Chapter 1

Transcribed from “The Sleeping Car and Other Farces” 1911 Houghton Mifflin Company edition by David Price, email [email protected]

THE PARLOR-CAR. Farce.

SCENE: A Parlor-Car on the New York Central Railroad. It is late afternoon in the early autumn, with a cloudy sunset threatening rain. The car is unoccupied save by a gentleman, who sits fronting one of the windows, with his feet in another chair; a newspaper lies across his lap; his hat is drawn down over his eyes, and he is apparently asleep. The rear door of the car opens, and the conductor enters with a young lady, heavily veiled, the porter coming after with her wraps and travelling-bags. The lady’s air is of mingled anxiety and desperation, with a certain fierceness of movement. She casts a careless glance over the empty chairs.

* * * * *

_Conductor_: “Here’s your ticket, madam. You can have any of the places you like here, or,”—glancing at the unconscious gentleman, and then at the young lady,—“if you prefer, you can go and take that seat in the forward car.”

_Miss Lucy Galbraith_: “Oh, I can’t ride backwards. I’ll stay here, please. Thank you.” The porter places her things in a chair by a window, across the car from the sleeping gentleman, and she throws herself wearily into the next seat, wheels round in it, and lifting her veil gazes absently out at the landscape. Her face, which is very pretty, with a low forehead shadowed by thick blond hair, shows the traces of tears. She makes search in her pocket for her handkerchief, which she presses to her eyes. The conductor, lingering a moment, goes out.

_Porter_: “I’ll be right here, at de end of de cah, if you should happen to want anything, miss,”—making a feint of arranging the shawls and satchels. “Should you like some dese things hung up? Well, dey’ll be jus’ as well in de chair. We’s pretty late dis afternoon; more’n four hours behin’ time. Ought to been into Albany ‘fore dis. Freight train off de track jus’ dis side o’ Rochester, an’ had to wait. Was you going to stop at Schenectady, miss?”

_Miss Galbraith_, absently: “At Schenectady?” After a pause, “Yes.”

_Porter_: “Well, that’s de next station, and den de cahs don’t stop ag’in till dey git to Albany. Anything else I can do for you now, miss?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “No, no, thank you, nothing.” The _Porter_ hesitates, takes off his cap, and scratches his head with a murmur of embarrassment. _Miss Galbraith_ looks up at him inquiringly and then suddenly takes out her porte-monnaie, and fees him.

_Porter_: “Thank you, miss, thank you. If you want anything at all, miss, I’m right dere at de end of de cah.” He goes out by the narrow passage-way beside the smaller enclosed parlor. _Miss Galbraith_ looks askance at the sleeping gentleman, and then, rising, goes to the large mirror, to pin her veil, which has become loosened from her hat. She gives a little start at sight of the gentleman in the mirror, but arranges her head-gear, and returning to her place looks out of the window again. After a little while she moves about uneasily in her chair, then leans forward, and tries to raise her window; she lifts it partly up, when the catch slips from her fingers, and the window falls shut again with a crash.

_Miss Galbraith_: “Oh, _dear_, how provoking! I suppose I must call the porter.” She rises from her seat, but on attempting to move away she finds that the skirt of her polonaise has been caught in the falling window. She pulls at it, and then tries to lift the window again, but the cloth has wedged it in, and she cannot stir it. “Well, I certainly think this is beyond endurance! Porter! Ah,—Porter! Oh, he’ll never hear me in the racket that these wheels are making! I wish they’d stop,—I”—The gentleman stirs in his chair, lifts his head, listens, takes his feet down from the other seat, rises abruptly, and comes to _Miss Galbraith’s_ side.

_Mr. Allen Richards_: “Will you allow me to open the window for you?” Starting back, “Miss Galbraith!”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Al— Mr. Richards!” There is a silence for some moments, in which they remain looking at each other; then,—

_Mr. Richards_: “Lucy”—

_Miss Galbraith_: “I forbid you to address me in that way, Mr. Richards.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Why, you were just going to call me Allen!”

_Miss Galbraith_: “That was an accident, you know very well,—an impulse”—

_Mr. Richards_: “Well, so is this.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Of which you ought to be ashamed to take advantage. I wonder at your presumption in speaking to me at all. It’s quite idle, I can assure you. Everything is at an end between us. It seems that I bore with you too long; but I’m thankful that I had the spirit to not at last, and to act in time. And now that chance has thrown us together, I trust that you will not force your conversation upon me. No gentleman would, and I have always given you credit for thinking yourself a gentleman. I request that you will not speak to me.”

_Mr. Richards_: “You’ve spoken ten words to me for every one of mine to you. But I won’t annoy you. I can’t believe it, Lucy; I can _not_ believe it. It seems like some rascally dream, and if I had had any sleep since it happened, I should think I—”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Oh! You were sleeping soundly enough when I got into the car!”

_Mr. Richards_: “I own it; I was perfectly used up, and I _had_ dropped off.”

_Miss Galbraith_, scornfully: “Then perhaps you _have_ dreamed it.”

_Mr. Richards_: “I’ll think so till you tell me again that our engagement is broken; that the faithful love of years is to go for nothing; that you dismiss me with cruel insult, without one word of explanation, without a word of intelligible accusation, even. It’s too much! I’ve been thinking it all over and over, and I can’t make head or tail of it. I meant to see you again as soon as we got to town, and implore you to hear me. Come, it’s a mighty serious matter, Lucy. I’m not a man to put on heroics and that; but _I_ believe it’ll play the very deuce with me, Lucy,—that is to say, Miss Galbraith,—I do indeed. It’ll give me a low opinion of woman.”

_Miss Galbraith_, averting her face: “Oh, a very high opinion of woman you have had!”

_Mr. Richards_, with sentiment: “Well, there was one woman whom I thought a perfect angel.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Indeed! May I ask her name?”

_Mr. Richards_, with a forlorn smile. “I shall be obliged to describe her somewhat formally as—Miss Galbraith.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Mr. Richards!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Why, you’ve just forbidden me to say _Lucy_! You must tell me, dearest, what I have done to offend you. The worst criminals are not condemned unheard, and I’ve always thought you were merciful if not just. And now I only ask you to be just.”

_Miss Galbraith_, looking out of the window: “You know very well what you’ve done. You can’t expect me to humiliate myself by putting your offence into words.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Upon my soul, I don’t know what you mean! I _don’t_ know what I’ve done. When you came at me, last night, with my ring and presents and other little traps, you might have knocked me down with the lightest of the lot. I was perfectly dazed; I couldn’t say anything before you were off, and all I could do was to hope that you’d be more like yourself in the morning. And in the morning, when I came round to Mrs. Philips’s, I found you were gone, and I came after you by the next train.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Mr. Richards, your personal history for the last twenty-four hours is a matter of perfect indifference to me, as it shall be for the next twenty-four hundred years. I see that you are resolved to annoy me, and since you will not leave the car, I must do so.” She rises haughtily from her seat, but the imprisoned skirt of her polonaise twitches her abruptly back into her chair. She bursts into tears. “Oh, what _shall_ I do?”

_Mr. Richards_, dryly: “You shall do whatever you like, Miss Galbraith, when I’ve set you free; for I see your dress is caught in the window. When it’s once out, I’ll shut the window, and you can call the porter to raise it.” He leans forward over her chair, and while she shrinks back the length of her tether, he tugs at the window-fastening. “I can’t get at it. Would you be so good as to stand up,—all you can?” Miss Galbraith stands up, droopingly, and Mr. Richards makes a movement towards her, and then falls back. “No, that won’t do. Please sit down again.” He goes round her chair and tries to get at the window from that side. “I can’t get any purchase on it. Why don’t you cut out that piece?” Miss Galbraith stares at him in dumb amazement. “Well, I don’t see what we’re to do: I’ll go and get the porter.” He goes to the end of the car, and returns. “I can’t find the porter,—he must be in one of the other cars. But”—brightening with the fortunate conception—“I’ve just thought of something. Will it unbutton?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Unbutton?”

_Mr. Richards_: “Yes; this garment of yours.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “My polonaise?” Inquiringly, “Yes.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Well, then, it’s a very simple matter. If you will just take it off I can easily”—

_Miss Galbraith_, faintly: “I can’t. A polonaise isn’t like an overcoat”—

_Mr. Richards_, with dismay: “Oh! Well, then”—He remains thinking a moment in hopeless perplexity.

_Miss Galbraith_, with polite ceremony: “The porter will be back soon. Don’t trouble yourself any further about it, please. I shall do very well.”

_Mr. Richards_, without heeding her: “If you could kneel on that foot-cushion, and face the window”—

_Miss Galbraith_, kneeling promptly: “So?”

_Mr. Richards_: “Yes, and now”—kneeling beside her—“if you’ll allow me to—to get at the window-catch,”—he stretches both arms forward; she shrinks from his right into his left, and then back again,—“and pull while I raise the window”—

_Miss Galbraith_: “Yes, yes; but do hurry, please. If any one saw us, I don’t know what they would think. It’s perfectly ridiculous!”—pulling. “It’s caught in the corner of the window, between the frame and the sash, and it won’t come! Is my hair troubling you? Is it in your eyes?”

_Mr. Richards_: “It’s in my eyes, but it isn’t troubling me. Am I inconveniencing you?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Oh, not at all.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Well, now then, pull hard!” He lifts the window with a great effort; the polonaise comes free with a start, and she strikes violently against him. In supporting the shock he cannot forbear catching her for an instant to his heart. She frees herself, and starts indignantly to her feet.

_Miss Galbraith_: “Oh, what a cowardly—subterfuge!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Cowardly? You’ve no idea how much courage it took.” Miss Galbraith puts her handkerchief to her face, and sobs. “Oh, don’t cry! Bless my heart,—I’m sorry I did it! But you know how dearly I love you, Lucy, though I do think you’ve been cruelly unjust. I told you I never should love any one else, and I never shall. I couldn’t help it; upon my soul, I couldn’t. Nobody could. Don’t let it vex you, my”—He approaches her.

_Miss Galbraith_: “Please not touch me, sir! You have no longer any right whatever to do so.”

_Mr. Richards_: “You misinterpret a very inoffensive gesture. I have no idea of touching you, but I hope I may be allowed, as a special favor, to—pick up my hat, which you are in the act of stepping on.” Miss Galbraith hastily turns, and strikes the hat with her whirling skirts; it rolls to the other side of the parlor, and Mr. Richards, who goes after it, utters an ironical “Thanks!” He brushes it, and puts it on, looking at her where she has again seated herself at the window with her back to him, and continues, “As for any further molestation from me”—

_Miss Galbraith_: “If you _will_ talk to me”—

_Mr. Richards_: “Excuse me, I am not talking to you.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “What were you doing?”

_Mr. Richards_: “I was beginning to think aloud. I—I was soliloquizing. I suppose I may be allowed to soliloquize?”

_Miss Galbraith_, very coldly: “You can do what you like.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Unfortunately that’s just what I can’t do. If I could do as I liked, I should ask you a single question.”

_Miss Galbraith_, after a moment: “Well, sir, you may ask your question.” She remains as before, with her chin in her hand, looking tearfully out of the window; her face is turned from Mr. Richards, who hesitates a moment before he speaks.

_Mr. Richards_: “I wish to ask you just this, Miss Galbraith: if you couldn’t ride backwards in the other car, why do you ride backwards in this?”

_Miss Galbraith_, burying her face in her handkerchief, and sobbing: “Oh, oh, oh! This is too bad!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Oh, come now, Lucy. It breaks my heart to hear you going on so, and all for nothing. Be a little merciful to both of us, and listen to me. I’ve no doubt I can explain everything if I once understand it, but it’s pretty hard explaining a thing if you don’t understand it yourself. Do turn round. I know it makes you sick to ride in that way, and if you don’t want to face me—there!”—wheeling in his chair so as to turn his back upon her—“you needn’t. Though it’s rather trying to a fellow’s politeness, not to mention his other feelings. Now, what in the name”—

_Porter_, who at this moment enters with his step-ladder, and begins to light the lamps: “Going pretty slow ag’in, sah.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Yes; what’s the trouble?”

_Porter_: “Well, I don’t know exactly, sah. Something de matter with de locomotive. We sha’n’t be into Albany much ‘fore eight o’clock.”

_Mr. Richards_: “What’s the next station?”

_Porter_: “Schenectady.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Is the whole train as empty as this car?”

_Porter_, laughing: “Well, no, sah. Fact is, dis cah don’t belong on dis train. It’s a Pullman that we hitched on when you got in, and we’s taking it along for one of de Eastern roads. We let you in ‘cause de Drawing-rooms was all full. Same with de lady,”—looking sympathetically at her, as he takes his steps to go out. “Can I do anything for you now, miss?”

_Miss Galbraith_, plaintively: “No, thank you; nothing whatever.” She has turned while _Mr. Richards_ and _The Porter_ have been speaking, and now faces the back of the former, but her veil is drawn closely. _The Porter_ goes out.

_Mr. Richards_, wheeling round so as to confront her: “I wish you would speak to me half as kindly as you do to that darky, Lucy.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “_He_ is a _gentleman_!”

_Mr. Richards_: “He is an urbane and well-informed nobleman. At any rate, he’s a man and a brother. But so am I.” _Miss Galbraith_ does not reply, and after a pause _Mr. Richards_ resumes. “Talking of gentlemen, I recollect, once, coming up on the day-boat to Poughkeepsie, there was a poor devil of a tipsy man kept following a young fellow about, and annoying him to death—trying to fight him, as a tipsy man will, and insisting that the young fellow had insulted him. By and by he lost his balance and went overboard, and the other jumped after him and fished him out.” Sensation on the part of _Miss Galbraith_, who stirs uneasily in her chair, looks out of the window, then looks at _Mr. Richards_, and drops her head. “There was a young lady on board, who had seen the whole thing—a very charming young lady indeed, with pale blond hair growing very thick over her forehead, and dark eyelashes to the sweetest blue eyes in the world. Well, this young lady’s papa was amongst those who came up to say civil things to the young fellow when he got aboard again, and to ask the honor—he said the _honor_—of his acquaintance. And when he came out of his stateroom in dry clothes, this infatuated old gentleman was waiting for him, and took him and introduced him to his wife and daughter; and the daughter said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxicating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had ever seen, and she should always be a better girl for having seen it. Excuse me, Miss Galbraith, for troubling you with these facts of a personal history, which, as you say, is a matter of perfect indifference to you. The young fellow didn’t think at the time he had done anything extraordinary; but I don’t suppose he _did_ expect to live to have the same girl tell him he was no gentleman.”

_Miss Galbraith_, wildly: “O Allen, Allen! You _know_ I think you are a gentleman, and I always did!”

_Mr. Richards_, languidly: “Oh, I merely had your word for it, just now, that you didn’t.” Tenderly, “Will you hear me, Lucy?”

_Miss Galbraith_, faintly: “Yes.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Well, what is it I’ve done? Will you tell me if I guess right?”

_Miss Galbraith_, with dignity: “I am in no humor for jesting, Allen. And I can assure you that though I consent to hear what you have to say, or ask, _nothing_ will change my determination. All is over between us.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Yes, I understand that, perfectly. I am now asking merely for general information. I do not expect you to relent, and, in fact, I should consider it rather frivolous if you did. No. What I have always admired in your character, Lucy, is a firm, logical consistency; a clearness of mental vision that leaves no side of a subject unsearched; and an unwavering constancy of purpose. You may say that these traits are characteristic of _all_ women; but they are pre-eminently characteristic of you, Lucy.” _Miss Galbraith_ looks askance at him, to make out whether he is in earnest or not; he continues, with a perfectly serious air. “And I know now that if you’re offended with me, it’s for no trivial cause.” She stirs uncomfortably in her chair. “What I have done I can’t imagine, but it must be something monstrous, since it has made life with me appear so impossible that you are ready to fling away your own happiness—for I know you _did_ love me, Lucy—and destroy mine. I will begin with the worst thing I can think of. Was it because I danced so much with Fanny Watervliet?”

_Miss Galbraith_, indignantly: “How can you insult me by supposing that I could be jealous of such a perfect little goose as that? No, Allen! Whatever I think of you, I still respect you too much for that.”

_Mr. Richards_: “I’m glad to hear that there are yet depths to which you think me incapable of descending, and that Miss Watervliet is one of them. I will now take a little higher ground. Perhaps you think I flirted with Mrs. Dawes. I thought, myself, that the thing might begin to have that appearance, but I give you my word of honor that as soon as the idea occurred to me, I dropped her—rather rudely, too. The trouble was, don’t you know, that I felt so perfectly safe with a _married_ friend of yours. I couldn’t be hanging about you all the time, and I was afraid I might vex you if I went with the other girls; and I didn’t know what to do.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “I think you behaved rather silly, giggling so much with her. But”—

_Mr. Richards_: “I own it, I know it was silly. But”—

_Miss Galbraith_: “It wasn’t that; it wasn’t that!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Was it my forgetting to bring you those things from your mother?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “No!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Was it because I hadn’t given up smoking yet?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “You _know_ I never asked you to give up smoking. It was entirely your own proposition.”

_Mr. Richards_: “That’s true. That’s what made me so easy about it. I knew I could leave it off _any_ time. Well, I will not disturb you any longer, Miss Galbraith.” He throws his overcoat across his arm, and takes up his travelling-bag. “I have failed to guess your fatal—conundrum; and I have no longer any excuse for remaining. I am going into the smoking-car. Shall I send the porter to you for anything?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “No, thanks.” She puts up her handkerchief to her face.

_Mr. Richards_: “Lucy, do you send me away?”

_Miss Galbraith_, behind her handkerchief: “You were going, yourself.”

_Mr. Richards_, over his shoulder: “Shall I come back?”

_Miss Galbraith_: “I have no right to drive you from the car.”

_Mr. Richards_, coming back, and sitting down in the chair nearest her: “Lucy, dearest, tell me what’s the matter.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “O Allen! your not _knowing_ makes it all the more hopeless and killing. It shows me that we _must_ part; that you would go on, breaking my heart, and grinding me into the dust as long as we lived.” She sobs. “It shows me that you never understood me, and you never will. I know you’re good and kind and all that, but that only makes your not understanding me so much the worse. I do it quite as much for your sake as my own, Allen.”

_Mr. Richards_: “I’d much rather you wouldn’t put yourself out on my account.”

_Miss Galbraith_, without regarding him: “If you could mortify me before a whole roomful of people, as you did last night, what could I expect after marriage but continual insult?”

_Mr. Richards_, in amazement: “_How_ did I mortify you? I thought that I treated you with all the tenderness and affection that a decent regard for the feelings of others would allow. I was ashamed to find I couldn’t keep away from you.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “Oh, you were _attentive_ enough, Allen; nobody denies that. Attentive enough in non-essentials. Oh, yes!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Well, what vital matters did I fail in? I’m sure I can’t remember.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “I dare say! I dare say they won’t appear vital to you, Allen. Nothing does. And if I had told you, I should have been met with ridicule, I suppose. But I knew _better_ than to tell; I respected myself too _much_.”

_Mr. Richards_: “But now you mustn’t respect yourself _quite_ so much, dearest. And I promise you I won’t laugh at the most serious thing. I’m in no humor for it. If it were a matter of life and death, even, I can assure you that it wouldn’t bring a smile to my countenance. No, indeed! If you expect me to laugh, now, you must say something particularly funny.”

_Miss Galbraith_: “I was not going to say anything funny, as you call it, and I will say nothing at all, if you talk in that way.”

_Mr. Richards_: “Well, I won’t, then. But do you know what I suspect, Lucy? I wouldn’t mention it to everybody, but I will to you—in strict confidence: I suspect that you’re rather ashamed of your grievance, if you have any. I suspect it’s nothing at all.”

_Miss Galbraith_, very sternly at first, with a rising hysterical inflection: “Nothing, Allen! Do you call it _nothing_, to have Mrs. Dawes come out with all that about your accident on your way up the river, and ask me if it didn’t frighten me terribly to hear of it, even after it was all over; and I had to say you hadn’t told me a word of it? ‘Why, Lucy!’”—angrily mimicking Mrs. Dawes,—“‘you must teach him better than that. I make Mr. Dawes tell me everything.’ Little simpleton! And then to have them all laugh—Oh, dear, it’s too much!”

_Mr. Richards_: “Why, my dear Lucy”—

_Miss Galbraith_, interrupting him: “I saw just how it was going to be, and I’m thankful, _thankful_ that it happened. I saw that you didn’t care enough for me to take me into your whole life; that you despised and distrusted me, and that it would get worse and worse to the end of our days; that we should grow farther and farther apart, and I should be left moping at home, while you ran about making confidantes of other women whom you considered _worthy_ of your confidence. It all _flashed_ upon me in an _instant_; and I resolved to break with you, then and there; and I did, just as soon as ever I could go to my room for your things, and I’m glad,—yes,—Oh, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu!—_so_ glad I did it!”

_Mr. Richards_, grimly: “Your joy is obvious. May I ask”—