Nine Coaches Waiting: Difference between revisions

▲* '''Léon de Valmy''': called The Master by those in his employ, Léon is the mysterious and seemingly cynical trustee of the opulent eighteenth-century Château Valmy and the extensive Valmy estate, managing it in an obsessive way, ostensibly for his nephew Philippe until the boy inherits at the age of fifteen. He uses a noiseless motorized wheelchair, having lost the use of his legs when he broke his back in a polo accident twelve years before. He had managed Valmy for his brother Étienne, the Comte de Valmy, from the time of their father's death because Étienne preferred to live in Paris. A "big, handsome, powerful man" who is "damnably attractive"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter II | pages=25.}}</ref> with a considerable charm of manner when he chooses to use it, Léon sees himself as Milton's "thunder-scarred angel"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | pages=239-240.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Sparknotes, Paradise Lost, | chapter=John Milton, Writing Help, A+ Student Essay |chapter-url=https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/paradiselost/a-plus-essay/}}</ref> Lucifer after the fall, in reference to his crippled state—and, it appears, in other ways as well.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sparknotes, Paradise Lost, | chapter=John Milton, Writing Help, A+ Student Essay |chapter-url=https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/paradiselost/a-plus-essay/}}</ref> He always had to do everything and do it better than anyone else, as if a devil were driving him.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter II | pages=25.}}</ref> If a fallen angel, he must needs be an archangel (the "Demon King"). Black-browed and black-eyed with now-white hair, he's known to be a superior landlord with an overwhelming personality and is well-respected by the denizens of the Merlon River valley. He is able to navigate his wheelchair through the Valmy château (using the [[Elevator| lift ]] installed in the library), and through the formal gardens, but not through Valmy's steep woods. He uses Bernard for that. Cradled in the great pine forests of the region and reached from the valley via a charming centuries-old stone bridge over the river and a sharp zig-zag upwards through the trees, Château Valmy includes vast lands covered with timber, one of the chief sources of income for the mountainside estate.

▲* '''Héloïse de Valmy''': Léon's second wife, whom he married 16 years before. Slender and elegant with well-coiffed silver hair, she has the kind of beauty that largely outlasts aging, but she is frail and suffers from a heart condition, insomnia, and depression. To most, she is cool and remote in manner. Though much overshadowed by her husband, she is devoted to him—and to no one else.

▲* '''Philippe de Valmy''': Nine-year-old Philippe is a quiet, lonely little boy. With the typical Valmy coloring of black hair and black eyes, he is pale, thin and small for his age. Intelligent but subdued, he seems unlikely to chatter and is very self-controlled, only partly due to breeding. Philippe inherited the Château Valmy and its surrounding estate along with the title of Comte de Valmy (Count of Valmy) and the Paris house at the death of his mother and his father Étienne, the oldest of the three Valmy brothers, in a plane crash the year before (the same fate as Linda's parents). His inheritance won't be officially turned over to him for another six years. Till then he has two trustees: his Uncle Léon for the Valmy estate and his Uncle Hippolyte for the boy himself. Philippe was raised in Paris, but when orphaned, lived at the Villa Mireille with his Uncle Hippolyte of whom he is very fond. Several months ago, Hippolyte's vocation took him on a scheduled lecture tour to Greece, at which time Philippe went to live at the Château Valmy with his Uncle Léon and Aunt Héloïse. His French nanny, who came with him, was dismissed, and an English governess (Linda) sought in London. Philippe takes to Linda quickly and it soon becomes apparent that Philippe "is better for having Linda there."<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter VI | page=100.}}</ref>

▲* '''Raoul de Valmy''': Léon's 30-year-old son, who is sophisticated, impulsive and something of an adventurer. Fluent in English as well as French, he has managed Bellevigne, his father's estate in [[Provence]] with its income deriving from vineyards, since he was 19—an uphill battle since his father takes funds from that estate to spend on Valmy and Raoul, whose heritage Bellevigne is as well, must continually fight him on that issue. Raoul, whose English mother (Deborah) died when he was 8, was a quiet, lonely little boy much like Philippe. He was raised at the Château Valmy (primarily by French nurses as a child) in the same rooms that had housed his father and uncles as children, and now are the abode of Philippe. When Raoul was 14, his father remarried but Héloïse was never a mother to him. For quite some time, Raoul has lived most of the year between Bellevigne and Paris. In appearance, Raoul could be a duplicate of what Léon must have been thirty years ago—"[[tall, dark and handsome]]."<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter VII | pages=108-109.}}</ref> His personality makes "as strong an impact"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter VII| pages=109.}}</ref> as his father's and he also can be very charming. Raoul is the only person who has ever stood up to his father or got the better of Léon in an encounter. However, unlike Léon's, Raoul's voice holds an "undertone of laughter that [is] unmistakably his." Raoul is a bit wild and always the subject of gossip, though nothing like his father and uncle Étienne were at the same age. Raoul has never known the type of carefree life they had lived. The Château Valmy is "a big place to be alone in"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter I | pages=33}}</ref> and "was never a house for children"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter XIX | pages=345}}</ref> in Raoul's experience, and he has sought "anodynes to loneliness"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter II & XXI | pages=104-105, 389}}</ref> in ways different than Linda has, only in part because he’s led a life of wealth and privilege. The loving home Linda was raised in is nothing like the one he knew.

▲* '''Hippolyte de Valmy''': Léon's kindly younger brother, who is an archaeologist of some repute. He inherited the Villa Mireille, a mansion with a fairly large property at the edge of Lac Léman (French name for [[Lake Geneva]], forty percent of which is in France) among similar properties lining the lake, a few kilometers below the Valmy estate and situated outside [[Thonon-les-Bains]] -- briefly '''Thonon.''' Rather unpredictatable, according to his brother Léon, Hippolyte has generally been away on expeditions or lecture tours. Whereas Léon was made trustee over Valmy, Hippolyte is the trustee of Philippe who has lived with him at the Villa Mireille since the boy's parents were killed. An engagement recently took him to Greece on a lecture tour, scheduled to last until the coming Easter, after which his plans include an excavation near Delphi for some months. The Villa Mireille has been shut up until his return. Linda views Hippolyte as her ''[[deus ex machina]]'',<ref name="Stewart 1959 p268">{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=M. S. Mill Company, 1 January 1959 | chapter=Chapter XVII | pages=268}}</ref> to whom, when he returns home "fly[ing] in out of the clouds,"<ref name="Stewart 1959 p268"/> she will be able to turn Philippe over with complete confidence for the boy's care and safety, and who will also be able to deal with the Valmy crisis.

▲* '''William Blake''': A good-hearted, shy Englishman in his twenties who is a university-educated forester at Dieudonné, the estate across the Merlon River from the Valmy estate, and the only adult Linda trusts with certainty, partly because he has absolutely no connection to the Valmys and has a life completely separate from them. Huge and blond, with a bit of a "stick-in-the-mud disposition,"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter V & IX | pages=72, 156.}}</ref> William speaks almost no French, but likes living in the area while he researches conifer diseases for an advanced degree in forestry—a subject on which he can wax enthusiastic. Much of his time is spent in a chalet-style log hut high up in the Dieudonné woods (his light seen like a star from the Château Valmy on the nights when he's there). Sometimes he sleeps at the Coq Hardi in Soubirous, the village in the Merlon River valley, where some English is spoken and he can get a good meal. He also does some climbing with friends in the region, on occasion. Whenever he meets someone from England, he dreads the all-too-frequent comment his name William Blake produces—"[[The_Lamb_(poem)|Little lamb, who made thee]]"—from [[Songs of Innocence]] by the English poet [[William Blake]], and he's grateful when Linda doesn't bring it up although she does guess which line he finds trying. Linda confesses she prefers tigers herself,<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter V | pages=72-73.}}</ref> an allusion to [[The Tyger]] from the same poet's [[Songs of Experience]] (a companion of opposites to The Lamb), an allusion that both characters understand. Her comment prompts him afterward to tell her to "chase [her] tigers" saying she's already found one—in Léon de Valmy. Why? Because he is "fierce and incalculable by reputation."<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter V | pages=72–73.}}</ref> The next time she runs into William, Linda thinks of him as "the one English lamb in my pride of French tigers"<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Stewart (novelist) |title=Nine Coaches Waiting |date=1916–2014 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001|isbn=0380820765 | chapter=Chapter IX | pages=156.}}</ref> but doesn't say so. William is Linda's first, and then back up, plan when crisis comes.