Previous Next

Chapter XXX–Chapter XXXIV

Summary: Chapter XXX

Isabel is the only servant in the Lockton house now, as the Locktons host British officers and, with other Tories, continue to celebrate the victory. A note from Lady Seymour requests that they loan Isabel to her because she houses a dozen Hessian soldiers and all her help has fled. Madam balks, but Lockton insists they help his aunt. At Lady Seymour’s house, the Hessians are brutish yet kind, and Lady Seymour provides food and comfort for Isabel, who must work very hard to care for them all. Five more Hessians move in. When they eat and drink, they are even more unruly than before. On a Friday evening, Isabel goes to bed too exhausted to pray. She wakes to a city on fire.

Summary: Chapter XXXI

Coughing, Isabel awakes to bright light. Everything is ablaze. She makes her way to Lady Seymour’s room, where the Lady tries to save some of her valuables. On the way downstairs, Isabel must drop everything she is carrying to help the frail Lady Seymour walk as they breathe the hot, smoky air. They run as far as they can and collapse in the hedge of a cemetery. They wake to a city destroyed, and Isabel must carry the Lady again. They move slowly down Wall Street and enter the Lockton house.

Summary: Chapter XXXII

Five hundred homes were destroyed by the fire as well as shops and churches. The British and the patriots blame each other for the blaze. Men are hung, including Nathan Hale, who made a speech before his death that later became famous. Isabel’s eyes are sooty and sore, but Lady Seymour is in terrible shape. She’s lost the use of the right side of her body. Eleven British soldiers move into the Lockton household, along with five other soldiers and their wives, including Sarah and Hannah. The wives help cook and clean and do not mistreat Isabel, and they sleep in the basement with Isabel until she is allowed to move her pallet to the kitchen. Isabel deeply misses Ruth’s doll, lost when she fled the fire with Lady Seymour.

Summary: Chapter XXXIII

Autumn arrives. The burned-out section of the city is full of tents and destitute people, but the Lockton household is cared for and well fed. Lady Seymour recovers somewhat. One day, Madam reads a news article to her about the destruction of the local library, which forces Lady Seymour to write a letter of complaint to General Howe. Lady Seymour orders a new wardrobe for herself and a new dress and coat for Isabel. The plants that grew from Momma’s seeds, which Isabel planted earlier in the novel, have died in the frost. Isabel feels overcome with shame for not having cared for the plants, but she manages to gather up some seeds from the dead plants, wrap them in a cloth, and hide them under a floorboard in the pantry. 

One day, while fetching water, Isabel witnesses a celebration. The British have captured Fort Washington and march the surviving rebels through the streets. The crowds taunt and throw mud at them. Isabel recognizes an injured and tattered Curzon by his red hat, now brown with mud and wear. The British force the rebels into the prison.

Summary: Chapter XXXIV

Madam and the household prepare a feast to celebrate the victory, including turtle soup, fresh-pressed linens, and fine china. Madam spends the day with a hairdresser and applying makeup, calling for hot chocolate. Isabel’s job is to carrying dishes up and down the stairs. She helps Lady Seymour into her chair near the head of the long table. The guests are British officers in full, clean uniforms, and they eat and drink in huge amounts. Isabel overhears their conversations, including their wishes that the three thousand rebel prisoners would all die of the cold or disease. One of Madam’s mouse-fur eyebrow falls into her rice pudding just before she toasts to civilization’s return. After the meal, the officers spread their maps and discuss the future. Isabel carries the bowl of food scraps outside to the privy and stares at the stars. She lays the bowl near the dead plants from Momma’s seeds and returns to the house with a new plan.

Analysis: Chapter XXX–Chapter XXXIV

The household changes significantly beginning in Chapter XXX. Isabel is the only servant, and the house fills with British soldiers, some of whom bring their wives, whom Isabel calls the “soldier wives.” Two soldier wives, Sarah and Hannah, both treat Isabel somewhat kindly. In many ways, they run the household chores, and Isabel has a bit more freedom to be away from the house.

However, the event that dominates this section is the Great Fire in September 1776, a devastating blaze that destroyed nearly a quarter of the buildings in the city. At the time of the fire, Isabel is at Lady Seymour’s house because Lockton insisted that she be loaned to help his aunt, who is housing more than a dozen brutish Hessian soldiers, hired by the British to fight the rebels. Despite Isabel’s effort to save Lady Seymour from the fire, the Lady is severely injured, her home is destroyed, and she never fully recovers. The fire changes everything, but it does not change the British confidence.

This section is full of symbolic imagery. The fire itself, as it does classically, symbolizes both destruction and resurrection. It may be strange to imagine that Isabel is resurrected or purified in these chapters, but she does find her strength. Although she’s young, Isabel must physically carry Lady Seymour to save the Lady’s life. However, despite Isabel’s strength to save a life, two symbolic deaths occur in this section of the novel. First, when she flees Lady Seymour’s house during the fire, Isabel loses the corncob doll she made for Ruth. The doll has come to symbolize Ruth herself, and Isabel misses the doll terribly since it is the only possession of Ruth’s she still owns. Second, the seeds that belonged to her Momma that Isabel planted in the yard have died in the cold. Isabel manages to save a few seeds from the dead plants, which she hides in an envelope under a floorboard along with some other small, precious possessions. She continues to teeter between life and death, hope and despair, and her past and her present.

On the war front, the British capture of Fort Washington means celebration. It also means that thousands of defeated rebels are taken prisoner and marched through the streets, including Curzon. Again, symbolically, his red hat has been battered and is nearly unrecognizable, as is its wearer. The rebels are housed in a horrible place, without fires to warm them or adequate food to eat, soon to be victims of disease and starvation, reminiscent of Isabel’s own incarceration.

The feast that Madam prepares for her household is obscene in its indulgence, symbolized almost comically by the mouse-fur eyebrows that she wears on top of a thick layer of pale makeup. The symbol is made even more ridiculous when one false eyebrow falls into her rice pudding during dessert. During the meal, Isabel’s job is to carry dishes up and down, up and down, as she overhears conversations about the British future in New York. Again, Isabel shows her fortitude and perseverance. She works hard all night, stays awake through the cleaning, and carries a bowl of scraps outside to the privy for disposal. As Isabel stares at the stars, a new plan forms in her mind. She is still scheming, still creating, still hoping for life to take a good turn. In fact, when Isabel sets the bowl next to the dead plants from her Momma’s seeds, it’s as if she plants it there so that it will grow into a new hope. In fact, it does.

Previous section Chapters XXV–XXIX Next section Chapters XXXV–XXXVIII

Take a Study Break