Tag: General Fiction Page 12 of 42

And now we’re caught back up to where we were at the end of the last book (seven chapters back)—Mrs. Honour has shown up at Mrs. Miller’s and dropped a bomb on Tom. The news that Sophia is with her father and bound to be married to Blifil—and that Hounour has lost her job—is bad, to be sure, but the way she was carrying on, Tom thought it was worse news. She’s a tad annoyed he’s not as distraught as her.

Naturally, at this point, Lady Bellaston shows up to see Tom—who forgets he’s supposed to be sick. She flirts a little, Tom doesn’t respond as he ought. Bellaston begins to push things and a very drunken Nightingale shows up. How drunk was he? He was “in that state of drunkenness which deprives men of the use of their reason without depriving them of the use of their limbs.” One more Fielding line I need to remember.

Anyway, Bellaston and Honour end up talking, the former assuring the latter that she can probably help with the job situation (so Honour forgets running into her). Bellaston then leaves.

Nightingale got away from his uncle because he had to leave town to attend to things when his daughter got married without warning. Which leaves the door open for Nancy to become Mrs. Nightingale the next day. Which is just what happens in an aptly named chapter, “Short and sweet.” Still, Fielding wraps it up saying that some readers:

will perhaps think this short chapter contains abundance of matter; while others may probably wish, short as it is, that it had been totally spared as impertinent to the main design, which I suppose they conclude is to bring Mr Jones to the gallows, or, if possible, to a more deplorable catastrophe.

The next day, Nightingale talks turkey with Tom. He’s not the first guy that Bellaston has done this to, and he’s not going to be the last. But he still needs to extract himself, and Nightingale has the plan for that: propose. The last thing she wants is to get tied down, no matter what airs she puts on.

It works, but before they can celebrate, Mrs. Miller comes in with bad news. Allworthy and Blifil are coming to town and they need her rooms—it’s a standing deal, and she’s distraught about what to do. Tom is happy to move out to relieve her of her stress (he also calls Nancy “Mrs. Nightingale.” It’s the first time she’s heard that and it brings her such joy). But that just means that this wedding is imminent, he’s going to have to do something soon. Mrs. Honour can’t help because she’s working for Bellaston now. It’s not going well for Tom, and Fielding leaves us on this note:

While Jones was terrifying himself with the apprehension of a thousand dreadful machinations, and deep political designs, which he imagined to be at the bottom of the promotion of Honour, Fortune, who hitherto seems to have been an utter enemy to his match with Sophia, tried a new method to put a final end to it, by throwing a temptation in his way, which in his present desperate situation it seemed unlikely he should be able to resist.

.

So, so, so much happens here. Wow. Things are lining up for fireworks—with the original core characters in London. We’ve got nine weeks to go before we wrap up this book, and I think we’ll be at full speed ahead for it. Back next week to see just what this temptation is—will Fortune finally put an end to things for Tom and Sophia?

Wow. This section came within in seconds of being really dark. Sure, there have been serious moments in this novel, but…wow. I honestly had a hard time believing I was reading what the text was saying. This just didn’t seem like that kind of book. As Fielding says,

this being the most tragical matter in our whole history

But first, we’ll backtrack a bit (this whole section is a flashback that contains a flashback to get us up to the point we were at last week (or close to it, anyway).

You might recall that Lady Bellaston had this plan to help Lord Fellmar see how hung up Sophie was on Tom. It was this stupid plan where at a dinner party someone talked about witnessing a duel that resulted in the death of someone:

“A young fellow we none of us know; a Somersetshire lad just came to town, one Jones his name is; a near relation of one Mr Allworthy, of whom your lordship I believe hath heard. I saw the lad lie dead in a coffee-house.—Upon my soul, he is one of the finest corpses I ever saw in my life!”

Not at all shockingly, Sophia is distraught. And it’s not helped much when later Belaston tells her it was a prank.

Seriously? What kind of monster does that? Just wait a minute…

Fellmar sops by the next day to see Sophia, who doesn’t want to see him. He clearly has a thing for her, and she is not interested. She calls him an “odious lord” and doesn’t want anyone to admit him to her presence.

So, Bellaston comes up with a new plan—Fellmar rapes her, then she has no choice but to marry him. She’ll eventually come around and love him, but the important thing is that they’ll be married. Fellmar, to his credit, resists the notion on moral grounds. But Bellaston convinces him it’s the right thing (eventually) to do.

So, Bellaston clears out everyone from hearing range, and Fellmar corners Sophia as she reads. He pours his heart out to her, she rejects him. He’s deaf to that and more aggressively pours his heart out, she rejects him a bit more forcefully. And just as things start to get very dark Sophia is rescued.

By her drunk and enraged father, who we haven’t seen in a bit. He thinks he’s stumbled into a very different situation. He blows off Fellmar as he tries to ask for Sophia’s hand, Squire Western doesn’t want anything to do with the nobility, he wants an “honest country gentleman.” There’s a bit of a row, Western fires Mrs. Honour (so she can’t help Sophia escape again), and then Weston, the parson, and Sophia leave.

We get a chapter explaining how Western found Sophia (short version: Fitzgerald wrote a letter to his sister), but that’s pretty much where we leave things. Sophia’s on her way to get married to Blifil and Honour’s on her way to tell Tom what’s going on.

Bellaston’s gone from a semi-ridiculous plot device to a real monster. We’re done (I hope) with the Fellmar stuff and we’ve got to be headed toward the Endgame re: Blifil. The pace is picking up and I expect things are going to stay interesting from here on out.

Tom brings Nightingale’s uncle back to the Millers, and everything goes wonderfully. The uncle (remember, he’s under the impression that the wedding already happened) is very supportive, absolutely making up for his father’s clear antagonism. Nancy is overjoyed, Nightingale is happy, Mrs. Miller pulls Tom into another room to lavish gratitude and praise on him–she’s sussed out that he’s the one who got the uncle on board. Everything is going so well that the reader knows another shoe is going to drop.

And it does–Nightingale is so drunk he confesses everything to his uncle. And that support vanishes in the light of reality. Oh? You’re not married? Excellent, there’s time to prevent the mistake. He agrees with his nephew to not change the way he treats Nancy if Nightingale will go home with him to continue their argument. When they get back to the party, the women can tell something’s different, even if the two are on their best behavior. Tom can tell, too–and he correctly guesses what’s going on, and plans on fixing things.

But–of course there’s a but–you don’t get a novel this long if every plan doesn’t “gang aft agley,” right? While Tom is deciding how he’s going to proceed,

the maid of the house informed him that a gentlewoman desired to speak with him.——He went immediately out, and, taking the candle from the maid, ushered his visitant upstairs, who, in the person of Mrs Honour, acquainted him with such dreadful news concerning his Sophia, that he immediately lost all consideration for every other person; and his whole stock of compassion was entirely swallowed up in reflections on his own misery, and on that of his unfortunate angel.

That’s bad enough, but Fielding has to follow that up with:

What this dreadful matter was, the reader will be informed, after we have first related the many preceding steps which produced it, and those will be the subject of the following book.

I think every reality competition show host must study this technique, “the contestant going home this week is….revealed after the break.”

We get our customary commentary from Fielding to open the next book. This time, it’s short and to the point, too all the writers/philosophers/whatever “who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world.” He states, this is “a very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.”

We see that in the way that Tom is trying to do the virtuous thing with Nightingale and Nancy, yet things with Sophia aren’t going well for him. He develops the idea a bit more, but not much before concluding, “But as the reader’s curiosity (if he hath any) must be now awake, and hungry, we shall provide to feed it as fast as we can.”

So, Lady Bellaston is jealous of poor Sophia. She needs to get her out of the way if she’s going to have Tom all to herself. Several chapters back, when there was that commotion at the play, which brought Sophia home early, interrupting the visit between Tom and Bellaston–Sophia’d been escorted home by a young gentleman. He’d seen her around town a little bit and after the play, had developed a little crush on her.

He came to check on her the next day, visited for a while, and convinced himself he was in love. Bellaston hatches a plan, on the one hand trying to make Sophia all the more appealing to him, but at the same time warning Lord Fellmar before he thinks of proposing,

“there is a bar, which I am almost ashamed to mention; and yet it is one you will never be able to conquer. You have a rival, my lord, and a rival who, though I blush to name him, neither you, nor all the world, will ever be able to conquer…he is,” said she, “what I am sorry to say most happy men with us are, one of the lowest fellows in the world. He is a beggar, a bastard, a foundling, a fellow in meaner circumstances than one of your lordship’s footmen.”

As Sophia’s a silly country-girl, she has these silly romantic notions that she can overcome these deficiencies in character.

The two come to an agreement (okay, Fellmar falls into her trap), he’ll come and spend more time with Sophia to try to pry her away from Tom, while witnessing for himself just how devoted Sophia is. From the chapter titles, we get more of this next week.

I’m not sure what the point of the Nightingale/Nancy storyline is–unless it’s just to prove one more time that despite everything else we know about him, Tom’s a pretty good guy who’s always willing to help those who need it. Which I guess is always good to see about a protagonist. Especially one who seems to attract scandal and trouble the way Tom does.

Bellaston, despite being a lousy excuse for a human being, is pretty entertaining. “Oh, you must rescue my innocent cousin from this low bellow, so I can have him all for myself.” And the dullard falls for it. Still, I wonder how this turns bad for Sophia (which I guess is the point of Fielding’s tease).

Tom and Mrs. Miller sit down for an overdue conversation, now that she knows he has a connection to Mr. Allworthy, she wants to make sure they part on the right terms. She tells him her background, her family’s hard history up to the point where she’s left a widow with two young daughters. Mr. Allworthy knew her late husband a bit and provided her with her house and a small annual income. Not only that, she has heard Allworthy talk about Tom, and always spoke of him in the warmest terms. Tom tries to set her right, but she won’t hear of it, remembering what her husband used to say about circumstances like his:

No, Mr Jones, the words `dishonourable birth’ are nonsense, as my dear, dear husband used to say, unless the word `dishonourable’ be applied to the parents; for the children can derive no real dishonour from an act of which they are entirely innocent.”

This breaks down Tom’s barriers and he tells her everything that’s going on his life. He gets her permission for one final appointment with Lady Bellaston that evening. Bellaston neer shows and Tom falls asleep waiting. He’s awakened by a ruckus–which he discovers is caused by Nancy, trying to kill herself, and her mother and sister lamenting over this. IT turns out that Nightingale has got her pregnant and then left her with a note talking about having to go marry someone his father had picked for her.

Tom tries to help by promising to get Nightingale to come back and do the right thing (which Tom believes is what his friend wants, anyone). Nancy is more concerned with the loss of him than the loss of reputation, it should be noted.

This is exactly what he tells NIghtingale, and probably gives the most eloquent speech of this book to date, about what Nightingale must do, what others will think of his actions and what will happen to Nancy otherwise. NIghtingale assures Tom he’d rather marry Nancy, but his father won’t permit it. Tom sends him off to help with Nancy while he sets off to convince the elder Nightingale to permit this marriage (partially by pretending it already happened).

It does not go well at all, but Tom’s aided by the arrival of the elder Nightingale’s brother (I wish more men had first names in this book to make it easier on these recaps). Nightingale’s uncle married someone who made him happy, not someone who made a “good” (read: profitable) match and encourages him to let the same happen for his nephew. The Elder Nightingale seems to soften a bit and regrets the influence his brother had on his son.

They leave things in this awkward situation, with Tom taking the uncle to see his nephew and Nancy.

A lot happened in a short period of time here. And while I sort of prefer (for entertainment value) TOm being the outrageous scamp, the rascal with a heart of gold; Tom beating earnest and eloquent, showing that heart of gold to the world is really easy to admire and root for. Something tells me he might not have been eloquent enough, but I’ll have to see next week.

As usual, chapter 1 of this Book is a little essay about a topic that Fielding wants to sound off on. This time it’s the education required to be a writer,

As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps, without being well able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.

I’m tempted to camp out on this chapter for a while. Fielding’s a little more firey this time,

…The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercise his tools the worse by having learnt to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that Homer or Virgil would have writ with more fire, if instead of being masters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant as most of the authors of the present age.

He concedes, not everyone who writes needs to be educated:

…very little reading is, I conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of all to the politician.

Would love to see what Fielding could do with a Twitter feed. He rants on the subject a little longer, but you get the flavor, let’s get back to Tom.

Tom’s slipped out of Lady Bellaston’s house while she and Sophia spar. He’s not home long before he receives a letter from the Lady, who is not happy with him. She warns him against making her angry by seeing Sophia again. Almost immediately, he gets another from her telling him to come to visit. Lady Bellaston is not the woman he wants to go visit, but he figures he’d better. But before he can leave—guess who shows up?

Tom’s in the middle of assuring the Lady that he and Sophia accidentally ran into each other, and that’s all when Partridge comes up alerting him that Mrs. Honour is coming to see him. There’s no good place to hide Lady Bellaston from her prying eyes, so they settle with putting her behind a curtain.

Mrs. Honour gossips a bit about Bellaston while Tom tries (and tries and tries) to shush her and redirect the conversation. But she has to tell Tom about Bellaston’s scandalous behavior with men (Bellaston is insulted, but she is in the room of a man right now—as we’re about to learn, at 2 am with her carriage driver loitering nearby telling everyone who’ll listen why he’s there). She finally gives Tom a letter from Sophia and leaves. Bellaston comes out incredibly offended, Tom placates her about Honour and the meeting with Sophia, too.

Here ensued a long conversation, which the reader, who is not too curious, will thank me for not inserting at length. It shall suffice, therefore, to inform him, that Lady Bellaston grew more and more pacified, and at length believed, or affected to believe, his protestations, that his meeting with Sophia that evening was merely accidental, and every other matter which the reader already knows, and which, as Jones set before her in the strongest light, it is plain that she had in reality no reason to be angry with him.

“the reader, who is not too curious, will thank me for not inserting at length.” Ha.

Anyway, they finally decide that Tom will come to visit the next day. He’s coming over to visit Bellaston, but will pretend to be there to see Sophia.

Because that’s going to work, I guess.

Sophia’s letter interferes with that plan, she tells him repeatedly, “if you have
any concern for my ease, do not think of returning hither.” She doesn’t trust Bellaston and things won’t go well. Tom isn’t sure what to do now, so the next morning, he jots off a quick note begging off from calling that day, he’s sick.

He’ll come to regret that because that means he’s home to get a talking-to by Mrs. Miller. Two women in his room with him alone last night? One who didn’t leave until 2? This will not do. She doesn’t need people talking, him setting a bad example for the girls, and she expects more from someone tied to Mr. Allworthy. Tom agrees but insists on his own privacy, no matter who comes to visit. Things break down to the point where he’ll have to look for a new place to stay the next day.

Nightingale stops by, too. He’s headed for other pastures, too. Tom rakes him over the coals for the way he’s behaving toward Mrs. Miller’s daughter, Nancy. Nightingale claims to have no idea what Tom’s talking about. Tom sticks to the message—you messed up, thanks to your flirting, the girl has fallen in love. YOu can’t just duck out (as he was planning), but you can’t keep stringing her on, either.

And that’s that, I’d expected to take about 1/3 the space and time to write this up. Heh.

Last week, Lashaan asked about going through the novel in little bits and pieces. This selection was one of those times I had a hard time stopping—the clock and fatigue stopped me from finishing Book IV. I have a bad feeling both about Tom’s impending meeting with Lady Bellaston and ol’ Nightingale, and want to see if I’m right.

Well, thanks to that unexpected nine-week break, I’m abandoning the whole “read through this in 2020” goal. This bothers me a little bit, but I’ll get over it.

So, when we left Tom, he was in London. He’d made some decent friends (or at least allies), was being his usual generous and helpful self with them. He’d also found a way to hopefully gain an audience with Sophia, but it looks like it’s going to take some work. Let’s dive back in, shall we?

Oh, my hardcopy with the funky capitalization, etc. is in a different box than I believed. So, Project Gutenberg to the rescue today.

I just love the titles of the first two chapters we’re looking at this week: “Which treats of matters of a very different kind from those in the preceding chapter,” and “A chapter which, though short, may draw tears from some eyes.”

So Tom’s getting nowhere with his connections to Sophia—in fact, it’s getting to the point that he’s about to lose his connection if he keeps bringing her up. But, he’s a clever guy. If Lady Bellaston won’t help him who will? Well, what she knows, the servants likely know (he figures), so Partridge is deployed to get that information from the servants.

While we wait for results on that front, we learn that Lady Bellaston is what we would call a cougar (or we would’ve a few years ago, anyway), and she has her sights set on Tom, and showers him with attention (and gifts). Tom isn’t interested in her, he’s devoted to Sophia. But, it’d be rude to not return a little of the affection she’s showering on him.

One night, he’s compelled to ditch his pal Nightengale—they were supposed to go see a play together, but Bellaston wanted Tom to come meet her in her home. To make this appointment possible, Bellaston sends away some servants and even arranges for her houseguest, Sophia, to attend that same play (with a chaperone, of course).

But before Tom can leave, Mrs. Miller asks him to join her to meet someone. The cousin that Tom’s been so recently generous to is downstairs and wants to thank him. Now remember a few chapters back, when someone tried to steal from Tom, tells him a sob story about a sick family member, and so Tom gives him some money? Well, guess who Mrs. Miller’s cousin happens to be. It’s practically a Dickensian coincidence (if Dickens had been born yet, anyway). Mr. Miller had already planned on spilling his heart in gratitude, but this just compounded his thanks. Tom’s gratified to hear how much he’s helped. (this is the chapter we might have got teary about).

So then Tom heads to Ballston’s, and gets there early, so is hanging out in the drawing room to wait. The play turned into some sort of a to-do. it was a new play, and apparently controversial. One group had shown up to protest, another to cheer it on (Nightengale had been counting on Tom to help him encourage the production). It was all too much for Sophia, who came home between accts. She discovers Tom, and almost faints.

To paint the looks or thoughts of either of these lovers, is beyond my power. As their sensations, from their mutual silence, may be judged to have been too big for their own utterance, it cannot be supposed that I should be able to express them: and the misfortune is, that few of my readers have been enough in love to feel by their own hearts what past at this time in theirs.

In what follows, Tom gives her the pocketbook and money, they clear up some misconceptions and misunderstandings, basically clear the air and are getting all sentimental with each other, when Tom remembers he has to ask her to forget about him (the last thing she wants to hear), and starts to say something along those lines, but botches it and says something

that sounded like a proposal of marriage. To which she replied, “That, did not her duty to her father forbid her to follow her own inclinations, ruin with him would be more welcome to her than the most affluent fortune with another man.”

The use of the word “ruin,” brings everything back to Tom and he starts to do what he’s supposed to do, but she interrupts to ask what he was doing in that room. Naturally, in walks Lady Bellaston—shocked to find the two of them together, and she demands to know what Sophia is doing there.

Sophia tells what happened at the play (Bellaston doubts it), says that Tom came to return her pocketbook (Bellaston knew it was missing, doesn’t believe that Tom returned it), after tracking her down by the name inside it. Bellaston and Tom don’t let on that they know each other either. Tom’s willing to play along, as it keeps both women from being upset with him.

Tom leaves, and the two women spend some time lying to each other about what they think about Tom, what they know about him, and so on. It’s a giant mess that’s sure to come toppling down soon.

And there we go, back to the book and at the end of Book Thirteen. Both of which are fun. We’re in the final third here, so things are going to start happening more quickly (I expect). Will Tom come clean to Sophia about Bellaston? Will Bellaston tell Sophia that she knew she was lying about Tom? Is Tom still destined for a hanging? All this and more to come in the next few chapters.