31 Plays in 31 Days, #6 - “An Ordinary Young Woman”

[breakinglight11]

This one is a followup to #4 - “Mrs. Barrymore”, expanding upon the very interesting quandary that piece raises. I’m not sure if it’s the kind of thing I should be including in the next Hawking play— it seems a little bit like a small separate thing that would be hard to weave into any kind of larger plot. But it presents a really tough problem for our heroes, so maybe that’s enough to make it worth trying to work in.



Day #6 – “An Ordinary Young Woman”
From the Mrs. Hawking series
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~

VICTORIA HAWKING, lady’s society avenger, late forties
NATHANIEL HAWKING, Mrs. Hawking’s nephew and assistant, mid-thirties

London, England, 1889
~~~

(NATHANIEL pushes unceremoniously in MRS. HAWKING’s parlor.)

NATHANIEL: Miranda Barrymore is here.

MRS. HAWKING: What?

NATHANIEL: She came to my office today. Miranda Cameron Barrymore.

MRS. HAWKING: I know who she is. How is it that she’s here?

NATHANIEL: Her husband is here on business. And she thought she might try to see you— since you never responded to her letters.

(Pause.)

NATHANIEL: You never told me Frost had a daughter.

MRS. HAWKING: (Sighing) I never meant to keep it from you. There just… never seemed a reason to talk of it. Not without… stirring up trouble.

NATHANIEL: What do you mean to do about her?

MRS. HAWKING: I hadn’t meant to do anything. Thus having never responded.

NATHANIEL: You were just going to leave her to wonder. Wonder what had happened to her mother.

MRS HAWKING: Do you fault me for it?

NATHANIEL: I… I don’t know. But she wants to know.

MRS. HAWKING: What should I have told her, Nathaniel? That her mother was a criminal mastermind, responsible for the destruction of countless lives? That we contrived to have her shut up in a mental institution because it was the only way to stop her?

NATHANIEL: I don’t know.

MRS. HAWKING: You spoke to her— what did you say to her? Did you tell her who locked you in a cellar and had her brute beat you to a pulp?

NATHANIEL: No.

MRS HAWKING: Not so easy, was it? Then don’t you judge me.

NATHANIEL: I’m not judging! I only… don’t know what to do.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING: What was she like?

NATHANIEL: She was… a gentlewoman. She reminded me of a girl I knew came out the same year as I did. Very soft spoken, a little nervous that she might say or do the wrong thing. Very ordinary, in point of fact. Not at all what I would have expected, if I’d known Frost had a daughter. Nothing at all like her— but perhaps you knew her when she was different.

MRS. HAWKING: No. Elizabeth was never ordinary.

NATHANIEL: That is… if she was genuine. God knows Frost could put on a front. But if it were… some sort of scheme… is this how she would go about it?

MRS. HAWKING: I’ve learned nothing to suggest they’re in league. Indeed, Frost said she always kept her in the dark well out of it. But then, we’ve seen how far we can trust a word from Frost.

NATHANIEL: So she might be some sort of spy. Or… she might be a poor confused young woman who wants to know how her mother ended up committed.

MRS. HAWKING: The question remains, then. What in the world could we tell her?