Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays
Chapter 284 : FOR ALL TIME A PLAY BY RITA WELLMAN [_SCENE: Sitting room in the house of Madame le Ba

FOR ALL TIME

A PLAY BY RITA WELLMAN

[_SCENE: Sitting room in the house of Madame le Bargy. Furnished in excellent taste. Main entrance center, this leads into a hall.

Another entrance left, back. French window right near back, near this stands a large wing chair. Couch left, well forward. Chairs near this. Nanette comes from the entrance left as Monsieur Robert comes into the room from entrance center. Nanette is a European old maid. Her dark eyes are full of fire and her lips are bitter.

She speaks quickly and sharply and is always on the defensive.

Monsieur Robert is well groomed, gentle, weak and likable. Nanette is in deep mourning. Monsieur Robert carries a small bunch of flowers which he holds awkwardly and fussily as if they embarra.s.sed him._]

NANETTE. Monsieur Robert....

ROBERT [_coming forward_]. Nanette.... How are you, Nanette! You look thinner.

NANETTE. Yes, it's the mourning. It's unbecoming.

ROBERT. I shouldn't say that, Nanette. How is Madame? Tell me. [_Nanette gives an eloquent shrug._] I haven't dared to come before. You know how I hate anything--anything like a scene.

NANETTE [_sitting left_]. Sit down, Monsieur Robert. [_He sits in a chair forward right._] It was cowardly of you not to come to see Madame.

ROBERT. Yes, I know. I am such a coward. I cannot imagine how I came to be such a coward, Nanette. I am afraid to do anything any more. Yet my mind keeps so active. How do you account for that? It's my imagination.

It seems to run ahead and do things in my place. In these times I am all over the world at once. Nanette, will you believe it, that I suffer actually with every man in the trenches?

NANETTE [_contemptuously_]. Oh, I daresay.

ROBERT. You don't understand my case. I am fifty-five. I have lived for my work always. Why should I give it up now that the world has gone mad?

Some one must stay behind and keep things together. Some one must conduct the dull march of everyday life. We can't all be heroes.

NANETTE. Your work!

ROBERT. Well, to be at the head of a big charity. That is something.

Countless lives, numberless families are in my care. I am sort of a father to them all, Nanette.

NANETTE. They could have a mother as well.

ROBERT [_with pained eagerness_]. Do you really think that?

NANETTE. I know it. There are many women as well fitted for your post as you--better fitted, in fact.

ROBERT. Oh, surely not. I have had the experience of years. I love my work so. I love my little people.

NANETTE. You have made a pleasure out of what should be only your duty.

It isn't the poor who couldn't get along without you, Monsieur Robert.

It's you who couldn't get along without the poor.

ROBERT. Well, are we all to live merely to do our duty? Is that what the Germans are going to teach us--to be machines like themselves?

NANETTE. I suppose after all, you are better off where you are.

ROBERT. How do you mean, Nanette?

NANETTE. You are more of a woman than a man after all.

ROBERT. You were always bitter against me, Nanette.

NANETTE. You were always superior with me, because I was not beautiful like Madame nor young like Maurice.

ROBERT. How did you say she was, Nanette?

NANETTE. You will find her greatly changed.

ROBERT. I wanted to come to her as soon as she came, from Aix les Bains.

When she went to recover the body.

NANETTE [_in a tone of deep feeling_]. Yes, when we went hoping to find Maurice.

ROBERT [_softly_]. Tell me about his death.

NANETTE. There were terrible days in which we could learn nothing certain. Several times they gave up hope. What hope! It only made certainty more unbearable.

ROBERT. They found him at last.

NANETTE. Yes, they found Maurice.

ROBERT. The French. That was good.

NANETTE. No, the Germans.

ROBERT. But Madame wrote me....

NANETTE. That was a lie she told you. The Germans found him. It was they who had the privilege of putting him away to his final rest. He had just won his cross.

ROBERT. He won the cross!

NANETTE. Yes, didn't you hear? That very week. [_Almost overcome with emotion she rises._] We have it now. [_She goes out back a moment and returns with a small black box which she opens reverently._] Here is all that we have left of Maurice. [_She hands him a picture post card._]

This was taken only the day before.... [_She hands him a letter._] This was the last letter ... you can see the date.... He was never so confident or full of life.... There is even a joke about me. He was always making fun of me. I don't know why. [_She hands him a revolver._]

Here is his revolver. [_She takes out the small box with the cross of war and hesitates to give it to him._] This--this is what we have left in place of Maurice. [_With a violent look she opens the box and then suddenly hands it to him._]

ROBERT. You mustn't look on it in that way, Nanette.

NANETTE. I can't help it.

ROBERT [_reading_]. Maurice Paul le Bargy. Little Maurice! He was never meant for action either. Do you remember how we used to tease him? He hated to make any decision. He loved life's dreams and nuances.

NANETTE. He was nothing but a dreamer. Madame and I were talking only yesterday of his garden--did we ever tell you of the garden he had when he was a boy?

ROBERT [_handing her the box very carefully_]. No. Tell me about the garden.