To Love & to Cherish
Show Notes
The first of the Wyckerley trilogy, To Love & To Cherish came out on January 1, 1995. To borrow the subtitle from Middlemarch, it’s a study in provincial life. Set in 1854 in the fictional village of Wyckerley is alive with Dickensian characters and glimpses of heroes yet to star in their own books. Patricia Gaffney has said the favorite among her historical romances is To Love & To Cherish and it’s easy to see why. The romance centers on the vicar Christian Morrell and the wife of his childhood best friend Anne Verlaine. Anne’s husband Geoffrey, a man struggling with illness, doesn’t care for his wife and wishes to return to the adventure of soldiering. Anne piques Christy’s interest. Anne finds him equally fascinating and doesn’t think her marriage should be any impediment to a relationship between them. Join us for the first installment of the Reformed Rakes reading the Wyckerley trilogy.
Books Referenced
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
To Have & to Hold by Patricia Gaffney
Forever & Ever by Patricia Gaffney
Sweet Treason by Patricia Gaffney
Works Cited:
2002 Interview with Patricia Gaffney
Transcript
Beth
Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that entices the vicar into a sinful relationship. I'm Beth, and I'm on BookTok under the name bethhaymondreads
Emma
I'm Emma, a law librarian writing about justice and romance of the Substack, restorative romance.
Chels
My name is Chels. I'm the writer of the romance, Substack, the Loose Cravat, a romance book collector and booktook under the username chels_ebooks.
Beth
What would you do if you thought you had five years to live? After discovering a lump in her breast, Patricia Gaffney and her husband moved to the Pennsylvania countryside, and Gaffney fulfilled her dream of writing a book. She said, "Fear of failure had kept me from even trying to write, even though it was just about all I wanted to do since age eight. Now I was almost out of time with nothing to show for my life. I was horribly depressed. Positive, it really was curtains for me. I figured I had about two more years. Might as well go for it. Try to write the book I'd been having so much fun reading, historical romance novels."
Beth
She published sweet Treason in 1989, which would be the first of 12 historical romances she would write. Even better, she beat cancer.
Beth
And is still writing books. The first of the Wyckerly trilogy To Love and To Cherish came out on January 1st, 1995. To borrow the subtitle from Middlemarch, it's a study in provincial life. Set in 1854 in the fictional village of Wyckerley, as one of the main characters writes in her diary, "Everyday, the beauty of this place seduces me a little more." Gaffney took inspiration from Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd to create Wyckerley and St. Giles Parish. The village of Wyckerley is alive with Austenian characters and glimpses of heroes yet to star in their own books.
Beth
Gaffney has said the favorite among her historical romances is To Love and To Cherish, and it's easy to see why. The romance centers on the vicar, Christian Morale. And the wife of.
Beth
His childhood best friend, Anne Verlaine, and husband, Geoffrey, a man struggling with illness who doesn't care for his wife and wishes to return to the venture of soldiering. Anne piques Christy’s interest. Anne finds him equally fascinating and doesn’t think her marriage should be any impediment to a relationship between them.
Beth
Okay, so we all love Gaffney, and I thought we could maybe just talk about when she first showed up on our radars. As per usual, I got this from Chels. I don't remember, though. I think I remembered you talking about Forever and Ever. And then from there, I think I put on my Goodreads and then eventually read To Love and To Cherish.
Emma
I don't remember what spurred me to read...To Have and To Hold, but I knew Chels had talked about it for a long time. It was my first Bodice Ripper. And so that's the second book of the series. And that one is a Bodice Ripper, though this one is not. I don't know if Chels had said something that indicated to me that it was going to be... Not necessarily, I don't know if there's a good or a perfect first Bodice Ripper, but that one was the perfect one for me to read first because I loved it so much and it just really changed how I approached thinking about that subgenre and that plot. So I read To Have and To Hold, which is the second one first. And then I don't know what spurred me to read To Love and To Cherish other than one. I think I had read a bunch of a string of duds of books that were set in London ballrooms, which is usually why I go to a village-based romance. And I knew that this one was also set in Wyckerley. So I think I grabbed to this one after a bunch of London ballroom romances that I didn't enjoy as much?
Chels
Yeah. I read To Have and To hold a few years ago, and it completely rocked my world. I can't stop talking about it. And I think that was definitely my first Gaffney and also probably one of my first Bodice Rippers too, now that I'm thinking about it. But it just reoriented what I want out of romance novels. And since then, I've become a really big Gaffney fan. I saw on a Dear Author interview, they referred to Gaffney, Laura Kinsale, and Judith Ivory as this holy trinity of writers. And I'm like, Oh, these are my favorite writers.
Beth
But it's accurate. I feel like the Holy Trinity.
Chels
Yeah, they're just so good. They might have said Golden Trio. I don't know if I just made it holy because we're leading To Love and To Cherish.
Beth
They are now for us.
Chels
But yeah, huge fan. I'm very excited that we're doing an episode for every book in the Wyckerly trilogy. I think they each deserve their own episode, so this will be so fun.
Beth
Yeah, we learned from our Cecilia Grant episode. We did to dedicate more time.
Chels
They need a whole episode.
Beth
Okay, so as we always do, I will do a plot summary. But before that, I just wanted to issue a quick content warning. Well, we wouldn't call this a Bodice Ripper. There is a rape in this book. So if you need to miss this one totally understand when we'll catch you next time.
Beth
We open at the deathbed of Lord D’Aubrey. The vicar, Christian Morrell, ministers to him. At the end Lord D’Aubrey mistakes Christian, or Christy, for his son Geoffrey. Christy lies and tells him to go in peace. That same night Geoffrey arrives with his wife Anne and Christy’s struck at how sick he looks in contrast to the boy he knew twelve years ago. Geoffrey had a terrible relationship with his father and doesn’t care about his death. He teases Christy about his looks and job, not quite believing he’s the new vicar. (Christy’s father had been the vicar until his death four years ago.) Geoffrey tells Christy he wants to buy another commission after having sold his captaincy previously. Anne doesn’t talk very much although Christy is curious about her.
Beth
We get the first of Anne’s diary entries where she talks about how run down the manor is and Lord D’Aubrey’s method of shutting up most of the house has resulted in mold, mice, and dry rot. The tenants' homes desperately need repair as well. Geoffrey takes the first installment of his inheritance money, £400, to buy a horse. They bury Geoffrey’s father and Anne agrees with Geoffrey’s assessment of Christ’s “archangel” looks.
Beth
Anne and Christy start to see each other in Wyckerley. Everyone’s curious about how Geoffrey’s changed on what Anne is like, so lots of people show up to this gathering put on by Miss Weedie. Anne gets there late because she gets lost and puts up with the mayor’s daughter being like, oh yes Geoffrey, oh I mean Lord D’Aubrey I keep forgetting, and Christy gets to wonder if Anne and Geoffrey really love each other. He walks her home and insists she call him Christy.
Beth
Geoffrey’s horse arrives. He finds her while she’s writing in her diary. He asks her to invite Christy for dinner that night and she asks him if he’s still taking his medicine. He tells people he has malaria but he actually has syphilis. Geoffrey doesn’t really give an answer but remarks on how unfair it is that she's grown so beautiful from when they first got married. He kisses her and Anne gags because his breath smells so bad. He apologizes.
Beth
Christy comes for dinner and he and Anne talk before Geoffrey enters the room. Anne turns reserved and controlled in Geoffrey’s presence. Geoffrey pesters Christy into a horse race, something they did as teenagers. Christy reluctantly agrees to the following afternoon. During the race, Geoffrey sees Christy will win so he yanks his horse to the left leaving Christy to veer out of the way into some brush where he’s knocked unconscious. When he wakes up Christy doesn’t rat Geoffrey out who pretended not to see. He goes to the manor where Anne patches him up. He asks Anne if Geoffrey’s ever done anything to make her feel unsafe. She immediately asks what Geoffrey’s done. Christy denies anything and they needle each other a bit and Christy has his shirt off and it’s this lovely, charged scene. Geoffrey has some terrible friends over and Anne asks Christy to stay for dinner, so he stays.
Beth
In the following diary entry, we get how awful Geoffrey’s friends were to Christy. Mocking his profession and beliefs. What galls Anne the most is how Christy answered each question sincerely and she couldn’t believe how he couldn’t see their mockery. After Christy leaves, Anne chases him down on the bridge asking him why he let them do that. He responds and asks Anne if she thinks he’s weak. Anne counters even Jesus got mad at the “money-changers” and Christy corrects her and says “lenders” and they start to cool off a bit. He says, “I hate being a symbol instead of a person. I’m the minister, I’m Reverend Morrell; and so, depending on what your hopes and prejudices are, that makes me either a saint or a hypocrite” (107). Christy admits he wanted to engage them in real conversation but really it was naive of him to try to.
Beth
Anne ends her entry by saying, “He’s better than I am, is Reverend Morrell. But it’s not because of “God”; it’s because he was born that way”
Beth
Geoffrey visits Christy and tells him his commission went through and he’s to join the rifle brigade. He apologizes for the race. He admits to Christy he doesn’t know why he did it. There’s this revealing moment where Geoffrey says to Christy, “I could almost envy you”...”Me?” Christy blinked in surprise. “Why?”
Beth
“You’ve got a home.” “But you’ve—” “I’ve got a house and I can’t wait to get out of it.”
Beth
Geoffrey asks Christy to take of Anne and his horse. We go back to Anne’s diary entries and she writes about the villagers: “Everyone is courteous, but there is an underlying servitude to their courtesy that disturbs me” (120). Anne’s in a similar boat to Christy where she’s held apart from the rest of the community because of her position.
Beth
Christy asks Anne to give penny readings. So they read from a novel out loud. Anne agrees but says everyone should take turns. Everyone really likes this and Anne’s diary entries become sparser and she wonders if it’s because she’s busier and happier. Christy tells Anne they can’t see each other alone anymore because he cares for her. Anne counters her “marriage is a farce” and she wouldn’t let the “obscenity” stand between them. Christy says it must stand in his way and after Anne asks him if he’s afraid of judgment, Christy says the judgment and pain are already with him. They stay friends.
Beth
They meet again in a few days in the graveyard at night. Anne discovers Christy crying because a villager, Tolliver Deene, had died that afternoon. Christy tried to console him and his family but felt his answers didn’t help Tolliver or his family. Anne reassures him and when Christy tries to leave Anne entices him back saying she wants to tell him the story of her life. As a child, she lived in Ravenna with her parents until her mother died when she was seven. Afterwards, she and her father traveled through Italy, France, the Netherlands, and only occasionally visited England. Her father had a lot of mistresses growing up and Anne didn’t like them and grew up to be cynical. She met Geoffrey at 20 and he knew Anne’s father had come into “a great deal of money” and he pursued Anne like a “storm” and proposed within two weeks. They married in Scotland. A week after the wedding they returned to London only to discover Anne’s father had died in an accident and hadn’t made financial provisions for her. All his fortune went to a distant cousin.
Beth
Christy leaves and agrees to stay friends. Pretty soon after that a letter arrives from the war office and Christy takes it. The hospital ship Geoffrey was on sank along with thirty other ships. Anne falls into a depression for a while as time moves through several diary entries. Sebastian Verlaine is Geoffrey’s heir and he tells Anne she can stay at the manor until she’s ready to go.
Beth
A month later, Anne runs into Christy on a bridge and she invites him to look at her horse who recently had a foal. They talk for a bit and then kiss. Christy confesses his love and wants to marry which Anne thinks is silly because as an atheist she can’t be a minister’s wife. Besides, she doesn’t think people like her. She proposes an affair instead. They part each, promising the other they’ll get their way.
Beth
There’s a crossroads in the village and they leave each other presents and notes at this location. Christy writes terrible poetry that makes Anne cry. “God had sent her to test him, he sometimes believed. Was she the instrument of his soul’s damnation? If so, why would she feel like salvation? It was enough to drive a man to drink” (214). Eventually Christy invites Anne to his home so she can spend the night. They have dinner, talk, tour the home. As they make out Christy proposes again and Anne asks for him to be her lover. They are at an impasse so Anne says she’ll see him the following morning. Christy says he can’t and is embarrassed to tell her the exact reason. She wheedles it out of him and he says he promised Miss Weedie that he would “take on all her worries” since she has to have a surgery the next day, so he plans to pray for three hours the following morning. Anne, overcome by the tenderness and care he shows to his parishioners, sas it’s “the last damn straw” and yes she’ll marry him. They have sex and Anne goes home in the morning.
Beth
Some more time passes and Christy settles on marrying Anne in November, a year after Geoffrey’s death. They don’t tell anyone about their engagement although Christy plans to announce it in March.
Beth
Geoffrey shows up alive at the manor. Anne can’t believe it and asks why Geoffrey didn’t write to inform them he’d been alive. Geoffrey lies and says he lost his memory although Anne sees through that. Christy shows up and Anne excuses herself. Geoffrey acknowledges he had a flare up of malaria and Christy wonders if Geoffrey would find it freeing if he knew that Christy knew. He leaves and finds Anne at the gravestone they had put in for Geoffrey. Anne says there was never any hope for them and Christy leaves.
Beth
He writes Anne a letter, but Geoffrey gets it. He finds Anne and rapes her. After Geoffrey tells her she can’t contract syphilis from him because his disease is past that stage. He asks her if she loves Christy and she says yes. He says the doctor told him he only has a year or two left. Geoffrey leaves and Anne after thinking about how he parted chases after him, finding a servant who said Geoffrey had a gun and was going hunting. Anne runs to the stable and finds Geoffrey in his horse’s stall. She pleads with him but he doesn’t listen and tells her Christy is a good man. He then shoots himself. Anne runs for help and pleads for someone to get Christy.
Beth
We jump to Christy’s perspective where the doctor tells him there has been a cave in at the Guelder mine and some miners are trapped. Christy jumps on his horse to get to the mine. When he arrives, he learns all but one miner has escaped, Trantor Fox. He’s trapped. Christy heads down the mine so he can speak to him and absolve him of his sins. He does and after they sing a song the rocks move again and Trantor is free and they climb out together. Anne rushes to the mine and she and Christy talk. Anyway they get married and the whole village loves them.
Beth
Okay, so the first thing I wanted to talk about was Anne's Diary entries. Most of the story is told through a third person, where we take turns seeing from Anne or Christy's perspectives. Some of the story, though, comes from Anne's Diary entries, obviously told in first person.
Beth
Anne writes in her diary and characters will even interrupt her as she's in the middle of an entry. The diary entries make and the narrator in those sections, so the story filters through her perspective. Gaffney said this about the diary entries from an interview with their author. "Anne Verlaine, except for being prettier, smarter, younger, and nicer is me, I was writing about myself. In first person even via her journals." Anne's journals were the most fun I'd had writing up to that point, and it was because, turns out, first person is my natural voice.
Beth
I feel like there's a few things we could talk about from this first that Gaffney found first person more natural to her, and later she goes on to write other books that are completely in first person. Then with The Diary entries, do you think this makes it more Anne's story? Or with First Person, you get that more limited and intimate connection with the character. How does this narrative shift affect the story?
Emma
I love the quote you read about the first person aspect of this. POV decisions are one of my little fascinations in romance. And Anne's diary is one of those things, as soon as it happened, I thought, Why don't more authors do this? I think I've read maybe two books that have any diary aspect to them. But also when I was first reading it, I thought, we're getting Anne's Diary. This is going to be the first-person section in the midst of a third-person section. I had a model of what I thought that would look like because I was thinking of epistolary novels where it's like that's the normal where you're having a combined first-person, third-person thing where some of them are going to be letters. Then I realized that Gaffney totally pulls off something different with the diaries because there's still this mystery to Anne's feelings despite us having access to most of her intimate thoughts. I realized after I passed this judgment on what I thought the diary section was going to be like when I first read this, that it's accurate that in a diary you don't get every thought someone has. Gaffney is able for there still to be a mystery of what's going on with Geoffrey, what's his illness, what's the extent of his abuse?
Emma
Because Anne's audience for her diary is herself. She doesn't have her fully formed thoughts about Christy either. Because again, I was thinking if someone's just writing their diary, we're not even having the communication stuff that we care about so much in romance where you're expressing your thoughts to someone else. She's not hiding information to create tension. She's just processing her selective thoughts, indulging thoughts that are joyful. But then also Anne's not necessarily lingering on thoughts that are going to cause her pain, be them about her past with Geoffrey or the tenuous future with Christy. When I was reading it again, I thought about the scene in Clueless, where Cher is shopping and processing her feelings about Josh. I think voice-over in a film for a first-person character is a good metaphor for how The Diary works, where Cher is narrating her feelings. She's not sure how she feels. Then we have the big moment where she's like, I love Josh, and the fountain goes up. That's the peak of the scene when the water leaps out behind her. But then immediately after, we shift to more of a third-person view of Cher where she's nervous around Josh, and it flips back to the normal third-person.
Emma
You see that gap between how we're in Cher's mind and how we're watching Cher. I feel like that happens with Anne. We get a more holistic picture of Anne, but Gaffney is still able to pull off there being questions about how Anne is feeling, which I was surprised at when I first read it because I thought, Oh, actually, what will this be like where we're not dealing with an audience for a first-person narration? The audience is herself. But obviously, when you have an audience of yourself, there's still gaps in communication. It's just between Anne's thoughts and her ability to articulate them.
Chels
Yeah. And have you ever written in a diary? And you have this thing where you're writing for a future person to discover your diary. And so you leave things out or you're like, That's boring. And then I feel like there's maybe like, I'm not necessarily saying that Anne is doing that, but I think that there's a little bit of an awareness that this is something that people could potentially at some point read. Whereas if you're in your head, like a first person narration, that's not accessible to anyone except for the heroine of Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale. So I wonder if that's maybe part of it. Yeah, I think for The Diaries, I don't think we would have... I wouldn't have understood the depth of Anne's self-loathing and loneliness without The Diary entries. Christy seems like he can tell fairly early on that something is very, very wrong. But I don't think anyone else in Wyckerly would have noticed that without watching her and Geoffrey interact in a way that they only mostly do in private. And then Gaffney also uses the length of the diary entries in a really interesting way. So the early entries are extremely long.
Chels
They're very deeply sad, but they're musing and jocular at points. So she's very bored. She's very lonely. But she has all the time in the world to write in her diary. So when she falls in love to get much shorter, she has this new focus. And she knows that it's easier to write when she's unhappy. But then you get to that third stage when Geoffrey dies or when she believes that Geoffrey dies. Her diary entries are bare bones. And I think that's possibly because grief, particularly such a complicated grief, I don't even think she would know how to describe how she felt in detail. I think you're feeling like you're going through a fog at this point. So how do you put thoughts down when you're not even sure you could articulate them to yourself?
Emma
Yeah. I love that Gaffney doesn't flip to... When the diary entries get shorter, she has the option to flip to Christy's point of view or Anne's third person point of view, which she does write in sometimes. But we just get these little segmented diaries and Anne is just falling in so deep so fast and you see the dates on them, the distance between them. And I love that decision because, again, she has the option for more detail, but she tells more without the detail.
Beth
Yeah, I feel like the diary is a way to track Anne's emotional journey. And I feel like Gaffney, well, like you were mentioning the entries get shorter sometimes where she has a chunk of time she needs to get through. But it's more interesting to get it filtered through how Anne's feeling about those events that are happening, as opposed to just info dumping like, well, then Christmas happened and then this happened, and then she attended these things. It was like how Anne feels about those activities. And we can track how happy she is or how sad she is by how much she's brooding or using.
Chels
Yeah. And you need a certain passage of time for the courtship because there's a months long courtship, right? But I think the day to days of that courtship would not be something that we would necessarily need to bear witness to. It's like in Stormfire, when there was trying to condense a longer period of time into something shorter. It's much more impactful seeing that through Anne's point of view and not necessarily having them jump from scale up really quickly. They're still very small moments, but those are the moments that she picks out that really means something to her. And it also resonates with the audience, too.
Emma
This also reminds me of the... I think it's New Moon, the Twilight book where it's like the months passed.
Chels
Is that the one where she's looking at the window and the distraction? Yeah, just trying to. That's Anne. I would say.
Beth
It's a good depiction of just being so out of it.
Emma
Right. The time is passing very quickly, and it's passing very quickly and also very slowly because nothing is happening, but everything is happening because you're processing. And it's like, Yeah, I get it, Bella.
Beth
Yeah, for sure. So in that same interview with Dear Author, Gaffney said, Except for the Wyckerly trilogy, I don't think I've ever set two books. In the same time and place. Because this is the first book, I think we should talk about Wyckerly itself. Like I mentioned in the introduction, Gaffney trew on inspiration far from the madding crowd for this book.
Beth
And then also from the author's note, the middle decades of the 19th century were the golden age of rural England, the idyllic time before the agricultural boom faltered and working people had to leave. The country for jobs in industrialized cities. Thomas Hardy immortalized this period and Far from the Madding Crowd, Wyckerley and St. Giles's Parish take inspiration from that sweet, melancholy book. Then more broadly from that same interview, she mentioned Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy.
Beth
Obviously as influences for her historical romances. Do you see these influences on Wyckerley? How does knowing Gaffney draws on Wyckerley again for other books to reflect your reading experience?
Emma
When I was reading it, I mostly noticed the connections to Middlemarch because I think I'm always looking for Middlemarch things. I think Grant, Cecilia Grant, also her series makes me think of Middlemarch. I think I love the idea of creating Wyckerley as a place like Thomas Hardy's Wessex. Wessex is a fictional county that Thomas Hardy creates. He grounds it in a lot of real places. The cities and parishes within Wessex might be real and the churches that people go to might be real. It's set in a similar geography to Jane Austen, so Southwest England. But it's distinctly an invented conceptual place. In the history of the novel, this is a very new thing for Hardy to be doing where he's not... It's a new novel place, a new conceptual place. That's a Hardy is on the forefront of that. Also, I learned that Hardy's dog was named Wessex. I just thought that was cute. But Far from The Madding crowd, I love that film and that novel so much. I've seen the Julie Christie adaptation. So that character, Bathsheba, is very Emma Woodhouse coded and she's independent, self-important, and those traits serve her role as a property owner in this Wessex area.
Emma
But then they endanger her when she starts to interact with men who eventually want to see her ruined. The traits that make her a bad wife make her a good landowner. I think Anne has an element of that, too, where she starts from a place of good faith. In her life pre the novel, when she's marrying Geoffrey, she thinks that the extent of badness has happened to her with her father. Her father took her around Europe and she hasn't been settled. Geoffrey is this light that comes into her life. And she's like, Sure, this could work. This will be a new life for myself. Then very quickly, things devolve. Then things devolve past even her wildest expectations for madness with Geoffrey's illness and the pain that keeps pushing her further. I see that arc as similar to Bathsheba, where Bathsheba thinks there's a limit to what can happen to her in what she confronts, and it keeps going past that. It's like, how can we stop this tumbleweed of madness that's beyond your wildest conception at the beginning of your adulthood?
Chels
Yeah. I remember I read in Gaffney's author's note that she started To Love and To Cherish intending it to be a standalone, but then she was married to a lot of the side characters and wanted to see how things played out. We'll talk more about this later in other episodes, I'm sure, but returning to the same pool of characters throughout these books makes them really shine. And it's not just the way that you would in a series of books where it's set in a similar place with similar heroes and heroines. She brings in the side characters so much more where they get their own arcs, not just the left interest, but you get a glimpse of Sophie Dean, who's going to be the third heroine, Sebastian Verlain, the hero of the next book. I think what's really, really fascinating to me, though, is besides just getting all this beautifully built out, extremely well fleshed out world, is that I think she does something more than that, where I feel like each book has a big specific arc. So I see the Wyckerly trilogy being about three sets of power in English provincial life. So To Love and To Cherish God, To Have and To Hold this prison, and Forever and Ever is labor.
Chels
I think it's so brilliant how Gaffney grounds us in this idyllic setting away from the world of the tongue and raises the stakes piecemeal throughout each book. So there's not really such a thing as a sleepy community when it still has cruel aristocrats, petty, jealousy, tragic spinsters, ruinous gossip, and dangerous minds. Idyllilc is a word you can say, but none of them feel idyllic. I think.
Emma
This is important, too, with the connection to Wessex and Thomas Hardy. Because I think so often in romance novels, we see London is bad, and when people go to the country, they get fixed. It's like if people can get out of the corrupting force of London, they will return to the earth. They will turn to some version of England that is better for them. I love a lot of books. That's actually one of my favorite plots, is when a rake becomes a farmer. But I think it's important for Hardy. I think people sometimes romanticize the Wessex of Hardy. It's like terrible things happen to in Wessex and Hardy books. Tragedy strikes them. And it's more about the nervousness about modernity that's the issue with London. But modernity can affect everywhere, modernity and industry and people who slip through the cracks of modernity. I think that comes up a little bit with Christy and Anne because Christy struggles to grasp some of the danger that Anne is in when she's around Geoffrey and she's around people who don't trust her. He's trusted by everyone around him. He's liked by everyone who's around him.
Emma
He's not really in danger of violence or losing his home at any point. And how does Anne fit into this new world that's coming into the provincial life? She's only in... Or she's not only in Wyckerley, not Wessex, because of some modern worlds coming, her ability to travel throughout Europe, her family's ability to relocate to England, all these things that left her without a community, these exist because of modernity. And now she's without a community and Wyckerley desperately trying to find one. And Christy's like, take the one that's here. And he doesn't get that that's more of a process than he realizes. And so, yeah, the Wyckerly... I like what Chels said about it not being idyllic, but it is provincial. These characters can care deeply about where they live and not have a totally romanticized view of the setting, which I think happens a lot in historical romance, where the country is the sweet place that bad things don't happen. It's like, Bad things happen everywhere. You can still have romance novels where bad things happen.
Chels
Wait till we get to book two.
Beth
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I really liked what you said, Emma. I don't know what to add. I was just like, my next thought or point, just because we're talking about Wyckerly and I feel like there's a larger cast of characters. In this setting that we keep coming back to. Sometimes I will listen to book reviews and people will use, Oh, this is a flat character, as a negative about this book.
Beth
But EM Forster came up with this concept of, a flat character isn't a bad character, and this essential ingredient is an essential ingredient to your novel. So they can be comic relief. They can reveal something about the main character. There's lots of reasons to have these kinds of characters. And I feel like that's how Wyckerly is populated. You have the mayor and then his daughter, who the only thing we know about her is she just thinks that she's closer to all these men in her peer group than she actually was, or the spinster, Ms. Wheedy. It's just very much a good snapshot of life in town where you just see these people in your day to day.
Emma
Bringing up EM Forster is Emma bait.
Beth
Good. Well, it makes me so frustrated. I'm like, this wasn't bad. It's just like, do you have a dynamic character or a flat character?
Emma
I love a flat character. I think the easiest way to explain that, so it's from Aspects of the Novel, a round character, every time you meet them, they surprise you, and a flat character, every time you meet them, they do the same thing. And it's like a main character can be a flat character. So Forster points out that everyone in Dickens is flat. So even if you're a main character, you're doing the same thing. Pip as a child in Great Expectations is the same as Pip as an adult. His circumstances change. Pip never surprises us. And you can sum him up in one character, which is that he's waiting on his expectations. All of his decisions are based on this promise of a will. And so I think you can be a lead romance character and be a flat character. I've come up with examples before. I had a TikTok prompt about this one. I was like, who are your favorite flat characters in romance? But now I can't remember what these are.
Beth
Is Christy? Because he never surprises me. I think we'll talk about this more. So by that metric.
Emma
I don't even know if Anne... I think Anne is dynamic. There's lots to Anne.
Beth
Yeah, she's going through stuff.
Emma
I think Anne's central self doesn't change. She is Anne through and through, and she doesn't surprise me because she just gets put in different situations, and then is steely and is capable and all these things. So sometimes I think flat characters work better because this is the nature of genre fiction, that you take a character and you make things happen to them and they approach things the same as themselves. Because it's not a journey of a person. It's a journey to fit together, trying to make the circumstances work for this couple. But I would also hear arguments the other way.
Beth
Yeah. No, I agree. I don't know if it Chels feels differently.
Chels
I think you're right. I would definitely say I'm trying to think of any character in the entirety of Wyckerly that I would not call a flat character. I guess maybe you could mark an argument for Sebastian.
Beth
I'd say Sebastian. Yeah, from the second book.
Emma
He's the one who turns the most. It's not just circumstances changing. I'll think about this when I reread it for next episode.
Chels
Yeah, but definitely, absolutely 100% for Christy. And I think for Anne, too. I think I always knew who Anne was. And yeah, I think that's what you were getting at to, Beth, earlier when you were saying the way that people use the word flat character. I think people use it incorrectly to mean boring or like, and that's not really what it means because Anne is not boring. Anne is the best character in this book, I think. Anne is fascinating. Yeah, no, I could totally see why you're saying that. But yeah, flat characters are good. Yeah.
Beth
And I feel like when you have this town and machinations, it's almost more helpful to have flat characters and it's just like circumstances are happening to them. That feels like the structure.
Emma
That's why it works so well in Dickens. I think Miss Wheaty is such a Dickensian character. Every time she shows up, we know exactly how she's going to act. We know what she's going to ask of Anne and Christy. We know what her behavior signals as people entering the community. That's just like, oh, and also it's that feeling of you recognize her as an older woman in a community and her anxiety feels very familiar. That reads very Dickensian to me.
Beth
Although as I get older, I'm like, She's just in her 40s, right?
Beth
There's Mrs. Wheedy and there's Miss Wheedy. Ms. Wheedy, yes.
Chels
So Ms. Wheatie is in her 40s. But Mrs. Wheatie is older.
Emma
It's like a Ms. Bates, Mrs. Bates. Yes.
Beth
Okay, since we're talking about our three main characters, I'll throw Geoffrey in there. I wanted to talk about their physical descriptions because they're all very different from each other, and I feel like it adds to the characterization. I'm going to read each character description, and then we'll just talk about.
Beth
Them after. So when we meet Geoffrey, this is how he's described. A tall dark haired man stood in the threshold, sallow skin, sunken cheeks, black, burning eyes, and the hollow sockets. For one grotesque moment, Christy thought it was Edward that's Geoffrey's father returned from the dead in the semblance of his youth and then another quote, again, from Christy's perspective. At 16, Geoffrey had been a strapping, muscular youth. When they wrestled together, they had almost always fought to a draw. And on the rare occasions when Christy had won, it was only because he was taller. Now, Geoffrey looked as if a well-placed blow from a child could knock him down. But his charming, wolfish grand hadn't changed.
Beth
And then this is Anne's description. Christy studied Anne over the rim of this cup, trying to fathom exactly what it was about her that had intrigued him so. Geoffrey had told Anne that she had lived most of her life in Italy, where her father had made Amaz's living as a painter. That made sense. Her accent was British, and so was her roses and cream complexion. Now that she had lost what he thought of as her city palour, but everything else about her was emphatically un-English. From her dress to her hair to the way she listened when some spoke to her, alertly, directly, without affection or excessive demearness. The clothes she wore were respectable but a trifle odd, a little off, not quite what Christy imagined was the fashion in London nowadays. And she wore them with a careless panache that fit with his perhaps naive image of impoverished bohemianism on the continent. And then our last description is about Christy, and this is Geoffrey speaking: "how Have you been, you ready-old-sod? You look... He stood back and made a show of examining him head to toe. Christ, you look like an arched. He ruffled Christy's blonde hair. And then from Anne's diary entry, she's talking about Lord Aubrey's funeral. The arched angel, Reverend Morale, Geoffrey's nickname for his friend has stuck with me because the man truly does resemble Michael or Gabriel in a Renaissance painting.
Beth
Or even more, one of Blake's copper etchings. Despite their opposite coloring, I feel like Geoffrey and Christy resembled each other as teenagers to the point Lord d'Aubrey mistakes Christy for Geoffrey on his deathbed. We've already talked about this, and I don't want to reduce this down to the man who went to the city versus the man who stayed in the countryside. But what do you make of this?
Beth
And then as for Anne, I feel like, especially from Christy's view, it shows how she's an outsider.
Chels
I think this is one of the things that stands out the most to me about this book in general, is that the way that Geoffrey was described in this book is very jarring to me. It's very grotesque and not typically in line with how aristocratic men are written, like the smell of breath, his sallow skin, the way he seems to be melting into himself. It reminded me a lot of how Jones, the young interloper, was written in Gaelic. But while Jones's hygiene was poor because he was young and neglected, in that book, Geoffrey has syphilis. So when we see Jones in Gaelic, we're seeing him through his rival, Robbie's eyes. So Robbie is not inclined to look kindly on Jones, which is where I think some of the meanness of this description comes from. But both Christy and Anne confirm the external rot from and Geoffrey, they're both repulsed by him explicitly multiple times. I think in his less deft, this would have felt clunky, particularly because Christy is this beacon of all that is good and nice in the world while Geoffrey is this fetid, rotting abuser that dogs Anne throughout her marriage. When Anne reveals his illness to both the reader and Christy, because we don't know this for a long time, Geoffrey is cast in a much more sympathetic light.
Chels
So none of his cruelty or misdeeds are negated. But there's something very tragic about him finally finding a purpose, a calling that makes one distinguished like he did when he enlisted and then losing it in such a devastating way. I still, though, I don't like it. I can't really find fault with it. I see why it's there. But I think in particularly the contrast between Geoffrey and Christy, I think that's not something that I enjoy. I think that it's too much of a... Because Christy is pretty much faultless. I think there's one flaw that I can point to. It's one decision that he makes later that I think is a little bit boneheaded or maybe not the decision itself, but the reasoning behind the decision. But this godly, arched, angel, beautiful man, contrasted with Geoffrey, who's dying. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know quite how I feel about it, except that I've been thinking about it quite a lot. I think why I don't hate it as much as I think I would in other books is because of the way that Gaffney really brings it home in the third act, which is, I think, something that we'll talk about a little bit later.
Emma
Yeah, that she complicates it is, I think, important to the book working. Because Geoffrey is like, Geoffrey is villain in quotes. He's structurally the villain, but personally, you don't want to call him that because he's dealt this bad hand and is going through so much. And yeah, the contrast is messy. But I do think with Anne as an outsider, I think thinking about the contrast like her looking at Christy versus Geoffrey, if it becomes more personal. Because I think that's also contrasting, but also closing the gap between the two of them. I think Anne as an outsider is important for that. Where, again, in these historical romance novels, we have this big gap between the church and the country and the city and the military. And these are two realms that don't meet and are often pitted against each other. But for Anne, she's looking at them from a non-English perspective, where she's like, these are two sides of the same coin that are next to each other. And I'm drawing these connections. It's like I'm seeing Christy as my husband on another path. And so there's not this big gap. But I think Anne is able to do that because of her non-English upbringing.
Emma
And I think also even Christy sees himself as distant from Geoffrey, but she sees them. These two men having the same origin. And she wonders how do these two men start in the same place and end up in different places? It seems important that the gap is smaller to Anne because she sees that it becomes like a triangle with Anne instead of a binary because she's looking at them.
Chels
I like that you mentioned where they're coming from, where this divulged, because it's mentioned very briefly in the book itself. But there's this point that Christy remembers when they're children because Christy has his very loving parents. And he remembers this time where Geoffrey, when he think he's about 13, he runs away from the estate and he comes to Christy's house and he begs Christy's parents to let them stay and he's crying. And then Christy remembers like, that's the first time I remember seeing him cry. We never talked about it. I never saw him cry again. And Gaffney doesn't make it explicit what happens between Geoffrey and his father that night. But I think you can draw your own conclusions because at the beginning of the story, when they're talking about Geoffrey's father dying, it seems callous the way that Geoffrey does not care, is completely not willing to hold his hand, doesn't want to see him. But there's something that we don't know and something that we'll never know. And I think that has impacted the way that Geoffrey, who he's become, how he sees things, not to excuse who he's become or what he's done, but there is something.
Chels
It's interesting to think about.
Beth
Yeah, it's such a tragic figure. And I like what you're saying that, Gaffney, just hints at his past. And I think that's really good writing because we just, in our own imaginations, do all the work without her having to lay it out explicitly in the text.
Beth
There's this conversation that Geoffrey and Christy have before Geoffrey. He's got another commission. He's about to join the Brigade. And that conversation I read at the end of it, he says, Yeah, my dad made sure that this wasn't a home for me. It's just a house. And it just does so much work. And yeah, reading it this time, I feel like I just felt so much more for Geoffrey. And also, I feel like in another book, he could have been the romance hero. He has a terrible dad. He's not very nice. He's rakeish. He could have been the hero easily.
Chels
Yeah, there's no decision that he makes that a hero of historical romance would have made at some point. I think the only thing is they don't get syphilis. Yeah, right.
Emma
But I think also, I think we see this in the second book as a hint for that, is the level of undoing that has to be undone to fix this title in this house. I think that's a big theme where certain houses and certain titles are cursed with either their level of debt or something more metaphysical where you have to undo this trauma. And so even the heir, when Sebastian Verlain comes in and he takes over the house, there's still some element built into this title that has to be undone, even though he's outside of this direct line between Geoffrey and Geoffrey's dad. And so I think that speaks to, again, that unspoken level of trauma associated with this title and house, the level of undoing that we have to see in order for it to be fixed, because I think that is a theme of the second book, is fixing this title. But it's pretty extreme, the level that it has to go through. And it seems like there is no solution for Geoffrey to fix the title for himself, in part for his own actions, and in part because of just the hand that he has been dealt.
Beth
Do we just want to talk about Geoffrey's return and third act breakup here since we're talking about Geoffrey?
Chels
Yeah. I guess the big thing that happens towards the end of the book and this is also the third act breakup is so that both Anne and Christy believe that Geoffrey is dead. And so that's when they get together. But there's this huge upheaval when they find out that's actually not the case. And then Geoffrey returns. So I guess to start off what stuck out to you about that moment?
Beth
I feel like we know Geoffrey. No, you go ahead, Emma. I was just going to say, you just know Geoffrey is going to come back. I don't think he's surprised.
Emma
Yeah, that was the same point I made. I was trying to remember if I was surprised by it. I don't think I was. But it's like, you know that- They got together too early. Yeah, too early. How many pages do I.
Beth
Have to- The way this book's going. Yeah, I feel like-.
Emma
And it's too good so fast. The conflict has to be big, and Geoffrey is that conflict. So I don't think I was surprised when he came back. But I guess I do love with the thing that is the third act breakup. I will defend a third act breakup for a stupid reason easily. But I do love when the third act breakup is like, this is a problem that has no solution. And that's how Anne and Christy both talk about it from different angles because I think Anne is the one who's more immediately like, this is the end. There is no solution here. He suggests that maybe they'd be friends. How do we stay in each other's lives? Anne is like, This is not an option. We cannot do anything while Geoffrey is here. We can't even be friendly, really. It's like, I love that. There is no solution. The solution only comes through Geoffrey's death, which is neither Christy nor Anne would wish that on him. So it is the solution that comes with terrible consequences, and they have to deal with those consequences. I like the extent to which the solution is bad. It's not neat at all.
Beth
Yeah, I don't feel triumphant. I feel like when the third act to breakup happens, you're just like, Oh, okay, we're going to get to the solution quickly. But with Geoffrey, I don't feel that way. I don't know. I already said this, but he is just so tragic. I feel like it's hard not to have a lot of sympathy for him.
Chels
Yeah. So something that I was thinking about, too, is that there's this part where... Because we were talking before the episode, talking about if Geoffrey really loved Anne. I think you could see it as Geoffrey did really love Anne. He had very loving feelings for her. My point of view is like, so I think of this moment earlier in the book where Anne is looking at this character named Sophie Dane. She's the mine owner. She's very young, very beautiful. She's like 20. So Anne is not that old. Anne is 24. But Anne is looking at her and thinking about everything that she's lost. She wants to be 20 again. She wants to have that time back. She wants to have done something differently. She wanted to have made different choices. She didn't want to be where she was. She wanted to be young, beautiful, and carefree. I honestly think that's what Geoffrey sees when he... Because what enraged him and creates this big conflict in the end is that he finds that letter that Christy sent Anne confessing their love. But even before that, I think he's looking at both Anne and Christy maybe separately.
Chels
I don't think that he necessarily has a deep love. It was a romantic love for either of them. I think it could be a love of a kind. But I think that he's just really thinking about all that he's lost, all that he's wasted, the person that he could have been or what he would have wanted to be. I think that that's what's really hits at heart because to think of slowly dying for years and you know it's coming and you know it's showing on your face and body and the way that people are reacting to you. There's also the tragedy, too. He didn't like Wyckerly. He was never at home in Wyckerly. But when he was fighting in wars, that's when he had a sense of purpose because he was able... I guess that was something that he was good at. I don't have much to say about the particular conflict, but I think that that's what that meant to him specifically.
Beth
Yeah, I think you're right.
Chels
That just really makes me very sad. But yeah, we'll talk about a little bit about that letter, too, because I said earlier that Christy has not a flaw, but he makes a boneheaded decision. I think maybe not the decision, but his reasoning behind it is he decides that he's going to leave Anne right when Geoffrey comes home. He's going to leave Wyckerly because he's like, I can't be around you. And he said, I know Geoffrey won't hurt you, which when I read that, I was like, That doesn't make any sense to me because Geoffrey has hurt her in the past. I don't think there's any accidental or not. Geoffrey is not necessarily the most stable person.
Beth
He doesn't need- And Christy knows that because Anne told him that he hit her once before.
Chels
Yeah, he hit her and she fell down the stairs. I think that he felt very guilty about that, but that's not necessarily something. There's nothing in Geoffrey has changed from that person. I thought that was very strange. And then it does come back to play into Christy making another assumption that does actually end up hurting Anne in a way that he will never know, which is when he sends his letter to Anne, he marks it personal, thinking that that will stop Geoffrey from reading it because Geoffrey wouldn't just open a letter. So when Geoffrey finds this letter, this is where he's confronted with the fact that even though they're not going to do anything about it, Anne and Christy are deeply in love with each other, and they both see him as a burden. And this is like when he assaults Anne, not saying that absolutely that's not Christy's fault for that happening, but I think the fact that the assumption that Geoffrey wouldn't read the letter, the assumption that Geoffrey wouldn't hurt her, both of those are things that aren't true. He does hurt her. He does read the letter. Anne never tells him, I don't believe.
Chels
That's something that Anne keeps secret. I don't know, I think it might be due to some last minute. She doesn't want to tarnish Geoffrey's name further than it has been, or maybe it's just something so deeply personal. I don't quite remember if there was a reasoning or what that would be, but I could see why she wouldn't.
Emma
I think connected to Geoffrey, the Crimean War, I think, I mean, it's also for Gaffney, it's the year that she sent it in. This is the conflict that he's in. I don't know which decision came first, writing a soldier who's going to Crimea or that this is the conflict that a soldier would go to. It is very distinct historically from the Napoleonic wars, where its rhetoric around the time is not dissimilar. It's a smaller scale, but to like Vietnam in the United States, where there's enthusiasm for it. Then pretty quickly, it's like critiques become like, this is stupid. This is a stupid conflict for people to die for. I think England ends up winning the side, but it's like, For what? It's also one of the first modern warfare, so that the level of death is a lot higher during this period. I think it makes sense that he's in Crimea as a conflict because Geoffrey is seeking this glory that I think would be associated with earlier 19th century wars where he has that available to him, this romanticizing of the Napoleonic Wars and growing up and having that image of England as this powerhouse and then going to this world that ultimately is going to have this fruitlessness because I think that's a theme of Geoffrey.
Emma
It's like all these decisions where he's trying to move forward don't go anywhere. His life is fruitless, and this is what he has to deal with. There's no upside for him. There's no solution for him. I would be interested to know which came first, the setting or the Crimea war, which one Gaffney's side? But I think it does work in the narrative that this is where he ends up going.
Beth
I want to take a back to Geoffrey. And his appearance. I don't know if this is like... It feels like there is a moral judgment attached to syphilis as opposed to malaria. And I feel like I think Gaffney is much more deft than another author. Like Chels said earlier, she builds empathy for him, shows why he is the way he is, but he still does feel a little bit othered. That was my reading of it because he is this ill person.
Chels
Yeah, I think the primary feeling that I would think you were supposed to get from any description of Geoffrey is like, repulsion. Yeah. And I just feel like it's something that I don't quite get coming from Gaffney just because she doesn't need to do that. There's enough of his behaviors, specifically the way that he speaks to Anne in the beginning. Christy, even not really being taken aback by his appearance, still is... He's noting the digs that he's getting into Anne, how Anne gets very reserved, the way that Anne is very concerned about being alone with Geoffrey because of the things that he will say to her. I think that a lot of the really intense feelings that I got about Geoffrey and the intense feelings of wanting to keep him away from Anne have literally nothing to do with what his breath smells like or anything like that. I don't know. It's interesting because it was so similar to the way that Jones was described in Gaywyck. I think about that as just like, that's coming from a very, very uncharitable narrator who's thinking these thoughts. I didn't like it. I didn't know. I don't know.
Chels
I don't have anything neat. I don't have any critiques for it, I guess.
Beth
Yeah, I think it's okay we don't have any feelings about it. But I also just wanted to verbally say that I felt a little bit weird and that Geoffrey did feel a little bit othered. And like you're saying, the way that he's made to be repulsive maybe wasn't needed.
Emma
Yeah. It is one of those sticky things where it's like, I think syphilis works well as a metaphor, but then also syphilis is not metaphorical to everyone. I get why Gaffney uses it because it is also interesting that this is just interesting, biologically, that malaria and syphilis are both like cyclic disorders. There's a character in a Kinsale book that has malaria, right? I don't know. I don't remember. Someone has attacks of malaria. I think in a book that I read, I think it's Kinsale. But it's cyclic where it's like he... I think it's one of the things that makes it hard for Anne is that Geoffrey has these times when it's latent and he's not under acute attack from his illness. This cyclic nature of his deterioration of his health is causing more conflict for her. That works as a metaphor for abuse, and it works as a metaphor for the nature of his relationship, like coming closer and pulling away. But also she's giving him a thing as a metaphor. He does literally have it, but it works as a narrative metaphor. But also it's a disease that people get othered for. I think it works structurally, but then it also makes you feel like, Oh, this is not necessarily the kindest way of doing this, even though it does work in the narrative. I think that causes sticky feelings.
Beth
Yeah, because Geoffrey, if we're going to get a happily ever after and this woman is married to this man, we have to-.
Chels
Geoffrey does have to die.
Beth
Yeah. So it's just like, I don't know. I understand why horse accidents are so popular.
Chels
I was literally just about to bring that up. I was like, You could have put them on a horse, Gagby.
Chels
Yeah, just put him on a horse, please. But if you're.
Emma
If you are mean to your wife, do not get on a horse.
Chels
You cannot get on a horse if you are mean to a woman. Don't cross the street with horses and don't get on a horse. Yeah, or if you were an inconvenient wife, just don't have kids.
Emma
Oh, yeah.
Beth
Childbirth, don't do it.
Emma
If your husband was doting but is waiting for a more passionate second wife, like, Do not have children. Forget it.
Beth
Okay, so we've talked a bit about Geoffrey and then Anne and Geoffrey. I wanted to talk a little bit about Anne and Christy, our friend Lauren. She is on TikTok, and I will link to her account and then specifically this video. But she spoke about the priest character as paired with what she called the temptress. And so I was just going to read a bit from this video she had.
Beth
So the temptress is just a worldly woman. She could be a Fleabag, an outcast, sex worker, a scientist. She's not religious or not in a way that the priest has any authority over her.
Beth
The priest is mystical and godly and finds his faith and his celibacyvchallenged by the temptress. The celibacy part is important, which is why he's usually Catholic or in some situation where. He should not be with her. Part of why it makes it a spicy trope. But they're both usually gender nonconforming and that they don't fill the gender roles they're expected to fill. And this trope tends to turn those gender Catholic roles inside out.
Beth
He's gentle, restrained, and nurturing. She's brash and smart and nobody tells her what to do. I really like that the temptress and the priest subverts this heteropatriarchal Christian idea that women's sexuality is something to suppress in fear whereas men are the gatekeepers and mouthpiece of all that is holy, and you can't have anything outside of that. She then goes on to say she finds this pairing relies so much on the subversion that. She struggled to find any stories that didn't include a heterosexual pairing. So I find this pairing interesting, and I think that it is Christy and Anne's dynamic where Anne's traveled more than other women of her time and has this worldiness because of the circles her father moved in. She's the one who wants to have an affair instead of committing to marriage with Christy after they discover they think Geoffrey's dead.
Beth
Christy is earnest in his faith and wants his parishioners to see his humanity outside of his role as the vicar. Someone they could consult with if they're faith flags.
Beth
What do you think of this dynamic?
Emma
I think I said in my original TikTok about this book that I recommended to people who read Fleabag. I was like, I'm so surprised that people don't recommend this on books about for Fleabag recommendations. As Chels pointed out, it's possible that people read fewer romance novels from the '90s than the people that I talked about. But so Christy's father, a quote that we get from him that Christy reports to Anne and Anne writes down in her diary, is that to be a priest is to be in love. And that is so Fleabag to me. That sounds like something that the priest in Fleabag would say. And so I thought about this in the context of the quote that Beth read and also books that I've been reading for the podcast. And not to sound like a broken record, but it does remind me of a subversion of flower and inversion, maybe, A flower from the storm and Sunshine and Shadow, which are two books that I connect together. But in that one, there's a very religious woman who's not necessarily part of her religious order and a rake figure who's tempting her away, and then they have to reconcile for a way for the relationship to work and for her to stay in her religion.
Emma
I think those books are really subversive in their own way, even though maybe the gender roles are not being subverted in the way that the tempters and priests trope is. But what happens in both is the rake figure realizes that his brand of masculinity won't work on the buttoned up heroine. He has to try something else to seduce her. What's worked in the past is not working, either because he has a disabling event like in Flowers from the Storm, or just because she's not that impressed with that aspect of him. Then when talking about To Love and To Cherish, I do find I'm a little hesitant to say that it's subverting the heteropatrical Christian anything. I do think that happens in this trope just because I find this book expressly Christian, especially given that Anne is the one who starts to explore Christy's view of religion by the end of the book. Christy has his view of Christianity, and I'm going to do my own journey. She says, even I think he says, Did you pray to my God at the end of the book? And she said, I prayed to my God. That's important for Anne for it to be distinguished.
Emma
But she does explore Christianity more than her atheism from the beginning of the book. But I think Anne, in particular, just starts to realize that the organizing worldview is just that. It's an organization for someone, not a cheat code to determine their behavior in advance, good or bad. Christy is not good because he's Christian. Christy is good and Christy is Christian. And it's like the quote that, not because of God, Christy is born this way. Christy is good because he's good, and he chooses to continue to be good. And at the beginning, she thinks Christy or Anne thinks that Christy has it all figured out because of this organization that she's halfway jealous of and halfway judgmental of. But he's unsure of so many things, especially I think this is where we see the closest thing that Christy has to a weakness is that he's not sure where to place Anne. He's like, Is she tempting me to sin or she my salvation? He's working through this worldview. And he also feels this acute pain-based on loving her. And he's like, is this a trial that I have to work my way through or is a signal that I'm sinning?
Emma
Anne thinks that Christy's faith is a painkiller, but it's actually causing Christy great anguish. And I think that's the arc of Anne's relationship to Christianity is that she realizes that she's had one view of this religion as a monolith. And then Christy has this very personal faith that she learns to understand by the end of the book. Yeah.
Chels
I think something that brings them together in my mind is that they both have an exalted loneliness. So Anne is desperate for affection and friendship, but she can't quite thoroughly break that ice in Wyckerley because as a Viscountess, she's too high station to be a true comrade to the other folks in the town. And this is pretty evident when she needs to leave the Harvest Festival early because she recognizes that they can't really cut loose with her present because she's an employer at that point. And then she also knows that Ms. Wheedy won't be her friend, but also that Ms. Wheedy would be upset to notes that she had noticed that. So it's not anything of malice. It's just not something that would have occurred to her to be something that Anne wanted. And similarly, Christy has these feelings of like, I wish people would see me as a person. He remarks on it a few times like, People are often surprised that I'm funny. People are surprised that I have these thoughts. People are surprised that I can get grumpy. And I think that he has an alone and company type feeling. I think that he finds that further connection with Anne.
Chels
I don't have too much to add on their own religions, but I do really like what Emma said about Anne does see it as more of a personal thing. I think the institution itself was really what was throwing her off and was something that I don't think that she... Because when have these organizations ever served Anne? When have any of these she took her holy vows or whatever? Or she took her vows in marriage, and those were not a very Christian thing to do. So I do like how that was. I think.
Emma
Seeing Christy as a vicar, as that service of a community, really changes things for her. Where, again, that's one of those things where it's like, yeah, I don't think Gaffney is coming down and the provinces are better, categorically, than everything, but the provinces are where this faith community can exist, where he's like a shepherd to his flock in a way that Anne has never seen before, partially because she hasn't had a community, and also because the shepherd to the flock can also be a corrupted individual. There's no guarantee that that's a good thing, but Christy is a good man, and that role serves the community. Anne is very interested in serving her new home and figuring out where she fits in there. I think having that model for a new perception of religion is helpful. If this book was set in England or in London, I don't think Anne would have that same experience or that wouldn't be an option for her to witness.
Beth
I feel like Anne has this perception of herself that nobody likes her. And it might also be coming from the fact that she is the town employer, so people can't exactly be themselves. And then it maybe feeds that idea that she has about herself. I can't be a minister's wife. I can't be going around doing good works. But people actually like her a lot more than she realizes. And she is actually a very community-oriented person. So it's like this paradigm shift she has to have about herself in the book where, no, she's actually very approachable and has good ideas and consistently is doing activities that people want to attend and be with her and be in company with her. Okay, so Emma wanted to talk a little bit about Italy and has this connection to Ravenna, like we talked about before. She lived there until she was seven at that point when her mom died, her and her father moved away. And there's this diary entry I wanted to read because I highlighted it. And I don't know, it just gets me.
Beth
But she says, dreamt of Ravenna last night. I was a child again, and my mother was teaching me to swim woke up sobbing. So let's talk about the connection to Italy a little bit.
Emma
I would just talk about Italy because I'm always ready to talk about Italy in a Victorian novel. There's nothing I love more than when someone goes to Italy and has feelings. It happens in A Room with a View. So Anne lives in Ravenna for the longest period. This is what she thinks of as her childhood home. And she's convinced for a lot of the book that going to Italy is the answer to all of her problems. Once Geoffrey, she thinks he dies, she's like, Oh, I'll just go to Ravenna. I'll go back there. And even Christy is like, Is that really what you want to do? Do you have anyone there? Do you have a community there? She's like, That was the place that I was happiest. So she wants to go back there after she thinks Geoffrey died. She's really othered in England because of her being brought up in Italy. She has this uncanny valley. People respond to her. She doesn't know how to do the English thing. But I thought it was interesting that Ravenna was the place that Gaffney has her be from because it has this specific connection to Dante.
Emma
This is where Dante was buried, not his native Florence and Dante is the most famous Florentine in the world, but he was exiled from Florence for political reasons, and he's famously not buried in Florence. He is buried in Ravenna. This is really Ravenna claim to fame. People would know Rivera for two reasons. It's this or the Byzantine mosaics and the relics of the church that Christy and Anne actually go see when they go there on their honeymoon. Then I think the Dante connection is not totally tenuous because Anne actually quotes Dante twice in the book. She references the second Circle of Hell, Francesca and Paolo, which is the two lovers that are condemned for their affair. They're in a twister, always reaching for each other. She quotes the entrance to hell, like, All ye who enter here. And then Anne and Christy also quote St. Augustine to get to each other when they're trying to convince each other first. Anne's trying to convince him to have an affair, and he's trying to convince her to get married. They're using Catholicism at each other, which I thought was charming in my way. To me, it's interesting that Anne is the atheist in the relationship, but has these connections to Catholic philosophers.
Emma
The connection between Dante and Augustine that I would notice is the concept of the Vita contemplativa, so contemplative life. This is the idea that thinking about things is a religious process. And Christy is actually the one who's really interested in contemplation. And I thought about this, my favorite part of the whole book is when Anne writes in her diary, you won't believe it, diary: he's given me up for Lent. It's so romantic and the way that Christy would find romantic. He's like, Oh, this is actually I'm honoring you by giving you up for Lent. And because he's contemplating his relationship with her. So Anne has these secular connections to these places that are religiously connected through Christy. And I think also it's interesting that Gaffney signals this how he processes his own religion because he's the post-reformation Protestant vicar, who we might more strongly associate with stereotypes of Protestant work ethic or suppression of spirituality in a deprivation way. But actually, he has this very personal connection into contemplation, which is more associated with these Catholic sources. I just think that's interesting and I think it's a very astute of Gaffney to string these things together.
Emma
I don't know how strong of the connection she's intending, but I feel like the Ravenna claim, since it's most famously connected to Dante, I feel like there's a connection there.
Beth
I feel like you just found an Easter egg that Gaffney laid in and just see who would pick up on it.
Emma
Yeah, people go to Italy. I'll Google until I find out why you went there and why you're in that city. But Ravenna is great and the mosaics are great. They don't go to the church that Dante is buried at. They go to the church that actually Napoleon's sister is buried at. That's where they go on their honeymoon. I checked. Santa Maria Maggiore is not where Dante is buried, but they do go to a church that lots of people are buried in Ravena.
Beth
Yeah. I don't know anything mad. I think Italy is cool. We got fun facts from Emma. Is there anything else we want to throw in there about this book or books.
Emma
Coming up? We could talk about how we feel about Sebastian since we've met him. We've met him, I guess we've met him through letters.
Chels
Yeah, we've met him through letters. He seems nice at.
Beth
This point. I know. We have no idea what's coming. He seems like a chill guy. Just stay at the house until you're ready to go.
Chels
Well, Anne gets warned that he's a rake. But also, it seems like everybody's being a busy body about him being a rake. And she's like, Oh, I don't know if I care. Yeah. So we do meet Sebastian, who is the main character, we won't say hero, of the second book. So Sebastian is going to be the new Viscount. Now that Geoffrey has actually died, he is the biggest rake of all. Let's say he's a malevolent, seducer.
Beth
He is a malevolent, seducer.
Chels
Yeah, that's not really spoiler-y. You find out right away. He tells you. He has.
Emma
No expressions about... He's like, This is how I am.
Chels
Yeah. You see a side to Sebastian that you don't get until later in his book, actually in the first book. He does make callous, not callous, but he does make jokes about hoisting Anne out of that house. But he also writes what she says is very sympathetic letters about Geoffrey as staff, even though but while not pretending to have any affection for Geoffrey because he barely knew Geoffrey. Right. So I could see so jealous of readers in 1995 reading this book and being like, Who is this man? Now, should I have said jealous? I don't know. But I can see that would be so enticing where you'd be like, Oh, you've got so much ahead of you. Yeah, I'm.
Emma
Excited for him. And his lack of buy into Wyckerly is one of those things where they're like, Oh, he's now going to be tethered to this place. What's the conflict going to be there. Because he's like, whatever, I'm a viscount now. Who cares? Soon we all will.
Beth
Well, I hope everyone's excited to hear our next episode where we dive into To Have and to Hold. It's a lot. It's my favorite. I haven't read the third one yet, but by the time someone listens to this, I've read it. But yeah, I think it's been a seminal book for all of us. Thank you so much for listening to Reformed Rakes. If you enjoy the podcast, you can find bonus content on our patreon and patreon.com/reformedrakes. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates. The username for both is @reformdrakes. Please rate and review. It helps us a lot.
Beth
And thank you again.
Beth
We'll see you next time.
