The Servant in the House - LightNovelsOnl.com
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VICAR. Look! . . .
[MARY re-enters from the garden.]
MARY. Auntie! Uncle! I want to speak to you at once--both of you!
VICAR. You are just in time: I wanted to speak to _you_ at once.
MARY. Is it important, uncle? Mine's dreadfully important.
VICAR. So is mine.
AUNTIE [quickly]. Let the child speak, William. Perhaps . . .
MARY. I hardly know how to begin. Perhaps it's only my cowardice.
Perhaps it isn't really dreadful, after all . . .
AUNTIE [troubled]. Why, what are you thinking of, Mary?
MARY. It's about something we have never spoken of before; something I've never been told.
VICAR [searchingly]. Yes? . . .
AUNTIE [falteringly]. Yes? . . .
MARY. I want to know about my father.
[There is a short silence. The VICAR looks at AUNTIE.]
VICAR. Now: is G.o.d with you or me, Martha?
MARY. What do you mean by that? Is it very terrible, uncle?
[He stands silent, troubled. MARY crosses him, going to AUNTIE.]
Auntie . . .
AUNTIE. Don't ask me, child: I have nothing to tell you about your father.
MARY. Why, isn't he . . .
AUNTIE. I have nothing to tell you.
VICAR. I have.
AUNTIE. William! . . .
VICAR. I have, I say! Come, sit here, Mary.
[She sits to left of him, on the settee. AUNTIE is down stage on the other side of him.]
Now! What do you want to know about your father?
MARY [pa.s.sionately]. Everything there is to know!
AUNTIE. William, this is brutal! . . .
VICAR. It is _my work_, Martha!--G.o.d's work! Haven't I babbled in the pulpit long enough about fatherhood and brotherhood, that I should s.h.i.+rk His irony when He takes me at my word!
Now: what put this thought into your head to-day?
MARY. I don't know. I've been puzzling about something all the morning; but there was nothing clear. It only came clear a few minutes ago--just before I went into the garden. But I think it must have begun quite early--before breakfast, when I was talking to my--to Manson,
AUNTIE. Manson! . . .
MARY. And then, all of a sudden, as I was sitting there by the fireplace, _it came_--all in a flash, you understand! I found myself wis.h.i.+ng for my father: wondering why I had never seen him: despising myself that I had never thought of him before.
VICAR. Well, what then?
MARY. I tried to picture him to myself. I imagined all that he must be. I thought of you. Uncle William, and Uncle Joshua, and of all the good and n.o.ble men I had ever seen or heard of in my life; but still--that wasn't quite like a father, was it? I thought a father must be much, much better than anything else in the world! He must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good! I kept on saying it over and over to myself like a little song: he must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good!
[Anxiously.] That's true of fathers, isn't it, uncle? Isn't it?
VICAR. A father ought to be all these things.
MARY. And then . . . then . . .
VICAR. Yes? . . .
MARY. I met a man, a poor miserable man--it still seems like a dream, the way I met him--and he said something dreadful to me, something that hurt me terribly. He seemed to think that my father--that perhaps my father--might be nothing of the sort!
AUNTIE. Why, who was he--the man?
MARY. He wouldn't tell me his name: I mistook him for a thief at first; but afterwards I felt very, very sorry for him. You see, his case was rather like my own. _He was wis.h.i.+ng for his little girl_.
[There is a short silence.]
VICAR. Where did you meet with him?
MARY. Here, in this room.
AUNTIE. When was this?
MARY. A few minutes ago--just before you came in.
AUNTIE. Where is he now?
MARY. He said good-bye. He has gone away.
AUNTIE. For good?
