Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (34 page)

MRS. DUDGEON [
threateningly
] Well, why dont
³
you open the door?
[She sees that the girl is asleep, and immediately raises a clamor of heartfelt vexation
]
.
Well, dear, dear me! Now this is—[
shaking her]
wake up, wake up: do you hear?

THE GIRL [
sitting up
] What is it?

MRS. DUDGEON Wake up; and be ashamed of yourself, you unfeeling sinful girl, falling asleep like that, and your father hardly cold in his grave.

THE GIRL [
half asleep still
] I didn't mean to. I dropped off—

MRS. DUDGEON [
cutting her short
] Oh yes, youve plenty of excuses, I daresay. Dropped off! [
Fiercely, as the knocking recommences
] Why dont you get up and let your uncle in? after me waiting up all night for him! [
She pushes her rudely off the sofa
]
.
There: I'll open the door: much good you are to wait up. Go and mend that fire a bit.

CHRISTY [
at the fire
] F—f—f! but it is cold. [
Seeing the girl, and staring lumpishly at her
] Why, who are you?

THE GIRL [
shyly
] Essie.

MRS. DUDGEON Oh, you may well ask. [To ESSIE] Go to your room child, and lie down, since you havnt feeling enough to keep you awake. Your history isnt fit for your own ears to hear.

ESSIE I—

MRS. DUDGEON [
peremptorily
] Dont answer me, Miss; but shew your obedience by doing what I tell you. [
ESSIE, almost in tears, crosses the room to the door near the sofa
]
.
And dont forget your prayers. [
ESSIE goes out
]
.
She'd have gone to bed last night just as if nothing had happened if I'd let her.

CHRISTY [
phlegmatically
] Well, she cant be expected to feel Uncle Peter's death like one of the family.

MRS. DUDGEON What are you talking about, child? Isnt she his daughter—the punishment of his wickedness and shame? [
She assaults her chair by sitting down
]
.

CHRISTY [
staring
] Uncle Peter's daughter!

MRS. DUDGEON Why else should she be here? D‘ye think Ive not had enough trouble and care put upon me bringing up my own girls, let alone you and your good-for-nothing brother, without having your uncle's bastards—

CHRISTY
[interrupting her with an apprehensive glance at the door by which ESSIE went out
] Sh! She may hear you.

MRS. DUDGEON [
raising her voice
] Let her hear me. People who fear God dont fear to give the devil's work its right name. [CHRISTY,
soullessly indifferent to the strife of Good and Evil, stares at the fire, warming himself
]
.
Well, how long are you going to stare there like a stuck pig? What news have you for me?

CHRISTY [
taking off his hat and shawl and going to the rack to hang them up
] The minister is to break the news to you. He'll be here presently.

MRS. DUDGEON Break what news?

CHRISTY
[standing on tiptoe, from boyish habit, to hang his hat up, though he is quite tall enough to reach the peg, and speaking with callous placidity, considering the nature of the announcement
] Father's dead too.

MRS. DUDGEON [
stupent
] Your father!

CHRISTY [
sulkily, coming back to the fire and warming himself again, attending much more to the fire than to his mother]
Well, it's not my fault. When we got to Nevinstown we found him ill in bed. He didnt know us at first. The minister sat up with him and sent me away. He died in the night.

MRS. DUDGEON [
bursting into dry angry tears
] Well, I do think this is hard on me—very hard on me. His brother, that was a disgrace to us all his life, gets hanged on the public gallows as a rebel; and your father, instead of staying at home where his duty was, with his own family, goes after him and dies, leaving everything on my shoulders. After sending this girl to me to take care of, too! [
She plucks her shawl vexedly over her ears
]
.
It's sinful, so it is; downright sinful.

CHRISTY [
with
a slow, bovine
cheerfulness, after
a pause] I think it's going to be a fine morning, after all.

MRS. DUDGEON [
railing at him
] A fine morning! And your father newly dead! Wheres your feelings, child?

CHRISTY [
obstinately
] Well, I didn't mean any harm. I suppose a man may make a remark about the weather even if his father's dead.

MRS. DUDGEON [
bitterly
] A nice comfort my children are to me! One son a fool, and the other a lost sinner thats left his home to live with smugglers and gypsies and villains, the scum of the earth!

CHRISTY [
without moving
] That's the minister.

MRS. DUDGEON [
sharply
] Well, arnt you going to let Mr. Anderson in?

ANDERSON [
to CHRISTY, at the door, looking at MRS. DUDGEON whilst he takes off his cloak
] Have you told her?

CHRISTY She made me. [
He shuts the door;yawns; and loafs across to the sofa, where he sits down and presently drops off to sleep]. ANDERSON looks compassionately at MRS. DUDGEON. Then he hangs his cloak and hat on the rack. MRS. DUDGEON dries her eyes and looks up at him.

ANDERSON Sister: the Lord has laid his hand very heavily upon you.

MRS. DUDGEON [
with intensely recalcitrant resignation
] It's His will, I suppose; and I must bow to it. But I do think it hard. What call had Timothy to go to Springtown, and remind everybody that he belonged to a man that was being hanged?—and [
spitefully
] that deserved it, if ever a man did.

ANDERSON [
gently
] They were brothers, Mrs. Dudgeon.

MRS. DUDGEON Timothy never acknowledged him as his brother after we were married: he had too much respect for me to insult me with such a brother. Would such a selfish wretch as Peter have come thirty miles to see Timothy hanged, do you think? Not thirty yards, not he. However, I must bear my cross as best I may: least said is soonest mended.

ANDERSON [
very grave, coming down to the fire to stand with his back to it
] Your eldest son was present at the execution, Mrs. Dudgeon.

MRS.DUDGEON [
disagreeably surprised
] Richard? ANDERSON [
nodding
] Yes.

MRS. DUDGEON [
vindictively
] Let it be a warning to him. He may end that way himself, the wicked, dissolute, godless—[
she suddenly stops; her voice fails; and she asks, with evident dread
] Did
Timothy see him?

ANDERSON Yes.

MRS. DUDGEON [
holding her breath
] Well?

ANDERSON He only saw him in the crowd: they did not speak. [
MRS. DUDGEON, greatly relieved, exhales the pent up breath and sits at her ease again
]
.
Your husband was greatly touched and impressed by his brother's awful death. [
MRS. DUDGEON sneers. ANDERSON breaks Off to demand with some indignation
] Well, wasnt it only natural, Mrs. Dudgeon? He softened towards his prodigal son in that moment. He sent for him to come to see him.

MRS. DUDGEON [
her alarm renewed
] Sent for Richard!

ANDERSON Yes; but Richard would not come. He sent his father a message; but I'm sorry to say it was a wicked message—an awful message.

MRS. DUDGEON What was it?

ANDERSON That he would stand by his wicked uncle, and stand against his good parents, in this world and the next.

MRS. DUDGEON [
implacably
] He will be punished for it. He will be punished for it—in both worlds.

ANDERSON That is not in our hands, Mrs. Dudgeon.

MRS. DUDGEON Did I say it was, Mr. Anderson? We are told that the wicked shall be punished. Why should we do our duty and keep God's law if there is to be no difference made between us and those who follow their own likings and dislikings, and make a jest of us and of their Maker's word?

ANDERSON Well, Richard's earthly father has been merciful to him; and his heavenly judge is the father of us all.

MRS. DUDGEON [
forgetting herself
] Richard's earthly father was a softheaded—

ANDERSON [
shocked
] Oh!

MRS. DUDGEON [
with a touch of shame
] Well, I am Richard's mother. If I am against him who has any right to be for him? [
Trying to conciliate him
] Wont you sit down, Mr. Anderson? I should have asked you before; but I'm so troubled.

ANDERSON Thank you. [
He takes a chair from beside the fireplace, and turns it so that he can sit comfortably at the fire. When he is seated he adds, in the tone of a man who knows that he is opening a difficult subject]
Has Christy told you about the new will?

MRS. DUDGEON [
all herfears returning]
The new will! Did Timothy—? [
She
breaks
off,
gasping, unable to complete the question].

ANDERSON Yes. In his last hours he changed his mind.

MRS. DUDGEON [
white with intense rage
] And you let him rob me?

ANDERSON I had no power to prevent him giving what was his to his own son.

MRS. DUDGEON He had nothing of his own. His money was the money I brought him as my marriage portion. It was for me to deal with my own money and my own son. He dare not have done it if I had been with him; and well he knew it. That was why he stole away like a thief to take advantage of the law to rob me by making a new will behind my back. The more shame on you, Mr. Anderson,—you, a minister of the gospel—to act as his accomplice in such a crime.

ANDERSON [
rising
] I will take no offence at what you say in the first bitterness of your grief.

MRS. DUDGEON [
contemptuously
] Grief!

ANDERSON Well, of your disappointment, if you can find it in your heart to think that the better word.

MRS. DUDGEON My heart! My heart! And since when, pray, have you begun to hold up our hearts as trustworthy guides for us?

ANDERSON [
rather guiltily
] I—er—

MRS. DUDGEON [
vehemently
] Dont lie, Mr. Anderson. We are told that the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. My heart belonged, not to Timothy, but to that poor wretched brother of his that has just ended his days with a rope round his neck—aye, to Peter Dudgeon. You know it: old Eli Hawkins, the man to whose pulpit you succeeded, though you are not worthy to loose his shoe latchet,
^bm
told it you when he gave over our souls into your charge. He warned me and strengthened me against my heart, and made me marry a God-fearing man—as he thought. What else but that discipline has made me the woman I am? And you, you, who followed your heart in your marriage, you talk to me of what I find in my heart. Go home to your pretty wife, man; and leave me to my prayers.
[She turns from him and leans with her elbows on the table, brooding over her wrongs and taking no further notice of him
]
.

ANDERSON [
willing enough to escape
] The lord forbid that I should come between you and the source of all comfort! [
He goes to the rack for his coat and hat
]
.

MRS. DUDGEON [
without looking at him
] The Lord will know what to forbid and what to allow without your help.

ANDERSON And whom to forgive, I hope—Eli Hawkins and myself, if we have ever set up our preaching against His law. [
He fastens his cloak, and is now ready to go
]
.
Just one word—on necessary business, Mrs. Dudgeon. There is the reading of the will to be gone through; and Richard has a right to be present. He is in the town; but he has the grace to say that he does not want to force himself in here.

MRS. DUDGEON He s hall come here. Does he expect us to leave his father's house for his convenience? Let them all come, and come quickly, and go quickly. They shall not make the will an excuse to shirk half their day's work. I shall be ready, never fear.

ANDERSON [
coming back a step or two
] Mrs. Dudgeon: I used to have some little influence with you. When did I lose it?

MRS. DUDGEON
[still without turning to him]
When you married for love. Now youre answered.

ANDERSON Yes: I am answered.
[He goes out, musing].