Shirley II

Shirley is not one of Charlotte's better novels. She researched the history of the Luddite riots in Yorkshire but social comment was not her forte. There is a touch of feminism, in that Shirley and Caroline both discuss careers for women.. but what Caroline really wants to do is to get married. She is depressed when Robert seems to be courting Shirley and Shirley in spite of her friendship with Caroline, seems willing to entertain Robert's addresses. However we learn that Shirley is in love with someone else, who only appears in the later part of the book. Louis, Robert's brother, is a tutor and Shirley loves him in spite of his low status. They get married, Robert's mill becomes successful again and he marries Caroline. The book is rather clumsy, with awkwardly comic portraits of the local curates, who are based on curates that Charlotte knew in Haworth. Shirley is said to be based on Emily Bronte.. but she is not really like her. However it was courageous of her to continue writing the book when she had suffered the awful losses of her two sisters and her brother.

Bad Quarto V

She perceives now what the connexion is between John Tallentire's death fall and Susan Inchman. She also works out that David, the druggie boy that she brought into her college room, upsetting her room mate, is her brother, who like her was brought up in care because of his mother's imprisonment and her suicide. Imogen wonders if Susan might be hiding out on a boat in the area, she's recently discovered that there are several house boats on the canal where people live who like the water or who can't afford a house in Cambridge. She goes investigating but when she returns home she finds Fran waiting desperately to tell her that Martin Mottle has been injured in a fracas at the college, shots were fired and he is in hospital. Imogen rushes there and finds that David Inchman is also in hospital. Martin Mottle has been stabbed and is badly injured but he will live. He tells her that he has been used to carry a gun for protection and in the fight with David he shot at him. David is also badly injured. Susan turns up then to see her brother and she tells Imogen that she caused young Tallentire's death. She was waiting around near VG's room for a tutorial and John rushed past her to go and do his jumping from building to building. She recognised him, and blamed him for being the son of the man who sent her mother to prison... and she loosens the rope knot. David breaks in and says that it wasn't Susan, it was him. Imogen thinks that it is going to be hard to prove who did it, if they both stick to their stories. But she thinks that its more likely that Susan did it. She is stronger than her brother, she has a hot angry temper, and she is much more likely to have managed to loosen a knot than David. She doesn't know what to do. If Susan killed Tallentire, its going to be hard to prove. Duncan Tallentire has said that he thinks no good would come of pursuing a case against whoever killed his son, and he feels guilty because he is no longer sure that his opinion about shaken baby syndrome is correct. Martin Mottle realises that Duncan was probably right. He agrees to try to minimise David's punishment. The two young men go to court and both are given a suspended sentence. Duncan Tallentire pays for David to have drug rehabiliation. Imogen tells Susan that she thinks she killed John, and that while there was a motive, and she has been unhappy and ill treated she is clearly a bit of a loose cannon and she worries about her losing her temper again... she suggests counselling. Susan tells her she is going to drop out of Cambridge and she's going to study law and try and help kids who end up in care. Imogen says that while the John Tallentire case is closed, it could be reopened if necessary and she would probably go down for it, rather than David. Susan looks shocked and agrees reluctantly to go for counselling. She takes David to the drug clinic, and Imogen hopes she will find some purpose in leaving Cambridge and studying law. She herself has been seeing an older man lately, an elderly don who is ill and she nursed him. She had grown very fond of him, and then he dies, leaving her with another broken relationship. But she does her best to recover from her depression. She is glad that the mystery of Tallentire's death has finally been solved.

Shirley - Charlotte Bronte

This novel was written by Charlotte after Jane Eyre's great success. She started it before her sisters and Brother all died, and completed it some months later having been through the appalling multiple bereavement. It is set in Yorkshire during the Napoleonic Wars. Shirley Keeldar, the heroine, is a wealthy heiress who has a valuable estate. She is mannish, likes the outdoors and is considered almost scandalous at times. She is friendly with Robert Moore who has a mill on her estate, and she becomes friendly with a girl of her own age, Caroline Helstone, who is the local clergyman's niece. Robert's business is in trouble, because of the war with Napoleon and he almost loses it. He thinks of marrying Shirley just for her money but she is not interested. Caroline however is in love with him and longs for him to notice her. Shirley feels sorry for the workers but she is a property holder and does not sympathise with them breaking machinery or rebelling against the mill owners. Caroline is depressed that her life is so limited, and that as a woman there's no prospect of her having a job to occupy her mind. M/F

Bad Quarto IV

Imogen is taken aback by the dumb show and the implication that a lecturer however tiresome Venton Gimps is, could have killed a student. However Mottle tells her and her friends from the drama group that he knew John Tallentire from when he was a child and he went climbing with him for years, and trusted him absolutely as a climber. He further demonstrates to her that if Tallentire had tied a knot that slipped a bit, (which he would not do) it still would not result in his falling right into the street and dying. He would have bounced off the walls in the narrow street and just been a bit injured. Mottle is angry about John's death and feels that there is a conspiracy to hide what happened, and that is because it might have been deliberate murder by one of the academics. Imogen feels she has to agree with him, that young Tallentire's fall was caused by someone else. However she meets Duncan Tallentire, his father, an eminent scientist who has come to Cambridge to take up a part time post. He tells her angrily that Mottle has an obsession about the fall, and that he knows what happened to his son, that he was killed but that no good can come of pursuing an investigation. She is startled. Then Susan disappears from college. Some of the staff think that she is just not up to Cambridge standards, and that she knew she didn't fit in there and wasn't clever enough, and that she just left. Imogen likes the girl, so she agrees to go and search for her - starting with a visit to Mary Ollery, her adoptive mother. Mary tells Imogen that most kids in care are damaged by their experiences, and relatively few of them ever manage to get out of the trap they are in, of being poor, lacking social skills and education. Imogen looks up Inchman, her surname, on the net, and finds that there was a woman Valerie Inchman who was jailed for killing her children some years ago.. and then she finds that Susan is Valerie's daughter. Valerie is now dead. Imogen finds out that Duncan Tallentire is often called as an expert witness for scientific issues in court cases, and that there is controversy about how accurate expert witnesses are. There were some cases of mothers being accused of shaking or battering their babies and it is not at all clear if the expert testimony that more than 2 injured children in a family means that the injury is non accidental.

Bad Quarto III

Imogen meets Susan as she is Samantha's room mate.. and can see that the girl while clever is not really happy in Cambridge. Frances tells her that Martin Mottle, who is the student who has offered the Drama society money to perform Hamlet, is still acting very badly, and the group are worried that the performance will damage their reputation. On the night of the play, Mottle insists that 2 friends of his should be in the gallery. The performance does not go too badly; his acting seems to suit the shorter blunter version of Hamlet.. but at the point where there should be a dumb show, Mottle's friends stage a replication of the accident that killed the young climber John Tallentire... with a rope and a window frame, and a student dressed like one of the more eccentric lecturers, Venton Gimps, appears. The real Venton Gimps has a room near to the one where Tallentire fell, and he likes to air controversial opinions and dress extravagantly so he is not much liked. He is appalled by this implication that he had some part in the death of young Tallentire and storms out, telling everyone that he will call his lawyer.

Bad Quarto part II

Frances tells Imogen that the student who insists on playing Hamlet is a terrible actor, but they are hoping that the one performance wont ruin their reputation as actors and that the money will solve all their problems. Imogen finds herself reading up on theories about Shakespeare, and is surprised to find that nowadays a lot of critics dislike his plays for being Imperialist, conservative, anti feminist etc. She gets a visit from Samantha, a literature student who is suffering from anxiety about her work and doing her exams. Samantha also complains that Susan, her current room mate, is a difficult girl and adds to her worries. Susan is from a poor background and she got into Cambridge via a scheme to help young people who missed out on education at school level but are bright. She is clever enough but she has a hot temper and a chip on her shoulder about her being poor and ill educated and is always complaining. She also brings in a young male friend who is dirty and seems to be taking drugs. Imogen finds that Susan was brought up largely in care, and that her foster mother adopted her when she got a bit older, to try and give her some stability. Drama happens when Samantha is found unconscious in her room and it seems like she's taken an overdose. Imogen gets her to hospital, but she is suspicious about the overdose. She thinks that Samantha didn't intend to kill herself, she just wanted to make herself ill and if she was ill at the time of her exam, she might be given a pass because of illness.

Bad Quarto an Imogen Quy Novel

This is I think the last novel written by Jill Paton Walsh about Imogen Quy. She was then employed by the Sayers estate to write continuations of the Lord Peter novels and concentrated on that. However I have never felt that these were very good and found them hard to read. The Bad Quarto refers to a version of Hamlet which has been around for centuries; it is a shorter less elaborate version of the play, and is occasionally performed. At the beginning of the novel, we learn of a tragic accident, where Imogen was called when a young student fell while jumping from building to building in the college, a dangerous hobby pursued by some students who like mountaineering. The student was killed and Imogen was upset but it was seen as an accident and measures were taken to make this leaping hobby more difficult to pursue. Soon afterwards Imogen goes to a meeting of the college drama society, as her lodger Frances Bullion is a member. They need someone to take minutes and she offers to help. At the meeting, the group discuss a major problem... They had a fire in their rehearsal room probably caused by carelessness by the students, and the room was damaged and the part time caretaker was hurt and is still unwell from smoke inhalation. They had let their insurance lapse through a foolish member of the group forgetting.. the member has now left. So they are liable for the damage and worry that Fred the caretaker might sue them though he is slowly getting better. They dont want to renege on their duty of care but the group is seriously in debt. However they are offered a chance to earn a large sum of money. Another student whose father is rich, proposes that they do a one off performance of the Bad Quarto, with him playing lead, and he will pay them a lot of money. It seems odd but they feel that they need to get the money somehow so they decide to accept the offer. M/F