A Bit O' Love Part 16

STRANGWAY. Will you, please, not speak of that!

MRS. BRADMERE. I must! This great Church of ours is based on the rightful condemnation of wrongdoing. There are times when forgiveness is a sin, Michael Strangway. You must keep the whip hand. You must fight!

STRANGWAY. Fight! [Touching his heart] My fight is here. Have you ever been in h.e.l.l? For months and months--burned and longed; hoped against hope; killed a man in thought day by day? Never rested, for love and hate? I--condemn! I--judge! No! It's rest I have to find--somewhere--somehow-rest! And how--how can I find rest?

MRS. BRADMERE. [Who has listened to his outburst in a soft of coma]

You are a strange man! One of these days you'll go off your head if you don't take care.

STRANGWAY. [Smiling] One of these days the flowers will grow out of me; and I shall sleep.

[MRS. BRADMERE stares at his smiling face a long moment in silence, then with a little sound, half sniff, half snort, she goes to the door. There she halts.]

MRS. BRADMERE. And you mean to let all this go on----Your wife----

STRANGWAY. Go! Please go!

MRS. BRADMERE. Men like you have been buried at cross-roads before now! Take care! G.o.d punishes!

STRANGWAY. Is there a G.o.d?

MRS. BRADMERE. Ah! [With finality] You must see a doctor.

[Seeing that the look on his face does not change, she opens the door, and hurries away into the moonlight.]

[STRANGWAY crosses the room to where his wife's picture hangs, and stands before it, his hands grasping the frame. Then he takes it from the wall, and lays it face upwards on the window seat.]

STRANGWAY. [To himself] Gone! What is there, now?

[The sound of an owl's hooting is floating in, and of voices from the green outside the inn.]

STRANGWAY. [To himself] Gone! Taken faith--hope--life!

[JIM BERE comes wandering into the open doorway.]

JIM BERE. Gude avenin', zurr.

[At his slow gait, with his feeble smile, he comes in, and standing by the window-seat beside the long dark coat that still lies there, he looks down at STRANGWAY with his lost eyes.]

JIM. Yu threw un out of winder. I cud 'ave, once, I cud.

[STRANGWAY neither moves nor speaks; and JIM BERE goes on with his unimaginably slow speech]

They'm laughin' at yu, zurr. An' so I come to tell 'ee how to du.

'Twas full mune--when I caught 'em, him an' my girl. I caught 'em.

[With a strange and awful flash of fire] I did; an' I tuk un [He taken up STRANGWAY'S coat and grips it with his trembling hands, as a man grips another's neck] like that--I tuk un. As the coat falls, like a body out of which the breath has been squeezed, STRANGWAY, rising, catches it.

STRANGWAY. [Gripping the coat] And he fell!

[He lets the coat fall on the floor, and puts his foot on it.

Then, staggering back, he leans against the window.]

JIM. Yu see, I loved 'er--I did. [The lost look comes back to his eyes] Then somethin'--I dunno--and--and----[He lifts his hand and pa.s.ses it up and down his side] Twas like this for ever.

[They gaze at each other in silence.]

JIM. [At last] I come to tell yu. They'm all laughin' at yu. But yu'm strong--yu go over to Durford to that doctor man, an' take un like I did. [He tries again to make the sign of squeezing a man's neck] They can't laugh at yu no more, then. Tha's what I come to tell yu. Tha's the way for a Christian man to du. Gude naight, zurr. I come to tell yee.

[STRANGWAY motions to him in silence. And, very slowly, JIM BERE pa.s.ses out.]

[The voices of men coming down the green are heard.]

VOICES. Gude night, Tam. Glide naight, old Jim!

VOICES. Gude might, Mr. Trustaford. 'Tes a wonderful fine mune.

VOICE OF TRUSTAFORD. Ah! 'Tes a brave mune for th' poor old curate!

VOICE. "My 'eart 'E lighted not!"

[TRUSTAFORD'S laugh, and the rattling, fainter and fainter, of wheels. A spasm seizes on STRANGWAY'S face, as he stands there by the open door, his hand grips his throat; he looks from side to side, as if seeking a way of escape.]

CURTAIN.

SCENE II

The BURLACOMBES' high and nearly empty barn. A lantern is hung by a rope that lifts the bales of straw, to a long ladder leaning against a rafter. This gives all the light there is, save for a slender track of moonlight, slanting in from the end, where the two great doors are not quite closed. On a rude bench in front of a few remaining, stacked, square-cut bundles of last year's hay, sits TIBBY JARLAND, a bit of apple in her mouth, sleepily beating on a tambourine. With stockinged feet GLADYS, IVY, CONNIE, and MERCY, TIM CLYST, and BOBBIE JARLAND, a boy of fifteen, are dancing a truncated "Figure of Eight"; and their shadow are dancing alongside on the walls. Shoes and some apples have been thrown down close to the side door through which they have come in. Now and then IVY, the smallest and best of the dancers, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es words of direction, and one of the youths grunts or breathes loudly out of the confusion of his mind. Save for this and the dumb beat and jingle of the sleepy tambourine, there is no sound. The dance comes to its end, but the drowsy TIBBY goes on beating.

MERCY. That'll du, Tibby; we're finished. Ate yore apple. [The stolid TIBBY eats her apple.]

CLYST. [In his teasing, excitable voice] Yu maids don't dance 'elf's well as us du. Bobbie 'e's a great dancer. 'E dance vine.

I'm a gude dancer, meself.

GLADYS. A'n't yu conceited just?

CLYST. Aw! Ah! Yu'll give me kiss for that. [He chases, but cannot catch that slippery white figure] Can't she glimmer!

MERCY. Gladys! Up ladder!

CLYST. Yu go up ladder; I'll catch 'ee then. Naw, yu maids, don't yu give her succour. That's not vair [Catching hold of MERCY, who gives a little squeal.]

CONNIE. Mercy, don't! Mrs. Burlacombe'll hear. Ivy, go an' peek.

[Ivy goes to flee side door and peers through.]

CLYST. [Abandoning the chase and picking up an apple--they all have the joyous irresponsibility that attends forbidden doings] Ya-as, this is a gude apple. Luke at Tibby!