Complete Poems and Plays (48 page)

Not to avoid being found, but to seek.

I would not have chosen this way, had there been any other!

It is at once the hardest thing, and the only thing possible.

Now they will lead me. I shall be safe with them;

I am not safe here.

A
MY
.
                          So you
will
run away.

A
GATHA
.
In a world of fugitives

The person taking the opposite direction

Will appear to run away.

A
MY
.
                                    I was speaking to Harry.

H
ARRY
.
It is very hard, when one has just recovered sanity,

And not yet assured in possession, that is when

One begins to seem the maddest to other people.

It is hard for you too, mother, it is indeed harder,

Not to understand.

A
MY
.
                          Where are you going?

H
ARRY
.
I shall have to learn. That is still unsettled.

I have not yet had the precise directions.

Where does one go from a world of insanity?

Somewhere on the other side of despair.

To the worship in the desert, the thirst and deprivation,

A stony sanctuary and a primitive altar,

The heat of the sun and the icy vigil,

A care over lives of humble people,

The lesson of ignorance, of incurable diseases.

Such things are possible. It is love and terror

Of what waits and wants me, and will not let me fall.

Let the cricket chirp. John shall be the master.

All I have is his. No harm can come to him.

What would destroy me will be life for John,

I am responsible for him. Why I have this election

I do not understand. It must have been preparing always,

And I see it was what I always wanted. Strength demanded

That seems too much, is just strength enough given.

I must follow the bright angels.

[
Exit
]

A
MY
.
I was a fool, to ask you again to Wishwood;

But I thought, thirty-five years is long, and death is an end,

And I thought that time might have made a change in Agatha —

It has made enough in
me.
Thirty-five years ago

You took my husband from me. Now you take my son.

A
GATHA
.
What did I take? nothing that you ever had.

What did I get? thirty years of solitude,

Alone, among women, in a women’s college,

Trying not to dislike women. Thirty years in which to think.

Do you suppose that I wanted to return to Wishwood?

A
MY
.
The more rapacious, to take what I never had;

The more unpardonable, to taunt me with not having it.

Had you taken what I had, you would have left me at least a memory

Of something to live upon. You knew that you took everything

Except the walls, the furniture, the acres;

Leaving nothing — but what I could breed for myself,

What I could plant here. Seven years I kept him,

For the sake of the future, a discontented ghost,

In his own house. What of the humiliation,

Of the chilly pretences in the silent bedroom,

Forcing sons upon an unwilling father?

Dare you think what that does to one? Try to think of it.

I
would
have sons, if I could not have a husband:

Then I let him go. I abased myself.

Did I show any weakness, any self-pity?

I forced myself to the purposes of Wishwood;

I even asked you back, for visits, after he was gone,

So that there might be no ugly rumours.

You thought I did not know!

You may be close, but I always saw through
him.

And now it is my son.

A
GATHA.
                          I know one thing, Amy:

That you have never changed. And perhaps I have not.

I thought that I had, until this evening.

But at least I wanted to. Now I must begin.

There is nothing more difficult. But you are just the same:

Just as voracious for what you cannot have

Because you repel it.

A
MY
.
                              I prepared the situation

For us to be reconciled, because of Harry,

Because of his mistakes, because of his unhappiness,

Because of the misery that he has left behind him,

Because of the waste. I wanted to obliterate

His past life, and have nothing except to remind him

Of the years when he had been a happy boy at Wishwood;

For his future success.

A
GATHA
.
                            Success is relative:

It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things,

It is what he can make, not what you would make for him.

A
MY
.
Success is one thing, what you would make for him

Is another. I call it failure. Your fury for possession

Is only the stronger for all these years of abstinence.

Thirty-five years ago you took my husband from me

And now you take my son.

A
GATHA
.
Why should we quarrel for what neither can have?

If neither has ever had a husband or a son

We have no ground for argument.

A
MY
.
Who set you up to judge? what, if you please,

Gives
you
the power to know what is best for Harry?

What gave you this influence to persuade him

To abandon his duty, his family and his happiness?

Who has planned his good? is it you or I?

Thirty-five years designing his life,

Eight years watching, without him, at Wishwood,

Years of bitterness and disappointment.

What share had you in this? what have you given?

And now at the moment of success against failure,

When I felt assured of his settlement and happiness,

You who took my husband, now you take my son.

You take him from Wishwood, you take him from me,

You take him …

[
Enter
M
ARY
]

M
ARY
.
Excuse me, Cousin Amy. I have just seen Denman.

She came to tell me that Harry is leaving:

Downing told her. He has got the car out.

What is the matter?

A
MY
.
                           That woman there,

She has persuaded him: I do not know how.

I have been always trying to make myself believe

That he was not such a weakling as his father

In the hands of any unscrupulous woman.

I
have no influence over him;
you
can try,

But you will not succeed: she has some spell

That works from generation to generation.

M
ARY
.
Is Harry really going?

A
GATHA
.
                                   He is going.

But that is not my spell, it is none of my doing:

I have only watched and waited. In this world

It is inexplicable, the resolution is in another.

M
ARY
.
Oh, but it is the danger comes from another!

Can you not stop him? Cousin Agatha, stop him!

You do not know what I have seen and what I know!

He is in great danger, I know that, don’t ask me,

You would not believe me, but I tell you I know.

You must keep him here, you must not let him leave.

I do not know what must be done, what can be done,

Even here, but elsewhere, everywhere, he is in danger.

I will stay or I will go, whichever is better;

I do not care what happens to me,

But Harry must not go. Cousin Agatha!

A
GATHA
.
Here the danger, here the death, here, not elsewhere;

Elsewhere no doubt is agony, renunciation,

But birth and life. Harry has crossed the frontier

Beyond which safety and danger have a different meaning.

And he cannot return. That is his privilege.

For those who live in this world, this world only,

Do you think that I would take the responsibility

Of tempting them over the border? No one could, no one who knows.

No one who has the least suspicion of what is to be found there.

But Harry has been led across the frontier: he must follow;

For him the death is now only on this side,

For him, danger and safety have another meaning.

They
have made this clear. And I who have seen them must believe them.

M
ARY
.
Oh! … so …
you
have seen them too!

A
GATHA
.
We must all go, each in his own direction,

You, and I, and Harry. You and I,

My dear, may very likely meet again

In our wanderings in the neutral territory

Between two worlds.

M
ARY
.
                            Then you
will
help me!

You remember what I said to you this evening?

I knew that I was right: you made me wait for this —

Only for this. I suppose I did not really mean it

Then, but I mean it now. Of course it was much too late

Then, for anything to come for me: I should have known it;

It was all over, I believe, before it began;

But I deceived myself. It takes so many years

To learn that one is dead! So you must help me.

I will go. But I suppose it is much too late

Now, to try to get a fellowship?

A
MY
.
                                               So you will all leave me!

An old woman alone in a damned house.

I will let the walls crumble. Why should I worry

To keep the tiles on the roof, combat the endless weather,

Resist the wind? fight with increasing taxes

And unpaid rents and tithes? nourish investments

With wakeful nights and patient calculations

With the solicitor, the broker, agent? Why should I?

It is no concern of the body in the tomb

To bother about the upkeep. Let the wind and rain do that.

[
While
A
MY
has
been
speaking,
H
ARRY
has
entered,
dressed
for
departure
.]

H
ARRY
.
But, mother, you will always have Arthur and John

To worry about: not that John is any worry —

The destined and the perfect master of Wishwood,

The satisfactory son. And as for me,

I am the last you need to worry about;

I have my course to pursue, and I am safe from normal dangers

If I pursue it. I cannot account for this

But it is so, mother. Until I come again.

A
MY.
If you go now, I shall never see you again.

[
Meanwhile
V
IOLET
, G
ERALD
and
C
HARLES
have
entered
]

C
HARLES
.
Where is Harry going? What is the matter?

A
MY
.
                                                                             Ask Agatha.

G
ERALD
.
Why, what’s the matter? Where is he going?

A
MY
.
                                                                             Ask Agatha.

V
IOLET
.
I cannot understand at all. Why is he leaving?

A
MY
.
                                                                             Ask Agatha.

V
IOLET
.
Really, it sometimes seems to me