Oriole's daughter, a novel, Volume 3 (of 3)

"Oriole''s daughter, a novel, Volume 3 (of 3)" by Jessie Fothergill is a novel written in the late 19th century. It follows Fulvia Marchmont, a Roman beauty trapped in a lavish but loveless marriage to a sickly millionaire in an English country house, as her bond with her austere protector Signor Oriole (her unacknowledged father) collides with a deepening love for the painter Hans Riemann. Moving between Yewridge Hall’s staged opulence and haunting memories of Rome, it probes duty, reputation, and the price of freedom. Expect a cool, incisive social drama of endurance, temptation, and moral risk. The opening of the book shows the Marchmonts installed at Yewridge Hall, where Fulvia maintains an impersonal poise while tending her suspicious, suffering husband and enduring sleepless nights. Society cautiously embraces her; she is admired yet distant, and she openly favors Hans’s company, unsettling onlookers and her protective neighbor Minna Hastings, whose brother Richard reads the danger with cool clarity. As Marchmont’s illness worsens and servants chafe, Fulvia meets Hans by a secluded lake; he urges elopement, she asks for three days, and Signor Oriole later warns her that Hans’s character is unworthy, a judgment she rejects. When a specialist is summoned after a brutal attack, Fulvia, exhausted and resolute, plans to leave that very night after the consultation, while a moonlit coda shows Signor Oriole wakeful and Hans returning late, sullen and impatient. (This is an automatically generated summary.)