Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (14 page)

You won’t be for long. The Master and the boys will be home soon.

I doubt if they’ll come back for dinner. They have too good an excuse to remain in the barrooms where they feel at home.

Cathleen stares at her, stupidly puzzled. Mary goes on smilingly.

Don’t worry about Bridget. I’ll tell her I kept you with me, and you can take a big drink of whiskey to her when you go. She won’t mind then.

Grins—at her ease again.

No, Ma’am. That’s the one thing can make her cheerful. She loves her drop.

Have another drink yourself, if you wish, Cathleen.

I don’t know if I’d better, Ma’am. I can feel what I’ve had already.

Reaching for the bottle.

Well, maybe one more won’t harm.

She pours a drink.

Here’s your good health, Ma’am.

She drinks without bothering about a chaser.

Dreamily.

I really did have good health once, Cathleen. But that was long ago.

Worried again.

The Master’s sure to notice what’s gone from the bottle. He has the eye of a hawk for that.

Amusedly.

Oh, we’ll play Jamie’s trick on him. Just measure a few drinks of water and pour them in.

Does this—with a silly giggle.

God save me, it’ll be half water. He’ll know by the taste.

Indifferently.

No, by the time he comes home he’ll be too drunk to tell the difference. He has such a good excuse, he believes, to drown his sorrows.

Philosophically.

Well, it’s a good man’s failing. I wouldn’t give a trauneen for a teetotaler. They’ve no high spirits.

Then, stupidly puzzled.

Good excuse? You mean Master Edmund, Ma’am? I can tell the Master is worried about him.

Stiffens defensively—but in a strange way the reaction has a mechanical quality, as if it did not penetrate to real emotion.

Don’t be silly, Cathleen. Why should he be? A touch of grippe is nothing. And Mr. Tyrone never is worried about anything, except money and property and the fear he’ll end his days in poverty. I mean, deeply worried. Because he cannot really understand anything else.

She gives a little laugh of detached, affectionate amusement.

My husband is a very peculiar man, Cathleen.

Vaguely resentful.

Well, he’s a fine, handsome, kind gentleman just the same, Ma’am. Never mind his weakness.

Oh, I don’t mind. I’ve loved him dearly for thirty-six years. That proves I know he’s lovable at heart and can’t help being what he is, doesn’t it?

Hazily reassured.

That’s right, Ma’am. Love him dearly, for any fool can see he worships the ground you walk on.

Fighting the effect of her last drink and trying to be soberly conversational.

Speaking of acting, Ma’am, how is it you never went on the stage?

Resentfully.

I? What put that absurd notion in your head? I was brought up in a respectable home and educated in the best convent in the Middle West. Before I met Mr. Tyrone I hardly knew there was such a thing as a theater. I was a very pious girl. I even dreamed of becoming a nun. I’ve never had the slightest desire to be an actress.

Bluntly.

Well, I can’t imagine you a holy nun, Ma’am. Sure, you never darken the door of a church, God forgive you.

Ignores this.

I’ve never felt at home in the theater. Even though Mr. Tyrone has made me go with him on all his tours, I’ve had little to do with the people in his company, or with anyone on the stage. Not that I have anything against them. They have always been kind to me, and I to them. But I’ve never felt at home with them. Their life is not my life. It has always stood between me and—

She gets up—abruptly.

But let’s not talk of old things that couldn’t be helped.

She goes to the porch door and stares out.

How thick the fog is. I can’t see the road. All the people in the world could pass by and I would never know. I wish it was always that way. It’s getting dark already. It will soon be night, thank goodness.

She turns back
—
vaguely.

It was kind of you to keep me company this afternoon, Cathleen. I would have been lonely driving uptown alone.

Sure, wouldn’t I rather ride in a fine automobile than stay here and listen to Bridget’s lies about her relations? It was like a vacation, Ma’am.

She pauses—then stupidly.

There was only one thing I didn’t like.

Vaguely.

What was that, Cathleen?

The way the man in the drugstore acted when I took in the prescription for you.

Indignantly.

The impidence of him!

With stubborn blankness.

What are you talking about? What drugstore? What prescription?

Then hastily, as Cathleen stares in stupid amazement.

Oh, of course, I’d forgotten. The medicine for the rheumatism in my hands. What did the man say?

Then with indifference.

Not that it matters, as long as he filled the prescription.

It mattered to me, then! I’m not used to being treated like a thief. He gave me a long look and says insultingly, “Where did you get hold of this?” and I says, “It’s none of your damned business, but if you must know, it’s for the lady I work for, Mrs. Tyrone, who’s sitting out in the automobile.” That shut him up quick. He gave a look out at you and said, “Oh,” and went to get the medicine.

Vaguely.

Yes, he knows me.

She sits in the armchair at right rear of table. She adds in a calm, detached voice.

It’s a special kind of medicine. I have to take it because there is no other that can stop the pain—
all
the pain—I mean, in my hands.

She raises her hands and regards them with melancholy sympathy. There is no tremor in them now.

Poor hands! You’d never believe it, but they were once one of my good points, along with my hair and eyes, and I had a fine figure, too.

Her tone has become more and more far-off and dreamy.

They were a musician’s hands. I used to love the piano. I worked so hard at my music in the Convent—if you can call it work when you do something you love. Mother Elizabeth and my music teacher both said I had more talent than any student they remembered. My father paid for special lessons. He spoiled me. He would do anything I asked. He would have sent me to Europe to study after I graduated from the Convent. I might have gone—if I hadn’t fallen in love with Mr. Tyrone. Or I might have become a nun. I had two dreams. To be a nun, that was the more beautiful one. To become a concert pianist, that was the other.

She pauses, regarding her hands fixedly. Cathleen blinks her eyes to fight off drowsiness and a tipsy feeling.

I haven’t touched a piano in so many years. I couldn’t play with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time after my marriage I tried to keep up my music. But it was hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home—

She stares at her hands with fascinated disgust.

See, Cathleen, how ugly they are! So maimed and crippled! You would think they’d been through some horrible accident!

She gives a strange little laugh.

So they have, come to think of it.

She suddenly thrusts her hands behind her back.

I won’t look at them. They’re worse than the foghorn for reminding me—

Then with defiant self-assurance.

But even they can’t touch me now.

She brings her hands from behind her back and deliberately stares at them—calmly.

They’re far away. I see them, but the pain has gone.

Stupidly puzzled.

You’ve taken some of the medicine? It made you act funny, Ma’am. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d a drop taken.

Dreamily.

It kills the pain. You go back until at last you are beyond its reach. Only the past when you were happy is real.

She pauses—then as if her words had been an evocation which called back happiness she changes in her whole manner and facial expression. She looks younger. There is a quality of an innocent convent girl about her, and she smiles shyly.

If you think Mr. Tyrone is handsome now, Cathleen, you should have seen him when I first met him. He had the reputation of being one of the best looking men in the country. The girls in the Convent who had seen him act, or seen his photographs, used to rave about him. He was a great matinee idol then, you know. Women used to wait at the stage door just to see him come out. You can imagine how excited I was when my father wrote me he and James Tyrone had become friends, and that I was to meet him when I came home for Easter vacation. I showed the letter to all the girls, and how envious they were! My father took me to see him act first. It was a play about the French Revolution and the leading part was a nobleman. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I wept when he was thrown in prison—and then was so mad at myself because I was afraid my eyes and nose would be red. My father had said we’d go backstage to his dressing room right after the play, and so we did.

She gives a little excited, shy laugh.

I was so bashful all I could do was stammer and blush like a little fool. But he didn’t seem to think I was a fool. I know he liked me the first moment we were introduced.

Coquettishly.

I guess my
eyes
and nose couldn’t have been red, after all. I was really very pretty then, Cathleen. And he was handsomer than my wildest dream, in his make-up and his nobleman’s costume that was so becoming to him. He was different from all ordinary men, like someone from another world. At the same time he was simple, and kind, and unassuming, not a bit stuck-up or vain. I fell in love right then. So did he, he told me afterwards. I forgot all about becoming a nun or a concert pianist. All I wanted was to be his wife.

She pauses, staring before her with unnaturally bright, dreamy eyes, and a rapt, tender, girlish smile.

Thirty-six years ago, but I can see it as clearly as if it were tonight! We’ve loved each other ever since. And in all those thirty-six years, there has never been a breath of scandal about him. I mean, with any other woman. Never since he met me. That has made me very happy, Cathleen. It has made me forgive so many other things.

Fighting tipsy drowsiness—sentimentally.

He’s a fine gentleman and you’re a lucky woman.

Then, fidgeting.

Can I take the drink to Bridget, Ma’am? It must be near dinnertime and I ought to be in the kitchen helping her. If she don’t get something to quiet her temper, she’ll be after me with the cleaver.

With a vague exasperation at being brought back from her dream.

Yes, yes, go. I don’t need you now.

With relief.

Thank you, Ma’am.

She pours out a big drink and starts for the back parlor with it.

You won’t be alone long. The Master and the boys—

Impatiently.

No, no, they won’t come. Tell Bridget I won’t wait. You can serve dinner promptly at half past six. I’m not hungry but I’ll sit at the table and we’ll get it over with.

You ought to eat something, Ma’am. It’s a queer medicine if it takes away your appetite.

Has begun to drift into dreams again—reacts mechanically.

What medicine? I don’t know what you mean.

In dismissal.

You better take the drink to Bridget.

Yes, Ma’am.

She disappears through the back parlor. Mary waits until she hears the pantry door close behind her. Then she settles back in relaxed dreaminess, staring fixedly at nothing. Her arms rest limply along the arms of the chair, her hands with long, warped, swollen-knuckled, sensitive fingers drooping in complete calm. It is growing dark in the room. There is a pause of dead quiet. Then from the world outside comes the melancholy moan of the foghorn, followed by a chorus of bells, muffled by the fog, from the anchored craft in the harbor. Mary’s face gives no sign she has heard, but her hands jerk and the fingers automatically play for a moment on the air. She frowns and shakes her head mechanically as if a fly had walked across her mind. She suddenly loses all the girlish quality and is an aging, cynically sad, embittered woman.