Group read: The Claverings by Anthony Trollope

The Claverings by Anthony Trollope (1867)

It would be well that she should know of his engagement. Then he thought of the whole interview, and felt sure that she must know it. At any rate he told himself that he was sure. She could hardly have spoken to him as she had done, unless she had known. When last they had been together, sauntering round the gardens at Clavering, he had rebuked her for her treachery to him. Now she came to him almost open-armed, free, full of her cares, swearing to him that he was her only friend! All this could mean but one thing,---unless she knew that that one thing was barred by his altered position...

Welcome to the group read of Anthony Trollope's The Claverings.

This novel had a slightly odd history. It was written in 1864, after Trollope had completed The Small House At Allington (and, in terms of our current project, between Rachel Ray and Miss Mackenzie); but it did not appear in print until 1866---and when we consider that Trollope also completed Can You Forgive Her? during this phase of frantic activity, that's probably not surprising.

The Claverings was serialised in in the Cornhill Magazine from February 1866 to May 1867, before appearing in book form later that year. (The American first edition apparently carries an 1866 copyright date, but was also published in 1867.)

This novel deals with some very familiar themes, including the need for a young man to find his place in the world, what constitutes "right" and "wrong" marriage, and - echoing The Bertrams - under what circumstances a marriage should be made.

(Those of you who were with us for Margaret Oliphant's Phoebe, Junior will note that this novel offers a male perspective on a particular situation, and consequently a rather different outcome.)

The Claverings was well received critically and fairly popular with the public, though it has always been considered a relatively minor work. It has often been praised for the tightness of its plot and absence of digressions, and the interworking of its themes.

The Claverings is available through all the usual sources, including the Oxford University Press and Penguin, plus on Kindle and at Project Gutenberg.

It was originally published in two volumes, though since then it has invariably appeared in just one, and the chapters seem always to have been numbered consecutively.

(Though please let me know if that's not the case for you!)

The novel has 48 chapters: we can try for a rate of 3 chapters per day, and this will give us flexibility if we need it---noting, however, that the individual chapters are often longer than usual (which is interesting given both the fact that it was serialised, yet praised for its tight structure).

For this group read, the usual guidelines will apply:

1. Whenever commenting, always start by listing the chapter to which you are referring in bold.

2. Be mindful of others: use spoiler tags if you have read the book before, or get ahead of other readers.

3. If your edition has an introduction, or end- or footnotes, please don't read them before you read the book!

4. If you have a question, a comment or just a thought, please post it! The more contributions we get, the better and more rewarding this group read will be.

Cast of characters:

The Reverend Mr Henry Clavering
Mrs Clavering
Harry Clavering - their son
Mary Clavering - their elder daughter
Fanny Clavering - their younger daughter

Sir Hugh Clavering - Mr Clavering's nephew
Archibald Clavering - his brother
Hermione, Lady Clavering - his wife
Julia Brabazon - her sister

Mr Burton - a civil engineer; business partner of Mr Beilby
Mrs Burton - his wife
Florence Burton - their youngest daughter
Theodore Burton - their son
Cecilia Burton - his wife

The Earl of Ongar
Count Edouard Pateroff - a Polish nobleman
Madame Sophie Gordeloup - his sister

Mr Samuel Saul - Mr Clavering's curate
Mr Edward Fielding - a neighbouring clergyman, engaged to Mary Clavering

Captain Boodle - a friend of Archie Clavering

Mr Beilby - a civil engineer

Now---please check in and let us know if you will be participating or lurking!

I'm planning to participate. I will, however, be away from home for a week this month, so I may get behind and, de facto, lurk.

I have a cute little Oxford World's Classics from 1951 that I plan to read.

>6 NinieB:

Welcome, Ninie!

Based on past experience I'll still be blathering on towards the end of the month so I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to catch up. :D

I’m planning to join in. I’ll start a few days late, after I finish the current fiction I’ve started, but I’m sure I’ll catch up quickly.

I'm in. I read it in 2021, so I'm looking forward to the re-read. It's one of my favorite stand-alones.

One thing that I found out is that the last page of Chapter VI (about 3 paragraphs and a letter) was missing for many years, apparently never making it from the serial version to the book printing.

I know that the Dover edition (1977) restores this bit and the 1998 Oxford World's Classics edition (pictured in >1 lyzard:) includes it as an explanatory endnote. It is included in the current Project Gutenberg edition here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15766/15766-h/15766-h.htm#c06

It's the material near the end of Chapter VI after the line:

"Hugh will not go to her."

and continues to the end of Chapter VI, ending the chapter with:

"Poor creature!" he said to himself; "it is sad to think how much she is in want of a friend."

By the way, I'd recommend checking out the Project Gutenberg edition just to see the wonderful original illustrations, even if your version has all of the text.

I'm in!

I'm in, but may start later due to other commitments (summer is festival season).

>9 kac522: Oh, thanks for the tip!

>8 japaul22:

Welcome, Jennifer - not a problem!

>9 kac522:

Thanks for that, Kathy! I had found out about the missing text and was wondering how best to handle that so your input is very much appreciated. :)

>10 cbl_tn:

Hi, Carrie!

>11 MissWatson:

That's fine, Birgit, catch up when you can.

Beware of spoilers at the moment, of course, but here is the missing text from Chapter VI for anyone who might need it:

****

****

****

****

Missing text:

    "Hugh will not go to her."
    "But you will do so; will you not?"
    "Before long I will. You don't seem to understand, Harry,---and, perhaps, it would be odd if you did,---that I can't run up to town and back as I please. I ought not to tell you this, I dare say, but one feels as though one wanted to talk to some one about one's affairs. At the present moment, I have not the money to go,---even if there were no other reason." These last words she said almost in a whisper, and then she looked up into the young man's face, to see what he thought of the communication she had made him.
    "Oh, money!" he said. "You could soon get money. But I hope it won't be long before you go."
    On the next morning but one a letter came by the post for him from Lady Ongar. When he saw the handwriting, which he knew, his heart was at once in his mouth, and he hesitated to open his letter at the breakfast-table. He did open it and read it, but, in truth, he hardly understood it or digested it till he had taken it away with him up to his own room. The letter, which was very short, was as follows:---

Dear Friend,
    I felt your kindness in coming to me at the station so much!---the more, perhaps, because others, who owed me more kindness, have paid me less. Don't suppose that I allude to poor Hermione, for, in truth, I have no intention to complain of her. I thought, perhaps, you would have come to see me before you left London; but I suppose you were hurried. I hear from Clavering that you are to be up about your new profession in a day or two. Pray come and see me before you have been many days in London. I shall have so much to say to you! The rooms you have taken are everything that I wanted, and I am so grateful!
Yours ever,
J. O.

    When Harry had read and had digested this, he became aware that he was again fluttered. "Poor creature!" he said to himself; "it is sad to think how much she is in want of a friend."

Added this thread to our group wiki. Enjoy the read!

I shall be reading along when I get a copy - probably from Project Gutenberg.

>14 drneutron:

Thanks, Jim!

>15 CDVicarage:

Hi, Kerry. :)

I’m in, thanks Kathy for the invite. I’ll get a kindle copy and begin on Friday.

I have the free Kindle version and I can report that the text missing from some editions in Chapter 6 is included in the Kindle edition. I think Amazon used the Project Gutenberg version.

>17 bryanoz:

Welcome, Bryan - great to have you here!

Just for a little background: most of us here have read Trollope's major novels including the Barchester and Palliser series, and we are now working through his standalone works and others considered more "minor".

There may be references to other works on the way through so please let us know if those are getting a bit spoiler-y for you or if the points I'm making aren't clear.

Hopefully everything else is self-explanatory but please feel free to ask questions of any kind.

>18 cbl_tn:

Thanks, Carrie!

Well. Let's do this. :)

Unusually for Trollope, he starts The Claverings almost in medias res, with a critical conversation between Harry Clavering and Julia Brabazon:

Chapter 1:

    "You are very handsome, Harry, and you, too, should go into the market and make the best of yourself. Why should you not learn to love some nice girl that has money to assist you?"
    "Julia!"
    "No, sir; I will not be called Julia. If you do, I will be insulted, and leave you instantly. I may call you Harry, as being so much younger,---though we were born in the same month,---and as a sort of cousin. But I shall never do that after to-day."
    "You have courage enough, then, to tell me that you have not ill-used me?"
    "Certainly I have. Why, what a fool you would have me be! Look at me, and tell me whether I am fit to be the wife of such a one as you. By the time you are entering the world, I shall be an old woman, and shall have lived my life. Even if I were fit to be your mate when we were living here together, am I fit, after what I have done and seen during the last two years? Do you think it would really do any good to any one if I were to jilt, as you call it, Lord Ongar, and tell them all,---your cousin, Sir Hugh, and my sister, and your father,---that I was going to keep myself up, and marry you when you were ready for me?"

The recurrent theme, not just of Trollope but of many Victorian novelists, the conflict between love and money in the making of a marriage, immediately rears its head here.

(And having apologised to Bryan, I will immediately start referencing other novels!---)

We have seen this most overtly in The Bertrams, wherein there were many discussions of what income was appropriate to marry on, and saw then Trollope's belief that modern young people were unwilling to make a leap of faith---to trust in the future and, in the meantime, make do.

Julia Brabazon's flat assertion that Harry Clavering cannot afford her - that she cannot live on what he can earn - puts her on Trollope's shady side, though from her own point of view she is trying to do right by Harry as well as herself.

(Nearly) always fair, Trollope allows Julia to make a strong case for the different positions of men and women in their society---Harry, as she says, has it all before him; but if she lets this one chance slip, she may never have another:

    "But nothing is anything without your love."
    "Psha! Love, indeed. What could I do for you but ruin you? You know it as well as I do; but you are selfish enough to wish to continue a romance which would be absolutely destructive to me, though for a while it might afford a pleasant relaxation to your graver studies. Harry, you can choose in the world. You have divinity, and law, and literature, and art. And if debarred from love now by the exigencies of labour, you will be as fit for love in ten years' time as you are at present."
    "But I do love now."
    "Be a man, then, and keep it to yourself. Love is not to be our master. You can choose, as I say; but I have had no choice,---no choice but to be married well, or to go out like a snuff of a candle. I don't like the snuff of a candle, and, therefore, I am going to be married well."
    "And that suffices?"
    "It must suffice. And why should it not suffice?

But of course, we know Trollope well enough to know that Julia is condemning herself out of her own mouth here, and that she will pay for such a choice---particularly for her assertion that she can get along without love.

Having allowed Trollope to be - nearly - always fair, I must say that I have a problem with the way he stacks the deck here.

Of course he's underscoring the foolishness, if not wickedness, of Julia's choice by making Lord Ongar a truly unpleasant individual (to put it mildly).

But the flipside of this is that, if Lord Ongar were simply titled and rich, there's no reason why such a marriage should not be a success. Marriages like that were made every day and the fact that Trollope disapproved of them does not change the fact.

I'm also just going to put this out there---

There are some truly HORRIBLE men in this book.

To the point where it's increasingly disturbing.

(And one awful woman, of course!)

With more apologies to Bryan--- :)

The Claverings, as we know, was written in 1864, so that in its writing it pre-dates Can You Forgive Her?, with its whole-of-novel consideration of what it might mean for a woman to be - as Harry calls Julia here - a jilt. It seems that this is something that was increasingly concerning Trollope, perhaps an aspect of his growing concern for the morality of society generally, which we have commented upon with respect to a number of his novels.

On a less serious note, I have been struck by the way this phrase is used in this novel, here and later:

Chapter 1:

    "And what is it you want? I suppose you do not mean to fight Lord Ongar, and that if you did you would not come to me."
    "Fight him! No; I have no quarrel with him. Fighting him would do no good."

The Claverings appeared at around the same time as Phineas Finn, with its famous set-piece duel---and the characters' mostly outraged reaction to it.

The shifting attitude towards duelling across the course of the 19th century is one of those interesting historical touches that we can cull from our reading---the change from it being the hallmark of gentlemanly conduct to something as wicked as it was foolish.

Still, the repeated assertion in this novel that there's no point in fighting is a prosaic reaction that I haven't encountered before.

(ETA: Trollope has a bit more to say about that, rather more regretfully phrased, late in the book.)

Before we move on, I just wanted to say a word about what Harry Clavering obviously considers an opprobrious term---

Chapter 1:

    "Our ages by the register are the same, but I am ten years older than you by the world. I have two hundred a year, and I owe at this moment six hundred pounds. You have, perhaps, double as much, and would lose half of that if you married. You are an usher at a school."
    "No, madam, I am not an usher at a school."
    "Well, well, you know I don't mean to make you angry."
    "At the present moment, I am a schoolmaster, and if I remained so, I might fairly look forward to a liberal income."

An usher was a sort of "under-teacher", who usually taught the younger boys at a school but was also required to act as an in-house tutor and (as we would say now) do any other crap-work that the schoolmasters couldn't be bothered with. When most schools were boarding-schools, that could mean effectively being treated like a servant; although given what Harry is paid for his services, he is obviously at a fairly "superior" establishment.

Given one subplot in this novel, it is reasonable to compare an usher to a curate---with the minister getting the income but the curate doing more work for a lot less.

Many struggling young men - most of them without Harry Claverings advantages and education - did end up as ushers, and there are descriptions of the many pains of their position in various 18th and 19th century novels.

As we gather from Harry's reaction, there is a class implication in the term: he considers such a position beneath him, and takes Julia's use of it as an insult.

One more detail here that we just need to make explicit, from the same quote:

Chapter 1:

"I have two hundred a year, and I owe at this moment six hundred pounds. You have, perhaps, double as much, and would lose half of that if you married."

Chapter 2:

Harry's life hitherto had been prosperous and very creditable. He had gone early to Cambridge, and at twenty-two had become a fellow of his college. This fellowship he could hold for five or six years without going into orders. It would then lead to a living, and would in the meantime afford a livelihood...

The key detail here is that you could only hold a fellowship as an unmarried man; to marry, you had to resign it which, as Julia rightly notes, would slash his income in half.

This is something we come across in a great many novels of this time: men who could not afford to marry because of this attendant loss of income (though in fact there was pressure on the universities about this, and Cambridge at least began to relax its policy from the 1860s).

The other interesting detail is that Harry went to Cambridge rather than Oxford, which perhaps accounts for his choice of career: Cambridge was known as a centre of mathematics, science and languages, rather than for theology and "the classics" as was Oxford; though as we see Harry was still expected to take orders at the end of his studies.

The opening phase of Chapter 2 deals with Harry's choice of career, which is interesting in a couple of different ways.

The first is the way in which he dismisses any idea of becoming a clergyman: perhaps not surprising given the example his father sets! - though this is actually in keeping with the more serious view of the clergy that developed over the course of the 19th century: it was no longer good enough to assume that if you were a gentleman you naturally had "enough" faith and to treat such a position as just a job like any other, as had long been the case (and as Mr Clavering obviously did).

But his career choice is something new:

Indeed he had chosen his profession, and his mode of entering it. He would become a civil engineer, and perhaps a land surveyor, and with this view he would enter himself as a pupil in the great house of Beilby and Burton. The terms even had been settled. He was to pay a premium of five hundred pounds and join Mr Burton, who was settled in the town of Stratton, for twelve months before he placed himself in Mr Beilby's office in London...

Over the second half of the 19th century a great many new professions opened themselves up to gentleman---a great change from the stifling triumvirate of church / army / law that had previously prevailed.

But even the use of a phrase like had chosen his profession shows a shifting attitude.

We've discussed before in other contexts the changing ideas about work for gentlemen, the shift from no-gentleman-should-soil-his-hands to gentlemen-should-have-a-profession.

Harry is an interesting example because his background is almost classically "county": country upbringing, well-connected though not noble, a university career; but he still required to make his own way in the world. We see that he is able to think outside the box.

(Alas, all this seems to promise more than eventuates; or rather, what eventuates is---well, we shall see...)

Thanks for the introduction, Liz!

There's something in Chapter 2 that I don't fully understand: The living of Clavering, which Harry and his father "may buy at the next presentation to Clavering". Is there some sort of time limit on the appointment?
I'm also struck by Harry's choice of profession, it is in a similar line to what Mr Copperhead in Phoebe jr worked in, isn't it?

I’m here, probably lurking. I was perhaps a third of the way through this when other sirens called, and I’m very glad to get back to it, especially with your guidance, Liz, and the group’s insights.

>27 MissWatson:

The situation which we tend to encounter in novels is that there is a church living in the gift of the local landowner, and he decides which minister will receive it. Ordinarily it is handled simply like an appointment.

However, in reality the landowner could sell the living to the next appointee instead, and this is what is referenced here. "The next presentation to Clavering" means whenever a new minister is required (when Mr Clavering dies, retires or resigns for some other reason). Sir Hugh being what he is, the living will be sold rather than given to the next appointee, even if (or particularly if) that appointee is his own cousin.

New word: having the right to appoint a clergyman to a living was called an "advowson". :)

Mr Copperhead is the head of the company that finances the building of the railways (and makes the profits from it); Beilby and Burton are the hired experts who plan the building. So the same area but a very different level.

>28 Matke:

Welcome, Gail!

A very different but equally interesting detail in Chapter 2 is the business of Julia's debt, which shines a light on 19th century financial practices.

Trollope isn't explicit about it, but we can perhaps infer that Julia contracted her £600 debt buying new clothes in which to captivate Lord Ongar.

The point is made that once Julia marries, her husband automatically becomes responsible for her debts as she is no longer in control of her own finances.

This is revealing (and to us, rather disturbing):

But in truth her debts were a great torment to her; and yet how trifling they were when compared with the wealth of the man who was to become her husband in six weeks! Let her marry him, and not pay them, and he probably would never be the wiser. They would get themselves paid almost without his knowledge, perhaps altogether without his hearing of them. But yet she feared him, knowing him to be greedy about money; and, to give her such merit as was due to her, she felt the meanness of going to her husband with debts on her shoulder. She had five thousand pounds of her own; but the very settlement which gave her a noble dower, and which made the marriage so brilliant, made over this small sum in its entirety to her lord. She had been wrong not to tell the lawyer of her trouble when he had brought the paper for her to sign; but she had not told him.

Julia is hoping, we see, that her debts, once redirected to Lord Ongar, will fall into the hands of his agent, or steward, or whoever manages his household, and be paid without further comment; a man with £60,000 a year certainly isn't going to be bothering himself about that level of finance.

We also see that the marriage settlements have left Julia with nothing of her own: she will have only what her husband chooses to give her.

The devil in the detail here is that this arrangement has been negotiated by Sir Hugh---and as we get to know him better, we might well wonder if he wanted Julia in this sort of trap, totally dependent upon her husband (and he well knows what kind of husband!).

Though to give the same devil his due, we later learn that he also negotiated for some other rights for Julia.

But the takeaway message from this uncomfortable passage is the comment, But yet she feared him; which is soon enough followed by an explanation of why Julia kept silent during the settlements: But {Sir Hugh} was only her brother-in-law, and she feared to speak to him.

Julia presents herself to Harry as a woman coolly in charge of her own destiny but there is an ominous sense about all this.

(Also observing that while we often hear about "settlements" - usually at the end of a novel rather than the beginning! - we don't usually get this level of detail. That is also ominous.)

I promise I will move on before much longer! - BUT - Chapter 2 is full of notable details including this remarkable summation of Mr Clavering's conduct as rector and the relationship between Harry's parents, which is a piece of sad realism that, perhaps, we hardly expect from Trollope:

(I also highlight a passage that proves ironic later:)

    Alas! what time did he give to his duties? He kept a most energetic curate, whom he allowed to do almost what he would with the parish. Every-day services he did prohibit, declaring that he would not have the parish church made ridiculous; but in other respects his curate was the pastor. Once every Sunday he read the service, and once every Sunday he preached, and he resided in his parsonage ten months every year. His wife and daughters went among the poor,—and he smoked cigars in his library. Though not yet fifty, he was becoming fat and idle,---unwilling to walk, and not caring much even for such riding as the bishop had left to him. And, to make matters worse,---far worse, he knew all this of himself, and understood it thoroughly. "I see a better path, and know how good it is, but I follow ever the worse." He was saying that to himself daily, and was saying it always without hope.
    And his wife had given him up. She had given him up, not with disdainful rejection, nor with contempt in her eye, or censure in her voice, not with diminution of love or of outward respect. She had given him up as a man abandons his attempts to make his favourite dog take the water. He would fain that the dog he loves should dash into the stream as other dogs will do. It is, to his thinking, a noble instinct in a dog. But his dog dreads the water. As, however, he has learned to love the beast, he puts up with this mischance, and never dreams of banishing poor Ponto from his hearth because of this failure. And so it was with Mrs Clavering and her husband at the rectory...

Also noting for future reference:

The world had been too comfortable for him, and also too narrow; so that he had sunk into idleness. The world had given him much to eat and drink, but it had given him little to do, and thus he had gradually fallen away from his early purposes, till his energy hardly sufficed for the doing of that little. His living gave him eight hundred a year; his wife's fortune nearly doubled that. He had married early, and had got his living early, and had been very prosperous...

...though of course, the critical passage in Chapter 2 is this:

    "In our church the life of a clergyman is as the life of any other gentleman,---within very broad limits."
    "Then why did Bishop Proudie interfere with your hunting?"
    "Limits may be very broad, Harry, and yet exclude hunting. Bishop Proudie was vulgar and intrusive, such being the nature of his wife, who instructs him; but if you were in orders I should be very sorry to see you take to hunting."

---and while in general we may not, perhaps, be very sympathetic with Mr Clavering (nor with Trollope, once he gets on his hunting hobby-horse), I think we can all probably agree with this bit of editorialisation:

Then there had come a new bishop, and the new bishop had sent for him,---nay, finally had come to him, and had lectured him with blatant authority. "My lord," said the parson of Clavering, plucking up something of his past energy, as the colour rose to his face, "I think you are wrong in this. I think you are specially wrong to interfere with me in this way on your first coming among us. You feel it to be your duty, no doubt; but to me it seems that you mistake your duty. But, as the matter is one simply of my own pleasure, I shall give it up." After that Mr Clavering hunted no more, and never spoke a good word to any one of the bishop of his diocese. For myself, I think it as well that clergymen should not hunt; but had I been the parson of Clavering, I should, under those circumstances, have hunted double...

Thanks Liz for your welcome and introduction, no need for any more apologies!
I have read and enjoyed the Barchester series and The Way We Are Now, and plan to read the Palliser novels next year.
I have the kindle ebook (650 pages) and have leisurely read the first three chapters today.
I think I have a feel for the setting and the characters and happy to read on tomorrow.

I've started and have read the first two chapters. I liked being thrown right into the story, though it does make it a little hard to know which details will be most important - so I appreciate the commentary. I'll probably read a few more chapters tonight.

The Proudies! I want to do a Barchester series reread at some point. They were the first Trollope books I read and I'd like to reread them now that I know so much more about Trollope and the time period through your group reads, Liz.

>34 bryanoz:

Good to hear, Bryan - please do post any questions or comments on your way through. :)

>35 japaul22:

Glad to be of service!

Chapter 3 is rather an awful one, in a quiet sort of way, as the wedding of Julia and Lord Ongar looms. It is made clear enough what she is getting herself into; perhaps less obvious at this point is that she has, or ought to have had, her sister before her as a warning against this sort of marriage.

This two-edged comment has a certain ambiguity about it---

As a sister she had striven for a sister's welfare, but as a woman she could not keep herself from comparisons which might tend to show that after all, well as Julia was doing, she was not doing better than her elder sister had done...

---but there is none at all in this:

    "It's quite a wonder what good hours and quiet living have done for him in so short a time. I was observing him as he walked yesterday, and he put his feet to the ground as firmly almost as Hugh does."
    "Did he indeed? I hope he won't have the habit of putting his hand down firmly as Hugh does sometimes."
    "As for that," said Lady Clavering, with a little tremor, "I don't think there's much difference between them..."

I still feel like this is deck-stacking, though. As we've said before re: Trollope, it's all very well to argue that women (or anyone) should only make the "right" kind of marriage; but that presupposes the right kind of marriage presents itself: life isn't always as cooperative as a novel in that respect. But of course, it is because Julia (if not Hermione) did have an alternative that her punishment is so severe.

There are some dreadful things lurking here in Victorian euphemism-ese: debauched is a word that covered, literally, a multitude of sins; given his general state of debility, some commentators have read it as Lord Ongar being syphilitic, not unlikely given the rates of transmission at this time. (In which case Sir Hugh arranging this marriage is effectively criminal!)

Even if not, there is also this:

His friends at last had taught him to believe that his only chance of saving himself lay in marriage, and therefore he had engaged himself to Julia Brabazon, purchasing her at the price of a brilliant settlement...

The idea that a (lawful) sexual outlet was a sort of "cure-all" was quite prevalent at this time; though that idea is left lurking behind the foregrounded one of Lord Ongar's reformation with respect to drinking and smoking. Unspoken is the other behaviours he would presumably be giving up.

Sixty thousand pounds a year is none too much...

Meanwhile---

Chapter 3:

Harry, when he looked at Florence Burton, at once declared to himself that she was plain. Anything more unlike Julia Brabazon never appeared in the guise of a young lady... Poor Florence Burton was short of stature, was brown, meagre, and poor-looking. So said Harry Clavering to himself...

Chapter 4:

When tea was over, Harry had made his parting speech to Mrs Burton, and that lady had kissed him, and bade God bless him. "I'll see you for a moment before you go, in my office, Harry," Mr Burton had said. Then Harry had gone downstairs, and some one else had gone boldly with him, and they two were sitting together in the dingy brown room. After that I need hardly tell my reader what had become of Harry Clavering's perpetual life-enduring heart's misery...

I mentioned The Bertrams up above, with its lengthy consideration of how much was "enough" to get married on (particularly if a couple was to live in London); and we find Trollope on some of the same ground here---with this significant difference, that while it is again the woman who hesitates, in Florence's case it is because she has her doubts about Harry's ability to live on a restricted income.

We should note that Florence is variously vindicated, with her father here - and, more significantly, Harry's father later - in agreement with her:

Chapter 4:

    "What I shall have to give Florence will be very little,---that is, comparatively little. She shall have a hundred a year, when she marries, till I die; and after my death and her mother's she will share with the others. But a hundred a year will be nothing to you."
    "Won't it, sir? I think a very great deal of a hundred a year. I'm to have a hundred and fifty from the office; and I should be ready to marry on that to-morrow."
    "You couldn't live on such an income,---unless you were to alter your habits very much."
    "But I will alter them."
    "We shall see. You are so placed that by marrying you would lose a considerable income; and I would advise you to put off thinking of it for the next two years."
    "My belief is, that settling down would be the best thing in the world to make me work."
    "We'll try what a year will do..."

As with many of Trollope's novels, in The Claverings his subplots echo and comment upon each other---though in this case without any humorously intended material (which is why it was two volumes not three!).

With this in mind, we should note that Harry's intention of altering his habits, which Mr Burton clearly has his doubts about, is set against the revelation of the outcome of Lord Ongar's marital reformation...

This is rather shocking:

Chapter 4:

It was known to all the Claverings,—and even to all others who cared about such things,—that Lord and Lady Ongar were not happy together, and it had been already said that Lady Ongar had misconducted herself. There was a certain count whose name had come to be mingled with hers in a way that was, to say the least of it, very unfortunate... During most of their time they had been in Italy, and now, as Harry knew, they were at Florence. He had heard that Lord Ongar had declared his intention of suing for a divorce; but that he supposed to be erroneous, as the two were still living under the same roof...

---though I think the worst thing comes in the middle of this:

Sir Hugh Clavering had declared, in Mrs. Clavering's hearing, though but little disposed in general to make many revelations to any of the family at the rectory, "that he did not intend to take his sister-in-law's part. She had made her own bed, and she must lie upon it. She had known what Lord Ongar was before she had married him, and the fault was her own." So much Sir Hugh had said, and, in saying it, had done all that in him lay to damn his sister-in-law's fair fame...

This from the man who socialised with Lord Ongar, who invited him into his house, and who brokered the marriage.

By the very nature of Victorian society, Julia could not have entirely "known" what she was getting into. Sir Hugh obviously did---and not only let her go ahead, helped with the arrangements.

There seems to me a measure of sadism in this, a sense that Sir Hugh wanted Julia punished for something; perhaps for seeing him as he really is, as that comment to Hermione in >37 lyzard: suggests.

And this:

Chapter 5:

    "But you forget that not a syllable has been proved against her, or been attempted to be proved. She has never left him, and now she has been with him in his last moments. I don't think you ought to be the first to turn against her."
    "If she would remain abroad, I would do the best I could for her. She chooses to return home; and as I think she's wrong, I won't have her here;—that's all. You don't suppose that I go about the world accusing her?"

You don't have to go about accusing her: you just close your doors to her, and it achieves the same result.

And this:

    "Hugh thinks that she should remain abroad for some time, and indeed I am not sure but that would be best. At any rate he made me write to her, and advise her to stay. He declared that if she came at once he would do nothing for her. The truth is, he does not want to have her here, for if she were again in the house he would have to take her part, if ill-natured things were said."
    "That's cowardly," said Harry, stoutly.
    "Don't say that, Harry, till you have heard it all. If he believes these things, he is right not to wish to meddle. He is very hard, and always believes evil..."

We should note that Hermione knows about Harry and Florence's engagement almost as soon as it happens: this point becomes important later.

>22 lyzard: It's a good thing you warned us about the horrible men in this book, because I'm already having misgivings about Harry, too. His conversation with Florence in Chapter 4 was unsettling, especially this: "I think it best when the money comes from the husband."

>42 MissWatson:

You might want to keep that line in mind, going forward.

Anyway---Lord Ongar soon fulfills his side of the marital bargain by dying, and Julia finds herself a twenty-five-year-old widow with a country property and seven thousand a year.

However---

The striking thing here, and we've seen before how vulnerable women could be in this respect, is that Julia has no friends: she presumably has "acquaintances" from her London days, but she has no-one she is close to---no immediate family but Hermione---and no-one to support her in her trouble but her and Sir Hugh.

This makes Sir Hugh's power over her almost absolute: there is no-one else to take her part---and in refusing to do so, he damns her before the world.

In spite of Hermione's dismal summation of her husband, that, "He always believes evil", it is hard to think that, knowing Julia and having known Lord Ongar, Hugh really believes that Julia is guilty of anything. It feels far more like him taking pleasure in hurting both her and Hermione just for the sake of it. In fact his having brokered the marriage in the first place feels like another aspect of this: why else would he stir himself, when he never does anything for anyone?

The situation therefore - at least somewhat - justifies Harry becoming Julia's "agent" in England: there literally is no-one else who can do anything for her, and the relationship between their families (certainly as the Victorians, with their extended ideas of "connections", would have seen it) makes him just sufficiently "family" to remove any overt scandal...except of course that deriving from Julia herself.

Hmm.

Chapter 5:

On the whole, he was proud that he had been selected for the commission, as he liked to think of himself as one to whom things happened which were out of the ordinary course. His only objection to Florence was that she had come to him so much in the ordinary course.

Not "hmm" so much, but something else to keep in mind (you'll understand why presently).

Chapter 5:

The evening was very fine, but he went down to the station in a cab, because he would not meet Lady Ongar in soiled boots.

:D

One of the rare digressions in this novel - and it is less that than an echo of the main action, typical of Trollope - comes in the unlikely courtship (if you can even call it that) of Fanny Clavering by Mr Saul, her father's curate.

We've had what we might be inclined to consider some dismaying introductory descriptions of Mr Saul---

Chapter 2:

"It seems to me that a clergyman has nothing to do in life unless he is always preaching and teaching. Look at Saul,"---Mr Saul was the curate of Clavering---"he is always preaching and teaching. He is doing the best he can; and what a life of it he has. He has literally thrown off all worldly cares,---and consequently everybody laughs at him, and nobody loves him."

****

"As for Saul, it is impossible that you should become such a man as he. It is not that he mortifies his flesh, but that he has no flesh to mortify. He is unconscious of the flavour of venison, or the scent of roses, or the beauty of women."

****

Mr Saul was very tall and very thin, with a tall thin head, and weak eyes, and a sharp, well-cut nose, and, so to say, no lips, and very white teeth, with no beard, and a well-cut chin. His face was so thin that his cheekbones obtruded themselves unpleasantly. He wore a long rusty black coat, and a high rusty black waistcoat, and trousers that were brown with dirty roads and general ill-usage. Nevertheless, it never occurred to any one that Mr Saul did not look like a gentleman, not even to himself, to whom no ideas whatever on that subject ever presented themselves. But that he was a gentleman I think he knew well enough, and was able to carry himself before Sir Hugh and his wife with quite as much ease as he could do in the rectory. Once or twice he had dined at the great house; but Lady Clavering had declared him to be a bore, and Sir Hugh had called him "that most offensive of all animals, a clerical prig." It had therefore been decided that he was not to be asked to the great house any more...

In the wake of all this, we are probably as stunned as the young lady herself, when Mr Saul delivers one of literature's most unlikely marriage proposals, in the middle of a muddy lane, in the middle of a downpour:

Chapter 6:

    It had come on to rain hard, and she held her umbrella low over her head. He also was walking with an open umbrella in his hand, so that they were not very close to each other. Fanny, as she stepped on impetuously, put her foot into the depth of a pool, and splashed herself thoroughly.
    "Oh dear, oh dear," said she; "this is very disagreeable."
    "Miss Clavering," said he, "I have been looking for an opportunity to speak to you, and I do not know when I may find another so suitable as this." She still believed that some proposition was to be made to her which would be disagreeable, and perhaps impertinent,---but it never occurred to her that Mr Saul was in want of a wife.
    "Doesn't it rain too hard for talking?" she said.
    "As I have begun I must go on with it now," he replied, raising his voice a little, as though it were necessary that he should do so to make her hear him through the rain and darkness. She moved a little further away from him with unthinking irritation; but still he went on with his purpose. "Miss Clavering, I know that I am ill-suited to play the part of a lover;---very ill suited." Then she gave a start and again splashed herself sadly. "I have never read how it is done in books, and have not allowed my imagination to dwell much on such things."
    "Mr Saul, don't go on; pray don't." Now she did understand what was coming...

---and I'm just highlighting this also for future reference:

Chapter 6:

...she had an untroubled conviction that if she did marry, her husband should have a house and an income. She had no reliance on her own power of living on a potato, and with one new dress every year. A comfortable home, with nice, comfortable things around her, ease in money matters, and elegance in life, were charms with which she had not quarrelled...

Meanwhile---I trust I'm not the only one who, as early as Chapter 6, wants to smack Harry Clavering around the head?---

    "What I meant was that at such a time she would probably wish to see no one but people on business,---unless it was some one near to her, like yourself or Hugh."
    "Hugh will not go to her."
    "But you will do so; will you not?"
    "Before long I will. You don't seem to understand, Harry,---and, perhaps, it would be odd if you did,---that I can't run up to town and back as I please. I ought not to tell you this, I dare say, but one feels as though one wanted to talk to some one about one's affairs. At the present moment, I have not the money to go,---even if there were no other reason." These last words she said almost in a whisper, and then she looked up into the young man's face, to see what he thought of the communication she had made him.
    "Oh, money!" he said. "You could soon get money. But I hope it won't be long before you go."

As per >46 lyzard:---

Chapter 7:

A very hard-working, steady, intelligent man was Mr Theodore Burton, with a bald head, a high forehead, and that look of constant work about him which such men obtain. Harry Clavering could not bring himself to take a liking to him, because he wore cotton gloves and had an odious habit of dusting his shoes with his pocket-handkerchief. Twice Harry saw him do this on the first day of their acquaintance, and he regretted it exceedingly. The cotton gloves too were offensive, as were also the thick shoes which had been dusted; but the dusting was the great sin...

>49 lyzard: I can't run up to town and back as I please. That is the most chilling sentences in the book so far, for me.

>51 MissWatson:

Yes, to me this is one of the disturbing elements of this novel. Julia's situation is foregrounded and while we're clearly supposed to think that she "asked for it", Hermione's situation is as bad or worse, in its way. Are we supposed to think that she too deserves to be punished because she made an "interested" marriage? Julia may have had a choice, but we've no reason to suppose that Hermione did; with no family, no friends, no money, what was she supposed to do?

And let's not forget that it's only because Hermione married Sir Hugh that Julia has had a roof over her head for the past few years.

The matter-of-fact way that the circumstances of Hermione's marriage are progressively revealed is, as you say, chilling.

And in conjunction with all that we have Julia's own account of her marriage, which goes as far as Trollope could go and leaves us to fill in the gaps:

Chapter 7:

    "I fear that you have not been happy," said he, "since I saw you last."
    "Happy!" she replied. "I have lived such a life as I did not think any man or woman could be made to live on this side the grave. I will be honest with you, Harry. Nothing but the conviction that it could not be for long has saved me from destroying myself. I knew that he must die!"
    "Oh, Lady Ongar!"
    "Yes, indeed; that is the name he gave me; and because I consented to take it from him, he treated me;---O heavens! how am I to find words to tell you what he did, and the way in which he treated me. A woman could not tell it to a man..."

****

    "I had been very poor, and had been so placed that poverty, even such poverty as mine, was a curse to me. You know what I gave up because I feared that curse. Was I to be foiled at last, because such a creature as that wanted to shirk out of his bargain? I knew there were some who would say I had been false. Hugh Clavering says so now, I suppose. But they never should say I had left him to die alone in a foreign land."
    "Did he ask you to leave him?"
    "No;---but he called me that name which no woman should hear and stay."

That last is interesting---

Spoilers for He Knew He Was Right:

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Those of you who were around for the group read of He Knew He Was Right - published two years after The Claverings - might recall our discussion of what "word" was applied in that to Emily by her husband.

I'm wondering now if Trollope had put the idea into his own head here. In the later novel, Emily can't bring herself to repeat the word to her family, and consequently is intensely pressured by them to just give in to Louis---but she doesn't and won't, because she understands that doing so would be tantamount, in his mind, to a confession of guilt.

Julia takes the reverse stand here: she won't go, because that would be her confession of guilt.

Along with Julia's horror story, Chapter 7 gives us this passage, which will resonate through much of what follows:

Harry, as he heard this, felt that he was blushing. Did Lady Ongar know of his engagement with Florence Burton? Lady Clavering knew it, and might probably have told the tidings; but then, again, she might not have told them. Harry at this moment wished that he knew how it was. All that Lady Ongar said to him would come with so different a meaning according as she did, or did not know that fact. But he had no mind to tell her of the fact himself. He declared to himself that he hoped she knew it, as it would serve to make them both more comfortable together; but he did not think that it would do for him to bring forward the subject, neck and heels as it were. The proper thing would be that she should congratulate him, but this she did not do...

Trollope also offers that passage in conjunction with this:

Chapter 8:

I fear he speculated as he went along as to what might have been his condition in the world had he never seen Florence Burton. First he asked himself, whether, under any circumstances, he would have wished to marry a widow, and especially a widow by whom he had already been jilted. Yes; he thought that he could have forgiven her even that, if his own heart had not changed; but he did not forget to tell himself again how lucky it was for him that his heart was changed. What countess in the world, let her have what park she might, and any imaginable number of thousands a year, could be so sweet, so nice, so good, so fitting for him as his own Florence Burton? Then he endeavoured to reflect what happened when a commoner married the widow of a peer...

Chapter 8:

At half-past six, the time named by Theodore Burton, he found himself at the door in Onslow Crescent, and was at once shown up into the drawing-room. He knew that Mr. Burton had a family, and he had pictured to himself an untidy, ugly house, with an untidy, motherly woman going about with a baby in her arms. Such would naturally be the home of a man who dusted his shoes with his pocket-handkerchief...

****

The dinner was plain, but good, and Harry after a while became happy and satisfied, although he had come to the house with something almost like a resolution to find fault. Men, and women also, do frequently go about in such a mood, having unconscionably from some small circumstance, prejudged their acquaintances, and made up their mind that their acquaintances should be condemned. Influenced in this way, Harry had not intended to pass a pleasant evening, and would have stood aloof and been cold, had it been possible to him...

From this point, however - and rather refreshingly - we have Theodore Burton for an "outside eye" view of Harry Clavering.

The other interesting thing here is Theodore's view of Harry's university career. This is something very unusual in a novel of this time, the suggestion that what Theodore - and no doubt Trollope himself - considers "real work" is superior to the public school / university background and the classical study that was supposed to be the bedrock of a gentleman's career.

This is another aspect of the shifting 19th century view of "work" and "career", though we know that Trollope's own view of the matter was not in line with mainstream thinking---and that he damned himself with certain critics by revealing how far he considered novel-writing a job like any other. But set against this we have the point here made via Theodore, of the value of creativity.

We know too how much Trollope was against the idea of "competition", whether in matters of education or in striving for a government position (we saw that in The Three Clerks); and we might also recall that The Bertrams opens with Arthur Wilkinson crashing and burning in his university exams.

Plus the final point that Trollope was a very late bloomer---to which perhaps we might ascribe Theodore's view of a man at twenty-four. :D

Chapter 8:

    "He might do very well with us if he had not got that confounded fellowship; but having got that, he thinks the hard work of life is pretty well over with him."
    "I don't suppose he can be so foolish as that, Theodore."
    "I know well what such men are, and I know the evil that is done to them by the cramming they endure. They learn many names of things,---high-sounding names, and they come to understand a great deal about words. It is a knowledge that requires no experience and very little real thought. But it demands much memory; and when they have loaded themselves in this way, they think that they are instructed in all things. After all, what can they do that is of real use to mankind? What can they create?"
    "I suppose they are of use."
    "I don't know it. A man will tell you, or pretend to tell you,---for the chances are ten to one that he is wrong,---what sort of lingo was spoken in some particular island or province six hundred years before Christ. What good will that do any one, even if he were right? And then see the effect upon the men themselves! At four-and-twenty a young fellow has achieved some wonderful success, and calls himself by some outlandish and conceited name---a double first, or something of the kind. Then he thinks he has completed everything, and is too vain to learn anything afterwards. The truth is, that at twenty-four no man has done more than acquire the rudiments of his education. The system is bad from beginning to end..."

I’m up to chapter 10. I wonder if Trollope is setting up Julia and Hermione’s marriage choices (for money) vs Florence Burton and Cecilia Burton who seem to have chosen a marriage of love that also brings modest but comfortable income.
The consequences seem pretty harsh for the Julia and hermione, though Julia, at least did have a different option, as we saw at the beginning. I’m finding the contrast between Theodore and Cecilia and Sir Hugh and Hermione striking.

>59 japaul22:

I would agree with that: Trollope likes these compare-and-contrast scenarios, though as noted there's no room in this narrative for the comic version he often includes. The correct artistic choice, such would have been very jarring against the situations of Julia and Hermione.

Chapter 9 puts us back in the debate about how much is enough to get married on---and while it will be Florence who insists upon a longer waiting period, I don't think we're inclined to argue with either of her reasons:

Florence had made up her mind that she would be in no hurry about it. Harry was in a hurry; but that was a matter of course. He was a quick-blooded, impatient, restless being. She was slower, and more given to consideration. It would be better that they should wait, even if it were for five or six years. She had no fear of poverty for herself. She had lived always in a house in which money was much regarded, and among people who were of inexpensive habits. But such had not been his lot, and it was her duty to think of the mode of life which might suit him. He would not be happy as a poor man,---without comforts around him, which would simply be comforts to him though they would be luxuries to her...

Florence is clearly right in her feeling that Harry is both emotionally immature and accustomed to luxuries he won't be able to afford; and the suggestion that once the step has been taken he'll just settle down and accept things seems to me dangerously naive.

However---note the use of that very ominous word, "prudent", in the chapter title.

This is one of those areas where I feel like Trollope has a blind spot: his conviction that everything will work out and there shouldn't be too much sweating of the details. (Not to mention the suggestion that a woman should grab what she can get while she can get it.)

To Trollope's credit we get another opposing view in the following chapter, and one that has weight since it comes from someone who shares Harry's own views of what is necessary for "comfort"---

Chapter 10:

    "I suppose you won't marry just yet," said the father. "Including everything, you would not have five hundred a year, and that would be very close work in London."
    "It's not quite decided yet, sir. As far as I am myself concerned, I think that people are a great deal too prudent about money. I believe I could live as a married man on a hundred a year, if I had no more; and as for London, I don't see why London should be more expensive than any other place. You can get exactly what you want in London, and make your halfpence go farther there than anywhere else."
    "And your sovereigns go quicker," said the rector.
    "All that is wanted," said Harry, "is the will to live on your income, and a little firmness in carrying out your plans."
    The rector of Clavering, as he heard all this wisdom fall from his son's lips, looked at Harry's expensive clothes, at the ring on his finger, at the gold chain on his waistcoat, at the studs in his shirt, and smiled gently...

This passage becomes all the more important going forward, as we are given increasing evidence of Harry Clavering's capacity for "firmness".

But despite this - and despite Theodore, increasingly the novel's voice of reason, ranging himself on Florence's side - we're still left with the clear suggestion that it is Florence and her "prudence" who is in the wrong.

Chapter 9:

    "It's all her fault," said he, continuing to snip a piece of worsted with a pair of scissors as he spoke. "She's too prudent by half."
    "Poor Florence!"
    "You can't but know that I should work three times as much if she had given me a different answer. It stands to reason any man would work under such circumstances as that. Not that I am idle, I believe. I do as much as any other man about the place."
    "I won't have my worsted destroyed all the same. Theodore says that Florence is right."
    "Of course he does; of course he'll say I'm wrong. I won't ask her again,---that's all."
    "Oh, Harry! don't say that. You know you'll ask her. You would to-morrow, if she were here."
    "You don't know me, Cecilia, or you would not say so. When I have made up my mind to a thing, I am generally firm about it."

>61 lyzard: >62 lyzard: To be honest, I am very much on Florence's side here, because to me Harry looks more and more like a spoilt child.

>63 MissWatson:

Only-son-and-brother syndrome, perhaps? He's not used to being thwarted, nor to being criticised.

I'm not going to keep quoting Harry's petulances, because if I did we'd be here until doomsday; but overall I found a curious disconnect between Trollope's apologies for his "hero" and his pleas to the reader not to judge him too harshly and the behaviour he actually presents.

Harry continues to complain to himself about the way that his engagement is talked about by the Burton faction; but it is he who makes the more public declaration, with Florence invited to the rectory and a guest at Mary Clavering's wedding. She even has the dubious honour of dining at the "great house".

The Claverings take to Florence at once, in spite of Mr Clavering's reflections on her lack of fortune; and she finds herself at the centre of a rush of family business, including becoming Fanny's confidante in the matter of how she could never ever possibly think of poor Mr Saul.

The take-home from this section, however, is Mr Clavering's summation of Sir Hugh. we're not given reason to think much of the rector, first and last, but we're with him on this:

Chapter 10:

"He is a man," said the father to the son, "who always does a rude thing if it be in his power... He has greater skill in making himself odious than any man I ever knew."

...while the following chapter gives us this gem of a conversation:

Chapter 11:

    "I don't know what's come to my uncle of late," said Hugh, after a while. "I think I shall have to drop them at the rectory altogether."
    "He never had much to say for himself."
    "But he has a mode of expressing himself without speaking, which I do not choose to put up with at my table. The fact is they are going to the mischief at the rectory. His eldest girl has just married a curate."
    "Fielding has got a living."
    "It's something very small then, and I suppose Fanny will marry that prig they have here. My uncle himself never does any of his own work, and now Harry is going to make a fool of himself. I used to think he would fall on his legs."
    "He is a clever fellow."
    "Then why is he such a fool as to marry such a girl as this, without money, good looks, or breeding? It's well for you he is such a fool, or else you wouldn't have a chance."
    "I don't see that at all," said Archie.
    "Julia always had a sneaking fondness for Harry, and if he had waited would have taken him now. She was very near making a fool of herself with him once, before Lord Ongar turned up."

---and on the back of this comes the revelation that Sir Hugh is now trying to broker a marriage between Julia, or rather Julia's fortune, and the feckless Archie; a situation that effectively leaves Julia between the devil and the deep, with the arrival on the scene of Count Pateroff---according to gossip and her own account to Harry, the "other man" with whom she is supposed to have misbehaved herself.

>66 lyzard: I am almost convinced that Sir Hugh actually planned Julia's marriage to Lord Ongar and those settlements so he could lay his hands on the money with his brother Archie as the straw man...he is truly horrible.

I have read the first 12 chapters now and have enjoyed the story and this thread's comments without feeling I have had much to add. However I have found it frustrating that with Julia's marriage and her unhappy time abroad then death of Lord Ongar, all we have heard is how terrible it all was, including Julia's "sharp agony-an agony almost to death." I feel a chapter or two visiting the wedded couple would have been very constructive and added to the narrative.
Also in chapter 12, Julia "took herself to the library. How often had she heard that books afforded the surest consolation to the desolate...But this idea had faded and become faint.." I think we all know reading is the answer, seems she might miss this boon.

>67 MissWatson:

Yes, it's hard to know, isn't it? Given what we see of him, it's hard to think of another reason why he would have bothered himself for Julia's benefit---unless the mere thought of securing money to the family was enough.

But if that was the plan all along, he surely would have brought Julia straight back to Clavering afterwards, instead of the initial rejection. My only other thought there is that, perhaps by isolating her in that way, he thought he was frightening her, softening her up, with a glimpse of what her future might be, so that she'd be glad to take the refuge represented by Archie.

Either way, "horrible" is the word.

>68 bryanoz:

Hi, Bryan - thanks for checking in!

This sort of literature - or rather, the literature of this time - always shies away from that level of explicit detail in dealing with marital relations of any kind---so Trollope tells rather than shows: he puts what he thinks we need to know in Julia's mouth, after the event, so that it comes to us filtered down into what a lady might permit herself to say, and leaves the rest to our imaginations.

It's that---but it's also that this is not the story of Julia's marriage, but of Julia's punishment. We're only told enough to let us judge what she does and does not "deserve"---that is, we're given reason to believe what she tells Harry, but we're still left with the fact that she made this marriage voluntarily, "selling herself", as it is repeatedly put.

More on your last point in a moment. :)

One aspect of Julia's punishment comes to us clearly through Chapters 12 and 13, with her initial joy and pleasure in Ongar Park, and her plans for her future in regard to it, crumbling away into loneliness and disillusionment:

The price was in her hand. For a fortnight the idea clung to her, that gradually she would realize the joys of possession; but there was no moment in which she could tell herself that the joy was hers. She was now mistress of the geography of the place. There was no more losing herself amidst the shrubberies, no thought of economizing her resources. Of Mr Giles and his doings she still knew very little, but the desire of knowing much had faded. The ownership of the haystacks had become a thing tame to her, and the great cart-horses, as to every one of which she had intended to feel an interest, were matters of indifference to her. She observed that since her arrival a new name in new paint,---her own name,---was attached to the carts, and that the letters were big and glaring. She wished that this had not been done, or, at any rate, that the letters had been smaller. Then she began to think that it might be well for her to let the farm to a tenant; not that she might thus get more money, but because she felt that the farm would be a trouble. The apples had indeed quickly turned to ashes between her teeth!...

Though - voluntarily or not, at the end - Lord Ongar kept his side of the bargain in bequeathing Ongar Park and seven thousand a year to Julia, his real legacy to her is something else:

She remained at Ongar Park something over six weeks, and then, about the beginning of May, she went back to London. No one had been to see her, except Mr Sturm, the clergyman of the parish; and he, though something almost approaching to an intimacy had sprung up between them, had never yet spoken to her of his wife. She was not quite sure whether her rank might not deter him,---whether under such circumstances as those now in question, the ordinary social rules were not ordinarily broken,—whether a countess should not call on a clergyman's wife first, although the countess might be the stranger; but she did not dare to do as she would have done, had no blight attached itself to her name. She gave, therefore, no hint; she said no word of Mrs. Sturm, though her heart was longing for a kind word from some woman's mouth...

One of the things that really struck me on the way through is that there is never any suggestion made of a chaperone or companion for Julia: she is entirely alone, and does nothing to alter that situation, even though having a companion would surely have guarded her from some of the things that happen to her later. Is she so utterly alone in the world that she doesn't even have a poor relation to fill the void?

We hear much to the detriment of the late Lord Ongar, but nothing damns him to us as surely as this:

Chapter 12:

So she dismissed Mrs Button, and took herself to the library. How often had she heard that books afforded the surest consolation to the desolate. She would take to reading; not on this special day, but as the resource for many days and months, and years to come. But this idea had faded and become faint, before she had left the gloomy, damp-feeling, chill room, in which some former Lord Ongar had stored the musty volumes which he had thought fit to purchase. The library gave her no ease...

I may say, without spoilers, that there are a couple of accompanying remarks to this at different points in the novel.

Note that we've already had this from Theodore, giving us another glimpse of the Burton marriage:

Chapter 7:

"Theodore," as he had so often heard the younger Mr Burton called by loving lips, seemed to claim him as his own, called him Harry, and upbraided him with friendly warmth for not having come direct to his,---Mr Burton's,---house in Onslow Crescent. "Pray feel yourself at home there," said Mr Burton. "I hope you'll like my wife. You needn't be afraid of being made to be idle if you spend your evenings there, for we are all reading people..."

Later on, Trollope expands directly upon this, touching on the point made by Bryan in >68 bryanoz:: we might indeed be inclined to think this the worst aspect of Julia's punishment:

Chapter 45:

But hitherto her life at Tenby had not been successful. Solitary days were longer there even than they had been in London. People stared at her more; and, though she did not own it to herself, she missed greatly the comforts of her London house. As for reading, I doubt whether she did much better by the seaside than she had done in the town. Men and women say that they will read, and think so,---those, I mean, who have acquired no habit of reading,---believing the work to be, of all works, the easiest. It may be work, they think, but of all works it must be the easiest of achievement. Given the absolute faculty of reading, the task of going through the pages of a book must be, of all tasks, the most certainly within the grasp of the man or woman who attempts it! Alas, no;---if the habit be not there, of all tasks it is the most difficult. If a man have not acquired the habit of reading till he be old, he shall sooner in his old age learn to make shoes than learn the adequate use of a book. And worse again;---under such circumstances the making of shoes shall be more pleasant to him than the reading of a book. Let those who are not old,---who are still young, ponder this well. Lady Ongar, indeed, was not old, by no means too old to clothe herself in new habits. But even she was old enough to find that the doing so was a matter of much difficulty. She had her books around her; but, in spite of her books, she was sadly in want of some excitement when the letter from Clavering came to her relief...

The next phase of Julia's punishment turns up in the form of Count Pateroff and his sister, Sophie Gordeloup:

Chapter 13:

Lord Ongar, though she had nursed him to the hour of his death, earning her price, had been her bitterest enemy; and though there had been something about this count that she had respected, she had known him to be a man of intrigue and afraid of no falsehoods in his intrigues,---a dangerous man, who might perhaps now and again do a generous thing, but one who would expect payment for his generosity...

By this stage we have learned to be very wary of anything in this novel that has to do with "payment".

Count Pateroff is left ambiguous, though as I say we are given no reason to doubt Julia's account of what went on in Italy. It is likely that the count's behaviour was not so much generosity as a refusal to be Lord Ongar's tool: he must have understood what Julia really was and what Lord Ongar intended.

He must also have seen that Julia was shortly to be left a rich widow in need of a refuge: his "generosity" was a way, as he thought, to put her in his debt and her fortune within his reach.

There is an extra layer of cruelty in his subsequent behaviour, since his mere presence is enough to add to the "blight" on Julia's name, and so increase her need of the refuge of a second marriage.

Meanwhile---

I've been very hard on the men in this novel, but they are collectively almost balanced out by Sophie Gordeloup, who is just AWFUL.

But---I do have to say this---the difference is that Sophie's awfulness can be funny *if* it is directed at the right person... :)

Did we get back story on why Julia and Hermione are so alone in the world?

I see that Julia is a cautionary tale on how money can't buy happiness, but it certainly could buy her some sort of companionship! Maybe the idea is that after living with Lord Ongar, Julia realizes that her honor did mean more to her than she thought? And now she's not willing to compromise at all with the quality of person she engages with. I keep thinking that there must be plenty of wealthy circles in which Julia would be accepted with the amount of money she has. And isn't that what she thought she wanted, even if Lord Ongar had lived? She must have known when she married him that the circles with more morally high standards would be closed to her with his reputation.

>75 japaul22:

Their poverty, yes; their isolation, no:

Chapter 1:

Lord Brabazon, whose peerage had descended to him in a direct line from the time of the Plantagenets, was one of those unfortunate nobles of whom England is burdened with but few, who have no means equal to their rank. He had married late in life, and had died without a male heir. The title which had come from the Plantagenets was now lapsed; and when the last lord died, about four hundred a year was divided between his two daughters.

---and frankly it seems unlikely given this period of large families and recognition of "connections".

We aren't given enough information to know whether the marriage itself would have damaged her. Realistically, probably not.

As it is, there are two different problems here. One is Lord Ongar's other legacy, Julia's damaged reputation, about which we keep getting words like "taint" and "blight". The other is that she's in mourning---and therefore can't go back into the world to re-establish herself: that would cause a different sort of scandal. She has to go into retreat; and this is where Hugh's initial rejection of her has done so much damage, by denying her her natural bolt-hole.

Just the same, I don't believe that there isn't another relation somewhere willing, in spite of all this, to live on Julia's dime for a year---and act as a shield against what's about to descend on her...

Chapter 14 is devoted chiefly to demonstrating how very much out of his depth Harry is in attempting to deal with Count Pateroff and his sister.

Typically, he never translates his own incapacity into an understanding of Julia's inability to rid herself of them. This---

How could any decent English man or woman wish for the friendship of such a creature as that? It was thus that he thought of her as he walked away from Mount Street, making heavy accusations, within his own breast, against Lady Ongar as he did so... No doubt Lady Ongar had been subjected to very trying troubles in the last months of her husband's life, but no circumstances could justify her, if she continued to endorse the false cordiality of that horribly vulgar and evil-minded little woman...

---is a piece of obtuseness on par with his remark to Hermione that, "You could soon get money."

Harry is sufficiently exasperated with Julia at this point to dispatch to Florence what we're told is "a perfect love-letter": we hope it is, since poor Florence will be required to live on it for quite some time...

Chapter 15:

    "Well, you shall use what words you please, and how you please, because a word of truth is so pleasant after living in a world of lies. I know you will not lie to me, Harry. You never did."
    He felt that now was the moment in which he should tell her of his engagement, but he let the moment pass without using it. And, indeed, it would have been hard for him to tell. In telling such a story he would have been cautioning her that it was useless for her to love him,---and this he could not bring himself to do...

While we might despise Harry for his cowardice, at that same time we can appreciate the increasing awkwardness of the situation. Of course he should have said something during their first proper meeting, instead of assuming that "Hermione must have told her"; but having not done so, we can understand the impossibility of just dropping it into the middle of one of his increasingly emotional conversations with Julia---particularly his embarrassed sense that it would amount to warning her off. That he's ashamed to seem egotistical is both ridiculous and believable.

However---the next chapter's flip into Julia's consciousness tells us exactly how silent Harry has been: she puts his reticence down to lingering resentment, to her own widowhood---anything other than the real cause. There is nothing in his behaviour to make the thought of another women ever cross her mind.

Chapter 16:

She had learned a great deal at Clavering, though in most matters of learning she was a better instructed woman than they were whom she had met. In general knowledge and in intellect she was Fanny's superior, though Fanny Clavering was no fool; but Florence, when she came thither, had lacked something which living in such a house had given to her;---or, I should rather say, something had been given to her of which she would greatly feel the want, if it could be again taken from her. Her mother was as excellent a woman as had ever sent forth a family of daughters into the world, and I do not know that any one ever objected to her as being ignorant, or specially vulgar; but the house in Stratton was not like Clavering Rectory in the little ways of living, and this Florence Burton had been clever enough to understand. She knew that a sojourn under such a roof, with such a woman as Mrs Clavering, must make her fitter to be Harry's wife; and, therefore, when they pressed her to come again in the autumn, she said that she thought she would. She could understand, too, that Harry was different in many things from the men who had married her sisters, and she rejoiced that it was so. Poor Florence! Had he been more like them it might have been safer for her...

I’m somewhere around Chapter 21, so reading right along. I must have been in a mood before; I’m quite enjoying the book now.

But I have to say that it’s a rare novel that has this many despicable or weak or odious male characters. It’s pretty depressing from that view. At this point Florence’s father, vulgar though he may be, is the only man who has redeeming qualities.

>80 Matke: I agree that it's hard to find a real "hero"; I'm having a hard time mustering sympathy for Harry. But I do like Florence's brother Theodore, even with his boot-dusting.

I am up to chapter 18 and am enjoying the story so far, Lady Ongar seems to be making her intentions clear and I trust Harry will be honourable and stick to what he has promised, we shall see.
Thanks again Liz for your insights which certainly add to my reading experience.

>80 Matke:, >82 bryanoz:

That's great to hear, you two. :)

>80 Matke:, >81 kac522:

On a sort of related point, one thing that struck me here is that though they are considered somewhat vulgar by Harry (of course they are), it is evident that Mr and Mrs Burton have put a lot of effort into ensuring that their children are better educated than they were---which with nine children to raise is quite an effort.

We see this both in Theodore remark about Cecilia and he being "reading people", and also here where it is observed that Florence is better educated than Fanny Clavering, though the latter is from a county family in comfortable circumstances.

Florence may be the pick of the litter, as everyone seems to feel, but the Burtons have done more than their parental duty to all their children in spite of any social failings of their own.

Chapter 17:

He did not dare to trust himself with Lady Ongar. He feared that he would be led on to betray himself and to betray Florence,---to throw himself at Julia's feet and sacrifice his honesty, in spite of all his resolutions to the contrary. He felt when there as the accustomed but repentant dram-drinker might feel, when having resolved to abstain, he is called upon to sit with the full glass offered before his lips. From such temptation as that the repentant dram-drinker knows that he must fly. But though he did not go after the fire-water of Bolton Street, neither was he able to satisfy himself with the cool fountain of Onslow Crescent. He was wretched at this time,---ill-satisfied with himself and others, and was no fitting companion for Cecilia Burton. The world, he thought, had used him ill...

There's not much room for humour in The Claverings, though we get a glimmering in the interactions of the obtuse Archie Clavering and his supposedly more worldly-wise friend, Captain Boodle.

However---this is not funny at all, on the contrary quite in keeping with the disturbing note that runs through this novel. It exposes Captain Boodle as a downmarket version of Hugh Clavering, and places him on our dismayingly long list of horrible men:

Chapter 17:

    "...but when I've got to do with a trained mare, I always choose that she shall know that I'm there! Do you understand me?"
    "Yes; I understand you, Doodles."
    "I always choose that she shall know that I'm there." And Captain Boodle, as he repeated these manly words with a firm voice, put out his hands as though he were handling the horse's rein. "Their mouths are never so fine then, and they generally want to be brought up to the bit, d'ye see?---up to the bit. When a mare has been trained to her work, and knows what she's at in her running, she's all the better for feeling a fellow's hands as she's going. She likes it rather. It gives her confidence, and makes her know where she is. And look here, Clavvy, when she comes to her fences, give her her head; but steady her first, and make her know that you're there. Damme; whatever you do, let her know that you're there. There's nothing like it. She'll think all the more of the fellow that's piloting her. And look here, Clavvy; ride her with spurs. Always ride a trained mare with spurs. Let her know that they're on; and if she tries to get her head, give 'em her. Yes, by George, give 'em her."

It is hardly complimenting Archie to observe that he is at least somewhat redeemed by his utter incapacity to follow his friend's advice:

Chapter 18:

    "I couldn't bear to think that you should be here in London, and that one shouldn't see anything of you or know anything about you. Tell me now; is there anything I can do for you? Do you want anybody to settle anything for you in the city?"
    "I think not, Captain Clavering; thank you very much."
    "Because I should be so happy; I should indeed. There's nothing I should like so much as to make myself useful in some way. Isn't there anything now? There must be so much to be looked after,---about money and all that."
    "My lawyer does all that, Captain Clavering."
    "Those fellows are such harpies. There is no end to their charges; and all for doing things that would only be a pleasure to me."
    "I'm afraid I can't employ you in any matter that would suit your tastes."
    "Can't you indeed, now?" Then again there was a silence, and Captain Clavering was beginning to think that he must go. He was willing to work hard at talking or anything else; but he could not work if no ground for starting were allowed to him. He thought he must go, though he was aware that he had not made even the slightest preparation for future obedience to his friend's precepts. He began to feel that he had commenced wrongly. He should have made her know that he was there from the first moment of her entrance into the room. He must retreat now in order that he might advance with more force on the next occasion...

---also dismaying is that those of us who object to the men in this book have no-one but Sophie Gordeloup to fight our battles for us.

(A gigot is a leg of mutton, so English wives aren't doing too well here in spite of her contempt for English husbands.)

Chapter 18:

    "...she lives down in the country by herself, and looks after de pills and de powders. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. No; if my husband had put me into the country to look after de pills and de powders, he should have had them all, all---himself, when he came to see me." As she said this with great energy, she opened her eyes wide, and looked full into Archie's face.
    Captain Clavering, who was sitting with his hat in his two hands between his knees, stared at the little foreigner. He had heard before of women poisoning their husbands, but never had heard a woman advocate the system as expedient. Nor had he often heard a woman advocate any system with the vehemence which Madame Gordeloup now displayed on this matter, and with an allusion which was so very pointed to the special position of his own sister-in-law. Did Lady Ongar agree with her? He felt as though he should like to know his Julia's opinions on that matter.
    "Sophie, Captain Clavering will think you are in earnest," said the countess, laughing.
    "So I am---in earnest. It is all wrong. You boil all the water out of de pot before you put the gigot into it. So the gigot is no good, is tough and dry, and you shut it up in an old house in the country. Then, to make matters pretty, you talk about de fields and de daisies. I know..."

******

    "Why should a woman who has got everything marry again? If she wants de fields and de daisies she has got them of her own---yes, of her own. If she wants de town, she has got that too. Jewels,---she can go and buy them. Coaches,---there they are. Parties,---one, two, three, every night, as many as she please. Gentlemen who will be her humble slaves; such a plenty,---all London. Or, if she want to be alone, no one can come near her. Why should she marry? No."
    "But she might be in love with somebody," said the captain, in a surprised but humble tone.
    "Love! Bah! Be in love, so that she may be shut up in an old barrack with de powders!... No; if a woman wants a house, and de something to live on, let her marry a husband; or if a man want to have children, let him marry a wife. But to be shut up in a country house, when everything you have got of your own,---I say it is bad."

It's worth keeping in mind, in the context of Sophie's remarks here, that while divorce was still extremely uncommon amongst the upper classes, separation was something else---where the people involved could afford to maintain two households. It was rarely presented as separation: rather, the wife and children would be banished to the country, usually on the excuse of their health; while the husband remained in town. What happened after that depended on individual circumstances, but who controlled the money dictated those circumstances, as Sophie (in her inimitable style) observes.

Reading over this again, I'm increasingly intrigued by the way Trollope uses Sophie Gordeloup in this novel. She is awful, and certainly we're meant to feel every bit of her awfulness; but on the other hand Trollope uses her to say things that nobody else does:

Chapter 18:

    "Sophie, you get your head full of the strangest nonsense."
    "Ah; very well. You see. What will you give me if I am right? Will you bet? Why had he got on his new gloves, and had his head all smelling with stuff from de hairdresser? Does he come always perfumed like that? Does he wear shiny little boots to walk about in de morning, and make an eye always? Perhaps yes."
    "I never saw his boots or his eyes."
    "But I see them. I see many things. He come to have Ongere Park for his own. I tell you, yes. Ten thousand will come to have Ongere Park. Why not? To have Ongere Park and all de money a man will make himself smell a great deal."
    "You think much more about all that than is necessary."
    "Do I, my dear? Very well. There are three already. There is Edouard, and there is this Clavering who you say is a captain; and there is the other Clavering who goes with his nose in the air, and who think himself a clever fellow because he learned his lesson at school and did not get himself whipped. He will be whipped yet some day,---perhaps."
    "Sophie, hold your tongue. Captain Clavering is my sister's brother-in-law, and Harry Clavering is my friend."
    "Ah, friend! I know what sort of friend he wants to be. How much better to have a park and plenty of money than to work in a ditch and make a railway! But he do not know the way with a woman. Perhaps he may be more at home, as you say, in the ditch. I should say to him, 'My friend, you will do well in de ditch if you work hard;---suppose you stay there.'"

I am unpleasantly amused by this paralleling of Harry and Archie.

We don't doubt Harry's feeling for Julia - setting aside the fact that he shouldn't be feeling it at all - but note going forward how often the thought of her money intrudes when he is trying to make up his mind what he should do.

(And let's also remember this, per >42 MissWatson:: "I think it best when the money comes from the husband.")

Have read chapters 18 & 19, amused by the wooing advice Archie gets from one of the early feminists Doodles,
"When a mare has been trained to her work, and knows what she's at in her running, she's all the better for feeling a fellow's hands as she's going. She likes it rather."
"And look here, Clavvy; ride her with spurs."
Good to see some humour in this sombre tale.

>91 bryanoz:

Since I've just been citing that as *not* funny, we'll have to agree to disagree! :D

I will grant you that the mental image of Captain Boodle attempting to put his theory into practice has its amusing side, though (particularly in light of certain future events...)

I know I’m not supposed to, but I like Sophie. She’s street smart and very observant. I’m up to Chapter 31 and I’m watching her maneuvering of the marriage interests for Julia with great interest.

>93 japaul22: I quite agree with Jennifer here. Yes, Trollope is doing his best to make her unsympathetic (as in her slovenly way of dressing), but at least she has a very clear understanding of the way the world – and men's minds – work. Yes, we know young men are prone to make mistakes, but Harry is such an arrogant idler that he sets my teeth on edge. From the start, he looks down on his potential in-laws and his co-workers, but then fails to show up regularly for work. And always feeling sorry for himself.

>93 japaul22:, >94 MissWatson:

I have an overall thought about Sophie but I'll leave that to the end.

It is interesting to consider how we were meant to feel about her, though: she's awful, but Trollope has a bit too much fun writing her for us to take that awfulness at face value, I think.

...but we then move very much away from any overt or covert humour with the death of poor little Hughie, whose struggles we have heard about from time to time.

This whole chapter is incredibly painful, not least Hermione's recognition, beyond her immediate grief, that she has lost the only value she ever held for her husband:

Chapter 20:

    Yet, at this moment, it seemed that she was thinking more of her husband than of the bairn she had lost. Mrs Clavering had sat down by her and taken her hand, and was still so sitting in silence when Lady Clavering spoke again. "I suppose he will turn me out of his house now," she said.
    "Who will do so? Hugh? Oh, Hermione, how can you speak in such a way?"
    "He scolded me before because my poor darling was not strong. My darling! How could I help it? And he scolded me because there was none other but he. He will turn me out altogether now..."

****

But still he did not come quite at once. He was pulling off his coat and laying aside his hat and gloves. Then came upon her a feeling that at such a time any other husband and wife would have been at once in each other's arms. And at the moment she thought of all that they had lost. To her her child had been all and everything. To him he had been his heir and the prop of his house. The boy had been the only link that had still bound them together. Now he was gone, and there was no longer any link between them. He was gone and she had nothing left to her.

As Birgit says in >94 MissWatson:, it's the self-pity that's so infuriating.

One of the things that's so infuriating. :D

Chapter 21:

He knew that he was playing on the edge of a precipice,---that he was fluttering as a moth round a candle. He knew that it behoved him now at once to tell her all his tale as to Stratton and Florence Burton;---that if he could tell it now, the pang would be over and the danger gone. But he did not tell it. Instead of telling it he thought of Lady Ongar's beauty, of his own early love, of what might have been his had he not gone to Stratton. I think he thought, if not of her wealth, yet of the power and place which would have been his were it now open to him to ask her for her hand. When he had declared that he did not want his cousin's inheritance, he had spoken the simple truth. He was not covetous of another's money. Were Archie to marry as many wives as Henry, and have as many children as Priam, it would be no offence to him. His desires did not lie in that line. But in this other case, the woman before him who would so willingly have endowed him with all that she possessed, had been loved by him before he had ever seen Florence Burton. In all his love for Florence,---so he now told himself, but so told himself falsely,---he had ever remembered that Julia Brabazon had been his first love, the love whom he had loved with all his heart. But things had gone with him most unfortunately,---with a misfortune that had never been paralleled. It was thus he was thinking instead of remembering that now was the time in which his tale should be told.

While you can make a joke of this, the juxtaposition of Harry's alleged woes with Hermione's situation is enraging.

Chapter 21:

He did not know how to go on with his speech, or in truth what to say to her. Florence Burton was still present to his mind, and from minute to minute he told himself that he would not become a villain. But now it had come to that with him, that he would have given all that he had in the world that he had never gone to Stratton. He sat down by her in silence, looking away from her at the fire, swearing to himself that he would not become a villain, and yet wishing, almost wishing, that he had the courage to throw his honour overboard.

Well, then---

    "I did not mean to make you sad," she said. "Come, we will be sad no longer. I understand it all. I know how it is with you. The old love is lost, but we will not the less be friends." Then he rose suddenly from his chair, and taking her in his arms, and holding her closely to his bosom, pressed his lips to hers.
    He was so quick in this that she had not the power, even if she had the wish, to restrain him. But she struggled in his arms, and held her face aloof from him as she gently rebuked his passion. "No, Harry, no; not so," she said, "it must not be so."
    "Yes, Julia, yes; it shall be so; ever so,---always so."

>96 lyzard: I think we are missing some information here about Hugh and Hermione. How old was the little boy and why is there no prospect of another child? The whole situation between them as a couple is not very convincing to me. Why did he marry her in the first place, and why does he not make more of an effort with her if he wants an heir? Unless of course there are medical reasons, but since we are not given sufficient information, the whole situation is ... well, lacking credibility.

By the way, I've had a bit of time on my hands and have finished the book. I was really furious about Harry, but have calmed down a bit now.

>99 MissWatson: I also wondered right away why there was no hope of another child.

>99 MissWatson:, >100 japaul22:

Medical reasons, I would think, rather than lack of cooperation---which conversely was the case with {spoiler for Can You Forgive Her?} Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser, even though she blamed herself for not giving him an heir early in their marriage: with his parliamentary work he was rarely home before three in the morning! I think most probably she had complications when the baby was born, perhaps with both babies, and the doctor has said she mustn't have another. That's the kind of detail we're unlikely to get in a 19th century novel. And quite possibly contemporary readers would have understood the implication without requiring more.

I think it's also possible that it was then that Hugh really turned on her, if he married for an heir.

>99 MissWatson:

Well done on finishing! Yes, we'll get to that. :D

Yes. Well.

It's past time someone had a go at Hugh, but---not under these circumstances, and perhaps not on these grounds:

Chapter 22:

    "Lady Ongar has never misconducted herself," said Harry.
    "Are you her champion?" asked Sir Hugh.
    "As far as that, I am. She has never misconducted herself; and what is more, she has been cruelly used since she came home."
    "By whom; by whom?" said Sir Hugh, stepping close up to his cousin and looking with angry eyes into his face.
    But Harry Clavering was not a man to be intimidated by the angry eyes of any man. "By you," he said, "her brother-in-law;---by you, who made up her wretched marriage, and who, of all others, were the most bound to protect her."

****

    "I have no apology to make, and nothing to retract."
    "Then I shall tell your father of your gross misconduct, and shall warn him that you have made it necessary for me to turn his son out of my house. You are an impertinent, overbearing puppy, and if your name were not the same as my own, I would tell the grooms to horsewhip you off the place."
    "Which order, you know, the grooms would not obey. They would a deal sooner horsewhip you. Sometimes I think they will, when I hear you speak to them."

Yes, I bet he's a delight to work for.

Mind you---note this, right in the middle of it:

    "Lady Ongar thought that it might be well that her sister should leave Clavering for a short time, and has offered to go anywhere with her for a few weeks. That is all."
    "And why the devil should Hermione leave her own house?"

Harry's wavering between Florence and Julia, and his inability to be frank with either one - or to write either a true or a deceiving letter - is then roundly contrasted with the actions of the single-minded Mr Saul:

Chapter 23:

    When he had first proposed to her she had almost ridiculed his proposition in her heart. Even now there was something in it that was almost ridiculous;---and yet there was something in it also that touched her as being sublime. The man was honest, good, and true,---perhaps the best and truest man that she had ever known. She could not bring herself to say to him any word that should banish him for ever from the place he loved so well.
    "If you knew your own heart well enough to answer me, you should do so," he went on to say. "If you do not, say so, and I will be content to wait your own time."
    "It would be better, Mr. Saul, that you should not think of this any more."
    "No, Miss Clavering; that would not be better,—not for me; for it would prove me to be utterly heartless. I am not heartless. I love you dearly. I will not say that I cannot live without you; but it is my one great hope as regards this world, that I should have you at some future day as my own..."

We get a nice little ironic touch here, with Mr Saul applying to himself the same word that Harry has just applied to himself, though hardly with the same cause:

    "...as to the parish I love it well. I do not think I can make you understand how well I love it. It seems to me that I can never again have the same feeling for any place that I have for this. There is not a house, a field, a green lane, that is not dear to me. It is like a first love. With some people a first love will come so strongly that it makes a renewal of the passion impossible." He did not say that it would be so with himself, but it seemed to her that he intended that she should so understand him.
    "I do not see why you should leave Clavering," she said.
    "If you knew the nature of my regard for yourself, you would see why it should be so. I do not say that there ought to be any such necessity. If I were strong there would be no such need. But I am weak,---weak in this; and I could not hold myself under such control as is wanted for the work I have to do."

---and we might as well deal with this here, since it is spelled out for us in this passage (though we will get a more graphic illustration of its implications later on):

Chapter 23:

His voice was so solemn, and there was so much of eager seriousness in his face that Fanny could not bring herself to answer him with quickness. The answer that was in her mind was in truth this: "How can you ask me to try to love a man who has but seventy pounds a year in the world, while I myself have nothing?" But there was something in his demeanour,---something that was almost grand in its gravity,---which made it quite impossible that she should speak to him in that tone...

And why does Mr Saul "have but seventy pounds a year"?

Because THAT IS WHAT MR CLAVERING PAYS HIM. Out of a living of 800 POUNDS A YEAR. To do 95% OF HIS WORK.

And at no point, while the Claverings are debating amongst themselves Mr Saul's presumption in proposing to Fanny on an income of SEVENTY POUNDS A YEAR, does any of them actually acknowledge the fact.

Chapter 24:

If he could only make Hugh see the immense advantage of an alliance with the Russian spy, Hugh could hardly avoid contributing to the expense,---of course on the understanding that all such moneys were to be repaid when the Russian spy's work had been brought to a successful result. Russian spy! There was in the very sound of the words something so charming that it almost made Archie in love with the outlay. A female Russian spy too! Sophie Gordeloup certainly retained but very few of the charms of womanhood, nor had her presence as a lady affected Archie with any special pleasure; but yet he felt infinitely more pleased with the affair than he would have been had she been a man spy. The intrigue was deeper. His sense of delight in the mysterious wickedness of the thing was enhanced by an additional spice. It is not given to every man to employ the services of a political Russian lady-spy in his love-affairs! As he thought of it in all its bearings, he felt that he was almost a Talleyrand, or, at any rate, a Palmerston...

I think that dig gives us a fair idea of Trollope opinion of Lord Palmerston. :D

Sophie Gordeloup helping to make Julia's life miserable is one thing; Sophie Gordeloup chewing up and spitting out Archie Clavering and Captain Boodle is something else---

Chapter 24:

    "I think, Madame Gordeloup, you know my brother's sister-in-law, Lady Ongar?"
    "What, Julie? Of course I know Julie. Julie and I are dear friends."
    "So I supposed. That is the reason why I have come to you."
    "Well;---well;---well?"
    "Lady Ongar is a person whom I have known for a long time, and for whom I have a great,---I may say a very deep regard."
    "Ah! yes. What a jointure she has! and what a park! Thousands and thousands of pounds,---and so beautiful! If I was a man I should have a very deep regard too. Yes."

****

    "Let me see. Julie has seven thousands of pounds, what you call, per annum. And have you seen that beautiful park? Oh! And if you can make her to look at the moon with her hair down,---oh! When will that compliment grow bigger? Twenty pounds! I am ashamed, you know."
    "When will you see her, Madame Gordeloup?"
    "See her! I see her every day, always. I will be there to-day, and to-morrow, and the next day."
    "You might say a word then at once,---this afternoon."
    "What! for twenty pounds! Seven thousands of pounds per annum; and you give me twenty pounds! Fie, Captain Clavering. It is only just for me to speak to you,---this! That is all. Come; when will you bring me fifty?"
"By George---fifty!"
    "Yes, fifty;---for another beginning. What; seven thousands of pounds per annum, and make difficulty for fifty pounds! You have a handy way with your glove. Will you come with fifty pounds to-morrow?" Archie, with the drops of perspiration standing on his brow, and now desirous of getting out again into the street, promised that he would come again on the following day with the required sum...

And in the original publication of The Claverings, that marked the end of Volume I.

Which means I need to speed myself up---but could I please get everyone to check in and let me know where they're up to?

I've finished. I'm not sure I liked it as well on this second reading; Harry is so tiresome, but I'm appreciating what Trollope is doing a bit more.

>105 lyzard: The Mr Clavering/Mr Saul relationship reminds me a bit of Dr Grantley/Mr Crawley in The Last Chronicle of Barset, particularly when it comes to class/wealth, their characters and marriage eligibility. There are differences, of course, but some of the similarities are striking. I was just checking and the two books were published very close together.

I've read through Chapter 33.

I've finished chapter 24 and am happy to pick up the pace.

>109 kac522:, >110 cbl_tn:, >111 bryanoz:

Thanks, guys.

I was conscious of the people who said they'd be starting late but I'll step it up from this point.

>109 kac522:

Please hold those thoughts, Kathy! :)

Just generally, if anyone (finished or not) wants to record their thoughts so they aren't forgotten, please do so using spoiler tags: I can copy and paste when we're having general discussion.

I have 28 chapters to go and there are 10 days left of July so 3 chapters a day for me, happy to let the story unfold gradually.

I'm up to chapter 27 but I never mind spoilers anyway, in fact I like to know what to expect!

I’m on chapter 43 and I’ll probably finish in the next couple days.

>105 lyzard: I wondered if Mr Clavering set Mr Saul’s salary!! Thanks for addressing this.

I was disturbed by this passage in Chapter 31:

...in his {Count Pateroff's} quiet way he had weighed and calculated all the advantages to be gained, had even ascertained at what rate he could insure the lady's life, and had made himself certain that nothing in the deed of Lord Ongar's marriage-settlement entailed any pecuniary penalty on his widow's second marriage.

>114 bryanoz:, >115 CDVicarage:, >116 japaul22:

Thanks, all. :)

>117 cbl_tn:

And all the more so for being a thrown-away remark in general financial calculations. Life was more precarious, granted, but...

This is refreshing, anyway:

Chapter 25:

Could it really be good for Florence,---poor injured Florence, that she should be taken by a man who had ceased to regard her more than all other women? Were he to marry her now, would not that deceit be worse than the other deceit? Or, rather, would not that be deceitful, whereas the other course would simply be unfortunate,---unfortunate through circumstances for which he was blameless? Damnable arguments! False, cowardly logic, by which all male jilts seek to excuse their own treachery to themselves and to others!

---considering how that word gets tossed around in the other direction.

It's a bit sad when you're being morally shown up by Archie Clavering:

No secret had been made in the family of Harry's engagement. Archie told his fair assistant that Miss Burton had been received at Clavering Park openly as Harry's future wife, and, "by Jove, you know, he can't be coming it with Julia after that, you know." Sophie made a little grimace, but did not say much. She, remembering that she had caught Lady Ongar in Harry's arms, thought that, "by Jove," he might be coming it with Julia, even after Miss Burton's reception at Clavering Park...

General question: are we more forgiving of Sophie than we should be *because* of her attitude towards Harry?

---but Archie's revelation to Sophie naturally finds its way to Julia, and - very belatedly - everything hits the fan.

It hits the fan in another way, too, since Harry's silence to Florence begins to have its natural flow-on effect: both his family and hers are becoming increasingly aware that things have gone terribly wrong.

A flurry of letters and more revelations ends in Theodore pinning Harry down to a meeting, in which the latter's jellyfishing is painfully shown up by the former's straightforwardness:

Chapter 26:

    "Come, Harry, let me tell you all at once like an honest man. I hate subterfuges and secrets. A report has reached the old people at home,---not Florence, mind,---that you are untrue to Florence, and are passing your time with that lady who is the sister of your cousin's wife."
    "What right have they to ask how I pass my time?"
    "Do not be unjust, Harry. If you simply tell me that your visits to that lady imply no evil to my sister, I, knowing you to be a gentleman, will take your word for all that it can mean." He paused, and Harry hesitated and could not answer...

****

    "Say that you will come to us this evening," said Burton. "Even if you have an engagement, put it off."
    "I have none," said Harry.
    "Then say that you will come to us, and all will be well."
    Harry understood of course that his compliance with this invitation would be taken as implying that all was right. It would be so easy to accept the invitation, and any other answer was so difficult! But yet he would not bring himself to tell the lie.
    "Burton," he said, "I am in trouble."
    "What is the trouble?" The man's voice was now changed, and so was the glance of his eye. There was no expression of anger,---none as yet; but the sweetness of his countenance was gone...

(I love the nuance here---it's not everybody who could come up with a turn of phrase like that under pressure: "...that lady who is the sister of your cousin's wife.")

It's all YOUR fault, Anthony!---

Chapter 26:

    "It would look as if we were all afraid," said Mr Burton, "and after all what does it come to?---a young gentleman does not write to his sweetheart for two or three weeks. I used to think myself the best lover in the world if I wrote once a month."
    "There was no penny post then, Mr Burton."
    "And I often wish there was none now," said Mr Burton.

Chapter 27:

Under such circumstances, it was necessary that he must either abandon his pursuit, or that he must operate upon Lady Ongar through some other feeling than her personal regard for himself. He might, perhaps, have trusted much to his own eloquence if he could have seen her; but how is a man to be eloquent in his wooing if he cannot see the lady whom he covets? There is, indeed, the penny post, but in these days of legal restraints, there is no other method of approaching an unwilling beauty...

Carrie, re: >117 cbl_tn:, there is also this, equally casual---

...in these days of legal restraints, there is no other method of approaching an unwilling beauty. Forcible abduction is put an end to as regards Great Britain and Ireland...

>123 lyzard: Yes! He reminds me a lot of Count Fosco in The Woman in White. He's not quite in the same league, but close enough.

>123 lyzard: Right? Subtle signs that this true cad would contemplate kidnap, rape, and even murder. Honestly, it’s terrifically creepy the Trollope just slyly inserts these indicators of Pateroff’s true character.

Victorian England could be a perilous place for a lone woman—and England was even more perilous before the Victorian era…

>124 cbl_tn:, >125 Matke:

Interesting comparison, I hadn't thought of that. Yes, a tinpot version.

And while he's hiding that stuff, we have plenty of reason to believe he thinks he can bully, blackmail, frighten or compromise Julia into marrying him (and doesn't care which).

AND---of course he tries gaslighting her:

Chapter 27:

    "Before this have I not protected you from injury?"
    "No;---never. You protect me!"
    "Yes;---I; from your husband, from yourself, and from the world. You do not know,---not yet, all that I have done for you. Did you read what Lord Ongar had said?"
    "I read what it pleased you to write."
    "What it pleased me! Do you pretend to think that Lord Ongar did not speak as he speaks there? Do you not know that those were his own words? Do you not recognise them? Ah, yes, Lady Ongar; you know them to be true."
    "Their truth or falsehood is nothing to me. They are altogether indifferent to me either way."
    "That would be very well if it were possible; but it is not. There; now we are at the top, and it will be easier. Will you let me have the honour to offer you my arm? No! Be it so; but I think you would walk the easier. It would not be for the first time."
    "That is a falsehood." As she spoke she stepped before him, and looked into his face with eyes full of passion. "That is a positive falsehood. I never walked with a hand resting on your arm."
    There came over his face the pleasantest smile as he answered her. "You forget everything," he said;---"everything..."

The nature of the novel means that we're not supposed to think well of Julia, even if we do feel sorry for her; but her absolute refusal to be manipulated by Count Pateroff is truly admirable:

Chapter 27:

    "Do you not know, Julie, that your character is in my hands?"
    "In your hands? No;---never; thank God, never. But what if it were?"
    "Only this,---that I am forced to play the only game that you leave open to me. Chance brought you and me together in such a way that nothing but marriage can be beneficial to either of us;---and I swore to Lord Ongar that it should be so. I mean that it shall be so,---or that you shall be punished for your misconduct to him and to me."
    "You are both insolent and false. But listen to me, since you are here and I cannot avoid you. I know what your threats mean."
    "I have never threatened you. I have promised you my aid, but have used no threats."
    "Not when you tell me that I shall be punished? But to avoid no punishment, if any be in your power, will I ever willingly place myself in your company. You may write of me what papers you please, and repeat of me whatever stories you may choose to fabricate, but you will not frighten me into compliance by doing so. I have, at any rate, spirit enough to resist such attempts as that."
    "As you are living at present, you are alone in the world!"
    "And I am content to remain alone."
    "You are thinking, then, of no second marriage?"
    "If I were, does that concern you? But I will speak no further word to you. If you follow me into the inn, or persecute me further by forcing yourself upon me, I will put myself under the protection of the police."

(Noting, in context of >123 lyzard:, that threatening to put yourself "under the protection of the police" is a very Great-Britain-and-Ireland thing to do...)

Following on from >23 lyzard:, in Chapter 28 we do find Theodore regretting that he doesn't have the option of calling Harry out:

What man ever forgave an insult to his wife or an injury to his sister, because he had taught himself that to forgive trespasses is a religious duty? Without an argument, without a moment's thought, the man declares to himself that such trespasses as those are not included in the general order. But what is he to do? Thirty years since his course was easy, and unless the sinner were a clergyman, he could in some sort satisfy his craving for revenge by taking a pistol in his hand, and having a shot at the offender. That method was doubtless barbarous and unreasonable, but it was satisfactory and sufficed.

Duelling was the descendant of the medieval trial-by-combat, wherein it was assumed that God would decide the outcome and that the person in the right would naturally prevail---but to paraphrase Napoleon, God was on the side of the better shot.

Assuming that Harry didn't delope - which he might - what do we suppose the outcome would be between a town-bred businessman and a county-bred gentleman who hunts for fun?

Cecilia a widow with three young children on her hands, I should think.

(The remark "thirty years since" helps explains why the duel in Phineas Finn was considered so scandalous.)

All that said---Theodore's sense that a man could behave disgracefully and, these days, just get away with it ties into the broader suggestion that we have been seeing increasingly in Trollope's novels of this time that his society was undergoing moral backsliding: that gentlemen weren't gentlemen any more, in terms of what could be expected from them---all of which culminated in The Way We Live Now.

On the whole I think we like Theodore; he is certainly the novel's voice of reason---

Chapter 28:

    "He cannot mean to be false, if he is coming here," said the wife.
    "He does not mean to be false; but he is one of those men who can be false without meaning it,---who allow themselves to drift away from their anchors, and to be carried out into seas of misery and trouble, because they are not careful in looking to their tackle..."

---but his habit of shunting dirty jobs onto Cecilia is---well, I'll call it a recognisable trait. :D

    "But look here, Cissy. I'll tell you what I mean to do. I will not see him myself;---at any rate, not at first. Probably I had better not see him at all. You shall talk to him."
    "By myself!"
    "Why not? You and he have always been great friends, and he is a man who can speak more openly to a woman than to another man."
    "And what shall I say as to your absence?"
    "Just the truth. Tell him that I am remaining in the dining-room because I think his task will be easier with you in my absence."

---though I forgive him on the strength of these observations: he's quite right on both accounts---

    "You can't suppose, Theodore, that I want even to mention her name. I'm told that nobody ever visits her."
    "She needn't be a bit the worse on that account. Whenever I hear that there is a woman whom nobody visits, I always feel inclined to go and pay my respects to her."
    "Theodore, how can you say so?"
    "And that, I suppose, is just what Harry has done. If the world and his wife had visited Lady Ongar, there would not have been all this trouble now."

Cecilia's determination to blame everything on Julia - though even she is conscious it stems partially from her desire to fix things for Florence - is frustrating, but part of a bigger point that I'll return to later.

The blow-up between Julia and Madame Gordeloup is about as ugly as it could be, but Julia does finally rid herself of her incubus.

Julia's previous inability to get herself out from under is at least partially due to her training as an English gentlewoman: the laws of hospitality were very strict and binding, and made it extremely difficult if you were dealing with someone not bound in the same way.

We need to understand just how drastic Julia's action is here, in banishing Sophie when she is (though self-invited) her own guest.

The irony is that Sophie is probably telling the truth here, as far as she ever does: we know that she doesn't want Julia to marry anyone, not even her brother, as she can do far better out of her as a single woman. Certainly she would not have done anything specifically to bring Count Pateroff to the scene.

But behind Julia's anger there is probably also a certain recognition that a chance like this will not present itself again; and in spite of the violation of social practice - and despite Sophie making sure as many people know about that as possible - she remains adamant; while the twenty pounds is as calculated an insult as someone in her position could deliver:

Chapter 29:

    ...at the station at Lymington, the more important business of taking tickets for the journey to London became necessary. Lady Ongar had thought of this on her journey across the water, and, when at the railway-station, gave her purse to her maid, whispering her orders. The girl took three first-class tickets, and then going gently up to Madame Gordeloup, offered one to that lady. "Ah, yes; very well; I understand," said Sophie, taking the ticket. "I shall take this;" and she held the ticket up in her hand, as though she had some specially mysterious purpose in accepting it.
    She got into the same carriage with Lady Ongar and her maid, but spoke no word on her journey up to London. At Basingstoke she had a glass of sherry, for which Lady Ongar's maid paid. Lady Ongar had telegraphed for her carriage, which was waiting for her, but Sophie betook herself to a cab. "Shall I pay the cabman, ma'am?" said the maid. "Yes," said Sophie, "or stop. It will be half-a-crown. You had better give me the half-crown." The maid did so, and in this way the careful Sophie added another shilling to her store,---over and above the twenty pounds,---knowing well that the fare to Mount Street was eighteen-pence...

And again we are given reason to suspect Trollope's intentions, when he passes directly from Sophie at her nastiest and most hateful, to Sophie disposing of Captain Boodle:

Chapter 30:

    "But I am right in believing that she and you are very intimate? Now what are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering?"
    "Oh-h-h!" exclaimed Sophie.
    "Yes. What are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering? Seventy pounds, you know, ma'am, is a smart bit of money!"
    "A smart bit of money, is it? That is what you think on your leetle property down in Warwickshire."
    "It isn't my property, ma'am, at all. It belongs to my uncle."
    "Oh, it is your uncle that has the leetle property. And what had your uncle to do with Lady Ongar? What is your uncle to your friend Archie?"
    "Nothing at all, ma'am; nothing on earth."
    "Then why do you tell me all this rigmarole about your uncle and his leetle property, and Warwickshire? What have I to do with your uncle? Sir, I do not understand you,---not at all. Nor do I know why I have the honour to see you here, Captain Bood-dle."
    Even Doodles, redoubtable as he was---even he, with all his smartness, felt that he was overcome, and that this woman was too much for him. He was altogether perplexed, as he could not perceive whether in all her tirade about the little property she had really misunderstood him, and had in truth thought that he had been talking about his uncle, or whether the whole thing was cunning on her part. The reader, perhaps, will have a more correct idea of this lady than Captain Boodle had been able to obtain...

****

Captain Boodle went, and, as soon as he had made his way out into the open street, stood still and looked around him, that by the aspect of things familiar to his eyes he might be made certain that he was in a world with which he was conversant. While in that room with the Spy he had ceased to remember that he was in London,---his own London, within a mile of his club, within a mile of Tattersall's. He had been, as it were, removed to some strange world in which the tact, and courage, and acuteness natural to him had not been of avail to him. Madame Gordeloup had opened a new world to him,---a new world of which he desired to make no further experience. Gradually he began to understand why he had been desired to prepare himself for Michaelmas eating. Gradually some idea about Archie's glove glimmered across his brain. A wonderful woman certainly was the Russian spy,---a phenomenon which in future years he might perhaps be glad to remember that he had seen in the flesh. The first race-horse which he might ever own and name himself he would certainly call the Russian spy. In the meantime, as he slowly walked across Berkeley Square, he acknowledged to himself that she was not mad, and acknowledged also that the less said about that seventy pounds the better...

Oh, that wretched penny post!---

Chapter 31:

    "I think I could make her understand that she should not decide upon breaking with him altogether."
    "And I think I could make her understand that she ought to do so."
    "But you wouldn't do that, Theodore?"
    "I would if I thought it my duty."
    "But at any rate, she must come, and we can talk of that to-morrow."
    As to Florence's coming, Burton had given way, beaten, apparently, by that argument about the post...

:D

As per >129 lyzard:---

In all matters such as this,---in all affairs of tact, of social intercourse, and of conduct between man and man, or man and woman, Mr Burton was apt to be eloquent in his domestic discussion, and sometimes almost severe;---but the final arrangement of them was generally left to his wife. He enunciated principles of strategy,---much, no doubt, to her benefit; but she actually fought the battles...

Chapter 32:

The Burtons were an active, energetic people who sympathised with each other in labour and success,---and in endurance also; but who had little sympathy to express for the weaknesses of grief. When her children had stumbled in their play, bruising their little noses, and barking their little shins, Mrs Burton, the elder, had been wont to bid them rise, asking them what their legs were for, if they could not stand. So they had dried their own little eyes with their own little fists, and had learned to understand that the rubs of the world were to be borne in silence. This rub that had come to Florence was of grave import, and had gone deeper than the outward skin; but still the old lesson had its effect...

****

Harry Clavering would of course leave the house, and there would be an end of him in the records of the Burton family. He would have come and made his mark,---a terrible mark, and would have passed on. Those whom he had bruised by his cruelty, and knocked over by his treachery, must get to their feet again as best they could, and say as little as might be of their fall. There are knaves in this world, and no one can suppose that he has a special right to be exempted from their knavery because he himself is honest. It is on the honest that the knaves prey. That was Burton's theory in this matter...

>105 lyzard: I wasn't really aware that those seventy pounds come from Mr Clavering. That almost set my blood boiling again!

I seem to have some extra chapters in the Kindle version. I have 52 chapters total. Comparing the Kindle version with the Project Gutenberg table of contents, it begins to diverge at chapter 14. My chapter 14 is "Count Pateroff", followed by chapter 15, "Madame Gordeloup". In the Project Gutenberg version these seem to be a single chapter titled "Count Pateroff and His Sister". Between the chapters titled "The Rivals" and "Let Her Know That You're There" I have an additional chapter titled "Judge Not That Ye Be Not Judged". Between the chapters titled "Desolation" and "Yes; Wrong--Certainly Wrong" I have an additional chapter titled "Sir Hugh's Return". Between the chapters titled "The Day of the Funeral" and "Cumberly Lane Without the Mud" I have an additional chapter titled "Too Many, and Too Few". Between the chapters titled "How Damon Parted from Pythias" and "Doodles in Mount Street" I have an additional chapter titled "Vain Repentance". This is as far as I've read, but I believe there continue to be differences between the versions after this.

Here's a link to the Kindle version that I'm reading: https://a.co/d/hWgpqGy

>135 cbl_tn:

That caught me off guard because I had come across no information about variant editions---and as far as I can determine, it is entirely restricted to the American Kindle edition, which seems for whatever reason to have created four new chapters by dividing up some of the existing ones.

Which is to say, you have more CHAPTERS but the same TEXT---which is annoying for you in terms of finding your place, but at least we haven't found at this late date that we're dealing with different versions of the novel. Phew! :)

ETA: Now that I think of it, you had your Count Pateroff quote as in Chapter 31, whereas I had it in Chapter 29. That didn't register at the time as anything but a typo but now we see what happened.

>134 MissWatson:

Boil away, it only gets worse from here! :D

And speaking of which---

Chapter 33:

    "That you cannot marry Miss Clavering is so self-evident that it does not require to be discussed. If there were nothing else against it, neither of you have got a penny. I have not seen my daughter since I heard of this madness,---hear me out if you please, sir,---since I heard of this madness, but her mother tells me that she is quite aware of that fact. Your coming to me with such a proposition is an absurdity if it is nothing worse. Now you must do one of two things, Mr Saul. You must either promise me that this shall be at an end altogether, or you must leave the parish."
    "I certainly shall not promise you that my hopes as they regard your daughter will be at an end."
    "Then, Mr Saul, the sooner you go the better."
    A dark cloud came across Mr. Saul's brow as he heard these last words. "That is the way in which you would send away your groom, if he had offended you," he said.
    "I do not wish to be unnecessarily harsh," said Mr Clavering, "and what I say to you now I say to you not as my curate, but as to a most unwarranted suitor for my daughter's hand. Of course I cannot turn you out of the parish at a day's notice. I know that well enough. But your feelings as a gentleman ought to make you aware that you should go at once."
    "And that is to be my only answer?"
    "What answer did you expect?"
    "I have been thinking so much lately of the answers I might get from your daughter, that I have not made other calculations. Perhaps I had no right to expect any other than that you have now given me."
    "Of course you had not. And now I ask you again to give her up."
    "I shall not do that, certainly."
    "Then, Mr Saul, you must go; and, inconvenient as it will be to myself, terribly inconvenient, I must ask you to go at once..."

Of course we see what Trollope is doing here, contrasting the steadfast and single-minded Mr Saul with weak and wavering Harry---

Chapter 33:

"You will give me your hand at parting," he said, whereupon she tendered it to him with her eyes fixed upon the ground. "I hope we understand each other," he continued. "You may at any rate understand this, that I love you with all my heart and all my strength. If things prosper with me, all my prosperity shall be for you. If there be no prosperity for me, you shall be my only consolation in this world. You are my Alpha and my Omega, my first and last, my beginning and end,---my everything, my all."

---but I have to say that I always feel a twinge of dismay at the thought of any relationship in which no sense of humour is apparent. I can imagine that life with Mr Saul might get a bit...intense.

The only glimmer of a lighter touch is this:

    "You will not now tell me that I am to go?" Fanny was again silent, her memory failing her as to either negative or affirmative that would be of service. "To stay here hopeless would be impossible to me. Now I am not hopeless. Now I am full of hope. I think I could be happy, though I had to wait as Jacob waited."
    "And perhaps have Jacob's consolation," said Fanny. She was lost by the joke and he knew it. A grim smile of satisfaction crossed his thin face as he heard it...

If we are allowed to think that Fanny will go on making jokes, and that Mr Saul will understand and appreciate them even if he doesn't reply in kind, then that's something.

Anyway---the fallout of all this is that Harry finds a temporary escape from his troubles, in being summoned back home---where of course they know little of those troubles, though Fanny has grasped that there is something wrong between him and Florence.

One thing that this interlude makes clear is how very much Harry is his father's son---

Chapter 34:

"I can't conceive how a man can do such a wicked thing," said Harry, moralizing, and forgetting for a moment his own sins. "Coming into a house like this, and in such a position, and then undermining a girl's affections, when he must know that it is quite out of the question that he should marry her! I call it downright wicked. It is treachery of the worst sort, and coming from a clergyman is of course the more to be condemned. I shan't be slow to tell him my mind."

****

    "After that," he said, "I'll believe that a girl may fall in love with any man! People say all manner of things about the folly of girls; but nothing but this,---nothing short of this,---would have convinced me that it was possible that Fanny should have been such a fool. An ape of a fellow,---not made like a man,---with a thin hatchet face, and unwholesome stubbly chin. Good heavens!"
    "He has talked her into it."
    "But he is such an ass. As far as I know him, he can't say Bo! to a goose."
    "There I think you are perhaps wrong."
    "Upon my word, I've never been able to get a word from him except about the parish. He is the most uncompanionable fellow. There's Edward Fielding is as active a clergyman as Saul; but Edward Fielding has something to say for himself."
    "Saul is a cleverer man than Edward is; but his cleverness is of a different sort."
    "It is of a sort that is very invisible to me. But what does all that matter? He hasn't got a shilling. When I was a curate, we didn't think of doing such things as that." Mr Clavering had only been a curate for twelve months, and during that time had become engaged to his present wife with the consent of every one concerned. "But clergymen were gentlemen then. I don't know what the Church will come to; I don't indeed."

Yes, God forbid the Church should have clergymen who do their work for the right reasons instead of hiring a curate on a pittance and then spending their time hunting instead.

(I'm beginning to sympathise with Mr Proudie---good heavens!)

Ah!...

Chapter 34:

One wooden Windsor arm-chair---very comfortable in its way---was appropriated to the use of Mr Saul himself, and two other small wooden chairs flanked the other side of the fireplace In one distant corner stood Mr Saul's small bed, and in another distant corner stood his small dressing-table. Against the wall stood a rickety deal press in which he kept his clothes. Other furniture there was none. One of the large windows facing towards the farmyard had been permanently closed, and in the wide embrasure was placed a portion of Mr. Saul's library,---books which he had brought with him from college; and on the ground under this closed window were arranged the others, making a long row, which stretched from the bed to the dressing-table...

But this---

...for this accommodation, including attendance, he paid the reasonable sum of £10 per annum. He then had £60 left, with which to feed himself, clothe himself like a gentleman,---a duty somewhat neglected,---and perform his charities!

So Mr Clavering doesn't even pay for that?

But it is Harry Clavering lecturing Mr Saul about his behaviour that really sticks in the craw---except of course that Mr Saul, in his own particular way, gets wholly the better of things:

    "But, my dear fellow, you can't really be in earnest? You can't suppose it possible that he would allow such an engagement?"
    "As to the latter question, I have no answer to give; but I certainly was,---and certainly am in earnest."
    "Then I must say that I think you have a very erroneous idea of what the conduct of a gentleman should be."
    "Stop a moment, Clavering," said Mr Saul, rising, and standing with his back to the big fireplace. "Don't allow yourself to say in a hurry words which you will afterwards regret. I do not think you can have intended to come here and tell me that I am not a gentleman."
    "I don't want to have an argument with you; but you must give it up; that's all."
    "Give what up? If you mean give up your sister, I certainly shall never do that. She may give me up, and if you have anything to say on that head, you had better say it to her."
    "What right can you have,---without a shilling in the world---?"
    "I should have no right to marry her in such a condition,---with your father's consent or without it. It is a thing which I have never proposed to myself for a moment,---or to her."
    "And what have you proposed to yourself?"
    Mr Saul paused a moment before he spoke, looking down at the dusty heaps upon his table, as though hoping that inspiration might come to him from them. "I will tell you what I have proposed," said he at last, "as nearly as I can put it into words. I propose to myself to have the image in my heart of one human being whom I can love above all the world beside; I propose to hope that I, as others, may some day marry, and that she whom I so love may become my wife; I propose to bear with such courage as I can much certain delay, and probable absolute failure in all this..."

The passage that struck me from Chapter 33 was this:

In his opinion, the marriage was impossible, not only because there was no money, but because Mr Saul was Mr. Saul, and because Fanny Clavering was Fanny Clavering. Mr Saul was a gentleman; but that was all that could be said of him. There is a class of country clergymen in England, of whom Mr Clavering was one, and his son-in-law, Mr Fielding was another, which is so closely allied to the squirearchy as to possess a double identity. Such clergymen are not only clergymen, but they are country gentlemen also. Mr Clavering regarded clergymen of his class---of the country-gentlemen class--as being quite distinct from all others,--and as being, I may say, very much higher than all others, without reference to any money question.

This is what reminded me of Dr Grantley and Mr Crawley.

And also of Elizabeth Bennet's argument with Lady Catherine:

He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.

Which of course Lady Catherine won't buy.

>141 lyzard:

I've been thinking exactly that too. :)

Lady Catherine is probably on firmer ground given the social inferiority of Elizabeth's mother. There's no suggestion here that Mr Saul - we hear nothing of his family - is not a gentleman. As you point out, Mr Clavering is reduced to arguing that he is not "county"---and really, if you're going to start splitting hairs like that--- Mr Saul is accused of "jesuitry" somewhere along the way here but it seems to me the boot's on the other foot.

That passage and its implications is interesting in a broader historical sense: that attitude, and with it Mr Clavering's hunting, is a throwback to the so-called "High and Dry" clergymen of the 18th and early 19th centuries, who went into the Church not out of any calling but because it was an acceptable career for a gentleman, who put more effort into their social lives than their professional duties, and who basically defended the system against the people.

Note this passage from Robert Lee Wolff's Gains And Losses: Novels Of Faith And Doubt In Victorian England, which I have just re-read: he is explaining the historical background of the religious upheaval of the 19th century:

Left behind as defenders of the old ways by a powerful liberalising ("latitudinarian") current during the 18th century, the High Churchmen by the early 1830s had characteristically become defenders of the status quo. Inequities in clerical income which made the bishops very rich men while the lower clergy suffered, plurality of benefice whereby lucky and well-connected clerics had multiple preferments, nepotism, absenteeism, and neglect of parish duties, all cried out for reform. But many of the clergy of the Church of England remained unmoved, "high and dry", living the lives of county gentlemen and comfortably indifferent to the needs of their poorer parishioners...allowing the fabric of many village churches to decay, and acting like minor officals of the state---which, in a way, they were---rather than like spiritual leaders...

Wolff is describing the conditions that gave rise to the Oxford Movement in the 1830s, but goodness, doesn't that sound like Mr Clavering?

>143 lyzard: Oh yes, that's Mr Clavering. Dr Grantley at least seems more interested in church affairs than in hunting and shooting.

I was trying to think of a clergyman who might fit this description in Austen, which would be early 19th c; right now only Dr. Grant (from Mansfield Park--Mary Crawford's brother-in-law) comes to mind--the gentleman clergyman whose sole occupation seems to be focused on dining.

>144 kac522:

Church affairs in the sense of church politics, yes. :D

Austen didn't write many ministerial characters---certainly far less than many later authors, which reflects the mid-century upheaval and the increasingly public nature of the resulting religious factionalism. You're right about Dr Grant, but the novel that contains him also contains Edmund Bertram, who is going into the church out of vocation, not because - or not just because - his family can give him a living.

This is interesting---

Chapter 34:

When Harry Clavering left London he was not well, though he did not care to tell himself that he was ill. But he had been so harassed by his position, was so ashamed of himself, and as yet so unable to see any escape from his misery, that he was sore with fatigue and almost worn out with trouble. On his arrival at the parsonage, his mother at once asked him if he was ill, and received his petulant denial with an ill-satisfied countenance...

****

On the day following his visit to the farm house, Harry Clavering was unwell,---too unwell to go back to London; and on the next day he was ill in bed. Then it was that he got his mother to write to Mrs Burton;---and then also he told his mother a part of his troubles. When the letter was written he was very anxious to see it, and was desirous that it should be specially worded, and so written as to make Mrs Burton certain that he was in truth too ill to come to London, though not ill enough to create alarm...

We would say quickly enough nowadays that Harry's illness is stress-related---BUT---it's hard not to feel also that it's at least to a degree psychosomatic. We've seen so much of him avoiding confrontation with his messy situation: an illness like this is a legitimate excuse to go on avoiding it, and Harry's concern over the wording of his mother's letter, his desire for her to convey that he is "really" ill, reflects his consciousness of that.

Chapter 34:

Mrs Clavering by no means despised worldly goods; and she had, moreover, an idea that her highly gifted son was better adapted to the spending than to the making of money. It had come to be believed at the rectory that though Harry had worked very hard at college,---as is the case with many highly born young gentlemen,---and though he would, undoubtedly, continue to work hard if he were thrown among congenial occupations,---such as politics and the like,---nevertheless, he would never excel greatly in any drudgery that would be necessary for the making of money. There had been something to be proud of in this, but there had, of course, been more to regret. But now if Harry were to marry Lady Ongar, all trouble on that score would be over...

If Mr Clavering is a throwback, so too is Harry. There's a thread all through this novel suggesting that Harry is somehow "above" earning his own living; and the interesting thing to me is how Trollope tacitly makes a criticism of what could easily be taken as praise. The more people insist upon that aspect of his character - and almost everyone does, including the devoted Florence - the less we think of him.

Whether this would be so obvious without our knowledge of Trollope's own views on work, I'm not sure; but as it stands, I think it's inescapable.

Mrs Clavering, however, finally puts honour before ease:

(---I wonder what Mr Clavering would have said?---)

Chapter 34:

When Mrs Clavering allowed herself to think of the matter she knew that Florence's claims should be held as paramount. And when she thought further and thought seriously, she knew also that Harry's honour and Harry's happiness demanded that he should be true to the girl to whom his hand had been promised.

****

    "My darling," she said,---"you will be true to Florence; will you not?" Then there was a pause. "My own Harry, tell me that you will be true where your truth is due."
    "I will, mother," he said.
    "My own boy; my darling boy; my own true gentleman!" Harry felt that he did not deserve the praise; but praise undeserved, though it may be satire in disguise, is often very useful...

(I want to come back to that later, too.)

Really?---

Chapter 35:

    "What a shame it is," said Mrs Clavering,---"a scandalous shame."
    "You mean his going away?" said the rector.
    "Of course I do;---his leaving her here by herself, all alone. He can have no heart;---after losing her child and suffering as she has done. It makes me ashamed of my own name."
    "You can't alter him, my dear. He has his good qualities and his bad,—and the bad ones are by far the more conspicuous."
    "I don't know any good qualities he has."
    "He does not get into debt. He will not destroy the property. He will leave the family after him as well off as it was before him,—and though he is a hard man, he does nothing actively cruel. Think of Lord Ongar, and then you'll remember that there are worse men than Hugh."

But apart from that, I always hate the it-could-be-worse argument; "If you don't like it here, go live in such-and-such"---the suggestion that if something or someone is not the absolute worst they can be, they're not under any requirement to be better---and that you're in the wrong if you criticise.

    "Look here, Hermy; I can bear a deal of nonsense from you because some women are given to talk nonsense; but if I find you telling tales about me out of this house, and especially to my uncle, or indeed to anybody, I'll let you know what it is to be cruel."
    "You can't be worse than you are."
    "Don't try me; that's all."

Chapter 35:

And then for a few moments he thought of his own home. What had his wife done for him, that he should put himself out of his way to do much for her? She had brought him no money. She had added nothing either by her wit, beauty, or rank to his position in the world. She had given him no heir. What had he received from her that he should endure her commonplace conversation, and washed-out, dowdy prettinesses? Perhaps some momentary feeling of compassion, some twang of conscience, came across his heart, as he thought of it all; but if so he checked it instantly, in accordance with the teachings of his whole life. He had made his reflections on all these things, and had tutored his mind to certain resolutions, and would not allow himself to be carried away by any womanly softness. She had her house, her carriage, her bed, her board, and her clothes; and seeing how very little she herself had contributed to the common fund, her husband determined that in having those things she had all that she had a right to claim...

---and on the back of these scenes involving Sir Hugh's treatment of Hermione, we get this---

Chapter 36:

She had not seen him since he had parted from her on that evening when he had asked her to be his wife, and the last words she had heard from his lips had made this request. She, indeed, had then bade him be true to her rival,---to Florence Burton. She had told him this in spite of her love,---of her love for him and of his for her. They two, she had said, could not now become man and wife;---but he had not acknowledged the truth of what she had said. She could not write to him. She could make no overtures. She could ask no questions. She had no friend in whom she could place confidence. She could only wait for him, till he should come to her or send to her, and let her know what was to be her fate...

The gap between this novel's overt placement of Julia as its "sinner" and the behaviour of its male characters is something we need to explore, I think.

Re: >147 lyzard:. Trollope lets his guard down here:

Chapter 36:

She declared to herself that she would not tempt this man to be untrue to his troth, were it not that in doing so she would so greatly benefit himself. Was it not manifest that Harry Clavering was a gentleman, qualified to shine among men of rank and fashion, but not qualified to make his way by his own diligence? In saying this of him, she did not know how heavy was the accusation that she brought against him...

Just checking in--I'm at around chapter 28.

>147 lyzard: I think this view of "work" is also emphasized by how Trollope portrays Theodore Burton.

>149 lyzard: This assessment of Sir Hugh fits in with Mr Clavering as a "throwback": his view of what makes a gentleman.

>153 NinieB:

Thanks, Ninie!

>154 kac522:, >155 kac522:

Agreed on both points.

I feel Trollope writing against himself at several points here which is one of the things I want to discuss.

I found myself most at odds with the book in the conversation between Cecilia and Florence in Chapter 33 where Cecilia is ready to forgive Harry everything if he will only return to the fold. I was much more in sympathy with Florence's attitude and I wish she'd stuck with it.

>158 MissWatson:

Yes, there are aspects of that I want to talk about, too.

Julia, i think, gets the better of her confrontation with Cecilia; but what is particularly striking is this---

Chapter 37:

    "And that is to be your answer to me, Lady Ongar?"
    "No; that is not my answer to you. That is the excuse that I make for Harry Clavering. My answer to you has been very explicit. Pardon me if I say that it has been more explicit than you had any right to expect. I have told you that I am prepared to take any step that may be most conducive to the happiness of the man whom I once injured, but whom I have always loved. I will do this, let it cost myself what it may; and I will do this let the cost to any other woman be what it may. You cannot expect that I should love another woman better than myself." She said this, still standing, not without something more than vehemence in her tone. In her voice, in her manner, and in her eye there was that which amounted almost to ferocity. She was declaring that some sacrifice must be made, and that she recked little whether it should be of herself or of another. As she would immolate herself without hesitation, if the necessity should exist, so would she see Florence Burton destroyed without a twinge of remorse, if the destruction of Florence would serve the purpose which she had in view. You and I, O reader, may feel that the man for whom all this was to be done was not worth the passion. He had proved himself to be very far from such worth. But the passion, nevertheless, was there, and the woman was honest in what she was saying.
    After this Mrs Burton got herself out of the room as soon as she found an opening which allowed her to go...

I'm ambivalent about how Trollope expects us to react to this passionate side of Julia. Certainly he implies a more physical kind of attraction between her and Harry than we get any suggestion of between him and Florence - and considering the latter's calm suggestion of waiting several years - but I'm not sure if we're to take it as a positive, or as one more reason why Julia is "dangerous".

We saw in Rachel Ray that Trollope could write in a positive way about the physical side of a relationship, so Julia isn't necessarily condemned by her passion; also, the use of "honest" suggests a positive; but words like "vehemence" and "ferocity" suggest the reverse.

Perhaps we're to take this as something of an excuse for Harry: that his weakness never stood a chance.

But despite Harry being "not worth it" (any arguments?), I think mostly we're made to feel how much Julia is going to lose if she does lose.

The entire conversation between Julia and Sir Hugh in Chapter 38, and what we are given of his thoughts, is so enraging that it's hard to pick out any particular passage; but I was struck by this---

As the world had determined upon acquitting Lady Ongar, it would be convenient to him that the two sisters should be again intimate, especially as Julia was a rich woman. His wife did not like Clavering Park, and he certainly did not like Clavering Park himself. If he could once get the house shut up, he might manage to keep it shut for some years to come. His wife was now no more than a burden to him, and it would suit him well to put off the burden on to his sister-in-law's shoulders. It was not that he intended to have his wife altogether dependent on another person, but he thought that if they two were established together, in the first instance merely as a summer arrangement, such establishment might be made to assume some permanence. This would be very pleasant to him. Of course he would pay a portion of the expense,---as small a portion as might be possible,---but such a portion as might enable him to live with credit before the world.

This echoes what I was saying in >89 lyzard:, about how divorce was still shocking and scandalous, but separations happened all the time, unacknowledged. Sir Hugh wants such a separation---but he doesn't want to pay for it.

And this comes back to all we have said about the isolated state of the Brabazon sisters, which bizarrely has only been made worse via their respective marriages.

I think we're inclined to thank Julia for this---

    "Hermione is not left without friends," said Sir Hugh with a tone of offence.
    "Were she not, she would not want to come to me. Your society is in London, to which she does not come, or in other country-houses than your own, to which she is not taken. She lives altogether at Clavering, and there is no one there, except your uncle."
    "Whatever neighbourhood there is she has,---just like other women."
    "Just like some other women, no doubt. I shall remain in town for another month, and after that I shall go somewhere; I don't much care where. If Hermy will come to me as my guest I shall be most happy to have her. And the longer she will stay with me the better. Your coming home need make no difference, I suppose."
    There was a keenness of reproach in her tone as she spoke, which even he could not but feel and acknowledge. He was very thick-skinned to such reproaches, and would have left this unnoticed had it been possible. Had she continued speaking he would have done so. But she remained silent, and sat looking at him, saying with her eyes the same thing that she had already spoken with her words. Thus he was driven to speak. "I don't know," said he, "whether you intend that for a sneer."

---but it backfires on both of them:

"My wife," said he, "will go to the house of no person who is insolent to me." Then he took his hat, and left the room without further word or sign of greeting. In spite of his calculations and caution as to money,---in spite of his well-considered arrangements and the comfortable provision for his future ease which he had proposed to himself, he was a man who had not his temper so much under control as to enable him to postpone his anger to his prudence. That little scheme for getting rid of his wife was now at an end. He would never permit her to go to her sister's house after the manner in which Julia had just treated him!

Ugh! - there's so much awfulness here, it's hard to know what to focus on! :D

Chapter 39:

    "Look here, madame; do you mean that you want money from me?"
    "I want my rights, Sir 'Oo. Remember, I know everything;---everything; oh, such things! If they were all known,---in the newspapers, you understand, or that kind of thing, that lady in Bolton Street would lose all her money to-morrow. Yes. There is uncles to the little lord; yes! Ah, how much would they give me, I wonder? They would not tell me to go away."
    Sophie was perhaps justified in the estimate she had made of Sir Hugh's probable character from the knowledge which she had acquired of his brother Archie; but, nevertheless, she had fallen into a great mistake. There could hardly have been a man then in London less likely to fall into her present views than Sir Hugh Clavering. Not only was he too fond of his money to give it away without knowing why he did so; but he was subject to none of that weakness by which some men are prompted to submit to such extortions. Had he believed her story, and had Lady Ongar been really dear to him, he would never have dealt with such a one as Madame Gordeloup otherwise than through the police.
    "Madame Gordeloup," said he, "if you don't immediately take yourself off, I shall have you put out of the house."

****

    The presence also of the Spy was not pleasant to the gallant captain. Was the wonderful woman ubiquitous, that he should thus encounter her again, and that so soon after all the things that he had spoken of her on this morning? "How do you do, gentlemen?" said Sophie. "There is a great many boxes here, and I with my crinoline have not got room." Then she shook hands, first with Archie, and then with Doodles; and asked the latter why he was not as yet gone to Warwickshire. Archie, in almost mortal fear, looked up into his brother's face. Had his brother learned the story of that seventy pounds? Sir Hugh was puzzled beyond measure at finding that the woman knew the two men; but having still an eye to his lamb chops, was chiefly anxious to get rid of Sophie and Doodles together.
    "This is my friend Boodle,---Captain Boodle," said Archie, trying to put a bold face upon the crisis. "He has come to see me off."
    "Very kind of him," said Sir Hugh. "Just make way for this lady, will you? I want to get her out of the house if I can. Your friend seems to know her; perhaps he'll be good enough to give her his arm."
    "Who;---I?" said Doodles. "No; I don't know her particularly. I did meet her once before, just once,---in a casual way."
    "Captain Booddle and me is very good friends," said Sophie. "He come to my house and behave himself very well; only he is not so handy a man as your brother, Sir 'Oo."
    Archie trembled, and he trembled still more when his brother, turning to him, asked him if he knew the woman.
    "Yes; he know the woman very well," said Sophie. "Why do you not come any more to see me? You send your little friend; but I like you better yourself. You come again when you return, and all that shall be made right."
    But still she did not go. She had now seated herself on a gun-case which was resting on a portmanteau, and seemed to be at her ease. The time was going fast, and Sir Hugh, if he meant to eat his chops, must eat them at once.
    "See her out of the hall, into the street," he said to Archie; "and if she gives trouble, send for the police. She has come here to get money from me by threats, and only that we have no time, I would have her taken to the lock-up house at once." Then Sir Hugh retreated into the dining-room and shut the door.

Oh, Doodles!

Chapter 39:

Doodles, as he walked along two sides of the square with the fair burden on his arm, felt himself to be in some sort proud of his position, though it was one from which he would not have been sorry to escape, had escape been possible. A remarkable phenomenon was the Spy, and to have walked round Berkeley Square with such a woman leaning on his arm, might in coming years be an event to remember with satisfaction. In the meantime he did not say much to her, and did not quite understand all that she said to him. At last he came to the door which he well remembered, and then he paused. He did not escape even then. After a while the door was opened, and those who were passing might have seen Captain Boodle, slowly and with hesitating steps, enter the narrow passage before the lady. Then Sophie followed, and closed the door behind her...

OH, DOODLES!!

Chapter 46:

Four days after this a little woman, carrying a very big bandbox in her hands, might have been seen to scramble with difficulty out of a boat in the Thames up the side of a steamer bound from thence for Boulogne. And after her there climbed up an active little man, who, with peremptory voice, repulsed the boatman's demand for further payment. He also had a bandbox on his arm,---belonging, no doubt, to the little woman. And it might have been seen that the active little man, making his way to the table at which the clerk of the boat was sitting, out of his own purse paid the passage-money for two passengers,---through to Paris. And the head and legs and neck of that little man were like to the head and legs and neck of---our friend Doodles, alias Captain Boodle, of Warwickshire...

>127 lyzard: Ive been following this discussion, (not reading as Ive too much to read right now) and am finding it all very interesting.My pity for Julie has turned to respect And this comment should remove all doubt that Julia can very well take care of herself

"As you are living at present, you are alone in the world!"
"And I am content to remain alone."
"You are thinking, then, of no second marriage?"
"If I were, does that concern you? But I will speak no further word to you. If you follow me into the inn, or persecute me further by forcing yourself upon me, I will put myself under the protection of the police."

Question in the Victorian era, what were the responsibillities of the police? Were they able to impose themselves on a family matter?

>136 lyzard: I was annoyed when I noticed this on kindle, esp because I tend to up the text size, so it ends up being many pages more than usual. I have found a link in the library that alllows me to go to the table of content and then I find my place usually

>164 cindydavid4:, >165 cindydavid4:

Welcome, Cindy! Thank you very much for adding your comments.

The responsibilities of the police were similar then, though with regard to this specific situation, there was certainly much less recogition of what we would call "stalking" or "harassment". However, if someone who was self-evidently a lady*, like Julia, had either called out to a uniformed constable on patrol or sent a request for assistance to the local station, someone would have had a word with Count Pateroff.

(*A woman of a lower class may not have received such prompt attention...assuming that such a woman would have had anything to do with the police in the first place.)

Summoning a police officer was not something a woman would commonly have done, but as you yourself note, Julia is an uncommonly strong character. However, in Chapter 39 we find Sir Hugh repeatedly threatening to "summon a constable" to remove Sophie Gordeloup from his house, so we see that "calling the police" was becoming a more regular thing.

I hadn't come across that kind of Kindle tampering before (or anyway haven't noticed it), it seems a very strange and annoying thing to do---unless there's a specific ebook-conversion reason for it, I guess.

Chapter 40 finds Cecilia having to report her confrontation with Julia.

We see that there has been a shift in Cecilia's thinking: her initial determination to blame everything on Julia has given way both to a certain sympathy for her, plus a greater recognition of how far Harry has been at fault.

However, this does nothing to alter her desire to reconcile Harry and Florence.

I find myself very much echoing Birgit's comments in >158 MissWatson: here, agreeing with the line in the sand drawn by Florence and Theodore, and not at all with Cecilia's willingness to forgive everything if only Harry comes back:

    "And what is it you would have me do?"
    "He is ill now. Wait till he is well. He would have been here before this, had not illness prevented him. Wait till he comes."
    "I cannot do that, Cissy. Wait I must, but I cannot wait without offering him, through his mother, the freedom which I have so much reason to know that he desires."
    "We do not know that he desires it. We do not know that his mother even suspects him of any fault towards you. Now that he is there,---at home,---away from Bolton Street---"
    "I do not care to trust to such influences as that, Cissy. If he could not spend this morning with her in her own house, and then as he left her feel that he preferred me to her, and to all the world, I would rather be as I am than take his hand. He shall not marry me from pity, nor yet from a sense of duty. We know the old story,—how the devil would be a monk when he was sick. I will not accept his sick-bed allegiance, or have to think that I owe my husband to a mother's influence over him while he is ill."

****

    "Her purpose is clear enough. She means to marry Harry Clavering if she can get him. She said so. She made no secret of what her wishes are."
    "Then, Cissy, let her marry him, and do not let us trouble ourselves further in the matter."
    "But Florence, Theodore! Think of Florence!"
    "I am thinking of her, and I think that Harry Clavering is not worth her acceptance. She is as the traveller that fell among thieves. She is hurt and wounded, but not dead. It is for you to be the Good Samaritan, but the oil which you should pour into her wounds is not a renewed hope as to that worthless man. Let Lady Ongar have him. As far as I can see, they are fit for each other."

What were we saying about Harry being his father's son?---

Chapter 41:

    "Have you heard," said he,---speaking in a voice hardly above a whisper, although no third person was in the room,---"that Harry is again thinking of making Julia his wife?"
    "He is not thinking of doing so," said Mrs Clavering. "They who say so, do him wrong."
    "It would be a great thing for him as regards money."
    "But he is engaged,---and Florence Burton has been received here as his future wife. I could not endure to think that it should be so. At any rate, it is not true."
    "I only tell you what I heard," said the rector, gently sighing, partly in obedience to his wife's implied rebuke, and partly at the thought that so grand a marriage should not be within his son's reach. The rector was beginning to be aware that Harry would hardly make a fortune at the profession which he had chosen, and that a rich marriage would be an easy way out of all the difficulties which such a failure promised. The rector was a man who dearly loved easy ways out of difficulties. But in such matters as these his wife he knew was imperative and powerful, and he lacked the courage to plead for a cause that was prudent, but ungenerous.

Chapter 41:

    "Had you not been ill, everything would of course have been all right before now." As to the correctness of this assertion the reader probably will have doubts of his own. Then she handed him the letter, and sat on his bed-side while he read it. At first he was startled, and made almost indignant at the firmness of the girl's words. She gave him up as though it were a thing quite decided, and uttered no expression of her own regret in doing so. There was no soft woman's wail in her words. But there was in them something which made him unconsciously long to get back the thing which he had so nearly thrown away from him. They inspired him with a doubt whether he might yet succeed, which very doubt greatly increased his desire. As he read the letter for the second time, Julia became less beautiful in his imagination, and the charm of Florence's character became stronger.
    "Well, dear?" said his mother, when she saw that he had finished the second reading of the epistle.
    He hardly knew how to express, even to his mother, all his feelings,---the shame that he felt, and with the shame something of indignation that he should have been so repulsed. And of his love, too, he was afraid to speak. He was willing enough to give the required assurance, but after that he would have preferred to have been left alone. But his mother could not leave him without some further word of agreement between them as to the course which they would pursue.

Ha!---

Chapter 41:

Mr Saul in the meantime went about his parish duties with grim energy, supplying the rector's shortcomings without a word. He would have been glad to preach all the sermons and read all the services during these six months, had he been allowed to do so. He was constant in the schools,---more constant than ever in his visitings. He was very courteous to Mr Clavering when the necessities of their position brought them together. For all this Mr Clavering hated him,---unjustly. For a man placed as Mr Saul was placed a line of conduct exactly level with that previously followed is impossible, and it was better that he should become more energetic in his duties than less so. It will be easily understood that all these things interfered much with the general happiness of the family at the rectory at this time.

Well, this is promising:

Chapter 41:

He hardly knew what he was doing as he ran up the steps to the drawing-room. He was afraid of what was to come; but nevertheless he rushed at his fate as some young soldier rushes at the trench in which he feels that he may probably fall. So Harry Clavering hurried on, and before he had looked round upon the room which he had entered, found his fate with Florence on his bosom.

Chapter 43:

    "You are determined to rebuke me, I see," said he. "If you choose to do so, I am prepared to bear it. My defence, if I have a defence, is one that I cannot use."
    "And what would be your defence?"
    "I have said that I cannot use it."
    "As if I did not understand it all! What you mean to say is this,---that when your good stars sent you in the way of Florence Burton, you had been ill-treated by her who would have made your pandemonium for you, and that she therefore,---she who came first and behaved so badly---can have no right to find fault with you in that you have obeyed your good stars and done so well for yourself. That is what you call your defence. It would be perfect, Harry,---perfect, if you had only whispered to me a word of Miss Burton when I first saw you after my return home. It is odd to me that you should not have written to me and told me when I was abroad with my husband. It would have comforted me to have known that the wound which I had given had been cured;---that is, if there was a wound."
    "You know that there was a wound."
    "At any rate, it was not mortal. But when are such wounds mortal? When are they more than skin-deep?"
    "I can say nothing as to that now."
    "No, Harry; of course you can say nothing. Why should you be made to say anything? You are fortunate and happy, and have all that you want. I have nothing that I want."

And then---

Chapter 44 brings us the catastrophe that has been foreshadowed since early in the novel...

...assuming "catastrophe" is the right word:

But before he had left the office there came to him there a young man from the bank at which his cousin Hugh kept his account, telling him the tidings to which the telegram no doubt referred. Jack Stuart's boat had been lost, and his two cousins had gone to their graves beneath the sea! The master of the boat, and Stuart himself, with a boy, had been saved. The other sailors whom they had with them, and the ship's steward, had perished with the Claverings...

This is pretty brutal---

Of poor Archie no one had said a word,---beyond that one word spoken by the housekeeper. For her, it had been necessary that she should know who was now the master of Clavering Park.

Archie may have been useless, but he was also harmless, which is more than can be said of any other of the Clavering males.

And with that, the resolution of the narrative takes care of itself.

I have a number of things to say about that resolution, but they all tie in with my comments on the novel overall, so I think I will leave it at that until we have the general discussion.

Can I please get everyone to check in and let me know where they're up to?

I’ve finished! Ready for any and all discussion.

I'm finished as well.

I probably wont get to it but I have gotten the gist of the story through this discussion; I dont mind spoilers so discuss away!

Finished!

I’ve finished. While it’s an easy read for a Victorian novel (or maybe I’ve just read lots and lots of them), I am unhappy with the ending.

I’m up to chapter 49 and will finish tomorrow. I somehow got behind on The comments so didn’t read them until I had read that far, so haven’t contributed very much. I have appreciated the reflection and depth that another’s reading of a narrative contributes to my own.

I finished a few days ago.

Thanks, everyone!

Sorry, meant to make a start on this yesterday but couldn't get back. Anyway---

I'm not quite sure how best to order my thoughts here, so bear with me. :)

I find The Claverings quite an uncomfortable book, though also one that's a bit more ambiguous than it appears at first glance.

At the time of its publication it was taken chiefly as the story of Julia's punishment for her "falseness" to Harry and her "unwomanly" behaviour in making an entirely interested marriage. It was Julia's situation and her acceptance that her punishment was "deserved" that most of the critics focused on.

I find the ending of the novel infuriating for several reasons. Those of you who have been along for the group-read ride will know how much I dislike the bestowal of money and property as plot resolution even at the best of times---and Harry Clavering being, in effect, rewarded for his false behaviour is not the best of times. In particular I resent the fact that three people including a baby have to die just so that Harry doesn't have to get his hands dirty earning his own income.

But---and I consider this a significant BUT---we have to recognise that this outcome is not Harry being rewarded per se but another aspect of Julia's punishment. With this turn of events, the reality is that if she'd stuck to Harry in the first place, she would have ended up getting everything she ever wanted.

That, in essence, is the foregrounded plot: Julia sins, Julia is severely and, indeed, unrelentingly punished for it.

However, I feel that there are other things going on here that undermine this straightforward interpretation of the novel.

At the outset of The Claverings, we are given reason to believe that both Brabazon sisters have responded to their isolated state and relative poverty by making "interested" marriages:

Chapter 3:

When a thought of the match had first arisen in Sir Hugh's London house, Lady Clavering had been eager in praise of Lord Ongar, or eager in praise rather of the position which the future Lady Ongar might hold; but since the prize had been secured, since it had become plain that Julia was to be the greater woman of the two, she had harped sometimes on the other string. As a sister she had striven for a sister's welfare, but as a woman she could not keep herself from comparisons which might tend to show that after all, well as Julia was doing, she was not doing better than her elder sister had done. Hermione had married simply a baronet, and not the richest or the most amiable among baronets; but she had married a man suitable in age and wealth, with whom any girl might have been in love.

That rider is very ambiguous: it suggests to me that we're supposed to think that Hermione has married Hugh for his "age and wealth", disguising her behaviour behind the fact that he is - or looks like - a man "with whom any girl might have been in love." That unlike Julia, she didn't have the nerve to openly marry for money and brazen it out.

But---BUT again---later in the novel, Trollope suggests that Hermione did and does love Hugh---though even he is hard pressed to think of any reason why she should:

Chapter 35:

Why should she have felt herself cruelly ill-used in this matter of his last breakfast,---so cruelly ill-used that she wept afresh over it as she dressed herself,---seeing that she would lose so little? Because she loved the man;---loved him, though she now thought that she hated him...

****

    There was a tear in her eye as she rose to kiss him; but the tear was not there of her own good will, and she strove to get rid of it without his seeing it. As he spoke he also rose, and having lit for himself a bed-candle was ready to go. "Good-by, Hermy," he said, submitting himself, with the candle in his hand, to the inevitable embrace.
    "Good-by, Hugh; and God bless you," she said, putting her arms round his neck. "Pray,---pray take care of yourself."

Chapter 44:

    He had never loved his cousins, or pretended to love them. His cousin's wife he did love, after a fashion, but in speaking to his own wife of the way in which this tragedy would affect Hermione, he did not scruple to speak of her widowhood as a period of coming happiness.
    "She will be cut to pieces," said Mrs Clavering. "She was attached to him as earnestly as though he had treated her always well."

Chapter 45:

Lady Ongar had truly said that her sister was as yet always thinking of her bereavement. To her now it was as though the husband she had lost had been a paragon among men. She could only remember of him his manliness, his power,---a dignity of presence which he possessed,---and the fact that to her he had been everything.

It is hard to know whether Hermione did love Hugh for goodness knows what reason---or whether, as I say, she was unable to face not loving her husband---or whether this is an example of that beloved 18th and 19th century precept, that a woman would inevitably "learn" to love her husband; but anyway, though we might be incredulous, there's no doubt we're supposed to take this at face value.

Which begs the question---why is SHE being punished?

I think we can reasonably argue that Hermione's marital punishment is worse than Julia's, with a longer marriage, two dead children and the hint of physical as well as emotional violence---but if she did indeed love her husband, why is the universe punishing her at all?

This is where I find the book ambiguous: Trollope seems to be ordering his universe so that a transgressing woman is being suitably punished, but he undermines his own argument by paralleling the sisters' fates. What we're left with isn't a sense of cosmic justice, but of cosmic injustice---a much more realistic assertion that "shit happens".

And of course the other person who does not get what they deserve is Harry.

I will say this for The Claverings---it is mercifully free of that note of male smugness of which Trollope is sometimes guilty, when the world is delivering his men what they want and his women are left to put up with it.

I don't think Trollope takes Harry's bad behaviour lightly, though he attributes it to "weakness" rather than "wickedness". That said, Julia's falseness to him is treated more severely than his falseness to Florence - and his falseness to Julia! - and while the double standard is aggravating, I think we're supposed to excuse him to a degree because it is his feelings rather than his calculations that lead him astray.

But in any case, with Hermione being punished without sinning on one hand, and Harry being lavishly rewarded for his rotten behaviour on the other, I find that the simplistic reading of The Claverings as "about" Julia being punished doesn't hold up.

Julia is portrayed as stronger than Hermione in just about every way, and I think we are supposed to assume she will "survive" her punishment. So although Trollope makes her out to be the more calculating sister, at the end he lets her stand on her own two feet (and with her own money). I think in that way he has created a woman who will endure.

Hermione, however, has much deeper blows and is less able to withstand them. Why Trollope deals her such pain is puzzling, unless it's to give Julia someone to take care of and to emphasize Julia's endurance.

I'm not sure what to make of Harry, or why Trollope feels he needs to have the tidy ending, unless he felt it was expected of him. Although, to his credit, in the very last lines of the book, Trollope lets Theodore Burton weigh in on Harry (and his sort):

"Providence has done very well for Florence. And Providence has done very well for him also; --but Providence was making a great mistake when she expected him to earn his bread."

It's as if he's caving in with the conventional ending, but getting in his last 2 cents to question the whole thing.

I wondered if Hermione's whole character and situation was less about trying to say something about her and more about setting up Sir Hugh's evil character. In that sense she was more of an authorial tool than a theme in her own right.

>187 japaul22: Yes, that is a good point.

There was something I kept thinking of---apologies for this:

Spoilers for The Eustace Diamonds:

I kept thinking how much the Florence-Harry-Julia plot in this foreshadowed the Lucy-Frank-Lizzie situation in that, which began serialisation four years later. It seemed to me that Trollope was deliberately revisiting such a triangle, but with an even harsher eye on his "hero"---though with the same unsatisfactory resolution.

To give Harry his due, we don't doubt his feeling for Julia, though certainly the thought of her money keeps intruding. In the later book, there is barely a pretence of real feeling on Frank's part, with his thoughts squarely on what he could do in the world with Lizzie's money.

And meanwhile in both cases, a nice little domestic fiancée can do nothing but sit and wait to see if she'll be jilted---and then pretend nothing was ever wrong when she isn't.

An issue I have with The Claverings is that I don't find Florence a sufficiently distinct personality. She's just there to be perfect and domestic and a contrast to Julia, rather than a defined character in her own right (though she has her moments, which I will comment on below).

The other issue is this idea that women will simply pretend that male misbehaviour didn't happen.

Again, I'm not sure what Trollope intended here, though he would revisit that later too (and again, more harshly). Is he saying that men are going to do what they want and women just have to put up with it? Against that we have Hermione's situation: she "puts up" and what does it get her?

The frustrating thing here is that Florence is at her most memorable when she is refusing to play this game---as Birgit points out in >158 MissWatson:, from Chapter 32, when she won't just sit and wait and see whether she is to be taken or left, but pre-emptively breaks things off and without addressing Harry at all:

    "I wish I had known it sooner," she said, in a voice so soft that Cecilia strained her ears to catch the words. "I wish I had known it sooner. I would not have come up to be in his way."
    "But you will be in no one's way, Flo, unless it be in hers."
    "And I will not be in hers," said Florence, speaking somewhat louder, and raising her head in pride as she spoke. "I will be neither in hers nor in his. I think I will go back at once."
    Cecilia upon this, ventured to look round at her, and saw that she was very pale, but that her eyes were dry and her lips pressed close together. It had not occurred to Mrs Burton that her sister-in-law would take it in this way,---that she would express herself as being willing to give way, and that she would at once surrender her lover to her rival...

I don't consider this "surrender"; I consider it a perfectly justified withdrawal from a distasteful and insulting situation.

Yet somehow we get from that to this---

Chapter 44:

She had left London very triumphant,---quite confident that she had nothing now to fear from Lady Ongar or from any other living woman, having not only forgiven Harry his sins, but having succeeded also in persuading herself that there had been no sins to forgive...

I find this creepy and disturbing, frankly, and hardly the basis for a sound marriage.

More spoilers:

The main difference between the two scenarios, in addition to Frank's greater dishonesty, is that there is no man around to defend Lucy or even just to speak against Frank's behaviour. There we have a much nastier sense of women putting up because they have no choice, and pretending everything's okay because the alternative is too hard to face.

Here, at least, Trollope gives us Theodore, the novel's voice of reason, to stand out against this blanket forgive-and-forget response from the women.

He still seems to think that this is normal female behaviour, however.

>189 lyzard: I find this creepy and disturbing, frankly, and hardly the basis for a sound marriage.

having worked with victims of domestic violence, we see this forgive and forget respose all the time, often until their children are hurt,or she finds a safe place to run to, or he kills her. Not saying the men in the story were violent, but that is a response to men who are at first threatening and even when thy react in violence. I think nowadays people are more aware, but the rates of this vilence keep rising. I keep thinking that we will reach a point where this response is obselete, but Im afraid it will never be, esp now with firearms involed.Interesting the pairing of the two novels but in both cases the women are made to feel blamed, until they dont' Curious which book came first?

this discussion is making me want to read another Trollope. What should I start with?

Sorry, I've been spending the weekend in Brittany with Balzac and the Chouans.

My final comments on The Claverings: I am disappointed mostly because Harry is such an unprepossessing crybaby and then quite undeservedly ends up with a title and a fortune. I also thought Trollope was uncommon lazy in signalling this turn of events so brazenly. I did enjoy my final glimpse of Sophie Gordeloup in the company of Doodles, they'll make an interesting pair. But I very much wonder how Fanny will like her life as Mrs Saul.

>190 cindydavid4:

What you say is very sadly true of course, but in this (fictional) context there is no hint of violence or coercion. On the contrary, Trollope is (from his middle-aged Victorian male perspective, granted) presenting this as normal, spontaneous female behaviour---as opposed to Hermione's cowed submission, where we do have reason to believe there may have been physical violence.

This book came first: the later situation, which echoes it, is generally presented more uncomfortably---not in the sense of violence, but in the sense of women being left without a choice and making the best of things.

(In the interests of disclosure, I may say that my OCD brain is a lot better at long-term-grudge than at forgive-and-forget, so I'm not necessarily the best person to be judging this!---anyone??)

>190 cindydavid4:

this discussion is making me want to read another Trollope. What should I start with?

That is a very big question! :D

We're always inclined to advise people to start with the Barchester series---the problem being that the first book, The Warden, while short and in general a good introduction to Trollope's style, is full of contemporary issues including church politics that can be hard for a modern reader to grasp.

Consequently the recommendation is usually The Warden in conjunction with our group read thread, which is here, where hopefully your questions will be answered. :)

Does anyone have any alternative recommendations?

>191 MissWatson:

No worries, Birgit!

You're right, though it does fit with the sense that Trollope is operating behind a smokescreen---actually arguing that most of the time people don't get what they deserve---or don't deserve what they get---there's no orderly dispensing of punishment and reward.

Probably the foreshadowing would have been better concealed in a three-volume novel; unless we were supposed to be anticipating, not Harry's ending, but Julia's?

Yes, we have to hope with Mr Clavering that Mr Saul calms down a bit---and actually, his adjustment to comfort and comparative wealth is likely to be an uneasy one, I should think.

Just one final thought, which I noted before but want to emphasise:

Chapter 34:

"My darling," she said,---"you will be true to Florence; will you not?" Then there was a pause...

That to me is the key moment in the book. That pause tells me it's Julia that Harry really wants---but he's not strong enough to hold out against the various pressures being exerted on him.

OTOH he's just weak enough to take what he gets and be happy with it, whatever that means for Florence; whereas Julia's very strength means that all that is left to her is (to use Kathy's word) endurance.

Thank you, everyone! Thank you particularly to Bryan and Cindy: it's always great to get new participants. :)

Can we get any final thoughts and reactions?

And please don't run away, because of course we have to sort out what we're doing next... :D

>196 lyzard: I also was struck by this moment and wondered how happy Florence and Harry will really be, even with the inheritance and Harry not needing to work.

In the end, I felt like Trollope probably just didn't spend quite as much time on this novel as some of his others. I thought some of the characters were overly subservient to what he wanted to do with the plot. And I found the end just too convenient.

It was pretty easy to read, without all the politics and church politics that I find interesting but sometimes confusing. But I have a feeling I will forget most of the plot and characters fairly quickly. It definitely won't make my list of Trollope favorites.

>197 lyzard: so is this group for specific types of books? How do you choose what you read/

>199 japaul22:

And no hunting scenes! - thank you, Mr Proudie. :)

Yeah, I think that's fair comment. It's a book most interesting to me as part of a bigger picture---as if Trollope was working through the early form of a few ideas that would later become more significant.

I do find it a little worrying, though, that what I will probably take away most from this novel is Theodore Burton and Sophie Gordeloup. :D

>200 cindydavid4:

It's all just a cunning plan on my part to make people read 19th century fiction with me and let me pontificate---mwuh-ha-ha! :D

There's a core group of us who have read most of Trollope's major novels and are now working through his standalone, more minor works. We are doing this in publication order, which negates the need to choose a particular book out of so many.

As a separate project, involving some of the same people, we are also reading some 19th century Virago publications more or less in chronological order; there have been some diversions in that, but we are back on track now.

We are doing one group read about everything three months, alternating.

Speaking of all that---

For those of you involved in the Virago project, I have a suggestion that is a compromise from input received.

Our next works are Curious, If True by Elizabeth Gaskell, a collection of five short stories; and George Eliot's novella, The Lifted Veil.

Rather than either drag these out to two reads or try to cram them into one month, I propose that we plan for a slightly longer group read next time, October through into November, so that we can give each individual story proper attention and not crowd them too much.

Would that work for people?

On that basis, the next Trollope read would be either January or February, according to group consensus.

Our next novel will be Nina Balatka.

>203 lyzard: That plan works for me.

The Claverings is pretty weak for a Trollope novel. It’s not my least liked (that would be The Struggles of Smith, Jones, and Robinson, which didn’t work for me at all), but it’s pretty far down the list. The main characters were just so annoying, being either horrible or weak people. And that deus ex machine ending just turned me right of, except for that glimpse of humor with Madame Gordeloup and Toodles, as mentioned above.

Still, I’m up for further reading of AT. Usually I find his work interesting. I regard him as delightfully gossipy friend, with usually a clear and cool eye behind the scenes.

>193 lyzard: I very much enjoyed The way we live now whose financial frauds have so much in common with today's world. (And there's always that marvellous TV adaption with David Suchet...)

>203 lyzard: Short stories in October and November is a good plan, I can squeeze that into family commitments. And in January I shall be in retirement and have lots of time for reading Trollope!

>203 lyzard: Yes that sounds fine to me.

I didn't have nearly the problems with The Claverings that so many of us had. Yes, Harry is weak and vacillating. But Trollope displays his vacillation and weakness so well.

October and November sound good for the Virago reads. I'm not sure if I'll join in Nina Balatka as I read it last year.

>202 lyzard: mmm Ive never been much about reading 19th century fiction but Ive read some. This group interested me because Id heard so much about Trollope. Think Ill try another and maybe pop in and out

>204 Matke:, >205 MissWatson:, >206 CDVicarage:, >207 NinieB:

All right, we'll make that the plan for the Viragos, then; thanks!

>204 Matke:, >207 NinieB:

The characterisations are sound, though as I say I don't think we see as much of Florence as we should, not enough to really balance things; but I don't think we're given reason to be properly invested. I don't have to like people to be interested, but there needs to be something.

As always there are compensations, though. :)

>205 MissWatson:

Yes, it's a bit depressing how relevant TWWLN remains.

Well, that does sound like a plan!

>207 NinieB:

But you'll lurk, right?? :D

>208 cindydavid4:

You're always welcome to join us, Cindy. :)

Sorry I have been distracted with work and life to contribute much to this thread, it has been interesting to read the indepth ideas about characters and plot and I am happy to read along with other Trollopes and classics in the future, the Virago project sounds intriguing.
Overall I thought The Claverings was an ok read, somewhat predictable and maybe not having the depth of the Barset novels or The Way We Live Now. With Trollope's quantity of books written and published there will be great reads and not so great reads of course.
Thanks Liz for your insights and encouragement and happy reading all!

>212 bryanoz:

It happens. :)

It was great to have you join us, Bryan, hopefully we will see you back again for some of our future reads. I will post around (including here) when we are getting ready to go with the upcoming Virago reads.

A reminder that there will be a group read of Nina Balatka in February. I will post here again when the thread is up. Hope to see you all there!

I'll be offline until February 5th, but I'll catch up with you!

>215 MissWatson:

No hurry, Birgit: we have a shorter work this time, for which I admit I'm grateful. :)

The thread is now up for the group read of Nina Balatka - here.

Hope to see you all there!