:: The Young Enthusiast ::

Plot

Volume 1: Evelina is the daughter of an English gentleman and a French woman; the two married in France, but when they returned to England, Evelina’s father (Sir John Belmont) burned the marriage certificate and denied that the two had been married at all. Evelina’s mother died soon after. Evelina has thus been left to the care of the Rev. Mr. Villars, a close friend of Evelina’s mother. He has taken great care to raise her properly and he plans to make her the heir of his own small fortune and take care to set her up in a modest country way of living that she can sustain in happiness for the rest of her life. A gentlewoman named Lady Howard is also interested in the affairs of Evelina’s family, and the novel opens with the correspondence between Lady Howard and Mr. Villars.

Lady Howard first requests that Evelina accompany her family on a trip to London, but Mr. Villars refuses, insisting on his scheme to keep Evelina’s tastes and expectations modest. Villars seems to view Evelina as an utterly blank canvas, and he seems anxious to corrupt her with any influences that he believes would be detrimental to her happiness; he has taken great care to strictly control her environment for the first seventeen years of her life. Lady Howard then asks that Evelina visit her own estate without going to London and Villars consents. However, just after Evelina arrives in Howard’s Grove word is sent from London that Lady Howard’s son-in-law, Captain Mirvan, has just returned from a long stay at sea and Mrs. Mirvan and her daughter plan to visit London briefly. Lady Howard again asks Mr. Villars if Evelina can go to London on this trip and he reluctantly agrees.

Upon arriving in London Evelina goes to an assembly and she is asked to dance by a foppish gentleman named Mr. Lovel. She refuses, telling him that she does not plan to dance at all this evening. However, when a well-bred nobleman named Lord Orville asks her to dance she agrees, much to the chagrin of Lovel, who has many a word for her (none of which are directly unkind, but still carry the flavor of his dissatisfaction). Evelina is mortified by this faux pas, and vows not to commit a similar one again. At the next assembly, however, when she is asked to dance by a talkative gentleman named Sir Clement Willoughby she refuses, saying that she is already engaged. Sir Clement pesters her relentlessly about who she has promised to dance, and eventually Evelina points to Lord Orville. When the whole affair comes out into the open Evelina bursts into tears and the whole party returns home.

Soon after this Evelina receives word that her grandmother, Madame Duval, has arrived from Paris (her husband has hitherto prevented her from visiting Evelina, but he has recently died) with the intention of seeing her. Madame Duval and Captain Mirvan hate one another (both are fiercely nationalist) and any time the two are in a room together there is some sort of confrontation. This drives Evelina crazy, but she is vexed by her relationship with Madame Duval after Madame Duval introduces Evelina to her ill-bred cousins, the Branghtons. When she attends an opera with the Branghtons she is mortified by them in nearly every respect, from their inability to pay for any but the cheapest seats to the way that they harp upon and critise the opear the entire time, and from a very unlearned and ungenerous perspective at that.

Evelina slowly grows more and more fond of Lord Orville, and her good opinion of him is cemented when he confronts Mr. Lovel in private and secures a promise no longer to make Evelina the victim of his sarcastic remarks. However, Sir Clement has ingratiated himself to Captain Mirvan, which means he is constantly at their house and accompanying them in public. Sir Clement also receives an invitation to visit them at Howard’s Grove when they leave town, which happens soon after the opera incident.

Volume 1 ends with a controversy about how to secure Evelina’s rightful inheritance. Madame Duval wants to take legal action against Sir John Belment, and Lady Howard agrees, arguing that Evelina is too accomplished a young woman to let her talents go to waste in the country. Mr. Villars vehemently opposes the legal scheme, but he does allow that it might be a good idea to petition Sir John to acknowledge his daughter. The volume ends with Lady Howard’s letter to Sir John asking him to do just that.

Volume 2: At the beginning of this volume Mrs. Howard receives a cryptic reply from Evelina’s father in which he neglects to acknowledge his child, but hints that Mr. Villars may not be the perfectly virtuous man he seems and he, himself, might not be the villain that he seems. Evelina is devasted, but she goes on with her life. Madame Duval and Captain Mirvan’s fued continues, escalating to a rather sadistic stunt in which Sir Clement and the Captain pretend to rob a coach carrying Evelina and Madame. While the Captain ties Madame to a tree and leaves her in a ditch, Sir Clement makes very forward addresses to Evelina in the carriage, which she is barely able to refuse. After this indignity Madame Duval resolves to go back to Paris, from where she intends to carry Evelina on to Paris to claim her inheritance (despite the fact that Lady Howard and Mr. Villars both oppose this scheme). However, Evelina learns of the plan and vows not to leave town with Madame Duval.

While in London they have a great deal of contact with the Branghtons, who grow more disgusting by the minute. Evelina suffers various mortifications at the hands of this family, including one pivotal scene in Vauxhall gardens in which Evelina becomes separated from her party and accidentally asks two prostitutes for help finding them again. Lord Orville sees her with the prostitutes and calls on her at her residence with Madame Duval to ask her if she knows of the two women’s ill fame. Evelina is honored that Lord Orville would care so much for her welfare.

However, things soon go awry with Lord Orville. Evelina accidentally lets slip to the Branghtons that she knows Lord Orville, and when the family gets caught in a rainshower and see his unengaged coach waiting near them, they commandeer it for themselves and tell the servants to inform Lord Orville that Evelina asked for the carriage. The young Branghton breaks the glass in one of the windows while on the trip and goes to Lord Orville’s house to apologize, gaining entrance by saying that he comes on behalf of Evelina, which of course is not true. When Evelina hears of this she is extremely angered, and writes a short note to Lord Orville to apologize.

Around this time the young Branghton has begun courting Evelina, much to her dismay. Also, while Evelina is sitting alone in the parlour Madame Duval’s friend/servant (I’m not sure what is exact status is) Monsieur Du Bois addresses her in a very familiar manner, during which Madame Duval comes in and, jealous that Du Bois is not after her, accuses Evelina of seducing him and sends her back to Mr. Villars’ house in the country. While Evelina is there she receives a very impertinent note from Lord Orville thanking her for initiating a correspondence and making very familiar addresses to her. Evelina’s opinion of Lord Orville is shattered and she becomes sick and melancholic. Her mood and health worsen to the point where she must leave Villars’ house and go to the hotwell at Bristol to take treatments in the baths there.

Volume 3: Evelina and Mrs. Selwyn go to Bristol so that Evelina can take treatments at the hot springs there, but Evelina is mortified to find out that Lord Orville is also there, staying at the home of Mrs. Selwyn’s friend Mrs. Beaumont. Lord Orville’s sister, Lady Louisa, is about to be married to a wealthy but ill-bred squire, much to the dismay of her brother. Evelina hopes that she can avoid seeing Lord Orville, but Mrs. Selwyn and Mrs. Beaumont are so close that she cannot avoid a meeting, which soon happens. However, Evelina is unable to retain her anger at Lord Orville when she actually sees him, and after conversing with him, her former esteem for Lord Orville gradually returns. However, Lord Orville and Mrs. Selwyn are the only ones who pay any attention to Evelina during her time at Mrs. Beaumont’s, since Lady Louisa and her party (which includes Mr. Lovel) are all snobs who pay no attention to Evelina.

While on a walk one morning, Evelina runs into Mr. Macartney, who has tracked her down in Bristol in order to pay his thanks to her for saving him from poverty. He has recently gotten in touch with his friend who has provided him with financial support. However, Lord Orville interrupts Evelina and Macartney’s meeting, and (not wanting to invite people to Mrs. Beaumont’s house), Evelina instructs Mr. Macartney to meet her in the same walk the next day, which Lord Orville overhears and interprets as an improper appointment. Evelina hastily cancels the appointment, but she cannot tell Lord Orville of the reason that she made it because she believes it would be improper to divulge Macartney’s story without his permission. Lord Orville reluctantly agrees to trust Evelina. He also decides that he will regard himself as Evelina’s brother and take a special interest in her affairs and education, and begins referring to Evelina regularly as his sister.

(At some point in all this there is also the disturbing scene in which Mr. Lovel and his friends all decide to make a wager, and after throwing around various ideas of what to bet on, they decide that they will race 80-year-old ladies. Lord Orville and Evelina both disapprove of this, but they let it take place. One of the old women is injured and the dissipation of the negatively-protrayed characters is confirmed.)

Rev. Villars then writes a letter to Evelina requesting that she return to Berry-Hill because he believes that her relationship with Lord Orville is becoming too intense and they should be separated. Evelina agrees, but Mrs. Selwyn requests that Evelina stay with her until they receive more intelligence from Paris. Evelina resolves to avoid Lord Orville as much as possible for the rest of her time there. However, the next day Sir Clement Willoughby shows up (he has, like Mr. Macartney, tracked Evelina down, but for less upstanding purposes) and pays his usual presumptive attention Evelina. Since Evelina is also ignoring Lord Orville, Orville interprets this to mean that she is really in love with Sir Clement. During this time a poem proclaiming Evelina the most beautiful woman in Bristol is circulated, and when Sir Clement hands her a copy openly in front of company everyone presumes that the two are carrying on an illicit correspondence. However, when Sir Clement accosts Evelina in a garden and she screams to Lord Orville for help it becomes clear that Evelina is no fan of Sir Clement.

Next the party receives news that Sir John Belmont has arrived in Bristol, which sends everyone into a tizzy. Mrs. Selwyn goes to Belmont, asking him to own his daughter, but he insists that he has been bringing up his wife’s daughter and that Evelina is really an imposter. About this time Evelina also learns that Mr. Macartney is also Mr. Belmont’s son, making the two of them brother and sister. Also around this time, Lord Orville finally extracts the secret of Evelina’s love from her, and he proposes. However, Evelina forbears accepting the proposal until she can finalize the affair with her father. The next day she and Mrs. Selwyn go to Belmont’s house and he again claims that Evelina is not really his daughter. However, when Belmont actually sees Evelina, the resemblance to her mother is so striking that he instantly realizes that she is his daughter. Belmont and Selwyn soon realize that Evelina’s mother’s nurse substituted her own child for Evelina and that Sir John really educated the child of his nurse rather than the child of his wife. Also, it is revealed that the women for whom Mr. Macartney pines is actually the girl that Sir John has mistakenly been raising as his own daughter. In order to save everyone’s reputation, they work out a deal where Macartney will marry the servant’s daughter (who will, as a matter of justice, still have a significant portion) and Lord Orville will marry Evelina on the same day. Both couples will leave town and a general announcement that Sir John’s daughter has been married will be circulated, and Evelina will become Lady Orville before she will have to claim the name Miss Belmont publicly.

Soon Captain and Miss Mirvan arrive to attend the wedding, and Captain Mirvan plays a prank on Mr. Lovel, dressing up a monkey in fashionable clothes and insisting that the two are a perfect likeness. Like his stunt with Madame Duval, however, this gets violent when the monkey attacks Mr. Lovel. However, the parties quickly get over this and the marriages take place once word arrives from Rev. Villars that he approves of the match.

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