The Argosy, Vol. XVIII

In the Dead of Night This Victorian serial novel (Chapter XXX) depicts domestic tension at Pincote manor. Mrs. McDermot, having collected a five-thousand-pound debt from her brother the Squire, arrives to stay indefinitely. She systematically disrupts household management—reassigning servants, altering dinner hours from six to half-past seven, demanding formal dress, and interfering with kitchen menus and garden operations. Her niece Jane Culpepper, initially patient, confronts her aunt in the breakfast room and establishes firm boundaries: the dinner hour reverts to six o'clock, Jane controls menus, and the Squire requires uninterrupted post-dinner rest. Mrs. McDermot relents after two days of isolated dining. Meanwhile, Tom Bristow mysteriously secured a six-thousand-pound mortgage on Prior's Croft and now advises the Squire to immediately construct twenty to thirty houses there, promising unspecified but profitable returns. The Squire, skeptical but trusting, authorizes construction despite widespread local opinion that he is mad.