Complete Works of William Faulkner
Page 406
He wears a light-weight summer suit, his hat is shoved on to the back of his head so that, engaged as he is at present, he looks exactly like a youthful city detective in a tough moving-picture. He is searching the flimsy negligee, quickly and without gentleness, drops it and turns, finds his feet entangled in the other garments on the floor and without pausing, kicks himself free and crosses to the desk and stands looking down at the litter on it which he has already searched thoroughly and savagely once, with a sort of bleak and contemptuous disgust.
Temple enters, left. She wears a dark suit for travelling beneath a light-weight open coat, is hatless, carries the fur coat which we have seen, and a child’s robe or blanket over the same arm, and a filled milk bottle in the other hand. She pauses long enough to glance at the littered room. Then she comes on in and approaches the table. Pete turns his head; except for that, he doesn’t move.
PETE
Well?
TEMPLE
No. The people where she lives say they haven’t seen her since she left to come to work this morning.
PETE
I could have told you that.
(he glances at his wrist watch)
We’ve still got time. Where does she live?
TEMPLE
(at the table)
And then what? hold a lighted cigarette against the sole of her foot?
PETE
It’s fifty dollars, even if you are accustomed yourself to thinking in hundreds. Besides the jewellery. What do you suggest then? call the cops?
TEMPLE
No. You won’t have to run. I’m giving you an out.
PETE
An out?
TEMPLE
No, dough, no snatch. Isn’t that how you would say it?
PETE
Maybe I don’t get you.
TEMPLE
You can quit now. Clear out. Leave. Get out from under. Save yourself. Then all you’ll have to do is, wait till my husband gets back, and start over.
PETE
Maybe I still don’t get you.
TEMPLE
You’ve still got the letters, haven’t you?
PETE
Oh, the letters.
He reaches inside his coat, takes out the packet of letters and tosses it onto the table.
There you are.
TEMPLE
I told you two days ago I didn’t want them.
PETE
Sure. That was two days ago.
They watch each other a moment. Then Temple dumps the fur coat and the robe from her arm, onto the table, sets the bottle carefully on the table, takes up the packet of letters and extends her other hand to Pete.
TEMPLE
Give me your lighter.
Pete produces the lighter from his pocket and hands it to her. That is, he extends it, not moving otherwise, so that she has to take a step or two toward him to reach and take it. Then she turns and crosses to the hearth, snaps the lighter on. It misses fire two or three times, then lights. Pete has not moved, watching her. She stands motionless a moment, the packet of letters in one hand, the burning lighter in the other. Then she turns her head and looks back at him. For another moment they watch each other.
PETE
Go ahead. Burn them. The other time I gave them to you, you turned them down so you could always change your mind and back out. Burn them.
They watch each other for another moment. Then she turns her head and stands now, her face averted, the lighter still burning. Pete watches her for another moment.
Then put that junk down and come here.
She snaps out the lighter, turns, crosses to the table, putting the packet of letters and the lighter on the table as she passes it, and goes on to where Pete has not moved. At this moment, Nancy appears in the door, left. Neither of them sees her. Pete puts his arms around Temple.
I offered you an out too.
(he draws her closer)
Baby.
TEMPLE
Don’t call me that.
PETE
(tightens his arms, caressing and savage too)
Red did. I’m as good a man as he was. Ain’t I?
They kiss. Nancy moves quietly through the door and stops just inside the room, watching them. She now wears the standardised department-store maidservant’s uniform, but without cap and apron, beneath a light-weight open topcoat; on her head is a battered almost shapeless felt hat which must have once belonged to a man. Pete breaks the kiss.
Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’ve even got moral or something. I don’t even want to put my hands on you in his house ——
He sees Nancy across Temple’s shoulder, and reacts. Temple reacts to him, turns quickly, and sees Nancy too. Nancy comes on into the room.
TEMPLE
(to Nancy)
What are you doing here?
NANCY
I brought my foot. So he can hold that cigarette against it.
TEMPLE
So you’re not just a thief: you’re a spy too.
PETE
Maybe she’s not a thief either. Maybe she brought it back.
(they watch Nancy, who doesn’t answer)
Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe we had better use that cigarette.
(to Nancy)
How about it? Is that what you came back for, sure enough?
TEMPLE
(to Pete)
Hush. Take the bags and go on to the car.
PETE
(to Temple but watching Nancy)
I’ll wait for you. There may be a little something I can do here, after all.
TEMPLE
Go on, I tell you! Let’s for God’s sake get away from here. Go on.
Pete watches Nancy for a moment longer, who stands facing them but not looking at anything, motionless, almost bemused, her face sad, brooding and inscrutable. Then Pete turns, goes to the table, picks up the lighter, seems about to pass on, then pauses again and with almost infinitesimal hesitation takes up the packet of letters, puts it back inside his coat, takes up the two packed bags and crosses to the french-window, passing Nancy, who is still looking at nothing and no one.
PETE
(to Nancy)
Not that I wouldn’t like to, you know. For less than fifty bucks even. For old lang syne.
He transfers the bags to one hand, opens the french-window, starts to exit, pauses halfway out and looks back at Temple.
I’ll be listening, in case you change your mind about the cigarette.
He goes on out, draws the door to after him. Just before it closes, Nancy speaks.
NANCY
Wait.
Pete stops, begins to open the door again.
TEMPLE
(quickly: to Pete)
Go on! Go on! For God’s sake go on!
Pete exits, shuts the door after him. Nancy and Temple face each other.
NANCY
Maybe I was wrong to think that just hiding that money and diamonds was going to stop you. Maybe I ought to have give it to him yesterday as soon as I found where you had hid it. Then wouldn’t nobody between here and Chicago or Texas seen anything of him but his dust.
TEMPLE
So you did steal it. And you saw what good that did, didn’t you?
NANCY
If you can call it stealing, then so can I. Because wasn’t but part of it yours to begin with. Just the diamonds was yours. Not to mention that money is almost two thousand dollars, that you told me was just two hundred and that you told him was even less than that, just fifty. No wonder he wasn’t worried — about just fifty dollars. He wouldn’t even be worried if he knowed it was even the almost two thousand it is, let alone the two hundred you told me it was. He ain’t even worried about whether or not you’ll have any money at all when you get out to the car. He knows that all he’s got to do is, just wait and keep his hand on you and maybe just mash hard enough with it, and you’ll get another passel of money and diamonds too out of your husband or your pa. Only, this time he’l
l have his hand on you and you’ll have a little trouble telling him it’s just fifty dollars instead of almost two thousand ——
Temple steps quickly forward and slaps Nancy across the face. Nancy steps back. As she does so, the packet of money and the jewel box fall to the floor from inside her topcoat. Temple stops, looking down at the money and jewels. Nancy recovers.
Yes, there it is, that caused all the grief and ruin. If you hadn’t been somebody that would have a box of diamonds and a husband that you could find almost two thousand dollars in his britches pocket while he was asleep, that man wouldn’t have tried to sell you them letters. Maybe if I hadn’t taken and hid it, you would have give it to him before you come to this. Or maybe if I had just give it to him yesterday and got the letters, or maybe if I was to take it out to where he’s waiting in that car right now, and say, Here, man, take your money ——
TEMPLE
Try it. Pick it up and take it out to him, and see. If you’ll wait until I finish packing, you can even carry the bag.
NANCY
I know. It ain’t even the letters any more. Maybe it never was. It was already there in whoever could write the kind of letters that even eight years afterward could still make grief and ruin. The letters never did matter. You could have got them back at any time; he even tried to give them to you twice ——
TEMPLE
How much spying have you been doing?
NANCY
All of it. — You wouldn’t even needed money and diamonds to get them back. A woman don’t need it. All she needs is womanishness to get anything she wants from men. You could have done that right here in the house, without even tricking your husband into going off fishing.
TEMPLE
A perfect example of whore morality. But then, if I can say whore, so can you, can’t you? Maybe the difference is, I decline to be one in my husband’s house.
NANCY
I ain’t talking about your husband. I ain’t even talking about you. I’m talking about two little children.
TEMPLE
So am I. Why else do you think I sent Bucky on to his grandmother, except to get him out of a house where the man he has been taught to call his father, may at any moment decide to tell him he has none? As clever a spy as you must surely have heard my husband ——
NANCY
(interrupts)
I’ve heard him. And I heard you too. You fought back — that time. Not for yourself, but for that little child. But now you have quit.
TEMPLE
Quit?
NANCY
Yes. You gave up. You gave up the child too. Willing to risk never seeing him again maybe.
(Temple doesn’t answer)
That’s right. You don’t need to make no excuses to me. Just tell me what you must have already strengthened your mind up to telling all the rest of the folks that are going to ask you that. You are willing to risk it. Is that right?
(Temple doesn’t answer)
All right. We’ll say you have answered it. So that settles Bucky. Now answer me this one. Who are you going to leave the other one with?
TEMPLE
Leave her with? A six-months-old baby?
NANCY
That’s right. Of course you can’t leave her. Not with nobody. You can’t no more leave a six-months-old baby with nobody while you run away from your husband with another man, than you can take a six-months-old baby with you on that trip. That’s what I’m talking about. So maybe you’ll just leave it in there in that cradle; it’ll cry for a while, but it’s too little to cry very loud and so maybe won’t nobody hear it and come meddling, especially with the house shut up and locked until Mr. Gowan gets back next week, and probably by that time it will have hushed ——
TEMPLE
Are you really trying to make me hit you again?
NANCY
Or maybe taking her with you will be just as easy, at least until the first time you write Mr. Gowan or your pa for money and they don’t send it as quick as your new man thinks they ought to, and he throws you and the baby both out. Then you can drop it into a garbage can and no more trouble to you or anybody, because then you will be rid of both of them ——
(Temple makes a convulsive movement, then catches herself)
Hit me. Light you a cigarette too, I told you and him both I brought my foot. Here it is.
(she raises her foot slightly)
I’ve tried everything else; I reckon I can try that too.
TEMPLE
(repressed, furious)
Hush. I tell you for the last time. Hush.
NANCY
I’ve hushed.
She doesn’t move. She is not looking at Temple. There is a slight change in her voice or manner, though we only realise later that she is not addressing Temple.
I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything I know. You can see that.
TEMPLE
Which nobody will dispute. You threatened me with my children, and even with my husband — if you can call my husband a threat. You even stole my elopement money. Oh yes, nobody will dispute that you tried. Though at least you brought the money back. Pick it up.
NANCY
You said you don’t need it.
TEMPLE
I don’t. Pick it up.
NANCY
No more do I need it.
TEMPLE
Pick it up, anyway. You can keep your next week’s pay out of it when you give it back to Mr. Gowan.
Nancy stoops and gathers up the money, and gathers the jewellery back into its box, and puts them on the table.
(quieter)
Nancy.
(Nancy looks at her)
I’m sorry. Why do you force me to this — hitting and screaming at you, when you have always been so good to my children and me — my husband too — all of us — trying to hold us together in a household, a family, that anybody should have known all the time couldn’t possibly hold together? even in decency, let alone happiness?
NANCY
I reckon I’m ignorant. I don’t know that yet. Besides, I ain’t talking about any household or happiness neither ——
TEMPLE
(with sharp command)
Nancy!
NANCY
— I’m talking about two little children ——
TEMPLE
I said, hush.
NANCY
I can’t hush. I’m going to ask you one more time. Are you going to do it?
TEMPLE
Yes!
NANCY
Maybe I am ignorant. You got to say it out in words yourself, so I can hear them. Say, I’m going to do it.
TEMPLE
You heard me. I’m going to do it.
NANCY
Money or no money.
TEMPLE
Money or no money.
NANCY
Children or no children.
(Temple doesn’t answer)
To leave one with a man that’s willing to believe the child ain’t got no father, willing to take the other one to a man that don’t even want no children ——
(They stare at one another)
If you can do it, you can say it.
TEMPLE
Yes! Children or no children! Now get out of here. Take your part of that money, and get out. Here ——
Temple goes quickly to the table, removes two or three bills from the mass of banknotes, and hands them to Nancy, who takes them. Temple takes up the rest of the money, takes up her bag from the table and opens it. Nancy crosses quietly toward the nursery, picking up the milk bottle from the table as she passes, and goes on. With the open bag in one hand and the money in the other, Temple notices Nancy’s movement.
What are you doing?
NANCY
(still moving)
This bottle has got cold. I’m going to warm it in the bathroom.
Then Nancy stops and looks back at Temple, with something so strange in her look that Temple, about to resume putting the money into th
e bag, pauses too, watching Nancy. When Nancy speaks, it is like the former speech: we don’t realise until afterward what it signifies.
I tried everything I knowed. You can see that.
TEMPLE
(peremptory, commanding)
Nancy.
NANCY
(quietly, turning on)
I’ve hushed.
She exits through the door into the nursery. Temple finishes putting the money into the bag, and closes it and puts it back on the table. Then she turns to the baby’s bag. She tidies it, checks rapidly over its contents, takes up the jewel box and stows it in the bag and closes the bag. All this takes about two minutes; she has just closed the bag when Nancy emerges quietly from the nursery, without the milk bottle, and crosses, pausing at the table only long enough to put back on it the money Temple gave her, then starts toward the opposite door through which she first entered the room.
TEMPLE
Now what?
Nancy goes on toward the other door. Temple watches her.
Nancy.
(Nancy pauses, still not looking back)
Don’t think too hard of me.
(Nancy waits, immobile, looking at nothing. When Temple doesn’t continue, she moves again toward the door)
If I — it ever comes up, I’ll tell everybody you did your best. You tried. But you were right. It wasn’t even the letters. It was me.
(Nancy moves on)
Good-bye, Nancy.
(Nancy reaches the door)
You’ve got your key. I’ll leave your money here on the table. You can get it ——
(Nancy exits)
Nancy!
There is no answer. Temple looks a moment longer at the empty door, shrugs, moves, takes up the money Nancy left, glances about, crosses to the littered desk and takes up a paperweight and returns to the table and puts the money beneath the weight; now moving rapidly and with determination, she takes up the blanket from the table and crosses to the nursery door and exits through it. A second or two, then she screams. The lights flicker and begin to dim, fade swiftly into complete darkness, over the scream.
The stage is in complete darkness.