The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith | Page 6

is an old story. I'm thirty-three now.
GERTRUDE. [Hesitatingly.] You and Mr. Cleeve--?
AGNES. We've known each other since last November--no longer. Six years of my life unaccounted for, eh? Well, for a couple of years or so I was lecturing.
GERTRUDE. Lecturing?
AGNES. Ah, I'd become an out-and-out child of my father by that time-- spouting, perhaps you'd call it, standing on the identical little platforms he used to speak from, lashing abuses with my tongue as he had done. Oh, and I was fond, too, of warning women.
GERTRUDE. Against what?
AGNES. Falling into the pit.
GERTRUDE. Marriage?
AGNES. The chocked-up, seething pit--until I found my bones almost through my skin and my voice too weak to travel across a room.
GERTRUDE. From what cause?
AGNES. Starvation, my dear. So, after lying in a hospital for a month or two, I took up nursing for a living. Last November I was sent for by Dr. Bickerstaff to go through to Rome to look after a young man who'd broken down there, and who declined to send for his friends. My patient was Mr. Cleeve--[taking up the tray]--and that's where his fortunes join mine. [She crosses the room, and puts the tray upon the cabinet.]
GERTRUDE. And yet, judging from what that girl said yesterday, Mr. Cleeve married quite recently?
AGNES. Less than three years ago. Men don't suffer as patiently as women. In many respects his marriage story is my own, reversed--the man in place of the woman. I endured my hell, though; he broke the gates of his.
GERTRUDE. I have often seen Mr. Cleeve's name in the papers. His future promised to be brilliant, didn't it?
AGNES. [Tidying the table, folding the newspapers, &c.] There's a great career for him still.
GERTRUDE. In Parliament--now?
AGNES. No, he abandons that, and devotes himself to writing. We shall write much together, urging our views on this subject of Marriage. We shall have to be poor, I expect, but we shall be content.
GERTRUDE. Content!
AGNES. Quite content. Don't judge us by my one piece of cowardly folly in keeping the truth from you, Mrs. Thorpe, Indeed, it's our great plan to live the life we have mapped out for ourselves, fearlessly, openly; faithful to each other, helpful to each other, so long as we remain together.
GERTRUDE. But tell me--you don't know how I--how I have liked you!-- tell me, if Mr. Cleeve's wife divorces him, he will marry you?
AGNES. No.
GERTRUDE. No!
AGNES. No. I haven't made you quite understand--Lucas and I don't desire to marry, in your sense.
GERTRUDE. But you are devoted to each other!
AGNES. Thoroughly.
GERTRUDE. What, is that the meaning of "for as long as you are together?" You would go your different ways if ever you found that one of you was making the other unhappy?
AGNES. I do mean that. We remain together only to help, to heal, to console. Why should men and women be so eager to grant to each other the power of wasting life? That is what marriage gives--the right to destroy years and years of life. And the right, once given, it attracts --attracts! We have both suffered from it. So many rich years out of my life have been squandered by it. And out of his life, so much force, energy--spent in battling with the shrew, the termagant he has now fled from; strength never to be replenished, never to be repaid--all wasted, wasted!
GERTRUDE. Your legal marriage with him might not bring further miseries.
AGNES. Too late! We have done with marriage; we distrust it. We are not now among those who regard marriage as indispensable to union. We have done with it!
GERTRUDE. [Advancing to her.] You know that it would be impossible for me, if I would do so, to deceive my brother as to all this.
AGNES. Why, of course, dear.
GERTRUDE. [Looking at her watch.] Amos must be wondering--
AGNES. Run away, then. [GERTRUDE crosses quickly to the door.]
GERTRUDE [Retracing a step or two.] Shall I see you--? Oh!
AGNES. [Shaking her head.] Ah!
GERTRUDE. [Going to her, constrainedly.] When Amos and I have talked this over, perhaps--perhaps--
AGNES. No, I fear not. Come, my dear friend--[with a smile]--give me a shake of the hand.
GERTRUDE. [Taking her hand.] What you've told me is dreadful. [Looking into AGNES' face.] And yet you're not a wicked woman! [Kissing AGNES.] In case we don't meet again. [The women separate quickly, looking towards the door, as LUCAS enters.]
LUCAS. [Shaking hands with GERTRUDE.] How do you do, Mrs Thorpe? I've just had a wave of the hand from your brother.
GERTRUDE. Where is he?
LUCAS. On his back in a gondola, a pipe in his mouth as usual, gazing skywards. [Going on to the balcony.] He's within hail. [GERTRUDE goes quickly to the door, followed by AGNES.] There! By the Palazzo Sforza. [He re-enters the room; GERTRUDE has disappeared. He is going towards the door.] Let me get hold of