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Summary: Chapter 4

The change is one day nearer. Constance informs Merricat that Uncle Julian is getting worse; he didn’t recognize her for a few moments, and thought she was his wife, their Aunt Dorothy. Outside, Merricat runs around with her cat, Jonas, and the two retire to one of her hiding places near the creek. She discovers a bad omen—a notebook, which she nailed to a tree, has fallen. It once belonged to her father and contained the names of people who owed him money or favors. She decides to destroy it, thinking its protection has been compromised.

When Merricat returns to the house, she asks Constance if they’ll be here together forever. Constance asks if Merricat would ever want to leave, and Merricat informs her there are bad people out in the world.

While Constance tends to Uncle Julian, a man knocks on the door, calling for Constance. Merricat doesn’t answer; instead, she ignores him, thinking he is like all the others who heard about the murders and come to their house hoping to get a glimpse of Constance or Uncle Julian. No one ever looks for Merricat, as she wasn’t present at the trial but rather staying in an orphanage. She runs upstairs to get Constance a sweater. When she comes back into the kitchen, the man is sitting at the table; Constance let him in.

Constance introduces the man to Merricat as their cousin Charles, claiming he looks just like their father. Merricat, seized with panic, leaves the house immediately and spends the night in her hiding place near the creek with Jonas, willing Charles to disappear.

Analysis: Chapter 4

Merricat resists the coming change right up until the moment it appears in the form of their cousin Charles. The fact that Charles is a man who looks remarkably like their father suggests he has come to impose the patriarchal rule they had known under John upon the sisters’ lives again.

The way that Merricat narrates Charles’s movements through town strikes an ominous tone. She explains that, although she didn’t know it at the time, Charles was already in the vicinity; she describes him asking for directions at the post office, attempting to access their gate, and walking up the driveway, moving ever closer to the home and into the girls’ lives. Similarly unnerving is the way Merricat describes the time prior to Charles’s arrival: she says it was the last of their “slow lovely days, although, as Uncle Julian would have pointed out, we never suspected it then.” This description echoes the wistfulness Uncle Julian often expresses as he looks back on the day of the poisoning before it occurred, and connecting these two events—the murders and Charles’s arrival—suggests the latter may be just as pivotal as the former.

Notable in this chapter are Merricat and Constance’s differing reactions to Charles. While Merricat ignores his knocking and recoils from his presence, Constance welcomes him into the home and introduces him to Merricat with a smile. For the reader, this is unsurprising, a logical continuation of Constance’s wish to reintegrate into society. For Merricat, it is a surprise, one that could threaten their careful, secluded lives. 

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