Mother arrives. Roderick greets her. Servants unload her bags.
RODERICK (V.O.)
My mother was the only person who, in my misfortune, remained faithful to me -- indeed, she has always spoken of me in my true light, as a martyr to the rascality of others, and a victim of my own generous and confiding temper.
Mother supervising kitchen staff.
RODERICK (V.O.)
She was an invaluable person to me in my house, which would have been at rack and ruin before, but for her spirit of order and management and her excellent economy in the government of my rapidly dwindling household staff.
Roderick and his mother.
RODERICK (V.O.)
If anything could have saved me from the consequences of villainy in others, it would have been the admirable prudence of that worthy creature.
Action as per voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
She never went to bed until all the house was quiet and all the candles out; you may fancy that this was a matter of some difficulty with a man of my habits who had commonly a dozen of jovial fellows to drink with me every night, and who seldom, for my part, went to bed sober.
Actions as per voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Many and many a night, when I was unconscious of her attention, has that good soul pulled my boots off, and seen me laid by my servants snug in bed, and carried off the candle herself...
Action as per voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
... and been the first in the morning, too, to bring me my drink of small beer. It was my mother's pride that I could drink more than any man in the country.
Roderick and his mother holding a letter before a fire, which slowly brings out the writing in lemon juice between the widely-spaced lines of directions to her milliner.
RODERICK (V.O.)
My mother discovered that always, before my lady-wife chose to write letters to her milliner, she had need of lemons to make her drink, as she said, and this fact, being mentioned to me, kind of set me a-thinking.
RODERICK
(reading letter aloud)
"This day, three years ago, my last hope and pleasure in life was taken from me, and my dear child was called to Heaven. Where is his neglected brother, whom I suffered to grow up unheeded by my side, and whom the tyranny of the monster to whom I am united drove to exile, and, perhaps to death? I pray the child is still alive and safe. Charles Brookside! Come to the aide of a wretched mother, who acknowledges her crime, her coldness towards you, and now bitterly pays for her error! What sufferings, what humiliations have I had to endure! I am a prisoner in my own halls. I should fear poison, but then I know the wretch has a sordid interest in keeping me alive, and that my death would be the signal for his ruin. But I dare not stir without my odious, hideous, vulgar gaoler, the horrid Irish woman, who purses my every step. I am locked into my chamber at night, like a felon, and only suffered to leave it when ordered into the presence of my lord, to be present at his orgies with his boon-companions, and to hear his odious converse as he lapses into the disgusting madness of intoxication."
Roderick, and the Countess and mother, at a silent dinner.
RODERICK (V.O.)
It was not possible to recover the name for whom the note was intended, but it was clear that, to add to all my perplexities, three years after my poor child's death, my wife, whose vagaries of temper and wayward follies I had borne with for twelve years, wanted to leave me. I decided it best not to reveal to her ladyship our discovery, that we might still intercept and uncover further schemes with might be afoot.
A few cuts showing Mother keeping an eye on the Countess.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Yet I was bound to be on my guard that she should not give me the slip. Had she left me, I was ruined the next day. I set my mother to keep sharp watch over the moods of her ladyship, and you may be sure that her assistance and surveillance were invaluable to me. If I had paid twenty spies to watch her lady, I should not have been half so well served as by the disinterested care and watchfulness of my excellent mother.
Roderick walking with the Countess.
RODERICK (V.O.)
My Lady Cosgrove's relationship with me was a singular one. Her life was passed in a series of crack-brained sort of alternation between love and hatred for me. We would quarrel for a fortnight, then we should be friends for a month together sometimes. One day, I was joking her, and asking her whether she would take the water again, whether she had found another lover, and so forth. She suddenly burst out into tears, and, after a while, said to me:
COUNTESS
Roderick, you know well enough that I have never loved but you! Was I ever so wretched that a kind word from you did not make me happy? Ever so angry, but the least offer of good-will on your part did not bring me to your side? Did I not give a sufficient proof of my affection for you in bestowing one of the finest fortunes of England upon you? Have I repined or rebuked you for the way you have wasted it? No, I loved you too much and too fondly; I have always loved you. From the first moment I saw you, I saw your bad qualities, and trembled at your violence; but I could not help loving you. I married you, though I knew I was sealing my own fate in doing so, and in spite of reason and duty. What sacrifice do you want from me? I am ready to make any, so you will but love me, or, if not, that at least, you will gently us me.
Roderick kisses her.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I was in a particularly good humor that day, and we had a sort of reconciliation.
Roderick and his mother.
MOTHER
Depend on it, artful hussy has some other scheme in her head now.
RODERICK (V.O.)
The old lady was right, and I swallowed the bait which her ladyship had prepared to entrap me as simply as any gudgeon takes a hook.
Arrival of Mr. Newcombe, the money-broker.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I had hired a money-broker especially to find some means of my making a loan. After several months without success, it was with some considerable interest that I received his visit.
Roderick and the money-broker, Mr. Newcombe.
NEWCOMBE
I have good news for you, Mr. Cosgrove. The firm of Bracegirdle and Chatwick, in the city of London, are prepared to lend you 20,000 pounds, pledged against your interest in the Edric mines. They will redeem the encumbrances against the property, which amount to some 10,000 pounds, and take a twenty-year working lease on the mines. They will lend you the 20,000 pounds against the lease income, which they will apply to the loan as it comes in, and they will make a charge of 18% per annum interest on the outstanding loan balance.