Free Belle Moral: A Natural History by Ann-marie MacDonald Page B

longing to prick you with!
[Snatching
DR R EID
’s medical bag.]
    P EARL . Victor –!
    V ICTOR
[rifling it]
. Ha-ha!
[Holding up a scalpel.]
Performed any field surgery lately? As well to have it on hand in case you encounter a promising two-headed calf, eh?
    D R R EID. Victor, my boy, give me the scalpel.
    V ICTOR
[dropping the bag, brandishing the scalpel, deadly earnest]
. Tell me the truth.
    D R R EID. I don’t know what you –
    V ICTOR . The truth about my family! The “burden”, the “horror”! I heard you on the attic stairs, there’s not a corner of this house you’ve no’ pissed in and defiled, tell me or I’ll cut your throat!
    P EARL
[enraged]
. I’ll tell you the secret, Victor! It was your precious mother. She was mad, and it’s coming out in you, and it would come out in my curs’ed progeny. Dr Reid wants to marry me to shield me from it; to be on hand when you spiral into the pit, so that you may rave within the confines of Belle Moral and not some forsaken madhouse!
    V ICTOR
[stricken]
. Is it true, Auntie?
    D R R EID .
prepares a needle
.
    Was she mad? According to whom? To you, Doctor? And what did you do? Put her away in your asylum? Why? Did you want her for yourself? Did you have her?
[grief-stricken]
Did she die there?
    D R R EID
[approaching with needle]
. Victor, lad –
    V ICTOR
slashes
. D R R EID
jumps aside
.
    F LORA . Victor, sweetheart –
    V ICTOR
[fending her off with the scalpel, furious]
. No!
    He backs away and exits out the window
.
    F LORA
[running after him]
. Victor –!
    D R R EID
[alarmed]
. Flora, no!
    P EARL . Auntie!
    F LORA . He’s like to drown himself in truth this time –!
    D R R EID . We’ll see that doesn’t happen
[pulling the bell cord]
we’ll send Wee Farleigh.
    P EARL . Doctor … if I go mad –
    D R R EID . You won’t –
    P EARL . If I go mad I want you to promise me –
[covering her nose and mouth] –
I know you can’t smell it. I know what’s happening to me.
    D R R EID . My dear, you’ve been under a terrible strain –
    P EARL
[controlling her terror]
. It’s in me too – the flaw – and it will out. It’s begun already.
    W EE F ARLEIGH
enters
.
    D R R EID . Pearl –
    She seizes
D R R EID
’s hand and presses it against her belly
.
    P EARL . You know what it is. I can see it in your eyes. Why won’t you say?
    F LORA . Pearl, you mustn’t –
    P EARL [savage]. You’re not my mother! And you, Doctor, are not my father. While I am still lucid, in the time that remains to me, I intend to work. But I’ll not parade myself as an obscene and bloated curiosity – you see, Doctor, I am still in possession of my faculties, able to diagnose myself, even if you won’t.
[fighting nausea]
Promise me that when my condition becomes apparent, you will operate.
    F LORA . Operate?
    P EARL . You will perform a complete hysterectomy.
    D R R EID . Pearl –
    P EARL
[commanding]
. Promise me!
    D R R EID . I promise.
    P EARL . But neither Victor nor I, no matter how acute our condition, is ever to be committed to an asylum.
    D R R EID . I promise.
    P EARL . We’re to live here at Belle Moral, and Auntie is to be provided for.
    D R R EID . I promise.
    A beat
.
    P EARL . I’ll marry you, Seamus.
    F LORA [
repeating under her breath, as though praying]. Deanum dhuit eolas, gu casgadh beum sula. Air na naodha conair, air na naodha conachair, air na naodha coilechinn, air naodha ban senga sith
. [pron. Jaynum hoed olas, g’càskar bayum sohluh. Air na nuh-ee conn-er, air na nuh-ee conna-hair, air na nuh-ee colla-hin, air nuhee banna sheng-ah shee] [trans: I make for thee a charm to check the evil eye. Against the nine paths, against the nine tumults, against the nine crafty wiles, against the nine slender women of the underworld]
    P EARL
sways on her feet, falls
, W EE F ARLEIGH
catches her
. F LORA
puts the tea cup to
P EARL’S
lips
. P EARL
straightens, takes the cup and hurls the contents at the painting. Thunder. It begins to