In the great house of Collinwood, well-meaning governess Vicki is talking to her fiancé, an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff. She asks Peter/ Jeff to wait there for an hour while she goes to the Old House on the estate to break the news of their engagement to old world gentleman Barnabas. It has been established in previous episodes that the Old House is no more than a fifteen minute walk from the great house, so we know that Vicki expects the conversation to last about half an hour. Peter/ Jeff seems worried that it might have consequences that go on even longer. He tells Vicki that Barnabas loves her. She agrees that he does, but says that she loves only Peter/ Jeff, and tells him he needn’t be jealous.
Vicki arrives at the Old House and tells Barnabas the news. She tells him she knows how he feels about her. In a mild tone, he says that she and Peter/ Jeff don’t seem to have known each other very long. Vicki isn’t worried about that, so Barnabas wishes her well, tells her nothing will ever change his feelings for her, gives her a peck on the cheek, and sees her to the door. She leaves the Old House about four minutes after she got there, much less time than she had expected.
Barnabas’ calm reaction and quick dismissal of Vicki suggests that he might not be quite so hung up on her as she and Peter/ Jeff imagine him to be. The end of her visit corroborated this far more powerfully than Vicki could know. Moments before she came to the Old House, a man named Adam had left. Adam is a Frankenstein’s monster. He mistakenly believes that Barnabas created him. He came to the house to demand that Barnabas create a mate for him. When Barnabas told him he could not, Adam said he would wreak a terrible vengeance. Evidently he did not intend to attack Barnabas directly, since he then turned and left. Even though Barnabas knows that Adam is nearby and is out for someone’s blood, he does not offer to accompany Vicki home through the woods; it doesn’t even occur to him to do so.
For over a year, Barnabas has been saying that he and Vicki are going to wind up together, but he has done next to nothing to make this happen. In recent months, he has been pushing her away every time they are together. In #490, he went so far as to tell her that “loving me would have been the greatest mistake of your life.” My wife, Mrs Acilius, wonders if Vicki backed Barnabas into a corner when she told him “I know how you feel about me.” After that, he couldn’t very well have done less than tell her he would always feel about her as he does now. A girl has her pride, after all.
Once Vicki is in the woods, Adam shows up and grabs her. He announces that she will help him persuade Barnabas to give him what he wants.
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