The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays (18 page)

GRACE:
How much is it?

BILL COLLECTOR
: Well, a dollar an’ twenty-two cents will just about do it. [
Then, whispering
.] Where is Blanche?

GRACE
[
whispering
]: In the next room.

BILL COLLECTOR
: Tell her that George is through with her.

GRACE
: What? [
Grace is looking through her purse. Blanche sits up stiffly and sets down the hairbrush
.]

BILL COLLECTOR
[
slowly and distinctly
]: Tell her that George is through with her.

GRACE
: I was afraid that he was. He hasn’t called her up in nearly two weeks. What happened between them?

BILL COLLECTOR
: He got tired of waiting for the ice to melt.

GRACE
: She’s frigid?

BILL COLLECTOR
: No, but she wants to get married and George doesn’t want to get married. He wanted to have intimate relations and she wouldn’t have intimate relations without a ring on her finger.

GRACE
: But she’s not cold, is she?

BILL COLLECTOR
: Quite the contrary.

GRACE
: That’s what I suspected.

BILL COLLECTOR
: Watch her with your husband.

GRACE
: I’ve noticed how she looks at him. She listens to us at night and we have no privacy from her.

BILL COLLECTOR
: She is eating her heart out with jealousy.

BLANCHE
[
in a stifled whisper
]: No!

GRACE
: And she’s lost George?

BILL COLLECTOR
: He never wants to see her again.

GRACE
: And that’s why he hasn’t called.

BILL COLLECTOR
: He’ll never call.

GRACE
: Every time the phone rings she thinks it’s him. [
Laughs and raises her voice
.] You never can find pennies when you want them.

BILL COLLECTOR
: It never will be George again. And after George there won’t be any others because her unhappy nature has begun to show in her face.

BILL COLLECTOR
: She’s getting lines of bitterness.

GRACE
: I’ve seen them, too. Her throat is getting so drawn!

BILL COLLECTOR
: Sometimes the process of decay works very swiftly.

GRACE
: Twenty-two, did you say?

BILL COLLECTOR
[
raising his voice
]: Yes, Ma’am, a dollar twenty-two.

GRACE
: It’s impossible to hide those little snakes in the brain.

BILL COLLECTOR
: Ha-ha! Yes, you can hear them hiss.

GRACE
: Is that what it is, that hissing sound at night from where she sleeps?

BILL COLLECTOR
: Ha-ha! I’ve got it. [
He picks up a piece of change dropped on floor
.]
—Yes,
that’s what it is! George could hear them, too, when she brought up marriage. Thinking that she could hold out on him long enough to make him give in and produce the diamond.

GRACE
: She wanted a solitaire, huh?

BILL COLLECTOR
: That’s what the she-devil hoped for.

GRACE
: She’ll get a solitaire all of her live-long days!

BILL COLLECTOR
: He won’t call again.

GRACE
: And she’ll lose her job at the school when her nerves
break up, and I can hear them breaking. Can’t you hear them breaking?

BILL COLLECTOR
: All things come apart in time, but some things can’t wait for the time. She was a fool to want anything because she can’t get anything with those weak fingers of hers and wanting something and not getting it and wanting and not getting and wanting and not getting with those weak fingers of hers, and not ever getting but still wanting with those weak fingers of hers. Not getting, not getting, not
getting—!

GRACE
: Blanche! What’s the matter?

BLANCHE
[
laughing weakly
]: I burned myself.

GRACE
: What with?

BLANCHE
:
A—cigarette
. . .

GRACE
[
relieved
]: Oh. Not badly?

BLANCHE
: No.
No—not
badly. . . Who
is—who
is
that—man?

GRACE
: Why, a collector for the
Picayune
, honey.

BLANCHE
[
half reassured
]:
—Oh
. Will you close the portieres, please? Can’t you see I’m not dressed?

GRACE
: Sure, Blanche. I’m just trying to dig up some change.

BLANCHE
[
sharply
]: So that is what you were doing? That was the subject of the long conversation? Change? What kind of change, Grace? Good or bad? And whose change, yours or mine?

GRACE
[
stares at her aghast
]: What are you talking about?

BLANCHE
[
dropping her eyes finally
]: Nothing. How long will he stand there looking in at my body?

BLANCHE
[
softly and sorrowfully
]:
Malice—malice—malice
. . . I never could understand it. I’m too soft!

BILL COLLECTOR
[
leaving
]: Thank you, Mrs. Kiefaber. Goodbye. [
Door slams
.]

GRACE
: Blanche, I wish you’d be more open about things with me. We’ve always confided everything to each other but now you’re holding something back. All I know is that you are terribly unhappy over something. I want to help you but can’t unless you tell me.

BLANCHE
[
in a high, strained voice
]: I haven’t the faintest, remotest notion of what you are talking about, Grace Shannon. Pardon
me—I mean—Kiefaber!
[
She utters the name with contempt
.]

GRACE
: We were getting along so nicely together until just lately. You liked Jack and Jack was so pleased having you here with us and it was so nice for me.

BLANCHE
: Don’t worry. I’m moving out the moment I find a vacant room and I don’t care if it’s over a stable!

GRACE
: Blanche!

BLANCHE
: There’s a limit to what I can put up with!

GRACE
:
In—me?

BLANCHE
: In him, that man that you live with! Mr. Jack Kiefaber! Don’t you think I realize what happened? He went to George and told him that I could be had without marriage! Do you know
why he did that? Because he didn’t want me to marry George! And do you know why he didn’t want me to marry George? Because he wanted to have intimate relations with me himself. Yes, while you’re in the hospital having a baby, that is the horrible plan in the back of his mind! We’ll be alone here together, only those loose portieres separating our beds. And he’ll come stalking through them in his pajamas! [
Throws back her head with a peal of wild laughter
.] He’ll come marching through them in his red silk pajamas!—while you are being delivered of a new life. . . And I always wanted so
badly—to
keep
myself—straight
. . . [
There is a long pause
.]

GRACE
: Blanche, you’re going to have to see a doctor.

BLANCHE
: Yes. I knew you’d say that.

GRACE
: I’ve been wondering for some time. Now I know.

BLANCHE
: That lunacy has descended upon our house?

GRACE
: That you’re in a very dangerous condition.

BLANCHE
: Lunacy, Grace? Is it lunacy I’m charged with?

GRACE
: I want to put my arms around you and cry but when you look at me like that I can’t come near you.

BLANCHE
: It’s better you don’t. Lunatics do awful things. And there are several objects on this dresser with fairly sharp points. I’m driven beyond the point of desperation. To it and beyond it, my dear, sweet sister! I’ve lived in a nest of snakes for the past few weeks! I hear the whisperings going on at night between you and my sweet brother-in-law! The plots, the conspiracies, the plans! Machiavelli and Lucrezia Borgia in the outward and visible form of Mr. and Mrs. Kiefaber of 232 Esplanade!

GRACE
: If you go on like this I am going to call an ambulance to come for you right this minute, so you sit down in that chair and hold your tongue, Blanche Shannon!

BLANCHE
: Oh, yes, you’re not in the dark. You’re fully aware of all that’s been going on. You provided him with the information.

GRACE
: What information?

BLANCHE
: That I was asked to leave the high school in Blue Mountain!

GRACE
: I had no idea that you were asked to leave it. Were you?

BLANCHE
: Innocence! Ha-ha! What a wretched performance! You didn’t know about the Fitzgerald boy? You weren’t one of those who accused me of seducing an eighth-grade student? You didn’t write the principal a letter saying “My sister is morally unfit for her position!”
No?
Ha-ha!—NO?
NO!
[
She collapses into her chair shaken with convulsive laughter
.
The storm passes and Blanche buries her face in her arms on the dresser
.
Grace sighs and sits down in a small ivory rocker
.]

GRACE
[
softly
]: I have loved you so, Blanche, much more than girls usually love their big sisters, because you were everything that was fine and lovely. You were the beauty of the family as well as the brains. And the grace and the sweetness and charm. I was ashamed of my marriage at first because I knew you would feel that Jack was socially unsuitable and I dreaded having you come to visit us, as much as I wanted you to, because I hated to have you see this place we live in. So different from Belle Reve.

BLANCHE
[
faintly
]: We lost Belle Reve.

GRACE
: I know, we lost everything.

BLANCHE
: You blamed me for it, but I couldn’t hold on to it, not on a teacher’s salary
after—the
long procession to the graveyard. . .

GRACE
: You stood up under all of it so bravely.

BLANCHE
: Ha! That’s what you think. My heart broken into a million sharp little pieces. And then—I’d always wanted to keep myself straight
but—
The devil got in me! After we lost Belle Reve—I went to
bed—I
went to bed
with—strangers
. . .

GRACE
: We all do things we’re ashamed of sometimes, honey.

BLANCHE
: Not just one or two of them, but more than I can remember. It was all that I could fill my empty heart with, there was nothing else
but—intimacies—with
strangers . . .
After—Belle—Reve
. . . At first I was fairly secretive about it, waited on corners pretending to fasten my shoe or stopped and looked in windows, affecting a very
deep interest in—canned soup . . . [
Laughs weakly
.] Until they arrived at my elbow and said—Hello!

GRACE
[
trying to conceal her shock
]: These are things I didn’t know about, Blanche.

BLANCHE
: Well, now, you will know about them. And I would whisper
back—
“Room Seventy-Two at the Planters Hotel on Front Street!” Then walk on
slowly—looking
dreamily and innocently
around—Miss
Blanche Shannon, formerly of Belle
Reve—
A sweet young
teacher—tender
little
orphan—
Alone and unprotected in the world!

GRACE
: I didn’t know about any of these things, Blanche.

BLANCHE
: I wore white dresses, almost invariably I’d walk in white! The color of virgins and brides! And as I drew near to the place of assignation! My blood would begin to boil
with—infernal—longings!
Yes, I could barely restrain my feet on the pavement! I wanted to run and to leap and give voice to goat-like screeches! But I had to pass demurely through the
lounge—ask
for my key as if butter wouldn’t melt! “Oh, has anyone called?” “No mail? Ha-ha! I’m forgotten!”
“Well—good
afternoon, Tommy. I think I’ll go up for my nap. . .” Then, in the shadowy space above the bright
street—
Then I would literally tear the clothes from my body! And lie all breathless until the knock at the door. . . This is the history of my heart since Belle Reve!