Miss Lulu Bett

Act 2 — Scene i

Reading edition

Side porch, wicker furnished. At the back are two windows, attractively curtained and revealing shaded lamps; between the windows a door, of good lines, set in white clapboards. The porch is raised but a step or two. Low greenery, and a path leading off sharply left. It is evening, a month after Lulu’s marriage.

[Discover Ina, Dwight, Mrs. Bett and Monona.]

Ina

Dwight dear, the screen has never been put on that back window.

Dwight

Now, why can’t my puss remind me of that in the morning instead of the only time I have to take my ease with my family.

Ina

But, Dwight, in the mornings you are so busy⸺

Dwight

What an argumentative puss you are. By Jove! look at that rambler rosebush. It’s got to be sprayed.

Ina

You’ve said that every night for a week, Dwight….

Dwight

Don’t exaggerate like that, Ina. It’s bad for Monona.

Ina

Dwight, look, quick. There go our new neighbors. They have a limousine—Perhaps I have been a little slow about calling. Look at them, Dwight!

Dwight

My dear Ina, I see them. Do you want me to pat them on the back?

Ina

Well, I think you might be interested.

[Monona chants softly.]

Dwight, I wonder if Monona really has a musical gift.

Dwight

She’s a most unusual child. Do you know it?

[Enter Di, from house.]

Ina

Oh, they both are. Where are you going, I’d like to know?

Mama, I have to go down to the liberry.

Ina

It seems to me you have to go to the library every evening. Dwight, do you think she ought to go?

Dwight

Diana, is it necessary that you go?

Well, everybody else goes, and⸺

Ina

I will not have you downtown in the evenings.

But you let me go last night.

Ina

All the better reason why you should not go to-night.

Monona

Mama, let me go with her.

Ina

Very well, Di, you may go and take your sister.

Monona

Goody, goody! last time you wouldn’t let me go.

Ina

That’s why mama’s going to let you go to-night.

Dwight

I thought you said the child must go to bed half an hour earlier because she wouldn’t eat her egg.

Ina

Yes, that’s so, I did. Monona, you can’t go.

Monona

But I didn’t want my egg—honest I didn’t.

Ina

Makes no difference. You must eat or you’ll get sick. Mama’s going to teach you to eat. Go on, Di, to the library if it’s necessary.

Dwight

I suppose Bobby Larkin has to go to the library to-night, eh?

Ina

Dwight, I wouldn’t joke her about him. Scold her about him, the way you did this morning.

But papa was cross about something else this morning. And to-night he isn’t. Good-by, Dwight and Ina!

[Exit Di.]

Monona

I hate the whole family.

Mrs. Bett

Well, I should think she would.

Ina

Why, mama! Why, Pettie Deacon!

[Monona weeps silently.]

Dwight

[To Ina.]

Say no more, my dear. It’s best to overlook. Show a sweet spirit….

Mrs. Bett

About as much like a father and mother as a cat and dog.

Dwight

We’ve got to learn⸺

Mrs. Bett

Performin’ like a pair of weathercocks.

[Both talking at once.]

Dwight

Mother Bett! Are you talking, or am I?

Mrs. Bett

I am. But you don’t seem to know it.

Dwight

Let us talk, pussy, and she’ll simmer down. Ah—nothing new from the bride and groom?

Ina

No, Dwight. And it’s been a week since Lulu wrote. She said he’d bought her a new red dress—and a hat. Isn’t it too funny—to think of Lulu⸺

Dwight

I don’t understand why they plan to go straight to Oregon without coming here first.

Ina

It isn’t a bit fair to mama, going off that way. Leaving her own mother—why, she may never see mama again.

Mrs. Bett

Oh I’m going to last on quite a while yet.

Dwight

Of course you are, Mama Bett. You’re my best girl. That reminds me, Ina, we must run up to visit Aunt Mollie. We ought to run up there next week. She isn’t well.

Ina

Let’s do that. Dear me, I wish Lulu was here to leave in charge. I certainly do miss Lulu—lots of ways.

Mrs. Bett

’Specially when it comes mealtime.

Ina

Is that somebody coming here?

Dwight

Looks like it—yes, so it is. Some caller, as usual.

[Enter Lulu.]

Well, if it isn’t Miss Lulu Bett.

Ina

Why, sister!

Mrs. Bett

Lulie. Lulie. Lulie.

Lulu

How did you know?

Ina

Know what?

Lulu

That it isn’t Lulu Deacon.

Dwight

What’s this?

Ina

Isn’t Lulu Deacon. What are you talking?

Lulu

Didn’t he write to you?

Dwight

Not a word. All we’ve had we had from you—the last from Savannah, Georgia.

Lulu

Savannah, Georgia….

Dwight

Well, but he’s here with you, isn’t he?

Ina

Where is he? Isn’t he here?

Lulu

Must be most to Oregon by this time.

Dwight

Oregon?

Lulu

You see, he had another wife.

Ina

Another wife!

Dwight

Why, he had not.

Lulu

Yes, another wife. He hasn’t seen her for fifteen years and he thinks she’s dead. But he isn’t sure.

Dwight

Nonsense. Why of course she’s dead if he thinks so.

Lulu

I had to be sure.

Ina

Monona! Go upstairs to bed at once.

Monona

It’s only quarter of.

Ina

Do as mama tells you.

Monona

But⸺

Ina

Monona!

[She goes, kissing them all good-night and taking her time about it. Everything is suspended while she kisses them and departs, walking slowly backward.]

Mrs. Bett

Married? Lulie, was your husband married?

Lulu

Yes, my husband was married, mother.

Ina

Mercy, think of anything like that in our family.

Dwight

Well, go on—go on. Tell us about it.

Lulu

We were going to Oregon. First down to New Orleans and then out to California and up the coast…. Well, then at Savannah, Georgia, he said he thought I better know first. So then he told me.

Dwight

Yes—well, what did he say?

Lulu

Cora Waters. Cora Waters. She married him down in San Diego eighteen years ago. She went to South America with him.

Dwight

Well, he never let us know of it, if she did.

Lulu

No. She married him just before he went. Then in South America, after two years, she ran away. That’s all he knows.

Dwight

That’s a pretty story.

Lulu

He says if she was alive she’d be after him for a divorce. And she never has been so he thinks she must be dead. The trouble is he wasn’t sure. And I had to be sure.

Ina

Well, but mercy! Couldn’t he find out now?

Lulu

It might take a long time and I didn’t want to stay and not know.

Ina

Well then why didn’t he say so here?

Lulu

He would have. But you know how sudden everything was. He said he thought about telling us right here that afternoon when—when it happened but of course that’d been hard, wouldn’t it? And then he felt so sure she was dead.

Ina

Why did he tell you at all then?

Dwight

Yes. Why indeed?

Lulu

I thought that just at first but only just at first. Of course that wouldn’t have been right. And then you see he gave me my choice.

Dwight

Gave you your choice?

Lulu

Yes. About going on and taking the chances. He gave me my choice when he told me, there in Savannah, Georgia.

Dwight

What made him conclude by then that you ought to be told?

Lulu

Why, he’d got to thinking about it.

[A silence.]

The only thing as long as it happened I kind of wish he hadn’t told me till we got to Oregon.

Ina

Lulu! Oh, you poor poor thing….

[Mrs. Bett suddenly joins Ina in tears, rocking her body.]

Lulu

Don’t, mother. Oh, Ina, don’t…. He felt bad too.

Dwight

He! He must have.

Ina

It’s you. It’s you. My sister!

Lulu

I never thought of it making you both feel bad. I knew it would make Dwight feel bad. I mean, it was his brother⸺

Ina

Thank goodness! nobody need know about it.

Lulu

Oh, yes. People will have to know.

Dwight

I do not see the necessity.

Lulu

Why, what would they think?

Dwight

What difference does it make what they think?

Lulu

Why, I shouldn’t like—you see they might—why, Dwight, I think we’ll have to tell them.

Dwight

You do. You think the disgrace of bigamy in this family is something the whole town will have to know about.

Lulu

Say. I never thought about it being that.

Dwight

What did you think it was? And whose disgrace is it, pray?

Lulu

Mine. And Ninian’s.

Dwight

Ninian’s. Well, he’s gone. But you’re here. And I’m here—and my family. Folks’ll feel sorry for you. But the disgrace, that would reflect on me.

Lulu

But if we don’t tell what’ll they think?

Dwight

They’ll think what they always think when a wife leaves her husband. They’ll think you couldn’t get along. That’s all.

Lulu

I should hate that. I wouldn’t want them to think I hadn’t been a good wife to Ninian.

Dwight

Wife? You never were his wife. That’s just the point.

Lulu

Oh!

Dwight

Don’t you realize the position he’s in?… See here—do you intend—Are you going to sue Ninian?

Lulu

Oh! no! no! no!

Ina

Why, Lulu, any one would think you loved him.

Lulu

I do love him. And he loved me. Don’t you think I know? He loved me.

Ina

Lulu.

Lulu

I love him—I do, and I’m not ashamed to tell you.

Mrs. Bett

Lulie, Lulie, was his other wife—was she there?

Lulu

No, no, mother. She wasn’t there.

Mrs. Bett

Then it ain’t so bad. I was afraid maybe she turned you out.

Lulu

No, no. It wasn’t that bad, mother.

Dwight

In fact I simply will not have it, Lulu. You expect, I take it, to make your home with us in the future on the old terms.

Lulu

Well⸺

Dwight

I mean did Ninian give you any money?

Lulu

No. He didn’t give me any money—only enough to get home on. And I kept my suit and the other dress—why! I wouldn’t have taken any money.

Dwight

That means that you will have to continue to live here on the old terms and of course I’m quite willing that you should. Let me tell you, however, that this is on condition—on condition that this disgraceful business is kept to ourselves.

Ina

Truly, Lulu, wouldn’t that be best? They’ll talk anyway. But this way they’ll only talk about you and the other way it’ll be about all of us.

Lulu

But the other way would be the truth.

Dwight

My dear Lulu, are you sure of that?

Lulu

Sure?

Dwight

Yes. Did he give you any proofs?

Lulu

Proofs?

Dwight

Letters—documents of any sort? Any sort of assurance that he was speaking the truth?

Lulu

Why—no. Proofs—no. He told me.

Dwight

He told you!

Lulu

That was hard enough to have to do. It was terrible for him to have to do. What proofs⸺

Dwight

I may as well tell you that I myself have no idea that Ninian told you the truth. He was always imagining things, inventing things—you must have seen that. I know him pretty well—have been in touch with him more or less the whole time. In short I haven’t the least idea he was ever married before.

Lulu

I never thought of that.

Dwight

Look here—hadn’t you and he had some little tiff when he told you?

Lulu

No—no! Not once. He was very good to me. This dress—and my shoes—and my hat. And another dress, too.

[She takes off her hat.]

He liked the red wing—I wanted black—oh, Dwight! He did tell me the truth!

Dwight

As long as there’s any doubt about it—and I feel the gravest doubts—I desire that you should keep silent and protect my family from this scandal. I have taken you into my confidence about these doubts for your own profit.

Lulu

My own profit!

[Moves toward the door.]

Ina

Lulu—you see! We just couldn’t have this known about Dwight’s own brother, could we now?

Dwight

You have it in your own hands to repay me, Lulu, for anything that you feel I may have done for you in the past. You also have it in your hands to decide whether your home here continues. This is not a pleasant position for me to find myself in. In fact it is distinctly unpleasant I may say. But you see for yourself.

[Lulu goes into the house.]

Mrs. Bett

Wasn’t she married when she thought she was?

Ina

Mama, do please remember Monona. Yes—Dwight thinks now she’s married all right and that it was all right, all the time.

Mrs. Bett

Well, I hope so, for pity sakes.

Monona’s Voice

[From upstairs.]

Mama! Come on and hear me say my prayers, why don’t you?

DARKNESS