31 Plays 31 Days, #8 - "Old Friends"

[breakinglight11]

For day 8, I have a scene for the fourth Mrs. Hawking story. I laugh at myself, as I am seriously spoiling at lot of story to come with these, particularly with this one. I find it's easier to know how to emotional/character moments will go without totally understanding the whole story than anything plot-dependent. This is more or less an idea of the climax of Mrs. Hawking 4, involving her old friend Mrs. Frost.

I love writing Mrs. Frost. She's such a unique presence in the universe, and she gets to smack Mrs. Hawking around in a way few other characters ever get to. :-)

Very spoilery, I'm afraid.


Day #8 - “Old Friends”
by Phoebe Roberts

VICTORIA HAWKING, lady’s society avenger
ELIZABETH FROST, a society lady, her childhood friend

London, England, 1885
~~~

(MRS. HAWKING creeps in the rafters of a tastefully decorated sitting room. A beautiful, elegantly dressed middle-aged woman, MRS. FROST, sits in a chair facing away from her.)

MRS. FROST: Hello, Victoria.

(Pause. MRS. HAWKING drops from the ceiling. MRS. FROST turns around in her chair.)

MRS. HAWKING: Elizabeth?

MRS. FROST: After all this time. My dear little hurricane.

MRS. HAWKING: You?

MRS. FROST: It’s Mrs. Frost now. There have been three husbands since last we met.

MRS. HAWKING: How… how can this be?

MRS. FROST: Isn’t it clear by now, darling? You’ve followed the trail, and it has led you here.

MRS. HAWKING: You are Dawson Frost?

MRS. FROST: Only in the union of our souls. But my husband is quite pliable so long as I see that he has his opium. In the meantime, he has no care for whatever may be done in his name.

MRS. HAWKING: It was you, behind it all. It was you.

MRS. FROST: You caught me after all. Well done! You always did have a kind of animal cunning, even when you were at your wildest. Ideally I suppose we were never to meet. But I confess, a part of me hoped we would. And look at you. Still thin as a whip and as cracking sharp. But otherwise, I think… quite changed. Perhaps I’d grown careless, but I confess I’d lost track of you. Of course, when someone started upon my trail, you can be certain I took it upon myself to discover who it was. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be my old friend.

(Pause.)

MRS. FROST: I did wonder over the years how you fared. I heard tell of the Colonel, with all this exploits, but it seldom came with news of you. Tell me, that young man helping you— he is the very image of Reginald. He’s not your boy, is he?

MRS. HAWKING: You know that he is not.

MRS. FROST: Of course not. I did my research as soon as it became clear who you were. My God. A life with a handsome soldier, career on the rise, who has eyes for no one but you? Only you could have despised that. But I should have known, you were meant for something very different, now, weren’t you? This… society avenging. I must admit, it’s very clever. Creeping unseen behind a black hood, thwarting evil before disappearing, like a very thief in the night! It’s so outlandish that if someone does happen to spot you, what are they to say— it was the lightning-quick shadow in the mask? Whoever would believe it? It is quite absurd— nearly as absurd as a lady secretly running a criminal enterprise in the guise of her drug-addled husband.

MRS. HAWKING: But why? Why would you do this?

MRS. FROST: Can it be, my dear, that in all that time I knew you, you never learned anything of me? I told you then, there is no free enterprise for women in this life. It’s clear you know now that if you are to make your way, you must work your plans beneath where anyone can see. No one will permit me my power if I ask. So, unseen, unheard, I find my ways to take it.

MRS. HAWKING: I can’t let you go on. Not with all the lives you’ve destroyed.

MRS. FROST: Can’t let me? Darling, how would you stop me? By means of that policeman you have in your pocket? The police require evidence, my dear. And you have nothing to motivate them to pursue something so ludicrous as that which you have accused me.

MRS. HAWKING: Do you think I can’t find it?

MRS. FROST: Not without exposing your own secret doings as well. And if there is one thing I know about Victoria Cornelia Stanton Hawking, it is that she will risk a cage for nothing and no one.

(Pause.)

MRS. FROST: Poor child. After all these years, still banging yourself against the walls. You were like my little sister— my brave, foolish, difficult little sister. And for that, I will let you go.

MRS. HAWKING: Let me go?

MRS. FROST: Yes. And if you try anything else, I will scream, and the windows will bar and the doors will shut, and you will trapped here with the full force of my enterprise come down up you. And you would beg to see no worse than a cage.

(MRS. FROST pulls a bell.)

MRS. FROST: Be on your way now, darling. The men are coming. Good evening, Victoria.

Comments

[staystrong62805.livejournal.com]

THIS LINE THOUGH

MRS. FROST: Not without exposing your own secret doings as well. And if there is one thing I know about Victoria Cornelia Stanton Hawking, it is that she will risk a cage for nothing and no one.

For I think the first time we see someone accuse Mrs. Hawking of being selfish, and I love it. The implication that she would let whatever the case is flounder and suffer to avoid being exposed or jailed or what have you is brilliant. There is an almost heavier implication to this line, involving what Mrs. Hawking were to do if she and one of her associates were exposed, involving throwing them under the bus. That probably isn't true, but the fact that Mrs. Frost is willing to plant the seed in Mrs. Hawking's head is awesome. Plus the dismissal of Frost at the end. I will allow you to leave to Mrs. Hawking? Pft.

[jducoeur]

Delightful -- a perfect nemesis for Mrs. Hawking...