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Chapter 8, Part One

Summary: Chapter 8, Part One

After returning to Hampden, Richard feels oddly free. He does not see Henry until they return to Julian’s class, and he notices that Henry has lost some weight and seems different, though in an indescribable way. One night Francis calls Richard, saying he is having a heart attack. Richard does not believe him but takes him to the emergency room anyway. The ER doctor says that if Francis has not taken any drugs, he is having an anxiety attack and recommends that Francis see a psychiatrist. A few nights later, while everyone is having dinner at the twins’ apartment, Richard notices that the mirror over the fireplace has a crack in it. Charles says he hit it when it was taken down for cleaning. Later, however, Richard sees shards of a highball glass in the fireplace and understands someone must have thrown it across the room at the mirror. 

One night, Charles is arrested for driving drunk in Henry’s car, and Henry asks Richard to pick Charles up from the courthouse to post bail. As they walk back to campus, Charles tells Richard of how close the police came to suspecting them in Bunny’s death, as Henry looks more suspicious to other people who are not so used to his quirks. Charles expresses frustration over Henry telling the rest of them what to do. After they arrive at the twins’ apartment, Richard has breakfast with Camilla while Charles takes a bath. When Charles gets out of the bath, he comes into the kitchen in his bathrobe and kisses Camilla on the mouth. Richard is shocked. He later goes to see Francis and asks if Charles and Camilla sleep together. Francis says that he thinks they do and that Bunny claimed to have walked in on them. Francis reveals that he and Charles have also slept together. He goes on to explain how both Charles and Camilla take pleasure in leading people on and points out that Camilla has been doing just that with Richard. Francis then tells Richard he went to a doctor again because he has been having chest pains and dizziness. 

One night Richard learns from Cloke that, when Henry was being questioned by the FBI, he tried to point them in Richard’s direction. A few days later, Francis tells Richard that Camilla is staying at a hotel and that he believes Henry and Camilla have been seeing each other, which has angered Charles. While on a walk in the middle of the night, Richard finds Charles passed out on a playground. He takes Charles to the hospital, where he is diagnosed with dehydration and bronchitis. At Charles’s request, Richard and Francis bring him a bottle of whiskey. Camilla and Henry refuse to visit him. When Richard returns to his dorm, Camilla is waiting for him. She shows him a cigarette burn on her wrist inflicted by Charles. Later, Richard realizes that Henry deliberately led him to discover their tickets to Argentina so that Richard could be let in on the secret of the farmer’s death. In so doing, Henry could place the blame on Richard if they were found out. 

Analysis: Chapter 8, Part One

Though the group seems to have gotten away with Bunny’s murder, the guilt from their shared secret is pushing them all toward their breaking points. Charles is drinking himself to illness and publicly demonstrating his and Camilla’s incestuous relationship. Camilla has turned to Henry for comfort, though Henry is withering away in front of their eyes. Francis is having panic attacks that make him feel as though he is dying. Meanwhile, Richard seems to be the least affected out of all of them. His guilt, it seems, forces its hand much later in life, when he is motivated to tell the story and reveal the secret.

The friendships in the group are also all splintering as each student moves closer to the edge. Violence has even erupted between Charles and Camilla, evidenced by her cigarette burn and suggested by the broken mirror and highball glass. Despite the students’ projected confidence and insistence that killing Bunny was their only option, they cannot escape the consequences of their actions, and keeping the secret is only making things worse for all of them.

As things begin falling apart for the friends, Richard begins to see how superficial their appearances are, both to each other and those outside their group. Before Bunny’s body was discovered, they all thought they would be safe because the police wouldn’t be likely to suspect five privileged Classics students of murder. However, their personas are exactly what makes them suspicious to the police, especially Henry, who throws money around without thinking twice and who writes and often speaks in Latin or Greek. While Richard was impressed by Henry’s unusual habits, they stood out to law enforcement as a pattern of questionable behavior. No longer as taken in by his friends as he was early in the school year, Richard now views them all in a new light. Though he first mistook Charles and Camilla for boyfriend and girlfriend before he knew them, he never thought much of their relationship until seeing them kiss right before him. Because Richard was so intimidated by their privilege and intellect, he was blind to their inappropriate relationship. He needed it pointed out to him how Camilla, to whom Richard is attracted, was hurt and taken advantage of. Again, Richard is so obsessed with appearances that he often does not see the darkness that lies beneath them.

Richard is also beginning to see the true nature of his friendships, especially with Henry and Camilla, the two he initially found most admirable. Even before Richard’s realization, Henry’s exploitation of him may have been clear to readers. After all, Henry would often ask Richard to handle his dirty work, such as bailing Charles out of jail even though Charles was driving Henry’s car. Richard realizes that Henry manipulated him into discovering their secret so that Richard could be their scapegoat. Similarly, Camilla has not had feelings for Richard but has pretended to for her own reasons, only to begin a romantic relationship with Henry, who likely is also aware of Richard’s feelings for Camilla. Richard was so desperate to be accepted by this group that he failed to see they took him in, not out of genuine affection, but rather for their own selfish motives.

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