Plays Part 5

(s.n.a.t.c.hes her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big door toward the dunes.)

ALLIE MAYO: Wait.

(When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat-as if overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held.)

ALLIE MAYO: (to herself.) If I could say that, I can say more. (looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself) That boy in there-his face-uncovered something-(her open hand on her chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in labored way-slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years) For twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you-it's not the way. (her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at something remote and veiled) We had been married-two years. (a start, as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it) Married-two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. He had to go. A year and a half-it was to be. A year and a half. Two years we'd been married.

(She sits silent, moving a little back and forth.)

The day he went away. (not spoken, but breathed from pain) The days after he was gone.

I heard at first. Last letter said farther north-not another chance to write till on the way home. (a wait)

Six months. Another, I did not hear. (long wait) n.o.body ever heard. (after it seems she is held there, and will not go on) I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say-'You may hear yet.' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman who'd been my friend all my life said-'Suppose he was to walk in!' I got up and drove her from my kitchen-and from that time till this I've not said a word I didn't have to say. (she has become almost wild in telling this. That pa.s.ses. In a whisper) The ice that caught Jim-caught me. (a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To MRS PATRICK simply) It's not the way. (a sudden change) You're not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead!

MRS PATRICK: (with a cry of the hurt) Dead? My husband's not dead.

ALLIE MAYO: He's not? (slowly understands) Oh.

(The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has fallen to the floor and steps outside.)

ALLIE MAYO: (almost failing to do it) Wait.

MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you didn't say an unnecessary word!

ALLIE MAYO: I don't.

MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into things you know nothing about!

(As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the door down on the half buried gra.s.s-though not as if knowing what she is doing.)

ALLIE MAYO: (slowly) When you keep still for twenty years you know-things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that. (she looks up at her, startled) Don't bury the only thing that will grow. Let it grow.

(The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet.)

ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK turns but not as if she wants to) What you'll try to do. Over there. (pointing to the line of woods) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it-watching the sand bury the woods. But I'll tell you something! They fight too. The woods! They fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!

(Pointing to the closed door.)

MRS PATRICK: (with a strange exultation) And lose the way he lost in there!

ALLIE MAYO: (sure, sombre) They don't lose.

MRS PATRICK: Don't lose? (triumphant) I have walked on the tops of buried trees!

ALLIE MAYO: (slow, sombre, yet large) And vines will grow over the sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over the buried trees.

MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out farthest.

ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (under her breath, tenderly) Strange little things that reach out farthest!

MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!

ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood that guards a town.

MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the outside-these dunes where only beach gra.s.s grows, this outer sh.o.r.e where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die here have named it that.

ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here (reaches her hand toward the closed door) and many a one before him. But many another reached the harbor! (slowly raises her arm, bends it to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm) The Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor-where men are safe.

MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor-on the dunes, land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's sh.o.r.e to a harbor.

MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (picking some of it up in her hand and letting it fall on the beach gra.s.s) Sand that covers-hills of sand that move and cover.

ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. Provincetown-where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of them-swift to the harbor-where their children live. Go back! (pointing) Back to your edge of the woods that's the edge of the dunes.

MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things not worth a name.

(Suddenly sits down in the doorway.)

ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And-meeting the Outside!

(Big with the sense of the wonder of life.)

MRS PATRICK: (lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand.) They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like shapes of blown sand.

ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (moving nearer; speaking more personally) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given up; on this sh.o.r.e where only savers of life try to live. I know what holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are true beside the things you want to see.

MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty years?

ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave they are (indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different) You'll not find peace there again! Go back and watch them fight!

MRS PATRICK: (swiftly rising) You're a cruel woman-a hard, insolent woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only-trying to get along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried-buried deep. Spring is here. This morning I knew it. Spring-coming through the storm-to take me-take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear-(she looks at the closed door) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! And now you'd take that from me-(looking now toward the edge of the woods) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my heart-those things I can't live and know I feel. You're more cruel than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring. (as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says) What would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted?

ALLIE MAYO: I found-what I find now I know. The edge of life-to hold life behind me-

(A slight gesture toward MRS PATRICK.)

MRS PATRICK: (stepping back) You call what you are life? (laughs) Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand!

ALLIE MAYO: (under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty) Ugly!

MRS PATRICK: (pa.s.sionately) I have known life. I have known life. You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea-land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (raises her arm, curves it in as if around something she loves) Land that encloses and gives shelter from storm.

MRS PATRICK: (facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else out) Outside sea. Outer sh.o.r.e. Dunes-land not life.