53 pages • 1 hour read
India HoltonThe Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A 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 15-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Cecilia’s childhood was not a happy one in Northrangerland Abbey. Her mother Cilla wanted to encourage her to play with dolls while her father wanted her to learn piracy and poetry. She, however, simply wanted to relax and read books. When Cilla took her away from her father, she offered a life of fun and games, both of which were then lost to Cecilia until Ned came into her life. Two years after their escape from Morvath, Morvath found them and murdered Cilla in front of her. Cecilia escaped and Miss Darlington found and rescued her.
Now, Cecilia wakes in her childhood bedroom in the abbey with her cousin Frederick beside her. Frederick waxes poetic about Cecilia and the beautiful bride she will be while Cecilia moves around the room to open the secret passageway. In the passage, she finds Ned, who apologizes for chloroforming her. She is skeptical of him but still listens to him. She then returns to her room for a bath before meeting her father.
Ned goes to the cellars to tell Pleasance that Cecilia is in the abbey and that he will help the ladies escape. He pretends to be the ghost of Emily Brontë, as Pleasance seems more receptive to the presence of ghosts. After he leaves, Pleasance tells Miss Darlington that the Italian assassin, aka Ned, told her Cecilia is there. The ladies, who had been in the cellars only to rest and take their meals, then escape.
Chapter 16 Summary
Cecilia goes to the breakfast room and finds Ned, Frederick, and Jane Fairweather waiting. She and Jane exchange verbal barbs, before she sees the elder Miss Fairweather. Jane tries to discuss rescue plans for the Wisteria Society with her, but Ned stops her.
Morvath then enters the room, and Cecilia has a flashback to him murdering her mother and attempting to kidnap her and raise her as a scoundrel. She feels as if she is watching her mother be murdered again. In response, she shouts curses and throws dishes at him. She then escapes, running from the room. Ned chases her and tells her to be smart and tactical about her resistance. Another guard finds them and makes a lewd comment about Cecilia. Ned pushes her, pretending to offer her to the guard, and Cecilia stabs him in the arm. Ned thanks her for her trust in him, but when he turns to look at her, she is running away.
Chapter 17 Summary
As Cecilia runs, she thinks about all the plans she made about what she would say to her father when she saw him and how she would kill him. It pains her that her plans all crumbled when she was faced with the man in the real world.
Ned catches up to Cecilia and grabs her, holding her in his arms. Cecilia kicks his ankle and escapes his grasp. She reminds him that Morvath killed her mother; Ned tells her that Morvath killed his mother, too. He explains that his mother was a fake psychic that Morvath visited to commune with the Brontës. When he discovered Ned’s mother’s fake knocking device, Morvath killed her in front of him. Cilla found him afterward, and Ned told her that she saved his life. In return, Cilla asked him to make the world safe for her child, which is why he’s dedicated himself to protecting Cecilia. However, even after he saw that Cecilia could protect herself, he still remains devoted to her because he cares for her. Cecilia admits she may finally trust Ned when Alex O’Riley appears, having tracked Ned to Morvath’s abbey by asking the locals where it was located. Ned and Cecilia feel silly for not doing the same.
They then hear Morvath’s voice and run to find the hidden passageway behind portraits of characters from Branwell Brontë’s writings. Cecilia finds it, and the trio hides in the passage until Morvath leaves. Behind them, they find the ladies of the Wisteria Society in the midst of their escape from the cellars. Cecilia is relieved to find them alive and well. Ned stumbles into Frederick, who fell into the passage while trying to find a place to hide.
The group walks along the passageway until Ned finds a room to enter. He is attacked with a pillow before Cecilia apprehends his assailant at knifepoint: Jane Fairweather. Cecilia accuses her of treason, but Jane admits that it was her grandmother, Murial Fairweather, who colluded with Morvath for money and a famous diamond. Cecilia releases her, and the ladies ask her how she’s feeling after seeing her father, seeing through her facade of indifference. Miss Darlington tells Cecilia to hold herself together and reminds her to run away if she is in any real danger. The ladies then decide they must find the garden where the battlehouses are kept, and Ned leads the way.
Chapter 18 Summary
The Wisteria Society ladies forge weapons out of objects they find before setting off to find their battlehouses. Cecilia looks at the walls of the abbey and tries to picture her childhood and the girl she once was, but she can’t. The only past she can fully picture is her life with Miss Darlington.
Alex O’Riley approaches Cecilia and asks her how she’s doing, noting her melancholic disposition. He tells her that she doesn’t look like her mother, showing her the ring that he has with a portrait of her mother inside that he stole from Ned, thinking she was a woman Ned was hopelessly pining over. Alex then asks her if she will marry Ned. She says no, claiming she does not have feelings for Ned, even as she feels her heart flutter. She wants to return to her library to read alone after the adventures, waiting until Ned gives up.
The women are ready for battle, but as they go into the passageway, they run into Morvath. He addresses one of the women as his mother, and Cecilia cannot imagine which one is his mother. Miss Darlington steps forward and addresses Morvath. Cecilia is shocked by the revelation that Miss Darlington is both her aunt and her grandmother, and Ned puts his arm around her. Morvath is angry at Miss Darlington and berates her for leaving him and not raising him as a pirate. He also shouts that women are inferior to men and outlines his plan to restore men to the status of the superior sex. Miss Darlington tells him that she still loves him, but that she gave him up to a loving family to raise him—a family that were not pirates, which enraged Morvath because he thought he deserved either a poetic or pirate upbringing because of his heritage.
Miss Darlington also tells Morvath that he may not even be the son of Branwell Brontë, but instead the son of Charles Darwin: Miss Darlington had dalliances with both at the same time. Morvath is horrified by the idea of being the son of a scientist, as he has built his identity on being a Brontë. Morvath also wanted to inherit the Darlington pirate legacy but becomes even angrier when the women of the Society remind him that the pirate legacy would pass to a female relative. It becomes clear that Morvath also wanted to join the Wisteria Society and is now motivated to destroy it because of his denial for being a man. Miss Darlington tries to calm him and asks him to resolve this civilly, but he refuses. Cecilia then enacts Plan B, throwing down Wuthering Heights at Morvath’s feet to show her distaste for their supposed Brontë heritage. Morvath tries to shoot Petunia, but his gun explodes in his hand. Ned reveals he sabotaged his weaponry.
As the ladies fight against Morvath and his male henchmen, Jane, Frederick, Ned, and Cecilia run to the garden to board the battlehouses. Jane and Frederick board a house that does not require any climbing, while Ned and Cecilia climb into Darlington house. Ned asks Cecilia to marry him, and she tells him that she does not want to marry anyone. They ready the house to join the battle.
Chapter 19 Summary
Constantinopla teaches Queen Victoria the flying incantation, even though Tom has concerns about the Queen’s abilities to pilot a building. Constantinopla finds Tom’s lack of knowledge and education tedious, but the Queen gives her advice for enduring it. The Queen manages to lift Windsor Castle into the air to join the battle against Morvath. The Queen sees the Darlington house in the fray and wants to meet Miss Darlington, and Constantinopla wonders if Miss Darlington will survive.
In the abbey, Pleasance helps the half-dead Miss Darlington to a bedchamber. Morvath stabbed her, and she’s bleeding rather badly. Miss Darlington tells Pleasance to leave her and save herself, but Pleasance refuses. Jacobsen finds them, and Pleasance launches at him with a bloodthirsty shout.
In Darlington house, Cecilia watches as she fires the cannons on the abbey that contains nearly everyone she knows and cares for inside it. She feels conflicted about attacking the abbey with her Aunt Darlington inside. She tells Ned that she must go into the abbey to rescue her, but Ned tries to dissuade her. They then see someone flying a garden shed away from the abbey and deduce that it is Morvath escaping. They chase after him in Darlington house, and Ned asks Cecilia if she wants him to shoot down the shed to kill Morvath. Cecilia hesitates, thinking back to childhood memories of her father discussing their red hair and Brontë heritage and tucking her into bed. She tells Ned that he can shoot and kill Morvath to avenge his mother, but that she won’t ask him to be a killer on her behalf. They continue to follow the shed and watch it crash into a hillside and catch fire.
Chapters 15-19 Analysis
Ned’s true intentions with Cecilia become clear in these chapters: He knew her mother and owed her mother a debt for his life, so he promised to protect her. At no point was he going to actually assassinate her or turn her over to Queen Victoria. His plan all along was to keep her safe and help her in her endeavors to rescue the Wisteria Society. This further informs the theme of Romance and Partnership Between Equals, as Ned sees himself as Cecilia’s protector. His previous infantilization of her does not result from believing himself to be superior to her but instead from the intensity of his feelings toward her and the promise he made to Cilla. Though he feels protective toward her, they are still partners during the battle against Morvath.
They fall into rhythm easily, until Cecilia’s panic about her aunt’s safety paralyzes her. Even then, Ned helps stabilize her and doesn’t question her decision to avoid shooting down Morvath, leaving the decision up to her even though he has his own right to seek revenge. The narrator describes the moment Cecilia tells him that he can kill Morvath for himself but that she won’t ask him to be a killer on her behalf: “Their gazes held, their souls reaching out to share a moment of deep, wordless understanding” (242). In the heat of battle, even when dealing with complex emotions, the duo is in tune with each other and understanding of each other’s perspectives, further illustrating the depth of their romantic relationship and the way that they relate to each other on an equal playing field.
The full reality of Cecilia’s childhood comes to light in these chapters. Her mother had not understood her seriousness and studiousness, encouraging her to play with dolls instead of reading books. Her father had not respected her individual interests either, encouraging her to avoid math in favor of poetry and Brontë novels to honor their supposed heritage. Cecilia was not understood by her parents, which was a pain that she carried into her adulthood. Even though her childhood was better after she and her mother escaped her deranged father’s clutches, it was short-lived. Seeing her mother murdered also impacts Cecilia’s view of her father and the abbey, leading to her panicked response to waking up in the abbey and her desire to exact revenge on her father.
However, unlike the little girl she once was, she now is a woman on The Quest for Independence Against Societal Constraints, seeking her own way of life free from the murderous legacy of her father and the expectations placed on her by the Wisteria Society and her aunt. Her willingness to put her father’s legacy behind her and use her own abilities to save the Wisteria Society by piloting Darlington house during a dangerous battle demonstrate her growth in independence. Cecilia is now ready to choose her own destiny instead of allowing others to shape her.
The Subversion of Gender Roles continues to be thematically prominent. In Constantinopla’s dealings with Queen Victoria, she finds herself irritated by Tom’s lack of knowledge, particularly his failure to understand the word “yore” (232). Queen Victoria tells her, “Some advice from a long-married woman: every time he speaks, close your eyes and think of England” (232). This is a subversion of the advice (“close your eyes and think of England”) the real-life Queen Victoria once gave to one of her daughters, who was in an unhappy marriage. It was meant to encourage her daughter to think of the next generation of children that sexual intercourse would create and make acquiescence to unenjoyable sex into a patriotic act. Here, Holton turns the adage on its head: Instead of sex being the thing that women must tolerate, it’s conversation with a dull or unintelligent man.
