Anne Hatton ["Anne of Swansea"]

Anne of Swansea. Lovers and Friends; or, Modern Attachments; a Novel in Five Volumes. By Anne of Swansea.

London:  Minerva Press for A. K. Newman and Co., 1821.

 

Synopsis of Lovers and Friends

The novel begins with a preface in which Miss Sylphina Thistledown and her aunt Miss Mentoria Grizzle discover the manuscript of the novel and discuss their views on the title and what is represented by it. Miss Thistledown, a romantic, believes she will find a "work which will prove there may be friendship without the interference of money, and modern attachments as strong as any the days of my great-grandmother could boast." And the author addresses the reader, for the last time, hoping that her readers "have equally as much pleasure in reading as I had in writing, what I positively think a pathetic-comic-moral story."

In Volume I, Hatton introduces all of the important characters and their relationships to each other. The first and most important character is Cecilia Delmore, an orphan whose aunt, Mrs. Milman, is the housekeeper at Torrington Castle in Cumberland. Mrs. Milman is agonizing over the prospect of having to send her niece, who is about six, to boarding school. Lord Torrington sees the beautiful young girl, and realizing that she resembles someone from his past who was very important to him, he decides to adopt her and pay for her upbringing and education. Since he is often absent from the castle, Lord Torrington gives orders for his steward, Mr. Wilson, "to procure every advantage of education that the neighbouring town of Keswick could afford."

In a flashback we learn that Lord Torrington, formerly Wilfred Rushdale, and his best friend, Edmund Saville, a reputedly wealthy East Indian, have broken off their friendship over Torrington's marriage to Saville's lover, Emily Herbert. Lord Torrington, whose father, an eminent banker has lost his money, saves an aged man, Jonathan Blackburne, from being from being run over by a hackney-coach. As a reward, Blackbourne, the "money-hoarding miser" who made a fortune in the West Indies, offers Rushdale a fortune if he will marry his niece Emily. Rushdale has several reasons for not wanting to marry Emily, one of which is that she is engaged to his best friend. The other reason is a more important, but we do not learn about it until much later. In order to get all of this money, Rushdale has "to pledge what he did not possess-his honour."

Because he has lost his lover to his best friend and because his only sister, Edith, had been killed in a shocking accident, Saville, who is on a business trip to Calcutta, resolves never to return to England.

Soon after the marriage of Wilfred and Emily, Wilfred learns that because there are no "male heirs in a very distant branch of his family," he inherits a great deal of money and the title Lord Torrington, thus pleasing his wife, who hates him, by making her Lady Torrington.

Several years have gone by, and Cecilia, now eight, goes with Mr. Wilson to visit Mrs. Julia Doricourt, who has renovated a "ruinous Hermitage" on St. Herbert Island. Mrs. Doricourt is also taken with Cecilia's beauty, also believes she resembles someone who was very dear to her, and also wants to adopt her. Cecilia goes to live with Mrs. Doricourt, who teaches her languages, music, and painting, and provides her with beautiful, but tasteful jewels and clothing.

We learn of Mrs. Doricourt's history from another flashback. Her mother, Louisa Oswald, only daughter of Sir Alan Oswald, marries Alfred Greville without her father's permission and is disinherited. The couple are happy lovers for awhile and have a daughter Julia. But their happiness does not last long because Greville dies, leaving his wife with no money, and she is forced to support herself and her daughter by running a girls' school. Edith Saville comes to Mrs. Greville's school and becomes Julia's best friend. Later the two lose track of each other, and Julia learns that Edith has died.

Another student at the school is Almora, the daughter of Alfred Greville's uncle, Mr. Doricourt. Her mother, who is a "woman of colour," died giving birth to her. Almora is in poor health, but while she is a student at the Greville School, she and Julia become great friends. When Almora realizes that she is going to die, she gets Julia to promise that she will marry her father. After Almora's death, Julia does marry Mr. Doricourt, but she loves another man, Henry Woodville. Mr. Doricourt also dies, and Julia, after a court battle, inherits a fortune. She believes that she is now free to marry Woodville, her one and only love, but while he is home visiting his mother, he gets drunk and marries someone else. Broken hearted, Julia Doricourt moves to St. Herbert Island.

More time goes by and the beautiful Cecilia is in her teens when Lord and Lady Torrington, constantly being referred to by the word hauteur, finally come home to their castle with their son Oscar, Lord Rushmore, who is about Cecilia's age. Lord and Lady Torrinton have been living in Italy, and since they hate each other, they have an understanding, which involves infidelity by each one, as long as they are discrete. Lord Torrington is tired of Lady Torrington's latest lover, the penniless Count del Montarino, and wants to get away from him and her other worthless friends, Sir Cyril Musgrove, Lady Jacintha Fitzosborne, and Lady Jacintha's cousin, Lady Eglantine, so he insists that Lady Torrington come to Torrington Castle with him. She agrees, but brings all of her friends with her. Thus the stage is set for the action and intrigue to begin.

When Cecilia and Lord Rushdale meet, it is love at first sight, and they plan to marry when they come of age in several years. Lord Torrington approves of this arrangement because it will make Cecilia truly his daughter, but Lady Torrington is very much against the plan because Cecilia, the lowly orphan, is beneath her, and she has her own plans to marry her son to Lady Arabella Moncreif, daughter of the Duchess of Aberdeen. She tries to break the couple up, first by finding a suitable, lower class lover for Cecilia. Mr. Wilson has his own plans for Cecilia--to marry his nephew, Solomon Scroggins, Lord Rushdale's tutor, Mr. Oxley, has similar plans--to marry Cecilia himself, and Lord Cyril has plans to make Cecilia his mistress. However, Cecilia turns them all down and remains true to Lord Rushdale.

The crowd of guests at Torrington Castle has grown to include Lady Welford, Lord Wilton, Colonel St. Irwin, Tangent Drawley, Sir Middleton Maxfield, his sister Jemima, and their aunt, Mrs. Freakley. Also included are Lady Torrington's attendant, Mrs. Smithson, and Lady Jacintha's attendant, Mrs. Garnett, who is described as "a paragon of slip-slops," an allusion to Henry Fielding's Mrs. Slip Slop in Joseph Andrews. The action involves the vying by the various members of the Torrington household and the guests for friends and, more importantly, for lovers. After nearly being caught in bed by her dear friend, Lady Jacintha, Lady Torrington dumps the Count del Montarino, who is picked up by the under-aged but soon-to-be wealthy Jemima Maxfield while Lady Torrington, temporarily traps the "much younger than she is" Drawley. Meanwhile the rich widow, Mrs. Freakley, who is described as being as wide as she is tall, is interested in making the poverty strickened Lord Wilton her second husband. Mrs. Lady Jacintha chases Lord Rushdale, who is interested in no one but Cecilia.

The continuing action includes the kidnapping of Mrs. Freakley by a not-too-bright outlaw who believes she is Cecilia and the arrival of the police to arrest Lady Jacintha because she hasn't been paying her bills. So that she will not have to go to jail, Lady Jacintha convinces Cecilia to loan her most of the four hundred pounds that her adopted father, who is several times rumored by his guests to be her real father, has given her. Later Cecilia loses the rest of the four hundred pounds when she is held up at pistol point by the desperate Count del Montarino, in disguise, who needs the money so that he can elope to Scotland with Jemima Maxfield.

At this point, Lord Torrington decides to go to the island to meet Mrs. Doricourt and talk her into returning to Torrington Castle to join his family and guests. When they see each other, they realize that they have a friend in common, Edith Saville, the woman Cecilia resembles. In fact, Lord Torrington admits that he was Edith's seducer and asks Mrs. Doricourt to forgive him for his ill treatment of her friend. This admission plants the seeds of suspicion and the possibility of incest in the minds of the reader. If Cecilia resembles Edith Saville, perhaps Edith is Cecilia's mother. And Lord Torrington admits to having seduced Edith, so he could be the father of her child. He could be Cecilia's real father, and that would mean that Lord Rushdale is Cecilia's brother.

While at Mrs. Doricourt's, Cecilia finds a miniature painted by Mrs. Doricourt, which resembles Lord Rushdale and for awhile she thinks that her friend Mrs. Doricourt is in love with him.

Later, the love between Cecilia and Lord Rushdale is tested in another way when he becomes ill with small pox and then she becomes ill with the disease as well. They could die, and they are certain to be scared for life, but they both agree that physical beauty is not the basis of their love and they would love each other even if scared, so they both recover completely and are both as beautiful as ever.

By now Drawley has tired of Lady Torrington, who has moved on to another man after her money, Major Norman. She and the major elope to France together, and she eventually is punished for her sins by dying.

Mrs. Doricourt goes off to France with her estranged grandfather, Sir Alan Oswald, now ninety years old, who has appeared on the scene, to settle some business involving her property there.

At the same time, Cecilia is kidnapped for real, the villain being Lord Cyril, who has plans to force her to become his mistress. He manages to hide her from her friends and relatives for several weeks, and Lord Torrington and Lord Rushdale, believing that Sir Cyril has taken her to Italy, end up there looking for her there.
While there Lord Torrington discovers that his wife, Edith Saville, to whom he was still married when he married Emily Herman, had died leaving a daughter, who, of course, is Cecilia. Mrs. Milman's brother-in-law lost his wife and daughter at the same time Cecilia's mother died, so he took Cecilia to Mrs. Milman, telling her that Cecilia was her sister's daughter. Now we know that the rumors are true-Cecilia is Lord Torrington's real daughter and heir, and Lord Rushmore, or Oscar Herman, is the illegitimate son of Lord Torrington and Emily Herman. Of course, Cecilia and Oscar cannot marry. It takes Lord Torrington some time to reveal this information to Oscar, who in the meantime obsesses over finding his only true lover, Cecilia. When Lord Torrington finally tells Oscar the truth, he resolves to become a true brother and friend to Cecilia.

Meanwhile, Cecilia is concerned that Lord Rushdale believes the story Lord Cyril has planted in the newspapers that she and Sir Cyril are engaged. Cecilia is eventually rescued by Mr. Wilson among others, and she returns to Torrington Castle, believing that she has lost her only true love forever, not knowing that he is her brother. She is courted by the Duke of Arvingham, and we are left torn between hoping that Lord Rushdale may not really be Cecilia's brother and hoping that if he is, Cecila will be able to fall in love with the Duke.

Mrs. Doricourt is still in France on her business, and while there, her grandfather becomes ill, and before he dies, arranges to leave his great wealth to her. She also runs into her great lost love, Henry Woodville, who tells her that he has always loved her, and then he dies, leaving her the great fortune he inherited after he left her.
Mrs. Doricourt has also become acquainted with Edmund Saville, who has softened over the years in his attitude toward Lord Torrington, and she and Saville return to St. Herbert Island. She is reunited with Cecilia just in time for Cecilia to learn who her real father and brother are. This also means that Cecilia is Saville's niece. She is devastated, and she tries to make herself believe that she can accept Oscar as her friend and brother, but she becomes ill.

Lord Torrington and Oscar, who have taken turns being ill because of all of their misfortunes since they left Torrington Castle, finally return home in time for Cecilia's birthday with some shocking, but very good news.

Oscar has learned that he is not Lord Torrington's son or Cecilia's brother after all. His former nurse reveals that the real Oscar died in her arms when he was a baby, and she substituted the son of Henry Woodville, who had abandoned his wife and son shortly before she died, for the dead Torringtons's son. Oscar is really Henry Woodville, the son of Mrs. Doricourt's true love, and we remember the miniature painted by Mrs. Doricourt of the young man who resembled Lord Rushdale.

Mrs. Doricourt immediately turns the inheritance she received from Henry Sr. over to Henry Jr. Saville and Lord Torrington are reunited briefly, Saville forgiving his old friend. Lord Torrington arranges for Henry Jr. to be appointed Viscount Rushdale before he dies. Cecilia and Henry marry, becoming at last both true lovers and true friends.

-- Prepared by Vicki L. Martin, University of Nebraska, April 2006.
© Vicki L. Martin, 2006.