Gaunt House explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Appearance vs. Reality

  Gaunt House appears grand but is dreary and empty; the Steyne family's public splendor hides private madness, religious strife, and secret griefs.

• Family and Betrayal

  The chapter explores the hostility between fathers and sons, elder and younger brothers, and the tragic consequences of religious division within the family.

• Wealth and Poverty

  The immense wealth of the Steyne family is contrasted with the dreariness of their lives and the misery of those like the mad Lord Gaunt, highlighting the emptiness of riches.

Characters to notice

• Lord Steyne

  The Marquis of Steyne, owner of Gaunt House, lives in Naples; a good scholar and amateur casuist who enjoys pitting his sons' tutor against the family's Catholic director.

• Lady Steyne

  The Marchioness of Steyne, of the ancient Caerlyon family, a devout Catholic who suffers from the religious divide with her children and the secret griefs of her marriage.

• Lord Gaunt

  The eldest son of Lord Steyne, who married Lady Blanche Thistlewood but went mad, was confined, and eventually disappeared from society, remembered only as a tragic figure.

• Lady Blanche Thistlewood

  Daughter of the Bareacres family, married to Lord Gaunt; the couple lived apart and had no children.

• Tom Eaves

  A gossipy informant who knows everyone's affairs and provides the narrator with details about the secret goings-on at Gaunt House and the Steyne family.

• Pitt Crawley

  Mentioned as the departed Sir Pitt Crawley, in whose time Rebecca was first introduced to Great Gaunt Street.

• Father Mole

  Lady Steyne's Catholic director and companion, who engages in theological debates with the Reverend Mr. Trail at Lord Steyne's instigation.

• Mr. Veal

  The Reverend Mr. Trail, the tutor of Lord Steyne's sons, later Lord Bishop of Ealing, who debates with Father Mole.

Key passages

• “All the world knows that Lord Steyne’s town palace stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca, in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley.”

  Everyone is aware that Lord Steyne's London residence is located in Gaunt Square, off Great Gaunt Street, where we earlier followed Rebecca during the era of the late Sir Pitt Crawley.

  The narrator reconnects the current setting with Rebecca's earlier story.

• “The Prince and Perdita have been in and out of that door, sir," he had often told me; "Marianne Clarke has entered it with the Duke of ⸻.”

  Tom Eaves frequently claimed that the Prince Regent and the actress Perdita, as well as Marianne Clarke with an unnamed duke, had used that back door.

  Tom Eaves shares scandalous gossip about the secret visitors to Lord Steyne's private apartments.

• “Brazil," said one gossip to another, with a grin⁠—"Brazil is St. John’s Wood. Rio de Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and George Gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him with the order of the Strait-Waistcoat."”

  A gossip joked that Lord George Gaunt's supposed diplomatic post in Brazil was actually a madhouse in St. John's Wood, where he was confined in a straitjacket.

  The cruel humor of Vanity Fair society about Lord Gaunt's insanity.

• “Take it as a rule," this sardonic old Eaves would say, "the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each other.”

  Tom Eaves cynically stated that it is a universal truth that fathers and eldest sons in noble families despise one another.

  Tom Eaves's cynical view of aristocratic family dynamics.