This Other Eden: Part 2 Summary & Analysis

When Thomas Hale goes to Concord, Bridget Carney, an orphan from Ireland who works as his servant, has a free afternoon. She spends much of her time in the library reading, then goes to bed and sleeps soundly. She likes Mr. Hale, she but feels that he is like a “living ghost,” in part because he is over 80 years old.

When Thomas Hale comes back, he tells Bridget that they’ll be having a guest come and stay. Bridget is nervous when she finds out that the guest will be a young man. Still, she is glad that at least Hale’s son, Robert, and his son’s wife, Phoebe, will be away for Robert’s astronomy work.

Ethan is the young man that Thomas Hale has invited to stay on his estate. Bridget prepares a bed for him. When he finally arrives, Bridget goes to greet him, and he seems confused at first. He looks about 15 or 16 and wears well-worn clothes that have been patched up. Ethan seems like he doesn’t know what to do, and Bridget herself doesn’t know what to do with someone who doesn’t give her instructions.

At first, Ethan stays in his room, but eventually, he ventures out to draw the surrounding area. Bridget asks if she can watch him, since she’s never met an artist before. Although Ethan often drew with Charlotte or Tabitha watching, he’s nervous to have Bridget watch him. Nevertheless, he can’t think of a good excuse, so he agrees to let her do it. He realizes that Bridget is about his own age, and he finds her lovely.

Ethan sketches some traveling Dutch farm workers who come up from the Hudson Valley in July to tend to Thomas Hale’s estate. He sketches the tedder (machine used in making hay) while smoking his cigarette, and Bridget feels she’ll never forget how Ethan managed to turn the real-life scene with the tedder into something in black and white. Meanwhile, Ethan himself is thinking of life back on Apple Island and how the sun used to look over the water. He feels he’s probably getting sunburned.

Ethan wants to look back at Bridget while he’s drawing, but he can’t think of a good excuse. He wonders whether it would be rude to ask to paint her, to have an excuse to look at her for long periods of time. All of a sudden, he wakes up and doesn’t know where he is. He realizes he must have passed out, either due to heat or allergies. Bridget offers to get him water. She says he should sit and rest, so he finds a place in the shade where he falls asleep.

Ethan wakes to Bridget holding a pitcher of lemonade on a tray with drinking glasses. In addition to the heat, he has been overwhelmed with new sensations ever since leaving Apple Island. He wonders how he’ll ever be able to draw all the new things he’s seen. The ice in the lemonade Bridget brings is clear as glass, unlike any Ethan has seen before. She explains that the ice is from Enon Lake and that it’s so famous that they even send it to London.

Evening falls over the estate. Ethan packs up his art supplies and rolls himself a cigarette. As he watches Bridget take out down some linens she was drying, he hears her humming an old Irish lullaby that he recognizes because the women on Apple Island also used to sing it. She stops when she hears Ethan singing along, but then he stops too when he notices her listening. Each considers saying something, but they stay quiet at first.

At last, Bridget calls out Ethan’s name and asks him to come over. She takes him into the main house (which he’s never been inside, since he’s been staying in the barn) while everyone else is asleep. The sheer number of rooms in the house amazes Ethan. Bridget leads him through several hallways until at last, they come to a painting of a small bundle of asparagus. Bridget says the painting reminds her of him, and it’s the one in the house she looks at most of all.

Back outside, around midnight, Bridget and Ethan sit beside each other and hold hands under the trees. They look at the stars and imagine whether there might be people on other planets. The fireflies in the air around them also look like stars. At last, instead of going back to the house, Bridget spends the night in the barn with Ethan in his bed.

Later, Ethan finishes a portrait of Bridget that he’s been working on. So far, he hasn’t let her see any of the portrait yet. With a knife, he draws blood from her finger and mixes it with red paint on his palette, then he adds some of his own blood. Finally, lets her see the painting. Bridget expects to recognize herself in the painting but is shocked to learn something new: how other people see her. She begins to both cry and laugh at how much care Ethan has shown in his observation of her. Ethan adds some of the paint with blood in it to some strawberries in the meadow in the background.

Ethan continues to paint each day and study a painting book that Thomas Hale got him in the evenings. Most nights, Bridget spends in the barn with Ethan. One morning, Bridget wakes before Ethan and happens to see his photograph of all the students from Apple Island. She is surprised at how all of the children in the photo seem to have different skin colors. She is also confused by some of Ethan’s drawings, like one of a Black woman in a rocking chair in front of a shack.

Thomas Hale spends a lot of time in his study alternating between reading and falling asleep. At one point, he thinks he sees an animal out the window, but he eventually realizes that it’s Bridget sneaking into the barn to see Ethan.

When Bridget has the opportunity, she goes back to look at Ethan’s mysterious photograph and drawings. She wonders why Ethan would be in a school photo with Black girls. She notices the names “Lotte” and “Tabby” on two drawings of Black girls and realizes they must be his sisters, Charlotte and Tabitha, whom he’s told her about. She can’t understand how they can be his be his family, since she believes he’s white. But all of a sudden, she realizes that he might indeed be “colored,” despite his pale skin.

Ethan gets ready to paint that day, not noticing that his photograph and drawings are missing. He watches one of the Dutch farm workers sharpening a scythe blade. All of a sudden, Thomas Hale comes out to see Ethan. Despite living in the barn by Thomas Hale’s house, Ethan has never met him before. Thomas Hale tells Ethan to come with him and that he’ll no longer be needing his paints.