Whatever Happened To Cousin Miriam? (Pt. 3)

When last we caught up with Cousin Miriam, she'd had an uncomfortable encounter with Jewel Mayhew (widow of murdered John and whom she hadn't seen in almost 30 years) on the steps of Hollisport Hospital and she'd briefly alluded to childhood friend Dr. Drew...

... that someone was trying to frighten her back at Hollis House, out on the bayou. As in previous posts, all of the deleted dialogue and some of the stage directions from the original script is italicized.
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As in the finished film,Miriam returns to Hollis House only to find her cousin in a rage, shrieking abuse at poor Velma, who'd found a tabloid about Charlotte and John Mayhew in the mail and brought it in for Charlotte to read (the old case making news again because of the impending demolition of the plantation manor house):

"Don't you ever show your white trash face in this house AGAIN!"

Miriam attempts to calm Charlotte, who believes Jewel Mayhew had the magazine delivered to her, telling her that she'd just seen Jewel and that she was far too ill to be playing silly pranks like this, but Charlotte races to her desk and pulls out a sheaf of papers.

Miriam takes up one of the notes, looks at it, lifts her gaze to Charlotte, waiting for an explanation.

"I've been getting these in the mail ever since John died! That idiot Sherriff told us they were crank notes. And then some reporter got them into the newspapers--and they started coming from all over--all over the world! But they started right here in Hollisport! And that's where the last one came from-Hollisport. And all of them from Jewel Mayhew!"

Miriam, staring, lets the note flutter from her hand:

"You saved all these?"

They're interrupted by Velma, who tells them that the women from town Miriam has engaged to do the packing have arrived. Then she picks up one of the notes and

hands it negligently to Miriam, who looks at her angrily and crumples the note in her hand before sweeping out of the room.

But very late that same night, Miriam is awakened by the sound of music and, pulling on a robe, she cautiously steps down the stairs, following the harpsichord notes to the music room,

where she finds Charlotte alone in the dark: sadly, softly singing the love song the-long deceased John Mayhew wrote for her. Miriam compassionately urges Charlotte to go back to bed. Then the door to the terrace slowly swings open and Charlotte sees...

CLOSE SHOT-LOWER PART OF DOOR,THE CLEAVER.

The door comes fully open, illumines the cleaver, spattered with blood, upright in the floor.

CLOSE SHOT-CHARLOTTE

She starts up in terror, screams.

CLOSE SHOT-MIRIAM

She shows surprise, alarm: "Charlotte...?"

Miriam follows her gaze to the cleaver. Charlotte stares fixedly. Determination comes into Miriam's face. She leaves Charlotte to cling to the harpsichord, goes toward the cleaver, and as if to put an end to this grisly nonsense, reaches down and dislodges it. She starts to straighten, then freezes. A look of overwhelming revulsion comes into her face.

A reconstruction of the first murder scene, except that now we see the hand actually dismembered and bleeding. The nosegay has fallen from its grasp, now spattered with blood.

CLOSE SHOT-CHARLOTTE

The madness of terror is in her face now. She makes muted, whimpering sounds of fright.

Miriam drops the cleaver, goes to the sobbing Charlotte and forces her away from the scene.

"Come along, it's going to be all right...it's over now, it really is."

But later on, after Charlotte's gone to sleep, Miriam warily returns to the music room.

She enters hesitantly, finds the light switch and turns it on. The chandeliers yield a glaring brightness.Miriam looks around toward the harpsichord. At a point where she can see where the hand was, she stops, takes a breath, looks. There is no sign of the hand or cleaver; they are gone.

She crosses for a closer look, tries the door,

 finds it locked. Frowning, she peers through one of the panes out into the dark.

There is a furtive shifting of shadows near the shrubbery, a figure, perhaps, taking cover there.

She draws away from the window with an expression of intense disquiet.

In my copy of the script for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte pages 194, 195, pages 195A and 195B are omitted (unless I get my hands on Crawford's own original copy of the script, the one she signed on to film, we'll probably never know what these scenes detailed), but likely they revolved around cousin Miriam (again, not to overstate it, but just re-reading my copy of the script, I'm astonished at how much the character of Miriam Deering was diminished in the final version of Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte that was released theatrically--she's easily the most interesting person in HHSC and she is the one character that reveals shades of depth and ambiguity). But apparently Bette Davis and Robert Aldrich took care of that after Crawford left the production. There's a parity between Charlotte and Miriam in the script that never quite made it into the final film (although talented, beautiful Olivia de Haviland does a terrific job of making Miriam a dominant supporting role in the final product, still...) Part 4 coming up soon.

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And on a semi-related note: Joan Crawford's fabulous performance as twins in One Must Die is available on youtube, thanks to Shane--check it out before it gets taken down!