The Friend of Women and Other Stories (26 page)

C
AROLINE
(In a rasping tone):
Elida says you're in love with her. She says you want to leave me and go off with her. Is it true?

A
LEXANDER
(Horror-struck, turning to ELIDA): Elida!
What have you been
saying.?
Have you taken leave of your senses?

E
LIDA
(Reaching out her arms to him)
: Alexander, darling, you don't have to conceal it anymore. We're free now.
Free!

A
LEXANDER
(His eyes bulging)
: You'll have to excuse her, Caroline. She must be sick.

E
LIDA
(Rising to heights)
: But, dearest, we're beyond all that! Way beyond! Don't you
see?
It isn't a thing anymore of holding hands on the sly or lingering in doorways. It's broken its fetters, it's smashed through everything, it's
out!
And
I'm
not ashamed. I'm proud of it. Proud of loving and being loved by you!

A
LEXANDER
: Caroline, the girl's out of her mind! She's been working too hard. She's misconstrued the cousinly interest I've always felt it my duty to take in her into something quite different.

C
AROLINE
:
Quite
different, I agree.
(Calmer now, she looks slowly from him to ELIDA.)
Have you really inspired such a love, Alexander? And without even meaning to?
(Shaking her head)
If that is so, you must have something in you that I have evidently failed to appreciate. Has this poor girl really come to believe that you'd walk out on me and the children and your job for her?

A
LEXANDER
: Caroline,
I
never told her any such thing!
I
swear it!

C
AROLINE
: I do believe that you never said it.
(A pause)
And I do believe that you never meant to.
(Changing her tone)
Well, shall we leave it at that? And join the Misses Harcrosse for their rudely interrupted meal? What
must
they be thinking?

A
LEXANDER
: Caroline, after this grueling scene can't we go quietly home? I can't face the prospect of
Tristan.

C
AROLINE
(Coolly)
: But I can. I feel like King Mark. Except maybe nothing has happened. His long solo at the end of the second act will give me a chance to think over how you and I might come to a better understanding of each other. We seem to need it.
(CAROLINE returns to the dining room followed by ALEXANDER and, after a moment's delay, ELIDA.)

SCENE:
Same, five hours later

(Enter MRS. HONE, followed by ELIDA and WINTHROP.)

M
RS
. H
ONE
: It was good of you to see us home, Winthrop. But you didn't have to come upstairs.

W
INTHROP
: Elida offered me a nightcap, Cousin Nellie.

M
RS
. H
ONE
(Faintly surprised)
: Did she? Very well then. I'll take myself to bed. You young things can stay up all night if you choose. It wasn't a bad evening, after all, though it started so badly with Caroline acting up about that musical comedy. I thought we might be in for a real scandal. But then it seemed to simmer down. And during the Lieberstod, which was wonderfully sung tonight, I wondered if it wasn't better, after all, to leave these domestic dramas on the stage where they belong.

E
LIDA
: Much better, Aunt Nellie. At home we need peace.

M
RS
. H
ONE
: And an old busybody like myself had better find it in her bed, is that what you mean, my dear? Well, good night.
(Exit MRS. HONE door L. ELIDA and WINTHROP look at each other for a minute.)

E
LIDA
: I suppose congratulations are in order.

W
INTHROP
: For what?

E
LIDA
: For what
I
told you in the entr'acte, of course.
I
played your little scene, and it worked out just as you predicted.

W
INTHROP
: With such an actress in the leading role, how could it fail? I only wish I had been there to watch it.

E
LIDA
: What makes you so sure I was acting?

W
INTHROP
: How do you mean?

E
LIDA
: Do you completely assume that I could never have been attracted to Alexander myself?

W
INTHROP
: Completely.

E
LIDA
: What makes you so sure?

W
INTHROP
: In the first place, because he's such an ass. And in the second because I suspect you might be just a bit in love with
me.

E
LIDA
(After a pause):
Do you think arrogance is always appealing?

W
INTHROP
(Surprised):
Arrogance? Why is that arrogance? Ah, yes, of course. You call it that because I haven't told you the rest of the story.

E
LIDA
(Sarcastic):
It couldn't be, could it, that you're in love with
me? (He bows.)
Oh, Winthrop, can't you ever be serious? Ever?

W
INTHROP
: I'm quite serious.

E
LIDA
: I wonder if you even know what the word means. If that sober demeanor doesn't hide the greatest cynic in New York.

W
INTHROP
: You flatter me. But even a cynic, provided I were that, can be in love, can't he?
(A pause)
It all happened quite suddenly after another evening in your aunt's opera box. It was
Tosca.
I was sitting behind you and found myself comparing the romantic life of the heroine with your dry imprisonment in Cousin Nellie's art-stuffed existence. I became upset. When I got home I sat in my living room to look at my porcelains and relax my nerves. But calm eluded me. My pulses throbbed. And then, quite suddenly—bang!—I saw that the whole thing that was wrong with me, or should I say right with me, was you. I slapped the table before me very hard, involuntarily, and broke my small robin's egg Ming vase in pieces.

E
LIDA
(Awed):
Oh!

W
INTHROP
: And do you know something?
I
didn't care at all. I loved you, Elida. I love you now. Don't you think you ought to marry me after smashing my Ming?

E
LIDA
: It's that bad?

W
INTHROP
: That bad.

E
LIDA
: I'll have to think about it then. But it's really almost too neat, isn't it? Your little scheme so beautifully worked out. Alexander and Caroline will settle down to a more realistic marriage, he cured, at least for a time, from his wandering eye, and she, relieved not to have lost him and resolved, we hope, to be less nasty in the future. And Aunt Nellie reconciled to their reunion and comforted to have a scandal averted which she had wanted only in fantasy. And finally the poor country cousin awarded the hand of the wealthy hero.

W
INTHROP
(Laughing):
It's always been said in social circles that I was the type to marry someone for her money. Now look what's happening. Someone's going to marry me for mine!

E
LIDA
: People who play with other people's lives are lucky if they get married at all. Go home now, Winthrop, but call me before you go to sleep. I may have something to tell you.
(WINTHROP takes his immediate departure, blowing her a kiss, and MRS. HONE looms in the door L.)
M
RS
. H
ONE
(Suspicious):
Has he gone already? What have you two been hatching?

E
LIDA
: We've been planning the future, Aunt Nellie.

M
RS
. H
ONE
: What future? Won't we all go on just the same? In our own dreary way?

E
LIDA
: Not quite in the same dreary way. At least I hope not. Certainly I hope not for myself.

M
RS
. H
ONE: YOU
? What do you think you're going to do? E
LIDA
: I'm going to marry Winthrop DeLancey. M
RS
. H
ONE
(Aghast):
Winthrop! You? You've taken leave of your senses, girl.

E
LIDA
: I hope not, Aunt Nellie.

M
RS
. H
ONE
(Collapsing):
Elida, tell your old aunt you're only fooling!

E
LIDA
: No, Aunt Nellie. I've been fooling all day. Now I've stopped.

M
RS
. H
ONE
: And what's to become of me, I'd like to know? Who's to look after me?

E
LIDA
: Caroline.

M
RS
. H
ONE
(Wailing):
Caroline! You leave me to Caroline? Lay out my old bones for the hyena? Is this your gratitude, Elida Rodman?

E
LIDA
: Among Paleolithics, Aunt Nellie, is there such a thing as gratitude?

End

 

L
OUIS
A
UCHINCLOSS
was honored in the year 2000 as a “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. During his long career he wrote more than sixty books, including the story collection
Manhattan Monologues
and the novel
The Rector of Justin.
The former president of the Academy of Arts and Letters, he resided in New York City until his death in January 2010.