Three Plays by Granville-Barker Part 106

FRANCES. So late?

TREBELL. It's a matter of life and death.

FRANCES. Are you joking?

TREBELL. Yes. If you want to spoil me find me a book to read.

FRANCES. What will you have?

TREBELL. Huckleberry Finn. It's on a top shelf towards the end somewhere . . or should be.

_She finds the book. On her way back with it she stops and shivers._

FRANCES. I don't think I shall sleep to-night. Poor Amy O'Connell!

TREBELL. [_Curiously._] Are you afraid of death?

FRANCES. [_With humorous stoicism._] It will be the end of me, perhaps.

_She gives him the book, with its red cover; the '86 edition, a boy's friend evidently. He fingers it familiarly._

TREBELL. Thank you. Mark Twain's a jolly fellow. He has courage . .

comic courage. That's what's wanted. Nothing stands against it. You be-little yourself by laughing . . then all this world and the last and the next grow little too . . and so you grow great again. Switch off some light, will you?

FRANCES. [_Clicking off all but his reading lamp._] So?

TREBELL. Thanks. Good night, Frankie.

_She turns at the door, with a glad smile._

FRANCES. Good night. When did you last use that nursery name?

_Then she goes, leaving him still fingering the book, but looking into the fire and far beyond. Behind him through the open window one sees how cold and clear the night is._

_At eight in the morning he is still here. His lamp is out, the fire is out and the book laid aside. The white morning light penetrates every crevice of the room and shows every line on_ TREBELL'S _face. The spirit of the man is strained past all reason. The door opens suddenly and_ FRANCES _comes in, troubled, nervous. Interrupted in her dressing, she has put on some wrap or other._

FRANCES. Henry . . Simpson says you've not been to bed all night.

_He turns his head and says with inappropriate politeness--_

TREBELL. No. Good morning.

FRANCES. Oh, my dear . . what is wrong?

TREBELL. The message hasn't come . . and I've been thinking.

FRANCES. Why don't you tell me? [_He turns his head away._] I think you haven't the right to torture me.

TREBELL. Your sympathy would only blind me towards the facts I want to face.

SIMPSON, _the maid, undisturbed in her routine, brings in the morning's letters_. FRANCES _rounds on her irritably_.

FRANCES. What is it, Simpson?

MAID. The letters, Ma'am.

TREBELL _is on his feet at that_.

TREBELL. Ah . . I want them.

FRANCES. [_Taking the letters composedly enough._] Thank you.

SIMPSON _departs and_ TREBELL _comes to her for his letters. She looks at him with baffled affection._

FRANCES. Can I do nothing? Oh, Henry!

TREBELL. Help me to open my letters.

FRANCES. Don't you leave them to Mr. Kent?

TREBELL. Not this morning.

FRANCES. But there are so many.

TREBELL. [_For the first time lifting his voice from its dull monotony._] What a busy man I was.

FRANCES. Henry . . you're a little mad.

TREBELL. Do you find me so? That's interesting.

FRANCES. [_With the ghost of a smile._] Well . . maddening.

_By this time he is sitting at his table; she near him watching closely. They halve the considerable post and start to open it._

TREBELL. We arrange them in three piles . . personal . . political . .

and preposterous.

FRANCES. This is an invitation . . the Anglican League.

TREBELL. I can't go.

_She looks sideways at him as he goes on mechanically tearing the envelopes._

FRANCES. I heard you come upstairs about two o'clock.

TREBELL. That was to dip my head in water. Then I made an instinctive attempt to go to bed . . got my tie off even.