‌Act One‌

SCENE

Living room of James Tyrone’s summer home on a morning in August, 1912.

At rear are two double doorways with portieres. The one at right leads into a front parlor with the formally arranged, set appearance of a room rarely occupied. The other opens on a dark, windowless back parlor, never used except as a passage from living room to dining room. Against the wall between the doorways is a small bookcase, with a picture of Shakespeare above it, containing novels by Balzac, Zoh, Stendhal, philosophical and sociological works by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Engels, Kropotkin, Max Stirner, plays by Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg, poetry by Swinburne, Rossetti, Wilde, Ernest Dowson, Kipling, etc.

In the right wall, rear, is a screen door leading out on the porch which extends halfway around the house. Farther forward, a series of three windows looks over the front lawn to the harbor and the avenue that runs along the water front. A small wicker table and an ordinary oak desk are against the wall, flanking the windows.

In the left wall, a similar series of windows looks out on the grounds in back of the house. Beneath them is a wicker couch with cushions, its head toward rear. Farther back is a large, glassed-in bookcase with sets of Dumas, Victor Hugo, Charles Lever, three sets of Shakespeare, The World’s Best Literature in fifty large volumes, Hume’s History of England, Thiers’ History of the Consulate and Empire, Smollett’s History of England, Gibbon’s Roman Empire and miscellaneous volumes of old plays, poetry, and several histories of Ireland. The astonishing thing about these sets is

that all the volumes have the look of having been read and reread.

The hardwood floor is nearly covered by a rug, inoffensive in design and color. At center is a round table with a green shaded reading lamp, the cord plugged in one of the four sockets in the chandelier above. Around the table within reading-light range are four chairs, three of them wicker armchairs, the fourth (at right front of table) a varnished oak rocker with leather bottom.

It is around 8.30. Sunshine comes through the windows at right.

As the curtain rises, the family have just finished breakfast. MARY TYRONE and her husband enter together from the back parlor, coming from the dining room.

Mary is fifty-four, about medium height. She still has a young, graceful figure, a trifle plump, but showing little evidence of middle-aged waist and hips, although she is not tightly corseted. Her face is distinctly Irish in type. It must once have been extremely pretty, and is still striking. It does not match her healthy figure but is thin and pale with the bone structure prominent. Her nose is long and straight, her mouth wide with full, sensitive lips. She uses no rouge or any sort of make-up. Her high forehead is framed by thick, pure white hair. Accentuated by her pallor and white hair, her dark brown eyes appear black. They are unusually large and beautiful, with black brows and long curling lashes.

What strikes one immediately is her extreme nervousness. Her hands are never still. They were once beautiful hands, with long, tapering fingers, but rheumatism has knotted the joints and warped the fingers, so that now they have an ugly crippled look. One avoids looking at them, the more so because one is conscious she is sensitive about their appearance and humiliated by her inability to control the nervousness which draws attention to them.

She is dressed simply but with a sure sense of what becomes her. Her hair is arranged with fastidious care. Her voice is soft and attractive. When she is

merry, there is a touch of Irish lilt in it.

Her most appealing quality is the simple, unaffected charm of a shy convent-girl youthfulness she has never lost—an innate unworldly innocence.

JAMES TYRONE is sixty-five but looks ten years younger. About five feet eight, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, he seems taller and slenderer because of his bearing, which has a soldierly quality of head up, chest out, stomach in, shoulders squared. His face has begun to break down but he is still remarkably good looking—a big, finely shaped head, a handsome profile, deep-set light-brown eyes. His grey hair is thin with a bald spot like a monk’s tonsure.

The stamp of his profession is unmistakably on him. Not that he indulges in any of the deliberate temperamental posturings of the stage star. He is by nature and preference a simple, unpretentious man, whose inclinations are still close to his humble beginnings and his Irish farmer forebears. But the actor shows in all his unconscious habits of speech, movement and gesture. These have the quality of belonging to a studied technique. His voice is remarkably fine, resonant and flexible, and he takes great pride in it.

His clothes, assuredly, do not costume any romantic part. He wears a threadbare, ready-made, grey sack suit and shineless black shoes, a collar- less shirt with a thick white handkerchief knotted loosely around his throat. There is nothing picturesquely careless about this get-up. It is commonplace shabby. He believes in wearing his clothes to the limit of usefulness, is dressed now for gardening, and doesn’t give a damn how he looks.

He has never been really sick a day in his life. He has no nerves. There is a lot of stolid, earthy peasant in him, mixed with streaks of sentimental melancholy and rare flashes of intuitive sensibility.

Tyrone’s arm is around his wife’s waist as they appear from the back parlor. Entering the living room he gives her a playful hug.

TYRONE

You’re a fine armful now, Mary, with those twenty pounds you’ve gained.

MARY

Smiles affectionately.

I’ve gotten too fat, you mean, dear. I really ought to reduce.

TYRONE

None of that, my lady! You’re just right. We’ll have no talk of reducing. Is that why you ate so little breakfast?

MARY

So little? I thought I ate a lot.

TYRONE

You didn’t. Not as much as I’d like to see, anyway.

MARY

Teasingly.

Oh you! You expect everyone to eat the enormous breakfast you do. No one else in the world could without dying of indigestion.

She comes forward to stand by the right of table.

TYRONE

Following her.

I hope I’m not as big a glutton as that sounds.

With hearty satisfaction.

But thank God, I’ve kept my appetite and I’ve the digestion of a young man of twenty, if I am sixty-five.

MARY

You surely have, James. No one could deny that.

She laughs and sits in the wicker armchair at right rear of table. He comes around in back of her and selects a cigar from a box on the table and cuts off the end with a little clipper. From the dining room Jamie’s and Edmund’s voices are heard. Mary turns her head that way.

Why did the boys stay in the dining room, I wonder? Cathleen must be waiting to clear the table.

TYRONE

Jokingly but with an undercurrent of resentment.

It’s a secret confab they don’t want me to hear, I suppose. I’ll bet they’re cooking up some new scheme to touch the Old Man.

She is silent on this, keeping her head turned toward their voices. Her hands appear on the table top, moving restlessly. He lights his cigar and sits down in the rocker at right of table, which is his chair, and puffs contentedly.

There’s nothing like the first after-breakfast cigar, if it’s a good one, and this new lot have the right mellow flavor. They’re a great bargain, too. I got them dead cheap. It was McGuire put me on to them.

MARY

A trifle acidly.

I hope he didn’t put you on to any new piece of property at the same time. His real estate bargains don’t work out so well.

TYRONE

Defensively.

I wouldn’t say that, Mary. After all, he was the one who advised me to buy that place on Chestnut Street and I made a quick turnover on it for a fine profit.

MARY

Smiles now with teasing affection.

I know. The famous one stroke of good luck. I’m sure McGuire never dreamed—

Then she pats his hand.

Never mind, James. I know it’s a waste of breath trying to convince you you’re not a cunning real estate speculator.

TYRONE

Huffily.

I’ve no such idea. But land is land, and it’s safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers.

Then placatingly.

But let’s not argue about business this early in the morning.

A pause. The boys’ voices are again heard and one of them has a fit of coughing. Mary listens worriedly. Her fingers play nervously on the table top.

MARY

James, it’s Edmund you ought to scold for not eating enough. He hardly touched anything except coffee. He needs to eat to keep up his strength. I keep telling him that but he says he simply has no appetite. Of course, there’s nothing takes away your appetite like a bad summer cold.

TYRONE

Yes, it’s only natural. So don’t let yourself get worried—

MARY

Quickly.

Oh, I’m not. I know he’ll be all right in a few days if he takes care of himself.

As if she wanted to dismiss the subject but can’t.

But it does seem a shame he should have to be sick right now.

TYRONE

Yes, it is bad luck.

He gives her a quick, worried look.

But you musn’t let it upset you, Mary. Remember, you’ve got to take care of yourself, too.

MARY

Quickly.

I’m not upset. There’s nothing to be upset about. What makes you think I’m upset?

TYRONE

Why, nothing, except you’ve seemed a bit high-strung the past few days.

MARY

Forcing a smile.

I have? Nonsense, dear. It’s your imagination.

With sudden tenseness.

You really must not watch me all the time, James. I mean, it makes me self- conscious.

TYRONE

Putting a hand over one of her nervously playing ones.

Now, now, Mary. That’s your imagination. If I’ve watched you it was to admire how fat and beautiful you looked.

His voice is suddenly moved by deep feeling.

I can’t tell you the deep happiness it gives me, darling, to see you as you’ve been since you came back to us, your dear old self again.

He leans over and kisses her cheek impulsively—then turning back adds with a constrained air.

So keep up the good work, Mary.

MARY

Has turned her head away.

I will, dear.

She gets up restlessly and goes to the windows at right.

Thank heavens, the fog is gone.

She turns back.

I do feel out of sorts this morning. I wasn’t able to get much sleep with that awful foghorn going all night long.

TYRONE

Yes, it’s like having a sick whale in the back yard. It kept me awake, too.

MARY

Affectionately amused.

Did it? You had a strange way of showing your restlessness. You were snoring so hard I couldn’t tell which was the foghorn!

She comes to him, laughing, and pats his cheek playfully.

Ten foghorns couldn’t disturb you. You haven’t a nerve in you. You’ve never had.

TYRONE

His vanity piqued—testily.

Nonsense. You always exaggerate about my snoring.

MARY

I couldn’t. If you could only hear yourself once—

A burst of laughter comes from the dining room. She turns her head, smiling.

What’s the joke, I wonder?

TYRONE

Grumpily.

It’s on me. I’ll bet that much. It’s always on the Old Man.

MARY

Teasingly.

Yes, it’s terrible the way we all pick on you, isn’t it? You’re so abused!

She laughs—then with a pleased, relieved air.

Well, no matter what the joke is about, it’s a relief to hear Edmund laugh. He’s been so down in the mouth lately.

TYRONE

Ignoring this—resentfully.

Some joke of Jamie’s, I’ll wager. He’s forever making sneering fun of somebody, that one.

MARY

Now don’t start in on poor Jamie, dear.

Without conviction.

He’ll turn out all right in the end, you wait and see.

TYRONE

He’d better start soon, then. He’s nearly thirty-four.

MARY

Ignoring this.

Good heavens, are they going to stay in the dining room all day?

She goes to the back parlor doorway and calls.

Jamie! Edmund! Come in the living room and give Cathleen a chance to clear the table.

Edmund calls back, “We’re coming, Mama.” She goes back to the table.

TYRONE

Grumbling.

You’d find excuses for him no matter what he did.

MARY

Sitting down beside him, pats his hand.

Shush.

Their sons JAMES, JR., and EDMUND enter together from the back parlor. They are both grinning, still chuckling over what had caused their laughter, and as they come forward they glance at their father and their grins grow broader.

Jamie, the elder, is thirty-three. He has his father’s broad-shouldered, deep- chested physique, is an inch taller and weighs less, but appears shorter and stouter because he lacks Tyrone’s bearing and graceful carriage. He also lacks his father’s vitality. The signs of premature disintegration are on him. His face is still good looking, despite marks of dissipation, but it has never been handsome like Tyrone’s, although Jamie resembles him rather than his mother. He has fine brown eyes, their color midway between his father’s lighter and his mother’s darker ones. His hair is thinning and already there is indication of a bald spot like Tyrone’s. His nose is unlike that of any other member of the family, pronouncedly aquiline. Combined with his habitual expression of cynicism it gives his countenance a Mephistophelian cast. But on the rare occasions when he smiles without sneering, his personality possesses the remnant of a humorous, romantic, irresponsible Irish charm— that of the beguiling ne’er-do-well, with a strain of the sentimentally poetic, attractive to women and popular with men.

He is dressed in an old sack suit, not as shabby as Tyrone’s, and wears a collar and tie. His fair skin is sunburned a reddish, freckled tan.

Edmund is ten years younger than his brother, a couple of inches taller, thin and wiry. Where Jamie takes after his father, with little resemblance to his

mother, Edmund looks like both his parents, but is more like his mother. Her big, dark eyes are the dominant feature in his long, narrow Irish face. His mouth has the same quality of hypersensitiveness hers possesses. His high forehead is hers accentuated, with dark brown hair, sunbleached to red at the ends, brushed straight back from it. But his nose is his father’s and his face in profile recalls Tyrone’s. Edmund’s hands are noticeably like his mother’s, with the same exceptionally long fingers. They even have to a minor degree the same nervousness. It is in the quality of extreme nervous sensibility that the likeness of Edmund to his mother is most marked.

He is plainly in bad health. Much thinner than he should be, his eyes appear feverish and his cheeks are sunken. His skin, in spite of being sunburned a deep brown, has a parched sallowness. He wears a shirt, collar and tie, no coat, old flannel trousers, brown sneakers.

MARY

Turns smilingly to them, in a merry tone that is a bit forced.

I’ve been teasing your father about his snoring.

To Tyrone.

I’ll leave it to the boys, James. They must have heard you. No, not you, Jamie. I could hear you down the hall almost as bad as your father. You’re like him. As soon as your head touches the pillow you’re off and ten foghorns couldn’t wake you.

She stops abruptly, catching Jamie’s eyes regarding her with an uneasy, probing look. Her smile vanishes and her manner becomes self-conscious.

Why are you staring, Jamie?

Her hands flutter up to her hair.

Is my hair coming down? It’s hard for me to do it up properly now. My eyes are getting so bad and I never can find my glasses.

JAMIE

Looks away guiltily.

Your hair’s all right, Mama. I was only thinking how well you look.

TYRONE

Heartily.

Just what I’ve been telling her, Jamie. She’s so fat and sassy, there’ll soon be no holding her.

EDMUND

Yes, you certainly look grand, Mama.

She is reassured and smiles at him lovingly. He winks with a kidding grin.

I’ll back you up about Papa’s snoring. Gosh, what a racket!

JAMIE

I heard him, too.

He quotes, putting on a ham-actor manner.

“The Moor, I know his trumpet.”

His mother and brother laugh.

TYRONE

Scathingly.

If it takes my snoring to make you remember Shakespeare instead of the dope sheet on the ponies, I hope I’ll keep on with it.

MARY

Now, James! You mustn’t be so touchy.

Jamie shrugs his shoulders and sits down in the chair on her right.

EDMUND

Irritably.

Yes, for Pete’s sake, Papa! The first thing after breakfast! Give it a rest, can’t you?

He slumps down in the chair at left of table next to his brother. His father ignores him.

MARY

Reprovingly.

Your father wasn’t finding fault with you. You don’t have to always take Jamie’s part. You’d think you were the one ten years older.

JAMIE

Boredly.

What’s all the fuss about? Let’s forget it.

TYRONE

Contemptuously.

Yes, forget! Forget everything and face nothing! It’s a convenient philosophy if you’ve no ambition in life except to—

MARY

James, do be quiet.

She puts an arm around his shoulder—coaxingly.

You must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.

To the boys, changing the subject.

What were you two grinning about like Cheshire cats when you came in? What was the joke?

TYRONE

With a painful effort to be a good sport.

Yes, let us in on it, lads. I told your mother I knew damned well it would be one on me, but never mind that, I’m used to it.

JAMIE

Dryly.

Don’t look at me. This is the Kid’s story.

EDMUND

Grins.

I meant to tell you last night, Papa, and forgot it. Yesterday when I went for a walk I dropped in at the Inn—

MARY

Worriedly.

You shouldn’t drink now, Edmund.

EDMUND

Ignoring this.

And who do you think I met there, with a beautiful bun on, but Shaughnessy, the tenant on that farm of yours.

MARY

Smiling.

That dreadful man! But he is funny.

TYRONE

Scowling.

He’s not so funny when you’re his landlord. He’s a wily Shanty Mick, that one. He could hide behind a corkscrew. What’s he complaining about now, Edmund—for I’m damned sure he’s complaining. I suppose he wants his rent lowered. I let him have the place for almost nothing, just to keep someone on it, and he never pays that till I threaten to evict him.

EDMUND

No, he didn’t beef about anything. He was so pleased with life he even bought a drink, and that’s practically unheard of. He was delighted because he’d had a fight with your friend, Harker, the Standard Oil millionaire, and won a glorious victory.

MARY

With amused dismay.

Oh, Lord! James, you’ll really have to do something—

TYRONE

Bad luck to Shaughnessy, anyway!

JAMIE

Maliciously.

I’ll bet the next time you see Harker at the Club and give him the old respectful bow, he won’t see you.

EDMUND

Yes. Harker will think you’re no gentleman for harboring a tenant who isn’t humble in the presence of a king of America.

TYRONE

Never mind the Socialist gabble. I don’t care to listen—

MARY

Tactfully.

Go on with your story, Edmund.

EDMUND

Grins at his father provocatively.

Well, you remember, Papa, the ice pond on Harker’s estate is right next to the farm, and you remember Shaughnessy keeps pigs. Well, it seems there’s a break in the fence and the pigs have been bathing in the millionaire’s ice pond, and Harker’s foreman told him he was sure Shaughnessy had broken the fence on purpose to give his pigs a free wallow.

MARY

Shocked and amused.

Good heavens!

TYRONE

Sourly, but with a trace of admiration.

I’m sure he did, too, the dirty scallywag. It’s like him.

EDMUND

So Harker came in person to rebuke Shaughnessy.

He chuckles.

A very bonehead play! If I needed any further proof that our ruling plutocrats, especially the ones who inherited their boodle, are not mental giants, that would clinch it.

TYRONE

With appreciation, before he thinks. Yes, he’d be no match for Shaughnessy. Then he growls.

Keep your damned anarchist remarks to yourself. I won’t have them in my house.

But he is full of eager anticipation.

What happened?

EDMUND

Harker had as much chance as I would with Jack Johnson. Shaughnessy got a few drinks under his belt and was waiting at the gate to welcome him. He told me he never gave Harker a chance to open his mouth. He began by shouting that he was no slave Standard Oil could trample on. He was a King of Ireland, if he had his rights, and scum was scum to him, no matter how much money it had stolen from the poor.

MARY

Oh, Lord!

But she can’t help laughing.

EDMUND

Then he accused Harker of making his foreman break down the fence to entice the pigs into the ice pond in order to destroy them. The poor pigs, Shaughnessy yelled, had caught their death of cold. Many of them were dying of pneumonia, and several others had been taken down with cholera from drinking the poisoned water. He told Harker he was hiring a lawyer to sue him for damages. And he wound up by saying that he had to put up with poison ivy, ticks, potato bugs, snakes and skunks on his farm, but he was an honest man who drew the line somewhere, and he’d be damned if he’d stand for a Standard Oil thief trespassing. So would Harker kindly remove his dirty feet from the premises before he sicked the dog on him. And Harker did!

He and Jamie laugh.

MARY

Shocked but giggling.

Heavens, what a terrible tongue that man has!

TYRONE

Admiringly before he thinks.

The damned old scoundrel! By God, you can’t beat him!

He laughs—then stops abruptly and scowls.

The dirty blackguard! He’ll get me in serious trouble yet. I hope you told him I’d be mad as hell—

EDMUND

I told him you’d be tickled to death over the great Irish victory, and so you are. Stop faking, Papa.

TYRONE

Well, I’m not tickled to death.

MARY

Teasingly.

You are, too, James. You’re simply delighted!

TYRONE

No, Mary, a joke is a joke, but—

EDMUND

I told Shaughnessy he should have reminded Harker that a Standard Oil millionaire ought to welcome the flavor of hog in his ice water as an appropriate touch.

TYRONE

The devil you did!

Frowning.

Keep your damned Socialist anarchist sentiments out of my affairs!

EDMUND

Shaughnessy almost wept because he hadn’t thought of that one, but he said he’d include it in a letter he’s writing to Harker, along with a few other insults he’d overlooked.

He and Jamie laugh.

TYRONE

What are you laughing at? There’s nothing funny—A fine son you are to help that blackguard get me into a lawsuit!

MARY

Now, James, don’t lose your temper.

TYRONE

Turns on Jamie.

And you’re worse than he is, encouraging him. I suppose you’re regretting you weren’t there to prompt Shaughnessy with a few nastier insults. You’ve a fine talent for that, if for nothing else.

MARY

James! There’s no reason to scold Jamie.

Jamie is about to make some sneering remark to his father, but he shrugs his shoulders.

EDMUND

With sudden nervous exasperation.

Oh, for God’s sake, Papa! If you’re starting that stuff again, I’ll beat it.

He jumps up.

I left my book upstairs, anyway.

He goes to the front parlor, saying disgustedly,

God, Papa, I should think you’d get sick of hearing yourself—

He disappears. Tyrone looks after him angrily.

MARY

You mustn’t mind Edmund, James. Remember he isn’t well.

Edmund can be heard coughing as he goes upstairs. She adds nervously.

A summer cold makes anyone irritable.

JAMIE

Genuinely concerned.

It’s not just a cold he’s got. The Kid is damned sick.

His father gives him a sharp warning look but he doesn’t see it.

MARY

Turns on him resentfully.

Why do you say that? It is just a cold! Anyone can tell that! You always imagine things!

TYRONE

With another warning glance at Jamie—easily.

All Jamie meant was Edmund might have a touch of something else, too, which makes his cold worse.

JAMIE

Sure, Mama. That’s all I meant.

TYRONE

Doctor Hardy thinks it might be a bit of malarial fever he caught when he was in the tropics. If it is, quinine will soon cure it.

MARY

A look of contemptuous hostility flashes across her face.

Doctor Hardy! I wouldn’t believe a thing he said, if he swore on a stack of Bibles! I know what doctors are. They’re all alike. Anything, they don’t care what, to keep you coming to them.

She stops short, overcome by a fit of acute self-consciousness as she catches their eyes fixed on her. Her hands jerk nervously to her hair. She forces a smile.

What is it? What are you looking at? Is my hair—?

TYRONE

Puts his arm around her— with guilty heartiness, giving her a playful hug. There’s nothing wrong with your hair. The healthier and fatter you get, the vainer you become. You’ll soon spend half the day primping before the mirror.

MARY

Half reassured.

I really should have new glasses. My eyes are so bad now.

TYRONE

With Irish blarney.

Your eyes are beautiful, and well you know it.

He gives her a kiss. Her face lights up with a charming, shy embarrassment. Suddenly and startlingly one sees in her face the girl she had once been, not a ghost of the dead, but still a living part of her.

MARY

You musn’t be so silly, James. Right in front of Jamie!

TYRONE

Oh, he’s on to you, too. He knows this fuss about eyes and hair is only fishing for compliments. Eh, Jamie?

JAMIE

His face has cleared, too, and there is an old boyish charm in his loving smile at his mother.

Yes. You can’t kid us, Mama.

MARY

Laughs and an Irish lilt comes into her voice.

Go along with both of you!

Then she speaks with a girlish gravity.

But I did truly have beautiful hair once, didn’t I, James?

TYRONE

The most beautiful in the world!

MARY

It was a rare shade of reddish brown and so long it came down below my knees. You ought to remember it, too, Jamie. It wasn’t until after Edmund was born that I had a single grey hair. Then it began to turn white.

The girlishness fades from her face.

TYRONE

Quickly.

And that made it prettier than ever.

MARY

Again embarrassed and pleased.

Will you listen to your father, Jamie—after thirty-five years of marriage! He isn’t a great actor for nothing, is he? What’s come over you, James? Are you pouring coals of fire on my head for teasing you about snoring? Well then, I take it all back. It must have been only the foghorn I heard.

She laughs, and they laugh with her. Then she changes to a brisk businesslike air.

But I can’t stay with you any longer, even to hear compliments. I must see the cook about dinner and the day’s marketing.

She gets up and sighs with humorous exaggeration.

Bridget is so lazy. And so sly. She begins telling me about her relatives so I can’t get a word in edgeways and scold her. Well, I might as well get it over. She goes to the back-parlor doorway, then turns, her face worried again.

You musn’t make Edmund work on the grounds with you, James, remember.

Again with the strange obstinate set to her face.

Not that he isn’t strong enough, but he’d perspire and he might catch more cold.

She disappears through the back parlor. Tyrone turns on Jamie condemningly.

TYRONE

You’re a fine lunkhead! Haven’t you any sense? The one thing to avoid is saying anything that would get her more upset over Edmund.

JAMIE

Shrugging his shoulders.

All right. Have it your way. I think it’s the wrong idea to let Mama go on kidding herself. It will only make the shock worse when she has to face it. Anyway, you can see she’s deliberately fooling herself with that summer cold talk. She knows better.

TYRONE

Knows? Nobody knows yet.

JAMIE

Well, I do. I was with Edmund when he went to Doc Hardy on Monday. I heard him pull that touch of malaria stuff. He was stalling. That isn’t what he thinks any more. You know it as well as I do. You talked to him when you went uptown yesterday, didn’t you?

TYRONE

He couldn’t say anything for sure yet. He’s to phone me today before Edmund goes to him.

JAMIE

Slowly.

He thinks it’s consumption, doesn’t he, Papa?

TYRONE

Reluctantly.

He said it might be.

JAMIE

Moved, his love for his brother coming out.

Poor kid! God damn it!

He turns on his father accusingly.

It might never have happened if you’d sent him to a real doctor when he first got sick.

TYRONE

What’s the matter with Hardy? He’s always been our doctor up here.

JAMIE

Everything’s the matter with him! Even in this hick burg he’s rated third class! He’s a cheap old quack!

TYRONE

That’s right! Run him down! Run down everybody! Everyone is a fake to you!

JAMIE

Contemptuously.

Hardy only charges a dollar. That’s what makes you think he’s a fine doctor!

TYRONE

Stung.

That’s enough! You’re not drunk now! There’s no excuse—

He controls himself—a bit defensively.

If you mean I can’t afford one of the fine society doctors who prey on the rich summer people—

JAMIE

Can’t afford? You’re one of the biggest property owners around here.

TYRONE

That doesn’t mean I’m rich. It’s all mortgaged—

JAMIE

Because you always buy more instead of paying off mortgages. If Edmund was a lousy acre of land you wanted, the sky would be the limit!

TYRONE

That’s a lie! And your sneers against Doctor Hardy are lies! He doesn’t put on frills, or have an office in a fashionable location, or drive around in an

expensive automobile. That’s what you pay for with those other five- dollars-to-look-at-your-tongue fellows, not their skill.

JAMIE

With a scornful shrug of his shoulders.

Oh, all right. I’m a fool to argue. You can’t change the leopard’s spots.

TYRONE

With rising anger.

No, you can’t. You’ve taught me that lesson only too well. I’ve lost all hope you will ever change yours. You dare tell me what I can afford? You’ve never known the value of a dollar and never will! You’ve never saved a dollar in your life! At the end of each season you’re penniless! You’ve thrown your salary away every week on whores and whiskey!

JAMIE

My salary! Christ!

TYRONE

It’s more than you’re worth, and you couldn’t get that if it wasn’t for me. If you weren’t my son, there isn’t a manager in the business who would give you a part, your reputation stinks so. As it is, I have to humble my pride and beg for you, saying you’ve turned over a new leaf, although I know it’s a lie!

JAMIE

I never wanted to be an actor. You forced me on the stage.

TYRONE

That’s a lie! You made no effort to find anything else to do. You left it to me to get you a job and I have no influence except in the theater. Forced you! You never wanted to do anything except loaf in barrooms! You’d have been content to sit back like a lazy lunk and sponge on me for the rest of your life! After all the money I’d wasted on your education, and all you did was get fired in disgrace from every college you went to!

JAMIE

Oh, for God’s sake, don’t drag up that ancient history!

TYRONE

It’s not ancient history that you have to come home every summer to live on me.

JAMIE

I earn my board and lodging working on the grounds. It saves you hiring a man.

TYRONE

Bah! You have to be driven to do even that much!

His anger ebbs into a weary complaint.

I wouldn’t give a damn if you ever displayed the slightest sign of gratitude. The only thanks is to have you sneer at me for a dirty miser, sneer at my profession, sneer at every damned thing in the world—except yourself.

JAMIE

Wryly.

That’s not true, Papa. You can’t hear me talking to myself, that’s all.

TYRONE

Stares at him puzzledly, then quotes mechanically.

“Ingratitude, the vilest weed that grows”!

JAMIE

I could see that line coming! God, how many thousand times—!

He stops, bored with their quarrel, and shrugs his shoulders.

All right, Papa. I’m a bum. Anything you like, so long as it stops the argument.

TYRONE

With indignant appeal now.

If you’d get ambition in your head instead of folly! You’re young yet. You could still make your mark. You had the talent to become a fine actor! You have it still. You’re my son—!

JAMIE

Boredly.

Let’s forget me. I’m not interested in the subject. Neither are you.

Tyrone gives up. Jamie goes on casually.

What started us on this? Oh, Doc Hardy. When is he going to call you up about Edmund?

TYRONE

Around lunch time.

He pauses—then defensively.

I couldn’t have sent Edmund to a better doctor. Hardy’s treated him whenever he was sick up here, since he was knee high. He knows his constitution as no other doctor could. It’s not a question of my being miserly, as you’d like to make out.

Bitterly.

And what could the finest specialist in America do for Edmund, after he’s deliberately ruined his health by the mad life he’s led ever since he was

fired from college? Even before that when he was in prep school, he began dissipating and playing the Broadway sport to imitate you, when he’s never had your constitution to stand it. You’re a healthy hulk like me—or you were at his age—but he’s always been a bundle of nerves like his mother. I’ve warned him for years his body couldn’t stand it, but he wouldn’t heed me, and now it’s too late.

JAMIE

Sharply.

What do you mean, too late? You talk as if you thought—

TYRONE

Guiltily explosive.

Don’t be a damned fool! I meant nothing but what’s plain to anyone! His health has broken down and he may be an invalid for a long time.

JAMIE

Stares at his father, ignoring his explanation.

I know it’s an Irish peasant idea consumption is fatal. It probably is when you live in a hovel on a bog, but over here, with modern treatment—

TYRONE

Don’t I know that! What are you gabbing about, anyway? And keep your dirty tongue off Ireland, with your sneers about peasants and bogs and hovels!

Accusingly.

The less you say about Edmund’s sickness, the better for your conscience! You’re more responsible than anyone!

JAMIE

Stung.

That’s a lie! I won’t stand for that, Papa!

TYRONE

It’s the truth! You’ve been the worst influence for him. He grew up admiring you as a hero! A fine example you set him! If you ever gave him advice except in the ways of rottenness, I’ve never heard of it! You made him old before his time, pumping him full of what you consider worldly wisdom, when he was too young to see that your mind was so poisoned by your own failure in life, you wanted to believe every man was a knave with his soul for sale, and every woman who wasn’t a whore was a fool!

JAMIE

With a defensive air of weary indifference again.

All right. I did put Edmund wise to things, but not until I saw he’d started to raise hell, and knew he’d laugh at me if I tried the good advice, older brother stuff. All I did was make a pal of him and be absolutely frank so he’d learn from my mistakes that—

He shrugs his shoulders—cynically.

Well, that if you can’t be good you can at least be careful.

His father snorts contemptuously. Suddenly Jamie becomes really moved. That’s a rotten accusation, Papa. You know how much the Kid means to me, and how close we’ve always been—not like the usual brothers! I’d do anything for him.

TYRONE

Impressed— mollifyingly.

I know you may have thought it was for the best, Jamie. I didn’t say you did it deliberately to harm him.

JAMIE

Besides it’s damned rot! I’d like to see anyone influence Edmund more than he wants to be. His quietness fools people into thinking they can do what

they like with him. But he’s stubborn as hell inside and what he does is what he wants to do, and to hell with anyone else! What had I to do with all the crazy stunts he’s pulled in the last few years—working his way all over the map as a sailor and all that stuff. I thought that was a damned fool idea, and I told him so. You can’t imagine me getting fun out of being on the beach in South America, or living in filthy dives, drinking rotgut, can you? No, thanks! I’ll stick to Broadway, and a room with a bath, and bars that serve bonded Bourbon.

TYRONE

You and Broadway! It’s made you what you are!

With a touch of pride.

Whatever Edmund’s done, he’s had the guts to go off on his own, where he couldn’t come whining to me the minute he was broke.

JAMIE

Stung into sneering jealousy.

He’s always come home broke finally, hasn’t he? And what did his going away get him? Look at him now!

He is suddenly shamefaced.

Christ! That’s a lousy thing to say. I don’t mean that.

TYRONE

Decides to ignore this.

He’s been doing well on the paper. I was hoping he’d found the work he wants to do at last.

JAMIE

Sneering jealously again.

A hick town rag! Whatever bull they hand you, they tell me he’s a pretty bum reporter. If he weren’t your son—

Ashamed again.

No, that’s not true! They’re glad to have him, but it’s the special stuff that gets him by. Some of the poems and parodies he’s written are damned good. Grudgingly again.

Not that they’d ever get him anywhere on the big time.

Hastily.

But he’s certainly made a damned good start.

TYRONE

Yes. He’s made a start. You used to talk about wanting to become a newspaper man but you were never willing to start at the bottom. You expected—

JAMIE

Oh, for Christ’s sake, Papa! Can’t you lay off me!

TYRONE

Stares at him—then looks away—after a pause.

It’s damnable luck Edmund should be sick right now. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for him.

He adds, unable to conceal an almost furtive uneasiness.

Or for your mother. It’s damnable she should have this to upset her, just when she needs peace and freedom from worry. She’s been so well in the two months since she came home.

His voice grows husky and trembles a little.

It’s been heaven to me. This home has been a home again. But I needn’t tell you, Jamie.

His son looks at him, for the first time with an understanding sympathy. It is as if suddenly a deep bond of common feeling existed between them in which their antagonisms could be forgotten.

JAMIE

Almost gently.

I’ve felt the same way, Papa.

TYRONE

Yes, this time you can see how strong and sure of herself she is. She’s a different woman entirely from the other times. She has control of her nerves

—or she had until Edmund got sick. Now you can feel her growing tense and frightened underneath. I wish to God we could keep the truth from her, but we can’t if he has to be sent to a sanatorium. What makes it worse is her father died of consumption. She worshiped him and she’s never forgotten. Yes, it will be hard for her. But she can do it! She has the will power now! We must help her, Jamie, in every way we can!

JAMIE

Moved.

Of course, Papa.

Hesitantly.

Outside of nerves, she seems perfectly all right this morning.

TYRONE

With hearty confidence now.

Never better. She’s full of fun and mischief.

Suddenly he frowns at Jamie suspiciously.

Why do you say, seems? Why shouldn’t she be all right? What the hell do you mean?

JAMIE

Don’t start jumping down my throat! God, Papa, this ought to be one thing we can talk over frankly without a battle.

TYRONE

I’m sorry, Jamie.

Tensely.

But go on and tell me—

JAMIE

There’s nothing to tell. I was all wrong. It’s just that last night—Well, you know how it is, I can’t forget the past. I can’t help being suspicious. Any more than you can.

Bitterly.

That’s the hell of it. And it makes it hell for Mama! She watches us watching her—

TYRONE

Sadly.

I know.

Tensely.

Well, what was it? Can’t you speak out?

JAMIE

Nothing, I tell you. Just my damned foolishness. Around three o’clock this morning, I woke up and heard her moving around in the spare room. Then she went to the bathroom. I pretended to be asleep. She stopped in the hall to listen, as if she wanted to make sure I was.

TYRONE

With forced scorn.

For God’s sake, is that all? She told me herself the foghorn kept her awake all night, and every night since Edmund’s been sick she’s been up and down, going to his room to see how he was.

JAMIE

Eagerly.

Yes, that’s right, she did stop to listen outside his room.

Hesitantly again.

It was her being in the spare room that scared me. I couldn’t help remembering that when she starts sleeping alone in there, it has always been a sign—

TYRONE

It isn’t this time! It’s easily explained. Where else could she go last night to get away from my snoring?

He gives way to a burst of resentful anger.

By God, how you can live with a mind that sees nothing but the worst motives behind everything is beyond me!

JAMIE

Stung.

Don’t pull that! I’ve just said I was all wrong. Don’t you suppose I’m as glad of that as you are!

TYRONE

Mollifyingly.

I’m sure you are, Jamie.

A pause. His expression becomes somber. He speaks slowly with a superstitious dread.

It would be like a curse she can’t escape if worry over Edmund—It was in her long sickness after bringing him into the world that she first—

JAMIE

She didn’t have anything to do with it!

TYRONE

I’m not blaming her.

JAMIE

Bitingly.

Then who are you blaming? Edmund, for being born?

TYRONE

You damned fool! No one was to blame.

JAMIE

The bastard of a doctor was! From what Mama’s said, he was another cheap quack like Hardy! You wouldn’t pay for a first-rate—

TYRONE

That’s a lie!

Furiously.

So I’m to blame! That’s what you’re driving at, is it? You evil-minded loafer!

JAMIE

Warningly as he hears his mother in the dining room.

Ssh!

Tyrone gets hastily to his feet and goes to look out the windows at right. Jamie speaks with a complete change of tone.

Well, if we’re going to cut the front hedge today, we’d better go to work.

Mary comes in from the back parlor. She gives a quick, suspicious glance from one to the other, her manner nervously self-conscious.

TYRONE

Turns from the window—with an actor’s heartiness.

Yes, it’s too fine a morning to waste indoors arguing. Take a look out the window, Mary. There’s no fog in the harbor. I’m sure the spell of it we’ve

had is over now.

MARY

Going to him.

I hope so, dear.

To Jamie, forcing a smile.

Did I actually hear you suggesting work on the front hedge, Jamie? Wonders will never cease! You must want pocket money badly.

JAMIE

Kiddingly.

When don’t I?

He winks at her, with a derisive glance at his father.

I expect a salary of at least one large iron man at the end of the week—to carouse on!

MARY

Does not respond to his humor—her hands fluttering over the front of her dress.

What were you two arguing about?

JAMIE

Shrugs his shoulders.

The same old stuff.

MARY

I heard you say something about a doctor, and your father accusing you of being evil-minded.

JAMIE

Quickly.

Oh, that. I was saying again Doc Hardy isn’t my idea of the world’s greatest physician.

MARY

Knows he is lying— vaguely.

Oh. No, I wouldn’t say he was, either.

Changing the subject—forcing a smile.

That Bridget! I thought I’d never get away. She told me all about her second cousin on the police force in St. Louis.

Then with nervous irritation.

Well, if you’re going to work on the hedge why don’t you go?

Hastily.

I mean, take advantage of the sunshine before the fog comes back.

Strangely, as if talking aloud to herself.

Because I know it will.

Suddenly she is self-consciously aware that they are both staring fixedly at her—flurriedly, raising her hands.

Or I should say, the rheumatism in my hands knows. It’s a better weather prophet than you are, James.

She stares at her hands with fascinated repulsion.

Ugh! How ugly they are! Who’d ever believe they were once beautiful?

They stare at her with a growing dread.

TYRONE

Takes her hands and gently pushes them down.

Now, now, Mary. None of that foolishness. They’re the sweetest hands in the world.

She smiles, her face lighting up, and kisses him gratefully. He turns to his son.

Come on Jamie. Your mother’s right to scold us. The way to start work is to start work. The hot sun will sweat some of that booze fat off your middle.

He opens the screen door and goes out on the porch and disappears down a flight of steps leading to the ground. Jamie rises from his chair and, taking

off his coat, goes to the door. At the door he turns back but avoids looking at her, and she does not look at him.

JAMIE

With an awkward, uneasy tenderness.

We’re all so proud of you, Mama, so darned happy.

She stiffens and stares at him with a frightened defiance. He flounders on. But you’ve still got to be careful. You mustn’t worry so much about Edmund. He’ll be all right.

MARY

With a stubborn, bitterly resentful look.

Of course, he’ll be all right. And I don’t know what you mean, warning me to be careful.

JAMIE

Rebuffed and hurt, shrugs his shoulders.

All right, Mama. I’m sorry I spoke.

He goes out on the porch. She waits rigidly until he disappears down the steps. Then she sinks down in the chair he had occupied, her face betraying a frightened, furtive desperation, her hands roving over the table top, aimlessly moving objects around. She hears Edmund descending the stairs in the front hall. As he nears the bottom he has a fit of coughing. She springs to her feet, as if she wanted to run away from the sound, and goes quickly to the windows at right. She is looking out, apparently calm, as he enters from the front parlor, a book in one hand. She turns to him, her lips set in a welcoming, motherly smile.

MARY

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

EDMUND

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

MARY

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?

EDMUND

Grand. Thanks, Mama.

MARY

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.

EDMUND

Takes her hand— with deep seriousness.

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

MARY

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.

EDMUND

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?

MARY

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.

EDMUND

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.

MARY

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.

EDMUND

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.

MARY

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.

EDMUND

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.

MARY

Wincing—her lips quivering pitifully.

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

EDMUND

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—

MARY

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?

EDMUND

Evasively.

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

MARY

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

EDMUND

I’m not!

MARY

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

EDMUND

Now don’t start imagining things, Mama.

MARY

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.

EDMUND

That’s crazy, Mama. We do trust you.

MARY

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!

EDMUND

Gets up worriedly and puts his arm around her.

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

MARY

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.

EDMUND

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.

MARY

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—

EDMUND

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.

MARY

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—

EDMUND

Too vehemently.

I didn’t think anything!

MARY

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

EDMUND

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

MARY

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

—

EDMUND

Stop it, Mama!

MARY

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!

EDMUND

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

MARY

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.

EDMUND

Soothingly.

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

MARY

Yes, of course, I know that!

EDMUND

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—

MARY

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.

EDMUND

No!

MARY

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.

EDMUND

Grabs her shoulder.

Mama! Stop it!

MARY

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.

EDMUND

Forget! It’s you—

MARY

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?

EDMUND

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.

CURTAIN