Mary Russell’s Bleak House
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documented Victorian preoccupation. It is no accident that the culprit is foreign
in Bleak House. The French maid Hortense is described almost as a mouthfrothing animal. Bucket is presented as “a professional but working-class
Englishman assisted by his trustworthy English wife . . . the image of middleclass respectability who captures the foreign force that doesn’t know its
place . .. ” (Thomas 144). What’s surprising is that Regiment seems to agree
with Bleak House on the point of foreign influence.
After first suspecting Marie (tellingly, another fiery-tempered French maid)
of the crimes of theft and murder, Russell and Holmes discover Claude is behind
everything. Marie’s Frenchness presumes her guilt and serves the plot as a red
herring; however, to then turn to another foreign man as the culprit hardly draws
a fresh perspective. The continental influence can still be viewed, as in Bleak
House, as a non-British, non-middle-class ethic; in other words, the other is
represented from a Victorian framework in both novels as toxic and ruthless.
Despite this prejudicial similarity, Regiment battles Victorian ideals in a few
other ways. King’s background as a theological scholar predisposes her to treat
religion in a serious manner. Spirituality stands unvanquished at Regimenf s end
because Russell comes to understand the good works of the church and the faith
of its leader and fold. As evidence of this faith, we are given a strange event in
the text: a miracle. Russell sees that Childe is badly beaten and bruised, and
when she returns with help, she has been completely healed. When Russell
questions her about the healing in the book’s postscript, Childe asserts again that
it was real and that “God can touch us” (335). This occurrence is certainly an
unusual happening for a work of detective fiction, and the affirmation of the
literally transformative powers of faith is telling. Instead of showing us
charlatans who use the Bible to prop up their own agendas as Bleak House does
in Mr. Chadband and Mrs. Pardiggle, Regiment gives us miracles for the
faithful. While the commentary on religion and spirituality could not be more
blatant in the two books (nor more opposed to one another