Act III Scene 1
Next day, White Oaks. Late twilight. Night falls during early part of scene. Later, moonlight. The great dining hall. It opens at the back on a terrace with a large door at centre. Dame Pettigrew, Joyce and Eliza discovered in a flutter over the news of the war. Scotch raids are threatened from over the border. There are terrible tales of the lootings by the King’s soldiers of places suspected of Jacobitry. Dame Pettigrew, as she hears now this story, now that, is first Whig and then Jacobite, until she bewilders herself and the maids. They play on one another’s nerves until they are in sore fright. Pettigrew begins to collect her goods against leaving on the morrow, regretting that she has sent for Beatrice to stay with her, who is momentarily expected. At height of nervous strain, when all windows have been closed, all lights but the fire are out, and the women sit cowering and silent, the mournful shrilling of bagpipes and the heavy tread of feet coming nearer and nearer are heard. Joyce gasps about ghosts. Chilled with terror, no one dares go to the window. The procession reaches the end of the lane and passes. Sudden sharp rapping at door. Frightened parley with spirits, as maids think. Beatrice forces them to open, and appears. The pipes are the funeral train of a Jacobite killed on the neighboring border and now on the way to Goodrest for a final mass. Beatrice is excited and anxious but brings order out of chaos in the room. Turns up lights, gets rid of Dame Pettigrew, and one maid, and sends other maid for supper. Bids Joyce, should Bill Lampeter appear, send him to her at once. She has a message for Crowe Hall. When Joyce has departed wonderingly, it appears that all day Beatrice has been trying to warn Cope at Goodrest that they were watched the day before, but has been unable till as she rode over with Jessie she met Bill Lampeter on the road. Dropping behind, she wrote hastily on her tablets a warning, and dropping them into Bill’s hands made him fly to Goodrest, he to report his success at once. A knock at the big door softly. Raymond’s voice. When she opens to him, a passionate scene follows. She is at first full of affection, mingled with dread of what he may know. He is fighting suspicion, passion for her, and inability to believe her guilty. Seeking her at Crowe Hall, he has followed her thither. At first she is too sincere to play with him. He is too anxious to be able to diplomatize. He shows his fears—that she is intriguing with another, with the Pretender. She is maddeningly incomprehensible—swears she knows no Pretender, but will not say yes or no as to meeting any one in the wood. In his anger and his desire to force the truth from her, by making her feel the uselessness of protecting the Pretender, he lets drop more than he realizes of plans to catch him and for the campaign. Seeing that, had her message not gone, her brother would have been trapped, Beatrice works to delay Raymond. She is first coldly repellent, then alluring, then silent, then apparently almost on the point of revelation. At last in despair he breaks away into the night, vowing vengeance on the destroyer of his happiness and cursing her for a fickle, ambitious thing, unworthy a good man’s love. She stands motionless by the table, then hurries to the wide open door through which the moonlight streams in from the garden, calls again and again softly, staggers back, and falls sobbing on the great settle. Van Brugh appears at the open doors, closes them softly and speaks. He is leaving the Hunters for good, for the final Jacobite blows are to be struck. Seeing Raymond ahead of him, he hid in the garden till Raymond went. He calls on “The Daughter of Charles Cope” to tell him for the good of the cause what she knows of Raymond’s plans. She denies that she knows them fully, but cannot deny that she knows something of them. He shows that everything depends for the Jacobites on knowing the movements of the local forces for the next few days. He uses every appeal he can, her brother among others. To this she only answers that she has warned and saved him. All his appeals are in vain. “Raymond is my husband in the sight of God. His secrets should be my secrets, but my brother I cannot help to kill. To save him I must deceive the man I love best in all the world; so be it. So much I must do, more I will not.” Sandiland, the fanatic breaking out in him, curses her as a renegade and unworthy her name and race. He goes. As she stands murmuring: “Unworthy love, unworthy my father’s name!” suddenly her face softens. She drops to the settle and prays for a moment. Quietly she rises, saying, “Why count the cost if Charles’ life be saved.” The door opens and Joyce enters in great excitement to say, “Bill has come, but in bad plight.” She fetches the boy, his clothes torn, his hands bleeding where ropes have cut the wrists. He has been taken shortly after leaving Beatrice and searched. He snatched the tablets from a captor’s hand and licked off the message before it was read. He was then trussed up behind a soldier on horseback, and started for the “Maid in the Valley” Tavern, the rendezvous from which the journey to Goodrest was to begin. By daring and ingenuity he slipped away at the inn. “Then my brother knows nothing.” “No, and they’ll be starting by now from the Maid in the Valley. They were waiting for the moon to be covered.” “Where’s Philly, my mare?” “In the paddock, miss.” “What do you mean?” cries Joyce. “I am going to Goodrest.” “Alone? To-night, with these rake-hell soldiers abroad?” Beatrice’s only answer is to find her whip and pass quickly out into the night. Joyce sinks down sobbing in window seat. Bill is in the doorway, wild with excitement. “Now, ride, ride, Miss Beatrice. Ride, like Hell!”
Quick Curtain
If it is clear that illustrative action is as essential in a scenario as in a play, it is as true for one form as the other that right proportioning and emphasis must make clear the purpose of the author in writing the scenario and must take a reader clearly to its conclusion. Read any one of the following three scenarios and decide whether you are clear as to the purpose of the author. What did he think was attractively dramatic in his material? What is the central interest of his proposed play? Just what is the suspense created near the beginning of the play and developed throughout from sub-climaxes to a final climax? As has been carefully explained, plays must do all this. Therefore their scenarios must also.
THE FISHING OF SUZANNE
SCENARIO. Curtain rises discovering Madame knitting in chair, upper right, Hélène embroidering in window-seat, Suzanne on sofa, trying to sew. Suzanne gets into trouble and Hélène helps her. Then grandmother offers to tell her a story. Suzanne says that her stories are so sad, always about her dead parents. Hélène represses her. Enter grandfather, the Colonel, rear. Suzanne starts to show him her sewing and is repulsed. Colonel denounces the Dreyfus situation; Madame trying to interfere when he begins on the American attitude, finally gets Hélène and Suzanne from room. Then Colonel learns that George Williams, an American, loves Hélène. He is overcome. Enter George rear. Embarrassing situation; finally George gets up courage and asks for Hélène’s hand, is refused, but goes away undaunted. Enter Hélène, side. Colonel says, “I will have no friend of traitors place his foot in my house.” Scene. Exit Hélène sobbing angrily. Colonel disturbed, but when wife starts after her, forbids her going. Exit the Colonel. Madame again starts toward door. Suzanne and Marie enter. Madame has Suzanne play with fishing rod; dismisses Marie from room. Suzanne hears Hélène’s sobs. Asks if she is sick. Says she will comfort her. Madame feels guilty and leaves. Suzanne persuades Hélène to come out and watch her fish. Catches some imaginary ones. Discovers George. He sends up notes like fish. Later Hélène furnishes bait. Then she fishes him up. Suzanne is dismissed with candy, and he persuades Hélène to elope. Suzanne comes and says the cab is there. Steps heard. George goes down rope. Marie tells of the cab. Hélène rushes into packing. Leaves note for mother with Suzanne, who wins a promise for a speedy return from her. Exit Hélène rear. Marie and Suzanne wave from window. Talk. Soon Colonel and Madame enter. See disorderly room. Suzanne gives them the note. Madame reads it and breaks news to her husband. Defends Hélène; reminds Colonel of their parents’ political differences. Suzanne tells how Hélène thought they did not care for her in her sorrow. Both in tears. Colonel in desperation starts to send for them by Marie. Enter George and Hélène; Hélène unable to leave without seeing them. Colonel says he may have been too hasty. Then Suzanne discovers George’s Legion of Honor badge. He and Colonel shake on the old friendship of the Republics.
Curtain
AN ENCORE
Adapted from a Story by Margaret Deland
Time: About 1830, in June.
Place: Little town of Old Chester.
Between the first and second act three weeks elapse.