Perspective

[MARIAN]
Is she not the way that I described her?
We’re as unalike as black and white

[LAURA]
Still, we are inseparable

[MARIAN]
Joined as day to night
Very clearly of a different feather
We’re an odd but merry pair of birds
She’d say I’m verbose and garrulous

[LAURA]
But in fewer words

[MARIAN]
(laughs)
Laura!

(Hartright laughs)

[LAURA]
I fear your journey here was tedious?

[HARTRIGHT]
My journey was filled with drama!

First I met the local Signal Man... a strange and unearthly man. He told me he’d had a vision that I would come here - and that I would bring tragedy in my wake

[LAURA]
Heavens!

[HARTRIGHT]
Indeed!

But he said: "You will mark my words...

When a year to this day
The dead lie on the tracks!
The dead lie on the tracks!"

[MARIAN]
How strange!

[HARTRIGHT]
What happened next
Was stranger still
A woman, breathless and afraid
Appeared out of the night
Completely dressed in white

She had a secret she would tell
Of one who had mistreated her
Her face and frightened gaze
My mind cannot erase
But then she ran from view

(to Laura)

She looked so much like you

[LAURA]
Perhaps you saw a ghost?

[HARTRIGHT]
Ghost or not... she haunts me still

She looked so much like you...

[MARIAN]
We must clear up this mystery!

[HARTRIGHT]
But first, ladies - we must take advantage of this wonderful light!

(He moves off and the women follow, collecting their hats and sketch books)

SCENE: "Drawing Lessons"

(A beautiful summer’s day for their first drawing lesson. They are outside in the formal gardens of Limmeridge House with a couple of servants, all three before their easels. Laura puts on a hat and
Shawl. They stand before their easels drawing. We hear both what they express openly and their inner thoughts)

[MARIAN]
Nothing's duller
Than my watercolouring
I've next to no technique at all

[LAURA]
My pen and ink are passable

[MARIAN]
My pen and ink appall
All my sketching soon will have you retching
I’m a notch below a chimpanzee

[LAURA]
But we're highly trainable!

[MARIAN]
We shall wait and see

[HARTRIGHT]
You can capture shade and light
Best of all, perspective

[MARIAN]
All I ever do is trite

[HARTRIGHT]
Beauty is subjective
You’ll develop your own style

[MARIAN]
He has such a winning smile

[HARTRIGHT]
You will know when it feels right

[LAURA]
I could trust him at first sight...

(It is now a few weeks later. We are in mid-summer)

[HARTRIGHT]
Be observant!
Be a humble servant
Solely dedicated to your art!

[LAURA]
I can hardly concentrate...

[MARIAN]
What a shaky start

(She tears up the paper)

[HARTRIGHT]
Don't conceal
The thing you think and feel
Get your emotion flowing through your brush!

[MARIAN]
If I follow your advice
You would surely blush

[LAURA]
If I practice what you preach
I'd be more effective

[HARTRIGHT]
She's so clearly out of reach
Seen from my perspective

[MARIAN]
He’s a breath of summer air

[HARTRIGHT]
See the sunlight in her hair

[LAURA]
I must disregard his charms

[LAURA AND MARIAN]
And his manly rugged arms

(The maids lay out a picnic lunch. The three eat. There is the sense that we are drifting through a long hot summer of drawing lessons)

[MARIAN]
Give me people!
Not a tree or steeple
Not a slice of apple and a knife
Still, life’s not as interesting
As a slice of life

[HARTRIGHT]
You’re improving!
This is very moving
That’s a cocker spaniel, clear and true

[MARIAN]
Thank you for the compliment
I was sketching you

[ALL THREE]
What’s the reason I am here?
What is my objective?
What a stirring atmosphere
But where is my perspective?

Can you get a dizzy thrill
While the world is standing still?
Yet the summer’s drifting by
While these golden moments fly

SCENE: "Late Summer"

(We are now in wilder countryside. It is hot. Collars are undone, shawls are abandoned. Hartright starts to sketch Laura)