Dragonwyck

- Ma! - What in the heaven's name?

- It's a letter, ma, for you. - Who's it from?

Aren't you gonna read it?

Your pa and the boys'ii be in soon. We might as we" wait.

We'll just have to read it again when pa gets here.

Oh, please, ma. It's for you.

You've got a right. Aren't you dyin' to know what's in it?

Seems to me you're the one that's dying.

“Dragonwyck, may 19, 1844.

My dear cousin Abigail. Nicholas Van ryn.”

Who's that?

Shh. Tibby. Read the letter, ma.

“Though we have never met, we are related, as you doubtless know,

through our mutual grandmother, annetje gaansevant.

My wife and I have decided to invite one of your daughters...

Into our home for an extended visit.

We shall naturally be able to offer her many advantages...

Which she could not hope to enjoy in her present station.

In return, if she pleases, she may serve as a companion...

To our eight-year-old child, Katrine.

Upon inquiry, I have been gratified to find that you and your husband...

Enjoy the honor and respect of your little community.

Be so good as to let me know at your earliest convenience...

Which of your daughters you select,

and I will make all suitable arrangements for her journey to dragonwyck.

Respectfully yours, Nicholas Van ryn.”

Golly! Is he really your cousin?

Now don't go imagining yourselves a couple of lost duchesses.

There's not a drop of Van ryn blood in any of us.

It doesn't make any difference to me, I'm sure.

But you had the same grandmother.

She was— let me see.

My grandfather was her second husband.

Her first one died. His name was Van ryn.

Nicholas must be his grandson.

He's a patroon.

- A patroon? Cousin Nicholas? - What's a patroon?

That's what they call the owners of those enormous land grants on the Hudson river.

They're the descendants of the original Dutch patroons,

and they're terribly rich and elegant.

He must be very important.

I remember reading about his visiting president Van buren at the white house.

But you haven't said yet, ma, whether I could go.

The subject hadn't come up yet, that I know of.

I think it unlikely that your pa will approve.

He's more likely to if you do.

And if we do decide to let one of you go, why not tibby?

She wouldn't want to go. Would you, tibby?

I'm sure there isn't anything I want that I can't find right here.

- I'm not anxious to leave my home. - That's not fair!

You know I love you and pa, all of you, and my home.

It's just that, well, I try to be like everyone else

and want what I'm supposed to want,

but then I start thinking about people I've never known

and places I've never been.

Maybe if the letter hadn't come, I...

Oh, I don't know. I must be loony.

Time I was killing a hen for supper.

You scour the drainboard.

No use mooning over it. Your pa'll do whatever he and the lord think best.

There's one thing you can be sure of.

They'll both feel the same way about it.

This day, 0 lord, there has come to me a matter of slight perplexity.

Deliver us, we pray, from hankering after fieshpots,

and deliver us from vanity and false pride.

However, thy will be done.

Keep and preserve us through the night. Amen.

Vveh, boys, get

- Tom. - Yes, pa?

You water the stock and look to whiteface. She's freshening.

Yes, pa.

Tibby, is obadiah brown likely to come mooning around again tonight?

Oh, pa, I'm sure I have no notion of his plans.

Well, if he does turn up, be sure and sit on the steps...

Where your ma can keep an eye on you.

Although I must say that ob is a steady lad...

And you, praise be, are not the fiighty kind.

- Thank you, pa. - Now about this letter.

I'd see no reason to discuss it

if it wasn't that your ma acts like it was important.

It is important, Ephraim.

It might be good for Randy to live in a great house...

And learn something of the world outside this farm.

I'd so like to go, pa.

Your opinion is of no consequence whatever, miss.

You're past 18, pretty enough, and time you got settled down with a man.

I don't know what's the matter with you.

As for this fine relation of yours,

I'd like to know what right he's got to be making inquiries about us.

He doesn't mean it that way, I'm sure.

Perhaps the gentry have different ways of saying things.

Since when do we have gentry in this country where all men are free and equal?

A yankee farmer's as good and maybe better

than any dutchman on the Hudson river.

- We'll say no more about it. - Oh, pa, listen, please.

I have a feeling that the letter was kind of a sign.

- I think the lord wants me to go. - Do you know what you're saying?

During worship tonight, I had a leading. Truly I did.

At least put it to the test, pa, please, and see what happens.

Are you speaking the truth?

Search your heart.

Very well.

Close your eyes.

Now open the book.

“And Abraham Rose up early in the morning...

And took bread and a bottle of water and gave it unto hagar,

putting it on her shoulder and the child and sent her away.

She departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.”

Well, it's none too fitting, but it does seem to have some bearing.

I'll sleep over the matter and pray on it.

Come, Abby.

You know, this is the first time I've ever known the lord to go back on your pa.

Golly!

Golly Moses!

It says in his letter for us to meet him at the astor house, and this is it.

And a less fit place for god-fearing people to meet I can't imagine.

Come ahead.

And, uh, what can I do for you, my good man?

Are you the tavern keeper?

This is not a tavern, and I am not a keeper, my good man.

I am not your good man!

We were to meet a Mr. Nicholas Van ryn.

- Perhaps you can tell— - Mr. Nicholas Van ryn? But of course!

- (Bell rings) - You must be Mr. and miss Wells.

A thousand pardons. How stupid of me not to have known at once.

If you will do me the honor to come with me, please.

Mr. Van ryn regrets that he is not here to greet you,

but he has directed that you're to have everything you wish.

Everything.

- What's all this? - Dinner, sir.

I didn't order any.

Mr. Van ryn ordered dinner served at this time, sir.

- Mr. Van ryn is not here. - Yes, sir.

Oh, it's beautiful!

The food looks as if it had been painted.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

That's the strangest fruit.

It's cold when I eat it and warm when I swallow it.

Let me taste that.

I thought so. It's got spirits in it.

Just a little bit. It's so good.

Even a little bit of evil cannot be good, Miranda.

Don't be too impatient with me.

You won't have to hear me preach to you much longer.

It's not that I'm impatient, pa, really.

But after Mr. Van ryn went to all this trouble...

It's no trouble to be wasteful.

And there's something peculiar about a man

who orders supper some place when he's some place else.

How did he know what I wanted to eat?

But there's everything here you could possibly want.

Everything is what no man should ever want.

Yes, pa.

We won't be alone much longer, Miranda.

I want you to read with me.

“I will sing...

- Of mercy and judgment. - Of mercy and judgment.

Unto thee, o lord, will I sing.

I will walk with”— -(Knocking)

“I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.”

“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes.

I hate the work of them that turn aside.

It sh— it shall not cleave to me.

A froward heart shall depart from me.

I will not know a wicked person.”

- More coffee, cousin Miranda? - No, thank you.

- You, sir? - No, thanks.

J'j' (waltz)

The music is very nice.

I understand they've opened the dining terrace for public dancing.

It would be fun to watch.

I don't know what made me think you'd be a much older man, Mr. Van ryn.

You've mentioned my age several times now, sir.

Does it affect your confidence in me?

Alexander the great, when he was younger than I, had conquered most of the world.

Maybe if he'd been older, he'd have conquered all of it,

or maybe he'd have had the sense not to try in the first place.

Aristotle was his teacher, Mr. Wells,

but I'm sure he put things less clearly than you.

Tell me, young man. What are your politics?

My politics?

Since Van buren is a new yorker,

I imagine you folks up along the Hudson are mostly for him.

Martin's an old friend of mine.

Naturally if he's nominated, my farmers will vote for him.

What do you mean, your farmers?

The tenant farmers on my land. There are nearly 200 of them.

Never heard of tenant farmers. Don't they own their own land?

No, it belongs to me. It belonged to my father and his father,

back to the first patroon that took title in 1630.

I permit the farmers to work my land, and they in return...

Pay me a yearly tribute and a share of their produce.

But they can buy the land they've been working if they want to.

- No. - Well, why not?

Because it belongs to me.

As a farmer, I'd rather own one half acre of barren rock free and clear...

Than work the richest land in the world for someone else.

I daresay we don't understand each other's viewpoint.

I daresay.

Cousin Nicholas, is that the new waltz dance they're dancing down there?