In the midst of all the life altering gossip about Matilda she does the proper gothic heroine thing and develops a fever. They send for a doctor "who ordered her to be bled and kept very quiet." It always makes me shudder to read the bleeding thing. But the weirder thing is that the fever and the bleeding makes her more beautiful. "From the quantity of blood taken from her in the morning, and the little hectic which the fever occasioned, she looked uncommonly delicate and beautiful." So beautiful that when her friend Adelaide, friend and sister of the good count, comes to visit, she tells Matilda, "My dear, Miss Weimar, you look quite enchanting."
I've been around a fair number of sick and recovering people. It is generally not a good look. I don't think I've ever been complimented on looking good. The only people who look good while sick or crying have make up artists, hair retouches, and are in front of a camera, perfectly well, and acting.
But she's a heroine. Heroines are always beautiful even when the rest of us would look like warmed over death. Horrible fevers and blood loss make me pale and give me deep circles under my eyes. Matilda looks beautiful and delicate. Maybe circles under the eyes was a thing back then.
In the midst of Matilda's illness, the evil Uncle Weimar shows up unannounced and demands Matilda and Albert, claiming the robbed him. The Marquis isn't around to be the man and deal with this, but that's okay. The Marchioness is up to the task of sending him on his way.
"Robbing you, Sir! take care what you say; you shall bring proofs of your assertions, and then we will answer you: at present Miss Weimar is safe in our protection, and you will find, Sir, she has powerful friends to guard her, and expose those who are her enemies."
To which the evil Uncle Weimar responds with the 18th century version of, "You'll be hearing from my lawyer!" He "bowed and quitted the house," at which point the Marchioness starts to make plans, thinks of how they can legal help her, and is generally all around awesome.
As this is happening, mean girl Mme. De Fontelle is wasting no time going to the good Count and spreading all the gossip. But the good Count is good and sends her away with dispatch saying he doesn't believe her and he doesn't like people who tell petty tales. ELIZA PARSONS YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!!
They are supposed to be immediately deeply attracted to each other if not in love.
Then against all reason he is supposed to believe the lie and think badly of the innocent and put upon Matilda.
So that Matilda can cry a lot.
Parsons! Your version makes too much sense. Stop it and get dramatic right now!
(I have to admit, that little trite formula can get me every time. There is a romance writer, Julie James, whose books for Harlequin Presents bring me to tears. I just cry for the terribly put upon and slandered heroine. This is my deep admission that while I find Parsons refreshing and marvelous, I'm really so familiar with the trope she's NOT using because I love it.)
But I digress. Uncle Weimar, having had no luck with the Marchioness, goes off in search of the Marquis and starts talking to him in the middle of the street. The Marquis isn't the Marchioness. He actually listens to the uncle.
And they have a nice chat and Uncle Weimar states that, "as [Matilda's] uncle, he has a right to claim her: her behavior to him made her undeserving protection, but duty to his deceased brother called upon him to protect his child." The Marquis then explains what Matilda said of why she ran away (that she'd overheard the uncle's plans to break into her room at night and "be happy) and the Uncle says the elegant equivalent of "oh she heard me wrong." "Upon hearing imperfectly a desultory conversation which, if she heard the whole, and its true meaning, she would have formed a very different judgement of." He the asks to see his niece alone for a bit. And the Marquis says that he can see Uncle Weimar's point about the misunderstanding and agrees to the meeting, assuming Matilda approves. (At least he left that open to Matilda.)
Marquis. I don't think she misunderstood anything about a conversation that talks about breaking into her room while she's sleeping. There isn't a lot to misunderstand there.
He talks the Marchioness and Matilda into letting the uncle see her alone for a bit, but only on the condition that the Marchioness can hide in the closet in case the uncle gets creepy or grabby or whatever, because the Marchioness is awesome and doesn't trust the uncle.
So Matilda and Uncle Weimar meet alone in the Marquis's house, with the Marchioness hidden nearby and so starts a creepy conversation of such underhanded abusiveness it could be used as a textbook in gaslighting and guilt tripping.
The uncle says he understands from the Marquis's description of what she heard, and isn't angry with her anymore, but then says she "acted precipitantly, and on very slight grounds, the conversation you only partially heard and little understood."
Matilda holds her ground. "I head enough, Sir, to inform me I was not in safety in a house with a woman of Agatha's principles."
Since that didn't work, the uncle falls back on the mind game Matilda is always vulnerable to, guilt and what she "owes" him for him having raised her. "Before I explain myself farther, tell me, Matilda, is there no gratitude, no affection due to the man who has supported you from childhood, who took you a helpless infant, without a friend to protect you from every evil incident to deserted infancy? Did I not treat you, love you, as a blessing sent from heaven?"
It works to a point. Matilda starts to cry and says, yes, she owes him everything and, "heaven can witness for me how grateful I was for your kindness, until my delicacy was alarmed by freedoms I though improper from our near connexion." In other words, vulnerable spot hit, but not giving in.
"'One question more,' said he; 'should you have been offended at those freedoms (as you call very innocent attentions), had they been offered by a man who designed to make you his wife?'"
Matilda still knows her mind. Breaking into bedrooms in the middle of the night is not very innocent at all. "His wife! 'tis a strange question" Yeah, considering uncle and all. "but I answer, yes, Sir, I should; for confined as my knowledge of mankind was, nature and decency had taught me the impropriety of such behaviour."
Uncle keeps being a sick, gross man, saying, "Perhaps you carried your ideas of propriety too far."
No. No. She didn't.
But then Uncle Weimar goes in for this is either gothic novel or daytime soap opera limits.
Uncle Weimar drops the bombshell. "But now, Matilda, I am going to disclose a secret, known only to Agatha, and which occasioned the conversation you misunderstood and misrepresented-- I am not your uncle."
No comments:
Post a Comment