PART TWO: The Twelfth of July SPOILER [ Edited ]

[vivico1]

The first thing that struck me about this chapter was the interview to me seems like a set up. Back at the first, I questioned Ursula's connection to all this and how she knew about Grace and what she really wanted from her. This whole interview with Keira seemed rehearsed to me. I think Ursula didnt forget to turn her phone off, she meant for it to go off to leave Keira alone with Grace. I dont think Keira's questions were niave or to get her more limelight, I think it was to find out more about Grace's connection to Emmeline and maybe Hannah too for whatever reason Ursula wants to know more. I still feel there is something going on that is not up front about this movie and that was too contrived.

Also, very sad about the men dying and everyone waiting to see who inherits. Karen wrote:
Although everyone expects her to be hoping for a male heir, she is relieved to have a girl. Why do you think this is the case?

I just barely finished reading this and came to the threads to post while it was all fresh in my mind, and in my book, it never said in this chapter that Jemima had a girl,so thats news to me! In mine, she just has a big belly, in the picture, in with the lawyer, till she isnt feeling well and Grace helps her upstairs, so either I will find this out in the next chapter or so, or part of my chapter here is completely missing.

Message Edited by KxBurns on 01-10-2008 12:38 PM

[JoyZ]

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vivico1 wrote:
The first thing that struck me about this chapter was the interview to me seems like a set up. hr>

The first thing I noticed was we were back to 3. Grace, Ursula and Keira.

[KxBurns]

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wendyroba wrote:
I found it interesting that Grace continues to be the "proper servant" in her conversation with the young actress - obviously it is hinted that she did in fact 'cross the line' between family and servant - but I think she is still protecting them, keeping their secrets.

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Do you think she's protecting their secrets at this point, or her own?...

[KxBurns]

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Linda10 wrote:
Also, aren't the characters in this book, lower class as well as upper class, "family" to us readers? Isn't it so easy to feel like you're a member of the Hartford household as well? I, for one, am soooo afraid that Alfred isn't going to come back from the war. I'm so afraid he's going to die as well. I hope I'm wrong. I know I'll cry if something happens to him. Ah, books! How can a piece of fiction seem so real?

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Nice observation, Linda. In a way, we're eavesdropping on the Hartfords, just like Grace sometimes is. Maybe even moreso - at least she's serving tea
It's a good trick by Morton, to make us sort of complicit by being "in" on the family's secrets.

[vivico1]

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JoyZ wrote:

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vivico1 wrote:
The first thing that struck me about this chapter was the interview to me seems like a set up. hr>

The first thing I noticed was we were back to 3. Grace, Ursula and Keira.

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The other thing that struck me at the first of this chapter, is being jolted back to the present. I must admit, I didn't want to be back to the present stuff, I prefered the storyline that was unfolding about the past. Maybe, like Grace noticed early, I would rather stay in those memories than come back to the present. Along those lines too, the writing of the first couple of pages seemed to take a different style, kind of stinted until it got going, making it even more of a jolt to the present. I dont know if Morton meant it to be so at all or not, but it made me think of how it took a few minutes for Grace to adjust back to the present too, like we saw at the little cafe earlier. Not my favorite chapter, but again, it does make me suspect of Ursula's real motives too.

[Popper19]

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vivico1 wrote:

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JoyZ wrote:

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vivico1 wrote:
The first thing that struck me about this chapter was the interview to me seems like a set up. hr>

The first thing I noticed was we were back to 3. Grace, Ursula and Keira.

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The other thing that struck me at the first of this chapter, is being jolted back to the present. I must admit, I didn't want to be back to the present stuff, I prefered the storyline that was unfolding about the past. Maybe, like Grace noticed early, I would rather stay in those memories than come back to the present. Along those lines too, the writing of the first couple of pages seemed to take a different style, kind of stinted until it got going, making it even more of a jolt to the present. I dont know if Morton meant it to be so at all or not, but it made me think of how it took a few minutes for Grace to adjust back to the present too, like we saw at the little cafe earlier. Not my favorite chapter, but again, it does make me suspect of Ursula's real motives too.

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I felt jolted back too. Like you, it seemed to me that Grace was adjusting from her memory as we were. I feel Ms. Morton intended this and I think she did a good job with it. Also, as you stated Vivian, I don't like hanging around in Grace's present for very long-I want to get back to the memories. That was how I felt in Water for Elephants too.

[crazyasitsounds]

Throughout the book, I was always slightly confused by the fact that Ursula's movie was about the story Grace is telling but, at the same time, not really about the same thing at all. So, yes, Grace isn't exactly providing straight answers to Keira's questions. But she thinks she is because the movie isn't about what really happened, it's about what everyone thinks happened. I get the feeling that Grace sees two roles for herself: the peripheral character Keira's playing in the story everyone knows & the one she actually played in the tragedy she hasn't told anybody about.

[nfam]

This chapter is most interesting because it points up how much manners and morals have changed since the events at Riverton in the early 1900's. I thought the interchange with Keira was very revealing. She doesn't 'get' what the servant's life was all about. In the end perhaps Grace did cross the line into the coterie of sisters, but at this time we don't know that and frankly, I think Grace is being quite honest in her answer. Servants just didn't become part of the family then. However, Grace is now 98 and a great deal has happened since the Robbie's death. Perhaps she did become part of the sisters coterie, but perhaps only after the death when there was a secret to keep. I guess we'll find out how truthful she is.


The book works for me because Grace is such an appealing character. She is a product of her time, but she's also grown tremendously during her long life. I love reading about her.

Nancy

Message Edited by KxBurns on 01-10-2008 12:39 PM

[fordmg]

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KxBurns wrote:
The chapter begins with the introduction of the actress, Keira Parker, who will portray Grace in Ursula's movie. The meeting between Keira and Grace is a great illustration of the changes in manners and class markers since Grace's youth, and much of the commentary to this effect comes directly from Grace.

But what I found most revealing were Keira's questions and Grace's answers to them. Keira asks what seem to be naive questions about Grace and her relationship with the Hartfords, in order to establish her character's motivation.

Grace maintains that she kept her distance, as dictated by the conventions of the day. She does allow that she might have had feelings about events that she kept to herself. But, of Keira, she thinks "No doubt she had glimpsed a larger role for herself, an amended script in which the housemaid is no longer an outside observer, but a secret member of the Hartford sisters' coterie. She is young, of course, and from a different world. She doesn't conceive that certain lines should not be crossed" (p. 138-139).

Yet we're lead to believe that Grace did, in fact, play a larger role than she lets on. Whether she was truly just an observer or she crossed those very lines remains to be seen!

Returning to 1916, the deaths of Lord Ashbury and Major Jonathan raise the question of inheritance/succession. However, the "waiting game," as Lord Gifford puts it, is quickly ended by the birth of a baby girl for Jemima. Although everyone expects her to be hoping for a male heir, she is relieved to have a girl. Why do you think this is the case?

Also of note is Grace's questioning the character of Frederick – now Lord Ashbury – toward the end of the chapter. His coldness in the face of his father and brother's deaths leads Grace to agree more with David's assessment of his father than with Nancy and the staff's devotion to him. Do you think she is correct in this interpretation?

Karen

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I don't think we find out that the child is a girl in this chapter. I havn't read further, and it ends with Grace taking Jemima up to her room because the baby has stopped moving. We don't know at the end of this chapter that the baby is still healthy, or that Frederick will become the new Lord Ashbury. He (Frederick) is cold in anticipation, but it hasn't been revealed yet.
MG

Message Edited by KxBurns on 01-10-2008 12:40 PM

[Linda10]

Nfam, I agree with you. As I read the posts for this chapter, I saw several references to the sex of Jemima's baby. I, too, went back to reread that part of the chapter and couldn't find anything about her actually having the baby yet. Now that I'm farther along in the book, Jemima does, of course, give birth and we finally know if there's an heir or not. I was a little disappointed that some readers "let the cat out of the bag."

[fordmg]

no4daughter said


I think Jemima is relieved to have a girl because a girl would not be afflicted with hemophilia and she would not lose another child from this disease.






Even though the daughter may not be afflicted with hemophilia, she would be a carrier for future generations. Although I don't think this was commonly know in the early 1900's.
MG

Message Edited by KxBurns on 01-10-2008 12:40 PM

[fordmg]

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crazyasitsounds wrote:
Throughout the book, I was always slightly confused by the fact that Ursula's movie was about the story Grace is telling but, at the same time, not really about the same thing at all. So, yes, Grace isn't exactly providing straight answers to Keira's questions. But she thinks she is because the movie isn't about what really happened, it's about what everyone thinks happened. I get the feeling that Grace sees two roles for herself: the peripheral character Keira's playing in the story everyone knows & the one she actually played in the tragedy she hasn't told anybody about.

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Yes, on page 139 Keira is relating how Emmeline meets Hunter by the lake - then Grace corrects and says not they met in the library. Keira says, the alternate scene works better for the movie. Right here Grace knows that they are changing the story for a better screen play. I think that is when she really holds back info. Why bother if they are going to change the story.
MG

[no4daughter]

Although I too reread the chapter and realized that I let "cat out of the bag", I was responding to the following from the moderator:

Returning to 1916, the deaths of Lord Ashbury and Major Jonathan raise the question of inheritance/succession. However, the "waiting game," as Lord Gifford puts it, is quickly ended by the birth of a baby girl for Jemima. Although everyone expects her to be hoping for a male heir, she is relieved to have a girl. Why do you think this is the case?

I didn't realize my error in responding until rereading the chapter. So sorry, to everyone.

Message Edited by KxBurns on 01-10-2008 12:41 PM

[vivico1]

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Linda10 wrote:
Nfam, I agree with you. As I read the posts for this chapter, I saw several references to the sex of Jemima's baby. I, too, went back to reread that part of the chapter and couldn't find anything about her actually having the baby yet. Now that I'm farther along in the book, Jemima does, of course, give birth and we finally know if there's an heir or not. I was a little disappointed that some readers "let the cat out of the bag."

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You are all right, we dont read about the birth of the baby until 20 pages into the next chapter, or what it was so that whole part of the question was a mistake I guess. A thread header spoiler LOL!! but yeah, I read it too and said what?? I didnt read that?? She did?? That wasnt a reader who let the cat out of the bag tho, thats the thread header posted by the moderator this time, she just hasnt caught her mistake yet I dont know if it would help to change it now tho, because we have discussed that there is no baby girl here yet lOL

[KxBurns]

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no4daughter wrote:
Although I too reread the chapter and realized that I let "cat out of the bag", I was responding to the following from the moderator:

QUOTE REMOVED BY KAREN

I didn't realize my error in responding until rereading the chapter. So sorry, to everyone.

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Nope, no4daughter -- the mistake was mine! So sorry, guys! I will edit the post but apologies to those of you who've already read it.

Karen

Message Edited by KxBurns on 01-10-2008 12:44 PM

[KxBurns]

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KxBurns wrote:

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no4daughter wrote:
Although I too reread the chapter and realized that I let "cat out of the bag", I was responding to the following from the moderator:

Returning to 1916, the deaths of Lord Ashbury and Major Jonathan raise the question of inheritance/succession. However, the "waiting game," as Lord Gifford puts it, is quickly ended by the birth of a SPOILER EDITED OUT HERE.

I didn't realize my error in responding until rereading the chapter. So sorry, to everyone.

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Nope, no4daughter -- the mistake was mine! So sorry, guys! I will edit the post but apologies to those of you who've already read it.

Karen

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Okay, I edited my own post, and any other post thet refers to this. In some cases I just snipped out the reference to the baby, in others I added SPOILER to your headers. But In ALL cases, your references were in response to my OWN spoiler, so again, big apology on my part! Please forgive your moderator

[vivico1]

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KxBurns wrote:

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KxBurns wrote:

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no4daughter wrote:
Although I too reread the chapter and realized that I let "cat out of the bag", I was responding to the following from the moderator:

Returning to 1916, the deaths of Lord Ashbury and Major Jonathan raise the question of inheritance/succession. However, the "waiting game," as Lord Gifford puts it, is quickly ended by the birth of a SPOILER EDITED OUT HERE.

I didn't realize my error in responding until rereading the chapter. So sorry, to everyone.

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Nope, no4daughter -- the mistake was mine! So sorry, guys! I will edit the post but apologies to those of you who've already read it.

Karen

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Okay, I edited my own post, and any other post thet refers to this. In some cases I just snipped out the reference to the baby, in others I added SPOILER to your headers. But In ALL cases, your references were in response to my OWN spoiler, so again, big apology on my part! Please forgive your moderator

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Thanks for catching that Karen and changing ours too, that will help future readers on this thread.

Message Edited by vivico1 on 01-10-2008 12:19 PM

[no4daughter]

Thanks, Karen. You are a wonderful moderator.

[Jrdnstrttn]

Just an observation...
Page 136: "I am aware that Sylvia still lurks by the open door, wiping the dust from the jamb in a show of duty designed to disguise her curiosity."
This reminds me of Grace observing the children in many different scenes. Though they weren't movie stars at the time, maybe it was like being close to movie stars for 1914/1915 Grace.
I'm also bothered by Ursula not asking Grace for her input about the movie and it's content. I'm sure she is very interested in the subject, being that the story has been passed down to her through generations. It seems to me that she'd fall all over herself to learn all she could from a living person who had been there.

[nfam]

No problem, Karen, your summary made me reread the chapter. I thought I missed something! Actually it was good for me!

Nancy