Boston Marriage Read online

  CLAIRE: Oh, what is more foolish than the unrequited love of the old? (Pause) I beg you …

  ANNA: Ah.

  CLAIRE: …if…

  ANNA: No, no, it is not enough, my dear, to say, "I see the Penalty, pray do not tax yourself inflicting it."

  CLAIRE: I beg your pardon. It is a sign of my distraction …I plead with you: anything within my power. I’d do it for you, you know I would. Were the situation reversed.

  ANNA: But the situation, you will allow, is not reversed.

  CLAIRE: Cold, heartless woman.

  ANNA: Am I, indeed?

  CLAIRE: Of whom they once said heart of bronze if any heart at all.

  ANNA: Izzat what they once said?

  CLAIRE: Once, yes, once we strove together.

  ANNA: I do seem to remember.

  CLAIRE: A small band of Freebooters, share alike …

  ANNA: …yes, it was so …

  CLAIRE: And now, as you’ve come into your Patrimony …

  ANNA: Aha …

  CLAIRE: You’ve found a Protector. And the Emerald Round your Neck the ensign of that selfishness, that Jealousy Engendered by Wealth …

  ANNA: Aha.

  CLAIRE: For it’s riches that have sundered you.

  ANNA: Is it indeed?

  CLAIRE: You say Share Alike, and I say: your abode, for Part of One Day …

  ANNA: Yes, it is not exactly the "use of the Hall," which …

  CLAIRE: Cold, cold, ancient, jealous hag.

  ANNA: I see you are disordered. Shall I loosen your stays?

  MAID: (Entering) There’s a young person at the door.

  ANNA: Yes. No, I’m not at all sure that I am "at home." Oh my. No, I am not at home. Pray, have her call again some other time.

  CLAIRE: Yes. You shall set the scene. You shall set the scene and aid me, aid the two of us by the tone, by, by the gracious attentions…

  ANNA: …that is all I asked.

  CLAIRE: It shall be as you say.

  ANNA: Then we may proceed. (Exits)

  MAID: Lovely day for it, miss. But I’d wear my hat.

  CLAIRE: I beg your pardon.

  MAID: ‘F I went for a walk.

  CLAIRE: Aha, yes, I mistook you.

  DAVID MAM ET

  MAID: What’d you think I meant?

  CLAIRE: Nothing.

  MAID: I wouldn’t wear me hat in bed …

  CLAIRE: …what reserve.

  (ANNA reenters.)

  ANNA: Yes, it seems it is your young friend. I must endorse your choice. Exquisite.

  CLAIRE: And you will afford us privacy and shelter. For the Afternoon.

  ANNA: And participate,

  CLAIRE: within the limits of…

  ANNA: … as agreed.

  CLAIRE: And you swear to divert her chaperone?

  ANNA: She has come alone.

  CLAIRE: Oh, Joy.

  ANNA: And we are agreed as to terms?

  CLAIRE: We are. Urge her in.

  (CLAIRE nods. ANNA walks to the doorway and addresses a person, off.)

  MAID: (Off) Miss, I didn’t catch yer name?

  ANNA: (Off) Welcome, yes, Welcome to my Abode. How good of you to come, if you would be so kind as to, Bridey Bridey Would you please …(ANNA reenters)

  CLAIRE: If you’d excuse me …(Brushes past them)

  MAID: It’s Catherine, miss.

  ANNA: Good lookin’ little thing, eh?

  MAID: I couldn’t say, miss.

  ANNA: No, indeed, she is. And you yourself, you know, you are not unattractive.

  MAID: What, mum?

  ANNA: Has no one told you that before?

  MAID: No, mum.

  ANNA: Aha. Do you garner the thrust of my declaration?

  MAID: I think so, mum.

  ANNA: But what, it repels you?

  MAID: No, mum, but.

  ANNA: Yes?

  MAID: What would I tell me parents?

  ANNA: That you had found a secure position.

  MAID: May I think about it?

  ANNA: Indeed.

  MAID: Thank you, mum.

  (CLAIRE reenters.)

  CLAIRE: She is upset.

  ANNA: Well, La! How that astonishes me. One must set the stage. Proceed with measure. And you will thank God that I am here to pace your advances.

  CLAIRE: It is not my advances which upset her.

  ANNA: Say, then.

  CLAIRE: She asks me about you.

  ANNA: About me— She is jealous. She is jealous, the dear thing.

  CLAIRE: She is not jealous.

  ANNA: Is she not, then what is it about me upsets her?

  CLAIRE: She asks why you are wearing her mother’s necklace.

  END OF ACT ONE

  ACT TWO

  SCENE ONE

  (Somewhat later)

  The drawing room. ANNA is seated alone. Catherine, the MAID, enters.

  ANNA: Someone was at the door?

  MAID: Yes, miss.

  ANNA: What was the message?

  MAID: Message?

  ANNA: Do not spare me. I am prepared.

  MAID: There wuunt no message.

  ANNA: Then who was at the door?

  MAID: It was the fella ‘bout the stove. He said …

  ANNA: Has no one left a letter?

  MAID: No, miss.

  ANNA: Fell circumstance. Oh, how you chastise my presumption. I am undone. My protector will withdraw his stipend as my love, her love, and I shall starve, the hollow percussion of my purse, a descant to that of my broken heart. But once I was young and the world before me. And once men were other than the depraved swine time and experience have revealed them to be. Once the world was to me a magic place … I was a Little Girl, Oh, once …

  MAID: D’you mind if I work while you’re talkin', miss? (Pause) ‘Ld it disturb you, like? You needn’t think, like, that I’d evade yer privacy. (Pause) Cause I can’t, the life o’me, tell what the fuck yer on about. (Pause)

  ANNA: I was speaking of my shattered dreams.

  MAID: Don’t let me hinder ye.

  ANNA: Most kind.

  MAID: Because me Auld Gran used to say …

  ANNA: Will you stuff a sock in it?

  MAID: Yes, mum …

  ANNA: Has no one called?

  MAID: Not to the best of my knowledge, no. (Pause)

  ANNA: Ah, then, good-bye to Comfort…

  MAID: …Fella said that I bring it on myself.

  ANNA: …good-bye to joy, and good-bye to my own lover for whom I strove to "feather our nest" …That you bring what on yourself?

  MAID: Criticism.

  ANNA: I have no doubt that you do.

  MAID: B’cause …

  ANNA: In fact, I’ve seen it demonstrated.

  MAID: Because …(Dissolves crying)

  ANNA: What? (Pause) What? Are you crying?

  MAID: No, miss.

  ANNA: Have you no sympathy, I have lost my income, and I’ve alienated the affection of my one true love. What is your particular complaint? (MAID sobs.) Oh fine, fine. Go on. Heave your apron to your eyes.

  MAID: It’s too short, miss.

  ANNA: Well, then, run in and change. (Pause) Put on a longer apron.

  MAID: They’re in the wash.

  ANNA: Well, you should have thought ahead. (MAID cries.) What.…?

  MAID: Miss, I’m that homesick, I swear, that I’d fuck the ragman just to hear a friendly word.

  ANNA: Believe me, I know the feeling.

  MAID: I’m sure you do.

  ANNA: What can you mean …? (Doorbell rings) Go. Get the door. I am prepared.

  (MAID exits. CLAIRE enters.)

  CLAIRE: What have you heard?

  ANNA: Oh, thank God, you are returned.

  CLAIRE: What have you heard?

  ANNA: Thank God. I feared that I had alienated you.

  CLAIRE: She has not…? She has not written.

  ANNA: She …

  CLAIRE: My young friend.

  ANNA: Oh.
<
br />   CLAIRE: Has she?

  ANNA: What could she write?

  CLAIRE: She could write her love, could she not? Or she could write, oh God, she could write that we, though momentarily thwarted …

  ANNA: I would say, my dear, that the communiqué which we have to fear is from her fff——

  CLAIRE: From her father.

  ANNA: Wouldn’t you say?

  CLAIRE: From her father?

  ANNA: He has been discovered in a malversation, do you see, of his wife’s jewelry And how was it discovered? His daughter came to a depraved and illicit assignation and spied it draped round the neck of her intended’s tribad paramour.

  CLAIRE: Have you taken up Journalism?

  ANNA: What a vile thing to say.

  CLAIRE: You look like a dead cart horse.

  ANNA: … is that my muff?

  CLAIRE: You gave it to me years ago. How Dare You … do you stoop to, to, to, to attempt to humble me, by calling up past favors?

  ANNA: No.

  CLAIRE: Then what was the import of your mention of the muff?

  ANNA: I was surprised it had come back in style.

  CLAIRE: God damn you to hell.

  ANNA: I suppose if one waits long enough …

  CLAIRE: You look like a plate of cold stew.

  ANNA: I did not sleep last night.

  CLAIRE: And I shall never sleep again. I shall stand vigil, my Burning eyes fixed on eternity awaiting that word which will never come.

  ANNA: They will call, of course.

  CLAIRE: Oh, do you think, Oh, Good!

  ANNA: They will call to demand the return of the necklace …

  CLAIRE: To demand the necklace.

  ANNA: For a certainty.

  CLAIRE: Aha.

  ANNA: I have it here. (She takes out a small jewelry bag.)

  CLAIRE: How come you to act so Blithe?

  ANNA: Why care I for the loss of a Jewel? Let him restore it, to his "wife," or …whatever employee of his he has filched it from.

  CLAIRE: And take with him, will he not, all your support, your equipage, your …

  ANNA: That must be as it will be.

  CLAIRE: Do you not find such a disposition trivial?

  ANNA: It is, as I understand the term, Philosophy. (Pause) How can philosophy be trivial? When have you known me to be trivial?

  CLAIRE: You once referred to the Crimean War as "just one of those Things."

  ANNA: I did?

  CLAIRE: Yes.

  ANNA: When did I do that?

  CLAIRE: During a discussion of Geopolitics.

  ANNA: What is or are Geopolitics?

  CLAIRE: Oh, you remember …

  ANNA: I do not.

  CLAIRE: They are, as the term might suggest, the politics of the world.

  ANNA: And why were we discussing them?

  CLAIRE: To pass the time. To pass the time, you vacant cow. That is what people do. When they are thrust together. During dinner, or …

  ANNA: Yes…

  CLAIRE: Or, marriage, …

  ANNA: Yes, you do fight shy of the domestic.

  CLAIRE: Do I?

  ANNA: I must say you do.

  CLAIRE: Why would that be?

  ANNA: It baffles me.

  CLAIRE: Does it, indeed?

  ANNA: Yes. Which situation has So Much to Offer.

  CLAIRE: To "those of that bent."

  (Doorbell rings. Pause. Rings again. MAID enters.)

  MAID: I’m goin’ to get the door. (Pause. MAID exits.)

  ANNA: Are you prepared?

  CLAIRE: I am prepared.

  ANNA: Oh, fate inexorable. Oh, fate misthought at first to be but circumstance, revealed at last as the minute operations of the gods. Oh fate but our own character congealed into a burning glass. Focus your cleansing light upon me, and I shall be cleansed.

  CLAIRE: (mumbling) …. you gave me this goddamned muff…

  ANNA: (MAID enters.) Show them in.

  MAID: Show who in? (Pause)

  ANNA: Who was at the door?

  MAID: It was the Stove Mechanic. He said …

  ANNA: I don’t care what he said.

  CLAIRE: Why has he come again, if the stove is operational?

  MAID: It ain’t exactly operational.

  CLAIRE: In what respects is it deficient?

  MAID: You need some new parts. He …

  ANNA: Go away.

  MAID: He …

  ANNA: You are unwanted. And the tea is cold.

  MAID: …nothing the matter with cold tea …

  ANNA: … I beg your pardon?

  MAID: I’ve had worse, and so, I’d think, have you. No offense.

  ANNA: "No offense"? You impertinent cooze …

  MAID: I only meant, in a long life, some point, it’s likely come down to Short Rations. (Pause)

  ANNA: In a long life.

  MAID: Yes, miss. (Exits)

  ANNA: Oh, how the Lesser Beasts draw strength, at the spectacle of the Lioness beset.

  CLAIRE: …oh, God.

  ANNA: And All is Confusion, at the Waterhole.

  MAID: (Reentering) Mum.

  ANNA: Go away, or I’m going to have you killed.

  CLAIRE: How would you go about it?

  ANNA: Well, I’m sure that there are ways.

  CLAIRE: You are?

  ANNA: Of course. One reads of it all the time.

  CLAIRE: Mmm?

  ANNA: In the Papers? "Such and so, having engaged the services of an Assassin …"

  CLAIRE: Isn’t that "having left my Bed and Board …"

  ANNA: You think with your loins.

  CLAIRE: Oh, Land of Goshen. Oh, how more than droll. What of your Bible now? What of Forbearance, meek and mild …

  ANNA: …kiss my ass.

  CLAIRE: Ho, but perhaps they’ll come again. Perhaps my Love, and perhaps your Protector. Blind to your past, indifferent to your limitations, rich as Croesus. Perhaps they approach now. Yes, as all things can be mended by wishing; as the child, mangled by the cart, can be made whole by apology. You have fucked my life into a cocked hat. (She begins to cry. ANNA goes to her to comfort her.)

  ANNA: There, there …

  CLAIRE: Oh, thank you, I feel so much better.

  CLAIRE: We shall end life together, old and friendless, desired by no one, devoid of all save memory, and these most wistful of words:

  MAID: (Entering) While I was admiring your muff, your parts came. (Pause)

  CLAIRE: I beg your pardon.

  MAID: I was admiring your muff.

  CLAIRE: It was a gift from a friend.

  MAID: And while I was distracted, mum, yer parts came.

  ANNA: My parts?

  MAID: The parts for the stove.

  ANNA: Thank you, that will be all. (MAID exits.) (To CLAIRE) Now, listen and be taught.

  CLAIRE: No.

  ANNA: I say Yes. I offer you the comforts of philosophy. Your little friend, your young friend, she was just a passing whim.

  CLAIRE: And he was your last chance.

  ANNA: Yes, that is cruel, but I forgive you. For we both have gone astray.

  CLAIRE: You make me throw up.

  ANNA: We’ve gone astray. We have become habituated to that vile weed, Luxury, which grows, in the night, like the Ricinus plant, in the Bible.

  CLAIRE: The plant in the Bible.

  ANNA: Yes.

  CLAIRE: In the Morning Room?

  ANNA: I beg your pardon?

  CLAIRE: The one near the Ficus? Do you know, and here again, I always told you. You listen to nothing, My dear. You have a diverting and quixotic view of things, but you take advice from nothing that lives.

  ANNA: What do you mean?

  CLAIRE: I told you repeatedly it was too damp in there.

  ANNA: In where?

  CLAIRE: In the morning room.

  ANNA: You never said anything remotely of the sort.

  CLAIRE: I ruined a perfectly good, what do you mean I never said anything? I ruined my new black vel
vet reticule.

  ANNA: …if…

  CLAIRE: I, excuse me. In This House of Horrors. That night, we, but I see you have repressed it.

  ANNA: …repressed what? …

  CLAIRE: …and how dare you take refuge in the Bible?

  ANNA: …many recur to it in times of Stress.

  CLAIRE: …what nonsense.

  ANNA: Quite the contrary.

  CLAIRE: You have ruined my life.

  ANNA: Things Occur. Claire. I pray you, do not mope, and fret. Things occur. That is their nature. Do you see? Change …

  CLAIRE: Change.

  ANNA: It is the nature of all things.

  CLAIRE: "Change …"?

  ANNA: Yes.

  CLAIRE: Oh, how I loathe a poseur.

  ANNA: Please?

  CLAIRE: You mean to denigrate my loss, by your display of equanimity in the face of your own.

  ANNA: Have I not undergone, you will forgive my ironic employment of the term "a reversal"?

  CLAIRE: And what of my reticule?

  ANNA: Bother your reticule. (Pause) What reticule?

  CLAIRE: …we had met at a certain person’s house, I see it clear as Arctic day, and you perceived such and such a one was forming, an attachment for me. And I repaired here, after the fete, with, as I then thought, the best of boon companions, whereupon you jealously began to sulk. And I had laid my reticule upon the étagère, in the solarium, next to your dread ficus plant, which dripped upon my reticule and left it water-spotted and ruint. Then …

  ANNA: I stipulate to the tale’s essential verity.

  CLAIRE: …you remember it?

  ANNA: No, but I’d swear to heresies untold if you’d shut up. What is your point?

  CLAIRE: That I’d informed you, at that time, that you maintained an overdank and fetid atmosphere in the solarium. It dropped on my reticule. And now it’s rotted your Bible.

  ANNA: Oh. Ha. Oh, ha. Oh ha ha ha ha ha.

  CLAIRE: You have the advantage of me.

  ANNA: It grows in the story of Jonah.

  CLAIRE: What?

  ANNA: The Ricinus plant.

  CLAIRE: Of Jonah and the Whale.

  ANNA: Yes. In the Bible.

  CLAIRE: A plant.

  ANNA: Yes. You unlettered spiv.

  CLAIRE: Which has what reference for us?

  ANNA: I opined …

  CLAIRE: Yes…

  ANNA: That I had grown inured to luxury. Until the increasing need of it, do you see?

  CLAIRE: … I am too ill for words.

  ANNA: …where is your sense of humor?

  CLAIRE: Where is yours?