The Only One Left

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Interlude 1-Chapter 6

Chapters 7-14

Interludes 5-8

Chapters 23-30

Interlude 11-Chapter 37

Interludes 14-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

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Discussion Questions

Interlude 11-Chapter 37Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Interlude 11-Chapter 33 Summary

In Interlude 11, the typist describes struggling to maintain her secret as overt signs of her pregnancy emerged. Her mother survived the laudanum overdose, which was declared accidental, but the typist believes Evangeline intended to die. Archie’s knowledge of how to procure an abortion came from Winston’s mistress. Determined to find out the mistress’s identity, the typist trailed her father to an assignation. She was shocked to learn that Winston was having an affair with Miss Baker. Miss Baker cautioned the typist not to judge her, and agreed to help, pointing out the typist’s naiveté for trusting the baby’s father, no matter what he promised.

In the present, Mrs. Baker snatches the typewriter and throws it off the cliff. Certain she is about to be fired, Kit starts packing, and discovers that her pages of Miss Hope’s memoir are gone. She confronts Mrs. Baker, who gestures to the fireplace where the pages are burning. Mrs. Baker claims credit for the fact that Hope’s End is still standing, confirming that when Miss Hope dies, Mrs. Baker will inherit the estate.

Kit sneaks into Mrs. Baker’s room. She finds a photo of Mrs. Baker with a handsome man near the Eiffel Tower, and other images that speak to an exciting life of European travel. She also sees checks drawn on Lenora’s account with Mrs. Baker’s signature on them, as well as warnings from creditors. Equally suspicious are statements from a local retirement home, Ocean View. When Kit asks Carter about Ocean View, he speculates that Mrs. Baker is subsidizing Berniece Mayhew, the ex-wife of the previous groundskeeper.

Another violent judder signals another shift of Hope’s End, as a giant crack forms through the stone of the terrace. Checking on Miss Hope, Kit finds Archie. He confesses that he visits to say goodnight, but insists that he is not the person who has been sneaking around at night.

Jessie resigns, leaving one final tape for Miss Hope and her Ouija board for Kit. Miss Hope uses the board to confirm that she knew about the money going to Berniece—Berniece was there the night of the murders and knows what happened.

Interlude 13-Chapter 37 Summary

In Interlude 13, the typist recalls that by October, she took to bed, feigning the same symptoms plaguing her mother. Dr. Walden prescribed laudanum, encouraging her to dose herself. Missing Ricky, she snuck out to see him, but was caught by Berniece Mayhew. Berniece vowed to extort money from Winston, confident that the typist’s pregnancy explained her husband Ricardo’s frequent absences. When Ricky learned about Berniece’s demands, “his voice [was] more curious than angry” (285).

In the present, Kit goes to the Ocean View retirement home, claiming to be an insurance representative to gain access. Berniece gloats that she earned her keep for suffering her husband’s infidelity with a blue-eyed Hope sister whom she never names. The night of the murders, when Berniece entered the house to extort the family, she found the “rich bitch” with her hands covered in blood and heard screams that were “Either Mrs. Hope or the younger daughter” (291). Berniece fled, convinced she would be killed otherwise and certain that her husband Ricardo was involved. She believes that when Lenora no longer needed Ricardo’s help, she threw him over the cliff. Berniece then demanded monthly payments for keeping Lenora’s secret.

Detective Vick appears at Ocean View and escorts Kit off the property. Vick tells Kit to go home to her lonely father. When she presses him for details of the police report, Detective Vick reveals that when Lenora called police in 1929, she reported only two bodies. While Winston and Evangeline were pronounced dead at the scene, Virginia did not die that night, but six months later. Lenora seemed genuinely puzzled when asked about Ricardo Mayhew, insisting she had no idea who he was. The floor in Virginia’s room had recently been scrubbed. When Detective Vick produces a copy of Mary’s suicide note, Kit knows immediately that Mary did not write it. The lower-case text without punctuation that characterizes Lenora’s style of typing reads: “im sorry im not the person you thought i was” (301).

Back at Hope’s End, Kit tears the fabric from the Hope portraits. Standing in front of the portrait of Virginia, she is startled by the young woman’s blue eyes, and remembers Berniece Mayhew’s words. In the library, Kit opens the urns containing the remains of the Hope family. One is empty.

Interlude 11-Chapter 37 Analysis

A key trope that Sager borrows from the Gothic horror genre is that of the dilapidated, crumbling mansion. The novel takes this common symbol for the ruinous secrets that threaten to bury a family and pushes its overt imagery even farther: As Kit uncovers the truth about the Hope family’s history, the walls around her crack, pieces of the house collapse, and the building edges closer and closer to the cliff’s edge. Her investigation will destroy what Hope’s End represents: institutional power, patriarchal control, and the familial duty to keep secrets. Instead of retaining its air of Class Status, Resources, and Privilege, the mansion embodies the financial reality of the Hope family: $600,000 dollars that could have gone toward upkeep of Hope’s End was instead paid to a blackmailer. The home’s physical collapse is emblematic of its inability to uphold the image of superiority Winston and Evangeline wanted to project.

The Hope family’s blackmailer is Berniece Mayhew, a character who profits from the murders. Unlike the townspeople interested in the killings’ gory details for entertainment value, Berniece literally makes a living from what happened in 1929: Her lifelong extortion is another example of The Uses of Secrets; remaining nearby ensures that her victims remember the continued threat that her knowledge poses. Like most others in town at the time of the murders, Berniece is not interested in the truth: She decided who was responsible decades ago and still believes that her husband was having an affair with Lenora, that he helped Lenora kill her parents and sister, and that Lenora killed him as soon as he had served his purpose.

Berniece Mayhew is the key to Kit’s discovery of the secret Mrs. Baker has been hiding; specific details of Berniece’s recollections prompt Kit’s insight into contradictions she noticed in the typist’s memoir. Berniece knows that Lenora Hope had blue eyes; when she describes standing in Lenora’s presence and hearing the distant scream of “[e]ither Mrs. Hope or the younger daughter” (291), the novel clarifies that Lenora is blue-eyed and older. The green-eyed patient that Kit has been caring for must therefore be her younger sister Virginia.