Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (16 page)

A shadow of vague guilt crosses her face.

At least, I’ve loved you dearly, and done the best I could—under the circumstances.

The shadow vanishes and her shy, girlish expression returns.

That wedding gown was nearly the death of me and the dressmaker, too!

She laughs.

I was so particular. It was never quite good enough. At last she said she refused to touch it any more or she might spoil it, and I made her leave so I could be alone to examine myself in the mirror. I was so pleased and vain. I thought to myself, “Even if your nose and mouth and ears are a trifle too large, your eyes and hair and figure, and your hands, make up for it. You’re just as pretty as any actress he’s ever met, and you don’t have to use paint.”

She pauses, wrinkling her brow in an effort of memory.

Where is my wedding gown now, I wonder? I kept it wrapped up in tissue paper in my trunk. I used to hope I would have a daughter and when it came time for her to marry— She couldn’t have bought a lovelier gown, and I knew, James, you’d never tell her, never mind the cost. You’d want her to pick up something at a bargain. It was made of soft, shimmering satin, trimmed with wonderful old duchesse lace, in tiny ruffles around the neck and sleeves, and worked in with the folds that were draped round in a bustle effect at the back. The basque was boned and very tight. I remember I held my breath when it was fitted, so my waist would be as small as possible. My father even let me have duchesse lace on my white satin slippers, and lace with the orange blossoms in my veil. Oh, how I loved that gown! It was so beautiful! Where is it now, I wonder? I used to take it out from time to time when I was lonely, but it always made me cry, so finally a long while ago —

She wrinkles her forehead again.

I wonder where I hid it? Probably in one of the old trunks in the attic. Some day I’ll have to look.

She stops, staring before her. Tyrone sighs, shaking his head hopelessly, and attempts to catch his son’s eye, looking for sympathy, but Edmund is staring at the floor.

Forces a casual tone.

Isn’t it dinner time, dear?

With a feeble attempt at teasing.

You’re forever scolding me for being late, but now I’m on time for once, it’s dinner that’s late.

She doesn’t appear to hear him. He adds, still pleasantly.

Well, if I can’t eat yet, I can drink. I’d forgotten I had this.

He drinks his drink. Edmund watches him. Tyrone scowls and looks at his wife with sharp suspicion—roughly.

Who’s been tampering with my whiskey? The damned stuff is half water! Jamie’s been away and he wouldn’t overdo his trick like this, anyway. Any fool could tell—Mary, answer me!

With angry disgust.

I hope to God you haven’t taken to drink on top of—

Shut up, Papa!

To his mother, without looking at her.

You treated Cathleen and Bridget, isn’t that it, Mama?

With indifferent casualness.

Yes, of course. They work hard for poor wages. And I’m the housekeeper, I have to keep them from leaving. Besides, I wanted to treat Cathleen because I had her drive uptown with me, and sent her to get my prescription filled.

For God’s sake, Mama! You can’t trust her! Do you want everyone on earth to know?

Her face hardening stubbornly.

Know what? That I suffer from rheumatism in my hands and have to take medicine to kill the pain? Why should I be ashamed of that?

Turns on Edmund with a hard, accusing antagonism—almost a revengeful enmity.

I never knew what rheumatism was before you were born! Ask your father!

Edmund looks away, shrinking into himself.

Don’t mind her, lad. It doesn’t mean anything. When she gets to the stage where she gives the old crazy excuse about her hands she’s gone far away from us.

Turns on him—with a strangely triumphant, taunting smile.

I’m glad you realize that, James! Now perhaps you’ll give up trying to remind me, you and Edmund!

Abruptly, in a detached, matter-of-fact tone.

Why don’t you light the light, James? It’s getting dark. I know you hate to, but Edmund has proved to you that one bulb burning doesn’t cost much. There’s no sense letting your fear of the poor-house make you too stingy.

Reacts mechanically.

I never claimed one bulb cost much! It’s having them on, one here and one there, that makes the Electric Light Company rich.

He gets up and turns on the reading lamp—roughly.

But I’m a fool to talk reason to you.

To Edmund.

I’ll get a fresh bottle of whiskey, lad, and we’ll have a real drink.

He goes through the back parlor.

With detached amusement.

He’ll sneak around to the outside cellar door so the servants won’t see him. He’s really ashamed of keeping his whiskey padlocked in the cellar. Your father is a strange man, Edmund. It took many years before I understood him. You must try to understand and forgive him, too, and not feel contempt because he’s close-fisted. His father deserted his mother and their six children a year or so after they came to America. He told them he had a premonition he would die soon, and he was homesick for Ireland, and wanted to go back there to die. So he went and he did die. He must have been a peculiar man, too. Your father had to go to work in a machine shop when he was only ten years old.

Protests dully.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mama. I’ve heard Papa tell that machine shop story ten thousand times.

Yes, dear, you’ve had to listen, but I don’t think you’ve ever tried to understand.

Ignoring this—miserably.

Listen, Mama! You’re not so far gone yet you’ve forgotten everything. You haven’t asked me what I found out this afternoon. Don’t you care a damn?

Shakenly.

Don’t say that! You hurt me, dear!

What I’ve got is serious, Mama. Doc Hardy knows for sure now.

Stiffens into scornful defensive stubbornness.

That lying old quack! I warned you he’d invent— !

Miserably dogged.

He called in a specialist to examine me, so he’d be absolutely sure.

Ignoring this.

Don’t tell me about Hardy! If you heard what the doctor at the sanatorium, who really knows something, said about how he’d treated me! He said he ought to be locked up! He said it was a wonder I hadn’t gone mad! I told him I had once, that time I ran down in my nightdress to throw myself off the dock. You remember that, don’t you? And yet you want me to pay attention to what Doctor Hardy says. Oh, no!

Bitterly.

I remember, all right. It was right after that Papa and Jamie decided they couldn’t hide it from me any more. Jamie told me. I called him a liar! I tried to punch him in the nose. But I knew he wasn’t lying.

His voice trembles, his eyes begin to fill with tears.

God, it made everything in life seem rotten!

Pitiably.

Oh, don’t. My baby! You hurt me so dreadfully!

Dully.

I’m sorry, Mama. It was you who brought it up.

Then with a bitter, stubborn persistence.

Listen, Mama. I’m going to tell you whether you want to hear or not. I’ve got to go to a sanatorium.

Dazedly, as if this was something that had never occurred to her.

Go away?

Violently.

No! I won’t have it! How dare Doctor Hardy advise such a thing without consulting me! How dare your father allow him! What right has he? You are my baby! Let him attend to Jamie!

More and more excited and bitter.

I know why he wants you sent to a sanatorium. To take you from me! He’s always tried to do that. He’s been jealous of every one of my babies! He kept finding ways to make me leave them. That’s what caused Eugene’s death. He’s been jealous of you most of all. He knew I loved you most because—

Miserably.

Oh, stop talking crazy, can’t you, Mama! Stop trying to blame him. And why are you so against my going away now? I’ve been away a lot, and I’ve never noticed it broke your heart!

Bitterly.

I’m afraid you’re not very sensitive, after all.

Sadly.

You might have guessed, dear, that after I knew you knew—about me—I had to be glad whenever you were where you couldn’t see me.

Brokenly.

Mama! Don’t!

He reaches out blindly and takes her hand—but he drops it immediately, overcome by bitterness again.

All this talk about loving me—and you won’t even listen when I try to tell you how sick—

With an abrupt transformation into a detached bullying motherliness.

Now, now. That’s enough! I don’t care to hear because I know it’s nothing but Hardy’s ignorant lies.

He shrinks back into himself. She keeps on in a forced, teasing tone but with an increasing undercurrent of resentment.

You’re so like your father, dear. You love to make a scene out of nothing so you can be dramatic and tragic.

With a belittling laugh.

If I gave you the slightest encouragement, you’d tell me next you were going to die—

People do die of it. Your own father—

Sharply.

Why do you mention him? There’s no comparison at all with you. He had consumption.

Angrily.

I hate you when you become gloomy and morbid! I forbid you to remind me of my father’s death, do you hear me?

His face hard—grimly.

Yes, I hear you, Mama. I wish to God I didn’t!

He gets up from his chair and stands staring condemningly at her
—

bitterly.

It’s pretty hard to take at times, having a dope fiend for a mother!

She winces—all life seeming to drain from her face, leaving it with the appearance of a plaster cast. Instantly Edmund wishes he could take back what he has said. He stammers miserably.

Forgive me, Mama. I was angry. You hurt me.

There is a pause in which the foghorn and the ships’ bells are heard.

Goes slowly to the windows at right like an automaton—looking out, a blank, far-off quality in her voice.

Just listen to that awful foghorn. And the bells. Why is it fog makes everything sound so sad and lost, I wonder?

Brokenly.

I—I can’t stay here. I don’t want any dinner.

He hurries away through the front parlor. She keeps staring out the window until she hears the front door close behind him. Then she comes back and sits in her chair, the same blank look on her face.

Vaguely.

I must go upstairs. I haven’t taken enough.

She pauses—then longingly.

I hope, sometime, without meaning it, I will take an overdose. I never could do it deliberately. The Blessed Virgin would never forgive me, then.

She hears Tyrone returning and turns as he comes in, through the back parlor, with a bottle of whiskey he has just uncorked. He is fuming.

Wrathfully.

The padlock is all scratched. That drunken loafer has tried to pick the lock with a piece of wire, the way he’s done before.

With satisfaction, as if this was a perpetual battle of wits with his elder son.

But I’ve fooled him this time. It’s a special padlock a professional burglar couldn’t pick.

He puts the bottle on the tray and suddenly is aware of Edmund’s absence.

Where’s Edmund?

With a vague far-away air.

He went out. Perhaps he’s going uptown again to find Jamie. He still has some money left, I suppose, and it’s burning a hole in his pocket. He said he didn’t want any dinner. He doesn’t seem to have any appetite these days.

Then stubbornly.

But it’s just a summer cold.

Tyrone stares at her and shakes his head helplessly and pours himself a big drink and drinks it. Suddenly it is too much for her and she breaks out and sobs.