Read-Aloud Plays eBook

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Walter knows he was born here. He wants to know why we didn’t mention it to-day.

EVERITT

So do I! So do I want to know why we didn’t mention it! It’s been between us all these years! (Walter enters with his portfolio. He stands unnoticed at the door)

MRS. EVERITT

You want to know? You know very well yourself! It’s I who ought to ask what the matter is!

EVERITT

You? Good heavens! Wasn’t it you who suddenly made up your mind we had to leave this town, and insisted and insisted until I sold the house? Didn’t I do that to please you, because you went into hysterics about it, and I had to think of Walter? I didn’t want to go. It isn’t every man who would change his whole life for a woman’s unreasonable whim!

MRS. EVERITT

Whim! It isn’t every wife who—Oh! Oh!

EVERITT

Yes whim! And haven’t I stayed away all these years from my people because you wouldn’t hear to our coming back even for a visit?

MRS. EVERITT

No you didn’t stay away! You sneaked up here the very next year when you made that trip to Boston. And you can’t deny it, because Janet Richardson wrote me.

EVERITT

Sneaked up here! Deny it! Are you mad? The only reason I didn’t mention it was because I never understood your positive hatred for the place. What harm was there in coming back for a day or two? On every other subject you are all right, but whenever we get within a mile of mentioning this town I feel your hysteria, so I have kept still. But if there’s anything you can say to explain yourself, for goodness sake say it! This nightmare has been between us long enough.

MRS. EVERITT

Yes, it has! Too long! And I like your way of saying you had to think of Walter! It was I had to think of my baby! If it hadn’t been for Walter, I wouldn’t have lived with you another day! I kept on at first so that he might be born with a father to look out for him, and then I kept on so that he needn’t grow up in the shame of a divorce. But oh, the pain of it! To keep silent, year after year!