19 Nocturne Boulevard - Lovecraft 5: THE FACTS CONCERNING.... - Reissue
Adapted by Julie Hoverson from the story "The Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family" by H.P. Lovecraft
The "Lovecraft 5" - Warren, Herbert, Charles, Edward, and Richard - gather again for another night of tall tales.\xa0
Tonight, Warren regales the group with a history of a noble house that ... went downhill.
Cast List
Warren - Glen Hallstrom
Charles - Michael Coleman (Tales of the Extraordinary)
Richard - Philemon Vanderbeck
Edward - Bryan Hendricksen
Herbert - Carl Cubbedge
M. Verhaeren - Domien De Groot (The Witch Hunter Chronicles)
Mwanu - Danar Hoverson
Soames - Ayoub Khote
Music by\xa0\xa0Skidmore College Orchestra, found on MusOpen
Editing and Sound:\xa0\xa0 Julie Hoverson
Cover Design:\xa0 Brett Coulstock
"What kind of a place is it?
Why it's a private dining room at a well-known New England University, can't you tell?"
**************************************************************
The Facts Concerning....
Cast:
- Warren
- Herbert
- Charles
- Edward
- Richard
- Verhaeren
- Mwanu
- Soames
OLIVIA \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?\xa0 Why, it's a private dining room in a college faculty wing, can't you tell?\xa0
MUSIC
1_dinner
SOUND \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0DINNER ENDING
SOUND\xa0\xa0\xa0 WINDOWS ARE OPEN, MUSIC IN THE DISTANCE
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 So nice to have you all here.\xa0 The weather has been so mild, I feared it would destroy any atmosphere I might have expected for my story.\xa0 And the orchestra would be in rehearsal.\xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 At least it's rather somber.\xa0
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 A clear day can mean a darker night.\xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 True.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Depending on the phase of the moon.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Yes.\xa0 Well, the dinner was--
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Passable.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh!\xa0 Faint praise indeed, coming from our resident starving writer.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Do you know, I believe the college's food plan is quite brililant!
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Brilliant?\xa0 Are they strapped for economy?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 You see, the food is precisely enough to sustain life, but without anything so extravagant as taste, which might take one's mind off one's studies.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 I found it perfectly adequate.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 But very little in this world will take your mind off your science, Herbert.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 How about having the studies take our mind off the food then?\xa0 We came for a story.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 And I perceive a box on the table behind you which does not match the d\xe9cor - or the amount of dust - in this room.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [chuckles] You artists notice everything.\xa0 Though your comment on dust surprises me - after seeing your "house".
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 It "does things" for me.\xa0 Inspiration.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 At least this place, while old, is well maintained.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Not so old as all that.\xa0 The dining hall wing wasn't built until 1804.\xa0 Very recent, comparatively.\xa0 But my story.
2_the box
SOUND\xa0\xa0\xa0 CARDBOARD BOX MOVED
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I warn you I have a little idea as to presentation - after that night at your place, Richard, I wanted something unique--
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Don't expect anything like that from me.\xa0
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Don't worry.\xa0 We don't.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I have this rather long history to my tale, you see, and I know I tend to wax a bit pedantic, so I thought I would help to set certain facts in the mind by beginning with a bit of a game.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I'm game.\xa0 Is it questions, again?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 No.\xa0 I have a small description written for each of the major players in the history of the story, and thought I might give one to each of you - well, each of us, for I include myself - to portray.\xa0 It would help keep them all straight.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Is it necessary to keep them straight?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I think it will help make the history flow.\xa0 It's a technique of acting out history used to great advantage by Mrs. Schartz-Mettaklume [reference to a comedic story by Saki], a fellow teacher here.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 [disparaging] Amateur dramatics?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, you needn't do more than read from the card.\xa0 I don't expect strutting about and soliloquizing.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 [declaring] It sounds amusing.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I'm in.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 You may be in for more than you expected, old pal.
SOUND\xa0\xa0\xa0 PASSING OUT CARDS
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Good, then.\xa0 Let's see - Herbert, here, then Charles, Edward, and Richard.\xa0 The cards have only the basics on each of the fellows - they're generations in a single family, you see - and the back side is a name plate, to aid in recalling who is who.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 [sour] Charming.\xa0 [after a pause]\xa0 You're staring.\xa0 Am I supposed to begin?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 I could go first.\xa0
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [reading his card]\xa0 Oh, no!\xa0 Let me!
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, no, I will begin the tale, and then we'll go around the table.\xa0 You will be second, though, Herbert.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 At least it will be over with early.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 That must mean I am the climax of the tale!
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, you got nothing on me.\xa0 Just wait.
3_Sir Wade
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Ahem.\xa0 We begin with Sir Wade Jermyn. \xa0[reading, putting on a bit of a British accent] I was one of the earliest explorers of the Congo region, and had written eruditely of its tribes, animals, and supposed antiquities.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Are we supposed to be British?\xa0 You haven't really given us any background.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, yes.\xa0 The Jermyn family was part of a well-respected house in England, though it has ...um... died out.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 So these are not only brits, but long-dead brits?\xa0 Are we doing Shakespeare?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 We needn't worry about accents.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 I should say not.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I don't want to lose my place or I might have to start again.\xa0 "Indeed, my innovative conjectures on a prehistoric white Congolese civilisation were the basis for my book, "Observation on the Several Parts of Africa," published in 1765. \xa0I, fearless adventurer that I once had been, was then placed in a madhouse."
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 That sounds a bit promising.\xa0 Madness is quite fascinating.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I have a strong hope that there will be details in this story to intrigue you, Herbert.\xa0 Have you ever looked into the study of ethnology?
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Hmm...\xa0 Should I read now?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 History first.\xa0 Quick precis.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Well, this family - the Jermyns, are not German [chuckle], but British.\xa0 And there's this - the history of the family is quite interesting, but it ended recently with the death of the final generation - a son - just one - who... uh... set himself on fire when he discovered something about his heritage.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 He set himself on fire?\xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Now I'm interested.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 You've got our attention.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 It's not some simple defect like a harelip?\xa0 A club foot?\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Much more than that.\xa0 Let's begin again.\xa0 [quick recap] I am Sir Wade Jermyn, famous explorer of the Congo region.\xa0 I wrote a book, and went mad. now...
4_philip
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Me next, I suppose?\xa0 [not really trying]\xa0 This one is Sir Wade's son, Philip.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Sir Philip.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 "Philip was a highly peculiar person. His appearance and conduct were in many particulars so coarse that he was universally shunned. Though he did not inherit his father's madness, he was densely stupid--"
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [laughs!]
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 "--and given to periods of uncontrollable violence." \xa0Is this supposed to be funny?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [baffled?] Funny?
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Did you give me this one on purpose?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Well, yes, but only because it was the shortest - I felt you'd have less interest in the dramatic and more in getting it over with.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Hmph.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Is that the sum of your wisdom, great sir Philip?
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, there's more--
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I forgot to mention, it's just the first part now.\xa0 We'll come back to you.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 So Herbert is violent and stupid, what are YOU Charles?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 [hamming it up a bit]\xa0 I am Robert - Sir Robert - Jermyn, son of Philip and the daughter of his gamekeeper.\xa0 [offhand] They'll let anyone in, won't they?\xa0 Oh!\xa0 I am "Tall and fairly handsome, with a sort of weird Eastern grace.\xa0 A scholar and investigator, I studied scientifically the vast collection of relics which my mad grandfather brought from Africa.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 You should have given me the scientist.\xa0 At least I would know where I stand.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Robert is an ethnologist and explorer, not a hard scientist.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Even so.
5_alfred
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 My turn!\xa0 I am Sir Alfred Jermyn, son of Nevil - wait, are we missing someone?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, um Nevil is the son of Robert - you're Robert's grandson.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Where's Nevil then?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 He's um - we didn't have enough people.\xa0 I felt we could skip over Nevil - I'll fill in his details, should they become necessary.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 All right.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Don't worry - You'll like Alfred.\xa0 He ran away with the circus.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 What?\xa0 You're joking, right?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, no - he actually literally ran away with the circus.\xa0 We'll come back to that.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 So I am Sir Arthur Jermyn.\xa0 Son of Alfred, the circus performer and a Music Hall singer.\xa0 [laughs] \xa0And they blink at who we Americans decide to marry.\xa0 Arthur is a poet and a dreamer.\xa0 Oh, Warren, you had too much fun choosing who was to play what, didn't you?\xa0 "The poetic delicacy of Arthur Jermyn was the more remarkable because of his uncouth personal appearance. His expression, his facial angle, and the length of his arms gave a thrill of repulsion to those who met him for the first time."
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Sounds a bit like Abraham Lincoln.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 You know, it does.\xa0 How odd.\xa0 So now we know who we are.\xa0 What's next?
6_wade again
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 We go back to the beginning.\xa0 And that's me, Sir Wade.\xa0 Oh, first, there's been mention of the physical oddities that crept into the family line - I should state that before Sir Wade's time, portraits showed that the family was very typical of English nobility.\xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Chinless and pasty?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Now now.\xa0 Every brit I've ever met has been perfectly nice.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 You have to remember Sir Wade's era was the mid-18th century.\xa0 And there is no record of any physical issues, or madness before his time.\xa0 Or at least not out of the ordinary for the time and place.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 And state of medicine.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 True.\xa0 Sir Wade made several trips to Africa, returning from one of those trips with a reclusive bride and new born son.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 And that's Herbert.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Philip.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 This bride was notable, for no one ever saw her - or at least not much of her.\xa0 She was supposed to have been the daughter of a Portuguese trader who despised English ways, and wouldn't have any English servants.\xa0 Wade\xa0 humored her, and put her up in a wing of her own at the estate, where no one saw her, or the child, but Wade himself.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 A woman who doesn't want go out to gossip or shop?\xa0 Quite a mythological figure.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 His wife had accompanied him back from the second and longest of his trips, and left again with him on the third and final, never to return.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 But Wade returned - he hasn't yet gone mad.\xa0 We're all waiting for that.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 The only thing ever said about the wife - even her name is left unrecorded - was that she had a violent disposition.\xa0 While they made the journey back to Africa, Wade would permit no one to care for his young son save a loathsome native woman from Guinea.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 This family sure knows how to pick their women, don't they?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 I notice you don't give names for any of them.\xa0 Funny how wives tend to be forgotten in these epic histories.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 There's one among them, Arthur's mother herself, who was actually quite a fascinating character, and I might look further into her antecedents - but for the most part, the family made some odd choices, indeed.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 So far, I get the feeling that this is leading to a disquisition on eugenics, rather than on ethnology.\xa0 In other words, take a so-called "noble house" and marry in, generation after generation, people of dubious merits, and see how the line flows.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Well... that's a part of it.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 I'm rather surprised.\xa0 It is fascinating.\xa0 I've heard of similar experiments with rats - much easier to observe since their generations are months, rather than decades, apart.\xa0 And of course the difficulties of convincing a human family to participate.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I'm just pleased you're so enthusiastic.\xa0 Go ahead and read the second card, then.
7_second card
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Right.\xa0 [a bit more enthusiastically than the first time]\xa0 "As Philip grew out of infancy, his father started to avoid him, muttering wild stories about his encounters in Africa, but never making anything clear.\xa0 Philip grew up small but powerful, with incredible agility. \xa0He married, but before his son was born, he joined the navy as a common sailor. \xa0He made his way onto a merchantman in the African trade, and gained a reputation for feats of strength and climbing."
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Wait a minute - this is not gonna just turn into a big argument against intermarrying with native tribespeople, is it?\xa0 Was Wade's wife a Zulu or something?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, no.\xa0 I would say that was surprisingly far from the point of the history, though you might well suspect it, since so much of the story centers around Africa.\xa0 But no, none of the individuals involved are Africans, tribal or otherwise.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Interesting, I had a little idea about that myself.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Put it aside and let's finish with Philip.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Ah, one last note.\xa0 Philip disappeared one night as the ship... what ship?\xa0 Ah, the merchantman.\xa0 As the ship lay off the Congo coast.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Maybe he went looking for his mother - you said she went back to the Congo and never returned, right?
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 And Philip was never heard from again?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 More or less.\xa0
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Rumors.\xa0 We'll be there later.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Me then?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Another short interlude - some details about Sir Wade's madness.\xa0 He spent a great deal of time at the local pub--
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 While avoiding his son?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Actually yes.\xa0 But he had a tendancy to rave while in his cups.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Doesn't everyone?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 And it was this rather - ahem - random talk that chiefly led his friends to deem him mad. He would often speak of wild sights and scenes under a Congo moon; of the gigantic walls and pillars of a forgotten city, crumbling and vine-grown, and of damp, silent, stone steps leading interminably down into the darkness of abysmal treasure-vaults and inconceivable catacombs.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh! \xa0Yes, I can see it.\xa0 I never really considered the artistic possibilities of Africa.\xa0 Hmm.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 It was particularly unwise of him to rave of the strange creatures that populated such a city. \xa0For he boasted of what he found in the jungle and of how he dwelt among terrible ruins and the creatures that inhabited them. \xa0
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Little wonder he was locked away.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 The wonder lay in that he showed no particular regret when being shut up.\xa0 In fact, he seemed to find the confinement comforting - as if something were being locked out, rather than he being locked in.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Hmm.\xa0 I must make a note.
7_Robert
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Feel free.\xa0 It's my turn to reveal the next bit.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, I should add that Robert broke the cycle and married a perfectly acceptable woman - a daughter of the seventh Viscount Brightholme - rather than following the - um - family tendency to pick entertainers and other... women at random.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Did it help the line at all?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Actually, no.\xa0 Of the three children they had, two were never seen - they were kept locked away.\xa0 Presumably due to some hereditary defect.\xa0
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 [interested] Interesting.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 May I?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, yes - go ahead.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Now Philip is tall and handsome--
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, I'm Philip. You're my son Robert.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Of course.\xa0 Robert was quite the scholar.\xa0 He scientifically studied - as best as possible in 1815 - the vast collection of relics which his mad grandfather - that's you, Warren, brought from Africa.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 It's really quite a pity, the way early explorers looted everything in sight.\xa0 All those things are of great historical value, and should be in the hands of researchers, not adorning trophy rooms.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I read in the paper recently about someone selling a mummy at one of the big art auction houses.\xa0 Maybe the college should buy it.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Most of the items that have spent time in personal collections are worthless anyway - in any scientific sense. \xa0Without any provenance, there's no way to tell the real from the fake.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Precisely.\xa0
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Can "Robert" get a word in edgewise?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 So sorry.\xa0 Go on.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Robert spent a great deal of time on his own expeditions into the interior of Africa. \xa0In 1849, his second son, Nevil--
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 The non-deformed one?
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Non-deformed, but invisible.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Maybe we should pull him up a chair.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Nevil, a singularly repellent person, ran away with a vulgar dancer--
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Another one!
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 --but was pardoned upon his return in the following year. He came back a widower with an infant son, Alfred--
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 ta-da!
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Who was one day to be the father of Arthur Jermyn. \xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 And I'm the one who set himself on fire?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 We're not there yet.\xa0 But before we move on to Alfred, there's another tragic instance to recount.\xa0 Robert became a bit unhinged himself.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Do I have a card for that?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Not really, I was just going to--
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Get on with it.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 An elderly man, Robert had spent years collecting the legends of the Onga tribe - native to the area of the expeditions taken by both Robert and his mad grandfather.\xa0 He expressed a desire to validate his grandfather's claims of a strange lost city, particularly one populated by the sort of creatures Wade used to rave about.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Do you have any solid information about these creatures you keep hinting about?
8_crossbreeding
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Not much, but accounts say Sir Wade made wild claims about a white tribe that had once lived in a stone city deep in the interior - though that, apparently, wasn't recent.\xa0 Others said that he claimed that while people built the city, it had been overrun with apes, but apes who were able to mix with the humans.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Mix?\xa0 Are you talking getting together for tea, or interbreeding?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [flustered] It was - um - no details.\xa0\xa0 Um - that was someone's vague recollection in a journal, so it's anyone's best guess what Sir Wade actually said.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Hmph.\xa0 Despite the persuasive nature of the evolutionary theory, there is no evidence that any strain of apes is close enough to humans to crossbreed.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Crossbreeds aren't impossible.\xa0 Not with humans, of course, but there's always mules.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I always pitied the donkey...
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [loud clearing of throat]
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 It's sort of like the Ooh-ah bird...
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [louder clearing of throat]\xa0
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Right.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 So, through correspondence, Wade reached a fellow explorer, Samuel Seaton, who eventually made his way back to England and brought some interesting tales with him.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 How interesting?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 No one knows.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 No one?\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Yes.\xa0 We can only conjecture from the effect it had on Sir Robert.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Which was?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 He went upstairs and killed all three of his children - Nevil and the two no one ever saw - before making every feasible attempt to kill himself.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Holy cow!
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I thought you were one of the saner ones, Charles.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Should I be killing someone now?
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 "Every feasible attempt"?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 He failed to end his own life and was locked away, dying two years later.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 What did the Seaton fellow say about it all?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, nothing.\xa0 He was already dead - Robert strangled him first.\xa0 The only survivor was young Alfred.\xa0 It appeared that Nevil, for all his - um -
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Absentness?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Um - basically.\xa0 For all he lacked, he died in defense of his son.\xa0 And Alfred inherited the title before he could even walk.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 And he still ran away with the circus?
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Nothing survived of the information Seaton brought?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Pieces of correspondence survived.\xa0 Mostly notes of tales from the Onga tribe, who believed in a gray city peopled by white apes and ruled by a white god.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [avid] My turn, right?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Almost.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [disappointed noise]
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I didn't think this would catch your fancy so well.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 It's quite an amusing idea, Warren.\xa0 Rather surprised, really.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Thank you.\xa0 [realizing] Oh.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Pray continue.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Let's just move on to Edward - Um, Alfred.
9_circus
EDWRD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [clears throat dramatically]\xa0 "Sir Alfred Jermyn was a baronet before his fourth birthday, but his tastes never matched his title. \xa0At twenty he had joined a band of music-hall performers, and at thirty-six had deserted his wife and child to travel with an itinerant American circus.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Quite apart from their tendency to marry beneath them, the men themselves tend to abscond, which doesn't speak much for nobility.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 An argument could be made that they're tainted from past generations.
RICHARD \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Or that rich men are just predisposed to be bastards - in the personality sense.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [clears throat dramatically, hams it up]\xa0 "Alfred's end was very revolting!\xa0 Among the animals in the exhibition with which he travelled was a huge bull gorilla of lighter colour than the average."
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 You mentioned something about white apes, didn't you?\xa0 Oh, no - it was a supposed white race in the interior.\xa0 Hmm...
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [satisfied] And the apes that took over their city.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Hmm.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 The beast was very popular among the performers. Alfred Jermyn was fascinated with this gorilla, and on many occasions the two would eye each other for long periods through the intervening bars.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Sounds like he was a bit of- [realizing] oh!
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 A what?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 [covering smoothly] Bit of an anthropologist himself.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Alfred obtained permission to train the animal, astonishing audiences and fellow performers alike with his success. One morning, as the gorilla and Alfred were rehearsing an exceedingly clever boxing match, the beast hit him too hard.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I thought it was kangaroos who were notable for boxing.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Or orangutans - recall that odd story from out friend Auguste.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I guess gorillas can box if they want to.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 What's next?\xa0 A female president?
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Of what followed, members of "The Greatest Show On Earth" do not like to speak.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, he was with Barnum!\xa0 Funny.\xa0 You never think of these tales happening in places you might actually have been.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 P.T. Barnum could hardly be called a place.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 You know what I mean.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I know you keep interrupting me!\xa0 "They did not expect to hear Sir Alfred Jermyn emit a shrill, inhuman scream, or see him seize the gorilla with both hands, dash it to the floor of the cage, and bite fiendishly at its hairy throat. The gorilla retaliated and before anything could be done, the body which had belonged to a baronet was past recognition."\xa0 [taking a bow] \xa0Thank you! Thank you very much!\xa0
CHARLES \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0There's one born every minute. [quoting Barnum]
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 One what?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Idiot who wants to box a wild animal, I suppose.\xa0 Well, Richard, I suppose you will be ending this little tale?
a1_Arthur
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Am I?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, just a moment...\xa0 Right.\xa0 A few notes first.\xa0 [aside, to Edward]\xa0 I thought you might enjoy that bit.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Cheers.
WARREN \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Can't find my notes just now, but if you'd like to go on, Richard, I'll interject as things come up?
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Certainly.\xa0 Arthur Jermyn was the son of Sir Alfred Jermyn and a music-hall singer of unknown origin.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 If I may interject?
CHARLES \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0That was short.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Go ahead.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 This woman - whose name was never recorded, but I don't doubt I could find it if need be, since she only died in 1911, I believe, was the one I mentioned earlier as being quite an interesting character.
HERBERT \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Not the titled lady?
WARREN \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0No she appears to have been very ... stolid.\xa0 Arthur's mother, however, was determined.\xa0 When Alfred left them, or possibly after his horrid death, she apparently marched right into Jermyn house, infant son on her hip--
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Not even a perambulator to her name?
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Makes for a prettier and more destitute picture.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Babe in arms, anyway, and took over.\xa0 She apparently stood toe to toe with any and all opposition on behalf of her son.\xa0
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 People will do most anything for money.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Women, particularly.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 That's the rub.\xa0 There was almost no money left, per se.\xa0 There was the title, and some land, and Jermyn house, and not much else.\xa0 And yet she claimed it on behalf of her son.\xa0 And apparently did a reasonably good job of running the estate during his childhood - got at least enough money out of it to send Arthur to decent schools and see to it he had some idea of family and history.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Brave woman.\xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Very well.\xa0 So "my mother" had redeeming qualities above and beyond her social status.\xa0 May I go on?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I have a bit more.\xa0 Arthur Jermyn was not like any other Jermyn before him, for he was a poet and a dreamer.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Ta-da!
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 As an artist, I can sympathize, anyway.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Locals attributed his sensitivity to the Latin blood of his Portuguese great-great-great... great?
a2_great great
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Let's see, I'm great - Charles is great great--
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Don't forget invisible Nevil.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 You know who I mean, anyway.\xa0 Besides, most people just chalked it up to his music-hall mother - who, of course, was never accepted by the gentry.\xa0
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [silly brit voice] Oh, no, of course not!
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 How horrible!
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 While his nature was poetic, his appearance was just the opposite.\xa0 Most of the Jermyns had possessed a subtly odd and repellent cast, but Arthur's case was very striking.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Ape-like?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [lying poorly] Um, uh - possibly.\xa0 I suppose.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [chuckles]\xa0 I, Arthur Jermyn, being of sound mind and ugly body... [laughs] "took highest honours at Oxford and seemed likely to redeem the intellectual fame of the family."
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oxford?\xa0 Kudos to "your mother" indeed.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [aside] I'll tell her when I see her.\xa0 [narrating] Arthur planned to continue the work of his forefathers in African ethnology and antiquities, utilising the truly wonderful though strange collection of Sir Wade.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Which, though valueless in many ways, having been tossed about by a collector, would still be fascinating to see.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [eager] I daresay!\xa0 Who knows what he may have found in--
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [loud] The prehistoric civilisation in which the mad explorer had so implicitly believed? Arthur explored tale after tale about the silent jungle city and the nameless, unsuspected race of jungle hybrids mentioned in Warren's journal.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Wade.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [shrugs] Right person, wrong name.\xa0 Sounds like a clear case of morbid fascination, though, for he sought out more information after his mother's death in 1911, and even made an expedition himself as soon as he could liquidate some assets to fund it.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 That's not precisely what's on the card.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I'm embellishing.\xa0 "Arranging with the Belgian authorities for a party of guides, he spent a year in the Onga and Kahn country. \xa0Among the Kaliris was an aged chief called Mwanu, who possessed not only a highly retentive memory, but a singular degree of interest in old legends."
a2_Mwanu
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Mwanu even added his own account of the stone city and the white apes.
MWANU\xa0\xa0\xa0 Many long years it has been since things walked in the city of grey stones.\xa0 And many years more and more since man ever trod the paths within.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 He told Jermyn of the N'bangu tribe, which had annihilated the beings within the city, and destroyed many of the structures.
MWANU\xa0\xa0\xa0 Every ape lay dying.\xa0 Every ape lay dead.\xa0 The chief of the N'Bangus, him they called Iron foot, trod on the bodies of the enemy, for they were no more than dirt to him.\xa0 And lo, in their wicked shrine, in the center of the ruined city, lay the prize Iron Foot had come to possess.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 What they had come for was apparently a mummy.\xa0 It was called, among the various local tribes, the "white goddess" and was supposed to be the remains of one of the ape-things' queens, preserved and revered for ... [hinting] just over a century.
MWANU\xa0\xa0\xa0 The white goddess was a queen in her own right, when she lived like mortals live - down among the hairy folk.\xa0 But came a god from a distant land far to the west!\xa0 He wore the sun for a crown and strode the land on giant feet.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Apparently this strange new "god" married the princess - later known as the white goddess - and they ruled the ape-city together.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 This is starting to sound a bit like a Burroughs fancy, though I don't think Tarzan ever stooped to "wooing" apes.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 I always say live and let live, but that's a bit outside even my tolerance.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 That is assuming the strange god was a human, and in fact was-- [cuts himself off] are we assuming?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 We'll assume in a moment.\xa0 Mwanu had an interesting little end to his tale.
MWANU\xa0\xa0\xa0 When the princess bore the god a son, they returned to the homeland of the god.\xa0 It was many, many moons before the god and princess returned, for the princess was lonely in the distant world and wished for the company of her own people.\xa0 They ruled but a short time, before the princess left her mortal life and rose to the top of the great world tree.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 She died?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 I hope so.\xa0 You see--
MWANU\xa0\xa0\xa0 The god, stricken with grief at her passing and loathe to lose her, mummified the body, so he would always know she remained in the city, awaiting his return.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [creeped out]\xa0 Romantic.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 I - I am at a loss for words.\xa0 Impressive.
SOUND\xa0\xa0\xa0 [slight golf clap from Herbert]
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Though the god never returned to reclaim his princess, the white goddess, as it was now called, became a symbol of supremacy to all the neighboring tribes - which is why the N'bangu felt the need to capture it.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 They should have stuck with a flag.
MWANU\xa0\xa0\xa0 Many moons later yet, the child of the princess and the god, grown to impressive manhood, found his way to the city to claim his rightful place.\xa0
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Really?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 And what happened to him?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Sadly, Mwanu didn't know.\xa0 [briskly] Whatever the truth behind any of the legends, they make for picturesque storytelling.
a3_lost city
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Herbert?\xa0 You've been awfully quiet.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 I'm ...interested.\xa0 We still haven't made the leap from unlikely legends to Richard going up in flames.\xa0 Pray continue, Warren.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 In early 1912, Arthur found the fabled lost city, or what was left of it.\xa0 It was apparently rather smaller than he had expected.\xa0 Unfortunately, the modest size of the expedition prevented operations toward clearing the one visible passageway that seemed to lead down into the system of vaults which Sir Wade had mentioned.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 You never mentioned underground vaults before!
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh yes he did.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 It's really just mentioned in passing.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 And it was blocked up.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 They spoke with as many natives and chiefs as they could, but found no further information on the white goddess, except that the N'bangu had it.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Probably performed unspeakable rites and rituals beneath the glassy eyes of the once-living thing.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Very likely.\xa0 Finally, Arthur was introduced to a Monsieur Verhaeren, Belgian agent at a trading post--
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Is the congo still under Belgian control?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 If it isn't, the change must have been rather recent.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Verhaeren claimed he could not only locate, but obtain the stuffed goddess
VERHAEREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 C'est vrai.\xa0 These once mighty N'bangus are now the submissive servants of King Albert's government.\xa0 Ignorant savages.\xa0 Some beads and trinkets, perhaps some rum, and I could get them to part with their own mothers.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Jermyn sailed for England, therefore, with the exultant probability that he would, within a few months, receive a priceless ethnological relic and confirm the wildest of his great-great-great-grandfather's stories.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Wildest?\xa0 Perhaps not.\xa0 Frankly, I wouldn't want to see proof of some of the implications.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 The miscegenation?\xa0 That's actually what I'm finding the most fascinating to consider.
a4_Missagewhozits
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Missagewhozits?\xa0
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Finish first.\xa0 Once you let Herbert start, there's no telling where it might end.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Arthur Jermyn waited.\xa0 Meanwhile, he studied the papers and reports of his great-- um-- Sir Wade.\xa0 He found it interesting that while there was much whispering about the mysterious and secluded wife, no tangible relic of her remained.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 What, you expect someone stuffed her, too?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Ahem.\xa0 I think he means a portrait, or a lock of hair, even a journal of her own.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 And there was nothing.\xa0 Jermyn put it down to Wade's insanity, figuring that she might have angered him by contradicting some of his wild Africa tales, particularly since she had also spent time on the dark continent.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Or perhaps they'd just had an efficient maid or two in the intervening century. [hinting]
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 ahem.\xa0 In June of 1913, a letter arrived from Monsieur Verhaeren, saying he had found the stuffed goddess!\xa0 He averred it was a most extraordinary object, quite beyond the power of a layman to classify. Whether it was human or simian only a scientist could determine.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Unless, like such artifacts from Barnum and his brethren the world over, it was made piecemeal.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Stitched out of whole cloth?
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 More like a crazy quilt.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 And, of course, time and the Congo climate are not kind to mummies.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 I shudder to think of the depredations of insects, and mildew.\xa0 [ugg - shudder noise]
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 And apparently this one was not preserved by a craftsman with any sort of skill.\xa0 And yet, it was still intact, in the whole, and recognizable, so they couldn't fault him over much.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Mummies are primarily preserved through drying.\xa0 How could anyone ever undertake that in a damp and steamy jungle?
A6_ALMOST DONE
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Almost done now.\xa0 Where was I?\xa0 Ah!\xa0 Around the creature's neck was a golden chain bearing an empty locket on which were armorial designs - no doubt some hapless traveller's keepsake, taken by the N'bangus and hung upon the goddess as a charm.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 No doubt.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Utter coincidence.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 In commenting on the mummy's appearance, the Belgian expressed a humorous wonder just how it would strike his correspondent--
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Me, in case anyone has forgotten during the intermission.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 But these hints really don't give much to go on.\xa0 The boxed object was delivered to Jermyn on the afternoon of August 3, 1913, and was conveyed immediately to the large chamber which housed the collection of African specimens.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 The final card now?
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 He got an extra card?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Richard has the artistic temperament.\xa0 [to Richard] Just one more moment.\xa0 [to all] What ensued can best be gathered from the tales of the servants and from things later examined. \xa0Aged Soames, the family butler, tells the most ample and coherent tale.
A6_SOAMES
SOAMES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Sure and the master sent all of us away, wanting to be alone with his new treasure.\xa0 This was not unusual, and none thought twice on it.\xa0 We heard the sound of hammer and chisel when he opened the box almost right away - that excited he was to clap eyes on't.\xa0
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Shortly, there came a terrible scream.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [screams]
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [surpised noise] Gah!\xa0 That wasn't part of the--
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Artistic license.\xa0 It comes with artistic temperament.\xa0 Ready now?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Warn me next time.\xa0 Yes.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Immediately after, Jermyn emerged from the room, rushing frantically about as if pursued, and finally disappearing down the stairs to the cellar. The servants were utterly dumbfounded, and watched at the head of the stairs, but a smell of oil was all that came up from the regions below.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 After dark, a rattling was heard at the door leading from the cellar into the courtyard; and a stable-boy saw Arthur Jermyn, glistening from head to foot with oil and redolent of that fluid, steal furtively out and vanish on the black moor surrounding the house.
RICHARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 Then, in an exaltation of supreme horror, a spark appeared on the moor, a flame arose, and a pillar of human fire reached to the heavens. The house of Jermyn no longer existed!
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Did he at least leave a note?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, but the fragments that add up to the horror he discovered were clearly found and assembled afterward, principally the thing in the box.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 His ancestress.
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 Don't jump ahead.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 [snort] Funny.
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 The stuffed goddess was a nauseous sight, withered and eaten away, but it was clearly a mummified white ape of some unknown species, less hairy than any recorded variety, and infinitely nearer mankind - quite shockingly so.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Was it supposed to be a secret?\xa0 I thought warren made it eminently clear.
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 You're serious?\xa0 Warren?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 [sigh] Yes.\xa0 [chuckles]\xa0 The arms on the golden locket about the creature's neck were the Jermyn arms, and the ... resemblance between the shrivelled face to none other than the sensitive Arthur Jermyn applied with vivid, ghastly, and unnatural horror.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 This should lead to an interesting field of study - do you think the white apes she belonged to might still exist in the congo?
EDWARD\xa0\xa0\xa0 No, they were wiped out by the nubumbums.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 Is the mummy at least intact?
WARREN\xa0\xa0\xa0 Oh, no.\xa0 Members of the Royal Anthropological Institute burned the thing and threw the locket into a well.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 [almost yelling] They did what?
CHARLES\xa0\xa0\xa0 [sigh] Thus endeth the lesson.
HERBERT\xa0\xa0\xa0 [still loud, fading out] And they call themselves scientists?
CLOSING