BORLEY RECTORY – THE MOST HAUNTED HOUSE IN ENGLAND? By Owen J Lewis A SMITH SCRIPT This script is protected by copyright laws. No performance of this script – IN ANY MEDIA – may be undertaken without payment of the appropriate fee and obtaining a licence. For further information, please contact SMITH SCRIPTS at [email protected] Borley OJL 2005© Borley Rectory The Most Haunted House In England? By Owen J.Lewis 1 Borley OJL 2005© Borley Rectory The Most Haunted House in Britain? Cast Annabel James: An actress Harry Price: The lecturer Henry Dawson Ellis Bull: The rector Mary Ann Bull: The rector’s wife Harry Bull: His son Ethel Bull: Henry’s daughter Freda Bull: Henry’s daughter Mabel Bull: Henry’s daughter Elsie Bull: Henry’s daughter Rev. Eric Smith: Third vicar Mabel Smith: Eric’s wife Lucie Kaye: Price’s secretary Vince Wall: A Daily Mirror reporter Lionel Foyster: Fourth rector of Borley Marianne Foyster: Lionel’s wife Sir George Whitehouse: Foyster acquaintance Lady Whitehouse: Whitehouse’s spouse Francois D’arles: The lodger Francois D’Arles Junior: D’arles’ young son Douglas Ian: Marianne’s illegitimate child Mr Warren: Marks Tey Spiritualist Circle Mrs Warren: Marks Tey Spiritualist Circle Louis Mayerling: Sceptic and hoaxer Act one (The year is 1947. The play is set in the style of a lecture given by Harry Price. The audience will represent his lecture audience. He is standing at a lectern, stage left in darkness. There is a Nun sitting centre stage and she is clearly distressed. In the audience unbeknown to the public is Louis Mayerling. He is to enter the auditorium with the rest of the public and remain anonymous until later. He is to have a reserved seat on the front row. It is important that Harry Price is in darkness as the audience must focus their attention on the Nun. She is about 19 years old. She is bricked up in a tiny space. The stage is bare. There is no real record of the Nun’s name and, in fact, no real evidence of her existence so for directional purposes she shall be notated as Nun.) Nun Oh my Lord, why have you forsaken me? Why have you left me here alone so cruelly accused and so meanly punished? Why my God, why? All I did was to love another, why can I not serve you and yet love another? Why am I to die? My Lord? You must help me see why this is to be my fate, you must help me to find an understanding before my head bows and my world becomes the darkness of death. My Lord with you I will see, with you I will hear and with you I will bear this sentence that will bring me to your Kingdom. (She is slowly growing more breathless and verging on hysteria) I cannot stand alone; be with me my Lord God! 2 Borley OJL 2005© Nun Contd… Find a way to forgive me and welcome me to your heart. Help me God, if you are there, hear me and help me. Show me you care, my Lord why would you do this? Help me God! Help me! (She falls to the ground silently sitting hugging her knees to give the impression of confinement.) Our Father who art in Heaven, our Father who art in Heaven, our Father who art in Heaven… forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our trespasses… our Father who art in Heaven, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive, as we forgive, (she stands up and beats the wall, she shouts) Our Father who art in Heaven get me out of here, get me out, someone get me out! (She builds this up into a crescendo and collapses on the floor again screaming hysterically. The scene ends with her lying, crying loudly on the floor occasionally shouting for help. Directors allow your actress her own freedom to build this as she would. It needs to be pitiful and helpless to give the desperation of the Nun’s plight. Lights go up and we illuminate Harry Price standing at his lectern.) Price Thank you Annabel. You can get up now. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Annabel James, a great young actress (she stands and bows to the applause). That’s it, take a bow and off you go. (He encourages the audience to applaud her and claps along with them) I thought that would grab your attention. Forgive me, good evening, I’m Harry Price and tonight, I hope to prove to you once and for all that the stories you have heard and, maybe, read in The Mirror about Borley Rectory and its haunting are indeed true. So, you ask, why a Nun? Well that’s where we come in, that is our, how might I say, (ponder) that is the crux, yes crux, that’s a good word, that is the crux of our tale. You see, the Borley tale starts many centuries ago, or so it is claimed. We go back to 1362; imagine – Borley is just a tiny town on the Essex and Suffolk border. Standing just about three miles from Sudbury and served by the local town of Long Melford. Not much there then, as now, as one can imagine, but importantly to our little tale there is a Benedictine monastery. This wretched child, this poor girl, housed in a convent in nearby Bures was in love with a monk from this very same monastery. Their love was reputedly so strong that they planned to elope and get as far away as they could and settle down for a life together. If only they had not been missed, if only their superiors had not found them missing so soon after their departure – if only they had escaped through the woods and not left in a coach and two, if only. I can only presume that the monk would not have been hanged and the poor child we saw before us would not have been walled up with just a loaf and a jug of water. If only, but they made all the wrong choices, knowing the punishment at that time for escaping holy orders was death, they gambled everything for love. (Pause.) Hmm? A nice tale and the convenient starting point for a ghost story and as my tale unfolds you will hear of the Nun again, but I am a scientist and I look at evidence not hearsay. I can only give you that tale as a way in, but tonight in this lecture, ladies and gentlemen; I will prove beyond any doubt that Borley Rectory deserves the title of the most haunted house in Britain. Tonight I will give you my scientific evidence and tonight once and for all you will say Borley is what they say it was; I know because it was proved to me by the man that knows. One Harry Price… So where to begin? Well we have begun, the monastery that was, was eventually destroyed, most likely by Henry the Eighth’s lot in the dissolutions around 1538, but with the ground being holy it became, many years later, the obvious site for our rectory. So in come the Bulls: a clerical family since 1752 and related to the Waldegrave family, who owned almost all of Borley and had done since the Domesday Book. 3 Borley OJL 2005© Price Contd… They are a perfect choice. Henry Dawson Ellis Bull was asked to take over the position of Rector of Borley in 1862. The following year to house himself and his family of fourteen children he built Borley Rectory, the house that we know today as, the most haunted place in the country. (Lights fade on Harry. We light up the set to find Henry Bull, his wife and son Harry sitting chatting) Mary What are you planning to talk on in Sunday’s sermon my love? Bull I don’t know, I was thinking of talking about the local hunt, we haven’t had a kill in four weeks and I was wondering if God was displeased in some way. Mary Perhaps the fox has gone to ground; you did have an extraordinarily good crop over the Christmas period didn’t you? Bull (Now standing staring out of the window, seeming absent minded) Yes dear, my god look at that, quick look, on the Nun’s Walk, a rabbit just sat there staring up at the house, it’s a rabbit I’ll tell you, get my gun Mary quickly! (She exits and returns with a gun. It is most likely to be a rifle.) Mary Here you are dear. Bull (He shoots through the window) Come on you blaggard let’s have you, one for the pot I think Mary. (He shoots twice) Got the blighter! I’ll be back. (He exits.) Mary Oh I wish he wouldn’t shoot that thing indoors. (Enter Harry.) Harry Mama I’ve passed Father hurtling across the hall with a gun over his shoulder shouting, “You’re mine, you’re mine.” What’s up, rabbits again? Mary Yes dear, rabbits again. Harry Last time we had rabbits in the garden he went missing for hours and we found him asleep resting his gun on his arm, do you remember? (He crosses to look out of the big windows.) 4 Borley OJL 2005© Mary Darling Son, if I had a sixpence for every time your father goes outside and vanishes I would be a very rich lady of leisure by now, I imagine.