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Volume 2, Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hope Leslie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Religious Conflict and Tolerance
Interracial Relationships
Violence and Historical Memory
Women’s Roles
The Puritan Heritage
Summary
Analysis
In Governor Winthrop’s mansion, the parlor is adjacent to a large pantry. The pantry is also accessible from the kitchen. That day, after the midday meal, Jennet enters the pantry through the kitchen and hears Hope and Everell talking in the parlor. Jennet eavesdrops on them.
Throughout the book, Jennet has shown a tendency to hide and eavesdrop, thereby getting others into trouble—most notably during Nelema’s treatment of Cradock.
Themes
Meanwhile, Sir Philip is making up a story with which he hopes to appease the Governor. He decides he will admit to a previous love affair with Rosa and then claim that she snuck to New England without his knowledge. He will claim that he concealed Rosa’s identity out of pity, hoping in the meantime to convert her to the Puritan faith instead of the Catholic. He’ll pretend that’s why he visited Magawisca in jail, to ask her to smuggle Rosa to a Canadian convent, in the event Magawisca is freed.
Sir Philip is clearly desperate, piling falsehoods on top of each other in an attempt to extricate himself from his position, and, unlike Magawisca, not caring who gets hurt in the process.
Themes
When Sir Philip arrives at the Winthrops’, Everell leaves in disgust, and Hope greets him coldly. Only Jennet welcomes him, and she draws near to whisper a secret she’s overheard. Hearing it, Sir Philip suggests they keep this knowledge to themselves for now. Jennet is briefly torn between her loyalty to the family and her hostility toward Everell, who has never respected her. But she decides that Everell deserves what he gets. Sir Philip jots a hasty note to Governor Winthrop, explaining that he’s suddenly taken ill and will have to postpone their meeting.
The details of Everell’s and Hope’s conference is kept secret for the time being, as Sedgwick lays the groundwork for another web of interconnecting secrets and plots in which the reader, too, will be caught up. Improbably given their different stations in life, yet unsurprisingly given their deceitful natures, Sir Philip and Jennet find themselves in collusion.
Themes
