LITMIR.BIZ

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cupboard; unlocking it; and producing a decanter of wine, which has no doubt stood there untouched since the last state occasion in the family, and some glasses, which she sets on the table. Also two green ware plates, on one of which she puts a barnbrack with a knife beside it. On the other she shakes some biscuits out of a tin, putting back one or two, and counting the rest.] Now mind: there are ten biscuits there: let there be ten there when I come back after dressing myself. And keep your fingers off the raisins in that cake. And tell Essie the same. I suppose I can trust you to bring in the case of stuffed birds without breaking the glass? [She replaces the tin in the cupboard, which she locks, pocketing the key carefully.]

      CHRISTY. [Lingering at the fire.] You’d better put the inkstand instead, for the lawyer.

      MRS. DUDGEON. That’s no answer to make to me, sir. Go and do as you’re told. [Christy turns sullenly to obey.] Stop: take down that shutter before you go, and let the daylight in: you can’t expect me to do all the heavy work of the house with a great heavy lout like you idling about. [Christy takes the window bar out of its damps, and puts it aside; then opens the shutter, showing the grey morning. Mrs. Dudgeon takes the sconce from the mantelshelf; blows out the candle; extinguishes the snuff by pinching it with her fingers, first licking them for the purpose; and replaces the sconce on the shelf.]

      CHRISTY. [Looking through the window.] Here’s the minister’s wife.

      MRS. DUDGEON. [Displeased.] What! Is she coming here?

      CHRISTY. Yes.

      MRS. DUDGEON. What does she want troubling me at this hour, before I’m properly dressed to receive people?

      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-assurance 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 Dick Dudgeon; but I never saw him.

      JUDITH. [Ostentatiously shocked.] Dick 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 glass 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, Titus Dudgeon, is a wiry little terrier of a man, with an immense and visibly purse-proud wife, both free from

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