Armed and Dangerous

No, not really. Tim passed his driver's test yesterday and now has a driver's license.

Image.

American Civic Literacy Test

I saw this posted on the cmason email list.

"USA Weekend magazine had an article on how American colleges are failing students in knowing American history, civics, economics. Here's the link for the test . . . see how you and your kids do compared to many colleges/universities."

I didn't do well - almost, but not quite, average, which wasn't very good to begin with.

My Wallpaper

[ large version ]

I'm calling this one either Portrait of a Dandelion or Thlayli (you Watership Down fans out there should get that...)

Army of One

Rejected titles from an uber-serious brainstorming session with my mom:
Fuzzyfield
Promised Land
Fields of Fuzz
Allegra Advertisement

The Confidence of Youth

Miss M. informed me that, as a grown-up girl of 4 1/2, she now knows "almost everything." She knows that teapots can break, walls can be broken down, girls need to eat food or else they'll die, ants can bite, bees can sting - almost everything!

Black and white

Green again

All Dressed Up

.

This evening was our homeschool group's formal - Tim and J are there now. I managed to get a few pictures before they left.

The Romance of the Forest

I've been reading Emma with my friend Ginger, and at one point, Harriet asks Robert Martin if he rememberes to read a book she recommended called Romance of the Forest. I looked it up; it's a real book, written by Anne Radcliffe, who also wrote the Mysteries of Udolpho, which features so prominently in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

Yesterday, I found The Romance of the Forest at my local used bookstore, so I picked it up and I'm in the third chapter.

This is going to be a brief progressive summary.

A man named Pierre de la Motte is fleeing Paris to avoid his debtors who want to throw him into prison. He leaves in a coach with his wife and a man and lady servant. The night is stormy and they get lost, so they stop at the first place they find off the beaten track and La Motte knocks on the door to ask for directions. The guy at the door pressures him to stay and spend the night because of the storm, but once La Motte is inside, he's whisked away to a room and locked in. Then a beautiful young woman in distress is thrown in with him, and he's told that he will be set free if he takes the girl away with him. So he does. She joins him in the carriage and now there are five - La Motte, his wife, two servants and the girl, whose name is Adeline. She won't talk about what happened to cause her to be thrown out, but her distress is so great that she gets a fever and the group is delayed for a few days while her life hangs in the balance. Adeline is so grateful to these strangers for taking her in that she becomes like a daughter to them. (I keep getting her name wrong and calling her Annette - it's Adeline, and Annette is the woman servant.)

Finally, they start out again, get lost in the wooded wilderness, and find an old ruined abbey. It's creepy in the darkness and none of them really wants to stay there, but they have no other choice, so they sleep there. In the morning light, the place doesn't look so bad - it even has more recent additions with glass in the windows. La Motte decides to live there awhile in hiding. The servant collects wood, buys provisions, acts as guide and tests dangerous places - it's surprising how capable and willing he is to do all the dirty work, while the rich refugees meditate on their misery and wretchedness.

On one of his trips to town for provisions and furniture(!), the servant hears about the old abbey. It belongs to a nobleman who used it as a resting place for his hunting trips. At one time, he supposedly kept someone prisoner there. La Motte knows this could be true because he discovered a trap door leading to a staircase.

The book has very little dialog - and when it has it, the people talk in stilted King James English, even though the book is in very plain language. And, considering the desperate circumstances, these people still take time to reflect and philosophize: when La Motte is poking around the abbey for the first time to see if it's fit for his group to sleep in, he stops and ponders his own mortality and wonders whose ashes might be lying right under his feet - and did they ever stop to reflect on who might be wondering about them in future generations while they yet lived? It's kind of odd when his wife and the girl are waiting for him in the carriage and darkness is coming on fast, and the time for quick decisions and action is so urgent.

The mystery will be in finding out who Adeline is and why she was thrown onto complete strangers. What did she do to instigate such treatment? And who was kept prisoner at this abbey?

Adeline was raised by nuns after her mother died. Her father doesn't want her and plans for her to become a nun and stay hidden in an abbey all her life. Adeline resists so he takes her out of the nunnery, but then locks her in a bedroom. He goes away on a trip and leaves her imprisonment in charge of some thugs who work for him or something. They are the ones who thrust her on the La Motte's.

La Motte's wife sees that, although they're safely hidden in a quite comfortable fortress, her husband is depressed and often goes for solitary, mysterious walks. She comes to the conclusion that he's in love with the beautiful Adeline, and her jealousy ruins the friendship they had.

Then they find out that soldiers are asking questions about them -- they've been discovered! They find a secret passage under a trapdoor and hide there for days until the soldiers leave. Pierre de La Motte knows that there's a skeleton in a chest down there, but he doesn't tell anyone else. Adeline is sent out to see if the soldiers are gone - and finds the La Motte's son looking for them! He stays for a few days and falls in love with the beautiful Adeline, but she only thinks of him as a loving brother.

_________________

In addition to La Motte's son, there a Marquis who finds them, apparently an old aquaintance of La Motte's, and some other soldiers. One of the soldiers (Theodore) likes Adeline and she likes him. He warns her that she's in danger - "meet me here tomorrow night and I'll tell you more." But then the next day he's sent away on soldier duty by the Marquis, so Adeline has no idea what kind of danger she's in. She has weird dreams about a man dying in an underground room, very much like the room she's staying in at the old abbey.

The Marquis takes a fancy to Adeline, but she doesn't like him. However, since their safety depends on not annoying this Marquis, Adeline has to be civil and pretend that his advances don't repulse her. Apparently her father has found out where she is, and the Marquis could turn them all in.

In her gloomy room, Adeline discovers an old letter and over a few nights, she reads it. It's the account of some person who was once abducted and kept imprisoned in the very room she's in, and he writes that every day he fears will be his last and he'll be killed. Adeline sees and hears things that make her wonder if the spirit of that person is still around, or if her imagination has been spooked.

La Motte's servant tells her that La Motte has traded her to the Marquis for his own safety - her father hasn't really found out her where-abouts, that was just a lie to scare her into marrying the Marquis, although Adeline happens to know that the Marquis is already married. She is betrayed and carried off to the Marquis's estate, but escapes out of a window and runs into - Theodore! He left his military post to save her from the wicked Marquis. He whisks her to a carriage hidden in the woods and they escape from the Marquis's estate.

But, when they stop at an inn, they're found by the Marquis (who also happens to be Theodore's commanding officer) and there's a duel. Theodore is wounded, and he wounds the Marquis. If Theodore recovers, he'll be tried by his commanding officer for going AWOL, and for wounding his commanding officer, and the Marquis will of course use the opportunity to get revenge on Theodore for ruining his plans of trapping Adeline. By this time, Adeline and Theodore are in love, but marriage would mean more painful revenge from the Marquis, so Adeline plans to wait for Theodore in a convent until he gets out of the brig. But the Marquis's men drag her away and drive off with her in a carriage at the Marquis's orders, and Theodore is carted off for his military trial while the Marquis recovers at the inn from his wounds.

Adeline is surprised when she's taken back to the Abbey! In exchange for protection from his creditors, La Motte has agreed to keep Adeline imprisoned until the Marquis comes for her. But when the Marquis is well enough to travel and returns, he wants La Motte to kill her! He's mad because she doesn't like him. If he can't have her, then no one can, and this will be great revenge on Theodore. But La Motte's conscience hasn't gone so far that he can make himself do that. So he lets Adeline go with his servant, Peter. They'll go to Peter's village, and La Motte will pretend that Adeline escaped without his knowledge.

SPOILERS FOLLOW (I've tried made the text invisible; you'll have to highlight to read the rest.)

Adeline and the servant Peter make their escape to Peter's village, and everyone is kind and fusses over Adeline. Adeline, in response, gets feverish and sick and hovers near death, but is nursed back to health by the kind-hearted La Luc family. The father is ill and goes away for his health. Adeline and his daughter Clara come with him, since they could use some health and fresh air, too. Adeline is spotted and recognized by - the La Motte's son! He is able to tell Adeline what has happened with Theodore. Theodore is in prison and due to be executed. The La Motte son was on his way to the La Luc's to let Theodore's family know of his impending death - yes, Theodore is La Luc's son! Meanwhile, the Marquis is visiting the King because he has to be there for La Motte's trial - La Motte is in jail, turned in by the Marquis after letting Adeline go. La Motte's son goes there and learns some news. La Motte recognized somebody in the Marquis's company - it was the guy who pushed Adeline on him way back in the beginning of the story! He was under orders to kill the girl by her own father, but pushed her off on the La Mottes to save her life. The father who wanted her dead was - the Marquis! Her mother had been a nun and he esteemed her enough that he didn't want anyone to know she had been pregnant since she was a nun. Since Adeline wouldn't stay hidden in a nunnery all her life, he wanted her dead to keep the mother's secret safe. So - the Marquis is Adeline's father and never realized that the girl he was so desperate to have, and is willing to kill because he can't have her, is really his own daughter!

No, not really. She's not really the Marquis's daughter. She's his niece. The whole thing about the nun was just a lie. Really, Adeline was the infant daughter of the Marquis's brother who was the previous Marquis and owned a nice abbey. So he killed the brother to get the title and the abbey, and hid the infant in a convent. Adeline's mother had died just after Adeline's birth. So the skeleton and the manuscript that Adeline found depicting some poor prisoner's imprisonment and impending death were really her father's!

Needless to say, after the King and the judges find out all this, Adeline is safe, Theodore is set free, and La Motte is even let go, although he is banished from France. The Marquis poisons himself in prison before they can sentence him. Theodore and Adeline marry, the La Luc father is so overjoyed that his health perks up, and Adeline inherits the abbey and all that the marquis had had. She's rich enough to give the La Motte's enough money to live comfortably in their banishment in return for saving her life. And thus, all mysteries are solved, true love is requited, faithfulness is rewarded, and everyone lives happily ever after.



There's a series of posts from an online reading group who read this book - I can't tell, but some of the book might have been transcribed here, too.

Libellus Meus

Nonne pulcher est?



Found at the used-bookstore. I've never heard of the book, but the cover was too pretty to pass up. (In other words, I'm a conspicuously unproductive consumer. :) )