The Blue Veil (1951)

Jane Wyman: Louise Mason

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Quotes 

• Louise Mason : Mrs Rawlins, I, I would like to leave if, if you could find someone to replace me.

  Annie Rawlins : What's that,Louise? Why?

  Louise Mason : Well, I've been meaning to say something to you about it for some time but I find it difficult.

  Annie Rawlins : Well, don't you like it here? Don't you like Stephanie?

  Louise Mason : Why I'd rather not go into that.

  Annie Rawlins : I insist you tell me.

  Louise Mason : Well, I've been on the verge of leaving before, but each time you get a new job and I postpone doing anything about it. And each time it would get worse.

  Annie Rawlins : I don't understand. I thought you were happy with Stephanie and me. I thought you loved us.

  Louise Mason : I do. And believe me, it's because I do that I have to leave.

  Annie Rawlins : Well then. That just doesn't make sense.

  Louise Mason : Well, let me put it this way; I know that you don't mean to, but you see so little of Stephanie and she's been turning to me more and more. Now, she's turned completely.

  Annie Rawlins : wha' that's silly. No one can take the place of a mother in a child's life.

  Louise Mason : In church this morning, Mrs Rawlins, she singled me out as her mother in front of her friends.

  Annie Rawlins : She did that? It's just a gesture, Louise.

  Louise Mason : No, it's more than that. I find it hard to be frank about it or to do myself out of a good job but unless I leave, you may lose your daughter, Mrs Rawlins and that would be the worst mistake you've ever made.

  Annie Rawlins : It's good of you to tell me, Louise.

• Louise Mason : I don't want anything .I... Are you going to let them take Tony away from me?

  District Attorney : Much as I regret to say it, the law doesn't allow that he be left with you.

  Louise Mason : She's never been a mother to him. Giving birth to a child doesn't make a mother. What about the thousand and million things that she doesn't know; that she'll never know about him? What does she know about the things that frighten him? Or how to comfort him when he wakes up in the night crying? All the little things about him. What if I had neglected him? And suppose there hadn't been a savings to see him through? Suppose that I, I hadn't worried about his measles and his whooping cough and pneumonia? What does she know about getting on her knees and praying to God to take her life instead of his? Now, what if there had been no love all this time? No love! Do you know what that means?

  District Attorney : Yes, I think I do.

  [he turns on the intercom] 

  District Attorney : Bring the boy back in, please.