John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

COLONEL —Go on. Well?

KENNEDY —For him who speaks the language of Canaan, Parson says, the hid-away life of the world becomes plain. He clucks at me. You’ve heard, of course, of the miracle of the milk?

COLONEL —The which?

KENNEDY (SHRUGS) — I’m not much of a one for scripture, Your Bristliness, says I. (PAUSE) — He laughed at that.

COLONEL —And what was his reply?

KENNEDY —Trying to remember it just right. No, no, Stuts, says he. Nothingout of that fine book. I’m referring to the elephant-headed god Ganesh and his drinking up of all the milk in London. (PAUSE)— You’re off your lemon, you hairy-faced old fright, says I. He tightens his muh! — muh! — monkey-grip on my shoulder. I know you, Stutter Kennedy, to be a Catholic buggerer of tombs, he says. For this reason I trust you better than most.

COLONEL (LAUGHS) — He was having you on, dear fellow. Nothing more.

KENNEDY —Goodman Harvey tasted of that milk, Parson says, looking dead into my eyes. He spoke Cuh! — cuh! — cuh! —

COLONEL —Easy, Mr. Kennedy.

KENNEDY —Cuh! —

COLONEL —Give yourself a moment.

KENNEDY —Canaan’s tongue, he said. Goodman Harvey spoke Canaan’s tongue sure enough, just before he died.

COLONEL (PAUSE) — I see.

KENNEDY —There you have it, you bed-piddler.

COLONEL —Sit down, Miss Gilchrist. Have you been apprised?

CLEMENTINE —Not for some time now, Colonel. (SMILES)

COLONEL —Strike that, Virgil. (PAUSE) — Have you any notion, miss, as to why I’ve called you in?

CLEMENTINE —Parson told me Harvey’s been put under.

COLONEL —Parson told you! When?

CLEMENTINE —Early this morning, before the rest of you were awake. (PAUSE) — Why are you looking at me that way?

COLONEL —Have you been eaves-dropping from the hall? Answer truly!

CLEMENTINE —Yes. Is that the best question you can think of?

COLONEL —Strike that, Virgil. (PAUSE) — What was the cause, Miss Gilchrist, of your hatred of Goodman Harvey?

CLEMENTINE —Hatred! Of that little milk-sop?

COLONEL —You were heard to say, this morning, that Harvey deserved his end. Had he been troubling you, miss? Persistent, perhaps, in his affections?

CLEMENTINE —Goodman Harvey? (LAUGHS) — He was the only one who wasn’t. Excepting you, of course, Colonel. I imagine you can’t be.

COLONEL (SMILES) — I thank heaven for it daily. At what hour did you leave your room this morning?

CLEMENTINE —I don’t know. Five-thirty? Six? I went out to the verandah.

COLONEL —Normally Mr. Delamare is on the verandah at that hour.

CLEMENTINE —Well he wasn’t there this time. Perhaps he was too busy snip ing Yankees.

COLONEL (PAUSE) — Yankees? How do you mean?

CLEMENTINE —Haven’t you told him, Virgil? Didn’t you note it in your minutes?

COLONEL —Virgil is not free to converse with you, Miss Gilchrist. If you have an anecdote to tell, you’d better tell it straight to me.

CLEMENTINE —Well. I certainly wouldn’t want to keep anything from you, Colonel. But if Virgil hasn’t told you I’m just not sure. It might still be a secret.

COLONEL (PAUSE) — Miss Gilchrist. No doubt you have a power of admirers in this house—; but I am not among them. I’m a bandy-legged old man, you see. At my age one thing interests me at a time, and that only if I bring my full attention to bear upon it. All trivialities must be excluded — banished utterly — for my dried-up brain to function. And most everything becomes a triviality, from my point of view, when one of our number has been assassinated. Especially the details of your divers fornications. Do you follow?

CLEMENTINE —Well. I’d hate to seem trivial to you, Colonel, I’m sure.

COLONEL —Good. What interests me now — to the exclusion of all else — is the identity of the person who compelled Goodman Harvey to eat permanganate of potassium between midnight and six o’clock this morning. (PAUSE) — You see, I can’t help but wonder, miss, whether I might not be next.

CLEMENTINE —You’re free to leave this house any time you like, Colonel. Virgil and I will miss you, of course. Won’t we, Virgil?

COLONEL —You take me quite aback, Miss Gilchrist. Have you no fear of being visited by this avenging angel?

CLEMENTINE —None at all. (PAUSE) — I leave my door open for him at night.

COLONEL —No use in looking to Virgil, miss. He can’t call an end to this inquiry, much as he might prefer to.

CLEMENTINE (PAUSE) — I’d like to help you, Colonel. I would.

COLONEL —You neither saw nor heard a single thing worth relating?

CLEMENTINE —I never said that. I saw your Parson.

COLONEL (PAUSE) — Ah. Where and when, exactly, did you see him?

CLEMENTINE —As I left my room. I saw him from the window.

COLONEL —Which window? On the landing?

CLEMENTINE (NODS) — He was crossing the lawn. He’d been off in the woods.

COLONEL —As I recall it, that window looks out over the river. How could you know where Parson had been?

CLEMENTINE — He was carrying an axe, Colonel. And a sack over his shoulder.

COLONEL —A sack?

CLEMENTINE (NODS) — Or something wrapped up in a sheet. (PAUSE)— Perhaps that’s what it was. I called his name as he came upstairs and he blinked at me a moment, then passed me by without a word. Not in a hurry but business-like. I waited till I heard the attic door open and shut—; then I went downstairs the way that he’d come up. Something had fallen from his sack. A hair-tonic bottle.

COLONEL (LAUGHS) — Hair tonic? For Parson? I’d say the man has quite enough—

CLEMENTINE —There was no tonic in it, Colonel. It was—

COLONEL —I see. An empty bottle. Which you imagine might, at some time in the past, have held—

CLEMENTINE —It wasn’t empty at all. There was dirt inside of it. (PAUSE) — Dirt, and a few pine-needles.

COLONEL —Pine needles, you say. In a hair-tonic bottle.

CLEMENTINE —You see? He was coming from the woods—; I’m sure of it.

COLONEL —You assume that he was coming from the woods. You haven’t—

CLEMENTINE —Do you want to hear about the sack, Colonel?

COLONEL —The sack. Of course. But you seem to think it might have been a heap of linen.

CLEMENTINE —I said no such thing. You note that down, Virgil! (PAUSE)— There was something in that bundle. The size of a tom-cat. (PAUSE)— A bit smaller than that, possibly. (PAUSE) — A baby.

COLONEL (LAUGHS) — Is Parson stealing babies now, Miss Gilchrist?

CLEMENTINE —You tell me something, Colonel. When you’ve finished questioning the rest of us till the blood runs out our ears, will you condescend to interview yourself?

COLONEL —Certainly, miss. Perhaps I’ll do that now.

CLEMENTINE —No. Not now. I haven’t finished yet.

COLONEL —By all means! Disburden yourself entirely.

CLEMENTINE (PAUSE) — I took a walk with Goodman Harvey yesterday.

COLONEL (LAUGHS) — Is no-one safe?

CLEMENTINE —You’d do well to listen to me, Colonel. (PAUSE) — I was surprised when Harvey asked, of course, as he’d never once shown an interest. A walk through the orchard, he said. It was after supper. Something in his manner made me curious. (PAUSE) — We walked to the far fence. He didn’t once look me in the eye, or anywhere else. At the gate I said—: Mr. Harvey, why did you invite me out? Then he turned and looked me over. Mith Clem, you know I am a Mormon by faith, he said. I nodded. He gave a little laugh. That’th why he thelected me, he said. Meaning the R—. (MAKES SIGN OF CROSS)