The Devil's Disciple Part 2

CHRISTY. You'd better ask her.

MRS. DUDGEON (threateningly). You'd better keep a civil tongue in your head. (He goes sulkily towards the door. She comes after him, plying him with instructions.) Tell that girl to come to me as soon as she's had her breakfast. And tell her to make herself fit to be seen before the people. (Christy goes out and slams the door in her face.) Nice manners, that! (Someone knocks at the house door: she turns and cries inhospitably.) Come in. (Judith Anderson, the minister's wife, comes in. Judith is more than twenty years younger than her husband, though she will never be as young as he in vitality. She is pretty and proper and ladylike, and has been admired and petted into an opinion of herself sufficiently favorable to give her a self-a.s.surance which serves her instead of strength. She has a pretty taste in dress, and in her face the pretty lines of a sentimental character formed by dreams.

Even her little self-complacency is pretty, like a child's vanity.

Rather a pathetic creature to any sympathetic observer who knows how rough a place the world is. One feels, on the whole, that Anderson might have chosen worse, and that she, needing protection, could not have chosen better.) Oh, it's you, is it, Mrs. Anderson?

JUDITH (very politely--almost patronizingly). Yes. Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Dudgeon? Can I help to get the place ready before they come to read the will?

MRS. DUDGEON (stiffly). Thank you, Mrs. Anderson, my house is always ready for anyone to come into.

MRS. ANDERSON (with complacent amiability). Yes, indeed it is. Perhaps you had rather I did not intrude on you just now.

MRS. DUDGEON. Oh, one more or less will make no difference this morning, Mrs. Anderson. Now that you're here, you'd better stay. If you wouldn't mind shutting the door! (Judith smiles, implying "How stupid of me" and shuts it with an exasperating air of doing something pretty and becoming.) That's better. I must go and tidy myself a bit. I suppose you don't mind stopping here to receive anyone that comes until I'm ready.

JUDITH (graciously giving her leave). Oh yes, certainly. Leave them to me, Mrs. Dudgeon; and take your time. (She hangs her cloak and bonnet on the rack.)

MRS. DUDGEON (half sneering). I thought that would be more in your way than getting the house ready. (Essie comes back.) Oh, here you are!

(Severely) Come here: let me see you. (Essie timidly goes to her. Mrs.

Dudgeon takes her roughly by the arm and pulls her round to inspect the results of her attempt to clean and tidy herself--results which show little practice and less conviction.) Mm! That's what you call doing your hair properly, I suppose. It's easy to see what you are, and how you were brought up. (She throws her arms away, and goes on, peremptorily.) Now you listen to me and do as you're told. You sit down there in the corner by the fire; and when the company comes don't dare to speak until you're spoken to. (Essie creeps away to the fireplace.) Your father's people had better see you and know you're there: they're as much bound to keep you from starvation as I am. At any rate they might help. But let me have no chattering and making free with them, as if you were their equal. Do you hear?

ESSIE. Yes.

MRS. DUDGEON. Well, then go and do as you're told.

(Essie sits down miserably on the corner of the fender furthest from the door.) Never mind her, Mrs. Anderson: you know who she is and what she is. If she gives you any trouble, just tell me; and I'll settle accounts with her. (Mrs. Dudgeon goes into the bedroom, shutting the door sharply behind her as if even it had to be made to do its duty with a ruthless hand.)

JUDITH (patronizing Essie, and arranging the cake and wine on the table more becomingly). You must not mind if your aunt is strict with you.

She is a very good woman, and desires your good too.

ESSIE (in listless misery). Yes.

JUDITH (annoyed with Essie for her failure to be consoled and edified, and to appreciate the kindly condescension of the remark). You are not going to be sullen, I hope, Essie.

ESSIE. No.

JUDITH. That's a good girl! (She places a couple of chairs at the table with their backs to the window, with a pleasant sense of being a more thoughtful housekeeper than Mrs. Dudgeon.) Do you know any of your father's relatives?

ESSIE. No. They wouldn't have anything to do with him: they were too religious. Father used to talk about d.i.c.k Dudgeon; but I never saw him.

JUDITH (ostentatiously shocked). d.i.c.k Dudgeon! Essie: do you wish to be a really respectable and grateful girl, and to make a place for yourself here by steady good conduct?

ESSIE (very half-heartedly). Yes.

JUDITH. Then you must never mention the name of Richard Dudgeon--never even think about him. He is a bad man.

ESSIE. What has he done?

JUDITH. You must not ask questions about him, Essie. You are too young to know what it is to be a bad man. But he is a smuggler; and he lives with gypsies; and he has no love for his mother and his family; and he wrestles and plays games on Sunday instead of going to church. Never let him into your presence, if you can help it, Essie; and try to keep yourself and all womanhood unspotted by contact with such men.

ESSIE. Yes.

JUDITH (again displeased). I am afraid you say Yes and No without thinking very deeply.

ESSIE. Yes. At least I mean--

JUDITH (severely). What do you mean?

ESSIE (almost crying). Only--my father was a smuggler; and-- (Someone knocks.)

JUDITH. They are beginning to come. Now remember your aunt's directions, Essie; and be a good girl. (Christy comes back with the stand of stuffed birds under a gla.s.s case, and an inkstand, which he places on the table.) Good morning, Mr. Dudgeon. Will you open the door, please: the people have come.

CHRISTY. Good morning. (He opens the house door.)

The morning is now fairly bright and warm; and Anderson, who is the first to enter, has left his cloak at home. He is accompanied by Lawyer Hawkins, a brisk, middleaged man in brown riding gaiters and yellow breeches, looking as much squire as solicitor. He and Anderson are allowed precedence as representing the learned professions. After them comes the family, headed by the senior uncle, William Dudgeon, a large, shapeless man, bottle-nosed and evidently no ascetic at table. His clothes are not the clothes, nor his anxious wife the wife, of a prosperous man. The junior uncle, t.i.tus Dudgeon, is a wiry little terrier of a man, with an immense and visibly purse-proud wife, both free from the cares of the William household.

Hawkins at once goes briskly to the table and takes the chair nearest the sofa, Christy having left the inkstand there. He puts his hat on the floor beside him, and produces the will. Uncle William comes to the fire and stands on the hearth warming his coat tails, leaving Mrs.

William derelict near the door. Uncle t.i.tus, who is the lady's man of the family, rescues her by giving her his disengaged arm and bringing her to the sofa, where he sits down warmly between his own lady and his brother's. Anderson hangs up his hat and waits for a word with Judith.

JUDITH. She will be here in a moment. Ask them to wait. (She taps at the bedroom door. Receiving an answer from within, she opens it and pa.s.ses through.)

ANDERSON (taking his place at the table at the opposite end to Hawkins). Our poor afflicted sister will be with us in a moment. Are we all here?

CHRISTY (at the house door, which he has just shut). All except d.i.c.k.

The callousness with which Christy names the reprobate jars on the moral sense of the family. Uncle William shakes his head slowly and repeatedly. Mrs. t.i.tus catches her breath convulsively through her nose. Her husband speaks.

UNCLE t.i.tUS. Well, I hope he will have the grace not to come. I hope so.

The Dudgeons all murmur a.s.sent, except Christy, who goes to the window and posts himself there, looking out. Hawkins smiles secretively as if he knew something that would change their tune if they knew it.

Anderson is uneasy: the love of solemn family councils, especially funereal ones, is not in his nature. Judith appears at the bedroom door.

JUDITH (with gentle impressiveness). Friends, Mrs. Dudgeon. (She takes the chair from beside the fireplace; and places it for Mrs. Dudgeon, who comes from the bedroom in black, with a clean handkerchief to her eyes. All rise, except Essie. Mrs. t.i.tus and Mrs. William produce equally clean handkerchiefs and weep. It is an affecting moment.)

UNCLE WILLIAM. Would it comfort you, sister, if we were to offer up a prayer?

UNCLE t.i.tUS. Or sing a hymn?

ANDERSON (rather hastily). I have been with our sister this morning already, friends. In our hearts we ask a blessing.

ALL (except Essie). Amen.

They all sit down, except Judith, who stands behind Mrs. Dudgeon's chair.

JUDITH (to Essie). Essie: did you say Amen?

ESSIE (scaredly). No.

JUDITH. Then say it, like a good girl.