Waste Part 14

AMY. No ... if we're careful. You'll tell me what to do, won't you? Oh, it's a relief to be able to talk about it.

TREBELL. For one thing, you must take care of yourself and stop worrying.

_It soothes her to feel that he is concerned; but it is not enough to be soothed._

AMY. Yes, I wouldn't like to have been the means of smas.h.i.+ng you, Henry ...

especially as you don't care for me.

TREBELL. I intend to care for you.

AMY. Love me, I mean. I wish you did ... a little; then perhaps I shouldn't feel so degraded.

TREBELL. [_A shade impatiently, a shade contemptuously_] I can say I love you if that'll make things easier.

AMY. [_More helpless than ever._] If you'd said it at first I should be taking it for granted ... though it wouldn't be any more true, I daresay, than now ... when I should know you weren't telling the truth.

TREBELL. Then I'd do without so much confusion.

AMY. Don't be so heartless.

TREBELL. [_As he leaves her._] We seem to be attaching importance to such different things.

AMY. [_Shrill even at a momentary desertion._] What do you mean? I want affection now just as I want food. I can't do without it ... I can't reason things out as you can. D'you think I haven't tried? [_Then in sudden rebellion._] Oh, the physical curse of being a woman ... no better than any savage in this condition ... worse off than an animal. It's unfair.

TREBELL. Never mind ... you're here now to hand me half the responsibility, aren't you?

AMY. As if I could! If I have to lie through the night simply shaking with bodily fear much longer ... I believe I shall go mad.

_This aspect of the matter is meaningless to him. He returns to the practical issue._

TREBELL. There's n.o.body that need be suspecting, is there?

AMY. My maid sees I'm ill and worried and makes remarks ... only to me so far. Don't I look a wreck? I nearly ran away when I saw Dr. Wedgecroft ...

some of these men are so clever.

TREBELL. [_Calculating._] Someone will have to be trusted.

AMY. [_Burrowing into her little tortured self again._] And I ought to feel as if I had done Justin a great wrong ... but I don't. I hate you now; now and then. I was being myself. You've brought me down. I feel worthless.

_The last word strikes him. He stares at her._

TREBELL. Do you?

AMY. [_Pleadingly._] There's only one thing I'd like you to tell me, Henry ... it isn't much. That night we were together ... it was for a moment different to everything that has ever been in your life before, wasn't it?

TREBELL. [_Collecting himself as if to explain to a child._] I must make you understand ... I must get you to realise that for a little time to come you're above the law ... above even the shortcomings and contradictions of a man's affection.

AMY. But let us have one beautiful memory to share.

TREBELL. [_Determined she shall face the cold logic of her position._]

Listen. I look back on that night as one looks back on a fit of drunkenness.

AMY. [_Neither understanding nor wis.h.i.+ng to; only shocked and hurt._] You beast.

TREBELL. [_With bitter sarcasm._] No, don't say that. Won't it comfort you to think of drunkenness as a beautiful thing? There are precedents enough ... cla.s.sic ones.

AMY. You mean I might have been any other woman.

TREBELL. [_Quite inexorable._] Wouldn't any other woman have served the purpose ... and is it less of a purpose because we didn't know we had it?

Does my unworthiness then ... if you like to call it so ... make you unworthy now? I must make you see that it doesn't.

AMY. [_Petulantly hammering at her idee fixe._] But you didn't love me ...

and you don't love me.

TREBELL. [_Keeping his patience._] No ... only within the last five minutes have I really taken the smallest interest in you. And now I believe I'm half jealous. Can you understand that? You've been talking a lot of nonsense about your emotions and your immortal soul. Don't you see it's only now that you've become a person of some importance to the world ... and why?

AMY. [_Losing her patience, childishly._] What do you mean by the World? You don't seem to have any personal feelings at all. It's horrible you should have thought of me like that. There has been no other man than you that I would have let come anywhere near me ... not for more than a year.

_He realises that she will never understand._

TREBELL. My dear girl, I'm sorry to be brutal. Does it matter so much to you that I should have wished to be the father of your child?

AMY. [_Ungracious but pacified by his change of tone._] It doesn't matter now.

TREBELL. [_Friendly still._] On principle I don't make promises. But I think I can promise you that if you keep your head and will keep your health, this shall all be made as easy for you as if everyone could know. And let's think what the child may mean to you ... just the fact of his birth. Nothing to me, of course! Perhaps that accounts for the touch of jealousy. I've forfeited my rights because I hadn't honourable intentions. You can't forfeit yours. Even if you never see him and he has to grow up among strangers ... just to have had a child must make a difference to you. Of course, it may be a girl. I wonder.

_As he wanders on so optimistically she stares at him and her face changes. She realises...._

AMY. Do you expect me to go through with this? Henry! ... I'd sooner kill myself.

_There is silence between them. He looks at her as one looks at some unnatural thing. Then after a moment he speaks, very coldly._

TREBELL. Oh ... indeed. Don't get foolish ideas into your head. You've no choice now ... no reasonable choice.

AMY. [_Driven to bay; her last friend an enemy._] I won't go through with it.

TREBELL. It hasn't been so much the fear of scandal then--

AMY. That wouldn't break my heart. You'd marry me, wouldn't you? We could go away somewhere. I could be very fond of you, Henry.

TREBELL. [_Marvelling at these tangents._] Marry you! I should murder you in a week.

_This sounds only brutal to her; she lets herself be shamed._

AMY. You've no more use for me than the use you've made of me.

TREBELL. [_Logical again._] Won't you realise that there's a third party to our discussion ... that I'm of no importance beside him and you of very little. Think of the child.