Faith Without Works, or; the Nature of Charity

Harvey Montaigne visits Evelyn Mervyn and her baby in the workhouse. The scene is gloriously melodramatic. He "saw the beautiful mother with the sleeping child strained closely to her breast." Evelyn is the very picture of gentle and gracious motherhood. And she pleads for her innocence: "Tell me, oh, do tell me, dear, dear sir! do you think me guilty of this shame? ... Can you look me here - here, in the face - and see the wife without looking at that mocking finger - this finger, which hurls my witness back with scorn?" Of course, Doctor Montaigne cannot resist such an emotional appeal. "Smoothing her golden hair, with none of the attractively religious action of Mr Slie, but with a real fondness" Montaigne declares: "I do believe you pure - pure as you ever were."  He believes that "she was the lawful wife of Geoffrey May." (Miriam May, Chapter 4)

The whole moral universe, as well as the plot of the novel, pivots on "that mocking finger." No matter what misfortunes - or crimes or immoralities - have brought Evelyn Mervyn to the workhouse, as long as she is married, she is "pure," if she has borne a child out of wedlock, she is a soiled dove and damned.

"As there was no ring, and there was no believing that it had been pawned" (Ibid.), Evelyn is deemed not deserving of charity. A storm of condemnation begins to brew amongst the "virgins of Glastonbury." Mrs Dubbelfaise (no points for guessing that lady's character), Mrs Slim and Miss Todhunter are introduced as the voice of Glastonbury society. The task of these ladies in the narrative is to represent the surrounding small-town morality with their prejudices, as well as to provide the main source of comic relief in the novel with the misguided nature of these prejudices and with their general silliness.

When the three ladies learn that Evelyn is to move to Glastonbury Grange to be a wet nurse for Mrs Trevor's new-born baby (that is our narrator Arthur), they hold an "indignation meeting" with Mrs Dubbelfaise in the lead: "What can Mrs Trevor hope will be the future of her child, when she fills its great ugly mouth with the milk of this impudent hussey?" And there is a further threat, as she points out: "... but recollect Mrs Slim, that the girl may insinuate herself into your home, and tempt your husband, your husband - she is just the wicked thing to do it."  Evelyn is condemned as morally corrupting and dangerous. Miss Todhunter suggests to Mrs Dubbelfaise: "Do cast the first stone, Tilda, you will do it so well." (Miriam May, Chapter 4).

The juxtaposition of the two views of Evelyn Mervyn as a deserving and "pure" abandoned wife and an "impudent hussey" out to take advantage of the respectable people, gives the narrator free rein to air his views on charity. He writes at length and with some obtuseness about "faith without works," (Miriam May, Chapter 5).

"Faith without works" comes from the Bible (James 2: 14-17, 26), which states

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?  If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. ... For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead."  

The narrator makes a general pronouncement of his view of charity at the opening of Chapter 4: "If there be one moral prominence of an age that talks of nothing but its belief in self-denial, and does nothing but make money, more remarkable than any other, it is emphatically to be found in its airy forms of varied charity." (Miriam May, Chapter 4). This is a general criticism of "faith without works;" charity must be in actual deeds and works, charitable sentiments are not sufficient

The idea of "faith without works" is partly demonstrated later in Mrs Dubbelfaise's conclusion that "I cannot disbelieve that that girl is a wife, but I have very excellent grounds ... for acknowledging in public no such belief." (Miriam May, Chapter 4). Evelyn is probably deserving of charity and innocent of sin, but as long as there is no ring, no public evidence of her innocence, she should not be granted the protection and aid of charity. "Mrs Slim also believed ... that this charity in that town often did cover and conceal an amazing multitude of sins."  (Miriam May, Chapter 4).

How do these sentiments of the characters relate to the general principle of "faith without works"? Mrs Dubbelfaise has some charitable sentiments for Evelyn, but she refuses to take action as long as there is not actual proof that Evelyn is deserving of charity. This is slightly different from the accusation that charitable sentiments are worthless without charitable deeds. Mrs Dubbelfaise seems to just require proof of Evelyn's moral nature, before she is willing to engage in acts of charity. Mrs Slim's opinion seems to suggest that because of "faith without works" many sins are allowed to fester because no charitable action is taken.

Mrs Dubbelfaise's and her friends' decision to "cast the first stone" and deny Evelyn charity because of her lack of wedding ring is condemned as misguided and morally wrong because their scene is presented as comical. Doctor Montaigne's trust in Evelyn's own words is morally right because the relevant scene is beautifully romantic and melodramatic. In this way, the style of writing appears to make a moral comment about the content of writing.

It is Dr Montaigne's belief in Evelyn's innocence which carries the day and the plot of the novel. He demonstrates his faith with works, as opposed to the three ladies Glastonbury. Dr Montaigne arranges for Evelyn and her baby to move to Glastonbury Grange. Evelyn takes over the running of the dairy (Miriam May, Chapter 6). Her daughter Miriam and the narrator "were soon inseparable." The love-interest is revived when Arthur says to Miriam: "When I am a grown-up man Miriam, I will marry you, and then you shall come up stairs." (Miriam May, Chapter 6)

Two Births in Glastonbury

"It certainly was the night-bell that rang.

"Little things not infrequently contribute to significant conclusions, and although the music of a doctor's bell can hardly call for any very special chronicles, in this instance it may well evidence a resisting power on the part of a member of the college of Surgeons, who was not the less at all points a man, because he was an accoucheur at all seasons."

Er, what? This is the opening of Miriam May. The first sentence is short and to the point. The added emphasis of the italics seems to suggest that we might doubt our hearing. The second sentence runs wildly away with verbiosity from philosophical pronouncements to French. All this sentence seems to mean, is that the ringing of the bell starts our story, and the doctor is reluctant to answer its call. This opening sounds a warning bell: Miriam May will attempt to be witty but may well end up being obtuse unless we can accustom ourselves to the narrator's somewhat over-elaborate style.

Harvey Montaigne, "the doctor of Glastonbury," has been called by the bell to attend to Mrs Trevor. "In the face of a snow-storm, and a frost that has no counterpart in these days," Doctor Montaigne travels into the night to assist in the birth of our narrator. As a nod to Sterne, the story has begun before its narrator has entered the world: "I was as yet unborn when the night-bell rang on that twenty-third of January, but it was my coming that took Harvey Montaigne from his bed that night." (Miriam May, Chapter 1)

On his way back from the Trevor residence, Harvey Montaigne encounters a dying girl at the workhouse door. She is beautiful, her eyes "rich in their beauty." She is "that lovely girl." Our good doctor carries her into the workhouse, but there is more: "she whom he carries was a mother." And even worse: she looks at the doctor with "her soft lustrous eyes, and gave him her thin, white hand, whereon there certainly was no wedding ring." (Miriam May, Chapter 1). As a clue to her miserable state, the girl mumbles about Geoffrey.

This is a dramatic beginning for the novel: on this same snow-bound, frosty night in January, are born both our narrator Arthur, the second son of the respectable Trevors, and the daughter of the (apparently) un-wed mother at the workhouse door. This is a good starting point for a sensational story.

The mystery of the girl at the workhouse door is partly dispelled in the next two chapters. They give the back-story of Evelyn Mervyn. Evelyn's father, Farmer Stephen Mervyn" is a "desirable" widower "in every way" (Miriam May, Chapter 2). Evelyn grew up without the guiding hand of a mother and without any schooling: "she should at least escape the pollution of a school." The narrator's views on the schooling of girls are not very positive: he seems to think that girls only encounter temptations at school and are trained to dissemble. Evelyn, on the other hand, "was so much blessed above those who were her neighbours, that she hardly ever knew temptation, for she had never known school." Therefore, when at the age of fourteen, Evelyn loses her father, she becomes "the orphan who by the educational temptations that had been wisely kept from her, had grown up into womanhood without guile ..." This is one way of saying that she was an innocent. (Miriam May, Chapter 2).

After her father's death, Evelyn seeks advice from Honourable and Reverend Calvin Slie. (The name reveals something of his character.) The Reverend seems spellbound by Evelyn's golden hair and blue eyes, to the extent that he finds it difficult to keep his hands off her: "indeed, Evelyn was inclined to think his hands had already remained on her head much longer than was necessary for the realisation even of all the abundance of grace that he wished." (Miriam May, Chapter 2). The Rev Slie arranges for Evelyn to become a seamstress making shirts in a small sweatshop - "eight pence a shirt" (Miriam May, Chapter 3). Evelyn loses her health and eventually quits the job. Instead she joins a theatre. The theatre manager treats her "with none of the offensive familiarity of Mr Slie." Here is a point of interest: a low church clergyman the Rev Slie is depicted as a somewhat dubious character with his wandering hands and deals with sweatshops. A theatre manager is depicted as a generous and kindly figure.

Evelyn is a great success at the theatre with "her golden hair, and the lovely face, and the figure that had none of the advantages of a 'course of deportment'" (Miriam May, Chapter 3). The narrator really does not like contemporary women's education. She performs to full houses, and when appearing as Lucy in The Rivals, she even adds a dance to the bill.

As an aside, The Rivals is by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) and was first performed at Covent Garden in 1775, where this comedy of manners was severely criticized as a long play badly acted and containing much bawdiness. It was withdrawn after the first night, Sheridan rewrote it in ten days, and it has remained popular ever since. It is no surprise that it should be staged in Glastonbury for Evelyn to take a small supporting role in it. Lucy is the scheming maid of Lydia, a rich heiress who juggles various admirers. Lucy deceives one of these admirers, delivering his love-notes for Lydia instead to Lydia's aunt Mrs Malaprop - whose peculiarity with words gave us 'malapropism'.

Evelyn's career on stage ends, "as the local prints the next day had it," with "a very great sensation." A stranger in the stage box throws a bouquet onto the stage for Evelyn. The accompanying note is signed G. M. but we are not told its contents. It upsets Evelyn: "With the burning blood crimsoning her lovely face, and her eyes flashing great flashes of indignant fire, she flung the flowers aside, and running to the footlights, threw herself sobbing on her knees and prayed of the audience to save her from such cruel insult." (Miriam May Chapter 3). The stranger declares he would call Evelyn "my lawful wife."

"... from that night Evelyn Mervyn was never seen again in the little theatre of Glastonbury." But, "She had borne a baby at the workhouse door ..." (Miriam May, Chapter 3).

The story of Evelyn Mervyn, establishes her as a woman with a secret. Her journey from the stage to the workhouse door is still unknown. Most importantly, it is unclear whether she is married and a poor abandoned creature, or unmarried and a doomed, fallen woman. The fate of her child depends upon this.

The style of writing in Miriam May is thick, convoluted and obtuse. But it is also distinct. There is a discernible narrative voice that is not at all unpleasant to follow. We see glimpses of opinions about women's education and low church clergymen that perhaps sound more like the views of the Reverend Arthur Robins than the views of a young man like our narrator Arthur Trevor. Maybe the clue is in the name and the author and the narrator are not that far apart.

There are scenes that are satisfyingly melodramatic. But some scenes remain a little unclear. At the opening chapter it is not immediately clear that Evelyn has given birth at the workhouse door; it is simply stated that she was a mother. At the theatre scene it is not clear whether the stranger with initials G. M. is claiming that Evelyn is his wife, is proposing to her, or simply is trying to assure her that his intentions are honourable. It may be that Robins's language gets in the way of the story or he is being too around-about in the way he writes about details he considers too intimate to spell out. The problem may also lie in a common difficulty of every novelist: you forget to show the reader all the important detail simply because the vision is so clear in your own head. The author's mind is filled with the dramatic scene and it plays through (in this case) his imagination like a film. The author forgets that the reader is not watching the same film, but depends entirely on the words that he manages to get on the page. There is a merry, chuckling quality to Robins's writing and you get a distinct impression that he was having fun writing Miriam May.

The Reverend Arthur Robins and the Sensation Novel

You would not expect Queen Victoria's own chaplain to write a sensation novel about an unwed mother giving birth in a workhouse.

Reverend Arthur Robins (1834-1899) was known as 'The Soldiers' Bishop' for his association with the Queen's troops. He was a chaplain in Windsor and had a career in royal service. The South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA. Source: trove.nla.gov.au) reported on Monday 4 Nov,1878 that  

"The Queen has appointed the Rev. Arthur Robins, Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Windsor, and Chaplain to Her Majesty's household troops at Windsor, to be one of the Honorary Chaplains to her Majesty." 

Later, Robins had a further promotion from an Honorary Chaplain (who had no specified duties whatsoever), to a chaplain-in-ordinary, which meant that he had an actual job in the royal household. On 29 August 1896 The Spectator published a short article (Source: http://archive.spectator.co.uk):

"The Rev. Arthur Robins, chaplain - in - ordinary to the Queen, and chaplain to the Prince of Wales and to the household troops, preached on Sunday last his five-thousandth sermon in Windsor ; and his parishioners, in celebration of the occasion, presented him with a complete set of clerical robes. (This first paragraph appeared on 5 November 1896 in The Advertiser in Adelaide, SA, which may give you an idea how long it took for news to travel to Australia. Source: trove.nla.gov.au).

Rev. Arthur Robins 23 Dec 1897. Entitled The Soliders' Bishop. For Vanity Fair by Spy.

The Rev,. Arthur Robins was a well-known churchman, as the honour of being caricatured in Vanity Fair demonstrates. He was also interviewed in magazines. You can find him in Windsor surrounded by the military in "Tommy Atkins and his 'Bishop': a Chat with the Rev. Arthur Robins" in The Sketch, April 12, 1893. There is another interview by James Milne in The Windsor Magazine (Vol 4, 1896, p.423).

The Spectator article commemorating the Reverend's 5000th sermon, continued with a slightly ominous tone:

"... Think of the saying, that for every idle word you utter, you shall be accountable at the day- of judgment, and consider how many idle and ill-considered words there must generally be in five thousand sermons. It must be a pathetic if not a terrible retrospect. But we may hope that for the great majority of preachers, the penance will at least be very lenient. We hope so, or we journalists should probably be left in an even worse predicament than the preachers."

In the light of this warning that you will be accountable for every word you utter until judgment day, what should we think about the two novels published anonymously, but assigned to the Rev. Arthur Robins: Miriam May (1860) and Crispin Ken (1861). They are both included in H. L. Mansel's well-known review of sensation fiction in Quarterly Review, in April 1863.

In this blog we have encountered women who supported their children, their husbands and occasionally their lovers by writing sensational fiction. Wilkie Collins was a man in an even more demanding situation, with two households to support. We have also come across professional hacks who churned out dramatic stories of detection to suit the tastes of the periodical-devouring masses. Sensation fiction was produced primarily for financial gain. So why would a man of the church with a secure career in the royal household resort to penning pot-boilers?

Sensation fiction also made a good vehicle for preaching. A racy story got your message to a wide audience, reaching exactly those parts of society (lower and lower-middle classes, clerks and maids and, of course, wives and daughters) who undoubtedly needed their morals bolstered from time to time. We've seen how Collins in The New Magdalen (1873) spelled out a message about redeeming fallen women. So maybe it is not so strange after all that the Rev. Arthur Robins should resort to the format of a popular genre to voice his views, not just about unwed mothers and sanctity of marriage, but also about charity, parliamentary elections, the appointment of bishops and church politics in general. And all this in just one single-volume novel packed with romance,  melodrama and (at least attempts at) comedy.

Miriam May: a Romance of Real Life was published in 1860. It went through several editions (3rd edition in 1860, 'new edition' in 1861, according to the National Library of Scotland catalogue). We can assume it was reasonably popular when first published.

H. L. Mansel's verdict on Robins's fiction was somewhat scathing:

"A very brief notice will be sufficient to dispose of some of the smaller fry on our multifarious list.

"'Miriam May,' 'Crispin Ken,' and 'Philip Paternoster' are specimens of the theological novel, which employs the nerves as a vehicle of preaching in the literal sense of the term. The object of these tales is to inculcate certain doctrines, or rather a hatred of certain opposite doctrines, by painting offensive portraits of persons professing the obnoxious opinions. The two former preach on the High Church side, by exhibiting villainous specimens of Low-Churchmen and Dissenters; ..." (Mansel, p.504)

Right Reverend Mansel (1820-1871) became the dean of St Paul's Cathedral (in 1868) after a career at Oxford first as a professor of metaphysics and then of ecclesiastical history. Mansel would have been exceptionally sensitive to Robins's views on theology and the church as they are expressed in Miriam May. However, if we are not versed in the 19th-century disputes between High Church and Low Church Anglicanism, is Miriam May at all worth reading? Will it still entertain? There is, of course, only one way to find out.

The American Idea of Equality and Detectives

Anna Katharine is a very American writer. A Strange Disappearance is set in New York with a trip to Vermont. We move through Mr Blake's aristocratic house with "heavily frescoed ceilings" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2) to the "dark, narrow streets of the East Side" "with hand on the trigger of the pistol I carried in my pocket" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 6) and Pier 48 E.R. to view the body of a drowned girl ("Pity the features are not better preserved." [A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 9]). Detectives glide effortlessly along the social scale and between different milieus. These scenes of New York life, as Patricia D. Maida suggests, give Green's work value as social history. But they alone do not make the tale distinctly American.

In 1828 Frances Trollope (1780-1863) travelled from London to Cincinnati and stayed there for two years. Four years later she published Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832). The book was immensely popular, and it is still a very interesting and entertaining read (note the waste management procedures for Cincinnati). It was the first of many tales of British ladies' travels among the uncouth Americans. Already in this early work, Trollope noted the three qualities that became closely associated with the British view of American life: the idea of equality, the single-minded pursuit of money and the general lack of good manners.

In A Strange Disappearance we see an American class system. The Blake family occupies the top, the Schoenmakers with their rough German accents are pretty much at the bottom. Luttra Schoenmaker manages to move from the bottom to the top and become Mrs Blake. This is extreme upward mobility. The whole plot of the novel depends on this scenario of the wealthy, respectable Blake marrying the poor, (initially) uneducated and unsophisticated Miss Schoenmaker. The first "symptom of American equality" observed by Frances Trollope was a milliner in New Orleans whose "society ... was highly valued by all persons of talent." (Trollope, Chapter 2). Later she writes about her difficulties to find a suitable servant: "The whole class of young women, whose bread depends upon their labour, are taught to believe, that the most abject poverty is preferable to domestic service." - They think "Their equality is compromised." (Trollope, Chapter 6). She employs a girl who stays only as long as she has earned enough money to buy new clothes:  "Her sister was also living with me, but her wardrobe was not yet completed, and she remained some weeks longer, till it was." (Trollope, Chapter 6). When Mr Blake decides to pay for Luttra Schoenmaker's schooling, she is "to go out to service in Melville and earn enough money to provide herself with clothes." (A Strange Disappearance,  Chapter 12).

Frances Trollope wondered if the Americans' eagerness to pursue wealth was due to "the unceasing goad which necessity applies to industry in this country, and in the absence of all resource to the idle" (Trollope, Chapter 5). Nothing, she says, distracts the Americans from the chase for more money; "neither art, science, learning, nor pleasure can seduce them from its pursuit." (Ibid.) Money is the main motivating force behind the actions of both the detectives and the criminals in A Strange Disappearance. Q and Mr. Gryce sell their services as detectives and expect to be paid by Mrs Daniels and Mr Blake. The Schoenmakers aim to make money out of Blake, first by robbing him and later by blackmailing him. Mr Blake's father's will is also important, because it is the threat of disinheritance which gives Mr Blake the idea of marrying Luttra Schoenmaker. Luttra is the only character in the novel who is no driven by the desire to make money. Quite the opposite, she tears up the note that offers her the Blake inheritance.

Americans lack manners, according to Frances Trollope: "The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavouring to account for it." (Trollope, Chapter 5). Men spit incessantly, and seldom hit the spittoon ("But oh! That carpet! I will not, I may not, describe its condition ..." [Trollope, Chapter 2]). They eat their dinners quickly and without conversation. They have no table manners (Trollope, Chapter 3). Q does not spit at the charity ball, but he is quite happy to cut open a seam in the curtains to give him a peep hole (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2). He cosies up to Fanny in order to get information from her (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 8).  He breaks into the Schoenmakers' house  and carries away a ring he finds there (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7). He unashamedly visits Countess De Mirac pretending to be an antique seller and seizes an opportunity to read a letter on the table while her back is turned (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 8). Q is a resourceful young man, keen to do his job and get the credit. But he is not overly burdened with the finer points of social conventions and good manners.

Trollope suggests that all these American qualities are tied together:  "Any man's son may become the equal of any other man's son, and the consciousness of this is certainly a spur to exertion; on the other hand, it is also a spur to that coarse familiarity, untempered by any shadow of respect, which is assumed by the grossest and the lowest in their intercourse with the highest and most refined." (Trollope, Chapter 12)

I have already suggested that this fundamental idea of equality is further reflected in Green's writing in the way all characters whether low- of high-class, are capable of lofty speeches and grand words. It is also reflected in the freedom with which the detectives pursue their investigations. There is no shame in detecting, there is no hesitation in the use of all methods available to spy on people, appropriate evidence and capture the culprits. Yes, ... about capturing the culprits ...

(Plot Spoiler Alert)

Despite the fair game all around (and Green's own religious convictions), justice in A Strange Disappearance  is relative. The final resolution of the mystery is very much what the Audleys of Audley Court might have come up with. Mr Blake gets his wife after she demonstrates that she is not returning to him for money, but for love: "I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love ..." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 18). Under Mr Gryce's benevolent gaze and with Q providing the final piece of leverage, Mr Blake pays off the Schoenmakers, his wife's embarrassingly criminal relatives, with a "liberal" monthly sum. The Schoenmakers promise to stay away from the Blakes, as long as Mr Blake and the two detectives do not reveal that they are murderers: "Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?" (Ibid.) The Schoenmakers avoid the scaffold and get away with murder so that Mr Blake does not have to suffer the shame of being married to a daughter and a sister of such men. Instead, they are bundled off to jail for a few years for the lesser crime of bank robbery. (Ibid.) Such a deal is very 'Victorian' in the way it protects respectable people from the taint of scandal. But it is also disturbing in its implications, because it shows explicitly how the wealthy can buy the law and change reality to suit themselves.

Q's Turn of Phrase

"I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled high with its midnight tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord, burned with fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her partly veiled eyes where the fire passionately blazed, at her scarlet lips trembling with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not allow her to conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole elegant form with its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace and diamonds, and an expectant thrill passed through me ..." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 5)

Does this sound like Q? A young man who embraces the rough and ready life of a New York police detective? Do not forget that the story is framed as a tale told by Q around the fire at the station house. Here Q watches Countess De Mirac at a charity ball. Later in the story, he describes an abandoned house:

"Turning around I eyed the house once more. How altered it looked to me! What a murderous aspect it wore, how dismally secret were the tight shut windows and closely fastened doors, on one of which a rude cross scrawled in red chalk met the eye with a mysterious significance. Even the old pine had acquired a villainous air of the uncanny repositor of secrets too dreadful to reveal, as it groaned and murmured to itself in the keen east wind. Dark deeds and foul wrong seemed written all over the fearful place, from the long strings of black moss that clung to the worm-eaten eaves, to the worn stone with its great blotch of something, - could it have been blood? - that served as a threshold to the door." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7)

This is the convoluted, heavy language that, as Patricia D. Maida has suggested, became Anna Katharine Green's downfall, when her style failed to move with the times as the nineteenth century ended. Look at the overabundance of words piled high in the extract above: every noun is qualified to create a shiver: murderous, dismally, tight, closely, rude, mysterious, old, villainous, uncanny, dreadful, keen, dark, foul, fearful, long, black, worm-eaten, worn.

Green writes in a very distinct style; her voice is unique and strong. In her descriptions, she often emphasizes the emotion and passion observed or experienced by the viewer, rather than the actual physical detail of what is being viewed. Her characterization of Luttra Schoenmaker is a good example:

"But no, it was one of those faces that are indescribable. You draw your breath as you view it; you feel as if you had had an electric shock ; ... It was the character of the countenance itself that impressed you. You did not even know it this woman who might have been anything wonderful or grand you ever read of, were beautiful or not. You did not care; it was as if you had been gazing on a tranquil evening sky and a lightning flash had suddenly startled you. Is the lightning beautiful? Who asks!" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 10)

Green describes Luttra's appearance in terms of the sensations it creates. What matters is not the physical appearance of the woman, but her nature. Green's women are generally powerful creatures with enough strength and passion to strike fear in most men's hearts (see the description of Countess De Mirac above). 

Anna Katharine Green is superb at melodrama. She can create melodramatic scenes without overdoing them. This is because she writes beautifully. And this is where we have to forget about the internal narrator in Strange Disappearance: the style is simply not convincing as the language of our young action hero, Q.

For the most powerful melodramatic effect, look at Mr Blake's description of how he painted and kept the portrait of his wife in his private rooms (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 13). It is a flowing, almost breathless gushing of passion and grand sentiment. It is brilliant and wildly exaggerated. It works, just, because Mr Blake is a man who, we imagine, could use words like these.

A Strange Disappearance showcases another challenge created by the first-person narrator: in order to tell the tale, Q has to be present at all the key moments. Green manages to arrange this reasonably smoothly. There are a few occasions where the magic wears thin and we see the narrative mechanics underneath. Q has to follow Mr. Gryce and Mr Blake into the latter's private rooms in order to hear Blake reveal his secret. "The man may come." Mr Blake says about Q (Strange Disappearance, Chapter 10). Q also has to rush between rooms at the denouement of the plot to make sure we get to see all: "Feeling myself no longer necessary in that spot, I followed where my wishes led and entered the room ..." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 19).

These restrictions of a first person narrative illustrate the two sides of Green's fiction we are examining here for their effects on the reading experience: sensational style vs the classic detective plot.

The melodramatic, decorated language does not always flow comfortably or convincingly from the lips of Green's young, lower-class, urban characters like Q. But it does make the novel a pleasure to read and works well to engage the reader's imagination. This is why Green is superb in descriptions of landscapes, people and scenes, but not so convincing in dialogue. Characters tend to get carried away with wild and lofty curlicues of expressions - all of them, in the same way. Perhaps this is another indication of the American belief in equality (everyone can express themselves with the same grandiose style). At the end of the story, various people speak to persuade Luttra to return to her husband, Mrs Daniels the housekeeper sounds pretty much the same as Countess De Mirac. Luttra Schoenmaker, a poor girl with limited formal education is able to exclaim:

"Shall the giving or the gaining of a fortune make necessary the unital of lives over which holier influences have beamed and loftier hopes shone?  No, no ... love alone, with the hope and confidence it gives, shall be the bond to draw us together and make the two separate planes  on which we stand, a common ground where we can meet and be happy." A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 20)

These are pretty sentiments, and the young lady can express herself with all the drama and pomp of an accomplished theatrical diva. This is highly entertaining, if not exactly convincing. We are in the world of sensational romance.

On the other hand, the meticulous focus on the crime as a puzzle and an almost forensic approach to its solution, invests every detail in the narrative with significance. Just like Q's presence at a scene appears occasionally a little contrived, clues and pieces of evidence appear glaringly obvious. The piece of calico, the golden hairs trapped in a hair brush, the ring in the ashes, are all details that leap out as significant as soon as they are mentioned in the course of the narrative. This is in the nature of the genre. The accusation of investing meaning in every detail was levelled at traditional sensation fiction as well. But with the focus being so exclusively on the solution of the mystery here, this aspect of the narrative becomes highlighted even more in the reader's experience.

The hard, rational logic of the plot is reflected in the clear-cut structure of the novel. It is in stark contrast with the sensational scenes and the style of writing. The plot moves from initial statement of the mystery and an analysis of the scene of crime, through a neat chain of highly melodramatic scenes, to the final denouement which includes the capture of the culprits and the rescue of the damsel. Some of these scenes are Gothic (trip to Vermont in A strange Disappearance, Chapter 7) and very traditional (A strange Disappearance, Chapter 11). They all serve a very modern mystery plot and contribute to the one aim - resolving the puzzle of the strange disappearance.

I would like to argue that the sensational, melodramatic, old-fashioned, heavy, convoluted language is the reason why Anna Katharine Green is well worth reading. It is the gloriously exuberant style and unique voice that elevate the crime puzzle in A Strange Disappearance into a wild and thrilling tale of high drama and passion.

Fair Game

"Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 1).

The opening sentence of A Strange Disappearance (1879) is an advertisement for Anna Katharine Green's first novel as much as an efficient way of setting up the narrative frame. A Strange Disappearance features the same detectives as The Leavenworth Case, and it is another crime mystery. It promises to be sensational by revealing an affair that has been kept secret. Readers know right away what to expect from this "novel case" (that is the title of chapter 1).

The internal, first-person narrator is introduced:

"The Speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting Mr Gryce; ... (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 1).

Q and Gryce are paid for their detective services by the client who comes to the police for help (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 3). Q also hopes to gain a further reward for capturing wanted criminals (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7). In addition to financial motivation, Q has professional ambitions. When Gryce hints that Q has missed a clue: "More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to reëstablish my reputation with Mr Gryce before the affair was over," (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 4).

Q is not then entirely mercenary but takes pride in his work and wants to create a name for himself in the force. The relationship between Q and his superior Mr Gryce provides a useful motor for the narrative when Q aspires to make a good impression on Gryce. Q is, above all, a career detective: "But once in the room of the missing girl, every consideration fled save that of professional pride and curiosity." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2).

There are vague echoes of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes at the opening of A Strange Disappearance (A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887). In his case histories, Watson too refers occasionally to Holmes's other cases. Like Watson, Q is a side-kick to an eccentric master detective whose unfathomable logic both amazes and exasperates those who try to follow his reasoning. One of Green's noted contributions to the detective genre is a serial detective. Q and Gryce were later followed by Amelia Butterworth and Violet Strange in Green's works. Of course, Emile Gaboriau already had M. Lecoq and Edgar Allan Poe had C. Auguste Dupin before Green created Mr. Gryce.

Q begins his story by describing how Mrs Daniels appears at the police station requesting the help of a detective to find a girl who went missing from her employer's house the previous night. The narrative sets up the relative positions of Q and Mr Gryce by showing Mrs Daniels as wanting the professionally reassuring advice of the older master detective and being dubious about Q's abilities: "isn't there someone here more responsible than yourself that I can talk to?"  (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 1) According to Mrs Daniels a seamstress called Emily has been abducted from her room. Mrs Daniels is the house-keeper of Mr Blake, an "aristocratic representative of New York's oldest family" (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 7), a wealthy, recluse bachelor, with a large house on 2nd Avenue.

The first four chapters of A Strange Disappearance establish the mystery Q and Gryce have to solve. They also establish another convention of the detective genre that has been attributed to Green: fair game. At the scene of the assumed abduction, Q and Mr Gryce examine Emily's room carefully and question Mrs Daniels and other servants. Q is methodical and presents all the details to the reader: "let me state the facts in the order in which I noticed them." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 2) Later Gryce assures Q:

"I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight for any body who had eyes to see it. ... You had it all before you ... and if you were not able to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn't blame me for it." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 4)

Green was the author who first turned a story of detection into a neat puzzle that readers were invited to solve alongside the detective. Detection is here moving away from a subversive and morally questionable activity towards a parlour game.

This shift towards crime as primarily an intellectual puzzle, removes much of the dubious aura surrounding the domestic spying associated with detective work in British sensation fiction. There is no shame in detection here. Even the apparently ultra-respectable Mr Blake assures Mr Gryce: "let no consideration of my great inherent dislike to notoriety of any kind interfere what you consider your duty." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 3).

Q follows Mr Blake to a charity ball and spies his meeting with Countess De Mirac:

"I took advantage of the moment and made haste to conceal myself behind a curtain as near that vicinity as possible. .... Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the curtain hanging before me and looked through." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 5)

Q has no qualms about eavesdropping on other people's private conversation. Later Q enlists the help of Blake's servant girl Fanny to listen at doors (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 8). And he persuades his landlady to take part in a plot to capture some of her lodgers. (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 16). There seems to be no shame associated with any of the tricks employed by the detective police. This is distinctly different from British popular fiction of the time, which frequently apologizes for the necessity for detectives. The reason for this difference may be, as suggested above, that Green was looking at crime as an entertaining puzzle rather than as uncomfortable social deviance. Therefore, the intrusive quality of detective work was not to be taken as a serious moral concern. However, the reason may also be that Green was American, and therefore not lumbered with British manners and social conventions (considerably more of that later).

When Mr Blake learns that Q has been shadowing him, he is outraged: "Have the city authorities presumed to put a spy on my movements ...?"

"Mr. Blake," observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my superior at that moment, "no man who is a true citizen and a Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands it." (A Strange Disappearance, Chapter 10).

Here is another moment of either the American idea of equality or an indication of the shift towards the format of modern detective fiction. No matter how high your position or rank in society, no matter how rigid your apparent respectability, no matter how great your wealth, you are always fair game to a detective.

The Strange Disappearance of Anna Katharine Green

The title A Strange Disappearance (1879) might be applied to the literary reputation of its author. The name of Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) is almost invariably followed by the epitaph 'the mother of detective fiction.' This young woman, born in Brooklyn, the Puritan daughter of a New York lawyer, dreamed of becoming a poet. When her verses failed to find a publisher she turned her pen to a more profitable genre and,  in 1878, she published The Leavenworth Case, a fully-formed detective novel with a body in the library. 

 According to an interview Green gave in 1929, this novel was "written during an interval of tedious inactivity after she had graduated from the Ripley Female College at Poultney, Vermont." (Woodward, p168) Green graduated in 1866, it was clearly a rather long interval of inactivity. According to Patricia D. Maida, Green was "an American woman who single-mindedly pursued a literary career, despite the odds against her." (Maida, p105). These odds included a father who did not condone her choice of genre. Green wrote The Leavenworth Case in secret, only her stepmother knew about it (Maida, p22). It took her over six years to complete the manuscript (Ibid.). Green took her inspiration from the novels by Emile Gaboriau (1832-1873) and calculated that a mystery story would appeal to newspaper readers (Maida, p.10) and therefore find a publisher and an audience. Green was determined to forge a literary career for herself. There were not many job opportunities for young, unmarried, middle-class women in the 1870s, and being a celebrated authoress was considerably better than languishing in the family home at Brooklyn Heights. With the publication of The Leavenworth Case Green went from a complete unknown to a celebrity almost overnight (Maida, p4).

 

Anna Katharine Green, picture from Library of Congress. Source: http://www.motherofmystery.com 

Green's works strongly influenced Agatha Christie. She was also admired by Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle (Maida, p1 Green had a long career and produced thirty-five novels. Despite her clearly recognized position in the annals of Victorian detective fiction, it appears that not much has been written about Green herself. As far as I know, there is no critical biography of her; there are not many academic studies of her works. The one book about her, Patricia D. Maida's Mother of Detective Fiction: The Life and Works of Anna Katharine Green (1989) has a 'selected bibliography' of nine (!) works about Green. Despite this, Maida's short book is an excellent introduction to Green covering her life neatly in a series of chapter arranged around aspects of her writing. More useful articles and further information on Green are available at http://www.motherofmystery.com.

It is curious why someone so well known and recognized as such a significant figure in the development of a popular genre, has attracted so little attention. The reason may lie in Green's writing. Perhaps Green is just too dull to merit detailed analysis?

In the Foreword to her book on Green, Maida writes: "To nineteenth-century readers, Green offered a challenging puzzle and well developed characters. Men, as well as women, delighted in her imaginative conundrums as they joined in the game of detection. ... Modern readers may still read Green's work for plot and characterization, but as social history her fiction is even more significant." (Maida, p2)

Maida makes no positive claims about the quality of Green's writing. Green can plot a mystery with clues, and she writes about her own time. But that seems to be the extent of her literary merits. None of her novels are in print (they are however readily available as e-books, thanks to Kindle's extensive scanning programme of out-of-copyright fiction). Even in 1929, when Kathleen Woordward interviewed the 83-year-old Green for Bookman magazine (New York, Oct 1929, Vol 70, pp168-170),  she approached Green as a relic of a by-gone age: "I might have been in the company of any one of Barrie's lavender-perfumed ladies of undeniable refinement." Together the interviewer and Green lament "the decline of the detective story from an art to a process of mass-production." Woodward concludes: "We seem to have lost the attitude of high seriousness toward the mystery story which characterizes the work of Anna Katharine Green and her contemporaries."

This would suggest that by 1929, Green was seen as old-fashioned. In 1989, Patricia D. Maida confirms this assessment: "By the turn of the century ... her popularity had begun to wane. To a new generation, her style was heavy compared with that of rising authors like Mary Roberts Rinehart." (Maida, p30).  Later, Maida contrasts Green's cumbersome, formal and convoluted style with Rinehart's more colloquial and straight-forward prose (Maida, pp.53-4), and she concludes: "And this may well be the nub of the issue - that Green's language did not change with time, that even though she was still publishing in the 1920s, her fiction is written in the linguistic style of the nineteenth century." (Ibid.)

I would like to argue that the cause for the 'strange disappearance' of Anna Katharine Green from our bookshelves is because Green is neither fish nor fowl. She writes like a Victorian, with all the delicious melodrama, Gothic thrills and decorous turns of phrase employed by British sensation novelists. But her plots belong to the later golden age of detective fiction (between the World Wars).

Readers may have abandoned Green because her style is old-fashioned and awkwardly Victorian compared to other writers of similar detective stories (Agatha Christie most notably). Academic students of literature may have equally shied away from her, because she is hard to pigeon-hole. As a Victorian author she is dull, because she lacks much of the flamboyant and romantic plotting of sensation fiction. Her stories are focused on the puzzle of a single crime and calculated to tie up all the loose ends neatly. As a modern detective story writer she is also dull; her flowery language and melodramatic scenes appear needlessly exaggerated and impede the movement of the plot.

Back in 1878, The Leavenworth Case launched Green's career and became a best-seller. It remains her best known work. This success of a debut novel had to be followed up with something equally good to secure her future as a popular authoress. Green's second novel, published in 1879, was A Strange Disappearance. I wanted to find out if the language of sensation fiction, which Green employs, can turn a plot of a 'classic' detective story into a thrilling experience.

"The Waiting for Time and Chance" (Plot Spoiler Alert!)

The most important measures of a successful sensation novel are whether it quickens our pulses through thrills and suspense and whether it keeps its audience reading in breathless anticipation. Judging by the review in Saturday Review, Verner's Pride falls short of this aim. Why is that?

According to the reviewer, the problem lies "in the often careless writing, the ill-connected episodes, the profusion of incidents out of which a good plot might have been elaborated with moderate diligence and thought…" (The Saturday Review 28/2/1863. Source: http://www.mrshenrywood.co.uk /contemporary.html)

The shortcomings of Verner's Pride seem to be in plotting. There are several sub-plots which do not contribute to the main chain of events. But I do not consider these the principle reason why Verner's Pride is not a great sensation novel. Instead, I would argue that the novel's downfall is in its failure to squeeze the maximum out of its sensational mysteries. This may be the influence of traditional melodarama, where fate plays an important role. It may be a conscious effort on the part of Mrs Henry Wood to stay away from the cheap thrills of detective fiction, which rely so very blatantly on the excitement derived from the detection of crime. Or it may simply be that Mrs Henry Wood has reached the limits of her plotting abilities. Whatever the reason, despite a very promising plot-arc, there is not enough intrigue, villainous scheming and hunting down of culprits. Verner's Pride lacks in action to be a truly satisfying sensation novel. I will try to show why I think this by walking through the plot.

CHAPTERS	PLOT DEVELOPMENTS
1-2	Verners' inheritance is explained (1). Rachel is seen talking to Lionel (2), Fred and John (1). Rachel has a secret sorrow. (1) Rachel is found dead. (2)
3-8	Mr Verner "investigating systematically" all the witnesses (5). At the inquest it is revealed that Rachel was pregnant (7). Mr Verner has "an angry feverish desire to find out" what happened to Rachel (8). The three young gentlemen of Verner's Pride are the suspects. Mr Verner interviews all three: "were the accusation brought publicly against you, you would, none of you, be able to prove a distinct alibi." (8)

The opening chapters of Verner's Pride set up a murder mystery and introduce the question of who is the rightful heir of Verner's Pride. This is a good and exciting start to the novel.

9-11	Lady Verner, Lionel's mother, brother Jan and sister Decima are introduced (10). Lucy Tempest arrives at Deerham Court (11).
12-13	Sibylla West "loved Frederick Massingbird for himself, she liked Lionel because he was the heir." (12) John has been murdered in Australia. (12) Lionel admits he's in love with Sibylla. But Sibylla will marry Fred Massingbird and go to Australia with him. (13)

The narrative puts Rachel's fate completely aside and establishes a different plot-line. It introduces a second set of main characters. Sibylla West is depicted as a female villain. These chapters set up a very promising romantic conflict, which promises much intrigue and passion for the rest of the novel. So far, the narrative has the reader hooked.

14-18	Mr Verner has changed his will to leave the estate to Fred, not Lionel (15). Now he signs a codicil to change the will for Lionel's benefit (16). Mrs Tynn, the housekeeper, and Dr West witness it. The will is locked inside a desk (16). After Mr Verner dies, the codicil has disappeared (17).
19-20	Lady Verner: "That codicil has been stolen." Lionel: "From being a landed country gentleman ... I go to a poor fellow ..." (19) Decima suspects Dr West of taking the codicil: "Hence I drew my deductions." (21) Lionel tells her never to mention these suspicions again. (21)

Lionel has lost both his love and his fortune to Fred. There is a second mystery of the missing codicil with a clear suspect, Dr West. Instead of actively pursuing the crucial mystery of the codicil, our hero and the narrative put it aside. Lionel leaves Verner's Pride to live with his mother.

22-24	There is a riot at Peckaby's shop for bad meat which reveals Roy's mismanagement of the estate. Lionel intervenes and gets a sun-stroke. (22) He is nursed by Lucy and talks to her of Sibylla (24). Lucy falls in love with him. (23).
25	Lionel visits the Grinds' cottage - a "lower class dwelling." Description of rural poverty. "What a lesson for me!" says Lionel.

The main plot-line of romantic conflict is developed through Lionel's obsession with Sibylla and Lucy's developing feelings for him. We are presented with the issue of rural poverty. This is the first digression from the main plot.

26	A packet with Lionel's glove and a note from the late Mr Verner are found - they are somehow linked to Lionel's loss of inheritance.
27-28	Dr West desperately looks for an "important recipe" in his desk (27) and leaves for abroad "without having previously informed his daughters." (28)
29-31	Fred has died in Australia. (29) Lionel takes over Verner's Pride (30). Jan suggests that Sibylla married Fred for Verner's Pride and would now happily marry Lionel in turn (30).
32-34	Mrs Verner dies and Lionel comes to his full inheritance (32). Lionel hints at marriage to Lucy (33). Lionel plans his 'improvements' for the workers' living conditions (34).

The narrative recaptures its momentum in a succession of chapters that remind us of all the main plot lines. There are clues to the two mysteries: Rachel's death (the glove) and the missing codicil (Dr West's missing 'recipe'). There is also Jan's reminder of the villainous Sibylla. The first main plot twist gives Lionel his inheritance and makes the mystery of the codicil irrelevant. It looks like everyone is about to live their lives happily ever after. But we are only one third into the novel.

35-38	Sibylla arrives at Verner's Pride: "Oh Lionel! - you will give me a home, won't you?" (35) Lionel ask Sibylla to marry him (36) in a moment of passion. Lady Verner is upset: "Were you mad?" She asked in a whisper." "That woman has worked his ruin." (37)
39	Brother Jarrum preaches at Peckabys shop of the earthly paradise of Mormons.
40-41	Lionel marries Sibylla (41) "Lionel, in his heart of hearts, doubting if he did not best love Lucy Tempest." (41) Brother Jarrum disappears with his followers. Susan Peckaby is left behind but told a story of a white donkey that would fetch her. (41)

Sibylla returns and triumphs. Chapters 35 and 36 are among the high points of the plot. It is accompanied with the digressive story about Brother Jarrum and his preaching. Marriage and the position of wives are much discussed. Perhaps this is intended to form a commentary on Sibylla's life as Lionel's wife.

42	Sibylla spends Lionel's money. Mrs Roy, expecting to go with Brother Jarrum, confesses to the vicar that "it was Frederick Massingbird who had been quarrelling with Rachel that night by the Willow Pond." Lionel and the Reverend agree that "It can do no good to reap up the sad tale." "Let us bury Mrs Roy's story between us, and forget it, so far as we can."
43	Lucy and Lionel recognize their feelings for each other and their hopeless situation. "Lucy sat down as the door closed behind him and wondered how she should get through the long dreary life before her." For Lionel: "The sense of dishonour was stifling him."
44-45	Susan Peckaby waits for the white donkey (44) and the Peckabys discuss life with multiple wives (45). "Lionel had awoke to the conviction, firm and undoubted, that his wife did not love him." (45)
46	September 12-14 months later. About Sibylla: "Her extravagance was something frightful ..." Lionel sees financial "embarrassment" approaching fast. Alice Hook, "little more than a child," has "got herself in trouble." Cramped living conditions are blamed. Lionel compares them to Verner's Pride and "I feel as if the girl's blight lay at my own door!"

Chapter 42 is a strange turn of a plot and a disappointment: it dismisses the initial mystery that played such a major part at the beginning of the novel. Just like earlier Lionel dismissed any suspicions relating to Dr West, he now firmly puts away the new information relating to Rachel's death. The hero of the story is determined to avoid all attempts to resolve the main mysteries driving the plot.

The following three chapters develop further the romantic conflict between Sibylla, Lionel and Lucy. This theme is well established and although it provides melodramatic scenes of longing and yearning, it is becoming laboured. Chapter 46 is part of the social commentary in the novel contrasting the living conditions of Alice Hook with those of Sibylla Verner - and thereby also comparing their moral conduct. At this stage of the narrative we have lost much of the momentum; there are no unanswered burning questions, nor much foreshadowing, to help us anticipate future revelations. We are approaching midway of the novel, and the narrative is distinctly losing its pace.

47-53	Lucy spots a man lurking under a yew-tree watching Verner's Pride. Dan Duff bursts into her mother's shop, shouting "I see'd a dead man." (48) Sibylla tells Lionel: "I look upon Verner's Pride as mine, more than yours; if it had not been for the death of my husband, you would never have had it." (50) Dan Duff (51), Matthew Frost (52) and Rev Bourne (53) all say they have seen the ghost of Fred Massingbird.
54-55	A careful description of Alice Hook's dismal sleeping arrangements. (54) Sibylla and Lionel argue over a pair of grey ponies. (55) Lionel refers to the conditions of the Hooks. Sibylla hints that Lionel is to blame for Rachel. "He did not know what she meant." (55)
56-57	Lionel and Jan decide that the ghost is Fred: "I fancy it will turn out that he did not die in Australia." But "Why did he not appear openly?" (56) Lionel sees someone under the yew-tree (58): "He would have sacrificed his life willingly to save Sibylla from the terrible misfortune that appeared to be falling upon her." (58)

Just as we were losing our faith with the narrative, it treats us to the terrible threat of bigamy. This is done slowly and cumbersomely; it takes several chapters to move from the vague ghost at Willow Pond to the clear and present danger that Fred Massingbird is alive and hiding in the neighbourhood. Once this threat is established, it gives great scope for melodrama. In chapter 54, the description of Hooks' bedchamber with its potential for illicit (and incestuous) sex appears out of place, but it prepares the ground for Lionel's argument with Sibylla and her mention of Rachel. Still, it makes for a clonky read.

59-64

Lionel goes to London in search of Captain Cannonby, who knew Fred Massingbird in Australia. (59) Instead, he comes across a woman who was helped by someone called Massingbird returning from Australia. (59) Lionel goes to see Lady Verner and Lucy: "he must be a man isolated from other wedded ties, so long as Sibylla remained on the earth." (64)

In chapter 59 Lionel performs his one single act of trying to resolve the mystery so critical to his marriage and his inheritance. It also contains the only scenes in the book that take place outside of the tight rural confines of Verner's Pride and Deerham. Lionel fails in his task. The only result of his trip to London is to confirm that a man calling himself Massingbird has returned from Australia. This is a clue and comes as a result of an unlikely coincidence. As the narrator puts it almost apologetically: "Does anything in this world happen by chance? What secret unknown impulse could have sent Lionel Verner on board that steamer?" (Verner's Pride, Chapter 59). Coincidence, in a mystery plot, is a very dangerous tool to use; it seldom does its job convincingly. But it is a stock device of melodrama and fully in line with its moral universe controlled by fate.

65-67	Captain Cannonby arrives to confirm that Fred is dead. (65) Jan captures the ghost. It is John Massingbird. (66) "And so the mystery was out." John has been hiding until he knew whether the codicil had been found: "He would personate his brother ... [who] ... has neither creditors nor enemies." (67)
68-73	Lionel is in debt: "We have no furniture - no money in short, to set up a house, or to keep it on." "[Sibylla] cried, she sobbed, she protested, she stormed, she raved." They move to Deerham Court. (70)
74	The Deerham husbands play a nasty practical joke on Susan Peckaby with a white-washed donkey.

Coincidences pile up. The "mystery was out" without any effort by anyone. There is another turn in Lionel's fortunes: Verner's Pride is lost again as it passes to John. Chapter 74 is a digression to close the sub-plot of Susan Peckaby and the Mormons. Its placement here in the narrative may be due to the dictates of serial publishing, or it may be to serve as a parallel to Sibylla's fall to relative poverty.

75-78	Sibylla accuses Lionel directly of doing "injury to Rachel." Lionel has no idea what she means. (75)  Dr West returns and looks for the mysterious missing 'recipe.' (76) Dr West warns Sibylla of delicate health. Sibylla says "if that codicil could be found it would save my life. ... I want to go back to Verner's Pride."(77)
79-80	John asks why Mr Verner left "the place away from" Lionel. Lionel tells him of the glove and a note. (79) First Matthew Frost on his death bed (80), then John (80) tell Lionel that Fred was responsible for Rachel. (80) John says that he "learned it from Luke Roy" who saw Rachel and Fred at the pond. But Fred did not murder Rachel: "He had made vows to the girl, and broken them; and that was the extent of it." (80)
81	Sibylla has consumption. Fred told Sibylla that "Rachel owed her disgrace to Lionel." Lionel is shocked that Sibylla had married a man she thought was a murderer. (81)

Rachel's death is solved in passing. This resolution to the big mystery set up at the beginning of the narrative is removed with a disappointing lack of sensation. The truth was known to Rachel's family and to John Massingbird all along. Both this mystery and the second one of the codicil, which has become relevant again since John's arrival, are now linked to Sibylla's character. Her greed is revealed by her willingness to marry a man she thought had killed Rachel and by her physical health, her very existence, depending on regaining Verner's Pride.

82-87	Sibylla appears at a ball looking "like a bedecked skeleton." She insists on dancing the waltz. "That had been her last dance one earth."(86) Sibylla dies. (87)
88	Lionel is still unable to marry Lucy "I am in debt. Such a man cannot marry." "Oh, Lucy! Forgive - forgive me!"
89	Jan's medical assistant blows up his chemical experiment and as a result of the blast the missing codicil falls out of Dr West's old locked bureau. (89)
90	Lionel starts his improvements. John tells Lionel he handed Lionel's glove to Mr Verner: it "slipped out in self-defence" so that Mr Verner would believe John innocent and let him depart for Australia, "never thinking it could have been so important ... All could have been so different, Lionel could've been happy."
91-95	Lionel asks Col Tempest for Lucy's hand. (94)

The final chapters wrap matters up in a quick series of plot twists. Although Sibylla's dramatic and somewhat convenient death frees Lionel for Lucy, his debts do not. We need a fortunate explosion to reveal Dr West's crime, and the mystery of the codicil is cleared up. Finally, the small mystery of the glove is explained by John, and we learn the reason why Mr Verner changed his will in the first place to start the whole roller coaster ride of Lionel's fortunes.

In Chapter 57 the novel attempts to enlist our sympathies for Lionel's mental state. Here is revealed the main shortcoming of the plot:

"how could it be possible to set the question at rest?" "By a very simple process, it may be answered - the waiting for time and chance. Ay, but do you know what that waiting involves, in a case like this? Think of the state of mind that Lionel Verner must live under during the suspense!" (Verner's Pride, Chapter 57).

This describes exactly what the novel does; the unanswered questions that power the plot forward are resolved by coincidence and by characters finally deciding to tell unprompted something they have known a long time. Mysteries and conflicts critical to the plot are solved by time and chance instead of action on the part of the characters. We have to wait for matters to resolve themselves, like Lionel, in suspense. Unfortunately, we do not have his gentlemanly fortitude.

The narrative effectively uses mysteries to kick off and drive the plot, but beyond this, it does not display sufficient effort and desire to resolve them through action. Our hero Lionel has lost his inheritance mysteriously. He has clues of the glove and the suspicions about Dr West. He is married to Sibylla who is squandering his fortune and is possibly a bigamist. Sibylla accuses him of Rachel's death. Really, he is desperately in love with Lucy. And yet, in the middle of all these sensational calamities, Lionel takes no action at all to tackle them. He is too much of a gentleman to get his hands dirty in ferreting out secrets. This is the downfall of Verner's Pride as a sensation novel.

This conclusion may well reflect my view as a modern reader who is overly-familiar with the genre conventions of detective fiction. But judging by the less than enthusiastic reception of Verner's Pride in 1863, perhaps Mrs Henry Wood's contemporary readers felt the same way.