ACT TWO

SCENE ONE

The curtain rises on the living room of the Critchfield home. We leave the practical arrangement of this room to the scene designer with these suggestions:

It is furnished in good taste with the impediment of very limited funds and a passion for antiques that are not too well-preserved. Nevertheless the room has charm. It should have a pastel spring-like quality which should be accomplished by the use of light wallpaper with a floral pattern and a pleasing combination of pastel shades in the furnishings. Mrs. Critchfield is a foolish woman, but she has made a conscientious study of the women’s fashion and home magazines.

There are a few essential features: a sofa with a table lamp on a table directly beside it; a large military-equestrian portrait of a Civil War hero hung prominently on the wall, preferably in a position that seems to command the whole room; a pair of French doors with white or cream curtains; a big chair with a floor lamp beside it; a bookcase or “secretary” and a radio cabinet.

As the scene opens, Aunt Lila is seated in her rocker close to the radio. It is important that this rocker should squeak audibly when in motion. Aunt Lila is a spinster with humor and charm. She shows evidence of having been beautiful in her youth and is by no means a conventional old maid. The doorbell sounds.

MESSENGER BOY [offstage]: Cutrere’s.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [in the hall]: Flowers? How lovely!

[The door is closed. After a few moments, Mrs. Critchfield enters with a light blue vase of talisman roses which she sets down on the radio cabinet. Mrs. Critchfield is a woman with large hips, pearl eardrops, and pince-nez. Walking she always leans slightly forward from her hips like a kangaroo. Her mobile hands and quick jerky movements serve to emphasize this resemblance. She has a loud “cultured” voice and a manner that seems to be derived from a long career of presiding over women’s clubs. On her breast are pinned emblems of the D.A.R. and D.O.C. She is always subconsciously aware of Colonel Wayne’s presence in her domestic sphere and many times during the play we catch her glancing at his portrait as a source of continual moral support.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [bustling into the room]: A dozen roses from Cutrere’s!

LILA: That Shannon boy send ‘em?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [arranging]: Of course!

LILA: What did you do with the old ones?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Threw them out.

LILA: When I was a girl I used to save the petals and make sachets.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Heavenly isn’t quite that sentimental. [She plumps down on the sofa with her sewing and a copy of Vogue] Where is Heavenly?

LILA: Out.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I knew that much.

LILA: Well, that’s all I can tell you.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Lila, what is that you’re working on?

LILA: Some goods I got at Power’s spring sale. It looked like a good buy so I bought it.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Your dividend come in from the compress stock?

LILA: It did.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: My dear! Don’t you think you might spend it a little more judiciously?

LILA: It’s mine. I can spend it the way I want to.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Of course you can, my dear! But you might think of better ways than buying goods that will make you look like a holiday at the races.

LILA: This is for Heavenly to wear to Susan Lamphrey’s lawn party.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Oh, now, that’s sweet of you, Lila. But Heavenly’s going to wear her white organdy.

LILA: What organdy?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Why, the one she wore at her high school commencement.

LILA: Land of Goshen. You can think of more ways to cheat the moths.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: The material’s perfectly good. I’m making it over by this new pattern in Vogue. [She hands Lila the magazine.] Princess sleeves with a little circular cape effect round the shoulders.

LILA: April’s too early for organdy.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Not necessarily. —Everybody will be wearing summer formals.

LILA: Who said so?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Mrs. Lamphrey said so herself.

LILA: She just wants Heavenly to come looking peculiar so that fat Susan of hers won’t show up so bad in comparison.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Now Lila. Why do you always attribute such awful motives to people?

LILA: Because I know ‘em.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Know them nothing. You practically never go out of the house anymore. All you know is what Agnes Peabody tells you over the phone.

LILA: She tells me enough.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes, I’ll have to admit she keeps well-informed.

LILA: Yes, speaking of information, she told me this morning that Mary Louise Shumaker’s expecting another.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: When?

LILA: Next October. I bet you Mary Louise hasn’t found it out herself yet. —You’d think that Agnes was taking mail orders for the stork the way she scoops the town on things like that.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Lila, dear, can you see to thread this needle? I’m so nervous I can’t hold it still. —Well, if I don’t get finished I suppose she could wear her blue knitted suit.

LILA: That would be more sensible. April really is too early for organdy.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Everything’s early this spring. [She takes the needle.] Thank you, dear. The crepe myrtle’s been out a week.

LILA: What’s that got to do with it?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I always start wearing white when the crepe myrtle’s out. The boys are wearing white flannels. I saw Arthur Shannon in the public library this morning wearing white flannel pants and white shoes and a white sweater.

LILA: Trust him to do the outlandish!

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I said to him, “My, my but you’re all in white this morning!”

LILA: What did he say?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: He said, “Yes, it’s good cricket weather!” [She bites off the end of the thread.]

LILA: Cricket! What is cricket anyhow?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: A game they play at Oxford. Terribly stylish.

LILA: Somehow I can’t picture that boy playing anything more strenuous than checkers, and even then he’d probably have his chauffeur or valet or something to push ‘em around for him.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Lila, dear, I want to ask you as a special favor to me to please desist from making those sarcastic remarks about Arthur Shannon and his parents, especially when Heavenly’s around.

LILA: Why, I scarcely mention the Shannons! I haven’t for twenty years! But why should I anyhow?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I’m hoping they’ll make a match of it.

LILA: Heavenly and Arthur Shannon?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes. Do you have any objections.

LILA: —No. But I think Heavenly has.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Not if she’s got any sense. Lila, you surely don’t want her to make your mistake.

LILA: Which mistake do you mean?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Everybody expected you to make a brilliant marriage when you were a girl, but you spoiled all your chances by being a sentimental fool. You had a dozen good chances that you simply threw to the wind.

LILA: There was only one that I wanted.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You could have had him. You could have been sitting up there right now in the biggest house in town.

LILA: Yes, if I’d wanted to hold him against his will.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Let’s not discuss that affair. It’s one of those things that are better forgotten, especially when there’s a young girl in the house.

LILA: You brought it up. I didn’t. Don’t think I’m turned against the boy on account of his father. If anything I’m holding that in his favor. I’ve still got lots of respect for Gale Shannon. The point I’m making is simply that Heavenly’s been going with Richard Miles too long to switch to another.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [looking at her sharply]: What do you mean?

LILA: Nothing but what I said.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [uneasily after a pause]: I’m afraid there’s been some gossip about Heavenly and that Miles boy. Mrs. Lamphrey said something right funny at the D.A.R. board meeting. She said she was glad that Susan hadn’t centered her affections too definitely on any one boy, and she gave me the most pointed look, as if it had some special application to me or to Heavenly.

LILA: Centered her affections! That’s good. The only thing that girl has ever centered is fat in the wrong places.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Lila!

LILA: Well, it’s the truth.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: It’s painfully obvious that people are beginning to talk. And you can’t altogether blame them. Heavenly is sometimes terribly indiscreet.

LILA: Is she?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You know that she is. And the Miles boy doesn’t have a nice reputation. Didn’t even get through high school and he’s never been known to hold a job for more than two months at a time. One of these congenital loafers, that’s what he is. Is that the kind of boy I want my daughter’s name to be associated with? No, it is not!

LILA: I’m not saying that I approve of Dick Miles either. But love is something it’s a mistake to interfere with.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Love! —If I were a girl I’d be thrilled by Arthur’s attentions. He’s got looks, money, social position—everything!

LILA: Except a backbone.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You’re prejudiced against him, you’re holding a grudge.

LILA: I’m holding no grudge. Arthur bores the girl to death sitting here reading poetry to her and talking about—

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Is there anything wrong with having intellectual interests?

LILA: Not if they’re reasonably unobtrusive. Oh, he’s nice enough I suppose. But I wouldn’t put too much stock in him as a prospective son-in-law.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Didn’t he pay eighty dollars for Heavenly’s cake at that church affair?

LILA: He doesn’t know eighty dollars from eighty cents. Agnes Peabody says he’s taken a notion to that librarian, Hertha What’s-her-name, that went to the picnic with him.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Hertha Neilson? That girl’s peculiar!

LILA: Is she?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes! She paints very odd pictures. —Wears her hair in braids like a schoolgirl and she’s easily twenty-eight or thirty.

LILA: Anything else wrong with her?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Indeed there is. Her father’s a drunkard and her mother takes in sewing. —You can imagine the Shannons allowing their son to get himself mixed up with that kind of trash.

LILA: Well, they’re both artistic and Heavenly isn’t.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Heavenly is quite artistic. Those teacups she painted in the eighth grade. Absolutely remarkable! What’s happened to them?

LILA: Don’t you remember? You gave them to Ozzie.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I didn’t. —She must have acquired them in her usual way. —Arthur is just being nice to the Neilson girl because of her pitiful circumstances.

[The phone rings. Mrs. Critchfield rushes into the hall and can be heard answering phone in her flute-like company voice.]

Mr. Critchfield’s residence— No. Heavenly is not in at the moment. Who’s calling, please? Oh! [Her tone becomes icy.] No, she’s out and I hardly believe she’ll be in the rest of the evening. [She hangs up with a bang and re-enters living room.]

LILA: Richard Miles?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes. —Disgusting!

LILA: You shouldn’t have cut him off so short!

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Why shouldn’t I? I’m sick and tired of that boy monopolizing Heavenly’s time. [She speaks from the window.] There she comes up the walk now without any hat on and the rain just pouring. [She crosses to the hall.] I guess she thinks we haven’t got worries enough without—Heavenly!

[Mrs. Critchfield exits. Lila turns on the radio.]

ANNOUNCER’S VOICE: —And for his first selection, your old friend and neighbor would like to read you a little poem by Sara Teasdale which seems especially appropriate to a rainy spring afternoon—

[A recitation with organ background follows.]

When I am dead and over me bright April

Shakes out her rain-drenched hair

Though you should lean above me broken-hearted

I shall not care

I shall have peace as leafy trees are peaceful

When rain bends down the bough

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted

Than you are now!

[Mrs. Critchfield re-enters near the close of the poem.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [referring to some act of Heavenly’s]: Insolence! What is that sob-stuff you’re listening to?

LILA: The Village Rhymester.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Please use the earphones! [She switches off the radio.] Sentimentality is something that turns my stomach.

[Aunt Lila quietly adjusts earphones and turns the radio back on. During the dialogue between Heavenly and Mrs. Critchfield, Aunt Lila is seen dissolving into tears as she listens to this, her favorite program—she dabs her eyes and her nostrils and looks dreamily at the ceiling—she finally blows her nose—it is evident that the Village Rhymester is giving his audience a thorough workout. Heavenly enters immediately after Mrs. Critchfield’s speech directly above. Mrs. Critchfield continues.]

What do you mean by running upstairs when I ask you a question?

HEAVENLY: Did you want me to stand there dripping rain all over the carpet?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Where have you been—the drugstore?

HEAVENLY: Yes.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: What for?

HEAVENLY: A Coke.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: We’ve got bottled Cokes in the basement.

HEAVENLY: I like fountain Cokes, Mother.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: What was that package you were trying to hide in your slicker?

HEAVENLY: I wasn’t hiding it, I was trying to keep it dry.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: What was it?

HEAVENLY: Perfume.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Perfume!

HEAVENLY: One ounce of Quelques Fleurs. I didn’t have a drop left.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Did you charge it?

HEAVENLY: Of course I charged it, mother.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Well, I suppose I shall have to have that account discontinued.

HEAVENLY: Suit yourself about that.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You don’t seem to realize the financial condition this family’s in.

HEAVENLY: Don’t I?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: No. For a girl of your age you show remarkably little sense about our account at Mungers. When I was twenty-two, I was married and keeping house. And believe me, I learned the value of every cent.

HEAVENLY: Yes, Mother. —Did anyone call?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Arthur called.

HEAVENLY: Who else?

[Mrs. Critchfield says nothing.]

I was expecting a call from Dick.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Didn’t you see him at the drugstore?

HEAVENLY: No. He was out.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Imagine! A delivery boy.

HEAVENLY: He’s not a delivery boy. He’s assistant pharmacist.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Soda jerker.

LILA: Dick has never jerked a soda in his life. Besides, it’s only a temporary job—Mr. Kramer’s promised him something.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Did your father do that?

HEAVENLY: Yes.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Your father will just get himself in bad with Mr. Kramer. That Miles boy will never be able to hold a job.

HEAVENLY: He’s going to hold this one.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You have a dinner engagement with Arthur, you know.

HEAVENLY: Yes, I know. Sunday night.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I think you should wear your blue knitted suit. It’s really more stylish than ever. [Heavenly rises.] Where are you going?

HEAVENLY: I’m going to phone Dick.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Listen, Heavenly—

HEAVENLY: What?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: If you let a chance like this slip through your fingers—

HEAVENLY: What chance are you talking about?

MRS. CRITCHEFIELD: Arthur Shannon.

HEAVENLY [smiling wryly]: Oh. [She starts to leave.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Heavenly, come back here. I want to talk to you—you can call that boy later.

AUNT LILA [huskily as she removes earphones]: “—But only God can make a tree!” [She rises and dabs her eyes.] Shall I make tea for anyone else? Heavenly? Esmeralda?

HEAVENLY: No, thanks, Aunty.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: No.

[Lila goes out, still under emotional spell of the Village Rhymester.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [after a short, uncomfortable pause]: How have you been feeling, dear?

HEAVENLY: Perfectly well, Mother.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I believe you’ve fallen off some.

HEAVENLY: Is that what you wanted to talk about?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: No, it is not. When you assume that defensive attitude toward your mother, it makes it very difficult for her to discuss things with you. [Heavenly lights a cigarette.] You’re smoking too much, Heavenly. It makes you nervous and cross and discolors your teeth. —Now what I wanted to say is—

HEAVENLY: Arthur Shannon?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes.

HEAVENLY: Please don’t. [She rises abruptly and crosses to the French window.]

[During this following speech, Mrs. Critchfield should acquire a certain dignity and force. She is talking about something she feels keenly which is the very core of her existence.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Don’t you think that having the finest blood in America imposes on you some obligations? I’m sure that you do. It’s a question of self-respect. But it’s also a question of something deeper than that. Maybe I’m being old-fashioned. Hanging on to something that’s lost it’s meaning. I know that some people say so. But they’re people who never had anything worth hanging onto. You’re not one of them, Heavenly. A girl whose name is listed under five or six different headings in Zella Armstrong’s Notable Families and every other good southern genealogy couldn’t help but feel it her sacred duty to live up to the best that’s in her. The Waynes, the Critchfields, the Tylers, the Hallidays, and the Brookes. You’ve got them in you, Heavenly. You can’t get them out. And they’re going to fight you to the last wall if you try to mix their blood with ditchwater!

HEAVENLY [turning furiously]: What do you mean?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [breathing heavily]: I mean that Arthur Shannon comes from your kind of people and the other one doesn’t. You’re not going to throw him over for a boy whose people are so low, so common that—!

HEAVENLY [screaming]: Stop it! I won’t listen to it!

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You sit right back down there, young lady, and wait till I’m finished! There are certain practical considerations that I don’t like to mention. You know what they are. The Shannons are the wealthiest family in the Delta. They own fifteen thousand acres of land and Gale Shannon’s President of the Planter’s State Bank. I know that sounds cheap and crude and mercenary, and I could hardly force myself to say it. But I had to. You forced me to, Heavenly. —Your father’s health is uncertain. I was talking to Dr. Gray about his last examination and it seems it was not as favorable as it might have been.

HEAVENLY: Nobody pays any attention to Dr. Gray.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: No? He brought us into the world. He’s been our family physician for nearly sixty years.

HEAVENLY: He’s in his dotage.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Very well, just ignore my warnings. —Some day you’ll have a sad awakening, young lady.

HEAVENLY: Oh, mother, I know, I know!

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You don’t know. But under the circumstances I think it best you should.

HEAVENLY: Know what?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Dr. Gray intimated that your father does not have much longer to live.

[A pause: Heavenly is slightly stunned.]

HEAVENLY: I don’t believe it.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I’ve kept this from you all. I’ve borne it alone— Your father’s hypertensive condition has been aggravated by business worries. It’s taken a serious turn. And if something should happen on top of everything else—

HEAVENLY: You mean if Dick and I should get married?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes! Precisely! Would you be willing to sign your father’s death warrant? And mine, too? Do you know that we haven’t managed to put by a single dollar since the stock crash, and now with this business recession— Our account’s been cut off at Mungers— It’s not at all unlikely that we’ll have to go on relief next winter.

HEAVENLY [in a quiet strained voice]: If you want me to marry Arthur Shannon, you might as well know right now that it isn’t possible.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: What do you mean?

HEAVENLY: I mean it isn’t possible. [She averts her face.]

[A pause while this penetrates Mrs. Critchfield’s shocked brain.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [gasping]: Heavenly! [Then she speaks slowly.] Has there been—? Have you—?

HEAVENLY: Yes. I have. That’s the answer.

[A strangling sound comes from Mrs. Critchfield’s throat. Her suffering is too acute to be ludicrous—she looks desperately about the room, her antiques, her heirlooms, even Colonel Wayne’s portrait, fail to support her in this moment. Heavenly lights a cigarette.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [choked]: You dare to come into this house, in my presence and make that shameful confession?!

HEAVENLY [with some of Colonel Wayne’s courage]: You asked for it and I’m not ashamed. We love each other. God knows that’s not as immoral as what you want me to do! And I’m not going to do it.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: I—I feel sick. —No, it isn’t the truth, you’ve made this up, it’s a lie!

HEAVENLY: It’s not a lie, mother.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [because she can’t face it.]: It’s got to be! Don’t you understand? It’s got to be— [She sinks weakly on the sofa and looks at Colonel Wayne’s portrait.] You’re never going to see him again.

HEAVENLY: Didn’t you hear what I told you? We already belong to each other.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: No. Not one more word! Or I’ll report the whole thing to your father, even if it kills him. —So it is true. But I suppose it isn’t too late?!

HEAVENLY: What do you mean?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [anxiously]: Nothing’s happened! You haven’t gotten yourself in trouble, have you?!

HEAVENLY [turning away in distaste]: No.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Then it isn’t too late. It can still be covered up.

HEAVENLY: Covered up?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Yes. You can leave town for awhile. Visit Aunt Clara down in Biloxi, in a month or two you’ll—

HEAVENLY: I’m not going to give Dick up.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You’ve got to.

HEAVENLY: I can’t. I’m not going to be an old maid.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You don’t have to be an old maid.

HEAVENLY: Oh. You think Arthur Shannon would be willing to take me secondhand?

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Does Arthur know?

HEAVENLY: I’d tell him.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: No, you couldn’t. You wouldn’t have to. There’s precious few girls that get married nowadays without having had one or two love affairs in the past.

HEAVENLY: Maybe not. But I’ve got a sense of decency.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You talk about decency!

HEAVENLY: Yes, I do.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You don’t know what the word means.

HEAVENLY: It’s you that don’t know what it means. It’s you that wants to make a prostitute of me.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Shut up! You dare to stand in front of me and say things like that. I don’t know why I should let you kill me, you mean, despicable girl!

HEAVENLY: I haven’t done anything terribly wrong. Dick and I loved each other—so much that—whatever happened it really wasn’t our fault.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: How long has it been going on?

HEAVENLY: For a year. Ever since last spring. I couldn’t help it. I don’t know how to explain. He lost his job at the planing mill and he was going to leave town—he was feeling so discouraged and restless and all—I couldn’t bear it—I couldn’t give him up—

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: And so to hold him you—

HEAVENLY: Yes. To hold him.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Without any shame you come to me and say that?

HEAVENLY: Yes. Without any shame.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You horrible, shameless, ungrateful girl!

HEAVENLY: Yes. [She turns to leave.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: Heavenly! [Then with real feeling.] Oh, my poor, poor daughter! [She breaks down sobbing.]

HEAVENLY [slightly moved]: I’m sorry mother. [Pause.]

MRS. CRITCHFIELD [sobbing]: When you were a little girl and did something wrong— I used to make you come in here and apologize to Colonel Wayne’s portrait—don’t you remember, Heavenly?

HEAVENLY: Yes.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: That was because I wanted you to understand the responsibility of having fine blood in you. Heavenly—I want you to do that now. I want you to stand here in front of your great-grandfather’s picture and beg his forgiveness for the first disgrace that’s ever come to his name.

HEAVENLY [stiffening]: I won’t do it.

MRS. CRITCHFIELD: You’ve got to. Your family’s all you’ve got left, you poor girl. If you don’t respect that you’ve got nothing. —You come here and tell Colonel Wayne you’re sorry for those awful things you talked about in his presence—Heavenly!

HEAVENLY [dully]: Yes. [She walks stiffly up to the portrait, stands before it, sobbing—then suddenly blurts out.] Aw, go back to Gettysburg you big palooka!

[She runs out of the room sobbing.]

CURTAIN