The Collected Dramas of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
me against my heart, and made me marry a Godfearing 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 shall 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 you’re answered.
ANDERSON. Yes: I am answered. (He goes out, musing.)
MRS. DUDGEON (to herself, thinking of her husband). Thief! Thief!! (She shakes herself angrily out of the chair; throws back the shawl from her head; and sets to work to prepare the room for the reading of the will, beginning by replacing Anderson’s chair against the wall, and pushing back her own to the window. Then she calls, in her hard, driving, wrathful way) Christy. (No answer: he is fast asleep.) Christy. (She shakes him roughly.) Get up out of that; and be ashamed of yourself — sleeping, and your father dead! (She returns to the table; puts the candle on the mantelshelf; and takes from the table drawer a red table cloth which she spreads.)
CHRISTY (rising reluctantly). Well, do you suppose we are never going to sleep until we are out of mourning?
MRS. DUDGEON. I want none of your sulks. Here: help me to set this table. (They place the table in the middle of the room, with Christy’s end towards the fireplace and Mrs. Dudgeon’s towards the sofa. Christy drops the table as soon as possible, and goes to the fire, leaving his mother to make the final adjustments of its position.) We shall have the minister back here with the lawyer and all the family to read the will before you have done toasting yourself. Go and wake that girl; and then light the stove in the shed: you can’t have your breakfast here. And mind you wash yourself, and make yourself fit to receive the company. (She punctuates these orders by going to the 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 barmbrack 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