The Welkin act 2 [Lizzy]

[top of scene]

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Emma: DOES THE COURT NOT KEEP ITS CHIMNEYS SWEPT?

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EMMA. Look at it! Look at it! Ruined. Sarah Smith, look at this bodice!

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ANN. Mr Coombes, I think we must give up our endeavour, we cannot discharge our duties in such

What? No, look, there is milk! There is proof! Sally it is alright. You are with child! They cannot deny that now.

SALLY. S'what I been saying.

Let us vote again. Them as can see the proof in this glass and believe Sally to be with quick child, raise your hands.

But…that cannot be all. That is milk. It is proof.

Charlotte: It is black.

No…no, that’s soot! Look - or taste it, that's sweet.

Anyway you all saw it, did you not? You cannot deny it! Peg? I saw you look, you dassent tell me you didn't see.

PEG. I don't know what I saw. It happened so quick.

Liar!

Sarah Smith: And I.

They all of them saw it! You cannot mean to ignore the truth simply cos that's inconvenient to you, you would not do such a, such a wickedness!

SALLY. What is happening?

It is alright Sally.

Please. Please.

Sarah Hollis, surely you do not think me a liar? What reason have I to lie? That is evidence. That is truth, look at it! LOOK AT IT!

Mrs Cary, look at it!

No!

Sally: I don't understand - you asked for milk, I gave you milk -

It is alright. We will

Sally: No! I will not die for an audience! I will not be a fvcking exhibit!

Listen to me, it is not over. We will petition the magistrate to stay your sentence

Sally: He will not give it!

A month or two longer and the signs will be obvious.

Sally: I can have a doctor? Fvckssake, why did nobody say?

We do not need a doctor to dictate to us, we are twelve grown women.

Kitty: Me too.

Why should the word of a doctor mean more to you than my own? When I brought your children into the world, you trusted me then did you not? When the curse was upon you, when your babies would not take the breast, or your milk would not come, when it was the middle of the night and you did not need anything but lie on a warm lap and cry, when your nipples cracked and your pitchers split and your husbands could not get it up, you trusted me then! It was not Doctor Willis you sought then, was it?

Sally: You waste your time appealing to their honour, they are not honourable women. Fetch the doctor.

We do not need the doctor, I have shown you milk!

Charlotte: You have shown us a glass of darkness that appeared magically while our attention was wrapped in prayer.

Magic? You cannot possibly - whatever you think of her, I am a respectable woman, why will you not believe me?

Sally: Are you dense? You have no authority here. If they must hear the truth from someone a foot taller with a deep voice then let them.

No. I want one of you cussed mawthers to look me in the eye and tell me why you do not trust me!

Kitty: Don't gimme that, the woman's parched! And if you whiddle on us Mr Coombes I shall whiddle on you and if I whiddle on you, you'll know about it.

What? No.

[Sarah Hollis whispers]

No.

No, that's not, that is not, I don't know what you're

[SH whispers again]

No.

No!

Sarah Hollis: I would. Like

No!

Sarah Hollis: to speak

No!

Judith: Lizzy!

She's cracked, she, she dun't know what she's

Sarah Hollis: …is important.

It's fudge!

Sarah Hollis: They have to -

She's flamming!

No, why are you doin this? What'd I ever do to you maw?

Sarah Hollis: I must

SHUT UP. SHUT UP.

Emma: Here, take my handkerchief.

This is, that is a dirty wickedness, what she is

Sarah Hollis: Oh. Yes, so this is my point, it was in the woods the following Spring, she was on her knees dragging that one out of Lizzy.

Congratulations Mrs Hollis, you have wasted us ten minutes on a fairy tale, perhaps we might now return to the job in hand?

SALLY: Shut up.

Sally, Mrs Hollis has not been well these last years, your mother, she will tell you, you may ask her

Sally: I don't need to ask her. She's told me enough times that she bought me off you for a bullseye and though she begged you many a time you would not take me back again.

There, that's stopped you talking hasn't it, thank fvck for that.

Well that is pure gammon, that.

Sally: Is it now?

Yes that is. That is. That is, I don't like to bring this up but I hear Janet is a slusspot rather too fond of a drop of sky blue, so

Sarah Smith: I said that'll do gal!

I wish Mrs Hollis had not chosen today to run her mouth, but here we be.

You do not think that slarver is truth, Sarah?

Sarah Smith: I am 83 years old and have never left this town. I know it is.

Your mother never came to me, Sally.

Sally: Liar.

I never exchanged a word with Janet Cobb, never even met her.

Helen: Who was the father?

I was working in the Wax household as a maid of all work and quartered in a garret room. I was thirteen and very ignorant. I did not know to put the chest of drawers against the door when Mr Wax and his friends came visiting from Oxford. I can't tell you who the gentleman was as it was dark so he was more of a smell and a stubble than anything else. I went home when I started to show. I expected mother to be on the high ropes but she said she would speak to a local woman who had recently lost a child in labour, who would be happy to take it. I was not aware payment changed hands but. Perhaps…my mother was…very careful with money.

Sarah Smith: Susan'd lick the whitening off the wall.

I said would that not be a very wicked thing to do and she said no, because I was not to do anything. I only had to let it happen.

So I took it - you - back to the woods and I laid you on a stump and I turned around and counted to a hundred. And whoever come, I did not even hear them, for I was staring up at the sky and could hear only bird song and cows moaning and somewhere nearby the pounding of a butter churn.

And when I came to a hundred and turned round you were gone. So went home. Boiled the linens.

There you are then. You all have one more wrinkle in your ar$e now don't you?

Ann: I agree, you should have told us

And have you decide I am governed by my womb and not my brain? Accuse me of feeling and not thinking, when I have come here as a rational creature, not some duzzy mawther -

Helen: No-one thinks you duzzy.

Yes. Yes they do, cos Mrs Hollis could not keep her potato trap shut!

Emma: You lied to us!

That's got no bearing on our discussion, none whatsoever

Helen: Lizzy, you must admit, you have a bond with the prisoner which

No.

Helen: But

Because I do not love that thing. I never have.

Sally: I don't know. I think I am nervous.

Please. Believe me. I did not come here in love. I come here in rage, being as I knew this building could not be decent to her. It was not built for her. It was not built for none of us. It weren't built for me, and it weren't built for Janey Nelson when her husband knocked her teeth out, or when, I tell you what, tell you what, it weren't built for your old aunt, Helen, was it? When she petitioned this court for protection from her neighbours accusing her of witchcraft, did they give it?

Did they give it Helen?

Helen: No.

No, and what happened?

Helen: She was put to swim in the lake.

She was, and she nearly drowned did she not?

Helen: Yes.

Yes, which is a horrible death but lucky for her it was the pneumonia got her two weeks later instead, cos that Justice could not bring himself to keep an old woman out of a cold lake on a winter's day, and maybe you think what I done is shabby but this building is shabbier, that's a shabby useless rotten place that wants burning down, you ask me, before it kills another woman for a crime she has not committed.

Charlotte: She has committed it! She is guilty as sin!

We do not know that for certain.

Charlotte: I do not want to speak to the Justice. I want that doctor brought in, and I want the drab hung, today.

No.

Charlotte: That is lovely play acting, very sincere, I am sure Lavinia Fenton is quaking in her boots, in the meantime, my mistress is quite mad with grief…. Eliza begged me, on hands and knees she begged me to come here and make sure the filthy piece did not slip the gibbet as she has slipped it before.

Right, right, and you agather, tell me why what I done is worse than what she has done?

Charlotte: It was Lady Wax's affair, was it not? To know how her daughter left this world? Pieces of her body buried in locations you will not disclose. Disgusting things we heard, vile and unimaginable horrors, a just sentence passed down and now here we sit forging an escape for her. If the doctor does find for her claim then that will be the first truth she has told us!

Mrs Cary.

Emma: Tompkins.

I understand your fury but Sally, you must explain the influence Thomas McKay had over you

Sally: I dunno what you're on about.

A lover is like the sun. We circle round them, don't we, if the ladies could only understand you did not have power over yourself -

Sally: No power?

Exactly, that you yourself were a victim of…of his gravity.

Sally: But I loved him.

Exactly, that is what I, you loved him, and so you were helpless to

Sally: Because I wished for him

and he came

and when he came

he was exactly as I wished him to be.

How d'you mean, wished for him?

Sally: But I did not want it to stop.

What is aeroplanes?

Dr. Willis: Happens to the best of us. Mrs Luke. Forgive my intrusion into your domain, I am sure your judgement alone could be relied upon.

It appears you are in a minority, Doctor Willis.

Dr Willis: Mrs Luke, might I have a candle?

The Justice has forbid us candles.

Dr Willis: Lovely.

Well?

Dr Willis: Do you understand the difference between being quick with child and being with quick child?

Yes.

Dr Willis: ... She must rest as much as possible and be fed well, with a little meat and small beer.

Thank you Doctor Willis.

Peg: Well, I suppose we must be satisfied by that.

Of course. Now you have heard it from a man you can believe it.

Helen: It is not fair.

Whassa matter maw? You were sympathetic to her from the start and now it's proven you change your mind?

Helen: No it is not better! It is not better! Why should the Lord give that animal a bellyful when he gives me nothing?

It is not fair, but Helen

Sally: Tell you what love, when it's born, you can have it.

Sally don't

Helen: I WANT TO WATCH HER TWIST.

You don't mean that my chuck.

Coombes: If you are certain. You may take more / time, if -

The only words you are empowered to speak in this room by law are to ask us if we have decided our verdict, Mr Coombes.

Sarah Smith: Sally Poppy is with quick child.

Well? Go and report it to the Justice.

Ann: Already?

I'll visit in the morning, Peg. See how you're faring.

Peg: Yes. Yes. Yes. Actually, Lizzy.

No I, nothing.

What is it, Peg?

Peg: Lizzy you have been a good friend to me. I do not want your feelings hurt.

But?

Peg: But you know David is gardener to the Wax family and very well liked, and, being aware of the, that this is my first confinement -

You prefer to see the Doctor.

Peg: Yes. Lizzy

Hush. S'alright. You bring that baby to me to be kissed though.

Helen: Ladies?

Peg. Though the doctor may be expert, you have the greater authority. You know what to do. The body knows. Trust her.

Mary: So I'll see you next week mawther? For our, for the -

Yes. I'll see you then.

Sarah Hollis: Lizzy? I know you are raw with me but. I hope we can be friends.

Do you, Mrs Hollis? I hope that for the sake of the human race, you don't speak again for another twenty years.

Sally: Ta ta then! Come again, won't you?

Expect they're unhappy the hanging has been cancelled.

Sally: Come on then! I'm free! I'm free you fvckers, I'll have your arses make buttons!

You are not free.

Sally: What?

You'll live, is all. But you won't be free. You'll be transported.

Sally: Good. I hate this country. I will go to America and have His baby and continue His work, killing any bitch who has more than I do.

Mr Coombes, may I bring the prisoner some food and water?

Mr Coombes: Please stop pretending you have one cannikin of respect for my authority, Mrs Luke.

Alright then.

Coombes: She's had an accident. Clean it.

Oh my -- what's happened? Can you stand?

[Sally groans]

Oh my -- there's blood. There's blood, fetch the doctor Billy!

Coombes: Doctor's gone.

Well send someone after him! I don't understand, how did this?

Sally: Mr Coombes didn't like the verdict.

No. No. Billy you could not...you would not do such a thing.

Coombes: I didn't do nothing. Let me out.

What have you done, you stupid dunt?

Coombes: I have given justice to a mother denied it, that is all, let me out.

That? That is not justice, that is a new wound made from an old one, yet another wrong to be righted, yet another mess that can't never be cleaned!

Coombes: She has made this mess! She alone!

No Billy, it were made before she were even born. It were made by me, it were made by John Wax, and his mother, and my mother, and their mothers before them, round and round and round we go like that fvcking comet!

Coombes: I do not want to lay hands on you, Mrs Luke, step aside.

You are going down those stairs to Hell Billy, that is where those stairs go down to.

Are you...how are you?

Sally: not too fierce.

what do I...what do I...what do I, what do I do?

Sally: leave me alone

Someone'll get a nubbing for this, I promise you.

Sally: ... Would you - can you loosen these stays?

Better?

Sally: They'll hang me now, will they?

It won't happen. I won't let it.

Sally: You are like a little child sometimes, did you know that? Kill me.

What?

Sally: Kill me. Please.

Sally.

Sally: I will not die in front of that mob. I cannot stomach it. Better in here, in the dark, in private, with dignity, could I not have a little dignity?

It is usually quick.

Sally: The rope is not long enough. They shortened it specially, please -

I know it is frightening but you will not feel it

Sally: Yes but your guts go. Didn't you know that? I will die with shit running down my legs and my tongue hanging out, foaming at the mouth and women will strip my clothes like skin from a chicken so they might have something to bring out when relatives come, "look, here is the stocking of a murderess, now what news of cousin Gerald?" - please. You could get a knife

No.

Sally: or a brick, there must be a

Stop it, it is not, I will not, I cannot

Sally: you have strong arms.

not for, not for that, stop it now

Sally: Could crush my head in

Sally! It is not funny, I am a Christian woman