Atonement

The next day, caught in the grip of “accumulated inactivity” (19), Briony’s older sister, Cecilia, collects flowers for the visitor’s bedroom. When returning to the house, she meets Robbie Turner. Robbie is the son of the Tallis’s cleaning lady, and he works as a gardener on the estate, where he lives in a small cottage with his mother. Cecilia tries to avoid Robbie as he exasperates her “with his affectation of distance” (21). Though they have been friends most of their lives, they have grown apart. Both Robbie and Cecilia recently attended Cambridge University though rarely spent time with one another. Robbie studied English literature, and now, he hopes to become a doctor. Jack Tallis, Cecilia’s father, likes Robbie and paid for his education. Cecilia finds Robbie pretentious; she graduated with a lesser degree and has no immediate plans for her future. Class resentment fuels her dislike of Robbie because her family is wealthy while his is working-class; she does not like to see him getting ahead while she struggles.

Cecilia takes a vase from the house for the flowers. The vase is a family heirloom and is worth a large amount of money. Cecilia places wildflowers in the vase, thinking about her brother Leon’s friend Paul Marshall who will be staying in the visitor’s room. She wonders whether Paul will appreciate the flowers’ “symmetry” (21). Cecilia takes the vase to the outdoor fountain to fill it with water. There, she sees Robbie, and the two share an awkward conversation, in which she is “overinterpreting, and jittery in his presence” (24). They discuss Robbie’s strange visit to the house two days prior, which Cecilia believes was an attempt to mock her. Robbie tries to help Cecilia fill the vase, but, as they search, the lip of the vase cracks. Two pieces of the vase fall into the fountain and Cecilia blames Robbie, hating him for “the inadequacy of the response” (25). As he undresses to dive into the water and retrieve the pieces, Cecilia refuses to allow Robbie to help her. She removes her own clothes and dives into the fountain. Without speaking to Robbie, she takes the broken pieces, dresses, and returns to the house, leaving Robbie outside standing “dumbly” (26) by the fountain.

Briony wants to rehearse her play, but Jackson is unavailable. Briony continues with Lola and Pierrot but is annoyed that her older cousin does not seem to appreciate the play—treating it with a “wholly restrained” (28) condescension—and that her younger cousin cannot deliver his lines. Briony worries that she is not mature enough and wonders whether she should dress and behave more “like Lola” (28), who is two years older. Looking out the window and seeing Robbie and Cecilia by the fountain interrupts Briony’s train of thought. She sees Cecilia remove her clothes and dive in the fountain; confused by what is happening, Briony tries to make sense of the “strange power” (30) Robbie seems to have over Cecilia. She decides to “write a scene” (31) into her play to show that she is mature enough to understand the world.

Cecilia repairs the vase. Afterward, she sees that Briony seems upset. Understanding her younger sister’s desire to be more mature and the “element of autonomy in the young girl’s unhappiness” (33), she does not comfort Briony. Instead, Briony complains about her play and marches away in fit of anger. Cecilia takes the flowers and the vase to the guest room. Through the window, Cecilia sees Briony walk to the lake on the Tallis’s estate. On the lake is a small artificial island, on which is a temple. Cecilia also sees a carriage arriving at the house, which signals Paul’s arrival. Robbie is walking in the opposite direction, toward the cottage where he lives with his mother. Cecilia greets Leon and Paul as the driver Hardman’s son, Danny, unloads the luggage from the carriage. Cecilia tells Leon that their mother Emily is suffering from one of her frequent migraines while their father Jack is in London for the night. Cecilia watches Danny, noticing that he is now almost a grown man with an “innocently cruel” (35) face. She wonders whether he might be attracted to Lola, who is one year his junior.

As Cecilia welcomes her brother and his friend into the house, Paul delivers a “ten-minute monologue” (36) about his family’s business. He is the heir to a confectionary business. Cecilia finds Paul boorish and dull. She has a strong bond with Leon, who she knows recognizes her dislike of Paul. When she and Leon make eye contact, Leon stifles his laughter as Paul continues to talk about his wealth. When he finally finishes, Leon mentions to Cecilia that he invited Robbie to dinner. Still angry from their earlier episode, Cecilia tries to make him rescind the invitation, but she fails. When she finally accepts that Robbie will join them for dinner, she suggests that they return to the house so that Paul can make them “a fancy kind of drink” (39).

As her cousins rehearse, Briony abandons the play without explaining why. Eventually, the twins become bored refuse to wait for her. Lola looks through a window and sees Briony on the island on the lake. She notices a suitcase in the visitor’s bedroom. Lola supervises her younger brothers as they play. After a while, the twins break out in tears. They claim that they are homesick and, that because their parents are seeking a divorce, they no longer have a proper home. The news that her brothers have learned the word divorce shocks her as “the word had never been used in front of the children, and never uttered by them” (41). She tells them not to repeat it. Paul enters and speaks to Lola and her brothers He mentions that he knows about their parents’ dispute. This annoys Lola, who tells him not to discuss such matters in front of the children (42). Paul compliments Lola’s outfit and offers chocolate from his family’s factory to the twins. As the twins discuss the possibility of a war in the near future, Paul watches as Lola eats the chocolate.

Briony’s mother, Emily, remains in her bedroom with a migraine. She thinks about her children, reflecting on Leon’s choice of career and whether Paul might be a suitable husband for Cecilia. She worries that Cecilia’s personality makes her “an impossible prospect” (45) as a wife. She is also concerned about Briony, who reacts badly to any failure. Emily believes that Lola is much like Hermione, Lola’s mother and Emily’s sister, who has a reputation for creating drama to focus attention on herself. Emily believes that her worries about her family cause her migraines, which take up all her time and make her even more worried that she is not available to help her children. As she lays in her bed, she listens to the family move through the house. Emily knows that she is now too old to have another child and Briony, who arrived “late and unexpected” (47), is maturing quickly. Emily believes that Hermione is selfish. She could never neglect her children in such a manner. As her migraine abates, Emily hears Paul and Lola talking. Lola emits a “little squeal of laughter” (48). Emily hopes that Paul could be a suitable husband for Cecilia. Emily rouses herself from the bed to prepare for the family dinner.

Briony sits in the ruins of the temple on the artificial island on the lake, feeling “absorbed and grimly content” (50). Nettles and weeds have overgrown the old walls; Briony beats at the nettles with a stick and imagines that she is hitting her uncooperative cousins. She thinks about how she must mature out of her childhood as she has “no further need for it” (51). She swipes at the nettles again and imagines that each represents a year of her life that she must put in the past. She hears the carriage approaching the house but refuses to look toward it as she wants to show her brother that she is above the opinions of other people. She decides to wait near the island until something dramatic stirs her out of her “oblivious daydreaming” (52).