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I enjoyed reading most of the story. After Life's Little Ironies and a Group of Noble Dames, I felt comfortable with Hardy's short story style and this one seems like it would fit in with the best of them. There are familiar Hardy themes such as unusual marriage bonds (ala Mayor of Casterbridge) and the role of fate. It went well until the end, where (view spoiler)[ first Hardy has a fateful tragedy that's advantageous to the heroine and just when he (they) have you thinking that this might result in a happily ever after ending for the heroine, he pulls the rug out with the Lord/husband's unexplained suicide. I actually laughed when I read it.
I don't know what Hardy intended us to think: that Lord P. was unhinged, that Rosalys told Lord P. of the marriage or that Lord P. discovered Rosalys was not a virgin in the marital bed. I'm presuming the last one as Hardy can be a pretty randy fellow, but I may be missing out on another explanation. (hide spoiler)]
I am curious how others view the story, especially the end. While the ending felt a little gimmicky to me, I really did enjoy reading this story, It felt good to read a Hardy short story again, even if it's only part-Hardy.

The following is my post from a different thread originally from: May 26, 2020 06:42PM
It is on the The Spectre of the Real a short story collaboration between Thomas Hardy & Florence Henniker.
This story was also part of a larger collection by Henniker called In Scarlet And Grey And The Spectre Of The Real


Wikipedia says this in an article about Hennicker:

"In May 1893, while hosting a party at Dublin Castle, her brother's residence as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, she met Thomas Hardy, whom her father had known since 1880. She would remain friends with Hardy for the rest of her life, although she rejected his sexual advances. They collaborated on a short story "The Spectre of the Real," first published in 1894. Hardy wrote Henniker countless amounts of letters after the passing of his first wife, Emma, and their relationship was extremely complicated.

Hardy's letters to Henniker were published in 1972 under the title One Rare Fair Woman. She was said to be the "one rare fair woman" in the poem "Wessex Heights." She also was the inspiration behind Sue in Jude the Obscure. Allegedly, Hardy created the character of Ella Marchmill in “An Imaginative Woman� because of Henniker's role in his life.

Roger Ebbatson's "The Authorial Double: Hardy and Florence Henniker" comments on the collaborative work of Hardy and Henniker, seeing "The Spectre of the Real" as a tug-of-war between a male and female collaborator, the first insisting on dictating the plot and ending, leaving the latter to submissively "fill in the detail," irritating Henniker. Until 1896, the piece appeared exclusively under Hardy's name, without reference to Henniker. Negative reactions to the morbid subject matter when her name was revealed as co-author threatened to compromise Henniker's social status and alienate her usual literary audience, which was drastically different to Hardy's demographic and morally opposed to his usual literary themes."

I just read the story, Brian, and the ending was unexpected. I wonder if the shocking, unexplained ending was part of what sold the story. Thinking about the possible reasons for the ending will make me remember the story.

In Michael Milgate's biography, he commented about Hardy's use of the mismatching of social classes, a common theme in his stories. He also wrote:

"Hardy's obsession with the evils of marriage obtruded itself throughout in ways that Emma, once again, can only have found deeply offensive, and that Mrs Henniker herself toned down two years later when collecting the story in her volume 'In Scarlet and Grey.'"

Brian, you mentioned Florence Henniker being an inspiration for the main character in An Imaginative Woman. Jennifer did a wonderful job in leading that story, and her comment about Mrs Henniker is here:

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