Chapter LIV: 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, Helene embroidering in window-seat, Suzanne on sofa, trying to
sew. Suzanne gets into trouble and Helene helps her. Then grandmother
offers to tell her a story. Suzanne says that her stories are so sad,
always about her dead parents. Helene 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 Helene and Suzanne from room. Then Colonel learns that George
Williams, an American, loves Helene. He is overcome. Enter George
rear. Embarrassing situation; finally George gets up courage and asks
for Helene's hand, is refused, but goes away undaunted. Enter Helene,
side. Colonel says, "I will have no friend of traitors place his foot
in my house." Scene. Exit Helene 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 Helene's sobs. Asks if she is sick. Says she will comfort her.
Madame feels guilty and leaves. Suzanne persuades Helene to come out
and watch her fish. Catches some imaginary ones. Discovers George. He
sends up notes like fish. Later Helene furnishes bait. Then she fishes
him up. Suzanne is dismissed with candy, and he persuades Helene to
elope. Suzanne comes and says the cab is there. Steps heard. George
goes down rope. Marie tells of the cab. Helene rushes into packing.
Leaves note for mother with Suzanne, who wins a promise for a speedy
return from her. Exit Helene 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 Helene; reminds Colonel of their parents' political
differences. Suzanne tells how Helene 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 Helene; Helene 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._

_Dramatis Personae_

_Captain Price: Retired sea-captain, big, bluff, and hearty, with
white hair and big white mustachios, rather untidy as to dress. Age,
about 68._

_Cyrus Price: His son, weak and neat-looking, very thin and of sandy
complexion. Age, about 35._

_Mrs. North: Sprightly, pretty, white-haired little lady of about 65.
Always in black silk._

_Miss North: Her daughter, nervous and shy, but truthful with a mania
for taking care of her mother and no knowledge of how to wear her
clothes; about 40._

_Mrs. Gussie Price: A stout, colorless blond, a weeping, vividly
gowned lady, who rules her husband, Cyrus, through her tears. Age,
about 30._

_Flora: A colored maid._

_Stage setting: A drawing-room with a door on either side of the back,
leading into the long front hall. A window at the right, looking into
the street. Between the window and the door, a stuffed armchair, a
hair-cloth sofa. Between the doors, under a mantel-shelf, a Franklin
stove, on either side of which, but a little down stage, are two
rockers just alike. To the left and back, grand piano. To the left,
front, another big chair. Hassocks; and a knit shawl on almost every
chair. The only ornament on the shelf is a stuffed bird in a glass
case._