Turn of the Screw

Henry James, Tim Luscombe

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786826121
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Set in 1840, a young governess agrees to look after two orphans, a boy and a girl, in Bly, a seemingly idyllic country house. But, shortly after her arrival, she realises that they are not alone. There are others – the ghosts of Bly's troubled past. The Governess will risk everything to keep the children safe, even if it means giving herself up to The Others. Years later, confronted by the past she is compelled to account for what actually happened to her and those under her protection.
This fresh, thrilling adaptation of Henry James' much-loved and genre defining classic ghost story Turn of the Screw lets you draw your own conclusions about the events at Bly and where guilt resides.

Act Three

The sky is grey and the space bare. Dead leaves are scattered around the stage, like a theatre after the performance, strewn with crumpled cast lists.

SCENE ONE.

1840

As in Act One, with house lights dimming, sound takes us to a sketchier, scarier place. Blackness envelopes the auditorium and the sound of a music box distorts eerily. A fluttering of birds’ wings suggests panic and chaos, and then a whistling wind whips up. QUINT is suddenly, indistinctly before us, bearing a candle that produces a small amount of warm dusty light. We can barely make him out. He raises the flame to his face, his features becoming clearer with every inch, and, as he extinguishes the light, we’re plunged back into darkness and the wind rises fantastically to blot everything else out.

As quickly as possible, lights are restored, the wind has died away, QUINT has gone, the GOVERNESS reads her book and MRS GROSE has entered with a tea tray. She pours for two as middle-aged FLORA enters.

SCENE TWO.

1870

FLORA: Life was normal. Happy in Bly. Except that Miles and I stood in moral and mortal danger. At any moment, the depraved Quint or this Miss Jessel might –

GOVERNESS: ‘This Miss Jessel’? What? You think I make her up? Invent a danger where none existed? I gave a picture disclosing to the last detail the special marks of both phantoms, and Mrs Grose’s response was instantly to recognize and name them.

FLORA: Certainly. You were her superior – she knew her place.

The GOVERNESS is incredulous, her nervous spasms returning.

(Continued.) Mrs Grose felt the need to please you! Her employment depended on it, and you were determined to bend her to your will. If you wished to mix a witch’s broth and proposed it confidently, she’d have held out a large clean saucepan. Perhaps she also read ‘Clarissa’ and ‘Amelia’.

GOVERNESS: I told you – she couldn’t read.

FLORA: The first time you saw Quint, you’d put your book down, wandered into the garden fantasising about seeing my uncle, and come face to face with the kind of dashing evil villain you read about in your books. Those heartless, hatless, devilishly good-looking scoundrels!

GOVERNESS: You had communion with the ghost of Miss Jessel! I witnessed it! And I saw that it was a matter of habit – for both of you!

FLORA: You saw that, did you?

GOVERNESS: How you’d fought with those little bits of wood, to show me you hadn’t seen. You wanted, by just so much as you did see, to make me suppose you didn’t.

FLORA: The fact that I didn’t see proved that I did? The witch is guilty either way. I was making a boat, not on the look out for ghosts. From my screwing something into a hole, you imagine I was in league with malign shadows? I was an angel who schemed with spectres. I was pure innocence and guilty as hell.

GOVERNESS: There were contradictions everywhere! You must understand – clues came only one by one. It was only through countless sleepless nights that I reached any answers at all. My God, Flora, I hardly wished to see evil – least of all in you. I’d gaze into the depths of your blue eyes, and see how impossible it was to think their loveliness a trick of deceit or cunning.

FLORA: But you don’t have proof. Real proof.

GOVERNESS: Oh, real proof came later.

FLORA: Then why don’t I remember something of it?

GOVERNESS: You do. But you’ve forced yourself to forget because it’s too painful to hold on to.

MRS GROSE hands the governess a cup of tea.

SCENE THREE.

1840, and a flashback to an even earlier time. MILES enters.

MRS GROSE: (Drinking tea.) And I can’t pretend they weren’t together all the time for months. And I, well, I didn’t think it right, not at all. Miss Jessel was their governess. But Miles kept to Quint day-in and day-out, and the little lady all the time with Miss Jessel. I even went so far as to talk frankly to her about it.

GOVERNESS: To Miss Jessel?

MRS GROSE: And, well, she told me, in no uncertain terms, to mind my own business.

GOVERNESS: You talked to the boy himself?

MRS GROSE: I did. I said (To MILES.) I hope you won’t take it amiss, master Miles, but I like to see a y...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Characters
• Notes
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four