Nothing Happens, Everything Changes

A great London ball, and the whole of the plot in one move: Maggie goes home to her father, and Charlotte stays. Garth Greenwell makes the case that this is how drama works in late James, a revolution with no outward event at all. He follows Charlotte up the staircase in her diamonds, watches her watch the Prince come back to her, and then sits in on the quietest vicious fight in the novel, Charlotte and Fanny Assingham side by side on a bench. Charlotte has one word for what her marriage has made her, and Greenwell hears in it what being bought sounds like from the inside.