MRS GREGG Wipe your face.
Martha takes the handkerchief and does as she is told. A maid enters the room.
MAID Yes Mam.
MRS GREGG Daphne, we’ll have some tea please.
MAID Yes Mam.
The maid exits. Mrs Gregg has turned to study Martha who is dabbing at her eyes. Mrs Gregg looks at her as if seeing one of these people for the first time. Her shoes, her dress.
MRS GREGG My husband put a great deal of store in the people who worked for him. A great deal of trust. . .
MARTHA He was always decent to us.
MRS GREGG I’ve tried to understand. It’s so hard to know what God must mean by this.
MARTHA Yes Mam.
MRS GREGG Your father loved growing things.
They sit in silence a moment. Martha folds the handkerchief.
MARTHA I’ll laundry this and bring it back.
MRS GREGG I look at you and I try to see some sign. Try to see something in your face. These things must have beginnings somewhere. Be put in motion at some point. . . But when I look at you I see nothing. I can see nothing in you to do with death and murder.
The maid comes into the room and sets down a tray on the table between them. There is a teapot and cups and a plate of sliced cakes and other things.
MAID Did you want me to make the service Mam?
MRS GREGG No thank you, Daphne. That’s fine.
The maid exits. Mrs Gregg turns back to Martha.
MARTHA Them lawyers wouldnt let him tell his part.
Mrs Gregg is watching her. Martha raises her face to look at her.
MARTHA They said it would go better if he’d not testify.
MRS GREGG We have to put ourselves in the hands of those who know best.
MARTHA I felt like he wanted to do the right thing.
MRS GREGG Yes.
MARTHA I know that he felt worst of all about you . . .
MRS GREGG I cant hate him. We must have failed him somewhere. But I’ve had to put my feelings aside.
MARTHA Yes mam. I caint help but think it was just a mistake of some kind. If they’d of got me up there I thought about it and I wonder what I would of said. I mean if they ast me. I’d of maybe had to tell em about that gold piece and it would of sounded worse than what it was. I mean, he never meant nothin by it. He done that with ... I mean he would do stuff like that, you know, just in fun?
Mrs Gregg's face darkens and she draws slightly back from Martha.
MRS GREGG Do what?
MARTHA Well, you know. Like offer ye money. It didnt mean nothin. Bobby could not have knowed nothin about it. You know I wouldnt of told him hotheaded as he was.
MRS GREGG (softly, cynically, with surprise) Oh you are a little darling, arent you?
Martha leans toward her.
MARTHA Mam, it will just kill Daddy. I know I dont have no right to ast nothin of you. But Daddy just swore by Mr Gregg. Your husband . . .
Mrs Gregg rises from her chair.
MRS GREGG My son was right about you people. I wouldnt listen to him. He used to make fun of my husband’s idealism and I wouldnt listen to it. I wouldnt hear it.
Martha rises from her chair. She is not listening. Her face is anguished and she is prepared now to launch a plea for clemency.
MARTHA I wouldnt ast nothin for myself. Not for him even. Mrs Gregg. Much as he loved his boys I believe your husband would of wanted you to do somethin . . .
MRS GREGG The poor and the downtrodden. He was so cynical.
MARTHA They’d just as well put that rope around Daddy’s neck when they get done. Mrs. Gregg.
Mrs Gregg has turned and taken up the hell. She rings it vigorously as if to drown out the pleas of the supplicant. Her eyes are almost shut.
MARTHA I meant not to ast nothin of ye. But afore God . . .
Mrs Gregg rings the hell again. The maid appears in the doorway, eyes wide at the urgency of the hell.
MRS GREGG Daphne, the young lady will be leaving now. Will you show her out?
MAID Yes Mam.
The maid comes forward and takes Martha by the elbow.
MARTHA I dont blame you Mam.
MRS GREGG Please leave.
Martha turns to the door. She stops and looks back a final time at Mis Gregg.
MARTHA God bless you Mam.
Mrs Gregg turns from her and puts her hands over her ears.
Interior. The photographer's shop. Day. A flash of powder from the photographers lights and then Robert McEvoy's portrait staring straight ahead. Then the photographer moving behind his shroud, coming out and attending to his camera. McEvoy sitting in front of a painted backdrop of the period perhaps with Greek columns. He wears a stiff new suit and his hair is cut. In the corner of the shop sits a guard with a rifle across his knees. The photographer comes forward.
PHOTOGRAPHER Now, Mr McEvoy just turn slightly sideways here. Yes. That’s it. No, look toward the camera. That’s the way. We’ll take a three-quarter view. Sit up straight now.
The photographer takes his camera back several paces.
MCEVOY Will my leg show?
PHOTOGRAPHER No no. Not at all. This will just be from about the waist up.