The Gardener's Son(15)

Exterior. Night. Street in Graniteville where the McEvoys live. There are lamps lit in the houses and people at the windows look out to see what the dogs are barking at. Patrick McEvoy is coming slowly up the street. He comes from pool to pool of lamplight where it falls into the street and various voices call out after him.

VOICE 1ST WOMAN You better see to your business.

VOICE 1ST MAN We got to have some relief up here, McEvoy.

VOICE 2ND WOMAN You better do somethin about this.

VOICE 2ND MAN (to himself or others) It’s an outrage is what it is. A damned outrage.

McEvoy passes on to his own house and mounts the steps. The house is in darkness and he lights a lamp and goes to the parlor where the bier is trestled up. The flowers have withered and died and dead candle stubs sit in pools of grease. As he enters with the lamp a cat leaps from the bier and scrabbles off through the house with a low squall. McEvoy goes down the hallway through the kitchen and out into the yard, holding the lamp before him. He sets the lamp down on a stump used for splitting kindling. There is a hatchet stuck in the stump. He goes to the wood pile and commences carrying armloads of kindling, then stovewood, then logs, to the center of the yard. He piles the wood up into a great heap and he takes the lamp and takes off his cap and uses it to grip the hot lampchimney and removes the chimney and throws it to one side and kneels with the lamp and lights the pile of wood at the bottom. When it is going he returns to the house.

Interior. McEvoy parlor. The unchimneyed lamp flame now gutters and flares and leaves a trail of black smoke and McEvoy makes his way to the bier and stands looking down at it for a few moments. He sets the lamp in the floor and lifts one end of the casket and kicks the sawhorse from under it and lowers it to the floor. Then he does the same with the other end of the casket. Then he takes up the rope handle in the end of the coffin and, stooping, he commences to drag the coffin across the floor toward the door.

Interior. The Gregg house. Mrs Gregg is in widow's black. She walks slowly down the long hall of the house and at the end she turns and faces the drawing room. She stands there a moment and then she enters. As she enters Martha McEvoy rises from a chair. Mrs Gregg moves past her and turns and stands and looks at Martha.

MRS GREGG I would have thought it would be your father would come.

MARTHA Bobby wouldnt let him.

MRS GREGG So he sent you.

MARTHA No Mam. I wasnt sent. I come for my own self.

MRS GREGG It’s out of my hands. I cant do anything for you.

MARTHA Yes Mam. I just come . . .

MRS GREGG I always intended well toward your brother. I am a Christian woman. But he has put to perdition all the hopes of this family. James was the last male heir. All my late husband’s . . . The directors will take over the mill now. There are always these strangers waiting for those who cannot set their house in order.

MARTHA Mrs Gregg, I know what people said about James . . .

Mrs Gregg smiles in a superior and somewhat cynical way.

MRS GREGG Yes. My people learned to live with slander a long time ago. With envy and with ingratitude. Purity of blood is a trust to those possessed of it. The Bible tells us. At one time there were giants in the earth . . .

MARTHA Mrs Gregg . . .

MRS GREGG No, I’m sorry. There was a family here. A community of people working together, joined in a common enterprise. But my husband . . . My family’s bond to this community was of the spirit, not of the flesh.

MARTHA Mrs Gregg .. .

MRS GREGG It’s the ingratitude that is worst. I suppose I never understood that to an ingrate a generous person is a fool. When we first came here I took one look and I was ready to go back to Charleston. My husband convinced me ... I came to love it here ... to love these people . . .

Martha is crying now. She has understood little of all this.

MARTHA Mrs Gregg, I just wanted you to know that your son never done nothin to me. I just come to say I was sorry. I know they aint nothin I can do and they caint nobody bring him back but I wanted to come and tell you that, and to say I was sorry. Somebody had to.

She turns and goes past Mrs Gregg toward the door. Mrs Gregg looks after her, realizing now that Martha has not come to beg for Bobby but to console her, Mrs Gregg. As she reaches the hall and is turning toward the door Mrs Gregg calls to her.

MRS GREGG Miss McEvoy.

Martha turns at the hallway.

MRS GREGG Come here. Please.

Martha comes back into the room. She is crying but she does not dab at her eyes or attempt to conceal her tears. As she approaches Mrs Gregg, the older woman takes her by the elbow and steers her toward a chair.

MRS GREGG Please. Sit down.

Mrs Gregg goes to a table and takes up a bell and rings it and puts it down again and comes and takes a chair opposite Martha. She studies Martha, who is sitting looking down. She takes a handkerchief from her sleeve and hands it to Martha, who at first will not take it.