ACT III
When I got his letter asking me to come, I didn’t know. I prayed and prayed and read the Bible, but I couldn’t get any help. You don’t notice how little there is in the Bible really till you go to it for help. But I’ve lived a hard life, and I’ve always done my best for William, and I do know that nothing in the world matters so much as happiness. If anybody’s happy you ought to let them be. There’s not many as are. So I came again. Let him be; let him just go on being happy. If you knew how happy he was just pottering round the garden! Men do love a garden. He could just go on. It can go on so easily. You wouldn’t let them take him away to the asylum! You wouldn’t stop me coming. The other one might . . . Mrs. Baldry . . . but you’d see she didn’t. There’s no harm in it . . . you know that. Oh, do just let him be!
Jenny : But . . . but . . .
Margaret : Put it like this. If my boy had been a cripple—he wasn’t, he had the loveliest limbs—but if he had been, and the doctors had said to me, “We'll straighten your boy’s legs for you, but he’ll be in pain all the rest of his life,” do you think I’d have let them touch him? Do you? Well, it’s like that, isn’t it?
Jenny : Why . . . why did you tell the doctor about the boy?
Margaret : I don’t know. I seemed to have to . . . tell him I knew a way. I suppose it would
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