Within the Maze (1872)

Sir Adam Andinnian, recently come into the estate and title of a deceased uncle, is tried and convicted for killing a man and consequently sent to Portland prison. The victim had offended Andinnian's neighbour's daughter, who had earlier, unknown to the world and even their closest relatives, become Sir Adam's wife. Adam's brother Karl has to retire from a promising career in the navy because of his brother's misfortune, as well as being rejected by the parents of the girl he loves, Lucy, for the same reason. Their mother, meanwhile, has moved to Portland and is plotting her son's escape, when, unforeseen, Adam indeed manages to escape, but is reported to have died in the process. Karl comes into the estate and title but goes abroad for a time while his mother is staying at the new home, Foxwood. Karl's love Lucy, meanwhile, has fallen into a decline, fretting about her lost love, and is near death when Karl happens to meet them in Paris. The obstacle of his brother the convict now removed and with a view to restoring Lucy's health, the parents no longer oppose the match and an engagement takes place, Lucy immediately beginning to recover. While the family stays in Paris, Karl goes home to Foxwood where his mother reveals a terrible secret to him which makes him want to renege on his promise of marriage but for want of a suitable explanation. [The reader is kept in the dark about the secret at this time and for most of the novel, in fact. The matter stands thus: Adam Andinnian did not die in his attempt at escape but, severely injured, managed to hide. When sufficiently recovered, he was brought to a house on the Foxwood estate, called The Maze, a secluded place surrounded by high walls and, within, by a maze of hedges veiling the entrance. His wife is with him, officially posing as a Mrs Grey (her husband abroad travelling), living with only a servant, Ann Hopley and her husband, an old and decrepit man doing the gardening, who is no other than Adam in disguise.]

After the death of his mother, Karl marries Lucy and brings her home to Foxwood, accompanied by a relative who had been staying with the family, Miss Blake. Unfortunately, Miss Blake had earlier fallen in love with Karl, believing in reciprocation of her feelings, and when her hopes were disappointed, her love has changed into hate. So it is observant Miss Blake who soon notices that Karl often steals away to The Maze in an evening and she supposes that he is having an affair with mysterious Mrs Grey. After many deliberations about duty and justice and such she informs Lucy about the matter and Lucy approaches her husband with these facts. Unfortunately, Lucy, as is stated over and over again, is such a refined, sensitive, shy person that she cannot bring herself to speak about the matter openly and thus she only lets Karl know the she is cognizant of "his secret" and does not allow him to explain about it as is his wish to do. Cut short, Karl of course assumes that she indeed knows about his brother and is very contrite but insists that matters cannot be helped. Lucy, not understanding this and therefore annoyed, announces that henceforth they would live as man and wife in name only, keeping up appearances for her family's sake. Karl, of course, can see no reason for this but finally agrees.

The rest of the novel is all about growing suspicion against The Maze (to complicate matters, the police suppose another escaped criminal to be hiding there), near escapes from detection and Lucy's refined suffering. Karl, no less refined, suffers too under the estrangement, occasionally reproaches Lucy for this, in his eyes, unneccessary harshness - but because of all this sensitivity, the problems are never mentioned openly and so Lucy's delusion continues. Finally, Adam, having been ill for some while, dies, and Karl, for once, in telling Lucy speaks freely, and Lucy's eyes are opened. Much remorse follows, and a full reconciliation.

back

This is the story of a genteel family of bankers going down in the world because of the dishonest machinations of the younger son, George Godolphin. Handsome and fascinating, liked by everybody, a loving husband into the bargain, but rather unprincipled and extravagant, he, when pressed for money, falls into the snares of a villainous bill-discounter. Desperately in need of cash, he sets to embezzling the bank's funds, falsifying accounts and stealing a client's bonds. His elder, and thoroughly good and conscientious, brother Thomas perfectly trusts him and thus does not in the least suspect anything until the bank suddenly and irrevocably crashes. George's wife Maria, one of those indefinitely refined and sensitive women, trusts him likewise and remains totally innocent even in the face of there being never any money in the house - and of the whole town talking about George having a mistress, the young widow Charlotte Pain. When the bank crashes, George hides in London while Thomas, beset by mortal illness on top of all the trouble, has to face the enraged creditors. The family's possessions, houses and all, are lost; Thomas's death is hastened on; yet he and George who has returned some time after the crash when criminal charges against him have been waived, are reconciled; neither does Maria reproach her husband with a word although her own health is destroyed. Money is scarce but Lord Averil, whose bonds had been stolen and who is to marry a Godolphin sister, buys the family house and provides a home for Thomas and his sisters. George meanwhile, is looking for a job in London, without success. Finally, he is offered a post in India but before he can sail, first Thomas dies and a short time later Maria. This serves to bring repentance and a decision to reform upon George; alone, he departs for Calcutta.

The title of the novel refers to a mysterious shadow connected to a local legend, that is repeatedly seen in a certain spot of the Ashlydyat grounds. A murder was committed there centuries ago by an earlier Godolphin, and the family cursed. When the shadow is seen, it portends ill for one of them, and furthermore there is a superstition that the family should be doomed if ever a Godolphin left the family home, Ashlydyat. This is exactly what has happened: Sir George Godolphin, the father, let the old house to strangers and went to live in another on the insistence of his second wife, and this brought on the shadow in the first place, it is believed. When through the bankruptcy Ashlydyat passes away from the Godolphins, the curse is supposed to be fulfilled, and it is finally lifted by finding the bones of the murder victim of long ago.
 

This novel is not in the first sense a sensation novel, although sensation elements abound in it; as so often with Wood. The sorrows of the family and the behaviour of its different members are central here: especially the contrasts between the brothers and between Maria and her rival Charlotte Pain. Refinement, sensitivity, absolute honesty and responsibility on the one hand, the opposites of these lauded qualities on the other. It is a rather sad novel altogether, there are lots of deathbed scenes here, especially the 'good' characters die, but "graceless" George is spared to reform - and "fast" Charlotte Pain to remain unreformed.

back

This is a novel about the education and upbringing of children: At her husband's death, Jane Halliburton is left destitute with four little children in Helstoneleigh, a rural town in the northwest. By dint of toil, perseverance and trust in God, she manages to raise her three boys (a daughter dies in the course of the novel) into exceptionally noble, hard-working and, finally, successful, men. Herself being the well-educated daughter of a clergyman (and her husband having been a college professor), the boys from early childhood have been taught the worth of attaining a good education, and even when living in direst poverty home lessons are kept up. By and by the situation gets better: William, the eldest, gets a position in Mr Ashley's glove manufactory, rising from errand boy to trusted right-hand of the master and finally to partner as well as son-in-law; the two younger boys enter the college school and later get on to university. Jane is able to earn more and more money by teaching other college boys (in addition to her own) in the evenings. All the town admire the Halliburtons, and all the town give Jane the tribute of being an exceptional mother, "one in a thousand".

Contrasted throughout to the hardworking Halliburtons are their relatives, the family of Anthony Dare. [Edgar, Jane's husband, had been cast off penniless at the age of sixteen by an uncle who had taken him in after the death of his parents. Later on his deathbed the uncle regrets his behaviour and earnestly enjoins his niece Julia and her husband, Anthony Dare, who according to his will are to inherit all, to share equally with Edgar. But the Dares live in style and spend freely, so it happens that they use more than their own half of the inheritance and decide that it would be not advisable to contact Edgar now. They are shocked when the Halliburtons move to Helstoneleigh, not wanting to be encumbered with poor relatives, and try to get rid of them. After Edgar's death, both sides ignore the relationship.] The Dares have a host of children, four sons and four daughters, and hardly any of them go through life with anything like success. The children, especially the boys, are spoilt, deceitful and overbearing, spending money faster than their father can earn it and always getting into debt. Unlike the young Halliburtons, neither their manners nor their thinking has ever been corrected, and to exert themselves for anything is simply unknown to them. As the Halliburtons are rising, the Dares are going down: the eldest son, Anthony, is murdered, supposedly by the second, Herbert, who goes to jail and then to trial for it, but it turns out that it was the governess, mistaking Anthony for Herbert, by whom she felt jilted, Herbert meanwhile leading an innocent Quaker girl into a redoubtable affair; the third son, Cyril, a bully and a thief, finds his untoward expectations of a partnership in Ashley's factory plus being given Ashley's daughter as wife disappointed and turns into a hopeless drunkard. In the end, the Dares who have always looked down upon the Halliburtons and contended their right to being called gentle have to emigrate, utterly impoverished, to Australia.

The perseverance and intelligence of the Halliburtons, the result of their upbringing, is stressed again and again in this novel. Under most unfavourable conditions, starting from nothing, they have made their way to success (the other two boys end as barrister and chaplain respectively); not too proud to earn money nor to own they are poor, they 'set their shoulders to the wheel' and trust that God would help, being perfectly well-mannered and gentlemanlike into the bargain. And again and again it is stressed that the Dare children lack all this, having had no education whatever in this respect. The sinister words of the dying uncle who told the Dares that no good ever would come from it if they malappropriated Edgar's share of the money, have proven true in the end when the circumstances of the two families are reversed. This is one of Wood's 'nicer' novels, more positive, richer in quite suspenseful action, with less of never-ending deathbed scenes, and certainly less populated by those utterly 'sensitive' and 'refined' characters who keep stumbling helplessly through rather unrefined situations, as Winifred Hughes put it.

back

A stranger, a young woman giving her name as Mrs Crane, arrives at a country village and takes up lodgings. She is seven months pregnant, feels rather ill and asks her landlady about the local doctors. Although that woman highly speaks for the brothers Grey, Mrs Crane insists on Dr Carlton being called because he has been recommended to her by friends. Dr Carlton is accordingly sent for but has gone to London, so Stephen Grey attends her. A boy child is born prematurely but the mother seems to be rallying. Mrs Crane writes to a Mrs Smith in London and she comes and takes the child away with her. Meanwhile Dr Carlton has returned and comes to see his patient; he is present when a cordial arrives from Mr Grey and he declares it smells of almond oil. When, later, it is administered, Mrs Crane dies only minutes afterwards, and all doctors agree that the cordial must have contained prussic acid. How this got into it cannot be determined. It was delivered without possible interference, so finally people decide that Stephen Grey must have poisoned the cordial by mistake when making it up. By and by he loses his patients and Dr Carlton helps to keep the rumours going. No clue has been found to the identity of the young lady.
In the same village lives gouty and irascible Captain Chesney with his three daughters Jane, Laura and Lucy in rather impoverished conditions although they are highly born and well-connected; Captain Chesney was the second son of the Earl of Oakburn. Laura Chesney and Dr Carlton love each other, but Captain Chesney absolutely refuses the idea of a marriage on grounds of status and forbids Carlton the house. The clandestine understanding goes on, however, and finally the two elope. The same day Captain Chesney receives word that his nephew, the present Lord Oakburn, has died without issue and that he, the Captain, is now the Earl. Carlton and his wife, now Lady Laura, return but are denied all contact with the family. In this context, the reader learns that yet another Chesney daughter  has left her home in some act of disobedience, has been disowned henceforth by the Captain and never been seen again, though Jane used to hear from her until some time past. [Later it expires that she has gone out as a governess against the wishes of her father.] Laura, nevertheless, is happy with her husband for the time being.
The Chesneys move to London and the Captain, relenting now, agrees that a search for the missing daughter, Clarice, should be conducted by Jane. Clarice, however, cannot be found because she has left her last post some time ago without a trace. Her former mistress is under the impression that she might have married but can offer no further clues. Surprisingly enough, it turns out that Clarice had made the acquaintance of a Mr Carlton at the house, he being a friend of the family's son, amongst other gentlemen, a Mr West and a Mr Crane (who was known to have courted her).
Jane, as mistress of the house, has installed a governess for her youngest sister, a Miss Lethwait, and in the course of the story Lord Oakburn decides to make her his second wife. Jane, in a huff, leaves the house and returns to their old home in the village. [Some time later, Lord Oakburn dies, leaves a son, and Jane and the widow are reconciled. Lucy has grown up and fallen in love with Frederick Grey, the son of Stephen Grey, Sir Stephen by now, who has left the village for London and come to great success there.] Laura's marriage, meanwhile, has been less happy because Dr Carlton is not the most faithful of men and Laura is jealous and snappish. A strange woman with a sickly child has recently settled in the village and Carlton attends him. Laura is struck by a likeness of this boy to her husband and draws her conclusions. Jane, on the other hand, is disturbed by what she perceives as a likeness of this boy to her lost sister.
In a drawn-out denouement, by help of a letter that jealous Laura steals from her husband's safe and the statement of a servant who has seen much but has hitherto been silent, it finally turns out that the young woman who died from prussic acid was indeed Clarice Chesney. She had married in secret (the husband's father had threatened to disinherit his son) and then come from London to the place where her husband was living - against his wishes. The husband, of course, was no other than Dr Carlton who by then had tired of his wife and, moreover, fallen in love with Laura Chesney, so when the opportunity arose, he poisoned the hitherto harmless cordial and saw to it that the blame should rest on Stephen Grey. He never knew, though, that his first wife was a Chesney, as she went by a false name.
The child, the result of this union, has died in the meantime, and Dr Carlton dies from heart attack on his first night in prison. Lucy and Frederick marry.

back

Charles Strange, the first-person narrator of most parts of the story, has an elder stepbrother, Tom, and a little stepsister, Blanche, through his father's second marriage. After a rather lengthy introduction concerned with the narrator's childhood and adolescence, the novel deals with events in their adult lives: Charles, a young solicitor, is made partner in the firm of his employer, Mr Brightman; Tom, after selling out of the army for pecuniary reasons, is wrongly convicted of forgery (a bill) and transported to Botany Bay; and Blanche, through the machinations of her egotistical and greedy (second) stepfather, is rushed into marriage with Lord Archibald Level. Tom's trial and departure happen just as the newlyweds set out on their honeymoon and the family has agreed to keep the news of Tom's disgrace from Blanche. So when her husband takes her along unfrequented routes and chooses to stay in secluded spots to avoid meeting British travellers who might talk about Tom, Blanche, feeling neglected, grows suspicious about her husband's motives, even more so when she accidentally finds him in the company of an Italian lady, conversing on a first-name basis. When Archibald leaves her in Germany while he returns to England on business, she rebels against his explicit orders and follows him back home, travelling with an old friend, Arnold Ravensworth and his wife, who chanced to stay at the hotel, too. Archibald, meanwhile, has left London for his Sussex country home, Marchdale, and Blanche follows him there after learning at his lodgings about the visits of a certain Italian lady. At Marchdale railway station she learns that the Italian lady had been there, too. Archibald is lying ill with brain fever, most times he is not lucid and when he is, they quarrel. One night the household is awoken to cries, and the servants find their lord unconscious with two knife wounds, the wife about to faint, too, and a knife lying on the floor of her room. Later, Archibald forbids to call the police but Blanche sends a message to her stepfather who, in turn, commissions Arnold Ravensworth to go down and see her. The doctor, though, has notified the police and the premises, except for the mysterious East Wing, are searched, to no avail, however. Arnold finds out from Blanche that she has seen a figure in her husband's room, looking wild and foreign. For a short while suspicion is cast on Blanche but then the matter rests unsolved.
Meanwhile, Charles Strange has fallen in love with Mr Brightman's daughter Annabel but before he can speak, this gentleman dies a sudden death. Annabel herself, though loving Charles, behaves rather mysteriously and says she could never marry him. Then it turns out that Annabel's mother, a haughty lady of noble descent, is an alcoholic, and much trouble has to be taken to keep this fact from public detection. Later, the mother consents to the marriage, Annabel moves into Charles's house, and finally the mother stops drinking.
The convict Tom, in the meantime, had been shipwrecked on his way to Botany Bay and managed to escape and return to England, heedless of the dangers. Charles, having heard rumours, manages to contact him and henceforth lives in fear that his stepbrother might be recognized and arrested. Tom's health is declining, and finally he is hidden in the house of the firm's head clerk where he dies of consumption. At the last moment Blanche is informed of his fate and brought to meet her brother for the last time.
Blanche's marriage is no better, she still suspects her husband of being unfaithful to her and informs him that she wishes for a divorce. He invites her down to Marchdale, together with Charles, but at the last moment cancels the invitation and forbids her to come. Tired of what she believes to be his evasions, she travels to Marchdale and finds her husband once more ill with a fever and agrees not to excite him with her presence. She stays in the house, though, and snooping around the east wing, she sees that selfsame Italian lady through a window. Enraged, she telegraphs for Charles and Arnold to come down immediately, and finally the whole mystery is solved: in the east wing lives the retarded child (now a young man) of Archibald's brother and an Italian woman whose sister (the lady Blanche saw) is looking after the boy occasionally and moreover has helped Archibald to discover that his brother's marriage was not valid. So Blanche and her husband  are reconciled, in due course an heir makes his appearance, and everybody else is happy, too.
Two minor mysteries occur somewhere in the middle of the story: at the time of Mr Brightman's death, a sum of money that he had in his keeping for a client is missed, later it is returned by post and the head clerk confesses that he took it because he was in deep money troubles through no fault of his own. Another mystery is the disappearance of a contested will: after Charles has suspected the deceased's widow of all manners of underhand doings, it turns out that Mr Brightman had taken the document home shortly before his death where Annabel recovers it.

back

The death of her father, the Earl of Mount Severn, leaves young Lady Isabel Vane poor and helpless. The rising young lawyer Archibald Carlyle who has earlier bought the Earl's country home East Lynne falls in love with her. She marries him although she has fallen for a distant relative, Captain Francis Levison, and they live at East Lynne together with Archibald's elder sister Caroline who - unasked - manages the household, dragon-like.
Archibald is very busy and thus much away from home and Isabel soon feels bored and neglected, as, with Caroline acting as mistress of the house, she has nothing to do. She becomes jealous when she finds out that Archibald is frequently meeting a young woman, Barbara Hare, and refuses to tell her anything about it, in fact, tries to keep it secret. Barbara loves Archibald but those meetings are purely on business matters: Barbara's brother Richard had been - falsely - accused of the murder of a man called Hallijohn whose daughter he courted and fled the country, sentenced to death in his absence. Now he has come back in disguise and Barbara wants Archibald to help her find the real murderer and keep Richard's presence a secret. Lady Isabel has learned from servants' gossip that Barbara is in love with Archibald, and when she once again happens to find those two together after Archibald pretended to have some other appointment, she concludes that she has lost her husband's love. Unfortunately, her old flame Captain Levison is at that time staying at East Lynne as a guest of her husband's (although Isabel had begged Archibald not to bring him into the house), and Levison now goads Isabel on to leave her apparently unfaithful husband and her three children and elope with him. They run away to France but when Isabel is expecting Levison's child, he leaves her. Back in England, he comes into a baronetcy and goes into politics, hoping to stand for parliament as the member for West Lynne, thus opposing - of all people - Archibald Carlyle, the local candidate.
In France, meanwhile, Lady Isabel and her illegitimate daughter become the victims of a railway accident which kills the child and leaves Isabel maimed and disfigured. By mistake she is reported dead, and she is happy to leave it at that, working under another name as governess to an English family. Archibald, meanwhile, has got a divorce and has subsequently married Barbara, and when he advertises the post of governess in his house, Isabel answers this because she is sick with longing for her children. Safe from recognition in her disfigurement, she gets the post and is living again in her old home, but she can hardly bear to see her ex-husband's happiness with Barbara, the more so as she learns how pointless her jealousy had been.
During the election, which is - naturally - won by Archibald, his opponent Levison is finally proven to be the murderer of Hallijohn, and innocent Richard Hare can return home. Lady Isabel, still incognito, has to watch while her son William falls ill and dies, in spite of her careful nursing, and when she herself falls ill, too, she reveals her identity to her husband, and in a long deathbed scene finally gains his forgiveness.

back

Dr Richard Davenal is a renowned surgeon in the provincial town of Hallingham where he lives with his daughter Sara, his niece Caroline and his sister Bettina; his son Edward is in the army. His partner in his busy practice is young Marcus Cray who is in love with Caroline and greatly surprises Dr Davenal when he asks for her hand in marriage. The doctor believes the match to be highly imprudent because of Mark's present lack of means and of a lack of stability in his disposition. But since he lost his eldest son in consequence of forbidding his intended marriage, he is now unwilling to interdict and the marriage takes place. Mark's share of the practice's income is increased and the newlyweds take a rather grand house nearby with no idea of economizing.
Mark has a half-brother, Oswald Oswald Cray [sic], a son of their father's first marriage, who has been estranged of his mother's family, the rich Oswalds of Thorndyke, and of his Father's new family, too - so there is no brotherly love between Oswald and Mark, though no ill-will either. Oswald, a proud man, works as engineer to a railway company with business in Hallingham, and as a frequent visitor at Dr Davenal's, he has fallen in love with Sara who returns his feelings but nothing has been said yet. A relative-by-marriage of the Oswald family, Lady Oswald, is living at Hallingham, too, friendly with Oswald Cray and a patient of Dr Davenal's.
On the day Mark and Caroline are expected back from their honeymoon, an accident happens on the railway which, amongst other victims, involves Lady Oswald as well as the newlyweds, travelling by the same train. Lady Oswald who has recently developed the whim to have Mark for her personal medical attendant, is pronounced unhurt by him and transported home, whereas Dr Davenal suspects some damage to her ribs and expects complications. The next day Lady Oswald gets worse and an operation is necessary which is to be performed by unexperienced Mark, not Dr Davenal, according to the lady's wishes. Dr Davenal is not happy with this but Mark, full of careless confidence in his own ability, quite refuses to let the doctor take over. A crucial debate over the use of chloroform, which Mark plans to apply, ensues: the doctor pronounces Lady Oswald to be an unfit subject for this, who would most likely not survive the giving of it; Mark does not believe this but agrees to yield to the doctor's greater experience. When the operation is about to commence, Lady Oswald's companion, a rather silly woman, fall into hysterics and then faints, so Dr Davenal has to carry her from the room and see to her well-being. Meanwhile, Mark uses this short absence to administer the chloroform he secretly brought. The doctor returns and then Mark bungles what he is doing, and the doctor has to take over from him. The operation is successfully finished but they find they can't rouse Lady Oswald and finally they have to accept that she is dead. The doctor knows now about the chloroform, and Mark breaks down and begs him to keep his 'mistake' a secret because otherwise his professional career would be finished. The doctor, with Caroline in mind, agrees to this, though with a heavy heart. Consequently it is given out that Mark and the doctor conjointly performed the operation, applied the chloroform in good faith and that Lady Oswald died from an unforseeable intolerance for it.
In the middle of the night, Neal, a sneaky servant at Dr Davenal's place, observes a stealthy visitor coming to the doctor's study, and overhears something about Lady Oswald's death, murder and a secret that needs to be kept at all cost. To his chagrin, Neal cannot make out the visitor's identity. Later, he informs Oswald Cray that he suspects Dr Davenal of wilfully murdering Lady Oswald. Unfortunately, at the time of the railway accident, Oswald had by chance had a conversation with the doctor about chloroform and its uses, and the latter had mentioned Lady Oswald as a example of a disposition intolerant of it. Now Oswald can't help wondering, and when it turns out that Dr Davenal is named as sole heir in the lady's will (he later turns all the money over to some poor nephews of Lady Oswald's), he is convinced that the doctor is a murderer. In consequence, he decides that he cannot possibly marry Sara Davenal now and in rather vague terms tells her they can only be friends from now on because of a dreadful secret of her father's.
Sara, conscious of a secret, can only agree to this, thus confirming Oswald in his suspicion, but the secret she is cognizant of is something different: her brother Edward is in grave trouble about some bills he circulated without knowing they were forged, and he was the mysterious nightly visitor, asking his father for help. The doctor granted this help, even if it meant financially crippling himself because a huge sum of hush money has to be paid. Edward meanwhile is off to India with his regiment and thus out of danger for the time being.
Not very long after this, Dr Davenal, weighed down by events anyway, falls sick and dies, and on his death-bed he informs Sara of the further steps to be taken for Edward's safety: the house, the practice, everything is to be sold and the sum of £ 2,500 to be paid to a certain Alfred King in London who is supposedly acting as intermediate for the people blackmailing Edward.
After the doctor's death, Sara moves with Aunt Bettina on whom she is dependant now, to London, awaiting the proceeds from the sale. Mark Cray, meanwhile, who never had a liking for his profession anyway, decides to give up the practice and join in a financial scheme his friend Barker has set afoot in London. Money has just come to his wife from a long-standing chancery suit, which the doctor wanted to be settled on Caroline, but Mark convinces her that it should go into Barker's project. He hurriedly sells the practice for a song and they are off to London, to everybody's surprise.
So all the important characters are reconvened in London now: Mark and Barker selling shares of a newly discovered lead mine in Wales and getting rich for the time being; Oswald Cray doing his job and missing Sara; Sara negotiating with Alfred King. The sale of the house and effects has not brought as much as expected and Sara has to borrow from Aunt Bettina since Mark, although bound by the doctor to pay her a yearly sum, refuses to do so. When visiting shady Mr King, Sara twice has the misfortune of running into Oswald who once again finds his suspicions confirmed but who loves her still.
Inevitably, the mining scheme fails (though through no fault of Mark and Barker who fervently believe in it) and angry stockholders are out for restitution, including Oswald who was persuaded by Mark to invest his savings even after they had the first inkling of something going wrong. Mark and Caroline, impoverished, hide for a while in London and then get off to France to a small coastal town where Mark hopes to find some practice for an English doctor. He hopes in vain and once more they live in absolute poverty, occasionally helped by a French doctor, and then Caroline falls ill with some sort of tumor. She finally returns - alone - to England to see a London doctor and the diagnosis she gets is discouraging: she is dying. She cannot go back to France and Mark who had at first refused to set foot in England, is convinced to come back and face the shareholders.
Meanwhile, Edward Davenal returns from India, with a brandnew Mrs Davenal and a baby heir, and finally all the mysteries are solved: Oswald Cray learns about Edward's "crime" and he learns too the true circumstances of Lady Oswald's death, and duly humiliated, he asks Sara's forgiveness. Caroline dies and Mark, being offered a post as doctor there, goes off to Barbadoes. Oswald and Sara marry and Aunt Bettina returns to Hallingham.

back

Sir Dene Clanwaring has newly acquired the manor of Beechhurst Dene in Worcestershire. He has three sons, the eldest of which (John) lives a gentleman's life in London, the second (Geoffry) lives at the Dene with his father, managing the estate, and the third (Reginald) is an officer serving in India. When Geoffry secretly marries Maria, the second daughter of farmer Robert Owen, his father denies him the house but later, realising that he cannot manage the estate on his own, reinstates him as bailiff and gives him a cottage on the estate. Furthermore, he comes to really like Maria, in spite of her 'low' birth.
Meanwhile, Maria's father Robert is murdered one night, and suspicion falls upon one Randy Black, keeper of a very disreputable inn in the neighbourhood, a smuggler and fencer of stolen goods, but nothing can be proved. Robert Owen's ghost, by the way, is supposed to be seen walking occasionally.
Maria dies giving birth to a baby boy and Geoffry is not long following her due to a shooting accident. Sir Dene takes the baby, Tom, to live at Beechhurst Dene as he promised Geoffry on his deathbed. Little Tom, though much loved by his grandfather, is allowed to run wild and divides his time between the Dene, his maternal grandmother at the Owen farm and the Hall of Squire Arde, who had married the elder Owen daughter, deceased now, and has a little daughter, May, by his second wife, who is a play-fellow of Tom's. Tom also becomes friends with little Emma Geach, the daughter of a business crony of Randy Black's, who lives at the inn and is a wild, spirited girl.
Then the wife of Sir Dene's youngest son, Lady Lydia, comes from India for a visit, bringing her three young children Jarvis, Louisa and Otto, all slightly older than Tom. Lady Lydia, a very scheeming lady and besotted with her eldest son, decides to make the Dene her permanent home and to get rid of that other grandchild whom she regards a a social inferior and to be in the way of her own children. (At that time, however, there seems no chance of any of them inheriting the title, as Sir Dene's eldest son also has two sons, Dene and Charles, who are nice boys but live in Scotland.) As she succeeds in ingratiating herself with Sir Dene, life becomes more and more difficult for Tom. Constantly bullied by Jarvis and maligned by both mother and son who lie unashamedly when it serves their interests, he gradually loses, not his grandfather's love, but his support and esteem. He does not lose his gentle and forgiving disposition, though, which helps him to bear up through all these adversities.

Twenty years later matters come to crisis: Emma Geach is compelled to leave the inn because she is pregnant, and somehow the rumour gets around that Tom is responsible, as it is well known that he has always been friendly with Emma. Tom, of course, knows nothing of this; he loves Squire Arde's daughter May and is loved by her in return but he is well aware that the Squire would not regard him as a fitting suitor - May is to have 20,000 pounds on her wedding-day. The rumour, however, finally reaches Sir Dene, and on top of this, a bag of money is stolen from the house, with Tom being alone in the room at the time. Lady Lydia makes him out as the culprit, and consequently Tom is  banished to some obscure position in Ireland, again provided by the lady, his grandfather even refusing to hear what he may have to say. So, after a clandestine leave-taking of May Arde, Tom is off to Ireland. Soon, the people who know and like him come to realise that it cannot have been him who committed the theft, and fingers are now pointed at Randy Black who happened to be in the vicinity at the time, but again, nothing can be proved against him. The rumour about Tom being the father of Emma's child sticks, though.
With Tom out of the way, Jarvis starts to court May Arde in earnest as he is desperately in debt and very much in need of her 20,000 pounds. May still loves Tom and cannot really stand Jarvis, but her parents keep pressing her to accept the latter and, as a last resort, inform her of Tom's shameful connection with Emma, of which May has hitherto been ignorant. Hurt and angry, May then agrees to marry Jarvis and the wedding-day is set for shortly after Christmas.
Jarvis's money-troubles, however, do not allow for such a long wait, and with the help of his mother he 'borrows' the Clanwaring family diamonds to use them as security against a loan from a moneylender . Unknown to him, the transaction is incidentally watched by his brother Otto, a hard-working London barrister who is an honest man but does not as a rule concern himself with matters not his own and therefore keeps silent about it.
Meanwhile, Sir Dene has come to miss Tom dreadfully but is huffed that his grandson has never troubled to write to him. (Of course, Tom wrote many times but Lady Lydia managed to get hold of all his letters and burn them.) Fate then deals the old man yet another blow in the accidental drowning of his grandsons Dene (the heir) and Charles. When he wants to recall Tom at last, Lady Lydia gives him a  false address, and so Sir Dene's anger is aroused anew at receiving no reply.
Christmas comes, and Squire Arde sets off to London to procure the marriage license and have the settlement drawn up. On his return journey, a blizzard keeps him snowed in on the road and the wedding has to be postponed. In the meantime, Emma Geach returns to the inn and names Jarvis as her seducer. Moreover, Randy Black accidentally shoots himself and makes a full confession on his deathbed: he did indeed murder Robert Owen und subsequently had a friend of his impersonate the dead man's ghost to frighten people away from the inn and its illegal doings. Also, being on of Jarvis's debtors, he reveals the true state of the latter's finances and furthermore proves that it was in fact Jarvis who stole the money from Sir Dene. And it was Jarvis, too, who deliberately started the rumour about Tom being the father of Emma's child. On the eve of the projected wedding-day, Mrs. Arde and her just-returned husband learn about all this, but before they can cancel the wedding, Jarvis is arrested for debt and carted off to prison.
At the Dene, meanwhile, the theft of the diamonds has been discovered (and solved), and all the exitement is too much for old Sir Dene. Tom, recalled from Ireland  by a letter from Otto (who knew  the correct address) reaches the house an hour after his grandfather died, and thus enters his home already as Sir Tom. In due course he pays Jarvis's debts to get him released from prison, settles a pension on Lady Lydia (who has to leave the Dene, though), gives handsome presents of money to the deserving all round and, naturally, marries May Arde.

Despite murder and assorted other criminal deeds figuring in this novel, it is primarily a moral tale of virtue rewarded and vice punished in the end, not a sensational one. The moral is supported by the supernatural (or seemingly so) events in this story, which all serve to show that evil deeds are irrevocably followed by retribution, as is so often the case with Wood's novels.

back

In the Cathedral town of Westerbury lives George Arkell, a wealthy manufacturer, with his wife and son, William. His brother Dan, now deceased, was less successfull and left his wife and and his two children in straitened circumstances. His son, Peter, works as a bank clerk but is a scholar at heart, still dreaming of going to Oxford and taking orders, but his salary is needed to support his ailing mother and his sister Mildred.
Charlotte Travice, daughter of a former resident of Westerbury, comes to live with the George Arkells for a while and William falls in love with her, failing to realise what a grasping and shallow person she is. His cousin Mildred, a perfectly good and meek girl,  though not very attractive, has to stand by and see him marry Charlotte.  When Mildred's mother dies, she acquires the post of companion to a rich and kind lady and moves to London to get away from William and painful memories.
Charlotte has a humble sister, Betsey, who has been kept like a servant by her and their mother and is now working in the boarding-house she lives in. When she marries her employer's son David Dundyke, Charlotte, who always tried to hide her from her wealthy in-laws, decides that she is no fit company for her family and breaks off all contact. (Mildred and William, though, keep seeing her occasionally.)

Charlotte and William have three children: a son, Travice, who has both the looks and the kind disposition of his father, and the girls Charlotte and Sophy who take after their mother. Peter Arkell, to everybody's astonishment, marries, too: Lucy, a woman of good family, and they have two children, Lucy and Henry.

The main body of the story is concerned with these, the second generation:
Travice follows in his father's footsteps and joins the manufactory although trade is progressively getting worse. He loves his cousin Lucy and Lucy loves him but he is in no position to marry yet. Henry is a school-boy at the college school, a chorister and a star pupil, who through the envy and ill-will of some of his fellow students, gets involved as witness in the theft of a page from the church register. This is part of a sub-plot about the dispute of an inheritance, revolving round questions of illegitimacy and a missing marriage certificate. Henry, moreover, loves the dean's daughter Georgina but is only led on and played with by her.
Meanwhile, Betsey Dundyke and her husband David have prospered in London. David dreams of becoming Lord Mayor and decides to improve himself by means of a Continental Tour. They go to Switzerland where they make the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Hardcastle (as they call themselves). One day, David goes missing under very suspicious circumstances. Foul play is suspected and Mr Hardcastle is supposed to have had a hand in it but no body is found and nothing can be proved. Betsey Dundyke returns to London where she learns that she is very well-off, thanks to David's clever investments. About a year later, her husbands returns, a mental wreck who has hardly any memory of what happened to him. (Hardcastle drugged him, robbed him and then left him lying in the sun.) He never recovers and eventually dies. Later, the good-for-nothing son of a Wersterbury neighbour is identified as 'Mr Hardcastle' but not prosecuted out of consideration for his family.
Henry Arkell, the gifted school-boy, dies at age 16 of a head injury caused by a fall when he was shoved by another pupil, but not before he helps to solve the problem of the stolen page from the register so that the inheritance falls to the 'good' branch of the warring family. On his death-bed, he forgives all those of his fellow students who have always abused and insulted him (and they were many), and false Georgina, too. His father, Peter Arkell, dies not longer afterwards. Meanwhile, William Arkell's business is going from bad to worse, and his wife pressurises Travice to marry rich Barbary Fauntleroy who is willing to pour her money into the Arkell business. Although Travice loves Lucy and cannot stand Barbara, Charlotte finally tricks him into believing that Lucy is engaged to marry someone else, and she tells Lucy a similar untruth about Travice. So, Travices proposes to Barbara and the wedding-day is eventually set.
Mildred Arkell then returns to Westerbury as a rich woman, having inherited a large sum from her employer, and Mrs Dundyke comes with her for a visit. Now Charlotte has to see the two women she has always disparaged and looked down apon in much better circumstances than she finds herself in. Both women intend to do something for Lucy, respectively Travice, and moreover, Mildred helps William out with a desperately needed sum of money. So, Travice's sacrifice of marrying Barbara has become redundant but cannot be recalled now. On top of that, he learns that Lucy is not engaged to another man, and he falls ill with brain-fever. On his recovery, Barbara, the good soul, releases him from his promise, not wanting to stand in the way of other people's happiness - a marked contrast to selfish Charlotte, who was well aware back then that Mildred loved William. Travice and Lucy marry, thus not repeating the story of William and Mildred, as the latter has been fearing they would.

back