The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson - Роберт Льюис Стивенсон

William Ernest Henley

The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

DEACON BRODIE OR THE DOUBLE LIFE

A MELODRAMA IN FIVE ACTS AND EIGHT TABLEAUX

PERSONS REPRESENTED

William Brodie, Deacon of the Wrights, Housebreaker and Master Carpenter.

Old Brodie, the Deacons Father.

William Lawson, Procurator-Fiscal, the Deacons Uncle.

Andrew Ainslie, Humphrey Moore, George Smith, Robbers in the Deacons gang.

Captain Rivers, an English Highwayman.

Hunt, a Bow Street Runner.

A Doctor.

Walter Leslie.

Mary Brodie, the Deacons Sister.

Jean Watt, the Deacons Mistress.

Vagabonds, Officers of the Watch, Men-servants.

The Scene is laid in Edinburgh. The Time is towards the close of the Eighteenth Century.

The Action, some fifty hours long, begins at eight p.m. on Saturday and ends before midnight on Monday.

Note. Passages suggested for omission in representation are enclosed in square brackets, thus [ ].

SYNOPSIS OF ACTS AND TABLEAUX

LONDON: PRINCES THEATRE

2dJuly 1884

MONTREAL

26thSeptember 1887

ACT I

TABLEAU I.

The Double Life

The Stage represents a room in the Deacons house, furnished partly as a sitting-, partly as a bed-room, in the style of an easy burgess of about 1780. C., a door; L. C., a second and smaller door; R. C., practicable window; L., alcove, supposed to contain bed; at the back, a clothes-press and a corner cupboard containing bottles, etc. Mary Brodie at needlework; Old Brodie, a paralytic, in wheeled chair, at the fireside, L.

Leslie. May I come in, Mary?

Mary. Why not?

Leslie. I scarce knew where to find you.

Mary. The dad and I must have a corner, must we not? So when my brothers friends are in the parlour he allows us to sit in his room. Tis a great favour, I can tell you; the place is sacred.

Leslie. Are you sure that sacred is strong enough?

Mary. You are satirical!

Leslie. I? And with regard to the Deacon? Believe me, I am not so ill-advised. You have trained me well, and I feel by him as solemnly as a true-born Brodie.

Mary. And now you are impertinent! Do you mean to go any further? We are a fighting race, we Brodies. Oh, you may laugh, sir! But tis no childs play to jest us on our Deacon, or, for that matter, on our Deacons chamber either. It was his fathers before him: he works in it by day and sleeps in it by night; and scarce anything it contains but is the labour of his hands. Do you see this table, Walter? He made it while he was yet a prentice. I remember how I used to sit and watch him at his work. It would be grand, I thought, to be able to do as he did, and handle edge-tools without cutting my fingers, and getting my ears pulled for a meddlesome minx! He used to give me his mallet to keep and his nails to hold; and didnt I fly when he called for them! and wasnt I proud to be ordered about with them! And then, you know, there is the tall cabinet yonder; that it was that proved him the first of Edinburgh joiners, and worthy to be their Deacon and their head. And the fathers chair, and the sisters workbox, and the dear dead mothers footstool what are they all but proofs of the Deacons skill, and tokens of the Deacons care for those about him?

Leslie. I am all penitence. Forgive me this last time, and I promise you I never will again.

Mary. Candidly, now, do you think you deserve forgiveness?

Leslie. Candidly, I do not.

Mary. Then I suppose you must have it. What have you done with Willie and my uncle?

Leslie. I left them talking deeply. The dear old Procurator has not much thought just now for anything but those mysterious burglaries

Mary. I know!

Leslie. Still, all of him that is not magistrate and official is politician and citizen; and he has been striving his hardest to undermine the Deacons principles, and win the Deacons vote and interest.

Mary. They are worth having, are they not?

Leslie. The Procurator seems to think that having them makes the difference between winning and losing.

Mary. Did he say so? You may rely upon it that he knows. There are not many in Edinburgh who can match with our Will.

Leslie. There shall be as many as you please, and not one more.

Mary. How I should like to have heard you! What did uncle say? Did he speak of the Town Council again? Did he tell Will what a wonderful Bailie he would make? O why did you come away?

Leslie. I could not pretend to listen any longer. The election is months off yet; and if it were not if it were tramping upstairs this moment drums, flags, cockades, guineas, candidates, and all!  how should I care for it? What are Whig and Tory to me?

Mary. O fie on you! It is for every man to concern himself in the common weal. Mr. Leslie Leslie of the Craig!  should know that much at least.

Leslie. And be a politician like the Deacon? All in good time, but not now. I hearkened while I could, and when I could no more I slipped out and followed my heart. I hoped I should be welcome.

Mary. I suppose you mean to be unkind.

Leslie. Tit for tat. Did you not ask me why I came away? And is it usual for a young lady to say Mr. to the man she means to marry?

Mary. That is for the young lady to decide, sir.

Leslie. And against that judgment there shall be no appeal?

Mary. O, if you mean to argue!

Leslie. I do not mean to argue. I am content to love and be loved. I think I am the happiest man in the world.

Mary. That is as it should be; for I am the happiest girl.

Leslie. Why not say the happiest wife? I have your word, and you have mine. Is not that enough?

Mary. Have you so soon forgotten? Did I not tell you how it must be as my brother wills? I can do only as he bids me.

Leslie. Then you have not spoken as you promised?

Mary. I have been too happy to speak.

Leslie. I am his friend. Precious as you are, he will trust you to me. He has but to know how I love you, Mary, and how your life is all in your love of me, to give us his blessing with a full heart.

Mary. I am sure of him. It is that which makes my happiness complete. Even to our marriage I should find it hard to say Yes when he said No.

Leslie. Your father is trying to speak. Ill wager he echoes you.

Mary (to Old Brodie). My poor dearie! Do you want to say anything to me? No? Is it to Mr. Leslie, then?

Leslie. I am listening, Mr. Brodie.

Mary. What is it, daddie?

Old Brodie. My son the Deacon Deacon Brodie the first at school.

Leslie. I know it, Mr. Brodie. Was I not the last in the same class? (To Mary.) But he seems to have forgotten us.

Mary. O yes! his mind is wellnigh gone. He will sit for hours as you see him, and never speak nor stir but at the touch of Wills hand or the sound of Wills name.

Leslie. It is so good to sit beside you. By and by it will be always like this. You will not let me speak to the Deacon? You are fast set upon speaking yourself? I could be so eloquent, Mary I would touch him. I cannot tell you how I fear to trust my happiness to any one else even to you!

Mary. He must hear of my good fortune from none but me. And besides, you do not understand. We are not like families, we Brodies. We are so clannish, we hold so close together.

Leslie. You Brodies, and your Deacon!

Old Brodie. Deacon of his craft, sir Deacon of the Wrights my son! If his mother his mother had but lived to see!

Mary. You hear how he runs on. A word about my brother and he catches it. Tis as if he were awake in his poor blind way to all the Deacons care for him and all the Deacons kindness to me. I believe he only lives in the thought of the Deacon. There, it is not so long since I was one with him. But indeed I think we are all Deacon-mad, we Brodies. Are we not, daddie dear?

Brodie (without, and entering). You are a mighty magistrate, Procurator, but you seem to have met your match.

Mary (curtseying). So, uncle! you have honoured us at last.

Lawson. Quam primum, my dear, quam primum.

Brodie. Well, father, do you know me? (He sits beside his father and takes his hand.)

[Old Brodie. William ay Deacon. Greater man than his father.

Brodie. You see, Procurator, the news is as fresh to him as it was five years ago. He was struck down before he got the Deaconship, and lives his lost life in mine.

Lawson. Ay, I mind. He was aye ettling after a bit handle to his name. He was kind of hurt when first they made me Procurator.]

Mary. And what have you been talking of?

Lawson. Just o thae robberies, Mary. Baith as a burgher and a Crown offeecial, I tak the maist absorbing interest in thae robberies.

Leslie. Egad, Procurator, and so do I.

Brodie (with a quick look at Leslie). A dilettante interest, doubtless! See what it is to be idle.

Leslie. Faith, Brodie, I hardly know how to style it.

Brodie. At any rate, tis not the interest of a victim, or we should certainly have known of it before; nor a practical tool-mongering interest, like my own; nor an interest professional and official, like the Procurators. You can answer for that, I suppose?

Leslie. I think I can; if for no more. Its an interest of my own, you see, and is best described as indescribable, and of no manner of moment to anybody. [It will take no hurt if we put off its discussion till a month of Sundays.]

Brodie. You are more fortunate than you deserve. What do you say, Procurator?

Lawson. Ay is he! There is no a house in Edinburgh safe. The law is clean helpless, clean helpless! A week syne it was auld Andra Simpsons in the Lawnmarket. Then, naething would set the catamarans but to forgather privily wi the Provosts ain butler, and tak unto themselves the Provosts ain plate. And the day, information was laid before me offeecially that the limmers had made infraction, vi et clam, into Leddy Marget Dalziels, and left her leddyship wi no sae muckles a spune to sup her parritch wi. Its unbelievable, its awful, its anti-christian!

Mary. If you only knew them, uncle, what an example you would make! But tell me, is it not strange that men should dare such things, in the midst of a city, and nothing, nothing be known of them nothing at all?

Leslie. Little, indeed! But we do know that there are several in the gang, and that one at least is an unrivalled workman.

Lawson. Yere right, sir; yere vera right, Mr. Leslie. It had been deponed to me offeecially that no a tradesman no the Deacon here himsel could have made a cleaner job wi Andra Simpsons shutters. And as for the lock o the bank but thats an auld sang.

Brodie. I think you believe too much, Procurator. Rumours an ignorant jade, I tell you. Ive had occasion to see some little of their handiwork broken cabinets, broken shutters, broken doors and I find them bunglers. Why, I could do it better myself!

Leslie. Gad, Brodie, you and I might go into partnership. I back myself to watch outside, and I suppose you could do the work of skill within?

Brodie. An opposition company? Leslie, your mind is full of good things. Suppose we begin to-night, and give the Procurators house the honours of our innocence?

Mary. You could do anything, you two!

Lawson. Onyway, Deacon, yed put your ill-gotten gains to a right use; they might come by the wind but they wouldna gang wi the water; and thats aye a solatium, as we say. If I am to be robbit, I would like to be robbit wi decent folk; and no think o my bonnie clean siller dirling among jads and dicers. [Faith, William, the mair I think ont, the mair Im o Mr. Leslies mind. Come the night, or come the morn, and Ise gie ye my free permission, and lend ye a hand in at the window forbye!

Brodie. Come, come, Procurator, lead not our poor clay into temptation. (Leslie and Mary talk apart.)

Lawson. Im no muckle afraid for your puir clay, as ye cat.] But hark i your ear: yere likely, joking apart, to be gey and sune in partnership wi Mr. Leslie. He and Mary are gey and pack, a body can see that.

[Brodie. Daffin and want o wit you know the rest.

Lawson. Vidi, scivi, et audivi, as we say in a Sasine, William.] Man, because my wigs pouthered do ye think I havena a green heart? I was aince a lad mysel, and I ken fine by the glint o the ee when a lads fain and a lassies willing. And, man, its the towns talk; communis error fit jus, ye ken.

[Old Brodie. Oh!

Lawson. See, yere hurting your faithers hand.

Brodie. Dear dad, it is not good to have an ill-tempered son.

Lawson. What the deevil ails ye at the match? Od, man, he has a nice bit divot o Fife corn-land, I can tell ye, and some Bordeaux wine in his cellar! But I needna speak o the Bordeaux; yell ken the smack ot as weels I do mysel; onyway its grand wine. Tantum et tale. I tell ye the pros, find you the con.s, if yere able.]

Brodie. [I am sorry, Procurator, but I must be short with you.] You are talking in the air, as lawyers will. I prefer to drop the subject [and it will displease me if you return to it in my hearing].

Leslie. At four oclock to-morrow? At my house? (to Mary).

Mary. As soon as church is done. (Exit Mary.)

Lawson. Ye needna be sae high and mighty, onyway.

Brodie. I ask your pardon, Procurator. But we Brodies you know our failings! [A bad temper and a humour of privacy.]

Lawson. Weel, I maun be about my business. But I could tak a doch-an-dorach, William; superflua non nocent, as we say; an extra dram hurts naebody, Mr. Leslie.

Brodie (with bottle and glasses). Heres your old friend, Procurator. Help yourself, Leslie. Oh no, thank you, not any for me. You strong people have the advantage of me there. With my attacks, you know, I must always live a bit of a hermits life.