56 pages • 1 hour read
The Heiress
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Jules”
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to physical abuse, domestic violence, psychological manipulation, death by suicide, alcohol use disorder, and substance misuse.
The novel opens with three epigraphs. The first is an article from Outside magazine about the history of unsolved disappearances in the Appalachian Mountains. It suggests that humans, not the wilderness, are often to blame for the misfortunes, deaths, and disappearances of others. The next article, dated 1943, addresses the disappearance of three-year-old Ruby McTavish during a picnic in the mountains. The last epigraph defines the word “changeling” as “[a] child put in place of another child” (5).
Chapter 1 begins with Jules Brewster coming home, still dressed in her costume from the living history museum where she works. Although they now live in Colorado, Jules and her husband, Camden McTavish, met in California 10 years ago when he was bartending. She was captivated by his heterochromia, which gives him one blue eye and one brown, but further, she was attracted by his calm confidence. Now, as she walks in the door, Camden tells her that he got a call from his family, and they want him to come home.
The chapter ends with Ruby McTavish’s obituary (dated 2013), an email from Cam’s cousin Ben, and an earlier email from Ben’s father, Howell. The obituary offers details about Ruby’s disappearance when she was just three years old; she was found in Alabama eight months after her disappearance, kidnapped by an ex-employee, Jimmy Darnell, and living with his family as Dora Darnell. The obituary goes on to detail the rest of Ruby’s life, most notably her four marriages, all of which ended with her husband’s death.
The email from Ben asks Cam to come home to North Carolina. He apologizes for the email Howell sent before his death a few months earlier, blaming his father’s alcohol use disorder for its accusatory tone. Ben writes that Ashby House, the family estate, is badly in need of repair. To move forward with renovations, he needs Cam to help him sort out the terms of Ruby’s will. The older email from Howell is more argumentative but also asks Cam to come to Ashby House. He points out that although Cam hasn’t touched his inheritance in the 10 years since Ruby died, as her heir, he has an obligation to the McTavish family.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Camden”
As he and Jules are packing the car to leave for Ashby House, Cam considers calling off the trip. He was surprised when he got Howell’s email several months ago; in it, his uncle subtly threatened to expose Ruby’s death by suicide. At the time of her death, Cam had used the McTavish family’s influence to have her death listed as heart failure. He ignored Howell’s email.
A month ago, Cam got a call that Howell died in a car accident, the result of drunk driving. He hadn’t gone home for the funeral and hadn’t even told Jules. However, when he got Ben’s email, Camden felt his defenses lower. In their youth, Ben was a manipulative bully, but his email sounded different. Cam and Jules discuss it and decide to make the trip.
Cam knows Jules is excited. She thinks that Cam’s relationship with his family is just “tense,” but she doesn’t understand the full extent of it. He worries about her meeting Ben, Libby, and Nelle—Ashby House was a hard place to grow up. Although Cam eventually broke free, the rest of them still live off the family money on the estate.
The chapter ends with a letter from Ruby McTavish, dated March 12, 2013. In it, she states her intention to tell the truth. She promises to tell the stories of her dead husbands eventually but wants to start at her story’s beginning: her disappearance at the age of three. She doesn’t remember being kidnapped by Jimmy Darnell or living with his family for eight months under the name Dora.
Ruby remembers getting a new doll when she was 10 years old. She wanted to name it Grace, but her mother got upset. One day, she went into her father’s office and found newspaper clippings about her kidnapping. She learned the facts of the case and was shocked to find out that her nanny at the time was named Grace Bennett. She stared at a newspaper photo of Grace until her younger sister Nelle threatened to tell on her for being in their father’s office. Ruby and Nelle had a contentious relationship; Nelle always implied that Ruby was really Dora Darnell, not a McTavish at all, which was Ruby’s greatest secret fear.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Jules”
As the car approaches Ashby House, Jules gets more excited. She reflects on the strange contrast between the way they live in Colorado and the fact that Cam has a fortune and owns Ashby House. Although she has always respected Cam’s wishes to not talk about it, she has looked at pictures of the house online.
As they drive through the mountains, he tells her what he knows of the history of the McTavish family, who made their fortune in lumber over a century ago. This is all new information to Jules. Cam talks about Nelle and Ruby’s conflict and wonders if Nelle hated Ruby because she was jealous of her sister’s place in the family, which would’ve been hers if Ruby had never been found. Jules realizes that he is only returning to Ashby House for her. She tells herself that she is doing everything for him, and it will be worth it.
The chapter closes with another letter from Ruby, dated March 14, 2013. She tells the story of her first marriage to Duke Callahan. Ruby was 20 when she met Duke and was immediately sexually attracted to him. She thought it was love, and they married. Ruby says Duke was “unflappable” because he didn’t even get upset when she threw the emerald earrings he gave her overboard on their honeymoon cruise; the only time she ever saw him surprised was when she shot him.
Ruby was home from her freshman year of college when she met Duke at Nelle’s 16th birthday party. She went to her father’s study to escape the party. Duke was in the study, and she could tell that under the surface, he was different than the other men in their social circle. In 1961, they married and set off on their honeymoon tour of Europe, starting with Paris.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In these early chapters and the epigraphs that precede them, Rachel Hawkins establishes the structure of the narrative. The main sections of the chapters are narrated in first person by Jules and Cam. As a result, what the reader learns is limited to what each character knows. However, the additional materials like Ruby’s letters and Ben and Howell’s emails offer information that Jules’s and Cam’s perspectives can’t. These rotating points of view and the additional documents form the structure of the novel and will be a continuing feature of the narrative. This narrative structure gives the reader access to more information than any one character has. This results in a more complete understanding of the story and certain elements’ significance, allowing the reader to draw conclusions and understand situations before the characters can and resulting in dramatic irony. The multiple perspectives make the narrative more complex, adding tension to the story.
While Chapter 1 establishes Jules’s voice and gives the reader background about their lifestyle, jobs, and the origins of their relationship, Chapter 2, told from Cam’s point of view, drives the plot forward and gets them on the road to Ashby House. Ben’s call is the “inciting incident,” propelling Jules and Cam out of their status quo. Their opposite reactions to this change reveal more about their characters and motivations: While Cam can tell that Jules is excited, he is reluctant and considers canceling the trip more than once. The point-of-view shift in Chapter 2 to Cam also offers context that Jules doesn’t know about the emails in the previous chapter; while, as he says, “[Jules] thinks it’s all the money shit that has made things tense” (25), his reasons for staying away from his family are both more serious and more complicated: “I chose to leave the money Ruby left me mostly untouched because I knew that that kind of wealth came with strings attached” (25). This admission reveals that the stakes of their return are higher than Jules knows.
Ruby’s letters offer the reader another unique point of view. Presumably, the letters are written to someone, meaning someone else has read them, but they aren’t addressed to anyone, and the recipient is a mystery. The letters add another layer to the story, increasing the dramatic irony. Although Ruby’s story is only told through letters, known as “epistolary” form, these letters offer another timeline, one that follows the trajectory of her life. The inclusion of this third point of view reveals Ruby’s past, which deeply impacts the present storyline.
Although Cam believes that Jules doesn’t understand the complexity of his decision to return to Ashby House, Chapter 3 ends with a hint that Jules has her own agenda for the trip to Ashby House. She considers confessing to Cam but delays, thinking, “[W]e’re almost there. We’re so close now, and soon, everything I’ve done will be worth it. And I will tell him. All of it, the whole story, no lies between us, just like it’s always been. But not now. Not yet” (46). Ending with this cliffhanger, these three chapters function in the plot as the set-up. Hawkins introduces the two main characters, Jules and Cam, and establishes their voices, as well as delving into Ruby’s letters. From their two points of view, the reader is also given insight into the secrets that Jules and Cam are keeping from each other. From the beginning, their capacity for secrets, lying, and rationalization is foreshadowed; their secrets and lies will be central to the narrative going forward.
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