44 pages • 1-hour read
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to animal cruelty and death.
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel opens with a vivid description of the Willoughby estate at dusk in winter. Inside, Bonnie Green is bouncing with excitement to meet her cousin, Sylvia, who is due to arrive by train from London to live with Bonnie while Bonnie’s parents are abroad. When she hears the doorbell, Bonnie races to the door and runs into Letitia Slighcarp, her father’s cousin, who has come to serve as guardian while Bonnie’s parents are away. Miss Slighcarp rebukes Bonnie for her carelessness, and Bonnie apologizes, showing Miss Slighcarp to her room.
When Miss Slighcarp enters, she sees Bonnie’s maid, Pattern, unpacking Miss Slighcarp’s things. She flies into a rage, hitting Pattern with a hairbrush. Bonnie is appalled and grabs the hairbrush, throwing it through a window, and dumps a pitcher of water on Miss Slighcarp. Bonnie instantly apologizes and leaves the room, coming back some time later to lead Miss Slighcarp to her parents.
Although Miss Slighcarp complains about Bonnie’s behavior, Sir Willoughby laughs, arguing that “girls will be girls” (15) and saying that Miss Slighcarp will need to be patient with Bonnie. He gives Bonnie permission to go with the driver to the train station and retrieve Sylvia.
Chapter 2 Summary
Two days prior, in London, Sylvia and her frail Aunt Jane work together to sew Sylvia’s traveling outfit from the white brocade curtain they’ve used to separate their small living space. Sylvia was orphaned as a baby and has been raised by her Aunt Jane, but Aunt Jane’s health is declining, so she wrote to Sir Willoughby to ask him to take over the care of Sylvia. The pair are sad to lose one another, but work well together to finish the sewing. Aunt Jane walks Sylvia to the train station and cautions her to avoid eating in front of anyone and to never speak to strangers.
On the train, Sylvia is very cold and worried. When she thinks of her aunt having tea alone, she begins to cry. A man is sharing her compartment and tries to comfort her, but she refuses to speak to him. He offers her sweets from his luggage, but she politely shakes her head. When he keeps trying to speak to her she threatens to pull the communication cord, and he goes to sleep.
In the middle of the night, the train stops on the tracks due to wolves outside. Sylvia is frightened, but the man reassures her that the wolves are normal and they’ll be safe. He goes back to sleep, but a wolf throws itself at the window, pushing it open and breaking the glass. Sylvia screams when the wolf jumps into the compartment. The man wakes up and kills the wolf with a piece of broken glass. He tosses the body out of the window and helps Sylvia to the next compartment. He gives her a blanket, and she falls asleep.
Chapter 3 Summary
The next morning, Sylvia is ravenously hungry, and decides that the stranger’s help the previous night makes him familiar enough to eat in front of him. She tells him how afraid she is of the wolves, and he brings out his gun, shooting out the window to show that they are safe. Sylvia is almost as scared of the gun as of the wolves. When the man stops and asks Sylvia about her trip, she tells him about her Aunt Jane and how she’s going to live with her aunt and uncle. After he introduces himself as Mr. Josiah Grimshaw, he falls asleep until the train jerks to a stop.
Sylvia is startled and Mr. Grimshaw jumps to his feet, grabbing his baggage. It falls on his head, knocking him unconscious. Sylvia leans out of her window to call for help, and Bonnie and the staff from Willoughby come to her immediately. She asks them to help Mr. Grimshaw, and they agree that he must be taken to the manor, as he could freeze alone in the train. They all travel back to Willoughby, with Sylvia and Bonnie cuddled together in the coach.
They hear the wolves on the way back to the manor. Sylvia worries for the men at the station, but Bonnie reassures her that they’ll be safe inside the station building. When they arrive at Willoughby Chase, Bonnie leaps from the carriage and gently leads Sylvia inside, where Pattern helps her change and puts her in a soft bed. Finally comfortable, Sylvia has a moment to think of Aunt Jane and begins to cry. Bonnie hears her and comforts her, climbing into bed beside her and telling her stories of all the fun they’ll have together.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
These opening chapters introduce the key setting of Willoughby Chase, which originally appears as a safe, comfortable place that is home to Bonnie’s loving family. The Chase is in the countryside and blanketed with snow: “Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees” (9). Though there are threats, largely characterized by the howls and sightings of the wolves, the Chase appears stable and welcoming. The cozy atmosphere of Willoughby Chase will soon undergo a marked transformation in the next section of the book, as Miss Slighcarp’s growing power on the estate transforms the setting from a place of safety to a place of danger and instability for Bonnie and Sylvia.
The bond between Bonnie and Sylvia introduces The Importance of Friendship in the novel. In some ways, the girls contrast with one another. Bonnie is a precocious, outgoing girl with significant independence and individual power. When Miss Slighcarp hits Pattern, Bonnie is quick to defend her maid, which shows her independent spirit and high degree of self-confidence. Sylvia has a much more quiet and even timid personality: She is frail, but kind and generous, and her attempts at closely following Aunt Jane’s instructions on her journey show that she is more obedient and eager to please than Bonnie.
Despite their differences in personality, the two girls quickly become good friends and bond with one another. Bonnie immediately comforts and helps her cousin. When Sylvia is homesick the first night in the Chase, Bonnie stays with her and reassures her that they will have a good time together. The girls’ blossoming friendship will become an important part of their character arcs, enabling them to navigate their upcoming challenges together through the power of mutual support and teamwork.
The two girls also differ in terms of their class status, which is reflected in Sylvia’s living conditions with Aunt Jane. In contrast to the vast Willoughby Chase estate, their apartment in London is tiny, mostly limited to Aunt Jane’s small room that she shares with Sylvia. This cramped space reveals the poverty in which they live. Their possessions are also few and modest: “They cooked their meals over the gas jet, and had baths in a large enameled Chinese bowl, covered with dragons, an heirloom of Aunt Jane’s. At other times it stood on a little occasional table by the door and was used for visiting cards” (19, emphasis added). The dual function of the Chinese bowl—sometimes used for baths, at other times used for visiting cards—reinforces the sense that Aunt Jane and Sylvia do not live in the material plenty and comfort that Bonnie enjoys.
These early chapters also introduce the motif of clothes: Sylvia’s new traveling clothes suggesting both her poverty and her deep bond with Aunt Jane. Sylvia and Aunt Jane make the clothes out of the brocade curtain that once helped partition the room, which once more stresses that they do not have much money or resources for luxuries like new clothes. Sylvia’s traveling clothes also symbolize the aunt and niece’s affection for one another. Their loving teamwork and careful stitching to create Sylvia’s traveling outfit shows the harmonious nature of their bond. Throughout the novel, clothes will continue to signify changes in location or situation, as they do here at the beginning.
Sylvia’s journey by train introduces the theme of The Dual Nature of Strangers. Sylvia’s interactions with Mr. Grimshaw undergo subtle shifts as Sylvia goes from avoiding him to trusting him. Sylvia’s initial reaction to him is to remember her aunt’s warnings, as she declines to interact with him: “‘Sir,’ said Sylvia coldly, ‘if you speak to me again I shall be obliged to pull the communication cord’” (22). However, Mr. Grimshaw appears as a kind and generous stranger, which gradually lowers Sylvia’s guard. He offers Sylvia comfort, food, warmth, and even saves her from the wolf attack. Sylvia ends up trusting him so much that she intervenes when he is hit by the suitcase, asking that the staff take him along to Willoughby Chase.
Bonnie and the staff at the Chase welcome strangers with open arms, erring on the side of trust. Bonnie’s reaction to the wounded Mr. Grimshaw is to immediately insist, “put him in the carriage! I am sure my father would wish it” (37). In taking responsibility for Mr. Grimshaw’s injuries and inviting him into their home, Bonnie and her family take a risk in assuming that Mr. Grimshaw is a respectable, trustworthy person. These chapters foreshadow the dark reality of Mr. Grimshaw’s character through revealing less savory aspects of his personality: His insistence that he prove his competence with a gun, for example, terrifies Sylvia and suggests Mr. Grimshaw’s dangerous and violent nature, as does his killing of the wolf. These aspects of his behavior imply that Mr. Grimshaw may not be as friendly or as trustworthy as he first appears.
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