This one made us think about the nature of suspense. Yesterday, naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes schemed with his henchman, the unsightly Noah Gifford, to trick fluttery heiress Millicent Collins into thinking that her second cousin Barnabas was trying to kill her.
Today, we see that plan unfold just as Nathan had hoped it would. Millicent goes to the gazebo on the estate of Collinwood, having received a message asking her to go there. The message appeared to be from Barnabas, but was actually from Nathan. Noah, wearing a Zorro costume and carrying Barnabas’ highly recognizable cane, springs out of the bushes. He attacks Millicent with the cane, then Nathan appears. The men pretend to fight, Noah pretends to lose, and he runs off into the night. Millicent thanks Nathan profusely and wonders why Barnabas would want to hurt her.
Millicent and Nathan are so interesting to watch together that we can’t stop ourselves hoping Nathan’s scheme works. On the other hand, we know that Nathan is only after Millicent’s money, and that if she marries him he will make her and the rest of the Collinses miserable. So when Barnabas’ mother Naomi shows up and asks Nathan what he was doing on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood, our hope for more Millicent/ Nathan scenes competes with a hope that Naomi will follow up Nathan’s answers with questions that will expose his plot. It would be easy enough to do- he says he was hoping to see Millicent, but how could he know she would be at the gazebo? And how could he have failed to see the assailant, considering that they arrived there at virtually the same moment?
Naomi and her husband Joshua have been telling everyone that Barnabas left for England several weeks ago. Nathan and Millicent both know this is false, because both have seen him since. Nathan has figured out that Barnabas is the serial killer preying on the women of Collinsport, and is apparently planning to use this information to blackmail Joshua. At the moment the Collinses are not afraid of being blackmailed with information about anything Barnabas has done lately. They spread the story about England because Barnabas had died. They thought he died from the plague, and Joshua feared that if that became known the men would not report to work at the family’s shipyard.
What neither Nathan nor any of the Collinses know is that Barnabas has become a vampire. Naomi is depressed that her son has died and that she cannot talk freely about his death with anyone. She is miserable when Millicent keeps claiming it was Barnabas who attacked her, and tries desperately to stop her from talking about him at all. Naomi and Millicent are both good-hearted people, of the sort we would like to see come to happy endings. They also make the most of the dramatic values in this situation. Again, we find ourselves in suspense generated by our conflicting desires. We have a rooting interest in the characters’ well-being, but we want to see a lively story, and the tragedy in which they are locked is providing that. So we can see any number of possible developments that would disappoint us, either by hurting characters we like or by short-circuiting a plot we are enjoying.
A very pure example of suspense comes in a scene between Nathan and Noah in Nathan’s room at a local inn. Noah refuses to leave until Nathan pays the money he owes him; Nathan says he has no money and that he isn’t likely to get any unless Noah leaves at once, since Millicent is on her way and will get suspicious if she sees him there. Noah doesn’t understand this, and Nathan has to keep repeating the point. When Millicent knocks on the door, Noah finally agrees to hide. On his way to let Millicent in, Nathan realizes Barnabas’ cane is in plain view in the middle of the room, and hides it under his bed.
The only danger in this scene is that the Nathan/ Millicent story will end abruptly, but we are sufficiently invested in watching that story play out that our irritation at Noah’s stupidity is combined with suspense as we fear that he will ruin the scheme. Nathan’s success with Noah and his last-second concealment of the cane come as a relief. Again, the suspense is entirely contained within our role as the audience, and is not a product of any concern we have for the characters or anything they represent to us.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 