Summary
A tremulous Edward Andrews, whose courage resides only in the alchemy of his cheque-book, commissions swaggering Irish scribbler Michael Rudder to abduct the quixotic Frances Raymond, convinced that grand larceny of the heart is the sole route to her affections. Under a sky bruised with dusk, Michael spirits the willing captive through moonlit hedgerows and railway cuttings, spinning yarns of Caruso nights and Balkan dawns until her pulse syncs with his vagabond drum. Yet the reporter’s soul is a paper kite; once the destination—an ivy-clad manor where Edward’s grandmother decants tea and propriety—looms into view, he folds his charisma into a pocket and vanishes toward a gypsy encampment whose fires flicker like outlaw stars. Abandoned, Frances nurses a hollow that no heirloom teacup can fill, while Edward, chastened by the arithmetic of his own mediocrity, trudges through fen and fairground to reclaim the romantic mercenary and barter him back into the role of bridegroom. In a final twist as delicate as a pressed violet, Frances, reading the selflessness beneath Edward’s timid skin, pivots toward the quiet philanthropist who set the plot in motion, leaving Michael to his caravans and camp-smoke, the eternal bachelor of the open road.
Synopsis
Edward Andrews, a generous but fainthearted young man, loves Frances Raymond, who believes herself to be an incurable romantic. Edward realizes that Frances would love to be whisked off and romanced, but because he is too timid to abduct her himself, he hires Michael Rudder, a breezy young Irish reporter, to do the deed. Michael's dashing manner entrances Frances, but the Irishman prefers the unencumbered life of a rover to that of a husband, and after he delivers her to the home of Edward's grandmother, he wanders away to a gypsy camp. Frances is so downhearted from losing Michael that the kindly Edward finds the reporter and convinces him to propose to the girl. Frances, moved by Edward's goodness, decides that he is the man she really loves and returns to him.
Director
