Ending One
JOHN: Hold from thy foul purpose, foul villain... righteous anger fuels my wracked body, giving me the strength to strain against my shackles, to bend and... aye... even to break them.
Clanking, straining, breaking ...
NICHOLAS: It's beyond belief, just as I am on the point of attaining final victory ...
EITHNE: Oh, John, rush to my assistance, deliver me from a cruel fate.
JOHN: That settles it, Goodman. I've completely shaken off my bonds. Face me like a man.
NICHOLAS: A swift poignard between the ribs will finish this.
EITHNE: Look out, John, he has a treacherous dagger.
JOHN: So I've noticed, but I happen to have a chain, suitable for wielding as a defensive weapon.
A clatter...
NICHOLAS: Agh, my dagger, whipped from my hands. I call upon the forces of darkness to rush to my aid.
JOHN: A likely story. You're mad as well as bad, I see. Take this ...
Thump!
JOHN: And this...
Thump!
JOHN: And, for good measure, this!
THUMP!
NICHOLAS: So, at the last, I profit not from my stooping to low deeds. My unhallowed allies desert me. I am battered by a better man, and I lose the fair Eithne to one far worthier than I. Is it too late, I ask, to repent?
DARK FIGURE: A bargain is a bargain, Nicholas Goodman.
NICHOLAS: I feared as much. Nothing remains for me but a plunge into the murky depths of the tarn.
LINOLINE: Give my regards to poor Smudge.
NICHOLAS: Forget my bones, I implore thee...
Splash!
EITHNE: Why, Mr Goodman has thrown open a previously unnoticed trapdoor and plunged into the icy black waters of the tarn.
JOHN: That curious whirlpool current from which no man ever escapes has him in its grip, sucking him down.
EITHNE: And under. He's gone.
JOHN: Day breaks, Eithne. The horrors of this night are dispelled.
LINOLINE: I'm melting, spirited away to my grave...
EITHNE: I can hardly credit such things ever happened.
JOHN: It is our duty to forget these matters, and advance steadily into a sunny future as man and wife, enjoying only happiness, prosperity, a clear conscience and the dutiful respect of many scampering children.
EITHNE: Oh, John, I'm so happy.
With this triumph of the forces of light and gentleness, the shadow of the DARK FIGURE is obliterated. Choosing to reside in the modest comfort of neighbouring Forthright Hall, John and Eithne rent out Mildew Manor, whose tenants never report so much as a midnight clank. Indeed, it is soon renowned throughout the increasingly civilised middle parts of England for the pleasantness of its surroundings, the amusingly outmoded gothic trappings of its architecture and the utter unlikeliness that such a charming seat could ever have been horror-haunted, vampyre-vexed or revenant-riddled.
|
|
