Mrs Marroner decided to help Gerta, not knowing that her husband Mr Marroner was responsible for it. When Mrs Marroner and Gerta got back home there were letters, when Mrs Marroner opened the letter the letter read:
“I am deeply concerned at the news you send”
Mrs Marroner was shocked, but when she finished reading the letter, she realised what was going on. So Gerta entered and Mrs Marroner told her to take her letter, Gerta opened the letter, it began
“My dear wife” she read slowly.
Gerta was confused as well, and then Mrs Marroner noticed it was a mistake, she went on, with a hard quietness. Mrs Marroner was becoming angry, she had lost her social bearings somehow, lost her usual keen sense of the proper thing to do.
“This is not life; this was a nightmare”.
At this point, Mrs Marroner helped Gerta as she had promised
“The poor child” she said “she is here without a mother- she is so foolish
and yielding-l must not be too stern with her”. Mrs Marroner helped Gerta through pregnancy.
When Mr Marroner reached home a few weeks later, he saw no one at home, no one answered the door, and so he went in, no one came into the house all night, so Mr Marroner spent the night alone. Early in the morning, he went to his office, all his friends asked after his wife,
“Pretty glad to see you l guess”, later on during the day, around eleven, a man came round to see him which happened to be John Hill, her lawyer, and her cousin too delivering a letter to him which read,
“I have gone. I will care for Gerta. Goodbye Marion”
Mr Marroner was sad, angry and depressed
“She had come between him and his wife. She had taken his wife from
him”.
Mr Marroner was confused he didn’t know where to turn to, because the letter Mrs Marroner had sent had no date, no address, no postmark nothing but the note.
Mr Marroner went in search for his wife, Gerta and the baby, it was long before he found them, Mr Marroner begged for forgiveness, but neither of the two women answered him, then his wife who had left him answered quietly
“What have you to say to us”?
At the end of this story Mrs Marroner lived without a man and she was happy.
In Interlopers, we first met Sally when she was anxiously awaiting her fiancé, with her mother Mrs Hall, Mrs Hall a very honest, frank and outspoken woman was very excited. Charles Darton was Sally’s fiancé, and he was coming to Sally’s house to marry her. Charles Darton was late getting to Sally’s house because of their way; they were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern current of traffic, the place of Darton’s pilgrimage being an old-fashioned village.
“The lane was sometimes so narrow”
It was getting late and Sally becoming to worry and so was Mrs Hall
“It is nearly eight; said she
“Eight o’clock, and neither dress or man,” said Mrs Hall.
Sally was a comely, independent, simple character with no make-up about her; she was also kind, rich, single-minded, dignified, obedient, superior and grateful woman.
Suddenly, Mrs Hall heard footsteps clambering up the roots of the sycamore “Yes it sounds like them at least”, she said.
They were expecting a knock, but there was no knock, then both women went down the passage
“O, it’s a tramp-gracious me!” said Sally starting back.
He gazed at the “two women fixedly for a moment then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour, dropped his glance to the floor, sank into a chair without uttering a word”
Sally tried to discern the visitor across the candles, and then suddenly she said,
“Why-mother”, it is Phil from Australia”
Philip was Mrs Hall’s son, and Sally’s brother.
“O, Philip-are you ill” said Mrs Hall.
Philip replied his mother telling her he wasn’t ill then he told his mother that he didn’t know how he got to where he was that he was driven to it
“things were against me out there, and went from bad to worse”.
Philip hasn’t written to his family for the last two or three years, so they were surprised to see him. Mrs Hall explained to him that the night he came home wasn’t good she told him that Sally was about to get married to Charles Darton, a gentleman farmer-quite wealthy man, but Mrs Hall said to him
“But mind you-you are welcome to this home as long as it is mine. I
don’t wish to turn you adrift. We will make the best of a bad job; and l
hope you are not seriously ill”?
Mrs Hall and Sally promised to take good care of him, as they were about to leave him he said to them
“I have a wife as destitute as l”.
Mrs Hall was surprised “a wife”; he then told them he had two little children. Mrs Hall and Sally felt sorry for Phil and said to him
“I suppose those helpless beings are left in Australia”
“No. They are in England”.
Mrs Hall and Sally were concerned and curious and asked where they were so he said to them
“In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till l had seen you
mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were very tired, and
are resting out there on some straw”.
Philip begged her mother to allow him and his family lie in their stable-to-night and by break of day, they will be gone with no further, but Mrs Hall answered hastilily
“O, no, never shall be said that l sent any of my own family from my
door, bring em in Philip, or take me out to them”.
Mrs Hall and Sally took care of Philip’s family they sheltered for them and took a great responsibility for them. They were going to fetch Helena to come and sleep when they saw the stable-door was open; a light shone from the lantern which always hung there and which Philip had lighted, as he said, approaching the door, Mrs Hall pronounced the name ‘Helena’, getting inside the stable they were in for a surprise, Helena was in a new and handsome gown, Sally’s own and an old bonnet. “She was standing up, agitated; held by her companion none else than Sally’s affianced, farmer Charles Darton”.
Later at night Darton was allowed to stay in the knap. Helena was going to make some hot water for her husband Phil, entering the room she saw Charles, she wanted to leave but Darton insisted she stays.
Helena and Charles were long time ago lovers, Helena left Charles then, because Charles was poor back then and she wanted a rich husband, a man that can look after her she was a bit of a ‘GOLD DIGGER’, so now, that they have met again, they decided to give it another try, since Philip is now poor, during this their conversation, Sally heard everything. While Helena and Charles were still talking Charles said to Helena
“Let me take care of the children, at least while you are so unsettled. You
belong to another, so l cannot take care of you”.
“Yes you can,” said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood beside them. It was Sally, “she no longer belongs to another…my poor brother is dead!”
Charles Darton wanted to help Mrs Hall, but Mrs Hall said there was nothing he could do, Helena and Charles got married, since Sally called off her wedding to Darton, so after months when Helena got pregnant, she gave birth and died afterwards leaving Charles with three children. Charles thought he couldn’t carry on like this, so he decided to go back to Sally, but Sally said no many times;
“Please do not put this question to me anymore. Friends as long as you
like, but lovers and married never”.
At the end, Sally lives alone, happy with no husband.
The similarity between both stories is that both major character were happy at the end with no husband, their husband came back to beg for forgiveness, both neither characters were willing to take them back, and the difference between them is that in ‘Turned’ it was
“The sin of man against womanhood, the offence is against
womanhood. Against motherhood. Against the child”, while in
Interlopers it was straight forward, she made it clear to him
“To any extent
Please do not put this question to me anymore
Friends as long as you like, but lovers and married never”.
In Turned the major character Mrs Marroner suffered more than Gerta. Mrs Marroner was kind, she had a perfect confidence, “she had a life, so rich and wide that no one loss, even a great one would wholly cripple her”, her life would have been so complete, if only she had a child, while Gerta the minor character was hopeless at one stage, she had been so adored and had been treated like the daughter of the Marroners’, she was helpless and confiding and she was “rich womanhood within helpless infancy without”
The reader is encouraged to feel disappointed, unbelieving and shocked, but at the end, will definitely agree to what happened to Mrs Marroner.
In Interlopers, we learnt that Sally, Mrs Hall and Helena were women, one with no husband (Mrs Hall), one with husband, but very ill (Helena) and one who is about to get married (Sally).
Helena’s character shows that some women are not independent they rely on other people, while Sally’s character showed that some women are independent and strong they don’t wait for no-one to give them the go ahead.
We can only see this similarity between Mrs Marroner and Sally, both women were strong, lived alone at the end and were happy.
In Turned, it was a relationship between a man and a woman. Mr Marroner and Mrs Marroner have been married for a long time, but Mrs Marroner bore no child to Mr Marroner, so Mr Marroner decided to pregnate Gerta a housemaid, Gerta was pregnant, and Mrs Marroner found out, but because she was kind, she helped Gerta.
Mr Marroner came back from business trip, went around looking for them and asked for forgiveness but Mrs Marroner decided to stay with the baby and Gerta, so Mr Marroner ended up living on his own.
Similarly in Interlopers, a relationship between a man and a woman goes wrong. This time, the reason been that Sally’s bother’s wife Helena and Sally’s fiancé Charles Darton had a relationship long time ago, so when they meet again at Sally’s house, their feelings came back flooding for each other, so they ended up marrying each other, but along the story Helena died, so Charles decided to go back and beg Sally, but Sally says NO and decides to stay single.
Both women in this presentation of women and men, makes us see that women are strong and happy to live without men.
They have showed power, independence, superior, well-filled and well-balanced mind
There NO is NO and their YES is YES.
