Suspense, Volume III

Suspense, Volume III by Henry Seton Merriman

This third volume of Henry Seton Merriman's "Suspense" follows the aftermath of Captain Alfred Huston's disgrace and death, and the quietly suppressed love between war-correspondent Theodore Trist and Brenda Gilholme. The volume opens as Trist, a self-disciplined and outwardly unemotional journalist, tracks down the drunken, dying Captain Huston at a shabby private hotel, having twice already saved the wastrel's life. Huston, delirious with delirium tremens, dies that night from an accidental gunshot while raving that Trist loves his wife, Alice. Trist manages the aftermath discreetly, keeping the true, scandalous circumstances out of the press, and breaks the news the next morning to Brenda and her guardian, the widowed Mrs. Wylie. Alice Huston, summoned home from Cheltenham, receives the news of her husband's death with a strange apathy that confirms what Brenda has long suspected: her beautiful, shallow sister never truly loved her husband, and had perhaps loved Trist instead. Mrs. Wylie, worldly and protective, tries delicately to manage the entangled feelings among Trist, Brenda, and Alice without direct interference, extracting a promise from Trist to keep his distance from Brenda for a time amid gossip. The three women travel to Paris and then to Arcachon for a subdued mourning holiday, deliberately avoiding Trist, who is in Paris on assignment. Alice, unable to relinquish her hold on him, summons Trist to her hotel and attempts, through calculated beauty and appeal, to draw him into an avowal of love; Trist rebuffs her gently but firmly, leaving her devastated and self-aware of her own moral shallowness. Meanwhile, the painter William Hicks proposes marriage to Brenda, who refuses him kindly but decisively, since she does not love him — a rejection that matures him as a person. Brenda and Mrs. Wylie return to the ancestral Wyl's Hall in coastal Suffolk, settling into a quiet rural life among fishermen and coastguards. Mrs. Wylie continues to watch Trist and Brenda's relationship, sensing genuine feeling beneath their reserved, undemonstrative manner, and eventually engineers a private walk for them across the marshes to a ruined lighthouse. There, in a moment of restrained but unmistakable tenderness, Trist and Brenda approach an emotional understanding, though neither fully declares love. Trist announces he must leave for the Balkans: Russia has moved toward war with the Ottoman Empire, and as a renowned, fiercely impartial war correspondent, he intends to cover the conflict from the front lines, accompanied by two trusted colleagues. Before departing, he promises Brenda he will return, and the two part with restrained emotion at a farm gate overlooking the sea — the closest they come to an open declaration. The Russo-Turkish War breaks out formally in April 1877. Trist follows the Russian advance across the Danube, then crosses into Ottoman territory to report from the Turkish side, quickly establishing a reputation for meticulous, courageous, and unbiased reporting that earns him respect from military commanders and hatred from partisans, particularly the Germans, who cannot fathom his scrupulous honesty. As the Russians besiege the small Bulgarian town of Plevna, defended brilliantly by Osman Pasha, Trist attaches himself permanently to the garrison, becoming a trusted confidant of Osman and his taciturn chief of staff, Tefik Bey. He refuses several chances to escape the siege, choosing instead to remain and record events "to the end," even helping manage the fortress's dwindling supplies. During the brutal fighting for a key redoubt on the Loftcha road — where General Skobeleff's reckless, costly assaults briefly capture and then are driven back from the position — Trist volunteers to lead a scratch force of officers and civilians in retaking the redoubt after regular officers falter, since Osman's men need someone to lead them. He hands his notebook to Osman before charging into the assault. The redoubt is retaken, but Trist is killed in the fighting. His body is found the next evening by Tefik Bey among the heaped dead, still bearing its habitual expression of gentle, quizzical calm. Before his death, anticipating the possibility, Trist had written a long, tender letter to Brenda confessing that he had loved her since their youth, explaining that he had always held back from proposing because of the hazards and uncertainties of his profession, but that his growing success and now-secure position had resolved him to marry her once this final campaign ended. The letter, delayed by the siege, only reaches Wyl's Hall months later, in mid-December, during a snowstorm that has cut off the Suffolk coast from the world. It arrives on the same day as two telegrams confirming Trist's death at Plevna in September — so that Brenda receives his declaration of love and the news of his death within moments of each other, the letter arriving, in effect, as a message from beyond the grave. The volume closes on this stark juxtaction of joy and loss, with Brenda standing silently at the window while the indifferent, radiant beauty of the winter sea goes on outside.

By Henry Seton Merriman · First published 1890 · Genre: War Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction · 15 chapters · 41,930 words

First lines

Theodore Trist did not attempt to blind himself as to the difficulties attending his strange undertaking, but he was prepared to face them courageously.

'If,' he said to himself, 'I can only find him. _sober_. I will manage the rest.'

What this Textopian page supports

Suspense, Volume III is listed on Textopian as a novel by Henry Seton Merriman, dated 1890 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

Genres

Tags

Victorian fiction · British literature · historical fiction · adventure fiction · romance · mystery · suspense · drama · political intrigue · European setting · social class · honor

Contents

More by Henry Seton Merriman