TITUS. 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 glasses—[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 glass 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 glass 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 glass 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 God’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. [Mrs. Dudgeon, turning to look malignantly at Essie, misses her and looks quickly round to see where she has moved to; then, seeing that she has left the room without leave, closes her lips vengefully.]
HAWKINS. “Second, that he shall be a good friend to my old horse Jim”—[Again slacking his head.] he should have written James, sir.
RICHARD. James shall live in clover. Go on.
HAWKINS. “—and keep my deaf farm laborer Prodger Feston in his service.”
RICHARD. Prodger Feston shall get drunk every Saturday.
HAWKINS. “Third, that he make Christy a present on his marriage out of the ornaments in the best room.”
RICHARD. [Holding up the stuffed birds.] Here you are, Christy.
CHRISTY. [Disappointed.] I’d rather have the China peacocks.
RICHARD. You shall have both. [Christy is greatly pleased.] Go on.
HAWKINS. “Fourthly and lastly, that he try to live at peace with his mother as far as she will consent to it.”
RICHARD. [Dubiously.] Hm! Anything more, Mr. Hawkins?
HAWKINS. [Solemnly.] “Finally I gave and bequeath my soul into my Maker’s hands, humbly asking forgiveness for all my sins and mistakes, and hoping that he will so guide my son that it may not be said that I have done wrong in trusting to him rather than to others in the perplexity of my last hour in this strange place.”
ANDERSON. Amen.
THE UNCLES AND AUNTS. Amen.
RICHARD. My mother does not say Amen.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Rising, unable to give up her property without a struggle.] Mr. Hawkins: is that a proper will? Remember, I have his rightful, legal will, drawn up by yourself, leaving all to me.
HAWKINS. This is a very wrongly and irregularly worded will, Mrs. Dudgeon; though. [Turning politely to Richard.] it contains in my judgment an excellent disposal of his property.
ANDERSON. [Interposing before Mrs. Dudgeon can retort.] That is not what you are asked, Mr. Hawkins. Is it a legal will?
HAWKINS. The courts will sustain it against the other.
ANDERSON. But why, if the other is more lawfully worded?
HAWKING. Because, sir, the courts will sustain the claim of a man—and that man the eldest son—against any woman, if they can. I warned you, Mrs. Dudgeon, when you got me to draw that other will, that it was not a wise will, and that though you might make him sign it, he would never be easy until he revoked it. But you wouldn’t take advice; and now Mr. Richard is cock of the walk. [He takes his hat from the floor; rises; and begins pocketing his papers and spectacles.]
[This is the signal for the breaking-up of the party. Anderson takes his hat from the rack and joins Uncle William at the fire. Uncle Titus fetches Judith her things from the rack. The three on the sofa rise and chat with Hawkins. Mrs. Dudgeon, now an intruder in her own house, stands erect, crushed by the weight of the law on women, accepting it, as she has been trained to accept all monstrous calamities, as proofs of the greatness of the power that inflicts them, and of her own wormlike insignificance. For at this time, remember, Mary Wollstonecraft is as yet only a girl of eighteen, and her Vindication of the Rights of Women is still fourteen years off. Mrs. Dudgeon is rescued from her apathy by Essie, who comes back with the jug full of water. She is taking it to Richard when Mrs. Dudgeon stops her.]
MRS. DUDGEON. [Threatening her.] Where have you been? [Essie, appalled, tries to answer, but cannot.] How dare you go out by yourself after the orders I gave you?
ESSIE. He asked for a drink—[She stops, her tongue cleaving to her palate with terror.]
JUDITH. [With gentler severity.] Who asked for a drink? [Essie, speechless, points to Richard.]
RICHARD.