The Gardener's Son (10 page)

W
HIPPER
That’s not possible.

M
C
E
VOY
Why aint it?

W
HIPPER
He’s full of wild accusations. Slander. That wont help him now. I tried.

M
C
E
VOY
You tried what?

W
HIPPER
There’s nothing to be done about that. Best let sleeping dogs lie.

M
C
E
VOY
If I just had some sign . . .

McEvoy looks at Whipper as if to read some reassurance.

W
HIPPER
A lawyer aint a priest. Nor a doctor. Law’s more vagrant than sickness or sin. We make our case. We’d be fools to say what a dozen other fools might think of it.

M
C
E
VOY
Mr Jordan said that all the law dont go on in the courtroom.

W
HIPPER
Ahhh.

M
C
E
VOY
They say God is just. I reckon if he wasn’t there’d be no justice.

W
HIPPER
If men were no more just than God there’d be no peace in this world. Everwhere I look I see men trying to set right the inequities that God’s left them with.

M
C
E
VOY
I caint accept that.

W
HIPPER
Look around you, man. We’ve all seen murderers carouse in the streets while the righteous go to the scaffold.

M
C
E
VOY
It might be that the righteous have sins that are hid.

W
HIPPER
Yes. Seven times seven I believe is the just man’s daily lot. I tried a law case in Beaufort a few months back. In the course of the proceedings I turned to the court and I said: Is there anybody here who believes in justice? Would you raise your hand?

Whipper laughs quietly to himself.

M
C
E
VOY
Did anyone?

W
HIPPER
Oh yes. There were in the courtroom at that time seven or eight of the most notorious scoundrels in the state and every man-jack of them raised his hand. Just them. Even the judge busted out laughing.

M
E
E
VOY
We come here nine year ago. We tried to stay on at home after the war but they wasnt no way. I wanted the children to have somethin. If I could have foresaw my life as it’s become. I would rather to of been dead than this.

W
HIPPER
They say that God sends no man a burden greater than what he can bear.

M
C
E
VOY
Ay. Nor much less, neither.

W
HIPPER
No man’s lot is so bad he cant look at a neighbor’s who’s not worse.

M
C
E
VOY
Where is he? Where is that neighbor?

Interior. Night. Oil lamps, Aiken County courthouse.

J
UDGE
Mr Steedman, has the jury reached a verdict?

F
OREMAN
The jury has, your honor.

The bailiff takes a paper from the foreman of the jury and carries it to the judge. The judge takes the paper. He unfolds it. He reads it and folds it back.

J
UDGE
Robert McEvoy, hold up thy hand.

McEvoy raises his hand.

J
UDGE
Put it down. Thou wast heretofore indicted for that thou didst willfully and feloniously and of thy malice aforethought kill and murder James J Gregg, against the peace and dignity of the state of South Carolina. Now thou hast been found guilty of that murder . . .

Robert McEvoy has stopped chewing tobacco.

J
UDGE
... by a jury of thy peers and I do solemnly demand that thou show cause, if any thou hast, why execution of the judgement established by law for the state should not be passed upon thee.

Robert McEvoy does not answer.

J
UDGE
He saith nothing. It is considered by the court and pronounced as the judgement of the law that the said Robert McEvoy be taken to the place whence he last came and there be kept in close and safe custody until Friday the thirtieth day of June next, and that on said Friday between the hours of ten in the forenoon and four in the afternoon he be taken to the place of legal execution in this county and there be hanged by the neck until his body be dead and may God have mercy on his soul.

Exterior. Night. Street in Graniteville where the McEvoys live. There are lamps lit in the houses and people at the windows look out to see what the dogs are barking at. Patrick McEvoy is coming slowly up the street. He comes from pool to pool of lamplight where it falls into the street and various voices call out after him.

V
OICE
1
ST
W
OMAN
You better see to your business.

V
OICE
1
ST
M
AN
We got to have some relief up here, McEvoy.

V
OICE
2
ND
W
OMAN
You better do somethin about this.

V
OICE
2
ND
M
AN
(to himself or others)
It’s an outrage is what it is. A damned outrage.

McEvoy passes on to his own house and mounts the steps. The house is in darkness and he lights a lamp and goes to the parlor where the bier is trestled up. The flowers have withered and died and dead candle stubs sit in pools of grease. As he enters with the lamp a cat leaps from the bier and scrabbles off through the house with a low squall. McEvoy goes down the hallway through the kitchen and out into the yard, holding the lamp before him. He sets the lamp down on a stump used for splitting kindling. There is a hatchet stuck in the stump. He goes to the wood pile and commences carrying armloads of kindling, then stovewood, then logs, to the center of the yard. He piles the wood up into a great heap and he takes the lamp and takes off his cap and uses it to grip the hot lampchimney and removes the chimney and throws it to one side and kneels with the lamp and lights the pile of wood at the bottom. When it is going he returns to the house.

Interior. McEvoy parlor. The unchimneyed lamp flame now gutters and flares and leaves a trail of black smoke and McEvoy makes his way to the bier and stands looking down at it for a few moments. He sets the lamp in the floor and lifts one end of the casket and kicks the sawhorse from under it and lowers it to the floor. Then he does the same with the other end of the casket. Then he takes up the rope handle in the end of the coffin and, stooping, he commences to drag the coffin across the floor toward the door.

Interior. The Gregg house. Mrs Gregg is in widow's black. She walks slowly down the long hall of the house and at the end she turns and faces the drawing room. She stands there a moment and then she enters. As she enters Martha McEvoy rises from a chair. Mrs Gregg moves past her and turns and stands and looks at Martha.

M
RS
G
REGG
I would have thought it would be your father would come.

M
ARTHA
Bobby wouldnt let him.

M
RS
G
REGG
So he sent you.

M
ARTHA
No Mam. I wasnt sent. I come for my own self.

M
RS
G
REGG
It’s out of my hands. I cant do anything for you.

M
ARTHA
Yes Mam. I just come . . .

M
RS
G
REGG
I always intended well toward your brother. I am a Christian woman. But he has put to perdition all the hopes of this family. James was the last male heir. All my late husband’s . . . The directors will take over the mill now. There are always these strangers waiting for those who cannot set their house in order.

M
ARTHA
Mrs Gregg, I know what people said about James . . .

Mrs Gregg smiles in a superior and somewhat cynical way.

M
RS
G
REGG
Yes. My people learned to live with slander a long time ago. With envy and with ingratitude. Purity of blood is a trust to those possessed of it. The Bible tells us. At one time there were giants in the earth . . .

M
ARTHA
Mrs Gregg . . .

M
RS
G
REGG
No, I’m sorry. There was a family here. A community of people working together, joined in a common enterprise. But my husband . . . My family’s bond to this community was of the spirit, not of the flesh.

M
ARTHA
Mrs Gregg .. .

M
RS
G
REGG
It’s the ingratitude that is worst. I suppose I never understood that to an ingrate a generous person is a fool. When we first came here I took one look and I was ready to go back to Charleston. My husband convinced me ... I came to love it here ... to love these people . . .

Martha is crying now. She has understood little of all this.

M
ARTHA
Mrs Gregg, I just wanted you to know that your son never done nothin to me. I just come to say I was sorry. I know they aint nothin I can do and they caint nobody bring him back but I wanted to come and tell you that, and to say I was sorry. Somebody had to.

She turns and goes past Mrs Gregg toward the door. Mrs Gregg looks after her, realizing now that Martha has not come to beg for Bobby but to console her, Mrs Gregg. As she reaches the hall and is turning toward the door Mrs Gregg calls to her.

M
RS
G
REGG
Miss McEvoy.

Martha turns at the hallway.

M
RS
G
REGG
Come here. Please.

Martha comes back into the room. She is crying but she does not dab at her eyes or attempt to conceal her tears. As she approaches Mrs Gregg, the older woman takes her by the elbow and steers her toward a chair.

M
RS
G
REGG
Please. Sit down.

Mrs Gregg goes to a table and takes up a bell and rings it and puts it down again and comes and takes a chair opposite Martha. She studies Martha, who is sitting looking down. She takes a handkerchief from her sleeve and hands it to Martha, who at first will not take it.

M
RS
G
REGG
Wipe your face.

Martha takes the handkerchief and does as she is told. A maid enters the room.

M
AID
Yes Mam.

M
RS
G
REGG
Daphne, we’ll have some tea please.

M
AID
Yes Mam.

The maid exits. Mrs Gregg has turned to study Martha who is dabbing at her eyes. Mrs Gregg looks at her as if seeing one of these people for the first time. Her shoes, her dress.

M
RS
G
REGG
My husband put a great deal of store in the people who worked for him. A great deal of trust. . .

M
ARTHA
He was always decent to us.

M
RS
G
REGG
I’ve tried to understand. It’s so hard to know what God must mean by this.

M
ARTHA
Yes Mam.

M
RS
G
REGG
Your father loved growing things.