Summary
In a salt-stung hamlet where whispers travel faster than gulls, Betty Taradine—part Bacchante, part bankrupt—opens her crumbling manse to a war-battered Colonel, igniting tongues that have nothing better to burn. A bank clerk, half vulture, half accountant, hints that the only asset left is her absent husband’s death-promise on parchment; Betty, with the audacity of a tragedienne, forges fate by telegram. Enter Captain Peter Rymill—trim uniform, trembling heart—who is, in the cosmos’s private jest, the very spouse she has declared extinct. Between candle-flirtations and piano-wire tensions, Betty parades before the Colonel to sting her incognito husband, while the Colonel pines for Penelope Moon, a sylph in lace who reads Latin for pleasure. Midnight becomes farce: a portrait-theft, two men squeezed like guilty sardines into chiffonier and bed-frame, a cleric and his vinegary sister barging in like moral weather. When every curtain is drawn, masks drop faster than autumn leaves; declarations spill; matrimonial constellations realign; the widow, misleading no more, steps into dawn arm-in-arm with the man she never truly lost.
Synopsis
Gossip spreads quickly throughout a small New England village when Betty Taradine extravagantly entertains wounded Colonel Preedy, billeted at her home. After a bank official suggests that Betty, deeply in debt, raise money on the life insurance policy of her husband, who left years earlier because of her extravagances, Betty sends herself a telegram announcing her husband's death. Preedy's aide, Captain Peter Rymill, in reality Betty's husband, arrives, and falling in love with her again, agrees to keep his identity secret. Although Betty flirts with Preedy to irritate Peter, Preedy really loves Betty's friend, Penelope Moon. One night, Preedy sneaks into Betty's bedroom to steal Penelope's picture, and hides in the closet when Peter enters seeking reconciliation. Peter then hides under the bed when Reverend Ambrose Liptrott, who loves Betty, and his spinster sister Tabitha, arrive to investigate rumors. After Peter and Preedy explain themselves, Preedy confesses his love to Penelope, and Peter and Betty are reunited.
