Juliana Lynke

The first time she is mentioned is when Lady Jane Lynke comes across a sarcophagus with a statue of Peregrine Vincent Theobald Lynke on top of it. On this sarcophagus she is mentioned as “also his wife” (p. 595). The next encounter takes place later when a picture of her is looked at by Edward Stramer and Lady Jane Lynke. There she is described as “a young woman in a short-wasted muslin gown” (p. 606). In the picture she has curls with ribbons in it and a long, fair, oval face that looked at them dumbly and without any expression. It is even described as a “stare of frozen beauty” (p. 606). Only later it’s found out that she was born a Miss Portallo and that her family had a lot of money, which they gave as a dowry. After the marriage to Peregrine Vincent Theobald Lynke she had spent the rest of her life at Bells, completely isolated from the outside world. She was held there in seclusion by Mr. Jones by orders of her husband (p. 613). She herself described these restraints as unreasonable when she tells Peregrine Vincent Theobald Lynke in a letter that “you would yourself have seen it to be unnecessary to put this restraint upon me” (p. 613). In the same letter she even calls the whole act „a fate more cruel than I deserve and more painful than I can bear” (p. 613). In her heart she is in a conflict with herself. On the one hand she still loves him and tells him that she is waiting for him at Bells, on the other she blames him for leaving her alone. In the end she even begs her husband to at least allow her to have contact with the neighbors and his friends, so that she wouldn’t be so lonely anymore. After that, nothing else is mentioned about either her or Peregrine Vincent Theobald Lynke [1].

[1] Lewis, Richard Warrington Baldwin (1968): The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton – Volume 2. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.