In the comments to last week’s post (and thanks, everyone, for the great discussion!), Cate mentioned that while she had come to have more of an affinity with Mélanie on rereads, “I’m still not sure I would trust her as a friend, but I probably wouldn’t have a choice. I’d find her too interesting not to spend time with her, if she would deign to allow me.”
My first reaction was to be surprised and think “that’s interesting, I’d certainly trust Mélanie as a friend.” Then I re-examined it, because truth to tell it’s a question I’d never really considered. Would I trust her? Probably, because she’s very charming, and I suspect I’d never know what was going on in her head or what she really up to :-). Would I be wise to trust her? More difficult to answer. Mélanie’s very loyal. But as Cate said “She’s loyal, but she, like everyone, has a hierarchy of loyalties and she’s not likely to be changed.” And she can be quite ruthless when she makes up her mind what she needs to do.
You don’t see much of Mélanie as a friend in Secrets of a Lady, though she does think some about her friends, particularly Isobel Lydgate, who also appears in the A+ letters. There’s a bit more of Mélanie the friend in Beneath a Silent Moon, as she interacts with Simon and David. The Mask of Night focuses a great deal on Mélanie and Charles and the two couples who are their closest friends, David and Simon and Oliver and Isobel Lydgate. Friendship can pose problems for a spy, as Mélanie and Raoul discuss in one exchange:
“No.” Her fingers dug into the towel. “Oliver’s one of Charles’s oldest friends. He’s my friend.”
Raoul raised his brows.
“I’ve got in the habit of trusting my friends in recent years.”
“That habit can be fatal, querida.”
“I know.”
“It’s not an easy thing, learning someone you care about has been duplicitous.”
“I’ve grown soft. As you said.”
“I said such reactions could be fatal. I didn’t say they were avoidable. I’ve had to face similar revelations and it’s not pretty. I don’t think I’d have born up as well as Charles has done if I’d ever had to face betrayal from you. You have my thanks for never putting me through that.”
“That you know of.”
“Quite.”
While friendship may pose complications for spies, even the master spy Raoul recognizes that such complications can’t be avoided. The tricky question, is which side someone will combine down on when those complications arise. It’s a question I don’t think Mélanie could answer about herself until she confronted a given situation. In The Mask of Night she also interacts with friends from her days in espionage. As she tells Charles:
I owe these people my loyalty. It may not be a greater loyalty than what I owe to you, but it’s older. I can’t let them be hurt because of whatever’s going on between you and me.
Often with the focus in books on romantic relationships or family drama or political intrigue, one doesn’t see much of main characters interacting with their friends, but seeing a protagonist in the role of friend can shed new light on the character. Elizabeth Bennet has her sisters to interact with, but she also has her friendship with Charlotte Lucas, which adds wonderful texture to her character and thematic resonance to the book. One of the fun things in the Scarlet Pimpernel books is seeing Percy interact with his friends in the league (one of the things I missed in the 1990s series was not seeing more of the league’s members). Many of the current romance series with groups of friends–Mary Jo Putney’s Fallen Angels, Jo Beverley’s Company of Rogues, Candice Hern’s Merry Widows-also allow glimpses of the heroes and heroines interacting with their friends. The complicated friendships between the ongoing characters in Elizabeth George’s Lynley/Havers mysteries are one of the things that keeps me eagerly anticipating the next book in the series.
Are there particular literary friendships that stand out for you? Do you like seeing this side of a character? And if you happened to be friends with Mélanie Fraser would you trust her?
In keeping with the friendship theme, this week’s addition to the Fraser Correspondence is a letter Charles writes to his best friend David just after the Battle of Toulouse and Napoleon’s abdication in 1814. I love writing the letters between Charles and David, because Charles will say things to David, particularly at this point in his life, that he won’t reveal to anyone else.
Tracy Grant - Novelist 
January 28, 2008 at 2:20 am
The series books can get to be a little much at times, with the previous heroes and heroines popping into the more recent books (the previous heroines are always pregnant, it seems) and talking about the Good Old Days when they defeated Napoleon – funny how these soldiers ALL survived a brutal war with only a picturesque scar or two. 😉
(Ok, Robin of Angel Rogue had PSTD; I loved him, incidentally)
OTOH, one complaint about recent romances is that they are so “claustrophobic”; the hero and heroine never seem to have any outside interests that impact on their lives.
Still, have you noticed; there is almost never any tension between new wife and old friends? The wife is never annoyed with her husband’s old friends’ sometimes childish antics; the old friends never resent the wife for taking the husband’s loyalty from the Old Boys’ Network.
The heroine’s “sisters in friendship” always love the hero; most of them push heroine towards him, funny how they never make a mistake, knowing more than the heroine does.
I wonder about David’s reaction to possibly learning Mel’s secret; in “Beneath a Silent Moon”, I saw more of a bond between her and Simon. HE seemed to have the idea she’s not the proper aristocratic wife she appears to be.
Underneath it all, David is an aristocrat, “born to rule”. Despite the fact that he is (I won’t spoil it for those who don’t know) he appears to be a somewhat conventional Englishman. I think if he found out Mel’s secret he would be outraged.
January 28, 2008 at 7:00 am
I know from experience writing series romances that it can be tricky juggling multiple happily ever afters (it’s one reason I like writing a series in which everyone isn’t necessarily living a happily ever after). But I always love getting a glimpse of favorite characters again, and I love the texture of the friendships–I much prefer those sorts of books to stand alone books in which the hero and heroine seem to have reached the age of twenty-thirty without forming any personal bonds. I think Jo Beverley did a book (blanking on the title) in which the heroine misinterpreted the relationship between Beth and Lucian from “An Unwilling Bride.” I thought that created some very interesting tension and was a brilliant use of continuing characters. All the Anthea Malcolm Regencies my mom and I wrote together were connected, but they weren’t chronological. So in our fourth book, the hero from our first book appeared, still unhappily married to his first wife.
Your comments about David are absolutely spot on. I definitely plan to have him learn Mélanie’s secret (not sure quite when yet), and it’s going to be very difficult for him. Part of the paradox of David’s life is that in many ways he is a conventional Englishman. He’s a compassionate, intelligent man who can see many of the flaws in his world, but it’s a world he’s been born and bred to rule in, and he can’t turn his back on it. He finds being the heir to an earldom a burden at times, but it’s a burden he takes very seriously, woven into the fabric of who he is. Simon, on the other hand, already half guesses–he certainly knows Mélanie isn’t what she seems to be, as you say (in fact, I have a fragment of dialogue floating in my head for use in a book in which Mel says to Simon “How much do you know?” and Simon says “I know you aren’t what you seem to be. I don’t need to know anything more.”)
It won’t be an easy book to write, but it will be fascinating to explore how the revelation of Mélanie’s secret affects the relationship among the four of them–Mel, Charles, Simon, and David.
January 28, 2008 at 9:54 am
In some ways, I prefer reading about friendships to relationships, particularly – bizarrely – between men (probably because it’s a different kind of bond than that between women). I enjoy the loyalty and trust of an enduring ‘partnership’, and how outside factors – girlfriends, wives, families, etc. – affect the strength of a older connection in different ways. Friendships are also more interesting because the claims one trusted friend has on another are not as easily defined as in a relationship, and yet the demands made can be just as strong. In fact, it’s at this point that ‘slash’ fan fiction often crops up, but I tend to view such pastiches as symbolical of the vague yet powerful connection between two friends of the same sex.
Not forgetting secondary relationships – Marguerite and Sir Andrew in TSP are drawn together because of their mutual love and concern for Percy, but I’ve always thought their understanding – though platonic – to be stronger in some ways than Marguerite and Percy’s marriage, which is passionate but also fairly unstable and seems to be built on worship instead of familiarity.
January 28, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Excellent points, Sarah! I think one reason friendships in books can seem more interesting than romantic relationships is that they tend to be built on familiarity and perhaps bonds that go back to childhood or that have been forged through shared work or adversity (I actually prefer to read about romantic relationships where the couple are also friends–childhood friends, partners in adventure, etc… — it creates a more interesting dynamic, I think, and gives wonderful texture and layers to the relationship).
One of the many things I loved about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was the complex but enduring friendships among the central characters. The various love stories didn’t always end well, but the friendships lasted.
January 29, 2008 at 1:01 am
I’m in the midst of watching the BBC adaptation of Anne of Avonlea, so Montgomery’s friendships are strongly in my mind right now. I love how she can create a real community in the novel through all the friendships, centering first Anne and Diana as “bosom” friends, then the slight drift after Anne goes to Queens, Diana falls for Fred, Anne goes off to college and snuggles into Patty’s Place with Jane and Philippa. It’s all of “real life” reflected there so wonderfully.
And of course, entwined with all that is the thread with Gilbert — with Roy Gardner thrown in for contrast — and then to the thread with Ruby Gillis.
Also, there’s Marilla’s relationship with Rachel Lynde, which is a whole other story.
I think I might have to read the series all over again… 😉
January 29, 2008 at 1:11 am
I haven’t seen the BBC “Anne of Avonlea” (though I’ve heard great things about it), but I read all the books (or at least all I could get from my library) as a pre-teen. They’re a great example of complex friendships that grow and shift as the series continues and the characters change and grow. I think young adult books often do friendship particularly well (so do fantasy books come to think of it–there’s usually a band of comrades who go questing together). And Anne’s relationship with Gilbert is just the sort of romance grounded in friendship that I was talking about in my reply to Sarah.
January 29, 2008 at 3:45 am
If I happened to be friends with Melanie, I’d have no idea that I couldn’t trust her. If anything, Melanie would be in danger of trusting other women of their genuine affection or friendship with her. Someone feeling threatened by her looks, position, or personality (or all of the above) would be a greater threat to Melanie than Melanie would be to a normal character. Unless I had something she needed, or knew something she saw as a threat, we could be great friends.
As for my favorite friendship, it’s between Claire and Jamie from Outlander. I love the friendship they shared at the beginning of their amazing love story.
January 29, 2008 at 5:43 am
That’s a really good point, Perla! One of the reasons Isobel Lydgate is mentioned in “Secrets of a Lady” is to show the difficulties Mélanie has forming friendships with her peers.
“‘I don’t know how you do it,’ her friend Isobel Lydgate–herself the enviably competent mother of three and wife of a rising young Member of Pariament–has said only last week. ‘I often feeling like I’m failing on three fronts at once.’
“‘Oh, darling, that’s inevitable,’ Mélanie had replied with a laugh. ‘The trick is not minding when you do fail.’
“But that was only part of it, of course. Isobel was one of her closest friends, but she hadn’t the least idea how truly precarious Mélanie’s life was. The trick was bundling your life into neat, separate little boxes and believing your own deceptions. The trick was smiling and sipping champagne even though you knew the boxes might break apart and come tumbling down about your ears at any moment The trick was acknowledging the inner scream of panic that welled up all too often but never, ever letting anyone else hear it.” [Secrets of a Lady, pp. 204-205].
Isobel and Mélanie are good friends. Isobel trusts Mélanie, but she’s a bit intimidated by her as well, envying her competence. At the same time she doesn’t really understand Mélanie or see her vulnerabilities, and of course Mélanie can’t confide in her. I think perhaps Mélanie’s closest real friend is Simon, because, as JMM pointed, he realizes she isn’t the perfect politician’s wife she appears to the world. He sees something of the real Mélanie behind the polished façade.
January 29, 2008 at 5:51 am
p.s.
The friendship between Jamie and Claire is great. That’s an example of a couple who aren’t childhood friends but nevertheless have a great friendship that turns into romance.
January 30, 2008 at 6:50 am
I think finding forgiveness from your husband/wife/lover is a piece of cake compared to finding forgiveness and understanding from their friends and family.
My girlfriends have the worst taste in men, yet because they “love” them, they constantly find excuses or reasons to forgive them. It is my prerogative as their friend to never forgive the person who has hurt them, lied to them, and to me. Revealing Melanie’s secret to her friends is going to be a sizzler! I can’t wait to read it.
P.S. The Fraser Correspondence raised a great question: How did Melanie feel about having another child? It could be argued that since Colin is not Charles’s son, she could still maybe walk away from that marriage if she wanted to. Having another baby would tie her to Charles forever. Did she already know that she loved him? Or was another baby something she really wanted? Could a real child between them be a way to never make the decision to leave?
January 30, 2008 at 8:41 am
Great point, Perla! I think in many ways it’s much easier to forgive someone who has hurt oneself than to forgive someone who has hurt someone one cares about. One of the things I love about writing the Charles & Mélanie books is that there continue to be so many layers and issues and conflicts to explore.
I’m so glad you caught the comment in the Fraser Correspondence about having another child. In “Secrets of a Lady,” Mel tells Charles she stopped spying after Waterloo:
“‘But I knew then that whatever I did in the future, I’d have, I’d have to find a way to do it without deceiving you. I know I can’t make you believe that, darlng–‘
“‘I believe that much.’ His gaze was still trained on her face.
“‘Why?’
“‘Because it was in Paris after Waterloo that you told me you wanted to have another child. You weren’t going to risk anything that tied you to me before then, were you?’
“She looked into his clear gray eyes and thought of all the times she might have told him the truth. She wondered if anything would have been different if she had. ‘I was already tied to you in a hundred ways, darling. But I wasn’t going to risk making the tie stronger, no.'”
[pp. 240-241]
So yes, she didn’t want another child with Charles while she was still playing the game against him. I meant that funny look on her face, that Charles can’t decipher, to mean that she’d become so caught up in her role that for a moment she found herself wanting another child with him, only to catch herself up short and realize all the reasons that’s impossible.
In “Beneath a Silent Moon” she thinks about her decision to have a second child and her motivation for it:
“Unlike her first pregnancy, this one had been planned. She had told Charles she wanted another baby and she had longed for her second child with a fierceness even she could not explain. To bind Charles to her? To prove their marriage was born of more than impulse and necessity? To show her own commitment, a commitment that even now she could not put into words?”
[massmarket edition, p. 215]
January 30, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Or perhaps because the child would be a natural outcome of the love she feels for Charles, needing proof of nothing at all? Perhaps Melanie is afraid of loving the way that she actually does. I think that wholehearted love was so evident in Daughter of the Game in the first chapters, which made their estrangement later on so painful, although that estrangement and the subsequent growth in understanding may also pave the way for a passionate friendship on a much deeper level.
I think that that’s what happened in The Scarlet Pimpernel series. The Baroness was not able to make Percy and Marguerite partners, but I definitely think that their relationship developed. In the first novel there was no familiarity and lots of idealization and disillusionment (on Percy’s part), but their relationship evolved in the course of the novels centering on Percy’s choosing to be the hero rather than the husband. In Eldorado and in Triumph they seemed to have reached an understanding where she accepts his choices and he accepts the pain he causes her. In a way that kind of love is the most beautiful kind of friendship, I think, because it honours the freedom and the separateness of the two people involved although it also recognizes the deep bond. Possessive love (which is not really love at all, but need masquerading as love) would never allow for such an understanding. In Elusive, Marguerite was much more identified with possessive love.
January 30, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I think you’re absolutely right, Dorthe, both about Mélanie’s reasons for wanting a second child and about her fear of loving the way she does. In “Beneath a Silent Moon,” she still has difficulty putting her feelings for Charles into words, even to herself. By the end of that book she and Charles are both more able to admit their feelings for each other, so that by the opening chapters of “Daughter of the Game/Secrets of a Lady” they are both much more able to admit their feelings, to themselves and each other. Though I also think you’re right that the painful truths they learn about each other in “Daughter/Secrets” will ultimately deepen their relationship. They’re still learning how to adjust to all this in “The Mask of Night.”
I love your analysis of the development of Percy and Marguerite’s relationship. I agree, it does change and evolve over the course of the series, and they find a balance–its not easy, but that makes it more real and the bond between them seem stronger.
“In a way that kind of love is the most beautiful kind of friendship, I think, because it honours the freedom and the separateness of the two people involved although it also recognizes the deep bond.”
That’s such a wonderful way of putting it. What I love about the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books is that you see them struggling to find this balance. It’s also true of Laurie King’s Mary Russell series, now that I think of it. And it’s definitely what I’m trying to do with Charles and Mélanie.
January 31, 2008 at 10:14 am
That’s a beautiful sentiment, Dorthe – it really made me appreciate how independent and proud Percy is, and the strength of his relationship with Marguerite to work with those qualities. Most people who read TSP dismiss Percy as the archetypal hero with no faults, but his basic character, though not flawed exactly, and the fact that the Baroness rarely gave the reader an insight into his motivations and perspective, is such that he stands apart from most men in historical romances. It is Marguerite, and the compromises and sacrifices she has to make in order to share her life with Percy, who appears more vivid and likeable in the series, but there is something constant and reassuring about her husband, too.
January 31, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Sarah, one of the things I really like about TSP is that both Percy and Marguerite are very human. They have to make choices and those choices aren’t always easy or simple. I wish Marguerite as given more to do in the later books, but I love the fact that instead of simply seeing glimpses of their “happily ever after” we see them coping with the reality of duty to cause and comrades versus duty to spouse and the stresses and strains this puts on both of them.
January 31, 2008 at 7:26 pm
But doesn’t it seem to you that the choice is always Percy’s? He is the ‘active’ character, the dominant half of the relationship, and she must make the sacrifice – there is never any fear, after TSP, that she will tire of waiting and coming second to his honour; Percy’s iron will and ‘ruling passion strong in death’ (his catchphrase, almost!) are already set – Marguerite can play on every feminine wile she possesses, from tears to emotional blackmail, but he will do what he wants. She has to adjust to her new life and love with Percy, I suppose, but I wish we could have seen more of Marguerite’s life away from Percy – just to show that her story didn’t end of the cliffs of Calais.
January 31, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Totally agree, Sarah. I find the Blakeneys after TSP more interesting than if we’d seen them simply cooing in marital bliss, but I do wish either that Marguerite had either been able to play more of a role in Percy’s adventures or if, as you say, we’d seen more of her life back in London while Percy’s gone. One of the things I love in “Busman’s Honeymoon” is seeing both Peter and Harriet adjust to the give and take of being married (while investigating a murder). And I love the Mary Russell series because as the books continue, we continue to see how the marriage evolves and the give and take between the marriage and their separate work, goals, etc…
February 2, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I doubt the Baroness wrote the original TSP with the intention of doing all those sequels. (I could be wrong) I think she got stuck with the problem of having a married hero “after the Happily Ever After” when The Scarlet Pimpernel turned out to be such a hit.
I guess we’re lucky Margot survived! How many times have we seen books/movies/series in which the answer was to have the hero’s lover leave him or kill off the wife so Hero will Continue his Heroic Path to Greatness, unencumbered by Woman? I won’t even talk about the BBC series. Ick.
February 2, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I suspect you’re right about Orczy not originally intending all the sequels, JMM (though I’m not sure either–maybe Dorthe or Cate or Sarah knows?). But I thought Dorthe and Sarah made an interesting point that we don’t precisely see Marguerite and Percy living happily ever after in the sequels. They’re happy, of course. But Percy’s work takes him away from his wife, Marguerite worries, Percy knows she does and feels guilty for leaving her, yet is honor bound to continue his work. It’s an interesting dynamic. I think it would have been more interesting, though, if Marguerite could have played a role in Percy’s adventures or if, as Sarah suggested, we saw glimpses of her life in England without Percy (after all, even if she isn’t off on the adventures, she too has to play the role of a woman married to a fop to protect Percy).
I’m so with you on getting frustrated with series where the hero’s love interest dies or leaves him. I stopped reading the Sharpe books for quite a while after Teresa died. And in the A&E TSP where Marguerite died I just sat staring at the screen for a long time thinking “this makes no sense.”
February 2, 2008 at 6:23 pm
“we don’t precisely see Marguerite and Percy living happily ever after in the sequels.”
No, it’s “The Scarlet Pimpernel saves lives”, not “Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney live HEA”.
I don’t think the publishing industry had a Hayes commission, but I think there were definite boundaries as to how a happily married heroine should behave in the Victorian/Edwardian times.
Having Percy endanger Margot by having her come with him on adventures would have been unacceptable behavior in a hero, I guess.
If she’d been planning a series, she could have had Single Percy rescuing people; falling in love and courting Margot on the side, (perhaps with Margot as an acomplice and/or opponent) then a big climax when he rescues her and triumphantly carries her off to England at the end. She wrote herself into a corner with the first book.
February 2, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I agree that the Baroness had not planned a sequel. One of last paragraphs of the first novel seems to indicate a kind of finality, “The rest is silence!- silence and joy for those who had enjured so much suffering, yet found at last a great and lasting happiness.”
It’s interesting though that we meet Percy and Marguerite after the conventional happily ever after (very unusual). Then there is the estrangement and a more mature happily ever after, then another conflict, and perhaps at the end of Triumph a kind of conclusion, where Percy may settle down to being a husband and perhaps a father. But probably there would be more conflicts after that – in that way the Baroness showed the development of a real relationship and not just a fairy tale.
Marguerite did play a part in a rescue in The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, so the Baroness did foster the idea of a more active role for Marguerite. A pity that she didn’t develop it, but as JMM says the times didn’t allow for that, and the Baroness was not a radical rule breaker – although Mamzelle Guillotine was written in the 1940’s – after Dorothy L. Sayers’ books were published. I agree with Tracy – the relationship between Peter and Harriet is a wonderful description of a marriage that combines passion, love and friendship/partnership.
February 3, 2008 at 7:18 am
“No, it’s “The Scarlet Pimpernel saves lives”, not “Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney live HEA”.”
LOL–very true :-). But she could have simply written a few interludes in Richmond or London with Percy and Marguerite billing and cooing at each other. Instead, we see the toll Percy’s word takes on Marguerite and on their marriage, which I think it interesting. More interesting, actually than if they’d only married at the end of the series (in fact, it’s the very fact that they are married that makes the series so interesting to me. As Dorthe says, we actually get glimpses of “the development of a real relationship and not just a fairy tale.” That’s what makes the books more interesting to me than a lot of adventure stories (not that I don’t love adventure stories).
And I think Dorhte’s comment about Peter and Harriet relationship just gave me tomorrow’s blog topic!
February 3, 2008 at 11:40 am
I agree, Tracy and Dorthe – Percy and Marguerite’s unconventional marriage saves the books from conforming to the mould of traditional romances – hero ‘wins’ the love of a good woman as a reward for his adventures, and retires from the field (in both senses of the word!)
The BBC series – *shudder* – just couldn’t process this dynamic; Richard Carpenter painted himself into a corner by drastically altering Percy’s personality, as he was unable to adapt him into a crass eighteenth century James Bond with Marguerite in tow. Even before the second series, the romance was stilted, and it wasn’t obvious that Percy is supposed to love his wife. In an interview I once read, Elizabeth McGovern admired that the Baroness was writing about a marriage and not a love affair, but unfortunately neither she nor Carpenter considered that the Blakeneys’ relationship could be a balance of both!
February 3, 2008 at 5:13 pm
“hero ‘wins’ the love of a good woman as a reward for his adventures, and retires from the field (in both senses of the word!)”
No, we’ve got Margot ‘winning’ Percy for herself (finally!) after waiting patiently for years like a Good Woman. Understandable, given the mores of the time; as Dorthe says, Marguerite is only given a small part in a story written in the 1940’s. I do wish the Baroness had shown those scene you’d mentioned, Tracy! 🙂
February 3, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Sarah, I actually liked some of the glimpses of the the Blakeneys’ marriage in the BBC series (the “exiles” exchange in the study, working together, particularly in “The Kidnapped King”). Enough that I wish they’d kept Marguerite around in the second series. I still sort of enjoyed the second series for the adventure, but it was like watching completely different characters (which is the only way I could deal with it).
JMM, I wish the Baroness had shown more of those scenes too! I’ve never particularly like heroines who “wait patiently” :-).
February 3, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Marguerite doesn’t always ‘wait patiently’, as you’ve mentioned, Tracy: her behaviour and interaction is tentative initially, and then impulsive and almost desperate. It’s like she is still adjusting to yet another stage in her romance with Percy in ‘Elusive’, and is at once in awe of him as her hero, but also fearful of losing her husband and selfishly possessive of her lover. In ‘Mam’zelle Guillotine’, one of my favourite stories, she finally breaks, and insists that she will go where Percy goes – and he does not refuse her, although he could, because he sees how useful she could be on his mission to rescue the Saint-Lucque children. In ‘Eldorado’, she would be of no use to Percy, and stays behind – until the worst happens, and she risks her own life to be by his side and help the League. In a couple of the short stories, she is an active League member, working with Percy, and then in ‘Triumph’, the balance of give and take in their relationship reaches a crescendo, when she is once again used to trap Percy, but is dignified and defiant at what could be the Pimpernel’s defeat.
Her involvement in the League’s adventures is sensible and appropriate for the age – she is ready to act for Percy, but doesn’t hitch up her skirts and dash into battle – yet rather frustrating for fans of Marguerite, like myself, who would like to have read more about her, at home or in France by her husband’s side.
February 3, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Good points, Sarah. There are lots of ways for Marguerite to be involved without “hitching up her skirts an dashing into battle” (in fact, one of the intriguing things about Percy’s adventures and spy adventures is that a lot of the intrigue can play out in ballrooms and salons). You’re right, Marguerite does get to go a fair amount. I just wish, as you say, that we got to see more of her.
I love the point you and Dorthe have discussed about Marguerite’s relationship with Percy moving from a more desperate, possessive sort of love (understandable immediately after TSP when they have just found each other again and in many ways are still getting to know each other) to something deeper and more secure.
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