31 Plays in 31 Days, #3 - “Rake and Coquette”

[breakinglight11]

A scene from the Hawking backstory, in fact the last scene of the Justin and Clara relationship. I always knew they ended badly, and it was mostly Justin’s fault. But in actually writing up the breakup scene, I wanted to make it not completely cut and dry. They were both in their very early twenties, less mature and more self-centered, making them somewhat worse people back then than they would eventually become— Justin in particular. So here I wanted to get a little at what issues between them made it so their breaking up was inevitable. Yes, they were incompatible in many ways, but each one treated the relationship a little bit more like a competition to be won against a worthy opponent rather than a true connection or partnership. I wanted to try and write out the ways that they failed each other, that they would call one another out on in the heat of an angry moment.

Full disclosure, I lost the first draft of this in a software blip— the second time in as many months that’s happened, grrr —but because I knew what I was shooting for pretty clearly, I was able to recreate it without too much trouble.


Photo by John Benfield

Day #3 - Rake and Coquette
From the Mrs. Hawking
By Phoebe Roberts

London, England, 1875

CLARA PARTRIDGE, a young society woman, early twenties
JUSTIN HAWKING, the society rake she’s been seeing, early twenties
~~~

(CLARA drags JUSTIN aside in from the middle of a ball. Furiously she presses a pink-ribboned garter into his hand. He looks at it in surprised recognition, then grits his teeth.)

JUSTIN: Christ. Where did you—?

CLARA: In your coat pocket.

JUSTIN: You went through my—?

CLARA: It’s Gwendolyn’s. Isn’t it?

(Pause.)

CLARA: You didn’t.

(JUSTIN shrugs.)

CLARA: How could you?

JUSTIN: Clara—

CLARA: So what did you think? That because I wouldn’t give you what you wanted, you’d find someone who would? Or did you simply mean for me never to find out?

JUSTIN: What does it matter?

CLARA: What!?

JUSTIN: What did you think? That I would want to marry you?

CLARA: Why, you— I— you should be so lucky!

JUSTIN: Come now. You’ve no intention to me at all. You never have.

CLARA: I beg your pardon!?

JUSTIN: You never wanted anything more than to crow to your friends about how you had the famous rake following at your heel.

(CLARA chokes, in rage, and a little bit in guilt.)

JUSTIN: Yes, quite the trophy that makes— rather puts my little ribbon here to shame! Having the dog chained up in your yard when no other girl could put the collar to him. How pretty and clever you must be, to have managed a thing like that!

CLARA: How— how dare you?

JUSTIN: Tell me what part I’ve got wrong. That you’re not as singular as you thought you were? Go on, then. Tell me.

CLARA: That you ever thought you deserved a moment of my time— that’s where you have it wrong.

JUSTIN: Well. You were certainly willing to waste enough of mine.

CLARA: Is that why you’re doing this? Because you couldn’t turn me into a trollop, so you found someone you could?

JUSTIN: A bold thing to say to a man who knows what you’re like under your skirt.

(She freezes in hurt and horror, then slaps him. He jerks away, annoyed, but slightly subdued— he knows he’s gone too far, but cannot bring himself to fully back down.)

CLARA: You brute.

JUSTIN: See here, Clara—

CLARA: You absolute brute.

JUSTIN: Whatever did you expect? You know who I am.

CLARA: Yes… I do. You’re a beast.

JUSTIN: Yes. Aren’t I just. So why ever did you dally with the likes of me for?

CLARA: I suppose I thought… pretty and clever as I am… that I could bring something out of you. That there was more to you than the incorrigible rake. But I see now what a fool I was.

(She whirls on her heel.)

CLARA: Well. Not to worry, you can do as you like now. I’ll not keep you any longer.

JUSTIN: Clara—

CLARA: We’re finished.

(She exits.)