Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Jean's investigation into Gretchen's claim takes her to Luna Street in Chelsea, a neighborhood that shatters her expectations. She had assumed Chelsea was uniformly fashionable, but discovers pockets of neglect that resemble slums. The memory of a childhood lunch with her late godmother, Aunt Rosa—a Belgian industrialist's descendant who once treated her to vichyssoise and rabbit fricassée at the Anglo-Belgian Club—had prompted Jean to dress smartly for the visit. Now, in her gray wool suit with a fur collar, she feels conspicuously out of place among the shabby streets, where abandoned cars serve as playgrounds for feral-looking boys.
Jean's route to Martha Campkin began with a clue from Alice Halfyard: Martha's father was a vicar. A quick search in Crockford's clerical directory reveals Reverend William Sefton Campkin of St. John's Rectory, Chatham. When Jean phones the rectory on a Sunday afternoon, the reverend's soft, tentative voice surprises her—it doesn't sound like a pulpit voice. He admits, with some apology, that he is no longer in contact with his daughter, and asks Jean to pass along his good wishes if she finds her. He mentions that Martha's mother is not in the best of health. The short chain of addresses Jean follows to locate Martha makes her wonder what effort her father ever made to find his daughter, and what caused their estrangement.
When Jean finally speaks to Martha on the phone, she doesn't mention Gretchen, sticking instead to her cover story about researching St. Cecilia's. Martha's confident, cultured voice may have contributed to Jean's decision to overdress. They arrange to meet on a Thursday at three o'clock.
Martha opens the door to number 16 Luna Street—a tall, striking woman with scarlet lipstick, a paint-smeared smock, and a headscarf tied around her forehead with the knot at the front, a style Jean finds eccentric. Martha immediately asks about Jean's fur collar, explaining she has a severe allergy, and Jean must leave her jacket in the hallway. Jean notices Martha walks with a stick and wears leather splints on her hands and wrists, leaving only her fingers and thumbs free.
Martha's ground-floor apartment is a chaotic artist's studio: an easel with a prepared canvas, a trestle table covered in buckled paint tubes and jam jars of brushes, canvases stacked like giant slices of toast, and competing smells of turpentine, laundry, and stale lunch. The kitchen is in considerable disorder—unwashed dishes, a scorched oilcloth table, and items of underwear hanging on a wooden frame. Martha seems oblivious to the mess, humming cheerfully as she hunts for clean mugs. Jean, recognizing poverty, produces the florentines she bought at Peter Jones, and Martha's face transforms with a slow, wide smile.
Over coffee and florentines, they discuss St. Cecilia's. Martha remembers Gretchen, Brenda, and