Episode 36: A House of Torment

Monday, August 15, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. Collinwood is quiet, but the pressures of the last few hours are still around me. Pressures that may finally make it impossible for me to continue my search.

Vicki wants to talk to Liz about David. She’s decided to leave Collinwood and go back home.

David eavesdrops.

Vicki tells Liz about David’s saying she will be sorry she ever came there. Vicki denies she’s afraid, though.

Liz says she is afraid, too, but for David. She doesn’t want Vicki to leave.

Vicki says she was responsible for exposing David, and now he hates her.

Liz says David needs people to face that hatred and teach him it’s not necessary.

Vicki says someone he doesn’t hate would be better for him. She wants to know why Liz is so insistent on her staying.

The phone rings. It’s Sam for Roger. He hangs up without identifying himself or leaving a message.

Roger shows up where Sam is, at the restaurant. He is not happy that Sam called him at the house. Sam says Liz hasn’t heard his voice for eighteen years. Roger says not to call again, and not to take any portrait commissions from Burke Devlin.

Sam says he couldn’t get out of it, and maybe Burke just realizes he’s a fine artist.

Roger doesn’t want them spending that much time together.

Sam says what he did to Burke is the shame of his life, and he would never tell Burke about it.

Roger is not willing to take that chance. He gives Sam till morning to cancel the portrait.

Liz says she brought Vicki there to help the whole family. Carolyn will be free to leave. David will receive understanding and love. If she leaves, Collinwood will be a house of torment and fear. Liz promises to talk to David if Vicki will stay, at least for a while. Vicki acquiesces.

As they go out in the hall, David says he doesn’t want Vicki to stay. Liz tells him she doesn’t think he’ll have much choice. She tells him to go in the drawing room. David admonishes Vicki to remember what he told her. Liz says she’s going to take care of that matter right away. Vicki decides to go to a movie.

Liz tells David not to threaten Vicki. Vicki is going to stay and tutor him. He needs to stop blaming her for what he’s done.

He says Liz just hates him like everybody else.

“I don’t hate you, David. If I did you wouldn’t be living in my house. But I am angry with you, very angry indeed.” He says he doesn’t care. She tells him he better start caring, because the world isn’t a very nice place for little boys who don’t care what people think.

David asks Liz to help him. She says she’s trying, but he has to help too. He asks her not to stop loving him. She says he’s family. How could she stop loving him?

Roger comes in and says it’s not that hard.

David asks Liz to come upstairs with him. Roger asks if the devil is afraid of the shadows he lives in. “That’s enough, Roger,” Liz tells him, and takes David upstairs. As they go, Roger reminds David how lucky he is to be a part of the family.

Sam sees Vicki at the restaurant. She missed the start of the movie and decided not to go. 

There is no one there to serve at the restaurant. (They had errands!) Sam gets himself a cup of coffee.

He asks about Liz. What is she like now? Family was always very important to her, he recalls. Vicki says it still is. 

He almost asks if Liz would help him—or maybe it’s Roger, but stops himself. Vicki doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. “And you’re a far happier girl for that. Go back to your house on the hill, Miss Winters, go back to your ghosts and your goblins. But be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Of the thing that we all fear. The thing that came closer to me . . . tonight. Of death, Miss Winter, death.”

Liz comes down, and Roger asks her if David is all tucked in and cosy. She says he never will be until Roger changes his attitude about him. He becomes irate. Liz says she’s trying to help David.

“How? The way you’ve helped Carolyn, and me, and in some strange way, Miss Winters? You’ve made a wrong turn every time and you know it.”

“I’ve done the best I can.”

Roger says he has too, but nothing has been good enough from either of them. She doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

“Collinwood! The Collins name! The great dynasty you’re so zealously trying to protect for my precious David! It might disappear, Liz! It might vanish from the face of this earth—and you would never even know!” Roger storms off.

Liz picks up the phone and asks the operator to make a person-to-person call to Ned Calder in Portland.”

Vicki returns home.

        Cast, In Order of Appearance

Victoria Winters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alexandra Moltke

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan Bennett

David Collins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Henesy

Sam Evans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nancy Barrett

Roger Collins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Louis Edmonds

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by Lela Swift

Story created and written by Art Wallace