"
Desperate Remedies" by
Thomas Hardy, is his first published novel, in 1871.
This story is rather complicated and full
of intrigue. Set mainly in Dorset, betrayals and violence follow the welfare of Cytherea Graye, a young woman forced by circumstance to become a lady's maid and later, as a companion to the imperious Miss Aldclyffe, the mistress of Knapwater House. Years earlier, Miss Aldclyffe had an illegitimate son, Aeneas Manston. It is Miss Aldclyffe's hope that Manston, whose post as her land agent she arranges, should marry Cytherea, who is in love with Edward Springrove, a fledgling architect and son of a neighbouring farmer.
Another complication is that Aeneas Manston is already married to a down-at-heel American woman named Eunice who pursues him to the West Country where she is presumed to have perished in a fire at the Three Tranters Inn. The truth is that Manston murdered her and placed her remains in the smouldering ashes of the fire.
More complications ensue. A combination of circumstances forces Cytherea to accept Manston in marriage, upon a supposed revelation that Edward Springrove, who had unwisely attached himeslf to a local girl, has been jilted.
So the story goes. After a lot of investigative work, Aeneas Manston is found guilty and brought forward as the murderer of Eunice. He hangs himself in his cell. The ending is a kind of an adult fairy tale in which Cytherea and Springrove are eventually reunited as Miss Aldclyffe dies.