31 Plays in 31 Days, #29 - "Before She Wakes"

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Blargh. Don't want to post this. It's from way too late in the narrative to not be execessively spoilery. But need to finish the challenge. Why do I do this to myself every year?



Day #29 - "Before She Wakes"
From Mrs. Hawking VI
By Phoebe Roberts

London, England, 1888

MARY STONE, Mrs. Hawking's housemaid and assistant, late twenties
NATHANIEL HAWKING, her gentleman nephew and assistant, mid thirties
~~~

MARY:

Perhaps you ought to go home too. Who knows how long it will be before she wakes?

NATHANIEL:

I couldn’t; I want to be here when she does. (Sighing) I suppose that’s always my trouble, isn’t it? I always want to be here. Even when there’s nothing I can do.

MARY:

We’ve got her this far. But the rest she’ll have to do on her own.

NATHANIEL:

Of course. But she’s strong. God, she’s strong as an ox. To still beat the bastard with a wound like that! What a warrior. Can you believe it?

MARY:

Nothing about this surprises me. She would have done it to Frost to save you. She’d tear down the walls, if that’s what it took.

NATHANIEL:

She was never like anyone else I ever knew. Even when I was a boy, I saw she didn’t act, or talk, or even move like anyone else— the way she stalked like a panther, or else glided on ballet steps. Even when I knew nothing else about her… that I could always see.

(Pause.)

NATHANIEL:

She was expecting when I met her. I don’t know why I thought of that. I was… eight or nine, I think. Uncle was just returning from abroad, and he brought her home for the first time. To meet the family, and to have the baby. How strange it is, to think of her that way now.

(Pause.)

NATHANIEL:

Oh, God, Mary. What if the worst should happen?

MARY:

Don’t think about that now.

NATHANIEL:

I can’t stop thinking of it.

MARY:

She’ll be all right. She must be. The last time I spoke to her… she was so angry, so hurt. Said I ought to betray her all at a shot, instead of over the years by inches. Truly… she was horrid. And I told her. I told her… how hard she made it to love her. And how I could not bear the thought of one day becoming like her.

NATHANIEL:

Oh, Mary.

MARY:

I said it because I was angry… and because it was true. She’s been everything for me. How can we do this to one another? That can’t be the last thing we ever say.