Marcia Schuyler (Miranda Trilogy #1)

Grace Livingston Hill weaves an enchanting love triangle and introduces one of her most delightful characters in part one of the Miranda trilogy. Two sisters are as different as night and day--and inexplicably linked by the man they both desire. Kate Schuyler lives only for what pleases her in the moment, while Marcia Schuyler sacrifices her youth to marry her older sister's jilted fiance. Can Marcia endure living in borrowed clothes and a borrowed home with a borrowed husband? Is there hope to win her husband's love when Kate returns, spinning a web of deceit?

Original Publisher: J.B. Lippincott Company
Original Year of Publication: 1908
Page Count: 224

Grace Livingston Hill is a celebrated author of gentle, Christian-themed fiction, and I was in the mood for something quiet, given the tumult of life. First published in 1908, set in 1831, this novel definitely shows its vintage.

The story is fairly simple: the titular Marcia Schuyler is a literal last-second substitute for her elder sister Kate, when Kate runs away the night before her wedding to David Spafford. Marcia, at the delicate age of 17, basically hero-worships David, so its not exactly a hard decision for her to make, but David himself is overcome with grief at being jilted. Marcia agrees to marry him basically to save face for him and her family, who have spent months on the wedding plans. It is a very odd arrangement, and is not helped by the fact that it takes about five chapters for this to happen.

So David and Marcia get married and move back to his hometown, and Marcia is faced with finding her place not only in his life, but in hers: she has literally no experience being an adult and is suddenly thrust into this role of matron with few friends and even fewer allies. She is the wide-eyed innocent pitched into a nest of vipers: David was basically raised by a trio of spinster aunts, two of whom basically hate Marcia on site for taking their precious baby away. The girl next door, Hannah Heath, had always assumed that David would marry her (basically because proximity) so she's mad with jealousy that Marcia stole her man. And then there's Kate, forever lurking in the background: self-absorbed, manipulative, but who has always gotten her own way and is flabbergasted to find herself cut off from her family thanks to her last-minute elopement with a man they didn't approve of.

Kate is certain that she can lure David back to her side, and for a large portion of the story, she manages to get her way. David does run to her at the first time of asking, but realizes that she is off-limits, as they are both married to other people and he has Very Strong Puritan Values. He flays himself for his lingering attraction to her and thinks of poor Marcia as a child, wondering how she could've given up her life just to save his reputation.

Marcia has one of David's aunts on her side, and finds an unusual friend in the girl next door, Miranda Griscom. Miranda seems to be the only person of worth who senses Marcia's inherent goodness who doesn't hate her for it, and she saves Marcia from several embarrassing situations. She ultimately ends up saving David and Marcia's relationship after Kate and another man scheme to break them up.

There is absolutely NO subtlety in this novel. Kate is wickedness personified: beautiful, manipulative, often described with sharp little teeth and blood-red lips, with absolutely no soul and no feeling for anyone beyond herself. She hates her family, her sister, her husband, and ultimately David because none of them will bend to her will - the first time that's ever happened in her life.

Hannah Heath isn't much better - she basically plans her wedding as ultimate revenge/humiliation for Marcia, who has no idea that she hates her so much. It all blows up in her face, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor swain who'd served as her slave for seven years for the honor of her hand in marriage.

Marcia is absolutely clueless. She spends a lot of time crying, praying, and caring way too much about what other people *might* think of her. I wanted to tell her that she wasn't that important, but alas - apparently she really was the center of everyone's universe without even trying.

David wasn't much better. As it turns out, he barely knew Kate when he asked her to marry him, and basically fell in love with the woman he wanted her to be. It takes him a lot longer than it should have to realize that Marcia was the embodiment of this ideal, and he ends up adding to her misery without even trying. The upside is that he is an intelligent and passionate young man, a journalist who is on the right side of history, at least as far as steam locomotives are concerned.

Indeed, Miranda was the only character with a bit of gumption, and she spends most of her time talking herself down about her looks and her intelligence. She worships the ground Marcia walks on and thinks that she can do no wrong. This novel is the first in the Miranda trilogy, which I found interesting considering what a small role she played in it. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how all 3 novels link up.

Even with all its faults, I was happy to read this novel. It was very gentle and very quiet (and very sanctimonious, which is easier to handle given that it was literally written in a different time), and reminiscent of the Avonlea world. Given all the other stressors going on right now, it was exactly what I needed in my down time.

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