56 pages • 1 hour read
Willa CatherA Lost Lady
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1923A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 3-5
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Time passes, and Niel does not see much of Mrs. Forrester. The Forresters continue to spend their winters in Denver and Colorado Springs, and come to Sweet Water in the spring. Niel is sometimes invited to picnic suppers and dances by Mrs. Forrester, and he occasionally hears news from Black Tom, Judge Pommeroy’s servant who Mrs. Forrester hires to wait on the table when she has a dinner party.
Captain Forrester is seriously injured in a fall from his horse while in Colorado, which renders him unable to continue his career as a road builder. When Mrs. Forrester brings him to Sweet Water, the captain has lost much of his vitality. He works in his garden and is particularly devoted to growing roses. The Forresters still go to Colorado for the winter, but each year they spend less time there.
Sweet Water also goes through many changes, and its “future no longer looked bright” (17). Farmers and ranchers give up on trying to make a living there and return East, including George’s family. Fewer railroad officials stop to visit the Forresters. Niel’s father also leaves to take a job in Denver. Niel stays with his uncle Judge Pommeroy, with the intention of studying law. Niel lives in a room in his uncle’s offices and keeps the place tidy, making Judge Pommeroy very proud of his seriousness and hard work.
One afternoon Mrs. Forrester comes to see Judge Pommeroy. She invites the judge and Niel to dinner at the Forrester house with another family named Ogden. The Ogdens have a daughter named Constance, and Mrs. Forrester asks Niel to help entertain her.
Niel drives Mrs. Forrester home, and she offers him sherry. When Niel comments that it is nice that she is staying for Christmas this year, Mrs. Forrester confides that they are staying all winter because they cannot afford to go away. She comments, “For some reason, we are extraordinarily poor just now” (21). Niel grimly says that everyone is, but Mrs. Forrester says that it does no good to be glum about it. She chats with Niel, telling him that she hopes he will visit often during the winter. She is worried that Captain Forrester is declining.
Niel leaves the Forrester home, thrilled that he will be spending time with the Forresters. He admires Mrs. Forrester greatly and finds it amazing that a woman as attractive and distinguished as she could live in Sweet Water. Niel thinks back to the very first time he saw her, when he was a very young boy. Even then he had sensed that she was special. Now he’s proud “that at the first moment he had recognized her as belonging to a different world from any he had ever known” (23).
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
Niel and Judge Pommeroy arrive for dinner. Captain Forrester meets them at the door, and they meet the Ogdens. Constance is pretty but somewhat disagreeable; she does not respond well when Niel attempts small talk. Instead he talks to Mrs. Ogden, who is more amiable. Mr. Ogden is quiet, though he brightens when Mrs. Forrester speaks to him.
There is another guest from Denver as well, a powerful-looking man named Frank Ellinger. Niel is interested in him, having heard stories about his exploits. Niel “didn’t know whether he liked him or not. He knew nothing bad about him, but he felt something evil” (27). Niel had heard that Ellinger was wild in his youth, but he was respected for caring for his aged mother.
Captain Forrester carves the turkey, showing himself to still be a commanding figure and excellent host. After Captain Forrester toasts the group with his customary invocation, “Niel drank his wine with a pleasant shiver, thinking that nothing else made life seem so precarious, the future so cryptic and unfathomable, as that brief toast uttered by the massive man, ‘Happy days!’” (29).
Mrs. Ogden asks Captain Forrester to tell Constance the story of how he found the spot where he built his house. Captain Forrester says that he came out West after serving in the Civil War, back when the prairie land was unsettled. He found an Indian encampment on the hill where the house now stands and resolved to one day live there. Throughout many years, during which he was occupied with his ill first wife, he promised himself that he would return to build the house. After he met and married the current Mrs. Forrester, his dream was achieved. He seems to have concluded his tale, but Mrs. Forrester encourages him to finish by sharing his philosophy of life. Captain Forrester says that whatever a person dreams and plans will become a reality. Once a goal is dreamed, it becomes an accomplished fact, according to Captain Forrester.
The group moves to the parlor to play cards. Constance looks offended when she is asked to partner with Niel, and Niel thinks she hates him. To smooth over the situation, Niel tells her that he is accustomed to playing with his uncle, so Constance can partner with Ellinger, whom she is obviously attracted to.
As Judge Pommeroy and Niel are preparing to leave, Mrs. Forrester whispers to Niel to remember that he promised to come the next day to help keep Constance amused. Niel replies that he’ll do so, but only for Mrs. Forrester.
Mrs. Forrester helps her husband, who is very tired, undress and get into bed. She starts to undress herself but hears someone downstairs. Frank Ellinger is waiting for her, having a drink. Mrs. Forrester tells him that he must be careful, that she thinks there is someone listening in on the stairway. She leaves, but they are clearly familiar with each other in an intimate way.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Niel goes to the Forrester home the next day and finds Mrs. Forrester and Frank Ellinger leaving in a sleigh. Mrs. Forrester tells Niel that they are going to cut cedar boughs for Christmas, and she asks him to keep Constance company, parting with “a meaning, confidential smile” (35).
Niel finds Constance in the parlor. She complains about being left behind and shut up in the house, so Niel offers to take her on a walk to town. Constance ignores this and asks Niel if they could get another sleigh at the livery barn. He firmly tells her that there are none available.
In the sleigh, Mrs. Forrester is relieved to be away from Constance. She makes fun of Constance, saying to Ellinger, “You’ve reduced her to a state of imbecility, really!” (36). Mrs. Forrester laughs, thinking of how bothered Niel must be. Ellinger asks about Niel, and Mrs. Forrester claims she is going to train him to be useful.
Ellinger calls Mrs. Forrester “Marian,” her first name, and says that it has been a very long time since he last saw her. She agrees that it has been too long. Ellinger complains that Marian will not let him write her love letters. She replies that he will not need to be so careful now.
Ellinger asks if they should stop the sleigh in the cedar grove, but Marian tells him to continue to a deep ravine. Ellinger notes “her averted head” and that the “quality of her voice had changed, and he knew the change” (37).
Later, young Adolph Blum comes upon a thicket and sees an empty sleigh with its horses tied up nearby. Hidden behind a fallen log, he soon sees Mrs. Forrester and a stranger who was visiting the Forresters emerge from the ravine. They embrace for a long time before getting into the sleigh. The man asks Mrs. Forrester if she wants him to cut some cedar boughs, but she says it does not matter. The man goes off and returns with evergreen branches, and they ride away.
Adolph Blum does not consider telling anyone about the encounter. Mrs. Forrester is of an elite class, and her actions are above reproach to him. Adolph also appreciates Mrs. Forrester’s kindness in buying the fish and game he brings to her back door; “[s]he treated him like a human being. His little chats with her, her nod and smile when she passed him on the street, were among the pleasantest things he had to remember” (38).
Part 1, Chapters 3-5 Analysis
These chapters show that time has passed and the characters have changed. Niel is 19 years old and very taken with Mrs. Forrester. Such descriptions of her indicate that he is not alone in this: “Mrs. Forrester looked at one, and one knew that she was bewitching. It was instantaneous, and it pierced the thickest hide” (19). These prairie farmers and ranchers are rough men, but they are all captivated by her charm, manner, and “musical” laughter. Mrs. Forrester flirts gently with Niel, teasing him that he must think her old so that he will tell her she is lovely.
Mrs. Forrester embodies Niel’s ideal of what a woman should be, and he marvels that “a woman like her” stays “among common people” like him (22). Niel insists that “not even in Denver had he ever seen another woman so elegant” (22); all other women pale in comparison. When Mrs. Forrester later admits she is using Niel to distract Constance and indulge in an affair with Ellinger, it exposes this idealized conception of her as flawed.
Similarly, these chapters depict Captain Forrester as Niel’s ideal of masculinity. He has a calming, dignified nature, which made him an outstanding manager of his workmen, and he has a “repose […] like that of a mountain” (28). He is exemplary in both morals and actions, and Niel admires him. Everything about Captain Forrester is open and sincere yet distinctively substantial; “something in the way he uttered his unornamented phrases gave them the impressiveness of inscriptions cut in stone” (30). He is true gentleman, personally asking each of the ladies if his cigar smoke bothers them.
By contrast, Frank Ellinger is a man marked by past scandals and a much darker personality. His presence immediately brings tension to the story, as Niel finds something innately evil about him. With the genteel examples of the Forresters before him, Niel is repelled by the man who seems their opposite.
Mrs. Forrester seems to fear competition for Ellinger’s affection from Constance, as the reader can surmise that Mrs. Forrester invited Niel to her home to keep Constance’s attention away from Ellinger. Constance flirts with Ellinger, asking for the cherry in his cocktail. When Mrs. Forrester tells Niel to offer Constance his cherry as well, Constance takes it but does not eat it. The sexual symbolism here is clear. When Mrs. Forrester suspects that someone is spying on Ellinger and herself, it is implied that she thinks it is Constance, as she says it is a “kitten with claws” in “silk stockings” (33). The next day, Mrs. Forrester succeeds in getting Ellinger away from Constance, with Niel’s assistance. It becomes even clearer that Mrs. Forrester and Ellinger have a long-standing affair, as they have a tryst in the grove. Of course Niel does not know that he is aiding Mrs. Forrester in being alone with Ellinger for purposes that would shock and appall him. He simply dislikes Constance and wants to thwart her desire to be with Ellinger.
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