Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 212

HAROLD. But--but--why, I was going away. You and your people had been awfully nice to me, a perfect stranger in town. I was simply trying to do the decent thing. Good Lord! You don't mean to say you thought--

ANNE [_watching him very closely_]. Yes, it's true, I thought--and every one else thought--I've been waiting these two years for you to come back.

[_She drops her face into her hands. Her shoulders shake._]

HAROLD [_jumping up_]. Great Heavens! I never imagined--Why, Miss Carey, I--oh, I'm terribly sorry! [_She continues to sob._] Please don't do that--please! I'd better go away--I'll clear out--I'll go straight off to India--I'll never bother you again.

[_He seized his hat, and is making, in a bewildered way, for the door, when she intercepts him._]

ANNE. No. You mustn't go away!

HAROLD. But what can I do?

ANNE [_striking a tragic att.i.tude_]. You mean to say you don't care at all--that you have never cared?

HAROLD. Really, Miss Carey, I--

ANNE. For heaven's sake, don't call me Miss Carey. Call me Anne.

HAROLD. Miss Carey.... Anne.... I.... Oh, you'd better let me go--let me get away before any one knows I'm here--before they think--

ANNE. It's too late. They think already.

HAROLD. Think what? What do you mean?

ANNE. Oh, this is terrible! Sit down, Harold, and listen to me. [_She pushes him into a chair and begins to talk very rapidly, watching intently the effect of her words upon him._] You see, when you went away, people began to say things about us--you and me--about your caring. I let them go on. In fact I believed them. I suppose it was because I wanted so much to believe them. Oh, what a fool I've been!

What a fool!

[_She covers her face with her hands. He gets up intending vaguely to comfort her, but she thinks he is making another move to go, and jumps to her feet._]

ANNE. And now you want to clear out like a thief in the night, and leave me to be laughed at! No, no, you can't do that! You must help me. You've hurt me to the very soul. You mustn't humiliate me before the world.

HAROLD. I'll do anything I can, Miss Carey.

ANNE. Anne!

HAROLD. Anne, I mean. But how?

ANNE [_after a moment's thought, as if the idea had just come to her_].

You must stay here. You must pretend for a few days--for a week at most, that we're engaged.

HAROLD. I can't do that, you know. Really, I can't.

ANNE [_going to him_]. Why not? Only a little while. Then you'll go away to India. We'll find it's been a mistake. I'll break it off,--it will only be a pretense, of course, but at least no one will know what a fool I've been.

HAROLD [_after a moment's hesitation_]. Miss Carey--Anne, I mean, I'll do anything I can, but not that! A man can't do that. You see, there's a girl, an English girl, down in Brazil, I--

ANNE. Oh, a girl! Another! Well, after all, what does that matter?

Brazil is a long way off. She need never know.

HAROLD. She might hear. You can't keep things like this hid. No. I wouldn't risk that. You'd better let me clear out before your family gets home. No one need ever know I've been here.

[_Again he makes a move toward the door. Anne stands motionless._]

ANNE. You can't go. You can't. It's more serious than you imagine.

HAROLD. Serious? What do you mean?

ANNE. Come here. [_He obeys. She sits in a big chair, but avoids looking at him. There is a delicate imitation of a tragic actress in the way she tells her story._] I wonder if I can make you understand? It means so much to me that you should--so much! Harold, you know how dull life is here in this little town. You were glad enough to get away after a year of it, weren't you? Well, it's worse for a girl, with nothing to do but sit at home--and dream--of you. Yes, that's what I did, until, at last, when I couldn't stand it any longer, I wrote you.

HAROLD [_quickly_]. I never got the letter, Miss Carey. Honor bright, I didn't.

ANNE. Perhaps not, but you answered it.

HAROLD. Answered it? What are you talking about?

ANNE. Would you like to see your answer? [_She goes to the desk, takes a packet of letters out of a drawer, selects one, and hands it to him._]

Here it is--your answer. You see it's post-marked Rio Janeiro.

HAROLD [_taking it wonderingly_]. This does look like my writing.

[_Reads._] "Anne, my darling--" I say, what does this mean?

ANNE. Go on.

HAROLD [_reading_]. "I have your wonderful letter. It came to me like rain in the desert. Can it be true, Anne, that you do care? I ask myself a hundred times what I have done to deserve this. A young girl seems to me as exquisite and frail as a flower--" Great Scott! You don't think _I_ could have written such stuff! What in the world!

ANNE [_handing over another letter_]. Here's the next letter you wrote me, from the mine. It's a beautiful one. Read it.

HAROLD [_tears it open angrily, and reads_]. "I have been out in the night under the stars. Oh, that you were here, my beloved! It is easy to stand the dust and the turmoil of the mine without you, but beauty that I cannot share with you hurts me like a pain--"

[_He throws the letter on the table and turns toward her, speechless._]

ANNE [_inexorably_]. Yes, that's an exceptionally beautiful one. But there are more--lots more. Would you like to see them?

HAROLD. But I tell you, I never wrote them. These aren't my letters.

ANNE. Whose are they, then?

HAROLD [_walking up and down furiously_]. G.o.d knows! This is some outrageous trick. You've been duped, you poor child. But we'll get to the bottom of this. Just leave it to me. I'll get detectives. I'll find out who's back of it! I'll--

[_He comes face to face with her and finds her looking quietly at him with something akin to critical interest._]

HAROLD. Good Lord. What's the matter with me! You don't believe those letters. You couldn't think I wrote them, or you wouldn't have met me as you did, quite naturally, as an old friend. _You understand!_ For heaven's sake, make it clear to me!

ANNE. I am trying to.... I told you there had to be ... answers.... I was afraid to send my letters to you, but there had to be answers.

[_Harold stares at her._] So I wrote them myself.

HAROLD. You wrote them yourself?!?