A Perilous Secret

by Charles Reade

The young man had his coat off, by which you might infer it was very hot; but no, it was a keen October day, and an east wind sweeping down the river. The coat was wrapped tightly round the little girl, so that only her fair face with blue eyes and golden hair peeped out; and the young father sat in his shirt sleeves, looking down on her with a loving but anxious look.

Genres: Classics

Paperback

Published December 2, 2006

About the author

Charles Reade was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth. He fell out of fashion by the turn of the century - "it is unusual to meet anyone who has voluntarily read him," wrote George Orwell in an essay on Reade - but during the 19th century Reade was one of England's most popular novelists. He was not highly regarded by critics.

Reviews

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“’[…] The deed is done; and a darker deed was never done, even in the dark.’”

A Perilous Secret is a novel that was not published during Charles Reade’s lifetime but that was found completed after his death in 1884, and it once more shows the author’s skill of weaving a blood-curdling yarn. The eponymous perilous secret consists in a pact between William Hope, a jack-of-all-trades, full of innovative ideas and driven on by an unbroken spirit of enterprise, but down-on-his-luck, and the businessman Bartley, whose heartbeat is fuelled by his love of money. These two men chance on each other at a decisive moment of each one’s life: When Bartley’s four-year-old daughter has died of consumption, Hope crops up looking for a job and a means of securing survival for his own four-year old daughter Grace, who is on the brink of coming down with consumption herself. Bartley agrees to employ Hope on condition that Grace be brought up as Bartley’s daughter Mary and not know her proper identity, the reason being that as long as Mary lives, a sum of 20,000 £ will remain in the Bartley family and not go to the Cliffords, who are related to Bartley via marriage. Hope reluctantly enters into this dubious bargain, seeing it as the only way to ward off destitution and a premature death from his daughter and stipulating that Grace, who will henceforth be called Mary Bartley, be treated well by her presumptive father and that Hope will always have the opportunity to see her.

The two men’s agreement is overheard by Bartley’s clerk Leonard Monckton, however, an unscrupulous schemer, and when Hope soon afterwards gets him into prison for embezzlement, Monckton is determined to have his revenge. Lots of plots will ensue and the climax of the book sees Hope and his daughter fending for their lives in an exploded mine.

A Perilous Secret is not only strong in its plot but also in the way Reade tells the story, which moves swiftly and relies so artfully on dialogue that you sometimes actually have the impression of reading, or even watching a play. As usual with Reade, the narrative voice is quite intrusive but often comes up with remarkable observations, as when it introduces the final chapter with the following observation that I have often made myself and wished many an author had made, too:

”It seems, however, to be a rule in life, and in fiction, that interest flags when trouble ceases. Now the troubles of our good people were pretty well over, and we will put it to the reader whether they had not enough.”

In another chapter, the narrator muses on the common tendency to swamp the narrative in meandering descriptions:

”It is true that some of our gifted contemporaries paint Italian scenery at prodigious length à propos de bottes, and others show in many pages that the rocks and the sea are picturesque objects, even when irrelevant. True that others gild the evening clouds and the western horizon merely to please the horizon and the clouds. But we hold with Pope that

‘The proper study of mankind is man,’

and that authors’ pictures are bores, except as narrow frames to big incidents.”

The good thing is that the narrator not only utters these thoughts but, on the whole, takes them to heart so that we really get a gripping narrative peopled by characters whose motivations are believable if not always laudable. So when you just want to read for the mere pleasure of delving into an exciting story, this is the book for you.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Reade's last novels to be published, it unfortunately lacks his usual joyous use of literary devices, as if his creative energy had been diminished by age. But the plot is as 'sensational' as those in his other works, and his characters as vivid and interesting. (The daughter of our hero is particularly so, being skilled at gymnastics and all things athletic -- a rarity among fictional Victorian ladies.) The second half of the book, when the secrets -- there are more than one and all are perilous -- start to be revealed, is an exciting ride and one flies through the pages to find out who lives or dies. Reade concludes the novel with a brief observation on the merit of characters real and fictional. To excerpt: "Our hearts are with those superior men and women who, whether in History or Fiction, make life beautiful, and raise the standard of Humanity."

[Ragne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an interesting story and a nice summer read. But only if you can get over the fact that it's a love story between a 15 year old girl and a 30 year old man. Who are (as far as they know) closely related.

I've chosen to pretend he's somehow been in a stasis for some years so he's not 30, and give it 4 stars.

Other than that, I refer you to Jennifer's review, which says what I'm thinking.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned. I thought Mary was too syrupy-sweet. It's just not for me.