Plays 6

by Tom Murphy

  Arabella Still, that ever I should see his child thus.

  A clock chimes one. She returns to her work:

  One o’ clock, my work not yet near finished. Merciful heaven, restore to me my Edward and I shall pay any price, bear every burden, accept any hardship that . . . that can . . . that can be . . . heaped . . . upon me.

  She is nodding to sleep. Alanna watches, and to encourage her mother’s sleep she begins to sing, softly:

  Alanna

  Oh Mother-my-love, if you’ll give me your hand

  And go where I ask you to wander,

  I’ll lead us away to a beautiful land –

  The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder.

  Arabella is asleep. Alanna has tiptoed from the bed, and returns the shawl to her mother’s shoulders:

  Alanna Ah, Mother, you tried to trick your little darling by giving me your shawl.

  She takes up the work – shirts – and begins sewing them, one eye on her mother.

  Arabella stirs in her sleep. Alanna sings.

  Alanna

  I’ll rock you to sleep on a silver-dew stream,

  And sing you asleep when you’re weary,

  And no one shall know of our beautiful dream

  But you and your own little dearie.

  Arabella (in her sleep) Edward.

  Alanna We shall find him, Mother.

  Arabella (in her sleep) Edward.

  Alanna We shall find him. With the help of God, and the aid of my secret friend to whom I shall write yet again. (And she sings:)

  So Mother-my-love, let me take your dear hand

  And away through the starlight we’ll wander,

  Away through the mists to the beautiful land

  The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder.

  A knock at the door.

  (Whispers to herself.) Father!

  Arabella (awakened) Who can that be?

  Alanna It is Father!

  Arabella Ah, that it were he! (Calls.) Yes?

  And McGinty enters.

  McGinty The lovely Mrs Kilcullen! – Good evening, good evening!

  Arabella Sir! (Curtseys.) Good evening! But – evening ?

  McGinty I saw your light as I was passing, remembered your address from our meeting today and friends are welcome at all hours and seasons?

  Arabella ’Tis an untimely hour to visit, Sir, but if you have come with ought of Edward’s whereabouts, even the slenderest of tidings, you would be welcome at any time.

  McGinty Ah, the dear child! Here’s a sixpence for you, take my hat and cane to the next room and wait there.

  Alanna There is no other room.

  McGinty Hmm! Not the most commodious for the interview I have in mind. May I suggest immediate alternative accommodation for the two of us?

  Arabella Heaven help us, where could we go?

  McGinty To a little – nest? You must know that I’m a man of means and can supply – the feathers?

  Arabella Nest, feathers?

  McGinty A reward for your compliance.

  Arabella Ah! You refer to our cottage in the village. How we long for return to our home! But we made a vow to remain in this poor place until Edward is discovered.

  McGinty So be it then!

  Arabella What news, Sir, of him?

  McGinty Young, young, beautiful lady, I find this infatuation of yours most strange!

  Arabella Sir? Do you find love strange?

  McGinty Indeed I do! And it would appear there is no cure for it but marriage. ’Tis very strange. And stranger still, since the love object in the case in point is a foolish, no-good, indolent profligate.

  Arabella Sir, is it of my husband that you speak?

  McGinty I mean no offence, but of – who else?!

  Arabella Then he is alive!

  McGinty And kicking!

  Arabella Thank heavens!

  McGinty Thank heavens, yes! And does charmingly in a circle of companions, whose company, clearly, he prefers to yours.

  She takes a step backwards.

  I mean not to distress, but a woman, practical as she is beautiful, should like to know the facts in order to take further ‘dancing’ steps. And to apprise you more of the company he keeps: with the male half, his revels are of one kind; tired of that, the sociability of the other half consoles.

  Arabella (another step backwards; and a whisper) Oh Sir, what do you say to me?

  McGinty I mean not to distress, my dear, but the things I speak of have always been, and will be, while the two sexes exist, let alone where there are drunkards on the one side and harlots on the other.

  Arabella (a whisper) Oh Sir, this cannot be, oh Sir, do not break my heart.

  McGinty My dear young lady, I fear it is so, and you know it is so, and a woman of your intelligence will begin immediately to salvage her one big mistake in life. Give me your hand.

  She complies. She appears transfixed by him. He strokes her hand.

  Arabella What mistake?

  McGinty Choice of poor man.

  Arabella What? Nothing of what you say is true.

  She comes to, snatches her hand away.

  McGinty Come, come, my dear, this part of the scene is unnecessary!

  Arabella You lie! You calumniate my husband – I know you do! – You lie like a rascal! – And now you slander me – and before a child! Gaze on her features where famine has already set its seal, look on this hapless woman who brought her into the world, then, if you have heart, speak further insult to us!

  McGinty The heart, hah! A little red dripping barrel of cruelty.

  Arabella I love my husband! I love him the more because he is poor, forsaken and reviled. It is why I follow him!

  McGinty He laughs at you in his drunken ribaldry!

  Arabella (tearfully) False! That is false – He would never laugh at me! False! False! The fault of my husband, the only fault, is his intemperance – Terrible, terrible, I acknowledge! But it is an illness! Call it a weakness, if you will, but it is one that has assailed the finest and most sensitive intellects of mankind: men who, though prostrated with the affliction, would, to the very last, scorn you and your kind – your sickness, your moral deformity and warped philosophy!

  McGinty I must say it is a good game you play.

  Arabella Game?!

  McGinty Yes. And you are proficient in the craft of tears.

  He takes her hand again.

  Arabella (snatches her hand away) You are contemptible.

  McGinty Ha, ha, ha!

  Arabella Now you reveal the real purpose in your coming here. Get out!

  McGinty You know it better than I: a woman cannot have purity and intelligence, both.

  Arabella You scoundrel!

  McGinty Rapscallion!

  Arabella Ruffian!

  McGinty Scapegrace, slubberdegullion!

  Arabella Knave!

  McGinty Ha, ha, ha! You are young and you know it, beautiful – you know it – I desire you, you will yield to me and you know it –

  Arabella Unhand me! You are despicable and you don’t know it! But know it, how much I despise you, know it that my husband, covered in mire, drunk at my feet –

  McGinty Perishing on a dunghill! –

  Arabella Unhand, unhand me! –

  Alanna Help! Help!

  McGinty You verge too close to insolence now. Remember your circumstances. – Remember it is late, you are helpless and unfriended –

  Alanna (this time, calling out of the window) Help! Help! Oh, won’t someone come to our aid?

  Voice (without) Holloo!

  Alanna Help! Help! – Voice Holloo! Holloo!

  Alanna Mr Earley! Mr Earley! It is Mr Earley.

  William (rushes in) Mary and Joseph! It’s Mrs Kilcullen’s little darling, Alanna. And Mrs Kilcullen! And howdydo! What have we here? Oh bo, bo, bo, bo, bo: think of the devil and you meet his first cousin!

  McGinty tries to hide or slope away.

  William Ho, Squire, you lizard! (Thr
ows McGinty about.) Ho, Mr Honey! What’s the lowest you’ll take for your skin? Shall I turn auctioneer and knock you down to this bidder? Or this one? – Or here’s a higher one!

  McGinty I’m a respectable man –

  William You, a man? Nature made a mistake!

  McGinty Strike me and I’ll sue you!

  William Strike me, but if I don’t set your paddles going all-fired-quick!

  McGinty I have two witnesses!

  William Out you get or see if I don’t play The Wind that Shakes the Barley on your organ of rascality!

  Throws him out, down the stairs.

  McGinty (without, tumbling) Ow-wow-wow-wow-wow!

  William (finds McGinty’s hat) Well, I declare: a silk hat for a man like that!

  McGinty (without) You’ll find I have not done with you!

  William Nor I with you! (Deftly aiming and pitching the hat out at McGinty.)

  McGinty (without) Ow!

  Arabella William, ever friend!

  William It did ill behove me, Ma’am, to dust him further in your presence.

  Arabella But how came you upon us so opportunely?

  William Well now, that be a long tale. But mind you of Sir Arden Rencelaw?

  Arabella He is seldom from my mind.

  Alanna We keep his picture.

  She takes the lamp to the wall, they follow, and we see Sir Arden’s life-size ‘picture’ on it.

  Arabella I would not be without it.

  Alanna We pray to it as we do to God.

  Arabella For anyone who knows Sir Arden Rencelaw wishes to know more of Sir Arden Rencelaw.

  William A truer word was never spoken, Ma’am. Well, on account he’s been away in Switzerland with my little half-crazed sister Agnes – the same Agnes, you’ll be glad to hear, is now – well, by Sir Arden’s remarkable lights – is now but tuppence short of the shilling, but, dang me, if by my lights, there isn’t more than tuppence worth of air still getting in up there. (He means air getting into Agnes’s head.) Howandever, he did only on his return today get your letter.

  Arabella Letter, William? What letter, I wrote no letter?! (What a puzzle.)

  Alanna Please, Mother, I hope it does not vex you, but this picture has become my secret friend and inspired by the noble features delineated in it, I took it on myself to write entreaty to Sir Arden on our behalf.

  Arabella Oh, my child, it does not vex me. (To William.) And he sent you to us?

  William Aye, that be so.

  Arabella And you have found Edward!

  William Aye, well, that not be so.

  Arabella William?

  William Then I mustn’t tell a lie, Ma’am. We haven’t found him but, even if we do, by whatever accident Sir Arden’s got to know of your Edward’s present condition . . .

  Arabella Speak!

  William All efforts now to save his life may have come too late.

  Arabella faints.

  Scene Four

  Agnes , as one in adoration, is gazing at another life-size ‘picture’ of Sir Arden. (This ‘picture’ for instance, might be face-on as against the one in the last scene which could be in profile.)

  Agnes His features. His features.

  She carries a crucifix, which, now, she remembers, guiltily.

  Oh, Christ’s features too, oh our Blessed Saviour’s too, of course, too, oh I wouldn’t have it otherwise, oh Christ no, Christ knows! But . . . (wistfully) his features. Don’tcha know.

  We are in the Sir Arden Rencelaw Foundation. Agnes wears an institutional-type dress and she is now scrubbed clean. She appears quite dreamy – some might say lovelorn or, indeed, scatty. But she pulls herself together to get on with the business of the play.

  For three days now are we returned and for three days he has been abroad the city streets . . . (She forgets her purpose.) And I miss his daily instruction. (She assumes Rencelaw’s bearing and tone.) ’With good economy, Miss Agnes, few need be poor.’ Without economy, Sir Arden, none can be rich.

  Rencelaw (the ‘picture’ behind her speaks) Everything has a beginning, Miss Agnes, except?

  Agnes Except God.

  Rencelaw Don’tcha know.

  She pulls herself together.

  Agnes For three days now are we returned from Switzerland and for three days he has been abroad the city streets, assiduously preaching temperance, and in desperate search of another soul to save: that of Young Edward Kilcullen. (Beat.) And I miss him. He says – with look I know not what to make of –

  Rencelaw You may address me, Miss Agnes, by my first name.

  Agnes (silently, whispered:) Arden. But I am much too shy.

  Rencelaw Address me by my first name –

  Agnes He says –

  Rencelaw Don’tcha know.

  Agnes Can’t. And I am very much improved, he says, and how pleased his countenance that I respond to his tuition.

  Rencelaw Cabbage and carrots were unknown before?

  Agnes 1545.

  Rencelaw It would take 27,000 spiders to produce?

  Agnes It would take 27,000 spiders to produce one pound of web. I weep with delight when he gives me a smile.

  Rencelaw But one last mist remains –

  Agnes He says, that I must –

  Rencelaw (declaims, frowning) Sunder and disperse! (And he’s gone – the ‘picture’ is gone! )

  Agnes (now cowering in the corner) And I tremble with fear at his frown. (She is lost. She grows agitated.) Brake, fern, cypress dell where – no, cabbage, carrots, cypress dell where – no, one pound of spiders to make 27,000 webs – no, no, no! (Repeat, as necessary. Her mind is reeling and a half-swoon perhaps. Then:)

  A strange fancy keeps forming in my brain: it flits across my mind like a half-forgotten dream: oh, what can it be? A remembrance vague of a moonlit night when I’d concealed myself to observe the strange goings-on of the sane section of mankind . . .

  She swoons into a trance and, like one possessed, she begins to speak in a deep voice:

  Wait. Wait . . . Night. The moping owl falls silent; night holds its breath, the shadows and the mist subside, hide under the trees, and across the sward, now bathed white in its lunar lover’s tide – lo! – a man steals from the big house, brick house, brick house yonder. And neath his great black coat he conceals . . . What can it be? . . . Wait. A box, tin box, and buries it in the earth, tin box, in cypress dell, midst brake and fern, by the old moss-covered wall. And ’tis honest Lawyer McGinty! . . . I have sundered the last mist. He will be pleased. (Silently, whispered:) Arden! Arden! (It will be a long time beofre she is able to say his name aloud. She does. though, run off excitedly:) The will – ha, ha, ha!

  Scene Five

  A stable or outhouse. It is dark but nearing dawn. Edward is on the floor, delirious. He is without coat, hat, shoes; the clothes he wears are torn and dirty. He is in ‘the jigs’. At first, perhaps, he is quiet; staring eyes; slowly pulling up his knees and pulling back his bare feet, to protect them from something. His innocent horror. It is as if a tide is coming towards him. He thinks he has escaped, that this ‘tide’ is moving past him, but – ‘Ah!’ – something on his arm which he flicks off. But – ‘Ah!’ – another on his thigh. Another and another, in his hair, his mouth – ‘Ah!’ ‘Thwuh!’ . . . An infestation of creepy-crawlies have come for him. They are on his hands, around and in between his fingers. And he cannot yet bring himself to roar. They are making low-pitched sounds – like bees that have invaded his skull; they pant like dogs needing water . . . They are all over him. Now, a growing roar:

  Edward OooooOOOO! MamaaaAAA! MamaaaAAA! Send them away, send them away, stop them, stop them . . . !

  The tide recedes. (Made up of crawling Floozies perhaps, and others as available – but Floozies in particular.)

  Edward What hideous place is this, where am I? . . . Is it hell? Dream? Does dream occur after one is dead? . . . Is it night? Morn? Coming morn, coming night? . . . I wanted day but, if it come, what shall I do with light? How to
hide my face away from . . . from me? . . . If it be night, how to bear again the unleashed terrors of Dark’s enhancing powers? . . . Ah! dawn spreads a rosy hue over night time’s troubled skies: the stars at last released from their ticking spasms, but, ah me! It is morn.

  Now, again, he tries to make himself smaller, to hide, protect himself This time it is an invasion of snakes. He whimpers:

  No . . . No . . . Off . . . Off me . . . Away . . . Get away . . . Take them away . . . Off ! Off ! (He appears to be hurtling them away, but one snake is persistent.) NoooOOO! Take it off me! Take it – MamaaaAAA – get it off me! . . . Mama, it tightens – How it coils – tightens! . . . Dash, dash, dash you to a pulp against the wall!

  Snakes, Figures, retiring.

  Edward I breathe again.

  Figures returning. This time, upright, standing, or nearly so.

  Edward Nooooo! I am awake – Mama, Papa, tell them that I am awake! Dreams – you are dreams – you are shockingly bad dreams! Will you return upon me when my eyes – see! – are gaping wide? (Pleads.) Please you, leave? Please?

  Figures draw back. Every fibre of him is shaking.

  Edward I should not be so stricken were I in these hands to hold a glass . . . Nor so fearful, despairing, astonished, or ashamed . . . Ashamed? (He shakes his head, ‘No,’ wearily.)

  A figure enters, a Man. (He will, later, turn out to be real.) Edward watches him, at first suspiciously.

  Man Who left the door open? Where is the horse? Where in blazes is my horse?

  Edward I say, you there!

  Man Who’s there?!

  Edward Yes, you there, Landlord Tubbs from the village, pour us a drink!

  Man Who’s there, I say!

  Edward It is I, Young Edward Kilcullen!

  Man (assuming a new voice) Ah, the scape-gallows, Kilcullen!

  Figures Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! (Coming forward.)

  Edward Scape-gallows – Ha, ha, ha! – Good old Tubbs, ever fond of a jest. You and I have long been friends – Don’t draw back! pour us another and be quick about it!

  Floozie 1 And the devil’s to pay!

  Figures Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

  Edward But it is I, Edward Kilcullen, a respected worthy!

  Floozie 2 You were that once, Teddy!

  Floozie 1 And so was Lucifer!

  Figures Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

  Edward Fetch him here! – Tubbs, Tubbs, I am ill, faint, my brain I think’s on fire – Give me a drink!