Subj: THE BOX Part Three
Date: 5/17/00 8:55:40 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

Virginia's cheeks burned red with anger, though for all appearances it was from shame, as Edith Collins reprimanded her for her continued neglect of her charge, Carl Collins. She dutifully appeared to be submissive as the mistress of Collinwood brought her down a peg or two, and Angela Stone was witness to it all. Angela was Edith's constant companion, and privy to her most intimate moments, and the correction of other servants of the family was one of her decided delights.

Virginia was dismissed with the warning that her job was unquestionably in jepeordy if she were not to attend to it more fully. Virginia bowed dutifully and seemed respectful as she went about her business. Her thoughts were not of the moment. She was thinking back. Back to her beginnings. Back to a time when she was not known as Virginia Semple.

Her name was Hattie. Hattie McDonald. And she was the eldest daughter of Matthew and Evelyn, who had nine other younger children as well. She had grown up in a rural commnunity in Ohio outside of Zanesville. Her father had been an coal miner and her mother had taken in laundry when she could find the work. They had been poor. Poorer than most! Her father had violated her when she came of age, and her mother had beaten her as punishment for her sin. When Matthew was blinded and physically incapacitated in a mining accident, she had left home vowing never to return, and never to be heard from again.

She had fled to West Virginia and that is where she adopted the alias of Virginia Semple. She was taken in by some kindly missionaries and was educated and reared with more of a sense of dignity. Had she not been previously subjected to such torment she may have turned out more satisfactorily, but the scars of her past haunted and continually hunted her. She could find no rest from her secret shame.

She traveled up the east coast over the next several years. She did not know where she was going, but she felt a great need to go. To escape what was behind her. She took the vocation of governess, and for about a year she was housed with a family in Massachusetts, the McPhersons. She had the charge of their daughter, Amelia, and for a time she was genuinely happy.

But all too soon a man came into her life who destroyed her peace. He was a nephew of the master of the house, and he wooed and seduced Virginia, with the promise that he would wed her and make her a proper lady. He lied, and when it was discovered that she was carrying his unborn child she was cast out of her safe harbor. Left alone once again to fend for herself, and now she was with child.

She found herself in New York City where she became a barmaid. It was here that she got involved in a violent barroom brawl, and her injuries caused her to lose the baby she was carrying. It was further discovered that the injuries she sustained would make it impossible for her to ever bear children again. She was devastated and she made desperate pleas to whatever powers there were to aid her in her plight! And one of them responded, but it was not of a kindly nature.

She was inspired in dreams to go to Maine and seek out the town of Collinsport where she would find her destiny. She never questioned her visions and she wholely believed they were sent from God by his angels. She had only had kindly treatment concerning things spiritual at the hands of the missionaries who had sheltered her and educated her so she was unaware that their were forces which could wear the mask of good, and yet be wholely evil.

Her past life rushed by as she made her way to her next redeuvous with Zeke, the stable boy at the great house. He was her junior by a few years and she had taken on the task of teaching him the wily ways of her womanhood. He was a most avid and eager pupil!

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Angela Stone saw Quentin and Evan Hanley leave the house together. Now was her chance to get a closer look at that odd chest that Quentin had received from Evan earlier. Besides being in attendance to Edith Collins, Angela had no other real occupation other than being a snoop. She was curios beyond belief and it was always about other people's business as she had none of her own to occupy her mind with.

Laura Collins was in the last of her labor travails as Angela secretly made her way into Quentin's private quarters. She spied the box in the semi-darkness and fell to examine it more closely. She tried to open the lid, but found no hand hold to do so. She brought a candle to see where the catch might be, but she found none. She was about to give up this investigation when she heard a distinct clicking sound as if something had been released. She gazed back at the box by candlelight and noticed that the lid was ever so slightly ajar! She raised the lid and peered inside the darkness.

No one heard Angela scream her last, for at just that moment Laura Collins gave forth her last and loudest shout as she gave birth to her daughter, Nora Collins!

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.