I've always wondered if this conversation marks a turning point in the Barn-Angelique relationship. As they enter the drawing room and sit in the two-sided love seat, Angelique comments, After all these years, your taste in women should have improved over the years. Charity seems rather thick witted--I suggest you leave her alone. Amusing advice, Barnabas comments with no amusement whatever, coming from you, who made me what I am. Angelique warns him, Charity Trask can be nothing but trouble, just like all other Trasks. I see you’ve forgotten about them. No, Barnabas says. Angelique reminisces, I remember dear Reverend Trask well--the man who tried, and failed, to destroy the witch. Thanks to me, Barnabas reminds her. Angelique replies, There was a rather sweet irony in the way you handled his execution--walling him up in your own cellar! I always rather appreciated that. Thank you, Barnabas answers coldly. [They are just two supernatural beings chatting together!]
Naturally Barn asks Angelique to make him human again, and naturally she refuses. Angelique, Barnabas sighs wearily, your concern for me, as usual, is concern for yourself. Angelique looks away. She has no reply to this, possibly because it’s the simple truth--and Barnabas knows it too. He prepares to leave, saying, It is getting late, and you know I cannot stay. Angelique steps in front of him and says with surprising urgency, Barnabas, for your own sake, as well as for what you are trying to do here, spend your time with the girls down at the docks, girls that have no names, no homes, no hopes and most of all--no fathers. [For the first time, Angelique expresses jealousy over a woman whom Barnabas does _not_ love. She senses and resents what Barnabas describes to Charity as not love but "the special thing we have between us." Yet Angelique is sincere in her concern and advice for Barnabas. She no longer wishes simply to destroy him.]
Charity starts to cry when Judith, apparently with real kindness, tries to put her own black shawl on her. Meanwhile, Angelique meets the current Trask and advises him to marry Charity off ASAP. Judith arrives, and Trask wonders why Charity hasn't come to greet him. Judith says she's upstairs resting, then invites him into the drawing room. My dear lady, I would follow you anywhere, Trask assures her obsequiously. (Especially to the bank, I'll bet!)
Judith offers Trask the use of a small house on the Collins property while the school is being rebuilt. For once, Trask is utterly flabbergasted. You would do all this for me?-- for us? he hastily amends, but Judith doesn’t notice. She is, however, embarrassed by Trask's fulsome gratitutde and says that when one has money, it's easy to offer it. Trask invites her to confide in him: I see there are problems in your heart and in your soul. These must be uncovered and talked about to a dear friend. I shall be that friend. Judith answers, Reverend Trask, I can't tell you how much I admire you. We all complain so, yet you seem so uncomplaining despite everything--despite your ill health. My ill health? Trask asks, surprised. Your wife mentioned it during her visit, Judith explains. We can all but see the light bulb go off above Trask’s head as he slowly turns away from her and says, How strange of Minerva. You see, she is the one who is in ill health-- _increasingly_ ill health.
Judith takes Trask upstairs to see Charity, but she's already answered Barnabas's call and arrives at the Old House, still wearing her pink nightgown. She's also wearing the black shawl that so horrified her earlier--now it doesn't bother her one bit. I’m feeling very well, she says. I was upset and depressed at first last night, when I met your fiancée. But afterward, lying in bed and thinking about it, it didn’t seem to matter that the two of us are engaged to others. Because of this special thing that we have between us, Barnabas suggests. Yes, I know that now, Charity agrees. It makes me feel elated, as if something extraordinary might happen.
Barn shows Charity a portrait of his uncle Jeremiah's first wife--who knew??!! We see that the portrait shows a woman who only generally resembles Laura in a bright, flame-colored dress. Nonetheless, Charity exclaims in amazement, It’s she! It is the same woman! As Barnabas reminisces, it becomes clear that the writers have decided once again to make Barnabas much younger than his uncle instead of making them the age mates we saw during the 1795 episodes. They've also decided that Barnabas was just 10 years old when he met Laura, and that she was his first crush. When you were ten years old? Charity asks, surprised that the ageless vampire was ever a young boy. Barnabas disregards her, caught up in the memory: She was like a flame, a flame coming toward the house that day, in her bright orange riding habit. How ironic that fire should kill her. Charity gets freaked out by the idea that Barnabas has lived so long, but he quickly re-mesmerizes her by reminding her of the "special thing we have between us." Now he intends to use her to spy on Laura.
Trask wants to search for Charity, not out of loving fatherly concern but out of annoyance that she isn't where he put her. Just as Judith is about to send for Dirk, Charity rushes into the house. Sternly, Trask tells Judith, There is no reason to search. She is here. He walks over to Charity: And she had better have an answer for me--a good one! A very good one! Where have you been, Charity Trask, and what have you been doing? Charity starts, I... But suddenly she seems to grow faint and collapses to the floor, unconscious. She’s fainted! Judith exclaims, rushing over. Trask kneels by Charity and moves to touch her neck for a pulse--then pulls back, startled, as he spots the bite marks on her throat....
