Washington Black: Part 4, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Wash realizes that he has to find Titch, to know if he lives and to confront him. He realizes that he still doesn’t fully feel on solid ground. He writes a letter to Titch at Granbourne and surprisingly, Titch’s mother writes back. When he tells the Goffs that he plans to go, Tanna wonders irately why he’s seeking Titch out. Wash isn’t fully sure, but he thinks that he likely just wants an apology or an explanation, or the reason why Titch chose him in the first place.

Tanna and Wash argue, but ultimately Wash still decides to go. Tanna tells him the days he should work around, because they have appointments to plan their exhibition. Tanna also suggests that she could go with him to Granbourne. Wash is admittedly anxious about going alone, but he doesn’t want her criticism as he goes, saying that the trip is foolish. She assures him she’ll bite her tongue.

The next week, Wash and Tanna set out for Granbourne together. As their carriage approaches the estate, they see rotted buildings and rickety shacks. Wash realizes that Grandbourne is like the center of a wheel, and Faith was one spoke to help power this estate. As Wash approaches, he wonders if he’ll actually find Titch there—it has a sense of vacancy, of an estate fading away.

When Tanna and Wash arrive at the old house, it is forbidding, grand, and crumbling. An old manservant steps out onto the landing and brings them into the reception hall, which is unlit, and then through darkened corridors. He leads them out to a back terrace, which feels warmer than inside the house. Then, Mrs. Wilde appears—very tall and in a damp riding dress. Her face is waxen and her spine is slightly curved.

Mrs. Wilde welcomes Wash formally, and Wash bows to her. She then crosses to sit on a bench, and Wash and Tanna follow. Mrs. Wilde says that she hopes they ate before coming, because she didn’t know if they enjoyed English food. Tanna explains that she is English—her father, Geoffrey Goff, is a zoologist. Mrs. Wilde says that Mr. Wilde was interested in science, but she didn’t care for it at all.

Tanna asks if Titch is at the house, but Mrs. Wilde says that she hasn’t seen her son in three years. Wash realizes that this means Titch did survive, if she saw him three years ago. Tanna asks where Titch went, but Mrs. Wilde doesn’t answer. She instead tells Wash that they sold the plantation. When Wash asks what happened to the slaves, she says many of them worked as apprentices and some left to work elsewhere.

Mrs. Wilde then asks Wash if he was with Mr. Wilde when he died, and Wash says yes. Wash realizes that she wants to know about his life there and about Peter House—that she had questions that unsettled her. Tanna again presses about Titch, and Mrs. Wilde says that he might be at Grosvenor, at his cousin Philip’s house. Wash also realizes then that she knows about Phillip’s death and Wash’s possible hand in it. She asks if they mean to stay long in London and hopes that he can see the zoo in Regent’s park. She says he should feel quite at home—in London, that is.

Later, as Tanna and Wash leave, the manservant tells Wash that Titch visited two years earlier and left quite upset. He meant to sail out of Liverpool on behalf of the Anti-Slavery Society—he also left his reports on the plantation with the Society. The man suggests that they inquire with the organization for his whereabouts, explaining where their offices are. Tanna and Wash thank him profusely.