The Collected Dramas of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
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 purseproud 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 Titus, 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 passes 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 Dick.
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. Titus catches her breath convulsively through her nose. Her husband speaks.
UNCLE TITUS. Well, I hope he will have the grace not to come. I hope so.
The Dudgeons all murmur assent, 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. Titus 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 TITUS. 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.
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 Dick.
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 Titus 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 Titus? Uncle Titus: come forth. (He comes upon him holding the chair as Judith sits down.) As usual, looking after the ladies.
UNCLE TITUS (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 Titus, overborne, resumes his seat on the sofa. Richard turns