The Devil's Disciple Part 3

ESSIE. Amen.

UNCLE WILLIAM (encouragingly). That's right: that's right. We know who you are; but we are willing to be kind to you if you are a good girl and deserve it. We are all equal before the Throne.

This republican sentiment does not please the women, who are convinced that the Throne is precisely the place where their superiority, often questioned in this world, will be recognized and rewarded.

CHRISTY (at the window). Here's d.i.c.k.

Anderson and Hawkins look round sociably. Essie, with a gleam of interest breaking through her misery, looks up. Christy grins and gapes expectantly at the door. The rest are petrified with the intensity of their sense of Virtue menaced with outrage by the approach of flaunting Vice. The reprobate appears in the doorway, graced beyond his alleged merits by the morning sunlight. He is certainly the best looking member of the family; but his expression is reckless and sardonic, his manner defiant and satirical, his dress picturesquely careless. Only his forehead and mouth betray an extraordinary steadfastness, and his eyes are the eyes of a fanatic.

RICHARD (on the threshold, taking off his hat). Ladies and gentlemen: your servant, your very humble servant. (With this comprehensive insult, he throws his hat to Christy with a suddenness that makes him jump like a negligent wicket keeper, and comes into the middle of the room, where he turns and deliberately surveys the company.) How happy you all look! how glad to see me! (He turns towards Mrs. Dudgeon's chair; and his lip rolls up horribly from his dog tooth as he meets her look of undisguised hatred.) Well, mother: keeping up appearances as usual? that's right, that's right. (Judith pointedly moves away from his neighborhood to the other side of the kitchen, holding her skirt instinctively as if to save it from contamination. Uncle t.i.tus promptly marks his approval of her action by rising from the sofa, and placing a chair for her to sit down upon.) What! Uncle William! I haven't seen you since you gave up drinking. (Poor Uncle William, shamed, would protest; but Richard claps him heartily on his shoulder, adding) you have given it up, haven't you? (releasing him with a playful push) of course you have: quite right too; you overdid it. (He turns away from Uncle William and makes for the sofa.) And now, where is that upright horsedealer Uncle t.i.tus? Uncle t.i.tus: come forth. (He comes upon him holding the chair as Judith sits down.) As usual, looking after the ladies.

UNCLE t.i.tUS (indignantly). Be ashamed of yourself, sir--

RICHARD (interrupting him and shaking his hand in spite of him). I am: I am; but I am proud of my uncle--proud of all my relatives (again surveying them) who could look at them and not be proud and joyful?

(Uncle t.i.tus, overborne, resumes his seat on the sofa. Richard turns to the table.) Ah, Mr. Anderson, still at the good work, still shepherding them. Keep them up to the mark, minister, keep them up to the mark.

Come! (with a spring he seats himself on the table and takes up the decanter) clink a gla.s.s with me, Pastor, for the sake of old times.

ANDERSON. You know, I think, Mr. Dudgeon, that I do not drink before dinner.

RICHARD. You will, some day, Pastor: Uncle William used to drink before breakfast. Come: it will give your sermons unction. (He smells the wine and makes a wry face.) But do not begin on my mother's company sherry.

I stole some when I was six years old; and I have been a temperate man ever since. (He puts the decanter down and changes the subject.) So I hear you are married, Pastor, and that your wife has a most unG.o.dly allowance of good looks.

ANDERSON (quietly indicating Judith). Sir: you are in the presence of my wife. (Judith rises and stands with stony propriety.)

RICHARD (quickly slipping down from the table with instinctive good manners). Your servant, madam: no offence. (He looks at her earnestly.) You deserve your reputation; but I'm sorry to see by your expression that you're a good woman.

(She looks shocked, and sits down amid a murmur of indignant sympathy from his relatives. Anderson, sensible enough to know that these demonstrations can only gratify and encourage a man who is deliberately trying to provoke them, remains perfectly goodhumored.) All the same, Pastor, I respect you more than I did before. By the way, did I hear, or did I not, that our late lamented Uncle Peter, though unmarried, was a father?

UNCLE t.i.tUS. He had only one irregular child, sir.

RICHARD. Only one! He thinks one a mere trifle! I blush for you, Uncle t.i.tus.

ANDERSON. Mr. Dudgeon you are in the presence of your mother and her grief.

RICHARD. It touches me profoundly, Pastor. By the way, what has become of the irregular child?

ANDERSON (pointing to Essie). There, sir, listening to you.

RICHARD (shocked into sincerity). What! Why the devil didn't you tell me that before? Children suffer enough in this house without-- (He hurries remorsefully to Essie.) Come, little cousin! never mind me: it was not meant to hurt you. (She looks up gratefully at him. Her tearstained face affects him violently, and he bursts out, in a transport of wrath) Who has been making her cry? Who has been ill-treating her? By G.o.d--

MRS. DUDGEON (rising and confronting him). Silence your blasphemous tongue. I will hear no more of this. Leave my house.

RICHARD. How do you know it's your house until the will is read? (They look at one another for a moment with intense hatred; and then she sinks, checkmated, into her chair. Richard goes boldly up past Anderson to the window, where he takes the railed chair in his hand.) Ladies and gentlemen: as the eldest son of my late father, and the unworthy head of this household, I bid you welcome. By your leave, Minister Anderson: by your leave, Lawyer Hawkins. The head of the table for the head of the family. (He places the chair at the table between the minister and the attorney; sits down between them; and addresses the a.s.sembly with a presidential air.) We meet on a melancholy occasion: a father dead! an uncle actually hanged, and probably d.a.m.ned. (He shakes his head deploringly. The relatives freeze with horror.) That's right: pull your longest faces (his voice suddenly sweetens gravely as his glance lights on Essie) provided only there is hope in the eyes of the child.

(Briskly.) Now then, Lawyer Hawkins: business, business. Get on with the will, man.

t.i.tUS. Do not let yourself be ordered or hurried, Mr. Hawkins.

HAWKINS (very politely and willingly). Mr. Dudgeon means no offence, I feel sure. I will not keep you one second, Mr. Dudgeon. Just while I get my gla.s.ses-- (he fumbles for them. The Dudgeons look at one another with misgiving).

RICHARD. Aha! They notice your civility, Mr. Hawkins. They are prepared for the worst. A gla.s.s of wine to clear your voice before you begin.

(He pours out one for him and hands it; then pours one for himself.)

HAWKINS. Thank you, Mr. Dudgeon. Your good health, sir.

RICHARD. Yours, sir. (With the gla.s.s half way to his lips, he checks himself, giving a dubious glance at the wine, and adds, with quaint intensity.) Will anyone oblige me with a gla.s.s of water?

Essie, who has been hanging on his every word and movement, rises stealthily and slips out behind Mrs. Dudgeon through the bedroom door, returning presently with a jug and going out of the house as quietly as possible.

HAWKINS. The will is not exactly in proper legal phraseology.

RICHARD. No: my father died without the consolations of the law.

HAWKINS. Good again, Mr. Dudgeon, good again. (Preparing to read) Are you ready, sir?

RICHARD. Ready, aye ready. For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Go ahead.

HAWKINS (reading). "This is the last will and testament of me Timothy Dudgeon on my deathbed at Nevinstown on the road from Springtown to Websterbridge on this twenty-fourth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and seventy seven. I hereby revoke all former wills made by me and declare that I am of sound mind and know well what I am doing and that this is my real will according to my own wish and affections."

RICHARD (glancing at his mother). Aha!

HAWKINS (shaking his head). Bad phraseology, sir, wrong phraseology. "I give and bequeath a hundred pounds to my younger son Christopher Dudgeon, fifty pounds to be paid to him on the day of his marriage to Sarah Wilkins if she will have him, and ten pounds on the birth of each of his children up to the number of five."

RICHARD. How if she won't have him?

CHRISTY. She will if I have fifty pounds.

RICHARD. Good, my brother. Proceed.

HAWKINS. "I give and bequeath to my wife Annie Dudgeon, born Annie Primrose"--you see he did not know the law, Mr. Dudgeon: your mother was not born Annie: she was christened so--"an annuity of fifty-two pounds a year for life (Mrs. Dudgeon, with all eyes on her, holds herself convulsively rigid) to be paid out of the interest on her own money"--there's a way to put it, Mr. Dudgeon! Her own money!

MRS. DUDGEON. A very good way to put G.o.d's truth. It was every penny my own. Fifty-two pounds a year!

HAWKINS. "And I recommend her for her goodness and piety to the forgiving care of her children, having stood between them and her as far as I could to the best of my ability."

MRS. DUDGEON. And this is my reward! (raging inwardly) You know what I think, Mr. Anderson you know the word I gave to it.

ANDERSON. It cannot be helped, Mrs. Dudgeon. We must take what comes to us. (To Hawkins.) Go on, sir.

HAWKINS. "I give and bequeath my house at Websterbridge with the land belonging to it and all the rest of my property soever to my eldest son and heir, Richard Dudgeon."

RICHARD. Oho! The fatted calf, Minister, the fatted calf.

HAWKINS. "On these conditions--"

RICHARD. The devil! Are there conditions?

HAWKINS. "To wit: first, that he shall not let my brother Peter's natural child starve or be driven by want to an evil life."

RICHARD (emphatically, striking his fist on the table). Agreed.