by Brian Friel
Mabel Let him worry about you for a change.
Mary I really can’t, Mabel. Not this time. Anyhow you and I always fight after a few hours.
Mabel Do we?
Mary Well … sometimes.
Mabel In that case.
Mary Next time … maybe.
Mabel Next time.
Mary That’s a promise.
Another brief burst of shrieking and horseplay off. The sisters smile uneasily at each other. Pause.
I left a box of nectarine and quince in your pantry. And a few jars of honey. Last year’s, I’m afraid. If it crystallizes just dip it in warm water.
Mabel Thank you.
Pause.
Mary They have no bees here, have they?
Mabel No, we haven’t.
Mary I’ve finally persuaded our Henry to move his hives away from the house, thank heavens. Do you remember – just beyond the vegetable garden? – where Father built the fishpond? – that’s where they are now. In a semicircle round the pond.
Mabel Yes.
Mary He has over a hundred hives now.
Mabel Has he?
Mary Maybe more.
Mabel Really?
Mary We sold about four thousand pounds of honey last year. To the army mostly. They would buy all he can produce but they don’t always pay him. (Pause.) And do you remember that bog land away to the left of the pond? Well, you wouldn’t recognize that area now. We drained it and ploughed it and fenced it; and then planted a thousand trees there in four separate areas: apple and plum and damson and pear. Henry had them sent over from Kent. They’re doing beautifully.
Mabel Good.
Mary They have no orchards here, have they?
Mabel No, we haven’t.
Mary Mostly vegetable growing, is it?
Mabel We go in for pastoral farming – not husbandry; cattle, sheep, horses. We have two hundred thousand head of cattle here at the moment – as you have heard. Did you say something about a herb garden?
Mary Oh, that’s a great success. That little square where we used to have the see-saw – do you remember that patch outside the kitchen window?
Mabel I’m not gone a year, Mary.
Mary Sorry. I’ve brought you some seeds. (She produces envelopes from her bag.) I’ve labelled them for you. (She reads:) Fennel. Lovage. Tarragon. Dill. Coriander. Borage. I had tansy, too, but I’m afraid it died on me. Do you remember every Easter we used to make tansy pudding and leave it – sorry. Don’t plant the fennel near the dill or the two will cross-fertilize.
Mabel Is that bad?
Mary You’ll end up with a seed that’s neither one thing or the other. Borage likes the sun but it will survive wherever you plant it – it’s very tough. I should have some valerian seeds later in the year. I’ll send you some. Are you still a bad sleeper?
Mabel Was father conscious at the end?
Mary Father? Conscious? You should have heard him! Leaving personal messages for everybody –
Mabel Messages?
Mary And detailed instructions about everything. The west door of the fort needs new hinges. The last consignment of muskets has defective hammers. Never depend totally on London because they don’t really understand the difficult job we’re doing over here.
Mabel Personal messages?
Mary He forgot nobody. I’m to take up book-binding if you don’t mind! Henry spends too much time at paperwork and not enough at soldiering. Old Tom, the gardener, should rub beeswax into his arthritic joints. Give a new Bible to the two maids from Tandragee. Half an hour before he died he asked what price we were getting for our eggs! Wonderful, wasn’t it?
Mabel Yes.
Mary I miss him terribly, Mabel. I know he had a hard life but it was a very full life. You forget that almost single-handed he tamed the whole of County Down and County Armagh and brought order and prosperity to them. And God blessed his great endeavours; and Dad knew that, too. And that was a great consolation to him at the end. (Pause.) To all of us. (Pause.) So. (Pause.) I miss you so much, Mabel.
Mabel I miss you, too.
Mary I locked your bedroom door the day you left and it hasn’t been opened since. But the house seems to be getting even bigger and emptier.
Mabel You enjoy the garden, don’t you?
Mary Henry says I should get out more – meet more people. Where am I supposed to go out to? We’re surrounded by the Irish. And every day more and more of their hovels spring up all along the perimeter of our lands.
Mabel You visit the Freathys, don’t you?
Mary They left. Months ago. Back to Cornwall.
Mabel Why?
Mary Couldn’t take any more, I suppose. The nearest neighbour we have now is Patrick Barnewall of Rathfriland and that’s fifteen miles away.
Mabel But think of the welcome you always get from Young Patrick! Remember the day he said to you: (lisping) ‘Mith Mary, come down to the old millhouse with me.’ God, we laughed at that for weeks. Do you remember?
Mary Yes.
Mabel It became a kind of catchphrase with us – ‘Mith Mary’ – do you remember?
Mary cries quietly.
Here. Come on. We’ll have none of that.
Mary He was sixty-five last week, Young Patrick Barnewall.
Mabel Are you all right, Mary?
Mary He wants to marry me, Mabel. I told him I’d think about it.
Mabel Oh, Mary, you –!
Mary And I am thinking seriously about it.
Mabel Mary, he’s an old –!
Mary I promised him I’d give him my answer next month. Our Henry thinks very highly of him.
Mabel Mary, you can’t marry Patrick Barnewall.
Mary We’ll see. I’m not sure yet. I think I will.
Mabel The man’s an old fool, Mary! He was always a fool! He has been a joke to us all our years!
Mary He’s still one of us, Mabel. And whatever about his age, he’s a man of great honour. (now formal and distant) Once more – it’s time I was going. I’ve left nothing behind me, have I? Did you see my new horses? Of course you did. Aren’t they handsome? Henry got them from Wales for my birthday. They’re very sure-footed and they have tremendous stamina. You’ll give my regards to Hugh?
Mabel I don’t know where he’s got to. He’ll be sorry to have missed you.
Mary No, he won’t. The twice we met we fought bitterly. I’ll try to come again, Mabel – if I get a chance. But you know how angry Henry is.
Mabel Is he still?
Mary He still talks about taking you home by force.
Mabel This is my home, Mary.
The sudden shrieking as before. Mary moves beside her and speaks with concern and passion.
Mary No, it’s not. This can never be your home. Come away with me now, Mabel.
Mabel Please, Mary –
Mary Yes, I know they have their colourful rituals and their interesting customs and their own kind of law. But they are not civilized, Mabel. And you can never trust them – you must know that now – how treacherous and treasonable they are – and steeped in religious superstition.
Mabel That’s enough, Mary.
Mary You talk about ‘pastoral farming’ – what you really mean is no farming – what you really mean is neglect of the land. And a savage people who refuse to cultivate the land God gave us have no right to that land.
Mabel Stop that at once, Mary!
Mary I’m sure some of them are kind and decent and trustworthy. Of course they are. And yes – I know – Hugh is different – Hugh was educated in England. But his people are doomed in spite of their foreign friends and their popish plotting because their way of life is doomed. And they are doomed because civility is God’s way, Mabel, and because superstition must yield before reason. You know in your heart what I’m saying is true.
Mabel I became a Roman Catholic six months ago.
Mary Oh God, Mabel, how could –?!
Mabel Out of loyalty to Hugh and to his people. As for civil
ity I believe that there is a mode of life here that is at least as honourable and as cultivated as the life I’ve left behind. And I imagine the Cistercian monks in Newry didn’t think our grandfather an agent of civilization when he routed them out of their monastery and took it over as our home.
Mary Hugh has two mistresses! – here! – now! Under this roof! Is that part of his religion?
Mabel That is part of his culture.
Mary For God’s sake! Is it part of his culture that he bows and scrapes before the Lord Deputy in Dublin and promises obedience and loyalty for life – and the very next day he’s plotting treason with Spain?
Mabel That is politics.
Mary ‘Politics’! Listen to yourself. You’re becoming slippery like them! You’re beginning to talk like them, to think like them! Hugh is a traitor, Mabel – to the Queen, to her Deputy, to everything you and I were brought up to believe in. Do you know what our people call him? The Northern Lucifer – the Great Devil – Beelzebub! Hugh O’Neill is evil incarnate, Mabel! You tell me he has twenty gold and velvet suits – but I have seen him eating with his bare hands! You tell me that he speaks three or four languages and that every leader in Europe respects him – but I can tell you that –
She breaks off because O’Neill enters with Harry.
Harry The consignment of lead has arrived from England.
O’Neill Have you got the import licence?
Harry Here.
O’Neill Check the order forms against the customs papers and see that – Mary!
Mary Hello, Hugh.
O’Neill When did you arrive?
Mary A few hours ago.
O’Neill Well, this is a surprise.
Mary I’m just about to leave.
They shake hands.
O’Neill What’s the hurry?
Mabel She wants to get home before dark.
Mary Hello, Harry.
Harry You’re a stranger, Mary. How are you?
They shake hands.
Mary I’m well, Harry. How are you?
Harry Fine, thank you, fine.
O’Neill Well, this is unexpected.
Mabel Isn’t she looking well?
O’Neill Indeed. And have the sisters had a good long gossip?
Mabel We’re about talked out – aren’t we?
O’Neill And how’s the Queen’s Marshal?
Mary Henry’s well, thank you.
O’Neill Henry’s well.
Mary Yes.
O’Neill Good.
Mary Yes. (Pause.) He’s very well.
O’Neill Splendid. But disquieted, I imagine, by that little difficulty with Maguire down in Fermanagh?
Mary I don’t know anything about that, Hugh.
O’Neill Of course not; naturally; affairs of state. But he does have a problem there – or at least so we’ve heard, Harry, haven’t we?
Mary Henry doesn’t discuss those things with me.
O’Neill The difficulty – as we understand it – is that London has asked Maguire to make a public profession of his loyalty and obedience – to ‘come in’ as they coyly phrase it, as in to come in out of the wilderness, the Gaelic wilderness, of course. Nothing more than a token gesture is asked for – the English, unlike us, never drive principles to embarrassing conclusions. For heaven’s sake, I’ve made the gesture myself, haven’t I, Harry? And I’ve brought young Hugh O’Donnell ‘in’. And I assure you, Mary, it means nothing, nothing. And in return for that symbolic … courtesy London offers you formal acknowledgement and recognition of what you already are – leader of your own people! Politically quaint, isn’t it?
Mary So taking a solemn oath of loyalty to Her Majesty is neither solemn nor binding to you, Hugh?
O’Neill Good heavens, no! I’m loyal today – disloyal tomorrow – you know how capricious we Gaels are. Anyhow, where was I? Yes, our friend Maguire. Maguire is having difficulty making that little courtesy. And so London gets peevish. And heated messages are exchanged. And terrible threats are made. And who gets hauled in to clean up the mess? Of course – poor old Henry! It’s always the Henrys, the menials in the middle, who get the kicks, isn’t it?
Mary Our Henry’s well able to handle rebels like Maguire.
O’Neill ‘Our Henry’? Nobody better. London couldn’t have a more dutiful servant than Our Henry. As you and I know well – but as London keeps forgetting – it’s the plodding Henrys of this world who are the real empire-makers. But the point I’m getting to – (to Harry) I’m not being indiscreet, Harry, am I? – the reason I mention the problem at all is that Maguire has thrown the head up and proclaims he’ll fight to the death before a syllable of loyalty to a foreign queen will ever issue from his pure lips! I know. I know. Trapped in the old Gaelic paradigms of thought. It’s so familiar – and so tedious. But then what does he do? Comes to me who has already made the token gesture, me, the ‘compromised’ O’Neill in his eyes, comes to me and begs me to fight beside him! Now! Look at the dilemma that places me in, Mary. You do appreciate my dilemma, don’t you?
Mary I don’t want to hear anything about this, Hugh.
O’Neill I try to live at peace with my fellow chieftains, with your people, with the Old English, with Dublin, with London, because I believe – I know – that the slow, sure tide of history is with me, Mary. All I have to do is … just sit – and – wait. And then a situation like this arises and how am I to conduct myself?
Mabel It’s time Mary set off.
O’Neill Do I keep faith with my oldest friend and ally, Maguire, and indeed with the Gaelic civilization that he personifies? Or do I march alongside the forces of Her Majesty? And I’ve marched with them before, Mary. You didn’t know that? Oh yes, I’ve trotted behind the Tudors on several expeditions against the native rebels. I’ve even fought alongside Our Henry in one little skirmish – oh, years and years ago, when you and Mabel were still playing with your dolls. Oh, yes, that’s a detail our annalists in their wisdom choose to overlook, perhaps because they believe, like Peter Lombard, that art has precedence over accuracy. I’m beginning to wonder should we trust historians at all! Anyhow back to Maguire – and my dilemma. It really is a nicely balanced equation. The old dispensation – the new dispensation. My reckless, charming, laughing friend, Maguire – or Our Henry. Impulse, instinct, capricious genius, brilliant improvisation – or calculation, good order, common sense, the cold pragmatism of the Renaissance mind. Or to use a homely image that might engage you: pasture – husbandry. But of course I’m now writing a cliché history myself, amn’t I? Because we both know that the conflict isn’t between caricatured national types but between two deeply opposed civilizations, isn’t it? We’re really talking about a life-and-death conflict, aren’t we? Only one will survive. You wouldn’t disagree with that, would you?
Mabel Mary wants to leave, Hugh.
O’Neill No, no, it’s a nice point and I would welcome Mary’s wholesome wisdom. I’ll be very direct. Do I grasp the Queen’s Marshal’s hand? – using Our Henry as a symbol of the new order which every aristocratic instinct in my body disdains but which my intelligence comprehends and indeed grudgingly respects – because as a boy I spent nine years in England where I was nursed at the very wellspring of that new order – think of all those formative years in the splendid homes of Leicester and Sidney and indeed at the Court itself – hence the grand accent, Mary –
Mabel Hugh, I think –
O’Neill No – allow me – or – or do I grip the hand of the Fermanagh rebel and thereby bear public and imprudent witness to a way of life that my blood comprehends and indeed loves and that is as old as the Book of Ruth? My dilemma. Help me, Mary. Which hand do I grasp? Because either way I make an enemy. Either way I interfere with that slow sure tide of history. No, that’s unfair. I mustn’t embarrass you. Let’s put it another way. Which choice would history approve? Or to use the Archbishop’s language: if the future historian had a choice of my two alternatives, which would he prefer for his acceptable na
rrative? Tell me.
Mary I don’t know anything about history, Hugh.
O’Neill All right; then which hand do I grasp?
Mary Queen Elizabeth made you an Earl. And you accepted that title. And you know that that title carries with it certain duties and responsibilities.
O’Neill Those duties I have honoured faithfully.
Mary Then as long as you continue to do that, Hugh, and if you are at peace with your conscience, you have no dilemma.
O’Neill (to Harry) She’s right, you know, (to Mary) A wise answer that, Mary. You have an admirably tidy little mind. That’s what I’ll do. And hope that history’s approval and the guidance of my conscience are in accord.
Mary gathers her belongings together. She embraces Mabel.
Mary I’m glad to see you looking so well.
Mabel Write to me.
They kiss.
Thank you for all you brought.
Mary I’ll not forget the valerian. Goodbye, Harry.
Harry Safe journey, Mary.
They shake hands.
Mary Goodbye, Hugh.
Hugh is examining the seed packets with excessive interest.
O’Neill Sorry?
Mary Goodbye.
O’Neill Oh – goodbye – goodbye – remember me to Our Henry.
Both women exit. Long pause.
Harry All that will go straight back to the Marshal.
O’Neill What’s that, Harry?
Harry Everything you said will be reported to Bagenal – and to London.
O’Neill That’s why I told her.
Harry You want it known that you’ve promised Maguire you’d help him?
O’Neill I don’t think I told her that, did I? (He reads:) ‘The coriander seed. Watch this seed carefully as it ripens suddenly and will fall without warning.’ Sounds like Maguire, doesn’t it? – Coriander Maguire.
Harry Because if you renege on that promise he certainly will fall.
O’Neill What herb are you, Harry? What about dill? ‘Has a comforting and soothing effect.’ Close enough. And who is borage? ‘Inclined to induce excessive courage, even recklessness.’ That’s O’Donnell, isn’t it? Borage O’Donnell.
Harry Or are you saying that you’re going to take the English side against Maguire, Hugh?