Evelina

Plot summary

The novel opens with a distressed letter from Lady Howard to her long-time acquaintance, the Reverend Arthur Villars. In the letter, Lady Howard reports that Mme. Duval, the grandmother of Villars' ward, Evelina Anville, intends to visit England to renew her acquaintance with her grand-daughter Evelina. Eighteen years earlier, Mme. Duval had broken off her relationship with her daughter Caroline, Evelina's mother, and has never acknowledged Evelina. Reverend Villars fears Mme. Duval's influence could lead Evelina to an untimely and shameful death similar to that of her mother Caroline.

In an effort to keep Evelina away from Mme. Duval, the Reverend consents to her visiting Lady Howard's home, Howard Grove, on an extended holiday. While she is there, news comes informing the family that Lady Howard's son-in-law, Captain Mirvan, a naval officer, is returning to England after an absence of seven years. Desperate to join the Mirvans on their trip to London, Evelina entreats her guardian to let her attend them, promising that the visit will last only a few weeks. With reluctance, the Reverend consents.

In London, Evelina's beauty and ambiguous social status attract unwanted attention and unkind speculation. Ignorant of the conventions and behaviours of 18th-century London society, she makes a series of humiliating (but humorous) faux pas, further exposing her to the ridicule of society. She soon earns the attentions of two gentlemen: Lord Orville, a handsome and extremely eligible peer who is a pattern card of modest and becoming behaviour, and Sir Clement Willoughby, a baronet with duplicitous intentions. Evelina's untimely reunion with her grandmother, along with the embarrassment her grandmother and her hitherto unknown extended family, the Branghtons, cause with their boorish social-climbing antics, soon lead her to believe that she will never gain Lord Orville's attention.

The Mirvans finally return to the country, taking Evelina and Mme. Duval with them. Spurred by Evelina's greedy cousins, Mme. Duval concocts a plan to sue Sir John Belmont, Evelina's father, and force him to recognize his daughter's claim in court. The Reverend is furious. Lady Howard intervenes and manages to elicit a compromise that sees her write to Sir John. Sir John responds unfavorably to her entreaty.

Mme. Duval is furious and threatens to take Evelina back to Paris with her to pursue the lawsuit. A second compromise sees Evelina return to London with her grandmother. There, she is forced to spend time in the company of her ill-bred cousins, the Branghtons, and their rowdy friends. During this period, Evelina is distracted by a melancholy Scottish poet, Mr. Macartney, whose dire poverty is clear. At one stage, she misinterprets his acquisition of pistols as a suicide attempt and bids him to look to his salvation. She later discovers he had been premeditating armed robbery to change his financial status whilst tracing his own obscure parentage, as well as recovering from the sudden death of his mother and the discovery that his beloved is actually his sister. Evelina gives him her purse as an act of charity. Beyond this episode, her time with the Branghtons is uniformly mortifying. Among the events she must suffer through is a disastrous visit to Marylebone, a pleasure garden, which sees her attacked by a drunken sailor and then rescued by prostitutes. It is in this humiliating company that she meets Lord Orville again. Certain that she has lost all possibility of his respect, she is stunned when he seeks her out in the unfashionable section of London and appears to be interested in renewing their earlier acquaintance. However, an insulting letter supposedly from Lord Orville leaves her devastated. Despondent at the belief that she erred in her perceptions of Orville, she returns home to Berry Hill and falls ill.

Slowly recuperating from her illness, Evelina agrees to accompany her neighbour, a sarcastic widow named Mrs. Selwyn, to the resort town of Clifton Heights. There, she attracts the unwanted attentions of a womanizer, Lord Merton, who she eventually learns is on the eve of marrying Lady Louisa Larpent, Lord Orville's sister. She realises they have come to Clifton to prepare for the wedding. Evelina tries to distance herself from Lord Orville because of his impertinent piece of correspondence, but his gentle manners work their spell and Evelina is torn between her attachment to him and her belief in his past duplicity.

The unexpected appearance of Mr. Macartney reveals an unexpected streak of jealousy in the heretofore unflappable Lord Orville. Convinced that Macartney is a rival for Evelina's affections, Lord Orville withdraws. In reality, Macartney has arrived in Clifton Heights to repay his financial debt to Evelina.

Lord Orville's genuine affection for Evelina and her assurances that nothing untoward is going on between her and Macartney finally win out over Orville's jealousy, and he secures a meeting between Evelina and Macartney. It appears that all doubts have been resolved between Lord Orville and Evelina, especially when Mrs. Selwyn informs her that she overheared Lord Orville arguing with Sir Clement about the latter's inappropriate attentions to Evelina. Lord Orville proposes, much to Evelina's delight. However, Evelina is distraught at the continuing gulf between herself and her father and the mystery surrounding his false daughter. Finally, Mrs. Selwyn is able to secure a surprise meeting with Sir John. When he sees Evelina, he is horrified and guilt-stricken because she closely resembles her mother, Caroline. Evelina is able to ease his guilt with her repeated gentle pardons and the delivery of a letter written by her mother on her deathbed in which she forgives Sir John for his behavior if he will remove her ignominy (by acknowledging their marriage) and acknowledge Evelina as his legitimate daughter.

It is Mrs. Clifton, Berry Hill's longtime housekeeper, who is able to reveal the second Miss Belmont's parentage. She identifies Polly Green, Evelina's former wetnurse and mother of a girl only six weeks older than Evelina, as the perpetrator of the fraud. Polly has been passing her own daughter off as that of Sir John and Caroline for the past eighteen years in the hopes of securing a better future for her. Ultimately, Lord Orville suggests that the unfortunate girl be named a co-heiress alongside Evelina, much to kind-hearted Evelina's delight.

Finally, Sir Clement Willoughby writes to Evelina and confesses to being the author of the insulting letter she received from Orville (although Evelina already suspected as much), which he wrote in the hope of separating Lord Orville and Evelina. Mr. Macartney is reunited with the false Miss Belmont, who was the young woman with whom he had been in love in Paris. Separated by Sir John, at first because Macartney was of too low birth and wealth to marry his purported daughter, and then because, thanks to an affair with Mr. Macartney's mother, he thought they were brother and sister, they are able to marry now that Miss "Belmont's" true parentage has become known. They are married in a joint ceremony alongside Lord Orville and Evelina, now Sir John's acknowledged daughter. After Lord Orville and Evelina marry, they travel to Berry Hill to see Reverend Villars for their honeymoon trip.^[2]