Well, Ellie talks. She's got no shame . . . and this is apparently something to talk about.
LAURA (To Mr. Lee)
Do you still think it will make a good smoking-car story?
BILL
What do you mean?
HERB
Why did he do it? Before, maybe he could talk it down, but to go do a thing like this and leave no doubts.
LAURA
In whose mind?
BILL
Laura, please.
LAURA (Angry)
You asked me to stay.
BILL (Flaring back at her)
Well, now you've heard. We won't keep you.
LAURA (Knowing, without asking)
Why did you want me to hear?
BILL (Going to her)
I wanted you to know the facts. That's all. The whole story.
(LAURA stands in the alcove.)
HERB
Bill, Bill! Maybe thcre's some way of getting to this girl so she wouldn't spread the story.
BILL
I'm afraid it's too late for that.
HERB
I don't know. Some things don't make any sense. What am I going to do now?
LAURA (Re-entering)
Mr. Lee, please don't go on drawing the wrong conclusions!
HERB
I'm drawing no conclusions. This sort of thing can happen to a normal boy. But it's what the others will think . . . Added to the Harris business. And that's all that's important. What they'll think.
LAURA
Isn't it important what Tom thinks?
BILL
Herb, we'd better be getting on over to the Dean's . . .
HERB (Indicating upstairs)
Is he in his room?
BILL
Yes.
HERB
Packing?
BILL
No.
HERB
I told him to come to you to talk things over. Did he?
BILL
No.
HERB
What am I going to say to him now?
BILL
We're expected at four.
HERB
I know. But I've got to go up . . . Maybe I should have left him with his mother. She might have known what to do, what to say . . .
(He starts out)
You want to come along with me?
BILL (Moving to hall)
All right.
LAURA (Serious)
Bill, I'd like to talk with you.
BILL I'll be back.
(Goes with HERB to the landing. LAURA exits, taking off her jacket.)
HERB
Maybe I ought to do this alone.
BILL
He's probably locked in his bedroom.
(HERB goes up the stairs and inside the study. BILL stays in the hall. TOM, as he hears his father knocking on the bedroom door, stiffens. HERB tries the door handle.)
HERB (Off, in the study)
Tom . . . Tom . . . it's Dad.
(TOM gets up, but just stands there)
Tom, are you asleep?
(After a few moments, he reappears on the landing. He is deeply hurt that his son wouldn't speak to him)
I think he's asleep.
BILL (Making a move to go in and get TOM)
He can't be . . .
HERB (Stops)
Yes, I think he is. He was always a sound sleeper. We used to have to drag him out of bed when he was a kid.
BILL
But he should see you.
HERB
It'll be better later, anyhow.
(He starts down the stairs, troubled, puzzled.)
BILL
I'll go right with you, Herb.
(They re-enter the study, and BILL goes out through the alcove. HERB stays in the master's study.)
TOM (When his father is downstairs, he opens his bedroom door and faintly calls)
Dad?
(HERB looks up, thinking he's heard something but then figures it must have been something else. RALPH, STEVE and PHIL come crashing down the stairs, dressed for the tea dance, ad libbing comments about the girls at the dance. TOM closes his door. When they have gone, he opens it again and calls "Dad" faintly. When there is no response, he closes the door, and goes and lies on the bed.)
BILL (Re-entering)
Laura, I'm going to the Dean's now with Herb. I'm playing squash with the headmaster at five. So I'll see you at the dining room at six-thirty.
LAURA (Entering after him)
I wish you'd come back here after.
BILL
Laura, I can't.
LAURA
Bill, I wish you would.
BILL (Sees that there is some strange determination in LAURA'S face)
Herb, I'll be with you in a minute. Why don't you walk along?
HERB
All right . . . Good-bye, Laura. See you again.
BILL
You'll see her in a couple of days at the reunion.
HERB
I may not be coming up for it now . . . Maybe I will. I don't know. I'll be walking along. Good-bye, Laura. Tell Tom I tried to see him.
(He goes out.)
BILL
Now, Laura, what's the matter? I've got to get to the Dean's rooms to discuss this matter.
LAURA
Yes, of course. But first I'd like to discuss the boys who made him do this . . . the men and boys who made him do this.
BILL
No one made him do anything.
LAURA
Is there to be no blame, no punishment for the boys and men who taunted him into doing this? What if he had succeeded in killing himself? What then?
BILL
You're being entirely too emotional about this.
LAURA
If he had succeeded in killing himself in Ellie's rooms, wouldn't you have felt some guilt?
BILL
I?
LAURA
Yes, you.
BILL
I wish you'd look at the facts and not be so emotional about this.
LAURA
The facts! What facts! An innocent boy goes swimming with an instructor . . . an instructor whom he likes because this instructor is one of the few who encourage him, who don't ride him . . . And because he's an off-horse, you and the rest of them are only too glad to put two and two together and get a false answer . . . anything which will let you go on and persecute a boy whom you basically don't like. If it had happened with Al or anybody else, you would have done nothing.
BILL
It would have been an entirely different matter. You can't escape from what you are . . . your character. Why do they spend so much time in the law courts on character witnesses? To prove this was the kind of man who could or couldn't commit such and such a crime.
LAURA
I resent this judgment by prejudice. He's not like me, therefore, he is capable of all possible crimes. He's not one of us . . . a member of the tribe!
BILL
Now look, Laura, I know this is a shock to you, because you were fond of this boy. But you did all you could for him, more than anyone would expect. After all, your responsibility doesn't go beyond --
LAURA
I know. Doesn't go beyond giving him tea and sympathy on Sunday afternoons. Well, I want to tell you something. It's going to shock you . . . but I'm going to tell you.
BILL
Laura, it's late.
LAURA
Last night I knew what Tom had in mind to do.
BILL
How did you know?
LAURA
I heard him making the date with Ellie on the phone.
BILL
And you didn't stop him? Then you're the one responsible.
LAURA
Yes, I am responsible, but not as you think. I did try to stop him, but not by locking him in his room, or calling the school police. I tried to stop him by being nice to him, by being affectionate. By showing him that he was liked . .
. yes, even loved. I knew what he was going to do . . . and why he was going to do it. He had to prove to you bullies that he was a man, and he was going to prove it with Ellie Martin. Well . . . last night . . . last night, I wished he had proved it with me.
BILL
What in Christ's name are you saying?
LAURA
Yes, I shock you. I shock myself. But you are right. I am responsible here. I know what I should have done. I knew it then. My heart cried out for this boy in his misery . . . a misery imposed by my husband. And I wanted to help him as one human being to another . . . and I failed. At the last moment, I sent him away . . . sent him to . . .
BILL
You mean you managed to overcome your exaggerated sense of pity.
LAURA
No, it was not just pity. My heart in its own loneliness . . . Yes, I've been lonely here, miserably lonely . . . and my heart in its loneliness cried out for this boy . . . cried out for the comfort he could give me too.
BILL
You don't know what you're saying.
LAURA
But I was a good woman. Good in what sense of the word? Good to whom . . . and for whom?
BILL
Laura, we'll discuss this, if we must, later on . . .
LAURA
Bill! There'll be no later on. I'm leaving you.
BILL
Over this thing?
LAURA (After a moment)
Yes, this thing, and all the other things in our marriage.
BILL
For God's sake, Laura, what are you talking about?
LAURA
I'm talking about love and honor and manliness, and tenderness, and persecution. I'm talking about a lot. You haven't understood any of it.
BILL
Laura, you can't leave over a thing like this. You know what it means.
LAURA
I wouldn't worry too much about it. When I'm gone, it will probably be agreed by all that I was an off-horse too, and didn't really belong to the clan, and it's good riddance.
BILL
And you're doing this . . . all because of this . . . this fairy?
LAURA (After a moment)
This boy, Bill . . . this boy is more of a man than you are.
BILL
Sure. Ask Ellie.
LAURA
Because it was distasteful for him. Because for him there has to be love. He's more of a man than you are.
BILL
Yes, sure.
LAURA
Manliness is not all swagger and swearing and mountain climbing. Manliness is also tenderness, gentleness, consideration. You men think you can decide on who is a man, when only a woman can really know.
BILL
Ellie's a woman. Ask Ellie.
LAURA
I don't need to ask anyone.
BILL
What do you know about a man? Married first to that boy . . . again, a poor pitiable boy . . . You want to mother a boy, not love a man. That's why you never really loved me. Because I was not a boy you could mother.
LAURA
You're quite wrong about my not loving you. I did love you. But not just for your outward show of manliness, but because you needed me . . . For one unguarded moment you let me know you needed me, and I have tried to find that moment again the year we've been married . . . Why did you marry me, Bill? In God's name, why?
BILL
Because I loved you. Why else?
LAURA
You've resented me . . . almost from the day you married me, you've resented me. You never wanted to marry really . . . Did they kid you into it? Does a would-be headmaster have to be married? Or what was it, Bill? You would have been far happier going off on your jaunts with the boys, having them to your rooms for feeds and bull sessions . . .
BILL
That's part of being a master.
LAURA
Other masters and their wives do not take two boys always with them whenever they go away on vacations or weekends.
BILL
They are boys without privileges.
LAURA
And I became a wife without privileges.
BILL
You became a wife . . .
(He stops.)
LAURA
Yes?
BILL
You did not become a wife.
LAURA
I know. I know I failed you. In some terrible way I've failed you.
BILL
You were more interested in mothering that fairy up there than in being my wife.
Tea and Sympathy Page 13