First Plays Part 5

MARGARET (to CRAWSHAW). I think, perhaps, Viola and I--

RICHARD (making a move too). We'll leave you to your business, Robert.

CLIFTON (holding up his hand). Just one moment if I may. I have a letter for you, Mr. Meriton.

RICHARD (surprised). For me?

CLIFTON. Yes. My clerk, a man of the utmost integrity--oh, but I said that before--he took it round to your rooms this morning, but found only painters and decorators there. (He is feeling in his pockets and now brings the letter out.) I brought it along, hoping that Mr.

Crawshaw--but of course I never expected anything so delightful as this.

(He hands over the letter with a bow.)

RICHARD. Thanks. (He puts it in his pocket.)

CLIFTON. Oh, but do read it now, won't you? (To MR. CRAWSHAW) One so rarely has an opportunity of being present when one's own letters are read. I think the habit they have on the stage of reading letters aloud to other is such a very delightful one.

(RICHARD, with a smile and a shrug, has opened his letter while CLIFTON is talking.)

RICHARD. Good Lord!

VIOLA. d.i.c.k, what is it?

RICHARD (reading). "199, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Dear Sir, I have the pleasure to inform you that under the will of the late Mr. Antony Clifton you are a beneficiary to the extent of 50,000."

VIOLA. d.i.c.k!

RICHARD. "A trifling condition is attached--namely, that you should take the name of--Wurzel-Flummery." (CLIFTON, with his hand on his heart, bows gracefully from one to the other of them.)

CRAWSHAW (annoyed). Impossible! Why should he leave any money to _you_?

VIOLA. d.i.c.k! How wonderful!

MARGARET (mildly). I don't remember ever having had a morning quite like this.

RICHARD (angrily). Is this a joke, Mr. Clifton?

CLIFTON. Oh, the money is there all right. My clerk, a man of the utmost--

RICHARD. Then I refuse it. I'll have nothing to do with it. I won't even argue about it. (Tearing the letter into bits) That's what I think of your money. [He stalks indignantly from the room.]

VIOLA. d.i.c.k! Oh, but, mother, he mustn't. Oh, I must tell him--[She hurries after him.]

MARGARET (with dignity). Really, Mr. Clifton, I'm surprised at you. [She goes out too.]

CLIFTON (looking round the room). And now, Mr. Crawshaw, we are alone.

CRAWSHAW. Yes. Well, I think, Mr. Clifton, you have a good deal to explain--

CLIFTON. My dear sir, I'm longing to begin. I have been looking forward to this day for weeks. I spent over an hour this morning dressing for it. (He takes papers from his hat and moves to the sofa.) Perhaps I had better begin from the beginning.

CRAWSHAW (interested, indicating the papers). The doc.u.ments in the case?

CLIFTON. Oh dear, no just something to carry in the hand. It makes one look more like a solicitor. (Reading the t.i.tle) "Watherston v.

Towser--in re Great Missenden Ca.n.a.l Company." My clerk invents the t.i.tles; it keeps him busy. He is very fond of Towser; Towser is always coming in. (Frankly) You see, Mr. Crawshaw, this is my first real case, and I only got it because Antony Clifton is my uncle. My efforts to introduce a little picturesqueness into the dull formalities of the law do not meet with that response that one would have expected.

CRAWSHAW (looking at his watch). Yes. Well, I'm a busy man, and if you could tell me as shortly as possible why your uncle left this money to me, and apparently to Mr. Meriton too, under these extraordinary conditions, I shall be obliged to you.

CLIFTON. Say no more, Mr. Crawshaw; I look forward to being entirely frank with you. It will be a pleasure.

CRAWSHAW. You understand, of course, my position. I think I may say that I am not without reputation in the country; and proud as I am to accept this sacred trust, this money which the late Mr. Antony Clifton has seen fit--(modestly) one cannot say why--to bequeath to me, yet the use of the name Wurzel-Flummery would be excessively awkward.

CLIFTON (cheerfully). Excessively.

CRAWSHAW. My object in seeing you was to inquire if it was absolutely essential that the name should go with the money.

CLIFTON. Well (thoughtfully), you may have the name _without_ the money if you like. But you must have the name.

CRAWSHAW (disappointed). Ah! (Bravely) Of course, I have nothing against the name, a good old Hamps.h.i.+re name--

CLIFTON (shocked). My dear Mr. Crawshaw, you didn't think--you didn't really think that anybody had been called Wurzel-Flummery before? Oh no, no. You and Mr. Meriton were to be the first, the founders of the clan, the designers of the Wurzel-Flummery sporran--

CRAWSHAW. What do you mean, sir? Are you telling me that it is not a real name at all?

CLIFTON. Oh, it's a name all right. I know it is because--er--_I_ made it up.

CRAWSHAW (outraged). And you have the impudence to propose, sir, that I should take a made-up name?

CLIFTON (soothingly). Well, all names are made up some time or other.

Somebody had to think of--Adam.

CRAWSHAW. I warn you, Mr. Clifton, that I do not allow this trifling with serious subjects.

CLIFTON. It's all so simple, really.... You see, my Uncle Antony was a rather unusual man. He despised money. He was not afraid to put it in its proper place. The place he put it in was--er--a little below golf and a little above cla.s.sical concerts. If a man said to him, "Would you like to make fifty thousand this afternoon?" he would say--well, it would depend what he was doing. If he were going to have a round at Walton Heath--

CRAWSHAW. It's perfectly scandalous to talk of money in this way.

CLIFTON. Well, that's how he talked about it. But he didn't find many to agree with him. In fact, he used to say that there was nothing, however contemptible, that a man would not do for money. One day I suggested that if he left a legacy with a sufficiently foolish name attached to it, somebody might be found to refuse it. He laughed at the idea. That put me on my mettle. "Two people," I said; "leave the same silly name to two people, two well-known people, rival politicians, say, men whose own names are already public property. Surely they wouldn't both take it."

That touched him. "Denis, my boy, you've got it," he said. "Upon what vile bodies shall we experiment?" We decided on you and Mr. Meriton. The next thing was to choose the name. I started on the wrong lines. I began by suggesting names like Porker, Tosh, Bugge, Spiffkins--the obvious sort. My uncle--

CRAWSHAW (boiling with indignation). How _dare_ you discuss me with your uncle, Sir! How dare you decide in this cold-blooded way whether I am to be called--ah--Tosh--or--ah--Porker!

CLIFTON. My uncle wouldn't bear of Tosh or Porker. He wanted a humorous name--a name he could roll lovingly round his tongue--a name expressing a sort of humorous contempt--Wurzel-Flummery! I can see now the happy ruminating smile which came so often on my Uncle Antony's face in those latter months. He was thinking of his two Wurzel-Flummerys. I remember him saying once--it was at the Zoo--what a pity it was he hadn't enough to divide among the whole Cabinet. A whole bunch of Wurzel-Flummerys; it would have been rather jolly.

CRAWSHAW. You force me to say, sir, that if _that_ was the way you and your uncle used to talk together at his death can only be described as a merciful intervention of Providence.

CLIFTON. Oh, but I think he must be enjoying all this somewhere, you know. I hope he is. He would have loved this morning. It was his one regret that from the necessities of the case he could not live to enjoy his own joke; but he had hopes that echoes of it would reach him wherever he might be. It was with some such idea, I fancy, that toward the end he became interested in spiritualism.

CRAWSHAW (rising solemnly). Mr. Clifton, I have no interest in the present whereabouts of your uncle, nor in what means he has of overhearing a private conversation between you and myself. But if, as you irreverently suggest, he is listening to us, I should like him to hear this. That, in my opinion, you are not a qualified solicitor at all, that you never had an uncle, and that the whole story of the will and the ridiculous condition attached to it is just the tomfool joke of a man who, by his own admission, wastes most of his time writing unsuccessful farces. And I propose--