LITMIR.BIZ

      Act II

       Table of Contents

      SCENE: Mrs. Ommaney’s lodgings at the Pans. The interior is humble, but there is a picturesque view through the window of sea and rocks. There is a bedroom door, and when this is open, part of the bedroom is disclosed.

      (CURTAIN RISES ON jenny geddes, AGED 14, WHO IS NURSING A BABY.)

      JENNY (MOVING ABOUT). Hush-a-bye! Oh, you English baby, will you never sleep? It’s your time, I tell you. Look at the clock if you dinna believe me.

      (The clock shows the time to be about 5 p m.)

      N’yum, n’yum! N’yum, n’yum! (PUTS HER ON SOFA.) I believe you understand every word I say to you. This is a chair, and that there’s the window and the beautiful thing outside the window is the world. And this is the beautifullest lodgings in the Pans and I’m your beautiful nurse. Baby Ommaney is your name, England is your nation, And you ‘re lodging this week with my mama In her beautiful habitation. Baby, I just hates you for no sleeping. (KISSING HER) I hates you, I hates you! You bonny, will you sleep if I put you in your bed?

      (Knock is heard. She runs to window.)

      Oh, baby! A carriage and pair!

      (Exit into bedroom with child whom she is seen placing in a cradle. Enter MARGARET trying to look as if she had been married for years.)

      MARGARET (calling). Mrs. Geddes! Jenny!

      (ENTER jenny.)

      JENNY. Miss Margaret!

      MARGARET. Not Miss Margaret any longer, Jenny!

      jenny. I forgot. Oh, miss, let me see it. (LOOKING AT Margaret’s LEFT HAND.)

      MARGARET (CONSCIOUSLY). See what, Jenny?

      JENNY. Oh, miss, when there’s just one thing in the world!

      (MARGARET SHOWS HER WEDDING RING GLEEFULLY.)

      JENNY (TO RING). Oh, the bonny, oh, the crittur, oh, the pet! (KISSES HER HAND TO IT.) Miss Margaret, when you woke up this morning and saw that on your finger did you scream out ‘ Hurray!’?

      MARGARET. But how is Mrs. Ommaney? I have come to see her.

      JENNY. She’s out, miss; she’s been out for hours. Are you acquaint with her?

      MARGARET. A little — but I heard by accident a few minutes ago only, that she was lodging with you. I have been visiting my old nurse, Goody Lindsay, Jenny, and she told me. When does Mrs. Ommaney come back?

      JENNY. I canna say. She just said she was going out to see a friend.

      MARGARET. I did not know she had friends here.

      JENNY. Nor I. (PROUDLY) And it’s no just a woman, it’s a man.

      MARGARET. But I am glad. Well, Jenny, you must put up with my company until Mr. Digby comes for me.

      JENNY. Is HE coming?

      MARGARET. I dropped him at the station and the arrangement was that he should pick me up at Goody’s; but he was sure to know her house by the carriage at the door, so when he sees it at your door —

      JENNY. He’ll think this is Goody’s. That grand man coming here! (GOING HURRIEDLY.)

      MARGARET. Where are you going, Jenny?

      JENNY. To put on my diamond necklace!

      MARGARET. Come back. He will prefer you as you are.

      JENNY. Not him, ma’am. I ken men better than that.

      MARGARET. Come, I want to talk to you. How is your mother?

      JENNY (VERY OLD-FASHIONED). She’s just about the same, ma’am, there about it, off and on, nothing to boast of, ma’am, and nothing to complain of. She’s helping at the postoffice. The postmistress has the neuralgy again so mother’s there helping.

      MARGARET. And you are left in charge?

      (JENNY nods.)

      You like your lodger?

      JENNY (CARELESSLY). Yes. (ECSTATICALLY) But the baby! Oh, oh!

      MARGARET. Baby? Has Mrs. Ommaney a baby?

      JENNY. Oh, ma’am, of all the babies! (RUNS TO BEDROOM DOOR AND CALLS IN) Eat you, I’ll eat you! She’s sound, miss — I mean, ma’am. Sometimes she sleeps and sometimes she wakes up — I never see such a baby!

      MARGARET. Poor fatherless child. Was Mrs. Ommaney unwell when she came home yesterday?

      JENNY. She was terrible excited, but she locked herself up in her room and I never saw her. But I heard her — even after I was in my bed I heard her walking up and down, up and down, and I was feared in case in the morning she would be like — like she was that other time. (SHUDDERS.)

      MARGARET. What other time?

      JENNY (STILL QUAKING). Dinna ask, ma’am! And she was quiet this morning and telled me she was going out to call on a friend, a gentleman. Oh, ma’am, when she comes back I hope she winna be like — like she was that once. (QUAKES.)

      MARGARET. Jenny, what WAS that other time? You are shaking.

      JENNY. So did she! Oh, if you had seen how she shook!

      MARGARET. Tell me — I insist.

      JENNY. You winna tell my mother? I promised Mrs. Ommaney no to tell her.

      MARGARET. But why?

      JENNY. Because mother would be feared and send her away, and then I should lose baby.

      MARGARET. Very well.

      JENNY. It was a week ago, ma’am — the third night after she came here. She had been out wandering all day on the cliffs and round by the Lover’s Seat.

      MARGARET. Ah, I know why she goes there.

      JENNY. And she came in at dusk terrible excited. Then about an hour after — ah!

      MARGARET. Go on.

      JENNY. She was sitting in the bedroom before her lookingglass and I was brushing out her hair. But by-and-by I noticed she was shaking and I said, ‘What makes you shake?’ But she never spoke and I looked up — and saw her face in the lookingglass. Oh, ma’am, it wasna the face of a sane woman!

      MARGARET. Jenny!

      JENNY. She spoke to hersel’, ma’am, first wi’ a wild, suspicious face and then so sweet and pretty and she said kind things to me — but she didna ken me nor where she was.

      MARGARET. How did it end?

      JENNY. She lay doun on the bed saying words like ‘Love’ and ‘Darling.’ MARGARET. Ah, her husband!

      JENNY. And then she fell asleep for an hour and when she woke she was just as sane as you or me. She said, ‘Why did I lie down, Jenny?’ MARGARET. You told her?

      JENNY. Yes, and it made her cry and wring her hands. She said she had just twice in her life been like that before and it never lasted above an hour.

      MARGARET. Poor woman.

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