Part Three

Summary: Part Three

Briony, now a trainee nurse at a London hospital, has noticed a change in the atmosphere, a sense of unease and anxiety. While Briony and the other trainees are usually nervous about being on the receiving end of head nurse Sister Drummond’s ire, she has noticed that Sister Drummond is too preoccupied to even terrorize the nurses. Though this life is different from the one Briony imagined for herself, which was following in Cecilia’s footsteps and attending Cambridge, she feels happy to keep her mind occupied. Briony continues to write to her mother but keeps her at a distance, as part of her goal in becoming a nurse was to become independent from her family. Briony mostly writes in her own journal. However, while staying with her uncle one week, she wrote a draft of a short story that she sent out to a magazine hoping for it to be published, though she has had no response. She has also recently written to Cecilia and has received no response from her either. While Briony is usually too busy to read the papers and keep up with the war, she begins to understand that the sense of dread and the preparations happening in the hospital are due to the British retreat from France.

Briony receives a letter from her father delivering the news that Lola Quincey and Paul Marshall are to be married the following week. Though he does not provide any reason for telling her this, Briony understands what she has known for some time: Paul was the one who assaulted Lola that summer night in 1935. After receiving the letter, Briony feels her years-old guilt even more acutely and understands that no matter how good a nurse she is or whatever opportunities she has given up, she will never be able to make up for what she did to Robbie. Briony wonders if her father sent her the letter because he, too, has figured out the truth. She tries to call him but cannot get through. As Briony walks back to the hospital, she sees two army medics smiling at her, but she cannot bring herself to meet their eyes. Briony wonders what it would be like to live a carefree life.

One day, the trainee nurses are given the afternoon off, and Briony goes with her friend Fiona to hear a band play in St. James’s Park. Although the atmosphere is lively, the news from France has been making its way to London. Briony wonders if Robbie was in France and whether he survived. She suddenly feels that her own personal torment has merged with the war to make her crime all the more unforgivable. After Fiona pulls Briony from her thoughts, Briony begins to enjoy herself, gossiping about work and Sister Drummond. But as they begin walking home, they see ambulances approaching the hospital, leaving stretchers with wounded men on the ground, and immediately go to help. Briony helps a doctor carry a stretcher with a patient on it but nearly lets it drop and is scolded. She looks for ways to help in the commotion and eventually is sent to clean and dress a man’s leg wound. Seeing all the men who need help, Briony wonders if one of them could be Robbie and if Robbie would forgive her if she was able to help him heal.

After tending to several more men, Briony feels that no amount of training could have prepared her for this night. Sister Drummond confirms that Briony speaks French and asks her to sit with a young soldier from France. The soldier, Luc Cornet, is disoriented and thinks Briony is his sweetheart from home. Before he dies, he asks Briony if she loves him, and she answers that she does. Eventually, Briony and Fiona make their way back home. Briony finds a letter waiting for her and sees it is from the magazine Horizon, where she sent her story. The letter says that while they do not print novellas like Briony’s Two Figures by a Fountain, they think she is very talented and want to provide some feedback for future drafts. It becomes clear through the letter that Briony’s novella is a retelling of the scene she witnessed between Cecilia and Robbie the day before his arrest. The letter makes suggestions that are eerily similar to what occurred in Part One. For example, they suggest expanding on how the scene affected the lives of the man, woman, and young girl watching it unfold.

In the following days, Briony feels that the Germans winning the war is inevitable. Briony switches shifts with Fiona so that she will be free on a Saturday. She leaves the hospital after her shift that morning, afraid someone will mistake her for a German spy. After walking for some time, she reaches her destination: the church where Lola Quincey and Paul Marshall are currently getting married. Briony enters the church and sits in the back row, from where she can see her aunt and uncle, as well as the twins, Pierrot and Jackson. Briony thinks of how relieved Lola must have been at Briony’s willingness to name Robbie as her assaulter instead of Paul. When the vicar asks if anyone has reason for the two not to be wed, Briony considers objecting, hoping to right her past wrongs, which now include paving the way for her cousin to marry her rapist. However, Briony understands that Lola appears to be there of her own free will and that no one would believe Briony now anyway. As the priest declares them husband and wife, Briony knows that the marriage will only make the truth more impenetrable than ever. As the couple moves down the aisle, Briony makes eye contact with Lola, who frowns before looking away.

Briony leaves the church and heads to her next destination, Cecilia’s flat. Cecilia is shocked to see Briony. Briony nervously delivers news she has heard from their parents, including that Danny Hardman is one of the only men from their village not to have joined the army, which Cecilia already knows. Briony also shares that Betty broke Uncle Clem’s vase, to Cecilia’s surprise. Cecilia tells Briony she saw a lawyer about getting Robbie’s charges cleared, but with no new evidence and Hardman having died, it is unlikely Robbie would be exonerated. Briony is confused by the mention of Hardman’s death and becomes even more puzzled when Cecilia mentions that since Briony is already an unreliable witness, no court would believe her. Briony, who never thought of her crime as an outright lie, understands that it must have seemed that way to Cecilia. In the middle of their conversation, Robbie comes out of the bedroom. Briony is shocked and relieved, and the idea of Robbie dying in France suddenly seems ridiculous. Robbie, however, is furious at the sight of Briony. Briony explains that she wants to make things right and that growing up has helped her realize that Robbie was not the culprit. Robbie becomes overcome with memories from prison and the war until Cecilia comforts him, telling him to come back to her.

Once Robbie has calmed, Cecilia tells Briony what they want her to do. First, Briony will go to see their parents and tell them the truth about what she did. Then she will find a solicitor and make a statement recanting her original testimony. Last, she will write a detailed letter to Robbie explaining why she accused him and whether she received pressure from anyone to stick to that story. Cecilia and Robbie also ask her to try to remember anything involving Danny Hardman. Briony understands they believe Danny was the true rapist and tells them that it was Paul who assaulted Lola and that she has just come from Paul and Lola’s wedding. Robbie and Cecilia understand that Lola would never amend her statement to accuse the man who is now her husband. As they leave to go their separate ways, Briony apologizes for what she did. As she walks away and watches Cecilia and Robbie from afar, she is grateful that neither she nor the war could destroy their love. She thinks that after she has done what Cecilia and Robbie have asked, she will begin a new draft of her novella, “an atonement.” Part Three ends with Briony’s initials, BT, and the year 1999.

Analysis: Part Three

In Part Two, the weight of Briony’s regret is hinted at through Cecilia’s letter to Robbie about Briony’s desire to recant her statement. However, Part Three illustrates just how much that regret has driven Briony’s life. Her decision to become a nurse instead of attend Cambridge is a form of self-punishment, but also perhaps her way of trying to help many other people after she had a hand in ruining the lives of two people she loved. However, she knows no amount of helping others will make up for her actions. Briony seems unable to live with the fact that her false testimony, which seemed to make so much sense to her at the time, could have led to an innocent man’s possible death. She sees Robbie in every soldier but especially in Luc, who dies before he can be reunited with his love, just as she fears Robbie will. Luc’s death seems to help Briony realize the potential consequences of her actions, which spurs her to go to Lola and Paul’s wedding. This, in turn, intensifies Briony’s regret as she realizes another consequence of her crime. Had Briony not been so fixated on accusing Robbie, Paul, Lola’s actual rapist, might have been found out. While Briony does not know the details of Lola and Paul’s relationship, she knows how it began and blames herself for Lola’s marriage to a rapist.

Briony, at eighteen, is now officially an adult and tells Robbie that “growing up” was what led her to realize she was mistaken when she named Robbie as Lola’s rapist. However, while she certainly has matured and accepts that what she did was wrong, there are several indicators that Briony has not grown up as much as she thinks. Once she understands how poorly the war is going, she thinks of how fighting in the streets and a descent into slavery will occur as soon as the Germans invade. While walking to the church, she imagines being mistaken for a German spy simply because of the map she is using. These somewhat extreme scenarios show how Briony still views real life through the lens of a story. Even after her meeting with Cecilia and Robbie, her first thought is to revise the draft of her novella. While she has certainly matured, her own sense of power in storytelling, which was what led to her crime in the first place, has not diminished in the five years since she accused Robbie. And, though Briony recognizes her testimony about seeing Robbie attack Lola is a crime, she still does not see it as a lie because she sincerely believed it to be true. Even at the time of the assault, she knew that she did not actually see Robbie, and yet she told investigators she did. Her inability to accept the fact that she lied again shows that Briony still has more growing up to do.

There are several aspects in Part Three that indicate what this part of the story actually is. The letter Briony receives from Horizon provides feedback to include events that were already covered earlier in the novel. And Briony’s initials, along with the date nearly 60 years in the future, hint that there is something more to this story than what has been told and that especially the ending may not be able to be trusted. This is especially compounded by the mention of how Uncle Clem’s vase was broken. The vase, whose initial fracture incited Cecilia and Robbie’s intimacy and its subsequent demise, represents their relationship. The fact that the vase is now irreparably broken suggests Cecilia and Robbie are not actually living happily together.