This is a scene for Tailor that I've had in my head for a while now, of Tom confronting Kenneth about his part in the mystery and learning who the poor old drunk really is. It's in very rough form right now, as I just wrote it last night and haven't edited it at all, but I'm glad I banged it out.
As I mentioned, the other night I recorded Plesser and Jared in their respective roles of Tom and Kenneth. They were so great I wanted to work on more of their interaction, so this long-awaited scene came into being. I am working on setting up a strong parallelism in the story between Alice and Bethany, and I want to echo it to a slightly lesser extent with Tom and Kenneth, that the older, broken man sees some of who he used to be in the intrepid younger man. I'm also glad to get a little more dialogue for Emma and Bethany in by way of the flashback. I loved the slightly sad, carefully controlled, weight-of-the-world tone rigel*
TOM: What were you doing out that other night?
KENNETH: What? Let me go!
TOM: Not until you talk to me! When I ran into you on the road, what were you doing?
KENNETH: None of your business!
TOM: I was up at the Loring’s place, just like you said. And I think you were too.
KENNETH: What are you talking about?
TOM: You were the one who broke in, weren’t you?
KENNETH: Screw off!
TOM: You had your arm hurt just like the burglar. You were hanging around just outside the grounds. And you’re too hot after anything to do with that family.
KENNETH: Oh, you got no idea!
TOM: What do you have against the Lorings?
KENNETH: Plenty, boy!
TOM: Did you want something from them? Money? What did they ever do to you?
KENNETH: More than you’ll ever know! So leave me to my own business!
TOM: Tell me what you’re up to.
KENNETH: No!
TOM: I could have the police after you in a minute! You were real sore against Miss Emma, weren’t you?
KENNETH: So what if I was?
TOM: Because she’s dead, that’s what! Because somebody killed her, and I think it was you!
KENNETH: Me? I didn’t do nothing to her!
TOM: You broke into her house and went digging through her things. We know what you were after, Kenneth. We found Emma’s papers. She was looking into the death of Bethany Loring.
KENNETH: I know that!
TOM: What did you want with those papers? Did you have something to do with that too?
KENNETH: You don’t know what you’re on about!
TOM: Did you want to hurt that girl too?
KENNETH: I never! I wanted to marry her!
TOM: What?
KENNETH: You think you know everything just because that little niece let you in? Think you’re so damn clever! You don’t know a bit of what went on in that house! I never would have hurt that girl in a thousand years. Bethany and me… we were… we loved each other.
TOM: How did you know her?
KENNETH: We worked there. My old man was Loring’s valet. I was a stable boy. Her father had me give Bethany her riding lessons, and we got to talking. She was about my age, and such a nice girl… we fell in love.
TOM: Nobody ever told me about Bethany having a sweetheart.
KENNETH: We kept it secret of, course. We had to! Her father never would have stood for it. He had bigger plans for his baby girl than some ruffian minding horses. We didn’t know how we were going to be together, but then...
TOM: What changed?
KENNETH: Emma found us out.
(Flashback effect.)
EMMA: Bethany? Mrs. Warren told me you’d gone out to the stables. Bethany?
(Sound of footsteps. Pause.)
BETHANY: Emma!
EMMA: Oh, Bethany…
BETHANY: What are you doing here?
EMMA: Looking for you. I wondered why you were suddenly so devoted to your riding lessons.
KENNETH: Oh, please, miss…
BETHANY: Emma, you can’t tell anyone.
EMMA: Bethany, what are you doing?
KENNETH: Miss, you don’t understand.
BETHANY: I love him, and he loves me.
EMMA: I see. How long has this been going on?
KENNETH: Since last spring, miss.
EMMA: Oh, good heavens. I see we’re all such practiced secret keepers.
BETHANY: Father would never understand. He’d only separate us!
KENNETH: I swear, miss, I only mean to be good to your sister. I’d never bring her to any harm. I love her, miss.
BETHANY: Please, Emma.
EMMA: (Sighing.) Very well, dear.
(Flashback effect.)
KENNETH: I kept waiting for her old man or her big brother to come down on us, but they never did, so I suppose she kept her promise. She never spoke to us about it again until we found out about what Mr. Loring was planning.
TOM: The arranged marriage.
KENNETH: Yes. How do you know that?
TOM: It was in Emma’s papers.
KENNETH: She said she was going to help us. Help us get away, so we could be together. She hatched this plan for me to whisk Bethany away from her coming out ball and slip away into the night. She said she had something that if Loring ever came after us, we could make sure he’d stay away.
TOM: What was that?
KENNETH: I don’t know, Emma never told me. But I trusted her, that cold bitch, for all the good it did. So I did what she said, and waited for Bethany just outside the party. I waited for hours, it felt like. All night. Then I heard how they found her, all broken like that… I never got to see her again.
TOM: What went wrong?
KENNETH: That’s the devil of it! I don’t know! I was there at the garden gate just like we planned, but she never came to meet me.
TOM: Emma still blamed you.
KENNETH: For letting it happen. Afterward she chased me off. Dismissed me from my job and told me never to show my face at Loring’s End again. The hag didn’t know who to blame so she settled on me.
TOM: And you swear you didn’t have anything to do with it?
KENNETH: I was a stupid boy, Tom, just like you are. But I loved her, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to keep her safe.
TOM: And not Miss Emma either?
KENNETH: I didn’t kill her. More like she killed me. Swear on poor Bethany’s grave.
TOM: Then… help me.
KENNETH: Help you?
TOM: Yes. Help me figure out what’s going on here. It may be the only way to ever know what really happened to Bethany.
KENNETH: And… you won’t turn me in to the cops?
TOM: If what you say is true, no, I won’t. Just work with me. We’ve got almost twenty years of secrets to dig through here. I need all the help I can get.
(Pause.)
TOM: And then there’s Miss Alice. She’s a real nice girl, Kenneth. She needs all the help she can get too.
KENNETH: For all the good an old drunk like me can do you… I’ll help you how I can.
TOM: Thank you. Listen, I’m sorry about how Miss Emma treated you. But I think she hurt just like you do. Whatever she was doing, I think she just wanted to know what happened too.
KENNETH: Might be.
TOM: She must have thought about her a lot. When she came to me, she wanted me to make a copy of Bethany’s gown. She gave me this picture of her.
KENNETH: Picture? Could I… could I see it?
(Crinkling as TOM produces the clipping and hands it to KENNETH.)
KENNETH: Haven’t seen her in years. Didn’t have no pictures of her. Afraid I was going to forget what she looked like. (Pause.) My God, she was beautiful.
TOM: I’m sorry.
KENNETH: Not as sorry as I am. Go on now, Tom. I’ll be seeing you around. Let’s make it in the daylight next time, with no more shoving.
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