach in her moral behavior, there’s really nothing to do but call for police protection! Unless of course the girl is fortunate enough to have a father and brothers who can take care of the matter privately without any scandal.

P
ORTER:
Sure. That’s right, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
Of course it’s bound to cause a great deal of very disagreeable talk. Especially ‘round the
church!
Are you gentlemen Episcopalian?

P
ORTER:
No, ma’am. Catholic, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
Oh. Well, I suppose you know in England we’re known as the English Catholic church. We have direct Apostolic succession through St. Paul who christened the Early Angles—which is what the original English people were called—and established the English branch of the Catholic church over there. So when you hear ignorant people claim that our church was founded by—by Henry the
Eighth
—that horrible,
lecherous
old man who had so many wives—as many as
Blue
-beard
they say! —you can see how ridiculous it
is
and how thoroughly ob
nox
-ious to anybody who really
knows
and under
stands
Church
History
!

P
ORTER:
(
comfortingly
)
Sure, Miss Collins. Everybody knows that.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
I wish they
did,
but they need to be in
structed
)
Before he died, my father was Rector at the Church of St. Michael and St. George at Glorious Hill, Mississippi. . . . I’ve literally grown up right in the very
shadow
of the Episcopal church. At Pass Christian and Natchez, Biloxi, Gulfport, Port Gibson, Columbus and Glorious Hill! (
with gentle, bewildered sadness
)
But you know I sometimes suspect that there has been some kind of spiritual schism in the modern church. These northern dioceses have completely departed
from the good old church traditions. For instance our Rector at the Church of the Holy Communion has never darkened my door. It’s a fashionable church and he’s terribly busy, but even so you’d think he might have time to make a stranger in the congregation feel at home. But he doesn’t though! Nobody seems to have the time any more. . . . (
She grows more excited as her mind sinks back into illusion.
)
I ought not to mention this, but do you know they actually take a malicious de-
light
over there at the Holy Communion—where I’ve recently transferred my letter—in what’s been going on here at night in this apartment?
Yes!!
(
She laughs wildly and throws up her hands.
)
They take a malicious de
LIGHT
in it! ! (
She catches her breath and gropes vaguely about her wrapper.
)

P
ORTER:
You lookin’ for somethin’, Miss Collins?

M
ISS
COLLINS:
My—handkerchief . . . (
She is blinking her eyes against tears.
)

P
ORTER:
(
removing a rag from his pocket
)
Here. Use this, Miss Collins. It’s just a rag but it’s clean, except along that edge where I wiped off the phonograph handle.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
Thanks. You gentlemen are very kind. Mother will bring in something cool after while. . . .

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
(
placing a record on machine
)
This one is got some kind of foreign title. (
The record begins to play Tschaikowsky’s “None But the Lonely Heart.”
)

M
ISS
COLLINS:
(
stuffing the rag daintily in her bosom
)
Excuse me, please. Is the weather nice outside?

P
ORTER:
(
huskily
)
Yes, it’s nice, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
(
dreamily
)
So wa’m for this time of year. I wore my little astrakhan cape to service but had to
carry
it
home,
as the weight of it actually seemed
oppressive
to me. (
Her eyes fall shut.
)
The sidewalks seem so dreadfully long in summer. . . .

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
This ain’t summer, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
(
dreamily
)
I used to think I’d never get to the end of that last block. And that’s the block where all the trees went down in the big tornado. The walk is simply
glit
-tering
with sunlight. (
pressing her eyelids
)
Impossible to shade your face and I
do
perspire so freely! (
She touches her forehead daintily with the rag.
)
Not a branch, not a leaf to give you a little protection! You simply
have
to en-
dure
it. Turn your hideous red face away from all the front-porches and walk as fast as you decently
can
till you get
by
them! Oh, dear, dear Savior, sometimes you’re not so lucky and you
meet
people and have to
smile!
You can’t
avoid
them unless you cut
across
and that’s so
ob
-vious, you know. . . . People would say you’re pe
cul
iar. . . . His house is right in the middle of that awful leafless block,
their
house, his and
hers,
and they have an automobile and always get home early and sit on the porch and
watch
me walking by—Oh, Father in Heaven—with a ma
li
cious de
light!
(
She averts her face in remembered torture.
)
She has such
penetrating
eyes, they look straight through me. She sees that terrible choking thing in my throat and the pain I have in
here
—(
touching her chest
)—and she points it out and laughs and whispers to him, “There she goes with her shiny big red nose, the poor old maid—that
loves
you!” (
She chokes and hides her face in the rag.
)

P
ORTER:
Maybe you better forget all that, Miss Collins.

M
ISS
COLLINS:
Never, never forget it! Never, never! I left my parasol once—the one with long white fringe that belonged to Mother—I left it behind in the cloak-room at the church so I didn’t have anything to cover my face with when I walked by, and I couldn’t turn back either, with all those people behind me—giggling back of me, poking fun at my clothes! Oh, dear, dear! I had to walk straight forward—past the last elm tree and into that
merciless
sunlight. Oh! It beat
down
on me,
scorching
me!
Whips! . . .
Oh, Jesus! . . . Over my
face and my body! . . . I tried to walk on fast but was dizzy and they kept closer behind me—! I stumbled, I nearly fell, and all of them burst out laughing! My face turned so
horribly
red, it got so red and wet, I knew how ugly it was in all that merciless glare—not a single shadow to hide in! And then—(
Her face contorts with fear.
)—their automobile drove up in front of their house, right where I had to pass by it, and
she
stepped out, in white, so fresh and easy, her stomach round with a baby, the first of the
six.
Oh, God! . . . And he stood smiling behind her, white and easy and cool, and they stood there waiting for me.
Waiting!
I had to keep on. What else could I do? I couldn’t turn
back,
could I?
No!
I said dear
God
,
strike me
dead!
He didn’t, though. I put my head way down like I couldn’t see them! You know what she did? She stretched out her hand to
stop
me! And
he
—he stepped up straight in front of me,
smiling,
blocking the walk with his terrible big white body! “
Lucretia,”
he said, “Lucretia
Collins!”
I—I tried to speak but I couldn’t, the breath went out of my body! I covered my face and—ran! . . . Ran! . . .
Ran!
(
beating the arm of the sofa
)
Till I reached the end of the block—and the elm trees—
started
again. . . . Oh, Merciful Christ in Heaven, how
kind
they were! (
She leans back exhaustedly, her hand relaxed on sofa. She pauses and the music ends.
)
I said to Mother, “Mother, we’ve got to leave town!” We
did
after that. And now after all these years he’s finally remembered and come
back!
Moved away from that house and the woman and come
here
—I saw him in the back of the church one day. I wasn’t sure—but it
was.
The night after that was the night that he first broke in—and indulged his senses with me. . . . He doesn’t realize that I’ve changed, that I can’t feel again the way that I used to feel, now that he’s got six children by that Cincinnati girl—three in high-school already! Six! Think of that? Six children! I don’t know what he’ll say when he knows another one’s coming!

He’ll probably blame
me
for it because a man always
does!
In spite of the fact that he
forced
me!

E
LEVATOR
B
OY:
(
grinning
)
Did you say—a
baby,
Miss Collins?