TESS OF THE BASKERVILLES

by Augustus Swineherd

Those who have seen Sid performing in such dramatic masterpieces as Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins or The Trunch Nightsoilman's Play will realise that he has considerable talent in that direction.  Sid's first major role, apart from playing the back end of the pantomime donkey in Big Dick of Whittington, was in Swineherd's epic mystery, Tess of the Baskervilles. Here is part of that great work.

Somewhere, out in the Great Gimingham Mire, was the hound.  I, Doc Watson, troubleshooter for the property firm, Sherlock Homes, was engaged to get rid of it.  But it wasn't proving easy.  When I served an eviction order on it, it just licked me.  When I tried to chase it off it barked, ran away and brought me a stick.  I remembered my old friend saying 'It's all to do with the dog that barked in the night.'

'But the dog didn't bark in the night,' I protested.

'Exactly,' he said, sniffing opium from his slipper.  'Find out when the dog did bark and you'll have the answer.'

'How could that help? This damned dog barks all the time.'

But events took a strange turn when Sir Huge O'Baskerville set off across the Mire to seek out a young woman:

Sir Huge:  (calling) Tess.  Tess.  I know you're there girl.  You must come out and take your medicine.

Tess:  (appearing) I'm not on the medicine no more.  They all cleared up after Granny Gimlet put a charm on them.  'You don't want to take no more of that old medicine,' she said. 'Let old Granny charm them away.'  And she did too - they vanished like a maiden's honour in a squire's bedroom.

Sir Huge:  Tess, you cannot stay here.  You are putting yourself in mortal danger.  You do not know who you are.

Tess:  That's just what Granny Gimlet used to say.  'None of us know who we really are,' she said, just before she accidentally turned herself into a frog.  Who am I then?

Sir Huge:  You are Tess of the Baskervilles and there is a terrible curse upon you!  A dreadful fate threatens you!  It's a horrible secret!

Tess:  Why don't you ever look on the bright side?  There you go on about everything being terrible and dreadful, and horrible as if nothing nice ever happened.  Why, just this afternoon I trod in some sheep's droppings and that's ever such good luck, Granny used to say.  'Course, she'll never do that again - though she might hop into some.  I don't know if that's lucky or not.

Sir Huge:  Cease your prattle.  I must have you off my land this minute.

Tess:  Oh, you are a hound Sir Baskerville.  But I don't see how that's possible.  Your land stretches for miles around here.  So if you want to have me this minute it can't be off your land -  it'll have to be on your land.  Although I'd prefer a mattress.  Of course, if you could hold yourself in for a bit that might be different.

Sir Huge:  Stupid child.  I have come to tell you that if you stay on Baskerville soil this night you will never see the dawn.  For do you not know what night it is?

Tess:  Don't tell me - let me guess.  It's Walperverts' Night.  No?  Is it All Heels' Eve?  No? I give in then - though the bit about your land still applies.

Sir Huge:  Tess, tonight is the anniversary of the night you were born.  On this night, seventeen long years ago, Betsy, the upstairs-maid, spent ten terrible hours in labour.  She sweated, she screamed, she called out for deliverance.  And then - when she'd finally completed her household duties - she was allowed time off to give birth to you.

Tess:  Well, your family has always been good to us poor peasants.  I mean, you gave old bald Bernard a false forelock so he could have the pleasure of tugging it for you.

Sir Huge:  (ignoring her)  My father, Sir Jasper O'Baskerville, was furious.  He confessed that he had laid with Betsy - although he claimed that he never inhaled.  He admitted that you were the fruit of his loins.  And then he swore that you should never thrive.  He swore that he would have his revenge on himself for his wicked doings.  He swore that the Great Gimingham Mire would have you before your eighteenth birthday.

Tess:  Swore a lot, didn't he?  And him all landed, and all.  Granny Gimlet always said that people who swore a lot only showed that they didn't have a big enough thingy.

Sir Huge:  Thingy?  How dare you impugn my father's thingy!

Tess:  No, not thingy - thingy.  You know.  Like all the words you know.

Sir Huge:  You mean vocabulary?

Tess:  That's it.  Granny said that people who swear a lot don't have a big enough one of them.

And then they heard a terrible sound.  It was a sort of a moaning, some would say.  Others would call it more of a howling.  Yet others wouldn't come down on one side or the other.

Tess:  Oh, Sir Huge, what is it?

Sir Huge:  That sound!  It cannot be.  Surely it could not be!

Tess:  No, you're quite right - it isn't.

Sir Huge:  Thank goodness for that.

Tess:  So what's all this about my father being your father.  Does that make us brother and sister then?

Sir Huge:  Do not be so presumptive yokel.  How could you think that I was kin to such as you?  Heaven forefend.  For I am no relation to my father.  I was born as a result of my mother's illicit union with Melons, the gamekeeper.

Tess:  I thought of joining one of them once.

Sir Huge:  One of what?

Tess:  An illicit union.  But the subs was high and there was no strike pay so I couldn't see the point really.  But hold you hard - how come you know about all this?

Sir Huge:  Well, churl - one night I lay with the chauffeur's wife.  She gratified my every whim.  She whipped my buttocks with cream.  She smothered my nipples with a pillow.  She smeared lemon curd between my toes..........

Tess:  Well, that's all very interesting, but what's it got to do with price of stinking fish?

Sir Huge:  At the very peak of my pleasure, as she lay astride me dressed only in a Nurse's uniform and galoshes, she told me all about it.

Tess:  Funny time to choose.  Granny Gimlet always used to say that was rude to talk with your mouth full, but I'm not sure that's relevant.

Sir Huge:  She told me in order to destroy me, Tess.  For at that very moment I had completed an act of incest.  For the chauffeur's wife was, in fact, my own full sister.  It seems that Melons had previously been my grandfather's gamekeeper, and my mother bore his daughter in great secrecy, before wedding Sir Jasper.

Then they heard that terrible howling again.  It seemed to come from somewhere between the great gates of hell and the terrible pit of doom - which, our researches suggest, means it came from just north of Hanworth Cross.

Sir Huge:  There's that terrible howling again.

Tess:  It's probably just the wind.  Granny Gimlet always said it's an ill wind that brings Noddy any good.

Sir Huge:  I think you mean nobody.

Tess:  Pardon?

Sir Huge:  It's an ill wind that brings nobody any good.

Tess:  Is it?  What - as well as Noddy?

Sir Huge:  Of course, I had to act to protect the good name of my sister.  It could not become known that she had committed such an act.  So I killed her.  Did you not wonder when the chauffeur's cottage was burned to the ground and they and all their papers were destroyed?

Tess:  Well no, not really.  I'm only a poor goose girl.  It's not my place to wonder about such things, is it?  It's my place to have my bottom pinched by the likes of you.  As to the house being burned to the ground - well, where else would it be burned to?

Sir Huge:  Tess, kindly remove all your clothes and lie on your back.

Tess:  Well, what are you like?  What do you take me for?  How dare you suggest such a thing?  What's in it for me?

Sir Huge:  Well, if we lay here together like man and wife, then under the ancient law of Southrepps we shall be wed.  And if we are wed then your name will change.  So Tess of the Baskervilles will not be on this land when her sixteenth birthday arrives.  Thus will we evade the curse.

Tess:  Well, if you put it that way.  But I must warn you, I haven't got no lemon curd on me at the moment - nor any galoshes.  So what's in it for you?

Sir Huge:  Oh, I shall take no pleasure from it, Tess.  I shall simply play my part out of kind-hearted generosity.  Noblesse Oblige.

Tess:  Well, that's very good of you, I must say - and no blessed bilge to you too.  Granny Gimlet used to say that a kind deed was worth more than a poke in a pig.  But wait! - if we do this we might have a child.

Sir Huge:  You might - I certainly won't.  But it's your only way out.

Tess:  Oh, I don't believe any of that old squit.  I know a bit about the old Southrepps law.  If I lie with you I shan't be your wife, but I shall give up any claim to the Estate when I become sixteen.  That's what you're after.

            But I don't have no claim to the Estate, 'cause I aren't no more your father's daughter than you are.  See, Betsy the upstairs-maid told me that she did lie with Sir Jasper, but that nothing .... arose.  And she left his bed unsullied and went straight to the chauffeur, and lay with him.  So while we may not be related by blood we are, in law, in-laws.

Sir Huge:  Curses!  She's seen through my ruse.

Tess:  Well, if you will wear see-through ruses!  You made this whole story up just as an excuse to have your wicked way with me, didn't you?

Sir Huge:  It is true.  I wished to have the pleasure of your soft, young, pliant body.

Tess:  Well that's perfectly understandable.  Alright, well we might as well get on with it then.  Because I've taken a bit of a shine to you, sir.  I'm wondering which wicked way you've got in mind.  And I'm quite keen to find out if you're Huge by name and Huge by nature.  So come - take me!  I am yours!

But then came that terrible moaning sound again.  It was a horrible, blood-chilling, spine-curdling ululation, sufficient to scare any man limp.  And so, for all their words, Tess remained unconsumed, and Sir Huge remained unsatisfied.

What was the sound?  What became of poor Tess?  Did Sir Huge come into his inheritanse?  We shall never know the answers to these rhetorical questions, for at this very point Augustus Swineherd had to leave for a darts match, where he was tragically wounded by a dart through the eye, and couldn't see his way to finishing the story.

Nevertheless Sid's performance in this play was agreed by two and all to be a triumph. It is said that his portrayal of Tess brought a tear to many an eye and a lump to many a throat.  And thus a star was born.