After Jeff gets Vicki to agree to get married within a month, Vicki tells Elizabeth her news and we have another lovely mother-daughter scene. Elizabeth is overjoyed and asks Vicki to let her help with the wedding plans: Vicki asks Elizabeth to be her matron of honor, and Elizabeth agrees. I refuse to be gloomy, Elizabeth says. We have so many plans to make! They hold each other’s hands fondly as Elizabeth assures her, It will be all smiles and cheers. You’ll be married right here in the drawing room, filled with candles and flowers! Can’t you see it? she asks, almost as if they are truly mother and daughter. I can, Vicki replies, her eyes aglow. Will you let Roger give you away? Elizabeth asks. I wonder if he’d like it, Vicki replies uncertainly. He would be delighted, Elizabeth assures her. I can see him coming down the stairs, a little pompous, maybe, but proud, with you on his arm, looking radiant in a long white gown and veil. Jeff will be waiting before the fireplace. I can hardly believe it, Vicki exclaims. Elizabeth continues, You’ll come into the room, lift your veil--and be so radiant! Vicki is happy to see Elizabeth so happy, and Elizabeth is grateful for at least these few moments’ distraction.
Unfortunately, Eve has seen Vicki and Jeff together on the terrace and now steps into view just as Jeff is about to leave. The fountain suddenly pops on! Just as Eve wraps herself around Jeff, Roger arrives. Eve runs off, and Roger is furious, especially when Jeff can't explain. But later, to spare Vicki's feelings, Roger makes up a story: I just went to the Old House, he says, but Barnabas wasn’t home. I had a moment of inexplicable hysteria (he pronounces it “high-steria”) at the thought that something might have happened to Barnabas. Eventually Vicki calms down and goes off to bed. Roger warns Jeff, who promises it will never happen again.
But later on, Roger has a nightmare about the wedding. [Tim Gordon--who played the hand of Barnabas when Willie opened the coffin--is ready and waiting to perform the ceremony.] But when Vicki lifts her veil, her pretty face has been transformed into a skull!
