And now,
returning from this fruitless mission, Falkner realizes that he must tell
Elizabeth the truth—a truth that he fears (knows?) will damage—or perhaps
permanently sever—their relationship.
And so
begins his narrative, his confession … and, once, again, Mary employs the
story-within-a-story technique to advance her narrative.
Mary tells
us that as Falkner considered the effects of telling his story, the blood stood chilled in his heart when he thought of thus losing the only
thing he loved on earth.[1]
Elizabeth—unwitting—is
eager to hear her father’s story and
rises the next morning with great happiness to hear it.[2]
But he says little more than this: I am
Rupert Falkner, your mother’s destroyer.[3] He immediately
leaves for business in London—but gives Elizabeth the explanation/confession he
previously wrote for her. And now … we get a text-within-a-story, another
device Mary was fond of. He begins by telling a bit of his earlier biography.
We reach a key point—that a love of his young life, Althea, does not share his
passion; in current parlance, she says the equivalent of “We can still be
friends.” Depressed, he flees to India for ten years, returns, discovers she
has married another.
By chance,
he is part of a dinner party that includes Neville, her husband, a boor and a
beast (thinks Falkner), and he is horrified. He goes to see her, and she,
initially, is happy—it’s been a decade. But when she discovers his romantic
intentions, she stops. Cold. She is a wife. And although she no longer cares for
her husband, she will, she says, persevere. She says we do not live to be happy, but to perform our duties; to fulfill mine
is the aim of my life.[4]
So Falkner—deeply
disturbed—leaves her in tears. And begins to plot …
No comments:
Post a Comment