The Case of the Missing Marquess

“Obviously she had been at work on this gift for some time. She did not lack thought for me, I told myself. Firmly. Several times throughout the evening.”

Enola’s repeated mantra regarding the cipher book reveals the hurt and confusion she feels at her mother’s sudden disappearance as well as her foundational belief in her mother’s love. The isolation of “Firmly” as a sentence fragment draws attention to the effort Enola puts into guiding her own thoughts in a positive direction, as does the following fragment offering the amplifying detail “Several times throughout the evening.”

“Managing her estate, Mum liked to let growing things alone.”

Although Enola is commenting on the overgrown gardens at Ferndell, the phrase “growing things” also applies to Enola herself. Figuratively, Enola is like these overgrown gardens—Eudoria leaves her to her own devices much of the time instead of “tending” to her, and as a result, Enola has grown in directions of her own choosing instead of conforming to the social norms of her time. Enola views her mother’s lack of interest in pruning and shaping the gardens as respect for the plants’ self-determination. By extension, Eudoria’s approach to Enola is a kind of benign neglect meant to encourage Enola’s independent growth.

“Looking about me in the hush of my mother’s sitting room, I felt rather more worshipful than if I were in a chapel.”

Enola’s simile of the chapel is both a wry comment on her own lack of religious belief and a reiteration of her respect for her mother. Her mother’s sitting room is like a holy place to her because of how much she admires and loves Eudoria. The fact that Eudoria has always made her rooms off limits to others only increases the mystique of this private space and its usual occupant for Enola, inspiring her “worshipful” feeling.

“I wondered whether Father had really expired of mortification due to my existence, as the village children liked to tell me.”

Springer conveys Enola’s isolation through the cruelty of the other children’s taunts and by her own internalized shame. Despite being 14 years old, she shows a youthful innocence in entertaining the belief that the other children might have been correct and that her existence as a late-in-life child might actually have killed her father from embarrassment.

“I remembered Dr. Watson’s listing of my brother’s accomplishments: scholar, chemist, superb violinist, expert marksman, swordsman, singlestick fighter, pugilist, and brilliant deductive thinker. Then I formed a mental list of my own accomplishments: able to read, write, and do sums; find birds’ nests; dig worms and catch fish; and oh, yes, ride a bicycle.”

Enola’s inner monologue uses parallel structure and language to compare her abilities to Sherlock’s, imbuing her use of the term “accomplishments” with a tone of sarcasm. Setting up the comparison in such similar terms highlights the differences in their skills and conveys Enola’s dismissive attitude toward her own abilities. She does not yet see that her youth, inexperience, and the social constraints on her gender restrict her freedom in ways Sherlock, as a wealthy, white, adult man, does not experience. As Enola’s arc progresses, she discovers she’s actually able to compete with her famous brother using her own underappreciated abilities, emphasizing the novel’s thematic interest in The Underestimated Strengths of Women.

“‘Could mean that she left impulsively and in haste, or it could reflect the innate untidiness of a woman’s mind,’ interrupted Sherlock. ‘Of what use is reason when it comes to the dealings of a woman?’”

Sherlock’s comments regarding the disheveled state of Eudoria’s rooms reveal a common prejudice against women held in Victorian England. This belief that women are less capable of rational thought guides not only Sherlock’s and Mycroft’s attitude toward their mother but their treatment of Enola, as well.

“I could not quite tell how I felt about it, either, other than bewildered. But something secret fluttered like a butterfly in my heart.”

Enola’s confusion and inability to articulate her feelings reflect both her youth and the magnitude of her shock when she learns that her birth is not the cause of the rift in her family. Her simile comparing her feelings to a butterfly in her heart suggests that she has suddenly begun to hope that her brothers might learn to love her and that she is not really alone in the world. Because these stakes are very high and she has good reason to worry that this hope will not come true, Enola suppresses her understanding of her own feelings, trying to keep them a “secret” not just from others but from herself.

“He rolled his eyes. ‘Just like her mother,’ he declared to the ceiling, and then he fixed upon me a stare so martyred, so condescending, that I froze rigid.”

Enola’s visceral reaction to Mycroft’s words and manner emphasizes her subconscious understanding of misogyny, even though she has not yet been directly exposed to it. Her brothers’ return acts as a turning point in her understanding of both Mycroft and Eudoria. She suddenly understands that Mycroft is ruthless when it comes to the management of his property, and Enola has, like Ferndell itself, now become his legal property. Her fantasy about having a relationship with Mycroft implodes in the face of his arrogant cruelty, and she fully understands Eudoria’s desperation to get away from Mycroft’s control.

“It feels very queer to think of one’s mother as a person like oneself, not just a mum, so to speak.”

Enola’s realization that her mother is a real person with strengths and weaknesses and hopes and fears just like herself is one that many young people experience as they mature, consistent with her coming-of-age arc. Enola sees that, although Eudoria has an obligation to her family and to her role as a mother, like any human being, she is more than these obligations and must also consider her own independent desires, pointing to The Tension Between Independence and Obligation as a central theme in the story.

“I was expected to put on the Ideal Corset […] with frontal and lateral regulators plus, of course, a Patent Dress Improver so that never again would my back be able to rest against that of any chair I sat in.”

This passage’s diction conveys how inhumane and ridiculous Enola finds the clothing she is now expected to wear. Clinical terms like “frontal” and “lateral,” juxtaposed with hyperbolic marketing language like “Ideal Corset” and “Patent Dress Improver,” suggest that science is being used to perfect the human female by changing her form into something more socially desirable to men—making women more marketable by making them less human.

“I enjoyed the ciphers, after all, for I loved finding things, and Mum’s ciphers gave me a new way to do this, first discovering the hidden meanings, then the treasure.”

Although Enola initially dislikes ciphers, she keeps an open mind and discovers that, looked at in the right way, they can actually be pleasurable. This shift demonstrates her optimistic and curious approach to life. Her comments also reinforce the idea that Enola is innately interested in finding things, foreshadowing her eventual choice to become a perditorian.

“While no believer in providence, I had to wonder how chance had placed me here, on this scene of crime, and my brother the great detective elsewhere.”

This passage signals Enola’s instinctive interest in detective work—were she not drawn to the opportunity to investigate, she would simply board the train for London. This moment represents a turning point in her arc of self-discovery, because it is the first time she deliberately sets out to investigate a mystery outside the family and sets her up as a kind of rival to her older brother, Sherlock.

“I knew where Lord Tewksbury might be. I just knew, although I did not know how to prove it.”

After seeing the photo of Tewksbury and reading the newspaper account of his disappearance, Enola makes rapid and accurate deductions about what has happened to the boy, revealing her innate talent for deduction. She demonstrates her quick, logical mind and also her intuitive understanding of others’ thinking. This moment establishes her desire to be a finder of lost things, which becomes her vocation across the series.

“Perditorian: one who divines that which is lost. But…how dare she, with all her blather of spirits, title herself so nobly? Knower of the lost, wise woman of the lost, finder of the lost: That was my calling.”

Enola’s encounter with Madame Laelia reinforces her characterization as a logical person devoted to empiricism, which distinguishes her from many upper-class women of the Victorian Era, who often believed in the then-popular Spiritualism movement, which endorsed the idea that supernatural spirits could communicate with and guide the living. The contrast between her own approach and Laelia’s is a source of pride to Enola and a step toward her recognition that she really does have valuable abilities others lack.

“I thought of the tears I had seen on his mother’s face. Poor lady. But equally, poor lad. Made to wear velvet and lace. Almost as bad as a steel-ribbed corset.”

Enola’s empathy for both the duchess and the marquess reveals her implicit understanding of the tension between independence and obligation she’s gained from her mother’s disappearance and her own pursuit of a new life. Her comparison of the ornate, childish clothing the marquess has rejected to the corset she herself has rejected highlights Springer’s symbolic use of clothing. These items represent the social and familial obligations that constrict both her own and the marquess’s right to pursue independent desires.

“And I had always dreamt of London. Palaces, fountains, cathedrals. Theaters, operas, gentlemen in tails, and ladies dripping with diamonds.”

Enola’s inner monologue aboard the train to London reveals how sheltered her aristocratic, countryside upbringing has been. She imagines a city filled with glamorous architecture, activities, and people. The asyndeton (lack of conjunction where one might be expected) and sentence fragments in this passage create a rushed, breathless tone that implies Enola imagines so many of these details that they crowd her imagination to overflowing.

“Lead-colored clouds hung low while the setting sun oozed molten light between them; the Gothic towers of the city stood festive yet foreboding against that glowering sky, like candles on the Devil’s birthday cake.”

The diction and details in Enola’s description of her first glance at London emphasize the city’s intimidating mixture of darkness and light, conveying an ominous atmosphere where even seemingly positive things are tainted with danger. The clouds are “lead-colored” and hang “low,” and even the light that comes between them seems to move slowly, oozing like melted metal. Tall towers block her view of a “glowering” sky personified as scowling back at Enola, and she uses a simile to compare the towers to “candles on the Devil’s birthday cake,” indicating that any “festive” appearance in the city masks something inherently sinister.

“Girls hereabouts mostly don’t have the shillings for corsets. I’ve sliced a few bellies open in my time. Don’t cross me again.”

Cutter’s threat against Enola highlights the impact of structural inequality on both women and the poor. His comment about the impoverished women of East London implies that his remark about having “sliced a few bellies open” refers to having killed women. The gender inequality and discrimination in Victorian England places women constantly in danger from men like Cutter. In contrast, Enola’s corset, which literally saves her by stopping the knife, becomes a symbolic marker of her social status and privilege. Her wealth protects her from a similar fate to Cutter’s other victims because he decides to keep her alive to ransom her to her wealthy family.

“In that awful moment, I learned that gentlemen, or at least a certain ungentle man, wore unmentionables made of blood-red flannel from wrist to ankle.”

The image of Cutter running from the ship’s cabin and chasing Enola and Tewksbury, wearing a red union suit, adds a moment of comic relief during a tense scene. Enola’s wordplay—“gentlemen” and “ungentle man”—underscores the comic tone. The detail of the “blood-red” material highlights Enola’s fear about the danger of the situation despite its comic value.

“[S]he looked like a mouse under the paw of the cat. ‘No!’ she gasped as I ran up to her. ‘No, Cutter would kill me. It’s more than my life is worth—’”

The simile comparing Mrs. Culhane to a mouse caught under the paw of the cat links her relative power as a lower-class woman to that of a helpless mouse. This comparison reinforces the impact of structural inequality as a central theme in the narrative. When Enola offers Mrs. Culhane a large sum of money in exchange for help, Mrs. Culhane’s comment “It’s more than my life is worth—“ demonstrates her awareness that, in her social context, she has little importance and can be easily disposed of.

“I saw the sunlit doorway as a halo of glory surrounding her.”

Enola figuratively compares the brightness of the sun around Mrs. Culhane’s dark silhouette to a “halo of glory,” signaling Mrs. Culhane’s bravery as she misdirects Cutter and his confederate away from Enola and Tewksbury. Despite the relatively sheltered upbringing Enola has had, she has now experienced enough of the world to understand that lower-class women like Mrs. Culhane have little power over their own lives, and she sees Mrs. Culhane’s courage as she confronts Cutter’s violent coercive power as almost mythic.

“With a shock to my heart I remembered the hairless old woman I had seen crawling on the pavement, her head all sores.”

Enola’s visceral reaction to learning about the plight of the impoverished elderly women she has seen in the streets is represented figuratively as a “shock” to her heart and indicates yet another loss of innocence moment in her coming-of-age arc. Her compassion and perceptiveness are both conveyed through her vivid memory of the image of the “hairless old woman” with “her head all sores,” as she reckons with the impact of structural inequality.

“I also very much regretted not having been able to spend more time with my brother Sherlock […] to look at him, listen to him, admire him. I actually missed him, with yearning in my heart as if I were a ladybird, ladybird, and I wanted to fly away home—”

As the novel ends, Enola continues to struggle with the tension between independence and obligation, indicating it as an ongoing thematic concern of the series. She feels she must follow her own path and continue the search for her mother on her own, in London, but her simile comparing herself to the ladybug in the traditional nursery rhyme reveals her feeling of smallness and vulnerability as she yearns for home and family. The asyndeton in “to look at him, listen to him, admire him” creates a rushed tone that shows how Sherlock’s positive qualities pile up in her mind. Although Enola and Sherlock will not reconcile by the end of this novel, her thoughts foreshadow the longer arc of the Enola Holmes series, in which the two siblings gradually become closer.