Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (7 page)

Here you are. I was just going upstairs to look for you.

I waited until they went out. I don’t want to mix up in any arguments. I feel too rotten.

Almost resentfully.

Oh, I’m sure you don’t feel half as badly as you make out. You’re such a baby. You like to get us worried so we’ll make a fuss over you.

Hastily.

I’m only teasing, dear. I know how miserably uncomfortable you must be. But you feel better today, don’t you?

Worriedly, taking his arm.

All the same, you’ve grown much too thin. You need to rest all you can. Sit down and I’ll make you comfortable.

He sits down in the rocking chair and she puts a pillow behind his back.

There. How’s that?

Grand. Thanks, Mama.

Kisses him—tenderly.

All you need is your mother to nurse you. Big as you are, you’re still the baby of the family to me, you know.

Takes her hand— with deep seriousness.

Never mind me. You take care of yourself. That’s all that counts.

Evading his eyes.

But I am, dear.

Forcing a laugh.

Heavens, don’t you see how fat I’ve grown! I’ll have to have all my dresses let out.

She turns away and goes to the windows at right. She attempts a light, amused tone.

They’ve started clipping the hedge. Poor Jamie! How he hates working in front where everyone passing can see him. There go the Chatfields in their new Mercedes. It’s a beautiful car, isn’t it? Not like our secondhand Packard. Poor Jamie! He bent almost under the hedge so they wouldn’t notice him. They bowed to your father and he bowed back as if he were taking a curtain call. In that filthy old suit I’ve tried to make him throw away.

Her voice has grown bitter.

Really, he ought to have more pride than to make such a show of himself.

He’s right not to give a damn what anyone thinks. Jamie’s a fool to care about the Chatfields. For Pete’s sake, who ever heard of them outside this hick burg?

With satisfaction.

No one. You’re quite right, Edmund. Big frogs in a small puddle. It is stupid of Jamie.

She pauses, looking out the window—then with an undercurrent of lonely yearning.

Still, the Chatfields and people like them stand for something. I mean they have decent, presentable homes they don’t have to be ashamed of. They have friends who entertain them and whom they entertain. They’re not cut off from everyone.

She turns back from the window.

Not that I want anything to do with them. I’ve always hated this town and everyone in it. You know that. I never wanted to live here in the first place, but your father liked it and insisted on building this house, and I’ve had to come here every summer.

Well, it’s better than spending the summer in a New York hotel, isn’t it? And this town’s not so bad. I like it well enough. I suppose because it’s the only home we’ve had.

I’ve never felt it was my home. It was wrong from the start. Everything was done in the cheapest way. Your father would never spend the money to make it right. It’s just as well we haven’t any friends here. I’d be ashamed to have them step in the door. But he’s never wanted family friends. He hates calling on people, or receiving them. All he likes is to hobnob with men at the Club or in a barroom. Jamie and you are the same way, but you’re not to blame. You’ve never had a chance to meet decent people here. I know you both would have been so different if you’d been able to associate with nice girls instead of— You’d never have disgraced yourselves as you have, so that now no respectable parents will let their daughters be seen with you.

Irritably.

Oh, Mama, forget it! Who cares? Jamie and I would be bored stiff. And about the Old Man, what’s the use of talking? You can’t change him.

Mechanically rebuking.

Don’t call your father the Old Man. You should have more respect.

Then dully.

I know it’s useless to talk. But sometimes I feel so lonely.

Her lips quiver and she keeps her head turned away.

Anyway, you’ve got to be fair, Mama. It may have been all his fault in the beginning, but you know that later on, even if he’d wanted to, we couldn’t have had people here—

He flounders guiltily.

I mean, you wouldn’t have wanted them.

Wincing—her lips quivering pitifully.

Don’t. I can’t bear having you remind me.

Don’t take it that way! Please, Mama! I’m trying to help. Because it’s bad for you to forget. The right way is to remember. So you’ll always be on your guard. You know what’s happened before.

Miserably.

God, Mama, you know I hate to remind you. I’m doing it because it’s been so wonderful having you home the way you’ve been, and it would be terrible—

Strickenly.

Please, dear. I know you mean it for the best, but—

A defensive uneasiness comes into her voice again.

I don’t understand why you should suddenly say such things. What put it in your mind this morning?

Evasively.

Nothing. Just because I feel rotten and blue, I suppose.

Tell me the truth. Why are you so suspicious all of a sudden?

I’m not!

Oh, yes you are. I can feel it. Your father and Jamie, too—particularly Jamie.

Now don’t start imagining things, Mama.

Her hands fluttering.

It makes it so much harder, living in this atmosphere of constant suspicion, knowing everyone is spying on me, and none of you believe in me, or trust me.

That’s crazy, Mama. We do trust you.

If there was only some place I could go to get away for a day, or even an afternoon, some woman friend I could talk to—not about anything serious, simply laugh and gossip and forget for a while— someone besides the servants—that stupid Cathleen!

Gets up worriedly and puts his arm around her.

Stop it, Mama. You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.

Your father goes out. He meets his friends in barrooms or at the Club. You and Jamie have the boys you know. You go out. But I am alone. I’ve always been alone.

Soothingly.

Come now! You know that’s a fib. One of us always stays around to keep you company, or goes with you in the automobile when you take a drive.

Bitterly.

Because you’re afraid to trust me alone!

She turns on him—sharply.

I insist you tell me why you act so differently this morning—why you felt you had to remind me—

Hesitates—then blurts out guiltily.

It’s stupid. It’s just that I wasn’t asleep when you came in my room last night. You didn’t go back to your and Papa’s room. You went in the spare room for the rest of the night.

Because your father’s snoring was driving me crazy! For heaven’s sake, haven’t I often used the spare room as my bedroom?

Bitterly.

But I see what you thought. That was when—

Too vehemently.

I didn’t think anything!

So you pretended to be asleep in order to spy on me!

No! I did it because I knew if you found out I was feverish and couldn’t sleep, it would upset you.

Jamie was pretending to be asleep, too, I’m sure, and I suppose your father—

Stop it, Mama!

Oh, I can’t bear it, Edmund, when even you—!

Her hands flutter up to pat her hair in their aimless, distracted way. Suddenly a strange undercurrent of revengefulness comes into her voice.

It would serve all of you right if it was true!

Mama! Don’t say that! That’s the way you talk when —

Stop suspecting me! Please, dear! You hurt me! I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about you. That’s the real reason! I’ve been so worried ever since you’ve been sick.

She puts her arms around him and hugs him with a frightened, protective tenderness.

Soothingly.

That’s foolishness. You know it’s only a bad cold.

Yes, of course, I know that!

But listen, Mama. I want you to promise me that even if it should turn out to be something worse, you’ll know I’ll soon be all right again, anyway, and you won’t worry yourself sick, and you’ll keep on taking care of yourself—

Frightenedly.

I won’t listen when you’re so silly! There’s absolutely no reason to talk as if you expected something dreadful! Of course, I promise you. I give you my sacred word of honor!

Then with a sad bitterness.

But I suppose you’re remembering I’ve promised before on my word of honor.

No!

Her bitterness receding into a resigned helplessness.

I’m not blaming you, dear. How can you help it? How can any one of us forget?

Strangely.

That’s what makes it so hard—for all of us. We can’t forget.

Grabs her shoulder.

Mama! Stop it!

Forcing a smile.

All right, dear. I didn’t mean to be so gloomy. Don’t mind me. Here. Let me feel your head. Why, it’s nice and cool. You certainly haven’t any fever now.

Forget! It’s you—

But I’m quite all right, dear.

With a quick, strange, calculating, almost sly glance at him.

Except I naturally feel tired and nervous this morning, after such a bad night. I really ought to go upstairs and lie down until lunch time and take a nap.

He gives her an instinctive look of suspicion—then, ashamed of himself, looks quickly away. She hurries on nervously.

What are you going to do? Read here? It would be much better for you to go out in the fresh air and sunshine. But don’t get overheated, remember. Be sure and wear a hat.

She stops, looking straight at him now. He avoids her eyes. There is a tense pause. Then she speaks jeeringly.

Or are you afraid to trust me alone?

Tormentedly.

No! Can’t you stop talking like that! I think you ought to take a nap.

He goes to the screen door—forcing a joking tone.

I’ll go down and help Jamie bear up. I love to lie in the shade and watch him work.

He forces a laugh in which she makes herself join. Then he goes out on the porch and disappears down the steps. Her first reaction is one of relief. She appears to relax. She sinks down in one of the wicker armchairs at rear of table and leans her head back, closing her eyes. But suddenly she grows terribly tense again. Her eyes open and she strains forward, seized by a fit of nervous panic. She begins a desperate battle with herself. Her long fingers, warped and knotted by rheumatism, drum on the arms of the chair, driven by an insistent life of their own, without her consent.

SCENE

The same. It is around quarter to one. No sunlight comes into the room now through the windows at right. Outside the day is still fine but increasingly sultry, with a faint haziness in the air which softens the glare of the sun.

Edmund sits in the armchair at left of table, reading a book. Or rather he is trying to concentrate on it but cannot. He seems to be listening for some sound from upstairs. His manner is nervously apprehensive and he looks more sickly than in the previous act.