Subj: Beneath the Dark Shadows Part Four
Date: 9/19/00 9:04:57 PM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

Betty Hanscomb and Elizabeth Collins were spending the day together at Collinwood when Betty suddenly fainted dead away. Elizabeth set up the alarm and soon servants aplenty were on hand to attend to the stricken girl. They were just about to phone the doctor when Aunt Nora intervened. She ordered Bentley to bring the car around and she had Seth pick up the
cruppled form of Betty Hanscomb and place her gently in the spacious back seat. She would take Miss Hanscomb to the doctor herself, so there was no need to call anyone. Elizabeth wanted to go with them, but Aunt Nora insisted that this was no time for her niece to be hovering and bringing an added unnecessary hysteria to the occasion. Elizabeth had to resigned herself to waving good-bye, pathetically as the car sped away.

Nora Collins applied smelling salts to the unconcious girl and roused her. Betty's head was still swimming when the old woman began her discourse. "I know what is wrong with you. I know what you have done, and I am not of the mind that it should be undone. Would that this had happened in another time then there would be no question of the next step."

Betty wasn't sure what the old woman was talking about. "I'm sorry, Miss Collins, but I don't understand what you mean?"

Nora took on a decidely different tone with the girl. "Don't play games with me! I know all about you and my rash young nephew, Roger! I know how you lured him into that lighthouse on his birthday and offered yourself to him! You robbed him of his innocence!" The window separating the driver from the passengers was firmly in place and so Bentley heard none of this angry unpleasant disscusion.

Betty's head was swimming again, but not for the same reason. She started to deny it all, but she felt that she couldn't. She knew she was carrying the child of Roger Collins, but she had thought that somehow she could place the blame on another older boy, but time had run out for that plan to go into effect. Soon she would be showing and she had run out of options. The old woman continued with less severity in her voice. "Your parents must be informed of...this."

Betty cried out in protest. "No, I couldn't bear the shame!"

Nora gave her a condescending look. "You bore it well enough on the dirty floor of that lighthouse. You will own up to it in the light of day!" There simply was no arguing with Nora Collins.

Nora Collins had told George and Barbara Hanscomb the whole dirty little story while Betty had been sent to her room to lie down and consider the awful trouble she had caused them all. Barbara wrung her hands and George hung his head in shame. "Oh, what are we going to do? This will ruin us! We'll have to leave town!" Barbara started wailing their fate while George just sat silently.

"No! You must not draw any attention to the facts! If you will both do exactly as I say no one will have to know!" Nora Collins continued as soon as Barbara stopped her moaning. "I will set Betty up in our New York apartment. She will have all that she needs to get through this time, and I will see to the proper arrangements for the delivery of the child. After all he will be a Collins, and we do not turn our backs on our own!" She said this last with a decided proud and haughty attitude.

"But what will we tell everyone? How will we successfully explain Betty's absense?" George had finally joined the conversation.

Nora spoke purposely. "We will say as little as possible and only when there is an inquiry. Otherwise people will become suspicious. If we eagerly volunteer information or explanations people will jump to their own conclusions. So simply say nothing until something comes up."

George wasn't satisfied. "But someone will ask something and then what?"

Nora had already thought this out carefully in advance. "Tell them she is tending to a sick elderly relative out west and that she had to leave suddenly since the "old lady's" need was so great. If anyone presses for more information just say you would rather not talk about it as it is a personal and painful topic. Anyone with any sense of decency will have the wherewithal not to push it further." Nora was confidant that her plan was without flaw except for Elizabeth. She would have tell Elizabeth a different story, but she had that thought out in advance as well.

Elizabeth would be told that her best friend had developed Tuberculosis and had to be sent away to Arizona for at least a year. She was not to disturb her parents as they were terribly upset and she was not to be concerned that she had contracted the disease as they had caught it in time. Betty was not yet contagious. And furthermore, she was not to tell ANYONE of this! Everyone else in Collinsport was to be told that Betty Hanscomb was tending to a sick elderly relative out west. If news got out that she had this disease even though she was not at present contagious, well, there would be a panic, and there was no need for that. Yes, Nora Collins had it all worked out. Or so she thought.

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.