LITMIR.BIZ

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      MARGARET (SOOTHING HER). No, no, we must look on the bright side. We must hope for the best. Don’t tremble — what can I do to make you happy again?

      JENNY. Maybe, if I was to put on my diamond necklace?

      MARGARET (SHAKING HEAD AT HER). Well, off you go.

      JENNY. And if baby cries, will you call me? (LOOKS IN AT BEDROOM DOOR.) Well, I never, if she hasna woke up again. Oh, the wonder!

      MARGARET. You little mother! Jenny, the best I can wish you is that when you are married you may have as many children as the little old woman who lived in a shoe.

      JENNY (IN A TRANSPORT OF DELIGHT). Oh, ma’am!

      (Exit JENNY, MARGARET, left alone, is very conscious of her wedding ring. She kisses it gleefully. Then stretches out arm and gazes at ring, then tries to avert her head; then peeps at ring over her shoulder, then determinedly covers left hand with right, then can’t resist another peep, then kisses ring again and runs to bedroom door.)

      MARGARET (peeping in at bedroom). be! baby! I am coming in to see you. Mrs. Paul Digby presents her compliments to Miss Ommaney and may she come in and hug her?

      (She enters bedroom, leaving door partly open, jenny reappears wearing necklace of glass of which she is very proud, and listens.)

      Poor little spinster. There, I was a spinster once myself, baby; but it is so long, long ago, that I have quite forgotten what it was like.

      JENNY. And it was only yesterday!

      MARGARET (CALLING). Jenny, you are listening! Go away!

      (EXIT jenny HURRIEDLY.)

      (TO BABY) She was listening, the naughty Jenny! My watch? Oh, yes, you can eat my watch. No, let me put it to your ear. Now listen. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

      (Enter MRS. ommaney in cloak and bonnet; she looks sullen and disappointed; lets cloak drop on table, hangs bonnet up in cupboard; coming back to table, sees her cloak on it and flings it to back of stage, sits down by fire wearily.) I hear Jennie again. I shall shut the door, baby, and then she can’t hear.

      (MARGARET SHUTS DOOR WITHOUT LOOKING OUT; mrs ommaney HAS STARTED TO HER FEET. ENTER jenny.)

      MRS OMMANEY. Oh, Jenny, who is in there?

      JENNY (GLEEFULLY). Oh, ma’am, it’s Miss Margaret — Mrs. Digby, I mean.

      MRS OMMANEY (FIERCELY). She — with my child! (STRIDES TOWARDS DOOR, STOPS — LAUGHS GRIMLY.) How did she know I was lodging here?

      JENNY. A woman told her.

      MRS OMMANEY. It is fate! Has she been talking of — (WITH QUIET SARCASM) — her dear husband?

      JENNY (SHARPLY). You dinna ken her. Mr. Digby doesna ken she has come to see you.

      MRS OMMANEY (GRIMLY). No, I’ll swear he doesn’t. (SUDDENLY) But I thought they had gone out together.

      JENNY. Who telled ye?

      MRS. OMMANEY. Never mind. (Laughs — kisses her hand to bedroom door.)

      JENNY. Did you see your friend, ma’am?

      MRS OMMANEY (LISTLESS). No, he was out.

      JENNY (INQUISITIVELY). I suppose you winna tell me what your business with him was?

      MRS OMMANEY. Yes, Jenny, I will tell you. He has broken his promise to me and my business is to expose him. Unless —

      JENNY. Unless what, ma’am?

      MRS OMMANEY. Unless he is willing to buy my silence.

      (jenny LOOKS PUZZLED.)

      Oh, he knows the value of it, Jenny. (DOGGEDLY) But it is not to be bought with money. He shan’t buy it with money.

      JENNY. With what, then?

      MRS OMMANEY. Jenny, do you think me pretty?

      JENNY. Oh, ma’am, what can that have to do with it?

      MRS OMMANEY (PASSIONATELY). It has everything to do with it. It is life or death to me now. Quick, I was pretty once.

      (JENNY makes no answer and MRS. OMMANEY sinks back in distress into chair.)

      All gone, all gone! (PITIFULLY) Never mind, pity may do as well.

      JENNY. I dinna understand, ma’am.

      MRS OMMANEY. You will understand soon — unless he agrees. Everyone will understand. It will be the talk of the place, I promise you. (POINTING TOWARDS BEDROOM) Get rid of her.

      JENNY. But she is waiting for Mr. Digby.

      MRS OMMANEY (STARTING UP). What! You said he did not know she was coming here. He can’t have known.

      JENNY. She didna ken hersel’. But she telled him to come for her to the door where her carriage was standing. She meant it would be Goody Lindsay’s door.

      MRS OMMANEY. He will come here — here! (QUICKLY) I want to see him alone. Get rid of her and —

      (MARGARET opens door and addresses JENNY. MRS.

      OMMANEY being up stage is invisible to MARGARET.)

      MARGARET. Jenny!

      (JENNY goes to door.)

      Don’t you see Mr. Digby coming yet?

      JENNY. No, ma’am, but —

      (MRS. OMMANEY signs to silence JENNY, MARGARET goes back to child, leaving door partly open.)

      MARGARET (in fun). Baby, I am a grass widow!

      (MRS. OMMANEY signs imperiously to JENNY to go. Exit JENNY.)

      Are you laughing, baby? When your mother’s tears fall on your face do you laugh on only? Oh, I see now why God gives the merriest babies to mothers who are the most sorrowful. It is because, when baby laughs, mother forgets to weep.

      (The hardness goes out of MRS. OMMANEY’S face — she is moved.)

      This is my wedding ring, baby, kiss it!

      (MRS. OMMANEY starts up, forming the word ‘ No’ with her Ups.)

      Did you ever kiss your mother’s wedding ring, baby?

      (MRS. OMMANEY looks bitterly at her left hand on which there is no ring.)

      If she doesn’t come soon, dear, I won’t be able to see her, for my Paul has taken a sudden dislike to this place, and we are going away tomorrow to a beautiful country called Switzerland.

      MRS. OMMANEY (excitedly). What!

      MARGARET. Jenny, you ‘re horrid. (RISES AND SHUTS DOOR.)

      MRS. ommaney (IN A WHITE HEAT, HER VOICE INTENT BUT LOW). Running away from me, are you, Paul Digby? No, no. And from your child that you don’t know of yet. You shall know of her now. (CALLING) Jenny!

      (ENTER jenny, mrs ommaney CONCEALS HER FURY.)

      Jenny, you thought I disliked your Miss Margaret. Listen to this. As soon as her husband comes in I mean to give them a marriage present.

      JENNY (delighted). Oh!

      MRS OMMANEY (WITH CRUEL GLEE AND SO INTENSE THAT HER VOICE DROPS ALMOST TO A WHISPER). Such an UNCOMMON marriage present, Jenny, and in a way it belongs to Mr. Digby already, as much as to me. But he has never seen it; he does not even know of its existence. Is not that a curious present?

      JENNY. Terrible curious. And you will give it TO THEM as soon as he comes in?

      MRS. OMMANEY. AS SOON AS he comes IN. See if he is coming.

      JENNY. Oh, what fun! (EXIT jenny.)

      MRS OMMANEY. What fun, what fun! Run away from me. No, no! (WAVES HAND AS IF BECKONING PAUL FORWARDS.)

      Looking for your wife, are you? Ha, ha! In here, Mr. Digby — (POINTING TO THE

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