Peter's synopsis-Week 3

The year is l94l .  Deep in the wilds of Rutland stands the decaying grey-stone Georgian mansion of Bolmwood .   Wheelchair-bound Regina Beresford Batson lives a reclusive life there with her only daughter Thelma and the recalcitrant labourer Rickson .  Regina is an imperious, dominating matron who believes she is last in the line of the distinguished Beresford Batsons .   Her daughter Thelma is tall, dark and thin .  A pathetic creature, entirely at the beck and call of her mother .  Rickson a thickset, burly energetic man of fifty-five is Regina’s lover and responsible for the accident that led to her being confined to a wheelchair. .  Thelma is his daughter by another woman.

Juliette is Regina’s long lost niece .   Her father had long been estranged from his sister Regina .   She and her seven-year-old son Gabriel survived the bombing in London that wiped out the rest of the family .   One dark gloomy day they arrive at the door of Bolmwood, evacuees from the Blitz.

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Regina and Rickson are shocked by their arrival .   Rickson has ambitions for Thelma to inherit the estate .  Steps are taken to undermine Juliette and Gabriel and drive them away .   Housed in the coldest , draughtiest parts of the house, Gabriel falls sick .   Juliette spiritedly  demands and gets better quarters .   The incumbents  invent a new strategy: a ghost to frighten the young nervous Gabriel .  Rickson get involved in ghostly tactics exploiting lonely corridors .   Thelma is induced to lead Gabriel whom she has befriended into danger on the parkland lake .  He is saved by the intervention of Jason, a young farmer.

When a struggling damaged Luftwaffe plane crashes into a wing of the house, nobody is killed but in clearing up the debris Juliette comes upon a love letter from Rickson to Regina that reveals Thelma is not her daughter .  Regina recognizes Juliette’s knowledge after a slip of the tongue by young Gabriel .  Rickson in a last throw of the dice plans a campaign to poison her and her son after imprisoning them in a cellar of the house .   By mischance, the feeble-minded Thelma eats poisoned food .   Jason comes to the rescue of the captives.

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Throughout there is a power struggle between the tyrant Regina and her courageous niece as events unfold .  Regina’s weakness is her passionate and enduring love for Rickson for whom she shows uncharacteristic affection which he exploits ruthlessly .  His overriding concern is for his daughter Thelma, who was the love-child of a partner who died tragically and he can never forget .  Juliette too, falls in love with the young energetic Jason who crosses swords with Rickson in his attempts to contact the imprisoned Juliette and Gabrielle after the air crash .  Gabriel is a sensitive boy who builds up a friendship with Thelma, who treacherously destroys that trust under the overwhelming instigations of Regina, and tries to frighten and injure the child.

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