# The Squire's Eldest Son Comes Home explained — The Wyvern Mystery

> Chapter companion for The Wyvern Mystery by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

## What happens

Old Squire Harry, now transformed into an unwelcome suitor, horrifies Alice Maybell with his proposal. His son Charles Fairfield returns home to Wyvern, but the Squire's hostility toward him grows as he sees Charles as an obstacle to his marriage plans. The chapter depicts tense family dynamics, with Alice trapped between the Squire's advances and her own distress, while Charles broods over his father's harsh treatment. The chapter ends with Alice secretly meeting a mysterious man outside the house.

## Themes in this chapter

### Power and Patriarchy

Old Squire Harry exerts his authority over both Alice and Charles, treating them as possessions and obstacles to his desires.

### Love and Marriage

The Squire's grotesque proposal to Alice highlights marriage as a transaction of power and property rather than affection.

### Family and Dysfunction

The strained relationship between the Squire and his son Charles, along with Alice's fear, illustrates deep familial discord.

## Character check-ins

### Old Squire Harry

Transformed into a grotesque lover, he proposes to Alice Maybell and treats his son Charles with hostility, seeing him as an obstacle.

### Alice Maybell

Terrified and distressed by the Squire's proposal, she feigns a headache to avoid him and later secretly meets a mysterious man outside the house.

### Charles Fairfield

Returns to Wyvern as Captain Fairfield, listless and brooding; he is rebuffed by his father and feels unwelcome.

### Dulcibella Crane

Old nurse who comforts Alice after her weeping and later assists her by checking the cross-door.

## Key lines

> Thus was old Squire Fairfield unexpectedly transformed, and much to the horror of pretty Alice Maybell, appeared in the character of a lover, grim, ungainly, and without the least chance of that brighter transformation which ultimately more than reconciles 'beauty' to her conjugal relations with the 'beast.'

The old Squire suddenly became a suitor, horrifying Alice with his ugly and awkward demeanor, unlike the fairy-tale transformation that makes a beast acceptable to beauty.

_Sets the tone for the Squire's unwelcome courtship and Alice's distress._

> The old Squire in no genial mood and awfully silent. Charles silent and abstracted too; his body sitting there eating its dinner, and his soul wandering with black care and other phantoms by far-off Styx.

At dinner, both the Squire and Charles were silent and preoccupied, with Charles mentally elsewhere, troubled by unseen worries.

_Highlights the tense and uncomfortable atmosphere at Wyvern._

> And ye'll be my little duchess, my beauty; ye will, my queen o' diamonds, you roguey-poguey-woguey, as cunning as a dog-fox; and in the midst of these tumultuous endearments she managed to break away from the amorous ogre, and was out of the door, and up the stairs to her room, and old Dulcibella, before his tardy pursuit had reached the cross-door.

The Squire showered Alice with clumsy, possessive endearments, but she escaped his grasp and fled upstairs to her room, with old Dulcibella blocking his pursuit.

_Illustrates Alice's terror and the Squire's predatory behavior._

## Links

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