Five Scenes, Sorted by What They Did to Me
A butler committing insubordination in perfect grammar, a roof attempting murder, a grandmother out-arguing the supernatural, and a punchline four books in the making.
1. Not especially scholarly, no sir
p. 69 The feeling: delighted.
Kate recognizes a line of Shakespeare, which is a problem, because women with no memory are not supposed to have a literary education. Oliver’s response is not to confront her. It is to have a small crisis about himself.
The butler hesitates. Oliver presses: “Again, I am asking for your opinion.” And Hollinger, having been given a direct order to be honest, obeys it precisely: “As you wish, my lord. Not especially scholarly, no sir.”
Oliver tells him to find the bags in a sharper tone than he intended and announces he is going for a ride. Then corrects himself. “No, a walk. A very long walk.”
A man asks his employee for an honest opinion, receives one, and immediately has to leave the house. Perfect.
2. Old. And probably desperate.
p. 177 The feeling: wincing and laughing.
Three younger women interrogate Kate about her intentions, and it is conducted with the specific cruelty of people who think they are being fair.
Kate’s defense is genuinely strong: “If I am deceiving Lady Norcroft and her son, to what end? What could I possibly gain by a charade like this?” Gen shrugs and answers it in two words. “Oliver. She wants Oliver.”
Then they build the case, item by item, as though Kate were not in the room. He is extremely wealthy. Quite handsome. An earl. One of the most eligible bachelors in the country. And then Gen’s gaze flickers over Kate:
Kate gasps. “I am not old.” Belle, doing damage control: “She didn’t mean old. She meant older. Than we are.” Which is worse.
Kate crosses her arms. “And I am certainly not desperate.” Gen, smirking, plays the only card that always wins against an amnesiac: “But you say you don’t know.”
Kate’s teeth-clenched reply is my favorite line she gets: “I suspect I would know if I were desperate.” Gen shrugs in a disparaging manner. Nobody has ever won an argument against a nineteen-year-old and nobody ever will.
3. You’re very good, Hollinger
p. 304 The feeling: applauding.
Oliver is leaving, and defensive about it. “I’m not fleeing, Hollinger, if that’s what you think.”
What follows is one of the great butler moments. Hollinger agrees he would never think such a thing, and then, coolly, provides a summary:
Oliver stares at him. “You’re very good, Hollinger.”
“Yes sir.”
No hedging, no false modesty, no pretense that he did not just do that on purpose. The whole relationship in two words. A man who has spent the book being managed by his own household finally acknowledges it out loud and the household accepts the compliment.
4. Three slates, sounding remarkably like gunshots
p. 304 The feeling: sat forward.
He walks out of the house and takes “a bare step away” before a slate shatters at his feet with a loud crack, “missing him by mere inches.” He jumps back. Two more come down in quick succession, “sounding remarkably like shots from a gun.”
What I love is how badly everyone wants this to be nothing. Oliver produces the boring explanation immediately and confidently: extensive roof repairs a few months back, stone-tackers leaving slates unsecured, rain washing them to the edge. “I would think anything that was going to fall has now done so. I see no reason to stay.”
Berkley then attempts the most heavily insured sentence in the novel:
Oliver compliments the point, agrees such a person might indeed see a slate missing one’s head by inches as a sign of sorts, firmly establishes that neither of them holds such beliefs, states they shall continue on, and then says:
“However, I have changed my mind.” And tosses Berkley his bag.
Two Englishmen agreeing at length that they are not superstitious and then both acting entirely superstitiously without either admitting it. That is not a fantasy scene. That is a documentary.
5. I really must get a new cloak
p. 352 The feeling: genuinely got me.
The proposal, which is lovely and direct. He asks if there is any longer a reason she will not marry him. Her heart thuds. “None that I can think of.” Relief crosses his face and then joy and he sweeps her up. “Are you sure?” She swallows hard and looks into his blue eyes. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind. Or in my heart.”
They say it plainly, which after four books of people being clever at each other is exactly right. “I love you, Kate.” “And I love you, Oliver.”
He tells her he thinks he loved her “from the moment I first saw you lying unconscious in the manor,” which is very funny, because she was awake and listening to him hope her eyes were green.
And then she tells him when it happened for her:
He narrows his eyes. “How did you know…”
She grins. “I really must get a new cloak.”
Those four shillings are the tontine. He won them by outlasting every friend he had, sat alone with them at a club table in the epilogue of book three feeling sorry for himself, and then handed them to a badly dressed stranger in the street with a wish attached.
She kept them. She came back. The prize for being the last man standing walks into his parlor, pretends to have a head injury, and marries him. Four books of a running joke and it turns out the joke was a love story the whole time.
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