Alcott, Louisa May - SSC 14 Read Free Page B

Ghost: or, Maurice Treherne’s Temptation” is set in no exotic Cuban
paradise but a haunted English abbey replete with screaming peacocks, thick-
walled gallery and arched stone roof, armored figures and an abbot’s ghost. A
Dickensian flavor attaches to these Gothic appurtenances as, sitting round the
hall fire, the dramatis personae tell tales of ghosts and coffins, skeletons
and haunted houses. The star of that dramatis personae
is less the hero of the title than the magnificent Edith Snowden, a strong-willed
woman burdened by a heavy cross, a mysterious past, and jealousies that
conflict with “contending emotions of . . . remorse and despair.” “The Abbot’s
Ghost” is filled with psychological insights that illuminate the subtle
relationships of the characters. The plot, revolving principally about the
sudden cure of the crippled Maurice Treherne and ending with a triple wedding
in the abbey, is basically a love story narrated against a strongly Gothic
background. It comes to life through the brilliant depiction of a woman of
passion and power whose furies are banked by her innate nobility.
                 Unlike
the anonymous “Pauline’s Passion” and the pseudonymous “Abbot’s Ghost,” The
Mysterious Key has a male hero, a charming young Italianate Englishman, and
unlike either of those narratives, The Mysterious Key was published over the
name of Louisa May Alcott. The possibility suggests itself that Louisa insisted
upon secrecy less for her blood-and-thunder stories in general than for her
passionate and angry heroines in particular.
                 The
hero of The Mysterious Key combines a touch of that Polish boy who, with Alf
Whitman, was to become the Laurie of Little Women, and a strong hint of the
pale and ardent Italian patriot Maz- zini. Pauls appearance at the Trevlyn home in Warwickshire—an estate adequately equipped
with haunted room and state chamber- touches off an elaborate plot. Well paced,
it depends for its unfoldment upon a prophetic rhyme and a mysterious
black-bearded visitor, a sealed letter and an ancient family volume, pretended
sleepwalking, a touch of bigamy and a blind ward, Helen. The silver key that
opens the Trevlyn tomb and discloses a mildewed paper proving Helen’s identity
is less mysterious and less intriguing than the hero Paul who, as Paolo, had
been—like Mazzini—a hero in the Italian Revolution. All loose ends—and there
are many—are neatly tied as the silver key slips into the door of a grisly tomb
unlocking “a tragedy of life and death.”
                 Between
“Pauline’s Passion,” written in 1862, and The Mysterious Key, which appeared in
1867, Louisa wrote other gaudy, gruesome, and psychologically perceptive
thrillers. Sitting incognito behind her pen, she produced “V. V.: or, Plots and
Counterplots,” an involved tale about a danseuse, Virginie Varens, whose flesh
bore the tattooed letters V. V. above a lover’s knot. A mysterious iron ring,
drugged coffee, four violent deaths, and a viscount parading as a deaf-and-dumb
Indian servant were the ingredients of this heady witch’s broth. Poison vied
with pistols or daggers for “the short road to . . . revenge,” garments were
dyed with blood, the heroine concluded her dark bargain, and the author
doubtless recalled with nostalgia the comic tragedies of her childhood. This
flight into the all-but-impossible not only emblazoned the pages of a
sensational newspaper but was reprinted as a ten-cent novelette.
                 Like
“V. V.,” “A Marble Woman: or, The Mysterious Model” was filled with a variety
of plots and counterplots as well as a colorful cast of characters that
included a sculptor, Bazil Yorke, and an opiumeating heroine. The plight of
Mme. Mathilde Arnheim was pursued by the indefatigable writer in The Skeleton
in the Closet, the narrative of a woman married to an idiot husband and bound
to him by a tie which death alone could