48 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth George SpeareCalico Captive
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1957A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Two days after the wedding, troops are marching to fight the English the next day. Miriam feels sorry for Jules and Hortense who will have to separate so soon after marriage. When she arrives home after working at the chateau, Madame Du Quesne’s carriage is waiting.
Felicité’s dress would not fasten and needed immediate alterations. Felicité talks as Miriam works, and it almost seems like the old times. She wants to see a ship’s captain. Madame Du Quesne enters and warns Felicité that some people should not be provoked, but Felicité says that some people have been too independent. When Miriam finally leaves, Madame was not there to pay her and she must walk home in the dark.
Pierre sees her on the street and is appalled she is walking so late with drunken soldiers on the streets. She tells him she was working for Madame Du Quesne and she accidentally reveals that Felicité’s dress needed to be fitted in a hurry. Pierre realizes Felicité lied to him about having a headache. Pierre is furious and Miriam is concerned with his anger. Pierre realizes that Miriam must be the mysterious dressmaker who works for Madame Du Quesne and wants to take her to his mother.
Miriam protests, but Pierre compels her. She realizes too late what he’s done, when he takes her into a drawing room with an elegant party. Pierre tries to introduce Miriam to his mother. Pierre’s mother is horrified and tells him Felicité is at the party. Pierre is so loud the party quiets. Miriam hears a roaring in her ears, but the elderly gentleman, Monsieur Laroche, introduces himself, bows, and asks her name. When she says her name, “it was like a draught of water, cold and strengthening” (247).
Pierre asks her to dance, mockingly. Miriam is reminded of the gantlet she ran in St. Francis, when a path clears among all the elegantly dressed people. Miriam feels a rush of fury at the room judging her. Miriam despises all of them, and she agrees to dance with Pierre. During the dance, Pierre’s amusement fades as Miriam looks at him scornfully. When the dance is finished, she tells him to see her home immediately. Monsieur Laroche intercepts them at the door, and compliments her courage.
Chapter 22 Summary
Shortly after going to bed, Miriam is woken by pebbles hitting her window. Pierre calls her name. Miriam tells him to go away, but he tells her he must see her. Miriam tells him he can wait until morning, but he says that his regiment assembles at daybreak and he cannot wait. He threatens to say what he must so loud the whole street can hear it. Miriam meets him on the street.
Pierre asks her to forgive him, and she says nothing. He tells her what he did was unspeakable, and he does not know why he ever thought Felicité was worth it. Pierre begs her to forgive him and reminds her he is going off to battle, and Miriam relents and forgives him. He asks her to marry him. Pierre tells Miriam that when he comes back from the campaign, they will arrange it. Miriam tells him he will regret it; he has said he does not want to be tied down. Pierre says he will still be a trader, but he will have her when he comes home. Miriam tells him a wife could go with him, and Pierre tells her there is no room for a woman on a voyage with a trader.
Miriam says he is not offering her much of a marriage and he is affronted. He tells her he will give her dresses, and she will be “second to no one in Montreal—or Quebec either” (254). Miriam realizes Pierre may be serious, but he is not saying what she most wants to hear. She tells him that she will think about it and they can speak when he returns. Pierre kisses and leaves.
That evening, Monsieur Laroche calls on Miriam. He asks her if Pierre asked her to marry him and she confirms it. Miriam is shocked when Monsieur Laroche approves of her. He asks if she accepted Pierre’s proposal and is surprised when she says she did not. He implores her not to hold one mistake against Pierre and asks why she does not accept. Miriam explains that she believes Pierre only views her as something to put in a fine house and asks if there should not be more to marriage than that. Monsieur Laroche tells her that she should be sensible, and that Pierre has a fortune of his own and will inherit Monsieur Laroche’s fortune one day. He tells her that Pierre’s wife will be a lucky woman.
Chapter 23 Summary
There is tension in the city over the war. France sends a warship that arrives in Montreal, but the war still does not seem real to Miriam. Miriam is anxious that she will soon have to respond to Pierre’s proposal. The marquise and the Governor are waiting in the drawing room. The Governor tells her that a messenger came from Albany with money for James, but it is not enough to discharge his debts. Despite this, the Governor will release James and his family because of the marquise.
The Governor says that he will not release James to go to the English colonies and fight in the war, but that James, his family, and Miriam can take a ship to England. The Governor leaves and Miriam expresses her gratitude to the marquise. The marquise asks if she would rather go with them to Quebec, and that perhaps she might meet a young man. The marquise says she’s wondered if Miriam has already found a man, and Miriam says she is not sure. The marquise states that she was sure when she found her husband, and she would go anywhere for him.
Miriam is troubled and goes to see Hortense. She eats with Hortense’s family and wonders if this is the last time she will see them. Suddenly, there are church bells and the sound of a cannon. They follow a group to town and find out that the battle is done, and Jules is safe. Miriam finds out that no officers were hurt, so Pierre is unharmed, and she feels a “cold quiver of dread deep within her” (268). As the men talk about beating the English, Miriam is afraid for her father and Phineas Whitney. Suddenly, she remembers Phineas’s face, and it calms her. Hortense draws her from the crowd, apologetic. Hortense realizes that Miriam will leave, and says they will be enemies, but Miriam assures her that they will not. Hortense offers to help Miriam pack for the journey and to wave to her the next morning.
The next day, Miriam sets sail for England, in the modern-day United Kingdom. From there, she secures passage on a ship to New England, America. After arriving home, Miriam ultimately marries Phineas Whitney.
Chapters 21-23 Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Miriam learns The Value of Listening to One’s Heart when she finally chooses between Pierre and Phineas. The climax of the novel comes when Miriam is given the choice between remaining in Montreal with the marquise and Pierre or braving a sea voyage to get to England and then back home. While she has wanted to return home since being captured, the choice is now more complex because she is offered everything she wants if she stays.
While choosing between Pierre and Phineas, she also grapples with the different cultures and lives that both young men offer her. While spending time with Pierre, Phineas has slowly faded from her thoughts. Pierre is exciting and bold, but he offers her a marriage where he would often be absent trading. When Miriam realizes that Pierre survived the battle with the English, she feels only dread at the thought of his return. In contrast, when she thinks of Phineas, she feels calm. As the French celebrate their win, Miriam realizes that Phineas could be dead, and it brings back her memory of him: “[T]he dearness of the memory that she had lost […] was now hers again. She had almost let go the priceless thing that had been hers all along” (269).
This romantic decision also addresses the theme of Cultural Clashes and Assimilation. If Miriam marries Pierre, she will assimilate into Montreal and French culture, but she will lose her family and relationships in New England. At the same time, she will gain material luxuries beyond what she could ever hope for at home.
Ultimately, Miriam realizes that in Montreal, she might have dresses and a beautiful home, but she would not have the type of love that she wants. Pierre is not offering her a marriage like Susanna and James’s marriage or the marquise and the Governor’s marriage. What Pierre offers is a marriage of luxury and loneliness, where he continues to travel and have adventures without Miriam. In contrast, Phineas’s letter describes a shared life and future. When Miriam leaves for England, she chooses a life of physical difficulty that has the type of love for which she longs. While Miriam never fully assimilates to Montreal’s culture, it is clear she takes many lessons into the next step in her journey.
Miriam’s choice to return to New England furthers the theme of Survival and Resilience. With all of the hardship that Miriam has experienced since her capture by the Abenaki, she could easily choose a life of ease and wealth to ensure that she never would have to experience such harsh conditions again. However, despite enjoying Montreal’s upper-class lifestyle, she prefers to risk facing capture again if it means that she will be with her family and with Phineas.
Though the novel ends, the French and Indian War continues, and New England is a constant site of conflict. Living there as a minister’s wife will not be easy, but Miriam has become much more independent and self-reliant. Having worked as a dressmaker, she has professional skills that many women in her time lack, as women’s roles were mostly confined to domestic and family duties. This gives Miriam options and reassures her that whatever circumstances she finds herself in, she will be able to survive.
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By Elizabeth George Speare
