Nine Coaches Waiting Explained

Nine Coaches Waiting
Author:Mary Stewart
Cover Artist:Eleanor Poore
Country:United Kingdom
Language:English
Genre:Mystery, Romance novel
Publisher:Hodder & Stoughton
Release Date:January 1, 1959, copyrighted by the author 1958
Media Type:Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Oclc:259252977
Nine Coaches Waiting
Author:Mary Stewart
Cover Artist:[unknown]
Country:United States
Language:English
Genre:Mystery, Romance novel
Publisher:M. S. Mill Company, New York, 1959
Release Date:January 1, 1959, copyrighted by the author 1958
Media Type:Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Oclc:259252977

Nine Coaches Waiting is a then-contemporary romantic suspense novel by Mary Stewart who became known as "The Queen of Suspense".[1] The novel was copyrighted by the author in 1958 and published on January 1, 1959. The setting is the late 1950s—contemporary to the time of its authorship and first publication.

Nine Coaches Waiting is the tale of a young English governess, Linda Martin, who travels from North London via Paris then Geneva to the remote Château Valmy, beyond Thonon, France, in the French Alps, to take care of nine-year-old Philippe de Valmy. There she finds herself entangled in a murder plot which eventually results in the revelation of a dark secret.[2]

Linda's full given name is Belinda[3] but she uses "Linda for short—or for pretty, [her] mother used to say."[4] Linda is the Spanish word for beautiful or pretty.

In keeping with Linda's background in poetry and other literature, Stewart employs chapter epigraphs with quotes from the works of numerous poets, playwrights, and authors, that fit the themes or actions of each scene. Among these are lines from Macbeth, King John, and Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, as well as from his Sonnets 88 and 90. Others are from John Milton; Charles Dickens; John Keats; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Robert Browning; John Donne; George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; William Blake; George Meredith; and John Webster. Although there are sometimes two, all epigraphs are much briefer than Thomas Middleton's lines that head the first chapter and from whence Stewart derived the book's title. (See Title under Notes below.)

A good example is the epigraph from King John that introduces Chapter VIII:

And the final epigraph (at Chapter XXI):

Cinderella is referred to by Linda, as is Jane Eyre, for obvious reasons. Mary Stewart's vast literary knowledge and background are particularly, yet seamlessly, manifest in this book.

Synopsis

Linda Martin lands in Paris to take her new post as governess to the 9-year old Philippe, Comte de Valmy. She is feeling uneasy about hiding her past, particularly her French birth and fluency in the French language, from her employers, since Mme. de Valmy had been strangely adamant at her interview about wanting an English governess who would not be tempted to slip into French. Linda, who had been orphaned herself, quickly becomes protective of Philippe, who has also lost both his parents in a tragic accident.

Philippe lives with his aunt and uncle in the vast and ornate Château Valmy in the alpine French countryside not far from Geneva, Switzerland. Léon de Valmy, Philippe's uncle, runs the estate on behalf of his under-age nephew until the boy inherits in 6 years.

When Linda arrives at the imposing eighteenth-century château—a great mansion with its "four-square classic grace" that makes it less than a romantic castle with turrets and pinnacles[5] but far more than a mere country house—she is at once enchanted by its beauty and history, but is also immediately struck by the sense of menace and doom surrounding its inhabitants. Léon is a charismatic force of nature and with a palpable charm who Linda begins to suspect may have plans to take over both the title and the chateau.,[6] When Linda meets his dashing and devastatingly handsome son Raoul, she understands a bit more about the de Valmy heritage and wonders to what extent he is involved in the threat to Philippe. As she becomes closer to Philippe and Raoul, Linda draws ever nearer to putting her finger on the source of the threat, and suspects the “English governess” who supposedly does not speak fluent French is being set up as the scapegoat to a nefarious plot. She may not be able to trust those she wants to, no matter how innocent or attractive they may seem. Soon it is up to the shy, young governess to beat the clock in order to save Philippe's life as well as her own.[7]

Characters

Notes

The novel is divided into nine parts or Nine Coaches. The nine coaches also refer to the nine vehicles that Linda rides in during the book's action. The first and second coaches are the two different taxis she takes when in Paris (Chapter I), the third is the Valmy-owned "big black Daimler"[24] (c. 1952; e.g., pre 1950) from Geneva, the nearest airport, to the Château Valmy in the High Savoy in the French Alps, chauffeured by Léon de Valmy's man Bernard (Chapter II), etc. The author only counts a vehicle as a coach if we are privy to Linda's thoughts as she's riding in it, no matter how brief the ride, such as that in the "battered Renault"[25] in Chapter XVI that begins the Seventh Coach. We don't, for instance, count a bus ride as one of the coaches if we only know during the action that she had ridden the bus that morning.

The title 'Nine Coaches Waiting' is derived from the play The Revenger's Tragedy attributed to Thomas Middleton:

Used by Mary Stewart as follows on page 1 (as the first epigraph, and incorporated, in part, into the first chapter):

Perhaps the name of the third brother Hippolyte de Valmy in the book was suggested by the character Hippolito (the brother of the revenger Vendice). The title of the book as well as that of the nine parts as Coaches keeps in the reader's mind the connection of the action to both the title and the first epigraph. It is much more significant than the clever connection to vehicles.

When she first arrives in France to take up her position as governess, Linda, in a taxi hurrying from the airport through the streets of Paris, suddenly recalls most of these lines sparked by the word Hurry, thinking: "...some tempter's list of pleasures, it had been, designed to lure a lonely young female to a luxurious doom; yes, that was it. Vendice enticing the pure and idiotic Castiza to the Duke's bed ....(Ay, to the devil)....I grinned to myself as I placed it. Inappropriate, certainly. This particular young female was heading, I hoped, neither to luxury nor to the devil, but merely to a new setting for the same old job she abandoned in England."[26] However, not many days later, ensconced at the luxurious Château Valmy, she finds herself privately referring to her employer Léon de Valmy as "the Demon King"[27] and the half-remembered verses turn out to be more á propos than she'd thought when she finally pieces together the murder plot and the rôle assigned to her before she ever left England.[28]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Box Set: Ivy Tree, Nine Coaches Waiting, Airs Above the Ground, Moon-spinners (Queen of Suspense) . 1916–2014 . Fawcett . Hardcover . January 1, 1961 .
  2. Source: dust jacket flaps to hardcover editions, including the first edition; and various covers of different paperback editions.
  3. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . M. S. Mill Company, New York, 1959. Chapter V . 61.
  4. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter V . 70.
  5. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter II . 20.
  6. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter II . 29.
  7. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter XVI . 295–298.
  8. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter VII . 106.
  9. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter VI. 84–85.
  10. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter II . 25.
  11. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . 239–240.
  12. Book: Sparknotes, Paradise Lost . John Milton, Writing Help, A+ Student Essay . https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/paradiselost/a-plus-essay/.
  13. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter VI . 100.
  14. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter VII . 108–109.
  15. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter VII. 109.
  16. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter I . 33.
  17. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter XIX . 345.
  18. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter II & XXI . 104–105, 389.
  19. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . M. S. Mill Company, 1 January 1959 . Chapter XVII . 268.
  20. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter V & IX . 72, 156.
  21. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter V . 72–73.
  22. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter IX . 156.
  23. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter XI . 204.
  24. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter II . 14.
  25. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter XVI . 295.
  26. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter I . 7.
  27. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapters I & VII . 26, 123.
  28. Book: Stewart, Mary . Mary Stewart (novelist) . Nine Coaches Waiting . 1916–2014 . HarperCollins Publishers, First HarperTorch paperback printing, December 2001. 0380820765 . Chapter XIII . 239–240.