The Straw Part 6

CARMODY. You'd better not. Leave her alone. She'll not wish you mixin'

in with her work and tellin' her how to do it.

EILEEN (_aghast_). Her work! (_She seems at the end of her tether--wrung too dry for any further emotion. She kisses her father at the door with indifference and speaks calmly._) Good-bye, father.

CARMODY (_in a whining tone of injury_). A cold kiss! And never a small tear out of her! Is your heart a stone? (_Drunken tears well from his eyes and he blubbers._) And your own father going back to a lone house with a stranger in it!

EILEEN (_wearily, in a dead voice_). You'll miss your train, father.

CARMODY (_raging in a second_). I'm off, then! Come on, Fred. It's no welcome we have with her here in this place--and a great curse on this day I brought her to it! (_He stamps out._)

EILEEN (_in the same dead tone_). Good-bye, Fred.

NICHOLLS (_repenting his words of a moment ago--confusedly_). I'm sorry, Eileen--for what I said. I didn't mean--you know what your father is--excuse me, won't you?

EILEEN (_without feeling_). Yes.

NICHOLLS. And I'll be out soon--in a week if I can make it. Well then,--good-bye for the present. (_He bends down as if to kiss her, but she shrinks back out of his reach._)

EILEEN (_a faint trace of mockery in her weary voice_). No, Fred.

Remember you mustn't now.

NICHOLLS (_in an instant huff_). Oh, if that's the way you feel about----

(_He strides out and slams the door viciously behind him._ Eileen _walks slowly back towards the fire-place, her face fixed in a dead calm of despair. As she sinks into one of the armchairs, the strain becomes too much. She breaks down, hiding her face in her hands, her frail shoulders heaving with the violence of her sobs.

At this sound,_ Murray _turns from the windows and comes over near her chair._)

MURRAY (_after watching her for a moment--in an embarra.s.sed tone of sympathy_). Come on, Miss Carmody, that'll never do. I know it's hard at first--but--getting yourself all worked up is bad for you. You'll run a temperature and then they'll keep you in bed--which isn't pleasant. Take hold of yourself! It isn't so bad up here--really--once you get used to it! (_The shame she feels at giving way in the presence of a stranger only adds to her loss of control and she sobs heartbrokenly._ Murray _walks up and down nervously, visibly nonplussed and upset. Finally he hits upon something._) One of the nurses will be in any minute. You don't want them to see you like this.

EILEEN (_chokes back her sobs and finally raises her face and attempts a smile_). I'm sorry--to make such a sight of myself. I just couldn't help it.

MURRAY (_jocularly_). Well, they say a good cry does you a lot of good.

EILEEN (_forcing a smile_). I do feel--better.

MURRAY (_staring at her with a quizzical smile--cynically_). You shouldn't take those lovers' squabbles so seriously. To-morrow he'll be sorry--you'll be sorry. He'll write begging forgiveness--you'll do ditto. Result--all serene again.

EILEEN (_a shadow of pain on her face--with dignity_). Don't--please.

MURRAY (_angry at himself--hanging his head contritely_). I'm a fool.

Pardon me. I'm rude sometimes--before I know it. (_He shakes off his confusion with a renewed attempt at a joking tone._) You can blame your father for any breaks I make. He made me your guardian, you know--told me to see that you behaved.

EILEEN (_with a genuine smile_). Oh, father! (_Flus.h.i.+ng._) You mustn't mind anything he said to-night.

MURRAY (_thoughtlessly_). Yes, he was well lit up. I envied him.

(Eileen _looks very shame-faced._ Murray _sees it and exclaims in exasperation at himself._) Darn! There I go again putting my foot in it! (_With an irrepressible grin._) I ought to have my tongue operated on--that's what's the matter with me. (_He laughs and throws himself in a chair._)

EILEEN (_forced in spite of herself to smile with him_). You're candid, at any rate, Mr. Murray.

MURRAY. Don't misunderstand me. Far be it from me to cast slurs at your father's high spirits. I said I envied him his jag and that's the truth. The same candour compels me to confess that I was pickled to the gills myself when I arrived here. Fact! I made love to all the nurses and generally disgraced myself--and had a wonderful time.

EILEEN. I suppose it does make you forget your troubles--for a while.

MURRAY (_waving this aside_). I didn't want to forget--not for a second. I wasn't drowning my sorrow. I was hilariously celebrating.

EILEEN (_astonished--by this time quite interested in this queer fellow to the momentary forgetfulness of her own grief_). Celebrating--coming here? But--aren't you sick?

MURRAY. T.B.? Yes, of course. (_Confidentially._) But it's only a matter of time when I'll be all right again. I hope it won't be too soon. I was dying for a rest--a good, long rest with time to think about things. I'm due to get what I wanted here. That's why I celebrated.

EILEEN (_with wide eyes_). I wonder if you really mean----

MURRAY. What I've been sayin'? I sure do--every word of it!

EILEEN (_puzzled_). I can't understand how anyone could---- (_With a worried glance over her shoulder._) I think I'd better look for Miss Gilpin, hadn't I? She may wonder---- (_She half rises from her chair._)

MURRAY (_quickly_). No. Please don't go yet. Sit down. Please do. (_She glances at him irresolutely, then resumes her chair._) They'll give you your diet of milk and shoo you off to bed on that freezing porch soon enough, don't worry. I'll see to it that you don't fracture any rules.

(_Hitching his chair nearer hers--impulsively._) In all charity to me you've got to stick awhile. I haven't had a chance to really talk to a soul for a week. You found what I said a while ago hard to believe, didn't you?

EILEEN (_with a smile_). Isn't it? You said you hoped you wouldn't get well too soon!

MURRAY. And I meant it! This place is honestly like heaven to me--a lonely heaven till your arrival. (Eileen _looks embarra.s.sed._) And why wouldn't it be? I've no fear for my health--eventually. Just let me tell you what I was getting away from---- (_With a sudden laugh full of a weary bitterness._) Do you know what it means to work from seven at night till three in the morning as a reporter on a morning newspaper in a town of twenty thousand people--for _ten years_? No. You don't. You can't. No one could who hadn't been through the mill. But what it did to me--it made me happy--yes, happy!--to get out here--T.B. and all, notwithstanding.

EILEEN (_looking at him curiously_). But I always thought being a reporter was so interesting.

MURRAY (_with a cynical laugh_). Interesting? On a small town rag? A month of it, perhaps, when you're a kid and new to the game. But ten years. Think of it! With only a raise of a couple of dollars every blue moon or so, and a weekly spree on Sat.u.r.day night to vary the monotony.

(_He laughs again._) Interesting, eh? Getting the dope on the Social of the Queen Esther Circle in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Methodist Episcopal Church, unable to sleep through a meeting of the Common Council on account of the noisy oratory caused by John Smith's application for a permit to build a house; making a note that a tugboat towed two barges loaded with coal up the river, that Mrs. Perkins spent a week-end with relatives in Hickville, that John Jones---- Oh help! Why go on? Ten years of it! I'm a broken man. G.o.d, how I used to pray that our Congressman would commit suicide, or the Mayor murder his wife--just to be able to write a real story!

EILEEN (_with a smile_). Is it as bad as that? But weren't there other things in the town--outside your work--that were interesting?

MURRAY (_decidedly_). No. Never anything new--and I knew everyone and every thing in town by heart years ago. (_With sudden bitterness._) Oh, it was my own fault. Why didn't I get out of it? Well, I didn't. I was always going to--to-morrow--and to-morrow never came. I got in a rut--and stayed put. People seem to get that way, somehow--in that town. It's in the air. All the boys I grew up with--nearly all, at least--took root in the same way. It took pleurisy, followed by T.B., to blast me loose.

EILEEN (_wonderingly_). But--your family--didn't they live there?

MURRAY. I haven't much of a family left. My mother died when I was a kid. My father--he was a lawyer--died when I was nineteen, just about to go to college. He left nothing, so I went to work on the paper instead. And there I've been ever since. I've two sisters, respectably married and living in another part of the state. We don't get along--but they are paying for me here, so I suppose I've no kick.

(_Cynically._) A family wouldn't have changed things. From what I've seen that blood-thicker-than-water dope is all wrong. It's thinner than table-d'hote soup. You may have seen a bit of that truth in your own case already.

EILEEN (_shocked_). How can you say that? You don't know----

MURRAY. Don't I, though? Wait till you've been here three months or four--when the gap you left has been comfortably filled. You'll see then!

EILEEN (_angrily, her lips trembling_). You must be crazy to say such things! (_Fighting back her tears._) Oh, I think it's hateful--when you see how badly I feel!

MURRAY (_in acute confusion. Stammering_). Look here, Miss Carmody, I didn't mean to---- Listen--don't feel mad at me, please. My tongue ran away with me. I was only talking. I'm like that. You mustn't take it seriously.

EILEEN (_still resentful_). I don't see how you can talk. You don't--you can't know about these things--when you've just said you had no family of your own, really.

MURRAY (_eager to return to her good graces_). No. Of course I don't know. I was just talking regardless for the fun of listening to it.

EILEEN (_after a pause_). Hasn't either of your sisters any children?