“Notes from the underground railroad”
Characters:
Justine - Lady of the manor. Needs a pen, several sheets of paper, and a table to write on and a chair to sit in. She speaks in a southern dialect that, while the grammar suffers, her enunciation and word choice is impressive. Noticeably she favors the letter “p” in her speech, and there is some affectation for this... it is like a puff of air, light, but sharp and resonant.
Fanny - house servant, perhaps in an apron. At times needs a tray with some tea apparatus. It could contain dark liquid. Speaks in very ethnic southern dialect.
George - gardener, could use a garden tool or a straw hat or work gloves to slap around in his hands or something of that sort. Ethnic southern dialect as well.
[the scene is an upstairs study in a plantation home during the antebellum period. There is a writing table and a chair which faces the audience so the seated party is 3/4 profile. The in/out door is stage left, and on the right side there should be a table or sawhorse placed out of sight, that actors can lean on and pretend is a window sill as they shout to people below]
Justine is the lady of the manor, who is in charge of affairs at this plantation: as the play begins she sits at her desk penning a letter.
Justine: [writing, then stops to read] “My brother Horace, remember how we strung those peaches together, hung ‘em from the sour-gum tree, and then spent the whole afternoon bitin’ at ’em? Well that’s how I feel now as I write to tell you Mama is dead.”
Fanny: [enters with tray] “I brung yo tea, missiz.”
Justine: “Is it prepared with the proper percolations?”
Fanny: “Cold an old, jus as you always dee-mand it. Black as a crow’s nose, too. [sets tray near table] Ah let it set for narely fourty-ten minutes, wonderin if watchin it was to do any good. Nows I see it did.”
[Justine continues writing, Fanny continues talking, now toward the audience]
“Yas, it was John Bailey callin to me from the barn, but knowin how missiz likes her tea just so I did not pay him any mind. He shore struck up a racket from there to the kitchen, lord it was jus like havin’ a headful a whirlin’ bees...” [gestures with a swirling, raising hand]
Justine: [interrupting] “He probably would prefer that you pay heed to his calling now that your task is complete.”
Fanny: [turns to Justine] “Naw, he went silent, ma’am. Could hear him stop carin’ to reach me as I shined the spoon on that there plate. In that quiet I heard that he had quite stopped tryin to reach me. [turns back to audience with a faint smile] Shoutin like crazy... then he just plum stopped. [pause] For all the heavy feel of that sudden quiet, more like he pumpkin stopped or somesuch.”
Justine: [pauses to consider this] “You don’t think John Bailey fell down and got stuck in a haypile, do you Fanny?”
Fanny: [overly reassuring] “Nawww, now mizziz... naww. Why... it’s just brunch! That’s all. We had done planned to brunch together and watch the hillsides. [Justine puts down the pen, staring at Fanny, gets up and moves to a window at stage right. Squints out of it.] I bet he stopped callin’ ’cus of his mouth was full of grits and greens. Guess I’ll be going if you want your tea, miz Justine.”
Justine: “Preposterous. [leans offstage, out the window] George, do go to the old barn and pray tell what John Bailey was earlier ventin’ his lungs about. [quickly she turns back and takes a few steps toward Fanny] You know full well tea don’t need your watchin’ to cool itself. If John Bailey was callin’ from that barn out of injury or fear thereof, and you stood watchin’ tea for God knows how long...”
[George enters the room, bearing some visible mark of the gardener]
George: “Howdy-dee, misziz Justine.”
Justine: [enraged] “George!”
George: “Now don’t get cross, miz Justine. I heard John Bailey callin’ to Fanny, and I was trying to hush him up because I was trying to paint them candles for your fancy dinnah tonight. I tried to go in theah to the barn but John Bailey he said stay out. Stay out ‘add all costs’ I heard from him.”
Justine: [confused] “You heard him call Fanny, but he told you stay out?”
Fanny: “It’s just brunch!”
Justine: “Pipe down, Fanny. You consternate me. Now I watch this plantation like its a prison; to see that nobody is doin’ voodoo [points at Fanny] and that nobody’s eatin’ my birdseed! [points at George, who stands bolt upright and looks ahead like a soldier] And if John Bailey is out there brunchin’ alone or bleedin’ to death, by god, it ain’t gonna go unnoticed! You shoulda gone in anyway, George! What’s come upon you to not even be curious, you, the one who’s always askin’ questions and lookin’ up the chimney when it rains!”
George: “He said ‘George you stay out, don’t come in under no circus dance. I was tempted to go peep just ’cus I ain’t never seen any circus. But them candles is so hard to paint, miz Justine, how come they cain’t be yella?”
Justine: “Silence! [flustered, takes a pause] Be quiet. [pause] Now you got your questions flowin’ out like brown gravy... [puts a hand on the table, bows head like prayer] Fool’s gravy... Well I run this plantation! I’ll go see what the foofaraw is! John Bailey!” [stomps offstage, exit stage left. Fanny and George watch her go.]
[After a few seconds, they move to the table.]
George: “Hows it look?”
Fanny: [examines the letter for a few seconds] “It’a do! It ain’t signed... But it’a do awright! And theah’s more paper left out all beside this one to cover up fo’ this sheet.”
George: “How come you been taught to read, Fanny?”
Fanny: “Miz Justine wanted me to do recipes right and all that, on account I kept usin’ salt instead of sugar. She yelled her head off, so I said, calm down miz Justine and have you some sugar, and I gave her a spoonful of salt. Lots of them other packages need readin’ too. It’s just talkin on paper you know.”
George: [goes to the window at stage right] “She’s headed out there now. I hope John Bailey ain’t in that barn. Gonna make us look like liars if he been sewin’ rags together in pieces and quiet all mornin.”
Fanny: [folding the letter, storing on her person] “Naw he ain’t. ’Sides, it ain’t hard to tell when miz Justine needs be said yes yes yes to. He can say ’changed my mind‘ or ’I was just singing Fanny as all colored folk do. Dats how she got her name miz Justine.‘ It ain’t hard, George!”
[Fanny takes a cup and splashes tea on the blank paper. She looks, then splashes more]
George: [flinches, jumps toward table too late] “What now! You goin to make some work for us with all that spillin!”
Fanny: “When she get back, I’m gonna sit here and you say I fainted dead away, hit the table when I saw she came out without John Bailey with her, thinkin he was dead and that she was so mad I’da be dead myself soon. Talk like the whole world dead for the both of us. Look like that [gestures at him], just say dead a couple of times.”
George: [wringing hands or whatever garden thing he’s holding, speaks in a variety of tones] “Dead. Dead? Dead. Deeeaaaad... That’s how I’m startin to feel with this whole business, stealin a note to look like I’m deliverin’ it when I don’t even know what the damn thing says.”
Fanny: “It just says her mama died, which you arready know. That’s all it says. It’s a tiny little thing, and her brotha Horus lives up the way you gonna go anyway. It’ll look like you done made a wrong turn for a few seconds, but if no one’s askin then just get them seeds off the ash tree and bring em back here into the kitchen.”
George: “And... you can make a drink from them dry old beans? Its gonna make miz Justine be in love with me?”
Fanny: “It’s gonna make her tear out them flowers in the yard and give em to ya.”
George: [terse] “I love them flowers. I hope she don’t do that. [appears tense] Naw, this ain’t worth it. I work them flowers every day, sing to em and smell em--”
Fanny: [handing over the note] “You can make more flowers George. She defnitly goin to do all kinds a sweet things for you, an for me after you teller to. Just take this and go. But only after I wave at you comin out the house. She may have you come on back inside to go find John Bailey.”
[George nods, goes to the window stage right]
George: “Here she come now!” [he hides the note, runs around frantically in the room]
Fanny: [sits in the chair] “Help me you fool! I fainted, fainted dead!”
[George rushes over, starts patting her hand, comforting her]
George: “Wake up, wake up Fanny, it’s George heah! You fell upon the table and spilt all... that... mess all over it! I know you didn’t mean it... Lord! Protect my flowers!” [Fanny swats him]
[Justine enters]
Justine: “What in the name of tables is goin’ on? [rushes forward] My letter!”
George: “She fell all ova the place, teeterin’ and faintin’! I am near dead, jus dead!”
Fanny: [phony delerium] “Ohhh... I saw you come out without John Bailey miz Justine.”
George: “Oh no! John Bailey dead! Deeaaaad.”
Fanny: [clears throat to divert attention from George, stands] “I’m so sorry bout this, let me get all this mess cleared. [fidgets with papers]”
Justine: [looks over Fanny’s shoulder] “My letter is irreparably banjaxed.”
George: “Oh, you was writin a letter Missiz?”
Justine: “More of that infernal brown gravy! George, go find John Bailey and leave me in peace!”
[Justine is fixed on George, from behind her Fanny nods for him to undertake the task. George nods back and exits stage left]
Fanny: [with papers] “I’m so sorry, Miz Justine. I go fix you some more tea right this minute.”
[Fanny picks up tray and heads toward stage left]
Justine: “John Bailey was already gone off to do something else, Fanny. If he was scared, it scared him out of that barn like he never was there. Just a bunch of rags in there, the barn is chockablock with filthy rags; I simply don’t know what all them crazy rags are doing for any of us.”
Fanny: “Rags...” [Fanny exits stage left. Justine begins to write. After a few moments she reads back her writing]
Justine: “Dearest Horace, The sweet smell of the jasmine thicket and Mama being recently deceased may both come as quite a shock to you. It is my profoundest hope that, in time, the one will help you to accept the other, whichever may be which.” [she thinks about it]
[enter Fanny with tray]
Fanny: “I brung you more tea, Missiz Justine. Didn’t go waiting nine-four minutes on this one ’cus you had been wantin for the last batch.” [sets down tray] “Made it stronga than eva, though. Probably taste like everything in the world its so strong!”
[Fanny watches Justine sip from the cup, noting the taste, then sipping some more]
[George enters with bravado, waving a tool or just sauntering with cool]
George: “You havin’ some tea, Miz Justine? What is dat?”
Justine: [enraged] “George!”
George: [straightens like a soldier, surprised at her tone, but cocking his head to watch her closely] “Yyyes?”
Justine: [baffled with rage] “I--told you to go forth and find John Bailey! Twice, come to think of it! Any child of even basic competence... even a fairly dense child, with only the mildest imagination... even a child, crawlin’ limbless across the muck of this Earth, would’ve... GO FIND JOHN BAILEY!”
[George looks at Fanny, who shrugs. He exits stage left. Justine calms herself]
Fanny: [leaning over Justine] Mizziz Justine, calmness! Calm... Just whup some fresh air now [raises hand by her face, flat, hand gesture looking as if to say some person was “this tall” and then wavers the hand at the wrist, thumb and pinkie going up and down see-saw style while keeping the arm still and making half-whistly, half-whispery “wheeeoooeooeooo” sounds] Go on, [encouraging] whup some fresh air for me. [Justine ignores this]
Justine: “I am stirred in a way no woman ever should be.”
Fanny: “Just drink your tea, madam. Drink many a sip of it.”
[Justine turns to the desk and drinks more tea, while George watches with his head sticking through the imaginary doorway of stage left and exchanges a nod with Fanny]
Justine: “You were precociously correct, Fanny. This tea is... high-flown and peppery.”
Fanny: “I’m glad.”
[George enters. He has swagger about him again]
George: “Miziz Justine.”
Justine: [stern, but unreadable] “Yes, George.”
George: [struggling to come up with a way to test whether she has changed yet] “The mens, workin on the fence... they talk... tale some stories at times...”
Justine: [pause] “Yes.”
George: “Well now. Is it true, at the colony of Jamestown... [struggling] They--had to--eat each otha’s clothing?”
Justine: [fraught, vexed] “Get out of here, George. You got your legs in your pockets today.”
George: “Oh, uh, yes miz I guess I do. I guess I do and I guess I just do, ’cus I s’pose I--”
[Justine looks with deadly wrath]
George: “Deeeeaaad. Goodbye for now.” [exits]
Fanny: [surprised at these events suggesting that her potion had no effect] “I s’pose I will run along too, you needin your tea in calm and away from the botherance of runnin affairs. And ah must start in on that suppah for this evenin sure enough.”
Justine: “No gravy.”
Fanny: [leaving] “Yes... no gravy. Maybe just some spices, see what spices we got.” [exits]
[Justine reads over her letter again, sitting at the desk, then she takes hold of the tea and stands up.]
[George enters as she is taking a sip, and he sees this and visibly relaxes]
George: [with ease] “I can’t find him, Miz Justine.”
[he studies her]
Justine: “Can’t find him--you only just left here two breaths ago! If he was ridin’ down the stairs on a donkey in underpants you wouldn’a found him!”
George: “Oh, da stairs, of course, I woulda never thought --” [trails off as he exits]
[Justine paces, makes her way to the window stage right, stares out of it.]
[she leans out of it and calls forth]
Justine: “John Bailey! Where have you been! I need you to deliver a letter for me–please!”
Characters:
Justine - Lady of the manor. Needs a pen, several sheets of paper, and a table to write on and a chair to sit in. She speaks in a southern dialect that, while the grammar suffers, her enunciation and word choice is impressive. Noticeably she favors the letter “p” in her speech, and there is some affectation for this... it is like a puff of air, light, but sharp and resonant.
Fanny - house servant, perhaps in an apron. At times needs a tray with some tea apparatus. It could contain dark liquid. Speaks in very ethnic southern dialect.
George - gardener, could use a garden tool or a straw hat or work gloves to slap around in his hands or something of that sort. Ethnic southern dialect as well.
[the scene is an upstairs study in a plantation home during the antebellum period. There is a writing table and a chair which faces the audience so the seated party is 3/4 profile. The in/out door is stage left, and on the right side there should be a table or sawhorse placed out of sight, that actors can lean on and pretend is a window sill as they shout to people below]
Justine is the lady of the manor, who is in charge of affairs at this plantation: as the play begins she sits at her desk penning a letter.
Justine: [writing, then stops to read] “My brother Horace, remember how we strung those peaches together, hung ‘em from the sour-gum tree, and then spent the whole afternoon bitin’ at ’em? Well that’s how I feel now as I write to tell you Mama is dead.”
Fanny: [enters with tray] “I brung yo tea, missiz.”
Justine: “Is it prepared with the proper percolations?”
Fanny: “Cold an old, jus as you always dee-mand it. Black as a crow’s nose, too. [sets tray near table] Ah let it set for narely fourty-ten minutes, wonderin if watchin it was to do any good. Nows I see it did.”
[Justine continues writing, Fanny continues talking, now toward the audience]
“Yas, it was John Bailey callin to me from the barn, but knowin how missiz likes her tea just so I did not pay him any mind. He shore struck up a racket from there to the kitchen, lord it was jus like havin’ a headful a whirlin’ bees...” [gestures with a swirling, raising hand]
Justine: [interrupting] “He probably would prefer that you pay heed to his calling now that your task is complete.”
Fanny: [turns to Justine] “Naw, he went silent, ma’am. Could hear him stop carin’ to reach me as I shined the spoon on that there plate. In that quiet I heard that he had quite stopped tryin to reach me. [turns back to audience with a faint smile] Shoutin like crazy... then he just plum stopped. [pause] For all the heavy feel of that sudden quiet, more like he pumpkin stopped or somesuch.”
Justine: [pauses to consider this] “You don’t think John Bailey fell down and got stuck in a haypile, do you Fanny?”
Fanny: [overly reassuring] “Nawww, now mizziz... naww. Why... it’s just brunch! That’s all. We had done planned to brunch together and watch the hillsides. [Justine puts down the pen, staring at Fanny, gets up and moves to a window at stage right. Squints out of it.] I bet he stopped callin’ ’cus of his mouth was full of grits and greens. Guess I’ll be going if you want your tea, miz Justine.”
Justine: “Preposterous. [leans offstage, out the window] George, do go to the old barn and pray tell what John Bailey was earlier ventin’ his lungs about. [quickly she turns back and takes a few steps toward Fanny] You know full well tea don’t need your watchin’ to cool itself. If John Bailey was callin’ from that barn out of injury or fear thereof, and you stood watchin’ tea for God knows how long...”
[George enters the room, bearing some visible mark of the gardener]
George: “Howdy-dee, misziz Justine.”
Justine: [enraged] “George!”
George: “Now don’t get cross, miz Justine. I heard John Bailey callin’ to Fanny, and I was trying to hush him up because I was trying to paint them candles for your fancy dinnah tonight. I tried to go in theah to the barn but John Bailey he said stay out. Stay out ‘add all costs’ I heard from him.”
Justine: [confused] “You heard him call Fanny, but he told you stay out?”
Fanny: “It’s just brunch!”
Justine: “Pipe down, Fanny. You consternate me. Now I watch this plantation like its a prison; to see that nobody is doin’ voodoo [points at Fanny] and that nobody’s eatin’ my birdseed! [points at George, who stands bolt upright and looks ahead like a soldier] And if John Bailey is out there brunchin’ alone or bleedin’ to death, by god, it ain’t gonna go unnoticed! You shoulda gone in anyway, George! What’s come upon you to not even be curious, you, the one who’s always askin’ questions and lookin’ up the chimney when it rains!”
George: “He said ‘George you stay out, don’t come in under no circus dance. I was tempted to go peep just ’cus I ain’t never seen any circus. But them candles is so hard to paint, miz Justine, how come they cain’t be yella?”
Justine: “Silence! [flustered, takes a pause] Be quiet. [pause] Now you got your questions flowin’ out like brown gravy... [puts a hand on the table, bows head like prayer] Fool’s gravy... Well I run this plantation! I’ll go see what the foofaraw is! John Bailey!” [stomps offstage, exit stage left. Fanny and George watch her go.]
[After a few seconds, they move to the table.]
George: “Hows it look?”
Fanny: [examines the letter for a few seconds] “It’a do! It ain’t signed... But it’a do awright! And theah’s more paper left out all beside this one to cover up fo’ this sheet.”
George: “How come you been taught to read, Fanny?”
Fanny: “Miz Justine wanted me to do recipes right and all that, on account I kept usin’ salt instead of sugar. She yelled her head off, so I said, calm down miz Justine and have you some sugar, and I gave her a spoonful of salt. Lots of them other packages need readin’ too. It’s just talkin on paper you know.”
George: [goes to the window at stage right] “She’s headed out there now. I hope John Bailey ain’t in that barn. Gonna make us look like liars if he been sewin’ rags together in pieces and quiet all mornin.”
Fanny: [folding the letter, storing on her person] “Naw he ain’t. ’Sides, it ain’t hard to tell when miz Justine needs be said yes yes yes to. He can say ’changed my mind‘ or ’I was just singing Fanny as all colored folk do. Dats how she got her name miz Justine.‘ It ain’t hard, George!”
[Fanny takes a cup and splashes tea on the blank paper. She looks, then splashes more]
George: [flinches, jumps toward table too late] “What now! You goin to make some work for us with all that spillin!”
Fanny: “When she get back, I’m gonna sit here and you say I fainted dead away, hit the table when I saw she came out without John Bailey with her, thinkin he was dead and that she was so mad I’da be dead myself soon. Talk like the whole world dead for the both of us. Look like that [gestures at him], just say dead a couple of times.”
George: [wringing hands or whatever garden thing he’s holding, speaks in a variety of tones] “Dead. Dead? Dead. Deeeaaaad... That’s how I’m startin to feel with this whole business, stealin a note to look like I’m deliverin’ it when I don’t even know what the damn thing says.”
Fanny: “It just says her mama died, which you arready know. That’s all it says. It’s a tiny little thing, and her brotha Horus lives up the way you gonna go anyway. It’ll look like you done made a wrong turn for a few seconds, but if no one’s askin then just get them seeds off the ash tree and bring em back here into the kitchen.”
George: “And... you can make a drink from them dry old beans? Its gonna make miz Justine be in love with me?”
Fanny: “It’s gonna make her tear out them flowers in the yard and give em to ya.”
George: [terse] “I love them flowers. I hope she don’t do that. [appears tense] Naw, this ain’t worth it. I work them flowers every day, sing to em and smell em--”
Fanny: [handing over the note] “You can make more flowers George. She defnitly goin to do all kinds a sweet things for you, an for me after you teller to. Just take this and go. But only after I wave at you comin out the house. She may have you come on back inside to go find John Bailey.”
[George nods, goes to the window stage right]
George: “Here she come now!” [he hides the note, runs around frantically in the room]
Fanny: [sits in the chair] “Help me you fool! I fainted, fainted dead!”
[George rushes over, starts patting her hand, comforting her]
George: “Wake up, wake up Fanny, it’s George heah! You fell upon the table and spilt all... that... mess all over it! I know you didn’t mean it... Lord! Protect my flowers!” [Fanny swats him]
[Justine enters]
Justine: “What in the name of tables is goin’ on? [rushes forward] My letter!”
George: “She fell all ova the place, teeterin’ and faintin’! I am near dead, jus dead!”
Fanny: [phony delerium] “Ohhh... I saw you come out without John Bailey miz Justine.”
George: “Oh no! John Bailey dead! Deeaaaad.”
Fanny: [clears throat to divert attention from George, stands] “I’m so sorry bout this, let me get all this mess cleared. [fidgets with papers]”
Justine: [looks over Fanny’s shoulder] “My letter is irreparably banjaxed.”
George: “Oh, you was writin a letter Missiz?”
Justine: “More of that infernal brown gravy! George, go find John Bailey and leave me in peace!”
[Justine is fixed on George, from behind her Fanny nods for him to undertake the task. George nods back and exits stage left]
Fanny: [with papers] “I’m so sorry, Miz Justine. I go fix you some more tea right this minute.”
[Fanny picks up tray and heads toward stage left]
Justine: “John Bailey was already gone off to do something else, Fanny. If he was scared, it scared him out of that barn like he never was there. Just a bunch of rags in there, the barn is chockablock with filthy rags; I simply don’t know what all them crazy rags are doing for any of us.”
Fanny: “Rags...” [Fanny exits stage left. Justine begins to write. After a few moments she reads back her writing]
Justine: “Dearest Horace, The sweet smell of the jasmine thicket and Mama being recently deceased may both come as quite a shock to you. It is my profoundest hope that, in time, the one will help you to accept the other, whichever may be which.” [she thinks about it]
[enter Fanny with tray]
Fanny: “I brung you more tea, Missiz Justine. Didn’t go waiting nine-four minutes on this one ’cus you had been wantin for the last batch.” [sets down tray] “Made it stronga than eva, though. Probably taste like everything in the world its so strong!”
[Fanny watches Justine sip from the cup, noting the taste, then sipping some more]
[George enters with bravado, waving a tool or just sauntering with cool]
George: “You havin’ some tea, Miz Justine? What is dat?”
Justine: [enraged] “George!”
George: [straightens like a soldier, surprised at her tone, but cocking his head to watch her closely] “Yyyes?”
Justine: [baffled with rage] “I--told you to go forth and find John Bailey! Twice, come to think of it! Any child of even basic competence... even a fairly dense child, with only the mildest imagination... even a child, crawlin’ limbless across the muck of this Earth, would’ve... GO FIND JOHN BAILEY!”
[George looks at Fanny, who shrugs. He exits stage left. Justine calms herself]
Fanny: [leaning over Justine] Mizziz Justine, calmness! Calm... Just whup some fresh air now [raises hand by her face, flat, hand gesture looking as if to say some person was “this tall” and then wavers the hand at the wrist, thumb and pinkie going up and down see-saw style while keeping the arm still and making half-whistly, half-whispery “wheeeoooeooeooo” sounds] Go on, [encouraging] whup some fresh air for me. [Justine ignores this]
Justine: “I am stirred in a way no woman ever should be.”
Fanny: “Just drink your tea, madam. Drink many a sip of it.”
[Justine turns to the desk and drinks more tea, while George watches with his head sticking through the imaginary doorway of stage left and exchanges a nod with Fanny]
Justine: “You were precociously correct, Fanny. This tea is... high-flown and peppery.”
Fanny: “I’m glad.”
[George enters. He has swagger about him again]
George: “Miziz Justine.”
Justine: [stern, but unreadable] “Yes, George.”
George: [struggling to come up with a way to test whether she has changed yet] “The mens, workin on the fence... they talk... tale some stories at times...”
Justine: [pause] “Yes.”
George: “Well now. Is it true, at the colony of Jamestown... [struggling] They--had to--eat each otha’s clothing?”
Justine: [fraught, vexed] “Get out of here, George. You got your legs in your pockets today.”
George: “Oh, uh, yes miz I guess I do. I guess I do and I guess I just do, ’cus I s’pose I--”
[Justine looks with deadly wrath]
George: “Deeeeaaad. Goodbye for now.” [exits]
Fanny: [surprised at these events suggesting that her potion had no effect] “I s’pose I will run along too, you needin your tea in calm and away from the botherance of runnin affairs. And ah must start in on that suppah for this evenin sure enough.”
Justine: “No gravy.”
Fanny: [leaving] “Yes... no gravy. Maybe just some spices, see what spices we got.” [exits]
[Justine reads over her letter again, sitting at the desk, then she takes hold of the tea and stands up.]
[George enters as she is taking a sip, and he sees this and visibly relaxes]
George: [with ease] “I can’t find him, Miz Justine.”
[he studies her]
Justine: “Can’t find him--you only just left here two breaths ago! If he was ridin’ down the stairs on a donkey in underpants you wouldn’a found him!”
George: “Oh, da stairs, of course, I woulda never thought --” [trails off as he exits]
[Justine paces, makes her way to the window stage right, stares out of it.]
[she leans out of it and calls forth]
Justine: “John Bailey! Where have you been! I need you to deliver a letter for me–please!”