[Drily]
Suppose you sit down in that chair.
[Indicating the large chair]
The consequent relaxation may be a good thing for you.
VAN ZORN
Thank you, I will.
[He sits down and begins to drum with his fingers on the arms of the chair]
FARNHAM
[Sitting down]
Now you look more comfortable.
VAN ZORN
[Abruptly]
I told you, Farnham, that I thought Lucas and I might possibly be of service to each other.
FARNHAM
[Wearily]
Can’t you forget Lucas for the rest of this evening?
Granting all his noble qualities — including his indefatigable industry — I don’t yet understand that you came here to talk about him.
VAN ZORN
[Earnestly]
Farnham, if you had known what you were asking, you would never have asked me to forget Lucas this evening. I may forget my name, and my age, and my way to Forty-second Street, but I shall not be likely to forget Lucas this evening.
[Pause]
You told me this morning, I believe, that you had had enough of him for one day.
FARNHAM
[Puzzled and irritated]
Most assuredly I did, and I meant what I said. I’ll be as glad as anybody if you can straighten him out, but what the devil sense is there in harping on him from mom till dewy eve? Why not let Lucas go for the present?
[Becoming more incisive]
You started out this afternoon, I believe, to acquire some very special information that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.
VAN ZORN
[Slowly]
It will come... And as for letting Lucas go —
FARNHAM
[Throwing up his hands]
Good God!
VAN ZORN
[Calmly]
— letting Lucas go will be very difficult. In fact, it will be out of the question. Instead of letting Lucas go,
I fear that we shall be under the necessity of letting Lucas come.
FARNHAM
[Unpleasantly]
What are you talking about? I didn’t ask him to come, did I?
VAN ZORN
[As before]
You did not, and I did not.
[Drumming with his fingers]
But he is coming all the same. I have no doubt that he has been coming — through the ages.
FARNHAM
[Laughing drily]
So that’s it. More of your infernal Destiny, I suppose.
VAN ZORN
[Earnestly]
Whatever you do, Farnham, you had better wait a while before you begin to find fault with Destiny. For I
should be inclined to say that you are going to be far more fortunate than I am, or am ever likely to be.
[Be looks thoughtfully about the studio]
FARNHAM
Oh, you needn’t try to smooth it over like that. I only meant that I was looking forward to this evening for a different kind of talk from this.
VAN ZORN
[Quietly]
You will have it yet.
FARNHAM
[Wearily]
With Lucas?
VAN ZORN
[With deliberation]
Farnham, if I don’t give you certain information that you have every reason to expect, it is because I don’t feel that I am in a position to give it. But I will say,
[Smiling]
at the risk of my life, that Lucas has been straightened out.
I don’t know just how I know it, but I know it.
[With another smile]
Your engaging friend Otto brought the news this afternoon —
[Casually]
not long after Lucas left Mrs. Lovett’s house.
FARNHAM
[Rising and speaking sharply]
Lucas at Mrs Lovett’s house?... You are keeping something back from me, and I should like very much to know what it is.
VAN ZORN
[Reluctantly]
Yes, I am keeping something back. And I have something else that I was requested, and finally persuaded, to give to you this evening. I would rather not do it, but it may be as well that I should.
FARNHAM
[With dry fervor]
I hope it will be something more tangible than what you have been giving me.
VAN ZORN
[Giving him a small object]
There it is.
FARNHAM
[After a stupefied pause]
Man alive, are you out of your senses? This is Villa Vannevar’s ring. What the devil has been going on?
[Sharply]
Why don’t you tell me?
VAN ZORN
Miss Vannevar will do that.
[FARNHAM scowls incredulously]
She and Lucas have been together, at her special request, since eight o’clock. Until she comes, please remember that I am acting only as a messenger.
FARNHAM
[Looking from the ring to Van Zorn]
Are you all trying to make a fool of me? Are you the friend that I have been trusting and praising all these years?
[With a falling inflection]
I’d better build a cabin in the woods... What does all this insanity mean, anyhow? You can answer that question, if you have a mind to, and you know it damned well.
VAN ZORN
[Quietly]
Farnham.
[Pause]
You are going to have two more visitors this evening, and they are nearly due. They are not going to stay, in all probability, more than fifteen minutes. When they are gone, you and I may have something more to say to each other.
FARNHAM
That is altogether possible.
VAN ZORN
[Rising]
And if I have been the indirect means of this sudden change in the course of events, I wish you to know that I believe, as I stand here, that events would have taken the same course, though not quite so suddenly, if I had never gone to Mrs. Lovett’s house this afternoon. I mean, you understand, so far as events concern you personally. So be a good fellow and try to keep a little of your old faith in me.
[Pause]
Do you hear a motor coming?
[He takes out his watch and smiles wearily at Farnham]
They are on time, if I was not.
[The bell rings. Farnham admits Lucas and Villa Vannevar.
Lucas has more color in his face, and his eyes are brighter than in the morning. He carries himself through the following scene with far more dignity and ease than might be expected, with now and then a facial suggestion of appreciative humor. Of the two Villa is the more excited, but hers is the excitement of determination rather than of embarrassment or fear]
FARNHAM
[To the three, after rather formal greetings to Lucas and Villa]
Well, I have the honor to report that I am still in the dark.
[With a hard smile]
Won’t you all sit down?
[They remain standing]
VILLA
[Going to Farnham and speaking with suppressed excitement]
Oh, but I am glad to hear you say that — that you are in the dark.
[He nods with condescension and she steps back a little]
I was afraid you didn’t know it.
[Pause]
Weldon, do you know what it was doing to me? But you don’t, because you can’t. I shall have to tell you what it was doing. It was driving me mad.
FARNHAM
[Drily, with a glance at Lucas]
Kindly go on.
VILLA
It was killing me.
[Farnham nods again]
I know you are going to think some dreadful things about me, — and say them too, I suppose.
[Rapidly]
But whatever you do or say, don’t ever forget that I am the cause of all that’s happened this evening. I took the
matter into my own hands — just because I couldn’t wait.
And when my mind was once made up that I couldn’t wait, — well, I couldn’t wait.
[He nods again]
And I couldn’t see much need of spending days and nights in talking about it.
FARNHAM
[With a shrug, and another look at Lucas]
Naturally not.
VILLA
[To Van Zorn, who is standing near the fire]
And you
[Gratefully but rapidly]
— you remember what I told you when I got over that foolish fit of crying. I told you that nothing could ever make me change, and I asked you to help me. You told me first that you would rather not, and you said something that I didn’t hear about circumstances; but finally you did agree to do a little — just because you could see that I was so much in earnest — and that nothing could ever make me change — and that I couldn’t wait.
[Van Zorn replies with a slow nod, and Farnham grins at Lucas with sardonic incredulity]
FARNHAM
[To Villa, with a dry laugh]
Will you be so kind as to let me know what this thing is or was, — you haven’t yet given it a name — that was driving you mad, and killing you, and whatever else it may have been doing? You don’t look to me like a dying person, as you stand there now.
VILLA
[Impatiently]
Oh, you know what it was. It was our horribly false position — pretending to care for each other when we didn’t — I mean when we didn’t care enough.
FARNHAM
[Unpleasantly]
In that case, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what sort of position you would call this that we are in now.
[He looks at Lucas and Van Zorn]
Lucas, why do you stand there like that? Why don’t you say something — if you have anything to say?
VILLA
[Quickly, looking from Lucas to Farnham]
He can’t speak yet, for I shan’t let him. I shan’t let anybody speak until I have said what I have to say. No, not one of you three can say a word until I tell you that I have asked George Lucas to marry me.
[Farnham and Van Zorn are almost equally surprised at this announcement, though the latter quickly regains his usual composure. Lucas looks at first as if he would like to get away, but endures his unlooked-for prominence with an Indian-ike resignation]
There!
[With her hands behind her back]
Now you may all speak at once, if you care to.
FARNHAM
[Going to Villa, after a pause, and taking one of her hands]
Villa, what is the matter with you this evening? Has the moon driven you insane?
[To Lucas, sharply]
Lucas, why don’t you say something?
LUCAS
[With a dry cough]
You are quite right. The time has come for me to speak.
FARNHAM
Well, if the time has come for you to speak, why the devil don’t you?
LUCAS
[Calmly, but uncomfortably and with several oratorical pauses]
I am going to say something — and I don’t see how it is going to take me very long to say it.
[With another cough]
Knowing — as I need hardly tell you now — that I could not, in view of my past and present circumstances — presume to ask of this lady the kind of question that she has taken upon herself to ask of me — and this time without wholly anticipating its immediate effect upon one’s nervous organization, — well, I can only say that she has acted in accordance with her own convictions in regard to the solution of a rather difficult problem, and has thereby placed me under excessive obligations — that she cannot expect ever to be entirely fulfilled.
[To Farnham, with a faint smile]
Whatever else you may wish me to say will be related, with your permission, at another time.
FARNHAM
[With cold humor]
“She has acted in accordance with her own convictions in regard to the solution of a rather difficult problem.”
[To Van Zorn, drily]
As she sees it, I suppose.
VAN ZORN
Is there more than one way to see it?
FARNHAM
I see it as a bit of impetuous farce.
VILLA
[Protesting violently]
No, don’t say impetuous. Say anything but that. Say determined — ordained — premeditated — desperate — anything but impetuous. I’ll not have anybody — not even George — tell me that I was impetuous when I was only sensible. You might as well call me — I don’t know what.
You might as well call me a fool.
FARNHAM
[With reluctant humor]
Do you know, my dear young lady, that you are using some rather positive language?
VILLA
[Still excited]
I don’t care. I must use it, in order to make myself understood.
[To Lucas]
Tell him, George, about the ring.
FARNHAM
[Satirically]
Yes, George, let us hear about the ring.
LUCAS
She means that the ring would have been returned to you in any case.
FARNHAM
[To Van Zorn, with fine irony]
And this is your work.
VAN ZORN
[Distinctly]
No, my friend, you are mistaken. It is not the work of any human being — in this room, or out of it.
FARNHAM
[Wearily]
Oh, the devil! I’ve heard all that before.
[Van Zorn shrugs his shoulders and looks at the fire]
VILLA
[Earnestly]
Weldon, let me tell you again what I told you when I
came in.
[With intensity]
It was killing me. It was driving me mad.
FARNHAM
[Throwing up his hands]
For heaven’s sake, are you going to drag that nonsense in again?
VILLA
It meant the torture of our two lives... The ruin of them, for all we know.
FARNHAM
[With a careless absence of emotion]
Lives are not so easily ruined as all that. If they were, some of us would be ruined before we were born.
VAN ZORN
[With a faint smile]
Some of us are, Farnham.
FARNHAM
[To Van Zorn, with hesitation]
Don’t you think that you have contributed about enough to the needless absurdity and injustice of all this...
VILLA
[Quickly]
No, you must not say that to him. It was I who did this, and it was I who insisted that it should be done tonight. If your best friend had not helped me, I should have done it sooner or later without him... Now will you let me go on from where I was when you interrupted me?
FARNHAM
[With evident admiration]
Yes, if you remember where that was.
VILLA
[With animation]
It was where I was going to say something more about George.
[Farnham looks at Lucas, who is looking at the bust of Shakespeare]
Weldon, there are certain people in this world who are made for each other. You may laugh at me for saying so — I know it isn’t very original — but I believe it to be true, and that makes it just the same as if it were true. Well then, I believe that George Lucas and I have belonged to each other since the beginning of our lives, and I have known it ever since I can remember. I knew him long before I knew you, and I know more about him than you have ever known or ever can know;
[Farnham looks again at Lucas]
and once, when I was so scared and happy that I didn’t know what to do — this was ages ago — I told Auntie all about it.
[With comical directness]
Auntie didn’t like — his father.
FARNHAM
[With venomous humor]
And what did Auntie say?
VILLA
[With a shrug and a rueful laugh]
Oh dear! If I were to try to tell you what she said, I
shouldn’t know how to begin or where to end. It doesn’t make so much difference what Auntie said, so long as she said — what she said.
[With unconscious humor, looking down]
She didn’t like George’s father.
FARNHAM
[Grinning at Lucas]
Did she like George?
[Pause]
George doesn’t seem to have anything more to say.
LUCAS
[With dry emphasis]
Yes, George has one thing more to say. He has to say that he has not yet accepted the lady’s offer.
FARNHAM
[Scowling]
Then why are you here?
LUCAS
To do so in your presence — now that you understand the situation.
FARNHAM
But I don’t understand the situation — except in the vaguest kind of way... I knew about it in that way before.
VAN ZORN
[Still standing by the fire]
Farnham, I don’t like to interrupt you.
FARNHAM
Oh — you don’t...
VAN ZORN
But why debate the inevitable? It will do no manner of good, and it will be likely, as Miss Vannevar has already implied, to take up a great deal of time.
FARNHAM
[Drily]
Have you been coaching them?
[VAN ZORN makes a gesture of resigned protest, but says nothing]
Well, you haven’t told me what you said to Lucas during dinner.
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 62
