Night. Sound of the sea. A BRIDE enters, dressed in a flowing white gown, and veil that covers her face. She is searching for something by the light of her candle. Delicate distant melody, “Au Claire de la Lune”. In one corner, lies a faded tartan blanket; sound of an infant crying. THE BRIDE is drawn toward the blanket. Sound of a bagpipe drone. THE BRIDE picks up the blanket, then pauses, sensing the presence behind her: it is a man with the head of a jackal reminiscent of Anubis. There is a formality to his movements. He is neither malevolent nor benevolent, merely a guide, a conductor of souls to the underworld. He claims the blanket from THE BRIDE, and blows out her candle. Ambient female cry, “Pearl!”
Night. PEARL is sitting bolt upright at her desk, eyes wide, having just awakened from the nightmare. She is dressed in high-collar blouse and neatly tailored tweeds. Her study is a model of Victorian polymathic precision: books, fossils, butterfly case, skulls of various species, a telescope, a microscope. Her desk is littered with papers and in one corner of it sits a murky specimen jar. A knocking at the door. PEARL blinks.
FLORA MACISAAC enters with a lamp, a set of keys at her waist.
PEARL. Auntie Flora?
FLORA. Were you ridin’ the nightmare again, pet?
PEARL [business-like]. Perhaps I was. I don’t remember.
FLORA. You must endeavour to remember, dear. Your ancestors are tryin’ to tell you something.
PEARL. Which ancestors are those, Auntie? The apes or the amoebas?
FLORA. Do go to bed, pet, it’s nigh on three.
PEARL. I can’t, Auntie, I’m working. [crisp and efficient] I intend to submit an article on Cretaceous Caledonian mollusks to the Royal Geological Society in London, and this time I shall sign it, “Percival MacIsaac, Esquire”. See if they dismiss “Percy” with the same alacrity with which they advised “Pearl” to return to more womanly pursuits.
FLORA. What in the Lord’s name is that?
PEARL. The Cretaceous Period, Auntie, a fossil-rich –
FLORA. No, dear. That.
PEARL. Oh, that [picking up the specimen jar]. It is the tufted ear of a clinical idiot, upon which there is a point. Marvelous, isn’t it? Observe the whorls, the delicate lobe, at once so familiar, so … human; jarringly juxtaposed with the unmistakeable bestial peak into which the top of the ear resolves. And the thick growth of what could never be described as mere hair. See? Still glossy, gracefully suspended in sterile solution: fur.
FLORA. Wherever did you obtain such a blasphemy?
PEARL. Dr Reid …
FLORA. Dr Reid?
PEARL. Yes. He very kindly loaned it me when I admired it on the shelf of his laboratory. Dr Reid was quite the budding Darwin in his day, did you know that, Auntie? A pity, he abandoned his research. And what a shame, a specimen like this gathering dust.
FLORA. Dr Reid’s got no business lending you that ear.
PEARL. Why ever not?
A beat.
FLORA. It’s … rhuadh. [pron: roo-ah]
PEARL. It’s what? Speak English, Auntie.
PEARL. So?
FLORA. That’s Faery hair.
PEARL. Auntie, I’m a redhead, Father was a redhead, are we fairies?
FLORA. No, no, dear, but …
PEARL. But what?
FLORA. You might have a gift.
PEARL. And what’s wrong with that?
FLORA. The gifts of the Faery can be … queer.
PEARL. Well this ear is certainly a gift, if not of “the Faery”, then of Nature.
FLORA. Nature makes mistakes. And tisna’ wise to gaze too long upon them. You might look at something and find you can never look away again.
PEARL peers at the jar through her magnifying glass.
The evil eye dwells in that which is unnatural. Just say a little prayer and put it down, there’s a good lass.
PEARL. Make up your mind, Auntie, are you Pagan or Protestant, you can’t be both you know. Or rather you can, in which case you’re Catholic.
FLORA [scandalized]. I’m no’ Catholic –!
PEARL. I shall contemplate this ear to my heart’s content, for it is an aberration; one of Nature’s exceptions by which we divine Her rules.
FLORA. Look to your own ears, my dear. Thank God He shaped you in His image and do not dwell upon the margin He left to the divil.
PEARL. Auntie Flora, the “divil’s margin” is merely a necessary factor of chance by which all life on Earth has evolved.
FLORA. There’s that evil word again.
PEARL. There’s nothing evil about evolution, Auntie; it’s just a lot of hit and miss in the struggle for reproductive success.
FLORA. Pearl … isn’t there any young man you think of more than another?
PEARL. In what sense?
FLORA. Have you heard from Mr Abbott lately?
PEARL. I should think Mr Abbott is waiting to hear from us. He can’t very well read Father’s will with half the family still off gallivanting.
FLORA. I meant, have you heard from him … socially?
PEARL [suddenly]. Auntie. I dreamt I was wearing Mother’s wedding gown.
FLORA [delighted]. Ach, did you, lass, and were you by chance able to glimpse the groom?
PEARL. Auntie Flora, I’m going to buy a dog.
FLORA. What? Oh no, pet, now don’t you go buyin’ a dog.
PEARL. Why not?
FLORA. Why … your father could never abide a slaverin’ cur.
PEARL. I shall select a non-slavering breed. Besides. Father is dead. And the dog is for Victor. Why are you dressed?
FLORA. I was waiting up … [prevaricating] in case your brother should arrive. His letter said today.
PEARL. And the letter before that said last week. I’d not lose sleep over Victor, Auntie, he’ll turn up when he pleases, in three days or three months. Depending on who’s standing him drinks.
FLORA. Don’t worry, pet.
PEARL. I’m not worried, I’m vexed.
FLORA. You’re hungry.
PEARL. Peckish.
FLORA. What about a nice pickled egg? Or, Young Farleigh’s fixed a lovely finan haddie.
PEARL. Any herring?
FLORA. There’s bloater paste. And a dollop of marmite on toast.
PEARL. Mmmm.
FLORA. I’ll go heap a plate. Now you get back to your stones and snails and puppy-dog tails and … forget about that ear. Especially at this hour.
PEARL. What hour is that, Auntie? “The hour of the Faery”?
FLORA. The hour of the wolf.
Sound of carriage wheels on gravel.
PEARL. Ha! The prodigal returns [rising, delighted in spite of herself]. Let’s have a right midnight feast with silly old Victor, shall we Auntie?
FLORA [urgent]. Stay, Pearl! [covering] It mightn’t be him.
PEARL. Well who might it be “at this hour”?
FLORA [thinking quickly]. Young Farleigh.
PEARL. Young Farleigh? What’s he doing out about?
FLORA. I sent him down to the shore for winkles.
PEARL. Ugh, I can’t abide winkles.
FLORA. Your brother loves them.
PEARL. He can have them [sitting]. Along with everything else.
FLORA. Hush now, this will a’ways be your haim. Our haim.
PEARL. Don’t console me, Auntie, I am quite steeled to my fate. In fact I relish the prospect of Victor inheriting Belle Moral with all its cash and chattels, and squandering the lot within a year. I shall then be forced to earn my living. Book a passage to Egypt. Cross the desert on a camel. Publish my findings anonymously. Return in glory.
FLORA [going to exit]. I’ll fetch some cocoa too.
PEARL. Auntie Flora … was Father proud of me?
FLORA. Ach, you know he was. Look at you. Educated. Modern. And not a bit dried out.
PEARL. I’ve had the oddest feeling lately. Ever since Father’s funeral. As if there was someone missing. But I can’t say who. I suppose you’d say my ancestors are trying to tell me something.
A beat.
FLORA. You miss your father. That’s all it is.
PEARL. Poor Victor always wanted a puppy.
A clock strikes three. FLORA exits. PEARL resumes her work.
FLORA stands outside Belle Moral, holding a lantern, peering into the darkness toward the sound of a horse exhaling, pawing the gravel. A carriage door opens. A footfall. FLORA sees the new arrival. She makes the sign of the cross.
Next morning. Over the mantelpiece hangs a family portrait. It is painted in the impressionist style with the prettiness of Monet and the fogginess of Turner. The figures are distinguishable as a bearded red-haired man, a dark-haired woman cradling an infant in a tartan shawl, and PEARL as a young child. There is a sense of the portrait being compositionally off-balance: a gap between PEARL and the infant. On the opposite wall is mounted a set of bagpipes of the same tartan. PEARL is huddled under the hood of a camera. FLORA stands posed, draped in a white bedsheet.
FLORA. Is it to be a religious theme this time, pet?
PEARL. In a manner of speaking. Classical mythology.
FLORA. I’ll no’ be a pagan, Pearl.
PEARL. It’s purely symbolic, Auntie [handing her scissors and a ball of yarn]. You’re one of the Fates.
FLORA. What am I knitting?
PEARL. You’re capriciously toying with the life of some poor sod.
FLORA. Aren’t there any nice myth women?
PEARL. No. None of any importance.
FLORA strikes a pose, scissors poised to cut a length of yarn.
Don’t smile, Auntie.
FLORA. Well how do you want me?
PEARL. Dispassionate. This is a scientific journal. Hold still, now.
PEARL goes to the take the picture but FLORA cocks an ear.
What is it?
FLORA. Nowt. Thought I heard something.
PEARL [about to take the picture again]. Ready? And –
FLORA cocks an ear again.
You’re not going dafty on me now, are you, Auntie?
FLORA. No, dear, I’m a touch forfochen this morning is all.
PEARL [matter-of-fact]. Up half the night worrying about Victor, damn him, you look dreadful. Ready now? one, two, three –
VICTOR enters, wearing a kilt, causing FLORA to smile the instant PEARL takes the picture with a poof and a flash.
FLORA. Victor!
VICTOR [to FLORA, playfully passionate]. My God, what Attic vision; what vestal beauty stands here poised to cut or to extend a mortal skein? Fly, maiden, and transform thyself into a tree, else must I taste thine antique fruits, for I am the Highland Pan!
They hug. FLORA embraces him fervently.
FLORA. Victor, ma bonnie, you should have let us know, we’d’ve sent Young Farleigh with the cart.
VICTOR. Hello, Pearl.
He opens his arms, beaming, but she does not embrace him.
PEARL [arch]. What are you doing, gadding about in that savage raiment?
VICTOR. Airing my privates.
PEARL. Don’t be disgusting.
VICTOR. Don’t start.
PEARL. You started it.
VICTOR. I did not.
PEARL. Indeed you did.
VICTOR. A didna.
PEARL. Did.
VICTOR. Didna.
PEARL. Did.
VICTOR. Didna –! PEARL. Dididid –!
FLORA [making peace]. Noo where’s yer fit bin gangin’ this time, laddie? London? Paris? Rome?
VICTOR. Glasgow.
PEARL [dismissive]. Ha.
VICTOR. I was looking to trace Mother’s ancestors.
PEARL. And what did you discover swinging from the family tree? A backward lot of Highland crofters with an unwholesome fondness for things Fr-r-rench; blood-thirsty and Catholic to boot.
VICTOR [grand]. A martyred race: soaked in glory, culture –
VICTOR. The Highland warrior was the ideal man: fearless, faithful; and failed.
FLORA. If only your mother could see you got up so braw in her family tartan.
PEARL. He looks well in a skirt.
VICTOR. It is a kilt, Madam.
PEARL. You can romanticize failure all you like, Victor, but the fact is, we bear the mundane burden of success, with all its rights and responsibilities. If you’re genuinely interested in your heritage, why not learn Gaelic? I’ll tell you why not; because that would take work. The truth is, all the Highlanders with any get-up-and-go, got up and left years ago. They now run banks and shuffle documents. A waist-coated legion armed with briefcase and pince-nez.
VICTOR Poch ma hohn [pron. pog ma hoyn] [trans: “kiss my arse.”]
FLORA gasps.
Begging your pardon, Auntie. See, Pearl? I’ve been learning Gaelic.
FLORA. Ainaibh ri cheile. [pron. Eh-nev ree kaylee]
VICTOR. What does that mean?
PEARL. “I’ve been learning Gaelic.”
VICTOR. Shutup. [Nearly overlapping:]
PEARL. Shutup.
VICTOR. Pearl – PEARL. Pearl –
VICTOR. Act your age – PEARL. Act your age –
VICTOR. Auntie –! PEARL. Auntie –!
FLORA [suprising fury]. Eneuch!
PEARL and VICTOR stop, startled. FLORA is in deadly earnest.
You’ve naebody but ilk ither noo. There’s nane left but you twa. You maun look after one another. [A beat. Cheerful once more:] Victor, you must be faimished after your journey, and look at ya, ya wee skinnama-link, I’ll go fix a plate –
PEARL. Auntie, don’t bring the winkles in here, they’re revolting.
FLORA. Winkles?
PEARL. Ay, winkles. You said Young Farleigh –
FLORA [remembering her lie]. Och ay, winkles! They were nane of ’em any good. Shells were empty.
PEARL. All of them?
FLORA. Pixies. Belike gobbled ’em up.
PEARL. “Pixies”? Why not fairies?
FLORA. Fairies dinna eat winkles.
PEARL. Auntie, you find evolution far-fetched, yet you’ve no difficulty with your taxonomy of fairies, pixies and werewolves.
FLORA. There’s no such thing as a werewolf.
VICTOR. No matter, Auntie, I’ve gone vegetarian.
PEARL [muttering so Auntie won’t hear]. Got to be difficult, haven’t you.
FLORA. Ma poor lad, shall I send for Dr Reid?
VICTOR. I’m fine, Auntie. I saw a play in London by an anti-vivisectionist; he annoyed so many people with his socialists, sensualists and suffragists that I wound up converted in spite of the fact he’s an Irishman. So I’m no longer eating animals.
FLORA. I’ll fetch a bit of cold mutton, then, shall I?
VICTOR. Any of your shortbread about?
FLORA. Fresh this morning! Now behave yourself, your sister’s working.
FLORA exits. VICTOR takes a silver flask from his sporran and offers it to PEARL. She merely stares at him.
VICTOR [toasting her]. “Scots wha’ hae.” [drinks]
PEARL. Don’t let Auntie see that, it would kill her.
PEARL. She’s cranky.
VICTOR. She’s grieving, her brother died.
PEARL. Why ask, if you know? Auntie and I have been slaving here in a legal limbo with one foot in the poor house, waiting for you so Father’s estate can be settled. Belle Moral doesn’t run itself, you know. She’s getting on.
VICTOR. Nay, she’s spry; and she’s got the full abacus upstairs, I can hear the beads rattling back and forth.
PEARL. Time does not stand still in your absence, Victor. You may manage to avoid growing up, but others do not. People age, fathers die.
A beat. He drinks.
VICTOR. What are you working on these days?
PEARL. I’m searching the coast for fossil evidence of transitional species.
VICTOR. Why not search the family plot?
PEARL. What have you done with yourself since the funeral? Apart from “roamin’ in the gloamin’”?
VICTOR. I’ve been working.
PEARL. Really and truly? Victor Maclsaac, if only Father could hear you say that. So you’re finally taking your accountancy articles at MacVicar, MacVie, and MacVanish.
VICTOR. No. I’m writing.
PEARL. Writing what? A treatise?
VICTOR. A novel.
PEARL. In your spare time.
VICTOR. It takes up all my time.
PEARL. Father hated fiction.
VICTOR. I’ve dedicated it to Mother’s memory.
PEARL. What’s it about?
VICTOR. It’s about an alienated young man who recognizes the meaninglessness of life.
PEARL. What’s the plot?
VICTOR. The plot’s not the point.
PEARL. You must have a plot or there’s no point.
VICTOR. That’s the point.
PEARL. Well something must happen.
VICTOR. He shoots a stranger on the beach for no reason.
PEARL. For no reason?
VICTOR. An Arab.
VICTOR. Pure chance.
PEARL. That’s absurd.
VICTOR. Precisely.
PEARL. Is he apprehended?
VICTOR. He wakes the next morning to find he’s turned into a gigantic insect.
PEARL. Have you finished it?
VICTOR. I haven’t started it.
PEARL. Well get on with it!
VICTOR. I can’t. To write it would be an act of faith, thus undermining the integrity of the work.
PEARL. Yer a wastrel.
VICTOR. I’m the last honest man.
PEARL. A lazy loafer.
VICTOR. I am not.
PEARL. You’ve never finished a thing in your life.
VICTOR. Finishing is highly over-rated.
PEARL. You couldn’t even finish with Father’s death duties.
VICTOR. I’m here now, am I not?
PEARL. On your own sweet time.
VICTOR. I almost didn’t come back at all!
PEARL. You may fool yourself, Victor, but you don’t fool me [grabbing paper and pen from an escritoire, writing]. I’ll send for Mr Abbott. He’ll bring Father’s will tomorrow. No one will stand in your way again, you’ll have no one to blame – you certainly won’t have Father – [sealing the note] and we’ll see what you accomplish with your new-found freedom.
VICTOR. Pearl –
PEARL [yanking a bell cord, calling off]. Young Farleigh!
VICTOR. Pearl! I really did want to stay away.
PEARL. Why?
VICTOR. Because … As long as I don’t come home, I needn’t feel … [Tears threaten, he forces a smile.] You see, Pearl, I only ever get homesick. When I come home.
PEARL. What’s the matter, Victor? Don’t you want Belle Moral?
VICTOR [shaking his head]. Yes [nodding]. And no. And yes. And no. And –
PEARL. Well which is it?
VICTOR. Both.
PEARL. You can’t have both [to off]. Young Farleigh!
VICTOR. Why not?
PEARL. Because two opposite things cannot be true at the same time.
VICTOR. Yes they can.
PEARL. They cannot.
VICTOR. Indeed they can.
PEARL. Canna.
VICTOR. Can.
PEARL. Then why did you come back?!
VICTOR. I had a dream.
PEARL [exasperated]. Oh, Victor.
VICTOR. I dreamt of Mother. At least, her voice was there. What did she look like, Pearl?
PEARL. You know as well as I. She looked like that [the portrait]. More or less.
VICTOR. No, Pearl. Tell it the right way.
PEARL … [starting to yield]. She was beautiful. Like a queen. That’s why she was called Régine.
VICTOR. What did she sound like?
PEARL. She used to sing.
VICTOR. Sing the song, Pearl.
Soft music: Au Claire de la Lune.
VICTOR. In my dream, I was wrapped up snug in that old tartan shawl [the painting]. It was warm like her voice. And soft, not rough as you’d expect of a woolen blanket, but smooth against my face. Like fur. I could smell it. And I felt … [overcome] so well. And I woke up thinking, Mother would have let me have a puppy. [weeping] I know she would.
PEARL. Victor. Please don’t cry, Victor, I’m sorry. Damnit. [singing] “Au claire de la lune, mon ami, Pierrot. Prete moi ta plume, pour écrire un mot. Ma chandelle est morte, je n’ai plus de feu. ouvre moi ta porte, pour l’amour de Dieu.”
VICTOR has been listening, rapt. PEARL makes a move: is she about to hug him? But FLORA enters with a tray of shortbreads and he transforms, ultra cheerful once more, leaving
PEARL a little stung.
FLORA. Here’s a wee pick-an-dab, Victor, sweetie.
VICTOR [suddenly macho]. Ambrosia! [Helping himself.] Pearl, take a proper photograph of me and Auntie. [Singing for FLORA.] “Green grow the rashes, O, The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, o!”
PEARL [renewed asperity]. I’ve no time for highland games, Victor, I’ve promised a cover photo for the next issue of “The Edinburgh Journal of Rules and Exceptions.”
VICTOR [genial]. I hope you know you’re drowning in a cultural backwater here.
PEARL. Dinna speak to me of cultural tarpits, ma kilted laddie.
VICTOR. I wear this relic in a spirit of pure irony, dear heart, as well as a sure-fire bid to irritate you to the depths of your Protestant soul.
PEARL. Edinburgh may not be at the centre of a great empire, but we are a modern city with a bittie of everything: art, science, golf. Not to mention a leading lunatic asylum; the patients perambulate freely about the grounds and in winter besport themselves on the curling rink. Nor have we any shortage of free-thinkers: there’s an Italian [pron. Eye-talian] green grocer in Princes Street across from the Scott Monument, and you know Rhouridh [pron. Roo-oo-rrry] MacGregor, Jinnie MacGregor’s cousin? He’s become a nihilist. What a waste.
FLORA. That’s what a papist comes to in the end.
VICTOR. Father’s dead, Pearl, you’ve no excuse now, get out and see the world, travel.
FLORA. She intends to book a camel.
PEARL. I can’t go anywhere til you take responsibility for Belle Moral –
VICTOR [enthusing]. To hell with Belle Moral, Pearl the world is changing, it’s cracking open, see it now so you’ll know how unrecognizable it’s about to become: the masses throbbing like a steam engine about to fly from the rails; men throwing off their shackles, women eschewing their corsets, clamouring for suffrage; humanity rising like sap or a lit fuse, and whether we burst into blossom or flame, who can tell? You sit here scribbling a note to send to town, meanwhile the products of the entire globe are at the fingertips of any toff in London with a telephone. Invention has outstripped its mother, necessity; the old ways and the old walls are tumbling, the lines are blurring; art and science set to flood their banks and mingle, can you imagine what their confluence might yield?
PEARL. Mud?
VICTOR. Look at Darwin. Thanks to him, science turns out to be stranger than a Greek myth: are we men or animals?
PEARL. Some of us are women, and we’re all of us animals.
VICTOR. Science now tells us what art has been prophesying at the gates for years, namely that we can no longer take the evidence of our senses for granted.
PEARL. Science does that quite regularly. [Enjoying the argument as much as he is.] Until recently, mankind was flummoxed by the question: what is the basic substance of the universe? The apparent “Nothing” through which we and the planets move? The necessary “Something” which lends predictability to our mathematical calculations? That was the question.
FLORA. And, was there an answer?
PEARL. By dint of hard work, indeed there was.
VICTOR. What was it?
PEARL. Oh Victor, luminiferous ether, of course.
He’s never heard of it, nor has FLORA.
VICTOR. Pearl, is it not just possible that this time art is leading the way?; hinting to us that your quest for “substance” might be entirely beside the point. Look at the impressionists–
PEARL. I’d rather not.
VICTOR. Then look at Mother’s painting. Observe the brush strokes; each shimmering with possibility. Like a series of suggestions. Draw back and flux yields to stasis. A man, a woman, two children, solid and certain. Draw near and you lose the edges, so gradually do the colours blend one into another; as though they might give rise to any number of different pictures. Nearer still and they appear disconnected; a collection of random daubs, bald facts, meaningless. Until finally they are mere atoms that seem to dance before one’s eyes. Light turns to matter, and matter to motion. Are we seeing the painting itself, or only one possibility of itself? Is the picture emerging? Or is it fading?
PEARL. I can’t tell, it’s too blurry.
VICTOR. So is life. Mother may have been years ahead of her time.
PEARL. She may have been short-sighted.
FLORA. Ay, she had a stigmata.
VICTOR And what of the composition? Is it intentionally unbalanced as a comment on our family? Or did Mother mean to add another figure before she died?
FLORA [slightly alarmed]. What other figure? There is no other figure.
VICTOR There’s you, Auntie.
PEARL. It’s clear enough to me: Mother never finished anything either.
VICTOR [reasonable]. You can’t see Mother’s painting because you’re looking for vulgar likeness. As in your photograph.
PEARL. Don’t compare Mother’s painting with my photograph. One is art, such as it is, the other is science.
VICTOR. Your photo isn’t science, it’s just bad art.
PEARL. In which case, Mother’s painting is worse science.
VICTOR. Not if science proves that reality is a blur after all.
PEARL. Mother painted what she imagined. I photograph what is there. Art is subjective. Science is objective.
VICTOR. There’s no such thing.
PEARL. Sir Isaac Newton and his apple; gravity; the heliocentric movement of the planets; heat expands, cold contracts, facts. Facts, facts, facts. The scientific method yielding real answers.
VICTOR. Who’s asking the questions? What did they have for breakfast?
FLORA. Kippers?
VICTOR. “To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing.”
A beat.
PEARL [intrigued]. Who said that?
VICTOR. Oscar Wilde.
PEARL [dismissive]. Another of your Irishmen.
VICTOR. There is nothing more contrived than realism.
PEARL. “Ism” be hanged, my photo is a true and perfect record.
VICTOR. Your photo may be a record. But Mother’s painting is a map.
PEARL. Of what? The murky recesses of her psyche? What’s the good of that?
VICTOR. Why does it have to be good for anything? Why can’t it simply be beautiful and good for nothing? Like me.
PEARL [returning to her camera, chipper]. Stand up straight now, Victor, and try to look dignified, you’re about to become extinct. Ah, I’ve got it. Get Mother’s bagpipes down, Vickie, and make as though to woo Fate with the mournful tones.
VICTOR [suddenly terribly offended]. That’s no’ funny Pearl.
PEARL. What, I’ve always called you Vickie.
VICTOR. There’s nothing humorous in Mother’s bagpipes.
PEARL. Victor, I am not the mocker of the family. You are the one rendering risible one half your ancestry; I am attempting to immortalize it.
VICTOR [verge of angry tears]. Well you can’t immortalize it, sister dear, because it’s already dead.
He exits through the window.
FLORA. Now Pearl, you know he’s sensitive about his mother.
PEARL. He never knew his mother, Flora.
FLORA. That’s it, dear; she haunts him.
PEARL. I don’t believe in ghosts.
FLORA. That’s of nay concern to the ghosts.
VICTOR’S kilt comes flying in through the window.
FLORA. Poor Victor will catch his death of cold out there on the moor. [Picking up the kilt.] He’s ne’er been strong i’ the lungs.
PEARL. It’s not his lungs that are exposed to the elements, Auntie.
An elderly man enters, slowly, carrying a silver tray with lid.
MAN [to PEARL]. You rang, Miss?
FLORA. Young Farleigh; any sign of the good doctor?
YOUNG FARLEIGH. No’ yit, M’um.
PEARL. Oh yes, the note. Take this to Mr Abbott in town as quickly as possible. [a beat] Perhaps I’ll just run it in myself on my bicycle.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Ay, Miss. [Slowly goes to exit.]
PEARL. Young Farleigh, who’s the tray for?
He looks at the tray as though noticing it for the first time. FLORA comes to his rescue:
FLORA. It’s for Victor.
PEARL. Well don’t waste your winkles, Victor’s gone off them.
YOUNG FARLEIGH [bewildered]. Winkles? I’ve no’ winkled in years, Miss.
FLORA [pointedly]. Nonsense, you were out half the nicht. [to PEARL] The Farleighs are all great winklers.
PEARL [lifting the lid]. Mmm, kippers and … boiled sweets. I’ll have the fish in my study, you can give the gobstoppers to Victor.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Is the lad come haim, then, Miss?
PEARL. I thought you said the tray was for –
FLORA. That will be all, Young Farleigh.
PEARL. Wait. I wish to consult you about a dog.
FLORA and YOUNG FARLEIGH exchange a look.
I want you to find a puppy for my brother. A black one, about yea tall, with a flat head for patting.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Ay, Miss.
Exit YOUNG FARLEIGH. PEARL lights a cigarette.
FLORA. Must you, Pearl? It’s so unladylike.
PEARL. Flora. [Attempting a casual tone.] Did Mother love me?
FLORA. Of course she did, sweetheart.
PEARL. She’d’ve loved Victor more.
FLORA. Your mother had love enough for a dozen bairns. But she’d scarce laid eyes on Victor’s wee squallin’ face ‘afore she … was carried off.
PEARL [critical]. Mother was always weak.
FLORA. She was a great beauty. “Régine, Régine, my Highland Queen.”
PEARL. I’ll make it up to him with the puppy. Auntie, don’t let Dr Reid leave without looking in, I’ve a question to put to him.
FLORA. Ay, pet.
PEARL [pausing at the exit]. Why have you sent for the doctor first thing in the morning? [worried] You’re no’ ill?
FLORA. Not at all. It’s Young Farleigh. [As though complicity Ay, he’s confused.
PEARL. Well, little wonder; it would appear that of late, no one gets a winkle of sleep under this roof. [Exit.]
FLORA takes VICTOR’S flask from his sporran and has a sip. Regards the family portrait. Backs away from it. Examines it close up. Squints. DR REID exits, carrying his medical bag. They speak urgently, hurriedly.
DR REID. Good morning –
FLORA. Dr Reid, oh thank God, thank you for –
DR REID. I came the moment I received your note, Flora, what is –? [hushed] Where is Pearl?
FLORA. In her study.
DR REID. You’ve not told her.
FLORA. Certainly not.
DR REID. Flora, how in God’s name –?
FLORA. Twas my doing. I sent Young Farleigh to fetch her home.
DR REID. Why?
FLORA. I had no choice, Doctor; I couldna wrest another penny from the estate to pay for the poor creature’s upkeep without first the will being settled, and there was no telling when Victor would –
DR REID. Why didn’t you come to me?
FLORA. Ramsay would no’ approve of charity –
DR REID. charity?! I was his best –
FLORA. I know – I know – I know. [FLORA begins to shiver.]
DR REID. You need a cup of tea, or something stonger, [calling] Young Farleigh –
FLORA. Nay, let him be, he drove through the night. I’m well. Truly.
DR REID. Where have you put the …? Where have you put her?
FLORA. In the attic.
DR REID. Under lock and key.
FLORA [nods, “yes, pulling herself together].
DR REID. Is it your intention, then, to house the … patient here, indefinitely?
FLORA. No, no, Victor’s come haim this morning, so the will can be –
DR REID. Why then, ’twas all for naught.
FLORA. Ach, you maun think me foolish. A foolish auld woman. Am I, Seamus?
DR REID. Foolish? In this case, Flora, perhaps yes. Old? [kindly] Never. For what would that make me, eh?
A beat.
[apprehensive] How is she?
FLORA. She is … she’s … I canna say, she’s … quiet.
DR REID. Quiet.
FLORA. Ay. Wouldna’ touch a bite o’ breakfast.
DR REID. That’s not surprising; the journey, the shock of new surroundings. Does she … has she spoken?
FLORA. Nay. Not a word.
DR REID. No cries, no … sounds, of any kind?
FLORA. Nothing.
DR REID … How does she look?
A beat.
Has there been any … change?
FLORA. Not apart from one might expect. Given the years. [weeps]
DR REID. Hush, Flora.
FLORA. I promised … Régine –
DR REID. We need not speak of it –
FLORA. I promised. To look after the children.
DR REID. And you have. Hush, now.
YOUNG FARLEIGH enters.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Mu’m, the doctor is [sees DR REID] here.
A woman screams in the distance. FLORA hurries toward the exit with DR REID in tow. But the cry is repeated and she rushes to the window. YOUNG FARLEIGH sinks onto a chair and closes his eyes.
VOICES OFF. Help! Miss Maclsaac! Send for a doctor! A doctor!
FLORA. God help us.
DR REID. [joining her]. What’s happened? [looking out] Good Lord.
They exit. YOUNG FARLEIGH opens one eye. Lights change, he slowly rises and exits as VICTOR is carried on. Lights back up on:
VICTOR lies on the couch, naked and wet under a blanket. DR REID attends him.
DR REID [gently]. Victor. Victor, lad, what is it, eh? A woman? Are you in debt lad, is that it? Or were you just pullin’ a wee pliskie?
VICTOR covers his head with the blanket.
DR REID. Come along now, son, the North Sea in April is hardly a congenial prospect, and I know you not to be a swimmer. What were you doing leaping from the rocks?
VICTOR [soliloquizing from under the blanket]. There are times when I cannot fathom why any sane person would choose to live out the natural length of their days. Life is an expanse of arid predictability, relieved now and again by hilarious and brutal jokes. This, we call tragedy.
DR REID. Go on.
VICTOR [lowering the blanket, earnestly relishing his own words]. I strayed along the barren beach and heard the kelpies singing, each … to each. And then they sang to me; a beckoning back to the dank, devouring womb of the sea; their sweet and deadly strains, the echo of my own futility. I parted the waters to mate with Nothingness.
DR REID. I see. How long have you felt this way?
VICTOR. I haven’t been myself since the funeral.
DR REID. You miss your father.
VICTOR. I don’t know if I’d go that far.
DR REID. How does the prospect of being master of Belle Moral cause you to … feel?
VICTOR. Like jumpin’ into the sea.
DR REID. Victor, what would have become of your aunt and sister had you succeeded in your bid today? Who would look after them?
VICTOR. You would. They don’t need me.
DR REID. Ah but they do. You’ll find out soon enough, lad. Your father’s burdens will soon be yours. But luckily, so will his oldest friend.
VICTOR takes his flask from under the quilt and drinks. FLORA enters with a bowl and spoon. VICTOR hides the flask.
FLORA. How’s ma poor laddie?
VICTOR [feigning weakness]. I feel I’m fading, Auntie.
FLORA. See if you canna tak a bittie o’ parritch, ma hinnie.
VICTOR. I’ll try.
DR REID. Have you no beef tea, Flora?
FLORA. Ay, but the lad’s gone vegetative.
PEARL enters.
PEARL [brisk]. He’s fallen in with the Fabians. Armchair revolutionaries nibbling celery.
FLORA [spoon poised]. Here comes the coach-and-six, clop-clop clop-clop …
DR REID [taking her aside]. Pearl, I’m worried about your brother.
PEARL. As am I.
DR REID. Victor shows signs of neurasthenia: a degenerative instability which threatens the delicate edifice of brain and nerve.
PEARL. He gets that from Mother, no doubt.
DR REID does not immediately reply, reluctant to reveal to her the full extent of his concern.
DR REID. He has confessed an attempted suicide.
PEARL [loudly so VICTOR can hear].
DR REID., my brother is suffering from nothing more than extreme foolishness and a common cold.
FLORA. Pearl, we’re lucky your brother is alive. Ask Rhouridh MacGregor, who plucked him from the boiling sea.
PEARL. Saved by a nihilist. You ought to be ashamed.
DR REID. My dear Pearl, this is no way to treat a would-be suicide.
PEARL. Suicide, my eye. He ran down to the shore in high naked dudgeon for a little fleshly mortification, where he met Rhouridh MacGregor out walking with his mother and his cousin, Jinnie. Victor leapt into the drink to hide from the ladies.
DR REID. Is this true, sir?
VICTOR. Pearl, those are only the facts, and you know it!
DR REID. You’ve trifled with a man of science, Mr MacIsaac.
VICTOR [indignant]. The squalid circumstances of my brush with death merely confirm my despair at the human condition. Not for me a dignified death by drowning. Not for me to inspire the poet’s lament, thus to snatch some meaning from the maw of death, no; I am the comic hero of a tragic farce. Plaything of a demented God who hasn’t the decency to exist.
PEARL. Cheer up, Vickie; you’ve only your own carelessness to blame, not some cosmic vendetta.
DR REID. [picking up his bag]. I’ll take my leave now. My genuinely ill patients will be waiting.
VICTOR [spritely]. Still skookin’ about the loony hoos, are you, Doctor?
PEARL. Victor.
VICTOR [imitating her]. “Edinburgh has a leading lunatic asylum.”
DR REID. If you refer to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, yes I am on staff as specialist in organic diseases of the mind.
VICTOR. What’s that involve, then, amputatin’ heads, are you? Is it true, Doctor, that a dog will lick the hand of the man who is vivisecting him?
DR REID. Good day.
FLORA is about to escort DR REID from the room.
PEARL. Doctor, I’ve been puzzling over the ear you lent me.
A beat. DR REID and FLORA hesitate.
Its length is out of proportion with its width at the base where it would attach to the skull. From this, I calculate a cranial circumferance commensurate with that of a microcephalous cretin. Does this strike you as reasonable?
DR REID [momentarily at a loss].
FLORA [to the rescue]. Dr Reid, you shouldna’ go plyin’ the lass with freaks of nature. It’s no healthy for a young woman of child-bearing age.
PEARL. Really, Flora!
DR REID [reassuring bedside manner]. Now Flora, Pearl is gifted with the chief prerequisite of a scientific mind: curiosity. And what could be healthier, hm? Be sure to call me if you need anything –
PEARL. Doctor, I’m keen to compare this specimen with others of its kind –
DR REID [too quickly]. There are no others.
PEARL. Where did you obtain this one?
DR REID…. From a friend.
PEARL. But where did the specimen originate?
DR REID. In a remote village. High in the caucasus.
PEARL. I shall arrange an expedition; Father’s bound to have left me an annuity –
DR REID. I know neither the name of the village, nor if it still –
PEARL. We’ll ask your friend –
DR REID. He’s dead.
PEARL. But he must have –
DR REID. Pearl, the ear is a mere curiosity. An accident of birth. It ought to excite more pity than wonderment.
PEARL. Accidents are the very stuff of evolution. Darwin’s work is far from done, Doctor, please. Help me.
DR REID. I’m afraid it’s not in my line, Pearl. [Almost to himself.] Not anymore.
PEARL. Why hide your light under a bushel? Come with me to the Caucasus.
He gazes at her, but a dog barks, off, startling him and FLORA.
You don’t deserve a present, Victor, but you’re my darling wee brother and I’ve got you one in spite of everything.
YOUNG FARLEIGH staggers on, hauling a long leash which thrashes about in his grasp. The barking is louder now.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Shall I bring him in, Miss?
PEARL [unable to conceal her delight]. I’ve got you a puppy, Victor.
VICTOR. A puppy! Oh Pearl, that’s wonderful!
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Coal black, he is, with a head so flat, you could balance a teacup.
VICTOR. Here boy! Here – [suddenly struggling for breath].
VICTOR can’t breathe. DR REID goes for his medical bag.
DR REID. Take it away! Flora –!
FLORA [rushing to assist YOUNG FARLEIGH]. Out, out with it at once!
The leash snaps out of YOUNG FARLEIGH’S hand and whips off. He and FLORA hurry after it. DR REID injects VICTOR with a hypodermic needle. VICTOR goes limp.
PEARL. My God, Doctor. If you hadn’t been here …
He offers her a cigarette. She takes it, he lights it. They smoke and regain composure.
DR REID. I’ve never seen such a severe phobic reaction.
PEARL. Phobic? But Doctor, a dog was Victor’s one desire as a child, and it was his childhood’s tragedy that Father refused him.
DR REID. Victor’s desire for a canine companion was thwarted by your father; and, rather than admit defeat –
PEARL. Victor converted his desire into phobia.
DR REID. Just so, my dear; very good.
PEARL [flattered]. Thank you, Doctor.
DR REID. The thwarted little boy evolved into the phobic man. Your poor father.
PEARL. I should think Victor is in a better position to benefit from your sympathy.
DR REID. Forgive me, I mean only to say that Victor is also in the sole position to inherit Belle Moral and pass on Judge MacIsaac’s spotless name.
PEARL. Naturally Victor will inherit the MacIsaac estate, but I am just as capable of perpetuating the MacIsaac name.
DR REID. You’ve always been spirited, Pearl. Your father’s one regret was that you were not born a son.
PEARL. I was as good as any son.
DR REID. Ay and better, more’s the pity.
PEARL. Victor’s not a bad fellow, he’s just a little … artistic.
DR REID. I’m afraid it’s worse than that. Victor may be an hysteric.
PEARL. But hysteria is a woman’s disease.
DR REID. Right again, my dear, I’ve never heard of a case like his.
PEARL. That’s our Victor for you. Always got to be an exception.
DR REID. If not an aberration. [disturbed] I wonder – is it possible – have I allowed the boy’s natural high spirits – and my affection for him – to mask what ought to have been, to me as a physician, clear signs?
DR REID. The rapid oscillations betwixt melancholy and elation; his excessive sensuality; the obsession with his mother – not to mention the drink – and now this sudden aversion to animal food.
PEARL. Victor is merely panting after the latest avant-garde craze. He was quoting Oscar Wilde just now.
A beat. PEARL misinterprets his silence:
Flambouyant Irishman. Dramatist. Sports a velvet cape –
DR REID. Has Victor, to your knowledge, evinced a special fondness for any male companions?
PEARL. There’s his old school chum, Rhouridh MacGregor. But Victor has always been more at ease in the company of ladies.
A beat.
Rhouridh’s not really a nihilist; just a sulky romantic. Decent chap. Carried a note into town for me just now.
A beat.
Dr Reid, Victor’s passing fancy for Irishmen and and anti-vivisectionists –
DR REID. Anti-vivisectionists?
PEARL. He considers himself an ally of the underdog.
DR REID. And an enemy of science. Not uncommon in the inebriate.
PEARL. This morning it was impressionists, yesterday it was mesmerists, and tomorrow it will be Egyptologists. Though it points to a flighty nature, it hardly convicts him of hysteria.
DR REID. Admirably put. Might we not agree, however, that your brother is of a highly strung temperament. [tender] So, too, was your mother. Promise me you’ll keep a loving eye on him.
FLORA enters, winded.
FLORA. We’ve caught the wee beastie and tied him in the paddock. [sees VICTOR] Victor!
DR REID. I’ve given him a mild sedative.
FLORA. Oh. Oh, thank God.
YOUNG FARLEIGH enters with a small silver tray. He takes a crumpled note from his pocket, places it on the tray, hands it to PEARL.
PEARL. Excellent. Mr Abbott will come tomorrow and bring Father’s will.
FLORA and DR REID exchange a look. YOUNG FARLEIGH sinks into a chair.
DR REID. Pearl, I wonder if you oughtn’t to put off the will for a few days. Until your brother’s quite recovered.
PEARL. We could wind up putting it off indefinitely if your diagnosis is correct.
FLORA. What diagnosis?
PEARL. Victor is morbidly effeminate, Auntie, but that’s not news. He requires a brisk dose of responsibility. Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll make a man of Victor MacIsaac yet. One that’s fit to inherit the stones of Belle Moral.
DR REID. Gently, Pearl.
PEARL. I think not. Fresh air, exercise and hard work.
DR REID. You gave me a bit of a turn just now. PEARL. How so?
DR REID. For a moment you were your father. You were Ramsay all over.
PEARL. Thank you, Doctor.
PEARL exits, pleased with the compliment, but DR REID is slightly unsettled.
FLORA. Seamus, what were you thinking, giving the lass that evil jar?
DR REID. You know what Pearl is like once her interest is piqued. What would you have had me do? Whisk it away with a portentous muttering?
FLORA. Why keep such a thing on your shelf in the first place?
DR REID. Perhaps as a reminder. Of what might have been … had I continued my work. [Holding out his hand, summoning strength for what he is about to face.] Come, Flora. Take me to her.
FLORA takes his hand just as PEARL enters to retrieve her camera. They part hands immediately. PEARL notices. They remain silent until she exits with her equipment.
FLORA. Poor lassie. Her world will ne’er be the same after tomorrow.
DR REID. There is no good reason why Pearl should have to know the truth.
FLORA. Her brother’s bound to tell her.
DR REID. Not if he’s half the man his father was.
VICTOR [sprawled, comatose].
FLORA. Poor Victor’s ne’er been able to keep a secret from anyone but himself.
DR REID. We must see that he does. We must also see that your unfortunate guest is returned to her rightful lodging as soon as possible. And Flora, get rid of that slavering cur.
They exit. PUPPY barks in the distance. He stops, VICTOR wakes with a jolt. Recovers, only to be startled at the sight of YOUNG FARLEIGH.
VICTOR. Young Farleigh. Young Farleigh.
He doesn’t wake. VICTOR tosses him the flask, he catches it.
[enjoying himself] Go ahead. Go on. I’m to be master of Belle Moral and as such I order you to stop respecting me. Let’s drink, comrade. Let us toast the inevitable decline of me and my bourgeois kind. Let us speak together as equals. And while you’re at it, fetch me slippers.
YOUNG FARLEIGH [toasting]. Aonaibh ri cheile. [pron. ehnev ree kaylee] [drinks]
VICTOR. “Aonaibh ri cheile”. What does that mean?
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Tis Gaelic.
VICTOR. I know “tis Gaelic”, what in hell does it mean?
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Call yourself a Scot. [another drink]
VICTOR. When are we going to be rid of you? Snoolin’ about the house, muttering Gaelic incantations, scorching the toast. And you’re too decrepit to be out winkling in the night.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Speak for yourself. [another drink]
VICTOR [logical]. I would but I haven’t a clue who that is. There was a time, not so long ago, when man asked the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Now we ask, “Is there a meaning?” Look at me. I’m useless. But perhaps uselessness will turn out to have some evolutionary value. I can’t know. Perhaps in a hundred years all the useful people will die of a plague that infects only those with a work ethic, and the useless will inherit the earth.
Pleased with himself, VICTOR reaches for the flask but YOUNG FARLEIGH keeps it and recites Robbie Burns with passion and surprising vigour.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. “Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie.
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle.
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle.
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion
An’ fellow-mortal.
Pause.
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best laid schemes o’ mice and’ men
Gang aft a-gley.
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promised joy.
Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me.
The present only toucheth thee.
But och! I backward cast my e’e
On prospects drear.
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear.”
A beat. VICTOR is awestruck.
VICTOR. Are you my real father?
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Are you askin’ me if you’re a real bastard?
They laugh. YOUNG FARLEIGH gets up, crosses to VICTOR, hands him the flask, then punches him in the nose. VICTOR cries out in pain.
That’s for insulting your mother.
He goes to leave but VICTOR stops him, and speaks from the heart:
VICTOR Young Farleigh. Who was she? She was beautiful. She was a painter. That’s all I have of her. I haven’t even got the old shawl she wrapped me in.
A beat.
YOUNG FARLEIGH. Aonaibh ri cheile. [pron. ehnev ree kaylee]
A closed door at the top of a narrow staircase. The door opens. DR REID. emerges. He descends a few steps, then stops, sets down his medical bag and sits, devastated. FLORA emerges, pulls the door closed, then turns and sees DR REID.
FLORA. Seamus … Come. I’ll make you cup of –
DR REID. Flora.
A beat. She sits next to him, as he tries to collect his thoughts.
This is her haim.
FLORA. Seamus. She canna byde here, not if –
DR REID. No, of course not, you’re right, it’s too too much to ask of you –
FLORA. ’Tisn’t that. Ramsay said she was to be cared for – elsewhere – throughout the course of her natural life.
DR REID. To be sure, to be sure, but … what do we know of the place where she has been housed all these years?
FLORA. It’s … decent.
DR REID. But you’ve ne’er seen it, ne’er –
FLORA. Young Farleigh –
DR REID. And he is the only one who ever visited.
FLORA, ashamed.
Now, now, that was Ramsay’s decision.
FLORA. But I didna wish to visit, Seamus. I kept awa’. I promised Régine I would look after the children. But the truth is, all these years, I’ve wished her dead. And God forgive me, I wish it still [weeping].
DR REID. You’re only human, Flora, you did your best. [regretful] And so did I. But we’ve a chance now to do a bit better, eh? [a beat] Flora, what if she were to come live with me? As my patient? She would have the best of care. My laboratory overlooks the sea. You could visit, or not, as you pleased. And you could rest easy in your mind.
A beat.
FLORA. Victor would have to agree.
DR REID. That’s certain. I may need your help on that front. The lad has conceived a mistrust of me as a physician – not surprising, given his mental … [delicate for FLORA’S sake] fragility.
FLORA. Fragility? Surely he’s more headstrong than fragile.
DR REID. I’d have said so myself before the events of this morning. [urgent] Flora, he is so like his mother. Sensitive, passionate …
FLORA. Niver say it, Seamus.
DR REID. I dread the morrow. For the lad will be master here and, as such, he’ll have to be told.
FLORA. I dinna relish the telling.
DR REID. Nor do I, lest the shock precipitate another fit.
FLORA. Why must he be told at all? Ach, I ought ne’er to’ve brought the poor creature haim–
DR REID. Nay, Flora, you did the right thing. The humane thing.
FLORA. I ought to’ve turned to you sooner, Seamus, I know it, but I beg of you now, dinna desert us in our hour of need.
DR REID. I’ll never desert this family, Flora.
Night. PEARL is at her desk with the jar and a pile of open books. PUPPY’S nose jostles her elbow from behind the desk.
PEARL. Lie down. Down.
PUPPY jostles her once more.
[matter-of-fact] I’ll have to get Young Farleigh to drown you, I suppose.
PUPPY’S tail wags from behind the desk. She pats him on the head.
There. [business-like] Now bugger off.
A knock at the door.
What?!
The door opens, FLORA puts her head in.
FLORA. Do go to bed, pet.
PEARL. I can’t, Auntie, I’m working.
FLORA [sees the dog]. There it is, oh thank goodness. Here, come now, come. Come.
PEARL. He won’t come, he’s stupid as a post.
FLORA. Well he canna stay, not with Victor’s phobia.
PEARL. I’ll not allow him near Victor, Auntie. FLORA. You’re no thinkin’ to keep him?
PEARL. Certainly not. [Concealing her eagerness.] Just overnight.
FLORA. I dare say Dr Reid would disapprove.
PEARL. What were you two whispering about so passionately this morning?
FLORA doesn’t answer.
Nevermind, Auntie, I know and I don’t mind a bit.
FLORA. You don’t? You do? What don’t you know?
PEARL [teasing, affectionate]. He’s courting you. Holding hands, and who knows what joukerie-pawkerie –
FLORA. Pearl –
PEARL. And you needn’t be jealous of the ear. It was a purely platonic gift.
PUPPY sniffs the jar, PEARL taps his nose.
FLORA. Ach, Dr Reid never – he was merely – he was comehitherating with me over some woman’s trouble.
PEARL. What woman?
FLORA. Why, me.
PEARL. Auntie, you’ve no taken ill. You have. [stricken] Oh, Auntie –
FLORA. Now, pet I’ve no’ took ill, it’s just … the change.
PEARL. Oh.
FLORA. Ay. [Mopping her brow.] No need to worry your head, that’s a long way off for you.
PEARL. Any of your shortbread about, Auntie?
FLORA. Victor ate it up.
PEARL. Damn him.
PUPPY knocks over the jar with his paw.
Off, I said. [On second thought:] Here. [Holding the jar out to him.] What do you make of that?
FLORA. Pearl! [covering] It’s bedtime. You don’t want to be baggy-eyed and forfochen when Mr Abbott arrives first thing in the morning.
PEARL. What on earth does it matter? Although you’d do well to get your beauty rest, Auntie, if Doctor Reid is to join us.
FLORA. Hush your haiverin’, noo. [embarassed, pleased] Pearl. You dinna truly reckon Dr Reid … harbours a speecial regard for your auld auntie?
PEARL. In my scientific opinion, it could not be more obvious.
PEARL. Goodnight, Auntie.
FLORA. Goodnight, pet. [Exit.]
PEARL. Puppy, did you know that the name of Dr Darwin’s ship was The Beagle? Darwin sought to penetrate that “mystery of mysteries”, the appearance of new species. He proved that all life transforms by slow degrees into all other life. You came from the wolf. I came from the ape. But if the dinosaurs hadn’t mysteriously vanished, we mammals might have remained a race of rodents. And in the absence of man, might the dinosaurs have developed higher consciousness? Perhaps certain traits are like secrets that will out, ideas that are bound to surface. If Darwin hadn’t gone to the Galapagos, he’d have been a scientific footnote; if Shakespeare hadn’t been caught poaching, he’d have been a wool merchant. But I’ll wager there’d still be a father of evolution – or even a mother –and someone whom we call the Bard. Behave, now, or it’s into the cellar with you. Lots of people thought of evolution before Darwin took all the seemingly unrelated bits and put them together in just the right way, at just the right time. His own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, believed in the mutability of species. But his reasoning was flawed: he put a piece of vermicelli in a jar and wait ed to see if it would come to life. No one could take him seriously after that. [chuckle] Vermicelli. Dr Reid might have feared the same fate when he put his jar aside forever. [About to place the jar back on the desk, a thought occurs to her.] Puppy … have you ever seen an ape with the ear of a wolf? Nor have I …
The next morning. MR ABBOTT is waiting. He is fastidiously groomed, wears a pince nez, and carries a leather briefcase. DR REID enters.
DR REID. Ah, Mr Abbott, a word sir –
ABBOTT. Good morning, Doctor –
REID. It appears you failed to receive the note I sent you, last –
ABBOTT. I received it.
DR REID. Why, then, your reply must have gone astray.
ABBOTT. No, my reply is forthcoming, to wit: it is more than a little irregular to seek to embargo a will before the contents are known.
DR REID. But you know the contents –
ABBOTT. I do not, Doctor. My late father drew up Judge MacIsaac’s will –
DR REID. Forgive me, I ought to have –
DR REID. A stroke, was it?
ABBOTT. Thrombosis.
DR REID. He didn’t linger.
ABBOTT. Nay.
DR REID [sympathetic aspirated, “ay”].
ABBOTT [corroborating aspiration].
DR REID. The fact remains, my dear Abbott, that the contents of Ramsay MacIsaac’s will are as good as known to all who knew him. The judge was a stubborn traditionalist, which is why this matter is of no little urgency; I have reason to fear that Victor MacIsaac is of unsound mind.
ABBOTT: The law is very clear in that case, Doctor. According to the Act Respecting Lunatics, [intoning] “the committee [pron. comeetay] of the estate, shall within six months, file in the office of the Master to whom the matter is referred, or for such officer as may be –”
DR REID. Yes, quite, if young Mr MacIsaac is found to be mentally unfit, his estate will be administered by duly appointed guardians, but Abbott, if we proceed with the reading of the will this morning before that finding can be made, we risk tipping him into an acutely disturbed state from which he might not recover.
ABBOTT. You wish me to suppress the late Judge MacIsaac’s will?
DR REID. Certainly not. I ask only that you delay the reading long enough for the course of Victor’s illness to become apparent. If his sanity does deteriorate, he can be delivered calmly into care before ever tasting the bitter fruit of inheritance. Your father would do no less, were he here.
ABBOTT. I am not my father, Doctor.
DR REID. Son, this family has suffered enough. Commit one humane sin of ommission and spare the lad a world of pain: misplace the will for a few weeks.
ABBOTT. What you suggest is not merely impossible, it’s implausible; no one for a moment would believe me capable of misplacing anything.
A beat.
DR REID. Certain … chattels await the heir to Belle Moral that might prove too much for the lad.
ABBOTT. What “chattels”?
DR REID. [silent].
ABBOTT. One hears things.
DR REID. What things?
ABBOTT. Rumours. To do with the late Mrs MacIsaac. They do not bear repeating.
DR REID. Then a gentleman need not so much as allude to them, sir.
ABBOTT. A gentleman would not have me compromise my professional integrity, sir.
DR REID. I am a doctor. I too have integrity to uphold, indeed an oath: “First, do no harm.” I beg of you, heed it.
FLORA and PEARL enter.
PEARL. Mr Abbott, good morning to you, sir.
ABBOTT [bowing]. Miss MacIsaac. [and to FLORA] Miss MacIsaac.
FLORA. Will you take a drop of coffee, Mr Abbott? [Yanking the cord, hollering.] Young Farleigh! Refreshments in the drawing room!
ABBOTT [to PEARL]. Miss MacIsaac, may I venture to express how immensely diverting I found to be your lecture on “Cambrian Invertebrates: A Comparative Anatomy of Stomachs and Guts”.
PEARL. Why thank you, Mr Abbott.
ABBOTT. Incidentally, have you read Mr Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Conchologist’s First Book: –”?
PEARL. “A System of Testaceous Malacology”, I couldn’t put it down.
ABBOTT. Nor could I.
PEARL. Mr Abbott, I had no idea you were a fossil enthusiast.
ABBOTT [blushing]. Indeed, I’ve conceived a passion for … paleontology.
DR REID. Where’s Victor?
FLORA. I let him sleep late. The laddie’s still on the delicate side.
VICTOR [singing lustily from off]. “Oh you tak the high road and I’ll tak the low road and I’ll be in Hades afore ye!”
VICTOR enters, bare-chested, kilted, wearing a tartan sash as a turban, the bridge of his nose bandaged where YOUNG FARLEIGH punched him.
PEARL. Victor, you’re drunk.
VICTOR. Oddly, no. I am about to become the Sultan of Belle Moral. Today I inherit Daddy’s noble pile, so let a thousand and one Scottish nights begin. Every true Scot knows the bagpipes originated in Arabia.
FLORA. They never did.
VICTOR. Abbott, [clapping his hands twice] on with the show. Reveal the will of our father.
DR REID clears his throat. ABBOTT ignores him, pulls a document from his briefcase, adjusts his pince nez, and reads:
ABBOTT. “Whereas I, Ramsay MacIsaac –”
VICTOR. Don’t worry, Pearl, I’ll no turn you oot o’ hoos and haim.
ABBOTT. “– being of sound mind –”
VICTOR. I intend to throw wide the doors and let the twentieth century blow hard through the halls.
PEARL. Hush, Victor.
ABBOTT. “– do hereby designate the disposal of my worldly goods –”
VICTOR. I shall put an ad in The Times: “All Welcome”.
ABBOTT. “– my will to be executed by Mr Edward Abbott, senior solicitor of Abbott, Abbott, Brodie and Bloom, except that, in the event that he predecease me, my will to be executed by his son, Mr Lorenzo Abbott.”
VICTOR and PEARL exchange a look, stifle a giggle, “Lorenzo”?
“I was born heir to solid Protestant traditions, the transmission of which from father to son ensured my portion in this world and the next. But in a moment of weakness I cast my seed upon stony ground. I broke the pure chain of descent and sullied the MacIsaac bloodline in an unholy alliance with the papist, Régine MacPhail. For my wayward desire have I atoned enough in life –”
VICTOR. God bless wayward desire!
ABBOTT. “– but that atonement must extend beyond the grave. My one break with holy tradition can be set right by one more such break: to this end do I disinherit my son, Victor MacIsaac. Upon my daughter Pearl whose parts recommend her as a true MacIsaac, do I bestow Belle Moral and all its goods and chattels. With one condition: that the sins of the mother not be visited upon the daughter, it is my will that she remain childless. In the event that she bear progeny, my estate to revert to the Presbyterian Kirk.”
Shock. VICTOR exits through the window. A beat, then FLORA follows.
Miss MacIsaac … good day. [aside to DR REID] As you can see, Doctor, you underestimated Ramsay MacIsaac. He was every bit as humane as you.
ABBOTT exits.
DR REID. Pearl –
PEARL [crisp, as though nothing had happened]. Doctor Reid, I’ve had an insight into the ear–
DR REID. It’s a tragedy you’ll never be a mother. ’Tis every woman’s dearest wish –
PEARL. It has never been mine. You insist the ear is a mere curiosity, but –
DR REID. Pearl –
PEARL [acid]. Well what would you have me do, Doctor? Weep and moan ‘cause I’ll never be saddled with a welter of brats mewling for “Mummy”? I only wish Father, in his munificence, hadn’t entirely disinherited Victor; it’ll feed the boy’s romantic martyrdom and give him an excuse to drink himself to death at my expense. I suppose that’s why Father cut me off at the ovaries: to prevent me spawning a breed of hysterical little boys. [suddenly struck] Doctor …
DR REID. What is it?
PEARL. Was there –? There was madness in Mother’s family, wasn’t there?
DR REID. Your mother was a beautiful woman.
PEARL. Ay, beautiful and mad. Victor is the picture of Mother; you think he’s mad.
DR REID. Unstable, perhaps.
PEARL. Doctor. [apprehensive] Will I go mad?
DR REID. No, no, my dear, you’re the picture of Ramsay.
DR REID. You know quite well, she –
PEARL. She contracted child-bed fever when Victor was born.
DR REID. Ay, that’s what carried her off.
PEARL. You needn’t euphemize on my account, Doctor. How soon after onset does death normally occur?
DR REID. A matter of hours, Pearl, she didn’t suffer long.
PEARL. Yet I’m to believe Mother had time and strength to paint Victor into the family portrait before being “carried off”? I’ll warrant she was carried off, the question is “to where?” The Royal Edinburgh Asylum. Tell me, Doctor. Is she alive? And put away?
DR REID. No she is not, you have my word. As to the portrait; Régine painted the infant into it before she gave birth. After all, she knew she was with child.
A beat.
PEARL. If not mad then what was she? Immoral?
DR REID. No –
PEARL. “The sins of the Mother”, she had to’ve been either fallen or mad, which was it?
PEARL [angry]. Then what did Father mean?!
DR REID. He merely wished to protect you.
PEARL. From what?!
DR REID. The laws of heredity are such that … a flaw may lurk undetected for generations.
PEARL. You mean I could breed a crop of lunatics.
DR REID. You said yourself you’d no desire for bairns.
PEARL [mounting fear]. It’s in me too, isn’t it?
DR REID. Pearl –
PEARL. The flaw.
DR REID. Hush –
PEARL. “Lurking.”
DR REID. Pearl. You know I’ve been fond of you since you were a girl. I was your father’s dearest friend; I know he’d give his blessing.
PEARL. To what?
DR REID. I want to marry you, Pearl.
PEARL [nonplussed] … Why?
DR REID. Oh Pearl, there’s so much to live for, so much of beauty and wonder. I want to share it with you.
PEARL. What have we to share?
DR REID. Our work. [passionate] You were right. I have been hiding. My dearest girl, I hope you may never have cause to learn how the sweetness can drain from the cup of life so gradually as to go unnoticed. Until one day that cup is empty. But now … Oh my dear, a great journey awaits us.
PEARL. To … the Caucasus?
DR REID. The journey between one cell and another can far outdistance that between the poles of the earth. Pearl, I shall lay my entire laboratory at your feet. I’ll instruct you in the art of dissection. We’ll establish our own institute of scientific inquiry, here at Belle Moral; bypass the graybeards in London who are too antiquated in their views to recognize that, in matters of intellect, woman is the equal of man. We’ll toil side by side and I will cherish you as the alchemist of old cherished his soror mystica, my mystical sister. My equal.
PEARL. But Doctor –
DR REID. Seamus.
PEARL. We can do all of that without benefit of clergy, without … [an awkward beat]
DR REID. I would not touch a hair of your head, my dear. My passion is not of the flesh, but the mind.
A beautiful young man enters, dressed exactly as YOUNG FARLEIGH was, carrying a covered tray.
YOUNG MAN [solemn]. Refreshments.
PEARL. Who the devil are you?
YOUNG MAN. Young Farleigh’s grandson, Miss. Wee Farleigh.