Belle Moral: A Natural History (5 page)

Y
OUNG
F
ARLEIGH
. Ay, Miss.

Exit
Y
OUNG
F
ARLEIGH
. P
EARL
lights a cigarette
.

F
LORA
. Must you, Pearl? It’s so unladylike.

P
EARL
. Flora.
[Attempting a casual tone.]
Did Mother love me?

F
LORA
. Of course she did, sweetheart.

P
EARL
. She’d’ve loved Victor more.

F
LORA
. 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.

P
EARL
[critical]
. Mother was always weak.

F
LORA
. She was a great beauty. “Régine, Régine, my Highland Queen.”

P
EARL
. 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.

F
LORA
. Ay, pet.

P
EARL
[pausing at the exit]
. Why have you sent for the doctor first thing in the morning?
[worried]
You’re no’ ill?

F
LORA
. Not at all. It’s Young Farleigh.
[As though complicity
Ay, he’s confused.

P
EARL
. Well, little wonder; it would appear that of late, no one gets a winkle of sleep under this roof.
[Exit.]

F
LORA
takes
V
ICTOR’S
flask from his sporran and has a sip. Regards the family portrait. Backs away from it. Examines it close up. Squints
. D
R
R
EID
exits, carrying his medical bag. They speak urgently, hurriedly
.

D
R
R
EID
. Good morning –

F
LORA
. Dr Reid, oh thank God, thank you for –

D
R
R
EID
. I came the moment I received your note, Flora, what is –?
[hushed]
Where is Pearl?

F
LORA
. In her study.

D
R
R
EID
. You’ve not told her.

F
LORA
. Certainly not.

D
R
R
EID
. Flora, how in God’s name –?

F
LORA
. Twas my doing. I sent Young Farleigh to fetch her home.

D
R
R
EID
. Why?

F
LORA
. 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 –

D
R
R
EID
. Why didn’t you come to me?

F
LORA
. Ramsay would no’ approve of charity –

D
R
R
EID
. charity?! I was his best –

F
LORA
. I know – I know – I know.
[FLORA
begins to shiver.]

D
R
R
EID
. You need a cup of tea, or something stonger,
[calling]
Young Farleigh –

F
LORA
. Nay, let him be, he drove through the night. I’m well. Truly.

D
R
R
EID
. Where have you put the …? Where have you put her?

F
LORA
. In the attic.

D
R
R
EID
. Under lock and key.

F
LORA
[nods, “yes, pulling herself together]
.

D
R
R
EID.
Is it your intention, then, to house the … patient here, indefinitely?

F
LORA
. No, no, Victor’s come haim this morning, so the will can be –

D
R
R
EID.
Why then, ’twas all for naught.

F
LORA
. Ach, you maun think me foolish. A foolish auld woman. Am I, Seamus?

D
R
R
EID
. Foolish? In this case, Flora, perhaps yes. Old?
[kindly]
Never. For what would that make me, eh?

F
LORA
. She is … she’s … I canna say, she’s … quiet.

D
R
R
EID
. Quiet.

F
LORA
. Ay. Wouldna’ touch a bite o’ breakfast.

D
R
R
EID
. That’s not surprising; the journey, the shock of new surroundings. Does she … has she spoken?

F
LORA
. Nay. Not a word.

D
R
R
EID
. No cries, no … sounds, of any kind?

F
LORA
. Nothing.

D
R
R
EID
 … How does she look?

F
LORA
. Not apart from one might expect. Given the years.
[weeps]

D
R
R
EID
. Hush, Flora.

F
LORA
. I promised … Régine –

D
R
R
EID.
We need not speak of it –

F
LORA
. I promised. To look after the children.

D
R
R
EID
. And you have. Hush, now.

Y
OUNG
F
ARLEIGH
enters
.

Y
OUNG
F
ARLEIGH
. Mu’m, the doctor is
[sees
D
R
R
EID]
here.

V
OICES
O
FF
. Help! Miss Maclsaac! Send for a doctor! A doctor!

F
LORA
. God help us.

D
R
R
EID.
[joining her]
. What’s happened?
[looking out]
Good Lord.

V
ICTOR
lies on the couch, naked and wet under a blanket
. DR REID
attends him
.

D
R
R
EID
[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?

V
ICTOR
covers his head with the blanket
.

D
R
R
EID.
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?

V
ICTOR
[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.

D
R
R
EID
. Go on.

V
ICTOR
[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.

D
R
R
EID.
I see. How long have you felt this way?

V
ICTOR
. I haven’t been myself since the funeral.

D
R
R
EID.
You miss your father.

V
ICTOR
. I don’t know if I’d go that far.

D
R
R
EID.
How does the prospect of being master of Belle Moral cause you to … feel?

V
ICTOR
. Like jumpin’ into the sea.

D
R
R
EID
. Victor, what would have become of your aunt and sister had you succeeded in your bid today? Who would look after them?

V
ICTOR
. You would. They don’t need me.

D
R
R
EID
. 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.

F
LORA
. How’s ma poor laddie?

V
ICTOR
[feigning weakness]
. I feel I’m fading, Auntie.

F
LORA
. See if you canna tak a bittie o’ parritch, ma hinnie.

V
ICTOR
. I’ll try.

D
R
R
EID
. Have you no beef tea, Flora?

F
LORA
. Ay, but the lad’s gone vegetative.

P
EARL
enters
.

P
EARL
[brisk]. He’s fallen in with the Fabians. Armchair revolutionaries nibbling celery.

F
LORA
[spoon poised]
. Here comes the coach-and-six,
clop-clop clop-clop
…

D
R
R
EID
[taking her aside]
. Pearl, I’m worried about your brother.

P
EARL
. As am I.

D
R
R
EID
. Victor shows signs of neurasthenia: a degenerative instability which threatens the delicate edifice of brain and nerve.

P
EARL
. He gets that from Mother, no doubt.

D
R
R
EID
. He has confessed an attempted suicide.

P
EARL
[loudly so
V
ICTOR
can hear]
.

D
R
R
EID
., my brother is suffering from nothing more than extreme foolishness and a common cold.

F
LORA
. Pearl, we’re lucky your brother is alive. Ask Rhouridh MacGregor, who plucked him from the boiling sea.

P
EARL
. Saved by a nihilist. You ought to be ashamed.

D
R
R
EID
. My dear Pearl, this is no way to treat a would-be suicide.

P
EARL
. 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.

F
LORA
. Oh Victor.

D
R
R
EID.
Is this true, sir?

V
ICTOR
. Pearl, those are only the facts, and you know it!

D
R
R
EID
. You’ve trifled with a man of science, Mr MacIsaac.

V
ICTOR
[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.

P
EARL
. Cheer up, Vickie; you’ve only your own carelessness to blame, not some cosmic vendetta.

D
R
R
EID
.
[picking up his bag]
. I’ll take my leave now. My genuinely ill patients will be waiting.

V
ICTOR
[spritely]
. Still skookin’ about the loony hoos, are you, Doctor?

P
EARL
. Victor.

V
ICTOR
[imitating her]
. “Edinburgh has a
leading
lunatic asylum.”

D
R
R
EID
. If you refer to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, yes I am on staff as specialist in organic diseases of the mind.

V
ICTOR
. 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?

D
R
R
EID
. Good day.

P
EARL
. Doctor, I’ve been puzzling over the ear you lent me.

D
R
R
EID
[momentarily at a loss]
.