Age of Innocence - script excerpt.

"MRS. MINGOTT


Ellen! Ellen, are you upstairs?



[Archer is startled at the mention of Ellen]



MRS. MINGOTT

She's over from Portsmouth, spending the day with me. It's such a

nuisance. She just won't stay in Newport, insists on putting up

with those. . . what's their name. . . Blenkers. But I gave up

arguing with young people about fifty years ago. . . Ellen!



MAID

I'm sorry, ma'am, Miss Ellen's not in the house.



MRS. MINGOTT

She's left?



MAID

I saw her going down the shore path.



[Mrs. Mingott turns to Archer]



MRS. MINGOTT

Run down and fetch her, like a good grandson. May can tell me all

the gossip about Julius Beaufort. Go ahead. I know she'll want to

see you both.



[On the shore path]



NARRATOR

He had heard her name often enough during the year and a half

since they had last met. He was even familiar with the main

incidents of her life. But he heard all these accounts with

detachment, as if listening to reminiscences of someone long dead.

But the past had come again into the present, as in those newly

discovered caverns in Tuscany, where children had lit bunches of

straw and seen old images staring from the wall.



[Archer walks down the path and sees the pier and house in front

of him. He sees a woman with her back to the shore, leaning

against a rail. He stops, unable to go on. It's Ellen. She looks

out to sea, at the bay furrowed with yachts and sailboats and

fishing craft. He does not move. Ellen does not turn. A sailboat

glides through the channel between Lime Rock lighthouse and the

shore]



NARRATOR

He gave himself a single chance. She must turn before the

sailboat crosses the LimeRock light. Then he would go to her.

[He looks to the boat. It glides out on the receding tide between

the lighthouse and the shore. He watches as the boat passes the

lighthouse. He looks at Ellen, she has not turned. Archer walks

away]