Laura-3a

ACT III--A DOLL'S HOUSE

[The next evening, in the same apartment, Jack and Christine.]

CHRISTINE
The last of those three plays with Laura was A Doll's House, wasn't it, Dad? Tell me about that . . . and going to California.

JACK
Well, I hardly had time to think about what playing George to your mother's Martha might have done to our marriage before I was confronting A Doll's House, our big spring play. I had considered doing Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, but, thinking I might not be able to find enough men for Shakespeare, or know how to handle them all on stage if I did, I settled for A Doll's House, a play for which I also had a particular affection . . . and, yes, a girl for the lead. In odd moments, watching Laura take all that abuse as Honey during Virginia Woolf, I'd imagine her as Nora, assuming she must be putting up with all that nonsense because her turn was coming.

CHRISTINE
And A Doll's House is a particularly good play for a woman.

JACK
It is . . . and was a major turning point in my life. I used to think, if not for that play, I might still be at Wellington. It's not a bad life, directing plays at a good little college. But Betty was no doubt already working on her basic game plan.

CHRISTINE
And she was in A Doll's House, too . . . why was that?

JACK
Well, I'll tell you. I held tryouts the week after Virginia Woolf closed--with Laura at my side. I expected problems with her,

but actually looked forward to them. If I wanted to be a director, I needed be able to handle the emotions of a talented and ambitious college girl--learn to use the energy generated by her misdirected passion to get a good performance from her. [Laughs at Christine's reaction.] Perhaps not quite that cynical. She read the first evening, quite well, but a little nervously, I thought, with no indication she was confident she already had the part which, I admit, pleased me. Still, I knew she had the part. I'd have been surprised if anyone showed up to challenge her, for we were fishing in a fairly small pool of potential actors, and I knew most of them by then. Only half a dozen boys and, particularly disappointing, only three other girls had come to read. The last half hour we just sat there waiting for someone to come in. "Maybe they're all waiting for tomorrow night, do you suppose?" I said, as I checked my watch again. Then Laura asked, "Is your wife going to read for the part?"

CHRISTINE
So evidently she didn't know you'd already decided on her.

JACK
That surprised me. I'd just assumed she knew I meant to use students for the school plays--as we had for The Glass Menagerie. Still, in the previous year she'd been on stage with many faculty members and townspeople. Marge had been Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream, I believe.

CHRISTINE
How else could you cast a Shakespeare play at a small school?

JACK
But I hadn't expected that problem with A Doll's House, and had assumed Laura would be my Nora from the time I

scheduled the play. I responded to her question with a simple, "No . . . I thought you knew. Sorry. I should have told you." But, since I wasn't teaching the acting class that semester, we still didn't have the play cast. I did have girls in the History of the Drama course, but, as I passed them in review, thought, "No, just students, no actresses."

CHRISTINE
I always wondered what a director does in a case like that.

JACK
Well, in that case, I asked your mother myself, the next day at lunch, "How would you like to be in A Doll's House?"

CHRISTINE
And she said, "No, I think I've had enough theatre for a while."

JACK
She said, "I thought you already had your 'doll,' and, since she was such a perfect little doll in 'our' play, I think she deserves a nice plum of a part like that. Don't you?"

CHRISTINE
So she just assumed you were asking her to play Nora.

JACK

Yes, which made me reflect on what I did owe Laura. She had worked hard all year in the theatre office--was busy now arranging with the community theatre people for costumes, scheduling crews for scenery and make up, getting tickets ordered, planning publicity. And she was being careful never to talk about "us," though she did project an assumption that a special relationship existed . . . which it did. I've always

believed in honoring that kind of loyalty--so she had the part. Betty was evidently thinking about this, too, as she carried dishes to the sink, for she suddenly sort of exploded, "Or were you thinking of me for Mrs. Linde?" That was what I was thinking . . . what had made me so apprehensive. Once Betty had said it, it was with a sense of relief that I picked up the argument. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact. As you say, Laura has earned a lead role, and A Doll's House isn't the play I would have picked for you . . . maybe Hedda Gabler."

CHRISTINE
Which you knew Mother wanted to do.

JACK
"So," I said, "I was wondering if you'd be willing to support Laura in this one." I paused for a moment, then decided just to be honest. "The truth is, not enough girls came to tryouts to cast the play, so, yes, I was hoping you'd consider doing Mrs. Linde. It's a good part. I could ask Marge, but . . . "

CHRISTINE
Marge would have been a natural for the part, I would think.

JACK
For a few minutes I thought Betty was going to go into convulsions laughing, and started to say, "So this offer comes out of mild desperation . . . ," when she stopped as suddenly as she had started and, looking at me quite soberly, said, "Sure, Jack. It should be good experience, extend my range as an actress. And it is another chance to be in a play."

CHRISTINE
So she took the role of Mrs. Linde . . . but I thought . . .

JACK
I know . . . just wait. I thought I still saw a little smile around the corners of her mouth, but, from that point on, she took it quite seriously, had re-read the play from the perspective of Mrs. Linde by the time I came home for dinner. But, when I told Laura, she didn't laugh at all. "She will? Play Mrs. Linde? No! Cast it the other way. She's the star. I know that. After Virginia Woolf, everyone in town knows that. And your wife. How am I going to keep all of that straight and play Nora? Feeling guilty all the time! Knowing that everybody is watching me--especially knowing that she's watching me."

CHRISTINE
I try to imagine Laura at my age . . . and Mother, too.

JACK
"Listen!" I said, "You've had two major roles already this year, just as demanding as this one. And you're my choice. Of course Betty's a good actress, but she knows she needs to learn to play supporting roles, too . . . because that's theatre. And she's not a Wellington student. This is a Wellington College play, and that should be the prioriy in casting." Laura just sort of shook her head at that, as if she didn't want the part on those terms, but I was careful not to let her get in any comment before I was done. I told her that I didn't know what Betty and I were going to be doing, where we'd even be, the following year, "I'll talk to Dr. Gordon about playing Dr. Rank, which would give us a regular repertory company pattern." She just looked at me, then sighed. "Well, I really do want to do Nora. But I dread those scenes with her."

CHRISTINE
And Uncle Henry did play Dr. Rank, didn't he?

JACK
He said that if there'd been more students trying out he wouldn't want to take a choice role away from a theatre major, but--if no one else wanted it--he'd sacrifice himself. Betty having agreed to be Mrs. Linde had something to do with it, I'm sure. He said he thought that, given the Virginia Woolf vibes still in the air, and female psychology in general, this casting might make for trouble . . . but he did take the part. And there was no trouble at all at first. From the time rehearsals began, Betty, as always, absolutely subordinated herself to the requirements of the play.

CHRISTINE
And didn't bother you . . . say at home . . . about Laura?

JACK
She never commented again on my relationship with "my little doll"--though that was the way she seemed to think of it. I knew that there'd been nothing "serious" between Laura and me, but did still feel a little guilty about my own motives back when you were born . . . [Smiles.] and perhaps some of my more bemused daydreams involving Laura.

CHRISTINE
Bemused daydreams? I can imagine. Well, Mother always liked to keep her own counsel on such "personal" things.

JACK
I agree. It was as if she'd made up her mind about something related to the way she was appraising Laura. Again, I'd look at the two of them and have a hard time believing Betty was only a few months older. Sometimes she seemed to be older than I was, to be brooding over us--determining our fates, like the wisdom of the ages--though that may be putting it too strongly.

CHRISTINE
Did Uncle Henry speculate about what Mother was thinking?

JACK
When I asked, he was pretty evasive, said we weren't used to thinking of young women as intellectually complicated, and, since she didn't flaunt her reading, or cultivate sophisticated poses, it was hard to realize that things she'd been reading and thinking about were deep and provocative--in both theatre and philosophy. "Her ambition is more intense than that of anyone else I know, Jack," he said, "her sensibilities more acute, and her willingness to work as an actress insatiable. Look at how she's working on this play. In a supporting role, about as heavy as my own, she's working harder than any of the rest of us." So what I got from Henry was what I already knew, that he was as much under her spell as the rest of us. Reflecting on that later, I tried to determine how much he'd been leading me on, how much he already knew, was already advising her. But I decided not. She just kept us all guessing. I knew Betty wanted to be in the play . . . any play. Her other desires were less obvious. At that time we hadn't even heard from Jordan yet, beyond a Christmas card from somewhere in England, so I think her own plans were still undefined. And Henry told me later, "Believe me, Jack, she never took my advice."

CHRISTINE
I believe that. She never did while I knew them.

JACK
I knew that it was her will at work, not Henry's. The letter from Jordan probably was the trigger. I was trying to adjust my own attitudes toward Betty to what had been happening. If it had been a difficult year for me, I could see it might have been

twice as stressful for her. She was newly married, with the responsibilities of managing a household and becoming a mother--with the complications leading to her hysterectomy. Still, it seemed strange to me that, as I watched them together, Betty did seem almost old enough to be Laura's mother--to be Mrs. Linde's age--until I thought, "Well, of course . . . she's acting." And if, from the experiences of that year, Betty was a different woman, I was a different man. If giving birth to you had changed her, becoming a father had changed me, too. And if the soul-searching exercise we had been through in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had been designed by her, I had certainly been a full participant. I still loved her, of course. Always. She seemed even more beautiful, if more mature--the flower in bloom, not just the blossom--and more sexually attractive. The curves that had come down that aisle were just a little more fully developed. [Laughs.] If I seldom thought of her with the same passion I had before we were married, I assumed that that, too, was the natural result of being married.

CHRISTINE
As, most often, it does seem to be.

JACK
Her own passion had always seemed tangential, relative to me, and now, in this new maturity, seemed to be seeking deeper levels of satisfaction that had almost nothing to do with me, no longer a function of a girl's spirit pursuing instinctive biological appetite under the scaffold--it was more complicated than that. A kind of metaphor. The subconscious search for a lost fertility may have been an element, that she'd come to know the sorrow of suffering loss was important, but, to put it in Hawthorne's terms, it was as if she had come to a kind of discovery of evil. Or not that, either . . . perhaps more a loss of faith . . .

CHRISTINE
A loss of faith in her passion?

JACK
No, no. Probably a general loss of faith in everyone and everything, but, at the time, I read it as a pervasive loss of faith in me. She became more and more condescending to me, if not quite as aggressively as she had as Martha--in appraising my performance in little things, at home and around the theatre--even seeming to pity me at times--which was very frustrating. But, in this context, Laura's relative lack of maturity gave her competitive advantages, for she still did have faith, behind that calculating innocence, a faith in the significance of winning, and an apparent faith in me that had not yet been disillusioned.

CHRISTINE
Innocence, and faith--in you. Do you still see Laura that way?

JACK
She's older and more experienced now, isn't she? The irony was that these qualities, in both women, contributed to a relationship that seemed to be working out quite well for A Doll's House. Laura brought the necessary naivete to the character of Nora, the doll wife, even in the timbre of her voice, and Betty's was the voice of experience as Mrs. Linde. We had a pompous education major playing Torvald, who felt right at home dominating Laura--which worked nicely in those early scenes. Then she was obviously enough more intelligent to make the confrontations at the end quite believable. I was pleased with the way her interpretation was shaping up.

CHRISTINE
And Uncle Henry was playing Dr. Rank?

JACK
I remember him telling me that all of Ibsen's doctors appealed to him, that he planned to work his way up, from Rank to Relling, in The Wild Duck, to the big one--to star in his own right as Stockmann in The Enemy of the People--that just playing Ibsen's doctors might give him a whole new career. He would have made an admirable Dr. Stockmann, I thought. I'd still like to direct him as Dr. Stockmann--the idealist willing to destroy everything and everyone in sight for a principle.

CHRISTINE
Do you think a blind man could play a leading role like that?

JACK
He did Samson in Samson Agonistes for your mother, and Tiresias for Jordan. Shoko might have to teach him his lines, but Henry's got the voice . . . and the presence. He was a beautifully pessimistic Dr. Rank. Three of the other cast members weren't students either, the three children, children of three different faculty members. I hated working with children on stage--even in The Scarlet Letter. But the young fellow working on sets with Henry really was a master builder, had learned how to handle tools on one of those tidy Nebraska farms, and had the imagination to design a realistic set that was taking shape nicely by the time we finished blocking.

CHRISTINE
That's one of the things I like about those Ibsen plays--that picture setting of the rooms on the stage that lets you know exactly where you are--and keeps all the action right there.

[As Christine moves off, to come back as Betty, Jack continues to speak to her. Lights come up on Laura, Betty, then Henry.]

JACK
Everything seemed to be going quite well, in fact. Then Laura dropped her bombshell. At rehearsal one evening she simply stopped, just after Mrs. Linde tells Nora she must confess everything to Torvald before he gets Krogstad's letter. Betty had just said . . .

BETTY
Nora, you must tell your husband all about it.

LAURA
[After looking at Betty for so long time Jack begins to cue her line.] I want to change roles.

[Betty, surprised for a brief moment, understands what Laura is suggesting immediately . . . while Jack is totally baffled. She starts to say something, then decides just to leave the problem to them. Henry sits in the back listening, with interest.]

JACK
What do you mean "change roles"? You're doing just fine.

LAURA
No . . . change roles. I have my reasons . . . good reasons.

JACK
Absolutely not! Time is running out. We open . . .

LAURA
I know it'd mean changes, and that Mrs. Curtis is better as the older woman. [She does get a reaction from Betty on that.] But I can't say these lines and mean them. I'm not right for this part. At the end I don't think I can leave . . . and make it convincing.

JACK
This is a play, Laura! Remember what you said about Virginia Woolf? Of course you can make it convincing . . . you already do . . . and we still have plenty of time to work on anything like that. I think everything is great just as it is. Don't you, Betty?

BETTY
Laura is doing very nicely. But I'm just an innocent bystander here. You're the director. Just tell me what to do.

JACK
Henry! Help! I've got a revolt on my hands.

HENRY
[Calmly, as if he already knows about it.] Laura may be right, Jack . . . particularly if she feels that way so strongly . . . though I'd like to see it to be sure.

JACK
Well, let's break for tonight and sleep on it. Then the three of us--Laura, Betty, and I--can meet tomorrow and decide what to do. [Speaking to Christine, who returns to join him.] When we met the next day I still tried to talk Laura out of it, but she remained adamant--insisted on it--while Betty just sat there smiling. So the change was made. It was already obvious at rehearsal that evening that it would work, that Betty would be a strong Nora, and Laura was temperamentally closer to the friend and advisor. Betty already knew most of Nora's lines.

CHRISTINE
So that's how it happened . . . Laura gave her the part. Did she say any more about why she wanted to switch? I think I know . . . but that comes from talking to her later.

JACK
No, she didn't--and it was Laura's motivation that puzzled me most. Then there was a new problem--with you. Since Betty and I were both involved with the play, we'd made baby-sitting arrangements, again, with Peg Brigot. I hated to do that, but it didn't seem to bother your mother at all. It was as if she had completely lost interest in her baby once she was in the play.

CHRISTINE
And you were the one who wasn't even sure I was your child.

JACK
[Laughs.] I was so attached to you by that time that I didn't care. What did it matter? I liked Plato's theory on how children should be raised in the Republic--that all parents of a given age should consider all those a generation younger their children. But Betty was the one acting as if the baby wasn't really hers--or as if she'd been cheated somehow. It wasn't rejection exactly, more withdrawal. She let Peg and Mrs. Brigot take most of the responsibility, even when she was available. I'd come home for dinner to find Betty reading and you still over at the Brigots', and Betty would say, "Well, all of her things are over there already . . . and we'll be going back for rehearsal soon. Emma and Peg don't mind. We did pay Peg for child care, but Emma watched you a lot, too, just as a grandmother might, when Peg was at school, during the day, or when she went back for school activities in the evening--and I was concerned about the imposition. Since I wanted you there when we were home, I'd go over and get you. [Laughs.] I used to speculate about just what the nature of her imaginative experience, her fantasies, must have been. And she would often turn your care over to me at home--then, as I've remarked, watch us from across the room . . . as if we were strangers.

CHRISTINE
That is psychologically interesting, isn't it? What did Uncle Henry say about that?

JACK
Not very much . . . would just shake his head. Then we got the letter from Jordan, saying he'd be back in this country in late May. He gave the address of a friend in New York, saying he'd write again once he got settled, and wondering what we had in mind for the summer. He said he was working on something choice, but might still be open to suggestions--anything except doing the Othello tour across the South again, which reminded him too much of The Royal Nonesuch in Huckleberry Finn. That gave Betty a good laugh, and she was high for a day, low for two or three days, then high again, in a set of mood shifts that baffled me, except that I knew she was thinking about Jordan . . . and about New York. I had considered plans for the summer, but nothing was settled at that point. I'd turned down the opportunity to teach two courses in the summer program at school, but Marge was talking to me about doing something, definitely with Betty, for the Wellington Community Theatre, perhaps Our Town outdoors in the city park.

CHRISTINE
Something like that sounds like a good idea.

JACK

I had also had Laura make inquiries to a number of summer programs, and had written a letter to the Shakespeare festival at the University of Colorado. They'd have taken both Betty and me, I think, largely on the basis of our KU experience. Betty had shown some interest when I'd first suggested Colorado, but hadn't mentioned it, as I might have expected, after Jordan's

letter. So, while I told her to raise that possibility when writing to him, she remained noncommittal. "Why wouldn't Jordan be interested in that as well?" I thought. They were doing Julius Caesar, and he might well wind up as Brutus or Antony, once they saw him on stage, and heard him read Shakespeare, we'd all be together again, and his mother lived close enough that he could almost commute.

CHRISTINE
Jordan didn't suggest stopping to see her when we were driving through Colorado, though. So I've never met his mother.

JACK
I never met his mother, either. Which is strange. [Pause.] At any rate, we were doing A Doll's House just the one weekend--Thursday, Friday, Saturday, with the Wednesday night dress rehearsal for friends and family--instead of the two weekends we'd scheduled for The Glass Menagerie. The women had changed roles two weeks earlier, which gave us time to digest that. Then Henry began to be moody and withdrawn, too, which I attributed in part to his role as Dr. Rank. But I noticed that Henry and Betty were spending more time together. As I'd be working on scenes in which neither of them were involved, they'd be watching and whispering from the back of the theatre, or disappear, saying they'd be working on lines in the green room. But, while I noticed, I was busy with the play, and felt I could straighten things out with Betty when it was over--that I'd have to! By then summer would soon be upon us, and we should be firming up plans that would help us make a general game plan for our future.

CHRISTINE
But she was evidently already planning her surprise for you.

JACK
We did take you to the theatre for a few evening rehearsals, but, as opening night approached, Emma said that you'd be in the way for us and they'd be glad to watch you until the play was over. "We'll want to see your play, of course," she said, "but perhaps Peg and I can come on that dress rehearsal night--and bring the baby." Which is what they did. Emma was a strong woman, and, in spite of my concern, I never heard either Emma or Peg criticize Betty. They were devoted to her. [Jack moves to join Laura, and then picks up the baby.] But, one of the nights we had you at the theatre, in a gratuitous passing provocation, as she stood watching me play with you in the office before rehearsal, and smiling that smile she reserved for special "I've got a secret" occasions, Laura asked . . .
LAURA
And how are you getting along with Nora . . . with your wife?

JACK
Fine, as long as I leave you college girls alone.

LAURA
That's what you think. Us mere maids see a lot of things back in the kitchen that the master of the house may be missing.

JACK
[Taking hold of her arm as she backs away, after having taken the baby from him.] What are you talking about?

[Christine comes in as Betty. Laura looks at her and laughs.]

BETTY
[Stands looking from one to the other as if about to make a scene, then she laughs too.] What's going on here?

JACK
We seem to be fighting over possession of the baby. [Pause.] Oh, I meant to ask you whether the costume made for Laura to dance the tarantella in was going to work for you.
BETTY
Oh, yes, I like that dress very much. It catches the frantic mood of that part of the play so nicely. [Pause, then, looking directly at Laura's bosom.] It had to be let out some right through here. [Placing her hands on her own obviously more ample bosom.] Mrs. Brigot helped me with that earlier today. [Laughs again.] I suppose it's safe to leave the baby with you two. [Then leaves . . . as Jack is walking back to join her as Christine.]

JACK
When we got to that scene that evening I noticed the dress had been let out there. Betty must have liked it, because she took it with her when she left. I made sure I paid the college for it.

CHRISTINE
I think she still had that dress . . . I think I saw her do that scene in it once . . . and wear it once later on stage . . . in what . . . ?

JACK

Laura was careful for the rest of the evening to avoid contact, just smiling from a distance when she wasn't occupied with her own problems in the play. I decided she'd just been teasing me. It was obvious that something was wrong between Betty and me, and I thought that perhaps Betty might have said something to Henry in Laura's hearing that had provoked her comment, but she was probably just guessing, and I preferred "no more complications until the show goes on, please!" Which it did-- a good solid production. I was even pleased Laura had insisted

upon the change in roles, for I could really believe Betty as Nora, thought as I watched her, "God, she is that woman!" And when she went out the door at the end, it was with a determination that was absolutely convincing.
CHRISTINE
And you never saw her again.

JACK
[Laughs.] Not for a while. Betty was especially withdrawn and brooding between performances, but I humored this, not wanting to interfere with her concentration. We did manage to have you at home during the day--though I looked after you almost all day that Saturday, as Betty went shopping. Then it was the last performance, Saturday night, and I thought, "Well, it's over. Now to see what I can do about setting things right with my wife. Jordan may be back by now. I'll try to call him about that Shakespeare Festival in Colorado." [Pause.] But it didn't work out that way. As I stood watching the performance, I was already unwinding, and looked forward to helping her unwind after the show. Mix a drink, put our feet up, and watch a little television. I got a spark of hope, in fact, from the look she gave me during that last set of speeches. She was obviously looking across Torvald to where I was standing off stage as she delivered those closing lines. Then she went out. I got tied up talking to Marge and others who'd seen the play that last night, but finally began to wonder why I didn't see Betty, what was taking her so long with her make up, and went to check. She wasn't in the theatre, but then neither was anyone else in the cast. Then I remembered that the cast party was at our house, and assumed Betty had gone on ahead to get things ready. Our car was still there, but Henry's wasn't, so I thought, "Henry must have taken her. That was good of him."

CHRISTINE
Wasn't it?
JACK
When I got to the house most of the cast was there, all right, three or four cars parked in front. But I didn't see Henry's car, which set up a troubling echo, a "Well, then where . . .?" Laura met me at the door with a big smile, and a drink in her hand. I frowned, as the thought of contributing to the delinquency of a minor flickered through my mind, but she handed the drink to me, saying, "Here, you may need this." I went looking for Betty. She wasn't there. But in on the dresser there were two neatly folded notes one from her and one from Henry explaining how they had decided to go to New York together. Betty's note said she was sure I'd understand that she was an actress, not a wife, or a mother, and that now that Jordan was coming back fate had seemed to endorse that. She planned to hold him to his promise to help her get established in New York. "Now is the time, Jack . . . for me." Henry apologized for the deception, said he'd tried to reason with Betty about timing, about talking to me first, but that she'd said that a sharp break, like Nora's in the play, would be best.

CHRISTINE
That's probably true.

JACK
I didn't accept that, of course--and distrusted his motives, too. "Given a chance, who wouldn't run off with Betty," I thought. They hadn't told me because Betty knew I'd insist on going along. I've never forgiven either one of them--but I'd really known from the beginning that I couldn't hold Betty, and that had been reinforced in a hundred ways that year in Wellington.

CHRISTINE
Did it surprise you that she left me with you?
JACK
At first I felt it was adding insult to injury--if I can call such a charming baby an insult. She'd written that I'd take better care of you, had more of the "mother's instinct," that, since her own future would be so uncertain, while mine should be stable--with a good steady job, and Mrs. Brigot's help--she knew leaving you with me was best. I just stood there in a state of shock, mumbling her name. When I turned around, there was Laura, in the doorway, holding another drink, as if it were part of her costume. This time she took a sip herself, smiled and said, "But you still have me . . . loyal little Laura." And so I did.

CHRISTINE
We both did. Mother had decided I was better off with you, and you were better off with Laura. And I think she was right.

JACK
But it seemed she'd simply thrown me away . . . to run off with Henry, had decided, "Jack's better off here with the baby . . . and with Laura, who'll be such a good little mother . . . and settling for this mediocrity." But Laura was all smiles.

CHRISTINE
I think the main reason Laura had insisted on changing roles was to put Mother in the position of the wife who leaves her husband, knowing how she'd embrace any stage role. Laura has always had that kind of skill in reading the motives of others. She wouldn't have told you everything she'd figured out, either. I can just imagine how much she enjoyed handing you that drink at the door, and then watching you be surprised.

JACK
I'm sure you're right. In the course of doing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Betty had, in effect, stepped out of my life. Laura had seen that--then had provided her with the perfect exit scene. In leaving Betty saw herself as running away from both the amateur and the domestic--for good. I'd become associated in her mind with the college theatre she now meant to transcend--and with home and babies--for she saw me as happy directing plays at Wellington and sitting on the sofa with you on my lap happy in the world she could no longer abide. We were "an encumbrance." And Henry was available to take her to New York--the car, the companionship, the moral support. I could imagine him thinking, "Well, Jack has Laura, and everybody here in Wellington, while Betty is going out to face the big world alone, so needs a champion." He told me later, "Much simpler, Jack. Betty asked me to go, so I went." At first I thought he'd be back by the time school started in the fall, with his own shattered illusions, but Laura said, "No, Dr. Gordon wanted to run away, too, and just needed an excuse. He was able to run away on your wife's courage. He'd been here long enough." While I saw Henry as helping Betty with her problem, Laura saw her as helping him with his.
CHRISTINE
Laura should have been a psychologist.

JACK
Indirectly, Betty had also given me the courage to run though I ran the other way. I'd probably have stayed at Wellington another year--then who knows how long--like poor old George in Virginia Woolf--if Betty had been content to be a faculty wife. But when Laura moved in with me it definitely put an end to that future, which is no doubt one reason I let her do it.

CHRISTINE
So you let Laura move in? How long after Mother left?
JACK
She was ready to move in that night they left. I resisted for a week or so--maybe ten days, still thinking that I'd hear from Betty, or Jordan . . . telling me to come join them. But Laura knew she had me, played me with the delight and skill of a fisherman who's hooked the fish he's been after for months and wants to make the most of the experience of landing him. I knew I was being manipulated by a woman again, and, as is my wont, finally let it happen. We both had final exams. I left you with Emma when necessary, but had you home with me when I was there--grading papers, watching television, and brooding. I fixed meals--often had when Betty was there--but we frequently went out to eat, sometimes with Laura, who enjoyed fussing with you. Then, the afternoon I handed in final grades, she suggested she come fix dinner for us--to celebrate--looking me right in the eye and not saying, "And I'll bring my suitcases." She didn't--but she stayed. There was a minor shock wave in the academic community. Some felt that Betty had left me because of what was going on between Laura and me. I had a conference with President Wharton and asked to be relieved of the contract obligation for the following year, telling him my plans had changed and I was going back out to the West Coast. He said he was sorry to see me leave, but that my "life style" had become a bit irregular for Wellington. He was most surprised by Henry, he said--suggesting, I suppose, you might expect anything from "theatre people," but the faculty members in more traditional disciplines should be more dependable.

CHRISTINE
It sounds like Uncle Henry may have left a few loose ends.

JACK
Henry had given exams, early, and submitted grades, but, yes . . . a few loose ends. I was scrupulous about my own obligations to the college, and with everyone in Wellington--for both Betty and myself--to make sure it was a clean break. I was giving up a comfortable academic position--but it didn't mean anything with Betty gone. There'd been those periods when our talents had happened to meet, in half a dozen plays . . . most memorably under Hawthorne's scaffold. That had been real--the rest dream and illusion. If Betty had decided to affirm herself as an actress, I would affirm myself as a writer. I'd follow her example, but by going to the other coast, where the movie and TV action was for a writer. Laura thought that was great, was as cheerful as I've ever seen a woman, which did a lot for my own morale. She cared for you, from the first, as if you were her own child, and, when I told her I wasn't sure you were mine, must have laughed for ten minutes, telling me that's every father's problem, and pointing out features of yours she said must have come from me. She was delighted to be living in sin, too, which made her as delicious as any stolen watermelon. When, that first night, she said, "You could have been having this all winter long," I laughed too.
CHRISTINE
So she'd known what she wanted--and had played to get it.

JACK
So it seems. Her new image even gave her a kind of romantic prestige among students who were still in town, though she never had the close relationship with the Brigots Betty had had. Once she was living with me, we seldom needed help, and Peg seemed convinced that it was Betty who had been betrayed, by Laura, who was now taking the baby away from her, too.

CHRISTINE
In spite of all, they had become close to mother, hadn't they?
JACK
I would think, as I'd see Emma working in the back yard, or doing dishes with Peg at her sink by the kitchen window, that the problems of these college people must seem self-inflicted to her. She had expressed her concern about Betty, but, after Laura moved in, hardly talked to either of us. I didn't see much of that good woman our last two weeks in Wellington.

CHRISTINE
Then it was off to California . . . for you, and me, and Laura.

JACK
Yes, in that old Chevy station wagon Betty and I bought in Kansas when we got married, and that she and Jordan and I had used the previous summer for our tour with Othello. I explained the problems I'd be facing to Laura, and how it just didn't make sense for her to get involved. She said, "How can I get any more involved than I already am? You don't think I can go back home after this, do you? You met my father." It made her laugh just to think about it. "Wither thou goest, I will follow. You'll be a big success, make lots of money, and buy me nice things. Besides, for a Nebraska girl a trip to California is the great adventure. I may become a movie star!" Once we were under way, I was glad to be making the trip with that buoyant spirit in the seat beside me. And I really did need her help with you. Ironically, I probably needed her more than Betty had needed Henry. Men and women do need each other.

CHRISTINE
[Smiling.] So it seems.